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II.

rays of supernatural light whose proper sphere was CHAP. in the bosom of the sacred family. Others, unrestrained by feelings of this kind, nay, anxious even, it would seem, at all hazards to multiply the points of sympathy between the Hebrew and the heathen systems, find their only possible justification of the ceremonial law of Moses in assuming its profound dependence on the institutes of the Egyptian lawgivers. While particular branches of that ritual were (say they) intended to condemn or counteract the grosser vices of polytheism, the general object was to gratify a multitude of childish prejudices', which the Hebrew had contracted in the course of his long residence in Egypt. Customs and ideas of heathenish extraction were engrafted on the Law, and that by the express authority of God Himself, in order to amuse the fancy, and preoccupy the spirit of the Israelitish people, who might else, through their incorrigible love of superstitious imagery and impatience of all purely spiritual truth, have been seduced into apostasy.

1 Spencer's work, De Legibus Hebræorum ritualibus, is pervaded by this strange idea. As Bähr expresses it (Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus, I. 41, Heidelberg, 1837), God appears in his theory as a Jesuit who makes use of bad means [Spencer himself says ineptic tolerabiles] to bring about a good result.' In some respects the legal institute might justly be regarded by the Christian Fathers as a kind of condescension to the wants and weaknesses of man, and consequently as a συγκατάβασις or accommodation to the actual status of its Jewish subjects (cf. Acts xiii. 18); but Spencer's theory is a coarse and violent perversion of this philo

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sophic principle. Instead of looking
on the law of Moses as a lower and
symbolic form of true religion, pos-
sessing therefore an internal fitness,
and a definite place in the grand
scheme of man's redemption, he
could see in it nothing more than a
huge apparatus of ceremonies,'
having no agreement with the na-
ture of God.' Perhaps the closest
of patristic approximations to his
standing-ground occurs in one of the
letters of Gregory the Great (Bed.
Hist. Eccl. 1. 30): with which may
be compared the startling assertions
of Mr D. I. Heath, Exodus Papyri,
pp. 103 sq. Lond. 1855.

II.

Real influence exerted by Egypt on

of the Hebrews.

CHAP. One school of modern writers has, however, accepted this position so far only as to grant that several usages commanded in the Law of Moses were in fact adapted from the ritual code of the Egyptians; but instead of finding in that circumstance a reason for disparaging the ceremonial system of the Hebrews, they proceed to build on their admission a fresh argument in favour of the early date and high authority of the Pentateuch'. Now, if we try to disembarrass our minds as far as possible from any mere presumptions, it is the minds evident that contradictory theories in vogue with reference to alleged resemblances between the Hebrew and Egyptian systems are in almost every case extravagant or superficial or one-sided. We are bound, for instance, to acknowledge on the threshold, that some very deep impressions had been made upon the sons of Abraham by their continued sojourn in the empire of the Pharaohs. From the nature of the case the Hebrews must have been disciples and not doctors. Going down a handful of mere nomades to that country of the ancient world whose institutions had been longest organised, they could not fail to have experienced the transforming influence everywhere implied in such an altered mode of life. We know, indeed, for certain that the land of Goshen proved the nursery of their national spirit, and the training

1 This, for example, appears to be the moving principle of Dr Hengstenberg in his Die Bücher Mose's und Ägypten, Berlin, 1841, where the points of outward similarity are unduly multiplied. His own avowal is: 'Je ursprünglicher, selbststän

diger und einzigartiger die Israelitische Religion in Bezug auf den Geist war, desto weniger hatte sie es nöthig, mit scheuer Aengstlichkeit jede äussere Berührung mit den Religionen anderer Völker zu vermeiden,' (p. 153).

II.

school in which they gradually imbibed some ele- CHAP. ments of art, of agriculture and of civil polity. We know, again, that during their abode in Egypt, the majority of Hebrews proper, to say nothing of the 'great mixed multitude,' who having learned to share their fortunes were blended with them at the Exodus,-contracted more and more a fondness for Egyptian thoughts and customs, utterly at variance with the creed inherited from their fathers1. The same vicious predilection had moreover gained such stubborn hold upon them that in after-ages it was constantly evincing its importance and could scarcely ever be eradicated.

specula

this point.

Nor have these considerations been sufficiently Further answered by the plea that all the popular bias on tions on the side of Egypt, active as it was before the promulgation of the Law, had constituted an additional reason why the Law-giver should abstain from every thing which countenanced or confirmed it: since, according to the framers of the theory of accommodation, it was politic in Moses to recognise and so to consecrate, as far as might be, what the present temper of the Hebrew people rendered him unable to displace. Nay, ask these writers, might not Moses be induced to grant some measure of indulgence to his weak and sense-bound followers by his own experience of the real strength of their temptations, or the real good which might have been educible from heathen customs? Educated from his earliest childhood in the court of the Egyptian monarch, and, it may be, actually initiated into the sacred circles of the priesthood, was

1 On their religious condition while in Egypt, see Kurtz, Gesch.

II. 38-42.

2 Cf. Uhlemann's Thoth, p. 6.

II.

CHAP. he not (say they) both skilled in the symbolic ordinances of Egyptian worship and enabled to discern the hidden truths which lay enveloped in the midst of it? If many of the oldest Greek philosophers, as Thales or Pythagoras' or Plato, who had sojourned there a shorter period, could return exulting from the land of Egypt laden with a rich variety of intellectual spoils; if through their visits many a germ of mathematical science and the outlines of a purer system of ethics and theology were rescued from comparative oblivion; if the principle of distributing their pupils into outer and inner classes, an enlarged conception of the grandeur of the universe, or a more fascinating list of dogmas, such as that of transmigration and the like, had all been widely spread along the shores of the Mediterranean, why should not the fosterchild of Pharaoh's daughter have been equally imbued with reverence for ideas and institutions of his adopted country, or at least inclined to tolerate in others what to lofty spirits like his own may have been radiant with the light of true philosophy?

1 The prohibition by Pythagoras of all animal food and all animal sacrifices (adduced by Uhlemann, Thoth, p. 12, as an illustration of his Egyptising) has rather a Hindú aspect; and of later years, indeed, it has grown fashionable to speak of the founder of Pythagoreanism as a kind of Buddhist missionary; his name or title (Pythagoras='Buddha-guru') being quoted as confirmatory of such hypotheses. Others, however, dwell upon his supposed Phoenician origin, and so make him the depository of Semitic, if

not Biblical, traditions; while many of his ascetic principles are clearly traceable among the Palestinian Essenes.

2 Miss Martineau, Eastern Life, p. 104, tells us that Plato came to Egypt, and sat, where Moses had sat, at the feet of the priests, gaining, as Moses had gained, an immortal wisdom from their lips:' but when she adds that Moses learned to become a redeem-legislator,' as Plato a 'spiritual philosopher,' I confess my utter inability to understand her meaning.

II.

improbabi

Let it Antecedent subjects lity that

heathenish

Now let it be conceded, in reply to these sur- CHAP. mises, that the 'human learning' of the Hebrew legislator was from first to last Egyptian. also be conceded that the fondness of his for Egyptian ritualism was such as to have baffled ideas were adopted in all the wisest schemes designed to counteract it; Hebraism. and enough will yet remain to make us hesitate before subscribing to this novel phase of the accommodation-theory. If the Books of Moses be accepted as our guide (and other guidance in this region we have none), is it consistent either with their letter or their spirit that the Law, as authorised at such a crisis by God Himself, could carry with it any sanction of things purely heathenish in their nature? Was it not pervaded by indignant protests against heathenism as such? The call of Moses, the appointed legislator, was as critical and peremptory as the call of the Apostle of the Gentiles: it was also followed by a like inversion and revulsion in the spirit of the chosen vessel.' He too had been sent to 'bear the name of God before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel,' and to suffer for that Name's sake (cf. Acts ix. 15, 16). He learned at starting on his mission, and he kept engraven ever on his mind a clear idea of the 'complete and absolute distinction of the Jewish faith from that of any other ancient nation'.' This distinctness of position and belief, proclaimed no more through hieroglyphs intelligible only to the few, but in the ordinary writing of the Hebrew people, was exactly in accordance with the destiny marked out for them as conservators of the true religion.

The whole genius therefore of their

1 Cf. Dr Donaldson's Christian Orthodoxy, p. 117, Lond. 1857.
C. A. E. IV.

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