II. divergent if not opposite and contradictory ideas1. CHAP. But wherever any emblem had been consciously transferred from one ancient people to another, care would doubtless be employed to rescue it from all supposed perversions then attaching to it, so that in its fresh position it might harmonise instead of jarring with the other members of the ritual system. Let this only be effected, and a symbol used extensively in heathen countries for the representation of a thing reputed holy might be also chosen as an apt exponent of a thing more lofty and more holy still; the freedom of the symbol from profane associations facilitating the adoption of it, and imparting to it an especial fitness for its new office. course pur. Moses. It is, therefore, highly probable that if the Probable Hebrew legislator, acting here as always under the sued by supreme direction of Jehovah, were induced to sanction rites and ceremonies current in the land of Egypt, or in other nations of antiquity, he was influenced by no wish to gratify the merely 'puerile superstitions' of his followers, but by reasons more exalted in themselves and more befitting his exalted 1 The following observations of Kurtz (Gesch. des Alten Bundes, I. 310), though not expressing the exact view here advocated, are well worthy of attention: 'In der hohen Blüthe ägyptischer Weisheit, Cultur und Industrie hatte Israel die beste Schule menschlicher Bildung, deren es für seine künftige Bestimmung bedurfte; durch die Bekanntschaft mit der tiefen Anschauung der Aegypter, die das ganze Leben mit allen seinen Aeusserungen und Verzweigungen unter religiösen Gesichtspunkt stellte, konnte selbst Israels religiöse Anschauung mehr fach bereichert werden, und in der II. CHAP. character. He engrafted them into the legal institutions either because they were the uncorrupted heirloom of the patriarchal age, or else because, from their inherent fitness and expressiveness, they were commended to him as at once convertible in aid of the great project he was called to carry out. Examples here chosen. The number of these ritual correspondencies is stated with considerable variety by different writers. Some', however, I shall scarcely glance at; first, because the facts on which it is attempted to support them are extremely vague and problematical, and, secondly, because those facts, when fully ascertained, admit of a more simple and more rational explanation. In selecting the examples here subjoined for more minute analysis, I take the points which have been universally esteemed the most important of the series, and which century after century have furnished his main arguments to the impugner of the Books of Moses. CIRCUMCISION. (1) The rite of circumcision, though practised by the Hebrews from an earlier epoch, was per 1 Thus, the division of the Hebrews into twelve tribes, alleged by some writers as analogous to the territorial divisions of Egypt, naturally resulted from the number of Jacob's children. The distinction between clean and unclean meats, was pre-Mosaic and patriarchal, reaching backward to the Deluge. Hence may also be explained the strong repugnance felt to swine among the Israelites as well as the Egyptians, and the feeling of contempt with which they both regarded swineherds. The Levitical hierarchy had, moreover, several points of close resemblance to the various orders of Egyptian priests; yet most important differences are also traceable; for instance, in the perpetual exclusion of the Hebrew priesthood from all grants of territory. (Cf. Prichard, Egypt. Mythol. pp. 409 sq.) In this class of merely accidental correspondencies I am inclined to place the 'holy women' of the Israelites, a kind of nuns or female Nazarites, distinct from priestesses, but nevertheless devoted to ascetic modes of life (Ex. xxxviii. 8; 1 Sam. ii. 22): with whom may be compared the holy women of Egypt and Phoenicia (Herod. II. 54, 56). II. cumcision Hebrew? petuated in the ritual system of their legislator, CHAP. and, as raised by him into a national institution, takes its place among the subjects handled in this Was circhapter. Now that some such rite was also com- exclusively mon in the land of Egypt, where Abraham himself had sojourned prior to its introduction into his own family, is definitely stated in a well-known passage of Herodotus1. He there informs us that the custom was native with Egyptians and Ethiopians, as also with the Colchians, who, according to his version of the matter, were an old deposit of Egyptians reaching backward to the conquests of Sesostris. He then adds that circumcision was derived from Egypt by the Syrians of Palestine and the Phoenicians. In the absence of all mention of the Jews, as well as of the Ishmaelites who, Abrahamic also in their origin, had practised the same rite, we may conjecture that the information of Herodotus, which may have been derived exclusively from traders, was restricted to the coast of Syria. Still there is no reason for suspecting the general truth of the account, that centuries before the date of his travels some conformity in this respect existed between the Hebrews and Egyptians. The 'reproach of Egypt,' as adverted to by Joshua (v. 9), is capable of two or more interpretations; but if 1 II. 104; see Diodor. I. 28, and the abundant literature on the whole subject in Winer, Realwört. s. v. 'Beschneidung.' Sir G. Wilkinson affirms (Rawlinson's Herod. Vol. II. p. 171) that the rite was common in Egypt itself' at least as early as the 4th dynasty, and probably earlier, long before the birth of Abraham.' 2 See Mr Blakesley's note on Herodotus, as above. The difficulty connected with 1 Sam. xviii. 25, 2 Sam. i. 20, etc., where 'Philis- 2 CHAP. taken to mean 'that which Egypt would herself II. have stigmatised',' the phrase will intimate that as early as the period of the Exodus the lack of circumcision had been held disreputable in Egypt; and although it may be now successfully contended, more especially from a profusion of extant mummies3, that the practice had been far from universal, its prevalence in the age of Moses may be urged with some show of reason. Its existence in countries. The remote antiquity of the practice is again far-distant suggested strongly, if not absolutely proved, by its existence far beyond the area both of Hebrew and Egyptian influence. Traces of it have been found not only in the Cushite race of Ethiopians proper, and in Troglodytes whose haunts were chiefly on 1 See Rosenmüller, in loc., who arise from the examination of Jer. ix. 2 Cf. Ex. iv. 24 sq., which implies ness appears to have rested altogether upon moral grounds; the people 'who obeyed not the voice of the Lord' were for a season placed in the condition of the excommunicated, and therefore were thrust back into the standing-ground of the unclean (cf. Josh. v. 5-7). 3 From the examination of the mummies it appears that the practice was very limited, not extending to one in fifty; but it must be remembered that a large proportion of these are not of very high antiquity.' Kenrick, I. 450. 4 Diodor. III. 32, who remarks that they acted παραπλησίως τοῖς Alyvrríos, though it is not altogether improbable that the Troglodytes were of Arabian lineage, and might thus derive the practice from Ishmael. It is still not uncommon in Abyssinia (cf. Uhlemann, Aegypt. Alt. II. 257), but whether adopted from the heathen natives or the Judaizers of the Early Church is matter of dispute. II. lated to the institution. the confines of the Red Sea, but far away at the CHAP. extremity of the African continent', among the distant isles of Oceanica2, and even, there is reason for supposing, in the very heart of the New World3. Yet if phenomena like these transport us backward How reto a period long before the call of Abraham or the Abrahamic adoption of the usage in his household, there is nothing in the language of the sacred penman which can fairly be regarded as at variance with such a supposition. The peculiar terms, indeed, in which the ordinance of circumcision was prescribed to him at first (Gen. xvii. 10) would rather indicate that the idea itself was older and was not unknown to him. The elevation of an ancient symbol to the rank of a Divine ordinance exactly corresponded to the change effected in a second ancient rite, the practice of lustration, where the element of water, naturally associable with ideas of purity, was chosen by our blessed Lord in His initiatory sacrament, to symbolise, and by the working of His Spirit to convey, the highest form of purification,-the remission of sins. may be said to constitute the special Specific differences between the What then and distinctive differences between the heathen and the Hebrew rite of circumcision? It is not, I Hebrew think, unlikely that this usage was connected first other rites. of all with the idea of generative purity, and so of a transcendant fitness for religious service, and the 1 e. g. Dr Livingstone writes (pp. 146, 147): All the Bechuana and Caffre tribes south of the Zambesi practise circumcision (boguera), but the rites observed are carefully concealed.' He thinks, as there practised, it was 'only a sanitary and political measure,' and further suggests that, owing to the want of 'a continuous chain of tribes practising 2 Part III. P. 198, n. 2. and all |