Rise from forgotten dust, my Plato; Stagyrite, stand up from the grave; Anaxagoras, with thy bright, cloudless intellect that searched the skies, Herac.l.i.tus, with thy gloomy, mysterious intellect that fathomed the deeps, come forward and execute for me this demand. How shall that immortality, which you give, which you _must_ give as a trophy of honour to your Pantheon, sustain itself against the blights from those humanities which also, by an equal necessity, starting from your basis, give you must to that Pantheon? How will you prevent the sad reflux of that tide which finally engulfs all things under any attempt to execute the nominal idea of a Deity? You cannot do it. Weave your divinities in that Grecian loom of yours, and no skill in the workmanship, nor care that wisdom can devise, will ever cure the fatal flaws in the texture: for the mortal taint lies not so much in your work as in the original errors of your loom.
_IV. ON PAGAN SACRIFICES._
Ask any well-informed man at random what he supposes to have been done with the sacrifices, he will answer that really he never thought about it, but that naturally he supposes the flesh was burnt upon the altars.
Not at all, reader; a sacrifice to the G.o.ds meant universally a banquet to man. He who gave a splendid public dinner announced in other words that he designed to celebrate a sacrificial rite. This was of course.
He, on the other hand, who announced a sacrificial pomp did in other words proclaim by sound of trumpet that he gave a dinner. This was of necessity. Hence, when Agamemnon offers a hecatomb to Jupiter, his brother Menelaus walks in to dinner, [Greek: hachletost], without invitation. As a brother, we are told by Homer that no invitation was required. He had the privilege of what in German is beautifully called "ein Kind des Hauses," a child of the house. This dispensation from the necessity of a formal invitation Homer explains, but as to explanation how he knew that there was a dinner, that he pa.s.ses over as superfluous.
A vast herd of oxen could not be sacrificed without open and public display of the preparation, and that a human banquet must accompany a divine sacrifice--this was so much a self-evident truth that Homer does not trouble himself to make so needless an explanation.
Hence, therefore, a case of legislation in St. Paul"s Christian administration, which I will venture to say few readers understand. Take the Feast of Ephesus. Here, as in all cities of Asia Minor and Greece, the Jews lived in great numbers. The universal hospitality over all these regions was exhibited in dinners ([Greek: dehipna]). Now, it happened not sometimes, but always, that he who gave a dinner had on the same day made a sacrifice at the Great Temple; nay, the dinner was always part of the sacrifice, and thus the following dilemma arose.
Scruples of eating part of sacrifices were absolutely unintelligible, except as insults to Ephesus. To deny the existence of Diana had no meaning in the ears of an Ephesian. All that he did understand was, that if you happened to be a hater of Ephesus, you must hate the guardian deity of Ephesus. And the sole inference he could collect from your refusing to eat what had been hallowed to Diana was--that you hated Ephesus. The dilemma, therefore, was this: either grant a toleration of this practice, or else farewell to all amicable intercourse for the Jews with the citizens. In fact, it was to proclaim open war if this concession were refused. A scruple of conscience might have been allowed for, but a scruple of this nature could find no allowance in any Pagan city whatever. Moreover, it had really no foundation. The truth is far otherwise than that Pagan deities were dreams. Far from it. They were as real as any other beings. The accommodation, therefore, which St. Paul most wisely granted was--to eat socially, without regard to any ceremony through which the food might have pa.s.sed. So long as the Judaizing Christian was no party to the religious ceremonies, he was free of all partic.i.p.ation in idolatry. Since if the mere open operation of a Pagan process could transform into the character of an accomplice one who with no a.s.senting heart ate of the food, in that case Christ Himself might by possibility have shared in an idolatrous banquet, and we Christians at this day in the East Indies might for months together become unconscious accomplices in the foul idolatries of the Buddhist and Brahminical superst.i.tions.
But so essentially were the convivial banquets of the Pagans interwoven with their religious rites, so essentially was a great dinner a great offering to the G.o.ds, and _vice versa_--a great offering to the G.o.ds a great dinner--that the very ministers and chief agents in religion were at first the same. Cocus, or [Greek: mageirost], was the very same person as the Pope, or presiding arbiter in succession to a Pope. "Sunt eadem," says Casaubon, "Cocus et Pope." And of this a most striking example is yet extant in Athenaeus. From the correspondence which for many centuries was extant between Alexander the Great, when embarked upon his great expeditions, and his royal mother Olympias, who remained in Macedon, was one from which we have an extract even at this day, where he, as we learn from the letter quoted, had been urging his mother to purchase for him a good cook. And what was made the test supreme of his skill? Why, this, that he should be [Greek: thysihon hempeirost], an artist able to dress a sacrificial banquet. What he meant is this: I do not want an ordinary cook, who might be equal to the preparation of a plain (or, what is the same thing, secular) dinner, but a person qualified or competent to take charge of a hecatomb dinner. His mother"s reply addresses itself to that one point only: [Greek: Peligua ton mageiron labe hapd thest metrost], which is in effect: "A cook is it that you want? Why, then, you cannot do better than take mine. The man is a reliable table of sacrifices; he knows the whole ritual of those great official and sacred dinners given by the late king, your father.
He is acquainted with the whole _cuisine_ of the more mysterious religions, the Orgiacs" (probably from the neighbouring Thrace), "and all the great ceremonies and observances practised at Olympia, and even what you may eat on the great St. Leger Day. So don"t lose sight of the arrangement, but take the man as a present, from me, your affectionate mother, and be sure to send off an express for him at your earliest convenience."
[Professor Robertson Smith in his latest work has well pointed out that even with the Hebrews the sacrifices were eaten in common till the seventh century B. C., when the sin-offerings, in a time of great national distress, came to be slain before Jehovah, and "none but the priests ate of the flesh," a phase of sacrificial specialization which marks the beginning of the exclusive sacerdotalism of the Jews.--ED.]
_V. ON THE MYTHUS._
That which the tradition of the people is to the truth of facts--that is a _mythus_ to the reasonable origin of things. [Transcriber"s Note: three dots in a vertical line above a tiny circle] These objects to an eye at [Transcriber"s Note: low tiny circle] might all melt into one another, as stars are confluent which modern astronomy has prismatically split. Says Rennell, as a reason for a Mahometan origin of a ca.n.a.l through Cairo, such is the tradition of the people. But we see amongst ourselves how great works are ascribed to the devil or to the Romans by antiquarians.
In Rennell we see the effects of synthesis. He throws back his observations, like a woman threading a series of needles or a shuttle running through a series of rings, through a succession of Egyptian ca.n.a.ls (p. 478), showing the real action of the case, that a tendency existed to this. And, by the way, here comes another strong ill.u.s.tration of the popular adulterations. They in our country confound the "Romans,"
a vulgar expression for the Roman Catholics, with the ancient national people of Rome. Here one element of a _mythus_ B has melted into the _mythus_ X, and in far-distant times might be very perplexing to antiquarians, when the popular tradition was too old for them to _see_ the point of juncture where the alien stream had fallen in.
Then, again, not only ignorance, but love, combines to adulterate the tradition. Every man wishes to give his own country an interest in anything great. What an effort has been made to suck Sir T. R. back into Scotland!
Thus, it is too difficult without a motive to hold apart vast distances _or_ intervals that lie in a field which has all gathered into a blue haze. Stars, divided by millions of miles, collapse into each other. So _mythi_: and then comes the perplexity--the entanglement. Then come also, from lacunae arising in these interwelded stories, temptations to falsehood. By the way, even the recent tale of Astyages seems to have been pieced: the difficulty was to find a motive for Cyrus, reputed a good man, to make war on his grandfather. Kill him he might by accident.
But the dream required that he should dethrone his grandfather.
Accordingly the dreadful story is devised; but why should Cyrus adopt the injuries of a n.o.bleman who, if all were true, had only saved himself by accident?
Impossible as it would seem to trans.m.u.te Socrates into a _mythus_, considering the broad daylight which then rested upon Athenian history, and the inextricable way in which Socrates is entangled in that history (although we have all seen many a Scriptural personage so trans.m.u.ted under far less colourable pretenses or advantages), still it is evident that the mediaeval schoolmen _did_ practically treat Socrates as something of that sort--as a mythical, symbolic, or representative man.
Socrates is the eternal burthen of their quillets, quodlibets, problems, syllogisms; for them he is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, that much-suffering man; or, to speak more adequately, for _them_ he is the John Doe and the Richard Roe of English law, whose feuds have tormented the earth and incensed the heavens through a cycle of uncounted centuries, and must have given a bad character of our planet on its English side. To such an extent was this pushed, that many of the scholastic writers became wearied of enunciating or writing his name, and, antic.i.p.ating the occasional fashion of _My lud_ and _Your ludship_ at our English Bar, or of _Hocus Pocus_ as an abbreviation of pure weariness for _Hoc est Corpus_, they called him not _Socrates_, but _Sortes_. Now, whence, let me ask, was this custom derived? As to Doe and Roe, who or what first set them by the ears together is now probably past all discovery. But as to _Sortes_, that he was a mere contraction for _Socrates_ is proved in the same way that _Mob_ is shown to have been a brief way of writing _Mobile vulgus_, viz., that by Bishop Stillingfleet in particular the two forms, _Mob_ and _Mobile vulgus_ are used interchangeably and indifferently through several pages consecutively--just as _Canter_ and _Canterbury gallop_, of which the one was at first the mere shorthand expression of the other, were at one period interchanged, and for the same reason. The abbreviated form wore the air of plebeian slang at its first introduction, but its convenience favoured it: soon it became reconciled to the ear, then it ceased to be slang, and finally the original form, ceasing to have any apparent advantage of propriety or elegance, dropped into total disuse. _Sortes_, it is a clear case, inherited from Socrates his distressing post of target-general for the arrows of disputatious Christendom. But how came Socrates by that distinction? I cannot have a doubt that it was strength of tradition that imputed such a use of the Socratic name and character to Plato. The reader must remember that, although Socrates was no _mythus_, and least of all could be such, to his own leading disciple, that was no reason why he should not be treated as a _mythus_. In Wales, some nine or ten years ago, _Rebecca_, as the mysterious and masqued redresser of public wrongs, was rapidly pa.s.sing into a _mythical_ expression for that universal character of Rhadamanthian avenger or vindicator. So of Captain Rock, in Ireland. So of Elias amongst the Jews (_when Elias shall come_), as the sublime, mysterious, and in some degree pathetic expression for a great teacher lurking amongst the dreadful mists.
_VI. DAVID"S NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE--THE POLITICS OF THE SITUATION._
You read in the Hebrew Scriptures of a man who had thirty sons, all of whom "rode on white a.s.ses"; the riding on white a.s.ses is a circ.u.mstance that expresses their high rank or distinction--that all were princes. In Syria, as in Greece and almost everywhere, white was the regal symbolic colour.[7] And any mode of equitation, from the far inferior wealth of ancient times, implied wealth. Mules or a.s.ses, besides that they were so far superior a race in Syria no less than in Persia, to furnish a favourite designation for a warlike hero, could much more conveniently be used on the wretched roads, as yet found everywhere, until the Romans began to treat road-making as a regular business of military pioneering.
In this case, therefore, there were thirty sons of one man, and all provided with princely establishments. Consequently, to have thirty sons at all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy; but to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the funds of the family would not allow of giving to each his separate establishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was surprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against its truth, the writer would justly deny by pleading--for that very reason, _because_ it was surprising, did I tell the story. In a train of 1,500 years naturally there must happen many wonderful things, both as to events and persons. Were these crowded together in time or locally, these indeed we should incredulously reject. But when we understand the vast remoteness from each other in time or in place, we freely admit the tendency lies the other way; the wonder would be if there were _not_ many coincidences that each for itself separately might be looked upon as strange. And as the surgeon had set himself to collect certain cases for the very reason that they were so unaccountably fatal, with a purpose therefore of including all that did _not_ terminate fatally, so we should remember that generally historians (although less so if a Jewish historian, because he had a far n.o.bler chain of wonders to record) do not feel themselves open to the objection of romancing if they report something out of the ordinary track, since exactly that sort of matter is their object, and it cannot but be found in a considerable proportion when their course travels over a vast range of successive generations. It would be a marvellous thing indeed if every one of five hundred men whom an author had chosen to record biographically should have for his baptismal name--Francis. But if you found that this was the very reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however strange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects, you would no longer see anything to startle your belief.
But let me give an interesting case partly ill.u.s.trating this principle.
Once I was present on an occasion where, of two young men, one very young and very clever was suggesting infidel scruples, and the other, so much older as to be entering on a professional career with considerable distinction, was on the very point of drinking-in all that his companion urged as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The younger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a pa.s.sage from the Bible, in which one of the circ.u.mstances was--that the Jewish army consisted of 120,000 men. "Now," said he, "knowing as we all do the enormity of such a force as a peace establishment, even for mighty empires like England, how perfectly like a fairy-tale or an Arabian Nights" entertainment does it sound to hear of such monstrous armaments in a little country like Judaea, equal, perhaps, to the twelve counties of Wales!" This was addressed to myself, and I could see by the whole expression of the young physician that his condition was exactly this--his studies had been purely professional; he made himself a king, because (having happened to hurt his leg) he wore white _fasciae_ about his thigh. He knew little or nothing of Scriptural records; he had not read at all upon this subject; quite as little had he thought, and, unfortunately, his conversation had lain amongst clever chemists and naturalists, who had a prejudgment in the case that all the ability and free power of mind ran into the channel of scepticism; that only people situated as most women are should acquiesce in the faith or politics of their fathers or predecessors, or could believe much of the Scriptures, except those who were slow to examine for themselves; but that mult.i.tudes pretended to believe upon some interested motive. This was precisely the situation of the young physician himself--he listened with manifest interest, checked himself when going to speak; he knew the danger of being reputed an infidel, and he had no temper for martyrdom, as his whole gesture and manner, by its tendency, showed what was pa.s.sing in his mind. "Yes, X is right, manifestly right, and every rational view from our modern standard of good sense and reflective political economy tends to the same conclusion. By the reflex light of political economy we know even at this hour much as to the condition of ancient lands like Palestine, Athens, etc., quite unrevealed to the wisest men amongst them. But for me, who am entering on a critical walk of social life, I shall need every aid from advantageous impression in favour of my religious belief, so I cannot in prudence speak, for I shall speak too warmly, and I forbear."
What I replied, and in that instance usefully replied--for it sufficed to check one who was gravitating downwards to infidelity, and likely to settle there for ever if he once reached that point--was in substance this:
Firstly, that the plea, with regard to the numbers as most extraordinary, was so far from affecting the credibility of the statement disadvantageously, that on that ground, agreeably to the logic I have so scantily expounded, this very feature in the case was what partly engaged the notice of the Scriptural writer. It _was_ a great army for so little a nation. And _therefore_, would the writer say, _therefore_ in print I record it.
Secondly, that we must not, however, be misled by the narrow limits, the Welsh limits, to suppose a Welsh population. For that whilst the twelve counties of Wales do not _now_ yield above half-a-million of people, Palestine had pretty certainly a number fluctuating between four and six millions.
Thirdly, that the great consideration of this was the stage in the expansion of society at which the Hebrew nation then stood, and the sublime interest--sublime enough to them, though far from comprehending the solemn freight of hopes confided to themselves--which they consciously defended. It was an age in which no pay was given to the soldier. Now, when the soldier const.i.tutes a separate profession, with the regular pay he undertakes the regular danger and hardships. There is no motive for giving the pay and the rations but precisely that he _does_ so undertake. But when no pay at all is allowed out of any common fund, it will never be endured by the justice of the whole society or by an individual member that he, the individual, as one insulated stake-holder, having no greater interest embarked than others, should undertake the danger or the labour of warfare for the whole. And two inferences arise upon having armies so immense:
First, that they were a militia, or more properly not even that, but a Landwehr--that is, a _posse comitatus_, the whole martial strength of the people (one in four), drawn out and slightly trained to meet a danger, which in those times was always a pa.s.sing cloud. Regular and successive campaigns were unknown; the enemy, whoever he might be, could as little support a regular army as the people of Palestine.
Consequently, all these enemies would have to disperse hastily to their reaping and mowing, just as we may observe the Jews do under Joshua. It required, therefore, no long absence from home. It was but a march, but a waiting for opportunity, watching for a favourable day--sunshine or cloud, the rising or subsiding of a river, the wind in the enemy"s face, or an ambush skilfully posted. All was then ready; the signal was given, a great battle ensued, and by sunset of one anxious day all was over in one way or another. Upon this position of circ.u.mstances there was neither any fair dispensation from personal service (except where citizens" scruples interfered), nor any motive for wishing it. On the contrary, by a very few days" service, a stigma, not for the individual only, but for his house and kin, would be evaded for ages of having treacherously forsaken the commonwealth in agony. And the preference for a fighting station would be too eager instead of too backward. It would become often requisite to do what it is evident the Jews in reality did--to make successive sifting and winnowing from the service troops, at every stage throwing out upon severer principles of examination those who seemed least able to face a trying crisis, whilst honourable posts of no great dependency would be a.s.signed to those rejected, as modes of soothing their offended pride. This in the case of a great danger; but in the case of an ordinary danger there is no doubt that many vicarious arrangements would exist by way of evading so injurious a movement as that of the whole fighting population. Either the ordinary watch and ward, in that section which happened to be locally threatened--as, for instance, by invasion on one side from Edom or Moab, on another side from the Canaanites or Philistines--would undertake the case as one which had fallen to them by allotment of Providence; or that section whose service happened to be due for the month, without local regards, would face the exigency. But in any great national danger, under that stage of society which the Jews had reached between Moses and David--that stage when fighting is no separate professional duty, that stage when such things are announced by there being no military pay--not the army which is so large as 120,000 men, but the army which is so small, requires to be explained.[8]
Secondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay, and therefore no separate fighting profession, is this--that foreign war, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite unknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance of armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued with those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack upon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be lawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all his great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it inevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious motive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he discovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction was required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without sincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words aloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his prophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nation denying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive warfare. But the Jews had no such commission--a proselyte needed more evidences of a.s.sent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words, and he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution.
Some nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of servitude. But the Romans were so far from treating _their_ language in this way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay for a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the Jews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon foreigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by coming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law, and by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple.
Such was the prodigious state of separation from a Mahometan principle of fanatical proselytism in which the Jews were placed from the very first. One small district only was to be cleared of its ancient idolatrous, and probably desperately demoralized, tribes. Even this purification it was not intended should be instant; and upon the following reason, partly unveiled by G.o.d and partly left to an integration, viz., that in the case of so sudden a desolation the wild beasts and noxious serpents would have encroached too much on the human population. So much is expressed, and probably the sequel foreseen was, that the Jews would have lapsed into a wild hunting race, and have outworn that ceremonial propensity which fitted them for a civil life, which formed them into a hive in which the great work of G.o.d in Shiloh, His probationary Temple or His glorious Temple and service at Jerusalem, operated as the mysterious instinct of a queen bee, to compress and organize the whole society into a cohesion like this of life. Here, perhaps, lay the reason for not allowing of any sudden summary extirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second principle, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete.
Snares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown--in that case the restless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be utterly withdrawn--in that case his faith would undergo no probation.
Even upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that aggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it was not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was not to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and to be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment this part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive warfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all other wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no allowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom, Midian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not aggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there remained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever justify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the Jews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted, and wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible atrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole tribe), in which case a b.l.o.o.d.y exterminating war under G.o.d"s sanction succeeded and rapidly drew to a close, or else grew out of the ruinous schism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem.
And as this schism had no countenance from G.o.d, still less could the wars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that could have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic theory of their const.i.tution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole case of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength, struck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in Shiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the last man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies could tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an excessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in the 120,000 men, the true difficulty would lie the other way, to account for its being so much reduced.
It seems to me highly probable that the offence of David in numbering the people, which ultimately was the occasion of fixing the site for the Temple of Jerusalem, pointed to this remarkable military position of the Jewish people--a position forbidding all fixed military inst.i.tutions, and which yet David was probably contemplating in that very _census_.
Simply to number the people could not have been a crime, nor could it be any desideratum for David; because we are too often told of the muster rolls for the whole nation, and for each particular tribe, to feel any room for doubt that the reports on this point were constantly corrected, brought under review of the governing elders, councils, judges, princes, or king, according to the historical circ.u.mstances, so that the need and the criminality of such a _census_ would vanish at the same moment. But this was not the _census_ ordered by David. He wanted a more specific return, probably of the particular wealth and nature of the employment pursued by each individual family, so that upon this return he might ground a permanent military organization for the people; and such an organization would have thoroughly revolutionized the character of the population, as well as drawn them into foreign wars and alliances.
It is painful to think that many amiable and really candid minds in search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran towards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the altar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word "army," as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects indifferently, and one which in Judaea exclusively could be applied only to such a service as must in its own nature be sudden, brief, and always tending to a decisive catastrophe.
And that this was the true form of the crime, not only circ.u.mstances lead me to suspect, but especially the remarkable demur of Joab, who in his respectful remonstrance said in effect that, when the whole strength of the nation was known in sum--meaning from the ordinary state returns--what need was there to search more inquisitively into the special details? Where all were ready to fight cheerfully, why seek for separate _minutiae_ as to each particular cla.s.s? Those general returns had regard only to the ordinary _causa belli_--a hostile invasion. And, then, all nations alike, rude or refined, have gone upon the same general outline of computation--that, subtracting the females from the males, this, in a gross general way, would always bisect the total return of the population. And, then, to make a second bisection of the male half would subtract one quarter from the entire people as too young or too old, or otherwise as too infirm for warlike labours, leaving precisely one quarter of the nation--every fourth head--as available for war. This process for David"s case would have yielded perhaps about 1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy _pospolite_ was far from meeting David"s secret anxieties. He had remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court saved themselves from capture only by a few hours" start of the enemy, and through the enemy"s want of cavalry. This danger meantime having vanished, it might be possible that for David personally no other great conspiracy should disturb his seat upon the throne. None of David"s sons approached to Absalom in popularity; and yet the subsequent attempt of Adonijah showed that the revolutionary temper was still awake in that quarter. But what David feared, in a further-looking spirit, was the tenure by which his immediate descendants would maintain their t.i.tle.
The danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for regulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things far less determined than amongst monogamous nations--one son pleading his priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother"s higher rank, a third pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within the description of _porphyrogeniture_, or royal birth, which is often felt as transcendent as _primogeniture_--even the people, apart from the several pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as grounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds. There seems good reason to think that already the ten tribes, Israel as opposed to Judah, looked upon the more favoured and royal tribe of Judah, with their supplementary section of Benjamin, as unduly favoured in the national economy. Secretly there is little doubt that they murmured even against G.o.d for ranking this powerful tribe as the prerogative tribe. The jealousy had evidently risen to a great height; it was suppressed by the vigilant and strong government of Solomon; but at the outset of his son"s reign it exploded at once, and the Scriptural account of the case shows that it proceeded upon old grievances. The boyish rashness of Rehoboam might exasperate the leaders, and precipitate the issue; but very clearly all had been prepared for a revolt. And I would remark that by the "young men" of Rehoboam are undoubtedly meant the soldiers--the body-guards whom the Jewish kings now retained as an element of royal pomp. This is the invariable use of the term in the East. Even in Josephus the term for the military by profession is generally "the young men"; whilst "the elders" mean the councilors of state. David saw enough of the popular spirit to be satisfied that there was no political reliance on the permanence of the dynasty; and even at home there was an internal source of weakness. The tribe of Benjamin were mortified and incensed at the deposition of Saul"s family and the b.l.o.o.d.y proscription of that family adopted by David. One only, a grandson of Saul, he had spared out of love to his friend Jonathan. This was Mephibo-sheth; but he was incapacitated for the throne by lameness. And how deep the resentment was amongst the Benjamites is evident from the insulting advantage taken of his despondency in the day of distress by Shimei. For Shimei had no motive for the act of coming to the roadside and cursing the king beyond his attachment to the house of Saul. Humanly speaking, David"s prospect of propagating his own dynasty was but small. On the other hand, G.o.d had promised him _His_ support. And hence it was that his crime arose, viz., upon his infidelity, in seeking to secure the throne by a mere human arrangement in the first place; secondly, by such an arrangement as must disorganize the existing theocratic system of the Jewish people. Upon this crime followed his chastis.e.m.e.nt in a sudden pestilence. And it is remarkable in how significant a manner G.o.d manifested the nature of the trespa.s.s, and the particular course through which He had meant originally, and _did_ still mean, to counteract the worst issue of David"s apprehensions. It happened that the angel of the pestilence halted at the threshing-floor of Araunah; and precisely that spot did G.o.d by dreams to David indicate as the site of the glorious Temple. Thus it seemed as though in so many words G.o.d had declared: "Now that all is over, your crime and its punishment, understand that your fears were vain. I will continue the throne in your house longer than your anxieties can personally pursue its descent. And with regard to the terrors from Israel, although this event of a great schism is inevitable and essential to My councils, yet I will not allow it to operate for the extinction of your house. And that very Temple, in that very place where My angel was commissioned to pause, shall be one great means and one great pledge to you of My decree in favour of your posterity. For this house, as a common sanctuary to all Jewish blood, shall create a perpetual interest in behalf of Judah amongst the other tribes, even when making war upon Jerusalem." Witness if it were but that one case where 200,000 captives of Judah were restored without ransom, were clothed completely, were fed, by the very men who had just ma.s.sacred their fighting relatives.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state--and afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became so splendid that it was made so--white had always been the colour of a monarchy. ["A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty"
(Merivale"s "History of Rome," ii., p. 468).--ED.]
[8] This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes a point of this (see "Juventus Mundi," p. 429): "The privates of the army are called by the names of _laos_, the people; _demos_, the community; and _pleth[=u]s_, the mult.i.tude. But no notice is taken throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an officer. Still, all attend the a.s.semblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms." Even the common people, not only in cities but in camps, a.s.sembled to hear the deliberations of the chiefs.--ED.
_VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE._
The argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews, flowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of Geneva--never mixing its waters with those which surround it--has been by some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as everywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide the answer. Yet how infinitely better to state it fully, and then show that the evasion has no form at all; but, on the contrary, powerfully argues the inconsistency and incapacity of those who urge it. For instance, I remember Boulanger, a French infidel, whose work was duly translated by a Scotchman, answers it thus: What is there miraculous in all this? he demands. Listen to me, and I will show you in two minutes that it rests upon mere show and pure delusion. How is it, why is it, that the Jews have remained a separate people? Simply from their usages, in the first place; but, secondly, still more from the fact that these usages, which with other peoples exist also in some representative shape, with _them_ modify themselves, shift, alter, adapt themselves to the climate or to the humour or accidents of life amongst those amidst whom chance has thrown them; whereas amongst the Jews every custom, the most trivial, is also part of their legislation; and their legislation is also their religion. (Boulanger, by the way, is far from expressing that objection so clearly as I have here done; but this is his drift and purpose, so far as he knew how to express it.) Take any other people--Isaurians, Athenians, Romans, Corinthians--doubtless all these and many others have transmitted their blood down to our ages, and are now living amongst us by representation. But why do we not perceive this? Why do the Athenians seem to have perished utterly? Simply for this reason: they were a plastic, yielding, un.o.bstinate race. An Athenian lived in a port of Italy, married an Italian woman; thence threw out lines of descent to Milan, thence to Paris; and because his Attic usages were all local, epichorial, and tied to a particular mythology which has given way, or to a superst.i.tion which is defunct, or to a patriotic remembrance which has vanished with the land and the sympathy that supported it; hence, and upon other similar arguments, the Athenian has long since melted into the ma.s.s with which he was intermixed; he was a unit attached to a vast overpowering number from another source, and into that number he has long since been absorbed; he was a drop in a vast ocean, and long ago he has been confounded with the waters that did not differ, except numerically, from his own. But the Jews are an obstinate, bigoted people; and they have maintained their separation, not by any overruling or coercing miracle, but in a way perfectly obvious and palpable to themselves--obvious by its operation, obvious in its remedy. They would not resign their customs. Upon these ordinances, positive and negative, commanding and forbidding many peculiar rites, consecrating and desecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the stress and emphasis of religion. They would not resign them; they did not expect others to adopt them--not in any case; _a fortiori_ not from a degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of Providential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to blend with other races.
This is the infidel"s attempt to rebut, to defeat, utterly to confound, the argumentative force of this most astonishing amongst all historical pictures that the planet presents.
The following is the answer: