The Messiah-Ideal

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:42:40 PM

The Messiah-Ideal Comparative Religious Legislations, Doctrines, and Forms unfolding that Ideal.

QuoteI recommend listening to this interview before reading this relatively unknown work-- CSR
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/enclo ... -07_00.mp3

Feel free to clean up the bad text. The converted form to text corrupted several characters. I've done just a simple clean up at this point.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Of The Semitic Department Sever Hall

VOLUME I.

Jesus of Nazareth,

HIS ASPIRATIONS AND ETHICAL LEGISLATION
HISTORICALLY DEVELOPED.

BY
MAURICE FLUEGEL,
BALTIMORE, MD.

Author of "Thoughts on Religious Rites," 'Spirit of the Biblical Legislation" etc.
To the memory of my dear, departed mother, Esther, and my
son Eli.
The Author.

Copyright secured by the Author, 1896.
Contents of Volume I.
Introduction— Motive, Range And Scope Of The Work

President G. E. Day Of Yale University

1.   Religion And Ethics. Parallels
2.   Innate Ideas. Revolution And Evolution. Herbert Spencer
3.   Religious Leading And Minor Principles.
4.   Max Mueller. Monotheism And Polytheism
5.   Influence Of Religion On Morals. Herbert Spencer
6.   As Religion So The Community
7.   Leading Rites And Ceremonies.
8.   Religious Ideas, Forms And Seasons.
9.   Head Covering And Worship..
10.   Herb. Spencer On That . '.
11.   Bible, Mishna, Talmud,On It
12.   Winter Holidays, Yule, Channukka,
13.   Booths, Thankgivings, Christmas, New Years
14.   Holy Seasons Socially
15.   Days Of Repentance And Of Joy With Hebrew, Parsee, And Polytheist
16.   Spring Holidays And Their Evolutions.
17.   Passover And Easter
18.   The "Seder" And The Lord's Supper
19.   The Hebrew And His Passover
20.   Passover Rerainiscenses. Ideas
21.   Passover Symbols
22.   Aphikomen And Eucharistia
23.   Ostara, Easter, Passah, Resurrection
24.   The Passover Lamb
25.   Easter Sports
26.   Easter Legends And Ovid's Myth
27.   Hoary Easter Banquets
28.   Easter Cakes, Herbs, Egps '
29.   Mysteries: Aphikomen, Hostia And Eucharist
30.   The Hidden Image And Zophon
31.   Lord's Supper and Aphikomen. The Rituals
32.   Essenians And Gentile Christians
33.   Its Origin
34.   Jesus' Aspirations
35.   The Trial Of Jesus
36.   Legal Aspects Of The Trial
37.   Pentateuch And Maimonides On Idolatry
38.   Maimonides And Max Mueller On It
39.   Talmudonit. The "Rebellious Sage"
40.   Criticism Of Jesus' Trial
41.   King of the Jew's. The Corpus Delicti
42.   Paul's Innovations
43.   Gospels On Jesus' Trial
44.   Messiah's Thorny Crown
45.   Cross And Apotheosis
46.   Biblical Parallels And Evolutions.
47.   Abraham And Agamemnon. Isaac's Sacrifice. Iphigenia's
48.   Niobe And Rizpha. —Critical Remarks
49.   Patriarchial Staff. Scepter And Cross
50.   Hebrews And Hyksos In Egypt
51.   Staff And Crux
52.   Roman Cross. Fasces. Crux
53.   Blefuing Of Ephraim And Manasse
54.   Altars And Stelae
55.   Laban's Theraphim And Penates
56.   Abraham And His Anarels
57.   Loth And His Wife. Baucis And Philemon
58.   Samson, Hercules And Meleagros
59.   Samson And Meleagroe
60.   Monotheism And Polytheism
61.   The Wandering Jew. Perseus .And Atlas
62.   Chapter Vi Ethical And Legal Evolutions. Elohim. Yhvh. Shaddai
63.   Temple Worship. Anthropomorphism
64.   Priesthood. Freedom. Kinghood
65.   Holidays. Sabbath
66.   Sacrifices, Idem Human
67.   Primogeniture
68.   Polygamy. Divorcement
69.   Slavery. Blood-Revenge. Levi Rate's Marriage
70.   Miracles. "Sun Be Still!"
71.   Survey Of The Messianic Ideal
72.   Idol And Unknowable
73.   The Mediator
74.   Split Of The Ideal And The Real
75.   The Mystic Books
76.   Jesus Of Nazareth
77.   Jesus And The Adulteress
78.   No Capital Punishment
79.   A Great Historical Era
80.   The Historical Jesus
81.   The Sermon On The Mount As The Messianic Legislation
82.   Background Of The Sermon On The Mount
83.   The Essenes
84.   Essene Practice And Doctrine
85.   Mount Sermon And Essenian Parallels
86.   Mount Sermon And Talmudical Parallels
87.   More Such Parallels.
88.   Jesus And Essenism
89.   Parseeism And Bible
90.   Analysis Of Mount Sermon. Matthew
91.   Continued. — Mount Sermon Analyzed
92.   Continued. — Sacrifices. Divorcement
93.   The Lord's Prayer
94.   Messiah Legislation. Adam Smith, Malthus, Jesus
95.   Essenian Jesus And Epicurian Horace
96.   Range Of The Sermon On The Mount
97.   Other Views On The Mount Sermon
98.   Its Verses Assenting To The Pentateuch
99.   Its Verses Dissenting From The Pentateuch
100.   Estimate Of The Mount Sermon
101.   Dangerous Precedents. Religious Compromise
102.   Cardinal. Chief-Rabbi. Professor Franz Delitzsch
103.   Signs Of The Times
104.   (Lose Of Vol. I, And Themes Of Vol. Ii:
105.   (Jesus, Paul, Gospel, Mohammed and Koran, Parseeism, Qabbala Etc)

Errata
Comments On The Author's Works

INTRODUCTION

It was about ten years ago, at the University-Library of Leipsic, Germany, that I conceived the idea of writing a series of treatises on the several religions and legislations of the foremost nations of history. I was then, for the first time, deeply engrossed by the study of the hoary Persian religion, with its sacred books and their leading ideas, doctrines and rites. I felt struck with the revelation of the great parallel lines and the affinity of the Zend-Avesta with the Bible, the Gospel and the Koran. Gradually the far-reaching and cheering idea of the unity of religions dawned upon my horizon, like an illuminating flash of lightning in midnight darkness. Wonderful and novel as that aspect seemed to me, it nevertheless was not really new. It was but an echo of olden impressions. It was a dormant reminiscence from former years, newly awakened. I felt that akin almost to Plato's doctrine that our ideas are primordial and not acquired. Long ago that idea had been foreshadowed in my early biblical readings. It was that sacred legend there, from hoary times, that man had worshipped but Yahveh, that the Yahveh'Cult. had been firmly established during the Adamic era of civilization and that but later, strife, corruption and war, natural and human catastrophies, the "deluge of Noah" and the ambition of " Nimrod," the Tower of Babel and the violence of revolutions had disintegrated and scattered mankind; had brought about the differentiation of the race and the breaking up of the Yahveh'Cult, into many hostile peoples and opposing creeds. — That biblical legend seemed to coincide with the new thoughts streaming forth from the tomes I was then poring over, the sacred books of the hoary Parsee religion. That traditional statement of a time of religious unity, of pure, natural religion established among the human race, seemed to be confirmed by the volumes on Parseeism. Revolving in my mind the parallel-lines of thought in the great bibles, the leading, ethical books of the world, that view of an original religious unity appeared to be corroborated and confirmed, viz: that man's leading ideas and forms are identical in their great outlines, and that their seeming discrepancies are the result of circumstances; that the great law of evolution, of the development in time, locality and surrounding conditions presided over the formation of the multiplicity of creeds and churches, dogmas and rites; just as it did over nations and tongues.

This was the fundamental idea enunciated in my "Thoughts on Religious Rites and Views' This idea I elaborated more explicitly and clearly in my attempt denominated the "Spirit of the Biblical Legislation" The same idea is elucidated now in this volume, the analysis of the doctrines and the aspirations of Jesus of Nazareth. It will be further developed in the following volume on Paul and the Gospels, Mohammed and the Koran, with their parallels in Talmud, Mysticism, Parseeism, etc., all setting forth the Messianic scheme. They are one series of studies on the bibles of the leading nations of the world. All point to the great fact of the essential unity of creeds; that the great legislators, the authors of the leading ethical books, have aimed at the amelioration of man by all intellectual, moral and social means at their disposal, and that these means, the principles and ideals inculcated, were running, in parallel lines, bearing a strong mark of affinity. They prove religion to be deeply imbedded in man's moral nature, showing the diverse spiritual systems to have had their origin and root in the eternal essence of mind, which centres in the Deity. They are coinciding in chief points, then developing and differentiating in minor traits, according to social, climatic, geographic and dietetic conditions and environments.

My first publication on these Bible studies was in 1888: "Thoughts on Religious Rites and Views". It was followed in 1893 by a volume on the "Spirit of the Biblical Legislation I now hand over to the kind public this third book: "'The Messiah-Ideal' setting forth that great aspiration of universal history. It is an independent study, yet in intimate combination with, and a close continuation of the preceding two volumes. Alike with them, it treats of biblical analogies and ethical evolutions of leading religious themes; yet its real subject-matter is special. While the first discusses religious forms and ideas among all creeds, sects, countries and ages; while the second treats particularly of the central laws and institutions of the Mosaic Code and its derivations, this present work has for its proper object the leading doctrines and views of the Gospel and of the Koran, with their analogies in the Old Testament, the Talmud, the Avesta, etc. The most prominent figure of this volume is Jesus of Nazareth. It is followed in Volume 11. by Paul of Tarsus; closing with Mohammed, the Arabian Legislator.

As in my preceding work, so have I here attempted, not to discuss and give an exhaustive survey of all the details of my theme, but rather to distill from Gospel and Koran their pure spirit and essence. Reverently, but critically, I have interrogated, as a simple truth-seeker, not as a devotee, those intellectual leaders and master minds and their literary legacies in Bible, Gospel, Koran, Avesta, Homer, etc., concerning their suggestions, their social and ethical schemes, their proposed means and final objects to be reached. Mostly, it turned out, these leading intellects were simply the mouthpiece of their national psychology, the respective geniuses of the peoples they were representing. And Just that is the criterion of their own genius; their fitness is proven by their answering to national needs. Analysing the teachings of these ethical minds, it came out that these were usually in harmony with the conscious or unconscious leading needs and aspirations of their respective sections of mankind, be it of Judaea or Rome, of Greece, Arabia, Persia, etc. These national heroes proved to be the personified exponents of history; the dial-hands of hurrying time; the echoes of the silent, yet persistent objects of human endeavor; the result of the crossing and the conflict of wisdom with passion, of the national strong and weak points, of selfishness and generosity, etc. So were, too, the leading features of the several sacred books herein contemplated. They proved to embody the final objects of the national aspirations, all intent upon the ultimate goal of human destiny.

It is not necessary here to rehearse the popular, exaggerated verdicts to which have been carried the biased estimates concerning the authors and the writings constituting the several canons, excesses committed both by their adherents and by their opponents. The people usually extol tomorrow what they have vilified yesterday. A close examination of facts shows that the author of the Sermon on the Motint was simply the exponent and flower of all the best and noblest ever uttered in Judaea; that the fine Paulinian chapter on charity, just as his unique logic, were the bloom and the gold-dust of the mystic Hellenists of his age. Even so was Islam the flower and fruit of the most thoughtful Koreischits of Arabia. Each of them was the choicest of the chosen ones. But each was, what he had to be; he could not be otherwise! Each did the best and the noblest of his epoch, amalgamated with the unavoidable alloy of his national and local environments. And just because they did that, viz: the best and the fittest which their time allowed, they have earned their places in the human pantheon; even their dark and weak sides became perfections and were necessary, just as an alloy of brass is to the silver of the goldsmith.

This adaptation proved to be the nerve of the Sacred Books, the secret of their strength, the cause of their having been accepted by their respective adherents as their Bible, their divine guidance, their rule of conduct.

This final aim and tendency of the sacred books, mostly identical with the goal of history, this drift of all human progress, I have designated by the hoary, popular and pregnant ideal and mystic personification of the "Messiah" Messiah is, originally, a Hebrew word meaning the anointed one, the highest dignitary, leader, sacred priest, general in chief and prince, appointed by the legitimate organs of the Hierarchy to that exalted station. It corresponds to our modern President or the Roman Prince-elect. Now "Messiah" has become for the last 2000 years a historico-mystical household word, a metaphorical figure for dignity, saliently standing forth in the sacred writings of Western nations, Arian, Turanian or Shemitic. In this work I do not convey by " Messiah," the idea of a definite, special, concrete person, a real personal Messiah, but rather the conception of such an ideal personality. I believe to be fully warranted in comprehending by that hoary, historico-religious title and term, all the best and the noblest, men have ever aspired at, for individual, national or universal human improvement and happiness.

Thus I denominated this work "The Messiah-Ideally It embodies all the ethical ideas and ideals concerning a leader, a great personality, aspiring at and actually bringing man a step nearer to the realization of universal justice, peace, goodness and contentment. In the Occident, this was popularly assumed to have been realized by Jesus of Nazareth. The orthodox Jew is yet expecting his Davidian Messiah. In the Orient, it is Mohammed of Medina. Farther East, it is Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, etc. Indeed, these ideals and ideas are carried out in every country and age by their respective bearers.

On account of the magnitude of their aspirations, by far transcending any single human capacity, such men have often assumed more than human nature can bear, and their import has, at all times, been estimated by the unthinking masses, either far beyond or far below, their real level. Love and admiration would extol them; hate and prejudice would belittle them. They have been declared the images and emblems of the deity by some, and by others again, dragged down to the level of fiends, and criminals, mountebanks or demented persons. Such was
(1)   Princeps civi talis.

the fate of the master minds of Bible and Gospel, Avesta and Koran, etc.,objects of deification and of vilification, of divine worship or savage vituperation. Inquire at the votaries of such books or Codes, and they will tell you that these are the first and the last words of the godhead; that all wisdom, knowledge and holiness are compressed in their volume. Ask their detractors, and they declare them a compound of nonsense and pretense, of shams and subterfuges. But that is all bias and prejudice; for the salient fact that each of these books is recognized by millions as their Bible, proves that they must needs contain many good and great things. The other fact that there are several such "Sacred Canons," and that neither is universally recognized, shows that they do not contain ALL the great and good things. Indeed, as the sunlight, so are the great ethical truths, scattered everywhere, pervading in part each creed and not monopolized by any. It teaches that Divine Mind is ever and constantly revealing new truths, and that everywhere some of these verities may be found. This volume attempts to give the proper places to the heroes of past religious thoughts; no deification and no demonizing! It tries to re-instate and rehabilitate them into their proper stations in the great pantheon of human benefactors. The Messiahcrown should no longer be monopolized in favor of this or that prophet and legislator. No, its rays are shining over many countries and ages; they radiate over and hallow a galaxy of noble heads, who have toiled and thought, suffered and given an impulse by their selfsacrifice, and brought down new ideas and incentives for human improvement.

In thus trying to humanize, rehabilitate and portray in their just proportions the great historical teachers, I hope to bring nearer to one another the antagonistic parties of creed and race. In showing that all of them have one ethical stock in common, that most often their identity is essential and real, and their disagreement but formal and circumstantial; in trying thus to mitigate sectarian prejudice and misunderstanding, I may contribute a mite towards that peaceand good-will policy, aspired

PAN-LATINISM, PAN-TEUTONISM, PAN-SLAVISM at by all the great teachers, by all the real claimants to the messianic crown. Glancing over the pages of history, what an amount of tears and blood, wars and devastations have not been caused by religious misunderstanding, exaggerations and belittlings! To mitigate fanaticism, to enlighten ignorance, to bring opponents nearer to each other, to help to a better understanding about the import of the leaders and their labors, about the different names and attributes of the same Supreme Power, about the diverse forms of worship of the same Divine Ideal, about the different claimants to the same thorny messiah-crown, to show that everywhere great hearts and minds have struggled, bled and sacrificed themselves that messiahs have to bear a crown of thorns, have to ascend the cross and fructify the world, with their feelings, their thoughts, and their hearts; to show that the harvest of their seed ought to be peace and good will, light and sympathy, mutual justice and kindness, modesty and toleration, — not strife and bitter prejudice, not fanaticism and racial hate, not ostracism and oppression, not privilege of church and arrogance of race; to suggest that there are many creeds and sects, but that one religion is underlying and pervading them all — to show that, to impress that, is the object of this modest work.

Surveying the world at this very present moment, what do we see? Europe is one vast military camp; peoples, races and creeds are hostile to each other; constant war-rumors are hovering on the horizon; the stronger are in barracks and the weaker are under the yoke, toiling to feed the stronger; pan-latinism, panteutonism and pan-slavism are in vogue; so are antisemitism, anti-irishism, anti-poleism; Europe is against Asia, the Occident against the Orient, the Cross against the Crescent; Bible, Gospel and Koran are made a pretext for oppression and ostracism; individuals, nations and countries are weighed, not by their own merits, but by the scales of official creed, race and privilege; whilst in reality, Bible, Gospel and Koran, as Avesta and Vedas, are equally and identically teaching one measure and one weight for all. To point that out, to approach parties with their hates and prejudices, and call on them: Stop, brethren, stop in your fratricide! Moses and Isaias, Jesus and Hillel, Mohammed, Manu and Zoroaster, all have taught peace and good will for men, as the highest worship to God; the God of Jew, Pagan, Christian, Moslem, etc. . . . this is the object of these following pages and of my preceding work.

Well do I know the smallness of my contributions towards that aim. I did the little I could, and may the reader take my will for the deed!

The kindness with which my preceding labors have been received, inspired me with the confidence to entrust this volume to the indulgence of my readers. At this instance may 1 be allowed to mention this yet. It was in 1889 when President George E. Day of Yale University, on the occasion of reading my 'Thoughts on Re/zgzous Iilcs,"kindly wrott m the following: 'Seeing your clear style, I have strongly felt what a contribution it would be if you would undertake to show the teachings of the most distinguished one of your nation, as given in the admirable Gospel translation of your friend, Professor Fr. Delitzsch. .... Is it not wonderful that one of your nation stands out as an ethical teacher, immeasurably above Plato, Socrates, Th. Aquinas, etc. He continued: "l venture to express the hope that you would examine and state what the teachings of Jesus really were Rising above the region of passion or prejudice, you might, if so disposed, present the subject in a strictly objective way as you would Mohammedanism, etc. Such a presentation, I am sure, would be welcomed by all thinking men." — These sentiments, worthy of a true scholar and a University President, have been my guides in writing these pages. I desired to answer the question: 'Watchman, what of the night?"; to descry the dawning day of reason and argument; to show that the thinking Catholic, Protestant and Jew are at one concerning the high ethical value of Jesus* teachings, and that the differences are but concerning mysticism and supernaturalism, which ought not to be in the way of " peace and good will to all." — My former work has met with kindly encouragement from different partsof America and Europe, from scientific men as well as from the public at large. My warmest thanks be herewith tendered to them. It is that encouragement which has cheered me in my labors; and I hope this volume will be as kindly received as its predecessors.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:45:03 PM

In 1888 I published a small volume, denominated "Thoughts on Religious Rites and Views", or "Bible and Parseeismy That treatise starts with and unfolds the one central proposition that there are ostensibly many sects, theologies, churches, creeds, ritualistic systems, etc.; but that there is hardly more than one fundamental, positive, religious system, with its negatives and counterpropositions. That system is the real nucleus, the motherreligion underlying all denominations, of which the many existing churches and creeds are but copies, approximately more or less successful exemplars and ethical photographs, practical realizations coming up more or less accurately to the original ideal and prototype. This prototype is man's inborn faith; the faith in a Supreme Moral Order, Providence — God, with the sequels of human soul, ethical rule of conduct, and reason in practical life.

God, soul, conscience, duty, truthfulness, mental and spiritual development, useful activity, etc., are man's original faith. Faith is the early outcome of our latent, innate, ethical instincts, our natural sympathy with the just and the equitable. These embryonic instincts have, early, evolved a faith, "organized,' and latent within us, which slowly has developed into religion proper. Originally, nature has endowed man with a deep, organic sympathy for everything just, equitable, and noble. These vague instincts then developed into an organized moral and spiritual sense or faith, and that has at last evolved a definite, reasoned, ethical system, a religion and a church.

This our faith, my little book continues, is not external and artificial; nor, at once, supernatu rally brought home to our consciousness. No, it is inborn; it is eternally resting in the sanctuary of our souls; it is its essential element, its innate, divine Revelation; dawning upon it slowly, growing with it, just as our ideas of virtue, truth, equity, love, liberty, beauty, etc. It is the very essence of our humanity, and our morality. Our humanity and spirituality without that religious consciousness are but self-deceptions. Our ideas of justice, goodness, duty, solidarity, etc., are but the offshoots and the fruit of that inborn religious consciousness. It is the bond between creature and Creator, the sympathetic feeling of men's relation and kinship with one another and with the Author of all existence. It is "religion" in its etymological sense — religo —; the olden chain binding man to man, and all men to God. o live in accordance to that bond and fulfill all one's duties is religious life. And what with the common mortal is a mere guess, a shadowy opinion, is, with the prophet, an insight, a clear intuition, a deep conviction, a mental flash of thought, a revelation.

As to divine service, or devotional exercises, they are the realizations, more or less rational and adequate to the innate longings of man to come into contact with his divine Parent.

This religious consciousness is clearer or darker, more mystic or more rational, more formal or more real, according to our individuality, capacity, education, environments, etc.

It is hardly, in any one, totally extinguished. It blazes up the brightest in the heart of the sage, of the prophet. The prophet is a religious genius. What we all feel, dimly, as if veiled, as in a dream, he sees clearly and brightly; "he sees the truth, face to face."Truth is the seal of the Deity," is a deep, oriental adage.

Herbert Spencer on Innate Ideas.

Mr. Herbert Spencer, the hoary sage, once gave utterance to this bold thought, viz.: "When, roaming in a noble forest, we stand still, struck with admiration at its lofty and mystic grandeur, — that is not simply our own personal, momentary sensation. No, it is the accumulated feeling of the entire past behind us, the organized reminiscences of our innate, dormant love for our ancient forest-homes reawakened; when, millions of years ago, we — that means the entire animal kingdom — lived and roamed in the woods, in the guise and shape of brutes, as wolves, bears and apes." To this my little book remarks, "This Spencerian idea on dormant recollections is true, but in an inverse sense, viz: When wrapt with admiration for the beauties of nature, when turning our gaze heavenwards, contemplating the majesty of the starry heavens, or the splendors of the sunrise, or the horrors of the aroused, terrific ocean waves, or the enrapturing vista from Mount Blanc, etc., that feeling, that enthusiasm, that intense beatitude is not our own individual, momentary, thrilling sensation. No, it is a noble reminiscence, accumulated in the human race, growing and increasing from father to son, viz: the remembrance of our innate, spiritual elements, our divine kinship; the consciousness that we are born for such bliss; or, according to Plato, in Phaedon: "the soul's recollection of its eternal cognitions."

Revelation and Evolution.

Looking deeply into the folds of our soul, mustering the images in our mind, we recognize that feeling as a former sensation; as when an old friend is suddenly looming up into our presence; as a faint reawakening of a dormant recollection, slowly developing, and destined once to come out in its full bloom. My book is thus trying to combine and harmonize the seemingly contradictory doctrines of Revelation and of Evolution, of mysticism and of rationalism. The religion of the human heart is primordial in our nature; it is there inborn, implanted by its Divine maker. It is the soil wherefrom shoot up the blossoms of our reason, our ethics, our practical virtues, our sense of justice, and sympathy, all the noble aspirations, all our real superiorities over the brute, all that we call humanity. Mankind's prophets and leading legislators are but the privileged spokesmen of that universal, religious endowment.

Historical Progress.

But that religious instinct is often dormant and hushed back. It is slowly aroused by advancing civilization and humanization. This slow, but steadfast growth is humaii progress. This is historical evolution. Its great turnpoints are marked as religious Revelations, epochs, designated in history as: Moriah, Sinai, Charmel, Mount Olivet, Medina, Wittenberg, Plymouth Rock, etc. Its full realization is the prophetic messiah ideal. It is revelation, because co-aeval with the very origin of human existence. It is evolution, because its full bloom is not at the cradle of the human race, but at its far off goal, its tardy Zenith, in the distant future. Hence come the Hebrew prophetic, hoary messiah hope, the Parsee reign of Ahura Mazda; the Christian kingdom of heaven, the Darwinian survival of the fittest, the Spencerian dominion of rational ethics, and the Socialistic ideal of absolute equality. They are all one and the same thing, expressed in different terms. It is revelation as directly coming from the Supreme Source. It is evolution as the natural unfolding ever going on in history. This I call: "A Scientific basis for Religious Revelation.

Religious Leading Principles Identical.

My book goes on to show that side by side with minor differences, the leading principles of the world's great creeds are pretty nearly identical. So is the fundamental dogma of the biblical ever-living, righteous God, the Supreme Being y Yhvh, Everywhere He is conceived as the pure spiritual Essence of all existence. So is Divine Providence in the universe and in human history admitted everywhere. So are the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of man. So is the immortality of the human mind. So is a moral and intellectual humane life, or righteouness, universally acknowledged as all-important. So is everywhere accepted the ethical dogma of the final, universal triumph of right and reason over injustice and folly. The eternal progress of our race is achieving that victory, as its noblest goal. Its most potent aspiration is the future supremacy of right and reason in human affairs, as it ever has been in the universe at large. So reads a hoary meditation: "Thy will be done on earth as in Heaven." (*) This is the recognition of the supremacy of the God of righteousness: "On that day God will be One and his name One."

Parallels in Minors.

But even less evident views are identical in nearly all the great denominations. Monotheism split into dualism with the Parsees; into Trinity with the Brahmans, the Egyptians, the Magi and the Christians, etc.; into polytheism with the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the ancient Israelites, the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, with the unthinking of all times; Fetichism was and is ever the creed of the thoughtless masses.

We find most generally accepted the belief in angels, demons and spirits, good and evil; in paradise and in hell. So is the impurity of matter in the human body, especially in the feminine one. All that is found among Parsees, Brahmans, Syrians. It is less salient indeed in the biblical creeds; yet on the whole it was there too, retained as a relic of the past; the belief in bodily impurity may have been an incentive for greater cleanliness, or, a reaction against the preceding ancestorand hero-worship.

The Pentateuch, in many places, alludes to a hoary epoch, at the dawn of an earlier civilization, the Adamic era, when the Yahveh worship was established, literally: "When they began to call on Yahveh" (Gen. iv, and xxvi). In many other passages too, it asserts that true worship and right conduct are older than Abraham and Sinai; that long before the deluge, pure spiritual monotheism was mankind's creed, justice and truth the rule of human life; that later, for reasons not explicitly mentioned, corruption of the moral sense came on; with corruption of the religious sense, the biblical writers assuming that the religious sense is the root, and the ethical sense its fruit, and that man's moral and social improvement depends largely upon his theological improvement, upon the purity of his creed.

The great philologist, Professor Max Mueller, of Oxford, England, seems to take the same position in his earlier works, backed by linguistical reasons. He shows that the theology of Homer and Hesiod and Orpheus is already the outcome of such a degeneration; that the gods of Greece and Rome had greatly deteriorated from their original standard; that former ages had a purer worship and a sounder morality. Thus the biblical view of a degeneration of the religious sense may be historically substantiated. Hence, according to those very hints in Genesis, are Abraham, Moses and the prophets not so much the inaugurators, as rather the restorators of the universal innate faith, the type of an earlier religious phase.

Max Mueller on Monotheism and Polytheism.

At my inquiry, Professor Max Mueller, of Oxford, England, was so kind as to send me in reply some chapters from his new book then about to appear: "Origin of the Vedante," where he says the following concerning monotheism and mythology,"We see in the Vedic hymns the first revelation of Deity, the first expressions of surprise and suspicion, the first discovery that behind this visible and perishable world, there must be something invisible, imperishable, eternal or divine. No one who has read the hymns of the Rigveda, can doubt any longer as to what was the origin of the earliest Aryan religion and mythology.

All the leading deities of the Veda bear the unmistakable traces of their physical character. Their very names tell us that they were in the beginning, names of the great phenomena of nature, of fire, water, rain and storm, of sun and moon, of heaven and earth. Afterwards we can see how these so-called deities and heroes became the centres of mythological traditions, wherever the Aryan speakers settled, whether in Asia or in Europe. This is a result gained once for all and this light has shed its rays far beyond the Vedic mythology and religion, and lightened up the darkest corners in the history of the mythological and religious thoughts of the other Aryan nations, nay of nations unconnected by their language with the speakers of Aryan speech. In the same way the growth of the divine idea is laid bare in the Veda as it is nowhere else. We see before our eyes who the bright powers of heaven and earth were, that became the devas, the bright ones, or the gods, the deities of other countries, We see how these individual and dramatic deities, ceased to satisfy their early worshippers, and we find the incipient reasoners postulating One God behind all the deities of the earliest pantheon.

hii'*As early a writer as Yaska, about 500 B. C, has formed to himself a systematic theology, and represents all the Vedic deities as really three: those like the fire, whose place is on earth; those like Indra, whose place is in the air and those like the sun, whose place is in the sky; nay, he declares that it is owing to the greatness of the deity, that the one Divine Self is celebrated as if it were many.

One God.

"We see, however, in the ancient hymns already, say 1500 B. C, incipient traces of this yearning after one God. The gods, though separate individualities, are not represented as limited by other gods, but each god is for the time being implored as supreme, a phase of religious thought, which has been described by the name of Henotheism, as distinguished from the ordinary

Polytheism These were indeed giant

strides, and we can watch them clearly in different parts of the Veda, from the simplest invocations of the unknown agents, behind sun and moon, heaven and earth, to the discovery of the one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Lord and Father, and lastly to the faith in one Divine Essence (Brahman), of which the Father or Maker of all things is what they call the pratika or fact, or manifestation, or, as we should say, persona, the mask, the person.

This was the final outcome of religious thought, beginning with a most natural faith in invisible powers or agents behind the startling drama of nature, and ending with a belief in One Great Power, the unknown or rather the unseen God, worshipped, though ignorantly worshipped, through many ages by the poets of the Vedicage."

The inter-dependence of religion and morals, the claim that the corruption of the one brings about the corruption of the other, and that rectification of the religious thought produces refinement of the moral feeling, .that an enlightened God-idea will bring about social improvement generally, seems to be admitted by Mr. Herbert Spencer, too. In his (Data of Ethics he makes a strong effort to sever ethics from dogma and denominational creed, but not from the essence of religion; viz: religion as the rule of inter-connection between man and man, and all men to Supreme Law; or our feeling of dependency upon a higher Power, that commands us social righteousness. In one instance only, to my remembrance, Mr. Spencer seems to make an attempt to depart from that line of thought. It is in his Sociology II, p. 640, (Edition of New York, 1883. in a long note), on: "The influence upon morality of a decline of religious belief; or whether morality can exist without religion;" there he says:
Not much difficulty in answering this question will be felt by those who, from the conduct of the rude tribes described in this chapter, turn to that of Europeans during a great part of the Christian era; with its innumerable and immeasurable public and private atrocities, its bloody aggressive wars, its ceaseless family-vendettas, its bandit-barons and fighting bishops, its massacres, political and religious, its torturings and burnings, its allpervading crimes, from the assassinations of and by kings, down to the lyings and petty thefts of slaves and serfs. Nor do the contrasts between our own conduct at the present time, and the conduct of these so-called savages, leave us in doubt concerning the right answer. "When, after reading police reports, criminal assize-proceedings, accounts of fraudulent bankruptcies, etc., which in our journals accompany advertisements of sermons, and reports of religious meetings, we learn that the amiable "Bodo and Dhintals," who are so "honest and truthful," "have no word for God, for soul, for heaven, for hell," (though they have ancestor-worship and some derivative beliefs), we find ourselves unable to recognize the alleged connection. If, side by side with narratives of bank-frauds, railway-jobbings, turfchicaneries, etc., among people who are anxious that the House of Commons should preserve its theism untainted, we place descriptions of the "fascinating" "Lepchas," who are so " wonderfully honest," but who profess no religion, though acknowledging the existence of "good and bad spirits," (to the last of whom only they pay any attention), we do not see our way to accepting the dogma which our theologians think so obviously true; nor will the acceptance of it be made easier, when we add the description of the conscientious Sdntdl, who " never thinks of making money by a stranger," and " feels pained if payment is pressed upon him" for food offered; but concerning whom we are told that of a supreme and beneficent God the Sdntdl has "no conception." Admission of the doctrine that right-conduct depends on theological conviction, becomes difficult in reading of the Vedahs, who are " almost devoid of any sentiment of religion" and "have no idea of a Supreme Being" nevertheless, " think it perfectly inconceivable that any person should ever take that which does not belong to him; or strike his fellow, or say anything that is untrue" After finding that among the select of the select, who profess our established creed, the standard of truthfulness is such, that the statement of a minister, concerning cabinet transactions, is distinctly falsified by the statement of a succeeding minister; and after their recalling the marvelous veracity of these godless Bodo and (bhimals, and Lepchas, and other peaceful tribes, having kindred beliefs, going to such extent, that an imputation of falsehood is enough to make one of the Hos destroy himself; we fail to see that in the absence of a theistic belief there can be no regard for truth. When Christian ministers with university culture insist upon the sacred duty of blood revenge, whilst the Lepchas are forgiving, it our church-going people strive to get fortunes for making display, whilst the Afruras covet wealth to pay the debts of the poor. . . . we must reject the assumption that brotherly love is the consequence of religion. . The truth is that theory is almost nothing, and practice almost everything. . . Nominal creeds go with political burglaries .... to get scientific frontiers Organized crime of aggressive war and private annexation of other people's property . . . Conversely these uncultivated tribes prove that, being exempt of war, living unmolested, they molest no one; their altruism is fostered and they display the resulting virtues. We need teaching that it is impossible to join injustice and brutality abroad with justice and humanity at home."

Anatasis of the Above.

This entire long passage has the well-known acumen and originality of the great thinker. But it seems somewhat lacking of his accustomed moderation. It is but a note, a by thought jotted hurriedly and out of humor. Like the great prophetic teachers of old, he feels indignant and deeply revolted at the customary hypocrisy of the rulers. And as they did, so Mr. H. Spencer generalizes here too, vehemently and abruptly. Remember that hypocrisy is not religion, just as pretense is not reality. Hypocritical creed is but a convenient cloak for injustice. The missionary precedes with the bible; behind comes the dealer with alcohol; and lastly, but most important, follows the soldier with powder and lead. But the abuse of religion is not its use. What in this world has not been abused! Thus the quoted note strikes me as not in harmony with the general tenor of Mr. H. Spencer's views, expressed often and throughout his great scientific works. Nor do I think that the religionist would be at a great loss to set aright the above quotations, viz: Young, rare, scattered nuclei of savages, in a state of primitive nature, not yet experiencing the bitter struggle for existence of our crowded societies, can do without the apparatus of a systemized religion, pompous public worship and ethical culture. Their instincts, their feelings, man's natural prudence and inborn altruism will suffice to make them respect each other's rights and crave each other's good will. In such a condition of primitive innocence are, or were, the petty savage tribes just quoted above. Nor must we overlook the fact, fully acknowledged by Mr. H. Spencer, that even they had some kind of religion, as "ancestor-worship" or "belief in spirits," or some other sort of belief, to which they undoubtedly attached and from which they derived their humble ethics, for this is a universal law with civilized and savage men. The facts quoted can at the utmost bear out the generalization that "there are many roads to the heavenly father," that "no church is alone saving." that mdiny political burglars, or even common house-breakers, may belong to the dominant churches, and that many dissenters or even heretics may embody the highest ideals of virtue. But this is a truism long ago known. The prophets Isaiah, Joel, Amos, etc., have long ago preached it in the open market, and Jesus, Paul, Mohammed, etc., even have divulged and proclaimed that secret to the world at large. Mr. H. Spencer, the hoary scientist, has simply reiterated it and even rant's with the identical irascibility and impulsiveness peculiar to impatient great and good men. Now, when these savage tribes grow into peoples, when they live crowded and in close proximity, when soon engaged in the bitter battle for existence, fighting want and passion, revenge and lust and ambition with all the usual temptations, stimulants and excitements of crowded social life, then the voice of simple infantine nature is stifled and hushed. Then men will feel the need of solid rules of conduct, pillars to uphold the social fabric, principles of mine and thine, of right and duty. Then too, we shall feel the need of stricter coercions and of great leading maxims, to substantiate it, to peremptorily command and enforce right conduct; some Code, some authority to dictate by, the "Cathegoric Imperative," (*) the absolute "Thou shall These two sets of thought, of social needs are called for: the one is religion, the other is ethics. Then it will soon be made clear, that the nobler the religion, the better the ethics. The more perfect the God-idea, the more so human society. That the middle-ages, that our own present times, exhibit yet so much violence and wrong-doing, folly and vice, does not disprove of that theory. No, it corroborates it. Had we no religious institutions at all, no manner of creed, •church or worship, society would be far worse off. And commensurate with the higher status of our religious institutions, goes a higher social status. The truer and the purer the church, the nobler the state. The purer, the more adequate the teachers and the clergy, our scientific and our ethical masters, the better the people , the more right conduct, the more law-abiding, the more enlightened the head, the truer the heart and the more pure and solid the hand.

As Religion so the Community.

A glance at human affairs in hoary times, in olden times, in middle-aged times, in modern times and in present times will fully corroborate and illustrate that reasoning. The lesson of such a comparison will be: that we must constantly polish and perfect our religious conceptions, since they are the mighty handle for improving our ethical and social conditions; ever convinced that a nobler dogma and a purer church will yield a nobler state, truer ethics, more right conduct and more social happiness. But just there looms up a new difficulty. To improve the church with its dogmas and forms, we must begin with acknowledging that there is room for improvement, that it is not yet the absolute good, that it is not infallible, that it does not embrace the whole and the full truth, etc. And that acknowledgment is dangerous! For if it is not infallible, how should we accept it as a guide, as a base for the state? If the teacher himself may err, how can he teach? Human society needs a base immovable as the rocks, and as morals rest upon religion as their comer-stone, the religion must be solid and stationary; and if stationary, how can we have social, moral and mental progress? This is the earnest difficulty. Yet it is not irremediable. That question is answered by: The child must believe the teacher infallible, the adult needs not so to believe. The chariot of society rolls upon two wheels, not one. The state really stands upon two evenly balanced forces, making up the full equilibrium of interests. Human society needs stability; or else we shall have anarchy. Human society needs progress; or else stagnation and corruption will set in. The church and the sciences are the exponents of these two forces, man's two poles, the centripetal and the centrifugal forces of human civilization. The one is ever conservative, the other, ever progressive. The one asks faith, the other proof. The genius of mankind or Providence, and the consensus of all the leading thinkers give the preponderance, according to circumstances and environments, to either of these two agents; and this preponderance decides for stability or for moving onwards. It decides according to needs. Whenever the old is effete and absolutely in the way, revolution comes on, forcible innovation, be it in the church, be it in the state. These epochs form the great crisis in religion and in society. Such epochs were those of Mounts Sinai, Karmel, Olivet, Medinah, Wittenberg, the American and the French Revolutions, etc.

Evolution, Retrogression and Progression.

We have seen the biblical view is, that already in prehistoric times, pure Yahveh worship and pure, social right-conduct reigned in the world. But, it will be asked, is this not the very reverse of evolution? The evolution-theory is: man began as a block or a brute and is to close as the brightest, rational being; religion began with crude ancestor-worship or fetichism, and rose to the One holy godhead; while I claim with the Bible and the earlier view of Professor Max Mueller the very contrary, viz: a degeneration of man and of his noblest conception, Religion! Here I beg to show that this is jumping at conclusions." Evolution does not claim that human history is ever and always upwards and improving, constantly going from lower to higher. There are in human affairs but too often relapses, movements from higher to lower, momentary retrogression. In times of prolonged war and ruin, famine and pestilence, etc., the result will be retrogression. Even so with the biblical Adamic era, mankind had conceived a higher type of deity, and hence a higher type of humanity, the two always going together. Then with "corruption" (Sodom) and "wars" (Nimrod and Kudur-Lomar) collapse came on, and degeneration ensued. Polytheism, Moloch, Baal and Astaroth-worship resulted; that means, violence and sensuality gained the upper hand; until Abraham and Moses led mankind back to Yahveh and the Decalogue. So later on, the reaction against Roman brutality was Jesus and Paul. The present era of "blood and iron" is such a relapse into brute force and sensuality from the civilization of half a century ago.

Leading Rites and Ceremonies.

We have glanced at the universality of leading religious ideas. But not only such doctrines, dogmas and views have been originally identical, growing from one stock and, according to clime and social conditions, etc., have varied, slowly, and loomed away from their original type among the various denominations and races; — I claim more: even the leading rites and ceremonies stand in the same relation. These also, originally, were but a small nucleus of such religious forms; but according to clime, soil, environments and the further spread of mankind, they, too, have varied, unfolded and grown into that maze we now behold with wonderment. It is often these forms alone, which make the difference of sects and creeds. It is often such alone that separate man from man. If men would but try to understand and reason on their difficulties, these would soon vanish.

So, for instance, are the differences between Mosaism and Mohammedanism wholly based upon the differences of time, clime and ethnical character. Islam is really but an adaptation of Mosaism to Arabia and Arabians. This the Koran repeats a hundred times, expressly. This we find verified when critically examining the theological and the ethical basis of the Koran. Everywhere we find the identical theology and the same moral principles; occasionally changed only just as much as necessary to suit the habits, views and propensities of the roving barbarians, then, plundering, wandering, lascivious and sensual Arabs, so much at variance in these respects from the Benai Israel, long ago accustomed to civilized, settled, pastoral and agricultural pursuits, in steady homes, under a firm, civil government. This discrepancy is already foreshadowed in the character of Jacob and Esau, twin brothers, yet so diverse. These discrepancies explain the whole difference between Mohammedanism and the original Pentateuch, so emphatically endorsed by the Koran.

The early establishment of Christianity took place, by adaptation to circumstances and, comparatively, without much violence and revolution; because it took 300 years, viz: from Paul to Constantine, hence men reasoned and compromised their differences; Christianity is such a compromise. While the Reformation cost Europe half of its population; because people did not reason about their variances; because princes and ecclesiastics coaxed them on to bloodshed and prevented them from calmly reasoning and compromising. Had the Popes, had Charles V, and Philip II, not imagined that their positions were at stake, had the Protestant princes not been so eager to seize upon the benefices of the church, a compromise would have been reached, and those bloody auto-da-fes and ruinous wars and popular uprisings would never have taken place. The European nations would have compromised upon the modes of worship and forms of catechism, even of papacy. The personal interests alone were at the bottom of the troubles, forms do yield and compromise.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:46:07 PM

CHAPTER II.

Religious Ideas, Forms and Seasons.

Head-Covering and Worship.

In illustration of that theory, my book singles out from among the maze of external dividing lines and religious forms that of having the head covered or the head bared during divine service. The thinking reader, no doubt, will remember that in nearly all the churches of America and Europe the males are worshipping with head uncovered. In Asia, Africa and European Turkey, on the contrary, to have the head bare is considered sacrilege, and they worship with heads duly covered. What is the reason of that persistent and striking divergence of custom? This head-covering or head-baring has another usage as its constant complement and corollarium, viz: the feet-covering or baring. The head-covering goes with feet-baring; the head-baring goes with feet-covering. The Oriental observes, religiously, the first. The Occidental follows, as steadily, the last. When Moses approached the burning bush at Horeb (h, we read that the divine voice called on him, *Throw on thy shoes from thy feet, for the place thou standest upon is holy ground."

The priest in the Moriah Temple was prescribed to have his head covered and his feet bare. Manners require of Europeans and Americans just the contrary, viz: the head by all means bare and the feet by all means covered. What is the reason thereof? My book, in answer, brings out a large mass of facts on the subject, from all ages, countries, sects and tongues. These facts point to the conclusion: that the very same feeling of reverence and respect the Oriental wishes to express by head-covering, the Occidental does express by headbaring. So is the Oriental everywhere with turban ov fez before God, king, magistrate or parent. The Occidental, on the contrary, is bareheaded on all solemn occasions, in church or state. Professor W. Wundt, of the Leipsic University, wrote to me that "That part of your book has mostly interested me, as your historical researches on that subject-matter show, conclusively, how sometimes in the history of human culture the very contrary symbols serve to bring out the very same ideas."

What is my theory on it? It is this: The principle of the Orient is force and fear of force; that of the Occident is, comparatively speaking, freedom and voluntary good-will. — The Oriental is dominated by fear in presence of his superior, and expresses that by hiding his face; for covering the head meant, originally, veiling or hiding the face. The European and American, on the contrary, freely choose and voluntarily follow their leaders; their respect is more regard than fear. Hence they do not veil and hide the head before a superior, they bend and uncover it. That is sufficient before superior and magistrate; that is sufficient in church before God. Covering or baring the head is therefore one of the hands on the time-piece of social progress; it is one of the exponents of the two civilizations; one of the dividing lines between the Orient and the Occident.

The great scientific pioneer, the original Mr. Herbert Spencer, speaking of ceremonial institutions, (Sociology II), elaborately treats one-half of this theme: Why the Fluropean uncovers his head on all solemn occasions. He passes by in silence the other half, viz: Why the Oriental just as tenaciously covers his head. Nor did he consider that side of the question when treating of the complement of head-covering, viz: feetbaring; both go together. To the Oriental is feetbaring the sign of humility and submission. There the captives are walking before the conquerer in that state. This is the token of utmost prostration. It is so in Europe, too. But the European was rarely so thoroughly enslaved, as to submit to such humiliation, and as rarely did ever a conquerer insist on such an indignity. Next comes in for a good share the climate, which in Southern Asia permits feet-baring, and in Europe not, as it is further developed in my afore-mentioned volume. (Religious Rites and Views.)

Mr. Herbert Spencer explains our European custom of head-baring in church and society as a social form, derived from primitive habits, viz: the habit of war prisoners to allow themselves to be deprived of their all. He says (Sociology II, p. 128), "The conquered man, prostrate and in possession of the conquerer, surrenders his weapons and all his dress worth taking." . . Hence the 'obeisances' of any kind; and uncovering has this meaning, viz: acknowledgment of subjugation. . . He says further (p. 130), 'Evidently uncovering the head has the same meaning. ... In Spain uncloaking is equivalent to our taking off the hat. ... In Dahomey, Polynesia and Tahiti the two are joined. Hence the removal of the hat among Europeans is a remnant of the process of the captive yielding up all he had." Further (p. 150), "The ruler must not be looked at. ... it being an unpardonable liberty to gaze at a supreme person;" and (p. 194) he quotes Browning speaking ofSiam: "No man of inferior rank dares to raise his head to the level of that of his superior.'*. . . The Oriental phase and the religious side of the question Mr. Herbert Spencer never touches upon. He treats only one side of our theme. But as far as it goes, his argument and his views corroborate my argument, viz: that the European shows his respects and his acknowledgment of subordination by uncovering his head As to the Oriental, owing to another train of thoughts not contemplated by Mr. Herbert Spencer, he shows his respect and submission by veiling his head and baring the feet. Covering the head in Asia, means symbolically and emphatically, hiding the face from fear and veneration. To look at the Deity or at royalty, is an unpardonable effrontery. Mr. Herbert Spencer does not discuss half of the question: why the Oriental hides his face, nor why the Occidental, too, hides it during intense prayer; the Catholic is with face prostrated to the floor, and the Protestant is hiding it in his hands or pew. My book does make that trial, it being a monograph on that topic. The two modes of showing veneration, the one' in the Orient, and the other in the Occident, are characteristic in many more ways. The Orient, undoubtedly of an older social order and religious training, etc., than the Occident, seems to have derived its social forms and views mostly from priests. There the inferior was not simply afraid of the superior,, biit really penetrated with deeper awe and veneration, than in the Occident. The superior in Asia was not simply the stronger, he was believed to be the holier, the better, the nobler, too; he "springing from the head of Brahma, while the inferior came from his feet."— Hence does the Oriental appear before Divinity and royalty head covered, face veiled and feet bared, because he feels really unworthy of their presence. ' As in the biblical allego'ry of Adam and Eve, hiding in Eden in their consciousness of guilt (Gen. ii.) So in II Moses, (3, 5), God called on Moses, * Throw off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place thou standest upon is holy ground." The conquered walked barefoot before the: conquerer, the servant before the master and man before his heavenly Lord.

The Asiatics, slowly colonizing Europe, lost part of their inherited veneration of the upper classes and assumed more independent manners. This social phenomenon is reiterated now in the American Democracy, so little inclined towards reverence for the European' nobility. The European colonies, coming from Asia, lost with that veneration of aristocracy also much of their veneration of priesthood — a phenomenon again reiterated in America. — The European colonists' social usages were less the result of priestly training than in the Asiatic homes. This, too, explains why the excessive forms of submission, expressed by head-covering or hiding the face, and feet-baring, have given place to the milder forms of respect expressed by head-baring in the entire Occident. Such social usages were the result of dire necessity, of brute force, wars and conquerers. Hence in Asia, the inferior, trembling and abashed in presence of the superior, veiled his head and face. The European savage was not in the least overawed by his superior; he did not venerate him from religious motives. He simply tried to deprecate the bloody victor's wrath by giving him away his all, and hence did he bare his head, or uncloak himself, or bend the knee before him. The humiliation was greater in the Orient, than in the Occident. The former superstitiously feared the superior, the latter prudently deprecated the stronger foe. The former feared in him a superior god, the latter, the stronger arm; the former felt himself unworthy to look the superior into the face, the latter bowed the head and abided his time.

As an illustration of Asiatic views on the subject, II Moses 7, I, is a most telling and pregnant verse showing Oriental reverence; "God said to Moses, behold I have made thee a God (Elohim) to Pharaoh, and Aaron shall be thy prophet!" That figurative speech conveys in European language: "I made thee a superior to Pharaoh, and Aaron shall be thy interpreter." — So terms the Pentateuch the judge an Elohim, God, or divine power, the Latin noumen. Hence the verse, "A judge or ruler thou shalt not revile and a prince of thy people thou shalt not curse." (II Moses 22, 27.) From whatever standpoint we argue these Asiatic customs, we find there the reflex of a deeper settled despotism, a despotism permeating all, a social enslavement fettering the soul with the body, entirely unknown in Europe, and that constitutional difference chiefly gave rise, among other reasons, to the discrepancy of head-covering and head-baring in Asia and Europe. This explains why, even the European, whenever his reverence is true and deep, as before the Deity, Catholic and Protestant and Jew, in the fervor of devotion, all veil and hide their faces, feeling unworthy to look Deity into the face. There is no contradiction thus between Mr. Herbert Spencer's way of explaining the custom of headcovering and head-baring and my modus of doing it. The two modi rather complete each other. Mr. Herbert Spencer simply investigates the social causes of the European customary head-uncovering in presence of superiors and, with much probability, deduces it from primitive times of yielding up to the conquerer one's clothes. But, besides that, ther is another custom more solemn, of headoovering and face-veiling in presence of royalty and divinity. This is universal in the Orient, and partly not obsolete in the Occident, as above mentioned. In Protestant churches, the worshipper during intense prayer, hides his face in pew or veil; while in the Greek and Roman Catholic ones, the worshipper prostrates himself and hides his face in the ground during such fervor. So, too, the old time synagogical worshipper has his head always covered and his face veiled with the sacred scarf or talith during prayer. This Mr. Spencer's mode does not explain, that being out of the range of his investigations. He treats solely the political side of the question; I treat the rite itself as a question of usages, reverence, modes of thought, etc.; therefore my book in review gives the cue to the full and entire question. It shows that in the Orient, covering head and face is a symbol of one's own unworthiness, combined with the feeling of being in presence of a superior authority, divinely ordained.

Bible, Mishnah and Talmud on It.

Every one is aware that the old synagogue insists upon the Oriental head-covering. My book adduces nearly all the biblical, Talmudical and casuistical passages referring to it. It appears there to be considered as a time honored custom to cover the head, and with the pious ones, to veil the face and bare the feet, too, but it is not a law proper or legal prescription. It is no more than a moral or pietistic recommendation. The reason given is: 'Because man is everywhere and always in the august presence of the Shechinah, and that in presence of God, who is omnipresent, it is irreverent to be frivolously undressed. It is the Oriental view, that the body is impure and must be covered for decency. So was the priest head covered and feet bared at the temple service. To be "bare-headed" and 'Ho march erect," both were considered as irreverent in the despotically governed and educated Asiatic world. A pious devotee must be bent and covered. Before his master, the slave must crawl with face downwards. So, too, man before the heavenly Master. This is Asiatic philosophy. (*)

The Mishxaii on It.

Heretofore it was generally assumed that the Mishnah, the oldest part and text of the Talmud, never mentioned the obligation of head-covering. I think to have exhumed a paragraph in Bab. treatise of Berachoth (54 a.) where the prescription of head-covering is mentioned, when in the surroundings of the Temple-mount at Jerusalem. My interpretation of the Mishnah is not according to the received one, as by (Rashi and Maimonides. Yet many elaborately given reasons do confirm the correctness of my view of the passage; chiefly, because it would be astonishing that the Mishnah should omit mentioning such a universal, Oriental, sacred custom. Now the place where I point it out, is no doubt, the one where it ought to be mentioned (Berachoth 54 a.)

The Gemara following the Mishnah and expounding it, does refer to it, and so does at least one commentator expressly. Since the publication of my new interpretation, many solid Talmudical scholars, as Dr. B. Felsenthal of Chicago, Dr. K. Kohter of New York, Dr. N. Brull of Frankfurt a/m. and Prof. Franz Delitzsch of Leipsic University, etc., have acceeded to that Even Prof. H. Gratz of Breslau, who saw the Mss. and with whom I had much correspondence on it, appears to acquiesce in my interpretation. He had some misgivings concerning certain parallels with Parsee rites, which might be misconstrued and which passages I amended. But he most kindly and readily offered to superintend the publication of the work. He made no objections to that Mishnah-interpretation and my reasonings on head-covering.

The above Mishnah Berachoth 54 a. reads thus: (*) "No man shall lighten his head in the immediate neighborhood of the Eastern-Gate (of the Moriah-temple), that being opposite to the holy of holies. Nor shall any one ascend the Temple-motfnt, with his cane in hands, his shoes on, his money-girdle around, his feet with dust, nor use it as a thoroughfare, nor spit on the pavement."The expression, "lighten the head," has been usually taken as meaning: to be frivolous in behavior. But I conclusively showed that originally and literally it meant: "To be bareheaded in holy places," and that later, bareheadedness became the generic term for all frivolous behavior. The above Mishnah thus includes all; it prohibits bare-headedness and all frivolous behavior. The Gemara to it, (ibidem 6 b.) appears, too, to understand it so, decidedly. (*) This is followed by Maimonides' Treatise vii, 5 — 9, (Aboda, Baith Habechira), where he follows the same Gemara, expounding it, and whereat his commentator: Mishnah Lemelech, unhesitatingly and expressly substantiates both, Mishnah and Maimonides, with the reason: 'Because it is a shame to appear bareheaded in the Temple." {) Thus this interesting, curious and widespread ceremony of headcovering in the Orient and head-baring in the Occident goes to show, that however diverse, yea opposing numerous and whimsical observances, secular or clerical, may be, they have nevertheless one common root, they are offshoots from one common stock, varied and ramified and altered according to clime, soil and manners, but they are in last resort expressing one and the same think of Yule, Saturnalia, Ciianukkaii, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, Etc. — Their Connections and Evolutions.

Pondering over man's nature, we find there two sides. He is man, and he is brute, mind and matter, animal and angel. As the magnetic needle has two poles, even so has man. Break the magnet at any place, and each part or fraction will at once show both these poles; even so man. Wherever you touch him, you find both these sides, the animal and the angel. At each human atom you find this double nature, side by side, yet distinct and pronounced. Look at the child, it is selfish, grasping, overbearing; it is generous, sympathetic, altruistic, too. You can, at will, elicit from it the animal or the angel by touching the one or the other chord. As the magnet magnetizes, so do you communicate kindness by kindness, and ill-will by ill-will. Nay, even the brute has, in rudiment, that double nature in an inferior degree. Food, fresh air, a bright sky, make it happy and merrily gambol. Maltreatment, hunger and gloomy weather render it gloomy, peevish and ferocious. Man exhibits that in a superior degree. The green spring, the fine sky, the luxuriance of summer, the sweets of winterhome, the gay attire of rejuvenated earth find their echo in his feelings. His feelings are simply the echoes of surrounding nature. His heart is the mirror held up to nature. Nature is grand, beautiful and happy, but mute and unconscious as far as it appears to us. Man is its mouth-piece, its tongue, the bell that rings out the harmonies reaching his ear. He leads in the grand hallelujah-chorus, which the universe is entuning to its Maker. In all great emergencies, at all turns of the seasons, man sympathizes with the external phenomena, and he craves to thank the Author of all for all that is given him. This is the origin of worship. So the Psalmist 42, 2: "As the hind is eager for the water-spring, even so my soul for thee, oh God.". . . So Homer, too; Odysseus remarks in a happy mood: "Man is ever craving for the gods.". . .
In all great natural epochs, the rejuvenating spring, the luxuriant summer, the abounding autumn, the home-sweets of. winter find in man their reverberations, their reflexive happiness, and he longeth for worship to thank the giver of life and joy. And this is the natural origin of the holidays. The holidays originate in nature's seasons. They are the human, reasoned, conscious expressions of thanks and worship for the boons of the Giver of all. These expressions, forms, modes of worship and nominal objects of worship vary with race, tongue, country and degree of civilization, but the fact is the same. Man in nature dances and eats on his festive days. Religion sanctifies them, the feast-day becomes a holiday. The three leading festivals of the Pentateuch are originally called, a dancing, Chag, They then develop into sanctifications. (*) They begin with feelings of happiness, develop into gratitude and worship, and culminate in holidays. Whenever civilization is far enough advanced, the Deity expressly consecrates them, and natural religion culminates into positive religion. Holidays are thus no priestly inventions, nor a state contrivance. They have their origin in the human heart. Their form differs: bloody sacrifices, festive wreaths, sweet incense, eulogies and prayers, or sermons and meditations, all these are but forms and modes, different in degree, not in kind. The child, receiving of its mother a piece of fruit, is overflowing with gratitude, saying: "Here, mama, take a bite of it." So man's offerings to Deity.

Thus all religious legislators have worked upon the same material. The ideas, symbols, objects and modes of worship are their own individual merit. From Fetish worship to ancestor and hero-worship, star-worship, mythological-worship and Highest God -worship, the Owner of heaven and earth, the distances are vast; nevertheless, they are different; but only in degree, not in kind. Everywhere lurks the original grain of truth, ever developing to higher proportions. Present biblical nations celebrate in October .New Year, Atonement and the Feast of Booths; in November, the Thanksgiving; in December, Christmas and Ghanukkah, the Maccabean Feast of Dedication, closing with the first of January the modern NewYear.

Holy Seasons Socially.

Here we find an accumulation of holidays in number and importance. The holiest holidays are thus celebrated during one season of the year. Among ancient, oriental nations, too, we find such a holy season, a holy month or several months devoted to sacred deeds, peace and worship. The Jews had their holy month: 'Tishre" studded with holidays as a 'pomegranate with seed." The Mohammedan world has its "(Rhamadan" Season, corresponding to the above Hebrew one. The West Asiatic world before Mohammed also had that sacred season, extending over four months of the year. That epoch was a holy season. It was given to peace, to pilgrimage and to worship in the leading national temples. So visited the Arabs the Kaaba in Mecca, the Judseans assembled af the Moriah-temple in Jerusalem, etc. No war was allowable then. Murder and pillage were twice impious then. First it was given to peace and devotion. Gradually, it was utilized for trade, industry and commerce. The great temples became in the course of time great centres of commerce and world's fairs. So, too, it was duringf the middle-acjes, in Christendom. The entire year around the clash and clang of arms never ceased. Holy seasons were instituted by Pope and King. These were devoted to pilgrimages to the holy shrines of superior saints and renowned churches. Arms were rigidly forbidden and excluded. Peace and justice were protected by the terrors of the church. The people came for devotion, and commerce and industry profited by it. They traded their goods under the aegis of the holy relics. They came to hear mass and bought and sold their merchandise. Such places grew into commercial emporiums, and mass became the name for world's commerce, originally designating the divine service of the Catholic church. Thus the needs of the human heart and of the human body, the ethical and the social wants of man, explain the origin of festive seasons in general and of the fall seasons in special. Yet the winter season is not with biblical nations alone an epoch of rejoicing and illumination. All the different portions of the human race have been celebrating it since time immemorial, in different modes and symbols, yet on the whole expressing the same things: light, thanksgivings and rejoicings. It was the festival of home-cheer and in-gathering of the harvest, of the fall season and Winter solstice. The ist of January was conveniently chosen as the NewYear, and from the 25th of December, eight to ten days were set aside for rejoicings and home celebrations. Being rich in the harvest, they were generous to the poor. They allowed a respite to their slaves; no work, all feasting, semblance of freedom and natural equality; and to the children of the house plenty of sweets and games; from the 25th of December, for eight to ten consecutive days, that happy-making went on.

The Teutons repaired to the forest in long processions, headed by the priests. They searched for the largest oak, cut out a log from it, tied two fine bulls to it, burnt the whole as an offering to the gods and scattered the ashes on fields and meadows, as emblem and token of fructification. This was the Yule festival of the Germans on the 25th of December.

The Gaulic and Celtic Druids repaired to the forest in procession, where the leading priests, in white robes, climbed up the tallest oak and cut down with a golden cycle the mysterious and rare mistle-toe, an ever-green parasite, which priests below caught up in their laps, and which plant was chopped into pieces and distributed among the people, to be strewn in their fields or hung over their door-ways, as our modern horse-shoe, and with the same effect.

The Saxons refined upon and combined both these customs into an ever-green tree, cut from the woods and decorated at home with candles, sweet-meats, etc.

Ten Days of Repentance.

The Romans celebrated their Saturnalia and Bacchanalia, feasts of harvests and, especially, vine-harvests. The slaves were wreathed, the children were happy with presents. All classes, ages and sexes were on terms of equality. They had then their carnivals and masquerades, ten days were given free to the slaves; hilarity and license reigned unrestrained. So does the Hebrew calender give ten days, from New-Year to Atonement day, to repentance, reconciliation and purification from sin and guilt, for emancipation from wrong towards God and neighbor. It is spiritual and moral liberation, a cleansing before God and conscience, illustrating a Hebrew evolution from Heathen customs.

Between the Pagan "Ten days of hilarity" and the Jewish "Ten days of repentance" there is, an intervening link of development, viz: the Parsees. They, too, utilized these ten days for spiritual purposes. D. Framyeh narrates: "The last ten days of the year they devoted to deeds of piety, charity, spirituality and remembrance of the dead. Mooktades is the name of the ceremony in honor of the departed, consisting of flowers put up, to remember by their fragrance the souls and their immortality. Just as we, moderns do on Decoration-day on our cemeteries. The Hindoos at present perform the same pious ceremony. The analogy between the Pagan, Parsee and Hebrew ten days, the last and the first of the outgoing and the incoming year is striking. The Parsees, too, celebrated 7 yearly holy days, including the NewYears-day. The ninth month of the year is the sacred month, and its ninth day is the most sacred festival, corresponding to the Hebrew Atonement. They celebrated, too, the Feast of the Moon and several half-holidays, as the Jews do.

The Syrians refined on the Teutons and Druids. From the celebration of the harvest they passed to that of the God of the harvest. On the 25th of December they fabled: Apollo was born in a crib. They lit their candles, decorated their houses with little figures and flowers, etc., personifying the young sun-god, the growing days after the Winter solstice.

Christianity was long fighting against that naive nature-worship, that mythology of Egypt, Rome and Italy, Syria, Germany, Gaul, Britainy, etc., that natureworship combined with Heathen gods, stupid practices and course licentiousness. Christian peoples had given up the old gods, but not their old sport, nor their yearning a,nd craving for expressions of gratitude and worship. At last the priests had to give way. They gracefully accepted feeling and worship and substituted Jesus for nature, Saturn, Apollo, etc. The 25th of December was silently adopted as the birthday of Jesus. There was no record to contradict! Yule, Saturn and Apolloday became Christmas-day. Jesus, too, was born in a crib. The lights and figures symbolized the God-child. All became Christianized: Christmais and holiday, not harvest, sun, Apollo, Bacchus, Horus, — but Christ!

There was here, no doubt, a higher evolution. It was wise to understand the people. They needed joy, fun and worship. The priests eliminated much of superstition and nonsense and gave something better in exchange. No doubt, that thereby a higher religion was realized. The Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalia, with licentiousness and gluttony; the impure Syrian Apollo, the Stupid Yule-log and the puerile mistle-toe of the Druids, etc., were tnus swept away by Christmas. Protestantism in Germany introduced the old Saxon evergreens, denominated now Christmas-trees. Little candles, sweets, ribbons and Jesus-figures, transformations from the ancient Apollo-images, were the concomitants.

From Germany, the Christmas-tree was introduced into England and the United States. The Puritans, disliking the 25th of December as of Heathen origin, and not believing it to be the birthday of Jesus, abstained from Christmas and instituted instead the Thanksgiving day, in imitation of the biblical Booths' festivity after the harvest.

Now the United States celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas; the first having a biblical background, the other a Heathen one. Booths alone slowly coming into disuse with the Jews. The original Hebrew Thanksgiving is giving way to its offspring, the Puritan Thanksgiving, recommended by the concurrence of now seventy millions of United States citizens.

The Hebrew genius worked on the identical and same material, viz: happiness, home, harvest, conviviality, desire to rejoice and express gratitude to God. Happiness and worship underlie the Hebrew Chanukkah; the difference is in its elaboration, its ideas and forms. To rejoice over the harvest is good enough, but it is not yet a holiday. To burn a log and strew its ashes on the fields, is superstitious. To seek out a mistle-toe from the tallest oak and hang it over the doorway, is childish. Revelling, gluttony, orgies and licentiousness are brutal. Infants' figures, symbolizing Sun, Apollo or Horus, are puerile. Birth of God, divine child in a crib, is a contradiction in terms. How then did the Hebrews elaborate it? They made Chanukkah! The twenty-fifth of Kislev to the third of Tebith exactly corresponds, in the solar year, to the 25th of December and 3d of January. The rise of the new sun symbolizes to the Jew victory of his creed over Paganism 2000 years ago; the great epoch of the II. Hebrew independence and victory over the Syrians; of freedom over enslavement, of worship over idolatry, of the Hasmonians over Antiochus Epiphanes; rescue of wife, children, country, altar and law from imminent destruction, are commemorated on Chanukkah, the equivalent of the ancient Yule and modern Christmas. Chanukkah means dedication, renovation, regeneration of worship, temple and nationality of the Hebrews. It is. besides, one of the most glorious epochs of human annals. It is one of the most cheering periods and lessons of history. It is the central event of that great Maccabean upheaval. A small nationality in a corner of the world, without government, leaders, treasury, army, not inured to politics and war, is defied by the greatest nation and king of that time to fight or yield its existence. It chooses to fight, and after nearly 30 years' war, it comes out victorious; right over might, right and courage yield success! That commemorates Chanukkah, the Hebrew substitute for Yule, Apollo-day and Christmas. No doubt it is meant to supply the missing festival of the Winter season: Passover, Pentacost. Booth and Dedication. No doubt it is the festival of the Winter solstice, celebrating the home and fireside, plenty, charity, harvest and the rising days, as with the naturalistic and mythological solstice-festivities. But it is original in adding grand historical ideas and remembrances, symbolizing by its chaste lights the victory of monotheism, purity and freedom. It restores the unbroken chain of development in religious forms. It shows all human races to be branches of one and the same tree, having all the same root and stem, but differentiating diversely and arriving at ever higher and nobler evolutions, truer ideas and purer feelings. It substantiates our theory on religious and ethical parallels and developments.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:46:41 PM

CHAPTER III.

Spring Holidays and their Evolutions.

Passover and Easter. I shall illustrate upon another striking example my theory of the identity of religious ideas and forms, viz: those of the festivals of the spring season.

Looking around in history, we find that, from times immemorial, all human races have been celebrating the spring season. As the living creatures, the animals are an integral part of universal creation; they but reecho her moods and tunes, and reflect her phases and conditions. Especially is man the conscious mouthpiece of nature. It is evident that he should celebrate in spring its revival and brightness, and make some demonstrations of sympathy with his joyous environments. So it actually is. Wherever we look, among all nations and creeds, we find public festivities to that purpose. Such spring celebrations were observed everywhere, long before the Bible. The Germanic tribes had their Ostarefeasts; such had Asia and Egypt; Christian races have Easter. The Bible begins the spring with its Passover and closes it with its Pentacost.

The reader may have had the privilege of witnessing the Oriental rites and Passover preparations in an oldtime Hebrew house, at the approach of spring, about .the end of March, corresponding to the Hebrew month of Nissan.

The naturalistic sense of the Passover is that it comes in spring, in Palestine the beginning of the grain harvest. In spring nature breaks her winter slumbers. She bursts the icy bark of the vanishing season, and forth she sends a thousand blooming messengers to announce the revival of hope and joy. The festival begins on the evening of the i4di of Nissan, when the lovely disk of the moon is in its entire fulness and brightest luster; for, when the children of Jacob left jAisraim.i) a new era began on that eventful night. The long winter of slumbering antiquity was interrupted, and the spring of a new life of thought, sentiment and activity dawned upon Israel and the human kind at large. The rising star of the race was the full moon herself That sweet, full, bright disk of the 15th eve, while it was the epoch of spring in a natural sense, became the epoch of spring in a moral sense also. It inaugurated the epoch of liberty, nationality and revelation, the era of civilization and spirituality to the human species.

There is then a great stir in the old-time Jewish home. The house is cleansed and put up in its best shape and style, to the utmost capacity of the owner; cleaning, scouring, white-washing, painting, decorating, refurnishing, ornamenting, etc., all is done to beautify the Passover holidays. The first festive evening arriving, the humble home assumes the appearance of a house of worship; the inmates that of a congregation; the father of the family that of a priest; the mother becomes a priestess and a queen; the children, the servants, the friends, the guests and the poor, the widow, etc., all assume the solemn appearance of a congregation; the dining-room becomes a temple; the table an altar and the meal a sacrament. The body and its appetites are taken into the service of the soul, of religion, of nationality. It is a banquet and a divine service. The Israelite is celebrating his 4th of July, the anniversary of his liberation from the slavery of the ancient Pharaos over 3000 years ago. Now let us look closer to the Passover table. What does it display? The large, gorgeously decked table stands in the midst of the hall, brilliantly lit. The finest white linen cloth is spread over it. Sofas and large arm-chairs, richly covered, surround it. At the head thereof, on a large plate, there rest, carefully wrapped in fine white linen or silk, three unleavened cakes, flat, round, white disks, prepared without salt, condiment or fat: Mazzoth, the very symbol of Passover, Another dish holds the bitter herbs, marror; another, the sweet herbs karpos; another, the eggs with salt-water, baizim; another, the sweetly spiced nuts and apples, charothoth; another, the meats symbolizing the (Passover lamb; by no means forget the sparkling goblet with the raisinor fine, fermented wine, at the head of each cover, etc., etc. (*) In the midst of solemn silence, the family take their seats around the table. The men and women are composed and earnest, dressed in white — symbolizing purity — as the high-priest in the Moriah-temple. The humble dwelling of the Jewish ghetto now presents all the essentials of a temple. The entire household are worshipping. The dining room is a chapel, the table is an altar. The above ingredients are the sacred rites and emblems of worship, each is a hoary symbol, conveying, to the Oriental of course, a moral idea, a national reminiscence. On that Passover-night, every Hebrew thinks himself one of the oppressed sires, just leaving the chains of slavery; and he enjoys his newly acquired liberty with the enthusiasm of a man who, for the first time, gets possession of some great boon. Freedom makes everyone a king. Thus every Hebrew on Passover-eve thinks himself a king, his wife a queen, his children all of royal blood. The table is elegantly set. A sevenfold candlestick illuminates the scene. The Mazzoth are carefully dressed at the head of the table. Around stand thcsaidhitterherhsj the charosoih, the karpoSy the seroa, the eggs with the salt-water, etc., all to remind of the bitter fate, the hard labor, the tedious life, the cheerless silence, the smarting pains of the ancient Hebrew under the yoke of Mizraim. A holy silence reigns around this solemn scene. The busy, noisy home becomes a quiet sanctuary, wherein a congregation of believers is absorbed in prayer. The Shechina is resting on the pious assembly. The head and all the members of the family take solemnly their seats around the table, and the sacred ceremony begins with Kidush, a solemn sanctification of the day.

After a pause, the pater-fumilias rises, a goblet of sparkling wine in the right hand. All rise. He pronounces a solemn consecration of the holiday. He thanks God "for having selected his nation from among the brother nations, sanctified him with his revelation and given him that anniversary of independence, his liberation day from the Egyptian yoke; thanking the God of his fathers, the creator of the universe, for his own and mankind's first Fourth of July."

The "Seder" and the "Lord's Supper."

After a short pause of self-collection, wherein the Israelite is holding communion with the genius of his nation, thinking himself on the banks of the Nile, just breaking his chain of servitude, — after a solemn pause, the whole royal family, reclining to the left, conform to the patrician manner, around the table, and pointing to the carefully enveloped Mazzoth, they begin to sing in the half mystical idiom cf Aramaic and Hebrew: "These unleavened cakes," they chant in chorus, "are the poorbread our ancestors ate in Egypt. Let every hungry one come and eat, every destitute one come and celebrate with us. This year we are here, next, in our own country. This year slaves, next year freemen." — And in a strain of music sweet and wild, as the sounds of the aiolian harp at the morning breeze, the Hebrew family continues to chant the Haggada h; {) the youngest prince beginning with the two thousand years' old question: "Mah Uishtana?" What is the meaning of all that pomp and circumstance? . And the father answers: "Our patriarchs came as free men to Mizraim; but the treacherous Egyptians made us serfs, and abused us cruelly; and after four hundred years of servitude, the God of our fathers broke that ignoble yoke, and gave us freedom, independence and revelation,"

The liturgy continues for several hours in succession. At each rite is a benediction uttered. The whole has four subdivisions. At each, the family are reclining on their couches, in the ancient Roman manner, and touch with their lips the consecrated wine-cup; four in all. The father of the family at the very beginning of the sacred meal, in solemn silence breaks off a large slice of the unleavened cakes, carefully envelopes it in a white sheet and hides it mysteriously under the cushion. It is now called aphikomeny and we shall see later here the origin of the Great Christian movement. Here is the source of the leading Christian Sacrament; of which soon more. After this mystic rite, the family-banquet solemnly proceeds; a service unique in the synagogue, unknown to church or mosque; a banquet and a divine service; a dining-room and a temple, a feast of joy and a solemn inauguration, the origin of the agapae and the "Lord's Supper" a mystic Jewish rite and the most solemn sacrament of Christianity; the borderland between church and synagogue. It is that same Passover-service, it is claimed, that Jesus so ominously attended with his disciples; the last meal, the last morsel which he ate, the last wine which he drank; with his parting words, affirmed by some synoptics: "This is my body and this is my blood. Disciples partake of it! This bread and this wine, we for the last time partake of together, remember me, brethren, during that annual banquet, when I am no more with you." These thrilling words of the parting teacher and friend are still vibrating in the Christian community. To this day, they still ring, forming the most solemn chime and rhyme and rite thereof. We shall come back to it. But first let us resume the thread of the symbols and Passover of the old Israel, absolutely necessary for our theme.

The Hebrew Passover.

I shall have to enlarge a little longer on that Hebrew festival, for that is the Albert and Victoria Jyanza Lakcy the source of the Christian "Nile."The mysterious source of Christianity flows there and the reader must be familiar with it.

The Passover-banquet has a thrilling interest and a mystic halo. It is the ominous borderland between old Judaism and new Christianity. It bears the sacred mist of the holy of holies. To the Christian, it is the initiatory and the vestibule to the church.

In some sense, it shows the mysterious spot, where the hoary Judaic mother gave birth to her young daughter, where the synagogue expanded into the church, where both blended their doctrinal waves, showing the derivation of the latter from the former; something similar to the Gulf-stream amidst the waves of the Atlantic. The Passover is specially calculated to allow the reader a deep look into the character of old Judaism, and the by-gone Jew, for both are now things of the past Let us catch up the dying breath of past times, for that is necessary to make the modern reader, be he of whatever race or denomination, fully understand the character of Jesus, his time and surroundings, his impressions, his aspirations, his doctrines, his career, his death, and the mighty results thereof. It is the key to the enchanted castle. The modern American has so far loomed away from the powerful influences of faith and intuition, he is so far away from the Orient and its symbolism, that he will, with interest, take with me a stroll into the Ghetto, there to learn what Avas ancient Israel, what was Jesus and what for was Christianity, as claimed, inaugurated by the latter at his "Last Supper."

Passover Reminiscences.

Israel is celebrating the Passover, commemorating the Exodus of his fathers from Egypt, over 3,300 years ago, the dawn of his nationality, a race and a sect, yet purely humanitarian, aspiring to universality. Before that epoch, his ancestors had built Pithom and Raamses, the obelisks and pyramids of the Pharaos; since he has been helping to build the strongholds of faith and of liberty, of science and art, in state and church. Since the Exodus, what a glorious history has not that nationality enacted! First they received a law, which has become the base of civilization. Soon they conquered a country which they kept for fourteen centuries. And when seemingly broken and annihilated by the sword of Rome, it scattered over the entire globe, as the happy seed of future spiritual harvests, fertilizing mankind with its blood, its sacrifices, its religion and its spirit. Seemingly broken, it re-arose in Rome and in Mecca, animating the world with its ever-living spirit. With a marvelous adaptability, it brought about Christianity for the West and Mohammedanism for the East; yet insisting on itself as the nucleus of each. Indeed, the many and long migrations of Israel from Arabia to America are but as many stations of human advance; and mankind profited at each of his steps. Since the Exodus, everything contemporaneous with his origin has disappeared.

All the glories of the Pharoes, of Phoenicia, Sidon and Tyre, of Catharge; the empires of Babylon and Assyria, of Cyrus and Alexander, Rome and Constantinople, the Caliphs and Carlovingians, the Bourbons and the Bonapartes — all have disappeared, and nothing has remained from the time of the first Passover, but the pyramids and the people Israel. What a cheering example of the principle of "the survival of the fittest,"of " natural selection!" And that people to-day leads the same life, breathes the same air, bears the same millennial features, represents the same ideas as on the first Passah: One right! one duty for all, One God and the decalogue. It is still the kingdom of priests; the people of mind, the ' most progressive one and yet conservative; marching onward by evolution, not revolution! All hail to thee, Israel, contemporary of the Pharaos and of the U. S. Presidents. As the double-faced Janus statue, thou lookest to the farthest antiquity and the most advanced future. AntiSemitism has been reproaching thee with bad faith, usury, and low habits! Ah, usury and 4000 years* standing! Can bad faith stand the test of millenniums? No, his mere existence is the most telling proof of his solid worth; it is the most illustrious example of the principle of the "survival of the fittest"!

The Jew does not represent a successful merchandizing class, but something higher; the power of mind, mind over matter, idealism over materialism, right over might, brain before the fist, the pen mightier than the sword. As long as the Jew will remain true to himself, as long as he will teach: God and not chance, one mankind, one family, one right; as long as he will teach unity, fraternity and solidarity, — he will be unconquerable. Rome and Byzantium, the empire of Charlemagne and Gengis Chan have perished when they ceased to do good. Israel lives because he is the representative, the incarnation of immortal ideas. He does not represent gold or commerce; but spirit, mind-power, ideality, faith in the triumph of good, — all that, taught by Jesus to the world, he learned at his prophetic home.

Passover's Ideas.

Three ideas are commemorated by the Passover festival. First: It is the anniversary of the liberation of his forefathers, it is the Hebrews' Fourth of July; when the declaration of independence was proclaimed from the heights of the pyramids, under the roar of the cataracts of the Nile; when that people went out in quest of a home without castes and Pharaos, with no other ruler but God, law and work. Second: It is the anniversary of his nationality, the spring of his political existence, corresponding to the spring in nature. He is not a nation by country or government, or by "powder and lead"; no, the Jew is an American in America; a German in Germany; an Englishman in England; he is a patriot where ever he has a country. When Disraeli became prime minister, Godwin Smith published a scurrilous pamphlet, "Can a Jew be a patriot"? Disraeli, and a hundred others, have shown that he can, so have Adolph Cremieux, Lasker, Bamberger, and a thousand other noble Jews. In what sense are they then a nation? By race and blood, by cast of mind, by faith and fate; same battles, triumphs and disasters; same cause, past and future, — by 4000 years' history. Third: Passover is the anniversary of Israel's humanitarian mission, of his priesthood, when he received his investiture and appointment as teacher and God's messenger to mankind; as the people devoted to the mental, moral and spiritual interests of man, when he was declared the "first-born of God," "holy to the eternal," the messiah and leaven of human civilization. You remember the legend of the " Messiah and the Wandering Jew." That legend has been much misunderstood; that role is one and the same: Israel is both the Messiah and the Wandering Jew embracing the world in his mighty migrations for the redemption and the elevation of mankind. It is he who has been bearing the sins of barbarous ages and nations; he who has been entombed and resurrected, — the ideas represented by him being immortal.

Isaiah 53rd.

You remember the 53rd chapter of Isaiah! That chapter vividly depicts a mysterious person, misunderstood, disregarded and cruelly abused, who, in reality, suffered for the sins of those who smote him, taking on himself the crimes of his very abusers. That chapter 53rd of Isaiah is claimed to allude to Jesus of Nazareth, to his aspirations, his teachings and his sufferings. No doubt, his personality was and is a grand and shining exemplification of the historic rle of Israel. He is the epitome photograph of his nation. He concentrated within his own personality the fate and the mission of his race. What the Christian world claims of him, universal history vindicates to all Israel. Thus Isaiah 53rd simply alludes to the messiah of mankind. It does not mean one Israelite born many centuries ago in the city of Nazareth or Bethlehem; no, it means all Israel, the entire Hebrew race, which is the martyr and the messiah of the nations! That chapter paints in vivid colors his painful and sad, yet bright and glorious fate, dispersed among the Christian and Mohammedan peoples, whom it gave its bible, the best of the Gospel and the best of the Koran. Israel it is, who renouncing the comforts of home, scattered all over the earth, carrying along with himself his spiritual merchandise, offering the scriptures to whomsoever wanted to take them, and in exchange receiving — ostracism! He teaches the Tartar, the Mongol, the Hun: Iron is not God, for even iron rusts and decays. He shows the Hindoo: Brahma is not God, for the true God has no pariahs, no slaves, no castes. He thunders to the Greek and the Roman: Your gods are no gods, for God is one and you have 30,000. He reasons with his Christian brother: Your messiah is your messiah indeed. He brought you nigh to the prophetic morals and the purer God-idea. But remember, brethren, he taught you the God of Israel, the only One God of all, his father, your father and my father. Remember, that Cardinal Manning and Dollinger and Franz Delitzsch have taught the same! He addresses his Mohammedan cousin: Thy God is surely God, but thy Koran is not all of his making; for God encourages no polygamy and no conquest, no sensuality and no conversions by the scimetar. "Who then, Jew, is God?" roar the aroused nations. " Verily, verily, I tell you, ye nations of the earth, ye Chinese and Hindoos, ye Greeks and Romans, ye Christians and Mohammedans, verily, I tell you, crieth the Wandering Jew, neither Brahma, Fo, nor Buddha, nor Jove, Mars, Odin, nor the scimetar are God. Who then is God? Shema Israel Adonay AlohanuAchad. Hear, O Israel, hear, O nations of the globe, God our Lord is one. God is One, for there is perfect harmony in the universe.

God is spirit, for everything material changes and decays, therefore, the ruler of that change cannot be matter, but spirit. God is eternal, for the harmony of the universe and the constancy in the change of the parts thereof suppose an eternal, immutable law and law-giver. God has no namCy nor shape, nor figure. Call him Fo or Brahma, Ormuzd or Zeus, Jesus or Alaha, Odin, Great I am, or Great Spirit; represent him by a black stone or a cross, by a veiled image or crocodile, by a half-broken sword or a statue of Phidias, by the Holy Fire of Zoroaster, or the Sun of the Zodiac — call him by whatever name, represent him by whatever image, you cannot grasp him, you will rather misunderstand him. Yet, if you must give him a name, call him by his attributes. Call him Adonay, master, of all; Yahveh, eternal and immutable; Alohim, all-powerful, aggregate of forces, innate essence of matter; call him Shadday, the omnipotent sustainer and preserver of all. But even Adonay and Yahveh, Alohim and Shadday do not encompass his Being, do not exhaust his attributes, just as a river does not contain the Pacific. God is all holiness; he unites in himself all moral and intellectual excellencies. He is all love; even the great law of the physical world is gravitation; all the parts of the universe are held together by attraction, by sympathy inherent in matteV. By far more so is love the law of mind.

What is God? I know not! Can I embrace the universe? Can I explain why fire burns? What He is, I know not. That He is, I do know. He is the Supreme Being, the Only One, the immutable, the benign and holy one; that I see reflected in nature, his grand creation, his divine garment. This is the God, this the doctrine and this the social ethics Israel teaches. Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed taught that God, that doctrine and these ethics.

Hence is he your messiah, O ye Christians; hence is he your prophet, O ye Moslems. Each is Israel's representative with the Gentile world.

But, quoth the Gentile nations, how can you, man of flesh and bone, you being of sin and imperfection, how can you conceive a Being of pure spirit and all-holiness?

And Israel answers: In you, O Gentile brethren, as well as in me, there is something spiritual and holy derived from the essence of the very God-head. That part of ourselves which thinks, judges, compares, reflects, etc.; that part which distinguishes between true and false, right and wrong, sublime and vulgar, holy and impure; that part whose essence we cannot define, but which is the real substance of manhood; that part which we call soul, spirit, mind, — that part is part of God, and that part conceives God.

Thy God and thy soul are rather subtle and difficult to be comprehended, say the nations of the earth. Yet let us hear what are the teachings of thy God; what does he like and what dislike?

And the Wandering Jew continues: From the attributes of God, attributes which I feel dimly reflected upon my soul, I learn the teachings of God. Thus he teaches veracity, justice, self-perfection, liberty. Thus he dislikes distinctions between man and man, aristocracies of the robe or of the sword, conquests by might without right. Thus he abhors the slavery of the woman, the child, the weak, the poor, the stranger; thus he abominates tyranny, intolerance and fanaticism, ignorance, hypocrisy and priest-craft. All that has taught your own Jesus Christ, Occidentals! and mostly, too, your Mohammed, O ye Orientals!

So speaking, the Jew resumes his arduous task, as martyr and teacher of mankind; and he traverses the immense plains of Asia, and he finds his way to the Sahara of Africa, and his steps are well known in the island-continent of Australia, and civilized Europe resounds with his bold teachings. But the New World, especially, offers full scope to his activity, his energy, his thousand domestic virtues, and, above all, to his civilizing influences, to the grand humanitarian mission entrusted to his care, and of which Jesus and Paul and Mohammed are the Gentile expounders.

Here particularly, in America, the monotheistic idea, with its humanitarian doctrines, is to find its best soil. Here all the different nations, sects and tongues arc united peaceably in a political union. There are here no kings, nor castes, nor privileges, nor aristocrats, nor pariahs; no state-religion, nor priest-ridden peoples. Here the "kid and the tiger, the lion and the lamb graze peaceably together. "Here old enmities and prejudices are slowly vanishing. The divine idea of a humanity united in brotherly love, taught since Abraham to Paul, based on knowledge, justice, liberty and equality, is surely not yet realized here, but it is at least farther advanced than anywhere else. With rapid steps we are marching towards that glorious epoch, when the messianic idea will be realized, when the divine mission of the Hebrew laborer will be accomplished. Then the prophecies of olden times will be fulfilled: "And it will be on that day, when all the nations of the earth will gather and stream towards Zion, to learn the teachings of the only one Lord, and to go in his ways at the light of his doctrine. And all men will be brothers, and all hearts will overflow with love, and all brains abound in knowledge and reason. The workmen will study and the thinkers will work. The nations will break their swords and change their weapons into implements of husbandry; for there will knowledge and peace, justice and love abound everywhere, as the waters filling the ocean." (*)

That Passover, recalling those three ideas, has been celebrated three thousand three hundred times. What a lapse of time! What a patent of nobility! If nobility means antique freedom, which freedom is older? If it means antique race, which people is older? If it means greatness of mission, which nationality has a grander history? That Passover Jesus and his disciples celebrated close before his death.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:48:23 PM

Passover Symbols.

We have seen, Passover commemorating the epoch of liberty, nationality and priesthood, Israel holding up to mankind the platform for regeneration and fraternization in his three leading principles: One God, one mankind and one right for all. Now, the biblical ritual, or the symbols of the Passover services, represent these very ideas. Later, we shall consider these symbols as older than Judaism, and having a general bearing. Here we shall glance at them in their biblical significance. The Passover lamb was the initiation-sacrifice offered by every Jew, in each house and upon every door, representing the priesthood of each man, and the sanctity of each door in Israel. (Exodus 12, 6.) The unleavened bread reminds, according to the Bible, of the precipitation of .the Hebrews in leaving Egypt. The rabbinical interpretation suggests the idea of bread of the poor, the food of serfdom, but it is much more significant: it symbolizes the bread of purity, simplicity, holiness and wholeness with self and God, the internal harmony not yet decomposed by the leaven of passion, vice and misfortune. The unleavened cakes alone were admitted into the temple, and such bread alone was offered during the inaugural Passover-week to the priestly people. The "bitter herbs" shall, according to the Bible, remind one of the hard slave-existence in Egypt, the bitter lot of dependence. It moreover alludes to Judah's spiritual mission. Having to administer to mankind's needs and advancement, to battle in the van for universal emancipation, from political, social and clerical thraldom, having to ring the knell at the death-bed of decrepit nations and institutions, and stand god-father to young liberty, civilization and fraternization, he shall have his share of the bitter herbs, the drudgery of human life, in order better to know the peoples' woes and their remedies.

The Christian legend of the "crown of thorns," the agony, the passion of Christ, etc., are but another version of the bitter herbs in the Passover ritual. The eternal migrations, the racial persecutions, the historic agonies of the biblical people are in the ritual symbolized by the bitter herbs.

In hoary antiquity the heathen tribes enjoyed during their festivities the young herbs just grown up. The Hebrew table retained them, giving them a historic meaning, instead of a naturalistic one, always supplanting reminiscences of nature by moral ones. The heathen world used a great profusion of eggs in their Easter celebrations; so, too, do the Christian races. It represents the idea of rejuvenation, of seeming death, (the gg), latently teeming with and soon converted into actual, joyous life, the young chick. It shall suggest that apparent death is not hopeless. The old Hebrew gave to these ingredients, upon his Passover table, a specifically national interpretation, yet not excluding the original one.

All young, naive peoples of antiquity, in their mysteries used to hide an image during the spring festivals, which they went about looking for in procession, and lamenting over it. So did the Egyptian priests; so in Asia. At last they found it and were jubilant. It represented undoubtedly the hiding of the sun behind the winter clouds, and his reappearance in spring. The Greek church retains yet to-day such ceremonies; the Protestant church greets her Easter congregation with a salutation to that point. And the orthodox Hebrew Passover table has to all appearance reduced that hoary naturalistic rite to its most diminutive and most innocent proportions, we shall later enlarge upon that and unriddle their significance.

That entire ritual is of Asiatic origin, yet it represents well the messianic rJe in history: sacrifice, purity, and bitter struggle! The messiah's crown of thorns, "Marror," yet a glorious history; ostracism, yet immense influence; contemporary with Raamses and Lincoln; producing the greatest creeds and deeds. It teaches Israel to gracefully bear his historic crown, it has its thorns, yet is not without its laurels. It is worth while to be a Jew. Now let us look to its derivation.

Aphikomen and Eucharistia.

We have seen in the foregoing pages that there is a regular, long, special ritual for that single annual homeservice of the ancient synagogue. It is almost a little book. It consists of prayers, narratives, rites, benedictions, litanies, thanksgivings, tales of sorrow, joy, hope, and sweet children's tales with a deep national ring; psalms and hallelujahs, all highly patriotic, some quaint and poetic. The ritual called Haggada or Seder, (leiturgia), is mostly of antiquity, as old as the mishna, in part older than Christianity, and calculated to occupy the entire night of the Hebrew liberation-festival; hence it is called the night of watching. It is intended that the Jewish family should pass that night in prayer, thanksgiving and joy, remember its Fourth of July, mankind's spring, and its own mission of holding out to mankind the platform of fraternization: God, love and duty. . The symbols enumerated above are all taken up seriatim: (Passahj Marror and Mazzah. Then the regular meal is taken, the four cups are drunk, the whole is closed with the mystic phikomen and solemn prayers. And all that has its reverberating echo in the church of to-day. Let us elucidate and illustrate this:

Passover is now called Easter. But Easter has nothing to do with exodus and liberation-day. Apparently the names and forms, the symbols and the ritual are changed. Yet, look deeper beneath rites, forms and names, and you will find the Christian Easter-stir, with the "resurrexity vere resurrexit," the jubilant mien of the happy masses, the minister's enthusiastic preaching, the crowded churches, the festive decorations, the solemn consecrating rites of the day, the most solemn mass and the

"Lord's supper" the previous lent, with the highest sacrament of the hostia and eucharisi; all these are the reverberating echoes of the Hebrew Passover, its familymeal with its rites. . . But much more:

The Rites Older.

These rights and symbols of the Hebrew Passover which Moses and his followers took part in about three thousand five hundred years ago, the banquet which Jesus and his disciples participated in, nearly nineteen centuries ago; these religious forms mentioned in Mishna, Talmud and New Testament, and some even in Pentateuch and the prophets a thousand years before, those rights and symbols yet extant in the church of to-day and in the synagogue of to-day — these forms are older THAN church AND SYNAGOGUE; older than Christianity and Judaism; older than Jesus and Moses and Abraham! Passover and Easter, and spring celebrations; Passover-lambs, Passover herbs, Passover cakes and eggs, Passover processions and Easter mysteries, are older than the Hebrew passah and the Christian Easter. They are as old as man has been celebrating the spring. Long before the bible and the exodus, the heathen world had been celebrating the approach of spring, the new sun, the resurrection of the earth from winter's grim embrace, the rejuvenation of the vegetative kingdom, the rise of mother earth from winter's frosty slumber, the reappearance of the sunny spring.

OSTARA. Easter. Passah. Resurrection.

So the ancient races used to celebrate in spring the resurrection of nature from winter's death. The Jews turned that idea to good account. Discarding the naturalistic one, they made use of it historically; celebrating in spring — Jissan — the resurrection of the nation from subjugation, from the grave of slavery. The old Egyptians celebrated the resurrection of OsiriSy the sun buried during winter, the re-enlivened sun killed by Typhon (northern blast). The Syrians celebrated the rise of Apollo or Sol from the foggy grave of cold. The Teutonic peoples celebrated the new life of the earth, Ostara, from her winterly trance. Hence the present word, Easter, viz: Ostara or mother-goddess, earth. Everywhere we find invariably the original idea of resurreciion. The Christian world discarding the naturalistic heathen meaning, turned it to mean this rise of its own Founder. They discarded the naturalistic idea of the heathen and the historic one of the Jew, and gave it a theological interpretation.

Passover Lamb

And the rites and symbols too, expressing the idea, are nearly identical. So the heathen world, long before Moses and Abraham, sacrificed in spring a young lamb to the gods. They boiled it, so it is claimed, alive in its mother's milk, dancing around the caldron, whilst the poor creature was bleating and seething. The famous bible verse thrice repeated: "Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk," (II Moses 23, 19), etc., may refer, according to Maimonides, More jebuchim ad locun, to that barbarous custom. The Pentateuch purified the rite of the heathen Easter-lamb into the chaste symbolical pascal lamb, the initiatory sacrifice of Israel's priesthood and humanitarian mission. The Christian world declared its founder himself to be that "lamb of God" offered in sacrifice as an atonement for mankind's sinfulness or "Adams fall."

The heathen world gave a week to that spring festival; the bible, a week to the Passover. So does the Catholic church; so the Greek church. The Protestant one shortened it for practical purposes. The Pagans hilariously lit their Easter bonfires. The orthodox Hebrew goes around with a candle searching, removing and burning his leaven, symbolic of removal of evil, sin and disintegration. The Christian seeks the buried image of the F'ounder.

The antique world had their Bacchanalia and Venusorgies, origin of the Agapae, Even the church had long to struggle against and at last to connive at such hilarities. The Dumiitica gaudia" and "risus paschalis" the popular licenses and buffooneries needed a long time before they were eradicated from the church, carried over as they were from the heathen festivities.

EASTER SPORTS.

   It was in quaint old English Chester the Easter holiday was most regarded — that mediaeval town which still has its flavor of the past — its gable-fronted houses, castellated walls and charming old "rows." There on Easter Monday morning might be seen a procession starting out for the Rood-eye to play the annual game of football. The Rood-eye, where these games were held, was a meadow outside the wall by the river. Eye means a water-side meadow. . . .
   The rood or cross, from which the meadow was named, had been at Hawarden previous to its setting up at the eye. . . .
   To this Rood-eye came the mayor and corporation, with the twenty guilds established in Chester. Under the cross the guild of shoemakers presented the ball to the mayor. He merrily set the ball a rolling. Of course, the simplicity of these early pageants was soon lost. In Henry VIII.'s time this homage to the mayor was changed into a gift from the shoemakers to the drapers, to be contested for in a foot race. ...
'Lifting was one of the amusements of this festival, which was popular all over England. On Easter Monday the men had their turn; on Tuesday the girls retaliated. In Chester the gallant youths carried about a chair, lined with rich white silk and decorated with garlands of flowers and streamers of ribbon. As they met a fair damsel they requested her to be seated. Three times was she lifted high in their hands, and before being released a kiss was demanded and a fee besides. No opposition was allowed, and in those days of free-andeasy manners probably none was made. Strange as it may seem the desire to dramatize the day's great event gave rise to this ridiculous custom. The modus operandi where no chair was provided, was for two people to make a seat of their hands by holding each other s wrists — what is known by the children of these days as "carrying a lady to London ". . .

In Edward I's reign seven ladies of the Queen's household broke into the King's room early in the morning and lifted him. He had to give them £44 as a forfeit.
A grave divine was once passing through a town of Lancashire on an Easter Tuesday. He stopped for awhile at the inn, and was quietly seated in his room, when he was astonished by three or four lusty damsels rushing in, and exclaiming:
   We have come to lift you."
   To lift me; what do you mean?" said the amazed man.
   We've come to lift you, 'cause it's Easter Tuesday."
'*It needed much persuasion from the reverend gentleman to induce them to take the fee alone, and leave him unlifted. . . .
'Another ceremony is practiced in Durham. The men take off the women's shoes on Monday, and the women have their revenge on Tuesday.
   The playing of ball in the very church edifice between the ecclesiastics and laity for tansy cakes was suppressed on account of its sacriligious tendency. Tansy tea was also used in remembrance of the hitter herbs eaten at the Passover. . . .
   In the parish of Biddenden, in Kent, there is an endowment, of old but unknown date, for making a distribution of cakes among the poor every Easter Sunday, in the afternoon. The cakes given on this occasion were impressed with the figures of two females side by side. . . .
Simnel cakes were eaten in commemoration of Easter. This cake was also used on mid-Lent Sunday, from the custom of the young people visiting their parents on that day. . . .
   Simnels wqre eaten in early times with a figure of Christ or the virgin stamped on them to show their religious signification. . . .
   The use of the egg at Easter is very broadspread, and still survives. The original of this rite is lost in obscurity, but undoubtedly comes from the life buried within the shell, which will burst into being. In Russia and Germany a print of an eggy with lines inscribed, is frequently used. It was formerly the custom in England to distribute large quantities of eggs among the people. An item of Easter Sunday expenses occurs in Edward I.'s accounts — "Four hundred and a half eggs, eighteen pence." A game of bowling was played by the boys with hard-boiled eggs — he who threw oftenest without breaking being victor. They also hit them against each other, as the boys do now. . . .
   All fires were extinguished in Catholic times on Easter eve and relit with a flint. The priest blessed the new fire, and a brand from it was thought to be an effectual protection from thunderstorms.

*The salutation 'Christ is risen," and the reply "The Lord is risen indeed," was the usual greeting on Easter morning. This custom still survives in a few places. In the old town of Burlington, N. J., which holds to many ancient usages, it is still heard. The choristers also in the old style go about the streets at early dawn with glad Easter hymns. . . .

   The old Moravian settlements still continue the old ways. In Nazareth, Pa., long before dawn on Easter morning trombone players roam about the town calling all good Moravians to arise and hail the resurrection morning. . . .
   But in Rome is to' be seen the grandest Easter pageant. The Pope, in his most gorgeous robes, wearing the tiara, seated in his sedilia gestatoria and blazing with gold and jewels, is carried in solemn procession through the streets. A magnificent silken canopy is over his head. Beside him are borne the flabella, or large fans of peacock feathers, signifying the vigilance of the church. Through St. Peter s the procession advances, and the Pope officiates at high mass. After that is over, to the sound of the music he is carried back through the crowded church. He then ascends the balcony over the central door. Arising from the chair of state, he pronounces the benediction, with indulgences and absolution, to the dense crowd below"

So far 'Folk's Lore" on Easter sports, as remembered by current Easter-tales. I shall only, by the way, add a few words on the ftabella, or the peacock's fan of the pope, used on that occasion, and said to signify the vigilance of the church. This peacock-fan and its claimed meaning, is of mythological times and origin, and is best explained in Ovid's "Metamorphosae," (I liber, v. 568, etc., and 713 — 723.)

There, namely, the story is told about Yo, daughter of the river-god Inachus, who had an intrigue with Jupiter, which was discovered by the jealous Juno, his worthy spouse. Juno, in punishment, changed Yo into a snow-white young heifer , and handed her over to Argus J the monster with a hundred eyes, as her future guardian and shepherd. But Jupiter recognized her under this guise and had his son, Mercurius, bewitch and kill Argus, and restore his love to her prestine beauty. Jealous Juno thus lost her revenge and her secret agent, Argus, with the one hundred eyes. These one hundred eyes of Argus dead, were lovingly picked up by the sad queen of heaven and set into the plumage of her favorite bird, the peacock, as a memento of the vigilance of her departed servant.

Now, to return to our Easter sports in Rome and the gorgeous papal procession, myth and legend joined hands in this instant and made out of the one hundred Argus' eyes in the peacock's tail the flabella of the pope, to remember the vigilance of the holy church over the weal of the Christian world.

Hoary Easter Banquets.

In lieu of these Heathen licenses, the synagogue instituted its noble Passover banquet, the love-feast, joining the family-repast with a solemn divine service. Therein the poor, the widow and the orphan participated. There chastity and sanctity presided. There Elijah, the prophet, was among the guests. There the intemperate libations to Bacchus were reduced to four cups of wine, perhaps sweet wine. Each was consecrated to noble ideas. The Greeks, in imitation, introduced their agapae, loveearly or Venus-feasts. Whilst the Christian church developed from that root her most solemn sacrament, the eucharistia. It represents "the real presence," it reminds of the last words, the good-bye of the founder. — "In the Roman-Catholic church, the eucharistic service, as in the Greek or other Oriental churches, is held to be a real, though unbloody offering, in which Christ is the victim; in substance, it is the same with his sacrifice on the cross, and was instituted as the means of applying its merits through all ages unto man.
   The doctrine of the mass, as understood by RomanCatholics, presupposes the eucharist, though the latter doctrine does not necessarily involve the notion of a sacrifice. The rite of this eucharist, the Lord's Supper, was among the earliest in church history, and is still recognized as the chief and most solemn part of the worship, and the rite, according to the church of Rome, is partly a sacrifice, partly a communion and participation thereof by the faithful. The etymology of the name is somewhat obscure, but has been held to be merely a proclamation by the deacon at the close of the general service, dismissing the catechumens with the words: "Ite, missa, est." (Go, the assembly is dismissed.) In the private masses, the officiating priest, not the faithful, held communion. Then came the masses of the catechumens and of the faithful, the former comprising still the first part of the mass as far as the preface. According to their solemnity, the masses are named. "Low mass," read by a single priest, attended by one or more acolytes; "chanted mass," chanted, instead of read, and "high mass," chanted in part by the priest, in part by the deacon and sub-deacon, by whom, as well as by several ministers of inferior rank, the priest is assisted. On Good Friday, the mass of the "pre-sanctified" is celebrated."
Thus the solemn Lord's Supper binds together the self-sacrificing leader with his church, embracing half the world. The teacher with his disciples, the new social and moral dispensation or covenant with their spiritual world-empire. Judaea merged into the world, Israel broadened into mankind, the Galilean reformer into a universal religious initiator. Thus the spring epoch, from a crude, naturalistic symbol of Heathenism, became with the Jews the fit season to celebrate, annually, the national redemption. It has developed and broadened with Christianity into a humanitarian redemption. Therein every race and nationality participated. Whosoever partook of the consecrated bread and wine, was a member of the communion and incorporated into the world church, an expansion of the synagogue. With the Jew, it was Elijah, the prophet, who attended at the family-festival. In the church, the messiah was present, in person and reality, or remembered and symbolized in the Lord's Supper, the metamorphosed or the consecrated hostia. According to the Hebrew view, Elijah is the forerunner of the messiah. According to the Christian view, the messiah, who had appeared, is personally present at the supper-sacrament.

It is the identical legend, differently interpreted. Concerning the derivation of the Lord's Supper, there is much controversy among critics. It is popularly accepted, that Jesus himself had instituted the Lord's Supper. The three first synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, state it. But it is omniously passed over in silence by the important Gentile gospel of St. John; and, for good reasons. The first three state that Jesus celebrated the Passover meal, instituted the Lord's Supper, was apprehended that very night, appeared before the High priest and before Pilate on the following morning and during the same day (the first day of Passover?) he was condemned and crucified. Whilst according to John's Gospel and to Talmudical sources he appeared before Pilate and was crucified on the preparation day of the Passover, that happened on the Sabbath, hence he could not celebrate the Passover meal nor institute the Lord's Supper. The Gentile gospel of John cared not for the Hebrew Passover banquet, nor for having the Lord's Supper derived from that solemn occasion. Now be that as it may, it is a fact, that there is a connection between the two.

According to the above, we have learned the hoary antiquity of the caster lamb, to which I remark that the Pentateuch ordains that the Hebrews about to leave enslaving Egypt should kill a lamb, sprinkle its blood on the door-posts and enjoy the meat in commemoration of their delivery and their national priesthood. That ceremony was performed annually and with great solemnity. Now it is a fact, that the lamb is not mentioned in the synoptics, only the bread and wine are, as having been symbolized as the flesh and blood of the founder. But the Passover lamb has not been omitted by the church! It plays there an important part in its symbolism and its dogmatics! — To all appearance at the time of its institution as a Christian rite, the Moriah temple and the sacrificial services did no longer exist; hence the Jews had it no more on their Passover table. The Jew-Christians symbolized Jesus himself as the Lamb of God, the last closing sacrifice, in propitiation of sin and abolishing the Temple service. It became the key-stone of Christian dogmatics.

Easter Cakes

The ancient races had their rich Ostara-cakes, emblems of the earth pregnant with innumerable gifts and joys, probably alluding to remnants of Venus worship. The bible changed those into the chaste "unleavened bread," remembering national and spiritual
ideas. Above we have seen these ideas to be the priestly mission of uniting mankind into one and the same bond, one religion of righteousness and goodness, one race and one law. Ideas later taken up by the New Testament as its special task.

The unleavened bread reminds, according to the bible, of the precipitation of the " Hebrew forefathers in leaving Egypt." The historical interpretation suggests the idea of poor-bread, the food of serfdom. But it is much more significant. It symbolizes the bread of purity, simplicity, holiness, and wholeness with self and God, the internal harmony not yet disturbed and decomposed by the leaven of passion, vice and misfortune. "The unleavened cakes alone were admitted into the Moriah temple, and therefore such bread alone was offered during the inaugural Passover week to the priestly people." It is most interesting to note that this interpretation is the one mostly accepted by the Rabbis and the Apostles. The Hebrew Midrashim, Paul and his followers take the figure of unleavened bread as being the emblem and prototype of regeneration, priestly mission and purity.

Spring Herbs.

We have seen that in hoary antiquity the Heathen tribes enjoyed during their spring festivities the young herbs just sprung up, in token of reproducing nature. The Hebrew table retained them, but gave them a historical meaning instead of a naturalistic one — always supplanting reminiscences of nature by moral ones; nature worship by divine worship; the senses by ideas.

The "bitter herbs" shall, according to the bible, remind of the hard slave-existence in Egypt; the bitter lot of dependency. It moreover alludes to Judah's spiritual mission, as hinted at before. He having to administer to mankind's weal and advancement, to battle in the van for universal emancipation from political, social and clerical thraldom, he having "to ring the knell at the death-bed of decrepit nations and institutions, and to stand god-father to social reforms, to liberty, civilization and fraternization, he shall have his share of the bitter herbs, the drudgery of human life, in order better to know the peoples' woes and their remedies.

Easter Eggs.

The Heathen world used on Easter a profusion of eggs, as they did young herbs. Both are the produce of spring. Both were enjoyed in honor of the gods, who had assumed the role of personified forces of nature. The Hebrew consumes the eggs with salt-water. > The salt means tears. But the eggs mean consolation, not dumbness, as claimed by some, for they are seemingly mute; really they contain future life. So, too, do the Christian modern races. They enjoy such eggs dyed in different colors. For they should apparently recall the idea of rejuvenation, of seeming death, latently teeming with life, and soon to be converted into actual, joyous life in the young chick. It should remind us that even apparent death is not hopeless, has a future still and will once celebrate its resurrection. The Hebrew gives these ingredients upon his Passover-table a specifically national interpretation, yet including the original one. It may mean to him individual immortality and national resurrection. He used, again, to offer eggs with ashes to the mourner, in token of dumbness and silent grief, but also of consolation and cheer, pointing to the life hereafter: Take courage, death is the shroud of new life!

Easter Mysteries.

All young, naive peoples of antiquity in their easier mysteries used to hide an image before the spring festivals, which they went in procession looking for and lamenting over. So did the Egyptian priests with their Osiris image. So in Asia with Apollo, Sol, Adonis, etc. At last they found it and were jubilant. It represented, undoubtedly, the hiding of the sun behind the winter clouds and his re-appearance in spring. The Greek church retains yet today such Christianized mysteries and ceremonies. I mean the nightly lent processions.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:50:16 PM

APHIKOMEN, HOSTIA AND EUCHARIST.

The Russian Czar greets his household, the Protestant church her Easter congregations with a salutation to that point. And the orthodox Hebrew Passovertable, too, has such a mystery. It has, to all appearance, reduced that hpary, naturalistic rite to its most diminutive and innocent proportions. The hiding of a piece of unleavened cake, (Aphikomen), guarding it jealously from being stolen and then eating it at the end of the meal, using a doubtful formula, written in Aramaic, in a cabbalistic style, and believed to remember the Passover lamb; that curious ceremony, apparently, is a relic of said antique mysteries known among all nations, stripped of its mythology and made subservient to a moral idea.

Aphikomen, Hostia and Eucharist.

But we must enlarge on this theme, as it leads us to a new and grand vista with a most interesting, historical hypothesis; another instance of the analogy in religious rites, in ancient and modern times.

We have said, that everywhere we find mysteries celebrated about spring-time. In ancient Egypt the priests used to hide the image of Osiris; then they held nightly processions with torch-lights, seeking the absent god. To all appearance, it represented the sun hidden behind winter clouds, expressed in the lamentations about: Osiris killed by Typhon or Set. Set was the god of the Hyksos-kings, the Syrian pastoral invaders, who, during several centuries, held Egypt in subjection. Set, having killed the Egyptian Osiris, may also have alluded to the political idea, that the Egyptians were subjugated by the. Hyksos and the resurrection of Osiris; may have meant the hope of subverting that odious Syrian dominion and restoring the liberty of Egypt, just as later Passover meant Hebrew liberty from the Egyptian yoke, the same idea controverted.

That mystery we find, too, in Syria, where Sol had disappeared behind the fogs. — The prophet Ezekiel (8, 14.) may allude to that rite with bitter irony at the kind of Hebrew lent, taunting and scoffing at the women of Jerusalem for weeping in the Moriah-temple and lamenting over ThammuSiQ the Greeko-Syrian Adonis, son of the sun-god, Apollo. In Ovids Metamorphorsae we read of the death of Phaeton (II. book, verses 304 — 328), having failed in guiding the chariot of Phoebus and miserably perishing, he is lamented over by the naiades. (*) Another of Ovid's charming tales may refer, too, to that myth (II book, verses 407 — 510), Narciss dying and mourned over by the goddesses. (®)
The following myth tallies even more with the above, as it is a ceremony taking place in spring. This, too, is one of Ovid's charming tales, perporting the same of Hyacinth, who, playing with Phoebus, was killed by his disk, over which Spartan women are annually lamenting (in spring). (*)

So we find in Judges II, that Jephtah vowed a human sacrifice to his god, as a price for victory over the Ammonites. Coming home as victor, the first person he met with was — his daughter and only child. She came to welcome her sire with song and dance. Hearing what awaited her, she meekly submits to inexorable fate, requesting but for a respite of two months, to repair with her companions to the mountains and mourn over her blasted youth. Her prayer was granted, she goes to the mountains, returns after two months, as promised, and the dire vow is performed. The legend concluding: "Since that time, year for year, the virgins ol Israel used to lament over Jephtah's daughter four days yearly."

Such anniversaries and mysteries were celebrated throughout the ancient world in honor of gods or mortals, Osiris, Horus, Phaeton, Narcisso or Jephtah's daughter.

The Hidden Image Zopiion.

Now, it is interesting to know that the Greek church of Eastern Europe and the Orient has even to this day a similar rite or mystery, viz:
During lent, the Greek clergy are holding such processions, after midnight, clothed in their sacred garments, torches in hands, followed by crowds of people, chanting mournful litanies and seeking an image which, it is claimed, had previously disappeared. The night just preceding Easter, that procession is specially brilliant, the clergy very numerous and in gorgeous robes, followed by an immense crowd, each carrying a wax taper in hand, chanting lamentations and seeking the image. The dawn arriving, the image is found. The crowd breaks out in great enthusiasm, embracing and congratulating each other upon the great event. "Resurrexitl vere resurrexit!" He has arisen indeed. The Roman-Catholics have yet some faint traces of such lent processions. More abbreviated, but not effaced, the Protestant church has retained it. The solemn "Resurrexit"greets there, too, the numerous Easterworshippers. And so the synagogue, too, has retained traces of such antique naturalistic mysteries, thoroughly transforming it, just as the church has, according to its own genius each.

Aphikomex and Zophon.

Indeed, the Passover-banquet, with its symbols, closes with a mystery, viz: We have seen that at the beginning of that solemn home-service and festive meal, on the first Passover-eve, celebrated by the entire Jewish family, the pater-familias breaks off from the unleavened cakes on the table before him a large piece; he carefully envelopes it and hides it under the cushion at the head of the table, close to his own seat. Now that piece of Mazza is usually stolen by some of the children. At the end of the festive meal, the pater-familias looks for it, but does not find it; some search is made, and at last it is found! When it is solemnly divided among the inmates and consumed after. a mysterious formula, pronounced in Aramaic, intelligible to none except the cabbalist. Mark that well; for all and each of the numerous rites of the Passover-meal there is a special benediction said, except for that; proof that it is no integral part of the original passah-service. Proof, that it is a later addition and introduced from foreign rites, expressing ideas alien to the original festival of exodus and liberty. What these ideas are, we shall soon try to guess. This rite is called Zophon, viz: hidden. It is also termed Aphykomen, which word, too, has a hidden meaning. Aphykomen is of doubtful derivation. It is claimed to mean: Aphiku man; in Aramaic: "take off the food," since, after this, eating and drinking are not allowable for that night. Now, this Aramaic etymology is lame and contrived; for what is it in Aramaic? Why is it so mysterious? Why spelled in one word, etc.? To all appearance it is the Greek "Aphikomen": "we have arrived at," viz: we have come to it, we have found the hidden object. It thus corresponds to the Latin "esurrexit" Hence the Passover-banquet with the Aphikomen rite is the mystery of the synagogue. It is the Hebrew version of the hoary Easter mysteries, as current among all nations and cults. To that points the entire service, with its antique symbols; but especially so the closing rite, denominated Zophon and Aphikomen, "hidden and found." But the synagogue, whilst retaining the ceremony, has eliminated all traces of naturalistic cult. There it means: the resurrection of the nation, the exodus from slavery. But where is the mystery? Does it contain more? We shall see: It does!

The Lord's Supper and Aphikomen.

Above I have alluded to the Lord's Supper, the mysterious communion, the highest of the sacraments among all the Christian sects; by that the faithful identify themselves with the messianic denominations. What may be the antecedent of that rite? Long ago, it has been dimly surmised that the Lord's Supper is derived from the Hebrew Passover-banquet. This guess I shall show to be accurate. But which part of the banquet is its parent? Which feature and which rite has evolved into the Gentile Christian Lord's Supper? I believe to be enabled to show it, to locate the moment and the special rite where the Passoverfestival did evolve into the coena sacra, or Lord's Supper, the former giving birth to the latter. I shall proceed with due reverence. At first, let the reader well bear in mind that the entire terminology of that sacrament is an exact rendition of the Hebrew Pascha-ritual. "Lord's Supper, Kvptaxov detUyovj noTsptov xvptov = coena domini, sacra coena; rpanea xvptov, etc., are approximate renditions or literal translations of the terms used in the Jewish ritual of the Passover family-banquet, communion in Latin, or xoiyoyta in Greek; prayer of thanks, in Hebrew y Qiddush; in Greek, Evxapiincx.evXoyut, or simply beracha; cup of prayer or of thanks is identical with the Hebrew benediction over a cup of wine. The UoTEpiov EvXoyia<;s: HDiaBT DO. The solemn prayer initiating every Hebrew sabbath and holiday. Sunaxis Is banquet=n-n;?D. Divine service, or ritual, is in Hebrew: nii3;s in Greek: A£irou?r;/Kr=liturgy='io or
The mustypion in Greek, coena mystica in Latin, is, apparently, another appellation for the Lords Supper, corresponding to mystery and the Hebrew Zophon and Aphikomen — the hidden and found piece of unleavened cake, spoken of before. i7«'o50op<r=tusia=oblatio= P'p=offering of the sacrifice, alluding to Jesus as the "lamb of God," corresponds to the Hebrew Passover lamb, offered by every family. The Agapae lovefeast was the Greek version of the Passover family-banquet, long retained in close imitation of the Hebrew festivity and later changed into the "Lord's Supper." — "Hoc est enim corpus meum" the Latin formula thereof, is the substitute of the Aramaic formula before eating the Aphikomen: "I am ready to perform the rite" etc. — Concerning the Lord's Supper please see Matth. XXVI, 26 — 28; Mark xiv, 22 — 24; Luke xxii, 19 — 20; I Cor. XI, 20 — 25; I Cor. x, 16 — 17.

Since, according to the first three synopsis, these were the very words spoken by Jesus when handing around the last morsel, it is natural that they were retained for that occasion. We shall see, further, that the Aramaic formula, too, may have alluded to something akin to the words claimed by the Gospels.

The reader will yet please to remember that the Roman-Catholic church uses yet to-day for the rite of the hostia, no usual bread nor leavened one, but the wafer, a round, flat, wheat flour cake, flour and water unleavened, perfectly identical with the Hebrew Mazza or unleavened cake of the same material and shape. So all the technical words and emblems of the Lord's Supper are close literal renditions of the corresponding technical Rabbinico-ritualistic terms used on the Hebrew Passover eve, at the family meal-service.

Now this combined family-banquet service of the old synagogue, calculated to last the entire night and composed of a hundred rites, contains in particular one moment, one strange feature, one ominous mystic rite, whose meaning is a riddle to the Jew himself. — This rite appears to be the immediate parent of the Christian Lord's Supper, as alluded to by Matthew, Mark and Luke, and which has slowly assumed within the Christian church the importance of the highest sacrament. That mystic Hebrew rite is, as mentioned above, the following: A piece of unleavened cake is carefully hid by the head of the family at the very beginning of the Passover meal-service. At the close of that long and unique service, it is searched for, at last found, then distributed among and consumed by the participants in the feast. It has no benediction, as all other rites, and is therefore no original part of the service. But it has an Aramaic formula, mystic and enigmatic, apparently of later foreign origin and superadded to the ritual, about whose meaning the synagogue offers no explanation. The formula reads thus: "I am ready and prepared to perform the commandment of eating the Aphikomen; for the sake of the Holy One and his Shechina, hidden and secreted in the name of all Israel."

The claim, that it represents the Passover lamb, is idle, for other, different meats, symbolize it better. That rite is csWd yip hi komen, which word the Hebrew expounders interpret, as mentioned, as Aphiku-man, "take off the meats," but which etymology and explanation are decidedly incorrect. The word is apparently Greek, closely scanned it is Acpixtouvy "we have arrived," "we have found," and is corresponding to the Easter word: "(Resurrexity How do these words tally? Well, above I have shown at large, treating of Ostara and Easter rites, historically, that at all times there had been mysteries connected with Easter or Ostara festivities; later Passover, agapaCy mysteries, which all symbolized "resurrection" Now the Essenian sect, the most mystical among the Jewish Chassidei, or pious, was the hearth of the national messiah-idea; long before Jesus* advent they celebrated the Passover evening's sacred feast with special solemnity, and it was they, to all appearances, who introduced that rite, the Aphikomen, the cake and wine closing the Passah meal. By that they have symbolized, in their oriental manner, the hidden, supernatural messiah, eagerly expected and ready to come.

The Essexs or Esseniaxs.

This, my hypothesis is: that more than two thousand years ago the Essenians symbolized by that mystic rite the hidden messiah ready to reveal himself, rescue the nation from cruel Caesarian Rome, and the world from sin and war. This Was the secret meaning, the mystery, Zophon, of the piece of unleavened cake: hidden, disappeared, then found and consumed with the ominous Aramaic formula: In the name of Israel for God and the Shechina, a synonym for messiah.

Now this meal service and this secret rite, the Aphikomen, without any doubt, Jesus, as all Essenians, and later all orthodox Israel, used to perform with his disciples before or on that last Passover night, alluded to by Matthew, Mark and Luke. Feeling that the crisis was at hand, that his enemies were soon to entrap and deliver him over to the Romans as the claimed king and patriot of Israel, he naturally bid his friends on partaking of the Aphikomen, the last ominous morsel of the banquet, his solemn and tender good-bye: " Brethren, this is my last morsel on earth. This national feast is the last meal you and I are partaking of together." Dividing the mystic bread and wine, he said: 'Here I tender you the last bite of holy bread, here is the last drop of consecrated wine; when next you meet, alone, on this great annual occasion, pray, remember me!"

These words were long vibrating in the ears of his disciples. In course of time that banquet was transformed and instituted as the Lord's Supper, remembering him as the " risen messiah," 'Resurrexit;" in Greek: "Aphikomen!" "we have arrived," "we have found him," "the expected one has come."

The Gentile Christians.

For the Jewish-Christian phase soon passed by. Slowly the Gentile Christians assumed the helm of the church. The Passover reminded the Gentiles but of the passion and cross of the Founder; the family banquet became to them the Lord's Supper y agapae or love-feast. The unleavened cake, formerly symbolizing exodus and liberty, brought to their mind solely the hidden messiah, ready to appear. Mosaism abolished, the cake became the consecrated wafer, or the bread transformed into, or at least symbolizing, the body of Christ; the last wine-cup of the usual Hebraic four Passover cups, became the emblem of the blood of the messiah, spilt in atonement of human sin. Thus the mystic Hebrew Aphikomen developed into the Christian Lord's Supper, connecting the members of the new church. Without any break, by the simple logic of events, the Lord's Supper reminds the Christian brotherhood of the hidden messiah, ready to be revealed: the messiah has come; he has disappeared; he will come again and free the world from sin and war and tears.

ITS ANTIQUE ORIGIN.

In our further Parsee studies we shall find so many striking analogies with the rites and ideas of the later biblical religions. We shall be much interested in finding there, too, a religious symbol of the highest importance, playing a most prominent part in the prayers and ceremonies of the ancient Persians and their ancestors, the Hindoo -Brahmans, strikingly analogous and akin, to all appearance, With the aphikomen, hostia, eucharistia, etc., of the moderns. I allude to the Parsee Haoma and (Draona, the alcoholic beverage and the round cakes, identical with the Hindoo Soma, etc., in both those antique religions, emblematic of great religious ideas. That symbolism was brought over to Judaea from the Babylonian captivity and re-introduced by the Essenian sect into the Western world.

Following up our theory of the identity of leading religious ceremonies among nations, we have seen the development of hoary naturalistic rites into Jewish and Christian mysteries and sacraments. We have seen the human heart in Heathen, Jew and Christian is pulsating alike. Everywhere it is seeking to come in touch with the deity; everywhere it is striving after the divine. Our highest ideas and forms have a long past, and their derivation is no reproach to them, no desecration, no profanation. On the contrary, it heightens their value. It shows them to be of deepest revelation, the voice of God whispering in the one universal human heart.

Reader, have I been frivolous in this historic research about the sources of the sacred feelings, views and rites of Christian and Jew? I trust not! On the contrary, my desire was to show that even in old Heathenism there were precious chips of truth and piety; that we must not despise any thing or any one; that, from savage to prophet, there is but one long chain of development and improvement; that there is a rise in degree, not a difference in kind; a hell for none, a paradise vast for all; that temple, church and synagogue are bone and flesh of one and the same body; or, in the words of Malachi: " Have we not all one father, has not one God made us all, why should we not remember this and keep the covenant of love?

CHAPTER IV.

Its Origin.

Reviewing the Jewish history from the year 60 AC to 70 BC, from the time that Pompeii, during a civil war and the contention of the Hasmonean rival princes, surprised Jerusalem and until that time, when Vespasian and Titus conquered and nearly destroyed that country, what was then the state of mind of the Judaeans? A nation, a state, fond, yea, idolatrous of its independence, its spirit, institutions, religion and cult, saliently standing forth and strikingly contrasting with the brilliant and overbearing, yet really brutal, rotten and tottering Heathen world all around; with a regime sustained alone by the cruel polity of Rome, the brute strength of the Goths and Teutons and the hollow, glittering sophistry of decayed Greece, — Judaea and Rome were the two poles of the, then, world. The one proud of her domineering spirit; the other of her ever victorious sword. The one heiress to the future; the other mistress of the present; the one proclaiming the earth as the foot-stool of the deity, men, the children thereof, craving for the kingdom of heaven; the other, the reign of cunning, force and sensuality; the one representing altruism, sublime and ascetic; the other: cynic, low egoism.

As yet, no human prudence could foresee with safety the drift of events. Judaea was under the heel of Rome, yet proud and contemptuous, gnashing her teeth, shaking her fist, impatient of the petrified and remorseless dominion of the brute sword. — But the chances of war were tremendous. These chances were several times tried over, and always proved vain and fruitless. The sword triumphed. All force, cunning and art sided with Rome. All the proudest nations sent their contingents to swell the armies of their common oppressor. The Parthians had yielded. So did Hannibal and Mithridates, " and the successors of Alexander. Greece and Germany, Africa and Spain, Dacia, Gaul and Britain had yielded. Their armies fought now the battles of their Latin victor. How could puny, unwarlike Judaea withstand that victor? And yet Judaea would not yield! For Judaea and Rome were the two opposite poles of human polity and thought. Monotheism and polytheism, spiritualism and materialism, duty and selfishness, holiness and sensuality, right and force, fire and water, they could never reconcile, never compromise!

The battle was imminent, daily approaching; daily closer at hand. How now enter upon the conflict? How make the chances equal? Human means, force, courage, cunning, self-sacrifice would not help. Spiritual means had to be resorted to; mysticism had to be invoked! And the despairing, otherwise sober Hebrew nation had to drink deeply of it. It drank of its doctrines and its hopes in the success of the impending great struggle for existence. The general they needed, the imperator they expected, the great leader, the God-anointed, allconquering, infallible Davidian king was he, of whom God had said (Ps. 2, 7,): "Thou art my son, whom I have generated today. Ask, and nations will be thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth thy property. Beware, ye kings! Serve God and do homage to the son, that he may not be angry, for hail to those who seek protection under him."
That messiah will come, he will lead; hosts of angels are on his right and on his left hand; the thunders of Yahveh are marching before him; before whose presence the hosts of Rome will be swept away like stubble before the hurricane; he will, lik« David of old, like Judas Maccabeus of recent date, humble Rome and crown Judaea with victory and independence.

At the annual Passover — the Fourth of July of Judaea, — the hoary anniversary of the nation's birth and liberation, the patriotic heart was doubly aroused. Hope, pride, glory, courage, as of old; despair, humiliation, weakness, now, in face of Rome, strove for mastery in the patriotic citizen. The messiah, the miraculous deliverer, the first-born son, primordial to creation, became the last supreme resource of the Judaean, zelotic patriot.

Thus have we seen, that the messiah-idea, viz: liberty to be re-conquered, pervaded the Passover feast. It did celebrate past events and it foreshadowed the future. It reminded of Moses of old, but also of the messiah to come. That messiah-idea breathed in and consecrated that home-service; liberty, and independence from Rome, that became the leading thought. And the mysterious closing rite of the Passover-meal became the special symbol of that national aspiration. It reminded of the liberator of old from Egyptian bondage, and of the liberator to come and break the yoke of Rome. It was most natural, indeed, that such liberation-ideas and hopes, that burning patriotism should kindle up at the Passover-feast, as that was the anniversary of the nation's birth, as that birth began with the breaking of the yoke of the Pharaohs, with the exodus from Egypt.

The recital of the past naturally suggested the review of the present. Thinking how their ancestors had vanquished their oppressors and conquered their independence of old, the Judaeans naturally remembered and pondered over the oppression of the moment; the patriotic heart was fired to such an extent, that Passover became not simply the anniversary of past events, but an epoch of revival, of patriotism, of love of liberty. The Judaean slowly thought, not so much of the Arabian liberator of fifteen centuries ago, but of the coming liberator from the Roman yoke, and thus, naturally, Passover became the day of revival of the messiah-hope in the future.

This being the case, and the logical sequence of events points to that as being the case, viz: that since the advent of Rome in Judaean affairs, the Judaean feelings and thoughts have turned from the past to the future, from Egypt to Rome, from Moses to the Davidian deliverer, from the birth of the nation to the dire necessity of re-conquering its independence, — the Passover-banquet and ritual must needs have been altered and changed

in proportion. The change of front in the nation must have brought about a corresponding alteration in the symbolism of the Passover. The change of feeling and thought in the nation, turning their attention to the future Davidian liberator, must have brought about a corresponding expression in the Passover ceremonies. This expression we believe to have detected in the elaborate rites of the banquet, especially symbolized in the closing mysterious rite of the unleavened cake, divided out and consumed by all the participants around the festive table, after a mysterious Aramaic formula, the whole denominated Aphikomen.

The commentators claim, that the rite of the last piece of unleavened cake, eaten at the close of the banquet, is to bring to mind the Passover-lamb. That hardly explains. The Passover-lamb is remembered on the table by the several meats on it. It should have a regular benediction. It is called ZophoYiy hidden; Aphikomen, "we have arrived at it," " reached it." It has an Aramaic formula of a striking tenor:
I am ready to perform the rite of the Aphikomen for the sake of the unity of God, the Holy One, and his Shechinahy hidden and mysterious in the name of all Israel." — I therefore believe that rite to be a later addition to the Passover meal, expressly instituted and with special reference to the national expectation, the crisis of the great deliverer to come, the Davidian, not Moses of old. Thus history points to the fact, that the messiah-idea was emphasized and accentuated with all force during the last century of the Judaean existence. Imagine Irish or Polish patriots planning the liberation of their country, they would contrive such emblems or cocards as a natural rallying sign. So did the Neapolitans in their insurrection against their French invaders and Prince of Anjou. So did the Hollanders with their whimsical beggar's sashj in their rebellion against the Spaniards, and so did the Judccan patriots in their intended rising against Rome.
Now we have seen that closing Passover rite, the Jewish Aphikomen, no doubt, was especially held sacred by Israel's mystic sect, the Essenians, to which Jesus belonged. Possibly it was the Essen sect that instituted that mystic rite and inserted it into the Passover ritual as most congenial: Moses and Messiah, the old and the new liberator. Possibly they already looked upon it as a sacrament. Expecting a Davidian as the restorator of old Israel, that rite was the emblem representing their leading doctrine, the advent of the new Moses and Elijah, the grand mystic and semi-divine personality, alone able to bring about the independence of Israel from the Roman yoke, destroying idolatry and achieving the liberation of mankind from sin and its consequences. Anyhow, it was in the midst of that sect that the messianic idea appears to have had its center and there focus, to have been practically elaborated and made the lever of Hebrew social and moral regeneration, conjointly with universal redemption, perhaps conform to the prophetic pattern.

As the Passover meant originally Israel's exodus and resurrection from Egyptian slavery, and as the Essenian sect had become the focus of the spiritual hopes of Israel's redemption from Roman dependency, expanding that hope to a redemption of mankind from Rome and idolatry, so did those patriotic Essens devote the entire Passover-meal, with all its oriental rites and ominous emblems, to that central aspiration of the Hebrew people, the liberation from Rome. The banquet thus culminated in the most abstruse mystery, called Zophon and Aphikomen, secreted and found, handing around the last piece of unleavened cake with the last cup of wine, symbolizing the advent of the leader, the miraculous Imperator, the universal Savior, the Davidian king who is ever existing, even before creation, hidden behind the throne of God, ready soon to appear in all his glory, to lead the hosts of Yahveh against the Roman legions and redeem Israel and the world at large; so, indeed, taught the Essens, as we shall see.

Thus it is especially with the mystic sect, the Essenians, where the historic tact seems to locate the ritualistic mystery, that there it symbolized the faith in the advent of that miraculous leader, the messiah long ago dimly expected by the patriots and the masses at large in their desperate struggle against Rome.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:51:06 PM

Jesus's Aspirations.

The long expected event at last came on. By his Galilean followers and more so by his Gentile followers, Jesus may have been believed to be that long and ardently prayed-for personality. Gentiles, ready to embrace Judaism, but deterred by its formalism, were glad to find in him a second Moses, leading them to God without the encumbrance of ritualism and legalism. He began by claiming but the role of peacemaker and fulfiller of the law. But soon he found that peace and fulfilment of the law must begin with war, with upsetting the family, the community and all authority; "war of parents against children, and children against parents," as in all great revolutions, social and ethical. Soon he found all the actual powers arrayed against him and against peace and law. He found the law overgrown with forms and observances, even 'to suffocation; myriads of traditions having obscured the original good sense thereof. He found hypocrisy having invaded altar and chair, temple and school. He found Rome's civilization meaning but taking advantage of and eating the marrow of nations for the selfish interest of the Roman patricians, the provincial pro-consuls, their minions and creatures. He discovered that the Roman art of government meant: the craft to divide the antagonists, weaken, paralyze and oppress them, and if they yielded not, to crush and annihilate them. He saw that the boasted Greek philosophy had completely degenerated from Socrates and Plato, Aristotle and Zeno, and had become a system of empty, sonorous words and corrupt morals, a theory to back the foul Roman practices. He examined the current Polytheistic religion. It was error from beginning, leading to sin and culminating in misfortune. The gods were either fictions or emblems, or aggrandized tryants; either contrived by false priests to domineer over the masses, or empty names for natural fofces, of no utility whatever; or patriarchs, kings and heroes apotheosized and sublimized to the skies. At any rate, that theology did no good, and much harm. It was no base for morals, for the gods were depicted as grossly immoral; no base for peace, for they were constantly at bay with each other; and no motive for noble striving, for they were themselves brutal, carnal and selfish. That mythology was therefor the best handle for the political powers, for princes, hierarchs and Roman patricians; the most gigantic fraud that ever governed human kind.

Having thus found the Mosaic law overlaid by ceremony, obscured by casuistry and stifled, on one hand by desuetude and on the other, by hollow observances; the Moriah-temple, the seat of hierarchs and the patrimony of small ambitions; the synagogue defaced by shouting hypocrisy and useless ascetism, the Hebrew nation under the merciless heel of the all-conquering Roman legions, the world at large groaning under the same political and priestly yoke, the brutal Roman sword declared sacred by a rotten priesthood and a corrupt mythology having made that diagnosis of his own country and contemporaneous world, he seems to have conceived the grand and generous idea of undertaking the part of the Reformator; the Reformer of Judaea and, as a far off perspective, of the Roman world; a Reformator, at once political, social and religious. His own sect, the Essens, gave him the handle and the pattern for such a triple reformation. In the midst of the decaying Judaean world and the petrified Roman universe, the Essenians contrived to live in peace, honesty and godliness, happy in their simplicity, as much as the times allowed it; without ambitions, violence and too much suffering; they were a kind of religious commune, a phalanster with common property, without avarice, selfishness or litigation; they were comparatively happy, needing no police, judges, nor armies. — Were it not possible to widen and broaden that system, so as to embrace Judaea and slowly, too, the universe at large? That, it would seem, was the generous scheme and wakeful dream of the enthusiast, the initiator of Nazareth.

THE Messiah's ideal.

Now all realities have a background of dreamland. All great men have visions, vague hopes, divine fatamorganas, silver-linings of the dreary facts, fairy-larlds, enlivening and beautifying their wakeful dreams, upon which they feed and draw their enthusiasm and find readiness and strength for self-sacrifice, inspiration for human advance. That back-ground may have been to Jesus the Messiah-ideal, alive in Israel long centuries ago. It was not an idea, not a doctrine, not a definite scheme. It was the golden-age-version of the Jewish people as in Micha a and Isaiah 11, the golden age in the far future, not in the long past, as with the Heathen world. It may have been the dreamland of the olden prophets. It is so of every truly great and generous mind: once upon a time tears will be wiped off, innocence will triumph, and wrong disappear from the earth! That Messiah-ideal loomed up first with the Hebrew prophets; it is time and again found in the Talmud, the Midrashim, the Apochryphae, the moralists, finding at last a place with casuists and dogmatists. In Talmud and Midrashim, the messiah is depicted as an extra-ordinary being, semi-divine, created, indeed, but before all creation. The Kabbalah, ancient and modern, made him the first emanation from the Deity. He is the Demiurg or Creator of the world. It yields to him a quasi-eternity and co-existence with the universe, with all the attributes of splendor, power and holiness that would satisfy the most enthusiastic Christian believer. These ideals were nurtured by the Judaean masses and patriots, and especially by the Essens. These were held up to Jesus of Nazareth.

These ideals and visions were the background of the Christian era. They were later brought forward as the claims of the hero of that epoch; they were at first the means to entrap him and deliver him into the hands of his enemies, as a dangerous innovater and political agitator. Has he accepted them in his clear, wakeful mood, or only in his wistful meditations? May they have been with him vague ideals or definite ideas? The Christian believer may decide that. The historical truth-seeker cannot be positive on that. The scales of calm judgment remain suspended. Every word of the gospels is authority to the faithful. Every word thereof is not a fact to the critical reader. Jesus' history has been written by his worshippers and by his bitter foes, and neither of them is to be entirely and fully trusted. History has not sufficient, safe data for passing judgment and must in part remain in suspense. But carefully reading the New-Testament narrative, combined with the knowledge of times and circumstances, history may safely make the following guess, viz:
Jesus of Nazareth is no fiction. He did exist. He contemplated reforms, on the pattern of the Essenian Society. That society was his model of the kingdom of Heaven upon earth; a community without property and marriage, without greed, violence, sensuality, wrong, brutality and ambition; without misfortune, vice and sin. He contemplated first a religious reformation in Judaea. To restore the Mosaic legislation and to abrogate the rabbinical super-position and endless observances, no longer hedges, but rather drawbacks. Slowly he may have realized that not a few of the Pentateuchical laws, too, remnants of earlier pre-Mosaic ages, were superannuated as already the Talmud had realized and disestablished. He next contemplated a social reform, an economical re-distribution of wealth, here, too, on the pattern of his Essenian community. He further may have contemplated innovations against the Jewish aristocracy, lay and priestly; and lastly revolution against Rome and against the gods of Rome, the re-establishment of prophetic Monotheism and ethics, the kingdofn of Heaven upon earth. Having thus attempted at universal innovations against the Hebrew Pharasees and Sadducees, against the hierarchs and the rich, against Rome's world dominion and the dominant Polytheism of the times, he could not help realizing that he had provoked all the powers, social, political and religious, those of Judaea and of Rome, that all authorities were against him, and that therefore his crisis was at hand.

Now the last Passover came on. He and his disciples were at the festive table. It was the national anniversary, the banquet of liberty and the exodus of Egypt. It was the mystic messianic rite, the typical sacrament of his sect, the Essenians, and all that together rendered, most naturally, his last Passover and last meal doubly solemn. His sympathetic nature overflowed into that of his disciples; his premonitions, his sadness, his painful forebodings elicited theirs; the feelings could not be hushed back.

Now is the crisis at hand. His foes are upon him. He is in their grasp. He must recant or die, give up his mission or his life! He had been dreaming of greatness and immortal deeds, of regeneration and triumph. Already, the people had strewn flowers on his path and shouted Hosanna! But the mob is fickle! Now is dead silence all around. The mob shouts ever with the victor. Success is with them, the criterion of the messiah, too. Seeing him ready for bonds, exposed to his enemies, awaiting the mercies of the Roman procurator, they think he is lost . . . and they abandon him. They had shouted: "Hosanna Messiah!" Exactly that is now his crime. Rome sees here open rebellion. — And his admirers, too, have forsaken him. "A savior in bonds!" "Help thyself if thou art the Da vidian!" "We know him not; we have never seen him."Well, if he be a prophet, let him work a miracle, and if he cannot, he deserves his fate. - Why did he attack the high clergy, the nobles, the Sanhedrin, Herodians and the Caesars themselves! I always thought so . . . that would be the end of it . . . Don*t play with fire!" ... So shouted the wise-acres. And Jesus is alone! Alone in presence of death — death on the cross, erected by Rome, the hereditary foe of Israel!

He is an Essen; never has a fleshy thought approached him; early he had vanquished lust. Even legitimate nature had little hold upon him. He had been living upon roots and water — lust had no hold upon such ethereal characters. But his strong, manly heart abounded with the higher delights of love. He had looked deeply into man's and woman's souls. He knew how disinterested and self-sacrificing that heart can be, if well touched, if left to its own impulses. He had enjoyed of that noblest form of love; pure and ethereal, high as the sky, still and deep as the ocean, chaste as the stars, warm as the divine heart. To give up all such affections, that heaven of sympathies, those cravings fordoing good, for loving and being loved, for being the centre of noble emotions and hopes, strivings and realizations, that pained him deeply. Crucifixion stares him into the face. At thirty years of age life is so sweet, and death on the cross so horrifying. Unconquerable anxiety overcomes him; life adheres closely and clings with a thousand strings to our human self. Ideality, generous ambitions, far-reaching plans leave even the greatest, when ghastly death looks into the face. Shall he yield and live, give up the messiah and save Jesus? Temptation approaches him. Life at thirty is sweet. He makes an effort. He prays, and shakes off that tempting serpent. But that effort exhausts him. "Big drops of sweat overhang his brow." "My soul is sorrowful unto death." . . . Yet he will not yield; he will not resign his better self . . . But life is so sweet. "Father in Heaven (the Hebrew exclamation in supreme fervor — Abina Sheba-Shamaim — ) if it be possible, pray remove this cup of death from me! Let me live and perform my task." His anxious mind again ponders over and scans the situation, means and aims, terms and factors, the enemies provoked, the fears awakened. The alternative is close and sharp, sharp as the edge of a Roman sword, pointed as Pilate's dagger. Denial, and life in oblivion, or death, and his mission saved! "If it be thy will. Father, let this cup pass away from me." . . . But, it is clear, it is not possible, the logic of things is inexorable. Messiahs must die, or tlie thorny crown is forfeited. He has learned that lesson at the prophet's school. (Matth. 26, 39.) His loving heart appeals to his few friends around; he asks the brethern to watch and pray with him . . . they fall asleep . . . He prays alone. His mind is made up: "Father in Heaven, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy will be done."- The spirit is ready. "though the flesh is weak." (Matth. 26.) He is yet afraid of temptation. He might, in the supreme agony, give up his role, recant, gain his Hfe and lose the messiahship. The ordeal is at hand. He is strong enough! He denies himself not. He lays claim to that role. An individual life is lost, a great historical life is gained! He dies a humble Galilean teacher. He arises as the world's messiah! Whosoever has something great and good to say, and dies for it, is mankind's messiah. He becomes such by his death, and his immortality is unquestionable.

The Trial of Jesus.

The current popular ideas about the appearance and trial of Jesus before the high clergy of Jerusalem and the Roman governor, are incongruous with the tenor of the Mosaico-Talmudical Code. They need, therefore, a careful elucidation. Such popular notions claim to be the result of the gospels on that subject. But every critical gospel student is aware that they have been written long after the facts narrated, by different authors and from different standpoints. The current popular notions, therefore, need rectification. For in many points they do not tally either among themselves, or with the Judaic law. Carefully perusing such provisions, we shall soon be convinced: that Jesus never could be tried, less could he be condemned by a fair, regular, Jewish court or Senhedrin, as it is popularly claimed; that that judicial condemnation and execution could not be laid at the door of the Mosaico-rabbinical jurisprudence; that Jesus was not tried by a regular court; that he was tried, if at all, by what we now term "a packed jury," by the creatures, the court of the high-priest, by the high clergy and the aristocracy, whom he had repeatedly and vehemently attacked, and who now as bitterly and remorselessly persecuted him. It was not a court, nor a verdict under any real authority, but a private affair of fierce, personal revenge. It was an overpowering of a man by his enemies and handing him over to the hereditary and well known foes of the country; and by exaggerations and slanders inducing that public foe, the Roman governor to pronounce his condemnation and order his execution.

Let us review that Mosaic criminal jurisprudence.

The Mosaic law condemns unto death any false prophet, who would persuade the people to worship false gods. But Jesus never did anything of that. . . If even he claimed the messiah-role, that was not idolatry, not false gods, for messiahQ means the anointed and the appointed Jewish leader, a Davidian king. According to Jewish mystics, he was the son of God, as even David is termed by the Psalmist; but he is not God, not co-eternal, not a likeness, nor a partner of Deity. He is and remains a creature, however exalted and sublime. Several men before and after Jesus had laid claim to that part, and they were not condemned by the nation; no, they were mourned for by it. Cruelly they were punished Jby Rome; but, enthusiastically, they were followed into war and death by the nation! Again, technically, too, the popular belief claimed to reflect the synoptic narratives, does not tally. According to that belief, he was overtaken, arraigned, condemned and executed, all on the first Passover-day!

The Gospels are not perfectly clear and definite on that head, because, in that instance, they are not solely historians; they are apologists, re-echoing the political views of the leaders and especially of the Roman powers that were successively dominant. If any thing may be guessed from current popular opinions, they seem to imply that, on the first eve of Passover, Jesus had celebrated with his disciples the customary national familybanquet; he then went up to the mountain to pray and prepare himself for the imminent and supreme ordeal. Towards morning, he was betrayed by his own, overtaken by the high-priests' men, brought to his court, condemned by the assumed judges, delivered over to Pilate, the Roman procurator, who at first hesitated and appealed for mercy to the mob, at last condemned him, had him executed and in the evening buried, all in one day. This seems to be the popular construction of the Gospel-narratives on that tragedy.

Legal Aspects of the Trial.

Now, this view is open to the following grave objections; and may it be added: What I mention here, is not in disrespect to any sacred record, but from the standpoint of history and of right, in order to do justice to a great cause and help setting aside prejudices. I say: According to Talmudical law, all that was illegal and impossible. That could not have been done in one day, nor on a holiday. Above all, there was no deed involved, no corpus delicti. All that could be made out against Jesus, was, that perhaps he had aimed at religious innovations and at heresy. Now, Jewish law has no punishment for heresy, nor had the Sanhedrin the right to coin any new crimes. All cases, not expressly and plainly mentioned in the Pentateuch could not be capitally punished. The principle is "No capital punishment from legal and logical deductions." Indeed, the Rabbis rather reduced than increased criminal cases. (See Spirit of Bible Legislation, p. 44. . .)

According to Talmudical law, no one is punished for religious opinions, otherwise than by a rebuke; acts, not opinions, are criminal; least so for opinions of such an abstract nature, as the messiah claims involve, airy metaphysical ideas believed in by a notable portion of the people. Again, according to Talmudical law, no criminal is condemned on his own testimony; nor on a holiday; nor is he condemned on the same day on which he was first accused. The current opinion on that head contains many more great difficulties to the critical examiner thereof Let us specify: It is against the Talmudical jurisprudence to condemn and punish a man upon his own testimony, or to question and elicit from him information concerning the presumed charge; less was it allowable to use threats or blows to force a confession from him, or maltreat him during the trial. Self-accusation in any shape or form, is not admitted before a Jewish court. Every crime must be proven by two witnesses, eye-witnesses of the deed. A preliminary warning must have been given the defendant by those very witnesses, and this immediately before the committal of the imputed crime. These witnesses were to execute the punishment. Now, the Gospels state that there were no such witnesses at all, or, at least, no harmonizing witnesses, but that the high-priest had asked Jesus: 'whether he is the son of God?" and he, avowing it, the high-priest condemned him thereupon. This is Roman method. But this is not Jewish law. Jesus could not be condemned on such vague accusations, based on popular rumors and hearsay, without any other witness but his own admission. Talmudical jurisprudence never admits such questions nor answers, because "Every one is his own relative, " and relatives cannot testify at court. Besides, suicide or mania may also be at the bottom of it. According to Mosaico-rabbinical law, that incrimination could have been capital only then, when the accused had declared himself in spite of warning and before witnesses, not simply the messiah, but God himself, or identical with or an incarnation of God. Though even that is doubtful, for such an idea was impossible, more so stamped as a crime. But, according to the synoptics, never did Jesus claim to be God; he even disclaimed to be called good; nor even according to John or Paul, did he clearly put forth any such claims. As far as I understand Paul, did he, Paul, no doubt think his master to be the messiah, with a strong, supernatural element adjoined, following the Essene mysticism, especially since his resurrection from the grave. But as yet was he no integral part of the Deity. Paul as yet was a Jew and a Monotheist. For transgressing the law, he was beaten with thirty-nine stripes, and, repeatedly beaten, he complains. Hence, he admitted to be a Jew. As to Jesus, he did not transgress the law.
He may have, at the utmost, hinted at a revision thereof. But neither Jesus, nor even Paul, could have forfeited their lives for idolatry, for both of them were rigid believers in the One, sole, everlasting God of the Bible. It is the ruthless hand of Rome that could crucify them; and later, when they proved victorious even dead, Rome turned around, shouted with the victors, laid claim to their legacy and threw the blame upon the victims, the Jews, their own people.

Pentateuch on Idolatry.

For the benefit of the reader, let us give here the texts of Pentateuch and Talmud on the case. Deuteronomy 13, I — 19, reads:
"When there will arise among you a prophet or a dreamer and he will produce signs and wonders, which will come to pass, saying: let us go after strange gods, unknown to you, and let us worship them. Thou shalt not listen to the words of such a prophet or visionary. For God only tries you to bring out whether you love him with all your hearts and your souls. Walk after your God, fear and obey Him only, serve and cling but to Him As to the prophet or the visionary, he shall be put to death . . and thou shalt remove that evil from among thee . When thy brother, thy wife, or thy friend will advise thee to serve strange gods. ... do not listen to him, nor pity him, but thou shalt put him to death And when many wicked men shall go forth and suborn their fellow-citizens, saying: let us serve strange gods, thou shalt enquire and ascertain whether it is true .... then thou shalt smite and destroy that city with all its inhabitants and its goods, a ruin forever ... it shall remain. ..."

The above chapter states clearly the case: When a person or several persons, a prophet or a visionary exhibiting many miracles and signs, which should actually come to pass, will incite the people to serve strange gods, that is, will incite to apostasy and idolatry, he shall not be listened to, in spite of his miracles, but he is a false prophet and a seducer, and shall be punished.

Now let US see what means idolatry and strange gods, according to Talmudical expoundings, all systematically compiled in Maimonides, Jad, Mada, Hilchoth Akkum, or treatise on Idolatry (Chapter I.)

Maimonides explains: "Since pre-historic times did man make the following false reasoning; Whereas God has endowed so many earthly and heavenly bodies with such splendor and glory, no doubt, his intention and delight was that we humble, sublunar creatures, should adore and worship, pray and sacrifice to them, by which practices we shall earn the good will of the Deity .... Slowly cunning men, availing themselves of this folly of their neighbors, came and claimed that God did bid them to go and bring to their fellow-men his message and behest to do them reverence, build temples and offer gifts to these idols or stars or other physical bodies, etc. In such a manner arose Heathen priesthood, worships and idolatries, all built upon the folly of some, and by the wickedness of others . . Slowly the existence of God was obliterated and forgotten, and the people imagined that there was nothing else above, and that those stars and planets and their idols were the gods, the powers, and that man's weal and woe depended upon these alone, the objects of idolatry . . . Only a few rare, intelligent men remembered that the images are but symbols and that God is above them, while the people mistook those images for the gods themselves. At last Abraham brought about the religious reformation at the age of forty years; after long study, contemplation, meditation and verification, he found out that neither the idols, nor their priests, worships, earthly or heavenly bodies are of any avail, but He, the Creator of all, the only One, the spiritual supreme Being, governs all."

Here is a pretty fair hypothesis how mythology and idolatry came into existence. The grandeur and the sublimity of the heavenly bodies, the folly of the Ignorant and the cunning of the knaves did it. Of course, present philosophers have other hypotheses; it is the general view that mythological gods are the personifications of the bodies and forces of the universe; while. according to Mr. Herbert Spencer, the gods are derived from hoary ancestorworship; the ghosts of the dead patriarchs, heroes and kings were slowly translated into the skies and apotheosized by their late descendants, tribes, peoples and nations, and some of their relics or images became the fetishes of their sects. Some writers even think that both of these modes simultaneously explain the origin of idolatry, as derived there, from ancestor-worship, and there from personification. But there is no doubt that the one given by Maimonides of the twelfth century, though not so elaborate, is yet fair and popular enough. In the first pages of this volume I quoted verbatim, from a great contemporary writer, and gathered his ideas on mythology and theology from pre-historic times. The Vedanta philosophy, Professor Max Mueller sets down as dating from 1500 B. C. But he justly hints at a background vastly more hoary than that epoch. He appears thus to coincide with the biblical view concerning the God-conception as the " Highest Power, the maker of heaven and earth," and the yet nobler conception of Deity as Yahvehy " Divine Essence and the only One Being; " the first mentioned in Genesis 14, 22, in connection with Abraham, and the second in Exod. 3, 14, with reference to Moses. An important passage in Exodus 6, 2, is hinting that the Yahveh designation for Deity is a later historical growth. Let us return to Maimonides and Talmud on idolatry.
(Ibidem Chapter II.) "The principle of the commandments concerning idolatry is: not to * worship any creature whatsoever, angel, sphere, star, element nor any of their sub-creatures; even when acknowledging the existence of God and worshipping a creature under some plea or semblance; all that is idolatry and on no consideration must you imagine to need a mediator between yourself and God. Idolatry is the source of all vices and must be avoided by all means. Whosoever acknowledges it, denies the entire Thora, and who denies idolatry, is tantamount to professing the entire law."

Maimonides goes on describing the order of trial of a man advocating the worship of false gods. That trial is exceedingly lucid and must leave no room for any doubt. Each item must be proven by eye-witnesses. (See 'Spirit of Bibl. Legislation"p. 40) who must have given plain warning to the defendant, with express announcement of the prescribed punishment. The manner of the various idolatries is described, each idol having its own worship, all expressly referring to the GreecO'Syrian mythology of ancient times. The same chapter IV. treats of wholesale apostasies, where the Pentateuch is especially severe. But as such had become rare in rabbinical times, we find there the usual method employed, viz: by clinging closely to the scriptural terms, to render the law inoperative and a dead letter, because inopportune and doing more harm than good, or because the principle of toleration had gained more ground in the consciousness of law-givers.

From the above, we have gained the conviction that the rigid biblical and rabbinical laws against false prophets are not applicable to the case in question. Jesus was no idolater, nor did he incite to idolatry. He declared on a hundred occasions that he believed in the One, eternal, living, spiritual God of Israel and none other. Hence, could no tribunal condemn him on that score.

A Rebellious Sage, (Sakan Mam re.)

But it cannot be denied that Jesus did speak disrespectfully of both the Sadducean and Pharisean parties, methods of traditidn, and may be, too, that he had hinted at a reformation and some alterations in the Mosaic law itself. Note especially the Gospel wording: "Ye have heard of old . . . but I tell you ..." If such were his own words, and not rather a later Roman intentional version, it might be argued that he was a Sakan MamrCy rebellious teacher, an innovator who despised the public, constituted authority of the Sanhedrin, the sole legitimate guardians and expounders of the law. Let us now look to the rabbinical enactments on that theme, taking again Maimonides as our safe guide: (Jad. Shophetim, treatise on Mamrim, Chapter I.) "The great Court in Jerusalem, of the square stone hall is the source of all tradition, the authority from whence flow all laws and judgments for all Israel, and every believer owes obedience to that Court. Whosoever practically disobeys it, is a transgressor, and if he be a public teacher, he may be capitally punished . . . Since the abolition of that great Court or Sanhedrin, the differences of opinion arose in Israel, and there is no authority to settle them"

Now, mark that in Jesus' time that Court had lost its political and its criminal jurisdiction, hence the law against the rebellious teacher could not be applied.

(Ibid. Chapter III). "He who professes no obedience to tradition is not the (Sakan Mamre), "rebellious teacher," spoken of in the law. But such men are among the unbelievers and out of the pale of the law. Such are not counted among Israel; they are "Eptcurians" and no longer under the protection of the Hebrew commonwealth. The rebellious teacher mentioned in the Thora is a sage of the sages of Israel, who on one single point differs with them, and teaches and acts contrary to them; he deserves death. . . He deserves such death only then, when he is an ordained sage or teacher, ordained by the Sanhedrin, he acting upon his own judgment, in contradiction with theirs, and they, the Sanhedrists, holding their sessions in the square stone hall, in the Mount Moriah-temple. Whilst if he was only a student, not yet a doctor or rabbi, nor yet ordained and legally allowed to publically teach, and nevertheless he did teach, he is not punishable. . . If he is ah ordained teacher, and he taught, but only as a theory, not for practice, he is not punishable either. If he taught in contradiction to the Sanhedrists, and they were not in their official place: he is not punishable. . . What is the procedure in such cases of a rebellious sage? He and his antagonists have to appear before three successive courts of appeal. When all the three have decided that he is wrong — he goes home; and, if he continues to teach in open rebellion, but only theoretically, not for practice, he cannot be punished; if for practice, he is taken to Jerusalem before the highest court, there detained until the next holiday, and capital punishment is inflicted. I have shown elsewhere (see Biblical Legislation, p. 40) that the Rabbinical Criminal Code was exceedingly dilatory, openly reluctant to inflict punishment and giving the defendant all possible chances of escape.

Criticisms of Jesus' Trial.

That well considered, shall we accept it as a historical fact, that such a court with such a law, has capitally condemned a private man, no ordained teacher, a popular, spotless preacher, a pious Essen, not for acts, but for doctrines and utterances which might be construed as heresy; for mere mystic words, which can bear any and every construction and interpretation; without witnesses or warning; on a holiday; surprised, arrested, maltreated, arraigned, in night-time, and unanimously condemned upon his own avowal, delivered to the Governor, condemned again and executed — all on one and the same day! Shall we accept that as historical facts } We can not! for: if the condemnation by the high-priestly court was " unanimous " and without one dissenting voice, that alone invalidated the entire verdict and acquitted the prisoner. That claim alone is a striking proof that there was there no regular Sanhedrin. Among the many rules in favor of the defendant was the provision that a " unanimous condemnation is equivalent to absolute acquittal," for the law suspected there partisan prejudice, foul judicial murder. Such actually was there the case. It was no Sanhedrin; it was a packed jury, political lynch-law. But besides, each of these enumerated points is an infraction of the Mosaico rabbinical jurisprudence. There was in Judaea, then, no criminal court. The high-priest and his friends were no such authority. The Sanhedrin had no criminal jurisdiction any longer. They never sat in judgment on the eve of, or on a holiday. They never punished opinions, but criminal deeds. Jesus had done none such; he was perhaps an heresiarch, if so construed; but there is no law in the Bible criminally punishing possible or actual heresy. Jesus was no idolater, nor did he incite to any. He plainly and publically professed the God and the ethics of Moses and the prophets. If he believed to be the Messiah, that was politics or mysticism, not punishable crime. Many before and many after him claimed the same, and never did a Jewish court criminally punish them. Rome did; Herod once did: He executed one Ezekiah, a messiah-claimant, and was accused for murder before the Sanhedrin, and would have been punished, if the king, Hyrkanos, had not given him opportunity to escape, for which he was severely censured by the judge.

Jesus was no ordained public teacher, and could not be treated either as a 'rebellious sage." His messiahhopes and claims could not be legally proven, nor disproven; they were too vague and ideal for a court of judges. The question of the high-priest: "Art thou the son of God?" has no substance. Every Israelite could have answered: "Yes, I am, for we all are sons of God." (5 Moses 14, I.) He had no right to put that question. The acts and their witnesses condemn the defendant, not his avowal or self-accusation, in Hebrew jurisprudence. That allowed but a frank and fair examination; no torture, no tricky interrogatory, threats or blows. If all the judges declared him guilty, the law absolved him, just ipso facto. It required witnesses, eye-witnesses rigidly examined, on a week-day, and judgment passed on another day, a week-day, too. It required a free court; not one muzzled by a foreign conquerer. The part of mouse-trap may have been played by the highpriestly clique, never by a regular Sanhedrin. The same is the case with the hand-washing of Pilate.

A Roman procurator was of a sterner stuff. If he had really wished to deliver the accused from the hands of his enemies, he had all the authority and the power to. But he was just his greatest foe, as the representative of the Caesars. He gladly accepted the complicity of the Herodians and of the high clergy. He burdened them with the guilt, while he profited of the judicial perpetration. Any claimant to the messiah-crown was naturally the foe of the Caesars. Pilate's hand-washing therefore, was a piece of hypocrisy.

King of the Jews.

The real accusation against Jesus was politics; politics, not heresy. He was guilty of disturbing the peace, the slumbers of those high in office, the established social order. He did not respect their riches, nor their dignity, nor their assumed piely. He aimed at ethical, social and political innovations. And above all, he was believed to be a claimant to the messiah crown. As such had he attracted the attention of the jealous and lynx-eyed Roman Pro-consul, the Procurator, the Herodians, etc.; hence he had to die. That a regular Hebrew Court had condemned him, history must decline to accept, for there was neither Court, nor crime, nor criminal, nor witnesses, nor a regular accusation. There was no such a Court: The Sanhedrin had long ago lost their criminal jurisdiction. There was no crime nor criminal, for why should they condemn, and in such a summary way condemn, a countryman and a patriot? All that is possible is, that the Jerusalem high-officials arraigned him as a dangerous, popular, social and political agitator, and that was crime enough for a suspicious Roman governor. Jesus died as "king of the Jews" So bore the tabula over his cross. As such political claimants many died before and after him. Later, when the dead Jesus proved to be stronger than mighty Rome, then she claimed him as hers, made of him an enemy of his people, put the blame of his death at their door, theoretically taught his death as necessary for her own redemption and cruelly punished his people — for her own deed. Whilst Jesus had emphatically declared his kingdom not to be of this world, allowing to render to "Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God, what is God's," Rome laid claim to all Caesar's and God's, and assumed the dominion of the world in the name of both, God and the Messiah.

The claim that the Jerusalem mob had accepted the consequences of that judicial murder, is also one of the fictions of the current popular belief. Jesus died as a Jew and as a patriot. So read the tablet suspended over his dying head: " Jesus, the Nazarean, king of the Jews." (Luke 23, 38). That is telling! It shows that the populace did rather feel for him, than against him, that he died by the hands of the Romans, and not of the Jews. Nor is it by any means psychologically probable that an exalted character like Jesus would die with ill-feeling against his people in his breast. Did Socrates die with ill-feeling towards the Greeks? Or Huss with such towards the Slavs or Teutons? Will a good man hold a nation responsible for the wrongs of a few? Why then not attribute to Jesus the magnanimity of Socrates or Huss? That ill-feeling is wholly Pagan and Romano-patrician; it is not Jesus-like. He died by Roman hands, as a Judaean patriot and victim.

One version of the synoptics affirms, he exclaimed on the cross: Eli Eli lama Sabachtani! "My God, my God, why didst thou slaughter me! This is evidently to make good the claim that he was the hostia, the lamb of God. — Others prefer to read it as the verse corresponding to Psalms: " Eli Eli lama asabtani!" My God, my God, why didst thou forsake me! That would be perfectly natural in a man dying cruelly and innocently. Yes, in a usual man, but Jesus was an extraordinary man. Again, it is possible to interpret, that to the last he had believed the Deity would miraculously interfere, and he felt disappointed when in the bitter struggle with death. Just so did his countrymen, some time afterwards, to the last cling to the idea, the Deity would interfere and not allow the Romans to destroy the temple. Such a hypothesis is perfectly congenial with a character like Jesus. But this, again, is undignified in a supernatural personality and had to be given up. Therefore it was preferred, not as a real fact, but for its grand effect, to accept the version of another synoptic (Luke 23, 24): " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing." — That is worthy of the role of a misunderstood patriot and perfectly congenial to a divine messiah come to die as a hostia to God for human sin. Others prefer his fine last words (Luke 23, 46): "Into thy hands, O God, I commend my spirit." A noble verse from the Psalm 31, 6. For so would die a man who would enjoin on his friends: (John 13,34): "Anew commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. By this shall men know that you are my disciples." — Now such a man would not die with ill-will towards his nation, as he himself was the victim of the same Rome, his tyrant and hers.

On the eve before this, he was sitting for the last time with his friends around the Passover-table, is narrated by Matthew. The many wrongs of his nation at the bloody hands of Rome-Edom crowded upon his memory. The national wrongs and the personal wrongs are blended into one. She that crushes his country, is about crushing himself. The solemn rite of the last morsel of the sacred meal is at hand, the rite consecrated to the messiah-hope. Overcome with deep emotion, he says: " Friends, brethren, this is the last morsel we take together. My time has come, I must substantiate my claim and shall die, in doing so. Here, take this wine and remember me. I shall live in you. You shall carry out my mission. I and my mission are one. I die that my mission shall live."

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:52:03 PM

Paul's Innovations.

Maimonides Yad. (Mada. Jesodai hatorah IX,) gives yet a later view of the case. That law, to all appearance, was expressly enacted to hush the current belief of certain mystics, that the messiah has the authority to change and even to entirely abrogate the divine law. It reads thusc It is plainly and distinctly understood in the Thora, that its statutes are binding forever and ever, and are not to undergo any alteration or change, addition or diminution . . . and from this fact we learn that no prophet can make any alterations. Therefore, when a man will rise, be he Gentile or Israelite, and work signs and wonders, claiming that God had sent him to alter any commandment; or saying that those commandments are not eternal, but only for a certain time, he is an impostor and is to be punished . . . The prophet being entitled to obedience on all allowable occasions, but not to counteract the law . . . Nevertheless, if he advises to transgress some of the laws temporarily, and on account of an urgent opportunity and momentary necessity, he must be obeyed ..." Thus far Maimonides. This was, no doubt, enacted by the rabbis with the express intention to contradict the Christian and Mohammedan sectarians, who claim that the messiah can alter and abrogate the law. But if even that had been their view previous to apostolic times, it could not have brought about any legal condemnation of Jesus, because we do not find that he had deliberately and definitely abolished any biblical commandment, though he spoke lightly of tradition and may have hinted at a revision of the Mosaic laws. Otherwise may be the case with Paul, who, acting upon some general hints of his master, but much more from premises entirely foreign to his master, upset the entire biblical Code, declared it a stumbling block and superfluous, if not worse, entirely abrogated, dispensed with and made of no use by the faith in the messiah. He actually urged on the Gentile converts not to follow it, that being a useless ballast for them, etc. (See Romans and Galations). It appears to me that the above passage of Maimonides was specially enacted with a view to Paul's doctrine, and might have effected his fate with a Jewish Court. But it did not, for many weighty reasons; first, because it did not exist in his time, but was decided upon post factum; next, because during his activity the current opinion was yet that the messiah is to alter the law; again, because Paul advised its abolition for the Gentile Christians, but yet tolerated it, yea, practiced it himself as binding upon the Jewish Christians; lastly, because the above mentioned hundred legal criminal formalities and realities were wanting in his case, too; he had no official character, was no ordained rabbi, he advised no idolatry as described above; he had received no warning by his witnesses, there was no free Sanhedrin, etc. He was, in one word, neither an abettor to strange gods, nor a rebellious sage; he was simply a Jewish mystic, converting the Gentiles, himself half a Greek — for such the Jewish law had no punishment. He, too, lost his lifeQ at the hands of Rome, for being the apostle of a Jewish messiah, that meant: the emissary of the king of the Jews, whose advent he was announcing; he fell a victim to the suspicions of Rome, as a political agitator, just as his master did.

Gospels on Jesus' Trial.

In corroboration of the above analysis of the trial, let us remember the many and various versions concerning the incidents in connection with the trial, death, etc., of Jesus as they are to be found in the four Gospels now extant. Each of these four versions has been written long after the facts had been accomplished. The expression: "This is commonly reported, until this day" (Matthew 28, 15.) is well known to biblecritics as to prove the late date of the writer. Whether that trial and the catastrophe took place before or after the Passover, is differently related. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, that happened the day after the institution of the Lords Supper, that means, after the first eve of Passover, which eve, according to them, was on a Thursday evening. On the Friday following the apprehension, trial and death took place, and on the Sunday the resurrection was announced. While John's Gospel mentions not the Passover eve and Lord's Supper as immediately preceding the trial. It claims that the trial and death, etc., were enacted before the Passover.

(John 19, 14). "It was the preparation of the Passover." According to the others, we must guess that it was the preparation of the sabbath after the Passover. While according to John was the trial and death on the eve before the Passover. The careful reader will find many other discrepancies of importance, as they naturally could not be avoided in those different conceptions, aims and standpoints of the several writers. Matt. 26, 57-59 narrates: " They that had laid hold on Jesus, led him away to Caiphas, the high-priest, where the scribes and elders were assembled." "The chief-priests, elders and council sought false witnesses," etc., saying expressly, it was at the "high-priest' s palace,'" not at the Court of the Sanhedrins' hall, as prescribed by the official laws quoted above.

(Matthew 26, 63 — 67). The high-priest said: " I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us, whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God?" . . . Jesus said: "Thou hast said it. Nevertheless ye shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming on the clouds." Then the high-priest said: "He has blasphemed," and the assembly declared him guilty of death. . . Now there may be for the disbeliever heresy in such an assumption, but there is not surely in that "blasphemy." Moses spoke with the Deity "face to face." Isaiah and Ezekiel saw the " throne of God;" Elias "soaredup with the whirl-wind heavenwards," etc. Next, Jesus did not decidedly affirm that claim. The Gospels have different versions on that very same point. Above all, the question of the high-priest: " Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?" implies that he thought such a thing possible, probable and expected, yea, that it must happen now; well, if so, he, the high-priest, himself was guilty of the very same blasphemy! While if the question was but a trick and a snare on his part, then he was a mean trickster, not a fair judge. And I have shown that any such mean interrogatory was strictly forbidden in Jewish jurisprudence.

Luke 23, 2. "They accused him of perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, he saying to be himself Christ — a messiah — aking . . ." "He stirreth up the people" (with his royal claims). Further on it is there related that Herod took cognizance of the case, and most naturally so, Jesus being thought a crown-pretender, hence a rival of Herod; that he tried him again on the same charge, " whether he be king of the Jews [' "that he mocked him and gave him a purple robe and sent him back to Pilate," wishing him out of the way, without assuming the responsibility of a condemnation.

John, differing mostly from the other Gospels, has quite another version of that trial (i8, i " Pilate said to his accusers: take ye him and juage him according to your law; and the Jews said: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." That decides the whole of our discussion. So it is, the Mosaic criminal law had no punishment for heresy nor for so-called blasphemy; that is a criminal heading invented by personal enemies and legal assassins. Next, there is a great repugnance in traditional jurisprudence of all capital punishment. Lastly, the Sanhedrin had lost at that time the right of criminal jurisdiction. The highpriestly party wished the condemnation to be passed but by the Roman authority. So we read, they added Qohn 19, 12): "If thou let this man go, thou art not Uaesar's friend. For whosoever makes himself a king, speaketh against Caesar." Thus it accentuates the political offense, not the religious one, intimating that the Hebrew and the Roman officials considered him a personal enemy and desired him out of the way. Exactly in that light, we read in Luke 24, 17 — 21, did the people consider the case: When Jesus asked the passers-by, what was the cause of the excitement? they replied: " Art thou a stranger here, didst thou not know what has come to pass concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whom the chief-priests and the rulers had delivered to be condemned to death?" I therefore believe it as beyond doubt, that the founder of Christianity died on political grounds, not on religious ones; just as the other messiah-claimants before and after him did. But as oon as Rome realized that, even dead, his name was yet stronger than herself, she turned front, influenced the final redaction of the records, cleared Pilate of all responsibility, even at the cost of dignity, representing him as a weakling, who knew the accused was innocent, and yet yielded to the mob and had him crucified.

Messiah's Thorny Crown.

Mysticism and history coincide in this point; abstruse religious doctrine and daily experience are at one in this respect. The Messiah must die, shall his mission live! If he clings to life, he must renounce his crown. His is a crown of thorns, worn in eternity, not on earth. His kingdom is not of the day, but of history. Indeed, at the awful juncture of circumstances Jesus was in, death was the only mode of saving his name, his fame, his mission. He might have saved his life by denying, by simply saying, Jo! by yielding to the political powers of Rome and of Judaea. By giving up his claims, he would have been suffered to drag on a life of obscurity and oblivion. In one word, he could save material life by sacrificing his immortal life. And he had the good sense, the magnanimity, the wisdom of an extraordinary man to choose what history and glory required. He would not retract, not fumble, fawn and deny. He chose silence, according to the Gospel at least, leaving to his enemies all the odium, and by sacrificing a few years, he substantially saved his mission. — Ideas are invulnerable; ideas are immortal. He died, his ideas lived and were carried onwards by his successors. We have seen that his forebodings were realized. Soon he was entrapped by his aristocratic enemies, delivered to the Roman authorities as a dangerous innovator, a man claimed to be Messiah, prophet and spiritual imperator. He is questioned. If he denies his role, his authority is dispelled and his part finished. But he denies not, he is ready to die. He dies on the cross, after a mock-coronation with purple and thorny crown, and over his head, the brutal Roman superscribes: "Jesits, the Jazarean, King of the Judaeans." The inscription intends the Jewish nation to be insulted in him. Thus he dies as a Jewish patriot, on the cross, the most cruel, the most ignominious death inhuman Rome could invent, between two common malefactors. His friends have him lowered down from the cross on the same day, according to Mosaico-biblical law, and buried in a cave. Now it is claimed he is alive, he was re-enlivened — He was but in a swoon and was recalled to life; he is hiding from the Romans and accessible only to his friends; more, much more slowly unfolds . . . viz.:
Cross and Apotheosis.

The marvelous is added and superadded; people say, he really did die, but he came to life again miraculously. Angels have raised him from the grave. Several persons have seen him alive. He has spoken to them, he showed them his wounded hands and feet. He has eaten with them, has assured them he had been resurrected. His body now has disappeared. Some say he is in heaven, others even say he is on earth, alive, hidden in a retreat, waiting for the favorable moment to reappear and raise the standard against Rome. Months and years and centuries pass on, the perspective grows, the personality, too. The wonderful personality is viewed in diverse lights, divinely, humanly historically and miraculously. Love and admiration, unbelief and disrespect, scoffing and faith, light and shade, gloom and halo mingle. Slowly they bring about the faith in the long ago expected, supernatural Messiah. He is the grand personality foretold by prophets and sages, alluded to by Midrashim and mystics, since the dawn of the nation to that moment; he was expected, had come, had disappeared and will come again to fulfill his task. His disciples remember well that mast6r-mind, whose superior intellect, whose vast designs, whose deep sympathetic heart, whose powerful word had made such a deep impression upon them. They remember his last meal, his last words, his last morsel, his last cup. Soon the Gentile world crowds in under the banner of that name. The original Passover has no meaning for them. The Gentiles have no interest whatever in the bondage of Egypt and the liberation thereof; no interest in the Passover as the anniversary of liberty, as the birth-day of the Hebrew nation. That entire Hebrew nation is resumed and centered in Jesus. The bible, the prophets are epitomized and potentiated in him. Jesus' life, words and teachings are their only Thora, their revelation, their Christianity. The original Passover is soon forgotten. But they do celebrate it in commemoration of their Redeemer, their Messiah, their teacher, who recalled them to purer worship and nobler humanity, resurrected on the Sunday after the Passover. The Passover-feast is thus slowly elaborated as the xvpuxHoy SetTcyov, the coena sacra; the Lord's Supper in the Christian church, as the hostia and the mass, the most solemn mystery in the Roman Catholic church. For long that eucharistia or hostia is celebrated as originally, with a piece' of unleavened cake, mazza, just as the founder did. But as soon as the lofty Essens and later, the Jewish-Christians, and at last, the humble Ebionites had disappeared from the scene, as soon as they were outcrowded by the Gentile-Christians, who accepted Christianity as a new departure, and with Constantine, as the state religion, they obliterated as much as possible all traces of the old, unpopular mother-religion. Passover becomes Easter. It is a remembrance, not of Exodus, but of the passion and the resurrection of the divine founder. All original traces are carefully eliminated and obliterated. So, too, it is with the Hostia. It is no longer niazza — but a consecrated small ivafer. Yet, look to it. It is circular, flat, thin, of white flour and water; no salt, fat nor condiment, a mazza in miniature; not identical with, yet reminding of the Hebrew 7nazza — that is, the venerable hostia of the Roman Catholic church, the leading sacrament of the Christian church in general; an evolution of the mystic Hebrew hidden mazza or aphikonen, and of the hoary Heathen Easter mysteries in general, the identical emblem of hoary times, once symbolizing the vernal sun, now the messiah, rising, to redeem the world of the winter of sin and misfortune.
I
This corroborates our theory of the identity and the evolution of religious rites and views. The same original idea, yet, differentiating in diverse nobler forms and conceptions. This theory has the good of viewing all nations as different branches of the same tree of creation, and all ages as one long educational epoch, evolving higher types of peoples and religious thoughts. It plucks out the sting of arrogance and discrimination against other ages, races and creeds. It shows that everywhere there was some kernel of truth and accompanied by efforts for more truth. — It teaches us to tolerate the old, yet strive for improving the new.

CHAPTER V.

Biblical Parallels and Evolutions.

Abraham and Agamemnon. The Sacrifice of Isaac
and — OF Iphigenia.

The Ilias, by Homer, repeatedly alludes to the sacrifice of Iphygeneia, to the goddess Diana. The Greek fleet was assembled in Aulis, eager to sail for Troy, to avenge the elopement of Helena with Paris, the son of * king Priam. But the winds were contrary to the departure. Dissensions began to break out in the camp, when the mantes or seer, Calchas, announced that Diana would grant the prosperous winds only then, when the virgin, Iphygenia, daughter, or adopted daughter, of Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, would be offered to her in sacrifice, to fulfill an ancient vow, and appease the goddesses ire against her father. . . Klytemnestra, the mother, is induced to bring her daughter to Aulis, persuaded that she is to be married there to Achilles, the hero of the expedition. Instead of the nuptials, Iphygenia is sacrificed on that goddess's altar.

But a later tradition, not satisfied with that cruel offering, thinking it derogatory to the deity, changed the issue of that tragedy. The Homeric poems hint to the fact, that she actually received the death-blow by the officiating priest at the altar of Diana, in order to obtain the favorable winds for the fleet. That tragedy was followed later by more dire ones. Agamemnon, upon coming home after the destruction of Troy, found there his wife, Klytemnestra, united to another suitor. By her and the lover he soon was entrapped at a banquet and killed with all his companions. Later, his son, Orestes, following the impulses of his time and of his temper, avenged his father by murdering his mother. For that the furies pursued him for a long while, until an oracle ordered him to repair to Tauris and there abduct the image of Diana. Arrived there, he recognized — his sister Iphygenia, who assisted him to flee with the statue of the goddess. But since Iphygenia had been offered as a sacrifice, many years before, how could she be found alive in Tauris? — Viz.: Later centuries found that the sacrifice of the princess was not an honor to divinity, men became moral, and began to think the gods more moral, too. Then the fable was changed in accordance, viz.: that, really, Iphygenia was not sacrificed; in the moment the priest struck the death-blow, Diana removed her in a cloud, transferred her to her own temple in Tauris, where she became her priestess. In her stead a beautiful hind was substituted and actually slain by the sacrificator at Aulis.

The parallel in the sacred Writ is known to the reader. Abraham is bid by the Deity "to take his son, his only one, his most beloved one, and offer him, a sacrifice, on Mount Moriah; and Abraham answers: I am ready!" But the Deity meant only to try the patriarch, whether he would obey the divine behest. The angel of Yahveh intervenes in the crisis: "Abraham, strike not, and do no harm to the lad. I now know that thou art God-fearing; for that I shall bless thee and multiply thee as the stars of heaven, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed through thy posterity."

The striking similitudes are apparent. But the vast and important differences between the two legends are obvious too. So are the persons and motives, the events and results. According to the Ilias, Agamemnon yields to Calchas but reluctantly. Calchas is hinted at to act from revenge; Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter from ambition; Klytemnestra protests to the last; she vows vengeance for the dead; and actually, long years after, she assassinates her husband in that revenge; she, in turn, is murdered by her son in expiation; who, again, is hunted by the furies, and finally receives atonement by the abduction of the goddess's statue herself What a complication, what a confusion, what a vacillation in manners, ethics, conceptions of justice and equity of divinity and men! A maze of contradictions, religion becomes a puzzle, instead of a firm rule of conduct. Nothing of that is in the Hebrew, more hoary and olden, traditions. No revengeful priest, no lying prophet, no sceptic father, no reluctant child, no deceived mother, rebelling, cursing and vowing vengeance for the assassination of her child, sacrificed to ambition. Abraham follows the usage of his times. It is his duty to offer the best to the Deity. When bid to sacrifice, he says, trembling and shivering, yet without hesitation: "I am ready."And he is ready. The very next morning he rises, early; his son, Isaac, is resigned; his wife, Sarah, is resigned; all are ready, with tears and heart-broken, yet they are ready; — no scepticism. The Midrashint are not slow to enlarge upon that magnanimous self-abnegation. The sacrifice proceeds, when the nobler conception of Deity, the new era, steps in and calls: Do not strike, God wants no human sacrifices!

Infinitely superior is thus the Hebrew tradition. The legend of Isaac's sacrifice is the crisis, the turn-point of two religious phases. It is an era in ethical thought. No longer multiplicity of divinities; no celestial jealousies, no need of sacrifice by gods, no strife between God and men. God and men are separated by an impassable gulph. The mythological confusion of both these natures has disappeared. There is but One God, the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Man can please and displease die Deity; he can never compete with and rival Deity. He is peremptorily commanded to do or to let, and he can but say: I am ready. He must resign himself. Resignation to the divine will is the highest human virtue. God tries man whether he will obey, and sacrifice even his only child. Man must be ready to obey. But God needs no offerings; he abhors human sacrifice. Hence: "Touch not thy son. I know thou art willing to obey, and thou shalt be a blessing." The Hebrew tradition is forty-two centuries gray. The Greek one is some seven hundred years younger. Yet the myth has Iphygenia actually sacrificed. It took many centuries more until morality and divinity were purified. Then they altered the Greek legend, had Iphygenia saved by Diana and a hind sacrificed in her stead; just as a ram was ready and offered in place of Isaac. Thus, Monotheism abolished human offerings one or two thousand years before Polytheism did. What a complication of tragic events is the result of the Greek myth! What a lucidity, what a serene peacefulness followed the Moriah-sacrifice: "A blessing to all the nations of earth."Here is an interesting parallel between Monotheistic and Polytheistic polity.

A similar parallel and the same superiority of Monotheism over Polytheism is to be found in the biblical tradition of Rizpha, the pallakis or hetaera of king Saul, and Niobe of Greeco-Latin antiquities. — Let us follow Ovid in his thrilling, dramatic narrative of Niobe and her ill-fated seven children-pair, (Ovid V, 157):
   The daughter of Tiresias (a famous Greek seer mentioned in the Odysseus as having met Ulysses in Hades and advised him concerning his return to Ithaka), the prophetess Manto, moved by divine inspiration, had called out in the streets of Thebes: "Go in crowds, Thebeans, to the temple of Latone; offer to the goddess and her two children incense and pious prayers; wreathe yourselves with laurels; she bids it by my mouth."
They obey, crown themselves with laurels and offer prayer with incense upon the holy flames.
But here is Niobe appearing with a large suite of attendants; she is brilliant in her Phyrgian, golden robes; she is as beautiful as anger allows her to be. With a proud movement of her head, she shakes her hair waving down her shoulders; then stopping, she surveys all with a superb look: "What a folly,"she says, "to prefer gods whom you know only by hear-say, to those whom you see! Why raise altars to Latone, whilst no incense is burning in my honor! My father is Tantalus, the sole mortal allowed to sit at the table of the gods; a sister of the Pleades is my mother; my grandfather is Atlas, he who holds the celestial vaults upon his shoulders; Jupiter is my other grandfather, whom I feel honored to count as my father-in-law, too. The nations of Phrygia do homage to my power. I am mistress of the palace of Cadmus, and these walls raised by the accords of my husband, with the peoples inhabiting them, obey my laws and his. Wherever I look, I see immense riches. My beauty, besides, is comparable to that of a goddess. Add to that seven daughters, as many sons, and soon seven sons-in law and as many daughters-inlaw; then ask what constitutes my glory! Prefer to me, if you dare, a daughter of the Titans, who claims as her father some unknown Ceus, Latone, who could not obtain an asylum to lay in, on this vast earth She is mother of two children, seven times less than I am. I am happy, who can deny that? I shall ever be happy, who would dare doubt that?..,..! am too great that Fortuna could harm me. Should I lose much, I shall ever have more; my wealth defies the chances of fate.
(I)   "Nam sata Tireflia, venturi praescia Manto, Per mediae fiierat, divino concita tnotu, Vaticinata vias: "Ismenides, ite frequenter, £t date Latonae Latonegeniflque diiobuR Gum prece tnra pia, lanroque innectite crinem: Ore meo Latonajubet." Paretur; et omnefl Thebaides juBBiB sua tempora frondibus ornant, Turaqne dant sanctiB ct verba precantia flammiR.
(Ovid. — Metamorpbcwae VI, 157.)

Supposed, that death robs me of some of that crowd of children, never shall I be reduced to two. And two is the entire family of Latone; what fails that she should be childless? Go, hasten to abandon her worship. . . "
   The Thebeans do as bidden . . . But Latone is indignant over that outrage; she repairs to the summit of the Cynthus and thus addresses her two children: "Here, I, your mother, proud of being such, yielding precedence to Juno alone, I see my divinity doubted. Children! if you don't come to my assistance, I am chased away, ousted from my own altars, robbed of the homage of untold centuries! . . . The impious daughter of Tantalus joins even insult . . . She dares prefer to you — her owm children!" — "Enough!" exclaims Phoebus; "that is enough!" repeats Phoebe. Enveloped in a cloud, they soon reach the city of Cadmus . . .

The poet describes now the splendors and the wealth of that city, the court of Niobe, her own magnificence and luxuriousness, and the happy state of her seven sons and seven daughters, parading in front of the royal palace. He then narrates the dire catastrophe, the tragic death of these children, closely one after another, by the invisible arrows of Phoebus and Phoebe, the pair of gods, to avenge the insult done to their mother and the presumption of Niobe in comparing herself and her race to themselves and Latone. Ovid then continues thus, (Ovid, liber VI, 267): "Already has rumor, the terror of the people, the tears of her family apprised the unhappy mother of that sudden disaster. She is astonished that the gods could and, she is irritated that they would, dare smite her; she is indignant to find them so powerful. Her husband, Amphion, had just pierced his own bosom, putting an end to his life and his despair. Alas, how much was Niobe, then, different from that other Niobe who, shortly before, had discarded the crowd from the altars of Latone, proceeding through the town, an object of envy to her friends, . . . now an object of pity to her enemies. She throws herself upon the chilled bodies of her children; she goes from one to the other distributing kisses, her last kisses, among them. Raising her eyes and arms against heaven; "Cruel Latone, she says, rejoice at my disaster, satiate thy ferocious heart; thou makest me die seven times; be happy and triumph over thy vanquished enemy! . . . But what do I say. I vanquished? In my misfortune I am yet richer than thou in thy happiness; after such losses I am yet superior to thee."

'Scarcely had she finished, when the sound of an arrow from a tended arc is heard. All are shivering with fright. Niobe alone is not moved: misfortune renders her more audacious. Her daughters, robed in mourning, were standing around the funeral biers of their brothers; when one by one they drop, writhe in pain and die, pierced by a cruel arrow of an arc, thrown from above by the invisible hands of Phoebe, daughter of Latone. Already have six received the death stroke, wounded in different ways; one yet remains, the last one. Niobe covers her completely with her body, with her dress: "Let me keep one, at least, the youngest! Of so many daughters, I ask thee, Latone, but one, she is the youngest! " But whilst she thus prays for her, she for whom she prays, — expires . . ."

"Without husband, without children, Niobe remains sitting among the lifeless bodies of her sons, her daughters, her husband. So has misfortune made her immovable. The wind does not agitate her hair; pallor covers her face; her staring eyes do no longer animate her cheeks which pain has discolored; there is nothing living in her. Her tongue is frozen and cleaves in the mouth to her hardened palate. Life retires from her veins. Her neck is stiffened; her arms cannot move; her feet cannot walk; her very entrails are of stone. But she weeps; a whirlwind envelops her and bears her away into her own country. There, fixed to the summit of a mount, she melts in tears. Changed into marble, she yet weeps over her misfortunes, interesting, thrilling, eliciting tears; here is the highest tragic, uniting the terrible to the tender, embellished by the poetic art, choice of words and meter. But there are other beauties to look for, and another measure to apply to, viz: the ethical verities, the lessons of wisdom and goodness illustrated. These are mostly lacking. What is the moral of the tale? What lessons shall the reader take home from that legend? That "pride goes before the fall," that overbearing will be punished, without fail; that is good enough. But what low ideas about duty! How rotten polytheism was! What a corrupt society it betokens! What wretched morals, what stupid views on man and world, on nature and its gods! How strikingly it proves that a degraded church disintegrates and produces a degraded race and state! And these views, morals and polity pervaded yet Roman imperial society; that was the theology and the ethics in Ovid's time; such were the heroes, the priesthoods, the peoples of polytheism fifteen centuries ago!

Let us now turn to the biblical parallel, in a monotheistic society. There we find a striking analogon to said Niobe and her seven pair of ill-fated children. I allude to Rizpha, the hetaera, the morganatic wife of dead king Saul. Rizpha is watching over the seven corpses of her and Saul's children; she is watching over them by day and by night, that neither the sun-rays nor birds of prey should injure them during the day, and no beast of prey devour them in the night. Many crude traits both the narratives have in common, the date of each being hoary. There is much of the same rude and crude views concerning man and justice, king and Deity. Especially rude is the assumption that God would be appeased forold wrong and cruelty committed upon innocent people, by new cruelty and injustice perpetrated upon other innocents; that "God punishes the children for the sins of the fathers;"(') that murder past is atoned by assassination recent. The bible repeatedly, forcibly and expressly enjoins upon human justice that: the parents shall not die for the children, nor the children for the parents. Every one shall die for his own wrongs, (IV M. 24). Nevertheless, and in spite of such express statements and plain common sense, we find here and there a remnant of mythologic, vanquished notions that God punishes the people* of one generation for the crimes committed by another generation; that in expiation he required the blood of seven innocent youths, to atone for the injustice committed by their father, the king. This trait, as a plea for the Gibeonites or for king David, is grey and archaic, and about on the same moral level as the ethics illustrated by the quarrel of Latone with Niobe. But besides that feature, the thrilling story of Rizpha is morally, infinitely superior to that of Niobe. That story took place some fifteen centuries before Ovid's time, yet, intellectually and ethically, it is remarkably above that of Ovid's. It has not his art and poetic charm. But it is history, fact, truer to nature, and purer; it appeals more to our heart than the woes of Niobe, which we feel to be a fiction. Let us quote verbally according to sacred Writ, passing the first verses (II Sam. 21, 8,): And the king, David, took the two sons of Rizpha, whom she had born to king Saul, viz: Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal, daughter of king Saul, whom she had born to Adriel . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged — or paled — them upon the mount, before Yahveh, and they fell, all the seven together. They were killed in the beginning of the barley-harvest. Then Rizpha took the sack and spanned it out against the rock; from the harvest-time to the rainy season, and thus did not allow the birds of heaven to sit upon them in day-time, and the beasts to touch them during the night. And David was informed of what Rizpha, the "pallakis" of Saul, had done. And David took up the bones of Saul and of Jonathan . . . and had collected the bones of the hanged ones, and they were buried in Zela, in the grave of Kish, the father (of Saul).

Critical Remarks.

The reader perusing the Hebrew text of that thrilling chapter, will there recognize the traces of many different variations and hands. No doubt there were diverse traditions concerning that tragic episode of Saul and David's rivalry, and different opinions whether David had justly done in delivering the descendants of his fallen enemy to blood-revenge or political necessity. It should seem that such reflecting glosses had to give way to the one now extant. Yet some traces have remained in the retention of those different readings; in interrupted clauses, pauses, signs, points and punctuations, as if the writer wished to call the attention of the reader; as if his own hand trembled in tracing that tragic narrative, inserting, by the way, that Saul had been appointed by God the chosen prince of Israel (*), and where another Massoritic sign points to the fact that something has been omitted in the text. No doubt, that chapter had been retouched, and the honest Massor a leaves us a hint. Efforts to explain that chapter are variously made by the rabbis (*). It is claimed that the seven ill-fated descendants of Saul were the very same men, who had executed the orders of the king against the doomed Gibeonites; a hypothesis which does not much mend the story. The greatest difficulty is, that nowhere in the Scriptures is there any mentioning of Saul ever having persecuted the Gibeonites, an inoffensive tribe of temple serfs, its " wood-cleavers and watercarriers." But king Saul did cruelly persecute, yea, exterpate the priests of Nob, and, no doubt, the prophetic schools of Samuel, too. It would be thus plausible that these powerful bodies bore the fallen house a bitter grudge, and hence, the oracle condemned its surviving members. The first two verses of the chapter may have, originally, borne such a construction, later eliminated for good reasons. I believe, in Baba Kama 119, a, the rabbis allude to it, saying: " Where do we find Saul killing the Gibeonites? But since he murdered the priests of Nob, who sustained the Gibeonites, that was accounted to him as killing the Gibeonites."— This is saying, sub rosa, that Saul's descendants suffered for their fathers* murdering the priests. Let us imitate that discretion of Massora and Talmud. (*)

It is useless trying to raise the veil spread over that dark affair. But let us admire one of the noblest traits of ancient history, the heroic demeanor, the unostentatious virtues of Rizpha; a character so modest, yet every way superior to that of Niobe. A glance at these two heroines, their deeds, motives and personal features will bring it out. Niobe, in her palmy days, is overbearing and insolent in the extreme; she forfeits all our sympathy; the reader feels that she deserves her reverses. Her sevenfold punishment makes the reader shudder, but does not elicit sympathy for the bereaved mother. She is ever insolent and provokes the divine ire. Even after the death of her seven sons, she challenges fate and brings about the catastrophe of her seven daughters. When we see her shrieking and frantic, we shake and tremble, but we do not feel with her, for she hardly appears to feel herself. Her many children were her pride, not her happiness. When they perish, she is rather humiliated in her pride and self-sufficiency, than wounded in her affections. She is a sort of puny, female Prometheus, with grand claims and small motives; she is rather that than a tender bereaved mother with genuine mourning in her heart. We feel much with her innocent offspring, but very little with herself. Her vanity leaves little room for a mother's heart. She is an overbearing Semiramis struck by Jove's lightning in her heaven-aspiring "hanginggardens." In one word she is every wit a proud queen, and hardly a mother in spite of. her fourteen children. Hence, she is out of proportion with real womanhood, and we feel little with her. The myth does her poetic justice: She is petrified; she becomes a stone, her heart, her affections, her pride, become a rock, proud and conspicuous, on the summit of a mount, where she can be seen, the great object of her being; there she weeps, not over the loss of her children, but over the loss of her own self, her pride, her self-admiration, vanquished by Latone, her rival. (*) Niobe is another version of Pandora, the Greek conception of womanhood; she embodies all the brilliant sides and all the shades of the woman of polytheism.

Another is Rizpha, a pattern of the woman of Monotheism. She is a daughter of the biblical Eve. When a queen, with diadem and purple, you never heard of her. She was a modest woman, a faithful wife, a tender mother, a humble worshipper, a meek, useful and kind companion; worthy as a queen, humble as a Seraglio slave, loving, submissive. God-fearing and gracious, a biblical woman. And when fortune frowned, she did not rebel, not gnash her teeth, not shake her fist, as Niobe. With Job, who, too, had lost seven pair of children, she said: " God has given, God has taken, God's name be forever praised." Now contemplate the biblical heroine in question. Since the death of the king she had lived retired humble and resigned; lived for her children, labored to heal and save the debris of the shattered house. Her consolation may have been that once the fallen dynasty may come again to power, and that her sons may see yet a restoration, a crown. But fate disappoints her. David remains master. Her own children, with the rest of her ill-starred house, are delivered to death for political reasons, in the bloom of age. Seven hopeful youths die for being of the royal blood — and she, Rizpha, has the manly heroism, the womanly tenderness, the motherly perseverance to accompany them to the scaffold, to encourage them in their agony, to cheer and uphold their flagging will-power, to die with dignity. Her fate is bitterer than their's; her agony more cruel; her courage more admirable. She sees them ascend the scaffold, one after another, empaled; her heart faints seven times; yet she dies not with them, for she must not die, and she will not die, for they need yet her motherly care. They need a burial! Anciently they believed, those having no burial have no rest beyond earth, cannot enter hades. Tyranny denies them a burial. So she is there to watch over their bodies, and screen them from disgrace. Revenge holds on, denying them the last honors; they shall be devoured by the beasts of prey. She fights tyranny with the weapons of a woman, the patience of a mother, the tears of a sister. She spreads her mourning veil, her sack-cloth over the murdered youths, defends them against birds and beasts and men; she waits and bears, alone in this inimical world, under the scorching sun-rays and in the frost of the night; with hardly a crust of bread, and tears only to quench her thirst. So she sits and watches over the seven dear corpses, and patiently waits until the stone-heart of tyranny is mollified, until revenge is soothed and they are allowed — a burial place • . . in the kingdom of their father! Then Rizpha disappears, without a lament, a mourner; "God has given, God has taken, God's name be forever praised"

So is Niobe the woman of polytheism, a crowned Pandora. Rizpha is the daughter of Eve; made to live, labor and bear with men; she is the outcome of monotheism. Crowned or uncrowned, she is the queen of the human creation. She is not a weeping stone, as Niobe. She is a feeling heart, for happiness or for woe; the sweet biblical conception of womanhood, modest, quiet and benign in the sun-rays of fortune; seli-sacrificing and energetic, manly and full of resources in danger; magnanimous and patient in ill luck.

We read in Genesis 47, 39, etc.: "And when the time of Jacob's death had approached, he called for his son Joseph and told him: "If I have found grace in thine eyes, place thy hand under my thigh and deal kindly and truly with me: bury me not in Egypt, for I wish to sleep with my fathers. Therefore, take me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place." And Joseph said: "I shall do according to thy desire." And Jacob said: "Swear unto me." And he did swear. And Israel bowed at the head of the couch. (*) The commentator Rashbam completes the sense: "Israel bowed to Joseph, from his seat at the head of the bed," viz: in acknowledgment of Joseph's promise. Ancient translators, as Saadia, Aquila, Symmachus, Vulgate, the Talmud, etc., understand by that: Israel bowed to the Deity, the Shechinah, hovering over the couch of the dying patriarch . . . Now, we find a striking parallel to this passage in I Kings i, 47 and 48. There the two rival sons of King David, Adoniah and Solomon, each heading a party, compete for the throne. David secures the succession to Solomon, his son by (Bath-Sheba, having him crowned during his life time, and being urged thereto by his favorite wife, his favorite priest, Zadok, and his favorite prophet, Nathan. Solomon is anointed, the people are enthusiastic, and the courtiers offer their good wishes. There we read, too: And king (David bowed upon his couch f (ddh bj* mncn), expressly saying: "Blessed be the Lord who gave me today a successor, and that, with my eyes, I do see it, personally." Here is a remarkable analogy with the situation of Jacob and Joseph, of Genesis 47, yet the wording is not identical. In Genesis 47 it reads: noo, in Kings i it reads: dsd. Now, when looking to Septuaginta in the same place, we read with wonderment: "Israel bowed to the head or point of his staff Literally re-translated into Hebrew, the Septuaginta appears to have read: (nwon) Matteh, staff, not Mittah, bed, — viz: the Hebrew text in those times having had no vowels, these being an invention of about the seventh century P. C, the Septuaginta translators were free to read either Matteh or Mittah, the consonants being the same. They preferred the former and rendered it by: "Israel bowed to the point of his staff or rod," the staff being identical with our "scepter," the symbol of princely dignity. This has its analogy in Esther 5, 2, where the king of Persia reaches out to his queen, and she touches his scepter in token of mutual salutation and good will. Remains yet the question open, whether the translators meant: Israel bowed to the head of his own staff or scepter, or to that of Joseph, each being wasz a prince? But more important is the inquiry, which one of the two renditions is plausible: to bow to the staff or upon the bed? Either is somewhat weak and enigmatical. And here I have a weighty suggestion to offer, smoothing our exegetical difficulty, viz: It is a well known fact that the Septuaginta-translation was made in Alexandria, Egypt, under the Ptolemians, the Greek successors of the ancient national Pharaos. Now, the standing symbol of these Pharaos, the rulers, and as well as of the gods of Egypt, was the well known Crux, or cross. This was the symbol of both, the heavenly rulers and the earthly kings, the latter claiming to be the descendants of the former, or, if you prefer, the gods being but the preceding kings, apotheosized. Now, the Egyptian Crux, as the present royal scepter, and the commanding general's baton, are simply the evolution of the once shepherd's rod or staff. The shepherd, now as then, had a long rod or staff in his hand, bent or with a knot at the top. He used it to urge on his flock wherever he wanted to. In primitive times, the staff became naturally a token of dignity and prerogative, a sceptre. The leading shepherd advanced in age and dignity, became rich and had a large retinue. The staff, the distinctive instrument of his craft, became, gradually, the emblem of his dignity. It symbolized, not only driving the flock, but leading the household; soon commanding the clan, ruling the tribe, the people in peace, and marshalling the militia in war. Hence, the staff or rod became the sceptre of the king and the baton of the general-in-chief Originally, it was a wooden stick with a crook, cut from a tree, a rod for the sheep. It slowly evolved into ebony wood, soon into ivory, soon into a gold baton, incrustrated with precious gems, and became thus the symbol of sovereignty, of royal dignity, of dominion in the nation's palace, soon in the temple, the palace of the gods. No doubt, this process of evolution took place in Egypt. For Egypt was long swayed by the Hyksos, the shepherd princes hailing from the West, Syria and Mesopotamia. I do not mean here absolutely to identify the Hebrews under Jacob and Joseph with those very Hyksos. But they were of the same country, same speech and civilization and, above all, they were shepherds. Jacob was such and his children acknowledged themselves as such. (Gen. 46, 33.) Joseph recommends them: "When Pharao will enquire, what is your craft, ye shall say: we are cattle breeders, ever since our youth, we and our fathers."

We read in Homer's Ilias xii, 24 and 25:(') "The pinnacles of the towers they pulled down, and the rising rods or pillars they tore out . . ." KpossaSy pinnacles, and Stylus, pillars or rods, were both large poles or rods, both of the same shape, slender, rising columns or turrets, minarets corresponding to the Hebrew Mazeba style, showing thus the hoary affinity between the crux of the Pharaos, the Mazeba or style of the sacred Writ, and the Matteh or Shebet(*), staff or rod of the patriarchs. So are in popular English cross and rood synonymous. As my hypothesis hinges upon the relation of the Israelites to the Hyksos and Egyptians, let us elucidate that kinship before proceeding in the identification of the shepherd's staff with cross and sceptre.

The Hyksos are the Shepherd kings or the alien Pharaohs of the fifteenth and sixteenth Egyptian dynasties who, at the head of Arabian hordes had invaded and conquered the Nile valley in from 2100 — 1600 before the christ. era. There are many hypotheses concerning the position of these Shemitic conquerers towards the Benai Israel, whose Egyptian sojourn apparently coincided with theirs. The word Hyksos, according to Brugsh-Bey, is derived from hak (prince,) and "sasu" (shepherd.) They reigned from 2200 to 1700 B. C, according to his version. He places the exodus of the children of Israel much later than heretofore believed — viz.: at 1300 B. C.
Had the Hyksos and Israelites anything in common? Were they indentical? Did the patriarch Joseph and his father arrive during the reign of the Hyksos, or after their expulsion? These are questions that suggest themselves alike to scholars and general readers.

For a long time no connection whatever was suspected between the two peoples. Later, following statements by Manetho, an Egyptian historian, as brought down to us by Josephus, it was uncritically admitted that they were identical. Josephus, indeed, copied it to spite Apion, a slanderer of the Jews, to gratify the amour-propre of these latter, but without endorsing that fiction. Others again, claim that Jacob and his tribe, and even Joseph, arrived there long after the expulsion of the Hyksos. Ewald, on the contrary, differentiating the two tribes, thinks their Egyptian stay was simultaneous. Yet he treats the biblical narrative as a myth. That there was no connection whatever between them is decidedly improbable, since the stay of the Hyksos and the Benai Israels' according to our best historical data, seem pretty nearly to coincide. Hence the Shepherd Rulers must have been either friends or foes of the Israelites. The second hypothesis — that they were identical — is even less probable; for the national records, the biblical narrative, would surely not be silent concerning such a splendid past if it could reasonably boast of such.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:53:53 PM

The Bible as a Work of History.

These records, apart from their sacred character, are such realistic common-sense, and so convincing, and they unfold in such a natural way the narrative of the patriarchal immigration to the Nile borders, that I prefer it, critically, to all of Ewald's ingenious interpretations. So, too, the critical sense revolts against Manetho's claim that the last Hyksos, driven out by the native Pharaoh, fled to Judaea and built there Jerusalem, indentifying thus Israel and Hyksos as one people. Against the third historical construction — that the emigration of the Benai Israel took place long after the expulsion of the Hyksos — I can but cite the following objections. It is admitted, at least approximately, that the Hyksos ruled in Egypt over five hundred years — from about 2100 to about 1600 B. C. Now, whether the Bible's 430 years of Israel's Egyptian sojourn begin with Jacob's arrival or with Abraham's coming, both Hyksos and Israel were there simultaneously. Again, if the Israelites arrived after the expulsion of the Hyksos, the entire biblical narrative about the first, loses all probability. Had Joseph arrived in Egypt just freed from its foreign invaders, he would not have found such favor with a native king, courtiers and people; he would not have been entrusted with the reins of empire; he would not have succeeded in gaining access for his clan to Egypt, with its bitter memories of a foreign yoke. Moreover, the logical biblical narrative begins the new inimical policy of the Pharoahs against the children of Israel, with, *And there arose a new king who did not know Joseph/ — (Exodus, I, 8.) If Joseph and Jacob and their clan had arrived during the eighteenth dynasty of native kings, why did that very same dynasty first receive them with open arms and then treat them with such cruelty? What was the motive for such a startling change of policy? Setting, therefore, aside the gratuitous claim of Manetho about the real identity of Israelites and Hyksos, and taking the simple, logical, biblical narrative as by far more reliable, I propose the following hypothesis:

The children of Israel in Egypt were not identical in origin, blood and worship with the Hyksos, or shepherd invaders. From the dawn of history to this day the former have been migratory shepherds and agriculturists, industrials or artisans, not conquerers and invaders. But both peoples came to Egypt under nearly the same circumstances. Both from Arabia and Canaan; both of Semitic origin, speech and civilization; both pastoral and in quest of fertile spots and better homes. The Israelites in Egypt were therefore Hebrews-that means aliens; and so was the Hyksos tribe, too; the term Hebrews applied to both. The Benai Israel arrived several centuries after the Hyksos, long after they had been well established in a conquered land. They came as countrymen, called by them and heartily welcomed as friends and allies against the despised and yet dreaded natives. Slowly these arose in rebellion, and the Hyksos were expelled. But the Israelites were, from policy, allowed to stay, as not identical with the Bedouins, and in order to divide the enemy, hey were cunningly accepted as allies of the natives.
(1)   Hebrew means "foreigner," "beyond the limits."

This plan of dividing and repressing the foreigners began with the seventeenth dynasty. The eighteenth dynasty even more vigorously followed up that policy until they were entirely expelled. And now came the turn of the Israelites. These, too, were distrusted as Easterners and original countrymen of the Shepherds. Soon they were hated and openly persecuted as but another kind of Hyksos. Long they suffered, until, at last, favorable circumstances, as some natural calamities distracting the oppressors, weak, incapable princes, with rebellion within or war from abroad, inspired Moses and his following to try the liberation of their brethren, "helped by God," who always inspires and stands by those who stand up for their own rights.

Viewed thus, the narrative in Genesis and Exodus will be found most natural and logical.

For some time during the fifteenth (Hyksos) dynasty the Shepherd rulers, feeling their grasp on the conquered weakening, and looking out for allies, were welcoming every stranger hailing from Arabia and Canaan as a natural ally against the natives. Under such circumstances did Joseph com into Egypt, whose ruling classes were fellow-Easterners. All persons mentioned there by Sacred Writ — the Pharaohs, Potiphar, his captain of the body-guard, the prison-master, the incarcerated court officers, etc. — were all of the Hyksos tribe, and naturally well disposed towards him. Upon the recommendation of a reinstated courtier, the Hyksos king consulted Joseph, not the natives, about the distempers of his mind. The young, quick-sighted foreigner, endowed with natural grace and ready wit, probably above that of the rude soldiery, and knowing well the temper of his countrymen, improved his opportunity and found favor with court and king. Gradually he rose to power; found opportunity to be useful to both his new master and his new country; rescued the latter from starvation, and obliged the first by acquiring the soil for him, during the famine. The reigning class being foreigners, the king a conqueror dreading his subjects, and Joseph proving advantageous to both, he found it an easy task to gain admittance for his own clan, the Benai Israel. They were received with open arms, and were placed on a par with the ruling class at the very key of the empire — in Goshen — the natives acquiescing. Soon Joseph died. The Hyksos-power then waning, and the natives subordinate, the Theban Pharaoh came into the ascendancy, the Hyksos kings of Memphis were compelled to recede. They made a last stand in Avaris. The Israelites had to choose parties. They did choose, declaring as a fact that they were neither Hyksos nor Arabian Bedouins — neither in race nor worship; just as the Hungarians now have little or nothing in common with the Turks or Mongols. They declared for the natives. On such terms the native Pharaohs suffered them to stay. The last Hyksos stronghold of Avaris was then taken, and the Shepherd kings expelled.

This done, the eighteenth dynasty, the conquerors of the Shepherds, the biblical new king, who did not know Joseph and his great services, came to the throne. Misgivings arose against the children of Israel. The Hyksos, their former friends, were close by. They might yet sympathize, reconcile and combine against Egjptians. Hence, in order not to be oppressed, the Pharaohs had to turn oppressors. Anvil or hammer was the cry. So reasoned the ancient Pharaohs.

When Ferdinand and Isabella had expelled the Moors from Spain, then came the turn of the Jews. When the Rumanians felt free from Turkish oppression, they began to oppress their own native Hebrews. Russian politicians, by similar reasoning, remembering that they absorbed the Khasar-Jewish kingdom on the Volga, feel perfectly satisfied that they must expatriate the several millions of Jews in West Russia. So do they treat also the Germans, Poles and others. Wrong creates wrong Manethos* statement about the identity of Hyksos and Israel, really untrue, is yet reconcilable with this hypothesis. Centuries after both parties had left, the native population may well have remembered both as different branches of the same people, and called them both Hebrews, aliens and Shepherd-hordes. So the traditions about the expulsion of the one and the exodus of the other faded into one national saga of the deliverance from a foreign yoke. This is the way how in primitive times great national events are handed down to posterity.

Let us now survey the biblical texts perfectly in harmony with this hypothesis. In Genesis and Exodus the Egyptian kings are called Pharaohs (Sublime Porte). So were all the kings styled, and so, too, the Hyksos. Their dynasties are counted by Manetho as the fifteenth and sixteenth. The seventeenth and eighteenth are native ones who expelled the former.

All the court personages mentioned in this connection, as Potiphar, the prison-master, the dreaming officials, incarcerated, etc., are of the ruling Hyksos class. All consider Joseph as a countryman, and hence are ready to favor him.

The dreams of the king and of his officers (Genesis xl and XLi") have, in my opinion, an Arabian character rather tnan an Egyptian one. Joseph, an Easterner too, could therefore better interpret them than the Egyptian priests. (Genesis xu, 40). Joseph is made a viceroy. Only a Hyksos king, a foreign conqueror, could act so arbitrarily. I;or a native prince of the seventeenth or eighteenth dynasty, lifted to the throne by a native uprising against foreigners, to have done so, it would have been madness.

In Genesis xliii, 32, Joseph has his brethren dine with him incognito. Bread was placed before him alone, his brethren alone and the Egyptians alone, "because it was unlawful for the latter to eat with Hebrews."This cannot apply to the Israelites proper, for they had never before yet come in contact with the Egyptians. It means the foreigners, the Arabian shepherds, the hated conquerors in general. All foreigners were denominated Hebrews (Ibri, from beyond), whether Bedouin or Israelite. Hebrew and Israelite are not identical.
In Genesis xlv, 9, Joseph advises his brethren to immigrate to Egypt, where he is * father to Pharaoh, master and ruler."This apparently could have taken place only during the reign of theHyksos. After their expulsion, foresight and prudence would have counseled Joseph to dissuade his brethren from coming. Nor would he ever have been countenanced by a native king in such an undertaking; even so in Genesis xlv, 17, only a Hyksosking could have invited foreigners — never a native prince just risen upon their ruins.
In Genesis, xlvi, 34, Joseph advises his brethren to declare to the Pharaoh their profession to be shepherds, as a recommendation to his favor, he being a Shepherd prince. There is an allusion in Genesis, xlvii, 6, to the rulers keeping flocks. No native prince would ever have done so, flocks being an "abomination to the natives." Mark, again, when Joseph first speaks to his brethren, incognito (Genesis, xlii, 23), an interpreter is expressly mentioned, but none such is mentioned in the several interviews between Pharaoh and Joseph, or Jacob, or the several high officials — even Mrs. Potiphar had none. It is simply because Shepherds and Israelites, hailing from the same country, spoke the same idiom.
In Genesis xlvii, 20, the crafty transfer of people and soil to Pharaoh as his property, points to a foreign conqueror and his own government, where the people counted for nothing. A native prince of the eighteenth dynasty, or even the seventeenth, raised by the suffrage of a triumphant people in arms, would hardly have been guilty of such spoliation.
But it is especially the following passage which reveals to me the fact that only long after the arrival of the children of Israel in Egypt the reaction against and the expulsion of the Hyksos began. In Exodus i, 8, we read: *And a new king arose who did not know Joseph,' etc., conceiving fears of Joseph's clan and inaugurating the policy of systematic persecution. That cannot simply mean a new prince ascending the throne of his fathers. No. *Le roi est mort; vive le roi.* A new Oriental potentate may change the harem and the favorites, but never the policy of his dynasty. That new king — so flagrantly breaking with the past, so strikingly changing the policy towards an important part of his subjects —

must refer to a new dynasty, a revolution, a new governmental era. It must allude to the rising against the last hold of the Hyksos rule — to the eighteenth dynasty. Having swept away their last camp at Avaris; having rejected the last femnant of the Shepherd princes, the eighteenth dynasty, breaking with the policy of the seventeenth one, of temporizing and compromising, of allowing the clan of Joseph to stay, not remembering the early merits of that leader and his followers, but recalling only that they, too, were Eastern aliens, like the Hyksos, who might also become dangerous, that 'new king' of the eighteenth dynasty resolved upon the policy of persecution, enslaving or extermination. For a generation or two the Children of Israel may have patiently waited for a change of policy; but Raamses II. and his cruel son, Menephta, exhausted their patience. The God of Liberty, the ancestral hope and courage, flamed up at Horeb, the Liberator appeared, and the Exodus was achieved.

It is therefore beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is an intimate historical inter-connection between the Israelites, the Hyksos princes and the native Egyptian Pharaohs; that for long centuries they had lived in the same country and under the same law, and had influenced each other in their views, forms and institutions, hence, too, in their regalia and governmental symbols.

Let us now return to our original theme, the patriarchal staff and the crux or sceptre of the Pharaos in

We have seen that the Hyksos masters were long ago established in Egypt, when Joseph and his tribe arrived there. The Hyksos or shepherd princes, no doubt, had the shepherd's staff as their symbol of sovereignty, as they were but shepherds, slowly expanding into rulers. When expelled, five hundred years later, they left to their victorious successors, the native Pharaos, the same emblem of dominion. It passed after Alexander's conquest to the Ptolemian kings. The translators of the Sacred Writ saw that symbol of sovereignty in the hands of their rulers. They justly guessed that the patriarch Jacob, too, had borne sucn a staff as the emblem of his tribal dignity. Hence, they translated :
"Israel bowed to the head of his staff— not the mieaningless head of the bed; that is, he bowed to his sceptre, rod, the regalia of sovereignty and prerogative; the emblem of deity and kingship, then, in Egypt. Just as in our time sovereigns do consider their crown, or sword, or sceptre as holy, touch it and bow to it in token of affirmation, of an oath, of an invocation to the Godhead. Even so did Jacob, by his bow to his sceptre, invoke the deity to testify to the promise of Joseph, to convey his body to the burial-cave of his fathers. In such a way does our verse in Genesis 47, 31, find its full, pregnant meaning and historical substantiation. Most probably the Judaeans, before their dispersion, read the same: "Israel bowed to the head of his staff" for they, too, knew the staff to be the emblem of rule. No doubt, in Arabia and in Syria, as in Egypt, it was popularly known as such. This may be one of the causes why Christendom accepted it as its symbol, and that Constantine the Great saw the vision: "By this sign shalt thou vanquish" and vanquished Maxentius under its auspices. There are, besides, other moments in the Christian cross, not touched upon here. Of course, history and criticism, deal not with the sectarian side of the theme, they concern themselves only with the historical and rational argument. — Now centuries passed by. The Hyksos princes, the Pharaos, the Ptolemians, the Shepherd's staff, the Pharaonic crux, etc., were all forgotten. The rabbis of the seventh century. P. C, and the Massoretics, had to make up their minds and choose sides. The unvoweled word, nora, is it to mean, staff or bed? The patriarch's staff, Moses* staff, etc., had gone out of memory. But they saw the crux . . . not in the hands of kings, exercising dominion, but of bishops exercising spiritual sway, the heads of the dominant church, their foes, their religious antagonists, and often their bitter persecutors. Should they intimate that there is any historical connection, any genealogical derivation between the patriarch's staff and the crux, immissa, the Christian cross? Having thus to choose in the rendition of the ominous word, they read and punctuated Mittehy bed, in preference to Matteh, staff; and soilstands" — Contemplating now closer the Shepherd's staff, we may fairly recognize in it the progenitor of the later crux of Egypt. It was, no doubt, a straight pole, crossed or bent at the head as a primitive handle for allowing the hand to grasp it firmly and wield it, either as a stick to lean upon, or as an arm or club for defense and offense, or as a rod to forcibly drive the flock. Slowly it became the insignia of command and authority. It evolved in Egypt into an emblem of rule and sovereignty, of gods and kings. It mostly had there the shape of -jor crux immissa, the present sword, with its hilt crossed, is its pattern.

Roman Cross, Fasces, Crux.

Now, in other parts of the world, that very crux was used as an instrument of torture, for the most cruel death-punishment. So it was in Asia, and so especially among the Romans. Slaves, who ran away from their cruel masters, patriots who had taken up arms, at the call and in defense of their own subjugated country, justas common criminals, robbers and murderers, were treated to the crux; which conveyed at once social disgrace, with agony of several days and final death in the most cruel form. Thus in Egypt, the cross was the emblem of royalty. In the Roman Empire, it was of death and disgrace with a grim congruity. As the fasces or bundle of rods were carried on by the lictors before the Roman Consuls and Imperators, as insignia of supreme rule, and of authority to punish; so seems the Roman cross to have meant rule and punishment, as did the shepherd's staff and rod; and thus the same emblem meant dominion to the master, and death to the subjugated, the rebel and the culprit. To such a death, Jesus of Nazareth was condemned, and as mentioned, an inscriptive tabula affixed over his head:
"Jesus of Jazareth, King of the Jews," to show the omnipotence of Rome, and her avenging any attempt at rebellion.

As to the Christian religion, this very death now became its great turn-point and actual crisis. As that death gave to its bearer the crown of martyrdom according to some, and of Messiah-ship, according to others, and as slowly the trinitarian doctrine made that very death the great pivot and pedestal of divinity, the crux, the instrument of his death, could not but become an endeared and hallowed sign of the Christ or of the martyr. And as slowly that martyr became the acknowledged founder of a great religion, the sign of the cross could but grow in importance, and became the symbol thereof Yet, as in the history of all religious symbolism, so here, many rivers united to make up at last the one mighty stream and boundary line, between nations and zones. The crux, endeared by the passion of the teacher, had in Egypt acquired, for milleniums before, a holy significance of power and dominion. It was there revered as the symbol of divine and of human authority. For a thousand years or more, nations were wont to fall prostrate before it, as the insignia of supreme dignity. Here the two streams of thought and feeling joined. The Hebrew and Syrian followers of Jesus saw in the crux the martyrdom of their teacher, who had lived so purely and so grandly, had aimed so highly and nobly and had died so magnanimously, as the fit seal and close of such a far-reaching career, and lofty aspiring existence. Those of his followers looking up to him as a great teacher, or those later adoring in him the divine Messiah, the God incarnate, both parties correctly saw in his death the necessary seal and complement of his teachings. Only by his martyrdom could he have acquired over his disciples and followers that ascendency, which stamped him forever as a leading religious era. Hence, the cross symbolizing that crisis, could but become endeared unto them. But it was the Egyptian significance of that emblem, probably two thousand years older, added to the contemporaneous one enacted on Golgotha, which gave it its climax and lasting import, as the symbol of the faith in him who had died on the cross to atone for men, and since has been raised to supreme religious importance. Thus joined in that moment two different streams of thought indissolubly fused in later religious history. In the feeling of the believer, the crux became the altar upon which the hostia was offered, and at the same time the pedestal from which he arose to his historical and mystical importance. The cross is thus the symbol and memento of both these phases.

How solemn and far-reaching, how instructive, and how witty the history of religious forms and ideas sometimes proves! The present Christian cross, the emblem of the staunch Trinitarians, may be a derivation from the staff of the patriarch Jacob! Four thousand years before our own times, the sire of Israel may have considered with the same reverence the crux immissa as the present Christian devotee, and bowed to it as the insignia of authority, as the invocation to deity, as the pledge of good faith, passing from him dying, into the hands of Joseph and Ephraim, his successors. If so, the cross may be considered as an emblem coming from hoary antiquity, derived from the Hebrew patriarchs and symbolizing at last, after many vicissitudes, again the authority of a Hebrew initiator!

A great deal has been said about the patriarchal staff*. The Mishna in Pirke Aboth (v. 6) claims it to have been created on the first Friday of the creation week, conjointly with other nine wonderful things there enumerated. Agadoth, Midrashim and mystics claim it to have come down from Adam, the first man, to have been the heirloom of the ten patriarchs and generations between Adam and Noah of the deluge; — further the heirloom of the ten sires and generations between Noah and Abraham. It passed then to Isaac, to Jacob and to Moses; then it split into twelve or thirteen rods, each one heading a tribe of the descendants of Israel, each called in Hebrew: Shebet, tribe, rod, or staff*. Shebet was emphasized and lengthened into Sharbit, identical with our modern word: Sceptre] each of the thirteen tribes of Jacob having its nassiy prince, or sceptered ruler; that wonderful patriarchal staff may turn out to be the father of the crux, especially the high cross of Christendom, the symbol of the religious dominion of one of the Patriarch's late descendants whom religious history has given such a vast celebrity and mysticism such a grand significance.

Blessing of Ephraim and Manasse.

The Chap. 48 of Genesis narrates how the patriarch Jacob, on his death-bed, was visited by his son Joseph and his two grand-children, Manasse and Ephraim. The two, tradition claims, to have been adopted by the sire as his own, as two tribes of the twelve, to take precedence over Reuben who had forfeited his privilege of primogeniture; hinting at the favorite position of Joseph's mother, Rachel, who had been the original choice of Jacob and who entailed her privilege upon her descendants. Placing thus Joseph before Reuben, there remained yet the choice between Ephraim and Manasse, to whom the primogeniture should belong. The chapter 48 in Genesis brings now the hoary tradition that Joseph placed his two sons in such a way before his half-blind father, as to secure the right hand of the sire upon Manasse's head, and the left one upon Ephraim's; the right-hand-imposition symbolizing the investiture, the instalment as the future leader of the nation. Curious, the symbolical laying of hands, Semicha, as the carrying of the tribal staff or sceptre, is hoary and to be found as a well-known, venerable rite, in the patriarchal age already! Now look. The Ephraimitic chronicler of that tradition claims that Jacob refused that arrangement of Joseph. Manasse was naturally the firstborn; yet the privilege of primogeniture the patriarch wished to confer upon the younger, Ephraim. Just as he, Jacob himself, was the second-born, yet he had obtained the first blessing from Isaac. Just so Reuben was his own first-born, yet Joseph was preferred to him; even so was Manasse, the first-born, nevertheless passed over in favor of Ephraim, the younger.

How does the chronicler substantiate his tradition? The patriarch, in conferring the blessing of investiture, laid his hands crossways; we read: "Israel stretched forth his right hand and put it upon the head of Ephraim, who was the younger; and his left hand he put upon the head of Manasse, intentionally did he cross his hands, though Manasse was, naturally, the firstborn." This crossing ("hands is expressed in Hebrew by the word SickelyJ) which some claim as meaning: intentionally; others again as meaning: placing obliquely y crossing in the shape of a crux decussata (x). Now, I would not be surprised if a bold philologist would claim the Hebrew Sickel to be simply identical with the Latin crux and the English cross, and of the same root and derivation, the consonants in both being the same, viz: s, k, 1=3b?, r and 1, as liquidae, interchanging. But whatever the etymology, all commentators agree that the meaning is: Jacob crossed his hands, in conferring his last blessing, which blessing gave the investiture of princely dignity. Now, to me it is simply of an archaeological interest. It shows that the act of crossing on solemn occasions may be a hoary custom, that laying of hands, Semicha, and laying crosswise, is of the earliest antiquity, and that is interesting as an evolution of rites and views.

Altars and Stelae.

Genesis 33, 17, narrates: The patriarch Jacob came happily — Shalcm — to the city of Sichem, bought there a piece of ground, "erected there an altar and called it God, the God of Israel." The commentators felt the difficulty of the verse, strongly reminding of polytheistic habits. They tried their hand at palliating the hard verse. Now this difficulty is much increased, when we remember that the verb vajazeb, he erected, does not tally with misbeachy(*) altar. To that belongs the

verb vaiben and he built, for the first expresses in Hebrew, to erect one single block. Hence it is apparent, there stood, originally, vajazeb mazeba{) he erected a style, a memorial column, and called it: "God of Israel." This was the language of polytheistic times. The last redactor of such documents, realizing that the monotheistic ear and taste may feel unpleasant at such pre-Mosaic expressions savoring of idol-worship, sacrificed grammar and chronology to theology, and with one stroke of his style made out of mazeba, style or pillar, misbeach, altar, and left the rest to the ingenuity of the reader.
Some eighteen years ago I made that guess. A friend in New York found the guess a happy one. I am yet in possession of his letter. Later, Dr. Geiger dying, and his posthumous works having been published, confirmed my hypothesis, — reminding me of the proverb of old: "Long ago thy teachers have anticipated thee."
As to whether that mazeba or memorial column of old may not be a derivation from and identified with the spoken-of patriarchal staff and the later crux, that may be guessed, but not positively affirmed, as the intermediate links identifying them are missing. Anyhow, all three are insignia of authority and are derived from the same root.
Similar Parallels.
Genesis 32, 2, narrates, that Jacob, parting from Laban, met angels of God. Perceiving them, he said: This is a host of gods, in Hebrew mahneh elohim, literally a camp of gods, which name was contracted into Machnaim. Genesis 31, 45, but more emphatically verse 13, narrates, that Jacob had anointed a pillar or style, which he dedicated to: The God of Baith-El. "To whom thou didst anoint a style," was probably originally: "Thou didst erect."

There, too, we find the erection of pillars connected with vows and sacrifices as general rites and modes of worship.
Laban's Tiieraphim and Penates.

Genesis 31, 19, narrates of Rachel stealing the Theraphim of Laban, her father. These were the Penates of ancient Heathen times. They, too, prove the analogy of religious rights and views in apparently vastly different epochs, creeds and races.
The Theraphi?n play an important part in the ancient mythologies of the East and West. Severely forbidden by the Mosaic law, they nevertheless held their place among ancient Israel. To all appearance, they were the very origin of worship. They corresponded to our modern photographs, images, busts and statues of ancestors, kindred, and leading public personalities, kept sacred as heir-looms from generation to generation. With the moderns, these are simple mementoes, tokens of reverence and dear recollections, or of personal pride, held as testimonies of the importance and the antiquity of our race. With the ancients, they were more; they meant veneration and worship, identical with idolatry. They were considered as the protecting genii of the family, betokening health, sustenance, comfort and safety. That Theraphim-worship shows clearly that Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory on that head is correct, viz: that worship and divine service originated in and began with ancestor-worship, with sacrifices and tears on the tombs of deceased sires and kindred,' later carried over to the altars of the gods.
With the extension of the family, the tribe and their conquests, these sires lost their character of simple parents, and gradually assumed that of genii or gods; from the household, they were imagined to have been transferred to dwell in the skies. Numerous allusions are found in Greek and Roman writings about kindred worships, the Senates and the Lares of the classical nations. These, too, were the tutelar genii of ancient families and gens, superintending the domestic provisions or the store-room, th pensus or the celLapenaria. They were either images, paintings or sculptures adorning the humble hearth of our ancestors or their fanes, as now pictures decorate our own drawing-rooms and churches. They were considered the gods of safety, sustenance and propagation of the family and the tribe. The Penates and the Lares were soon considered as identical. There were private and public penates, viz: genii of the family, the city or state, or tribal divine ancestors. In this latter capacity they were represented as armed youths with drawn swords, custodians of the state, akin to the Hebrew "Cherubim, guarding paradise with flaming swords."Rome claiming its origin from -neas of Troy, pretended also to be in possession of the Troyan penates brought by him from that doomed city: "The hero, son of Venus, carries upon his shoulders his father and the sacred objects of cult, a venerable burden." These penates and lares are identical with the Semitic Theraphun. As the first are superintending the propagation, sustenance and safety of the family, the clan and the city, even so are the Theraphim. Some claim that its root is rapha, to heal, save. It may rather be derived from tereph , meaning food, nourishment and prey, the slightly different spelling not being much in the way of such an ancient and obscure etymology.
Now, that Theraphim-cult is of hoary antiquity and universal, -neas, as mentioned by Roman tradition, introduced jt from Troy into his new kingdom in Italy, which penates were for long centuries kept there as the national palladium. Rachel stole them of her father Laban to consecrate the hearth of her new home in Canaan.
Laban, her father, the Aramean Sheikh, was especially angered that he had been robbed of that precious family treasure. The way how Rachel showed reverence to her father and her gods is interesting, too, and Jacob hid them under the tree! — The tribe of Dan in search of new homes, brought there the Theraphim with the oracle stolen of Micha. Michal, the wife of David, contrives to save her husband from imminent death by placing upon his couch these protecting Theraphim (*). These Theraphim are found in the Jewish household, among the other idolatries, to the end nearly, of the first Empire (*). Sachariah complains (*): "Behold, the Theraphim talked nonsense and the astrologers dreamt lies, therefore they passed away like sheep, for there was no shepherd." So Ezekiel (*) taunts the king of Babel that he enquired at the Theraphim on a crossway, which way to go. Samuel denounces them severely (•). Pirke de R. Eliezer (36) gravely expounds: "They killed a first-born man, embalmed his head and under his tongue they put a golden leaf, impregnated with powerful charms. That was the Theraphim which gave answers when questioned by the wizard." In fact the Theraphim and penates are the ancestral idolatry of Mr. Herbert Spencer's fine theory.
We read in Gen. 32, 25: Jacob, alone in the night, wrestles with a mysterious man, till the morning-dawn. In the morning his name is changed into Israel, which place Jacob calls (Peniel, "for there I have seen God face to face," etc.
All this shows how religious forms and ideas are current among all nations and . times, creeds and races, names and claims notwithstanding, practiced in the patriarchal family just as much as among their countrymen. The fact that the Israelites in the wilderness insisted and obtained from Aaron the erection of the Golden Calf or Apis, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they had largely practiced that Apis-Cult in Egypt, just as the rest of the Egyptians. It required an evolution of long centuries to wean them from that mode of worship, since it was kept up by the kings of Israel to the very end of that kingdom. It is but Mosaism which (in Deuteronomy xvi, 21, etc.,) prohibits it
(1)   Judges 18, 17. (2) I Samuel 19, 13. (3) II Kings 23, 24. (4) Sachariab 10, 2. (5) Ezekiel 21, 26. (6) I Samuel 15, 23.

as a remnant of idolatry: "Thou shalt not plant thee an Asherah, a holy tree, near God's altar, nor erect a pillar or style, all which God hates" — as Heathen practices.

Abraham and the Three Angels.

Let us look to another biblical tradition from hoarj times, illustrating the same theory, viz: the similarity of supernatural views and religious rites. In Genesis 18, such a sweet, hoary tale is remembered of father Abraham, "how he was sitting at the door of his tent, during the day's heat. And behold, three strangers were close by, whom he went to meet, inviting them to enter and insisting upon their accepting his hospitality. Hospitality was a salient virtue in antiquity. Good men were always depicted as being hospitable; bad ones as being unfriendly to strangers; just such views we find in Homer's poems, Ilias and Odysseus. Said i8th chapter introduces us into the very innermost penetralia of the patriarch's house, telling with a charming simplicity, how himself and his wife Sarah busied themselves to prepare the repast for the guests. Are they human, angelic, divine? no matter! Yahveh himself is one of them. In verses 3 and 18, the Massorah insists upon that.

They are gods, yet they need a shelter and rest, they hunger and thirst. The repast is prepared; the divine guests eat of it and enjoy it; the gods are ever grateful for sacrifices. They bless the patriarchal couple and promise them a son, diough at a hoary age, for Yahveh can do anything he pleases. An heir to perpetuate his name is the greatest blessing to an Arabian Sheikh. Nay, more, Yahveh will hide nothing from his favorite prophet, his appointed teacher, and in whom all the earthly nations shall be blessed. Thus he tells him that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, for their great iniquity. Among their worst sins are reckoned their lack of respect and kindness to strangers and to women; this is, by the way, a salient and most sure characteristic of barbarism. It is ever a safe criterion 'if the degree of a peoples' civilization, viz: how they behave towards strangers and women. Now, Abraham feels ill at heart and most charmingly he intercedes with Yahveh, as with a Russian Czar or a Turkish (Pasha. Yahveh is gracious and accommodating. So Abraham slyly increases his benevolent intercessions, bargaining down from fifty righteous men to ten, which ten would save the cities from their doom. "No doubt, the conception of deity and of human goodness is immensely superior to those of Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus, Virgil and Ovid; nay, even to those of more recent ages. Nevertheless, every one will concede that they are withall, too naive and crude, to come up to the standard of prophetic spirituality; though the Massorah insists that

Yahveh there is the holy One of Mosaism.
Loth and his Wife — Baucis and Philomon.

Two out of the three divine visitors to Abraham forthwith call on Loth at the gates of Sodom. Out of respect for the Supreme Being, the chapter introduces but two angels. Throughout its entire verses, they are called angels — M alack — nowhere Yahveh. Yet, in two places, they are addressed as: Adonai, Lord. One of the two places, verse i8, !ci' Massorah claims it to be holy, viz: identical with Yahveh. The first time, in verse 2, it is profane, viz: simply. Lord, angel, because it is spelled Adonai in the usual plural form and could thus not be applied to the one Supreme Deity, in the monotheistic sense. No doubt, originally, both were spelled Yahveh. The last redaction spelled it Adonai, to spare the delicate monotheistic ear of later times.

Loth, as Abraham, is hospitable to strangers. Such kindness is deemed the sure token of superior goodness. Loth rises before them and bows deeply to them. Prayingly he offers them hospitality, and insists upon their acceptance of his humble tent. The Sodomites are riotous during the night and about to illuse him and his guests. But the angels are a match for these rioters who are miraculously worsted. Thereupon Loth and his family are brought out of the doomed city, and bid to hasten away for their lives, while the place and its wicked inhabitants are destroyed by fire and brimstone, viz: by a volcanic eruption and submersion. The Dead Sea is now in its stead.

Loth alone and his two daughters are saved, (Genesis 19). Now, Ovid, the Roman poet, has a striking analogon to the above tradition. It is the charming idyl of Baucis and Philomon (Ovid, Metamorphosae viii, 613). It reads thus, in free translation from the text:

Baucis and Philomon.

The son of Ixion is a sceptic. He claims, that the gods are not so all-powerful as to give and retire at will the forms of created beings. His hearers are dumbstruck at his audacious disbelief. Lelix, a ripe and experienced man, reverentially refutes him. "The power of the gods is infinite and without limit. Anything they want is accomplished. That thou, Ixionides, mayest not doubt it, learn that on the hills of Phrygia there is an oak, near a lime-tree, in a place surrounded by a low wall. I, myself, have seen the place. Not far from that, there is a lake, once an inhabited region, now the sojourn of the birds of the swamps. There, Jupiter had come in the guise of a mortal, and with him his son Mercurius, the latter having taken off his wings. They knocked at a thousand doors, asking a place for some rest. A thousand doors closed against them. (They were inhospitable, just as the Sodomites; inhospitality being the characteristic of barbarism). One door, at last, opened to receive them cordially. It was, indeed, but a humble, narrow door, covered with swamp-weeds. There dwelt old, pious Baucis, fearing the gods, and Philomon, of the same age as Baucis, her worthy spouse. United in that cabin since their youth, they grew there old together. They were not ashamed of their poverty, which they bore without pain. Do not look out in that hut either for master or for servant. The two compose all their household. They both obey and they both command. When the gods had reached the modest habitation (penates) and, bending their heads, had passed the lowly door, the old man offers them chairs and invites them to rest their tired limbs. (The gods are thus assulned as sublimized physical beings, accessible to fatigue, etc). The hostess, Baucis, had hastily thrown a coarse cloth over the seats. Then she discards the yet warm ashes of the preceding day from the hearth, re-kindles the fire thereon and with her weak breath blows it up into a bright flame. Throwing thereon a thousand chips of wood from the dry branches collected, she places on the fire a small iron vessel to prepare the meal. Therein she puts fresh green vegetables which her spouse had just culled in the garden. Philemon, Avith a fork of two prongs, detaches the back of a smoked pig hanging down the wall, cuts off a small slice of that precious delicacy and has it boiled in the water seething in the caldron. Of course, in the mean time, to shorten the while of waiting, they entertain their guests as well as they can. A little basin hanging on a peg, is filled with warm water and the guests bathe their feet therein. (So, too, do Abraham and Loth's guests). In the middle of the hut stands a couch. That is covered with a carpet, specially reserved for the holidays. The gods rest upon it. The old woman, all eagerness and bustle, the dress pinned up, sets the table. One leg thereof is too short. A piece of a broken pot underneath makes it even. Then the table is scoured and wiped off. She then places thereon several kinds of olives, some vegetables, some cheese with half-boiled eggs; all in earthen vessels. The hot dishes are brought up. A pitcher and cups of the same precious material are placed there, too, with wine, not of great age. After this round, there come some nuts, wild figs and dates, some prunes and apples of fine flavor, filling large baskets with some raisins, plucked from purple vines. A piece of honey is not missing. But above all that, there are the kindly smiles of the hosts and their good will, which makes one forget their poverty.

"But marvel and wonder! The naive couple discover that the wine pitcher is constantly and again filling up whenever it is emptied! Wondering at that prodigy."

Baucis and Philemon are seized with trembling, and begin praying. They pray and excuse themselves at the simplicity of the repast and their modest hospitable preparations. Now, they were possessors but of one * goose, the guardian of their lowly hut. They now make ready to sacrifice it to the gods, their guests. But the sceptic, obstinate goose is not willing, viz: to die. Using both its feet and its wings, it tires out its old persuers, heavy with aee. The fatigueing chase goes on for some time. At last the bird takes refuge with the immortals themselves who graciously forbid to kill it: "We are gods, they say, and your wicked neighbors will bear the punishment they deserve! ye alone will be spared. But leave at once your dwelling, follow us and come with us to the top of the mountain." (Loth, too, is shown thereto by the angels); they obey. Preceded by the immortals, and leaning upon their sticks, they with difficulty ascend the mountain.

   No farther from the summit, than the distance of a bow-shot in its passage, they turn back their eyes and behold: the Avhole country is underwater. Their cabin alone remained erect. Dumbstruck at that prodigy, they deplore the destiny of their . neighbors, Avhen behold! their old hut, once top narrow for its two masters, is changed into a vast temple. In place of its former wooden posts, there stand marble columns. The hut becomes golden, of gold glitters the roof. The doors are artistically carved and chiseled, and the floor is paved with marble. Then the son of Saturn addresses them thus, benignly: "Tell me, ye righteous old man, and worthy wife of such a spouse, tell me what do you desire?" Philemon whispers a moment to Baucis, then he declares to the immortals their joint wish: "We ask to be the priests and guardians of your temple, and since we have hved in constant union, grant, that the same moment take us both away; cause that I should never see the funeral-pile of my spouse, nor that she ever lowers me into the tomb."

   Their wishes were fulfilled. They became the guardians of the temple, as long as they breathed. Once upon a time, fatigued by age, near one anqther on the steps of the altar, rehearsing the narrative of that event above mentioned, Baucis remarked that Philemon is being covered all over with leaves; whilst Philemon perceived Baucis undergoing the same metamorphosis. The summits of the two trees are already growing over their faces and heads, yet as long as they can, they speak to each other: " Good-bye, dear husband," "Good-bye, dear wife; " are their last words, and the bark finally covered both their faces at the same time. The inhabitant of Tyane shows yet in that region two trunks near one another, formed of their bodies. Wreaths of flowers are hanging down from the branches, and I myself, have added some garlands, saying: "Pious mortals are the objects of the solicitude of the immortals. Those who have honored the gods, are honored in their turn." So spoke Lelux to the incredulous Ixionides and their hearers"

It appears that a similar tradition was here the source of the biblical writer and of the Roman poet. Loth with his wife and Philemon with Baucis, bear a striking parallelism, and the differences, too, are interesting and instructive. The tradition, as told by the Semitic, monotheistic Avritcr, is in plain words and a matter of fact. He teaches God, righteousness and punishment for wrong-doing. Heathen gods become angels, i. e. forces, divine messengers. They execute the decree of God, the sole judge of the world. The Latin poet gives free rein to his fancy. He is an artist; the Semitic one is more theologian, preacher and moralist. Both legends describe the inhabitants as sinful and wicked. In both, the criterion thereof is inhospitality, or foreigner-hatred; from primitive times onwards to our present ones, the sure sign of barbarism is foreigner-hatred. In both the above tales are the workings of nature represented as personal, and from the ethical standpoint as the result of the wickedness of men and their punishment by Superior Wisdom. Loth and his daughters ran away to the mounts. So do Philemon and Baucis. A concrete, definite, historical occurrence of a fearful nature, a geological catastrophe appears to be at the bottom of either legend. An earth-quake, a volcanic eruption, a sinking of the ground, a submersion of the adjacent lakes and rivers, and the rise of a new, permanent sea was the result in both tales.

In the Hebrew narrative, the event is told plainly, with the least of the marvelous. In the Ovidian one, all the popular and miraculous is retained, and fresh poetry added by the sweet lyre and the unbridled license of the Roman poet. He is aiming at the beautiful and the amusing; the Hebrew writer, at the true, the sublime, the moral. In both is taught the lesson of divine punishment for human wickedness. The Hebrew narrative is distinctly a remembrance of the geological revolution, the volcanic eruptions, the mighty conflagrations, the subterraneous fires breaking forth, distracting and changing in an awful catastrophe the surface of the doomed region. It even hints at the luxuriance of the soil, as the source of men's wickedness.

The Roman myth obliterates the natural catastrophe entirely. The more prodigy, the better. But at the expense of truth and probability, it beautifies the myth with a luxuriance of poetic exaggeration. Yet, there too, is visible the pious intention of extolling the omnipotence of the Deity and of Providence to punish human ruthlessness and violence.

A witty trait in the Hebrew version is the fact of Loth's wife being turned into a pillar of salt for her disobedience or unbelief. As witty is in the Ovidian tale the fact that the region turns to water or to a swamp — merza palude — probably in punishment for the bad wine offered to Jupiter, which the poet takes care not to forget — nee longae rursus referuntur vina senectae. The death of Baucis and Philemon at the same instant, metamorphosed into an oak and a lime-tree, is the most beautiful trait of poetical invention, and is contrived to cover the gap of Loth's wife turned into a pillar of salt. In one feature is Ovid's myth superior to the biblical tradition, viz: Baucis and Philemon are nobler than Loth and his wife. Indeed, the first couple are as fine a creation as ever fiction has invented. Whilst Loth and his wife have not too much to be remembered for, besides their hospitality and kindness to strangers. The bible itself, vindicates to them little character. She is sceptical and therefore turned into a pillar of salt. He is depicted in the very same chapter under colors not very creditable. Indeed, he has in the Hebrew saga a most unsavory reputation for disorderly conduct. "Drunk as Loth," is a common proverb. Where from, then, has Ovid taken his pure picture of Philemon and Baucis? This portrait, apparently, was that of Abraham and Sarah. Eastern traditions, no doubt, brought down the memory of both these couples to posterity. The biblical narrater honestly distinguishes and mentions them both. The Roman poet creates out of the two couples his one charming idyl of Baucis and Philemon, caring for beauty, not for the historical truth of the facts. This will prove everywhere to be the criterion between myth and bible legend. The latter aims at truth, the former at poetry.

The parallel between bible and poetry, too, goes to show the correctness of our theory on religious rites and views. The same material of forms and ideas are current among all peoples and creeds, differently elaborated according to respective conditions of education, clime, history, etc.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:54:40 PM

Samson, Hercules and Meleagros.

An interesting analogy, with parallels and contrasts, views and conceptions between polytheism and monotheism, are the heroic Sagas about the Judaean Shimshon, or Samson, and the myths of Meleagros and Hercules, or Herakles, of Greek antiquities. In Judges 13 we read of the first, Samson, of the tribe of (Dan, whose birth the angel of Yahveh had announced to his expectant parents, bidding them to rear him up as a Jazirite, in Levitical purity, without intoxicants, his hair never to be cut, and who was to become the savior of Israel from the Philistine oppressors. The youthful, impulsive Samson marries a Philistine woman, and is betrayed by her. He then allies himself to another Philistine girl, while at deadly enmity and in continual strife with her nationality. He performs prodigious deeds of valor and heroism. At last he is betrayed by his faithless mistress and shorn of his locks, delivered over to the Philistine princes; both his eyes are torn out and he is compelled to grind corn in a mill. After some time his hair has grown again and he recovers his strength. He is brought to the Heathen temple and mocked by an immense crowd of his enemies, when he pulls . down the two central columns of the house sustaining its roof, with the shout: "Yahveli, remember me! Strengthen me but for this time and let me have revenge for my two eyes blinded."— The temple-roof collapses and the thousands of his enemies, and he himself, are buried under the ruins.

The name of that hoary hero is Shintshon, which Dr. Steinthal has ingeniously identified with the mythological sun-god — shemesh in Hebrew means sun — Phoebus or Sol. He suggests that that Hebrew episode or saga is an abstract of the Greek myth about Hercules. That well known myth is of the following tenor: Herakles — Hercules or Alcides, is the son of Zeus and Alcmena, the most celebrated, most virtuous and most heroic among the Greek heroes. His career of adventure and wrecklessness turned three times into actual madness. He was to be born as the head of the house of Perseus in Thebes. But the ire of Hera frustrated him in that by having Erystheus born before him. Fate thus compelled him to submit to the orders of that prince, who imposed upon him ten — later twelve — "labors," requiring prodigious strength and self-sacrifice. One of them was that he strangled a lion with his bare hands. He married twice; first Megare, whose children he killed in a fit of frenzy, and whom he, later, gave away to a friend. He vanquished and carried away a mad bull, and later also the hell-dog, Cerberus, upon his shoulders. Samson carried only the city-gates to the mountain-top. — Hercules then married Dejanira, who learns from the centaur Nessus to prepare a lovepotion for her unsteady husband. Soon she is jealous of a rival and sends to her fickle hero a white robe impregnated with that poisonous love-philter. Putting it on, Hercules feels the poison penetrating his person. He tears it off his body, but with his flesh sticking to it. He finds relief only on the funeral-pile. That burning pile, with his body, is lifted up and carried to heaven, amidst thunder and lightning. There Hercules becomes a god and — marries Hebe.

Expounders of that myth are divided in their interpretations. Some, following Mr. H. Spencer's theory, that the mythological gods are apotheosized heroes and princes, count several such Herculeses or popular leaders, whose feats of arms were later attributed to one single personage. Others, especially. Professor Max Mueller, interpret it astronomically: "Hercules is the Sun-god, and the legend of his death symbolizes the sun-set. . . . The coat which Dejanira sends to her solar hero, are the clouds which rise from the waters and surround the sun like a dark raiment This fierce
splendor breaks through the gloom. . . fiery mists embrace him, mingled with his parting rays till all is consumed in a general conflagration."

Now, this allegory of Hercules — Sun-god, the ingenious Dr. Steinthal finds again in the Hebrew Saga of Shimshon. I have not at hand that essay(*) and did not read it, hence I cannot judge of it. Besides, it is out of my range of reasoning. I shall rather dwell upon the parallel between Hercules and Samson, leaving the astronomical trait out of the question. No doubt, there are between them striking similitudes and strong contrasts, corresponding to great affinities and oppositions between monotheism and polytheism. Herakles is of miraculous birth; he is born for dominion; he is persecuted by the ire of jealous Hera; his simplicity is often overreached. He is often subject to fits of madness. He is twice married, and both times unhappily so. He gives away his first wife. He tears a lion with his own hands; he carries on his shoulders a furious bull, and later the dog Cerberus. Many more labors he performs, prodigies of valor. He vanquishes hosts of enemies. He dies grandly, tragically, poisoned by the arts of his wife, tearing off his flesh with his own hands. He is the most celebrated, virtuous and foolish of Greek heroes, executing the most marvelous feats and deeds of fabulous mythology.

The following is a string of parallels between the two heroes, the Greek and the Semitic one. Hercules is the son of Zeus. Shimshon's advent is miraculous, announced by a heavenly angel. Hercules was to head the house of Perseus; Shimshon to lead the Israelites against the Philistines. Hercules is frustrated and pursued by the ire of Hera; Shimshon is so by the incessant wars against the enemies of his country. Hercules and Shimshon are, each, twice married, and twice unhappily coupled. Hercules tears a lion with his bare hands; just so does Shimshon. Hercules carries the bull and the hell-dog upon his shoulders; Shimshon does so the city-gates on topof the mountain in Hebron. Hercules is subject to frenzy; Shimshon is at least to great folly. Both remind of Voltaire: "Happy their country had it then a madhouse." Both vanquish fabulous hosts of enemies. Hercules abandons his first wife to his friend; Shimshon loses her in the same manner. Hercules is poisoned by the arts and the fatal gift of Dejanira; Shimshon is betrayed and handed over to the Philistines by the tricks of Delila, his mistress. Hercules dies in agony and despair; his flesh is torn away with his poisoned state-robe, finding relief only on the funeral-pile. Shimshon is blinded and enslaved through love and treason; he, too, finds relief and escape only in death, under die ruins of the collapsing temple. Hercules from the funeral-pile is raised to heaven and deified. Shimshon dies with a prayer to Yhvh on his lips, which prayer is granted as a consolation in his desperate condition.
Also the contrasts between the two heroes are obvious. They are essentially the contrasts between and the results of monotheism and polytheism. Both are the same and identical character, expressed, there in Greek, mythologic language, and here in Hebrew, ethical language; there in the poetry and imagery of exuberant, infantine fancy, and here in the sobriety of maturer manhood. Hercules is the son of Zeus; Samson is of human parents, naturally born, but specially beholden by the Deity. Hercules is pursued by supernatural forces; Samson by socio-political agents, the enmity between Philistines and Benai-Israel. Samson tears up, lifts out and carries away the city-gates. Hercules vanquishes and carries away the guardian of hades. Hercules is enraged over Megara and murders his own and her children; Samson, disappointed over his mistress, simply forsakes her. Dejanira learns of a Centaur the dangerous art of retaining the affections, and poisons her husband by her mistaken jealousy. Delila delivers hers to torture and death, induced by the Philistine money and by misplaced patriotism. Hercules dies theatrically, esthetically, on the funeral-pile. Samson dies heroically, crushing his enemies in his fall. Hercules is apotheosized and re-married in heaven. Samson is carried to his grave, leaving an honorable name in history. Hercules, thus, is the child of mythology; Samson is of monotheism.

Eve and Pandora.

Bible and myth may yet aim at conveying to the reader another lesson. Both may intend to illustrate the Asiatic view, that great men fall by the snares and the selfishness of women; or say, simply, that the strong nature of man loses through his alliance with the Aveakness of woman. Bible and mythology may here reecho and reflect that hoary, oriental view, as represented in the allegories of the "box of Pandora and Eve's apple,"that through woman comes evil upon man. So are Dejanira and Delila the immediate cause of the tragic fate of Hercules and of Samson. But here, again, the bible differentiates from the Greek myth, just as Eve is superior to Pandora. The bible intimates that Samson fell because he twice allied himself to a Philistine, foreign woman. This misgiving of those times is even uttered by the parents of the young hero. While in the Greek myth the condemnation is unqualified, sweeping, unmitigated. Megara and Dejanira are Greeks of the bluest blood; yet both render their husbands miserable, just as intimated in the Pandora-myth. Here is the crude, oriental, hoary view of the radical badness of womankind. The bible is in great advance over that biased stand-point. Not woman, intrinsically, is bad, but the hastily and frivolously matched one, the unsympathetical Philistine one is so. (Ruth was a happy choice, though a Moabite! Woman, sympathetic, carefully selected, well suited, is man's help-mate, friend and blessing. Such is the meaning of Eve, "the mother of all living," in Genesis ii.

Between Hercules and Samson thre is a wide gap, the distance between myth and sober history. The galaxy of Greek heroes offers the fit middle link, standing half-way between those two. It is the myth of Meleagros of Calydon, his wife and his mother. Let us quote it here according to Ovid (liber viii, 267, etc.)
   The goddess Diana is irritated against the city of Calydon, having been neglected and passed over at the late distribution of offerings there. She sends out a monstrous wild boar to devastate city and country, trample down the harvests and butcher the flocks. No one is secure against the fury of that prodigious beast, larger than the largest bull. . . . (verse 298, etc.) The people flee in all directions, finding refuge only behind the citywalls. Meleagros and his companions undertake to fight the monster. These hunters are the fathers of the heroes later illustrated in Colchis and at the Siege of Troy. Meleagros is the hero and Atlanta the heroine of that daring band. Flushed with the hopes of victory and of glory, they engage in the chase of that wild boar. For long it is doubtful and arduous. Many die; more are wounded, others flee. The virgin, Atlanta, first succeeds in aiming an arrow at the body of the monster; but without much result (verse 411, etc.) Meleagros is fortunate at last in fixing his arrow deep into the back of the boar, and then thrusts his spear straight into its breast. The monster rolls in his gore and all the hunters dart their spears into his body; he succumbs. Meleagros, putting his foot upon the boar's head, exclaims: "O Atlanta! take this spoil that belongs to me, and participate in my glory," offering to her the head of the beast with its terrible teeth, of enormous length. Atlanta is charmed with the giver and with the gift.
   But his companions feel humiliated by that. They are indignant at his having designated a girl as the partner of his victory. They find therein but the partiality of a lover. His two uncles, feeling the same, shout in a loud voice: "Woman, do not touch these spoils, usurp not an honor that is ours! Let thy beauty not render thee too confiding. He who presents thee with that gift is infatuated with love; he cannot defend thee against our vengeance!" Meleagros, beside himself with rage at this insult to himself and his beloved one, pierces with his javelin the two brothers of his mother. . . .
   (Verse 445). Althee, queen of Calydon, the mother, is occupied with offering gifts to the gods for the victory of her son, when she beholds the dead bodies of her brothers brought home . . . Soon she learns who was their murderer . . . She cries not, she but thinks of avenofinof them . . . There was a branch of wood which the Three (Parcae-Sisters had put upon the fire when she, Althee, had given birth to Meleagros, spinning with their hands the thread of his destiny, saying: Infant just born, the days that we give thee shall last as long as this block of wood will!" — Hastily the mother retired
the burning wood from the fire; hiding it carefully, for she knows that upon that depends the life of her son . . . She now takes forth that charred branch, orders to pile up wood and fire; the murderous flames rise in the air; four times she is about placing the brand upon the fire, four times she tarries; the mother and the sister struggle in her bosom; they draw her heart in opposite directions. Many a time she pales, then again she reddens. Soon her face is terrible and threatening, soon again it is betokening pity. Her tears are dried up with anger; yet she finds fresh tears. Like a ship impelled by a current and by a wind contrary to one another, even so are her feelings. She is irresolute. Yet gradually the sister obtains the master' over the mother. She will appease blood by blood; she is impious from piety! "Let this funeral-pile consume that son of my womb. Ye threefold divinities presiding over chastisements, Eumenides, here is a sacrifice worthy of you. I avenge a crime and I commit one. By death must death be expiated, murder must be added to murder. Let this house perish. Shall one father triumph and the other weep over his children! Let them both weep! Ye manes of my brothers, conceive my condition, receive this my offering that costs me so much. . . . Pardon, brothers, my hesitations. He has deserved death . . . But should I give it him! . . . But shall he go unpunished, be victorious and king of Calydon, whilst you, brothers, are a handful of ashes? No! let him perish!. . . Are such the feelings of a mother? . . . O why was he not consumed by the fire at his very birth! I saved thee then, now thou shalt die by thy default, the reward of thy crime. Twice I gave thee life . . . What shall I do now . . . It is a terrible triumph, but you shall triumph, my brothers ... I will follow you . . .
   And turning her head away, she throws with a trembling hand the brand into the flames. The brand groans; it is seized and enwrapped by the flames; it is consumed .
   (Verse 515.) Meleagros is far from that place, yet he is consumed by that same flame, unconsciously A secret fire devours his entrails . . He calls for his father, his brothers and sisters; he calls for his bride and his — mother. The flame increases, soon it weakens. He and the flame die together. His breath dissolves into the air; the fatal brand lies now in pale ashes.
The Meleagros myth is one of the most thrilling and tragic of Greek antiquity. It interests us more than the adventures of Hercules, because we feel that it is more historical and human than those fictions and fables. We feel more kindred to, and hence are we more in sympathy with it. The Hercules legend is either a popular compilation of several heroes and their different lives and deeds agglomerated into one; or, according to Professor Max Mueller, it is an allegory embodying some astronomical or naturalistic phenomena. The Meleagros tragedy is possible and plausible; it must have had real facts as its nucleus; it depicts hoary heroic society; it may well be historic, in its main features at least. That myth is, therefore, much nearer to the Samson tradition. It is half-way between that and the Hercules allegory. It is a true portrait of polytheistic society and state, citizens, women and princes, their fights, struggles, rivalries, hates, loves, bloody triumphs, crimes and disasters. The comparison between Samson and Hercules halts; the two characters have little analogy, and are clashing. So is not only Hercules-Phoebus, but even Hercules the hero. While Samson is history, idealized, exaggerated, yet history it is. Hercules is pure fiction, the Don Quixote of Greek literature, the knight-errant of ancient feudalism or heroism, with the same moral lesson. In juxtaposition to that, is Meleagros, a picture of human destiny under polytheistic social conditions.
Monotheism and Polytheism.

Upon these two subjects, Samson and Meleagros, we can better study the advance and the superiority of a monotheistic society over a mythological one. Meleagros, victor in the fierce battle against the wild boar, amiably, but imprudently offers its head to his beloved Atlahta. His comrades are inviduous; they dispute to him the spoils of victory and insult his heroine. In revenge he kills outright the offenders, the brothers of his mother; and she, actuated by the barbaric notion of bloodrevenge, believes it her duty to avenge her brothers upon her son. What a horrifying situation! The sister is arrayed against the mother! Bloodrevenge is inexorable and the mother kills her son to avenge her brothers! What a tragedy! Meleagros dies by the doings of his mother — invoking her name, in filial piety! Remorse is close by and she suicides; her house, her city, her people are buried under the same ruins — all unavoidable, all one chain of inexorable fate! — Not so desperate and cruel is the Samson story. He commits many blunders, follies and crimes — yet not to such an extent as the Greek hero. He is never so guilty and never so unfortunate. He is of the same temper and mind as the Greek. In his circumstances he would act precisely the same. But his social and ethical conditions are superior, his is comparatively a more advanced society and he can not be so criminal nor so unfortunate. Blinded, enslaved, grinding in a mill, mocked by the Philistines, he is yet never so unfortunate as his parallel Meleagros. And when he dies under the temple-ruins, triumphing over his enemies buried under the same ruins, we are reconciled to fate; we feel that history offers justice to all wrongs; that the hero often dies, but with a wreath of immortality on his brow. His death cleanses him of and atones for his faults, and he re-awakens in histor) No such satisfaction do we feel at the end of the Greek hero; he, as the spectator, feels miserable! Polytheism is pessimism; we see wrong producing wrong, in infinity. " Never is there peace to the wicked" wickedness is never consumed. Whilst the lesson of Samson is: Vice and lolly are self-destructive. Wickedness dies and man is getting better, wiser and happier. This is the optimism of monotheism.

The parallel between the two is striking. Both are the hope of their country, paragons of antique heroism, born to lead on and to save; both are generous and sympathetic, impetuous and self-willed, amorous and fickle, open-hearted and easily duped, rash in their love and hate, fearful and criminal in their revenge, endangering and forfeiting their lives by their own fierce impulsiveness; both perish through the treachery of their beloved ones, sending a thrill of sympathy into our bosoms. But the like characters are differently moulded by the diversity of their conditions and environments. The polytheistic hero is revolting in his rashness, pride and criminality. He acts, indeed, as the son of Mars or Ares, as he claims to be. He forfeits our esteem with our sympathy. We feel that even Hades will hardly give him rest from the furies, and the lesson he teaches us is pessimism! Otherwise it is with Samson, the son of a democratic society, of human parents and child of monotheism. We find him generous, heroic, foolish and reckless, as all popular heroes are. But he never kills his children, as Herakles or Meleagros, nor his uncles, he never forfeits our respect or our sympathy. With deep interest we follow him to his last catastrophe; and when he prays: "Lord, remember me; strengthen me once more, avenge me and my nation" when he himself manfully takes this revenge and dies more victorious than ever, then we feel as if the curtain of destiny is removed and we see Providence behind; we find fate to be just and wise; we become optimistic; we guess the great ethical mystery, that right is coming out all right, and that universal history is universal justice, in the final development of events.

PERSEUS AND ATLAS AND THE LEGEND OF THE WANDERING JEW.

Another interesting analogy between legend and myth is the following: The one belongs to the cycle of
Christian Sagas; the other is ingeniously narrated by Ovid, as the preceding parallel is. That poet tells us:
"Burdened with the spoils of the monster whose hair was intertwined with snakes, Perseus, son of Jupiter, swept through the air with his noisy wings, over the plains of Libya, big drops of blood dropping down from the head of the Gorgone, engendering in the soil a thousand varieties of serpents ... He stops at the occidental coast (of Libya) where Atlas reigns. He wishes to repose there a little while until the stars of the moon would call out the fires of Aurora and the day arrives. There reigned Atlas, son of Japhet; Atlas, who surpassed all oriier mortals by his high stature. To his empire belonged the extremities of the world, as also the sea that opens its waves to the snorting horses of the sun-god . . . Perseus says to Atlas: "Dear host, if thou art mterested in the lustre of high birth, Jupiter is the father of my race; and if thou admirest great deeds, thou wilt admire mine. I ask of thee hospitality and rest."But Atlas remembers an ancient oracle predicting: "The time would come when a son of Jupiter will conquer rob and despoil thee of thy dominions, etc" . . . And Atlas, suspicious of Perseus, replies: Go from hence, or the glory of thy pretended exploits and of the blood of Jupiter would avail thee nothing . . . To this.threat he adds violence . . . The hero, hesitating to depart, tries some more words of firmness and of entreaty. Not succeeding therein and being inferior in strength to resist Atlas, Perseus says: Well, since my friendship . is of so little value to thee, receive this reward for thy hospitality; atnd turning away his own head, he presents to him the hideous face of Medusa. At this aspect the enormous body of Atlas is changed into a mount, no less enormous; his beard and hair become the forests covering it; his shoulders and arms, its mountain ridges; his head, the summit ... he develops in all directions to such proportions, — so will it the gods — that heaven and all its stars rest upon that mount."

The Greek-Christian poets changed this ingenious myth into a significant metaphorical legend: "Jesus and theEternal Jew," illustrating the part of Jesus of Nazareth, of the people of the bible, with their refusal to recognize him as the messiah and the subsequent relation of Judaism to Christianity. The poets changed but the names, all else remained. In place of Perseus, they put Jesus, either of them being the son of the Supreme; Israel had the role of Atlas — Atlas in the myth is turned into a mountain. So is Israel intimated to be doomed to eternal stay and immobility as the witness of the development of the rival daughter religion of the Old Testament. The Old Testament becomes the pedestal of the New Dispensation. Atlas, enormously expounding, becomes the pillar of the world; so is Judaism the basis of Christianity. The Christian legend alluded to is well known. It narrates: When Jesus was marching towards Calvary, panting under the burden of the cross, he passed by the house of Ahsver, whom he entreated: " Let me rest at thy door."Go, go! " was his hard answer — exactly as Atlas': " Vade procul "—Jesus entreated again, mentioning his mission and merits, as Perseus did his. But Ahsver, as Atlas, replied: Neither thy pretended glorious deeds, nor Jupiter's descent do avail thee ought. — "Ne gloria rerum quas mentiris absit longe tibi, Jupiter longe" — Thereupon dooms Jesus his hard-hearted host, Ahsver, to an eternal, never ceasing existence, as Perseus petrifies Atlas into a mountian. Yet the mountain is serving as the pillars of the heavens. So Israel, is the stay and basis of Christendom. The current opinion is that the source of the legend about Jesus and the Eternal Jew, or the Wandering Jew, is to be sought in the Gospel of John 21, 22, etc. " Jesus says: If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee! follow thou me."Then went the saying, that disciple should not die . . .
The legend was for the first time elaborated by Mattheus Parisiensis, and claimed to allude to the people of the Old Testament, scattered and dispersed all over the world, without a home, rights or friends, yet holding on to its identity and abiding its future chances. The current legend reports that the shoemaker Ahsver of Jerusalem refused to allow Jesus to rest at his door, when on his way to Golgotha. Another version claims Ahsver Cartaphilus to have been the usher of Pilate and to have maltreated Jesus after his condemnation. The "Wandering Jew" became a popular legend and was often the subject of fiction, poetry and romance by a host of writers, down to Shlegel, Lenau, Eugene Sue, etc. Without contradicting their diverse claims as to the source of the legend, I have here hinted only at the possibility of its older origin. I have shown here simply the analogies -between that religious tale and the Ovidian myth; its striking, yea, the almost identical features with the allegory of Perseus, son of Jupiter, turning Atlas into a mount to sustain the Olympos. The Christian legend, too, claims Jesus to have cursed Ahsverus, as Perseus did curse Atlas. But the idea that Jesus' last word was a curse, is decidedly contrary to his character, as also to John 21, 22. This last feature of the allegory is, no doubt, an additional trait of later mediaeval ages and their denominational prejudices.

We have tried to illustrate the original identity and the constant developments and differentiations of religious forms and views in the different creeds and sects, the world over, by many examples, as head-covering during divine service, spring or Easter celebrations, the fall and winter festivities, especially the universal messiah ideas and the historical ideals thereof, as shall be developed in the first and in the second volumes of this work; further on the traditions of the sacrifice of Isaac, the womanly heroism of Rizpha, Samson in parallel with other heroes, the patriarchal staff, the ancient pillars and stylae, the Abraham and Loth traditions, etc. But we shall now try to prove the analogy and development of even the leading ideas and institutions among the biblical people and other nations. We shall see that the God-idea, the holidays and temple-worship, priesthood and sacrifices, government, freedom, etc., followed the same law of parallelism, evolution and differentiation.

Elohim, Yiivii, Shaddai.

The very opening verse of Genesis i, i, reads: "In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth." The Deity is here designated as Elohim. The verb to it, is in the singular and we translate it by "God created." But already Midrash Rabboth remarks that Elohim is in the plural; it corresponded, originally, to the hoary polytheistic expression " the Gods," literally, the divine forces; but it justly shows that the verb is in the singular, bar a, He, God created, not baruy they created Q). So it is. These traditions, dating from pre-mosaic times, originally narrated that the gods, titans, Children of Ouranos and Gea, or forces of nature, created the universe, as all the mythologies do. The Mosaic redactor retained the expression Elohim, but constructed it with a singular verb, thus rendering the sense of it,

"God-Elohim, created. The entire first chapter of Genesis introduces but Elohim as creator. It is only in Genesis ii, 5, that Yhvli-Elohim, is introduced as such. I shall pass by the as yet unproven theories of the Yahovists and Elohists, claiming that these two expressions belong to different records, ages, and tribes.
In accordance to the plain statement of II Mos. 6,
the term Yhvh in place of Elohim or Shaddai is specifically Mosaic and not belonging to the creation traditions.
Again must we remember that even Jewish sages and mystics justly consider Elohim as designating but forces or angels. Even Maimonides in Yad. Mada Foundation of the Thora ii, 7, places between God and the material world ten categories of angels, and counts Elohimthere expressly as angels. Jewish mystics, as most of ancient philosophers, generally assume the world to be a creation by the last divine emanation. Hence means verse Genesis i, i: In the beginning Elohim viz: the Powers, the divine Emanations created the world. But with the victory of Mosaism, such metaphysical arguocies were left out of consideration. Genesis became a popular book, and Elohim was constructed with a singular verb and made simply to mean: God created heaven and earth. And in Genesis ii, 5, even Yhvh was placed in apposition, in order to show that both Yhvh and Elohim. apply to God alone, to God, not to angels or titans, and that God created the universe. Here we find saliently the proof of religious parallels and developments.
With Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Loth, Jacob, etc., we find the God-idea yet humanized. God and angels speak, act and eat as bodily beings. Even in Exodus 24, 10, we read: " And they saw the God of Israel and under whose feet it was as the whiteness of sapphire and azure transparency
(2)   Elohim is in plural just as Baahin and Adonim. Elohim ifl notHetdom, too, const ruded with a verb in plural. So it isf in I M. 20, 13; 1 M. 31, 53; Sam. 7, 23.

Slowly the God-conception is spiritualized, all mythology is eliminated and all corporealty discarded: "No man can see me and live", "Take heed, you have seen no form when the Eternal spoke to you in Horeb", "God is pure mind-power, Yhvh, Eternal Being".

Temple-Worsip

In Exodus ii, 20, we read: "An altar of turf thou shalt make unto Me and there offer my sacrifices, whereever my name shall be remembered, I shall come to thee and bless thee." Joshuah entering Palestine built such an altar (*).

Gradually the Legislator discarded that idea of voluntary, arbitrary altars and sacrifices and instituted but one single national sanctuary, the tabernacle with, the oracle, and later the Moriah temple, where alone worship, and sacrifices were in order, everywhere else, they were strictly prohibited and considered as idolatrous.

This was, no doubt, intended to limit sacrifices and avoid the abuse of priests' offerings, stylae Heathen fanes and worships. The one temple was calculated best to represent the one God, Eternal, spiritual and omnipresent, not bound up with time, tribe and country, and not dependent upon human food or offerings. Often do we find yet the mythical expression " My offering, my bread"(*) in the Pentateuch applied to the God-head.
But soon that Heathen remnant is eliminated. In Leviticus, the sacrificial service is purified and elaborated; a sort of compromise between the old and the new view, the priestly and the prophetic one, is reached, discarding the idea that the Deity needs food, etc., and substituting that of expiation, obliteration of sin vicarious atonement; or simply as instituted in favor of the ministering priests.

Ph. 5S, 12. — Often with a plaral adjective. In all these sentences and elsewhere, Elohim proves a remnant of polytheistic ages and countries, corresponding to the word, the gods whilst in the bible it means, (roc, just as Yhvh. (1) II M. 23, 2. (2) V M. 4, 15. (3) Josh. 8, 30.

Anthropomorphism

In I M. i8, we read: Yahveh appeared to Abraham in Mamre . . . Abraham saw three men standing by him . . • He offered them hospitality, water to wash their feet and a meal to sustain their hearts, which they accepted . . . Yahveh announced to the old man the birth of a son and entertained him concerning Sodom. Abraham interceded for the doomed city, etc" In all that narrative is Yahveh depicted under human colors. The anthropomorphism and anthropopathism are not far removed from those in Homer, Hesiod, Ovid, who would furnish numerous legends in parallel with that, though the philosophic patriarch worshipped *God, the owner of heaven and earth," nevertheless is Deity depicted under human features. Above, we have considered that interesting passage under another aspect.

In Judges, we find a parallel even more striking, akin to the general anthropomorphistic views, where God, angel and hero converse on terms of intimacy. There we read: "An angel came to Gideon, greeting him cordially. Gideon complained to him about Yahveh s forsaking his people. Yahveh offers honorable amends and intrusts him with a mission to rescue Israel from his enemies. Gideon requests for permission to offer a sacrifice, which Yahveh' s angel accepts. There is a long narrative where Gideon is holding converse with that supernatural vision, sometimes called Yahveh and in the next verse again, 'Angel of Yahveh,' yet both evidently referring to one and the same divine person. Closely looking to that long passage, it is plain that the difference is only in the last redaction of the text. It was not thought derogatory that Yahveh should speak with the prophet, but undignified that Yahveh should accept offerings. Hence, on the former occasion, the redactor used the expression 'Yahveh') in the latter, he intercalated "Angel of Yahveh."

Anthropomorphism had become less tolerable, and they placed angel in place of Yahveh, both meaning the same. Later even, "Yahveh spoke" was deemed unbecoming; Targum as sages declared God inspires through angels, "malachim or ishintj" Look; Gideon, who is a Yahveh-prophet and the appointed savior of his nation, is, after the victory over Midian, collecting seventeen hundred gold shekels, and making an idol, " Ephod euphimistically called," which became a stumbling block to himself and his house. That, no doubt, is telling!

Priesthood.

In ancient times, among all nations, the head of the family was the natural mediator between God and men. He was the priest and offered the prayers and the sacrifices. So it was yet in the patriarchal times. Even in II M. 24, 5, did the young ones offer the sacrifices and Moses sprinkled the blood. The leaders, the firstborn, the nobles were the natural priests. Later, we repeatedly read that in place of the first-born, God appointed the tribe of Levi to that dignity, then again especially the family of Aaron was installed into that office. No doubt, that intended to discard all opportunities of superstition, priest-craft and over-reaching, as practiced by indiscriminate medlers, selecting an educated and learned priesthood in one definite place with prescribed norms for that purpose.

Freedom

The Pentateuch proclaims at first the principle of liberty and equality of manhood by prohibiting the enslavement of each and all Hebrew males.

In II M. 21, 2 — 8, it states: "When thou buyest a Hebrew servant, for six years he shall serve and in the seventh year he shall go out free, without redemption . . . But when a man sells his daughter as a servant, she shall not leave as a man-servant does, but the master or his son should marry her, or she goes out free without redemption." That proclaims the freedom of manhood; as to woman, it states, if the master choses to marry her, she must stay with him. Two thousand years after Moses in the age of Mohammed, this was yet the case in Arabia.. The Koran bids every man to buy his wife. This, he claims, is the marriage that is most pleasing to God. The Talmudical expression: " A wife is bought with money, etc.," shows that this was the ancient usage of acquiring a wife. Mohammed states, that, to get a wife for nothing, is ugly and mean. The Talmud did not prohibit that, but withal it requires the husband to give his bride a dower. So Eliezer acquired for Isaac, by presents, his cousin Rebecca. In one word, the general idea was lordship for man, obedient wifehood for woman. Slowly a more liberal view looms up, gradually and cautiously. We read in V M. 15, 17, "When thy brother, a male Hebrew or a female, are sold to thee, he shall serve thee six years, then go free . . . Even so thy female servant." (*)

No doubt, there is here a progressive development. The law-giver, seeing that the master or his son does not marry nor free his maid-servant, declared that she, equally with the man-servant, shall be free after six year's servitude. Here is a parallel and an evolution.

Political Evolution— Kinghood.

The Mosaic society was originally built upon the Godidea, God in Church and State, God, creator and providence, king and law-giver. The magistrate was but his delegate. Moses and Joshuah rujed as prophets; they took their orders on each occasion from the Deity; they were its executive or grand-viziers nothing more. That went on for as long a time, as the other surrounding peoples, too, lived under a patriarchal government in their diminutive clans and fatherlands. Every next hill or river was the limit. Mountain and limit were controvertable terms. So is in Greek, oroSy mount and limit. But slowly conquerors, civilization and experience taught the tribes to consolidate, unite and coalasce into larger groups, compound into nations, re-compound into empires. Blood and iron are a mighty cement. So Israel had to follow the same drift or be conquered. They had been living under tribal leaders, Jassiirn, and later under judges, Shophtim, military and civil or religious-civil leaders. But that proved precarious, despotic within and weak without, as Abimelech and Samson, Eli and Samuel proved. A king, a despot, a hereditary leader, not depending upon the whims of the people, nor even the chances of wir, became necessary. Then the Legislator in V M. 17, 15, declared: "Thou mayest appoint a king from among thy brethren; thou shalt not choose a foreigner who is not thy brother. He shall not multiply his horse, (cavalr)%) and not incline toward Egypt, etc."

The lawgiver prescribed then a constitution: " The king must obey the general law; he must ever be guided by it; he shall have no standing armies, no large harems, nor hoard exhorbitant riches. He must be a fellow Israelite, a brother, not a master, not a conqueror, not a dynast." Here is a political evolution, a trial at uniting freedom and strong government. Unfortunately, there was not enough of that. The centrifugal forces were stronger than the centripetal ones. The twelve tribes consolidated under David and Solomon into one nation, but soon broke again into two halves, which never more fused. Political wisdom would have taught them to reunite, cling to the Yahveh-cult, gain over the neighboring Semitic tribes and re-compound into a large empire. By concessions in forms and names, they might have succeeded and kept their ground. Monotheism and higher ethics were their mighty auxiliaries. This was the policy of the prophets. But it appears, the force of division was stronger than that of adhesion. The twelve tribes ever tended to disruption, and so they were successively subjugated by the world-empires of Assyria, Babel, Persia and Greece. ' The Hasmonean princes tried to follow such a policy of consolidation, but it appears it lies not in the genius of the nation. That genius is a powerful individual factor. It is unitarian even in sociology and politics. It was ever subjugated; it was never absorbed; the nation was too weak to stand.
If the individual too strong for absorption. Every one stands for himself, a tower of strength. The Jewish people lacks the sense of aggregation and cohesion. They are too stifif-necked and principled, in their own way; each in his own way, each is his own king; they will not compromise. Their great historical achievements were by notable individuals. No other nation can boast of such a vast number of great units. These units did what they did by their own inherent racial force, and rather in spite of their surrounding masses. Such is their national character. Collectively, they can do nothing, their units are great, their masses are brittle as glass: Moses, Joshua, Gideon and Samuel; David, Isaiah, Hezekiah, Ezra, the Maccabeans, etc., down to recent times, — is Israel a people of messiahs, all crowned with thorns; here is an interesting theme for national psychology.

Holidays.

Originally, the Thora instituted but three annual holidays coincident with the three naturalistic, agricultural seasons, as among all other Oriental peoples; these were, the Passover, the Pentacost and the Booths. They were in the seasons of spring, summer and fall. They were at the beginning of the harvest in Palestine, at its close, and at the gathering in of the fruit of the trees, the oil, the wine, etc. They soon had an additional national and historic bearing. Passover was the anniversary of the exodus, of the foundation of the Hebrew nationality and her freedom; Pentacost was a remembrance of the receiving of the law at Sinai; and Booths was the occasion of the great national gatherings, the fraternization and the festivities at the metropolis, the holy city of Jerusalem. They had the same import as the Olympian Games had for the cities of Greece. Here is a strong parallel between diverse peoples and races. But soon times developed other needs. So the Pentateuch added to the above three annual days, the day of atonement and the first day of the seventh month.

The atonement was the great national gala day, exhibiting all the pomp and the solemnities of the Judaic Temple worship. It served as a strong stimulant for the Yahveh-cult and formed the spiritual bond of Israel against crowding Heathendom. The other festival was a substitute for the universal New Year, supplanted in Mosaism by the month of spring (Nissan) in reminiscence of the founding of the Hebrew nation and liberty. Heathendom in hoary times celebrated their new year in the fall season, with the close of the harvest. Mosaism, counting its era from the Exodus, declared spring to be the beginning of the year (*) and in the seventh month thereof, the first day was but a "remembrance" of the former New Year.(*) Now, generally and naturally, the first of the year is the first of the month, a solemn day and a feast-day; whilst the Mosaic calendar had not provided for such a day, Passover setting in with the fifteenth of the month. Therefore the first day of the seventh month slowly re-assumed its old place and significance in the Hebrew calendar as New Year's day; curious enough, a new year's day in the seventh month of the year!

The Sabbath.

Reading II M. i6, 22, etc., we can not help being convinced that the Sabbath is older than the Sinai epoch, that the Hebrews knew it well in Egypt before the advent of Moses. When picking up the manna in the wilderness, they found that they had a double measure on Friday, to hold on for Saturday. When this was denounced to Moses, he said: "That very same thing God has bidden; to-morrow is a holy Sabbath, prepare all for it. To morrow none shall leave for field labors; it is a rest-day." The Hebrews, settling down as a community, in civilized life, the decalogue consecrated it with all solemnity, the Pentateuch and the prophets invested it with the importance of the leading symbol and rite of the cult of Yahveh. Yahveh or Supreme Being to worship, and the Seventh day as a rest constitute to this time the criterion of Mosaism.

Sacrifices.

In II M. 20, 22, at the proclamation of the decalogue, the sacred writer emphatically closes: "Thus says Yahveh to the Children of Israel: *You have seen that I have spoken to you from the heavens. Ye shall make no silver and no golden idols. An altar of turf ye shall build and thereupon offer your burntand your peace-ofiferings. Wherever my name be remembered, I shall come to thee and bless thee."

The meaning of this passage is highly interesting. The introduction of the decalogue mentions God as coming down, Moses as going up to him, etc., and many other anthropomorphic and athropopathic (humanl-ike) figures of speech; all which could arouse the conception of a bodily Deity, the very opposite of spiritual monotheism. The prophetic redactor cautions thus his people against such idolatry, emphasizing that no figure was seen delivering the ten words.(*) Nor is he over particular concerning external worship; full in accord with prophetism. Hence, is any place and any sacrifice sufficient. But later it came out that such promiscuous worship would just lead to idolatry, priest-craft and, superstition. The legislator had to be careful and he prescribed one unique, national temple, a special Sacerdotal family and particular, well-defined offerings at stated opportunities. Thus we find in Leviticus such a developed priestly code. Nearly the entire book is consecrated to the legislation about temple, sacred service, priests and sacrifices — especially as realized in practice during the second temple after Ezra. Here, we would think, is an ostensible, salient retrogression; but it is not so'; it is a progressive evolution. The former promiscuous worship might suffice for a nascent tribe and society. It would not do for a people on a grander scale. To avoid anarchy and superstition, the law prescribed place, person and mode of sacrifices. Such an outline, we find in Ezekiel 40 — 48. But Leviticus is the one actually realized. Both are important in that respect, that they eliminate human sacrifices, that of enemies, of children, of prisoners of war, etc., all considered in antiquity as the most pleasing to the Deity. The Pentateuch expresses repeatedly its abhorrence for and anathema against such practices generally in vogue in polytheism, and the chief interest we now take in Leviticus or priestly code, is the fact there that human sacrifices were carefully abolished two thousand two hundred years before Heathendom did, which no doubt, is interesting.

Human Sacrifices.

Indeed, it is well known that the Pentateuch repeatedly and vehemently deprecated and inveighed against the offering of human sacrifices, describing them as an abomination and a horror to the Supreme One, and putting upon such the heaviest penalties. To all appearance the real scope and point of the Chapter 22 in Genesis, the so-called 'Sacrifice of Isaac" is to teach, not so much the readiness of Abraham to offer his son, — that was a general practice among the worshippers of Baal, Moloch, etc.; but rather that Chapter teaches that God refuses human sacrifices and that it is a crime to offer such. It is simply an era in enlightened human thought on God-head, worship, and our conceptions of the becoming and the proper. Two thousand two hundred years before Christianity, the patriarchs conceived the idea that human sacrifices are an abomination and a crime, that the Deity wants us only to obey his voice of duty and justice. It desires us to have the nerve for sacrifices when necessary, but not to offer wantonly our children at the bidding of some mischievous priest or would-be prophet. Two thousand two hundred years B. C, Hebrew genius rejected human sacrifice, and that is of great interest.

In Abraham's period, it was only foreshadowed and alluded to, by way of an ethical innovation. Later on, in the Mosaic legislation, human sacrifice was forbidden as one of the most hateful and godless practices of the idolaters. Now that usage of human sacrifice continued lingering in Israel and hence has left some traces in the Pentateuch. It took long ages until it disappeared entirely. During the first centuries of Israelis existence it theoretically lingered there as the hoary, divine curse, herem ban or anathema devoted to the vengeance of the Deity. In such a case the person was extirpated, annihilated, rooted out with all his belongings. Such a ban or herem-punishment was pronounced against: I. The inhabitants of Palestine at their subjugation by Joshua, the so-called seven nations there; II. Against any Israelitish city that had been induced to and had practiced idolatry. III. Against any Israelite practicing idolatry. IV. Against appropriating something from banned goods, as Achan did in Jericho.(*) V. Heathen temples, groves, altars with their idols were banned, too, (•) and entirely destroyed. VI. In. war, the Jews could devote an inimical city to the ban or herem of Yahveh, Then men and city were destroyed, while the goods could be consecrated to the sanctuary.

This herem or consecration to the Deity of wholesale human destruction, is a grim feature of polytheism. In the Pentateuch it was but a war measure, at the start of the Hebrew nationality, not yet fully identified with its own Yahveh'oYcyy its cult and ethics. To avoid its amalgamation with other races and their idolaters, even such measures were deemed temporarily admissible. — Nor were they administered even at first, with equal rigor, and soon they came into desuetude. So, for instance, did Joshua doom Jericho to be totally destroyed, yet was the family of Rachab excepted and spared. The conquered wealth, etc., was consecrated to the public treasury. Achan, who had stolen some booty for himself, was destroyed with all his family."In the very next place, 7, the conquering Israelites were allowed to take the booty for themselves, whilst the Canaanites and Gibeonites were allowed peace by paying tribute. Indeed, after Joshua we find but one single instance, viz: that of the Amalkites and Samuel, that the general ban against the Canaanites, etc., was rigorously executed. It is therefore fair to accept, that the herem prevailed only during the first collision with the natives as an instantaneous war measure. (*) Later we see, that those Palestine aborigines were tolerated, and they slowly amalgamated with the Israelites. We may, too, venture the conjecture, that this very toleration and fusion was the cause of the one thousand years' long struggle of idolatry against the Mosaic policy, as forewarned by Moses. So Ezekiel reproachingly: "Thy mother, the Hittite, and thy father, the Emorite."(*) Such a policy was in our days enacted by Prince Bismarck and Pobedonestieff, etc. On the other hand, there are traces in the bible of human sacrifices, besides the cases mentioned, as for instance that of J ephtah's daughter. (® The prophets continually inveigh against it. The following passage is of particular interest in this connection. In III M. 27, 27 — 32, we find a verse of that epoch of transition, when in theory there existed yet the old herm-doctrine, whilst in practice it had given way to a milder policy of: "No human sacrifice." That verse reads: "Indeed, any herem which a man should devote to Yahveh of any of his property, be it of man (as slave or child), cattle or real property, shall neither be sold nor redeemed; any herem is all holy to Yahveh. Whatever be such herem that had been devoted: of man, it shall not be redeemed, but shall be killed; any tenth of the seed of the soil, of fruit trees, etc., is holy to Yahveh. Any tenth of cattle or sheep is holy. No discrimination be allowed, etc."

No doubt, we find here the theory that a human being may be devoted or banned to Yahveh and then that person must die, and no redemption is admissible. The expression "any herem devoted of man, means not by man but if of the human kind, then it can not be redeemed, but the person must be killed."The rabbis of course justly interpret that this refers exclusively to the above enumerated cases of human Herem, viz: "the Canaanites or any conquered city or criminals devoted to destruction" At all hazards, the verse belongs to the earlier and more rigorous views, when human sacrifice was not an impossibility. All translators and commentators are at one to translate that verse as rendered here. "That any herem of the human kind must die and not be redeemed."And that is a solitary remnant of the older rigorism. The real Mosaic practice is expressed in IV M. 18, 15 and 16, as also often elsewhere. It reads: "Any herein in Israel shall be thine, viz: Aaron's — Every first-born offered to Yahveh, be it man or cattle, shall be thine, yet the human first-born thou shalt redeem." Human sacrifices are thus practically discarded and forever so. So were abolished the sacrifices of war-prisoners and strangers. There remained only the case of lapse into idolatry, which was but a theory, never put into practice, thanks to the mild jurisprudence of the Talmud.

Retrogressive Evolutions.

The above themes show everywhere a legislative development in a progressive sense, tending from particulartsm to universalism, from privilege and localism to general human right. Now there are in the Pentateuch changes in the law, which show the contrary direction towards the conservative and the privilege, going from the universal to the national, local, and tribal. Let us quote cursorily and succinctly a few such instances.

Primogeniture.

The privilege of the first-born son is hoary, older than our known history. It dates back to the very cradle of civilization and of property. The father, fond of his paternity, desirous of building up a house; of immortalizing his name, the first-born son was instituted the owner of all, head of the family, patriarch, judge, priest, war-chief, etc. The Pentateuch in its traditional parts, began the movement towards the emancipation from such prerogative. It narrates that Abel, though the second born, was more pleasing to God than his senior, Cain. Abraham had Ishmael as first-born and next Isaac. Nevertheless did God tell him to send away the first-born and invest the second-born son with the privilege of primogeniture, bequeathing to him both his estate and his spiritual mission. Of course, the Alkoran insists upon Ishmael's privileges and higher dignity. It claims that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba in Mecca, that the spiritual superiority was and remained with Ishmael, and that the Jews have falsified the sacred records in favor of Isaac. Isaac had Esaw as his first-born, and Jacob cldsely following. Rebecca did her best, or her worst, to secure to her favorite, Jacob, the second-born, his share in the inheritance. She secured to him at least, the spiritual birth-right, the Abrahamic blessing. To this, the sacred writer fully assents as a protest against the tyranny of birth-right-privileges. Jacob had twelve sons of different wives. The first-born son was Reuben, without any contestation. But he was irreverent and disrespectful and was passed over. One of his brothers, by many the younger, Joseph, was the prince and the favorite; to him was given leadership and principality: Joshuah was a Josephite. Joseph had two sons, Manasse, the first, and Ephraim, the second. Jacob, by his blessing, invested the younger one with the privilege of leadership, a privilege long and successfully contended for. But Judah had the largest share of dignity; Jacob and Moses, as history, gave him the hegemony of the twelve tribes. Reuben was passed by and but once struggling in company with Korah, for dominion. He got first his estate beyond the Jordan, but was never leading. Thus far we see, that the Bible is progressive, inclined to set aside the dead letter of privilege and prefer higher worth, mental and moral.

So it is in its ethics. But in its legal statutes, it pays attention to custom and privilege. It gives the firstborn son a double share in the parental estate, thus consecrating partially, at least, the privilege of the aristocratic primogeniture. It states in V M. 21, 15: " A man, husband of a beloved wife and of another, a hated one, but whose son is his first-born child, shall not transfer the first-born right to the son of his favorite spouse. The son of the hated one shall get his double portion in the estate — that is his right." Hence, Abraham, transferring that right to Isaac, and Jacob to Joseph, and David to Solomon, were incorrect. The legal right being with privilege.

Polygamy.

The Pentateuch narrates that God created man and woman, breathed into them a " life-soul," blessed them and made them masters of all on earth, etc. A second narrative makes Eve to be a metamorphosis from Adam's rib, closing the allegory with: "This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone; she shall be called she-man ('), for of man she was formed. Therefore shall man leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall form one body." That means, emphatically, monogamy, one man to one wife. So it is in nature, male and female are pretty much equal. Not quite so is it in half-barbarous society. The rich, the strong, could marry several women. Soon they did so to show their superiority. The weak, the poor, could marry none. Women, not being able to fight, were considered a burden to the family; some were killed and many sold into slavery; the rich bought them. Hence came polygamy, the right of the rich to purchase and possess as many women as they could afford. The Pentateuch could not help legally to tolerate polygamy, though morally it condemned it. Here we see mosaism, originally as in Genesis i and ii, teaching the moral, the universal, the natural law: one man to one wife, monogamy; but on account of the " hard-heartedness of fwafi"in consideration of the right of the "fist," or club-law, social law gave to man the privilege of polygamy, with its corollary of free divorcement. Polygamy is universal in the Orient. It is clandestinely tolerated in the Occident too. And the Pentateuch had Legally to give way and tolerate divorcement and polygamy, though morally ever condemning them. The moral sense slowly improved the legal sense of society. The privileges, long ago odious to the pure and the noble-hearted, were curtailed and limited more and more until with the advancing moral sense of occidental society they were abolished everywhere. It is to the glory of Jesus of Nazareth that over eighteen hundred years ago he emphatically declared against both these institutions. He was standing on the height of Jewish morality and fearlessly spoke out what the best ones felt to be correct.

Divorcement.

Let us now look exclusively to the institution of divorcement; this may, too, be counted among such legal enactments which took a retrogressive movement in the Thora. From broad justice and equality to both the sexes, mosaism passed to privilege and manhood superiority. The Mosaic morality, following the trend of nature, is liberal. Legal mosaism, following the drift of force, made concessions; hence, legal admission or toleration of divorce; and that is a retrogressive development to accommodate social conditions. We read in I. M. i, 27: " And God created man in his own image, man and woman he created them, and he blessed them, saying: *Be fruitful and multiply, conquer and rule over all on the earth.'" In I M. 2, 21, the narrator brings out an allegory, representing the first woman to be bone from the bone, and flesh from the flesh of man, the female half of the male, — being: woman, closing with the fine moral: " Therefore shall man leave his father and mother and cling to his woman, and they shall become one body." This is the moral side in the relation of the sexes; woman is the (female) half of man; they complete each other; for each man, God has made his complement; each sex alone is incomplete. Hence is there room neither for plurality of wives, nor of husbands, nor of arbitrary divorcements. The two halves belong to each other. So Jesus said: "What God has joined, let no man separate." Therefore is unchastity a crime on either side, because it is a separation of the two partners by the intrusion of a third party. This is the view of nature, of moral right and of religion. But the social and artificial considerations, in Asia particularly, were, that woman being weaker than man, she was unfree, passing from the parent to the husband and master. Under such conditions Oriental society tolerated polygamy; and therefore it had to tolerate divorce too, the twin institution; forcible plural marriage made it a necessary result and logical sequence to allow to the male forcible divorcement of the female. These twin institutions are prevalent all over the East, and had to be tolerated in Judaea too. We are to treat of slavery and polygamy separately. With divorce it is the same. It is not instituted by mosaism, it is but tolerated, as slavery is, and as polygamy is. It is allowed, as the smaller evil of the two. Thus we read in V M. 24, i: "When a man will marry a woman and it should come to pass that she displeases him, for he had found in her something disgraceful, and he had written to her a letter of divorcement and sent her away; when then she became the wife of another man, which other man, hating her, has divorced her too, or has died, then her first husband can not re-marry her, because she had been polluted." Here the legislator does not enact a law of divorcement; he does not confer on man the privilege of repudiation; no, that privilege old usage had allowed him; being owner of the woman and having the customary privilege of plurality of wives, usage gave him the right to divorce her whenever displeased — because he was not her free choice, he was and is her master. As such, he can marry, keep and divorce her.
The social conditions, not the law, gave him that advantage. And what the law actually statues, and what the long paragraph means, is this:
I.   What a man can exercise his privilege of divorce only, when something disgraceful is found in her; II. that he must give her a letter attesting her divorcement; III. that he cannot re-marry her when she had been married in the mean time; in Arabia she could. (') As a matter of fact, mosaism tolerated divorcement, and this is a retrogression from the original principle of equality of sexes, as in I M. i and 2.

Slavery.

The Pentateuch narrates: "God created man and woman in his image, gave them a divine spirit, bid them work, and made them masters of the earth."From that single pair, Adam and Eve, came forth all races, tribes and tongues, when scattering over the earth. This means, no doubt, that all men are equally born with the same rights and claims "to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That is natural right, originally. Not so is it in human society, historically, artificially. Circumstances created strong and weak, rich and poor, master and slave, and soon a different right, too, the conditions of dominion and of slavery.

The Pentateuch tries to mitigate that artificial right, but succeeds very imperfectly. Its agrarian laws, calculated best to cope with it, never were tried.Q With all its divine authority, it had to yield and legally to allow six years' labor for an Ebrew slave, and definite slavery for a non-Ebrew one, securing to both some vestiges of their natural rights, yet yielding to the strong privilege of acquiring other man's freedom, comfort and the produce.

Blood-Revenge.

In original societies, every member had the right and the duty of blood-revenge, viz: When hurt in life, limb or property, he had the right to claim the assistance of his kinsmen or clansmen to obtain redress. The first duty of a relative was to avenge his kinsmen, killed by another man. This was the foundation of society; it was of old the safest way of securing one's life and property, namely, by mutual combination and co-operation. The family and the clan were the first social bonds, and blood-revenge the first mode of justice. The Mosaic state proposed to depart from that mode. It instituted public justice, public judges and public trial. Government meant to render justice public, not private nor personal, for "Justice was GodSj' the judges were called g-c? 5. They had the authority to exact an oath in the name of Deity, and to punish in his stead. To disobey them, was to disobey God, and entailed death-punishment So it was in theory. Nevertheless, in practice, it had to yield to the custom of blood-revenge; it limited and mitigated it. Yet the kinsman had the personal right to avenge his relative; just as duelling is now.

Levirate's Marriage.

The Pentateuch distinguished between licit and illicit marriages. A complication of motives is at the bottom of that discrimination. Certain close degrees of kinship by birth and marriage could not intermarry. The leading intenti

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:57:35 PM

Let us resume:

The difficulty of the chapter, as it has been commonly understood, is, that the sun and moon stood still for nearly a day on the horizon at the bidding of Joshua, in order that he should complete his victory. Now, this is a monstrous prodigy indeed. It is not local, as elsewhere it involves our entire solar system, nay, the entire universe, according to the Copernican doctrine. Not only sun and moon at Gibeon had to stand still, but the universe at large with its millions of suns and planets.

What say to it the Hebrew commentators? Most of them close an eye and declare it was an act of divine omnipotence. Nay, some even have the naivity of insisting on the literal Kejom-tamim and accepting, that day was twice its usual duration.

Comment, (kadak computes a standrstill of thirty hours, the battle happening on Friday in order to avoid Sabbath-breaking. (Ralbag is slow of acquisceing into this monstrum, he says such would constitute Joshuah by far greater than Moses! Now there is a parallel in Is. 38, 8, where the sun-dial ' turns ten degrees backwards" but which he explains by the intervention of a cloud. He reads our verses Josh. lo, I2"and 13. "Then Joshuah exclaimed: When the sun will be over Gibeon, and the moon over Ayalon, then will Israel be avenged over his enemy." So did Napoleon I, often indicate the exact place where he intended to pverpower his enemy. But the plain sense is: the Hebrew chieftain commanded the sun and moon to stand still! Maimonides' theory in More JVebuchim, that miracles happened only in the subjective vision of the Seer, not in reality, will not answer here either, for then the battle, the pursuit, the victory, etc., would all be reduced to a dream, just like the "sun and moon standing still." My aforesaid proposition appears to be the best. It leaves the extraordinary; it takes away the impossible, it is honorable for the sacred record; it leaves a fine historical fact, viz: Joshuah had made a night attack, surprising the enemy; darkness, hail-stones, locality, all were in his favor. He naturally wished and prayed for having night, darkness and gloom prolonged beyond the morning hours. The clouds and the rain-storm did continue and he achieved a great victory, routing and annihilating the Emorites. The poet of the Yashar-book used some metaphors, as if Joshuah were bidding sun and moon to stop in their course, and reverential posterity read poetry as fact. The last redactor of the bible took it up, yet allowing a full glimpse at the real facts most worthy of history and the bible. No doubt, my hypothesis does away with the miracle, " faiths' dearest child," but it substitutes sound sense and critical facts more important to bible and history at our present day.

CHAPTER VII.

SURVEY OF THE MESSIANIC IDEAL.

Since the dawn of the biblical literature, there breathed in it a high spirit of ideality and optimism. Indeed, the very conception of Deity by Abraham was ideal: "The Supreme Force, Owner of heaven and earth." That definition pre-supposes developments of milleniums. Everywhere else God was the local tutelar genius, perhaps only an apotheosized patriarch, a conquering king, a successful hero. Abraham or the bible conceived God as " the Creator of heaven and earth," that means, Master of the universe. They thus conceived a universal God, teaching universal right and equity, no offensive warfare, and no war-spoils; "not as much as a thread or a shoe string."

With the Exodus, the God-idea becomes even more sublime, if possible; God is Yahveh, the Supreme Being, Owner of heaven and earth. He is loving, gracious and long suffering, etc.(*) But how to bring down this grand Ideal of benefaction into the real, vulgar, selfish, human world? How render the ideal real? How cause the spiritual to meet the material? How convert mind into matter? It is just the same difficulty which confronts the modern philosopher, how to fill up the gap between spirit and body, between God and universe. Since every effect is inherent in its cause, and since spirit is claimed to be the very opposite of body, how can both stand in the relation of cause to effect?

Here the answer is and had to be diverse. Some, innocently and naively, ignored the difficulty. It was, perhaps, the wisest thing to be done. A question which cannot be answered, is best not to be put. The sacred writer opens Genesis with his practical dictum: "In the beginning Elohim — the deity, the divine forces centering in the Omnipotent — , created heaven and earth," without further inquiring how mind could bring forth matter. Yet the verse is grand and important. It is telling. While materialism, paganism, old or new, postulates matter as the origin of mind, Genesis wisely states the contrary. That is the grand import of Genesis 1,1. Soon we see in the Pentateuch a strong leaning towards anthropomorphism, speaking of Deity as a Being with bodily limbs and material attributes. Soon again, afraid of Heathen tendencies, of confounding Creator and creature, the sacred writer warns against materializing deity. " Remember, you have heard at Sinai but words uttered, beware for your lives, you have seen there no person, no bodily likeness, but a voice speaking tOv you.(*) Soon again, it was necessary to recur to human metaphors, for the hearers could not grasp any purely spiritual Master; hence the sacred writer had yet often to recur to figure and anthropomorphism. So explain the rabbis. "The law speaks in human language" i, e,, uses metaphors for human conception, for human comprehension.

Idol or Unknowable.

Oftentimes, we have to choose between anthropomorphism or transcendentalism in theology. (*) TiMidrash Hagadol commenting on a delicate scriptural passage, most naively, if not perhaps wittily, expresses this dilemma of choosing between anthropomorphism and allegory in the following manner, viz: Exodus 24, 10, narrates that Moses, Aaron and seventy elders of Israel, on the occasion of a legislative festival, built an altar with twelve stylae and offered many sacrifices, when " they saw the God (gods) of Israel, under whose feet it was like the splendor of sapphire and the azure heavens in purity, etc." To which passage R. Eliezer says: " Whosoever expounds this verse according to its face, is inventing, and who allegorizes and adds to it, is blaspheming. Should he translate: They saw the god of Israel, he would lie, for God sees and is not seen. Should he render, They saw the splendor of the spirit of God, that would be blasphemy, for there would arise the idea of Trinity." That dilemma reminds of witch-craft in the middle ages. The accused was bound and thrown into a pond; if he was drowned, he was declared innocent, and if he remained afloat, he was burnt for witch-craft. So Henry VIII burnt those who did not believe in Catholicism, and burnt those who believed in the Pope. Even so the biblical believer had to choose between an unknowable Deity, or a bodily God, anthropomorphism. Slowly the Jew has been tutored to think God a personality, a full reality and yet as a purely spiritual Being, the (Being, the spiritual reality of the universe. God is his father, his special providence and guide. High in the heavens, omnipresent, universal and eternal, yet near by, close to his person, his guardian and his savior. He ever listens to his prayers, ever knows and provides for his wants; He punishes his sins, or pardons them if sincerely repented. God is his parent, looking upon him with love, mercy and patience; Whom he can influence by good deeds, prayers, even sacrifices, and by Whom he is influenced in his turn, awake and asleep, by inspirations, visions and prophecies. While the mystic imagined even to be able to forcibly induce Deity to change nature's laws by the magic of his own charms. To the pious Jew, unsophisticated by abstruse metaphysics, God is a personal experience, somewhat of a master and father of daily intercourse. He calls on Him, he prays to Him; he confesses to Him; he unbosoms himself to Him and is ever answered. To him, God is not far away in the immensity of space. No, He is near by, his continual guardian and special Providence, his immediate guide and protector. He is his personal father, just as the Creator of the universe. God is Supreme goodness, power and wisdom and the well of life. He is Providence, Justice and Shield. He is such to the world at large, but specially and personally to him — as long as he is a good and obedient child.

Thus, to the pious Israelite, God is a concrete person, yet not bodily. To the pious, unsophisticated, not overtutored Jew, God is his personal father, and he is God's personal child. He was born to that happy belief; he has been cradled, reared and grown up in that happy faith. This is the source of Hebrew optimism, the well from whence flows his strength, his hopefulness, his elasticity, his patient, heroic courage, his unshaken trust in the future, in time and in eternity. God is omnipotent, just and wise and ever protects and watches over him, asking of him but obedience and piety, and all will come out right. That bore up the Jew in the midst of all trials and tribulations. It has been his great buckler in the struggle for existence.

But with the more sober, closer thinkers among the Hebrews, there remained much rankling in the intellectual conscience, the misgivings about anthropomorphism as a remnant of paganism, reminding strongly of fetichism and ancestor-worship. That misgiving began with the translators of the Bible, the Tarumimy the authors of the Septuaginta, the thinking Midrashim, the learned poets, the philosophers. Such acute remarks are often in both the Babylonic and Jerusalem Talmuds, from Saadia Gaon, the rector of the Sora Academy and Maimonides(*) down to our times; the Jewish philosophic view is decidedly and avowedly: God is pure spirituality, source of all the forces of nature. He communicates with the universe and with man by intermediate agents, powers, spirits, angels, visions, prophets, etc. He communes as spirit with spirit and mind with mind, not as mind with body. The prophet neither saw nor heard God. He saw and heard him in his mind's eye and ear. How happens that? By slow condensations, emanations, outpouring of the holy spirit into the spirit of man, etc? or by subordinate agents, angels, etc? That again is diversely answered, and best not answered at all, for man has to such queries no positive answer to give. That transcends our experience and our knowledge. Here silence is piety. We have received from nature, religion and education; the consciousness of God. We are happy in knowing Him to be; to be our providence, father and guide; hence we pray to Him and seek consolation in and advice from Him, as the child at the parent's bosom. We know no more. How does He answer to, and commune with us? We hardly know it, hence there came out a vague, undefined feeling, this is done by some mediation, some spiritual communication, some moral admonition, call ittrevelation, angel, prophet, mediator, conscience or mystic intuition. Thus with the unsophisticated, the simple ones among the Jews, God was derived not from abstraction, but from personal experience, approaching anthropomorphism. With the thinking ones, a mediating person, angel, man or force was necessary, which slowly became a hypostasis, a personality. Thus it came to pass in Judaism as in other religious camps, that the desire to bring the God-idea nearer to man slowly brought about anthropomorphism or imagining the Deity as a corporeal, human-like Being, an idol. Then, shrinking from that exaggeration, bordering on idolatry, teachers steered in the opposite direction, and, removing the Deity from such rude, human contact, they interposed holy agencies between Creator and created, mediating between them and forming the bridge for man to reach his heavenly father; they arrived at the Unknowable and His hypostasis, to a second deity or several such divine beings; they reached the other extreme, polytheism! So the vulgar among the monotheists is guilty of imagining God a huge man. Such is the practical qabbalist — and the more refined with his emanations or hypostasis, arrives at a plurality of deities. These are the Scylla and Charybdis in religious philosophy.

The Mediator.

Now, this question, this puzzle of olden and of modern tim.es, how to approach the Most Holy One, how to bring down the Most High into this lowly world, how to bridge over Deity to man, this was answered in hoary times philosophically: A mediator was to be the connecting link between both, to bring God within the consciousness of man. An ideal man was to do that. Here is the dawn of the Messiah-ideal, an extraordinary great and holy man, a man of war perhaps, just as long as necessary, until peace is established. Such a man is foreshadowed in Jacob's blessing Q. "Judah, thy brethren shall do thee homage; thy hand shall be upon thy enemy's neck. Lion-like thou wilt rise from victory. Never shall the sceptre depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from among his descendants, until he arrives at Shiloh, when to him will gather the nations."

The small Abrahamic family becomes a small people. The grand ideal of One God, one humanity and one right takes a firm hold upon it, and it feels crushed under the burden of that stupendous idea, for the reality, alas, is so far below the ideal! Mankind goes on isolated, given to selfish interests, to clanishness and to polytheism. How then square the circle, smooth the discrepancy? How unite the two, the ideal conception of the Bible: Supreme reason and love, with the actual world of selfishness and brute force?

To fill the gap, Israel or the Bible went on drawing upon the ideal, the great Messiah-idea, The few hints in the Pentateuch are elaborated; they take more tangible shape and form in the prophets. This national idea is first looming up in Micha a: "And it will be at the end of days when the mountain-house of God will be established on the summit of mountains . . . whereto will stream all peoples, saying: " Let us go and rise to the mount of God . . that he should teach us in his ways . . for from Zion comes forth the law, and the word of God from Jerusalem . . And He will judge among nations . . and they will break their swords into pruning hooks . . No longer will people raise their swords against people and no longer learn war . . . Every one will dwell under his vineand his fig-tree and none inspire fear, for the mouth of God speaks." Here is the Deity, the only acting principle of human history; no mentioning as yet of messiah. Isaiah, Chapter 2, repeats the same ideal.

Apparently, they are both quoting from the same source, a preceding prophet. But Isaiah, Chapter 11, is more definite and positive, the great national salvation, eagerly expected by his people, is to be achieved by God through a human agent: He prophesies: " And there shall come forth a sprout from the stem of Jesse . . and there will rest upon him the spirit of Yahveh, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and fear of God . . . He will not judge after mere appearance and hear-say. In righteousness shall He judge the poor and with equity the lowly of the land . . and kill the wicked by his mere word . . and justice will be the girdle of his loins. The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the lion will eat straw with the ox. Never will they harm and hurt upon my holy mount . . for full will be the land of divine knowledge, as the waters covering the ocean. . . And it will be on that day that the root of Jesse will be standing forth as the banner of nations ... for him will nations enquire . . and his rest will be in glory."
Here in Isaiah 11, we find expressly that exalted personage, the Davidian, the liberator, the sacred hero, the messiah. Nay, we find here the elements later elaborated into trinity, God, messiah and holy spirit. Of course there are here three distinct beings, the Supreme God, the exalted man and the connecting divine spirit. Later theologians — or rather the imperial framers of Christianity after Constantine the Great, condensed them into one, apparently to make them square with biblical monotheism. But this Messiah-ideal breathes in all the perorations and exhortations, all the prophetic addresses and harangues from Hosea to Sachariah and Maleachi, from Genesis 49 with the description of the ruler: " Never shall the sceptre depart from Judah until he comes to Shiloh, where to him will congregate all the nations " — to the ideal of Maleachi: "Have we not all one God — has not one God created us; why should we be false to one another! "

That is all one great national aspiration, and the entire Hebrew history is one continued repeated effort to make that idea a fact, that ideal a reality.

Split of the Ideal and the Real.

But though human progress is continuous and sure, though mankind are advancing, and, to the eyes of the providential beholder, incontestable, yet looked at from our near-sighted standpoint, it is infinitely slow, almost imperceptible, just as the movement of the earth is to our eyes. Whilst the Hebrew nation was eagerly expecting the Messianic realization, times and things and political outlooks became worse and worse. In place of the Davidian messiah, ruling the world by the spirit of peace and justice, came the breaking up and the division of the Jewish empire; came Jerobeam with his two Golden Calves in Israel; came Rehoboam and his petty ambitions and wars in the kingdom of Judah. Then the Assyrians came and conquered Israel; and then Babylon that destroyed Judaea. The political Messiah Cyrus with Ezra and Nehemia, began the re-construction of the second Empire. But Samaritans, Syrians and Antiochus Epiphanes put a stop to that. The Hasmonians vanquished the Syrians; yet the Messiah-ideal was not realized, for Rome was not to be vanquished.

The crisis during the time of the Greeks, Syrians and Antiochus Epiphanes, had been tremendous. But it became appalling since Rome with Pompeii and the Caesars made her appearance. All ordinary means, all human resources could not avail. Rome had conquered Italy, Carthage, Greece Africa, Spain, Gaul, Brittan, Germany, etc; Rome, the mistress of the world, could not be conquered by the sword of puny Judaea. In this great crisis, the Judaean leaders separated into two parties. The political party counseled peace, patience and abiding the time when Rome would collapse by its own weight. But the Zealots, the "party of action," would not brook to patience and waiting. Their strength was the messiah-ideal realized. Now, that messiah-hope had become infinitely more ideal with them than it was with the prophets. With the Essenes and the Chassidai, it had become mystic, most exalted, supernatural; a divine man at the right hand of the throne of God, with the angelic hosts at his command.

The Mystic Books.

The first intimation of that mystic, divine deliverer, we find in the prophet Daniel. There the Messiah is described as a supernatural being: "I saw in the vision of night, and behold, with the clouds of the heavens, there came like a Son of man, who proceeded and penetrated to the Ancient of Days and was forwarded to Him. And to him was given dominion, magnificence and empire; and all the peoples, nations and tongues served him. His dominion was an eternal one, that never passes, and his empire one that was never to be destroyed, etc." At the same time nearly, the apocryphae made their appearance; the book of Henoch and the IV Esdras. Slowly, the large and small Midrashifn with the Targuim, Jonathan heading, interpreted Pentateuch and prophets in that mystic supernatural sense. Soon numerous teachers of the Talmud, both of Jerusalem and Babylon, adopted the same method. All the enthusiastic patriots, all the Judaean hotspurs clamored for war and incited to it the nation, under the stimulus of the messiah-hope; persuading the patriotic masses to take up arms and fling the gauntlet of war into the brazen face of Rome; not doubting that at the last moment of the fiery ordeal, the expected liberator would make his appearance, surrounded by the angelic hosts. A nation with a formidable enemy in view, desecrating everything that is holy to her, a nation harboring such exalted expectations of divine favor in store for her, was like a powder magazine in the midst of a conflagration. The explosion was at every moment ready to come. Several times such claiments to the Messiah-role presented themselves and were readily accepted. The last great claimant was Bar-Cochba (i 20 P. C.) whom such a leading man as Rabbi Akiba recognized as messiah and strenuously assisted him. Bar Cochba succeeded for three years to vanquish the legions and free Judaea from the Caesars. But Rome renewed her efforts and Judaea, with her messianic leader, had to yield. The hope in the war-messiah collapsed now. Several such men had begun the task and succumbed amidst the ruin of the country, pouring forth streams of blood. Bar-Cochba's trial had cost the nation a million of men.

Jesus of Nazareth.

Now came the chance of another party in the people, the Essenes, the mystics with the peace-messiah, the messiah-divine, the conqueror by supernatural means, by spiritual arms, who was "To smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and kill the wicked with the breath of his lips Q)." Now came the time, the opportunity of the prince of peace, the meek, the mild, the ideal Jesus of Nazareth He and his party, the Essenes, had another way of solving the national problem. Rome could not be conquered by force of arms, for behind Rome there was Asia, Africa, Germany, Gaul, etc; they could not be subdued by the sword of puny Judaea. But Rome could be subdued, Rome herself could be freed and gained over to Zion's doctrine. Rome could not be vanquished by the sword, but she could be gained over by the spirit hailing from Zion, by the "peace and good will" doctrine of the prophets. Here was a great idea ushered into the world. This idea, the Essenes advocated. The Essenian liberator was not the fighting, heroic Maccabeus, nor King David. No, he was the prince of peace, and this mission was undertaken by Jesus of Nazareth.

An extraordinary man he was; a rare exemplar of noble manhood; brimful of veneration to God and sympathy for man; especially for the meek, the weak, the poor, the humble, in the worldly sense; with a tear and a heart for every human woe; a sweet sensibility for nature's beauties; an encouraging hope and a smile for every unfortunate; a Buddha of the West. But no less did he feel a mighty, burning hatred of all pretense, hollow claims and hypocritical masks; an instinctive feeling of universal justice and sympathy, and bitter scorn for all kinds of shams; a latent aversion to formalism and conventional piety; a fiery sarcasm burning through the coat of mail of the great ones of his day; a sharp eye looking deeply into the labyrinth of human character; mercilessly tearing off the masks of hypocrisy and exposing to ridicule, infatuation and arrogance; a man born to reform, a great religious genius, deeply imbued with his nation's prophetic spirit. Such was Jesus of Nazareth, now called up at that ominous, moral, social and political emergency, to create a new era in human history.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:58:13 PM

Jesus and the Adulteress.

Let us quote here an instance of that fine polished sarcasm, that acute discrimination of character, that deep sympathy with human woe. The Scribes, viz: the lawyers, understanding that Jesus may contemplate innovations, and trying to feel his pulse, bring before him a poor, forlorn woman of the humbler strata, accused of adultery. The evidence is clear, the law is patent, her punishment is death by stoning. But Jesus looks behind the screen. What was there? A young woman with many traces of lost beauty and more vestiges of tears and struggles, of suffering and want are visible. She had been in infancy sold by her family to her husband, as usually then in the Orient, for a sheep or a cow. She had become his wife No. 5; her husband a drunkard, a glutton, half a brute, having wasted his substance, abused her with the fist and let her starve; then she yielded to sin for a crust of bread! . . With a glance at that mute picture of private and social wrong . . . calling the attention of the lawyers to that tale of sorrow written in the adulteress' young wrinkles, and remarking their callousness, Jesus pointedly says: "Well, men of the law! Whosoever among you is sure and safe that under such circumstances he would not have sinned, let him throw the first stone "... The icy, legal hearts of the lawyers melt under that stern glance, that piercing shaft, that scathing sarcasm; none raise the stone; they steal away, one by one, from the presence of the keen, judicious reformer. Jesus, then turning sympathetically to the unhappy victim of our clumsy social arrangements, with a smile of sympathy, intellectual superiority and suave pity, benignly says: "Go home, daughter, and try to sin no more! Try, and our father in heaven will assist thee".

No Capital Punishment.

Behind what the intelligent reader sees, behind the facts of that remarkable chapter, John 8, just quoted, there is much more to be said about the motives of the keen reformator. At first, from his own standpoint, rejecting the world as it was, as utterly rotten, in the hands of the principle of Evil, and inaugurating the new social order of righteousness, he denied to any and every man the right to judge and condemn his fellows, even as he theoretically taught: " Judge not, that ye be not judged." Without much looking behind the screen of the case alluded to in John 8, he could guess a priori that the unhappy woman was much more the victim than the aggressor, of our clumsy, social arrangements. From his high standpoint, he looked deeply into the intricate social wheels of his time and could easily discern that the weak are forcibly pushed and thrust, not only into misfortune, but also into crime. Hence, from his ideal standpoint, he could condemn neither that, nor most of other similar cases. He knew well his society, he knew especially the lower, social strata. He remembered his own kindred having been victims of such rumors; he knew the cottages of the humble as well as his own parental one; their poverty and their temptations; how easily a poor woman is wrecked and how insolently the tempter turns her judge . . . and whilst with his stick drawing in the sand on the floor, many such incidents occurred to his mind; and hence his answer, perfectly correct from his ideal standpoint: " He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone."
(1)   John 8, 3.

From our own worldly, social standpoint, from our artificial ethics and sickly political city life, his verdict is preposterous and our self-righteous social leaders turn up their eyes in amazement: "to absolve an adulteress en flagrant delit! But our self-righteous, social saints forget that in each crime nine-tenths parts thereof have been committed by the social system they are defending; nay, that those very persons, the authors and accomplices of the crime in secret, are the first to pass condemnation in public, ready to punish the victim of their own perpetrations.

Now this reasoning, pushed to its extreme, may show that most of social crimes can be viewed from the same standpoint and allowed to go unpunished in the same way; hence that capital punishment is wrong! Yes, I really believe that from the ideal standpoint of Jesus, such is the case, that most of our social crimes, indeed nine out of every ten, are caused by our clumsy social arrangements and that, mostly, the criminal is much more the victim and hence much more to be pitied than condemned. I really believe that the ideal standpoint of the Nazarene Reformator is not the ideal, but the real and true and logically correct one; that society as it is, makes criminals and then punishes them. From hints in the Gospels, as also in the Talmud (*), we guess that even Jesus* legitimate right to be born was questioned — a most monstrous absurdity and injustice! He, so grandly gifted and so rudely treated by his age, he, a proletarian socially, a divinely kissed genius intellectually, was naturally disposed to sympathize with the proletarians, and hence his verdict as becoming the leader of a new social order.

It is further my conviction, after a careful study of the subject, that the New Testament is for abolishing Capital punishment in each and every case and for treating criminals as sick brethren. The drift of the Talmudical Legislation is in the same direction, as shown at large elsewhere, for indeed, both New Testament and Talmudical jurists start from and steer towards a more refined social order: "The kingdom of heaven" is common to both of them. Mosaism, not so lofty and not so ideal as either of the above Codes on one hand, but on the other hand, erected on principles of a civil polity much purer than our own present one, does admit of capital punishment. With our social conditions that can be tolerated only on the score of being the smaller evil; and the criminal is to be removed as the leper is, in order not to infect the healthy ones. Such was the Essenian Messiah, Reformator and Leader. " My kingdom is not of this world" — "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." — "The time has come to realize the law in essence and spirit, not merely in form;" to bring out the kingdom of heaven upon earth; to persuade mankind to yield up selfishness, ambition and sensuality, to forego greed and gluttony; to aim at true happiness; to worship God, not Mammon, nor Rome, and to love one another as brothers, without regard to race or country. That will vanquish and gain over Rome. That will make the law of Zion triumphant.

This appears to have been the scope of the Galelean innovator; identical with the prophetic one, but applied to a larger sphere and on a grander scale. Judaea and Israel merged into mankind and the world. In the clearest moments of his life, his visions reached the range of cosmopolitan humanity. Paul realized what his master pointed at.

Meteor-like was the appearance and activity of that extraordinary religious genius — religious, not sectarian. The believer now may build his church upon his few, but far-reaching utterances. The historian, the careful truth-seeker must acknowledge that too few facts are warranted to yield a safe and full picture of that phenomenon. As all providential vehicles of human advance, he had his blind enemies and his blind friends and adherents. He was so much superior to his contemporaries! So he was little understood. He was admired and worshipped, but not understood.

Jesus a Reality and a Great Historical Era.

Nevertheless, history has two criteria left at least for his approximate appreciation. There are a goodly number of sentences and parables left, going mostly by the name of the Sermon on the Mount, etc., which sentences reveal a religious and ethical genius of an extraordinary political and social calibre, by far transcending the range of all his contemporaries. I shall later enlarge upon that. These are to me the first proofs of the historical Jesus, that he is a reality and no myth. He is a great historical era.

The next proof of the real existence of Jesus is the undeniable and great fact of Christianity. Christianity is the immense result of his short activity. Now, from the greatness of the result, I argue the greatness of the cause. For whatever part of this result may be attributed to the self-sacrifice and devotion of his disciples to the far-reaching, bold initiative and the social sagacity of Paul, etc., to the genius of a few among the fathers, to the worldly ambition of the Caesars and to the vast, sometimes grand and sometimes crooked politics of the leading Roman bishops — yet it appears, that the best and grandest part belongs to Jesus of Nazareth himself. I may safely venture to say that the great mental and spiritual basis of the church today yet belongs to him and to his prophetic predecessors. Whilst her drawbacks are the effect of some of his hasty followers. For if not for the misunderstandings and ambitions of some, synagogue and church would yet be one! Now, the fact of Christendom, the great fact that three hundred millions of men representing the highest civilization as yet attained, call themselves Christians, that fact cannot be overrated and constitutes Jesus as one of the foremost personages of history, to believers and unbelievers in his divinity. That other fact, that a large part of these three hundred millions of Christians are often nominal Christians only, that now, as eighteen hundred years ago, the Sermon on the Mount is not yet carried out in spirit; that his name and doctrine have been and are being so much abused and distorted; that sin and warfare are going on now as before, that stern fact does not militate against the assumption of the greatness of Jesus: For hypocrisy itself is a tribute to goodness: for abuse is not use; for the nobler a thing, the more its misuse. Charles V. and Phillip II. devastated Europe; the Guises prepared the Bartholomy night; the Russians ruin Catholics, Lutherans, Poles and Jews. All of these hypocritically invoke Christ! What has not been misused in human affairs! Behold that far-famed politician of the period who "swore by God and the Kaiser" and set the European peace on fire, turned back the dial of civilization and proscribed myriads of innocents! — Even so the millions of nominal Christians do not disprove the moral greatness of Jesus of Nazareth; for the homage of hypocrisy is even more telling.

The Historical Jesus.

No created being stands upon its own individual feet. Every man leans upon his antecedents as his historical pedestal. Jesus had the best, the grandest one any great personage ever had.

To explain his mental and moral greatness, his wonderful career, the logical thinker need not recur to the hidden ways of mysticism and supernaturalism. The close examination of his historical environments will fully verify that extraordinary phenomenon. We must not forget that he was the child of an extraordinary people; a people at whose start its legislator held up the ideal: "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation ; no offensive war and no warspoils" (*); "Ye shall be holy, for holy am I, your God"; 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself "(*); "One right and one duty for air'(*); "God is Yahveh, the Supreme One, the Eternal Being,"(*) etc. That puny but historically great people had two thousand years ago already, an existence of more than two thousand years. It had but lately emerged victorious from the gigantic Syrian war. It had shattered the greatest monarchy then extant. It had attracted the eyes of the world to its own religion, its spirit, its laws, its many great domestic and public traits. It had caused the refined of the world to a change of polity, an at least partial adoption of its divinely established ethics. Heathendom was discredited and monotheism was to take its place. That great people had a phalanx of commensurate leaders, its mental and spiritual exponents, who to this day stand forth titan-like, as the brightest galaxy in human history. Abraham, the initiator of nobler worship, thought and ethics; whom to this day the Orient invokes as progenitor and teacher; whom some even identify with the Hindoo Brahma; Moses, the gigantic human pyramid, 'standing upon Mt. Sinai as his pedestal," the mental colossus of Rhodus, looking down upon three continents as his field of activity; David, that great pattern of patriotic conquerors and founders of states; Elijah, that fiery soul, the embodiment of great convictions, ideal purity and stern, active reality; he who by his individual will-power prescribed to his age its proper course; he, followed by a host of worthy disciples in his grand orbits, as the planets follow the sun's motion; Judas Maccabeus, that founder of Judaea, he who, before Luther, Mirabeau, Washington and Patrick Henry, had said: "Give me liberty, or give me death; he who joined in his one heart the heroism of David to that of Elijah and Ezra, and a thousand more of that class; upon this vast pyramid of human greatness stands the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. In some sense, he is an impersonation of his extraordinary people, an epitome of his national heaven of great stars, of bold initiators. Indeed, that people may be considered as a specimen quite unique in history, realizing all the great human virtues, combined with all the hates, wrongs, prejudices and misfortunes coming from human stupidity and wickedness. Even so was Jesus. Ponder over that part of the Gospels which may critically be accepted as coming from him, and you cannot deny that he was eminently endowed with the most extraordinary mental qualities and with as extraordinary virtues, devoting his life to a grand and noble career, and dying the death of a martyr. Nevertheless, and with all that array of splendid merits, he was from his very birth the victim of all kinds of hates and prejudices. He was hated and belittled by the Romans because he was a Jew. He was so by the Jewish upper classes as a proletarian. He was so by the learned, as not being a rabbi, not regularly ordained. He was so by the officials as an independent; by the nobles, as a plebeian; by the refined, as a working man, by the Judaeans as a Galelean, by the pious, as a neologue. Whilst he was thus burdened with all artificial disqualifications, he was really endowed with all the great and substantial qualities of head and heart. Such a man, in such conditions, could not but turn an innovator. The drift of outward circumstances and of inward qualifications carried him towards reformation and revolution. In his own personality, he felt how cruelly and stupidly unjust, worthless and rotten his age and its society were. Within himself, he felt sufficient force, grandeur and provocation, Samson-like, to take hold and shake the rotten pillars of that society. May Jewish mysticism and Christian supernaturalism explain that phenomenon in their respective ways. The critical historian needs not to dive into the supernatural. The natural, the logical are fully sufficient to account for that event. His inward character, his personal and his historical environments fully explain it. He was bound to attempt at reformation and so he did. Of course, individually, he had to perish. He could not cope with the powers of his country and of the world. Having attacked all those powers, they did their worst against him. All they could do, was to take his life, and this they did. They did that with all the brutality of Roman Patricians and Praetorians; they jeered at him with the ferocity of the mob. For a moment, in the agony of a cruel death, he derogated and cried bitterly: "My God,
(1)   Rcnan*8 assumption, that Jesus was an ignorant villager, is entirely unwarranted, nis sharp repartees, accurate quotations and spirited remarks prove him as possessed of all the learning and refinement of his age, towering above it in genius.
why hast thou forsaken me" but soon he recovered himself and grandly prayed: "Father, forgive thy children, they know not what they are doing."

Let the established churches and their exponents expound about his supernatural resurrection. These pages treat only of his historical resurrection. Men of such a calibre are mentally deathless, they are spiritually invulnerable to the shafts of malice, and the edge of the sword. Their blood can be spilled, not their soul nor their aspirations. Their work is deathless, their ideas are deathless, and their humanitarian endeavors can not be stifled by the outpouring of their blood. Remember how opportune he arrived. The Gentile world felt the naive, discredited polytheism forever disappearing. The commonwealth leaned alone upon the terrors of the Roman sword. But that sword began to corrode at the rude breath of vice, stalking barefaced and unrestrained in all the social strata. It began to break down under the shock of Teutonic invaders. The state had no base nor backing; the better part of humanity yearned for some positive moral and spiritual principle, and monotheism was the coming savior. Unfortunately, the rabbis were entangled in the dialectics of the new Talmudical logic, in the quibbles of Hillel and Shammai. They could not extricate themselves from the meshes of the thirteen Parsee rules, Q from which alone they expected a rejuvenation, insteadof recurring to prophetism. The Pharisees or Parsees forgot that the world was waiting for a great initiative. That world was ready to accept the nobles' prophetic faith and ethics. But it had no partiality for a ritual, grown out of Judaean circumstances but foreign and indifferent to the Gentile nations. The Pharisees had not the courage to free the Gentiles of that ritual. Here was the great opportunity for the uncommon, solid sense of the Nazarene Reformator. He broke the spell. He gave the word, the fiat: "The law shall be fulfilled in spirit and in truth . . . Truth, justice and mercy, asks God, not sacrifice!" — And upon that idea he built up his new society. That appears to be the pure essence of his scheme. Of course, in many respects, his efforts have been thwarted, his doctrine distorted, new superstitions added, and his kingdom of God often turned into a kingdom of Caesar. Nevertheless, his work could not be entirely demolished. Its leading columns remain; the Sermon on the Mount remains; the prophetic harangues and noble aspirations remain. Deep at the bottom of the official church and dogma, there rests yet the golden grain of his and his predecessor's saving teachings. The advancing human civilization, the better recognition of manhood! of womanhood, of the masses, the higher degree of human rights, dignity, solidarity, sympathy, etc., etc., are the outcome of his ancestral religion. Eventually, all these prophetic teachings will become a reality. These teachings he has not invented; they are prophetic property; but he has brought them home to the Gentile masses; they have become common property of mankind. I am speaking of the historical, the rational Jesus, Christian believing reader! Let no one take it ill that these pages so seldom touch upon the mystic claims of the supernatural Jesus. Concerning that, I refer the reader to the official expounders of dogmatic Christianity. Whenever I had to allude to that part, it was simply as an objective fact as generally accepted by the church. I speak here simply from my own undogmatical, rational, historical standpoint. Yet that unsectarian view interests the reader greatly, because it gives him a firm base to build upon. I am investigating here the important part of the Jesus of history. The reader is at full liberty to rear upon that his own religious structure, which is beyond my scope and horizon. It can do him but good to learn that the historical, rational one is a solid one. I repeat, the supernatural one is not of my province, I believe in One God.

Gentle Gentile, non-believing reader! My way of understanding and treating that great religious, historical phase can not be indifferent to you either, because it shows that it is not a dogmatical, ritualistic or metaphysical phase, but a historical, an ethical and a practical one, influencing mankind greatly to this day, influencing believer and non-believer; It is highly interesting to Freethinker, Christian and 'Jew.
It can not be indifferent to any one to see that the founder of Christianity is not a fiction, but a grand, historical reality; that he was not an every-day's mortal; not a fanatical stickler; not a mere miracle worker; not an idle schemer; not a pretentious priest; not an effete royal claimant; not a soft, lazy monk, nor a barefoot derwish, not a peevish fault finder; not given to dreaming, hallucination and self-apotheosis.

I say it is interesting for the thinking reader, even for the unbeliever, that Jesus of Nazareth is a real personality, however short and meteor-like his career was. A great and extraordinary man was he, with vast worldembracing ideas and deep sympathies, thrilling through Christendom to this day. A religious genius, absorbed in the God-idea, like Abraham, Moses or Spinoza, feeling the contact with deity, yet without fanaticism, without the smoke of the blazing, religious light; liberal, serene and farsighted, recognizing in all of Adam's children the children of Abraham; his miracles were his ideas and views; his life were his sayings, his Sermon on the Mount. His religious and social schemes were mostly premature, ideal, Utopian; his kingdom of heaven is nevertheless the goal of human progress; closely seen, his hopes and his kingdom of heaven were the dream of the noblest of his time, the vision of the rabbis and of the seers of his people. His dream was that he would make the kingdom of God real, that it is ready to be inaugurated upon earth. That was, indeed, his dream. But who would blame him for that? Such ideals are more worth for human strivings than a myriad of Macchiavelian, practical realities. Such dreams are the oil and marrow of human aspirations. Probably he thought to be a Davidian descendant and destined to a grand role. Great men do not think contemptuously of themselves — but a pretentious, royal claimant, he was not. He knew that "nobility obliges."

   The fox has his hole, the fowl its nest, he had no place to rest his head" — his crown was of thorns, his kingdom not a royal one. He was ready to fight for his schemes and dreams, and give his life for them; and when realizing on the cross that human benefactors must die, he meekly said: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing."

Jesus is a reality; his dreams and teachings influence, for weal or woe, the fate of mankind.
My above picture shows, that the founder of Christianity was not an idle visionary, not a blind fanatic, not an exaggerating rigorist, not without definite ideas, aims, objects and scope. It shows that the mysticism is but the drapery, hiding a solid kernel worthy of a sage; that he was the continuator of the great historic hope, the greatest ideas ever alive in history, the bodily, social, political, ethical and mental development of the human race.
Jewish reader! Mistake not the tendency of this new picture of Jesus of Nazareth I am unfolding before your eyes. I well know your feelings. I know your bitter, old and new impressions and recollections. In that name, the Hebrew people have been for fifteen centuries butchered, exiled, derided, ostracized, torn from their homes, pillaged, ravaged, dragged to the pillory and to the funeral-pile. But the new picture in these pages shall remind you, that that very name, that identical man himself was treated alike, that he was a victim himself, that he is but an epitome of his race. You must, therefore, not hold him responsible for cruel wrongs during long ages, exercised in his name, since he himself was the first sufferer of "Anti-Semitism."

These pages shall remind you and not let you forget the fact, that Jesus of Nazareth was of the Hebrew people, a Jew of the Jews, that he taught the doctrines, lived the life and died the death of your own martyred fathers and prophets; that he was one of the noblest patterns of the patriarchal race, and that you must learn to forget your bitter tears and your cruel wounds, and but remember that he suffered your death and wore your thorny crown for his and your convictions; that his is one of the greatest names that ever illustrated the tragic annals of Israel; that therefore you have all cause to be proud of him as one of your own.

In the course of time, his doctrine will be revised and better appreciated, his life will be better imitated. He will be not simply an ideal, a miraculous messiah, he will be a living example of human goodness to imitate. When his doctrine, the prophetic doctrine "of love and good-will to all," will become a rule of conduct, when Christianity will become an active, living force, then the world will recognize him as Israel's exponent, and Israel as the rock he was hewn from. You will then have cause not only to be proud of him, but also to be grateful to him and to consider him as an illustrious martyr of Israel's cause.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 19, 2010, 11:59:56 PM

CHAPTER VIII.

SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

As in nature, so in human history there is nothing sudden, nothing startling and new; all is slowly developing, all linked to a parent. And as everything in historic initiative is but a development of former germs, even so are the sayings of Jesus. Mostly we can find their parallels in either prophets, mystics or rabbinical sages. But there such pearls and fine sayings are scattered, far between unsystematic, intermingled with formalism, discussions and dry-as-dust argucies, appearing as a flash of lightning in a dark night. In the sermon on the mount they are a system, a whole, a logical doctrine, exaggerated, mystical, yet a doctrine, a legislation of an ideal state, of a sublime society, to be based upon holiness, right and love; a society of angelic men and women, a kingdom of heaven enacted on earth. The sermon on the mount is not one, or two, or three sermons; no, it is a collection of texts and themes and principles discussed by the Teacher on different occasions, who, for one, was in earnest with the biblical system; whilst the rabbis often had saved the appearance, had spared the letter, but changed the essence. Jesus could sincerely say: "I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill the law."Nevertheless, in his bold idealism, he appears to have transcended the Pentateuch and to have coincided with the prophets. He seems to have guessed that the rabbis have used their wits to re-establish and substantiate rites, symbols and religious customs of hoary times, used among all nations, forms and views of an artificial piety; that the Pentateuch had sifted them, partly rejected and partly accepted them; that the prophets alone had struck the keynote by pointing to the essence of religion, viz: correct ethics and pure deeds, leaving out all ceremonialism as indifferent.

Let us say a word more on the relation of prophets, Pentateuch and Talmud. Putting aside the official chronology, or rather overlooking the accepted, local chronology, which is claiming precedence for the Pentateuch and placing the prophets after that, judging rather from internal evidence and the logic of history and parallel analogies, one might be inclined to reverse the canonical chronology and to take the prophets as being first in time, and the last redaction of the Pentateuch posterior to them. Namely: with Abraham and Moses began among the Hebrew race a slow reaction against Heathen polytheism and practices; slowly the reaction was broadening with Samuel's school of prophets. It taught religion to consist in the belief in God, pure spirit, asking but righteousness, modesty and good-will to all. It did no more than tolerate such Heathen practices that were customary and innocent; whilst it rejected all those that were foolish, cruel or immoral. Slowly came out a kind of compromise between the ethics of the prophets and the cult of the priests; and this compromise is in the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch embodies the essence of the religion of the prophets with an admixture of the forms of the current cults, admitting a certain amount of rites, and constituting both elements as practical mosaism. As to the rest of those numerous, religious practices, beliefs, rites and symbols, as current among the peoples of antiquity at large, it dealt differently, according to their worth! Those not squaring with monotheism, pure morality, justice and chastity, were thoroughly expunged and rejected. Whilst a great many others that were innocent and compatible with the mosaism, taught in the Pentateuch, such a host of so-called religious practices and rites survived and continued among the Jewish people, though not countenanced by the Pentateuch, and passed in silence by the Prophets, as perfectly indifferent whether observed or not. Such hosts of rites and observances the people piously kept up as ancestral customs, as conducive to godliness and as practiced by the neighbors. In the course of time, during the second temple, the rabbis not finding any fault with such forms, and thinking that, perhaps, they may bexonducive to piety, deemed it best to give them a footing in the Pentateuch, now the established religious law in Israel. This they did by the Hermaneutic rules of the Talmud. By these they re-established what the Prophets and the Pentateuch had left out. This is tradition, as in Mishna, Gemarra, etc. Whilst thus the canonized chronology in time and place is first Pentateuch, then Prophets and at last Talmud. The inner contents and the logical evolution may show a diametrically opposite chronology, viz: tradition, Prophets and Pentateuch. I mean, first in time were countless forms, observances and rites that man in hoary antiquity deemed to be religious and pleasing to the gods, or the superior invisible powers. Then came the prophets and discriminated between real religion and useless rites, describing them as handles of superstition and priestcraft. Later came the Pentateuch and brought about the compromise, as usually in history human affairs are going on: conservatism, revolution and compromise.

The work of the Talmud was to re-establish and re-engraft exploded rites and forms, endeared to the people and appearing innocent to the rabbis. A host of such rites, practices, beliefs and views, now current in Jewish old-time life and canonized in the rabbinical codices, will be found in the sacred books of the Greeks, Italians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, etc., mummies of hoary antiquity, stalking on in flesh and bone in this nineteenth century. The Pentateuch, with its rabbinical interpretations, being a practical Code for a real state, with human beings and human shortcomings, not saints and angels — the Pentateuch had fused old and new things, idealism and realism, egoism and altruism, religion, morality and goodness with practical legality, ritualistic forms and real worship with empty sacrifices. Jesus appears to have there contemplated a vast reform, though he never spoke it out distinctly. He conceived the idea, Paul overdid it. He wished to expunge the remnants of paganism, the compromise of prophet and priest, to abrogate formalism and legalism and leave a pure, monotheistic society; perhaps an ideal society, a kingdom of heaven, of pure altruism, of saints and saintesses. This he did in his Sermon on the Mount.

Background of the Sermon on the Mount.

Carefully reading the verses of Matth. 5 and Luke 6, etc., denominated, the Sermon on the Mount; reading and pondering over it, not as a devotee, not as an adherent, nor as a scoffer and infidel fault-finder, either, but as a truth-seeker, as a critical examiner of some of those world renowned pages which for long centuries have wielded great influence over mankind, which are considered by a large portion thereof as the foundation of a great system of religion, — reading carefully and pondering over Chapters 5-7 of Matthew, they seem to me to be the programme, the guide and the key of the genuine and original ethicoreligious system of Jesus of Nazareth. Composing and slowly expounding that programme sketched in the "Sermon," its author seems to have been permeated by the ethical doctrines ad the social views of the Jewish mystics, called in Judaea the Essenes; the Tkera peutos (Sepaitevroi) in Alexandria, the Assia and Zenuim in Hebrew. They were the party which Josephus enumerates and sets down as the third great religio-political sect among his contemporary countrymen. What was their programme?

The Essenes.

It was the following: The world is radically bad. It came forth good and noble from the hands of the Creator: But sin and disobedience crept in even with the first couple, Adam and Eve. That hopelessly wrecked mankind, and it is not worth while propagating the race. Even the Mosaic law cannot rescue it. It rather increases the evil, for the law is tempting to disobedience, rendering the performer haughty and safe at the very brink of perdition. It renders him hypocritical, given to false piety, empty lip-service and dry deeds. Holy seasons, sacrifices and Temple-worship are inoperative; at best, palliatives. The Pentateuch, no doubt, is the word of God. But even the Pentateuch cannot save the corrupt world. God as Creator and Lawgiver has been thwarted in his efforts, by Satan. — There was here a parallel reasoning with the Parsee's Ahriman, counteracting the good Ahura Mazdah. God, who foresaw this from eternity, has prepared the remedy, even before the ill. It is the messiah, a second Himself, his only begotten Son, (the parallel of said Ahura Mazdah in Parseeism.) The messiah divine will come in the right moment; he will destroy this Roman world, as once Sodom and Gomorrah; he will inaugurate a new order of things, a new world, a kingdom of Heaven, viz: a kingdom of God, with a new law, dispensing with the old one, as more or less effete and worn out, because overladen with traditions and formalism, running up to myriads, engrossing the heart by cold rites and dry symbols, and leaving scarcely room for feelings and convictions, occupying hands and lips, not the hearts of men. These myriads of forms and observances are burdensome to the believer and yet conducive to little good. They are almost a stumbling block, because their performance has sunk down with the Sadducees to a mechanical handand lip-service;' with the (Pharisees to a labyrinth of soulless ceremonialism, and with the Chassidai to mysticism; with all leading to hypocrisy and mechanical piety, to assumed holiness, not to real righteousness; not to inward, genuine piety, happiness or godliness. The law is of divine origin, but by the perversion of man, under the guise of tradition, it has become misleading, inducing to arrogance and hypocrisy if followed, and to sinfulness if neglected. The Pharisaic teachers are "blind leading the blind," and can bring no salvation from Rome, nor from hell. The law, therefore, as indeed man and the world at large, need a total renovation, which renovation shall be effected by the messiah, the Davidian prince, with the spirit and the power of God and love of man; he, the primordial, divine, mysterious personality, ever in existence since the creation of the world, God's first emanation for man's redemption. This we find to have been the reasoning of Paul, (see Romans, Galatians and I Corinthians.) In a less pronounced degree this was the general view of Jesus, to judge by his scanty hints, his parables and the tenor of his teachings and sayings. No doubt, this was the march of ideas and feelings among the Essenes, from which ranks they both arose and which religious and social phase they represented. These ideas we find foreshadowed in all the contemporaneous writers about that sect. This is the only logical way to bring order and light in that chaos of startling, wonderful doctrines and stranger disciplines of the Judaean Essenes and the Egyptian Therapeutos. It is simply seeking out and handing the key to the later Christian upheaval. It is finding out the head of the Nile of that dawning Christian movement. Of course, the sectarian believer takes his key-note in supernaturalism. But these pages start from rational, historical premises. Hence do I find that later grand Christian revolution in its founders: Jesus and Paul, the Essenes and Therapeutos in Judaeian mysticism and the circumstances of the times.

Essene Practice and Doctrine.

Having such views on man and things, the Essenes retired from the world, neglected human society, the temple, sacrificial worship, gave up, ' mostly, marriage and rearing of family, acquiring of wealth, or even of bread and raiment, beyond the daily necessities; doing their best to have this wicked Roman world die out. Retiring into the Judaean desert, mostly into the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, and occupying with but few simple crafts, they gave themselves up to ascetism, preparing and waiting for the Kingdom of God, the renovation of the law in spirit and truth, and of man through faith, deeds of righteousness, love and humility; not idle lip-service, nor ceremony.

Rome and her polity of fraud, violence, sensuality, brutality and selfishness had brought down the honest and sensitive portion of mankind to such a pitch of despair, as to resort to a kind of universal suicide. — As the despotism of Hindostan had created the Jirwanadoctrine, the belief that the highest bliss of man is: non-existence, that the highest reward of the righteous is to be re-absorbed and unconscious in the bosom of the omnipresent Deity. Even so did the brutal tyranny of Rome create in Judaea and elsewhere the sect of the EsseneSy the fnystics, who gave over the world, the law, the temple, etc., all made by God, indeed, yet now deteriorated and powerless to struggle against the principle of evil, Satan, introduced from parseeism. Nothing can remedy conditions until God will call out his only Son, the messiah, long in waiting for that emergency, to renovate the world, man and law, through the principles of righteousness, peace, love and holiness. That was the theory and the practice of the Essenes, and that the back-ground of the Sermon on the Mount.

Was this tantamount to a giving up of the ancestral religion, to repudiating the Thora, God, etc? By no means! This was, the Essenes thought, the fulfillment of the law. Moses himself and all the prophets have ever been vituperating the hardheartedness of the Israelites who believed that the dry, mechanical performance of the commandments would make them happy and good, acceptable to God and men. Moses and the prophets have time and again insisted and inculcated: "Now, Israel, what is God asking of thee? but to walk in his ways, etc.". . "Circumcise the obtuseness of your hearts and be no longer stiff-necked (V M. lo, i6.) I want mercy and divine knowledge, not sacrifices," (Hosea 6, 7.) "Do away with your wicked deeds; learn well-doing, protect the weak, etc" . . . "Aa abomination unto me are idle prayers, your slaughterings and festivities." (Isaiah.) Again and again the prophets have declared that God will create in Israel a new heart and a new covenant (Jeremiah and Ezekiel). And this will be realized by the Davidian 'full with the strength and the spirit of God" (Isaiah 11). Thus the Essene mystic, renouncing the world and looking coldly on the law, was hoping for a renovated, miraculous order of things, for the kingdom of heaven, for regenerated man with a new spirit and a new heart, man restored to righteousness, peace and love. Doing so, he conscientiously believed that he was going along with the prophets, that he was aiming, not at an abolition of the law, but at its spiritual fulfillment. That messianic belief was shared in by the immense majority of the Judaean people, not only the Essenes. It was shared by the Pharisees, the official and recognized teachers of the nation. It was detested only by the Sadducees, who clung to the order of things as it was, because their privileges were bound up with it. Whilst the Essenes pushed that theory to its last logical consequence. They mostly gave up property, marriage, society and temple, and devoted themselves in full earnest to the preparation for the kingdom of heaven. They lived on roots, bread and fruit; little acquisitions; but poverty for all, equality for all, piety for all; in economics they practiced communism; they formed a kind of phalanster; no families, no worldly study; only ascetic exercises and devotions, living for the Malchuth Sha7naim, altruism and piety. That mosaic law enjoining love of next, they carried to the extreme, to self-sacrifice: "If thy neighbor smites thee on the right cheek, offer him the left," — "If he takes thy coat, give him thy mantle too." — "You wish to participate in the kingdom of God? Well, sell all, give it to the poor, then take the cross and follow me (the Leader.)" "You hesitate? Rather will a camel pass a needle's eye, than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven." God is the father of all; all of Adam's children; man is his child. God influences mankind by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a personal divine being; it is mentioned, too, by the prophets. The messiah will renovate man according to new laws. Even the body will be spiritual. Evil, lezer ha-rah, hriman will be eliminated; no lust, no violence, no ambition; possibly no eating, drinking and generating. There will be no death and no birth. Hell will be abolished and Satan forever disarmed — a Persian doctrine. The resurrection will be spiritual, no marrying, etc., etc. All that the Essene allegorically deduced from Thora and prophets. The messiah will realize the law in spirit and in truth, and it may be dispensed with in the letter and in fact. The entire ethics, the social and private morals, were those mentioned by the Talmudists as the ethics of the Chassidai. Such ethics were an ideal, bold, exaggerated, self-sacrificing system of morals for noble enthusiasts, for angelic beings sick of the world, with its follies, iniquities, tears and sufferings, its ambitions and disappointments, its vices and crimes and wars. Tired of Rome, of its legions, pro-consuls and Caesars, tired of high priest, Pharisees and Sadducees, the Essenes retired into the charming, wild, still neighborhood of En-Gediy as into a dreamland of rest and beatitude, away from the noisy Jerusalem and Caesarea. The balsamic En-Gedi and the pestilential Dead Sea close by, illustrated well the kingdom of heaven and the dominion of Rome. Here was the laboratory of later Christianity; from that balmy atmosphere and bold scenery departed its founders and framers.

Sermon on the Mount and Essenian Parallels.

A comparison of sayings and doctrines found in the Gospels as coming from Jesus, to be retraced to Talmud Hagada and mystics, has been several times tried. "The Orient" of 1845 and 1847, contains such a parallel by Dr. Zipser. Dr. I. Hamburger has an epitome thereof. Recent writers have mentioned that too. So especially the Englishman Lightfoot and the German Wiinshe. The striking identity of many doctrines and views among the Chassidai, the Essenes and the mystically inclined rabbis, with those of Jesus, and even of Paul, has thus been evidently proved and demonstrated. The known "Lord's prayer ' has been analyzed, verse by verse, and parallels given in the Haggadic literature; the same is the case with most of the parallels of Jesus. Original and ingenious as that religious master was, nevertheless he took his building material from among his contemporaneous schools, his Pharisean and Essenian teachers. Original, with all that, he remained; for it requires genius enough to make a grand structure out of scattered material found in fragments on the road-side of human thought. As an illustration I shall quote the following few parallels, leaving the rest to our discussion of the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 22, and Luke 10, 27, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," etc. This is the first and great commandment; and the second is. like unto it: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."On these two hinge all the law and prophets." Its parallels are numerous; instanced in (Deuter, 6, 5: "And thou shalt love the Eternal thy God with all thy heart, etc." The same in (Deuter, 10, 12: "What does God ask of thee? but to fear him, love him and serve him with all thy heart, etc." , (Deuter. 30, 6: "And God will circumcise thy heart to love him with all thy heart and soul ..." Further in Leviticus 19, 18: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, but expostulate with him . . . Bear no grudge against him . . ."And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself , . . " Further, we read the same in Apochr, hook Tobi 6, 15: "What is hateful unto thee, do not unto others."
Talmudical, etc., Parallels.
So Talmud Sabbath 31 a. A Gentile appeared before Shammai with the request: "I consent to my becoming converted on condition that you teach me the entire Thora Q in the time I can stand upon one foot." Shammai pushed him back with. the building measure in his hand. He then appeared before Hillel, who kindly received him and replied his query with: "What is hateful unto thee, do not unto thy neighbor. That is all the law. The rest is but comment, go home, learn and practice." The same is taught by R. Akiba (in Jerusalem Nedarim 9): "Love thy neighbor as thyself, that is the great doctrine of the Thora." In Berachot 16, is narrated his tragic and cruel end at the hands of the Romans, who tortured him to death. His pupils were standing by and weeping, and he said: "Why? this is perhaps the proudest moment of my life. It is written: "Thou shalt love the Eternal thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul." That means, even when thy life is taken; and it is just now when I am first able to fulfill that commandment." In Midrash Rabba Genesis, Chapter 23, R. Akiba repeats that: Love thy neighbor as thyself, is the fundamental doctrine of the Thora — as mentioned above.
Mark 1 2, 29. The first of all commandments is: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord'" The literal reading is in Deuter. 6, 4: "Hear, O Israel, the Eternal Being — Yahveh — is our God, the Eternal is One.

Whilst Matthew 28, 19, closes the Sermon of the Mount in "the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" Jesus taught One God in spirit. John and Paul formulated Trinity as the credo of Christianity. After Constantine the Great, in the fourth century Trinity is claimed to be identical with Unity.

According to Paul, is Jesus the Son of God, the supernatural primaeval Messiah, born even before Creation, awaiting the time for redeeming mankind. But he is not identical with God, he is the first creature destined for a certain, special task. God the Father is and remains all in all. For long centuries the larger majority of Christendom followed the doctrines of Arius, according to which Jesus was the Messiah, but not identified with God. It is only after said Constantine the Great, that Jesus was accepted as God-head, one of the Three, and that Trinity was taught as identical with Unity. That is Gentile. Whilst the elements of the Paulinian Trinity may have their analogies in the sources of Jewish mysticism. Following the drift of thought in Brahmanism, Parseeism and Egyptian theosophy, the Deity was best conceived as consisting of three Powers, though differently denominated by each of the above systems. Such Trinitarian doctrines, too, entertained the Judaean Hellenists and theJewishAlexandrian metaphysicians. They taught that Wisdom — Sophia; Logos or Hochmah — is such a divine and independent Power, numen. Philo calls the Logos: The first-born Son of God. The Chassidai, the Essenes, the Jewish mystics, the modern qabbalists term the Holy Ghost as such a divine power. For long did the holy Mother of God, too, occupy a large share of worship in Christendom; reminding respectively of the theosophic Hebrew Hochma, Greek Sophia or Athene and the Egyptian Isis, etc., so dear to the hearts of converts from Egypt. The Syrian converts, too, had no doubt their favorite female deities, and something analogous was necessary to concede to their notions and tastes.

Some Parallels to the Sermon on the Mount.

Let us look to some parallels in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5, 3. "BIessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." The "poor in spirit has given room to much controversy and head-breaking of the commentators. That the poor in spirit are specially blessed, is strange indeed. Jesus was by no means poor in spirity he, the preacher of the law in spirit. That is, no doubt, as we shall see further, a poor rendition of his pointed words. No doubt, he meant poor in the worldly sense, in the social sense, corresponding to the English word: the meek, the humble, the discouraged. In mind the preacher had that fine, analogical verse of Isaiah 11, 4: "And he — the liberating Davidian — will judge with justice the poor, and with equity the humble ones of the land," etc. The Old and New Testament both are full of special sympathy and solicitude for the socially humble ones, the fittest for the kingdom of Heaven, but they are far from being the poor in spirit — they are the poor in purse.
Matthew , 22. 'Whosoever is angry with his brother without cause, is in danger of judgment; and who calls a man raka or fool, is in danger of hell-fire."
Its parallel is in Baba Mezia 58 bQ: "Who shames his neighbor publicly, will have no snare in the hereafter." And Kiddushin 28 a: 'Whosoever calls his neighbor slave! must be excommunicated; if he calls him bastard! he receives forty stripes; if he nicknames him: scoundrel! he endangers his life."

Matthew 5, 28. "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery in his heart"

So in Job 31, I. "It was a covenant with mine eyes never to gaze on a female (lustily). And Proverbs 24: "Do not covet her beauty in thy heart, and be not entrapped by her looks." Their analogy in Talmud and Haggada is legion. "Do not converse too much with thine own wife, with a neighbor's the less so" (Aboth).

Matthew 5, 7. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Similarly we read in Sabbath 15, I b.: It is written in Deuteronomy 13, 18: "He shall give you mercy, and be merciful to thee ..." that means: 'Whosoever is merciful to men, heaven will have mercy upon him." Identical with: He shall enter the kingdom of heaven. We read in Matthew 5, 9: 'Blessed are the peace-makers." So taught, too, Hillel (Aboth). Be a disciple of Aaron who loved peace, and pursued it. So are many other sayings of Mishna, Gemara and Haggada'

Matthew 5, 37. "Let your communication be: Yea, yea, Nay, nay; whatever is more, cometh of evil." Exactly the same we find enjoined in (Baba Mezia 49. It is written (in III M. 19, 36.) "Ye shall do no wrong in judgment, in measure or weight. Just weight, just stones, just Alpha and just hin shall be unto you." What for, asks R, Jehudah, this repetition of weight and measure? Speculating upon the word hin, meaning a measure, and also yes, he deduces the teaching: "Let thy yes be yes and thy no be no . . . Not to speak one way and think another." R. Jochanan once bade his son to hire some workingmen, which he did, stipulating to furnish them with food. To which the rabbi remarked: "Should you give them now daily Solomon's banquets, you would hardly fulfill your duty, for they are the children of the patriarchs; be explicit in your terms concerning the food."
Matthew 6, 26. "Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap . . Yet our heavenly Father feedeth them." So in Kiddushin 82, says Abba Areka: "Hast thou ever seen the fowl of the forest and the
beast of the field laboring for their sustenance? God feedeth them" Matthew 7, 2. "With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged" Its analogies are in Sota 8 a, and Sanhedrin 100 a, etc. "With the same measure a man measures others, he will be measured in his turn . . Who judges of others with kindliness, will be judged the same way."
So Aboth 2, 6: Hillel once saw a drowned person drifting on the waves, and he said: "Because thou didst drown, thou art drowned; and those that drowned thee, will have their turn." He teaches: "Before thou judgest thy neighbor, imagine, first, thyself in his circumstances." Another advises: "Ever judge thy next in the best possible manner." Matthew 18, 20. "Where two or three are together in My name (God's) I am present in their midst." Analogies are in II M. 20, 21. "In every place, and wheresoever My name is remembered, I shall come to thee and bless thee." Malachi 3, 16. "Then spoke together the God-fearing ones, and God listened to them and noticed their wishes."
In (Berachoth, 6 a, the same argument is made. Abba Benjamin claims :' "Prayer is heard by God only in the house of worship." Whereupon another teacher shows from other verses, that God is present in the congregation, in the court room and in the private room of any person. Even the simple desire to do good is meritorious, and benignly accepted by God.

Jesus and Essenism.

Now, this ethical system of the Judaean Essenes was, if not identical with, at least greatly influencing the theories of Jesus of Nazareth, the author of the Sermon on the Mount. It was mostly deduced from Jewish Scriptures, yet transfused with kindred elements taken at second hand anyhow, from Alexandria, from Greece, from Persia, from Parthia, from India, etc; all was elaborated and shaped into an outline of a religious and social doctrine for Judaea; a kind of ethical eclecticism, originally worked out by a man of superior power, a religious and social genius of grand dimensions. That was the writer of the Sermon on the Mount, Now, it appears, that man was followed by another man of a bold, keen, active mind; a man less imbued with the spirit of Judaea and the Pharisaic methods, but more cultured by and initiated into the theosophies of the East, of Greece and Alexandria. I mean Paul of Tarsus. Without the latter's practical genius, the mysticism of the first would never have forsaken the precincts of the Synagogue. By this latter one, a spirit of bold theories and bold practice, that mere outline of the system was worked up, rounded and completed. The thousand fibres yet connecting it with its mother-religion were cut loose and the scheme fitted up for an independent religio-historic phase, soon to be further, strongly modified by the Caesars of the fourth century. Let us return to the initiator. We must not imagine that Jesus slavishly followed the system learned in the Pharisaic and Essene schools. As a superior, religious genius, as a great initiator, he took those scattered elements at home and abroad, and elaborated and perfected them into a vast system, strongly permeated with original thoughts flowing from his own great individuality. The first original thought was: that from the egg of the Essenian society, a puny fraction of puny Judaea, shall burst forth a regenerated, universal Society; it shall be the nucleus and model for the world-empire. The Abrahamic Godidea, the Mosaic state idea, the prophetic moral idea, the biblical socialism, the leading principles of: "Holy shall ye be ... a kingdom of priests and holy people . ."Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, etc . . ."shall become the rules of conduct of his future kingdom, of God.{) From the restricted sense as in Leviticus 19, from the negative form as by Hillel "What thou wilt not be done unto thee, do not unto thy neighbor," the new reformator turned it into the positive one: "What thou wilt it should be done unto thee, that do unto thy neighbor."This slight change of form has an immense practical bearing. The first version means simply, do no wrongY do not over-reach; let everyone have his own. The other is: Do good, be altruistic, be self-sacrificing, fit for the kingdom of heaven. From simply pining at the inadequacy of the law, the initiator arrived slowly and cautiously at bold changes and innovations, at least in theory. These reforms were twofold. His alterations were, on one hand, ever rendering the law more stringent in spirit and essence, and on the other hand less stringent in outward forms and ceremonials. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount is the programme of the avowed new order of things, the abrogation of the world as it was, and the establishment of the kingdom of God. That kingdom, Jesus positively expected as real and imminent, opening upon regenerated man; a new race with one whole nature of unmingled righteousness, kindness and holiness. Before proceeding to the analysis of the Mount Sermon, let us see the same idea in the Eastern world.

Parseeism and Bible.

We have frequently alluded to the Eastern Parsee mode of thought. What was that? Zrwana Akaranay the only One God, embracing all. Eternity and Space, the Hebrew Yahveh and Maqom created the universe. All was good and pure, obeying its innate laws, happy by accomplishing its destiny. Slowly deterioration crept in by disobedience. Behold: there is in the world pleasure and pain, life and death, growth and decay, light and darkness, day and night, peace and strife goodness and meanness, etc. Whence do they come? All from one and the same principle? How can the opposite spring from the identical? The answer is: A split took place in the universe. The original One nd unique All-F'ather, Zrwana Akarana, unfolded into two: Into Ahura Mazda, the Great and Good Being, and Agro-Mainyus, the Great Evil. These two Powers are ever in antagonism, respectively representing the above remarked opposite poles of phenomena. So it is in the universe at large; so in the human world and so in the moral world. Will this antagonism forever go on? No improvement? The human heart abhors such pessimism; and human reason believes to perceive constant, slight amelioration going on. Therefore, there is hope for improvement, hope of progress. That is the theory of social evolution. Theologically construed, it yields the great messianic doctrine. Once Ahura Mazda will vanquish his antagonist, Agro-Mainyus. Once the principle of good will reign supreme. Then all evil with tears, crime darkness and death will be eliminated from the world; light, life, goodness and peace alone will pervade. These are the times of the Zoroastrian Messiah! That train of human reasoning was the one of the Parsee sages, of the Judaean sages and of the Essenian sages. This is the way how, from Zrivana Akura, the One, came out Ahura Mazda and hrO'Mainyus; at last is the latter to give way to the former. This is the mode of reasoning of the Hebrew Chassidai and Essenes, concerning the Messiah at last conquering hell and Satan. Whilst the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Christ are versions of the same hope, the same idea of optimism pervading everywhere the human heart. — This is corroborating our theory about the identity of religious views.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 20, 2010, 12:01:37 AM

CHAPTER IX.

ANALYSIS OF MATTHEW V— VII.— SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. " As alluded to above, "the poor in spirit" is rather an ambiguous translation, doubtfully rendering the sense of the Teacher. Did he actually mean the poor of spirit, the senseless, the fools? By no means! What he meant is: The poor in the worldly sense, the discouraged, the meek, the lowly, viz: The EhyoniteSy the members of his society, the Essenian fraternity, they toiling in the field, living on roots and water, in the desert, patiently awaiting the kingdom of heaven. They, the Preacher declares, will not be disappointed; they will be blessed and rewarded for their privations and their faith. So it reads in Luke 6, 20. "Blessed be ye poor ones, for yours is the kingdom of God; But woe to you that are rich and full, etc., you have received your consolation" Luke is thus clearer than Matthew 5, 3.

More yet I prefer the Greek, misunderstood and mistranslated: tcroxoi to tcvetariyh the poor in breath, not in spirit; it alludes to the hard toiling, proletarians . Jesus' expression may have reference to the toiling Hebrews in Egypt, fifteen centuries before him, who, from short breath, hard work and poverty, could not listen to Moses, (Exodus 6, 9); it refers to Isaiah 11, 4, speaking of the messiah according to the Preacher's standpoint: "And he will judge the poor with kindliness, and with equity the humble of the land;" or Proverb 17, 19: 'Preferable is humility with the oppressed, than to divide spoils with the proud." It is the keynote of the Psalms and of the prophetic tribunes of the ancient democracy who had a heart brimful of sympathy for the oppressed and the humble ones. That is a perfectly suitable introduction for the rules, the polity and the ethics of the kingdom of God, in first instance built up by the leader for the Ebyonites and outcasts, (see Luke 6, 22), and slowly extended to mankind.

The oft repeated "Blessed are," happily imitates the Psalms, etc. Just in the same sense are written the ten following verses. All are a protest against the world as it is. All are expositions of principles of the new realm to be established.

Verse 4: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Verse 5: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Even so Psalm 37: "Do not emulate the wicked, nor envy the evil-doers, for they fade like grass. Trust in God and do good. Cultivate faithfulness, and thou shalt dwell in the land ... for the wicked will be destroyed and those that trust in Yahveh shall inherit the land."
Verse 6: "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness." V. 7 — 1 1: "Blessed are those pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake."
All these verses are full of truth and religious fervor; thrilling with sympathy for the wronged and the outcast in the battle for existence.
The Teacher assumes here the task of the biblical prophet. Isaiah 61: "Since the Lord Yahveh has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to heal the broken-hearted, to liberate the captives ... to console the mourners, etc."Even so Jesus; he is the messiah of the poor.
In these ten verses, i — 11, I find the dignity of the prophet combined with the deep, thrilling and earnest, yet suave and benign tunes of the Davidian psalmist, the hoary preacher, by the grace of God; he who teaches, consoles, rebukes, uplifts, purifies, burns the dross of vice and folly, permeates and inspires with truth, goodness and courage for the bitter battle of existence, against violence and cunning. Each verse nobly opens with: "(Blessed are" in Hebrew, in which it was no doubt delivered, it read: "Asheraiy A long, golden string of consolations, each beginning with Asherai, "(Blessed are." It is, no doubt, an imitation of the Psalms, the intention being to announce the programme of the new social order, whose aim will be to look after the poor. (Ps. 41.)
Not of such a calibre are the following verses, II and 12. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." — These two verses touch other springs, other keynotes, and have another style. There is too much acrimony, too much self-assertion in them. They obviously belong to the Paulinian manner of argumentation; they are premature here, to say the least, in the mouth
of Jesus. They have no analogy in the Old Testament. The tone of modesty, meekness and amiable resignation is lacking here. It is Paul or Stephen that speaketh here, not the leader of the Ebyonites.

Here is a remarkable spirit of self-assertion and selfrighteousness. Never has Moses rebuked his hearers in such a tone. This is a later phase in the grand religious drama, a time when the new sect began to be persecuted and strong enough to defy and persecute others in turn. The spirit is not of the writer of the Sermon on the Mount, nor is the style so. Look to the tautology, the diffuseness, the many words for the one idea. The ideas and the style of Jesus, though coming to us after repeated translations and in a foreign garb, have their own stamp. They are plain, clear, cutting, sharp, with a deep ring, finding an echo in the reader's bosom, compressing a great deal in a few words, calling on you to ponder, meditate and continue the thought, which thought is rather hinted at, than fully developed. Diffuseness, many words and tautology are never Jesus' faults. They are piquant and charming, like the satire of Proverbs or of Horace; weighty, deep and solemn, like the Psalms; majestic and bold, like Isaiah. These verses, ii and 12, are not so; they bear a Paulinian stamp, perhaps a Caesarian one.
Verses 13 — 17: "Ye are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. — Let your light so shine before men, that they may glorify our Father in heaven." . . . These verses may be derived from the original author of the Sermon, but they have been retouched and formulated afterwards. No doubt, they too are self-asserting. Yet a great and far-reaching innovator, who rejects the world as it is, and paves the way for a new order of things, may well feel proud of his work and call his disciples "the salt and the light of the world." If you send out a small band of men to revolutionize the world, you must give them besides heavenly manna, also, some human cakes on their journey.
Verses 17 — 21: "Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill; for verily . . . till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled . . . Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so, he shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven .... For except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Here is much light thrown upon the original ideas of the author, viz: To bring about a reaction against the method of the rabbinical expoundings. By that mode a large portion of the Pentateuch had been respectfully disestablished and a host of new forms and rites created instead; the less they contained of its inner spirit and the more of the dry bones of the annulled law. These verses, 1 7 and 21, enter their protest against that system.

The Teacher starts with the important and solemn declaration to uphold the original law in every jot and tittle. Was he here in good touch or in contradiction with his surroundings, the Essenes? They thought little of tradition, but they had begun to doubt even the efficacy of many biblical commandments. Rejecting the realistic world of Moses, they had begun the construction of an ideal messianic dominion. He had accepted that kingdom of heaven; was that compatible with "every jot and tittle of the law?" How shall we reconcile that claim with other statements of the Gospels much to the contrary? This difficulty might be removed yet by the assumption, that on all such occasions where Jesus seems to make light of the law, such instances do not touch upon the law proper, viz: the Pentateuch and the Prophets, but upon the rabbinical interpretations, the traditional accrescences and additions. The law in essence and truth he did uphold and never abrogated. So it was in practice, no doubt. No Jew among the Jews of his time would have ventured to depart from the dietary laws, or openly work on the Sabbath, or break the fast of the atonement day. But when we see, later, his disciples having visions of "birds coming down from heaven in a basket, and offered to their appetites, without discriminating if clean or not;" when Paul emphasizes, that "what comes from the mouth, renders unclean, not what comes into the mouth;" when even Peter, etc., "eats with the Gentiles," — does it not prove that the hint thereof they had received from the Master, and that the Master did discriminate in the Pentateuchical laws as in the rabbinical ones, at least in theory? Or were there different phases in his doctrine?

Verse 17 elucidates the initiator's standpoint at that time. It states the terms of his initiative, declaring, that the new social order will not abrogate the law; it will fulfill it: not a jot or tittle will be abolished. But the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven must exceed that of the scribes; — that means, the law must be realized in spirit and essence, not alone in forms. Having first reassured his hearers that he aims not at the abolition, but at the fulfillment of the law, he comes now to make clear what he means by enforcing its fulfillment. He means to do it in spirit; to aim at the essence; to realize the inner substance of the law, and not be satisfied with the Sadducean literal one, nor with the Pharisaic ceremonial and symbolical one. He distils the law; he looks to its purified, deep essence; he wants that its kernel be realized in his new heavenly realm. Here comes out both the staunch upholder and the acute reformer of the Pentateuch. He accepts it, but he digs deeper, he looks further, to the intention of the law-giver; he wants the pure spirit and ether thereof. In the following verses he exemplifies:

Chapter V, Verse 21. — Ye have heard that it was said of old: "Thou shalt not kill ... or there is danger of punishment. But I say unto you: Whosoever be angry with his brother without cause, or even calls him names, is in danger of hell-fire."
Here begins the real scope of the Teacher; the sharpening and refining of the law; not simply murder is wrong, but quarrel, unfriendly feelings, unkind words are reprehensible too. Moses wrote for the existing world of usual men and women; and he punished crime and wrong-doing. The Decalogue goes deeper and forbids evil thoughts too. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his wife, nor his property," (II M. 20, 14). — Leviticus 19, enters still deeper into the human heart and stigmatizes him who curses the deaf, or makes the blind stumble, or unfairly considerates the poor, or spares the rich in judgment, or slanders in the dark, or hates in secret, or is revengeful, etc. Now, the rabbis forbid that, too, morally. But they put no punishment upon it, for that is a moral offense. It is no legal wrong. The judge can punish but deeds. Jesus claiming prophetic messiahship, higher authority, speaking as a moral law giver, setting the rule for the kingdom of heaven, he recurred to the original law. He is not satisfied with the rabbinical or the mosaical, legal enactment, he punishes not simply the bad deed, he condemns the ill-feeling and the unfriendly word too. No doubt, the scribe, the lawyer says, that is not the business of the state. So it is. But the Gospel is for the "kingdom of God," and God does condemn, not only bad deeds, but ill-feelings, thoughts and words too.
Chapter V, Verse 23. — Verse 23 is another timely injunction in view of the heavenly empire to be created: "If thou bring thy gift to the altar and rememberest that thy brother has ought against thee, leave there thy offering; first be reconciled to thy brother and then come back and offer thy gift. ..."

Here he reforms in the true spirit of Essenism, and with remarkable moderation and prudence. The Essenians claimed that the sacrifices are no part of real religion, though a large portion of the Pentateuch elaborately deals with them. The temple-offerings were the result of a compromise between prophetic ethics and anti-biblical formalism, originated in prehistoric polytheism and ancestor-worship. The savage offered food to the ancestral ghost. The barbarian offered sacrifices to the deified ancestor. The God of the universe needs neither. After a long struggle, the old and the new worship compromised in the temple-sacrifices. The time now had finally arrived for abolishing the sacrifices. The Essenes thought little of temple-offerings and Jesus shared the same view. Hence he states: That reconcillation with a brother Is more important than offering upon the altar, and the best pleasing sacrifice is the sacrifice of ill-feeling. No doubt, that offering is most magnanimous. The priestly and the legal authorities disliked it, and yet they could not deny that to be in accordance with the spirit emanating from the prophets, who time and again recommended "kindliness and not sacrifices, — obeying God's voice is better than slaughterings."

Chapter V, Verse 27. — Thou hast heard: "Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say: Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery in his heart." — Above we quoted some parallels to it. Here again he does not antagonize, no, he is bringing out the full biblical spirit: Thou shall not covet, of the Decalogue, means essentially the same. So have even the rabbinical moralists taught, literally, the same. As to the rabbinical legal code, it is as stated before, viz: that could incriminate deeds only, not feelings; the ruler of the kingdom of heaven could.

Chapter V, Verses 29 and 30. — The same is the case with: "If thy right eye or right hand offend thee, cast it from thee." It is from the same standpoint as above. (Verse 31). Whosoever shall put away his wife except for fornication, is the cause of adultery.
That is biblical law in letter and in spirit: Read V M. 24, i: "When a man after marrying a woman shall be displeased with her, for he had found in her something shameful Q and he has written (or would write) her a letter of divorcement and dismissed her from his house then, etc." Thus the mosaic law-giver states the cause of divorcement to be fornication or "Ervath dabar' — sub rosa. Now turn back to Genesis 2, 24. You find there the biblical moralist to be at one with that. In a beautiful allegory he represents the wife to be part and parcel of the husband, nearer than the kinship of parent to child, both making but one unit and person. So the rabbinical Haggada thinks: "The repudiation of one's wife except for immorality, is an offense for which even the stones of the altar cry and weep" Now the rabbinical expounders of V M. 24, made a strong inroad against that law, viz: The school of the Shammaites insisted upon the letter and spirit of that passage, viz: that a man can repudiate his wife only for immorality. Whilst the school of the Hillelites, yielding to the spirit of the Orient, declared that it, ervath dabar, means anything unpleasant, even for "the spoiling of his roast" a man can send his wife off. Whereupon, R. Akiba declared it — Ervath (Dabar — to mean any cause whatever, even if he found another, prettier woman. Were Hillel or Akiba really so hardhearted and unjust? By no means! But they did not only read the law, they scanned also the hardheartedness of man and the world, and they constrained the letter of the law to make it yield to the needs of their times. And that the human law-giver has often to do, or the law will become a dead letter. If you will insist that man and wife, however ill-matched and anti pathetic to each other, must stay together, and forever, they may resort even to fornication, even to poison and dagger too. Did not Henry the VIII. of England, and Philipp II. of Spain, resort to slander, perjury, fornication and murder, because "they found a prettier woman? " Hence, have Hillel and Akiba declared: Immoral, no doubt, it is to wrong any person, and more so one's own wife. But here is the question not of morality, but of legality. Which is the greater evil, divorcement or yoking together? And they said divorcement is the lesser in this wicked, hardhearted world. But Jesus had broken with this world. He imminently expected its collapse. He prepared his society for the divine kingdom with righteousness, a new spirit and a new covenant, where "the heart of stone would be removed for a humane one," when all will be prophetically inclined; when God's spirit will be poured out over the young and old of all strata of society (Joel 3, i). In such new social conditions, Jesus could easily forego the considerations of Hillel and Akiba; and in conformity with the original mosaic view, he stated that
'except for fornication, is divorcement not allowable and that what God had joined, man shall not separate:" it is but another version of the mosaic code: "And they shall be and remain one person" (Genesis 2, 24.)

Who is right and who is wrong? Jesus or Hillel? Were here the Shammaites or the Hillelites easier? Pondering seriously over the matter, I believe each is right from his standpoint and in his conditions respectively. Jesus is right — in the kingdom of heaven! But as long as man and the world are what they are, viz: rather the domain of the evil one, Hillel and Akiba may well be right, viz: that, when both husband and wife ask for divorce, let them go and avoid scandal and crime. When both contracting parties are disaffected, there is immorality enough, there is plenty of "ervath dabar," we need no more, we need not wait for fornication and pistol-shot: then to let them separate is the best thing for husband, wife, children and society at large; of the many difficulties of the situation, is this then the easiest and the smallest. In this case, too, the Hillelites were the milder and the more reconcilable. The practical Mohammed in the Koran opines in the same way: "When thy wife will frankly confess to thee to love somebody else — then speak quietly to her and show her that inclination to be but a caprice, and that duty and prudence, both, advise her to stay and not to separate; in most cases she will reconsider, especially when your past conduct to her was honorable. But if she insists to go, then let her go and think no longer about her." Here Mohammed, as Hillel, looked to the world as it is. Jesus, breaking with that world and building up an ideal one, his view of the case must have been another one.
In conclusion, let me remind that the proper sense of (V M. 24,) our passage has been popularly misunderstood. The divorcement is not at all a Mosaic institution ('). Divorcement is an oriental usage, a corollary of polygamy and slavery, older than Mosaism,
(1) See Dr. A. Schwarz's of Vienna learned treatise: "Controversies of the Shammaites and Hillelites. (2) See above on Divorcement.
which legal Mosaism had to tolerate as it did many other things, for instance, blood-revenge and sacrifices. It tolerated them because it had to, and restrained them in their abuse. When you read Homer and Hesiod, you find sacrifices at every place and by every quack. The bible limited, restrained and circumscribed them, allowable only at one national temple, and offered by the one priestly tribe, etc. Even so is divorcement in the Orient; man bought a slave, and if satisfied with her, she became his wife; and if displeased, the law-giver was glad if the man dismissed her — instead of killing or further selling her. — So it was; so it is yet in all the Orient. The husband unceremoniously sent his wife away — that was divorcement. Mosaism enacted that there must be a grave cause, something immoral and shameful; when the repudiating husband shall hand her a letter of divorcement, that the poor creature shall have an official act of her acquired liberty; which act the rabbis have freighted with minute and many paragraphs and legal points, so as to give time to the quarreling couple to reconsider whether it is not wiser to continue together. According to present critical expounders, the passage (V M. 24), reads really thus: "When a man will marry a woman and it will come to pass that he had found something shameful in her; whereupon he had written and delivered to her a letter of divorcement and had sent her away from his house — all that is in parenthesis — and she had left his house and married another man, when thereupon that new husband, too, had written her a letter of divorcement . . or he had died — then her first husband cannot re-marry her, since she had been the wife of another, for that is an abomination unto Yahveh."
That means to say, that Mosaism did not institute divorcement, that it but tolerated it as a known usage in the Orient; what it did legislate on the occasion is, that a woman divorced, re-married and repudiated again, cannot marry her first husband — for this is entirely degrading to womanhood. Indeed, in Arabia that was the custom, viz: A repudiated woman could re-marry her first husband only after having been the wife of another!! Mosaism declared that an abomination!

Jesus, starting from his kingdom of heaven, insisted upon the spirit of the bible, in declaring fornication the only cause for divorcement. Compare that with Mohammed, who once, entering abruptly into a friend's house, found there his wife unveiled; struck with her beauty, he gazed upon her longer than allowable in the Orient. The husband, soon coming home, was apprised of the incident by his wife, actuated by reverence or coquetry. He, improving the opportunity, as a good courtier, took the hint and quickly divorced his wife, that the prophet might marry her. And the prophet did indeed marry her! — Here is a solid measure for the moral calibre of the two initiators, of the Occident and of the Orient. (Verse 29): "If thy eye offends thee, pluck it out; to gaze on his neighbor's wife, is adultery." (Verse 28.) So did Moses (II M. 20, 14,) teach: "Thou shalt not covet." Mohammed did not. May not Hillel, Akiba and Mohammed be right, considering this hardhearted world?

Chapter V Verse . — The reformator continues, alluding to Exodus 20, 7, and Numbers 30, 2, as also to the above mentioned traditional interpretation: "Ye have heard of old: Thou shalt not foreswear thyself . .' but perform thy word; now I say: Swear not at all . . . Say but "Yea, yea; Nay, nay(')" This is a very opportune innovation: To discourage all manner of swearing. It is most judicious, and I wonder that this excellent common sense and religious sense combined, has not yet prevailed to this day; our courts admit an oath as some kind of proof; though it is strikingly apparent that for an honest man is "yea, yea; nay, nay," enough; and for a dishonest man is all swearing unreliable. Here, Jesus, as disciple of the Chassidai, makes an innovation against old customs. But this was the current habit of his Essenes. It was, too, morally in accord with the Pentateuch, which everywhere enjoined veracity even without oath: "What your lips utter, do." (V Moses 24, 24.)
All legislations, ancient and modern, accepted an oath in litigation. So the Mosaic and the rabbinical law admitted the oath as a half proof at court. In naive, primitive times, it may have been reliable enough. But already the rabbinical moralists have suspected its efficacy and deprecated all swearing. The Essenes were decidedly against it. NowJesus took it up as a positive feature for his ethical commonwealth. The difference is in the standpoint: The Pentateuch legislated for men as they are. The Gospel for men as they ought to be in the kingdom of God; the Pentateuch legislates; Jesus preaches; each is right in his own place. Exactly the same is the case with the following verses 38 — 43: The legal norm is "Eye for eye and tooth for tooth" the rule of the kingdom of heaven is: No forcible resistance, no quarrels; peace at any price. "If thy neighbor smites thee on thy right cheek, turn him the left one; if he wants thy coat, let him have thy cloak too; if he borrows and pays not, lend him again." No doubt, the actual world could not subsist upon that platform; but Jesus gave it over, and built up his ideal one. He was therefore, in contradiction with the legal statutes of Moses, but perfectly in harmony with its moral precepts, which teaches: "Beware, thy wicked heart may think: The year of release is nigh and I must not lend to the poor, whose debts the Release-Year cancelled, that would be mean!" (V M. 15, 9.)

Here breathes exactly the same spirit as in those analyzed verses of the Sermon on the Mount. These latter are simply a development of the former: in the sense of peace and charity. Interesting it is that Spinoza too — vastly different as the two men were, — advised the same method of non-resistance, of disarming a foe by kindness. Because either of them despised the world as it is, the one superceding everything by the kingdom of God; the other sinking all in his God-substance. Both of them arrived at non-resistance and social idealism, though by different roads, the one by deep feeling, thef other by deep thinking.

In the same spirit of conciliation the moralist-reformer goes on (verse 43 — 48), "Ye have heard: Thou shalt love thy neighbor — and hate thine enemy. But I say: Love your enemies . . . bless them . . . pray for them . . do them good for evil ... as God yields his sunshine and rain indiscriminately . . . And if you love only those that love you, where is the merit?"

Jesus and Spinoza.

Be ye perfect, even as God is." Noble teachings, worthy of a great philanthropist and a great religionist: thrilling to the core and really chiming as coming from a better world, as indeed it did, from the ideal realms dawning in the heart of the Essenes and the Nazarean moralists. This nucleus of verses grandly fits the just preceding one, concerning that version of "eye for eye" (verse 38.) As there he pleads for mercy instead of justice, even so here he advocates "love thine enemy." It is worthy of remark that here, too, Spinoza coincides with the Gospel. He advises love for hate on the score that man is unfree, hence the enemy could not help being such. Jesus does so because we should learn it of God, who discriminates not in his daily showering of blessings upon good and bad ones alike. Spinoza's advice perfectly fits his system. That teaches God to be all in all. So are man's doings but part of the Deity's. A good man is he, who subordinates his will to the divine will. Now God is ever showering his blessings upon the just and the unjust alike! even so must man return love for hate. That is the ideal. But if he does not, he is excusable, just because he can not, it is out of his reach.

Here, too, I beg to remind that this is grand and noble policy in either Jesus' "kingdom of heaven' or in Spinoza's "God-universe." But as long as God's kingdom is not realized, nor is so the lofty abstraction in which the Hollandish philosopher breathed, as long as we live in this commonplace, everyday's human world, the Pentateuchal legalism is correct, we may find it ideal or not, viz: to give love for love and hate for hate; "Eye for eye and tooth for tooth; " with an occasional dose of love, mercy and pardon; an oasis in the desert; one Release-year out of seven years; that man may guess the beauty of a nobler life of pardon and love; that we may learn that the kingdom of heaven is not an idle dream; that it requires only better men to realize a better world.

There is in this fine period a sentence, which grates upon the ear, (verse 43.) It has been said: "Love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy" Nowhere in the entire Old Testament is there any such a command. That wording is of a later redaction. Jesus could not have said so. We read just the opposite, to pardon, condone and forget wrong, viz: (V M. 23, 8,) "Thou shalt not hate an Edomite, for he is thy brother; nor an Egyptian, for thou didst sojourn in his land." Jesus in that sentence does not quote Scripture, but popular opinions; he refers to the legal part of the Pentateuch, the traditional, practical and realistic norms of the Judaean state. That norm, no doubt, was, as even now in 1895 P. C, love for love and hate for hate. He, abrogating the real world, and preparing his ideal one, gave out as key-note: "Be perfect, as God is and give love for hate and blessing for curse, as God does; fully in conformity with the Pentateuch ideals, III M. 19, i and 18: "Holy shall ye be as God is holy— and thou shalt love thy fellowman as thyself" fellowman, whether good or bad.

In all the above teachings or interpretations, Jesus, as the moralists of his time, preached and expounded in the sense of Moses and the prophets; everywhere he sounded their key-note and spoke from their hearts. The expression: "(But I tell you," grates unpleasantly upon the ear of the biblical believer and sounds as if he rebelled against his predecessors, exhibiting a pride entirely out of keeping with his reverential character. That formal mistune I have no scruple, to ascribe to a — later redaction. Instead of: "ut I tell you" no doubt, he has used an equivalent sentence, setting forth his pronounced antagonism against the traditional,legal teachers, whom he hated most cordially and to whom he ascribed the rigorism and the asperities of the law. In reality they were practical lawyers thinking him an enthusiast.

Matthew VI. — From the regenerated spirit infused into the positive views of the new society, the preacher now passes to the reformation of its ethical views. He addresses his followers: (Matthew VI, i, 5,) "Take heed that your alms shall not be for ostentation's sake. If the motive of your good works be ostentation, then ostentation shall be all your reward. Expect nothing more, for God knows your heart. Those hypocrites that blow a trumpet before their charities, aim only at self-glorification. But when thou dost thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Do thine alms in secret and God will reward thee publicly."Let me remark that we find the identical protest against ostentation in charity frequently among the Jewish moralists. Here as elsewhere and as shown in preceding pages, it appears such were the ethics of the Pious. Q
Let me also remind that Jesus emphasizes here and there rather too much: "reward" as a motive-(here, too, following the contemporary rabbis) for right conduct or benevolence. Though more ideal than other teachers of his time, yet he did not escape altogether their mode of thinking, that virtue needs an external stimulant by reward. Few teachers only of the Greek and Judaean schools taught virtue for virtue's sake. Antigonus of Socho said: "Be not as those slaves, doing their duty for their daily allowance, but do it even without any reward." So did Socrates and Plato, etc., of old; so did many modern ones. In the kingdom of heaven virtue should be its own reward; doing good to others is morally and socially doing good to one's self. So Mr. Herbert Spencer's Ethics: The final good of society is the good of its members. Jesus in these verses speaks yet the language of his times. But it does not harbor the mercenary sense of the term reivard. The whole passage, in essence and spirit, is fine in the extreme. Among the finest, indeed, in all moral literatures; pity only that it is yet an ideal and that most people "are sounding a trumpet before their charities," or the poor would starve. Man needs as yet the stimulant not only of reward beyond the grave, but also of ostentation this side thereof.
Looking closely to the slow march of human improvement, to the need of "reward" as a motive for right conduct, it should seem that the pessimistic view is the correct one; that Moses's love of next, Isaiah's reign of justice, Jesus' kingdom of heaven and Herbert Spencer's altruistic ethics are but ideals; that man is a beast of prey; that the only way of angelizing and softening his nature is to hold up such ideals before his mind, as Jacob put up his shining sticks before his sheep; at the same time showing and pointing out and tutoring him to the conviction that his real interest goes together with that of his neighbor, and that the good of society is the only way of securing the lasting and final good of the individual. In one word, it may be that the appeal to real enlightened egoism is the surest way to induce man to altruism. Therefore, we shall no longer wonder that even the enthusiast, the ideal Jesus did not disdain using "reward" as a stimulant for right conduct. Nay, he even suffered ostentation to slip in through the backdoor: "Let thine alms be in secret and thy Father will reward thee "openly y If the hypocrite would but be safe that God will reward him publicly, he would not mind giving alms in secret; all he aims at, is a public advertisement. The witty Roman, Horace, says pointedly: "So few people enjoy satire, for so many deserve it." He tersely states, without the "fig leaf of any fine-phrased circumlocution, that "the sure motive of the virtuous is the
useful."

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 20, 2010, 12:03:25 AM

Hence is the clause of reward even in the kingdom of heaven. It is used by Jesus and by nearly all the Hebrew moralists. Antigonus of Socho, Plato, Spinoza and J. J. Rousseau, Kant, etc., intimated that 'virtue is its own reward," but they did not effect much. "Point d'argent, point de Suisse" is the dominant rule in real life. Economics must not be overlooked in ethics.

Chapter VI, Verses 5 — 16. — Lord's Prayer.
The preacher condemns — as in alms — ostentatious praying. "For they like to pray in public places in order to be seen . . ." What a fine delineation of hypocrisy! How he looked through human nature as if it were transparent; so was hypocrisy, so it is! "When thou prayest, enter thy closet, shut thy door, pray to thy Father in heaven, use no vain repetitions, nor ask too much, for He knows all you need." Fine rules for prayer. Here is no cant, no state piety, here is the experience of the deeply religious heart. Here is the religious genius! And what a noble, model prayer! "Our Father in the universe," the usual Hebrew opening address in prayer and in the plural number: "The Hebrew is ever praying with the congregation," (Lightfoot.) — "Hallowed be thy name. Thy reign come. Thy will be done among men, as in the universe: Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our wrongs, as we do our wrong-doers; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil, for thine is the rule, the power and the glory, Amen," expounding: "If you forgive men, "God will forgive you." This prayer, with the accompanying rules of prayer, is beautiful beyond expression. That alone would constitute the author an extraordinary religious genius. What an inwardness, what a sincerity, what a faith, what a warmth! as the naive, sweet, welltrained, reverential child towards its mother! It is only the prophetic and rabbinic schools and their disciples of the old regime that could compose such a prayer. For they had faith, ideality and trust in men and in God. So Jesus; he had faith in God and he believed in His kingdom for men. We moderns are too much permeated by the philosophy of Hobbes and Hegel and Shoppenhauer; we know too much the world of Macchiavel, Bismarck and Ignatieff, to have faith in man; hence our hymn-books have seldom that angelic ring, that unutterable charm, that sweet simplicity, that religious fervor pervading the above prayer, as other old liturgical pieces. It is some sort of a chime from heaven, a glimpse of paradise sounding down to us, us excluded from those golden regions, as the poetic Hindoo myth: "The Peri and the Pearl". So the Faust-saga by Goethe, where the hero regretfully remarks: "I hear the message announced, but I lack the faith." So the Munich philosopher Jacoby: •Religion is a light cheering and warming my heart; but as soon as it ascends into my head, cold winds blow it out."
As the fine parts of that prayer are the fruit of those times, so its flaws; they, too, are remnants of hoary times, dim sun-spots in that noble, devotional gem: (verse 13.) "Lead us not into temptation" Nobody is wholly above his time, not even genius. It was believed of old that sometimes God, intentionally, leads men into temptation, to try their constancy. Pious, naive men originally believed that good men would ever be happy. Soon they learned that, often, that is not the case and that virtue and luck are not always partners. This dismal experience they explained by the philosophy of temptation; God inflicts misfortune just upon the good, to make them better, by trial. The entire law was considered by some but as a trial and a discipline. Hence came the idea that the messiah will abrogate the law. So were Adam and Eve tried. (Genesis 2, 16.) — So was Abraham tried. (Genesis 22). — So were Moses and Aaron; so David; so Jesus, etc; hence this known Hebrew prayer: "Lead us not into temptation." It is a remnant of ancient pessimism. On the whole, this fine prayer is full of the purest prophetic spirit; the spirit that breathed in the venerable synagogue. Its adoration-prayer by (Rab. with the kingdom of heaven and the unity of the human race is such. The Hebrew orthodox prayer-book contains a number of such devotional gems; whilst others are over-crowded with vain repetitions and empty verbiage.

It has been repeatedly shown by Christian writers that the Lord's prayer is essentially biblic and prophetic, verse by verse, religious blocks hewn from Hebraic quarries. It was, no doubt, an Essenian model prayer. It iswholly monotheistic, pure of the later trinitarian phases. Lightfoot and Shoettgenius claim that it is taken from current Hebrew devotional literature. Gregory (his works 167 1, page 162,) shows these verses to be verbally taken from Hebrew prayers. According to him, the prayer and its verses originally read as follows: "Our Father who art in heaven, be gracious unto us. O Lord, our God, hallowed be thy name and let the remembrance of thee be glorified in heaven above and on earth below. Let thy kingdom reign over us now and forever." The holy men of old said: "Remit and forgive unto all men whatsoever they have done against us. And lead us not into the hands of temptation, but deliver us from the evil thing, for thine is the kingdom and thou shalt reign in glory for ever and ever."

In verses 16 — 19, ostentation is denounced in fasting. Accompanying that, there went a whole series of outward signs of mortification in mourning, all rabbinical enactments, bearing upon appearance and show. The reformator denounces it as so many forms of hypocrisy. They were not intended as such; but they tended to it. The mourning ritual is minutely elaborated by the rabbis. It attempts to impress sympathy by external signs. It is liable to the reproach of teaching ostentation. The modern black crape, long veil, etc., may be liable to the same imputation. The fact is, there is no protection against hypocrisy.
Verses 19, 22. "Lay not up treasures on earth that can be stolen . . . but lay up treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there is and will be your heart."

(1)   It is interesting that such repetitions the Parsee prayer-book too contains; bad taste appears to hail from Babylon.

That means, set your hearts upon great and holy things, not upon trifles, for our endeavors make out our real self. Great aims make great men; a fine psychological truism — aspire to great things, and you will be great; hang your ideal high and you will rise with it; our ideal is our self.

Chapter VI, Verses 22 — 23. — The preacher warns against duplicity. Sincerity scatters light on the dim path of life. Even so can man have no two masters. Use ho half measures. Have no heterogeneous aims. You cannot serve God and Mammon together. Be not over-anxious. Ask not too much how to supply the bodily wants . . "Behold the fowls of the air! They sow notj they reap and gather not. Yet the All-Father feedeth them. Can you by any possible effort add a cubit to your stature? Why then this over-anxiety?"
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them"

What a deep, religious sense! What a child-like, implicit trust in Providence! What a wealth of genuine feeling of beauty! What profound trust and peace as the result of piety! The enthusiasm, the strength, the beatitude of the Psalms are re-echoing in these verses. Also forget not what noble, natural poetry! What deep sensibility for the beauties of God's creation. What a fine rythm, the words, the images, the moral, as fluid pearls. Nearly every sentence is a gem, shining in its pristine lustre, apparently without any effort of the orator. He seems to be rather passive, as if he be but the mirror wherein the beautiful objects of nature are reflected in all their loveliness and without any loss, as are the stars in the clear ocean waves. Did you ever rise on a high mount, with the unbounded horizon before your gaze, vast fields, rivers, hills, cities and towers in your prospect, all casting their sweet images of peace and beatitude into your heart, well prepared for that vision — even such is the situation, poetry and truth pervading that messianic legislation.

Which other than a born genius, in whom both God and nature are so wonderfully mirrored, would meditate so simply, deeply, grandly! "Behold the fowls in the air, they sow not, they reap and gather not, yet God feedeth them" Are you less than they? "Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, nor do they spin. Yet they are better arrayed than Solomon in all his glory" Why then, brethren, are you so anxious about your food, your raiment, your shelter? Why steal and lie and cheat and hoard to provide for. your artificial wants? What sincerity of faith, grandeur of thought, beauty of diction, Haggadic simplicity of expression!

Adam Smith, Malthus, Jesus.

But we must and we will bear in mind, that all that is true, grand and sublime in a preacher of the kingdom of heaven. If you ask the economists, Adam Smith, Malthus or Bastiat, they will say, that preacher is a dreamer, an enthusiast, a begging friar. Should mankind listen to him for a year or two, and practically act up to his preachings, they would starve and freeze and perish. If we should not look out for our drink and food, shelter and raiment, as do the fowl and the lilies, society would wreck in a decade. For even the fowls of the air — they do provide, or they go to the wall; and as to the lilies of the field, they are beautifully arrayed — for one season, and then perish. Whilst the provident beggar thrives for generations!

Malthus continues: Ah, look to the author of that beautiful dream-sermon himself In dreamland he discovered the divine kingdom, but when he awoke (Matthew 8, 20,) he complained: "The foxes have their holes, the birds in the air have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay down his head."When in distress, he discovered his admirers forsaking him, and his bosom friend, Peter, denying him "three times before the cock crowed." — When in the jaws of death, he cried: ••My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me."

All that means to say, that fine ideals are but a willo'-wisp, a castle in the air. It means that we must sow and reap and gather in, if we do not care to starve. It means that we must toil and spin, sow and reap, if we wish to be screened from hunger, cold, etc.
Malthus continues: Since we must sow and reap and store up, to provide for the cold season, hence we must hoard and be alert and anxious, and toil and sweat and fight in the battle for existence. And he who does the most of that, "survives as tke fittest by the law of natural selection," "by the law of the stronger." Whilst the idealist, the Utopian goes to the wall. — So reason Adam Smith and Malthus, going even as far as advising — "Small families!"

"No children" etc.

Now, where is the truth? With Jesus of Nazareth, or with Malthus? The answer, the sad answer is: Jesus is right in the kingdom of Heaven and Malthus is right in the realm of the Evil One. The idealism is for Jesus' theory, the realism is for Adam Smith! Now the world goes with the latter, the Church with the former. Long ago philosophers have made the discovery of our human duplicity. Men have divinized Jesus, Buddha, Minos etc., who in their great hearts have discovered the kingdom of Heaven, whilst they are practically following, sweating and toiling in the path o{ Malthus. We feel something, in the deep recesses of our nature, something like the angel and nevertheless are we compelled to do and act like brutes. And the more we feel its burning shame, the more our grateful sense for those who open to us a nobler perspective, a glimpse of heaven, who tell us: " Behold the fowls of the air neither sow, nor reap, nor gather; yet the heavenly Father feedeth them!" Consider the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor spin, yet are they more gorgeously arrayed than king Solomon in his glory." Are you not better than they? If God takes care of them, shall he not do more for you, O you of little faith. Therefore, have no borrowed anxiety! The heavenly Father knows what you need. The morrow will take care of itself Sufficient unto each day is the evil thereof. " Seek ye but the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be given unto you over and above."

All that looks at first like a fata morgana, like a beautiful castle in the air. We listen to it as the weeping baby in the cradle to the lullaby of the kindly, cheering mother. We like it at first, as a fairy tale, as a relief from the bitter actuality. Malthus is our practical guide, and Jesus or Isaiah or Micha our ideals, our oasis in the human desert. Now these idealists in their turn answer: Our ideals are most realistic. Do but consider and ponder closely and intently: That dreamland, the heavenly realm, can be realized; it is in your grasp. Do but will. Brethren, strongly and sincerely will, and you shall have it. "Ask, and it shall be given to you." Why is Malthus right? Because there is no righteousness in your real, human, practical kingdom. Because prince and lord, prelate and soldier, and everyone and each who can, do grasp and hoard; and what they cannot keep, they tread under foot and destroy. But let men become wise and they will be moral and unselfish; then they will find out that with some easy, intelligent labor, skill and prudence they can create all and satisfy the reasonable needs and supplies of all; all that is necessary for shelter, fuel, food, drink, raiment, etc.; there is no need of grasping and hoarding, of pushing and overreaching the neighbor. In one word: " Seek ye righteousness and wisdom, and you shall have the kingdom of heaven upon earth."
Thus the 19th chapter of Leviticus, beginning with: "Holy shall ye be, for holy am I, your God," fitly closing with: "And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," or the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with: " Blessed are the poor, the meek, the peaceful, etc.;" and closing with: "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and righteousness," have been looked upon by nankind as true sources of consolation for the past, as inspirations for the present; as the goal for the future.

15. Matthew, Chapter 5, enumerates the reforms, new views and developments contemplated in the coming messianic Legislation. The fifth Chapter aims at invigorating and deepening the enfeebled moral law, relaxed by the rabbinical formalism and the overgrowing ceremonialism. The 7th Chapter, digging even deeper and examining into man's moral nature, recommends some further ethical rules for the new messianic, social order.

Matthew 7, i: "Judge not too severely that ye be not judged — in the same way; for by the measure ye mete with, you will be meted . . . Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, not considering the beam in thine own, hypocrite!" — This is a great hit by the moralist-preacher, a profound connoisseur of human nature. He hits here upon almost a universal vice, self complacency and over-severity to others. There are few preachers who would have the moral courage of such a public remark. They would offend half of their constituency. Mark, the Moralist means not: Judge not, that ye be not judged; connive and be connived at; keep silent and smile to all; be complacent and indulgent and enjoy the same privilege! No, that would be worldly shrewdness and vulgar prudence! Jesus did not stoop to that. What he means is: Be not over-severe to others and too lenient to thyself. Judge he does; you see how finely and boldly he speaks out: "Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam of thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearer to draw out thy brother's, mote."

Jesus and Horace.

Horace, the great Roman satirist, has a pleasant passage pertinent to our theme: "Maenius, belaboring and criticizing an absent friend, is asked: Are you better than he? Do you think to make us forget what you are?" "Oh," says Maenius, "As to me, I pardon myself!" To which Horace adds in the same sense, but not with half so much piquancy and wit as Jesus: "This self-complacency is stupid and deserves to be castigated. You are blind to your own defects, but when there is the question of those of your friends, why have you the piercing eye of the eagle or of Epidaurius' serpent? What is the necessary consequence? Your friends, paying you in the same coin, will closely find out your imperfections!" Horace continues, many pages long, his satire: "Alas, that we are quick in severely judging others! Nobody is faultless. An indulgent friend as he ought to be, weighing in the balance my defects aijd my good qualities, should incline towards the latter, if he wishes to be loved. On that condition 1 shall weigh his by the same weight . . . for it is just that he who expects pardon for his own faults, should extend pardon for the defects of others . . . . " Horace goes on for many pages more, discussing that theme. On all practical points he perfectly coincides with the moralist of Nazareth. But his satire is not half so moral, nor half so witty and finely written, as that "Sermon" passage. With Horace it is simply a question of worldly prudence. In the Mount Sermon it is a theme of moral justice. Horace is diffuse and loquacious, graceful, amusing and facetious. Jesus is sharp, close, deeply cutting as the point of a diamond. The reader feels amused at the Latin satire; he is chastened and thoughtful at the Sermon on the Mount. Does either improve? Let us hope so!

Even so is Horace, compared with the above mentioned thrilling verses, dissuading man from avarice and selfishness, and counselling trust in divine Providence. Let us compare with that a satire on the same theme, by Horace; be it for relief and change, not of subject, but of tone. (Horace Satirarums, liber 2, 426 — 429): He says to a miser: "Since you live on so little, whatfor then to you perjury, theft and pillage? Are you in your good senses?" With much Attic salt he narrates: "Poor with all the gold and silver hoarded in his safe, Opimius, drinking bad wine, out of mean vessels, on the holidays, and worse stuff on working days, at last fell into such a profound lethargy, that his heir, happy and jubilant, run for the safe and its keys. But his physician re-awakens him, in this manner, viz: He has a table brought to the patient, close by his bedside; several money-bags are emptied thereon, and many hands begin counting the ringing coins. Our patient awakens at that noise, and the physician says: "If you don't take care of your money, look, your heir is going to take hold of it." — "How dare he? I am yet alive!" — "Well, then live, and awake, take courage!" — "What must I do?" — "You must eat something to restore your forces. Here, drink this cup." — "Yes, but what does it cost?" — "A trifle." — 'Doctor, what difference is there to die from disease, or by robbers and thieves overcharging me!" — Horace is witty and makes us laugh at our own follies and vices. He touches but our skin. The Mount Sermon, alluding to our avarice, and reminding us of the fowls that sow not and are fed by Providence, of the lilies that spin not and are better provided for than king Solomon, — the Sermon does more; it charms, convinces, thrills, teaches and corrects us, and leaves a lasting impression upon our moral senses; it creates and breathes into us the energy to improve.

Chapter VII, Verse 6. — "Cast not your pearls before the swine," is a precept of prudence rather than of ethics. But it is a sort of prudence which a moralist may well mind. Only, I am afraid, that same moralist may often neglect it. I am afraid Jesus himself, many a time did cast his pearls before the swine. Whosoever entertains a glimmer of a spark of genius, or of love for truth and fairness, or of sympathy for his fellows, he feels the weight of the verse: "Cast not thy pearls before the swine;" but often too late! So complains Jeremiah, (Chapter 15, 10.): "Woe to me, woe, O my mother, that thou hast born me to be a man of strife and dissatisfaction to all around me. I have not lent, nor have I borrowed aught; and with all that they all curse me. — The Lord answers: Nevertheless shall I make thee triumph for salvation, I, who made thee antagonize the enemy in the crisis. . . ."
So narrates the Greek myth of Prometheus, stealing the fire from Olympus for the good of man, and in punishment he is thrown into Tartarus with a vulture gnawing at his vitals. This is the grand tragedy in the fate of initiators. They have to bear the crown of thorns, and the purple dyed in their own blood, because they did forget the prudential advice: "Cast not thy pearls before the swine."

The preacher passeth now on to another theme: Chapter VII, Verse 7, viz.: "Implicit trust in Providence." "Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you will find it; knock, and it will be opened unto you." Here he remembers his predecessors: Isaiah 55, 6. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call on him when near by. Let the wicked one forsake his ways and return unto God, who is merciful." Or, Hosea 14, 2: "Return, o Israel, even to thy God, for thou art reeling and tumbling in thy wrongs. Listen to admonition and do improve." This is the great theme of the preacher, the secret of his strength, his eloquence, his religious sense.

   Ask, and God will give. You provide for your children, how should not God for his?" Of course political economy says: Work or starve. So, too, in Proverbs 6, 7: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. She provideth for her meat in the summer and gathereth in her food in the fall. How long wilt thou sleep, thou sluggard!"
This is the way of the prudential man. The moralist takes another view: "Ask, and thou wilt be given! The birds sow not and have all. So it is in the kingr. dom of heaven."
Relying upon his trust in God, he passeth on to trust in man (VII — 12). "Therefo re whatsoever you would that man should do to you, do so to him;" this is the law and the prophets. Behold here the development in the Sociomoral domain. Many centuries before, Levit. 19, had taught: "Holy shall ye be, for holy am I, your God." This was the ideal of the Mosaic Society; morality was its consequence, culminating in "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." That means: live and let live; a combination of egoism and altruism. The individual and the society stand on a footing of parity. Hillel and Akiba expounded therefore the verse 18 of Leviticus 19 with the words: "What thou wouldst not be done unto thee, do not unto thy neighbor." Now this is but negative sympathy. That means: Insult not, wrong not, overreach not! For the world as it is, that would be good enough. If every one had what is due to him, if none would encroach upon his neighbor's rights, we would seldom need anybody's active charity. But that is not the case. The stronger is ever trespassing and encroaching upon the weaker. Therefore is negative sympathy not sufficient, and we do need a positive one, we need active goodness and self-sacrifice to fill out the gap caused by active wrong-doing; we need positive beneficence and sacrifice in order to assist those that have been sacrificed. The Pentateuch provides for that. Not being able to eliminate active wrong and selfishness at the neighbor's cost, it prescribes partial selfsacrifice as a remedy; it ordaineth active charity, conciliating it with selfishness: live and let live!
Now Jesus goes a great step further, viz: Legislating for the kingdom of heaven; he builds upon the principle of reliance on Providence: "Ask, and it will be given thee" — "The Father knows and provides for your needs f' — "Therefore take no anxious thought of tomorrow." — Under such circumstances he sacrifices altogether selfishness and establishes altruism as the superior type and norm of his new society; hence he ordained the positive side of charity, not alone the negative one of Hillel; he teaches: 'Whatsoever you would men should do unto you, do even so unto men. This is the law and the prophets" That means, his ideal community is wholly and solely built upon altruism, upon the good of all, without any compromise with egoism. Just as modern communism wishes to see turned over all property, capital, wealth, lands, tools and work to the State, and asks of the State in return food, raiment and pleasure, protection, housing and education for all the citizens, even so does Jesus turn over all to God, and expects all of Him alone: for "Ask, and it will be given, seek, and you will find."It is therefore perfectly natural, when a young man asked him: "Master, having fulfilled the Mosaic Law, can I participate in the kingdom of heaven?"Jesus says: "Not yet." "What then must I do more?" and he receives the reply, that not faith and dogmatism, but the highest active morality, full and unmitigated altruism will do it, viz: "Go, sell all, give it to the poor and follow me to the aspired-at heavenly kingdom." Finding the poor, rich, young man hesitating, Jesus remarks with a grim smile, strokmg his flowing beard, and with a significant glance to his friends: "Rather will a camel pass a needle's eye, than a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven." That is, no doubt, the most scathing criticism ever made upon plutocracy. No wonder that the aristocrats turned him over to the mercies of the Roman procurator! Diabolically chuckling and rubbing their hands, they may have reminded him of his own: ' Judge not that ye be not judged!"
Chapter VII, Verse 13. — The Teacher now points out that the gate to life, viz: righteousness, is narrow and strait; while the gate to destruction is wide and broad. The corresponding Haggadic saying is: "The righteous are alive even after death. The wicked are dead even when alive.    For righteousness is life, and wickedness is moral death. So did "Jacob not die;" Moses did notdie. This does not allude to the life hereafter. It simply means that the just continue to live by their name, their deeds and their examples left behind. Whilst vice is pleasant, but shortlived. That is the philosophy of nearly all ancient moralists, Jewish, Greek or Roman stoics: Vice is pleasant and blooming, virtue is irksome and thorny. As yet Kant held to that opinion.

No doubt, fraud and cunning is Proteus-like; it uses any and all means to succeed and may at first appear to be the broad road; not so in the long run. Success being the aim of the worldly inclined, and all avenues leading to it being equally legitimate, success for them is easier. While the stoic, whose aim is rectitude, cannot so easily attain at worldly luck by fair means; and foul means he will not use. Hence Jesus' saying: "Enter a virtuous life by the narrow gate, for the broad way leads to destruction." The Psalmist has a hundred passages to that effect: "Happy is he who walketh not in the council of the wicked."(Psalm I, I — 5.) for they cannot face judgment .... Their way leads to perdition."— "Let me not follow the wicked." (Psalm 28, 3.) — "Ashamed will be the wicked."(Psalm 31, 18. — "The arms of the wicked will be shattered, but Yahveh upholds the just." (Psalm 37, 17.) — "Lost are the wicked."(Psalm 2>7y 20.) — "Their descendancy is destroyed."(Psalm 37, 28.) — "Their end is annihilation." (Psalm 37, 38.) — Indeed, half of the Psalms treat of this theme, that wrong, though at first brilliant, successful and luxuriant, at last collapses, and that the poor but innocent at last will triumph. The Proverbs, too, though infinitely less ideal, and often prudential and worldly/ nevertheless very frequently allude to that topic, that honesty is the safest policy, and that the success of wrong is short lived.

No doubt, if practical success means success at the Exchange, if it means to hoard millions and to sensually enjoy, virtue has but a thorny path. But if success means a round, sound, hale, serene, humane existence, if it means a healthy body, temple of a holy soul, with a thinking brain, a sympathetic heart and an active hand, enjoying all true happiness and content with the necessaries of animal life, such a success is more compatible with plain, strait virtue, than with the crooked ways of vice.

Jesus, Napoleon and Herbert Spencer.

Napoleon I, being asked once: Why he is ever so restless, creating one war out of another; raising new difficulties when the old ones were scarcely settled; ever putting in danger his solid, gained advantages, in his chase for ephemeral ones; why he does not rather settle down, satisfied with his laurels, and enjoying the fruit of his victories, . . . used to reply: I would willingly do so, if I were but a legitimate, a born monarch, possessed of an inherited throne. But, unfortunately, I am not such. I am a conqueror. The sword and victory are my principles. If 1 stop, my prestige is gone and I am undone. Napoleon told the secret of all conquerors, from Alexander to Caesar and to himself. — Force is a weak principle, except when in the service and the result of right and reason. And that is the pith of our verse 13 in question. But if it is brute force and contrary to right, it must soon collapse. Whilst right and reason, at first the "narrow gate," are bound slowly to prevail and unite might to right. True that but few enter that gate. Not for the scantiness of space, but from sheer ignorance, from the erroneous notion that wealth and splendor make the success of human existence. Mr. Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, indeed, the modern school of philanthropic economists, have excellent things to say on that score. According to them, vice and crime are beset with thorns and cares; while the broad, sunny, easy way leads to virtuous life. They are claiming that human progress actually points to a time of "peace and good will to all," when the nations will "exchange the militant regime for an industrial, free-co-operative one, and justice alone will reign supreme, the divine kingdom in this real world: Jesus' ideal made real.

Chapter VII, Verse 15. — "Beware of false prophets which come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits."
That passage cannot refer to false prophets, as in Deuteronomy 13, or Jeremiah 23, inciting to by-gone idolatry. Such were no longer in Jesus' time. I think jt refers rather to false priests and teachers, false friends and disciples, who claimed the ear of the people for their fat loaves. Verse 21 explains it: "Not every one that says Lord! Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but those only that do the will of our Father in heaven." I amend and propose to leave out the words "unto me" which I deem a later addition. The verse simply alludes to the Tartuffesi) and false claimants of his time, who were shouting Lord! Lord! but aimed only at misleading the masses. The 2 2d verse, too, reads best without those words.

The closing passage, beginning with verse 21 — 29, seems to have undergone grave alterations, to suit the later doctrine. For, admitting even that the writer of the Mount Sermon did believe himself to be the messiah, he could not logically have transcended certain limits in his conception of the Deity. Everywhere in the Sermon on the Mount he is an outspoken monotheist and a pure spiritualist; the incarnation-doctrine came up much later, when all the Jewish Christians had been left behind, and the Gentile Christians came to the helm of the church.

Of course, this is my own view, from a non-supernatural, historical standpoint. The Trinitarian reads those verses, 15 to 29, as they stand, Jesus applying Lord! Lord! to himself, assuming the full role of the divine mediator. Mark also the fifteen long verses rehearsing the same claims; verses so unlike the Mount Sermon in substance and in form.

Range of Sermon on the Mount.

We have analyzed the Sermon on the Mount according to Matthew V to VII. We have seen that, with the exception of the last half of Chapter VII, the chapters and verses are well connected, emanating from one mind, and parts of one whole, representing a well digested, theologico-ethical and social system, starting from the Mosaico-prophetic scheme of the Hebrew commonwealth, but gradually arriving at new vistas. The founder does not intend ostensibly and literally to break away from the Law. He rather aims at and desires to deepen and sharpen it, to invigorate it and bring out fully its meaning and spirit; willingly sacrificing the letter to the spirit breathing in it. He is thoroughly disappointed with both the great parties of his nation, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The one was clinging to the letter; the other admitted a traditional development, yet argued from the letter, and from hermeneutics against which his reason and his feelings revolted. Both parties claimed to fulfill the letter with over-anxiety; whilst they really and mostly sacrificed the spirit and the aim of both, Moses and the prophets. Following the drift of the Essenes, he boldly rejects both the above parties and systems, and places instead his own eclectic interpretation, taking the best of all three parties and ever aiming at realizing the intent of the law. But the law is promulgated for the real world as it is; whilst he has totally broken with that world as it is! He is proclaiming the kingdom of heaven of the Chassidai and the Essenes, that means, to inaugurate the conditions of the state, the society and the citizen-saints of his Essenian semi-secret Order; that means, to transform the world into such an Order of saints. There "righteousness" that means, self-sacrifice, holiness and ascetism, is to supplant personal pursuits and mere justice; such righteousness is to be the rule of the new order of things, so unlike the Mosaic one. In his new realm and society he insists' upon profound convictions and pure motives. Not the mechanical performance of the law, not ' ceremonies, rites and observances; not even the thoughtless enactments of the practical, moral law; not charity itself, when heartless and ostentatious, vill earn the kingdom of heaven. Neither cold virtue and dry works, nor dogmatic faith, when thoughtless and superficial, will do it. Only and singly the nobility and purity of the motives, only deep and correct convictions permeating the good works will gain it. The profound consciousness of human weakness, of thorough dependence upon a higher Power, of human impotence when without divine assistance, the implicit faith that God is all in all; that he is ever nigh to us and cares for us, as the mother does for her infant; only the full and unconditional surrender of our own will to his will; no half measures; not God and Mammon too; not selfishness with duty, no half principledness — that is religion, that is piety, that earns the divine kingdom. This he terms righteousness, the condition, chief and supreme, of his future social and divine realm. Not creed, nor even works, but correct feelings and principles underlying both and realizing the will of God, that makes the Pious a citizen of his coming kingdom. And that kingdom is no ideal, no dream to him; it is the imminent reality. All the prophets had announced it, and he is to open it at last. As the social rule of conduct he states, is: ' What thou wishest to be done thee, do that unto thy neighbor." That rule brings out altruism to its utmost limits, viz: Self-sacrifice. He is a thorough monotheist and spiritualist. The messiah embodies the picture of Isaiah ii, and no more. God, to him, is self-experienced, not theory. He is himself wholly engrossed by the divine Father, he is absorbed in that heavenly ether, he is God-intoxicated. His mind's eye continually sees God.( The Law is divine, yet it is only an educational means, a ladder to reach heaven. It is not self-aim, it is only a means; its spirit IS the sole object. He himself spiritualizes the law; he carries it to its highest development. Thus, insisting solely upon the spirit, and entirely disregarding tradition and formalism, its bulwarks, he, Jesus, is, morally, though not formally, the author of the later carried out abolition of the Law. The immediate apostles hesitated yet, Paul correctly guessed the intent of his master. Paul simply finished what Jesus had begun. Jesus conceived the thought; Paul did the deed. At the first informal synod of the apostles, according to Acts 15, 13 — 21, and at James' proposition, the elders of the Messiah-community at Jerusalem declared that the Gentile followers are not bound to the practical Mosaic Code, a few commandments excepted, viz: (the moral ones), the so-called "Noachidic Laws,"as avoiding idolatrous meats, fallen animals, unchastity, crime, murder, etc.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 20, 2010, 12:04:02 AM

Mount Sermon the Keystone.

The Sermon on the Mount is the keystone to the legislation of the new social Order. Later it became the nucleus of a new dispensation. It is a string of expoundings on leading principles uttered on different occasions, setting forth the scheme and the ethics of the founder of the theocratic democracy.

This ethical basis is, in its essence, repeated in Luke 6, 20-29. It underlies the whole of the New Testament, making out its very back-bone and substance. No doubt the evangelical redactors drew from other sources more versions of gospels now totally lost. As to Jesus' scheme proper, his career was too short to elaborate it fully. It was a possibility which has never matured: a beautiful blossom nipped in the bud, requiring millenia to fully unfold. We shall try to guess at it, but only as a guess. He has never distinctly stated it. Maybe rather he had tacitly accepted it, acquiesced in that messianic mission attributed to him by his followers and by the people expecting a Davidian ruler. At the utmost his task was that of the miraculous, Essenian liberator from Roman and Herodian tyranny. But it by no means appears to me that he ever distinctly claimed a part any more supernatural than that of a prophetic leader, teacher and ruler. Everywhere he alludes to God as One, indivisible and spiritual, and to himself as an obedient, humble servant and worshipper, a mortal, a son of Adam, a child of God, as every Chassid was, aspiring to fulfill the will of the Father, and induce his brethren to do the same. The last half chapter of Matthew 7, strongly trinitarian, appears to me strikingly out of harmony with the entire Sermon of the Mount, in letter and in spirit. He styles himself: "Son of man," and addresses God as: "My Father But both these epithets he applies to every other man, just as to himself. Throughout the Hebrew Sacred Writ every Israelite is called just the same: "Son of man and son of God" (Ezekiel 2, i); (V M. 14, i.) Every good man is the son of Adam and the child of God. The lawless are styled the sons of the godless. Q The misunderstanding arises from the fact of translating the same Hebrew word, hen, sometimes by son and sometimes by child, and then applying the expression Son in reference to Jesus, and child to any other man. This mistranslation came from the Greek gospels, which first took the liberty of rendering the same word, hen, sometimes by vio< and sometimes by rcn?, so as to discriminate between Jesus and other mortal men. Another mistranslation was that of the Aramaic word rahhi, a title of later date, by which Jesus, possibly, was addressed by his disciples. (Rahhi meant: My master. Sir, mylord, and later, my Teacher. Now this same word, rabbi, was sometimes rendered by Lord, nvpw, and again another time by master or teacher. This gave rise to misinterpretations. Another similar confusing mistranslation is to ignore the palpable difference between Yahveh, Supreme Being, and jldoni, in Hebrew, mjv master, and to render both by Lord; translating, for instance, in Psalm no, i: "The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand.'" The plain sense is: " Yahveh, God, said to my master, the king, sit at my right hand." Jesus did distinguish between God and king; he gave "to God what was God's and to Caesar what was Caesar's;" he was not the author of such a construction. Wherefrom arises that awkward confounding of God with David? It came from a curious mistranslation and misunderstanding combined, viz: The synagogue does not allow to utter the four-lettered tetragrammaton-name of God, — Yhvh. — which actually we do not know how to pronounce. Only on the atonement-day usage allowed the high-priest, in the ancient Moriah-temple, to articulate it fully, when the people fell prostrate to the ground. Therefore, the name is usually pronounced as if spelled: Adonaiy my masters. Now in Psalm no, i, it is not Yhvhy nor even Adonai, but "Adoni," in the singular, viz: "my master." Every Hebraist knows that Adona' applies to God, and Adoni to man. But the written scrolls in Hebrew, anciently as now, had only consonant letters; they had not the comparatively modern vowels; hence were both the words spelled alike, 'nx, but differently pronounced, viz: Adonai and Adoni. Now the sept, translator of said Psalm no ignored that difference, and claimed to read alike "my God and my king," Yahvh and Adoni, as if they were both written: Adonai, and translated both alike in accordance, as if each applied to God. Here he constructed in Psalm no, i, one •/rfc>waz for God, the Father, and the other Adonai for the Son. But look to the Hebrew text and you will find they are differently spelled, viz: Yahveh and Adonic and they really mean: "God said to my master, (viz: the king,) sit at my right hand" — a complimentary phrase used in the Orient towards the king by the court poet.

CHAPTER X.
OTHER VIEWS OF THE MOUNT SERMON.

The above is my impression concerning the role of the author of the Sermon on the Mount. The data are vague, scattered, various, contradicting. They convey no definite, full scheme. Yet they yield one clear, salient impression, hardly mistakable and that impression is this, it appears to me, viz: that the writer of the "Sermon' was a Jew of the Jews, a close adherent to and exalted believer in the One, spiritual Supreme Being. Yhvh, the Ineffable, of scriptures; that he thought himself, at the utmost, the prophetical Essenian messiah, a son of David, the appointed liberator of his nation, aild of the world, from vice and wrong, by virtue of the doctrine emanating from Zion; that he was to fulfil and realize the Mosaic Law and the universal prophetic hopes in their spirit and essence, by regenerating and sanctifying mankind and bringing out the substance and scope of the Thorax even at the cost of the letter; that he followed Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Psalms, and the Essenian mystics who spoke of love and grace, of the "circumcision of the heart" and of the "new covenant f' that he, perhaps in theory, more or less, refused fitll obedience to certain rabbinical and traditional dicta; that his new social order was to expunge all wTong, vice and selfishness, and to establish altruism or the communal interest as supreme and sole ethical norm; that neither cold deeds, nor iron-cast creeds, nor dry observances and rites are of any real avail; that alone deep convictions and pure motives in all our actions make true righteousness, the supreme qualification for his new messianic age. That Kingdom of Heaven was to him a full substantial reality, not a vague ideal; he daily expected its realization, its dawn within his own lifetime.
Now I acknowledge that other views, too, are admissible. The last verses of Matth. 7 may be proof thereof, if at all admitted as genuine. There already is looming up the Mediator role, saliently setting forth a second divine being, a heavenly major-domus. In John, Paul, etc., trinitarian doctrines are looming up, the Logostheory or divine Verb, as a personality, and the beginning of the incarnation dogma. There Jesus is spoken of as the supernatural Messiah, as the Son of God, the Lord. The four Gospels contain many attempts at such a view. The same it is with other important issues. Sometime it is affirmed, the law shall be upheld and fulfilled in every tittle, and at other times it is stated that it should be abolished. At first it is said that the messianic scheme is for Israel alone; later it is claimed for all men; and at last declared as for the Gentiles in preference. To me it seems as if all such and similar views are of a later date, when the Gentiles, especially with Constantine the Great, crowded into the Christian Church, taking its management into their own hands, convoked Synods, held councils, and decreed dogmas — as the Patrician Senate had decreed laws, simply for practical utility.
A third view is yet entertainable. It is possible that the public career of Jesus embraced two distinct periods, the one national, prophetic, Essenian, more or less mystical and traditional, corresponding to my first exposition of his teachings, as aiming at a restoration of the Mosaic model, with Jesus as Davidian liberator. Then came a later phase in Jesus' career, viz: the giving up of Israel, of Judaea and bible, and rescuing only the prophetic ideas of the unity of God, of the human race and of righteousness; working out of that and the plastic elements of the Essenian Messiah ideal and the humanitarian aspirations, the Gentile Christ, the Redeemer, the Mediator, the Son and Lord, as part of the Deity incarnated, with a total abolition of the Old Testament and the institution of the New Dispensation.
But it is not in the least probable that Jesus had ever passed into such a Gentile stadium as inaugurated by the council of Nicae in 325. A career of one to two years' duration does not allow of such diametrically opposite changes of front. Such a change could be developed only after long trials and disappointments among his fellow Jews, and many brilliant successes among the Gentiles; while Jesus himself had never attempted such. We read about his views: "Itis not proper to give to the dogs the childrens' meat." It takes a long while to form new tastes, ideas and plans. It is decidedly unpsychological that in a year or two a character of Jesus' tenacity would pass from the state of an enthusiastic Jew to that of an outspoken Gentile, to declare for a Divine plurality — himself a God-head; reject his own nation and law and build up a Gentile scheme in —
OTHER VIEWS ON THE MOUNT SERMON. 2
Jerusalem, whilst being entirely out of contact with and but scant experience of that Gentile world; nay, hardly understanding their speech! Such a development presupposes the lapse of centuries; the change of leadership; new men with new ideas, experiences, education, surroundings, etc., must come into play. Fully well acknowledging that Jesus of Nazareth did give the great impulse, an exponent as he was, of the prophetic cosmopolitanism to the later GentileChristian movement, criticism must, nevertheless, allow here the intervention of Paul and his Greek school, with three centuries of evolution and the advent of the practical soldier and courtier theologians of the fourth century, to perfect and inaugurate that stadium of trinitarian Christianity.
In the Gentile world polytheism was broken down and the need of religion was urgent. Since the rise of the Hasmonians many non-Israelites had adopted the God-idea, the ethics and aspects of the prophets; they had no inclination for circumcision, the dietary laws, the Levitical purity and the Rabbinical aggravations. These Greeks eagerly listened to and embraced the doctrines of Galilee. That gave them the substance without the formalism of the religion of Israel. That phase, viz: the essence of Judaism without its ceremonialism, ripe among the Gentiles, as we read in Josephus, in Greek and Roman historians and satirists, that phase of messianic Judaism came out, later, as Christianity.
Cognizant of the condition of the Gentile world, of its readiness to accept Zion's ethical doctrines without its national garb, caused Jesus, and especially Paul and his group, to go further than they originally intended to, viz: to form a New Judaism for the regenerated Roman world. This new Judaean world, remembering their heathen antipathies, pushed that severing, disintegrating Gentile-messianic movement to its extreme. They preferred the Son of God to the son of David; the divine Christ to the prophetic messiah, the formal plurality to the essential unity of Deity. Possibly, faintly, theoretically, that separating and divorcing movement
had begun with Jesus himself, discouraged as he was by the antagonism of his Jewish enemies and encouraged by the occasional, stray, Samaritan or Roman enthusiasm of a Gentile admirer. But his career was too short for a development in that direction. That came only with his successors, Paul, etc. There is not a shadow of a doubt that they were in constant contact with the Gentiles and that there they had made their conquests. Very possible it is that Jesus, too, on his journeys, had come in touch with them, and that he may have followed the drift of the prophets who had alluded to the days of the unification of the human race and of divine worship: "For my house will be the house of prayer for all the nations," (Is. 56, 7) — "On that day will God be one and his name One," (Sach. 14,9.) — " Blessed be my people, Egypt, my handiwork, Assur and my inheritance, Israel," (Is. 19, 25.) Such was the cosmopolitanism Jesus, possibly, and Paul, undoubtedly, gave the impulse to; the Gentile-Christians carried it out.
Matthew XV, 22, tells the following thrilling story: " Behold a woman of Canaan (subject Gentile) came out and cried after Jesus: Have mercy on me, O Lord (rabbi), my daughter is grievously sick:" . . . Said Jesus: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel." Then she came reverencing and saying: "Rabbi, help me" (rabbi and lord meaning master.) But he said: " It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs." And she said: "Truth, rabbi, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table."
Thereupon Jesus: "0 woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt."
Such experiences he may have made often which were telling upon his original belief of being sent only to Israel and may have induced him to extend his program to the Gentile camp. Again the current allusions of Hebrew mystics to the Essenian messiah to extirpate idolatry, etc., viz: to convert and unite the world in the worship of the One God, may have shaped his plans in such a manner as to meet the ethical needs and cravings of the Gentile world, ripe for his activity.
OTHER VIEWS ON THE MOUNT SERMON.
I think the great, historical phase in the Gentile world, often enough alluded to by the friends and the foes of Israel, viz: the breaking down of the ancient polytheistic cults, and the urgent need of human society for some religious ideal and worship to take their place — that phase has not been sufficiently emphasized by historians. I think that alone rationally and fully explains the rise of Christianity. Christianity is nothing more nor less than the ethical acceptance of Judaism by the Gentile world; or, if you prefer, it is the compromise of old Polytheism and new Jahvism. It is the fusion of both the views in such a manner as to suit the habits, the tastes, the needs, the capabilities of the times and conditions. Jesus and his group may have first contemplated the preparation of the Jews for the Kingdom of Heaven. But that kingdom did not come. Things went in their usual round and men did so too. Yet the mighty impulse given was not lost. The Gentile world received the electric shock. Polytheism broke down, and the prophetic ethics took its place, after making the necessary concessions, as in all human affairs.
Indeed the great and generous enthusiast had nothing new to tell to the Judaean thinkers. He had been anticipated in every one of his ideas, visions and sayings, by his predecessors. His rational and his mystic theories pervaded the Haggadic literature. What is his own, is his classic, pithy, sharp-edged manner and style of his diction. I may call him the focus, where these new ideas centered' And there is merit enough; he had the courage to speak out and aloud, round and sound: That not the letter, but the spirit saves. His contemporaries only whispered it. Hillel declared to the heathen enquirer that worship to God and love to man is the essence and marrow of the "Thorahy Yet he went on discussing the hair-splitting 1 3 rules of his logics, and increasing the commandments to myriads. Jesus had the magnanimity to be as good as his word; to openly rebel against tradition, and to pay this rebellion against Church and State with his life. Thereupon rests his greatness and his immortality. The
rabbis had their good reasons for upholding tradition as their bulwark and coat-of-mail against the threatening Gentile majorities around. But the Gentiles had no such reasons in their circumstances. Jesus', or the prophetic doctrines fitted exactly, and Christianity came out of that historic concurrence. The former potentiality became an actuality. As to Paul's concessions, he is no more responsible for than Buddah is for the concessions of his followers.
By this happy coincidence Jesus' activity became apparently the greatest era in history. This era is probably as important for the Western civilization, as the Exodus is for the advent of Israel. On that score he fully deserves his messianic crown and halo, for he became, by his impulse and his self-sacrifice, the messiah of the Gentile world, indeed. Who begrudges and denies that, is perblind to the plainest historical facts staring into his face. No doubt, the kingdom of heaven has not come; the Christian world confesses him, but does not do his bidding. No doubt, his religion is but an ideal, just as the prophetic religion is but an ideal to the Jew. Yet both these ideals are worth many realities to Christian and Jew. All that providential men can do, is to give our race a better ideal, leaving it to more practical, smaller men by degrees to make the ideal a reality. Thus I say, that Jesus had deserved his immortal, messianic crown at the hands of the Western world. He would have deserved great gratitude too at the hands of his brethren in race and in faith, if he had but succeeded in forever silencinor Gentile jealousies and prejudices, in freeing Judaea from the hate of Rome. He succeeded in abolishing Jewish tradition, not heathen prejudice, not that Satan, jealousy. No; unfortunately he did not. Unfortunately the Christian world is not Christian enough. For impartiality and fair acknowledgment of merit is a trait of the kingdom of heaven. And as great men can only give to mankind possibilities of such realms, not actualities, even so can they not induce impartiality. Nevertheless Christianity harbors that possibility. And if the East of Europe entertains yet the old pagan hate, the West is, comparatively, more aware of their being Christians. Their best spirits realize that Jesus and prophets, Bible and Sermon on Mount, all is Hebrew flesh and bone and heart, that "Jepheth is dwelling in the tents of Shem."

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 20, 2010, 12:06:06 AM

Assenting Verses.

The following may help the thoughtful reader to make his own estimate concerning the real position of Jesus — his assent and dissent towards his nation and the Thora. The entire sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 — 7) excepting, perhaps, the end of chapter 7, is perfectly within the bounds of the Mosaic Law. It is everywhere adhering to it. So chap. 5, 17: " Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill, for verily I tell you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled .... Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be the least in the kingdom of Heaven. But he who shall do and teach them, shall be there called great" .... What then was Jesus' object? To see that the law shall be fulfilled indeed and in spirit, not only in form and husk. That full and sincere performance he calls righteousness, and that alone secures the kingdom of heaven. Paul's abolition is then not countenanced by the founder.
Mark X, 17 — 18. A man knelt to and called Jesus "Good Master," and Jesus rebuked him: " There is none good but one; that is God."
Mark XII, 28 — 34. A scribe asked him: " Which is the first commandment?" Jesus replied "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Accurately the verse V M. 6,. 4, reads: "Hear O Israel, Yhvh our God. Yhvh is one." Yhvh means Ineffable. The Gentile writer of Mark did not correctly render the verse. Jesus continued: " And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is the second commandment. (Just so, even literally so, answered Hillel and Akiba, the heads of the Pharisees.) "None are greater than these two commandments" The scribe said unto Jesus: "Well, master, (rabbi) thou hast said the truth, for there is one God, and there is none other but He .... and to love Him and love our neighbor is more than all the wholeand burnt-offerings and sacrifices." This is conform to I. Samuel 15, 22; Hosea 6,6, and Micha 6, 6. — Jesus said: " Thou art not far from the kingdom of God," for that and prophetism are identical.

Matthew X, 5. These twelve apostles Jesus sent and said: "Go not unto the Gentiles nor the Samaritans, but to the lost sheep of Israel, and preach the kingdom of heaven." The Gentile redactor of this passage inserted instead: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles." The context shows this as incorrect,

Matthew XV, 24. To a Gentile woman imploring his help, Jesus says: " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel. It is not meet to cast the children's bread to the dogs."

In Matthew XIX, 14, he beautifully says in consonance with the Haggadah: " Suffer little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of Heaven." So, too, in Psalm 8, 3: "Upon the breath of the young thou hast founded thy might." Though usually sneering at the Pharisees and their " traditions of men, passing them off as God's commandments," though often in the name of the spirit of the Law, sacrificing and proudly changing its letter, yet on the whole, there can be no doubt that he conformed to the biblical and mostly to the traditional Law too. So we find him ordering sacrifices to the leper healed by him. (Mark i, 14.) He celebrates the Passah festival in the midst of his disciples and with the usual ceremonies and rites. (Matthew 26, 17.) Peter is reproached for having eaten with Pagans, which he positively denies. (Acts 12, i — 10.) In Acts 20, 6, does Paul on a journey celebrate the days of unleavened bread. He aspires to the merits of Nazirite. (Ibid. 18, 18.) He brings tithes (not alms) and offerings from good conscience (Ibid. 24, 16 — 17.) All that proves adherence to the Law. Acts 15, i, brings a most interesting episode, which shows how things were doneby compromise; that Jesus and the apostles kept yet the ceremonial law, and that only with the advent of the Gentiles, it was slowly suffered to fall into desuetude. It narrates: —
"Certain men from Judaea taught the (Gentile) brethren .... that it was needful for them to circumcise .... and keep the law of Moses .... or they cannot be saved .... After much dispute Peter said: "God aroused the Gentiles to hear the gospel and believe .... purifying their hearts by faith .... Now wherefore put a yoke upon their necks .... too hard for us to bear."Paul speaks in the same direction. At last James, quoting Amos 9, 11 — 12, contrary to the correct version now extant, and making those verses prophesy the conversion of the Gentiles, he proposed, and the apostles and elders assented to, "that the converted Gentiles be advised not to be troubled about the Law, except that they abstain from meats offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled and from fornication; not laying upon them any greater burden other than these necessary things."

The verses 1 1 and 1 2 of Amos 9, are quoted by James as perporting: " I shall build the tabernacle of David, now fallen down .... that the residue of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called . . . ." Our present Hebrew version, the Septuaginta, the Vulgate, etc., read thus: "On that day I shall raise the tabernacle of David .... that they may inherit the remnant of Edom and of all the nations upon whom my name is called . . . . "
Dissenting Verses.
The above quotations showed Jesus fully in harmony with Mosaism and prophetism, a Jew of the Jews, the flower and noble exponent of his ancestral faith. Not such is he in the following verses:
.on'j? "OBf mpj 'MffH Dun j onn nnnBr wr ipnh (1)
Ifc appears that James really read or that he freely translated the text as the Ilaggadists often did: . . . D'un '7Di di« nnxBr wt t;rD
THE MESSIAH'IDEAL.
Matthew IX, 16 — 17. Jesus says: "No man puts in a piece of new cloth into an old garment, for the rent will be worse; nor new wine into old bottles; else these break" — That foreshadows a totally new departure, a second phase in his or his followers views!
Matthew XII, i — 8. The Pharisees complain of his disciples desecrating the Sabbath. Jesus reminds them that "David had eaten of the priestly shew-bread in the temple; that the priests, by work, profane the Sabbath and yet are blameless; that man (or he) is greater than the temple; that the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath; hence are his disciples without fault."— That is a new departure!
Matthew XV, 11. Jesus says: "Hearand understand: Not that which goes into the mouth defileth, but that which cometh out of the mouth does." — Mosaism taught that going into the mouth defiles too, and hygienic science confirms it.
In Matthew XIX, 14, is fasting neglected.
In Matthew XII, i — 15, are ears of corn broken on the Sabbath, and the sick are healed thereon (verse 1 2) "for it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."
No doubt, we find in the Talmud: "The Sabbath is given to man, not man to the Sabbath." But that was a vague saying, not a doctrine to practice.
Acts X, 13. " Peter being hungry, all manner of beasts and fowl are let down from the sky and set at his disposal; and a voice from above called on him: "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." Peter says: "Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean!" and the voice called: "What God has cleansed, call not unclean." That is a new doctrine.
All the Oriental legislations discriminated and prescribed the food, guided by hygienic, economic and moral considerations; so especially the Hindoos, Parsees, Egyptians, etc.
Matthew XV. Jesus shows that " tradition is perverting the Law . . . That a plant not planted by God, shall be rooted out" . . . That "the Pharisees are blind leading the blind, all to fall into the ditch." That they are
DISSENTING VERSES. 2
"teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."Here is a new departure.
Matthew X, 32. Jesus says: Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father in Heaven;" He assumes the part of the mediator; it is a new departure.
Ibidem X, 34-38. Think not I am come to send peace on earth . . I came not to send peace, but a sword ... to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against her mother. . . . He that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." Here is a new standpoint.
Matthew XIX, 21-25. A good man asks: "Having fulfilled the law, what is he lacking towards perfection?" and Jesus answered: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in Heaven."The man did not; whereupon Jesus said to his friends: "Verily I say unto you: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Here is a new social principle, a monastery or a phalanster.
Matthew XXVI, 63. The high-priest asking: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?" and Jesus replies: "Thou hast said: Nevertheless, hereafter shall you see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven"— alluding to Daniel 13, 7, and the Essenian messiah.
Mark XIII, 1-30: "Jesus fortelleth the destruction of the temple, war and strife; nation to rise against nation ... as the beginnings of sorrow . . • and then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds". . . closing up (verse 30) "Verily I say unto you that this generation shall not pass till all these things be done."He expected the actual begin of that revolution, as imminent.
Mark XII, 35-41. Jesus says: "How say the scribes that Christ is son of David, since David himself said: The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David himself calleth him Lord and whence is he then his son?"

Here, no doubt, is the new doctrine looming up.

Mark makes here Jesus disclaim the role of the prophetic, Davidian messiah for the higher position of the Son of God. . Mark introduces here the new doctrine of the mediatorship and divine companionship of Jesus with the godhead, vehemently reproaching the scribes with arrogance and rapacity for their non-belief . . . While a few verses previously, in the same chapter, Mark quotes, on a most natural occasion, Jesus as professing the known biblical Credo: "Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one" (12, 29) — So does Jesus, indeed, everywhere else in his allusions to the Deity; even on the cross: "Eli, Eli, lamah Asabtani," Everywhere he professes monotheism; nevertheless in Matthew 28, 19, we read: "Go ye and teach all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The new Credo of Trinity.
ESTIMATE OF THE MOUNT SERMON.
There is no denial that there are many precedents for many or all the above mentioned changes and innovations, practical and ethical, as well as mystical. From the first to the last sacred book, did the prophets inveigh against the gratuitous and excessive yoke of the ceremonial laws, declaring such to be indifferent, futile, even obnoxious. Everywhere did they emphasize the allimportance of good deeds with the moral and spiritual doctrines; trying their best to invigorate them, insisting, just as Jesus did, upon good acts front, pure motives; upon sincere convictions, not idle, verbal creed. In 3 M, 26, 41, and Esek. 44, 9, "The circumcision of the heart and not the flesh," is emphatically enjoined. " Ye shall circumcise the obtuseness ofyour hearts and not be stiff-necked," (5 M. 10, 16) insists the Deuteronomist Samuel 15, 23, says: " Behold, to hearken to God's voice is preferable to blood-offerings. Cares God for burnt-sacrifices!" Isaiah i, 2, called: "Whatfor to me your many slaughterings? I am over-satiated with them; I loathe them . . • • Cleanse yourselves; do away with your evil deeds; learn to do good; encourage the oppressed, the orphan and widow " Jeremiah 7, 22, argues: "Eat yourselves your sacrifices
for I never spoke nor bade your fathers concerning burnt-offerings, etc."

Hosea 4: "Behold, there is no truth, no mercy/ no knowledge; there is but swearing, lying, murder, theft and lewdness .... necromancy — with offerings and incense .... indeed they shall be ashamed of their bloody sacrifices . . . (and 6, 7): "I want kindness; not slaughterings . . .

Ps. 85, 10: " Indeed God is nigh to those that fear him . .: , Mercy and truth meet each other; justice and peacekiss one another. "-(86, 15): "God is loving and misercordious, great in mercy and truth. "-(89, 3): "The world is built on mercy."— Prov. 21, 21: "Whosoever practices justice and love, will find life, honor and justice." Isaiah i: "Listen O ye heavens, hearken O earth: Children I have reared and raised, but they have rebelled against me .... Whatfor to me your many slaughterings .... I am satiated with your burnt-offerings; your fat and bloody gifts I need not; nor your prayers and your incense . . . nor your sabbath and holidays .... Cleanse yourselves; away with your wicked deeds ..... Do good, let justice prevail, defend the oppressed, the widow and the orphan .... If you are willing and obedient, you shall enjoy the fat of the land . . . but if you refuse, the sword will consume you .... Thus speaketh Yahveh!" Such were the prophets, the teachers of Jesus. Such was the atmosphere he had breathed in: "Mercy and truth, not forms and observances."Nor were the ceremonial and dietary laws universally and punctually practiced in Israel. In spite of Shammai and Hillel had relaxation crept in concerning formal observances. Rabbi Johanan ben Saccai, a representative leader of tradition, frankly declared:
"That the dead do not defile, nor does the temple
.___________________________ • — . — .
(1)   The pointed chapter Hhown strikingly how then, as now, men are inclined lo neglect morality and offer rites — even human sacrifices instead, (verse 25 — 31):
   I sent them all my prophets, bat they refused to listen and improve They
placed idols into my nouse and burned their children in firel what I never
hade nor thought oil!" Verses 22 and 31 deprecate alike sacrifices, animal and human; both wer Qlferd. — See above, page 173.

Sprinkling cleanse, but it is — a religious form, a timehonored emblem, it is a ' commandment,' and we have to abide by it." Nay, the rabbis stated that the very yoke of the law is meant to hasten and facilitate the advent of the kingdom of heaven (Sifra, end of kedoshim.) That was their mode of explaining the rigors of the Thora and the cause why Israel is bound to mind them.

But the people had their own way of reasoning. The fact appears to be that there were two streams of thought, the Parsee ceremonialism, legalism, and the prophetic rationalism.' The exiles from Babylon brought home a strong leaning towards that Parsee ceremonialism, (hence "(Parashim" viz: Parsees.) The thinking rabbis conformed to it ostensibly, outwardly, but essentially they sided with the Prophets.
Philo repeatedly mentions that neglect of practical piety. His rich, educated Alexandrian co-religionists, as our present, wealthy, easy-going Reformed Jews, philosophized, allegorized and sublimized the Pentateuch and its doctrinal parts. As to the practical commandments and prohibitions thereof, they were pretty much neglected. " Partout comme chez nous." The Essenes, too, exceedingly scrupulous, yea, ascetic one way, were no sticklers either in other respects, just as we gather from the New Testament, concerning the very surroundings of the Essenian leader himself, he who remembered that " David ate of the priestly shewbread, that the priests did their work on the Sabbath, hence is man master of the Sabbath."It was a popular belief that the coming messiah would abrogate, or at least lighten the burdens of ceremonial legalism.
Jesus an Exponent of His Time.

The thinking reader will thus see that Jesus has but voiced the current of such reformatory ideas, declaring with other rabbinical teachers, that the " Sabbath is given to man, not man to the Sabbath." In theory he rejected the host of traditional legal enactments; he hinted at lightening the burden of the ceremonial, Pentateuchal laws, too. Anything definite, it seems, he did not establish. When later, the Gentiles began to crowd into the ranks of the church, his disciples had no positive answer to the question: whether the Gentile converts need observe the Mosaic Law or not. That question brought about the crisis. After long hesitations only, at the instance of the boldest of the apostles, Paul, Peter, James, etc., it was resolved that the Gentiles may dispense with the practical law, that " it would be wrong to tempt God and impose upon the converts an unnecessary yoke" Only the moral and hygienic commandments remained incumbent upon them. Concerning thje Sabbathic, microscopic, hair-splitting enactments, the Talmudists themselves often wondered at them, designating them as " mountains hanging on a hair." They quoted the very same Haggadic words: "The Sabbath is given unto man, not man to the Sabbath" Thus the originality of Jesus here was rather his manner than the substance. What permeated the people, he gave it the classical, piquant, sharp-edged expression, as: " Not what goes into the mouth denleth, but whatcomes but of it." Such were his satires to the scribes complaining of Sabbath-breaking. Compare this classic way of putting the question with Peter s or Paul's, (Acts 10, 13) and you will become aware of the master's infinite superiority. Even so was the setting aside of tradition and rabbinism, as not binding upon the Gentile races, etc., a foregone conclusion. Jesus' socioethical theories, too, were the ideals of his time, those of the Greek and Roman Stoics, the Egyptian Therapeuts, and the Judaean Essenes. He only systemetized, shaped and stamped them as the features of the kingdom of heaven, with no property, no litigation and greedy strife, no divorce of woman, no anger towards a brother; self-sacrifice — "give all to the poor," "take your cross and follow" rather "takeyour stafifand follow" "cross"
.nn;'Ba D'lS-in onino (1 )
CHRISTIAN REACTION. ROME.
being a later alteration. "Do not even look, lustily, at a woman," etc. These were known as the morals of the Chassidau They were to be the rules of conduct of the kingdom of heaven; fit for an ideal realm, exaggerated for the real world.
As a reaction against violence and immorality, consequent upon polytheistic idolatry and Roman brutality, the best of mankind, in and out of Judaea, declared for righteousness, altruism and self-sacrifice. It was a protest against the reigning sensuality and selfishness of the Praetorian rule. The dominion of such righteousness was dawning. The old Chassidai and the Essenes, their descendants, the contemporaries of Jesus, going to the very extreme, declared, that wicked Roman world must go out of existence as old Sodom did, and the kingdom of heaven is to take its place, to be brought about by the messiah. After the several war-messiahs, from Judas of Galilee to the Zelots, had failed, the Essene party deemed it fit and timely to try their scheme, the chances of the peacie-messiah. This part Jesus seems willingly to have accepted. Hence his claims for authority. But the Hebrew nation had not made yet her supreme effort against Rome, and the peace-messenger was not favorably received. In the din of war he was hardly noticed. After the atrocious wars against Vespasian, Titus and Hadrian had failed, burying the country with half the population under its ruins. After the nation had seen that force, burning patriotism, heroic self-sacrifice, and all human resources had failed, they turned their attention to the peace-messiah movement.
The dead Jesus had now more adherents among his co-religionists, than ever had the live one. It is just after the wars against Vespasian, Titus and the collapse of the Bar-Kochbah revolution, 120 P. C, that Essenian messiah-hopes began to be seriously entertained, and that friendlier relations began to spring up between Jews, even Talmudists, and the several messianic or Christian sects. The hope upon the peace-messiah, as aroused by the beginning success of the followers of Jesus, was the only one left to broken and scattered Israel; that hope was, not of conquering Rome and the
.on'on nno (1)
ESTIMATE OF THE MOUNT SERMON. 2
Gentile world, but of gaining them over by the forces of reason and doctrine, by the "spirit of love, justice and good will emanating from Zion," in one word, by Hebrew monotheism.
On one hand the rabbis fostered the messiah-idea, viz: the prophetic one, preparing for the Davidian, who would break down polytheism, introduce true worship and peace into the world, with justice and love for man. On the other hand they emphasized the Messiah as a human being, the Deity as One, eternal and spiritual; closely watching and rejecting any formula or conception leading to heresy and the Essene mysticism. Guarding their ranks against heresy, they yet remained in contact with the Christian brotherhoods, even in friendly relations, thinking them but a sect in Judaism entertaining a heresy which would soon vanish, yet assist in gaining over the world to prophetic monotheism. That was feasible. The messiah-idea was not altogether incompatible with Judaism. As long as it was but a question of abstract dogmatics, it could be settled. But the rabbis hesitated in allowing the Gentile converts to abrogate the practice of the Law, and these would not accept the yoke thereof. That brought on the crisis. The turn which Christianity took with the politic and unscrupulous Constantine the Great, broke off all possibility of reconciliation. With that turn all polytheism was allowed to slip in under the cloak of Christianity. It was the old regime under new names.
But it is worth while to dwell longer upon the friendly relations between Jews and Christians before Constantine. I mean not simply the relations among the people, but even leading rabbis: We find that the patriarch Gamaliel II, head of the Palestinian Jews, reads the Gospels and calls upon a Christian leader and teacher to discuss religious points with him (Sabbath ii6.) R. Eliezer, son of Hyrkanos, accepts an exegetical bible expounding by a Christian. During a persecution of that denomination, under the emperor Trajan, he is in imminent danger of being put to death as a Christian! (Aboda Sara 1 7.) R. Jon b. Chalephta, Jos. b. Chanania and Mar b. Joseph are conversing with these sec
SECTARIAN FRIENDLY RELATIONS.
tarians on most intimate terms and go to hear their religious discourses (Sabbath 152.) Of many more such intimacies with Jew-Christians, we read in Aboda Sara 27, and Midr. Rabboth Koheleth. — Sota 47, andSanhedrin 102, recommend all urbanity and kindliness towards such sectarians.
In the vast regions beyond the Euphrates the Christians, having had to encounter the animosities of the Parsees, most naturally kept to the Jews, participating in their fate for good or for evil. They simply passed there for a section and branch of Israel; they were plainly considered as messianic Jews, viz: Hebrews believing that the messiah had come. The precautions taken by the Palestinian Israelites to guard against all Christian ideas and practices, were not enforced there, because they were not deemed necessary then. It is this friendly relation between the two creeds which naturally explains, why we find so many utterings and views strikingly similar with the Christian ones, so frequently interspersed in Talmud, Haggadoth and Aramaic Translations (Targumim), in the Babylonian countries during the period between Bar-Cochba and Constantine the Great. In treatese Sopherim 17, we read with agreeable surprise, that from regard and condescension • towards the Christians who celebrated the Sunday as a holiday, the Babylonian rabbis did not allow any fast to fall on that day!
What are the legitimate conclusions of that? That during the life-time of Jesus, the Jews, bent upon war with Rome, did not notice the Essenian way of solving the great worlds problem, social, political and religious. After the collapse of the Bar-Cochba rising, they reconsidered that the national question might be solved through the ethical one, that Rome could be best vanquished by conversion, by the doctrine, rather than by the sword, of Zion; and they began to cultivate the friendship of the new sect, as moving in the right direction. No doubt, a compromise would have been reached. The Essens had been the flower of the Jews, and yet they believed in the messiah! Even so, thought
ESTIMATE OF THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT. 2
the rabbis, would the mystic bias be settled and the entire Hebrew nation, united, would take up the great task of gaining over the world to the policy of the prince of peace. But the epoch of Caesarian Christianity arrived. Constantine accepted all the trappings, names and symbols of the new doctrine, except the doctrine and its practice. With him, religion became again, as in polytheism, the hand-maid and the cloak of political ambitions, of violence and selfishness. Of the whole scheme of Jesus' kingdom of heaven and of righteousness, not a stone was left standing. It was the old Caesarism dubbed over with the honest halo of Nazareth! Mosaism, prophetism, monotheism and Sermon on the Mount, all were left in the cold; and the old hypocrisy, priestly and princely, was re-enthroned and inaugurated. The split between the motherand daughter-religion became definite and lasting. It was no longer a theological, dogmatical difference, no longer a mystical, metaphysical one, no longer the question, to whom do the prophets allude and what did they mean by "messiah?" It was no longer an ethical or social reformation, a kingdom of righteousness. It was a question of politics and dominion. It was settled, not by theologians, religionists, prophets or philanthropic sages. No, it was settled by diplomats and soldiers, by politicians and patricians, by the sword and Caesar. Closely seen, any and every religion is a noble ideal held up for imitation. The kingdom of heaven was the most ideal of all elaborated since Zarathustra, the Parsee legislator, and Abraham, the reformator of Semitic polytheism, to Jesus, who attempted to make Essenianism the universal rule of conduct. With Constantine all collapsed; phantom-like the Essenian dream and scheme vanished; the name alone remained; a grand, new name, decorating the well-known old regime, the "Malchuth Shamaim" covering the dominion of Rome.
The most Christian Emperor was the most heathen — Caesar. After long hesitations and equivocations of the political Constantine, the messianic movement was led by diplomatic priests and spiritual patricians, whose
object was, not the kingdom of heaven, but universal dominion, the empire of Rome or Byzantium, the interests of Augustus and their own. The original Jerusalem Church of the apostles, their successors and elders was pushed to the rear. The Ebyoniles, or Jewish Christians, were supplanted, not simply by the Gentile Christians, but by men whose ethics were ambition and statescraft; men of the calibre of the well-known Roman senators, proconsuls and procurators. The church then became an engine, a cloak, a new mask for old pagan selfishness, and monotheism had to stand aloof Christianity had started with Jesus and Paul the idea of bringing the Gentile world to the doctrines of Zion, to the prophetic God-idea and ethics. Constantine and his successors gradually sacrificed the whole of the Mosaico-rabbinical Code, the national traditions, the historical reminiscences and festive days. They allowed the church to preach ethics, with the kingdom of heaven, provided they retained power and empire. Soon they yielded the very central ideas of the bible, rational ethics and pure, lucid monotheism, to gross, eclectic, doubtful mysticism, accommodating morals, compromising ritual and worship; for their aim was worldly dominion, not spiritual redemption. The ideal Jesus gave the name; cunning Augustus kept the substance.
Dangerous Precedents.
But here too, let us be frank and impartial. Here, also, there were dangerous precedents ready. Philo, the Jewish philosopher, following Alexandrian mysticism and Greek modes of thought, had taught the LogoSj or the divine Wisdom, as the firsi-born Son of God. Earlier yet was in Parseeism Wisdom and Fire personified, deified as the Son of Ahura Mazda. The Chassidai and the Essenes of Judaea spoke of the Holy Ghost almost as a divine personality; so did the Midrashim, the Targumim and many of the Talmudists. The IS a real being with them, independent and divine. The Apochryphae or Jewish mystic books out of the Canon, speak of them as independent emanations and co-existing with the Deity. What Jesus thought of them is hard to determine; some idea of such he no doubt did have. The reports in the divers parts of the New Testament are conflicting. To judge from his innovations and their modes, it seems he thought himself, at any rate, an extraordinary personage; the messiah, the Davidian, the promised liberator, perhaps. Perhaps even the Essenian supernatural messiah, " coming with the clouds," the redeemer of Israel and of the world at large.

That redeemer, according to Essenian mysticism, was to regenerate man, improve the law, open the kingdom of heaven, obliterate original sin inherited from Adam, resurrect the dead, renovate the world, etc. He may have thought the time of all that had arrived. Any definite, positive, clear statement of his concerning that, cannot be detected. The same is the case with the Apostles, with Paul and the Gospels. The final redaction, the last crystalization of the New Testament treatises, was made at the dictation of the Caesars, and is beyond the ken of reason. Starting from the original scheme of reforming and invigorating the biblical religion and ethics, and propagating them in the world at large as the rule of righteousness in the kingdom of God, they and the bible were now dispensed with; a new religion was elaborated, without the kingdom of heaven, without the ethics and the righteousness of the founder, with all the biblical ideas and forms greatly changed, and with the God-idea altered. Mosaism legislates for the world as it is, Christianity for an ideal world; the former for this earth of ours, the latter for the hereafter; at first to be taught to the world, later entirely to be superseded. It takes now good eyes to discover under the forms of New Christianity old prophetic Judaism. Nearly all the names, forms, conceptions, and dogmatics have changed. The ethics, happily, have remained, at least in theory. This alteration is not to be put all to the account of Paul. No, he built partly from materials accumulated by his master. Nor was he the sole architect. Christianity was reared up by the drift of centuries, the needs of the times, and after long struggles of and accommodations to discordant elements. Christianity is not the Mosaic religion; it is a religious mosaic, answering to the needs, views, habits and feelings of the diverse nations and creeds, its component parts. It started from the prophetic doctrines: One God, the Eternal, pure Spirituality, and one human race, commanded to do justice and charity. Christianity teaches the same, pushing these doctrines to their last extreme and identifying itself with the kingdom of God and the reign of righteousness. This was the ideal of the founder. It was nurtured in the Essene monasteries, hence it is austere, ascetic, despising the world, sanctifying contemplation, poverty and celibacy. It gradually associated with the Deity the Mediator, the Christ, the superior Adam, mankind's redeemer from the original sin entailed by the sin of Adam.

It was strongly influenced by Egypt and its Eastern Hindoo-Persian doctrines-, hence trinity, goddess-mother, paradise, hell, satan, and many more foreign ideas, rites and symbols. It was moulded by Greece and Judaea; hence the Holy Ghost, the Greek wisdom, logos or io<pia, corresponding to the biblical spirit of prophesy, and the Haggadic Holy Spirit mentioned. It had to count with polytheism and Parseeism; hence the angels and demons, saints and relics, holy shrines, images, crosses or stylae, etc., as salient features of worship. This accounts for that mosaic decorating the new faith.

Religious Compromise.

Indeed everything goes by compromise in tliis human, sublunar world. As in physical nature, the new grows from the old, by slow,' imperceptible elimination and change, assimilation, accretion, adaptation; by action, counteraction and conciliation, so that the new is the legitimate child of the old, yet an advance, an improvement upon the old. Even so it is in the ethical sphere and so in the religious domain. Great providential men come, like the hurricane, and push the world onwards, powerfully and abruptly, revolutionary as winter s blast, as spring cyclones. But soon reaction sets in, the old asserts its claims, and a compromise must be reached. Jesus, with the prophetic lightning on his lips, came and announced the advent of the kingdom of God .... Give up your " black and your white miseries," your overcomforts, your riches . . . Give up father and mother and follow me .... I am not come for peace, but as a sword, to set children against parents and relatives against relatives, etc.! .... But the clash of arms drowned his voice for the time being. The heavy, inert masses move but very slowly. The antagonistic forces have their sway too, force opposes force, reaction against action, until through conflict comes peace; rebellion becomes revolution and at last a definite settlement is reached. Even so the generous enthusiast of Nazareth imagined to carry the world by storm. Pilate checked him brutally. Paul compromised boldly, but Constantine foiled him utterly and fatally. His kingdom has not yet dawned, eighteen centuries after him. But let us hope it is dawning. Some "footprints on the mountains" are visible to the observer. It is slowly coming; too slow for human impatience; quick enough for Providence. Without Pilate, without Caesarian politics, without patrician ambitions, Jesus' work would have better succeeded. The synagogue, the church and the mosque would be but one. Isaiah s golden vision: "for my house is a house of prayer for all nations" would have been, fifteen centuries earlier, realized. The Orient and the Occident would be one; Mohammed would have closely followed that drift .... As it is, the stream of history changed. The many ethical blasts and revolutions became necessary. Necessary was the advent of Mohammed, Wyklifife and Huss; of Calvin, Luther and Loyaula; of Lessing, Mendelsohn and Mirabeau, and many more such men. Such messianic teachers, initiators, titans and sages, to come nearer the full prophetic ideal of " peace and good-will to all." And let us not grumble about that delay. That is human nature, physical nature, and moral nature. The prophets had ' to call in the wilderness; Jesus had to die; Paul had to compromise; Constantine had to equivocate and corrupt Christendom had to become what it is, a compromise; a compromise between the old and the new, between enslaved and enfranchised mankind, between Caesar and the kingdom of God. We shall have occasion to speak of the farsightedness of the prophets. In their enthusiasm they overleap distance and time, thinking close by, what is yet far away in the dim haze of the future. Dearly they pay for this defect of accurate vision, even with their lives. A laurel to their memory! Eternal gratitude to their self-sacrifice! They are the steam in the chariot of human advance, the electric force which drives the wheels of civilization, the winged Seraphim of the Mirchaba seen by Isaiah 6. Let us live and work in a manner as at last to make their visions a reality; to speak with Schiller, to make the prophetic "there and then a here and now." Kind reader, remember if prophets and messiahs do not make good their word, the fault is not theirs, it is ours! Everyone is not a redeemer but everyone can contribute to the redeeming work.

Gain or Loss.

Has mankind lost or gained by the advent of Christendom? Such as it is; not such as Jesus intended it to be; such as it actually has come out through the compromise of men, conditions and times? To this important question I believe the conscientious thinker can answer: Mankind has gained! It did not gain all it might; it did gain all it could, under the circumstances. Compare Polytheism with Christianity; place in juxtaposition the times from Nero to Constantine the Great with those from Constantine to the invasion of the Barbarians; or to make it more palpable, compare polytheistic mankind then to Christian mankind now and you will recognize, you are bound to acknowledge great improvement; and this improvement is due, at least in part, to the prophetico-Christian elements in present civilization. It is due to the pure God-idea, the manidea, the right-idea, the state-idea, etc. that mankind has learned from prophetism through Christianity. No doubt the intentions of its founder have not been realized, yet they have been advanced. The kingdom of heaven has not come yet, after nearly nineteen centuries, but the real world now is a great deal better and happier than nineteen centuries ago. The full and complete reign of peace, justice and enlightenment has not yet arrived. " God's kingdom " has not yet come; but it is coming. As to the militarism and dynamite and the masses clamoring for bread? — Solid amelioration is discernible even there. Nineteen hundred years ago the masses starved and, being gagged, had to be silent while starving. Now they clamor and fight, the muzzle being removed; they shout and fight, and at last they must be heard and will be righted! At last and without doubt, they will.

They will be listened to; the reign of righteousness and holiness, of love and self-sacrifice is not at hand, yet it is more so now than nineteen centuries ago. Europe is spotted with ominous barracks, ringing with war rumors. Yet comptre present war-stricken Europe with that of the Roman world during the birth of Christianity, during the period of the four emperors, from Nero and Galba to Otto and Vespasian, battling for supremacy! Compare it with Europe during the invasion of the Goths, the Carlowingian wars, the Inirty years wars, the Seven years wars, etc. Justice now is greatly nearer its goal in the age of the United States' Presidents than under Nero' and Vitellius, Attila, the Crusaders, etc. The luminous monotheism, with its all-saving, social, moral and political results, is somewhat dimmed as yet. But we must not forget that if Christendom does not openly and plainly teach monotheism it implies it, it is in its essence and back-bone. It surely disclaims polytheism, with its superstitions, its lies, its impurities, its fatal social results, its castes and races and wars, etc. Jesus of Nazareth stands there before mankind — whatever you may think about his messianity and divinity — he stands there as a living example of human goodness, wisdom and righteousness, and such an ideal is worth millions of boons. No doubt some look up to him as one to shoulder all their sins, to cast his milkwhite Essenian cloak over their crimson deeds, and whitewash all their iniquities. Yet thinkers look deeper; they seek and find in him a rare pattern of the noblest manhood, purest worship and most astonishing selfsacrifice, a model of virtue, not a screen for sin nor a scapegoat for libertines.

The materials and colors gained by our preceding studies will later enable us to give a preliminary picture of the character, the objects and the grand personality of the founder of Christendom, as viewed from the heights of the Sermon on the Mount. Our further studies will perfect and complete that picture.

Cardinal and Rabbi.

This view, gained from our studies, is not personal to us; it is the drift of the age, corroborated from all quarters and creeds, races and stations. Indeed, it is interesting to notice the force of truth in our times; how the real import and character of that extraordinary man of Nazareth is slowly being understood by thinking men of the most different schools, stations and creeds. In 1893 Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore preached a telling sermon on the scope and activity of Jesus. His portrait pretty much tallied with the one sketched here. The writer of these pages, reading that sermon in the daily press, congratulated the Cardinal upon that rational conception of his master and divine ideal, which short correspondence the reader will peruse here with interest, as a sign of the times. His Eminence, as an American, a humanitarian, a man of the 19th century, in returning the courtesy, describes Russian intolerance and fanatical cruelty towards the Jews as abominable, unChristian and contrary to the teachings of Jesus. The Cardinal's reply shows how fairness breeds fairness and toleration elicits toleration.

   Dr. M. Fluegel has had a very interesting correspondence with Cardinal Gibbons, growing out of the sermon preached by the latter in Washington, D. C, on Sunday last, and reported in Mondsiys American. In his letter the rabbi said:
"If preaching were always done in such a spirit and with such broad universality, religion would be, indeed, such a power as your Eminence nobly describes it to be. No doubt, the role Jesus played in history is exceedingly great. "He gave the impulse to conceptions alongside which 'pyramids,' 'empires' and 'legislatures' dwindle into insignificance." These remarks are pointed, true and thrilling: "He conquered not by brute force and standing armies, but by an appeal to conscience and intellect." .... He raised the standard of man and of woman, and, as could be justly added, he did the same for the poor, the weak, the sinner, the plebeian, the alien, and others.

"One thing, honored Cardinal, I should have liked to see in your sermon — the plain recognition that Jesus did that as a son and disciple of the prophets, as embodying the divine aspirations of Moses, Isaiah, Micah, the Psalmists, and others, that great phalanx of Hebrew seers who labored and suffered for the emancipation of mankind.

"A man of such broad catholicity, conceiving Christianity from such a truly humanitarian standpoint, your Eminence, no doubt, deeply sympathizes with the wronged Hebrew exiles from Russia. Those millions of innocents, humble descendants from those self-same martyred seers, are suffering the worst at the hands of men who boldly claim to be servants of Christianity's founder!

"Allow me, your Eminence, to request you — you, a prince and minister of that great church — that you may speak a kind word, and cause your clergy to do the same, on behalf of those for whom Jesus specially labored — the downtrodden, the poor, the defenseless!"
The next day Cardinal Gibbons sent a letter thanking Rev. Dr. Fluegel for his kind words, adding:
   I would be glad, if time were allowed, to refer to our Lord Jesus Christ as the one spoken of and foreshadowed by the prophets.
   I have already on more than one occasion expressed my abhorrence of the cruel treatment which the Hebrew people are receiving at the hands of the Russian government"

So far the Baltimore American.

Behold, how both Christian and Jew have learned to be just to each other and to come nearer the truth. The Cardinal liberally speakS of Jesus as a great teacher and philanthropist, and the rabbi heartily concedes and assents to it. If opponents would but speak the full truth, opposition would soon die out, and mankind might one day awaken and read in Golden letters: "For my house is a house of prayer for all the nations."
A Chief Rabbi on Jesus.

Another utterance from clerical lips on our subject, the fair appreciation of the founder of Christendom is the following, which, too, will show that our portrait as above outlined is acceptable on all sides. It comes from the chief rabbi of England, Rev. Dr. Herman Adler, who finds occasion to eulogize the character of Jesus, assuming the same position and describing him unstintingly as a great and noble expounder of the prophetic teachings. He says, in reply to a press interview: (in Christian Literature and Review" of March 1894.)
To the question, "How far do you recognize Jesus of
Nazareth as a religious teacher?" the Rabbi replied:

   We consider that undoubtedly he was a teacher of great
power and virtue, who had sat at the feet of his Hebrew
masters, and taught the lessons of holiness and right

A CHIEF RABBI ON JESUS. 2

eousness which he had learned from them, such, e. g,, as the great maxim which he learned from Hillel, 'Do not unto others what thou dost not wish to be done unto thee/ The prophets and Talmud contain many of the sublimest teachings which are found in the New Testament, as shown by the late Dr. Deutsch in his article on the Talmud."

The interviewer asked: "Is it true that the sentences of the Lord's Prayer can be gleaned from the Talmud?"
And Dr. Adler said: "That has often been done, not from the Talmud only, but from the words of the Hebrew Scriptures and Prayer-book. Lightfoot showed this in his 'Horae Hebraicae,' likewise Schoettgen, and Wuensche in his commentary recently published."
To the question, "Is it not singular that Christianity, which is a religion that came of the Jews, is essentially missionary in spirit, while Judaism seems content with being a religion of the Jews?" '

The Rabbi said: 'Judaism has never held that the salvation of other nations is dependent upon their becoming Jews. It cannot bring itself to believe that the God of Mercy has opened the gates of Heaven to us alone. Our faith teaches that the so-called Mosaic law, with its various rites and ordinances, is incumbent upon us Jews only, and that the non-Israelite need but observe the high ethical precepts there inculcated, and that if he keep these faithfully he may hope to win eternal bliss.' "

"Is it a fair question to ask you, sir," said the interviewer, "how far you, as Jews, can join in the rising movement for religious unity?"

   0n that I rejoice to speak, the Rabbi said. "I may say readily that I am at all times ready, and regard it as a great privilege to co-operate with my fellow-countrymen in every social and philanthropic work. Such opportunities are to me a great happiness. I often sit on the same platform at the Mansion House with representatives of the Protestant and Roman Catholic sections of Christianity. I do so in all matters connected with the Hospital movement, prevention of cruelty to children, to animals, and many philanthropic organizations.
We seize all such opportunities of working with Christian ecclesiastics. I enjoy the honor of personal acquaintance with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I am intimate with many clergymen of the Church of England and with many of the Dissenting leaders, I had the friendliest relations with the late Cardinal Manning, and they are continued with his successor, Cardinal Vaughan. As to theological differences, I see no prospect of agreement."
Prof. Franz Delitzsch On It.
The late leading Professor Franz Delitzsch, of the University of Leipsic, Germany, addressed to me in 1888 the following letter, together with a recent small work of his:
"Honored friend! Preparing to leave tomorrow on a vacation, I will not go without first most cordially thanking you for sending me your: "Thoughts on (Religious (Rites," a tract, rich in thought and offering much material for reflection. How I stand to its ultimatum on page 100, you will see in my little book: "Earnest Questions" which I send you hereby as my reciprocating gift. I deem you one of those men with whom one can open the religious discussion introduced by these "Earnest Questions." etc. With best greetings, your old friend F. Delitzsch."
Elsewhere I had an opportunity of discussing his tract at large and in all detail. I will quote here only the passage alluded to, the counter-ultimatum of the Professor, as it interests us here in connection with our present theme. That ultimatum is on page 70 of the "Earnest Questions." The hoary professor of Lutheran theology, the great writer and religious worker, having shown that the essence of Christianity is the biblical monotheism and ethics, and that Trinity is but a view of the same god-head from three different aspects or standpoints, he says, in form of a proposition for an amicable understanding.
anyhow Christianity means: The religion of the perfect morality, and Jesus as the great, holy and divine man, whose appearance separates history into two halves ..." And further he intimates: "The sacred character of Jesus consists in his unconditional obedience to the heavenly father, in his immense love towards his brethren, in his faith, unshaken even in the horrors of death, not moved by any temptation, not embittered by any amount of ingratitude, patient as a lamb, praying for his murderers, of an incomparable veracity, and of an unparallelled benignity. By such virtues he has gained over men, since the dawn of his existence to this day, and led them to God . . . This is the historic Christ ..."
Now history may yet hesitate to subscribe to each and every feature of this portrait as facts; but it is a possible, a rational portrait. History may consent to the proposition that the ideal of such a Jesus underlies the messiah-religion; that that ideal has done much real good and has helped ennobling human nature.
Now that ideal picture is pretty much identical with the one of these pages, that of Cardinals Gibbons, Manning and Neuman, Professors Delitzsch and DoUinger, the London Chief-Rabbi etc.; any existing differences are but in words.

Signs of the Times.

Such remarks from a Cardinal, a Chief-Rabbi and a great professor of theology, are highly interesting. They are a cheering sign of the times, a sign worth noticing. Of the same tendencies are Cardinals Manning and Neuman of England, Canon Isaac Taylor, later to be spoken of, as also the noble humanist, Professor Bollinger. So is the other sample of good tidings of a happy augury, as narrated in the preceding pages, the broad and liberal preaching of Cardinal Gibbons and his later comments thereat to the writer of these pages.

CrackSmokeRepublican · February 20, 2010, 12:07:31 AM

Consider: A Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church preaches a Sunday sermon, wherein he speaks of the founder of Christendom from the purely historical, ethical and humanitarian standpoint, simply as one who has brought mankind nearer to the One God-idea and the practice of righteousness, peace and good-will to all — not touching upon his supernatural character, as belonging to abstruse dogmatics. Thereupon a Hebrew theologian congratulates the high prelate upon his sermon, and heartily assents to it. The Cardinal, in his reply, is not afraid of the broad liberalism pervading his pulpit effort, and emphatically adds his protest again.st the Russian persecutions of the Jews, declaring them unChristian and worthy of abhorrence.
These feelings of broad toleration are re-echoed from England. There comes the Chief-Rabbi of the British Jews, a staunch conservative, son of a line of conservative fathers, and declares in public that "Jesus of Nazareth is a son of the prophets and of the rabbis, and that he was a holy and a great man." He further acknowledges, that he is ever happy to combine with Catholics and Protestants in all works of charity and public good. He concludes expressing his regrets that, "as to the theological-trinitarian differences between sects, he can suggest no means of conciliation."
I shall venture, in my individual capacity, to go a step farther. I do see my way out of this difficulty. This difficulty is but misunderstanding; it is getting less and less such, and will slowly disappear. When a Cardinal is preaching Christ as a great, good and wise humanist; when a Jewish minister acknowledges that heartily, premising it with the remark, that "the Teacher of Nazareth lived a holy life, just as a disciple of the prophets," and the high prelate assents to the proposition; when the English Episcopal Canon, Isaac Taylor, declares: "that Islam may be considered as a biblical, Christian religion and as such allowed to civilize Asia and Africa; when these pages show, that even the supernatural messiah is but a part of Jewish mysticism of old, later popularized among the Gentile nations, with an addition of older current views and misunderstandings; when finally a conservative Chief-rabbi eulogizes Jesus as a noble disciple of the prophets and as a great and holy man; when . he declares to go hand in hand with members of other creeds in all efforts of benevolence and public amelioration; — then I view them as the 'footprints of the peace-messenger on the mounts;"they are the signs of the improving times! That shows that the important practical, ethical, social and humanitarian problems are being solved, and satisfactorily solved. That proves that the theological difficulty is no longer formidable, nor even serious; that it cannot be long before it would disappear. It even proves, that it is being settled. That some fine morning we shall awaken and find — it has been removed. It proves, that to the wise and the thoughtful it has been settled, and that it needs only some more time and education, to be realized by the masses. In the mean time let us live and work to hasten that realization.
And until the masses do realize that? Until then — let us have patience! Until then, we may remember: "The hidden things let us leave to supreme wisdom, and the known ones be ours and our children's " for guidance and action. During that intervening time, let us humanely and kindly have patience with each other, and "agree to disagree." To speak with Lessing's Judge, in his great drama of toleration, denominated: "Nathan the Wise," "Let each sect hold its own creed as the genuine one, but prove and advocate its genuiness by mutual kindliness, forbearance and truthfulness." Let us agree to disagree and wait until, as the messianic legend claims, "Elijah would appear and settle it;" bearing in mind Maleachi: "Have we not all one Father and Creator, why should we not be at one in justice and mutual good-will?"

We have seen the part Jesus has in Christianity. But that is not the whole of Christianity.

We have studied the Mount Sermon as his Messianic Legislation; but there is yet the New Testament. There are yet its collaborators; there is especially Paul, who is second but to Jesus himself. There is finally the most important phase of later Gentile Christianity, as definitely shaped. The Messiah-Ideal in the West is represented by those spiritual leaders. But further East there are other impersonations, and more such leaders, the founders of Islam, of Buddhism, of Parseeism etc., etc. These, too, are phases and representatives of the historic Messiah-Ideal.

These will be the themes of the subsequent volume. We shall continue there our subject with Jesus of Nazareth in parallel with his co-laborers, the apostles, and especially the leading exponent of that group, Paul of Tarsus. We shall have a succinct survey of the legislation in that collection of books of the Western Bible, denominated the New Testament or the Gospel, up to the advent of Constantine the Great and his successors in Rome and Byzantium, when Christianity became the dominant religion of the West. We shall then follow that same regenerating messiah scheme and its movements, to Arabia and the Eastern world, to Mohammed and his doctrines, and have a close survey of the Koran legislation. We shall then retrace the steps of our theme in the doctrines of the Zend-Avesta, the Talmud, Oabbala and Polytheism closing with the modern social and moral sciences upon our subject. That will complete the picture of our themes and their bearers. The reader will then be enabled to have a full survey of the great ethical Teachers and their religious legislations. He will fully grasp and comprehend the ultimate historic aspirations of mankind, popularly expressed by the Ideal of the Messiah.
On the point of closing this volume, naturally occurs to us the fine poem by Longfellow on a similar occasion, the messianic ideal, he says:

I thought that man's course to greatness and glory Was bright as the summer, and glad as the morn; Thou showed'st me the path; it was dark and uneven.

All ragged with rock, and all tangled with thorn. I dreamed of benefactions, gratitude and renown; I grasped at the triumph that blesses the brave; I asked for the palm-branch, the robe, and the crown; I asked — and Thou showedst me a cross and a grave. Subdued and instructed, Allfather! to thy will My hopes and my wishes, my all, I resign; O give me a heart, that can wait and be still, Nor know of a wish or a pleasure but Thine!"
"God's wish and pleasure" is the final triumph of the objects of history; whilst champions, heroes and messiahs must struggle and perish. They struggle and perish; their cause triumphs. To the vulgar that seems failure and disappointment. Not so to the true messiahs. The consciousness of battling for a great cause is their palm of victory, their cheer and noblest reward. Their struggle is their victory, they need no other one. Their crown is of thorns; their throne is the funeral pile; but it is the most lasting crown and the highest throne. In the lurid flames of that funeral pile they rise to immortality, ever "standing at the right hand of Power."

END OF VOLUME I.
ERRATA.

Page. Instead of: Read:

K. Kohler K. Kohler.
H. Gratz H. Graetz.
Hyksoa and Hyksos; and
Synopsis Syooptics
there focaa focufl, there
4 Pablished in 1892 in 1892 and
8 Children of Israel Children of '.
1 Behind. .. .behind Besides.... sees behind ...
3 Master pointed at had pointed out
8 Noble's proiphetic noble, prophetic
8 Ghost. Thenew Ghost, the new
2 ruins. Aflerthe ruins; after the

5 COMMENTS ON MAURICE FLUEQEL'S LITERARY WORK.
"THE MESSIAH-IDEAL."

"Jesus of Nazareth"
The first impulse to that work came from Professor Franz DeLiTZSCH of the Leipsic University, who amicably challenged the author to write on that subject. See above page 296.

President George E. Day of Yale University wrote next: "Seeing your clear style of writing, I have strongly felt what a contribution it would be if you would undertake to show the teachings of the most distinguished of the Jewish nation Such a presentation, I am sure, would be welcomed by all thinking men."

From the Mss. of this book the author has repeatedly lectured here before Ministers' Associations, who listened with kind attention. The Press reported most favorably. On such an occasion the late Bev. Dr. Williams, Baptist minister, said: "With the greatest interest have £ followed the readings on that subject. More than ever I feel proud of my religion. I wish to see that book published."

Prof. Max Mueller, England, to whom an outline was sent, writes: "Your new work bids fair to bring out much interesting matter;" and referring to the numerous rabbmical excerpta therein, he adds: "The Talmud is a rich mine, by far not yet exhausted."
Provost Uhler, of Baltimore Peabody Institute, encouraged this study, allowing to the author the freedom of the library.
" THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS RITES."

To this, President W. H, Green of Princeton Seminary wrote: "This book seems to embody in an interesting way the results of extensive reading, study and careful reflection."

President George E. Day, Yale University, had a continued correspondence, desiring the author to write on the doctrines of Jesus, (this volume).
President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University: "It interests me very much in my examination of it"

Cardinal Gibbons sends his good wishes to its favorable reception by the Press.
Fried, von Bodenstedt, Germany, Poet: "I have read it with lively interest, finding it most instructive and suggestive."

Professor Franz Delitzsch, of Leipsic University: "It is likely to prove a real enrichment to science . . it is rich in contents, offering much material for reflection."
Professor W. Wundt, of same University: "Your historical researches are calculated to vividly interest me. I shall utilize your remarks in my studies on Spinoza."
Professor Bosoher, same nniyersity, contributed some historical suggestions to its composition.

Dr. M. Hirsch, of the German Keichstag: "It interests me greatly, offering me useful information."

The Riht Hon. W. E. Gladstone, London: "It appears to be a treatise of great interest. Being about examining into the character of the Mosaic System, it is very welcome to wtf."

Professor Max Mueller, Oxford, England: "It is full of interesting information and I hope you will continue;" alluding to this " Messiah-Ideal."
Librarian Dr. A. Nusbauer, Oxford: "I have just finished reading your interesting work, hearty thanks for it. I shall lend it to who is writing on the "A vesta."
Grand rabbi Zadog Kahn, Paris: "I have read your charming book with pleasure and profit"

Dr. A. ScHWARZ, Rector of Vienna Theological Seminary: "I have read already many fine passages therein."

Rabbi Guttkan, of Hildesheim, writes similarly.

The Morgenlandische Gesellschaft in Leipsic and chief-rabbi Brail, of Frankfort AM gave it an honorable mentioning in their respective scientific periodicals.
'Univers Israelite," Paris, reviewed it most cordially and elaborately.

Dr. Rahmer, Magdeburg, reproduces a large part thereof in his "Literatur Blatt"
Professor H. Graetz, of Breslau University, offered to superintend its publication.
"MOSAIC DIET AND HYGIENE." — OTHER TRACTS OF THE AUTHOR.
Professor H. Graetz wrote: "It pleases me very much and I reouest you to let me keep the copy." Further, your Shyhck and Prejuaice" is beautiful. We dare not speak here so frankly.

Similar approving utterances by Drs. Chief-rabbi H. Adler, London; Isidor Loeb, Paris; Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, of Dr. Philippson; Archives Israelites, Paris;Rahmer's Literatur Blatt; etc.

POLITICAL WRITINGS.

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone: "Rev. Fluegel's articles on "Ac Ottoman Umpire' gave me unqualified pleasure. I am desirous of expressing my gratification to him."
Letters from Adolf Crmieux, Lord Beaconsfield, Presidents Garfield and Hayes, Secretaries Evarts, Carl Schurz, etc., approving of articles on Political Questions.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher: "I congratulate you on your command of the English language. Your work might make many a native proud."

Encouraging and approving letters came from Drs. L. Philippson, Bonn; David Einhorn, S. Adler, A. Hubsch and A. Eahut, N. Y., etc.; especially numerous, spirited and warm letters came from Albert Cohn andf Adolf Cr6mieux, Paris.

"SPIRIT OF THE BIBLICAL LEGISLATION."
Cardinal Gibbons sent an autograph letter with a liberal subscription. Then, verbally, he said: "Your book contains new ideas ... I shall continue my subscription to your continued work."

Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone sent a letter with his greetings.
Professor Max Mueller, Oxford, England, sent the same with his portrait.
Librarian Dr. A. Neubauer, Oxford, commented in the London Quarterly Review: "We have no doubt that this present study will be as favorably received as his TAotigAts on Religious RitesJ It is an original attempt at comparative legislation and the influence of religion on law."

Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote: "Your work contains much interesting matter which I should like to read when my health permits."

Dr. A. Schwarz, Rector of Vienna Theological Seminary, finds the book profound and has it reviewed in the "Ungar. Israelit," BudaPesth. It says:

"The erudite and sympathetic author of this work has already by other publications earned the warmest acknowledgment and approbation of leading scholars in Europe and America. — The reaaer of the present work finds there both instruction and enthusiasm. — The author has been very successful in bringing out therein the spirit and the principles of the Mosaic Institutions."

Rev. Dr. A. Kohut, New York: "It is the product of a systematically trained mind that has well mastered the philosophy of Jewish Legislation."

Bishops Drs. Paret, Eephardt and Wilson; ministers, lawyers, professors and leading merchants write approvingly.

Professor W. T. Harris of the Educational Bureau, Washington: "It aught to have a wide reading among students of religion, sociology and politics It is doing much good towards clearing up grave economic misgivings. I hope the author will further bring out his studies.

The Press, political, religious and scientific, here and abroad, has most kindly reviewed the above writings and frequently given them its cordial encouragement
The author's and proprietor's address is:

M. FLUEGEL, 521 Robert Street, Baltimore, Md.