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■ f : '

'■kv>4-

A RATIONAL VIEW

THE BIBLE.

A OOTJRSB Off LECTURES

REY. I^EWTO^ M. MANJN",

ROCHESTER, N. Y.

ROSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING CO.

MDCCCLXXXI.

INTRODUCTION.

THE following lectures have been prepared for the
simple pui*pose of presenting, in as concise and
popular a manner as possible, modern ideas of the Bible.
No way of indicating what that book is seems at present
so promising as to inquire how and when it came to be.
No amount of critical argument applied to the text itself
is likely to convince many that the Scriptures are less
than infallible, so long as the impression subsists that
these writings were produced in some miraculous fashion,
and therefore, as to their composition, are as distinct from
other books as light is from darkness. But if it can be
shown that these writings were a natural growth in Israel,
that they are without exception severally the product of
conditions and exigencies which are still traceable, that
in many cases they bear a wholly fictitious date and auth-
orship, l^nere is no need to go further or make any direct
assault upon infallibility. In every reasonable mind that
theory surrenders without more ado.

A very great importance therefore attaches to this dis-
cussion. Whatever a man's views on the subject, he must

INTRODUCTION..

feel the need of looking well to the ground he stands on.
If the Bible is, as is popularly taught, God's word, it is
high time that we all knew it, for it is the most momen-
tous fact within the bounds of conception. If the Bible
is something very different from what it is popularly
taught to be, there is equally imperative need of learning
that fact. People in general have heard one statement
from their childhood ; is it not time now to listen to ano-
ther statement?

The writer is aware that the views set forth in these
lectures will strike many as nothing more than ingenious
— an exercise in mental gymnastics, to be read, perhaps,
as a curiosity, but without any actual bearing upon the
subject discussed. If he had sprung upon the world a
novel theory of his own, the writer might not demur at
such a judgment. But he is in the main stating the con-
clusions of others, and these the foremost biblical critics
in the world. He wouM also remind readers of this class
that these views are not distinctively heretical, since they
are largely shared by the autiior of the article on the
Bible in the last edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
whom the Scotch Kirk has tried and not convicted of doc-
trinal sin, by Dean Stanley (cla^'um et venerahilenoruen),
and by not a few other prominent men " in good and regu-
lar standing."

In explaining the formation of the Bible on purely
natural principles we but fall into line with the whole
tendency of scientific thought since the modern revival
of knowledge. The time was when men contented them-

o
if
t?

INTRODUCTION.

■V

■ V'

selves with saying, " God made the world " ; and no little
opposition was offered when the scientists set out to learn,
if they could, when and how it was made. But now cer-
tainly the universe is nowise hurt by the discovery that
its transformations (and apparently its genesis) are the
result of natural laws which we see constantly in opera-
tion. Thought in regard to the Bible follows the same
order of development. It has been said " God gave the
book." Now the question is again as to manner and time.
And what if study into the making of the book, as before
into the making of the world, leads to the positive con-
clusion that the process was a purely natural one '^ Are
we the worse off for learning the ways of God in the de-
velopment of history and of literature ? Indeed there is
no more reason why we should shrink from the conclusion
that the government of the human world, the evolution
of thought, of morals and religion, are by natural law,
than there was for revolt against the now conceded doc-
trine that the earth has taken its present form and con-
stitution solely from the operation of natural causes.

Nor is the distance between God and man widened by
this mode of thinking. When it was said that God made
the universe in a week, some six thousand years ago, the
impression was apt to obtain that he then withdrew from
the scene. At all events the mind seeking to contemplate
his activity in nature was always inclined to go back to
that memorable week. But since creation has been seen
to be a beginningless, ceaseless process, the immanency of
God in nature, the immediateness of his activity, has

' I

INTRODUCTION.

been brought home to us. Similaily the teaching that
the Bible alone is God's word has tended to foster a feel-
ing that Divinity had removed out of speaking distance
for the last eighteen hundred years. On the contrary the
breaking down of this exclusive claim for old time in-
spiration, and the assertion that the sole essential quality
of God's word is truth, bring the Eternal Presence into
instant communication with every pure spirit.

Moreover a great wrong is done to the Scriptures them-
selves by tlie current notion that they are of a supernatu-
ral character. They are put under obligption to speak
always in the tone of a god. There have been Bibles —
our grandmothers had them — which were suited to the
vindication of such a theory, opening infallibly to some
sweet psalm, or gracious parable, or divine service of char-
ity. But the Bibles now in use (or rather not in use) are
apt to open perversely to the most inconvenient passages
— which it must be confessed are the more common —
confusing the ordinary reader with a vague sense of in-
congruity, and disposing him to close the book at once
lest he commit the unpardonable sin of suspecting or mis-
understanding the utterances of the Holy Ghost. So it
goes with the many, but the few who teach must read.
These, under the common prepossession that the book is
the " word of God," are forced into the attitude of apolo-
gists, forever on the nuest of ways and means to save the
text from any imputation of error. The apologist is not
concerned to discover the truth, but to make out that a
given thing is the truth. It matters not that an ancient

ing that
r a feel-
distance
vary the
time in-
quality
nee into

s them-
»ernatu-
3 speak
bibles —
i to the
to some
of char-
Jse) are
•assages
imon —
J of in-
at once
3r mis-
Soit
it read.
)ook is
apolo-
ve the
I is not
that a
ncient

INTRODUCTION. 7

book was written under entirely false conceptions of the
earth and its motions, the contrary must somehow be es-
tablished, and Genesis immt be kept abreast the latest de-
ductions of geology. So in the course of a hundred
years, while a science is being developed, the sacred writer
is made to tell a hundred different stories about one and
the same thing. This is injustice to the Bible, and the
longer this method is pursued the worse it will be for the
book. On the contrary interest in the reading is quick-
ened by the new and rational theory of its origin. It
ceases to be an armory of texts with which to crush an
opponent, and takes on a purely human quality which
quite atones for all the mistakes it contains. We read it
as the record of a people's highest life, a book unique,
and yet natural as any in the world ; a book in which
are many discordant voices, as in every congress of strong
and ardent minds ; a revelation, not of what is in heaven
or what is to come, but of what is present in the soul of
man.

Some embarrassment has been felt in the preparation
of these lectures from the largeness of the subject, and
the comparative novelty of the views presented which
would seem to require an array of proofs quite beyond
the limits of a few addresses. The alternative was finally
chosen of presenting as clearly as might be the modern
view, with such leading evidence as time would allow,
leaving the hearer to judge, from his own knowledge of
the Scriptures and from further reading, of its probability.
A-dvantacje has been taken of this publication to supple-

INTRODUCTION.

!l!

ment tlie text with a few notes out of the great mass of
evidence at command, partially to make up for this de-
ficiency. However, the reader is to be reminded that
questions of this kind do not admit of complete demon-
stration. But, as between the new theory and the old,
notwithstanding the latter has been bolstered up by cen-
turies of critical labor, the probabilities are already over-
whelmingly in favor of the new. And, it must be con-
ceded, there is no getting beyond probability in favor of
any theory on such a subject. It may be possible to show
that any given hypothesis cannot be the true one, but to
show absolutely that another hypothesis is the true one
is, in the nature of the case, impossible.

During the delivery of these lectures the challenge has
been heard, " Where are your proofs ? " People forget that
the old theory has no proofs whatever. It stands simply
by the force of tradition. There is no demonstrating its
assumptions. And simply because the old theory is so
weak on the scorce of probability, because it is found on
critical examination in the light now available to be beset
with such insuperable difficulties — simply for this reason
rational scholars have cast about for some other way of
regarding the Bible, which shall better answer the re-
quirements of reason, and at least have the likelihood of
being true.

Under these conditions the question between the tra-
ditional and the modem view is submitted. The writer
sincerely hopes that a few, at least, of those into whose
hands his work may fall will get inside of the theory

INTRODUCTION.

mass of
:his de-
ed that
demon-
>he old,
by cen-
y over-
be con-
avor of
show-
but to
"ue one

presented sufficiently to form a candid estimate of its
value as an explanation of the Bible in comparison with
the theory it is proposed to replace.

The doctrine set forth in the following pages is drawn
mainly from the woiks of Dr. A. Kuenen, the eminent
professor of theology at Leiden, to whose comprehensive
elucidation of the whole subject the reader is referred who
desires to push investigations further.

ige has
et that
simply
ing its
r is so
md on
3 beset
reason
vay of
he re-
ood of

le tra-
writer
whose
beory

li I

-UU

FIRST LECTURE.

THE HISTORICAL BASIS,

BY common consent the most notable book, or collect-
ion of books, in the world is the Bible. No other
literature has been so much written upon or talked about.
It would be an almost endless task to enumerate the
works of comment, of exegesis, of apology and of criti-
cism that have appeared. And every year more and
more of these works are launched upon the world. Add
to this that in every sermon that is preached every Sun-
day in the year to some hundreds of thousands of congre-
gations, a text is taken from this book and some expla-
nation attempted ; that then the special study is taken
up in Bible class and Sunday-school ; that it is enjoined
as a religious duty, by the Protestant churches at least,
to pursue in private this reading and study, — taking all
this into account, it may seem that this particular field is
already receiving all the attention that can profitably be
given to it, and that a rationalist, at any rate, might bet-
ter find some other topic.

In this judgment I should concur, but that the interest
in biblical studies has of late been greatly increased —
thanks to the labors especially of a Dutch school of critics
— by the application of modern scientific methods of in-
vestigation, making it the special duty of the Liberal

AWAKENED INTEREST.

III

pulpit to present in popular form the new ideas which
scholars have brought out concerning this book. This
duty has already been done in a very satisfactory man-
ner by several Unitarian ministers,* who have put the
result of their studies in the shape of permanent con-
tributions to the literature of the subject, and made it the
easier for others to speak. With these aids it will be my
fault if, in the series of discourses now undertaken, I fail
to set before you a tolerably clear conception of the growth
of the Hebrew literature according to the latest and best
established view.

It nmst be owned a great deal of the study given to
the Bible is given to little purpose because it does not go
back of a current assumption as to the nature of the book
and the manner and time in which it was written. These
are fundamental questions, and yet in the circles where
the Bible is most read they are never raised. Just what
notion the ordinary reader has of the mode in which the
world became possessed of the Bible, he might not find it
easy himself to say, but he has always regarded it as " the
word of God," and he supposes that it, in some way, came
down from God out of heaven. Pressed to the point, he
will admit that it must have been written by the hands
of men, but these men were so under the control of the
Holy Spirit that they wrote only what was dictated to
them. The Holy Spirit was in the habit in those days of
taking ignorant men and communicating through them

* Notably, Rev. John W. Chadwick and Rev. J. T. Sunderland. Of Mr.
Chadwick'fi book, " The Bible of To-Day," I have made a free use.

Misconceptions.

which
This
y man-
put the
nt con-
e it the
1 be my

I fail
growth
nd best

iven to

not go

ic book

These

where

t what

ich the

find it

.s " the

', came

int, he

hands

of the

ited to

lays of

them

Of Mr.

the most astonishing wisdom. These different writings,
it is supposed, were produced somewhat in the order in
which they stand in our Bibles, and through the persons
whose names are there attached to them. First appeared
what are called the five books of Moses, and then in
regular succession the various books of history, song, wis-
dom and prophecy. This chronological order has become
as thoroughly established as any point of orthodoxy, and
to raise a question as to the correctness of this order has
even been regarded as rank heresy.

Some of us went recently to hear a lecture on " Mis-
takes of Moses," — a very funny lecture on a somewhat
serious subject. The lecturer, an avowed enemy of the
Bible, evidently thought that, in showing up the " mis-
takes," he had made out a case against the book. I am
aware that as some look at it this would follow. Some
there are yet, no doubt, who are puzzled at the suggestion
that Moses could make a mistake. But this is not the
point that troubles the rational reader of the Bible. He
knows that Moses was the leader of what was certainly
nothing but a horde of barbarians, fresh from Egyptic^n
bondage ; that the time v/as the very dawn of Hebrew
history ; that the art of writing the Hebrew tongue must
have been only in its infancy ;* and that this man, what-

* Some question is even raised as to the art of writing being known at all
at the exodus. The fact has been assumed on the strength of the tradition
that Moses inscribed the Ten Commandments in stone, and from two or
three references to writing in the Pentateuch. But since we have learned
the late date of the Pentateuch, its evidence on such a matter is very weak.
The Egyptians at that time were writing only in hieroglyphs, and there is
some difficulty in thinking that the Hebrews had the art of writing in charac
ters representing sounds.

MOSES.

ever ascendancy lie had over his people, was yet one of
their number, partaking to some extent their ignorance
and superstitions. And knowing all this, the wonder of
the rational reader is, not that Moses made some mistakes,
but that he did not make a thousand times more mistakes
than would appear on the supposition that he wrote what
is accredited to him. We are utterly confounded at his
wisdom, not at his ignorance. The mystery lies in the
wonderful provision for future ages. How should a bar-
baric general or law-giver, or any man of his time, have
produced the elaborate ritual and the fully developed
code of morals which we find in the Pentateuch ? This
is the real question.

The orthodox get over this difficulty in a manner by
having recourse to the theory of a supernatural inspira-
tion. Of course, by this theory a perfect system of morals
might be revealed as well by a barbarian as by another.
But this theory of the origin of the Scriptures is no long-
er tenable. Revelations are not made by handing them,
cut and dried, down from heaven. If we are going to
talk of revelation at all, it must be regarded as coming by
natural courses, and as bearing a just relation to the time
and place of its appearance. While it is considered on
one side a divine inspiration, it must, on the other, be
considered as an outcome of human conditions. The best
thought of a barbaric age about God and about human
obligations must still be barbaric, by any rational view,
even when we admit a doctrine of inspiration.

: '1 1

I , I

MOSES NOT AN AUTHOR.

3t one of
ynorance
onder of
listakes,
nistakes
)te what
id at his
Js in the
Id a bar-
Qe, have
sveloped
? This

nner by
inspira-
' morals
mother.
)0 long-
^ them,
foing to
ningby
he time
ered on
iher, be
he best
human
view.

The only way out of this difficulty is to say that Moses
could never have written these books which are called by
his name. But aside from the fact that he must have been
incompetent to produce the writings, it would have been
the height of absurdity to offer such a scheme of ecclesi-
astical organization to an utterly rude and barbarian peo-
ple, as the Israelites must have been. These degraded
rovers of the desert, comparable to no people that we
know, unless it be the wild Indians of our western wild-
erness—what could they do with all the machinery
elaborated to such infinite detail in Leviticus ? They
wanted nothing to worship but a fetich — any stone or
tree would serve ; they could use no ceremonial beyond a
wild dance and such magic incantations as belong to
worship among the uncivilized races in all ages.

This is not an unwarranted inference as to the ihen
state of the Israelites. The traditions of their bondage
in Egypt, of their atrocities in Canaan, and of their sub-
sequent miserably idolatrous condition, all go to confirm
what is in itself a reasonable supposition, that the begin-
nings of this people were laid in a very low order of cul-
ture. No man among them could have produced the Pen-
tateuch ; nor could they have understood it, or made any
use of it, had it by any miracle been given them.

This first condition for forming a correct judgment of
the books, their date and authorship, has been very gen-
erally disregarded both by friends and foes. Apologists
go back to the date of the exodus and seem not to dream

•w

HISTOUY THE IRUE BASIS.

f ;

! (

I
ill'

but that they are to find the moral perceptions and the
theological ideas of the foremost people of this present
time. The marginal notes of our Bibles and the tone of
most commentators presuppose that Moses was a cul-
tivated gentleman, and that his followers, bating a rather
vexatious instability, were quite up to our average city
congregations. The avowed enemies of the Bible attack
the book on the same assumption, and bring the prophet
of the old time to as sharp an account for his sayings and
doings as though he were a preacher in one of our metro-
politan pulpits. This method leads to nothing. It ig-
nores the historic realities, and carries us round and round
in a circle of vagaries. The first necessity for an under-
standing of the Old Testament Scriptures is a correct
notion, in outline, of the development and career of the
Hebrew people. Knowing what the people were in their
different stages of progress, we may be able to judge to
some extent from the character of any writing in what
age it was written. The same principles are applicable
in an investigation of the literature of Israel which we
apply to the study of any other literature. In Israel, as
elsewhere, history and song, law and ritual, were devel-
oped along with the growth of the people. Long before
the art of writing was known, the ancients composed rude
poems which were repeated from mouth to mouth. These
poems among people of more organizing faculty than the
Hebrews received addition and refinements from the
minstrels, until, caught up and completed by some master

FIRST WHITINGS.

and the
s present
16 tone of
s a cul-
f a rather
rage city
le attack
prophet
ings and
r metro-

• Itig-
id round
a under-
, correct
er of the

in their
judge to
in what
►plicable
hich we
srael, as
e devel-
y before
led rude
. These
[lan the
)m the

master

mind, the compacted whole became a great epic. But
such a completed work does not date from the period of
the events it chronicles. Homer is back in the dim days
of Grecian history, but the events ho relates, if they are
events, occurred centuries before. Homer no doubt gather-
ed up and fused into a continuous tale the fragments of
minstrelsy which the lips of many generations had brought
down to him. At any rate fugitive songs of battle and
victory, tales of adventure and wars, were current among
the Hebrews from a time dating back possibly in some
cases even beyond the days of Moses. At first they were
not written, for the people had no knowledge of writing.
These war-songs and narratives told the half legendary
tales of the origin of the tribe, of the triumphant passage
out of Egyptian bondage, of the glories of their first great
leader, of the marvellous achievements of his successor.
Whenever these barbarians learned the art of writing,
these songs and legends were doubtless the first things
recorded ; and with these the literature of the people be-
gan. Fragments at least of these oldest writings are em-
bedded in what are called the historical books of the
Bible. Some of these writings are there called by name,
as the Book of Jashev, The Wars of Jahveh ;* other early
fragments are the ten luords commonly called the Ten

* Written in the common version, "Jehovah." Both the true orthography
and the true pronunciation of the word are in doubt, but scholars are agreed
that " Jehovah," at any rate, is wrong. I have given the spelling that seems
to be preferred, though the pronunciation is better indicated by the form
used in the " Bible for Learners," Yahweh.

FIRST WRITINGS.

lif'i

Commandments, Jacob's Blessing * the Song of Deborah,*!'
the " Book of Covenants/'J These earliest written doc-
uments the best scholars now conclude appeared from 800
to 1000 years B. C, that is to say, from 300 to 500 years
after the death of Moses.

Before the writing of the books of Jasher§ and of The
Wars of Jahveh,!! the very names of which have been
strange now these thousands of years — before these books
were written, that is, during the time of Moses, and some
centuries after, Israel produced no literature whatever.
The people had their legends and war-songs, their tradi-
tions, more or less historical, which passed from mouth to
mouth, some of which long afterward were written down
and are preserved in one and another book of the Old
Testament, but nothing more.

A true historic picture of Israel must then be the basis
of a just examination into the age and authorship of the
various portions of the Old Testament. The outlines of
such a picture represent that people emerging from Egypt
somewhere about 132011 B. C, in a condition beneath

* Gen. xlix.
t Judges V.

Z A. set of practical rules for the regulation of a somewhat primitive society,
found in Ex. xxi. — xxiii. 19.

§ Josh. X. 13; 2 Sam. 1.18.
II Num. xxi. 14.

H The marginal notes in the common version have it 1491 B. C, but there
appears to have gone into the reckoning of the time between Moses and
David about 170 years too much. Forty years are given to the reign of Saul,
who, according to recent critics, ruled only two years. Other chronological
amendments are made of the period of the Judges to bring the exodus down
to the date required by Egyptian history and the monumental inscriptions.

OLDEST TRADITIONS.

what we now characterize as a low order of civilization.
They appear to have preserved some tmdition of a migra-
tion into Egypt some centuries before from the North-
east, which was probably well founded, as from Egyptian
records we know that tribes kindred to the Hebrews did
come down from that quarter and were absorbed into the
population of the kingdom. The stories of Jacob and the
other patriarchs must not be accepted as historical. They
are at most only reminiscences of tribal movements, the
far-off, mostly forgotten experience of a people taking on
a personal form for the sake of prolonging the recollec-
tion. The most we can gather is that this nomadic tribe
was drawn into Egypt in the track of the conquering
Hyksos,* or Shepherd kings, who held possession of Lower
Egypt from about 2100 to 1580 B. C. These were a peo-
ple of kindred race to the Hebrews, and naturally offered
them asylum. But when in 1580 the native Egyptians
reconquered their country, the Hebrews were subjected
to intolerable oppressions, from which they at length
broke away and returned to a nomadic life. Whatever
civilization they had gained in the early part of their stay
in Egypt was crushed out in the subsequent yeai-s of their
bondage, and they returned to the desert probably in as
low a condition as they had left it. The god they wor-
shiped was certainly a conception that could command no
reverence in the modern world. The name given him,
commonly written Jehovah, according to the philologists,

* Flavius Josephus, with a view to glorify his own race, makes the Hyksoa
themselves to be the ancestors of the Israelites.

KARLY IDEAS OF < >I).

is better written Jahveh. For psychological reasons as
well, it is desirable to substitute that word. The term
" Jehovah," from long association with Christian names of
deity, suggests a conception which has no likeness to the
early Hebrew idea, and obstructs a just criticism by inter-
posing a term which has acquired an undue sanctity to
our ears. The Jahveh of that early time was the twin
brother of Moloch, a fierce and merciless being, reflecting
the temper of a race of barbarians let loose from grind-
ing oppression. Another name they had for him was
" Shaddai," meaning, according to Kuenen, " The Violent
One." Glorious as was the idea of divinity finally devel-
oped by this people, in those early centuries we may be
sure they v/ere no better off in respect of their religion
than the tribes around them. They worshipped idols
like the rest.* Their superstitions were of the grossest,
their social life such as pertains to roving bands of semi-

* See Judges ii. 13 ; iii. 7 ; vi. 10, 25 seq. ; x. 6 ; 1 Sam. vii. 3, 4 ; xii. 10.
Even 80 late as the time of Jeremiah, the prophet could say : " According
to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Juda.h ! " Kuenen observes
" This polytheism of the mass of the people cannot be regarded as a subse-
quent innovation ; on the contraiy everything is in favor of its oiiginality.
In the accounts of the preceding centuries we never seek for it in vain. But
— and this is decisive— the prophet's conception of Jahveh 's being and of his
relation to Israel is inexplicable, unless the god whom they now acknowledge
to be the only one was at first only one of many gods. " — " Religion of Israel,"
Vol. 1. p. 223. There is good reason to suppose that the Israelites in the
early times worshiped Baal very generally. Among the indications I will
mention only the fact that many proper names of that time are compounded
with Baal, as Jerubbaal, Eshbaal, etc. In the transition from this idola-
trous worship in after years the termination -baal was changed to "-bosheth,"
which means shame ; the new name becoming a memorial of the fact above
stated.

A GREAT LEADER.

savaovs

All they had to commend them was a leader.
Moses is evidently to be reckoned among the world's
heroes. He held his people together and took the first
steps toward making of them a nation. It is not unlikely
that he instituted some religious reforms and that the
Ten Commandments, in some incipient shape, came from
him. But after the death of Moses for a long time the
tribe appears to have made small progress. The story of
Joshua's wars is an enormous exaggeration. No such
triumphal entry was made into Canaan, and no such ruth-
less and wholesale butchery ever took place as is there
related.* On the contrary, from the death of Moses down

It is not to be overlooked that many of the images of which the prophets
complain that the land was full even in their day were probably images of
Jahveh. We know that upon the organization of the Northern kingdom
the worship of Jahveh under the form of a young bull was perpetuated at
Bethel and at Dan, where Jeroboam built temples in competition with that
of Jerusalem, expressly because it was too far for the people to go to Jeru-
salem to worship. A gilded calf was set up in each of these temples, and
the king declared to the peoplo that this was their god " which brought them
up out of the land of Egypt." This thing-, we are told, " ftccame a sin,'
Mark now the reason given why this worship became a sin. It was not a
sin per se in the reckoning of the writer of Kings, it would seem. It " be-
came a sin, for the people went to worship before the one even unto Dan "
(too far from Jerusalem), and because the king made priests of some " who
were not of the sons of Levi." (1 Kings xii. 28, seq. Compare Hosea viii.
r>, G.) Referring to these gilded images of Jahveh, Hosea says: "They
speak (pray) to them, sacrificing men they kiss calves " ; from which it is only
too plain that the custom of human sacrifices to Jahveh held on down to his
day (about 800 B. C). These facts afford the best indications of what the
style of worship was in earlier times, which we may be sure becomes more
crude and heathenish the further we go back from the days of Hosea.

*The evidence of this is conclusive, and the fact will be more readily ad-
mitted when we come to take into consideration the late origin of the book

A RUDE PEOPLE.

to Saul, the Hebrews were in a state of anarchy and in
peril of utter extermination at each other's hands. They
<livided into numerous tribes, having the same incoherency
tliat we observe among so many tribes of wild Indians,
and couiuiitting upon each other the same heartless atro-
cities. The legends left of this period have a much bet-
ter basis of fact than those concerning the Mosaic and
earlier ages, and no pne can read them as they stand in
the Book of Judges without getting some impression of
the miserable state in which the Hebrews were then ex-
isting. Their low condition is so obvious that it has been
customary to regard this as a period of decadence, into
which the people were suffered to fall on account of their
sins. Possibly there had been some decline, but there is
not adequate reason to suppose they had ever been much
better off. They were the same roving, bloody-hantled
^ ndits from the first. Many republicans have been grati-
';-ed with the recorded antipathy of the people of that age
toward kingly rule ; but the fact is they were in such a
state of dissension that they could not unite under one
head. Occasionplly a chief of some tribe would acquire
sufficient prestige to bring under his direction one or two
other tribes and do something notable, leaving a name

of Joshua. For the presert it will suffice to remind the reader that Israel
was not at that time, nor for long after, a nation, united and prepared for
such a conquest. What is more, these very towns which Joshua is said to
have destroyed, and these very tribes which he exterminated, are shortly
after none the worse for it, and in fact prove quite too strong to be extermi-
nated again- Judges i. 17; iv. v.; x.3-5. Compare Num. xxi. 1-3, with
Josh. xii. 14.

JUDGES AND SEERS.

•23

one

for valor ; as in the case of Gideon and of Deborali, but
the remaining tribes would interpose their jealousies and
treacheries to prevent any conclusive triumph out of
which the unification of Iraeel might have become possible.
Now through all this obscure period the development
of the Hebrew religion must have been about as slow as
the development of the commonwealth. We may be sure,
on the one hand, that no elaborate ritual was formed, and,
on the other, that no refined morality was taught. A class
of prophets sprung up who combined zeal for Jahveh with
a mercilessness toward the Canaanites, the very though,
of which makes the blood run cold. Their chief oflSce
seems to have been to fire the people up to conflicts with
their neighbors. They performed the simple functions of
})riests — functions which bore no resemblance to the
duties of the priesthood afterwards laid down in the Pen-
tateuch — consisting largely in the care of a great fetich
called the Ark. About this fetich the superstitions of the
people gathered for centuries. Its presence in battle had
the magical power of giving victory to Hebrew arms ; or,
if the fortunes of war proved adverse, and the ark fell
into the hands of the enemy, it wrought such havoc among
them that they w«re glad to bring it back. A shocking
disregard of the humane sentiments on the part of Jah-
veh and his people characterizes the legends relating to
that time. Thus we have the story that once when the
Philistiness were returning the captured ark to the Israel-
ites, the people of a certain town received it with too
familiar an affection, venturing to raise the lid and look
into it. For this fault fifty thousand of them — or, to be

THE WARS OF THE GODS.

exact, fifty thousand and seventy — were smitten dead by
the hand of Jahveh himself.* The best servant of Jah-
veh, as in all savage races the best servant of the tribal
god, is he who kills the most of the worshipers of some
other god. The trouble with Saul in the eyes of Samuel,
the prophet of Jahveh, was that he was not sufticiently
possessed with the passion of exterminating the neighbor-
ing tribes.^l'

Now this is precisely the spirit we should naturally ex-
pect to find in the religion of a primitive people, just such
a spirit as characterizes the beginnings of any nation. A
people's god at first pertains to that people alone. Other
tribes have other gods, and between these rival divinities
there are jealousies and bitter hatreds. The religious
chieftain who has at heart the honor of his god will find
his piety prompting him to attack his neighbors even when
political considerations might counsel peace. Thus the
" spiritual power," the priesthood, in a rude community is
apt to be the most belligerent of
to have been with the Hebrews.

} +

* 1 Sam. vi. 19. Compare 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.

t This suliiciently appears from the account of the prophet's withdrawal
from the king (1 Sam. xv.). Saul conquered the Amalekitea with great
slaughter, but spared Agag the king, the cattle, sheep, &c. whereat Samuel
was incensed and furiously berated him. Finally he said, ' Bring ye hither
to me Agag, the king of the Amalckites." In all humility " Agag came unto
him delicately, and said, ' Surely the bitterness of death is past ; ' " it is time
to have an end of bloodshed. The account concludes : " And Samuel heived
Agag in pieces before Jahveh in Gilyaf.'"

X This is true in a sense of communities not so very rude. Religious wars
hold on down into the present age. Sectarian feuds are still about the bit
terest, and are nursed by the spiritual power. The opposing pulpits ** show
fight " when the congregations are peaceful to the point of somnolence.

SAUL AND DAVID.

However, he failed to satisfy tlie religious zealots, it is
evident that Saul obtained a political ascendency over the
dissentient tribes, and did the first substantial work after
Moses for the founding of a Hebrew nation. His fame is
obscured by the evident ill-will of the sacerdotal }»arty,
which transferred its admiration to a more unscrupulous
man of blood who became his successor. David closely
filled the prophetic ideal of a leader, and by a series of
sanguinary wars succeeded in establishing himself as a
veritable king. At his hand the tribes round about, one
after another, came to grief, the dominion of Israel was
extended in all directions, Jebus, the site of Jerusalem
and the last stronghold of the Canaanites, was besieged
and taken, and there the victorious chieftain established
his seat of orovernment. Such distingjuished success in
arms threw a glamor around this man's name which to
this day has made him pass for what he was not. He
has been made out a saint, and credited with writing the
book of Psalms, the most spiritual part of the Old Testa-
ment, and indeed of the whole Bible ; and even the gospel
writers were anxious to make it appear that Jesus was
descended in direct line from him. But, as we see him,
David ■' :as only another barbarian. He suited, in most
respects the religious leaders of his tribe, but he suited
them because of his wholesale butcheries and most abomin-
able cruelties.* Not from such a man nor in an age which

* Kere is the record of hia treatment of i^risoners of war. He had captured
the city of Rabbah, the Ammonite capital, "and he brought forth the people
that were therein, and put them under naws, and inider harrows of iron, and
under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln (i.e. roasted
them alive) ; and thus he did unto all the cities of the children of Ammon"
1 Sam. xii, 31.

LITERARV FRAGMENTS.

delighted in such a man did there spring the sweet pieties
of the Psalms, or the lofty moralities of the Pentateuch.
Down to David's time, we are not even yet at the age
of Hebrew literature. Not for two hundred years yet
was any book of the Bible written. Legends and frag-
ments of narrative only, began to take literary form.
Deborah's song* and other legends of the book of Judges,
and a prophetic utterance of mingled blessing and cursing
on the twelve tribes, put into the mouth of Jacob,*!* ^^^^
from David's reign, or a little before, and during his reign,
or not long after, some narrative or legendary books ap-
peared which are no longer extant, the Book of Jasher,
the Book of the Wars of Jahveii, before referred to, and
possibly a few others. Thus desperately poor was He-
brew literature even in the days of Solomon, who came
to the throne in 1018 B. C.

Solomon inherited a kingdom and peace, for his father
had conquered both and so ruthlessly treated the van-
quished that they could scarcely lift the sword again.
He set himself therefore to build a city and gather about
him the luxuries of the east. Neither the splendors nor
the dissipations of this monarch probably ever reached
anything like the pitch which the descriptions would
have us think, nor is there any good reason to suppose
him possessed of that unequaled wisdom with which he
has been credited. It is unlikely that he ever busied
himself in literary pursuits, and it is tolerably certain

* Judges V.
t Gen. xlix.

SOLOMON.

that there is no word of the Bible that he ever wrote. I
have thought more of the book since I found that out,
for it always seemed to me that a man reputed to have
seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines was
not a suitable vehicle of the Holy Ghost, or, to put it in
other words, was not in a position to teach morals to this
modern world. But, as we very well know, the old wri-
ters never let a story suffer for want of strength, and, for
the sake of round numbers, would think nothing of throw-
ing in a couple or six hundred women in a case like this.
The enthusiasms of war united the people under Saul
and David, and the old feuds slumbered through Solo-
mon's reign, but only to break out afresh at the news of
his death. The northern portion of the kingdom, com-
posed of the most turbulent tribes, revolted. Thenceforth
the stream of Hebrew history flows in two channels for
two hundred and fifty-nine years, when the Northern
kingdom passes out of existence. These two and a half
centuiies form a most eventful period, as they are marked
by invasions from the East, the mighty empire of Assyria
having risen to supreme power in Asia. In various ways
the situation resulted in developing wonderfully the ge-
nius of the people. The necessities of defence stirred them
to a noble patriotism. The vision of the thinkers was
widened, and the peril of the nation moved the prr phetic
spirit to a lofty seriousness. The first utterances of this
age of prophecy have not been preserved to us, except in
uncertain fragments, and the record of the time is largely
encumbered with legend. But about the beginning of the

THE OLDEST BOOKS.

ei^lith century B. C. the prophets begin to write out their
words, and then appear in their completed form the old-
est books of the Bible, bearing the names of Athos and
Rosea. At this point we are five hundred years from
Moses and the so-called books of Moses are not yet writ-
ten. Here and there a fragment of tradition had been
put in writing which was finally embodied in the Penta-
teuch, but ti.ie composition of those books with their ela-
borate legal regulations was far off in the future. This is
the point at which the new criticism has reversed the old
theory concerning the relative age of the various parts of
the Bible. It has until recently been taken for granted
that the books were earliest written which refer to the
earliest time ; a conclusion which no more follows in the
case of Hebrew than in the case of English books. We
might as well suppose that since Tennyson's Idyls treat
of King Arthur, and Hume's History treats of James and
Charles and later rulers, therefore the Idyls must have
been written before Hume.

But to adhere for the present to our historical sketch,
which must form the basis of our judgment on the age of
the books. Upon the division of the people after the
death of Solomon, numerous kings, more or less barba-
rian, followed each other in rapid succession on the throne
of the Northern kingdom. Some of these fell into the
ways of Solomon and encouraged the worship of foreign
gods. It would seem that the ten tribes in the beginning
of their separate existence were more inclined to inonola-

FOREIGN GODS.

tvy'^ than were the people of Judah, for from the North
came the first indignant protest against the service of
other gods than Jahveh. Elijah and Elisha are the names
with which it is associnted. These men wrote no books,
they contented themselves with smiting the land with the
rod of their mouth. They are enveloped in tales of mar-
vel and we see them but dimly. But we see enough to
know that they stood oat stoutly for the exclusive wor-
ship of Jahvel". They are representatives of the national
religion in its best estate at that time. They freely ad-
mitted that there were other gods beside Jahveh.'f' In
their way they were fierce and cruel, after the spirit of
their time, yet not without their noble points of character.
Elijah attained an extraordinary renown, and has re-
mained a conspicuous, half-mythical personage to the pre-
sent time. The legend has it that he went off to heaven
in a chariot of fire, and the superstition has been current
for thousands of years that he now and then comes back
again.J All this indicates that a considerable period in-

* A convenient word to indicate the worship of one god. The distinction
between monolatry and monotheism is to be carefully marked, as the latter
was reached only by struggling up through the former. Originally the He-
brews, in common with surrounding tribes, worshiped many gods. After-
wards and for many centuries their religious leaders, while acknowledging
the existence of other gods, taught that Israel should worship Jahveh alone.
This was the stage of monolatry. Finally came by the voice of the greatest
prophets the declaration that Jahveh was the one and only God, all other
objects of religious adoration being nothing but phantoms of Rupi-rstitious
imaginations. All this was monotheism.

1 1 Kings XX. 23 ; 2 Kings i. 3 ; xvii. 29 38.

5: See Malachi iv. 5 ; Matt. >i. 14, and the legend of the Wandering Jew.

ELIJAH.

I I

tervened between Elijah's death and the writing of the
book of Kings, in which his career is sketched. This in-
tervening time was a period of great mental activity, of
moral and religious progress, and so in the record we
doubtless have the rough character of these first great
prophets somewhat toned down, but still we can see in
the picture the ineffaceable traits of the primitive barba-
rian. The story of the great miracle test with the pro-
phets of Baal, however little foundation of fact there may
be in it, shows us the spirit of the man. He has four hun-
dred and fifty of these priests in his power, and proposes
to them that they call down fire from heaven to consume
a sacrifice. He taunts them with their failure in a suffi-
ciently brutal manner, and when he has abused them in
this way to his heart's content, he takes them aside and
with his own hand kills every one of them.* This is the
sort of person the foremost prophet was even so late as
fifty years after the death of Solomon. We are reminded
of Samuel hewing Agag to pieces " before the face of Jah-
veh in Gilgal." We must wait for different style of men
from these before we can have the moral precepts which
are scattered through the Pentateuch.

Gradually a fairer spirit is developed. The discipline
of those trying years tells upon the Hebrew mind. In
the next century after Elijah we see the manifestation of
nobler things. Amos in the Southern kingdom, and
Hosea in the Northern, and, after them, Isaiah and Micah,
mark the arrival of the classic period of Hebrew literature.

* 1 King8 xviii. 40.

A BETTER SPIRIT.

Then for the first time time it became possible for some
prophet to write the nucleus of what became by succes-
sive increments and emendations the so-called books of
Moses. That is to say, some time in this century — the
eighth B.C. — what are called the prophetic narratives (in
distinction from the priestly or sacerdotal) now contained
in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and also in Joshua, Samuel
and Kings, appeared in the primitive form. These nar-
ratives have undergone several redactions by different
hands, but still retain, no doubt, much of their original
character.

We have reached now a period of which we have some
authentic account from men who lived in the time of
which they wrote, and henceforward there is agreement
among the critics as to the general course of histor3^
Concerning the preceding centuries which I have hastily
sketched, much is necessarily matter of inference ; but
from traditions which bear all the marks of validity we
have gathered facts, culled almost at random out of a
multitude that point in the same way, which authorize a
reconsideration of the whole question touching the date
and authorship of the Old Testament books.

This cursory statement of the ground taken by the new
school of criticism has seemed necessary to make intel-
ligible the more specific application of its theory which
will be made in the following lectures. This theory it
will be observed, involves the idea that the Hebrew lit-
erature was an evolution and not a miracle. It would
seem that, even in the absence of evidence, this idea ought

A PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMIiNT.

li !

11
III

I ; !

to commend itself to every reasonable mind. But the
evidence in support of it is of the strongest. If we admit
the old view of the relative age of the books, facts re-
main, recorded in the books themselves, which still show
an inci'easing barbarism as we go back. The course of
Joshua, of Samuel and Saul toward the Canaanites, the
atrocities of David, the debaucheries of Solomon, contrast
so vividly with the lives of Jeremiah and his fellow pro-
phets, that we instinctively revolt at any classification
which sets these men in one category. If then a moral
and religious progress is shown even from the books
whose authors had no idea of such progress, who suppos-
ed that the golden age was behind them, it may certain-
ly be taken as an established fact. But, this fact once
established, the old theory in regard to the age of these
books becomes untenable. It will not do any longer to
place the composition of an elaborated system of public
worship like Leviticus, or a highly spiritual presentation
of the moral law like Deuteronomy, at the beginning. If
there was a progressive development of the true religion
in Israel, as is sufficiently indicated by the facts above
adduced, then these writings must have had their place
in a progressive order, and the making of the Bible be-
comes intelligible.

And it is to be borne in mind that there is the strong-
est possible presumption that the literature of this people
was a natural growth. This is the view that ought to be
taken until positive proof to the contrary is presented.
No such proof ever has been or ever can be ofiered. I

'' ■ t

A FAIR PIIESITMPTION.

have givftn some reasons to show that Moses could never
have written the Pentateuch, and I think the case is es-
tablished as well as the proof of a negative ever can be.
But it needs now to say that no shred of proof has ever
been offered to show that Moses did write the Pentateuch.
Such £tn authorship has simply been assumed in an un-
critical age for a purpose, which I shall explain by and
by, and perpetuated by tradition. Now that the scienti-
fic stud}'- of history has fixed certain canons of judgment
in such a matter, this unsupported assumption must give
way. And with it must go the whole conception of a
thoroughly developed system of religion being given out-
right to a primitive people. The notion that the Hebrews
were monotheists from the days of Moses, having a pure
and exalted worship, is akin to the fallacy that the wild
Indians worship one Great Spirit. As has been truly said
of our Indians, so we may say of the Hebrews of the time
of the exodus and for centuries afterwards, their religion
was only a form of demonology. They believed in the
gods of the other nations as well as in their own Jahveh,
all of whom were blood-thirsty, treacherous and terrible.
Their preference for Jahveh lay in the fancy that he was
the most terrible of all, El Shaddai, the Mighty, the Vio-
lent One. This was the beginning, and we may well be-
lieve it took six centuries to reach the spiritual and ma-
jestic utterances of Isaiah. Progress in the lower stages
of culture is always slow, and it is in accordance with the
observed facts of evolution everywhere that five of these
six centuries were occupied in passing out of barbarism.

SECOND LECTURE.

THE AGE OF PROPHECY.

■^ M

li \

IT has become an accepted principle with well-inform-
ed people that every excellent thing is the result of
growth. Nations rise to political power through slow
stages of development. Civilization and religion rise out
of the primitive savagerj'^ through age-long ascending
giadations. . History teaches nothing so clearly as this.
And there is the strongest presumption that the true
history of Israel forms no exception. It is fair to as-
sume that the Hebrews begi.n their career in a low stage
of barbarism, just as did the English, the French, the
Greeks, the Romans, and every other ancient and modern
people. Starting out with this view I hastily sketch-
ed in the preceding lecture the history of Israel down
to the time of the great prophets, guided by the indica-
tions of the legends concerning the earlier ages. These
legends afford strong confirmation of the view, in itself
reasonable, that this people arose in the process of centur-
ies from a wild tribe of the desert, and that its noble re-
ligion was a growth from the lowest form of idolatry.
The highest authority on the subject assures us that it is

a
.•->
;*

III

ANCIENT HISTORIANS.

impossible to shoiv that lue have any writing of this peo-
ple produced before the year 800 B. C. In the century
following this date some efforts were made to gather up
the floating traditions relating to early times and mould
them into a connected narrative. Now we must know
that writers of history of that age and race did not do
their work in the manner of modern historians. They
had no idea of tracing the development of customs, in-
stitutions, ideas of governme nt or of religion. Their stock
of historical material consisted of tales, more or less legen-
dary, which had passed from mouth to mouth for hun-
dreds of years, some of them possibly for a thousand
years. The longer these stories had been preserved in
this way the more they had grown in marvels, creating
an impression that in the early time Jahveh had manifest-
ed himself* much more freely on behalf of his people.
Thus the old time came to be thought the best time, the
time when God mixed with men and made known his will.
It was the idea of the writers of the legal and historical

* It is always to be observed that the miraculous element in religious his-
tory retjuires for its evolution a vista of past time. A clearly supernatural
event has never yet been recorded by competent eye-witnesses. Such trans-
actions are always more or less remote from the time of the person who
narrates them. The Bible books themselves are a conspicuous illustration
of this. The men who write of what is passing under their own observation,
though they are, in the spirit of their time, of the opinion that a miracle is
as likely to happen as anything, give us generally a narration of purely
natural events ; as, for instance, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah. Only these
who undertake to relate what happened before their day, embellish their ac-
counts with miracles. This is a very important consideration in handling
this troublesome question, as it goes far to explain the currency of such stories
and at the same time saves the writers from the charge of inventing them ,
The miracle-stories were found ready-made.

THEIR MISTAKEN THEOBY.

books to make the highly developed religion of their
time date back from the very beginnings of the Hebrew-
race. This was a perfectly honest intention, although it
was to violate the whole philosophy of history. But for-
tunately it was impossible to carry it out. The traditions
many of them did not fit well into such a scheme, and
now 2500 years after the work was done, they serve to
rectify our judgment of the whole representation. We
find enough of those early recollections to show that the
Hebrews were a rude and barbarous race at the outset
and long after their migration to Canaan ; that they were
at first fetich-worshipers,* reverencing stones and trees ;
afterwards fire-worshipeis ;*!• that they believed in many
gods of whom Jahveh was the chief -^ that they worship-
ed him under the form of a bull ;§ that the custom was

* See Gen. xxviii. 18, and xxxv. 14, whei.: it is said Ja<!ob " Setup a pil-
lar of stone, and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil there-
on." See also Ex. xv. 25 ; Deut. xvi. 21 ; Josh, iv.7 ; xv. 6 ; xviii. 17 ; xxiv.
26, 27 ; Judges, ix. 5 ; 1 Sam. vi. 19 ; vii. 12. Jahveh is called the " stone of
Israel" (Gen. xlix. 24) not in metaphor but through the survival in speech of a
reminiscence of the original stone worship.

t See Exodus iii. 2 ; xix. 18. The warnings against the fire-worship (Lev.
xviii.21 ; Deut. xviii. 19 : 2 Kings xvii. 17) have no point unless even as late
as the time of these writings the people were still given to that worship.

t See Ex. xxii. 28 ; xxiii. 24, .32 ; Deut. x. 17, et passim.

§ See note on page 19. The worship of the golden calf in the desert of
Sinai (Ex. xxxii.) if a correct tradition, and there seems no reason to doubt
it, was certainly not the worship of a strange god, but of Jahveh himself,
under a form which was persistent in Israel, holding on for five-hundred
years and more. The young bull was proclaimed as a representation of the
god " which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," and this is the very
designation by which Jahveh is known. There was no intent in this
business to depart from the worship of the god of Israel, and the only rea-

THE PROPHETIC AGE.

)f their
Hebrew
loiigh ic
But for-
aditions
me, and
serve to
m. We
that the
e outset
ley were
d trees ;
in many
*vorship-
om was

et up a pil-
1 oil there-

17 ; xxiv.

" stone of
speech of a

•ship (Lev.
ven as late
orahip.

e desert of
n to doubt
?h himself,
k^e-hundred
.tiou of the
is the very
nt in this
le only rea-

long prevalent among them of offering human sacrifices.*
Thus truth comos out, and we are bound to suppose that
the theory of the writers of these histories is a mistaken
one ; that they canied back into the age of Moses ideas
and institutions which belonged to an age six or seven
hundred years after Moses.

This beinjr the ease it is desirable first to consider the
condition of Israel at the time of the great prophets. For
this purpose we have some relial)le data in the writings
of the prophets themselves, and in the historical books
written during this period.

The age of the prophets was subsequent to the disrup-
tion of the kingdom at the death of Solomon. For, though
Moses is loosely called a prophet, he was without that
quality of inspiration by which this order is distinguished
in history. The ancient races all had their oracles of
more or less repute, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, or what-

sonable explanation of such an occurrence and of its repetition all through
the early history of this people is to suppose that it was once their accepted
mode of worship. Of this the horns of the altar are a relic ; also the twelve
brazen bulls supporting the molten sea in the temi)le. See further 1 Kings
xii. 28, 32 ; 2 Kings x. 29 ; Ps. Ixvii. 30 ; Hosea x. 5 ; xiii. 2 : Jer. lii. 20.

* The projihet Micah could not have said with any jjertinency :
" Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ! "

if stich things were not done in his time. And tradition makes Jahveh
command Abraham to make a burnt offering of his son. (Gen. xxii. 2.)
Hosea charges (xiii. 2) against the Ephraimites that "sacrificing men, they
kiss calves." (Kuenen'a version). David makes an offering to .Tahveh of
seven of Saul's sons. (2 Sam. xxi. 1-14.) Saul proposes to sacrifice his own
son. (1 Sam, xv. 44.) See also Samuel's offering of Agag (I Sam. xv. 33) and
Jephthah's immolation of his own daughter. (Judges xi.) For further refer'
ences to tb's matter see Lev. xvjii. 21 ; 2 Kings xviii, 17 ; Jer. xix, 5.

i !

THE FIRST PROPHETS.

4;
Hi

8fi

'' i'l

ever we choose to call them, to whom the people resorted
for light on dark questions. " Seers " these persons were
called among the Israelites down to the time of Samuel,
when, we are told, some of them had come to be called
prophets. The nobler title suited the advance they had
made from vulgar soothsaying to be the leaders of the
people and the counselors of kings. This advance we
may be sure was slow, and the earliest prophets were of
necessity superstitious, bloody -handed men. No written
law or code of morals then existed. A few orally trans-
mitted regulations had come down from Moses, but as yet
there was no instituted form of religion or education.
Samuel's " school of the prophets " was a school only in
the sense of being an assemblage, as we say " a school of
fishes.'' Jahveh was w I'shiped, but only as one of many
gods, worshiped with cruel and bloody rites, and occas-
ionally at least with human sacrifices.

We find in Samuel small traces of that high moral
quality which draws us to the great prophets of the eighth
century. A far finer spirit is marked in Nathan who
hesitated not to rebuke King David for his sins, but of
him v/e see only a little. The prosperous days of the
kingd >m wer' ripening and deepening the spirit of pro-
phecy, but its hour of utterance was not yet. David's
inhumanities and Solomon's voluptuousness met with no
such denunciations as they would have received if an
Isfiah or a Jc^*^.miah had lived in those days. On the
contrary we have related to us the splendor of that period,
and it remained ever after a golden age in the jmagina-

WHAT THOUGHT THE PROPHKTS.

tion of Israel. It belonged to tlie theory of the prophets
that the outward success of the two great nionarchs arose
from fidelity to the service of Jahveh ; and in accordance
with that theory as little is said of their lapses as possible,
while detailed accounts are furnished of their glorious
achievements. So ever afterward the bright picture of
this triumphal period served as a back-ground against
which to set the misfortunes which came upon Ephraim
and Judah, as the prophets thought, on account of their
sins. When, after Solomon, the tribes which had been
held together by a strong arm flew asunder and disasters
thickened upon the divided kingdoms, the real career of
prophecy began. Indeed it was a prophet* who instigated
the rebellion of the ten tribes, and that movement was
probably in part a revulsion from the too liberal style of
Solomon's religion. Such cordiality to all manner of gods
would, it was feared, if continued through another reign,
result in the destruction of all that was distinctive in the
religion of Israel. The revolted tribes set out with a more
exclusive worship of Jahveh. Jeroboam built up the
sacred places and established two national temples, one
in the north and one in the south of the kingdom. In
these he placed a gilt image of a bull to represent Jahveh,
so reproducing the old style of worship in vogue before
the time of David. What thought those fathers of the
prophets, Elijah and Elisha, of this bull worship ? We
may not say with absolute assurance, but there is certainly
nothing to show that they disapproved of it. Their war

* Ahijah j see 1 Kings xi. 29, seq,

OF Jeroboam's bulls ?

;iii?l

was against other gods and the images of other gods. We
do not find that they had anything to say against these
images of Jahveh. And, if they had really reckoned it a
sin to worship the bulls, it is hardly possible that we should
be without some word of theirs in denunciation of the
practice which was then certainly in full force. We may
therefore conclude without much doubt that these
prophets found nothing reprehensible in worshiping
Jahveh under the form of a bull. Accustomed to it from
childhood, it probably never struck them as other than
the proper thing.

At all events if these men had ever heard of the nu-
merous injunctions in the Pentateuch concerning the use
of graven images, they could never have kept silence so
long as those carved and gilded bulls held their places in
the temples of Javeh. But in their day Moses had not
yet written his books. Conservative as they were in re-
ligion, a rash revolutionary spirit in the conduct of affairs
continued to mark the career of the ten tribes through
their separate existence, involving much civil strife and
frequent wars with more powerful neighbors. They were
not without some noble prophets, but the popular religion
seems never to have made among them much advance-
ment. They clung to their custom of representing Jahveh
by images. Some of the kings, following the examples
of Solomon, introduced the worship of foreign gods to
please their foreign wives, and also doubtless to gratify
their subjects. The better class of prophets, while mak-
ing no objection to the images of Jahveh, protested vigor-

THE BAD KINGS.

oiisly against the foreign prods, and were in almost constant
collision with the orovernnieiit. And as the kingdom
began to decline towards the close of the eighth century,
the conviction iloepened that it was because of the un-
faithfulness of the people to their God. And this judg-
ment was confirmed when in 711^ B. C. the Assyrians put
an end to the kingdom of Ephraim. The oldest record
of the period is written by one who had passed this judg-
ment, and he h<is his regular formula for denouncing the
kings whose actions he does not approve : they " walked
in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made
Israel to sin." But most likely these kings were in ac-
cord with a majority of their subjects. As for Jeroboam,
his specific sins do not come out, and it is not improbable
that if we knew more of him we should think him a very
decent man for the time. Certainly in the narratives
coiiM'; red with this king nothing appears of such a very
heinous character, unless it be on the part of Jahveh
himself, who commits some outrageous injustices, and acts
generally in a way unbecoming a god.* The waiter
judges the kings of Judah in the same manner. He seems
to assume that the course of religion is altogether in the
hands of the rulers, w^hereas, then as now, governments
no doubt fairly reflected the religious life of the people.
Nations are not made righteous bv a w^ord in the consti-
tution or in a royal decree. We must not too readily ac-
quiesce in the verdict he passes upon these two lines of
monarchs. At least condemnation ought to be generally

* 1 Kings xiii, xiv,

POLYTHEISM.

t f

iiiiiit!

transferred from the rulers to the people at large. The
prophets of the ninth and tenth cerituriesB. C. were only
advocates of Jahveh in preference to the other gods,
whose idols, in Judah at any rate, were everywhere.

It was in the eighth century that the first of the great
prophets arose, and we are at once struck with this fea-
ture about them : they were writers, and not merely talk-
ers. We observe, in regard to their teaching, that these
prophets, at least oome of them, differ from their prede-
cessors in absolutely refusing to admit that there are other
gods beside Jahveh. Jahveh is the maker of heaven and
earth, not merely the God of Israel. It is he that all the
nations of the earth ought to worship. Such claims never
were made before. In the highest strains of their min-
strelsy the people had only sung the praise of Jahveh as
one " above all gods," a being more powerful than the
others. Search the earlier writings as closely as you may,
you will find no sign of any more advanced conception
than this. Throughout, the existence of other gods is
taken for granted ; the people are warned not to have
anything to do with them ; Jahveh is jealous of them ;
they seem to be nearly always getting the better of him ;
their reality is as assured as his. Solomon had amply
provided for the worship of all the other gods known to
the people when he built the temple to Jahveh ; and
though he may have carried this liberality to a rather ex-
treme degree, he seems not to have been at the time se-
verely censured.* We know of the subsequent kings that

* I JCiiiga xi. i\

POLYTHEISM.

very many of them were worshipers of other gods, one of
them,* at least, sacrificing his own child to Moloch, which
could only have been the case on the supposition that the
people generally were in the same way. None of this
time was the worship of Jahveh given up, but he shared
with the others in the offerings of the people. Even when
at any period before the eighth century the service of
other gods was excluded, it was never on the ground that
those gods were nonentities. It was only because Jah-
veh was more powerful, or because Israel was under more
special obligations to him. This was in fact the general
view — Jahveh was Israel's God, and Israel ought to serve
him, just as every nation ought to serve its own deity.
Thus it was argued with the Amorites who had retaken
a certain tract which Israel conquered in the early wars,
that they ought to give it up, because Jahveh had once
wrested it from Chemosh. The argument is decidedly
one-sided, but it shows how the people regarded the gods
of other nations. They said : " The God of Israel dis-
possessed the Amorites of this land, and gave it to his
people Israel. Wilt thou not possess what Chemosh, thy
god, giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever Jahveh
drives out from before us, them will we possess."-|- This
is an incident of the period of the Judges, but there is
every reason to believe that similar notions regarding the
reality and comparative power of other gods held on to
a late day. We have it related, for instance, that when
the kings Jehorara and Jehoshaphat marched together

* Aha?. See 2 Kings xvi, 3.

t Judges xi. 23, 24,

POLYTHEISM.

:l;

upon Moab, and were in a fair way to reduce the capital
of that heathen land, the king of Moab, in his extremity,
sacrificed his son and heir to Chemosh ; whereupon the
might of that god was revealed, and Israel, though accom-
panied by the prophet Elisha, who wrought the most stu-
pendous miracles, was forced to raise the siege.*

In this we see the original ideas of the people out of
which they were slow to pass. The prophets proposed a
radical innovation in thought when they declared that
Jahveh was the only God. We may imagine that the
preaching of this doctrine v/as rendered more acceptable,
in that it tended to magnify the importance of Israel.
At the same time it was a bold thing for anybody to say
of Baal, Ashera, Astarte, Chemosh, and the rest of the di-
vinities whose altars had been endowed by Solomon, and
whose worship was celebrated alongside that of Jahveh
in all the sacred places of the land, that they were noth-
ing but names.

It is painfully evident, too, that these men were far
ahead of their times. Why were the people so reluctant
to renounce the worship of foreign gods ? Why did they
hold on so tenaciously to ceremonies which a strict Jah-
vism interdicted? Let me answer the latter question
first, and, if I mistake not, the other will be answered.
These ceremonies which came to be called heathenish
were many of them originally associated with the worship
of Jahveh. An early conception of him was as light and

• 2 Kings iii, 27.

GOD AS FIRE.

jire, which survived in poetry, furnishing its most strili-
ing symbols. Thus Isaiah says ;*

" The light of Israel shall be for a fire,
And his Holy One for a flame."

" The sinners in Zion are afraid,
Trembling seizeth the hypocrites ;
Who among us can dwell with a devouring fire ?
Who among us can dwell by a hearth always glowing ? "

It is said that " the Glory of Jahveh was like devour-
ing fire on the top of Mount Sinai,"-|- so " his angels ap-
peared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush ; the
bush burned with fire, but was not consumed."! In the
desert " Jahveh went before them in a cloud by day and
by night in a pillar of fire to give them light."§ " Thy
God is a consuming fire,"|| says another with sufficient
explicitness. This language is figurative with the writers,
no doubt, but it points back to a time when it would have
been simply literal. In those early days the worshipers
of Jahveh offered their children to him, i. e., to the flames.
Nor is the fact to be overlooked that the burning of
sacrifices, which is so constant a feature of the Hebrew
ritual, points to a time when the flame that received the
offering was identical with the god who was to be pro-
pitiated thereby.

As the religion of Israel advanced, this cruel and most
inhuman rite was discountenanced in the Jahveh-wor-
ship. But the people had acquired a strong predilection
for these fiery rites, and when they could no longer cele-
brate them in the service of their own God, they had but

t Ex. iii, 2.

* Isa. X. 17 ; xxxiii. 15.
§ Ex. xiu. 21.

t Ex. xxiv. 17.
II Deut. iv. 24.

OTHER SYMBOLS.

. *> ti

!lt|

P i

to fall in with tho devotions of their neighbors, who,
under the name of Melech, or Moloch, perpetuated in its
literalness the idea that Goi is a devouring fire.

So we are able to understand, what else would be inex-
plicable, how it was that the prophets of the eighth
century found it necessary to combat so strongly the dis-
position of the people to one form or another of fire-wor-
ship. It had the strength of what we may call an ab-
original tendency.

This method of explaining the|)enc/Aa7i^ of the Israelites
for Moloch will also account for their readiness to lapse
into the service of Ashera, Milcom, Chemosh, etc. These
orders of worship, however widely separated at last from
Jahvism, were originally kindred. In the slow advance
of the latter there were many who were drawn to the old
ways.

I have already spoken of the bull-worship as persistent
in Israel. This at first suggests Egypt as its source, but,
a'v Kuenen shows, it is quite unlikely that the Israelites,
immediately on leaving the land of their oppressors, would
have taken up an Egyptian form of worship. For the
customs of their enemies they would naturally have had a
strong revulsion. This consideration is not, however,
conclusive, for we know that races of slaves have taken
kindly enough to the religion of their masters. But,
when closely examined, the Hebrew custom appears to
have been quite different from the Egyptian. The Egyp-
tians worshiped live cattle. An image of a calf, though
it were of gold, would have had no religious significance to

IMAGES.

them. The real object of their adoration was the pHnci-
fle of life. On the contrary, the history of Israel affords
no trace of this sort of worship. They simply required
some image to represent Jahveh, and, for reasons which
seemed to them adequate, they preferred the image of a
bull.

Now there is every reason to suppose that the land was
full of these images, and the Israelites seem never to have
been without them. They were in the temple, " in the
high places," everywhere. Nor was their use ever
called in question, that we know of, down to the eighth
century B.C. There occurs to you, no doubt, what is
called the Second Commandment. " Thou shalt not make
any graven image," &c.* But the oldest book we have
containing the decalogue is of a later date (020 B.C.), as
we shall see, and whatever we may conclude as to the
other commandments, this one certainly Moses could never
have given. Moses, the tradition has it, gave ten words,
ten declarations, not commandments but declarations, and
there are ten without this, counting as the first, " I am
Jahveh, thy God, who brought thee oug of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage." + The prohibition
of graven images could not possibly have been in exist-

*Ex. XX. 4, 5, C ; Deut, v. 8, 9, 10.

t The expression ten xvords implies that these declarations were exceed-
ingly brief ; most of them doubtless originally shorter than they now stand,
certainly those touching the Sabbath, reverence for parents, and covetous-
ness. Suspicion is at once cast on the command in regard to graven images
on account of its length, running through three verses and turning into a
regular exhortation.

' I.

i" '

MORAL CONDITION.

ence for the first five hundred years after Moses, for they
were everywhere used without any apparent sense of im-
propriety.

A more important consideration is, what was the moral
condition of the people ? and what part did morality play
in their religious obligations ? If we may attribute the
substance of the Ten Commandments to Moses, then the
religion of Israel took a moral cast at the outset ; and we
can safely say that the worship of Jahveh was never ac-
companied by the lascivious rites which disgraced the
temples of other gods at that time. There had been some
progress from the barbarian age of the Judges, but still
as late as the eighth century B. C the moral status was
very low. The sense had not been much developed of a
connection between faithfulness to Jahveh and faithful-
ness to justice and truth. The notion had strengthened
itself that the salvation of Israel was to be secured by
making plenty of burnt offerings and keeping up a great
show of public worship. But even for this public worship
there existed no regulation from such competent authority
as to secure uniformity. Much less was there any ade-
quate enunciation of the idea that God is to be served by
doing what is right.

In speaking of the prophets we are accustomed to
think only of the few whose writings are left to us. But
it is to be observed that the prophets, as a whole, were a
very different class of men.* Instead of proclaiming the
need of reform, they were only the mouth -pieces of public

Jer. ii. 8 ; v. 13, 31 ; xxiii, 13, etc.

THE HIGH PLACES,

Opinion, like the majority of religious teachers in every
a^i-e. Only the great propliets whoso works have been
preserved appear to have had any interest in the purifi-
cation of the people's faith and life. These set out with
great earnestness to abolish idolatry in every shape, pro-
claiming Jahveh as the only God and insisting on moral
2)urity in his worshipers. About the beginning of the
eighth century B. C. this propaganda was fairly under
way, and toward the close of the century it had made
such progress in Judah that the king Hezekiah cham-
pioned it so far as to undertake the forcible exclusion
from the kingdom of every form of worship except that
of Jahveh. Now it must be observed that practically the
various modes of worship were then mixed up with the
strictly Israelitish almost inextricably. Religion from the
first has delighted to plant its altars on hill and mountain
tops, thus to approach a little nearer heaven and breathe
the pure, inspiring air. All over their rugged territory
the Israelites had their " high places," consecrated to the
offices of religion. To these sacred hills the adherents of
other gods came also, and alongside Jahveh's altar arose
other altars and symbols. Conspicuous among these was
the representations of Ashera, repeatedly denounced in
the prophecies, and there called in the common version
" groves," an unfortunate rendering which gives no cor-
rect idea of the object. It appears to have been a rude
form of *' liberty-pole," made of a stunted tree, around
which the service of this goddess was celebrated.

When Hezekiah undertook his task of excluding these
4

HKZKKIAH S REFOmiATIOX.

|l i

foreign gods it soon become apparent that it would be im-
possible to separate their worship from the worship of
Jahveh in these ** high places " without garrisoning every
one of them with an army. Accordingly he resorted to a
sweeping decree, abolishing the ** high places" altogether,
and making it unlawful even to worship Jahveh there.

Thus was inaugurated the first marked religious refor-
mation in Israel, and we see it was of a violent, high-
handed character. Jerusalem and all Judah were swept
clean of idols, and worshipers were bidden to bring their
ort'erings to tlie temple instead of making them in the
" high places " where they had been wont to worship time
out of mind. It was a decided revolution, but it was a
revolution for which the people were not prepared ; for
when in a few years King Hezekiah died, and was suc-
ceeded by his son Manasseh, a boy of twelve, things went
back again quite to their old shape. But the reform party
had been victorious, if only for a short time, and they re-
laxed no effort to work out a more complete triumph.
The writer of the books of Kings represents Manasseh as
a terribly wicked man, but we ought to remember in
reading the account of this struggle between the old and
the new views that we have only one side of the story.
It is fair to suppose that Manasseh was as conscientious
as his father in the course which he pursued. But when
religious controversies run high conscientiousness goes for
little or nothing. The record paints him very black,
nevertheless he managed to live and reign in Jerusalem
most prosperously for fifty-five years. His son Amon

A NEW PLAN.

high-

followed in much the same course for two years, when he
was assassinated, as therj is some reason to suspect, by
an emissary of the reform party. Be that as it may, a
deep plan was laid to capture the next king, Josiah, who
commenced to reign when only eight years old. This
plan was so ingenious, so successful, and so important in
its consequences, that it needs to be stated at some length.
Fifty-seven years of tribulation under the ] icvious kings
brought the reform party to see th^s necessity of agreement
and co-operation to carry out a definite scheme. Hezekiah
had pursued his course with sufficient energy, but when
he had done with his image-breaking there was no author-
itative religious code, no written law in existence by which
things could be kept in order. It was proposed now to
remedy this defect and to approach Josiah in a manner
which should secure him and the nation after him to the
exclusive service of Jahveh. It was necessary to the suc-
cess of the plan that the chief actor in it should remain
incognito, and so our curiosity is baffled in part, but
enough is known to give a singular interest to this pas-
sage of religious history.

Let me say again that down to this time, 620 B. C,
none of the so-called books of Moses existed. The most
that Israel ever had from the hand of Moses was a brief
compend of precepts, called the ten words or declar-
ations, said to have been graven in stone, afterward
expanded to the form of the Ten Commandments. In the
course of the six or seven hundred years that elapsed
since the death of Moses various short collections of moral

r t
I

WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

precepts and directions for feasts and other ceremonies
had appeared, but they had never had about them an au-
thoritative quality. Before the time of the kings people
did, it is said, " what was right in their own eyes ;"* and
since the accession of the kings no one of them had issued
a book of moral or ceremonial law. Hence the general con-
fusion in regard to worship. There came now to be in
the minds of priests and prophets a felt need of an authori-
tative Book of the Law ; and it would suit their purpose
to have it come from Moses himself.

Under these circumstances something occurs in reli-
gious circles which breaks the dull monotony of our his-
tory. It was found necessary to make some repairs in
the temple at Jerusalem. Josiah sends his scribe Shap-
han to Hilkiah, the high priest, with an order to mako
up the amount received by the doorkeepers from the vol-
untary contributions of the people and hand it over to
the men who were to have charge of the repairs. When
the king's scribe had delivered these commands Hilkiah
made to him the extraordinary announcement that in
overhauling some portion of the temple he had found the
Book of the Law ! So saying he handed him the book.
Shaphan immediately read it, and then took it to the king
and read it to him. It was a book that never had ap-
peared before and it made the deepest impression upon
the king. It was the communication of the law to Moses
with full directions in religious matters, ostensibly from
the mouth of Jahveh himself. King and court were

♦ Dent xii. 8 ; Judges xvii. 6.

DEUTERONOMY FOUND.

thrown into a state of great excitement, for the book was
full of threats against the nation if ever it should be
guilty of such practices as were then common in Judah.
Five men of rank, among whom are Shaphan and Hilkiah,
are commissioned to seek out an oracle and get the verdict
of Jahveh whether, in accordance with the threats of the
newlv discovered book, Jerusalem would now be destroy-
ed. They went to the prophetess Huldah. Whatever
the response of the oracle may have been in regard to this
question, the main point was definitely established that
the book which Hilkiah had found was the law of Jah-
veh. This book, there is every reason to believe, is what
is known to us as Deuteronor)iy * A few chapters were
afterward added at the beginning and a few at the close ;
otherwise we have the same book that was first brought
out in the peculiar fashion just described. It is needless to
say th?.t the book was written b}'' some one of the pro-
phets connected with the temple, and hidden there on
purpose to be found and made the basis of a religious
revolution. It was written as though from Moses him-
self, and in its substance and style is a work that scarcely
any prophet need have been ashamed of. But, to carry
out the purpose for which it was written, of course the
real authorship had to be kept beyond all possible dis-
covery.

As this view of the origin of Deuteronomy diverges
widely from the generally received opinion, and as this is
the first instance, taking the books in the order of their

* Chap, iv. 44-xx.vi. and xxviii.

• h.

■ t!

HOW IDENTIFIED.

I, I,

date according to the new chronology, in which a material
divergence has been rendered necessary, the reasoning on
which it rests is here presented as fully as space will allow.
As Hilkiah and his manuscript are both dust and ashes,
I hope no one will require me to produce either of them
to make out the case. Some there are — but they will
neither hear my words nor read them — who will make
equally hard terms. The evidence is circumstantial, in-
ferential, but it is such, I think, as in a court of justice
would be reckoned conclusive.

In the first place it is obvious that the " book of the law "
which was read before Hilkiah; and then again before
Josiah the same day,and afterward to the people in thetem-
ple, could not have been the whole Pentateuch, nor any longer
writing than above indicated. In fact it would appear from
the description to be somewhat shorter. But we have no
intimations in the writings of the prophets of this century
that the other Mosaic books were in existence. Deuter-
onomy, however, the prophets subsequent to 620 B. C. are
acquainted with. Its precepts aie precisely those which
are carried out by Josiah. Th^ body of the book here
assumed to be the " book of the law " found in the temple,
accords perfectly with the description given of that book.
Moreover there are many facts which are absolutely in-
explicable on any other supposition. Is it to be supposed
that Israel, once having had a book of Moses, could have
so completely lost it that, upon the accidental recovery of
a copy, the contents prove to be something they never
heard of before as having come from Moses ? Is it pos

FURTHER EVIDEXCES.

sible that any preceding generation had this book whicli
strictly forbids the recognition of any god but Jahveh,
and directs that the celebration of his worship be restricted
to one place, the temple, and conducted without the use
of imai^es, when in every century back to the earliest
times the people had worshiped in the " high places," and
even the prophets until recently had acknowledged that
there were other gods, and acquiesced in the use of images
of Jahveh ?

But what is more, this book is a prophetic discourse,
pitched in the same key and obviously intended to meet
the wants of the same time as the writinofs which were
certainly produced in this period. The preaching of
Deuteronomy is scarcely to be distinguished from that of
Jeremiah, except that the preacher in the first case is con-
stantly assumed to be Moses. But this is only a literary
artifice which from first to last was practised by Jewish
writers, the great mass of their literature of both Old
and New Testaments and the Apocrypha being credited,
as we shall see, to persons who had no hand in writing i'^*
Prof. Robertson Smith in his noble article in the ninth
edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" — and to the posi-
tion of this orthodox teacher I especially call the attention
of any who think I am coming to rash conclusions — Prof.
Smith speaking of Deuteronomy says : " The whole theo-
logical stand-point of the book agrees exactly with the
period of prophetic literature, and gives the highest and
most spiritual view of the law, * * which can-
not be placed at the beginning of the theocratic develop-

THE DEUTERONOMIST.

r 1

t \

', i.

fl'

merit without making the whole history unintelligible.
Beyond doubt the book is a prophetic legislative pro-
gramme ; and if the author put his work in the mouth of
Moses, instead of giving it, with Ezekiel, a directly pro-
phetic form, he did so, not in pious fraud, but simply
because his object was, not to give a new law but to ex-
pound and develop Mosaic principles in relation to new
needs," These last words are less clear than they should
be ; the object of Deuteronomy, I should say, was not to
invent new regulations, but to give the authority of law,
under the seal of Moses, to regulations already formulated
and urged by the prophets.

The opportunity of forecasting events afforded to the
writer who puts his words into the mouth of a man that
lived seven hundred years before, is alluring, but at the
same time it cannot be indulged in specifically without
throwing suspicion upon the claim of antiquity. The
Deuteronomist, wise enough to see this, makes his vatici-
nations of a general character, and yet they continually
betray the post eventum writer. He makes threats of
calamities for national sin which are evidently drawn
from the actual experience of the nation. He counsels for
exigencies which belong not to the age of Moses or an
immediately subsequent time, but to the age of Josiah. A
tradition in the book of Judges has it that Samuel, by
divine direction, strongly discountenanced the establish-
ment of a monarchy ; but here we have Moses making
special provision for such an event, and even going to the
length of specifying the qualities a monarch should not

{ ;!

FORESEEING PAST EVENTS.

have. In making out this specification he evidently has
Solomon in mind and takes advantage of his prophetic
attitude to give that king — then in his grave more than
three hundred and fifty years — a gentle raking down.*
He then proceeds to give this description of the good king
which is specially designed for Josiah : " And it shall be,
when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he
shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of tliat
which is before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be
with him, and he shall read ther^.a all the days of his
life ; that he may learn to fear Jahveh, his God, to keep
all the words of this law, and these statute;^, to do them."'|'

Other equally palpable proofs that this book cannot be
older than the latter part of the seventh century might
be furnished, but these the careful reader will find from
a fresh examination of the book itself.

We now recur to the transaction by which Deuteronomy
was brought out.

The whole proceeding was a piece of jesuitiy which
could not be approved in these days. But there has been

* " When thou art come unto the land which th« Lord thy God giveth
the«3, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a
king over me, like as all the nations that are about me : thou shalt in any
wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose ; one from
among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee ; thou mayest not set a
stranger over thee which is not thy brother. But he shall not midtiply
hoi-ses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that
he should nmltiply horses ; forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto y«)u, Ye
shall hencefoith return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives
to himself, that his heart turn not away ; neither shall he greatly multiply
to himself silver and gold."— Deut. xvii. 14-17.

t Deut. xvii. 18, 19.

WAS IT PIOUS FRAUD ?

many an instance since that time when the interests of
civilization and of religion turned upon the disposition of
a king, and when it has been judged expedient to bring
over the ruling power by as sheer a trick as this which
was played upon Josiah. The elevated moral tone of the
book of Deuteronomy precludes the thought that the
writer could have been made use of in what would appear
to him an improper transaction. But writing in the name
of some ancient worthy was always in Israel a favorite
and well-accredited method of giving weight to one's
words, and the greater part of the Bible was so written.
The method of publication only served to support the as-
sumption of antiquity. We must remember that these
events did not happen in these days of printing-presses
and publishing houses, nor in this part of the world.

Josiah was now entirely in the hands of the Mosaic
party. He inaugurated at once the most sweeping revo-
lution that had ever been seen in Israel. He tore up
idolatry root and branch; demolished the temples, cut
down the Ashera-symbols — liberty-poles, I have called
them, which in a new sense may not be a bad designation,
as Ashera v»^as an unchaste goddess and her priestesses
sold themselves in the temples marked b}'- these symbols
— burned the images and heaped defilement upon the
altars of all foreign gods ; even swept away the " high
places " consecrated to Jahveh, compelling the priests of
these places to come to Jerusalem and take service where
the purity of their worship could be better looked after*
Not content with this, he went into the neighboring cities
of Samaria and applied the same coercive measures there

josiah's reformation.

in the cause of Jahveh. Samaria, the former kingdom of
the ten tribes, had been now a hundred years a province
of Assyria, and Josiah's head was evidently turned or he
would not have ventured upon the territory of his power-
ful neighbor. He had become imbued with the doctrine
of Deuteronomy that scrupulous fidelity to the service of
Jahveh will insure worldly success, and that the nation
of Israel by walking in his statutes must walk to gi'eat-
ness. No previous king had exhibited such faithfulness
as Josiah. Surely Jahveh would bring back again to him
the former glories of David. The prophetic vision of de-
struction for Jerusalem which had been held up through
the previous reigns, was withdrawn, and prophets and peo-
ple together saw the future in rose color. Nothing but
good could happen to the good king Josiah.

Now let us see what did happen before long. In the
year, 608 B. C. the Egyptian king, Necho, took it into his
head, while Nineveh was being besieged by the Medes and
Babylonians, to seize the Assyrian possessions in Syria
and Palestine. He had no intention of attacking Jerusa-
lem, but the extension of Eoryptian power in that direc-
tion was of course perilous to the little kingdom of Judah.
So Josiah, confident that the aid of Jahveh will make up
for any disparity of numbers* marches out to oppose the

* " If ye will diligently keep all these commandments which I command
you, to do them, to love Jahveh your god, to walk in &11 his ways, and to
cleave unto him, then will Jahveh drive out all the nations from before you,
and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. There
shall no man be able to stand before you."— Deut. xi. 22, 23, 25. " One man
of you shall chase a thousand ; for Jahveh, your god, he it is that fighteth
for you as he hath promised you,"— Josh, xxiii. 10. See also Deut. i.30 ;
ii. 25 J iii. 21, 22. Josh. x. 42.

i
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iii

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THE TABLES TURNED.

entrance of Necho into Syria. A decisive battle in the
valley of Megiddo proved the foolhardiness of his un-
dertaking. The Judean army was completely defeated,
and Josiah himself was slain.

This was a great shock to the religious convictions of
the people. Here was the most })ious of kings with his
devoted people overwhelmed in battle by the heathen.
Confidence in Jahveh to win a victory against overpower-
ing numbers had proved, to the universal astonishment of
Judah, a broken reed. Evidently there had been some-
thing wrong in their calculations. So the mind of the
nation was again mightily stirred. A new thought was
developed namely, that misfortune does not always shun
the servants of the true God. Here it is believed the
suggestion was taken for the book of Job. Many of the
Proverbs also date from about this time. Aspirit of worldly
wisdom awoke and took form in many shrewd sayings,
the gist of which is that it behooves a man to look out
for himself. What may be called the philosophy of the
nation grew out of its being thrown back upon its own
strength, and so in some measure deprived of the expecta-
tion of divine interference in its behalf. A very consider-
able party, known as " the wise," figures henceforth in the
making of books, bringing quite a distinct element into
the Scriptures. The influence of these writers was very
important, an occasional draught from their cups being of
refreshing coolness after taking in the fiery potations of
the prophets, and well calculated to keep the mind of
Israel from perilous intoxication. But, a consequence

Li^

"THE WISE.'

better than this, there came the noble voice of Jeremiah,
developing and enforcing the idea that the y)eople had not
found the true service of Jahveh in their scrupulous ob-
servances and multiplied sacrifices. To merit the divine
approval they must keep the moral law. Jerusalem
was foul with licentiousness, robbery, murder and all
villainy; what could be expected under such circum-
stances but destruction ? " If," says he, " if ye thoroughly
amend your ways and your doings, if ye thoroughly exe-
cute judgment between a man and his neighbor ; if ye
oppress not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow,
and shed not innocent blood in this place, and walk not
after other gods to your hurt ; then will I cause you to
dwell in this place, in the land that I gave lo your fathers
forever and ever." Again he breaks out : " Will ye steal,
murder and commit adultery and swear falsely and come
and stand before me in this house which is called by my
name and say, * We are free to do all these abominations ' ?
Is this house which is called by my name become a den
of robbers in your eyes ? "*

The prophet Jeremiah is gloomy to that degree that
every sorrowful picture of the future to this day is called
a " jeremiade." Such writing is not attractive to us in most
of our moods. We are drawn rather to high and hopeful
spirits who, when misfortune stares them in the face, will
not see it. But this exuberance of hope is commonly born
of youth and inexperience ; and it is certainly too much
to demand of a wise old man, confronted by such a

• Jer. vii. 5-7 ; 9-11.

■f^'.

l\ I

\-^

JEREMIAH.

national outlook as Judah had on the eve of the captivity,
that he should be jubilant. His temper suits the actual
prospect and so has about it the quality of trntth, though
it may not always be the most agreeable to the reader.
And in fact occasions have never been wanting from that
day to this when his picture of the desolations which
await wickedness have not had their application ; there
has never been a period when reformers have not pointed
their argument with his blistering reproaches.

Here we reach the full development of prophecy : true
service of God is righteousness itself. Through centuries
of struggle, through broken illusions, bitter disappoin-
ments and fearless endeavor, the great revelation is at
last achieved. It came not in the days of Israel's political
glory, but in the days of her misfortune, was wrung
out of her exceeding great tribulations.

THIRD LECTURE.

THE EARLIER BOOKS.

ry^HE objects of these lectures, let me say again, is to
-L present a rational view of the orio-in and date of the
various books of the Bible. For this purpose it has been
necessary to take an historical survey of the people of
Israel, it being assumed that their writings, like the writ-
ings of every other people, bear some relation to the state
of the nation at the time when those writings were pro-
duced. On this basis the date of the principal books
down to the reformation under Josiah at the close of the
seventh century B.C. has been indicated. A brief resum^
of this work, with a passing notice of a few books not yet
mentioned, will here be in order. We have seen that
enough is known of the condition of Israel at the time of
the migration to Canaan and for five hundred years there-
after to preclude the possibility that any of the exif^:ting
books of the Old Testament could have been produced in
that period. In addition to this we have found abundant
internal evidence that points unmistakably to a later date.
The books placed first in the Bible, we have seen, are by
no means the oldest. The circumstance that they treat of

THE KAUI.IKST JJOOKS.

': i

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the earliest time has given them a title to antiquity which
is without foundation in fact. The book of Judges * and
the Pentateuch, as the first five books are called, and to
which class the book of Jof^hua also belongs, contain tradi-
tions and le^^ends which no doubt are the oldest things we
have in tlic Bible, but these appear not to have taken a
written form until the reigns of David and Solomon, and
were then produced in books that are now lost.

The actual books of the Bible, as we have it, did not
begin to appear until nearly a century after the disrup-
tion of the kingdom at the death of Solomon, u,nd begun
then with the writiiigs of the piopu: ts. The misfortunes
of the nation led to reflection am: des'el('|/ed in a few
leading minds lofty religious sensibilities which found
expression in vehement and eloquent warnings, threats,
promises, exhortations, first spoken to the people and
then committed to writing to reach a larger audience. In
this way the great age of Hebrew literature set in. These
early prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, indicate not the
slightest acquaintance with the books of the Law, phA
doubtless for the very good reason that none of those
books were then in existence. Under the stinfjulus of
these great minds, however, other literary efforts of a high
order were soon pat forth. Most of the writings which
attained to permanence in this first period were of the

* Not put in its present shape until after the Assyrian capttvity at any
rate. The writer refers to the worship of Jahveh under the form of a buil
in the temple of Dan, and gives the ancestry of thos« who w«^re priests
there, as he says, ** until the day of the captivity of the ^aad."— Judges xviii.
30.

t^afe

SONGS.

prophetic order, filled with a pathetic longing for the
glories of a former age. But not all the splendor of
Solomon could altogether bury the recollection of his
shameless prodigality, and some poet made him figure
characteristically in what is called The Sou(/ of Songs,
trying to win the love of an honest Shulamite maiden
away from her betrothed. It is a noble bit of romance,
unique in the Scriptures, having a strong moral quality,
jird a gratifying termination, the Shulamite being proof
against the seductions of the king and remaining true to
her peasant lover.*

About the same time probably, i. e., early in the eighth
century B. C, the fii-st of the Paalims appeared, the 45th,
though Prof. Robertson Smith, in the " Encyclopiedia Brit-
annica," seems to think that the 7th and 18th are older,
and date from David himself. And these two are all that
he feels sure are David's. Two Psalms to David would
be a very moderate concession, since it has been long sui>
posed that he was the principal writer of the whole book.
But it is getting more and more doubtful that any of the

* It would seem that this Song could only have been credited to Solomon
ill derision. For the king thus to record his own discomfiture in a most
(lislionorable undertaking would have been to '* give himself away " de-
cidedly.

Let me say here that in reading the Bible in order not tf) be misled it is
often necessary to discard entirely the chapter headings and the running
titles at the top of the pages. They do not belong there, are not in the
original, and serve in very many instances only to hoodwink the reader in
the interest of an old and exploded theory. Often they are grotesquely ab-
surd, even ridiculously so, as when they make Christ play a part in the
Song of Solomon. It v/ould be a blessing to the ordinary reader if these ob-
trusive, left-handed helps to the sense we|-e left out of future editions.

THE MINOR PROPHETS.

■ ■}

Psalms date back so far. ]\Iany of tlic I^roverhs were
composed in the latter half of the ei^ditli century ; and
something was done toward writing out the current sto-
ries of the earlier ages, making a kind of first, but very
incomplete, edition of the Pentateuch and forming the
basis of the history-books, Joshua, Jucl(jes, Sainucl and
Khnjx. In the latter part of the next century Nalunn
wrote his little book of three chapters, possibly in Nine-
veh, fyjr he was a descendant of one of the ten revolted
tribes Avhich were then under Assyrian dominion, and ho
may have been among the captives taken into Assyria
His vigorous maledictions ujion the conquerors belongs
to that class of foretelling Avhich never has had any defi-
nite fulfilment. Zephaniah, another equally brief book,
dates from about the same time and was called out from
an ai:>prehension that the Scythians, then moving down
from the north, might take Jerusalem in their destroying'
course. The prophet believes that they will do so, and
utters his oracle accordingly, foretelling the complete over-
throw of the nation. However, a liandful should be saved
to restore the kingdom which the prophets all held must,
in spite of everything, somehow prove abiding. But Zeph-
aniah miscalculated, and the Scythians did not come.

A generation later wrote Habakkuk, contemporaneous
with Jeremiah, having the same moral purposes but of in-
ferior foresight, and much more hopeful than the situation
would warrant, as affairs soon turned out.

Next in order of time was Obadiah with his one chap-
ter, belaboring the Edomites for rejoicing over the fall

M 'I

HISTORY.

of Jerusalem. They are a kindred race and ought to
have shown sympathy with Israel. He also closes with
a •^lowint' prophecy of Israel's future which has entirely
failed of fulfihnent. It remains to mention Zecharlah,
which is a book made up of three fragments belonging to
widely separated periods of time. The first eight chap-
ters were written after the return from captivity. The
next three chapters are more than two hundred years
older, and belong to the time of Amos ; the last three
chai)ters are by a contemporary of Jeremiah. The parts,
of course, have no sort of connection, and, considered as
the work of one man, are utterly unintelligible. If some
of the ingenuity which has been wasted in trying to make
the prophets point to Christ had been devoted to the rec-
tification of such a miserable jumble as this of the book
of Zecharlah, the ri^it understanding of the Scriptures
would have been decidedly much more furthered.

Let us now return upon our steps a little, and consider
the development of another class of writings. The pro-
phets, whose works are left to us, wc know wrote for a pur-
pose. They are themselves the fii'st to proclaim that.
They were advocates of the exclusive worship of Jahvoh
They sought to make Israel a " holy," that is, a distinct,
separate people, whose God is Jahveh. Their struggle
was with idolatry, with the influx of pagan elements
which threatened to overwhelm all that was distinctive
in their race. Wliat was more natural than that other
writings should be made to look in the same direction ?
Even history, we should expect, would be so told as to

■■'(■\

PSEUDOGRAPHV.

f :
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1 1

help the cause. So, indeed, we find it. The narratives
formulated in this time are strongly set against the wor-
ship of false gods and depict the terrible fate of idolaters.
The book of Deuteronomy, the origin of which* so strong,
ly recalls the recent origin of the "Book of Mormon," it
having been hid away on purpose to be found and hailed
as a miraculous revelation, — the book of Deuterononiv,
ilating from the reign of Josiah, 700 years after the exo-
dus, simply puts into the mouth of Moses, or rather of
Jahveh speaking through Moses, the very same exhorta-
tions, promises and threats which we read in Jeremiah
and the other prophets of Josiah's time. History, bio-
graphy, almost everything that was written took on the
same tone and tendency. The past was made to speak,
but not with any view to reveal itself. It was made to
speak so an to influence the present.

We are never to lose sight of the fact that it was the
favorite custom of Hebrew writers to credit their produc-
tions to distinguished national heroes. Down almost to
the Christian era, books were written in the name of Solo-
mon. Every producer of wise sayings found it advanta-
geous to give them out as from the king who had some-
how acquired a fabulous reputation for wisdom. So the
Proverbs were called Solomon's, although written by va-
rious persons, one, two, and three hundred years after his
time. As iM wise sayings had a tendency to put them-
selves in the mouth of this typical father of wisdom, so
all legal writing tended to take the name of Moses, the

* See pp. 51, 52.

THE FRUITS OF REVERSES.

typical law-giver. Now the ascription of writings to a
liero to whom they did not really belong, so far from
beinfT reckoned reprehensible, was evidently regai'ded as
praiseworthy. For a man of talent to do this was to pay
a tribute to a name that the people delighted to honor,
and to pay it in the most unselfish manner, involving the
renunciation of his own title to fame. Thus we are left
in ignorance of even the name of very many of the Bible
writers, — they having yielded up the credit of their own
productions, partly no doubt for the sake of giving their
words more force, but also to contribute to the glory of
their national heroes.

Your attention has been called to the revolution insti-
tuted by Josiah on the appearance of the book of Deu-
teronomy — a revolution as complete as force could make
it — in favor of the exclusive wo -hip of Jahveh. All the
formal requirements of the newly discovered law were
strictly carried out, and, according to the multiplied
promises of the book, the prosperity of Israel was insured.
The overwhelming defeat delivered by the Egyptian army
in the plain of Megiddo awoke the nation from its dream
of security only to find itself in a state of humiliation
which grew more and more precarious. Liter.-'.ture an-
swered to this condition in the book of Job whioh devel-
ops a new doctrine— the suffering of the righteous. Tiie
long and active life of Jeremiah stretches through this
gloomy period, which reflects itself vividly from his pi-o-
phecies and lamentations.

n^r\

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DISAGREEMENT OF THE PROPHETS.

The misfortunes that haJ ftillen on Judah through the
ill-advised effort to thwart the king of Egypt, and the
yet greater inisfortuiies, which were impending from the
rising power of Babylon, led to sharp divisions among the
leaders of the j^eople, both as to the true explanation of
these disasters and tlie proper attitude to take toward the
great empire of the east. In fact there never had beon
entire accord among the prophets of Israel. The common
run of them were always time-servers. Amos, Isaiah and
Micah had been careful todistinouish themselves from the
prophets in general, whose ways they had no sympathy
with. But Jeieniiah takes ground yet more decidedly
against them.* He holds that Judah is punished because
of her immoralities, and that there is no help but in re-
pentance. He will not offer one word of encouragement
for any military undertaking, looking to the deliverance
of the nation from its vassalage, so long as the people,
prophets, priests and all, are unready to put away their
evil doings. On the other hand there were plenty of
prophets to prophesy smooth things and stir up the fana-
ticism of the ])eople to resist the encroachments of Baby-
lon. Thus the worse party ap])eared to be the more pa-
triotic, and the one great man who saw the fatuity of re-
sistance, and reckoned the desolation of Judah and Jeiii-
salem as but the just recompense of their sins, who hold
it the highest wisdom to make terms with the conqueror
— this man was under the painful necessity of seeminij
to sympathize with the enemies of his country. The

* Jer. vi. 13; viii. 10 ; xxiii. 11 ; xxviii. 13; xxix. 32.

JEREMIAHS PREDICTION.

forces of Nebuchadnezzar had ah-eady once entered the
city, and reduced the kingdom to a tributary province.
The Assyrian'^, a century before, had overrun the North-
ern kingdom, and, to put an end to uprisings, liad de-
jiorted whole caravans of people and settled them in As-
s\'iia. It was very evident that rebellion in Judah would
lead to a similar mode of treatment from the Babylonians.
So when Jeremiah saw his countrymen, against his ad-
vice, persistent in throwing oft* the yoke of Nebuchadnez-
zar, he uttered his prophecy that Jerusalem would be
razed to the ground, and the inhabitants carried captive
into Babylon. But still the old patriot hoped for a chas-
tened and redeemed Israel, and said, further, unless this
precise statement be, as some say, an interpolation, that
the exiles would return again after seventy years and re-
build Jerusalem. In another place he says they will
return after three generations, evidently not intending to
fix the exact time. But durinof the exile Jeremiah's words
came to be thoroughly appreciated, and it is worthy of
notice as showing the tendency of a prophet's utterance
to work out its own fulfilment, that within a period of
less than seventy years the first band of exiles returned
from Babylon. Still thoufjh there was here a rather re-
markable fulfilment in point of time, in point of fact the
prophecy, as we shall see, was not fulfilled in any such
glorious fashion as was promised, so that, some centuries
after, the writer of the book of Daniel concluded that
til ere had been no fulfilment at all in seventy years, and

■f

THE CAPTIVITY.

that Jeremiah must have meant seven times seventy
years !*

But let us not anticipate. In ;>97 B. C, Nebuchadnez-
zar appeared again before Jerusalem and this time rava-
ged the city, carried off the costly vessels of the temple
and compelled ten thousand of the citizens to remove to
the banks of the Euphrates. Among those exiles was the
projdiet Ezekiel, who was soon to play a leading part in
a new order of literature. Even this punishmtnt did not
serve to keep Judah in subjection. Another rebellion
broke out, and, in 588 B. C, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege
to Jerusalem with the determination this time to wipe
out that hot-bed of sedition. After a year and a half,
during which time Jeremiah did his utmost to induce a
surrender, the city fell. The victor went through it,
levelling walls and temple with the ground, and burning
up eveiything combustible. The best part of the people
were taken off with the conquering army and settled
somewhere in the neighborhood of Babylon, nobody now
knows exactly where, along with the ten thousand that
went before. Jeremiah was given his choice to go or stay,
and chose to stay with the miserable remnant, from whom
lie suffered many indignities, but kept up his noble though
heart-broken utterances. Most likely at this time lived
Joel, who wrote in a like elevated moral tone, and whose
earnestness and poetic charm did not escape the notice of
the New Testament writers. A few other prophets
labored to make something of the people remaining in

♦See Fifth Lecture.

LI.

IN BABYLONIA.

Judea, but to small purpose. The soul of the nation had
o-one to Babylon, and there for the next century the most
interesting movements of religious thought go on.

It does not appear that the captives were misused in
Babylonia. They were probably assigned a region of
country and left largely to themselves. Delivered from
any political aims or duties, the thought of the colony
naturally took on a new order of development, or rather,
the sacerdotal tone already taken became accentuated.
Prophecy was restricted to the one hope of return to the
holy city, which became transfiguied in the imagination
of the exiles to a heavenly abode. The civil power, with
which prophecy heretofore had had its contention, was no
longer a matter for consideration, being absolutely in the
hands of the conquerors. Thought therefore centred
upon things purely ecclesiastical. The priesthood, its
authority, its duties, became the most absorbing subject.
Some attention was given to historical writing, and the
books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings appeared for the
first in their present form. A few Psalms were written.
But the peculiar development of the time was a deiinite
religious ceremonial. Let us see that we have a clear
fdea how things stood in regard to orders of service down
to this time.

We have seen that there had been, since the days of the
Judges, a grand development of religious ideas. Tliere
had grown up the beginnings, at least, of a very noble
literature, excessively grave no doubt, often rhaphsodical,
but still earnest, brave and elevated. A pronounced

li'

i:.l

THE PRIESTS TO THE FRONT.

1 1
S i

moral and devout spirit liad alrea-Jy placed this little peo-
ple in respect of their religion Hrst among the nations of
the world. They had written out copiously the moral
law and the obligations to the service of their God. There
had been gradually formed an order of priests, and cus-
tom had established certain rights and ceremonies. But
for these as yet custom was the only authority. Certain
feasts and offerings are specified in Deuteronomy, but the
whole book is a set of directions for king and people, not
for the priests. And we shall search in vain in any
of the books that existed at the commencement of the
captivity for the priestly, ceremonial law. Leviticus, re-
member, had not yet been written. There v/as beginning
to be felt a pressing need of such a law, there can be no
doubt, for the priesthood had become a very important
element in the commonwealth, and evidently developed
to greater proportions in Babylonia. Their duties had
naturally become complex and needed to be fixed by law,
as also their claims upon the people for maintenance. How
was this law to be pioduced and promulgated ? Evi-
dently by the highest authority then known, the voice of
a prophet, who, the better to fit him for this office, should
also be a priest. Such a man was Ezekiel, and he is the
man who formulated the first code in Israel, concerning
the priesthood. The conclusive proof of this lies in the
fact that in many important [)articulars Ezekiel's regula-
tions differ absolutely fi'om the law of Leviticus, as they
certainly would not have done if Ezekiel had known
that law. If ^rules, supposed to have come down from

EZEKIEL.

Moses, had been in force, the prophet would not have
ventured to modify them. Moreover Ezekiel's scheme of
public worship was laid aside in the next century for that
of Leviticus, showing again that the Mosaic book must
have appeared subsequently to that of the prophet. How
it appeared we shall shortly see.

We know of the condition of the exiles in Babylonia
only by inference from the books written there, none of
which treats directly of that time; and from changes we
are able to trace in the ideas of the people as compared
with pre-exilic times. The three conspicuous writers in
the captivity were, an unknown historian, author of what
is called the Booh of Origins, Ezekiel, and another prophet
whose name we do not know, a man more after the spirit
of Jeremiah, though not of the same sombre cast, who,
because his writings are mixed with those of Isaiah,* is
called the second-Isaiah, sometimes the " Great Unnamed."
The real Isaiah lived two hundred years before this
time ; and it used to be thought quite miraculous that he
should be so absorbed in the prospect of return from the
captivity, and even mention by name the Persian king
through whom return was made possible, when the Per-
sian kingdom had not yet come into existence for one hun-
dred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. But this is
explained now by the discovery that all that part of the
book relating to Cyrus and the return of the Israelites,
was written by one who shared in the captivity, and who
lived to go back with his people to Jerusalem. So in one

*Isa. xxiv.-xxvii; xxxiv.-xxxv. ; xl.-lxvi.

fim

.■I

BOOK OF ORIGINS.

! [

t ":

way and another the whole pretence that the prophets
were gifted with superluimnn foresight has been over-
thrown. Very many of tlicir real predictions failed en-
tirely ; many more which are supposed to have been ful-
filled were written after the events to which they relate ;
and the few instances where the future was indubital)ly
foretold are sufficiently explained, wh< - we coma to get
at the facts, on the ground of mrnifest probability; es-
pecially when we remember that, out of a hundred guesses
at what was going to happen, that only would be likely
to be preserved which chanced to state the case somewhnt
as it turned out.

The other great writing of the captivity was the so-
called " Book of Origins," which has since been incorpor-
ated in the books of Geneslti, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus
and Joshua. This was a compilation of the existing nai'-
ratives, traditions and legends, greatly enlarged to give a
continuous sketch from the very dawn of creation. It
contained the stories of Eden and of the flood, which were
probably picked up in Babylon. It also contained a much
extended amplification of Ezekiel's scheme of priestly
laws, developed in the retirement of the captivity for ap-
plication in the temple of Jerusalem whenever the hour
of release should come. Like the author of Deuteronomy
he writes in the name of Moses, and assumes to speak from
the age of the exodus, taking advantage of his position
to speak prophetically of the centuries already elapsed.
This kind of writing is of course impossible in our time,
but we can easily see it must have had amazing force in

CYRUS.

a less discriminating age, affording the writer an o|>portu-
nity to deal the heaviest hlnwsat present evil behind the
shelter of an ancient name, and even to conjure from tlic
lips of fabulous herojs precepts to govern church and state.
But to return to our history. Babylon, too,, had its
(lay, as Assyria before it. Cyrus liberated Persia from
the Medes, brought Media and Lydia under subjection,
and soon threatened Babylon itself. The Israelites watched
Ills rise and progress with intense interest. There were
reasons for thinking that, should he conquer Babylonia,
there would be for them something more than a change
of masters. The Persian religion had strong points of re-
semblance to their own, and it is certain that during the
captivity Persian influences told upon the religion of Is-
rael. It is especially marked in the doctrines of angels
and demons which begin now to play a part in the pro-
phetic and other writings. Regarded at a distance the
likeness of Zarathustranism to Mosaism was exaggerated,
and in Isaiah Cyrus figures as a veritable hero of Jahveh.*
The monarch no doubt leai ned how he was esteemed by
the Israelites, and was far too wise to miss the chance of
turning their good- will to his own advantage. As soon
as he had made the conquest of Babylon, w hich he did,
after a memorable siege, by drawing off the waters of the
Euphrates and marching in through the bed of the river,
the Jews having solicited the privilege of returning to
their native city, he freely granted it. They could retui-n
or stay, as they pleased.
* Isa. xlv. 1 ; " Thus saith Jahveh to his anointed, to Cyrus," &c.

THE IlETUUN.

Not all were disposed at once to go back. Many had
become comfortably situated where they were. Still
enougli were ready to make quite a caravan. The record
of the nundjer is incomplete except as regards the priests,
who alone amounted to several thousands. Under Zer-
ubbabel, a descendant of the royal family, and Joshua, tlie
high-priest, they made their way to Jerusalem, which
they found in extremely forlorn condition. The Persian
king had been generous enough to make some appropria-
tion for the rebuilding of the temple. But they were em-
barrassed in one way and another, and for fifteen years
very little was accomplished. Two prophets, Haggai and
Zechariah, made their appearance at this time and by
their earnest words pushed on the work. Still the reality
of the return from captivity was only the tamest fulfil-
ment of the national drama. Instead of the glory tliat
had been promised/ the returned exiles were in a misera-
ble condition of penury, and actually in danger of starva-
tion. No wonder that there is such a contrast between
Isaiah and Haggai. The age of great expectations is van-
ishing, and with it the prophetic spirit. It is said the
people wept when they saw the insignificant temple going
up which was to take the place of the old splendor. This
prosaic outcome of all the glowing descriptions of Israel's
redemption which had stimulated the imaginations of the
people for a thousand years, made the old enthusiasm
henceforth impossible. There is decay and shortly cessa-
tion of prophecy ; but already the people have been pre-
pared for the next stage of their experience, namely, the

XERXES.

rise and dominion of tlic hicravcliy. Henceforth priests
and scribes have the posts of inHiience.

In 510 B. C. the temple, such as it was, very inferior of
course to Solomon's, was built. Of Jerusalem in the next
sixty years we know very little. The attention of the
world is in another quarter. Xerxes had attem))ted the
coiKiuest of Greece, and while the Jews were struggling
with the task of restoring their little city, innnortal re-
nown was gathering about the names of Marathon, Ther-
uiopylie and Salamis. The myriad liosts of Asia were
overmatched by the incomparable Greeks, few in numbers
but tired with the passion for freedom and for fame. We
do not wonder that after these events the Persian gov-
ernment has little disposition to meddle with the affairs
of Judea, and we are prepared to see the Jews left pretty
much to themselves. Their situation was none the less
full of difficulties and dangers. The old feud had been
revived with the Samaritans — relics of the " ten tribes "
— by refusing to accept their proffered assistance in build-
ing the temple. Jahvism from first to last — even in the
form of modern Judaism — depends for its existence
upon exclusiveness. Its leaders have always insisted
upon a separate people, and to this day intermarriage with
Gentiles is stoutly opposed. But this exclusiveness is
hard to justify, and there have been periods in Israel's his-
tory when this rigor has been relaxed. The prophets of
the captivity recognise the whole twelve tribes in the re-
storation, and such descendants of the revolted ten tribes
as desired were permitted to join the community in Judea.

ll;,,. ,

EZRA TO THE RESCUE.

To some it seemed that a wider welcome should be given.
There was even reason to apprehend that the lines of dis-
tinction would be entirely eradicated, that the Jews
would be absorbed by their neighbors, and their nation-
ality lost.

So it might have been but that deliverance from this
danger soon came in the shape of a fresh band from Baby-
lonia. It was in the year 458 B. C that Ezra, the priest
and scribe, got permission of the king Artaxerxes to re-
move with a considerable company of exiles to Jerusalem.
He went, it seems, bearing many gracious favors from the
king, and commissioned to put things in order according
to " The law of his God which he had in his hand." Here
wa** a man destined to work another revolution in Is-
rael. We have his account of his journey to Jerusalem
wliich is that of a man much given to the forms of piety,
and a full report of the temple service held on his arrival
there ; but I pass by this to the more extraordinaiy
events that followed. J]zra no doubt innnediately cast
about to observe the condition, and soon discovered, to
use his own language, that " the people, the priests, and
the Levites, had taken wives for themselves and their
sons out of the tribes which ^they found in Judea and in
the adjacent regions; so the holy miti<m had mingled
themselves with the peoples of the lands; the princes and
rulers, far from preventing this evil, had set the example
of committing it."* Ezra is greatly astorished at this
state of things, and makes strong demonstrations of his
* Ez. ix. 1, 2.

WHOLESALE DIVORCE.

grief in the Jewish style, rending his garments and pro-
strating himself in the dust. He turns to Jahveh and
makes public confession of the sin of his people. The
city, full of reverence for Ezra, who has come to them
clothed with high authority, is greatly moved by his
words. One of the leading men savs : " Let us all make
a covenant with our God to put away these wives and
their children." With this proposition Ezra at once
closes, and the priests and other chief citizens make oath
that it. shall be carried out. So much are they in earnest
that thougli it was the height of the rainy season, when
it is all one's life is worth to be out of doors, they con-
vened a great national assembly at Jerusalem. Every man
had to be there within three days. No building would
hold the assembled multitude, and they were obliged to
stand in the open space in front of the temple. Mean-
time, the rain poured down in torrents. Under these
dissolving conditions they are addressed by Ezra, who de-
mands that all who have taken foreign wives at once set
them adrift, and so avoid the displeasure of Jahveh. Four
men only in all the crowd stand out against this hard re-
quirement, and Ezra is thoughtful enough to give us their
names, supposing that he would thus set them in perpetual
ignominy. The rest all acquiesced, and only asked for a
iittle time to adjust the matter under their rulers and
elders. In three months the whole business was done,
and the foreign wives and their children disposed of. How
it fared with them we do not know. Ezra gives a list of

the guilty, and ends his book with this cold-blooded

^^1!

,tl

L f

RESULTING WOES.

statement, " All these had taken strange wives ; and some
of them had wives by whom they had children." The
sorrows resulting we are left to imagine. There is no
pretence tliat these wives were unfaithful, or any charge
of polygamy. Tlic proposed legal dissolution of j^oly-
gamous marriages in Utah by Act of Congress, which has
raised such a vehement i)rotest in behalf of the threatened
wives and children, affords but a feeble suggestion of the
woes involved in this pruning of the Jewish state by the
strong hand of priestly power.

Ezra's work was now well under way, and we expect
to see him go on, but for some reason he appears to have
been intvn*rupted. Perhaps the king may have revoked
his commission. Or perhaps the people may have with-
stood his authority. At any rate we know nothing more
of affairs at Jerusalem for thirteen years. Then Nehe-
miah, who had won his way to the royal favor, and held
the post of cupbearer to Artaxerxes, obtained permission
to go to Jerusalem and build up its walls and gates. He
was vested with the commission of governor, and fur-
nished with some means to carry out this project. Nehe ]
miah, though not a priest, is a man full of the priestly
piety. He reminds us of more than one of the English
Puritans. His darling object in building the walls is that
he may close the gates before dark Friday evening, and
em closed over Sabbath i

keep tne
from the neighboring towns
to sell on that holy day.*
*Neh. xiii. 15-22.

prevent

peopli

coming in with their wares
Everything that happens to

NEHEMIAH.

him is of God. II-^ is anxious at every turn to do some-
thing for God. He is a prolix and bungling narrator, de-
scending to wearisome minutiae, and is never eloquent ex-
cept where he has the privilege — as a good deacon once
expressed it in " conference meeting " — the privilege of
" throwing his remarks in the form of prayer."

But what especially interests us now in Nehemiah is
the fact that with him Ezra re-appears upon the stage of
Israel's affaii*s. Ezra the scribe, the ready writer, the man
versed in the law, has not been idle these thirteen years.
He came to Jerusalem at fii'st " with the law of his God
in his hand." He has had time now to put the finishing
touches to that law. A great assembly of the people is
called, and with imposing ceremonies, Ezra, supported by
thirteen priests, produces what is called the " Law of
Moses," and proceeds to read it to the people. Evidently
it is something the peoi)le have not heard before, in this
shape at least, for Levites are posted among them to ex-
plain as he reads. The whole proceeding recalls other
meetings we have seen, where many talk at once and
where the assemoly is greatly moved. All around the
people are in tears and making outcries of sorrow and
penitence. The leaders are constrained to quiet them ;
the reading is suspended, until the next day, and the as-
sembly bidden to go forth and enjoy themselves in festivi-
ties over this publication of the Law. Eight consecutive
days the meetings are kept up, and every day the reading
of the Law goes on. On the last day the whole matter
is summed up, and, with confession and prayer, priests

i i
!

(

1 I

'i r

THE GRE\T OCCASION.

and people make a solemn pledge to observe the Law
which they have heard.*

* This moat extraordinary event is related in the eighth chapter of Nehe-
miah, where it Hhould be carefully studied. If we have to thank the writer
anywhere for his prolixity, it is here. The people ntandint; in the street ;
Ezra's wooden pul[>it, made expressly for the occasion ; the names of the
thirteen priests supporting,' him in the ceremony, so many on his right hand,
so many on his left ; the names of the priests who with the lievites went
through the crowd and explained the Law as Ezra read,— though in them-
selves uninteresting facts, are not out of place here, and have indeed very
important implications. It is a picture of the reitjn of the priesthood. Ezra
is a pontiff whose authority is not to be gainsaid. What he delivers as the
Law from Moses must be the genuine a»'ticle. We are not surprised there-
fore that the people are thrown into such consternation as he goes on speci-
fying requirements which they had never before heard as from such high
authority— that they "all wept when they heard the words of the Law,"
many jjrovisions of which had not been observed at all. Mention is directly
made of one of these, and Nchemiah naively says : " they found written in
the Law which Jahvoh had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel
should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month " ; and he goes on
to tell how this regulation was then carried out for the, first time ; " since the
days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day had not the children of Israel
done so " ! Can it be supposed for an instant that this law was known in
the time of the first temple ; known to David and Solomon and the great
projjhets, who never paid the slightest attention to it ? Such an idea cannot
for a moment be admitted. We are forced to the conclusion that Ezra did
not revive an old code of laws which had been lost in the captivity, as some
have thought, but that he introduced this code de novo to the people in
Jerusalem. There is good evidence that what books the people had, far
from being lost in Babylonia, were preserved there with extraordinary care,
and that large additions were made. And among these additions Vr'e are to
reckon a great part of this very Law which Ezra bore '* in his hand " as he
came from Babylon, held for thirteen years, and doubtless further elabor-
ated, and finally published as above related.

Let it bo observed that this conclusion, as well as that regarding Deuter-
onomy at the close of my second lecture, is established on the testimony of
unwilling witmsscs. In both cases the narrators from whose accounts I have
drawn my conclusions, and the redactors through whose hands these accounts
have passed, had an interest in not revealing the main facts. But, as we
have seen, the circumstances which they do relate are intelligible only on
the assumption of these facta, and so become the strongest kind of evidence.

EZRAS WORK.

Here we have the second great step taken toward the
formation o( a set of sacred books. Up to this time Is-
rael had only one book which had really attained to this
rank and become an acknowledged authority. That was
])oiiteronomy, which Hilkiah had found in the temple one
hundred and seventy-five years before. To be sure, the
prophets were read and had a kind of authority, but only
such as they could carry on the strength of their elo(]uenco
or reputation. Ezra brought out the whole Pentateuch,
including Joshua, with impressive solemnities as the levcr
lation of Jahveh to Israel. The substance of the last two
books had been writteri in the time of Josiah ; much that
stands in Genesitt, Exodus, LcvitieuH and Kurttbcrs liad
been produced in Babylonia by the author of th<3 " Book
of Origins." Ezra made additions, and l)y a stroke of
priestly art, for which the time was ripe, set the whole
before his peo[)le as a divine revelation. This most im-
portant event in the history of Jewish literature occurred
in the year 444 B. C. The story in one of the apocry-
phal books tf Ezra, that Ezra dictated to his assistants
the whole of the Old Testament — the books havinj: been
lost in the captivity — is worthy of notice oidy as indica-
ting the strength of the tradition that Kzra did something
remarkable in the book line. The first four books of the
iiible were not reproduced ; they were made, })artly in
iial 3 Ionia by an unknown hand who gathered up the le-
gends of his people, adding such laws as the priesthood
had come to re(|uire ; partly by Ezra himself ; and were
unknown even to Jeremiah, who says explicitly, speaking
in the name of Jahveh ; " I did not treat with your

':!

; i

A NEW LAW.

fathers when I led them out of the land of Egypt, nor
give them commandments concerning burnt offerings and
sacrifices. But this I commanded them, saying, Obey my
voice, and I will be your god and ye shall be my people,
nnd walk ye in all the ways that I shall command you
that it may go well with you." We see from this that
the prophet knew Deuteronomy butcould not have known
Leviticus. Nor do any of the prophets before Ezra know
of Adam and his fall, or of Noah and his ark. In fact all
these books, i ead in the light of the view here presented,
become " confirmations strong " of its general correctness.
The first prophet to mention the Mosaic law is Malachi,
v/ho lived in the very time of Ezra, and wrote in the in-
terest of the exclusive regulations which Ezra introduced.
1 have now, at the risk of being tedious, indicated the
date and purpose of every book of the Bible which had
appeared down to, and including the time of Ezra. We
see that the books are not yet all written, and the canon
lias only just begun to be formed. The only writings
thus f{ir recognised as absolutely sacred are the Books of
the Law, including Joshua. Some other books were
written and would soon be candidates for admission to
the sacred list. The song-book of the temple was grow-
ing, and already had the quasi-sanctity which hymns have
with us. But the L.aw was the first part to be accredited
as an authoritative revelation, and with the Jews it has
ever held the first and unapproachable place. And yet
by what crooked ways, by what misrepresentations and
priestly cJiicane, did this first acknowledged revelation
acquire its sanctity and its authority !

FOURTH LECTURE

■y

RULE OF THE HIERARCHY.

WE are now at a period in the liistory oi ^:srael
when the astonishing power of literary produc-
tiveness which marked the nation some time before, and
even continued into, the captivity, is no more. Instead
of this, as has been observed, came a disposition to gather
up and perpetuate under high sanction wliat liad aheady
been produced. It remains now for us to trace the nar-
rowed stream of Jewish literature a few centuries fur-
ther on, observing as we pass the gradual growth of the
Old Testament canon.

Ezra's triumph, as we have seen, was complete. A re-
ligious and tribal exclusiveness more intense than had
ever been known before, established itself at Jerusalem.
While the mighty empires of the East ignored the crushed
and powerless province of Judea, too insignificant in its
overthrow to attract further attention, the Jew himself,
under the lead of the ]>riesthood, seemed to retaliate, and
assumed more than his ancient sense of superiority to
other men. The notion of a chosen, a holy peo^ile wjis
intensified, and a spirit of intolerance exhibited which
contrasted strangely with the shattered and humiliated
condition of the state. This was, however, but the natu-

EXCLUSIVENESS.

ral outcome of the idea, now fully developed, that Jahveh,
was the only God. In the early days of Israel when the
existence of other gods for other nations was freely ac-
knowled<,^i'd, there was the admission also that those gods
and their worshippers had certain rights,* and their altars
were even erected side by side with those of Jahveh ;
showing something of the liberal catholicity which after-
wards marked tlie religious life of Greece and Rome. But
the instant the grand assertion began to be made that
Jahveh wa^ Ih"! onhj God, respect for other faiths was
necessarily restricted. And as this assertion sti'engthened,
and at last becanu*. the general belief, a corresponding
contempt for the outside world of idolaters grew up.
Only in Israel was Jahveh worshi{)ped. iS 11 the rest of
mankind, then, were living in neglect of the true God,
who would assuredly bring them to nought. It was the
part of his servant to separate hims«.!f entiiely from these
people on whom the divine vengeance must soo'ier or
later fall. We have seen how Ezra put this doctri:ie in
practice on his first arrival in Jerusalem by insisting, in
the name of God, that every Jew who had taken a foreign
wife should at once j)art compau}^ with h»;r and her chil-
dren. We may well believe that this higli-handed pro-
ceeding did not go through without some |)r()test. Four

• This li.iH been already KiifKciently shown in the iiiTvitniB lectures. An
utterance of Micali, however, U bo clearly to the puint that it may be f^iven
here. The prophet is Hettiiij,' forth the glories of the coniiiig time when
]te<H)le will cease from their contentions about ri'li},'ion and everythinjj else,
"beating their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruniiiy-
hooka.'' Then, he says, " all people will walk, acrii one in the name of his
f/od, and we will walk in the name of Jahveh, our god, forever and ever."

RUTH.

men are mentioned by name as having demurred at the
edict 01 separation.* But it is of more interest that we
are able to say with some confidence that the opposition
took a literary form in two brief yet remarkable books
that have come down to us. One of these, the book of
Rath, appears in your bibles next after Judges, and bears
date in the margin as of the next century after the mi-
gration to Canaan. This however can only be taken as
the time in which the story is laid, as it has long been
evident to scholars, on philological grounds, that the writ-
ings must be assigned to a later period.^f* The argument
of the book suits to the time immediately after Ezra's
reformation, and indicates a reaction in some minds. You
are familiar with the beautiful story, how Boaz, a man of
high repute in Israel, took a Moabitish damsel to be hi.s
wife, and how Jahveh looked on this act with approval,
and made the foreign wife to be in the fourth generation
the mother of Lavid. It is impossible to tell whether
this story icsts upon actual tradition concerning the an-
cestry of David.j or was invented by the writer to suit his
purpose. However it may be, that purpose is unmistak-
able. He means to show that it is a perfectly creditable
thing to take a wife from outside the nation of Israel if
till! chance offeis of getting a good one. And his ait lies

* " Only Joiiutlian, tlic son of Asalii;!, and .Toliaziah, the sou of Tikval),
ojipoHud tliis matter, and AIe.sxillani and Sliabbalhia the Levite Hupported
them.— Ezra X. 15, Kiiencn's version. . ' / /

" -j iJe Wett remarks on the Chaldaisms scatierea through it.

X jCueuen thinks it a veritable tradition and that it is supported by the
statement ^hat iMvitJ, when uiirsued by Hixu}, tooH refuge in Moab, i. e.,
among his kiudreq, r « m' r .

JONAH.

in embodying this idea in a story of early pastoral life,
of remarkable sweetness, and linking his characters in
the line of David, which was enough to endear them for
ever to the Jews.

The other book to which I have referred as having been
called out in protest against Ezra's exclusiveness must have
appeared about the same time. It is the book of Jonah.
Unfortunately the name of Jonah always suggests a whale,
and so this bit of writing is generally passed by with a
smile, being belittled by the grotesqueness of the main
incident. The custom is to read it as a matter of fact,
and in that view it is of course too much for gravity.
But it is really a fine chapter of fiction written, like Ruth,
for a purpose. The little book is formed on a broad con-
ception that God cares for others as well as for Jews, and
a Jewish prophet is taken through a series of mishaps for
failing to recofjnise this obvious truth. The art of the
writer, considering the habits and customs of the people
for whom he wrote, is consummate. The plot of the stoi y
is laid four hundred and fifty years back, so as to give to
it the authority of antiquity. A prophet of Israel is di-
rected by Jahveh to go away to Mineveh and preach the
destruction of that wicked city. The prophet exhibits the
Jewish reluctance to have anything to do with the hea-
then, and seeks by flight to evade the performance of his
duty. But Jahveh follows him up, and leads him through
such strange ways that he finally considers it best to
l)ocket his exclusive holiness, go to Nineveh and preach
to the polluted idolaters. This he does, and with an effect

JONAH.

quite contrary to his expectations, for the people are
smitten with penitence, and arc ready to do anything the
prophet may require. But the prophet, true to his
natural hate of foreigners, persists that they shall be de-
stroyed. Here Jahveh comes in again and over-rules
this spirit, showing himself as ready to pardon repentant
Nineveh as repenttmt Jerusalem, and, to the infinite dis-
gust of Jonah, refuses to fulfil the prophecy of destruction.
Could any rebuke of Jewish narrowness, as it was re-
vived and intensified after the captivity, be more wither-
ing ?

It should be observed also that this book of Jonah was
designed to meet one other question. By this time it
had come to be very plain that the forecasting of the
prophets was not always verified by results. Even the
greatest of them had made threats and promises that had
failed of being carried out, which was very embarrassing,
as under the Deuteronomic law this failure involved the
condemnation of the prophet.* But under such a rule
every prophet must sometime be found wanting. The
writer of this little book endeavors to get over this diffi-
culty by supposing that new conditions necessitate the
modification of rewards and punishments. Nineveh's
confessing and forsaking its sins, puts a new phase on the
matter. " Thou, Jahveh, art a merciful and gracious
God, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repentest

* This was brought out in answer to the question, " How shall we know
the word which Jahveh hath not spoken ? " The answer given is : "When
a prophet speaketh in the name of Jahveh, if the thin// follow not nor come to
puss, that is the thing that Jahveh hath yiot spoken, but the prophet hath
spoken it presumptuously. "—J>eut, xviii. 21, 22,

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kzra's reformation.

thee of the evil " (which thou hast threatened to inflict.)*
Thus the prophetic reputation and the Divine reputation
are in a manner, both saved at once.

While at this distance we can warmly appreciate the
sentiment of these two books, let us not fall into the er-
ror of sidincf afjainst Ezra and Nehemiah in their move-
ment. That there was something to be urged against it
the writers of Ruth and Jonah show ; and yet, without
doubt, it was the only course to save the Jewish state from
total disintegration. In ecclesiastical and political matters
it is not the good of the whole world that is up[)ermost
but the good of a nation or a sect ; and in this narrower
view Ezra's work needed to be done. It was but a step
in a necessary course of development, a practical applica-
tion of ideas which the whole period of the captivity had
conspired to bring to the front. It was a reformation in
that it did produce an essential change in the religious
condition of the Jews. So we call the work of Hezekia,h
and more especially that of Josiah, a reformation. But
we must have a cave not to understand too much by this
word in these conrections. The chano^es brought about
through Ezra and Nehemiah were in some respects a gain,
in others they were a loss. Kuenen, comparing the epoch
which now closes with that which opons, says : " There
the s^)/r/^ prevails, here the letter; there the free word,
here the ivrltten word. The projihet represents the time
before the reformation ; after Ezra his place is taken by

* Jon. iv. 'J.

ALEXANDER.

the scribe."* This change, however, he cautions us against
supposing to have been at alJ sudden. It was a gradual
process, having its antecedent period of preparation, de-
veloping at last into full-fledged Judaism.

While this process went on in Judea, the world was
again changing hands. Alexander the Great, having the
mastery of Greece, found himself able to march victor-
iously to the end of the earth.^f* The Persian empire
went down before him and Asia for the first time fell
under European dominion. It is on record that when
Alexander was besieging Tyre he demanded the submis-
sion of the Jews, which they refused, alleging that their
duty was to Persia by the oath of the people sworn to
Darius. As this was probably the only instance that
Alexander met with in Asia of a tributary people recog-
nising the binding obligation of an oath of fealty to a
ruling power, a,nd as the Jews, seeing how things were
going, soon after sent him their submission, he forgave
their first refusal, and ever after treated them with con-
sideration, welcoming many of them to his city of Alex-
andria, where in time they came to have a great influence.
In 323 B. C. Alexander died and " his kingdom," as the
book of Daniel, written one hundred and fifty-eight years
after, describes it, " his kingdom was broken and divided

• Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 245.

t 1 Mace. i. It is with a peculiar sense of satisfaction, after reading ho
much that is half legendary in connection with Israel, that we come upon the
First book of Mace ihees and find solid historical ground. The statement in
regard to Alexander, for instance, are as strictly tme as any recorded in
profane historj'. Can this be a reason why Protestants have left the book
out of theiv canon ?

inMI

: 'I'll

BARUCH.

toward the four winds of heaven."* One of his generals,
Ptoleuueus, the son of Lagus, acquired control of Pales-
tine, and for a hundred years it formed part of the Egyp-
tian kingdom.

Some time in this period it seems likely was written
the book of Baruch — an attempt to resume the prophetic
style. The writer could not prophecy in his own name,
or in his own age, and so assumes to write in the name of
Jeremiah's assistant,-|* and from the days of the captivity.
Aside from this pretence of being somebody he was not,
he does credit to the name he has taken, and considermg
that the work is considerably older than several books
which have been admitted into the canon, we are sur-
prised that Baruch has a place only in the Apocrypha.
At the end of this book is attached a so-called Epistle of
Jeremiah, which is perhaps two hundred years younger.

About the beginning of the third century B. C. we must
place the books of Chronicles. The writer undertakes a
new version of Israel's career from the days of Saul down
to the captivity, going over nearly the same ground as the
older books of Samuel and Kings, prefacing the whole
with nine wearisome chapters of genealogies of priests and
kings, carried back to Adam. This work reflects with
unintentional fidelity the spirit of the time in which it
was written, and as an indirect record of the customs and
opinions then current (300 B. C.) it has a certain value,

* Dan. xi. 4. This and much more in regard to Alexander and the sub-
sequent kings was written in the form of prophecy, but post cventum, as we
shall see.

f Jer. xxxvi. 4.

I I'

CHRONICLES.

while adding nothing to our knowledge of the earlier
time. At the date of this writing Jewish ideas had un-
dergone such a change under the priestly influence that
it became desirable to have the history of the early kings
cast in a new light so as to throw the priesthood and the
temple into more prominence. This recasting involved
many contradictions of the older books, which have given
the commentators no end of trouble. Fixing the date of
Chronicles as late as the third century, and taking into
account the evident purpose of the writer in diverging
from his authorities, and these contradictions are at once
explained. The Chronicler is thoroughly imbued with
the priestly spirit, and his ruling ambition in writing his-
tory is to magnify the priestly oftice. So hu represents
the priesthood in the time of Solomon with the same
functions as it had after Ezra. The temple and the temple-
service are the things that most nearly concern him.
Himself a Levite, he dwells with fondness on whatever
will glorify his own order. Because the ten tribes for-
sook the temple and appointed priests who were not Le-
vites, he drops them out of his account altogether. He
represents, contrary to the older record, that it was re-
garded in the days of the kings absolutely unlawful for
any but the priests to offer sacrifices, and states that Uz-
ziah, venturing to do this thing himself, in opposition to
the will of the priests, Jahveh interfered and smote the
king with leprosy.* The main difference between the
Chronicler and the historians whose work he would re-
" 2 Chron. xxvi. 16-20.

CHRONICLES.

1^ '

place is, that, writing at a time when the new Levitical
law has been introduced, he wishes to make it appear that
that law is of high antiquity, and represents Solomon and
David as perfectly familiar with its requirements.* David,
according to this writer, received from Jahveh the plan
for the construction of the temple, with full details of the
order of service to be established ; whereas, in the pre-
vious account the temple is altogether Solomon's idea.
David had become completely idealized in the thought of
the people as the hero-saint and singer of Israel. The
Chronicler goes to all lengths of absurdity in making him
out a sacred poet, until the picture he draws is as unlike
tlie David of the other historians as can well be imagined.
In short, these books are the most egregious examples the
Bible aftbrds of making history in the furtherance of an
idea. And yet, probably we ought not to impeach the
honesty of the writer. He appears to be honest, and yet
he is not trustworthy. That is to say, he is so thoroughly
imbued with the Law introduced by Ezra, so assured of
its being the old Law, handed down from Moses, that he
feels authorized to assume its observance in the glorious
days of the monarchy. This writer was a very busy man
with the older literature, for, beside producing his substi-
tute for the books of Samuel and Kings, he re-wrote the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah, apparently with conside: -
able omissions, and leaving upon them traces of the time
in which he wrote, — not earlier than 300 B. C.

Any adequate account of this epoch, from 400 to 200

t Compare 1 Chron. xv. 2; xvi. 39, 40; xxi. 28, 32 ; 2 Chron. viii : 12, 13,
with 1 Kings ix. 25.

PSALMS.

B. C, would be filled to weariness with description of the
elaborate arrangement of the temple-service. Scarce any-
where or ever has ritualism had such absolute sway.
Foiled in every political undertaking, the glory of origin-
al prophecy departed, the Jew bent his energies to the
development of a gorgeous and infinitely precise ceremo-
nial. True to his old instinct of dating everything from
the ancients he shut his eyes to the fact that this was a
new growth, and still went on elaborating the ritual.
Singing became a great feature, and the genius of the
people turned itself to the production of songs. In the
course of the first hundred years after Ezra, the larger
part of the Psalms was written. It was the grand era of
sacred poetry. Out of all that was produced the most ex-
cellent pieces were selected to be sung in the temple, and
so Avere set on the way to canonicity. Just as the wis-
dom-books were ascribed to Solomon, and the legal books
to Moses, these poetic effusions tended to take the name
of David, who was by force of tradition the typical singer.
But, as we now see, the occasion which called for this
book of songs did not exist till after Ezra had instituted
the fuliy developed temple-service. Moreover, their sub-
stance generally suits only to this later time.

All down through the preceding centuries we observe
there was a conflict between the prophets and the people
over the matter of worship. The people are ever falling
into idolatry, for which the prophets never cease berating
them. The prophetic indignation is especially strong

■1

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.'i

: i

'■ Vs i,

I it

A COMPROMISE.

i ;;

:1 i

■li

against religious observances of foreign extraction. Since
Ezra, all is changed. Wo hear no more of the nation lap-
sing into the worship of false gods, no more vehement as-
saults upon idolatry as a Jewish sin. What is the mean-
ing of this ? Is the tendency of the people entirely
changed ? or have the leaders come to tolerate what was
so hateful to the prophets ?

Doubtless the solution of this problem lies in the fact,
that, as a compromise, in the revised ritual some things
were admitted of a foreign type for which the people had
shown a strong predilection. Taken from other forms of
worship, they were here embodied as a part of the service
of Jahveh, and so Jahvism at once enriched its ceremonial
and made sure of its adherents, — a process identical with
that adopted in after times by the Roman Church in its
connect: jn with Paganism. It matters not — so thought
the priests, more accommodating than the prophets — it
matters not that the feast of the new-moon was originally
a heathen celebration of the reappearance of the Moon-
god ; the people are attached to it ; let it become a part
of the Jewish law. The Sabbath-day — in the rituals of
other peoples, Saturn's day (Saturday) — naturally con-
nected the service of Saturn with that of Jahveh. In the
original conception one of these gods is hardly more stern
and inhuman than the other ; and if Jahveh had been
eleva,ted and spiritualized in the course of the centuries,
so, we must remember, to some extent had the pagan deity.
Something therefore could be, and doubtless was, transfer-

THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

red from one to the othei in the order of Sabbath worship
finally established for the temple. And so of other ob-
servances too numerous to mention, and whicli, beside, are
too foreign to our thought to have any special interest.
I must, liowever, refer to one other festival of heathen
derivation, because it will enable me to explain the origiti
of another book of the Bible. This is the " Purim feast,"
so called from the Persian name of the month in which it
occurs. This feast, as the name indicates, was ado[)ted
from the Persians, and on that account may not for a long
time have been very generally observed. It needed some
distinctively Jewish motive in its support. So some lover
of this feast wrote the book of Esther, in which, by means
of a wholly imaginative story, he undertakes to give a
Jewish origin to Purim.* You know the story, how
Haman, prime minister of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I.), out of
hatred for the Jews contrived a plot for putting them all
to death. One of them, Mordecai, gets his cousin Esther,
who, as good luck would have it, is the Persian queen,
wife of the great Xerxes, to intercede with the king in
behalf of her people ; and with such good results that
Haman himsel* com.es to grief, and the Jews obtain per-
mission to kill their enemies to their heart's content;
which they proceed to do on a grand scale, killing 75,000
the first day, and finishing up the business on the morrow,
after which they have a great feast in celebration of their
rescue, and in rejoicing over the downfall of their ene-
*Est. ix. 27, seq.

100

THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

mies* Thus tlio writer gives an origin to the Purim
feast calculated to make it acceptable to the Jewish mind.
The object of the book was fully accomj)li shed, and Purim
became among the most popular of feasts. For centuries
afterward these proverbs were current among the Jews.
" The Temple may fail, but Purim never." " The })rophets
may fail, but not the Megillah " (as they called the roll on
which Esther was written;. This success of the book was
the more remarkable, as there is nothing in it of a strictly
religious character, no mention of a sui)reme Being, and
no reference to the Jews in Palestine. However, the
author emphasizes the idea that Jews are better than
other people, and this may have commended his work.
The spirit of the book is decidedly antagonistic to Ruth
and Jonah, and doubtless pleased a class who were not
altogether pleased with those books.

We have now entered upon a period which to the gen-
eral reader is less familiarly known. The reign of the
priests and scribes has been fatal to original prophecy.
Men who in other times would have been authors are now
compilers. Attention is fixed upon what has been written,
and the great works of the preceding centuries are lifted
up into an air of sanctity. The Law, since the occasion
when it was brought out in completed form by Ezra, had

» It is certainly astonishing that this story should pass anywhere as matter
of fact. Eveiy point in it is highly improbable,— Xerxes having a Jewish
Avi'" J— his minister having a spite against the Jews — there being any con-
sider.^ble number of Jews in Susa — the king turning his palace into a
slaughter-houae to gratify them— all are points which together make a story
incredible.

I;i

THE SCRIBES.

101

had tlic character of a sacred book.* To the other writ-
inj^s of which mention has been made, various less degrees
of sanctity had come to be attached. Gradually, and
through the operation of the Jewish mmd under the con-
ditions and circumstances I have described, these books
took on the quality of a divine revelation. The Law had
the first place, because the Law was so mysteriously pro-
ducedf tliat its supernatural character appeared beyond
question. It had come by ways past finding out. The
rest of the books had been written and preserved by
natui-al means and therefore took secondary rank ; and
tlieir admission to the sacred list depended on the popu-
lar preference, guided by the priests and scribes. For, it
is to be borne in mind, however the rise of the hierarchy
quenched the prophetic spirit which could never have
been the gift of more than a few, it served greatly in the
general elevation of the people. To it belongs the estab-
lishment of the synagogue — on the pattern of which the
Christian church has been formed. To take in the sig-
nificance of this institution and the ffreat chanfje effected
by introducing it, call to mind that the old custom had
been to worship one god and another on various hill-tops
all through the country with various and sometimes re-
volting rites ; tliat even where thfro was celebrated only
the worship of Jahveh, the service consisted whollv of
sacrifices, oblations and other propitiatory observances.
All this ritualistic business was transferred to Jerusalem,

* Deuteronomy had had this character from Josiah's time (620 B.C.).
t See pp. 51, 52, 84, 85.

102

THE RVNACOGUE.

Ui' !

!!li

and instead of altars of sacrifice scattered through tlio
country, synngogues were Iniilt, and so a means of educa-
tion \vas substituted for tlie " liigh phices " wliicli had
heenonly tlie seats of a nioi'e or less superstitious worshij).
]n tlie synagogues the national literature was read and
expound <1 ; whoever could instruct liis neighbor spoki' ;
and so the intelligence of the whole coniniuidty was
deepened and enriched. As a consequence, though this
was the reign of the priesthood, orders of thought were
still developed which did not run in the priestly line.
The writers of wisdom of the days before the exile had
their disciples yet, and two works, dating not far fi-oni
tlic beginning of the second century B. C, remain to in-
dicate the fact. The first of these in order of time is the
book of Ecclesiastes. This book is the great stumblino-
block of readers who expect to find the various parts of
the Bible in accord on the main doctrines of Christianity.
Fioin the captivity the Jews had brought, along with
belief in Satan, angels and demons, at least some acquaint-
ance with a doctrine of immortality. Strange as it may
seem to us who have been educated under the constant
assurance of an endless life, and have come to associate
that doctiine so inseparably with the very idea of religion,
it is nevertheless true that religion as taught by the pro-
phets of Israel involved no conception of a personal im-
mortality. They appear not to have concerned them-
selves in tlie least on that subject. Only Job, writingas late
as the sixth century, raises any question* concerning an-

* Job xiv. 14. " If a man die will he live again ?''

FX'CLKSIASTES.

103

otliur lii'e, which by tliu .sti'ungest possible expressions, he
decides in the no;^;itive.* But in the tliird cantury, from
(iiie source and anotlier, a belief in a future life had got
some foothold among tlie Jews. One of the purposes of
the writer of Ecclesiastes is to show the folly of any such
idea. 'Tis ])rept)sterous, he tliinks, for man, who is only
a bubble blown up with vanity, to take on the airs of
everlastingness.i* This writer is Cipially skeptical as to
the reward of well-doing, a doctrine whicli is preeminent-
ly Jewish. He does not believe in any "power that makes
for riijfhteousness." " There is one event to the riuhteous
and to the wicked, to the clean and to the unclean, to
him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificcth not, as is
the good so is the sinner."^ lie does not glory in this
fact, he bemoans ^t. "This is an evil among all things
that take place under the sun, that there is one event to
all."§ Such teaching is diametrically opposed to the Law

* " For there is liope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
aiul tliat the tender branch thereof will not cease. But man dieth, and
wasteth away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and '.vhere is he ? As the
waters tail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up ; so man lieth
down, and riseth not ; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor
be raised out of their sleep.— "Job xiv. 7, 10-12.

t " I said in mine heart concerning the sons of men, that God will prove
them in order that they may see thai, they are like the beasts. For that
wliich befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; one lot befalleth both. As
the one dieth, so doth the other. Yea, there is one spirit in them and a man
hath no preeminence above a beast, for all is vanity. All go to one place ;
all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit
of a man, wlietlier it goeth upward, 'and the spirit of |a beast, whether it
goeth downward to the earth ? "—Eccl. iii. 19-21.

:!: Eccl. ix. 2.

§ Eccl. ix. 3.

;. H

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104

ECCLESIASTES.

and the prophets, and we are not a little surprised that a
book of this sort found its way into tho canon. Its ad-
mission however is measurably explained when we re-
member that the book professes to be the work of Sol-
omon. Its true date is but little more than 200 B. C.
Taking into account the sad time in which this book was
written, we are not surprised at its gloomy contents.
Judea had been in the hands of the Lagida?,* as the Egyp-
tian branch of Alexander's successors is called, since the
beginning of the third century B. C, and with the rest of
Palestine had been a bone of contention between them
and the 8eleucida%-f- rulers of the Babylonish- Syrian
division. Fierce battles were fought, and great distress
fell upon the people. Finally in 203 B. C. " the King of
the South " (Egypt), as he is designated in the book of
Daniel, gives way to " the King of the North " (Syria),
and the reign of the Seleucidse is inaugurated.

At this date the Old Testament canon is almost closed.
Religious writings, psalms, proverbs, histories, now begin
to appear which have been accounted worthy of preserva-
tion, but which were not fortunate enough to be included
among the sacred books. Some of these on any fair judg-
ment must be pronounced superior to some of the same
class which were admitted; and we can only attribute
the exclusion to circumstances which happened to be in-
fluential at the time, and to the fact that under the Greek
dominion books began to be greatly multiplied, making it
necessary soon to shut the door altogether in order to

* From Lagus, the reputed father of PtolenoKus.
t Dynasty beginning Tvith Seleucus.

PROVERBS OF JESUS.

105

ce the

save the Hebrew canon from the infinite dilution which
befell the Hindu. The earliest and perhaps the noblest
of these omitted works, is the Proverbs of Jesus the son
of Sirach. This book is only a few yeai's younger than
Ecck'siastes, and is, we should say, every way worthier a
place in the Bible. It is more bracing, more devout, more
in the spirit of the old writings. Though classed among
" the wise," the writer shows none of the indifference of
the older makers of proverbs to the Law and the temple.
He loves them both, and, in praising "wisdom," he is
pleased to acknowledge that it comes through these
Wisdom is contained, he sa^'^s,

" In the books of the covenants of God most high,
In the Law which Moses comniaiKled
For a lieritage unto the cliihhen ot Israel."

There can hardly be any question that this book might
have been in the Bible, if the writer had suppressed his
own name, and put his words into the mouth of some
ancient worthy.

We must look a little now to our history, which I ap-
prehend, is getting less and less familiar as we approach
the Christian era, and which it is especially necessary
here to have in mind in order to understand the origin of
the remaining books we have to consider. The troublous
times of the last century had deprived the Jews of
much of their national spirit. Many had taken up their
residence in foreign parts, and in Palestine there had
been a stead}^ advance of Greek thought and customs. A
gymnasium had been established at Jerusalem which

ilia

^^1

lOG

PERSECUTION.

1.1

drew the people away from their religious duties. The
liigh -priesthood was repeatedly sold by the King Antio-
chus Epiphanes to the man who would pay the most
money for it. By the year 171 B. C, things had come to
a frightful state of disorder. Armies, led by one and
another deposed high priest, captured the city and mas-
sacred the inhabitants. Hired assassins made the life of
every notable person insecure. Antiochus, pretending to
])unish these irregularities, marched an army into the city
himself and plundered it, sparing not even the treasures
of the temple. Two years after he sent Appollonius
with an army, who made the city a terror to the inhabi-
tants. The king now declared his purpose to abolish all
peculiar orders of worship, and insisted that the whole
kingdom should be one people, professing one common
i'aith. He ordered an image of some god, probably Jupi-
ter Oapitolinus, to be set up in the temple at Jerusalem,
which to the faithful Jew was the last extreme of cruelty.
It is in reference to this the seventy-fourth Psalm seems
to have been written :

" O God ! why hast thou cast us off forever ?
]lemember the people which thou didst purchase of old,
'I'hat Mount Zion where thou once did dwell !
Hasten thy steps to those utter desolations !
VjV< ythin<r in the sanctuary hath the enemy abused !
Tliiiie enemies roar in the place of thine assemblies;
Their own symbols have they set up for signs.

They have profaned and cast to the ground the dwelling-place of thy
name."

The old spirit of devotion to Jahveh began to revive
under the fire of persecution. When this onslaught com-
menced, Greek customs were quietly making considerable

PERSECUTION.

107

inroads upon Judaism, and perhaps if force had not been
used, the Jews might, in the course of a few centuries,
have become absorbed into the larger world, as has been
the case with other conquered tribes. Persecution was
never more inexcusable than in the course of Greek civi-
lization and it never more signally failed than in this
case. The instant effect of coercion was the very oppo-
site of what the king intended. We are told, and tliis
accords with what we should ex])ect, that many of the
Jews yielded to the royal command and openly professed
tlie cosmopolitan faith. Some, however, stood out, and
among these an aged priest of distinction, named Matta-
tliias, with his five sons. When the king's officers called
on him for his submission they made large offers of re-
ward if, without more compulsion, he would give in iiis
adhesion to the gods whose worship their master had de-
creed. Mattathias refused downrijxht in brave and noble
words ; and seeing an apostate Jew going " in the sight
of all to sacrifice at the altar " which the king had built,
he was filled with such indignation that he could not con-
tain himself. He rushed upon the man and slew him
then and there. And " the king's commissioner who
compelled men to sacrifice he also killed and overturned
the altar."* This was the signal of rebellion. The brave
man went strait through the town, calling to him all who
would defend their faith, and fled with them to the
mountains. Other detachments went in other directions.
One band of refugees a thousand strong was pursued by
♦Mace. ii. 24. 25.

it:

' i!l

. u:

' • -fe'
it

108

.TITDAS MACCAB/ECS.

the king's soldiery, who, rightly presuming on the Jewish
unwillinofness to violate the Sabbath attacked them on
that day. The result was the whole body stood and re
ceived their death without offering the least resistance.
Mattathias saw that this scrupulousness about the Sab-
bath* would not do, and it was agreed that there should
be no more folly of tliis sort. The old man proved a wise
counselor, and his son Judas, afterward called Judas Mac-
cabjLUi;-;, soon showed the qualities of a brilliant leader.
Upon the death of the father, which occurred shortly,
this son became the head of the rebellion, and was soon
able to bring about a very remarkable succession of
events. He had only a small following, but in the first
year ( 1 6G B. C.) he managed to defeat tw^o armies that
were sent afjainst him. A much larojer force under two
distinguished generals was then sent to make doubly sure
of reducing the rebellion, which was evidently assuming
alarming proportions. The invading army surrounded
Judas, and seemed in a fair way to bring him to terms.
But by suj^erior skill he contrived to give battle to his
opponents separately at Eininaus, and put them both to
flight. Lysias, the governor, then assumed command and
marched out with a considerable force from Antioch. But
he too receiv^ed a crushing defeat at Bethzur, and was
glad to get back to his capital. Maccabaeus now turned
his attention upon Jerusalem; entered the city and forced
the garrison to take refuge in the citadel. There was

* This absurd excess of nicety about the Sabbath is one of the many signs
of the change that had been brought about under priestly rule. The armies
of the earlier time were trammeled by no such considerations.

REJOICING.

109

great rejoicing at the coming of this hero of many battles,
whom the people hailed as their deliverer. The city was
once more purified of pagnn altars and idols. Her enemies
at bay, Israel seemed again about to take her place among
the nations. The people were wild with delight, believ-
ing that the day of their redemption was drawing near.
And all this had been the work of but three years. In
fact the temple was renewed, the desecrated altar taken
down and a new one built, in time to hold the solemn re-
consecration on the anniversary of the erection of the
image of Jupiter Capitolinus three years before. The one
hundred and eighteenth Psalm was probably composed
for this occasion and sung by the temple-choir :

" Tliis is the day which Jahveh hath made ;
liet us then rejoice and be ghid in it.
O Jahveh, send now safety !
O Jahveh, send now prosperity !

" Blessed is he that cometh in Jahveh's name ;
We bless thee out of Jahveh's house.
Jahveh is God and hath showed us liyht.
Bind the sacrifices v/ith cords
Unto the horns of the altar.

" Thou art my strength and I will praise tliee,
My God, and I will exalt thee.
Praise Jahveh, for he is good,
For his mercy endureth forever."

So brilliant a success against such odds has rarely been
recorded. The political independence was not to be of
long continuance, but Judas Maccab^eus had fought more
especially for religious liberty, and this was permanently
secured. Antiochus Epiphanes died the next year (163

■ill

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;

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110

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

B. C), and no one took up his infamous task. So long
as the state stood the right of the Jew to worship Jahveh
was never again violated. The effect of this struggle for
a holy cause we may well believe was to deepen the at-
tn.chment of the people to the Law and the temple. The
tendency to Greek customs which had been trenching
steadily upon Judaism since Alexander's conquest, whs
arrested ; the party which had stood firm for the national
religion took the lead of the state, and Israel entered upon
another epoch of her existence. A few psalms date from
this period,* and a remarkable attempt was mads at the
revival of prophecy, of which I shall speak in my next
lecture.

The Maccabean age, so brilliant in its triumphs of arms,
was a desperate and fruitless struggle of the Jewish nation
to realize, in contravention of facts of which the prophets
had taken no account, the dream of coming glory that for
centuries had hung like a golden sunset on the horizon of
Jewish thought. Under the spell of their persistent hope
the national spirit gave forth a final gleam in the heroism
of Judas and his brothers ; but Israel had fallen upon
troublous times. External dangers were matched by
internal discord. Ezra's formalism had brought forth its
legitimate fruit in endless minute regulations touching
eating and drinking and every other act of a man's life ;
hampering the thought and wasting the energies of the peo-
ple; involving them in grave disputes about the most trivial
matters, while great questions of truth and right were all
* Ps. xliv. in addition to those already mentioned.

FORMALISM.

Ill

untouched. Ritualism and devotion to the letter of the
law had frittered away the moral life of the people. Even
the prophecy which sprung out of this period has lost the
moral tone. Daniel is not presented for righteousness'
sake, but for the sake of the ritual. He ])rophesios, b \i
witli none of the old denunciation of wrong, none of the
old pleading for justice and mercy.

But through a somewhat absurd care for the letter great
thoughts were preserved to be wakened to life again in
due time. " The books " became sacred, and so they have
been kept. Thousands and, if we may believe Josephus,
millions of Jews were already dispersed through many
lands, there to be acted upon by the world's thought, and
hold up to a wider scrutiny Israel's Law and faith. The
sacred writings found their way into the Greek tongue
through the enterprise of the Jews in Alexandria, and
though primarily intended for the use of Greek-speaking
Jews, the great translation soon acquired an influence and
a fame. The interaction of Jewish with Gen^tile thought,
notwithstanding the check it received from the Maccabean
revolt, could not be suspended. Judas himself was the
first to revive the spirit of fellowship with other nations
by sending an embassy to Rome. Civilization must have
its way, and other factors than Jewish must be admitted
into the final religious philosophy. And still the Jew
will have more to give than to receive.

il'

FIFTH LECTURE.

LAST OF THE OLD JEWISH WRITINGS.

O OMETHING has been seen of what Judas Maccabieus
^^ <lid ill council and in field for Israel in the heroic
years 1G6-1C0 B. 0. We have now to turn our thought
to the work of another patriot who has not even left his
name behind him, but whose words have had a singular
potency for good and ill for the last two thousand years.
If Judas gave his life for his country, he at least secured
himself a i)erpetual remembrance wherever valor is ad-
mired or devotion honored ; but he of whose work we now
come to speak gave himself to oblivion that his word
might abide and be strong. Not in his own name, or as
of his own time, could a prophet discourse at that late
day. The sense of the Divine nearness had given way
to the sense of the Divine majesty, and it had grown
presumptuous to say, " Thus saith Jahveh." One who
should do so would be looked upon as a fanatic and set
aside. The soul stirred to prophetic utterance, to have
that utterance effective, must have recourse to an artifice
which we have seen to have been already extensively
employed by the writers of the sacred books, — he must
put his words into the mouth of some man who lived in
the days when prophecy was in order.

DANIEL.

113

We know from Ezekiel that there was a notable man
by the naiiie of Daniel, living presumably in the time of
the captivity at Babylon.* Doubtless tliere were in cir-
culation many legends about this man and his doings. It
occurred to some literary genius among the followers of
Judas Maccabseus to gather up these legends in the name
of the hero himself, enlarging upon them to suit the pur-
poses of the hour, and adding a work of prophecy as from
tlie pen of this same Daniel. The great victories of Judas
ripened this scheme, and gave to its execution an unex-
pected power. Still the writer is conscious that he lives
long subsequent to the age of prophecy, and he dare not
set out independently, but starts from a prediction of
Jeremiah.-f- He finds that Jeremiah had fixed the dura-
tion of the captivity at seventy years.J At the expira-
tion of this term the people should return and enter upon
a period of unexampled prosperity. There had been a
partial return from Babylonia at about the specified time,
but the rest of the prediction had sadly failed. The Jews
had occupied Judea only by sufferance, and had been in
a state of vassalage, first under Persia, then under Greece,
falling then to the Lagidse and finally to the Seleucidse ;
so prolonging through some three hundred and seventy
years the state of bondage. It is conceived therefore by the
author — in the true millenarian spirit of to-day — that

*Ezek. xiv. 14, 20; xxviii. 3.

fDan. ix. 2. It is to be observed that the writer here speaks of "the
scriptures" (as the rendering should be instead of "the book" ) indicating
that at the time of this writing the canon was fot^med (see also x. 21.) and th^
prophets included in it. This certainly was not until long after the cap-
tivity.

t Jer. XXV. 11 ; xxix, 10; 2 Chron. xxxvi, 21.

I ••- ,

114

iHE CABALISTIC

■u

Jeroiuiah when he said "years" didn't mean years, but
sabbath years, sevenfold years ; so that to get at the time
of deliverance we must multiply seventy by seven, mak-
ing four bundled and ninety years. But this is rathei-
too much, and as seven is a sacred number it is allownble
to deduct seven times seven years,* which will leave 441
years from Jeremiah's prediction to the fulfilment. Tlie
prediction was made in 604 E.G.*!" Subtract 441 years
and you have the year 1G3 B.C. for the final glorification
of Israel. This would be within tw^o 3'ears of the time of
writing this book, and considering the victories that
Israel were achieving under Judas Maccabjeus, and bating
this cabalistic deduction from numbers, the prospect
could not have appeared, to one partaking the enthusiasm
of the struggle, at all improbable. In the year 170 the
high -priest Onias III.| had been murdered, and this date
is fixed on as the beginning of the last week of years.
Three and a half years after, that is in " the middle of
the week," the temple service is arrested and the altar of

*Dan. ix. 25. " From the going forth of a word to restore and to build
Jerusalem till an anointed one, a prince, shall be seven weeks." That is,
from Jeremiah's prediction to Cyrus shall be 49 years, putting Cyrus at
604-49=555 B.C. ; which is well enough, as at that time Cyrus was looming
up as the coming man. He had been called the "anointed of Jahveh" by
the Deutero-Isaiah, and, being " a prince," answers the designation perfectly.
Instead of " an anointed one," we have in the common version, " the Mes-
siah," which h.is led into the wildest vagaries of interpretation. Kuenen
says that the use of the word Messiah as a designation of the expected Christ
is without Old Testament authority,

+ That is, reference is had to Jer. xxv. 11, 12.

+ V. 26. " And after sixty-two weeks shall an anointed one be cut off,
and there is none for him," none to take his place. 62 x 7=434 ; deducting
this from the date of Jeremiah's prediction, 604 B.C., and we have 170 B.
C. , the year that Onias III. was killed. The man appointed in his place

NUMBERS.

115

Jupiter Capitolinus is set up.* Tliereforo, the writer
augurs, this i/iischief and misery can last only three and
a half years longer. That this prediction nerved the pa-
triots to greater deeds of valor, and helped to bring them
victorious into Jerusalem within the specified time, there
can be no doubt.*!*

But the writer puts all he says into the mouth of
Daniel away back in the captivity. The whole course of
Israel's history and of the world's changes from that time
down to 165 B.C. is set down with historical fidelity. We
have the four great empires sketched, Babylonia, Media,
Persia, Greece ; we have careful delineations of the suc-
cessors of Alexander so that we can recognise them every
one. Antiochus Epiphanes is referred to at great length.
After Greece, Israel was to rise a yet greater glory than
any of these and achieve an imperishable dominion.
Here the writer no longer has history to guide him and
is really speaking prophetically. His language becomes

was a foreigner, and obtained the post from Antiochus Epiphanes by bri-
bery, as did also his successor ; so to the Jew there was no lawful high-priest
or " anointed one." *' And the city and the sanctuary shall be profaned by
the people of a prince (Antiochus Epiph.) who shall come ;" " and to the
end there is war." A faithful description of what ensued. See pp. 107-110,
and for full account see 1 Mac.

* V. 27. "The middle of the week shall cause sacrifice and oblations to
cease." The middle of the seven years between 170 and 163 B.C., which ac-
curately defines the time when Antiochus suspended the Jahveh worship,
and erected the heathen altar described in 1 Maccabees as " the abomina-
tion of desolation."

t We must not overlook the fact, however, that in this first actual predic-
tion the prophet failed. It is as much a "miss" in such a matter to Het
the time too long as to set it too short. It was not three years and a half
that the temple was devoted to the pagan worship, but less than three
years.

110

FAILURE IN FORETELLING.

more vaj:fU(3 and exalted, but this does not hide the fact
that ivhen he reaches this date, 1G5 B.C., his vision faih.
He sees nothing,' of the Roman power which actually suc-
ceeded the Greek. He predicts the dominion of Israel*
which was never realized. It was to follow directly on
the conclusion of the" weeks of years," -f* which he fixes
at 1G3 B.C.; and it was to come by the intervention of
the angel Michael.J Many who were in their graves were
to be raised up§ and a day of judgment was immedi-
ately to follow.

Thus an examination of the prophetic part of this
book sufficiently indicates its late origin. But this judg-
ment is strongly confirmed by a glance at the narrative
portion. Here the first thing that strikes us is the multi-
plicity of most amazing miracles. As before obscrvedj]
such stories are not related by eye-witnesses. It is not
too much to say of the legends of Daniel that they could
not have taken their present shape until three or four
hundred years after Daniel was dead. Let me cite some
of them that you may recall their general character. Neb-
uchadnezzar has a dream which he wants interpreted, and
calls in his magicians. But when they have gathered he has
forgotten his dream, and in his perplexity requires them to
tell him the dream and the interpretation too, threatening,
in case of failure, to put the whole of them to death. Of
course they cannot do it, but Daniel comes forward and
does it perfectly .IF The king is satisfied that he has found

*Chap. vii. 27. t Chap. vii. 2.5. :t Chap. xii. 1.

§Chap. xii. 2. || See note p. 34. IF Chap. ii.

AMAZING MIRACLES.

117

a prophet, and glorifies the god of Daniel.* And yet he
proceeds at once to make a colossal image of himself for
the people to worship, and when the three friends of
Daniel will not bow down, he has them cast into a flam-
ing furnace, where they walk about in tlie midst of the
glowing tire without the slightest inconvenience, although
the heat is so great as to kill the guards who tiirust tixaii
into the furnace.j* King Nebuchadnezzar was a success-
ful monarch, and he became very proud. It was neces-
sary to humble this lofty spirit; so he was compelleil to
lay aside the scei)tre and go into the fields and eat grass
like an ox for seven years, " till his hairs were grown like
eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws.'J Finally,
Daniel himself is cast into a den of lions, which proved as
harmless to him as kittens, although, v/hen some other
men were thrown in, the lions seized and devoured them
before ever they reached the bottom of the den.§ il^vents
occurring within the life-time of the narrator never shape
themselves in stories of this kind. Only as things are
seen through an object-glass centuries long, are they dis-
torted in this fantastic fashion. What is more, Ezekiel,
who knows Daniel, and who lived and wrote in Baby-
lonia, knows nothing about any such marvelous proceed-
ings as these. Nor does Ezra, or Nehemiah, or any one
of the writers of that age.

* Chap. ii. 47. t Chap, iii. J Chap. iv. 33.

§ Chap. vi. One of the best comments I remember having hoard on this
liun-taming business is in a piece of negro minstrelsy that has been very
popular. The lines are,

" If de Lord 'liver Daniel from de lions' den,
Then why not you and me ? "
I do not see but that the conundrum must be given up.

■i

118

ANGELS.

Not to mention other considerations, the part played
hy angels in this book is a sure mark of its late origin.
The writer is having at every turn the vision of an angel
who " touches " him. Thus he says, " While I was speak-
ing in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in
the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly,
touched me about the time of the evening oblation ; and
he informed me, and talked with me," etc. This is not
the old projihetic style, but belongs to a later order of
thought. Since the return from the captivity, Jahveh has
grown in majesty and greatness at the expense of the old
sense of his nearness. Then he spoke familiarly with his
projJiets ; noiv he maintains a royal reserve, and commu-
nicates with men through messengers. The long flight of
Gabriel suggests Mahomet and his memorable journey
with the same individual.

A very important fact in relation to this book is that it
announces some of the doctrines of the New Testament.
Beside its introduction of angels, which is so constant a
feature of the Ciiristian Scriptures, it has its " Son of
Ma,n," — teaches immortal itv and the resurrection of the
body — proclaims the imminency of the final judgment, —
holds out everlasting rewards and punishments. The
book of lievelation is only another Daniel somewhat
lorger drawn, with the beasts multiplied and the visions
otherwise exaggerated. And the epistles and gospels
stand on doctrines set forth in this strange prophecy.
Thus, as we approach the Christian era, we find ideas be-

THE HORN-BOOK.

119

coming current which render the words of Jesus but the
natural outcome of his time.

So extended a consideration has been given to the book
of Daniel not on account of its intrinsic worth, but in view
of the disproportionate estimation it has re(ieived in the
Christian world. Not all the rest of the Bible together
has been the source of so many vagaries concerning the
ever immediate future. It has been the horn-book of the
millenarians of every age, und such an air of mystery has
gathered about it as strongly to repel most other readers.
If, as the writer says, " the visions of his head troubled
him," much more have they proved troublesome to others.
One feels a little afraid of the horned beasts which figure
with such terrible effect. But, now the wizard spirit is
cast out, I am greatly mistaken if some are not stimulated
to read the book afresh, which in the new view they will
find by no means so hard to understand. Sunday-school
children can figure on the " three score and two weeks,"
and the " time and times and half a time," with interest
and profit, so long as it is understood that no magical
horoscope is cast, and that the events described, so far as
they have any counterparts in the actual world, took place
before the writing of the book.

The Old Testament canon was virtually closed before
Daniel appeared, as is indicated by the fact that quite a
charming story of domestic life, known as the book of
Tobit, which seems to have been written a few years ear-
lier, was not admitted. But the book of Daniel made a
strong appeal to Jewish patriotism ] met the demand of

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120

APOCRYPHA.

the hour, and, as by a coup cle main, forced its way into
the canon ; whereu[)on the door was finally closed and
bolted.

The remaining books wc have to consider are called
" apocryphal " — a word that has come to mean doubtful
or spurious. Its proper sense is hidden. Of the apocry-
phal books commonly found in the bible between the
two Testaments, all except Fh'st and Second Esdrcts jrnd
The Prayer of Manasses are held canonical in the Catho
lie church. The Anglican and Lutheran churches bind
them up " for instruction ;" but by other orthodox auth-
orities they are rejected altogether; and hence the im-
pression has been created that these writings are a sort of
bogus scripture. This is a most mischievous conception
of these books, as it tends to keep alive the absurd theory
that down to a certain date (nobody knows when or why)
what the Jews wrote was divine inspiration, when all at
once it ceased to have any such character ! As we have
seen, the literature of Israel steadily declined in quality
from the classic period which preceded and included the
captivity ; but there was certainly no sudden break-down
between the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. The
chronologies of these two divisions interlace each other.
That is to say, though the apocryphal books are generally
younger, some of them are older than some parts of the
Old Testament. In respect of intrinsic value, there is a
similar relation. Generally the Apocrypha may be called
inferior; but there certainly are portions which are su-
some portion.^ of the canonical scriptures. An

per]

pori

APOCRYPHA.

121

illustration of this has already been given* in comparing
Ecclesiastes with the Proverbs of Jesus ben Sirach, writ-
ten about the same time. Another still stronger case is
to be met with in 1 Maccabees, compared with whatever
history-book of the Bible you please. To bring out in a
strong light this faithful record of Judean events for forty
yeais after the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes, compare
it with the pretended account of affairs in Babylon given
in the book of Daniel.

There was no sudden change in the current of Jewish
literature in the second century B. C. which rendered the
waters muddy that before were pure and holy. Books of
piety, of history, of poetry and legend, kept on being
written. Considerable additions were made to existing
books ; old stories reappeared in new dress, decked out
with the fancies in which the eastern mind makes haste
to screen every feature of reality ; but in this there Avas
no great departure from the methods of preceding time.
The same passion held on with the writers — the passion
for hiding behind some already famous name.

By the close of the second century B. C, Alexandria
had become a centre of Jewish influence and learning
second only to Jerusalem itself. The Jews living there
had adopted the Greek language, and had translated the
sacred book into that tongue. To these they made some
additions. It had already become a reproach to the book
of Esther that no mention is made there of the name of
God. An Alexandrian Jew, to make up for this defect,

* See J). IOC,

T^f

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", II

122

APOCRYPHA.

! '

!^ V

in'

produced several supplementary chapters of Esther, in
which tlie name of deity occurs over forty times. From
Alexandria also came tliree distinct additions to the book
of Daniel — The sowj of the Three Holy Children, the
stories of Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. The three
holy children are the three friends of Daniel subjected to
the ordeal of the fiery furnace. To emphasize the perfect
security of these men in the midst of the fianies, the writer
conceives the idea of ^Duttinof into their mouth a song !
Susanna is a falsely accused woman, to whom rescue conies
through the shrewdness of Daniel in cross-examining the
witnesses. Bel and the dragon are idols of the Babylon-
ians which the writer, after the manner of the Jews of
his time,* and also following some of the earlier writers,f
identifies with the god they represent, and so is easily
able to make their worshipers out to be fools. Sometime
in the first century B. C, somebody undei'took to rewrite
the book of Ezra, fusing with it part of Chronicles, mak-
ing the First hook of Esdras. About the same time may
have been written the very striking fiction of Judith^
familiar to all lovers of art. Three other books of Mac-
cabees were also produced one after another, going over
part of the same ground with the first, and weaving in a
mass of visions and marvels which add nothing to our
knowledge of the Maccabees. We have also a scrap of
writing calling itself The Prayer of Manasses. Manasses,
or Manasseh, was the king who undid the reformation of

* See the " Epistle of Jeremy ; " Wisdom of Solomon xiii.-xix.
t Isa. xl. , see} ; Jer. x. 1-16 ; Ps. c:cv. 4-8 ; cxxxv. 15-18.

ALLIANCE WITH ROME.

123

his father Hezekiah, and went to quite a Solomonic ex-
treme of liberality toward all the gods of heathendom.
He was a veiy happy and prosperous king, contrary to
the Jewish idea of what ought to liave happened to him ;
and so tlie story was gotten up that he was captured and
taken to Babylon, and there this penitential prayer is put
into his mouth. As has been observed by Mr. Chadwick,
this is an early instance of that sort of pious fraud which
has been repeated in the stories of the death-bed repent-
ance of Paine, Voltaire and other noted unbelievers.

After the triumph of Judas Maccaba3us in 163 B. C,
Judea maintained a nominal independence for one hundred
years. Among the far-sighted acts of that hero was the
sending an embassy to Rome, the account of which in 1
Maccabees cannot be read now without peculiar sensations.
It was the first contact of Jerusalem with the power
which would one day bring her outwardly to the dust
only to yield in turn to the spiiit of her prophets and of
her last and greatest teacher. The embassy was success-
ful and an offensive and defensive alliance was formed.
Not every Jew of the time had breadth of mind to ap-
prove this policy, and the compact which saved his country
may very likely have been the cause of the apparent de-
fection in his army which lost him his last battle and his
life. But Rome remained friendly, and had not the Jews
in the centuries of their absorption in matters ecclesias-
tical lost the faculty of political organization and devel-
oped among themselves bitter sectarian rivalries and
hatreds, tbe state might have stood undisturbed as long

4>i

124

ROMAN DOMINION.

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I i

^1;

at least as the Roman dominion lasted. But after Hyr-
canus I. things went rapidly to wreck. Fierce and bloody
strifes ensued ; usurpers and tyrants ruled the country ;
and finally affairs fell into such frightful disorder that
Pompey, in 63 B. C, reduced Judea to a Roman province.
A priestly nation had proved in the end incapable of civil
government.

The great expectations of Daniel had not been met,
either at the end of two years from the date of the writ-
ing, or afterwards. Indeed the impossibility of any such
results had become more apparent in view of the rise of
the all conquering power of Rome.

Scarcely less suggestive of Christian doctrine is the
third book of the Sibylines. The Sibyls were properly
pagan seers, but their oracles were sometimes of a char-
acter to commend them to the liberal Jew, and the idea
was evolved that the pagans, having all descended with
the Jews from Noah, who was unquestionably a man of
God, it was not improbable that they might have received
from him some measure of the true religion, and therefore
their oracles might not be without a divine import. As
if to mark this incipient fellowship of worshipers on the
basis of a uniformity of faith beneath all differences, there
arose among the Jews a sibyl who foretells a golden age
in which the Messianic hope shall be realized, the wicked
destroyed, root and branch, all kingly rule overthrown,
the heathen converted and Judah built up into great
splendor. Already, a hundred years before Paul, we have
a hint of the final enlargement of Israel's religion to suit
the needs of the whole world.

BOOK OF ENOCH.

125

The Look of Enoch is another Apocalypse coming out
of this troubled time. The writer had studied Daniel,
and in common with many others had felt keen disap-
pointment to find the predictions of that book all failing
of fulfilment after the year 165 B. C. He gave the cabal-
istic numbers another shake, and behold, the seventy
weeks of Daniel became "seventy periods of heathen
rulers ! " When Israel had counted these seventy oppress-
ors, the end of her captivity would come. This work
quite outdoes all the others in its claim of antiquity, pur-
porting to come from Enoch, " the seventh from Adam,"
the father of the world-renowned Methusalah. The book
is quoted in the New Testament, and quoted in such a
way as to sanction this claim of antiquity.* There is no
question but that Jude (infallibly inspired !) really thought
that Enoch wrote the book. With this good send-off
Enoch ought to have had a place in the canon ; but it fail-
ed of this, except with the Abyssinian Christians, to whom
we are indebted for its preservation. It is a document of
some size, running through over a hundred chapters, and
fairly anticipates many of the doctrines of Christianity.
" Here we find," says Martineau, " a century before the
first line of the New Testament was written, all the chief
features of its doctrine respecting the * end of the world/
and the ' coming of the Son of man ; ' the same theatre,
Jerusalem ; — the same time relatively to the writer, the
immediate generation, — the hour at hand ; the same har-

* Jude 14. "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of
these, saying, ' Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints,' "

■i

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126

ANTICIPATING THE

li I

hinj^ers, — wars and rumors of wars, and the gathering of
Gentile armies against the elect, — the same deliverance
for the elect, — the advent of the Mesiah with the holy
angels ; the same decisive solemnity, — the Son of Man on
the throne of his glory, with all nations gathered before
him ; — the same award, — unbelievers to a pit of fire in the
valley of Hinnom, and the elect' to the halls of the king-
dom, to eat and drink at Messiah's table ; — the same ac-
cession to the societ}', — by the first resurrection sending
up from Hades the souls of the pious dead; the same re-
novation of the earth, — the old Jerusalem thrown away
and replaced by a new and heavenly ; — the same meta-
morphosis of mortal men, to be as the angels ; — the same
end to Messiah's time, — the second resurrection, and the
second judgment of eternity, consigning the wicked'angels
to their doom ; — and the same new creation, transforming
the heavenly world that it may answer to Paradise below.
Here, in a book to which the New Testament itself ap-
peals, we have the very drama of ' last things ' which re-
appears in the book of Revelation, and in portions of the
Gospel."

There is a very considerable gap between the Old Tes-
tament and the New if we pass from Malachi to Matthew.
But in this interval a great deal was written which if
taken into account makes the Bible continuous from first
to last ; explicable in each of its parts as the natural out-
come of the ever changing conditions of the Jewish church
and state. So far from appearing miraculous for its start-
ling novelty, the New Testament, after reading the writ-

\:.

NEW TESTAMENT.

127

gof
mce
loly
1 on
fore
the

nnf-

ac-
iing

re-

ings of the two preceding centuries, seems to be just what
might be expected to come next.

For even with Enoch we are not at the end of these
apocryphal books which originated not far from the
Christian era. They are one and all apocalyptic, for
Judea had fallen now into such utter helplessness before
the power of Rome that no Jew had the heart to write
of much else than the impending destruction of the uni-
verse, out of which, by some miracle, Israel was to come
forth renewed and glorified. Even this hope was getting
so desperate that it could only be floated on the prestige
of some ancient and honored name. Enoch, Ezra and
Daniel had already been made use of ; another set of
pseudonymous writings made bold to appropriate the
name of Moses, the sanctified hero of the nation, in the
book of Jubilees, the Ascension of Moses and the Apoca-
lypse of Moses. It has been supposed that Jude obtained
from the " Ascension of Moses " his statement about the
dispute between Michael and Satan concerning the body
of Moses ; which if true, as seems likely, is only another
indication of how much that writer leaned upon the then
recent Jewish literature that has not even been accorded
a place in our Apocrypha.

Besides the books already mentioned, dating not far
from the Christian era, and influential in forming the sen-
timent out of which Jesus and the first Christian writings
arose, it needs to mention the Talmud, which had been
forming for three hundred years — a body of doctrine, pre-
cept and comment based on the law of Moses (so-called),

(

1 I

\
1

, f

128

OLD AND NEW.

but suited to the ever-varying conditions of life. This
is an extensive literature in itself, already largely de-
veloped by the time of Christ, and an object of study to
every thoughtful Jew. Among the most distinguished
contributors to the Talmud was Hillel. In him, both Jesus
and Paul found many of their thoughts already formu-
lated. Hillel said, " Love peace, and seek after it ; love
mankind and bring them to the Law." Once, says the
Talmud, when a heathen asked Hillel to show the whole
Jewish religion in a few words, he answered : " Do not
unto others that which thou wouldst not should be done
to thee ; this is the whole extent of the law ; all the rest
is merely the explanation of it ; go now and learn to un-
derstand that."

The common presumption is that there is nothing in
the Old Testament younger than about 400 B. C. This
is a mistake, as it now appears that the books of Daniel,
Chronicles, Esther and Ecclesiastes are much younger
But why stop short with the Jewish waitings even at 165
B. C. ? Why, indeed, but to throw an air of mystery
about the origin of the New Testament doctrines and
precepts ? When once we have read the intervening
books between Malachi and Matthew, or to speak more
intelligently, between Daniel (the latest portion of the
Old Testament), and Paul's Epistles (the earliest writings
in the New Testament), we are conscious of i o abrupt
revolution in thought when we come to the latter. All
the ages of the Jewish history are a preparation for the
gospel ; but none of them more emphatically so than the

PROPAGATION OF JUDAISM.

129

century jusfc preceding the appearance of the gospel. If
we would have the New Testament explicable, we must
acquaint ourselves with what went just before it. We
shall find then that no man was ever more clearly the
natural product of his time and race than was Jesus ; and
that gospel, and epistles, and apocalypse are as intimately
linked with antecedent literature as we have found any
book of the Old Testament to be. This will be more
specifically pointed out when we come to consider the
Christian scriptures ; but as it is a fact persistently over-
looked in the interest of a miraculous theory of religious
history, attention must be called to it as we pass. The
step from the doctrines of the Old Testament to those of
the New, considered as the achievement of one man,
would indeed be inexplicable ; but no such step was taken.
The transition of the doctrines since called Christian was
gradual, beginning before the writing of Daniel, and be-
coming especiall}' marked in the later apocryphal books.
It is a fact not to be overlooked, that at the Christian
era the Jews on account of the discouraging aspect of
their national affairs had taken up their residences in
large numbers in other parts. They were in all the cities
of Greece, in Egypt, in Rome ; carrying everywhere their
peculiar faith, though holding it out of Palestine with a
less extravagant contempt for other religions. The strict
Jew was not a missionary, sought no proselytes ; and yet
converts to Judaism were made, sometimes even in the
very highest circles. Monobazus, ruler of a province on

the Tigris, and all his house, became converts to Judaism
8

130

PROPAGATION OF JUDAISM.

I 'I

li i

throu<3'li acciuaintanco with a Jewish iiiercliaiifc, who was
liberal enough not to require strict compliance with the
letter of the law ; and this royal family in a Gentile
country remained to their death faithful adherents to the
Jewish religion, and were finally buried in the vicinity of
Jerusalem.

Such facts indicate that the rigor of the ceremonial law
was much abated among the Jews living abroad, and that
they only awaited the influence of a vigorous leader to
drop altogether the one distinctive rite which separated
them from the world, and enter upon a grand missionary
movement for the conversion of mankind. The most ex-
alted and spiritual prophecies of Israel's final enlargement
represent the whole human race as coming to the service
of Jahveh and participating in his favour. Jahveh speaks
by the voice of Z<.:;jhaniah ; " Then will I give to the na-
tions other, pure lips, that they may call upon the name
of Jahveh and serve him with one consent."* And there
are not wanting indications that the conversion of the
nations to righteousness was to be effected directly by
the Jewish people. " Thus saith Jahveh of hosts : in
those days shall ten men out of all languages of the na-
tions take hold of one Jew, and say to him : we will go
with you ; for we have heard that God is with you."f
Israel owes this duty to the world, and although other
duties strongly conflict with this so that it cannot con-
stantly be set forth, we come here and there upon the
unmistakable enunciation of it. Israel is the servant of
Jahveh, and this is the character of the faithful servant ;

* Zeph. Hi. 9. f Zech. viii. 23.

T«E JfEWS^ABROAT>.

131

" BchoM my servant whoiu I uphoM, luiiic elect in whom
my soul is well pleased; I put my spirit upon him; judg-
ment shall he 'preach to the nations. He shall not faint
nor he crushed till he have established judgment in the
earth, and the dwellers on the sea-coast wait for his in-
structions."*

These outreaching and inclusive sentiments found some
slight response, we may believe, among the Jews who were
dispersed through the Gentile world. Prosperous and happy
abroad, the thought of an actual return to Palestine grew
less and less inviting as it became more and more im-
probable. The Messianic hope took on a spiritual cast
and a world-wide application. Israel, through whose faith
and struggle the blessedness was to come, was indeed to
be the chief figure in the great consummation ; but man-
kind at large were also to be partakers in the glory that
was to be revealed. In the book of Enoch the Messianic
hope is of the strongest, while the personal Messiah, the
Prince of Israel, plays a subordinate and entirely unessen-
tial part. The leading features of the prophecy are the
destruction of the incorrigibly wicked in a lake of fire and
the conversion of heathendom to the knowledge of the
true and only God.

We see therefore that the existence of Jewish commu-
nities at all the centres of life, in Asia Minor, in Egypt,
in Greece, in Italy, and even in Spain, afforded the best
possible conditions for a great missionary movement when
the fulness of time should come.

Happily there is another important work left us of a

* Isa. xlii. 1.

• 2i:

:|.

Jil

I (

tf— *•-•

132

WISDOM OF SOLOMON.

spiritual cha meter wliicli indicates the ideas current
amonc: the Jews at the time of the Christian era. It is
called the Wisdom of Solomon. The Proverbs and the
Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes had had such great good
fortune sailing under the name of Solomon that some one
thought to try the same experiment again with a book of
" Wisdom." In merit this work may yield to Proverbs,
but certainly not to the other Solomonic books ; and
there can hardly be any doubt, had not the destruction of
Jerusalem and the final extinction of the Jewish state
shortly supervened, the Wisdom of Solomon would have
found its way into the canon and been reckoned to-day
part of the " Word of God." The assertion is made that
*' immortality was brought to light through the Gospel ;"
but th'^ Gospel contains no such clear affirmations of im-
mortality as does the Book of Wisdom. What the New
Testament doctrine of the soul is has always been in dis-
pute, many supposing that it makes immortality a reward
for obedience. But the writer is unequivocal. He says,
*' God created man to be immortal and made him an image
of his own eternity." * Such an utterance implies the
reading of other than Hebrew books, and shows how at
the Christian era the thought of Greece had mingled
with that of Israel. The poverty of the canonical scrip-
tures in bold and bracing assurances of a future life is
made apparent when one goes to look for suitable selec-
tions to be read in a funeral service. I have never seen a
set of selections for this purpose which might not be im-
proved by substituting for canonical scripture some verses

• Chap. ii. 23

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

133

from this book. For my part I would sooner dispense
with either one of the Testaments at a funeral than with
the Wisdom of Solomon. And this not merely because of
the stress it puts upon the idea of personal, natural im-
mortality, but mainly because the writer goes further and
anticipates Emerson's well-known words : —

" What is excellent,
As God lives, is permanent."

and says, " Kighteousness is immortal."

We are now at the end of a much too rapid review of
the Jewish Scriptures. I have not hesitated, in following
the line of the " new criticism," to speak plainly of the
questionable modes by which some of the books acquired
the " sacred " distinction ; the disingenuous writing of
history in the form of prophecy, and yet worse distortion
of history in the interest of a cause ; but when all has
been said, if you who have followed me through have not
acquired a new interest in the Bible from this invc tiga-
tion, then I must say, your experience has been vary dif-
ferent from mine. The main thing toward making any
book interesting is to make it intelligible ; and it is not
too much to say in these days a work remains unintel-
ligible so long as an element of supernaturalism is in-
volved in its consideration. As often as the miracle comes
in, common sense goes out. Blind assertion and stubborn
denial are alike fatal to any profitable exercise of thought.
We have lived to see the successful beginning of a posi-
tive, constructive order of criticism which undertalces to
tell how the Bible was written rather than how it was
'tiot written ; what the Bible is rather than what it is not.

!■

, (

:» Ij

SIXTH LECTURE.

THE WRITINGS OF PAUL.

IN entering upon the consideration of the New Testa-
ment we shall miss much of an historical and dra-
matic character which has heretofore helped to relieve an
otherwise dry and forbidding subject. The writing of
the Christian Scriptures, though stretching over a much
longer period than is commonly supposed, probably did
not cover more than one hundred and twenty-five years.
In that period the only political event which greatly in-
fluenced these writings is the destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus, and this affects only the later and pseudonymicpc^r -
tions. Moreover there is a much greater prejudice in fclio
way of a critical handling of this part of the Bible. Chris-
tians not unnaturally have come to reckon it as the most
sacred part,* and to insist, however it may fare with the
rest of the books, that here at any rate we are dealing
with something supernatural. It is unpleasant to say
anything to disturb this complacent conception, but truth
requires us to speak no less plainly than before.

* It is noteworthy that in this there has been a complete revolution since
Christianity pasi^ed out of Jewish control. To several generations of Chris-
tians the only sacred scriptures were the Old Testament. I'he earliest in-
stance in which the word scripture is applied to a New Testament writing
is 2 Peter iii. 16 ; and this book was jiot written till towards the close of the
second century.

UNBROKEN CONTINUITY.

135

From the book of Daniel and the Apocrypha which we
heave last considered, we pass to the New Testament with-
out the sense of an abrupt and mysterious change either
in style of writing or form of doctrine. The book of Reve-
lation is after the fashion of the preceding apocalypses ;
epistles and gospels repeat in numerous instances the pre-
cepts and the phraseology of the previous writings. The
obvious fact is that we have here a natural continuation
of the older Jewish literature.

But before we proceed to the books themselves it will
be best to consider the conditions out of which they were
produced.

As has already been pointed out* many influences had
conspired in the last centuries of the Jewish state to
modify the customs and the ideas of the people. The
march of external civilization had told at last even upon
the most exclusive of nations, and the Jew had embodied
in creed and ceremony much that never originated in
Judea. Especially had the outside world modified the
thought of great numbers of Jews who had taken up
their residence in foreign parts. Knowledge of mankind
revealed to the Jew the absurdity of his own pretensions.
He could not avoid seeing the presumptuousness of the
supposition that the God and Father of all men cares on^y
for the Jews ; and so there beg^n to be expressed before
the Christian era tbo belief that the heathen were to be
conv^rte^ to, the service of Israel's God. As the hope of
national glory declined, a vague anticipation awoke that

^ See Fifth Lecture.

I, I

136

IlEFOBM.

Israel was to have a spiritual leadership, and bring man-
kind to the observance of the divine law. Hopes of this
kind had even been announced with some distinctness,
and had opened the way to another and vital considera-
tion, pointing yet more clearly to the Gospel, and requir-
ing our actual attention.

Before Judaism can he made a world-religion it mud
he reformed. In fact it had become too much a thing of
ceremony to satisfy even a Jew. There was a felt need
of a return to first principles. The great prophets began
to read with a new ardor, and their contempt of empty
formalities found some responses across an interval of
seven centuries. Reformers arose who went through the
country proclaiming in the old prophetic spirit the need
of inward purification. The influence of the book of
Daniel and the other apocalypses came in to speed on this
work with a sense that the time was short. In the cen-
tury before Christ societies were formed on the avowed
purpose of attaining a higher spiritual life, through self-
denial and other exercises not set down in the ritual.

Of course these tendencies had their poorest showing
in Jerusalem, which was the seat of formalism, while in
the outlying districts, where the temple had less influence
and where foreign ideas had more ingress, they had be-
come exceedingly strong. Especially was this the case
in Galilee, the part of Palestine most accessible to the
Greeks,* and there, among other reforming teachers, arose
one whose name has since been given to the religion pro-
» "GaUlee o* the Gentiles," Matt. iv. 15,

JESUS AND THE OLD LAW.

137

fessed by the bestpart of the world. Jesus was first of all a
Jewish reformer. He was thoroughly imbued w^th the
spirit of the great prophets who made the conduct of life
the essential thing in religion ; impatient like them of
the everlasting prayers and other ligmarole of an external
devotion, and filled even more than they with a sweet and
tender sympathy for human woes. His doctrine was not
new or strange. Other men of the same and the preced-
ing generation had said much the same things. The peo-
ple were used to these religious talks, ai 1 many of his
precepts had long passed as proverbs among them. They
were astonished only at his boldness in amending the
Mosaic commands, and at his undisguised contempt for
the hierarchy. They had known reformers before, but
this was the most radical of all. Tradition has it that
there was at the time a strong expectation of the Prince
and Redeemer of Israel ; that the mother of Jesus had the
conviction, as no doubt many other mothers had, that her
son was to be the long-looked-for Messiah. The belief
that he was the Christ who should come appears finally
to have fastened itself in his own mind. This was gen-
erally reckoned an extravagance, and " the multitude "
who heard his preaching gladly were nevertheless not
prepared to support such a pretension. It was extremely
obnoxious to the authorities in Jerusalem, who were
already incensed at his scorn of their traditions, and in a
short time they contrived measures to put him out of the
way.

■ »■■
iiii

138

JESUS AND THE OLD LAW.

till

I '

But in the course of three years some faithful followers
had been secured, who began to preach that Christ had
already come and had inaugurated the kingdom of hea-
ven on earth. His utterances were taken up with en-
thusiasm and repeated through the land. The martyr-
dom of the Master gave an impulse to his movement,
and led to developments in it of w^hich he did not dream.
It does not appear that Jesus or anybody in the lifetime
of Jesus contemplated abolishing the distinction between
Jews and other people. The most that can be said is
that in him Jewish exclusiveness was very much miti-
gated. He did not scruple to sit with publicans, or to
converse on terms of comparative equality with Samari-
tans ; he could recognise a high order of faith even in a
foreigner. Still there are indications enough that, like
the most liberal of the Jews before him, he still retained
a strong preference for his own race, and regarded his
mission as being essentially to the Jews.*

When, however, the hand of persecution was laid upon
the followers of this teacher in Palestine, some of the
leaders betook themselves to the cities of the west, where,
as we have seen, very many Jews were already sojourn-
ing. Among these the preaching of the gospel, as the
doctrines of Jesus were called, was more readily received ;
and there it became possible to widen the movement by
proposing to sink the distinction between Jew and Gen-
tile and make the gospel the basis for a grand missionary

* " I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matt.
XV. 2-1. See also Matt. x. 5-7 ; Mark vii. 27.

THE RADICAL STEP.

139

movement for the conversion of the world to the faith of

Israel.

This was the radical step. In teaching, ethical or doc-
trinal, the Christians had little that was new. Their as-
sertion that Messiah had already come was indeed a novel
feature, but this novelty was modified by the expectation
that he was coming again very shortly, and by the fact
that they applied to this second coming the very lan-
guage of prophecy in which all Jews found the promise
of Messiah. Add to this that the anticipation of a per-
sonal Messiah had to a certain extent been overshadowed
by the hope of an era of general blessedness so that it
made less difference where this personal leadership was
placed, in the past or in the future, and we can see
that the admission that Jesus was the Christ set no gieat
strain upon the Jewish mind. But to drop all distinctive
rites and ceremonies and stand upon equality and in
fellowship with other men, was a step of no little diffi-
culty. Still there had been, as we have seen,* in the
course of Jewish history adjustments to conditions and
compromises with paganism almost as sweeping. To the
Jew outside of Palestine, at any rate, the recognition of
Israel's God and Israel's law and prophets by the pagan
world, which now for the first time began to seem possi-
ble, might appear a sufficient tribute to the "chosen
race " and do more for the glorification of Israel than
would ever be secured by obstructing this possible con-
version of the heathen with any impossible conditions.

* pp. 41, 58, 93, 99,

■Si

140

SHALL IT BE TAKEN ?

1 ^

1 ■

■; 1
'• 1

ill

5 ;

King Monobazus and his house had in a previous genera-
tion been admitted to the Jevrish faith without under-
going the rite which marks a Jew ;* many who heard
the preaching of Judaism from Christian teachers were
ready to be gathered in on like terms.

So almost at the outset the Christian movement encoun-
tered this grave question of the perpetuation of the Jew-
ish rites. To renounce them had about it certainly, from
a Jewish point of view, something of rashness. Jesus
had never counselled it.f He had himself bowed to the
established ceremonial. To give way at this point seemed
like breaking with the ancient faith, and we do not won-
der that in Jerusalem the Christians were stoutly opposed
to any such compromise with heathendom. At the same
time those in the new sect who knew the world and per-
ceived the opportunity that was offered of bringing the
nations to the practical adoption of Israel's faith, saw that
concessions must be made.

Thus there came about very early a sharp division in
the Christian community which it is necessary to take
into account if we would understand the development of
the New Testament writings. Two parties were formed,
the strength of one lying chiefly in Judea, and the other
composed mainly of Jews living in other parts of the
world. The question was, should this step be taken by
which the Jew, for the sake of winning the world to the
essential principles of his cherished faith, would cease to

* See p. 132.

t In fact he enjoins observance, See Matt, viii. 4 ; Luke v, 14 ; John vii.8,

PAUL.

141

enera-

under-

heard

i were

insist on a rite which froiu iiiimeiiiorial times had dis-
tinffuished him from other men ?

We are not surprised, therefore, that the first Christian
books to be written of which we have any knowledge
sprung out of this controversy. The broad-church party,
the party of progress, found a distinguished leader in the
person of Paul, who went the whole length of concession
to the outside world in matters of ceremony. This man
was of such stuff that the more he was opposed by the
Jerusalem Christians, the more resolute he grew. Satis-
fied that this was the course for the Jews to pursue in the
providential order of their development, he boldly pro-
claimed the end of the old exclusiveness, the breaking
down of " partition walls," and the opening of the spirit-
ual kingdom to all kindreds, tongues and nations. When
this clear announcement was made we must remember
Christians were still almost altogether Jews. The epis-
tles of Paul to the Romans, to the Corinthians and to the
Galatians are evidently written to Jewish people dwelling
in these different countries. His references to the Law
and to the heroes of Israelitish history would not have
been intelligible to other people. One has but to look
over the epistle to the Romans, which Renan thinks is a
general epistle to all the Pauline churches, to see that the
people to w^hom he addressed himself were mainly Jews.
He constantly presupposes in his readers an acquaintance
with the Old Testament which the Romans certainly did
not have. Christianity [even yet was only a reformed
Judaism. Out of Palestine, where Paul had made his in-

142

THE JERUSALEM HIERARCHY.

•,;

lii'

!i!

•m

fluencc felt, it extended fellowsliip to the Gentile convert
without humiliating conditions ; but in Palestine the or-
iginal idea was adhered to of converting the world to the
observance of the Law as Jesus had observed it A Christ-
ian hierarchy was established at Jerusalem at the head of
which stood Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, and to
which the twelve apostles, or of such of them as were yet
living, all belonged. From its personnel and its location
this body was the authority of the church ; and to stand
out against its dictum was a very bold thing for Paul to
do. He could preach his liberalism unmolested in the
cities of Greece and Asia-Minor, but to do it in Jerusalem
might be all his life was worth. There Christian and Jew
alike would be outraged by his disregard of the ceremo-
nial law. For thirty years Paul stood in this trying posi-
tion, representing the advanced sentiment of the brother-
hood of all men without respect of nationality, and urging
upon his fellows that the time had now come to bring
into a new and spiritual Israel the lovers of righteousness
the world over.

In the first generation of Christians Paul is the man of
action and of progress. Since the original apostles are
bound to the old forms, he makes himself an apostle,* as
distinguished from them, an apostle to the Gentiles. This
assumption of apostolic functions intensified the enmity
with which he was regarded at Jerusalem. It was held
unpardonable that a man who had never seen Jesus, and

* " Paul an apostle— not of men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God
the Father."— Gal i. 1.

OfJJFX'TIONS TO PAUL.

143

who appeared to know very little indeed about Jesus
should assume to speak with authority in the church.
The division over a question of policy concerning foreign
converts became further embittered by personal enmities,
the Judean party under the lead of Peter and James
seeking to crush out Paul as a wolf in sheep's clothing,
an evil one who while men slept had sown tares in the
wheat-field.* But Paul was not a man to be crushed by
any such means as these conservative brethren could
bring against him. Though in vocal speech not a match
for some of them, he was better educated, and in writing
excelled them all. Knowing well where his strength lay,
he wrote long letters to the churches, in which he dis-
cussed the questions at issue, and defended himself from
the assaults of his opponents. Thus it was to a rupture
in the church that the production of the first of the
Christian Scriptures was due. Like so much that has
followed them they were controversial writings.

At the same time this contention, at least as far as Paul'
was concerned, had to be in a measure smothered. It
would not do for him distinctly and by name to denounce-
the elder apostles. They were the recognised heads of"
the Church, and an open breach with them would have
been fatal to his scheme of universal faith. He stood
alone against the Twelve, and at the disadvantage of not
having been regularly raised to the Apostolate, the cham-

* The reference in Matthew vii. 15-20 to " false prophets who appear in
sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves," seems to have been put
into the mouth of Jesus to bear upon Paul, as does also the parable of the
tares.— Matthew xiii. 24-30.

CHRISTIAN ITY AT FIRST.

pion of a tlaring innovation, and however he was troubled
by his conservative brethren, he must keep his indigna-
tion somewhat under cover. Though he does not much
mince matters, we cannot but feel as we read that he is
curbing his wrath and does not say a tenth part of what
he might say.

From the attitude of the Christians in Judea, many of
whom had been converted by the preaching r ' Tesus, and
from the attitude of the apostles who had rec 1 his ex-
plicit instructions, it is very evident that he did not con-
template any such departure from Jewish customs as Paul
proposed. It is but fair to suppose that in this matter
his most trusted disciples understood and followed his
directions. If he directed them to preach the gospel out-
side of Jewish circles, it was no doubt with the under
standing that their converts should obey the Jewish
ritual. The fact that this was the view of all, so far as
we know, who had been among the immediate followers
of Jesus,* leaves no room for any other conclusion. And
this is as we would naturally suppose it would be. The
advance from Judaism to Christianity was not the work
of one man or of one generation. We have seen how it
was going on for two hundred years before Christ. The
teaching of Jesus was only one step, — a very considerable
step, and taken at a juncture which made it the marked
point in this movement of thought — but the work was by
no means completed by him. If, as appears probable, he

* This is on the supposition, to be substantiated further on, that Peter did
not make the speeches attributed to him in The Attg,

A FORM OF JUDAISM.

145

ublcd

ligna-

mucli

he is

what

counted upon the conversion of mankind not only to Jew-
ish ideas but to Jewish customs, he counted upon what
was soon seen to be an impossibility. To make even his
presentation of Israel's religion feasible for publication to
mankind, it must be further modified by cutting it en-
tirely clear of the okl ceremonial.

Let us bear in mind that wo are still dealing with
Christianity in its incipient condition, whilst it was yet
wholly in the hands of the Jews. Jesus had preached a
reform in which there had been great emphasis of inward
purity and holiness, with a very light estimate of the
outward forms of piety. Still he did, in an unostentatious
fashion, observe these forms, and directed his disciples to
do so. There was little therefore about his preaching
which need make it more objectionable to a Jew than the
preaching of Jeremiah. Very many did accept his words
and remained Jews as before. In fact Christianity, till
Paid's preaching, was simply and solely a Jewish sf.ct.
To make it more than that and not break with its Jewish
members was the next great jwoblem. But for Paul this
problem might not have been met at all, and Christianity
might have been restricted to this day within the limits
of Judaism. As it was the proposal to deliver this religion
from its Jewish trammels drove the Church into perilous
straits, and in the tempest of controversy which ensued
the craft was well nigh split in twain. The final result
was a triumph for Paul and a vindication of his wisdom,
but a footing was secured for the Churcli in the Gentile
world at the cost of thg almost complete alienation of thQ

14C

THF GENUINE EPISTLES.

Jews in Palestine. The entire destruction of the Jewish
state in the year 70 madethis attitude of the Palestinian
Jews of less consequence to the prospects of Christianity
than it otherwise might have been.

Of the epistles remaining which are attributed to Paul
only four — Romans, the two Corinthians and Galatians
— are undoubtedly his. But these are considerable doci-
ment, and, as we shall see, are almost the only portions of
the New Testament of which we can name the writer with
any certainty. We know from his own statement that
Paul did write another epistle to the Corinthians before
that which we call his First Epistle.* But that has been
lost, notwithstanding the claim so loudly and so flippantly
made that the works of the Bible -writers have been pre-
served by special providence. Probably many other of his
letters have been lost. Of the ten remaining epistles attri-
buted to him, he may possibly have written some, but thej
are mostly reckoned of very doubtful authenticity by the
ablest critics. The four unquestionably genuine epistles
afford the surest groundwork for the study of the New
Testament, and no conjectures as to affairs in apostolic
times can stand for a moment against the plain indications
of these epistles. There are apologists who, following the
book of The Acts, would have us think that the Apostles
got on together in the most perfect harmony ; that if Paul
did withstand Peter to his face on one occasion, they
quickly came to agreement, and were ever afterwards the
most lovingr of brothers. But Paul's epistles do not allow us

♦ See 1 Cor. v. 9.

WANT OF HARMONY IN THE CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD. 147

to come to any such mealy-mouthed conclusions. On the
contrary they compel us to believe that there was intense
hostility between the writer and the Jerusalem apostles,
from the time he began to release his Gentile converts
from submission to the Jewish ritual. This division is
clearly shown in the epistle to the Galatians. Paul had
founded the Galatian church in the year 52, had visited it
again in 55, and now after two or three years he writes
this letter. In the meantime emissaries from the Jeru-
salem church have been among the Galatians, sowing dis-
sensions and alienating their affection from Paul : insisting
that the Gentile converts must be circumcised. To this
Paul says : " I marvel that ye are so soon turning from
him that called you in the grace of Christ to a different
gospel ; which is not another ; only there are certain per-
sons who are troubling you, and seeking to change entirely
the gospel of Christ." Here the indignation of the writer
becomes uncontrollable, and, that he may reach up to these
apostolic meddlers without naming them, he says : " If an
angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you contrary
to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed ! "
And not content with saying this rather rough thing once,
be says it over again. He stoutly rebels at the authority
of the apostles — " false brethren," he call them — to whom
he will not be in subjection, " no, not for an hour." He
refers to the apostles again as " those who were of reputa-
tion," " who seemed to be somewhat — whatsoever they
were it makes no difference to me ;" and proceeds to de-
fend his doctrine of liberty from the bondage of the Jewish

t ■■'

-! i'l

148 WANT OF HARMONY IN THE CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLD.

ritual. But he cannot refrain from returning again and
again to pour his irony and his imprecations upon the
" apostles of the circumcision." People who can see in all
this indications of fraternal feeling among the first Christ-
tian leaders must have a strange idea of brotherly love.

At the writing of Galatians the strife was over the
question whether Gentiles must be circumcised as a con-
dition of admission into the Christian church. At the
writing: of Corinthians the discussion had advanced to
another stage. The question then was, should the Gen-
tile converts be allowed to eat meat that had been offered
to idols and afterwards offered for sale in the markets ?
A very trivial question, we should say, and so Paul also
regarded it ; but the party of Peter and James thought it
of sufficient importance to stir a fierce contention, threat-
ening the existence of the Greek churches. The tendency
of the ritualists to be forever " tithinjx mint " to the neji"
lect of the weightier matters was strikingly illustrated in
this outcry against certain meats. For at that very time,
as we see by Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the churches
there were in a shockingly low moral condition. The
great burden of the letter is complaint at this state of
things, report of which had come to his ears. But in the
midst of all this moral degradation the Judaizing party,
overlooking the churches from their seat in Jerusalem,
could bring in a purely formal question about meat ! And
we can see that it was made a delicate question, for Paul
argues it at length, hedging here and there lest he give
offence. On other matters he is bolder even where he is

FURTHER SIGNS.

149

less sagacious. True to his own practice he discourages
marriage. Time is too short. The world is coming to an
end speedily, and a family would only embarrass a man
on tliat occasion. He dispenses much sound advice, has
a curious chapter on " speaking with tongues " which he
ranks the lowest of all "gifts,"* and finally sets forth his
doctrine of the resurrection.

Second Corinthians gives us much more insight into
matters concerning Paul personally, and reveals yet more
strongly than his previous writings the conflict between
him and the Jerusalem apostles. They had, it appears,
represented him as no apostle, as an upstart, preaching
himself and not Christ. Very vigorously he asserts his
claims to be reckoned an authority in the church. He
does not wish to be considered an apostle if he is to be
classed with the others who are called apostles. " For we
do not venture to reckon ourselves with some who com-
mend themselves," who think because they are such strict
Jews they are better than other folks. These Pharisaic
Christians of Jerusalem had considered it a condescension
to have anything to do with the church at Corinth. Paul

* As the exercise of these " gifts " involves the whole claim of Paul's tes-
timony to aupernaturalism as an actual witness, there is great temptation to
spread out here the exact nature of this testimony. Want of space, how-
ever, and the purpose not to go beyond a merely popular presentation of my
subject, prevent this. For an elaborate investigation of this matter I refer
to Supernatural ReJiy ion y Vol. III. Suffice it to say here that the word ren-
dered '* miracles " in these ei)istles should be rendered " powers,'" as it else-
where is, and was used by Paul to denote spiritual, not physical operations.
As to the " speaking with tongues," that was evidently enough only an ec-
static utterance of gibberish to which religious enthusiasts have not infre-
quently shown a tendency.

1. 1:

'!. I|

150

PAULS IRONY.

contrasts himself with them : ** We do not stretoh our-
selves beyond our measure, as though we reacned not
to you ; not boasting in other men's labors ; not boast-
ing in another line of things made ready in our
hand."* At the same time he contends that in no
respect is he behind those too -apostolical* apostles, as he
derisively calls them. They have cruelly wronged him
and he feels it, but he will not let his indignation run
away with his discretion, for that would be to fall into
the snare which these " ministers of Satan " have set
for him. " I forgive," he says, " in order that Satan " —
and the reference is only too plain — " ma}'' not gain an
advantage over iis ; for we are not ignorant of his de-

vices."]. Such forgiveness is the severest kind of denun-
ciation. In fact the wounds he has received are so deep
that they will not heal. These "false apostles," Peter
and James, these " deceitful workmen, transforming them-
selves into apostles of Christ,"§ what have they done to
him ? They have sent their emissaries into his own
churches and sought to destroy his influence; have brought
in another doctrine, annulling the liberty of the gospel.
These emissaries have made themselves a bill of expense
to people for whom Paul had labored gratuitously ; and
lie is indignant that any of his old parishioners should
have turned from him to these " ministers of Satan." He
says, reproachfully : " Ye bear with it if one brings you

* 2 Cor. X. 12, seq.

+ " Very chiefeat " in the common version. '* Overmuch apostles " is the
renderiujf of the learned author of SujJir natural Reliyion.

2 Cor. ii. 11.

§ 2 Cor. xi. 13.

HIS iNDiayA^TION.

151

ia the

into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you,
if one exalts himself, if one smites you in the face,"* and
submits that it is time for them to bear with him while
he sets forth his claims to have done more for Christ than
all his opponents put together. The great boast of Paul's
opponents was that they were Jews. He retorts : " Are
they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Israelites ? So am
I. Are they Abraham's offspring ? So am I. Are they
ministers of Chris^ " I am more.""f* And then he recounts
his long list of sufferings for the gospel. This self-asser-
tion is not in the best of taste, we must admit, and the
writer is himself ashamed of it, but he seems to have had
no other way to defend hiniself.

Of course there are other features of these epistles
which for purposes of edification it would be more profit-
able to dwell upon ; but my present purpose is to find out
something about the origin and purpose of the New Tes-
tament writings, and this very contention between the
apostles, as Baur has shown, is the key which unlocks
the chief mysteries.

The Epistle to the Romans, though placed first, was
the last to be written of the epistles which we can with
certainty attribute to Paul. He has triumphed over his
opponents in regard to the specific differences indicated
in Galatiaiis and Corinthians. Circumcision and the
eating of meats derived from pagan sacrifices are no longer
the issues. The question now has narrowed itself down
simply to this : Is a Jew any better off for being a Jew ?

* 2 Cor. xi. 20. f 2 Cor. xi. 22, 23.

152

ROMANS.

■;

11 ii

1
i

The point in dispute is changed, but Paul is contending
with the same old antagonists. The fury of his previous
onsets is spent, and indeed the issue is reduced from a
practical to a theoretical matter, and does not so directly
imperil the existence of the church. It required no great
foresight to see that however such a question was decided
at that time, the Jews could not long retain any pre-
eminence in the church, and so the apostle's fire burns
low in this discussion. Indeed his handling of this sub-
ject drops down into dry and dreary Rabbinism, in which
premise and conclusion are alike uninteresting to the
modern reader. The last chapters, however, commencing
with the famous twelfth, raise the intrinsic value of the
epistle to the first order.

Of the other ten epistles some may be his, others pretty
certainly are not his. Hebrews has always been suspected
and is now pretty generally given up. The three pas-
torals to Timothy and Titus are under almost as strong
an impeachment. The other six may or may not be gen-
uine. In either case they add little to our knowledge of
Paul and his relations to the other apostles. The books
falsely ascribed to him are still of a high order, and not
less valuable for religious instruction because written by
some other hand. We shall find in the New Testament,
as we found in the Old, a great deal of excellent writing
under an assumed and already famous name.

Paul's epistles were the first written books of the New
Testament, and they are therefore the first to which it
needs to pass in tracing the gradual development of cer-

tnding

TttE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITER.

153

tain lines oi thought. His doctrinal basis differs from
that of the preceding apocryphal books chiefly in the
assumption that the advent of the Messiah lias already
taken place. But beyond the bare facts that Christ came,
was crucified and rose again, Paul indicates very little
knowledge of him. He makes extensive use of the name
of Christ, but in his usage the name scarcely suggests a
person. It is a vague term having only an ideal sense, as
pure an abstraction as is " the Son of Man " in F iniel or
Enoch, The real Jesus, the man of flesh and l<iood, does
not figure in these epistles at all. No reference is made
to anything that Jesus ever did or said, except in one
instance ;* which is certainly remarkable, however we
explain it. Unquestionably he could have made effective
use of some of the acts and utterances of Jesus in carry-
ing out the scheme of a universal religion. Of special use
to him would have been the ethical precepts with which
the Master's discourses were so richly furnished. And
yet, for all that Paul says to the contrary, we might infer
that he never heard of these things. But that could
hardly be. What then does he mean by his silence touch-
ing the real life of the Master ? We are forced to conclude
that the personal Messiah was a matter of little conse-
quence to him as he looked back ; just as to the writer of
the book of Enoch a personal Messiah in anticipation had
been quite an unimportant feature in the tremendous
scenery about to be unrolled. The Christ he had in his
own mind, a purely ideal creation, was everything to

* 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25.

■i

'■m

154

THE CHtllST IDEA.

Paul ; the actual man who grew up from the cradle, toiled
for his daily bread, became a reforming Rabbi, journeyed
wearily over the hills and by the lakes of Galilee telling
men how they ought to feel and act toward one another,
— this actual man had no part in his religious system.
The Jews abroad who were without personal knowledge
of Jesus got no knowledge of him from these letters of
Paul. They might imagine a being who had come and
gone, answering to their expectations ; but this was of
secondary importance. The Messianic condition of the
world was the great thing overshadowing all other hopes,
the reign of righteousness, in which the spiritual classes
had come to see the true Messiah.* Jesus, therefore,
under Paul's teaching passed rapidly into a metaphysical
entity which was the first step towards his deification.
In the next generation he is called a god ; then God ; then
Very God.

Another feature which served to connect these earliest
Christian writings with the preceding Jewish literature
was the pronounced expectation that the end of the world

* There is some difficulty in making ordinary Christians see that Paul
knew only a spiritual Jesus, for the simple reason that they sx?iritualize him
themselves. About the only things that people commonly think of Jesus
having done in the world are these three, in each of which he is only the
l>assive subject : He was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
raised from the dead. For the rest (and for two of these three points, as
many will say,) he is a being built up of pious imaginings; as unrelated to
this actual world as " Gabriel" or anj' of the heavenly host. But really if
Paul in strictness means a person when he says " Christ," what significance
can be attached to the constantly recurring phrases, " to be in Christ,"
" Christ in us," etc. ? That there is a beautiful sense in these expressions I
am aware, but it is only to be reached by advancing beyond the human and
realistic ideas of Jesus.

ii|l

Paul's antecedents.

155

[toiled

leyed
lellinof

)ther,

I'stem.

'■ledofe

was at hand. The apocalyptic books had associated the
coining of the " Son of Man " with the final collapse of the
material universe, and with this theory Paul is in full ac-
cord, with this simple difference, that the " great and ter-
rible day " is to be the second appearance of Christ. That
day is at hand, — just as was stated in the book of Enoch,
— would come within the life-time of some to whom he
wrote. His doctrine of the resurrection and the general
judgment corresponds also with the theories current in
the Jewish literature of the time. In short, he was a
Jew, as he himself says, nurtured in the ancient faith, his
mind strongly drawn to the later works of his country-
men. He knew no Christian books. He was the first
maker of a Christian book. But he had studied the Jewish
authors from the oldest of the prophets to the newest of
the apocrypha. He shows an especial familiarity with
Jesus ben Sirach* and uses his words ten times where he
quotes Jesus of Nazareth once. And his reading was not
confined to Jewish books. If we may credit the writer
of The Acts, he could aptly quote the Greek poets in
preaching to Athenians. He was a measurably cultured
as well as a vigorous man. Never w^ere letters more na-
tural and human than his. What should ever have led
anybody to suppose them supernatural is a question that
finds no answer in an examination of the writinofs them-
selves. There is nothing in them but that a man may well
have said, except that it be here and there an excess of

* Comp. Rom. ii. 5, J. S. xxv. 18, 19 ; Rom. ix. 21, J. S. xxxiii. 13 ; 1.
Cor. X. 25, J. S. xxxi. 16 : 2 Cor. vi. 14, J. S. xiii. 1 ; Gal. vi. 7, J. S. xvi. 12.

15G

NATURALNESS OF THE EPISTLES.

'1 '

rancor or of solf-assurance. But these are human, cer-
tiiinly you could not call them divine. A satisfactory
feature about Paul's epistles, and one of the marks of their
genuineness, is, that he does not, in giving us accounts of
his own experiences, interlard them with stories of mira-
cle. In the book of Acts, which is mostly a fabrication,
Paul works miracles like any wizard ;* but in the epis-
tles there is no breach of the order of nature. He struof-
gles with the necessities and pains of existence, just as
we all must, and depends upon argument to convince
his hearers, never once callinfj in a stroke of magic. And
this illustrates again the ftict to which I have repeatedly
called attention, that where a truthful man, in the Bible
as elsewhere, relates what has gone on under his own ob-
servation, nothing supernatural occurs. Not that Paul
disbelieves in miracles — and this makes the case still
stronger, — he believes in them thoroughly; makes much,
for instance, of the resurrection of Jesus ; but the honest
soul never pretends to have witnessed a miracle.*!" If our

* Acts xiii. 2; xiv. 10, 20; xvi. 18, 2G ; xviii. 9; xix. 11, 12 ; XX. 10;
xxiii. 11 ; xxvii. 23 ; xxviii. 5, 8, 9.

t That is to say, anything which we should call a miracle. No doubt he
regarded the " speaking with tongues " and the visions he had of Jesus and
the " third heaven " miraculous. A ci'itic of this lecture has cited the claim
to have seen the risen Christ (1 Cor. xv. 8) in answer to the above statement.
It may be sufficient to say, in all deference to orthodox opinion, that when
we are meeting every day people, perfectly honest, as far as we can judge,
who declare that they have seen and are seeing all the while "risen spirits,"
it is idle to pretend that anything supernatural is involved in such an expe-
rience. Paul believed his vision as objective and real, as the people just re-
ferred to believe theirs to be. If we allow his claim we must allow theirs, as
the two are precisely similar, and explain both by what is called the " spirit-
ual philosophy." But it is open to us to say that these visions are all subjec-
tive appearances, having no existence except in the mind of the "seer." In
either case there is no miracle.

NATURALNESS OF Tilli iil'iSTLES.

157

investigation shall show that in the New Testament, as in
the Old supernatural occurrences arc only narrated from
hearsay, a great stumUing-block in the way of Bible
readers will be removed, and they will be helped to a bet-
ter understanding and appreciation of the book.

'Ill

t i

^l\

iii*

, .

SEVENTH LECTURE.

OTHER BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,

WK have seen something of the contention between
Paul and the elder apostles from Paul's point of
view. It wouhl be of exceeding interest if we could tarn
to undoubted writings of Peter, or Jant's, or John, and
seo how the matter loo', jd from their side. Unfortun-
ately, however, we have no "vvork of any one of these
apostles so well attested as are the four leading epistles
of Paul. The only work we have which professes to give
an account of the opening of the gospel to the Gentile
world untrammelled by the Jewish ceremonial, is the AcU
of the Apostles, an anonymous work of uncertain date,
which for various reasons cannot be taVien as a trust-
worthy record. One of the.se reasons and or. 3 which
under the circumstances might be reckoned conclusive, is
that the unknown author absolutely contradicts the plain
statements of the Apostle Paul. Paul tells us that the
admission of Gentiles into the Church without circum-
cision was strenuously opposed by the other apostles ; this
unknown author represents on the contrary that they
were the first to propose this liberal innovation. Paul
specifies among his opponents particularly Peter and
James, and recounts an unpleasantness which was deve-

DISAGREEMENT OF THE ACTS WITH THE EPISTLES. 150

'•NT.

twcen
oint of
Id tLiin
n, and
■ortun-
licse
epistles
to give
Grentile
iie Acts
1 date,
triist-
which
iive, is
3 plain
at the
ircum-
5; this
they
Paul
' and
deve-

loped at Antioch where Peter had really been induced to
so far lay aside his Judaism as to eat with Gentiles ; but
when " certain persons came from James" with other ad-
vice, he went back into the most inveterate exclusiveness,
carrying with him the other Christian Jews of the place,
so that Paul thought it necessary to upbraid him " before
thein all" in the words: "If thou, being a Jew, livest af-
ter the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why
compollest thou the Gentiles to live like the Jews ?"*
The unknown author of The Acts has it that long before,
Peter had had a revelation from on high making it clear
that Gentiles were as good as Jews, and that no race of
God's creatures are to be called unclean ;•(* and he is made
to declare this doctrine openly in words perfectly suited
to the mouth of Paul, but which, after reading the epistle
to the Galatians, we find it impossible to think could have
come from any of the elder apostles : " Then Peter opened
his mouth and said : ' Of a truth I perceive that God is
no respecter of persons ; but in every nation he that
feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to
him.' "J Everything is reversed and Peter is made the
Apostle to the Gentiles, preaching to them with great
effect at Csesarea while yet Paul is laboring among the
Jews. It is Peter and not Paul who first has the contention
with the party of the circumcision and goes up to Jeru-
salem to explain matters, but with so much happier result
that, aftertalking perhaps three minutes, he satisfies James
and the rest, who with one accord graciously say ; " Then
♦ Gal. iL t Chap. x. 9-16. JActa x. 34, 35.

160

A THEOLOGICAL

11 :

hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto
life."* All this time Paul shows no disposition to preach
to the Gentiles and does not f^o about this work till he is
sent by the others.-h Now all this sounds very strange
after reading Paul's account of himself, given incidentally
and with every mark of truth, in his epistles. But we
are not yet at the end of these strange contradictions,
nor shall we be able to go to the end of them. Passing
over much else we come to the report of Paul's visit to
Jerusalem to consult about his work among the Gentiles.
The necessity of this consultation arose from the fact
that the Greek churches were continually molested by
Christians from Judea who insisted that the converts
were bound to observe the Jewish ceremonial. Paul's
account of the meeting represents it, to say the least, as
decidedly inharmonious. He gives us to understand that
lie stood alcne in defence of his doctrine that the Gentile
Christian owed no service to the Jewish ritual, and shows
plainly that he only came ofi' with a reluctant admission
from Peter, James and John, " who seemed to be pillars"
that he " should go to the heathen" and they to the Jews.
Peter he especially designates as being by common con-
sent the AposUe of the Circumcision ; { the one next to
James most bitterly opposed to any concession to the

*xi. 18. +xiii. 3.

t This expression is used without offensive implications, as Paul elsewhere
speaks of Christ as a " minister of the Circumcision," showing that he was
not blind to the f^ct that the other apostles had the example of the Master
on their side. He did not look for authority to the man Jesus, but to the
risen and glorified Christ from whom he believed he had a " revelation."

ROMANCE.

161

Gentiles.* When now we turn to the unknown narrator
of the event"!- we find that the " certain men" who had
been troubling Paul were not, as he represents, emissaries
from the Jerusalem church, but irresponsible persons
who had no countenance from the apostles. Instead of
finding the pillars of the church, as he indicates, strongly
set against his movement, and refusing to have anything
to do with it, only " certain of the sect of Pharisees" of-
fered objection, and Peter rose up and assumed the whole
responsibility, declaring that " God made choice among
us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe." Not only does Peter, who had
given Paul such trouble at Antioch, claim to be himself
the Apostle to the Gentiles, even James, who had sent
his tools there to instigate that trouble, even James, the
most bigoted Jew of them all, is made to give a hearty
assent to the plan of releasing the Gentile Christians
from observance of the Jewish ritual !

Thus it becomes apparent on the slightest candid ex-
amination of the case that if Paul tells the truth this un-
known writer does not tell the truth. From what we
know of Paul we unhesitatingly accept his statement as
against the writer's, of whom we know nothing, not even
his name. Tradition has it that the book was written by
Luke, who also wrote the Third Gospel. But there is
not the slightest evidence that this was the writer's
name; even if that could be shown we should know no
more of him. The object of the book, however, is suHi-
* S«;e (jial, ii. f Acts xv.

.ill

i ' i.'

£ ; !:

102

INCREDIBLE

H
It

ciently clear. The writer has Pauline views for which he
proposes to sacrifice Paul. The date of the writing, though
not to be exactly fixed, was subsequent to the death of
the great Apostle. Paul's idea of Christianity has tri-
umphed, the issue which had so disturbed the Church in
the first century was past, and it was desirable now to do
something to save the reputation of the elder apostles and
at the same time preserve to the Church a direct connec-
tion through them v/ith its Founder. Accordingly some
one who had more regard for the fame of the original
apostles than he had for truth, wrote this book, in which
no one of the characters is recognisable as we know him
elsewhere. Paul figures while in the presence of the
Twelve as a mere milk-sop, showing none of that kingly
will which " would not be in subjection, no, not for an
hour." Peter is ten times more like Paul than he is like
himself, and James has lost all his Jewish exclusiveness.

Among other reasons for not accepting this book as
authentic history I have space to mention only one. In
any book of profane history the profuse introduction of
stories of miracle is held to invalidate its claim to be a
truthful record. There is no reason why this should not
apply to the sacred writings. Believers in miracles can-
not pretend that power to work these wonders was ex-
clusively in the hands of the sacred writers or of their
nation. The Egyptians could play at the same game
with Moses in turning rodt* into snakes, and the Jews al_
ways conceded that the working of miracles was a gift
which the heathen possessed to some extent in common

STORIES.

163

wijh themselves. A miraculous story, therefore, in the
most favorable view, is entitled to only the same consi-
deration in a Jewish book that it has in a Greek or a
Persian book. In one place as in the other, it is antece-
dently incredible ; and though in view of the prevailing
belief of the ancients in the possibility of miracles occa-
sional statements of such alleged occurrences, made, as
Herodotus for instance makes them, with diffidence, may
not discredit a writer's general work, if he enters exten-
sively and positively into such statements, as do the
writers of the apocryphal gospels and the Lives of the
Saints, he forfeits nil title to our confidence as a narrator.
Now there is no book of the New Testament where such
free use is made of the supernatural as in the Acts of the
Apostles. This strange work begins with the appearance
of the risen Christ on Mount Olivet, where he issues
commands to the disciples and whence he ascends to
heaven in a cloud.* Angels then appear and talk with
them."|* Next they have a great meeting where the
apostles and others talk in all manner of languages^
which they have never learned. Many other signs and
wonders are said to follow. Afterward Peter with a
word sets a man on his legs who had been a helpless
cripple from his birth.§ Peter rebukes a man and his
wife for some fault, wliereat they both fall down dead.||
Miracles come on too thick to be recorded and it is
roughly said, " many signs and wonders were wrought

t". 1-13,

I 1

* i. 1-8.
§ iii. 0.

ti.9,
V. 1-11,

164

NOT HISTORICAL.

among the people."* The apostles are put in prison, but
it is of no use, for an angel opens the door and lets them
out.f An angel sends Philip to baptize a eunuch.| Saul
meets with a whole bevy of supernatural appearances on
the road to Damascus.§ A disciple named Ananias holds
a conversation with the Lord whose spoken words are
given. II Peter, who is the head figure in this work,
comes forward again, and heals a man of palsy by a word
of his mouth.^ Not content with recording this stretch
of powei', the writer gives a detailed statement of Peter's
raising a good woman to life after she had been some
time dead and was prepared for burial.** Peter and Cor-
nelius have a joint experience with angels and visions.-j-f*
Again wlien Peter is cast into prison an angel consider-
ately lets him out. JJ An angel smites Herod on his
throne and kilJs him. §§ Paul by a word smites a sor-
cerer with blindness. ||ii In order that Paul may not ap-
pear too much behind Peter he is made to heal a cripplell^F
and to cast a demon out of a damsel.*** For Paul, too,
when thrown into prison, the doors are miraculously
opened.-f~|-f He is also credited with working nrany "spe-
cial miracles," and the strangely apocryphal statement is
made that handkerchiefs and aprons sent from him
wrought wondeifully in the cure of diseases and the
casting out of devils.JJJ Disclosing again his desire that
Paul shall be even with Peter, the writer tells the story of
a young man who went to sleep while the apostle was

* V. 12.

■. ix. :ii.

Ill xiii. 11.

t V. v.).
** ix. 4li-42.

.1 II At V, I ,

:rvii. '2r,. §ix. 1-9. i;ix.lO-lG.

ttx.MO. :;:;xn. 7. §§ xii. 20.

■^^* xyi. }('), tM- xxi. 25, Xti xix. 12,

FURTHER CONTRADICTIONS.

1G5

prcaclnng and fell headlong out of an upper window,
bruising himself to death ; whereupon Paul raises him to
life.* And so the narrative goes on to the end. The
mere fact that the book contains such an astounding
series of miraculous incidents is enough to set it outside
the domain of actual history. Even those who do not
find stories of miracle incredible must, we should suppose,
find it impossible to think that Paul had a hand in such
tremendous marvels, since he nowhere gives us in his
own writinors the sliojhtest intimation of these thinofs.
Moreover it is perfectly evident, even on a cursory exami-
nation, that this book was written to maZ;e history, not
to record it. It has been called a theological romance,
and certainly as such it has had a very great success ; a
success in fact entirely disproportionate to its merits.
Though the writer had some skill, he had small resources.
Only a few charactei's figure conspicuously, but even
these have no characteristics. They all make the same
speech, beginning: "Men and brethren," or " Ye men of
Athens." Even an anijel who is brouorht on the stao^e
for a little speech, sets out with the same formula : " Ye
men of Galilee." The writer thinks it not enough to
make Peter out the Apostle of the Gentiles, he must give
Paul a strong Jewish coloring, representing him as con-
sorting after his conversion only with Jewish Christians
and " straightway" preaching to the Jews at Damascus.-|*
After awhile the unconvert(id become incensed against
him and would have taken his life but that his friends
* XX. 10. t Acts ix. 19, 20.

■.ff

1 1 ^

1 1 'J

. i

' 'A

•i':i

if.v

1 "

* 'I

'^i"

lOG

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.

let him down over the walls by night in a basket, where-
uj)on he escaped to Jerusalem. Paul, on the contrary, dis-
tinctly says that when it pleased God to reveal to him the
truth of the gospel — he tells no story of a miraculous con-
version — " immediately " he conferred not with flesh and
blood but went down into Arabia. When afterward he
returned to Damascus he says nothing of having preached
to the Jews there, but says distinctly that he was ordain-
ed from on high to preach Christ to the heathen, and
" was unknown by face to the churches in Judea."*
Could he have passed ovei* the persecution of Damascus
and the basket e[)isode, and given us such a different no-
tion of his going to Jerusalem if these things had been
real ? He simply says that after spending three years in
Arabia and Damascus, presumably in retirement and re-
flection, he went up to see the leading Apostles.

The author of The Acts sets himself to the t'lsk of
abolishinor the differences between Paul and Peter, and he
does it in ever)'- sense of the word. He makes them the
best of friends and as like as two peas. Whatever feat
Peter performs, Paul goes through the same. Such a me-
chanical panorama of events poorly comports with the in-
finite variety of actual life, and betrays not only the ro-
mancer, but the poverty of his invention. I say unhesi-
tatingly, with Paul's faithful record befoi'e us, we must
set aside the book of Acts as an attempt to rob him of
his glory for the sake of securing to Gentile Christianity,
through an utterly false representation, the authority of

* Gal. i. 15, seq.

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.

167

the elder apostles and especially the paternity of Peter.
I have said that it would be very gratifying if we had
an undoubted writing of one of the three " pillar " apos-
tles with whom Paul had his contention. To be sure we
have several epistles bearing their names, but there are
strong reasons for thinking that not one of them is genu-
ine. The Epistle of James, though judaistic,* is not suffi-
ciently so to have come from that apostle. The most
that can be said is that it was by some one who leaned
toward James. It can only be taken therefore as par-
tially reflecting the judgment of James in its references
to the doctrines of Paul. It attacks somewhat vehemently
the theory of " salvation by faith " and extols " works,"
so that taking those words in their modern sense it sounds
well. But it soon becomes apparent to the careful reader
that by " works," the writer means observance of the
Jewish ceremonial among other things. The flaw that he
sees in salvation by faith is that fidelity to the old ritual
is left out. However this is by no means what Luther
called it, " an ep stle of straw." The writer, whoever he
was, had a strong gift of common-sense and shows famili-
arity with the late as the early Jewish literature. He
sets himself distinctly in antagonism with the Apostle
to the Gentiles, against whom he exclaims : " O, vain
man, wilt thou know that faith without works is dead ?"
and clearly indicates that he has read with decided dis-
approval the epistle to the Romans. Like Paul he knows
Jesus ben Sirach thoroughly and makes free use of his

* It is addressed only to " the twelve tribes."

I' I

168

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES.

'4' !■

ill

words.* The book was written most likely shortly be-
fore the siege and destruction of Jerusalem,

Next in the New Testament order comes the First
Epistle of Peter, of which we can very positively say it
never was written by any other Peter than that imagin-
ary one of whom we read in the Acts ; the Peter who is
drawn after Paul. It may not unlikely be a better
epistle than the real Peter would have written, though
we should heartily welcome a word from him to see what
he had to say for his conduct at Antioch and for his doc-
trine of a Christian Judaism. That the elder apostles
had something vigorous to say for that doctrine, which
we should be sure to get in any genuine writing of theirs
may, I think, be considered certain. But there is noth-
ing of it in this epistle, which may therefore be set down
as written by some one who did not even reflect the opin-
ions of that apostle. Its date is uncertain ; probably it
was written toward the close of the first or early in the
second century.

The Second JSpistle of Peter, is one of the few canoni-
cal books that have always been under a cloud. Many
conservative critics freely admit that it could not have
been written until the latter half of the second century —
more than a hundred years after Peter was dead. A few
of the indications which lead to this judgment may be
briefly stated. No writer of an earlier date mentions the
book or refers to it. When first mentionedf it is not as-

* Comp. Jam. i. 5, J. S. vi. 37 ; Jam. i. 19, J. S. v. ii ; Jam. i. 27, J. S. iv.
10 ; Jam. iii. 5, J. S. xxviii. ii S. ; Jam. iii. 9, J. S. v. 13 ; Jam. v. 16, J.
S XXXV. 16, 17. t By Clement Alexandrinus.

JUDE.

109

ciibod to Peter. According to Jerome it was generally
resfarded unauthentic as late as the end of the fourth cen-
tury. Moreover the book betrays itself. It copies Jude,
who wrote after Peter's death. It makes Peter call Paul
"our beloved brother," which for those primitive times
would have been an extraordinary stretch of suavity af-
ter Galatiaois and Second Corinthians. But that he
should have called these very epistles, or any other writ-
ings of Paul, " Scriptures," as he is there made to do, is of
course impossible. No Christian writings were reckoned
Scriptures at that early day. The writer also shows
that in his time it had become a grave question why the
second coming of Christ was delayed,* which is positive
proof that he wrote long after the apostolic age.

Three brief writings are called the First, Second and
Third Epistles of John. These, however, make no pre-
tence of being the work of an apostle. The last two ac-
tually exclude such a supposition by the statement that
they are from an " elder " or presbyter. Many critics
find indications that these epistles and the Fourth Gospel
are by the same hand ; and as that work is now believed
to date from the second century, they have cast about
among the presbyters of that time to find, if possible, one
who from what is known of him might have produced
these writings. As a result Renan and others have fixed
upon a notable man known as the Presbyter John
whom they regard as the probable author of the Gospel
and the three Epistles. If they are right there is no mis-
* Chap. iii. 4.

n- I

170

REVELATION.

application of the name of Jol n, but only a niisappieliun-
sion as to what John ; the Church tendency being, of
course, to carry the credit back to the apostle.

Our desire, therefore, for an undoubted epistle of one
of the three pillar apostles must go unsatisfied. Jude or
Judas, whose name is attached to a very brief epistle, is
not easily identified. Tt appears from verse 17 that he
was not an aposMe. ile calls himself " the brother of
James." If, ps seems likely, the James he means was
the Bishop of Jerusalem, then Judo must havo been also
a brotherof Jesus. The authenticity of the writing has been
much questioned, partly because there is so little of it, while
there is so much that a brother of Jesus might have told
us ; partly because the writer quotes the book of Enoch
as a veritable utterance of the antediluvian, that being
thought an unhappy concession for an inspired writer to
make to an apocryphal book. Neither of these points
seem to me to count any thing against the authenticity of
the epistle ; but I find much difficulty in supposing that
a brother of Jesus would refer to him as thr Lord Jesus
Christ, and couple his name with that of the Lord God
in the manner of this epistle. The intimacy of the family
relation, especially the familiar intercourse of brothers,
hardly permits the growth of this mystic conception. In-
deed it is matter of record in the gospels that Jesus' bro-
thers gave him only too little consideration while he lived.
James, it is true, came to the front after the crucifixion,
but then a position of influence opened to him, and to in-
ducements of that sort he was evidently susceptible. Of

A GREAT ENIGMA.

171

■el It'll-
ng, of

1 goes

JuJe wc know alniOHt nothing. The epistle whi
under his name, the substance of which may be his, is
strongly Jewish, and was put forth to combat certain cor-
ruptions in doctrine and practice which had crept into
the Church. The teaching of Paul is referred to as tlu;
*' error of Balaam," and woes are pronounced upon those
who accept it.

There remains for us to consider in this lecture the
book of Ret'elatlon, or, as it is otherwise called, the Chris-
tian J poca^^psr. There is in the judgment of able critics
a strong probability that this book is, and it prof<'sses to
bo, the work of the Apostle John. One thing, however,
is certain, whoever wrote it never wrote any other book
of the New Testament. The style of the writer is un-
mistakable, and we find it nowhere else. If this is the
apostle some other author must be found f r the gospel
and epistles that go under the name of John. The book
is an attempt to produce, in the fashion of Dan lei and
Enoch, a prophecy which should, in strange aad puzzling-
symbols, Kt once reveal and hide the facts concerning the
speedy coming of Christ the second time, and the conse-
quent end of the world. The writer's diction fitted him
wonderfully for his task, and wherever we can under-
stand him we find him a real " son of thunder." But for
the most part he has so securely hidden away his thought
that nobody has been able to find out what it is. The
writing was done, as was the book of Daniel, in a time of
intense political excitement. Judea was in full rebellion
and Rome was gathering her legions about ill-fated Jeru-

(I I
,(

i'!

Ml
■ "I

172

ANTI-PAT'LINK

VI !

'I
11

■ - U I

sjilcin. John from tho i.'^le of Patmos, lookino- out upon
the <;loomy prospect, poured forth in enigmatic but truly
])rophetic tone liis weird vision of the future. Whatever
it was tliat he supposed to be coming to pass under his
figures of beasts and angels, trumpets and seals, this nmeh
is cei-tuin, it was to come qidcldy* Through a series of
teriific calamities Israel was to be brought off triumpliant
at last. The Lord himself would come and overwhelm
the enemies of his nation and his Church in everlastincr
fire. For, we observe, this writer sticks to his Jewish ex-
clusiveness. Only one hundred and forty-four thousand
are " sealed " from the impending destruction, and tliese
are all Jews, twelve thousand out of each tribe. The
uncircumcised are in his thouofht unclean and detestable.
In short this is a book which, whether by an a})ostle or
not, fairly represents the spirit of that part of the primi-
tive Church which was dominated by the Twelve. If
it is the work of John, we have here one of the very
books we so much desire to see as throwing some light
upon the great controversy from the conservative or
judaistic point of view. What has John, writing ten
years after the publication of Paul's great epistles, to say
of him and his revolutionary movement ?

Preliminary to his visions he addresses a few words to
each of the seven churches of Asia-Minor, writing as a
Jew to Jews. Commencing with the Church of Ephesus,
he makes a thrust at Paul in the very first sentence : " I
know thy works and thy labor and thy patience, and

* xxii. 20.

NARROWNESS OF JOHN.

173

very

how thou canst not i)ear them which are evil, and how
thou hast tried them who say thrij rrrr (ipm^fles and are
not and hast found them liars."* In what he Ims to say
to another church we find him referring to Paul's views
as the " doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a
stumbling-block bc^foro the children of Israel, to eat thinrjs
sacrificed to idols." f Again he s}iys : '• I know the blas-
phemy of them who say they are Jews and are not, but
are of the synagogue of Satan."J Thus it was even dis-
puted that Paul was a Jew. We have seen how he felt
called upon vehemently to assert the fact of his Jewish
parentage,§ and we have it from Epiphanius that a sect
of Jewish Christians, known as Ebionites, positively as-
serted that Paul was born a Gentile but became a prose-
lyte to Judaism with a view to secure a daughter of the
high-priest in marriage ; that when the priest refused his
consent to this arrangement, Paul at once sickened of Ju-
daism and began his attacks upon circumcision, the Sab-
bath and the Law. Malicious stories like this could not
have circulated about the gi-eat apostle but that there
was a party in the Church which bore him a bitter en-
mity. Whether or not the writer of Revelation means
Paul when he speaks again of " them of the synagogue
of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but do lie,"||
he shows his own narrowness and bigotry and the immense
importance he sets upon being a Jew. Such a man
would of course have withstood every effort to carry the

» ii. 2. t ii. H. Comp. 1 Cor. viii. 4, 8 ; x. 25-27.

gp. 154. Iliii. 9,

Ijii. 9.

174

HIS FEELING

gospel to the Gentiles. This corresponds precisely with
the idea we get of John from Paul's references to him,
and is therefore one of the capital indications of the
authenticity of the book. It is quite in accordance with
what we should expect from earnest men, engaged in a
supremely important cause, that where radical differences
arise deep feeling should be stirred. Nor does it happen
in such cases that the feeling is only on one side. Noth-
ing but the feebleness of your £,niagonist or the impo-
tence of his case, keeps you from being aroused when he
is aioused. If he, repressing his wrath as best he can,
sti!) breaks out in invective, some forceful utterance will
spring to your lips if there is any strength of manhood
about you. Paul refers to some " overmuch apostles,"
not by name, to be sure, but by unmistakable implication,
as " false brethren," and to their messengers and repre-
sentatives, if not to themselves, as " ministers of Satan."
But in the use of rough words and deprecatory allusions
the Rcvelator is not behind. We have observed his re-
peated reference to Paul's fellowship as the " synagogue
of Satan." " Satan," indeed, became the word with which
to point a jibe at this man " who claimed to be p.n apostle
and was not." Occasionally he is Balaam, the heathen
prophet. Once he is pointed at as " that woman Jezebel,
who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce
my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacri-
Jiced to idols.''* Terrible vengeance is denounced upon

* ii. 20. The true rendering is "thy wife .Jezebel," which addressed to a
church is of course figurative. Fornicatioii and its equivalents in this con-
nection appear to be used ii;<uratively, to indicate the uncleanness whicli a
Jew taites from mixing with Gentiles on terms of equality.

II'

TOWARD PAUL.

I/O

all who follow this teacher. Jn this connection, and to
make his allusion unmistakable, John recalls and paro-
dies an expression of Paul. In one of his very finest pas-
sages the latter had spoken of the mysteries which had
been disclosed to hira. " God," he said, " hath revealed
them to us by his Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all
things, even the depths of God."* " The ' depths ' of Sa-
tan," scornfully retorts John. " To you I say, as many
as have not this doctrine (Paul's doctrine, before relerred
to, of eating meat that had been offered to iilols), such as
liave not known the * depths ' of Satan, as they speak " — -f
to such he says he "will be lenient.

So far I have only referred to the first chapters of this
singular book, and that is as far perhaps as a prudent
man would care to go into it. As soon as the writer gets
through his addi'csses to the seven churches he plunges
into such obscurities and hides his conceptions behind
such extraordinary symbols that no sane person can pre-
tend to make out what ho does mean. No great confidence,
therefore, can be placed on any supposed allusion to Paul
in the body of this work. At the same time it would
appear that he must bo the person shadowed under the
name of "the false prophet."J A spirit goes "out of tlio
mouth of the false prophet," working wonders, attracting
the attention of the whole world. Next we hear of the
false prophet who wrought these wonders, he is taken

* 1 Cor. ii. 10.

t liev. ii. 21. 'JMie alluHion \» obucured in the EugliMh version ; in the
Greek it iw apparent.
:;:xvi. 13; xix. 20; xx. TO.

17(i

HIS JilCJOTllY.

and " cast alive into '\ lake of fire and burnint( brimstone."
The heathen nations are the children of Satan, the Jews
are the children of God. Paul in going out to preach the
gospel to the heathen, goes out, Satan-like, " to deceive
tlie nations wliich are in the four corners of the earth."*
And to this ini(iuity the writer atti'ibutes the scenes
which were transpiring as he wrote ; the gathering of the
Roman legions, who " went up on the breadth of the earth
and compassed the camp of the saints about and the be-
loved city.''^!* He consoles himself, however, with the re-
tlection that Satan and his })rophet are " cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone, there to be tormented day and
night forever and ever."

The Apocalypse, as far as we can understand it at all,
goes to corroborate the view drawn from Paul's epistles
as to the situation between him and the other apostles,
lleailing this book we are more than ever convinced that
he does not exaggerate the opposition he met with in
seeking so to .shapj the gospel as that the world outside
of Jewry uiight receive it. On the other hand the Apoca-
lypse, considered as the wor!c of John, brings an addi-
tional witness to invalidate the record of events which
we have in The Acts. So narrow and bigoted a Jew as
by h',-. own showing he is, could never have given his
conscmt to the admission of Gentiles into the Church with-
out [)assing tlirough the ante-room of Judaism. He is

*xx. 8.

t XX. '.K Tlie writer, Kptiakiny prophetically, ways that "fire came down
from (rod, out of heaven," ami devoured the assailantH. The rcHidt of the
siege, however, proved very different.

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION CUT OFF.

177

the very man to have said, " Except ye be circumcised af-
ter the prescription of Moses ye cannot be saved." Wri-
tinir before the conciliators undertook their task of cover-
ing up the strife in the early Church, his book reflects,
as far as such an anomalous work can be expected to re-
flect anything, the actual state of feeling in his party at
the time.

Within a year or two from the writing of this book
Jerusalem fell after a memorable siege, the horrors of
which will never be effaced from human remembrance.
Revelation itself is a vision, or series of visions, wrought
out under the excitement of these appalling conditions.
It is the expiiing echo of Jewish prophecy — none the less
Jewish for being also Christian. Scarcely had it circ:i-
latb'l. among the churches when the lurid light of the
burning city lit up the southern sky, and in the agony of
many thousand* suflferers Jerusalem was utterly blotted
out.

The fall of the city was also the fall of the really apos-
tolic Church which had its seat there. The final and ir-
retrievable extinction of the Jewish state had the eti'ect
to give an immense impulse to Pauline Christianity.
The Gentile Christians in Palestine who had given in
their adhesion to the Mosaic ceremonial now turned away
from it, and the Jewish party was reduced to a feeble
minority. It withdrew to Pereea, where it gradually di-
minished and finally disappeared altogetiier.

* Joaephus puts it ovor a million, but the city coalJ never have heU a
tenth part of that number.

ITS

l^EASONS FOR DWELLING

lii

Such fin ignubie einling of the work of the elder apos-
tles had an un})leasant look, especially to those who here-
tofore had held to them. It absolutely cut of the apos-
tolic succession before the end of the first centu ry. Hence
a series of writings with the set purpose of making it ap-
pear that Peter, James and John were heart and hand in
favor of the promulgation of the gospid to the Gentiles,
free from all entanglement with the Mosaic law.

These vvritings are the epistles hearing the name of
Peter, and the book of Acts whose presentation of the
animus of the elder apostles, being in accordance with
what to the great body of the Church seemed becoming
in men clothed with such exalted functions, was the
more readily accepted, and, notwithstanding its glaring
contradictions of the older books, became in a little while
the established view. Peter was raised to the head of
the Church which he had no part in building, and the re-
putation of Paul was correspondingly eclipsed from the
memorials preserved in his epistles of his having dared
to contend with Peter. Thus the mere accident of a
man's being one of the original band of discii)les overbal-
anced the adverse fact that he left no written or spoken
word that can be said to be of the least value, and quite
gave him the precedence over a really s^reat man whose
rightful praise it is to have saved Cbristiaiiit-y from the
Jewish grave in which the Twelve, hontfaUy Mit 'Aindly,
did their best to bury it.

It mny appear to some that I am dwellinf: ioo long on
this iirst division in the Church ; and it inay well be

ON THIS STRIFE.

179

asked, What of all this ? Let me say that it is not from
any preference for angry words, or from any desire to
disparage the apostolic Church, that I have so steadily
directed your attention to the great birth -struggle out of
Judaism. It is no gratification to me to know that the
first Christians did not love one another. But this fact
has been dwelt upon because of its bearing on larger
matters. Two important conclusions flow from this dis-
cussion : First, the fame of Paul is rescued fron. the im-
putations of weakness and truckling under which he has
suffered since the writing of the book of Acts. Secondly,
the way is opened to an explanation of the miraculous in
the New Testament on the irrefragable ground that it is
not supported by the testimony of ej e-witnesses. This
miracle question is the rock of offence to the intelligent
student of the Bible at the present time ; and whatever
helps at this point is of the highest value. An inquiry
into the apostolic controversy has led us to see that the
book which alone gives the account of miracles wrought
by the apostles is not authentic history. These stories
therefore at once fall into the character of legends, and
give the reader no further trouble. The advantage gained
from this consideration will not be lost as we proceed to
the study of the gospels.

EIGHTH LECTURE.

THE GOSPELS.

m ■ ■'■ \

rT"lHE chief embarrassment in writing these lectures
-■- has been the breadth of the subjects with which
we have had to deal. A vast amount of study has been
devoted to the Bible, and now any adequate presentation
of the subject involves a review of ciitics and commenta-
tors as well as the book itself. This has been found out
of the question in the course of a few lectures. Especi-
ally apparent is the impossibility of any such thing as we
come to the Gospels which hav3 been the subject of such
minute and elaborate examination, aud on which books
have been written almost without number. I must there-
fore content myself with a few general statements, de-
signed chiefly to correct common misapprehensions.

It is still thought by most readers that these four
books were actually written by the men to whom they
are ascribed, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Matthew
and John being of the original twelve and therefore eye-
witnesses of what they relate. The immense advantage
to be derived from the testimony of persons who speak
from their own knowledge has led apologists to make the
strongest possible defence of this theory. Honest criti-
cism, however, finds no sufficient ground for such a suppo-
sition. Indeed the want of evidence as to the authorship

OBSCURITY OF ORIGIN.

181

of the gospels is about the most startling fact we meet
with in the study of the Bible. For upon these records
the Church of every name professes to stand, and we are
utterly unable to show who made the records. None of
these writings had been produced when Paul wrote, or
he would have distinctly referred to them. If any be-
ginnings had been made t'^ward a rscord of the sayings
and doings of Jesus, they must certainly have received
his notice. We must therefore come down to the verge
of the destruction of Jerusalem before the composition of
anything in the shape of a gospel was attempted. There
is evidence of the existence of something of the sort
about that time which was attributed to Matthew, and
which is supposed to have been the basis on which our
Gospel " according to Matthew " was afterwards formed.
But the whole subject is obscure to a painful degree, and
very little can be said about it with any degree of posi-
tiveness. But if we are in the dark as to Matthew, much
more so are we as to either of the other gospels. Who
wrote them, or when they were written ; whether the
second preceded the third in time, or vice versa ; whe-
ther one was made up from anotlier, or independently,
or from a preceding record which was then discarded and
lost, are questions about which difi'erent theologians
will lead you in all imaginable different ways. In fact
there is not in all controversial literature such a medley
of confused and discordant voices as are raised in the ef-
fort to set up securely some hypothesis about the forma-
tion, date and authorship of the gospels. O^e must con-

1.S2

(iRADUAL FORMATION.

fiidor with ainazeineiit the vast supoistructurc of theology
built on these uncertain foundations that hardly afford a
point of security on which to hang even a negative criti-
cism.

This however we can say. It cannot be shown that
any of the gospels as we have them existed before the
beginning of the second century. But there is good rea-
son to suppose that at least the First and Second Gospels
were not originally written in their present shape. What
the previous writings were from which these were made
is almost wholly a matter of conjecture, our actual know-
ledge of them being limited to a few more or less doubt-
ful quotations found in the Christian Fathers. It is more
feasible to fix upon portions of our gospels which in all
probability are among the additions made to those origi-
nal records. Stories of the miraculous conception, of the
singing angels announcing the birth of Christ, of the fish
taken with money in its mouth to pay taxes, and many
another incident of strongly apocryphal sound, belong, it
would appear, to these additions, for we have found such
stories to be the sort of thing which it takes time to de-
velop. Matthew was an eye-witness of many of the
events in the life of Jesus, we are often told. To be sure
he was ; and if we had a work direct from his hand it
would go far to settle some (questions now in dispute.
But that work we have not, ext'ej)t as it has been recast
and enlarged l»y other hands. In th^ First (lospel there
is perhaps the substance of what Matthew v/rote. Bi|t
jt is impossi)»l(; now to say jiutjioritatlvely what portions

THK ORIGINAL MATTliEU

183

are his, or whether a single statement stands as he left it.
The favorite notion is that the original Matthew was
restricted mainly to a record of the words of Jesus as he
remembered them, and that the stories of miracle that
appear in the narrative as we have it were an after-
rrrowth. This accords with what we know of the forma-

tion of such stories in other quarters, and, in the absence
of any more reasonable conjecture, must be allowed to
stand.

We may therefore suppose that Matthew from his own
recollection wrote out, as fully as he was able after the
lapse of thirty or forty years, the sayings of Jesus. Many
of these had been preserved by constant repetition among
the disciples ; other less familiar passages were in danger
of being lost if not committed to writing. It is not to be
supposed that if we had Matthew's own record, made, say
thirty yeai's after the events, it would be a perfectly ac-
curate statement of what Jesus said and did. Much
would inevitably have been forgotten in that time; much
more would have become confused and been mis-stated ;
and not unlikely, under the changed conception of the
nature of Christ, many natural events would have seemed
supernatural. But we must remember we have no tran-
Bcript of the real Matthew. We have the recast and en-
largement of his work ])y an unknown hand at a much
later date. No traces of tlio gospel as wo have it are to
be found until toward the close of the second century.
For fifty years, at least, from MattJiew's time it had been
copie(j f\,\i(\ enlarged upon by many persons. Of this we

■f I

If;'

i -r-

# '

1 .•

'■

ll«t

184

MANY GOSPELS WRITTJIN.

are assured by the writer of the Third Gospel who intro-
duces his version of the story in these words : " Inas-
much as many have undertaken to arrange a narrative
of those things which are fully believed among us, even
as they were delivered to us by those who were eye-wit-
nesses from the beginning and became ministers of the
word, it seemed good to me also, having accurately traced
up all things from the first, to write to thee a connected
account." Out of the " many" here referred to who had
undertaken this task there remains only the First Gospel.
The Third Gospel is written avowedly not by an eye-wit-
ness of the events narrated. The Second, in its present
shape, is an enlargement on the work of a man who was
himself not an apostle. The first is based on a writing,
how extensive we do not know, of the Apostle Matthew.
As far then as these three gospels are concerned we have
nothing which can be certainly said to be in the nature
of direct testimony as to the sayings and doings of Jesus.
It is all somebody's report of what somebody else heard.
Matthew's evidence is included in the gospel that goes
under his name, but where his evidence begins or where
it ends no one can say with certainty.

As proofs then of anything very improbable these wri-
tings cannot be accepted. But they are of inestimable
value for what they contain of the teaching of Jesus,
which is usually of such nature as to require no proof.
The internal evidence of the genuineness of many of his
sayings is often of the most convincing. They have a
superiority of their own which separates them widely

TlIK WOllDS OF JESUS.

185

from the comments and additions of the writers. We are
able to select much which we may confidently believe
to be substantially what he said ; a great part of the ser-
mon on the mount, many of the parables, and otlier moral
and religious utterances scattered through these three
gospels. The truth of these sayings would not be better
established if Jesus had written them out himself and we
had his own manuscript. Take the Beatitudes or the
Golden Rule or the two commandments which sum up
the Law and the prophets, authentication of documents
can do nothing to enhance the value or the authority of
such teaching. It finds its sufticient testimony in every
man's conscience.

But in the verification of narrative there is no such
appeal. You cannot tell by putting it to your own con-
sciousness whether Jesus spent the period of his ministry
as the Synoptics say, mostly in Galilee, or, as John says,
in Judea. To establish the truth of a narrative, especi-
ally if it contains anything improbable, it must come well
authenticated. As the facts recorded increase in impro-
bability the witnesses must be multiplied and their cre-
dentials must stand a closer scrutiny ; and where the as-
serted facts are in the highest degree improbable, contra-
vening all experience and observation, the evidence
brought must be direct, abundant and complete, to entitle
the statement even to be considered. It is evident from
what has been said that this is wholly wanting as regards
the first three gospels. Hence, though they satisfy us
that they contain very many genuine sayings of Jesus,

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THK FOURTH dOSPKL.

they come far short of establishing the credibility of a sin-
gle miraculous incident.

The Gospel of John, it may be said, is the work of an
eye-witness and makes up this deficiency of evidence.
But the author of this gospel is an eye-witness only on
the supposition that he is the Apostle John. I have be-
fore stated that it is absurd to suppose that the same
person wrote this gospel and the book of Revelation. As
a comj)etent authority has said : " The translators of our
New Testament have labored, and not in vain, to elimi-
nate as far as possible all individuality of style and lan-
guage, and to reduce the various books of which it is
composed to one uniform smoothness of composition. It
is therefore impossible for the mere English reader to ap-
preciate the immense difference which exists between the
harsh and Hebraistic Greek of the Apocalypse and the
polished elegance of the Fourth Gospel, and it is to be
feared that the rarity of critical study has prevented any
general recognition of the almost equally striking con-
trast of thought between the two works."* As I took oc-
casion to show in my last lecture, the book of Revela-
tion is written from the standpoint of unmitigated Juda-
ism. We have only to read the first chapters to see that.
The Fourth Gospel, on the contrary, is distinguished by a
decided aversion for Judaism ; the writer showing that
he is by no means a Jew. There is none of the spirit
which breathes anathemas on those " who say they are
Jews and are not." So it is the fashion of apologists to

* S'lpernatural K»'lif,'ioTi, A'ol. IT. p. .'{88,

NOT IJY THE APOSTLE.

187

f a sin-

V of an
iclence.
•nly on
ve be-
same
n. As
of our
elimi-

id Ian-
it is

n. It

to ap-

en the

id the
to be

d any
con-

'k oc-

5ve]a-

ruda-

that.
by a
that

ipirit

7 are

ts to

say that John wrote it when he was a very old man, a
long time after he wrote the Apocalypse. But the con-
trast between the two works is altogether too great to be
gotten over in that way. Indeed the impossibility of the
same man writing all the books attributed to John was
very early seen and pointed out.* But for one reason
and another the book of Revelation had come to be con-
sidered lightly. Gentile Christians did not relish its
strong Jewish tone ; moreover its prophecies had failed,
and there was even an advantage in impeaching its apos-
tolic authorship. Accordingly the drift of opinion in the
early Church was in favour of the claim that John wrote
the gospel and the epistles. Modern criticism has re-
versed this judgment, and upon ample grounds. The
literature of the subject is immense, and the verdict of
able critics is by no means unanimous, but the weight
of opinion gives the Apocalypse to John and the other
books to another hand, writing more than a century later.
This view is strongly supported by the fact that no clear
indication can be brought from the writings of the Chris-
tian Fathe)*s that the Fourth Gospel was in existence un-
til the latter part of the second century .-j- IrenjDUS is
the first to speak of the four gospels, and he wrote nearly
two hundred years after Christ. But the strongest indi-
cation that it was not vrritten by a companion of Jesus
is to be found in the work itself. It sets out with a
theological formula, and the maiu purpose of the writer

* By Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, al)out the middle of the third cen-
tury.
t l^'ir.sL attributed to John hy Tlieophihis of Antioch, ahuul. 180,

1S8

ITS PURPOSE.

:j! M,'

from fiisfc to last is to establish his formula. We cannot
but feel as we read that he had no personal knowledge of
Jesus. For his purpose he did not require any such know-
ledge. It is not the human Teacher that he proposes to
set forth, but the divine Logos. It is no matter to him
whether Jesus was ever born. Even a miraculous con-
ception would be nothing to his purpose. The Eternal
Word is better shown without the conditions of weak-
ness and growth. So Jesus steps forth with no hint of
birth or childhood. Little effort is made to keep the
narrative in accord with the previous books. In fact we
are introduced to other scenes at the opposite end of the
country, and the natural human quality of the Master,
which so distinguishes the representations of him in the
Synoptics, gives place to the vague impression insepara-
ble from an ideal character drawn expressly to be unlike
any person that the world had ever seen. The other gos-
pels agree to a noticeable extent in the utterances they
attribute to Jesus, but this makes him utter long speeches
of which they afford us no hint. Fewer miracles are in-
troduced, but this is only that such as are related may
have the more striking effect. That suspiciously apocry-
phal way of relating marvels seen in the first chapters of
Matthew and in The -4c^s-^throwing them in loosely as
though they were trifles, this writer studiously avoids,
and gives us to understand when he records a miracle
he fully appreciates the prodigious import of his words.
The miracle is done, according to him, not to benefit the
subjects but that the doer may manifest his glory. Not

IMPOSING MIRACLES.

189

cannot
edge of
know-
>oses to
to him
s con-
Iternal
weak-
hint of
ep the
act we
of the
Idaster,
in the
iepara-
unlike
jr gos-
s they
seches
-re in-
l may
)Ocry-
ers of
ly as
k^oids,
iracle
ords.
tthe
Not

content with exaggerating the accounts of the previous
writers, he relates another and still more astounding story
of his own, giving it a careful and most significant set-
ting. He states, with full and minute detail, that Jesus
raised Lazarus from the grave after he had been four
days unmistakably dead. This was done publicly and
as we might well suppose made a great sensation. The
priests and Pharisees at once held a council and deter-
mined on putting Jesus to death.* Now is it possible
that such a stupendous event as this, leading directly to
such dire consequences, could have taken place without
a word being said of it in the other three gospels ?

But the necessity to be brief forbids a lengthy state-
ment of the inconsistencies and contradictions between
the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. When once you
take up this book that is called John's, understanding
that it was written for a dogmatic purpose — to establish
the superhuman nature of Christ — and more than a hun-
dred years after the crucifixion, its whole style and struc-
ture become intelligible. It is the work of a student in
his closet who has a very fascinating religious philoso-
phy to illustrate. He takes such facts from the books
before him as will serve his purpose, embellishes them to
his needs, and adds from tradition or from fancy what-
ever more his plan may seem to require. Of course it is
possible that some of the discourses attributed to Jesus
by this writer may be genuine, but his method of narra-
tion is not such as to inspire confidence. -As Renan says,

* John xi.

190

MATTHEW.

i *.

" he does not relate, he clcinon.strates." He does not stop
with telling wluU a man said, but must inform us lulty he
said it. He seems to doubt that we 'will believe his
statements and so repeats them, averring that he is tell-
ing us the truth. This is not the method of a person
who is entirely conscious that he is stating facts.

We must now look back a little and see how the writ-
ing of the gospels was affected by the controversy in the
Church over the admission of Gentiles. That contro-
versy was at its height at the time when Matthew is sup-
posed to have written his original Recollections. If we
had that work we should probably iind it about as juda-
istic as is the Apocalypse. Matthew was one of the
twelve who stood by Peter and James, and these men
all had that very human quality of storing up in remem-
brance what was most to their own minds. Our Matthew,
which is a revision and enlargement of this, made about
the beginning of the second century, was no doubt great-
ly modified from the original in this respect. By that
time the struggle was practically over, and there remain-
ed only the personal asperities which survive every strife.
Paul's views had triumphed, and a gospel for the use of
the Church must not be distinctly Jewish. Still there
remain traces in this work of an anti-Pauline spirit,
so far at least assuring us that something of the original
Matthew stands there. In the charge to the Twelve,
Jesus is made to say very pointedly, " Go not away to
Gentiles, and enter not any city of the Samaritans ; but
go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; "* and

* Matt. X. 5, 6.

•I

A PETRINE GOSPEL.

191

lot stop
ivky lie
^ve his
is tell-
persoii

there is no intimation that this direction was n\erely
temporary. Indeed it is expressly indicated that this re~
striction of the gospel to the Jews was final, for he says
further, in the same address : " Ye will not have gone
over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man hath come."*
Scarcely less decisive as showing the Jewish spirit of this
gospel is the account of an interview which a foreign wo-
man sought with Jesus. Her daughter was ill — " posses-
sed of a demon," in the language of the time — and she
sought very piteously his assistance. " But he did not
answer her a word." Then when his disciples wished
him to be yet more discourteous to the woman and send
her away, he said in her hearing : " I was not sent ex-
cept to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; " adding, " It
is not allowable to take the children's bread and thi'ow it
to the little dogs." " Dogs " was the sneering Jewish ex-
pressionf for people of other races. The woman, with ex-
traordinary concession to this contemptuous bigotry,
threw herself at his feet and reminded him that the little
dogs do eat the crumbs that fall from the table of their
masters."! "^^^ humiliation of the Gentile is intensified
in this representation by the fact that the " crumbs " here
referred to are probably the slices of bread which the
Jews used to wipe their hands with before eating, and
then tossed to the dogs. Observing the use Of the term
" dogs," there can be no doubt that the reference is the
same in the passage, " Give not that which is holy to

*v. 23.

t Rev. xxii. 15.

? XV. 24-26.

If;:. >

III

1 \

1 ta|

n «l

w ff'^

W '^'

■•-

i^i

102

ITS JUDAISMS.

dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine."* " Swine "
is in sufficiently contemptuous allusion to swine-eaters.
Jesus, according to this gospel, is careful to enjoin obser-
vance of the law, " one jot or tittle " of which shall not be
abrogated.*!* When he heals a leper he directs him to
comply with the ceremonial " which Moses commanded." I
'* The scribes and Pharisees .sit in the seat of Moses. All,
therefore, whatever they bid you, do and observe."§ The
reward of the apostles in heaven was to be to " sit on
twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." ||
Jesus himself at his birth is spoken of as "King of the
Jews." IF Of course the writer would not commit the
anachronism of making Jesus speak directly of Paul;
but there are few passages where, in professedly report-
ing the Master's sayings, the reporter appears to have
Paul in mind. The admission of the Gentiles to the
Church had been an exceeding great offence to the Jew-
ish Christians and had been the cause of many fklling
away, l.1 together. Referring to such a resul t Jesus is made
to say, " Whoever shall cause one of these little ones that
believe in me to fall away it were better for him to have
a mill-stone hung round hisneck andbe swallowed upin the
depth of the sea." " Woe to the man through whom the of-
fence cometh!"** Theparable of the tares may not unlikely
have been constructed in allusion to Paul. The Christian
Jews ar^ the wheat ; the Gentiles stealthily brought into
the fold are the tares. But by the time of this writing

*vii. 6. For other depreciative references to Gentiles see vi. 32, x. 18,
XX. 10.
fv. 11-19. :|:viii. 4. §xxiU. 2, 3. ||xix. 28. ITii. 2. ** xviii. 6, 7.

HISTORY MADE FROM PROPHECY.

lOf]

tliey have Loconie so firmly rooted that to weed them out
would result in the \iprooting of the Church itself. Let
them o;ro\v now till the harvest ; then there will be a
fearful sorting of the crop.*

Another noticeable Jewish feature of this gospel is that
almost evcr3^thing that occurs happens in order that souio
" Scripture may be fulfilled." In many instances lament-
able misapplication of prophecy is made ; but the point
to which I wish especially to call attention is that the
nai'rative seems to be made up rather from what the wri-
ter considers the requirements of prophecy than from ac-
tual occurrences. It is easy to see that this catching at
any word of the old Scriptures supposed to refer to the
Messiah, would directly engender a circle of myths
about Jesus which in a little while would harden into
positive assertions. It is unnecessary, for instance, that
the child Jesus should be taken to Egypt and brought
back on the death of Herod. It is enough that the pas-
sage was found in one of the prophets : " Out of Egypt
have I called my son." By a strange perversion of the
sense this is made to refer to Christ, and " that the Scrip-
ture may be fulfilled " the story is told of the flight into
Egypt. So of the associated incident of the slaughter of
the children of Bethlehem ; and so of various other inci-
dents peculiar to this gospel. Only a thorough -going Jew
would write in this fashion, and wo do not wonder that
such a work, even when brought to its present shape,
proved unsatisfactory to the churches established by Paul.

*xiii. 21-30, .%-l.3.

194

LUKE.

Net many years after some one in sympathy with the
doctrines of that a})ostle wrote a gospel, tiie third in the
present onk'r, from which the oHensively Jewisli features
of Mattliew were exchideil. Tlie conciliatory disposition
of this writer we hiive had occasion to remark, if, as is
connuonly supposed, he is also the author of the Acts.
We should ex})ect that sucli a writer, whose strength lay
in abolishing distinctions, would present Pauline views in
as little contrast with the letter of existing records as
possible ; that in making his own liberal statements he
would, in the style of some modern divines, weave in
enough of the old phraseology to take away the appear-
ance of saying anything revolutionary. And so we find
him doing. Thus, after making Jesus say, in truly Paul-
ine fashion : " The Law and the Prophets were until
John ; since that time the kingdom of God is preached
and every man presses into it ; " he adds immediately an
extract from Matthew ; " And it is easier for heaven and
♦ arth to pass than for one tittle of the Law to fail."*
Tiius he would really make a divergence in favor of
Gentile Christianity wdiile nominally adhering to the old
formulas, which is as bad as closing a Unitarian service
with the Trinitarian doxology. Very different was this
from the manner of Paul ; but we must remembei- the
intensity of the contest was over, and the victorious party
had now something to gain by being conciliatory. The
Chui-ch had become impressed with the need of securing

* Luke xvi. 16, 17. Some explain this inconsistency })y snpiiosing that
Luke, like Motthcir, w.is worked over bj' another hand.

MARK.

195

th the
in the
atures
•sition
, MM is
Acts,
th Uiy
ews in
tls as
its he
ive ill
ppeai-
^e find
Paul-
until
Jaclied
ely an
n and
fail."*
^or of
le old
Ji'vice
3 this

(• the

ORity

The

iring

g that

to itself at any cost the repute of holding to the apostolic
leadership, and much abstract Judaism could be tolerated
now that the concrete thing was destitute of actual power.

However it would seem that this gospel, called Luke's,
was not altogether satisfactory to all parties, and that an-
other effort was made at a final statement, which is pre-
served to us in the Gospel called after Mark. The plan
of the writer of this Gospel was, with the other two be-
fore him, to reach an acceptable version of the story by
the excision of what in either of them might be objec-
tionable to Jew or Gentile. The result was a brief and
rather bald narrative, which, whatever purpose it may
have served at the time, can hardly be said now to be of
much use.

We pass on forty or fifty years. By this time the old
issue about circumcision and the eating of meat which
had been offered to idols has given way to more meta-
physical disputations. Christianity has swung out into
the circle of Hellenistic philosophy, and problems begin
to be pressed concerning the nature of God, and especially
concerning the nature of Christ ; some already going so
far as to claim for him pre-existencc and quasi- divinity.
Philo, though not a Christian, had taught a hazy doctrine
of a divine Lofjos, or Word, which he fancied had an ac-
tual existence apart from God himself, and was the agency
of his manifestations. This became a popular notion
with the Jews of Alexandria and other cities where Chris-
tianity had obtained a foothold, and the idea began to be
broached that Jesus was this divine Logos clothed in

lOG

.ion>i.

PI '■

i ^1'

r I

flesl). The Fourth Gospel is a " Life of Jesus," written
exi)ressly to establish this view. This is the main pur-
pose. Incidentally, howevej', the author's disposition as
regards Judaism is plainly indicated. More distinctly
than any other New Testament writer he counts himself
outsice that system. He constantly speaks of the Jews
as though they were a class to which he does not belong,*
and even shows a strong antipathy toward them. They
are the " children of the devil," and do the works of their
father who was " a murderer from the beginning.""|" In
the First Gospel the Gentiles are the ones pointed at us
the incarnation of evil ; in the Fourth the situation is re-
versed, and the Jews are the ones who are forever plot-
ting mischief and seeking to kill Jesus. J This feature,
together with the fact that the writer betrays ignorance
of the geography and customs of Judea, leads us to infer
that he could not have been a Jew, least of all so inveter-
ate a Jew as was the Apostle John. The very tone of
this gospel toward Judaism indicates its late origin.
Only when Christianity had passed completely out of
Jewish hands could it have produced and canonized a
work making such reflections on the chosen people. Paul
labored hard in his epistle to the Romans to make out
that a Gentile was good enough to be mentioned in the
same connection with a Jew. The Fourth Gospel brings
us into the atmosphere of another century, when Chris-
John ii. 6, 13 : v. 1 ; vi. 4 ; vii. 2 ; xix. 40, 42.
t viii. 44.
:;: V. 10, 18 ; vii. 13, 19 ; vii. 40, 51) ; ix. 22, 28, &c., &c.

NOT WRITTEN BY A JEW.

107

vritten
n pur-
tion as
tinctly
limself
e Jews
lonof*
They
f their
t In
at as

. is Y(].

plot-
Jatuie,
3rance
) infer
veter-
»ne of
>rigin.
ut of
sed a
Paul
J out
n the
rings
hris-

tians began to look upon Jews as types of malignity and
murderers of the Son of God.

So widely difForent in all respects is the portraiture of
Jesus in this gospel from what it is in the other three,
that it becomes necessary, even on this ground, to sup-
pose a considerable intervening lapse of time before the
writing of the Fourth Gospel, as well as a Gentile author-
ship. There is no doubt that the writer wishes us to
think him the Apostle John, though he nowhere distinctly
says that he is the Apostle. He avers that he is a wit-
ness of what he relates and that his testimony is true.*
But the evidence of a witness who withholds his name is
not highly esteemed in court though he swear by all the
gods. Especially if the witness does not personall}'- ap-
pear, but submits his tcstimon}' in writing, is it essential
to have his unmistakable signature. There are the strong-
est reasons foi* supposing this to be the work of a writer
in the latter half of the second century, who desired to
have it pass as by the Apostle John. Two important
ends were to be gained by this transfer of authorship.

A high degree of authority would be at once secured to
tlie book, and tlie reputation of the apostle would be
saved from the imputation of Jewish narrowness which
his only book, the Apocalypse, and the references to him
in Paul's epistles were sure to fasten upon him. As for
the moral obliquity of writing in the name of another
and more famous person, as I have repeatedly said, the
Bible writers do not appear to have recognised it. By

* xix. 3D ; xxi. 24.

U':

It ;

•I ■
■h

108

EARLY CHRISTIANS NOT CRITICS.

far the greater par^, of the Scriptures were written in this
way. The uncritical character of the readers was a suffi-
cient guaranty against suspicion under ordinary circum-
stances. Even the leading meri in the Church were so
credulous, and had such fantastic notions of the order of
the universe and of divine revelation, that no conclusions
can be drawn from their acquiescence in the apostolic
authorship of any book. Irenseus is among the best re-
puted of these nien, and the puerility of his notions on
the problem of the gospels is almost past belief. Why
should the Gospels be four in number ? was a query to
which this learned prelate addressed himself. " The Gos-
pels," he says, " can neither be more in number than they
are, nor, on the other hand, can they be fewer. For, as
there are four quarters of the world in which we are, and
four general winds, and the Church is disseminated
throughout all the world, and the Gospel is tlie pillar and
prop of the Church and the spirit of life, it is right that

she should have four pillars As is the form

of living creatures, such also is the character of the Gos-
})el. Living creatures ai'e of four orders, so the Gospel is
in four forms. These things being thus, vain and igno-
rant and moreover audacious arc thev who set aside th(3
form of the Gospel, and declare the aspects of the Gospels
as either more or less than has been said."

Wc certainly cannot be wrong if we refuse to be inllu-
encod much in the decision of questions now before us by
men who could reason in this way about them. And yet
the whole argument for the current supposition that the

OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS.

199

in this
a suffi.
jircum-
^^ere so
•rder of
lusions
)ostolic
Dest re-
ions on
Whv
leiy to
le Gos-
-n they
B'or, as
re, and
linated
'ar and
lit that
e foi-in
e Gos-
>spel is
I igno-
de tlie
rospels

inilu-
us by

id yet

at the

gospels were written by the men whose names are at-
tached to tlieiii, rests on the acceptance of tliat view by
Christians of the third and subsequent centuiies. But
even their verdict was by no means unanimous, credu-
lous and uncritical as they were. Some, we are told, dis-
puted the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
Dissentients, however, w^ere soon branded as heretics, and
for more than a thousand years it was all a man's life
was worth to handle a question concerning the authen-
ticity of one of these writings, fairly, fearlessly, and with
the sin^Lfle aim of findinir out the truth. The cjeneral
(fonsent of the Church, therefore, is entitled to no weight
ill this matter.

Thus the case stands as to the four gospels. They are
without exception documents written in the second cen-
tury. That there existed older writings from which
these were made, is certain ; and the general concurrence
of the Synoptics strengthens the opinion that they foHow
the oldest tradition. The wide divergence of the Fourth
Gospel, however, rather weakens this opinion without
establishing confidence in its own report ; and we are
compelled to say that for the facts of the life of Jesus the
evidence is scanty and weak. It is adequate to ground a
l)elief in the reality of incidents not in themselves impro-
l>able ; it leaves us no reason to doubt that he lived and
taught; that he w^cs a man every way superior to his dis-
ciples ; that, after a brief public career, he was taken and
put to death by his enemies. This much, not antecedent-
ly incredible, it is necessary to suppose to account for re-

200

STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCES.

I :
II '

1 i'

suits ; and for tliis much the testimony is ample. But
the testimony breaks down the moment you undertake
to sustain hy it a sino-le miraculous incident. There is
wanting the clear declaration of ej-e-wltnesses which is
necossaiy to entitle the statement of so improhahle an
occurrence as a miracle to the slightest credence.

The time was when these stories of mai-vel served a
purpose as evidence of Christianity, and then of course
they were treasured. Now Christianity, as hest repre-
sented, is very desirous of being relieved of them; for,
instead of being evidence of anything, they are themselves
the things most in need of proof. It is not too nuich to
say that he best serves the religion of Christ at present
who does most to deliver it from the incubus. One of
the compensations for the disappointment which we must
feel in finding not one of our Gospels to be by a contem-
porary of Jesus, or even dating fiom the same century,
lies in the resulting fact that these writings cannot be
appealed to in support of any very improbable event. It
does not follow that when the incredible stories of the
(Jospels and the Acts are discredited Christianity is dis-
credited with them. The soundness of the Golden Rule
is not contingent upon the truth of tlie statement that
Jesus r nd Peter walked upon the surface of the sea ; nor
is the summary of human duties in the twelfth chapter
of Romans impeached by our venturing to dou])t the
story told of Paul, that the sick were healed by passing
his handkerchiefs among them. Goodness, however ex-
alted, confers no power over the forces of nature ; and

COXCLUSIOX.

201

But

(lis-

there is no real connection between pure religion and the
marvels of which many religious books are so full. Re-
jection of incredible stories in nowise weakens our hold
upon the divine principles which are the substance of
every faith that is worth having.

We seek the realities. Our study of the Bible has been
with a view to clear it of illusions and phantoms, tliat the
truth it contains may have the more commanding force.
The incongruous elements of the book must be separated.
Magic and demonology, which the ancients associated
with religion, are out of cast in the modern world ; but
the spii'it of the great Teacher, which under all obscuri-
ties rests like a halo about the New Testament, will
never cease to charm the thoughtful and win from serious
souls an intense and strong affection. As we have seen
it is a book of which we can name the writers of only a
few parts ; but of every part we can say that it has a
nobleness and beauty of its own. That which fails as
history stands with the finest of fiction, like old epics,
dealing according to the popular creeds with gods and
demigods. It is not less the book of religion because
there is so much in it that is purely imaginary The poe-
try of the Church is in its Bible — certainly not in its
hymn-book. And when we are able to read it as the
very natural reflection of a remote and most interesting
though utterly unscientific age, bringing us the soul of
the greatest spiritual movement in history in strictly hu-
man form, it cannot but have a charm and a worth it
never had before. As another has tersely said, the Bible
in the new view is not less, but other than it was.