Subdivision 3.—Yaçna, Chapter XII. (continued 3)

An anonymous prophet, contemporary with Isaiah, stands next in order of time. He is the author of Zechariah ix.-xi. inclusive, and of Zechariah chap. xiii. ver. 7-9 (P. A. B., vol i. p. 247 ff.). These chapters contain the first distinct announcement of the advent of the Messiah, who is described in the famous prediction of a King coming to Jerusalem on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass. Here too we find the curious allegory of the two staves, Beauty and Bands, whereof one was broken by the prophet in token of the breach of his covenant with all the nations; the other, in token of the rupture of fraternal relations between Israel and Judah. In the course of this allegory, the prophet demands his price, thirty pieces of silver, and throws it into the temple treasure; a passage which, by an accidental obscurity in the Hebrew, has been mistranslated as referring, not to the treasure, but to "the potter in the house of Lord," and then misapplied to the betrayal of Christ and the purchase of the potter's field.

In the concluding words of this prophet it is announced that two-thirds of the people will perish, but that the remaining third will, after refining and trial, be accepted by God as his own people.

We enter now upon the consideration of a prophet who stands in the foremost rank of those distinguished leaders of opinion whose works have been included in the Canon. There is no greater name among the prophets of Israel than that of Isaiah. But in speaking of Isaiah we must not fall into the confusion of including under his writings the compositions of a prophet of far later date, which have been mistakenly bound up with his. Isaiah himself cannot receive credit for all that is published in his name. But that which he has actually left us is enough to entitle him to admiration as a master of rhetoric.

Isaiah lived in the reign of Hezekiah, and enjoyed a position of high public consideration. Some of his prophetic sayings he wrote down soon after he had uttered them; others not till long after. He had begun to come forward as a prophet in the last year of the reign of Uzziah. When he had labored a long time in his vocation of teacher, he determined to collect his sayings in a book. His oldest work was written about the year 740 B. C., just after the accession of the young and weak Ahaz at Jerusalem, when the Assyrians had rendered the northern kingdom tributary but had not yet come to Judea. His second was written apparently in the reign of Hezekiah, in 724; and his third in the days of the same king, when the service of Jehovah had been restored. Such at least are the conclusions of the highest living authority on the literature of the Hebrew race (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 271 ff.).

The earliest stratum discernible (according to that authority) in the Book of Isaiah is from chap. ii. 2 to chap. v. inclusive, and chap ix. 7-x. 4. The last five verses of chap. v. should not be taken along with the rest of the chapter, but should follow upon chap. x. 4 (Ibid., vol. i. p. 286 ff.). These passages begin with a beautiful description of the happiness of the Israelites in the days of their coming glory, when the mountain of the Lord's house will be established on the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills; and when all nations will flow to it, to worship and to learn the true faith. It is remarkable as evidence of the wide distinction between the view of Joel and that of Isaiah, that Isaiah exactly reverses the image of his predecessor, declaring that swords will be beaten into plough-shares and spears into pruning-hooks. Joel was looking to the necessities of the immediate present; Isaiah to the prospects of the future. These chapters also contain an amusing ironical account of the finery of the Jerusalem ladies, which might apply with slight alterations to the rich women of all ages and countries. No doubt it was very offensive to Isaiah that they should go about with necks erect and wanton eyes, walking with a mincing gait; but a prophet who should threaten the women of London or Paris with scab on the head and the exposure of their persons on account of sins like these, would certainly bring more reprobation on himself than on them. But manners in Isaiah's days were not so delicate. A time is predicted when Jehovah will wash away the filth of Zion's daughters, and when all in Jerusalem shall be called holy.

In the second part of his book (chap. vi. 1, chap. ix. 6, and chap. xvii. 1-11) Isaiah gives an interesting, though only figurative, account of his consecration to the prophetic office. In the year of King Uzziah's death he says he saw the Lord sitting on his throne with a train so long as to fill the temple. When he cried out that he was undone, for that he, a man of unclean lips, had seen the King, the Lord of hosts, a seraph flew up to him with a live coal in a pair of tongs, laid the coal on his mouth, and told him that his iniquity was now taken away and his sin purged. After this the voice of the Lord was heard inquiring whom he should send, and Isaiah offered to take the post of his ambassador: "Here am I, send me." The proposal was accepted, and he at once received his instructions from headquarters. The prophet began to preach in the manner desired, and among much discouraging matter he uttered the magnificent description of the Messiah, which is familiar to all:—

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

Isaiah's third work (composed in the reign of Hezekiah) begins at the first chapter of the canonical book. It opens with a pathetic lamentation over the infidelity of the children of Israel to their God, and proceeds at chap. xiv. 28 to recount a "burden" which came in the death-year of King Ahaz. A prophecy by which a much older prophet (belonging, as is supposed, to the time of Joel) is embodied in "the burden of Moab," and extends through chap. xv. and chap. xvi. 7-12, after which Isaiah, having mentioned that this was formerly the word of the Lord about Moab, proceeds to say that his present word is that within three years the glory of Moab shall be contemned. The latter part of chap. xxi. (ver. 11-17), dealing with Dumah and Arabia, also belongs to this period.

Further divisions are distinguishable in the writings of Isaiah after these three parts have been separated from the rest. Thus, we have a fourth division consisting of the 22d and 23d chapters, and containing a personal attack on Shebna and a prediction of the fall of Tyre. A fifth division, from chap. xxviii. to xxxii. inclusive, ends with a beautiful description of the happier time that is to come, when the fruit of justice will be peace, and the result of justice quietness and security, when the people will dwell in sure habitations and untroubled abodes. There is another writing, the sixth in order, which begins at chap. x. 5, and extends, in the first instance, to the end of chap. xii. This prophecy is remarkable, even in this eloquent book, for the marvelous eloquence with which, in his visions of future glory, the inspired seer depicts the government of the "rod out of the stem of Jesse," the "Branch" that is to "grow out of his roots," in whose reign the wild beasts will no longer persecute their prey, nor Ephraim and Judah keep up the memory of their ancient feud; who will cause his beloved people to put the Philistines to flight, to conquer Edom and Moab, and reduce the children of Ammon to submission. Prophecies directed against Ethiopia and Egypt (chap. xvii. 12-xviii. 7, and chap. xx.) belong to the same portion of Isaiah's collected works. Threats against the Assyrians are contained in additional chapters, namely, chap. xxxiii. and chap. xxxvii. 22-35. Lastly, a seventh portion of Isaiah consists of chap. xix., which, after holding out the prospect of great misfortunes to Egypt, ends in a somewhat unusual strain by admitting both Egyptians and Assyrians to be equal sharers with the Israelites in the ultimate prosperity of the earth, and declaring that the Lord himself will bless them all, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance."

It should be noted that, if Ewald's supposition be correct, the first four sections of the work, thus decomposed into its several constituents, were edited by Isaiah himself, while the fifth, sixth, and seventh were added by subsequent compilers to the collection he had left behind (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 488).

A very short prophecy called by Obadiah's name follows upon the genuine writings of Isaiah in chronological order. It is in fact anonymous. In its present form it belongs to the time of the Captivity. The object of the unknown prophet was to reprove the Idumeans for rejoicing in and profiting by the destruction of Jerusalem. In his writing he embodied an older prophecy by the actual Obadiah, referring to a calamity that had befallen Edom, when a part of its territory had been surprised and completely plundered by a people with whom it had just been in alliance. The same old piece was used by Jeremiah (chap. xlix. 7) in his prophecy upon Edom (Ib., vol. i. p. 489 ff.).

Micah, the next prophet, was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, but lived in the country. When he wrote the northern kingdom was approaching its end, and he threatens Judah with chastisement and destruction. He foresaw the fulfillment of Messianic hopes as arising only from the ruin of the existing order of things. No more than the first five chapters are by Micah himself (Ib., vol. i. p. 498 ff.). His book is remarkable for the extremely warlike description he gives of Messianic happiness. Many other prophets conceive it as an important element in that happiness that the Israelites shall be victorious over their enemies; but few, if any, have come up to Micah in the fervor with which he foretells the desolation, the carnage, the utter suppression of rival nations, which will accompany that age. The author of the scenes of blood will be the ruler who is to come from Bethlehem-Ephratah. The prophet who has added the last two chapters also looks forward to an age when Jehovah will at length perform his promises to Abraham and Jacob, to the terror of the unbelieving nations.

Next after Micah stands Nahum. The occasion of his prophecy was a hostile attack directed against Nineveh. He must have seen the danger with his own eyes, and he was therefore a descendant of one of the Israelites who had been carried off to Assyria. He evidently lived far from Palestine, and was familiar with Assyrian affairs. Elkosh, where the inscription places his residence, was a little town on the Tigris. His book may refer to the siege of Nineveh by the Median king Phraortes about six hundred and thirty-six (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 1). The interest of Nahum's prophecy is merely local; he does not rise beyond the politics of the hour, and we need not therefore stop to examine his utterances in detail. It may be noted, however, that an expression which has become famous through its adoption by a much later prophet, "Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace," is first found in Nahum.

Zephaniah's prophecy arose out of a great movement of nations. He lived in the reign of Josiah, but wrote before the reformation effected by that monarch. The movement alluded to by him must have been the great irruption of the Scythians mentioned by Herodotus as having interrupted the siege of Nineveh by Kyaxares, King of the Medes (Herod., i. 103). These last days of the Assyrian kingdom gave rise to long disturbances in which the Chaldeans became conquerors (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 14). After various threatenings against divers people, the prophecy of Zephaniah ends with a beautiful vision of the age to come, when the suppliants of Jehovah will come from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; and when a virtuous and happy remnant will be left in Israel.

When Habakkuk, the next prophet, wrote his thoughts, and composed the public prayer or psalm which forms his concluding chapter, the Chaldeans were already in the land. This "bitter and hasty nation" was quite a new phenomenon there. Habakkuk lived after the reformation of Josiah, and therefore in the reign of Jehoiakim (Ib., vol. ii. p. 29). He seems to have written to plead with the Almighty for deliverance, and to express unabated confidence in him; and he hoped that his words, set to music and sung in public worship, would induce him to abate his anger as manifested in the Chaldean scourge.

An anonymous prophet (Ib., vol. ii. p. 52) (Zechariah xiii. 1-xiii. 6, and xiv.) predicts the siege and capture of Jerusalem, with all the miserable incidents of conquest: the rifling of her houses, the ravishing of her women, the condemnation to captivity of half her inhabitants. Like other prophets, however, he looks forward in sanguine anticipation to a day when the heathen nations who now make war upon Jerusalem will regularly go up there every year to worship Jehovah, and keep the feast of tabernacles. At least if any of them do not, they will have no rain. In that glorious age the very pots in the Lord's house will be like the bowls for offerings; nay, every pot in Judah and Jerusalem will be holy to the Lord of hosts.

We pass now to the consideration of a prophet who stands second in eminence only to Isaiah, and to the unknown author of the later work which in the Canon is included in the Book of Isaiah. Jeremiah began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and continued to do so during the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. His active life, like that of Isaiah, extended over a period of half a century (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 63 ff.). It is noteworthy that Jeremiah was a priest, and therefore combined in his person the double qualification of consecration and of exceptional holiness: that is, he was consecrated to Jehovah, and also appointed expressly by Jehovah. The manner of his appointment to be a holy person resembles the manner of the appointment of Isaiah. The word of the Lord came to him, saying, that before God had formed him in the belly he had known him, and before he had come forth from the womb he had sanctified him, and ordained him a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah objected that he was but a child. But Jehovah told him not to say he was a child, for that he was to go where he was sent, and speak what he was commanded. He was not to be afraid of men's faces, for he, the Lord, would deliver him. Then he touched Jeremiah's mouth with his hand, and said: "Behold, I put my words in thy mouth. See, I appoint thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant." After this solemn dedication to his duties Jeremiah was certainly endowed with the fullest qualifications for the prophetic office. He immediately began to see images; namely, a rod of an almond-tree and a seething pot, and it continued afterwards to be one of his characteristics to employ material imagery of this nature for the purpose of illustrating the truths he had to communicate.

After this introduction, we have a long section of the work, namely, from the second chapter to the twenty-fourth, beginning with the prophecies of the thirteenth year of Josiah. Among other things this portion includes Jeremiah's bitter imprecation upon his personal enemies, the "men of Anathoth," on whom he begs to be permitted to witness the vengeance of God, and concerning whom he receives the consoling assurance that their young men will die by the sword, and their sons and daughters by famine, and that there will not be a remnant left. This section contains also the terrible prayer against those who "devised devices" against Jeremiah, in other words, did not believe in his predictions. In its intense intolerance, in its unblushing disclosure of private malignity, in its unscrupulous enumeration of the ills desired for these opponents of the prophet, it is perhaps unrivaled in theological literature. To do Jeremiah justice it ought to be quoted at length:—

"Give heed to me, O Jehovah, and listen to the voice of my opponents. Shall evil be recompensed for good, that they dig a pit for my life? Remember how I stood before thee, to speak a good word for them, to turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore give their sons to famine, and deliver them into the power of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children and widowed, and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou suddenly bringest troops upon them; for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. Yet thou, Jehovah, knowest all their counsel against me to slay me; and blot not out their sin from thy sight, and let them be overthrown before thee; deal with them in the time of thine anger" (Jer. xviii. 19-23).

In another chapter there is a curious account of an incident with Pashur, superintendent of the Temple, who had caused Jeremiah to be put in stocks for a day. Jeremiah complains bitterly of the treatment he meets with on account of his prophesying, and wishes to resign the office, but the impulse proves too strong for him. He consoles himself with a pious hope that Jehovah will let him see his vengeance on his enemies (Jer. xx. 1-12). He continues to predict misfortunes, but intermingles with his gloomier forebodings a fine vision of the time when God shall gather together the remnant of his flock from the countries to which he has driven them, and raise up "a righteous Branch" of the house of David, who will reign and prosper, who will execute justice and equity, in whose days Judah will be saved, and Israel dwell secure (Jer. xxiii. 2-6).

In a third section of his work (chap. xlvi. 1-12, and chap. xlvii. 49) Jeremiah deals with foreign nations, and then (in chap. xxv.) declares that he has been prophesying a long time without being able to get the Jews to listen to him, foretells their subjugation by Nebuchadnezzar, and (rather unfortunately for his own and Jehovah's reputation for correct foresight) commits himself to the definite term of seventy years as the duration of the coming captivity. A wise prophet would have kept within the safe region of vagueness, where he could not come into collision with awkward dates nor drive orthodox interpreters into such pitiable straits as those in which Ewald, for example, finds himself, when he is compelled to say that seventy years is a perfectly general indication of a future that cannot be more precisely fixed, and that it merely refers to the third generation from the writer (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 230). The remainder of this section (chap. xxvi.-xxix.) relates certain encounters with other prophets whose predictions had turned out false, and one of whom, as Jeremiah exultingly relates, died during the year, exactly as Jeremiah had declared he would. Interesting evidence is supplied by these chapters of the existence of numerous prophets who differed from each other, and between whose claims only the event could decide.

In the fourth section (chap. xxx.-xxxv.) Jeremiah prophesies the restoration of Israel, and tells his readers how he bought a field from his cousin on the strength of his hopes that the captivity would have an end. A fifth part (chaps. xxxvi., xlv.) relates to Baruch, Jeremiah's secretary; and an appendix (chap. xxxvii.-xliv., and chap. xlvi. 13-28) contains historical matter, and predictions about Egypt, but concludes with the usual promise of the ultimate return of the Jewish nation to its ancestral home.

The last chapter of Jeremiah is purely historical, and, like the historical portions of Isaiah, need not be considered under the prophets; but it must be noted that chaps. l. and li. are not by Jeremiah, being the work of a much later writer, who lived in Palestine, and who composed them to show that the words of the genuine Jeremiah were fulfilled in the destruction of Babylon by the Medes, which was taking place at this time (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 140 ff.). The small Book of Lamentations over the unhappy fate of Jerusalem, ascribed to Jeremiah, is an artistic attempt to embody the grief of the writer in a song of which each verse begins with a new letter, in alphabetical order.

We pass now to the prophet Ezekiel, a Jew who was taken into captivity with Jehoiachin, and lived at a small town of Mesopotamia. He felt the first prophetic impulses in the fifth year of the Captivity (Ib., vol. ii. p. 322 ff.). At this time the heavens were opened; he saw visions, and the word of the Lord came expressly to him. Such was the nature of his consecration. The first section of Ezekiel extends from chap. i. to xxiv., and contains utterances about Israel before the destruction of Jerusalem. The second section (chap. xxv.-xxxii.) deals with foreign nations, and the third (chap. xxxiii.-xlviii.) holds out promises of restoration.

Ezekiel is very inferior to his great predecessors, Isaiah and Jeremiah. He has neither the fervid, manly oratory of the first nor the pathetic, though rather soft and feminine flow of the second. He takes pleasure in rather coarse images, such as that of the bread baked with human dung (Ezek. iv), that of Jehovah with his two concubines, who bore him sons and vexed him with their licentious conduct (Ezek. xxiii), or that of the child whose navel was not cut, who grew up into a woman, over whom Jehovah spread his skirt and covered her nakedness (Ezek. xvi. 8). And in general, Ezekiel is particularly prone to teaching by means of similes and illustrations. Sometimes he sees visions in which God explains his meaning; at other times he acts in a manner which is designed to be typical of coming events. Thus, on one occasion, he openly brings out his furniture for removal, as a sign to the rebellious house of Israel (Ezek. xii. 1-7).

As in Jeremiah, so in Ezekiel we find traces of hostility towards rival prophets, whom he denounces in no measured terms. It is interesting, too, to observe that there were female prophets in his day, who prophesied out of their own hearts. To them also he conveys the reprobation of the Almighty (Ezek. xiii). The form in which he looks forward to the restoration of Israel and Judah to their homes, is somewhat different from that in which it was expected by his predecessors. In a very singular vision, he relates that his God took him into a valley which was full of bones, and told him that these were the bones of the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel is then informed that God will open the graves of the dead, and cause these bones to live again, and will bring them to the land of Israel. Afterwards, he is told to join two sticks into one, this junction representing the future union of Ephraim and Judah, who are to be gathered from among the heathen, and are to form one nation governed by one king. That king is to be David, who will be their prince forever. God will make an everlasting covenant of peace with them, and put his sanctuary in their midst for evermore. Here the resurrection of the dead, and the return of David, instead of the appearance of a new king, are peculiar features.

An anonymous prophet is supposed to have written Isaiah xxi. 1-10, and another Isaiah xiii. 2-xiv. 23, the latter referring to Babylon, and containing the imaginary exultation of the restored Israelites over the fallen Babylonians. After these fragments we have the work of one who is perhaps the greatest of all the prophets, but who also is unknown to us by name. As the most fitting description we may perhaps call him the anonymous prophet. The whole of the latter portion of Isaiah, from chap. xl. to the end, is his work. The anonymous prophet lived in Egypt. His peculiar conception was that Israel was the servant of the Lord for the peace and the salvation of nations, as Kyros was his servant in war (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 20 ff.). Alike in beauty of language and sublimity of thought he is supreme among the writers of the Hebrew Bible. He is the prophet of sorrow: yet also the prophet of consolation. Whether by a curious accident, or whether by virtue of a tendency (not uncommon among truly great writers) to withdraw his personality from observation and confine himself wholly to the message he had to deliver, he tells us nothing of himself. Hence he has for centuries been hidden behind the figure of Isaiah, whom nevertheless he surpasses in the purity of his ideal. To him we owe the beautiful passage beginning "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," with the description afterwards applied by Jesus Christ to John the Baptist. From him also we have the most exalted conceptions of the Messiah, the moral element in his character being raised as compared with the element of material power, to a height hitherto unexampled in prophetic vision. Take, for instance, this description of his mildness combined with indomitable perseverance:—

"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench; he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law" (Is. xlii. 2-4).

It is the anonymous prophet, too, who has given us the familiar passage, "He is despised and rejected of men;" a passage describing the career of a great man whose teachings involved him in persecution and ultimately in martyrdom, but nowise applicable to the Messiah. That a historical incident, known to the writer, is alluded to in this touching account of suffering goodness, admits of no reasonable doubt.

The anonymous prophet is preëminently the prophet of consolation. Living in the days of Kyros and of the restoration of the Temple, he had the elements of soothing speech ready to his hand; and as his predecessors had prophesied destruction and woe, occasionally varied with strains of hope, so he prophesies in strains of hope, occasionally varied with sterner language. It is his especial mission to heal the wounds that have been made in the spirit of Judah. God had indeed forsaken her for a while; but he will now take her back as a deserted wife, who had suffered her punishment. He had hidden his face in a little wrath for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will he now have mercy upon her (Is. liv. 5-7). The concluding chapter of the anonymous prophet contains a magnificent description of the ultimate gathering of all nations and tongues, when Jerusalem will be the central point of human worship, and the glory of God will be seen by all. The picture is not indeed unmingled with darker shades, for great numbers are to be destroyed by Jehovah in his indignation. On the other hand, there is a trait exhibiting the superiority of this prophet to his predecessors in toleration for the Gentiles: namely, the remarkable prediction that some of them also are to be priests and Levites (Is. lxvi. 12-24). The man who could utter this sentiment had made a signal advance upon the ordinary narrow and exclusive notions of the prerogatives of the Jewish race.

It was mentioned that the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah were added by a later hand. The same hand (in Ewald's opinion) composed the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, of which the second describes in very eloquent terms the coming glory, when "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Is. xxxv. 10). Another unknown writer (Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii.) predicts in the first place the desolation which the Lord is about to effect, and then the happiness of the Jews who will be brought to their own land again, to worship Jehovah in the holy mount at Jerusalem. One of his expressions, "He will swallow up death in victory," has been adopted by St. Paul; another, "The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces," by the author of the Apocalypse.

The interest of Haggai's prophecy is purely special: it refers to the building of the temple at Jerusalem in the reign of Darius. It was the unexpected obstacles by which the building was hindered that kindled his zeal; he made his five speeches in three months of the same year. Probably he had not seen the first temple, and he left his prophetic work to his younger contemporary Zechariah (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 177 ff.).

Zechariah also lived in the time of Darius, and dealt principally with the building of the temple (Ib., vol. iii. p. 187 ff.). A series of visions which he professes to see shows how his mind was running upon this absorbing theme; and he even expects the Messiah, whom Isaiah and Jeremiah had called a Branch of David, and whom he more emphatically terms the Branch, to appear at the head of affairs and to carry the works to their completion (Zech., 8, and vi. 12). He supposes that he will then sit and rule upon his throne; a priest will be beside him, and there will be a counsel of peace between these two—the monarch and his ecclesiastical minister (Zech., vi. 13).

It was probably more than half a century later that the short book bearing the title of Malachi was written. The true name of its author is unknown, and that of Malachi, my messenger, was taken by its editor from the first verse of the third chapter (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 214 ff.). He is not a prophet of a high calibre, as is shown by his denunciation, already quoted, of those among the Jews who offered Jehovah their least valuable cattle. Nor is his conception of the Messianic epoch in any way comparable to that of the great prophets whose works he might have studied. He says indeed that the Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings; but it appears that this healing is to consist in the Israelites treading down the wicked, who will be as dust under their feet. He concludes by announcing the return of Elijah, before "the great and dreadful day of the Lord," and says, in his threatening tone, that this prophet will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers, lest God should come and smite the earth with a curse.

The Book of Jonah, which may have been written in the fifth or sixth century B. C. (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 233 ff.), is a story with a moral rather than a prophecy. Jonah was desired by Jehovah to preach against Nineveh, but fled from his duty, and took passage in the ship to Tarshish, duly paying his fare. However, when a storm arose, Jonah knew that it was sent as a penalty for his disobedience, and told the sailors to throw him overboard. This they did, but he was swallowed alive by a large fish prepared for the purpose, and remained within it three days. By this lesson he was prepared to execute God's commands, and was accordingly thrown up by the fish on dry land. He preached to the people of Nineveh, as desired, the coming destruction of their city; but when they repented, Jehovah changed his mind, much to the annoyance of his prophet, who represented that his unfortunate tendency to clemency was the very reason why he had not wished to enter his service. But Jehovah, by causing him to regret the destruction of a gourd which had sheltered him, showed him that there would be much more reason to spare so large a city as Nineveh, which contained, not only a vast population, but also a great deal of cattle.

If Malachi and Jonah stand in unfavorable contrast to the works composed during the golden age of Hebrew literature, Daniel, the latest book of the Old Testament, represents the complete degeneracy of prophecy. It is from beginning to end artificial; professing to be written at one time and by an author whose name and personality are given; in reality written at another time, and by an author whose name and personality are concealed. Hence it contains pseudo-prophecies, which are comparatively clear, extending from the imagined date of the supposed prophet to the actual date of the real prophet; and it contains genuine prophecies which are obscure, and which extend from the actual date into the actual future. It contains also much that relates to the politics of the day, and which, for obvious reasons, is cast into an enigmatic form. Daniel was written about the year B. C. 168, a little before the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the allusions to that monarch are of course made under the veil of prophecy, in a style designed to be intelligible, without being direct. The predictions of the eleventh chapter refer to the wars of the Syrian and Egyptian kings, and especially to Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the "vile person" mentioned in the twenty-first verse. The purpose of the work was to set an example of fidelity to Jehovah to the powerful Jews who were connected with the Syrian court, and especially to the younger members of the great Jewish families, who were in danger of being corrupted by its seductions (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 298 ff.).

The form chosen to effect the writer's object is autobiographical. In this way he was able to utter his political views—which, directly expressed, would have been dangerous to his safety—under the guise of sentiments uttered by Daniel, the fictitious narrator of the story. Daniel was taken as a captive child along with other children of Jewish race to serve at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, and remained at the Chaldean court until the death of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, and the subjugation of his empire by the Medes and Persians. He continued to hold an honorable position at the Persian court under Darius and Kyros. He first rose to distinction by relating and interpreting to Nebuchadnezzar a dream which the king had himself forgotten. Thus, from being a mere page he rose to be a sort of astrologer royal. His life was not, however, free from trouble. Among the children who had been brought with him from Judea he had three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, whom the Chaldeans called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When Daniel had successfully interpreted the king's dream, he contrived to obtain lucrative situations in the province of Babylon for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But these three having refused to worship a golden image which the king had set up in that province were by the king's orders cast into a burning fiery furnace, heated beyond its usual temperature. But though they fell bound in the midst of it, they were not burnt, and were seen walking about at their ease in it, accompanied by a fourth, who looked like the Son of Man (Dan. iii).

It is remarkable that a precisely similar prodigy occurred in one of the innumerable previous existences of the Buddha Sakyamuni. He was at this time the son and heir of a great king, and to prove his devotion to the true doctrine he literally obeyed the instructions of a Brahman, who desired him to fill a ditch ten yards deep with glowing coals and jump into it. On this condition the Brahman had consented to teach him the holy doctrine. Resisting all entreaties to preserve his life, the prince caused the pool of fire to be prepared and leapt into it without shrinking for a moment. On the instant it was converted into a basin of flowers, and he appeared sitting on a lotus-flower in its midst, while the gods caused a rain of flowers, that rose knee-deep to fall upon the assembled people (G. O. M., p. 14).

Nor is this the only other example of a wise discrimination being exercised by the fiery element. During the reign of the Indian king Asoka, who in the early part of his career was ferocious and irreligious, the public executioner enjoyed the singular privilege of being entitled to retain in his house every one, whatever his position or character, who might cross the threshold of his door. Now the outside of the executioner's house was beautiful and attractive, though within it was full of instruments of torture, with which he inflicted on his victims the punishments of hell. One day a holy monk, named Samudra, arriving at this apparently charming house, entered it, but on discovering the nature of its interior wished to make his exit. But it was too late. The executioner had seen him, and told him that he must die. After seven days' respite, he threw the monk into an iron caldron filled with water mixed with loathsome materials, and kindled a fire below it. But the fire would not burn. Far from experiencing any pain, the holy man appeared calmly seated on a lotus. The executioner having informed Asoka of this fact, the king arrived with a suite of thousands of persons. Seeing this crowd, the monk darted into the air, and there produced miraculous appearances. The king, struck by the extraordinary sight, requested the ascetic to say who he was, declaring that he honored him as a disciple. Samudra, perceiving that the moment had arrived at which the king was to receive the grace of instruction in the law, replied that he was a son of Buddha, that merciful Being, and that he was delivered from the bonds of existence. "And thou, O great king, thy advent was predicted by Bhagavat, when he said: A hundred years after I shall have entered into complete Nirvâna, there will be in the town of Pataliputtra a king called Asoka, a king ruling over the four quarters of the world, a just king, who will distribute my relics," and so forth. He proceeded to point out to Asoka the wickedness of establishing a house of torment like that he was in, and entreated him to give security to the beings who implored his compassion. Hereupon the king accepted the law of Buddha, and determined to cover the earth with monuments for his relics. But when the royal party were about to leave the place, the executioner had the audacity to remind Asoka of his promise that no one who had once entered his doors might ever go out. "What," cried Asoka, "do you wish then to put me also to death?" "Yes," replied the man. On this he was seized and thrown into the torture-room, where he died in the flames, and his house was destroyed (H. B. I., p. 365-372).

Daniel himself met with an adventure of the same perilous nature as that which had befallen his three friends, though under another government. Darius, by the advice of some counselors who desired to destroy Daniel, had made an order that no one should ask a petition of any god or man save himself for thirty days. But Daniel of course continued to worship Jehovah as before, and was sentenced in the terms of the edict to be thrown into a lions' den. But the lions would no more eat Daniel than the fire would burn his co-religionists; and just as Asoka, when he had witnessed the escape of the ascetic, worshiped Buddha, so Darius, having discovered Daniel uninjured in the lions' den, immediately ordered that in all parts of his dominions people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel (Dan. vi).

Of the prophecies contained in this book the most remarkable is that concerning the Messiah, who is announced as destined to come at a time fixed by a mystical calculation expressed in weeks. The object of the writer was to fix a date for the Messiah's appearance, without expressing himself in such unambiguous terms as would be universally understood. Such is the true method of prophecy in all religions, for a prophet who utters his forecast of the future in such a manner as to render his meaning unmistakable, exposes himself to the hazardous possibility that the event in history may turn out altogether unlike the event foretold.

Subdivision 5.—The God of Israel.

One great question has hitherto been left untreated—that of the theology and morals of the Hebrew Bible. Theology and morals are so intimately blended in its pages that the one can scarcely be discussed without involving the other. The character of Jehovah is the pattern of morality; his will is its fundamental law; his actions its exemplification. Hence to consider the character of Jehovah is of necessity to consider also the Hebrew notions of ethics; while to inquire into the Hebrew standard of ethics is to enquire into the commands of Jehovah. Let us try then to ascertain what manner of deity Jehovah is. To do so, our best course will be to select the salient features of his history, as related by the sacred writers.

Now, at the very outset of his proceedings we observe that he takes up towards mankind a very definite attitude: that of a superior entitled to demand implicit obedience. Whether the fact that he was man's creator justified so extensive a claim it is needless in this place to discuss. Suffice it that he had the power to enforce under the severest penalties the submission he demanded. But it might have been expected that a divine being, who assumed such unlimited rights over a race so vastly his inferiors in knowledge and in strength, should at least exercise them with discretion and moderation. It might have been expected that where he claimed obedience it would be with a view to the well-being of his creatures; not merely as an arbitrary exercise of his enormous power. What, on the contrary, is the conduct he pursued? His very first act after he had created Adam and Eve and placed them in Paradise was to forbid them, under penalty of death, to eat the fruit of a certain tree which grew in their garden. There is not even a vestige of a pretense in the narrative that the fruit of this tree would in itself, and apart from the divine prohibition, have done them any harm. Quite the contrary; the fact of eating it enlarged their faculties; making them like gods, who know good and evil. And Jehovah was afraid that they might, after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, eat also that of the tree of life, after which he would be unable to kill them. So that it was his deliberate purpose in issuing this injunction to keep mankind feeble, ignorant and dependent. Nor is this by any means the whole extent of his misconduct. One of two charges he cannot escape. Either he knew when he created Adam and Eve that their nature was such that they would disobey, or he did not. In the first case, he knowingly formed them liable to fall, knowingly placed them amid conditions which rendered their fall inevitable; and then punished them for the catastrophe he had all along foreseen as the necessary result of the character he had bestowed upon them. In the second case, he was ignorant and shortsighted, being unable to guess what would be the nature of his own handiwork; and should not have meddled with tasks which were obviously beyond the scope of his faculties. And even in this latter case, the most favorable one for Jehovah, he acted with unpardonable injustice towards the man and woman in first creating them with a nature whose powers of resistance to temptation he could not tell, then placing temptation, raised to its utmost strength by a mysterious order, continually under their noses, then allowing a serpent to suggest that they should yield to it, and lastly punishing the unhappy victims of this chain of untoward circumstances by expulsion from their garden. A human parent who should thus treat his children would be severely and justly censured. It is a striking proof how rudimentary were the Hebrew conceptions of justice, that they should have accepted, in reference to their deity, a story which evinces so flagrant a disregard of its most elementary requirements (Gen. ii. 8, and iii). Just as in the case of Adam and Eve, he required implicit obedience to an arbitrary command, so in the case of Abraham he required implicit obedience to an immoral one. There was with him no fixed system of morality. Submission to his will was the alpha and omega of virtue. Observe now how superior is the feeling shown in the Hindu legend which has been quoted as a parallel to that of the projected sacrifice of Isaac. Although in that story the father was bound by a solemn promise to sacrifice his son, yet he is never blamed for his reluctance to do so, though Abraham is praised for his willingness; while the Brahman who is actually prepared to plunge the sacrificial knife into his child's breast is treated with scorn and reprobation for his unfeeling behavior. Even the service of the gods is not made supreme over every human emotion. But the conception of the existence of duties independent of the divine will seems not to have entered the minds of the Hebrew theologians who wrote these books.

The further proceedings of Jehovah are quite in keeping with his beginning in the garden of Eden. Throughout the whole course of the history he shows the most glaring partiality. In its earlier period he is partial to individuals; in its later, to the Hebrew race. Let us notice a few cases of this favoritism as shown towards individual favorites. Immediately after the curse upon Adam and Eve, and their banishment from Eden, we have the instructive story of Cain and Abel, so magnificently dramatized by Byron. These two brothers, sons of the original couple, both brought offerings to Jehovah; Cain, the fruit of the ground; Abel, the firstlings of his flock. But the Lord had respect to Abel and his offering, but not to Cain and his offering. Why was this difference made? Absolutely no reason is assigned for it, and it is not surprising, however lamentable, that it should have excited the jealousy of the brother who was thus ill-treated (Gen. iv. 1-8). Again, it has been remarked above that Abraham and Isaac had a singular way of passing off their wives as their sisters. Pharaoh was once deceived in this way about Sarah; Abimelech of Gerar, once about Sarah, and once about Rebekah. These two monarchs were plagued by Jehovah on account of their innocent mistake; the patriarchs were not even reproved for this cowardly surrender of their consorts to adulterous embraces (Gen. xii. 11-20, xx., xxvi. 7-11). Jacob is another favorite, while his brother Esau is coldly treated. Yet the inherent meanness of Jacob's character, and the comparative excellence of Esau's, are too obvious to escape even a careless reader. What can be more pitiful than the conduct of Jacob in taking advantage of a moment of weakness in his brother to purchase his birthright? (Gen. xxv. 29-34.) What more ungenerous than the odious trick by which he imposed upon his father, and cheated Esau of his blessing? (Gen. xxvii.) What again can be more magnanimous than the long subsequent reception by Esau of the brother whose miserable subserviency showed his consciousness of the wrong he had done him? (Gen. xxxiii. 1-15). Yet this is the man whom Jehovah selects as the object of his peculiar blessing, and whose very deceitfulness towards a kind employer he suffers to become a means of aggrandizement (Gen. xxx. 41-43).

The same partisanship which in these cases forms so conspicuous a trait in the character of Jehovah distinguishes the whole course of his proceedings in reference to the delivery of the Israelites from Egypt and their settlement in Palestine. Every other nation is compelled to give way for their advantage. Pharaoh and all the Egyptians are plagued for holding them in slavery, not in the least because Jehovah was an abolitionist (for he never troubled himself about slavery anywhere else), but because it was his own peculiar people who were thus in subjugation to a race whom he did not equally affect. Throughout the long journey from Egypt to the promised land, Jehovah accompanies the Israelites as a sort of commander-in-chief, directing them what to do, and giving them the victory over their enemies. As the Red Sea was divided to enable them to escape from their enemies on the one side, so the Jordan was cleft in two to enable them to conquer their enemies on the other (Ex. xiv. 21, 22.—Josh. iii. 7-17). The walls of a fortified city were thrown down to enable them to enter (Josh. vi. 20). The sun was arrested in his course to enable them to win a battle (Josh. x. 12-14). Hornets were employed to accomplish the expulsion of hostile tribes without trouble to the Israelites (Josh. xxiv. 12). Thus, as Jehovah afterwards took care to remind them, he gave them a land for which they did not labor, and cities which they did not build (Josh. xxiv. 13).

Nevertheless the lot of the race who were thus highly favored was far from happy. Their God was indeed a powerful protector, but he was also an exacting ruler. His service was at no time an easy one, and he was liable to outbursts of passion which rendered it peculiarly oppressive. Tolerant as he might be towards some descriptions of immorality, he had no mercy whatever for disloyalty towards himself. On one occasion he characterized himself by the name of "Jealous" (Ex. xxxiv. 14), which was but too appropriate, and implied the possession of one of the least admirable of human weaknesses. Now the Israelites were unfortunately prone to lapses of this kind. Such was the severity with which these offenses were treated that it is questionable whether it would not have been a far happier fate to be drowned in the Red Sea with the Egyptians than preserved with the children of Israel. A few instances of what they had to undergo will illustrate this remark.

Moses had impressed upon the people the importance of having no other deity but Jehovah, and had succeeded while he was actually among them in restricting them to his worship alone. But no sooner was he absent for a season than they immediately forsook Jehovah, and took to worshiping a golden calf. Worst of all, this new divinity was set up by Aaron, the brother of Moses, and high priest of the Jehovistic faith. That Jehovah should be rather vexed at such ungrateful behavior, after all the trouble he had taken in plaguing and slaughtering the Egyptians, was only natural; but it was surely an extraordinary want of self-control to propose to consume the whole nation at once, reserving only Moses as the progenitor of a better race. Here, as in other cases, Moses showed himself more merciful than his God. He ingeniously urged as a motive to clemency that the Egyptians would say extremely unpleasant things if the Israelites were destroyed; and after his return to the camp he contrived to appease him by inducing the Levites to perpetrate a fratricidal massacre, whereby three thousand people fell. This measure was described by Moses as a consecration of themselves to the Lord, that he might bestow his blessing upon them. It proved successful, for Jehovah now contented himself with merely plaguing the people instead of exterminating them (Ex. xxxii). Thus, he had scarcely finished plaguing the Egyptians before he began plaguing the Israelites in their turn. Indeed he was at this period peculiarly prone to sending plagues of one kind or another. Some complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness were visited by fire which burnt up those who were at the extremities of the camp (Num. xi. 1-3). When they began to pine for the varied food they had enjoyed in Egypt, and to lament the absence of flesh meat, he sent them quails indeed, but accompanied the gift with a very great plague, of which large numbers perished (Num. xi. 4-34). When they were dismayed by the reports brought them concerning the inhabitants of Palestine, and complained of their God for the position he had brought them into, he again fell into a rage and proposed to destroy them all by pestilence except Moses. But Moses a second time appealed to him on what seems to have been his weak side,—his regard for his reputation among the Egyptians. These had all heard of what he had been doing, and would not they and the other neighboring nations ascribe the destruction of the Israelites in the wilderness to his inability to bring them into the promised land? Moved by this reasoning, Jehovah consented to spare the people, but determined at the same time to avenge himself upon them by not permitting any of those that had come from Egypt (except Joshua and Caleb, who had reported in the proper spirit about Palestine) to set foot within the country to which he had solemnly engaged himself to conduct them (Num. xiv. 1-39). Thus, they were only saved from the Egyptians to perish in the wilderness. Truly, the tender mercies of the Lord were cruel.

But the miseries of these unfortunate wanderers were by no means ended. When, oppressed by the troubles and weariness of the way, they dared to murmur, and inquired of Moses why he had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there was neither tolerable bread, nor water, the resentment of Jehovah was excited by this audacity. They ought to have been only too grateful that they had remained alive. Jehovah had not caused the earth to swallow them as it had done Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives and little children, because they had ventured to complain of the government of Moses; nor had he destroyed them by plague, as he had destroyed 14,700 people because there had been some expressions of dissatisfaction at the sudden death of those seditious men. If then they had hitherto escaped destruction, they were certainly foolish in complaining of the hardships of the desert. At any rate Jehovah soon convinced them that their grumbling was useless. No constitutional opposition was permitted in those days. Fiery serpents were despatched to bite them, and many of them died in consequence. Such was the extent of the calamity that Moses, always more merciful than his God, interceded for his people; and was directed to set up a brazen serpent, by looking at which the bites of the living serpents were healed (Num. xxi. 1-9).

The extraordinary cruelty ascribed by the Hebrews to their national deity is shown in many other instances besides those that have been mentioned. And it is to be noticed that it is cruelty mingled with caprice. No one could tell beforehand precisely what actions he would visit with punishment, nor what would be the punishment with which he would visit them. Everything with him was uncertain. He had no fixed system of laws at all, and he sometimes condemned a criminal in virtue of ex post facto legislation. The deluge is an example of all these vices combined. It was an excessively cruel punishment; it was inflicted capriciously, and once in a way only, because God had changed his mind as to the propriety of having created man; and it was the result of a resolution arrived at after the offenses it was designed to chastise had already been committed. No human being could possibly have guessed beforehand that his crimes would be punished in that particular way. And after the crimes of the antediluvians had been thus punished, the survivors received a promise that no misconduct on their part would ever be visited upon them in the same way. So that any conceivable utility which the deluge might have had as a warning for the future was utterly destroyed. Equal caprice, though not equal cruelty, was shown towards the builders of the tower of Babel, who were suffered to begin their labors without hindrance, but were afterwards stopped by the confusion of their languages. Why it was wrong to erect such a tower is never stated. Could any of those engaged upon it have guessed that the attempt was one deserving of punishment? Still worse was Jehovah's behavior to the prophet Balaam, for he first ordered him to go with the men who were sent for him, and then was angry with him because he went (Num. xxii. 20, 22). Such conduct was on a level with that of a pettish woman. Instances of barbarous severity may be found in abundance. Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, were devoured by "fire from the Lord," because they had taken their censers, and offered strange fire before him (Lev. x. 1, 2). A man who on the father's side was Egyptian, was ordered to be stoned for blaspheming and cursing the name of the Lord; Jehovah being peculiarly eager in avenging personal affronts (Lev. xxiv. 10-16). On this occasion no doubt a general law was announced affixing the penalty of stoning to the offense of blasphemy; but the law was ex post facto so far as the individual who suffered by its operation was concerned. On another occasion the heads of the people were ordered to be all hung for whoredom with the daughters of Moab, and for idolatry. Phinehas, Aaron's son, seeing an Israelite with a Midianitish woman, ran then both through the body with a javelin; for which heroic exploit against an unprepared man and a defenseless woman he was specially praised; was declared to have turned away God's wrath from Israel, and received a "covenant of peace" for himself and his posterity (Num. xxv. 1-15). At a much later period, when David was causing the ark to be brought back from the Philistines, an unfortunate man who had put out his hand to touch it because the oxen shook it, was immediately slain; an act at which even the pious David was displeased, and which caused him, not unnaturally, to be "afraid before the Lord that day" (2 Sam. vi. 6-9). In the reign of Jeroboam a prophet who had only been guilty of the involuntary error of believing another prophet who had told him a falsehood, was killed by a lion sent expressly for his punishment, while the man who had deceived him escaped scot free (1 Kings xiii. 1-32). Another man suffered for refusing to obey the word of a prophet what this one had suffered for obeying it. Being desired by one of the "sons of the prophets" to smite him so as to cause a wound, and having declined the office, he was informed that for his disobedience to the voice of the Lord he would be slain by a lion, which accordingly happened (1 Kings xx. 35, 36). Mercy towards a conquered enemy was sometimes an actual crime. Because he spared Agag, Saul was rejected from being king over Israel, and the Lord repented that he had appointed so weak-minded a man. Samuel, who was made of sterner stuff, had no scruple in carrying out the behests of his God, for he "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord" (1 Sam. xv). In like manner Ahab was reproved for sparing the life of Ben-hadad, King of Syria (1 Kings xx. 42, 43). The same monarch whose leniency had thus brought him into trouble was afterwards the victim of a sanguinary fraud practiced upon him by Jehovah. Tired of his reign, and eager to effect his destruction, the Lord put a lying spirit into the mouth of all his prophets, who were thus induced to prophesy victory in an engagement which actually terminated in his defeat and death (1 Kings xxii. 1-40). Observe, that however foolish Ahab may have been in believing the false prophets and disbelieving Micaiah, this does not excuse Jehovah, who according to his own chosen spokesman, deliberately arranged this scheme for the overthrow of the king in the court of heaven. Other barbarous deeds followed upon this. To gratify Elijah, a hundred men who were guiltless of any crime whatever, were consumed by fire (2 Kings i. 9-12). To assuage the wounded vanity of Elisha, forty-two little children were eaten by bears (2 Kings ii. 23, 24). To maintain the glory of the true God, Elijah slaughtered the prophets of Baal to the number of many hundreds (1 Kings xviii. 17-40). To reëstablish the orthodox faith, Jehu got rid of the worshipers of Baal, collected together by an infamous trick, in one indiscriminate massacre; an atrocity for which he was specially praised and rewarded by "the Lord" (2 Kings x. 18-30).

It is needless to prolong the list of cruelties practiced upon private individuals. But the subject would be incompletely treated, did we not observe that the same spirit prevailed in the dealings of Jehovah with nations. Thus, when the Israelites were about to enter the land of Canaan, they were desired utterly to destroy the seven nations who possessed it already (Deut. vii. 2). When they captured Jericho, they slew all its inhabitants, young and old, except the household of the prostitute with whom their messengers had lodged, and who had shamelessly betrayed her countrymen. Her, with her family they saved (Josh. vi. 1-25). All the inhabitants of Ai were utterly destroyed (Josh. viii. 26). All the inhabitants of Makkedah were utterly destroyed (Josh. x. 28). All the inhabitants of many other places were utterly destroyed (Josh. x. 29-43, and xi. 11, 14). One city alone made peace with Israel; all the rest were taken in battle, and that because Jehovah had deliberately and of set purpose hardened the hearts of their inhabitants, that they might be utterly destroyed (Josh. xi. 20).

Such a catalogue of crimes—and the number is by no means exhausted—would be sufficient to destroy the character of any pagan divinity whatsoever. I fail to perceive why the Jews alone should be privileged to represent their God as guilty of such actions without suffering the inference which in other cases would undoubtedly be drawn—namely, that their conceptions of deity were not of a very exalted order, nor their principles of morals of a very admirable kind. There is, indeed, nothing extraordinary in the fact that, living in a barbarous age, the ancient Hebrews should have behaved barbarously. The reverse would rather be surprising. But the remarkable fact is, that their savage deeds, and the equally savage ones attributed to their God, should have been accepted by Christendom as flowing in the one case from the commands, in the other from the immediate action of a just and beneficent Being. When the Hindus relate the story of Brahma's incest with his daughter, they add that the god was bowed down with shame on account of his subjugation by ordinary passion (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 112). But while they thus betray their feeling that even a divine being is not superior to all the standards of morality, no such consciousness is ever apparent in the narrators of the passions of Jehovah. While far worse offenses are committed by him, there is no trace in his character of the grace of shame.

Turning now to the legislation which emanated from him, we shall find evidence of the same spirit which has been seen to mark his daily dealings. It is impossible here to examine that legislation in detail, and it may be freely conceded that much of it was well adapted to the circumstances under which it was delivered. Some of the precepts given are indeed trivial, such as the order to the Israelites not to round the corners of their heads, nor mar the corners of their beards (Lev. xix. 27), and others are [such as are] merely special to the Hebrew religion. But the mass of enactments may very probably have been wise, or, at least, not conspicuously the reverse. Those to which the chief exception must be taken, are such as demonstrate the essentially inhuman character of the authority from whom they emanated. Thus, death is the penalty affixed to the insignificant offense of Sabbath-breaking (Ex. xxxv. 2). If the nearest relation, or even the wife of his bosom, or the friend who is as his own soul, secretly entice a man to go and worship other gods, he himself is to put the tempter to death, his own hand being the first to fling the stones by which he is to perish (Deut. xiii. 6-11). The Inquisition itself could have no more detestable law than this. If it is a city that is guilty of such heresy, it is to be burnt down, and all its inhabitants put to the sword (Deut. xiii. 12-16). The mere worship of pagan divinities, apart from any effort to seduce others, is likewise punished with stoning (Deut. xvii. 2-7). In cities not in Palestine, taken in war, all the males only are to be put to death; but in the cities of Palestine itself, nothing that breathes is to be saved alive (Deut. xx. 13-18). A "stubborn and rebellious son" may be put to death by stoning, and that at the instance of his parents (Deut. xxi. 18-21). In appearance this terrible process for dealing with a naughty boy is less severe than the patria potestas of the Romans, by which the power of life and death was lodged in the father alone. Practically, however, the exercise of this unlimited legal right was prevented to a large extent, for a religious curse rested on the father who even sold his married son, and he could not pronounce sentence on any child till after consulting the nearest blood-relations on both sides, without incurring the same anathema (Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 65). No doubt the purely legal power of the head of the family was unaffected by these restraints. Human authority still permitted him to expose his children at birth, to sell them, or to sentence them to death. But the difference between Roman and Jewish institutions was, that in Rome, religion sought to mitigate the cruelty of the civil law; in Palestine, religion not only did nothing to soften, but positively sanctioned, by its august commands the most revolting enactments of barbaric legislation. It is true that no instance is known to history of the employment of this law by Jews against their children, but this can only show that their parental morality was superior to the morality of the divine law. At a much later time than that at which this enactment was given, when the Israelites returned from the Captivity, the same harsh and intolerant spirit as we have observed in their earlier legislation broke forth again. By a cruel measure, enacted by Ezra, the representative of Jehovah, and taking the form of a covenant with God, the people were forced to repudiate all their wives who were not of pure Israelitish blood (Ezra ix, and x). Nehemiah, who was likewise zealous in the service of Jehovah, was no less an enemy to "outlandish women," and took rather strong measures against those who had married them, such as cursing them, smiting them, plucking off their hair, and making them swear not to give their sons or daughters in marriage to foreigners (Neh. xiii. 23-28).

Such being the moral characteristics of the Hebrew God, can it be said that the intellectual ideas of the divine nature found in the Old Testament are of a highly refined and spiritual order? On the contrary, as compared with the gods of other races, Jehovah is remarkably anthropomorphic and materialistic. He does not approach in spirituality to the higher conceptions of the Hindus, nor is he even equal to those of less subtle and speculative nations. He is on a level with the gods of popular mythologies, but not with those more mysterious powers who often stand above them. The evidence of this proposition is to be found in the whole tenor of the historical books. Thus, in the very beginning of Genesis, we find that he "rested on the seventh day," (Gen. ii. 2) as if he were a being altogether apart from the forces of nature, and might leave the world to go on without him. A little later he is found "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. iii. 8). He clearly had a body resembling that of man, for on one occasion Moses was so highly favored as to be permitted to see his "back parts," and was covered with his hand while he was passing by. His face Moses was not permitted to behold, as it would have caused his death (Ex. xxxiii. 20-23). In order to pass by he "descended" in a cloud, implying local habitation, and at this time he magniloquently proclaimed his own titles and virtues, which he might more gracefully have employed an angel to do for him. Elsewhere it is stated that Moses and the elders "saw the God of Israel," and that he had some sort of paved work of sapphire stone under his feet. When Moses went up alone into the mount, "the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." God was at this time supposed to be on the mount, and there held discourse with Moses (Ex. xxiv. 10-25). In the course of it he says that he will "commune" from above the mercy-seat in the tabernacle, again (as in so many other places) implying occupation of definite space (Ex. xxv. 22). He promises to "dwell among the children of Israel," that is, to be a national and local God (Ex. xxix. 45, 46). Confirmation of the view here taken of his limited nature is found in the fact that he thought it necessary to "go down" to Sodom and Gomorrah, to verify the reports which had reached him concerning the conduct of their inhabitants. And when Abraham appealed to him for mercy for those of them who were righteous, his several answers clearly implied that when he went to those cities he would discover how many of them came under that denomination. "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous," and so forth, is the language of one who does not know a fact, but is going to ascertain it. And accordingly at the end of the colloquy "the Lord went his way" (Gen. xviii. 20-33). So completely anthropomorphic is the conception of deity that, although the expression occurs only in a parable, it is not at variance with the mode in which he is usually spoken of when wine is said "to cheer God and man" (Judg. ix. 13). Evidently there was nothing shocking to the Hebrew mind in such an expression. And when they pictured their God as walking, talking, indignant, angry, repenting, jealous, showing himself to human beings, and generally indulging in the passions of mortals, it was perfectly easy to conceive that wine might exercise the same effect on him as it did on them.

No doubt the Hebrew mythology is free from all that class of stories in which a divine being is represented as making love to or cohabiting with women. Or, to speak more accurately, they never represent Jehovah himself as indulging in such amusements. There is a reminiscence of this form of myth in the statement that before the deluge the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 2); but their supreme Being was free at least from sexual passion. So far as it goes, this is well; but if I had to choose between a God who was somewhat licentious in his relations with mankind, and one who did not stick at deeds of bloodshed of the most outrageous character, I confess I should see no very powerful reason to prefer the latter.

That, in spite of all these drawbacks, there are some better elements in the Hebrew ideal I do not at all deny. The poetical description of God as a "still small voice" is both eloquent and spiritual; and the prayer of Solomon, with its admission that the heaven of heavens cannot contain the Infinite Power who is entreated to dwell in the Temple, is in many respects beautiful and admirable. So also the views of Jehovah attained and uttered by some of the prophets are far loftier than those generally expressed in the historical books. Many of the Psalms, again, are full of beauty in the manner in which they speak of him to whom they are addressed. In a nation so deeply religious as the Jews, and so much given to meditation on God, it was inevitable that the higher class of minds should conceive him more spiritually than the lower, and it is this class to whom we owe the poetical and prophetic writings. It was inevitable also that as civilization advanced, the grosser elements of the conception, which belonged to a barbarous people, should be eliminated, and that the finer ones should remain. The entire supersession of the older God by the newer was prevented by the fact that the Old Testament was a sacred book, and that hence every one of its statements had to be received as absolutely true. The inconsistency between the wrathful monarch of ancient times and the loving Spirit of more recent ages was sought to be surmounted by those processes of interpretation which have been shown to be invariably adopted when it is desired to bring the infallible Scriptures of any nation into harmony with the opinions of their readers. But happily the language of the historical portions of the Old Testament is singularly plain, and no ingenious manipulation of the text can with the smallest plausibility put aside the obvious meaning of the broad assertions on which is founded the above delineation of the God of Israel.

Section VIII.—The New Testament.

Since a considerable portion of the New Testament has already been dealt with in the life of Jesus, we have only, in the present section, to consider the remaining works of which it is composed. These will not require a very elaborate treatment. They consist of one historical book, continuing the history of the Christian community from the death of its founder till the imprisonment of Paul at Rome, of letters, partly genuine, partly spurious, bearing the names of eminent apostles as their authors, and of one composition somewhat akin in its nature to the writings of the Hebrew prophets. Of these several parts of the New Testament (excluding the Gospels) some of the Epistles are probably the most ancient; but as it would be difficult to establish any precise chronological sequence among the several books, it will be most convenient to begin with that which stands first in actual order.

Subdivision 1.—The Acts of the Apostles.

The author of the third gospel, having written the life of Jesus, proceeded to compose, in addition to it, a history of the proceedings of his apostles after his decease. We are greatly indebted to him for having done so, for this book is, notwithstanding some extravagances, of considerable value, and is the most trustworthy of the five historical books in the New Testament. It brought the narrative of events nearer to the date at which it was written than the gospel could do, and it dealt with events concerning which better evidence was accessible to the writer. There was thus not the same scope for fiction as there had been in the life of Christ. Nevertheless the story of the Acts of the Apostles is by no means free from legendary admixture.

Beginning with the ascension, which has been already noticed in connection with the gospel, it proceeds to relate the choice of a new apostle in place of the unfaithful Judas. The ceremony by which the choice was made evinces a singular superstition on the part of the apostles. Having selected two men, Joseph and Matthias, they simply prayed that God would show which he had chosen. They then drew lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias (Acts i. 15-26).

The next important event in the history of the Church thus recruited, was the reception of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. On this occasion the Christians were all assembled, when suddenly there was a sound like that of strong wind; cloven tongues appeared and sat upon them; they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and suddenly acquired the power of speaking foreign languages (Acts ii. 1-13). Since the "gift of tongues" has not been unknown in certain communities in recent times, we might perhaps form a tolerably correct notion from the reports of modern observers as to what the scene among the disciples was like. Even, however, without this modern experience, we should not be altogether in the dark as to the character of the phenomenon of which the author of the Acts makes mention. For although it is indeed stated that some of the strangers who were present heard each his own language spoken by the disciples, it is added that the conviction produced upon others was that the Christians were drunk. It must have been a wild and singular exhibition which could lead to the formation of such an opinion. But if we wanted further explanation we should find it in the words of Paul, whose strong practical judgment led him to depreciate the value of the gift of tongues as compared with that of preaching. Had this gift consisted in the power of speaking their own languages to foreign nations, there is none to whom it would have been of greater service than the apostle of the Gentiles. Yet it is he who tells us that at a meeting he would rather speak five words with his understanding, that he might teach others also, than ten thousand in a tongue. So that the words spoken "in tongues" were not spoken with the understanding; they were mere sounds without a meaning to him who uttered them. Equally clear is the evidence of Paul to the fact that they were without a meaning to him who heard them. His reason for desiring his correspondents to cultivate the gift of prophesying (or preaching) rather than that of tongues is that "he that speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God, for nobody understands him, but in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he that preaches speaks to men edification, and exhortation, and comfort. He that speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but he that preaches edifies the Church" (1 Cor. xiv. 2-4). Tongues, he says further on, are for a sign to unbelievers; that is, they are of use merely to impress the senses of those whose minds cannot yet be appealed to. But if the unbelieving or unlearned should happen to enter a meeting where the disciples were all speaking with tongues, they would consider them mad: a striking testimony to the tumultuous character of scenes like that presented by the enthusiastic assembly of the Christians at Pentecost. Hence Paul desires that two, or at most three, should speak with tongues at a time, and that there should always be somebody to interpret, in other words, to translate nonsense into sense. Without an interpreter, he would not sanction any exercise of this peculiar faculty on the part of the inspired linguist (1 Cor. xiv. 1-28).

To satisfy the doubts of those who attributed the sudden attainments of the apostles to intoxicating drinks, Peter delivered a discourse, which ended in the addition of 3,000 members to the rising sect. It is remarkable that these new members at once became communists, both they and all the disciples having all things in common; a noteworthy indication of what was required by the religion of Christ as understood by his immediate disciples (Acts ii. 14-47). Further evidence, if any were needed, of the communistic character of the Church is contained at the end of the fourth chapter, while the fifth informs us of the tolerably severe measures taken to enforce it. "There was one heart and one soul among the multitude of those who believed, nor did a single one say that any of the things he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." Unhappily the one heart and one mind did not extend to Ananias or to his wife Sapphira, for this naughty couple "sold a possession and kept back part of the price." But Peter was not thus to be taken in. It does not appear from the account that Ananias was asked whether the sum he produced was the whole price of the land, or that he told any falsehood regarding it. However, Peter remarked that he might have kept either the property or its price, had he thought proper, and charged him with lying to God; whereupon the poor man fell down dead. About three hours later, Sapphira came in; and she distinctly stated that the sum produced by Ananias was the full price. Peter told her that the feet of those who had buried her husband were at the door, and would carry her out too. She then fell down at his feet, and expired in her turn (Acts. iv. 31-v. 11).

No wonder that "great fear came upon all the Church" when they heard these things. Peter's proceedings were indeed alarming, and could we for a moment accept the account of his historian, we should have no option but to hold him guilty of the wilful murder of Sapphira. He knew, according to his own statement, what the effect of his words upon this woman would be, and he should have abstained from any expression that could bring about so terrible a catastrophe. Happily, we may reject the whole story as either a fiction or a perversion of fact. Had it been true, it would have called for very much sterner measures than those taken by the Sanhedrim, who, having already desired Peter and John to keep silence about the new religion, now merely imprisoned the apostles, and afterwards, on the prudent advice of Gamaliel, determined to release them; not indeed till after they had beaten them and again prohibited their propagandist efforts (Acts v. 17-42). It is interesting to observe that Luke effects the deliverance of the apostles from prison by the intervention of an angel, and that at a later period, when Peter had been imprisoned by Herod, he again gets him out by means of an angel who appears to him while sleeping, and at whose presence his chains fall off (Acts xii. 1-19). This is quite in accordance with the proceedings of the same author in the gospel, where his partiality for angels as part of his theatrical machinery has been shown to be characteristic.

The infant community was now increasing in numbers, and along with this increase there arose the customary consequences—dissension and mutual distrust. We are fortunate in possessing in the Acts an account of the very first quarrel in the Church; the earliest symptom of those discords and hostilities, which, since that time, have so incessantly raged within her limits. It was on a question of money; the Greeks murmuring against the Hebrews, because they thought their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. The apostles tided over the immediate difficulty by appointing subordinate officers to attend to matters of business. The plan succeeded; but their peace was soon to be disturbed again by graver questions (Acts vi. 1-8).

Among those appointed to superintend the pecuniary interests of the Church was one named Stephen. This man is reported to have performed great wonders and miracles, but some of the Jews accused him of blasphemy, and after an eloquent defense, which to Jewish ears amounted to an admission of the charge, he was sentenced to death by stoning. Foremost in the execution of the sentence was a man named Saul, who was conspicuous at this time for the bitterness with which he pursued the Christians, entering their private houses, and causing them to be imprisoned (Acts vi. 9-viii. 3).

If any proof were needed of the entire conscientiousness of the Jewish persecutors of Christianity at this time we should find it in the character of Saul. Of the honesty of his religious zeal, of the single-minded sense of duty from which he acted in his anti-Christian period, his subsequent career makes it impossible to entertain a doubt. Men like the apostle Paul are not made out of selfish, dishonest, or cruel natures. He was at the martyrdom of Stephen as honorable and fearless an upholder of the ancient faith as he was afterwards to the new. He himself several times refers in his writings to his persecution of the Church, and always in the tone of a man who had nothing to be ashamed of but a mistake in judgment. As touching the righteousness which is in the law, he tells us he was blameless (Phil. iii. 6). And although in intellectual power he was doubtless above the average of his class, in point of genuine devotion to his creed, he may fairly be taken as a type of the men with whom he consented to act.

Saul had probably been impressed by the conduct of the Christians, whom he had so ruthlessly delivered up to justice. At any rate the subject of the Christian religion had taken great hold upon his mind, for on his way to Damascus he saw a vision which induced him to become himself a follower of Jesus. It is unfortunate that we have no detailed account of the nature of the event which led to his conversion from Paul himself. He often alludes to it, but nowhere describes it.

The most important passage bearing upon the subject is in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, where he thus mysteriously refers to his experience on this occasion: "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I do not know, whether out of the body I do not know) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man (whether in the body, whether out of the body, God knows), that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (2 Cor. xii. 2-4). So far as it goes, this account does not very well agree with that of the Acts, since there we are told exactly what were the words Paul heard, and what he answered. We are left in doubt then whether the conversation between Christ and the apostle there related rests on the authority of Paul himself, or represents merely the imagination of others as to what might have passed between them. But that Paul saw some kind of vision, which he himself believed to be a vision of Christ, there can be no doubt.

From Luke we have two versions of this incident, one in the form of historical narrative, the other in that of a speech put into the mouth of Paul. According to these he saw a light, and heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" On inquiry, he learnt that the voice emanated from Jesus, and he was desired to proceed to Damascus, where further instructions would be given him. Luke has not taken sufficient pains to make his two versions harmonize, for in the first we are told that his companions heard a voice, but saw no man; in the second that they saw the light, but did not hear the voice of him that spoke (Acts ix. 7, and xxii. 9). At Damascus a man named Ananias, directed also by a vision, went to Saul to restore his sight, which had been destroyed for the moment by the brilliancy of the celestial light. After this, Saul, subsequently called Paul, escaping from the pursuit of the Jews who had designs upon his life, began to preach in the name of Jesus (Acts ix. 1-31).

Another convert of some consideration, from his official position and from the fact that he was a heathen, was added to the community about this time. This was Cornelius, the Centurion of the Italian band. Cornelius was a religious man, much given to prayer. Tired perhaps of visions, of which there had been two in the last chapter and was to be another in this, Luke introduces his angel—a sort of supernumerary ever ready to appear when wanted—to effect the conversion of Cornelius. The angel told him to apply to Peter, now at Joppa, for further advice as to what he should do. Meanwhile Peter had on his part been prepared by a vision of unclean beasts, which he was desired to eat, for the reception of the Gentile embassy, and the admission of Gentiles to the flock. He accordingly proceeded to Cæsarea, where Cornelius was, and baptized both him and other heathens, upon whom, to the great astonishment of the Jews, the Holy Ghost was poured out and the gift of tongues conferred. Thus did the Church of Christ begin, timidly and feeling her way with caution, to extend her boundaries beyond the limits of the Hebrew people (Acts x).

Some scandal was created in the congregation at Jerusalem by Peter's violation of Jewish rules in dining with uncircumcised people, but there was no gainsaying a vision like that which he produced in reply. Shortly after these events the apostle James, one of those two brothers whose mother had petitioned that they might sit on two thrones, one on each side of Jesus, when his kingdom came, was executed by Herod, the tetrarch; who also imprisoned Peter, but was unable to keep him on account of the angelic intervention mentioned above. The death of this monarch from a painful internal disease, is curiously perverted by the writer into a sudden judgment of God, inflicted upon him because he accepted divine honors at the hands of his flatterers (Acts xi. xii).

The history now proceeds to follow the fortunes of Paul. It is stated that there were at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost to appoint Barnabas and Saul to the work whereunto they were called. Having laid their hands upon them, they sent them away. Paul now began to travel from place to place, making converts among the heathen. At Paphos he met with a Jewish sorcerer named Elymas, who he caused to be blind for a season, thereby inducing the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus to believe in Christianity, which had thus shown itself able to produce more powerful sorcerers than the rival creed (Acts xiii. 1-12).

It is a striking proof of the liberality of the Jews at this period that when Paul and his companions had gone into the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, the rulers of the synagogue invited them to speak; a freedom which even in the present day would scarcely be granted in any Christian Church to those who were regarded as heretics. Paul took advantage of the proffered opportunity to deliver a speech which ended in the conversion of some of the Jews. On the following Sabbath great crowds came to hear Paul, but the Jews, as was natural, opposed him and contradicted him. After this they stirred up pious women and the principal men of the city against Paul and Barnabas, and (it is stated) expelled them from their coasts (Acts xiii. 50). These apostles having already determined to go (Acts xiii. 46), it was not a severe treatment that was thus inflicted on them. They, however, left Antioch in no very charitable frame of mind, for they shook off the dust of their feet against its inhabitants (Acts xiii. 14-52).

The cure of an impotent man at Lystra led the multitude of that place to adore Paul and Barnabas as gods. Paul, as the orator, they called Hermes, and Barnabas, Zeus. The priest of Zeus brought oxen and garlands, and intended to sacrifice to them, an intention which the people were barely prevented, by the indignant protests of the two apostles, from carrying into effect (Acts xiv. 8-18). This was not the only occasion on which Paul was taken for a god; for when he was cast by shipwreck on the island of Melita, his escape from injury by a venomous reptile which had fastened on his hand was regarded by the savages of that island as a proof of divinity (Acts xxviii. 1-6).

Extremely similar to these incidents, especially to the first, is a circumstance recounted by Sir Francis Drake in his voyage of circumnavigation. His vessel having sprung a leak, while he was exploring the coast of North America, was brought to anchor to be repaired, and the sailors landed to build tents and make a fort for purposes of defense. The natives approached them in companies, armed, and as if designing an attack, but it appeared that they had "no hostile meaning or intent;" for when they came near, they stood "as men ravished in their minds, with the sight of such things as they never had seen or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship us as gods, than to have any warre with us as with mortall men. Which thing, as it did partly show itself at that instant, so did it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them." The General gave them materials for clothing, "withall signifying unto them we were no gods, but men, and had neede of such things to cover our own shame; teaching them to use them for the same ends, for which cause wee did eate and drinke in their presence, giving them to understand that without that wee could not live, and therefore were but men as well as they" ("we also are men of like passions with you") (Acts xiv. 15). "Notwithstanding nothing could persuade them, nor remove that opinion which they had conceived of us, that wee should be gods" (W. E., p. 120).