The Mohammedan bible, the Koran, is entirely unique among the sacred books of the world, both in its form and in its manner of production. It is a collection of the preachings of Mohammed (not lacking in beauty of thought and expression), and the daily orders which he issued to his followers bearing the date of the places in which they appeared. "Each of these pieces was written, from the prophet's recitation,' on skins, on shoulder-blades of sheep, camels' bones, polished stones, palm-leaves; or was kept in memory by the principal disciples, who were called Bearers of the Koran." These pieces were collected into a single book soon after the prophet's death, and copied in the order of the length of their contents without any regard to the sense or connection. This want of arrangement in the Koran is regarded by scholars as an evidence of its authenticity: a forgery would have had more method in it. The Moslem sects are as numerous as the Christian. Between these sects, which are grouped in two principal branches, cruel wars and persecutions have long prevailed. The most zealous Moslems are the Turks, who observe the fasts and holy days with rigor, and have no desire to make proselytes, but cordially hate all outside of Islam. So many hard things have been said of the Turks of late years, that it is refreshing to meet with testimonials of their religious and moral character. Bishop Southgate says: "I have never known a Mussulman, sincere in his faith, ✶ ✶ ✶ in whom moral rectitude did not seem an active quality and a living principle. In seasons of plague the Turks appear perfectly fearless. They do not avoid customary intercourse and contact with friends. They remain with and minister to the sick with unshrinking assiduity. ✶ ✶ ✶ In truth, there is something imposing in the unaffected calmness of the Turks at such times. It is a spirit of resignation which becomes truly noble when exercised upon calamities which have already befallen them."' 1 The word Koran means recitation. Allah is constantly on the lips of the Mohammedans, both men and women; but it has become with them a mere form of speech. The incidents of their daily and religious life prove that they do not regard God as a person, but rather as a divine unity of will. The attempt, so often made by Christians, to account for all the imperfections of the Moslem governments by the error of the Mohammedan conception of God is an exalted method of criticism, but one which can hardly be consistently employed by believers in a personal deity. The conception which a civilization forms of God indicates the stage of its development, but this conception is the consequence or function of the whole civilization, not its cause. Το improve it would be to remould the life of a race. As morality is shown to be a logical phenomenon only by first establishing the interdependence of thought and feeling, so the effect upon individual and national conduct of the belief in a personal God can alone be made clear by tracing knowledge and belief to their humblest beginnings, which is to take the widest possible view of religious development. CHAPTER XXI. THE HEBREW RELIGION. Semitic Monotheism-The Jewish Conception of God. WHAT can be more instructive than the diverse opinions of our great religious critics and historians concerning the origin of our ideas of God, especially when we remember that no two of them agree as to the nature of Deity? If by the term God is meant the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, it would seem but natural to credit the Jews with the origin of the conception; but we are by no means sure that it is the God of Israel that we are seeking. In the preface to the great work of Ewald on the history of Israel, Russell Martineau tells us that the author is a devout theologian, and that no one could have labored more sincerely than he did to defend the belief in a personal God, and a supernatural revelation coming from him to Israel, against the contrary evidence which an intelligent study of tradition would supply. A careless reader might understand this to mean that Ewald had not studied tradition intelligently; but had this been the meaning of Mr. Martineau, is it likely that he would have written an eloquent preface to Ewald's great work? With regard to Ewald's treatment of tradition, Mr. Martineau says: "If we penetrate further back than the age of mythic heroes, we come only to a time when the gods themselves were imagined to people the earth with their kind. If this is true everywhere alike, we might expect to find it in Israel also, where, indeed, we do find the very same ideas and stories. We cannot treat the Assyrian, Persian, and Greek deluges as mythical, and refuse the character to the Hebrew. 468 Hence Ewald treats the Hebrew myths of Genesis in the same spirit as he would those of any other nation; nor does he deem it necessary to justify such treatment any more than an historian of Rome would apologize for the myth of Romulus." If we would gain an idea of how Ewald really has treated the sacred traditions of Israel, we have but to look a little farther into the same preface. Here we are reminded of the difficulties which the conscientious historian has to contend with in deciphering the truths which lie hidden in those legends and myths that have until recently been treated as actual history. "The value of history does not depend upon the vividness of its colors, or, in other words, the positiveness of its assertions. ✶ ✶ ✶ The earliest period of the lives of all nations is now acknowledged to be mythical, but the myths cover events or thoughts generally grander than themselves. *** Dorus and Eolus were not single men, but represent the whole nation of Dorians and Æolians; Shem and Ham, the whole population of their respective regions, the southwest of Asia, and the north of Africa. So when Ewald shows us Abraham as a 'representative man,' and his wanderings as those of a large tribe, the quarrels between Jacob and Esau as great international struggles between the Hebrews and the Arabian tribes, rather than the petty strife of a few herdsmen, the history assumes a grander scale than we had any idea of before. Stories which before amused us with their pettiness now tell of the fates of empires and the development of nations, and we see why they have been preserved from an antiquity so high that the deeds of individuals have long been obliterated. The mythical system, therefore, as understood and wielded by the chief masters, is any thing but destructive of history; it rather makes history where before there was none." But the same careless reader might think that whatever fine distinctions the "devout theologian" Ewald may make, he has certainly forfeited the confidence of Christians by declaring the Bible, so far as it deals with early Jewish history, and the conceptions of God which it describes, not only uninspired but thoroughly unreliable, a mere mass of undigested tradition. We are naturally amazed, therefore, to find that such eminent Christian scholars as Dean Stanley and Dr. Rowland Williams concede Ewald's universal learning and "spiritual insight," although differing with him on "general principles," with regard to the authorship of several of the books of the Old Testament. Dean Stanley testifies to "the intimate acquaintance which Ewald exhibits with every portion of the sacred writings, combined as it is with a loving and reverential appreciation of each individual character and of the whole spirit and purpose of the Israelitish history." The same writer acknowledges the vast influence which the book has had, not only in the author's country, but in France and in England, and cites as an example the constant reference to it throughout the new "Dictionary of the Bible," "which is one of the greatest and best Christian books of reference of our time." To an unprejudiced reader it would seem but natural to place the sacred writings of the Jews, at least up to the Persian Period, say B.C. 538, in the category of barbaric lore. The reign of David (about 1000 B.C.) is supposed to have been the zenith of Hebrew religious life, and yet what do we find this life to have been? We are told that "the zeal for Yahveh being national, it manifested itself in persecution of the Canaanites. Samuel was believed to be a rain-maker. Saul put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards; yet in one instance he caused the dead to be called. David apparently believed Yahveh to dwell in the ark, to be confined to Canaan, to be appeased by the smell of sacrifices, and to admit of human sacrifices, though he conceived him to be a righteous God. In David's house teraphim were kept. Yet he fought the 'battles of Yahveh' (Yahveh of Hosts = Tzebaôth). David also believed in angels. Solomon did not recognize Yahveh as the only true God: he erected sanctuaries in honor of foreign gods. The brazen serpent |