Harischandra. I obey, master. (Draws the sword and approaches her.)
Chandravati (coming to consciousness again). My husband! What! do I see thee again? I applaud thy resolution, my lord. Yes; let me die by thy sword. Be not unnerved, but be prompt, and perform thy duty unflinchingly.
Harischandra. My beloved wife! the days allotted to you in this world are numbered; you have run through the span of your existence. Convicted as you are of this crime, there is no hope for your life; I must presently fulfil my instructions. I can only allow you a few seconds; pray to your tutelary deities, prepare yourself to meet your doom.
Viswamitra (who has suddenly appeared). Harischandra! what, are you going to slaughter this poor woman? Wicked man, spare her! Tell a lie even now and be restored to your former state!
Harischandra. I pray, my lord, attempt not to beguile me from the path of rect.i.tude. Nothing shall shake my resolution; even though thou didst offer to me the throne of Indra I would not tell a lie. Pollute not thy sacred person by entering such unholy grounds. Depart! I dread not thy wrath; I no longer court thy favour. Depart. (Viswamitra disappears.)
My love! lo I am thy executioner; come, lay thy head gently on this block with thy sweet face turned towards the east. Chandravati, my wife, be firm, be happy! The last moment of our sufferings has at length come; for to sufferings too there is happily an end. Here cease our woes, our griefs, our pleasures. Mark! yet awhile, and thou wilt be as free as the vultures that now soar in the skies.
This keen sabre will do its duty. Thou dead, thy husband dies too--this self-same sword shall pierce my breast. First the child--then the wife--last the husband--all victims of a sage"s wrath. I the martyr of Truth--thou and thy son martyrs for me, the martyr of Truth. Yes; let us die cheerfully and bear our ills meekly. Yes; let all men perish, let all G.o.ds cease to exist, let the stars that shine above grow dim, let all seas be dried up, let all mountains be levelled to the ground, let wars rage, blood flow in streams, let millions of millions of Harischandras be thus persecuted; yet let Truth be maintained--let Truth ride victorious over all--let Truth be the light--Truth the guide--Truth alone the lasting solace of mortals and immortals. Die, then, O G.o.ddess of Chast.i.ty! Die, at this the shrine of thy sister G.o.ddess of Truth!
[Strikes the neck of Chandravati with great force; the sword, instead of harming her, is transformed into a string of superb pearls, which winds itself around her: the G.o.ds of heaven, all sages, and all kings appear suddenly to the view of Harischandra.]
Siva (the first of the G.o.ds). Harischandra, be ever blessed! You have borne your severe trials most heroically, and have proved to all men that virtue is of greater worth than all the vanities of a fleeting world. Be you the model of mortals. Return to your land, resume your authority, and rule your state. Devarata, victim of Viswamitra"s wrath, rise! (He is restored to life.)
Rise you, also, son of the King of Kasi, with whose murder you, Chandravati, were charged through the machinations of Viswamitra. (He comes to life also.)
Harischandra. All my misfortunes are of little consequence, since thou, O G.o.d of G.o.ds, hast deigned to favour me with thy divine presence. No longer care I for kingdom, or power, or glory. I value not children, or wives, or relations. To thy service, to thy worship, to the redemption of my erring soul, I devote myself uninterruptedly hereafter. Let me not become the sport of men. The slave of a Pariah cannot become a king; the slave-girl of a Brahman cannot become a queen. When once the milk has been drawn from the udder of a cow nothing can restore the self-same milk to it. Our degradation, O G.o.d, is now beyond redemption.
Viswamitra. I pray, O Siva, that thou wouldst pardon my folly. Anxious to gain the wager laid by me before the G.o.ds, I have most mercilessly tormented this virtuous king; yet he has proved himself the most truthful of all earthly sovereigns, triumphing victoriously over me and my efforts to divert him from his constancy. Harischandra, king of kings! I crave your forgiveness.
Verakvoo (throwing off his disguise). King Harischandra, think not that I am a Pariah, for you behold in me even Yama, the G.o.d of Death.
Kalakanda (Chandravati"s cruel master, throwing off his disguise). Queen! rest not in the belief that you were the slave of a Brahman. He to whom you devoted yourself am even I--the G.o.d of Fire, Agni.
Vasishtha. Harischandra, no disgrace attaches to thee nor to the Solar race, of which thou art the incomparable gem. Even this cemetery is in reality no cemetery: see! the illusion lasts not, and thou beholdest here a holy grove the abode of hermits and ascetics. Like the gold which has pa.s.sed through successive crucibles, devoid of all impurities, thou, O King of Aydiah, shinest in greater splendour than even yon G.o.d of light now rising to our view on the orient hills. (It is morning.)
Siva. Harischandra, let not the world learn that Virtue is vanquished, and that its enemy, Vice, has become the victor. Go, mount yon throne again--proclaim to all that we, the G.o.ds, are the guardians of the good and the true. Indra! chief of the G.o.ds, accompany this sovereign with all your retinue, and recrown him emperor of Aydiah. May his reign be long--may all bliss await him in the other world!
The plot of this drama has probably done as much and as various duty as any in the world. It has spread like a spiritual banyan, whose branches, taking root, have swelled to such size that it is difficult now to say which is the original trunk. It may even be that the only root they all had in common is an invisible one in the human heart, developed in its necessary struggles amid nature after the pure and perfect life.
But neither in the Book of Job, which we are yet to consider, nor in any other variation of the theme, does it rise so high as in this drama of Harischandra. In Job it represents man loyal to his deity amid the terrible afflictions which that deity permits; but in Harischandra it shows man loyal to a moral principle even against divine orders to the contrary. Despite the hand of the licenser, and the priestly manipulations, visible here and there in it--especially towards the close--sacerdotalism stands confronted by its reaction at last, and receives its sentence in the joy with which the Hindu sees the potent Rishis with all their pretentious "merits," and the G.o.ds themselves, kneeling at the feet of the man who stands by Truth.
It is amusing to find the wincings of the priests through many centuries embodied in a legend about Harischandra after he went to heaven. It is related that he was induced by Narada to relate his actions with such unbecoming pride that he was lowered from Svarga (heaven) one stage after each sentence; but having stopped in time, and paid homage to the G.o.ds, he was placed with his capital in mid-air, where eyes sacerdotally actinised may still see the aerial city at certain times. The doctrine of "merits" will no doubt be able for some time yet to charge "good deeds" with their own sin--pride; but, after all, the priest must follow the people far enough to confess that one must look upward to find the martyr of Truth. In what direction one must look to find his accuser requires no further intimation than the popular legend of Viswamitra.
CHAPTER V.
ELOHIM AND JEHOVAH.
Deified power--Giants and Jehovah--Jehovah"s manifesto--The various Elohim--Two Jehovahs and two Tables--Contradictions--Detachment of the Elohim from Jehovah.
The sacred books of the Hebrews bring us into the presence of the G.o.ds (Elohim) supposed to have created all things out of nothing--nature-G.o.ds--just as they are in transition to the conception of a single Will and Personality. Though the plural is used ("G.o.ds") a singular verb follows: the tendency is already to that concentration which resulted in the enthronement of one supreme sovereign--Jehovah. The long process of evolution which must have preceded this conception is but slightly traceable in the Bible. It is, however, written on the face of the whole world, and the same process is going on now in its every phase. Whether with Gesenius [20] we take the sense of the word Elohim to be "the revered," or, with Furst, [21] "the mighty," makes little difference; the fact remains that the word is applied elsewhere to G.o.ds in general, including such as were afterwards deemed false G.o.ds by the Jews; and it is more important still that the actions ascribed to the Elohim, who created the heavens and the earth, generally reflect the powerful and un-moral forces of nature. The work of creation in Genesis (i. and ii. 1-3) is that of giants without any moral quality whatever. Whether or not we take in their obvious sense the words, "Elohim created man in his own image, ... male and female created he them," there can be no question of the meaning of Gen. vi. 1, 2: "The sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took to themselves for wives whomsoever they chose." When good and evil come to be spoken of, the name Jehovah [22] at once appears. The Elohim appear again in the Flood, the wind that a.s.suaged it, the injunction to be fruitful and multiply, the cloud and rainbow; and gradually the germs of a moral government begin to appear in their a.s.signing the violence of mankind as reason for the deluge, and in the covenant with Noah. But even after the name Jehovah had generally blended with, or even superseded, the other, we find Elohim often used where strength and wonder-working are thought of--e.g., "Thou art the G.o.d that doest wonders" (Ps. lxxvii.). "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known."
Against the primitive nature-deities the personality and jealous supremacy of Jehovah was defined. The golden calf built by Aaron was called Elohim (plural, though there was but one calf). Solomon was denounced for building altars to the same; and when Jeroboam built altars to two calves, they are still so called. Other rivals--Dagon (Judges xvi.), Astaroth, Chemosh, Milcom (1 Kings xi.)--are called by the once-honoured name. The English Bible translates Elohim, G.o.d; Jehovah, the Lord; Jehovah Elohim, the Lord G.o.d; and the critical reader will find much that is significant in the varied use of these names. Thus (Gen. xxii.) it is Elohim that demands the sacrifice of Isaac, Jehovah that interferes to save him. At the same time, in editing the story, it is plainly felt to be inadmissible that Abraham should be supposed loyal to any other G.o.d than Jehovah; so Jehovah adopts the sacrifice as meant for himself, and the place where the ram was provided in place of Isaac is called Jehovah-Jireh. However, when we can no longer distinguish the two antagonistic conceptions by different names their actual incongruity is even more salient, and, as we shall see, develops a surprising result.
Jehovah inaugurates his reign by a manifesto against these giants, the Elohim, for whom the special claim--clamorously a.s.serted when Aaron built the Golden Calf, and continued as the plea for the same deity--was that they (Elohim) had brought Israel out of Egypt. "I,"
cries Jehovah, "am the Lord thy G.o.d, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: thou shalt have no other G.o.ds but me;" and the first four commandments of the law are devoted entirely to a declaration of his majesty, his power (claiming credit for the creation), his jealous determination to punish his opponents and reward his friends, to vindicate the slightest disrespect to his name. The narrative of the Golden Calf was plainly connected with Sinai in order to ill.u.s.trate the first commandment. The punishment of the believers in another divine emanc.i.p.ator, even though they had not yet received the proclamation, must be signal. Jehovah is so enraged that by his order human victims are offered up to the number of three thousand, and even after that, it is said, Jehovah plagued Israel on account of their Elohim-worship. In the same direction is the command to keep holy the Sabbath day, because on it he rested from the work of creation (Gen. xx.), or because on that day he delivered Israel from Egypt (Deut. v.), the editors do not seem to remember exactly which, but it is well enough to say both, for it is taking the two picked laurels from the brow of Elohim and laying them on that of Jehovah. In all of which it is observable that there is no moral quality whatever. Nero might equally command the Romans to have no other G.o.ds before himself, to speak his name with awe, to rest when he stopped working. In the fifth commandment, arbitrarily ascribed to the First Table, we have a transition to the moral code; though even there the honour of parents is jealously a.s.sociated with Jehovah"s greatness ("that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah Elohim giveth thee"). The nature-G.o.ds were equal to that; for the Elohim had begotten the giants who were "in the earth in those days."
"Elohim spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by (the name of) G.o.d Almighty (El-Shaddai), but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them"
(Exod. vi. 2, 3).
The ancient G.o.ds--the Elohim--were, in the process of absorption into the one great form, the repository of their several powers, distinguishable; and though, for the most part, they bear names related to the forces of nature, now and then they reflect the tendencies to humanisation. Thus we have "the most high G.o.d" (El-elyon--e.g., Gen. xiv. 18); "the everlasting-G.o.d" (El-elim, Gen. xxi. 33); "the jealous G.o.d" (El-kana, Exod. xx. 5); "the mighty G.o.d, and terrible"
(El-gadol and nora, Deut. vii. 21); "the living G.o.d" (El-chi, Josh. iii. 10); "the G.o.d of heaven" (El-shemim, Ps. cx.x.xvi. 26); the "G.o.d almighty" (El-shaddai, [23] Exod. vi. 2). These Elohim, with each of whose names I have referred to an instance of its characteristic use, became epithets, as the powers they represented were more and more absorbed by the growing personality of Jehovah; but these epithets were also characters, and their historic expressions had also to undergo a process of slow and difficult digestion. The all-devouring grandeur of Jehovah showed what it had fed on. Not only all the honours, but many of the dishonours, of the primitive deities adhered to the sovereign whose rule was no doubt inaugurated by their disgrace and their barbarism. The costliness of the glory of divine absolutism is again ill.u.s.trated in the evolution of the premature monotheism, which had for its figure-head the dread Jehovah, who, as heir of the nature-G.o.ds, became responsible for the monstrosities of a tribal demonolatry, thus being compelled to fill simultaneously the roles of the demon and the lawgiver. [24]
The two tables of the law--one written by Jehovistic theology, the other by the moral sense of mankind--ascribed to this dual deity, for whom unity was so fiercely insisted on, may be read in their outcome throughout the Bible. They are here briefly, in a few examples, set forth side by side.
TABLE OF JEHOVAH I. TABLE OF JEHOVAH II.
Exod. x.x.xiii. 27. "Slay every Exod. xx. 13. "Thou shalt not man his brother, every man his kill."
companion, and every man his neighbour."
Num. xv. 32. "While the children Exod. xx. 14. "Thou shalt not of Israel were in the wilderness, commit adultery."
they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath Day....
And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp." Neither this nor the similar punishment for blasphemy (Lev. xxiv.), were executions of existing law. For a fearful instance of murder inflicted on the innocent, and accepted as a human sacrifice by Jehovah, see 2 Sam. xxi.; and for the brutal murder of Shimei, who denounced and resented the crime which hung the seven sons of Saul "before the Lord," see 1 Kings ii.
But the examples are many.
In the story of Abraham, Sarai, and Hagar (Gen. xvi.), Lot and his daughters (xix.), Abraham"s presentation of his wife to Abimilech (xx.), the same done by Isaac (xxvi.), Judah, Tamar (x.x.xviii.), and other cases where the grossest violations of the seventh commandment go unrebuked by Jehovah, while in constant communication with the guilty parties, we see how little the second table was supported by the first.
The extortions, frauds, and Exod. xx. 15. "Thou shalt not thefts of Jacob (Gen. xxv., steal."
xxvii., x.x.x.), which brought upon him the unparalleled blessings of Jehovah; the plundering of Nabal"s property by David and his fellow-bandits; the smiting of the robbed farmer by Jehovah and the taking of his treacherous wife by David (1 Sam. xxv.), are narratives befitting a Bible of footpads.
Jehovah said, "Who shall deceive Exod. xx. 16. "Thou shalt not Ahab?... And there came forth a bear false witness against thy spirit, and stood before Jehovah, neighbour."
and said, I will deceive him. And Jehovah said, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets. And he said, Thou shalt deceive him, and prevail also: go forth and do so.
Now, therefore, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee" (1 Kings xxii.).
See Ezek. xx. 25.
Deut xx. 10-18, is a complete Exod. xx. 17. "Thou shalt not instruction for invasion, murder, covet they neighbour"s wife, rapine, eating the spoil of the thou shalt not covet thy invaded, taking their wives, neighbour"s wife, nor his their cattle, &c., all such as man-servant, nor his maid- might have been proclaimed by a servant, nor his ox, nor his Supreme Bashi-Bazouk. a.s.s, nor anything that is thy neighbour"s."
Instances of this discrepancy might be largely multiplied. Any one who cares to pursue the subject can trace the building upon the powerful personal Jehovah of a religion of human sacrifices, anathemas, and priestly despotism; while around the moral ruler and judge of the same name, whose personality is more and more dispersed in pantheistic ascriptions, there grows the common law, and then the more moral law of equity, and the corresponding sentiments which gradually evolve the idea of a parental deity.
It is obvious that the more this second idea of the deity prevails, the more he is regarded as "merciful," "long-suffering," "a G.o.d of truth and without iniquity, just and right," "delighting not in sacrifice but mercifulness," "good to all," and whose "tender mercies are over all his works," and having "no pleasure in the death of him that dieth;" the less will it be possible to see in the very same being the "man of war," "G.o.d of battles," the "jealous," "angry,"
"fire-breathing" one, who "visits the sins of the fathers upon the children," who laughs at the calamities of men and mocks when their fear cometh. It is a structural necessity of the human mind that these two shall be gradually detached the one from the other. From one of the Jehovahs represented in parallel columns came the "Father"
whom Christ adored: from the other came the Devil he abhorred.