was glad, and he restrained the king, and said, “It is the will of God
that he should live.”
Manasseh reigned in the room of his father, and was a cruel tyrant. He
worshipped idols, and sought to make Isaiah partake in his idolatry. And
when he could not succeed, he sawed him asunder with a saw of wood.
“And whilst Isaiah was being cut asunder, Melekira stood up and accused
him, and all the lying prophets were present, and they showed great joy,
and they mocked him.
“And Belial said to Isaiah: ‘Confess that all thou hast said is false,
and that the ways of Manasseh are good and just.
“‘Confess that the ways of Melekira, and of those that are with him, are
good.’
“He spake thus to him, as the saw entered into his flesh.
“But Isaiah was in an ecstasy, and his eyes were open, and he looked
upon the spectators of his passion.
“Then said Melekira to Isaiah: ‘Confess what I shall say, and I will
change the heart of those who persecute thee, and I will make Manasseh,
and the heads of Judah, and his people, and all Jerusalem, worship
thee.’
“Then Isaiah answered and said: ‘Cursed art thou in all that thou
sayest, and in all thy power, and in all thy disciples!’
“‘Thou canst do nothing against me; all thou canst do is to take from me
this miserable life.’
“Then they seized the prophet, and they sawed him with a saw of wood,
Isaiah, son of Amos.
“And Manasseh and Melekira, and the lying prophets, and the princes of
Israel, and all the people, beheld his execution.
“Now, before that the execution was accomplished, he said to the
prophets who had followed him: ‘Fly to Tyre and Sidon, for the Lord hath
given the cup to me alone.’
“And whilst the saw cut into his flesh, Isaiah uttered no complaint and
shed no tears; but he ceased not to commune with the Holy Spirit till
the saw had cloven him to the middle of his body.”[691]
In the Mishna[692] it is related that the Rabbi Simeon Ben Azai found in
Jerusalem (2nd cent.) a genealogy, wherein it was written that Manasseh
killed Isaiah. Manasseh said to Isaiah, “Moses, thy master, said, There
shall no man see God and live.[693] But thou hast said, I saw the Lord
seated upon His throne.[694] Moses said, What other nation is there so
great, that hath God so nigh unto them?[695] But thou hast said, Seek ye
the Lord while He may be found.”[696]
Isaiah thought, “If I excuse myself, I shall only increase his guilt and
not save myself;” so he answered not a word, but pronounced the
Incommunicable Name, and a cedar-tree opened, and he disappeared within
it. Then Manasseh ordered, and they took the cedar, and sawed it in two
length-ways; and when the saw reached his mouth, he died.
Footnote 690:
Anabasticon, iv. 2-12.
Footnote 691:
Anabasticon, v. 1-14.
Footnote 692:
Tract. Jebammoth, c. 4.
Footnote 693:
Exod. xxxiii. 20.
Footnote 694:
Isai. vi. 1.
Footnote 695:
Deut. iv. 7.
Footnote 696:
Isai. lv. 6.
XLI.
JEREMIAH.
The work entitled _De Vitis Prophetarum_, falsely attributed to S.
Epiphanius, contains some apocryphal details concerning Jeremiah. It is
said that he was stoned at Taphnes in Egypt, in a place where Pharaoh
formerly lived. He was held in great honour by the Egyptians, because of
the service he had rendered them in taming the serpents and crocodiles.
The faithful who take a little dust from the spot where he died, are
able to employ it as a remedy against the bites of serpents, and to
drive away crocodiles.
The prophet announced to the priests and wise men of Egypt that when a
virgin, who had borne a son, should set her foot on Egyptian soil, all
the idols should fall.
Before the destruction of Jerusalem, he hid the ark of the covenant in a
rock, which opened for the purpose, and closed upon it. Then said he to
the princes of the people and to the elders, “The Lord has gone up from
Sinai, but He will come again with His sacred power. And this shall be
the token of His coming,—all nations shall bow before the Wood.”
Then the prophet continued, “None of the priests and prophets shall open
the ark, except Moses, the elect of God; and Aaron shall alone unfold
the tables it contains. At the Resurrection, the ark shall arise out of
the rock first of all, and it shall be placed upon Mount Zion. Then all
the saints will go there and await the Lord, and they will put the enemy
to flight who seeks their destruction.”
Having said these words, he traced with his finger the name of God upon
the rock, and the name remained graven there, as if cut with iron. Then
a cloud descended upon the rock and hid it, and no man has seen it
since. It is in the desert, amongst the mountains, where are the tombs
of Moses and Aaron. At night, a cloud of fire shines above the spot.
XLII.
EZEKIEL.
Ezekiel, whom the Arabs call Kazquil, was the son of an aged couple, who
had no children. They prayed to God, and He gave them a son.
Ezekiel was a prophet, and he exhorted the men of Jerusalem to war, but
they would not go forth to battle. Then God sent a pestilence, and there
died of them every day very many. So, fearing death, a million fled from
the city, hoping to escape the pestilence, but the wrath of God overtook
them, and they fell dead.
Then those who survived in the city went forth to bury them, but they
were too numerous; therefore they built a wall round the corpses to
protect them from the beasts of the field; and thus they lay exposed to
the heat and cold for many years, till the flesh had rotted off their
bones.
Once the prophet Ezekiel came that way, and he saw this great multitude
of dead and dry bones. He prayed, and God restored them to life again,
and they stood upon their feet, a great army, and entered into the city,
and lived out the rest of their days. It is said that among the Jews
there are, to this day, descendants of those who were resuscitated, and
they may be recognized by the corpse-like odour they exhale.[697]
The Jews relate that a celebrated Rabbi found the greatest difficulty in
comprehending the Book of Ezekiel; therefore his disciples prepared for
him three hundred tuns of oil to feed his lamp whilst he studied at
night the visions of the prophet.[698]
Footnote 697:
Tabari, i. c. 83.
Footnote 698:
Bartolocci, i. p. 848.
XLIII.
EZRA.
Cyrus, in the year 537 before Christ, put an end to the captivity of the
Jews in Babylon, as had been foretold by Daniel; and not only did he
permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem, but he furnished them with the
means of rebuilding their city and temple. The Oriental writers, to
explain the motive of Cyrus, say that his mother was a Jewess, and that
he himself was married to the Jewess Maschat, sister of Zerubbabel, a
granddaughter of the king Jehoiakim.
In 523 before Christ, Cambyses, having reigned a brief time, was
succeeded by Smerdis, the Magian, who is called, in the Scriptures,
Artaxerxes. He, being ill-disposed towards the Jews, withdrew from them
the gifts made by Cyrus, and arrested their work. Smerdis, however,
reigned only two years, and was succeeded by Darius Hystaspes, who
continued the work of Cyrus, by the hands of Ezra or Esdras, one of the
instruments used by God to restore His people.
Ezra was the son of Seraiah, of the lineage of Aaron.
In the Koran[699] it is said that Ezra, passing through a village near
Jerusalem, whose houses were ruined, exclaimed, “Can God restore these
waste places, and revive the inhabitants?”
Then God made him die; and he remained dead for one hundred years. At
the end of that time God revived him, and he saw the village rebuilt,
and full of busy people.
The commentators on the Koran say that Ezra (Ozaïr), when young, had
been taken away captive by Nebuchadnezzar, but that he was delivered
miraculously from prison, and returned to Jerusalem, which he found in
ruins. He halted at a village near the city, named Sair-Abad. Its houses
were fallen and without inhabitants, but the fig-tree and vines remained
in the gardens. Ezra collected the fruit, and made himself a little cell
out of the fallen stones. And he kept near him the ass on which he had
ridden.
The holy man, on contemplating from his hermitage the ruins of the holy
city and the temple, wept bitterly before the Lord, and said often with
a tone rather of lament than doubt, “How can the walls of Jerusalem ever
be set up again?”
Then God bade him die, and hid him from the eyes of men, in his cell,
with all that he had about him, his fruit, his mat, and his ass. At the
close of a century God revived him, and he found all as when he had
died; the ass standing, and the fruit unwithered. Then Ezra saw the
works that had been executed in Jerusalem, how the walls were being set
up, and the breaches repaired, and he said, “God is Almighty; He can do
whatsoever pleaseth Him!”
After his resurrection, he went into the holy city, and spent night and
day in explaining to the people the Law, as he remembered it. But it had
been forgotten by the Jews, and therefore they disregarded his
instruction.
The Iman Thalebi says, that the Jews, to test the mission of Ezra,
placed five pens in his hand, and with each he wrote at the same moment
with like facility as if he held only one; and he wrote all the Books of
the Sacred Canon, as he drew them from his memory, without the
assistance of a book.
The Jews, however, said amongst themselves, “How can we be sure that
what Ezra has written is the true sacred text, since there is none
amongst us who can bear witness?”
Then one of them said, “I have heard say that my grandfather preserved a
copy of the sacred books, and that they were hidden by him in a hollow
rock, which he marked so that it might be recognized again.”
They therefore sought the place which had been marked, and there they
found a volume containing the Scriptures, which having been compared
with what Ezra had written, it was found that the agreement was exact.
Then the people, astonished at the miracle, cried out that Ezra was a
god.[700]
At the time of carrying away into Babylon, the sacred fire had been cast
into a well in the temple court. Ezra, having drawn some of the dirt out
of the well, placed on it the wood of the sacrifice; then the flame,
which for a hundred and forty years had been extinguished, burst forth
again out of the mire. When Ezra saw this wonder, he thrice drank of the
dust out of the well; and thus he imbibed the prophetic spirit, and the
power of recomposing from memory the lost sacred books.[701]
Footnote 699:
Sura, ii.
Footnote 700:
Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, iii. p. 89.
Footnote 701:
Abulfaraj, p. 57.
XLIV.
ZECHARIAH.
Sozomen[702] relates that the prophet Zechariah appeared to Colomeras, a
farmer of the village of Chupher, in Palestine, and revealed to him his
tomb; and on excavations having been made on the spot, an ancient Hebrew
book was discovered, which, however, was not regarded as canonical.
Nicephoras repeats the story after Sozomen.[703]
Footnote 702:
Hist. Eccles. lib. ix. cap. ult.
Footnote 703:
Ibid., lib. xiv. c. 8.
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are
referenced.