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THE SOURCE
OF THE
CHRISTIAN TRADITION
A CRITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT JUDAISM
BY
Edouard dujardin
Revised Edition, translated by JOSEPH McCABE
[issued fob the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1911
https://archive.org/details/sourceofchristia00dujauoft
The historian neither attacks nor defends religions; he
studies how certain books, which have become sacred books,
claiming the veneration of all ages throughout the whole
earth, came into being among a certain people, at a certain
period, in certain circumstauces, in order to meet certain
needs.
Page 99.
The evolution of the Jewish people must be studied with
the same cold impartiality as the evolution of any other
people of the ancient East.
Page 200.
I
CONTENTS
PAGE
Jewish History ------- ix
Chronological Table ------ ix
Map of Palestine ------- xi
Jewish Literature ------- xii
FIRST PART
THE LAW
Chap. I.—The early Days op Jewish History - - l
Chap. II.—Esdras
§ 1. The Beginning ------ 19
§ 2. The Esdras School 31
§ 3. The First Institutions ----- 39
§ 4. Progress of the State of Jerusalem - - - 43
Chap, in.-—The books of Moses
§ 1. The National Epic of an Imperialism 48
§ 2. The Jehovist-Elohist Period - - - 58
§ 3. The Deuteronomic Period - - - - 74
§ 4. The Levitical Period ----- 90
§ 5. A First Glance at the Internationalisation of Judaism- 99
SECOND PART
THE PROPHETS
Chap. I.—Birth op Prophetism
§ 1. Hellenism ------ 105
§ 2. The Men of God - - - - - 111
§ 3. Hosea and Amos ----- 123
Chap. II.—Jeremiah ------ 131
vii
viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chap. III.—Ezekiel
§ 1. The First Book of Ezekiel .... 149
§ 2. The Second Book of Ezekiel. Legends of Samuel,
Elijah, and Elisha. Success and check of the
Prophetic Party ----- 155
Chap. IV.—The Two Isaiahs and the Imperialist
Revival
§ 1. The Jewish People in the Days of the Two Isaiahs - 168
§ 2. The First Isaiah - - - - - 175
§ 3. The Second Isaiah ----- 185
§ 4. The Internationalisation of the Prophetic Books. The
“ Age of the Prophets ” - - - - 194
THIRD PART
THE APOCALYPSES
Chap. I.—Hymns in the Synagogues - - - 207
Chap, ii.—The First Apocalypses - - - - 223
Chap. III.—The Roman Period
§ 1. Hillel and Shammai ----- 249
§ 2. Renascence of Prophetism - - - 257
§ 3. Jewish Agitators from the Year 1 to 66 - - 261
Chap, iv.—The Invasion, notes on the Dispersion - 269
APPENDICES
I.—“Israel” ------ 297
II.—The Samaritan Pentateuch - - - - 298
III. —Our “ Imperialist ” Theory of the Composition of the
Mosaic Books ----- 298
IV. —The “Documents”............................299
V.—Simeon the Just ----- 300
VI.—The Non-existence of the Prophets before the Chris-
tian Era ------ 300
VII.—Were the Galilseans Jews? - - - - 302
VIII.—Spelling of Proper Names - - - - 303
Index
305
PRELIMINARY NOTE
Before we begin our study of Judaism, let me give a little
elementary information in regard to Jewish history, geography,
and literature.
JEWISH HISTORY.
The following table indicates the chief divisions of Jewish
history, and, side by side with it, in a still more compendious
form, the stages in the history of surrounding peoples.
In this table there is no mention of the patriarchs, the
captivity of the Hebrews in Egypt, the exodus under Moses,
or the conquest of Canaan by Joshua; it will be seen, in the
course of the work, that these persons and events are legendary.
It is enough to say that tradition places Abraham in the
twentieth century; certain recent writers have sought to make
him a contemporary of Hammurabi. Moses is assigned by
tradition to the sixteenth century.
CHEONOLOGICAL SCHEME.
TO ILLUSTRATE THE HISTORY OF JUDAISM.
Jewish History. Synchronisms.
Thirty Centuries of History
BEFORE THE SETTLEMENT OF THE ISRAELITIC TRIBES.
4000 B.C.: Sume r o-A k k adian
Empire in Ckaldsea.
In Egypt, first dynasties.
2000: Hammurabi, King of Baby-
lon.
1580: Amasis I., King of Egypt.
1300: Salmanasar I., King of
Assyria.
XIV-XI cent.: The Israelitic tribes
in Palestine.
Period of “Judges.”
IX
X
PKELIMINARY NOTE
1000-5B8 B.C.
The Two Kingdoms.
1000: Saul aud David, then In the East, the great Assyrian and
Solomon. Babylonian Empires.
In Egypt, the last national dynas-
ties.
933 : Death of Solomon.
The two kingdoms of Judah
and Ephraim.
722: Destruction of the kingdom
of Ephraim by Salman-
asar II., King of Assyria.
538: Destruction of the kingdom
of Judah by Nabuchodo-
nosor, King of Babylon.
The “Deportation.”
538-332 B.C.
Persian Period.
538: Conquest of Western Asia by
Cyrus, King of Persia; then
of Egypt by Cambyses, his
successor.
End of 6th century: Formation of
the State of Jerusalem under
Persian suzerainty.
The “ Restoration.” 490: Battle of Marathon.
5th century : Period of “ Esdras.” 480: Battle of Salamina.
429: Death of Pericles.
332-63 B.C.
Hellenistic Period.
332-141: Judaea passes under the
suzerainty of Alexander
and his successors (the
Ptolemies in Egypt, the
Seleucids in Syria).
167 : Civil war : the Machabees.
141: Triumph of the Machabees:
independence of Judaea.
332 : Conquest of Western Asia and
of Egypt by Alexander the
Great, King of Macedonia.
63 B.C.-70 A.D.
Roman Period.
63 : Pompey takes Jerusalem. 48 : Battle of Pharsala : reign of
Caesar.
40-4 : Reign of Herod. 31: Battle of Actium : reign of
Augustus.
35 A.D.: “Conversion” of St.
Paul.
66: Rebellion of the Jews against
the Romans.
70: Taking and destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus.
Map op Palestine and the surrounding Countries, from the fifth to the First Century b.c.
xii
PRELIMINARY NOTE
JEWISH LITERATURE.
The Bible is a collection of the following books :—
1. Legendary and Historical Books.—First, there are
the five books of Moses: Genesis, the best known of the five,
relates the creation of the world, the deluge, and the story of
the patriarchs—Abraham, father of the Jewish people, and
Jacob and his twelve sons, including Joseph, who was sold by
his brethren; Exodus depicts the captivity of the Hebrews in
Egypt, their flight under the leadership of Moses, the crossing
of the Red Sea, and the revelation of the law on Mount Sinai;
Leviticus continues the expounding of the law; in Numbers we
read the enumeration of the people of Israel, and the continua-
tion of the law; lastly, Deuteronomy expounds a new series of
laws, and closes with the death of Moses. This collection of
five books is often entitled “The Book of the Law”; it has
also the name of the Pentateuch, or book of five volumes.
It is customary among informed writers to add to the
Pentateuch the Booh of Joshua, an account of the conquest
of Canaan by the Israelites under the command of Joshua.
The six books thus combined form what is known as the
Hexateuch.
To the Hexateuch succeed the so-called historical books:
the book of Judges, for the more or less legendary period
which extends from Joshua to Saul; the two books of Samuel,
for the reigns of Saul and David, with the prophet Samuel as
protagonist; and the two books of Kings, for Solomon and his
successors, down to the taking of Jerusalem by Nabuchodo-
nosor1 and the Deportation.
The book of Chronicles is a duplicate of the historical books :
the books of Esdras and Nehemiah, which are a continuation of
Chronicles, describe the Restoration under Cyrus (end of the
sixth and the fifth centuries).
2. Prophetic Books.—After the Hexateuch and the his-
torical books come the books of the prophets. There are three
great prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (Daniel, the
fourth, being generally referred to a different series)—and
1 At the author’s request I have retained the older and more familiar
spelling of Biblical names.—J. M.
PRELIMINARY NOTE
xiii
twelve minor prophets, who extend from the period of the
kings to that of Esdras. These books consist of series of
discourses or apologues.
3. The Hagiographers.—We have then a group known
as the Hagiographers; a series of dogmatic romances, pious
stories, poetry, and philosophic essays, such as Job, the Song
of Solomon, Esther, and, most important of all, the book of
Psalms. To these is added the book of Daniel, which opens
the series of apocalypses.
We ought to add to the preceding group certain books which
have not been admitted by the Jews into the Canon of sacred
scriptures, though their importance is no less great. They are
called the Deutero-Canonical or Pseudepigraphic books. Most
of them are apocalypses: for instance, the books of Enoch.
Traditional Conceptions.
The synagogue and—after, and in harmony with, the syna-
gogue—the Christian Church have simply accepted as the date
of composition of each of these works (with the exception of
some of the non-canonical books) the date of the latest events
recorded in each book. Further, the principal character of
each of the works is almost always regarded as the author of
the work.
Thus Moses and Joshua are believed to have written the
Hexateuch in the sixteenth century before the present era.
The aged prophet Samuel is believed to have written, in his
severe style, the book of Judges and the books which bear his
name. Each of the prophetical books is supposed to have been
delivered orally at first, then written, by the prophet who is the
hero of each book. As to the hagiographers, tradition spreads
them over the whole period of sacred history, from Moses to
the last days of Judaism.
An elementary criticism suffices to cast doubt on these
conceptions. As soon as any freedom in the study of history
was obtained in Europe, the traditional teaching was assailed.
After considerable labour the critical school had, in the second
part of the nineteenth century, reached conclusions to which
it still adheres to-day, except on a few points of detail. Reuss
XIV
PRELIMINARY NOTE
in France,1 and Graf in Germany, were the leaders of this
school. Renan, in his History of Israel, has accepted the
results of their exegesis without reserve, and this has given
them a wide publicity. It will therefore suffice to recall the
theory of Renan in broad outline to give an idea—in spite of
more recent advances in detail—of the conclusions of the
critical school.
Conceptions of the Critical School.
To the period of the Judges, of Saul, David, and Solomon,
are assigned the beginnings of Hebrew literature; namely,
certain old songs, such as the Canticle of Deborah, and a few
heroic narratives, which are believed to have been interpolated
in the body of the canonical books, where they are found.
Literary works do not begin, it is added, until the age of
the successors of Solomon, and a first version of Genesis was
written in Samaria. The prophets appear at the same time.
With the exception of the second part of Isaiah, and a few
fragments scattered through the whole series, the prophetical
books are still assigned to the dates which tradition had given
them. The books of Judges and Samuel are believed to have
been written in succession. Then Deuteronomy was promul-
gated by King Josiah, under the influence of the prophet
Jeremiah.
We come next to the ruin of Jerusalem and the Deportation.
The prophets continue their work: it is the age of Ezekiel
and the second Isaiah. Then there is the Restoration, and to
Esdras is attributed the promulgation of the laws contained,
chiefly, in part of Exodus, in Leviticus, and in Numbers. The
Hexateuch is presently completed, and thus the end of the
fifth century would mark the close of the great Biblical
literature.
After a comparative silence of more than two hundred
years, the second century is assigned as the period of the
psalms and the apocalyptic books, of which Daniel is the first.
1 In the introduction to his Histoire Sainte et la Loi (third volume of
his Bible) Reuss has given at length all the arguments—irrefutable
arguments—which forbid us to attribute the Pentateuch to Moses, or to
assign it to any period previous to that of the kings.
PRELIMINARY NOTE
xv
Recent Conceptions.
Except as regards the Psalms and Daniel, the preceding
views have been ruined by M. Maurice Vernes, who has proved
that the compilation of all the Biblical writings, especially the
prophetical works, must be placed later, not only than the
destruction of the ancient kingdoms, but even than the
Restoration.1 M. Joseph Hal6vy, again, while defending the
antiquity of the Biblical works, has demonstrated that the
prophetical books are later than the Mosaic writings.1 2 3
Tradition placed the Mosaic books before the prophets.
The formula of the critical school, on the contrary, is: the
Prophets before the Law. With the new theory of dates we
return to the traditional formula : the Prophets after the Law.
Since the issue of the first edition of this book the discovery
of the papyri of Elephantine8 has given a most striking con-
firmation of the scheme of dates which we had adopted after
M. Maurice Yernes. They show that the Jews of Elephan-
tine knew nothing of a Mosaic law in the middle of the fifth
century, and were especially ignorant (down to 409) of the
fundamental law of Deuteronomy, though in constant com-
munication with the metropolis. Certain students of the
subject have made desperate efforts to resist the evidence; but,
on the whole, we are now granted almost everything except
the late date of the prophets. One thing at a time.......Quite
recently, however, Mr. Thomas Whittaker4 has given his valu-
able adhesion to our thesis.
On the other hand, we protest against the version of our
theories that is given by certain critics, such as Jean R6ville,
who have represented us as saying that not a single element
in the Hexateuch is earlier than the Restoration. We have,
on the contrary, explained in this very work how the compilers
1 See especially Risultats de l 'exig&se biblique (1890), Essais bibliques
(1891), and Duprttendupolytheisme des Hibreux (1891).
2 See Recherches bibliques, 3 volumes, 1895, 1901, and 1905.
3 Sayce and Cowley, Aramaic Papyri discovered at Assuan, London,
1906; Sachau, Drei Aramaeische Papyrusurkunde aus Elephantine, Berlin,
1907; and Sachau, Aramaeische Papyrus und Ostraka aus Elephantine,
Leipzig, 1911.
4 The Origins of Christianity, 2nd ed., London, 1909.
XVI
PRELIMINARY NOTE
of the Mosaic writings made use, after the Restoration, of
legends and customs belonging to earlier times.
It is on these terms that we have proposed, and still
propose, the following conceptions :—
1. Legendary and Historical Books.—The Mosaic
books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, were composed
during the fourth, and at the beginning of the third, century.
To these we may add Chronicles, Esdras, and Nehemiah, which
are later.
2. Prophetical Books.—Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the double
Isaiah, and the minor prophets, were composed in the second
part of the fourth, and in the course of the third, century.
3. Hagiographical.—The Psalms, Daniel, and other
works, were composed during the second and first centuries.
Retaining the apocalyptic books, especially, in this third
and last series, we have framed a classification of the books
of the Bible which corresponds to the history of Judaism, and
which will provide the main divisions of our inquiry:—
The Law (books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings).
The Prophets.
The Apocalypses.
-
PART FIRST
THE LAW
Chapter I.
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
Fourteen centuries before the Christian era opens we
find, in the correspondence of certain Egyptian kings,
which we have discovered at El Amarna, Palestine
described as divided among a number of long-settled
peoples, and we read of the recent arrival of bands of
marauding Bedouins.
A column erected by an Egyptian king a hundred and
fifty years later mentions Israel among these peoples. It
is the first reference we have as yet to the name, and this
first indication, marking the appearance of Israel in the
history of the world, tells at the same time of its first
disaster. “ Israalou is annihilated,” says the column.
It is an announcement of the destiny of that extraordinary
people, unceasingly shattered, rising again unceasingly.
Then silence falls once more on Palestine, and until
about the year 1000 before the commencement of the
present era we have nothing to supply the deficiency but
the legends incorporated afterwards in the sacred writings
of Judaism.
Who were these populations that we find settled on the
plains of southern Syria in the fourteenth century, and
these tribes, hardly advanced beyond the nomadic life,
who sought a place among them? Whence did they
come ? To what families did they belong ? History can
only reply to these questions by hypotheses.
1
B
2
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
The last nomads to settle in the country seem to have
come from the deserts of the south. There is nothing
improbable in the supposition that, before they invaded
Palestine, these hordes of formidable Bedouins had for
many years wandered in the arid peninsula of Sinai. On
issuing from the pitiless desert they had found in Palestine
a country watered with many streams and shaded with
verdure, a vast oasis, in which they were disposed to
settle. The former inhabitants had been powerless to
repel them. They were hardly able to maintain their
hold in the most strongly fortified of their small towns;
while the nomads, scattered about them, reaped their
harvests, plundered their caravans, and fought with each
other. After a long period of guerilla warfare the
invaders succeeded in making themselves sole masters of
the territory; and, adopting fixed habitations, they slowly
absorbed what was left of the primitive population.
We have no reliable document to throw light on this
obscure origin. We can but hesitatingly pronounce a few
names: the Ammonites and the Moabites to the east,
the Edomites in the south, the Israelites in the centre.
They no longer lived under the shade of the tent.
Huts of earth and stone now lodged them; and they
gradually settled in the older towns, which they took.
The soil of Palestine was suited for the cultivation of
barley and wheat, the vine and the fig, as well as for the
rearing of cattle. The olive flourished in it, and honey
was plentiful. The pastoral people turned to agriculture.
At times there were still great migrations. Tribes dis-
placed each other, and, crossing the entire region, went
on to establish themselves more strongly in a different
district, or to seize by force the better situated or better
built villages.
The memory was preserved of an attempt made by an
Israelite sheik, named Abimelech, to subdue the surround-
ing population. But from that period of remote bar-
barism only a few half-legendary names have survived.
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
3
These were preserved by popular traditions, remains of
primitive monuments, and very ancient customs, for the
use of those who, at a later date, undertook to narrate the
past of the Jewish people. This was what is called the
period of the Judges.
The ethnographic development of the Israelites cannot
be regarded as different from that of the other peoples of
western Asia. Struggling in obscure savagery for exist-
ence, entirely resembling the neighbouring groups, just
as barbaric as they, Israel has no history during long
centuries.
On every side of the Israelites were great empires that
had reached the height of their civilisation long before.
To the south-west was Egypt, then at least three thousand
years old. In the east was Babylonia, still older than
Egypt. To the north-east lay Assur, the expansion of
which dated from only a few centuries back; in the north
was the vast feudal empire of the Hittites. A thousand
years earlier, in the time of Hammurabi, the Babylonians
had brought under their dominion the obscure region
which was one day to be known as Judaea. The Egyptians,
the Hittites, and, more recently, the Assyrians, had come
after them, and Palestine had begun to be a route between
the Nile and the Euphrates. Then the conquerors had
left these mountains to their inhabitants, and had dis-
appeared since the middle of the eleventh century.
Egypt was spending itself in internecine warfare; the
empires of the Hittites and Assyrians were likewise in
decay. But these successive masters had brought with
them a certain civilisation, which the Israelites had
inherited when they settled in the country. The high
culture of Babylonia had, as in the whole of western Asia,
accomplished its work.
It was, apparently, a little before the year 1000 that
the attempt which Abimelech had made in vain was
successfully repeated by Saul, the chief of the Israelitic
tribe of Benjamin. A number of guerilla raids were made
4
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
on the formidable and menacing populations of Philistia,
and Saul was able to extend his dominion over several
tribes.
The chief of one group, David, of the neighbouring
tribe of Judah, resumed and completed the work of Saul.
He seized the ancient town of Jerusalem, which had up
to that time remained in the hands of the early inhabitants.
Situated on the height of the Judaic plateau, in the most
fertile part of Palestine, and strongly entrenched, it was
made his capital. He rapidly imposed his dominion on
all the tribes of Israel, and possibly extended it to the
sister tribes, Ammon, Moab, and Edom.
First bandit, then chief of tribes, David was a successful
adventurer, who held his power by force and ability.
His successor, Solomon, seems to have been a peaceful
sultan, with a taste for splendour, who sought to make
something of a kingdom out of the confederation of rival
tribes subdued by his father. But none of his successors
had the strength or the ability to keep the elements
together.
If a fusion had been possible between the Israelites of
the north and those of the south, between the various
populations of Palestine, the history of the east might
have counted one more empire in the series of victorious
and fugitive dominations which followed each other in
Asia until the time of Alexander. But the fusion was
not accomplished, and the work of Saul, of David, and of
Solomon had no sequel.
It is well known that at the death of Solomon the
northern Israelites formed a small State, which was called
the Kingdom of Ephraim, and that the southern Israelites
(Kingdom of Judah) alone remained faithful to the house
of David. As to the neighbouring and related populations,
they rapidly fell away.
At this point the word “ Israel ” loses its meaning and
its use in the life of the peoples of Palestine. The name
“ Israelites ” had been that of a certain number of tribes
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY 5
established before the year 1000 in southern Syria. Now
these tribes are gathered into two distinct groups, the
Ephraimitic and Judaic kingdoms. Tlie name of Israel
is about to pass out of the pages of history, until the day
when it will be revived by the policy of Jerusalem.1
Chronologists put the death of Solomon in the year
933. From that date, for many centuries, the story of
the two peoples, Ephraim and Judah, runs its obscure
course.
Like all small oriental courts, the primitive and rude
palaces of the kings of Judah and Ephraim abound in
domestic crimes. Writing is hardly known; the arts are
primitive, and, to build their royal houses, the sultans of
Judah bring workmen and precious material from the
industrial and commercial towns of Phoenicia, and pay for
them in market produce.
The political organisation is the most summary of
autocracies. The king is a despot, surrounded by a small
legion of janissaries, who guard his omnipotence; the
officers and governors are slaves of the monarch. There
is nothing in the nature of regular taxation or fixed
administration. It is a tyranny of the most barbaric
character.
Of fixed laws there is not a shadow. The first law to
be promulgated in Judah will be nearly two centuries
after the fall of the royalty. Josias did not promulgate
any legislation. There is no trace of codified law before
the time of Esdras. The one rule is custom; its sole
corrective, the caprice of the sultan.
Of the religion of these tribes, from whom will issue
the people that will establish Christianity in the world,
we are able to form a fairly reliable idea.
In all probability, the Israelitic tribes had, like the
Moabite, Edomite, and Ammonite tribes, brought with
them into Palestine the patron-god who had, from the
1 See Appendix I.
6
-
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
sacred tent in which he dwelt, protected their wandering
across the desert. Few monuments of this remote period
have been preserved for us, and the Bible, which is a
precise and precious document for the beliefs of the age
in which it was composed, gives us the most inaccurate
information on earlier times.
We may, nevertheless, conceive that in the course of
time, as the former Bedouins of the desert settled on the
soil of Palestine, the god of each of their tribes had
become attached to the land to which the tribe was
attached; and, while the gods of the earlier populations
fell to the rank of inferior divinities, he reigned in propor-
tion to the reign of his worshippers.
All the tribes had substantially the same religion. Did
they all adore the same god under different names ? Had
they different gods ? In view of the lack of precise
mythologies, history can tell us nothing; but the only
difference it has yet detected between the various gods of
the southern Syrians is a mere difference of name.
Let us leave to specialists the discussion of the religious
origins of Judaism, and restrict ourselves to the better
known period of the kings. Each of the little Palestinian
kingdoms has its god. Moab adores Camos; Ammon
adores Milkom; Ephraim and Judah adore Jahveh.1
These deities entirely resemble each other, and all are fed
with the fat of the flocks; in exceptionally grave circum-
stances children are sacrificed to them.
Each of these deities was the special god of his people,
the divine patron of his country. Just as Jahveh is the
god of Ephraim and Judah, Milkom is the god of the
Ammonites and Camos the god of Moab. It must not be
supposed for a moment, however, that, in sacrificing to
their own god, these peoples deny the god of their neigh-
bours. Judah prays to Jahveh, but does not fail to
recognise the formidable power of Dagon.
1 The form “ Jahveh ” seems to he preferable to “Jehovah” as a vocal
expression of the four consonants rP»P which make up the divine name.
THE EARLY DAYS OE JEWISH HISTORY 7
One day the kings of Samaria, the capital of Ephraim,
and of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah,- set out to make
war on Mesa, king of Moab. What does Mesa do ? He
says to himself that perhaps Jahveh, the protector of
Jerusalem and Samaria, is not inaccessible to corruption;
and, in solemn sacrifice, he offers up to him his eldest
son. Jahveh, won by the sacrifice, grants him the
victory; Jerusalem and Samaria are betrayed by their
god, and vanquished. So we read, almost, in the third
chapter of the second book of Kings.
The protecting, patronising, territorial god is in effect
a national god; and, if the grandchildren of the Israelites
alone deduce the full consequences from the idea of a
national Jahveh, centuries later, it is nonetheless true
that the premises were common to all the inhabitants of
lower Syria from the tenth to the sixth century before
the present era. Mesa, king of Moab, conqueror of his
enemies from Ephraim and Judah, could thank his god
Camos (the author of the stele has made no mistake) in
the very same terms in which Ephraim and Judah would
have congratulated Jahveh, if they had won.
We must, therefore, conceive the history of the Hebrew
kingdoms up to the Deportation in the same way as that
of the neighbouring peoples; scientifically, it is impossible
to conceive it otherwise. Jahveh, who afterwards became
the one god of the Jews, the Eternal of the Christians,
and the Absolute of the philosophers, cannot have been
a less abominable idol than Camos or Milkom.........Let us
try, for our edification, to reconstruct the cult of Jahveh,
from the tenth to the sixth century.
At the summit of a high hill, in the shade of a vener-
able and verdant tree, is a large flat stone, uncut, on
which the victims are immolated. Before the altar are
two emblems. On one side is the matsebah, a column of
stone in the form of a menhir; on the other side is the
asherah, the trunk of a tree which has taken root there
and had its branches lopped off, or the trunk of a tree
8
THE EARLY DAYS OE JEWISH HISTORY
forced into the soil. Some of the Semitic gods, such as
Bel of Phoenicia, have a female partner; but most of them
are originally hermaphroditic, and, at some unknown
epoch, the lord Jahveh was perhaps of this number, both
male and female.
To these rural altars the families bring the beasts
destined for the sacrifice. A sacrificial priest lives close
by. At their call he approaches, clad in a white tunic.
He begins by pouring oil and wine on the altar. Then
the beast is brought forward, and is felled and dismem-
bered by one skilful stroke of his knife. The pieces are
distributed. The priest has put aside those which custom
assigns to himself; the remainder is given back to the
pilgrims; and from the fat, which is set afire, the portion
of Jahveh rises to heaven in a black and acrid smoke.
Jahveh loves fat, says the Bible. Then they all take
their seats at the table, and the ceremony ends piously
with a banquet, at which the head of the family presides.
By the side of the altar of sacrifice is the tabernacle.
There the image of the god dwells and gives his oracles.
At first the images of Jahveh were manifold. He was
adored under the form of an aerolith, under the form of
a precious stone, and under the form of various animals.
It is well known that at Jerusalem he was a brazen
serpent; in Ephraim he was a young golden bull. We
speak of it to-day as a golden calf, because we have in our
language no word for the young male corresponding to
the name of the young female, heifer. [Bullock would
be the more correct term in English.] Jahveh was a
young bullock. He had also a human form.
Nothing of importance could be meditated, either in the
family or the tribe, without consulting Jahveh. It seems
that Jahveh replied with a “ yes ” or a “ no.” The ephod
was a small formless statue, plated with gold, representing
a human appearance of the god, with a pocket, in which
were two balls of different colours. One of these balls
meant “yes,” the other “no”; and the priest drew out
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
9
one ball in giving the divine answer. The tabernacle, a
kind of small chapel made of animal skin or of carpet, but
sometimes built of stone, sheltered the precious statue and,
perhaps, its interpreter. Not far away was the vigilant
sheik of the village, the owner of the sanctuary, with a
troop of well-armed servants. A consultation of the
ephod of Jahveh was paid for in ready money, and was
a good source of revenue. Sometimes a neighbouring
sheik made a sudden descent, at the head of his people,
to seize the god, and there were battles waged round the
profitable idol. There were even cases—witness the
seventeenth chapter of Judges—in which the sheik not
only stole the ephod, but enticed away its priest.
The aron, or ark, of Jahveh was a wooden chest in
which the precious stone, or the aerolith, was kept, and
it was represented as the dwelling of Jahveh. During
the battles of different peoples the ark of Jahveh was
brought sometimes into the midst of the army, so that
the presence of the god might lead to victory; but at
times—witness the fourth chapter of Samuel—the army
was nevertheless defeated, and the enemy carried off the
abode of the vanquished god as the most glorious of
trophies.
The sanctuaries of Jahveh were numerous. What we
have just described was the rural “ high-place.” In the
more important towns the sanctuaries rose to the position
of temples; but, save that they were of vaster proportion,
they only differed from the little provincial sanctuaries in
being enclosed by a wall. At the bottom of the court
was the tabernacle; in front of the tabernacle was the
altar of sacrifice; and on either side were the phallic
matsebah and the accompanying asherah. Round the
court was a line of priests’ houses; and near by was
always the house of the emir, the sheik, or the sultan,
the sentinel at the door of the divine patron. Whether
the sanctuary is a temple or a simple high-place, it is
always a tabernacle in which the representation of the
10 THE EARLY DAYS OE JEWISH HISTORY
god dwells, and an altar on which cattle, and sometimes
human beings, are immolated.
The most famous temples of the period of the kings
were those of Jerusalem and Gabaon in Judah, and of
Sichem, Dan, Bethel, and Silo in Ephraim. In the
description of the Jerusalem temple, which is given in
the book of Kings, we must not seek more than general
and very summary indications, as the description was
composed long after the building had been destroyed, and
with the view of depicting an ideal type.
The proportions of the structure, the richness of the
materials, the number of the priests, and the splendour of
the accessories, distinguished the metropolitan temples
from the provincial sanctuaries. It seems even that
Solomon, in building the temple at Jerusalem, imitated
the magnificence of the Phoenician temples, and copied
their arrangement. The traditions of the east were not
less observed at Jerusalem than at Tyre or Sidon, or in
the capitals of Syria. By the side of the priests’ houses,
round the central court, where the sacrifices were offered,
there were the chambers of the sacred courtesans. Mas-
culine, as well as feminine, prostitution formed part of the
cult of Jahveh.
What was the further development of beliefs and
religious institutions in the Hebrew kingdoms of Ephraim
and Judah ? The same as those of Moab, of Ammon, of
Edom, or of any of the neighbouring peoples of Syria;
nor is it possible to conceive otherwise.
Jahveh was the god of Judah, just as Camos was the
god of Moab, or Milkom the god of Ammon, and conquest
alone could dislodge them. The older Palestinian cults,
anterior to the arrival of the Israelitic tribes, had assuredly
not wholly disappeared; but, as we said, these ancient
divinities only survived as inferior divinities. In each
population there was only one god officially adored, the
god of the conquerors, the patron-god: Jahveh in Israel,
Camos in Moab, Milkom in Ammon—each in his own
THE EARLY DAYS OP JEWISH HISTORY 11
home. Syrian princesses, coming, by chance alliance, to
reign over the harems of the Hebrew kings, may have
brought with them the image of their national god.
Certain kings may, to please a favourite sultana, to flatter
their Phoenician ally or Ninevite suzerain, or to disarm
the anger of the foreign god, have set up altars to Bel or
Astarte in their kingdoms. That is not only possible, but
probable; yet these were exceptional occurrences, and the
old national religion was never altered. An altar of
Camos at Jerusalem would be as inconceivable as the
German flag at Paris.
Why, then, did the Biblical writers afterwards relate
that the sanctuaries of Baal, Moloch, and Astarte had
covered the land of Jahveh ? The source of this error—
an error of which, as we shall see, the policy of Jerusalem
took advantage—is easy to trace. The word king is
melek (moloch, according to an orthographical corrup-
tion) in Hebrew; lord is baal. Now, the titles of lord
and king were precisely those which the peoples of
Palestine lavished on their gods; throughout the whole
of Syria it was customary to speak of the local god as the
baal or the 'moloch. Like their neighbours, the Israelites
of Judah, as well as the Israelites of Ephraim, called
Jahveh their baal and their moloch ; that is to say, their
master and their king. When the practice was lost, the
biblical writers, who were at times great poets, but always
bad linguists, did not understand that this baal or moloch
was Jahveh himself, and they imputed to their ancestors,
in regard to the Phoenician Baal and the Ammonite
Moloch, sins of apostasy of which they were really
innocent. By an analogous blunder they confused the
tree-trunk, the asherah, with the Astarte of the Phoeni-
cians ; and the Jewish writers, and the Christian writers
after them, said that the idol of Astarte was raised,
throughout Israel, by the side of the matsebah before the
altar of Jahveh. Apart from a few chance altars, raised
in temporary circumstances to foreign divinities, and
12 THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
-
apart from the survivals of ancient pre-Israelitic cults
which had passed to the condition of popular superstitions
(like the cult of certain saints in our own time), we may
affirm that, on the contrary, no temple could he conse-
crated, either in Judah or Ephraim, to any other god than
the god of Judah and Ephraim; any more than an altar
could be raised in Moab to any other than the god of
Moab.
When we have thus recalled, amid the stony mountains
of Palestine, the ancient sanctuaries of Jerusalem, Bethel,
Silo, Dan, Sichem, and Gabaon, with their stone altars,
their tent-like tabernacles, their matsebah and asherah,
and, in the case of the more magnificent, their walls of
worn masonry, the homes of their priests, and, in the
case of those which affected rivalry with the Egypto-
Phoenician temples, their chambers of double prostitution;
when we have pictured to ourselves the sheik followed by
his family, the lowly shepherd of the flock, the husband-
man bound to the soil, clothed in their white mantles
and turbans, leading the ox or the ram to the altar of the
god, or coming to ask of the ephod some news of the ass
they have lost, or some counsel as to the coupling of their
heifers or the proper season to sow; when, in the midst
of a frightful combat, we have seen the emir take the
supreme measure of sacrificing his son as a holocaust to
the anger of the god, we have nothing further to do, if
we would exhaust all that the authentic documents can
tell us of this remote past, of three thousand years ago,
but to evoke from their remote obscurity the processions
and the rejoicings at the festivals of Jahveh, which we
may witness to-day in this unchanging east.
These festivals are alike over the whole of Palestine,
and their order is dictated by the natural development of
the rural year. First we have the spring, when the
seedlings begin to break through the soil, and when the
mothers of the flock deliver. Little caravans form on all
sides round the village, and bring to Jahveh—each seeking
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY 13
the nearest sanctuary—the first-fruits of the field, the
first-born of the flock.
Then it is harvest-time, which will later be called the
Pentecost. The Israelites pray to Jahveh and thank him,
with ripe ears of corn and weaned beasts, with the offer
of young bullocks, of yearling lambs, of the rams whose
odour he finds pleasing. During this time no servile
work is done.
Later is the vintage and the end of agricultural labour.
Prom all sides the caravans rise toward the sanctuary of
the protecting god. Each man has brought the fruit of
his trees, and branches of palms and willows from the
river-side, and for several days they rejoice before their
god. The sky is serene, the nights are mild. Round the
sanctuary, at the summit of the hill, at the foot of the
venerable and verdant tree, they have built huts of foliage,
the shelter of a few days. There they live, and eat and
drink, and celebrate the passing of the year and the
coming repose of the autumn. It is the feast of
Tabernacles, the feast of the tents of foliage.
What can literature have been among these half-
barbaric peoples, without written laws, without govern-
ment, in the throes of perpetual warfare, interrupted only
by the common cycle of annual festivals, and with this
local and idolatrous religion ?
There cannot have been any more literature in Ephraim
or Judah than in Moab, or in any of the neighbouring
kingdoms. Most assuredly there cannot have been more
than in the regions of higher civilisation, like Phoenicia.
And this literature is the same everywhere. At the court
of each of the petty oriental kings an historiographer
recounts the high deeds of the master. Among the
people a few short religious chants, not written, pass from
mouth to mouth. There are legends, finally, epical
narratives, certain familiar stories, which the elders teach
the young, and which pass down the course of ages.
The legends, the chants, the annals of the historio-
14 THE EARLY DAYS OE JEWISH HISTORY
graphers of Moab, Ammon, and Edom have been lost in
the melting away of tribes which, once they had been
devastated, were unable to form again into peoples. On
the other hand, thanks to the Restoration, the official
annals, certain religious songs, and a few ancient legends
remained, after the confusion of the Babylonian captivity,
in the memory of the Jews of the fifth and fourth
centuries. These reminiscences enabled the Jews after-
wards to write the story of their past. But what was
afterwards made of this historiography and these legends
must not deceive us. Neither in Judah nor in Ephraim,
any more than in Moab, Ammon, or Edom, can we seek,
among such primitive races, anything else but the popular
songs, the legends, the epic stories, which we find at the
origin of all civilisations. We must not imagine that,
beside the despotic and formidable sultan, there was any
other historian than the servile scribe charged to leave to
his successors, in lines as brief as those of an inscription,
the memory of falsely represented exploits.
Have we at least some monument, some inscription,
from this remote epoch ? Have we found a single stone
of the harems of these petty monarchs, their citadels, the
ancient sanctuaries, the stone columns, the matsebahs,
the triumphal arches ? It was believed, a few years ago,
that Moab, in default of literature, had left us a really
ancient monument in the pillar (stele) of its king Mesa.
Unhappily, the famous stele seems too fine to be genuine.
Of ancient Hebraism no monument of the slightest
interest has come down to us. Apart from a few stones
of Jerusalem, apart from what the future may discover in
the deeper soil of Palestine, nothing has survived the
ages. While, in Assyria, Babylonia, Susa, and Egypt,
the spade of the explorer has brought before us the fallen
empires, with glories that fill us with amazement, and
disclose to us the marvellous civilisations they had in the
remotest depths of history, Judaea has as yet yielded only
a miserable past. This corner of the east lingered in the
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY 15
primitive state which is, indeed, no longer barbarism, but
is hardly civilisation; and the great fortune of the Jews,
one day destined to spread far and wide, had not yet,
even in the seventh century, in the time of the last kings
of Judah, begun to reveal itself.
No history, indeed, is more pitifully obscure than that
of the petty kings of Ephraim and Judah, down to the
day when they were swallowed up in the flood of the
Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. After the death of
Solomon, his successors in Ephraim and Judah had worn
themselves out, during two centuries, in warfare with
each other or with their neighbours. And one day the
countless and terrible multitudes of the Assyrians appeared
in the north of Palestine.
The kings of Nineveh were then reconstructing one of
those vast empires which had successively held western
Asia, had pushed as far as Egypt, and, passing on to
Europe, had been arrested only at Marathon. The
Assyrian troops made their way by great invasions,
without settling anywhere. They passed like a devour-
ing wave, ravaging everything, carrying off the booty, and
massacring the population. A defeat would arrest them
for a few years ; submission, ransom, the paying of tribute,
would set them on their way again. Then the wave came
back like the tide, and, sooner or later, swept over the
barriers. The kingdom of Ephraim, situated in the north,
was the first to suffer. The ancient historiographers of
Samaria, and the writers of Kings after them, have left
us the record of the unequal struggle of Ephraim against
the northern foe; and the cuneiform monuments found
in the Assyrian ruins mention the misadventures of the
petty kings of the land of Omri.
Toward the end of the eighth century, two centuries
and a-half after Solomon, Salmanasar, king of Nineveh,
took Samaria, and bore away in captivity the king and the
chief inhabitants of Ephraim. The northern kingdom had
ceased to exist.
16 THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
Jerusalem, more sheltered, in a stronger situation on its
hill, resisted the Assyrians. History tells that Sancherib,
the successor of Salmanasar, had come to lay siege to
Jerusalem, where the pious king Ezekias reigned, and
that the angel of Jahveh went forth one night, and smote
a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian
camp; so that, when the Hebrews arose in the morning,
they found the enemy slain. But the angel of Jahveh
intervened too rarely, and the little kingdom of Judah
(about the size of Corsica) only lived from that day in a
death-agony.
War was being waged between Nineveh and Egypt, and
the land of Judah was the line of march and the field of
battle. Over it passed the hostile armies, with which no
neutrality was possible. After a hundred years of guerilla
fighting in the mountains, of submission, revolt, and
desolation, the poor people found itself reduced to one
strong town, Jerusalem, perpetually besieged and ran-
somed, with its surrounding country eternally devastated.
Babylon had displaced Nineveh ; the formidable empire
of Assyria had fallen; the Chaldaean armies of Babylon
passed in turn across western Asia. After resisting the
Assyrians so long, the Jerusalemites were about to yield
to the unceasing attack of the Chaldaeans. We have
reached the time of Nabuchodonosor. The virulent
poetry attributed to Jeremiah has immortalised the last
years of the descendants of David; but, from party spirit,
it has perverted the truth.
It is very difficult for us to conceive the last years of
ancient Jerusalem, with its Josias, Joachim, and Sedecias,
as the chastisement of a people punished by a jealous god
for falling from its earlier virtue, or to see in them any-
thing else than the bloody and terrible resistance of a
small agricultural and pastoral population, who have been
devastated and have taken shelter behind the walls of the
citadel, where the emir dwells, in the shadow of the chief
sanctuary of their god. It is a savage struggle, and the
THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY 17
end of it must be either an improbable victory or destruc-
tion.
Jerusalem had, four centuries earlier, under the bold
and astute David, almost become the centre round which
might gather all these small populations, of like customs
and the same language and religion, to form a kingdom of
the southern Syrians, masters of the route between Egypt
and Asia, with every prospect of vanquishing the Phoeni-
cian ports, the Mediterranean, and the open west. Israel
fell short of this destiny ; a more extraordinary future
was reserved for it. These tribes, nomads but a short
time before, hardly emerged from barbarism in the sixth
century, wore themselves out in unceasing intestine war;
and their petty sultans, cruel and knavish as are all
oriental despots, could only pillage, betray, and massacre
each other, while the formidable power of the great
military dominations of Nineveh and Babylon increased
beside them.
In 588 Jerusalem is taken by storm by the troops of
Nabuchodonosor. The king Sedecias, after seeing his
sons slaughtered, has his eyes put out; bound in bronze
chains, he is carried off to Babylon with the chief men of
the town. The house of Jahveh is burned down.
The kingdom of Judah is destroyed; the kingdom of
Ephraim has disappeared a century and a-half before;
Moab, Ammon, and Edom, their brothers, successively
melt away. Syria is conquered. There is no longer a
Philistia ; Tyre alone holds out on its island. The whole
of Palestine is thrown into confusion. The Chaldseans of
Babylon use it as the Assyrians of Nineveh had done.
When they have conquered a land, they begin by carrying
off all that is portable in gold, bronze, and precious
objects. Then they burn down the buildings and destroy
the walls. They massacre all who resist, and divide those
who submit into two groups: the chiefs, whom they bear
away into captivity, and the common folk, whom they
leave, with the charge of paying tribute, on a land of
c
18 THE EARLY DAYS OF JEWISH HISTORY
smoking ruins, of desolation, of long infertility. It is all
over then with Judah, as with Ephraim, and Moab, and
Edom, and Ammon. The Hebrew people has perished,
and it has perished without leaving any memorial—
neither in history, nor art, nor legislation, nor literature,
nor religion. It has perished like the most obscure of
these rough tribes of western Asia. But from this people
which has done nothing there will now come sons who
will do everything.
Chapter II.
-
ESDBAS
§ 1. The Beginning.
The history of the Jews begins in 588.
Jerusalem, which has never been more than a small
and obscure town, is now a heap of ruins. On every side
the surrounding country is laid waste. Nothing is seen
in it but bands of marauding Bedouins. The soil is
cultivated no longer; there are now no flocks. The
sheiks and leading men have been massacred or borne
away. There remains only a miserable gathering of the
poorer folk.
The years pass slowly by.
Some measure of peace has been recovered, however.
People endeavour to rebuild their dilapidated huts. To
restore the walls of the town is out of the question. They
seek to draw closer to and help each other amidst the
general desolation, but they have no resources, no means
of defence, and, apparently, no energy. In the half-peace
which ensues upon great disasters, they return somewhat
toward the primitive savagery.
Still the years pass by.
These plains of southern Syria have become a desert
where one no longer dare put flocks to graze, where it is
fruitless to till the soil, where the olive and the fig are
blighted, and no one seeks to restore them. In the
general insecurity what remains of life gathers instinc-
tively round the old town, where it is easier to defend
oneself against the marauders, and the nearness of neigh-
bours gives one a feeling of confidence. Jerusalem has
remained a small centre, like Samaria. In and around
Jerusalem, in spite of the demolished walls and the
19
20’
ESDRAS
blackened sanctuaries, there are some signs of sluggish
life. Two generations pass in this wise.
Suddenly, in the year 538, it is said that strange armies
have arrived from the distant heart of Persia, that they
have gathered on all sides round invincible Babylon, and
that one night, while the emperor Balthasar held festival
with his courtesans, they swarmed to the assault of the
impregnable capital; that Babylon has fallen and its
terrible empire is over. A new people is master of the
world; a new emperor reigns, Cyrus. Emissaries, with
armed cohorts to support them, go out to every part of
Asia. It is said that the new people is strong, but not
cruel; that the new emperor lets every man live at his
own fireside, worship his own god, tend his vine, lead out
his flock to pasture, and do his business in peace in the
markets of the large towns, under the shadow of his
formidable, but protective, power.
It is difficult to say, in the present state of science, if
the Persian domination and the government of Cyrus
were at the start as peaceful as the flattering historians
would have us believe. It seems clear, at least, that the
Persians acted differently from the Assyrians and Chal-
daeans. The latter had been ruthless conquerors, indifferent
to organisation; the Persians sought from the first to
organise their empire. The Persians were a great
aristocratic nation, of strong government, with severe
morals and religion, far removed from barbarism, with
laws and agriculture. Their powerful military organisa-
tion, instead of pressing toward savagery, maintained
discipline. Their Aryan spirit showed itself in a craving
for government, a leaning to administration, a feeling of
the need of order; so that, at the time when they were
leading their armies across Asia, Cyrus, Cambyses, and
Darius were writing edicts, appointing satraps, maintain-
ing an interchange of couriers with each of them, holding
the final court of justice, and governing.
The Jewish historians relate, with improbability of
THE BEGINNING
21
detail, that, as soon as Cyrus had taken Babylon, he
allowed the descendants of the Judaites, who had been
brought into captivity by Nabuchodonosor, to return to
their country, rebuild their town, and restore their temple.
They assert that the first caravan left Babylon under the
guidance of Zorobabel, and returned to Jerusalem; and
that then, nearly a century later, in 458, Esdras in turn
led back a group of exiles to their country. They give
the names of the heads of families, count the caravans,
and relate the most precise details about the two
migrations.
Historical criticism retains only a few facts out of
these accounts. The Restoration was the work of the
Jerusalemites who had remained in and around the
town, rather than of the descendants of the exiles of 588.
The descendants of the Jerusalemites who had been
exiled to Babylon had definitely settled there. It is likely
enough that exiles who found the doors of their country
re-opened after fifteen, twenty, or even thirty years of
captivity would be eager to return to their homes. But
by the time of Cyrus it was already more than fifty, and
even sixty, years since the deportation (as the great
deportation of 588 had been preceded by another in 599).
Two generations had passed away, and they had settled
in the land of exile. At the time of the supposed return
of Esdras a hundred and thirty, or a hundred and forty,
years had elapsed since the deportation. There was no
longer question of returning to Jerusalem. They were
in Babylon, and would remain there. “ Captivity ” is an
incorrect word, and has done much to put a false com-
plexion on their history. There was no captivity or
slavery. They had been forcibly transferred to the banks
of the Euphrates, but had settled there, and now lived
there in freedom. Though the Babylonian deportation
had been compulsory, it proved to be merely the first of
the countless emigrations by which the Jews were after-
wards to fill the world. The Babylonian colony, the first
22
ESDRAS
of the Jewish colonies, remained, grew, and lasted for
centuries.
That a small number of the Judaites returned to
Palestine in the time of Cyrus is quite possible ; but we
must seek the restorers, or, rather, the founders, of the
Jewish nation amid the miserable population which
remained in the country. The Persian domination, suc-
ceeding the Chaldsean domination, gave the Judaites who
remained in their home the chance of restoring and
organising. It seems that the world began to breathe
once more, after the Babylonian oppression; in Palestine,
as everywhere else, if a spark of life remained in the
breast, it was now possible to rise again. But nothing
was more lowly, and nothing is more obscure, than the
beginning of this resurrection.
The first known act of the story is the restoration of
the temple of Jahveh, which is attributed to Zorobabel.
However modest this reconstruction of the temple may
have been, it is the first stirring of the soul of Jerusalem.
As long as there was no temple there was nothing but a
stricken population, scattered over a land of ruin. The
temple means that Jahveh has returned to his land, and
that there is once more a god at Jerusalem.
Years passed by after the reconstruction of the temple.
Jerusalem had remained dismantled since 588; and, at
this period in the east, an open town was an easy prey to
the attacks of neighbours and nomads. The Biblical
writers narrate that a Jew of the name of Nehemiah, who
held the office of cup-bearer to the emperor Artaxerxes,
obtained from his master, and brought to Jerusalem,
permission to rebuild the walls. There were frightful
difficulties. The workers, as they built, had the trowel
in one hand and the sword in the other. It seems that
the work was completed less than a hundred years after
Cyrus, about the middle of the fifth century.
With temple and walls Jerusalem became a town.
With the narrow strip of country immediately around it,
THE BEGINNING
23
the town became what we should call a small territorial
unity, and provided the conditions which were necessary
for life and prosperity.
Jerusalem and its outskirts were typical of the organi-
sation which the Persian government sought to promote
in the immense agglomeration of peoples under its yoke.
The Persian government expressly restored life to the
small States, the agricultural populations, the cities girt
about with countryside, all the little territorial unities.
A large State would have been a great danger; very small
States were preferable in the confederation which made
up the new empire. The policy of the Persian emperors
aimed at the development of the small States and preventing
the formation of large ones. In one of the chief towns of
Syria resided a satrap, with an army, who governed the
Syro-Palestinian region. He had a lieutenant and some
troops in each town, and his work consisted in maintaining
order and receiving the tribute. Provided it paid the
tribute and there was no disorder, each town and each
group of towns, each petty State, did what it pleased.
Was there a restoration in the other cities of Palestine
like that of the capital of the former kingdom of Judah ?
Did the earlier kingdom of Ephraim witness a revival of
Samaria? Had Moab, Edom, and Ammon the same
good fortune ? Did the old cities and centres of Syria,
devastated in the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests,
return to life ? Certainly. But the history of these
peoples is almost unknown. Even the history of Jeru-
salem, in spite of the brilliance of its later development,
is full of obscurity until the second century; it is the
more natural that we should know little of the destiny of
the unhappy neighbours who never attained distinction.
It is, however, certain that under the dominion of Persia
there was, from end to end of Palestine, a re-awakening
—I had rather say an awakening—of these stricken popu-
lations. At Samaria as well as Jerusalem, in the capitals
of Moab, Edom, and Ammon, in certain towns of Philistia,
24
ESDRAS
at Damas, there was an organisation not unlike the
development of the burglier-cities of the Middle Ages.
In the midst of these petty States, and not differing
from them in origin, the little State of Jerusalem is
destined to grow and develop. It is the story of this
little State, similar at first to the story of the surrounding
States, that we have henceforth to follow. The inhabitants
of Jerusalem now call themselves by a new name, the
“ Jews.” The word “ Jew ” is a corruption of the older
“ Judaean but a new name characterises a new fact.
Formerly there was a kingdom of Judah; now there is
a Jewish people. The name “ Jew ” is born in history.
Instead of the little kingdoms which divided southern
Syria between them before the sixth century, there have
appeared a multitude of tiny, independent States, under
the common hegemony of the Persian emperor, not larger,
at the most, than one or two counties. Jerusalem is one
among this mass of rival cities, which are irremediably
lost to us in the night of a dead past. It has its thousands
of acres of pasturage and crops around it, and at this date
vegetates miserably, like in all respects to the obscure
cities about it; yet its name will one day stand high in
the world’s annals. We saw in the first chapter that the
story of the earlier kingdom of Judah was the same as
that of neighbouring peoples; we shall see in the history
of the Jewish people something wholly special, extra-
ordinary, unique. Did something happen at Jerusalem,
then, during the fifth century, which could not happen in
the rival cities of Palestine ? All the evidence is against
it. But from the common circumstances of all these
cities and all these peoples of Palestine one people alone
was able to develop the logical consequences. They had
a common origin, a common beginning; but everywhere
else was abortion—at Jerusalem alone we find a con-
tinuous development to the higher stage. Of different
children of the same parents one only becomes a Napoleon;
the others remain Jerome, Joseph, or Lucien.
THE BEGINNING
25
-
For twenty centuries the Jewish and Christian ortho-
doxies have taught that the destiny of Israel can only be
interpreted as a prolonged miracle. History will simply
say that the development of the Jewish State, among the
other States of Palestine, has been a similar success to
the development of the Athenian republic among the
republics of Hellas, or to the even more extraordinary
development of Rome among the cities of Italy.
What is the Jewish people in its beginning ? A few
miserable shepherds or husbandmen, a few lowly artisans
and poor folk without chiefs, who have gathered round
the ruins of a dismantled city, three parts destroyed by
fire, from the terror of looting hordes and hostile neigh-
bours. Then, when a better age begins and a great peace
fills the world, the little town is gradually rebuilt, the
temple of its national god restored, its walls raised once
more in spite of a thousand difficulties, and some security
is provided for its inhabitants and its outskirts. We are
now in the middle of the fifth century. There is still no
organisation, no written law, at Jerusalem. The town,
except for its modest temple and perhaps a few houses, is
no more than a cluster of huts with an encircling wall.
There is no civilisation; it is the dubious age when a
people barely begins to exist. Savagery and misery lie at
the gates. It is much the same with Samaria, the old
capital of Ephraim, with the sacred towns of Bethel and
Silo, and with the small Syrian towns, the towns of Moab,
Ammon, Edom, and Philistia. Jerusalem, for all its
temple and its walls, remains a humble city of Palestine.
It is at this moment that the evolution commences
from which Christianity will issue. The date is fixed by
the name of Esdras.1
The story of Esdras, as we read it in the book which
bears his name in the Bible, is, like almost all the Biblical
stories, a doctrinal legend; that is to say, a legend with
the purpose of establishing a religious dogma. Criticism
1 See Appendix II.
26
ESDRAS
can glean only two or three facts from it, and the greatest
obscurity surrounds the person, and even the age, of Esdras.
Was he the man of genius who first organised the popu-
lation of Jerusalem? Was he the head of a school of
reformers ? Is his name merely the symbol which con-
ceals a popular movement, or the geographical expression
which denotes a group ? It is supposed that Esdras was
a real personage, a priest of Jahveh; that he, in par-
ticular, forbade the Jerusalemites to have foreign wives,
and that he came after Nehemiah. But if his personality
is, and must apparently remain, shrouded in irremovable
obscurity, the work done, whether it was the work of one
(as is the more probable) or of many, or, better still, the
collective work of the nation, is clear and intelligible. It
is the first affirmation of the nationalism which was the
point of departure of Judaism.
When the men of Jerusalem had rebuilt the temple of
their god and restored their walls, it seems that, instead of
slumbering in their comparative security, they went on to
give a profound consideration to their situation, their past,
and their future; and that this profound meditation laid
the foundation of their fortune. The other peoples round
about them, Samaria, Moab, and Edom, similarly situated,
did not rise above the needs of daily existence. It seems
that the men of Jerusalem stopped to reflect, and interro-
gated their destiny. The others, accepting the lot which
chance dealt out to them, were content to live. The men
of Jerusalem trembled for themselves ; they dwelt on the
two long centuries, the horrors of which were barely over.
This little population, restricted to the few acres which
lay between the Cedron and the valley of Ben-Himmon,
shuddered to find itself conquered, isolated, and so weak,
and it reflected anxiously on its past. With the terrible
memories of ruin and deportation, with the painful recol-
lection of the slow and burdensome restoration, they
contrasted the memory of their earlier glories. Among
the older folk one still heard tell of the former greatness
THE BEGINNING
27
of the nation’s heroes, the victories of David, and the
splendour of Solomon. They dreamed of the old Davidic
kingdom, and in exaggeration made it stretch from the
desert to the great sea. They told marvellous tales of the
temple so magnificently huilt by Solomon, and contrasted
with it the poor edifice of Zorobabel. While other nations
drowsily accepted things as they were, the men of Jeru-
salem asked themselves why this thing had happened to
them, and why that; why this former grandeur and why
the fall. They could not reconcile themselves to the
thought that they had once been great, and were now
miserable, unless it were for some extraordinary reason.
They put themselves the fateful question, Why, which is
the root of all resurgence.
The naive theology of the tenth, the eighth, and even
the sixth century, taught that the victories of nations were
the victories of their protecting gods, and their defeats a
defeat of the god. A victory effaced a defeat. Jahveh,
once beaten under Achaz, had had his revenge under
Ezekias. It was a very natural idea in the turmoil of
brigandage, sometimes profitable, sometimes a failure,
among the ancient populations of Palestine. But the
frightful events which had ensued, the Chaldaean invasion,
the ruin and exile, had definitely brought these tribes into
subjection, and had meant the defeat of their gods. And
each people continued, as before the Babylonian conquest,
to honour its own god. Moab worshipped Camos, Ammon
worshipped Milkom. In the same way Jahveh reigned at
Jerusalem. Just as Camos was the territorial god of
Moab, Jahveh remained the territorial god of Judah.
Nevertheless, while the neighbouring peoples acknow-
ledged the defeat of their gods, the men of Jerusalem
proclaimed that their god had not been conquered. On
the very morrow of the Babylonian deportation, under
the ignominy of the Persian domination, they declared
that Jahveh was the terrible master who had thought fit
to chastise his people, and now thought fit to restore it.
28
ESDRAS
They affirmed that their disasters and their ruin and
oppression were the work of their national god himself.
In appearance, there was no change of the old traditions
in the Palestine of the fifth century; but in reality the
whole soul was revolutionised in the men of Jerusalem.
While the others thought it enough to cultivate the
protecting deity, who sent the sun and the dew, the men
of Jerusalem put their own despair, anxiety, and pride
into the terrible soul which they gave to Jahveh. It was
a prodigious effort of a few heroic men. The other gods
had become poor secondary deities, oppressed with their
people, now, under the Persian hegemony, ruling only the
small happenings of their little towns. The men of
Jerusalem had the boldness to proclaim that their god
had triumphed, that he had deliberately allowed the
downfall of his people, and that he now willed its
restoration. Jahveh was no longer a mere territorial
god, sitting in the ark, a lover of fat. He appeared to
Esdras, to the Esdras group, in the agony of their
humiliation, as the terrible master who had done every-
thing.
Why had Jahveh willed these abominable things—the
burning of his temple, the destruction of his town, the
dispersal of his people, and the desolation of his land
during two hundred years ?
As a stricken soul, which has felt the throes of agony,
is determined to learn the cause of its misfortune, and, if
it is to live again, absolutely needs to know why it came
so near death, so the Esdras group invented the only
answer which seemed fit to reassure its life.
This answer had to be the powerful stimulant which
would restore the patriotism of the people, and exalt that
patriotism into the most sombre fanaticism. The men
of Jerusalem must be united in a savage love of their
city. Patriotism must in future fill every heart until
there is no place for any other feeling. The love of
Jerusalem, their country, must flash forth in the depths
THE BEGINNING
29
of their souls so vividly that for ages to come its walls
will need no other light.
What was there, then, among these peoples of southern
Syria to correspond to what we now call our country ?
At Jerusalem this thing was Jahveh; in Moab men called
it Camos; in Ammon it was Milkom; in Tyre, Bel and
Astarte; at Damas, Rimmon; and in Philistia, Dagon. If
this exalted patriotism had been born in Moab or at
Damas, it would have found expression in the names of
Camos or of Rimmon. Being born at Jerusalem, it was
uttered in the name of Jahveh.
The man, or the group, known as Esdras announced
that Jahveh had devastated his land, scattered his people,
destroyed his town, and burned his temple, because his
town had denied him, and his temple had witnessed the
setting-up of foreign idols in face of his jealousy. That
meant that the land of Judah had been laid waste, its
people scattered, and the town destroyed, because their
ancestors had let the love of their country grow cold in
their hearts; because the people had not held together in
the great national solidarity; because nationalism, which
alone makes a people great, had been enfeebled in the
town of Jerusalem.
The defeat, the ruin, the deportation, the obscure
misery, and the servitude had punished the soul of Judah
for not maintaining the great passion for one’s country,
for lack of which every people is condemned to death.
Esdras expressed that when he proclaimed that Jahveh
had punished his people for being unfaithful to him, for
having worshipped other gods. The restoration, the
return of hope, the better prospect, would reward the
Jewish people, if it drew together in a fiercely exclusive
nationalism. Esdras expressed that when he announced
that Jahveh restored the life of his faithful children, and
promised them a happy future if they consecrated them-
selves entirely to him.
Historically, it was false to say that the old kingdom of
30
ESDRAS
Judah had been faithless to Jahveh. We know that
Jahveh had always been worshipped in Judah, and it is
impossible to conceive that any other national god than
Jahveh had been worshipped there. But Esdras was not
concerned with historical criticism; and the glorious
untruth of those who restored the Jewish nation to life
in the fifth century met none to contradict it. The soul
that has come back from the death-agony, and seeks to
know why it has suffered, does not need a true answer;
it needs a reply that will prove a remedy. The untruth
of Esdras was the sole remedy that could, and did, save
the Jewish soul. After such dire catastrophes, in the
midst of continual danger, in face of a future full of peril,
it was necessary to put soul into a people that would live.
It was necessary to say to it: “ Behold thy flag! In that
is thy strength. If thou wilt keep thy eyes on that
emblem, thou shalt be strong. If thou turnest away,
doubt not that thou art lost. Know that, as often as thy
fathers rallied to it they won glorious victories. And
when they turned away from it remember Nabuchodo-
nosor the conqueror, remember they blackened home and
scorched vine, remember the exile by the rivers of
Babylon. Thou hast been conquered, Judah, because
thou didst betray Jahveh. Thou hast recovered because
thou hast returned to him. Be faithful to Jahveh, Judah,
and thou shalt be happy.”
It was thus that the profound and desperate meditation
of the men of Jerusalem, in the fifth century, saved them.
It was thus that the earlier local god of Judah, the
protecting Jahveh of Judah, like to the Camos of Moab
and the Milkom of Ammon, was transformed, enlarged,
animated, and became the formidable being whom we
afterwards find depicted in the Bible.
At Jerusalem, then, the religious question was a
national question. The unutterable name, Jahveh, of
which scholars are unable to find the origin, has this
meaning, and may be thus translated: our Fatherland.
THE ESDRAS SCHOOL
31
-
“ Thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy love,”
commands Deuteronomy. That means: “ Thou shalt
love thy country above thyself.” The standard to which
the patriots were to rally was the name of the god.
Henceforth to offer outrage to Jahveh would be to insult
the flag. In great nations there is a blind and fierce idol,
with sword in hand, the Fatherland, which demands
human sacrifices, and to which fathers must bring their
children as holocausts. At Jerusalem the idol was named
Jahveh.
This exalted nationalism, of which we are now to
follow the development, was the cradle of Christianity.
§ 2. The Esdras School.
Tradition places in the year 458, three-quarters of a
century after the rebuilding of the temple, the arrival of
Esdras at Jerusalem. There was much dispute about
this date, and even about the historical reality of Esdras,
when the Elephantine papyri1 were found to confirm, not
indeed the historicity of Esdras, but the dating of the
events which are ascribed to him. We have therefore, in
this study, taken Esdras as the expression of the school,
political group, or national movement, which developed
at Jerusalem at this very epoch.
The work of the Esdras school consists of three great
leading achievements:—
1. The prohibition of any other cult than that of
Jahveh.
2. The prohibition of mixed marriages.
3. The prohibition of any representation of Jahveh in a
material form.
Prohibition op any other cult than that op
Jahveh.—In the older Jerusalem of the kings, and in
1 See p. xv.
32
ESDRAS
the restored Jerusalem of Zorobabel and Nehemiah, there
had not been any other cult, apart from insignificant
exceptions, than that of Jahveh. But in this the
Jerusalemites merely followed the common Palestinian
custom of worshipping no god but their own. With the
Esdras school the exclusion of foreign gods becomes a
formal proscription.
Was there some danger at Jerusalem, at the time,
of the intrusion of foreign cults ? At first communica-
tion between one people and another had been
rare and difficult, and the Persian empire did not
concern itself with proselytism. One cannot see how
the old Jahveh, in the depths of his sanctuary, could
be disturbed by any god of the district or by a Persian
god.
Did the danger come from the ancient gods of
Palestine, which Jahveh had once reduced to the condi-
tion of vanquished gods, as the Israelitic tribes subdued
their worshippers ? As we have said, these cults had not
disappeared; but they had become lowly popular super-
stitions, and it is impossible to imagine the ancient gods
of Canaan, in the Judah of the fifth century, otherwise
than as little agrarian gods, insignificant local demons,
which no more threatened the lord Jahveh than the altars
of a St. Antony of Padua contain a menace to the official
Catholic cult.
The obscurity of Jewish history at this period reduces
us to hypotheses. In any case, the legislation of the fifth
and fourth centuries betrays a constant preoccupation
with foreign cults and the ancient cults of Palestine.
With Esdras, in fact, the law of fierce patriotism, without
which the Jewish State could not exist, always took the
form of a kind of uncompromising fidelity to the national
god. Jahveh alone is the god of Jerusalem, is the in-
variable starting-point of the Jewish legislation. As soon
as there were any laws at Jerusalem, apostasy—that is to
say, the worshipping by a Jew of any other god than
THE ESDRAS SCHOOL
33
Jahveh—was denounced as the greatest of crimes, and
punished with death. One after another the most
frightful measures were passed to prevent the possibility
of a religious secession.
The text we are about to quote is about half a century
later than Esdras, but it will give an accurate idea of the
way in which the Esdras school were disposed to treat
anti-patriotism:—
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or
thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend,
which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying:
Let us go and serve other gods....
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto
him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou
spare, neither shalt thou conceal him :
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be
first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the
hand of all the people.
And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die;
because he hath sought to thrust thee away from Jahveh
thy god.....
If thou shalt hear say of one of thy cities, which
Jahveh thy god hath given thee to dwell there, saying:
Certain perverse men are gone out from among you, and
have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying: Let
us go and serve other gods....
Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask
diligently.
And behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that
such abomination is wrought among you ;
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city
with the edge of the sword, thou shalt curse it with all
that is therein, and thou shalt slay the cattle thereof with
the edge of the sword.
And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst
of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city and
all the spoil thereof every whit, for Jahveh thy god; and
it shall be an heap of ruins for ever; it shall not be built
again.1
The purpose of the Inquisition was to establish a
1 Deuteronomy xiii. 6-16. [The few modifications of the English text
are in accordance with the author’s reading of the Hebrew.—J. M.]
D
34 ESDRAS
religion. The purpose of the atrocities of Deuteronomy
was to found a nation.
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages.—This was, perhaps,
the special work of Esdras.
The princes came to me [says Esdras, in the book
which is ascribed to him] saying: The people of Israel,
and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated
themselves, in regard to their abominations, from the
people of the lands.
Eor they have taken of their daughters for themselves,
and for their sons ; so that the holy seed have mingled
themselves with the people of these lands.
And when I heard this thing, I rent my mantle and
my garment, and plucked off the hair of my head and of
my beard, and sat down astonished until the evening.1
And later on :—
Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons,
neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek
their peace or their wealth for ever; that ye may be
strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an
inheritance for your children for ever.2
And foreign women were expelled, with the children
they had had.
The narrative is legendary; but the fact seems to be
historical, and there is reason to allow Esdras the honour
of having accomplished it. All the Hebrew books make
the prohibition of mixed marriages one of the funda-
mental laws of Judaism. When they have to relate the
apostasies of Solomon, they will ascribe them to the
influence of the foreign princesses introduced into his
harem. When they have to describe the edifying life of
the typical heroes of Judaism—the life of Abraham and
his descendants—they will marry them solely to women
of their own race. Indeed, the Deuteronomic law was
explicit:—
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them [the
surrounding nations] ; thy daughter thou shalt not give
1 Esdras ix. 1-4.
2 Esdras ix. 12.
THE ESDRAS SCHOOL
35
unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy
son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me,
that he may serve other gods.1
The prohibition to take a foreign wife was a powerful
means of maintaining at Jerusalem the exclusive cult of
Jahveh ; that is to say, of promoting a purely national
development. Later the Jewish writers will speak of the
sacredness of their race, and will shrink from the mixed
marriage as a sacrilege. But in the fifth century there is
only question as yet of inspiring a fierce nationalism,
under the pretext of an absolute consecration of the Jewish
families to Jahveh. We have to come to the first century
before the present era to find the Jews relaxing in their
observance of the old law, and to St. Paul to discover
their entire rejection of it.
Historians admire the decision with which the men of
Jerusalem made for themselves this anti-human law,
which, in repelling from them the women of the surround-
ing populations, at the same time isolated them in the
midst of those peoples.
Prohibition to Represent Jahveh in a Material
Form.—Here the historian does not merely admire the
opportuneness of a severe law, but is amazed at a con-
ception so profound that he can hardly grasp its reali-
sation.
How will it be possible to make this enormous differ-
ence between Jahveh and the other gods? How will it
be possible to isolate him so jealously in the heart of the
Jewish people ? How can they make of him so excep-
tional a god that the cult of other gods will never mingle
with his, and the Jewish fatherland will be for ever the
sole deity of these ardent hearts ?
The men of Jerusalem in the fifth century imagined
that the other gods, such as Camos, Bel, or Rimmon,
1 Deuteronomy vii. 4.
36
ESDRAS
might be represented as an ox, a serpent, or a fish, as of
either or both sexes, but that Jahveh should have no
representation or emblem; that he should rule, sexless
and invisible, in the storm.
The critic finds it difficult, in view of the scarcity of
documents belonging to the period, to say how the idea
came to the Jews of the fifth century of a god without
images. Possibly it was suggested to them by the Iranian
religion, which had no representations of Ormuzd; though
the influence of Iranism on the Jews seems to be later
than the fifth century, and it is at Babylon and in the
Babylonian civilisation that the men of Jerusalem were
educated. There may have been some accidental cause.
Perhaps the destruction of all the emblems of Jahveh at
the time of the Babylonian conquest, the extreme misery
of the Jerusalemites at the time of the Restoration, the
impossibility of making divine images rich and magnificent
enough to represent the god of whom they now dreamed,
or a repugnance to their rude and inadequate images,
inclined them to dispense with a material representation
of their deity altogether. We do not know. Accidental
causes are unknown, the deeper cause is clear. In impos-
ing this new law, he whom we call Esdras yields to a
powerful political need. The man of genius is but the
mouthpiece of a group. He seems to stand out in
advance because he is the first to formulate clearly
the law which is vaguely muttered by those about him.
At times he seems to be in opposition to his contem-
poraries, but it is an illusion. He is merely overpowering
their inertia, pressing them toward the goal to which they
are unconsciously tending. So extraordinary a novelty as
a god without images in the Palestine of the fifth century
must be explained by the normal development of a
nationalism which was pushed to its extreme conse-
quences. For the Jews of the fifth century Jahveh, or
the Jewish fatherland, had to be something unique,
something monstrously and incredibly isolated. This
THE ESDRAS SCHOOL
37
was necessary for the preservation of Jahveh; in other
words, that the Jewish fatherland might survive amidst
so many dangers.
Take ye therefore good heed to yourselves lest ye make
you a graven image, the similitude of any figure,
The likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast
that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that
flieth in the air,
The likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground,
the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the
earth:
And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when
thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all
the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to worship them,
and serve them.....
And if ye corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image,
or the likeness of anything, and shall do evil in the sight
of Jahveh, thy god, to provoke him to anger,
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day
that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land.1
Similar is the command of the Decalogue :—
Thou shalt have none other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make thee any graven image......2
After the period of Esdras there is no representation of
Jahveh in the temple. At the bottom of the sanctuary
there is a curtain, and the holy of holies behind the
curtain is an empty room. The Jewish god dwells there
unseen. The golden bulls, the bronze serpents, the old
ephod and matsebali and asherah, are memories of
abomination; or, rather, they change their meaning.
The golden bulls are now identified with the angels of
Jahveh, the Kerubim; the bronze serpents with the
Saraphim; the ephod becomes a ritual garment; the
matsebali is now merely a commemorative column. The
asherah alone perishes in the wreck; it is taken to be a
representation of the Phoenician Astarte. The old cult
disappears, is proscribed, and becomes criminal.
1 Deuteronomy iv. 16-26.
2 Deuteronomy v. 7-8.
38
ESDRAS
-
And now a new phenomenon appears. Representations
of the deity are so severely condemned that people confuse
the ancient representations of Jahveh with the figures of
the other gods of Palestine. Idolatry means the worship
of images; it may apply to the worship of an image of
Jahveh, just as well as to the worship of images of other
gods. The older Israelites had been guilty of idolatry in
worshipping Jahveh under a human or animal form; but
they had not worshipped foreign gods, such as Camos and
Milkom, under these material forms. The Jews of the
Esdras school would make no distinction between Jahvic
and foreign idolatry; the one was coupled with the other
in a common execration; and, when some centuries had
passed, the prophets did not even understand that these
material representations had belonged to Jahveh. This
failure to understand the ancient religion of Israel is, as
Maurice Vernes has shown, one of the proofs of the
extremely late date of the prophetical books.
In after years the idea of a god without material repre-
sentation will be one of the forces of the Judaism which
becomes Christianity, when it presents itself to minds
that love abstraction and are weary of the symbolism
of the Greek divinities. But we must understand that in
the fifth century, and as long as the temple of Jerusalem
stood, this cult of a god without images, instead of being a
spiritual cult, was just as grossly materialistic as that of
the other gods. At Jerusalem, just as everywhere else,
the local god is honoured by the immolation of animals.
The beasts are slain before the altar. The priest is a
sacrificer—in other words, a butcher. The Mosaic legis-
lation will publish a manual of slaughtering; and, when
Jerusalem becomes the holy city, the goal of countless
pilgrims, the temple will be a vast slaughter-house where,
in honour of the unseen god, the blood of animals will flow
without ceasing.
THE FIRST INSTITUTIONS
39
§ 3. The First Institutions.
Meantime the institutions which were inspired by the
great design of centring all the strength of the Jewish
soul on the name of Jahveh were gradually rising.
The Babylonian influence, which will presently prove
overwhelming at Jerusalem, is not yet appreciable except
in so far as it dominates the whole civilisation of western
Asia. The disciples of Esdras shut themselves sternly
within their walls, under the shadow of their temple.
The Jewish element rules as exclusively as is possible.
Then the nationalism of the Jews clothes itself at once
with the religious garb which it will never again lay
aside. The form of government becomes a theocracy.
The institutions, evolving round the religion of Jahveh,
assume a religious form. The laws, civil as well as
hygienic, will become religious laws. The government
will assume a religious character, and the leaders of the
State will rule in the name of Jahveh, and be priests.
How did the priests of the local god attain, in the
fifth century, to the government of the State of Jerusalem ?
In the absence of documentary evidence, we can only say
that the historical probabilities point to the priests as the
only men, after the Restoration, who were capable of
exercising authority in the town and its neighbourhood.
The State of Jerusalem advances under the supervision
of its Persian masters; the emperor who reigns at Susa,
and the satrap who governs in Syria, grant the Jews full
liberty of administration, provided that they live in peace
and pay the tribute. There was not, and could not be,
a Jewish army, and assuredly there was no military
caste. The Persian hegemony laid no other specific
obligation on its subject-peoples than political submission
and taxation. There was, then, nothing of a military
character at Jerusalem to take the lead. The extreme
poverty and lack of commerce and industry during the
40
ESDRAS
century which followed the Restoration prevented the
formation of a middle class. Industry never flourished
at Jerusalem. Commerce remained scanty when the
Persian peace was established in the east. An oligarchy
of merchants was hardly more possible than a military
oligarchy in the Jerusalem of the fifth and fourth
centuries. The domination of a petty sultan, a sort of
pacha ruling under the suzerainty of the Syrian satrap,
could not have been set up without at least a semblance
of national military authority. Supported solely by the
power of Persia, it would have been odious to the people.
The Persian Empire never inclined to have its small
vassal states administered by prefects. It was only the
organisation of Rome that would send functionaries to
the other end of the world. In view of the impossibility
of any other form of government, therefore, a clerical
government was almost inevitable, from the very nature
of the situation. And it was found that this government
corresponded with the needs of the people of Jerusalem.
Was the patriotism of the Jews formulated in the
name of the national god because a priestly government
was the only one possible at Jerusalem in the time of
Esdras ? Or did the government of Jerusalem fall into
the hands of the priests because Jewish patriotism
expressed itself in the name of the national god ? It is
probable that cause and effect acted together and gave
rise to a twofold logical necessity; the priestly govern-
ment confirmed the patriotism of the Jews in a religious
form, and the concentration of their patriotism in a
religious form decisively strengthened the priestly govern-
ment.
From the time of Esdras—that is to say, from the time
when the Jewish State began to live—the priests found
themselves at the head of the social hierarchy. There
was neither military caste, nor oligarchy of merchants,
nor despotic pacha. The Persian lieutenant represented
the distant military power, to which no one dreamed of
THE FIRST INSTITUTIONS
41
offering resistance, and the local police sufficed to maintain
order. There was a sacerdotal caste; and the leader of
the priests, the high-priest, governed. The first care of
the Jewish legislators seems to have been to establish a
system of tithes on the harvest and on cattle, a scheme
of offerings, voluntary or involuntary, which would
rapidly gather into the hands of the priests all the wealth
possible in the miserable little country. The sacerdotal
caste was soon as rich as it was powerful.
It quickly formed itself into a hierarchy. Round the
person of the high-priest a certain number of families
seized the revenue and the authority. The Mosaic law
will give the name of priest-levites to these privileged
members of the priesthood. The simple levites, at a
lower level than these, formed a sort of army, maintained
and directed by the priests. Finally, at the bottom of
the sacerdotal caste there were the lowly functions of the
poor officers who were not even levites. If we imagine
the vast Catholic Church reduced to the proportions of a
Church having control of a community of less than thirty
thousand souls, we can picture to ourselves the bishops
with their pope, then the army of curates and vicars,
and, as was seen in the Middle Ages, the crowd of
humbler officials working in obscurity about the altar.
There was this difference, that at Jerusalem the priests
made and applied the laws and administered justice.
The executive and judiciary power, as well as the legis-
lative authority, belonged to them. They were the
heart, the brain, and the arm of Jerusalem.
Beneath the sacerdotal caste the people were distri-
buted in families of husbandmen, shepherds, and small
merchants. They were far removed from the life of the
patriarchs; nevertheless, beyond the little commerce that
was indispensable in any community, agriculture and the
rearing of cattle were the sole business of the Jews in
the Persian period. The legislation of Exodus, Deutero-
nomy, and, later, Leviticus, does not deal with any other
42
ESDEAS
customs than the quite primitive ways of an absolutely
territorial people, among whom there is great poverty.
Finally, the Sabbath is a theocratic institution; its
purpose, like that of the prohibition of mixed marriages
and the condemnation of any representation of Jahveh in
a material form, is to isolate the nationalism of the Jews
among the other peoples.
The Sabbath would have little interest if it were no
more than a day of idleness for the profit of the workers,
the slave as well as the free man, even to the beasts of
the fields. It is, on the contrary, the day consecrated to
Jahveh ; it is a sort of tithe that the Jew will take from
the week, the offering of a day which he owes to his god.
It is a taboo day. Let any man who doubts this open
his Bible :—
The seventh day is the sabbath of Jahveh, thy god...
Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt,
and that Jahveh, thy god, brought thee out thence through
a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore
Jahveh, thy god, commanded thee to keep the sabbath
day.1
The law of the third century puts the motive even
more plainly:—
Jahveh rested on the seventh day; wherefore Jahveh
blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.2
The man who desecrates the Sabbath is put to death.3
We must admit that the death-penalty would be excessive
if it were merely a matter of ensuring respect for a purely
humanitarian institution.
Even more than circumcision, which was common to
many of the peoples of Palestine and has not a great
importance in the Bible, the Sabbath is the outward mark
by which the children of Jahveh must separate themselves
from other men. He therefore does not merely order
1 Deuteronomy v. 14-15. 2 Exodus xx. 11. See also xxxi. 12-17.
8 Exodus xxxi. 14-15.
PROGRESS OF..THE STATE OF JERUSALEM 43
rest, but commands abstention from all work, of any kind
whatever, and an entire consecration to Jahveh.
The Jewish institutions are, therefore, organised on an
essentially nationalist basis, and in an essentially religious
form. The Persian suzerainty was the providential feature
which, by maintaining a general peace in the world,
allowed the theocracy to develop. If Jerusalem had been
independent, it would have needed an army, a military
power, and would have had the precarious existence of
all petty States. As a vassal of Persia, Jerusalem was
able to begin in freedom the extraordinary work of con-
quering Palestine, and then the world, with the arms of
a spiritual body.
§ 4. Progress of the State of Jerusalem.
In virtue of the nationalism which its priests had
imposed on it, the little State of Jerusalem enjoyed a
great prosperity from the end of the fifth century. The
Jewish soul was greater than that of neighbouring peoples.
Jerusalem was a centre, or, rather, a heart, from which
the strength streamed out on every side. The Jewish
activity—the activity of the men of Jerusalem—was felt
as far as the frontiers of the Palestinian territory.
In Palestine the State of Samaria alone made some
show of resistance to Judaism. We have not the needful
documents to tell the story of the development of Samaria.
Possibly the capital of the former kingdom of Ephraim
had preserved its regional supremacy, and it may have
been an important town in the sixth century, when
Jerusalem was only just beginning to revive. Possibly it
developed at equal pace with Jerusalem in the fifth
century, retaining, while Jerusalem enlarged, its moral
autonomy, with its temple on Mount Garizim in contrast
to the temple of Jerusalem. Finally, it is possible that
the temple of Mount Garizim, as the Jewish historian
44
ESDRAS
-
Flavius Josephus tells, was not built until the end of the
fourth century.1 However that may be, we find the
antagonism of Jerusalem and Samaria in the earliest
pages of Jewish history. By the fourth century Samaria
was a rival, if not an enemy, of Jerusalem.
The other Palestinian States were incapable of resisting
Jewish influence. Most of them merely vegetated, or
remained stationary. The priests who ruled at Jerusalem
saw their authority extend on every side.
Their ambition grew with their success.
Judaea has always been a poor country. The thousand
square miles which represented the little State in the fifth
century consisted of a vast plateau which was for the most
part sterile, and gradually merged into the desert toward
the south. The State of Samaria in the north was more
fertile; but the plains of Gaza in the west, and the rich
valleys of Galilee beyond Samaria, excited the envy of the
wretched mountaineers of Jerusalem. The populations
of these regions spoke the same language. Though they
were often at enmity, they seemed to belong to the same
family. Why should not the Jews succeed in imposing
their leadership on the others ?
From the remotest period of the history of the ancient
kingdom of Judah, which they had set themselves to study,
the names of David and Solomon shone with the aureole
which illumined their sombre genius. David and Solomon
had not been humble sultans, like their successors; their
empire had reached from the Mediterranean to the Jordan,
from Lebanon to the southern deserts. David, the first
king of Jerusalem, and king of nearly the whole land of
Palestine, was quite enough to suggest to the cupidity of
the Jerusalem aristocracy the idea of the kingdom of
which Jerusalem would be the capital.
The Persian Empire had not allowed the thousand
small States and slight territorial unities it had con-
1 Appendix II.
PROGRESS OF THE STATE OF JERUSALEM 45
federated to enlarge their boundaries at each other’s
expense. The satrap who governed the Syrian region
was at Sidon. Both at Jerusalem and Samaria there
were lieutenants representing his authority. Under the
Persian dominion there was no chance for Jerusalem to
enlarge its power in any other than a religious sense.
But religious aggrandisement meant political aggrandise-
ment. The Persian government merely exacted the pay-
ment of the tax. Once that was paid and order was
respected, every man who worshipped the god of Jeru-
salem obeyed the clergy of Jerusalem. To introduce the
Jewish religion into the towns of Palestine was to secure
the acceptance of the Jewish law, the recognition of the
Jerusalem aristocracy as master, and a fresh source of
revenue for the temple through the tithes.
In this way, under the suzerainty of its Persian masters,
Jerusalem could become the capital and the metropolis of
the ancient cities of Palestine. Its aristocracy did not,
however, confine itself to this ambition. Had it not the
right to expect and to hope that at some future date—it
might be far or it might be near—the Persian Empire,
against which its neighbours, Phoenicia and Egypt, were
constantly rebelling, and which showed evident signs of
decrepitude at the end of the fifth century, would fall
to pieces? It had succeeded too well, in virtue of its
nationalism, in restoring the little State of Jerusalem, in
spite of countless difficulties, not to consider itself justified
in entertaining such high ambitions. Nationalism, a
necessary condition of the development of a young people,
proves inadequate unless it is enriched with that spirit
of expansion, domination, and conquest which we call
imperialism. Thibet is, perhaps, a model of the nation-
alist state. More gifted peoples are not content merely
to endure; they wish to grow, and they unconsciously
feel that he who does not grow will perish. It is the
law of imperialism.
The ancient kingdom of Judah had been independent.
46
ESDEAS
Could not the new State, which they dreamed of building
within the frontiers of the former Davidic empire, secure,
with the help of Jahveh, its political independence ? The
possession of Palestine—the free and peaceful possession
of Palestine—was the formula which the priests of Jeru-
salem were about to write on every page of their books.
It was the programme they had undertaken to carry out
ever since the close of the fifth century.
It is at this period that literature is born at Jerusalem.
From this point the study of the history of Judaism
becomes a study of its books—the books of the Bible—
in the order in which they were composed.
We are singularly fortunate in having the history of
Judaic ideas recorded in a series of books that had issued
from such a depth of the Jewish soul, had been so passion-
ately lived by the Jewish soul, and were so vehemently
symbolical of the Jewish soul, that no literature of any
other people forms so adequate an expression of the
history of that people.
With some sublime pages, the books of the Bible are
undigested compilations of badly-made records, contra-
dictory, devoid of art or style. The smallest chapter of
a Greek or Roman writer seems to be all harmony, logic,
and truth, when one approaches it from the chaos of
Hebrew remains. But so strong a soul suffers, hopes,
and uplifts itself so vigorously in this confusion that the
wretched people lives again for us through all the years of
its terrible career. We have but to follow the series of
these books to retrace, from its very source, the course of
the great river that will one day be the river of Christian
tradition.
The fifth century is the century of the Medic wars.
Asia is failing to subdue Greece, and Greece is beginning,
in Asia Minor, to conquer Asia. Isolated from these
glorious episodes, lost in the most obscure corner of a
small province of the vast Persian Empire, living among
mountains on which no echo ever falls of the great events
PROGRESS OF THE STATE OF JERUSALEM 47
in the north, the Jewish State, with a religious fanaticism
that is merely an exalted nationalism, succeeded in giving
itself a remarkably original character.
Before Jerusalem was destroyed by Nabuchodonosor
the State of Judah was a small nation. After the
Restoration the Jewish State is a congregation, a church,
a group without political independence, military power, or
lay chief, governed by its priests under the suzerainty of
the Persian satrap.
But there is in the bosom of this little church so
profound and ardent a soul that without armies, by the
sole power of its vitality, it will come to conquer a portion
of the civilised world. Everywhere else men’s ambitions,
dreams, and fevers find an expression in deeds; here it is
all expressed in the name of a god who is the soul of the
people, and in whom the people are concentrated.
Literature only makes its appearance among a people
when it has reached a certain stage of its development.
Quarter of a century after Esdras the Jewish State is
sufficiently confident of its spirit, its institutions, and its
ideal to have a literature at length. The story of this
literature will henceforth be the history of the imperialism
of Jerusalem.
Chapter III.
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
§ 1. The National Epic of an Imperialism.
The literature of the Jews is born at Jerusalem in the
fifth century before the present era. It has from the first
all the characters of primitive literatures.
The general character of primitive literatures is to take
the shape of a series of epic fragments, independent of
each other even when they continue the same subjects.
As epic fragments, they relate the history, legends, and
fables of the past. A concern about origins is found at
the beginning of all literatures; every people, as soon as
it becomes self-conscious, demands that it be told whence
it came. Being independent of each other, these epic
fragments are short compositions that are held together
by no unity, unless it be the unity of inspiration. Called
rhapsodies in ancient Greece, they gave themselves in
Judaea the name masJial, the meaning of which would
afterwards be somewhat altered; their writers are
moshlim. And we beg to be allowed to use these two
words, unfamiliar as they are, rather than words borrowed
from a foreign environment.
Besides this general character, which is common to all
primitive literatures, a certain number of special char-
acters are due to the different situations of various peoples.
In the west of Asia the first writers are local priests. The
priests are powerful among newly-formed societies; at
Jerusalem they govern the State. Art, in the sense of a
composition for its own sake, does not exist among the
primitive Orientals, and some of them, such as the Jewish
people, will never rise to its level. With them literature
48
-
THE NATIONAL EPIC OF AN IMPERIALISM 49
has always an immediate object. It is utilitarian and
political; it is dogmatic; it justifies, enforces, or recom-
mends something.
Most frequently it provides a frame for legislation.
The laws must come direct from heaven, and the writers
are engaged to describe how.
Everything contributes to the same object—fabulous
traditions, national legends, and the history of their
ancestors, are turned into illustrations of the religious,
political, or social theses that it is sought to impose.
To show the legitimacy of the actual institutions seems
to be no less needed. It must be explained how they
were established, and they must be consecrated by having
a venerable origin assigned to them.
The relation to neighbouring peoples is another point
that the moshlim will never forget; they have to show
that, if their own people have such and such a descent,
the neighbouring people has a different origin, so that the
recriminations, ambitions, and hatreds between them will
thus be more or less sanctified.
These special characters of the early literatures of
ancient western Asia may be resumed in a general law,
which has persisted so steadily as the dominant law of
the Hebrew literature that it seems to us to-day to be
peculiar to it; it is the constant practice of projecting
into the past, in the form of myths and legends, the
institutions, laws, and theories of the present time.
Encyclopaedias of the religion, law, organisation, and
ambitions of an epoch, these epic growths are born and
develop as soon as the national soil is sufficiently fertile,
and they increase, in infinite variety and often in contra-
diction with each other, until the time when the reflective
work of an established school undertakes to gather them
together in great epics. Such were the earliest literatures
of western Asia; such was bound to be, and such was, at
Jerusalem, the Mosaic literature, or, to speak more
correctly, the great cycle of epic narratives of which the
E
50
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
five books of Moses, and the books of Joshua, Judges,
Samuel, and Kings, were afterwards formed.
But, while this national epic was bound to have, and
actually had, the general characters of the earliest writings
produced in any civilisation, and especially those of the
civilisations of western Asia, it was further bound to have
the absolutely special character, which distinguishes it
from all others, of being the expression of an imperial-
ism.
Born in the age of Cyrus, the Jewish people had hardly
known more than a century of real existence when the
first mashal was written; nevertheless, the five centuries
of the Davidic dynasty formed a prologue, a necessary
pre-historic phase, to it. The succinct narratives of the
ancient historiographers of the kings of Judah, which
survived in part at least, provided a chronological frame
for Jewish history from David to the Deportation; though
they may have been no more than a few great deeds, a
few anecdotes. The priests of Jerusalem had only to
resume this history to adapt it to the lessons which they
desired to give. But what could they discover before
David ? Until the day when David made Jerusalem his
citadel it had been but a poor little town without history
or legends. Babylon and Memphis had countless ages of
ancestors; Sichem, Bethel, and Hebron, in Palestine, had
certain vague memories. Jerusalem had nothing.
How could the priests who governed the little State of
Jerusalem make their past begin with David ? Primitive
peoples have always hung upon the most remote antiquity
the national epics with which they illustrated their legis-
lation. The priests of Jerusalem, who began, at the end
of the fifth century, for the purpose of political education,
to write the ancient history of their town, could not
escape this psychological necessity. Their ambition
suggested to them a way to create the ancestors that they
had not.
We saw how, from the close of the fifth century, the
THE NATIONAL EPIC OF AN IMPERIALISM 51
priests of Jerusalem had entertained the hope of re-estab-
lishing, with profit to themselves, the ancient empire of
David and Solomon, and formed the project of subduing
the populations of the same tongue and similar manners
who, in the north and on the west, surrounded their
barren mountains. The history of Jerusalem in Palestine
is the same as that of Home in Italy, if we take account
of the difference that separates the Jewish from the
Roman soul. Apart from the difference in the means
that are at the command of a sacerdotal aristocracy and a
military, positivist, and juridical aristocracy, we find, on
both sides, a long-matured resolution, carried out with
patience, to annex the surrounding peoples. But while
Rome relies solely on military force and administrative
power, Jerusalem uses the devices of churches; its leaders
begin by annexing the traditions, the ancient glories, the
legends, the national reminiscences of their neighbours,
before annexing their consciences and, ultimately, their
territory.
By a piece of brilliant audacity the priests of Jerusalem
were about to lay at once the first stone of their work.
Without avowing an ambition that would have brought
violent hostility upon them, they set to work on a plan
that was conceived for ages.
The territory of Jerusalem and its surroundings had
no past; but, as we said, a few ancient legends survived
among their Palestinian neighbours. Monuments, tombs,
and stone columns preserved the remembrance of heroic
names and adventures; traditions were cherished that
told of deeds of earlier days; sanctuaries were still found,
sometimes half ruined, which went back to an age long
before the time of David and Solomon. The priests of
Jerusalem resolved to appropriate the names, adventures,
traditions, and legends of their neighbours. It was the
beginning of the conquest. Above all things they strive
to give a Jewish character to the traditions of Palestine,
to bring local legends into the Jewish cycle, to persuade
52
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
the Palestinians that they are brothers. Finding no past
among themselves, the priests of Jerusalem resolutely
seize the past of their future subjects, and the great
national epic, which ought to be an epic of Jerusalem, is
going to be an epic of Palestine.1
Then, with no less brilliant decision, they put into
circulation the word which, since it symbolised the past
that they were restoring, symbolised their ambition. To
the empire of David and Solomon, which had disappeared
five hundred years before, they gave a name which was
destined to create a unity between the scattered populations
of the then divided Palestine. They did not invent this
name; they rescued it from oblivion, and adopted it. It
was the name Israel.
In a certain sense it might be said that the Mosaic
books were written for the purpose of launching the name
Israel, which represented the programme of the Jerusalem
aristocracy. If Israel was not a new name, we may be
sure that it had no longer any meaning at the time of the
Restoration. It had been borne, a thousand years before
Esdras, by the last nomads to settle in Palestine ; and,
among the populations whose destruction, as we saw, is
recorded on it, the column of a pharaoh mentions Israalou.
David and Solomon had afterwards united under their
domination all the Bene-Israel, but their empire had not
cohered. After Solomon the tribes of the north are rent
from the tribes of the south. The former make up the
kingdom of Ephraim; those of the south form the
kingdom of Judah. Two and a-half centuries later the
destruction of the Ephraimitic empire throws the ancient
tribes of the north into a chaotic condition. The Judaic
kingdom lasts another century and a-half; then it in
turn disappears in the conflagration lit by Nabuchodo-
nosor, and we have to come to the age of Cyrus and the
end of the sixth century to witness the restoration, or
1 See Appendix III.
THE NATIONAL EPIC OE AN IMPERIALISM 53
creation, of the cities of Palestine. At that time there are
a certain number of small populations speaking the same
language and having analogous religions. Possibly they
descend from the ancient Israelitic tribes, but they are
none the less isolated from each other. All recollection
of ancient Israel is obscured. It is even declared that
Judah alone was restored of the ancient twelve tribes of
Israel; the others have disappeared. And the unlimited
complaisance of commentators has, down to our own
time, disposed them to seek the lost tribes in the centre
of Asia, in Madagascar, or in Japan.
The priests of Jerusalem at once give a meaning and
some prestige to the name of Israel by applying it to the
ancient kingdom of David and Solomon. A certain unity
immediately appears among the populations of Palestine.
They are found to have common ancestors, they form one
large family, and, as far back as the legends of Palestine
reach, they discover a national history; a new fatherland
has been created. But, in making an Israelitic kingdom
of the provinces of the former Judaic sultan David, the
men of Jerusalem indicated that, since all the territory of
Palestine had once been united under the sceptre of
Jahveh’s favourite king, it must be united again some
day, and that, as in the time of David, Jerusalem must
be its centre and capital.
The name Israel is, then, merely the myth in which
the men of Jerusalem have symbolised their ambitions.
It is a Utopia endowed with a past. Renan, after and
before many others, wrote a history of the people of
Israel. We know Israelitic tribes fourteen hundred years
before the present era; we then become acquainted with
two Hebrew kingdoms; lastly we find a Jewish people.
But we must erase from history the expression, “ the
people of Israel,” or leave it only in the sense of being the
ideal of the Jewish people.
The priests of Jerusalem had thus conceived a history
of their past in which they would absorb the precious
54
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
relics of their neighbours whom they proposed one day
to annex. But, although it stretched farther back than
the past of Jerusalem, the past of their Palestinian neigh-
bours was soon exhausted, and the most ancient of their
memories scarcely reached more than a couple of centuries
ahead of David, to the time of the Judges. Beyond the
Judges lay the dark night of barbarism.
One must remember that at the time of the Judges
those whom we call the Israelites are Bedouins, scarcely
settled on the land. Whence do they come ? Through
what adventures have they passed ? How can these
mysteries be penetrated ? It was necessary for the com-
mentators to be affected with dogmatism just as much as
the priests of Jerusalem were in the fourth century, not
to advance a fatal question, an absolute non possumus, to
the Mosaic records.
One day hordes of nomadic shepherds and marauders
arrive in the midst of the plains of western Syria, dragging
their flocks and their women behind them. With their
weapons in their hands, they have slowly crossed the
desert in search of a fountain to assuage their thirst, a
grain-pit to sack. Now they discover a more temperate
clime, a soil that is watered with dew every night, streams,
and green trees. The indigenous populations are not
strong enough to resist them, and they settle, vagabond
troops brought from the depths of the unknown like a
cloud of locusts in the wind of the desert......What critic
will be able to retrace the migrations of these locusts ?
Egyptology has not yet found any trace of the Israelitic
episode. In the present state of the science it is almost
certain that, if nothing has yet been found, it is because
nothing exists. Do we need to add how the Biblical
record, in all that relates to the sojourn in Egypt and the
exodus, swarms with material improbabilities, geographical
errors, and historical impossibilities ? It is a clear proof
of an imaginative composition.
We may grant that a name, the possibility of a fact,
-
THE NATIONAL EPIC OF AN IMPERIALISM 55
may have been saved in the wreck of the ancient history
of Israel. It is possible that these nomads may have pre-
served, and transmitted to their descendants, the name of
some great chief who had directed their migrations in a
remote age. It is no less possible that the memory may
have survived of a period of slavery in the land of Egypt;
though nothing is less probable, since not a single Egyptian
monument mentions this Israelite episode. We may, if
we will, retain the name of Moses, but that is all.
Twelve centuries lie between the recorded facts and
the age in which they were recorded; the critics who put
back the composition of the Mosaic books to the eighth
century will say eight, instead of twelve, centuries. How
many generations in twelve, even eight, centuries! How
many generations lost in the vicissitudes of nomadic life,
of barbarism, or of a most rudimentary civilisation! Let
us understand that nothing crosses such steppes as those.
The priests of Jerusalem who, after Esdras, undertook
to relate the origin of their people, or, rather, of the so-
called people of Israel, would thus find themselves con-
fronted, in regard to the time before the Judges, with a
yawning abyss, in which nothing was offered to them but
a few remote traditions. But they are determined at all
costs to glorify this ancient Israel, and from that time,
with the aid of these vague traditions, they proceed to an
imaginative creation.
Does anyone hesitate to admit that the priests of Jeru-
salem would deliberately, shamelessly forge the Mosaic
history ? We must not forget that we are dealing with
orientals: that we are dealing with priests, with rulers
who have no idea of writing history in the modern fashion,
but write merely to establish dogmas, give a divine
character to laws, legitimise institutions, preach a national
faith to a people, and create for it a sublime past.
That the ancestors of the Jewish people, the people of
Israel, should have come from Egypt, guided across the
desert by the hand of Jahveh, to settle in Palestine, will
56
THE BOOKS OE MOSES
hardly suffice as a picture of their origin for the men of
Jerusalem. Whence came the Israelites before they
settled in Egypt ? Had not Jahveh chosen the people,
which he was to cherish, in the remote ages ? Had he
not, since the first days of the world, promised to the
ancient Israelites the country which he would give to
their descendants? The writers of the Bible do not
doubt that they can put back to the very creation of the
universe the promises of Jahveh and the miraculous
choice of Israel. Thus will be composed the history of
the patriarchal times, the account of the first days of the
world.
Possibly the Palestinian traditions furnished one or two
other names; but, though the imagination of Jerusalem
continued to play the chief part, it was Babylon, possibly
Egypt, perhaps even Persia, that would now contribute
elements to the story.
Science is gradually making clear the share that the
sages of Babylon had in their conception of the origin of
humanity. The story of Moses may seem to imply no
foreign document, but the account of the origin of man
points to documents of Babylonian origin; witness the
Deluge.
The Babylonian civilisation, like that of Egypt, sinks
into the remotest depths of history. Countless centuries
old at the time when the writers of Jerusalem were but
beginning to think of writing a history of their ancestors,
Babylon had civilised the west of Asia all around it. The
kings of Persia, instead of destroying the vast city, had
often resided there. Alexander and his successors respected
its great antiquity, and it was still, in the fourth and the
third centuries, the centre of western Asia. Though it
had ceased to be its political capital, it had remained the
spiritual metropolis. From immemorial time science, art,
and a powerfully-organised religion lived under the shelter
of its walls. Heir of the ancient cities of Chaldasa, it has
been the religious, artistic, and scientific teacher of Asia.
THE NATIONAL EPIC OF AN IMPERIALISM 57
In the fourth century it is still ruled by its own laws; the
Persians, its masters, respect the legislation that had been
promulgated, fifteen hundred years before, by the Baby-
lonian king Hammurabi. The little States of western
Syria accept this influence, like the others, and the Jews
are affected by it even more than the others. A Jewish
colony lived at Babylon; they are the descendants of the
men of Judah deported in 588 by Nabuchodonosor. There
is unbroken intercourse between the Jews of Jerusalem
and the Jews of Babylon; the Jews of Babylon continue
to teach those of Jerusalem the legends, laws, and sciences
of Babylon.
The men of Jerusalem could therefore learn from Baby-
lon certain legends about the early ages of humanity, the
Deluge, and certain movements of peoples across Asia;
but could they learn from it anything concerning their
own ancestors ? Is it conceivable that the Babylonians
possessed information on the migrations of the Israelitic
nomads in the time of Hammurabi, or in the time of the
Kassite kings ? In point of fact, Assyriology is still
silent as to the adventures of the Bene-Israel before the
time of Solomon. The amount of information that the
writers of Jerusalem may have received from the Baby-
lonian civilisation is, therefore, easy to determine. Of the
ancestors of the great family of western Asia which is
called Semitic they might learn something; of the ances-
tors of the Israelitic tribes in particular they could learn
nothing.
As to the Medo-Persic science and religion, it is certain
that the priests of Jerusalem were acquainted with it, but
its influence seems to have been rather theological, and
came later.
Gathering, therefore, on the one hand, from the reminis-
cences of the cities of Palestine certain fragments of
legends, and possibly a few vague names, such as that of
Moses, and from the science of Babylon, and perhaps that
of Egypt, on the other hand, a few traditions which
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Assyriology and Egyptology are gradually detaching from
the Biblical narratives, they proposed to make amends for
the lack of a national past of their own, and, in view of the
dogmas which they purported to illustrate, in the fashion
of their contemporaries, and the ambitions that they
resolved to justify, to erect in freedom the monument of
their pretended past.
Thus, although the historical, legendary, and mythical
framework of the Mosaic books is borrowed from the
legendary and fabulous histories of other peoples, they
are in substance profoundly national. These legends
have been borrowed from their Palestinian neighbours
only with a view to annexing them; from their Baby-
lonian ancestors only to enrich themselves with their
glory. All this legislation, theory of origins, legitimising
of institutions, lessons drawn from events, and justification
and glorification of the ambitions of Jerusalem, will be so
fiercely national that this epic, created afresh or borrowed
from foreigners by this people without a past, seems to us
as profoundly Jewish as if it had really been born of the
forty centuries’ past which the writers of Jerusalem
pleased to imagine. The books of the law are the
programme of the imperialism of the men of Jerusalem.
§ 2. The Jehovist-Elohist Period.l
If the date 458, which tradition assigns to the arrival
of Esdras, corresponds to the great nationalist movement
from which Judaism issued, it is to the generation that
lived about the middle of the fifth century that we must
grant the high honour of having written the first pages of
the Mosaic books. Above all things, the priests who then
governed wished to impose upon the people of Jerusalem,
not merely by force, but by persuasion—that is to say, by
1 See Appendix IV.
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
59
faith—that fidelity to the patron-god, Jahveh, the soul of
the Jewish State, in which they recognised the supreme
condition of the existence of their country; they must
perpetuate, as a living and eternal reality, the teaching
of Esdras. Jahveh punishing his people for their unfaith-
fulness to him, and restoring them for their fidelity to
him, was the great lesson with which they needed to
penetrate the Jewish people. And these terrible priests,
who enforced nationalism under pain of death, wished,
instead of legislating in the abstract, to give the precept
at once in the form of example.
Thus was the Bible begun.
The priests of Jerusalem wished to enact: “ Jahveh is
the national god of Jerusalem; Jerusalem can have no
other god but Jahveh.”
What they said was : “ Your fathers were taken away
by the rivers of Babylon, because they had forsaken
Jahveh.”
They wished to enact: “You shall not have foreign
wives....You shall make no image of your god.......You
shall not offer the holocaust to your god save in his house
of Jerusalem.”
What they said was : “ Your town was burned down,
your fathers were slaughtered, your nation was destroyed,
because you had taken foreign wives, because you had
worshipped images, because you had burned the fat of
your flocks under every high tree and on every green
hill.”
Thus did they undertake to relate to the people the
story of its past, in order to give it an example and a
lesson. In following the development of the many
narratives, the combination of which afterwards formed
the earliest books of the Bible, we shall see the unfolding
of the series of dogmatic theses of the aristocracy of
Jerusalem in the fifth and fourth centuries.
After the manner of the sages of Babylon, the priests
of Jerusalem made their history go back to the creation
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of the world. The moshlim narrated with light heart the
marvellous adventures of primitive ages, which had for
the most part been taken from Babylon. But the main
object of the priests was, by means of complete genealo-
gies, to connect the patriarchs, the fathers of the people
of Israel, with the first man. No link in the chain must
be wanting; and, unfortunately, the different moshlim
invented different genealogies, which, in spite of their
disagreement, were equally preserved for our veneration.
From the time of Noah and the Deluge we find the
theory of the Pact making its appearance. The Deluge
is over, and Jahveh puts before the patriarch, for the
first time, the bases of the famous alliance.
Let us explain what we mean.
The history of the Jewish people from its constitution
as a people—that is to say, from Esdras—until the time of
its destruction, the history of the Jewish soul, such as it
was framed amid the civilisations of the east and as,
afterwards, in its Christian form, it was imposed on the
Graeco-Roman world, is the development of a leading
idea, which shows itself from the childish legends of
Judges to the death-rattle of the Judaeo-Christian
apocalypses. This is the Pact—the compact agreed upon
between Jahveh and the Israel which symbolised the
ideal of Jerusalem. Theologians speak of it as the
Covenant.
Jahveh will punish Israel, if Israel is unfaithful to
him; if Israel is faithful to Jahveh, he will reward Israel.
But it must be clearly understood that the Jews were not
thinking of vague promises made by the deity; there was
question of a real treaty, an act drawn up in good and
due form, a private deed, signed, read, and approved, the
considerations and clauses of which will fill the whole of
the Judaic literature. Only, in the fourth century,
Jahveh merely promises the Jewish people the free and
peaceful possession of Palestine.
With the legend of Abraham the theory of the Pact
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
61
reaches its full development, at the beginning of the
fourth century. Abraham is brought by Jahveh from
Ur in Chaldasa to take possession, for his descendants, of
the country that the god reserves for them. A score of
times the god gives his divine word to the patriarch:—
In the same day Jahveh made a covenant with
Abraham, saying: Unto thy seed do I give this land...
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee
and thy seed after thee in their generations for an ever-
lasting covenant, to be a god unto thee, and to thy seed
after thee.1
The choosing of Israel, the fundamental dogma of
Judaism, is the starting-point of the Pact. Jahveh has
chosen Israel among the peoples from the earliest time;
and now, if Israel observes the law of Jahveh, Jahveh
will secure its happiness in the land which he has given
to it. We know what is meant by Israel. At the time
when the mashal of Abraham were written Israel has no
real existence; it is the myth that symbolises the future
kingdom of which the aristocracy of Jerusalem dreams.
The choice of Israel has, therefore, two stages: in the
first stage it is the union of the populations of Palestine
in one single kingdom by the Jewish people, under its
hegemony; in the second stage it is the assurance of an
endless prosperity to this new kingdom amid the
kingdoms of the earth.
The writers who, in the fifth century, composed the
earliest Biblical narratives aimed at proving this choice of
their people, by putting it at the very source of history.
But they were not less concerned to specify the degrees
of subordination of the States which must make up the
kingdom of their dream, and the degree of vassalage of
the surrounding States. Bound about them are the little
peoples which they regard as brother-peoples, believe to
belong to the Israelitic stock, and propose to absorb in
their ideal Israel. A little farther off are their neigh-
1 Genesis xv. 18 ; xvii. 7, and passim.
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hours, the congenital peoples of Moab, Ammon, and
Edom. Legend says that David reigned over them;
why should they not some day be subject to the hegemony
of Jerusalem ? The moshlim of Jerusalem will tell how
Moab, Ammon, and Edom are cousins, or, rather, more
lowly brothers, younger sons who owe obedience to their
elders. Beyond them there is Syria, into which Jewish
action is already penetrating; for Syria also is a country
of the same family.
These relationships are symbolised in a series of myths.
Abraham, the mythic father of the people of Israel,
was not the only son of Thare (or, as is now more com-
monly said, Terah) when he left Ur in Chaldaea to come
to Palestine; he brought with him Lot, his brother’s son.
Now, Lot is the father of Ammon and Moab. But
Ammon and Moab are the sons of incest; the myth of
the daughters of Lot puts in their place, in this great
table of origins, the lower tribes of Moab and Ammon.
Abraham himself has two sons. One is Isaac, the
legitimate son, the heir of Abraham, the chosen of Jahveh;
the other is Ishmael, son of a slave, bastard, humbler
brother of Isaac—Ishmael, the father of many Arab
tribes.
Isaac, again, has two sons. Esau, deprived of his birth-
right, is the father of Edom; Jacob, the favourite of the
god, is destined to continue the family.
Jacob himself is the eponymic father of the privileged
people. He is Israel himself; for the name Israel, which
the priests of Jerusalem have revived in order to give it
to the former kingdom of David—that is to say, to the
collection of Palestinian States which they hope to unite
under their hegemony—is now projected upon the ancestor
Jacob. Israel becomes the second name, the surname
given by Jahveh himself to the patriarch Jacob.
And Jahveh said to Jacob : What is thy name ? And
he said, Jacob.
And he said : Thy name shall be called no more Jacob,
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
63
but Israel; that is to say, conqueror of God! Because
thou hast fought with God and with men, and hast
prevailed.1
On that day the definition is completed. Israel is the
solemn name of the eponymic patriarch in whom the
Jerusalemites of the fourth century symbolised the Pales-
tinian kingdom which they aspired to found on the model
of the ancient empire of David.
With Jacob-Israel we come to the very heart of the
family which the men of Jerusalem are ambitious to form.
The people of Israel is created. Jacob has twelve children,
and these twelve children are the fathers of the twelve
tribes of Israel, and give them their names—Ruben,
Simeon, Levi, Judah, Joseph, Benjamin, etc. From that
time, through the whole of Jewish history, the relations
between the different Israelitic groups will be reflected in
all the Biblical narratives. At one time Joseph will be
exalted, at another time he will be cast in the shade;
though he is the hero of a celebrated mashal, this eponymic
father of a northern tribe will never be raised to the rank
of ancestral patriarch, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Benjamin will be alternately praised and vilified. Simeon
will become the expression of the Jewish ambitions in the
southern territories. Judah himself will not always be
equally glorified, and he will experience the severity of
the depreciating myths, when the priest-writers are minded
to rebuke their people; but at the origin of the tribe will
be placed the myth of Thamar, with the purpose of cele-
brating, by a providential and almost miraculous inter-
vention, the birth of the ancestors of Jerusalem.
Nothing is more comical than the concern of com-
mentators to locate on the Palestinian territory these
twelve tribes, of which scarcely one half had a real
existence, and which, in the mind of the fourth-century
writers, are only the expression of political views. For-
merly—a long time ago—geological and astronomical
1 Genesis xxxii. 27-28.
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truths were sought in Genesis; later an effort was made
to reconcile the Bible and geology. To-day people seek
ethnographical and anthropological indications in Genesis,
as if the Biblical writers had been better at ethnography
than geology; as if the Bible were anything else but
dogmas illustrated by fables.
We have only quoted a few instances. The early
Biblical narratives are encumbered with genealogies which
are all dogmatic, and all aim at expressing the pretensions
of the aristocracy of Jerusalem. If there are many con-
tradictions between these genealogies, these ethnic myths,
it is because the Bible was not composed by one single
school, nor in one single day; it is because each genera-
tion, each school, inscribed its ambitions therein. Such
is the myth of the sons of Noah, one of the last born of
the Mosaic myths.
Everywhere, in the course of their wanderings over the
land of Palestine, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lay the first
stones, in some way, of the ancient sanctuaries of Jahveh
scattered over Palestine, for which it was necessary to
find a patriarchal origin.
Let us try to understand how the Jerusalemitic writers
of the fourth century could, and must, glorify the sanc-
tuaries of their neighbours. Commentators see in that
an irrefutable proof of the non-Judaic origin of a large
part of Genesis ; we see in it a proof of the contrary. In
the fourth century these famous sanctuaries had almost
all disappeared, or were in ruins. Most of them were
mere memories. Bersabee, Hebron, Bethel, Gabaon,
Mispha, Galaad, and Mahanaim no longer existed; vener-
able ruins, they could cause no apprehension to the clerical
aristocracy at Jerusalem. On the other hand, they are
careful not to seek a sacred origin for Samaria, the rival
city; and Sichem, a sub-prefecture of Samaria, too ancient
and celebrated to be omitted, is most frequently mentioned
unfavourably. For Jerusalem, on the contrary, they find, in
Melchisedech and the sacrifice of Moriah, especially sacred
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
65
antecedents. The old sanctuaries celebrated by the aris-
tocracy of Jerusalem are almost always vanished or fallen
rivals, whose extinct glory does but exalt the primacy of
Jerusalem, in preparing the way for it.
But in collecting the ancient legends of Palestine, and
appropriating the old memories of neighbouring cities, the
priests of Jerusalem are, as we know, pursuing their secret
aim. They, a people without a past, must enrich them-
selves with the legendary and national treasures of the
tribes that they dream of assimilating; they will gather
about themselves, and under their leadership, this land of
Palestine that they are ambitious to conquer; they are
more than ever determined, in incorporating in their work
the traditions and dreams of congenital and neighbouring
peoples, to realise at some near date their ideal of a people
of Israel.
We ought also to say a word of the etymologies that
abound in the Mosaic books—etymologies of which hardly
a single one has been admitted by philologists, plays upon
words such as primitive peoples love, puns with a purpose
of proving something. But it is enough to understand
that everything in this Bible, in which some have thought
to find history, is dogmatic, purely dogmatic.
The marvellous thing is that the patriarchal legends
have grown round these theses in a delicious flowering of
the oriental imagination. Doubtless, in this never-chang-
ing east, the Jews of the fourth century did not imagine,
in their more remote legends, caravans that differed from
those which they saw passing at the foot of the walls of
Jerusalem; and the gates of the town opened at evening
to the same nomad flock-drivers, seeking rest and refresh-
ment. Yet the theorists who related the vagabond origins,
in which they found it expedient to fix their dogmas, were
at the same time poets. Thus these flowers, the prettiest
that the east has produced, came into the light: Abraham
wandering in the valleys of Palestine, Eliasur and Rebecca,
Joseph and his brethren, etc.—those beautiful stories whose
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profound charm has won the soul. Strange genius, in
which the narrowest dogmatism has clothed itself with so
delicious a mantle of idylls !
The great episode of Joseph closes the patriarchal
legend. With it, in our Bible, the book of Genesis
terminates. The following book, Exodus, is a collection
of narratives relating to the departure from Egypt and
the crossing of the desert; Moses is its hero.
Everyone will remember the scenario.
The people of Israel languishes in the service of Egypt.
Jahveh gives Moses the mission to deliver them. Episode
of the ten plagues of Egypt. Passage of the Bed Sea.
After that the people of Israel wander in the Sinaitic
peninsula, under the lead of Moses. But the writers of
the beginning of the fourth century, who were the first to
relate the vicissitudes of the exodus, knew nothing of the
revelation on Sinai. For them the sacred mountain on
which Jahveh appears to Moses is called Horeb. It is the
unanimous opinion of the critics that the mention of Sinai
suffices to discredit a later series of narratives—the series
which we shall call the levitical.
Here are expounded a certain number of laws which
the priests of Jerusalem wished to legitimise, and which
they describe as dictated by Jahveh himself to Moses.
Let us add that they occupy only a small part of our
actual Exodus.
Our whole Leviticus and part of the actual book of
Numbers belong to a later period. The sequel to the
preceding narratives is found in the second half of the
book of Numbers. Forty years have elapsed; the people
of Israel still wander in the desert; they reach Cades;
fights with the natives; arrival on the plains of Moab,
near the Jordan, opposite Jericho. There Moses dies,
after placing his hands on the head of Joshua. From
that time the children of Israel obey Joshua.
The book of Deuteronomy is altogether later, and
certain chapters of Joshua have preserved the narratives
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PEEIOD
67
of the earliest Biblical writers. Under the leadership of
Joshua the Israelites conquer the promised land. Jericho
is taken, its walls falling at the sound of the sacred
trumpets; the Israelites settle in the promised land, the
twelve tribes dividing it more or less between them.
Joshua dies, and is buried in Mount Ephraim.
Nothing is more familiar than this series of episodes of
which Moses and Joshua are the heroes. The group of
priestly writers who first offered them as a lesson to the
people of Jerusalem saw in them, especially, an illustration
of the famous compact between Jahveh and his people, the
same covenant which other priestly writers had traced to
the patriarchs. The Israelites, saved from Egypt, guided
in the desert, and endowed with the soil of Palestine,
exhibit the benevolent, but definitive, act by which
Jahveh consecrates to himself the people he has chosen.
Henceforth the Jewish literature will unceasingly remind
the Jews how they owe to Jahveh the land they occupy
and their very existence. Israel belongs to Jahveh as one
who is saved from death belongs to his saviour; so, at
least, the theology of Jerusalem will have it.
The earliest legislation of the priests of Jerusalem is
thus found to be inserted in the midst of the Mosaic
episodes. The priests, as we said, wanted to represent
as dictated formerly by Jahveh the laws which they
wished to impose on their contemporaries, and we are
not astonished at their procedure. There is no legislator
in ancient times who did not assign a divine origin to his
work. Why should the Jerusalemitic legislators of the
fourth century act otherwise ?
But it was equally important to make these laws the
very conditions of the compact between his people and
Jahveh.
And Jahveh said: Behold, I make a covenant; before
all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been
done in all the earth, nor in any nation : and all the people
shall see how terrible is the work of Jahveh.
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Thou shalt worship no other god: for Jahveh, whose
name is Jealous, is a jealous god.1
Thou shalt not make a covenant with the inhabitants
of the land, and thou shalt not take their daughters unto
thy sons......2
Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.8
The feast of unleavened bread thou shalt keep: seven
days thou shalt eat unleavened bread.........*
Every first-born of a mother is mine, and every firstling
among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male...........
All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem, and none
shall appear before me empty.5
Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou
shalt rest; in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.6
And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the first-
fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at
the year’s end.7
Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear
before your lord Jahveh, the god of Israel. For I will
cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders:
neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt
go up to appear before Jahveh, thy god, thrice in the
year.8
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with
leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the
passover be left unto the morning.9
The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring
unto the house of Jahveh thy god.10
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.11
And Jahveh said unto Moses: Write thou these words:
for after the tenour of these words I have made a
covenant with thee and with Israel.12
All these are religious laws, it will be said. They are
not, because at Jerusalem religious institutions are but
the form of the civil institutions; because the rulers are
1 Primordial law nationalising the cult of Jahveh.
2 Prohibition of mixed marriages.
8 Prohibition of images. 4 Feast of the Passover.
8 Law of taxes. 6 Law of the Sabbath.
7 The three great feasts, that of Easter recalled.
8 The three pilgrimages. 9 A detail of the Passover.
10 Lax of taxes.
11 A law the meaning of which, Reuss says, was unknown even to the
ancient Jewish commentators. We believe that it refers to a proverb, of
which the meaning has been lost.
12 Exodus xxxiv. 10-27.
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
69
priests, and we know that to worship Jahveh means to
consecrate one’s soul to one’s country, Jerusalem. But,
from the first feeble utterance of the Jewish legisla-
tion, we see, among other laws, the utopian law: the
ideal law by the side of the practical law. In demanding
that the males shall come in pilgrimage thrice a year
from the country round Jerusalem to the one temple (for
it is a question of the one temple, whatever the commen-
tators may have thought of it), Jahveh promises them
that no enemy shall profit by their absence to sack their
houses and ravish their women.
Another small, but slightly longer, code1 deals with
certain questions of the civil order. It regulates the
position of servants; it punishes homicide, theft, blows
and wounds, seduction, sorcery, bestiality, and usury; it
resumes the prescriptions of the preceding code, and adds
the extraordinary utopianism of the sabbatic year. The
Jews are not only enjoined to dedicate to Jahveh the
seventh day of the week, but they are also commanded to
consecrate a whole year in every seven years:—
Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in
the fruits thereof: but the seventh year thou shalt let it
rest and lie still.2
At a later date the legislators of Jerusalem will
guarantee their people that Jahveh will, in the sixth year,
give them a double harvest, sufficient to feed them during
the seventh.
Lastly, a number of enactments are devoted to protect-
ing the man whom our translations call “ the stranger,”
and who is really only the Judaising foreigner. For a
people who were ambitious and hopeful to annex the
surrounding peoples it was necessary to protect foreigners,
when they began to accept Jewish ways. Jerusalem is
still but a town with its immediate surroundings ; but it
dreams of becoming the capital of a great country, and
1 Exodus xxi. 1 to xxiii. 19.
2 Exodus xxiii. 10, 11.
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the mashal of Jerusalem always think of the people of
Israel which does not yet exist, except as an ideal.
Theoretically, the Mosaic laws are made for the whole of
the States of Palestine; in practice, they are only valid
for Jerusalem and its immediate district. Theoretically,
the Palestinian neighbours are brothers; in practice, they
are still foreigners. The protection of the Judaising
foreigner at Jerusalem is a transitory arrangement. It is
an accommodation of the utopia to realities.
The Pact, formerly concluded by the patriarchs, now
signed by Moses, is afterwards renewed by Joshua.
After delivering Israel from the bondage of Egypt,
Jahveh gives it the good and spacious land, the land
flowing with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanites,
Hethites, Amorrhites, Pheresites, Hevites, Jebusites, and
Gergezites.
What historical value is there in this list ? Possibly
they have founded erudite discussions on narratives in
which dogmas are covered with a mantle of fable. If
peoples who attained to some idea of history, the Greeks
and the Latins, were unable to learn anything of their
past beyond a few centuries, how can we suppose that
Orientals, Jews entirely lacking the historical sense,
can, apart from a miraculous communication, and
apart from what was afforded by Chaldaea and Egypt,
have learned anything about a period that was contem-
porary with nomadism, a period one thousand years
before their time ?
Kenan, with his habit of ridiculing the improbabilities
of the exegetic theses which he adopted, was astonished
that there was no mention of a revolt of Canaan in the
history of Israel. The Canaanites, Hethites, Amorrhites,
Pheresites, Hevites, Jebusites, and Gergezites are, in the
Mosaic epic, the characters which the imagination of the
Jerusalem moshlim of the fifth century has summoned to
play a part: to explain that Jahveh had, as an effect of
his favour, given to the Israelites a country to which they
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
71
had no other right than this favour of Jahveh. Later, in
the deuteronomic period, these supposed peoples, gathered
together under the generic name of Canaanites, will serve
to illustrate another dogma. At no time are they any-
thing hut puppets in the hands of the priests of Jerusalem.
We do not mean to say that there never were any
Canaanites, Hethites, or Amorrhites. The Hethites
formed a great empire in the north of Palestine at the
time of the Egyptian and Assyrian invasions. The
Canaanites seem to have come from Chaldaea, and are
related to the Hyksos who invaded Egypt. But the Bible
knows nothing of these historical Hethites and Canaanites.
It knows next to nothing of the Hethite empire; it is
unable to distinguish the Hethites from the most miserable
tribes of Palestine. The names only are real; the rest is
fiction, and fiction with a purpose. The fact is that they
needed an appendage to Israel. They had taken from
the past the old and disused name of Israelites, and the
Israelites had become the chosen people of Jahveh. In
the same way they take from the past the forgotten and
lost name of Canaanites. The Canaanites become objects
of disgrace to Jahveh; as a kind of theological helots,
they are the rejected of Judaism. Canaan is the counter-
part to Israel. Palestine will henceforward bear two
equally unreal and dogmatic names. Before Jahveh
makes a gift of it to his people, it will be called Canaan;
afterwards, it will be known as Israel.
After the narrative of the conquest of Canaan, the
history of Israelitic antiquities is continued in a new
cycle of epic episodes.
Judges was the name given to the legendary heroes of
Palestinian extraction who had lived in the land of Israel
before the establishment of royalty. Such were Gideon
and his son Abimelech, Deborah the prophetess, Jephtha,
who sacrificed his daughter to Jahveh, Samson, the lover
of Delilah the Philistine, Samuel, whose sombre figure
would afterwards grow to terrible proportions.
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Does anyone question the purely, absolutely dogmatic
intention of the moslilim ? Let us see how the book of
Judges will presently speak:—
The children of Israel went every man unto his inherit-
ance : and the people served Jahveh for many days.....
And there arose another generation after them which
knew not Jahveh, nor yet the works which he had done
for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the
sight of Jahveh, and served the Baals, and they forsook
Jahveh, and followed other gods of the gods of the people
that were round about them; and bowed themselves
unto them, and served Baal and the Astartes.
And the anger of Jahveh was hot against Israel, and he
delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled
them ; and he sold them into the hands of their enemies
round about, so that they could not any longer stand
before their enemies.
Whithersoever they went out, the hand of Jahveh was
against them for evil, as Jahveh had said, and as Jahveh
had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed.
Nevertheless Jahveh raised up Judges which delivered
them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.....
And when the Judge was dead, they returned and
corrupted themselves again, in following other gods to
serve them, and to bow down unto them........
And the anger of Jahveh was hot against Israel.....1
It is always the same story. The Israelites having
forsaken Jahveh, they are handed over by him to their
enemies. As soon as they repent, Jahveh raises up a
Judge to deliver them. Then the Israelites fall back
into their sin; they forget Jahveh, and serve the Baals
and Astartes. At once the anger of Jahveh flames out
against them, and again he delivers them to their enemies
until they repent, when he raises up another Judge to
save them.
The legends of the Judges are merely an illustration of
this doctrine: the forsaking of Jahveh is punished by
defeat, the return to Jahveh is rewarded with victory.
After the Judges, the writers of Jerusalem undertook
1 Judges ii. 6-20.
THE JEHOVIST-ELOHIST PERIOD
73
to narrate the history of Saul, the first Israelitic king,
and of David, the great founder of the dynasty. This
made up what are called the two books of Samuel. But
the story of Saul and of David has no other object than
to show how fidelity to Jahveh is [infallibly rewarded, and
disobedience is infallibly punished. The history of
Solomon and the kings who succeeded him, down to the
disappearance of the dynasty and the destruction of Jeru-
salem by Nabuchodonosor, was written later. The present
state of Biblical criticism does not enable us to determine
if the earliest Jerusalem writers went beyond the reign of
David; if they did, their narratives must have been lost.
Such, then, is the literature of Jerusalem at the begin-
ning of the fourth century. Some men of the sacerdotal
caste which ruled the little State of Jerusalem, and already
had some influence in neighbouring countries, have under-
taken to relate how their laws were given by Jahveh,
their god; how Jahveh, their god, chose them as his
people; and how their fortune has depended, and will
always depend, on their fidelity to him. Each narrated
these episodes that were used to illustrate the fundamental
dogmas according to the traditions he had collected,
according to his own imagination, according to the legends
that circulated about him or the knowledge brought from
Babylon. These early fragments, from which the Bible
would afterwards be formed, were a kind of rhapsodies,
but rhapsodies with a purpose ; fables, but in the sense of
the Greek 6 /xvOoq SrjXot on; moral tales, epics or idylls,
proverbs in the form of legends, a vast cycle of inde-
pendent narratives. And from this mass of different
episodes there emerges at once a sort of great national
history, which this people, boldly absorbing its neighbours,
gives itself in order to learn from the example of an
imaginary past. The creation of the world, the Deluge,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons; then the captivity
in Egypt, Moses raised up by Jahveh to deliver his people
and lead them to the gates of the promised land, the
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crossing of the desert, the giving of the law; after Moses,
Joshua and the conquest of Palestine; then, when Israel
is settled in its inheritance, the constant punishment of
secession, the invariable reward of a return to Jahveh,
the Judges, Saul, David founding the famous Israelitic
kingdom that they would restore—a complete past created
almost in its entirety by a small people that is hardly
born, with a view to opening out the future. Never was
there a vaster programme, or one that was more magni-
ficently realised.
But the years were passing, and fresh needs demanded
fresh activities.
§ 3. The Deuteronomic Period.
The few laws which the earlier moshlim had inserted
among the Mosaic episodes sufficed, as legislation, for the
period of the immediate successors of Esdras. Written
laws never precede the organisation of a people; they
do not appear until the people becomes self-conscious.
Societies which do not develop have no legislation.
Legislation is a sign that a society has entered upon
adolescence.
Half-a-century after Esdras the State of Jerusalem has
reached the period of development which is the adoles-
cence of a people. It has become stronger every day, in
proportion as it has deepened the ardent nationalism
which was symbolised in the name of the lord Jahveh.
The sacerdotal aristocracy is larger; the people obey
with more comprehensive soul; the temple casts a more
formidable shadow round the city. The time has come
for framing more precise laws. The Deuteronomic period
will be above all things legislative.
Of the two most important of the Deuteronomic laws,
one relates to the prohibition to worship Jahveh elsewhere
than in the temple at Jerusalem, which is thus raised to
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
75
the rank of the sole temple of the god; the other relates
to the extermination of the so-called Canaanitic cults.
Both of them—the one in looking to the Palestinian
worshippers of Jahveh, the other referring to the
Palestinian worshippers of other deities—seem to have
aimed chiefly at preparing the hegemony of Jerusalem
over the whole of Palestine.
The enacting that the temple of Jerusalem shall be the
sole temple of Jahveh is a fact turned into a law. We
must explain how the exigencies of their imperialism led
the successors of Esdras to codify a state of things which
already existed in point of fact.
The Jewish State of the fifth century comprised the
small town of Jerusalem and its outskirts. It is the same
situation as that of the Athenian Republic, of which
Athens was the only town; or of the Roman Republic,
which consisted of Rome alone. One cannot imagine two
Capitols at Rome, or more than one Acropolis at Athens;
and it is even more inconceivable that there should be
several temples at Jerusalem in the east, with its one god,
a god personifying the soul of the country. Our modem
Catholic churches, Protestant chapels, and Jewish syna-
gogues are houses of prayer. They convey no idea of the
temple at Jerusalem, which was the centre of the State.
We must regard it as, not merely the house in which
sacrifice is offered, but the throne on which is placed the
sovereignty of the national god. The Bible will teach
that Jahveh has two homes—one in heaven, the other in
the temple at Jerusalem.
If the State of Jerusalem had been larger, or had
comprised more than one town, it is possible that sheer
necessity would have brought about a decentralisation of
the cult. In point of fact, it consisted of one town only,
and its outskirts, including the desert regions, had an area
of only a few thousand acres—not twice the extent of the
Isle of Wight. In a few hours’ march the most distant
rustics could reach their capital, and all the Jews, without
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exception, could bring their offerings in their hands to the
temple at each of the ceremonies on which this was
enjoined.
We said a moment ago that the Jerusalem temple had
not the same character as our Christian churches or our
synagogues; it was also quite different in arrangement.
When we regard the situation of the temple as it is
to-day, and try to imagine what the topography of these
places was formerly, we see plainly that there could not
be two such edifices in a State of a few thousand acres.
The temple of former days was, like the Haram of to-day,
an immense fortified esplanade, with the house of the god
in the centre. The house of the god was not larger than
one of our small churches; the esplanade could easily
contain the whole Jewish people on the days when they
were commanded to appear before their god.
Can it be supposed that there were rural sanctuaries in
the surrounding district ? It is not impossible, if we are
merely thinking of lowly survivals of the older Palestinian
cults. Instead of regarding them as temples, however, we
can at the most see in them certain obscure high-places
maintained by local superstition. A temple was at once
a fortress, a palace, and a court-house. What common
measure could there be between the seat of the govern-
ment at Jerusalem and miserable chapels lost on the
mountains ?
In the time of Esdras and his successors, then, the
Jerusalem temple is the sole temple of the State, and it
is difficult to see how any historian can doubt this. Why,
then, did the men of Jerusalem take the trouble to
formulate a solidly accomplished fact in the form of a
rigorous enactment ?
When they looked out beyond their walls, the men of
Jerusalem perceived Moab and Camos, the god of Moab,
in the east, across the Dead Sea; in the north-east they
saw Ammon, and its god Milkom; but what did they see
in the south, in the nearer west, and in the north, in
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
77
Samaria ? They saw hostile peoples worshipping Jahveh,
their own national god. The national god of the Jeru-
salem State had, in fact, once been the god of all the
Israelitic tribes. In the time of David and Solomon he
had had altars from one end of Palestine to the other.
Later, in the period of the two kingdoms, his cult had
been celebrated in Ephraim, as well as Judah. The
Assyrian and Chaldaean invasions had thrown everything
into confusion; but, as the times became more tranquil,
a certain number of these old sanctuaries were restored.
Some of the ancient towns of Palestine, notably Samaria,
had then, in the fifth century, preserved or rebuilt
temples in which holocausts sent up their smoke to
Jahveh no less than in the temple at Jerusalem.
The disciples of Esdras were bound to regard these
cults as sacrilegious. Their sanctuary was, in their eyes,
the sole orthodox sanctuary; the others were altars of
abomination, plainly repudiated by the god. They might
indeed have been content to declare that Jahveh was
rightly worshipped in Jerusalem, and not rightly in
Samaria and elsewhere; but with the magnificent decision,
of which we find so many examples in Jewish history,
and which made the Jewish people one of the great peoples
of the world, they took advantage of what might have
been an unfortunate circumstance.
They intended some day to rally or annex to the recon-
stituted kingdom of Israel, of which they would be the
chiefs, these Palestinian towns in which an illicit incense
was offered to their god. But how could they express in
the language of the fifth century the rallying, annexing,
or subduing of Samaria ? Solely by imposing the Jeru-
salem cult upon Samaria. Turning toward Samaria, and
toward the towns of Palestine in which Jahveh was wor-
shipped, the men of Jerusalem did not hesitate to proclaim
that it was only in their town and their temple that all
the children of Israel—that is to say, all the Palestinians
—should render to the god the cult that was due to him.
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We do not say that the Deuteronomic law of the
monopolisation of the cult in the single temple at Jeru-
salem was promulgated for the use of the neighbouring
populations, and especially the State of Samaria. We
say that this law, inspired by the imperialism of the
legislators, had in view, in their minds, the neighbouring
populations, and especially Samaria. It is laid down in
view of the time when the whole of Palestine will be
under their domination. It condemns the other sanctu-
aries in advance: it kills rivalry in the germ. Two
centuries in advance it formulates the principles on which
the Machabees will proceed. It is, in the minds of the
successors of Esdras, the complement of their theory of
Israel. They gave their mountain in advance as capital to
the people of Israel whom they proposed to create some day.
Jerusalem was to be the capital of the State of Jeru-
salem : that was the expression that Deuteronomy gave
to the ambition of the successors of Esdras. In putting
forward, at the close of the fifth century, the pretension
to appropriate the cult of Jahveh—that is to say, to appro-
priate Jahveh—they were putting forward the pretension
to make tributaries of their neighbours; they posed as
sovereigns. To rule religiously meant, as we know, to
rule as completely as it was possible under the suzerainty
of Persia, in expectation of the time when this yoke itself
would be cast off.
-
The ordaining of the Jerusalem temple as the sole
temple of Jahveh, the monopolisation of the cult of Jahveh
in the single temple of Jerusalem, was at first a fact, then
a law. The fact arose from the natural circumstances in
which the little State of Jerusalem was placed by the end
of the sixth century; the law arose from the deliberate
ambition of the Jewish aristocracy. In order to impose
its hegemony on its neighbours, it had created the theory
of the ideal Israel. Now it proclaims, as a supreme law,
that Jerusalem is the centre from which Jahveh must
reign over the whole of Palestine.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
79
Unto the place which Jahveh, your god, shall choose
out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto
his habitation shall ye seek.1
Is it possible to determine the date of this event ? The
task seemed difficult, until the papyri recently discovered
at Elephantine2 provided the means, apparently. Let us
give the facts which became known to us through the
discovery.
At some unknown period, perhaps at the beginning of
the sixth century—that is to say, at the period of the
destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchodonosor—a Jewish
colony had settled in Egypt, on the island of Elephantine,
opposite Assouan, not far from the first cataract. They
built there a temple to their god, Jahveh. In the year
523 or 522, when Cambyses crossed Egypt, he sees and
respects this sanctuary, the papyri state. It is the time
when the Jews of Jerusalem are restoring their town.
A century passes. The Jews of Elephantine, never-
theless, have a social and economic life. They obey laws.
They would observe the Mosaic laws, the Jehovist and
Elohist and Deuteronomical laws, if they knew them.
But, in point of fact, they obey laws which at times
cruelly violate the Jehovist, Elohist, and Deuteronomic
codes. They are nevertheless in constant communication
with the metropolis, and, in the year 419-418, they
receive from it a regulation for the celebration of the
Passover. Hence the priests of Jerusalem do not regard
the priests of Elephantine as schismatics. Elephantine
is more than seven hundred miles from Jerusalem. The
monopolisation of the cult in the Jerusalem temple is a
fact in the State of Jerusalem; but the fact has not yet
been erected into a law, and it only holds of the State of
Jerusalem. The fundamental law of Deuteronomy is not
yet codified in the year 419-418.
Suddenly, during the month of Tammuz, in the four-
teenth year of Darius (that is to say, in the month of
1 Deuteronomy xii. 5.
2 See p. xv, note 3.
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July, 409), the Egyptian priests of Elephantine come to
terms with the local authorities.
“ The sanctuary of the god Jahveh must be removed
from the city of Elephantine,” they say.
And the temple of Elephantine is rased to the ground.
What do the priests of the ruined temple do ? They
petition the Persian governor; and at the same time they
appeal to the high-priest at Jerusalem for his intercession.
The priests of Elephantine do not regard themselves as
schismatics in 409. It is a fresh proof that the Deutero-
nomic law was not known to the Jews of Elephantine in
409.
We have just seen that in 419-418 the government
which ruled at Jerusalem had sent them a regulation for
the celebration of the Passover.
What reply does the high-priest of Jerusalem make
in 409 ? He does not reply at all. Is his silence due to
negligence or hostility ? We shall see.
Three years pass, and, in the month of Marchshvan, the
year 17 of King Darius (that is to say, in November, 406),
the Jews of Elephantine make a fresh appeal to the
Persian governor. To whom do they turn for help this
time ? To the sons of the pacha of Samaria, the rivals
and opponents of Jerusalem.
The silence of the high-priest of Jerusalem, therefore,
was a mark of hostility. The Jewish priests of Elephan-
tine must have seen that they had nothing to hope for
from him. They turn to the enemy.
The Jerusalem aristocracy admitted in 419-418, but
admits no longer in 409, the practice of the cult outside
the temple of Jerusalem. The Deuteronomic law,
which did not exist in 419-418, and was not yet known
at Elephantine in 409, is now promulgated. It is
taught to the Jews of Elephantine by the hostility
of the high-priest at Jerusalem. They become schis-
matics, and can only turn to Samaria. The year 409 is
the approximate date when the monopoly of the cult in
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
81
the single temple of Jerusalem changes from law by
custom into written law.
But, besides the regions in which Jahveh was wor-
shipped, there were parts of Palestine in which other
gods were worshipped. Such were the coveted plains of
Philistia, and the sister-countries of Ammon, Moab, and
Edom. There were also regions in which the cult of
Jahveh was accompanied with that of other deities; as
in certain parts of the State of Samaria. The priests of
Jerusalem, moreover, failed to distinguish properly
between the cult offered to images of Jahveh and the
worship of strange gods. We have, for instance, seen
them confusing the altars of Jahveh-Melek with the
altars of the Ammonite Moloch. Finally, on every side,
perhaps even in Judaea, local superstition raised numbers
of small sanctuaries to the most sanguinary demons; and
although these sanctuaries no longer threatened the
great official temples, they propagated idolatry. Of all
these cults, which Deuteronomy, as we shall see, collec-
tively denominates Canaanitic, some were Canaanitic in
the scientific sense of the word—that is to say, anterior to
the arrival of the Israelitic tribes in Palestine; others
might be the cults of sister-tribes such as Ammon, Edom,
and Moab; while others may have been introduced later
into the country. Whatever their origin and development
were, it is against these different forms of Palestinian
paganism that the Deuteronomic legislators found them-
selves compelled to act; just as they had been constrained
to act against the Jahvic temples which rivalled that of
Jerusalem.
In the Jehovist period the chief object of the successors
of Esdras had been the resolute maintenance of Jewish
nationalism about the name of Jahveh, the national god.
Jerusalem was then the most meagre of the Palestinian
States; it seemed to the priests of Jerusalem necessary
to create a focus of unquenchable patriotism in the temple
of Jahveh. Half a century afterwards, the little State
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having prospered, and beginning to extend its activity
into surrounding regions, there was a danger of the people
of Jerusalem allowing strange deities to penetrate into
their town and their hearts. Further, a new danger was
arising. Would not the people of Jerusalem take their
gods from these foreigners whom they were beginning to
subdue ? Would not the conquered impose their gods on
the conquerors ?
It was not enough to preserve the people of Jerusalem
from the contagion of foreign idolatry; this idolatry must
be exterminated in such of the neighbouring communities
as came under their influence and began to feel their
domination. It is, indeed, an invariable fact that, in the
history of religions, the people who have suffered a
religious defeat tend, in spite of their conversion, to
persevere in their former practices. It could not be
otherwise among the peoples who were gradually falling
under the hegemony of Jerusalem. These Judaisers were
not all good Judaisers; a large number, especially in the
country, were clearly very bad. The old idolatrous and
fetichistic practices, the worship of Jahveh in an animal
or inorganic form along with their insignificant and
domestic gods, sacrifices, and necromantic propitiations,
would not fail to persist. They must be eradicated at
any cost.
Thus it is that the State of Jerusalem, which is a
people, now assumes the features of a sect. The work of
Esdras, creating an ardent nationalism, but giving it the
form of a religion, has developed an extraordinary
fanaticism in the souls of the Jews. When Home con-
quered Italy, it imposed its laws strenuously; Jerusalem
imposed a faith, a cult, a ritual, on those about it. The
despotism would be terrible some day. Judaism, through
its priests at first, through its Pharisees afterwards,
always exacted of the Judaisers, not merely material
obedience, but the entire surrender of the moral per-
sonality. It has been said that the Inquisition is found
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
83
in Deuteronomy. The clerical aristocracy of Jerusalem
inaugurated the Inquisition in the fourth century before
the present era.1
In fine, not content with preserving the Jewish soul
from foreign idolatry, or with attacking this idolatry in
the heart of the Judaising peoples, the Jerusalem legis-
lators felt that the great programme of the reconstitution
of the kingdom of Israel implied, if the neighbouring
populations were to be conquered some day, the con-
demnation of whatever deities they had besides Jahveh
and the monopoly of the Jahvic cult at Jerusalem. Like
the monopoly of the Jahvic cult at Jerusalem, the con-
demnation of pagan cults in Palestine was a logical and
necessary consequence of the ambition of Jerusalem.
The leaders who ruled at Jerusalem took the offensive.
They turned again to the neighbouring populations, whom
they dreamed of conquering some day, and, in order to
impose on them the worship of the Jahveh who reigned
at Jerusalem, they cast anathema on their gods. The
centres of anti-Jahvic idolatry which continued to increase
in Palestine threatened—at first in Jerusalem itself, then
among the Judaisers, lastly among their idolatrous neigh-
bours—the authority which the Jerusalem clergy dreamed
of securing in the name of the people of Israel. It was
the exigencies of their imperialist policy that once more
guided the Deuteronomic legislators when, on the one
hand, they promulgated their fearful enactments against
idolatry, and when, on the other, they launched their
anathema against the Canaanites.
We know that the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorrhites,
Pheresites, Hevites, Jebusites, and Gergezites are names
that the Jehovist writers used in order to explain how
Jahveh had benevolently bestowed their land on Israel.
In the Deuteronomic writers all these peoples are con-
founded under the generic name of Canaanites. But the
1 See ante, p. 33.
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Canaanites are no longer merely victims despoiled by
Jahveh in favour of Israel. They become the symbol of
idolatry, of paganism; they are, by the very definition,
the enemies of Jahveh. In accordance with the invariable
usage of Jewish literature, the moshlim of the fourth
century project on them, in the past, a contemporary
reality. The Canaanites of the Deuteronomic Bible are
the mythical image of those neighbours of Jerusalem who,
in the midst of and by the side of the hegemony of
Jerusalem, maintained in the fourth century the religious
practices condemned by the law of Jerusalem. Even
more than during the Jehovist period, Canaan is the
counterpart of Israel.
Thus the mashal of the Deuteronomic period are terrible
for the Canaanites. The Deuteronomic episodes of the con-
quest, in the book of Joshua, are pages of blood. There
is nothing but frightful massacres. Women are no more
spared than men ; children no more than the aged. The
flocks are exterminated, the soil is accursed. These pages
seem to be written in the fearful delirium of visionaries
sated with carnage. The command of Jahveh is explicit
—none must be spared. And when Joshua is laid in his
tomb after the conquest, not a single Canaanite remains
alive, say the ancient narratives. The priests who ruled
at Jerusalem in the fourth century were giving to the
world the dilemma that pervades the whole of Jewish
literature, including the prophets and the apocalypses—
submit or be exterminated.
The ancient Jehovist narratives of a period presumably
later than Joshua and the ancient episodes of the Judges
knew nothing of this extermination of the Canaanites;
they had frankly related the sequel of the conflicts
between the Israelites and the Canaanites. With that
indifference to contradictions that shocks us so much,
though it is general among the Orientals, and particularly
found in the Jews, the Deuteronomic writers did not
trouble to recast the legends of the Judges and Samuel.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
85
-
The inconsistency that they allowed to pass is seen con-
tinually in the Bible as we have it.
We do not propose to give here a summary of the
Deuteronomic legislation. Its numerous enactments, apart
from a few precepts of common law, public hygiene, and
ritualism, which are required in a developed civilisation,
only develop the principles on which Judaism is formed.
Jahveh is the sole god; Jahveh must have no images;
there must be an ardent solidarity, a mutual love, among
the Jews, and their arms must be open to the foreigner
when he comes to prostrate himself at the feet of Jahveh
and of the Jewish fatherland, but anathema to the
foreigner who will not Judaise. Let us add a first
systematic organisation of the clergy: the question of
sacrifices, offerings, and tithes—that is to say, the fiscal
law* of Jerusalem, discussed in minute detail; finally,
recalled with the most precise rites, the three great
annual feasts of the Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles—
that is to say, of the spring, the harvest, and the vintage,
since, in this east in which the priests command in the
name of the local god, the popular gatherings take the
form of religious festivals.
But it must not be supposed that the priests of Jeru-
salem could, like the Roman jurisconsults, promulgate
laws in the abstract. Calling themselves the heirs of
Moses, they simply taught the people the very ancient
law dictated to him by the national god, a thousand years
before, in the deserts of Horeb or on the banks of the
Jordan. No legislation could succeed at Jerusalem that
did not bear the name and authority of the unique legis-
lator Moses. Instead of saying to the people, “ Thou shalt
rest on the seventh day of the week,” they could not fail to
say: “In such and such circumstances, on such a day, at
such a place, Jahveh spoke unto Moses, and said to him :
Thou shalt rest.....”
Hence the Deuteronomic period marks the composition
of a new series of episodes (of a more particularly
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legislative character), which were added to the episodes
already composed. There was no break and no external
distinction between what we have called the Jehovist-
Elohist period and the Deuteronomic period. Fresh
narratives are added to the early narratives of the
creation, the patriarchal legends, and the Mosaic epic.
The new generations contribute their portion. But the
general spirit has changed somewhat; we have reached
the time when the rather vague teaching of the Jehovist
and the Elohist no longer suffices, and a more explicit
legislation is brought on the scene. The new priestly
writers do not profess to recommence the work of their
predecessors; they continue and complete it.
It is now related that at Horeb, just after the escape
from Egypt, when they were beginning to cross the
desert, Jahveh had spoken to Moses. After forty years
they reach the banks of the Jordan, in the plains of
Moab, and there:
Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, 0
Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your
ears this day...
Jahveh, our god, made a covenant with you in
Horeb.....
He talked with you face to face in the mount, out of
the midst of the fire.
I stood between Jahveh and you at that time, to show
you the word of Jahveh ; for ye were afraid by reason of
the fire, and went not up into the mountain.
And Jahveh said to you.....1
The celebrated decalogue follows.
Other scenes are composed to enframe other legislation.
Each new promulgation is presented as an account of a
conversation between Jahveh and Moses, from which
Moses brings fresh commands. In fine, we have the
famous episode of the benedictions and maledictions, a
magnificent development of the old theme:—
If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Jahveh
1 Deuteronomy v. 1-5.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
87
thy god, Jahveh thy god will set thee on high above all
nations of the earth.
But if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh
thy god, all these curses shall come upon thee, and over-
take thee...
All the blessings are enumerated, and they betray the
ideal of the Jerusalem aristocracy of the fourth century.
All the curses also are enumerated, with a concentration
of lyric atrocity that amazes us.1
The Deuteronomic writers added a large number of new
narratives to the older ones relating to the conquest of
Palestine by the Israelites under the command of Joshua.
These narratives form part of our actual book of Joshua.
The same need that had compelled the writers to enlarge
the Mosaic epic with so many episodes also forced them
to develop the epic of the conquest. Once more a fresh
situation created fresh needs.
We have already said that the writers who related the
episodes of ancient Israelitic history probably reached as
far as the end of the reign of David, when the Deutero-
nomic spirit gradually replaced the Jehovist spirit. The
story of Solomon, son of David, who, all-powerful master
of his neighbours, allowed their women to seduce him into
accepting their abominable deities, and of his successors,
the kings of Judah and Ephraim, with the constant
punishment by Jahveh of their lapses into idolatry and
the constant reward of their return, was written in a
Deuteronomic spirit. The great principle, laid down by
the Jehovist writers, that unfaithfulness is always punished
and faithfulness always rewarded, has not ceased to rule;
but the infidelities that are punished are now acts of
disobedience to the Deuteronomic codes.
The famous reform of Josias is the last creation of the
Deuteronomic dogmatism. No story was ever more
improbable, yet no story was ever taken more seriously
1 Deuteronomy xxviii.
88
THE BOOKS OE MOSES
by the commentators; it was a colossal mistake, mis-
leading Biblical criticism for half a century. Possibly it
is an historical fact that King Josias, rebelling against
the king of Assyria, undertook to expel the Assyrian
deities which his servile predecessor Manasseh had intro-
duced into Jerusalem. As it is related in the Bible, the
alleged reform by Josias is an extreme episode invented
with a view to show that Jahveh had given a last counsel
to his people on the very eve of the Deportation. The
end of the Davidic dynasty, the ruin of the nation, and
the burning of the town, are, as usual, and more than
ever, a great chastisement inflicted by an angry god on
the people who have forsaken him for the Baals and
Astartes.
Because the king of Judah hath done these abomina-
tions, because he hath worshipped idols, and hath made
Judah also to sin with his idols,
Therefore thus saith Jahveh, the god of Israel, Behold,
I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that,
whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.
And I will stretch the plummet over Jerusalem ; and I
will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it,
and turning it upside down.
And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance,
and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and
they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies;
Because they have done that which was evil in my
sight, and have provoked me to anger.1
That point had been reached in the composition of the
Biblical narratives by the middle of the fourth century,
in the period of the last Persian emperors. Since the
Medic wars there is a continuous war between Persian
Asia and Hellenic Europe. Greek colonies develop in
Asia Minor, and the Greek civilisation gradually penetrates
the east. The empire of Artaxerxes spreads, as a con-
federation of provinces and States, as far as India, across
the whole of western Asia. Soon will open the great
1 2 Kings xxi. 11-15.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
89
epic of Alexander, conquering this vast universe for
Hellenism after a hundred and fifty years of struggle.
At this time Jerusalem may have had ten or fifteen
thousand inhabitants, counting its whole population.
The surrounding districts would hardly double the
number. We may conceive the Jewish State as a small
republic of thirty thousand souls, as little known to the
rest of the world, as lost in the universe, as the lowliest
of the principalities by the Jordan. It is elsewhere—at
Susa and Babylon, round the person of the king of kings,
in the heart of the great Persian feudalism; at Athens,
Sparta, Thebes, and presently in Macedonia; in Asia
Minor, where Hellenism and the East are face to face; in
the islands of the iEgaean Sea—that the destinies of the
universe seem to be arranged.
Yet the history of the world is being prepared just as
much in this obscure corner. The future presents itself
in the form of a few priests who are giving precepts and
dogmas to their little town.
The genius of Greece has left to posterity, in immortal
images, the memory of its ideas, its art, and its civilisa-
tion. In the narratives of its historians and the verses
of its poets we read, just as clearly as in the columns of
the Parthenon, the annals of the luminous ages which
represented the adolescence of the human mind. But
the annals of Judaism, which will later form a counter-
poise to the genius of Greece, are being written in a
country that was unknown to Socrates and Pericles. If
we would discover the origin of our Christianity, we must
study the humble composition of a series of fabulous and
dogmatic narratives, written in the shadow of a poor
temple in western Syria, by a few generations of fanatical
priests, for the instruction of the small people that the
disdainful Persian allowed them to govern.
90
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
§ 4. The Levitical Period.
We have already said1 that the discovery of the papyri
of Elephantine strikingly confirmed the dating which we
have adopted for the books of the Bible. The witness of
the contemporary Greek writers has the same effect.
In the middle of the fifth century so inquisitive and
informed a writer as Herodotus is ignorant of the very
name of the Jews, much less the Israelites. If the
Mosaic legislation were then in existence, and if the
temple had been organised with its fully developed
services, it would be unintelligible that Herodotus should
know nothing of a work that would have so richly
rewarded his curiosity. We are, on the contrary, in the
age of Esdras (458, the arrival of Esdras at Jerusalem).
Jerusalem is hardly born yet.
Aristotle, in the middle of the fourth century, speaks
of a geographical feature of Palestine ; he knows nothing
of Jews or Israelites. The Jews are still, in spite of a
real development, only one of the many small peoples of
Palestine.
The word “ Jew ” enters Greek literature after the time
of Alexander, at the end of the fourth and the beginning
of the third century. The first interesting mention of it
is by Hecatseus of Abdera, at the beginning of the third
century. He is acquainted with various Mosaic narra-
tives and Deuteronomic laws, and a Levitical law, but
with sufficient errors and confusion to indicate that he
has merely heard them spoken of in Egypt, where he
lived, and some of the Jews had settled.
The Levitical or sacerdotal period, which succeeded
the Deuteronomic period, and was the period in which
the so-called Levitical or sacerdotal episodes of the Mosaic
books were written at Jerusalem, seems to have com-
menced about the middle of the fourth century, and to
1 See p. xv.
THE LEVITICAL PERIOD
91
have developed during the Alexandrine conquest and the
wars of the successors of Alexander; it thus seems to
have coincided with the beginning of prophetism, and to
have continued until the first part of the third century,
at the time when peace was restored in Palestine, under
the vice-royalty of the high-priest Simeon I.
It is the period when the State of Jerusalem definitively
secures the hegemony over one half of Palestine; the
period when the aristocracy of the Jerusalem priests is
at its zenith.
In Palestine the State of Samaria alone resists the
State of Jerusalem; Judaea is about to form a great
province, of which Jerusalem will be the capital; the
little neighbouring States are subdued; the ardent
nationalism of the successors of Esdras has borne fruit;
Jerusalem reigns over the surrounding country.
In regard to its internal affairs, the clerical aristocracy
is fully organised ; the caste enjoys all its privileges; the
office of high-priest passes from father to son, and, first
under the suzerainty of the Persian emperors, then under
the suzerainty of the Macedonian kings of Syria and
Egypt, the high-priests govern the State ; below them
are a few families occupying the highest positions and
holding the wealth of the country, who will afterwards be
known as the princes of the priests. A body of sacrificial
priests continues the hierarchy; the army of levites obeys
them; while the Jewish people is disposed about them,
obedient and fanatical, in the fidelity of its heart to Jahveh.
At the same time the rites have become innumerable;
many of them come from Egypt. The priests have
gradually created a vast formulary in which their power
is revealed and exercised. Jerusalem is something like
a fraternity in which a mitred abbot rules, with his
college of vicars, amid an endless procession of ceremonies.
But let us note carefully; it is from this minute actual
organisation that the financial power of the Jerusalem
aristocracy has arisen.
92
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
The Deuteronomic period had known nothing of these
complicated institutions, this powerful hierarchy. New
laws had to be issued gradually, to fix the new ritual
prescriptions; and new myths, to legitimise the new
institutions. The organisation of the Jewish State is
ever one of divine right, the right of Jahveh. The old
theory of Deuteronomy is applied to the new situation.
It is proved that Jahveh himself, in the remotest period
of history, said that things must be so. The authors of
the legislation of the fourth century had thought it
necessary to attribute the promulgation of it to Moses;
the priests who codified the new laws of the Jewish
State in the third century thought it no less indispensable
to make Moses their godfather. It was imperative that
the whole of the law should have been promulgated by
Moses, dictated to Moses by Jahveh; it was imperative
that the priesthood should be traced to a brother of
Moses, and that the temple should have existed in its
first form under Moses in the desert.
-
The work that had been done in the Jehov
The inconsistency that they allowed to pass is seen con-
tinually in the Bible as we have it.
We do not propose to give here a summary of the
Deuteronomic legislation. Its numerous enactments, apart
from a few precepts of common law, public hygiene, and
ritualism, which are required in a developed civilisation,
only develop the principles on which Judaism is formed.
Jahveh is the sole god; Jahveh must have no images;
there must be an ardent solidarity, a mutual love, among
the Jews, and their arms must be open to the foreigner
when he comes to prostrate himself at the feet of Jahveh
and of the Jewish fatherland, but anathema to the
foreigner who will not Judaise. Let us add a first
systematic organisation of the clergy: the question of
sacrifices, offerings, and tithes—that is to say, the fiscal
law* of Jerusalem, discussed in minute detail; finally,
recalled with the most precise rites, the three great
annual feasts of the Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles—
that is to say, of the spring, the harvest, and the vintage,
since, in this east in which the priests command in the
name of the local god, the popular gatherings take the
form of religious festivals.
But it must not be supposed that the priests of Jeru-
salem could, like the Roman jurisconsults, promulgate
laws in the abstract. Calling themselves the heirs of
Moses, they simply taught the people the very ancient
law dictated to him by the national god, a thousand years
before, in the deserts of Horeb or on the banks of the
Jordan. No legislation could succeed at Jerusalem that
did not bear the name and authority of the unique legis-
lator Moses. Instead of saying to the people, “ Thou shalt
rest on the seventh day of the week,” they could not fail to
say: “In such and such circumstances, on such a day, at
such a place, Jahveh spoke unto Moses, and said to him :
Thou shalt rest.....”
Hence the Deuteronomic period marks the composition
of a new series of episodes (of a more particularly
86
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
legislative character), which were added to the episodes
already composed. There was no break and no external
distinction between what we have called the Jehovist-
Elohist period and the Deuteronomic period. Fresh
narratives are added to the early narratives of the
creation, the patriarchal legends, and the Mosaic epic.
The new generations contribute their portion. But the
general spirit has changed somewhat; we have reached
the time when the rather vague teaching of the Jehovist
and the Elohist no longer suffices, and a more explicit
legislation is brought on the scene. The new priestly
writers do not profess to recommence the work of their
predecessors; they continue and complete it.
It is now related that at Horeb, just after the escape
from Egypt, when they were beginning to cross the
desert, Jahveh had spoken to Moses. After forty years
they reach the banks of the Jordan, in the plains of
Moab, and there:
Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, 0
Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your
ears this day...
Jahveh, our god, made a covenant with you in
Horeb.....
He talked with you face to face in the mount, out of
the midst of the fire.
I stood between Jahveh and you at that time, to show
you the word of Jahveh ; for ye were afraid by reason of
the fire, and went not up into the mountain.
And Jahveh said to you.....1
The celebrated decalogue follows.
Other scenes are composed to enframe other legislation.
Each new promulgation is presented as an account of a
conversation between Jahveh and Moses, from which
Moses brings fresh commands. In fine, we have the
famous episode of the benedictions and maledictions, a
magnificent development of the old theme:—
If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Jahveh
1 Deuteronomy v. 1-5.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
87
thy god, Jahveh thy god will set thee on high above all
nations of the earth.
But if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jahveh
thy god, all these curses shall come upon thee, and over-
take thee...
All the blessings are enumerated, and they betray the
ideal of the Jerusalem aristocracy of the fourth century.
All the curses also are enumerated, with a concentration
of lyric atrocity that amazes us.1
The Deuteronomic writers added a large number of new
narratives to the older ones relating to the conquest of
Palestine by the Israelites under the command of Joshua.
These narratives form part of our actual book of Joshua.
The same need that had compelled the writers to enlarge
the Mosaic epic with so many episodes also forced them
to develop the epic of the conquest. Once more a fresh
situation created fresh needs.
We have already said that the writers who related the
episodes of ancient Israelitic history probably reached as
far as the end of the reign of David, when the Deutero-
nomic spirit gradually replaced the Jehovist spirit. The
story of Solomon, son of David, who, all-powerful master
of his neighbours, allowed their women to seduce him into
accepting their abominable deities, and of his successors,
the kings of Judah and Ephraim, with the constant
punishment by Jahveh of their lapses into idolatry and
the constant reward of their return, was written in a
Deuteronomic spirit. The great principle, laid down by
the Jehovist writers, that unfaithfulness is always punished
and faithfulness always rewarded, has not ceased to rule;
but the infidelities that are punished are now acts of
disobedience to the Deuteronomic codes.
The famous reform of Josias is the last creation of the
Deuteronomic dogmatism. No story was ever more
improbable, yet no story was ever taken more seriously
1 Deuteronomy xxviii.
88
THE BOOKS OE MOSES
by the commentators; it was a colossal mistake, mis-
leading Biblical criticism for half a century. Possibly it
is an historical fact that King Josias, rebelling against
the king of Assyria, undertook to expel the Assyrian
deities which his servile predecessor Manasseh had intro-
duced into Jerusalem. As it is related in the Bible, the
alleged reform by Josias is an extreme episode invented
with a view to show that Jahveh had given a last counsel
to his people on the very eve of the Deportation. The
end of the Davidic dynasty, the ruin of the nation, and
the burning of the town, are, as usual, and more than
ever, a great chastisement inflicted by an angry god on
the people who have forsaken him for the Baals and
Astartes.
Because the king of Judah hath done these abomina-
tions, because he hath worshipped idols, and hath made
Judah also to sin with his idols,
Therefore thus saith Jahveh, the god of Israel, Behold,
I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that,
whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.
And I will stretch the plummet over Jerusalem ; and I
will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it,
and turning it upside down.
And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance,
and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and
they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies;
Because they have done that which was evil in my
sight, and have provoked me to anger.1
That point had been reached in the composition of the
Biblical narratives by the middle of the fourth century,
in the period of the last Persian emperors. Since the
Medic wars there is a continuous war between Persian
Asia and Hellenic Europe. Greek colonies develop in
Asia Minor, and the Greek civilisation gradually penetrates
the east. The empire of Artaxerxes spreads, as a con-
federation of provinces and States, as far as India, across
the whole of western Asia. Soon will open the great
1 2 Kings xxi. 11-15.
THE DEUTERONOMIC PERIOD
89
epic of Alexander, conquering this vast universe for
Hellenism after a hundred and fifty years of struggle.
At this time Jerusalem may have had ten or fifteen
thousand inhabitants, counting its whole population.
The surrounding districts would hardly double the
number. We may conceive the Jewish State as a small
republic of thirty thousand souls, as little known to the
rest of the world, as lost in the universe, as the lowliest
of the principalities by the Jordan. It is elsewhere—at
Susa and Babylon, round the person of the king of kings,
in the heart of the great Persian feudalism; at Athens,
Sparta, Thebes, and presently in Macedonia; in Asia
Minor, where Hellenism and the East are face to face; in
the islands of the iEgaean Sea—that the destinies of the
universe seem to be arranged.
Yet the history of the world is being prepared just as
much in this obscure corner. The future presents itself
in the form of a few priests who are giving precepts and
dogmas to their little town.
The genius of Greece has left to posterity, in immortal
images, the memory of its ideas, its art, and its civilisa-
tion. In the narratives of its historians and the verses
of its poets we read, just as clearly as in the columns of
the Parthenon, the annals of the luminous ages which
represented the adolescence of the human mind. But
the annals of Judaism, which will later form a counter-
poise to the genius of Greece, are being written in a
country that was unknown to Socrates and Pericles. If
we would discover the origin of our Christianity, we must
study the humble composition of a series of fabulous and
dogmatic narratives, written in the shadow of a poor
temple in western Syria, by a few generations of fanatical
priests, for the instruction of the small people that the
disdainful Persian allowed them to govern.
90
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
§ 4. The Levitical Period.
We have already said1 that the discovery of the papyri
of Elephantine strikingly confirmed the dating which we
have adopted for the books of the Bible. The witness of
the contemporary Greek writers has the same effect.
In the middle of the fifth century so inquisitive and
informed a writer as Herodotus is ignorant of the very
name of the Jews, much less the Israelites. If the
Mosaic legislation were then in existence, and if the
temple had been organised with its fully developed
services, it would be unintelligible that Herodotus should
know nothing of a work that would have so richly
rewarded his curiosity. We are, on the contrary, in the
age of Esdras (458, the arrival of Esdras at Jerusalem).
Jerusalem is hardly born yet.
Aristotle, in the middle of the fourth century, speaks
of a geographical feature of Palestine ; he knows nothing
of Jews or Israelites. The Jews are still, in spite of a
real development, only one of the many small peoples of
Palestine.
The word “ Jew ” enters Greek literature after the time
of Alexander, at the end of the fourth and the beginning
of the third century. The first interesting mention of it
is by Hecatseus of Abdera, at the beginning of the third
century. He is acquainted with various Mosaic narra-
tives and Deuteronomic laws, and a Levitical law, but
with sufficient errors and confusion to indicate that he
has merely heard them spoken of in Egypt, where he
lived, and some of the Jews had settled.
The Levitical or sacerdotal period, which succeeded
the Deuteronomic period, and was the period in which
the so-called Levitical or sacerdotal episodes of the Mosaic
books were written at Jerusalem, seems to have com-
menced about the middle of the fourth century, and to
1 See p. xv.
THE LEVITICAL PERIOD
91
have developed during the Alexandrine conquest and the
wars of the successors of Alexander; it thus seems to
have coincided with the beginning of prophetism, and to
have continued until the first part of the third century,
at the time when peace was restored in Palestine, under
the vice-royalty of the high-priest Simeon I.
It is the period when the State of Jerusalem definitively
secures the hegemony over one half of Palestine; the
period when the aristocracy of the Jerusalem priests is
at its zenith.
In Palestine the State of Samaria alone resists the
State of Jerusalem; Judaea is about to form a great
province, of which Jerusalem will be the capital; the
little neighbouring States are subdued; the ardent
nationalism of the successors of Esdras has borne fruit;
Jerusalem reigns over the surrounding country.
In regard to its internal affairs, the clerical aristocracy
is fully organised ; the caste enjoys all its privileges; the
office of high-priest passes from father to son, and, first
under the suzerainty of the Persian emperors, then under
the suzerainty of the Macedonian kings of Syria and
Egypt, the high-priests govern the State ; below them
are a few families occupying the highest positions and
holding the wealth of the country, who will afterwards be
known as the princes of the priests. A body of sacrificial
priests continues the hierarchy; the army of levites obeys
them; while the Jewish people is disposed about them,
obedient and fanatical, in the fidelity of its heart to Jahveh.
At the same time the rites have become innumerable;
many of them come from Egypt. The priests have
gradually created a vast formulary in which their power
is revealed and exercised. Jerusalem is something like
a fraternity in which a mitred abbot rules, with his
college of vicars, amid an endless procession of ceremonies.
But let us note carefully; it is from this minute actual
organisation that the financial power of the Jerusalem
aristocracy has arisen.
92
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
The Deuteronomic period had known nothing of these
complicated institutions, this powerful hierarchy. New
laws had to be issued gradually, to fix the new ritual
prescriptions; and new myths, to legitimise the new
institutions. The organisation of the Jewish State is
ever one of divine right, the right of Jahveh. The old
theory of Deuteronomy is applied to the new situation.
It is proved that Jahveh himself, in the remotest period
of history, said that things must be so. The authors of
the legislation of the fourth century had thought it
necessary to attribute the promulgation of it to Moses;
the priests who codified the new laws of the Jewish
State in the third century thought it no less indispensable
to make Moses their godfather. It was imperative that
the whole of the law should have been promulgated by
Moses, dictated to Moses by Jahveh; it was imperative
that the priesthood should be traced to a brother of
Moses, and that the temple should have existed in its
first form under Moses in the desert.
ist and
Deuteronomic periods was resumed in a new spirit, in
view of the necessary apology for the priesthood, but
equally in view of the development of the imperialist
policy. And it is possible to-day for commentators to
distinguish this new edition of the Mosaic books, which
the later compilers generally placed at the end of the
older one, in the books which compose our actual Bible.
-
The Deuteronomic writers had not resumed the
legendary history of origins; they had been content with
the Jehovistic narratives. The sacerdotal writers acted
differently; they took up again the whole legendary
history of origins, from the patriarchs and the creation
onward. There was a sacerdotal account of the creation,
just as there had been a Jehovistic account. The older
account is the one which begins at the fourth verse of
the second chapter of Genesis in our actual Bible : “ These
are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in
THE LEVITICAL PERIOD
93
the day that the god Jahveh made the earth and the
heavens.” It describes how Jahveh made woman from
one of the ribs of the first man, and ends at the twenty-
fourth verse of the same chapter. The sacerdotal account
is the famous beginning of Genesis with the creation in
six days: “In the beginning god created the heaven and
the earth.....and god said, Let there be light.” Here
god creates man to his own image; and he creates him
both male and female.
The patriarchal legends are resumed with an exaggera-
tion of the ritualist or hierarchical tendencies; in other
places genealogies abound, and take the place of the older
narratives; throughout, a new political situation gives
birth to new ethnographic myths.
The Deuteronomic writers, who had made no addition
to the Jehovistic episodes of the patriarchal legend, had
added much to the Jehovistic episodes of the exodus.
Nevertheless, this enlarged history of Moses and Joshua
seemed to the writers of the Levitic period to be inade-
quate. They took it up afresh.
I will quote only one instance, which has been very
profoundly studied by M. Maurice Vernes in his lectures
at the Ecole des Hautes-^ltudes.
The earlier writers had imagined that the Israelites
had, after leaving Egypt and taking possession of Pales-
tine, entered upon a solemn covenant with Jahveh and
sworn eternal fidelity. But where had the contract been
concluded ? The older narratives betray the hesitations,
alterations, and instability of their compilers in dealing
with the ancient traditions. It is at Cades, or Massa and
Meriba, in certain obscure oases, during the crossing of
the desert, that Jahveh has his obscure conversation with
Moses. Then one writer more luckily introduces the
mountain of Horeb; Moses descends from the company
of the god with the Decalogue written on tables of stone,
and, on the eve of entering the promised land, he
expounds to the people, amid the plains of Moab, the
94
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
whole cycle of commandments which Jahveh has
revealed to him, and of which the Decalogue was the
preface. A different tradition is developed, however, in
another school. We know that one of the most ancient
sanctuaries of Jahveh, the memory of which still survives,
is that of Sichem, the old temple of Baal-Berit, of the
Lord-of-the-Alliance, or Jahveh-Lord-of-the-Alliance,
celebrated in the time of Gideon and his son Abimelech.
There, it is said, the alliance was promulgated, amid a
great gathering of the people, with the benedictions of
Mount Garizim on the one side and the maledictions of
Mount Ebal on the other. The Deuteronomic episodes
close with these contradictions.
The writers of the sacerdotal period desired more
majesty in the conclusion of the covenant; and, at the
same time, their imperialism required that the Jerusalem
temple should have the glory of it. There was among
them a writer of genius and an able casuist—a common
conjunction among the Biblical writers—who conceived
the epic of Sinai.
In the middle of the Arabian desert, during the terrible
forty years’ wandering, the people, led by Moses, halted
at the foot of Sinai. There, amid the chaos of rocks on
which no vegetation finds root, in the horror of the naked
gorges and the snowy peaks, across the storms which roll
from summit to summit and precipice to precipice, Jahveh
manifests himself to his prophet; while the people,
gaping with horror, gather in the valleys below. A thick
cloud had descended; smoke arose, as if from a furnace,
and the mountain trembled. Jahveh descended on the
summit of the mountain, and called Moses; and Moses
went up. Then the god spoke:—
I am Jahveh, thy god, which have brought thee out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou
shalt have no other gods before me.1
1 Exodus xx. 2-3.
THE LEVITICAL PERIOD
95
The law follows. It is the work of a man of genius;
the work of a casuist.
The covenant has been concluded among the summits
of Sinai, in the middle of the desert, far from the land of
Israel, consequently far from the place where the single
temple of Jerusalem will be raised. But it has been
concluded above the ark, near the altar of brass, under
the tent of tapistry and animal-skins which is called the
Tabernacle. But where have the ark, the brass altar,
and the Tabernacle remained for time out of mind ? In
the Jerusalem temple. After wandering through the
desert and finding a temporary shelter at Sichem, at
Silo, at Bethsames, at Cariathiarim, and at Gabaon, the
divine “furniture” is brought to Jerusalem, and installed
for ever by Solomon in the temple. The Jerusalem
temple is therefore the legitimate heir or, rather, the
continuation of Sinai.
Though civilisation has advanced, the same spirit that
had inspired the ancient moshlim now inspires the
sacerdotal moshlim. We are still in the east, still at
Jerusalem; the aim is still to legitimise the actual laws
by attributing to them a divine origin, to consecrate the
institutions by deriving them from Jahveh. We have, as
before, doctrinal theses illustrated by legends; hopes and
ambitions that must be justified; genealogies created in
great numbers to explain the Jewish pretensions amid the
neighbouring peoples. The last Mosaic legislation is,
like the preceding, at once a theological legitimation of
existing institutions, a solemn promulgation of new laws,
and a presentment of ideal legislative views.
It is a theological legitimation of existing institutions.
That which exists is justified by the divine will from the
remotest antiquity; the temple is as it is, because Jahveh
has so commanded; the sacerdotal caste rules, because
the priests are the direct descendants of Aaron, brother
of Moses.
It is a solemn promulgation of new laws. The new
96
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
laws are not new laws, but the laws which Jahveh himself
dictated to Moses long ago—though three-fourths of the
laws of the Levitic period settle questions of vestments or
of ritual butchery.
It is a presentment of ideal legislative views. Side by
side with the immediately useful enactment we have the
dream that it will be well to realise in a better, and
probably approaching, period. The ideal mingles through-
out with the real. Like that of Deuteronomy, the sacer-
dotal legislation is at one moment minute, at another
chimerical; it is always dogmatic and theocratic, always
imperialistic.
But there are other things in view than those of the
Deuteronomic period. The characteristic of the Levitical
period is the need, on the part of the clerical aristocracy
of Jerusalem, of a definitive organisation.
The legislation of the last great Mosaic code is really
that of a powerful church, which radiates over the
surrounding countries. It has all the greatness and all
the meanness of a constituted State which aims at ruling,
and is not content merely to live. An administration, of
complicated structure, is formed. One thinks of the
Catholic Church, so powerful, so administratively organised
for ruling.
There is no longer any question, for instance, in the
Levitical narratives of the massacres of the Canaanites,
The Jerusalemitic cult has definitively triumphed, round
about Jerusalem, over the earlier pagan resistance. The
horizon is broader; beyond the surrounding countries
they perceive more distant peoples whom it will be
possible to Judaise.
The ancient covenant concluded between Jahveh and
the Jewish people demanded that, as a reward for its
fidelity, Jahveh should secure for Israel the free and
peaceful possession of that part of Palestine to which the
priests of Jerusalem had given the mythic name of Israel,
the symbol of their ambitions. Now that the country is
THE LEVITICAL PERIOD.
97
almost subdued, and, as Samaria alone resists, the ancient
Israel is almost restored, the dream of a more far-reaching
Judaisation, which we shall find developing in the soul of
the First Isaiah, is already dawning in the soul of the
priests of Jerusalem. Political independence, or the
rejection of the yoke of Persia or Macedonia, is always
included in these Mosaic epics, from the first Jehovistic
mashal to the last Levitic genealogies; but in the last
pages of the final Levitical narratives there appears, as in
the First Isaiah, the ambition to conquer the world, and
the covenant is enlarged until it promises the Jews, as a
reward of their traditional faithfulness, not merely the
enjoyment of a part of Palestine, but the conquest of the
universe. Extravagant dream for one of the smallest
peoples of the earth at the beginning of the third century !
Supremely fruitful dream, because it would one day lead
to its own realisation. And we read this dream, perhaps
for the first time, in the Jewish epics, in the famous
episode of the three sons of Noah :—
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted
a vineyard:
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he
was uncovered within his tent.
And Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his
two brethren without.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it
upon both their shoulders, and went backward and covered
the nakedness of their father; and their faces were back-
ward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what had
been done,
And he said: Cursed be Canaan [son of Ham] : a
servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
And he said: Blessed be Jahveh, god of Shem, and
Canaan shall be his servant.
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the
tents of Shem.1
Shem, the narrative goes on to say, is the father of
Genesis ix. 20-27.
H
98
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
Israel and the cognate peoples. Ham and Canaan are
the fathers of the Canaanites, who for the last time
symbolise the goim who are refractory to Judaism.
Japheth is the father of Javan, 'lcnrerog, the father of
the Greek peoples and all those whom the Jews of the
third century regarded as Greeks. In Japheth the Greek
world is, provided it submit to the law of Jahveh, invited
to take part in the blessings of the god.
We have reached the period of the high-priest Simeon I.,
who succeeded the high-priest Onias I. in the year 300.
Simeon I. is very probably the Simeon the Just of whom
Flavius Josephus and the Siracid speak, and the Shimeon
Hasadiq, of whom the Talmud speaks, the ideal high-
priest of the rabbinical tradition, he who is followed by
decadence.1
It seems that after this date the Mosaic legends ceased
to enrich themselves with new narratives and fresh
prescriptions. Modifications, corrections, interpolations,
and manipulations of the old narratives will continue to
be made; the largest additions will consist in the inser-
tion of entire psalms; but the general sum is fixed, and
presently the scribes will begin to arrange this infinite
number and variety of fragments, in order to make a
single book of them. Discordant narratives placed in
succession, the same things told several times with
variations that are often contradictory, the legislations
of several centuries simply put side by side, and hundreds
of myths that had their origin in the most diverse
circumstances, jostling each other with no unity save that
of the constant idea of the national work that is to be
accomplished—such will be the compilation of which the
scribes of the third and second centuries will make the
book of the Law, the masterpiece of oriental literatures.
-
1 See Appendix V.
THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF JUDAISM 99
§5 .A First Glance at the Internationalisation of
Judaism.
Perhaps it is important to religions to maintain the
historical value of their sacrecl books ; so our conservative
theologians believe. Perhaps it is a matter of indifference
to religions whether or no their origin be illumined by the
light of history; so our liberal theologians, Catholic and
Protestant, believe. But the historian knows nothing of
these considerations. He neither attacks nor defends
religions; he studies how certain books, which have
become sacred books, offered to the veneration of all ages
throughout the whole earth, came into being among a
certain people, at a certain period, in certain circum-
stances, in order to meet certain needs.
Christianity has made the national and nationalist
books of the smallest people of ancient Western Asia
the sacred books of the modern world; in other words, it
has internationalised them. We shall follow this work, as
we gradually cover a fresh stage in Jewish history. With
the first group of the Jewish books, the books of Moses,
we catch our first glance of the internationalism of
Judaism.
The books of Moses were, as we recognised, born of the
imperious need, felt by the little people of Jerusalem, to
create a past for itself, to give itself a legislation of divine
origin, to legitimise its institutions, to consecrate its
ambitions, to sanctify its national hatreds. Inter-
nationalisation is the art of appropriating words that
have a concrete meaning in their age and their environ-
ment, and clothing these words with a general and purely
moral meaning; of ridding them of their literal meaning
in order to give them one that is ideal.
We will give several examples. This chapter, indeed,
might bear the title, “ On the Meaning of certain Hebrew
Words.”
100
THE BOOKS OE MOSES
The Neighbour.—The neighbour, in Hebrew rea,
means compatriot in the Mosaic books. A Jew has no
other neighbour but his compatriot Jew. The Egyptian
is not a neighbour for the Jew. The famous verse,
“ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,”1 means,
“ Thou shalt love thy compatriot as thyself.” It is a
fresh affirmation of the ardent nationalism to which
Jerusalem owed its fortune.
The Stranger.—The stranger is protected by the
Mosaic law. But the English word “ stranger ” [in the
Biblical sense of “ foreigner ”] serves as a translation of
four different Hebrew words—ger, toshab, nocri, and
goim. The ger and the toshab are the strangers settled
in the territory of Jerusalem and obeying the Mosaic law;
the nocri is the non-Judaising stranger; the goim are the
enemy. Need we say that the Mosaic protection does not
extend beyond the ger and the toshab ?
Purity and Impurity.—The meaning is strictly
materialistic. At first an impure thing, tame in Hebrew,
may have been a thing taboo, but in the fourth and third
centuries it is merely an infectious or infected thing. A
pure thing comes to mean a clean or disinfected thing:
purification is a hygienic operation. In a country, how-
ever, where all the laws are clothed in a religious form,
the operation is conducted according to a special rite, and
gives a pretext for a tax which the rulers receive.
Woman is impure for several days every month; who-
ever has touched a corpse is impure; to eat certain for-
bidden animals makes a man impure.
Ye shall not make your souls abominable with any
creeping thing that creepeth, that ye should be defiled
thereby: I am Jahveh, your god.2
If a woman shall be cleansed of her issue, then she
shall number to herself seven days, and after that she
shall be clean.
1 Leviticus xix. 18.
2 Leviticus xi. 43.
THE INTERNATIONALISATION OE JUDAISM 101
And on the eighth day she shall take unto her two turtles,
or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, to
the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.1
Holiness.—The root of the Hebrew word qadosh,
which is translated “ holy,” means “ to separate.” A holy
thing or a holy man is a thing or a man separated from
others, especially designed for a certain end ; it is to
prepare especially by setting apart. The people of Israel
is holy, because it has been set apart by Jahveh from the
other peoples of the earth. We are nearer than before to
the idea of taboo. Even when the word begins to have a
moral signification, it only means sacred in the sense of
consecrated. The feminine qedosJiah, holy, is a neological
and post-Biblical variant, invented by the modesty of the
rabbis to replace the real feminine qedeshah, a genuine
Biblical term, which means prostitute; a reminiscence of
the ancient times when prostitution was part of the cult
of Jahveh.
Jahveh.—The history of the divine name is a remark-
able example of internationalisation. We will presently
study the history of the word elohim, which likewise
means god in Hebrew—a god and the gods—and we shall
see how the enlargement of the meaning of the word has
corresponded to the development of Judaism. Let us
deal here with the special name of the special god of the
Jews, Jahveh.
The Jewish god is designated in the Bible by the
proper name Jahveh. Jahveh is his name, just as Camos
is the name of the Moabite god, and Dagon the name of
the Philistine god. Whence did the ancient Israelites
obtain the name ? It is believed that there was an exple-
tive form of the ancient word Jah, which closely resembles
a Babylonian Jah. Science is not yet agreed on the
1 Leviticus xv. 28-29.
102
THE BOOKS OF MOSES
point.....In any case, Jahveh is the name of the god
worshipped at Jerusalem.
When the Jews, in the third and second centuries
before the present era, had promoted their little local god
to the dignity of supreme god, master and creator of the
universe, they had some scruple to permit their lips to
utter the name of so august a personage; and they
gradually substituted for it vague words like Adonai,
which means “ my lord.” A day came even when,
putting a false interpretation on a verse of the Law, they
no longer dared pronounce the sacred name; and as it
occurred on every page of their books, they decided to
read it Adonai}
The Greek translators of the Bible merely transcribed
the Hebrew proper names in Greek characters; but they
dared not preserve Jahveh, and they translated it into
the Greek equivalent of Adonai, 6 Kvpiog, the Lord. The
Catholics followed them in calling the ancient Jahveh
Dominus, then “the Lord.” The Protestants [apart
from the English Bible] translated it “the Eternal.”
To-day the learned students of the Hebrew texts, who
take credit for critical judgment, continue to say “ the
Lord,” if they are Catholics, and “ the Eternal,” if they
are Protestants or Israelites.
Now Jahveh is a name, like Milkom, or Camos, or
Jupiter, or Wotan. To say Jahveh is to indicate a certain
god, apart from other gods; possibly a greater, better,
and purer god than Milkom, or Camos, or Jupiter, or
Wotan, but a particular god in contrast to others. The
terms “Lord” and “Eternal” are, on the other hand,
just as acceptable to the Christians as to the Jews, to the
Europeans as to the Asiatics, to the philosophers as to the
metaphysicians, to Kant as to Esdras. But from Jahveh
to the Eternal or the Lord is as far a cry as from the
1 Hebrew grammarians still teach young Israelites to pronounce the
divine name Adonai.
THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF JUDAISM 103
little State of Jerusalem to the Christian, Catholic, and
universal Church.
It suffices to restore “ Jahveh ” everywhere in the Bible
where we find “the Eternal” or “the Lord” to put
things right. If we keep “ the Eternal,” we are reading
a sacred book; if we restore Jahveh, we have an historical
document. The anger of the Eternal, the vengeance of
the Eternal, are phrases that, at the best, point to a
somewhat confused idea of a vague divinity. Vengeance
and anger have the sound of human expressions, applied,
for want of better, to divine things that are not our anger
and vengeance. Jahveh is, on the contrary, a clearly-
defined god: he is the god of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob,
and of Jerusalem, who will perhaps conquer the world,
but only in so far as Jerusalem will conquer the world.
Jahveh becoming the Eternal is a national and nationalist
god becoming international.
\
PART SECOND
THE PROPHETS
Chapter I.
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
§ 1. Hellenism.
In the year 334 before the present era Alexander was
invading Asia Minor. The Persian army was beaten in
the first encounter, and Asia Minor conquered. In the
following year the victory of Issus delivered the whole
empire of Darius to the Greeks; and in 332 Alexander
took the town of Tyre, and subdued Palestine without
striking a blow. A tradition tells that he entered Jeru-
salem, and that the priests, going out to meet him, obtained
from him, at the threshold of the temple, his clemency
for their town. Whether or no Alexander entered Jeru-
salem, Palestine, together with the whole of western Asia,
passed from the domination of Persia to the domination
of Macedonia.
At this date the State of Jerusalem has reached the
zenith of its development. The work begun by Esdras
had had its effect. While the other small Palestinian
States that were subject to the Persian suzerainty lan-
guished in a state of inactive existence, the Jewish State
had, within the humble limits of its walls and its
immediate surroundings, entrenched itself in the intense
nationalism that found expression in the religion of
Jahveh; and, reacting on the country about it by the
very fact of its energy, the Jewish soul had gradually
permeated Palestine. The majority of the small States
105
106
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
of ancient Israel accepted the religions and moral hege-
mony of Jerusalem; the neighbouring populations—
Moab, Ammon, and Edom—vegetated; even in the
towns of Syria the name of Jahveh was becoming great.
The State of Samaria alone remained antagonistic.
Everywhere else the number of Judaisers increased
constantly, and the priests of Jerusalem might entertain
the great hopes they had given themselves, and imagine
their people chosen among all peoples and the Jewish
soul imposing its primacy on surrounding nations.
But it is important to determine precisely what we
mean by these geographical expressions—Palestine, Judah,
Judaea, and the State of Jerusalem.
After taking Tyre and Gaza, Alexander, now master of
the Syrian region, set up a government which was bounded
by the Mediterranean, Lebanon, the Syrian and Arabian
deserts, and Egypt. That is Palestine; though historians
also add Ccele-Syria. Palestine, therefore, forms in the
age of Alexander a large province, embracing: in the
north, the small States which were later to be gathered
together under the name of Galilee; to the east of the
Jordan, Galaad (later Peraea) ; in the south-east, Ammon,
Moab, and Edom; on the shores of the Mediterranean,
the ancient Philistine towns; in the centre, lastly, the two
rival States, the two leading powers of the group, Samaria,
in which is included part of the ancient kingdom of
Ephraim, and Judah, which comprises the former kingdom
of Judah. Such is the advance made by the State of
Jerusalem since Esdras. If the Davidic kingdom is still
far from being restored, the kingdom of Judah at least is
gained. In the time of Esdras the State of Jerusalem
consisted of the town and the surrounding district; in the
time of Alexander this State has extended its domination
over the territories of which the kingdom of Judah had
once been composed. The land of Judah, however, is
now about to receive the name of Judaea. In creating a
province of Judaea, with Jerusalem as its capital and
HELLENISM
107
-
metropolis, the Macedonian kings will merely consecrate
an accomplished fact. As to Canaan and Israel, these
ancient denominations, now mere expressions of a
theoretical nature, correspond geographically, sometimes
to the whole, sometimes to the greater part, of Palestine.
The Jerusalem aristocracy, mistress of Judaea, already
ruled over a half of Israel, of the land of Canaan promised
by Jahveh to the town of his temple, when the first of the
great crises which were to overthrow Judaism occurred.
A new danger, Hellenism, had appeared, a danger the
more formidable because it arose in the very bosom of the
aristocracy that had once created Judaism. And the
Jewish soul would, if it were to persevere, need to make
a greater effort than it had needed a hundred and fifty-
years earlier to create itself.
It must not be thought that Hellenism penetrated the
State of Jerusalem for the first time with the armies of
Alexander. We know that the battles of Marathon and
Salamina had had no echo in the Jerusalem of the
Restoration. Many years passed without the disciples
of Esdras suspecting anything of the Greek civilisation
which struggled against the Persian monarchy in Asia
Minor and on the islands. Gradually, however, as the
Persian hegemony gave security to the roads in western
Asia, while the Greek and Persian armies fought their
alternating conflict, the Hellenic infiltration reached
Palestine. Tyre, the great commercial town of the east,
was not far from the mountains of Jerusalem ; Palestine
was a stage on the road from Asia to Egypt; Palestine
could not escape the commercial invasion of the Greeks.
At what date did the priests of Jerusalem perceive the
novelty that was approaching their walls ? No document
informs us; but it is probable that by the middle of the
fourth century, many years before the arrival of Alexander,
words of the Greek tongue were heard at the foot of the
temple of Jahveh. The Macedonian conquest was not a
sudden invasion of unexpected conquerors, of a horde of
108
THE BIRTH OE PROPHETISM
victors who at once take possession of a great land ; it
was the logical outcome of a century and a-half of effort,
the conclusion of a long and uninterrupted campaign.
Asia was conquered by the civilisation, as much as by the
armies, of Greece. But under the leadership of Alexander
Hellenism entered more imperiously, with the authority
of victory and conquest, the regions where it had hitherto
merely insinuated its influence.
The military success of Alexander mattered little to the
children of Jahveh. Israel had seen many such. The
triumph of the King of Macedonia might be ephemeral;
it crushed no hope. And, indeed, had not the sacred
dogmatics possible explanations of all the victories of the
goim ? Whether the master of the hour was called
Alexander or Darius, the stern perseverance of the Jew
would regard with disdain the soldier who won battles ;
the soul which had been born again, had lived and grown,
after Nabuchodonosor, would be able to resist the new
master. But those at Jerusalem who clung to the old
traditions of Esdras and Deuteronomy were alarmed, in
the year 332, to see Jews about them beginning to live
the Hellenic life.
Thus was opened a new epoch of Judaism. In future
the Jewish traditionalism will oppose itself implacably to
Hellenic ways. There begins, in the heart of Judaism,
that struggle of parties which is the key of Jewish history
—the struggle of nationalism and foreign influence.
At Jerusalem, however, nationalism was the party of
democracy, Hellenism the party of the ruling aristocracy.
The Jewish soul had been formed on the principle of a
complete isolation from other peoples. From that time
everything had been laid down in the Jewish law, in that
illustration of the Jewish law which the Jewish literature
is, with a view to keeping the men of Jerusalem together
among other men as a kind of church, a caste of saints,
the privileged children of the divinity, enjoying his
especial protection. If the Jews began to live the life
HELLENISM
109
of other peoples, was it not all over with the Jewish soul ?
The men of Jerusalem in the time of Esdras had
perceived in a flash of genius the only conditions of
existence that were possible for them; the same flash of
genius came to some men of Jerusalem a century and
a-half later, in the time of Alexander. The Jewish soul
must resist Hellenism with all its strength, must remain
purely Jewish in face of Hellenism, or it must perish.
The task of the Jews was to extirpate from their midst
every tendency to Hellenisation, to set up among them an
Inquisition which should preserve the hopes of Judaism
from any alloy.
The historians of Judaism have not understood that the
tempests of Judaism took place between Jews from the
time that Hellenism invaded Asia. The task of Judaism
in the third and second centuries was to struggle, not
against the ways and ideas of other nations, but against
the introduction of these ways and ideas into Israel.
However sombre a fanaticism may have always ruled
in the little State of Jerusalem, it would be absurd to
suppose that there were not in it, as elsewhere, minds
that were inclined to more moderate ways, to some indul-
gence for foreign ideas, some tenderness for art and
elegance. Men of this character cannot have been
wanting in the most sombre surroundings, and the
Macedonian conquest discovered some within the walls
of Jerusalem, to the great scandal of the puritans. It
happened, however, as is quite natural, that the new
tendencies were especially found among the aristocracy.
The desire of luxury appears inevitably among a
prosperous aristocracy, even if it be a clerical aristocracy.
The clerical aristocracy held nearly the whole wealth of
the country, thanks to the numerous taxes which had
been instituted, in the form of tithes, offerings, and
propitiations, by the Deuteronomic law; its power, estab-
lished by divine right, was absolute. Among the priests
of Jerusalem there were wealthy men who longed for
110
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
more spacious and better decorated houses. They modified
the old traditional garment; the fashion made its appear-
ance in the approach to the temple of Jahveh. They
affected to speak Greek; their wives wore eccentric
dresses; richer wines flowed ; possibly there were flowers
on the table. I do not exaggerate; these abominations
are described with indignation in the prophetic books.
Hellenisation took place in another way. People who
are little familiar with the biblical writings will be
astonished to learn that they not only anathematise
luxury, but they condemn commerce as a crime. Com-
merce became afterwards the great occupation of the
Jews, because new conditions of existence made new
souls. In developing commerce throughout Asia, the
Macedonian conquest introduced it into Jerusalem, and
some of the Jews became merchants. Naturally they
became rich; and, just as naturally, they sought luxury.
Once more the puritans raised the cry of scandal.
A century later the evil was at its height when,
probably for the first time in history, the Jews attacked
finance, and Joseph, son of Tobias, became farmer-
general of the Ptolemies for the government of Ccele-
Syria.
If Hellenisation had triumphed at Jerusalem, the world
would never have known either the Jewish conquest or
Christianity. But there was a formidable reaction of the
old nationalism, a prodigious outflame of the implacable
soul of Jerusalem ; and it was among the people, the
humble, that the movement arose, and grew, and
triumphed. Starting from the people, the nationalist
reaction assumed a democratic character, which would be
an essential part of Judaism.
Jewish patriotism understood and proved that the
correction of its leaders is a supreme law, that the leaders
must set an example of obedience to the traditions, that
it is useless to speak to the people of discipline when the
leaders have not first obeyed the most rigorous of disci-
THE MEN OF GOD
111
plines, and that there is no real nationalism in a State, in
which guilty leaders are tolerated.
This appeal to the ancient traditions and the necessary
discipline, this return to an uncompromising nationalism,
this renascence of the imperialism of Jerusalem, was the
work of the prophets.
§ 2. The Men of God.
In the remotest periods of the history of peoples we
find sorcerers, mercenary diviners, strange healers, feared
and venerated, in the whole of the east, in the west and
Africa as well as Palestine, .among the nomad leaders of
flocks, in the first settlements of primitive husbandmen,
in the little cities surrounded with their walls of earth, in
the old towns where a formidable sultan rules with his
harem and janissaries, in the shade of the oldest
sanctuaries, and in the valleys where the caravans pass.
These men, with their disordered gestures, their
incoherent speech, and their wild eyes, are sometimes
mad, sometimes epileptic. They wander about in rags,
thin and famished and sordid. You meet them near the
villages, but they live in the desert places. The caverns
are their homes; they spend long hours in solitude.
They have no trade. When a beast or a man falls ill,
they know the remedy that will cure; when difficult
projects are in contemplation, they utter words in which
one divines the future. A few silver coins or measures of
corn are their salary.
These victims of hallucination are regarded as inspired
by the deity. Among primitive peoples the insane was
always considered a sacred being. It was the same in
Judaea as in the rest of the world; it is the same in the
east to-day. Madness is a sacred malady; epilepsy is a
divine phenomenon. The divine word can only be im-
parted^ to human ears by means of this delirium, in which
112
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
a man loses his individuality and becomes a passive
instrument of inspiration. Saint Paul will explain it in
the most precise manner in a later age.1
On that account they are venerated and feared. These
haggard sorcerers and famished soothsayers see something
in the future, and control evil spirits. With all their
rags they bear on their brows the sign of Jahveh. They
are men of god.
The ancient tribes of Palestine, Israel as well as Moab,
Ammon, Edom, and Syria, swarmed with men of god.
The Bible has preserved the memory of these men of
god in pages to which we cannot grant an historical
value, but which undeniably afford a valuable picture of
customs.
There was once [eleven hundred years before the
present era] a man of Benjamin, whose name was Cis,
the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath,
the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power.
And he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice young
man and a goodly; and there was not among the children
of Israel a goodlier person than he ; from his shoulders
and upward he was higher than any of the people.
And the asses of Cis, Saul’s father, were lost. And Cis
said to Saul his son: Take now one of the servants with
thee, and arise, go seek the asses.
And he passed by mount Ephraim, and passed through
the land of Salisa, but they found them not; then they
passed through the land of Salim, and there they were
not; and he passed through the land of Jemini, but they
found them not.
And when they were come to the land of Suph, Saul
said to his servant that was with him: Come and let us
return; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take
thought for us.
And the servant said unto him: Behold now, there is
in this city a man of God, and he is an honourable man.
All that he saith cometh surely to pass. Now let us go
thither. Peradventure he can show us our way that we
should go.
Then said Saul to his servant: Let us go, but, behold,
1 1 Corinthians xii, and xiv.
THE MEN OF GOD
113
if we go, what shall we bring the man of God ? For the
• bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to
bring to the man of God; what have we ?
And the servant answered Saul again, and said:
Behold, I have here at hand the fourth part of a shekel of
silver ; that will I give to the man of God, to tell us our
way......
Then said Saul to his servant: Well said, come, let us
go. So they went unto the city where the man of God was.
And as they went up the hill to the city, they found
young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto
them : Is the seer here ?
And they answered them and said : He is ; behold, he
is before thee; make haste.....
As soon as ye be come unto the city, ye shall straight-
way find him, before he go up to the high place to eat.
....Now therefore get you up.
-
And they went up into the city; and when they were
come into the city, behold, Samuel came out against them,
for to go up to the high place...
Then Saul drew near to Samuel in the gate of the city,
and said: Tell me, I pray thee, where the seer’s house is.
And Samuel answered Saul, and said: I am the seer :
go up before me unto the high place ; for ye shall eat with
me to-day, and to-morrow morning I will let thee go, and
will tell thee all that is in thine heart.
And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago,
set not thy mind on them, for they are found.1
The aged wizard Samuel, who was able to find the lost
asses for a fourth part of a shekel of silver, seems to have
delivered his consultation with a somewhat simple appa-
ratus on that day. It was not always so—with some of
his colleagues, if not with Samuel. And the Bible does
not fail to give us some information on the way in which,
at the remote epoch of the legend, the predictions and
conjurations took place.
The anecdote of Saul, the asses, and Samuel continues;
and, after the meal, Samuel says to Saul, among other
things, and in the midst of theologico-dogmatic discourses
after the manner of doctors of the Esdras school:—
1 1 Samuel ix. 1-20. Certain features of this translation are taken
from Lemaistre de Saci.
I
114
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
When thou shalt have gone on forward from thence,
thou shalt come to the oak of Thabor, and there shall
meet thee three men going up to God to Bethel, one
carrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of
bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine :
And they will salute thee, and give thee two loaves of
bread ; which thou shalt receive of their hands.
After that thou shalt come to Guibea-of-God, where is
the garrison of the Philistines; and it shall come to pass,
when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt
meet a company of prophets coming down from the high
place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp
before them ; and they shall prophesy:
And the spirit of Jahveh will come upon thee; and
thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into
another man.1
To prophesy means, in Hebrew, to utter cries and
dance to the sound of instruments.
Consider David, later, bringing back to Jerusalem the
ark of Jahveh:—
David, clothed with a linen tunic, danced before Jahveh
with all his might.
So David and all the house of Israel brought up the
ark of Jahveh with shouting, and with the sound of the
trumpet.
And as the ark of Jahveh came into the city of David,
Michol, Saul’s daughter (and David’s wife), looked through
a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before
the face of Jahveh ; and she despised him in her heart.
When David returned to bless his household, Michol
the daughter of Saul came out to meet him, and said:
How glorious was the king of Israel to-day, who un-
covered himself in the eyes of the handmaids of his
servants, and appeared half-naked like a buffoon.2
I do not regard the legends of David, Saul, and especially
Samuel, as having historical value; but they imply certain
ways. Israel could not be an exception amid the other
peoples of the East. The historical probability that
epileptic wizards, diviners, and healers, with the gestures
and speech of madmen, filled Palestine, both at the time
1 1 Samuel x. 3-6.
2 2 Samuel vi. 14-20.
THE MEN OF GOD
115
of the ancient kingdoms and at that of the [Restoration, is
confirmed by the testimony of the Biblical hooks.
What name did these wizards hear in Palestine ? The
Bible uses several words of which the meaning is the
more vague because of the wilful confusion that its writers
have made between the real wizard of history and the
idealised seer of the legend. The three words most
frequently used are:—
Ish haelohim, the man of god;
Hozeh, or roeh, the seer;
Nabi, the speaker, more particularly the prophet.
It is impossible, in the actual condition of science, to
determine the chronological order of these three designa-
tions. The third has been accepted by usage to designate
the prophets in the highest sense of the word; the first,
probably earlier than the other two, expresses rather the
primitive idea of the healing diviner, an insane man—that
is to say, a man inspired by a god; the second, and vaguer,
term is less frequently used, and is hardly applicable to
any but Samuel or Gad. Hence, while warning the
reader that the choice is arbitrary, I beg to be allowed,
for the purpose of explaining more clearly, to neglect the
term “ seer ” (roeh or hozeh); to restrict the word
“prophet” (nabi) to the idealised prophetic type; and
to keep for the historical Israelitic wizard the name of
“ man of god ” (ish haelohim).
For the moment we have to see how the man of god
was made a prophet.
The men of god whom we find in the real history of
ancient Israel, just as in Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria,
and in the whole of the East and among all primitive
peoples, did not play any particular part in ancient Israel.
They were, as everywhere else, tellers of good stories,
bonesetters to whom every one had recourse when neces-
sary, and who gave their advice in the form of chants, or
rather howls, and of dances, or rather stamping and
frenzied leaping.
116
THE BIRTH OE PROPHETISM
At the time of the Restoration we find them once more,
eternal features of the East, always the same, miserable
and powerful wizards, whose ravings are inspired by
Jahveh; just as we shall see them again in the Jewish world
of St. Paul, and as we find them in our own time under
the name of howling and dancing dervishes. What part
did they play in the restored Jerusalem of the fifth and
the fourth centuries? No other than that which their
ancestors had played in the ancient kingdoms; no other
than that which their colleagues played in the surrounding
peoples—that is to say, none.
They would have passed away, forgotten and of no
account, had their names not served to shelter a literary
artifice of the Jewish writers of the fourth century: had
not the historical men of god suggested to the imagina-
tion of the writers of the Bible the ideal and purely literary
type of the prophets.
The priests of Jerusalem who had related, in the earliest
books of the Bible, how Jahveh punished national infidelity
and rewarded national fidelity, had imagined that Jahveh
had, in the course of these vicissitudes, often given direct
advice to his people. With the spirit of hostility to
abstractions which caused all their teachings to pass
through the living form of legends, they had thought it
necessary that, from time to time, sacred personages
should have, on the part of Jahveh, warned their ancestors,
whose history they were relating, of the chastisements
that awaited them and the promises that were held out
to them; they had pretended that Jahveh himself had,
all through this tragic and glorious history, raised up
inspired men to speak in his name, and to repeat in his
name, at every turn in Jewish history, from the settle-
ment in Palestine until Nabuchodonosor:—
Thus saith Jahveh: Because ye have forsaken Jahveh,
your god, and prostituted yourselves to the Baals and
Astartes, I will strike the fathers and the children, the
neighbour and his neighbour...Thus saith Jahveh: If
THE MEN OF GOD
117
, ye return to Jahveh, your god, I will make your captives
return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and I will
break your chains, and I will take from your necks the
yoke of your enemies......
These inspired men are, therefore, above all, admonishers
invented by the Biblical writers in order to make more
precise the teaching that they wish to give to their readers.
Not only the warnings, but the warners themselves, might
be omitted from the historical books without the narrative
suffering in the least. The books of Samuel and Kings
are surcharged with these episodic personages; in every
page we find them playing the part of the moralists with
which Alexander Dumas filled his compositions, a sort of
Desgenais speaking in the name of public morality—that
is to say, to keep to the sentiment of the Bible, in the
name of Jahveh.
The Jewish spirit always disliked abstract instruction.
Instead of a simple statement that King David committed
a sin in taking the wife of his servant Uriah, and that
this sin deserved punishment, we read :—
The thing that David had done displeased Jahveh.
And Jahveh sent Nathan unto David. And he came
unto him, and said unto him :
....Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment
of Jahveh, to do evil in his sight ?
Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine
own house.1
It is an invention. Who were these admonishers who
were supposed to have the task of announcing the orders
of Jahveh to the people of Israel ? The Jerusalem writers
might have assigned the part to priests of the earlier
times; and some of them did so. But, as a rule, they
preferred to assign the part to special personages; and,
looking round them, they selected the men of god.
They supposed that in former times there were among
these demented wizards, these dreaded and venerated
1 2 Samuel xi. 27 ; xii. 1, 9, and 11.
118
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
diviners, who were seen wandering near the towns and
whose ravings seemed to have a divine origin, some who
were especially inspired by Jahveh, and charged with the
mission of speaking to Israel in his name. The character
was thus created. It answered perfectly the needs of
the writers, and the fiction was gradually elaborated;
under the name of prophets, the men of god came and
went on behalf of Jahveh throughout Jewish history,
drawing from events the lesson that it suited the priest-
writers to give to their people.
The men of god were thus raised to the rank of
prophets. But it must be quite understood that in the
time of the ancient Hebrew kingdoms there had never
been, and there was not in the fifth and fourth centuries,
any man of god who professed to give warnings to the
Jewish people at the command of Jahveh. In accordance
with the conventional definitions which I proposed for
the words “ man of god ” and “ prophet,” we must say
that, in the Judaea of the fifth and fourth centuries, as in
all ancient kingdoms and in the Palestine of the third
and second centuries, there were, at all times and in all
places, humble men of god, but that, in point of fact,
there were no prophets.
Later, during the first century of the present era, when
the ancient books of Judaism had become sacred books,
when everybody in Judaea believed in the historical reality
of the Samuels, Elijahs, Jeremiahs, and Isaiahs, it is true
that some of these poor healers and fortune-tellers, who
always abounded in Palestine, tried to set up as new
Elijahs and Jeremiahs; this is the only period in which
there were, historically, prophets in Palestine—pale
imitators of fictitious heroes, such as John the Baptist,
Jesus of Nazareth, or Theudas.
We may therefore define the prophets as:—
Fictitious characters, invented by the Jewish writers of
the fourth and succeeding centuries, on an idealised model
of the men of god (that is to say, the wizards, soothsayers,
THE MEN OE GOD
119
and healers) who were found throughout the east, and
interpolated by them in their national history to play the
part of admonishers enjoined by Jahveh to give a lesson
to his people.
To explain the presence of the prophets in the books
of the Bible, it is by no means necessary to suppose that
there had been prophets in the days of the ancient
kingdoms, or were in the fifth and fourth centuries; it
was enough that there had been, and were, men of god.
For the Middle Ages to create the epic character of
Merlin the Enchanter, it was not necessary that a Merlin
the Enchanter should have existed in the Middle Ages;
it was enough that there were wizards, and that some
writer sought to idealise them. The prophets of Israel
are the Merlins of Judaism.1
The fiction remained poor, however, in the earlier
books of the Bible. The characters of Samuel, Elijah,
and Elisha had not yet been created, or at least not yet
developed; the prophet-admonishers brought on to the
scene by the earlier writers were feeble expressions of a
mediocre literary device. Lifeless and uninteresting
phantoms, they would have been lost in oblivion if, some
day about the year 332 and the conquest of Jerusalem by
Alexander, the fiction had not been suddenly raised from
its lowly level and developed, and received at once an
unexampled range.
About the year 332, in fact, when it was necessary to
raise a cry of alarm on account of the new peril that
threatened Judaism, to discover a more impressive
formula, to arrest with inspired language the men who
were leading the country of the Jews to destruction, some
writer at Jerusalem imagined that, in the remote period
of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Achaz, and Jeroboam, there
was a man of god, a soothsayer—that is to say, a prophet
—of the name of Hosea, and that this Hosea had begun
1 See Appendix VI.
120
-
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
to speak in the name of Jahveh and warn Israel, reproach
it with its faults, and foretell its punishment. Instead,
however, of telling the fact in a few dry lines, as the
writers of the books of Kings had done, when they
described the prophet Nathan accosting King David, the
new writer conceived the extraordinary idea of inventing
a series of long discourses and saying to his contem-
poraries :—
The word of Jahveh that came unto Hosea, the son of
Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Achaz, and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam,
king of Israel.1
The speeches of Hosea are admonitions, threats, and
promises. But the dry admonitions of the earlier Biblical
books are now changed into impassioned odes, in which
the oriental imagination displays itself in a thousand
picturesque and lyrical inventions. The cold moralists
of earlier times become great inspired figures who, in the
name of the national god, speak the language that befits
his terrible anger, or his terrible love. The earlier
Biblical writers had drawn from the events of their
national history, and from their ancient legends, some
teaching for the use of their contemporaries ; in order to
express this teaching better they had mingled with the
events and the legends, as spokesmen, certain men of god,
uttering a few words dictated to them by Jahveh and then
withdrawing into obscurity. Of these vague silhouettes
of men of god the present generation now made the
tribunes, the orators, and the national poets who were
about to become the prophets.
It was the great creation of Jewish literature. In this
way the men of the popular party took from the very
hands of the aristocratic writers the weapon they had
fashioned, the literary artifice they had suggested; but
they magnified it at once.
1 Hosea i. 1.
THE MEN OF GOD
121
The invention succeeded, as a matter of fact. Imme-
diately after Hosea, another writer invented Amos.
Amos is conceived to be a shepherd, a contemporary
of Hosea: “ an herdsman, son of an herdsman, and a
gatherer of wild figs; and Jahveh took him as he followed
the flock, and said unto him, Go, prophesy unto my people
Israel.”1
Once more we read: “ The words of Amos, who was
among the herdmen of Tekoa, and the visions which he
saw concerning Israel, in the days of Uzziah, king of
Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, king of Israel.” 2
The prophetic books are not problem-books. They do
not relate recent or contemporary events in the form of
ancient happenings. The authors of the prophecies, like
all the writers of the Bible, wish to give a lesson to their
contemporaries; and, like all the writers of the Bible, they
refuse to preach in the abstract. Bound the lesson that
they wish to give they create an impassioned scene with
the memories or the legends of their national past.
But if the writers place themselves in the time of an
Amos and an Hosea, if the facts in which they frame
their discourses are ancient facts, the ideas they express
are modern ideas. Their preoccupation is obvious ; and,
in spite of the lie about their false antiquity, they are so
candid and sincere that, in the language which they put
into the mouths of the idealised ancient men of god of
Ephraim and Judah, we hear the echo of the great events
of the Macedonian period.
Lastly, we must not forget that the prophetic books are
pseudonymous; that is to say that, though composed in
the fourth and third centuries, they pretend to be the
works of writers of the eighth, seventh, and sixth cen-
turies.
There is no room to doubt that the author of the
discourses of Hosea professed, about the year 332, to
1 Amos vii. 14-15.
2 Amos i. 1.
122
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
publish the authentic discourses which Hosea had pro-
nounced in the eighth century. The claim that these
lost and forgotten discourses were suddenly recovered
would hardly astonish an age that was incapable of
criticism, when there were at times only one or two
copies of a book in existence.
The Jewish writers always proceeded in this way. The
Bible is a collection of books which were not written by
the authors to whom they are ascribed. A new work
needed the authority of an older work; the work of a
contemporary had to borrow the authority of some
venerable name. The Mosaic moshlim had acted in this
way, and the psalmists and writers of apocalypses would
do the same. Was it not necessary to legitimise and
sanctify the lesson to be given to the people ?
The prophets are, as we said, fictitious characters
invented by the Jewish writers to figure in the history of
their country. The prophetic books are literary com-
positions which their authors put forward as the works of
these characters. They are imaginative works published
as works that have reality; books of sermons which are
presented as genuine.
At Athens, among peoples educated in the school of
the Hellenic intelligence, the creation of the beautiful is
a sufficient aim for the historian, the poet, and the
philosopher. The man of Jerusalem, on the contrary,
writes and speaks only with a strictly utilitarian object.
Glory, the supreme reward at Athens, is not found at
Jerusalem. The books of the Bible are anonymous, or,
rather, pseudonymous. In order to give greater authority
to their words, the authors of the prophecies sacrifice
their personality. They sign their works with some
ancient name, and say:—
Thus spake Hosea.......Thus spake Amos........Thus
spake Jeremiah....
HOSEA AND AMOS
123
§ 3. Hosea and Amos.
After Alexander, as in the days of the Persian
emperors, the government of Jerusalem remained in the
hands of the leaders of the old clerical aristocracy. But
the heads of the old aristocracy which rules Judaea under
the Macedonian suzerainty are intoxicated with the
charm and joy of Hellenic ways; these grandchildren of
the sombre companions of Esdras, rich, obeyed, and
feared by the people, have become prosperous and
luxurious pachas. Hellenism, which triumphs with the
Macedonian armies, triumphs also in the hearts of the
Jewish aristocrats, and overthrows traditions no less
than territories. At this time Onias I. is high-priest at
Jerusalem ; in other words, he is viceroy of Judasa. As
powerless to resist the moral invasion of Hellenism as
the invasion of Egyptian or Syrian armies, he lets things
have their way. The work of the prophets begins.
We have already described how certain men arose
amid the Jerusalem democracy and the old nationalism
unaffected by the Hellenic contagion, to bring back to a
respect for tradition an aristocracy that was won by the
foreign novelties; and how the work of the prophetic
books—first Hosea and Amos, then Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Isaiah, and their disciples—was a nationalist and demo-
cratic reaction against the hellenisation of the sacerdotal
caste which ruled the State.
Alexander having entered Palestine in 332, one may
admit, in a general way, that Hellenism had begun to
penetrate Judaea about the year 350, and the year 332
probably indicates the period when the prophetic litera-
ture may have begun at Jerusalem. We must assign to
the last third of the fourth century, 332 to 300, and the
early years of the third century, the prophetic books of
Hosea and Amos, then of Jeremiah and his disciples.
Ezekiel follows; and the Isaiahs are still later.
124
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
The democratic nationalism, and especially the anti-
hellenic, anti-aristocratic, and anti-sacerdotal spirit of the
prophetic writers, localise them in the period of Alexander
and his immediate successors. The historical atmosphere
is none the less significant. Let us recall the chief
political events of this half-century, beginning a few
years before the coming of Alexander, say 350 to 300 ;
we shall see that no date suits the older prophets better.
To understand them, it is important to imagine oneself
at the close or in the midst of the circumstances of which
they speak.
The last years of the Persian monarchy had been
occupied in an expedition of Artaxerxes Ochus against
Egypt and Phoenicia. While Artaxerxes Ochus was
besieging Sidon, the Jews had rebelled; but the rising
had been suppressed, Jerusalem taken by the Persian
army, and a number of Jews deported to Egypt and
Hyrcania.
In 332 Alexander had taken Palestine, and placed
there a Macedonian governor. Soon afterwards he had
founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt, and some of the
Jews, taken forcibly or driven by misery, would settle
there later.
After the death of Alexander his generals had divided
his empire; but their ambition had drawn them into
endless wars. Palestine was for a quarter of a century
the object of a struggle between the Macedonian king of
Egypt and the Macedonian king of Syria.
Palestine had been given to the king of Syria. In 320
Ptolemy surprises and sacks Jerusalem, and a certain
number of Jews are deported to Egypt.
Antigonus soon retakes Palestine. Ptolemy re-enters
it in 312; he is again driven out. Jerusalem returns to
Syria; but its walls have been rased.
Finally, in 301, Palestine is restored to Egypt. The
city of Antioch is founded in Syria at this date, and is
partly peopled with Jews.
HOSEA AND AMOS
125
Incessant crossings of armies on the march, Judsea a
battlefield, unending devastation, Jerusalem twice taken
by assault and sacked, the Jews twice deported, the
country in military occupation, a continuous emigration—
that is the picture of Palestine between the year 350 and
the year 301, as we find it in history.
In the heart of this stricken country the rivalry of
Jerusalem and Samaria has increased. The latter takes
the side of Egypt, the other of Syria; a little later,
Jerusalem sides with Egypt, Samaria with Syria.
Districts are taken from Samaria and given to Judsea;
they are again taken from Judsea and restored to Samaria.
When Jerusalem is in favour with the conqueror, it
demands the punishment of Samaria; Samaria is not
more generous when its protector has triumphed. Mean-
time the ancient Philistine and Edomite populations are
stirred, and armed bands spread on all sides, even as far
as the walls of Jerusalem.
An intestine war between Jerusalem and Samaria and
the hostility of surrounding peoples—that is the internal
history of Palestine.
Lastly, beyond the Palestinian region, deportation and
emigration have begun to fill Egypt, Syria, and Phoenicia
with Jewish colonies. Alexandria, Antioch, Damas, and
Tyre are about to experience the misery of the ghetto.
Not all the exiles are miserable, though the majority are;
and, all round Palestine, a vast field of exile, in which
the children of Israel weep for their absent country, is
about to be the horizon that will limit the gaze of the
men of Jerusalem.
That is the character of the second half of the fourth
century. This series of events will not be recalled, even
by way of allusion, in the prophetical books, because
their authors frame their discourses in an earlier period.
Some striking fact may, from time to time, be indicated
in the form of a prediction (for instance, the taking of
Tyre by Alexander, he being the only man who could
126
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
-
take Tyre); some slight allusion may be made to some
great event (such as the disgrace of an unpopular
minister). But the misfortunes of this troubled period
will be the atmosphere in which the characters of the
monodramas play their part.
In every chapter of the prophetic books will be found
the sentiment of foreign invasion, the pillage of the
country by armies, the profanation of the holy city, and
deportation. Parochial quarrels between Jerusalem and
Samaria, ending in virtual or open, but always fierce,
warfare, will fill the old prophets. The terror of Edomite
invasions will hover above them, and maledictions will be
showered on Egypt and on Syria. They will return
incessantly to the question of “foreign alliances.” Must
they take the part of Syria against Egypt, of Egypt
against Syria, or remain simply the men of Jahveh?
And they will never forget their brothers in Egypt and
Syria, their exiled brothers, the unhappy victims of
deportation or emigration, of whose return they never
cease to dream.
Thus the historical world in which the authors of the
prophetic books lived breaks through the fiction in which
they enfold themselves. Their object is quite plain to us;
in the name of the old Jewish traditionalism they hurl
threats against Jerusalem for its infidelity to Jahveh—in
other words, to its national traditions. Whatever modifi-
cations or interpolations were made in the prophetic books
down to the time when they became sacred and canonical,
the critic cannot fail to penetrate their spirit, if he be free
from theological prepossessions.
The first, the author of the prophecies of Hosea, hurls
his anathema; and, from the first lines of his fierce
diatribe, the fiction of the poet clothes with the most
highly-coloured allegories the maledictions with which
the old traditionalism would terrify its compatriots.
When Jahveh began to speak by Hosea, Jahveh said to
Hosea: Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and
HOSEA AND AMOS
127
children of whoredoms; for Israel hath committed great
whoredom, departing from Jahveh.
So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim:
which conceived, and bare him a son.
And Jahveh said unto Hosea, Call his name Jezreel;
for yet a little while and I....will break the bow of
Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
And Gomer conceived again, and bare a daughter. And
Jahveh said unto Hosea, Call her name Lo-ruhamah [that
is to say, Not-loved], for I will no more love the house of
Israel.
And Gomer weaned her daughter; and she conceived
and bare a son.
And Jahveh said unto Hosea, Call his name Lo-ammi
[that is to say, Not-my-people]; for ye are not my people,
and I will not be your god.1
The most terrible threats are then unfolded. In the
books of the Bible, however, the threat is always succeeded
by a promise. Israel the sinner will be punished ; Israel
faithful will receive an infinite reward.
And the number of the children of Israel shall be as
the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or
numbered: and it shall come to pass, that in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there
it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living
God!
Then shall the children of Judah and the children of
Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one
head, and they shall come up out of the land; for great
shall be the day of Jezreel.
And ye shall say unto your brethren, Ammi [My-people],
and to your sisters Ruhamah [Beloved] .a
And then the exhortation;—
Raise yourselves, raise yourselves against your mother ;
for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband! Let
her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight,
and her adulteries from between her breasts:
Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that
she was born, and set her like a dry land..
For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine,
1 Hosea i. 2-9.
2 Hosea i. 10-11, ii. 1.
128
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they
prepared for Baal.
Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the
time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and
will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her
nakedness.....
I will cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her
new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees....and I
will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall
eat them.
And I shall punish her because of the incense which
she burned to the Baals, because of the earrings and
jewels, and because she hath forgotten me, saith Jahveh.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into
the wilderness, and speak to her heart.
And I will give her vineyards, and the valley of Achor
for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days
of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of
the land of Egypt.
And it shall be at that day, saith Jahveh, that thou
shalt call me, My husband; and I shall take from her
mouth the names of the Baals.......
And I will betroth thee unto me for ever.....1
The prophets know nothing but threats and promises.
But it is to the higher clergy of Jerusalem that the
threats are addressed.
Hear ye this, O priests: and hearken, ye house of
Israel; and give ye ear, 0 house of the king: for judg-
ment is toward you.2
Hostility to the priests who rule Jerusalem breaks out
in the famous and little-understood passage of the
prophecies of Hosea:—
I desire love ; that is to say, love of the god—that is to
say, patriotism ; I desire patriotism, and not sacrifices. I
desire respect for the god; that is to say, respect for the
national institutions, respect for the traditions; I desire
respect for the traditions rather than burnt offerings.3
The invectives grow, in strength and number, against
1 Hosea ii. 2-19.
2 Hosea v. 1.
3 Hosea vi. 6.
HOSEA AND AMOS
129
the aristocracy of Jerusalem. Nothing of the kind had as
yet appeared in Jewish literature, neither in the Mosaic
books, nor in Judges, nor in Kings. A new soul has
arisen among the people. Henceforward, through the
whole of Jewish history, we shall follow this antagonism
between the popular party and the aristocracy. Its
appearance begins with the prophetic books; we are in
the period when Hellenism enters Jerusalem.
Amos, the successor of Hosea, enumerates in his turn
the crimes for which Jewish traditionalism demands
justice of Jahveh.
Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the
mountain of Samaria.....
That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves
upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock,
and the calves out of the midst of the stall.
That chant to the sound of the viol..
That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with
the chief ointments, and are not grieved for the affliction
of Israel.
Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that
go captive, and their cries of joy shall cease.1
The author of the prophecies of Amos is not less
furious than the author of the prophecies of Hosea
against the powerful and wealthy—that is to say, against
the priests who govern Jerusalem:—
I hate, I despise your feast days, saith Jahveh, and I
will not smell your perfumes in your solemn assemblies.
Though ye offer me burnt offerings, I will not accept
them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your
fat beasts.
Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs, and
let me hear no more the melody of thy viols.2
Men had arisen among the people of Jerusalem who
understood the new danger, the great danger that
threatened the country. The sombre nationalism of
Esdras and his successors had concentrated all the
strength of the little State round the name of Jahveh,
1 Amos vi. 1 and 4-7. 2 Amos v. 21-23.
K
130
THE BIRTH OF PROPHETISM
the national god; it had made foreign idolatry the
supreme danger. Now Hellenism was a new danger, as
the leaders were forgetting the old Judaic traditions, and
were turning to Hellenic novelties.
The pleasantness of the new ways, the easy life and
festivities, the beautifully decked women and spacious
houses, the wealth that affords luxury, and the luxury
that makes the soul soft—all this is called, in the fierce
language of the prophets, apostasy, fornication, adultery,
treason, the forsaking of Jahveh, the worship of strange
gods, the installation of the abominations of anti-national
cults at Jerusalem, the revival of ancient idols, the
stealing of the heart of Israel from Jahveh by Baal,
Astarte, Camos, and Milkom.
In resuming the war upon Baal, Astarte, Camos, and
Milkom the prophets will, in the ancient fashion of
Jewish literature, give their contemporaries a glowing
lesson for the present in the guise of an ancient history.
What had the Jews of the end of the fourth century
to fear from Baal, Astarte, Camos, and Milkom ? Baal
and Astarte now mean the Hellenic seduction. Apostasy
and treachery are forgetfulness of the ancient Deutero-
nomic discipline. Prostitution is the abandonment of
the old national traditions. Twenty-two centuries before
our time we find the men who are indulgent towards
foreign ideas and ways declared by their enemies to be
“ traitors ” and “ men of no country.” It is an exaggera-
tion, assuredly; but this corrupt aristocracy brought
Judaism into danger of death. The threats, the fury—
nowhere else can one find invective comparable to that
we shall presently meet in Jeremiah—the storms of the
Jewish democrats are intelligible, if we suppose that they
are denouncing the terrible danger of an aristocracy that
is forgetting its traditions, losing its discipline, and
denationalising itself. In face of this invading Hellenism
the Jewish soul found itself at the most formidable turn
in its history, and brought forth its decisive work.
Chapter II.
JEEEMIAH
The history of Jewish literature is, as we said, the history
of Judaism itself. Having once formulated itself in the
Mosaic books, the vast movement of ideas, which Judaism
was, became fixed in the works of certain anonymous
writers—writers of genius—the authors of the prophecies
which hear the names of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.
To analyse these works, to understand their object, to
penetrate their spirit, and to appreciate their effect, is to
write the history of Judaism from the end of the fourth,
and during the third, century before the present era.
In order to combat the Hellenic idolatry and ways, the
authors of the prophecies of Hosea and Amos had con-
ceived the characters of the prophets Hosea and Amos as
men who had lived in the remote period of the ancient
kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah, two hundred years
before Nabuchodonosor; and they had composed, and
put into circulation, certain great lyrical discourses which
the prophets were supposed to have pronounced, and
which were understood to have been preserved by some
extraordinary miracle. Apart, however, from the indica-
tion of the kings under whom the alleged prophets were
supposed to have lived, and a few other very general
indications, they had not made known any of the circum-
stances in which these discourses were said to have been
pronounced. The historical framework remained vague ;
clear enough in ideas, the discourses of the prophets
floated between heaven and earth, as far as the facts were
concerned. Were the authors of the prophecies of Hosea
and Amos ignorant of the details of the events that had
taken place in the ancient kingdoms of Ephraim and
131
132
JEREMIAH
-
Judah, four centuries before their time ? They saw the
need only of one thing—the lesson that they wished to
convey to their contemporaries; and they omitted to
surround their declamations with an historical environ-
ment which did not interest them. The writer who
composed the chief prophecies of Jeremiah, like every
serious writer, at first followed his masters; like every
writer of genius, he then passed beyond them. It is
impossible to study the whole book of Jeremiah within
the limits of the present work. Criticism, indeed, now
shows that it is the work of several writers; we shall
concern ourselves preferably with the one who created
the figure of the terrible nabi. Whether or no a man of
the name of Jeremiah ever really existed mattered little;
just as it mattered little to the romances of the Round
Table whether or no there ever was a Merlin the
Enchanter. Whether he created or developed his
character, the writer, like his predecessors, went back to
an earlier period ; but, not going so far into the past, he
stopped at the period of Nabuchodonosor, and placed his
spokesman at that time; and, instead of being satisfied
with such vague surroundings as those in which the
prophecies of Hosea and Amos are placed, he showed his
originality by framing his discourses in the very definite
historical environment that was wanting in the earlier
works.
The period he had chosen evidently suited him. The
period chosen by his predecessors was half forgotten by
the Jews of the fourth century; but they had a vivid
memory of the last kings of Judah, the invasion of
Nabuchodonosor, the lingering and bloody agony of
ancient Jerusalem, the destruction of the city, and the
deportation to Babylon. They might be indifferent to
the remoter misfortunes of Israel; it was impossible to
be untouched by the catastrophe that had ruined the
earlier Jerusalem and given birth to the actual city.
Nabuchodonosor was still, in the imagination of the Jews
JEREMIAH
133
of the third century, the scourge of god at whose recol-
lection they shuddered ; the exile beside the rivers of
Babylon was the symbol of the exiles and emigrations of
the end of the fourth century; the burning of the temple
was the supreme threat held over the head of Jewish
nationalism. The author of the prophecies of Jeremiah,
in going back to this fatal period, could not but revive its
episodes. The events amid which he placed the words
he wished to speak were well known. They were im-
pressed on every side, and the romance inevitably took
shape. Jeremiah was not merely an eloquence that
thunders, and a lyrism that enthuses, in the clouds; he
was a soul that mingles with the events; and the
character of the prophet assumed a glowing and terrible
life amid the misfortunes of his country. The author of
the prophecies of Jeremiah is, like the authors of the
prophecies of Amos and Hosea, a poet and an orator;
but he created a literary form that one may designate
the lyrical romance, if we regard its form, or the political
romance, if we regard its substance. And the romance
of Jeremiah was so powerfully conceived, and so
passionately lived, as to mislead posterity for ages into
seeing history in his vivid fancies.
The subject of the romance of Jeremiah is as follows :—
We are understood to be at the close of the seventh
century, at Jerusalem; the Jewish people has been
unfaithful to Jahveh, its national god; a prophet named
Jeremiah announces, in the course of many adventures,
that punishment is coming. Meantime Nabuchodonosor,
King of Babylon, approaches with his army; Jeremiah
recognises in him the instrument of Jahveh, and exhorts
the Jews to make no resistance, to accept their chastise-
ment ; when the trial is over, he promises that Jahveh
will restore his people. In fact, Nabuchodonosor takes
and destroys Jerusalem; but the appeased god will raise,
on the ruins of the guilty and justly-punished city, the
new Jerusalem that will never perish.
134
JEREMIAH
The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the
priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, in
the days of Josias, king of Judah, and in the days of
Joachim, son of Josias, king of Judah, unto the end of the
eleventh year of Zedekiah, brother of Joachim, king of
Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive.1
Thus the book opens. Then follows the narrative of
the vocation of the prophet:—
The word of Jahveh came unto me, saying:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and
before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified
thee; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Then said I, Ah, Lord Jahveh, behold I cannot speak,
for I am a child.
And Jahveh said unto me, Say not, I am a child; for
thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever
I command thee thou shalt speak.
Do not be afraid of their faces ; for I am with thee to
deliver thee, saith Jahveh.
Then Jahveh put forth his hand, and touched my
mouth, and Jahveh said unto me, Behold, I have put my
words into thy mouth.
See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over
the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy,
and to throw down, to build, and to plant.2
The romancer imagines that the country has reached
the last stage of perversity. Idolatry reigns at Jerusalem ;
Jahveh is forsaken and betrayed; Jerusalem, the spouse
of Jahveh, stains herself with all the Baals; like a prostitute,
she has rejected her faith. Jeremiah then rises, with threats
on his lips. Many times before Israel has turned away
from its national god. Now the chastisement is at the
gate. Like Hosea and Amos, Jeremiah exhorts his
fellow-citizens in a series of great lyric discourses. The
anger of Jahveh is about to break out; if Israel return
not to Jahveh, Israel will be destroyed.
Jeremiah is not heard; Israel perseveres in its idolatry ;
the voice of Jeremiah grows harsher.
1 Jeremiah i. 1-3.
2 Jeremiah i. 1-10.
JEREMIAH
135
And at that time, saith Jahveh, they shall bring out the
bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes,
and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets,
and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their
graves;
And they shall spread them before the sun, and the
moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved,
and whom they have served, and after whom they have
walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have
worshipped; they shall not be gathered, nor be buried;
they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.
And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the
residue of them that remain of this evil family, which
remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith
Jahveh of the Hosts.1
The threats increase.
I will appoint over ye four families, saith Jahveh, the
sword to slay, and the dogs to drag, and the fowls of the
heaven to tear, and the vermin of the earth to devour.2
Meantime, the symbolic apologues appear. Israel is a
linen girdle that Jeremiah is about to bury on the banks
of the Euphrates, and to find rotten, because Jahveh has
rejected it. Then there are the vessels full of wine, which
^Jahveh dashes the one against the other : the clay vessel
which Jeremiah is going to break, in the midst of the
elders of the people and the elders of the priests, in the
valley of Ben-Ennom.......Thus, saith Jahveh, will I break
this people and this city...Gradually Jeremiah becomes
a living person, the circumstances are detailed, the
surroundings are sketched, the romance unfolds.
Phassur, priest and overseer of the temple, hears
Jeremiah predict the destruction of Israel; he takes him
to prison. On the morrow Jeremiah says to him:—
“ Jahveh hath not called thy name Phassur, but Magor-
missabib [or Fear-on-all-sides].”
He renews his sinister predictions, adding that Phassur
himself and all his people will be taken captive.
In Phassur and Jeremiah, the priest and the prophet,
1 Jeremiah viii. 1-3.
2 Jeremiah xv. 3.
136
JEREMIAH
the two parties face each other. And presently the author
of the book will reproach the rulers with not doing justice,
with oppressing the weak, with living in luxury. Woe,
he says, to those who do injustice! Woe also to those
who build themselves vast houses, with spacious chambers,
high windows, and cedar and vermilion ceilings.1
The romance continues. King Zedekiah sends two
priests to Jeremiah :—
“ Inquire of Jahveh for us; for Nabuchodonosor king
of Babylon maketh war against us.”
And Jeremiah says to them :—
“ Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: Thus saith Jahveh,
god of Israel: I will smite the inhabitants of this city
with the pestilence, the sword, and the famine: I will
deliver Zedekiah.”2
The formidable Nabuchodonosor draws near. Can the
humble kingdom of Judah resist him ? But the writer
does not see in him the enemy who is about to destroy
his city and his country; he recognises and salutes the
minister of the judgments of Jahveh.
Behold, saith Jahveh, I send against them Nabuchodo-
nosor, king of Babylon, my servant...and will utterly
destroy them, and make them a desolation, and an hissing,
and perpetual solitudes.
I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice
of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of
the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the
camp.
And this whole land shall be a solitude and a desolation,
and this nation shall serve the king of Babylon seventy
years.3
At the end of seventy years Jahveh will turn against
Babylon, and will chastise it for its pride in thinking that
its strength came from itself, and not from the anger of
Jahveh. The anger of Jahveh is not a metaphorical
expression. Listen to this manifestation of the god who
1 Jeremiah xxii. 14.
2 Jeremiah xxi. 3-7.
8 Jeremiah xxv. 9-11.
JEREMIAH
137
was afterwards to become the Unconditioned of the
philosophers:—
Jahveh roars from on high : he roars, he roars upon his
habitation: he gives a shout, as they that tread the
grapes, against the earth.
The cry of terror of the shepherds and the affrighted
howling of the flocks are heard, because Jahveh doth spoil
their pasture...
He forsaketh his covert, like a young lion; and the land
becomes a desolation.1
And what about those whom the god has struck ?
And the slain of Jahveh shall be from one end of the
oarth even unto the other; they shall not be lamented,
neither gathered, nor buried: they shall be dung upon the
ground.2
Meantime the romancer tells how Jeremiah is about to
take his stand in the court of the temple, and continues to
predict the ruin of the country; and the priests seize him,
saying
“Thou shalt die! Why dost thou prophesy against
the city ? ”
The people intervene :—
“ This man is not worthy to die; for he hath spoken
to us in the name of Jahveh, our god.”
Jeremiah recommences as soon as he is free. He
warns the neighbouring countries, Edom, Moab, Ammon,
Tyre, and Sidon, that they will be destroyed if they do
not submit to Nabuchodonosor. In order to express it,
he sends yokes and bonds to the kings of the five peoples.
And Jeremiah himself, the writer continues, came
before the people with a wooden yoke on his shoulders.
But there are those who contradict him. Hananiah,
another prophet, says :—
“ Thus speaketh Jahveh, god of Israel, I break the yoke
of the king of Babylon.”
1 Jeremiah xxv. 30-31 and 36-38.
2 Jeremiah xxv. 33.
138
JEREMIAH
-
Taking the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah, Hananiah
breaks the bar of it, saying:—
“ Thus saith Jahveh: Even so will I break the yoke of
Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, from the neck of the
nations.”
Jeremiah is silent, and goes his way. But on the
morrow he comes again before the people with an iron
yoke on his neck.
“ Thus saith Jahveh : Thou hast broken a yoke of
wood, but thou hast made instead a yoke of iron. For
thus saith Jahveh, god of Israel: I put a yoke of iron on
the neck of the nations, that they may serve Nabuchodo-
nosor, king of Babylon, and they shall serve him; and I
give him the beasts of the field also.”
Then, turning to Hananiah :—
“ This year thou shalt die, because thou hast spoken
against Jahveh.”
Hananiah, the romancer adds, died in that year.
Jeremiah is the prophet of death. This people, which
has given itself to the Baals and Astartes, must be
destroyed. The sentence is irrevocable. And he writes
to those who have already been deported to Babylon that
they may not hope to see their country again.
No anarchist ever preached so violently the destruction
of the present social order, that he might build anew the
social order of the future. Jeremiah goes through the
town crying that it is useless to defend oneself, or to
struggle, for the city is forsaken. He summons Nabu-
chodonosor with the sword, the plague, and famine.
Implacably he hands over to him the race of David.
The romancer describes the indignation that breaks
out in Jerusalem. The city gathers in crowds. Jeremiah
is again put in prison. Meantime the army of the king
of Babylon besieges Jerusalem. King Zedekiah goes to
see the prophet in the yard of the prison:—
“ Wherefore dost thou prophesy the ruin of the land ? ”
he says to him.
JEREMIAH
139
" This land will be restored some day. Once again its
people will buy bouses, fields, and vines.”
And Jeremiah, always joining example with precept, at
once buys a field at Anatbotb, his native village, with all
the ceremony of a burgher who wishes to be quite safe
about his investment. The prophecies of restoration and
glory now increase. When extermination has atoned for
the present crimes, the kingdom of Jerusalem will be able
to rise again, Jahveh will bring back the captives and
re-establish them, and the nations of the earth will be
astonished at the good he will do them.
Thus saith Jahveh: Again there shall be heard in this
place, which ye say shall be desolate, without man and
without beast.....the voice of joy and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the
voice of them that shall say, Praise Jahveh of the Hosts,
for Jahveh is good, for his mercy endureth for ever.....
For I will cause to return the captivity of the land, as at
the first, saith Jahveh.
Thus saith Jahveh of the Hosts: Again in this place
which is desolate, without man and without beast, and in
all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds
causing their flocks to lie down.
In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale,
and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin,
and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of
Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him
that telleth them, saith Jahveh.
Behold, the days come, saith Jahveh, that I will perform
that good thing which I have promised unto the house of
Israel and to the house of Judah.
In those days, and at that time, shall I cause the branch
of righteousness to grow up unto David ; and he shall
execute judgment and righteousness in the land.
In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall
dwell safely ; and this is the name wherewith she shall be
called, Jah veh - our-Righteousness.
For thus saith Jahveh: David shall never want a
successor to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel;
Neither shall the priests and the Levites want a
successor before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle
meat offerings, and to sacrifice continually.1
1 Jeremiah xxxiii. 10-18.
140
JEREMIAH
But for the moment Jerusalem must be delivered into
the hands of Nabuchodonosor, and burned, and its people
must go into captivity. While the army of Nabuchodo-
nosor presses the siege of the city, Jeremiah begins afresh
his abominable imprecations.
In this romance Jeremiah plays a terrible, odious, and
sublime part. Imagine, says Renan, a Frenchman within
the walls of besieged Paris during the war of 1870 hailing
the minister of heaven in the Emperor William, applauding
his victories, and urging him to destroy Paris and France !
It is quite intelligible, we reply, if the imprecations are
written two hundred and fifty or three hundred years
after the events by a polemist who is illustrating his
political theories with ancient examples.
In another place he reproaches the aristocracy with
“loving strangers.”1 The charge is incomprehensible if
it was made in the days of Josiah and Zedekiah, at the
time when the army of Nabuchodonosor threatened the
city, when Jeremiah is the only friend of the enemies of
his country; it is justified if we put it at the end of the
fourth century, and if the foreigners loved by the aristo-
cracy are Greeks.
One day Jahveh ordered the prophet to write in a book
all the words with which he had inspired him. The
king orders the book to be seized, and has it read to him
by Judi, his secretary. He was sitting in his winter
residence; it was the ninth month; a brazier burned in
front of him. And, as Judi read, the king took the
leaves of the roll, and cast them in the fire.
It was useless, as Jahveh at once dictated to Jeremiah
a new book similar to the first! The orthodox fancy
that posterity thus came to possess the precious text of
the prophet.
Meantime the romance is full of adventures. The
prophet finds it useful to leave a city where he feels no
1 Jeremiah ii. 25.
JEKEMIAH v
141
longer safe, but he is stopped at the gate of Benjamin by
the officer of the guard, Irijah, the son of Shelemiah.
He is brought before the chief officials, beaten, and put
in a subterraneous dungeon, where he remains several
days. As a special favour the king orders that he be
brought into the yard of the prison, giving him every
day a piece of bread out of the bakers’ street.
Jeremiah is inexorable :—
“Thus saith Jahveh: This city shall be given into
the hand of the king of Babylon, which shall destroy it.”
The chief officials become impatient:—
“Let this man be put to death! For thus he
weakeneth the hands of the men of war.”
“Behold,” says the king, “he is in your hands.”
They take Jeremiah, and cast him into a dungeon,
the cistern of Malchiah, son of Hammelech. There was
no water, but mud only, in the dungeon, in which they
placed him. Now this was noticed by an Ethiopian
eunuch, named Ebed-melech, who was of the king’s
house. The king was sitting before the gate of Benjamin.
Ebed-melech went to seek him, and said :—
“ My lord the king, these men have cast Jeremiah the
prophet into the dungeon, to die of hunger.”
And the king charged Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, to
take thirty men and withdraw Jeremiah from the dungeon
before he should die. Ebed-melech provided himself
with cords and rags of torn stuff, and, letting them down
to Jeremiah, said to him :—
“Take these cords; put these rags of torn stuff under
thine armholes.”
The holy prophet was saved.
Meantime the siege goes on. Jerusalem is in a
desperate condition. Suddenly, on the ninth day of the
fourth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, a breach
is made in the walls of the city, and Jerusalem is taken
by assault. Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, and Sarse-
chim, the leaders of Nabuchodonosor’s army, camp in
142
JEREMIAH
the ruins of the gates. The writer narrates the catas-
trophe, and tells how the Babylonian generals recognised
in Jeremiah the prophet of the god who had guided
them.....It is easy to see how much history there is in
that.....Speaking the language of Deuteronomy, Nebuzar-
adan, captain of the guards of king Nabuchodonosor, says
to Jeremiah:—
“ Jahveh had pronounced this evil upon this place.
Now Jahveh hath brought it, and done according as he
hath said, because ye have sinned against Jahveh.”1
The romance closes with the adventures of the Jews
who remain in Judaea, and of those who escaped into
Egypt. Jeremiah is one of the latter. In Egypt he
continues his sinister predictions in the shape of threats
and vociferations against the nations of Palestine, against
Babylon itself, and, more than ever, against his com-
patriots.
But at the moment when he relates the destruction of
the ancient land of the Jews, the author of the romance
of Jeremiah declares that Jahveh, god of the Jews, is
triumphant. The ardent nationalism which could not be
established while the nation was intact is glorified by the
sombre romancer amid the ruins and the dispersal. Like
some great fire that destroys the stubble and the wood,
but leaves unhurt the granite columns, the ruin of
Jerusalem has destroyed the lower elements in Israel,
without touching the incombustible and unalterable work
that was done by Jahveh. The temple built by Solomon
to the gods of Canaan, to Moloch, the Baals, and the
Astartes, is in flames; but the melting down of their
idols does but leave erect, in bronze, to stand for thousands
of years, the name of Jahveh, who alone is renovated.
Jeremiah has prophesied ruin....
I send upon ye, he said, the sword, the famine, and
the pestilence; I will treat ye as vile figs that cannot be
1 Jeremiah xl. 2-3.
JEREMIAH
143
eaten, they are so evil; I will deliver ye to be molested
by the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and a
desolation, and an hissing, and a reproach among the
nations whither I have driven ye; because ye have not
hearkened to my words, saith Jahveh, which I sent unto
ye by my servants the prophets.1
But he has also prophesied the restoration :—
I will bring again your captives; I will bring ye from
the nations whither I have driven ye, and I will cause ye
to return to the places whence I have driven ye......
The legend is born; it grows and spreads :—
Fear thou not, Jacob, my servant; for, behold, I am
thy saviour, and will bring thy seed from the land of
their captivity.
And I shall be with thee, to save thee, for I shall then
make a full end of the nations whither I have scattered
thee. And thou shalt be my people, and I will be
thy god.
The whirlwind goeth forth with fury, the fierce anger
of Jahveh shall not return, until he hath performed the
intents of his heart....
I love thee with an everlasting love. I will build thee
again, 0 virgin of Israel. Thou shalt again be adorned
with thy tabrets, and shalt dance. Thou shalt again
plant vines upon the mountains.
And there shall be a day that the peoples shall cry:
Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion, unto Jahveh, our god.
For thus saith Jahveh: Sing with gladness for Jacob.
Hear the word of Jahveh, O ye nations, and declare it in
the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will
gather him......Thus saith Jahveh, god of Israel.2
The old idolatrous people of Judah is destroyed; but
the Jewish people is about to arise, and Jahveh, after
dragging it through all the ignominy of the dispersal,
promises it a new Jerusalem.
Jewish history is, for the book of Jeremiah, merely an
illustration of a doctrine. There is need to exhort con-
temporaries to be faithful to the powerful nationalism
symbolised by the name of Jahveh. New gods, as
1 Jeremiah xxix. 17-19.
2 Jeremiah xxx., xxxi.
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JEKEMIAH
abominable as the Moloch, the Baals, and the Astartes
of former times, have appeared; they are called Greek
gods ; and the forsaking of Jahveh for Moloch, Baal, and
Astarte is only a myth representing the Hellenic apostasy.
The Jewish people is warned by the example of its
fathers, the fearful example of the ruin, and the mira-
culous example of the restoration. Like his predecessors
and followers, the sombre author of the prophecies of
Jeremiah gives a lesson for the present in the shape of a
history of the past. But the cold dogmatism of the
earlier historical books has been replaced by the impas-
sioned romance of a man of genius who, breathing life
into the dogma, dramatises the implacable action of the
national god, of whom he is the spokesman.
But we must not forget that, for the author of the
book of Jeremiah, just as for the authors of the books of
Hosea and Amos, the criminals who are forgetting the
old traditions and turning to foreign cults are the priest-
aristocrats who rule the State, the privileged leaders who
have been seduced by the pleasantness of Hellenism.
The democratic character of the prophetic writers is
clearly shown in the fact that the aristocracy is the
party of those who favour the novelties they attack with
their threats, and the democracy is the party of the pure
who have escaped the contagion ; it is seen just as clearly
in the fact that the prophetic writers were men of the
people rising in opposition to the men of the aristocracy.
But there was at the same time a profound necessity for
this, though it was an outcome of the circumstances.
On three counts the aristocracy had to be denounced by
the prophets; first because, about the year 332, it was
identifying itself with the anti-traditionalist party,
secondly because the prophets did not arise within its
ranks, and thirdly because democracy was a logical
outcome of the evolution of Judaism.
There was no democracy, in the modern sense of
the word, in Greece; there was none at Borne. The
JEREMIAH
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145
democracies of Greece and Rome are privileged classes
below which swarms the vast crowd of all who are not
citizens. Democracy was born at Jerusalem.
The terrible fierceness of the Jewish soul could not
indeed fail to see the conclusion of its premises.
Foreigners are enemies; in face of them the Jews are
united in struggle and hatred. A similar hostility, a
hatred common to a whole people, creates in that people
a bond of love like the savage and fanatical bond that
held the Jews together. Implacable enemies of other
peoples, they had to be themselves indissolubly united.
All were sons of Jahveh, and so all were brothers, and
all must be equal before Jahveh. When a glowing
patriotism centres about a military leader, a king, or a
dynasty, the State falls into a hierarchy below this
supreme head, and inspires in all its subjects a duty of
love of the master. But in a theocracy, when the name
which expresses the nationalism of a people is that of its
god, there is an inevitable implication of democratic
equality. Below the national god there must be leaders
to rule; as long as these rulers are faithful to their
duties, the ruled may accept them. But no fault will be
forgiven to this aristocracy; the moment it fails, its
subjects will remember their rights. Sooner or later it
is doomed to perish.
A hierarchic society admits, not indeed the oppression
of the weak by the strong, but the supremacy of the
strong. A few must be above, and the many must be
below; inequality of duties implies inequality of rights.
In a theocracy the god alone is master. There is an
unrestricted demand for equality. It seems intolerable
enough that some shall be feeble and others strong; but
the feeble, at least, will not suffer even the appearance of
oppression. Hence we get what has been called the
victory of Judaism; the orphan, the widow, and the
wage-earner will be infinitely protected. But let us not
be too sentimental about it; the orphan, the widow, and
L
146
JEREMIAH
the wage-earner were not less protected in pagan Rome
than in Jerusalem. Let us have the courage to recognise
more nobleness in the strong man who gives than in the
weak who asks. It is noble in the strong to protect the
weak; but when the weak himself claims to be protected,
the claim is just, but has no title to our admiration. Let
us reserve our admiration for a Marcus Aurelius, master
of the world, who practises lofty virtues; and when we
see the ghetto stir itself and murmur against the
oppressor, let us grant these people the satisfaction that
we may owe them, and pass on.
In earlier days the Mosaic books, and the books of
Judges, Samuel, and Kings, had threatened with a divine
punishment the crime of idolatry—that is to say, the
abandonment of the national traditions. The prophetic
books threaten with divine punishment, first the crime
of idolatry, then the crime which they call injustice, and
which is the oppression of the people by its aristocracy.
This novelty should suffice to show commentators that
the prophetic books are later than the Mosaic books.
From the time of Hosea and Amos, especially from the
time of Jeremiah, Judaism, which has been a national
fact, becomes at the same time a democratic fact. By
the example of a past, which he dramatises, the author
of the romance of Jeremiah pursues a twofold aim; he
professes to restore the nationalism of the Jews, but he
wants to found the democracy of the Jews. Judaism
was destined to be the party of the lowly; a day was to
come when the Jewish aristocracy, almost entirely
Hellenistic, would be excluded from Judaism. The
author of the book of Jeremiah, following the authors
of the books of Hosea and Amos, brings under a common
anathema those who seemed to favour the Hellenic
idolatry and reject the cult of the national god, and those
who enriched themselves, gave themselves to luxury,
oppressed the people, and refused justice to the weak.
.1 will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto
JEREMIAH
147
them; for they have known the way of Jahveh, and the
judgment of their god; but these have altogether broken
the yoke, and burst the bonds.
....Thy children have forsaken me, and swear by
gods that are no gods. They commit adultery, and
assemble themselves by troops in the harlot’s house.
They are well-fed horses; they run here and there, and
every one neighs after his neighbour’s wife.1
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of
deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
They are waxen fat, they shine; they judge not the"
cause of the fatherless; they prosper; the right of the
needy do they not judge.2
Here is the most characteristic speech of the anti-
sacerdotal tribune:—
Thus saith Jahveh of the Hosts, god of Israel: Put
your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices...I spake not
unto your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that
I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt offerings or sacrifices.3
Here the prophet is actually declaring that Jahveh gave
Moses no laws concerning sacrifices and holocausts! Is
he referring to the ritual prescriptions of Deuteronomy ?
No, for Jeremiah is in his whole book faithful both to the
spirit and the letter of Deuteronomy. He is referring to
the new ritual laws which the priests were then promul-
gating in the Sacerdotal Code, the appearance of which
we may fix by the opposition of Jeremiah.
What does the old democrat demand in place of these
ritual laws which the aristocracy is multiplying about the
cult ?
This thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice,
and I will be your god, and ye shall be my people; and
walk ye in the way that I have commanded you, that it
may he well unto you.4
Jeremiah is faithful to Deuteronomy and Esdras; he is
faithful to the formula of Hosea :—
“ I desire love; that is to say, love of the god—that is
1 Jeremiah v. 5-8.
3 Jeremiah vii. 21-22.
2 Jeremiah v. 27-28.
4 Jeremiah vii. 23.
148
JEREMIAH
to say, patriotism ; I desire patriotism, and not sacrifices.
I desire respect for the god; that is to say, respect for the
national institutions, respect for the traditions; I desire
respect for the traditions rather than burnt offerings.”1
In the book of Jeremiah the Jewish soul had found
expression. Just as violent, Deuteronomy had formerly
continued the work of the first Mosaic legislators; the
new work, outlined in the books of Hosea and Amos,
was now continued. In face of a decadent aristocracy,
denationalised by Hellenism, the rigorist party, at once
traditionalist and democratic, was taking over the
inheritance of Judaism. The book of Jeremiah was
born of it, and constituted it.
1 See above, p. 128.
Chapter III.
EZEKIEL
§ 1. The First Book of Ezekiel.
Beside the writers of genius who imagined Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and Isaiah, Jewish history shows us, as disciples
repeating the lessons of the masters, the “ minor prophets ”
of Judaism—Michah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Joel, etc.
We will consider only the original works, and will now
deal with the strange and poignant romance entitled the
prophecy of Ezekiel.
In the days when this work was written Judaea was in
turn the prey of the Seleucids of Syria and the Ptolemies
of Egypt; but the second of the great prophetic writers
refuses, like the other Jewish writers, to speak in the
present, and seeks in the past the hero and the framework
of his romance. He chooses the same period as the
author of the romance of Jeremiah. While, however,
the latter had placed the action in Jerusalem, the author
of the romance of Ezekiel places it in Babylonia.
As we know, in 599, eleven years before he destroyed
Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, Nabucliodonosor
had taken Jerusalem for the first time, but was content
to impose severe conditions on it and to deport some
thousands of its inhabitants to Babylonia. The romance
of Ezekiel opens near the river Chobar, not far from
Babylon, in the midst of these first victims of deportation.
The eleven years will soon be over; in Palestine the king
of Judah has sought to throw off the yoke of Nabuchodo-
nosor; the latter has returned with his formidable army;
Jerusalem is besieged; the day of its capture and
destruction is at hand.
Meantime the deported Israelites drag out their
149
150
EZEKIEL
miserable lives in the land of exile, bemoaning their
country and questioning in their hearts the god who has
smitten them. Among them is a prophet, Ezekiel, son
of Buzi, priest of Jahveh. And suddenly, on the fifth
day of the fourth month, the hand of Jahveh is on him.
I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the
north, a great cloud and a fire intermingled, and a
brightness was about it; and out of the midst of the
fire came the likeness of glowing brass.
And out of the midst thereof appeared four animals.
And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of
a man.
And every one had four faces, and every one had four
wings.
And their feet were straight; and the sole of their feet
was like the sole of a calf’s foot, and they sparkled like
burnished brass.
And they had the hands of a man under their wings on
their four sides; and they four had their faces and their
wings.
Their wings were joined one to another; they turned
not when they went; they went every one straight
forward.
As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face
of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side; and
they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four
also had the face of an eagle.
Thus were their faces; and their wings were stretched
upward; two wings of every one were joined to those of
another, and two covered their bodies.
And they went every one straight forward ; whither the
spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when
they went.
As for the likeness of these animals, their appearance
was like coals of fire, burning like torches; and this fire
went up and down among the animals; it gave forth a
bright light, and out of it went forth lightning.
And the animals ran and returned, as the appearance
of a flash of lightning...
Above the heads of the animals there was, as it were, a
firmament of terrible crystals, stretched forth over their
heads above.
And under the firmament were their wings straight, the
one toward the other......
-
^HE ElRST BOOK OB EZEKIEL
15i
And I heard the noise of their wings, when they went,
like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty,
a noise of great tumult as the noise of a camp.
When they stood, they let down their wings; and there
was a voice from the firmament that was above their
heads, when they stood, and let down their wings.
And above the firmament that was above their heads
there was the likeness of a sapphire stone, in the form of
a throne; and upon the likeness of the throne appeared
the likeness of a man sitting on it, above.
And I saw as the appearance of glowing brass, as the
appearance of fire, round about, serving as his home, from
his loins upward, and from his loins downward ; I saw, as
it were, the appearance of fire with, all around, a bright
light.1
It is Jahveh himself, mounted on his chariot of
Kerubim. At a later date the Christian Church will, for
the men of the West reared in the Hellenic tradition,
turn these terrible Kerubim into our charming cherubs,
chubby and curly-haired, with pretty white wings. But
the Kerubim, offspring of Babylon, brought to Jerusalem
with the traditions of ancient Chaldaea, were monsters
with the heads of animals, the bodies of bulls, two pairs
of wings, spitting fire, as we see them in the Babylonian
ruins. Henceforward the Kerubim will play their part
in the manifestations of Jahveh.
Jahveh speaks to Ezekiel:—
“ Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to
these nations that have rebelled against me; they and
their fathers have rebelled against me, even unto this day.
I do send thee unto these impudent and stiff-hearted
children, and thou shalt say unto them : Thus saith the
lord Jahveh.”2
Ezekiel rises ; he takes a brick, and on it he represents
Jerusalem besieged, and, round about it, the trenches,
terraces, and camps, and the rams round the walls; and
he takes an iron stove, and puts it, like an iron wall,
between him and the city ; for at this moment, says the
1 Ezekiel i.
Ezekiel ii. 3-4.
152
EZEKIEL
writer, Jerusalem is besieged by Nabuchodonosor. Then
he lies down on the left side, and remains lying for three
hundred and ninety days, bearing the iniquity of Ephraim.
Then he turns to the right side, and remains lying thus
for forty days, bearing the iniquity of Judah. With corn,
barley, beans, and lentils he has prepared as many loaves
as he must remain days lying down, and has had them
baked in dung. So will the children of Israel eat a defiled
bread. As a favour, Ezekiel obtains permission of his
god to bake his bread in cow’s dung instead of in human
excrements. And he prophesies against the guilty
city.
We are now in the temple of Jahveh, dishonoured by
all kinds of idolatries and prostitutions. Opposite the
holy of holies is the idol of jealousy; here are all sorts of
reptiles and abominable beasts, worshipped by seventy
sheiks, with censers in their hands; there are women
sitting and weeping over Adonis; there, again, are twenty-
five young men throwing kisses to the sun......Does that
not cry for vengeance ?
Meantime the Kerubim unfold their wings, and bear
the prophet from chapter to chapter.
Now the hero prepares his travelling garments, and in
the evening, in the midst of his silent compatriots, he
sets out as exiles do. He has not gone out of his house
by the door; he has, with his own hand, made a breach
in the wall. Under the eyes of his compatriots he places
on his shoulder the mantle of a traveller, and departs,
covering his face, so that it shall be a sign to the house
of Israel. And he says:—
I am your sign; like as I have done ye shall do. Ye
shall go into captivity.
Your princes, in the midst of you, shall put their
mantles on their shoulders, and shall go forth in the
twilight; the wall will be dug through to let them pass
out; they shall cover their faces, that they see not the
ground.1
1 Ezekiel xii. 11-12.
THE FIRST BOOK OF EZEKIEL
153
Later the lord addresses the guilty spouse, her whom
he has distinguished and clothed and adorned, and who
has prostituted herself to strangers.
In another place there are two women, Aholah and
Aholibah—that is to say, Samaria and Jerusalem—whom
the master had chosen. Both have been unfaithful; they
have suffered their bosoms to be touched; they have
uncovered their bellies; they have called those who
passed by to their beds. Loaded with ornaments, their
eyes painted, sitting on magnificent beds, with bracelets on
their arms and crowns on their heads, near a table covered
with incense and oil, they have, with gesture and voice,
called upon the blue-cloaked Assyrians, the pachas and
young horsemen of Assyria, the red-robed Chaldseans,
with mitres of flowing colours. They have smiled when
the Egyptians have stroked their breasts in memory of
their virginity. But they will be despoiled of their
ornaments, they will have their bosoms torn, they will be
left naked on the ground, the nose and ears cut off.
Meantime the threats are carried out. One day a
fugitive comes, who has escaped from Jerusalem, and he
says:—
“ The city has been taken.”
Then Jahveh speaks to Ezekiel:—
O thou, son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of
Israel, and say: Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word
of Jahveh...
Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed
you up on every side, and ye became a prey among the
nations;
Thus saith the lord Jahveh to the mountains and to
the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys, to the desolate
ruins and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a
prey and a derision ;
Thus saith the lord Jahveh : I will speak, in the fire of
my jealousy, against the residue of the nations, which
have appointed my land into their possession, to cast it
out for a prey.
Thus saith the lord Jahveh: I lift up my hand; the
nations that are about you, they shall bear their shame.
154
EZEKIEL
But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth
your branches, and yield your fruit to my people.
Eor, behold, I will turn unto you, and ye shall be
tilled and sown;
And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and
they shall increase and bring fruit; and I will do better
unto you than at your beginnings, and ye shall know that
I am Jahveh.1
Ezekiel is borne through space. He walks in the
midst of a valley, which is full of bones, numbers of
bones, very dry bones.
And Jahveh saith : Prophesy unto these bones, and
say unto them, 0 ye dry bones, hear the word of Jahveh.
Thus saith the lord Jahveh unto these bones: Behold,
I will cause spirit to enter into you, and ye shall live.
And I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh
upon you, and cover you with skin, and put spirit in you,
and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am Jahveh.
So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I
prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and
the bones came together, bone to his bone.
And when I beheld, lo, the sinews were on them, and
the flesh grew, and the skin covered them ; but there was
no spirit in them.
And he said unto me, Prophesy unto the spirit,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus saith
the lord Jahveh : Come from the four winds, 0 spirit,
and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the spirit
came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their
feet, an exceeding great army.
Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are
the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, Our bones
are dried ; our hope is lost; we are undone.
Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith
the lord Jahveh : Behold, I open your graves, and cause
you to come up out of } our graves, 0 my people, and
bring you into the land of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am Jahveh, when I have
opened your graves, and brought you up out of your
graves, O my people.
And I shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live;
1 Ezekiel xxxvi. 1-11.
THE SECOND BOOK OE EZEKIEL
155
and I shall place you in your own land, and ye shall
know that it is I, Jahveh, who hath spoken it and
performed it, saith Jahveh.1
The earlier prophets promised Israel a happy future;
they said that Jahveh himself would accomplish the work
of liberation. Ezekiel announces that the day of Jahveh
will come only after frightful catastrophes, in the midst
of the direst anguish. The Jewish people must not hope
to enter peacefully, under a serene sky, into its era of
happiness. To fulfil the promise there must first be
frightful days ; no doubt in order that Israel may atone
for its former crimes, but also in order that it may the
better realise the price of the favours which Jahveh
reserves for it.
And in the depths of the north, among horsemen with
helmet and shield, all terribly clothed, all wielding the
sword, a multitude gathered to make plunder, to ruin the
nations and destroy the flocks, he evokes Gog, king of
Magog, prince of Rosch, Meshech, and Tubal.
Then, when the desolation is at its height, Jahveh
will manifest himself in an upheaval of the mountains, a
fall of the rocks, a rending of the walls, with pestilence
and blood, and a rain of fire and sulphur and stones
falling like hail; he will appear on his chariot drawn by
the four Kerubim ; he will see that he is recognised by
the nations; and they will know that it is Jahveh.
§ 2. The Second Book of Ezekiel: the Legends of Samuel,
Elijah, and Elisha.
Success and Check of the Prophetic Party.
Our Bibles do not distinguish the two books of
Ezekiel; but the testimony of the Jewish historian
Flavius Josephus shows2 that the two parts, so different
from each other, of the narrative of Ezekiel (chs. i.-xxxix.
1 Ezekiel xxxvii.
2 Jewish Antiquities, x. G.
156
EZEKIEL
and chs. xl.-xlviii.) were originally separate. The second
book of Ezekiel is a piece of tentative legislation which
the prophetic party opposed to the Mosaic legislation.
About the same time certain writers of the same
group created or developed the legends of Samuel, Elijah,
and Elisha, which were afterwards incorporated in the
books of Samuel and Kings. Samuel was a character of
the older historical books; Elijah and Elisha seem, on
the contrary, to have been almost invented by the
prophetic school, and their adventures wholly fictitious.
The legends of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha were put
forward by the prophetic party in opposition to the
Mosaic legends, just as the legislation of Ezekiel was in
opposition to the Mosaic legislation.
The prophetic movement had issued from the terrible
upheavals which preceded and followed the arrival of
Alexander the Great in 332. After the battle of Ipsus,
the successors of Alexander having definitively divided
his empire between them, an era of less frightful trouble,
if not an entirely peaceful era, had set in. This period
of semi-tranquillity corresponds, in Jewish history, to
the pontificate of Simeon I., called Simeon the Just,
probably 300-270. Ptolemy is king of Egypt; Seleucus
king of Syria. The wars between Egypt and Syria are
over for a time. Jerusalem is still subject, but there is
an end of the passing of armies, the battles, the taking
by storm, the massacres, and the deportations.
We must not, however, take literally the statements of
the Siracid and of the Talmud about the happiness of
Judsea under Simeon the Just. It was a comparative
happiness, in view of the frightful calamities of the
preceding and following periods. Let us conceive the
pontificate of Simeon the Just as a calm amid the storms
which laid Judaea desolate from the year 350 to the
Christian era; and let us understand that not one of the
causes of the misery and ignominy that beset the
unhappy country had been removed. Yet these years of
THE SECOND BOOK OF EZEKIEL
157
calm enabled the sacerdotal aristocracy, on the one hand,
to complete the work of the Mosaic legislation,1 and the
prophetic party, on the other hand, to make its first
effort to seize the government.
The books of Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
minor prophets had been very successful with the popula-
tion of Jerusalem. They had succeeded in every case in
preventing the Hellenisation of Judaea. The prophetic
writers had proved that to Hellenise Judaea would be
to denationalise it; they had convicted the Hellenising
priests, before the tribunal of public opinion, of forfeiture ;
they had restored the ancient traditions to honour.
Moreover, though Hellenism had made terrible inroads
into the nobility of Jerusalem for a third of a century, it
could not have absorbed it; though a large number of
these priest-levites, to whom had fallen all the power and
all the wealth of Jerusalem, had abandoned themselves to
the charm of Hellenic novelties, others must assuredly
have protested, in conjunction with the democrats, against
the forsaking of ancient customs. The latter could only
reproach an Amos, a Hosea, or a Jeremiah, with exaggera-
tion. Supported by the people of Jerusalem, badly fought
by the more Hellenising aristocrats, and hardly disapproved
by the others, the prophetic writers had, at least to some
extent, succeeded in imposing their ideas.
The prophetic writers and the crowd of common folk
who had followed them now formed an opposition party
against the ruling aristocracy. Would the ambition of
this turbulent minority be satisfied with a first victory ?
They professed to reform the government and the Church
of Jerusalem; but what is the reform of a government or
a Church if not the substitution of a better government
and a different Church ?
Bead over again the invectives of the prophetic writers
against the sacerdotal aristocracy, their threats and their
1 See above, p. 95.
158
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EZEKIEL
maledictions. What did they want ? The fall of the
priest-aristocrats. It is but a step from that to wish to
take their place or claim to succeed them, and this step
was taken with the second book of Ezekiel and the legends
of Samuel, Elijah, and Elislia.
There was, however, no open rupture.
It is clear that the prophetic party at Jerusalem was a
kind of Jewish protestantism. Religiously, they demanded
a return to the ancient traditions and ways, the purity of
the primitive dogmas, and the severity of the ancient
virtues. Politically, they wanted to replace an ancient
aristocratic government by a new democratic government.
In ancient Judcea, as in certain German towns in the
sixteenth century, to govern religiously was to govern
politically; and the struggle of Jewish prophetism with
the Mosaic Levitism, or of Protestantism with the Roman
Church, is the struggle of a democratic theocracy to take
the place of an aristocratic theocracy.
But, while the men for whom the second book of
Ezekiel and the legends of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha
were composed are reformers, they were not rebels, at
least in the third century. Perhaps they had not among
them a man of decision who could, like Luther, break
openly with the established authority; perhaps they would
not consent to such a rupture. They merely betray at
times a significant violence against the hostile party.1
They flatter themselves that they rely on persuasion for
the acceptance of their novelties; they refuse to employ
insurrectionary means; they give a foretaste of the art of
despoiling with a blessing.
On the other hand, they do not reform for the pleasure
of reforming. All that, in the Mosaic legislation and
customs, seems to them to befit the new priesthood which
they desire to institute, is accepted by them. They
preserve as much, and alter as little, as possible of the
1 See, for instance, Ezekiel xliv. 10-15.
THE SECOND BOOK OE EZEKIEL
159
Levitical prescriptions; their innovations are confined to
essential things. Hence there are many resemblances in
detail between the Mosaic legislation and that of Ezekiel,
the customs consecrated by the books of Moses and those
that the legends of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha propose to
establish.
Avowing themselves to be above all traditionalists, the
men of the prophetic party were careful to avoid revolu-
tionary airs. They purported merely to establish new
institutions by the side of the old; and there again, as we
shall see, they went too far. In reality they tended
toward a change of personalities rather than a change of
institutions.
The sanctuary shall be for the priests, sons of Zadok,
which have kept my charge, which went not astray when
the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went
astray.1
The procedure of the authors of Ezekiel, Elijah, and
Elisha is the unvarying procedure of Jewish literature.
They know that the priesthood which governs at Jerusalem
comes from Moses, and is of divine institution ; prophetism
is careful not to throw doubt on those truths. But they
teach and explain that, beside this government of Mosaic
origin and divine institution, there is another government,
another priesthood, likewise of divine institution, but of
prophetic origin, of which Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha
were the protagonists. Against Aaron, the first Mosaic
high-priest, they put Zadok, high-priest of King Solomon.
The priests of the levitic aristocracy were called Aaronids ;
an attempt will be made to give the name of Zadocids to
the priests of the prophetic party. The books of Moses
had been written to justify and legitimise the official
priesthood, among other institutions; in order to create
a new prophetic priesthood, they fabricate ancient books
from which it appears that Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha
were prophets invested with the high sacerdotal functions,
1 Ezekiel xlviii. 11.
160
EZEKIEL
or that Jahveh himself dictated to his prophet Ezekiel,
three hundred years before, the legislation with which
they flatter themselves they will quietly overthrow the old
Levitic government. In order to attain its objects, the
prophetic party, faithful to the delinquencies of Judaism,
uses the customary stratagem of the pseudo-ancient books,
and appeals to the will of the national god, which is said
to have been made known some centuries before in
prophecies and legends which have been fortunately
recovered.
We will not linger over the legends of Samuel, Elijah,
and Elisha. They relate that Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha
were all three prophets, but that all three exercised the
priesthood—which is in contradiction to the Levitic
institution. What is worse, all three sacrificed outside
of Jerusalem, or of the sanctuary in which the ark of
Jahveh was kept—a thing illicit in Samuel’s case, but
criminal in the case of Elijah and Elisha, according to
the express terms of the Mosaic law, because both are
supposed to be later than Solomon and the building of
the temple. We may add that most of the adventures of
the three prophets are “ duplicates ” of the adventures of
Moses or Mosaic characters; for instance, Elijah going up
to Jahveh on Horeb.1 Finally, and decisively, Samuel is
represented as taking the place of the contemporary high-
priest, who has become unworthy; as to Elijah and Elisha,
they ignore the Levitic priesthood.
We will make a summary analysis of the legislation
proposed by the second book of Ezekiel.
The book opens with a plan of rebuilding the temple.
The question was then being discussed, and the plan of
Ezekiel agreed so well with the feeling of his contem-
poraries that the high-priest Simeon the Just caused the
temple to be restored at that time, from the foundations
to the sanctuary, including the enclosing walls.2
1 1 Kings xix. 6-18.
2 See Ecclesiasticus 1, 1-3,
THE SECOND BOOK OE EZEKIEL
161
One day, it seems (the author of the second book of
Ezekiel says which day: the second of the first month
of the twenty-fifth year), the prophet is transported in
ecstasy, in the land of Israel, to the top of the holy moun-
tain. Here he sees a man whose appearance was like to
brass; it is not clear if this man is Jahveh himself or an
angel of Jahveh. Angel or god, this man held in his
hand a line of flax and a measuring reed. He says to
Ezekiel:—
Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with
thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show
thee; and declare all that thou seest to the house of
Israel.1
Then the divine apparition takes, with its cord and
reed, all the measurements of a building, which is the
ideal temple.....And Ezekiel notes carefully:—
The threshold, one reed......
The first chamber, one reed.....
The vestibule, eight cubits.....
The posts of the vestibule, two cubits.....
There are six pages of it in our Hebrew Bible, for the
writer enters into the minutest details. The attempt has
been made to reconstruct the plan of this edifice with its
minute measurements. Unfortunately, certain essential
points are wanting ; there are evident errors in the text,
and some contradictions. The plan cannot be set up
without many hypotheses.
When scholars believed in the authenticity of the book
of Ezekiel, and placed it in the period of the Deportation,
the description was sometimes referred to the temple of
Solomon, which had just been destroyed, and sometimes
to the temple which Zorobabel was about to build. We
do not know anything of the temple of Solomon. We
suspect what the temple of Zorobabel was like: a humble
building, made of fragments, with no size or harmony—
something like Our Lady of Loretto in point of size,
1 Ezekiel xl. 4.
M
162
EZEKIEL
Eenan says. The celebrated temple in which Jesus of
Nazareth preached was the third temple, the masterpiece
of Herod the Great. A simple plan of reconstruction, the
temple described by Ezekiel wras an idealisation of the
modest sanctuary of Zorobabel, which seemed inadequate
to all in the third century. Without departing from its
arrangement and general proportions, the writer pointed
out to his contemporaries what improvements were advis-
able, and what should be done to bring the building up to
the height of the required splendour. But, acting on the
old Judaic method, he thought it best to attribute his
plans and counsels to Jahveh himself, speaking through
the ancient prophet Ezekiel.
When the temple is described, with its sanctuary,
vestibules, courts, external galleries, and priests’ lodgings,
Ezekiel expounds the rites of the altar and the way of
offering holocausts and shedding blood on it. He then
describes the new organisation of the clergy, and he
suddenly launches anathema on the old Mosaic clergy:—
Let it suffice you of all your abominations, in that ye
have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised
in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary,
to pollute it, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the
blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all
your abominations.1
The old Mosaic clergy, which has been led into foreign
abominations—that is to say, Hellenism—is condemned.
It has been faithless to Jahveh. It must be replaced by
a new clergy issuing from the prophetic party. So, in
the legends of Samuel, the prophet takes the place of the
Levitic high-priest. We have quoted the characteristic
phrase:—
The sanctuaries shall be for the priests, sons of Zadok,
who went not astray, as the Levites went astray.
For the priests who are sons of Aaron will be sub-
stituted the priests who are sons of Zadok. In reality,
1 Ezekiel xliv. 7.
THE SECOND BOOK OF EZEKIEL
163
the Zadocids are the new sacerdotal corps which the
prophetic party wants to substitute for the old Levitic
corps in the administration of the temple and the govern-
ment of the State; or, rather, the parts are reversed.
The former aristocrats will become the servants of the
new masters. For the first time we find in Judaism the
revolutionary formula, “ The first shall be last.”1
There follows a complete legislation of the cult, a full
ritual, differing little from the Mosaic code. We know
that the Jews do not innovate without some use. Then
there is a political legislation, in which we find again the
determination to establish a government proceeding from
prophetism.
A prince is set at the head of the hierarchy. The
Hebrew text does not say either a high-priest or a king;
nasi means originally the head of a tribe. We must see
to what this title corresponds.
The nasi of Ezekiel could, without having the title,
exercise the functions of a king; democracies often lean
to Caesarism, out of fear of aristocracies; the Jewish
books are full of the expectation of a monarch descending
from David; in fine, some have thought of the Machabees,
and it has been suggested that the legislative part of the
book of Ezekiel might belong to the second century.
But the nasi of Ezekiel has none of the characters of a
king or a tyrant.
It has also been asked if the institution of the nasi did
not correspond to a movement of ideas that took place,
from the third century, in favour of a military theocracy,
with a kind of head of the executive power depending on
a legislative priesthood. The Persian peace had formerly
allowed them to form a sacerdotal government without
military organisation; but since the coming of Alexander
the state of war had been almost permanent round
Jerusalem. Below the priests who governed the State
1 See Ezekiel xliv. 10-15.
164
EZEKIEL
there might, these writers conclude, have seemed to be
a need for an executive power, a minister of war, a
general commander of the troops which wTere charged to
guard the temple.
It is a gratuitous hypothesis, with nothing to confirm
it. Nothing in the text of Ezekiel allows us to liken the
nasi to an executive of any kind. Indeed, the military
spirit was never less in any people than it was among
the Jews; and if there was one party in which the
military spirit was wanting, it was the prophetic party.
The old aristocracy may have developed a military spirit
with its Hellenism ; the prophetic writers, on the
contrary, want no other guardian of the temple than
Jahveh. The psalms and apocalypses will push to
paroxysmal extremes this exclusive abandonment of
oneself in the hands of the deity. A military insti-
tution seems to be incompatible with the prophetic tradi-
tion.
The Biblical scholars who have studied the question of
the nasi of Ezekiel should have been edified by the
extraordinary absence of the high-priest, the cohen
hagadol, from this legislation. In reality, the prince, in
the second book of Ezekiel, is the new title proposed by
the prophetic party for the new high-priests. The former
high-priests, of the aristocratic and Hellenising party—
the Aaronid high-priests—were cohen hagadol; the new
high-priests, of the democratic party, the Zadocids, must
be nasi. A new dynasty must have a new name.
Though the cohen hagadol is not mentioned in the
legislation of Ezekiel, the functions attributed to the
nasi are his. At the head of the reformed sacerdotal
corps the author of the book of Ezekiel puts a reformed
high-priest, a religious as well as political character.
The remainder of the plan presents no difficulty. The
sacerdotal body will govern and render justice by the
side of the prince.
Below them Israel, its theoretical frontiers restored,
-
THE SECOND BOOK OF EZEKIEL
165
mistress of Galilee and Samaria, will enjoy the old land
of Canaan promised formerly to the patriarchs.
And in the end we have the most chimerical utopia
that has ever been imagined. The land of Palestine is
divided among the twelve ideal tribes by means of straight
lines drawn from east to west, forming twelve geome-
trical and almost equal portions, with Jerusalem in the
centre, a sort of State of the church, the privileged
portion of the new priests. And the book Ezekiel closes
with these words :—
And the name of the city from that day shall be:—
Jahveh-Shamma, Jahveh-Is-Here.1
The enterprise of the prophetic party failed.
Practical impossibilities, such as that of realising the
extravagant division of the land of Canaan into
geometrical portions among tribes that existed only in
theory, would not have been an obstacle to the success
of the legislation of Ezekiel; the Jewish spirit always
liked to combine utopia with reality. The literary
poorness of Ezekiel’s project was a graver obstacle.
Becall the legendary fables, the profound and remote
atmosphere, of the Mosaic books. There is nothing of
the kind in the second book of Ezekiel. The first book
of Ezekiel, the lyric book, was full of sublimity and
beauty, but the second was too earthy, too devoid of
inspiration, too bare of fiction, to captivate oriental
souls. The Mosaic law had been the work of several
generations of national poets, who were at the same
time resolute politicians. The law of Ezekiel was the
work of a party-man, who lacked imagination.
Even the very traditionalism that had made the
fortune of the prophetic party was in the way of its
ambition. Its adherents were bound to present them-
selves as the authentic continuers of the ancient institu-
tions. How, then, could they impose new ones ? How
1 Ezekiel xlviii. 35.
166
EZEKIEL
could they reconcile with the respect due to the Mosaic
legends some of the counter-legends of Samuel, Elijah,
and Elisha ?
The legislation of Ezekiel did not succeed. The
prescriptions and institutions imitated from the Mosaic
codes lived, and might give the democrats some illusion
of success; the innovations failed.
These intrinsic reasons for the failure of the prophetic
enterprise were supplemented by the historical circum-
stances in which it took place.
In a period of trouble, in opposition to a feeble or
unfortunate high-priest, prophetism might have suc-
ceeded ; in opposition to a comparatively fortunate and
strong high-priest like Simeon the Just, at the very time
when Judaea seemed to enjoy a little peace, it was bound to
fail. If, on the other hand, the priesthood had rejected
all reform, or abandoned itself to extreme Hellenisation,
the reformers would have found new weapons in the
excess of popular indignation; but we know that
prophetism itself had eradicated Hellenism from the
priesthood, and this first success prevented it from
winning again, or from dethroning its opponent.
We have compared Jewish prophetism to modern
Protestantism, and the analogy goes further. Luther
did not destroy the Homan Church ; in establishing a
rival Church beside it, he reformed it. It is too little
known that, on many points, the Homan Church satisfied
the demands of Protestants. It was the same at
Jerusalem in the third century. The prophetic party
constrained the clerical aristocracy to make certain
reforms, but did not overthrow it.
While the prophetic party attempted in vain to impose
its laws and seize the government, the old aristocracy
completed the work of the Mosaic legislation, and,
thanks, no doubt, to the action of Simeon the Just,
victoriously imposed it. The prophetic party was beaten,
but not destroyed, and had not ceased to produce great
THE SECOND BOOK OF EZEKIEL
167
men. The causes that had given it birth remained, and
would be aggravated after the death of Simeon. It
would continue to agitate Judaea no less than before.
But it was all over with the legislative reforms of the
second book of Ezekiel, and the traditions which the
legends of Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha had endeavoured
to implant. AVhen, after a century of struggle with an
aristocracy that falls deeper and deeper into Hellenism,
it finally has its revenge, it will accept and appropriate
the old Mosaic law, the work of the aristocracy; and the
book of Ezekiel will, so the Talmud relates, run some
risk of being excluded from the canon of the sacred books.
Chapter IV.
THE TWO ISAIAHS, AND THE IMPERIALIST
REVIVAL
§ 1. The Jeioish People in the Days of the Tivo Isaiahs.
From the third century onward the history of the Jewish
people is enacted, partly in Palestine, partly in the Jewish
colonies, which spread more and more around the
Mediterranean. The earliest prophetic writers had
arisen under the stress of the frightful calamities that
had fallen on Judaea during the second half of the fourth
century. To understand the last prophetic writers, it is
necessary to resume the history of the Jewish people,
during the following century, in the colonies as well as in
Palestine.
In Palestine.—The pontificate of Simeon the Just
was a calm after the storms at the end of the fourth
century. During the earlier years of his son, Onias II.,
this peace is still disturbed only at rare intervals in
Palestine. But from the year 247 the wars begin
between the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of
Syria, and Palestine is once more plundered. Again we
find the long train of misfortunes which these wars drag
after them. In 240 peace is restored ; Palestine remains
in the possession of Egypt. Will the unhappy country
have at least time to dress its wounds ? At the end
of some years the war will be renewed between the
Syrians and the Egyptians (221-217). Palestine will
again witness the ceaseless crossing of armies, battles,
and towns from which the vanquished will burst forth
with fury and the conqueror enter with threats. In 201
the king of Syria again invades Palestine. The war lasts
168
JEWISH PEOPLE IN DAYS OE TWO ISAIAHS 169
three years ; in the end the Egyptians are beaten, and
the king of Syria remains in possession of Palestine.
Judaea has changed its master.
The Jewish historian Josephus has told us1 how
severely the Palestinian States suffered from the wars
that took place between the kings of Egypt and Syria.
At Jerusalem the humiliation is all the greater from the
high hopes that had been entertained. Had not the
books of Moses promised to the imperialist ambition of
the successors of Esdras the free and peaceful possession
of the land of Palestine ? The chosen people of Jahveh
suffered, in subjection to the goim, in proportion to its
dreams.
When the war rages, plunder and devastation are
multiplied; when peace follows, exaction begins and
violence accompanies it. The powerful desire but to
enrich themselves; they refuse justice, and oppress the
weak ; on the pretext of gathering the tribute claimed by
the suzerain, they plunder the towns and the country ;
the tax-farmers are the leaders of bands who go from
country to country, extorting the debt with arms in
their hands. But the exactions and violence seem more
cruel to the people of Jerusalem when they are committed
by men of its own aristocracy, and when its leaders rely
on the foreign master in maltreating and despoiling it.
The Mosaic law rules at Jerusalem. Under the
shadow of its unchallenged authority, and under the
suzerainty of the Syrian or Egyptian kings, the high-
priest is a kind of viceroy who wields a supreme power.
The sacerdotal aristocracy surrounds him; the people
obey. The recently completed theocratic constitution
is in full vigour; but there is an irremediable division in
the depths of Jewish society.
The hatred of the rigorists for the Hellenists had
gradually risen. To the prophets the forsaking of the
1 Jewish Antiquities, xiii. 1, 3; 2, 28; 3, 129.
170 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
national ways was an apostasy. The prophets had set up
anew the Jewish soul, by teaching that without Jahveh
and the law of Jahveh the Jewish people were doomed to
perish. The hatred of the rigorist Jews for the foreigner
was great, but their hatred of the renegade was bound to
be fiercer.
Day by day the abyss grew deeper. The Jews of the
people, in the midst of their misery, deluded themselves
with hopes that promised them revenge; and already
some of the aristocrats of the higher clergy assured them-
selves that these hopes were vain. In the humiliation of
the land, the sons of the clerical aristocracy of Jerusalem
were contented with a state of things that left them
masters of Judaea under an easily tolerable suzerainty,
wealthy, and independent enough to enjoy their wealth.
The anger of the traditionalist and nationalist Jew
against the renegade Jew, of the poor against the rich,
was inflamed by the innumerable exactions, the denials
of justice, the increasingly severe oppression, with
which the people reproached their aristocracy. It
seems, if we take the evidence of contemporary writers,
making allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, that this
oppression was extreme, and that the common folk,
exploited and flouted by their masters, reached a
state of the most violent resentment. The scandal
was at its height, among the pious and patriotic poor
of the lower classes at Jerusalem, when, towards the
middle of the third century, under the pontificate of
Onias II., a certain Joseph, son of Tobias, obtain from
Ptolemy Philopator the farming of the taxes in Palestine.
This Joseph, son of Tobias, was the nephew of the high-
priest Onias II.; he was thus one of the heads of the
Jerusalem aristocracy. In his Hellenism, his pomp, his
exactions, Joseph, son of Tobias, exhibits all the grievances
of the children of Jahveh against their aristocracy.
Here is the episode of Joseph, son of Tobias, according
to Flavius Josephus. In order to give an idea of Jewish
JEWISH PEOPLE IN DAYS OF TWO ISAIAHS 171
society at the time, we cannot do better than quote at
length the picturesque account in his Jewish Antiquities,
which critics are disposed to place in the Days of Ptolemy
Philopator (222-205).
The high-priest Onias had a restricted intelligence, and
was dominated by the love of money; hence, as he had
not discharged the tax of twenty talents of silver, which
his fathers paid the kings, out of their own revenues, in
the name of the people, he caused King Ptolemy to be very
angry. Ptolemy sent a messenger to Jerusalem,reproaching
Onias for not having paid the tax, and threatening that, if
he did not receive the sum, he would divide the Jewish
territory into lots and settle soldiers on them as colonists.
The Jews were terrified on hearing the king’s threats; but
nothing could move Onias, blinded by his avarice.
There was at the time a certain Joseph, a young man,
but already enjoying the reputation of a grave, prudent,
and just man with the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; he was
the son of Tobias and of a sister of the high-priest Onias.
His mother having apprised him of the presence of the
envoy—for he was then on a journey at Phicola, the
village to which he belonged—he returned to the city, and
reproached Onias with not considering the safety of his
fellow-citizens and wishing to put the people in danger.
.....Onias persisting in his refusal, Joseph then asked his
permission to go on an embassy to Ptolemy in the name
of the nation ; and Onias granted it. Joseph went up to
the temple, therefore, summoned the people to assemble,
and begged the citizens to be neither disturbed nor
dismayed by the indifference of his uncle Onias in their
regard, but to keep their minds calm and banish their
gloomy presentiments. He promised, in fact, to go on an
embassy to the king and persuade him that they had done
no wrong. At these words the crowd thanked Joseph;
and he, going down from the temple, gave hospitality in
his own house to Ptolemy’s envoy, heaped rich presents
on him, and, after treating him generously for several
days, sent him back to the king, adding that he would
shortly follow himself.....
The envoy, on his return to Egypt, told the king of the
obstinacy of Onias, and spoke to him of the great merit
of Joseph, who was coming to clear the people of the
delinquencies charged against them. He praised the
young man so much that he made the king and his
wife Cleopatra well disposed towards Joseph before he
172 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
arrived. Joseph sent to borrow money of some of his
friends in Samaria, and, after preparing all that was
necessary for the journey—clothes, utensils, and beasts
of burden, which cost him about twenty thousand
drachmas—he went to Alexandria. It happened that at
the same time all the chief citizens and magistrates of the
cities of Syria and Phoenicia were going there in connection
with the farming of the taxes, which the king sold every
year to the strongest men in each city. When these saw
Joseph on the road, they railed at his poverty and
simplicity. But Joseph, hearing on his arrival at
Alexandria that Ptolemy was at Memphis, went to
meet him. The king was seated in his chariot with
his wife and his friend Athenion, the very man who
had been sent to Jerusalem and entertained by Joseph.
When Athenion saw him, he at once made him known to
the king, saying that this was the young man whose
kindness and generosity he had praised to him on his
return from Jerusalem. Ptolemy then first embraced
him, made him enter the chariot, and, as soon as Joseph
was seated, began to complain of the procedure of Onias.
-
“Forgive him,” said Joseph, “on account of his age;
for thou knowest assuredly that old men have often but
the intelligence of children. But we, the young, will give
thee full satisfaction, and thou shalt have no fault to find
with us.”
The king, delighted with the charm and sprightliness
of the young man, conceived such an affection for him as
if he had long known him ; he invited him to stay in his
palace, and share his meals every day. When the king
had returned to Alexandria, the leading men of Syria,
seeing Joseph sitting beside him, were very envious.
When the day had come on which the taxes of the cities
were to be put up at auction, those whose dignity gave
them the first rank in their country came to buy them.
The offers rose to eight thousand talents for the taxes
of Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, Judaea, and Samaria. Then
Joseph approached, and accused the buyers of having
come to an arrangement to offer the king so poor a
price for the taxes. He declared that he was prepared
to give double, and deliver up to the king, in addition, the
goods of those who had failed in their duty to his house;
these goods were, in fact, assigned with the taxes. The
king heard him with pleasure, and said he was ready
to award him the farming of the taxes, because he
would thereby have an increased revenue; but ho asked
JEWISH PEOPLE IN DAYS OF TWO ISAIAHS 173
if Joseph had security to offer. Joseph replied very
cleverly:—
“ I will find you excellent people whom you cannot
distrust.”
The king asking who they were:—
“ I give you as security, O king, thyself and thy wife,
each for the portion that is due to the other.”
Ptolemy laughed, and allowed him to have the taxes
without security. This favour greatly angered those who
had come from the cities of Egypt, as they felt themselves
relegated to the second rank. And each returned to his
country with his little disgrace.
Joseph obtained of the king two thousand foot-soldiers,
for he had asked troops in order to bring to reason those
who might despise his authority in the cities; and, after
borrowing five hundred talents from the friends of the
king in Alexandria, he set out for Syria. When he
reached Ascalon, he demanded that the inhabitants should
pay the tax. They refused to pay anything, and even
insulted him ; then he seized the chief among them, slew
a score of them, seized their goods—about a thousand
talents—and sent them to the king, informing him of
what had happened. Ptolemy admired his decision,
praised his conduct, and gave him a free hand. The
Syrians were terrified at this news, and, having under
their eyes, as an example well calculated to discourage
disobedience, the fate of the victims at Ascalon, they
opened their gates, received Joseph with every attention
and paid the tribute. The inhabitants of Scythopolis
however, attempted to insult him and refuse him the tax,
which they had hitherto paid without difficulty; there
also he had the chief men put to death, and sent their
goods to the king. When he had collected a great deal of
money, and made a large profit on the farming of the
taxes, he made use of it to strengthen the power he had,
thinking it wise to use the goods he had acquired in
preserving what had been the source of his present
fortune. He therefore sent many presents to the king,
to Cleopatra, to their friends, and to all who had power
at Court, thus purchasing their good will.
He enjoyed this prosperity for twenty-two years, and
became the father of seven sons by his first wife, and, by
the daughter of his brother Solymios, of a son named
Hyrcan.1
1 Jewish Antiquities, xii. 4, from the translation of Theodore Reinach.
174 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPEKIALIST KEVIVAL
It is between this Hyrcan and his brothers that the
dissensions and intestine wars arose which were to
desolate Judoea at the beginning of the second century.
In the Colonies.—But in the third century the
Jewish people is not confined to Judsea; it is found
wherever Jewish colonies have been established; and in
the colonies the secular hopes of the Jews are no more
realised than in Judsea.
We shall close this volume with a comprehensive study
of the expansion of the Jews in the Mediterranean basin.1
We have already seen the Jews spread, first in Palestine,
then in Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt; soon we shall see
them penetrate into Asia Minor, the Greek islands, and
Greece itself.
Deportation and emigration have done their work.
Violence and misery alone have driven the Jews from
their country, and these colonists are, in the main, merely
exiles whose misfortunes are incessantly deplored by the
prophets, and whose triumphant return they are ever
predicting.
However widely they have spread, the Jewish colonies
are nevertheless, in the third century, lamentable settle-
ments in which misery reigns and men are but pariahs.
Already the Jewish quarter is a thing of contempt and
detestation among the nations. How could these folk,
who mingle not with the people among whom they live,
preserve their own clothing and usages, isolate themselves
in their sectarian pride, think themselves better than
others in spite of their sordid poverty, and cannot conceal
their envy, if not their hopes, expect from other men
anything but hatred in return for their hostility, and
disdain for their weakness ?
After so many promises of a glorious return to the
mother country, the Jews of the colonies will be still in
1 Part III., ch. iv.
THE FIKST ISAIAH
175
the second century what they were in the third : unhappy
exiles, dying, one after another, in a surfeit of humilia-
tion, under the enmity of a foreign sky.
Thus did the reality belie the old Jewish hopes, from
the third century onward, in the colonies and in Judasa.
The situation was this: in Judsea were foreign domina-
tion, oppression, internal divisions, and exactions on the
part of the clerical aristocracy; beyond the Jewish
frontiers was the vast field of misery in which the exiles
shuddered, hated by, and hating, other men.
The most adventurous optimism could with difficulty
cast a few rays of light on this sombre picture. Jeru-
salem was still the most important town, its temple the
most celebrated sanctuary, and Judaea the leading State
of Palestine; beyond Palestine, the Jewish colonies
spread the name of Jahveh in the great cities of the
eastern Mediterranean. To maintain and renew this
confidence, to sustain their courage, to rekindle the fire
of the imperialism of Jerusalem, there was need of the
work of the men of genius who wrote under the name of
the prophet Isaiah.
§ 2. The First Isaiah.
The collection of prophecies which, in our Bible, bears
the name of Isaiah, is divided into two quite distinct
parts. Critics of the slightest shade of independence
have long since unanimously agreed in recognising them
as two different works, which it is customary to call the
First and the Second Isaiah. The one comprises chapters
i.-xxxix. of the collection, the other chapters xl.-lxvi. It
is further possible, and even probable, that the chapters
ascribed to each of the two Isaiahs come from a number
of different writers.
The author—let us say the principal author—of the
prophecies of the First Isaiah followed the tradition of
his forerunners. For his fabulous material he, like they,
176 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
took a situation and the name of a prophet in the ancient
history of Judaea, and he represented as spoken to this
prophet, in the circumstances of the situation he had
chosen, the words which he himself, a man of the third
century, wanted to impress upon his contemporaries.
The authors of the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel had
chosen the last years of the former kingdom of Judah;
the author of the hook of Isaiah went farther back into
the past, and chose the period of Hezekiah and the last
kings of Ephraim. The book of Isaiah, however, is not
so much a political romance as a collection of anecdotes
and fine odes. The anecdotes are episodes of ancient
Jewish history, in which the author introduces his
prophet with an action or a discourse; the odes are
invectives against the Jewish aristocrats who indulge in
Hellenic ways, or oracular utterances on neighbouring
peoples, Tyre, Egypt, Syria, and Babylon.
On the doctrinal side the First Isaiah continues the
work of prophetism. He resumes the invective of
Jeremiah against the clergy and the Levitic legislation
in the famous apostrophe: “ To what purpose is the
multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith Jahveh: I
am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of
fed beasts.” 1 It is not a question, as so many writers
have said, of a profession of spiritual faith, but of attack-
ing the corruption of an aristocracy that lives on the
temple and oppresses the people. There is nothing new
in it. The originality of the First Isaiah consists in
responding to the misery and despair of his compatriots
with the imperialist dream of a conquest of the world.
Esdras and his successors had, after the Restoration,
created Jewish nationalism. In the midst of the small
States of Palestine they had, in concentrating the State
of Jerusalem round the name of Jahveh, created a Jewish
soul. Reduced to a few thousand men, vanquished,
1 Isaiah i. 11, and following.
THE FIRST ISAIAH
177
oppressed, enslaved for a century, the little people had
not returned to life with the spirit of some great con-
quered nation that is suddenly saved by a brilliant victory.
Defeat, oppression, slavery, and weakness had taught it
patience. Stubborn, but humble, concealing behind
their half-closed eyes their unconquerable ambition, the
companions of Esdras had undertaken, noiselessly, with
bent backs, to build the house of Jahveh.
We have seen how they taught the men of Jerusalem
that the misfortunes of their fathers had been a punish-
ment for their unfaithfulness to Jahveh, and that Jahveh
had promised to reward them, if they were faithful to
him.
Then the famous theory of the Covenant had been
gradually shaped. The duty of the Jewish people is to
be faithful to Jahveh ; the duty of Jahveh is to reward
the Jewish people, if the Jewish people is faithful to
Jahveh. In the first Mosaic mashal, however, in
Deuteronomy, the reward promised to the Jewish people
consists of nothing but the free and peaceful possession
of a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful
country in the world: thus do the Jews describe
Palestine.
The free and peaceful possession of Palestine is the
ideal of the early viosklim and of Deuteronomy.
“ Jahveh, thy god, will set thee on high among the
nations of the earth....all the peoples of the earth shall
be afraid of thee ” that is the maximum and exceptional
formula of the promises of Jahveh to the fourth century.
The ambition of the Jews of Deuteronomy had not gone
beyond that; their dream was to be happy on the soil
that Jahveh had sworn to their fathers he would give
them.2 The promise was restricted :—
From the wilderness to Lebanon, from the river
Euphrates to the western sea, shall your coast be.s 1
1 Deuteronomy xxviii. 1 and 10. 2 Deuteronomy xxx. 20.
8 Deuteronomy xi. 21.
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N
178 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
And as, at this time, the Jerusalem aristocracy had just
put forth the name and theory of the people of Israel,
gathering together under the name the whole of the
populations which it meditated ruling and assimilating,
the famous programme “ Israel in the Promised Land ”
represented the whole imperialism of the time.
Confronted with the irruption and the menace of
Hellenism, Hosea and Amos strive to recall the people
to their duties; and, like Deuteronomy, they merely
offer their contemporaries the promise of happiness at
home.
Jeremiah, in the dread of the danger that nearly
wrecks Judaism in the days of the successors of
Alexander, is a mild soul, haunted only by the threat
of the catastrophes that are about to fall again upon
Jerusalem, if Jerusalem is unfaithful. After the threat,
however, Jeremiah does not fail to tell and to repeat the
promise. But it suffices for him to tell of the flourishing
of the Jewish State, the replanting of their vines and
fig-trees, the dancing of the daughters of Jerusalem, on
peaceful evenings, to the sound of zithers and tam-
bourines. Jeremiah often addresses foreign nations;
though by foreign nations, in Jeremiah, we must under-
stand the States which surround Judaea. Never (except,
perhaps, once) does Jeremiah turn to the Islands; in the
Bible the Islands are the Greek world, and Jeremiah does
not look so far.
Ezekiel, in his sombre visions of the future, was hardly
attentive to anything but his country. He had put his
particular formula on the ancient promises; but had he
enlarged it ?
Isaiah is the first to turn to the Islands.
The dream of a universal conquest is the stroke of
genius of the First Isaiah, though it is foreshadowed in
the authors of the last Mosaic narratives.
We know what the situation of the Jewish people is at
the time. In Judaea it is subject to foreigners ; a corrupt
THE FIRST ISAIAH
179
aristocracy oppresses it; constant wars burden the land
of Israel. In the colonies it vegetates miserably ; the son
dies after the father without having seen once more the
sky of his country. They are far from counting on the
old hopes of peace, glory, and happiness; faithfulness has
not had its reward. And it seems to the most optimistic
that the fulfilment of the divine promises is very far off,
very difficult, if not quite chimerical. The free and
peaceful possession of Palestine ; Israel prospering in
the promised land! The reality was very far removed
from the dream.
What could be said to the Jewish people to restore its
confidence and courage ?
In a sublime invention the First Isaiah, refusing to
preach a perilous defensive, suddenly turns round, and,
taking the offensive against the enemies of his country
and his party, he teaches the Jews that they have nothing
to fear, and that not only will every promise be fulfilled,
but Jahveh will give his people, at one stroke, a hundred
times more than he promised.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall
be no end, about the throne of David, and about his
kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal
of Jahveh of the Hosts will perform this.1
The golden age that other poets had put at the begin-
ning of time is foreseen in the future by the First Isaiah.
And on that day the shoot of David shall be an ensign
for the nations; to it shall the nations turn ; and his rest
shall be glory.2
On that day Philistia will be conquered, Edom and
Moab will be the prey of the children of Israel, and the
sons of Ammon will be subject to them.3 To Dumah
(probably Edom) it shall be said:—Submit.4 Tyre will
be destroyed, but it will rise again after seventy years in
1 Isaiah ix. 7. 2 Isaiah xi. 10. 8 Isaiah xi. 14. * Isaiah xxi. 12.
180 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
order that its wealth may be offered to the temple at
Jerusalem.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall
be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one
King; after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as
an harlot:—
Take thy guitar,
Run through the town,
Eorgotten courtesan;
Dance thou for ever,
Sing without end,
That men recall thee!
And it shall come to pass, after the end of seventy years,
that Jahveh will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her
hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms
of the world upon the face of the earth.
And her merchandise and her hire shall be consecrated
to Jahveh; it shall not be treasured, nor laid up; for
her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the
face of Jahveh, to eat sufficiently and for magnificent
clothing.1
The Ethiopians shall be conquered, but they will submit
and will bring offerings to the temple of Jahveh;2 the
Egyptians shall be chastised, but they will turn to
Jahveh, and he will hear them;3 Syria will accept the
god of Jerusalem; there will be a road from Egypt to
Syria, and Jahveh will bless the submission of the Syrians
and the Egyptians.4 What is the meaning of the con-
version of the Syria of the Seleucids, and the Egypt of
the Ptolemies, if not the submission of all that the Jews
of the third century know of Hellenism ? And all these
victories will have for prelude the reconciliation; that is
to say, the definitive union of Judah and Ephraim;6 that
is to say, of Jerusalem and all the ancient Palestinian
towns—in other words, the final constitution of the Israel
which symbolises the Jewish ideal.
And it shall come to pass in the last days that the
mountain of Jahveh’s house shall be established in the
1 Isaiah xxiii. 15-18. 2 Isaiah xviii. 7. 3 Isaiah xix. 21-22.
4 Isaiah xix. 23. s Isaiah xi. 13.
THE FIRST ISAIAH
181
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ;
and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many peoples shall come and say: Come ye, and
let us go up to the mountain of Jahveh, to the house of
the god of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and
we will walk in his paths.
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of
Jahveh from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke
many peoples.1
The submission of the world is the necessary and
logical consequence of the covenant. Provided Israel
observes the conditions, Jahveh will observe them on his
side; and the work of Jahveh will be, not only to make
Israel powerful and prosperous, but to bring the whole
world to kneel before it. For the first time in the story
of Judaism, the First Isaiah says it explicitly. It is a
momentous event. Until that time they thought only
of obtaining from Jahveh the peaceful enjoyment of
Palestine; now they dream of becoming masters of the
world. The history of the Jews will be nothing else but
the conflict of this ambition with the reality.
The whole is interconnected as cause and effect. The
grandeur of the future held out to the Jews has magnified
beyond measure the god who is capable of making such
promises; while, by a reaction of the effect on its cause,
the greatness of the god enlarges the splendour of his
promise. To the First Isaiah belongs the glory of first
magnifying Jahveh, the god of Israel, to the proportions
of the god of the universe.
We know the Jahveh of the early nomads settled in
Palestine, a tribal god, becoming later the patron-god of
the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Ephraim, entirely
similar to Camos, the patron-god of Moab, or Milkom,
the patron-god of Ammon. In the days of Esdras the
Jewish soul had needed, if it were to rise again and
endure, to hold itself aloof in a proud patriotism. At
1 Isaiah ii. 2-4.
182 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
the same time it necessarily isolated Jakveh amid the
congenital and neighbouring gods; and from that time
Jahveh had begun to play a separate part, with a pride
equal to the pride of his people, in the crowd of Pales-
tinian gods.
Then, persevering in a pretension that gave it greater
strength, the Jewish soul had come to regard itself as
chosen for an extraordinary destiny among other peoples.
And at the same time Jahveh became, for the Jews, a
higher god among the other gods. That is the period of
Deuteronomy. There are plenty of texts showing Jahveh
as a god above the other gods. Does not Moses sing, after
the crossing of the Eed Sea:—
“ Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Jahveh ? ” 1
For the First Isaiah Jahveh becomes the supreme god;
beside him there are but demons and angels. The demons
are the strange gods, the hostile gods, the gods of foreigners
and foes, who will all disappear on the day of the victory
of Jahveh; the angels are the servants of Jahveh, encircling
his throne in the heavens. Jahveh is the one god, the
true god. Deuteronomy and Jeremiah himself proclaimed
that the worship of other gods was the greatest of crimes.
The First Isaiah is not more indulgent, but he recognises
a new sentiment; he feels that the strange gods are
inferior gods, that they are doomed to perish, and will
perish.
In that day man shall cast their idols of silver, and
their idols of gold, which they made each one for himself
to worship, to the moles and to the bats.2
The moment will come presently when the Second
Isaiah will add irony to malediction, and, railing at these
idols of wood or gold, made by the hand of man, will make
it plain that Jahveh alone is god, and that the other gods
are nothing.
With the history of Jahveh corresponds the history of
1 Exodus xv. 11.
2 Isaiah ii. 20.
THE EIEST ISAIAH
183
the old word elohim. It is the Hebrew word which we
translate “ god.” What precisely is the elohim ? A fetish
that becomes an idol, an idol that becomes a national god,
a national god that becomes the god of the universe,
awaiting the time when the god of the universe becomes
a metaphysical god. The First Isaiah is at the stage of
the god of the universe.
But the history of the word elohim and the history of
the god Jahveh are, at the same time, the history of the
Jewish soul that is faithfully reflected therein. A Syrian
tribe that becomes a small people; a small people that
holds aloof in an extreme and fierce patriotism, finding in
it the strength to live and endure; and now a handful of
men, a brotherhood almost, hardly a nation, rather a
church, that thinks itself destined to rule the world, and
believes so strongly in its destiny that it will eventually
accomplish it.
That again is in the First Isaiah.
Until then the Jewish soul is in a state of preparation ;
it exists only potentially. Even in Jeremiah it is as yet
only concentrating, or forming. Jeremiah had been
only a strenuous return to the policy of Esdras and
Deuteronomy, become democratic as it confronted the
Hellenisation of the aristocracy. With the First Isaiah
Judaism opens out towards the world. The prophecy of
Jeremiah had been the cry of alarm of a man who saw
the foundations of the Judaic edifice give way. Now the
Jewish soul revives; Hellenisation has not disappeared from
the aristocracy, but the Jewish people have renewed their
tradition. Now, for the first time in the Bible and in
Jewish history, the eyes of the men of Jerusalem are
about to turn beyond Palestine. For the first time the
Jewish soul appears, in the First Isaiah, of the character
in which it will, under a Christian form, conquer the
world, by faith in its election.
And already the First Isaiah tells, without ambiguity,
how this extraordinary conquest will be accomplished.
184 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
Before him Deuteronomy, the early prophets, and
Jeremiah have, one after the other, developed the
formula of the famous covenant. The First Isaiah
deduces its full consequences; he expounds it in its full
amplitude. There is a synallagmatic bargain between
Jahveh and Israel; if Israel is faithful to Jahveh, Jahveh
will give it the world. But Israel is only a small people
amid the great peoples of the earth. Syria and Egypt
crush it with their formidable power. What armies will
Israel lead out to conquer such foes ? What general
will lead them to the battle ? The armies will be the
hosts of heaven, and Jahveh will be their general.
Edom, Moab, and Ammon in subjection, Tyre giving up
its gold like an aged prostitute, the Ethiopians bringing
their tribute, Egypt and Syria on their knees, the peoples
of the earth crowding to the mountain of Jerusalem—
all that will be the personal task of Jahveh.
-
Behold, the day of Jahveh cometh, cruel both with
wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and
destroy the enemies.
The stars of heaven, even the Orions, shall not give
their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth,
and the moon shall not cause her light to shine..
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall
remove out of her place, in the wrath of Jahveh of the
Hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
And it shall be as the chased gazelle and as a sheep
that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his
own people, and flee every one into his own land.
Every one that is found shall be thrust through, and
every one that is seized shall fall by the sword.
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before
their eyes ; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives
ravished....
For Jahveh will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet
choose Israel...
And the house of Israel shall possess the peoples for
servants and handmaids; and they shall take them
captives whose captives they were, and they shall rule
over their oppressors.1
1 Isaiah xiii. 9-16 and xiv. 1-2.
THE SECOND ISAIAH
185
And it shall come to pass in that day that Jahveh shall
punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and
the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are
gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison,
and after many days shall they be punished.1
And the multitude of thy foes shall be like small dust,
and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as the chaff
that passeth away; yea, it shall be at an instant
suddenly.
Thou slialt be visited of Jahveh of the Hosts with
thunder, and with earthquake, and with great noise, with
storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.
And the multitude of all the nations that march against
thee, and all they that fight against thee, shall be as a
dream, a vision of the night.
And it shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth,
and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is
empty : or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold,
he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint,
and his soul is athirst: so shall the multitude of all the
nations be that march against mount Zion.2
When such a hope becomes, not the theme of rhetorical
effusions, not the outworn phrase of a materialistic clergy,
but the flesh and blood of a people, however lowly it be
in the heart of the hills, it is a formidable people.
§ 3. The Second Isaiah.
The work of the prophets, however, was not yet
complete. Another voice was to be heard, introducing a
new aspect of the evolution of Judaism. This is the
Second Isaiah, the best known, the most Christian, of the
prophets.
A connecting link between the prophets and the
psalms, the Second Isaiah is already the consoler of the
downcast. The imperialism of the Second Isaiah is an
imperialism of the downcast.
The book of the Second Isaiah is a collection of odes.
1 Isaiah xxiv. 21-22.
2 Isaiah xxix. 5-8.
166 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
The writer, however, was unable to speak in his own
name; pseudonymity is the invariable condition of
Hebrew literature. He presented his work as a continu-
ation of the work of the old prophet Isaiah. A book that
had not the paternity of some ancient name would not
have been received at Jerusalem. The literary artifice
he used was this : the aged prophet Isaiah, in the time of
Hezekiah, king of Judah, is represented as consoling the
Jewish people in its misfortunes, and prophesying the
end of the Babylonian captivity and the restoration of
Jerusalem by Cyrus, in the time of Zorobabel. In reality,
however, it is not to the misfortunes of the days of
Hezekiah or of the Deportation that the writer offers his
consolation, but to the evils of the present time. It is
not the end of the Babylonian captivity that the writer
announces, but the return of the exiles from all parts of
the Dispersion; it is not the throwing off of the yoke of
the king of Babylon, but the end of the Egyptian and
Syrian servitude; it is not the restoration of Jerusalem in
the days of Zorobabel, but its future glorification, when
the day of Jahveh shall come.
Like all the prophets and all the Jewish writers, the
Second Isaiah develops in an almost unique way the
classic theme of the evils which are the chastisement
inflicted by Jahveh on the guilty Jews, and the rewards
which the god promises to his people when it returns to
fidelity. But the evils deplored by the Second Isaiah are
no longer the same as those that the early prophets
lamented, and of which they held the threat over the
head of their contemporaries. Formerly they spoke of
invasion, burning, and deportation: now the theme is
that Jerusalem, with all its pride, is a slave, that the
Jewish colonies are humbled in the midst of the goim, and
that the heads of the Jerusalem aristocracy are bad
shepherds who betray the flock.
To whom, indeed, is the Second Isaiah speaking ? To
“him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation
THE SECOND ISAIAH
18?
abhorreth, to the servant of rulers,” to “the prisoners,”
to “ them that are in darkness,” to those that hunger and
thirst, to those whom the mirage and the sun cause to
suffer.1
What does he say to them ?
Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid
of their revilings : for [he adds] the moth shall eat them
up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool.2
Elsewhere there is question of the oppressors of Israel,
who said to it:—
Bow down, that we may go over; and Israel made of
its back as the ground, and as the street to them that
went over.8
This people is robbed and spoiled, he says again.4
Later he speaks to those “ that thirst ” and to those
“ that have no money.”6
The Second Isaiah belongs to the end of the third
century, and is contemporary with the king of Syria
Antiochus the Great. The abominable Joseph, son of
Tobias, is dead, but his sons amply fill his place; one of
them, Hyrcanus, commits the scandals of his father
tenfold worse. One of the odes of the Second Isaiah6 is
evidently a diatribe, with transparent allusions, against
the new farmer of the taxes, the “ son of the sorceress,
the seed of the adulterer and the whore,” who enriches
himself “at the cost of Israel,” which has “rebelled”;
who builds himself “ a strong place on the mountain,”
offers “ presents to the king [of Egypt] and sends
messengers,” and angers Jahveh by “the iniquity of his
covetousness.”7
The prophet returns unwearyingly to the exactions of
the aristocracy.
But the Second Isaiah addresses himself to the exiles
as much as to the Jews who remain in Jerusalem. The
1 Isaiah xlix. 7, 9, and 10. 2 Isaiah li. 7-8. 8 Isaiah li. 23.
4 Isaiah sin. 22. 5 Isaiah lv. 1. 6 Isaiah lvii.
7 Isaiah lvii. 3-5,7, 9, 17.
188 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
third century is the period of the great departure of the
Jews for the towns of the Mediterranean, and the thought
of the poet goes out unceasingly to the miserable
emigrants who languish, in the depths of the ghettos, as
they turn towards the city of their god. The originality
of the Second Isaiah is that he is a consoler of the
afflicted even more than a judge threatening the guilty.
Comfort, comfort my people, saith your god.1
Thus does he open the series of his poems.
The famous poem of the “ Man of Sorrows ” is a
summary of the lamentable picture, on which the Second
Isaiah chiefly dwells, of the humiliations of the Jewish
people; the passage is one of the best known in the
Bible, yet it is still one of the least understood.
We must imagine the men of Jerusalem gathering
round the temple, swathed in their loose mantles, during
long days that are filled only with meditations in common,
prayer, political agitation, anger against the oppressors,
and dreams of the future. What do the great odes of
the prophetic writers do, in this gloomy Asiatic forum,
but legitimise with the authority of the national god
their anger and their desires ? -
One day the poem of the “ Man of Sorrows ” spreads
among this crowd, already become fanatical. It is, it
seems, the work of the old prophet Isaiah. They do not
think of disputing it; the brain of the ancient Jews was
not open to critical questions. And this old poem—
several centuries old, they say—seems to harmonise
marvellously with all the restlessness of their souls..
He hath grown up as a shoot, as a tender plant out of
a dry ground ; he hath no form, nor comeliness ; he hath
no beauty that we should desire him.
Despised and the least of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, like unto him from whom we turn
our faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our maladies, and carried our
1 Isaiah xl. 1.
THE SECOND ISAIAH
189
sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of god,
and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our rebellions, he was bruised
for our iniquities; the chastisement, the price of our
peace, was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed.
And we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and Jahveh hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He is maltreated, and he humbles himself; he opens
not his mouth; as a lamb that is brought to the slaughter,
and as a dumb sheep before her shearers, he openeth not
his mouth.
He is delivered to captivity and judgment, and, of his
generation, who understandeth that he is cut off out of
the land of the living, and stricken for the rebellions of
my people.1
This poem has been the successive theme of all
theologies. Traditional theology has seen in it a predic-
tion of the Messiah, Jesus; liberal Protestant interpreters
have read in it the doctrine of „ redemption; even the
most independent of the critics have agreed to recognise
in it Israel atoning for the sins of the world. The
Hebrew text, however, does not say that Israel was
smitten for the iniquities of other peoples, but for its own
iniquities. We will give an example of the incredible
errors into which the best commentators may be led by
preconceived ideas. The Man of Sorrows is smitten,
says Isaiah, “ for our iniquities,” and the critic explains:
“ Yes, our iniquities......but it is the goim who are
speaking; only the prophet has forgotten to tell us.”
The iniquities expiated by the Man of Sorrows are the
iniquities of Israel; the Man of Sorrows, that is to say,
Israel itself, atones for its own faults. The idea of Israel
atoning for the sins of the world will occur to no one
before St. Paul; it is impossible before the Christian era.
Israel is humbled because it has sinned against Jahveh ;
if the Man of Sorrows, if Israel, is a redeemer, he is a
1 Isaiah liii. 2-8.
190 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
redeemer only of himself; we return once more to the
old familiar idea of the covenant.
But Jahveh now smites his people with a new humilia-
tion. The evils with which the early prophets threatened
Israel were those of a vanquished people ; those deplored
by the prophet of the end of the third century are the
ignominies of oppression. In Jeremiah the sword was
held over the head of Israel: now it is the stick.
Such is the meaning of the “ Man of Sorrows.”
Bound the humiliation of the Jews the prophet brings
again the series of ancient ideas. He enumerates the
faults, the desertions, the apostasies of Israel. Then, to
the men of Jerusalem who are listening to him, he
promises, if Israel returns and keeps faithful, the same
rewards that the First Isaiah has already conjured up
like a mirage before their eyes, and he opens out the
perspective of the glories to come.
Some have seen in the Second Isaiah a tender soul who
dreams of pacific conquest, and summons all peoples to
share the delight of the kingdom of Jahveh. Alas! this
is how the tender soul of the Second Isaiah invited the
Jews gathered in the precincts of the temple to fraternise
with the goim :—
Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin, daughter of
Babylon! Sit on the ground; there is no throne, 0
daughter of the Chaldseans ; for thou shalt no more be
called tender and delicate.
Take the millstones and grind flour ; uncover thy locks,
and make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the
rivers.
Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall
be seen. I will take vengeance, and I shall spare none.
These two things shall come to thee in a moment, in
one day: the loss of children, and widowhood; they shall
come upon thee, in spite of the multitude of thy
sorceries....
There shall come an evil upon thee of which thou shalt
not know the rising; and mischief shall fall upon thee
that thou shalt not be able to put off; and desolation
THE SECOND ISAIAH
191
shall come upon thee suddenly which thou shalt not
foresee....
Behold, they are as stubble, the fire burns them : they
shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.1
Elsewhere:
And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own
flesh, and they shall be drunken with their own blood as
with the juice of the grape.2
-
Later :—
Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of
dizziness, the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink
it again, but I will put it into the hand of them that
afflict thee.3
Jahveh hath put on the garment of vengeance, and
hath clad himself with jealousy as a cloke.
According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay; to
the islands he will repay recompense.
So they shall fear the name of Jahveh from the west,
and his glory from the east; when the enemy shall come
in like a flood, the spirit of Jahveh shall put him to flight.4
I have trodden the peoples in my anger, and trampled
them in my fury, and their blood hath been sprinkled
upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment.
For the day of vengeance is in mine heart.5
And the Jews enfevered, with anger and despair,
repeated with their prophet, as they saw pass the proud
aristocrats whom they accused of denying their god and
their country:—
I number you to the sword, saith Jahveh, and ye shall
all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, ye
did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did
evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I
delighted not.
Therefore thus saith the lord Jahveh:—Behold, my
servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my
servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; behold, my
servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; behold,
my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry
for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.6
1 Isaiah xlvii. 1-14. 2 Isaiah xlix. 26. 3 Isaiah li. 22.
4 Isaiahlix. 17-19. 6 Isaiah lxiii. 3-4. 6 Isaiah lxv. 12-14.
192 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
The hero of the Second Isaiah (who will also be the hero
of the psalms) is designated by the words ebed Jahveh,
which the Christian translations have rendered the
“ Servant of God ”—that is to say, the servant of Jahveh.
It is important to determine the precise meaning. The
Hebrew word ebed has, in the Bible, a meaning which
varies between slave, serf, servant, and domestic. The
Mosaic law distinguishes between the Hebrew ebed, who
is a kind of half-serf and half-servant, and the Canaanite
ebed, who is a pagan slave; but Moses is at the same
time said to be the ebed of Jahveh. In the Second Isaiah
ebed of Jahveh evidently means the Jewish people.
Jahveh is the sovereign, the supreme king, of the Jewish
people, and the expression, ebed of Jahveh, means simply
subject of Jahveh; the Jewish people is the subject of
Jahveh, as all peoples of the East are the subjects—that is
to say, the slaves—of their monarch. The subject of
Jahveh is the slave of Jahveh. The ebed Jahveh is the
sombre group of the men of Jerusalem who wander
about the temple, poor, downcast, and proud. The
Second Isaiah means that the Jewish people, the slave of
its king Jahveh, will become master of the world.
Even more precisely than the First, the Second Isaiah
predicts, to the audience which he fills with his halluci-
nation, the submission of the world to the Jews. He
admits no escape from the dilemma: to submit or perish.
It is a pacific ideal, on condition that the world comes to
its knees. And to his unhappy fellows, oppressed and
humbled a dozen times, the poet repeats mercilessly these
maddening promises:—
The sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their
kings shall minister unto thee..
The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall
perish, yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree,
the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place
of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet
glorious...
THE SECOND ISAIAH
m
The sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending
unto thee ; and all they that despised thee shall bow
themselves down at the soles of thy feet...
Thy people shall inherit the land for ever......I am
Jahveh, and I will hasten these things in their time.1
Indefatigable, the fierce tribune lashes his miserable
audience into fanaticism:—
And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the
sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vine-
dressers.
But ye shall be named the Priests of Jahveh; men
shall call you the servants of your god; ye shall eat the
riches of the nations, and in their glory shall ye boast
yourselves.
For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion
ye shall rejoice in your portion.2
You ask how all that will come about ?
Behold, Jahveh will come with fire, and with his
chariots like a whirlwind ; he maketh a fire of his anger,
and of his threat a flame.
For Jahveh will render his judgment with fire; he will
smite all flesh with his sword; and the slain of Jahveh
shall be without number.3
In that day all the Jews, scattered in the humiliation of
the colonies amid the goim, will be brought back in
triumph to Zion. It is expressed in the figure of the
return from the Deportation; but the Second Isaiah is so
far from thinking of the Babylonian captivity that he
summons the exiles, not merely from the banks of the
Euphrates, but from the west and the south4—that is to
say, from Phoenicia and Egypt, and from the midst of all
nations.5 The imperialist promises are for the Jews of
the Dispersion just as much as for those of Judaea.
The world will be subject to the Jews, and the nations
will pay tribute.
They shall bring gold and incense........the ships of
Tarshish shall come with their silver and their gold.6
1 Isaiah lx. 10-22. 2 Isaiah lxi. 5-7. 3 Isaiah lxvi. 15-16.
4 Isaiah xliii. 5-6. 5 Isaiah lxvi. 20. G Isaiah lx. 6-9.
O
194 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
The Jews shall be masters of the earth.
The time is come to gather all nations and tongues,
that they may come, and see my glory.
And I will set a sign among you, and I will send those
that escape of you unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and
Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles
afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen
my glory ; and they shall declare my glory among the
nations.
And they shall bring all your brethren, for an offering
unto Jahveh, out of all nations upon horses, and in
chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon
dromedaries, to my holy mountain, to Jerusalem, saith
Jahveh.1
And the last touch is:—
They shall look upon the carcases of the men that have
rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring
unto all flesh.2
§ 4. The Internationalisation of the Prophetic Books.
The Age of the Prophets.
We now know the work of the writers whose voice was
to sound in the ears of humanity for so many ages, and
we see that all they did was to reconstitute, democratising
it, the Jewish nationalism, or imperialism, that had been
created before them by Esdras and the Mosaic books.
As we have said, we attack no religion, and we defend
none. The aim of the historian is to discover why and
how certain books arose, which afterwards became sacred
books. We have explained how the books of Moses,
which were national and nationalist works, became
international books; we have now to explain how the
books of the writers called prophets—democratic as well
as national and nationalist books—were internationalised
in their turn.
1 Isaiah lxvi. 18-20.
2 Isaiah lxvi. 24.
NTERNATIONALISATION OF PROPHETIC BOOKS 195
Twenty-four centuries ago there arose, in one of the
smallest States of Western Asia, certain men, an outcome
of the most pressing need of the circumstances, who
preached to their contemporaries the cult of their country
and hatred of their aristocracy.
Internationalism has converted these men into:—
1. The apostles of the conversion of the world to
monotheism ;
2. The protagonists of justice.
History, however, shows that:—
1. The Jewish prophets preached, not the conversion
of the world, but its conquest and submission;
2. The Jewish prophets were the protagonists, not of
justice, but of the claims of their people and their political
party.
The work of the Jewish people, say the Jewish and
Christian orthodoxies, was to teach true religion to the
world.1 Recently Isidore Loeb, in a work published after
his death,1 2 and M. Maurice Yernes, in most of his later
works, have revived the theory of the “ proselytism of the
prophets.” According to them, the Jews dreamed, not of
conquest and submission, but of the conversion of foreign
nations.
The analysis of the prophecies of the two Isaiahs has
fully shown, and the analysis of the psalms and apocalypses
will constantly show, what kind of “ conversion ” there
was in the minds of the Jews.
In what did the “ conversion ” of foreign nations
consist ? First, to obey the Jews; secondly, to pay
tribute to them. One must not be deceived by the
religious form that the Jewish claims took. The Jewish
State is a State ruled by priests, in which the prophets
aspire to replace the old clerical aristocracy by a clerical
democracy. Though framed by the priests, the Jewish
1 See Munk, La Palestine, commencement of Book III.
2 La literature despauvres dans la Bible ; Paris, 1892.
196 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
law is a national law; the taxes paid to the Jewish
clergy are taxes paid to the Jewish Government. A
purely religious law, in the sense that we give to the
expression—that is to say, a purely moral law—is an
impossible idea in Judaea. So monstrous an anachronism
robs Jewish history of its real features; the glory of the
Jewish people is that it, the lowest people of the East,
came to dream, like the Roman people, of material
conquest, of the political submission of the world.
The Romans sent legions and administrators to
conquer the world. The Jews relied on Jahveh and the
hosts of heaven, Jahveh Sebaot. Jewish “ proselytism ”
differs from Roman “proselytism” only in the choice of
means. On both sides the design is to conquer foreign
nations; and the same dilemma is proposed to the world
—submission (conversion, if one insists on the word) or
extermination. There is no ambiguity; the two Isaiahs
and, later, the psalms and apocalypses repeat it invariably;
if the nations be not “ converted,” they shall be exter-
minated.
In the period of the Isaiahs, as in the time of Deutero-
nomy, Jewish nationalism, surrounded by the most
formidable dangers, drew itself up ferociously to face
other peoples. In the latter case the horizon is limited,
in the former case it is broad; but in the third century
just as much as in the fourth the idea is to reduce
foreign nations, or to perish. Nothing is more human;
nothing is simpler. Internationalism, reading “ conver-
sion” where it finds “conquest,” puts a dogma in the
place of history.
That the prophets were the protagonists of justice in
the world is another error that we have exposed. Even
the most independent commentators of to-day praise the
prophets for having claimed justice; some for having
created justice. Did not James Darmesteter, in 1891,
propose to France and the world a return to the Jewish
prophets? History should expose this effect of inter-
NTERNATIONALISATION OF PROPHETIC BOOKS 197
nationalisation, for the idea of justice was never more
cruelly denied than by the men of the Jerusalem
democracy.
In what does justice consist ?
In this: to render to every man what belongs to him.
Suum cuique.
Justice has been represented with scales in her hands.
She is devoid of passion, and disinterested; without
passion, that is to say, she obeys neither hatred, nor love,
nor anger, nor fear, nor vengeance, nor envy; dis-
interested, that is to say, the thought of his own
advantage never whispers in the ear of the judge.
Whence comes the sentiment of justice? From an
equal consciousness of rights and duties; of duties that
come of rights, and rights that impose duties.
A human, contingent thing, depending on place and
time, differing in different places, overturned by circum-
stances, speaking one language one side of the Pyrenees
and another language the other, justice has nothing but
the name in common with the metaphysical idol imagined
by certain philosophers, and especially worshipped since
the days of Kant. Justice, a quality of an essentially
practical order, a purely political virtue, an empirical and
relative fact, is a Roman conception ; the allegory of the
scales is Roman; suum cuique is a Roman device;
“ Justitia est constans ac perpetua voluntas jus suum
cuique tribuendi.”
The Romans found the sentiment of justice in the
consciousness of their rights and their duties. Masters
of the world (that is their right), they owe justice to the
world (that is their duty). The ideal Roman is the judge
without hatred and without love, without anger or fear,
without vengeance or envy. The ideal Roman, did we
say? More correctly, the ideal of the Roman. The
definition of justice remains, after two thousand years,
the definition of the word justitia.
The Romans arose to that height because they were a
198 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
-
military people, and therefore subject to a hierarchy and
a discipline, and a political people, and therefore careful
to establish their domination on unshakable bases. The
Jews, a people of exalted fanatics, impassioned by unin-
terrupted humiliations, were eternally incapable of that
effort of serene moderation which justice implies.
The prophets are the spokesmen of a people and a
party; they demand every advantage for this people and
party. The idea of rendering to the goim what belongs
to the goim, or to the aristocrats what belongs to the
aristocrats, is at the very antipodes of the thought of the
prophets. Suiim cuique, say the Latins; everything for
us, say the prophets. Is there a single passage in which
the prophets do not demand the condemnation of their
opponents ?
Justice renders even to the enemy that to which he
has a right. The prophets are impassioned tribunes who
devote the goim and the aristocrats to extermination,
unless they come to their knees. As patriots and dema-
gogues they were true to their parts. But what common
measure is there between the demands of a people and a
party and the serene concession of his right to every man ?
The very idea did not enter their heads. The transla-
tions, which always have a pious bias, render as “ justice ”
a certain number of Hebrew words, not one of which has
that meaning.
Mishpat properly means judgment, sentence; when the
prophets invoke mishpat, they purely and simply call
upon their opponents the sentence of Jahveh—in other
words, chastisement.
Let judgment, says Amos, roll on like the waves of a
river, and justice flow like an unceasing torrent.1 He
means the judgment that will condemn our opponents—
the justice that will grant us all our claims.
Sadiq, the just, means the man who lives honestly or
1 Amos v. 24.
NTERNATIONALISATION OE PROPHETIC BOOKS 199
piously; it has nothing in common with the meaning of
justus.
Mishar and nakohah, straightness, are much the same
as honesty and piety; here, again, there is nothing of
justitia.
The goim and the aristocrats who oppress and despoil
the Jewish people stand for the rich man oppressing and
despoiling the poor. The prophets who dream of exter-
minating or bringing to their knees the aristocrats and
the goim are the poor man oppressing and despoiling the
rich. Behind neither the one nor the other do I perceive
the august shade of justice.
It may be objected that justice is employed in protecting
the weak. But is it also employed in exterminating the
powerful, in making outlaws of those who dissent ?
Serenity, disinterestedness, gravity, the stifling of hatred,
the overcoming of anger, the abandonment of vengeance,
a generous concession of rights in correspondence with
duties—not one of these characters of justice is found in
the prophetic books. Everything in them is national and
democratic ; it is the glory and the inspiration of the
books.
At the root of the Jewish books is the eminently
nationalist idea of the choice of Israel. Jahveh, the
most unjust of gods, has chosen the Jewish people, not
on account of their merits, as the Bible says unceasingly,
but by his own free choice; he has chosen the Jewish
people, and rejected the others. Christian theology will
convert this iniquity into the dogma of predestination and
grace. The eminently democratic idea that the popular
party alone represents Israel is not less fundamental in
the prophets. Among the Jews the prophets separate the
men of their party from the men of the opposite party;
the choice of Israel becomes in the prophets the choice of
the democratic party of Jerusalem; Israel represents, in
the prophets, merely the Jews of the prophetic party.
We must not read it “justice”; we must read it
200 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
“ claims ”—claims that are more or less authorised;
claims of a people, the Jewish people; of a party, the
democracy.
Internationalisation is, as we said, the art of appro-
priating words that had a concrete meaning in their time
and place, and investing these words with a general, and
purely moral, signification.
The history of ancient Judaism and primitive Chris-
tianity may be summed up thus : a national and nationalist
fact which becomes an international fact. The task of the
historian of Judaism is to detect the ancient national and
nationalist fact under the modern international fact. The
evolution of the Jewish people should be studied just as
coldly as the evolution of any other people of ancient
Asia.
On whatever side we look, we cannot find in the
prophets, any more than in the rest of the Bible, anything
else but national works, the outcome of the need of a
definite period. At the root of the prophetic books there
is the covenant agreed upon between Jahveh and Israel.
The obligation of Israel is that it be faithful to Jahveh;
the obligation of Jahveh is, on account of this fidelity, to
give the world to Israel.
But in what does this fidelity to Jahveh, which is
demanded of Israel, consist ?
If we are to believe the majority of commentators and
historians, Jahveh asks of Israel, before he will give it the
kingdom of the world, the practice of the whole of what
are called the Christian virtues.
Nothing of the kind. Jahveh merely demands that his
people shall form an absolute nationalism in opposition to
foreigners. The laws relating to the social order and
fraternal life are only promulgated from Jew to Jew, not
from Jew to foreigner. We have seen that the “ neigh-
bour ” of a Jew is another Jew; a pagan is not the neigh-
bour of a Jew. We have seen that the “ foreigner ” who
NTERNATIONALISATION OF PROPHETIC BOOKS 201
is protected by law is the mercenary or the proselyte who
lives on Jewish soil under the law of Jahveh. The
Jewish law is only for the Jews and the Jndaisers.
Even when Jahveh becomes a universal god he is the
prototype of a national god; the Jewish law, even if it
become universal law (by conquest), will remain Jewish
law. An absolute nationalism—that is the gist of the
prophets; and it is the gist, too, of the psalms and
apocalypses.
A statistic will show this.
The covenant concluded between Jahveh and Israel is
set forth or recalled in about five hundred passages of the
prophetic books. About two hundred of these passages
do not give the conditions with any exactness; they
merely recall the covenant. But the conditions are stated
in about three hundred passages. We may distribute
these three hundred passages in groups.
In four cases out of ten the condition is that they shall
not worship foreign gods;
In one case out of ten, that they shall not represent
Jahveh in a material form;
In one case out of ten, that they shall not practise his
cult anywhere but in the temple at Jerusalem;
In a little less than one case in ten, that they shall
observe the Sabbath—a supreme commandment;
In a little more than one case in ten, that they shall
not kill or steal; these are precepts of ordinary law;
fornication and adultery are almost always, in the pro-
phets, symbolical expressions for the worship of foreign
gods;
Lastly, in two cases out of ten, it is enjoined that they
do not violate justice, despoil the weak, or oppress the
orphan, the widow, and the mercenary stranger residing
in Judaea and observing the Jewish law; but it is quite
understood that there is question only of justice due to
the Jew, of protection due to the Jewish or Judaising
weak, widow, or orphan,
202 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
Hence, in only one case in ten is there question of the
rules of ordinary morality; these, moreover, either im-
plicitly or explicitly, apply only between Jew and Jew;
twice the covenant imposes a law of democratic equality
and protection of the lowly in Israel; in seven cases out
of ten it aims merely at concentrating Jewish nationalism
round Jahveh.
The same statistical procedure would yield analogous
results from the Mosaic books.
Seven-tenths of the prophetic prescriptions and three-
fourths of the Decalogue and the Mosaic law are devoted
to religious questions; this frightful preponderance of the
cult over civil, political, and moral law means simply that
the Jewish soul, in order to live and last, has concentrated
in a fanatical nationalism, and given to its country the
name of Jahveh, god of Israel.
The men of Jerusalem had not to formulate the
principles of a subjective religion for future ages; and
the historian, in removing from the Jewish writers the
false appearance of an impossible spirituality, instead of
lowering their grandeur really restores to them their native
truth.
What is there left when we have studied the develop-
ment of Jewish nationalism in the prophetic books and
the Mosaic law, pointed out the democratic tendency, and
noted certain principles of right and morals that are
common to all peoples ? Nothing.
Nothing, unless it be this:—
The malediction of politics; to make alliances and
organise armies is a mockery of Jahveh.
The malediction of luxury; luxury is an outrage on
Jahveh.
The malediction of commerce ; agriculture and pastoral
work alone are permitted to the children of Jahveh;
commerce is for the goim.
Reprobation of the joy of life and of pleasure; chastity
NTERNATIONALISATION OE PROPHETIC BOOKS 203
is erected to the level of a virtue for the first time in
history; love becomes a shameful necessity, of which one
is ashamed.
And then the malediction of the great, the noble, and
the strong. Greatness, strength, and nobility are so many
outrages on Jahveh. Jahveh, it is said a hundred times,
has no deeper joy than in humbling the powerful, felling
the strong, and flouting the noble.
And then the irrevocable condemnation of all that is
intellectual, of art and science; never were the “intel-
lectuals ” so much hated as they were by Jewish nation-
alism.
There will be a day of Jahveh on every one that is
proud and every one that is lifted up;
And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, and upon all the
oaks of Bashan ;
And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills
that are lifted up ;
And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced
wall;
And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all that
charms the eye.1
There will be a day of Jahveh upon all that charms
the eye ! Jahveh, the national god, was the sublime
creation that gives rise to an imperialism that would
conquer the world. What an admirable reward the god
has given to the people who invented him ! But this
god, who in ancient times bore, among other names, the
name of Moloch, remains the terrible god to whom
children are sacrificed. If he has given the world as a
reward to his people, he has exacted in return the first
born of the human sentiments.
Such is the meaning of the covenant, the basis of
Judaism.
It is a commonplace to say that the legendary books
and the prophetic books are resplendent with literary
beauty. If Genesis, and the romances of the two Isaiahs,
1 Isaiah ii. 12-16,
204 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, had not been full of pages that
attract our admiration even in an irreligious age, they
would never have accomplished the work that they have
done. They would have put no enthusiasm into the
men of Judaea; they would not have overthrown the
pagan world; they would not agitate souls to-day. We
find in them nothing of the perfectly harmonious beauty
which Greece created; what we find are strong souls, that
see strongly, and, to express their vision, use strong words.
Jerusalem has, by a piece of fortune that I had almost
called miraculous, given birth to a moral dynasty of men
of genius, men of iron, men of dreams, men of fire, who
have made it live for ages—in scecula sceculorum, as the
pride of triumphant Judaism will afterwards sing. But
men of genius are not merely the summary of a period
or a tradition; the sight of the things around them
awakes in them an understanding, a divination, an idea,
that it does not awaken in the men about them. They
flare up, like torches, in the sombre night. A great
shadow, undefined, mortally vague, spreads on every side;
and suddenly the lightning comes, and they appear, they
blaze, they are lighthouses, they are the star over a sea
where all was chaos, and which becomes in their light a
broad road towards the future.
The anonymous writers who, in idealising the figure of
the ancient dervishes of Palestine, created the characters
of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, to meet the most
pressing needs of their country and their time, stand out
in the history of the world. And the century, the third
century, which witnessed their appearance, should be
known as the century of the prophets.
Two hundred years earlier there had been, across the
sea, a prodigious outpouring of disinterested splendour.
The Greek genius gave birth to art and science. The
brains of men learned at Athens to be in harmony, and
humanity may develop on the education created by the
age of Pericles.
NTERNATIONALISATION OF PROPHETIC BOOKS 205
Later there will be the age of Augustus, and its
successor, the age of the Antonines. It will be the
Roman epoch. And humanity will learn from Rome
law, the art of living in society, of commanding and
obeying, of being peoples.
The moment when humanity will awake at the light
of Greek culture, after a thousand years of stumbling in
the dark, will be the age of Leo X.; it will assuredly be
the Renascence, for the world will be born again to
thought and to joy.
-
But there was an age when certain men, in the
wildest corner of the universe, founded, in poems, dis-
courses, and frightful imprecations, something new,
something unknown to either Greek or Roman civilisa-
tion, something that will in turn be called Judaism, then
Christianity, then, in a general word, Religion, and that
will, in the days when evolution reaches its limit, become
Socialism. Whether we bless or curse that age, let us
recognise its greatness; it is the age of the prophets.
Judaism may now spread throughout the world. We
have seen it radiate from Jerusalem across Judaea, then
through the whole of Palestine; from there it has
infiltrated into cognate and neighbouring lands, Moab,
Edom, Ammon, and Syria; then colonies have gone out
and settled in Asia Minor: in Egypt, in the islands of the
Mediterranean, even on Greek soil. The Jews take with
them everywhere the words of their prophets, consoling
them in their weakness, their humiliations, promising
them the victory in an assured time. They can bear
distress and oppression, mockery and insults; they have
with them this viaticum of enduring hopes and intimate
certainties that Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the two Isaiahs
have given them. The survival of Judaism amid so
many causes of ruin could not be explained without the
work of these writers of genius.
In the west, meantime, the power of Rome is growing;
Carthage, its great enemy, is vanquished. Presently
206 TWO ISAIAHS, AND IMPERIALIST REVIVAL
Greece will become a Roman province; for the moment she
wears herself out in intestine war. Her political agony
will not, indeed, lessen her intellectual domination;
intellectual Greece will triumph, in proportion as the
policy of Rome triumphs. The third century is the
time of the great philosophic schools that take their rise
in Plato, Aristotle, and the time of the first Scipios. But
amid these mountains of Judaea, of which the scholars of
Greece and the Senate of Rome hardly know the name,
there are men who have prepared the revolution that will
one day destroy the Graeco-Roman world.
PART THIRD
THE APOCALYPSES
Chapter I.
HYMNS IN THE SYNAGOGUES
The prophecies of the Second Isaiah date from about the
year 200; the apocalypse of Daniel from about the year
164. The Second Isaiah closes the century of the
prophets; Daniel inaugurates the era of the apocalypses.
There is no breach of continuity between them. The
apocalypse follows the prophets logically no less than
historically. The last of the minor prophets, especially
Zechariah, the most significant of them, are witnesses of
the filiation. Before passing from one period to the other,
from the prophets to the apocalypses, we must consider
the psalms. A vast collection of short national poems,
beginning in the third century and continuing during
half of the second, the psalms will enable us to
characterise the state of soul of the Jewish people at the
time when, the voices of the prophets having ceased, the
apocalypses appear.
Beuss, the great Biblical scholar, has called the psalms
the hymn-book of the Synagogue.
In point of fact, the synagogue had arisen, and was
developing in Judaea and in the Jewish colonies. Judaism
had only one temple, that of Jerusalem; so the Mosaic
law had enjoined. But the one temple that had sufficed
during the fifth and fourth centuries, when the Jewish
State comprised only Jerusalem and its outskirts, and
even sufficed when Judaism had spread about Jerusalem
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over the territory of Palestine, could not suffice now that
Israel had settlements in the whole of Palestine, in Syria,
Egypt, Asia Minor, the islands, and in Greece itself. On
the other hand, it was impossible to infringe the pri-
mordial law of Judaism; and the sacerdotal aristocracy
at Jerusalem would not have tolerated rivals.
The Jerusalem temple remained the one temple of
Jahveh. There only could holocausts be offered to him;
there only did the series of official rites proceed. Offerings
and tithes continued to flow to the Jerusalem temple;
and, from all the Jewries of the world, it was to that alone
that the pilgrimages brought the tribute of the piety of
the faithful. The Jerusalem temple remained the centre
of the Jewish fatherland. But there arose houses of
prayer, preaching, and patriotic gatherings; even in
Jerusalem there were, round the temple, pious shelters
for the pilgrims of various nationalities; and these were
called synagogues.
No cult was practised in the synagogues; no sacrifices
were offered in them; they were meeting-places. There
one listened to the reading of the Law and, later, of the
prophets; men were strengthened in the love of their
country ; and, with the reading of the national books,
the commentaries, and the exhortations of those who
speak, they loved to sing in common, in long-drawn
sombre melody, hymns in which their souls found
expression.
The psalms were the hymns they sang in the
synagogues.
Who composed these hymns ?
The old ecclesiastical exegesis did. not hesitate to
declare that the psalms were the work written in the
tenth century by the pious King David and other
venerable characters of antiquity. We cannot take a
single step in Jewish literature without finding pseude-
pigraphy. The psalms were composed by the poets of
the third and second centuries. The form, which is
HYMNS IN THE SYNAGOGUES
209
suggested by various passages in the prophets, was
probably borrowed from ancient Babylonian poetry;
here again, however, the Jews, in appropriating a foreign
thing, succeeded in making it eminently Jewish.
Just as the authors of the prophetic books had sought
in ancient Israelitic history the situations in relation to
which they had created the discourses they wished to
address to their contemporaries, so the authors of the
psalms took their situations from ancient history,
especially from the legends of King David; and, by a
similar artifice, they represented the songs which they
would have sung to their contemporaries to be the
antique work of certain heroes of their national history.
Most of the psalms thus composed remained discon-
nected and independent of each other, and formed the
collection known as the book of psalms; others, how-
ever, were inserted in the historical books, and even in
the prophetical books, purporting to be lyrical fragments
uttered on special occasions by Moses or his sister Mary,
by David, or by Hezekiah.
As an outcome of the misfortunes of the end of the
third and beginning of the second centuries, the hymns
of the synagogue have a certain prayer as their constant
refrain:—
“ Jahveh, save us from our enemies; avenge us on our
enemies ; annihilate our enemies.”
The celebrated psalm cxxxvii., Super jiumina Baby-
toms, must be quoted in full:—
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we
wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows of the land.
For there they that carried us away captive required of
us a song ; and they that wasted us required of us mirth,
saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How should we sing the songs of Jahveh in a strange
land?
If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget
her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the
P
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root of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my
chief joy.
Remember, Jahveh, the children of Edom, who said, in
the day of Jerusalem: Rase it, rase it, even the founda-
tion thereof.
O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy
shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little
ones against the stones.
Psalm xxi. 8-10 :—
Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies ; thy right
hand shall find out those that hate thee.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of
thine anger; Jahveh, thy wrath shall swallow them up,
and the fire shall devour them.
Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their
seed from among the children of men.
Psalm xxxv. 26 :—
Let them be clothed with shame and dishonour.
Psalm lv. 15 and 23 :—
Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick
into the home of the dead.
But thou, 0 god, shalt bring them down into the bottom
of the pit, and they shall not live out half their days.
Psalm lviii. 6-10 :—
Break their teeth, O god, in their mouth; break the
jaw of the young lions, 0 Jahveh.
Let them melt away as waters which run continually ;
let the arrows they put to the bow be as if broken.
As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass
away; let them be like the untimely birth of a woman,
which hath not seen the sun.
Before your pots can feel the thorns, let the whirlwind
take them away, both green and aflame.
Let me rejoice in seeing my vengeance; let me bathe
my feet in their blood.
Psalm lxviii. 23 :—
Let the tongue of thy dogs have its share of the enemy,
saith Jahveh.
Psalm lxxix. 6, 10, and 12:—
Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have known
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211
not thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called
upon thy name.
Let it be known among the heathen in our sight that
there is vengeance for the blood which is shed.
Render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom
their reproach.
Psalm lxxxiii. 9-17 :—
Do unto them as unto the Midianites, as to Sisera, as
to Jabin, at the brook of Kison ;
Which perisheth at Endor, and were as dung for the
earth.
Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb, and their
kings as Zebah, and as Zalmunna;
My god, make them like a whirlwind, as the stubble
before the wind, as the fire that burneth the forest, and
as the flame that setteth the mountains on fire.
So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them
afraid with thy storm.
Fill their faces with shame, and they will seek thy
name, O Jahveh.
Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea,
let them be put to shame and perish.
Psalm xciv. 1-3 :—
God of vengeance, Jahveh, god of vengeance, show
thyself.
Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth ; render them
their reward.
How long shall they be glad ?
At times the Jew of the psalms boasts of loving his
enemies......We find, again, in psalm cix. 6-15, how he
loves them:—
Set thou a wicked man over him ; and let Satan stand
at his right hand.
When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and
let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his children be vagabonds, and beg; let them seek
their bread far from their ruined homes.
Let the extortioner cast his net on all that he hath,
and let the strangers spoil the fruit of his labour.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither
let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
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Let his posterity be cut off; and in another age let
their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with
Jahveh, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before Jahveh continually, and let him
cut off the memory of them from the earth.
And later, 18-19 :—
He clothes himself with cursing like as with his
garment, and it comes like water into his bowels, and
like oil into his bones.
Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him,
and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
And, by way of conclusion, 21:—
And do thou, for me, lord Jahveh, for thy name’s sake,
because thy mercy is great.
Psalm cxxxix. contains the avowal (22) without
disguise:—
I hate them with perfect hatred.
Who are these enemies on whom the vengeance of
Jahveh is called ?
They are the “ wicked that is to say, for the tradi-
tionalist Jews, foreigners and Hellenising Jews.
The “ wicked ” are, first, foreigners, the men who, both
in Judsea and the Jewish colonies, “oppress the Jewish
people,”1 “ the nations that have not known thee, the
kingdoms that have not called upon thy name,”2 “the
neighbours who have outraged Jahveh,”3 those “ who
have burned up the synagogues of god,”4 those “ who
have sought to cut them off from being a nation, that the
name of Israel may be no more in remembrance,”5 “all
nations that compassed it about,”6 etc.
The “wicked” are also the Hellenising Jews, the
aristocrats who live in opulence, the proud priests who
exploit the poor, “those who glorify themselves,”7 who
“are inclosed in their own fat,”8 who “render not
1 All the psalms, passim. 2 Psalms Ixxix. 6.
3 Psalms Ixxix. 12, and passim. * Psalms Ixxiv. S.
5 Psalms lxxxiii. 4. 6 Psalms cxviii. 10.
7 Psalms lxxiii. 8. 8 Psalms xvii. 10.
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213
justice,” 1 who are “ powerful they are, nevertheless,
the “ brothers ” of the poor, “ sons of the same mother,” 2
and—it is said quite literally—“ the princes of the Jewish
people.” 3
While the enemies of the traditionalist Jews are called
the “ wicked,” the traditionalist Jews are called the “ just ”
(sadiq), the “pious” (hasid), the “holy” (qadosh), the
“ poor ” (cini), the “ humble ” (anav), the “ needy ” (ebion).
The procedure is elementary. Everything of the tradi-
tionalist Jew is good; all that is hostile to him is wicked.
Good, wicked; just, unjust; holy, perverse—the use of
the words is absolute.
The traditionalist Jews, the puritans, the men of the
people, have all the virtues that are gathered up in the
words “holiness” and “humility.” The others, on the
contrary, their enemies, are “violent,” “sanguinary,”
“ pitiless,” “ persecutors,” “ tyrannical,” “ thieves,”
“exploiters,” “impudent,” “insolent,” “their mouths
full of insults,” “proud,” “braggarts,” “liars,” “calum-
niators”; they have “vipers’ tongues”; they are “ knavish,”
“ treacherous,” “ doing evil for its own sake,” “ impious,”
“blasphemers,” “hardened sinners”; they are—it is the
great crime—“ rich,” “ contented,” “ happy,” “ tranquil,”
and, to crown the whole, “ senseless.”
At the root of the psalms, as of all the Judaic books,
is the celebrated covenant agreed upon by Jahveh and
Israel. Jahveh has promised victory to Israel, Israel
claims from Jahveh the fulfilment of his promise.
“If thou art powerful, Jahveh, show it.......Since thou
hast made us promises, Jahveh, keep them...........If thou
wouldst be honoured, protect us, Jahveh.”
Frequently the Jew of the psalms admits that he has
“ sinned ”; frequently he denies it. He has not offended
Jahveh ; it was his fathers who offended.
Sometimes the argument is mixed with quibbling.
1 Psalms, every page. 2 Psalms 1. 20 and Ixix. 8.
3 Psalms cxiii. 8.
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In psalm lxxxix. (30-37) the following reasoning is put
to Jahveh:—
“Thou hast promised us thy alliance. If we offend
thee, by not fulfilling thy law, chastise us. But that does
not justify thee in not fulfilling thy promise. Strike, but
pay.”
The payment is, for the Jew of the psalms, the “ enjoy-
ment of his inheritance.” 1 Palestine was the inheritance
promised by Jahveh to his people in the days of Deutero-
nomy ; now, ever since the two Isaiahs, it embraces the
whole world.
I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and
the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a sceptre of iron; thou
shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.2
He shall send the rod of my strength out of Zion, and I
shall rule in the midst of mine enemies.8
The lord shall crush kings ; he shall fill the nations with
dead bodies; he shall crush the heads of the earth.4
They will bind their kings with chains, and their
ministers with fetters of iron.5
The nations that have not been destroyed will be
subject, and will pay tribute. The dilemma proposed to
the goim by the two Isaiahs is still there—to submit or
perish.
Jahveh will make us princes in all the earth.6
Jahveh will bring the nations under our feet.7
Kings shall bring presents unto thee; they will come to
cast themselves at thy feet with pieces of silver.8
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him;
and his enemies shall lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall bring presents;
the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
Yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations
shall serve him.9
The miserable Jews scattered among the foreign
peoples will return in triumph to Judaea.
1 Psalms xvi. 5-6. 2 Psalms ii. 8-9. 3 Psalms cx. 1-2.
4 Psalms cx. 5-6. 6 Psalms cxlix. 8. 6 Psalms xlv. 16.
7 Psalms xlvii. 3. 8 Psalms Ixviii. 29-30. 9 Psalms lxxii. 9-11.
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215
Jahveh will redeem the exiles, and gather them out of
all lands, from the east and from the west, from the
north and from the south.1
Then there shall reign over the world a king descended
from David, who “ will have dominion from sea to sea,
and from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth.”..2 It
will be a kingdom in which the face of Jahveh shall
shine; in which there will be a “fullness of joy and
pleasures for evermore”;8 in which the Jew will be
“glorified and satisfied with days”;4 and “ so heaped up
with good things in his age that his youth will be
renewed like the eagle’s.”8
Such is the dream. Here is the reality:—
Have mercy upon me, Jahveh, for I am weak ; heal
me, Jahveh, for my bones are vexed.6
I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I
my bed to swim ; I water my couch with my tears.7
Consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate
me.8
Hear the humiliation of the afflicted, the cry of anguish
of the poor.9
I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men and
despised of the people. They that see me laugh me to
scorn.10
Have mercy upon me, Jahveh, for I am in trouble;
mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my
belly.
My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing;
my strength faileth, and my bones are consumed.
I am a reproach, even among my neighbours; I am a
great reproach and a fear to mine acquaintance; they
that see me without flee from me.
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like
a broken vessel.11
Elsewhere:—
My wounds stink and are corrupt....
I go mourning all day long.
1 Psalms cvii. 2-8, and
3 Psalms xvi. 11.
6 Psalvis vi. 2.
9 Psalms xii. 5.
many other places.
4 Psalms xci. 16.
7 Psalms vi. 6.
10 Psalms xxii. 6-7.
2 Psalms Ixxii. 8.
6 Psalms ciii. 5.
8 Psalms ix. 13.
11 Psalms xxxi. 9-12.
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My loins are filled with inflammation, and there is no
soundness in my flesh.
I am feeble and sore broken; I roar by reason of the
disquietness of my heart.1
Psalm xlii. begins with a famous lyric movement:—
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, 0 god...
But if the soul of the psalmist pants after his god, it
is because he is oppressed by his neighbours, and awaits
vengeance of his god. I quote :—
Mine enemies reproach me and break my bones........0
my soul, hope thou in god........may my god be my
salvation.2
Let us continue :—
We are like sheep appointed for meat....
A reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to
them that are round about us.
We are a byword among the nations.......
My confusion is continually before me, and the shame
of my face covereth me.8
Tacitus and Juvenal will, at a later date, speak of the
Jew just as he speaks of himself:—
Be merciful unto me, O god; for man would swallow
me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me.4
Save me, 0 god; for the waters are come in unto my
soul, and I sink in deep mire.5
When I take as a garment the garment of affliction, I
become a mockery to them.
They that sit in the gate speak of me, and I am the
song of the drunkards.6
Deliver me out of the mire.7
Thou knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my
dishonour.
Reproach breaketh my heart, and I am full of heaviness ;
and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.8
And the psalmist adds :—
1 Psahns xxxviii. 5-8. 3 Psalms xlii. 10-11. 8 Psalms xliv. 11-15.
4 Psalms Ivi. 1. 5 Psahns lxix. 1-2. 6 Psahns lxix. 11-12.
7 Psahns lxix. 14. 8 Psahns lxix. 19-20.
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217
Mine enemies gave me gall for my meat, and in my
thirst they gave me vinegar.1
One can thus understand the cry of these men, when
they turn upon their enemies:—
Let their table become a snare before them, and trap in
the midst of their welfare.
Let their eyes be darkened that they see not; and make
their loins to shake.
Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy
wrathful anger take hold of them.
Let their habitation be desolate, and let none dwell in
their tents...
Add iniquity unto their iniquity, and let them not come
into thy justice.
Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and
not be written in it with the just.2
The just man always means the Jew; the wicked, the
enemy of the Jew. And the just man, the Jew, is now
the humiliated:—
We are a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and
derision to them that are round about us.3
My bones cleave to my skin.
I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl
in the ruins.
I have lost sleep, and am as a sparrow alone upon the
house top.
Mine enemies reproach me all the day......
I eat ashes like bread, and mingle my drink with tears.4
I am gone like the shadow when it lengtheneth; I am
tossed up and down as the locust.5
I am small and despised.6
We are exceedingly filled with contempt; our soul is
exceedingly filled with mockery.7
Jahveh, attend unto my cry; for I am brought very
low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are
stronger than I.8
We dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
dead.
Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; my
heart within me is desolate.9
1 Psalms lxix. 21. 2 Psalms lxix. 22-28. 3 Psalms Ixxix. 4.
4 Psalms cii. 5-10. 5 Psalms cix. 28. 6 Psalms cxix. 141.
7 Psalms cxxiii. 3. 8 Psalms cxlii. 6. 9 Psalms cxliii. 3-4.
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But the counterpart of the humility of the Jew is the
omnipotence of his god.
Jahveh, the little local god worshipped by David, the
national god created by the patriotic spirit of the early
priests of Jerusalem, the saviour who has brought Judah
back from exile and raised up again the walls of the city,
the protector of the ardent Jewish congregation, has
gradually become the unique strength of these wretched
men; and his praise flows unceasingly through the
psalms. Jahveh alone can award the victory to his
people. All power belongs to Jahveh. Not only can the
enemies of the Jews do nothing against Jahveh ; not only
can the Jews themselves do nothing against Jahveh; but
all that the Jews do, or can do, does not count, and is
nothing.
I trust not in my bow, neither shall my sword save me ;
it is thou alone that dost save us from our enemies.1
Except Jahveh build the house, they labour in vain that
build it; except Jahveh keep the city, the watchman
watcheth in vain.
In vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late; Jahveh
giveth just the same to his beloved during sleep.2
Never were perseverance and tenacity pushed so far;
but never, at the same time, was contempt of personal
action, of virile energy, human liberation, and bold front
proclaimed so ferociously. In the prophets the Jewish
soul had not pushed to the extreme the idea that Jahveh
alone can do things. Jahveh was the great figure that
dominated the history of Israel; but, if it were only in its
rebellions and blasphemies, Israel still existed beside
Jahveh. The struggle was still on between Jacob and
the god. Now the full consequences of the Judaic spirit
appear. The covenant produces its effects.
Jahveh is strong in direct proportion to the weakness
of his people; powerful in proportion to its humiliation.
1 Psalms xliv. 6.
2 Psalms cxxvii. 1-2.
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219
The lowliest of people needed, if it were to live and
triumph, the most powerful of gods.
What is to be done by such feeble men in the hands of
so strong a god ?
Give themselves to him, entirely and unreservedly.
Expect everything from him.
Expect nothing of themselves.
Expect no result of their efforts.
Yield like the leaf that is borne in the wind, the stick
that drifts on the stream, the stone that is flung from the
sling.
And, simply, observe the commandments.
The Jew has made a covenant with his god. Each
must give something. The Jew has promised his god
that he will observe his law; he looks to him for
everything.
All they that see me, laugh me to scorn; they shoot out
the lip, they shake the head.
He trusteth to Jahveh, they say; let him bring him
forth, let him deliver him, seeing he delights in him.
Thou art he that took me out of the womb ; that made
me rest in safety when I was upon my mother’s breasts;
I was cast upon thee from the womb ; thou art my god
from my mother’s belly.
Be not far from me, when trouble is near, when there
is none to help...
Be thou not far from me, Jahveh ; 0 my strength, haste
thee to deliver me from the sword...
And I will tell thy glory everywhere; I will celebrate
thee; I will glorify thee; I will pay my vows before thee.1
“ Heaven helps those who help themselves ” is a pagan,
not a Jewish, precept. It means, first, that you must
help yourself, make an effort, be active, will; you must
be the wind, not the leaf—the current, not the stick—the
sling, not the stone. Heaven will then help you; but it
matters little, because by your own effort you have
deserved to be helped.
Israel, on the contrary, expects its salvation and victory
1 Psalms xxii. 7-25.
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from Jahveh. He waits in a ferocious and invincible
obstinacy, but he waits in prayer. And the weaker he
makes himself, the more he will rely on the favour of
Jahveh; and the more he relies on Jahveh, the weaker
and more lowly he will become.
Thus is faith defined, in religious language. The Jews
had a glowing faith, for they believed simply in their god.
They had also the virtue of love; that is to say, by the
very fact of their concentration they had the love of one’s
nation which engenders hatred of the rest of the human
race, odium generis humani, as Tacitus will say. They
had also hope, besides faith and hatred—the hope that
their god will give them what they desire. Thus they
created the trinity of the three theological virtues: Faith,
Hope, and Hatred.
Such is the hymn-book in which the Jews sang their
ideal at the beginning of the second century. Some of
the psalms are earlier, and date from the time of the later
prophets; some are later, and seem to have been written
during the guerilla warfare of the Machabees. But they
have a great future. Composed by the lowliest among
the sons of this lowly people, they will become more and
more a national book, in proportion as the Jewish nation
becomes humbler—until the day when the book of faith,
hope, and hatred of the oppressed Jews becomes the book
of faith, hope, and hatred of all the oppressed in the
world.
To make it the book of pious souls in modern times
one has only to forget its historical origin. Let the
terminology be taken literally; let it be unknown that
the “ just ” of the psalms are the Jews of the popular
traditionalist party, and the “ wicked ” are the Jews of
the Hellenising party and the goim; let the “just” stand
for believers, and the “wicked” stand for unbelievers;
and this book that has arisen, at the beginning of the
second century, out of the struggle of the two political
parties that divided Jerusalem, will have experienced the
HYMNS IN THE SYNAGOGUES
221
lot of the other Jewish books—it will be internationalised.
The psalms were the hymns sung in the Jewries already
scattered over the Oriental world by the lowly and poor
who were obsessed with the thirst for vengeance, and
who, too weak to rise in revolt, began to expect from their
god alone the fulfilment of their sanguinary dream. They
were born in the lower depths of a people oppressed by
its aristocrats, who found comfort in their wealth, as
well as by the pagan peoples who environed them with
their power and their disdain. The prophets had
anathematised those of the Jews who were abandoning
the national traditions for Hellenic novelties. The psalms
are the book of the traditionalist Jews; but the tradition-
alist Jews are now the humble, the poor, the wretched,
the men who thirsted for vengeance. They call them-
selves the “ meek and it means that they accept their
reproach, and count, not on their own arms, but on their
god, to avenge them. The tenacious and obstinate main-
tenance of their confidence will ensure its success. It is
the monstrous imperialism of these eternally vanquished,
who cease not to dream of universal dominion.
The religious sentiment of modern nations has not
been deceived. It sufficed to moderate certain expressions
that were too obviously abominable for pious souls to find
in the psalms, from St. Paul to Luther and on to our
own time, the hymn of humiliation that knows no refuge
but in the supernatural.
We have, in fact, reached the time when the pheno-
menon of religious faith is born in the history of the
world. Through exaggerating its powerlessness, Jewish
imperialism has come to the despairing surrender of itself
into the hands of the supernatural. And that is, in the
last analysis, the definition of religious faith.
When a man, a people, a world, has known the greatest
pride, the vastest ambition, and the wildest hopes, and
some pitiless reality persistently mocks the pride, un-
ceasingly thwarts the ambition, and indefinitely rebukes
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HYMNS IN THE SYNAGOGUES
the hope, this man, people, or world can do no more, if it
has the strength not to surrender, if it persists in willing,
if it abandons nothing of its soul, than rely on and await
the supernatural occurrence that will realise its hopes,
crown its ambitions, in spite of a coalition of the universe,
and, breaking the power of the enemy at one stroke, bring
its pride to triumph.
Religious faith is the soul of man expecting nothing
save by the action of a god. It is based on two facts :
the powerlessness of man, the all-powerfulness of god.
Faith is the reliance of man’s powerlessness on the divine
omnipotence.
The Greek and Roman religions were cults; but,
properly speaking, they never knew this element of
religious feeling. Never did Greeks or Romans, however
superstitious they may have been, yield themselves to the
supernatural. To create religious faith there was needed,
on the one hand, the immeasurable persistence of the
Jewish soul, and, on the other, the extraordinary series of
situations that kept it in ceaseless oppression. Religious
faith is the creation of Judaism.
Chapter II.
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
It would be useless to seek in the strong serenity of
Greek and Latin literatures anything that recalls the
prophets, the psalms, and especially the apocalypses.
In the Graeco-Roman world nature rules. There is
no supernatural, because there is only nature symbolised
in human forms. From the earliest beginning the gods
of Homer are heroes, and his heroes are gods. Energies
unfold amid the harmonious development of myths; they
bear the names of deities, just as to-day they bear
scientific names; but they are never more than natural
energies. While the orientals kneel before a god who is
outside nature, a god who rules them as a sultan rules
his enslaved people, the pre-Socratic philosophers study
the secret of the physical laws by which the cosmos is
organised. Socrates discovers the human soul. The
metaphysic that Plato builds up is the masterpiece of
dialectics. Aristotle lays the foundation of all the
sciences, and writes, four centuries before the present
era, two thousand three hundred years ago:—
“All that occurs proceeds from one principle to
another.” 1
Seneca, heir of the Greek scholars, will say later :—
“What is destiny? The necessity of all things and
all actions (necessitatem rerum omnium actionumque).”2
The Greek tragic poets had known nothing finer in the
thoughts of the people than the spectacle of heroic souls
struggling against the fatality of the eternal future.
1 On the Parts of Animals, 1. 1-13.
2 Qucestiones naturales, ii. 36.
223
224
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
Rome appears. She brings into the world the highest
type of humanity, strength, and self-possession, “homo
moderatus et gravis”—man master of himself and the
universe. To contemplate the world, to detect its rhythm,
to love life, to rejoice in the sun, to cultivate pleasure, to
turn to neither of those excesses which men call debauch
and asceticism, fear or rashness, and that lessen oneself,
to be a strong and calm soul, to gather the fruit that the
earth offers you—that was the wisdom of Greece and the
virtue of Rome.
To expect of an omnipotent god the fulfilment of their
exaggerated dreams—that was Jewish piety; and that
we find praised in the prophets and the psalms. When
these dreams had reached the stage of paroxysm, when,
after waiting several centuries, their patience and anger
were exhausted, the apocalypse appeared. That the Jew
might still live on, it said to him :—
“ Know in what wise thy god will ensure thy triumph
to-morrow.”
The apocalypse is a revelation; but it is a different
revelation from those that abound in the prophets and
psalms. The prophets and the psalms had said to the
Jews:—
“ Jahveh has promised you revenge and victory: count
on revenge and victory.”
The apocalypse says :—
“ The event will happen in so many days, in such and
such a way.”
After the death of Simeon the Just the hostility
between the popular traditionalist party and the Hellenis-
ing aristocracy had increased constantly at Jerusalem.
The episodes of the struggle are not found in history
until the time when it degenerates into civil war—that
is to say, a little after the year 175, the date of the
accession of Antiochus Epiphanes in Syria. This civil
war is called by modern histories—Israelite, Protestant,
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
225
or Catholic—the “ persecution ” of Antiochus Epiphanes,
and the “ war of independence ” of the Machabees. Our
authorities, the historian Flavius Josephus (“ Jewish
Antiquities ” and “ The Jewish War ”) and the first two
Books of the Machabees (especially the second) do not
agree in their account of the events; they agree, how-
ever, in representing the Hellenising party as appealing
to King Antiochus to crush the traditionalist party.
A certain Onias (or Menelaus), whether or no he was
brother to the high-priest Jesus (or Jason), takes the lead
of the Hellenising party; it must be noted that at this
time the Jews have two names, a Jewish and a Greek
name. Menelaus is beaten. He then goes, “with the
chief men of his party, to King Antiochus, and begs him
to enter Judaea.”1
The first Book of the Machabees is not less explicit.
“In those days,” it says, “there went out of Israel
children of iniquity who counselled thus: Let us go and
make alliance with the nations........Then some of the
people went and sought the King Antiochus.”2
Antiochus easily made himself master of Jerusalem,
“ because the faction of Menelaus opened the gates to
him”;3 he killed several of the opposite party, and, of
course, profited by the opportunity to sack the town.
Now masters of Jerusalem, the partisans of Menelaus
give free rein to their Hellenistic tendencies. They had
told Antiochus, says Josephus, “ that they had determined
to embrace his religion and the Greek way of living, and
they asked him to let them build a gymnasium in Jeru-
salem. He allowed them. Then they took from them-
selves the marks of circumcision, so that they could not
be distinguished from the Greeks, even when they ran
and wrestled naked; and, thus forsaking the laws of their
fathers, they differed in nothing from foreigners.” 4
1 The Jewish War, i. 1. 2 1 Machabees, i. 12-14.
3 Jewish Antiquities, xii. 7. 4 Jewish Antiquities, xii. 6.
Q
-
226
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
It would be impossible to carry Hellenising further.
The trouble continued. The orthodox Jews saw with
horror the triumph of Greek ways, and the gymnasium
was not the smallest source of scandal to them. The two
parties came to blows, and there were battles on the
streets of Jerusalem.
After two years the Hellenising party, gravely threatened
by the popular party, again summoned the king of Syria
to help them. He had just been stopped in the midst of
an expedition against Egypt by the Roman legate Popilius;
the famous anecdote of the circle of Popilius will be
remembered. Did Antiochus wish to vent his impotent
anger on Jerusalem, as has been said? It is possible.
But he certainly wanted to restore peace in a town in
which there were disturbances daily, by exterminating
the anti-Hellenising Jews and abolishing Judaism; and
he was invited by the Hellenising Jews.
The moderate Hellenising Jews wanted only a certain
modification of the rigours of the Mosaic law; they thought
only of adjusting the cult of Jahveh to fresh needs. But
when we recollect the spirit of ferocious exclusiveness, the
intolerance, the quarrels and furies of the rigourist party,
when we picture these demagogues roaring after the rich
and powerful, invoking at every moment the vengeance of
Jahveh, the more fanatical as they spoke in the name of
their god, we are not astonished that aristocrats who were
bent on luxury and pleasure, captivated with Greek ways,
and ready to take any measure to secure the continuance
of their privileges, could in their exasperation dream of
ruining for ever the popular fanaticism, even if it involved
the destruction of the very name of the god which it
perpetuated. Moreover, what did it matter whether they
worshipped Jahveh or Jupiter, if they gained tranquillity
by the change ? Let us remember that certain children
of Israel had tried to obliterate on themselves the marks
of circumcision. Had they not opened a Greek gymnasium
in the holy city ? Did they not day after day flout the
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
227
precepts of the Mosaic law ? Were they not presently
about to “ sacrifice to the idols and violate the Sabbath ” ?1
Finally, had they not offered to embrace the religion of the
pagan Antiochus ?
Whether or no he went beyond the desires of the
Hellenisers, Antiochus was terrible. The Syrian army
entered Jerusalem a second time, and massacred thousands
of Jews. Looting was universal. The city was brought
under an iron yoke. The king of Syria planted a Mace-
donian garrison in it, and built a fortress that commanded
the temple. Lastly, whether or no he went beyond the
demands of his inviters, he set up everywhere altars to the
pagan gods, forbade the celebration of the Mosaic festivals
and ceremonies, ordered the destruction of the sacred
books, and—supreme abomination—he had a statue of
Jupiter Olympus raised in the temple of Jahveh. This
took place on the 15th of kislev, the month of November
of the year 168 before the present era.
Never had such a danger threatened Judaism before.
The hopes of three centuries seemed to be abortive. An
interruption of the Jewish cult meant the destruction of
the Jewish nation; the raising of a statue of Jupiter in
the temple of Jahveh meant the defeat of the Jewish soul
by the Greek world. The miseries and humiliations of
the preceding centuries had not abolished one jot of the
ancient promises, so long as Jerusalem remained a heart
from which Judaism continued to draw life; now it
seemed that the heart was destroyed.
The hour of the apocalypses had struck. The first was
that of Daniel.
For some time a rumour spread among the people
about the temple and in the synagogues. It was said
that they had found the writings of an ancient prophet of
the time of Nabuchodonosor and the Deportation; his
name was Daniel; god had directed that his prophecies
1 Daniel himself (xi. 30) relates that Antiochus is acting with those of
the Jews who “were forsaking the holy alliance.”
228
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
should remain sealed until the day when the events he
foretold were about to happen; and this day had come.
Some pages of the prophecy had already been read in
pious gatherings; how the prophet and two of his com-
panions, although honoured with the favour of the king
Nabuchodonosor, had resisted his orders, and refused to
pollute themselves with food forbidden by the Mosaic law,
and how God had rewarded them.1
It seems possible to discover in what circumstances
each part of the book of Daniel was successively composed
and published. The first chapter is evidently earlier than
the profanation of the temple. What do we find in it ?
Young Jews who occupy a high position at the court of
king Nabuchodonosor and reconcile the duties of their
office with the duties of their religion. There is no doubt
that this piece was written to teach the Jews that they
must never sacrifice the one to the other; the persecution
has not yet broken out, but it is difficult for the tradi-
tionalist Jews to be faithful to their cult amid the advance
of Hellenism.
Now the era of tragedy begins. The army of Antiochus
has invaded the city; the Hellenisers triumph; there is
general consternation among the men of the traditionalist
party. A second book then spreads.2
It is said to be a new chapter of the prophecies of the
ancient Daniel; and the wretched Jews, who are sur-
rounded by the Hellenisers, learn with astonishment that
king Nabuchodonosor once had a dream, and the prophet
Daniel foretold to him that his empire would pass away,
and that another empire after him (that of the Medes)
would pass away, and that a third (that of the Persians)
would likewise pass away, and that a fourth (that of the
Greeks) would in turn be broken by the hand, not of man,
but of Jahveh.
And in those days the god of heaven shall set up an
1 Daniel i.
Daniel ii.
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
229
empire which shall never be destroyed, and of which the
kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break
in pieces and consume all other empires, and it shall stand
for ever.1
The worse the trouble becomes, the more splendidly do
the old promises resound in the ears of the Jerusalemites.
At each new blow that strikes Judaism, the author of
the prophecies of Daniel replies with a new book. The
statue of Jupiter Olympus rises in the middle of the
temple, on the altar of Jahveh ; and, wonderful to relate,
a third mashal of the ancient Daniel appears. What do
they learn from it? That once, four hundred years
before, king Nabuchodonosor had ordered that a great
idol, a golden statue of sixty cubits, should be set up, and
every one should worship it; that all—peoples, nations,
and tongues—had fallen on their knees and obeyed ; that
three Jewish young men alone refused; that Nabu-
chodonosor in a rage had them thrown into a seven-times
heated furnace, and the fire did not hurt them ; that they
walked about unhurt amid the flames.2
Who could fail to recognise the allusion ? Is not the
idol erected by Nabuchodonosor the idol erected by
Antiochus Epiphanes? Is not the poet, in telling how
the three Jewish young men resisted the king of Babylon
and were rewarded for it, teaching his contemporaries
that they must resist the king of Syria, and they in turn
will be rewarded for their holy rebellion ?
The persecution becomes more terrible. The soldiers
of Antiochus further the Hellenisation of Judaea with
implacable zeal. Not only is the altar of Jahveh
abolished and his cult forbidden, but the cult of the
Greek gods is enforced. Many Jews who had hitherto
been faithful to the old national traditions now fall away
through fear; the more stubborn conceal themselves; a
flood of shame and blood rises about the temple; the
1 Daniel ii. 44.
2 Daniel iii. 1-30.
230
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
traditionalist Jews seem to be lost; Hellenism seems
definitely to have triumphed. At this time the fourth
prophecy appears. The new book is brought to the
synagogues where the Jews meet in secret. It says that
king Nabuchodonosor was, for not recognising the god of
the Jews, driven from among men for seven years, “ and
did eat grass, as oxen, and his body was wet with the
dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’
feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.”
Other prophecies follow. There is a festival of king
Balthasar, son of Nabuchodonosor, to which a thousand
lords are invited, with their wives and concubines, with
the vessels of gold and silver stolen from the temple at
Jerusalem; and suddenly “ came forth the fingers of a
man’s hand, and wrote over against the lamp on the
plaster of the wall,” and Daniel explains it:—
Numbered! God hath numbered thy kingdom, and
finished it. Weighed ! Thou art weighed in the balances,
and art found wanting. Divided! Thy kingdom is
divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.1
The sixth prophecy of Daniel2 teaches the Jews, as the
third does but less happily, that they should refuse to
worship any other god than Jahveh. Thus, one after the
other, like a succession of defiances to the awful calamities
and threats, the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
prophecies of Daniel had arisen from the depths of the
proscribed old party.
At this time there is a reign of terror in Jerusalem ;
surrounded by the troops of Antiochus, the Hellenisers
triumph, possibly, beyond all that they had desired.
Menelaus, the abominable high-priest, lets the
impure blood of swine pollute the courts consecrated to
Jahveh. From that day, even before the next four
prophecies had appeared, the first six had an immediate
effect. The old Judaic party draws together, finds a
leader, and lifts up its head.
1 Daniel v. 5 and 25-28.
8 Daniel vi.
THE EIRST APOCALYPSES
231
One day, in a small town of Judaea, some Jews of the
rigourist party, a certain Mathathias and his sons, slew a
Hellenising Jew and a company of Syrians who came to
his defence. To escape punishment, they fled to the
mountains; other Jews of the oppressed party joined
them; the movement grew. The rebels found their
enemies not strong enough to reduce them. They
gathered strength, organised the revolt, formed a sort of
army ; Judas Machabasus, one of the sons of Mathathias,
took command of it. Antiochus was called elsewhere by
another war; the representative he sent against the
rebellious Jews was beaten; and, in 164, Judas
Machabasus took Jerusalem and solemnly purified the
temple. He could not, however, force the citadel in
which the Hellenisers took refuge. Thus the victory
hung undecided between the two parties, and the struggle
went on with alternating success and defeat.
The last four prophecies of Daniel seem to have been
composed during the first years of the Machabaean
movement. The poet and patriot who hid behind the
mask of the ancient Daniel did not think his work was
complete as long as there was still courage to restore and
to exalt; and he put forth in succession the four great
apocalyptic visions by which Jahveh unveiled to his
spokesman, and he to the Jewish people, the future
destiny of the universe.
We must not forget that with Daniel we are supposed
to be in the days of Nabuchodonosor and the deportation
to Babylon. The literary procedure that had been
adopted by the authors of the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and the two Isaiahs was followed by the author of the
book of Daniel; that the book is pseudonymous is now
recognised by every single student of any degree of
independence. They unanimously recognise in the
book what it really is—a work born of the upheavals
of the year 168 and of the first efforts at recovery that
followed.
232
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
The four great apocalyptic visions of Daniel are, there-
fore, four series of predictions, which start with the days
of Nabuchodonosor, extend over a period of four hundred
years, and, as their final goal, reach the days of the
writer.
The history of the Jews and of their successive masters
is thus related from Nabuchodonosor to Antiochus Epi-
phanes, under the form of predictions. The predictions,
however, which concern the period after Nabuchodonosor
and the Restoration are vague, and frequently inexact,
the author of the book of Daniel not being a fully-informed
historian. They become more precise gradually as they
approach the year 164; the last events recorded are the
wars of the Ptolemies and Seleucids, the deeds and actions
of Antiochus Epiphanes, the profanation of the temple
and interruption of the cult, and then, in the last, the
revolt, the first successes, and the reverses of Judas
Machabseus. At that point the so-called predictions
necessarily end, and the real predictions, which the event
was unfortunately not to realise, begin. We can imagine
their nature : Jahveh intervenes, the enemies of Israel are
annihilated, the Jewish people is triumphant.
First Vision.—Out of the sea come four great beasts,
which the prophet describes in full; they are the four
empires which were, in succession, to oppress the people
of Jahveh.
But, behold, thrones were set up, and the Ancient of
Days did sit,1 whose garment was white as snow, and the
hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was of fiery
flames, and his wheels a burning fire.
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him ;
thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was
set, and the books were opened.2
I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body
destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
1 Jahveh himself.
2 The scene of Jahveh’s judgment.
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
233
-
As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their
dominion taken away ; for a length of life had been given
them for a season and a time.
I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the
son of man came with the clouds of heaven,1 and came to
the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him.
And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should
serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed.2
Second Vision.—Beasts which occupy the earth fight
with each other, wresting the dominion from each other,
until the last of them destroys the very sanctuary of god.
But let them be patient; the holy place will he restored.8
Third Vision.—While Daniel meditates on the pro-
phecies of Jeremiah, Gabriel, an angel of Jahveh, appears
to him, and explains to him the hidden meaning of the
words that Jahveh had uttered by the mouth of his
servant in the days of Nabuchodonosor and the taking of
Jerusalem. In seventy years, Jeremiah had said/ Jeru-
salem will be restored and glorified. Now, these seventy
years are seventy sabbaths of years, seventy weeks of
years—that is to say, four hundred and ninety years.
The first entry of Nabuchodonosor into Jerusalem was in
the year 599. To reach his figure, the angel of Jahveh
overlaps the first seven sevens, or the first 49 years; 49
years from 490 leaves 441 years; and if we then calculate
441 years from the year 599, we reach the year 158. In
the year 158, therefore—let us say, about the year 158,
as the Jewish books know nothing of mathematical
accuracy—or some years after the profanation of the
temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, the divine promise will
be fulfilled.5
1 The king who descends from David, or the people of Israel itself
symbolised by a man.
2 Daniel vii. 9-14. 3 Daniel viii. * Jeremiah xxv. 12 ; xxix. 10.
8 Daniel ix. We have followed the calculation of Reuss, Bible,
Vol. VII.
234
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
This vision might be called : The art of adjusting dates.
But let us not smile at the simple fraud that was to
restore the hope of a crushed people.
Fourth Vision.—The last piece put forward by the
author of the prophecies of Daniel was the most explicit.
The war between the traditionalist and the Hellenising
parties dragged on; the traditionalists were suffering
from discouragement; the voice of the prophet Daniel,
announcing a speedy deliverance, must give a supreme
assurance of veracity to the cruelly tried Jews. If a
series of precise predictions, which had been uttered four
hundred years before, seemed to have been fulfilled to the
letter, was it not a proof that the approaching deliverance
would be equally and speedily accomplished ?
This is the prophecy.
In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, an angel
appeared to Daniel on the banks of the Tigris. It may
have been an angel, or god himself; for the description
seems to apply to Jahveh.
I saw a man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded
with fine gold. His body was like the beryl, his face as
the appearance of lightning, his eyes as lamps of fire, and
his arms and his feet like the appearance of polished
brass; and the noise of his words like the noise of a
multitude.1
At this vision Daniel is filled with fear, but recovers.
Then he, the pretended contemporary of Cyrus, tells, in
the prophetic style, in fuller and fuller detail, the future
history of the Persians, of Alexander the Great, and of
the successors of Alexander, especially the Ptolemies and
Seleucids.
The king of the north2 * shall come, and cast up a
mound, and take a strong city ;8 and the troops of the
south4 shall not withstand....And he shall give to the
1 Daniel x. 5-6.
3 Sidon.
2 Antiochus the Great, king of Syria.
4 The Egyptians, until then masters of Sidon.
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES 235
king of the south a daughter.1..And he shall turn his
face unto the isles;1 2 and shall take many.8
It is easy to understand the admiration of the Jews in
the days of Menelaus for predictions that were so magni-
ficently fulfilled. They would listen with confidence
when Daniel continues:—
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great
prince which standeth for the children of thy people.4
Among the angels who surround Jahveh, and of which
each one is charged to protect one of the peoples of
the earth, Michael is the angel-protector of the people
of Israel.
Daniel asks how long it will he before the deliverance
comes. The angel replies :—
From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken
away, and the abomination that maketh desolate5 set up,
there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.6
That is to say, three years and a half. The capture
and purification of the temple by Judas Machabaeus
took place three years after the profanation. Is Daniel
approximately fixing the victory of Judas Machabaeus, or
promising that six months after this first great success
all their hopes will be realised ? It is useless to press
the passage; let us see the drift of the prediction :—
“From the day when the statue of Jupiter sullies the
temple to the day when Jahveh will hand over the world
to the Jewish people will be a thousand two hundred and
ninety days.”
To his discouraged compatriots, in the midst of
massacre and pillage, of alternating success and defeat,
after the supreme catastrophe of the abolition of the law,
the interruption of the cult, the surrender of the sanctuary
to a hostile god, the apocalypse serenely declares that the
term is fixed and the days are numbered ; that after three
1 Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus, married to the king of Egypt.
2 The Archipelago. 3 Daniel xi. 15-18. 4 Daniel xii. 1.
6 The statue of Jupiter in the temple of Jahveh. 6 Daniel xii. 11.
236
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
years and a half revenge and triumph will be brought by
the angel of Jahveh. We need not ask if the Jewish
soul will sink into utter despair when the three years and
a half are over; minds that are so terribly hallucinated
will be able at once to invent explanations of the delay,
to adjust the dates, to make the calculation start from a
different point, to interpret the word “week” as “three
months,” and translate the word “month” into “year.”
The book will have done its work.
More than any of the prophetic books, the book of
Daniel is a book of promises. The Jews shall possess
the earth; their empire shall destroy the other empires,
and shall never be destroyed; it shall be a kingdom for
ever. No doubt is tolerated. Like the psalms, the
apocalypses promise the Jews universal dominion. The
translations calls it “ the kingdom of the holy ”; the
“ holy ” are the Qedoshim, men “ consecrated ” to Jahveh
—that is to say, the people of Jahveh. What it really
means is, in the material sense, to take and hold for ever
the place of Nabuchodonosor, Cyrus, and Alexander;
presently they will add Csesar.
Like most of the Jewish books, and better than any
of them, the book of Daniel is a philosophy of history.
The history of the world, or of those peoples who are
known to the writer, is represented as leading up to a
unique goal, the triumph of the Jewish people. The
idea was to have a great future. Christian literature will
adopt it, merely putting Christianity in the place of
Judaism. Bossuet is but reproducing it in his “ Discourse
on Universal History.”
Like the prophets—Ezekiel, Zechariah, and the two
Isaiahs—and even more strongly, the book of Daniel
opens out the perspective, at once terrible and reassuring,
of the period of increasingly cruel calamities which, by
the will of Jahveh, must precede the final triumph of
Judaism. Jahveh means the distress to be at its height
at the time when he will come to save and glorify his
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
237
people. What a comfort for the Jew who has been
beaten by Antiochus and the Hellenisers! Later this
period of preliminary terror will be known as the reign
of Antichrist. From this time it becomes the necessary
prologue of the apocalyptic program.
First of all Jewish writers, the author of the book of
Daniel promises the resurrection of the dead. Whether
or no there was an accession of Mazdaean beliefs, the
idea of resurrection was too necessary logically in Judaism
for it to fail, whether imported or not. Until then the
Jews had hardly considered what might come after
death; the rewards and punishments were of this world.
Piety was rewarded with happiness here below; trans-
gression of the law of Jahveh was punished with
unhappiness here below. The extreme calamities from
which the popular party suffered in the time of Antiochus
were so glaring a violation of the doctrine that piety is
rewarded with happiness, that the Jews were bound to
think of happiness beyond this world. Jahveh would
presently deliver the people of Israel, punish its enemies,
and reward his servants; but what about those who had
been slain ? They will rise again in their flesh. It is
not a question of an immortal soul; the Jews did not
conceive that there could be a soul distinct from the
body. It is a question of the resurrection of bodies, in
such wise that all the children of Jahveh “shine as the
brightness of the firmament, as the stars for ever and
ever.”1
Lastly—and this is the chief character of the apocalypses
—the book of Daniel is eschatological.
Theologians make much use of the word “ eschatology.”
Properly speaking, eschatology means the science or the
study or the announcement of last things. If the word
were adopted by scientists, we should give the name of
terrestrial eschatology to the study of the conditions in
1 Daniel xii. 3.
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THE EIRST APOCALYPSES
which the earth is doomed to disappear, either by the
natural action of its chemical components or by the
shock of a heavenly body, or from any other natural
cause; but the word is almost exclusively restricted to
religious questions, and applies generally to the super-
natural conditions in which the actual world was, it was
believed, doomed to perish.
The prophetic books themselves announced that,
through the direct intervention of Jahveh, the pagan
empires would be destroyed, and replaced by an empire
in which the Jews should be masters. The apocalypse
of Daniel has this element of novelty, that it knows the
plan and date of the event, sets forth its course in
advance, and positively fixes the day.
Remember the great vision of the prophet, in which
the heavens open and disclose, amid flames, the thrones
of Jahveh and his angels; then we have the assizes, the
trial of mankind, when Michael, the angel-protector of
Israel, intervenes, and offers to carry out the sentence of
Jahveh with his own hand; the pagans will be exter-
minated, the Jews glorified and rewarded with the
dominion of the world. This great scene will be
developed by the successors of Daniel, and will after-
wards become the Last Judgment of the Christians;
but in the second century before our era it means
simply the taking possession of the world by the Jewish
people.
When will it take place? Must they still wait for
centuries? Daniel has counted the seventy years, or
the seventy times seven years, indicated by Jeremiah,
and has calculated that the term is at hand. But a mere
declaration is not enough; indeed, elsewhere, on two
occasions, the angel declares that the desolation will last
for “ a time, two times, and half a time ”1—that is to say,
a year, two years, and half-a-year, or three years and
a-half.
1 Daniel vii. 25 and xii. 7.
THE FIKST APOCALYPSES
239
In fine, when Daniel pointedly asks:—
“ Lord, when will these things be ? ”
The angel replies:—
“ From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken
away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.”
That is eschatology—a precise, categorical announce-
ment of the great final upheaval which will give the world
to the Jewish people. The ancient covenant between the
people of Israel and its god now yields its extreme con-
sequences. In order that Israel may obtain glory of its
god, it is enough to trust him. Israel is faithful; more-
over, how could a people groaning under such misfortunes
listen to restricted promises and conditional consolations ?
The promise has been made absolute; it is to be fulfilled
at once. With its temple profaned, its law destroyed, and
its streets wet with blood, the wretched people can wait no
longer. The apocalypse is the divine promise at the foot
of the walls.
In saving the traditionalist party, the book of Daniel
had saved Judaism. But the victory was not complete,
and the struggle continued. Doubtless it was necessary,
if the Jewish soul were to be permanent, that it should
never know that peace in which energy slumbers.
As we have said, most historians have left to the events
of the year 168 the traditional description of the “ persecu-
tion ” of Antiochus Epiphanes, and to the events of the
following period that of “ war of independence ” of the
Machabees. These descriptions, which are really biassed,
must be explained, if not corrected ; “ persecution ” must
be understood as the oppression of one party by another
party, “ war of independence ” as the revolt of the party
oppressed against the oppressing party. Certainly Judas
Machabseus and his brothers had enemies in the kings of
Syria; when Judas Machabseus took Jerusalem, he took
it from the officers of Antiochus; and afterwards his
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THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
successors wrested the independence of Judaea from the
Syrian kings. But these Syrian kings were the patrons
of the Hellenising Jewish party ; the Syrian armies were
the auxiliaries of that party. On their side the Machabees
sought and obtained the help of the Romans, who were
then penetrating Asia; Judas Machabaeus was, says
Josephus, the first Jew to enter into alliance with the
Roman Senate.1 The Judaic party leaned on the Romans,
just as the Hellenisers leaned on the Syrians.
Mathathias, father of Judas Machabaeus, had traversed
the country “ overthrowing the pagan altars; he forgave
none of those who had worshipped idols and who fell into
his hands, and he caused uncircumcised children to be
circumcised.”a Judas Machabaeus “ put to death the
Jews who had violated the law of Moses.”3 We have
nothing but massacres of populations, with looting and
burning. Judas Machabaeus and his troops threw them-
selves suddenly, by night, on Jewish villages that were
unfaithful to Jahveh ; he set them in flames, and slew
the apostates. Jonathan, his successor, exterminated
the impious from the midst of Israel, in the words
of Deuteronomy, after every victory. Whenever the
Machabees took a non-Israelitic country, they imposed
circumcision on the vanquished. The enemies whom
the Machabees fight are the “impious Jews” rather
than the Syrians. This so-called war of independence
was only a civil war in which each of the two parts
summoned the foreigner to its assistance, a religious war
that witnessed many St. Bartholomews. The Machabees
have no right to the aureole which tradition has been
pleased to grant them; Judaism will have its heroes,
heroes and martyrs of Jewish liberty, two centuries later,
at the time of the great revolt against Rome.
The civil war ended, in the year 141, with the triumph
of the Machabees—that is to say, the victory of the
1 The Jewish War, i. 1. 2 Jewish Antiquities, xii. S.
8 Jewish Antiquities, xii. 9.
THE EIRST APOCALYPSES
241
traditionalists and the crushing defeat of the Hellenisers.
In 141 Simeon, brother of Judah, took the last place in
which his opponents had found refuge, and they were
slain; he had himself proclaimed high-priest and prince
of the Jews, and was recognised as such, not only by the
Roman Senate, but by the king of Syria. But, although
the defeat of the Hellenisers marks the end of the civil
war, it does not mean the end of the struggle of the
parties which distracted Judaism; a new party at once
took the place of that which had just disappeared.
From this time a schism had occurred among the con-
querors, and the ancient and everlasting antagonism of
the aristocracy and the democracy appeared again in
Judaism, under the form of the Sadducees and Pharisees.
Partly owing to Flavius Josephus, and partly under
the influence of the Talmud, an exaggerated importance
has been given to questions of religious controversy in
connection with the antagonism of the Sadducees and
Pharisees. The historian who proposes to set the work
of Judaism in its historical environment cannot explain a
two-century old antagonism by a divergence of opinion on
the resurrection. The traditionalist party was bound, in
the day of its triumph, to have the fortune of every
victorious party; the powerful, the rich, the “upstarts,”
were sure to form a new aristocracy in it, and this new
aristocracy was, like the earlier one, bound to be a clerical
aristocracy.
The Mosaic law did not suffer any other rich and
powerful persons, beside the prince, except the priests.
The priests ruled in the name of the law; in the name of
the law the tithes and tributes, gathered wherever there
were Jews, put the Jewish fortune in their hands so
exclusively that Simeon had had to have himself pro-
claimed high-priest at the same time as prince of the
Jews. The Sadducees, though originating in the old
popular traditionalist party, took the place of the former
aristocratic party in Jewish society. There were no
R
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THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
longer Hellenisers of the type of Menelaus; but there
was always a clerical nobility, opulent, conservative, and
haughty, while the Pharisees, below and opposed to them,
were a sort of puritan middle-class, poor, devout, and
powerful on account of its numbers and its influence on
the lower classes.
From the day when the Machabees became a settled
dynasty they oscillated between the two parties, relying
now on one, now on the other. Gradually, however, the
old rigourist and democratic party adopted once more the
attitude of opposition-party, never again to abandon it,
and the aristocracy assumed the logical attitude that
befitted a caste interested, above all, in adhering to the
established authority. Always fond of power, the Hellen-
isers had been partisans of the kings of Syria, when they
had been the masters; when the Machabees were the
recognised sovereigns of an independent Judaea, the Sad-
ducees could not fail to be on good terms with them; and
they would not fail, later, to become partisans of the
Roman government.
The Jewish nation might appear to be settled under
the Machabees. Imposing its rule on neighbouring
countries, and at length reducing Samaria, its ancient
enemy, it obtained frontiers that had hardly entered the
dreams of the early moshlim of the Mosaic books—
Lebanon, the Arabian desert, and the Mediterranean.
Jerusalem was in the end capital of all the territory
promised by Jahveh to the patriarchs, the fathers of
Israel; Israel was in the end realised under the authority
of a king reigning at Jerusalem.
But decay followed closely upon this splendour. The
Machabees, who had begun as leaders of bands, ended as
oriental tyrants. No Asiatic dynasty escapes this fatal
development. Crime multiplied in the palace; the
political history of Judaea was directed in the harem ; little
by little all the old miseries fell again on the Jewish people.
There were unfortunate wars, and the soil of Judaea
THE EIEST APOCALYPSES
243
was once more darkened by invasions, with their devas-
tation and carnage. Civil wars broke out among the
descendants of the Machabees, each summoning to his
aid the neighbouring Egyptians, Syrians, Arabs, and,
finally, Bomans. At Jerusalem, meantime, the dissen-
sions became more and more violent; disturbances spread
disorder through the city, and ended in pools of blood.
After the disturbances came revolts; and the savage
vengeance of the tyrant of Jerusalem had the prisoners
slowly tortured, round the table at which he indulged
his orgies, while their wives and children were slain before
their dying eyes.
It is all over with the momentary splendour. Hence-
forth there opens for the Jews an era of ferocious oppres-
sion, calamity, and wrath, that will last two centuries.
Jewish history is a history of ever-increasing misery. It
began with the rule, not yet a hard rule, of the Persian
satraps ; then the Ptolemies and the Seleucids wrest the
country from each other; when peace is restored, their
rule is as yet tolerable, but dissension rends Judaea and
brings in Antiochus Epiphanes and the civil war ; the
Machabees, national sovereigns, now exercise over the
Jews a tyranny worse than that of its former foreign
masters; soon it will be the turn of Herod, then of the
Bomans.......What a terrible destiny for a people that
declares itself born to rule the world !
From the depths of the Jewish soul rise new apoca-
lypses, in which are expressed the wild hopes of a people
whom no reverse can cast into despair. Little known
works, copying each other, they have an interest on
account of the state of mind that they indicate.
The book of Daniel seems to have been followed first
by a book of Henoch. Henoch is one of the oldest
patriarchs of the Bible, one of the ancestors of Noah.
Like Daniel, he traces the destinies of the Jewish people
in the framework of a universal history. He begins with
the fall of the angels. He ends by announcing the general
244
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
attack of the nations upon Israel, the divine intervention,
the victory of the saints, the resurrection of the martyrs,
and the judgment of Jahveh.
Another apocalypse is written by an Alexandrian Jew.
This time the Jewish writer, being an Alexandrian, makes
use, not of an ancient prophet, but of the pagan sibyl, to
foretell the destinies of the Jewish people. But the frame
constructed by Daniel remains ; universal history is related
from the Judaic point of view. The picture opens with
the tower of Babel; it closes with the final attack upon
Israel of all the nations of the world in coalition, with
the final eschatology and the triumph of Israel.
We have reached the first century. The series of
apocalypses continues among the lower orders of the
Jewish people.
A new book of Henoch appears, with the same
promises and the same eschatology.
Then come the eighteen psalms of Solomon. The
misfortunes of the hour are a punishment of the sins of
Israel, but a glorious future is at hand. Jahveh is about
to raise up a son of David who will fulfil the promises.
The Ascension of Moses, which is possibly later, is a
furious invective against the enemies of Israel. The
historical framework constructed by Daniel is faithfully
reproduced; the destinies of the world are revealed to
Moses down to the day of the expected catastrophe.
Meantime the Machabees had sunk to the lowest depth
of crime and baseness; the hour of Borne was about to
strike. For a century Borne had intervened, with
increasing assiduity, but always from a distance, in the
affairs of Judaea. At last its legions appeared on the
frontiers of Palestine. The eagles that had conquered
the world advanced, slow and terrible, with the calm
strength of an invincible tide.
In the year 63 before our era Pompey took Jerusalem.
Without reducing Judaea to the condition of a Boman
province, he put it under the protectorate of Boifie.
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
245
Rome is, at this period, mistress of the world. Her
rule extends even over the east; the few kingdoms that
seem to be independent, such as Egypt, are morally
conquered. Already all obey; to-morrow all will be
Roman provinces. And all submit to the accomplished
fact. The Africans are subject; the Gauls are about to
be; the Greeks have bowed their heads; Asia Minor and
Syria worship their masters ; Egypt aspires to slavery.
Only the lowest of peoples does not yield.
The distinctive character of the Jewish soul was never
to accept defeat; from that it drew its power. The
Hellenist invasion had inflamed, instead of stifling, the
ardour of the Jewish soul. The power of Rome in turn
will not stifle it. While the degenerate sacerdotal
aristocracy bears a yoke which allows it to cling to its
enjoyments, the Jewish soul lives in the party of the
rigourists and puritans, the guardians of the ancient
traditions. The Jew cannot abandon his hopes, the
inheritance of the world which he believes to be promised
to him.
This people, which will not suffer itself to be reduced,
astonishes us ; it astonishes us no less when it puts its
trust in the help of Providence. The Jewish soul dreams
that it has its revenge; but now the minister of justice
must descend from heaven in the midst of thunder and
lightning.
There is now a new character in the apocalypses that
rise, one after another, among the fanatical people. This
character is, in the modern sense of the word, messianism.
We have followed the study of Judaism down to the verge
of the Christian era without pronouncing the words
messiah and messianism. Of the many meanings that
have been given to these two words we have preferred to
retain one only, and that the most recent. It is now time
to define it.
The Biblical books relate that, from the earliest days of
royalty in Israel, the kings had been consecrated in the
24 G
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
name of Jahveh by an anointing with oil. Saul, the first
king, had been anointed by Samuel. After the kings, and,
like them, the high-priests, who were now heads of the
State of Jerusalem, were Anointed ones. From that time
the Anointed was the supreme head, king or high-priest,
appointed by Jaliveh to rule. Now in Hebrew to anoint
is mashoah; an Anointed is Masliiah, or Messiah ; a
Messiah is an Anointed. The Greeks translated Mashiali
by the word “ x/xcrroe the Latins said “ Christus.” The
three words “Messiah,” “Christ,” and “Anointed” are
therefore translations of each other, and all originally
mean one who has received consecration by oil. It is
already clear that the two words “Messianism” and
“ Christianism ” are originally synonymous, like the two
words “Messiah” and “Christ”; one is the Hebrew
form, the other the Greek. The Yulgate and Lemaistre
de Saci very properly call Saul, David, Solomon, and
Zarobabel “ Christs.”
The Christ, Messiah, or Anointed, promised by the
Mosaic books to rule the people of Israel when it is finally
established, must be a king descending from David. He
who is then promised by the prophets to reign, in peace
and glory, over the vanquished world is again a Davidic
king; but, although he is the head who will rule in the
name of Jahveh, he is not the one who will conquer the
world. He is merely the future king of the glorious era;
he will enjoy the fulfilment of the prophecies ; he will not
himself fulfil them.
Who, then, will fulfil the promises of Jahveh ? At the
time of the Mosaic books and the early prophets it was
believed that the Jewish people, with the aid of its god,
but advancing itself to the combat, could, under the
auspices of its god seconding its own valour, conquer its
enemies, secure its kingdom, and consolidate it amid the
nations. That was the heroic epoch of Judaism.
In the following epoch the Jewish people despairs of
conquering by itself, even with the aid of its god. The
THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
247
god must intervene personally; without its god, the
Jewish people can do nothing. That is the doctrine of
the prophets. “ I am Jahveh, thy saviour,” says Isaiah.1
The saviour who will crush the goim and give Israel the
empire of the world is, in Isaiah and Jeremiah, Michah
and Zechariah, always Jahveh. It is the same in the
psalms; Jahveh, in the psalms, is alone able to bring about
the conquest of the world. The king who is a son of
David will receive from his hands the world purged of his
enemies, on its knees before his glory.
Daniel marks a third stage. An angel will do the
work; an angel will destroy the empire of the pagans,
and establish indestructibly the rule of the Jews.
-
In the successors of Daniel the Anointed comes into
full view, but he is identified with the angel of Jahveh.
That is the fourth and last stage of this long evolution.
Though they had all received the sacred unction, the
Machabees had, by their tyranny, their alliance with the
aristocracy, their crimes, and their debasement, made the
people refuse to regard them as Anointed. Herod also
would be consecrated with the holy oil; but the hatred of
the people could not bring itself to grant him the old and
profoundly national title of Messiah.- The earlier meaning
of the word was gradually lost, and the title, which they
refused to grant to sovereigns who were more and more
detested, was fastened upon the expected angel. The
Messiah ceased to be a man; he became a supernatural
being. In the apocalypses which followed that of Daniel
the Messiah is the angel who will deliver Israel, reduce or
exterminate the pagan world, found the Jewish empire,
and fulfil the ancient promises; and they began to expect
his coming amid clouds and thunder in the opened
heavens. Messianism had reached its definitive formula.
We must understand that it was the forlorn hope, the
last card, of the Jewish people, as they clung to the most
1 Isaiah lx. 1G.
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THE FIRST APOCALYPSES
chimerical folly in order to hope once more. However
much we may admire the tenacity of a people in refusing
to die, and desperately creating new grounds for hope, let
us realise how such an idea condemns all personal effort,
and represents the abdication of human energy at the feet
of the supernatural.
In the beginning the Jews had, like all great peoples,
asked their god to assist them in triumphing over their
enemies. And gradually, as their oppression became
heavier, their ambition less practicable, and their con-
fidence in themselves more feeble, they had relied the
more on Jahveh. They had ended in relying on them-
selves, their own strength and energy, no longer; they
relied wholly on Jahveh. Then this self-abdication had
sunk a degree lower. The Jews no longer ventured to
think that they would be permitted to co-operate in the
work of Jahveh otherwise than by prayer; an angel must
bring them the victory from heaven.......This angel is now
the Messiah, promised and awaited from the earliest times,
to reign over the universe.
That is the prodigy of the Jewish soul. When all hope
is forbidden it, it still finds ground for hope. It does not
abdicate; it does not renounce ; it persists in its dream of
revenge, even when the foot of the Roman is upon it.
But its indefatigable imperialism now demands that an
angel shall come down from the heights of heaven, in the
midst of the Kerubim, in a flare of thunder and lightning.
Chapter III.
THE ROMAN PERIOD
§ 1. Hillel and Shammai.
The day on which the Romans took Jerusalem and
Palestine (63 B.c.) marks a new epoch in the history of
Judaism. The genius of Greece had struggled and
failed; in its turn the power of Rome is about to match
itself against the old Jewish soul.
The Greek genius represented the finer achievements
of intelligence, art, science, and philosophy; the power
of Rome, on the other hand, consisted in the achieve-
ments of will, of the military spirit and the spirit of
government. Devoid of all intellectual qualities, devoid
of the least military instinct or political sentiment, the
Jewish soul formulated its invincible craving for life and
rule in so rabid a fanaticism that, after triumphing over
the intelligence of Greece, it could stand erect in face of
the power of Rome.
The wild nationalism of the Jews had opposed itself
in a mass to the Hellenic invasion. Against Rome it had
two methods of fighting. One was open war, which was
condemned in advance to an overpowering check; the
other was subterraneous war, the only warfare that could
succeed.
Two names, two men, living about the last year of
the old era, seem to us fitting symbols of these two
methods: one taught patience, the other preached
violence: they were Hillel and Shammai. The man of
violence, Shammai, was destined to win at Jerusalem,
and his party led the holy city to its doom; but the
Dispersion, that vast field of exile that stretched from
249
250
THE ROMAN PERIOD
ghetto to ghetto across the Roman Empire, listened to
the words of the man of patience, Hillel, the master of
St. Paul.
During the twenty-five years which followed the taking
of Jerusalem by Pompey, Judaea was spattered with
blood by the efforts of the last descendants of the Macha-
bees to win back or preserve their royalty. The family
of the Herods comes on the scene. As Idumaeans—in
other words, Edomites—Anti pater and his son Herod the
Great came of a race despised by the men of Jerusalem.
They became, in turn, creatures of Pompey, then of
Caesar after Pharsala, of Cassius after the assassination
of Caesar, of Antony after Philippi, and of Augustus after
Actium. In the year 40 b.c. Herod obtained of the
Senate the title of king of Judaea. With the help of the
legions of Syria he secured his kingdom, and for more
than thirty years he was a terrible and magnificent
tyrant. A lover of splendour, he covered Judaea with
monuments; and he rebuilt at great expense the humble
temple that Zarobabel had raised to the national god
five centuries before, and made it one of the wonders
of the world. He was none the less fanatically hated by
the Jews; but he was able to repress the anger that
rumbled about him. In virtue of his energy, craft, and
crimes, he ruled over the most difficult people to govern
in the whole Roman Empire.
The story is familiar of the frightful agony of Herod,
equally tormented by suspicion and illness, ordering
massacres and, from his death-bed, directing the murder
of one of his sons. Sedition only awaited his end to
break out. One day he was believed to have died; at
once a troop of fanatical Jews went to tear down the
golden eagle, a sacrilegious emblem, from the front of the
temple. The old king awoke to send the rebels to the
executioner. But immediately after his death an era of
trouble and revolt set in, and was destined to culminate
HILLEL AND SHAMMAI
251
in the great insurrection of the year 06 and the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem in 70.
Augustus soon made a Roman province of Judaea.
From that time it is governed by procurators, whose seat
is Caesarea; their names are Coponius, Ambivius, Rufus,
Gratus, and Pontius Pilate.
The historian Flavius Josephus has given us a cele-
brated picture of the sects that then distracted Judaea;
in it we can discern a picture of the various classes
which formed Jewish society.
At the top were still the Sadducees, the aristocracy of
Judaea, priests living on the temple, rich, sceptical,
powerful, and necessarily hostile to the old Judaic ideas.
Cultivated and intelligent, they understood that it was
impossible to escape the authority of Rome. To preserve
their wealth, they demanded submission to Rome, just
as the Hellenising aristocrats of former days had demanded
submission to Antiochus. Was the old Judaic dream of
revenge still vigilant at the heart of these professions?
It is hardly probable; no trace of it is found, at all
events. Their only aim was to live on good terms with
Rome, with the Idumseans who were in the favour of
Rome, and with the procurators, and to continue to receive
the enormous tithes that still came to the temple every year.
At a lower level, the Pharisees represented the middle-
class. The Pharisees were not poor, but they were not
rich. We have explained several times that in the East,
where the material wants are less than in our climates,
an intermediate situation is possible, in which the
inheritance of some humble house, or some far from
absorbing occupation, is enough to give one leisure to
study the law, to discharge the many practices of the
cult, and to indulge in religious and patriotic meditations.
The Pharisees were the holy people that Jahveh had
consecrated to himself since the Exodus, and, although
they were not really priests, it was to them that the Law
had said:—
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THE ROMAN PERIOD
“ Ye shall be a kingdom of priests.” 1
Putting themselves in the place of a degenerate and
detested aristocracy, the Pharisees were really at the head
of the Jewish people. They occupied, morally, the place
of the old clerical aristocracy of the time of Esdras and
Deuteronomy. They had inherited its ancient virtues,
its patriotism, its uncompromising nationalism. But they
had not its greatness ; being continuers, and not creators,
they made a superstition of observance. The tradition
that is not enlivened by a slow evolution becomes dry;
the legislation that has originated in the most ardent
craving for life becomes a tyranny the moment it ceases
to move ; the heirs of the terrible patriots of the fourth
century are quibbling formalists. But they still have
obstinacy, the old Jewish virtue that stands for all qualities
in these men.
The Sadducees and Pharisees composed the official
Jewish world at the beginning of the first century of the
present era. Below them were the very poor and very
fanatical mass of the people. Very poor, or rather owning
nothing, living from day to day, ready for sordid tasks
when hunger spoke too loud, averse from work at any
other time, clever only in following their old messianic
dream through the idleness of long torrid days. Very
fanatical also, enfevered by the promises of the apoca-
lypses, inebriated with secret ambition and suppressed
anger, regarding themselves as the sole heirs of Israel,
they spent themselves in the silent rage of waiting so
long for their day.
The popular class had an extreme left. Flavius
Josephus, the histiographer of cultivated Judaea and
courtier of the Flavian Emperors, describes in the
darkest colours the lowest class of Jewish society. It
was, he says, a collection of brigands, beggars, thieves,
adventurers, assassins, and all kinds of fomenters of
1 Exodus xix. 6.
HILLEL AND SHAMMAI
253
disorder. These supposed brigands of Josephus called
themselves the Zealots or Sicaries; pushing fanaticism to
its last consequences, they made it their mission, it seems,
some day to slay every Jew who transgressed the Law.
Finally, we must mention, outside of this passionate
world, the Essenians or Essetes, a sort of devout dreamers,
Illuminati, living in prayer and asceticism.
Such was in the first century—with its extreme right
consisting of aristocratic Sadducees, who remained Jews
externally, but were rightly suspected by the rigourists
and were the allies of the Roman procurators; with its
right consisting of conservative Pharisees; with its left
consisting of miserable fanatics ; and with its little corner
of eccentric Essenians, and its extreme left composed of
uncompromising zealots—the Jewish society which the
doctrines of Hillel and Shammai has just rent into two
parties and two irreconcilable camps.
Hillel and Shammai were Jerusalem doctors of the
Herodian period, whom tradition represents as devoted
to the interpretation of the Mosaic law. Benevolent,
indulgent, and gentle, Hillel is described as a partisan of
the liberal interpretation; Shammai, a partisan of the
strict interpretation, is a sombre, inflexible, violent man.
They are depicted for us in an anecdote. A pagan said
one day to Shammai that he would embrace Judaism if
he would teach him the whole of the Law in the space of
time that he could stand on one leg. For reply Shammai
took up a stick. To the same inquiry Hillel replied:—
“ Do not unto others that that thou wouldst they should
not do unto thee. That is the whole of the Law.”
The Talmud represents them, amid the strong passions
of the time, as exclusively concerned with questions of
interpretation and casuistry. But the Talmud is ignorant
of history, and its silence on the political attitude of the
two great doctors proves nothing. Their fame rather
leads us to think that they had influence on the events of
their time. What man could have isolated himself in the
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THE ROMAN PERIOD
game of scholastic controversies, in the heart of Judaea, at
such a time ? We have no documents as to the political
attitude of Hillel, but tradition relates that Shammai
inspired the zealots. It is probable that Hillel inspired
the opposite party. Were not the Pharisees who after-
wards opposed the revolt against Rome disciples of Hillel?
Moreover, was not the interpretation of the Law an
interpretation of Judaism ? According to the Talmud,
there was question of interpreting the Mosaic laws. That
may be so, but there was also question of interpreting the
prophets, the psalms, and the apocalypses—the whole of
that vast series of books which had already, at the
beginning of the present era, become sacred books,
containing the expression of the development of the
Jewish soul. Did not the interpretation of the Judaic
tradition necessarily involve the framing of a political
programme ?
What was, then, the tradition of Judaism in the first
century ?
The glowing nationalism of the founders of the Jewish
State, in the time of Esdras, had expressed in terms of
the cult of the national god Jahveh the fierce patriotism
which was to them the condition of existence; and this
primitive conception had traced the path for Judaism.
The ancient moshlim who had, in the fourth century,
gradually composed the books of Moses, persuaded them-
selves, by identifying the god Jahveh with the Jewish
fatherland, by repeating that Israel (we know why they
said Israel) was the people of Jahveh, just as Jahveh was
the god of Israel, that a covenant had been concluded
between Jahveh and the Jews; that Jahveh had promised
the Jews the free and peaceful enjoyment of their land if
they observed his law.
In spite of the alternate mastery of Judsea by the
Ptolemies and Seleucids, the prophets had improved upon
the covenant. By a stroke of genius, the two Isaiahs had,
at the time when the greatest misery prevailed and the
HILLEL AND SHAMMAI
255
-
divine promise seemed to fail, enlarged it so far as to
announce that Jahveh promised, not merely the peaceful
and glorious enjoyment of Palestine, but the dominion of
the world.
The dark soul of the chanters of the psalms had found
comfort in the promise ; and, when fresh evidence was
given of the vanity of such ambition, the apocalypses and
the book of Daniel had appeared. In the apocalypses
there are no longer conditions attached to the promise;
the final event—the submission of the world, the posses-
sion of the earth, the glorification of Jerusalem—is
announced absolutely, at a fixed date, in all its details. The
Jew has now merely to await his time in a devout fulfil-
ment of the works of the Law, and perseverance in his
unconquerable faith. The day when the heavens will
open and the Messiah appear, amid the parting clouds, in
the roar of the thunder and the Keroubim, the work will be
perfected, and the Jews will receive their inheritance from
his hands, without striking a blow, while their enemies
are exterminated or reduced.
To this pitch had the imperialism of the Jewish people
attained when the Romans took Palestine.
Once more the fulfilment of their hope was postponed:
once more the reality pitilessly belied their ambition.
Let us add that the Romans were much harder masters
than the Syrians or the Egyptians had been. Moreover,
while the Egyptians and the Syrians had left the Jews to
govern themselves under their suzerainty, Rome imposed
detested rulers, either as kings or procurators. For the
Romans, though so tolerant toward the peoples whom
they governed, had at last become weary of Jewish
fanaticism; unruly subjects needed tyrannical govern-
ment.
The hopes of the Jews lay dark in an abyss of calamities
that they had never known before.
Then were formed the two great parties of the last
epoch of the Jewish people. There was the party of the
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THE ROMAN PERIOD
insurgent, and the party of those who did not despair.
There were, with Hillel and Shammai, two interpretations
of the Judaic law.
Hillel interpreted it: —
“ Follow the example of our fathers. Be patient. Trust
the divine promises. Confide in god. Wait. Expect
everything from him. Expect nothing of yourselves.
Observe the commandments. Believe and hope.”
Shammai interpreted it:—
“Resist the oppressor. Obey god only. Refuse sub-
mission to the impious.”
Shammai was the leader of those who became at last
tired of suffering, waiting, and bowing the head. But he
was breaking the Judaic tradition ; it was Hillel who was
faithful to it. When they rebelled against the Romans,
the Jews rebelled at the same time against their past,
their books, and their god. They ceased to be “ the
pious ” ; and they became heroes. Nevertheless, while
it drove them to revolt, their despair was still impreg-
nated with Judaism; beliefs that are four centuries old
cannot entirely be abandoned. Though in rebellion, the
Jews continued to await the Messiah who would give
them the victory; but, from the time when they were no
longer content to await him in penance and prayer, the
promise of great help and the hope of a magnificent
victory gave them added strength to sustain them in the
struggle.
The party of revolt had been secretly forming during
the long reign of Herod. When it came to light, in the
time of the procurators, it embraced a considerable part
of the Pharisees, the violent of the Shammai type, those
who are carried out of their way by anger; but it was
chiefly composed of men of the people, and absorbed the
whole of the extreme left of the zealots.
The party of submission had its adherents to the end.
It embraced the whole of the Sadducees. These wealthy,
pleasure-loving aristocrats now expected little of the
RENASCENCE OE PROPHETISM
257
promises of Jahveh; the Roman domination secured
them a peaceful and pleasant life. The greater part of
the Pharisees formed the nucleus of the party. As dis-
ciples of Hillel, they were men of tradition. It is certain
that a fraction of the lower people also accepted sub-
mission, though they gradually tired of it, and passed to
the opposite party.
Hillel and Shammai were not to be the leaders of the
parties they had inspired. They were both dead when
the period of trouble, violence, and folly, that led to the
ruin of Jerusalem, began. The scene is now about to be
occupied by a series of agitators, some arising in the
school of Hillel, others in that of Shammai. Chief among
them were, on the one side, John the Baptist and similar
men, and, on the other side, Judas the Gaulonite, his
sons, and the insurgents of the year 66.
§ 2. Renascence of Prophetism.
Let us recall what the prophets had been in the course
of the preceding centuries. In ancient Israel, as in the
time of Esdras and in every period in the history of
oriental peoples, we found certain wizards, something like
dancing and howling dervishes, who foretold the future,
healed beasts and men, and wandered, feared and vener-
ated, about the country and the towns of Palestine. It
was believed that the spirit of Jahveh breathed in these
poor fools; and they were called—as simple peoples
always call such men—men of god. By a literary device
that argues the most fertile power of invention, the writers
of the end of the fourth and of the third centuries had
attributed their discourses and dogmatic odes to ancient
and legendary men of god, such as Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and Isaiah; and, while these wild bone-setters,
with the impress of sacred madness, were still, in the
third century, seen wandering about the towns and fields,
s
258
THE ROMAN PERIOD
people repeated the hymns, the vociferations, the poems,
and the “prophecies,” which Jahveh was supposed to
have dictated to the ancestors of these wretched beings.
It was still the same in the second century. The
author of the book of Daniel had, like the authors of
the books of Jeremiah and Isaiah, idealised the sombre
figure of the popular diviner into that of the prophet
Daniel. After Daniel a few authors of apocalypses had
maintained the tradition. The inspiration was failing,
however. Moreover, a canon of the sacred books had
been made, and it was more difficult to secure the accept-
ance of new prophets. Men of god still abounded in
JudEea and in the whole of the East. There were still
sorcerers, but there were no longer prophets, in Israel.
We reach the beginning of the first century of our era.
The ancient prophetic books are the beverage that intoxi-
cates the impatience of the Jewish people. At that time
no one, either in Judaea or the Jewish colonies, doubts
that Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel had really
existed, and that they had, at the time of the ancient
kingdoms and the Deportation, written the pages and
done the deeds which their books ascribed to them; it
is regretted that they have had no successors, and that
the voice of prophetism has been so long silent. This
glowing cult of the ancient prophetic books provoked,
under the pressure of events, real rivals of the fictitious
prophets. Was not the ambition to take up afresh the
great work of the ancient tribunes bound to enter some
of these fanatical minds? It is natural to think that
more than one of these Jews, distracted with misery and
ambition, dreamed, in their ecstasies and furies, of sub-
mitting themselves in turn, like a Jeremiah, to the
inspiration of Jahveh. But in the first century the
impatience, anger, and despair were too great to express
themselves in books alone. Something more than words
was wanted—the active work of an Elijah and a
Jeremiah. From the midst of these men of god who
RENASCENCE OE PROPHETISM
259
still wandered miserably about Palestine, pale vagabonds,
diviners, and healers, bearing the sacred mark of Jahveh,
madness, on their brows, there were bound to come some
who would rise to the effective position of prophets.
Thus at the beginning of the first century, for the first
time in history, the character that had been created by
the fiction of fourth and third-century writers became at
length a reality. There were among the lowly bone-
setters and fortune-tellers of Palestine men who spoke,
preached, and acted in the name of Jahveh. What
literary inventiveness had made of an Elijah or a
Jeremiah, a John the Baptist was in reality. The part
which had been imagined for an Elisha or an Isaiah was
taken up in fact by a Jesus the Nazarene. There were
at length prophets in Israel in some other than a literary
sense.
When we wish to conceive the life of a John the
Baptist, a Jesus the Nazarene, or a Theudas, we must
picture to ourselves wonder-workers, healers of men and
beasts, wandering from town to town, living by begging
or rascality, surrounded by a troop of followers, recruited
from the lower classes of society, and practising divina-
tion as well as healing. Their minds exalted, and
believing themselves to be in close relation with their
god, they call themselves his spokesmen; that is to say,
they give themselves the title of prophets on the same
ground that they grant it to the great classic prophets—
Elijah and Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah—their
models.
As Judaism is now triumphant in the whole of
Palestine (except in dissident regions like Samaria, which
had just recovered a semi-independence), we shall not be
surprised to find other men than those of Jerusalem
among the new prophets. We do not know the country
of John the Baptist; Theudas probably belonged to
Jerusalem; Jesus is said to have been a Galilaean.
There has been an interminable discussion as to whether
260
THE ROMAN PERIOD
Jesus the Nazarene was a Jew. The point is without
interest; or, rather, it is very simple. All these men,
John the Baptist, Jesus the Nazarene, Theudas, and
those whose names are not preserved in history, were so
profoundly Judaisers that we must regard them as Jews.
The racial question is insoluble. It is beyond doubt
that there had been a great mixture of populations in
Galilee; but had there not been just as great a mingling
in Judaea itself ? Race is a fugitive, intangible thing;
tradition alone counts. For three centuries, perhaps,
and certainly since the early Machabees—that is to say,
for a century and a half—Galilee had been Judaised.
The Galilaeans of the first century practised Judaism,
and lived the Jewish life; they shared the Jewish soul
unreservedly; they were Jews.1
Coming from the lower ranks of society, the new
prophets remained, like their models, uncompromising
demagogues. Like them, they are ferociously orthodox;
like them, they are feverish with hatred of the goim;
like them, they are hostile to the upper clergy; like
them, they are pitiless enemies of wealth and power.
What do they take to be their mission? The same,
having regard to new conditions and the more recent
apocalyptic ideas, that the classical prophets had assumed
in their day; they are going to proclaim the promises
and threats of Jahveh, and announce the speedy liberation
of Israel and the imminent coming of the judgment of
Jahveh. In a word, they are precursors of the Messiah.
The expected Messiah was to be an angel, not a man.
It is inconceivable that any Jew could at that time call
himself, or be called, Messiah.
Of the two camps of Hillel and Shammai, which
divide Judaea, one ready to fly to arms, the other
advising patience, one fomenting rebellion, the other
promising divine intervention, the prophet-agitators are
1 See Appendix VII.
JEWISH AGITATORS FROM THE YEAR 1 TO 66 261
disciples of Hillel. Their work is not to preach the holy
war, but to announce the speedy coming of the liberator.
Prudent in regard to the Romans, they avoid compro-
mising words. But the course of things drags them out
of their way. You cannot with impunity preach a great
hope of vengeance among an over-excited people. Their
hearts are inevitably lifted up; trouble begins—not
revolt, but heated movements, sometimes half-seditious.
That is enough, however. The Roman authority is
implacable. Rome suffers everything, except disorder ;
if there are ideas of revolt, it will make a terrible example.
It is not anger, but policy. At the first outbreak the
procurator pronounces sentence of death.
At other times the miserable agitators themselves lose
their heads, and resort to violence. Prom the precepts
of Hillel they pass some day to the violent party. From
that time they are confused with insurgents such as
Judas the Gaulonite ; and the Roman authority, which
has not spared the mere fomenters of trouble, will
certainly not spare the seditious. None of these new
prophets comes to an end save by the sword or the cross.
Let us say a few words on the chief among them.
§ 3. Jewish Agitators from the Year 1 to the
Year 66.
John the Baptist.—Our authorities are Flavius
Josephus1 and the later evangelical legends.
According to Josephus, John, surnamed the Baptist, a
man of great piety, exhorted the Jews to refrain from
sin and receive baptism. Josephus, who was resolved not
to speak of messianism, says no more about him. The
later legends leave no doubt that John announced the
speedy coming of the kingdom of Jahveh. Possibly he
was an Essenian. He had, Josephus says, many followers.
1 Jeivish Antiquities, xviii. 7.
262
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THE ROMAN PERIOD
The Herodian authority, which held in the neighbourhood
of the Jordan, and rested on the Roman authority, feared
some seditious movement. It had John imprisoned at
Machera, and decapitated.
Jesus the Nazarene.—Our authorities are the
Epistles of St. Paul, the gospel legends, and a few lines
in pagan writers of the second century.
The existence of Jesus seems to be doubtful. The
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote fifty years
after the assigned date of his death, says nothing about
him ; or, rather, his work only mentions him in a passage
which is unanimously recognised as an interpolation.1
Another Jewish historian of the same period, Justus of
Tiberias, knows nothing of him. The famous Alexandrian
Jew, Philo, who was born twenty years before Jesus, and
died twenty years after him, and who was the most
enlightened man of his age in the East, knows nothing of
him. The Talmud has not a single authentic detail about
him. No Latin or Greek historian of the first century
had heard of him ; and there is not a single contemporary
official text that indicates his existence. As to the
gospels, they are dogmatic, not historical, works; more-
over, the earliest of them belong to the end of the first
century.
On the other hand, the silence of Josephus may be due
to the suppression, by Christian hands, of lines analogous
to those he devotes to the other agitators; they would be
regarded as blasphemous, and replaced by the interpolated
passage. Again, it is difficult to admit that the gospel
legends, however dogmatic and however late they may be,
had not an historical basis. Finally, that the Latin and
Greek texts know nothing of Jesus is not, perhaps,
unintelligible, if his career was as humble as that of the
obscure prophets who then abounded in Palestine.
1 Jewish Antiquities, xviii. 4.
JEWISH AGITATORS FROM THE YEAR 1 TO 66 263
If, however, we choose to admit the real existence of
an agitator of the name of Jesus, we have to be content
with the most meagre biographical details. For instance,
that Jesus was born in Galilee; that he worked as a
prophet there in the same conditions as the other Jewish
agitators of the time; that he at last allowed himself to
be led into the misadventure (entrance into Jerusalem
and invasion of the temple) which terminated in his
arrest; and that he was, on that account, condemned to
the cross by the Roman authority (not the Jewish
authority) under the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate.
Theudas.—Consult Josephus.1
Theudas, in the year 47, when Cuspius Fadus was
procurator of Judaea, persuaded a great crowd to follow
him as far as the Jordan, in the expectation that the
kingdom of Jahveh was at hand.
Fadus sent out a troop of cavalry. Theudas was taken
and beheaded, and his head was brought to Jerusalem.
Some Other Agitators.—It is beyond question that
there were many other agitators. John the Baptist,
Jesus the Nazarene, and Theudas—the only names that
have reached us—may be taken as prototypes of the
others.
Josephus speaks of numbers of “enchanters” who,
deceiving the people under the pretext of religion, led
them into solitary places, promising them that god would
show them by miracles that he wished to deliver them
from slavery. The procurator Felix, regarding these
meetings as a beginning of revolt, sent out soldiers, who
slew a great number of them.1 2
A prophet from Egypt attracts a number of Jews to
the Mountain of Olives, assuring them that the walls of
Jerusalem will fall at the sound of his voice. Felix killed
1 Jewish Antiquities, xx. 2.
2 Jewish War, ii. 23, and Jewish Antiquities, xx. C.
264
THE ROMAN PERIOD
four hundred of them, and took two hundred prisoners;
but the Egyptian escaped.1
An “impostor,” whose profession was thaumaturgy,
leads out a number of people to the desert, promising to
deliver them from all sorts of evils. Festus, the successor
of Felix, dispersed them.2
They all have the same career, both those whose names
history has forgotten and those whose names have sur-
vived, such as John the Baptist, Jesus, and Theudas.
Disciples of Hillel, not of Shammai, they intend to preach
peacefully the speedy coming of the messianic era, as
Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, and Isaiah had done, and exhort
the people to prepare for the great event. But the
agitation works its effect; from the very nature of things,
trouble arises; and one fine day, whether they seek it or
are drawn into it, the disturbance breaks out. One of
them, Jesus, makes a sensational entry into Jerusalem at
the time of the Passover, and invades the temple with his
company; another, an unknown agitator, occupies the
Mount of Olives. At once the Roman authority inter-
venes, and the prophet ends on the cross, if he has not
been killed in the affray.
What traces did these ephemeral agitators leave behind
them ? Once the disturbance was over, and the agitator
cut down or crucified, most of his disciples scattered; but
a few remained faithful to the memory of the master.
Flavius Josephus speaks constantly of the disciples of this
or that man; the Jewish books never mention anybody
without saying who had been his master. In point of
fact, we do not know if any disciples survived of Theudas;
but it is said that John the Baptist and Jesus had some
after their execution. They were humble folk, however,
doomed to disappear rapidly. Why should they last?
None of them had been animated by a master of genius.
Jesus had taken up the work of John the Baptist; an
unknown continued the work of Jesus ; Theudas followed.
1 Ibidem.
2 Jewish Antiquities, xx. 7.
JEWISH AGITATORS FROM THE YEAR 1 TO 66 265
Meantime there were, besides the prophet-disciples of
Hillel, the insurgents, the disciples of Shammai.
Flavius Josephus distinguishes between the two.
“ While,” he says, “ the brigands filled Jerusalem with
murders, the enchanters seduced the people.”1 “ The
former,” he says elsewhere, “were impious men and
disturbers of the public peace, deceiving the people under
the guise of religion; the others were murderers, shedding
human blood.”2 Every day, indeed, the flood of anger
was rising in Judaea; the old lesson of patience was
being lost.
In the year 4 Judas the Gaulonite and Sadoc had
refused to obey Rome, and taken to arms. Then—to
quote only the chief episodes of the story—there was the
affair of the standards. Pontius Pilate had placed the
figure of Tiberius Caesar on the standards of Jerusalem.
It was a sacrilegious violation of the Mosaic laws. The
Jews advanced with such threatening entreaties upon
Caesaraea, where the procurator was, that he yielded.
Pontius Pilate having used the money of the temple on
public works, another sedition broke out. This time he
drowned it in blood.
Caligula wishes to have a statue of himself placed in
the temple. There is the same popular movement as in
regard to the standards.
Later, two sons of Judas the Gaulonite, Jacob and
Simeon, entice the zealots into a fresh insurrection.
They are taken, and suffer the punishment of the rebel:
they are crucified.
The years which precede the great insurrection are
increasingly filled with disorder ; acts of fearful fanaticism
on the part of the Jews, who are more and more exasper-
ated, and of more and more severe repression on the part
of the Romans. So great a terror reigned at Jerusalem,
says Flavius Josephus, that people thought themselves
1 Jeiuish Antiquities, xx. G. 2 Jewish War, ii. 23.
266
THE ROMAN PERIOD
in no less peril than they would be in the midst of the
most sanguinary war.1
In the other towns of Judaea disturbances break out
between the Jews and the pagans, and are followed by
abominable massacres. The fiercest intolerance predom-
inates among the Jerusalemites; when they cannot
persecute others, the Jews cry out that they are being
persecuted. As the chosen race of Jahveh, they have
rights over the pagans, but the pagans have no rights
over them. Judaic fanaticism thus set an example to the
Churches, which define liberty as the right to privileges,
and regard themselves as persecuted when they are not
permitted to oppress their opponents.
One day, at Jerusalem, the leaders of the active resist-
ance party decide that the sacrifices offered to the temple
by pagans must be rejected, and they refuse the victims
that are offered in the name of the emperor. The men
of the other party, both Sadducees and Pharisees,
endeavour to persuade the recusants to undo their
resolution ; they see the danger that threatens the city.
It is useless; the recusants, trusting to their greater
numbers, think of nothing but revolt.2
The middle of the first century represents, in Judaea,
one of the disturbed periods of history. A tempest of
furious madness blows over Jerusalem, but the national
passion never ceases for a moment to clothe itself in the
form of a religious passion; for the Jews religion is,
to the end, the formula of nationalism.
The great festivals which are celebrated every year at
Jerusalem are always the occasion of trouble. Jerusalem
is not an oriental capital; it is a holy city; it could best
be compared to the Mecca of to-day. The Mosaic law
has enjoined that, on each of the great festivals, the Jews
must come to the temple, the unique temple at Jerusalem,
to present themselves before their god.
1 Jewish War, ii. 23.
2 Jewish War, ii. 30.
JEWISH AGITATORS FROM THE YEAR 1 TO 66 267
Three times in a year shall all your males appear before
Jahveh, your god, in the place which he shall choose; in
the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks,
and in the feast of tabernacles.1
The law, once framed for a country that consisted of
Jerusalem and its outskirts, remains the law of a country
that embraces Palestine, to say nothing of the colonies
scattered on every side. Judaism is maintained, with all
its commandments ; it will not renounce a single verse of
its Thora; it knows that the duties it continues to impose
are a source of strength to be preserved. Hence, at each
of the three great festivals, immense pilgrimages, in
which the national life is sustained in the form of a
religious communion, meet in the holy city.
At ordinary times Jerusalem has thirty thousand souls ;
at the time of the festivals the pilgrims bring up its
population to a million feverish minds, wild-beating
hearts, and howling mouths. All these move restlessly
at the foot of the temple, the centre of the world, the
house of Jahveh. The Roman cohorts watch them ; but
the anger around them rumbles, and the fever rises. No
one knows exactly the extent of the power of Rome.
The prophets preach from the steps; the zealots glide
through the throng, sword in hand; and men repeat the
unforgettable promises of Jahveh.
These promises—the avenging of insults, the conquest
of the world, the triumph of Judaism from the Euphrates
to the gates of the West—should be fulfilled by Jahveh
acting alone, by his Messiah, who will appear in the
heavens above with a train of Kerubim. By forgetting
the old verse : “ It is not on thy bow that thou shalt rely,
nor by thy sword that thou shalt conquer,” by following
Shammai instead of Hillel, the Jews of Jerusalem have
condemned their city. The revolt of the year 66 ended
in the ruin of the city and of Judsea in the year 70. And
in their effort to meet Rome face to face, with open war,
1 Detiteronomy xvi. 16.
268
THE ROMAN PERIOD
the Jews of Jerusalem would have destroyed Judaism,
together with the city, if it had not been saved by the
men of the subterraneous war, the humble and patient
Jews of the Dispersion.
Chapter IV.
THE INVASION
§ 1. Notes on the Dispersion.
When, in the year 70 of the present era, the Emperor
Titus, after one of the most terrible sieges that is known
to history, took Jerusalem by assault, burned the temple,
destroyed the city, and put an end to the political destiny
of the Jewish people, Judaism flourished over nearly the
whole extent of the Graeco-Roman world.
The spread of the Jews over the Graeco-Roman world
is called the Dispersion; the Greeks called it the Dias-
pora. We have often, in the course of our study, touched
upon episodes of the Dispersion, and it may be useful to
make a general survey of it before we conclude. But as
the Dispersion did not attain its proper character until
the time when the Jews took the books of the Law with
them over the world, a few lines will suffice for the
emigrations before the fifth century.
It will be remembered how the inhabitants of Samaria
in 721, and those of Jerusalem in 599 and 588, were
deported by the kings of Assur and Babylon to the banks
of the Tigris and the Euphrates. At the time of the
great Assyrian and Babylonian empires conquest was
always followed by deportation. A Salmanasur, king of
Assur, or a Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, fell with
his vast army upon the kingdom of Samaria or the
kingdom of Judah. The country was looted, the towns
were sacked, and the conqueror led away, in immense
flocks, the greater part of the vanquished population, as
well as the treasures of their temples and harems. The
lowly, the weak, the powerless, were left in the devastated
269
270
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THE INVASION
fields or amid the ruins of the dismantled towns. The
finest part of the population, the soldiers and the agri-
cultural workers, went with their leaders to populate some
distant territory.
The Samaritans had been in Assyria nearly two hun-
dred years, and the Jerusalemites fifty years in Babylonia,
when, in 538, Cyrus, king of Persia, took Babylon, and,
it is said, allowed the exiles to return to their countries.
But we have seen that, contrary to the traditional opinion,
only a very small number of the Jews left the banks of
the Euphrates to return to Jerusalem. The rebuilding
of Jerusalem, the reconstitution of the little Jewish State,
the work of perseverance and passion which is called the
Bestoration, was accomplished by the sons of the men
who had remained in the ruins of the city.
What became of the Jews who remained in Babylonia,
and of the Samaritans who remained in Assyria ?
The Samaritan exiles were lost in the chaos of peoples
that swarmed about the Tigris. Two hundred years of
exile must have erased all trace of their not very pro-
nounced nationality. It was probably too late when the
tolerance of Cyrus permitted them to renew their relations
with their former country.
The Jews of Babylonia, on the other hand, had not had
time, in fifty years, to lose their nationality. But the
Assyriological documents show them to us mingling with
the surrounding population. They would have been
gradually absorbed, like their brothers of Samaria, or of
Elephantine, if emigration had not brought among them
Jews of the new school, the Esdras school, Jews who had
with them the Mosaic law. Instead of the Jews of
Babylon restoring Judaism at Jerusalem, it was the Jews
of the restored Jerusalem who gave new life to Babylonian
Judaism.
There was constant communication between the
Euphrates and Jerusalem. The road from the Eu-
phrates to Jerusalem does not go straight from east to
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west. A straight line from Jerusalem to Babylon would
cross the desert of Syria, which is impracticable. Even
in our time the caravans which leave Jerusalem go straight
north to Damascus. There they at last turn to the east,
and, when they reach the Euphrates, they descend the
bank of the river until they reach the field of ruins which
was Babylon. The road is not more than a thirty days’
journey. It was one of the busiest of ancient Asia. By
it there penetrated into Jerusalem those Babylonian
elements that formed the culture-medium in which the
Jewish soul began to develop. By it, on account of the
constant exchanges between the colony and the metro-
polis, the latter sent to the colony the nationalist spirit it
had itself created, while the colony sent to Jerusalem the
great Babylonian education that would give it its form.
For five centuries the Babylonian Jews will continue
faithfully to send the tithes prescribed in the Mosaic law
to the temple at Jerusalem, and to come thither on pil-
grimage at the time of the great festivals. Afterwards,
when Judaea has been destroyed by Eoman legions, and
the Jewish colonies of the western world will be rapidly
Hellenising, Babylonia will remain a Jewish centre, shel-
tered from dangerous novelties, and the Talmudic growth
will expand there in peace.
The movement from which Christianity was to issue
took place in the Jewish colonies of the western world.
We know what the development of the Jewish people was
from the time of Esdras; but we must not forget that,
although it gave birth to a soul wild enough to dream of
conquering the world, Jerusalem long remained a poor
State, limited to one city and its outskirts. The
expansion first took place in Palestine. It began at the
beginning of the fourth century, shortly after the time of
Esdras. History has not preserved the details of this
emigration, but the earliest Biblical books show the
settling of a certain number of Jewish families outside
the limits of the State of Jerusalem.
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In the middle of the fourth century, about the year
350, shortly before the destruction of the Persian
monarchy, deportation begins its work once more. The
Phoenicians having risen against the Persian emperor
Artaxerxes Ochus, the Jews also rebelled; like his Assy-
rian and Babylonian predecessor, the Persian, after
reducing them, sent a certain number of them to Egypt
and Hyrcania.
A few years later Alexander the Great spread his rule
over the western Asiatic world. He wished to establish,
under the hegemony of Greece, a new world, in which
the small States which Persia had left isolated might be
amalgamated. After his death his successors continued
his work, amid the war which they waged unceasingly
against each other. New provinces had been formed,
new towns were created, and mixed populations were
brought to them from every side. Alexandria in Egypt,
and Antioch in Syria, were the chief of these cities.
It seems that Alexandria and Antioch received a
number of Jewish families almost immediately. Tradition
affirms that Alexander and his successors made it a point
of honour to induce men of Judaea to migrate to their
new capitals. The fact is doubtful; it is better to inquire
to what extent the Jewish expansion at the end of the
fourth century was due to deportation and to voluntary
emigration.
We have seen the frightful misfortunes in which the
Jews struggled during the last part of the fourth century.
Shortly after the rebellion against Artaxerxes Ochus and
the subsequent deportation, the wars of the successors of
Alexander desolate Judaea, while intestine quarrels fling
Jerusalem, Samaria, and Edom against each other. It is
the abominable period reflected in the earlier prophets.
Among the events of this terrible period the fact of the
taking of Jerusalem by assault, followed by a new
deportation, seems to be historical. It is almost certain
that in 320 Ptolemy Soter took Jerusalem by storm, after
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273
a siege, and sent his prisoners to Egypt. The deporta-
tion under Ptolemy Soter, after the deportation under
Artaxerxes Ochus, is enough to justify the imprecations
of the prophets; but it is probable that, in the course of
all these wars, raids brought troops of Jewish prisoners
to both Egypt and Syria. At the very base of the Jewish
expansion round the Mediterranean we are bound to put
the violent removal of Jewish families from their homes,
and their despatch to Egyptian and Syrian towns. The
prophets repeatedly speak of the Jews outside of Judaea
as exiles; and we cannot doubt that a large number owed
their exile to violence.
But there were also voluntary exiles. The soil of
Judaea is not rich enough to feed a compact population;
and the endless misfortunes that fell on it during the
second half of the fourth century were bound to accelerate
the emigration.
Egypt has always been, and is to-day, the country
preferred by Palestinians who are too miserable in their
own land. The road that led from Jerusalem to Alex-
andria was followed by the Jews of the fourth century,
as it has been by the Jews of all periods. About
the year 300 the Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera
was able to obtain information at Alexandria on Jewish
affairs and certain of the Mosaic laws. An inscription
witnesses that there was a synagogue not far from the
city by the middle of the third century.
On the northern side another road led to Antioch, and
from there to Asia Minor. All these were open paths for
emigrants. The Phoenician ports also, west from Jerusalem,
attracted the poorer Jews who had not the means of sub-
sistence in their own land; Tyre was soon full of them.
The second half 'of the fourth century marks the begin-
ning of the great movement of the men of Jerusalem
toward exile.
We must not, therefore, imagine the Jews of the Dis-
persion as pioneers going out to spread the name of
T
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Jahveh to the ends of the earth. Deportation and
emigration, brutal constraint and misery, had done their
work, and the prophets at Jerusalem unanimously
lamented the brethren who had been torn from their
city; with one voice they sang this one hope and one
consolation, the return of the exiles.
Instead of the exiles returning to the mother country,
new emigrants forsook her unceasingly. Increase and
multiply, the law had said to the men of Jerusalem ; and
the Jewish people increased and multiplied above all
others. Emigration spread into Egypt, the East, Syria,
Asia Minor, the Greek islands, and even beyond. As we
advance in history, more numerous and more precise
documents make plain to us the Jewish expansion round
the Mediterranean. The movement, begun at the end of
the fourth century, continues in the third. The despair,
the regret, the sufferings, and the hopes of the exiles, and
the promises that they will return, fill the two Isaiahs.
The third century is the century of emigration ; the second
will be the same. In the second century the Jewish
colony at Alexandria becomes very large.
The exodus will continue inexorably during the Macha-
baean and the Herodian periods. At the height of the
Machabaean wars deportation will begin again ; Antiochus
Epiphanes and his successors will send a part of their
Jewish prisoners to Greece, where they will settle. A
century later, in 63, Pompey, having taken Jerusalem by
storm, will send a hundred thousand Jewish slaves to
Italy, Flavius Josephus says. But it is emigration rather
than deportation that will fill with Jews the towns of the
Mediterranean basin, and every year vessels will leave the
Phoenician ports with their mournful human herds.
§ 2.
What was to become of all these exiles and emigrants ?
Would they, as they were poured upon the foreign soil,
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275
mingle with the native population and, while influencing
them, insensibly disappear in them ? If they had been
thus assimilated, Judaism would have disappeared after
the fall of Jerusalem, and there would have been no
Christianity. But they were not so assimilated. The
Jewish element resisted mixture ; cast into the depths of
the most varied cities, over the Grseco-Roman world, the
Jews preserved their individuality in them. Their rule
was not to mingle with people whom they regarded as
pagans ; people whom they despised, and who despised
them for their lowliness ; people whom they hated, and
who hated them for their separatist pride. And they
found in the unwearying stubbornness of their soul the
strength to persevere.
In the worst situation in which wretched emigrants
could be placed, they sacrificed nothing of their fierce
nationality. Always grouped together and closely united,
occupying distinct quarters in their towns, they opposed
a wall of iron to every attempt to invade them. They
determined to remain, and they remained, in the midst
of foreign and hostile populations, the same men that they
had been in their own country of Judaea. They retained
their customs, clothing, and religion, secured privileges,
observed their laws, and remained Jews.
But, while they preserved their institutions and
practices, they had not kept their language. In the first
century before the present era Greek (not Latin, as one
might think) was the universal language of the Mediter-
ranean basin. The Jews of the Dispersion gradually
began to speak Greek, and—a notable event—the Bible
was translated into Greek. In this way Judaism, and
Christianity afterwards, found the means of propaganda;
Judaism at Alexandria was renovated by contact with
Hellenic culture; and the only sacrifice that the Jews of
the Dispersion made of their inheritance, the abandon-
ment of the Hebrew tongue, would contribute to their
development.
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The date of the translation of the Septuagint (as the
Greek translation of the Bible is called) is much disputed.
Josephus relates that the “ Book of the Law ” was trans-
lated in the reign and at the command of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, in 277, which we cannot admit. In 277
there was not yet a “Book of the Law there was merely
a series of separate pieces, not yet put together; the latest
Levitic mashal were scarcely finished. On the other
hand, the translation of the Mosaic law was undertaken in
order to meet the needs of the Jews of Alexandria, when
they no longer understood Hebrew, and when they were
numerous enough, and the colony important enough, to
make so large a work indispensable and possible. These
different considerations bring us to the second century
before the present era, and, in point of fact, the first proof
we have of the existence of a Greek Bible is about the
year 130 (the arrival of the grandson of Ben-Sira at
Jerusalem). The Jewish Bible thus became, on its
translation into Greek, an instrument of propaganda
through the whole Grseco-Boman world, instead of being
a document hopelessly closed against western peoples.
Thanks to the laws, customs, and religion to which
they clung, the rule of isolation that they accepted or,
rather, claimed, the hatred they felt for the goim and the
hatred they engendered in the goim, and in spite of their
having forgotten their mother tongue, these wretched
emigrants and exiles remained Jews at all times and in all
places, from father to son. They were bound to become
very numerous. Not one of their colonies disappearing,
or being assimilated, or mixing with the population, they
would necessarily increase in importance. The Graeco-
Boman world ought, logically, to be filled with Jews in
time. Was it so in reality ?
Let us hear the witnesses.
First half of the second century.—The book of Esther,
the most ferociously and sanguinarily Judaic of all the
books of the Bible, shows us the Jews spread over the
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277
whole oriental world, from Egypt to Persia and on to the
islands of the sea, and so numerous, so powerful, and so
dangerous, that the first Antisemite makes his appearance
in history in the person of Haman. Haman speaks
thus :—
There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed
among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom, and
their laws are diverse from those of all peoples.1
And Haman adds :—
-
Neither keep they the king’s laws, therefore it is not
for the king’s profit to suffer them.
The book of Esther is not history ; it interests the
historian rather by the situations it describes than the
events it relates.
Let us hear the rest of the witnesses.
End of the second century, or beginning of the first.—
The Alexandrian Jew who wrote in the name of the Sibyl
speaks thus :—
Every land and every sea is filled with them.2
About the year 1.—We pass over a century, and reach
the age of Augustus. The world is now Roman. The
witness is a pagan writer, the historian-geographer
Strabo:—
The Jews have penetrated into every town, and it is not
easy to find a single spot in the inhabited world that has
not received this people, and is not dominated by it.3
Middle of the first century of the present era.—Less
than fifty years after Strabo, Philo, the most celebrated
and learned of the Alexandrian Jews, gave fresh testimony
to the invasion of the Graeco-Roman world by his com-
patriots. His words are :—
Jerusalem is not only the metropolis of Judaea, but of
most countries. It has sent colonies into the contiguous
countries, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Coele-Syria, and
into more distant countries, Pamphilia, Cilicia, most of
1 Esther iii. 8. 2 Oracles of the Sibyl, iii. 271.
3 Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, xiv. 12.
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the Asiatic States, even to Bithynia, to the confines of
Pontus, to Europe, to Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia,
Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and the most populous
and finest parts of Peloponnesus; and not only has it
opened its settlements on the continent, but also in the
principal islands, Euboea, Cyprus, and Crete; I do not
speak of the lands beyond the Euphrates, because all of
them, including Babylon and the neighbouring satrapies,
have, with few exceptions, Jewish inhabitants.1
It is a text of extraordinary importance, and it is con-
firmed every day by the inscriptions discovered.
End of the first century.—Flavius Josephus, who wrote
in the last years of the first century of the present era,
gives us many indications of the state of the Dispersion in
his time. In Syria the Jewish inhabitants are in the
majority; at Antioch they have a splendid synagogue ; at
Damascus they number more than ten thousand, and
most of the women are Judaisers; they are settled in
Mesopotamia, along the whole coast of Asia Minor, and in
Cyrenaica. In Egypt they number a million.
The New Testament, in fine, is not a less witness, and
the Epistles of St. Paul, especially, assume the existence
of synagogues in all the large towns of the Empire.
It remains only to show how Rome itself was invaded
by Judaism.
It seems that there were Jews at Rome from the second
century before the present era. According to Valerius
Maximus, the praetor Hispalus, in 139, expelled the Jews
from the city on account of their proselytism. Flavius
Josephus relates, as we saw, that Pompey, in 63, sent his
prisoners as slaves to Rome. But the first contemporary
witness to the existence of a Jewish colony in Italy is
Cicero ; and his testimony is decisive.
Cicero pleads for the proconsul Flaccus, who is charged
with exaction in Syria. He comes to speak of sums of
money that the Jews of Asia Minor had sent to the
temple at Jerusalem, according to the practice of their
1 Philo, Lcgatio ad Gaium, letter of Agrippa to Caligula.
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279
religion, which Flaccus is accused of diverting. He then
approaches the tribunal. He reproaches the accuser with
having secured the trial on the Aurelian steps, in the open
Forum, instead of in the enclosure reserved for civic
affairs, and having chosen this spot because of the crowd
of Jews who would be there.
“ Thou knowest,” he says to the accuser, “ how great is
their number, their union, their power.....nl
And he says that he is going to speak law, so that he
will be heard by the judges only. Later he congratulates
his client for having dared to brave these Jews who some-
times disturb public assemblies.
Thus, barely three years after Pompey has sent his
Jewish prisoners to Rome, Cicero speaks, not merely of
the number and unity, but the power, of the Jews at
Rome; and they are regarded as formidable, and can
disturb a proconsul. The settlement of the Jews at
Rome was accomplished more than half-a-century before
the Christian era.
A hundred years later, Seneca, confirming the testimony
of Strabo and Philo, will express a fact historically known
in his time in saying of the Jews that “ this nation [the
most rascally of all, he adds] has done so well that its
practices are now established over the whole earth.”1 2
§ 3.
The Jewish groups, thus scattered throughout the
Grseco-Roman world, had had at first, in point of organi-
sation, the form of foreign settlements. Closed associa-
tions, they had originally represented the effort of the
emigrants to defend and maintain themselves in the
midst of a hostile world. Little by little, as the years
1 Cicero, Pro Flacco, 28.
2 Seneca, quoted by St. Augustine, De Civitatc Dei, vi. 10.
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THE INVASION
rolled on, these associations had become permanent; the
hope of returning to their mother country became more
and more chimerical; the emigrants understood that
they must die in the land of exile.
As we have said, the exiled or emigrant Jews had at all
times and in all places preserved their laws, their usages,
their religion, and, in a general way, their cast of mind.
Nevertheless a great evolution of the Jewish soul would
he brought about by the Dispersion. In Judaea the Jews
were devoted exclusively to agriculture and pasture.
Industry and commerce barely existed; the Jewish spirit,
absorbed in its nationalist and religious fanaticism, dis-
liked meddling with business. The Eoman, a soldier and
administrator, hated and despised business; the Jew had
usually the same hatred and contempt out of fanaticism.
Commerce is anathematised in the Bible. The Greeks,
unlike the Romans and Jews, were born merchants; it
was an additional reason why commerce should be odious
to the uncompromising prophets. We must conceive the
Jews of Jerusalem as orientals incapable of any sustained
labour, interested only in politics and religion, using up
their days in controversy about the temple, after doing
the smallest amount of work that would preserve them
from dying of hunger. The formula of Jerusalemitic
Judaism was always that of the Sermon on the Mount:—
Behold the fowls of the air....Consider the lilies of the
field....1
The Dispersion gradually converted the Jews into the
merchants who were familiar to the Middle Ages and
modern times. What enterprise, indeed, was there for
these emigrants and exiles in towns where they infallibly
remained pariahs ? The lowest occupations at first. The
main point was to live. The indefatigable perseverance
that expressed itself at Jerusalem in resisting anti-
national influences found expression, among the Jews
1 Matthew vi. 26 and 28.
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281
of the colonies, first in a determination to remain Jews,
then to ascend the steps that lead from the lowest occu-
pations to high commerce. About the year 6 they are
still, with few exceptions, in the humblest forms of
commerce. But the evolution has begun; there is a
tense activity in the ghettoes. Does not the Mosaic law
permit in the colonies what it forbids at Jerusalem ? Is
not usury permitted in regard to the goim, though for-
bidden between Jew and Jew ? While Jerusalem is the
city of political and religious exaltation, the Jewish colo-
nies are ant-hills, in which a small world of miserable
folk busy themselves in the obscure getting of their daily
bread.
The generations go by. The children, the grand-
children, of the emigrants are now attached to the soil
on which their fathers settled, cursing their destiny.
They remain Jewish in heart, thought, and ways. Never
for a moment do they mingle with the goim. They have
kept their individuality. They belong, however, to the
country ; they become national, from the very nature of
things; in a word, they cease to be foreigners. The
Jewish communities are no longer the associations of
foreigners that they were at first; they become private
societies. It is the second form of their organisation.
But these private societies, formed for the security of
the commercial as well as the religious interests of their
members, have a peculiar character: they have the
appearance of being purely religious societies. The
synagogue is their centre in every city; the governor of
the synagogue is their leader. Religion, in fact, is the
bond and the soul of these communities. The asso-
ciation of interests in the Jewish colonies cannot, any
more than nationalism at Jerusalem, assume any other
form than that of religion. Ajaother characteristic feature
is that the Jewish communities now embrace, not only
Jews, but Judaisers. Natives of the country in the
vicinity of the Jews have begun to Judaise, or to experi-
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ence the Jewish influence. They have learned about
Jewish matters, observe certain Jewish laws, and live the
Jewish life. The great work of propaganda has set in.
And the synagogue opens its doors to the proselytes who
come to it.
As private societies under the form of religious societies,
then, the majority of the Jewish colonies organised them-
selves about the beginning of the present era; thus,
especially, were organised the Jewish colonies at Rome.
In some cities, however, the Jews attained a higher
organisation, and reached a situation not unlike that of
the corporations which the Romans formed in non-
Roman countries. When the Romans settled or travelled
in non-Roman lands, they were in a privileged position ;
they were independent of the municipalities in which
they were, and they kept their own laws and jurisdiction.
It is hardly surprising in men who had conquered the
whole known world ; it is not more surprising in the
Jews, the eternally conquered, if we remember the im-
measurable power of resistance and perseverance that
sustained the miserable and admirable people through so
many trials.
Strabo, in the text that we have quoted above, explains
that the Jews had some such position in Alexandria and
Cyrenaica:—
In Egypt the Jews have received separate quarters to
live in ; at Alexandria an extensive quarter has been set
aside for them. At their head there is an ethnarch who
administers the affairs of the colony, presides at litigation,
and sees to the execution of contracts and regulations, like
the head of an independent State.1
There the Jewish colony no longer needed to take the
form of a religious association in order to maintain itself.
Religion was always the principle of union, but the colony
had become a sort of political federation—a State within
the State ; Strabo says Wvoc, el people apart, a vassal
1 Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, xiv. 12.
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283
rather than a subject of the local government. Let us
hasten to say, however, that this extraordinary state of
things does not seem to have been found outside of Alex-
andria and Cyrenaica. It is due to the great number of
Alexandrian and Cyrenian Jews, and doubtless to the
weakness of the last kings of Egypt.
The Romans exacted only submission and the payment
of taxes; when they took Egypt, they accepted the
accomplished fact. Moreover, all forms of organisation
of the Jewish colonies, from the foreign settlement and
the private society with a religious form to the political
confederation of Alexandria or Cyrenaica, assumed
religious liberty. Roman toleration had given the Jewish
colonies, not merely religious liberty, but privileges. The
Empire recognised all religions. For the Romans a
religion was the symbol of a people; when they opened
the Empire to all peoples, they opened their Capitol to all
the gods. There was only the theory of the supremacy
of the patron-god of the city, Jupiter Capitolinus, and
afterwards of the cult of the Emperor, which similarly
symbolised the dominion of Rome, that was incompatible
with the Jewish religion. Caligula endeavoured to impose
it on the Jews; they resisted, and the Romans had too
deep a political sense to insist. The Roman government
did not set up a priori theories; practical needs and local
considerations preceded abstract principles. The Jewish
communities were, throughout the whole Empire, dis-
pensed from celebrating the cult of Caesar.
Another privilege relieved them of military service.
Military service seemed to the Jews incompatible with the
observance of some of the laws of Moses, especially that
of the Sabbath. Roman policy declined to exasperate
fanatics.
By a third privilege the Jews had the right, as long as
the temple existed at Jerusalem, not only to visit it
from all parts in pilgrimages of thousands at the time
of the great festivals, but to send their tribute to it.
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THE INVASION
This right was the consequence of their right to administer
their own funds.
Finally, the colonies had the right of jurisdiction over
their members—that is to say, that any Jew might be
judged according to the Mosaic law. In regard to these
liberties and privileges, we shall find the Roman Empire
inexorable whenever there is question of public order, and
chastise the Jews pitilessly in Judsea when they rebel,
and in the Dispersion when, under the name of Christians,
they became criminals at common law.
We have briefly shown the situation of the Jews
scattered round the Mediterranean about the beginning of
the present era. We have seen their number, the extra-
ordinary development of their colonies, their organisation,
and their privileges. We have now to inquire into their
moral, social, and political activity; and that will con-
clude our study of Judaism before St. Paul.
§ 4.
The Roman world was then a splendid marvel of proud
strength and serene power. Rome covered the world as
if with its spreading hands ; like long fingers, its great
stone roads, by which the legions and the prefects came
and went, as the blood flows in the veins and arteries,
sent out its implacable will—a will confident of itself and
irresistible, because it brought peace, organisation, and
justice to the world.
The peace it brought to the world was the fruit of four
centuries of unbroken effort. On the field of battle as
well as in the council, by the totality of its highest
military virtues as well as of its highest civic virtues, its
power had become great enough among other peoples to
create its right. It made one vast society of all the
nations gathered under its dominion; the wars of kingdom
against kingdom dissppeared; it was felt that the world
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285
was, like a harmonious body, about to move according to
the great rhythm of a central will.
For the last time the world saw the colossus roar, shake
its mane, and go into action. That began at Pharsalus,
and ended at Actium. The thunder seemed to rend the
sky and overthrow the earth; the lightning flashed across
the world, from the Euphrates to the Pillars of Hercules;
the earth shook. Then there was a great silence, a
serene calm, a radiant sun, a cloudless sky ; it was the
Roman peace, “ the immeasurable majesty of the Roman
peace.”1 But the Roman peace was an armed peace;
the old legions remained in camp, the javelin in their
hand, the shield on their arm. The procurator might
display the gravity of his toga before the people ; behind
the feeble escort that accompanied him was the shadow of
the Eagles, ever ready to swoop.
It was not enough for Rome to bring peace to the
world ; it brought an organised peace. The Roman was
a born administrator no less than a born soldier. He
knew how to keep what he conquered. Never were such
profoundly statesmanlike qualities developed as among
this nation of grave men, with hard mask, calm brow,
severe eyes, and positivist spirit: men who were always
victorious and always pitiless.
And the work that had pacified and organised the world
ended in giving it justice. We have already recognised
a Roman creation in justice. To give to every man what
belongs to him, suum cuique, is an idea that was born at
Rome. Rome, in fact, was a hierarchy. Above the
countless multitude of lower beings, fit only to serve,1 2
Rome towered, a pyramid of rock, with so many thousand
citizens at its base, with the increasingly luxurious com-
pany of its leaders, and with the Emperor, the great
commander, at the summit.
There were no castes at Rome; positions were open to
1 Immensa pacis Roman® majestas.
2 Servituti nati, Cicero, De Provinciis Consularibus, v.
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all, honours and wealth accessible to all. Foreigners
might become citizens, knights, or magistrates ; a
toleration that afterwards degenerated into abuse. The
legionaries were stationed in the provinces. Foreigners
flocked to the capital. The great freedmen whom we
find among the Caesars, at the head of the hierarchy,
were bastards of Roman nobles and beautiful slaves
imported from all parts of the earth. Christianity, which
did not abolish slavery, almost re-established castes. The
great Roman soul knew no barriers of classes, though it
knew the inequality of men. The Roman legislators
believed that every man had his place; that there is
order in the universe; that there is the oak and there is
the reed, the lion and the beast of the herd; and that
social perfection would be attained if every man,
occupying the place that suits him, prided himself on
being in his proper situation, his proper trade, his proper
charge.
Honour is the law of the few; but the simple senti-
ment of professional duty is capable of replacing decaying
religions in giving the necessary morality to the people.
Rome had no religion, in the moral sense that we give
to the word, yet never did virtue flourish more in any
nation than that. The English have kept the ideal—the
right man in the right place. Unhappy the man who
thinks he is kept from his class, despises his superiors,
and accepts not the post that life has entrusted to him.
On the other hand, the practice of common virtues is
easy, as well as the heroism of rare and great deeds, to
any man who takes pride merely in doing his profes-
sional duty. To teach that to our children it would be
enough, perhaps, as was done with young Romans, to give
them a strong military education.
Judaism proclaimed that all the Jews were equal;
it made of the Jewish people a people apart, a privi-
leged group, a caste. The Jews had no military education.
Military education had taught the Romans the inequality
THE INVASION
287
of men and the accessibility of all to the higher offices—
discipline, on the one hand, and, on the other, the fact
that, as used to be said a century ago, every soldier has a
marshal’s baton in his knapsack. Roman justice, swum
cuique, must be defined in that way. If equality means
the possibility of all to mount the social pyramid by their
own merit, it is just; but in the mind of the mutinous
slave it means that the worker of the last hour shall have
the same pay as he who began in the morning. The
Romans never imagined that the last could be the first,
that the lowly should eat the bread of the strong, and
that life was a feast at which every comer had the right
to an equal seat. That is why Tacitus declared, in
speaking of the Jews: “ What is sacred to us is held in
horror by them ; what to us is infamous is permitted to
them.” 1
If we wish to understand the part that the Jews played
in the great concert of European peace—their moral,
social, and political attitude—we must first consult the
Latin contemporaries. There is no variation in the verdict
of the Latin writers on the Jews; and this consensus of
superior men, of whom two at least, Juvenal and Tacitus,
were great and good men as well as men of genius, is not
a thing to disregard. Christian prejudice has endeavoured
to throw suspicion on the severity of their judgment.
Renan, in his Origins of Christianity, which has a
Christian bias, never hesitates between some miserable
story from “ The Acts of the Martyrs ” and Tacitus; in
his opinion Tacitus is always wrong. The independent
historian, on the other hand, regards the authority of
Tacitus as very great, and does not understand how his
judgment may be accepted in regard to the Germans and
not accepted in regard to the Jews—unless it be that the
Christian religion, being a daughter of the Jewish religion,
owes it some respect.
1 Tacitus, Histories, v. 4.
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In the speech which we have quoted, Cicero, drawing
up an indictment of Judaism, charges their religion with
“ shuddering at the splendour of the empire, the gravity
of the Roman name, and the ancient institutions of the
city.”
Then Horace speaks several times of the Jews, some-
times representing them as a troop of fanatical prosely-
tisers, forcing people to enter their ranks,1 sometimes
laughing at their superstitions and the Sabbath.2
Persius ridicules the way in which the wretched Jews
celebrate the Sabbath.3
Juvenal describes the Jewish beggars with no other
furniture than a basket and some hay,4 and the Jewesses
hawking about cheap predictions.5 In this passage he
gathers up all the reproaches that humanity addresses to
Judaism—contempt of the laws of Rome, hatred of the
pagans, and the refusal to take part in social duties:—
The son of a superstitious observer of the Sabbath
worships only the power of the clouds and the heavens ;
after the example of his father, he has not less horror
of the flesh of a pig than of human flesh, and he is
circumcised. Educated in a contempt for Roman laws,
. he neither studies, observes, nor reveres any but the
Judaic law and all that Moses transmits to his followers
in his mysterious book. He would not tell the way to a
traveller who did not belong to his sect; he would not
show the spring to one who was not circumcised. And
all this because his father idled on the seventh day of each
week, and took no part in life’s duties.6
Suetonius attributes to Augustus a joke about the
Sabbath.7 Seneca includes the observance of the Sabbath
among the superstitions which he advises his reader to
avoid.8
Martial vents his pornographic humour on the Jews;9
1 Horace, Satires, i. 4. 2 Horace, Satires, i. 5 and i. 9.
3 Persius, Satires, v. 4 Juvenal, iii. 13-16.
6 Juvenal, vi. 343 and 547. 6 Juvenal, xiv. 87-104.
7 Suetonius, Augustus, 76. 8 Seneca, Letter to Lucilius, xcv.
9 Martial, vii. 30, 35, and 55.
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289
in another place he describes the Jew “ trained by his
mother to beg ”and again he refers to the fetidness of
the inhabitants of the ghetto, and, among the worst
smells he can recall, such as “ the smell of lagoons from
which the sea has withdrawn, the thick miasma that
rises from the marshes of Albula, the bad air of a pond in
which there has been sea-water, the emanations of a
he-goat paying attention to the female, or the exhalations
of the great-coat of a veteran soldier overcome by fatigue,”
he puts “ the breath of the observers of the Sabbath.”2
We may recall that Seneca called the Jews “ the most
rascally nation of all,” in relating that they “ had done so
well that their practices were now established all over the
earth.”3
Lastly, there is the well-known phrase of Tacitus in
which, speaking of the Christians as identified with the
Jews, he says they are “ convicted of hatred of the human
race.”4 Apologists refer exultantly to certain errors of
Tacitus in regard to Jewish history and laws; but while
Tacitus may have been mistaken on certain points of the
ancient history and legislation (restricted in his time) of
the small Palestinian people, he was better informed as to
the morals of the Jews at Home, his contemporaries. We
have quoted his verdict:—
All that is sacred to us is held in horror by them; all
that is infamous to us is permitted to them.8
He speaks of their “ sinister, fetid ” institutions, “ which
have made way by their perversity.” He speaks again of
their hatred of other men, their stubborn separatism. A
little later their customs are “absurd and sordid”;6 in
another place they are “an execrable people.”7 If Tacitus
had read the apocalypse of St. John, with its cries of rage
against Rome, and its calls for fire, he would not have 1
1 Martial, xii. 57. 2 Martial, iv. 4.
8 Seneca, quoted by St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, vi. 10.
4 Tacitus, Histories, v. 4. 6 Tacitus, Histories, v. 4.
6 Tacitus, Histories, v. 5. 7 Teterrimam gentem; Tacitus, Histories ,v. 8.
. U
290
THE INVASION
doubted that among men who were capable of writing
such books there were some quite capable—and more
likely than Nero—of setting fire to the city.
Let us do justice to the extraordinarily powerful
qualities of the Jewish people, but we need not be
surprised at the horror with which Romans of the
early centuries regarded the ghetto. Its unconquerable
nationalism has made the Jewish people one of the
greatest in the world; but we can quite understand that
at the time of the Dispersion a Tacitus or a Juvenal
could not look upon it with anything but contempt and
indignation.
Let us picture to ourselves these groups, who have
come from Palestine, in the most desolate suburbs of the
large towns, in obscure districts under the shadow of
slaughter-houses, at the outfalls of sewers, in all sorts of
corners shunned by other people, corners where houses
were few, and there were no trees, water, or clear sky.
Let us recollect their acceptance of vile occupations, of
blows, beggary, dirt, and humiliations. The Jew who
emigrated to the West with his Syriac, Tyrian, and
Egyptian neighbours, was not like them in the depths of
his soul. While the poor Tyrian lived out his poor life
in humble servitude, while the Egyptian was resigned,
while all these orientals rejoiced when they gained a few
coins and died young and without envy, the Jew had
grown up with the idea that he was suffering, but would
be avenged ; that he was humbled, but his masters would
be punished ; and his soul was sharpened on hatred and
hope. Under the rags of the miserable Jew the Roman
felt a heart beating with hatred.
We saw that Judaism in Judaea was divided between
the two schools of Hillel and Shammai, the school of
patience and subterraneous^ war, and the school of revolt
and open war. While the disciples of Shammai, getting
the upper hand at Jerusalem, lead the holy city to
destruction, the men of the Dispersion remain faithful
THE INVASION
291
disciples of Hillel. None of the censures of Tacitus or
Juvenal should astonish any man who understands the
book of psalms:—
I am wasted in groaning.....
I am a rejected vessel..
My wounds are fetid.....
I am sated with contempt....
Then
Avenge us, Jahveh, god of vengeance...
Let me bathe my feet in their blood...
Render unto them their outrage sevenfold in their
bosom......
Happy he who shall seize their little children, and dash
them against the rock...
Rise, judge of the earth....break their teeth in their
mouths.....let me rejoice to see my vengeance...1
It is a fierce expectation of vengeance, but there is no
preparation for revolt, no organising of war, no sharpen-
ing of weapons. The Jew of the Dispersion is not minded
to resist; he does not think of rising; no seditious idea
has ever passed through the ghetto. He bends; his
spine is appallingly supple ; the stick plays merrily on it.
He is proud, perhaps, but certainly not haughty. He
expects victory of his god, not of himself. His tremen-
dous strength lies in his confidence that his god will give
him this victory.
He watches and waits, almost with an air of resignation.
All the employments that the Latins disdain are his. He
obeys miserably; he takes up dirty offices ; he prostitutes
his girls and boys. He humbles himself the more as he
is so certain that he will be avenged. There is nothing
in him of the shudder of the slave who is ready to rebel,
of the generous anger that had shook the heart of a
Spartacus when he at last brandished the sword that
made Rome tremble, and that his arm was worthy to
brandish. The Jews of Jerusalem had in the end the
1 Psalms, passim. See above, p. 211.
292
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THE INVASION
soul of Spartacus; the Jews of the Dispersion remained
the sombre dreamers of the apocalypses.
The Jew of the Dispersion, who muttered raca in a
low voice to the great lords of Rome, said to them aloud:
Adoni. The spirit of hatred and rancour which his envy
spread through the world was a hatred without greatness,
and a vile rancour. He lived, and sustained himself and
encouraged others with the words : “ Patience, you will be
avenged.”
The Hebrew books do not exhort to action; they can
only curse and pray. Jahveh will smite the rich, because
they are rich. Jahveh will destroy splendour, because
it is splendid. Jahveh will bum what is beautiful.
Jahveh wishes all strength, power, and joy suppressed ;
for the Jew is weak, ugly, and sad. But the miracle of
the Jewish soul was that the cry of hatred was accom-
panied by the cry of hope—or, rather, of certainty. And
this hope was the more certain because, to realise their
dream of imperialism, these sublime wretches counted,
not on themselves, but on a god.
There is nothing more extraordinary than the mixture
of profound humility and unconquerable pride that was
characteristic of the Jewish soul. Pride, on the one
hand, because of the certainty that he will one day be
master of the world ; humility, because he does not trust
his own strength, but that of another, Jahveh. It recalls
the pride of the lackey, who can do nothing for himself,
but his master is very strong. This pride in humility
explains the work of quiet and implacable propaganda
carried on by Judaism throughout the lower strata of the
Roman world.
The hatred and hope of the Jew were diffused about
him. The obstinate Jew was a figure in the mixed troop
of the lowly of all nations who swarmed by the wayside.
The others noticed his reticence, and questioned him ;
and at times his pride disclosed the Messianic dream that
exalted him. Gradually the * troop marvelled at the
THE INVASION
293
promises made to the Jews by their god. The years
went by, and the news spread. We can imagine the
astonishment, the admiration, of these poor folk when
they suddenly heard speak of revenge ! The revenge, it
seemed, was for the Jews only, not for the others; but,
all the same, it was something to know that the very
lowest of these lowly folk expected revenge. The Jew
began to figure among the others as a man with a secret,
a man who whispers in the shade. And presently they
were saying that perhaps it would be possible to have
a share in the inheritance promised to the Jews, and
would be as well to join in their cult.
Thus what were called Judaisers began to increase.
Foreigners converted, or affiliated, to Judaism, the
Judaisers, whom we have already found grouped about
the Jewish colonies, were not circumcised and eat non-
ritual meats; but they knew the Jewish books in the
Septuagint translation, listened to t the discourses of the
Jews, and frequented the synagogues.
Now the good news spread through the social depths.
The spirit of rancour grew. There was talk of a possible
change, and quoting of express words ; the god of the
Jews had promised. Nothing of the kind had been said
in the name of the other gods ; neither the Greek, nor
Egyptian, nor oriental gods had promised any future to
their peoples. But the god of the Jews had made a
formal engagement, and they quoted Isaiah, Jeremiah,
and then the latest of the prophets, the most precise in
regard to the promise, Daniel.
From the earliest prophets the Jews had associated
with the idea of victory over their enemies that of revenge
of the lowly over the powerful. They now spoke in low
tones of the incalculable wealth of the patricians; they
cursed their pleasures and luxury, and exalted austerity
out of hatred of the rich.
The less coarse minds had other arguments. Like
certain anarchists of our time, they mingled philosophic
294
THE INVASION
considerations with their appeal to passion. It was easy
for them to ridicule the externality of an official religion
that had become purely symbolical, and to exalt the
mysterious religion which Judaism was. Jahveh had but
one temple, at Jerusalem, and no statue; for the Jews
scattered over the West he was the mysterious god
without temple or altar.
At times the whispers of the Jews were heard among
the educated classes; not infrequently free men and
women—women especially—lent an ear to them. In the
ages of the Caesars Judaism had followers even among
the patricians, so true it is that the superior classes are
never without individuals who are eager to descend
again.
This despised crowd of obscure beings who swarmed
in the depths of the Empire was animated with the most
ardent and sombre proselytism. These miserable people
were priests.
“ Ye shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy
people,” the Law had said.
In order to send them to preach the reign of the lowly
and the revenge of the weak, Jahveh had said to them:—
“ Ye shall all be priests.”
“Ye shall all be nobles,” their genius had said to the
Romans.
Under Augustus and Tiberius the Empire spread over
the surface of the world; it spread in strength and beauty
above the sullen hatred that rose toward it from all the
lower depths.
One day, in the year 19 of the present era, Tiberius,
though liberal, like all the Csesars, was alarmed at the
growing invasion. He forbade at Rome the ceremonies
of oriental cults, especially Egyptian and Jewish rites, and
he ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Italy. Judaism
was forbidden at Rome under pain of perpetual slavery.
The Roman Empire had divined its enemy.
It was what we might call the first of the persecutions;
THE INVASION
295
the second, thirty years afterward, under Claudius, leads
us to the appearance of Christianity.
The Jews had bent their heads to the storm; they had
dissimulated, retired below ground, and waited. But
gradually they made their appearance again on all
sides, like a rumbling that seemed to have ceased and
begins again under one’s feet. They had to begin over
again. The Jewish invasion received a fresh impetus—
at Borne, Alexandria, in Greece, and in Asia.
At this time a tempest of heroic and furious madness
swept over Jerusalem and Judaea. Twenty partial revolts
formed a prelude to the great insurrection of the year 66.
The Jews of Jerusalem and Judaea, who were going to
seek with the sword the fulfilment of their hopes, were
abandoning the tradition of the prophets, the psalms, and
the apocalypses. They became heroes; for no heroism
was ever greater than that of the men who defended
Jerusalem against Titus. But by that very fact they
were repudiating the fundamental dogma of Judaism,
which is the abandonment of oneself in the hands of the
supernatural. They forgot that the apocalypses, the
psalms, and the prophets had preached that they must
expect nothing of their own efforts, but look for every-
thing from Jahveh.
“ Cursed be the man that trusteth in man,” Jere-
miah had said. “ Blessed is the man that trusteth in
Jahveh.”1
“ Eor I will not trust in my bow,” said the Psalms,
“ neither shall my sword save me.....Jahveh is my hope,
my strength, and my help.”2
“And in those days,” says Daniel, “ the god of heaven
shall set up an empire, which shall never be destroyed;
with his hand he shall break in pieces and consume all the
other empires.”8
Jewish tradition is with Hillel against Shammai; it is
in the Dispersion. There the oppressed flocks make no
1 Jeremiah xvii. 5 and 7. 2 Psalms xliv. 6, and passim.
3 Daniel ii. 44.
29G
THE INVASION
struggle. They accept everything, or feign to accept
everything ; and they await the coming of the Messiah, in
the opening heavens, with his company of Kerubim, to
fulfil the promise.
How long would Jewish perseverance have lasted?
How long would Jewish imperialism have needed to com-
plete its conquest of the depths of the Roman world?
How long would the outcasts of the Roman world have
been able to hope for the coming of the day of Jahveh ?
Then through the Empire the news suddenly spread
that the day of deliverance was at hand, and that, mar-
vellous to relate, not only the Jews, but the Judaisers and
all the lowly who would come to them, would be invited
to take their place in the kingdom of vengeance.
This novelty was taught by a Jew of Tarsus, in Syria,
a tent-maker by trade, Shaoul or Saul, and afterwards
Paul, by name.
APPENDICES
[We did not think it advisable to interrupt our study by the discussion
of details, of which each would require careful study. In these Appendices
we shall deal only with certain points that are especially worthy of
attention.]
I.
“ Israel ” (p. 5).—The name Israel is found, as we said,
on an Egyptian monument of the thirteenth century, a stele
raised by the Pharaoh Menephtah, who reigned from 1225 to
1215. Apart from this monument, and after this date,
Egyptology knows nothing of it. Assyriology is entirely
ignorant of it. Among the Palestinian monuments there is
only the stele of Mesa that uses it; but, without discussing
the authenticity of the stele, we may observe that the name
Israel is used by it in a solemn and archaic sense. In much
the same way the Emperor William might have said in 1871 :
“We have conquered Gaul.”
In the same way the name Sennaar (Shinear) has a precise
geographical significance in the El Amarna tablets, but the
Biblical period has only a vague and poetic meaning.
This silence of archaeological documents has led us, among
other things, to believe that, though the name Israel stood for
a reality in the age of the tribes, and, no doubt, even in the
Davidic period, it no longer did so in the time of the two
kingdoms; and that it was revived and put forward by the
Esdras school with an imperialist aim, as we have submitted
in the first part of the work, ch. iii., 1.
However that may be, we refrain from giving this name to
the kingdoms of Ephraim and Judah. There is a good deal
of confusion in this respect in the Bible and in historians ;
they give the name Israel, on the one hand, to the kingdoms
of Ephraim and Judah collectively, and, on the other hand,
to the kingdom of Ephraim separately from the kingdom of
297
-
298
APPENDICES
Judah. It is in every respect better to adopt the name
Ephraim for the northern kingdom.
We reserve the name Israel to the two historical accepta-
tions of the word : in the first, it designates “ a certain number
of tribes settled before the year 1000 in southern Syria in
the second, it designates, from the fifth century onward, a
conception of “Jerusalem politics.”
As to the word “ Hebrew,” it is a vague term, applying
sometimes in the Bible to all the descendants of Abraham—all
the Palestinians, that is to say—and sometimes restricted to
the descendants of Jacob, or the Israelites. As the word has
not assumed any theoretical meaning analogous to that of the
word Israel, we find it possible to use it, taking it in the second
of its two meanings. We therefore call the kingdoms of
Ephraim and Judah “ Hebrew kingdoms,” though the word is
not found in Assyrian or Egyptian inscriptions contempor-
aneous with the two kingdoms.
II.
The Samaritan Pentateuch (p. 44).—As is well known,
the Samaritan cult uses a special edition of the Pentateuch,
which is called the Samaritan Pentateuch. The date of it is
disputed. We regard it as later than the Machabaean period.
The Machabees alone, as a"matter of fact, imposed Jewish rule,
and, consequently, the Jewish cult, on Samaria. After them
Samaria recovered a kind of independence, and the Samaritan
cult became a schism of Judaism. The priests of Samaria
would then prepare the edition of the books of Moses that
suited them.
III.
Our “Imperialist” Theory of the Composition of
THE MOSAIC Books (p. 52).—Our theory is the only one to
solve what M. Isidore L6vy, in his learned and acute lectures
at the iEcole des Hautes-Etudes, called the riddle of the Bible.
If the Hexateuch was composed in Judah at a time when the
kingdom of Ephraim had just been destroyed, after two
centuries of hostility (let us say, rather, at a time when the
State of Samaria was the chief enemy), how can we understand
the Jerusalem writers incorporating in their work the legends
APPENDICES
299
of the north, and even giving to Joseph, the Ephraimitic hero,
so important a part ?
It seems to us that only one reply can be made. The
writers of Jerusalem annexed the traditions of peoples which
they knew to have once been sister-peoples, in order that one
day they might annex the peoples themselves.
Why did they not do the same in regard to the rich regions
of the West ? Not being conscious of any relationship with
them, they used other means; but their imperialism is not less
clearly shown in regard to them, and the Bible is full of their
pretensions over all countries as far as the sea.
To the critics who hold that the Jerusalemites could not
glorify enemies or rivals, we have only to quote the extra-
ordinary passage in Chronicles (v. 1-2)—a Jerusalemitic work,
if ever there was one, as no one denies—which exalts Joseph
at the expense of Judah.
IV.
The “ Documents ” (p. 58).—Critics have given the follow-
ing names to the different documents that compose the Mosaic
books:—
Jehovic and Elohic, for the most ancient;
Deuteronomic, for the following ;
Levitic or Sacerdotal, for the latest.
These names have been well chosen. To apply them to the
periods in which the different parts of the books were
composed, it is enough to give them their full meaning.
The Jehovic and Elohic period is that in which the work of
the priest-writers consists in concentrating the Jewish soul
about Jahveh, the national god; Jehovic, because it was
formerly usual to say Jehovah instead of Jahveh; Elohic,
because in Hebrew god is elohim.
The Deuteronomic period is that in which the laws of
Deuteronomy (the second series of laws) are promulgated.
The Levitic or Sacerdotal period corresponds to the zenith
of the Levitical priesthood.
We may add that it is customary to distinguish between
the Jehovist and Elohist in the last period. The range of this
study will not allow us to go into these details. We may
regard the Jehovist and Elohist as two schools, or two shades
of the same frame of mind.
300
APPENDICES
V.
Simeon the Just (p. 98).—The reasons that have led some
to dispute the testimony of Josephus, and put back for a century
the pontificate of Simeon the Just, do not seem to us valid.
Josephus is explicit; and as to the Siracid, he gives one the
impression of speaking of the great Simeon, not as a contem-
porary, as Renan thought, but as a star shining above the
temple in the remote past. Historical probabilities agree;
Simeon the Just, so plausible at the beginning of the third
century, seems to be impossible, at the beginning of the second,
on the eve of the Machabaean period.
VI.
The Non-existence of the Prophets before the
Christian Era (p. 119).—The belief in the historical reality
of the prophets—that is to say, of characters playing the part of
prophets in ancient Judah—is the great blunder, not only of
classical exegesis, but even of independent commentators.
The most liberal Protestant students, no less than the
Rabbinical tradition, hold that the prophets were semi-
political, semi-religious characters (raised up by God, the
orthodox go on to say), a sort of tribunes or religious reformers,
who, from the time of the ancient Hebrew kingdoms down to
Esdras, preached to the people, and whose discourses were pre-
served for us by the pious care of the synagogues.
M. Maurice Vernes has proved that the books of the
prophets (pseudepigraphic, like almost all the books of the
Bible) are the works of writers who were later, not only than
the Restoration, but than Esdras. He concluded that pro-
phetism was an institution of the fourth and third centuries;
and he defined the prophets as “ men clothed with a sacred
character, exercising the ministry of inspired speech in the
precincts of the temple at Jerusalem.”1 Hence M. Vernes
only departs from tradition in placing in the fourth and third
centuries an institution which tradition referred to the period
from the eighth to the fifth century. The Protestant exegesis
offers a wrong but conceivable hypothesis when it represents
1 Du Pritendu Polythiisme des Hebreux, vol. ii., p. 399.
APPENDICES
301
the development of the sacerdotal institutions as later than
prophetism; while the hypothesis of prophetic institutions as
contemporary with the great sacerdotal development puts M.
Yernes in great difficulties.
Not content with taking seriously the reality of the prophets,
commentators supposed that there were prophetic institutions
analogous to the sacerdotal institutions, a body of prophets
parallel to the clergy, and prophetic schools set up; and they
endeavour to draw up the history of an imaginary institution.
The more audacious supposed that the literary type of the
prophets was the idealisation, not of the wandering wizards
that the men of god really were, but of professional sooth-
sayers, attached to the temple. As a matter of fact, we find
these regular bodies of diviners everywhere in antiquity—in
Egypt and Babylon, in Greece and Rome. But—and this is
one of the distinctive features of Judaism—the only divina-
tion practised in the temple of Jerusalem was that of the
priests ; nowhere is there a single mention in the Bible of
organised divinors exercising an official function. Judaism had
no divination except that of the priests, at the head of the
social hierarchy, and that of the miserable popular men of god
at the bottom.
But how can critics to whom the Bible is not only a sacred
book, but an historical book, admit any doubt as to the reality
of these characters ? If the romances of the Round Table had
had the good fortune to found a religion, their heroes would
have become historical characters.
The thesis of the non-existence of the prophets until the
Christian era can only be developed in an exegetical work. I
would, however, call the attention of my readers to the
extraordinary silence of the Jewish legislation in regard to
prophetism as an established institution. The Hexateuch is
the collection of Judaic institutions. It contains everything:
political laws, civil laws, moral laws, religious laws, ecclesias-
tical laws, and ritual laws. The Hexateuch is not the work
of one period, but of centuries; it embraces the whole of
classic Jewish history. Now, though the word prophet is
found in it here and there, there is not a trace of any regu-
lation that might apply to a prophetic institution, in spite
of the thousand and one laws concerning the priesthood.
302
APPENDICES
There is, moreover, never question in it of prophetism as an
institution. Of such a ministry as that of a Samuel, an
Elijah, a Jeremiah, or an Ezekiel there is no trace whatever in
the Hexateuch, the work that contains the whole of Judaism.
Why this silence ? Because prophetism was merely a literary
fiction ; because in reality there wTas no such a thing as
prophetism.
Further, the word prophet is used in the Hexateuch in a
different sense from that of the historical books. In the Hexa-
teuch the name of prophet is given to leaders like Abraham
and Moses or priests like Aaron; the word having found
favour, the writers of the Hexateuch were bound to use it;
but a prophet such as Abraham, Moses, or Aaron is a very
different thing from a prophet like Samuel, Elijah, Jeremiah,
or Ezekiel.
I may add that the early historical books (Judges, Samuel,
and Kings), as well as the later historical books (Chronicles,
Esdras, and Nehemiah), never present the prophets in any
other light than as dogmatic admonishers, and never give the
impression of playing an historical part, or of the establish-
ment of a body with any function whatever. The prophetic
books themselves, when we examine them closely, lead to the
same conclusion. As to the hagiographers, everybody knows
how little there is question of prophets in them.
On the other hand, the first book of the Machabees furnishes
direct arguments against the reality of prophetism, by showing
that at the time when it was written, not only were there no
prophets, but there had been none for a long time.1
VII.
Were the Galileans Jews? (p. 260).—The historian
Flavius Josephus, who never fails to oppose the Jews to the
Samaritans, assimilates the “Jews of Galilee” to the “Jews
of Judaea ”; see especially his Jewish Antiquities, xx. 5, and
Jewish War, ii. 21. He speaks constantly of the Galilaean
Judas the Gaulonite as a Jew. The thesis that the Galilaeans
were not Jews rests on a passage in the first book of the
Machabees (v. 23), in which it is said that Judas Maohabaeus
1 1 Machabees, iv. 46; ix. 27 and 54 ; xiv. 41.
APPENDICES
303
brought to Jerusalem the Jews of Galilee. The fact is
improbable, and the story seems to be biassed; the return
to Jerusalem of the dispersed Jews is, in fact, one of the
clauses of the Messianic programme which the book of
Machabees likes to carry out by means of its heroes. But if
Judas Machabseus had really brought some of the Galilsean
Jews to Jerusalem about the year 164, the Judaisation of
Galilee would have had a century and a-half for its accom-
plishment, a century and a-half during which the rule of the
Machabees spread over the whole of Palestine, and might
impose Judaism in Galilee as in all other parts of Judaea,
except Samaria.
-
VIII.
Spelling of Peopee Names.—We had several systems
to choose:—
To follow the traditional transposition, and say “ Moses,”
“ Samson,” “Jerusalem,” “ Samaria,” etc.
To represent the Hebrew spelling, and say “ Mosheh,”
“ Shimeshon,” “ Jerushalaim,” “ Shomeron,” etc.—as Ledrain
has done in his translation of the Bible, which is unreadable
to the inexpert.
Reuss, and the majority of modern translators, have, in
different degrees, adopted a mixed system; Reuss says
“ Moses ” and “ Jerusalem,” but “ Shimeshon ” and “ Shome-
ron.”
We felt that it was better to adhere to the first system, and
we have, as a rule, followed the spelling of Lemaistre de Saci.
[The familiar spelling of the English Bible has been generally
retained in this translation, in accordance with the author’s
desire—Teans.]
-
I
NDEX
ABIMELECH, 2, 3
Abraham, 60, 61, 62
Adorn, 102
Aholah, 153
Aholibah, 153
Alexander the Great, 105, 108, 124
Alexandria, Jews at, 272
Ammonites, 2, 6, 17
Amos, 121, 129
Anointed, the, 246
Antigonus, 124
Antioch, Jews at, 272, 278
Antiochus Epiphanes, 224-7, 230
Apocalypses, origin of the, 227
Apostasy, laws against, 32, 33
Aristotle, 90
Ark of the covenant, 95
Artaxerxes, 22
Artaxerxes Ochus, 124
Ascension of Moses, 244
Asherah, 7, 9, 11
Assyrians, 3, 15
Astarte, 11
Augustus, 251, 288
BAAL, 11
Babylonia, 3, 20, 56
----Jews of, 270, 271
Balthasar, 230
Bedouins, 1, 2, 6, 54
Bel, 8, 11
Benjamin, 63
Bethel, 10
Bible, beginning of the, 48, 58, 59
Caligula, 265
Cambyses, 79
Camos, 6, 11
Canaanites, 70, 71, 84, 98
Captivity, the, 17, 21
Cherubim, 151
Christ, meaning of the name, 246
Cicero, 278
Colonies, the Jewish, 174,193
Commerce at Jerusalem, 40, 110,
202
Covenant, the, 60, 67
Cyrus, 20, 21
DAGON, 6
Dan, 10
Daniel, 227-38, 247
Darmesteter, J., 196
David, 3, 44, 52, 114, 120, 208
Davidic empire, the, 44, 46, 52
Decalogue, the, 86
Deluge, the, 56, 57, 60
Democracy born at Jerusalem, 144
Deportation, the, 21
Desert, wandering in the, 94
Deuteronomy, 66, 74, 299
Dispersion of the Jews, 269-74
Edomites, 2, 6,17
Egypt, 3
----Jews in, 54, 79, 273, 278, 282
El Amarna, 1
Elephantine papyri, the, 31, 79, 90
Elijah, 156, 158, 160
Elisha, 156, 158, 160
Elohic documents, 299
Elohim, 101, 183
Ephod, the, 8
Ephraim, 4, 5, 17, 52, 297
Esau, 62
Esdras, 25, 28, 29, 31
Essenians, 253
Esther, book of, 276-7
Etymologies in the Mosaic books, 65
Exodus, 66
Ezekias, 16
Ezekiel, 149-67, 178
FAITH, nature of, 222
Felix, 263
Festivals of Judsea, 12, 13
Festus, 264
GABAON, 10
Gabriel, 233
Galilseans, the, 302
Galilee, 260, 302
305
X
306
INDEX
Garizim, Mount, 43
Genealogies of the Old Testament,
64
Genesis, character of, 60-4
Ghetto, the, 290-2
Greece, the genius of, 89, 223
Ham, 98
Haman, 277
Hammurabi, 3, 57
Hananiah, 138
Hebrew, meaning of the word, 298
Hecatseus of Abdera, 90
Hellenism at Jerusalem, 107, 123,
225
Henoch, 243
Herods, the, 250
Hethites, 71
Hierarchy, the Jewish, 41
High-place, the, 9
High-priest, the, 41
Hillel, 249, 253, 256, 290
Hispalus, 278
History, value of Jewish, 50, 55, 57,
73
Hittites, 3
Holiness, Jewish idea of, 101
Horace on the Jews, 288
Horeb, 66, 86, 93
Hosea, 119, 120, 126
Hymns in the synagogue, 207
Hyrcan, 174
IDOLATRY, laws against, 35-8
Inquisition at Jerusalem, 83
Isaac, 62
Isaiah, 168, 175-93
Isolation of the Jews, 275
Israalou, 1
Israel, 1, 3, 52, 53, 61, 297
Israelites, 2, 3, 4, 17
Italy, Jews in, 274
JACOB, 62, 63
Jahveh, 6, 7, 10, 11, 27, 101
Japheth, 98
Jehoval, meaning of the name, 6,
note
Jehovic documents, 299
Jehovist period, 81
Jeremiah, 132-48, 178
Jerusalem, 3, 4, 10, 19, 24, 39
Jesus the Nazarene, 259, 260, 262,
264
Jew, origin of the name, 24, 90
Joachim, 16
John the Baptist, 257, 259, 261
Jonathan, 240
Joseph, 63, 66
----son of Tobias, 170
Josephus, Flavius, 155, 169, 170,
225, 251-3, 262
Joshua, 67, 70
Joshua, book of, 84
Josias, 5, 88
----reform of, 87
Judah, 4, 5, 17, 52, 297
Judaisers, 82
Judas Machabseus, 231, 239
----the Gaulonite, 257, 261, 265
Judges, period of, 3, 9, 54, 71, 72
Justice in the prophets, 197-8
----Roman idea of, 197
Justus of Tiberias, 262
Juvenal on the Jews, 288
KERUBIM, 151
Legends of Judsea, 14
Legislation, analysis of Jewish, 201
Levites, the, 41
Levitical period, the, 90
Leviticus, 66-70
Lcivy, I., 298
Literature, absence of in early
Judsea, 13, 25, 47
----character of primitive, 48, 49
Luxury condemned at Jerusalem,
202
MACEDONIAN conquest, 105-8
Machabees, the, 225, 231, 239, 242
Madness in the East, 111
Man of Sorrows, the, 188
Martial on the Jews, 288
Mashal, 48
Mathathias, 231, 240
Matsebah, 7, 9, 11
Melchisedecli, 64
Menelaus, 225, 230
Men of god, 111, 118
Mesa, 7, 14
Messiah, the, 246
Messianism, 246, 247
Michol, 114
Milkom, 6, 11
Minor prophets, the, 149
Mixed marriages, laws against, 34
Moab stele, the, 14
Moabites, 2, 6, 17
Moloch, 11
Monopoly of cult at Jerusalem, 76-8
Monotheism of the Jews, 10, 32
Monuments of Judsea, 14
Mosaic literature, origin of the, 48-
52, 58
NDEX
307
Moses, story of, 56, 57, 66
Moshlim, 48
NABUCHODONOSOR, 16, 17, 132
Nasi, the, 163-4
Nathan, 120
Nationalism of the Jews, 30-1
Nehemiah, 22
Neighbour, Jewish idea of, 100
Nineveh, fall of, 16
Noah, 97
Numbers, 66
ONIAS, 225
----1., 123
----II., 168, 170
PACT, the, 60, 67, 70
Palestine, 106
----occupation of, 1, 2
Patriotism, origin of Jewish, 28-30
Paul, St., 112, 296
Peraea, 106
Persians, the, 20, 23, 39, 45
Persius, 288
Pharisees, 241, 251, 256
Phassur, 135
Philistines, 3
Philo, 262, 277
Phoenicia, 8, 10
Pompey, 244, 250
Pontius Pilate, 265
Priest-levites, 41
Priest-writers, the Jewish, 50, 51, 59
Priests, rule of the, at Jerusalem,
39, 40
Privileges of the Jews, 283
Prophets, late date of the, 301-2
----originals of the, 111, 115-20,
122, 258
Proselytism of the Jews, 195-6
Psalms, the, 207-22
Ptolemy, 124, 156, 171
----Philadelphus, 276
----Soter, 272
Purity, Jewish idea of, 100
RELIGION of ancient Judaea, 6-8
Renan, 70
Renascence, the, 205
Restoration of Jerusalem, 21, 25-7
Roman conquest, the, 244-5, 249
Roman peace, the, 285
Rome, genius of, 205, 223, 249, 285
----Jews at, 278, 279
SABBATH, the, 42
Sadducees, 241, 251, 256
Sadoc, 265
Salmanasar, 15
Samaria, 23, 43
Samaritan Pentateuch, 298
Samuel, 113, 119, 156
Samuel, 73
Sancherib, 16
Sanctuary, the, 9-10
Saul, 3, 112
Sedecias, 16, 17
Seleucus, 156
Seneca, 223, 279
Sennaar, 297
Septuagint, the, 276
Shammai, 249, 253, 256, 290
Sicaries, 253
Sichem, 10, 94
Silo, 10
Simeon, 241
----I., 94, 156, 166, 300
Sinai, 66, 94
Solomon, 4, 5, 34, 44, 52
----psalms of, 244
Strabo, 277, 282
Stranger, Jewish idea of, 100
Supernatural not found in Greece
or Rome, 223
Synagogue, origin of the, 208, 220
Tacitus on the Jews, 287, 289
Talmud, the, 253
Temple, building of the, 22
----interior of the, 37
----measurements of the, 161
Theocracy, origin of the Jewish, 39
Theudas, 259, 263
Thibet, 45
Tiberius, 294
Titus takes Jerusalem, 269
Tyre, 105, 106, 107
Valerius Maximus, 278
Vernes, M., 38
Virtue, Jewish idea of, 212, 213
WICKED, Jewish idea of the, 212
Zadocids, the, 159, 163
Zealots, 253
Zedekiah, 136, 141
Zorobabel, 21, 22, 27
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R.H Dujardin, fidouard
D The source of the Christian tradition.
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