xxix, 35. It was he who advised his brethren to sell Joseph to the
Ishmaelite merchants, rather than stain their hands with his blood, Gen.
xxxvii, 26. There is little said of his life, and the little that is
recorded does not raise him high in our estimation. In the last
prophetic blessing pronounced on him by his father Jacob, Gen. xlix, 8,
9, there is a promise of the regal power; and that it should not depart
from his family before the coming of the Messiah. The whole southern
part of Palestine fell to Judah’s lot; but the tribes of Simeon and Dan
possessed many cities which at first were given to Judah. This tribe was
so numerous, that at the departure out of Egypt it contained
seventy-four thousand six hundred men capable of bearing arms, Num. i,
26, 27. The crown passed from the tribe of Benjamin, of which Saul and
his sons were, to that of Judah, which was David’s tribe, and the tribe
of the kings, his successors, until the Babylonish captivity.
JUDAISM, the religious doctrines and rites of the Jews, the descendants
of Abraham. With Abraham Judaism may be said, in some sense, to have
begun; but it was not till the promulgation of the law upon Mount Sinai,
that the Jewish economy was established, and that to his posterity was
committed a dispensation which was to distinguish them ever after from
every other people on earth. The Mosaic dispensation consisted of three
parts; the religious faith and worship of the Jews, their civil polity,
and precepts for the regulation of their moral conduct. Their civil
government, as well as their sacred polity, was of divine institution;
and, on all important occasions, their public affairs were conducted by
the Deity himself, or by persons bearing his commission. The laws of the
Jews, religious and moral, civil, political, and ritual, that is, a
complete system of pure Judaism, are contained in the books of the Old
Testament, and chiefly in the five books of Moses. See GOVERNMENT OF THE
HEBREWS.
The religion of the ancestors of the Jews, before the time of Moses,
consisted in the worship of the one living and true God, under whose
immediate direction they were; in the hope of a Redeemer; in a firm
reliance on his promises under all difficulties and dangers; and in a
thankful acknowledgment for all his blessings and deliverances. In that
early age, we read of altars, pillars, and monuments raised, and
sacrifices offered to God. They used circumcision as a seal of the
covenant which God had made with Abraham. As to the mode and
circumstances of divine worship, they were much at liberty till the time
of Moses; but that legislator, by the direction and appointment of God
himself, prescribed an instituted form of religion, and regulated
ceremonies, feasts, days, priests, and sacrifices, with the utmost
exactness. The rites and observances of their religion under the law
were numerous, and its sanctions severe. Notwithstanding God’s prophets,
and oracles, and ordinances, and the symbol of his presence, were among
them, the Jews were ever very prone to idolatry, till the Babylonish
furnace served to purify them from that corruption. After their seventy
years’ captivity, many among them gave too much place to the Greek
idolatries, but as a nation they were never again guilty of the crime.
Their religious worship and character in our Saviour’s time had become
formal and superstitious; and such it still continues to be, in a
greater or less degree, at the present day. Ancient Judaism, compared
with all religions except the Christian, was distinguished for its
superior purity and spirituality; and the whole Mosaic ritual was of a
typical nature. See JEWS.
JUDAIZING CHRISTIANS. Concerning the divine origin of the religion of
Moses, there was among the Jews no diversity of sentiment, and they not
unnaturally drew the conclusion, that, as it had proceeded from God, it
must be of perpetual obligation. They were indeed fully aware, that
another communication from heaven was to be made to mankind, and that
this was to be announced by a messenger more distinguished than even the
lawgiver whom they revered; but they had satisfied themselves, that the
great design of the Messiah’s mission would be to rescue them from the
oppression of a foreign yoke, and to lay in Jerusalem the foundation of
universal empire. For accomplishing these purposes, it was requisite
that their Messiah should be invested with temporal power; and in this
idea, which so many circumstances in their history tended to endear to
them, they were confirmed by those passages in the books of their
prophets which described him as destined to sit on the throne of David,
to sway a righteous sceptre, and to establish an everlasting kingdom.
When, accordingly, Christ appeared in the humblest condition of life,
and when, after the commencement of his ministry, he declared, that the
hopes of empire which his countrymen had long cherished were fallacious,
the predictions on which they had been rested suggesting, when combined
with other predictions, a very different view of the designs of the
Almighty, they were filled with indignation, and the greater part of
them, although they saw the miracles which Jesus wrought, and heard
those appeals to their own Scriptures which, however eager to do so,
they found themselves unable to confute, rejected his pretensions on
account of the meanness of his situation, and reprobated him as a
deceiver of the people.
There was, however, a considerable number who could not adopt this
conclusion, and who, satisfied that the mighty works which he performed
fully established the reality of the divine commission to which he laid
claim, relinquished their prejudices respecting a temporal sovereignty,
and embraced his doctrine as the revealed will of God. But,
notwithstanding this, they do not seem to have formed the most distant
conception that there was any thing in that doctrine to set aside the
system which had been transmitted to them by their fathers. They
regarded the two dispensations as forming one whole; and believed that
the rites which had distinguished from the rest of mankind those who
belonged to the commonwealth of Israel, would in the same manner mark
the disciples of the Messiah’s kingdom. Agreeably to this, as they
conceived, they saw that Jesus conformed to their ceremonial
institutions, he frequented the temple, he purified it from abuses by
which it had been profaned, and they interpreted, in the sense most in
harmony with their favourite notions, the declaration which he had
publicly made, that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it.
Even the apostles who had constantly attended him, who had listened not
merely to his public discourses, but to the interpretation of them,
which, in tender condescension to their weakness, he often in private
gave, were so thoroughly established in this opinion that it required a
peculiar revelation to be made to him before Peter would open the
kingdom of God to a Gentile. It cannot, therefore, be matter of surprise
that the sentiment prevailed among the whole of the Jews who had been
converted to Christianity; or that even after it was opposed by the
declaration of the Apostles as individuals, and by their solemn
determination, when assembled to decide with respect to it, that the law
was not binding upon Gentile converts, they should still have adhered to
it, when from not having a written record of faith they might have
imagined, either that the representation of the apostolic decision was
erroneous, or that the sanction which it gave to their own adherence to
their ceremonies virtually confirmed the doctrine which they felt such
aversion to relinquish. They accordingly displayed much zeal in support
of the Mosaical economy, represented the strict observance of what it
required as essential for justification, and looked with a kind of
abhorrence upon that large proportion of believers who paid to this no
respect, and who even did not hesitate to condemn it as subversive of
the fundamental principle of the Gospel dispensation. A great part of
the epistles of St. Paul is directed against the Judaizing teachers who
inculcated the original tenet of their brethren. The Apostle earnestly
presses upon the churches, that by the works of the law we cannot be
justified, that circumcision is of no avail, that by grace we are saved,
and that Christ hath redeemed us by his blood. He, indeed, uniformly
represents the idea which he opposed as inconsistent with Christianity,
as an idea which could not be held without detracting from what our
Saviour has done to accomplish our redemption. What effect his writings
produced upon the Jewish believers, cannot be accurately ascertained;
but it is quite certain that a very large proportion of them adhered to
their ritual observances either as national, or as instrumental in
obtaining the divine favour; and this survived the destruction of the
temple and of Jerusalem,--events which might have been expected to
convince every one of the temporary nature of the Mosaical economy.
But after Adrian, by again directing the Roman arms against the Jews,
blasted the hopes which had been fondly cherished, that their city would
be rebuilt, and their temple opened with greater splendour than before,
a vast number of them, either from being convinced by what they had
seen, or from their eagerness to gain admission into the city which the
emperor had erected, but from which he had ordered that all who
persisted in Judaism should be excluded, for the first time embraced the
religion of Christ; and many, who had previously done so, abandoning the
Jewish ritual, acquiesced fully in the representation of the faith given
by St. Paul, choosing as their bishop a Gentile convert. There were,
however, not a few who remained steadfast in their principles, who were
now consequently separated from the great body of their believing
countrymen, and who retained the appellation of Nazarenes, which had
probably been given to the whole of the Jewish Christians. This remnant
soon split into two parties. The one party, although they held that the
law of Moses was obligatory upon the descendants of the house of Israel,
did not extend it to those who had never been of the family of Abraham;
they revered Jesus as being more than man, and in fact approached so
near to the prevailing sentiments of the church, that, notwithstanding
their peculiar sentiments in relation to the Mosaical law, they were not
ranked by the earliest writers among heretics. The other party, who were
called Ebionites, either from Ebion, the name, it is alleged, of their
leader, from their poverty, or from the low notions which they
entertained of Christ, for all these reasons have been specified,
showing sufficiently that the matter is really uncertain,--maintained
the original tenet that their law was binding upon all men, and that
without observing what it required it was impossible to be justified. As
this was in direct opposition to the declarations of St. Paul, instead
of submitting to apostolic authority they set it at defiance, rejecting
his epistles, and branding him as an enemy to the truth. They
disregarded even the Gospels which were received by the generality of
Christians, and used a gospel of their own which they had so modelled as
to support the tenets to which they were attached. One of these tenets,
one which, indeed, naturally followed from their conceptions of the
Gospel dispensation, was, that its author was merely a man raised solely
by the commission with which he had been honoured above the rest of his
fellow creatures.
JUDAS ISCARIOT, or, as he is usually called, the traitor, and betrayer
of our Lord. “The _treachery_ of Judas Iscariot,” says Dr. Hales, “his
_remorse_, and _suicide_, are occurrences altogether so strange and
extraordinary, that the motives by which he was actuated require to be
developed, as far as may be done, where the evangelists are, in a great
measure, silent concerning them, from the circumstances of the history
itself, and from the feelings of human nature. Judas, the leading trait
in whose character was covetousness, was probably induced to follow
Jesus at first with a view to the riches, honours, and other temporal
advantages, which he, in common with the rest, expected the Messiah’s
friends would enjoy. The astonishing miracles he saw him perform left no
room to doubt of the reality of his Master’s pretensions, who had,
indeed, himself in private actually accepted the title from his
Apostles; and Judas must have been much disappointed when Jesus
repeatedly refused the proffered royalty from the people in Galilee,
after the miracle of feeding the five thousand, and again after his
public procession to Jerusalem. He might naturally have grown impatient
under the delay, and dissatisfied also with Jesus for openly
discouraging all ambitious views among his disciples; and, therefore, he
might have devised the scheme of delivering him up to the sanhedrim, or
great council of the nation, (composed of the chief priests, scribes,
and elders,) in order to compel him to avow himself openly as the
Messiah before them; and to work such miracles, or to give them the sign
which they so often required, as would convince and induce them to elect
him in due form, and by that means enable him to reward his followers.
Even the rebukes of Jesus for his covetousness, and the detection of his
treacherous scheme, although they unquestionably offended Judas, might
only serve to stimulate him to the speedier execution of his plot,
during the feast of the passover, while the great concourse of the Jews,
from all parts assembled, might powerfully support the sanhedrim and
their Messiah against the Romans. The success of this measure, though
against his Master’s will, would be likely to procure him pardon, and
even to recommend him to favour afterward. Such might have been the
plausible suggestions by which Satan tempted him to the commission of
this crime. But when Judas, who attended the whole trial, saw that it
turned out quite contrary to his expectations, that Jesus was capitally
convicted by the council, as a false Christ and false prophet,
notwithstanding he had openly avowed himself; and that he wrought no
miracle, either for their conviction or for his own deliverance, as
Judas well knew he could, even from the circumstance of healing Malchus,
after he was apprehended; when he farther reflected, like Peter, on his
Master’s merciful forewarnings of his treachery, and mild and gentle
rebuke at the commission of it; he was seized with remorse, and offered
to return the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silver to the chief
priests and elders instantly on the spot, saying, ‘I sinned in
delivering up innocent blood;’ and expected that on this they would have
desisted from the prosecution. But they were obstinate, and not only
would not relent, but threw the whole load of guilt upon him, refusing
to take their own share; for they said, ‘What is that to us? see thou to
that;’ thus, according to the aphorism, loving the treason, but hating
the traitor, after he had served their wicked turn. Stung to the quick
at their refusal to take back the money, while they condemned himself,
he went to the temple, cast down the whole sum in the treasury, or place
for receiving the offerings of the people; and, after he had thus
returned the wages of iniquity, he retired to some lonely place, not
far, perhaps, from the scene of Peter’s repentance; and, in the frenzy
of despair, and at the instigation of the devil, hanged himself;
crowning with suicide the murder of his Master and his friend; rejecting
his compassionate Saviour, and plunging his own soul into perdition! In
another place it is said that, ‘falling headlong, he burst asunder, and
all his bowels gushed out,’ Acts i, 18. Both these accounts might be
true: he might first have hanged himself from some tree on the edge of a
precipice; and, the rope or branch breaking, he might be dashed to
pieces by the fall.”
The above view of the case of Judas endeavours ingeniously to account
for his conduct by supposing him influenced by the motive of compelling
our Lord to declare himself, and assume the Messiahship in its earthly
glory. It will, however, be recollected, that the only key which the
evangelic narrative affords, is, Judas’s covetousness; which passion
was, in him, a growing one. It was this which destroyed whatever of
honest intention he might at first have in following Jesus; and when
fully under its influence he would be blinded by it to all but the
glittering object of the reward of iniquity. In such a mind there could
be no true faith, and no love; what wonder, then, when avarice was in
him a ruling and unrestrained passion, that he should betray his Lord?
Still it may be admitted that the knowledge which Judas had of our
Lord’s miraculous power, might lead him the more readily to put him into
the hands of the chief priests. He might suppose that he would deliver
himself out of their hands; and thus Judas attempted to play a double
villany, against Christ and against his employers.
JUDE, EPISTLE OF, a canonical book of the New Testament, written against
the heretics, who, by their impious doctrines and disorderly lives,
corrupted the faith and good morals of Christians. The author of this
epistle, called Judas, and also Thaddeus and Lebbeus, was one of the
twelve Apostles; he was the son of Alpheus, brother of James the less,
and one of those who were called our Lord’s brethren. We are not
informed when, or how, he was called to be an Apostle; but it has been
conjectured, that, before his vocation to the Apostleship, he was a
husbandman, that he was married, and that he had children. The only
account we have of him in particular, is that which occurs in John xiv,
21–23. It is not unreasonable to suppose that, after having received, in
common with other Apostles, extraordinary gifts at the pentecost, he
preached the Gospel for some time in several parts of the land of
Israel, and wrought miracles in the name of Christ. And, as his life
seems to have been prolonged, it is probable that he afterward left
Judea, and went abroad preaching the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles in
other countries. Some have said that he preached in Arabia, Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Persia; and that he suffered martyrdom in the last
mentioned country. But we have no account of his travels upon which we
can rely; and it may be questioned whether he was a martyr.
In the early ages of Christianity, several rejected the Epistle of St.
Jude, because the apocryphal books of Enoch, and the ascension of Moses,
are quoted in it. Nevertheless, it is to be found in all the ancient
catalogues of the sacred writings; and Clement, of Alexandria,
Tertullian, and Origen quote it as written by Jude, and reckon it among
the books of sacred Scripture. In the time of Eusebius it was generally
received. As to the objections that have been urged against its
authority, Dr. Lardner suggests, that there is no necessity for
supposing that St. Jude quoted a book called Enoch, or Enoch’s
prophecies; and even allowing that he did quote it, he gives it no
authority; it was no canonical book of the Jews; and if such a book
existed among the Jews, it was apocryphal, and yet there might be in it
some right things. Instead of referring to a book called the “Assumption
or Ascension of Christ,” which probably was a forgery much later than
his time, it is much more credible that St. Jude refers to the vision in
Zech. iii, 1–3. It has been the opinion of several writers, and, among
others, of Hammond and Benson, that St. Jude addressed his epistle to
the Jewish Christians; but Dr. Lardner infers, from the words of the
inscription of the epistle, verses 1, 3, that it was designed for the
use of all in general who had embraced the Christian religion. The last
mentioned author supposes that this epistle was written A. D. 64, 65, or
66.
JUDEA, a district of Asia Minor, which is described both by ancient and
modern geographers under a great variety of names, and with great
diversity of extent. In the most extensive application of the name, it
comprehends the whole country possessed by the Jews, or people of
Israel; and included, therefore, very different portions of territory at
different periods of their history. Upon the conquest of the country by
Joshua, it was divided into twelve portions, according to the number of
the tribes of Israel; and a general view of their respective allotments
(though the intermediate boundaries cannot be very precisely
ascertained) may convey some idea of its extent at that period. The
portion of the tribe of Judah comprised all the country between Edom, or
Idumea, on the south, the Mediterranean on the west, the Salt Sea on the
east, and an imaginary line on the north, from the northern extremity of
the Salt Sea to the Mediterranean. The portion of Simeon was included
within that of Judah, and formed the south-west corner of the country;
comprehending the towns of Bersaba, Gerar, Rapha, Gaza, Ascalon, and
Azotus. The portion of Benjamin was situated to the north of Judah, near
the centre of the kingdom, bounded on the east by the river Jordan, and
containing part of Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethel, Rama, &c. The portion of
Dan lay to the north-west of Judah, between that of Benjamin and the
Mediterranean, reaching as far north as the latter, and containing
Accaron and Jamnia. The portion of Ephraim stretched along the northern
limits of Dan and Benjamin, between the river Jordan on the east, and
the Mediterranean sea on the west; containing Sichem, Joppa, Lydda,
Gazara, &c. The portion of the half tribe of Manasseh was situated north
of Ephraim, between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean, reaching as
far north as Dora, at the foot of Mount Carmel. The portion of Issachar
stretched northward from Manasseh, and westward from Jordan, as far as
Mount Tabor. The portion of Asher comprehended the maritime tract
between Mount Carmel, as far as Sidon. The portion of Zebulon, bounded
by Asher on the west, and Mount Tabor on the south, joined on the east
the portion of Naphtali, which occupied the borders of the lake
Gennesareth, or sea of Tiberias. The portion of Reuben lay to the
eastward of the river Jordan, bounded on the south by the torrent of
Arnon, and on the north by the river Jabok. The portion of Gad, also on
the east of the Jordan, stretched from the Jabok toward the north, where
it was bounded by the other half tribe of Manasseh, which occupied the
country east of the lake Gennesareth, to the northern limits of the
country. The whole of this extent between Cœlo-Syria on the north,
and Arabia Petræa on the south, the Mediterranean on the west, and
Arabia Deserta on the east, may be considered as situated between 31°
10´ and 33° 15´ of north latitude, about a hundred and forty miles in
length, and nearly a hundred in breadth. Reckoning from Dan to
Beersheba, which are often mentioned in sacred Scripture as including
the more settled and permanent possessions of the Israelites, its length
would not exceed a hundred and twenty miles. But, if estimated from its
boundaries in the reigns of David and Solomon, and several succeeding
princes, its extent must be enlarged more than threefold; including both
the land of Palestine, or of the Philistines, on the south, and the
country of Phenice on the north, with part of Syria to the north-east.
All this extent was originally comprehended in the land of promise,
Genesis xv, 18; Deut. xi, 24; and was actually possessed by David and
Solomon, 1 Kings ix, 20; 2 Chron. viii, 7. It is described in numerous
passages of the sacred writings, as all comprised in the Holy Land, from
Hamath on the north, to the river of Egypt on the south; and from the
Great or Mediterranean Sea on the west, to the deserts of Arabia on the
east; a tract of country at least four hundred and sixty miles in
length, and more than a hundred in breadth, Joshua xv, 2, &c; xix, 24,
&c; 1 Chron. xiii, 5; 2 Chron. vii, 8; Ezekiel xlvii, 16, 20; Amos vi,
14.
After the death of Solomon, when the kingdom of the Hebrews had attained
its greatest extent, it was divided, in consequence of a revolt of ten
tribes, into two distinct sovereignties, named Israel and Judah; the
former of which had its seat of government in Samaria, and the latter in
Jerusalem. The territories of both were gradually curtailed and laid
waste by the revolt of tributary princes, and the incursions of powerful
neighbours; and both were at length completely overthrown; that of
Israel, by the king of Assyria, about B. C. 720; and that of Judah, by
Nebuchadnezzar, about a hundred and fourteen years later.