Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 92)

W. P. Greswell, History of the Dominion of Canada, chapter 6.

The Hurons were dispersed and their nation destroyed by these attacks of the Iroquois. "With the fall of the Hurons fell the best hope of the Canadian mission. They, and the stable and populous communities around them, had been the rude material from which the Jesuit would have formed his Christian empire in the wilderness; but, one by one, these kindred peoples were uprooted and swept away, while the neighboring Algonquins, to whom they had been a bulwark, were involved with them in a common ruin. The land of promise was turned to a solitude and a desolation. There was still work in hand, it is true,—vast regions to explore, and countless heathens to snatch from perdition; but these, for the most part, were remote and scattered hordes, from whose conversion it was vain to look for the same solid and decisive results. In a measure, the occupation of the Jesuits was gone. {1890} Some of them went home, 'well resolved,' writes the Father Superior, 'to return to the combat at the first sound of the trumpet'; while of those who remained, about twenty in number, several soon fell victims to famine, hardship, and the Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased to be a mission; political and commercial interests gradually became ascendant, and the story of Jesuit propagandism was interwoven with her civil and military annals."

F. Parkman, The Jesuits in North America, chapter 34.

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1634-1652.

JESUITS: A. D. 1558. Mission founded in Abyssinia.

See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 15TH-19TH CENTURIES.

JESUITS: A. D. 1572-1603. Persecution in England under Elizabeth.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.

JESUITS: A. D. 1573-1592. Change in the statutes of the Order on demands from Spain.

"At the first establishment of the Order, the elder and already educated men, who had just entered it, were for the most part Spaniards; the members joining it from other nations were chiefly young men, whose characters had yet to be formed. It followed naturally that the government of the society was, for the first ten years, almost entirely in Spanish hands. The first general congregation was composed of twenty-five members, eighteen of whom were Spaniards. The first three generals belonged to the same nation. After the death of the third, Borgia, in the year 1573, it was once more a Spaniard, Polanco, who had the best prospect of election. It was however manifest that his elevation would not have been regarded favourably, even in Spain itself. There were many new converts in the society who were Christianized Jews. Polanco also belonged to this class, and it was not thought desirable that the supreme authority in a body so powerful, and so monarchically constituted, should be confided to such hands. Pope Gregory XIV., who had received certain intimations on this subject, considered a change to be expedient on other grounds also. When a deputation presented itself before him from the congregation assembled to elect their general, Gregory inquired how many votes were possessed by each nation; the reply showed that Spain held more than all the others put together. He then asked from which nation the generals of the order had hitherto been taken. He was told that there had been three, all Spaniards. 'It will be just, then,' replied Gregory, 'that for once you should choose one from among the other nations.' He even proposed a candidate for their election. The Jesuits opposed themselves for a moment to this suggestion, as a violation of their privileges; but concluded by electing the very man proposed by the pontiff. This was Eberhard Mercurianus. A material change was at once perceived, as the consequence of this choice. Mercurianus, a weak and irresolute man, resigned the government of affairs, first indeed to a Spaniard again, but afterwards to a Frenchman, his official admonitor; factions were formed, one expelling the other from the offices of importance, and the ruling powers of the Order now began to meet occasional resistance from its subordinate members. But a circumstance of much higher moment was, that on the next vacancy—in the year 1581—this office was conferred on Claudius Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, belonging to a house previously attached to the French party, a man of great energy, and only thirty-eight years old. The Spaniards then thought they perceived that their nation, by which the society had been founded and guided on its early path, was now to be forever excluded from the generalship. Thereupon they became discontented and refractory, and conceived the design of making themselves less dependent on Rome. … They first had recourse to the national spiritual authority of their own country—the Inquisition. … One of the discontented Jesuits, impelled, as he affirmed, by a scruple of conscience, accused his order of concealing, and even remitting, transgressions of the kind so reserved, when the criminal was one of their society. The Inquisition immediately caused the Provincial implicated, together with his most active associates, to be arrested. Other accusations being made in consequence of these arrests, the Inquisition commanded that the statutes of the order should be placed before it, and proceeded to make further seizures of parties accused. … The Inquisition was, however, competent to inflict a punishment on the criminal only: it could not prescribe changes in the regulations of the society. When the affair, therefore, had proceeded thus far, the discontented members applied to the king also, assailing him with long memorials, wherein they complained of the defects in their constitution. The character of this constitution had never been agreeable to Philip II.; he used to say that he could see through all the other orders, but that the order of Jesuits he could not understand. … He at once commanded Manrique, bishop of Carthagena, to subject the Order to a visitation, with particular reference to these points. … The character of Sixtus V. made it particularly easy for Acquaviva to excite the antipathies of that pontiff against the proceedings of the Spaniards. Pope Sixtus had formed the hope, as we know, of rendering Rome, more decidedly than it ever yet was, the metropolis of Christendom. Acquaviva assured him, that the object really laboured for in Spain was no other than increased independence of Rome. Pope Sixtus hated nothing so much as illegitimate birth; and Acquaviva caused him to be informed that Manrique, the bishop selected as 'Visitator' of the Jesuits, was illegitimate. These were reasons sufficient to make Sixtus recall the assent he had already given to the visitation. He even summoned the case of the provincial before the tribunals of Rome. From his successor, Gregory XIV., the general succeeded in obtaining a formal confirmation of the rule of the order. But his antagonists also were unyielding and crafty. They perceived that the general must be attacked in the court of Rome itself. They availed themselves of his momentary absence. … In the summer of 1592, at the request of the Spanish Jesuits and Philip II., but without the knowledge of Acquaviva, the pontiff commanded that a general congregation should be held. Astonished and alarmed, Acquaviva hastened back. To the generals of the Jesuits these 'Congregations' were no less inconvenient than were the Convocations of the Church to the popes; and if his predecessors were anxious to avoid them, how much more cause had Acquaviva, against whom there prevailed so active an enmity! But he was soon convinced that the arrangement was irrevocable; he therefore resumed his composure and said, 'We are obedient sons; let the will of the holy father be done.' … {1891} Philip of Spain had demanded some changes, and had recommended others for consideration. On two things he' insisted: the resignation of certain papal privileges; those of reading forbidden books, for example, and of granting absolution for the crime of heresy; and a law, by virtue of which every novice who entered the order should surrender whatever patrimonial rights he might possess, and should even resign all his benefices. These were matters in regard to which the order came into collision with the Inquisition and the civil government. After some hesitation, the demands of the king were complied with, and principally through the influence of Acquaviva himself. But the points recommended by Philip for consideration were of much higher moment. First of all came the questions, whether the authority of the superiors should not be limited to a certain period; and whether a general congregation should not be held at certain fixed intervals? The very essence and being of the institute, the rights of absolute sovereignty, were here brought into question. Acquaviva was not on this occasion disposed to comply. After an animated discussion, the congregation rejected these propositions of Philip; but the pope, also, was convinced of their necessity. What had been refused to the king was now commanded by the pope. By the plenitude of his apostolic power, he determined and ordained that the superiors and rectors should be changed every third year; and that, at the expiration of every sixth year, a general congregation should be assembled. It is, indeed, true that the execution of these ordinances did not effect so much as had been hoped from them. … It was, nevertheless, a very serious blow to the society, that it had been compelled, by internal revolt and interference from without, to a change in its statutes."

L. Ranke, History of the Popes, book 6, section 9 (volume 2).

JESUITS: A. D. 1581-1641. Hostility of the Paulistas of Brazil. Opposition to enslavement of the Indians.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.

JESUITS: A. D. 1595. Expulsion from Paris.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

JESUITS: A. D. 1606. Exclusion from Venice for half a century.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.

JESUITS: A. D. 1653-1660. First controversy and conflict with the Jansenists.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1602-1660.

JESUITS: A. D. 1702-1715. The renewed conflict with Jansenism in France. The Bull Unigenitus.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

JESUITS: A. D. 1757-1773. Suppression of the Society in Portugal and the Portuguese dominions.

In 1757, a series of measures intended to break the power, if not to end the existence, of the Society of Jesus, in Portugal and the Portuguese dominions, was undertaken by the great Portuguese minister, Carvalho, better known by his later title as the Marquis of Pombal. "It is not necessary to speculate on the various motives which induced Carvalho to attack the Jesuits, but the principal cause lay in the fact that they were wealthy and powerful, and therefore a dangerous force in an absolutist monarchy. It must be remembered that the Jesuits of the 18th century formed a very different class of men to their predecessors. They were no longer intrepid missionary pioneers, but a corporation of wealthy traders, who made use of their spiritual position to further the cause of their commerce. They had done a great work in America by opening up the interior of Brazil and converting the natives, and their administration of Paraguay, one of the most interesting achievements in the whole history of Christianity, was without doubt a blessing to the people. But by the middle of the 18th century they had gone too far. It was one thing to convert the natives of Brazil, and another to absorb much of the wealth of that country, in doing which they prejudiced not only the Crown but the Portuguese people, whom they kept from settling in the territory under their rule. Whether it was a sufficient reason for Carvalho to attack the order, because it was wealthy and powerful, and had departed from its primitive simplicity, is a question for everyone to decide for themselves, but that this was the reason, and that the various excuses alleged by the admirers of the great minister are without foundation, is an undoubted fact. On September 19, 1757, the first important blow was struck, when the king's Jesuit confessor was dismissed, and all Jesuits were forbidden to come to Court. Carvalho, in the name of the King of Portugal, also formally denounced the order at Rome, and Benedict XIV., the then Pope, appointed the Cardinal de Saldanha, a friend of the minister, Visitor and Reformer of the Society of Jesus. The cardinal did not take long in making up his mind, and May 15, 1758, he forbade the Jesuits to engage in trade. An attempt upon the king's life, which shortly followed this measure, gave the minister the opportunity he wanted for urging the suppression of the famous society. The history of the Tavora plot, which culminated in this attempt, is one of the most mysterious affairs in the whole history of Portugal. … The three leaders of the plot were the Duke of Aveiro, a descendant of John II., and one of the greatest noblemen in Portugal, the Marquis of Tavora, who had filled with credit the post of Governor-general of India, and the Count of Atouguia, a descendant of the gallant Dom Luis de Athaide, the defender of Goa; but the heart and soul of the conspiracy was the Marchioness of Tavora, a beautiful and ambitious woman, who was bitterly offended because her husband had not been made a duke. The confessor of this lady was a Jesuit named Gabriel Malagrida. … The evidence on all sides is most contradictory, and all that is certain is that the king was fired at and wounded on the night of September 3, 1758; and that in the following January, the three noblemen who have been mentioned, the Marchioness of Tavora, Malagrida with seven other Jesuits, and many other individuals of all ranks of life, were arrested as implicated in the attempt to murder. The laymen had but a short trial and, together with the marchioness, were publicly executed ten days after their arrest. King Joseph certainly believed that the real culprits had been seized, and in his gratitude he created Carvalho Count of Oeyras, and encouraged him to pursue his campaign against the Jesuits. On January 19, 1759, the estates belonging to the society were sequestrated; and on September 3rd, all its members were expelled from Portugal, and directions were sent to the viceroys of India and Brazil to expel them likewise. The news of this bold stroke was received with admiration everywhere, except at Rome, and it became noised abroad that a great minister was ruling in Portugal. … {1892} In 1764 the Jesuit priest Malagrida was burnt alive, not as a traitor but as a heretic and imposter, on account of some crazy tractates he had written. The man was regarded as a martyr, and all communication between Portugal and the Holy See was broken off for two years, while the Portuguese minister exerted all his influence with the Courts of France and Spain to procure the entire suppression of the society which he hated. The king supported him consistently, and after another attempt upon his life in 1769, which the minister as usual attributed to the Jesuits, King Joseph created his faithful servant Marquis of Pombal, by which title he is best known to fame. The prime ministers of France and Spain cordially acquiesced in the hatred of the Jesuits, for both the Duc de Choiseul and the Count d'Aranda had something of Pombal's spirit in them, and imitated his policy; in both countries the society, which on its foundation had done so much for Catholicism and Christianity, was proscribed, and the worthy members treated with as much rigour as the unworthy; and finally in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. solemnly abolished the Society of Jesus. King Joseph did not long survive this triumph of his minister, for he died on February 24, 1777, and the Marquis of Pombal, then an old man of 77, was at once dismissed from office."

H. M. Stephens, The Story of Portugal, chapter 16.

ALSO IN: G. B. Nicolini, History of the Jesuits, chapter 15.

T. Griesinger, The Jesuits, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 2).

JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769. Proceedings against the Order in the Parliament of Paris. Suppression in France, Spain, Bavaria, Parma, Modena, Venice. Demands on the Pope for the abolition of the Society.

"Father Antoine Lavalette, 'procureur' of the Jesuit Missions in the Antilles, resided in that capacity at St. Pierre in the island of Martinique. He was a man of talent, energy, and enterprise; and, following an example by no means uncommon in the Society, he had been for many years engaged in mercantile transactions on an extensive scale, and with eminent success. It was an occupation expressly prohibited to missionaries; but the Jesuits were in the habit of evading the difficulty by means of an ingenious fiction. Lavalette was in correspondence with the principal commercial firms in France, and particularly with that of Lioncy Brothers and Gouffre, of Marseilles. He made frequent consignments of merchandise to their house, which were covered by bills of exchange, drawn in Martinique and accepted by them. For a time the traffic proceeded prosperously; but it so happened that upon the breaking out of the Seven Years' War, several ships belonging to Lavalette, richly freighted with West Indian produce, were captured by the English cruisers, and their cargoes confiscated. The immediate loss fell upon Lioncy and Gouffre, to whom these vessels were consigned," and they were driven to bankruptcy, the General of the Society of Jesus refusing to be responsible for the obligations of his subordinate, Father Lavalette. "Under these circumstances the creditors determined to attack the Jesuit community as a corporate body," and the latter were so singularly unwary, for once, as not only to contest the claim before the Parliament of Paris, but to appeal to the constitutions of their Society in support of their contention, that each college was independent in the matter of temporal property, and that no corporate responsibility could exist. "The Parliament at once demanded that the constitutions thus referred to should he examined. The Jesuits were ordered to furnish a copy of them; they obeyed. … The compulsory production of these mysterious records, which had never before been inspected by any but Jesuit eyes, was an event of crucial significance. It was the turning-point of the whole affair; and its consequences were disastrous." As a first consequence, "the court condemned the General of the Jesuits, and in his person the whole Society which he governed, to acquit the bills of exchange still outstanding, together with interest and damages, within the space of a year from the date of the 'arrêt.' In default of payment the debt was made recoverable upon the common property of the Order, excepting only the endowments specially restricted to particular colleges. The delight of the public, who were present on the occasion in great numbers, 'was excessive,' says Barbier, 'and even indecent.'" As a second consequence, the Parliament, on the 6th of August, 1761, "condemned a quantity of publications by the Jesuits, dating from the year 1590 downwards, to be torn and burnt by the executioner and the next day this was duly carried out in the court of the Palais de Justice. Further, the 'arrêt' prohibited the king's subjects from entering the said Society; forbade the fathers to give instruction, private or public, in theology, philosophy, or humanity; and ordered their schools and colleges to be closed. The accusation brought against their books was … that of teaching 'abominable and murderous doctrine,' of justifying sedition, rebellion, and regicide. … The Government replied to these bold measures by ordering the Parliament to suspend the execution of its 'arrêts' for the space of a year. The Parliament affected to obey, but stipulated, in registering the letters-patent, that the delay should not extend beyond the 1st of April, 1762, and made other provisions which left them virtually at liberty to proceed as they might think proper. The Jesuits … relied too confidently on the protection of the Crown. … But the prestige of the monarchy was now seriously impaired, and it was no longer wise or safe for a King of France to undertake openly the defence of any institution which had incurred a deliberate sentence of condemnation from the mass of his people." In November, 1761, a meeting of French prelates was summoned by the Royal Council to consider and report upon several questions relative to the utility of the Society of Jesus, the character of its teaching and conduct, and the modifications, if any, which should be proposed as to the extent of authority exercised by the General of the Society. The bishops, by a large majority, made a report favorable to the Jesuits, but recommended, "as reasonable concessions to public opinion, certain alterations in its statutes and practical administration. … This project of compromise was forwarded to Rome for the consideration of the Pope and the General; and Louis gave them to understand, through his ambassador, that upon no other conditions would it be possible to stem the tide of opposition, and to maintain the Jesuits as a body corporate in France. {1893} It was now that the memorable reply was made, either by the General Ricci, or, according to other accounts, by Pope Clement XIII. himself—Sint ut sunt, aut non sint'; 'Let them remain as they are, or let them exist no longer.'" Even had the proposed reform been accepted, "its success was problematical; but its rejection sealed the fate of the Order. Louis, notwithstanding the ungracious response from Rome, proposed his scheme of conciliation to the Parliament in March, 1762, and annulled at the same time all measures adverse to the Jesuits taken since the 1st of August preceding. The Parliament, secretly encouraged by the Duc de Choiseul, refused to register this edict; the king, after some hesitation, withdrew it; and no available resource remained to shield the Order against its impending destiny. The Parliaments, both of Paris and the Provinces, laid the axe to the root without further delay. By an 'arrêt' of the 1st of April, 1762, the Jesuits were expelled from their 84 colleges in the ressort of the Parliament of Paris, and the example was followed by the provincial tribunals of Rouen, Rennes, Metz, Bordeaux, and Aix. The Society was now assailed by a general chorus of invective and execration. … The final blow was struck by the Parliament of Paris on the 6th of August, 1762. … The sentence then passed condemned the Society as 'inadmissible, by its nature, in any civilized State, inasmuch as it was contrary to the law of nature, subversive of authority spiritual and temporal, and introduced, under the veil of religion, not an Order sincerely aspiring to evangelical perfection, but rather a political body, of which the essence consists in perpetual attempts to attain, first, absolute independence, and in the end, supreme authority.' … The decree concludes by declaring the vows of the Jesuits illegal and void, forbidding them to observe the rules of the Order, to wear its dress, or to correspond with its members. They were to quit their houses within one week, and were to renounce, upon oath, all connection with the Society, upon pain of being disqualified for any ecclesiastical charge or public employment. The provincial Parliaments followed the lead of the capital, though in some few instances the decree of suppression was opposed, and carried only by a small majority; while at Besançon and Douai the decision was in favour of the Society. In Lorraine, too, under the peaceful government of Stanislas Leczinski, and in Alsace, where they were powerfully protected by Cardinal de Rohan, Bishop of Strasburg, the Jesuits were left unmolested. … The suppression of the Jesuits—the most important act of the administration of the Duc de Choiseul—was consummated by a royal ordonnance of November, 1764, to which Louis did not give his consent without mistrust and regret. It decreed that the Society should cease to exist throughout his Majesty's dominions; but it permitted the ex-Jesuits to reside in France as private citizens, and to exercise their ecclesiastical functions under the jurisdiction of the diocesans. … Almost immediately afterwards, on the 7th of January, 1765. appeared the bull 'Apostolicum,' by which Clement XIII. condemned, with all the weight of supreme and infallible authority, the measure which had deprived the Holy See of its most valiant defenders. … The only effect of the intervention of the Roman Curia was to excite further ebullitions of hostility against the prostrate Order. Charles III. of Spain, yielding, as it is alleged, to the exhortations of the Duc de Choiseul, abolished it throughout his dominions by a sudden mandate of April 2, 1767. … The Pope precipitated the final catastrophe by a further act of imprudence. The young Duke of Parma, a prince of the house of Bourbon, had excluded the Jesuits from his duchy, and had published certain ecclesiastical regulations detrimental to the ancient pretensions of the Roman See. Clement XIII., reviving an antiquated title in virtue of which Parma was claimed as a dependent fief of the Papacy, was rash enough to launch a bull of excommunication against the Duke, and deprived him of his dominions as a rebellious vassal. All the Bourbon sovereigns promptly combined to resent this insult to their family. The Papal Bull was suppressed at Paris, at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Parma, at Naples. The Jesuits were expelled from Venice, from Modena, from Bavaria. The Pontiff was summoned to revoke his 'monitorium'; and on his refusal French troops took possession of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, while the King of Naples seized Benevento and Pontecorvo. On the 16th of January, 1769, the ambassadors of Spain, France, and Naples presented a joint note to the Holy Father, demanding that the Order of Jesus should be secularised and abolished for ever. Clement, who had suffered severely from the manifold humiliations and reverses of his Pontificate, was overwhelmed by this last blow, from the effects of which he never rallied. He expired almost suddenly on the 2nd of February, 1769."

W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 2, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: T. Griesinger, The Jesuits, book 6, chapter 6, and book 7, chapter 1.

JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871 Papal suppression and restoration of the Order.

"The attitude of the Roman Catholic Courts was so threatening, and their influence with the Conclave so powerful, that Lorenzo Ganganelli was selected [1769] for the triple crown, as the man best suited for their purposes. Belonging to the Franciscans, who had ever been antagonistic to the Jesuits, he had been a follower of the Augustinian theology, and was not altogether free from Jansenism. The Jesuits even went so far as to pray publicly in their churches for the conversion of the Pope. The pontificate of Clement XIV. has been rendered memorable in history by the Papal decree of July 21, 1773, which in its policy adopted the maxim of Lorenzo Ricci, the inflexible General of the Jesuits, 'Sint ut sunt, aut non sunt'—Let us be as we are, or let us not be! That decree declared that, from the very origin of the Order, sorrow, jealousies, and dissensions arose, not only among its own members but between them and the other religious orders and their colleges. After further declaring that, urged as its head by a sense of duty to restore the harmony of the Church, and feeling convinced that the Society could no longer subserve the uses for which it was created, and on other grounds of prudence and governmental wisdom, he by his decree abolished the Order of Jesuits, its offices, houses, and institutes. … The other religious orders at Rome were jealous that Jesuits should have been the confessors of Sovereigns at Westminster, Madrid, Vienna, Versailles, Lisbon, and Naples. The influences of the Dominicans, the Benedictines, and the Oratorians were accordingly exercised for their suppression. … The Papal Bull 'Dominus Redemptor noster' was at first resisted by the Jesuits, and their General, Lorenzo Ricci, was sent to the Castle of St. Angelo. {1894} Bernardine Renzi, a female Pythoness, having predicted the death of the Pope, two Jesuits, Coltrano and Venissa, who were suspected of having instigated her prophecies, were consigned to the same prison. All that follows relating to the fate of Ganganelli is of mere historic interest; his end is shrouded in mystery, which has been as yet, and is likely to continue, impenetrable. According to the revelations of Cardinal de Bernis, Ganganelli was himself apprehensive of dying by poison, and a sinister rumour respecting a cup of chocolate with an infusion of 'Aqua de Tofana,' administered by a pious attendant, was generally prevalent throughout Europe; but the time has long since passed for an inquest over the deathbed of Clement XIV."

The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany (Fraser's' Magazine, May, 1873).

"All that follows the publication of the brief—the death of Ganganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the last year of his life, and the manner of his death—are to us indescribably melancholy and repulsive. … We have conflicting statements, both of which cannot be true—churchman against churchman—cardinal against cardinal—even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one side there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in the sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days of Clement; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest commiseration, for a wise and holy Pontiff, who, but for the crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace and respect and inward satisfaction. There a protracted agony of remorse in life and anticipated damnation—that damnation, if not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a special miracle:—here an apotheosis—a claim, at least, to canonization. There the judgment of God pronounced in language which hardly affects regret; here more than insinuations, dark charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore involving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and powerful party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is this which strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate student. The intensity with which they were hated surpasses even the intensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of mutual animosity among those or towards those to whom the Jesuits were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the adversaries of all religion; but among Roman Catholics—and those not always Jansenists or even Gallicans—among the most ardent assertors of the papal supremacy, monastics of other orders, parliaments, statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals. Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Protestant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and Arminianism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties counterwork each other, write against each other in terms of equal acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each other, accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same reckless zeal, in the same unmeasured language—each inflexibly, exclusively identifying his own cause with that of true religion, and involving its adversaries in one sweeping and remorseless condemnation. To us the question of the death of Clement XIV. is purely of historical interest. It is singular enough that Protestant writers are cited as alone doing impartial justice to the Jesuits and their enemies: the Compurgators of the 'Company of Jesus' are Frederick II. and the Encyclopedists. Outcast from Roman Catholic Europe, they found refuge in Prussia, and in the domains of Catherine II., from whence they disputed the validity and disobeyed the decrees of the Pope."

Clement XIV. and the Jesuits (Quarterly Review, September, 1848.)

"The Jesuit Order remained in abeyance for a period of forty-two years, until Pius VII. on his return to Rome, after his liberation from the captivity he endured under Napoleon I. at Fontainebleau, issued his brief of August 7, 1814, 'solicitudo omnium,' by which he authorised the surviving members of the Order again to live according to the rules of their founder, to admit novices, and to found colleges. With singular fatuity the Papal Edict for the restoration of the Jesuits, contradicting its own title, assigns on the face of the document as the principal reason for its being issued the recommendation contained in the gracious despatch of August 11, 1800, received from Paul, the then reigning Emperor of the Russias. We have the histories of all nations concurring that Paul was notoriously mad, and within six months from the date of that gracious despatch he was strangled in his palace by the members of his own Court, as the only possible means, as they conceived, of rescuing the Empire from his insane and vicious despotism. In return probably for the successful intercession of Paul, Thadeus Brzozowski, a Pole by birth but a Russian subject, was elected the first General of the restored order. We find a striking comment on his recommendation in the Imperial Ukase of his successor, the Emperor Alexander, by which, in June 1817, he banished the Jesuits from all his dominions. Spain, the scene of their former ignominious treatment, was, under the degraded rule of the Ferdinandian dynasty, the first country to which they were recalled; but they were soon again expelled by the National Cortes. Our limits here confine us to a simple category of their subsequent expulsions from Roman Catholic States: from France in 1831, from Saxony in the same year, from Portugal again in 1834, from Spain again in 1835, from France again in 1845, from the whole of Switzerland, including the Roman Catholic Cantons, in 1847, and in 1848 from Bavaria and other German States. In the Revolution of 1848, they were expelled from every Italian State, even from the territories of the Pope; but on the counter Revolution they returned, to be again expelled in 1859 from Lombardy, Parma, Modena and the Legations. They have had to endure even a more recent vicissitude, for, in December 1871, a measure relating to the vexed question, the Union of Church and State, received the sanction of the National Council (Bundesrath) of Switzerland, by which the Jesuits were prohibited from settling in the country, from interfering even in education, or from founding or re-establishing colleges throughout the Federal territories. They have thus within a recent period received sentence of banishment from almost every Roman Catholic Government, but they still remain in Rome."

The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany (Fraser's Magazine, May, 1873).

{1895}

JESUITS: A. D. 1847. The question of Expulsion in Switzerland. The Sonderbund and the war of religions.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.

JESUITS: A. D. 1880. The law against Jesuit schools in the French Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.

—————JESUITS: End————

JESUS, Uncertainty of, the date of the birth of.

See JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.

JEU-DE-PAUME, The Oath at the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).

JEUNESSE DOREE, of the Anti-Jacobin reaction in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

—————JEWS: Start————

JEWS. The National Names.

There have been two principal conjectures as to the origin of the name Hebrews, by which the descendants of Abraham were originally known. One derives the name from a progenitor, Eber; the other finds its origin in a Semitic word signifying "over," or "crossed over." In the latter view, the name was applied by the Canaanites to people who came into their country from beyond the Euphrates. Ewald, who rejects this latter hypothesis, says: "While there is nothing to show that the name emanated from strangers, nothing is more manifest than that the nation called themselves by it and had done so as long as memory could reach; indeed this is the only one of their names that appears to have been current in the earliest times. The history of this name shows that it must have been most frequently used in the ancient times, before that branch of the Hebrews which took the name of Israel became dominant, but that after the time of the Kings it entirely disappeared from ordinary speech, and was only revived in the period immediately before Christ, like many other names of the primeval times, through the prevalence of a learned mode of regarding antiquity, when it came afresh into esteem through the reverence then felt for Abraham."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, volume 1, page 284.

After the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity—the returned exiles being mostly of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin—"the name of Judah took the predominant place in the national titles. As the primitive name of 'Hebrew' had given way to the historical name of Israel, so that of Israel now gave way to the name of 'Judæan' or 'Jew,' so full of praise and pride, of reproach and scorn. 'It was born,' as their later historian [Josephus] truly observes, 'on the day when they came out from Babylon.'"

A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, volume 3, page 101.

JEWS: The early Hebrew history.

"Of course, in the abstract, it is possible that such persons as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have existed. One can imagine that such and such incidents in the accounts regarding them really took place, and were handed down by tradition. … But our present investigation does not concern the question whether there existed men of those names, but whether the progenitors of Israel and of the neighbouring nations who are represented in Genesis are historical personages. It is this question which we answer in the negative. Must we then deny all historical value to the narratives of the patriarchs? By no means. What we have to do is to make proper use of them. They teach us what the Israelites thought as to their affinities with the tribes around them, and as to the manner of their own settlement in the land of their abode. If we strip them of their genealogical form, and at the same time take into consideration the influence which Israel's self-love must have exercised over the representation of relationships and facts, we have an historical kernel left. … The narratives in Genesis, viewed and used in this way, lead us to the following conception of Israel's early history. Canaan was originally inhabited by a number of tribes—of Semitic origin, as we shall perceive presently—who applied themselves to the rearing of cattle, to agriculture, or to commerce, according to the nature of the districts in which they were established. The countries which were subsequently named after Edom, Ammon, and Moab, also had their aboriginal inhabitants, the Horites, the Zamzummites, and the Emites. Whilst all these tribes retained possession of their dwelling-places, and the inhabitants of Canaan especially had reached a tolerably high stage of civilization and development, there occurred a Semitic migration, which issued from Arrapachitis (Arphacsad, Ur Casdim), and moved on in a south-westerly direction. The countries to the east and the south of Canaan were gradually occupied by these intruders, the former inhabitants being either expelled or subjugated; Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, and Edom became the ruling nations in those districts. In Canaan the situation was different. The tribes which—at first closely connected with the Edomites, but afterwards separated from them—had turned their steps towards Canaan, did not find themselves strong enough either to drive out, or to exact tribute from, the original inhabitants; they continued their wandering life among them, and lived upon the whole at peace with them. But a real settlement was still their aim. When, therefore, they had become more numerous and powerful, through the arrival of a number of kindred settlers from Mesopotamia—represented in tradition by the army with which Jacob returns to Canaan—they resumed their march in the same south-westerly direction, until at length they took possession of fixed habitations in the land of Goshen, on the borders of Egypt."

A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Genesis xiv., … we see him acting as a powerful domestic prince, among many similar princes, who like him held Canaan in possession; not calling himself King, like Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, because he was the father and protector of his house, living with his family and bondmen in the open country, yet equal in power to the petty Canaanite kings. … {1896} Detached as this account may be, it is at least evident from it that the Canaanites were at that time highly civilised, since they had a priest-king like Melchizedek, whom Abraham held in honour, but that they were even then so weakened by endless divisions and by the emasculating influence of that culture itself, as either to pay tribute to the warlike nations of the northeast (as the five kings of the cities of the Dead Sea had done for twelve years before they rebelled, ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descendants of the northern lands living in their midst, who in return for certain concessions and services promised them protection and defence. … This idea furnishes the only tenable historical view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms, like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing themselves upon them. Thus they took up their abode and obtained possessions among them, but were always wishing to migrate farther, even into Egypt. … Little as we are able to prove all the details of that migration from the north towards Egypt, which probably continued for centuries, it may with great certainty be conceived as on the whole similar to the gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of the Germans towards Rome, and of the Turks in these same regions in the Middle Ages. … We now understand that Abraham's name can designate only one of the most important and oldest of the Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early attained a name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards the south, and since he was everything especially to the nation of Israel which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and rallying-point of all the memory of those times."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 1, section 1, C, part 3.

JEWS: The Children of Israel in Egypt.

"It has been very generally supposed that Abraham's visit to Egypt took place under the reign of one of the kings of the twelfth dynasty [placed by Brugsch B. C. 2466-2266], but which king has not yet been satisfactorily made out. … Some Biblical critics have considered that Amenemha III. was king of Egypt when Abraham came there, and others that Usertsen I. was king, and that Amenemha was the Pharaoh of the time of Joseph. … It is generally accepted now that Joseph was sold into Egypt at the time when the Hyksos were in power [and about 1750 B. C.]; and it is also generally accepted that the Exodus took place after the death of Rameses II. and under the reign of Merenptah, or Meneptah. Now the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt for 400 or 430 years; and as they went out of Egypt after the death of Rameses II., it was probably some time about the year 1350 B. C. There is little doubt that the Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites so shamefully was Rameses II."

E. A. W. Budge, The Dwellers on the Nile, chapter 4.

"It is stated by George the Syncellus, a writer whose extensive learning and entire honesty are unquestionable, that the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last king of the only known Hyksos dynasty, was 'acknowledged by all.' The best modern authorities accept this view, if not as clearly established, at any rate as in the highest degree probable, and believe that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew his prime minister, who invited his father and his brethren to settle in Egypt with their households, and assigned to them the land of Goshen for their residence."

G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 19 (volume 2).

"The new Pharaoh, 'who knew not Joseph,' who adorned the city of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic nome, and the city of Pithom, the capital of what was afterwards the Sethroitic nome, with temple-cities, is no other, can be no other, than Ramessu II. or Rameses—the Sesostris of the Greeks, B. C. 1350, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and the papyrus-rolls speak in complete agreement. … Ramessu is the Pharaoh of the oppression, and the father of that unnamed princess, who found the child Moses exposed in the bulrushes on the bank of the river. … If Ramses-Sesostris … must be regarded beyond all doubt as the Pharaoh under whom the Jewish legislator Moses first saw the light, so the chronological relations—having regard to the great age of the two contemporaries, Ramses II. and Moses—demand that Mineptah [his son] should in all probability be acknowledged as the Pharaoh of the Exodus."

H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, chapter 14.

The quotations given above represent the orthodox view of early Jewish history, in the light of modern monumental studies,—the view, that is, which accepts the Biblical account of Abraham and his seed as a literal family record, authentically widening into the annals of a nation. The more rationalizing views are indicated by the following: "There can be no doubt … as to the Semitic character of these Hyksos, or 'Pastors,' who, more than 2,000 years B. C., interrupted in a measure the current of Egyptian civilisation, and founded at Zoan (Tanis), near the Isthmus, the centre of a powerful Semitic state. These Hyksos were to all appearances Canaanites, near relations of the Hittites of Hebron. Hebron was in close community with Zoan, and there is a tradition, probably based upon historical data, that the two cities were built nearly at the same time. As invariably happens when barbarians enter into an ancient and powerful civilisation, the Hyksos soon became Egyptianised. … The Hyksos of Zoan could not fail to exercise a great influence upon the Hebrews who were encamped around Hebron, the Dead Sea, and in the southern districts of Palestine. The antipathy which afterwards existed between the Hebrews and the Canaanites was not as yet very perceptible. … There are the best of reasons for believing that the immigration of the Beni-Israel took place at two separate times. A first batch of Israelites seems to have been attracted by the Hittites of Egypt, while the bulk of the tribe was living upon the best of terms with the Hittites of Hebron. These first immigrants found favour with the Egyptianised Hittites of Memphis and Zoan; they secured very good positions, had children, and constituted a distinct family in Israel. This was what was afterwards called the 'clan of the Josephel,' or the Beni-Joseph. Finding themselves well off in Lower Egypt, they sent for their brethren, who, impelled perhaps by famine, joined them there, and were received also favourably by the Hittite dynasties. These new-comers never went to Memphis. They remained in the vicinity of Zoan, where there is a land of Goshen, which was allotted to them. … {1897} The whole of these ancient days, concerning which Israel possesses only legends and contradictory traditions, is enveloped in doubt; one thing, however, is certain, viz., that Israel entered Egypt under a dynasty favourable to the Semites, and left it under one which was hostile. The presence of a nomad tribe upon the extreme confines of Egypt must have been a matter of very small importance for this latter country. There is no certain trace of it in the Egyptian texts. The kingdom of Zoan, upon the contrary, left a deep impression upon the Israelites. Zoan became for them synonymous with Egypt. The relations between Zoan and Hebron were kept up, and … Hebron was proud of the synchronism, which made it out seven years older than Zoan. The first-comers, the Josephites, always assumed an air of superiority over their brethren, whose position they had been instrumental in establishing. … Their children, born in Egypt, possibly of Egyptian mothers, were scarcely Israelites. An agreement was come to, however; it was agreed that the Josephites should rank as Israelites with the rest. They formed two distinct tribes, those of Ephraim and Manasseh. … It is not impossible that the origin of the name of Joseph (addition, adjunction, annexation) may have arisen from the circumstance that the first emigrants and their families, having become strangers to their brethren, needed some sort of adjunction to become again part and parcel of the family of Israel."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 1, chapter 10 (volume 1).

See, also, EGYPT: THE HYKSOS, and ABOUT B. C. 1400-1200.

JEWS: The Route of the Exodus.

It is said of the oppressed Israelites in Egypt that "they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." (Exodus i. 11.) One of those "treasure cities," or "store-cities," has been discovered, in a heap of ruins, at a place which the Arabs call "Tell el Maskhutah," and it was supposed at first to be the Raamses of the Biblical record. But explorations made in 1883 by M. Naville seem to have proved that it is the store-city of Pithom which lies buried in the mounds at Tell el Maskhutah and that Raamses is still to be found. As Raamses or Ramses was the starting point of the Exodus, something of a controversy concerning the route of the latter turns upon the question. It is the opinion of M. Naville that Succoth, where the Children of Israel made their first halt, was the district in which Pithom is situated, and that the Land of Goshen, their dwelling-place in Egypt, was a region embracing that district. The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is "on the south side of the sweet water canal which runs from Cairo to Suez through the Wadi Tumilât, about 12 miles from Ismailiah." The excavations made have brought to light a great number of chambers, with massive walls of brick, which are conjectured to have been granaries and storehouses, for the provisioning of caravans and armies to cross the desert to Syria, as well as for the collecting of tribute and for the warehousing of trade. Hence the name of store-city, or treasure-city. Under the Greeks Pithom changed its name to Heroopolis, and a new city called Arsinoë was built near it.

E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom.

"I submit that Goshen, properly speaking, was the land which afterwards became the Arabian nome, viz., the country round Saft el Henneh east of the canal Abu-I-Munagge, a district comprising Belbeis and Abbaseh, and probably extending further north than the Wadi Tumilat. The capital of the nome was Pa Sopt, called by the Greeks Phacusa, now Saft el Henneh. At the time when the Israelites occupied the land, the term 'Goshen' belonged to a region which as yet had no definite boundaries, and which extended with the increase of the people over the territory they inhabited. The term 'land of Ramses' applies to a larger area, and covers that part of the Delta which lies to the eastward of the Tanitic branch. … As for the city of Ramses, it was situate in the Arabian nome. Probably it was Phacusa."

E. Naville, Shrine of Saft el Henneh and the Land of Goshen.

The Israelites leaving Succoth, a region which we now know well, the neighbourhood of Tell-el-Maskhutah, push forward towards the desert, skirting the northern shore of the gulf, and thus reach the wilderness of Etham; but there, because of the pursuit of Pharaoh, they have to change their course, they are told to retrace their steps, so as to put the sea between them and the desert. … 'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon; before it shall ye encamp by the sea.' … The question is now, Where are we to look for Migdol and Pi-Hahiroth? As for Migdol, the ancient authors, and particularly the Itinerary, mention a Migdol, or Magdolon, which was twelve Roman miles distant from Pelusium. It is not possible to admit that this is the same Migdol which is spoken of in Exodus, for then it would not be the Red Sea, but the Mediterranean, which the Israelites would have before them, and we should thus have to fall in with MM. Schleiden and Brugsch's theory, that they followed the narrow track which lies between the Mediterranean and the Serbonian Bog. However ingenious are the arguments on which this system is based, I believe it must now be dismissed altogether, because we know the site of the station of Succoth. Is it possible to admit that, from the shore of the Arabian Gulf, the Israelites turned to the north, and marched forty miles through the desert in order to reach the Mediterranean? The journey would have lasted several days; they would have been obliged to pass in front of the fortresses of the north; they would have fallen into the way of the land of the Philistines, which they were told not to take; and, lastly, the Egyptians, issuing from Tanis and the northern cities, would have easily intercepted them. … All these reasons induce me to give up definitively the idea of the passage by the north, and to return to the old theory of a passage of the Red Sea, but of the Red Sea as it was at that time, extending a great deal farther northward, and not the Red Sea of to-day, which occupies a very different position. The word Migdol, in Egyptian, … is a common name. It means a fort, a tower. It is very likely that in a fortified region there have been several places so called, distinguished from each other, either by the name of the king who built them, or by some local circumstance; just as there are in Italy a considerable number of Torre. I should therefore, with M. Ebers, place Migdol at the present station of the Serapeum. There the sea was not wide, and the water probably very shallow; there also the phenomenon which took place on such a large scale when the Israelites went through must have been well known, as it is often seen now in other parts of Egypt. {1898} As at this point the sea was liable to be driven back under the influence of the east wind, and to leave a dry way, the Pharaohs were obliged to have there a fort, a Migdol, so as to guard that part of the sea, and to prevent the Asiatics of the desert from using this temporary gate to enter Egypt, to steal cattle, and to plunder the fertile land which was round Pithom."

E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus (Egypt Expl. Fund, 1885).

"Modern critics prefer an intelligent interpretation, according to known natural laws, of the words of Exodus xiv. 21, 22, which lay stress upon the 'east wind' as the direct natural agent by which the sea bottom was for the time made dry land. … The theory, which dates from an early period, that the passage was in some sense tidal, miraculously aided by the agency of wind, has thus come to be very generally adopted."

H. S. Palmer, Sinai (Ancient History from the Monuments), chapter 6.

JEWS: The conquest of Canaan.

"The first essay [west of Jordan] was made by Judah in conjunction with Simeon and Levi, but was far from prosperous. Simeon and Levi were annihilated; Judah also, though successful in mastering the mountain land to the west of the Dead Sea, was so only at the cost of severe losses which were not again made up until the accession of the Kenite families of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of the secession of these tribes, a new division of the nation into Israel and Judah took the place of that which had previously subsisted between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel were included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah, which three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all the others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a second, which was stronger and attended with much better results. It was led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the others attached themselves, Reuben and Gad only remaining behind in the old settlements. The district to the north of Judah, inhabited afterwards by Benjamin, was the first to be attacked. It was not until after several towns of this district had one by one fallen into the hands of the conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united resistance. They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua in the neighbourhood of Gibeon [or Beth-horon]; and by this victory the Israelites became masters of the whole central plateau of Palestine. The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan, which had been maintained until then, was now removed, and the ark of Jehovah brought further inland (perhaps by way of Bethel) to Shiloh, where henceforwards the headquarters were fixed, in a position which seemed as if it had been expressly made to favour attacks upon the fertile tract lying beneath it on the north. The Bne Rachel now occupied the new territory which up to that time had been acquired—Benjamin, in immediate contiguity with the frontier of Judah, then Ephraim, stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly Manasseh, furthest to the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel. The centre of gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim, to which belonged Joshua and the ark, It is mentioned as the last achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee, thereby opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. … Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been broken, each individual community had still enough to do before it could take firm hold of the spot which it had searched out for itself or to which it had been assigned. The business of effecting permanent settlement was just a continuation of the former struggle, only on a diminished scale; every tribe and every family now fought for its own hand after the preliminary work had been accomplished by a united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All that was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the mountainous land, particularly the southern hill-country of 'Mount Ephraim'; yet even here the Canaanites retained possession of not a few cities, such as Jebus, Shechem, Thebez. It was only after the lapse of centuries that all the lacunæ were filled up, and the Canaanite enclaves made tributary. The Israelites had the extraordinarily disintegrated state of the enemy to thank for the ease with which they had achieved success."

J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 2.

"Remnants of the Canaanites remained everywhere among and between the Israelites. Beside the Benjamites the Jebusites (a tribe of the Amorites) maintained themselves, and at Gibeon, Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth were the Hivites, who had made peace with the Israelites. In the land of Ephraim, the Canaanites held their ground at Geser and Bethel, until the latter—it was an important city—was stormed by the Ephraimites. Among the tribe of Manasseh the Canaanites were settled at Beth Shean, Dan, Taanach, Jibleam, Megiddo and their districts, and in the northern tribes the Canaanites were still more numerous. It was not till long after the immigration of the Hebrews that they were made in part tributary. The land of the Israelites beyond the Jordan, where the tribe of Manasseh possessed the north, Gad the centre, and Reuben the south as far as the Arnon, was exposed to the attacks of the Ammonites and Moabites, and the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, and must have had the greater attraction for them, as better pastures were to be found in the heights of Gilead, and the valleys there were more fruitful. To the west only the tribe of Ephraim reached the sea, and became master of a harbourless strip of coast. The remaining part of the coast and all the harbours remained in the hands of the powerful cities of the Philistines and the Phenicians. No attempt was made to conquer these, although border-conflicts took place between the tribes of Judah, Dan, and Asher, and Philistines and Sidonians. Such an attempt could only have been made if the Israelites had remained united, and even then the powers of the Israelites would hardly have sufficed to overthrow the walls of Gaza, Ascalon, and Ashdod, of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus. Yet the invasion of the Israelites was not without results for the cities of the coast: it forced a large part of the population to assemble in them, and we shall see … how rapid and powerful is the growth of the strength and importance of Tyre in the time immediately following the incursion of the Israelites, i. e., immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century. {1899} As the population and in consequence the power of the cities on the coast increased, owing to the collection of the ancient population on the shore of the sea, those cities became all the more dangerous neighbours for the Israelites. It was a misfortune for the new territory which the Israelites had won by the sword that it was without the protection of natural boundaries on the north and east, that the cities of the Philistines and Phenicians barred it towards the sea, and in the interior remnants of the Canaanites still maintained their place. Yet it was a far more serious danger for the immigrants that they were without unity, connection, or guidance, for they had already given up these before the conflict was ended. Undoubtedly a vigorous leadership in the war of conquest against the Canaanites might have established a military monarchy which would have provided better for the maintenance of the borders and the security of the land than was done in its absence. But the isolated defence made by the Canaanites permitted the attacking party also to isolate themselves. The new masters of the land lived, like the Canaanites before and among them, in separate cantons; the mountain land which they possessed was much broken up, and without any natural centre, and though there were dangerous neighbours, there was no single concentrated aggressive power in the neighbourhood, now that Egypt remained in her borders. The cities of the Philistines formed a federation merely, though a federation far more strongly organised than the tribes of the Israelites. Under these circumstances political unity was not an immediately pressing question among the Israelites."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 2, chapter 11 (volume 1).

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 2, section 2, C.

JEWS: Israel under the Judges. The wars of the Period. Conquest of Gilead and Bashan. Founding of the kingdom.

"The office which gives its name to the period [between the death of Joshua and the rise of Samuel] well describes it. It was occasional, irregular, uncertain, yet gradually tending to fixedness and perpetuity. Its title is itself expressive. The Ruler was not regal, but he was more than the mere head of a tribe, or the mere judge of special cases. We have to seek for the origin of the name, not amongst the Sheykhs of the Arabian desert, but amongst the civilised settlements of Phœnicia. 'Shophet,' 'Shophetim,' the Hebrew word which we translate 'Judge,' is the same as we find in the 'Suffes,' 'Suffetes,' of the Carthaginian rulers at the time of the Punic wars. As afterwards the office of 'king' was taken from the nations round about, so now, if not the office, at least the name of 'judge' or 'shophet' seems to have been drawn from the Canaanitish cities, with which for the first time Israel came into contact. … Finally the two offices which, in the earlier years of this period, had remained distinct—the High Priest and the Judge—were united in the person of Eli."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 13.

"The first war mentioned in the days of the Judges is with the Syrians, at a time when the Israelites, or a northern portion of them, were held in servitude for eight years by a king whose name, Cushan-rish-athaim, which may be translated the 'Most Wicked Negress,' seems to place him in the region of imaginary tradition rather than of history. … The next war mentioned was an invasion by the Moabites, who, being joined with a body of Ammonites, and Amalakites, harassed the Israelites of the neighbourhood of Gilgal and Jericho. … After a servitude of 18 years under the Moabites, Ehud, a Benjamite, found an opportunity of stabbing Eglon, the king of Moab; and shortly afterwards the Benjamites were relieved by a body of their neighbours from the hill country of Ephraim. The Israelites then defeated the Moabites, and seized the fords of the Jordan to stop their retreat, and slew them all to a man. While this war was going on on one side of the land, the Philistines from the south were harassing those of the Israelites who were nearest to their country. … The history then carries us back to the northern Israelites, and we hear of their struggle with the Canaanites of that part of the country which was afterwards called Galilee. These people were under a king named Jabin, who had 900 chariots of iron, and they cruelly oppressed the men of Naphtali and Zebulun, who were at that time the most northerly of the Israelites. After a suffering of 20 years, the two tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, under the leadership of Barak, rallied against their oppressors, and called to their help their stronger neighbours, the men of Ephraim. The tribe of Ephraim was the most settled portion of the Israelites, and they had adopted some form of government, while the other tribes were stragglers scattered over the land, every man doing what was right in his own eyes. The Ephraimites were at that time governed, or, in their own language, judged, by a brave woman of the name of Deborah, who led her followers, together with some of the Benjamites, to the assistance of Barak, the leader of Zebulun and Naphtali; and, at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the brook Kishon, their united forces defeated Sisern, the general of the Canaanites. Sisera fled, and was murdered by Jael, a woman in whose tent he had sought for refuge. … The next war that we are told of is an invasion by the Midianites and Amalakites and Children of the East. They crossed the Jordan to attack the men of Manasseh, who were at the same time struggling with the Amorites, the natives who dwelt amongst them. Gideon, the leader of Manasseh, called together the fighting men of his own tribe, together with those of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. The men of Gilead, who had come over to help him, seem to have deserted him. Gideon, however, routed his enemies, and then he summoned the Ephraimites to guard the fords of the Jordan, and to cut off the fugitives. … This victory of Gideon, or Jerubbaal, as he was also named, marked him out as a man fit to be the ruler of Israel, and to save them from the troubles that arose from the want of a single head to lead them against the enemies that surrounded them and dwelt among them. Accordingly, he obtained the rank of chief of all the northern Israelites. Gideon had dwelt at Ophrah, in the land of Manasseh; but his son Abimelech, who succeeded him in his high post, was born in Shechem, in the land of Ephraim, and had thus gained the friendship of some of that tribe. Abimelech put to death all but one of his brethren, the other sons of Gideon, and got himself made king at Shechem; and he was the first who bore that title among the Israelites. {1900} But his thus violently seizing upon the power was the cause of a long civil war between Ephraim and Manasseh, which ended in the death of the usurper Abimelech, and the transfer of the chieftainship to another tribe. Tola, a man of Issachar, was then made Judge, or ruler of the northern tribes. … After Tola, says the historian, Jair of Gilead judged Israel. … Jair and his successors may have ruled in the east at the same time that Deborah and Gideon and their successors were ruling or struggling against their oppressors in the west. Jephtha of Gilead is the next great captain mentioned. … The Ammonites, who dwelt in the more desert country to the east of Gilead, had made a serious incursion on the Israelites on both sides of the Jordan; and the men of Gilead, in their distress, sent for Jephtha, who was then living at Tob, in Syria, whither he had fled from a quarrel with his brethren. … It seems that the Ammonites invaded Gilead on the plea that they had possessed that land before the Israelites arrived there, to which Jephtha answered that the Israelites had dispossessed the Amorites under Sihon, king of Heshbon, and that the Ammonites had not dwelt in that part of the country. In stating the argument, the historian gives a history of their arrival on the banks of the Jordan. On coming out of Lower Egypt, they crossed the desert to the Red Sea, and then came to Kadesh. From thence they asked leave of the Edomites and Moabites to pass through their territory; but, being refused, they went round Moab till they came to the northern bank of the river Arnon, an eastern tributary of the Jordan. There they were attacked by Sihon, king of the Amorites; and on defeating him they seized his territory, which lay between the Arnon and the Jabbok. There the Israelites had dwelt quietly for 300 years, without fighting against either the Moabites or the Ammonites, who were both too strong to be attacked. This is a most interesting narrative, both for what it tells and for what it omits, as compared with the longer narrative in the Pentateuch. … It omits all mention of the delivery of the Law, or of the Ark, or of any supernatural events as having happened on the march, and of the fighting with Og, king of Bashan. Og, or Gog, as it is spelled by other writers, was the name of the monarch whose imaginary castles, seen upon the mountains in the distance, the traveller thought it not wise to approach. They were at the limits of all geographical knowledge. At this early time this fabulous king held Mount Bashan; in Ezekiel's time he had retreated to the shores of the Caspian Sea; and ten centuries later the Arabic travellers were stopped by him at the foot of the Altai Mountains, in Central Asia. His withdrawing before the advance of geographical explorers proves his unreal character. He is not mentioned in this earlier account of the Israelites settling in the land of the Amorites; it is only in the more modern narrative in the Book of Numbers that he is attacked and defeated in battle, and only in the yet more modern Book of Deuteronomy that we learn about his iron bedstead of nine cubits in length."

S. Sharpe, History of the Hebrew Nation, pages 4-9.

"At the close of the period of the Judges the greater part of the Israelites had quite lost their pastoral habits. They were an agricultural people living in cities and villages, and their oldest civil laws I are framed for this kind of life. All the new arts which this complete change of habit implies they must have derived from the Canaanites, and as they learned the ways of agricultural life they could hardly fail to acquire many of the characteristics of their teachers. To make the transformation complete only one thing was lacking —that Israel should also accept the religion of the aborigines. The history and the prophets alike testify that to a great extent they actually did this. Canaanite sanctuaries became Hebrew holy places, and the vileness of Canaanite nature-worship polluted the Hebrew festivals. For a time it seemed that Jehovah, the ancestral God of Israel, who brought their fathers up out of the house of bondage and gave them their goodly land, would be forgotten or transformed into a Canaanite Baal. If this change had been completed Israel would have left no name in the world's history; but Providence had other things in store for the people of Jehovah. Henceforth the real significance of Israel's fortunes lies in the preservation and development of the national faith, and the history of the tribes of Jacob is rightly set forth in the Bible as the history of that divine discipline by which Jehovah maintained a people for Himself amidst the seductions of Canaanite worship and the ever-new backslidings of Israel. … In the end Jehovah was still the God of Israel, and had become the God of Israel's land. Canaan was His heritage, not the heritage of the Baalim, and the Canaanite worship appears henceforth, not as a direct rival to the worship of Jehovah, but as a disturbing element corrupting the national faith, while unable to supplant it altogether. This, of course, in virtue of the close connection between religion and national feeling, means that Israel had now risen above the danger of absorption in the Canaanites, and felt itself to be a nation in the true sense of the word. We learn from the books of Samuel how this great advance was ultimately and permanently secured. The earlier wars recorded in the book of Judges had brought about no complete or lasting unity among the Hebrew tribes. But at length a new enemy arose, more formidable than any whom they had previously encountered. The Philistines from Caphtor, who, like the Israelites, had entered Canaan as emigrants, but coming most probably by sea had displaced the aboriginal Avvim in the rich coastlands beneath the mountains of Judah (Deuteronomy ii. 23; Amos ix. 7), pressed into the heart of the country, and broke the old strength of Ephraim in the battle of Ebenezer. This victory cut the Hebrew settlements in two, and threatened the independence of all the tribes. The common danger drew Israel together."

W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, lecture 1.

JEWS: The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

"No one appeared again in the character at once of judge and warrior, to protect the people by force of arms. It was the Levite Samuel, a prophet dedicated to God even before his birth, who recalled them to the consciousness of religious feeling. He succeeded in removing the emblems of Baal and Astarte from the heights, and in paving the way for renewed faith in Jehovah. … It was the feeling of the people that they could only carry on the war upon the system employed by all their neighbors. {1901} They demanded a king—a request very intelligible under existing circumstances, but one which nevertheless involved a wide and significant departure from the impulses which had hitherto moved the Jewish community and the forms in which it had shaped itself. … The Israelites demanded a king, not only to go before them and fight their battles, but also to judge them. They no longer looked for their preservation to the occasional efforts of the prophetic order and the ephemeral existence of heroic leaders. … The argument by which Samuel, as the narrative records, seeks to deter the people from their purpose, is that the king will encroach upon the freedom of private life which they have hitherto enjoyed, employing their sons and daughters in his service, whether in the palace or in war, exacting tithes, taking the best part of the land for himself, and regarding all as his bondsmen. In this freedom of tribal and family life lay the essence of the Mosaic constitution. But the danger that all may be lost is so pressing that the people insist upon their own will in opposition to the prophet. Nevertheless, without the prophet nothing can be done, and it is he who selects from the youth of the country the man who is to enjoy the new dignity in Israel. … At first the proceeding had but a doubtful result. Many despised a young man sprung from the smallest family of the smallest tribe of Israel, as one who could give them no real assistance. In order to make effective the conception of the kingly office thus assigned to him, it was necessary in the first place that he should gain for himself a personal reputation. A king of the Ammonites, a tribe in affinity to Israel, laid siege to Jabesh in Gilead, and burdened the proffered surrender of the place with the condition that he should put out the right eyes of the inhabitants. … Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, designated by the prophet as king, but not as yet recognized as such, was engaged, as Gideon before him, in his rustic labors, when he learned the situation through the lamentations of the people. … Seized with the idea of his mission, Saul cuts in pieces a yoke of oxen, and sends the portions to the twelve tribes with the threat, 'Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.' … Thus urged, … Israel combines like one man; Jabesh is rescued and Saul acknowledged as king. … With the recognition of the king, however, and the progress of his good-fortune, a new and disturbing element appears. A contest breaks out between him and the prophet, in which we recognize not so much opposition as jealousy between the two powers. … On the one side was the independent power of monarchy, which looks to the requirements of the moment, on the other the prophet's tenacious and unreserved adherence to tradition. … The relations between the tribes have also some bearing on the question. Hitherto Ephraim had led the van, and jealously insisted on its prerogative. Saul was of Benjamin, a tribe nearly related to Ephraim by descent. He had made the men of his own tribe captains, and had given them vineyards. On the other hand, the prophet chose Saul's successor from the tribe of Judah. This successor was David, the son of Jesse. … In the opposition which now begins we have on the one side the prophet and his anointed, who aim at maintaining the religious authority in all its aspects, on the other the champion and deliverer of the nation, who, abandoned by the faithful, turns for aid to the powers of darkness and seeks knowledge of the future through witchcraft. Saul is the first tragic personage in the history of the world. David took refuge with the Philistines. Among them he lived as an independent military chieftain, and was joined not only by opponents of the king, but by others, ready for any service, or, in the language of the original, 'men armed with bows, who could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow.' … In any serious war against the Israelites, such as actually broke out, the Sarim of the Philistines would not have tolerated him amongst them. David preferred to engage in a second attack upon the Amalekites, the common enemy of Philistines and Jews. At this juncture Israel was defeated by the Philistines. The king's sons were slain; Saul, in danger of falling into the enemy's hands, slew himself. Meanwhile David with his freebooters had defeated the Amalekites, and torn from their grasp the spoil they had accumulated, which was now distributed in Judah. Soon after, the death of Saul is announced. … David, conscious of being the rightful successor of Saul—for on him too, long ere this, the unction had been bestowed—betook himself to Hebron, the seat of the ancient Canaanitish kings, which had subsequently been given up to the priests and made one of the cities of refuge. It was in the province of Judah; and there, the tribe of Judah assisting at the ceremony, David was once more anointed. This tribe alone, however, acknowledged him; the others, especially Ephraim and Benjamin, attached themselves to Ishbosheth, the surviving son of Saul. … The first passage of arms between the two hosts took place between twelve of the tribe of Benjamin and twelve of David's men-at-arms. It led, however, to no result; it was a mutual slaughter, so complete as to leave no survivor. But in the more serious struggle which succeeded this the troops of David, trained as they were in warlike undertakings of great daring as well as variety, won the victory over Ishbosheth; and as the unanointed king could not rely upon the complete obedience of his commander-in-chief, who considered himself as important as his master, David, step by step, won the upper hand. … The Benjamites had been the heart and soul of the opposition which David experienced. Nevertheless, the first action which he undertook as acknowledged king of all the tribes redounded specially to their advantage, whilst it was at the same time a task of the utmost importance for the whole Israelitish commonwealth. Although Joshua had conquered the Amorites, one of their strongholds, Jebus, still remained unsubdued, and the Benjamites had exerted all their strength against it in vain. It was to this point that David next directed his victorious arms. Having conquered the place, he transferred the seat of his kingdom thither without delay [see JERUSALEM]. This seat is Jerusalem; the word Zion has the same meaning as Jebus."

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Groups of Nations, chapter 2.

{1902}

"After Saul's death it was at first only in Judah, where David maintained his government, that a new Kingdom of Israel could be established at all, so disastrous were the consequences of the great Philistine victory. The Philistines, who must have already conquered the central territory, now occupied that to the north, also, while the inhabitants of the cities of the great plain of Jezreel and of the western bank of the Jordan, fled, we are very distinctly informed, across the river."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 3.

But Abner, the strong warrior and the faithful kinsman of Saul's family, took Ishbosheth, the oldest surviving son of his dead king, and throned him in the city of Mahanaim, beyond the Jordan, proceeding gradually to gather a kingdom for him by reconquest from the Philistines. Thus the Israelite nation was first divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and there was bitter war between them. But that first division was not to endure long. Abner and Ishbosheth fell victims to treachery, and the tribes which had held by them offered allegiance to David, who then became king over "all Israel and Judah." By the conquest of the city of Jebus from its Canaanite founders and possessors, he acquired a new, impregnable capital, which, under the name of Jerusalem, grew to be the most reverently looked upon of all the cities of the world. "History has been completely distorted in representing David as the head of a powerful kingdom, which embraced nearly the whole of Syria. David was king of Judah and of Israel, and that was all; the neighboring peoples, Hebrews, Canaanites, Arameans and Philistines, as far as Mahul Hermon and the desert, were sternly subjected, and were more or less its tributaries. In reality, with the exception, perhaps, of the small town of Ziklag, David did not annex any non-Israelite country to the domain of Israel. The Philistines, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans of Zoba, of Damascus, of Rehob and of Maacah were, after his day, very much what they were before, only a little weaker. Conquest was not a characteristic of Israel; the taking possession of the Canaanite lands was an act of a different order, and it came to be more and more regarded as the execution of a decree of Iahveh. As this decree did not extend to the lands of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon and of Aram, the Israelites deemed themselves justified in treating the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Arameans with the utmost severity, in carrying off their precious stones and objects of price, but not in taking their land, or in changing their dynasty. None of the methods employed by great empires such as Assyria was known to these small peoples, which had scarcely got beyond the status of tribes. They were as cruel as Assur, but much less politic and less capable of a general plan. The impression produced by the appearance of this new royalty was none the less extraordinary. The halo of glory which enveloped David remained like a star upon the forehead of Israel."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).

David died about 1000 B. C. and was succeeded by his son Solomon, whose mother, Bathsheba, secured the throne for him by intrigue. "Solomon was a younger son, to whom the throne had been allotted contrary to ordinary laws of succession, whilst Adonijah, whom a portion of the people had recognised as king, was considered the rightful heir. So long as the latter lived. Solomon's government could not be on a firm basis, and he could never feel himself secure. Adonijah had therefore to be removed; the leader of the body guard, Benaiah, forcibly entered his house and killed him. As an excuse for this act of violence, it was asserted that Adonijah had attempted to win the hand of Abishag, the young widow of David, and thus had revealed his traitorous intention of contesting the throne with his brother. No sooner had he fallen than Joab, the former adherent of Adonijah, feared that a similar fate would overtake him. This exemplary general, who had contributed so considerably to the aggrandisement of the people of Israel and to the power of the house of David, fled to the altar on Mount Zion, and clung to it, hoping to escape death. Benaiah, however, refused to respect his place of refuge, and shed his blood at the altar. In order to excuse this crime, it was circulated that David himself, on his death-bed, had impressed on his successor the duty of preventing Joab's grey head from sinking in peace to its last rest. … Adonijah's priestly partisan, Abiathar, whom Solomon did not dare to touch, was deprived of his office as high priest, and Zadok was made the sole head of the priesthood. His descendants were invested with the dignity of high priest for over a thousand years, whilst the offspring of Abiathar were neglected. The Benjamite Shimei, who had attacked David with execrations on his flight from Jerusalem, was also executed, and it was only through this three-fold deed of blood that Solomon's throne appeared to gain stability. Solomon then directed his attention to the formation of a court of the greatest magnificence."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 1, chapter 9.

"The main characteristic of Solomon's reign was peace. The Philistines, allies of the new dynasty, and given profitable employment by it as mercenaries, were no longer tempted to cross the frontier. … The decay of military strength was only felt in the zone of countries which were tributary to the kingdom. Hadad, or Hadar, the Edomite, who had been defeated by Joab and had taken refuge in Egypt, having heard of David's death, and that of Joab as well, left Pharaoh, whose sister-in-law he had married. We have no details of this war. … We only know that Hadad braved Israel throughout the whole of Solomon's reign, that he did it all the injury he could, and that he was an independent ruler over a great part at all events of Edom. A still more formidable adversary was Rezon, son of Eliadah, an Aramean warrior who, after the defeat of his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah, had assembled about him those who had fled before the sword of David. … A lucky 'coup-de-main' placed the city of Damascus at their mercy, and they succeeded in maintaining themselves there. During the whole of Solomon's reign Rezon continued to make war against Israel. The kingdom of Zobah does not appear, however, to have been re-established. Damascus became henceforth the centre and capital of that part of Aramea which adjoined Mount Hermon. David's horizon never extended beyond Syria. With Solomon, fresh perspectives opened up for the Israelites, especially for Jerusalem. Israel is no longer a group of tribes, continuing to lead in its mountains the patriarchal life of the past. It is a well-organised kingdom, small according to our ideas, but rather large judged by the standard of the day. The worldly life of the people of Iahveh is about to begin. If Israel had no other life but that it would not have found a place in history. … An alliance with Egypt was the first step in that career of profane politics which the prophets afterwards interlarded with so much that was impossible. … {1903} The king of Egypt gave Gezer as a dowry to his daughter, and married her to Solomon. … It is not too much to suppose that the tastes of this princess for refined luxury had a great influence upon the mind of her husband. … The relations of Solomon with Tyre exercised a still more civilising influence. Tyre, recently separated from Sidon, was then at the zenith of its activity, and, so to speak, in the full fire of its first foundation. A dynasty of kings named Hiram, or rather Ahiram, was at the head of this movement. The island was covered with constructions imitated from Egypt. … Hiram is the close ally of the king of Israel; it is he who provides Solomon with the artists who were lacking at Jerusalem; the precious materials for the buildings in Zion; seamen for the fleet of Eziongeber. The region of the upper Jordan, conquered by David, appears to have remained tributary to Solomon. What has been related as to a much larger extension of the kingdom of Solomon is greatly exaggerated. … The fables as to the pretended foundation of Palmyra by Solomon come from a letter intentionally added to the text of the ancient historiographer by the compiler of the Chronicles. The construction of Baalbec by Solomon rests upon a still more inadmissible piece of identification. … In reality, the dominion of Solomon was confined to Palestine. … What was better than peoples kept under by force, the Arab brigands were held in check from pillage. The Amalekites, the Midianites, the Beni-Quedem and other nomads were confronted with an impassable barrier all around Israel. The Philistines preserved their independence. … When it is surmised that Solomon reigned over all Syria, the size of his kingdom is exaggerated at least fourfold. Solomon's kingdom was barely a fourth of what is now called Syria. … Solomon … built 'cities of store,' or warehouses, the commercial or military object of which cannot well be defined. There was, more especially, a place named Tamar, in the direction of Petra, of which Solomon made a city, and which became a calling-place for the caravans. … With very good reason, too, Solomon had his attention constantly fixed upon the Red Sea, a broad canal which placed the dawning civilisation of the Mediterranean in communication with India, and thus opened up a new world, that of Ophir. The Bay of Suez belonged to Egypt, but the Gulf of Akaba was, one may say, at the mercy of anyone who cared to take it. Elath and Asiongaber, according to all appearances, had been of very little importance in earlier times. Without regularly occupying the country, Solomon secured the route by the Valley of Araba. He built a fleet at Asiongaber, though the Israelites had never much liking for the sea. Hiram provided Solomon with sailors, or, what is more probable, the two fleets acted together. On leaving the Straits of Aden, they went to Ophir, that is to say, to Western India, to Guzarate, or to the coast of Malabar."

E_. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 10 (volume 2)._

The government of Solomon was extravagant and despotic; it imposed burdens upon the people which were borne impatiently until his death; and when his son Rehoboam refused to lessen them, the nation was instantly broken again on the lines of the earlier rupture. The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, only, remained faithful to the house of David and constituted the kingdom of Judah. The other ten tribes made Jeroboam their king and retained the name of Israel for their kingdom. The period of this division is fixed at 978 B. C. Jerusalem continued to be the capital of the kingdom of Judah. In the kingdom of Israel several changes of royal residence occurred during the first half century, until Samaria was founded by King Omri and thenceforth became the capital city. "Six miles from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley, here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet accessible sides, and a long level top. This was the mountain of Samaria, or, as it is called in the original, Shômeron, so named after its owner Shemer, who there lived in state, and who sold it to the King for the great sum of two talents of silver."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lectures 29-30 (volume 2).

For two centuries, until the overthrow of the kingdom, Samaria continued to be the queen of the land, and the seat of government, often giving its name to the whole state, so that the kings were called "Kings of Samaria." "Under the dynasties of Omri and Jehu [10th-8th centuries, B. C.] the Northern Kingdom took the leading part in Israel; even to the Judæan Amos it was Israel 'par excellence.' Judah was not only inferior in political power, but in the share it took in the active movements of national life and thought. In tracing the history of religion and the work of the prophets, we have been almost exclusively occupied with the North; Amos himself, when charged with a message to the whole family that Jehovah brought up out of Egypt, leaves his home to preach in a Northern sanctuary. During this whole period we have a much fuller knowledge of the life of Ephraim than of Judah; the Judæan history consists of meagre extracts from official records, except where it comes into contact with the North, through the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab; through the reaction of Jehu's revolution in the fall of Athaliah, the last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying abolition of Baal worship at Jerusalem, or, finally, through the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to measure his strength with the powerful monarch of Samaria. While the house of Ephraim was engaged in the great war with Syria, Judah had seldom to deal with enemies more formidable than the Philistines or the Edomites; and the contest with these foes, renewed with varying success generation after generation, resolved itself into a succession of forays and blood-feuds such as have always been common in the lands of the Semites (Amos i.), and never assumed the character of a struggle for national existence. It was the Northern Kingdom that had the task of upholding the standard of Israel; its whole history presents greater interest and more heroic elements; its struggles, its calamities, and its glories were cast in a larger mould. It is a trite proverb that the nation which has no history is happy, and perhaps the course of Judah's existence ran more smoothly than that of its greater neighbor, in spite of the raids of the slave-dealers of the coast, and the lawless hordes of the desert. But no side of national existence is likely to find full development where there is little political activity; if the life of the North was more troubled, it was also larger and more intense. {1904} Ephraim took the lead in literature and religion as well as in politics; it was in Ephraim far more than in Judah that the traditions of past history were cherished, and new problems of religion became practical and called for solution by the word of the prophets. So long as the Northern Kingdom endured Judah was content to learn from it for evil or for good. It would be easy to show in detail that every wave of life and thought in Ephraim was transmitted with diminished intensity to the Southern Kingdom. In many respects the influence of Ephraim upon Judah was similar to that of England upon Scotland before the union of the crowns, but with the important difference that after the accession of Omri the two Hebrew kingdoms were seldom involved in hostilities. … The internal condition of the [Judæan] state was stable, though little progressive; the kings were fairly successful in war, though not sufficiently strong to maintain unbroken authority over Edom, the only vassal state of the old Davidic realm over which they still claimed suzerainty, and their civil administration must have been generally satisfactory according to the not very high standard of the East; for they retained the affections of their people, the justice and mercy of the throne of David are favourably spoken of in the old prophecy against Moab quoted in Isaiah XV., xvi., and Isaiah contrasts the disorders of his own time with the ancient reputation of Jerusalem for fidelity and justice (i. 21). … The religious conduct of the house of David followed the same general lines. Old abuses remained untouched, but the cultus remained much as David and Solomon had left it. Local high places were numerous, and no attempt was made to interfere with them; but the great temple on Mount Zion, which formed part of the complex of royal buildings erected by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to have been a special object of solicitude to the kings, who treated its service as part of their royal state. It is common to imagine that the religious condition of Judah was very much superior to that of the North, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this opinion."