that the Israelites may believe in Moses, when they have seen that Yahweh speaks with him. In the second the same object is actually accomplished, though not announced, beforehand; for the people flee in terror, and say to Moses, "Let not Yahweh speak to us or we shall die. Do you speak to us!" It was not till after this that Moses went up to the abode of Yahweh.1

The various legends of which we have spoken illustrate the different ideas which the Israelites formed of their god, Yahweh, at different periods. The representations according to which he reveals himself in the pillar of cloud, speaks to Moses in the hearing of the multitude, converses with him face to face, and is even seen by Aaron and his sons and by seventy elders, are more ancient than those in which he descends upon Sinai as a consuming fire, begirt with thunder and lightning. To this latter narrative, with the commandments given to Moses by Yahweh, we shall recur at greater length in another connection. We shall then have to speak of the covenant made between Yahweh and Israel, of the apostasy of the people which followed it, and of Yahweh's appearance to Moses. At present we will only speak of the object of all the legends we have given. It is the same in every case, viz., to point to Moses as the representative of Yahweh.

The Israelites of after centuries looked upon Moses as their great lawgiver, the deliverer and leader of his people, the founder of the whole social and religious life of the sons of Israel; but at the same time they did not suppose him to have thought out for himself, or to have drawn from his own inward experience, the truths which he taught his contemporaries, and which they handed down to posterity. They believed, on the other hand, that he owed them to a special revelation from his god. It was upon this belief that his authority was made to rest. If he had invented these religious laws and social regulations himself, it would have been open to others to dispute their justice or authority. But it was not so. Yahweh had spoken to him, face to face, in the darkness on the mountain, and in the pillar of cloud before the tent. His contemporaries had actually heard how God spoke to him. The people had witnessed the descent of Yahweh in thunder and lightning. Three-and-seventy of

1 Exodus xx. 18-21.

2 Exodus xxiv. 3-8; xxxi. 18-xxxiii. 6, 12-xxxiv. 35.

the most distinguished and trustworthy of the Israelites had even seen the god of Israel with their own eyes. Nay, for weeks, months, years in succession, all who dwelt in the camp had looked on with awe as the pillar of cloud placed itself in front of the tent of conference. Unbounded confidence must be placed in Moses, therefore, and everything which he had commanded must be accepted as God's word, just as it stood.

All

No one who has any knowledge of antiquity will be surprised at this, for similar beliefs were very common. peoples who had issued from a condition of barbarism and acquired regular political institutions, more or less elaborate laws, an established worship, and maxims of morality, attributed all this their birth as a nation, so to speak- to one or more great men, all of whom, without exception, were supposed to have received their knowledge from some deity. Whence did Zarathustra (Zoroaster), the prophet of the Persians, derive his religion? According to the belief of his followers, and the doctrines of their sacred writings, it was from Ahuramazda (Ormuzd) the god of light. Why did the Egyptians represent the god Thoth with a writing-tablet and a pencil in his hand, and honor him especially as the god of the priests? - Because he was "the lord of the divine word," the fountain of all wisdom, from whose inspiration the priests, who were the scholars, the lawgivers, and the religious teachers of the people, derived all their wisdom. Was not Minos, the lawgiver of the Cretans, the friend of Zeus, the highest of the gods? Nay, was he not even his son, and did he not ascend to the sacred cave on Mount Dicte to bring down the laws which his god had placed there for him? From whom did the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, himself say that he had obtained his laws? - From no other than the god Apollo. The Roman legend, too, in honoring Numa Pompilius as the people's instructor, at the same time ascribed all his wisdom to his intercourse with the nymph Egeria. It was the same elsewhere; and to take one more example - this from later times Mohammed not only believed himself to have been called immediately by God to be the prophet of the Arabs, but declared that he had received every page of the Koran from the hand of the angel Gabriel.

The ancients would hardly have ascribed such a superhuman origin to the laws and doctrines of the founders of their religions unless they had already believed that their gods did from time

to time directly reveal themselves to special individuals. This belief, however, they held most firmly. Feeling their own weakness, knowing how little knowledge there was of God and of divine things in their own souls, they drew a sharp line between that which came from man and that which came from the deity. From man proceeded all that was perverse, unclean, and sinful; while all that was true and pure had its origin above. There was constant need, therefore, of direct revelation from the higher powers; and this need was satisfied amongst nations of the most diverse character by oracles and witchcraft, and amongst the Israelites especially by the preaching of the prophets, who were bound above all things not, to utter what seemed good to their own hearts, but to deliver what Yahweh taught them. Since the ancients, then, were not only keenly alive to the need of immediate revelations, but also believed that they were as a fact constantly vouchsafed to men, it is not surprising that they should look upon all that their greatest religious teachers and lawgivers had done for posterity as the fruit of such intercourse with the gods.

The question whether the founders of religions themselves shared these beliefs and imagined themselves to stand in immediate communication with their god need not be answered at present, as we shall have abundant opportunity of dealing with the subject when we come to speak of the prophets. At present we need only point out the insecurity of a religious or political institution which is made to rest upon these supernatural revelations. As long as every one runs in the old groove, repeats what others have said, and holds by everything that has once got established, the danger is not perceived. But as soon as any one tries to give himself an account of his beliefs and actions, he feels the ground sink beneath his feet. Why did the Israelite worship Yahweh as the god of his people? Why did he obey his laws? Because Yahweh had spoken to Moses. But how did he know that this was a fact? By the old traditions which bore witness to his holding converse with Moses in a pillar of cloud, and to his having been seen by Aaron and his companions. But a cultivated Israelite of the ninth century before Christ could no longer believe this. His idea of the nature of Yahweh was too sublime to admit of such a thought; for no one could see him with impunity, but whosoever looked upon him died. Under the influence of this new conviction arose another conception, according to which Yahweh revealed himself in thunder and lightning, and the people, in terror lest they should be destroyed, and

convinced that it was indeed Yahweh, entreated Moses to interpret the commandments of God to them. Afterwards, even this representation ceased to be satisfactory. The divine origin of the most important Mosaic ordinances, the ten commandments, must be still better guaranteed. Thus rose the account of Deuteronomy, in which Yahweh proclaims the ten commandments with an audible voice, so that all Israel heard it. Hence it is that three mutually exclusive representations came into circulation, all of which have been preserved, placed side by side, and worked up into a single narrative. But all this could furnish no basis for the faith of any thoughtful man. Nor could contact with a worshipper of some other god fail to stimulate reflection. The Israelite in the Babylonian captivity, who spoke on religious subjects with a worshipper of Ahuramazda, must have had his ideas strangely confused. "Yahweh spoke to Moses," said one. "Ahuramazda taught Zarathustra," said the other. Either there must be more than one god, then, which the cultivated Judæan of the sixth century before Christ no longer believed, or else the Persians were the followers of a deceiver. One or other of these alternatives must be accepted. This was a fruitful source of intolerance; and if the Judæan afterwards thought the whole matter out, and became aware of the inconsistencies in the tradition, his religion was completely undermined, and he was in great danger of falling into unbelief. Many a one in earlier and later times, and even in our own days, has lost his faith in this way.

"Did not

"1

Let us beware, then, of resting our religious convictions upon supernatural revelations ! "But was not Moses sent by God?" it may be asked. Undoubtedly he was. God reveal a certain measure of truth to him?" Assuredly he did. Moses was one of those "children of the promise whom mankind has to thank for its religious progress. Amongst all peoples and in all ages there have been and still are such men. But though the revelation which falls to their lot may be higher than that of others to whom they serve as guides, yet it is not different in kind, it is not supernatural. That which is true and good commends itself, by its own excellence, to the reason and conscience of every one who unites the power of perceiving the truth to a love of the truth when perceived, and who strives after purity of heart. By this means each one of us may receive revelations from God. 1 See pp. 142, 143.

WE

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FORTY YEARS WANDERING.

DEUT. I. 1-II. 1.

E are now acquainted with the first and with part of the second book of the Pentateuch.1 The rest of the book of Exodus is taken up partly by a few narratives, of which we shall speak hereafter, and a short code of laws; but chiefly by the description of a sanctuary, commonly called the tabernacle; that is, "the tent." This tabernacle, however, never really existed except in the imagination of the writer of the "Book of Origins," who gives us a detailed account of its shape and measurements, as well as the materials of which, he says, it was made. The third book, which is called Leviticus, after the priestly tribe of the Levites, embraces a number of religious laws of very various dates, chiefly, however, from the first centuries after the captivity. They deal more especially with the regulation of the forms of worship. The fourth book is called Numbers, from the great quantity of figures which occur in it, especially in the early chapters, where the writer of the "Book of Origins" gives us a representation, which he had invented and worked out himself, of the camp of the Israelites, and the numerical strength of each tribe. The book also contains sundry laws and certain narratives, of which we shall have occasion to speak elsewhere. The fifth book of the Pentateuch is Deuteronomy, most of which was written in the time of Josiah, and formed the basis of his reformation.2 it Moses is represented as addressing the Israelites, shortly before the conquest of Canaan, and impressing Yahweh's commandments upon them. Hence the name Deuteronomy, which means 66 Repetition of the Law."

In

The names of these five books are taken from the Latin translation of the Bible, which the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as the official and only pure version of the Scriptures. It is commonly called the "Vulgate;" i.e., "the generally spread." The "Vulgate," in its turn, borrowed these titles from the Greek translation.

In the form in which we now possess the book of Deuteronomy, the legislation is preceded by an introduction, in 2 See p. 26.

1 See p. 42.