A celebrated political writer--a freethinker belonging to the
Radical school, somewhat also to the school of Positivism--Mr.
John Stuart Mill, has recently said, in his work on Government,
"The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal despotism of China, were
very fit instruments for carrying those nations up to the point
of civilisation which they attained.
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But, having reached that point, they were brought to a permanent
halt, for want of mental liberty and individuality; requisites of
improvement which the institutions that had carried them thus
far, entirely incapacitated them from acquiring; and, as the
institutions did not break down and give place to others, further
improvement stopped. In contrast with these nations, let us
consider the example of an opposite character afforded by another
and a comparatively insignificant Oriental people--the Jews.
They, too, had an absolute monarchy and a hierarchy, and their
organised institutions were as obviously of sacerdotal origin as
those of the Hindoos. These did for them what was done for other
Oriental races by their institutions--subdued them to industry
and order, and gave them a national life. But neither their kings
nor their priests ever obtained, as in those other countries, the
exclusive moulding of their character.
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Their religion, which enabled persons of genius and a high
religious tone to be regarded and to regard themselves as
inspired from Heaven, gave existence to an inestimably precious
unorganized institution--the Order (if it may be so termed) of
Prophets. Generally under the protection--it was not always
effectual--of their sacred character, the prophets were a power
in the nation, often more than a match for kings and priests, and
kept up in that little corner of the earth the antagonism of
influence, which is the only real security for continued
progress. Religion consequently was not there--what it has been
in so many other places--a consecration of all that was once
established, and a barrier against further improvement. The
remark of a distinguished Hebrew, M. Salvador, that the prophets
were, in Church and State, the equivalent to the modern liberty
of the press, gives a just but not an adequate conception of the
part fulfilled in national and universal histories by this great
element of Jewish life; by means of which, the canon of
inspiration never being complete, the persons most eminent in
genius and moral feeling could not only denounce and reprobate,
with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to
them deserving of such treatment, but could give forth better and
higher interpretations of the national religion.
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Conditions more favourable to progress could not easily exist;
accordingly the Jews, instead of being stationary like other
Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people
of antiquity, and, jointly with them, have been the
starting-point and main propelling agency of modern cultivation."
[Footnote 68]
[Footnote 68: Considerations on Representative Government. By
John Stuart Mill, pp. 41-43. London.]
Mr. Mill is right, only he does not go far enough. Modern
civilization is in effect derived from the Jews and from the
Greeks. To the latter it is indebted for its human and
intellectual, to the former for its Divine and moral, element. Of
these two sources, we owe to the Jews, if not the more brilliant,
at all events the more sublime and dearly acquired one.
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After the development of power and grandeur which took place
amongst the Jews in the reigns of David and Solomon, their
history is but a long series of misfortunes and reverses,--an
eventful, painful decline. The Hebrew state is divided into two
kingdoms, almost constantly at war with each other. And whilst
the kingdom of Israel is a prey to continual usurpations and
revolutions, making it the scene of all the violence and all the
vicissitudes of a tyranny, the kingdom of Judah has a line of
princes, in turn good or bad, who keep it unceasingly in a state
of trouble and of jeopardy. Religion falls beneath the yoke of
secular government; idolatry appears in the kingdom of Israel,
and braves audaciously the ancient national faith. The kingdom of
Judah, however, remains more faithful to Jehovah and his law, to
the traditions of Moses, and to the race of David; but its
languishing faith is no longer strong enough to arrest its march
in the path of decline.
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In the two kingdoms, internal disorders are aggravated by
reverses abroad; in the meantime, around them mighty empires
spring up and succeed to each other. First Israel and then Judah
are invaded by strangers; they are subjugated in turn by the
Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Babylonians. The
Hebrews are not only vanquished and reduced to subjection, but
exiled, transported, led captive far from their country. A new
conqueror, Cyrus, permits them to return to Jerusalem; but not to
resume their independence; at first subjects of the Persian
kings, they soon pass from their empire to that of the Greek
generals, who have divided amongst one another the conquests of
Alexander; then to the rule of the Greeks succeeds that of the
Romans. During this succession of servitudes, scarcely are they
allowed any moments of existence as a free nation, and even this
freedom is more apparent than real. Judea, like Greece, is
subjugated, but under circumstances of greater humiliation and
distress.
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And shall, then, the Hebrews oppose no efficacious resistance to
these reverses? What is to become, in this absolute ruin of the
nationality of the Jews, of their God, and their faith? Shall the
miracles of Sinai have no more virtue than the mysteries of
Eleusis, and Jehovah languish away and vanish in the routine of
sacerdotal ceremonies, or in philosophical scepticism?
By no means: in the midst of his people's decay, the God of
Israel maintains interpreters who struggle with indomitable
fidelity against public calamities and popular errors. The first
of the prophets, Moses, had spoken in the name and according to
the commandment of Jehovah. After him there never were wanting to
Israel men who inherited or pretended to the heritage of the same
Divine mission. "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their
brethren, like unto thee," said the Eternal unto Moses, "and will
put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that
I shall command him. ...
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But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name,
which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in
the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die." [Footnote
69]
[Footnote 69: Deuteronomy xviii. 18, 20.]
From Moses to Samuel, the series of the prophets is continued;
some of them are of renown, like Nathan in the reigns of David
and Solomon; but the greater number, without name in history, and
appearing scattered over a long course of years. They are called
the _Seers_, [Footnote 70] or the Inspired. [Footnote 71]
[Footnote 70: Roêh or Chozeh, in Hebrew.]
[Footnote 71: Nabi.]
Their speech gushes forth like a well under the breath of God.
When the government of the Judges gives place to that of the
Kings, the great actor in this drama of transition, Samuel, opens
for the prophets a new era; dedicated from his infancy to God's
service, he feels beforehand and abides the divine inspiration:
"Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." [Footnote 72]
[Footnote 72: 1 Samuel iii. 9, 10.]
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Not long after, his renown spreads amongst the people; he is not
pontiff, he is not even priest. [Footnote 73]
[Footnote 73: Samuel propheta fuit, judex fuit, levita fuit,
non pontifex, ne saoerdos quidem.--St. Jerom adv.
Jovinianum.]
But he is pre-eminently the seer: "Is not the seer here?" Such is
the question addressed to some young maidens by the men who are
in search of Samuel. Saul meets him without knowing him, and says
to him, "I pray thee tell me where the house of the seer is." "I
am the seer," replied Samuel; and soon after, it is Samuel
himself, who, in compliance with the popular vote, approved by
God, proclaims Saul king. But at the moment when he thus changes
the theocracy in Israel into a monarchy, he foresees the vices
and perils attendant upon the new government, and opposes to them
the element of resistance drawn from their national beliefs and
traditions; he transforms the order of prophets into a permanent
institution; he founds schools of prophets, independent servants
of Jehovah, consecrated to the defence of his law and the
enunciation of his will;
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constituting a sort of congregation independent of both Church
and State; leading, in fixed and appointed places,--at Rama,
Bethel, Jericho, Jerusalem,--a life in common, but with out
exclusive privileges; the sons of the prophets are brought up
near their fathers; but still the mission of prophecy is
accessible to all who have the call from God: "Go, thou seer,"
said the priest Amaziah, in his anger, to the prophet Amos, "flee
thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and
prophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it
is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered
Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a
prophet's son: but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore
fruit: and the Eternal took me as I followed the flock, and the
Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." [Footnote
74]
[Footnote 74: Amos vii. 12-15.]
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The prophets are neither priests nor monks: sprung from all the
classes of the Jewish nation, their vocation is essentially
independent. They belong to God alone, and await divine
inspiration to oppose, as it may happen, at one time the tyranny
of the kings, at another the passions of the populace, at another
the corruption of the priesthood: their only arms, the commands
of God and the gift of prophecy. The functions assigned to them
are as different as the places and circumstances of their life;
but they are ready to take any part and to encounter any peril:
some of them, like Elijah and Elisha, are men of action and of
combat; the others, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, are
narrators, moralists, prophets; some devote themselves to attacks
upon the acts of violence and impiety committed by the kings, the
others to the vices and corruption of the people; the same
spirit, however, animates them all; they are all interpreters and
labourers of Jehovah; they defend, all of them, the faith of God
against idolatry, justice and right against tyranny, the national
independence against foreign dominion.
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In the name of the God of Abraham and of Jacob, they labour and
succeed in maintaining or in reanimating religious and moral life
amidst the decay and servitude of Israel. "All the time," says
St. Augustine, "from the epoch when the holy Samuel began to
prophesy, to the day when the people of Israel was led captive
into Babylonia, is the period of the prophets." [Footnote 75]
[Footnote 75: De Civitate Dei, l. xvii. ch. 1.]
To accomplish their mission, to ensure their hard-earned
successes, they had other arms than lamentations and
exhortations, arising out of what was past and inevitable; other
expedients than pious reproaches and expressions of regret. These
defenders of the ancient faith of Moses do not shut themselves up
within the external forms and rites of their religion; they
pursue the moral object that it proposes; they insist upon the
spirit that vivifies it. "Your new moons and your appointed
feasts my soul hateth" (said the Lord, according to Isaiah):
"they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
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And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from
you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands
are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of
your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do
well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
plead for the widow." [Footnote 76]
[Footnote 76: Isaiah i. 14-17.]
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord" (said the prophet
Micah), "and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before
him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee,
O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God?" [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: Micah vi. 6-8.]
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Even whilst calling the people of Israel back to the faith of
their fathers, the prophets open to them new perspectives: whilst
reproaching them with the errors that have led to their decay and
servitude, they permit them yet to see the future delivery and
regeneration. It is their divine character to live at once in the
past and in the future; to confide alike to the ordinances of the
Eternal and to his promises: they move forward, but they change
not; they believe, they hope; they are faithful to Moses whilst
they announce the Messiah.