Professor Robertson Smith in his latest work has well pointed out that even with the Hebrews the sacrifices were eaten in common till the seventh centuryb.c., when the sin-offerings, in a time of great national distress, came to be slain before Jehovah, and 'none but the priests ate of the flesh,' a phase of sacrificial specialization which marks the beginning of the exclusive sacerdotalism of the Jews.—Ed.
Professor Robertson Smith in his latest work has well pointed out that even with the Hebrews the sacrifices were eaten in common till the seventh centuryb.c., when the sin-offerings, in a time of great national distress, came to be slain before Jehovah, and 'none but the priests ate of the flesh,' a phase of sacrificial specialization which marks the beginning of the exclusive sacerdotalism of the Jews.—Ed.
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That which the tradition of the people is to the truth of facts—that is amythusto the reasonable origin of things....°These objects to an eye at°might all melt into one another, as stars are confluent which modern astronomy has prismatically split. Says Rennell, as a reason for a Mahometan origin of a canal through Cairo, such is the tradition of the people. But we see amongst ourselves how great works are ascribed to the devil or to the Romans by antiquarians. In Rennell we see the effects of synthesis. He throws back his observations, like a woman threading a series of needles or a shuttle running through a series of rings, through a succession of Egyptian canals (p. 478), showing the real action of the case, that a tendency existed to this. And, by the way, here comes another strong illustration of the popular adulterations. They in our country confound the 'Romans,' a vulgar expression for the Roman Catholics, with the ancient national people of Rome. Here one element of amythusB has melted into themythusX, and in far-distant times might be very perplexing to antiquarians, when the popular tradition was too old for them toseethe point of juncture where the alien stream had fallen in.
Then, again, not only ignorance, but love, combines toadulterate the tradition. Every man wishes to give his own country an interest in anything great. What an effort has been made to suck Sir T. R. back into Scotland!
Thus, it is too difficult without a motive to hold apart vast distancesorintervals that lie in a field which has all gathered into a blue haze. Stars, divided by millions of miles, collapse into each other. Somythi: and then comes the perplexity—the entanglement. Then come also, from lacunæ arising in these interwelded stories, temptations to falsehood. By the way, even the recent tale of Astyages seems to have been pieced: the difficulty was to find a motive for Cyrus, reputed a good man, to make war on his grandfather. Kill him he might by accident. But the dream required that he should dethrone his grandfather. Accordingly the dreadful story is devised; but why should Cyrus adopt the injuries of a nobleman who, if all were true, had only saved himself by accident?
Impossible as it would seem to transmute Socrates into amythus, considering the broad daylight which then rested upon Athenian history, and the inextricable way in which Socrates is entangled in that history (although we have all seen many a Scriptural personage so transmuted under far less colourable pretences or advantages), still it is evident that the mediæval schoolmendidpractically treat Socrates as something of that sort—as a mythical, symbolic, or representative man. Socrates is the eternal burthen of their quillets, quodlibets, problems, syllogisms; for them he is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, that much-suffering man; or, to speak more adequately, forthemhe is the John Doe and the Richard Roe of English law, whose feuds have tormented the earth andincensed the heavens through a cycle of uncounted centuries, and must have given a bad character of our planet on its English side. To such an extent was this pushed, that many of the scholastic writers became wearied of enunciating or writing his name, and, anticipating the occasional fashion ofMy ludandYour ludshipat our English Bar, or ofHocus Pocusas an abbreviation of pure weariness forHoc est Corpus, they called him notSocrates, butSortes.Now, whence, let me ask, was this custom derived? As to Doe and Roe, who or what first set them by the ears together is now probably past all discovery. But as toSortes, that he was a mere contraction forSocratesis proved in the same way thatMobis shown to have been a brief way of writingMobile vulgus, viz., that by Bishop Stillingfleet in particular the two forms,MobandMobile vulgusare used interchangeably and indifferently through several pages consecutively—just asCanterandCanterbury gallop, of which the one was at first the mere shorthand expression of the other, were at one period interchanged, and for the same reason. The abbreviated form wore the air of plebeian slang at its first introduction, but its convenience favoured it: soon it became reconciled to the ear, then it ceased to be slang, and finally the original form, ceasing to have any apparent advantage of propriety or elegance, dropped into total disuse.Sortes, it is a clear case, inherited from Socrates his distressing post of target-general for the arrows of disputatious Christendom. But how came Socrates by that distinction? I cannot have a doubt that it was strength of tradition that imputed such a use of the Socratic name and character to Plato. The reader must remember that, although Socrates was nomythus, and least of all could be such, to his own leadingdisciple, that was no reason why he should not be treated as amythus.In Wales, some nine or ten years ago,Rebecca, as the mysterious and masqued redresser of public wrongs, was rapidly passing into amythicalexpression for that universal character of Rhadamanthian avenger or vindicator. So of Captain Rock, in Ireland. So of Elias amongst the Jews (when Elias shall come), as the sublime, mysterious, and in some degree pathetic expression for a great teacher lurking amongst the dreadful mists.
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You read in the Hebrew Scriptures of a man who had thirty sons, all of whom 'rode on white asses'; the riding on white asses is a circumstance that expresses their high rank or distinction—that all were princes. In Syria, as in Greece and almost everywhere, white was the regal symbolic colour.[7]And any mode of equitation, from the far inferior wealth of ancient times, implied wealth. Mules or asses, besides that they were so far superior a race in Syria no less than in Persia, to furnish a favourite designation for a warlike hero, could much more conveniently be used on the wretched roads, as yet found everywhere, until the Romans began to treat road-making as a regular business of military pioneering. In this case, therefore, there were thirty sons of one man, and all provided with princely establishments. Consequently, to have thirty sons at all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy; but to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the fundsof the family would not allow of giving to each his separate establishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was surprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against its truth, the writer would justly deny by pleading—for that very reason,becauseit was surprising, did I tell the story. In a train of 1,500 years naturally there must happen many wonderful things, both as to events and persons. Were these crowded together in time or locally, these indeed we should incredulously reject. But when we understand the vast remoteness from each other in time or in place, we freely admit the tendency lies the other way; the wonder would be if there werenotmany coincidences that each for itself separately might be looked upon as strange. And as the surgeon had set himself to collect certain cases for the very reason that they were so unaccountably fatal, with a purpose therefore of including all that didnotterminate fatally, so we should remember that generally historians (although less so if a Jewish historian, because he had a far nobler chain of wonders to record) do not feel themselves open to the objection of romancing if they report something out of the ordinary track, since exactly that sort of matter is their object, and it cannot but be found in a considerable proportion when their course travels over a vast range of successive generations. It would be a marvellous thing indeed if every one of five hundred men whom an author had chosen to record biographically should have for his baptismal name—Francis. But if you found that this was the very reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however strange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects, you would no longer see anything to startle your belief.
But let me give an interesting case partly illustrating this principle. Once I was present on an occasion where, of two young men, one very young and very clever was suggesting infidel scruples, and the other, so much older as to be entering on a professional career with considerable distinction, was on the very point of drinking-in all that his companion urged as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The younger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a passage from the Bible, in which one of the circumstances was—that the Jewish army consisted of 120,000 men. 'Now,' said he, 'knowing as we all do the enormity of such a force as a peace establishment, even for mighty empires like England, how perfectly like a fairy-tale or an Arabian Nights' entertainment does it sound to hear of such monstrous armaments in a little country like Judæa, equal, perhaps, to the twelve counties of Wales!' This was addressed to myself, and I could see by the whole expression of the young physician that his condition was exactly this—his studies had been purely professional; he made himself a king, because (having happened to hurt his leg) he wore whitefasciæabout his thigh. He knew little or nothing of Scriptural records; he had not read at all upon this subject; quite as little had he thought, and, unfortunately, his conversation had lain amongst clever chemists and naturalists, who had a prejudgment in the case that all the ability and free power of mind ran into the channel of scepticism; that only people situated as most women are should acquiesce in the faith or politics of their fathers or predecessors, or could believe much of the Scriptures, except those who were slow to examine for themselves; but that multitudes pretended to believe upon some interested motive. This was precisely the situation of the young physician himself—he listened with manifest interest, checked himself when going to speak; he knew the danger of being reputed an infidel, and he had no temper for martyrdom, as his whole gesture and manner, by its tendency, showed what was passing in his mind. 'Yes, X is right, manifestly right, and every rational view from our modern standard of good sense and reflective political economy tends to the same conclusion. By the reflex light of political economy we know even at this hour much as to the condition of ancient lands like Palestine, Athens, etc., quite unrevealed to the wisest men amongst them. But for me, who am entering on a critical walk of social life, I shall need every aid from advantageous impression in favour of my religious belief, so I cannot in prudence speak, for I shall speak too warmly, and I forbear.'
What I replied, and in that instance usefully replied—for it sufficed to check one who was gravitating downwards to infidelity, and likely to settle there for ever if he once reached that point—was in substance this:
Firstly, that the plea, with regard to the numbers as most extraordinary, was so far from affecting the credibility of the statement disadvantageously, that on that ground, agreeably to the logic I have so scantily expounded, this very feature in the case was what partly engaged the notice of the Scriptural writer. Itwasa great army for so little a nation. Andtherefore, would the writer say,thereforein print I record it.
Secondly, that we must not, however, be misled by the narrow limits, the Welsh limits, to suppose a Welsh population. For that whilst the twelve counties of Wales do notnowyield above half-a-million of people,Palestine had pretty certainly a number fluctuating between four and six millions.
Thirdly, that the great consideration of this was the stage in the expansion of society at which the Hebrew nation then stood, and the sublime interest—sublime enough to them, though far from comprehending the solemn freight of hopes confided to themselves—which they consciously defended. It was an age in which no pay was given to the soldier. Now, when the soldier constitutes a separate profession, with the regular pay he undertakes the regular danger and hardships. There is no motive for giving the pay and the rations but precisely that hedoesso undertake. But when no pay at all is allowed out of any common fund, it will never be endured by the justice of the whole society or by an individual member that he, the individual, as one insulated stake-holder, having no greater interest embarked than others, should undertake the danger or the labour of warfare for the whole. And two inferences arise upon having armies so immense:
First, that they were a militia, or more properly not even that, but a Landwehr—that is, aposse comitatus, the whole martial strength of the people (one in four), drawn out and slightly trained to meet a danger, which in those times was always a passing cloud. Regular and successive campaigns were unknown; the enemy, whoever he might be, could as little support a regular army as the people of Palestine. Consequently, all these enemies would have to disperse hastily to their reaping and mowing, just as we may observe the Jews do under Joshua. It required, therefore, no long absence from home. It was but a march, but a waiting for opportunity, watching for a favourable day—sunshine orcloud, the rising or subsiding of a river, the wind in the enemy's face, or an ambush skilfully posted. All was then ready; the signal was given, a great battle ensued, and by sunset of one anxious day all was over in one way or another. Upon this position of circumstances there was neither any fair dispensation from personal service (except where citizens' scruples interfered), nor any motive for wishing it. On the contrary, by a very few days' service, a stigma, not for the individual only, but for his house and kin, would be evaded for ages of having treacherously forsaken the commonwealth in agony. And the preference for a fighting station would be too eager instead of too backward. It would become often requisite to do what it is evident the Jews in reality did—to make successive sifting and winnowing from the service troops, at every stage throwing out upon severer principles of examination those who seemed least able to face a trying crisis, whilst honourable posts of no great dependency would be assigned to those rejected, as modes of soothing their offended pride. This in the case of a great danger; but in the case of an ordinary danger there is no doubt that many vicarious arrangements would exist by way of evading so injurious a movement as that of the whole fighting population. Either the ordinary watch and ward, in that section which happened to be locally threatened—as, for instance, by invasion on one side from Edom or Moab, on another side from the Canaanites or Philistines—would undertake the case as one which had fallen to them by allotment of Providence; or that section whose service happened to be due for the month, without local regards, would face the exigency. But in any great national danger, under that stage of society which theJews had reached between Moses and David—that stage when fighting is no separate professional duty, that stage when such things are announced by there being no military pay—not the army which is so large as 120,000 men, but the army which is so small, requires to be explained.[8]
Secondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay, and therefore no separate fighting profession, is this—that foreign war, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite unknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance of armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued with those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack upon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be lawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all his great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it inevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious motive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he discovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction was required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without sincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words aloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his prophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nationdenying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive warfare. But the Jews had no such commission—a proselyte needed more evidences of assent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words, and he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution. Some nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of servitude. But the Romans were so far from treatingtheirlanguage in this way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay for a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the Jews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon foreigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by coming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law, and by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple.
Such was the prodigious state of separation from a Mahometan principle of fanatical proselytism in which the Jews were placed from the very first. One small district only was to be cleared of its ancient idolatrous, and probably desperately demoralized, tribes. Even this purification it was not intended should be instant; and upon the following reason, partly unveiled by God and partly left to an integration, viz., that in the case of so sudden a desolation the wild beasts and noxious serpents would have encroached too much on the human population. So much is expressed, and probably the sequel foreseen was, that the Jews would have lapsed into a wild hunting race, and have outworn that ceremonial propensity which fitted them for a civil life, which formed them into a hive in which the great work of God in Shiloh, His probationary Temple or His glorious Temple and service at Jerusalem, operated as the mysterious instinct of a queen bee, to compress and organize the whole society into a cohesion like this of life. Here, perhaps, lay the reason for not allowing of any sudden summary extirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second principle, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete. Snares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown—in that case the restless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be utterly withdrawn—in that case his faith would undergo no probation. Even upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that aggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it was not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was not to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and to be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment this part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive warfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all other wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no allowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom, Midian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not aggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there remained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever justify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the Jews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted, and wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible atrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole tribe), in which case a bloody exterminating war under God's sanction succeeded and rapidly drew to a close, or elsegrew out of the ruinous schism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem. And as this schism had no countenance from God, still less could the wars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that could have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic theory of their constitution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole case of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength, struck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in Shiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the last man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies could tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an excessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in the 120,000 men, the true difficulty would lie the other way, to account for its being so much reduced.
It seems to me highly probable that the offence of David in numbering the people, which ultimately was the occasion of fixing the site for the Temple of Jerusalem, pointed to this remarkable military position of the Jewish people—a position forbidding all fixed military institutions, and which yet David was probably contemplating in that verycensus.Simply to number the people could not have been a crime, nor could it be any desideratum for David; because we are too often told of the muster rolls for the whole nation, and for each particular tribe, to feel any room for doubt that the reports on this point were constantly corrected, brought under review of the governing elders, councils, judges, princes, or king, according to the historical circumstances, so that the need and the criminality of such acensuswould vanish at the same moment. But thiswas not thecensusordered by David. He wanted a more specific return, probably of the particular wealth and nature of the employment pursued by each individual family, so that upon this return he might ground a permanent military organization for the people; and such an organization would have thoroughly revolutionized the character of the population, as well as drawn them into foreign wars and alliances.
It is painful to think that many amiable and really candid minds in search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran towards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the altar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word 'army,' as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects indifferently, and one which in Judæa exclusively could be applied only to such a service as must in its own nature be sudden, brief, and always tending to a decisive catastrophe.
And that this was the true form of the crime, not only circumstances lead me to suspect, but especially the remarkable demur of Joab, who in his respectful remonstrance said in effect that, when the whole strength of the nation was known in sum—meaning from the ordinary state returns—what need was there to search more inquisitively into the special details? Where all were ready to fight cheerfully, why seek for separateminutiæas to each particular class? Those general returns had regard only to the ordinarycausa belli—a hostile invasion. And, then, all nations alike, rude or refined, have gone upon the same general outline of computation—that, subtracting the females from the males, this, in a gross general way, would always bisect the total return of the population. And, then, to make a second bisection of the male half would subtract one quarter from the entire people as too young or too old, or otherwise as too infirm for warlike labours, leaving precisely one quarter of the nation—every fourth head—as available for war. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about 1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldypospolitewas far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court saved themselves from capture only by a few hours' start of the enemy, and through the enemy's want of cavalry. This danger meantime having vanished, it might be possible that for David personally no other great conspiracy should disturb his seat upon the throne. None of David's sons approached to Absalom in popularity; and yet the subsequent attempt of Adonijah showed that the revolutionary temper was still awake in that quarter. But what David feared, in a further-looking spirit, was the tenure by which his immediate descendants would maintain their title. The danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for regulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things far less determined than amongst monogamous nations—one son pleading his priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother's higher rank, a third pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within thedescription ofporphyrogeniture, or royal birth, which is often felt as transcendent asprimogeniture—even the people, apart from the several pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as grounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds. There seems good reason to think that already the ten tribes, Israel as opposed to Judah, looked upon the more favoured and royal tribe of Judah, with their supplementary section of Benjamin, as unduly favoured in the national economy. Secretly there is little doubt that they murmured even against God for ranking this powerful tribe as the prerogative tribe. The jealousy had evidently risen to a great height; it was suppressed by the vigilant and strong government of Solomon; but at the outset of his son's reign it exploded at once, and the Scriptural account of the case shows that it proceeded upon old grievances. The boyish rashness of Rehoboam might exasperate the leaders, and precipitate the issue; but very clearly all had been prepared for a revolt. And I would remark that by the 'young men' of Rehoboam are undoubtedly meant the soldiers—the body-guards whom the Jewish kings now retained as an element of royal pomp. This is the invariable use of the term in the East. Even in Josephus the term for the military by profession is generally 'the young men'; whilst 'the elders' mean the councillors of state. David saw enough of the popular spirit to be satisfied that there was no political reliance on the permanence of the dynasty; and even at home there was an internal source of weakness. The tribe of Benjamin were mortified and incensed at the deposition of Saul's family and the bloody proscription of that family adopted by David. One only, a grandson of Saul, he had spared out of love to his friend Jonathan. This was Mephibo-sheth; but he was incapacitated for the throne by lameness. And how deep the resentment was amongst the Benjamites is evident from the insulting advantage taken of his despondency in the day of distress by Shimei. For Shimei had no motive for the act of coming to the roadside and cursing the king beyond his attachment to the house of Saul. Humanly speaking, David's prospect of propagating his own dynasty was but small. On the other hand, God had promised himHissupport. And hence it was that his crime arose, viz., upon his infidelity, in seeking to secure the throne by a mere human arrangement in the first place; secondly, by such an arrangement as must disorganize the existing theocratic system of the Jewish people. Upon this crime followed his chastisement in a sudden pestilence. And it is remarkable in how significant a manner God manifested the nature of the trespass, and the particular course through which He had meant originally, anddidstill mean, to counteract the worst issue of David's apprehensions. It happened that the angel of the pestilence halted at the threshing-floor of Araunah; and precisely that spot did God by dreams to David indicate as the site of the glorious Temple. Thus it seemed as though in so many words God had declared: 'Now that all is over, your crime and its punishment, understand that your fears were vain. I will continue the throne in your house longer than your anxieties can personally pursue its descent. And with regard to the terrors from Israel, although this event of a great schism is inevitable and essential to My councils, yet I will not allow it to operate for the extinction of your house. And that very Temple, in that very place where My angel was commissioned to pause, shall be one great means and one great pledge to you of My decree infavour of your posterity. For this house, as a common sanctuary to all Jewish blood, shall create a perpetual interest in behalf of Judah amongst the other tribes, even when making war upon Jerusalem.' Witness if it were but that one case where 200,000 captives of Judah were restored without ransom, were clothed completely, were fed, by the very men who had just massacred their fighting relatives.
FOOTNOTES:[7]Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state—and afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became so splendid that it was made so—white had always been the colour of a monarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty' (Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).—Ed.][8]This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes a point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the army are called by the names oflaos, the people;demos, the community; andplethūs, the multitude. But no notice is taken throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people, not only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of the chiefs.—Ed.
[7]Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state—and afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became so splendid that it was made so—white had always been the colour of a monarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty' (Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).—Ed.]
[7]Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state—and afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became so splendid that it was made so—white had always been the colour of a monarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty' (Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).—Ed.]
[8]This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes a point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the army are called by the names oflaos, the people;demos, the community; andplethūs, the multitude. But no notice is taken throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people, not only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of the chiefs.—Ed.
[8]This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes a point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the army are called by the names oflaos, the people;demos, the community; andplethūs, the multitude. But no notice is taken throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people, not only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of the chiefs.—Ed.
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The argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews, flowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of Geneva—never mixing its waters with those which surround it—has been by some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as everywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide the answer. Yet how infinitely better to state it fully, and then show that the evasion has no form at all; but, on the contrary, powerfully argues the inconsistency and incapacity of those who urge it. For instance, I remember Boulanger, a French infidel, whose work was duly translated by a Scotchman, answers it thus: What is there miraculous in all this? he demands. Listen to me, and I will show you in two minutes that it rests upon mere show and pure delusion. How is it, why is it, that the Jews have remained a separate people? Simply from their usages, in the first place; but, secondly, still more from the fact that these usages, which with other peoples exist also in some representative shape, withthemmodify themselves, shift, alter, adapt themselves to the climate or to the humour or accidents of life amongst those amidst whom chance has thrown them; whereas amongst the Jews every custom, the most trivial, is also part of their legislation; and their legislation is also theirreligion. (Boulanger, by the way, is far from expressing that objection so clearly as I have here done; but this is his drift and purpose, so far as he knew how to express it.) Take any other people—Isaurians, Athenians, Romans, Corinthians—doubtless all these and many others have transmitted their blood down to our ages, and are now living amongst us by representation. But why do we not perceive this? Why do the Athenians seem to have perished utterly? Simply for this reason: they were a plastic, yielding, unobstinate race. An Athenian lived in a port of Italy, married an Italian woman; thence threw out lines of descent to Milan, thence to Paris; and because his Attic usages were all local, epichorial, and tied to a particular mythology which has given way, or to a superstition which is defunct, or to a patriotic remembrance which has vanished with the land and the sympathy that supported it; hence, and upon other similar arguments, the Athenian has long since melted into the mass with which he was intermixed; he was a unit attached to a vast overpowering number from another source, and into that number he has long since been absorbed; he was a drop in a vast ocean, and long ago he has been confounded with the waters that did not differ, except numerically, from his own. But the Jews are an obstinate, bigoted people; and they have maintained their separation, not by any overruling or coercing miracle, but in a way perfectly obvious and palpable to themselves—obvious by its operation, obvious in its remedy. They would not resign their customs. Upon these ordinances, positive and negative, commanding and forbidding many peculiar rites, consecrating and desecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the stress and emphasis of religion. They wouldnot resign them; they did not expect others to adopt them—not in any case;à fortiorinot from a degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of Providential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to blend with other races.
This is the infidel's attempt to rebut, to defeat, utterly to confound, the argumentative force of this most astonishing amongst all historical pictures that the planet presents.
The following is the answer:
It is forgotten that along with the Jews there is another people concerned as illustrations of the same prophetic fatality—of that same inevitable eye, that same perspective of vision, which belonged to those whose eyes God had opened. The Arabs, as children of a common ancestor, ought not to be forgotten in this sentence upon their brother nation. They through Ishmael, the Jews through Isaac, and more immediately through Israel the son of Isaac, were two diverging branches of one original stem; and to both was pronounced a corresponding doom—a sentence which argued in both a principle of duration and self-propagation, that is memorable in any race. The children of Ishmael are the Arabs of the desert. Their destiny as a roving robber nation, and liable to all men's hands, as they indifferently levied spoil on all, was early pronounced. And here, again, we see at once how it will be evaded: it is the desert, it is the climate, it is the solemnity of that unchanging basis, which will secure the unchanging life of its children. But it is remarkable enough that Gibbon and other infidels, kicking violently against this standing miracle (because, if not so in itself, yet, according to Bishop Butler's just explanation concerning miraculousper de-rivationemas recording a miraculous power of vision), have by oscillation clung to the fixture of basis, and rejected it; for now Gibbon denies that the Arabs have held this constant tenor of life; they have changed it, he asserts, in large and notorious cases. Well, then, if they have, then at once falls to the ground this alleged overruling coerciona prioriof the climate and the desert. Climate and desert do not necessarily coerce them, if in large and notorious cases they have failed to do so. So feels Gibbon; and, by an instinct of timidity, back he flies to the previous evasion—to the natural controlling power of climate and soil, admitting the Scriptural fact, but seeking for it an unscriptural ground, as before he had flown in over-precipitate anxiety to the denial of the Scriptural fact, but in that denial involving a withdrawal of the unscriptural ground.
The sceptics in that instance show their secret sense of a preference from the distracted eagerness with which they fly backwards and forwardwise between two reciprocally hostile evasions.
The answer I reserve, and meantime I remark:
Secondly, that, supposing this answer to have any force, still it meets only one moiety of the Scriptural fatality; viz., the dispersion of the Jews—the fact that, let them be gathered in what numbers they might, let them even be concentrated by millions, therefore in the literal sensenotdispersed, yet in the political sense universally understood, they would be dispersed, because never, in no instance, rising to be a people,sui juris, a nation, a distinct community, known to the public law of Europe as having the rights of peace and war, but always a mere accident and vagrant excess amongst nations, not having the bare rights of citizenship; so far from being a nation,not being an acknowledged member of any nation. This exquisite dispersion—not ethnographic only, but political—is that half of the Scriptural malediction which the Boulanger answer attempts to meet; but the other half—that they should be 'a byword, an astonishment,' etc.—is entirely blinked. Had the work even prospered, it would still have to recommence. The Armenians are dispersed through all Eastern lands, so are the Arabs; even the descendants of Ali are found severed from their natal soil; but they are not therefore dispersed: they have endured no general indignities.
Thirdly, it does not meet the fact of the Jewishexistencein any shape, whether as a distinct or an amalgamated people. There is no doubt that many races of men, as of brute animals, have been utterly extinguished. In cases such as those of the Emim, or Rethinim, a race distinguished by peculiar size, so as to be monstrous in comparison with other men, this extinction could more readily be realized; or in the case of a nation marked, as Herodotus records, by a slighter texture of scale, the extinction might be ascertained by the physiologist; but no doubt it has often occurred, precisely as a family is extinguished, or as certain trees (for example, the true golden pippin) are observed to die off, not by local influences only, but by a decay attacking the very principle of their existence. Of many ancient races it is probable enough that no blood directly traced from them could at this day be searched by the eye of God. Families arise amongst the royal lineage of Europe that suddenly, like a lamp fitfully glowing up just the moment before it expires, throw off, as by some final effort, a numerous generation of princes and princesses; then suddenly all contract as rapidly into a single child, whichperishing, the family is absolutely extinct. And so must many nations have perished, and so must the Jews have been pre-eminently exposed to perish, from the peculiar, fierce, and almost immortal, persecutions which they have undergone, and the horrid frenzies of excited mobs in cruel cities of which they have stood the brunt.
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It is true that Pilate could not be expected fully to comprehend an idea which was yet new to man; Christ's words were beyond his depth. But, still, his natural light would guide him thus far—that, although he had never heard of any truth which rose to that distinction, still, if any one class of truth should in future come to eclipse all other classes of truth immeasurably, as regarded its practical results, as regarded some dark dependency of human interests, in that case it would certainly merit the distinctive name of 'The Truth.' The case in which such a distinction would become reasonable and available was one utterly unrealized to his experience, not even within the light of his conjectures as to its special conditions; but, still, as a general possibility it was conceivable to his understanding; though not comprehensible, yet apprehensible. And in going on to the next great question, to the inevitable question, 'Whatisthe truth?' Pilate had no thought of jesting. Jesting was the last thing of which his impassioned mood in that great hour was capable. Roman magistrates of supreme rank were little disposed to jesting on the judgment-seat amongst a refractory and dangerous people; and of Pilate in particular, every word, every effort, every act, demonstrate that he was agitated with new instincts and misgivings of some shadowy revelation opening upon man, that his heart was convulsed with desponding anxiety in the first place to save the man who appeared the depositary of this revelation, but who, if, after all, only a sublime lunatic, was, at the very least, innocent of all offence. It must have struck all close observers of early Christianity how large a proportion of the new converts lay amongst Roman officers, or (to speak more adequately) amongst Romans of high rank, both men and women. And for that there was high reason. In the advance of civilization, and in the corresponding decay of idolatrous religions, there was fast arising a new growth of cravings amongst men. Mythological and desperately immoral religions, that spoke only to the blind sense of power, had been giving way through the three previous centuries to a fearful extent. They had receded from the higher natures of both Greece and Rome as the sea has locally receded from many shores of the earth. Such natures were left 'miserably bare'; the sense of dependency by any tie upon the invisible world, or at least upon the supernatural world, had decayed, and unless this painful void were filled up by some supplementary bond in the same direction, a condition of practical atheism must take place, such as could not but starve and impoverish in human nature those yearnings after the infinite which are the pledges of all internal grandeur. But this dependency could not be replaced by one of the same vicious nature. Into any new dependency a new element must be introduced. The sense of insufficiency would be renewed in triple strength if merely the old relationsof weakness to power, of art to greater art, of intellect to higher intellect, of less to more within the same exact limits as to kind of excellence, should be rehearsed under new names or improved theogonies. Hitherto, no relation of man to divine or demoniac powers had included the least particle or fraction or hint of any moral element; nor was such an element possible in that dependency, for profound reasons.
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Before any canon was settled, many works had become current in Christian circles whose origin was dubious. The traditions about them varied locally. Some, it is alleged, that would really have been entitled to a canonical place, had been lost by accident; to some, which still survived, this place had been refused upon grounds that might not have satisfiedusof this day, if we had the books and the grounds of rejection before us; and, finally, others, it is urged, have obtained this sacred distinction with no right to it. In particular, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Second of St. Jude, the Epistle of St. James, and the three of St. John, are denounced as supposititious in the 'Scaligerana.' But the writer before us is wrong in laying any stress on the opinions there expressed. They bear the marks of conversational haste and of Scaligeran audacity. What is the objection made, for instance, to 'in quibus sunt mira, quæ nonvidenturesse Apostolica'?Thatis itself more strange as a criticism than anything in the epistlescanbe for its doctrine. The only thing tending to a reason for the summary treatment is that the Eastern Church does not acknowledge them for canonical. But opinions quoted fromanaare seldom of any authority; indeed, I havemyself too frequently seen the unfaithfulness of such reports. The reporter, as he cannot decently be taking notes at the time of speaking, endeavours afterwards to recall the most interesting passages by memory. He forgets the context; what introduced—what followed to explain or modify the opinions. He supplies a conjectural context of his own, and the result is a romance. But if the reporter were even accurate, so much allowance must be made for the license of conversation—its ardour, its hurry, and its frequent playfulness—that when all these deductions are made, really not a fraction remains that one can honestly carry to account. Besides, the elder Scaliger was drunk pretty often, and Joe seems rather 'fresh' at times.
Upon consideration, it may be as well to repeat what it is that Scaliger is reported to have said:
'The Epistle of Jude is nothis, as neither is that of James, nor thesecondof Peter, in all which are strange things that seem (seem—mark that!) far enough from being Apostolical. The three Epistles of John are not from John the Apostle. The second of Peter and Jude belong to a later age. The Eastern Church does not own them, neither are they of evangelical authority. They are unlearned, and offer no marks of Gospel majesty. As regards their internal value, believe them I may say that I do, but it is because they are in no ways hostile tous.'
Now, observe, the grounds of objection are purely æsthetical, except in the single argument from the authority of the Eastern Church. What does he mean by 'unlearned,' or wanting 'majesty,' or containing 'strange things'? Were ever such vague puerilities collected into one short paragraph? This is pure impertinence, andPhil.deserves to be privately reprimanded for quoting such windy chaff without noting and protesting it as colloquial. But what I wish the reader to mark—theθο ἑπιμὑθιον—is, that suppose the two Scaligers amongst the Christian Fathers engaged in fixing the canon: greater learning you cannot have; neither was there, to a dead certainty, one tenth part as much amongst the canon-settlers. Yet all this marvellous learning fumes away in boyish impertinence. It confounds itself. And every Christian says, Oh, take away this superfluous weight of erudition, that, being so rare a thing, cannot be wanted in the broad highways of religion. What wedowant is humility, docility, reverence for God, and love for man. These are sown broadcast amongst human hearts. Now, these apply themselves to thesenseof Scripture, not to its grammatical niceties. But if so, even that case shows indirectly how little could depend upon the mere verbal attire of the Bible, when the chief masters of verbal science were so ready to go astray—riding on the billows so imperfectly moored. In theideasof Scripture lies its eternal anchorage, not in its perishable words, which are shifting for ever like quicksands, as the Bible passes by translation successively into every spoken language of the earth.
What then?—'What then?' retorts the angry reader after all this, 'why then, perhaps, there may be a screw loose in the Bible.' True, there may, and what is more, some very great scholars take upon them to assert that there is. Yet, still, what then? The two possible errors open to the Fathers of our canon, to the men upon whom rested the weighty task of saying to all mankind what should be Bible, and what should benotBible, of makingand limiting that mighty world, are—that they may have done that which they oughtnotto have done, and, secondly, left undone that which they ought to have done. They may have admitted writers whom they ought to have excluded; and they may have excluded writers whom they ought to have admitted. This is the extent of their possible offences, and they are supposed by some critics to have committed both. But suppose that theyhave, still I say—what then? What is the nature of the wrong done to us by the worst mistake ascribed to them? Let us consider. It is supposed by some scholars that we have in the New Testament as it now stands a work written by Apollos, viz., the Epistle to the Romans. Yet, if so, the error amounts only to a misnomer. On the other hand, there are Epistles on which has been charged the same error in relation to the name of the author, and the more important error of thoughts unbecoming to a Christian in authority: for instance, the Epistle of St. James. This charge was chiefly urged by a very intemperate man, and in a very intemperate style. I notice it as being a case whichPhil.has noticed. ButPhil.merits a gentle rap on his knuckles for the inconsideration with which he has cited a charge made and reported with so much levity. He quotes it from the 'Scaligerana.' Now, what right upon such a subject has any man to quote such an authority? The reasons against listening with much attention to the 'Scaligerana' are these:
First, the Scaligers, both father and son, were the two most impudent men that ever walked the planet. I should be loath to say so ill-natured a thing as that their impudence was equal to their learning, because that forces every man to say, 'Ah, then, what impudent fellows theymust have been!' It is kinder and juster to say that their learning was at least equal to their impudence, forthatwill force every man to exclaim, 'Ah, if so, what prodigies of learning they must have been!' Yes, they were—absolute monsters of learning, learned monsters. But as much learning often makes men mad, still more frequently it makes them furious for assault and battery; to use the American phrase, they grow 'wolfy about the shoulders,' from a periodical itchiness for fighting. Other men being shy of attacking the Scaligers, it was no fault of theirs, you know, but a necessity, to attack other men—unless you expected them to have no fighting at all. It was always a reason withthemfor trying a fall with a writer, if they doubted much whether they had any excuse for hanging a quarrel on.
Secondly, allanawhatever are bad authorities. Supposing the thing really said, we are to remember the huge privilege of conversation, how immeasurable is that! You yourself, reader, I presume, when talking, will say more in an hour than you will stand to in a month. I'm sureIdo. When the reins are put into my hands I stick at nothing—headlong I drive like a lunatic, until the very room in which we are talking, with all that it inherits, seems to spin round with absolute vertigo at the extravagances I utter.
Thirdly, but again, was the thing really said? For, as another censure upon the whole library ofana, I can assert—that, if the license of conversation is enormous, to that people who inhale that gas of colloquial fermentation seldom mean much above one part in sixty of what they say, on the other hand the license of reporters is far greater. To forget the circumstances under which a thing was said is to alter the thing, to have lost the context, the particular remark in which your own originated, the mitigations of a harsh sentiment from playfulness of manner; in short, to drop thesettingof the thoughts is oftentimes to falsify the tendency and value of those thoughts.