Literature.—Commentaries by Ewald (1854); Renan (1859); Delitzsch (1864); Zöckler in Lange’sBibelwerk(1872); F. C. Cook inSpeaker’s Comm.(1880); A. B. Davidson inCambridge Bible(1884); Dillmann (1891); K. Budde (1896); Duhm (1897). See also Hoekstra, “Job de Knecht van Jehovah” inTheol. Tijdschr.(1871), and, in reply, A. Kuenen, “Job en de leidende Knecht van Jahveh,” ibid. (1873); C. H. H. Wright inBib. Essays(1886); G. G. Bradley,Lects. on Job(2nd ed., 1888); Cheyne,Job and Solomon(1887); Dawson,Wisd. Lit.(1893); D. B. Macdonald, “The Original Form of the Legend of Job” inJourn. Bib. Lit.(1895); E. Hatch,Essays in Bib. Gk.(1889); A. Dillmann, inTrans. of Roy. Pruss. Acad.(1890).
Literature.—Commentaries by Ewald (1854); Renan (1859); Delitzsch (1864); Zöckler in Lange’sBibelwerk(1872); F. C. Cook inSpeaker’s Comm.(1880); A. B. Davidson inCambridge Bible(1884); Dillmann (1891); K. Budde (1896); Duhm (1897). See also Hoekstra, “Job de Knecht van Jehovah” inTheol. Tijdschr.(1871), and, in reply, A. Kuenen, “Job en de leidende Knecht van Jahveh,” ibid. (1873); C. H. H. Wright inBib. Essays(1886); G. G. Bradley,Lects. on Job(2nd ed., 1888); Cheyne,Job and Solomon(1887); Dawson,Wisd. Lit.(1893); D. B. Macdonald, “The Original Form of the Legend of Job” inJourn. Bib. Lit.(1895); E. Hatch,Essays in Bib. Gk.(1889); A. Dillmann, inTrans. of Roy. Pruss. Acad.(1890).
(A. B. D., C. H. T.*)
1Exceptions must be made in the cases of Esther and the Song of Songs, which do not mention God, and the original writer in Ecclesiastes who is a philosopher.2This remarkable passage reads thus: “But I know that my redeemer liveth, and afterwards he shall arise upon the dust, and after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger; my reins within me are consumedwith longing.” The redeemer who liveth and shall arise or stand upon the earth is God whom he shall see with his own eyes, on his side. The course of exegesis was greatly influenced by the translation of Jerome, who, departing from the Itala, rendered: “In novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum ... et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea videbo deum meum.” The only point now in question is whether: (a) Job looks for this manifestation of God to him while he is still alive, or (b) after death, and therefore in the sense of a spiritual vision and union with God in another life; that is, whether the words “destroyed” and “without my flesh” are to be taken relatively only, of the extremest effects of his disease upon him, or literally, of the separation of the body in death. A third view which assumes that the words rendered “without my flesh,” which run literally, “out of my flesh,” meanlookingout from my flesh, that is, clothed with a new body, and finds the idea of resurrection repeated, perhaps imports more into the language than it will fairly bear. In favour of (b) may be adduced the persistent refusal of Job throughout to entertain the idea of a restoration in this life: the word “afterwards”; and perhaps the analogy of other passages where the same situation appears, as Ps. xlix. and lxxiii., although the actual dénouement of the tragedy supports (a). The difference between the two senses is not important, when the Old Testament view of immortality is considered. To the Hebrew the life beyond was not what it is to us, a freedom from sin and sorrow and admission to an immediate divine fellowship not attainable here. To him the life beyond was at best a prolongation of the life here; all he desired was that his fellowship with God here should not be interrupted in death, and that Sheol, the place into which deceased persons descended and where they remained, cut off from all life with God, might be overleapt. On this account the theory of Ewald, which throws the centre of gravity of the book into this passage in ch. xix., considering its purpose to be to teach that the riddles of this life shall be solved and its inequalities corrected in a future life, appears one-sided. The point of the passage does not lie in any distinction which it draws between this life and a future life; it lies in the assurance which Job expresses that God, who even now knows his innocence, will vindicate it in the future, and that, though estranged now, He will at last take him to His heart.
1Exceptions must be made in the cases of Esther and the Song of Songs, which do not mention God, and the original writer in Ecclesiastes who is a philosopher.
2This remarkable passage reads thus: “But I know that my redeemer liveth, and afterwards he shall arise upon the dust, and after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger; my reins within me are consumedwith longing.” The redeemer who liveth and shall arise or stand upon the earth is God whom he shall see with his own eyes, on his side. The course of exegesis was greatly influenced by the translation of Jerome, who, departing from the Itala, rendered: “In novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum ... et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea videbo deum meum.” The only point now in question is whether: (a) Job looks for this manifestation of God to him while he is still alive, or (b) after death, and therefore in the sense of a spiritual vision and union with God in another life; that is, whether the words “destroyed” and “without my flesh” are to be taken relatively only, of the extremest effects of his disease upon him, or literally, of the separation of the body in death. A third view which assumes that the words rendered “without my flesh,” which run literally, “out of my flesh,” meanlookingout from my flesh, that is, clothed with a new body, and finds the idea of resurrection repeated, perhaps imports more into the language than it will fairly bear. In favour of (b) may be adduced the persistent refusal of Job throughout to entertain the idea of a restoration in this life: the word “afterwards”; and perhaps the analogy of other passages where the same situation appears, as Ps. xlix. and lxxiii., although the actual dénouement of the tragedy supports (a). The difference between the two senses is not important, when the Old Testament view of immortality is considered. To the Hebrew the life beyond was not what it is to us, a freedom from sin and sorrow and admission to an immediate divine fellowship not attainable here. To him the life beyond was at best a prolongation of the life here; all he desired was that his fellowship with God here should not be interrupted in death, and that Sheol, the place into which deceased persons descended and where they remained, cut off from all life with God, might be overleapt. On this account the theory of Ewald, which throws the centre of gravity of the book into this passage in ch. xix., considering its purpose to be to teach that the riddles of this life shall be solved and its inequalities corrected in a future life, appears one-sided. The point of the passage does not lie in any distinction which it draws between this life and a future life; it lies in the assurance which Job expresses that God, who even now knows his innocence, will vindicate it in the future, and that, though estranged now, He will at last take him to His heart.
JOBST,orJodocus(c.1350-1411), margrave of Moravia, was a son of John Henry of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, and grandson of John, the blind king of Bohemia. He became margrave of Moravia on his father’s death in 1375, and his clever and unscrupulous character enabled him to amass a considerable amount of wealth, while his ambition led him into constant quarrels with his brother Procop, his cousins, the German king Wenceslaus and Sigismund, margrave of Brandenburg, and others. By taking advantage of their difficulties he won considerable power, and the record of his life is one of warfare and treachery, followed by broken promises and transitory reconciliations. In 1385 and 1388 he purchased Brandenburg from Sigismund, and the duchy of Luxemburg from Wenceslaus; and in 1397 he also became possessed of upper and lower Lusatia. For some time he had entertained hopes of the German throne and had negotiated with Wenceslaus and others to this end. When, however, King Rupert died in 1410 he maintained at first that there was no vacancy, as Wenceslaus, who had been deposed in 1400, was still king; but changing his attitude, he was chosen German king at Frankfort on the 1st of October 1410 in opposition to Sigismund, who had been elected a few days previously. Jobst however was never crowned, and his death on the 17th of January 1411 prevented hostilities between the rival kings.
See F. M. Pelzel,Lebensgeschichte des römischen und böhmischen Königs Wenceslaus(1788-1790); J. Heidemann,Die Mark Brandenburg unter Jobst von Mähren(1881); J. Aschbach,Geschichte Kaiser Sigmunds(1838-1845); F. Palacky,Geschichte von Böhmen, iii. (1864-1874); and T. Lindner,Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches vom Ende des 14 Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation, i. (1875-1880).
See F. M. Pelzel,Lebensgeschichte des römischen und böhmischen Königs Wenceslaus(1788-1790); J. Heidemann,Die Mark Brandenburg unter Jobst von Mähren(1881); J. Aschbach,Geschichte Kaiser Sigmunds(1838-1845); F. Palacky,Geschichte von Böhmen, iii. (1864-1874); and T. Lindner,Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches vom Ende des 14 Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation, i. (1875-1880).
JOB’S TEARS,in botany, the popular name forCoix Lachryma-Jobi, a species of grass, of the tribemaydeae, which also includes the maize (seeGrasses). The seeds, or properly fruits, are contained singly in a stony involucre or bract, which does not open until the enclosed seed germinates. The young involucre surrounds the female flower and the stalk supporting the spike of male flowers, and when ripe has the appearance of bluish-white porcelain. Being shaped somewhat like a large drop of fluid, the form has suggested the name. The fruits are esculent, but the involucres are the part chiefly used, for making necklaces and other ornaments. The plant is a native of India, but is now widely spread throughout the tropical zone. It grows in marshy places; and is cultivated in China, the fruit having a supposed value as a diuretic and anti-phthisic. It was cultivated by John Gerard, author of the famousHerball, at the end of the 16th century as a tender annual.
JOCASTA,orIocasta(Ἰοκάστη; in Homer,Ἐπικάστη), in Greek legend, wife of Laïus, mother (afterwards wife) of Oedipus (q.v.), daughter of Menoeceus, sister (or daughter) of Creon. According to Homer (Od.xi. 271) and Sophocles (Oed. Tyr.1241), on learning that Oedipus was her son she immediately hanged herself; but in Euripides (Phoenissae, 1455) she stabs herself over the bodies of her sons Eteocles and Polynices, who had slain each other in single combat before the walls of Thebes.
JOCKEY,a professional rider of race-horses, now the current usage (seeHorse-racing). The word is by origin a diminutive of “Jock,” the Northern or Scots colloquial equivalent of the name “John” (cf.Jack). A familiar instance of the use of the word as a name is in “Jockey of Norfolk” in Shakespeare’sRichard III.v. 3, 304. In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was applied to horse-dealers, postilions, itinerant minstrels and vagabonds, and thus frequently bore the meaning of a cunning trickster, a “sharp,” whence “to jockey,” to outwit, or “do” a person out of something. The current usage is found in John Evelyn’sDiary, 1670, when it was clearly well known. George Borrow’s attempt to derive the word from the gipsychukni, a heavy whip used by horse-dealing gipsies, has no foundation.
JODELLE, ÉTIENNE,seigneur de Limodin (1532-1573), French dramatist and poet, was born in Paris of a noble family. He attached himself to the poetic circle of the Pléiade (seeDaurat) and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different from the moralities andsotiesthat then occupied the French stage. His first play,Cléopâtre captive, was represented before the court at Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title rôle, and the cast included his friends Remy Belleau and Jean de la Péruse. In honour of the play’s success the friends organized a little fête at Arcueil when a goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the author—a ceremony exaggerated by the enemies of the Ronsardists into a renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of Bacchus. Jodelle wrote two other plays.Eugène, a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle’s predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very different from theirs.Didon se sacrifiant, a tragedy which follows Virgil’s narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous verse dating chiefly from Jodelle’s youth. The intrinsic value of his tragedies is small.Cléopâtreis lyric rather than dramatic. Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The death of Antony is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of Cleopatra’s suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was soon followed by theMédée(1553) of Jean de la Péruse and theAman(1561) of André de Rivaudeau. Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems gave no adequate idea of his powers.
Jodelle’s works are collected (1868) in thePléiade françaiseof Charles Marty-Laveaux. The prefatory notice gives full information of the sources of Jodelle’s biography, and La Mothe’s criticism is reprinted in its entirety.
Jodelle’s works are collected (1868) in thePléiade françaiseof Charles Marty-Laveaux. The prefatory notice gives full information of the sources of Jodelle’s biography, and La Mothe’s criticism is reprinted in its entirety.
JODHPUR,orMarwar, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. Area, 34,963 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,935,565, showing a decrease of 23% in the decade, due to the results of famine. Estimated revenue, £373,600; tribute, £14,000. The general aspect of the country is that of a sandy plain, divided into two unequal parts by the river Lūni, and dotted with picturesque conical hills, attaining in places an elevation of 3000 ft. The river Lūni is the principal feature in the physical aspects of Jodhpur. One of its head-streams rises in the sacred lake of Pushkar in Ajmere, and the main river flows through Jodhpur in a south-westerly direction till it is finally lost in the marshy ground at the head of the Runn of Cutch. It is fed by numerous tributaries and occasionally overflows its banks, fine crops of wheat and barley being grown on the saturated soil. Its water is, as a rule, saline or brackish, but comparatively sweet water is obtained from wells sunk at a distance of 20 or 30 yds. from the river bank. The famous salt-lake of Sambhar is situated on the borders of Jodhpur and Jaipur, and two smaller lakes of the same description lie within the limits of the state,from which large quantities of salt are extracted. Marble is mined in the north of the state and along the south-east border.
The population consists of Rathor Rājputs (who form the ruling class), Brāhmans, Charans, Bhāts, Mahajans or traders, and Jāts. The Charans, a sacred race, hold large religious grants of land, and enjoy peculiar immunities as traders in local produce. The Bhāts are by profession genealogists, but also engage in trade. Mārwāri traders are an enterprising class to be found throughout the length and breadth of India.
The principal crops are millets and pulses, but wheat and barley are largely produced in the fertile tract watered by the Lūni river. The manufactures comprise leather boxes and brass utensils; and turbans and scarfs and a description of embroidered silk knotted thread are specialities of the country.
The Mahārājā belongs to the Rathor clan of Rājputs. The family chronicles relate that after the downfall of the Rathor dynasty of Kanauj in 1194, Sivajī, the grandson of Jāi Chānd, the last king of Kanauj, entered Mārwār on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and on halting at the town of Pāli he and his followers settled there to protect the Brāhman community from the constant raids of marauding bands. The Rathor chief thus laid the foundation of the state, but it was not till the time of Rāo Chānda, the tenth in succession from Sivajī, that Mārwār was actually conquered. His grandson Jodha founded the city of Jodhpur, which he made his capital. In 1561 the country was invaded by Akbar, and the chief was forced to submit, and to send his son as a mark of homage to take service under the Mogul emperor. When this son Udāi Singh succeeded to the chiefship, he gave his sister Jodhbāi in marriage to Akbar, and was rewarded by the restoration of most of his former possessions. Udāi Singh’s son, Gaj Singh, held high service under Akbar, and conducted successful expeditions in Gujarat and the Deccan. The bigoted and intolerant Aurangzeb invaded Mārwār in 1679, plundered Jodhpur, sacked all the large towns, and commanded the conversion of the Rathors to Mahommedanism. This cemented all the Rājput clans into a bond of union, and a triple alliance was formed by the three states of Jodhpur, Udāipur and Jaipur, to throw off the Mahommedan yoke. One of the conditions of this alliance was that the chiefs of Jodhpur and Jaipur should regain the privilege of marriage with the Udāipur family, which they had forfeited by contracting alliances with the Mogul emperors, on the understanding that the offspring of Udāipur princesses should succeed to the state in preference to all other children. The quarrels arising from this stipulation lasted through many generations, and led to the invitation of Mahratta help from the rival aspirants to power, and finally to the subjection of all the Rājput states to the Mahrattās. Jodhpur was conquered by Sindhia, who levied a tribute of £60,000, and took from it the fort and town of Ajmere. Internecine disputes and succession wars disturbed the peace of the early years of the century, until in January 1818 Jodhpur was taken under British protection. In 1839 the misgovernment of the rājā led to an insurrection which compelled the interference of the British. In 1843, the chief having died without a son, and without having adopted an heir, the nobles and state officials were left to select a successor from the nearest of kin. Their choice fell upon Rājā Takht Sinh, chief of Ahmednagar. This chief, who did good service during the Mutiny, died in 1873. Mahārajā Jaswant Singh, who died in 1896, was a very enlightened ruler. His brother, Sir Pertab Singh (q.v.), conducted the administration until his nephew, Sardar Singh, came of age in 1898. The imperial service cavalry formed part of the reserve brigade during the Tirah campaign.
The state maintains a railway running to Bikanir, and there is also a branch railway into Sind. Gold, silver and copper money is coined. The state emblems are ajharor sprig of seven branches and akhandaor sword. Jodhpur practically escaped the plague, but it suffered more severely than any other part of Rajputana from the famine of 1899-1900. In February 1900 more than 110,000 persons were in receipt of famine relief.
The city ofJodhpuris 64 m. by rail N.W. of Mārwār junction, on the Rajputana railway. Pop. (1901), 60,437. It was built by Rāo Jodha in 1459, and from that time has been the seat of government. It is surrounded by a strong wall nearly 6 m. in extent, with seventy gates. The fort, which stands on an isolated rock, contains the mahārājā’s palace, a large and handsome building, completely covering the crest of the hill on which it stands, and overlooking the city, which lies several hundred feet below. The city contains palaces of the mahārājā, and town residences of thethākursor nobles, besides numerous fine temples and tanks. Building stone is plentiful and close at hand, and the architecture is solid and handsome. Three miles north of Jodhpur are the ruins of Mandor, the site of the ancient capital of the Parihar princes of Mārwār, before its conquest by the Rathors. Mills for grinding flour and crushing grain have been constructed for the imperial service troops. The Jaswant college is affiliated to the B.A. standard of the Allahabad university. To the Hewson hospital a wing for eye diseases was added in 1898, and the Jaswant hospital for women is under an English lady doctor.
JOEL.The second book among the minor prophets in the Bible is entitledThe word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel, or, as the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac and other versions read,Bethuel. Nothing is recorded as to the date or occasion of the prophecy. Most Hebrew prophecies contain pointed references to the foreign politics and social relations of the nation at the time. In the book of Joel there are only scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet’s own people are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons; and even here there are features in the description which have led many expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. The most remarkable part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as foreshadowing the final judgment—the great day or assize of Yahweh, in which Israel’s enemies are destroyed—is so unique as greatly to complicate the exegetical problem. It is not therefore surprising that the most various views are still held as to the date and meaning of the book. Allegorists and literalists still contend over the first and still more over the second chapter, and, while the largest number of recent interpreters accept Credner’s view that the prophecy was written in the reign of Joash of Judah (835-796B.C.?), a powerful school of critics (including A. B. Davidson) follow the view suggested by Vatke (Bib. Theol.p. 462 seq.), and reckon Joel among the post-exile prophets. Other scholars give yet other dates: see the particulars in the elaborate work of Merx. The followers of Credner are literalists; the opposite school of moderns includes some literalists (as Duhm), while others (like Hilgenfeld, and in a modified sense Merx) adopt the old allegorical interpretation which treats the locusts as a figure for the enemies of Jerusalem.
There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile. In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place. This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than political existence had decidedthe contest in favour of the prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately crystallized.The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16 (Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g.Joel ii. 2, Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3) make it not incredible that the purity of his style—which is rather elegant than original and strongly marked—is in large measure the fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent figures. The king is not mentioned—which on Credner’s view is explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash, when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power—and the princes, councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their neighbours, just as appears in Joel.1Those, however, who place our prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19), pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16, xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is rather specious than sound. Edom’s hostility to Judah was incessant, but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of Jerusalem (Obad.passim; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against Joram.As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history, and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so till Roman times.Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were solden masseto Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).2It is probable that some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special request in Greece.3And the name of Javan is not found in any part of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians,Sabaeans, ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea. This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish = Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner’s theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before Joash. From this time down to the last period of the Hebrew monarchy Egypt was not the enemy of Judah.If the arguments chiefly relied on for an early date are so precarious or can even be turned against their inventors, there are others of an unambiguous kind which make for a date in the Persian period. It appears from ch. iii. 1, 2, that Joel wrote after the exile. The phrase “to bring again the captivity” would not alone suffice to prove this, for it is used in a wide sense, and perhaps means rather to “reverse the calamity,”4but the dispersion of Israel among the nations, and the allotment of the Holy Land to new occupants, cannot fairly be referred to any calamity less than that of the captivity. With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a quite different standpoint; otherwise indeed the books of northern prophets and historians could never have been admitted into the Jewish canon. Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of Joash’s minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada.5And the assumption that there was a period before the prophetic conflicts of the 8th centuryB.C.when spiritual prophecy had unchallenged sway, when there was no gross idolatry or superstition, when the priests of Jerusalem, acting in accord with prophets like Joel, held the same place as heads of a pure worship which they occupied after the exile (cf. Ewald,Propheten, i. 89), is not consistent with history. It rests on the old theory of the antiquity of the Levitical legislation, so that in fact all who place that legislation later than Ezekiel are agreed that the book of Joel is also late. In this connexion one point deserves special notice. The religious significance of the plague of drought and locusts is expressed in ch. i. 9 in the observation that the daily meat and drink offering are cut off, and the token of new blessing is the restoration of this service, ch. ii. 14. In other words, the daily offering is the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between Yahweh and his people and the main office of religion. This conception, which finds its parallel in Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11, is quite in accordance with the later law. But under the monarchy the daily oblation was the king’s private offering, and not till Ezra’s reformation did it become the affair of the community and the central act of national worship (Neh. x. 33 seq.).6That Joel wrote not only after the exile but after the work of Ezra and Nehemiah may be viewed as confirmed by the allusions to the walls of Jerusalem in ch. ii. 7, 9. Such is the historical basis which we seem to be able to lay for the study of the exegetical problems of the book.
There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile. In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place. This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than political existence had decidedthe contest in favour of the prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately crystallized.
The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16 (Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g.Joel ii. 2, Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3) make it not incredible that the purity of his style—which is rather elegant than original and strongly marked—is in large measure the fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent figures. The king is not mentioned—which on Credner’s view is explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash, when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power—and the princes, councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their neighbours, just as appears in Joel.1Those, however, who place our prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19), pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16, xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is rather specious than sound. Edom’s hostility to Judah was incessant, but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of Jerusalem (Obad.passim; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against Joram.
As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history, and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so till Roman times.
Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were solden masseto Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).2It is probable that some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special request in Greece.3And the name of Javan is not found in any part of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians,Sabaeans, ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea. This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish = Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.
Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner’s theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before Joash. From this time down to the last period of the Hebrew monarchy Egypt was not the enemy of Judah.
If the arguments chiefly relied on for an early date are so precarious or can even be turned against their inventors, there are others of an unambiguous kind which make for a date in the Persian period. It appears from ch. iii. 1, 2, that Joel wrote after the exile. The phrase “to bring again the captivity” would not alone suffice to prove this, for it is used in a wide sense, and perhaps means rather to “reverse the calamity,”4but the dispersion of Israel among the nations, and the allotment of the Holy Land to new occupants, cannot fairly be referred to any calamity less than that of the captivity. With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a quite different standpoint; otherwise indeed the books of northern prophets and historians could never have been admitted into the Jewish canon. Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of Joash’s minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada.5And the assumption that there was a period before the prophetic conflicts of the 8th centuryB.C.when spiritual prophecy had unchallenged sway, when there was no gross idolatry or superstition, when the priests of Jerusalem, acting in accord with prophets like Joel, held the same place as heads of a pure worship which they occupied after the exile (cf. Ewald,Propheten, i. 89), is not consistent with history. It rests on the old theory of the antiquity of the Levitical legislation, so that in fact all who place that legislation later than Ezekiel are agreed that the book of Joel is also late. In this connexion one point deserves special notice. The religious significance of the plague of drought and locusts is expressed in ch. i. 9 in the observation that the daily meat and drink offering are cut off, and the token of new blessing is the restoration of this service, ch. ii. 14. In other words, the daily offering is the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between Yahweh and his people and the main office of religion. This conception, which finds its parallel in Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11, is quite in accordance with the later law. But under the monarchy the daily oblation was the king’s private offering, and not till Ezra’s reformation did it become the affair of the community and the central act of national worship (Neh. x. 33 seq.).6That Joel wrote not only after the exile but after the work of Ezra and Nehemiah may be viewed as confirmed by the allusions to the walls of Jerusalem in ch. ii. 7, 9. Such is the historical basis which we seem to be able to lay for the study of the exegetical problems of the book.
The style of Joel is clear (which hardly favours an early date), and his language presents peculiarities which are evidences of a late origin. But the structure of the book, the symbolism and the connexion of the prophet’s thoughts have given rise to much controversy. It seems safest to start from the fact that the prophecy is divided into two well-marked sections by ch. ii. 18, 19a. According to the Massoretic vocalization, which is in harmony with the most ancient exegetical tradition as contained in the LXX, these words are historical: “Then the Lord was jealous,... and answered and said unto his people, Behold,” &c. Such is the natural meaning of the words as pointed.
Thus the book falls into two parts. In the first the prophet speaks in his own name, addressing himself to the people in a lively description of a present calamity caused by a terrible plague of locusts which threatens the entire destruction of the country, and appears to be the vehicle of a final consuming judgment (the day of Yahweh). There is no hope save in repentance and prayer; and in ch. ii. 12 the prophet, speaking now for the first time in Yahweh’s name, calls the people to a solemn fast at the sanctuary, and invites the intercession of the priests. The calamity is described in the strongest colours of Hebrew hyperbole, and it seems arbitrary to seek too literal an interpretation of details,e.g.to lay weight on the four names of locusts, or to take ch. i. 20 of a conflagration produced by drought, when it appears from ii. 3 that the ravages of the locusts themselves are compared to those of fire. But when due allowance is made forEastern rhetoric, there is no occasion to seek in this section anything else than literal locusts. Nay, the allegorical interpretation, which takes the locusts to be hostile invaders, breaks through the laws of all reasonable writing; for the poetical hyperbole which compares the invading swarms to an army (ii. 4 seq.) would be inconceivably lame if a literal army was already concealed under the figure of the locusts. Nor could the prophet so far forget himself in his allegory as to speak of a victorious host as entering the conquered city like a thief (ii. 9). The second part of the book is Yahweh’s answer to the people’s prayer. The answer begins with a promise of deliverance from famine, and of fruitful seasons compensating for the ravages of the locusts. In the new prosperity of the land the union of Yahweh and his people shall be sealed anew, and so the Lord will proceed to pour down further and higher blessings. The aspiration of Moses (Num. xi. 29) and the hope of earlier prophets (Isa. xxxii. 15, lix. 21; Jer. xxxi. 33) shall be fully realized in the outpouring of the Spirit on all the Jews and even upon their servants (Isa. lxi. 5 with lvi. 6, 7); and then the great day of judgment, which had seemed to overshadow Jerusalem in the now averted plague, shall draw near with awful tokens of blood and fire and darkness. But the terrors of that day are not for the Jews but for their enemies. The worshippers of Yahweh on Zion shall be delivered (cf. Obad.v.17, whose words Joel expressly quotes in ch. ii. 32), and it is their heathen enemies, assembled before Jerusalem to war against Yahweh, who shall be mowed down in the valley of Jehoshaphat (“Yahweh judgeth”) by no human arm, but by heavenly warriors. Thus definitively freed from the profane foot of the stranger (Isa. lii. 1), Jerusalem shall abide a holy city for ever. The fertility of the land shall be such as was long ago predicted in Amos ix. 13, and streams issuing from the Temple, as Ezekiel had described in his picture of the restored Jerusalem (Ezek. xlvii.), shall fertilize the barren Wādi of Acacias. Egypt and Edom, on the other hand, shall be desolate, because they have shed the blood of Yahweh’s innocents. Compare the similar predictions against Edom, Isa. xxxiv. 9 seq. (Mal. i. 3), and against Egypt, Isa. xix. 5 seq., Ezek. xxix. Joel’s eschatological picture appears indeed to be largely a combination of elements from older unfulfilled prophecies. Its central feature, the assembling of the nations to judgment, is already found in Zeph. iii. 8, and in Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, where the wonders of fire and blood named in Joel ii. 30 are also mentioned (Ezek. xxxviii. 22). The other physical features of the great day, the darkening of the lights of heaven, are a standing figure of the prophets from Amos v. 6, viii. 9, downwards. It is characteristic of the prophetic eschatology that images suggested by one prophet are adopted by his successors, and gradually become part of the permanent scenery of the last times; and it is a proof of the late date of Joel that almost his whole picture is made up of such features. In this respect there is a close parallelism, extending to minor details, between Joel and the last chapters of Zechariah.
That Joel’s delineation of the final deliverance and glory attaches itself directly to the deliverance of the nation from a present calamity is quite in the manner of the so-called prophetic perspective. But the fact that the calamity which bulks so largely is natural and not political is characteristic of the post-exile period. Other prophets of the same age speak much of dearth and failure of crops, which in Palestine then as now were aggravated by bad government, and were far more serious to a small and isolated community than they could ever have been to the old kingdom. It was indeed by no means impossible that Jerusalem might have been altogether undone by the famine caused by the locusts; and so the conception of these visitants as the destroying army, executing Yahweh’s final judgment, is really much more natural than appears to us at first sight, and does not need to be explained away by allegory. The chief argument relied upon by those who still find allegory at least in ch. ii. is the expressionhaṣṣephōnī, “the northerner”7[if this rendering is correct], in ii. 20. In view of the other points of affinity between Joel and Ezekiel, this word inevitably suggests Gog and Magog, and it is difficult to see how a swarm of locusts could receive such a name, or if they came from the north could perish, as the verse puts it, in the desert between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The verse remains acrux interpretum, and no exegesis hitherto given can be deemed thoroughly satisfactory; but the interpretation of the whole book must not be made to hinge on a single word in a verse which might be altogether removed without affecting the general course of the prophet’s argument.
The whole verse is perhaps the addition of an allegorizing glossator. The prediction inv.19, that the seasons shall henceforth be fruitful, is given after Yahweh has shown his zeal and pity for Israel, not of course by mere words, but by acts, as appears in verses 20, 21, where the verbs are properly perfects recording that Yahweh hath already done great things, and that vegetation has already revived. In other words, the mercy already experienced in the removal of the plague is taken as a pledge of future grace not to stop short till all God’s old promises are fulfilled. In this context v. 20 is out of place. Observe also that in v. 25 the locusts are spoken of in the plain language of chap. i.
See the separate commentaries on Joel by Credner (1831), Wünsche (1872), Merx (1879). The last-named gives an elaborate history of interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann. Nowack and Marti should also be consulted (see their respective series of commentaries); also G. A. Smith, inThe Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i. (1896), and S. R. Driver,Joel and Amos(1897). On the language of Joel, see Holzinger,Z. A. T. W.(1889), pp. 89-131. Of older commentaries the most valuable is Pocock’s (Oxford, 1691). Bochart’sHierozoïconmay also be consulted.
See the separate commentaries on Joel by Credner (1831), Wünsche (1872), Merx (1879). The last-named gives an elaborate history of interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann. Nowack and Marti should also be consulted (see their respective series of commentaries); also G. A. Smith, inThe Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i. (1896), and S. R. Driver,Joel and Amos(1897). On the language of Joel, see Holzinger,Z. A. T. W.(1889), pp. 89-131. Of older commentaries the most valuable is Pocock’s (Oxford, 1691). Bochart’sHierozoïconmay also be consulted.
(W. R. S.; T. K. C.)
1In the A.V. of ii. 17 it appears that subjection to a foreign power is not a present fact but a thing feared. But the parallelism and v. 19 justify the rendering in margin of R.V. “use a byword against them.”2The hypothesis of an Arabian Javan, applied to Joel iii. 6 by Credner, Hitzig, and others, may be viewed as exploded (see Stade, “Das Volk Javan,” 1880, reprinted in hisAkad. Reden u. Abhandlungen, 1899, pp. 123-142). The question, however, has to be re-examined; later interpreters,e.g.the LXX translators, may have misunderstood. The text of the passages has to be critically treated anew. See Cheyne,Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel(on Gen. x. 2).3Compare Movers,Phönizisches Alterthum, iii. i. 70 seq.4See Ewald on Jer. xlviii. 47, Kuenen,Theol. Tijdschrift(1873), p. 519; Schwally,Z. A. T. W., viii. 200, and Briggs on Ps. xiv. 7.5Stade not unreasonably questions whether 2 Kings xii. 1-3 implies the paramount political influence of Jehoiada.6See Wellhausen,Geschichte Israels, p. 78 seq.;Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels(1883), p. 82 seq.7It has been suggested thatṢaphon, which is often rather troublesome if rendered “the north,” may be a weakened form ofṣib’ōn, a current popular corruption ofshimo’n= Ishmael. In Ezek. xxxviii. 15 it is distinctly said that Gog is to come from the recesses of Ṣāphōn. “Meshech” and “Tubal” are no hindrance to this view, if the names of the so-called “sons of Japheth” are critically examined. For they, too, as well as Ṣāphōn, can be plausibly shown to represent regions of North Arabia. See Cheyne,Traditions and Beliefs of Anc. Israel, on Gen. x. 2-4.
1In the A.V. of ii. 17 it appears that subjection to a foreign power is not a present fact but a thing feared. But the parallelism and v. 19 justify the rendering in margin of R.V. “use a byword against them.”
2The hypothesis of an Arabian Javan, applied to Joel iii. 6 by Credner, Hitzig, and others, may be viewed as exploded (see Stade, “Das Volk Javan,” 1880, reprinted in hisAkad. Reden u. Abhandlungen, 1899, pp. 123-142). The question, however, has to be re-examined; later interpreters,e.g.the LXX translators, may have misunderstood. The text of the passages has to be critically treated anew. See Cheyne,Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel(on Gen. x. 2).
3Compare Movers,Phönizisches Alterthum, iii. i. 70 seq.
4See Ewald on Jer. xlviii. 47, Kuenen,Theol. Tijdschrift(1873), p. 519; Schwally,Z. A. T. W., viii. 200, and Briggs on Ps. xiv. 7.
5Stade not unreasonably questions whether 2 Kings xii. 1-3 implies the paramount political influence of Jehoiada.
6See Wellhausen,Geschichte Israels, p. 78 seq.;Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels(1883), p. 82 seq.
7It has been suggested thatṢaphon, which is often rather troublesome if rendered “the north,” may be a weakened form ofṣib’ōn, a current popular corruption ofshimo’n= Ishmael. In Ezek. xxxviii. 15 it is distinctly said that Gog is to come from the recesses of Ṣāphōn. “Meshech” and “Tubal” are no hindrance to this view, if the names of the so-called “sons of Japheth” are critically examined. For they, too, as well as Ṣāphōn, can be plausibly shown to represent regions of North Arabia. See Cheyne,Traditions and Beliefs of Anc. Israel, on Gen. x. 2-4.
JOEL, MANUEL(1826-1890), Jewish philosopher and preacher. After teaching for several years at the Breslau rabbinical seminary, founded by Z. Frankel, he became the successor of Abraham Geiger in the rabbinate of Breslau. He made important contributions to the history of the school of Aqiba (q.v.) as well as to the history of Jewish philosophy, his essays on Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides being of permanent worth. But his most influential work was connected with the relations between Jewish philosophy and the medieval scholasticism. He showed how Albertus Magnus derived some of his ideas from Maimonides and how Spinoza was indebted to the same writer, as well as to Hasdai Crescas. These essays were collected in two volumes ofBeiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie(1876), while another two volumes ofBlicke in die Religionsgeschichte(1880-1883) threw much light on the development of religious thought in the early centuries of the Christian era. Equally renowned were Joel’s pulpit addresses. Though he was no orator, his appeal to the reason was effective, and in their published form his three volumes ofPredigten(issued posthumously) have found many readers.
(I. A.)
JOFFRIN, JULES FRANÇOIS ALEXANDRE(1846-1890), French politician, was born at Troyes on the 16th of March 1846. He served in the Franco-German War, was involved in the Commune, and spent eleven years in England as a political exile. He attached himself to the “possibilist” group of the socialist party, the section opposed to the root-and-branch measures of Jules Guesde. He became a member of the municipal council of Paris in 1882, and vice-president in 1888-1889. Violently attacked by the Boulangist organs,L’IntransigeantandLa France, he won a suit against them for libel, and in 1889 he contested the 18th arrondissement of Paris with General Boulanger, who obtained a majority of over 2000 votes, but was declared ineligible. Joffrin was only admitted to the Chamber after a heated discussion, and continued to be attacked by the nationalists. He died in Paris on the 17th of September 1890.
JOGUES, ISAAC(1607-1646), French missionary in North America, was born at Orleans on the 10th of January 1607. He entered the Society of Jesus at Rouen in 1624, and in 1636 was ordained and sent, by his own wish, to the Huron mission. In 1639 he went among the Tobacco Nation, and in 1641 journeyed to Sault Sainte Marie, where he preached to the Algonquins. Returning from an expedition to Three Rivers he was captured by Mohawks, who tortured him and kept him as a slave until the summer of 1643, when, aided by some Dutchmen, he escaped to the manor of Rensselaerwyck and thence to New Amsterdam. After a brief visit to France, where he was treated with high honour, he returned to the Mohawk country in May 1646 and ratified a treaty between that tribe and the Canadian government. Working among them as the founder of the Mission of the Martyrs, he incurred their enmity, was tortured as a sorcerer, and finally killed at Ossernenon, near Auriesville, N.Y.
See Parkman,The Jesuits in North America(1898).
See Parkman,The Jesuits in North America(1898).
JOḤANAN BEN ZACCAI,Palestinian rabbi, contemporary of the Apostles. He was a disciple of Hillel (q.v.), and after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus was the main instrument in the preservation of the Jewish religion. During the last decades of the Temple Joḥanan was a member of the Sanhedrin and a skilled controversialist against the Sadducees. He is also reported to have been head of a great school in the capital. In the war with Rome he belonged to the peace party, and finding that the Zealots were resolved on carrying their revolt to its inevitable sequel, Joḥanan had himself conveyed out of Jerusalem in a coffin. In the Roman camp the rabbi was courteously received, and Vespasian (whose future elevation to the imperial dignity Joḥanan, like Josephus, is said to have foretold) agreed to grant him any boon he desired. Joḥanan obtained permission to found a college at Jamnia (Jabneh), which became the centre of Jewish culture. It practically exercised the judicial functions of the Sanhedrin (seeJews, § 40 ad fin.). That chief literary expression of Pharisaism, the Mishnah, was the outcome of the work begun at Jamnia. Joḥanan solaced his disciples on the fall of the Temple by the double thought that charity could replace sacrifice, and that a life devoted to the religious law could form a fitting continuation of the old theocratic state. “Joḥanan felt the fall of his people more deeply than anyone else, but—and in this lies his historical importance—he did more than any one else to prepare the way for Israel to rise again” (Bacher).