doctrine of the unity of the supreme Being, the establishment of which
was constantly alleged by the impostor as the primary object of his
pretended mission; but on the subject of the Christian trinity, its
author seems to have entertained very gross and mistaken ideas, and to
have been totally ignorant of the perfect consistency of that opinion
with the unity of the Deity. With respect to the great doctrine of a
future life, and the condition of the soul after its departure from the
body, it must indeed be acknowledged that the prophet of Arabia has
presented us with a nearer prospect of the invisible world, and
disclosed to us a thousand particulars concerning it, which the Holy
Scriptures had wrapped in the most profound and mysterious silence. But
in his various representations of another life, he generally descends to
an unnecessary minuteness and particularity, which excite disgust and
ridicule, instead of reverence. He constantly pretended to have received
these stupendous secrets by the ministry of the Angel Gabriel, from that
eternal book in which the divine decrees have been written by the finger
of the Almighty from the foundation of the world; but the learned
inquirer will discover a more accessible, and a far more probable,
source whence they might be derived, partly in the wild and fanciful
opinions of the ancient Arabs, and chiefly in those exhaustless stores
of marvellous and improbable fiction, the works of the rabbins. Hence,
that romantic fable of the angel of death, whose peculiar office it is,
at the destined hour, to dissolve the union between soul and body, and
to free the departing spirit from its prison of flesh. Hence, too, the
various descriptions of the general resurrection and final judgment with
which the Koran every where abounds; and hence the vast but ideal
balance in which the actions of all mankind shall then be impartially
weighed, and their eternal doom be assigned them, either in the regions
of bliss or misery, according as their good or evil deeds shall
preponderate. Here, too, may be traced the grand and original outlines
of that sensual paradise, and those luxurious enjoyments, which were so
successfully employed in the Koran, to gratify the ardent genius of the
Arabs, and allure them to the standard of the prophet.
The same observation which has been applied with respect to the sources
whence the doctrines were drawn, may, with some few limitations, be
likewise extended to the precepts which the Arabian legislator has
enjoined. That the Koran, amidst a various and confused heap of
ridiculous and even immoral precepts, contains many interesting and
instructive lessons of morality, cannot with truth be denied. Of these,
however, the merit is to be ascribed, not to the feeble imitation, but
to the great and perfect original from which they were manifestly drawn.
Instead of improving on the Christian precepts by a superior degree of
refinement; instead of exhibiting a purer and more perfect system of
morals than that of the Gospel; the prophet of Arabia has miserably
debased and weakened even what he has borrowed from that system. We are
told by our Saviour, that a man is to be the husband of one wife, and
that there is to be an inseparable union between them. By Mohammed’s
confession, Jesus Christ was a prophet of the true God, and the Holy
Spirit was with him. Yet in the Koran we find permission for any person
to have four wives, and as many concubines as he can maintain. Again:
our Saviour expressly tells us, that, at the resurrection, they will
neither marry nor be given in marriage; but be like the angels of God in
heaven.” We are informed also by St. Paul, that we shall be changed, and
have a spiritual and glorified body; for flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of heaven; neither can corruption inherit incorruption.” But
Mohammed gives a very different account: it is clear, from his own
confession, that the happiness promised in the Koran consists in base
and corporeal enjoyments. According to its author, there will not only
be marriage, but also servitude in the next world. The very meanest in
paradise will have eighty thousand servants, and seventy-two wives of
the girls of paradise, beside the wives he had in this world; he will
also have a tent erected for him of pearls, hyacinths, and emeralds. And
as marriage will take place, so a new race will be introduced in heaven;
for, says the Koran, If any of the faithful in paradise be desirous of
issue, it shall be conceived, born, and grown up in the space of an
hour.” But on the contradictions in point of doctrine, though sufficient
of themselves to confute the pretensions of Mohammed, we forbear to
insist.
The impure designs which gave birth to the whole system may be traced in
almost every subordinate part; even its sublimest descriptions of the
Deity, even its most exalted moral precepts, not unfrequently either
terminate in, or are interwoven with, some provision to gratify the
inordinate cravings of ambition, or some license for the indulgence of
the corrupt passions of the human heart. It has allowed private revenge,
in the case of murder; it has given a sanction to fornication; and, if
any weight be due to the example of its author, it has justified
adultery. It has made war, and rapine, and bloodshed, provided they be
exercised against unbelievers, not only meritorious acts, but even
essential duties to the good Musselman; duties by the performance of
which he may secure the constant favour and protection of God and his
prophet in this life, and in the next entitle himself to the boundless
joys of paradise. In the Koran are advanced the following assertions,
among others already noticed: That both Jews and Christians are
idolaters; that the patriarchs and Apostles were Mohammedans; that the
angels worshipped Adam, and that the fallen angels were driven from
heaven for not doing so; that our blessed Saviour was neither God, nor
the Son of God; and that he assured Mohammed of this in a conference
with the Almighty and him; yet that he was both the word and Spirit of
God: not to mention numberless absurdities concerning the creation, the
deluge, the end of the world, the resurrection, the day of judgment, too
gross to be received by any except the most debased understandings.
It was frequently the triumphant boast of St. Paul, that the Gospel of
Jesus Christ had for ever freed mankind from the intolerable burden of
ceremonial observances. But the Koran renews and perpetuates the
slavery, by prescribing to its votaries a ritual still more oppressive,
and entangling them again in a yoke of bondage yet more severe than that
of the law. Of this kind, amidst a variety of instances, is that great
and meritorious act of Mohammedan devotion, the pilgrimage to the holy
city of Mecca; an act which the Koran has enjoined, and the pious
Musselman implicitly performs, as necessary to the obtaining pardon of
his sins, and qualifying him to be a partaker of the alluring pleasures
and exquisite enjoyments of paradise. To the several articles of faith
to which all his followers were to adhere, Mohammed added four
fundamental points of religious practice; namely, prayer five times a
day, fasting, alms-giving, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Under the first
of these are comprehended those frequent washings or purifications which
he prescribed as necessary preparations for the duty of prayer. So
necessary did he think them, that he is said to have declared, that the
practice of religion is founded upon cleanliness, which is one half of
faith, and the key of prayer. The second of these he conceived to be a
duty of so great moment, that he used to say it was the gate of
religion, and that the odour of the mouth of him who fasteth is more
grateful to God than that of musk. The third is looked upon as so
pleasing in the sight of God, that the Caliph Omar Ebn Abdalaziz used to
say, Prayer carries us half way to God; fasting brings us to the door of
his palace; and alms procure us admission.” The last of these practical
religious duties is deemed so necessary, that, according to a tradition
of Mohammed, he who dies without performing it, may as well die a Jew or
a Christian.” As to the negative precepts and institutions of this
religion, the Mohammedans are forbidden the use of wine, and are
prohibited from gaming, usury, and the eating of blood and swine’s
flesh, and whatever dies of itself, or is strangled, or killed by a
blow, or by another beast. They are said, however, to comply with the
prohibition of gaming, (from which chess seems to be excepted,) much
better than they do with that of wine, under which all strong and
inebriating liquors are included; for both the Persians and Turks are in
the habit of drinking freely.
However successful and triumphant from without, the progress of the
followers of Mohammed received a considerable check by the civil
dissensions which arose among themselves soon after his death. Abubeker
and Ali, the former the father-in-law, the latter the son-in-law, of
this pretended prophet, aspired both to succeed him in the empire which
he had erected. Upon this arose a cruel and tedious contest, whose
flames produced that schism which divided the Mohammedans into two great
factions; and this separation not only gave rise to a variety of
opinions and rites, but also excited the most implacable hatred, and the
most deadly animosities, which have been continued to the present day.
With such furious zeal is this contention still carried on between these
two factions, who are distinguished by the name of Sonnites and
Schiites, that each party detest and anathematize the other as
abominable heretics, and farther from the truth than either the
Christians or the Jews. The chief points in which they differ are: 1.
The Schiites reject Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, the first three caliphs,
as usurpers and intruders; but the Sonnites acknowledge and respect them
as rightful caliphs or imams. 2. The Schiites prefer Ali to Mohammed,
or, at least, esteem them both equal; but the Sonnites admit neither
Ali, nor any of the prophets, to be equal to Mohammed. 3. The Sonnites
charge the Schiites with corrupting the Koran, and neglecting its
precepts; and the Schiites retort the same charge on the Sonnites.
4. The Sonnites receive the _Sonna_, or book of traditions of their
prophet, as of canonical authority; but the Schiites reject it as
apocryphal, and unworthy of credit. The Sonnites are subdivided into
four chief sects, of which the first is that of the Hanefites, who
generally prevail among the Turks and Tartars; the second, that of the
Malecites, whose doctrine is chiefly followed in Barbary, and other
parts of Africa; the third, that of the Shafeites, who are chiefly
confined to Arabia and Persia; and the fourth orthodox sect is that of
the Hanbalites, who are not very numerous, and seldom to be met with out
of the limits of Arabia. The heretical sects among the Mohammedans are
those which are counted to hold heterodox opinions in fundamentals, or
matters of faith; and they are variously compounded and decompounded of
the opinions of four chief sects; the Motazalites, the Safatians, the
Kharejites, and the Schiites.
Ever since the valour of John Sobieski rolled back the hosts of Islamism
from eastern and central Europe, the civil dominion of the false prophet
has been rather retrograde than advancing. A free philosophy in many
places is destroying the influence of the system among the better
informed; and the barbarism and misery which a bad government inflicts
upon the people, weakens its power, and is preparing the way for great
changes. The throwing off the Turkish yoke by the Greeks, and the rising
greatness of Russia, are symptoms of the approaching subversion of
Mohammedanism as a power; and thus the fall of this eastern antichrist
cannot long be delayed. It is, indeed, even now supported only by the
rival interests of Christian powers; and a new combination among them
would suddenly withdraw its only support.
MALACHI, the last of the twelve minor prophets. Malachi prophesied about
B. C. 400; and some traditionary accounts state that he was a native of
Sapha, and of the tribe of Zebulun. He reproves the people for their
wickedness, and the priests for their negligence in the discharge of
their office; he threatens the disobedient with the judgments of God,
and promises great rewards to the penitent and pious; he predicts the
coming of Christ, and the preaching of John the Baptist; and with a
solemnity becoming the last of the prophets, he closes the sacred canon
with enjoining the strict observance of the Mosaic law, till the
forerunner, already promised, should appear in the spirit of Elias, to
introduce the Messiah, who was to establish a new and everlasting
covenant.
MAMMON, a Syriac word which signifies _riches_, Matt. vi, 24.
MAMRE, an Amorite, brother of Aner and Eshcol, and friend of Abraham,
Gen. xiv, 13. It was with these three persons, together with his own and
their domestics, that Abraham pursued and overcame the kings after their
conquest of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2. MAMRE, the same as Hebron. In Gen. xxiii, 19, it is said, that
Abraham buried Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before
Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.” And in Gen. xxxv, 27,
it is said, that Jacob came unto Isaac his father, unto Mamre, unto the
city of Arba, which is Hebron.” The city probably derived its name from
that Mamre who joined Abraham in the pursuit of Chedorlaomer, and the
rescue of Lot, Gen. xiv.
MAMRE, PLAIN OF, a plain near Mamre, or Hebron, said to be about two
miles to the south of the town. Here Abraham dwelt after his separation
from Lot; here he received from God himself a promise of the land, in
which he was then a stranger, for his posterity; here he entertained the
angels under an oak, and received a second promise of a son; and here he
purchased a burying place for Sarah; which served also as a sepulchre
for himself and the rest of his family.
MANAHEM was the sixteenth king of Israel, and son of Gadi. He revenged
the death of his master Zachariah, by killing Shallum, son of Jabesh,
who had usurped the crown of Israel, A. M. 3232, 2 Kings xv, 13, &c.
Manahem reigned in his stead.
MANASSEH, the eldest son of Joseph, and grandson of the patriarch Jacob,
Gen. xii, 50, was born, A. M. 2290, B. C. 1714. The name Manasseh
signifies _forgetfulness_, because Joseph said, “God hath made me forget
all my toil, and all my father’s house.” When Jacob was going to die,
Joseph brought his two sons to him, that his father might give them his
last blessing, Gen. xlviii. Jacob, having seen them, adopted them. The
tribe of Manasseh came out of Egypt in number thirty-two thousand two
hundred men, upward of twenty years old, under the conduct of Gamaliel,
son of Pedahzur, Num. ii, 20, 21. This tribe was divided in the land of
promise. One half tribe of Manasseh settled beyond the river Jordan, and
possessed the country of Bashan, from the river Jabbok, to Mount
Libanus; and the other half tribe of Manasseh settled on this side
Jordan, and possessed the country between the tribe of Ephraim south,
and the tribe of Issachar north, having the river Jordan east, and the
Mediterranean Sea west, Joshua xvi; xvii.
2. MANASSEH, the fifteenth king of Judah, and son and successor of
Hezekiah, was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned
fifty-five years, 2 Kings xx, 21; xxi, 1, 2; 2 Chron. xxxiii, 1, 2, &c.
His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did evil in the sight of the Lord;
worshipped the idols of the land of Canaan; rebuilt the high places that
his father Hezekiah had destroyed; set up altars to Baal; and planted
groves to false gods. He raised altars to the whole host of heaven, in
the courts of God’s house; made his son pass through the fire in honour
of Moloch; was addicted to magic, divinations, auguries, and other
superstitions; set up the idol Astarte in the house of God; finally, he
involved his people in all the abomination of the idolatrous nations to
that degree, that Israel committed more wickedness than the Canaanites,
whom the Lord had driven out before them. To all these crimes Manasseh
added cruelty; and he shed rivers of innocent blood in Jerusalem. The
Lord being provoked by so many crimes, threatened him by his prophets, I
will blot out Jerusalem as a writing is blotted out of a writing
tablet.” The calamities which God had threatened began toward the
twenty-second year of this impious prince. The king of Assyria sent his
army against him, who, seizing him among the briers and brambles where
he was hid, fettered his hands and feet, and carried him to Babylon, 2
Chron. xxxiii, 11, 12, &c. It was probably Sargon or Esar-haddon, king
of Assyria, who sent Tartan into Palestine, and who taking Azoth,
attacked Manasseh, put him in irons, and led him away, not to Nineveh,
but to Babylon, of which Esar-haddon had become master, and had reunited
the empires of the Assyrians and the Chaldeans. Manasseh, in bonds at
Babylon, humbled himself before God, who heard his prayers, and brought
him back to Jerusalem; and Manasseh acknowledged the hand of the Lord.
Manasseh was probably delivered out of prison by Saosduchin, the
successor of Esar-haddon, 2 Chron. xxxiii, 13, 14, &c. Being returned to
Jerusalem, he restored the worship of the Lord; broke down the altars of
the false gods; abolished all traces of their idolatrous worship; but he
did not destroy the high places: which is the only thing Scripture
reproaches him with, after his return from Babylon. He caused Jerusalem
to be fortified; and he inclosed with a wall another city, which in his
time was erected west of Jerusalem, and which went by the name of the
second city, 2 Chron. xxxiii, 14. He put garrisons into all the strong
places of Judah. Manasseh died at Jerusalem, and was buried in the
garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza, 2 Kings xxi, 18. He was
succeeded by his son Amon.
MANDRAKE, דודאים, Gen. xxx, 14–16; Cant. vii, 13. Interpreters have
wasted much time and pains in endeavouring to ascertain what is intended
by the Hebrew word _dudaim_. Some translate it by violet,” others,
lilies,” jasmines,” truffle or mushroom,” and some think that the word
means flowers,” or fine flowers,” in general. Bochart, Calmet, and Sir
Thomas Browne, suppose the citron intended; Celsius is persuaded that it
is the fruit of the lote tree; Hiller, that cherries are spoken of; and
Ludolf maintains that it is the fruit which the Syrians call mauz,
resembling in figure and taste the Indian fig; but the generality of
interpreters and commentators understand by _dudaim_, mandrakes, a
species of melon; and it is so rendered in the Septuagint, and in both
the Targums, on Gen. xxx, 14. It appears from Scripture, that they were
in perfection about the time of wheat harvest, have an agreeable odour,
may be preserved, and are placed with pomegranates. Hasselquist, the
pupil and intimate friend of Linnæus, who travelled into the Holy Land
to make discoveries in natural history, imagines that the plant commonly
called mandrake, is intended. Speaking of Nazareth, in Galilee, he says,
“What I found most remarkable at this village was the great number of
mandrakes which grew in a vale below it. I had not the pleasure to see
this plant in blossom, the fruit now (May 5th, O. S.) hanging ripe on
the stem, which lay withered on the ground. From the season in which
this mandrake blossoms and ripens fruit, one may form a conjecture that
it was Rachel’s _dudaim_. These were brought her in the wheat harvest,
which in Galilee is in the month of May, about this time, and the
mandrake was now in fruit.”
MANICHÆANS, or MANICHEES, a denomination founded in the latter part of
the third century, by Mani, Manes, or Manichæus. Being a Persian or
Chaldean by birth, and educated among the magi, he attempted a coalition
of their doctrine with the Christian system, or rather, the explication
of the one by the other. Dr. Lardner, so far from taking Mani and his
followers for enthusiasts, as some have done, thinks they erred on the
other side, and were rather a sect of reasoners and philosophers, than
visionaries and enthusiasts. So Faustus, one of their leaders, says, the
doctrine of Mani taught him not to receive every thing recommended as
said by our Saviour, but first to examine and consider whether it be
true, sound, right, genuine; while the Catholics, he says, swallowed
every thing, and acted as if they despised the benefit of human reason,
and were afraid to examine and distinguish between truth and falsehood.
St. Augustine, it is well known, was for some time among this sect; but
they were not pretensions to inspiration, but specious and alluring
promises of rational discoveries, by which Augustine was deluded, as he
particularly states in his letter to his friend Honoratus. So Beausobre
remarks: These heretics were philosophers, who, having formed certain
systems, accommodated revelation to them, which was the servant of their
reason, not the mistress.”
Mani, according to Dr. Lardner, believed in an eternal self-existent
Being, completely happy and perfect in goodness, whom alone he called
God, in a strict and proper sense; but he believed, also, in an evil
principle or being, which he called _hyle_, or the devil, whom he
considered as the god of this world, blinding the eyes of them that
believe not, 2 Cor. iv, 4. God, the supreme and good, they considered as
the Author of the universe; and, according to St. Augustine, they
believed, also, in a consubstantial trinity, though they strangely
supposed the Father to dwell in light inaccessible, the Son to have his
residence in the solar orb, and the Holy Spirit to be diffused
throughout the atmosphere; on which account they paid a superstitious,
and perhaps an idolatrous, reverence to the sun and moon. Their belief
in the evil principle was, no doubt, adopted to solve the mysterious
question of the origin of evil, which, says Dr. Lardner, was the ruin of
these men, and of many others. As to the _hyle_, or the devil, though
they dared not to consider him as the creature of God, neither did they
believe in his eternity; for they contended, from the Greek text of John
viii, 44, that he had a father. But they admitted the eternity of
matter, which they called darkness; and supposed _hyle_ to be the result
of some wonderful and unaccountable commotion in the kingdom of
darkness, which idea seems to be borrowed from the Mosaic chaos. In this
commotion darkness became mingled with light, and thus they account for
good and evil being so mixed together in the world. Having thus brought
_hyle_, or Satan, into being, they next found an empire and employment
for him. Every thing, therefore, which they conceived unworthy of the
fountain of goodness, they attributed to the evil being; particularly
the material world, the Mosaic dispensation, and the Scriptures on which
it was founded. This accounts for their rejecting the Old Testament. Dr.
Lardner contends, however, that they received generally the books of the
New Testament, though they objected to particular passages as corrupted,
which they could not reconcile to their system. On Rom. vii, Mani
founded the doctrine of two souls in man, two active principles; one,
the source and cause of vicious passions, deriving its origin from
matter; the other, the cause of the ideas of just and right, and of
inclinations to follow those ideas, deriving its origin from God.
Considering all sensual enjoyments to be in some degree criminal, they
were enemies to marriage; though, at the same time, knowing that all men
cannot receive this saying, they allowed it to the second class of their
disciples, called auditors; but by no means to the perfect or confirmed
believers. Another absurd consequence of believing the moral evil of
matter was, that they denied the real existence of Christ’s human
nature, and supposed him to suffer and die in appearance only. According
to them, he took the form only of man; a notion that was afterward
adopted by Mohammed, and which necessarily excludes all faith in the
atonement. Construing too literally the assertion that flesh and blood
could not inherit the kingdom of God, they denied the doctrine of the
resurrection. Christ came, they said, to save the souls of men, and not
the bodies. No part of matter, according to them, could be worthy of
salvation. In many leading principles they thus evidently agreed with
the Gnostics, of whom, indeed, they may be considered a branch.