The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah—Book I

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The Preparation for the Gospel: The Jewish World in the Days of Christ

Chapter 1—The Jewish Dispersion in the East

Chapter 2—The Jewish Dispersion in the West

Chapter 3—The Old Faith Preparing for the New

Chapter 4—Philo of Alexandria, the Rabbis, and the Gospels

Chapter 5—Alexandria and Rome

Chapter 6—Political and Religious Life of the Jewish Dispersion in the West

Chapter 7—In Palestine

Chapter 8—Traditionalism, its Origin, Character, and Literature

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The Preparation for the Gospel: The Jewish World in the Days of Christ

by Alfred Edersheim [3]

Chapter 1—The Jewish Dispersion in the East

Among the outward means by which the religion of Israel was preserved, one of the most important was the centralisation and localisation of its worship in Jerusalem. If to some the ordinances of the Old Testament may in this respect seem narrow and exclusive, it is at least doubtful, whether without such a provision Monotheism itself could have continued as a creed or a worship. In view of the state of the ancient world, and of the tendencies of Israel during the earlier stages of their history, the strictest isolation was necessary in order to preserve the religion of the Old Testament from that mixture with foreign elements which would speedily have proved fatal to its existence. And if one source of that danger had ceased after the seventy years exile in Babylonia, the dispersion of the greater part of the nation among those manners and civilisation would necessarily influence them, rendered the continuance of this separation of as great importance as before. In this respect, even traditionalism had its mission and use, as a hedge around the Law to render its infringement or modification impossible.

Wherever a Roman, a Greek, or an Asiatic might wander, he could take his gods with him, or find rites kindred to his own. It was far otherwise with the Jew. He had only one Temple, that in Jerusalem; only one God, Him who had once throned there between the Cherubim, and Who was still King over Zion. That Temple was the only place where a God-appointed, pure priesthood could offer acceptable sacrifices, whether for forgiveness of sin, or for fellowship with God. Here, in the impenetrable gloom of the innermost sanctuary, which the High-Priest alone might enter once a year for most solemn expiation, had stood the Ark, the leader of the people into the Land of Promise, and the footstool on which the Shechinah had rested. From that golden altar rose the cloud in incense, symbol of Israel’s accepted prayers; that seven-branched candlestick shed its perpetual light, indicative of the brightness of God’s Covenant Presence; on that table, as it were before the face of Jehovah, was laid, week by week, the Bread of the Face[1] a constant sacrificial meal which Israel offered unto God, and wherewith God in turn fed His chosen priesthood. On the

[1]Such is the literal meaning of what is translated by shewbread.

[4]

great blood-sprinkled altar of sacrifice smoked the daily and festive burnt-offerings, brought by all Israel, and for all Israel, wherever scattered; while the vast courts of the Temple were thronged not only by native Palestinians, but literally by Jews out of every nation under heaven. Around this Temple gathered the sacred memories of the past; to it clung the yet brighter hopes of the future. The history of Israel and all their prospects were intertwined with their religion; so that it may be said that without their religion they had no history, and without their history no religion. Thus, history, patriotism, religion, and hope alike pointed to Jerusalem and the Temple as the centre of Israel s unity.

Nor could the depressed state of the nation alter their views or shake their confidence. What mattered it, that the Idumaean, Herod, had usurped the throne of David, expect so far as his own guilt and their present subjection were concerned? Israel had passed through deeper waters, and stood triumphant on the other shore. For centuries seemingly hopeless bondsmen in Egypt, they had not only been delivered, but had raised the God-inspired morning-song of jubilee, as they looked back upon the sea cleft for them, and which had buried their oppressors in their might and pride. Again, for weary years had their captives hung Zion’s harps by the rivers of that city and empire whose colossal grandeur, wherever they turned, must have carried to the scattered strangers the desolate feeling of utter hopelessness. And yet that empire had crumbled into dust, while Israel had again taken root and sprung up. And now little more than a century and a half had passed, since a danger greater even than any of these had threatened the faith and the very existence of Israel. In his daring madness, the Syrian king, Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion, sought to destroy their sacred books, with unsparing ferocity forced on them conformity to heathen rites, desecrated the Temple by dedicating it to Zeus Olympios, what is translated by shewbread. a constant sacrificial and even reared a heathen altar upon that of burnt-offering.[2] Worst of all, his wicked schemes had been aided by two apostate High-Priests, who had outvied each other in buying and then prostituting the sacred office of God’s anointed.[3]

[2]1 Macc. i. 54, 59; Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 4.

[3]After the deposition of Onias III. through the bribery of his own brother Jason, the latter and Menelaus outvied each other in bribery for, and prostitution of, the holy office.

[5]

Yet far away in the mountains of Ephraim[4] God had raised for them most unlooked-for and unlikely help. Only three years later, and, after a series of brilliant victories by undisciplined men over the flower of the Syrian army, Judas the Maccabee, truly God’s Hammer[5] had purified the Temple, and restored its altar on the very same day[6] on which the abomination of desolation[7] had been set up in its place. In all their history the darkest hour of their night had ever preceded the dawn of a morning brighter than any that had yet broken. It was thus that with one voice all their prophets had bidden them wait and hope. Their sayings had been more than fulfilled as regarded the past. Would they not equally become true in reference to that far more glorious future for Zion and for Israel, which was to be ushered in by the coming of the Messiah?

Nor were such the feelings of the Palestinian Jews only. These indeed were now a minority. The majority of the nation constituted what was known as the dispersion; a term which, however, no longer expressed its original meaning of banishment by the judgment of God,[8] since absence from Palestine was now entirely voluntary. But all the more that it referred not to outward suffering,[9]

[4]Modin, the birthplace of the Maccabees, has been identified with the modern El-Medyeh, about sixteen miles northwest of Jerusalem, in the ancient territory of Ephraim. Comp. Conder’s Handbook of the Bible, p. 291; and for a full reference to the whole literature of the subject, see Schürer (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 78, note 1).

[5]On the meaning of the name Maccabee, comp. Grimm’s Kurzgef. Exeget. Handb. z. d. Apokr. Lief. iii., pp. ix. x. We adopt the derivation from Maqqabha, a hammer, like Charles Martel.

[6]1 Macc. iv. 52-54: Megill. Taan. 23.

[7]1 Macc. l. 54.

[8]Alike the verb hlg in Hebrew, and diaspeirw in Greek, with their derivatives, are used in the Old Testament, and in the rendering of the LXX., with reference to punitive banishment. See, for example, Judges 18:30; 1 Samuel 4:21; and in the LXX. Deuteronomy 30:4; Psalm 147:2; Isaiah 49:6, and other passages.

[9]There is some truth, although greatly exaggerated, in the bitter remarks of Hausrath (Neutest. Zeitgesch. ii. p. 93), as to the sensitiveness of the Jews in the diaspora, and the loud outcry of all its members at any interference with them, however trivial. But events unfortunately too often proved how real and near was their danger, and how necessary the caution Obsta principiis.

[6]

did its continued use indicate a deep feeling of religious sorrow, of social isolation, and of political strangership[10] in the midst of a heathen world. For although, as Josephus reminded his countrymen,[11] there was no nation in the world which had not among them part of the Jewish people since it was widely dispersed over all the world among its inhabitants[12] yet they had nowhere found a real home. A century and a half before our era comes to us from Egypt[13]—where the Jews possessed exceptional privileges—professedly from the heathen, but really from the Jewish[14] Sibyl, this lament of Israel—

Crowding with thy numbers every ocean and country—
Yet an offense to all around thy presence and customs![15]

Sixty years later the Greek geographer and historian Strabo bears the like witness to their presence in every land, but in language that shows how true had been the complaint of the Sibyl.[16] The reasons for this state of feeling will by-and-by appear. Suffice it for the present that, all unconsciously, Philo tells its deepest ground, and that of Israel’s loneliness in the heathen world, when speaking, like the others, of his countrymen as in all the cities of Europe, in the provinces of Asia and in the islands he describes them as, wherever sojourning, having but one metropolis—not Alexandria, Antioch, or Rome—but the Holy City with its Temple, dedicated to the Most High God.[17] A nation, the vast majority of which was dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a special, and become a world-nation.[18] Yet its heart

[10]St. Peter seems to have used it in that sense, 1 Peter 1:1.

[11]Jew. W ii. 16. 4.

[12]vii. 3. 3.

[13]Comp. the remarks of Schneckenburger (Vorles ü. Neutest. Zeitg. p. 95).

[14]Comp. Friedlieb, D. Sibyll. Weissag. xxii. 39

[15]Orac Sibyll. iii. 271,272, apud Friedlieb, p. 62.

[16]Strabo apud Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2: It is not easy to find a place in the world that has not admitted this race, and is not mastered by it.

[17]Philo in Flaccum (ed. Francf.), p. 971.

[18]Comp. Jos. Ant. xii. 3; 13:10. 4; 13. 1; 14:6. 2; 8. 1; 10. 8; Sueton. Caes. 85.

[7]

beat in Jerusalem, and thence the life-blood passed to its most distant members. And this, indeed, if we rightly understand it, was the grand object of the Jewish dispersion throughout the world.

What has been said applies, perhaps, in a special manner, to the Western, rather than to the Eastern dispersion. The connection of the latter with Palestine was so close as almost to seem one of continuity. In the account of the truly representative gathering in Jerusalem on that ever-memorable Feast of Weeks,[19] the division of the dispersion into two grand sections—the Eastern or Trans-Euphratic, and the Western or Hellenist—seems clearly marked.[20] In this arrangement the former would include the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia Judaea standing, so to speak, in the middle, while the Bretes and Arabians would typically represent the farthest outrunners respectively of the Western and the Eastern Diaspora. The former, as we know from the New Testament, commonly bore in Palestine the name of the dispersion of the Greeks[21] and of Hellenists or Grecians.[22] On the other hand, the Trans-Euphratic Jews, who inhabited Babylon and many of the other satrapies[23] were included with the Palestinians and the Syrians under the term Hebrews from the common language which they spoke.

But the difference between the Grecians and the Hebrews was far deeper than merely of language, and extended to the whole direction of thought. There were mental influences at work in the Greek world from which, in the nature of things, it was impossible even for Jews to withdraw themselves, and which, indeed, were as necessary for the fulfillment of their mission as their isolation from heathenism, and their connection with Jerusalem. At the same time it was only natural that the Hellenists, placed as they were in the midst of such hostile elements, should intensely wish to be Jews, equal to their Eastern brethren. On the other hand, Pharisaism, in its pride of legal purity and of the possession of traditional lore, with all that it involved, made no secret of its contempt for the

[19]Acts 2:9-11

[20]Grimm (Clavis N.T. p. 113) quotes two passages from Philo, in one of which he contradistinguishes us the Hellenist Jews, from the Hebrews and speaks of the Greek as our language.

[21]St. John 7:35.

[22]Acts 6:1; 9:29; 11:20.

[23]Philo ad Cajum, p. 1023; Jos. Ant. xv. 3. 1.

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Hellenists, and openly declared the Grecian far inferior to the Babylonian dispersion.[24] That such feelings, and the suspicions which they engendered, had struck deep into the popular mind, appears from the fact, that even in the Apostolic Church, and that in her earliest days, disputes could break out between the Hellenists and the Hebrews, arising from suspicion of unkind and unfair dealings grounded on these sectional prejudices.[25]

Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were held by the leaders of Judaism. Indeed, according to one view of it, Babylonia, as well as Syria as far north as Antioch, was regarded as forming part of the land of Israel.[26] Every other country was considered outside the land as Palestine was called, with the exception of Babylonia, which was reckoned as part of it.[27] For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the Tigris, were supposed to have been in the territory which King David had conquered, and this made them ideally forever like the land of Israel. But it was just between the Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and wealthiest settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later writer actually designated them the land of Israel. Here Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue, said to have been built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought from the Temple.[28] In this fortified city the vast contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the Eastern Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under escort of thousands of armed men. Another of these Jewish treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even the fact that wealth, which must have sorely tempted the cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in these cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the Jewish population must have been, and how great their general influence.

[24]Similarly we have (in Men. 110a) this curious explanation of Isaiah 43:6: My sons from afar these are the exiles in Babylon, whose minds were settled, like men, and my daughters from the ends of the earth these are the exiles in other lands, whose minds were not settled, like women.

[25]Acts 6:1.

[26]Ber. R. 17.

[27]Erub. 21 a Gritt. 6 a.

[28]Comp. Fürst, Kult. u. Literaturgesch d. Jud. in Asien, vol. 1. p. 8.

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In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in regard to this Eastern dispersion, that only a minority of the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally returned from Babylon, first under Zerubbabel and afterwards under Ezra.[29] Nor was their inferiority confined to numbers. The wealthiest and most influential of the Jews remained behind. According to Josephus,[30] with whom Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at millions, inhabited the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge even by the number of those slain in popular risings (50,000 in Seleucia alone[31]), these figures do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition had it, that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian Empire, that Cyrus forbade the further return of the exiles, lest the country should be depopulated.[32] So large and compact a body soon became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian monarchy, they were, after the fall of that empire,[33] favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire,[34] the Jews formed, from their national opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as the year 40 a.d., the Roman legate shrank from provoking their hostility.[35] At the same time it must not be thought that, even in these favoured regions, they were wholly without persecution. Here also history records more than one tale of bloody strife on the part of those among whom they dwelt.[36]

To the Palestinians, their brethren of the East and of Syria—to which they had wandered under the fostering rule of the Macedono-Syrian monarchs (the Seleucidae)—were indeed pre-eminently the Golah, or dispersion. To them the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intimated by fire-signals from mountain-top to mountain-top the commencement of each month for the regulation of the festive calendar,[37] even as they afterwards despatched

[29]537 b.c., and 459-8 b.c.

[30]Ant. xi. 5. 2; 15:2. 2; 18:9.

[31]Jos. Ant. xviii. 9. 9.

[32]Midrash on Cant. v. 5, ed. Warsh. p. 26 a.

[33]330 b.c.

[34]63 b.c.

[35]Philo ad Caj.

[36]The following are the chief passages in Josephus relating to that part of Jewish history: Ant. xi. 5. 2; 14:13. 5; 15:2. 7; 3. 1; 17:2. 1-3; 18:9. 1, &c.; 20:4. Jew. W. i. 13. 3.

[37]Rosh. haSh. ii. 4; comp. the Jer. Gemara on it, and in the Bab. Talmud 23 b.

[10]

messengers into Syria for the same purpose.[38] In some respects the Eastern dispersion was placed on the same footing; in others, on even a higher level than the mother country. Tithes and Terumoth, or first-fruits in a prepared condition,[39] were due from them, while the Bikkurim, or first-fruits in a fresh state, were to be brought from Syria to Jerusalem. Unlike the heathen countries, whose very dust defiled, the soil of Syria was declared clean, like that of Palestine itself.[40] So far as purity of descent was concerned, the Babylonians, indeed, considered themselves superior to their Palestinian brethren. They had it, that when Ezra took with him those who went to Palestine, he had left the land behind him as pure as fine flour.[41] To express it in their own fashion: In regard to the genealogical purity of their Jewish inhabitants, all other countries were, compared to Palestine, like dough mixed with leaven; but Palestine itself was such by the side of Babylonia.[42] It was even maintained, that the exact boundaries could be traced in a district, within which the Jewish population had preserved itself unmixed. Great merit was in this respect also ascribed to Ezra. In the usual mode of exaggeration, it was asserted, that, if all the genealogical studies and researches[43] had been put together, they would have amounted to many hundred camel-loads. There was for it, however, at least this foundation in truth, that great care and labour were bestowed on preserving full and accurate records so as to establish purity of descent. What importance attached to it, we know from the action on Ezra[44] in that respect, and from the stress which Josephus lays on this point.[45] Official records of descent as regarded the priesthood were kept in the Temple. Besides, the Jewish authorities seem to have possessed a general official register, which Herod afterwards ordered to be burnt, from reasons which it is not difficult to infer. But from that day, laments a Rabbi, the glory of the Jews decreased![46]

Nor was it merely purity of descent of which the Eastern dispersion could boast. In truth,

[38]Rosh. haSh. i. 4.

[39]Shev. vi. passim; Gitt. 8 a.

[40]Ohol. xxiii. 7.

[41]Kidd. 69 b.

[42]Cheth. 111 a.

[43]As comments upon the genealogies from Azel in 1 Chr. 8:37 to Azel in 9:44. Pes. 62 b.

[44]Chs. 9:10.

[45]Life i.; Ag Apion i. 7.

[46]Pes. 62 b; Sachs, Beitr. vol. 2. p. 157.

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Palestine owed everything to Ezra, the Babylonian,[47] a man so distinguished that, according to tradition, the Law would have been given by him, if Moses had not previously obtained that honor. Putting aside the various traditional ordinances which the Talmud ascribes to him,[48] we know from the Scriptures what his activity for good had been. Altered circumstances had brought many changes to the new Jewish State. Even the language, spoken and written, was other than formerly. Instead of the characters anciently employed, the exiles brought with them, on their return, those now common, the so-called square Hebrew letters, which gradually came into general use.[49][50] The language spoken by the Jews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramaean, both in Palestine and in Babylonia;[51]

[47]According to tradition he returned to Babylon, and died there. Josephus says that he died in Jerusalem (Anti. xi. 5. 5).

[48]Herzfeld has given a very clear historical arrangement of the order in which, and the persons by whom, the various legal determinations were supposed to have been given. See Gesch. d. V. Isr. vol. 3. pp. 240 &c.

[49]Sanh. 21 b.

[50]Although thus introduced under Ezra, the ancient Hebrew characters, which resemble the Samaritan, only very gradually gave way. They are found on monuments and coins.

[51]Herzfeld (u. s. vol. 3. p. 46) happily designates the Palestinian as the Hebraeo-Aramaic, from its Hebraistic tinge. The Hebrew, as well as the Aramaean, belongs to the Semitic group of languages, which has thus been arranged: 1. North Semitic: Punico-Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic (Western and Eastern dialects). 2. South Semitic: Arabic, Himyaritic, and Ethiopian. 3. East Semitic: The Assyro-Baylonian cuneiform. When we speak of the dialect used in Palestine, we do not, of course, forget the great influence of Syria, exerted long before and after the Exile. Of these three branches the Aramaic is the most closely connected with the Hebrew. Hebrew occupies an intermediate position between the Aramaic and the Arabic, and may be said to be the oldest, certainly from a literary point of view. Together with the introduction of the new dialect into Palestine, we mark that of the new, or square, characters of writing. The Mishnah and all the kindred literature up to the fourth century are in Hebrew, or rather in a modern development and adaptation of that language; the Talmud is in Aramaean. Comp. on this subject: DeWette-Schrader, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Eink. (8 ed.) pp. 71-88; Herzog’s Real-Encykl. vol. 1:466, 468; 5:614 &c., 710; Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Jud. pp. 7-9; Herzfeld, u.s. pp. 44 &c., 58&c.

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in the former the Western, in the latter the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of students and of the Synagogue. Even there a Methurgeman, or interpreter, had to be employed to translate into the vernacular the portions of Scripture read in the public services,[52] and the addresses delivered by the Rabbis. This was the origin of the so-called Targumim, or paraphrases of Scripture. In earliest times, indeed, it was forbidden to the Methurgeman to read his translation or to write down a Targum, lest the paraphrase should be regarded as of equal authority with the original. It was said that, when Jonathan brought out his Targum on the Prophets, a voice from heaven was heard to utter: Who is this that has revealed My secrets to men?[53] Still, such Targumim seem to have existed from a very early period, and, amid the varying and often incorrect renderings, their necessity must have made itself increasingly felt. Accordingly, their use was authoritatively sanctioned before the end of the second century after Christ. This is the origin of our two oldest extant Targumim: that of Onkelos (as it is called), on the Pentateuch; and that on the Prophets, attributed to Jonathan the son of Uzziel. These names do not, indeed, accurately represent the authorship of the oldest Targumim, which may more correctly be regarded as later and authoritative recensions of what, in some form, had existed before. But although these works had their origin in Palestine, it is noteworthy that, in the form in which at present we possess them, they are the outcome of the schools of Babylon.

[52]Could St. Paul have had this in mind when, in referring to the miraculous gift of speaking in other languages, he directs that one shall always interpret (1 Corinthians 14:27)? At any rate, the word targum in Ezra 4:7 is rendered in the LXX. by ermhneuw. The following from the Talmud (Ber. 8 a and b) affords a curious illustration of 1 Corinthians 14:27: Let a man always finish his Parashah (the daily lesson from the Law) with the congregation (at the same time)—twice the text, and once Targum.

[53]Megill. 3 b.

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But Palestine owed, if possible, a still greater debt to Babylonia. The new circumstances in which the Jews were placed on their return seemed to render necessary an adaptation of the Mosaic Law, if not new legislation. Besides, piety and zeal now attached themselves to the outward observance and study of the letter of the Law. This is the origin of the Mishnah, or Second Law, which was intended to explain and supplement the first. This constituted the only Jewish dogmatics, in the real sense, in the study of which the sage, Rabbi, scholar, scribe, and Darshan,[54] were engaged. The result of it was the Midrash, or investigation, a term which afterwards was popularly applied to commentaries on the Scriptures and preaching. From the outset, Jewish theology divided into two branches: the Halakhah and the Haggadah. The former (from halakh, to go) was, so to speak, the Rule of the Spiritual Road, and, when fixed, had even greater authority than the Scriptures of the Old Testament, since it explained and applied them. On the other hand, the Haggadah[55] (from nagad, to tell) was only the personal saying of the teacher, more or less valuable according to his learning and popularity, or the authorities which he could quote in his support. Unlike the Halakhah, the Haggadah had no absolute authority, either as to doctrine practice, or exegesis. But all the greater would be its popular influence,[56] and all the more dangerous the doctrinal license which it allowed. In fact, strange as it may sound, almost all the doctrinal teaching of the Synagogue is to be derived from the Haggadah—and this also is characteristic of Jewish traditionalism. But, alike in Halakhah and Haggadah,—Palestine—was under the deepest obligation to—Babylonia—. For the father of Halakhic study was Hillel, the Babylonian, and among the popular Haggadists there is not a name better known than that of Eleazar the Mede, who flourished in the first century of our era.

[54]From darash, to search out, literally, to tread out. The preacher was afterwards called the Darshan.

[55]The Halakhah might be described as the apocryphal Pentateuch, the Haggadah as the apocryphal Prophets

[56]We may here remind ourselves of 1 Timothy 5:17. St. Paul, as always, writes with the familiar Jewish phrases ever recurring to his mind. The expression didaskalia seems to be equivalent to Halakhic teaching. Comp. Grimm, Clavis N. T. pp. 98, 99.

[14]

After this, it seems almost idle to inquire whether, during the first period after the return of the exiles from Babylon, there were regular theological academies in Babylon. Although it is, of course, impossible to furnish historical proof, we can scarcely doubt that a community so large and so intensely Hebrew would not have been indifferent to that study, which constituted the main thought and engagement of their brethren in Palestine. We can understand that, since the great Sanhedrin in Palestine exercised supreme spiritual authority, and in that capacity ultimately settled all religious questions—at least for a time—the study and discussion of these subjects should also have been chiefly carried on in the schools of Palestine; and that even the great Hillel himself, when still a poor and unknown student, should have wandered thither to acquire the learning and authority, which at that period he could not have found in his own country. But even this circumstance implies, that such studies were at least carried on and encouraged in—Babylonia—. How rapidly soon afterwards the authority of the Babylonian schools increased, till they not only overshadowed those of—Palestine—, but finally inherited their prerogatives, is well known. However, therefore, the Palestinians in their pride or jealousy might sneer,[57] that the Babylonians were stupid, proud, and poor (they ate bread upon bread),[58] even they had to acknowledge that, when the Law had fallen into oblivion, it was restored by Ezra of Babylon; when it was a second time forgotten, Hillel the Babylonian came and recovered it; and when yet a third time it fell into oblivion, Rabbi Chija came from Babylon and gave it back once more.[59]

Such then was that Hebrew dispersion which, from the first, constituted really the chief part and the strength of the Jewish nation, and with which its religious future was also to lie. For it is one

[57]In Moed Q. 25 a. sojourn in Babylon is mentioned as a reason why the Shekhinah could not rest upon a certain Rabbi.

[58]Pes. 34 b; Men. 52 a; Sanh. 24 a; Bets. 16 a—apud Neubauer, Géog. du Talmud, p. 323. In Keth. 75 a, they are styled the silly Babylonians. See also Jer. Pes. 32 a.

[59]Sukk. 20 a. R. Chija, one of the teachers of the second century, is among the most celebrated Rabbinical authorities, around whose memory legend has thrown a special halo.

[15]

of those strangely significant, almost symbolical, facts in history, that after the destruction of Jerusalem the spiritual supremacy of Palestine passed to Babylonia, and that Rabbinical Judaism, under the stress of political adversity, voluntarily transferred itself to the seats of Israel’s ancient dispersion, as if to ratify by its own act what the judgment of God had formerly executed. But long before that time the Babylonian dispersion had already stretched out its hands in every direction. Northwards, it had spread through Armenia, the Caucasus, and to the shores of the Black Sea, and through Media to those of the Caspian. Southwards, it had extended to the Persian Gulf and through the vast extent of Arabia, although Arabia Felix and the land of the Homerites may have received their first Jewish colonies from the opposite shores of Ethiopia. Eastwards it had passed as far as India.[60] Everywhere we have distinct notices of these wanderers, and everywhere they appear as in closest connection with the Rabbinical hierarchy of Palestine. Thus the Mishnah, in an extremely curious section,[61] tells us how on Sabbaths the Jewesses of Arabia might wear their long veils, and those of India the kerchief round the head, customary in those countries, without incurring the guilt of desecrating the holy day by needlessly carrying what, in the eyes of the law, would be a burden;[62] while in the rubric for the Day of Atonement we have it noted that the dress which the High-Priest wore between the evenings of the great fast—that is, as afternoon darkened into evening—was of most costly Indian stuff.[63]

That among such a vast community there should have been poverty, and that at one time, as the Palestinians sneered, learning may have been left to pine in

[60]In this, as in so many respects, Dr. Neubauer has collated very interesting information, to which we refer. See his Géogr. du Talm. pp. 369-399.

[61]The whole section gives a most curious glimpse of the dress and ornaments worn by the Jews at that time. The reader interested in the subject will find special information in the three little volumes of Hartmann (Die Hebräerin am Putztische), in N. G. Schröder’s some-what heavy work: De Vestitu Mulier. Hebr., and especially in that interesting tractate, Trachten d. Juden, by Dr. A. Brüll, of which, unfortunately, only one part has appeared.

[62]Shabb. vi. 6.

[63]Yoma iii. 7.

[16]

want, we can readily believe. For, as one of the Rabbis had it in explanation of Deuteronomy 30:13: Wisdom is not “beyond the sea”—that is, it will not be found among traders or merchants[64] whose mind must be engrossed by gain. And it was trade and commerce which procured to the Babylonians their wealth and influence, although agriculture was not neglected. Their caravans—of whose camel drivers, by the way, no very flattering account is given[65]—carried the rich carpets and woven stuffs of the East, as well as its precious spices, to the West: generally through—Palestine—to the Phoenician harbours, where a fleet of merchantmen belonging to Jewish bankers and shippers lay ready to convey them to every quarter of the world. These merchant princes were keenly alive to all that passed, not only in the financial, but in the political world. We know that they were in possession of State secrets, and entrusted with the intricacies of diplomacy. Yet, whatever its condition, this Eastern Jewish community was intensely Hebrew. Only eight days journey—though, according to Philo’s western ideas of it, by a difficult road[66]—separated them from—Palestine—; and every pulsation there vibrated in—Babylonia—. It was in the most outlying part of that colony, in the wide plains of Arabia, that Saul of Tarsus spent those three years of silent thought and unknown labour, which preceded his re-appearance in Jerusalem, when from the burning longing to labour among his brethren, kindled by long residence among these Hebrews of the Hebrews, he was directed to that strange work which was his life’s mission.[67] And it was among the same community that Peter wrote and laboured,[68] amidst discouragements of which we can form some conception from the sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third century it had not numbered among its members any convert to Christianity.[69] In what has been said, no notice has been taken of those wanderers of the ten tribes, whose trackless footsteps seem as mysterious as their after-fate. The Talmudists name four countries as their seats. But, even if we were to attach historic credence to their vague statements, at least two of these localities cannot with any certainty be identified.[70]

[64]Er. 55 a.

[65]Kidd. iv. 14.

[66]Philo ad Cajum, ed. Frcf. p. 1023.

[67]Galatians 1:17;

[68]1 Peter 5:13.

[69]Pes. 56 a, apud Neubauer, u. s., p. 351.

[70]Comp. Neubauer, pp. 315, 372; Hamburger, Real-Encykl. p. 135.

[17]

Only thus far all agree as to point us northwards, through India, Armenia, the Kurdish mountains, and the Caucasus. And with this tallies a curious reference in what is known as IV. Esdras, which locates them in a land called Arzareth, a term which has, with some probability, been identified with the land of Ararat.[71] Josephus[72] describes them as an innumerable multitude, and vaguely locates them beyond the Euphrates. The Mishnah is silent as to their seats, but discusses their future restoration; Rabbi Akiba denying and Rabbi Eliezer anticipating it.[73][74] Another Jewish tradition[75] locates them by the fabled river Sabbatyon, which was supposed to cease its flow on the weekly Sabbath. This, of course, is an implied admission of ignorance of their seats. Similarly, the Talmud[76] speaks of three localities whither they had been banished: the district around the river Sabbatyon; Daphne, near Antioch; while the third was overshadowed and hidden by a cloud.

Later Jewish notices connect the final discovery and the return of the lost tribes with their conversion under that second Messiah who, in contradistinction to the Son of David is styled the Son of Joseph to whom Jewish tradition ascribes what it cannot reconcile with the royal dignity of the Son of David and which, if applied to Him, would almost inevitably lead up to the most wide concessions in the Christian argument.[77] As regards the ten tribes there is this truth underlying the strange hypothesis, that, as their persistent apostasy from the God of Israel and His worship had cut them off from his people,

[71]Comp. Volkmar, Handb. d. Einl. in d. Apokr. iite Abth., pp. 193, 194, notes. For the reasons there stated, I prefer this to the ingenious interpretation proposed by Dr. Schiller-Szinessy (Journ. of Philol. for 1870, pp. 113, 114), who regards it as a contraction of Erez achereth, another land referred to in Deuteronomy 29:27 (28).

[72]Ant. xi. 5. 2.

[73]Sanh. x. 3.

[74]R. Eliezer seems to connect their return with the dawn of the new Messianic day.

[75]Ber. R. 73.

[76]Jer. Sanb 29 c.

[77]This is not the place to discuss the later Jewish fiction of a second or suffering Messiah, the son of Joseph whose special mission it would be to bring back the ten tribes, and to subject them to Messiah, the son of David but who would perish in the war against Gog and Magog.

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so the fulfilment of the Divine promises to them in the latter days would imply, as it were, a second birth to make them once more Israel. Beyond this we are travelling chiefly into the region of conjecture. Modern investigations have pointed to the Nestorians,[78] and latterly with almost convincing evidence (so far as such is possible) to the Afghans, as descended from the lost tribes.[79] Such mixture with, and lapse into, Gentile nationalities seems to have been before the minds of those Rabbis who ordered that, if at present a non-Jew weds a Jewess, such a union was to be respected, since the stranger might be a descendant of the ten tribes.[80] Besides, there is reason to believe that part of them, at least, had coalesced with their brethren of the later exile;[81] while we know that individuals who had settled in Palestine and, presumably, elsewhere, were able to trace descent from them.[82] Still the great mass of the ten tribes was in the days of Christ, as in our own, lost to the Hebrew nation.

[78]Comp. the work of Dr. Asahel Grant on the Nestorians. His arguments have been well summarised and expanded in an interesting note in Mr. Nutt’s Sketch of Samaritan History, pp. 2-4.

[79]I would here call special attention to a most interesting paper on the subject (A New Afghan Question), by Mr. H. W. Bellew, in the Journal of the United Service Institution of India for 1881, pp. 49-97.

[80]Yebam 16 b.

[81]Kidd. 69 b.

[82]So Anna from the tribe of Aser, St. Luke 2:36. Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. pp. 102, 103) argues that the ten tribes had become wholly undistinguishable from the other two. But his arguments are not convincing, and his opinion was certainly not that of those who lived in the time of Christ, or who reflected their ideas.

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Chapter 2—The Jewish Dispersion in the West

The Hellenists Origin of Hellenist Literature in the Greek Translation of the Bible Character of the Septuagint

When we turn from the Jewish dispersion in the East to that in the West, we seem to breathe quite a different atmosphere. Despite their intense nationalism, all unconsciously to themselves, their mental characteristics and tendencies were in the opposite direction from those of their brethren. With those of the East rested the future of Judaism; with them of the West, in a sense, that of the world. The one represented old Israel, stretching forth its hands to where the dawn of a new day was about to break. These Jews of the West are known by the term Hellenists—from ellhnizein, to conform to the language and manners of the Greeks.[1]

Whatever their religious and social isolation, it was, in the nature of things, impossible that the Jewish communities in the West should remain unaffected by Grecian culture and modes of thought; just as, on the other hand, the Greek world, despite popular hatred and the contempt of the higher classes, could not wholly withdraw itself from Jewish influences. Witness here the many converts to Judaism among the Gentiles;[2] witness also the evident preparedness of the lands of this dispersion for the new doctrine which was to come from Judea’. Many causes contributed to render the Jews of the West accessible to Greek influences. They had not a long local history to look back upon, nor did they form a compact body, like their brethren in the East. They were craftsmen, traders, merchants, settled for a time here or there—units might combine into communities,

[1]Indeed, the word Alnisti (or Alunistin)—Greek’—actually occurs, as in Jer. Sot. 21 b, line 14 from bottom. Böhl (Forsch. n. ein. Volksb. p. 7) quotes Philo (Leg. ad Caj. p. 1023) in proof that he regarded the Eastern dispersion as a branch separate from the Palestinians. But the passage does not convey to me the inference which he draws from it. Dr. Guillemard (Hebraisms in the Greek Test.) on Acts 6:1, agreeing with Dr. Roberts, argues that the term Hellenist indicated only principles, and not birthplace, and that there were Hebrews and Hellenists in and out of Palestine. But this view is untenable.

[2]An account of this propaganda of Judaism and of its results will be given in another connection.

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but could not form one people. Then their position was not favourable to the sway of traditionalism. Their occupations, the very reasons for their being in a strange land were purely secular. That lofty absorption of thought and life in the study of the Law, written and oral, which characterised the East, was to the, something in the dim distance, sacred, like the soil and the institutions of Palestine, but unattainable. In Palestine or Babylonia numberless influences from his earliest years, all that he saw and heard, the very force of circumstances, would tend to make an earnest Jew a disciple of the Rabbis; in the West it would lead him to hellenise. It was, so to speak, in the air’; and he could no more shut his mind against Greek thought than he could withdraw his body from atmospheric influences. That restless, searching, subtle Greek intellect would penetrate everywhere, and flash its light into the innermost recesses of his home and Synagogue.

To be sure, they were intensely Jewish, these communities of strangers. Like our scattered colonists in distant lands, they would cling with double affection to the customs of their home, and invest with the halo of tender memories the sacred traditions of their faith. The Grecian Jew might well look with contempt, not unmingled with pity, on the idolatrous rites practised around, from which long ago the pitiless irony of Isaiah had torn the veil of beauty, to show the hideousness and unreality beneath. The dissoluteness of public and private life, the frivolity and aimlessness of their pursuits, political aspirations, popular assemblies, amusements—in short, the utter decay of society, in all its phases, would lie open to his gaze. It is in terms of lofty scorn, not unmingled with indignation, which only occasionally gives way to the softer mood of warning, or even invitation, that Jewish Hellenistic literature, whether in the Apocrypha or in its Apocalyptic utterances, address heathenism.

From that spectacle the Grecian Jew would turn with infinite satisfaction—not to say, pride—to his own community, to think of its spiritual enlightenment, and to pass in review its exclusive privileges.[3] It was with no uncertain steps that he would go past those splendid temples to his own humbler Synagogue, pleased to find himself there surrounded by

[3]St. Paul fully describes these feelings in the Epistle to the Romans.

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those who shared his descent, his faith, his hopes; and gratified to see their number swelled by many who, heathens by birth, had learned the error of their ways, and now, so to speak, humbly stood as suppliant strangers of the gate to seek admission into his sanctuary.[4] How different were the rites which he practised, hallowed in their Divine origin, rational in themselves, and at the same time deeply significant, from the absurd superstitions around. Who could have compared with the voiceless, meaningless, blasphemous heathen worship, if it deserved the name, that of the Synagogue, with its pathetic hymns, its sublime liturgy, its Divine Scriptures, and those stated sermons which instructed in virtue and piety of which not only Philo,[5] Agrippa,[6] and Josephus,[7] speak as a regular institution, but whose antiquity and general prevalence is attested in Jewish writings,[8] and nowhere more strongly than in the book of the Acts of the Apostles?

And in these Synagogues, how would brotherly love be called out, since, if one member suffered, all might soon be affected, and the danger which threatened one community would, unless averted, ere long overwhelm the rest. There was little need for the admonition not to forget the love of strangers.[9] To entertain them was not merely a virtue; in the Hellenist dispersion it was a religious necessity. And by such means not a few whom they would regard as heavenly messengers might be welcomed. From the Acts of the Apostles we knew with what eagerness they would receive, and with what readiness they would invite, the passing Rabbi or teacher, who came from

[4]The Gerey haShaar proselytes of the gate, a designation which some have derived from the circumstance that Gentiles were not allowed to advance beyond the Temple Court, but more likely to be traced to such passages as Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 14:21; 24:14.

[5]De Vita Mosis, p. 685; Leg ad Caj. p. 1014.

[6]Leg. ad Caj. p. 1035.

[7]Ag. Apion ii. 17.

[8]Comp. here Targ. Jon. on Judges 5:2, 9. I feel more hesitation in appealing to such passages as Ber. 19 a, where we read of a Rabbi in Rome, Thodos (Theudos?), who flourished several generations before Hillel, for reasons which the passage itself will suggest to the student. At the time of Philo, however, such instructions in the Synagogues at Rome were a long, established institution (Ad Caj. p. 1014).

[9]jilozenia Hebrews 13:2.

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the home of their faith, to speak, if there were in them a word of comforting exhortation for the people.[10] We can scarcely doubt, considering the state of things, that this often bore on the consolation of Israel. But, indeed, all that came from Jerusalem, all that helped them to realise their living connection with it, or bound it more closely, was precious. Letters out of Judaea the tidings which some one might bring on his return from festive pilgrimage or business journey, especially about anything connected with that grand expectation—the star which was to rise on the Eastern sky—would soon spread, till the Jewish pedlar in his wanderings had carried the news to the most distant and isolated Jewish home, where he might find a Sabbath, welcome and Sabbath-rest.

Such undoubtedly was the case. And yet, when the Jew stepped out of the narrow circle which he had drawn around him, he was confronted on every side by Grecianism. It was in the forum, in the market, in the counting house, in the street; in all that he saw, and in all to whom he spoke. It was refined; it was elegant; it was profound; it was supremely attractive. He might resist, but he could not push it aside. Even in resisting, he had already yielded to it. For, once open the door to the questions which it brought, if it were only to expel, or repel them, he must give up that principle of simple authority on which traditionalism as a system rested. Hellenic criticism could not so be silenced, nor its searching light be extinguished by the breath of a Rabbi. If he attempted this, the truth would not only be worsted before its enemies, but suffer detriment in his own eyes. He must meet argument with argument, and that not only for those who were without, but in order to be himself quite sure of what he believed. He must be able to hold it, not only in controversy with others, where pride might bid him stand fast, but in that much more serious contest within, where a man meets the old adversary alone in the secret arena of his own mind, and has to sustain that terrible hand-to-hand fight, in which he is uncheered by outward help. But why should he shrink from the contest, when he was sure that his was Divine truth, and that therefore victory must be on his side? As in our modern conflicts against the onesided inferences from physical investigations

[10]logoV paraklhsewV proV ton laon Acts 13:15.

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we are wont to say that the truths of nature cannot contradict those of revelation, both being of God, and as we are apt to regard as truths of nature what sometimes are only deductions from partially ascertained facts, and as truths of revelation what, after all, may be only our own inferences, sometimes from imperfectly apprehended premisses, so the Hellenist would seek to conciliate the truths of Divine revelation with those others which, he thought, he recognised in Hellenism. But what were the truths of Divine revelation? Was it only the substance of Scripture, or also its form, the truth itself which was conveyed, or the manner in which it was presented to the Jews; or, if both, then did the two stand on exactly the same footing? On the answer to these questions would depend how little or how much he would hellenise.

One thing at any rate was quite certain. The Old Testament, leastwise, the Law of Moses, was directly and wholly from God; and if so, then its form also—its letter—must be authentic and authoritative. Thus much on the surface, and for all. But the student must search deeper into it, his senses, as it were, quickened by Greek criticism; he must meditate and penetrate into the Divine mysteries. The Palestinian also searched into them, and the result was the Midrash. But, whichever of his methods he had applied—the Peshat, or simple criticism of the words, the Derush, or search into the possible applications of the text, what might be trodden out of it; or the Sod, the hidden, mystical, supranatural bearing of the words—it was still only the letter of the text that had been studied. There was, indeed, yet another understanding of the Scriptures, to which St. Paul directed his disciples: the spiritual bearing of its spiritual truths. But that needed another qualification, and tended in another direction from those of which the Jewish student knew. On the other hand, there was the intellectual view of the Scriptures—their philosophical understanding, the application to them of the results of Grecian thought and criticism. It was this which was peculiarly Hellenistic. Apply that method, and the deeper the explorer proceeded in his search, the more would he feel himself alone, far from the outside crowd; but the brighter also would that light of criticism, which he carried, shine in the growing darkness, or, as he held it up, would the precious [24] ore, which he laid bare, glitter and sparkle with a thousand varying hues of brilliancy. What was Jewish, Palestinian, individual, concrete in the Scriptures, was only the outside—true in itself, but not the truth. There were depths beneath. Strip these stories of their nationalism; idealise the individual of the persons introduced, and you came upon abstract ideas and realities, true to all time and to all nations. But this deep symbolism was Pythagorean; this pre-existence of ideas which were the types of all outward actuality, was Platonism! Broken rays in them, but the focus of truth in the Scriptures. Yet these were rays, and could only have come from the Sun. All truth was of God; hence theirs must have been of that origin. Then were the sages of the heathen also in a sense God-taught—and God-teaching, or inspiration, was rather a question of degree than of kind!

One step only remained; and that, as we imagine, if not the easiest, yet, as we reflect upon it, that which in practice would be most readily taken. It was simply to advance towards Grecianism; frankly to recognise truth in the results of Greek thought. There is that within us, name it mental consciousness, or as you will, which, all unbidden, rises to answer to the voice of intellectual truth, come whence it may, just as conscience answers to the cause of moral truth or duty. But in this case there was more. There was the mighty spell which Greek philosophy exercised on all kindred minds, and the special adaptation of the Jewish intellect to such subtle, if not deep, thinking. And, in general, and more powerful than the rest, because penetrating everywhere, was the charm of Greek literature, with its brilliancy; of Greek civilisation and culture, with their polish and attractiveness; and of what, in one word, we may call the time-spirit that tyrannos, who rules all in their thinking, speaking, doing, whether they list or not.

Why, his sway extended even to Palestine itself, and was felt in the innermost circle of the most exclusive Rabbinism. We are not here referring to the fact that the very language spoken in Palestine came to be very largely charged with Greek, and even Latin, words Hebraised, since this is easily accounted for by the new circumstances, and the necessities of intercourse with the dominant or resident foreigners. Nor is it requisite to point out how impossible it would [25] have been, in presence of so many from the Greek and Roman world, and after the long and persistent struggle of their rulers to Grecianise Palestine, nay, even in view of so many magnificent heathen temples on the very soil of Palestine, to exclude all knowledge of, or contact with Grecianism. But not to be able to exclude was to have in sight the dazzle of that unknown, which as such, and in itself, must have had peculiar attractions to the Jewish mind. It needed stern principle to repress the curiosity thus awakened. When a young Rabbi, Ben Dama, asked his uncle whether he might not study Greek philosophy, since he had mastered the Law in every aspect of it, the older Rabbi replied by a reference to Joshua 1:8: Go and search what is the hour which is neither of the day nor of the night, and in it thou mayest study Greek philosophy.[11] Yet even the Jewish patriarch, Gamaliel II., who may have sat with Saul of Tarsus at the feet of his grandfather, was said to have busied himself with Greek, as he certainly held liberal views on many points connected with Grecianism. To be sure, tradition justified him on the ground that his position brought him into contact with the ruling powers, and, perhaps, to further vindicate him, ascribed similar pursuits to the elder Gamaliel, although groundlessly, to judge from the circumstance that he was so impressed even with the wrong of possessing a Targum on Job in Aramaean, that he had it buried deep in the ground.

But all these are indications of a tendency existing. How wide it must have spread, appears from the fact that the ban had to be pronounced on all who studied Greek wisdom. One of the greatest Rabbis, Elisha ben Abujah, seems to have been actually led to apostasy by such studies. True, he appears as the Acher’—the other’—in Talmudic writings, whom it was not proper even to name. But he was not yet an apostate from the Synagogue when those Greek songs ever flowed from his lips; and it was in the very Beth-ha-Midrash, or theological academy, that a multitude of Siphrey Minim (heretical books) flew from his breast, where they had lain concealed.[12] It may be so, that the expression Siphrey Homeros (Homeric writings), which occur not only in the Talmud[13] but even in the Mishnah[14] referred pre-eminently, if not exclusively,

[11]Men. 99 b, towards the end.

[12]Jer. Chag. 2:1; comp. Chag. 15.

[13]Jer. Sanh. x. 28 a.

[14]Yad. iv. 6.

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to the religious or semi-religious Jewish Hellenistic literature, outside even the Apocrypha.[15] But its occurrence proves, at any rate, that the Hellenists were credited with the study of Greek literature, and that through them, if not more directly, the Palestinians had become acquainted with it.

This sketch will prepare us for a rapid survey of that Hellenistic literature which Judaea so much dreaded. Its importance, not only to the Hellenists but to the world at large, can scarcely be over-estimated. First and foremost, we have here the Greek translation of the Old Testament, venerable not only as the oldest, but as that which at the time of Jesus held the place of our Authorized Version and as such is so often, although freely, quoted, in the New Testament. Nor need we wonder that it should have been the people’s Bible, not merely among the Hellenists, but in Galilee, and even in Judaea. It was not only, as already explained, that Hebrew was no longer the vulgar tongue in Palestine, and that written Targumim were prohibited. But most, if not all—at least in towns—would understand the Greek version; it might be quoted in intercourse with Hellenist brethren or with the Gentiles; and, what was perhaps equally, if not more important, it was the most readily procurable. From the extreme labour and care bestowed on them, Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were enormously dear, as we infer from a curious Talmudical notice,[16] where a common woolen wrap, which of course was very cheap, a copy of the Psalms, of Job, and torn pieces from Proverbs, are together valued at five maneh—say, about 19l. Although this notice dates from the third or fourth century, it is not likely that the cost of Hebrew

[15]Through this literature, which as being Jewish might have passed unsuspected, a dangerous acquaintance might have been introduced with Greek writings—the more readily, that for example Aristobulus described Homer and Hesiod as having drawn from our books (ap. Euseb. Praepar. Evang. xiii. 12). According to Hamburger (Real-Encykl. für Bibel u. Talmud, vol. 2. pp. 68, 69), the expression Siphrey Homeros applies exclusively to the Judaeo-Alexandrian heretical writings; according to Fürst (Kanon d. A. Test. p. 98), simply to Homeric literature. But see the discussion in Levy, Neuhebr. u. Chald. Wörterb., vol. 1. p. 476 a and b.

[16]Gitt. 35 last line and b.

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Biblical MSS. was much lower at the time of Jesus. This would, of course, put their possession well nigh out of common reach. On the other hand, we are able to form an idea of the cheapness of Greek manuscripts from what we know of the price of books in Rome at the beginning of our era. Hundreds of slaves were there engaged copying what one dictated. The result was not only the publication of as large editions as in our days, but their production at only about double the cost of what are now known as cheap or people’s editions. Probably it would be safe to compute, that as much matter as would cover sixteen pages of small print might, in such cases, be sold at the rate of about sixpence, and in that ratio.[17] Accordingly, manuscripts in Greek or Latin, although often incorrect, must have been easily attainable, and this would have considerable influence on making the Greek version of the Old Testament the people’s Bible.[18]

The Greek version, like the Targum of the Palestinians, originated, no doubt, in the first place, in a felt national want on the part of the Hellenists, who as a body were ignorant of Hebrew. Hence we find notices of very early Greek versions of at least parts of the Pentateuch.[19] But this, of course, could not suffice. On the other hand, there existed, as we may suppose, a natural curiosity on the part of students, especially in Alexandria, which had so large a Jewish population, to know the sacred books on which the religion and history of Israel were founded. Even more than this, we must take into account the literary tastes of the first three Ptolemies (successors in Egypt of Alexander the Great), and the exceptional favour which the Jews for a time enjoyed. Ptolemy I. (Lagi) was a great patron of learning. He projected the Museum in Alexandria, which was a home for literature and study, and founded the great library. In these

[17]Comp. Friedländer, Sitteng. Roms, vol. 3. p. 315.

[18]To these causes there should perhaps be added the attempt to introduce Grecianism by force into Palestine, the consequences which it may have left, and the existence of a Grecian party in the land.

[19]Aristobulus in Euseb. Praepar. Evang. ix. 6; 13:12. The doubts raised by Hody against this testimony have been generally repudiated by critics since the treatise by Valkenaer (Diatr. de Aristob. Jud. appended to Gaisford’s ed. of the Praepar. Evang.).

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undertakings Demetrius Phalereus was his chief adviser. The tastes of the first Ptolemy were inherited by his son, Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), who had for two years been co-regent.[20] In fact, ultimately that monarch became literally book-mad, and the sums spent on rare MSS., which too often proved spurious, almost pass belief. The same may be said of the third of these monarchs, Ptolemy III. (Euergetes). It would have been strange, indeed, if these monarchs had not sought to enrich their library with an authentic rendering of the Jewish sacred books, or not encouraged such a translation.

These circumstances will account for the different elements which we can trace in the Greek version of the Old Testament, and explain the historical, or rather legendary, notices which we have of its composition. To begin with the latter. Josephus has preserved what, no doubt in its present form, is a spurious letter from one Aristeas to his brother Philocrates,[21] in which we are told how, by the advice of his librarian (?), Demetrius Phalereus, Ptolemy II had sent by him (Aristeas) and another officer, a letter, with rich presents, to Eleazar, the High-Priest at Jerusalem; who in turn had selected seventy-two translators (six out of each tribe), and furnished them with a most valuable manuscript of the Old Testament. The letter then gives further details of their splendid reception at the Egyptian court, and of their sojourn in the island of Pharos, where they accomplished their work in seventy-two days, when they returned to Jerusalem laden with rich presents, their translation having received the formal approval of the Jewish Sanhedrin

[20]286-284 b.c.

[21]Comp. Josephi Opera, ed. Havercamp, vol. 2. App. pp. 103-132. The best and most critical edition of this letter by Prof. M. Schmidt, in Merx Archiv. i. pp. 252-310. The story is found in Jos. Ant. xii. 2. 2; Ag. Ap. ii. 4; Philo, de Vita Mosis, lib. ii. section 5-7. The extracts are most fully given in Euseb. Praepar. Evang. Some of the Fathers give the story, with additional embellishments. It was first critically called in question by Hody (Contra Historiam Aristeae de L. X. interpret. dissert. Oxon. 1685), and has since been generally regarded as legendary. But its foundation in fact has of late been recognised by well nigh all critics, though the letter itself is pseudonymic, and full of fabulous details.

[29]

at Alexandria. From this account we may at least derive as historical these facts: that the Pentateuch—for to it only the testimony refers—was translated into Greek, at the suggestion of Demetrius Phalareus, in the reign and under the patronage—if not by direction—of Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus).[22] With this the Jewish accounts agree, which describe the translation of the Pentateuch under Ptolemy—the Jerusalem Talmud[23] in a simpler narrative, the Babylonian[24] with additions apparently derived from the Alexandrian legends; the former expressly noting thirteen, the latter marking fifteen, variations from the original text.[25]

The Pentateuch once translated, whether by one, or more likely by several persons,[26] the other books of the Old Testament would naturally soon receive the same treatment. They were evidently rendered by a number of persons, who possessed very different qualifications for their work—the translation of the Book of Daniel having been so defective, that in its place another by Theodotion was afterwards substituted. The version, as a whole, bears the name of the LXX.—as some have supposed from the number of its translators according to Aristeas account—only that in that case it should have been seventy-two; or from the approval of the Alexandrian Sanhedrin[27]—although in that case it should have been seventy-one; or perhaps because, in the popular idea, the number of the Gentile nations, of which the Greek (Japheth) was regarded as typical, was seventy. We have, however, one fixed date by which to compute the completion of this translation.

[22]This is also otherwise attested. See Keil, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Einl. d. A. T., p. 551, note 5.

[23]Meg. i.

[24]Meg. 9 a.

[25]It is scarcely worth while to refute the view of Tychsen, Jost (Gesch. d. Judenth.), and others, that the Jewish writers only wrote down for Ptolemy the Hebrew words in Greek letters. But the word btl cannot possibly bear that meaning in this connection. Comp. also Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 31.

[26]According to Sopher. i. 8, by five persons, but that seems a round number to correspond to the five books of Moses. Frankel (Ueber d. Einfl. d. paläst. Exeg.) labours, however, to show in detail the differences between the different translators. But his criticism is often strained, and the solution of the question is apparently impossible.

[27]Böhl would have it, the Jerusalem Sanhedrin!’

[30]

From the prologue to the Apocryphal Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach we learn that in his days the Canon of Scripture was closed; and that on his arrival, in his thirty-eighth year,[28] in Egypt, which was then under the rule of Euergetes, he found the so-called LXX. version completed, when he set himself to a similar translation of the Hebrew work of his grandfather. But in the 50th chapter of that work we have a description of the High-Priest Simon, which is evidently written by an eye-witness. We have therefore as one term the pontificate of Simon, during which the earlier Jesus lived; and as the other, the reign of Euergetes, in which the grandson was at Alexandria. Now, although there were two High-Priests who bore the name Simon, and two Egyptian kings with the surname Euergetes, yet on purely historical grounds, and apart from critical prejudices, we conclude that the Simon of Ecclus. L. was Simon I., the Just, one of the greatest names in Jewish traditional history; and similarly, that the Euergetes of the younger Jesus was the first of that name, Ptolemy III., who reigned from 247 to 221 b.c.[29] In his reign, therefore, we must regard the LXX. version as, at least substantially, completed.

From this it would, of course, follow that the Canon of the Old Testament was then practically fixed in Palestine.[30]

[28]But the expression has also been referred to the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes.

[29]To my mind, at least, the historical evidence, apart from critical considerations, seems very strong. Modern writers on the other side have confessedly been influenced by the consideration that the earlier date of the Book of Sirach would also involve a much earlier date for the close of the O. T. Canon than they are disposed to admit. More especially would it bear on the question of the so-called Maccabean Psalms and the authorship and date of the Book of Daniel. But historical questions should be treated independently of critical prejudices. Winer (Bibl. Realwörterb. i. p. 555), and others after him admit that the Simon of Ecclus. ch. L. was indeed Simon the Just (i.), but maintain that the Euergetes of the Prologue was the second of that name, Ptolemy VII., popularly nicknamed Kakergetes. Comp. the remarks of Fritzsche on this view in the Kurzgef. Exeg. Handb. z. d. Apokr. 5te Lief. p. xvii.

[30]Comp. here, besides the passages quoted in the previous note, Baba B. 13 b and 14 b; for the cessation of revelation in the Maccabean period, 1 Macc. 4. 46; 9:27; 14:41; and, in general, for the Jewish view on the subject at the time of Christ, Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 8.

[31]

That Canon was accepted by the Alexandrian translators, although the more loose views of the Hellenists on inspiration and the absence of that close watchfulness exercised over the text in Palestine, led to additions and alterations, and ultimately even to the admission of the Apocrypha into the Greek Bible. Unlike the Hebrew arrangement of the text into the Law, the Prophets,[31] and the (sacred) Writings, or Hagiographa, the LXX. arrange them into historical, prophetical, and poetic books, and count twenty-two, after the Hebrew alphabet, instead of twenty-four, as the Hebrews. But perhaps both these may have been later arrangements, since Philo evidently knew the Jewish order of the books.[32] What text the translators may have used we can only conjecture. It differs in almost innumerable instances from our own, though the more important deviations are comparatively few.[33] In the great majority of the lesser variations our Hebrew must be regarded as the correct text.[34]

Putting aside clerical mistakes and misreadings, and making allowance for errors of translation, ignorance, and haste, we note certain outstanding facts as characteristic of the Greek version. It bears evident marks of its origin in Egypt in its use of Egyptian words and references, and equally evident traces of its Jewish composition. By the side of slavish and false literalism there is great liberty, if

[31]Anterior: Josh., Judg., 1 and 2 Sam. 1 and 2 Kings. Posterior: Major: Is., Jer., and Ezek.; and the Minor Prophets.

[32]De Vita Contempl. § 3.

[33]They occur chiefly in 1 Kings, the books of Esther, Job, Proverbs, Jeremiah, and Daniel. In the Pentateuch we find them only in four passages in the Book of Exodus.

[34]There is also a curious correspondence between the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch and that of the LXX., which in no less than about 2,000 passages agree as against our Hebrew, although in other instances the Greek text either agrees with the Hebrew against the Samaritan, or else is independent of both. On the connection between Samaritan literature and Hellenism there are some very interesting notices in Freudenthal, Hell. Stud. pp. 82-103, 130-136, 186, &c.

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not licence, in handling the original; gross mistakes occur along with happy renderings of very difficult passages, suggesting the aid of some able scholars. Distinct Jewish elements are undeniably there, which can only be explained by reference to Jewish tradition, although they are much fewer than some critics have supposed.[35] This we can easily understand, since only those traditions would find a place which at that early time were not only received, but in general circulation. The distinctively Grecian elements, however, are at present of chief interest to us. They consist of allusions to Greek mythological terms, and adaptations of Greek philosophical ideas. However few,[36] even one well-authenticated instance would lead us to suspect others, and in general give to the version the character of Jewish Hellenising. In the same class we reckon what constitutes the prominent characteristic of the LXX. version, which, for want of better terms, we would designate as rationalistic and apologetic. Difficulties—or what seemed such—are removed by the most bold methods, and by free handling of the text; it need scarcely be said, often very unsatisfactorily. More especially a strenuous effort is made to banish all anthropomorphisms, as inconsistent with their ideas of the Deity. The superficial observer might be tempted to regard this as not strictly Hellenistic, since the same may be noted, and indeed is much more consistently carried out, in the Targum of Onkelos. Perhaps such alterations had even been introduced

[35]The extravagant computations in this respect of Frankel (both in his work, Ueber d. Einfl. d. Paläst. Exeg., and also in the Vorstud. z. Sept. pp. 189-191) have been rectified by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Vol. Isr. vol. 3.), who, perhaps, goes to the other extreme. Herzfeld (pp. 548-550) admits—and even this with hesitation—of only six distinct references to Halakhoth in the following passages in the LXX.: Genesis 9:4; 32:32; Leviticus 19:19; 24:7; Deuteronomy 25:5; 26:12. As instances of Haggadah we may mention the renderings in Genesis 5:24 and Exodus 10:23.

[36]Dähne and Gfrörer have in this respect gone to the same extreme as Frankel on the Jewish side. But even Siegfried (Philo v. Alex. p. 8) is obliged to admit that the LXX. rendering, Genesis 1:2), bears undeniable mark of Grecian philosophic views. And certainly this is not the sole instance of the kind.

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into the Hebrew text itself.[37] But there is this vital difference between Palestinianism and Alexandrianism, that, broadly speaking, the Hebrew avoidance of anthropomorphisms depends on objective—theological and dogmatic—the Hellenistic on subjective—philosophical and apologetic—grounds. The Hebrew avoids them as he does what seems to him inconsistent with the dignity of Biblical heroes and of—Israel—. Great is the power of the prophets he writes, who liken the Creator to the creature; or else[38] a thing is written only to break it to the ear’—to adapt it to our human modes of speaking and understanding; and again,[39] the words of the Torah are like the speech of the children of men. But for this very purpose the words of Scripture may be presented in another form, if need be even modified, so as to obviate possible misunderstanding, or dogmatic error. The Alexandrians arrived at the same conclusion, but from an opposite direction. They had not theological but philosophical axioms in their minds—truths which the highest truth could not, and, as they held, did not contravene. Only dig deeper; get beyond the letter to that to which it pointed; divest abstract truth of its concrete, national, Judaistic envelope—penetrate through the dim porch into the temple, and you were surrounded by a blaze of light, of which, as its portals had been thrown open, single rays had fallen into the night of heathendom. And so the truth would appear glorious—more than vindicated in their own sight, triumphant in that of others!

In such manner the LXX. version became really the people’s Bible to that large Jewish world through which Christianity was afterwards to address itself to mankind. It was part of the case, that this translation should

[37]As in the so-called Tiqquney Sopherim or emendations of the scribes. Comp. here generally the investigations of Geiger (Urschrift u. Ueberse z. d. Bibel). But these, however learned and ingenious, require, like so many of the dicta of modern Jewish criticism, to be taken with the utmost caution, and in each case subjected to fresh examination, since so large a proportion of their writings are what is best designated by the German Tendenz-Schriften, and their inferences Tendenz-Schlüsse. But the critic and the historian should have no Tendenz—except towards simple fact and historical truth.

[38]Mechilta on Exodus 19.

[39]Ber. 31 b.

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be regarded by the Hellenists as inspired like the original. Otherwise it would have been impossible to make final appeal to the very words of the Greek; still less, to find in them a mystical and allegorical meaning. Only that we must not regard their views of inspiration—except as applying to Moses, and even there only partially—as identical with ours. To their minds inspiration differed quantitatively, not qualitatively, from what the rapt soul might at any time experience, so that even heathen philosophers might ultimately be regarded as at times inspired. So far as the version of the Bible was concerned (and probably on like grounds), similar views obtained at a later period even in Hebrew circles, where it was laid down that the Chaldee Targum on the Pentateuch had been originally spoken to Moses on Sinai,[40] though afterwards forgotten, till restored and re-introduced.[41]

Whether or not the LXX. was read in the Hellenist Synagogues, and the worship conducted, wholly or partly, in Greek, must be matter of conjecture. We find, however, a significant notice[42] to the effect that among those who spoke a barbarous language (not Hebrew—the term referring specially to Greek), it was the custom for one person to read the whole Parashah (or lesson for the day), while among the Hebrew-speaking Jews this was done by seven persons, successively called up. This seems to imply that either the Greek text alone was read, or that it followed a Hebrew reading, like the Targum of the Easterns. More probably, however, the former would be the case, since both Hebrew manuscripts, and persons qualified to read them, would be difficult to procure. At any rate, we know that the Greek Scriptures were authoritatively acknowledged in Palestine,[43]

[40]Ned. 37 b; Kidd. 49 a.

[41]Meg. 3 a.

[42]Jer. Meg. iv. 3, ed. Krot. p. 75a.

[43]Meg. i. 8. It is, however, fair to confess strong doubt, on my part, whether this passage may not refer to the Greek translation of Akylas. At the same time it simply speaks of a translation into Greek. And before the version of Aquila the LXX. alone held that place. It is one of the most daring modern Jewish perversions of history to identify this Akylas, who flourished about 130 after Christ, with the Aquila of the Book of Acts. It wants even the excuse of a colorable perversion of the confused story about Akylas, which Epiphanius who is so generally inaccurate, gives in De Pond. et Mensur. c. xiv.

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and that the ordinary daily prayers might be said in Greek.[44] The LXX. deserved this distinction from its general faithfulness—at least, in regard to the Pentateuch—and from its preservation of ancient doctrine. Thus, without further referring to its full acknowledgment of the doctrine of Angels (comp. Deuteronomy 32:8, xxxiii. 2), we specially mark that is preserved the Messianic interpretation of Genesis 49:10, and Numbers 24:7, 17, 23, bringing us evidence of what had been the generally received view two and a half centuries before the birth of Jesus. It must have been on the ground of the use made of the LXX. in argument, that later voices in the Synagogue declared this version to have been as great calamity to—Israel—as the making of the golden calf,[45] and that is completion had been followed by the terrible omen of an eclipse, that lasted three days.[46] For the Rabbis declared that upon investigation it had been found that the Torah could be adequately translated only into Greek, and they are most extravagant in their praise of the Greek version of Akylas, or Aquila, the proselyte, which was made to counteract the influence of the LXX.[47] But in Egypt the anniversary of the completion of the LXX. was celebrated by a feast in the island of Pharos, in which ultimately even heathens seem to have taken part.[48]

[44]The Shema (Jewish creed), with its collects, the eighteen benedictions and the grace at meat. A later Rabbi vindicated the use of the Shema in Greek by the argument that the word Shema meant not only Hear but also understand (Jer. Sotah vii. 1.) Comp. sotah vii. 1, 2. In Ber. 40 b, it is said that the Parashah connected with the woman suspected of adultery, the prayer and confession at the bringing of the tithes, and the various benedictions over food, may be said not only in Hebrew, but in any other languages.

[45]Mass. Sopher i. Hal. 7—at the close of vol. 9. of the Bab. Talmud.

[46]Hilch. Ged. Taan.

[47]Jer. Meg. i. 11, ed. Krot. p. 71 b and c.

[48]Philo, Vita Mos. ii. ed. Francf. p. 660.

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Chapter 3—The Old Faith Preparing for the New

Development of Hellenist Theology: The Apocrypha, Aristeas, Aristobulus the Pseud-Epigraphic Writings

The translation of the Old Testament into Greek may be regarded as the starting-point of Hellenism. It rendered possible the hope that what in its original form had been confined to the few, might become accessible to the world at large.[1] But much yet remained to be done. If the religion of the Old Testament had been brought near to the Grecian world of thought, the latter had still to be brought near to Judaism. Some intermediate stage must be found; some common ground on which the two might meet; some original kindredness of spirit to which their later divergences might be carried back, and where they might finally be reconciled. As the first attempt in this direction—first in order, if not always in time—we mark the so-called Apocryphal literature, most of which was either written in Greek, or is the product of Hellenising Jews.[2] Its general object was twofold. First, of course, it was apologetic—intended to fill gaps in Jewish history or thought, but especially to strengthen the Jewish mind against attacks from without, and generally to extol the dignity of Israel. Thus, more withering sarcasm could scarcely be poured on heathenism than in the apocryphal story of Bel and the Dragon or in the so-called Epistle of Jeremy with which the Book of Baruch closes. The same strain, only in more lofty tones, resounds through the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon[3] along with the constantly implied contrast between the righteous, or Israel, and sinners, or the heathen. But the next object was to show that the deeper and purer thinking of heathenism in its highest philosophy supported—nay, in some respects, was identical with—the fundamental teaching of the Old Testament. This, of course, was apologetic of the Old Testament, but it also prepared the way for a reconciliation with Greek philosophy. We notice this especially in the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees, so long erroneously attributed to Josephus,[4]

[1]Philo, de Vita Mos. ed. Mangey, ii. p. 140.

[2]All the Apocrypha were originally written in Greek, except 1 Macc., Judith, part of Baruch, probably Tobit, and, of course, the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.’

[3]Comp. x.—xx.

[4]It is printed in Havercamp’s edition of Josephus, vol. 2. pp. 497-520. The best edition is in Fritzsche, Libri Apocryphi Vet. Test. (Lips. 1871).

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and in the Wisdom of Solomon. The first postulate here would be the acknowledgment of truth among the Gentiles, which was the outcome of Wisdom—and Wisdom was the revelation of God. This seems already implied in so thoroughly Jewish a book as that of Jesus the Son of Sirach.[5] Of course there could be no alliance with Epicureanism, which was at the opposite pole of the Old Testament. But the brilliancy of Plato’s speculations would charm, while the stern self-abnegation of Stoicism would prove almost equally attractive. The one would show why they believed, the other why they lived, as they did. Thus the theology of the Old Testament would find a rational basis in the ontology of Plato, and its ethics in the moral philosophy of the Stoics. Indeed, this is the very line of argument which Josephus follows in the conclusion of his treatise against Apion.[6] This, then, was an unassailable position to take: contempt poured on heathenism as such,[7] and a rational philosophical basis for Judaism. They were not deep, only acute thinkers, these Alexandrians, and the result of their speculations was a curious Eclecticism, in which Platonism and Stoicism are found, often heterogeneously, side by side. Thus, without further details, it may be said that the Fourth Book of Maccabees is a Jewish Stoical treatise on the Stoical theme of the supremacy of reason the proposition, stated at the outset, that pious reason bears absolute sway over the passions being illustrated by the story of the martyrdom of Eleazar, and of the mother and her seven sons.[8] On the other hand, that sublime work, the Wisdom of Solomon contains Platonic and Stoic elements[9]—chiefly perhaps the latter—the two occurring side by side. Thus[10] Wisdom which is so concretely presented as to be almost hypostatised,[11]

[5]Comp. for ex. Ecclus. 24:6.

[6]ii. 39, 40.

[7]Comp. also Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 34.

[8]Comp. 2 Macc. vi. 18—vii. 41.

[9]Ewald (Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., vol. 4. pp. 626-632) has given a glowing sketch of it. Ewald rightly says that its Grecian elements have been exaggerated; but Bucher (Lehre vom Logos, pp. 59-62) utterly fails in denying their presence altogether.

[10]Ch 7:22-27.

[11]Compare especially Wis. Sol. ix. 1; 18:14-16, where the idea of soyia passes into that of the logoV. Of course the above remarks are not intended to depreciate the great value of this book, alike in itself, and in its practical teaching, in its clear enunciation of a retribution as awaiting man, and in its important bearing on the New Testament revelation of the logoV.

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is first described in the language of Stoicism,[12] and afterwards set forth, in that of Platonism,[13] as the breath of the power of God; as a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty; the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness. Similarly, we have[14] a Stoical enumeration of the four cardinal virtues, temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude, and close by it the Platonic idea of the soul’s pre-existence,[15] and of earth and matter pressing it down.[16] How such views would point in the direction of the need of a perfect revelation from on high, as in the Bible, and of its rational possibility, need scarcely be shown.

But how did Eastern Judaism bear itself towards this Apocryphal literature? We find it described by a term which seems to correspond to our Apocrypha as Sepharim Genuzim hidden books i.e., either such whose origin was hidden, or, more likely, books withdrawn from common or congregational use. Although they were, of course, carefully distinguished from the canonical Scriptures, as not being sacred, their use was not only allowed, but many of them are quoted in Talmudical writings.[17] In this respect they are placed on a very different footing from the so-called Sepharim Chitsonim, or outside books which probably included both the products of a certain class of Jewish Hellenistic literature, and the Siphrey Minim, or writings of the heretics. Against these Rabbinism can scarcely find terms of sufficient violence, even debarring from share in the world to come those who read them.[18] This, not only because they were used in controversy, but because their secret influence on orthodox Judaism was dreaded. For similar reasons, later Judaism forbade the use of the Apocrypha in the same manner as that of the Sepharim Chitsonim. But their influence had already

[12]Vv. 22-24.

[13]Vv. 25-29.

[14]In ch 8:7.

[15]In vv. 19, 20.

[16]ix. 15.

[17]Some Apocryphal books which have not been preserved to us are mentioned in Talmudical writings, among them one, The roll of the building of the Temple alas, lost to us! Comp. Hamburger, vol. 2. pp. 66-70.

[18]Sanh 100.

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made itself felt. The Apocrypha, the more greedily perused, not only for their glorification of Judaism, but that they were, so to speak, doubtful reading, which yet afforded a glimpse into that forbidden Greek world, opened the way for other Hellenistic literature, of which unacknowledged but frequent traces occur in Talmudical writings.[19]

To those who thus sought to weld Grecian thought with Hebrew revelation, two objects would naturally present themselves. They must try to connect their Greek philosophers with the Bible, and they must find beneath the letter of Scripture a deeper meaning, which would accord with philosophic truth. So far as the text of Scripture was concerned, they had a method ready to hand. The Stoic philosophers had busied themselves in finding a deeper allegorical meaning, especially in the writings of Homer. By applying it to mythical stories, or to the popular beliefs, and by tracing the supposed symbolical meaning of names, numbers, &c., it became easy to prove almost anything, or to extract from these philosophical truths ethical principles, and even the later results of natural science.[20] Such a process was peculiarly pleasing to the imagination, and the results alike astounding and satisfactory, since as they could not be proved, so neither could they be disproved. This allegorical method[21] was the welcome key by which the Hellenists might unlock the hidden treasury of Scripture. In point of fact, we find it applied so early as in the Wisdom of Solomon.[22]

[19]Comp. Siegfried, Philo von Alex. pp. 275-299, who, however, perhaps overstates the matter.

[20]Comp. Siegfried, pp. 9-16; Hartmann, Enge Verb. d. A. Test. mit d. N., pp. 568-572.

[21]This is to be carefully distinguished from the typical interpretation and from the mystical—the type being prophetic, the mystery spiritually understood.

[22]Not to speak of such sounder interpretations as that of the brazen serpent (Wisd. xvi. 6, 7), and of the Fall (ii. 24), or of the view presented of the early history of the chosen race in ch 10., we may mention as instances of allegorical interpretation that of the manna (xvi. 26-28), and of the high-priestly dress (xviii. 24), to which, no doubt, others might be added. But I cannot find sufficient evidence of this allegorical method in the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. The reasoning of Hartmann (u. s., pp. 542-547) seems to me greatly strained. Of the existence of allegorical interpretations in the Synoptic Gospels, or of any connection with Hellenism, such as Hartmann, Siegfried, and Loesner (Obs. ad. N.T. e Phil. Alex) put into them, I cannot, on examination, discover any evidence. Similarity of expressions, or even of thought, afford no evidence of inward connection. Of the Gospel by St. John we shall speak in the sequel. In the Pauline Epistles we find, as might be expected, some allegorical interpretations, chiefly in those to the Corinthians, perhaps owing to the connection of that church with Apollos. Comp here 1 Corinthians 9:9; 10:4 (Philo, Quod deter. potiori insid. 31); 2 Corinthians 3:16; Galatians 4:21. Of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse we cannot here speak.

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But as yet Hellenism had scarcely left the domain of sober interpretation. It is otherwise in the letter of the Pseudo-Aristeas, to which reference has already been made.[23] Here the wildest symbolism is put into the mouth of the High-Priest Eleazar, to convince Aristeas and his fellow-ambassador that the Mosaic ordinances concerning food had not only a political reason—to keep Israel separate from impious nations—and a sanitary one, but chiefly a mystical meaning. The birds allowed for food were all tame and pure, and they fed on corn or vegetable products, the opposite being the case with those forbidden. The first lesson which this was intended to teach was, that—Israel—must be just, and not seek to obtain aught from others by violence; but, so to speak, imitate the habits of those birds which were allowed them. The next lesson would be, that each must learn to govern his passions and inclinations. Similarly, the direction about cloven hoofs pointed to the need of making separation—that is, between good and evil; and that about chewing the cud to the need of remembering, viz. God and His will.[24] In such manner, according to Aristeas, did the High Priest go through the catalogue of things forbidden, and of animals to be sacrificed, showing from their hidden meaning the majesty and sanctity of the Law.[25]

[23]See p. 25.

[24]A similar principle applied to the prohibition of such species as the mouse or the weasel, not only because they destroyed everything, but because the latter, from its mode of conceiving and bearing, symbolized listening to evil tales, and exaggerated, lying, or malicious speech.

[25]Of course this method is constantly adopted by Josephus. Comp. for example, Ant. iii. 1. 6; 7. 7.

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This was an important line to take, and it differed in principle from the allegorical method adopted by the Eastern Jews. Not only the Dorshey Reshumoth,[26] or searches out of the subtleties of Scripture, of their indications, but even the ordinary Haggadist employed, indeed, allegoric interpretations. Thereby Akiba vindicated for the Song of Songs its place in the Canon. Did not Scripture say: One thing spake God, twofold is what I heard[27] and did not this imply a twofold meaning; nay, could not the Torah be explained by many different methods?[28] What, for example, was the water which Israel sought in the wilderness, or the bread and raiment which Jacob asked in Bethel, but the Torah and the dignity which it conferred? But in all these, and innumerable similar instances, the allegorical interpretation was only an application of Scripture for homiletical purposes, not a searching into a rationale beneath, such as that of the Hellenists. The latter the Rabbis would have utterly repudiated, on their express principle that Scripture goes not beyond its plain meaning.[29]

[26]Or Dorshey Chamuroth, searchers of difficult passages. Zunz. Gottesd. Vortr. p. 323. note b.

[27]Psalm 62:11; Sanh. 34 a.

[28]The seventy languages in which the Law was supposed to have been written below Mount Ebal (Sotah vii. 5). I cannot help feeling this may in part also refer to the various modes of interpreting Holy Scripture, and that there is an allusion to this Shabb. 88 b, where Psalm 68:12. and Jeremiah 23:29, are quoted, the latter to show that the word of God is like a hammer that breaks the rock in a thousand pieces. Comp. Rashi on Genesis 33:20.

[29]Perhaps we ought here to point out one of the most important principles of Rabbinism, which has been almost entirely overlooked in modern criticism of the Talmud. It is this: that any ordinance, not only of the Divine law, but of the Rabbis, even though only given for a particular time or occasion, or for a special reason, remains in full force for all time unless it be expressly recalled (Betsah 5 b). Thus Maimonides (Sepher ha Mitsv.) declares the law to extirpate the Canaanites as continuing in its obligations. The inferences as to the perpetual obligation, not only of the ceremonial law, but of sacrifices, will be obvious, and their bearing on the Jewish controversy need not be explained. Comp. Chief Rabbi Holdheim. d. Ceremonial Gesetz in Messasreich, 1845

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They sternly insisted, that we ought not to search into the ulterior object and rationale of a law, but simply obey it. But it was this very rationale of the Law which the Alexandrians sought to find under its letter. It was in this sense that Aristobulus, a Hellenist Jew of Alexandria,[30] sought to explain Scripture. Only a fragment of his work, which seems to have been a Commentary on the Pentateuch, dedicated to King Ptolemy (Philometor), has been preserved to us (by Clement of Alexandria, and by Eusebius[31]). According to Clement of Alexandria, his aim was, to bring the Peripatetic philosophy out of the law of Moses, and out of the other prophets. Thus, when we read that God stood, it meant the stable order of the world; that He created the world in six days, the orderly succession of time; the rest of the Sabbath, the preservation of what was created. And in such manner could the whole system of Aristotle be found in the Bible. But how was this to be accounted for? Of course, the Bible had not learned from Aristotle, but he and all the other philosophers had learned from the Bible. Thus, according to Aristobulus, Pythagoras, Plato, and all the other sages had really learned from Moses, and the broken rays found in their writings were united in all their glory in the Torah.

It was a tempting path on which to enter, and one on which there was no standing still. It only remained to give fixedness to the allegorical method by reducing it to certain principles, or canons of criticism, and to form the heterogeneous mass of Grecian philosophemes and Jewish theologumena into a compact, if not homogeneous system. This was the work of Philo of Alexandria, born about 20 b.c. It concerns us not here to inquire what were the intermediate links between Aristobulus and Philo. Another and more important point claims our attention. If ancient Greek philosophy knew the teaching of Moses, where was the historic evidence for it? If such did not exist, it must somehow be invented. Orpheus was a name which had always lent itself to literary fraud,[32] and so Aristobulus boldly produces (whether of his own or of others making) a number of spurious citations from Hesiod, Homer, Linus, but especially from

[30]About 160 b.c.

[31]Praepar. Evang. vii. 14. 1; 7:10. 1-17; 13:12.

[32]As Val. Kenaer puts it, Daitr. de Aristob. Jud. p. 73.

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Orpheus, all Biblical and Jewish in their cast. Aristobulus was neither the first nor the last to commit such fraud. The Jewish Sibyl boldly, and, as we shall see, successfully personated the heathen oracles. And this opens, generally, quite a vista of Jewish-Grecia literature. In the second, and even in the third century before Christ, there were Hellenist historians, such as Eupolemus, Artapanus, Demetrius, and Aristeas; tragic and epic poets, such as Ezekiel, Pseudo-Philo, and Theodotus, who, after the manner of the ancient classical writers, but for their own purposes, described certain periods of Jewish history, or sang of such themes as the Exodus, Jerusalem, or the rape of Dinah.

The mention of these spurious quotations naturally leads us to another class of spurious literature, which, although not Hellenistic, has many elements in common with it, and, even when originating with Palestinian Jews is not Palestinian, nor yet has been preserved in its language. We allude to what are known as the Pseudepigraphic, or Pseudonymic Writings, so called because, with one exception, they bear false names of authorship. It is difficult to arrange them otherwise than chronologically—and even here the greatest difference of opinions prevails. Their general character (with one exception) may be described as anti-heathen, perhaps missionary, but chiefly as Apocalyptic. They are attempts at taking up the key-note struck in the prophecies of Daniel; rather, we should say, to lift the veil only partially raised by him, and to point—alike as concerned—Israel—, and the kingdoms of the world—to the past, the present, and the future, in the light of the Kingship of the Messiah. Here, if anywhere, we might expect to find traces of New Testament teaching; and yet, side by side with frequent similarity of form, the greatest difference—we had almost said contrast—in spirit, prevails.

Many of these works must have perished. In one of the latest of them[33] they are put down at seventy, probably a round number, having reference to the supposed number of the nations of the earth, or to every possible mode of interpreting Scripture. They are described as intended for the wise among the people probably those whom St. Paul, in the Christian sense, designates as knowing the time[34][35]

[33]4 Esdras xiv. 44, 46.

[34]Romans 13:11.

[35]The kairoV of St. Paul seems here used in exactly the same sense as in later Hebrew Nmz. The Septuagint renders it so in five passages (Ezra 5:3; Daniel 4:33; 10; 7:22, 25).

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of the Advent of the Messiah. Viewed in this light, they embody the ardent aspirations and the inmost hopes[36] of those who longed for the consolation of Israel as they understood it. Nor should we judge their personations of authorship according to our Western ideas.[37] Pseudonymic writings were common in that age, and a Jew might perhaps plead that, even in the Old Testament, books had been headed by names which confessedly were not those of their authors (such as Samuel, Ruth, Esther). If those inspired poets who sang in the spirit, and echoed the strains, of Asaph, adopted that designation, and the sons of Korah preferred to be known by that title, might not they, who could no longer claim the authority of inspiration seek attention for their utterances by adopting the names of those in whose spirit they professed to write?

The most interesting as well as the oldest of these books are those known as the Book of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, the Psalter of Solomon, and the Book of Jubilees, or Little Genesis. Only the briefest notice of them can here find a place.[38]

The Book of Enoch, the oldest parts of which date a century and a half before Christ, comes to us from Palestine. It professes to be a vision vouchsafed to that Patriarch, and tells of the fall of the Angels and its consequences, and of what he saw and heard in his rapt journeys through heaven and earth. Of deepest, though often sad, interest, is what it says of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the advent of Messiah and His Kingdom, and of the last things.

On the other hand, the Sibylline Oracles, of which the oldest portions date from about 160 b.c., come to us from Egypt. It is to the latter only that we here refer. Their most interesting parts are also the most characteristic. In them the ancient heathen myths of the first ages of man are welded together with Old Testament notices, while the heathen

[36]Of course, it suits Jewish, writers, like Dr. Jost, to deprecate the value of the Pseudepigrapha. Their ardour of expectancy ill agrees with the modern theories, which would eliminate, if possible, the Messianic hope from ancient Judaism.

[37]Comp. Dillmann in Herzog’s Real-Encykl. vol. 12. p. 301

[38]For a brief review of the Pseudepigraphic Writings see Appendix I.

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Theogony is recast in a Jewish mould. Thus Noah becomes Uranos, Shem Saturn, Ham Titan, and Japheth Japetus. Similarly, we have fragments of ancient heathen oracles, so to speak, recast in a Jewish edition. The strangest circumstance is, that the utterances of this Judaising and Jewish Sibyl seem to have passed as the oracles of the ancient Erythraean, which had predicted the fall of Troy, and as those of the Sibyl of Cumae, which, in the infancy of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus had deposited in the Capitol.

The collection of eighteen hymns known as the Psalter of Solomon dates from more than half a century before our era. No doubt the original was Hebrew, though they breathe a somewhat Hellenistic spirit. They express ardent Messianic aspirations, and a firm faith in the Resurrection, and in eternal rewards and punishments.

Different in character from the preceding works is The Book of Jubilees—so called from its chronological arrangement into Jubilee-periods’—or Little Genesis. It is chiefly a kind of legendary supplement to the Book of Genesis, intended to explain some of its historic difficulties, and to fill up its historic lacunae. It was probably written about the time of Christ—and this gives it a special interest—by a Palestinian, and in Hebrew, or rather Aramaean. But, like the rest of the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic literature which comes from Palestine, or was originally written in Hebrew, we posses it no longer in that language, but only in translation.

If from this brief review of Hellenist and Pseudepigraphic literature we turn to take a retrospect, we can scarcely fail to perceive, on the one hand, the development of the old, and on the other the preparation for the new—in other words, the grand expectancy awakened, and the grand preparation made. One step only remained to complete what Hellenism had already begun. That completion came through one who, although himself untouched by the Gospel, perhaps more than any other prepared alike his co-religionists the Jews, and his countrymen the Greeks, for the new teaching, which, indeed, was presented by many of its early advocates in the forms which they had learned from him. That man was Philo the Jew, of—Alexandria—. [46]

Chapter 4—Philo of Alexandria, the Rabbis, and the Gospels

The Final Development of Hellenism in its Relation to Rabbinism and the Gospel According to St. John

It is strange how little we know of the personal history of the greatest of uninspired Jewish writers of old, though he occupied so prominent a position in his time.[1] Philo was born in Alexandria, about the year 20 before Christ. He was a descendant of Aaron, and belonged to one of the wealthiest and most influential families among the Jewish merchant-princes of Egypt. His brother was the political head of that community in Alexandria, and he himself on one occasion represented his co-religionists, though unsuccessfully, at Rome,[2] as the head of an embassy to entreat the Emperor Caligula for protection from the persecutions consequent on the Jewish resistance to placing statues of the Emperor in their Synagogues. But it is not with Philo, the wealthy aristocratic Jew of Alexandria, but with the great writer and thinker who, so to speak, completed Jewish Hellenism, that we have here to do. Let us see what was his relation alike to heathen philosophy and to the Jewish faith, of both of which he was the ardent advocate, and how in his system he combined the teaching of the two.

To begin with, Philo united in rare measure Greek learning with Jewish enthusiasm. In his writings he very frequently uses classical modes of expression;[3] he names not fewer than sixty-four Greek writers;[4] and he either alludes to, or quotes frequently from, such sources as Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Solon, the great Greek tragedians, Plato, and others. But to him these men were scarcely heathen. He had sat at their feet, and learned to weave a system from Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The gatherings of these philosophers were holy and Plato was the great. But holier than all was the gathering of the true Israel; and incomparably greater than any, Moses. From him had all sages learned, and with him alone was all truth to be found—not, indeed, in the letter,

[1]Hausrath (N.T. Zeitg. vol. 2. p. 222 &c.) has given a highly imaginative picture of Philo - as, indeed, of many other persons and things.

[2]39 or 40 a.d.

[3]Siegfried has, with immense labor, collected a vast number of parallel expressions, chiefly from Plato and Plutarch (pp. 39-47).

[4]Comp. Grossmann, Quae st. Phil. i. p. 5 &c.

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but under the letter, of Holy Scripture. If in Numbers 23:19 we read God is not a man and in Deuteronomy 1:31 that the Lord was as a man did it not imply, on the one hand, the revelation of absolute truth by God, and, on the other, accommodation to those who were weak? Here, then, was the principle of a twofold interpretation of the Word of God—the literal and the allegorical. The letter of the text must be held fast; and Biblical personages and histories were real. But only narrow-minded slaves of the letter would stop here; the more so, as sometimes the literal meaning alone would be tame, even absurd; while the allegorical interpretation gave the true sense, even though it might occasionally run counter to the letter. Thus, the patriarchs represented states of the soul; and, whatever the letter might bear, Joseph represented one given to the fleshly, whom his brothers rightly hated; Simeon the soul aiming after the higher; the killing of the Egyptian by Moses, the subjugation of passion, and so on. But this allegorical interpretation—by the side of the literal (the Peshat of the Palestinians)—though only for the few, was not arbitrary. It had its laws and canons’—some of which excluded the literal interpretation, while others admitted it by the side of the higher meaning.[5]

To begin with the former: the literal sense must be wholly set aside, when it implied anything unworthy of the Deity, anything unmeaning, impossible, or contrary to reason. Manifestly, this canon, if strictly applied, would do away not only with all anthropomorphisms, but cut the knot wherever difficulties seemed insuperable. Again, Philo would find an allegorical, along with the literal, interpretation indicated in the reduplication of a word, and in seemingly superfluous words, particles, or expressions.[6] These could, of course, only bear such a meaning on Philo’s assumption of the actual inspiration of the LXX. version. Similarly, in exact accordance with a Talmudical canon,[7] any repetition of what had been already stated would

[5]In this sketch of the system of Philo I have largely availed myself of the careful analysis of Siegfried.

[6]It should be noted that these are also Talmudical canons, not indeed for allegorical interpretation, but as pointing to some special meaning, since there was not a word or particle in Scripture without a definite meaning and object.

[7]Baba K 64 a.

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point to something new. These were comparatively sober rules of exegesis. Not so the licence which he claimed of freely altering the punctuation[8] of sentences, and his notion that, if one from among several synonymous words was chosen in a passage, this pointed to some special meaning attaching to it. Even more extravagant was the idea, that a word which occurred in the LXX. might be interpreted according to every shade of meaning which it bore in the Greek, and that even another meaning might be given it by slightly altering the letters. However, like other of Philo’s allegorical canons, these were also adopted by the Rabbis, and Haggadic interpretations were frequently prefaced by: Read not thus—but thus. If such violence might be done to the text, we need not wonder at interpretations based on a play upon words, or even upon parts of a word. Of course, all seemingly strange or peculiar modes of expression, or of designation, occurring in Scripture, must have their special meaning, and so also every particle, adverb, or preposition. Again, the position of a verse, its succession by another, the apparently unaccountable presence or absence of a word, might furnish hints for some deeper meaning, and so would an unexpected singular for a plural, or vice versâ, the use of a tense, even the gender of a word. Most serious of all, an allegorical interpretation might be again employed as the basis of another.[9]

We repeat, that these allegorical canons of Philo are essentially the same as those of Jewish traditionalism in the Haggadah,[10] only the latter were not rationalising, and far more brilliant in their application.[11]

[8]To illustrate what use might be made of such alterations, the Midrash (Ber. R. 65) would have us punctuate Genesis 27:19, as follows: And Jacob said unto his father, I (viz. am he who will receive the ten commandments)—(but) Esau (is) thy firstborn. In Yalkut there is the still more curious explanation that in heaven the soul of Jacob was the firstborn!

[9]Each of these positions is capable of ample proof from Philo’s writings, as shown by Siegfried. But only a bare statement of these canons was here possible.

[10]Comp. our above outline with the XXV. theses de modis et formulis quibus pr. Hebr. doctores SS. interpretari etc. soliti fuerunt in Surenhusius, BibloV katallaghV, pp. 57-88.

[11]For a comparison between Philo and Rabbinic theology, see Appendix II.: Philo and Rabbinic Theology. Freudenthal (Hellen. Studien, pp. 67 &c.) aptly designates this mixture of the two as Hellenistic Midrash it being difficult sometimes to distinguish whether it originated in Palestine or in Egypt, or else in both independently. Freudenthal gives a number of curious instances in which Hellenism and Rabbinism agree in their interpretations. For other interesting comparisons between Haggadic interpretations and those of Philo, see Joel, Blick in d. Religionsgesch. i. p. 38 &c.

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In another respect also the Palestinian had the advantage of the Alexandrian exegesis. Reverently and cautiously it indicated what might be omitted in public reading, and why; what expressions of the original might be modified by the Meturgeman, and how; so as to avoid alike one danger by giving a passage in its literality, and another by adding to the sacred text, or conveying a wrong impression of the Divine Being, or else giving occasion to the unlearned and unwary of becoming entangled in dangerous speculations. Jewish tradition here lays down some principles which would be of great practical use. Thus we are told,[12] that Scripture uses the modes of expression common among men. This would, of course, include all anthropomorphisms. Again, sometimes with considerable ingenuity, a suggestion is taken from a word, such as that Moses knew the Serpent was to be made of brass from the similarity of the two words (nachash, a serpent, and nechosheth, brass.)[13] Similarly, it is noted that Scripture uses euphemistic language, so as to preserve the greatest delicacy.[14] These instances might be multiplied, but the above will suffice.

In his symbolical interpretations Philo only partially took the same road as the Rabbis. The symbolism of numbers and, so far as the Sanctuary was concerned, that of colours, and even materials, may, indeed, be said to have its foundation in the Old Testament itself. The same remark applies partially to that of names. The Rabbis certainly so interpreted them.[15]

[12]Ber. 31 b.

[13]Ber. R. 31.

[14]Ber. R. 70.

[15]Thus, to give only a few out of many examples, Ruth is derived from ravah, to satiate to give to drink, because David, her descendant, satiated God with his Psalms of praise (Ber. 7 b). Here the principle of the significance of Bible names is deduced from Psalm 46:8 (9 in the Hebrew): Come, behold the works of the Lord, who hath made names on earth the word desolations shamoth, being altered to shemoth, names. In general, that section, from Ber. 3 b, to the end of 8 a, is full of Haggadic Scripture interpretations. On fol. 4 a there is the curious symbolical derivation of Mephibosheth, who is supposed to have set David right on halakhic questions, as Mippi bosheth: from my mouth shaming because he put to shame the face of David in the Halakhah. Similarly in Siphré (Par. Behaalothekha, ed. Friedmann, p. 20 a) we have very beautiful and ingenious interpretations of the names Reuel, Hobab and Jethro.

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But the application which Philo made of this symbolism was very different. Everything became symbolical in his hands, if it suited his purpose: numbers (in a very arbitrary manner), beasts, birds, fowls, creeping things, plants, stones, elements, substances, conditions, even sex—and so a term or an expression might even have several and contradictory meanings, from which the interpreter was at liberty to choose.

From the consideration of the method by which Philo derived from Scriptures his theological views, we turn to a brief analysis of these views.[16]

1. Theology.—In reference to God, we find, side by side, the apparently contradictory views of the Platonic and the Stoic schools. Following the former, the sharpest distinction was drawn between God and the world. God existed neither in space, nor in time; He had neither human qualities nor affections; in fact, He was without any qualities (apoioV), and even without any name (arrhtoV); hence, wholly uncognisable by man (akatalhptoV). Thus, changing the punctuation and the accents, the LXX. of Genesis 3:9 was made to read: Adam, thou art somewhere; but God had no somewhere, as Adam seemed to think when he hid himself from Him. In the above sense, also, Exodus 3:14, and vi. 3, were explained, and the two names Elohim and Jehovah belonged really to the two supreme Divine Potencies while the fact of God’s being uncognisable appeared from Exodus 20:21.

But side by side with this we have, to save the Jewish, or rather Old Testament, idea of creation and providence, the Stoic notion of God as immanent in the world—in fact, as that alone which is real in it, as always working: in short, to use his own Pantheistic

[16]It would be impossible here to give the references, which would occupy too much space.

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expression, as Himself one and the all (eiV kai to pan). Chief in His Being is His goodness, the forthgoing of which was the ground of creation. Only the good comes from Him. With matter He can have nothing to do—hence the plural number in the account of creation. God only created the soul, and that only of the good. In the sense of being immanent God is everywhere—nay, all things are really only in Him, or rather He is the real in all. But chiefly is God the wellspring and the light of the soul—its Saviour from the Egypt of passion. Two things follow. With Philo’s ideas of the separation between God and matter, it was impossible always to account for miracles or interpositions. Accordingly, these are sometimes allegorised, sometimes rationalistically explained. Further, the God of Philo, whatever he might say to the contrary, was not the God of that Israel which was His chosen people.

2. Intermediary Beings.—Potencies (dunameiV, logoi). If, in what has preceded, we have once and again noticed a remarkable similarity between Philo and the Rabbis, there is a still more curious analogy between his teaching and that of Jewish Mysticism, as ultimately fully developed in the Kabbalah. The very term Kabbalah (from qibbel, to hand down) seems to point out not only its de scent by oral tradition, but also its a scent to ancient sources.[17] Its existence is presupposed, and its leading ideas are sketched in the Mishnah.[18] The Targums also bear at least one remarkable trace of it. May it not be, that as Philo frequently refers to ancient tradition, so both Eastern and Western Judaism may here have drawn from one and the same source—we will not venture to suggest, how high up—while each made such use of it as suited their distinctive tendencies? At any rate the Kabbalah also, likening Scripture to a person, compares those who study merely the letter, to them who attend only to the dress; those who consider the moral of a fact, to them who attend to the body; while the initiated alone, who regard the hidden meaning, are those who attend to the soul. Again, as Philo, so the oldest part of the Mishnah[19] designates God as Maqom—the place’—the topoV, the all-comprehending, what the Kabbalists

[17]For want of handier material I must take leave to refer to my brief sketch of the Kabbalah in the History of the Jewish Nation pp. 434-446.

[18]Chag. 2:1.

[19]Ab. v. 4.

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called the EnSoph, the boundless that God, without any quality, Who becomes cognisable only by His manifestations.[20]

The manifestations of God! But neither Eastern mystical Judaism, nor the philosophy of Philo, could admit of any direct contact between God and creation. The Kabbalah solved the difficulty by their Sephiroth,[21] or emanations from God, through which this contact was ultimately brought about, and of which the EnSoph, or crown, was the spring: the source from which the infinite light issued. If Philo found greater difficulties, he had also more ready help from the philosophical systems to hand. His Sephiroth were Potencies (dunameiV), Words (logoi), intermediate powers. Potencies as we imagine, when viewed Godwards; Words as viewed creationwards. They were not emanations, but, according to Plato, archetypal ideas on the model of which all that exists was formed; and also, according to the Stoic idea, the cause of all, pervading all, forming all, and sustaining all. Thus these Potencies were wholly in God, and yet wholly out of God. If we divest all this of its philosophical colouring, did not Eastern Judaism also teach that there was a distinction between the Unapproachable God, and God manifest?[22]

Another remark will show the parallelism between Philo and Rabbinism.[23] As the latter speaks of the two qualities (Middoth) of Mercy and Judgment in the Divine Being,[24] and distinguishes between Elohim as the God of Justice, and Jehovah as the God of Mercy and Grace, so Philo places next to the Divine Word (qeioV logoV), Goodness (agaqothV), as the Creative Potency (poihtikh dunamiV), and Power (ezousia), as the Ruling Potency (basilikh dunamiV), proving this by

[20]In short, the logoV spermatikoV of the Stoics.

[21]Supposed to mean either numerationes, or splendour. But why not derive the word from syaira? The ten are: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Judgment, Beauty, Triumph, Praise, Foundation, Kingdom.

[22]For the teaching of Eastern Judaism in this respect, see Appendix II.: Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

[23]A very interesting question arises: how far Philo was acquainted with, and influenced by, the Jewish traditional law or the Halakhah. This has been treated by Dr. B. Ritter in an able tractate (Philo u. die Halach.), although he attributes more to Philo than the evidence seems to admit.

[24]Jer. Ber. ix. 7.

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a curious etymological derivation of the words for God and Lord (QeoVand kurioV)—apparently unconscious that the LXX., in direct contradiction, translated Jehovah by Lord (kurioV), and Elohim by God (QeoV)! These two potencies of goodness and power, Philo sees in the two Cherubim, and in the two Angels which accompanied God (the Divine Word), when on his way to destroy the cities of the plain. But there were more than these two Potencies. In one place Philo enumerates six, according to the number of the cities of refuge. The Potencies issued from God as the beams from the light, as the waters from the spring, as the breath from a person; they were immanent in God, and yet also without Him—motions on the part of God, and yet independent beings. They were the ideal world, which in its impulse outwards, meeting matter, produced this material world of ours. They were also the angels of God—His messengers to man, the media through whom He revealed Himself.[25]

3. The Logos.—Viewed in its bearing on New Testament teaching, this part of Philo’s system raises the most interesting questions. But it is just here that our difficulties are greatest. We can understand the Platonic conception of the Logos as the archetypal idea and that of the Stoics as the world-reason pervading matter. Similarly, we can perceive, how the Apocrypha—especially the Book of Wisdom—following up the Old Testament typical truth concerning Wisdom (as specially set forth in the Book of Proverbs) almost arrived so far as to present Wisdom as a special Subsistence (hypostatising it). More than this, in Talmudical writings, we find mention not only of the Shem, or Name[26]

[25]At the same time there is a remarkable difference here between Philo and Rabbinism. Philo holds that the creation of the world was brought about by the Potencies, but the Law was given directly through Moses, and not by the mediation of angels. But this latter was certainly the view generally entertained in Palestine as expressed in the LXX. rendering of Deuteronomy 32:2, in the Targumim on that passage, and more fully still in Jos. Ant. xv. 5. 3, in the Midrashim and in the Talmud, where we are told (Macc. 24 a) that only the opening words, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods but Me were spoken by God Himself. Comp. also Acts 7:38, 53; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2.

[26]Hammejuchad, appropriatum; hammephorash, expositum separatum the tetragrammaton or four-lettered name, hwhy. There was also a Shem with twelve and one with forty-two letters (Kidd. 71a).

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but also of the Shekhinah God as manifest and present, which is sometimes also presented as the Ruach ha Qodesh, of Holy Spirit.[27] But in the Targumim we get yet another expression, which, strange to say, never occurs in the Talmud.[28] It is that of the Memra, Logos, or Word. Not that the term is exclusively applied to the Divine Logos.[29] But it stands out as perhaps the most remarkable fact in this literature, that God—not as in His permanent manifestation, or manifest Presence—but as revealing Himself, is designated Memra. Altogether that term, as applied to God, occurs in the Targum Onkelos 179 times, in the so-called Jerusalem Targum 99 times, and in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 321 times. A critical analysis shows that in 82 instances in Onkelos, in 71 instances in the Jerusalem Targum, and in 213 instances in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the designation Memra is not only distinguished from God, but evidently refers to God as revealing Himself.[30] But what does this imply? The distinction between God and the Memra of Jehovah is marked in many passages.[31]

[27]Or Ruach ham Maqom, Ab. iii. 10, and frequently in the Talmud.

[28]Levy (Neuhebr. Wörterb. i. p. 374 a.) seems to imply that in the Midrash the term dibbur occupies the same place and meaning. But with all deference I cannot agree with this opinion, nor do the passages quoted bear it out.

[29]The word as spoken, is distinguished from the Word as speaking, or revealing Himself. The former is generally designated by the term pithgama. Thus in Genesis 15:1, After these words (things) came the “pithgama” of Jehovah to Abram in prophecy, saying, Fear not, Abram, My “Memra” shall be thy strength, and thy very great reward. Still, the term Memra, as applied not only to man, but also in reference to God, is not always the equivalent of the Logos.’

[30]The various passages in the Targum of Onkelos, the Jerusalem, and the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum on the Pentateuch will be found enumerated and classified, as those in which it is a doubtful, a fair, or an unquestionable inference, that the word Memra is intended for God revealing Himself, in Appendix II.: Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

[31]As, for example, Genesis 28:21, the Memra of Jehovah shall be my God.’

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Similarly, the Memra of Jehovah is distinguished from the Shekhinah.[32] Nor is the term used instead of the sacred word Jehovah;[33] nor for the well-known Old Testament expression the Angel of the Lord;[34] nor yet for the Metatron of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and of the Talmud.[35] Does it then represent an older tradition underlying all these?[36]

[32]As, for example, Numbers 23:21, the Memra of Jehovah their God is their helper, and the Shekhinah of their King is in the midst of them.’

[33]That term is often used by Onkelos. Besides, the expression itself is the Memra of Jehovah.’

[34]Onkelos only once (in Exodus 4:24) paraphrases Jehovah by Malakha.’

[35]Metatron, either = meta qronon, or meta turannon. In the Talmud it is applied to the Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 23:20), the Prince of the World the Prince of the Face or of the Presence as they call him; he who sits in the innermost chamber before God, while the other angels only hear His commands from behind the veil (Chag. 15 a; 16 a; Toseft. ad Chull. 60 a; Jeb. 16 b). This Metatron of the Talmud and the Kabbalah is also the Adam Qadmon, or archetypal man.

[36]Of deep interest is Onkelos rendering of Deuteronomy 33:27, where, instead of underneath are the everlasting arms Onkelos has, and by His Memra was the world created exactly as in St John 1:10. Now this divergence of Onkelos from the Hebrew text seems unaccountable. Winer, whose inaugural dissertation, De Onkeloso ejusque paraph. Chald. Lips. 1820, most modern writers have followed (with amplifications, chiefly from Luzzato’s Philoxenus), makes no reference to this passage, nor do his successors, so far as I know. It is curious that, as our present Hebrew text of this verse consists of three words, so does the rendering of Onkelos, and that both end with the same word. Is the rendering of Onkelos then a paraphrase, or does it represent another reading? Another interesting passage is Deuteronomy 8:3. Its quotation by Christ in St. Matthew 4:4 is deeply interesting, as read in the light of the rendering of Onkelos, Not by bread alone is man sustained, but by every forthcoming Memra from before Jehovah shall man live. Yet another rendering of Onkelos is significantly illustrative of 1 Corinthians 10:1-4. He renders Deuteronomy 33:3 with power He brought them out of Egypt; they were led under thy cloud; they journeyed according to (by) thy Memra. Does this represent a difference in Hebrew from the admittedly difficult text in our present Bible? Winer refers to it as an instance in which Onkelos suopte ingenio et copiose admodum eloquitur vatum divinorum mentem adding, ita ut de his, quas singulis vocibus inesse crediderit, significationibus non possit recte judicari; and Winer’s successors say much the same. But this is to state, not to explain, the difficulty. In general, we may here be allowed to say that the question of the Targumim has scarcely received as yet sufficient treatment. Mr. Deutsch’s Article in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (since reprinted in his Remains) is, though brilliantly written, unsatisfactory. Dr. Davidson (in Kitto’s Cyclop., vol. 3. pp. 948-966) is, as always, careful, laborious, and learned. Dr. Volck’s article (in Herzog’s Real-Encykl., vol. 15. pp. 672-683) is without much intrinsic value, though painstaking. We mention these articles, besides the treatment of the subject in the Introduction to the Old Testament (Keil, De Wette-Schrader, Bleek-kamphausen, Reuss), and the works of Zunz, Geiger, Noldeke, and others, to whom partial reference has already been made. Frankel’s interesting and learned book (Zu dem Targum der Propheten) deals almost exclusively with the Targum Jonathan, on which it was impossible to enter within our limits. As modern brochures of interest the following three may be mentioned: Maybaum, Anthropomorphien bei Onkelos; Grönemann, Die Jonath. Pentat. Uebers. im Verhaltn. z. Halacha; and Singer, Onkelos im Verhaltn. z. Halacha.

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Beyond this Rabbinic theology has not preserved to us the doctrine of Personal distinctions in the Godhead. And yet, if words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis, though the distinction of permanent, personal Subsistence is not marked. Nor yet, to complete this subject, is the Memra identified with the Messiah. In the Targum Onkelos distinct mention is twice made of Him,[37] while in the other Targumim no fewer than seventy-one Biblical passages are rendered with explicit reference to Him.

If we now turn to the views expressed by Philo about the Logos we find that they are hesitating, and even contradictory. One thing, however, is plain: the Logos of Philo is not the Memra of the Targumim. For, the expression Memra ultimately rests on theological, that

[37]Genesis 49:10, 11; Numbers 24:17.

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of Logos on philosophical grounds. Again, the Logos of Philo approximates more closely to the Metatron of the Talmud and Kabbalah. As they speak of him as the Prince of the Face who bore the name of his Lord, so Philo represents the Logos as the eldest Angel the many-named Archangel in accordance with the Jewish view that the name JeHoVaH unfolded its meaning in seventy names for the Godhead.[38] As they speak of the Adam Qadmon so Philo of the Logos as the human reflection of the eternal God. And in both these respects, it is worthy of notice that he appeals to ancient teaching.[39]

What, then, is the Logos of Philo? Not a concrete personality, and yet, from another point of view, not strictly impersonal, nor merely a property of the Deity, but the shadow, as it were, which the light of God casts—and if Himself light, only the manifested reflection of God, His spiritual, even as the world is His material, habitation. Moreover, the Logos is the image of God (eikwn) upon which man was made,[40] or, to use the platonic term, the archetypal idea. As regards the relation between the Logos and the two fundamental Potencies (from which all others issue), the latter are variously represented—on the one hand, as proceeding from the Logos; and on the other, as themselves constituting the Logos. As regards the world, the Logos is its real being. He is also its archetype; moreover the instrument (organon) through Whom God created all things. If the Logos separates between God and the world, it is rather as intermediary; He separates, but He also unites. But chiefly does this hold true as regards the relation between God and man. The Logos announces and interprets to man the will and mind of God (ermhneuV kai projhthV); He acts as mediator; He is the real High-Priest, and as such by His purity takes away the sins of man, and by His intercession procures for us the mercy of God. Hence Philo designates Him not only as the High-Priest, but as the Paraclete. He is also the sun whose rays enlighten man, the medium of Divine revelation to the soul; the Manna, or support of spiritual life; He Who dwells in the soul. And so the Logos is, in the fullest sense, Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God, the king of righteousness (basileuV

[38]See the enumeration of these 70 Names in the Baal-ha-Turim on Numbers 11:16.

[39]Comp. Siegfried, u. s., pp. 221-223.

[40]Genesis 1:27.

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dikaioV), and the king of Salem (basileuV eirhnhV), Who brings righteousness and peace to the soul.[41] But the Logos does not come into any soul that is dead in sin. That there is close similarity of form between these Alexandrian views and much in the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, must be evident to all—no less than that there is the widest possible divergence in substance and spirit.[42] The Logos of Philo is shadowy, unreal, not a Person;[43] there is no need of an atonement; the High-Priest intercedes, but has no sacrifice to offer as the basis of His intercession, least of all that of Himself; the old Testament types are only typical ideas, not typical facts; they point to a Prototypal Idea in the eternal past, not to an Antitypal Person and Fact in history; there is no cleansing of the soul by blood, no sprinkling of the Mercy Seat, no access for all through the rent veil into the immediate Presence of God; nor yet a quickening of the soul from dead works to serve the living God. If the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Alexandrian, it is an Alexandrianism which is overcome and past, which only furnishes the form, not the substance, the vessel, not its contents. The closer therefore the outward similarity, the greater is the contrast in substance.

The vast difference between Alexandrianism and the New Testament will appear still more clearly in the views of Philo on Cosmology and Anthropology. In regard to the former, his results in some respects

[41]De Leg. Alleg. iii. 25, 26.

[42]For a full discussion of this similarity of form and divergence of spirit, between Philo—or, rather, between Alexandrianism—and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the reader is referred to the masterly treatise by Riehm (Der Lehrbegriff d. Hebräerbr. ed. 1867, especially pp. 247-268, 411-424, 658-670, and 855-860). The author’s general view on the subject is well and convincingly formulated on p. 249. We must, however, add, in opposition to Riehm, that, by his own showing the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews displays few traces of a Palestinian training.

[43]On the subject of Philo’s Logos generally the brochure of Harnoch (Königsberg, 1879) deserves perusal, although it does not furnish much that is new. In general, the student of Philo ought especially to study the sketch by Zeller in his Philosophie der Gr. vol. 3. pt. 2. 3rd ed. pp. 338-418.

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run parallel to those of the students of mysticism in the Talmud, and of the Kabbalists. Together with the Stoic view, which represented God as the active cause of this world, and matter as the passive Philo holds the Platonic idea, that matter was something existent, and that is resisted God.[44] Such speculations must have been current among the Jews long before, to judge by certain warning given by the Son of Sirach.[45][46] And Stoic views of the origin of the world seem implied even in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (i. 7; 7:24; 8:1; 12. 1).[47] The mystics in the Talmud arrived at similar conclusions, not through Greek, but through Persian teaching. Their speculations[48] boldly entered on the dangerous ground,[49] forbidden to the many, scarcely allowed to the few,[50] where such deep questions as the origin of our world and its connection with God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His glory, and cast it upon the waters, which thus became earth.[51] But so far did isolated teachers become intoxicated[52] by the new wine of these strange speculations, that they

[44]With singular and characteristic inconsistency, Philo, however, ascribes also to God the creation of matter (de Somn. i. 13).

[45]As for example Ecclus. 4:21-24.

[46]So the Talmudists certainly understood it, Jer. Chag. 2:1.

[47]Comp. Grimm, Exeg. Handb. zu d. Apokr., Lief. vi. pp. 55, 56.

[48]They were arranged into those concerning the Maasey Bereshith (Creation), and the Maasey Merkabbah, the chariot of Ezekiel’s vision (Providence in the widest sense, or God’s manifestation in the created world).

[49]Of the four celebrities who entered the Pardes or enclosed Paradise of theosophic speculation, one became an apostate, another died, a third went wrong (Ben Soma), and only Akiba escaped unscathed, according to the Scripture saying, Draw me, and we will run (Chag. 14 b).

[50]It is not lawful to enter upon the Maasey Bereshith in presence of two, nor upon the Merkabhah in presence of one, unless he be a “sage,” and understands of his own knowledge. Anyone who ratiocinates on these four things, it were better for him that he had not been born: What is above and what is below; what was afore, and what shall be hereafter. (Chag. 2:1).

[51]Shem. R. 13.

[52]Ben Soma went astray (mentally): he shook the (Jewish) world.’

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whispered it to one another that water was the original element of the world,[53] which had successively been hardened into snow and then into earth.[54][55] Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as the original element, arguing the pre-existence of matter from the use of the word made in Genesis 1:7. instead of created. Some modified this view, and suggested that God had originally created the three elements of water, air or spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed.[56] Traces also occur of the doctrine of the pre-existence of things, in a sense similar to that of Plato.[57]

Like Plato and the Stoics, Philo regarded matter as devoid of all quality, and even form. Matter in itself was dead—more than that, it was evil. This matter, which was already existing, God formed (not made), like an architect who uses his materials according to a pre-existing plan—which in this case was the archetypal world.

[53]That criticism, which one would designate as impertinent, which would find this view in 2 Peter 3:5, is, alas! not confined to Jewish writers, but hazarded even by De Wette.

[54]Jer. Chag. 77 a.

[55]Judah bar Pazi, in the second century. Ben Soma lived in the first century of our era.

[56]According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. i. I) the firmament was at first soft, and only gradually became hard. According to Ber. R. 10, God created the world from a mixture of fire and snow, other Rabbis suggesting four original elements, according to the quarters of the globe, or else six, adding to them that which is above and that which is below. A very curious idea is that of R. Joshua ben Levi, according to which all the works of creation were really finished on the first day, and only, as it were, extended on the other days. This also represents really a doubt of the Biblical account of creation. Strange though it may sound, the doctrine of development was derived from the words (Genesis 2:4). These are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created, in the day when Jahveh Elohim made earth and heavens. It was argued, that the expression implied, they were developed from the day in which they had been created. Others seem to have held, that the three principal things that were created—earth, heaven, and water—remained, each for three days, at the end of which they respectively developed what is connected with them (Ber. R. 12).

[57]Ber. R. i.

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This was creation, or rather formation, brought about not by God Himself, but by the Potencies, especially by the Logos, Who was the connecting bond of all. As for God, His only direct work was the soul, and that only of the good, not of the evil. Man’s immaterial part had a twofold aspect: earthwards, as Sensuousness (aisqhsiV); and heavenwards, as Reason (nouV). The sensuous part of the soul was connected with the body. It had no heavenly past, and would have no future. But Reason (nouV) was that breath of true life which God had breathed into man (pneuma) whereby the earthy became the higher, living spirit, with its various faculties. Before time began the soul was without body, an archetype, the heavenly man pure spirit in Paradise (virtue), yet even so longing after its ultimate archetype, God. Some of these pure spirits descended into bodies and so lost their purity. Or else, the union was brought about by God and by powers lower than God (daemons, dhmiourgoi). To the latter is due our earthly part. God breathed on the formation, and the earthly Reason became intelligent spiritual soul (yuch noera). Our earthly part alone is the seat of sin.[58]

This leads us to the great question of Original Sin. Here the views of Philo are those of the Eastern Rabbis. But both are entirely different from those on which the argument in the Epistle to the Romans turns. It was neither at the feet of Gamaliel, nor yet from Jewish Hellenism, that Saul of Tarsus learned the doctrine of original sin. The statement that as in Adam all spiritually died, so in Messiah all should be made alive,[59] finds absolutely no parallel in Jewish writings.[60]

[58]For further notices on the Cosmology and Anthropology of Philo, see Appendix II.: Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

[59]We cannot help quoting the beautiful Haggadic explanation of the name Adam, according to its three letters, A, D, M—as including these three names, Adam, David, Messiah.

[60]Raymundus Martini, in his Pugio Fidei (orig. ed. p. 675; ed. Voisin et Carpzov, pp. 866, 867), quotes from the book Siphré: Go and learn the merit of Messiah the King, and the reward of the righteous from the first Adam, on whom was laid only one commandment of a prohibitive character, and he transgressed it. See how many deaths were appointed on him, and on his generations, and on the generations of his generations to the end of all generations. (Wünsche, Leiden d. Mess. p. 65, makes here an unwarrantable addition, in his translation.) But which attribute (measuring?) is the greater—the attribute of goodness or the attribute of punishment (retribution)? He answered, the attribute of goodness is the greater, and the attribute of punishment the less. And Messiah the King, who was chastened and suffered for the transgressors, as it is said, “He was wounded for our transgressions,” and so on, how much more shall He justify (make righteous, by His merit) all generations; and this is what is meant when it is written, “And Jehovah made to meet upon Him the sin of us all.” We have rendered this passage as literally as possible, but we are bound to add that it is not found in any now existing copy of Siphré.

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What may be called the starting point of Christian theology, the doctrine of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall of Adam, and of the consequent entire and helpless corruption of our nature, is entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of physical death was indeed traced to the sin of our first parents.[61] But the Talmud expressly teaches,[62] that God originally created man with two propensities,[63] one to good and one to evil (Yetser tobh, and Yetser hara[64]). The evil impulse began immediately after birth.[65][66] But it was within the power of man to vanquish sin,

[61]Death is not considered an absolute evil. In short, all the various consequences which Rabbinical writings ascribe to the sin of Adam may be designated either as physical, or, if mental, as amounting only to detriment, loss, or imperfectness. These results had been partially counteracted by Abraham, and would be fully removed by the Messiah. Neither Enoch nor Elijah had sinned, and accordingly they did not die. Comp. generally, Hamburger, Geist d. Agada, pp. 81-84, and in regard to death as connected with Adam, p. 85.

[62]Ber. 61 a.

[63]These are also hypostatised as Angels. Comp. Levy, Chald. Wörterb. p. 342 a; Neuhebr. Wörterb. p. 259, a, b.

[64]Or with two reins the one, advising to good, being at his right, the other, counselling evil, at his left, according to Eccles 10:2 (Ber. 61 a, towards the end of the page).

[65]Sanh. 91 b.

[66]In a sense its existence was necessary for the continuance of this world. The conflict between these two impulses constituted the moral life of man.

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and to attain perfect righteousness; in fact, this stage had actually been attained.[67]

Similarly, Philo regarded the soul of the child as naked (Adam and Eve), a sort of tabula rasa, as wax which God would fain form and mould. But this state ceased when affection presented itself to reason, and thus sensuous lust arose, which was the spring of all sin. The grand task, then, was to get rid of the sensuous, and to rise to the spiritual. In this, the ethical part of his system, Philo was most under the influence of Stoic philosophy. We might almost say, it is no longer the Hebrew who Hellenises, but the Hellene who Hebraises. And yet it is here also that the most ingenious and wide reaching allegorisms of Scripture are introduced. It is scarcely possible to convey an idea of how brilliant this method becomes in the hands of Philo, how universal its application, or how captivating it must have proved. Philo describes man’s state as, first one of sensuousness, but also of unrest, misery and unsatisfied longing. If persisted in, it would end in complete spiritual insensibility.[68] But from this state the soul must pass to one of devotion to reason.[69] This change might be accomplished in one of three ways: first, by study—of which physical was the lowest; next, that which embraced the ordinary circle of knowledge; and lastly, the highest, that of Divine philosophy. The second method was Askesis: discipline, or practice, when the soul turned from the lower to the higher. But the best of all was the third way: the free unfolding of that spiritual life which cometh neither from study nor discipline, but from a natural good disposition. And in that state the soul had true rest[70] and joy.[71]

Here we must for the present pause.[72] Brief as this sketch of Hellenism has been, it must have brought the question vividly before

[67]The solitary exception here is 4 Esdras, where the Christian doctrine of original sin is most strongly expressed, being evidently derived from New Testament teaching. Comp. especially 4 Esdras (our Apocryphal 2 Esdras) vii. 46-53, and other passages. Wherein the hope of safety lay, appears in ch 9.

[68]Symbolised by Lot’s wife.

[69]Symbolised by Ebher, Hebrew.

[70]The Sabbath, Jerusalem.

[71]For further details on these points see Appendix II.: Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

[72]The views of Philo on the Messiah will be presented in another connection.

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the mind, whether and how far certain parts of the New Testament, especially the fourth Gospel,[73] are connected with the direction of thought described in the preceding pages. Without yielding to that school of critics, whose perverse ingenuity discerns everywhere a sinister motive or tendency in the Evangelic writers,[74] it is evident that each of them had a special object in view in constructing his narrative of the One Life; and primarily addressed himself to a special audience. If, without entering into elaborate discussion, we might, according to St. Luke 1:2, regard the narrative of St. Mark as the grand representative of that authentic narration (dihghsiV), though not by Apostles,[75] which was in circulation, and the Gospel by St. Matthew as representing the tradition handed down (the paradosiV), by the Apostolic eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,[76] we should reach the following results. Our oldest Gospel-narrative is that by St. Mark, which, addressing itself to no class in particular, sketches in rapid outlines the picture of Jesus as the Messiah, alike for all men. Next in order of time

[73]This is not the place to enter on the question of the composition, date, and authorship of the four Gospels. But as regards the point on which negative criticism has of late spoken strongest, and on which, indeed (as Weiss rightly remarks) the very existence of the Tübingen School depends—that of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel, I would refer to Weiss, Leben Jesu (1882: vol. 1. pp. 84-139), and to Dr. Salmon’s Introd. to the New Test. pp. 266-365.

[74]No one not acquainted with this literature can imagine the character of the arguments sometimes used by a certain class of critics. To say that they proceed on the most forced perversion of the natural and obvious meaning of passages, is but little. But one cannot restrain moral indignation on finding that to Evangelists and Apostles is imputed, on such grounds, not only systematic falsehood, but falsehood with the most sinister motives.

[75]I do not, of course, mean that the narration of St. Mark was not itself derived chiefly from Apostolic preaching, especially that of St. Peter. In general, the question of the authorship and source of the various Gospels must be reserved for separate treatment in another place.

[76]Comp. Mangold’s ed. of Bleek, Einl. in d. N.T. (3te Aufl. 1875), p. 346.

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comes our present Gospel by St. Matthew. It goes a step further back than that by St. Mark, and gives not only the genealogy, but the history of the miraculous birth of Jesus. Even if we had not the consensus of tradition every one must feel that this Gospel is Hebrew in its cast, in its citations from the Old Testament, and in its whole bearing. Taking its key-note from the Book of Daniel, that grand Messianic text-book of Eastern Judaism at the time, and as re-echoed in the Book of Enoch—which expresses the popular apprehension of Daniel’s Messianic idea—it presents the Messiah chiefly as the Son of Man the Son of David the Son of God. We have here the fulfilment of Old Testament law and prophecy; the realisation of Old Testament life, faith, and hope. Third in point of time is the Gospel by St. Luke, which, passing back another step, gives us not only the history of the birth of Jesus, but also that of John, the preparer of the way. It is Pauline, and addresses itself, or rather, we should say, presents the Person of the Messiah, it may be to the Jew first but certainly also to the Greek. The term which St. Luke, alone of all Gospel writers,[77] applies to Jesus, is that of the paiV or servant of God, in the sense in which Isaiah has spoken of the Messiah as the Ebhed Jehovah servant of the Lord. St. Luke’s is, so to speak, the Isaiah-Gospel, presenting the Christ in His bearing on the history of God’s Kingdom and of the world—as God’s Elect Servant in Whom He delighted. In the Old Testament, to adopt a beautiful figure,[78] the idea of the Servant of the Lord is set before us like a pyramid: at its base it is all Israel, at its central section Israel after the Spirit (the circumcised in heart), represented by David, the man after God’s own heart; while at its apex it is the Elect Servant, the Messiah.[79]

[77]With the sole exception of St. Matthew 12:18, where the expression is a quotation from the LXX. of Isaiah 42:1.

[78]First expressed by Delitzsch (Bibl. Comm. ü. d. Proph. Jes. p. 414), and then adopted by Oehler (Theol. d. A. Test. vol. 2. pp. 270-272).

[79]The two fundamental principles in the history of the Kingdom of God are selection and development. It is surely remarkable, not strange, that these are also the two fundamental truths in the history of that other Kingdom of God, Nature, if modern science has read them correctly. These two substantives would mark the facts as ascertained; the adjectives, which are added to them by a certain class of students, mark only their inferences from these facts. These facts may be true, even if as yet incomplete, although the inferences may be false. Theology should not here rashly interfere. But whatever the ultimate result, these two are certainly the fundamental facts in the history of the Kingdom of God, and, marking them as such, the devout philosopher may rest contented.

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And these three ideas, with their sequences, are presented in the third Gospel as centring in Jesus the Messiah. By the side of this pyramid is the other: the Son of Man, the Son of David, the Son of God. The Servant of the Lord of Isaiah and of Luke is the Enlightener, the Consoler, the victorious Deliverer; the Messiah or Anointed: the Prophet, the Priest, the King.

Yet another tendency—shall we say, want?—remained, so to speak, unmet and unsatisfied. That large world of latest and most promising Jewish thought, whose task it seemed to bridge over the chasm between heathenism and Judaism—the Western Jewish world, must have the Christ presented to them. For in every direction is He the Christ. And not only they, but that larger Greek world, so far as Jewish Hellenism could bring it to the threshold of the Church. This Hellenistic and Hellenic world now stood in waiting to enter it, though as it were by its northern porch, and to be baptized at its font. All this must have forced itself on the mind of—St. John—, residing in the midst of them at—Ephesus—, even as—St. Paul—’s Epistles contain almost as many allusions to Hellenism as to Rabbinism.[80] And so the fourth Gospel became, not the supplement, but the complement, of the other three.[81] There is no other Gospel more Palestinian than this in its modes of expression, allusions, and references. Yet we must all feel how thoroughly Hellenistic it also

[80]The Gnostics, to whom, in the opinion of many, so frequent references are made in the writings of St. John and St. Paul, were only an offspring (rather, as the Germans would term it, an Abart) of Alexandrianism on the one hand, and on the other of Eastern notions, which are so largely embodied in the later Kabbalah.

[81]A complement, not a supplement, as many critics put it (Ewald, Weizsäcker, and even Hengstenberg)—least of all a rectification (Godet, Evang. Joh. p. 633).

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is in its cast,[82] in what it reports and what it omits—in short, in its whole aim; how adapted to Hellenist wants its presentation of deep central truths; how suitably, in the report of His Discourses—even so far as their form is concerned—the promise was here fulfilled, of bringing all things to remembrance whatsoever He had said.[83] It is the true Light which shineth, of which the full meridian-blaze lies on the Hellenist and Hellenic world. There is Alexandrian form of thought not only in the whole conception, but in the Logos,[84] and in His presentation as the Light, the Life, the Wellspring of the world.[85]

[82]Keim (Leben Jesu von Nazara, i. a, pp. 112-114) fully recognises this; but I entirely differ from the conclusions of his analytical comparison of Philo with the fourth Gospel.

[83]St. John 14:26.

[84]The student who has carefully considered the views expressed by Philo about the Logos, and analysed, as in the Appendix, the passages in the Targumim in which the word Memra occurs, cannot fail to perceive the immense difference in the presentation of the Logos by St. John. Yet M. Renan, in an article in the Contemporary Review for September 1877, with utter disregard of the historical evidence on the question, maintains not only the identity of these three sets of ideas, but actually grounds on it his argument against the authenticity of the fourth Gospel. Considering the importance of the subject, it is not easy to speak with moderation of assertions so bold based on statements so entirely inaccurate.

[85]Dr. Bucher, whose book, Des Apostels Johannes Lehre vom Logos, deserves careful perusal, tries to trace the reason of these peculiarities as indicated in the Prologue of the fourth Gospel. Bucher differentiates at great length between the Logos of Philo and of the fourth Gospel. He sums up his views by stating that in the Prologue of St. John the Logos is presented as the fulness of Divine Light and Life. This is, so to speak, the theme, while the Gospel history is intended to present the Logos as the giver of this Divine Light and Life. While the other Evangelists ascend from the manifestation to the idea of the Son of God, St. John descends from the idea of the Logos, as expressed in the Prologue, to its concrete realisation in His history. The latest tractate (at the present writing, 1882) on the Gospel of St. John, by Dr. Müller, Die Johann. Frage, gives a good summary of the argument on both sides, and deserves the careful attention of students of the question.

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But these forms are filled in the fourth Gospel with quite other substance. God is not afar off, uncognisable by man, without properties, without name. He is the Father. Instead of a nebulous reflection of the Deity we have the Person of the Logos; not a Logos with the two potencies of goodness and power, but full of grace and truth. The Gospel of St. John also begins with a Bereshith’—but it is the theological, not the cosmic Bereshith, when the Logos was with God and was God. Matter is not pre-existent; far less is it evil.—St. John—strikes the pen through Alexandrianism when he lays it down as the fundamental fact of New Testament history that the Logos was made flesh just as St. Paul does when he proclaims the great mystery of God manifest in the flesh. Best of all, it is not by a long course of study, nor by wearing discipline, least of all by an inborn good disposition, that the soul attains the new life, but by a birth from above, by the Holy Ghost, and by simple faith which is brought within reach of the fallen and the lost.[86]

Philo had no successor. In him Hellenism had completed its cycle. Its message and its mission were ended. Henceforth it needed, like Apollos, its great representative in the Christian Church, two things: the baptism of John to the knowledge of sin and need, and to have the way of God more perfectly expounded.[87] On the other hand, Eastern Judaism had entered with Hillel on a new stage. This direction led farther and farther away from that which the New Testament had taken in following up and unfolding the spiritual elements of the Old. That development was incapable of transformation or renovation. It must go on to its final completion, and be either true, or else be swept away and destroyed.

[86]I cannot agree with Weiss (u. s., p. 122) that the great object of the fourth Gospel was to oppose the rising Gnostic movement, This may have been present to the Apostle’s mind, as evidenced in his Epistle, but the object in view could not have been mainly, nor even primarily, negative and controversial.

[87]Acts 18:24-28.

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Chapter 5—Alexandria and Rome

The Jewish Communities in the Capitals of Western Civilisation

We have spoken of Alexandria as the capital of the Jewish world in the West. Antioch was, indeed, nearer to Palestine, and its Jewish population—including the floating part of it—as numerous as that of—Alexandria—. But the wealth, the thought, and the influence of Western Judaism centred in the modern capital of the land of the Pharaohs. In those days—Greece—was the land of the past, to which the student might resort as the home of beauty and of art, the time hallowed temple of thought and of poetry. But it was also the land of desolateness and of ruins, where fields of corn waved over the remains of classic antiquity. The ancient Greeks had in great measure sunk to a nation of traders, in keen competition with the Jews. Indeed, Roman sway had levelled the ancient world, and buried its national characteristics. It was otherwise in the far East; it was otherwise also in—Egypt—.—Egypt—was not a land to be largely inhabited, or to be civilised in the then sense of the term: soil, climate, history, nature forbade it. Still, as now, and even more than now, was it the dream-land of untold attractions to the traveller. The ancient, mysterious Nile still rolled its healing waters out into the blue sea, where (so it was supposed) they changed its taste within a radius farther than the eye could reach. To be gently borne in bark or ship on its waters, to watch the strange vegetation and fauna of its banks; to gaze beyond, where they merged into the trackless desert; to wander under the shade of its gigantic monuments, or within the weird avenues of its colossal temples, to see the scroll of mysterious hieroglyphics; to note the sameness of manner and of people as of old, and to watch the unique rites of its ancient religion—this was indeed to be again in the old faraway world, and that amidst a dreaminess bewitching the senses, and a gorgeousness dazzling the imagination.[1]

We are still far out at sea, making for the port of Alexandria—the only safe shelter all along the coast of Asia and—Africa—. Quite thirty miles out the silver sheen of the lighthouse on the—island—of—Pharos[2]

[1]What charm Egypt had for the Romans may be gathered from so many of their mosaics and frescoes. Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. 2. pp. 134-136.

[2]This immense lighthouse was square up to the middle, then covered by an octagon, the top being round. The last recorded repairs to this magnificent structure of blocks of marble were made in the year 1303 of our era.

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—connected by a mole with Alexandria—is burning like a star on the edge of the horizon. Now we catch sight of the palmgroves of Pharos; presently the anchor rattles and grates on the sand, and we are ashore. What crowd of vessels of all sizes, shapes and nationalities; what a multitude of busy people; what a very Babel of languages; what a commingling of old and new world civilisation; and what a variety of wares piled up, loading or unloading!

Alexandria itself was not an old Egyptian, but a comparatively modern city; in Egypt and yet not of Egypt. Everything was in character—the city, its inhabitants, public life, art, literature, study, amusements, the very aspect of the place. Nothing original anywhere, but combination of all that had been in the ancient world, or that was at the time—most fitting place therefore to be the capital of Jewish Hellenism.

As its name indicates, the city was founded by Alexander the Great. It was built in the form of an open fan, or rather, of the outspread cloak of a Macedonian horseman. Altogether, it measured (16,360 paces) 3,160 paces more than Rome; but its houses were neither so crowded nor so many-storied. It had been a large city when Rome was still inconsiderable, and to the last held the second place in the Empire. One of the five quarters into which the city was divided, and which were named according to the first letters of the alphabet, was wholly covered by the royal palaces, with their gardens, and similar buildings, including the royal mausoleum, where the body of Alexander the Great, preserved in honey, was kept in a glass coffin. But these, and its three miles of colonnades along the principal highway, were only some of the magnificent architectural adornments of a city full of palaces. The population amounted, probably, to nearly a million, drawn from the East and West by trade, the attractions of wealth, the facilities for study, or the amusements of a singularly frivolous city. A strange mixture of elements among the people, combining the quickness and versatility of the Greek with the gravity, the conservatism, the dream-grandeur, and the luxury of the Eastern.

Three worlds met in Alexandria: Europe, Asia, and Africa; and brought to it, or fetched from it, their treasures. [71] Above all, it was a commercial city, furnished with an excellent harbour—or rather with five harbours. A special fleet carried, as tribute, from—Alexandria—to—Italy—, two-tenths of the corn produce of—Egypt—, which sufficed to feed the capital for four months of the year. A magnificent fleet it was, from the light quick sailer to those immense corn-ships which hoisted a special flag, and whose early arrival was awaited at Puteoli[3] with more eagerness than that of any modern ocean -steamer.[4] The commerce of India was in the hands of the Alexandrian shippers.[5] Since the days of the Ptolemies the Indian trade alone had increased sixfold.[6] Nor was the native industry inconsiderable. Linen goods, to suit the tastes or costumes of all countries; woolen stuffs of every hue, some curiously wrought with figures, and even scenes; glass of every shade and in every shape; paper from the thinnest sheet to the coarsest packing paper; essences, perfumeries—such were the native products. However idly or luxuriously inclined, still every one seemed busy, in a city where (as the Emperor Hadrian expressed it) money was the people’s

[3]The average passage from Alexandria to Puteoli was twelve days, the ships touching at Malta and in Sicily. It was in such a ship, the Castor and Pollux carrying wheat, that St. Paul sailed from Malta to Puteoli, where it would be among the first arrivals of the season.

[4]They bore, painted on the two sides of the prow, the emblems of the gods to whom they were dedicated, and were navigated by Egyptian pilots, the most renowned in the world. One of these vessels is described as 180 by 45 feet and of about 1,575 tons, and is computed to have returned to its owner nearly 3,000l. annually. (Comp. Friedländer, u.s. vol. 2. p. 131, &c.) And yet these were small ships compared with those built for the conveyance of marble blocks and columns, and especially of obelisks. One of these is said to have carried, besides an obelisk, 1,200 passenger, a freight of paper, nitre, pepper, linen, and a large cargo of wheat.

[5]The journey took about three months, either up the Nile, thence by caravan, and again by sea; or else perhaps by the Ptolemy Canal and the Red Sea.

[6]It included gold dust, ivory, and mother-of-pearl from the interior of Africa, spices from Arabia, pearls from the Gulf of Persia, precious stones and byssus from India, and silk from China.

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god; and every one seemed well-to-do in his own way, from the waif in the streets, who with little trouble to himself could pick up sufficient to go to the restaurant and enjoy a comfortable dinner of fresh or smoked fish with garlic, and his pudding, washed down with the favourite Egyptian barley beer, up to the millionaire banker, who owned a palace in the city and a villa by the canal that connected Alexandria with Canobus. What a jostling crowd of all nations in the streets, in the market (where, according to the joke of a contemporary, anything might be got except snow), or by the harbours; what cool shades, delicious retreats, vast halls, magnificent libraries, where the savants of Alexandria assembled and taught every conceivable branch of learning, and its far-famed physicians prescribed for the poor consumptive patients sent thither from all parts of Italy! What bustle and noise among that ever excitable, chatty conceited, vain, pleasure-loving multitude, whose highest enjoyment was the theatre and singers; what scenes on that long canal to Canobus, lined with luxurious inns, where barks full of pleasure-seekers revelled in the cool shade of the banks, or sped to Canobus, that scene of all dissipation and luxury, proverbial even in those days! And yet, close by, on the shores of Lake Mareotis’, as if in grim contrast, were the chosen retreats of that sternly ascetic Jewish party, the Therapeutae,[7] whose views and practices in so many points were kindred to those of the Essenes in Palestine!

This sketch of Alexandria will help us to understand the surroundings of the large mass of Jews settled in the Egyptian capital. Altogether more than an eighth of the population of the country (one million in 7,800,000) was Jewish. Whether or not a Jewish colony had gone into Egypt at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or even earlier, the great mass of its residents had been attracted by Alexander the Great,[8] who had granted the Jews equally exceptional privileges with the Macedonians. The later troubles of Palestine under the Syrian kings greatly swelled their number, the more so that the Ptolemies, with one exception, favoured them. Originally a special quarter had been assigned to the Jews in the

[7]On the existence of the Therapeutes comp. Art. Philo in Smith & Wace’s Dict. of Chr. Biogr. vol. 4.

[8]Mommsen (Röm. Gesch. v. p. 489) ascribes this rather to Ptolemy I.

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city—the Delta by the eastern harbour and the Canobus canal—probably alike to keep the community separate, and from its convenience for commercial purposes. The privileges which the Ptolemies had accorded to the Jews were confirmed, and even enlarged, by Julius Caesar. The export trade in grain was now in their hands, and the harbour and river police committed to their charge. Two quarters in the city are named as specially Jewish—not, however, in the sense of their being confined to them. Their Synagogues, surrounded by shady trees, stood in all parts of the city. But the chief glory of the Jewish community in Egypt, of which even the Palestinians boasted, was the great central Synagogue, built in the shape of a basilica, with double colonnade, and so large that it needed a signal for those most distant to know the proper moment for the responses. The different trade guilds sat there together, so that a stranger would at once know where to find Jewish employers or fellow-workmen.[9] In the choir of this Jewish cathedral stood seventy chairs of state, encrusted with precious stones, for the seventy elders who constituted the eldership of Alexandria, on the model of the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

It is a strange, almost inexplicable fact, that the Egyptian Jews had actually built a schismatic Temple. During the terrible Syrian persecutions in Palestine Onias, the son of the murdered High-Priest Onias III., had sought safety in Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor not only received him kindly, but gave a disused heathen temple in the town of Leontopolis for a Jewish sanctuary. Here a new Aaronic priesthood ministered, their support being derived from the revenues of the district around. The new Temple, however, resembled not that of Jerusalem either in outward appearance nor in all its internal fittings.[10] At first the Egyptian Jews were very proud of their new sanctuary, and professed to see in it the fulfilment of the prediction,[11] that five cities in the land of Egypt should speak the language of Canaan, of which one was to be called Ir-ha-Heres, which the LXX. (in their original form, or by some later emendation) altered into the city of righteousness. This temple continued from about 160 b.c. to shortly after the destruction

[9]Sukk. 51 b.

[10]Instead of the seven-branched golden candlestick there was a golden lamp, suspended from a chain of the same metal.

[11]Isaiah 19:18.

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of Jerusalem. It could scarcely be called a rival to that on Mount Moriah’, since the Egyptian Jews also owned that of Jerusalem as their central sanctuary, to which they made pilgrimages and brought their contributions,[12] while the priests at Leontopolis, before marrying, always consulted the official archives in Jerusalem to ascertain the purity of descent of their intended wives.[13] The Palestinians designated it contemptuously as the house of Chonyi (Onias), and declared the priesthood of Leontopolis incapable of serving in Jerusalem, although on a par with those who were disqualified only by some bodily defect. Offerings brought in Leontopolis were considered null, unless in the case of vows to which the name of this Temple had been expressly attached.[14] This qualified condemnation seems, however, strangely mild, except on the supposition that the statements we have quoted only date from a time when both Temples had long passed away.

Nor were such feelings unreasonable. The Egyptian Jews had spread on all sides—southward to Abyssinia and—Ethiopia—, and westward to, and beyond, the—province—of—Cyrene—. In the city of that name they formed one of the four classes into which its inhabitants were divided.[15] A Jewish inscription at Berenice, apparently dating from the year 13 b.c., shows that the Cyrenian Jews formed a distinct community under nine rulers of their own, who no doubt attended to the communal affairs—not always an easy matter, since the Cyrenian Jews were noted, if not for turbulence, yet for strong anti-Roman feeling, which more than once was cruelly quenched in blood.[16] Other inscriptions prove,[17] that in other places of their dispersion also the Jews had their own Archontes or rulers while the special direction of public worship was always

[12]Philo, ii. 646, ed. Mangey.

[13]Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 7.

[14]Men. xiii. 10, and the Gemara, 109 a and b.

[15]Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7, 2.

[16]Could there have been any such meaning in laying the Roman cross which Jesus had to bear upon a Cyrenian (St. Luke 23:26)? A symbolical meaning it certainly has, as we remember that the last Jewish rebellion (132-135 a.d.), which had Bar Cochba for its Messiah, first broke out in Cyrene. What terrible vengeance was taken on those who followed the false Christ, cannot here be told.

[17]Jewish inscriptions have also been found in Mauritania and Algiers.

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entrusted to the Archisynagogos, or chief ruler of the Synagogue both titles occurring side by side.[18] It is, to say the least, very doubtful, whether the High-Priest at Leontopolis was ever regarded as, in any real sense, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt.[19] In Alexandria, the Jews were under the rule of a Jewish Ethnarch,[20] whose authority was similar to that of the Archon of independent cities.[21] But his authority[22] was transferred, by Augustus, to the whole eldership.[23] Another, probably Roman, office, though for obvious reasons often filled by Jews, was that of the Alabarch, or rather Arabarch, who was set over the Arab population.[24] Among others, Alexander, the brother of Philo, held this post. If we may judge of the position of the wealthy Jewish families in Alexandria by that of this Alabarch, their influence must have been very great. The firm of Alexander was probably as rich as the great Jewish banking and shipping house of Saramalla in Antioch.[25] Its chief was entrusted with the management of the affairs of Antonia, the much respected sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius.[26] It was a small thing for such a man to lend King Agrippa, when his fortunes were very low, a sum of about 7,000l. with which to resort to Italy,[27] since he advanced it on the guarantee of Agrippa’s wife, whom he highly esteemed, and at the same time made provision that the money should not be all spent before the Prince met the Emperor. Besides, he had his own plans in the matter. Two of his sons married daughters of King Agrippa; while a third, at the price of apostasy, rose successively

[18]On a tombstone at Capua (Mommsen, Inscr. R. Neap. 3,657, apud Schürer, p. 629). The subject is of great importance as illustrating the rule of the Synagogue in the days of Christ. Another designation on the gravestones pathr sunagwghV seems to refer solely to age—one being described as 110 years old.

[19]Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. 1. p. 345.

[20]Marquardt (Röm. Staatsverwalt. vol. 1. p. 297). Note 5 suggests that eqnoV may here mean classes, ordo.

[21]Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2.

[22]The office itself would seem to have been continued. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.)

[23]Philo, in Flacc. ed. Mangey, ii. 527.

[24]Comp. Wesseling, de Jud. Archont. pp. 63, &c., apud Schürer, pp. 627, 628.

[25]Jos. Ant. xiv. 13. 5; War. i. 13, 5.

[26]Ant. xix. 5. 1.

[27]Ant. xviii. 6. 3.

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to the posts of Procurator of Palestine, and finally of Governor of Egypt.[28] The Temple at Jerusalem bore evidence of the wealth and munificence of this Jewish millionaire. The gold and silver with which the nine massive gates were covered, which led into the Temple, were the gift of the great Alexandrian banker.

The possession of such wealth, coupled no doubt with pride and self-assertion, and openly spoken contempt of the superstitions around,[29] would naturally excite the hatred of the Alexandria populace against the Jews. The greater number of those silly stories about the origin, early history, and religion of the Jews, which even the philosophers and historians of Rome record as genuine, originated in Egypt. A whole series of writers, beginning with Manetho,[30] made it their business to give a kind of historical travesty of the events recorded in the books of Moses. The boldest of these scribblers was Apion, to whom Josephus replied—a world-famed charlatan and liar, who wrote or lectured, with equal presumption and falseness, on every conceivable object. He was just the man to suit the Alexandrians, on whom his unblushing assurance imposed. In—Rome—he soon found his level, and the Emperor Tiberius well characterised the irrepressible boastful talker as the tinkling cymbal of the world. He had studied, seen, and heard everything—even, on three occasions, the mysterious sound on the Colossus of Memnon, as the sun rose upon it! At least, so he graved upon the Colossus itself, for the information of all generations.[31] Such was the man on whom the Alexandrians conferred the freedom of their city, to whom they entrusted their most important affairs, and whom they extolled as the victorious, the laborious, the new Homer.[32] There can be little doubt that the popular favour was partly due to Apion’s virulent attacks upon the Jews. His grotesque accounts of their history and religion held them up to contempt. But his real object was to rouse the fanaticism of the populace against the Jews. Every year, so he told them, it was the practice of the Jews to get hold

[28]Ant. xix. 5. 1; 20:5. 3.

[29]Comp., for example, such a trenchant chapter as Baruch 6., or the 2nd Fragm. of the Erythr. Sibyl, vv. 21-33.

[30]Probably about 200 b.c.

[31]Comp. Friedländer, u. s. ii. p. 155.

[32]A very good sketch of Apion is given by Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitg. vol. 2. pp. 187-195.

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of some unfortunate Hellene, whom ill-chance might bring into their hands, to fatten him for the year, and then to sacrifice him, partaking of his entrails, and burying the body, while during these horrible rites they took a fearful oath of perpetual enmity to the Greeks. These were the people who battened on the wealth of Alexandria, who had usurped quarters of the city to which they had no right, and claimed exceptional privileges; a people who had proved traitors to, and the ruin of every one who had trusted them. If the Jews he exclaimed, are citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods as the Alexandrians? And, if they wished to enjoy the protection of the Caesars, why did they not erect statues, and pay Divine honor to them?[33] There is nothing strange in these appeals to the fanaticism of mankind. In one form or another, they have only too often been repeated in all lands and ages, and, alas! by the representatives of all creeds. Well might the Jews, as Philo mourns,[34] wish no better for themselves than to be treated like other men!

We have already seen that the ideas entertained in Rome about the Jews were chiefly derived from Alexandrian sources. But it is not easy to understand, how a Tacitus, Cicero, or Pliny could have credited such absurdities as that the Jews had come from Crete (Mount Ida—Idaei = Judaei), been expelled on account of leprosy from Egypt, and emigrated under an apostate priest, Moses; or that the Sabbath-rest originated in sores, which had obliged the wanderers to stop short on the seventh day; or that the Jews worshipped the head of an ass, or else Bacchus; that their abstinence from swine’s flesh was due to remembrance and fear of leprosy, or else to the worship of that animal—and other puerilities of the like kind.[35] The educated Roman regarded the Jew with a mixture of contempt and anger, all the more keen that, according to his notions, the Jew had, since his subjection to Rome, no longer a right to his religion; and all the more bitter that, do what he might, that despised race confronted him everywhere, with a religion so uncompromising as to form a wall of separation, and with rites so exclusive as to make them not only strangers, but enemies. Such a phenomenon was nowhere else to be encountered.

[33]Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 4, 5, 6.

[34]Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf.

[35]Comp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 2-4; Plut. Sympos. iv. 5

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The Romans were intensely practical. In their view, political life and religion were not only intertwined, but the one formed part of the other. A religion apart from a political organisation, or which offered not, as a quid pro quo, some direct return from the Deity to his votaries, seemed utterly inconceivable. Every country has its own religion, argued Cicero, in his appeal for Flaccus. So long as Jerusalem was unvanquished, Judaism might claim toleration; but had not the immortal gods shown what they thought of it, when the Jewish race was conquered? This was a kind of logic that appealed to the humblest in the crowd, which thronged to hear the great orator defending his client, among others, against the charge of preventing the transport from Asia to Jerusalem of the annual Temple-tribute. This was not a popular accusation to bring against a man in such an assembly. And as the Jews—who, to create a disturbance, had (we are told) distributed themselves among the audience in such numbers, that Cicero somewhat rhetorically declared, he would fain have spoken with bated breath, so as to be only audible to the judges—listened to the great orator, they must have felt a keen pang shoot to their hearts while he held them up to the scorn of the heathen, and touched, with rough finger, their open sore, as he urged the ruin of their nation as the one unanswerable argument, which Materialism could bring against the religion of the Unseen.

And that religion—was it not, in the words of—Cicero—, a barbarous superstition and were not its adherents, as Pliny had it,[36] a race distinguished for its contempt of the gods? To begin with their theology. The Roman philosopher would sympathise with disbelief of all spiritual realities, as, on the other hand, he could understand the popular modes of worship and superstition. But what was to be said for a worship of something quite unseen, an adoration, as it seemed to him, of the clouds and of the sky, without any visible symbol, conjoined with an utter rejection of every other form of religion—Asiatic, Egyptian, Greek, Roman—and the refusal even to pay the customary Divine honor to the Caesars, as the incarnation of Roman power? Next, as to their rites. Foremost among them was the initiatory rite of circumcision, a constant subject for coarse jests. What could be the meaning of it; or of what seemed like

[36]Hist. Nat. xiii. 4.

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some ancestral veneration for the pig, or dread of it, since they made it a religious duty not to partake of its flesh? Their Sabbath-observance, however it had originated, was merely an indulgence in idleness. The fast young Roman literati would find their amusement in wandering on the Sabbath-eve through the tangled, narrow streets of the Ghetto, watching how the dim lamp within shed its unsavory light, while the inmates mumbled prayers with blanched lips;[37] or they would, like Ovid, seek in the Synagogue occasion for their dissolute amusements. The Thursday fast was another target for their wit. In short, at the best, the Jew was a constant theme of popular merriment, and the theatre would resound with laughter as his religion was lampooned, no matter how absurd the stories, or how poor the punning.[38]

And then, as the proud Roman passed on the Sabbath through the streets, Judaism would obtrude itself upon his notice, by the shops that were shut, and by the strange figures that idly moved about in holiday attire. They were strangers in a strange land, not only without sympathy with what passed around, but with marked contempt and abhorrence of it, while there was that about their whole bearing, which expressed the unspoken feeling, that the time of Rome’s fall, and of their own supremacy, was at hand. To put the general feeling in the words of Tacitus, the Jews kept close together, and were ever most liberal to one another; but they were filled with bitter hatred of all others. They would neither eat nor sleep with strangers; and the first thing which they taught their proselytes was to despise the gods, to renounce their own country, and to rend the bonds which had bound them to parents, children or kindred. To be sure, there was some ground of distorted truth in these charges. For, the Jew, as such, was only intended for Palestine. By a necessity, not of his own making, he was now, so to speak, the negative element in the heathen world; yet one which, do what he might, would always obtrude itself upon public notice. But the Roman satirists went further. They accused the Jews of such hatred of all other religionists, that they would not even show the way to any who worshipped otherwise, nor point out the cooling spring to the thirsty.[39]

[37]Persius v. 184.

[38]Comp. the quotation of such scenes in the Introd. to the Midrash on Lamentations.

[39]Juv. Sat. xiv. 103, 104.

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According to Tacitus, there was a political and religious reason for this. In order to keep the Jews separate from all other nations, Moses had given them rites, contrary to those of any other race, that they might regard as unholy what was sacred to others, and as lawful what they held in abomination.[40] Such a people deserved neither consideration nor pity; and when the historian tells how thousands of their number had been banished by Tiberius to Sardinia, he dismisses the probability of their perishing in that severe climate with the cynical remark, that it entailed a poor loss[41] (vile damnum).

Still, the Jew was there in the midst of them. It is impossible to fix the date when the first Jewish wanderers found their way to the capital of the world. We know, that in the wars under Pompey, Cassius, and Antonius, many were brought captive to Rome, and sold as slaves. In general, the Republican party was hostile, the Caesars were friendly, to the Jews. The Jewish slaves in Rome proved an unprofitable and troublesome acquisition. They clung so tenaciously to their ancestral customs, that it was impossible to make them conform to the ways of heathen households.[42] How far they would carry their passive resistance, appears from a story told by Josephus,[43] about some Jewish priests of his acquaintance, who, during their captivity in Rome, refused to eat anything but figs and nuts, so as to avoid the defilement of Gentile food.[44] Their Roman masters deemed it prudent to give their Jewish slaves their freedom, either at a small ransom, or even without it. These freedmen (liberti) formed the nucleus of the Jewish community in Rome, and in great measure determined its social character. Of course they were, as always, industrious, sober, pushing. In course of time many of them acquired wealth. By-and-by Jewish immigrants of greater distinction swelled their number. Still their social position was inferior to that of their co-religionists in other lands. A Jewish population so large as 40,000 in the time of Augustus, and 60,000 in that of

[40]Hist. v. 13.

[41]Ann. ii. 85, Comp. Suet. Tib. 36.

[42]Philo, Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf. p. 101.

[43]Life 3.

[44]Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. p. 119), following up the suggestions of Wieseler (Chron. d. Apost. Zeitalt. pp. 384, 402, etc.), regards these priests as the accusers of St. Paul, who brought about his martyrdom.

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Tiberius, would naturally included all ranks—merchants, bankers, literati, even actors.[45] In a city which offered such temptations, they would number among them those of every degree of religious profession; nay, some who would not only imitate the habits of those around, but try to outdo their gross licentiousness.[46] Yet, even so, they would vainly endeavor to efface the hateful mark of being Jews.

Augustus had assigned to the Jews as their special quarter the fourteenth region across the Tiber, which stretched from the slope of the Vatican onwards and across the Tiber-island, where the boats from Ostia were wont to unload. This seems to have been their poor quarter, chiefly inhabited by hawkers, sellers of matches,[47] glass, old clothes and second-hand wares. The Jewish burying-ground in that quarter[48] gives evidence of their condition. The whole appointments and the graves are mean. There is neither marble nor any trace of painting, unless it be a rough representation of the seven-branched candlestick in red coloring. Another Jewish quarter was by the Porta Capena, where the Appian Way entered the city. Close by, the ancient sanctuary of Egeria was utilized at the time of Juvenal[49] as a Jewish hawking place. But there must have been richer Jews also in that neighborhood, since the burying-place there discovered has paintings—some even of mythological figures, of which the meaning has not yet been ascertained. A third Jewish burying-ground was near the ancient Christian catacombs.

But indeed, the Jewish residents in Rome must have spread over every quarter of the city—even the best—to judge by the location of their Synagogues. From inscriptions, we have been made acquainted not only with the existence, but with the names, of not fewer than seven of these Synagogues. Three of them respectively bear the names of Augustus, Agrippa, and Volumnius, either as their patrons, or because the worshippers were chiefly their attendants and clients; while two of them derived their names from

[45]Comp., for example, Mart. 11:94; Jos. Life 3.

[46]Martialis, u. s. The Anchialus by whom the poet would have the Jew swear, is a corruption of Anochi Elohim (I am God) in Exodus 20:2. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Isr. vol. 7. p. 27.

[47]Mart. 1:41; 12:57.

[48]Described by Bosio, but since unknown. Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. 3. pp. 510, 511.

[49]Sat. iii. 13; 6:542.

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the Campus Martius, and the quarter Subura in which they stood.[50] The Synagoge Elaias may have been so called from bearing on its front the device of an olive-tree, a favourite, and in Rome specially significant, emblem of Israel, whose fruit, crushed beneath heavy weight, would yield the precious oil by which the Divine light would shed its brightness through the night of heathendom.[51] Of course, there must have been other Synagogues besides those whose names have been discovered.

One other mode of tracking the footsteps of Israel’s wanderings seems strangely significant. It is by tracing their records among the dead, reading them on broken tombstones, and in ruined monuments. They are rude, and the inscriptions—most of them in bad Greek, or still worse Latin, none in Hebrew—are like the stammering of strangers. Yet what a contrast between the simple faith and earnest hope which they express, and the grim proclamation of utter disbelief in any future to the soul, not unmixed with language of coarsest materialism, on the graves of so many of the polished Romans! Truly the pen of God in history has, as so often, ratified the sentence which a nation had pronounced upon itself. That civilisation was doomed which could inscribe over its dead such words as: To eternal sleep; To perpetual rest; or more coarsely express it thus, I was not, and I became; I was, and am no more. Thus much is true; who says other, lies; for I shall not be adding, as it were by way of moral, And thou who livest, drink, play, come. Not so did God teach His people; and, as we pick our way among these broken stones, we can understand how a religion, which proclaimed a hope so different, must have spoken to the hearts of many even at Rome, and much more, how that blessed assurance of life and immortality, which Christianity afterwards brought, could win its thousands, though it were at the cost of poverty, shame, torture, and the arena.

Wandering from graveyard to graveyard, and deciphering the records of the dead, we can almost read the history of Israel in the days of the Caesars, or when Paul the prisoner set foot on the soil of Italy. When St. Paul, on the journey of the Castor and Pollux touched at Syracuse, he would, during his stay of three days, find himself in the midst of a Jewish community, as we learn from

[50]Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. 3. p. 510.

[51]Midr. R. on Exodus 36.

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an inscription. When he disembarked at Puteoli, he was in the oldest Jewish settlement next to that of Rome,[52] where the loving hospitality of Christian Israelites constrained him to tarry over a Sabbath. As he went towards Rome and reached Capua’, he would meet Jews there, as we infer from the tombstone of one Alfius Juda who had been Archon of the Jews, and Archisynagogus in Capua. As he neared the city, he found in Anxur (Terracina) a Synagogue.[53] In Rome itself the Jewish community was organized as in other places.[54] It sounds strange, as after these many centuries we again read the names of the Archons of their various Synagogues, all Roman, such as Claudius, Asteris, Julian (who was Archon alike of the Campesian and the Agrippesian Synagogue priest, the son of Julian the Archisynagogus, or chief of the eldership of the Augustesian Synagogue). And so in other places. On these tombstones we find names of Jewish Synagogue-dignitaries, in every centre of population, in Pompeii, in Venusia, the birthplace of Horace; in Jewish catacombs; and similarly Jewish inscriptions in Africa, in Asia, in the islands of the Mediterranean, in AEgina, in Patrae, in Athens. Even where as yet records of their early settlements have not been discovered, we still infer their presence, as we remember the almost incredible extent of Roman commerce, which led to such large settlements in Britain, or as we discover among the tombstones those of Syrian merchants, as in Spain (where St. Paul hoped to preach, no doubt, also to his own countrymen), throughout Gaul, and even in the remotest parts of Germany.[55] Thus the statements of Josephus and of Philo, as to the dispersion of Israel throughout all lands of the known world, are fully borne out.

But the special importance of the Jewish community in Rome lay in its contiguity to the seat of the government of the world, where every movement could be watched and influenced, and where it could lend support to the wants and wishes of that compact body which, however widely scattered, was one in heart and feeling, in thought and purpose, in faith and practice, in suffering and in prosperity.[56]

[52]Jos. Ant. xvii. 12. 1; War ii. 7. 1.

[53]Comp. Cassel, in Ersch u. Gruber’s Encyclop. 2d sect. vol. 27. p. 147.

[54]Acts 28:17.

[55]Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. 2. pp. 17-204 passim.

[56]It was probably this unity of Israelitish interests which Cicero had in view (Pro Flacco, 28) when he took such credit for his boldness in daring to stand up against the Jews—unless, indeed, the orator only meant to make a point in favour of his client.

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Thus, when upon the death of Herod a deputation from Palestine appeared in the capital to seek the restoration of their Theocracy under a Roman protectorate,[57] no less than 8,000 of the Roman Jews joined it. And in case of need they could find powerful friends, not only among the Herodian princes, but among court favourites who were Jews, like the actor of whom Josephus speaks;[58] among those who were inclined towards Judaism, like Poppaea, the dissolute wife of Nero, whose coffin as that of a Jewess was laid among the urns of the emperors;[59] or among real proselytes, like those of all ranks who, from superstition or conviction, had identified themselves with the Synagogue.[60]

In truth, there was no law to prevent the spread of Judaism. Excepting the brief period when Tiberius[61] banished the Jews from Rome and sent 4,000 of their number to fight the banditti in Sardinia, the Jews enjoyed not only perfect liberty, but exceptional privileges. In the reign of Caesar and of Augustus we have quite a series of edicts, which secured the full exercise of their religion and their communal rights.[62] In virtue of these they were not to be disturbed in their religious ceremonies, nor in the observance of their sabbaths and feasts. The annual Temple-tribute was allowed to be transported to Jerusalem, and the alienation of these funds by the civil magistrates treated as sacrilege. As the Jews objected to bear arms, or march, on the Sabbath, they were freed from military service. On similar grounds, they were not obliged to appear in courts of law on their holy days. Augustus even ordered that, when the public distribution of corn

[57]Jos. Ant. xvii. 11. 1; War. ii. 6. 1.

[58]Life 3.

[59]Schiller (Gesch. d. Röm. Kaiserreichs, p. 583) denies that Poppaea was a proselyte. It is, indeed, true, as he argues, that the fact of her entombment affords no absolute evidence of this, if taken by itself; but comp. Jos. Ant. xx. 8. 11; Life 3.

[60]The question of Jewish proselytes will be treated in another place.

[61]19 a.d.

[62]Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, passim, and xvi. 6. These edicts are collated in Krebs. Decreta Romanor. pro Jud. facta, with long comments by the author, and by Levyssohn..

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or of money among the citizens fell on a Sabbath, the Jews were to receive their share on the following day. In a similar spirit the Roman authorities confirmed a decree by which the founder of Antioch, Seleucus I. (Nicator),[63] had granted the Jews the right of citizenship in all the cities of Asia Minor and Syria which he had built, and the privilege of receiving, instead of the oil that was distributed, which their religion forbade them to use,[64] an equivalent in money.[65] These rights were maintained by Vespasian and Titus even after the last Jewish war, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of these cities. No wonder, that at the death of Caesar[66] the Jews of Rome gathered for many nights, waking strange feelings of awe in the city, as they chanted in mournful melodies their Psalms around the pyre on which the body of their benefactor had been burnt, and raised their pathetic dirges.[67] The measures of Sejanus, and ceased with his sway. Besides, they were the outcome of public feeling at the time against all foreign rites, which had been roused by the vile conduct of the priests of Isis towards a Roman matron, and was again provoked by a gross imposture upon Fulvia, a noble Roman proselyte, on the part of some vagabond Rabbis. But even so, there is no reason to believe that literally all Jews had left Rome. Many would find means to remain secretly behind. At any rate, twenty years afterwards Philo found a large community there, ready to support him in his mission on behalf of his Egyptian countrymen. Any temporary measures against the Jews can, therefore, scarcely be regarded as a serious interference with their privileges, or a cessation of the Imperial favour shown to them.

[63]Ob. 280 b.c.

[64]Ab. Sar ii. 6.

[65]Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 1.

[66]44 b.c.

[67]Suet. Caes. 84.

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Chapter 6—Political and Religious Life of the Jewish Dispersion in the West

Their Union in the Great Hope of the Coming Deliverer

It was not only in the capital of the Empire that the Jews enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship. Many in Asia Minor could boast of the same privilege.[1] The Seleucidic rulers of Syria had previously bestowed kindred privileges on the Jews in many places. Thus, they possessed in some cities twofold rights: the status of Roman and the privileges of Asiatic citizenship. Those who enjoyed the former were entitled to a civil government of their own, under archons of their choosing, quite independent of the rule and tribunals of the cities in which they lived. As instances, we may mention the Jews of Sardis, Ephesus, Delos, and apparently also of Antioch. But, whether legally entitled to it or not, they probably everywhere claimed the right of self-government, and exercised it, except in times of persecution. But, as already stated, they also possessed, besides this, at least in many places, the privileges of Asiatic citizenship, to the same extent as their heathen fellow-citizens. This twofold status and jurisdiction might have led to serious complications, if the archons had not confined their authority to strictly communal interests,[2] without interfering with the ordinary administration of justice, and the Jews willingly submitted to the sentences pronounced by their own tribunals.

But, in truth, they enjoyed even more than religious liberty and communal privileges. It was quite in the spirit of the times, that potentates friendly to Israel bestowed largesses alike on the Temple in Jerusalem, and on the Synagogues in the provinces. The magnificent porch of the Temple was adorned with many such dedicated gifts. Thus, we read of repeated costly offerings by the Ptolemies, of a golden wreath which Sosius offered after he had taken Jerusalem in conjunction with Herod, and of rich flagons which Augustus and his wife had given to the Sanctuary.[3] And, although this same Emperor praised his grandson for leaving Jerusalem unvisited on his journey from Egypt to Syria, yet he himself made provision for a daily sacrifice on his behalf, which only ceased when the

[1]Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, passim; Acts 22:25-29.

[2]Comp. Acts 19:14 9:2.

[3]Jos. Ant. xii. 2. 5; 13:3. 4; Ag. Ap. ii. 5; Ant. xiv. 16. 4; War v. 13.

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last war against Rome was proclaimed.[4] Even the circumstance that there was a Court of the Gentiles with marble screen beautifully ornamented, bearing tablets which, in Latin and Greek, warned Gentiles not to proceed further,[5] proves that the Sanctuary was largely attended by others than Jews, or, in the words of Josephus, that it was held in reverence by nations from the ends of the earth.[6]

In Syria also, where, according to Josephus, the largest number of Jews lived,[7] they experienced special favour. In Antioch their rights and immunities were recorded on tables of brass.[8]

But, indeed, the capital of Syria was one of their favourite resorts. It will be remembered what importance attached to it in the early history of the Christian Church. Antioch was the third city of the Empire, and lay just outside what the Rabbinists designated as Syria and still regarded as holy ground. Thus it formed, so to speak, an advanced post between the Palestinian and the Gentile world. Its chief Synagogue was a magnificent building, to which the successors of Antiochus Epiphanes had given the spoils which that monarch had brought from the Temple. The connection between Jerusalem and Antioch was very close. All that occurred in that city was eagerly watched in the Jewish capital. The spread of Christianity there must have excited deep concern. Careful as the Talmud is not to afford unwelcome information, which might have led to further mischief, we know that three of the principal Rabbis went thither on a mission—we can scarcely doubt for the purpose of arresting the progress of Christianity. Again, we find at a later period a record of religious controversy in—Antioch—between Rabbis and Christians.[9] Yet the Jews of Antioch were strictly Hellenistic, and on one occasion a great Rabbi was unable to find among them a copy of even the Book of Esther in Hebrew, which, accordingly, he had to write out from memory for his use in their Synagogue. A fit place this great border-city, crowded by Hellenists, in close connection with Jerusalem, to be the birthplace of the name Christian to send

[4]Jos. War ii. 10. 4; 2:17.

[5]One of these tablets has lately been excavated. Comp. The Temple: its Ministry and Services in the Time of Christ p. 24.

[6]War iv. 4. 3; comp. War ii. 17. 2-4.

[7]War, vii. 3. 3.

[8]War, vii. 5. 2.

[9]Comp. generally Neubauer, Géogr. du Talmud, pp. 312, 313.

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forth a Paul on his mission to the Gentile world, and to obtain for it a charter of citizenship far nobler than that of which the record was graven on tablets of brass.

But, whatever privileges Israel might enjoy, history records an almost continuous series of attempts, on the part of the communities among whom they lived, to deprive them not only of their immunities, but even of their common rights. Foremost among the reasons of this antagonism we place the absolute contrariety between heathenism and the Synagogue, and the social isolation which Judaism rendered necessary. It was avowedly unlawful for the Jew even to keep company, or come unto one of another nation.[10] To quarrel with this, was to find fault with the law and the religion which made him a Jew. But besides, there was that pride of descent, creed, enlightenment, and national privileges, which St. Paul so graphically sums up as making boast of God and of the law.[11] However differently they might have expressed it, Philo and Hillel would have been at one as to the absolute superiority of the Jew as such. Pretensions of this kind must have been the more provocative, that the populace at any rate envied the prosperity which Jewish industry, talent, and capital everywhere secured. Why should that close, foreign corporation possess every civic right, and yet be free from many of its burdens? Why should their meetings be excepted from the collegia illicita? Why should they alone be allowed to export part of the national wealth, to dedicate it to their superstition in Jerusalem? The Jew could not well feign any real interest in what gave its greatness to Ephesus, it attractiveness to Corinth, its influence to Athens. He was ready to profit by it; but his inmost thought must have been contempt, and all he wanted was quietness and protection in his own pursuits. What concern had he with those petty squabbles, ambitions, or designs, which agitated the turbulent populace in those Grecian cities? What cared he for their popular meetings and noisy discussions? The recognition of the fact that, as Jews, they were strangers in a strange land, made them so loyal to the ruling powers, and procured them the protection of kings and Caesars. But it also roused the hatred of the populace.

That such should have been the case, and these widely scattered members have been united

[10]Acts 10:28.

[11]Comp. Romans 2:17-24.

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in one body, is a unique fact in history. Its only true explanation must be sought in a higher Divine impulse. The links which bound them together were: a common creed, a common life, a common centre, and a common hope.

Wherever the Jew sojourned, or however he might differ from his brethren, Monotheism, the Divine mission of Moses, and the authority of the Old Testament, were equally to all unquestioned articles of belief. It may well have been that the Hellenistic Jew, living in the midst of a hostile, curious, and scurrilous population, did not care to exhibit over his house and doorposts, at the right of the entrance, the Mezuzah,[12] which enclosed the folded parchment that, on twenty-two lines, bore the words from Deuteronomy 4:4-9 and 11:13-21, or to call attention by their breadth to the Tephillin,[13] or phylacteries on his left arm and forehead, or even to make observable the Tsitsith,[14] or fringes on the borders of his garments.[15] Perhaps, indeed, all these observances may at that time not have been deemed incumbent on every Jew.[16] At any rate, we do not find mention of them in heathen

[12]Ber. iii. 3; Meg. i. 8; Moed K. iii. 4; Men. iii. 7. Comp. Jos. Ant. iv. 8. 13; and the tractate Mezuzah in Kirchheim, Septem libri Talmud. parvi Hierosol. pp. 12-17.

[13]St. Matthew 23:5; Ber. i. 3; Shabb. vi. 2; 7:3; 16. 1; Er. x. 1, 2; Sheq. iii. 2; Meg. i. 8; 4:8; Moed. Q. iii. 4; Sanh. xi. 3; Men. iii. 7; 4:1; Kel. xviii. 8; Miqv. x. 3; yad. iii. 3. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tephillin, u. s. pp. 18-21.

[14]Moed K. iii. 4; Eduy. iv. 10; Men. iii. 7; 4:1. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tsitsith, u. s. pp. 22-24.

[15]The Tephillin enclosed a transcript of Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21. The Tsitsith were worn in obedience to the injunction in Numbers 15:37 etc.; Deuteronomy 22:12 (comp. St. Matthew 9:20; 14:36; St. Mark 5:27; St. Luke 8:44).

[16]It is remarkable that Aristeas seems to speak only of the phylacteries on the arm, and Philo of those for the head, while the LXX. takes the command entirely in a metaphorical sense. This has already been pointed out in that book of gigantic learning, Spencer, De Leg. Hebrews 1213. Frankel (Uber d. Einfl. d. Pal. Exeg., pp. 89, 90) tries in vain to controvert the statement. The insufficiency of his arguments has been fully shown by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Volk. Isr. vol. 3. p. 224).

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writers. Similarly, they could easily keep out of view, or they may not have had conveniences for, their prescribed purifications. But in every place, as we have abundant evidence, where there were at least ten Batlanim—male householders who had leisure to give themselves to regular attendance—they had, from ancient times,[17] one, and, if possible, more Synagogues.[18] Where there was no Synagogue there was at least a Proseuche,[19][20] open sky, after the form of a theatre, generally outside the town, near a river or the sea, for the sake of lustrations. These, as we know from classical writers, were well known to the heathen, and even frequented by them. Their Sabbath observance, their fasting on Thursdays, their Day of Atonement, their laws relating to food, and their pilgrimages to Jerusalem—all found sympathisers among Judaising Gentiles.[21] They even watched to see, how the Sabbath lamp was kindled, and the solemn prayers spoken which marked the beginning of the Sabbath.[22] But to the Jew the Synagogue was the bond of union throughout the world. There, on Sabbath and feast days they met to read, from the same Lectionary, the same Scripture-lessons which their brethren read throughout the world, and to say, in the words of the same liturgy, their common prayers, catching echoes of the gorgeous Temple-services in Jerusalem. The heathen must have been struck with awe as they listened, and watched in the gloom of the Synagogue the mysterious light at the far curtained end, where the sacred oracles were reverently kept, wrapped in costly coverings. Here the stranger Jew also would find himself at home: the same arrangements as in his own land, and the well-known services and prayers. A hospitable welcome at the Sabbath-meal, and in many a home, would be pressed on him, and ready aid be proffered in work or trial.

[17]Acts 15:21.

[18]sunagwgh Jos. Ant. xix. 6. 3; War, ii. 14. 4, 5; 7:3. 3; Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, ed. Mangey, ii. p. 458;s unagwgion Philo, Ad Caj. ii. p. 591; sabbateion Jos. Ant. xvi. 66. 2 proseukthrion Philo, Vita Mosis, lib. iii., ii. p. 168.

[19]Acts 16:13.

[20]proseuch Jos. Ant. xiv. 10 23, life 54; Philo, In Flacc. ii. p. 523; Ad Caj. ii. pp. 565, 596; Epiphan. Haer. 1. xxx. 1. Comp. Juven. Sat. iii. 296: Ede ubi consistas? in qua te quaero proseucha?

[21]Comp., among others, Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 76; Juv. Sat. xvi. 96, 97; Hor. Sat. i. 5. 100; 9. 70; Suet. Aug. 93.

[22]Persius v. 180.

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For, deepest of all convictions was that of their common centre; strongest of all feelings was the love which bound them to Palestine and to Jerusalem, the city of God, the joy of all the earth, the glory of His people Israel. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth Hellenist and Eastern equally realised this. As the soil of his native land, the deeds of his people, or the graves of his fathers draw the far-off wanderer to the home of his childhood, or fill the mountaineer in his exile with irrepressible longing, so the sounds which the Jew heard in his Synagogue, and the observances which he kept. Nor was it with him merely matter of patriotism, of history, or of association. It was a religious principle, a spiritual hope. No truth more firmly rooted in the consciousness of all, than that in Jerusalem alone men could truly worship.[23] As Daniel of old had in his hour of worship turned towards the Holy City, so in the Synagogue and in his prayers every Jew turned towards Jerusalem; and anything that might imply want of reverence, when looking in that direction, was considered a grievous sin. From every Synagogue in the Diaspora the annual Temple-tribute went up to Jerusalem,[24] no doubt often accompanied by rich votive offerings. Few, who could undertake or afford the journey, but had at some time or other gone up to the Holy City to attend one of the great feasts.[25] Philo, who was held by the same spell as the most bigoted Rabbinist, had himself been one of those deputed by his fellow-citizens to offer prayers and sacrifices in the great Sanctuary.[26] Views and feelings of this kind help us to understand, how, on some great feast, as Josephus states on sufficient authority, the population of Jerusalem—within its ecclesiastical boundaries—could have swelled to the enormous number of nearly three millions.[27]

And still, there

[23]St. John 4:20.

[24]Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2; 16:6, passium; Philo, De Monarchia, ed. Mangey, ii. p. 224; Ad Caj. ii. p. 568; Contra Flacc. ii. p. 524.

[25]Philo, De Monarchia, ii. p. 223.

[26]Philo, in a fragment preserved in Euseb., Praepar. Ev. viii. 13. What the Temple was in the estimation of Israel, and what its loss boded, not only to them, but to the whole world, will be shown in a later part of this book.

[27]War vi. 9. 3; comp. ii. 14. 3

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was an even stronger bond in their common hope. That hope pointed them all, wherever scattered, back to Palestine. To them the coming of the Messiah undoubtedly implied the restoration of Israel’s kingdom, and, as a first part in it, the return of the dispersed.[28] Indeed, every devout Jew prayed, day by day: Proclaim by Thy loud trumpet our deliverance, and raise up a banner to gather our dispersed, and gather us together from the four ends of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O Lord! Who gatherest the outcasts of Thy people Israel.[29] That prayer included in its generality also the lost ten tribes. So, for example, the prophecy[30] was rendered: They hasten hither, like a bird out of Egypt—referring to—Israel—of old; and like a dove out of the land of Assyria’—referring to the ten tribes.[31][32] And thus even these wanderers, so long lost, were to be reckoned in the field of the Good Shepherd.[33]

It is worth while to trace, how universally and warmly both Eastern and Western Judaism cherished this hope of all Israel’s return to their own land. The Targumim bear repeated reference to it;[34] and although there may be question as to the exact date of these paraphrases, it cannot be doubted, that in this respect they represented the views of the Synagogue at the time of Jesus. For the same reason we may gather from the Talmud and earliest commentaries, what Israel’s hope was in regard to the return of the dispersed.[35]

[28]Even Maimonides, in spite of his desire to minimise the Messianic expectancy, admits this.

[29]This is the tenth of the eighteen (or rather nineteen) benedictions in the daily prayers. Of these the first and the last three are certainly the oldest. But this tenth also dates from before the destruction of Jerusalem. Comp. Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Juden, p. 368.

[30]Hosea 11:11.

[31]Midr. On Cant. i. 15, ed. Warshau, p. 11b.

[32]Comp. Jer. Sanh. x. 6; Sanh. 110 b: Yalk. Shim.

[33]The suggestion is made by Castelli, Il Messia, p. 253.

[34]Notably in connection with Exodus 12:42 (both in the Pseudo-Jon. And Jer. Targum); Numbers 24:7 (Jer. Targ.); Deuteronomy 30:4 (targ. Ps.-Jon.); Isaiah 14:29; Jeremiah 33:13; Hosea 14:7; Zechariah 10:6. Dr. Drummond, in his Jewish Messiah p. 335, quotes from the Targum on Lamentations. But this dates from long after the Talmudic period.

[35]As each sentence which follows would necessitate one or more references to different works, the reader, who may be desirous to verify the statements in the text, is generally referred to Castelli, u. s. pp. 251-255.

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It was a beautiful idea to liken Israel to the olive-tree, which is never stripped of its leaves.[36] The storm of trial that had swept over it was, indeed, sent in judgment, but not to destroy, only to purify. Even so, Israel’s persecutions had served to keep them from becoming mixed with the Gentiles. Heaven and earth might be destroyed, but not Israel’; and their final deliverance would far outstrip in marvellousness that from Egypt. The winds would blow to bring together the dispersed; nay, if there were a single Israelite in a land, however distant, he would be restored. With every honour would the nations bring them back. The patriarchs and all the just would rise to share in the joys Patrae of the new possession of their land; new hymns as well as the old ones would rise to the praise of God. Nay, the bounds of the land would be extended far beyond what they had ever been, and made as wide as originally promised to Abraham. Nor would that possession be ever taken from them, nor those joys be ever succeeded by sorrows.[37] In view of such general expectations we cannot fail to mark with what wonderful sobriety the Apostles put the question to Jesus: Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?[38]

Hopes and expectations such as these are expressed not only in Talmudical writings. We find them throughout that very interesting Apocalyptic class of literature, the Pseudepigrapha, to which reference has already been made. The two earliest of them, the Book of Enoch and the Sibylline Oracles, are equally emphatic on this subject. The seer in the Book of Enoch beholds Israel in the Messianic time as coming in carriages, and as borne on the wings of the wind from East, and West, and

[36]Men. 53 b.

[37]The fiction of two Messiahs—one the Son of David, the other the Son of Joseph, the latter being connected with the restoration of the ten tribes—has been conclusively shown to be the post-Christian date (comp. Schöttgen, Horae Hebrews 1. p. 359; and Wünsche, Leiden d. Mess. p. 109). Possibly it was invented to find an explanation for Zechariah 12:10 (comp. Succ. 52 a), just as the Socinian doctrine of the assumption of Christ into heaven at the beginning of His ministry was invented to account for St. John 3:13.

[38]Acts 1:6.

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South.[39] Fuller details of that happy event are furnished by the Jewish Sibyl. In her utterances these three events are connected together: the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Temple,[40] and the restoration of the dispersed,[41] when all nations would bring their wealth to the House of God.[42][43] The latter trait specially reminds us of their Hellenistic origin. A century later the same joyous confidence, only perhaps more clearly worded, appears in the so-called Psalter of Solomon. Thus the seventeenth Psalm bursts into this strain: Blessed are they who shall live in those days—in the reunion of the tribes, which God brings about’.[44] And no wonder, since they are the days when the King, the Son of David[45] having purged Jerusalem[46] and destroyed the heathen by the word of His mouth,[47] would gather together a holy people which He would rule with justice, and judge the tribes of His people,[48] dividing them over the land according to tribes; when no stranger would any longer dwell among them.[49]

Another pause, and we reach the time when Jesus the Messiah appeared. Knowing the characteristics of that time, we scarcely wonder that the Book of Jubilees, which dates from that period, should have been Rabbinic in its cast rather than Apocalyptic. Yet even there the reference to the future glory is distinct. Thus we are told, that, though for its wickedness Israel had been scattered, God would gather them all from the midst of the heathen build among them His Sanctuary, and dwell with them. That Sanctuary was to be forever and ever, and God would appear to the eye of every one, and every one acknowledge that He was the God of Israel, and the Father of all the Children of Jacob, and King upon Mount Zion, from everlasting to everlasting. And Zion and Jerusalem shall be holy.[50] When listening

[39]Book of En. ch 57.; comp. xc. 33.

[40]B. iii. 286-294; comp. B. v. 414-433.

[41]B. iii. 732-735.

[42]B. iii. 766-783.

[43]M. Maurice Vernes (Hist. Des Idées Messian. pp. 43-119) maintains that the writers of Enoch and Or. Sib. 3 expected this period under the rule of the Maccabees, and regarded one of them as the Messiah. It implies a peculiar reading of history, and a lively imagination, to arrive at such a conclusion.

[44]Ps. of Sol. vxii. 50; comp. also Psalm 11.

[45]Ps. Sal. xviii. 23.

[46]v. 25.

[47]v. 27.

[48]v. 28.

[49]vv. 30, 31.

[50]Book of Jub. Ch. 1.; comp. also ch 23.

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to this language of, perhaps, a contemporary of Jesus, we can in some measure understand the popular indignation which such a charge would call forth, as that the Man of Nazareth had proposed to destroy the Temple,[51] or that he thought merely of the children of Jacob.

There is an ominous pause of a century before we come to the next work of this class, which bears the title of the Fourth Book of Esdras. That century had been decisive in the history of Israel. Jesus had lived and died; His Apostles had gone forth to bear the tidings of the new Kingdom of God; the Church had been founded and separated from the Synagogue; and the Temple had been destroyed, the Holy City laid waste, and Israel undergone sufferings, compared with which the former troubles might almost be forgotten. But already the new doctrine had struck its roots deep alike in Eastern and in Hellenistic soil. It were strange indeed if, in such circumstances, this book should not have been different from any that had preceded it; stranger still, if earnest Jewish minds and ardent Jewish hearts had remained wholly unaffected by the new teaching, even though the doctrine of the Cross still continued a stumbling-block, and the Gospel announcement a rock of offence. But perhaps we could scarcely have been prepared to find, as in the Fourth Book of Esdras, doctrinal views which were wholly foreign to Judaism, and evidently derived from the New Testament, and which, in logical consistency, would seem to lead up to it.[52] The greater part of the book may be described as restless tossing, the seer being agitated by the problem and the consequences of sin, which here for the first and only time is presented as in the New Testament; by the question, why there are so few who are saved; and especially by what to a Jew must have seemed the inscrutable, terrible mystery of Israel’s sufferings and banishment.[53]

[51]St. John 2:19.

[52]The doctrinal part of IV. Esdras may be said to be saturated with the dogma of original sin, which is wholly foreign to the theology alike of Rabbinic and Hellenistic Judaism. Comp. Vis. 1. ch 3:21, 22; 4:30, 38; Vis. 3. ch 6:18, 19 (ed. Fritzsche, p. 607); 33-41; 7:46-48; 8:34-35.

[53]It almost seems as if there were a parallelism between this book and the Epistle to the Romans, which in its dogmatic part, seems successively to take up these three subjects, although from quite another point of view. How different the treatment is, need not be told.

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Yet, so far as we can see, no other way of salvation is indicated than that by works and personal righteousness. Throughout there is a tone of deep sadness and intense earnestness. It almost seems sometimes, as if one heard the wind of the new dispensation sweeping before it the withered leaves of Israel’s autumn. Thus far for the principal portion of the book. The second, or Apocalyptic, part, endeavors to solve the mystery of Israel s state by foretelling their future. Here also there are echoes of New Testament utterances. What the end is to be, we are told in unmistakable language. His Son Whom the Highest has for a long time preserved, to deliver the creature by Him, is suddenly to appear in the form of a Man. From His mouth shall proceed alike woe, fire, and storm, which are the tribulations of the last days. And as they shall gather for war against Him, He shall stand on Mount Zion’, and the Holy City shall come down from heaven, prepared and ready, and He shall destroy all His enemies. But a peaceable multitude shall now be gathered to Him. These are the ten tribes, who, to separate themselves from the ways of the heathen, had wandered far away, miraculously helped, a journey of one and a half years, and who were now similarly restored by God to their own land. But as for the Son or those who accompanied him, no one on earth would be able to see or know them, till the day of His appearing.[54][55]

It seems scarcely necessary to complete the series of testimony by referring in detail to a book, called The Prophecy and Assumption of Moses and to what is known as the Apocalypse of Baruch, the servant of Jeremiah. Both date from probably a somewhat later period than the Fourth Book of Esdras, and both are fragmentary. The one distinctly anticipates the return of the ten tribes;[56] the other, in the letter to the nine and a half tribes, far beyond the Euphrates,[57] with which the book closes, preserves an ominous silence on that point, or rather alludes to it in language which so strongly reminds us of the adverse opinion expressed in the Talmud, that we cannot help suspecting some internal connection between the two.[58]

[54]Vis. 6. ch 13:27-52.

[55]The better reading is in tempore diei ejus. (v. 52).’

[56]Prophet. et Ass. Mos. iv. 7-14; 7:20.

[57]Ap. Bar. xxvii. 22.

[58]In Sanh. 110 b we read, Our Rabbis teach, that the Ten Tribes have no part in the era to come, because it is written “The Lord drave them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land.” “The Lord drave them from their land”—in the present era—“and cast them into another land,” in the era to come. In curious agreement with this, Pseudo-Baruch writes to the nine and a half tribes to prepare their hearts to that which they had formerly believed least they should suffer in both eras (ab utroque sculo) being led captive in the one, and tormented in the other (Apoc. Bar. lxxxiii. 8).

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The writings to which we have referred have all a decidedly Hellenistic tinge of thought.[59] Still they are not the outcome of pure Hellenism. It is therefore with peculiar interest that we turn to Philo, the great representative of that direction, to see whether he would admit an idea so purely national and, as it might seem, exclusive. Nor are we here left in doubt. So universal was this belief, so deep-seated the conviction, not only in the mind, but in the heart of Israel, that we could scarcely find it more distinctly expressed than by the great Alexandrian. However low the condition of Israel might be, he tells us,[60] or however scattered the people to the ends of the earth, the banished would, on a given sign, be set free in one day. In consistency with his system, he traces this wondrous event to their sudden conversion to virtue, which would make their masters ashamed to hold any longer in bondage those who were so much better than themselves. Then, gathering as by one impulse, the dispersed would return from Hellas, from the lands of the barbarians, from the isles, and from the continents, led by a Divine, superhuman apparition invisible to others, and visible only to themselves. On their arrival in Palestine the waste places and the wilderness would be inhabited, and the barren land transformed into fruitfulness.

[59]Thus, for example, the assertion that there had been individuals who fulfilled the commandments of God, Vis. 1. ch 3:36; the domain of reason, iv. 22; 5:9; general Messianic blessings to the world at large, Vis. 1. ch 4:27, 28; the idea of a law within their minds, like that of which St. Paul speaks in the case of the heathen, Vis. 3. ch 6:45-47 (ed. Fritzsche, p. 609). These are only instances, and we refer besides to the general cast of the reasoning.

[60]De Execrat. ed. Frcf. pp. 936, 937.

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Whatever shades of difference, then, we may note in the expression of these views, all anticipate the deliverance of Israel, their restoration, and future pre-eminent glory, and they all connect these events with the coming of the Messiah. This was the promise unto which, in their instant service night and day, the twelve tribes however grievously oppressed, hoped to come.[61] To this sure word of prophecy the strangers scattered throughout all lands would take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawned, and the day-star rose in their hearts.[62] It was this which gave meaning to their worship, filled them with patience in suffering, kept them separate from the nations around, and ever fixed their hearts and thoughts upon Jerusalem. For the Jerusalem which was above was the mother of them all. Yet a little while, and He that would come should come, and not tarry—and then all the blessing and glory would be theirs. At any moment the gladsome tidings might burst upon them, that He had come, when their glory would shine out from one end of the heavens to the other. All the signs of His Advent had come to pass. Perhaps, indeed, the Messiah might even now be there, ready to manifest Himself, so soon as the voice of—Israel—’s repentance called Him from His hiding. Any hour might that banner be planted on the top of the mountains; that glittering sword be unsheathed; that trumpet sound. Closer then, and still closer, must be their connection with Jerusalem, as their salvation drew nigh; more earnest their longing, and more eager their gaze, till the dawn of that long expected day tinged the Eastern sky with its brightness.

[61]Acts 26:7.

[62]2 Peter 1:19.

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Chapter 7—In Palestine

Jews and Gentiles in the Land—Their Mutual Relations and Feelings—The Wall of Separation

The pilgrim who, leaving other countries, entered Palestine, must have felt as if he had crossed the threshold of another world. Manners, customs, institutions, law, life, nay, the very intercourse between man and man, were quite different. All was dominated by the one all-absorbing idea of religion. It penetrated every relation of life. Moreover, it was inseparably connected with the soil, as well as the people of Palestine, at least so long as the Temple stood. Nowhere else could the Shekhinah dwell or manifest itself; nor could, unless under exceptional circumstances, and for the merit of the fathers the spirit of prophecy be granted outside its bounds. To the orthodox Jew the mental and spiritual horizon was bounded by Palestine. It was the land’; all the rest of the world, except Babylonia’, was outside the land. No need to designate it specially as holy; for all here bore the impress of sanctity, as he understood it. Not that the soil itself, irrespective of the people, was holy; it was Israel that made it such. For, had not God given so many commandments and ordinances, some of them apparently needless, simply to call forth the righteousness of Israel;[1] did not Israel possess the merits of the fathers[2] and specially that of Abraham, itself so valuable that, even if his descendants had, morally speaking, been as a dead body, his merit would have been imputed to them?[3] More than that, God had created the world on account of Israel,[4] and for their merit, making preparation for them long before their appearance on the scene, just as a king who foresees the birth of his son; nay, Israel had been in God’s thoughts not only before anything had actually been created, but even before every other creative thought.[5] If these distinctions seem excessive, they were, at least, not out of proportion to the estimate formed of Israel’s merits. In theory, the latter might be supposed to flow from good works of course, including the strict practice of legal piety, and from study of the law. But in reality it was study alone to which such supreme merit attached. Practice required knowledge for its direction; such as the Am-ha-arets (country people plebeians,

[1]Mac. 23 b.

[2]Rosh HaSh. 11 a.

[3]Ber. R. 44.

[4]Yalkut §2.

[5]Ber. R. 1.

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in the Jewish sense of being unlearned) could not possess,[6] who had bartered away the highest crown for a spade with which to dig. And the school of Arum’—the sages—the great ones of the world had long settled it, that study was before works.[7] And how could it well be otherwise, since the studies, which engaged His chosen children on earth, equally occupied their Almighty Father in heaven?[8] Could anything, then, be higher than the peculiar calling of Israel, or better qualify them for being the sons of God?

It is necessary to transport oneself into this atmosphere to understand the views entertained at the time of Jesus, or to form any conception of their infinite contrast in spirit to the new doctrine. The abhorrence, not unmingled with contempt, of all Gentile ways, thoughts and associations; the worship of the letter of the Law; the self-righteousness, and pride of descent, and still more of knowledge, become thus intelligible to us, and, equally so, the absolute antagonism to the claims of a Messiah, so unlike themselves and their own ideal. His first announcement might, indeed, excite hope, soon felt to have been vain; and His miracles might startle for a time. But the boundary lines of the Kingdom which He traced were essentially different from those which they had fixed, and within which they had arranged everything, alike for the present and the future. Had He been content to step within them, to complete and realise what they had indicated, it might have been different. Nay, once admit their fundamental ideas, and there was much that was beautiful, true, and even grand in the details. But it was exactly in the former that the divergence lay. Nor was there any possibility of reform or progress here. The past, the present, and the future, alike as regarded the Gentile world and Israel, were irrevocably fixed; or rather, it might almost be said, there were not such—all continuing as they had been from the creation of the world, nay, long before it. The Torah had really existed 2,000 years before Creation;[9] the patriarchs had had their Academies of study, and they had known and observed all the ordinances; and traditionalism had the same origin, both as to time and authority, as the Law itself. As for the

[6]Comp. Ab. ii. 5

[7]Jer. Chag. 1. hal. 7, towards the end; Jer. Pes. 3:7.

[8]Ab. Z. 3 b.

[9]Shir haShir. R. on Cant. v. 11, ed. Warshau, p. 26b.

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heathen nations, the Law had been offered by God to them, but refused, and even their after repentance would prove hypocritical, as all their excuses would be shown to be futile. But as for Israel, even though their good deeds should be few, yet, by cumulating them from among all the people, they would appear great in the end, and God would exact payment for their sins as a man does from his friends, taking little sums at a time. It was in this sense that the Rabbis employed that sublime figure, representing the Church as one body, of which all the members suffered and joyed together, which St. Paul adopted and applied in a vastly different and spiritual sense.[10]

If, on the one hand, the pre-eminence of Israel depended on the Land, and, on the other, that of the Land on the presence of Israel in it, the Rabbinical complaint was, indeed, well grounded, that its boundaries were becoming narrow. We can scarcely expect any accurate demarcation of them, since the question, what belonged to it, was determined by ritual and theological, not by geographical considerations. Not only the immediate neighborhood (as in the case of Ascalon), but the very wall of a city (as of Acco and of Caesarea) might be Palestinian, and yet the city itself be regarded as outside the sacred limits. All depended on who had originally possessed, and now held a place, and hence what ritual obligations lay upon it. Ideally, as we may say, the land of promise included all which God had covenanted to give to Israel, although never yet actually possessed by them. Then, in a more restricted sense, the land comprised what they who came up from Egypt took possession of, from Chezib [about three hours north of Acre] and unto the river [Euphrates], and unto Amanah. This included, of course, the conquests made by David in the most prosperous times of the Jewish commonwealth, supposed to have extended over Mesopotamia’, Syria, Zobah, Achlah, &c. To all these districts the general name of Soria, or Syria, was afterwards given. This formed, at the time of which we write, a sort of inner band around the land in its narrowest and only real sense; just as the countries in which Israel was specially interested, such as Egypt, Babylon, Ammon, and Moab, formed an outer band. These lands were heathen, and yet not quite heathen, since the dedication of the so-called Terumoth, or first-fruits

[10]Ephesians 4:16.

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in a prepared state, was expected from them, while Soria shared almost all the obligations of Palestine, except those of the second tithes and the fourth year’s product of plants.[11] But the wavesheaf at the Paschal Feast, and the two loaves at Pentecost, could only be brought from what had grown on the holy soil itself. This latter was roughly defined, as all which they who came up from Babylon took possession of, in the land of Israel, and unto Chezib. Viewed in this light, there was a special significance in the fact that Antioch, where the name Christian first marked the new Sect which had sprung up in Palestine,[12] and where the first Gentile Church was formed,[13] lay just outside the northern boundary of the land. Similarly, we understand, why those Jewish zealots who would fain have imposed on the new Church the yoke of the Law,[14] concentrated their first efforts on that Syria which was regarded as a kind of outer Palestine.

But, even so, there was a gradation of sanctity in the Holy Land itself, in accordance with ritual distinctions. Ten degrees are here enumerated, beginning with the bare soil of Palestine, and culminating in the Most Holy Place in the Temple—each implying some ritual distinction, which did not attach to a lower degree. And yet, although the very dust of heathen soil was supposed to carry defilement, like corruption or the grave, the spots most sacred were everywhere surrounded by heathenism; nay, its traces were visible in—Jerusalem—itself. The reasons of this are to be sought in the political circumstances of—Palestine—, and in the persistent endeavour of its rulers—with the exception of a very brief period under the Maccabees—to Grecianise the country, so as to eradicate that Jewish particularism which must always be antagonistic to every foreign element. In general,—Palestine—might be divided into the strictly Jewish territory, and the so-called Hellenic cities. The latter had been built at different periods, and were politically constituted after the model of the Greek cities, having their own senates (generally consisting of several hundred persons) and magistrates, each city with its adjoining territory forming a sort of commonwealth of its own. But it must not be imagined, that these districts were inhabited exclusively, or even chiefly, by Greeks.

[11]Leviticus 19:24.

[12]Acts 11:26.

[13]Acts 11:20, 21.

[14]Acts 15:1.

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One of these groups, that towards Peraea, was really Syrian, and formed part of Syria Decapolis;[15] while the other, along the coast of the Mediterranean, was Phoenician. Thus the land was hemmed in, east and west, within its own borders, while south and north stretched heathen or semi-heathen districts. The strictly Jewish territory consisted of Judaea proper, to which Galilee, Samaria and Peraea were joined as Toparchies. These Toparchies consisted of a group of townships, under a Metropolis. The villages and townships themselves had neither magistrates of their own, nor civic constitution, nor lawful popular assemblies. Such civil administration as they required devolved on Scribes (the so-called kwmogrammateiV or topogrammateiV). Thus Jerusalem was really, as well as nominally, the capital of the whole land. Judaea itself was arranged into eleven, or rather, more exactly, into nine Toparchies, of which Jerusalem was the chief. While, therefore, the Hellenic cities were each independent of the other, the whole Jewish territory formed only one Civitas. Rule, government, tribute—in short, political life—centred in—Jerusalem—.

But this is not all. From motives similar to those which led to the founding of other Hellenic cities, Herod the Great and his immediate successors built a number of towns, which were inhabited chiefly by Gentiles, and had independent constitutions, like those of the Hellenic cities. Thus, Herod himself built Sebaste (Samaria), in the centre of the country; Caesarea in the west, commanding the sea-coast; Gaba in Galilee, close to the great plain of Esdraelon; and Esbonitis in Peraea.[16] Similarly, Philip the Tetrarch built Caesarea Philippi and Julias (Bethsaida-Julias, on the western shore of the lake); and Herod Antipas another Julias, and Tiberias.[17] The

[15]The following cities probably formed the Decapolis, though it is difficult to feel quite sure in reference to one or the other of them: Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos Dion, Pella, Gerasa, and Canatha. On these cities, comp. Caspari, Chronol. Geogr. Einl. in d. Leben J. Christ, pp. 83-90.

[16]Herod rebuilt or built other cities, such as Antipatris, Cypros, Phasaelis, Anthedon, &c. Schürer describes the two first as built, but they were only re built or fortified (comp. Ant. xiii. 15. 1; War i. 21. 8.) by Herod.

[17]He also rebuilt Sepphoris.

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object of these cities was twofold. As Herod, well knowing his unpopularity, surrounded himself by foreign mercenaries, and reared fortresses around his palace and the Temple which he built, so he erected these fortified posts, which he populated with strangers, as so many outworks, to surround and command Jerusalem and the Jews on all sides. Again, as, despite his profession of Judaism, he reared magnificent heathen temples in honour of Augustus at Sebaste and Caesarea, so those cities were really intended to form centres of Grecian influence within the sacred territory itself. At the same time, the Herodian cities enjoyed not the same amount of liberty as the Hellenic which, with the exception of certain imposts, were entirely self-governed, while in the former there were representatives of the Herodian rulers.[18]

Although each of these towns and districts had its special deities and rites, some being determined by local traditions, their prevailing character may be described as a mixture of Greek and Syrian worship, the former preponderating, as might be expected.[19] On the other hand, Herod and his successors encouraged the worship of the Emperor and of Rome, which, characteristically, was chiefly practised in the East.[20] Thus, in the temple which Herod built to Augustus in Caesarea, there were statues of the Emperor as Olympian Zeus, and of Rome as Hera.[21] He was wont to excuse this conformity to heathenism before his own people on the ground of political necessity. Yet, even if his religious inclinations had not been in that direction, he would have earnestly striven to Grecianise the people. Not only in Caesarea, but even in Jerusalem, he built a theatre and amphitheatre, where at great expense games were held every four years in honour of Augustus.[22]

[18]Comp. on the subject of the civic institutions of the Roman Empire, Kuhn, Die Städt. u. bürgerl. Verf. d. Röm. Reichs, 2 vols.; and for this part. vol. 2. pp. 336-354, and pp. 370-372.

[19]A good sketch of the various rites prevailing in different places is given by Schürer, Neutest. Zeitg. pp. 378-385.

[20]Comp. Weiseler, Beitr. z richt. Wur dig. d. Evang. pp. 90, 91.

[21]Jos. Ant. xv. 9. 6; War i. 21. 5-8.

[22]The Actian games took place every fifth year, three years always intervening. The games in Jerusalem were held in the year 28 b.c. (Jos. Ant. xv. 8. 1); the first games in Caesarea in the year 12 b.c. (Ant. xvi. 5. 1; comp. War. i. 21. 8).

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Nay, he placed over the great gate of Temple at Jerusalem a massive golden eagle, the symbol of Roman dominion, as a sort of counterpart to that gigantic golden vine, the symbol of Israel, which hung above the entrance to the Holy Place. These measures, indeed, led to popular indignation, and even to conspiracies and tumults,[23] though not of the same general and intense character, as when, at a later period, Pilate sought to introduce into Jerusalem images of the Emperor, or when the statue of Caligula was to be placed in the Temple. In connection with this, it is curious to notice that the Talmud, while on the whole disapproving of attendance at theatres and amphitheatres—chiefly on the ground that it implies sitting in the seat of scorners and might involve contributions to the maintenance of idol-worship—does not expressly prohibit it, nor indeed speak very decidedly on the subject.[24]

The views of the Rabbis in regard to pictorial representations are still more interesting, as illustrating their abhorrence of all contact with idolatry. We mark here differences at two, if not at three periods, according to the outward circumstances of the people. The earliest and strictest opinions[25] absolutely forbade any representation of things in heaven, on earth, or in the waters. But the Mishnah[26] seems to relax these prohibitions by subtle distinctions, which are still further carried out in the Talmud.[27]

To those who held such stringent views, it must have been peculiarly galling to see their most sacred feelings openly outraged by their own rulers. Thus, the Asmonean princess, Alexandra, the mother-in-law of Herod, could so far forget the traditions of her house, as to send portraits of her son and daughter to Mark Antony for infamous purposes, in hope of thereby winning him for her ambitious plans.[28] One would be curious to know who painted these pictures, for, when the statue of Caligula was to be made for the

[23]Ant. xv. 8. 1-4; 17:6. 2.

[24]So at least in a Boraitha. Comp. the discussion and the very curious arguments in favour of attendance in Ab. Zar. 18 b, and following.

[25]Mechilta on Exodus 20:4 ed. Weiss, p. 75 a.

[26]Ab. Zar. iii.

[27]For a full statement of the Talmudical views as to images, representations on coins, and the most ancient Jewish coins, see Appendix III.

[28]Jos. Ant. xv. 2, 5 and 6.

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Temple at Jerusalem, no native artist could be found, and the work was entrusted to Phoenicians. It must have been these foreigners also who made the figures with which Herod adorned his palace at Jerusalem, and the brazen statues in the gardens through which the water ran out[29] as well as the colossal statues at Caesarea, and those of the three daughters of Agrippa, which after his death[30] were so shamefully abused by the soldiery at Sebaste and Caesarea.[31]

This abhorrence of all connected with idolatry, and the contempt entertained for all that was non-Jewish, will in great measure explain the code of legislation intended to keep the Jew and Gentile apart. If Judaea had to submit to the power of Rome, it could at least avenge itself in the Academies of its sages. Almost innumerable stories are told in which Jewish sages, always easily, confute Roman and Greek philosophers; and others, in which even a certain Emperor (Antoninus) is represented as constantly in the most menial relation of self-abasement before a Rabbi.[32] Rome, which was the fourth beast of Daniel,[33] would in the age to come,[34] when Jerusalem would be the metropolis of all lands,[35] be the first to excuse herself on false though vain pleas for her wrongs to Israel.[36] But on wordly grounds also, Rome was contemptible, having derived her language and writing from the Greeks, and not possessing even a hereditary succession in her empire.[37] If such was the estimate of dreaded Rome, it may be imagined in what contempt other nations were held. Well might the earth tremble[38] for, if Israel had not accepted the Law at Sinai, the whole world would have been destroyed, while it once more was still when that[39] happy event took place, although God in a manner forced Israel to it. And so Israel was purified at Mount Sinai from the impurity which clung to our race in consequence of the unclean union between Eve and the serpent, and which still adhered to all other nations![40]

[29]Jos. War v. 4. 4.

[30]Acts 12:23.

[31]Ant. xix. 9. l.

[32]Comp. here the interesting tractate of Dr. Bodek, Marc. Aur. Anton. als Freund u. Zeitgenosse des R. Jehuda ha Nasi.’

[33]Daniel 7:23.

[34]The Athidlabho, saeculum futurum to be distinguished from the Olam habba, the world to come.’

[35]Midr. R. on Ex. Par. 23.

[36]Ab. Z. 2 b.

[37]Ab. Z. 10 a; Gitt. 80 a.

[38]Psalm 76:9.

[39]Shabb. 88 a.

[40]Ab. Z. 22 b. But as in what follows the quotations would be too numerous, they will be omitted. Each statement, however, advanced in the text or notes is derived from part of the Talmudic tractate Abodah Zarah.

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To begin with, every Gentile child, so soon as born, was to be regarded as unclean. Those who actually worshipped mountains, hills, bushes, &c.—in short, gross idolaters—should be cut down with the sword. But as it was impossible to exterminate heathenism, Rabbinic legislation kept certain definite objects in view, which may be thus summarised: To prevent Jews from being inadvertently led into idolatry; to avoid all participation in idolatry; not to do anything which might aid the heathen in their worship; and, beyond all this, not to give pleasure, nor even help, to heathens. The latter involved a most dangerous principle, capable of almost indefinite application by fanaticism. Even the Mishnah goes so far[41] as to forbid aid to a mother in the hour of her need, or nourishment to her babe, in order not to bring up a child for idolatry![42] But this is not all. Heathens were, indeed, not to be precipitated into danger, but yet not to be delivered from it. Indeed, an isolated teacher ventures even upon this statement: The best among the Gentiles, kill; the best among serpents, crush its head.[43] Still more terrible was the fanaticism which directed, that heretics, traitors, and those who had left the Jewish faith should be thrown into actual danger, and, if they were in it, all means for their escape removed. No intercourse of any kind was to be had with such—not even to invoke their medical aid in case of danger to life,[44] since it was deemed, that he who had to do with heretics was imminent peril of becoming one himself,[45] and that, if a heretic returned to the true faith, he should die at once—partly, probably, to expiate his guilt, and partly from fear of relapse. Terrible as all this sounds, it was probably not worse than the fanaticism

[41]Ab. Z. ii. 1.

[42]The Talmud declares it only lawful if done to avoid exciting hatred against the Jews.

[43]Mechilta, ed. Weiss, p. 33 b, line 8 from top.

[44]There is a well-known story told of a Rabbi who was bitten by a serpent, and about to be cured by the invocation of the name of Jesus by a Jewish Christian, which was, however, interdicted.

[45]Yet, such is the moral obliquity, that even idolatry is allowed to save life, provided it be done in secret!

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displayed in what are called more enlightened times. Impartial history must chronicle it, however painful, to show the circumstances in which teaching so far different was propounded by Christ.[46]

In truth, the bitter hatred which the Jew bore to the Gentile can only be explained from the estimate entertained of his character. The most vile, and even unnatural, crimes were imputed to them. It was not safe to leave cattle in their charge, to allow their women to nurse infants, or their physicians to attend the sick, nor to walk in their company, without taking precautions against sudden and unprovoked attacks. They should, so far as possible, be altogether avoided, except in cases of necessity or for the sake of business. They and theirs were defiled; their houses unclean, as containing idols or things dedicated to them; their feasts, their joyous occasions, their very contact, was polluted by idolatry; and there was no security, if a heathen were left alone in a room, that he might not, in wantonness or by carelessness, defile the wine or meat on the table, or the oil and wheat in the store. Under such circumstances, therefore, everything must be regarded as having been rendered unclean. Three days before a heathen festival (according

[46]Against this, although somewhat doubtfully, such concessions may be put as that, outside Palestine, Gentiles were not to be considered as idolators, but as observing the customs of their fathers (Chull. 13 b), and that the poor of the Gentiles were to be equally supported with those of Israel, their sick visited, and their dead buried; it being, however, significantly added, on account of the arrangements of the world (Gitt. 61 a). The quotation so often made (Ab. Z. 3 a), that a Gentile who occupied himself with the Torah was to be regarded as equal to the High Priest, proves nothing, since in the case supposed the Gentile acts like a Rabbinic Jew. But, and this is a more serious point, it is difficult to believe that those who make this quotation are not aware, how the Talmud (Ab. Z. 3 a) immediately labours to prove that their reward is not equal to that of Israelites. A somewhat similar charge of one-sidedness, if not of unfairness, must be brought against Deutsch (Lecture on the Talmud, Remains, pp. 146, 147), whose sketch of Judaism should be compared, for example, with the first Perek of the Talmudic tractate Abodah Zarah.

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to some, also three days after) every business transaction with them was prohibited, for fear of giving either help or pleasure. Jews were to avoid passing through a city where there was an idolatrous feast—nay, they were not even to sit down within the shadow of a tree dedicated to idol-worship. Its wood was polluted; if used in baking, the bread was unclean; if a shuttle had been made of it, not only was all cloth woven on it forbidden, but if such had been inadvertently mixed with other pieces of cloth, or a garment made from it placed with other garments, the whole became unclean. Jewish workmen were not to assist in building basilicas, nor stadia, nor places where judicial sentences were pronounced by the heathen. Of course, it was not lawful to let houses or fields, nor to sell cattle to them. Milk drawn by a heathen, if a Jew had not been present to watch it,[47] bread and oil prepared by them, were unlawful. Their wine was wholly interdicted[48]—the mere touch of a heathen polluted a whole cask; nay, even to put one’s nose to heathen wine was strictly prohibited!

Painful as these details are, they might be multiplied. And yet the bigotry of these Rabbis was, perhaps, not worse than that of other sectaries. It was a painful logical necessity of their system, against which their heart, no doubt, often rebelled; and, it must be truthfully added, it was in measure accounted for by the terrible history of Israel.

[47]Ab. Zar. 35 b.

[48]According to R. Asi, there was a threefold distinction. If wine had been dedicated to an idol, to carry, even on a stick, so much as the weight of an olive of it, defiled a man. Other wine, if prepared by a heathen, was prohibited, whether for personal use or for trading. Lastly, wine prepared by a Jew, but deposited in custody of a Gentile, was prohibited for personal use, but allowed for traffic.

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Chapter 8—Traditionalism, its Origin, Character, and Literature

The Mishnah and Talmud—The Gospel of Christ—The Dawn of a New Day

In trying to picture to ourselves New Testament scenes, the figure most prominent, next to those of the chief actors, is that of the Scribe (rpws, grammateuV, literatus). He seems ubiquitous; we meet him in Jerusalem, in Judaea, and even in Galilee.[1] Indeed, he is indispensable, not only in Babylon, which may have been the birthplace of his order, but among the dispersion also.[2] Everywhere he appears as the mouthpiece and representative of the people; he pushes to the front, the crowd respectfully giving way, and eagerly hanging on his utterances, as those of a recognised authority. He has been solemnly ordained by the laying on of hands; and is the Rabbi,[3] my great one Master, amplitudo. He puts questions; he urges objections; he expects full explanations and respectful demeanour. Indeed, his hyper-ingenuity in questioning has become a proverb. There is not measure of his dignity, nor yet limit to his importance. He is the lawyer[4] the well-plastered pit[5] filled with the water of knowledge out of which not a drop can escape[6] in opposition to the weeds of untilled soil (myrwb) of ignorance.[7] He is the Divine aristocrat, among the vulgar herd of rude and profane country-people who know not the Law and are cursed. More than that, his order constitutes the ultimate authority on all questions of faith and practice; he is the Exegete of the Laws[8] the teacher of the Law[9] and along with the chief priests and elders a judge in the ecclesiastical tribunals, whether of

[1]St. Luke 5:17.

[2]Jos. Ant. xviii. 3. 5; 20:11. 2.

[3]The title Rabbon (our Master) occurs first in connection with Gamaliel i. (Acts 5:34). The N.T. expression Rabboni or Rabbouni (St. Mark 10:51; St. John 20:16) takes the word Rabbon or Rabban (here in the absolute sense)= Rabh, and adds to it the personal suffix my pronouncing the Kamez in the Syriac manner.

[4]nomikoV, the legis Divinae peritus, St. Matthew 22:35; St. Luke 7:30; 10:25; 11:45; 14:3.

[5]Not 45 a, as apud Derenbourg. Similarly, his rendering littéralement, “citerne vide” seems to me erroneous.

[6]Ab. ii. 8.

[7]Ber. 45 b 2; Ab. ii. 5; Bemid. R. 3.

[8]Jos. Ant. xvii. 6. 2.

[9]nomodidaV kaloV, St. Luke 5:17; Acts 5:34; comp. also 1 Timothy 1:7.

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the capital or in the provinces.[10] Although generally appearing in company with the Pharisees he is not necessarily one of them—for they represent a religious party, while he has a status, and holds an office.[11] In short, he is the Talmid or learned student, the Chakham or sage, whose honour is to be great in the future world. Each Scribe outweighed all the common people, who must accordingly pay him every honour. Nay, they were honoured of God Himself, and their praises proclaimed by the angels; and in heaven also, each of them would hold the same rank and distinction as on earth.[12] Such was to be the respect paid to their sayings, that they were to be absolutely believed, even if they were to declare that to be at the right hand which was at the left, or vice versâ.[13]

An institution which had attained such proportions, and wielded such power, could not have been of recent growth. In point of fact, its rise was very gradual, and stretched back to the time of Nehemiah, if not beyond it. Although from the utter confusion of historical notices in Rabbinic writings and their constant practice of antedating events, it is impossible to furnish satisfactory details, the general development of the institution can be traced with sufficient precision. If Ezra is described in Holy Writ[14] as a ready (expertus) Scribe who had set his heart to seek (seek out the full meaning of) the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel[15] this might indicate to his successors, the Sopherim (Scribes), the threefold direction which their studies afterwards took: the Midrash, the Halakhah, and the Haggadah,[16][17] of which the one pointed to Scriptural investigation,

[10]St. Matthew 2:4; 20:18; 21:15; 26:57; 27:41; St. Mark 14:1. 43; 15:1; St. Luke 22:2, 66; 23:10; Acts 4:5.

[11]The distinction between Pharisees and Scribes is marked in may passages in the N.T., for example, St. Matthew 23. passim; St. Luke 7:30; 14:3; and especially in St. Luke 11:43, comp. with 5:46. The words Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites in ver. 44, are, according to all evidence, spurious.

[12]Siphré or Numbers 25 b.

[13]Siphré on Deuteronomy 105 a.

[14]Ezra 7:6, 10, 11, 12.

[15]rmllw tw#(lw #rdl

[16]Nedar. iv. 8.

[17]In Ned. iv. 3 this is the actual division. Of course, in another sense the Midrash might be considered as the source of both the Halakhah and the Haggadah.

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the other to what was to be observed, and the third to oral teaching in the widest sense. But Ezra left his work uncompleted. On Nehemiah’s second arrival in Palestine, he found matters again in a state of utmost confusion.[18] He must have felt the need of establishing some permanent authority to watch over religious affairs. This we take to have been the Great Assembly or, as it is commonly called, the Great Synagogue. It is impossible with certainty to determine,[19] either who composed this assembly, or of how many members it consisted.[20] Probably it comprised the leading men in Church and State, the chief priests, elders, and judges’—the latter two classes including the Scribes if, indeed, that order was already separately organised.[21] Probably also the term Great Assembly refers rather to a succession of men than to one Synod; the ingenuity of later times filling such parts of the historical canvas as had been left blank with fictitious notices. In the nature of things such an assembly could not exercise permanent sway in a sparsely populated country, without a strong central authority. Nor could they have wielded real power during the political difficulties and troubles of foreign domination. The oldest tradition[22] sums up the result of their activity in this sentence ascribed to them: Be careful in judgment, set up many Talmidim, and make a hedge about the Torah (Law).

In the course of time this rope of sand dissolved. The High-Priest, Simon the Just,[23] is already designated as of the remnants of the Great Assembly. But even this expression does not necessarily imply that he actually belonged to it. In the troublous times which followed his Pontificate, the sacred study seems to have been left to solitary individuals. The Mishnic tractate Aboth, which records the

[18]Nehemiah 13.

[19]Very strange and ungrounded conjectures on this subject have been hazarded, which need not here find a place. Comp. for ex. the two articles of Grätz in Frankel’s Montsschrift for 1857, pp. 31 etc. 61 etc., the main positions of which have, however, been adopted by some learned English writers.

[20]The Talmudic notices are often inconsistent. The number as given in them amounts to about 120. But the modern doubts (of Kuenen and others) against the institution itself cannot be sustained.

[21]Ezra 10:14; Nehemiah 5:7.

[22]Ab. i. 1.

[23]In the beginning of the third century b.c.

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sayings of the Fathers here gives us only the name of Antigonus of Socho. It is significant, that for the first time we now meet a Greek name among Rabbinic authorities, together with an indistinct allusion to his disciples.[24][25] The long interval between Simon the Just and Antigonus and his disciples, brings us to the terrible time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the great Syrian persecution. The very sayings attributed to these two sound like an echo of the political state of the country. On three things, Simon was wont to say, the permanency of the (Jewish?) world depends: on the Torah (faithfulness to the Law and its pursuit), on worship (the non-participation in Grecianism), and on works of righteousness.[26] They were dark times, when God’s persecuted people were tempted to think, that it might be vain to serve Him, in which Antigonus had it: Be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of reward, but be like servants who serve their lord without a view to the getting of reward, and let the fear of heaven be upon you.[27] After these two names come those of the so-called five Zugoth, or couples of whom Hillel and Shammai are the last. Later tradition has represented these successive couples as, respectively, the Nasi (president), and Ab-beth-din (vice-president, of the Sanhedrin). Of the first three of these couples it may be said that, except significant allusions to the circumstances and dangers of their times, their recorded utterances clearly point to the development of purely Sopheric teaching, that is, to the Rabbinistic part of their functions. From the fourth couple which consists of Simon ben Shetach, who figured so largely in the political history of the later Maccabees[28] (as Ab-beth-din),

[24]Ab. i. 3, 4.

[25]Zunz has well pointed out that, if in Ab. i. 4 the first couple is said to have received from them’—while only Antigonus is mentioned in the preceding Mishnah, it must imply Antigonus and his unnamed disciples and followers. In general, I may take this opportunity of stating that, except for special reasons, I shall not refer to previous writers on this subject, partly because it would necessitate too many quotations, but chiefly because the line of argument I have taken differs from that of my predecessors.

[26]Ab. i. 2.

[27]Ab. i. 3.

[28]See Appendix IV.: Political History of the Jews from the Reign of Alexander to the Accession of Herod.’

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and his superior in learning and judgment, Jehudah ben Tabbai (as Nasi), we have again utterances which show, in harmony with the political history of the time, that judicial functions had been once more restored to the Rabbis. The last of five couples brings us to the time of Herod and of Christ.

We have seen that, during the period of severe domestic troubles, beginning with the persecutions under the Seleucidae, which marked the mortal struggle between Judaism and Grecianism, the Great Assembly had disappeared from the scene. The Sopherim had ceased to be a party in power. They had become the Zeqenim, Elders whose task was purely ecclesiastical—the preservation of their religion, such as the dogmatic labours of their predecessors had made it. Yet another period opened with the advent of the Maccabees. These had been raised into power by the enthusiasm of the Chasidim, or pious ones,’ who formed the nationalist party in the land, and who had gathered around the liberators of their faith and country. But the later bearing of the Maccabees had alienated the nationalists. Henceforth they sink out of view, or, rather, the extreme section of them merged in the extreme section of the Pharisees, till fresh national calamities awakened a new nationalist party. Instead of the Chasidim, we see now two religious parties within the Synagogue—the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The latter originally represented a reaction from the Pharisees—the modern men, who sympathised with the later tendencies of the Maccabees. Josephus places the origin of these two schools in the time of Jonathan, the successor of Judas Maccabee,[29] and with this other Jewish notices agree. Jonathan accepted from the foreigner (the Syrian) the High-Priestly dignity, and combined with it that of secular ruler. But this is not all. The earlier Maccabees surrounded themselves with a governing eldership.[30][31] On the coins of their reigns this is designated as the Chebher, or eldership (association) of the Jews. Thus, theirs was what Josephus designates as an aristocratic government,[32]

[29]160-143 b.c.

[30]The Gerousia 1 Macc. xii. 6; 13:36; 14:28; Jos. Ant. xiii. 4. 9; 5. 8.

[31]At the same time some kind of ruling lerousia existed earlier than at this period, if we may judge from Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 3. But he uses the term somewhat vaguely, applying it even to the time of Jaddua (Antiq. xi. 8. 2).

[32]Ant. xi. 4. 8.

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and of which he somewhat vaguely says, that it lasted from the Captivity until the descendants of the Asmoneans set up kingly government. In this aristocratic government the High-Priest would rather be the chief of a representative ecclesiastical body of rulers. This state of things continued until the great breach between Hyrcanus, the fourth from Judas Maccabee, and the Pharisaical party,[33] which is equally recorded by Josephus[34] and the Talmud,[35] with only variations of names and details. The dispute apparently arose from the desire of the Pharisees, that Hycanus should be content with the secular power, and resign the Pontificate. But it ended in the persecution, and removal from power, of the Pharisees. Very significantly, Jewish tradition introduces again at this time those purely ecclesiastical authorities which are designated as the couples.[36] In accordance with this, altered state of things, the name Chebher now disappears from the coins of the Maccabees, and Rabbinical celebrities (the couples or Zugoth) are only teachers of traditionalism, and ecclesiastical authorities. The eldership[37] which under the earlier Maccabees was called the tribunal of the Asmoneans.[38][39] now passed into the Sanhedrin.[40][41] Thus we place the origin of this institution about the time of Hyrcanus. With this Jewish tradition fully agrees.[42]

[33]Even Ber. 48 a furnishes evidence of this enmity. This, of course, is an inference from the whole history and relation there indicated. On the hostile relations between the Pharisaical party and the Maccabees see Hamburger, Real-Enc. ii. p. 367. Comp. Jer. Taan. iv. 5.

[34]Ant. xiii. 10. 5. 6.

[35]Kidd 66 a.

[36]Jer. Maas Sheni v. end, p. 56 d Jer. Sot. ix. p. 24 a.

[37]geroussia.

[38]my)nwm#h l# wnyr tyb Sanh 82 a; Ab. Z. 36 b.

[39]Derenbourg takes a different view, and identifies the tribunal of the Asmoneans with the Sanhedrin. This seems to me, historically impossible. But his opinion to that effect (u. s. p. 87) is apparently contradicted at p. 93.

[40]sunedrion (hebrew)in the N.T. also once gerousia Acts 5:21 and twice presbuterion St. Luke 22:66; Acts 22:5.

[41]Schürer, following Wieseler, supposes the Sanhedrin to have been of Roman institution. But the arguments of Wieseler on this point (Beitr. zur richt. Wurd. d. Evang. p. 224) are inconclusive.

[42]Comp. Derenbourg, u. s. p. 95.

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The power of the Sanhedrin would, of course, vary with political circumstances, being at times almost absolute, as in the reign of the Pharisaic devotee-Queen, Alexandra, while at others it was shorn of all but ecclesiastical authority. But as the Sanhedrin was in full force at the time of Jesus, its organization will claim our attention in the sequel.

After this brief outline of the origin and development of an institution which exerted such decisive influence on the future of Israel, it seems necessary similarly to trace the growth of the traditions of the Elders so as to understand what, alas! so effectually, opposed the new doctrine of the Kingdom. The first place must here be assigned to those legal determinations, which traditionalism declared absolutely binding on all—not only of equal, but even greater obligation than Scripture itself.[43] And this not illogically, since tradition was equally of Divine origin with Holy Scripture, and authoritatively explained its meaning; supplemented it; gave it application to cases not expressly provided for, perhaps not even foreseen in Biblical times; and generally guarded its sanctity by extending and adding to its provisions, drawing a hedge around its garden enclosed. Thus, in new and dangerous circumstances, would the full meaning of God’s Law, to its every title and iota, be elicited and obeyed. Thus also would their feet be arrested, who might stray from within, or break in from without. Accordingly, so important was tradition, that the greatest merit a Rabbi could claim was the strictest adherence to the traditions, which he had received from his teacher. Nor might one Sanhedrin annul, or set aside, the decrees of its predecessors. To such length did they go in this worship

[43]Thus we read: The sayings of the elders have more weight than those of the prophets (Jer. Ber. i. 7); an offence against the sayings of the Scribes is worse than one against those of Scripture (Sanh. xi. 3). Compare also Er. 21 b. The comparison between such claims and those sometimes set up on behalf of creeds and articles (Kitto’s Cyclop., 2nd ed., p. 786, col a) does not seem to me applicable. In the introduction to the Midr. on Lament. it is inferred from Jeremiah 9:12, 13, that to forsake the law—in the Rabbinic sense—was worse than idolatry, uncleanness, or the shedding of blood. See generally that Introduction.

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of the letter, that the great Hillel was actually wont to mispronounce a word, because his teacher before him had done so.[44]

These traditional ordinances, as already stated, bear the general name of the Halakhah, as indicating alike the way in which the fathers had walked, and that which their children were bound to follow.[45] These Halakhoth were either simply the laws laid down in Scripture; or else derived from, or traced to it by some ingenious and artificial method of exegesis; or added to it, by way of amplification and for safety’s sake; or, finally, legalized customs. They provided for every possible and impossible case, entered into every detail of private, family, and public life; and with iron logic, unbending rigour, and most minute analysis pursued and dominated man, turn whither he might, laying on him a yoke which was truly unbearable. The return which it offered was the pleasure and distinction of knowledge, the acquisition of righteousness, and the final attainment of rewards; one of its chief advantages over our modern traditionalism, that it was expressly forbidden to draw inferences from these traditions, which should have the force of fresh legal determinations.[46]

In describing the historical growth of the Halakhah,[47] we may dismiss in a few sentences the legends of Jewish tradition about patriarchal times. They assure us, that there was an Academy and a Rabbinic tribunal of Shem, and they speak of traditions delivered by that Patriarch to Jacob; of diligent attendance by the latter on the Rabbinic College; of a tractate (in 400 sections) on idolatry by Abraham, and of his observance of the whole traditional law; of the introduction of the three daily times of prayer, successively by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of the three benedictions in the customary grace at meat as propounded

[44]Eduy. i. 3. See the comment of Maimonides.

[45]It is so explained in the Aruch (ed Zandau, vol. 2. p. 529, col b).

[46]Comp. Hamburger, u.s. p. 343.

[47]Comp. here especially the detailed description by Herzfeld (u. s. vol. 3. pp. 226, 263); also the Introduction of Maimonides, and the very able and learned works (not sufficiently appreciated) by Dr. H. S. Hirschfeld, Halachische Exegese (Berlin, 1840), and Hagadische Exegese (Berlin, 1847). Perhaps I may also take leave to refer to the corresponding chapters in my History of the Jewish Nation.’

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by Moses, Joshua, and David and Solomon; of the Mosaic introduction of the practice of reading lessons from the law on Sabbaths, New Moons, and Feast Days, and even on the Mondays and Thursdays; and of that, by the same authority, of preaching on the three great festivals about those feasts. Further, they ascribe to Moses the arrangement of the priesthood into eight courses (that into sixteen to Samuel, and that into twenty-four to David), as also, the duration of the time for marriage festivities, and for mourning. But evidently these are vague statements, with the object of tracing traditionalism and its observances to primaeval times, even as legend had it, that Adam was born circumcised,[48] and later writers that he had kept all the ordinances.

But other principles apply to the traditions, from Moses downwards. According to the Jewish view, God had given Moses on Mount Sinai alike the oral and the written Law, that is, the Law with all its interpretations and applications. From Exodus 20:1, it was inferred, that God had communicated to Moses the Bible, the Mishnah, and Talmud, and the Haggadah, even to that which scholars would in latest times propound.[49] In answer to the somewhat natural objection, why the Bible alone had been written, it was said that Moses had proposed to write down all the teaching entrusted to him, but the Almighty had refused, on account of the future subjection of Israel to the nations, who would take from them the written Law. Then the unwritten traditions would remain to separate between Israel and the Gentiles. Popular exegesis found this indicated even in the language of prophecy.[50]

But traditionalism went further,

[48]Midr. Shochar Tobh on Psalm 9:6. ed. Warshau, p. 14 b; Abde R. Nath. 2.

[49]Similarly, the expressions in Exodus 24:12 were thus explained: the tables of stone the ten commandments; the law the written Law; the commandments the Mishnah; which I have written the Prophets and Hagiographa; that thou mayest teach them the Talmud—which shows that they were all given to Moses on Sinai (Ber. 5 a, lines 11-16). A like application was made of the various clauses in Cant. vii. 12 (Erub. 21 b). Nay, by an alternation of the words in Hosea 7:10, it was shown that the banished had been brought back for the merit of their study (of the sacrificial sections) of the Mishnah (Vayyik R. 7).

[50]Hosea 8:12; comp. Shem. R. 47.

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and placed the oral actually above the written Law. The expression,[51] After the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel was explained as meaning, that God’s covenant was founded on the spoken, in opposition to the written words.[52] If the written was thus placed below the oral Law, we can scarcely wonder that the reading of the Hagiographa was actually prohibited to the people on the Sabbath, from fear that it might divert attention from the learned discourses of the Rabbis. The study of them on that day was only allowed for the purpose of learned investigation and discussions.[53][54]

But if traditionalism was not to be committed to writing by Moses, measures had been taken to prevent oblivion or inaccuracy. Moses had always repeated a traditional law successively to Aaron, to his sons, and to the elders of the people, and they again in turn to each other, in such wise, that Aaron heard the Mishnah four times, his sons three times, the Elders twice, and the people once. But even this was not all, for by successive repetitions (of Aaron, his sons, and the Elders) the people also heard it four times.[55] And, before his death, Moses had summoned any one to come forward, if he had forgotten aught of what he had heard and learned.[56] But these Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai do not make up the whole of traditionalism. According to Maimonides, it consists of five, but more critically of three classes.[57] The first of these comprises both such ordinances as are found in the Bible itself, and the so-called Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai—that is, such laws and usages as prevailed from time immemorial, and which, according to the Jewish view, had been orally delivered to, but not written down by Moses. For these, therefore, no proof was to be sought in Scripture—at most support, or confirmatory allusion (Asmakhtu).[58] Nor were these open to discussion. The second class formed the oral law[59] or the traditional teaching[60] in

[51]Exodus 34:27.

[52]Jer. Chag. p. 76 d.

[53]Tos. Shabb. xiv.

[54]Another reason also is, however, mentioned for his prohibition.

[55]Erub. 54 b.

[56]Deuteronomy 1:5.

[57]Hirschfeld, u. s. pp. 92-99.

[58]From Kms to lean against. At the same time the ordinances, for which an appeal could be made to Asmakhta, were better liked than those which rested on tradition alone (Jer. Chag. p. 76, col d).

[59]hp l(b# hrwt.

[60]hp l (b# hrwt.

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the stricter sense. To this class belonged all that was supposed to be implied in, or that could be deduced from, the Law of Moses.[61] The latter contained, indeed, in substance or germ, everything; but it had not been brought out, till circumstances successfully evolved what from the first had been provided in principle. For this class of ordinances reference to, and proof from, Scripture was required. Not so for the third class of ordinances, which were the hedge drawn by the Rabbis around the Law, to prevent any breach of the Law or customs, to ensure their exact observance, or to meet peculiar circumstances and dangers. These ordinances constituted the sayings of the Scribes[62] or of the Rabbis[63][64]—and were either positive in their character (Teqqanoth), or else negative (Gezeroth from gazar to cut off). Perhaps the distinction of these two cannot always be strictly carried out. But it was probably to this third class especially, confessedly unsupported by Scripture, that these words of Christ referred[65] All therefore whatsoever they tell you, that do and observe; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but with their finger they will not move them away (set in motion).[66]

[61]In connection with this it is very significant that R. Jochanan ben Zaccai, who taught not many years after the Crucifixion of Christ, was wont to say, that in the future, Halakhahs in regard to purity, which had not the support of Scripture, would be repeated (Sot. 27 b, line 16 from top). In general, the teaching of R. Jochanan should be studied to understand the unacknowledged influence which Christianity exercised upon the Synagogue.

[62]Myrpws yrbd.

[63]znbrd.

[64]But this is not always.

[65]St. Matthew 23:3, 4.

[66]To elucidate the meaning of Christ, it seemed necessary to submit an avowedly difficult text to fresh criticism. I have taken the word kinein moveo in the sense of ire facio (Grimm, Clavis N.T. ed. 2da, p. 241 a), but I have not adopted the inference of Meyer (Krit. Exeget. Handb. p. 455). In classical Greek also kinein is used for to remove, to alter. My reasons against what may be called the traditional interpretation of St. Matthew 23:3, 4, are: 1. It seems scarcely possible to suppose that, before such an audience, Christ would have contemplated the possibility of not observing either of the two first classes of Halakhoth, which were regarded as beyond controversy. 2. It could scarcely be truthfully charged against the Scribes and Pharisees, that they did not attempt to keep themselves the ordinances which they imposed upon others. The expression in the parallel passage (St. Luke 11:46) must be explained in accordance with the commentation on St. Matthew 23:4. Nor is there any serious difficulty about it.

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This view has two-fold confirmation. For, this third class of Halakhic ordinances was the only one open to the discussion of the learned, the ultimate decision being according to the majority. Yet it possessed practically (though not theoretically) the same authority as the other two classes. In further confirmation of our view the following may be quoted: A Gezerah (i.e. this third class of ordinances) is not to be laid on the congregation, unless the majority of the congregation is able to bear it[67]—words which read like a commentary on those of Jesus, and show that these burdens could be laid on, or moved away, according to the varying judgment or severity of a Rabbinic College.[68]

This body of traditional ordinances forms the subject of the Mishnah, or second, repeated law. We have here to place on one side the Law of Moses as recorded in the Pentateuch, as standing by itself. All else—even the teaching of the Prophets and of the Hagiographa, as well as the oral traditions—bore the general name of Qabbalah—that which has been received. The sacred study—or Midrash, in the original application of the term—concerned either the Halakhah, traditional ordinance, which was always that which had been heard (Shematha), or else the Haggadah, that which was said upon the authority of individuals, not as legal ordinance. It was illustration, commentary, anecdote, clever or learned saying, &c. At first the Halakhah remained unwritten, probably owing to the disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees. But the necessity of fixedness and order led in course of time to more or less complete collections of the Halakhoth.[69]

[67]B. Kam. 79 b.

[68]For the classification, arrangement, origin, and enumeration of these Halakhoth, see Appendix V.: Rabbinic Theology and literature.’

[69]See the learned remarks of Levy about the reasons for the earlier prohibition of writing down the oral law, and the final collection of the Mishnah (Neuhebr. u. Chald. Wörterb. vol. 2. p. 435).

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The oldest of these is ascribed to R. Akiba, in the time of the Emperor Hadrian.[70][71] But the authoritative collection in the so-called Mishnah is the work of Jehudah the Holy, who died about the end of the second century of our era.

Altogether, the Mishnah comprises six Orders (Sedarim), each devoted to a special class of subjects.[72] These Orders are divided into tractates (Massikhtoth, Massekhtiyoth, textures, webs), of which there are sixty-three (or else sixty-two) in all. These tractates are again subdivided into chapters (Peraqim)—in all 525, which severally consist of a certain number of verses, or Mishnahs (Mishnayoth, in all 4,187). Considering the variety and complexity of the subjects treated,

[70]132-135 a.d.

[71]These collections are enumerated in the Midrash on Eccles 12:3. They are also distinguished as the former and the later Mishnah (Nedar. 91 a).

[72]The first Order (Zeraim, seeds) begins with the ordinances concerning benedictions or the time, mode, manner, and character of the prayers prescribed. It then goes on to detail what may be called the religio-agrarian laws (such as tithing, Sabbatical years, first fruits, &c.). The second Order (Moed, festive time) discusses all connected with the Sabbath observance and the other festivals. The third Order (Nashim, women) treats of all that concerns betrothal, marriage and divorce, but also includes a tractate on the Nasirate. The fourth Order (Neziqin, damages) contains the civil and criminal law. Characteristically, it includes all the ordinances concerning idol worship (in the tractate Abhodah Zarah) and the sayings of the Fathers (Abhoth). The fifth Order (Qodashim, holy things) treats of the various classes of sacrifices, offerings, and things belonging (as the first-born), or dedicated, to God, and of all questions which can be grouped under sacred things (such as the redemption, exchange, or alienation of what had been dedicated to God). It also includes the laws concerning the daily morning and evening service (Tamid), and a description of the structure and arrangements of the Temple (Middoth, the measurements). Finally, the sixth Order (Toharoth, cleanness) gives every ordinance connected with the questions of clean and unclean alike as regards human beings, animals, and inanimate things.

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the Mishnah is arranged with remarkable logical perspicuity. The language is Hebrew, though of course not that of the Old Testament. The words rendered necessary by the new circumstances are chiefly derived from the Greek, the Syriac, and the Latin, with Hebrew terminations.[73] But all connected with social intercourse, or ordinary life (such as contracts), is written, not in Hebrew, but in Aramaean, as the language of the people.

But the traditional law embodied other materials than the Halakhoth collected in the Mishnah. Some that had not been recorded there found a place in the works of certain Rabbis, or were derived from their schools. These are called Boraithas—that is, traditions external to the Mishnah. Finally, there were additions (or Tosephtoth), dating after the completion of the Mishnah, but probably not later than the third century of our era. Such there are to not fewer than fifty-two out of the sixty-three Mishnic tractates. When speaking of the Halakhah as distinguished from the Haggadah, we must not, however, suppose that the latter could be entirely separated from it. In point of fact, one whole tractate in the Mishnah (Aboth: The Sayings of the Fathers) is entirely Haggadah; a second (Middoth: the Measurements of the Temple) has Halakhah in only fourteen places; while in the rest of the tractates Haggadah occurs in not fewer than 207 places.[74] Only thirteen out of the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah are entirely free from Haggadah.

Hitherto we have only spoken of the Mishnah. But this comprises only a very small part of traditionalism. In course of time the discussions, illustrations, explanations, and additions to which the Mishnah gave rise, whether in its application, or in the Academies of the Rabbis, were authoritatively collected and edited in what are known as the two Talmuds or Gemaras.[75] If we imagine something combining law reports, a Rabbinical Hansard and notes of a theological debating club—all thoroughly Oriental, full of digressions, anecdotes, quaint

[73]Comp. the very interesting tractate by Dr. Brüll (Fremdspr Redensart in d. Talmud), as well as Dr. Eisler’s Beiträge z. Rabb. u. Alterthumsk., 3 fascic; Sachs, Beitr. z. Rabb u. Alterthumsk.

[74]Comp. the enumeration in Pinner, u. s.

[75]Talmud: that which is learned, doctrine. Gemara: either the same, or else perfection completion.’

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sayings, fancies, legends, and too often of what, from its profanity, superstition, and even obscenity, could scarcely be quoted, we may form some general idea of what the Talmud is. The oldest of these two Talmuds dates from about the close of the fourth century of our era. It is the product of the Palestinian Academies, and hence called the Jerusalem Talmud. The second is about a century younger, and the outcome of the Babylonian schools, hence called the Babylon (afterwards also our) Talmud. We do not possess either of these works complete.[76] The most defective is the Jerusalem Talmud, which is also much briefer, and contains far fewer discussions than that of Babylon. The Babylon Talmud, which in its present form extends over thirty-six out of the sixty-three tractates of the Mishnah, is about ten or eleven times the size of the latter, and more than four times that of the Jerusalem Talmud. It occupies (in our editions), with marginal commentations, 2,947 folio leaves (pages a and b). Both Talmuds are written in Aramaean; the one in its western, the other in its eastern dialect, and in both the Mishnah is discussed seriatim, and clause by clause. Of the character of these

[76]The following will explain our meaning: On the first order we have the Jerusalem Talmud complete, that is, on every tractate (comprising in all 65 folio leaves), while the Babylon Talmud extends only over its first tractate (Berakhoth). On the second order, the four last chapters of one tractate (Shabbath) are wanting in the Jerusalem, and one whole tractate (Sheqalim) in the Babylon Talmud. The third order is complete in both Gemaras. On the fourth order a chapter is wanting in one tractate (Makkoth) in the Jerusalem, and two whole tractates (Eduyoth and Abhoth) in both Gemaras. The fifth order is wholly wanting in the Jerusalem, and two and a half tractates of it (Middoth, Qinnim, and half Tamid) in the Babylon Talmud. Of the sixth order only one tractate (Niddah) exists in both Gemaras. The principal Halakhoth were collected in a work (dating from about 800 a.d.) entitled Halakhoth Gedoloth. They are arranged to correspond with the weekly lectionary of the Pentateuch in a work entitled Sheeltoth (Questions: best ed. Dghernfurth, 1786). The Jerusalem Talmud extends over 39, the Babylonian over 36 &frac12; tractates—15 &frac12; tractates have no Gemara at all.

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discussions it would be impossible to convey an adequate idea. When we bear in mind the many sparkling, beautiful, and occasionally almost sublime passages in the Talmud, but especially that its forms of thought and expression so often recall those of the New Testament, only prejudice and hatred could indulge in indiscriminate vituperation. On the other hand, it seems unaccountable how anyone who has read a Talmudic tractate, or even part of one, could compare the Talmud with the New Testament, or find in the one the origin of the other.

To complete our brief survey, it should be added that our editions of the Babylon Talmud contain (at the close of vol. ix. and after the fourth Order) certain Boraithas. Of these there were originally nine, but two of the smaller tractates (on the memorial fringes and on non-Israelites) have not been preserved. The first of these Boraithas is entitled Abhoth de Rabbi Nathan, and partially corresponds with a tractate of a similar name in the Mishnah.[77] Next follow six minor tractates. These are respectively entitled Sopherim (Scribes),[78] detailing the ordinances about copying the Scriptures, the ritual of the Lectionary, and festive prayers; Ebhel Rabbathi or Semakhoth,[79] containing Halakhah and Haggadah about funeral and mourning observances; Kallah,[80] on the married relationship; Derekh Erets,[81] embodying moral directions and the rules and customs of social intercourse; Derekh Erets Zuta,[82] treating of similar subjects, but as regards learned students; and, lastly, the Pereq ha Shalom,[83] which is a eulogy on peace. All these

[77]The last ten chapters curiously group together events or things under numerals from 10 downwards. The most generally interesting of these is that of the 10 Nequdoth, or passages of Scripture in which letters are marked by dots, together with the explanation of their reasons (ch 34.). The whole Boraitha seems composed of parts of three different works, and consists of forty (or forty-one) chapters, and occupies ten folio leaves.

[78]In twenty-one chapters, each containing a number of Halakhahs, and occupying in all four folio leaves.

[79]In fourteen chapters, occupying rather more than three folio leaves.

[80]It fills little more than a folio page.

[81]In eleven chapters, covering about 1 &frac34; folio leaves.

[82]In nine chapters, filling one folio leaf.

[83]Little more than a folio column.

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tractates date, at least in their present form, later than the Talmudic period.[84]

But when the Halakhah, however varied in its application, was something fixed and stable, the utmost latitude was claimed and given in the Haggadah. It is sadly characteristic, that, practically, the main body of Jewish dogmatic and moral theology is really only Haggadah, and hence of no absolute authority. The Halakhah indicated with the most minute and painful punctiliousness every legal ordinance as to outward observances, and it explained every bearing of the Law of Moses. But beyond this it left the inner man, the spring of actions, untouched. What he was to believe and what to feel, was chiefly matter of the Haggadah. Of course the laws of morality, and religion, as laid down in the Pentateuch, were fixed principles, but there was the greatest divergence and latitude in the explanation and application of many of them. A man might hold or propound almost any views, so long as he contravened not the Law of Moses, as it was understood, and adhered in teaching and practice to the traditional ordinances. In principle it was the same liberty which the Romish Church accords to its professing members—only with much wider application, since the debatable ground embraced so many matters of faith, and the liberty given was not only that of private opinion but of public utterance. We emphasise this, because the absence of authoritative direction and the latitude in matters of faith and inner feeling stand side by side, and in such sharp contrast, with the most minute punctiliousness in all matters of outward observance. And here we may mark the fundamental distinction between the teaching of Jesus and Rabbinism. He left the Halakhah untouched, putting it, as it were, on one side, as something quite secondary, while

[84]Besides these, Raphael Kirchheim has published (Frankfort, 1851) the so-called seven smaller tractates, covering altogether with abundant notes, only forty-four small pages, which treat of the copying of the Bible (Sepher Torah, in five chapters), of the Mezuzah, or memorial on the doorposts (in two chapters), Phylacteries (Tephillin, in one chapter), of the Tsitsith, or memorial-fringes (in one chapter), of Slaves (Abhadim, in three chapters) of the Cutheans, or Samaritans (in two chapters), and, finally, a curious tractate on Proselytes (Gerim, in four chapters).

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He insisted as primary on that which to them was chiefly matter of Haggadah. And this rightly so, for, in His own words, Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth since those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man.[85] The difference was one of fundamental principle, and not merely of development, form, or detail. The one developed the Law in its outward direction as ordinances and commandments; the other in its inward direction as life and liberty. Thus Rabbinism occupied one pole—and the outcome of its tendency to pure externalism was the Halakhah, all that was internal and higher being merely Haggadic. The teaching of Jesus occupied the opposite pole. Its starting-point was the inner sanctuary in which God was known and worshipped, and it might well leave the Rabbinic Halakhoth aside, as not worth controversy, to be in the meantime done and observed in the firm assurance that, in the course of its development, the spirit would create its own appropriate forms, or, to use a New Testament figure, the new wine burst the old bottles. And, lastly, as closely connected with all this, and marking the climax of contrariety: Rabbinism started with demand of outward obedience and righteousness, and pointed to sonship as its goal; the Gospel started with the free gift of forgiveness through faith and of sonship, and pointed to obedience and righteousness as its goal.

In truth, Rabbinism, as such, had no system of theology; only what ideas, conjectures, or fancies the Haggadah yielded concerning God, Angels, demons, man, his future destiny and present position, and Israel, with its past history and coming glory. Accordingly, by the side of what is noble and pure, what a terrible mass of utter incongruities, of conflicting statements and too often debasing superstitions, the outcome of ignorance and narrow nationalism; of legendary colouring of Biblical narratives and scenes, profane, coarse, and degrading to them; the Almighty Himself and His Angels taking part in the conversations of Rabbis, and the discussions of Academies; nay, forming a kind of heavenly Sanhedrin, which occasionally requires the aid of an earthly Rabbi.[86]

[85]St. Matthew 15:11, 18.

[86]Thus, in B. Mez. 86 a, we read of a discussion in the heavenly Academy on the subject of purity, when Rabbah was summoned to heaven by death, although this required a miracle, since he was constantly engaged in sacred study. Shocking to write, it needed the authority of Rabbah to attest the correctness of the Almighty’s statement on the Halakhic question discussed.

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The miraculous merges into the ridiculous, and even the revolting. Miraculous cures, miraculous supplies, miraculous help, all for the glory of great Rabbis,[87] who by a look or word can kill, and restore to life. At their bidding the eyes of a rival fall out, and are again inserted. Nay, such was the veneration due to Rabbis, that R. Joshua used to kiss the stone on which R. Eliezer had sat and lectured, saying: This stone is like Mount Sinai, and he who sat on it like the Ark. Modern ingenuity has, indeed, striven to suggest deeper symbolical meaning for such stories. It should own the terrible contrast existing side by side: Hebrewism and Judaism, the Old Testament and traditionalism; and it should recognise its deeper cause in the absence of that element of spiritual and inner life which Christ has brought. Thus as between the two—the old and the new—it may be fearlessly asserted that as regards their substance and spirit, there is not a difference, but a total divergence, of fundamental principle between Rabbinism and the New Testament, so that comparison between them is not possible. Here there is absolute contrariety.

The painful fact just referred to is only too clearly illustrated by the relation in which traditionalism

[87]Some of these miracles are detailed in B. Mets. 85 b, 86 a. Thus, Resh Lakish, when searching for the tomb of R. Chija, found that it was miraculously removed from his sight, as being too sacred for ordinary eyes. The same Rabbi claimed such merit, that for his sake the Law should never be forgotten in Israel. Such was the power of the patriarchs that, if they had been raised up together, they would have brought Messiah before His time. When R. Chija prayed, successively a storm arose, the rain descended, and the earth trembled. Again, Rabbah, when about to be arrested, caused the face of the messenger to be turned to his back, and again restored it; next, by his prayer he made a wall burst, and so escaped. In Abhod. Zar. 17 b, a miracle is recorded in favour of R. Eleazar, to set him free from his persecutors, or, rather, to attest a false statement which he made in order to escape martyrdom. For further extravagant praises of the Rabbis, comp. Sanh. 101 a.

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places itself to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, even though it acknowledges their inspiration and authority. The Talmud has it,[88] that he who busies himself with Scripture only (i.e. without either the Mishnah or Gemara) has merit, and yet no merit.[89] Even the comparative paucity of references to the Bible in the Mishnah[90] is significant. Israel had made void the Law by its traditions. Under a load of outward ordinances and observances its spirit had been crushed. The religion as well as the grand hope of the Old Testament had become externalized. And so alike Heathenism and Judaism—for it was no longer the pure religion of the Old Testament—each following its own direction, had reached its goal. All was prepared and waiting. The

[88]Baba Mets. 33 a.

[89]Similarly we read in Aboth d. R. Nathan 29: He who is master of the Midrash, but knows no Halakhahs, is like a hero, but there are no arms in his hand. He that is master of the Halakhoth, but knows nothing of the Midrashim, is a weak person who is provided with arms. But he that is master of both is both a hero and armed.’

[90]Most of these, of course, are from the Pentateuch. References to any other Old Testament books are generally loosely made, and serve chiefly as points d’appuî for Rabbinical sayings. Scriptural quotations occur in 51 out of the 63 tractates of the Mishnah, the number of verses quoted being 430. A quotation in the Mishnah is generally introduced by the formula as it is said. This in all but sixteen instances, where the quotation is prefaced by, Scripture means to say. But, in general, the difference in the mode of quotation in Rabbinic writings seems to depend partly on the context, but chiefly on the place and time. Thus, as it is written is a Chaldee mode of quotation. Half the quotations in the Talmud are prefaced by as it is said; a fifth of them by as it is written; a tenth by scripture means to say; and the remaining fifth by various other formulas. Comp. Pinner’s Introduction to Berakhoth. In the Jerusalem Talmud no al-tikré (read not so, but read so) occurs, for the purposes of textual criticism. In the Talmud a favourite mode of quoting from the Pentateuch, made in about 600 passages, is by introducing it as spoken or written by nmxr. The various modes in which Biblical quotations are made in Jewish writings are enumerated in Surenhusius BibloV katallaghV, pp. 1-56.

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very porch had been built, through which the new, and yet old, religion was to pass into the ancient world, and the ancient world into the new religion. Only one thing was needed: the Coming of the Christ. As yet darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness lay upon the people. But far away the golden light of the new day was already tingeing the edge of the horizon. Presently would the Lord arise upon—Zion—, and His glory be seen upon her. Presently would the Voice from out the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; presently would it herald the Coming of His Christ to Jew and Gentile, and that Kingdom of heaven, which, established upon earth, is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.[91]

[91]For details on the Jewish views on the Canon, and historical and mystical theology, see Appendix V.: Rabbinic Theology and Literature.’