become indigenous to Europe, and are there now generally prevalent. The
other fragments of speech which are to be found on our Continent by the
side of these, either bear to them a remote affinity like the various
Celtic or Gaelic dialects, or lead the enquirer to the great Asiatic,
perhaps even to the African family of tongues; for we could hardly
expect to find a native race of languages peculiar to this small quarter
of the globe, which holds the lowest place in point of historical
antiquity. From the historical connexion between the North of Africa,
and the Southern coasts of Western Europe, especially the Hesperian
Peninsula, (a connection which has subsisted from the remotest ages, and
has been renewed so frequently, and in such various forms), one might be
induced to suppose that the existence of this intercourse would have
been attested by an affinity between the languages of the two countries.
But the ablest scholars and critics cannot trace in the Basque tongue
any affinity with the primitive African family, though they can discover
in it an analogy with the Scythian race of Finnish languages. The
_Magiar_ language at the other eastern extremity of Europe is most
decidedly an Asiatic tongue, belonging to that class which prevails in
the central regions of Asia; but in its grammatical structure it bears
some analogy to the languages of the second class. If, in conclusion I
might be allowed to hazard a conjecture, I should say that nothing would
more materially contribute to a comprehensive knowledge of the whole
system of human language, as well as to a deeper insight into its
internal principles and structure, than the success of the now rising
school of Egyptian philologists, who, in deciphering the hieroglyphics
by the aid of the Coptic, endeavour to give us a more accurate
knowledge, or at least a more minute conception, of the old Egyptian
tongue. And if we would venture the attempt of approximating nearer to
the primitive speech (the lost or extinct source of all languages), we
must start from four different quarters, and thread our way not only
through the Sanscrit and Hebrew languages, but through the primitive
Chinese and the old Egyptian, as far as we can trace the latter.
How extremely alike ancient Egypt and India were to each other, not only
in their political Institutions, but in their system of Idolatry, in
their fundamental doctrines of belief, and in their general views of
life, we have had ample opportunity of satisfying ourselves in the
present age, when both these countries have been more accurately
surveyed, and more closely investigated. In a remarkable expedition
which occurred in our own times, this strong religious sympathy was
strikingly displayed in a spontaneous and instantaneous burst of
feeling. When, in the course of the French war in Egypt, an Indian army
in British pay there landed, and, ascending up the country, came before
the old monuments of Upper Egypt, the soldiers prostrated themselves on
the earth, believing they had once more found the Deities of their
native land. Great, however, as the resemblance between the two nations
may be, they are still characterized by perceptible differences. On the
one hand the Egyptian mind, so far as it has been delineated by the
Greeks, appears to have been more deeply conversant and initiated in
natural science: and on the other hand, the Egyptian idolatry was of a
more decided cast, and was even more material in its fundamental errors
than the Indian. The worship of animals, especially, was far more
general, and was not confined to the god Apis, who may be compared to
the Nandi, the bull sacred to Siva, but branched out into a variety of
other forms. In the progress of Idolatry it needs came to pass that what
was originally revered only as the symbol of a higher principle was
gradually confounded or identified with that object and worshipped, till
this error in worship led to a more degraded form of Idolatry; for it
should be remembered that an error is not merely the absence of truth,
but a false and counterfeit imitation of the truth, it has, like the
latter, a principle of permanent growth and internal development.
Several writers, who, in a general review of all heathen religions, have
attempted to classify them after the manner of naturalists, assign the
lowest place to the Fetish worship so called, which they rank
immediately below the worship of animals. They make the essence of this
Fetish worship to consist in the divine adoration of a lifeless,
corporeal object; while they place on higher degrees, in this scale of
Pagan error, the sensual Nature-worship--the apotheosis of particular
men--and the adoration of the elements, the stars, and the different
powers of Nature. However just and correct this view of the subject may
otherwise be, it should be remembered that the question agitated is not
only what were the objects of divine worship, but what were the views,
intentions, and doctrines connected with that worship. For it is in
these moral views we must look, either for the half-effaced vestige of
ancient truth, or for the full enormity--the profound abyss of error.
When we come to examine more closely the accounts of that Fetish worship
(so called) which is most widely diffused though the interior of Africa,
and prevails among some American tribes, and nations of the North East
of Asia; it is easy to perceive, that magical rites are connected with
it, and that all these corporeal objects are but magical instruments and
conductors of magical power; and that the religion of these nations,
sunk undoubtedly to the lowest grade of idolatry, comprises nothing
beyond the rude beginnings of a Pagan magic, such as in all probability
was practised by the _Cainites_, according to historical indications
mentioned in an earlier part of this work. That the Egyptian mind had a
certain leaning towards magic, though towards a magic of a very
different, more comprehensive, and even more profound and scientific
nature, cannot be called in question; for all the Hebrew, Greek, and
native vouchers and authorities are unanimous in the assertion.
But if the different religions of Paganism must be classed according to
their _outward rites_ and _outward objects of worship_, the diversity of
sacrifices would constitute a far better and more important standard of
classification. We are taught that a difference in the mode of sacrifice
was the principal cause of the dispute between the first two hostile
brothers among men. Although, if we were to judge from first impressions
and according to human feelings, no sacrifice is so filial, so simple,
so appropriate, as that of the first fruits of the earth in returning
Spring, (such for instance as the flower-offering of the pious Brahmins,
or a similar oblation of thanksgiving among the ancient Persians and
other nations); still on account of their deeper import and typical
character, the pre-eminence has ever been allotted to animal-sacrifices;
and these among the most civilized nations of Pagan antiquity have ever
held the foremost place. Of this kind is the great sacrifice of the
horse[57] in India, where in ancient times the bull was offered in
sacrifice, till the destruction of the latter animal was severely
prohibited, and came to be considered as a grievous crime. But there was
ever a symbolical meaning attached to this sort of sacrifice,[58] and
the victim selected as it was out of the purest and noblest species of
domestic animals that surround man (such as the bull, the horse or the
lamb), was looked upon only as the representative of another, and the
emblem of a far higher victim.
It is an error to consider ancient Paganism as nothing more than mere
poetry or agreeable fiction. The rites of the ancient Polytheism had
very distinct and practical objects in view; and were intended either to
_propitiate_ the malignant powers of darkness, or to obtain by their
agency preternatural power, or on the other hand, to conciliate the
favour and appease the anger of the Deity. And for this object the
Heathens shrunk from no expedient--deemed no price--no victim too
costly, as the existence of human sacrifices, and especially the
sacrifice of children may serve to convince us; and I cannot conclude
this first part of the ancient history of the world, without bestowing a
more particular examination on this extreme aberration of Paganism,
which passed by inheritance from the remoter ages to the second, more
civilized, and, (in many respects) milder era of history. The species of
human sacrifice most widely diffused among all the Phoenician nations
was that in which the idol Moloch, heated from below, grasped in his
glowing arms the infant victim. Even in the Punic city, Carthage, this
cruel custom long prevailed, and was for a long time secretly practised
under the Roman domination. These sacrifices existed among the Greeks
and Romans, no less than among the Indians and Egyptians; and the
Chinese, so far at least as my acquaintance with their authentic records
extends, are the only people among whom I do not recollect meeting with
any mention of this kind of sacrifice. But in the civilized states of
Greece and Rome, this ancient custom was in later and milder times
gradually abolished, or silently supplanted by some equivalent.
Besides the sacrifice of children, there was another species which was
customary and particularly striking, and in one respect even more worthy
the historian's attention--I mean the sacrifice of pure youths. I may
here again enforce the maxim which I have before laid down--namely, that
error is the most appalling when it is connected in its origin, or mixed
up in its principle, with some confused notion--some profound, though
obscure, feeling of the truth. Bearing this in mind, we shall find that
the enigmatic lamentation of Lamech[59] over his mysterious slaying of a
stripling, occurring in the Mosaic account of the Cainites, would seem
to indicate that human sacrifices, and especially this particular kind,
had their origin among the race of Cain, deeply imbued even at that
early period with anti-christian errors; and that an unhappy delusion--a
confused anticipation of a real necessity and of a future reality,
contributed to the institution of these sacrifices. Of that great
mystery of truth, which the holy Patriarch of the Hebrews, with a
prophetic intuition, had discerned in the sacrifice of his well-beloved
son commanded him by God, but through the divine mercy not
consummated--of this great mystery, we say, a diabolic imitation may
have led to the human sacrifices by the early Heathens. But these
sacrifices were more widely diffused, even in the Druidical North, and
they continued down to a much later period than is commonly supposed, or
at present asserted. Thus, for instance, the anti-christian Emperor
Julian sought to revive them, in order to promote the infernal purposes
of his dark magical rites. We are so habituated to look on the
divinities and beautiful fables of ancient Greece, as the fairy
creations of poetry, that we are painfully surprised when we
unexpectedly stumble on some historical fact, which discloses the true
spirit and internal essence of polytheism--the fact, for instance, that
Themistocles himself, the deliverer of Greece, offered up three youths
in sacrifice.
The profound abyss of error, in which the most civilized nations of
ancient Heathenism had sunk and were lost, becomes the more apparent,
the more closely it is investigated and the more fully it is understood.
And on this account, we should learn to see how necessary and salutary
was that slow progression--that gradual preparation for a brighter
futurity, wherein, as I above stated, consisted the peculiar destination
and spiritual career of the Hebrew people. It is only from this its
peculiar destination for the Future, the Hebrew people presents so high
an interest to historical philosophy, and holds the lofty place assigned
to it in the first period of human civilization. The later destinies of
the Jewish nation, and the particular events and characters in their
later annals, are subjects of the highest moment in a history of
religion; for they can be rightly understood and fully appreciated only
by their practical application, and profound symbolical reference to the
circumstances of Christianity. But it is only the political constitution
of the Jewish state in the earliest period of its history--a
constitution which was so peculiar and unique in itself, so entirely
without a parallel--that can be the appropriate subject of consideration
in this general review of history; because this constitution was
connected with the prophetic calling of the Hebrew people, and even bore
a prophetic character itself. This constitution has been called a
theocracy, and so it was in the right and old signification of that
word, by which was meant a government under the special and immediate
providence of God. But in the now ordinary acceptation of the term,
which implies a sacerdotal empire or dominion, the Jewish state was at
no time and by no means a theocracy. Moses was no more a priest than a
king; and after him all those men of Desire, as they were called from
the first circumstances of their institution, or men of the desert,
because after a preparation in the solitude of the desert, they led and
conducted the people in a literal or figurative sense, through the
wilderness--all these men appointed by God, and without any other title
or insignia but the staff, which as pilgrims they brought out of the
desert, governed and directed the people under the immediate providence
of God. If on a certain occasion one of the prophets girded on the sword
and led out an army--this was only a transient instance; and the
prophets in general were nothing more than the men of God, and the
divinely appointed conductors of the people. When the wish in which the
Hebrews had so long indulged of having a king, like the heathen nations,
was at last gratified; a wish which in the higher views of Holy Writ,
was regarded as the culpable illusion of a carnal sense;--the last of
the prophets formed a party, and constituted in a very peculiar and
singular manner, a species of political Opposition, which was
acknowledged to be, and was in fact, perfectly legitimate and just. And
when some of them, like Elias for instance, had received from God the
supreme and immediate power over life and death, as the distinct badge
of dominion; we cannot wonder that men should have followed them, the
people have been at their bidding, and kings themselves, even though
they followed not always their counsels, have hearkened at least to
their warning voice. If those who are so fond of playing the part of
oppositionists in every country, could only once rise superior to vulgar
forms and formulas, and not every where seek for the echo of their
modern opinions, an attentive study of the character of Elias would hold
up to their admiring view an oppositionist, who in energy of conduct,
and in burning zeal for the cause of truth and justice, or in other
words, of God, could not be perhaps easily equalled by any historical
personage whether of ancient republics, or of modern monarchies.
After the Jewish state had become a kingdom of no very great dimensions,
it shared the destiny of most of the petty states in those regions; and
was first a province of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, then became
subject to the Persian monarchs, and afterwards to the Greek kings of
Syria and Egypt, till with these it was finally swallowed up in the vast
empire of all-conquering Rome.
In that restoration of the Jewish state which the Maccabees accomplished
in the last period of the Greek domination over Judea, the High-Priest
acquired a concurrent political power; a power which he even still
retained under the oppressive protectorate of the Romans, though his
functions, which were those of a legislator and supreme judge, were
confined to the internal government of the state. But this does not
constitute a really sacerdotal dominion, and the term theocracy is as
little applicable to such an order of things, as to the Greek
Patriarchate in the Turkish empire. However, the holy city of Jerusalem,
along with Solomon's old, mighty and symbolical temple (whose deep
import and proper signification the Jews themselves at a later period no
longer understood), still continued to be the main centre of the old
national existence and ancient recollections of the Hebrews, as well as
of their future hopes and prophetic promises. Even after the fearful
destruction of Jerusalem, this emblematic idea of the holy city still
lived in the recollection of mankind, and a long time afterwards was, in
Christian Europe, an animating incentive to the warlike nations of the
Middle Age.
In conclusion, we must add some observations, referring not so much to
the Jewish people and their history, as to their most ancient historical
books, and to those general views of mankind which they contain, so far
as such views relate to the general history of the primitive ages, and
are connected with the philosophy of history. In the same way as it is
neither necessary nor practicable to regard the Hebrew tongue as the
general root or primal source of all the languages spoken on the earth,
because it was the organ of divine revelation; so the Mosaic genealogy
of nations can with as little propriety be made the basis of a general
history of the world; as has in earlier times been so often attempted,
but never accomplished without much violence to the text. Although it
would be difficult to find in the primitive records of the other Asiatic
nations an historical survey of all the nations on the globe, at once so
clear, luminous, and instructive; yet the Mosaic revelation had a far
different object in view than to furnish a school-compendium of
historical learning. This historical genealogy, which in its way cannot
be too highly esteemed, was evidently destined by Moses more immediately
for his own people, and his own Book of the law; and in his account of
the origin of nations, the sacred historian proceeded on views and
principles very different from ours. For instance, with us it is the
affinity of languages, which forms the chief clue in the arrangement and
classification of the different races of mankind; and, according to this
principle, we rank the Hebrews with the Phoenicians, and regard them
as kindred nations. But in the Mosaic history these two nations,
separated by mutual hostility, stand at the widest distance one from the
other; for in manners, religion, and feelings, they were diametrically
opposed.
In this investigation, indeed, historical circumstances may often
occur--such as the popular commotions and intermixture of nations
happening at all periods of the world--by which the question of the
origin and affinity of different races undergoes considerable
modifications, and the whole subject is rendered unsusceptible of a
systematic division and arrangement. It often happens that one race
adopts the language of another, without on that account losing its
national identity, or being totally confounded with the other; for, on
the contrary, its moral or intellectual character bears the clear traces
of its original descent; so that here, at least, language alone will
decide nothing. Often a less numerous tribe will stamp its own native
moral and intellectual character on a whole people. In general the
descent of nations can be clearly traced and demonstrated in those cases
only, where the race has been kept up pure, and all marriage and
connection with other nations been strictly prevented. But such has been
the case among certain nations only; and even in those countries, where
it was the law, it was not in every instance rigidly observed, nor
constantly maintained; as is exemplified in the frequent intermarriages
of the Hebrews with the Phoenicians, severely prohibited as such
intermarriages were. The ancient law-givers attached, indeed, a very
high importance to lineage, as is proved by all those restrictive laws
on marriage, which were destined to preserve the purity of descent; but
they set a far higher value on the patrimonial inheritance of ancient
customs, institutions, doctrines, and intellectual qualities, as
constituting the true essence of national character, and determining the
rank which one race should hold above another. By Moses, in particular,
this intellectual character of the different races--their
feelings--modes of thinking--the whole spirit which animated them, in a
word--the chain of sacred tradition, and its transmission and
preservation among the different nations--all these are regarded of
primary importance, and they alone furnish us with a clue to the
discovery of his views.
The great middle country in Western Asia, where the true Eden, the
original abode of the first man, and great progenitor of mankind, was
situated, forms the central point in the general historical survey of
Moses. The wide-spread race of Japhet comprehends the Caucasian nations
in the North, and all its contiguous regions, and also those in the
central Asia;--nations which were sound, vigorous, comparatively
speaking, less corrupt, and by no means entirely barbarous: but which
were debarred from that near and immediate participation in the sacred
Traditions of primitive revelation, enjoyed by the peoples of the
Semitic race in that midland country, whose distinctive character and
high pre-eminence, according to Moses, consisted in this very
participation. To the South, the race of Cham includes the degenerate,
corrupt, and ungodly Egypt (a country which in its native language bore
the name of Chemi), and beyond this, all the African tribes devoted to
the dark rites of magic. How entirely subjective in itself--how
exclusively adapted to his own people, and his own national object, is
the genealogy of nations by Moses, may be proved among other things by
the fact that, while many great nations in remoter lands, or in the
distant Eastern Asia, cannot in this historical survey be traced without
difficulty to their proper place, or forced therein without violence to
the text, twelve or thirteen generations are given of the kindred
Arabian branch, or of the hostile Phoenician race. If regarded in this
simple point of view, the Mosaic genealogy of all the nations throughout
the inhabited globe will be found very clear, and, though the names of
some particular races remain matter of doubt, this summary is in general
perfectly intelligible, and throws a broad light on the history of
mankind.
END OF LECTURE VI.
LECTURE VII.
General considerations upon the nature of man, regarded in an
historical point of view, and on the two-fold view of history.--Of
the ancient Pagan Mysteries.--Of the universal Empire of Persia.
Instead of the Mosaic genealogy of nations, commented on in a hundred
different ways, and interpreted according to the received views of each
individual--a genealogy which was considered as the necessary basis of
every universal history, and which by the most false and arbitrary
methods was violently strained into an adaptation to all the data of
history, evidently contrary to the real views and mighty object of its
inspired author;--instead of this genealogy, we say, the sacred records
of divine truth furnish us with a far more profound principle--a
principle highly simple and comprehensive, and which is perfectly
applicable to the philosophy of history. This is that principle laid
down in that revelation, at the commencement of all history, as the one
wherein consists the peculiar nature--the true essence--and the final
destiny of man--I mean his likeness to his Creator. Now it is this
principle which forms the ground-work of our whole plan--and now that we
have reached the conclusion of the first period of history, and are
about to pass to the second, it may be proper to examine more minutely
the nature of this principle, and to give an accurate definition of it.