In

But the Ceremonialism of Israel grew up in the Priesthood, which (as apparently in Syria, Asia Minor and Greece) had its origin in unconnected sacred temples, each accumulating and digesting its own routine. When union came about, selection and codification were sure to follow and gain national assent. Jewish history frankly informs us of an era (nearly at the close of the monarchy, while the pious King Josiah was still young) which first established the Book of the Law in permanence.* the received narrativ there is no indication that any copy of this book was in the hands of the public, or even of the most esteemed and venerated kings. Zeal for Ceremonialism is scarcely found in rulers until this later era. The Passover, and the Sabbatical year, hav no rigid and continuous observance before the captivity. Early kings ministered at the altar, in Jerusalem equally as in old Greece. Levites were confounded with other tribes, and had no actual possession of lands or tithes. Yet a frightful tale is told concerning the very earliest time, in illustration of a law delivered by Jehovah to Moses (Exodus xxxi. 15), "Whosoever doeth any work on the "sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." Accordingly, for the crime of gathering sticks in the wilderness on the sabbath day (Numbers xv. 32-36) Moses himself is represented to hav caused a man to be stoned to death. We may disbelieve the fact and acquit Moses; but it is told in the sacred book: the belief of it by the later Jews cannot be doubted, nor the evil of its belief denied. All other ceremonial offences had a ceremonial expiation; but "sabbath-breaking" was imagined to be a breach

* An exhaustiv analysis of this transaction from the pen of the late Rev. John Robertson, of Coupar Angus, with the title, "The Finding of the Book," was published by the late Mr. Thomas Scott, in 1870. It may not be easy to get this now. In my own history of the Hebrew Monarchy, as early as 1847, I commented largely on the matter, and concluded that to alledge a discovery is to confess an invention.

of the tie which united the Most High to his peculiar people (Exodus xxxi. 16, 17), a breach of the covenant; therefore to be worse than most immoralities.

In Ceremonialism of course must be included the rite of Circumcision. But this was imposed in infancy once for all. To be uncircumcised, was in the national estimate a disgrace, as with the Egyptians (Joshua v. 9, Herod. ii. 36), also probably with a majority of the Syrians and Arabians. It scarcely ever could come into prominence. Foreigners had no right to resent it. There is an opinion that nations so diverse adopted this strange practice from a prevailing medical theory. It has no proper place in our history. The Greeks believed it to hav been learned from Egypt; the Hebrews supposed it to hav come down as a solemn covenant and command of God to Abraham. It was cardinal to Judaism, yet not so peculiar as the Sabbatical Law, which forbad labour on the seventh day. One thing ought to be known, on which modern Jews pointedly insist;-that there never was any prohibition of innocent pleasure and merriment on the sabbath, nor of learning and teaching any form of knowledge, provided only that no money be earned by the teacher. All that is forbidden (they assure us) is servile work and work for gain; but the cultivation of the intellect is highly approved.

CHAPTER II.

JUDAISM RESTORED.

In different national stages Israel had different teachers; first Prophets, next Psalmists (who were apparently a growth out of musicians and priests at the temple of Jerusalem); thirdly, Doctors of the Law, whom we call Rabbis. The earlier priesthood, when it rose above mere

ceremony, was virtually a political element, struggling to enforce constitutional rule on the kings; but seldom on good terms with the prophets. When the monarchy vanished, the Priesthood came into power, and coalesced with the Rabbis, who did not write sacred books, but expounded the older scriptures.

The final conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (about 600 B.C.) terminated the Hebrew Monarchy. The policy of the conqueror was, to carry away the whole population and replace it by foreigners; this obviously aimed at destroying the national spirit which resists Imperialism. It gained partial or at least temporary success. It had indeed earlier been carried out against Israel, whether by a Syrian or an Assyrian King: and somewhat later the whole northern district of Palestine was swamped by new comers, various in origin and creed; indeed as early as the prophet Isaiah we ar surprized to read of Gentile Galilee. But Babylon, which had assisted the Median monarchy to overthrow that of Assyria, and had eagerly effaced the great city of Nineveh, fell in her turn by the power which she had helped to make supreme. Cyrus the Persian, supplanting the Medes and wielding all their resources, conquered and annexed Babylon; then, by reversing the Babylonian policy won the allegiance of all the Jews. Probably indeed Cyrus, whose creed was Monotheism, felt a true sympathy for monotheistic Israel. He warmly encouraged the return of the Jews to their own land; nay, according to the book of Ezra, he lavishly gave vessels of gold and silver to re-establish splendour in their Temple when rebuilt. So delightful a change of policy roused up a new and glorious prophet, whose book has unhappily been tacked on to the work of Isaiah, which ended with the 39th chapter. The new prophet begins with the joyful an

nouncement: "Comfort ye my people, saith

your God," and continues to the end in a like strain of triumph, though without any hint of life in an after-world for individual saints. This anonymous prophet has so long been quoted as Isaiah, that it is hard to find any better title for him than "the later Isaiah." In obedience to the friendly edict of Cyrus, the most zealous of the nation flocked back. The law of Moses assumed in the eyes of all Israel a dignity and sacredness never before realized. The Jews who were dispersed north-eastward or in Egypt, looked up to Jerusalem with pride and joy, as in the days of David and Solomon. The central figure in that city for three centuries and a half was no longer a military king, but a professed High Priest, guided by Doctors of the Law. The law was in some matters (as other antique law) too severe; but how much better than Greek, Roman, Persian, or Assyrian!

The effects of the DISPERSION were vast and permanent. It had begun in detail by a harassing slave trade, as far as we can judge. In antiquity, to no nation had other nations any human rights, unless guaranteed by treaty and oath. Each preyed upon others as on wild game, even without previous enmity. But the Imperialist King David, son of Jesse, had left rankling hatred in all the petty tribes around. Whenever the Jewish power was weak, marauders infested the land; Tyre and Sidon were activ slave-markets, and every merchant was a slavedealer. Oh! what hav not been the miseries of mankind in the past! History is the little book of the Apocalypse, sweet in the mouth, but most bitter of digestion. Grievous as ar human sufferings now, they were formerly far wider and more constant, if not more terrible.

A large migration of Jews into Egypt had probably risen out of commerce. Isaiah (xix. 18) expects five cities in Egypt to speak the Hebrew tongue and propa

gate widely the worship of Jehovah. Some centuries later, when a Macedonian dynasty ruled in Egypt, the Jewish residents confronted Greek philosophy in Alexandria, then the most learned of all Greek cities. Something must hav been imbibed in Jerusalem from that attempt to combine Moses with Plato, which culminated in the theosophy of Philo the Jew. The word of the Lord, so often mentioned in Hebrew prophets and psalmists, was compared with the logos* of Plato. A deliberate effort was made to interpret Hebrew notions into harmony with Greek philosophy; an effort in which ingenuity was sure to overpower good sense, and strained analogies to be mistaken for sober logic.

But the great mass of the dispersed Jews were carried to the north-east, to Nineveh or Babylon. These, whenever they submitted to a rural life, were probably lost among the Gentiles; but when, clinging to their religion and to one another, they abode in towns, their families as they multiplied could only liv by successiv migrations eastward or westward. For they necessarily betook themselves to such employments as still ar familiar with Jews, and indeed with the similarly dispersed Armenians. (It is an axiom in Western Asia that Jews and Armemenians cannot flourish in the same town.) From this cause it happened, that in the course of six centuries Jews of every tribet were found, westward as far as

Logos in Greek may be rendered Word, as in Mark ii. 2, "He preached the word unto them;" but the pervading idea in Plato is, that Mind is the cause of whatever goes on "by plan," which plan he calls Logos. Timaeus in Plato (§ 10) teaches that the Universe is a living creature endowed with a soul,— that it is a god begotten by God (§ 12), eternal, perfect, and only begotten (uovoyevns, unigenitus.) Philo somehow adapted these epithets to the Word of Hebrew poetry.-The divine logos in the noble ode of Cleanthes the Stoic means "well ordered plan."

+ The modern Jews undoubtedly ar descendants of the twelve tribes, as the dispersed Jews are entitled in Acts xxvi. 7, James i. 1. That they ar the descendants of the two tribes, is a baseless fiction, with nothing to make it even plausible. The search after "the ten tribes "is an ignorance which has become fanatical.