THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

JESUS THE MESSIAH

 

 

BY

ALFRED EDERSHEIM, M.A.Oxon., D.D. Ph.D.

 

 

 

TO

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS, AND SCHOLARS

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

THESE VOLUMES

ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

 

 

PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.

 

In presenting these volumes to the reader, I must offer an explanation, - though I would fain hope that such may not be absolutely necessary. The title of this book must not be understood as implying any pretence on my part to write a ‘Life of Christ’ in the strict sense. To take the lowest view, the materials for it do not exist. Evidently the Evangelists did not intend to give a full record of even the outward events in that History; far less could they have thought of compassing the sphere or sounding the depths of the Life of Him, Whom they present to us as the God-Man and the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father. Rather must the Gospels be regarded as four different aspects in which the Evangelists viewed the historical Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfilment of the Divine promise of old, the Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of man, and presented Him to the Jewish and Gentile world for their acknowledgment as the Sent of God, Who revealed the Father, and was Himself the Way to Him, the Truth, and the Life. And this view of the Gospel-narratives underlies the figurative representation of the Evangelist in Christian Symbolism.¹¹    Comp. the historical account of these symbols in Zahn, Forsch. z. Gesch. d. Neu-Test. Kanons, ii. pp. 257-275.

In thus guarding my meaning in the choice of the title, I have already indicated my own standpoint in this book. But in another respect I wish to disclaim having taken any predetermined dogmatic standpoint at the outset of my investigations. I wished to write, not for a definite purpose, be it even that of the defence of the faith, - but rather to let that purpose grow out of the book, as would be pointed out by the course of independent study, in which arguments on both sides should be impartially weighed and facts ascertained. In this manner I hoped best to attain what must be the first object in all research, but especially in such as the present: to ascertain, as far as we can, the truth, irrespective of consequences. And thus also I hoped to help others, by going, as it were, before them, in the path which their enquires must take, and removing the difficulties and entanglements which beset it. So might I honestly, confidently, and, in such a matter, earnestly, ask them to follow me, pointing to the height to which such enquires must lead up. I know, indeed, that there is something beyond and apart from this; even the restful sense on that height, and the happy outlook from it. But this is not within the province of one man to give to another, nor yet does it come in the way of study, however earnest and careful; it depends upon, and implies the existence of a subjective state which comes only by the direction given to our enquires by the true ͺδηγͺζ  (St John xvi. 13).

This statement of the general object in view will explain the course pursued in these enquiries. First and foremost, this book was to be study of the Life of Jesus the Messiah, retaining the general designation, as best conveying to others the subject to be treated.

But, secondly, since Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, spoke to, and moved among Jews, in Palestine, and at a definite period of its history, it was absolutely necessary to view that Life and Teaching in all its surroundings of place, society, popular life, and intellectual or religious development. This would form not only the frame in which to set the picture of the Christ, but the very background of the picture itself. It is, indeed, most true that Christ spoke not only to the Jews, to Palestine, and to that time, but - of which history has given the evidence - to all men and to all times. Still He spoke first and directly to the Jews, and His words must have been intelligible to them, His teaching have reached upwards from their intellectual and religious standpoint, even although it infinitely extended the horizon so as, in its full application, to make it wide as the bounds of earth and time. Nay, to explain the bearing of the religious leaders of Israel, from the first, towards Jesus, it seemed also necessary to trace the historical development of thought and religious belief, till it issued in that system of Traditionalism, which, by an internal necessity, was irreconcilably antagonistic to the Christ of the Gospels.

On other grounds also, such a full portraiture of Jewish life, society, and thinking seemed requisite. It furnishes alike a vindication and an illustration of the Gospel-narratives. A vindication - because in measure as we transport ourselves into that time, we feel that the Gospels present to us a real, historical scene; that the men and the circumstances to which we are introduced are real - not a fancy picture, but just such as we know and now recognize them, and would expect them to have spoken, or to have been. Again, we shall thus vividly realise another and most important aspect of the words of Christ. We shall perceive that their form is wholly of the times, their cast Jewish - while by the side of this similarity of form there is not only essential difference but absolute contrariety of substance and spirit. Jesus spoke as truly a Jew to the Jews, but He spoke not as they - no, not as their highest and best Teachers would have spoken. And this contrariety of spirit with manifest similarity of form is, to my mind, one of the strongest evidences of the claims of Christ, since it raises the all-important question, whence the Teacher of Nazareth - or, shall we say, the humble Child of the Carpenter-home in a far-off little place of Galilee - had drawn His inspiration? And clearly to set this forth has been the first object of the detailed Rabbinic quotations in this book.

But their further object, besides this vindication, has been the illustration of the Gospel-narratives. Even the general reader must be aware that some knowledge of Jewish life and society at the time is requisite for the understanding of the Gospel-history. Those who have consulted the works of Lightfoot, Schöttgen, Meuschen, Wetstein and Wünsche, or even the extracts from them presented in Commentaries, know that the help derived from their Jewish references is very great. And yet, despite the immense learning and industry of these writers, there are serious drawbacks to their use. Sometimes the references are critically not quite accurate; sometimes they are derived from works that should not have been adduced in evidence; occasionally, either the rendering, or the application of what is separated from its context, is not reliable. A still more serious objection is, that these quotations are not unfrequently one sided; but chiefly this - perhaps, as the necessary consequence of being merely illustrative notes to certain verses in the Gospels - that they do not present a full and connected picture. And yet it is this which so often gives the most varied and welcome illustration of the Gospel-narratives. In truth, we know not only the leading personages in Church and State in Palestine at that time, their views, teaching, pursuits, and aims; the state of parties; the character of popular opinion; the proverbs, the customs, the daily life of the country - but we can, in imagination, enter their dwellings, associate with them in familiar intercourse, or follow them to the Temple, the Synagogue, the Academy, or to the market-place and the workshop. We know what clothes they wore, what dishes they ate, what wines they drank, what they produced and what they imported: nay, the cost of every article of their dress or food, the price of houses and of living; in short, every detail that can give vividness to a picture of life.

All this is so important for the understanding of the Gospel-history as, I hope, to justify the fulness of archæological detail in this book. And yet I have used only a portion of the materials which I had collected for the purpose. And here I must frankly own, as another reason for this fulness of detail, that many erroneous and misleading statements on this subject, and these even on elementary points, have of late been made. Supported by references to the labours of truly learned German writers, they have been sometimes set forth with such confidence as to impose the laborious and unwelcome duty of carefully examining and testing them. But to this only the briefest possible reference has been made, and chiefly in the beginning of these volumes.

Another explanation seems more necessary in this connection. In describing the Traditionalism of the time of Christ, I must have said what, I fear, may, most unwillingly on my part, wound the feelings of some who still cling, if not to the faith of, yet to what now represents the ancient Synagogue. But let me appeal to their fairness. I must needs state what I believe to be the facts; and I could neither keep them back nor soften them, since it was of the very essence of my argument to present Christ as both in contact and in contrast with Jewish Traditionalism. No educated Western Jew would, in these days, confess himself as occupying the exact standpoint of Rabbinic Traditionalism. Some will select parts of the system; others will allegorise, explain, or modify it; very many will, in heart - often also openly - repudiate the whole. And here it is surely not necessary for me to rebut or disown those vile falsehoods about the Jews which ignorance, cupidity, and bigoted hatred have of late again so strangely raised. But I would go further, and assert that, in reference to Jesus of Nazareth, no educated Israelite of to-day would identify himself with the religious leaders of the people eighteen centuries ago. Yet is not this disclaimer of that Traditionalism which not only explains the rejection of Jesus, but is the sole logical raison d’être of the Synagogue, also its condemnation?

I know, indeed, that from this negative there is a vast step in advance to the positive in the reception of the Gospel, and that many continue in the Synagogue, because they are not so convinced of the other as truthfully to profess it. And perhaps the means we have taken to present it have not always been the wisest. The mere appeal to the literal fulfilment of certain prophetic passages in the Old Testament not only leads chiefly to critical discussions, but rests the case on what is, after all, a secondary line of argumentation. In the New Testament prophecies are not made to point to facts, but facts to point back to prophecies. The New Testament presents the fulfilment of all prophecy rather than of prophecies, and individual predictions serve as fingerposts to great outstanding facts, which mark where the roads meet and part. And here, as it seems to me, we are at one with the ancient Synagogue. In proof, I would call special attention to Appendix IX., which gives a list of all the Old Testament passages Messianically applied in Jewish writings. We, as well as they, appeal to all Scripture, to all prophecy, as that of which the reality is in the Messiah. But we also appeal to the whole tendency and new direction which the Gospel presents in opposition to that of Traditionalism; to the new revelation of the Father, to the new brotherhood of man, and to the satisfaction of the deepest wants of the heart, which Christ has brought - in short, to the Scriptural, the moral, and the spiritual elements; and we would ask whether all this could have been only the outcome of a Carpenter’s Son at Nazareth at the time, and amidst the surroundings which we so well know.

In seeking to reproduce in detail the life, opinions, and teaching of the contemporaries of Christ, we have also in great measure addressed ourselves to what was the third special object in view in this History. This was to clear the path of difficulties - in other words, to meet such objections as might be raised to the Gospel-narratives. And this, as regards principle - not details and minor questions, which will cause little uneasiness to the thoughtful and calm reader; quite irrespective also of any theory of inspiration which may be proposed, and hence of any harmonistic or kindred attempts which may be made. Broadly speaking, the attacks on the Gospel-narratives may be grouped under these three particulars: they may be represented as intentional fraud by the writers, and imposition on the readers; or, secondly, a rationalistic explanation may be sought of them, showing how what originally had been quite simple and natural was misunderstood by ignorance, or perverted by superstition; or, thirdly, they may be represented as the outcome of ideas and expectations at the time, which gathered around the beloved Teacher of Nazareth, and, so to speak, found body in legends that clustered around the Person and Life of Him Who was regarded as the Messiah. . . . And this is supposed to account for the preaching of the Apostles, for their life-witness, for their martyr-death, for the Church, for the course which history has taken, as well as for the dearest hopes and experiences of Christian life!

Of the three modes of criticism just indicated, importance attaches only to the third, which has been broadly designated as the mythical theory. The fraud-theory seems - as even Strauss admits - psychologically so incompatible with admitted facts as regards the early Disciples and the Church, and it does such violence to the first requirements of historical enquiry, as to make it - at least to me - difficult to understand how any thoughtful student could be swayed by objections which too often are merely an appeal to the vulgar, intellectually and morally, in us. For - to take the historical view of the question - even if every concession were made to negative criticism, sufficient would still be left in the Christian documents to establish a consensus of the earliest belief as to all the great facts of the Gospel-History, on which both the preaching of the Apostles and the primitive Church have been historically based. And with this consensus at least, and its practical outcome, historical enquiry has to reckon. And here I may take leave to point out the infinite importance, as regards the very foundation of our faith, attaching to the historical Church - truly in this also the ͺκκλησͺα θεοͺ ζͺντος, στͺλος καͺ ͺδραͺωμα [columna et fulcrum] τͺς ͺληθεͺας (the Church of the Living God, the pillar and stay [support] of the truth).

As regards the second class of interpretation - the rationalistic - it is altogether so superficial, shadowy and unreal that it can at most be only regarded as a passing phase of light-minded attempts to set aside felt difficulties.

But the third mode of explanation, commonly, though perhaps not always quite fairly, designated as the mythical, deserves and demands, at least in its sober presentation, the serious consideration of the historical student. Happily it is also that which, in the nature of it, is most capable of being subjected to the test of historical examination. For, as previously stated, we possess ample materials for ascertaining the state of thought, belief, and expectancy in the time of Christ, and of His Apostles. And to this aspect of objections to the Gospels the main line of argumentation in this book has been addressed. For, if the historical analysis here attempted has any logical force, it leads up to this conclusion, that Jesus Christ was, alike in the fundamental direction of His teaching and work, and in its details, antithetic to the Synagogue in its doctrine, practice, and expectancies.

But even so, one difficulty - we all feel it - remaineth. It is that connected with miracles, or rather with the miraculous, since the designation, and the difficulty to which it points, must not be limited to outward and tangible phenomena. But herein, I venture to say, lies also its solution, at least so far as such is possible - since the difficulty itself, the miraculous, is of the very essence of our thinking about the Divine, and, therefore one of the conditions of it: at least, in all religions of which the origin is not from within us, subjective, but from without us, objective, or, if I may so say, in all that claim to be universal religions (catholic thinking). But, to my mind, the evidential value of miracles (as frequently set forth in these volumes) lies not in what, without intending offence, I may call their barely super-naturalistic aspect, but in this, that they are the manifestations of the miraculous, in the widest sense, as the essential element in revealed religion. Miracles are of chief evidential value, not in themselves, but as instances and proof of the direct communication between Heaven and earth. And such direct communication is, at least, the postulate and first position in all religions. They all present to the worshipper some medium of personal communication from Heaven to earth - some prophet or other channel of the Divine - and some medium for our communication with Heaven. And this is the fundamental principle of the miraculous as the essential postulate in all religion that purposes again to bind man to God. It proceeds on the twofold principle that communication must first come to man from Heaven, and then that it does so come. Rather, perhaps, let us say, that all religion turns on these two great factors of our inner experience: man’s felt need and (as implied in it, if we are God’s creatures) his felt expectancy. And in the Christian Church this is not merely matter of the past - it has attained its fullest reality, and is a constant present in the indwelling of the Paraclete.

Yet another part of the task in writing this book remains to be mentioned. In the nature of it, such a book must necessarily have been more or less of a Commentary on the Gospels. But I have sought to follow the text of the Gospels throughout, and separately to consider every passage in them, so that, I hope, I may truthfully designate it also a Commentary on the Four Gospels - though an informal one. And here I may be allowed to state that throughout I have had the general reader in view, reserving for the foot-notes and Appendices what may be of special interest to students. While thankfully availing myself of all critical help within my reach - and here I may perhaps take the liberty of specially singling out Professor Westcott’s Commentary on St. John - I have thought it right to make the sacred text the subject of fresh and independent study. The conclusions at which I arrived I would present with the more deference, that, from my isolated position, I had not, in writing these volumes, the inestimable advantage of personal contact, on these subjects, with other students of the sacred text.

It only remains to add a few sentences in regard to other matters - perhaps of more interest to myself than to the reader. For many years I had wished and planned writing such a book, and all my previous studies were really in preparation for this. But the task was actually undertaken at the request of the Publishers, of whose kindness and patience I must here make public acknowledgment. For, the original term fixed for writing it was two or three years. It has taken me seven years of continual and earnest labour - and, even so, I feel as if I would fain, and ought to, spend other seven years upon what could, at most, be touching the fringe of this great subject. What these seven years have been to me I could not attempt to tell. In a remote country parish, entirely isolated from all social intercourse, and amidst not a few trials, parochial duty has been diversified and relieved by many hours of daily work and of study - delightful in and for itself. If any point seemed not clear to my own mind, or required protracted investigation, I could give days of undisturbed work to what to others might perhaps seem secondary, but was all-important to me. And so these seven years passed - with no other companion in study than my daughter, to whom I am indebted, not only for the Index Rerum, but for much else, especially for a renewed revision, in the proof-sheets, of the references made throughout these volumes. What labour and patience this required every reader will perceive - although even so I cannot hope that no misprint or slip of the pen has escaped our detection.

And now I part from this book with thankfulness to Almighty God for sparing me to complete it, with lingering regret that the task is ended, but also with unfeigned diffidence. I have, indeed, sought to give my best and most earnest labour to it, and to write what I believed to be true, irrespective of party or received opinions. This, in such a book, was only sacred duty. But where study necessarily extended to so many, and sometimes new, departments, I cannot hope always to carry the reader with me, or, which is far more serious - to have escaped all error. My deepest and most earnest prayer is that He, in Whose Service I have desired to write this book, would graciously accept the humble service - forgive what is mistaken and bless what is true. And if anything personal may intrude into these concluding lines, I would fain also designate what I have written as Apologia pro vita mea (alike in its fundamental direction and even ecclesiastically) - if, indeed, that may be called an Apologia which is the confession of this inmost conviction of mind and heart: ‘Lord, to Whom shall we go? The words of eternal life hast Thou! And we have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.’

ALFRED EDERSHEIM

8 BRADMORE ROAD, OXFORD:

September 1883

 

 PREFACE
TO THE
SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.

 

IN issuing a new edition of this book I wish, in the first place, again to record, as the expression of permanent convictions and feelings, some remarks with which I had prefaced the Second Edition, although happily they are not at present so urgently called for.

With the feelings of sincere thankfulness for the kindness with which this book was received by all branches of the Church, only one element of pain mingled. Although I am well convinced that a careful or impartial reader could not arrive at any such conclusion, yet it was suggested that a perverse ingenuity might abuse certain statements and quotations for what in modern parlance are termed ‘Anti-Semitic’ purposes. That any such thoughts could possibly attach to a book concerning Him, Who was Himself a Jew; Who in the love of His compassion wept tears of bitter anguish over the Jerusalem that was about to crucify Him, and Whose first utterance and prayer when nailed to the Cross was: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ - would seem terribly incongruous and painful. Nor can it surely be necessary to point out that the love of Christ, or the understanding of His Work and Mission, must call forth feelings far different from those to which reference has been made. To me, indeed, it is difficult to associate the so-called Anti-Semitic movement with any but the lowest causes: envy, jealousy, and cupidity on the one hand; or, on the other, ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, and hatred of race. But as these are times when it is necessary to speak unmistakably, I avail myself of the present opportunity to point out the reasons why any Talmudic quotations, even if fair, can have no application for ‘Anti-Semitic’ purposes.

First: It is a mistake to regard everything in Talmudic writings about ‘the Gentiles’ as presently applying to Christians. Those spoken of are characterised as ‘the worshippers of idols,’ ‘of stars and planets,’ and by similar designations. That ‘the heathens’ of those days and lands should have been suspected of almost any abomination, deemed capable of any treachery or cruelty towards Israel, - no student of history can deem strange, especially when the experience of so many terrible wrongs (would they had been confined to the heathen and to those times!) would naturally lead to morbidly excited suspicions and apprehensions.

Secondly: We must remember the times, the education, and the general standpoint of that period as compared with our own. No one would measure the belief of Christians by certain statements in the Fathers, nor judge the moral principles of Roman Catholics by prurient quotations from the Casuists; nor yet estimate the Lutherans by the utterances and deeds of the early successors of Luther, nor Calvinists by the burning of Servetus. In all such cases the general standpoint of the times has to be first taken into account. And no educated Jew would share the follies and superstitions, nor yet sympathise with the suspicions or feelings towards even the most hostile and depraved heathens, that may be quoted from the Talmud.

Thirdly: Absolutely the contrary of all this has been again and again set forth by modern Jewish writers. Even their attempts to explain away certain quotations from the Talmud - unsuccessful though, in my view, some of them are - afford evidence of their present repudiation of all such sentiments. I would here specially refer to such work as Dr. Grünebaum’s ‘Ethics of Judaism’ (‘Sittenlehre d. Judenthums’) - a book deeply interesting also as setting forth the modern Jewish view of Christ and His Teaching, and accordant (though on different grounds) with some of the conclusions expressed in this book, as regards certain incidents in the History of Christ. The principles expressed by Dr. Grünebaum, and other writers, are such as for ever to give the lie to Anti-Semitic charges. And although he and others, with quite proper loyalty, labour to explain certain Talmudic citations, yet it ultimately comes to the admission that Talmudic sayings are not the criterion and rule of present duty, even as regards the heathen - still less Christians, to whom they do not apply.

What has just been stated, while it fully disposes of all ‘Anti-Semitism,’ only the more clearly sets forth the argument which forms the main proposition of this book. Here also we have the highest example. None loved Israel so intensely, even unto death, as Jesus of Nazareth; none made such withering denunciations as He of Jewish Traditionalism, in all its branches, and of its Representatives. It is with Traditionalism, not the Jews, that our controversy lies. And here we cannot speak too plainly nor decidedly. It might, indeed, be argued, apart from any proposed different applications, that on one or another point opinions of a different kind may also be adduced from other Rabbis. Nor is it intended to convey unanimity of opinion on every subject. For, indeed, such scarcely existed on any one point - not on matters of fact, nor even often on Halakhic questions. And this also is characteristic of Rabbinism. But it must be remembered that we are here dealing with the very text-book of that sacred and Divine Traditionalism, the basis and substance of Rabbinism, for which such unlimited authority and absolute submission are claimed; and hence, that any statement admitted into its pages, even though a different view were also to be adduced, possesses an authoritative and a representative character. And this further appears from the fact that the same statements are often repeated in other documents, besides that in which they were originally made, and that they are also supported by other statements, kindred and parallel in spirit.

In truth, it has throughout been my aim to present, not one nor another isolated statement or aspect of Rabbinism, but its general teaching and tendency. In so doing I have, however, purposely left aside certain passages which, while they might have most fully brought out the sad and strange extravagances to which Rabbinism could go, would have involved the unnecessary quotation of what is not only very painful in itself, but might have furnished an occasion to enemies of Israel. Alike the one and the other it was my most earnest desire to avoid. And by the side of these extravagances there is so much in Jewish writings and life - the outcome of Old Testament training - that is noblest and most touching, especially as regards the social virtues, such as purity, kindness, and charity, and the acknowledgment of God in sufferings, as well as their patient endurance. On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that even the vehement assertions of partisans on the other side, supported by isolated sayings, sometimes torn from their context, or by such coincidences as are historically to be expected, will persuade those who keep in view either the words of Christ or His history and that of the Apostles, that the relation between Christianity in its origin, as the fulfilment of the Old Testament, and Traditionalism, as the externalised development of its letter, is other than that of which these volumes furnish both the explanation and the evidence. In point of fact, the attentive student of history will observe that a similar protest against the bare letter underlies Alexandrianism and Philo - although there from the side of reason and apologetically, in the New Testament from the aspect of spiritual life and for its full presentation.

Thus much - somewhat reluctantly written, because approaching controversy - seemed necessary by way of explanation. The brief interval between the First and Second Editions rendered only a superficial revision possible, as then indicated. For the present edition the whole work has once more been revised, chiefly with the view of removing from the numerous marginal Talmudic references such misprints as were observed. In the text and notes, also, a few errata have been corrected, or else the meaning rendered more clear. In one or two places fresh notes have been made; some references have been struck out, and others added. These notes will furnish evidence that the literature of the subject, since the first appearance of these volumes, has not been neglected, although it seemed unnecessary to swell the ‘List of Authorities’ by the names of all the books since published or perused. Life is too busy and too short to be always going back on one’s traces. Nor, indeed, would this be profitable. The further results of reading and study will best be embodied in further labours, please God, in continuation of those now completed. Opportunity may then also occur for the discussion of some questions which had certainly not been overlooked, although this seemed not the proper place for them: such as that of the composition of the Apostolic writings.

And so, with great thankfulness for what service this book has been already allowed to perform, I would now send it forth on its new journey, with this as my most earnest hope and desire: that, in however humble a manner, it may be helpful for the fuller and clearer setting forth of the Life of Him Who is the Life of all our life.

A. E.

OXFORD: March 1886.

 

LIST OF AUTHORITIES

CHIEFLY USED IN WRITING THIS BOOK.

Alford: Greek Testament.

Von der Alm: Heidn. u. jüd. Urtheile über Jesu u. die alten Christen.

Altingius: Dissertationes et Orationes.

Apocrypha: S.P.C.K. Commentary on. The Apocryphal Gospels.

Auerbach: Berith Abraham.

Bacher: Die Agada der Babylon. Amoräer.

Bäck: Geschichte des Jüd. Volkes u.seiner Literatur.

Baedeker: Syrien u. Palästina.

Bähr: Gesetz über Falsche Zeugen nach Bible u. Talmud.

Barclay: City of the Great King.

Beer: Leben Abraham’s.

Beer: Leben Mosis.

Beer, P.: Geschichte d. relig. Sekten d. Juden.

Bengel: Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

Bengel: Alter der jüdischen Proselytentaufe.

Bergel: Naturwissenschaftliche Kenntnisse d. Talmudisten.

Bergel: Der Himmel u. seine Wunder.

Bergel: Die Eheverhältnisse der alten Juden.

Berliner, Dr. A.: Targum Onkelos.

Bertholdt: Christologie Judæorum. Testaments.

Beyschlag: Die Christologie des Neuen Testaments.

Beyschlag: Zur Johanneischen Frage.

Bickell: Die Entstehung der Liturgie aus der Einsetzungsfeier.

Bleek: Einleitung in dasa Neue Testament. ed. Mangold.

Bleek: Synoptische Erklärung d. drei Evangelien.

Bloch: Studien z. Gesch. der Sammlung d althebr. Literatur.

Bloch: Das Mosaisch-talmud. Polizeirecht.

Bloch: Civilprocess-Ordnung nach Mos. rabb. Rechte.

Bochartus: Hierozoicon.

Bodek: Marcus Aurelius u. R. Jehudah.

Bodenschatz: Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden.

Böhl: Forschungen nach einer Volks bibel zur Zeit Jesu.

Böhl: Alttestamentliche Citate im N. T.

Bonar: The Land of Promise.

Braun: Die Söhne des Herodes.

Braunius: De Vestitu Hebræorum.

Brecher: DasTranscendentale im Talmud.

Bredow: Rabbinische Mythen, &c.

Brückner: Die Versuchungsgeschichte unseres Herrn Jesu Christi.

Brück: Rabbinische Ceremonialgebräuche.

Brüll: Fremdsprachliche Redensarten im Talmud.

Brüll: Trachten der Juden.

Buber: Pesikta.

Bucher: Des Apostels Johannes Lehre vom Logos.

Burgon: The Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark.

Buxtorf: Exercitationes.

Buxtorf: Synagoga Judaica.

Buxtorf; Lexicon Talmud.

Calvin: Comment. (passim).

Cahen: Repertorium Talmudioum.

Carpzov: Chuppa Hebræorium.

Caspari: Einleitung in das Leben Jesu Christi.

Cassel: Das Buch Kusari.

Cassel: Lehrbuch der Jud. Gesch, u. Literatur.

Castelli: Commento di Sabbatai Donnolo sul libro della Creazione.

Castelli: Il Messia secondo gli Ebrei.

Cavedoni: Biblische Numismatik.

Charteris: Canonicity.

Chasronoth Hashas.

Cheyne: Prophecies of Isaiah.

Chijs: De Herode Magno.

Cohen: Les Déicides.

Commentaries, Speaker’s, on the Gospels; Camb. Bible on the Gospels.

Conder: Tent Work in Palestine.

Conder: Handbook to the Bible.

Conforte: Liber Kore ha-Dorot.

Cook: The Rev. Version of the Gospels.

Creizenach: Shulcan Aruch.

Cremer: New Testament Dictionary.

Cureton: Syriac Gospels.

Dähne: Jüdisch-Alex. Religionsphilos.

Davidson: Introduction to the Study of the New Testament.

Davidson: The Last Things.

Dachs: Codex Succa Talmudis Babylonici.

Danko: Historia Revelationis Divinae N. T.

Danko: De Sacra Scriptura ejusque interpretatione Commentarius.

Delaunay: Moines et Sibylles dans l’antiquité Judéo-Grecque.

Delitzsch: Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu.

Delitzsch: Geschichte der jüd. Poesie.

Delitzsch: Durch Krankheit zur Genesung.

Delitzsch: Ein Tag in Capernaum.

Delitzsch: Untersuchungen üb. die Entsteh. u. Anlage d. Matth-Evang.

Delitzsch; Talmudische Studien.

Delitzsch: Jesus und Hillel.

Derenbourg: Essai sur l’Histoire et la Géographie de la Palestine.

Deutsch: Literary Remains.

Deylingius: Observationes Sacræ.

Dillmann: Das Buch Henoch.

Döllinger: Heidenthum und Judenthum.

Drummond: The Jewish Messiah.

Dukes: Zur Rabbinischen Sprachkunde.

Dukes: Rabbinische Blumenlese.

Duschak: Zur Botanik des Talmud.

Duschak: Die Moral der Evangelien und des Talmud.

Duschak: Jüdischer Cultus.

Duschak: Schulgesetzgebung.

Ebrard: Wissenschaftliche Kritik der evangel. Geschichte.

Edersheim: History of the Jewish Nation.

Edersheim: The Temple, its Ministry and its Services.

Edersheim: Sketches of Jewish Social Life.

Ehrmann: Geschichte der Schulen u. der Cultur unter den Juden.

Eisenmenger: Entdecktes Judenthum.

Eisler: Beiträge zur Rabb. Sprach- u. Alterthums-kunde.

Ellicott: New Testament Commentary: Gospels.

Ellicott: Lectures on the Life of our Lord.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (passim).

Etheridge: The Targums on the Pentateuch.

Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History.

Ewald: Abodah Sarah.

Ewald: Geschichte des Volkes Israel.

Ewald: Bibl. Jahrb. (passim).

Fabricius: Codex Pseudepigraphus V.T.

Farrar: Life of Christ.

Farrar: Eternal Hope.

Fassel: Das Mos. rabb. Civilrecht.

Fassel: Gerichts-Verf.

Field: Otium Norvicense.

Filipowski: Liber Juchassin.

Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity.

Frankel: Targum der Proph.

Frankel: Ueb. d. Einfl. d. palast. Exegese auf die Alexandr. Hermeneutik.

Frankel: Monatschrift fur das Judenthum (passim).

Frankel: Vorstudien zu der Septuaginta.

Frankel: Einleitung in d. Jerusalem Talmud.

Franck: d. Kabbala.

Freudenthal: Hellenistische Studien.

Friedenthal: Jessode haddat weikere Haemuna.

Friedlaender: Sittengeschichte Roms.

Friedlaender: Ben Dosa u. seine Zeit.

Friedlaender: Patristische u. Talmudische Studien.

Friedlieb: Oracula Subyllina.

Friedlieb: Archäologie der Leidensge schichte.

Friedmann: Siphré debe Rab.

Fritzsche u. Grimm: Handbuch zu den Apokryphen.

Fritzsche u. Grimm: Libri V. T. Pseudepigraphi Selecti.

Fuller: Harmony of the Four Gospels.

Fürst: Der Kanon des A. T.

Fürst: Kultur u. Literaturgeschichte der Juden in Asien.

Fürst: Biblioth. Jüd. (passim).

Fürstenthal: Menorath Hammaor.

Fürstenthal: Jessode haddat.

Geier: De Ebraeorum Luctu Lugentiumque Ritibus.

Geiger: Das Judenthum u. seine Geschichte.

Geiger: Beiträge z. Jüd. Literatur-Gesch.

Geiger: Zeitschrift fur Jud. Theol. (passim).

Geiger: Urschrift u. Uebersetzungen der Bibel.

Geikie: Life and Words of Christ.

Gelpke: Die Jugendgesch. des Herrn.

Gerlach: Die Röm. Statthälter in Syrien u Judäa.

Gfrörer: Philo.

Gfrörer: Jahrh. d. Heils.

Ginsburg: Ben Chajim’s Introd.

Ginsburg: Massoreth Ha-Massoreth.

Ginsburg: The Essenes.

Ginsburg: The Kabbalah.

Godet: Commentar.

Godet: Bibl. Studies.

Goebel: Die Parabeln Jesu.

Goldberg: The Language of Christ.

Graetz: Geschichte der Juden.

Green: Handbk. to the Grammar of the Grk. Test.

Grimm: Die Samariter.

Grimm: Clavis N. T.

Gronemann: Die Jonathansche Pentateuch-Uebersetzung.

Grünebaum: Sittenlehre des Judenthums.

Guérin: Description de la Palestine et Samarie.

Guillemard: Hebraisms in the Greek Testament.

Günzburg: Beleuchtung des alten Judenthums.

Hamburger: Real Encyklopädie f. Bibel u. Talmud.

Hamelsveia: Dissertatio de aedibus vet. Hebr.

Haneberg: Die relig. Alterth. der Bibel.

Harnoch: De Philonis Judaei Log. Inquisitio.

Hartmann: Die Hebräerin am Putztische u. als Braut.

Hartmann: Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem Neuen.

Hase: Leben Jesu.

Haupt: Die A. T. Citate in den 4 Evangelien.

Hausrath: Neutestamentliche zeitgeschichte.

Herzfeld: Geschichte Israels.

Herzfeld: Handelsgeschichte der Juden des Alterthums.

Herzog: Real-Encyklopädie (passim).

Hildesheimer: Der Herod. Tempel n. d. Talmud u. Josephus.

Hilgenfeld: Jüdische Apokalyptik.

Hirschfeld: Halach. u. Hagad. Exegese.

Hirschfeld: Tractatus Macot. Hitzig: Geschichte des Volkes Israel.

Hoffmann: Leben Jesu.

Hofmann: Schriftbeweis.

Hofmann: Weissagung u. Erfullung.

Hoffmann: Abhandlungen üb. die Pentat. Gesetze.

Holdheim: d. Cerem. Ges.

Hottinger: Juris Hebr. Leges.

Huschke: Ueb. d. Census u. die Steuerverf. d. früh. Röm. Kaiserzeit.

Huschke: Ueb. d. z. Zeit d. Geb. Jesu Christi gehaltenen Census.

Havercamp: Flavius Josephus.

Ideler: Chronologie.

Ikenius: Antiquitates Hebraicæ.

Ikenius: Dissertationes Philologico-theologicæ.

Jellinek: Beth ha-Midrash.

Joel: Blick in d. Religionsgesch. d. 2ten Christlichen Jahrh.

Joel: Religionsphilos. des Sohar.

Jost: Gesch. d. Judenth. u. seiner Sekten.

Jowett: Epistles of St. Paul, Romans, Galatians, Thessalonians.

Josephus Gorionides: ed. Breithaupt.

Juynboll: Comment. in Hist. Gentis Samaritanæ.

Keil: Einl. in. d. Kanon. u. Apokryph. Schriften des A. T.

Keim: Geschichte Jesu von Nazara.

Kennedy: Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Kirchheim: Septem Libri Talmudici parvi Hierosol.

Kirchner: Jud. Passahf.

Kitto: Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature (passim).

Kobut: Jüdische Angelologie u. Daemonologie.

König: Die Menschwerdung Gottes.

Köster: Nachw. d. Spur. einer Trinitätslehre vor Christo.

Krafft: Jüdische Sagen u. Dichtungen.

Krauss: Die Grosse Synode.

Krebs: Decreta Athen in honor Hyrcani P. M. Judæorum.

Krebs: Decreta Roman. pro Judæis.

Krebs: Observationes in Nov. Test.

Kuhn: Städt. u. bürgerl. Verfass d. Röm. Reichs.

Landau: Arukh.

Lange: Bibelwerk (on Gospels).

Langen: Judenthum in Palästina z. Zeit Christi.

Lange: Leben Jesu.

Langfelder: Symbolik des Judenthums.

Lattes: Saggio di Giunte e Correzzioni al Lessico Talmudico.

Lavadeur: Krit. Beleucht. d. jüd Kalenderwesens.

Lenormant: Chaldean Magic.

Levi: Historia Religionis Judæorum.

Levy: Neuhebr. u. Chaldäisch. Wörterbuch.

Levy: Chaldäisch. Wörterb. über die Targumim.

Levy: Gesch. der Jüdisch. Münzen.

Levyssohn: Disputatio de Jud. sub. Cæs. Conditione.

Lewin: Fasti Sacri.

Lewin: Siege of Jerusalem.

Lewyssohn: Zoologie des Talmuds.

Lightfoot: Horæ Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ in 4 Evangel.

Lightfoot: Commentary on Galatians.

Lightfoot: Commentary on Colossians.

Lisco: Die Wunder Jesu Christi.

Low: Beiträge z. jüd Alterthumskunde.

Low: Lebensalter in d. jüd. Literatur.

Löwe: Schulchan Aruch.

Lowy: Biggoreth ha Talmud.

Lucius: Essenismus in sein Verhältn z. Judenth.

Lücke: Johannes (Gospel).

Lundius: Jüdische Heiligthumer.

Luthardt: Johann. Evangelium.

Luthardt: Die modern. Darstell. d. Lebens Jesu.

Lutterbeck: Neutestamentliche Lehrbegriffe.

McLellan: New Testament (Gospels).

Madden: Coins of the Jews.

Maimonides: Yad haChazzakah.

Marcus: Pädagogik des Talmud.

Marquardt: Röm, Staatsverwaltung.

Martinus: Fidei Pugio.

Maybaum: Die Anthropomorph. u. Anthropopath. bei Onkelos.

Megillath Taanith.

Meier: Judaica.

Meuschen: Nov. Test ex Talmude et Joseph.

Meyer: Seder Olam Rabba et Suta.

Meyer: Buch Jezira.

Meyer: Kommentar. (on Gospels).

Meyer: Arbeit u. Handwerk. im Talmud.

Midrash Rabboth.

Midrashim. (See List in Rabb. Abbrev.)

Mill: On the Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels.

Mishnah.

Molitor: Philosophie der Geschichte.

Moscovitor: Het N. T. en de Talmud.

Müller: Mess. Erwart. d. Jud. Philo.

Müller: Zur Johann Frage.

Müller, J.: Massech. Sopher.

Münter: Stern der Weisen

Nanz: Die Besessenen im N. T.

Neander: Life of Christ.

Nebe: Leidensgesch. unser. Herrn Jesu Christi.

Nebe: Auferstehungsgesch. unser. Herrn Jesu Christi.

Neubauer: La Géographie du Talmud.

Neubauer and Driver: Jewish Interpreters of Isaiah. liii.

Neumann: Messian. Erschein. bei d. Juden.

Neumann: Gesch. d. Mess. Weissag. im A. T.

New Testament. Ed. Scrivener. Ed. Westcott and Hort. Ed. Gebhardt.

Nicolai: De Sepulchris Hebræorum.

Nizzachon Vetus. et Toledoth Jeshu.

Nicholson: The Gospel accord. to the Hebrews.

Norris: New Testament (Gospels).

Nork: Rabbinische Quellen u. Parallelen.

Nutt: Samaritan History.

Otho: Lexicon Rabbin. Philolog.

Outram: De Sacrificiis Judæor et Christi.

Othijoth de R. Akiba.

Oxlee: Doc. of Trinity on Princips. of Judaism.

Pagninus: Thesaurus Linguæ Sanctæ.

Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statements (passim).

Perles: Liechenfeierlichk. im Nachbibl, Judenth.

Philippson: Haben wirklich die Jud. Jesum gekreuzigt?

Philippson: Israelit. Religionslehre.

Philo Judæus: Opera.

Pictorial Palestine (passim).

Picturesque Palestine.

Pinner: Berachoth.

Pinner: Compend. des Hieros. u. Babyl. Thalm.

Pirké de R. Elieser.

Plumptre: Comment. on the Gospels.

Plumptre: Bible Educator (passim).

Pocock: Porta Mosis.

Prayer-books, Jewish: i. Arnheim. ii. Mannheimer. iii. Polak (Frankfort ed.). iv. Friedländer. v. F. A. Euchel. vi. Jacobson. vii. Pesach Haggadah. viii. Rodelheim ed.

Pressensé: Jesus Christ: His Time, Life, and Works.

Prideaux: Connec. of O. and N.T.

Pusey: What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment?

Rabbinowicz: Einleit. in d. Gesetzgeb. u. Medicin d. Talm.

Ravuis: Dissertat. de. aedib. vet. Hebr.

Redslob: Die Kanonisch. Evangelien.

Reland: Antiquit. Sacr. veter. Hebr.

Reland: Palæstina.

Remond: Ausbreit. d. Judenthums.

Renan: L’Antéchrist.

Renan: Vie de Jésus.

Renan: Marc-Auréle.

Rhenferd et Vitringa: De Decem Otiosis Synagogæ.

Riehm: Handwörterb. d. bibl. Alterth. (passim).

Riehm: Lehrbegriff d. Hebraerbriefs.

Riess: Geburtsjahr Christi.

Ritter: Philo u. die Halacha.

Roberts: Discussion on the Gospels.

Robinson: Biblical Researches in Palestine.

Roeth: Epistoia ad Hebraeos.

Rohr: Palästina z. Zeit Christi.

Rönsch: Buch Jubiläen.

Roos: Lehre u. Lebensgesch. Jesu Christi.

Rösch: Jesus-Mythen d. Talmudist.

Rosenmüller: Biblisch. Geographie.

Rossi, Azarjah de: Meor Enajim.

Rossi, Giambernardo de: Della Lingua Propria di Christo.

Sachs: Beiträge z. Sprach u. Alterthumskunde.

Saalschütz: Musik bei d. Hebraern.

Saalschütz: Mos. Recht.

Salvador: Römerherrschaft in Judæa.

Salvador: Gesch. d. Jud. Volkes.

Sammter: Baba Mezia.

Schenkel: Bibel-Lexicon (passim).

Schleusner: Lexicon Gr. Lat. in N.T.

Schmer: De Chuppa Hebræorum.

Schmilg: Der Siegeskalender Megill Taanith.

Schneckenburger: Neutestament. Zeitgeschichte.

Schoettgen: Horæ Hebraicæ et Talmudicæ.

Schreiber: Principien des Judenthums.

Schroederus: Comment. de Vestitu Mulier. Hebr.

Schürer: Neutestam. Zeitgesch.

Schürer: Gemeindeverfass. d. Juden in Rom in d. Kaiserzeit.

Schwab: Le Talmud de Jérusalem.

Schwarz: D. Heilige Land.

Schwarz: Tosifta Shabbath.

Scrivener: Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.

Seder Hadoroth.

Selden: De Synedriis Ebr.

Selden: De Jure Naturali et Gent. Hebr.

Selden: Uxor Ebraica.

Sepp: Leben Jesu.

Sevin: Chronologie des Lebens Jesu.

Sheringham: Joma.

Siegfried: Philo von Alexandria.

Singer: Onkelos u. seine Verhältn. z. Halacha.

Sion Ledorosh.

Smith: Dictionary of the Bible (passim).

Smith and Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography (passim).

Sohar.

Tikkuné haSohar.

Saloweyczyk: Bibel, Talmud, u. Evangelium.

Sommer: Mispar haSohar.

Spencer: De Legib. Hebr. Ritual.

Spiess: Das Jerusalem des Josephus.

Spitzer: Das Mahl bei den Hebräern.

Stanley: Sinai and Palestine.

Steinmeyer: Geburt des Herrn u. seinerste Schritte im Leben.

Steinmeyer: Die Parabeln des Herrn

Stein: Schrift des Lebens.

Stern: Die Frau im Talmud.

Stern: Gesch. des Judenthums.

Stier: Reden des Herrn Jesu.

Strack: Pirké Aboth.

Strack: Proleg. Crit. in V.T. Hebr.

Strauss: Leben Jesu.

Supernatural Religion.

Surenhusius: Biblos Katallages.

Surenhusius: Mishnah.

Talmud, Babylon and Jerusalem.

Targum, the Targumim in the Mikraoth gedoloth.

Taylor: Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Pirqé Ab., &c.), with critical and illutrative Notes.

Taylor: Great Exemplar.

Tauchuma: Midrash.

Thein: Der Talmud.

Theologische Studien u. Kritiken (passim).

Tholuck: Bergpredigt Christi.

Tholuck: Das Alt. Test. im Neu. Test.

Tischendorf: When were our Gospels written?

Toetterman: R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.

Traill: Josephus.

Trench: Notes on the Miracles

Trench: Notes on the Parables.

Tristram: Natural History of the Bible.

Tristram: Land of Israel.

Tristram: Land of Moab. d. alt. Hebr.

Trusen: Sitten, Gebräuche u. Krankheiten.

Ugolinus: Thesaurus Antiquitatum Sacrarum (passim).

Unruh: Das alte Jerusalem u. seine Bauwerke.

Vernes: Histoire des Idées Messianiques.

Vitringa: De Synagoga Vetere.

Volkmar: Einleitung in die Apokryphen.

Volkmar: Marcus.

Volkmar: Mose Prophetie u. Himmel fahrt.

Vorstius: De Hebraisms Nov. Test.

Wace: The Gospel and its Witnesses.

Wagenseil: Sota. Wahl: Clavis Nov. Test. Philologica.

Warneck: Pontius Pilatus.

Watkins: Gospel of St. John.

Weber: Johannes der Täufer u. die Parteien seiner Zeit.

Weber: System der altsynagog. paläst. Theologie. B.

Weiss: Lehrb. d. bibl. Theol. des N.T.

Weiss: Mechilta.

Weiss: Siphra B.

Weiss: Matthäusevangelium. B.

Weiss: Leben Jesu.

Weiss: Geschichte. der jüd. Tradition.

Weizsäcker: Untersuch. üb. die evangel. Geschichte.

Wellhausen: Die Pharisäer u. die Sadducäer.

Westcott: Introduction to the Study of the Gospels.

Westcott: On the Canon of the New Testament.

Westcott: Gospel of St. John.

Wetstein: Novum Testamentum Graecum (Gospels).

Wichelhaus: Kommentar zur Leidensgeschichte.

Wieseler: Beiträge zu den Evange. u. der Evangel. Gesch.

Wieseler: Chronol. Synopse der 4 Evangelien.

Wiesner: d. Bann in s. Gesch. Entwickelung.

Winer: Biblisches Realwörterbuch (passim).

Winer: De Onkeloso.

Wilson: Recovery of Jerusalem.

Wittichen: Die Idee des Reiches Gottes.

Wittichen: Leben Jesu.

Wolfius: Bibliotheca Hebræa (passim).

Wordsworth: Commentary (Gospels).

Wunderbar: Bibl. talmud. Medecin.

Wünsche: Die Leiden des Messias.

Wünsche: Neue Beiträge z. Erlaut. der Evangel.

Wünsche: Der Jerusalemische Talmud.

Wünsche: Bibliotheca Rabbinica.

Yalkut Shimeoni.

Yalkut Rubeni.

Young: Christology of the Targums.

Zahn: Forsch. zur Gesch. d. N.T. Kanous.

Zeller: Philosophie der Griechen.

Zemach David.

Zimmermann: Karten u. Pläne z. Topographie des alten Jerusalems.

Zockler: Handb. d. Theol. Wissenschaften.

Zumpt: Geburtsjahr Christi.

Zunz: Zur Geschichte u. Literatur.

Zunz: Die Gottesdienstl. Vortr. d. Juden

Zunz: Synagogale Poesie.

Zunz: Ritus d. Synagogalen-Gottesdienst.

Zuckermandel: Tosephta.

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN REFERENCE TO
RABBINIC WRITINGS QUOTED IN THIS WORK.

 

THE Mishnah is always quoted according to Tractate, Chapter (Pereq) and Paragraph (Mishnah), the Chapter being marked in Roman, the paragraph in ordinary Numerals. Thus Ber. ii. 4 means the Mishnic Tractate Berakhoth, second Chapter, fourth Paragraph.

The Jerusalem Talmud is distinguished by the abbreviation Jer. before the name of the Tractate. Thus, Jer. Ber. is the Jer. Gemara, or Talmud, of the Tractate Berakhoth. The edition, from which quotations are made, is that commonly used, Krotoschin, 1866, 1 vol. fol. The quotations are made either by Chapter and Paragraph (Jer. Ber. ii. 4), or, in these volumes mostly, by page and column.  It ought to be noted that in Rabbinic writings each page is really a double one, distinguished respectively as a and b: a being the page to the left hand of the reader, and b the reverse one (on turning over the page) to the right hand of the reader. But in the Jerusalem Gemara (and in Yalkut [see below], as in all works where the page and column (col.) are mentioned) the quotation is often - in these volumes, mostly - made by page and column (two columns being on each side of a page). Thus, while Jer. Ber. ii. 4 would be Chapter II. Par. 4, the corresponding quotation by page and column would in that instance be, Jer. Ber. 4 d; d marking that it is the fourth column in b (or the off-side) of page 4.

The Babyl. Talmud is, in all its editions, equally paged, so that a quotation made applies to all editions. It is double-paged, and quoted with the name of the Tractate, the number of the page, and a or b according as one or another side of the page is referred to. The quotations are distinguished from those of the Mishnah by this, that in the Mihnah Roman and ordinary numerals are employed (to mark Chapters and Paragraphs), while in the Babylon Talmud the name of the Tractate is followed by an ordinary numeral, indicating the page, together with a or b, to mark which side of the page is referred to. Thus Ber. 4 a means:  Tractate Berachoth, p. 4, first or left-hand side of the page.

I have used the Vienna edition, but this, as already explained, is not a point of any importance. To facilitate the verification of passages quoted I have in very many instances quoted also the lines, either from top or bottom.

The abbreviation Tos. (Tosephta, additamentum) before the name of a Tractate refers to the additions made to the Mishnah after its redaction. This redaction dates from the third century of our era. The Tos. extends only over 52 of the Mishnic Tractates. They are inserted in the Talmud at the end of each Tractate, and are printed on the double pages in double columns (col. a and b on p. a, col. e and d on p. b). They are generally quoted by Pereq and Mishnah: thus, Tos. Gitt. i. 1, or (more rarely) by page and column, Tos. Gitt. p. 150 a. The ed. Zuckermandel is, when quoted, specially indicated.

Besides, the Tractate Aboth de Rabbi Nathan (Ab. de. R. Math.), and the smaller Tractates, Sopherim (Sopher), Semachoth (Semach.), Kallah (Kall. or Chall),²²    It is to be noted that in the marginal and note-references the old mode of indicating a reference (as in the first ed. of this book) and the, perhaps, more correct mode of transliteration have been promiscuously employed. But the reader can have no difficulty in understanding the reference. Derekh Erets (Der Er.),  Derekh Erets Zuta (commonly Der Er. S.), and Pereq Shalom (Per. Shal.) are inserted at the close of vol. ix. of the Talmud. They are printed in four columns (on double pages), and quoted by Pereq and Mishnah.

The so-called Septem Libri Talmudici parvi Hierosolymitani are published separately (ed. Raphael Kirchheim, Fref 1851). They are the Massecheth Sepher Torah (Mass. Seph. Tor.), Mass. Mezuzah (Mass. Mesus.), Mass. Tephillin (Mass. Tephill.), Mass. Tsitsith (Mass. Ziz.), Mass. Abhadim (Mass. Abad.), Mass. Kuthim (Mass. Cuth.), and Mass. Gerim (Mass. Ger.). They are printed and quoted according to double pages (a and b).

To these must be added the so-called Chesronoth haShas, a collection of passages expurgated in the ordinary editions from the various Tractates of the Talmud. Here we must close, what might else assume undue proportions, by an alphabeticallist of the abbreviations, although only of the principal books referred to: -

Ab. Zar.³³    Mark the note on previous page.                      The Talmudic Tractate Abhodah Zorah, on Idolatry.

Ab.                               The Talmudic Tractate Pirquey Abohoth, Savings of the Fathers.

Ab. de R Nath. The Tractate Abhoth de Rabbi Nathan at the close of vol. ix. in the Bab. Talm.

Arakh.                         The Talmudic Tractate Arakhin, on the redemption of persons or things consecrated to the Sanctuary.

Bab. K.                        The Talmudic Tractate Babha Qamma (‘First Gate’), the first,

Bab. Mets. [or Mez.]    Talmudic Tractate Babha Metsia (‘Middle Gate’), the second,

Bab. B.                         The Talmudic Tractate Babha Bathra (‘Last Gate’), the third of the great Tractates on Common Law.

Bechor.                        The Talmudic Tractate Bekhoroth, on the consecration to the Sanctuary of the First-born.

Bemid R.                      The Midrash (or Commentary) Bemidbar Rabba, on Numbers.

Ber.                              The Talmudic Tractate Berakhoth, on Prayers and Benedictions.

Ber. R.                         The Midrash (or Commentary) Bereshith Rabba, on Genesis.

Bets. [or Bez.] The Talmudic Tractate Betsah, laws about an egg laid on Sabbath and Fast-days, and on similar points connected with the sanctifying of such seasons.

Biccur.                         The Talmudic Tractate Bikkurim, on First-fruits.

Chag.                          The Talmudic Tractate Chagigah, on the festive offerings at the three Great Feasts.

Chall.                          The Talmudic Tractate Challah, on the first of the dough (Numb. xv. 17).

Chull.                          The Talmudic Tractate Chullin, the rubric as to the mode of killing meat and kindred subjects.

Debar R.                      The Midrash Debharim Rabba, on Deuteronomy.

Dem.                            The Talmudic Tractate Demai, regarding Produce, the tithing of which is not certain.

Ech. R.                         The Midrash Ekhah Rabbathi, on Lamentations (also quoted as Mid. on Lament).

Eduy.                           The Talmudic Tractate Eduyoth (Testimonies), the legal determinations enacted or confirmed on a certain occasion, decisive in Jewish History.

Erub.                           The Talmudic Tractate Erubhin, on the conjunction of Sabbath boundaries. (See Appendix XVII.)

Midr. Esth.                  The Midrash on Esther.

Gitt.                             The Talmudic Tractate Gittin, on Divorce.

Horay.                         The Taldmudic Tractate Horayoth ‘Decisions’ on certain unintentional transgressions.

Jad. [or Yad.]               The Taldmudic Tractate Yadayim, on the Washing of Hands.

Jebam. [or Yebam.]     The Taldmudic Tractate Yebhamoth, on the Levirate.

Jom. [mostly Yom.]      The Taldmudic Tractate Yoma, on the Day of Atonement.

Kel.                              The Taldmudic Tractate Kelim, on the purification of furniture and vessels.

Kerith.                         The Taldmudic Tractate Kerithuth, on the punishment of ‘cutting off.’

Kethub.                       The Taldmudic Tractate Kethubhoth, on marriage-contracts.

Kidd.                           The Taldmudic Tractate Qiddushin, on Betrothal.

Kil.                              The Taldmudic Tractate Kilayim, on the unlawful commixtures (Lev. xix. 19; Deut. xxii. 9-11).

Kinn.                           The Taldmudic Tractate Qinnim, on the offering of doves (Lev. v. 1-10; xii. 8).

Midr. Kohel.                The Midrash on Qoheleth or Eccles.

Maas.                          The Talmudic Tractate Maaseroth, on Levitical Tithes.

Maas Sh.                     The Talmudic Tractate Maaser Sheni, on second Tithes (Deut. xiv. 22, &c.).

Machsh.                       The Talmudic Tractate Makhshirin, on fluids that may render products ‘defiled,’ or that leave them undefiled (Lev. xi. 34, 38).

Makk. [or Macc.]        The Talmudic Tractate Makkoth, on the punishment of Stripes.

Mechil.                        The Talmudic Tractate Mekhilta, a Commentary on part of Exodus, dating at the latest from the first half of the second century.

Megill.                         The Talmudic Tractate Megillah, referring to the reading of the (‘roll’) Book of Esther and on the Feast of Esther.

Meil.                            The Talmudic Tractate Meilah, on the defilement of things consecrated.

Menach.                      The Talmudic Tractate Menachoth, on Meat-offerings.

Midd.                           The Talmudic Tractate Middoth, on the Temple-measurements and arrangements.

Mikv.                           The Talmudic Tractate Miqvaoth, on ablutions and immersions.

Moed K.                      The Talmudic Tractate Moed Qatan, on Half-holidays

Naz.                             The Talmudic Tractate Nazir, on the Nasirate.

Ned.                             The Talmudic Tractate Nedarim, on Vowing.

Neg.                             The Talmudic Tractate Negaim, on Leprosy.

Nidd.                           The Talmudic Tractate Niddah, on female levitical impurity (menstrua).

Ohol.                           The Talmudic Tractate Oholoth, on the defilement of tents and houses, specially by death.

Orl.                              The Talmudic Tractate Orlah, on the ordinances connected with Lev. xix. 23.

Par.                             The Talmudic Tractate Parah, on the Red Heifer and purification by its ashes.

Peah                            The Talmudic Tractate Peah, on the corner to be left for the poor in harvesting.

Pes.                             The Talmudic Tractate Pesachim, on the Paschal Feast.

Pesiqta                        The Book Pesiqta, an exceedingly interesting series of Meditations or brief discussions and Lectures on certain portions of  the Lectionary for the principal Sabbaths and Feast Days.

Pirqé de R. Eliez.         The Haggadic Pirqé de Rabbi Eliezer, in 54 chapters, a discursive Tractate on the History of Israel from the creation to the time of Moses, with the insertion of three chapters (xlix.-li.) on the history of Haman and the future Messianic deliverance.

Rosh haSh.                  The Talmudic Tractate Rosh haShanah, on the Feast of New Year

Sab.                             The Talmudic Tractate Zabhim, on certain levitically defiling issues.

Sanh.                           The Talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin, on the Sanhedrim and Criminal Jurisprudence.

Sebach.                        The Talmudic Tractate Zebhachim, on Sacrifices.

Shabb.                         The Talmudic Tractate Shabbath, on Sabbath-observance.

Shebh.                         The Talmudic Tractate Shebhiith, on the Sabbatic Year.

Shebu.                         The Talmudic Tractate Shebhuoth, on Oaths, &c.

Sheqal.                        The Talmudic Tractate Sheqalim, on the Temple-Tribute, &c.

Shem R.                       The Midrash Shemoth Rabba on Exodus.

Shir haSh R.                The Midrash Shir haShirim Rabba, on the Song of Solomon.

Siphra              The ancient Commentary on Leviticus, dating from the second century.

Siphré              The still somewhat older Commentary on Numb. and Deuter.

Sot.                              The Talmudic Tractate Sotah, on the Woman accused of Adultery.

Sukk.                           The Talmudic Tractate Sukkah, on the Feast of Tabernacles.

Taan.                           The Talmudic Tractate Taanith, on Fasting and Fast-Days.

Tam.                            The Talmudic Tractate Tamid, on the daily Service and Sacrifice in the Temple.

Teb. Yom.                    The Talmudic Tractate Tebhul Yom (‘bathed of the day’), on impurities, where there is immersion on the evening of the same day.

Tem.                            The Talmudic Tractate Temurah, on substitution for things consecrated (Lev. xxvii. 10).

Ter.                              The Talmudic Tractate Terumoth, on the priestly dues in produce.

Tohar.                         The Talmudic Tractate Toharoth, on minor kinds of defilement.

Tanch.                         The Midrashic Commentary Tanchuma (or Yelamdenu), on the Pentateuch.

Ukz.                             The Talmudic Tractate Uqtsin, on the defilement of fruits through their envelopes, stalks, &c.

Vayyik R.                     The Midrash Vayyikra Rabba, on Leviticus.

Yalk.                            The great collectaneum: Yalkut Shimeoni, which is a catena on the whole Old Testament, containing also quotations from works lost to us.⁴⁴    It will, of course, be understood that we have only given the briefest, and, indeed, imperfect, indications of the contents of the various Talmudic Tractates. Besides giving the Laws connected with each of the subjects of which they treat, all kindred topics are taken up, nay, the discussion often passes to quite other than the subjects primarily treated of in a Tractate.

 

Book I

 

INTRODUCTORY.

 

THE PREPARATION FOR THE GOSPEL:

THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST

 

{hebrew}

‘All the prophets prophesied not but of the days of the Messiah.’-Sanh. 99 a

 

{hebrew}

‘The world was not created but only for the Messiah.’-Sanh. 98 b

i.3

CHAPTER I.
THE JEWISH WORLD IN THE DAYS OF CHRIST - THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE EAST.

 

Among the outward means by which the religion of Israel was preserved, one of the most important was the centralisation and localisation of its worship in Jerusalem. If to some the ordinances of the Old Testament may in this respect seem narrow and exclusive, it is at least doubtful, whether without such a provision Monothsiem itself could have continued as a creed or a worship. In view of the state of the ancient world, and of the tendencies of Israel during the earlier stages of their history, the strictest isolation was necessary in order to preserve the religion of the Old Testament from that mixture with foreign elements which would speedily have proved fatal to its existence. And if one source of that danger had ceased after the seventy years’ exile in Babylonia, the dispersion of the greater part of the nation among those manners and civilisation would necessarily influence them, rendered the continuance of this separation of as great importance as before. In this respect, even traditionalism had its mission and use, as a hedge around the Law to render its infringement or modification impossible.

Wherever a Roman, a Greek, or an Asiatic might wander, he could take his gods with him, or find rites kindred to his own. It was far otherwise with the Jew. He had only one Temple, that in Jerusalem; only one God, Him Who had once throned there between the Cherubim, and Who was still King over Zion. That Temple was the only place where a God-appointed, pure priesthood could offer acceptable sacrifices, whether for forgiveness of sin, or for fellowship with God. Here, in the impenetrable gloom of the innermost sanctuary, which the High-Priest alone might enter once a year for most solemn expiation, had stood the Ark, the leader of the people into the Land of Promise, and the footstool on which the Schechinah had rested. From that golden altar rose the cloud in incense, symbol of Israel’s accepted prayers; that seven-branched candlestick shed its perpetual light, indicative of the brightness of God’s Covenant Presence; on that table, as it were before the face of Jehovah, was laid, week by week, ‘the Bread of the Face⁵⁵    Such is the literal meaning of what is translated by ‘shewbread.’ ,’ a constant sacrificial meal which Israel offered unto God, and wherewith God in turn fed His chosen priesthood. On the great blood-sprinkled altar of sacrifice smoked the daily and festive burnt-offerings, brought by all Israel, and for all Israel, wherever scattered; while the vast courts of the Temple were thronged not only by native Palestinians, but literally by ‘Jews out of every nation under heaven.’ Around this Temple gathered the sacred memories of the past; to it clung the yet brighter hopes of the future. The history of Israel and all their prospects were intertwined with their religion; so that it may be said that without their religion they had no history, and without their history no religion. Thus, history, patriotism, religion, and hope alike pointed to Jerusalem and the Temple as the centre of Israel’s unity.

Nor could the depressed state of the nation alter their views or shake their confidence. What mattered it, that the Idumæan, Herod, had usurped the throne of David, expect so far as his own guilt and their present subjection were concerned? Israel had passed through deeper waters, and stood triumphant on the other shore. For centuries seemingly hopeless bondsmen in Egypt, they had not only been delivered, but had raised the God-inspired morning-song of jubilee, as they looked back upon the sea cleft for them, and which had buried their oppressors in their might and pride. Again, for weary years had their captives hung Zion’s harps by the rivers of that city and empire whose colossal grandeur, wherever they turned, must have carried to the scattered strangers the desolate feeling of utter hopelessness. And yet that empire had crumbled into dust, while Israel had again taken root and sprung up. And now little more than a century and a half had passed, since a danger greater even than any of these had threatened the faith and the very existence of Israel. In his daring madness, the Syrian king, Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion, sought to destroy their sacred books, with unsparing ferocity forced on them conformity to heathen rites, desecrated the Temple by dedicating it to Zeus Olympios, what is translated by ‘shewbread.’ a constant sacrificial and even reared a heathen altar upon that of burnt-offering.⁶⁶    1 Macc. i. 54, 59; Jos. Ant. xii. 5. 4. Worst of all, his wicked schemes had been aided by two apostate High-Priests, who had outvied each other in buying and then prostituting the sacred office of God’s anointed.⁷⁷    After the deposition of Onias III. through the bribery of his own brother Jason, the latter and Menelaus outvied each other in bribery for, and prostitution of, the holy office. Yet far away in the mountains of Ephraim⁸⁸    Modin, the birthplace of the Maccabees, has been identified with the modern El-Medyeh, about sixteen miles northwest of Jerusalem, in the ancient territory of Ephraim. Comp. Conder’s Handbook of the Bible, p. 291; and for a full reference to the whole literature of the subject, see Schürer (Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 78, note 1). God had raised for them most unlooked-for and unlikely help. Only three years later, and, after a series of brilliant victories by undisciplined men over the flower of the Syrian army, Judas the Maccabee, truly God’s Hammer⁹⁹    On the meaning of the name Maccabee, comp. Grimm’s Kurzgef. Exeget. Handb. z. d. Apokr. Lief. iii., pp. ix. x. We adopt the derivation from Maqqabha, a hammer, like Charles Martel. had purified the Temple, and restored its altar on the very same day¹⁰¹⁰    1 Macc. iv. 52-54: Megill. Taan. 23. on which the ‘abomination of desolation’¹¹¹¹    1 Macc. l. 54. had been set up in its place. In all their history the darkest hour of their night had ever preceded the dawn of a morning brighter than any that had yet broken. It was thus that with one voice all their prophets had bidden them wait and hope. Their sayings had been more than fulfilled as regarded the past. Would they not equally become true in reference to that far more glorious future for Zion and for Israel, which was to be ushered in by the coming of the Messiah?

Nor were such the feelings of the Palestinian Jews only. These indeed were now a minority. The majority of the nation constituted what was known as the dispersion; a term which, however, no longer expressed its original meaning of banishment by the judgment of God,¹²¹²    Alike the verb {hebrew} in Hebrew, and διασπεͺρω in Greek, with their derivatives, are used in the Old Testament, and in the rendering of the LXX., with reference to punitive banishment. See, for example, Judg. xviii. 30; 1 Sam. iv. 21; and in the LXX. Deut. xxx. 4; Ps. cxlvii. 2; Is. xlix. 6, and other passages. since absence from Palestine was now entirely voluntary. But all the more that it referred not to outward suffering,¹³¹³    There is some truth, although greatly exaggerated, in the bitter remarks of Hausrath (Neutest. Zeitgesch. ii. p. 93), as to the sensitiveness of the Jews in the διασπορͺ, and the loud outcry of all its members at any interference with them, however trivial. But events unfortunately too often proved how real and near was their danger, and how necessary the caution ‘Obsta principiis.’ did its continued use indicate a deep feeling of religious sorrow, of social isolation, and of political strangership¹⁴¹⁴     St. Peter seems to have used it in that sense, 1 Pet. i. 1. in the midst of a heathen world. For although, as Josephus reminded his countrymen,¹⁵¹⁵    Jew. W ii. 16. 4. there was ‘no nation in the world which had not among them part of the Jewish people,’ since it was ‘widely dispersed over all the world among its inhabitants,’¹⁶¹⁶    vii. 3.3. yet they had nowhere found a real home. A century and a half before our era comes to us from Egypt¹⁷¹⁷     Comp. the remarks of Schneckenburger (Vorles ü. Neutest. Zeitg. p. 95). - where the Jews possessed exceptional privileges - professedly from the heathen, but really from the Jewish¹⁸¹⁸    Comp. Friedlieb, D. Sibyll. Weissag. xxii. 39. Sibyl, this lament of Israel -

Crowding with thy numbers every ocean and country -

Yet an offense to all around thy presence and customs!¹⁹¹⁹     Orac Sibyll. iii. 271,272, apud Friedlieb, p. 62.

Sixty years later the Greek geographer and historian Strabo bears the like witness to their presence in every land, but in language that shows how true had been the complaint of the Sibyl.²⁰²⁰    Strabo apud Jos. Ant. xiv. 7.2: ‘It is not easy to find a place in the world that has not admitted this race, and is not mastered by it.’ The reasons for this state of feeling will by-and-by appear. Suffice it for the present that, all unconsciously, Philo tells its deepest ground, and that of Israel’s loneliness in the heathen world, when speaking, like the others, of his countrymen as in ‘all the cities of Europe, in the provinces of Asia and in the islands,’ he describes them as, wherever sojourning, having but one metropolis - not Alexandria, Antioch, or Rome - but ‘the Holy City with its Temple, dedicated to the Most High God.’²¹²¹    Philo in Flaccum (ed. Francf.), p. 971. A nation, the vast majority of which was dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a special, and become a world-nation.²²²²    Comp. Jos. Ant. xii. 3; xiii. 10. 4; 13. 1; xiv. 6. 2; 8. 1; 10. 8; Sueton. Cæs. 85. Yet its heart beat in Jerasulem, and thence the life-blood passed to its most distant members. And this, indeed, if we rightly understand it, was the grand object of the ‘Jewish dispersion’ throughout the world.

What has been said applies, perhaps, in a special manner, to the Western, rather than to the Eastern ‘dispersion.’ The connection of the latter with Palestine was so close as almost to seem one of continuity. In the account of the truly representative gathering in Jerusalem on that ever-memorable Feast of Weeks,²³²³    Acts ii. 9-11   the division of the ‘dispersion’ into two grand sections - the Eastern or Trans-Euphratic, and the Western or Hellenist - seems clearly marked.²⁴²⁴    Grimm (Clavis N.T. p. 113) quotes two passages from Philo, in one of which he contradistinguishes ‘us,’ the Hellenist Jews, from ‘the Hebrews,’ and speaks of the Greek as ‘our language.’ In this arrangement the former would include ‘the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia,’ Judæa standing, so to speak, in the middle, while ‘the Bretes and Arabians’ would typically represent the farthest outrunners respectively of the Western and the Eastern Diaspora. The former, as we know from the New Testament, commonly bore in Palestine the name of the ‘dispersion of the Greeks,’²⁵²⁵    St. John vii. 35. and of ‘Hellenists’ or ‘Grecians.’²⁶²⁶    Acts vi. 1; ix. 29; xi. 20. On the other hand, the Trans-Euphratic Jews, who ‘inhabited Babylon and many of the other satrapies,’²⁷²⁷    Philo ad Cajum, p. 1023; Jos. Ant. xv. 3.1. were included with the Palestinians and the Syrians under the term ‘Hebrews,’ from the common language which they spoke.

But the difference between the ‘Grecians’ and the ‘Hebrews’ was far deeper than merely of language, and extended to the whole direction of thought. There were mental influences at work in the Greek world from which, in the nature of things, it was impossible even for Jews to withdraw themselves, and which, indeed, were as necessary for the fulfillment of their mission as their isolation from heathenism, and their connection with Jerusalem. At the same time it was only natural that the Hellenists, placed as they were in the midst of such hostile elements, should intensely wish to be Jews, equal to their Eastern brethren. On the other hand, Pharisaism, in its pride of legal purity and of the possession of traditional lore, with all that it involved, made no secret of its contempt for the Hellenists, and openly declared the Grecian far inferior to the Babylonian ‘dispersion.’²⁸²⁸    Similarly we have (in Men. 110a) this curious explanation of Is. xliii. 6: ‘My sons from afar’ - these are the exiles in Babylon, whose minds were settled, like men, ‘and my daughters from the ends of the earth’ - these are the exiles in other lands, whose minds were not settled, like women. That such feelings, and the suspicions which they engendered, had struck deep into the popular mind, appears from the fact, that even in the Apostolic Church, and that in her earliest days, disputes could break out between the Hellenists and the Hebrews, arising from suspicion of unkind and unfair dealings grounded on these sectional prejudices.²⁹²⁹    Acts vi. 1.

Far other was the estimate in which the Babylonians were held by the leaders of Judaism. Indeed, according to one view of it, Babylonia, as well as ‘Syria’ as far north as Antioch, was regarded as forming part of the land of Israel.³⁰³⁰    Ber. R. 17. Every other country was considered outside ‘the land,’ as Palestine was called, witht the exception of Babylonia, which was reckoned as part of it.³¹³¹    Erub. 21 a Gritt. 6 a. For Syria and Mesopotamia, eastwards to the banks of the Tigris, were supposed to have been in the territory which King David had conquered, and this made them ideally for ever like the land of Israel. But it was just between the Euphrates and the Tigris that the largest and wealthiest settlements of the Jews were, to such extent that a later writer actually designated them ‘the land of Israel.’ Here Nehardaa, on the Nahar Malka, or royal canal, which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, was the oldest Jewish settlement. It boasted of a Synagogue, said to have been built by King Jechoniah with stones that had been brought from the Temple.³²³²    Comp. Fürst, Kult. u. Literaturgesch d. Jud. in Asien, vol. i. p. 8. In this fortified city the vast contributions intended for the Temple were deposited by the Eastern Jews, and thence conveyed to their destination under escort of thousands of armed men. Another of these Jewish treasure-cities was Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia. Even the fact that wealth, which must have sorely tempted the cupidity of the heathen, could be safely stored in these cities and transported to Palestine, shows how large the Jewish population must have been, and how great their general influence.

In general, it is of the greatest importance to remember in regard to this Eastern dispersion, that only a minority of the Jews, consisting in all of about 50,000, originally returned from Babylon, first under Zerubbabel and afterwards under Ezra.³³³³    537 b.c., and 459-’8 b.c. Nor was their inferiority confined to numbers. The wealthiest and most influential of the Jews remained behind. According to Josephus,³⁴³⁴    Ant. xi. 5. 2; xv. 2. 2; xviii. 9. with whom Philo substantially agrees, vast numbers, estimated at millions, inhabited the Trans-Euphratic provinces. To judge even by the number of those slain in popular risings (50,000 in Seleucia alone³⁵³⁵    Jos. Ant. xviii. 9. 9. ), these figures do not seem greatly exaggerated. A later tradition had it, that so dense was the Jewish population in the Persian Empire, that Cyrus forbade the further return of the exiles, lest the country should be depopulated.³⁶³⁶    Midrash on Cant. v. 5, ed. Warsh. p. 26 a. So large and compact a body soon became a political power. Kindly treated under the Persian monarchy, they were, after the fall of that empire,³⁷³⁷    330 b.c. favoured by the successors of Alexander. When in turn the Macedono-Syrian rule gave place to the Parthian Empire,³⁸³⁸    63 b.c. the Jews formed, from their national opposition to Rome, an important element in the East. Such was their influence that, as late as the year 40 a.d., the Roman legate shrank from provoking their hostility.³⁹³⁹    Philo ad Caj. At the same time it must not be thought that, even in these favoured regions, they were wholly without persecution. Here also history records more than one tale of bloody strife on the part of those among whom they dwelt.⁴⁰⁴⁰    The following are the chief passages in Josephus relating to that part of Jewish history: Ant. xi. 5. 2; xiv. 13. 5; xv. 2. 7; 3. 1; xvii. 2. 1-3; xviii. 9. 1, &c.; xx. 4. Jew. W. i. 13. 3.

To the Palestinians, their brethren of the East and of Syria - to which they had wandered under the fostering rule of the Macedono-Syrian monarchs (the Seleucidæ) - were indeed pre-eminently the Golah, or ‘dispersion.’ To them the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem intimated by fire-signals from mountain-top to mountain-top the commencement of each month for the regulation of the festive calendar,⁴¹⁴¹    Rosh. haSh. ii. 4; comp. the Jer. Gemara on it, and in the Bab. Talmud 23 b. even as they afterwards despatched messengers into Syria for the same purpose.⁴²⁴²    Rosh. haSh. i. 4. In some respects the Eastern dispersion was placed on the same footing; in others, on even a higher level than the mother country. Tithes and Terumoth, or first-fruits in a prepared condition,⁴³⁴³    Shev. vi. passim; Gitt. 8 a. were due from them, while the Bikkurim, or first-fruits in a fresh state, were to be brought from Syria to Jerusalem. Unlike the heathen countries, whose very dust defiled, the soil of Syria was declared clean, like that of Palestine itself.⁴⁴⁴⁴     Ohol. xxiii. 7. So far as purity of descent was concerned, the Babylonians, indeed, considered themselves superior to their Palestinian brethren. They had it, that when Ezra took with him those who went to Palestine, he had left the land behind him as pure as fine flour.⁴⁵⁴⁵    Kidd. 69 b. To express it in their own fashion: In regard to the genealogical purity of their Jewish inhabitants, all other countries were, compared to Palestine, like dough mixed with leaven; but Palestine itself was such by the side of Babylonia.⁴⁶⁴⁶    Cheth. 111 a. It was even maintained, that the exact boundaries could be traced in a district, within which the Jewish population had preserved itself unmixed. Great merit was in this respect also ascribed to Ezra. In the usual mode of exaggeration, it was asserted, that, if all the genealogical studies and researches⁴⁷⁴⁷    As comments upon the genealogies from ‘Azel’ in 1 Chr. viii. 37 to ‘Azel’ in ix. 44. Pes. 62 b. had been put together, they would have amounted to many hundred camel-loads. There was for it, however, at least this foundation in truth, that great care and labour were bestowed on preserving full and accurate records so as to establish purity of descent. What importance attached to it, we know from the action on Ezra⁴⁸⁴⁸    Chs. ix. x. in that respect, and from the stress which Josephus lays on this point.⁴⁹⁴⁹    Life i.; Ag Apion i. 7. Official records of descent as regarded the priesthood were kept in the Temple. Besides, the Jewish authorities seem to have possessed a general official register, which Herod afterwards ordered to be burnt, from reasons which it is not difficult to infer. But from that day, laments a Rabbi, the glory of the Jews decreased!⁵⁰⁵⁰    Pes. 62 b; Sachs, Beitr. vol. ii. p. 157.

Nor was it merely purity of descent of which the Eastern dispersion could boast. In truth, Palestine owed everything to Ezra, the Babylonian,⁵¹⁵¹    According to tradition he returned to Babylon, and died there. Josephus says that he died in Jerusalem (Anti. xi. 5. 5). a man so distinguished that, according to tradition, the Law would have been given by him, if Moses had not previously obtained that honor. Putting aside the various traditional ordinances which the Talmud ascribes to him,⁵²⁵²    Herzfeld has given a very clear historical arrangement of the order in which, and the persons by whom, the various legal determinations were supposed to have been given. See Gesch. d. V. Isr. vol. iii. pp. 240 &c. we know from the Scriptures what his activity for good had been. Altered circumstances had brought many changes to the new Jewish State. Even the language, spoken and written, was other than formerly. Instead of the characters anciently employed, the exiles brought with them, on their return, those now common, the so-called square Hebrew letters, which gradually came into general use.⁵³⁵³    Sanh. 21 b. ⁵⁴⁵⁴    Although thus introduced under Ezra, the ancient Hebrew characters, which resemble the Samaritan, only very gradually gave way. They are found on monuments and coins. The language spoken by the Jews was no longer Hebrew, but Aramæan, both in Palestine and in Babylonia;⁵⁵⁵⁵    Herzfeld (u. s. vol. iii. p. 46) happily designates the Palestinian as the Hebræo-Aramaic, from its Hebraistic tinge. The Hebrew, as well as the Aramæan, belongs to the Semitic group of languages, which has thus been arranged: 1. North Semitic: Punico-Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic (Western and Eastern dialects). 2. South Semitic: Arabic, Himyaritic, and Ethiopian. 3. East Semitic: The Assyro-Baylonian cuneiform. When we speak of the dialect used in Palestine, we do not, of course, forget the great influence of Syria, exerted long before and after the Exile. Of these three branches the Aramaic is the most closely connected with the Hebrew. Hebrew occupies an intermediate position between the Aramaic and the Arabic, and may be said to be the oldest, certainly from a literary point of view. Together with the introduction of the new dialect into Palestine, we mark that of the new, or square, characters of writing. The Mishnah and all the kindred literature up to the fourth century are in Hebrew, or rather in a modern development and adaptation of that language; the Talmud is in Aramæan. Comp. on this subject: DeWette-Schrader, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Eink. (8 ed.) pp. 71-88; Herzog's Real-Encykl. vol. i. 466, 468; v. 614 &c., 710; Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Jud. pp. 7-9; Herzfeld, u.s. pp. 44 &c., 58&c. in the former the Western, in the latter the Eastern dialect. In fact, the common people were ignorant of pure Hebrew, which henceforth became the language of students and of the Synagogue. Even there a Methurgeman, or interpreter, had to be employed to translate into the vernacular the portions of Scripture read in the public services,⁵⁶⁵⁶    Could St. Paul have had this in mind when, in referring to the miraculous gift of speaking in other languages, he directs that one shall always interpret (1 Cor. xiv. 27)? At any rate, the word targum in Ezra iv. 7 is rendered in the LXX. by ͺρμηνεͺω. The following from the Talmud (Ber. 8 a and b) affords a curious illustration of 1 Cor. xiv. 27: ‘Let a man always finish his Parashah (the daily lesson from the Law) with the congregation (at the same time) - twice the text, and once Targum.’ and the addresses delivered by the Rabbis. This was the origin of the so-called Targumim, or paraphrases of Scripture. In earliest times, indeed, it was forbidden to the Methurgeman to read his translation or to write down a Targum, lest the paraphrase should be regarded as of equal authority with the original. It was said that, when Jonathan brought out his Targum on the Prophets, a voice from heaven was heard to utter: ‘Who is this that has revealed My secrets to men?’⁵⁷⁵⁷    Megill. 3 b. Still, such Targumim seem to have existed from a very early period, and, amid the varying and often incorrect renderings, their necessity must have made itself increasingly felt. Accordingly, their use was authoritatively sanctioned before the end of the second century after Christ. This is the origin of our two oldest extant Targumim: that of Onkelos (as it is called), on the Pentateuch; and that on the Prophets, attributed to Jonathan the son of Uzziel. These names do not, indeed, accurately represent the authorship of the oldest Targumim, which may more correctly be regarded as later and authoritative recensions of what, in some form, had existed before. But although these works had their origin in Palestine, it is noteworthy that, in the form in which at present we possess them, they are the outcome of the schools of Babylon.

But Palestine owed, if possible, a still greater debt to Babylonia. The new circumstances in which the Jews were placed on their return seemed to render necessary an adaptation of the Mosaic Law, if not new legislation. Besides, piety and zeal now attached themselves to the outward observance and study of the letter of the Law. This is the origin of the Mishnah, or Second Law, which was intended to explain and supplement the first. This constituted the only Jewish dogmatics, in the real sense, in the study of which the sage, Rabbi, scholar, scribe, and Darshan,⁵⁸⁵⁸     From darash, to search out, literally, to tread out. The preacher was afterwards called the Darshan. were engaged. The result of it was the Midrash, or investigation, a term which afterwards was popularly applied to commentaries on the Scriptures and preaching. From the outset, Jewish theology divided into two branches: the Halakhah and the Haggadah. The former (from halakh, to go) was, so to speak, the Rule of the Spiritual Road, and, when fixed, had even greater authority than the Scriptures of the Old Testament, since it explained and applied them. On the other hand, the Haggadah⁵⁹⁵⁹    The Halakhah might be described as the apocryphal Pentateuch, the Haggadah as the apocryphal Prophets (from nagad, to tell) was only the personal saying of the teacher, more or less valuable according to his learning and popularity, or the authorities which he could quote in his support. Unlike the Halakhah, the Haggadah had no absolute authority, either as to doctrine practice, or exegesis. But all the greater would be its popular influence,⁶⁰⁶⁰    We may here remind ourselves of 1 Tim. v. 17. St. Paul, as always, writes with the familiar Jewish phrases ever recurring to his mind. The expression διδασκαλͺα seems to be equivalent to Halakhic teaching. Comp. Grimm, Clavis N. T. pp. 98, 99. and all the more dangerous the doctrinal license which it allowed. In fact, strange as it may sound, almost all the doctrinal teaching of the Synagogue is to be derived from the Haggadah - and this also is characteristic of Jewish traditionalism. But, alike in Halakhah and Haggadah, Palestine was under the deepest obligation to Babylonia. For the father of Halakhic study was Hillel, the Babylonian, and among the popular Haggadists there is not a name better known than that of Eleazar the Mede, who flourished in the first century of our era.

After this, it seems almost idle to inquire whether, during the first period after the return of the exiles from Babylon, there were regular theological academies in Babylon. Although it is, of course, impossible to furnish historical proof, we can scarely doubt that a community so large and so intensely Hebrew would not have been indifferent to that study, which constituted the main thought and engagement of their brethren in Palestine. We can understand that, since the great Sanhedrin in Palestine exercised supreme spiritual authority, and in that capacity ultimately settled all religious questions - at least for a time - the study and discussion of these subjects should also have been chiefly carried on in the schools of Palestine; and that even the great Hillel himself, when still a poor and unknown student, should have wandered thither to acquire the learning and authority, which at that period he could not have found in his own country. But even this circumstance implies, that such studies were at least carried on and encouraged in Babylonia. How rapidly soon afterwards the authority of the Babylonian schools increased, till they not only overshadowed those of Palestine, but finally inherited their prerogatives, is well known. However, therefore, the Palestinians in their pride or jealousy might sneer,⁶¹⁶¹    In Moed Q. 25 a. sojourn in Babylon is mentioned as a reason why the Shekhinah could not rest upon a certain Rabbi. that the Babylonians were stupid, proud, and poor (‘they ate bread upon bread’),⁶²⁶²    Pes. 34 b; Men. 52 a; Sanh. 24 a; Bets. 16 a - apud Neubauer, Géog. du Talmud, p. 323. In Keth. 75 a, they are styled the ‘silly Babylonians.’ See also Jer. Pes. 32 a. even they had to acknowledge that, ‘when the Law had fallen into oblivion, it was restored by Ezra of Babylon; when it was a second time forgotten, Hillel the Babylonian came and recovered it; and when yet a third time it fell into oblivion, Rabbi Chija came from Babylon and gave it back once more.’⁶³⁶³    Sukk. 20 a. R. Chija, one of the teachers of the second century, is among the most celebrated Rabbinical authorities, around whose memory legend has thrown a special halo.

Such then was that Hebrew dispersion which, from the first, constituted really the chief part and the strength of the Jewish nation, and with which its religious future was also to lie. For it is one of those strangely significant, almost symbolical, facts in history, that after the destruction of Jerusalem the spiritual supremacy of Palestine passed to Babylonia, and that Rabbinical Judaism, under the stress of political adversity, voluntarily transferred itself to the seats of Israel's ancient dispersion, as if to ratify by its own act what the judgment of God had formerly executed. But long before that time the Babylonian ‘dispersion’ had already stretched out its hands in every direction. Northwards, it had spread through Armenia, the Caucasus, and to the shores of the Black Sea, and through Media to those of the Caspian. Southwards, it had extended to the Persian Gulf and through the vast extent of Arabia, although Arabia Felix and the land of the Homerites may have received their first Jewish colonies from the opposite shores of Ethiopia. Eastwards it had passed as far as India.⁶⁴⁶⁴    In this, as in so many respects, Dr. Neubauer has collated very interesting information, to which we refer. See his Géogr. du Talm. pp. 369-399. Everywhere we have distinct notices of these wanderers, and everywhere they appear as in closest connection with the Rabbinical hierarchy of Palestine. Thus the Mishnah, in an extremely curious section,⁶⁵⁶⁵    The whole section gives a most curious glimpse of the dress and ornaments worn by the Jews at that time. The reader interested in the subject will find special information in the three little volumes of Hartmann (Die Hebräerin am Putztische), in N. G. Schröder's some-what heavy work: De Vestitu Mulier. Hebr., and especially in that interesting tractate, Trachten d. Juden, by Dr. A. Brüll, of which, unfortunately, only one part has appeared. tells us how on Sabbaths the Jewesses of Arabia might wear their long veils, and those of India the kerchief round the head, customary in those countries, without incurring the guilt of desecrating the holy day by needlessly carrying what, in the eyes of the law, would be a burden;⁶⁶⁶⁶    Shabb. vi. 6. while in the rubric for the Day of Atonement we have it noted that the dress which the High-Priest wore ‘between the evenings’ of the great fast - that is, as afternoon darkened into evening - was of most costly ‘Indian’ stuff.⁶⁷⁶⁷    Yoma iii. 7.

That among such a vast community there should have been poverty, and that at one time, as the Palestinians sneered, learning may have been left to pine in want, we can readily believe. For, as one of the Rabbis had it in explanation of Deut. xxx. 13: ‘Wisdom is not “beyond the sea” - that is, it will not be found among traders or merchants,’⁶⁸⁶⁸    Er. 55 a. whose mind must be engrossed by gain. And it was trade and commerce which procured to the Babylonians their wealth and influence, although agriculture was not neglected. Their caravans - of whose camel drivers, by the way, no very flattering account is given⁶⁹⁶⁹    Kidd. iv. 14. - carried the rich carpets and woven stuffs of the East, as well as its precious spices, to the West: generally through Palestine to the Phoenician harbours, where a fleet of merchantmen belonging to Jewish bankers and shippers lay ready to convey them to every quarter of the world. These merchant princes were keenly alive to all that passed, not only in the financial, but in the political world. We know that they were in possession of State secrets, and entrusted with the intricacies of diplomacy. Yet, whatever its condition, this Eastern Jewish community was intensely Hebrew. Only eight days’ journey - though, according to Philo’s western ideas of it, by a difficult road⁷⁰⁷⁰    Philo ad Cajum, ed. Frcf. p. 1023. - separated them from Palestine; and every pulsation there vibrated in Babylonia. It was in the most outlying part of that colony, in the wide plains of Arabia, that Saul of Tarsus spent those three years of silent thought and unknown labour, which preceded his re-appearance in Jerusalem, when from the burning longing to labour among his brethren, kindled by long residence among these Hebrews of the Hebrews, he was directed to that strange work which was his life’s mission.⁷¹⁷¹    Gal. i. 17; And it was among the same community that Peter wrote and laboured,⁷²⁷²    1 Pet. v. 13. amidst discouragements of which we can form some conception from the sad boast of Nehardaa, that up to the end of the third century it had not numbered among its members any convert to Christianity.⁷³⁷³    Pes. 56 a, apud Neubauer, u. s., p. 351. In what has been said, no notice has been taken of those wanderers of the ten tribes, whose trackless footsteps seem as mysterious as their after-fate. The Talmudists name four countries as their seats. But, even if we were to attach historic credence to their vague statements, at least two of these localities cannot with any certainty be identified.⁷⁴⁷⁴    Comp. Neubauer, pp. 315, 372; Hamburger, Real-Encykl. p. 135. Only thus far all agree as to point us northwards, through India, Armenia, the Kurdish mountains, and the Caucasus. And with this tallies a curious reference in what is known as IV. Esdras, which locates them in a land called Arzareth, a term which has, with some probability, been identified with the land of Ararat.⁷⁵⁷⁵     Comp. Volkmar, Handb. d. Einl. in d. Apokr. ii^te Abth., pp. 193, 194, notes. For the reasons there stated, I prefer this to the ingenious interpretation proposed by Dr. Schiller-Szinessy (Journ. of Philol. for 1870, pp. 113, 114), who regards it as a contraction of Erez achereth, ‘another land,’ referred to in Deut. xxix. 27 (28). Josephus⁷⁶⁷⁶    Ant. xi. 5.2. describes them as an innumerable multitude, and vaguely locates them beyond the Euphrates. The Mishnah is silent as to their seats, but discusses their future restoration; Rabbi Akiba denying and Rabbi Eliezer anticipating it.⁷⁷⁷⁷    Sanh. x. 3. ⁷⁸⁷⁸    R. Eliezer seems to connect their return with the dawn of the new Messianic day. Another Jewish tradition⁷⁹⁷⁹    Ber. R. 73. locates them by the fabled river Sabbatyon, which was supposed to cease its flow on the weekly Sabbath. This, of course, is an implied admission of ignorance of their seats. Similarly, the Talmud⁸⁰⁸⁰    Jer. Sanb 29 c. speaks of three localities whither they had been banished: the district around the river Sabbatyon; Daphne, near Antioch; while the third was overshadowed and hidden by a cloud.

Later Jewish notices connect the final discovery and the return of the ‘lost tribes’ with their conversion under that second Messiah who, in contradistinction to ‘the Son of David’ is styled ‘the Son of Joseph,’ to whom Jewish tradition ascribes what it cannot reconcile with the royal dignity of ‘the Son of David,’ and which, if applied to Him, would almost inevitably lead up to the most wide concessions in the Christian argument.⁸¹⁸¹    This is not the place to discuss the later Jewish fiction of a second or ‘suffering’ Messiah, ‘the son of Joseph,’ whose special mission it would be to bring back the ten tribes, and to subject them to Messiah, ‘the son of David,’ but who would perish in the war against Gog and Magog. As regards the ten tribes there is this truth underlying the strange hypothesis, that, as their persistent apostasy from the God of Israel and His worship had cut them off from his people, so the fulfilment of the Divine promises to them in the latter days would imply, as it were, a second birth to make them once more Israel. Beyond this we are travelling chiefly into the region of conjecture. Modern investigations have pointed to the Nestorians,⁸²⁸²    Comp. the work of Dr. Asahel Grant on the Nestorians. His arguments have been well summarised and expanded in an interesting note in Mr. Nutt’s Sketch of Samaritan History, pp. 2-4. and latterly with almost convincing evidence (so far as such is possible) to the Afghans, as descended from the lost tribes.⁸³⁸³     I would here call special attention to a most interesting paper on the subject (‘A New Afghan Question’), by Mr. H. W. Bellew, in the ‘Journal of the United Service Institution of India,’ for 1881, pp. 49-97. Such mixture with, and lapse into, Gentile nationalities seems to have been before the minds of those Rabbis who ordered that, if at present a non-Jew weds a Jewess, such a union was to be respected, since the stranger might be a descendant of the ten tribes.⁸⁴⁸⁴    Yebam 16 b. Besides, there is reason to believe that part of them, at least, had coalesced with their brethren of the later exile;⁸⁵⁸⁵    Kidd. 69 b. while we know that individuals who had settled in Palestine and, presumably, elsewhere, were able to trace descent from them.⁸⁶⁸⁶    So Anna from the tribe of Aser, St. Luke ii. 36. Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. pp. 102, 103) argues that the ten tribes had become wholly undistinguishable from the other two. But his arguments are not convincing, and his opinion was certainly not that of those who lived in the time of Christ, or who reflected their ideas. Still the great mass of the ten tribes was in the days of Christ, as in our own, lost to the Hebrew nation.

i.i.17

CHAPTER II.
THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE WEST - THE HELLENISTS - ORIGIN OF HELLENIST LITERATURE IN THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE - CHARACTER OF THE SEPTUAGINT.

 

When we turn from the Jewish ‘dispersion’ in the East to that in the West, we seem to breathe quite a different atmosphere. Despite their intense nationalism, all unconsciously to themselves, their mental characteristics and tendencies were in the opposite direction from those of their brethren. With those of the East rested the future of Judaism; with them of the West, in a sense, that of the world. The one represented old Israel, stretching forth its hands to where the dawn of a new day was about to break. These Jews of the West are known by the term Hellenists - from ͺλληνͺζειν, to conform to the language and manners of the Greeks.⁸⁷⁸⁷    Indeed, the word Alnisti (or Alunistin) - ‘Greek’ - actually occurs, as in Jer. Sot. 21 b, line 14 from bottom. Böhl (Forsch. n. ein. Volksb. p. 7) quotes Philo (Leg. ad Caj. p. 1023) in proof that he regarded the Eastern dispersion as a branch separate from the Palestinians. But the passage does not convey to me the inference which he draws from it. Dr. Guillemard (Hebraisms in the Greek Test.) on Acts vi. 1, agreeing with Dr. Roberts, argues that the term ‘Hellenist’ indicated only principles, and not birthplace, and that there were Hebrews and Hellenists in and out of Palestine. But this view is untenable.

Whatever their religious and social isolation, it was, in the nature of thing, impossible that the Jewish communities in the West should remains unaffected by Grecian culture and modes of thought; just as, on the other hand, the Greek world, despite popular hatred and the contempt of the higher classes, could not wholly withdraw itself from Jewish influences. Witness here the many converts to Judaism among the Gentiles;⁸⁸⁸⁸    An account of this propaganda of Judaism and of its results will be given in another connection. witness also the evident preparedness of the lands of this ‘dispersion’ for the new doctrine which was to come from Judea. Many causes contributed to render the Jews of the West accessible to Greek influences. They had not a long local history to look back upon, nor did they form a compact body, like their brethren in the East. They were craftsmen, traders, merchants, settled for a time here or there - units might combine into communities, but could not form one people. Then their position was not favourable to the sway of traditionalism. Their occupations, the very reasons for their being in a ‘strange land,’ were purely secular. That lofty absorption of thought and life in the study of the Law, writtem and oral, which characterised the East, was to the, something in the dim distance, sacred, like the soil and the institutions of Palestine, but unattainable. In Palestine or Babylonia numberless influences from his earliest years, all that he saw and heard, the very force of circumstances, would tend to make an earnest Jew a disciple of the Rabbis; in the West it would lead him to ‘hellenise.’ It was, so to speak, ‘in the air’; and he could no more shut his mind against Greek thought than he could withdraw his body from atmospheric influences. That restless, searching, subtle Greek intellect would penetrate everywhere, and flash its light into the innermost recesses of his home and Synagogue.

To be sure, they were intensely Jewish, these communities of strangers. Like our scattered colonists in distant lands, they would cling with double affection to the customs of their home, and invest with the halo of tender memories the sacred traditions of their faith. The Grecian Jew might well look with contempt, not unmingled with pity, on the idolatrous rites practised around, from which long ago the pitiless irony of Isaiah had torn the veil of beauty, to show the hideousness and unreality beneath. The dissoluteness of public and private life, the frivolity and aimlessness of their pursuits, political aspirations, popular assemblies, amusements - in short, the utter decay of society, in all its phases, would lie open to his gaze. It is in terms of lofty scorn, not unmingled with indignation, which only occasionally gives way to the softer mood of warning, or even invitation, that Jewish Hellenistic literature, whether in the Apocrypha or in its Apocalyptic utterances, address heathenism.

From that spectacle the Grecian Jew would turn with infinite satisfaction - not to say, pride - to his own community, to think of its spiritual enlightenment, and to pass in review its exclusive privileges.⁸⁹⁸⁹     St. Paul fully describes these feelings in the Epistle to the Romans. It was with no uncertain steps that he would go past those splendid temples to his own humbler Synagogue, pleased to find himself there surrounded by those who shared his descent, his faith, his hopes; and gratified to see their number swelled by many who, heathens by birth, had learned the error of their ways, and now, so to speak, humbly stood as suppliant ‘strangers of the gate,’ to seek admission into his sanctuary.⁹⁰⁹⁰     The ‘Gerey haShaar,’ proselytes of the gate, a designation which some have derived from the circumstance that Gentiles were not allowed to advance beyond the Temple Court, but more likely to be traced to such passages as Ex. xx. 10; Deut. xiv. 21; xxiv. 14. How different were the rites which he practised, hallowed in their Divine origin, rational in themselves, and at the same time deeply significant, from the absurd superstitions around. Who could have compared with the voiceless, meaningless, blasphemous heathen worship, if it deserved the name, that of the Synagogue, with its pathetic hymns, its sublime liturgy, its Divine Scriptures, and those ‘stated sermons’ which ‘instructed in virtue and piety,’ of which not only Philo,⁹¹⁹¹    De Vita Mosis, p. 685; Leg ad Caj. p. 1014. Agrippa,⁹²⁹²    Leg. ad Caj. p. 1035. and Josephus,⁹³⁹³    Ag. Apion ii. 17. speak as a regular institution, but whose antiquity and general prevalence is attested in Jewish writings,⁹⁴⁹⁴    Comp. here Targ. Jon. on Judg. v. 2, 9. I feel more hesitation in appealing to such passages as Ber. 19 a, where we read of a Rabbi in Rome, Thodos (Theudos?), who flourished several generations before Hillel, for reasons which the passage itself will suggest to the student. At the time of Philo, however, such instructions in the Synagogues at Rome were a long, established institution (Ad Caj. p. 1014). and nowhere more strongly than in the book of the Acts of the Apostles?

And in these Synagogues, how would ‘brotherly love’ be called out, since, if one member suffered, all might soon be affected, and the danger which threatened one community would, unless averted, ere long overwhelm the rest. There was little need for the admonition not to ‘forget the love of strangers.’⁹⁵⁹⁵    φιλοξενͺα, Hebr. xiii. 2. To entertain them was not merely a virtue; in the Hellenist dispersion it was a religious necessity. And by such means not a few whom they would regard as ‘heavenly messengers’ might be welcomed. From the Acts of the Apostles we knew with what eagerness they would receive, and with what readiness they would invite, the passing Rabbi or teacher, who came from the home of their faith, to speak, if there were in them a word of comforting exhortation for the people. ⁹⁶⁹⁶     λͺγος παρακλͺσεως πρͺς τͺν λαͺν, Acts xiii. 15. We can scarcely doubt, considering the state of things, that this often bore on ‘the consolation of Israel.’ But, indeed, all that came from Jerusalem, all that helped them to realise their living connection with it, or bound it more closely, was precious. ‘Letters out of Judæa,’ the tidings which some one might bring on his return from festive pilgrimage or business journey, especially about anything connected with that grand expectation - the star which was to rise on the Eastern sky - would soon spread, till the Jewish pedlar in his wanderings had carried the news to the most distant and isolated Jewish home, where he might find a Sabbath, welcome and Sabbath-rest.

Such undoubtedly was the case. And yet, when the Jew stepped out of the narrow circle which he had drawn around him, he was confronted on every side by Grecianism. It was in the forum, in the market, in the counting house, in the street; in all that he saw, and in all to whom he spoke. It was refined; it was elegant; it was profound; it was supremely attractive. He might resist, but he could not push it aside. Even in resisting, he had already yielded to it. For, once open the door to the questions which it brought, if it were only to expel, or repel them, he must give up that principle of simple authority on which traditionalism as a system rested. Hellenic criticism could not so be silenced, nor its searching light be extinguished by the breath of a Rabbi. If he attempted this, the truth would not only be worsted before its enemies, but suffer detriment in his own eyes. He must meet argument with argument, and that not only for those who were without, but in order to be himself quite sure of what he believed. He must be able to hold it, not only in controversy with others, where pride might bid him stand fast, but in that much more serious contest within, where a man meets the old adversary alone in the secret arena of his own mind, and has to sustain that terrible hand-to-hand fight, in which he is uncheered by outward help. But why should he shrink from the contest, when he was sure that his was Divine truth, and that therefore victory must be on his side? As in our modern conflicts against the onesided inferences from physical investigations we are wont to say that the truths of nature cannot contradict those of revelation, both being of God, and as we are apt to regard as truths of nature what sometimes are only deductions from partially ascertained facts, and as truths of revelation what, after all, may be only our own inferences, sometimes from imperfectly apprehended premises, so the Hellenist would seek to conciliate the truths of Divine revelation with those others which, he thought, he recognized in Hellenism. But what were the truths of Divine revelation? Was it only the substance of Scripture, or also its form, the truth itself which was conveyed, or the manner in which it was presented to the Jews; or, if both, then did the two stand on exactly the same footing? On the answer to these questions would depend how little or how much he would ‘hellenise.’

One thing at any rate was quite certain. The Old Testament, leastwise, the Law of Moses, was directly and wholly from God; and if so, then its form also - its letter - must be authentic and authoritative. Thus much on the surface, and for all. But the student must search deeper into it, his senses, as it were, quickened by Greek criticism; he must ‘meditate’ and penetrate into the Divine mysteries. The Palestinian also searched into them, and the result was the Midrash. But, whichever of his methods he had applied - the Peshat, or simple criticism of the words, the Derush, or search into the possible applications of the text, what might be ‘trodden out’ of it; or the Sod, the hidden, mystical, supranatural bearing of the words - it was still only the letter of the text that had been studied. There was, indeed, yet another understanding of the Scriptures, to which St. Paul directed his disciples: the spiritual bearing of its spiritual truths. But that needed another qualification, and tended in another direction from those of which the Jewish student knew. On the other hand, there was the intellectual view of the Scriptures - their philosophical understanding, the application to them of the results of Grecian thought and criticism. It was this which was peculiarly Hellenistic. Apply that method, and the deeper the explorer proceeded in his search, the more would he feel himself alone, far from the outside crowd; but the brighter also would that light of criticism, which he carried, shine in the growing darkness, or, as he held it up, would the precious ore, which he laid bare, glitter and sparkle with a thousand varying hues of brilliancy. What was Jewish, Palestinian, individual, concrete in the Scriptures, was only the outside - true in itself, but not the truth. There were depths beneath. Strip these stories of their nationalism; idealise the individual of the persons introduced, and you came upon abstract ideas and realities, true to all time and to all nations. But this deep symbolism was Pythagorean; this pre-existence of ideas which were the types of all outward actuality, was Platonism! Broken rays in them, but the focus of truth in the Scriptures. Yet these were rays, and could only have come from the Sun. All truth was of God; hence theirs must have been of that origin. Then were the sages of the heathen also in a sense God-taught - and God-teaching, or inspiration, was rather a question of degree than of kind!

One step only remained; and that, as we imagine, if not the easiest, yet, as we reflect upon it, that which in practice would be most readily taken. It was simply to advance towards Grecianism; frankly to recognise truth in the results of Greek thought. There is that within us, name it mental consciousness, or as you will, which, all unbidden, rises to answer to the voice of intellectual truth, come whence it may, just as conscience answers to the cause of moral truth or duty. But in this case there was more. There was the mighty spell which Greek philosophy exercised on all kindred minds, and the special adaptation of the Jewish intellect to such subtle, if not deep, thinking. And, in general, and more powerful than the rest, because penetrating everywhere, was the charm of Greek literature, with its brilliancy; of Greek civilisation and culture, with their polish and attractiveness; and of what, in one word, we may call the ‘time-spirit,’ that tyrannos, who rules all in their thinking, speaking, doing, whether they list or not.

Why, his sway extended even to Palestine itself, and was felt in the innermost circle of the most exclusive Rabbinism. We are not here referring to the fact that the very language spoken in Palestine came to be very largely charged with Greek, and even Latin, words Hebraised, since this is easily accounted for by the new circumstances, and the necessities of intercourse with the dominant or resident foreigners. Nor is it requisite to point out how impossible it would have been, in presence of so many from the Greek and Roman world, and after the long and persistent struggle of their rulers to Grecianise Palestine, nay, even in view of so many magnificent heathen temples on the very soil of Palestine, to exclude all knowledge of, or contact with Grecianism. But not to be able to exclude was to have in sight the dazzle of that unknown, which as such, and in itself, must have had peculiar attractions to the Jewish mind. It needed stern principle to repress the curiosity thus awakened. When a young Rabbi, Ben Dama, asked his uncle whether he might not study Greek philosophy, since he had mastered the ‘Law’ in every aspect of it, the older Rabbi replied by a reference to Josh. i. 8: ‘Go and search what is the hour which is neither of the day nor of the night, and in it thou mayest study Greek philosophy.’⁹⁷⁹⁷    Men. 99 b, towards the end. Yet even the Jewish patriarch, Gamaliel II., who may have sat with Saul of Tarsus at the feet of his grandfather, was said to have busied himself with Greek, as he certainly held liberal views on many points connected with Grecianism. To be sure, tradition justified him on the ground that his position brought him into contact with the ruling powers, and, perhaps, to further vindicate him, ascribed similar pursuits to the elder Gamaliel, although groundlessly, to judge from the circumstance that he was so impressed even with the wrong of possessing a Targum on Job in Aramæan, that he had it buried deep in the ground.

But all these are indications of a tendency existing. How wide it must have spread, appears from the fact that the ban had to be pronounced on all who studied ‘Greek wisdom.’ One of the greatest Rabbis, Elisha ben Abujah, seems to have been actually led to apostacy by such studies. True, he appears as the ‘Acher’ - the ‘other’ - in Talmudic writings, whom it was not proper even to name. But he was not yet an apostate from the Synagogue when those ‘Greek songs’ ever flowed from his lips; and it was in the very Beth-ha-Midrash, or theological academy, that a multitude of Siphrey Minim (heretical books) flew from his breast, where they had lain concealed.⁹⁸⁹⁸    Jer. Chag. ii. 1; comp. Chag. 15. It may be so, that the expression ‘Siphrey Homeros’ (Homeric writings), which occur not only in the Talmud⁹⁹⁹⁹    Jer. Sanh. x. 28 a. but even in the Mishnah¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰    Yad. iv. 6. referred pre-eminently, if not exclusively, to the religious or semi-religious Jewish Hellenistic literature, outside even the Apocrypha.¹⁰¹¹⁰¹    Through this literature, which as being Jewish might have passed unsuspected, a dangerous acquaintance might have been introduced with Greek writings - the more readily, that for example Aristobulus described Homer and Hesiod as having ‘drawn from our books’ (ap. Euseb. Praepar. Evang. xiii. 12). According to Hamburger (Real-Encykl. für Bibel u. Talmud, vol. ii. pp. 68, 69), the expression Siphrey Homeros applies exclusively to the Judæo-Alexandrian heretical writings; according to Fürst (Kanon d. A. Test. p. 98), simply to Homeric literature. But see the discussion in Levy, Neuhebr. u. Chald. Wörterb., vol. i. p. 476 a and b. But its occurrence proves, at any rate, that the Hellenists were credited with the study of Greek literature, and that through them, if not more directly, the Palestinians had become acquainted with it.

This sketch will prepare us for a rapid survey of that Hellenistic literature which Judæa so much dreaded. Its importance, not only to the Hellenists but to the world at large, can scarcely be over-estimated. First and foremost, we have here the Greek translation of the Old Testament, venerable not only as the oldest, but as that which at the time of Jesus held the place of our ‘Authorized Version,’ and as such is so often, although freely, quoted, in the New Testament. Nor need we wonder that it should have been the people’s Bible, not merely among the Hellenists, but in Galilee, and even in Judæa. It was not only, as already explained, that Hebrew was no longer the ‘vulgar tongue’ in Palestine, and that written Targumim were prohibited. But most, if not all - at least in towns - would understand the Greek version; it might be quoted in intercourse with Hellenist brethren or with the Gentiles; and, what was perhaps equally, if not more important, it was the most readily procurable. From the extreme labour and care bestowed on them, Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were enormously dear, as we infer from a curious Talmudical notice,¹⁰²¹⁰²    Gitt. 35 last line and b. where a common wollen wrap, which of course was very cheap, a copy of the Psalms, of Job, and torn pieces from Proverbs, are together valued at five maneh - say, about 19l. Although this notice dates from the third or fourth century, it is not likely that the cost of Hebrew Biblical MSS. was much lower at the time of Jesus. This would, of course, put their possession well nigh out of common reach. On the other hand, we are able to form an idea of the cheapness of Greek manuscripts from what we know of the price of books in Rome at the beginning of our era. Hundreds of slaves were there engaged copying what one dictated. The result was not only the publication of as large editions as in our days, but their production at only about double the cost of what are now known as ‘cheap’ or ‘people’s editions.’ Probably it would be safe to compute, that as much matter as would cover sixteen pages of small print might, in such cases, be sold at the rate of about sixpence, and in that ratio.¹⁰³¹⁰³     Comp. Friedländer, Sitteng. Roms, vol. iii. p. 315. Accordingly, manuscripts in Greek or Latin, although often incorrect, must have been easily attainable, and this would have considerable influence on making the Greek version of the Old Testament the ‘people’s Bible.’¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴    To these causes there should perhaps be added the attempt to introduce Grecianism by force into Palestine, the consequences which it may have left, and the existence of a Grecian party in the land.

The Greek version, like the Targum of the Palestinians, originated, no doubt, in the first place, in a felt national want on the part of the Hellenists, who as a body were ignorant of Hebrew. Hence we find notices of very early Greek versions of at least parts of the Pentateuch.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵    Aristobulus in Euseb. Præpar. Evang. ix. 6; xiii. 12. The doubts raised by Hody against this testimony have been generally repudiated by critics since the treatise by Valkenaer (Diatr. de Aristob. Jud. appended to Gaisford’s ed. of the Præpar. Evang.). But this, of course, could not suffice. On the other hand, there existed, as we may suppose, a natural curiosity on the part of students, especially in Alexandria, which had so large a Jewish population, to know the sacred books on which the religion and history of Israel were founded. Even more than this, we must take into account the literary tastes of the first three Ptolemies (successors in Egypt of Alexander the Great), and the exceptional favour which the Jews for a time enjoyed. Ptolemy I. (Lagi) was a great patron of learning. He projected the Museum in Alexandria, which was a home for literature and study, and founded the great library. In these undertakings Demetrius Phalereus was his chief adviser. The tastes of the first Ptolemy were inherited by his son, Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), who had for two years been co-regent.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶    286-284 b.c. In fact, ultimately that monarch became literally book-mad, and the sums spent on rare MSS., which too often proved spurious, almost pass belief. The same may be said of the third of these monarchs, Ptolemy III. (Euergetes). It would have been strange, indeed, if these monarchs had not sought to enrich their library with an authentic rendering of the Jewish sacred books, or not encouraged such a translation.

These circumstances will account for the different elements which we can trace in the Greek version of the Old Testament, and explain the historical, or rather legendary, notices which we have of its composition. To begin with the latter. Josephus has preserved what, no doubt in its present form, is a spurious letter from one Aristeas to his brother Philocrates,¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷    Comp. Josephi Opera, ed. Havercamp, vol. ii. App. pp. 103-132. The best and most critical edition of this letter by Prof. M. Schmidt, in Merx’ Archiv. i. pp. 252-310. The story is found in Jos. Ant. xii. 2. 2; Ag. Ap. ii. 4; Philo, de Vita Mosis, lib. ii. section 5-7. The extracts are most fully given in Euseb. Præpar. Evang. Some of the Fathers give the story, with additional embellishments. It was first critically called in question by Hody (Contra Historiam Aristeæ de L. X. interpret. dissert. Oxon. 1685), and has since been generally regarded as legendary. But its foundation in fact has of late been recognized by well nigh all critics, though the letter itself is pseudonymic, and full of fabulous details. in which we are told how, by the advice of his librarian (?), Demetrius Phalereus, Ptolemy II. had sent by him (Aristeas) and another officer, a letter, with rich presents, to Eleazar, the High-Priest at Jerusalem; who in turn had selected seventy-two translators (six out of each tribe), and furnished them with a most valuable manuscript of the Old Testament. The letter then gives further details of their splendid reception at the Egyptian court, and of their sojourn in the island of Pharos, where they accomplished their work in seventy-two days, when they returned to Jerusalem laden with rich presents, their translation having received the formal approval of the Jewish Sanhedrin at Alexandria. From this account we may at least derive as historical these facts: that the Pentateuch - for to it only the testimony refers - was translated into Greek, at the suggestion of Demetrius Phalareus, in the reign and under the patronage - if not by direction - of Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus).¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸    This is also otherwise attested. See Keil, Lehrb. d. hist. kr. Einl. d. A. T., p. 551, note 5. With this the Jewish accounts agree, which describe the translation of the Pentateuch under Ptolemy - the Jerusalem Talmud¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹    Meg. i. in a simpler narrative, the Babylonian¹¹⁰¹¹⁰    Meg. 9 a. with additions apparently derived from the Alexandrian legends; the former expressly noting thirteen, the latter marking fifteen, variations from the original text.¹¹¹¹¹¹    It is scarcely worth while to refute the view of Tychsen, Jost (Gesch. d. Judenth.), and others, that the Jewish writers only wrote down for Ptolemy the Hebrew words in Greek letters. But the word {hebrew} cannot possibly bear that meaning in this connection. Comp. also Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 31.

The Pentateuch once translated, whether by one, or more likely by several persons,¹¹²¹¹²    According to Sopher. i. 8, by five persons, but that seems a round number to correspond to the five books of Moses. Frankel (Ueber d. Einfl. d. paläst. Exeg.) labours, however, to show in detail the differences between the different translators. But his criticism is often strained, and the solution of the question is apparently impossible. the other books of the Old Testament would naturally soon receive the same treatment. They were evidently rendered by a number of persons, who possessed very different qualifications for their work - the translation of the Book of Daniel having been so defective, that in its place another by Theodotion was afterwards substituted. The version, as a whole, bears the name of the LXX. - as some have supposed from the number of its translators according to Aristeas’ account - only that in that case it should have been seventy-two; or from the approval of the Alexandrian Sannedrin¹¹³¹¹³    Böhl would have it, ‘the Jerusalem Sanhedrin!’ - although in that case it should have been seventy-one; or perhaps because, in the popular idea, the number of the Gentile nations, of which the Greek (Japheth) was regarded as typical, was seventy. We have, however, one fixed date by which to compute the completion of this translation. From the prologue to the Apocryphal ‘Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach,’ we learn that in his days the Canon of Scripture was closed; and that on his arrival, in his thirty-eighth year.¹¹⁴¹¹⁴     But the expression has also been referred to the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes. In Egypt, which was then under the rule of Euergetes, he found the so-called LXX. version completed, when he set himself to a similar translation of the Hebrew work of his grandfather. But in the 50th chapter of that work we have a description of the High-Priest Simon, which is evidently written by an eye-witness. We have therefore as one term the pontificate of Simon, during which the earlier Jesus lived; and as the other, the reign of Euergetes, in which the grandson was at Alexandria. Now, although there were two High-Priests who bore the name Simon, and two Egyptian kings with the surname Euergetes, yet on purely historical grounds, and apart from critical prejudices, we conclude that the Simon of Ecclus. L. was Simon I., the Just, one of the greatest names in Jewish traditional history; and similarly, that the Euergetes of the younger Jesus was the first of that name, Ptolemy III., who reigned from 247 to 221 b.c. ¹¹⁵¹¹⁵    To my mind, at least, the historical evidence, apart from critical considerations, seems very strong. Modern writers on the other side have confessedly been influenced by the consideration that the earlier date of the Book of Sirach would also involve a much earlier date for the close of the O. T. Canon than they are disposed to admit. More especially would it bear on the question of the so-called ‘Maccabean Psalms,’ and the authorship and date of the Book of Daniel. But historical questions should be treated independently of critical prejudices. Winer (Bibl. Realwörterb. i. p. 555), and others after him admit that the Simon of Ecclus. ch. L. was indeed Simon the Just (i.), but maintain that the Euergetes of the Prologue was the second of that name, Ptolemy VII., popularly nicknamed Kakergetes. Comp. the remarks of Fritzsche on this view in the Kurzgef. Exeg. Handb. z. d. Apokr. 5te Lief. p. xvii. In his reign, therefore, we must regard the LXX. version as, at least substantially, completed.

From this it would, of course, follow that the Canon of the Old Testament was then practically fixed in Palestine.¹¹⁶¹¹⁶    Comp. here, besides the passages quoted in the previous note, Baba B. 13 b and 14 b; for the cessation of revelation in the Maccabean period, 1 Macc. iv. 46; ix. 27; xiv. 41; and, in general, for the Jewish view on the subject at the time of Christ, Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 8. That Canon was accepted by the Alexandrian translators, although the more loose views of the Hellenists on ‘inspiration,’ and the absence of that close watchfulness exercised over the text in Palestine, led to additions and alterations, and ultimately even to the admission of the Apocrypha into the Greek Bible. Unlike the Hebrew arrangement of the tex into the Law, the Prophets,¹¹⁷¹¹⁷    Anterior: Josh., Judg., 1 and 2 Sam. 1 and 2 Kings. Posterior: Major: Is., Jer., and Ezek.; and the Minor Prophets. and the (sacred) Writings, or Hagiographa, the LXX. arrange them into historical, prophetical, and poetic books, and count twenty-two, after the Hebrew alphabet, instead of twenty-four, as the Hebrews. But perhaps both these may have been later arrangements, since Philo evidently knew the Jewish order of the books.¹¹⁸¹¹⁸     De Vita Contempl. § 3. What text the translators may have used we can only conjecture. It differs in almost innumerable instances from our own, though the more important deviations are comparatively few.¹¹⁹¹¹⁹     They occur chiefly in 1 Kings, the books of Esther, Job, Proverbs, Jeremiah, and Daniel. In the Pentateuch we find them only in four passages in the Book of Exodus. In the great majority of the lesser variations our Hebrew must be regarded as the correct text.¹²⁰¹²⁰    There is also a curious correspondence between the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch and that of the LXX., which in no less than about 2,000 passages agree as against our Hebrew, although in other instances the Greek text either agrees with the Hebrew against the Samaritan, or else is independent of both. On the connection between Samaritan literature and Hellenism there are some very interesting notices in Freudenthal, Hell. Stud. pp. 82-103, 130-136, 186, &c.

Putting aside clerical mistakes and misreadings, and making allowance for errors of translation, ignorance, and haste, we note certain outstanding facts as characteristic of the Greek version. It bears evident marks of its origin in Egypt in its use of Egyptian words and references, and equally evident traces of its Jewish composition. By the side of slavish and false literalism there is great liberty, if not licence, in handling the original; gross mistakes occur along with happy renderings of very difficult passages, suggesting the aid of some able scholars. Distinct Jewish elements are undeniably there, which can only be explained by reference to Jewish tradition, although they are much fewer than some critics have supposed.¹²¹¹²¹    The extravagant computations in this respect of Frankel (both in his work, Ueber d. Einfl. d. Paläst. Exeg., and also in the Vorstud. z. Sept. pp. 189-191) have been rectified by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Vol. Isr. vol. iii.), who, perhaps, goes to the other extreme. Herzfeld (pp. 548-550) admits - and even this with hesitation - of only six distinct references to Halakhoth in the following passages in the LXX.: Gen. ix. 4; xxxii. 32; Lev. xix. 19; xxiv. 7; Deut. xxv. 5; xxvi. 12. As instances of Haggadah we may mention the renderings in Gen. v. 24 and Ex. x. 23. This we can easily understand, since only those traditions would find a place which at that early time were not only received, but in general circulation. The distinctively Grecian elements, however, are at present of chief interest to us. They consist of allusions to Greek mythological terms, and adaptations of Greek philosophical ideas. However few,¹²²¹²²     Dähne and Gfrörer have in this respect gone to the same extreme as Frankel on the Jewish side. But even Siegfried (Philo v. Alex. p. 8) is obliged to admit that the LXX. rendering, ͺ δͺγͺ ͺν ͺͺρατος ͺκαͺ κατασκεͺαστος Gen. i. 2), bears undeniable mark of Grecian philosophic views. And certainly this is not the sole instance of the kind. even one well-authenticated instance would lead us to suspect others, and in general give to the version the character of Jewish Hellenising. In the same class we reckon what constitutes the prominent characteristic of the LXX. version, which, for want of better terms, we would designate as rationalistic and apologetic. Difficulties - or what seemed such - are removed by the most bold methods, and by free handling of the text; it need scarcely be said, often very unsatisfactorily. More especially a strenuous effort is made to banish all anthropomorphisms, as inconsistent with their ideas of the Deity. The superficial observer might be tempted to regard this as not strictly Hellenistic, since the same may be noted, and indeed is much more consistently carried out, in the Targum of Onkelos. Perhaps such alterations had even been introduced into the Hebrew text itself.¹²³¹²³    As in the so-called ‘Tiqquney Sopherim,’ or ‘emendations of the scribes.’ Comp. here generally the investigations of Geiger (Urschrift u. Ueberse z. d. Bibel). But these, however learned and ingenious, require, like so many of the dicta of modern Jewish criticism, to be taken with the utmost caution, and in each case subjected to fresh examination, since so large a proportion of their writings are what is best designated by the German Tendenz-Schriften, and their inferences Tendenz-Schlüsse. But the critic and the historian should have no Tendenz - except towards simple fact and historical truth. But there is this vital difference between Palestinianism and Alexandrianism, that, broadly speaking, the Hebrew avoidance of anthropomorphisms depends on objective - theological and dogmatic - the Hellenistic on subjective - philosophical and apologetic - grounds. The Hebrew avoids them as he does what seems to him inconsistent with the dignity of Biblical heroes and of Israel. ‘Great is the power of the prophets,’ he writes, ‘who liken the Creator to the creature;’ or else¹²⁴¹²⁴    Mechilta on Ex. xix. ‘a thing is written only to break it to the ear’ - to adapt it to our human modes of speaking and understanding; and again,¹²⁵¹²⁵    Ber. 31 b. the ‘words of the Torah are like the speech of the children of men.’ But for this very purpose the words of Scripture may be presented in another form, if need be even modified, so as to obviate possible misunderstanding, or dogmatic error. The Alexandrians arrived at the same conclusion, but from an opposite direction. They had not theological but philosophical axioms in their minds - truths which the highest truth could not, and, as they held, did not contravene. Only dig deeper; get beyond the letter to that to which it pointed; divest abstract truth of its concrete, national, Judaistic envelope - penetrate through the dim porch into the temple, and you were surrounded by a blaze of light, of which, as its portals had been thrown open, single rays had fallen into the night of heathendom. And so the truth would appear glorious - more than vindicated in their own sight, triumphant in that of others!

In such manner the LXX. version became really the people’s Bible to that large Jewish world through which Christianity was afterwards to address itself to mankind. It was part of the case, that this translation should be regarded by the Hellenists as inspired like the original. Otherwise it would have been impossible to make final appeal to the very words of the Greek; still less, to find in them a mystical and allegorical meaning. Only that we must not regard their views of inspiration - except as applying to Moses, and even there only partially - as identical with ours. To their minds inspiration differed quantitatively, not qualitatively, from what the rapt soul might at any time experience, so that even heathen philosophers might ultimately be regarded as at times inspired. So far as the version of the Bible was concerned (and probably on like grounds), similar views obtained at a later period even in Hebrew circles, where it was laid down that the Chaldee Targum on the Pentateuch had been originally spoken to Moses on Sinai,¹²⁶¹²⁶    Ned. 37 b; Kidd. 49 a. though afterwards forgotten, till restored and re-introduced.¹²⁷¹²⁷    Meg. 3 a.

Whether or not the LXX. was read in the Hellenist Synagogues, and the worship conducted, wholly or partly, in Greek, must be matter of conjecture. We find, however, a significant notice¹²⁸¹²⁸     Jer. Meg. iv. 3, ed. Krot. p. 75a. to the effect that among those who spoke a barbarous language (not Hebrew - the term referring specially to Greek), it was the custom for one person to read the whole Parashah (or lesson for the day), while among the Hebrew-speaking Jews this was done by seven persons, successively called up. This seems to imply that either the Greek text alone was read, or that it followed a Hebrew reading, like the Targum of the Easterns. More probably, however, the former would be the case, since both Hebrew manuscripts, and persons qualified to read them, would be difficult to procure. At any rate, we know that the Greek Scriptures were authoritatively acknowledged in Palestine,¹²⁹¹²⁹    Meg. i. 8. It is, however, fair to confess strong doubt, on my part, whether this passage may not refer to the Greek translation of Akylas. At the same time it simply speaks of a translation into Greek. And before the version of Aquila the LXX. alone held that place. It is one of the most daring modern Jewish perversions of history to identify this Akylas, who flourished about 130 after Christ, with the Aquila of the Book of Acts. It wants even the excuse of a colourable perversion of the confused story about Akylas, which Epiphanius who is so generally inaccurate, gives in De Pond. et Mensur. c. xiv. and that the ordinary daily prayers might be said in Greek.¹³⁰¹³⁰    The ‘Shema’ (Jewish creed), with its collects, the eighteen ‘benedictions,’ and ‘the grace at meat.’ A later Rabbi vindicated the use of the ‘Shema’ in Greek by the argument that the word Shema meant not only ‘Hear,’ but also ‘understand’ (Jer. Sotah vii. 1.) Comp. sotah vii. 1, 2. In Ber. 40 b, it is said that the Parashah connected with the woman suspected of adultery, the prayer and confession at the bringing of the tithes, and the various benedictions over food, may be said not only in Hebrew, but in any other languages. The LXX. deserved this distinction from its general faithfulness - at least, in regard to the Pentateuch - and from its preservation of ancient doctrine. Thus, without further referring to its full acknowledgment of the doctrine of Angels (comp. Deut. xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 2), we specially mark that is preserved the Messianic interpretation of Gen. xlix. 10, and Numb. xxiv. 7, 17, 23, bringing us evidence of what had been the generally received view two and a half centuries before the birth of Jesus. It must have been on the ground of the use made of the LXX. in argument, that later voices in the Synagogue declared this version to have been as great calamity to Israel as the making of the golden calf,¹³¹¹³¹     Mass. Sopher i. Hal. 7 - at the close of vol. ix. of the Bab.Talmud. and that is completion had been followed by the terrible omen of an eclipse, that lasted three days.¹³²¹³²    Hilch. Ged. Taan. For the Rabbis declared that upon investigation it had been found that the Torah could be adequately translated only into Greek, and they are most extravagant in their praise of the Greek version of Akylas, or Aquila, the proselyte, which was made to counteract the influence of the LXX.¹³³¹³³    Jer. Meg. i. 11, ed. Krot. p. 71 b and c. But in Egypt the anniversary of the completion of the LXX. was celebrated by a feast in the island of Pharos, in which ultimately even heathens seem to have taken part.¹³⁴¹³⁴    Philo, Vita Mos. ii. ed. Francf. p. 660.

i.i.31

CHAPTER III.
THE OLD FAITH PREPARING FOR THE NEW - DEVELOPMENT OF HELLENIST THEOLOGY: THE APOCRYPHA, ARISTEAS, ARISTOBULUS, AND THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHIC WRITINGS.

 

The translation of the Old Testament into Greek may be regarded as the starting-point of Hellenism. It rendered possible the hope that what in its original form had been confined to the few, might become accessible to the world at large.¹³⁵¹³⁵    Philo, de Vita Mos. ed. Mangey, ii. p. 140. But much yet remained to be done. If the religion of the Old Testament had been brought near to the Grecian world of thought, the latter had still to be brought near to Judaism. Some intermediate stage must be found; some common ground on which the two might meet; some original kindredness of spirit to which their later divergences might be carried back, and where they might finally be reconciled. As the first attempt in this direction - first in order, if not always in time - we mark the so-called Apocryphal literature, most of which was either written in Greek, or is the product of Hellenising Jews.¹³⁶¹³⁶    All the Apocrypha were originally written in Greek, except 1 Macc., Judith, part of Baruch, probably Tobit, and, of course, the ‘Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.’ Its general object was twofold. First, of course, it was apologetic - intended to fill gaps in Jewish history or thought, but especially to strengthen the Jewish mind against attacks from without, and generally to extol the dignity of Israel. Thus, more withering sarcasm could scarcely be poured on heathenism than in the apocryphal story of ‘Bel and the Dragon,’ or in the so-called ‘Epistle of Jeremy,’ with which the Book of ‘Baruch’ closes. The same strain, only in more lofty tones, resounds through the Book of the ‘Wisdom of Solomon,’¹³⁷¹³⁷    Comp. x. - xx. along with the constantly implied contrast between the righteous, or Israel, and sinners, or the heathen. But the next object was to show that the deeper and purer thinking of heathenism in its highest philosophy supported - nay, in some respects, was identical with - the fundamental teaching of the Old Testament. This, of course, was apologetic of the Old Testament, but it also prepared the way for a reconciliation with Greek philosophy. We notice this especially in the so-called Fourth Book of Maccabees, so long erroneously attributed to Josephus,¹³⁸¹³⁸    It is printed in Havercamp’s edition of Josephus, vol. ii. pp. 497-520. The best edition is in Fritzsche, Libri Apocryphi Vet. Test. (Lips. 1871). and in the ‘Wisdom of Solomon.’ The first postulate here would be the acknowledgment of truth among the Gentiles, which was the outcome of Wisdom - and Wisdom was the revelation of God. This seems already implied in so thoroughly Jewish a book as that of Jesus the Son of Sirach.¹³⁹¹³⁹    Comp. for ex. Ecclus. xxiv. 6. Of course there could be no alliance with Epicureanism, which was at the opposite pole of the Old Testament. But the brilliancy of Plato’s speculations would charm, while the stern self-abnegation of Stoicism would prove almost equally attractive. The one would show why they believed, the other why they lived, as they did. Thus the theology of the Old Testament would find a rational basis in the ontology of Plato, and its ethics in the moral philosophy of the Stoics. Indeed, this is the very line of argument which Josephus follows in the conclusion of his treatise against Apion.¹⁴⁰¹⁴⁰    ii. 39, 40. This, then, was an unassailable position to take: contempt poured on heathenism as such,¹⁴¹¹⁴¹    Comp. also Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 34. and a rational philosophical basis for Judaism. They were not deep, only acute thinkers, these Alexandrians, and the result of their speculations was a curious Eclecticism, in which Platonism and Stoicism are found, often heterogeneously, side by side. Thus, without further details, it may be said that the Fourth Book of Maccabees is a Jewish Stoical treatise on the Stoical theme of ‘the supremacy of reason,’ the proposition, stated at the outset, that ‘pious reason bears absolute sway over the passions,’ being illustrated by the story of the martyrdom of Eleazar, and of the mother and her seven sons.¹⁴²¹⁴²    Comp. 2 Macc. vi. 18 - vii. 41. On the other hand, that sublime work, the ‘Wisdom of Solomon,’ contains Platonic and Stoic elements¹⁴³¹⁴³     Ewald (Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., vol. iv. pp. 626-632) has given a glowing sketch of it. Ewald rightly says that its Grecian elements have been exaggerated; but Bucher (Lehre vom Logos, pp. 59-62) utterly fails in denying their presence altogether. - chiefly perhaps the latter - the two occurring side by side. Thus¹⁴⁴¹⁴⁴    Ch. vii. 22-27. ‘Wisdom,’ which is so concretely presented as to be almost hypostatised,¹⁴⁵¹⁴⁵    Compare especially ix. 1; xviii. 14-16, where the idea of σοφͺα passes into that of the λͺγος. Of course the above remarks are not intended to depreciate the great value of this book, alike in itself, and in its practical teaching, in its clear enunciation of a retribution as awaiting man, and in its important bearing on the New Testament revelation of the λͺγος. is first described in the language of Stoicism,¹⁴⁶¹⁴⁶    Vv. 22-24. and afterwards set forth, in that of Platonism,¹⁴⁷¹⁴⁷    Vv. 25-29. as ‘the breath of the power of God;’ as ‘a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty;’ ‘the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness.’ Similarly, we have¹⁴⁸¹⁴⁸    In ch. viii. 7. a Stoical enumeration of the four cardinal virtues, temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude, and close by it the Platonic idea of the soul’s pre-existence,¹⁴⁹¹⁴⁹    In vv. 19, 20. and of earth and matter pressing it down.¹⁵⁰¹⁵⁰    ix. 15. How such views would point in the direction of the need of a perfect revelation from on high, as in the Bible, and of its rational possibility, need scarcely be shown.

But how did Eastern Judaism bear itself towards this Apocryphal literature? We find it described by a term which seems to correspond to our ‘Apocrypha,’ as ‘Sepharim Genuzim,’ ‘hidden books,’ i.e., either such whose origin was hidden, or, more likely, books withdrawn from common or congregational use. Although they were, of course, carefully distinguished from the canonical Scriptures, as not being sacred, their use was not only allowed, but many of them are quoted in Talmudical writings.¹⁵¹¹⁵¹    Some Apocryphal books which have not been preserved to us are mentioned in Talmudical writings, among them one, ‘The roll of the building of the Temple,’ alas, lost to us! Comp. Hamburger, vol. ii. pp. 66-70. In this respect they are placed on a very different footing from the so-called Sepharim Chitsonim, or ‘outside books,’ which probably included both the products of a certain class of Jewish Hellenistic literature, and the Siphrey Minim, or writings of the heretics. Against these Rabbinism can scarcely find terms of sufficient violence, even debarring from share in the world to come those who read them.¹⁵²¹⁵²    Sanh 100. This, not only because they were used in controversy, but because their secret influence on orthodox Judaism was dreaded. For similar reasons, later Judaism forbade the use of the Apocrypha in the same manner as that of the Sepharim Chitsonim. But their influence had already made itself felt. The Apocrypha, the more greedily perused, not only for their glorification of Judaism, but that they were, so to speak, doubtful reading, which yet afforded a glimpse into that forbidden Greek world, opened the way for other Hellenistic literature, of which unacknowledged but frequent traces occur in Talmudical writings.¹⁵³¹⁵³    Comp. Siegfried, Philo von Alex. pp. 275-299, who, however, perhaps overstates the matter.

To those who thus sought to weld Grecian thought with Hebrew revelation, two objects would naturally present themselves. They must try to connect their Greek philosophers with the Bible, and they must find beneath the letter of Scripture a deeper meaning, which would accord with philosophic truth. So far as the text of Scripture was concerned, they had a method ready to hand. The Stoic philosophers had busied themselves in finding a deeper allegorical meaning, especially in the writings of Homer. By applying it to mythical stories, or to the popular beliefs, and by tracing the supposed symbolical meaning of names, numbers, &c., it became easy to prove almost anything, or to extract from these philosophical truths ethical principles, and even the later results of natural science.¹⁵⁴¹⁵⁴     Comp. Siegfried, pp. 9-16; Hartmann, Enge Verb. d. A. Test. mit d. N., pp. 568-572. Such a process was peculiarly pleasing to the imagination, and the results alike astounding and satisfactory, since as they could not be proved, so neither could they be disproved. This allegorical method¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵    This is to be carefully distinguished from the typical interpretation and from the mystical - the type being prophetic, the mystery spiritually understood. was the welcome key by which the Hellenists might unlock the hidden treasury of Scripture. In point of fact, we find it applied so early as in the ‘Wisdom of Solomon.’¹⁵⁶¹⁵⁶    Not to speak of such sounder interpretations as that of the brazen serpent (Wisd. xvi. 6, 7), and of the Fall (ii. 24), or of the view presented of the early history of the chosen race in ch. x., we may mention as instances of allegorical interpretation that of the manna (xvi. 26-28), and of the high-priestly dress (xviii. 24), to which, no doubt, others might be added. But I cannot find sufficient evidence of this allegorical method in the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. The reasoning of Hartmann (u. s., pp. 542-547) seems to me greatly strained. Of the existence of allegorical interpretations in the Synoptic Gospels, or of any connection with Hellenism, such as Hartmann, Siegfried, and Loesner (Obs. ad. N.T. e Phil. Alex) put into them, I cannot, on examination, discover any evidence. Similarity of expressions, or even of thought, afford no evidence of inward connection. Of the Gospel by St. John we shall speak in the sequel. In the Pauline Epistles we find, as might be expected, some allegorical interpretations, chiefly in those to the Corinthians, perhaps owing to the connection of that church with Apollos. Comp here 1 Cor. ix. 9; x. 4 (Philo, Quod deter. potiori insid. 31); 2 Cor. iii. 16; Gal. iv. 21. Of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse we cannot here speak.

But as yet Hellenism had scarcely left the domain of sober interpretation. it is otherwise in the letter of the Pseudo-Aristeas, to which reference has already been made.¹⁵⁷¹⁵⁷    See p. 25. Here the wildest symbolism is put into the mouth of the High-Priest Eleazar, to convince Aristeas and his fellow-ambassador that the Mosaic ordinances concerning food had not only a political reason - to keep Israel separate from impious nations - and a sanitary one, but chiefly a mystical meaning. The birds allowed for food were all tame and pure, and they fed on corn or vegetable products, the opposite being the case with those forbidden. The first lesson which this was intended to teach was, that Israel must be just, and not seek to obtain aught from others by violence; but, so to speak, imitate the habits of those birds which were allowed them. The next lesson would be, that each must learn to govern his passions and inclinations. Similarly, the direction about cloven hoofs pointed to the need of making separation - that is, between good and evil; and that about chewing the cud to the need of remembering, viz. God and His will.¹⁵⁸¹⁵⁸    A similar principle applied to the prohibition of such species as the mouse or the weasel, not only because they destroyed everything, but because the latter, from its mode of conceiving and bearing, symbolized listening to evil tales, and exaggerated, lying, or malicious speech. In such manner, according to Aristeas, did the High Priest go through the catalogue of things forbidden, and of animals to be sacrificed, showing from their ‘hidden meaning’ the majesty and sanctity of the Law.¹⁵⁹¹⁵⁹     Of course this method is constantly adopted by Josephus. Comp. for example, Ant. iii. 1. 6; 7. 7.

This was an important line to take, and it differed in principle from the allegorical method adopted by the Eastern Jews. Not only the Dorshey Reshumoth,¹⁶⁰¹⁶⁰    Or Dorshey Chamuroth, searchers of difficult passages. Zunz. Gottesd. Vortr. p. 323. note b. or searches out of the subleties of Scripture, of their indications, but even the ordinary Haggadist employed, indeed, allegoric interpretations. Thereby Akiba vindicated for the ‘Song of Songs’ its place in the Canon. Did not Scripture say: ‘One thing spake God, twofold is what I heard,’¹⁶¹¹⁶¹    Ps. lxii. 11; Sanh. 34 a. and did not this imply a twofold meaning; nay, could not the Torah be explained by many different methods?¹⁶²¹⁶²    The seventy languages in which the Law was supposed to have been written below Mount Ebal (Sotah vii. 5). I cannot help feeling this may in part also refer to the various modes of interpreting Holy Scripture, and that there is an allusion to this Shabb. 88 b, where Ps. lxviii. 12. and Jer. xxiii. 29, are quoted, the latter to show that the word of God is like a hammer that breaks the rock in a thousand pieces. Comp. Rashi on Gen. xxxiii. 20. What, for example, was the water which Israel sought in the wilderness, or the bread and raiment which Jacob asked in Bethel, but the Torah and the dignity which it conferred? But in all these, and innumerable similar instances, the allegorical interpretation was only an application of Scripture for homiletical purposes, not a searching into a rationale beneath, such as that of the Hellenists. The latter the Rabbis would have utterly repudiated, on their express principle that ‘Scripture goes not beyond its plain meaning.’¹⁶³¹⁶³    Perhaps we ought here to point out one of the most important principles of Rabbinism, which has been almost entirely overlooked in modern criticism of the Talmud. It is this: that any ordinance, not only of the Divine law, but of the Rabbis, even though only given for a particular time or occasion, or for a special reason, remains in full force for all time unless it be expressly recalled (Betsah 5 b). Thus Maimonides (Sepher ha Mitsv.) declares the law to extirpate the Canaanites as continuing in its obligations. The inferences as to the perpetual obligation, not only of the ceremonial law, but of sacrifices, will be obvious, and their bearing on the Jewish controversy need not be explained. Comp. Chief Rabbi Holdheim. d. Ceremonial Gesetz in Messasreich, 1845. They sternly insisted, that we ought not to search into the ulterior object and rationale of a law, but simply obey it. But it was this very rationale of the Law which the Alexandrians sought to find under its letter. It was in this sense that Aristobulus, a Hellenist Jew of Alexandria,¹⁶⁴¹⁶⁴    About 160 b.c. sought to explain Scripture. Only a fragment of his work, which seems to have been a Commentary on the Pentateuch, dedicated to King Ptolemy (Philometor), has been preserved to us (by Clement of Alexandria, and by Eusebius¹⁶⁵¹⁶⁵    Præpar. Evang. vii. 14. 1 ; vii. 10. 1-17; xiii. 12. ). According to Clement of Alexandria, his aim was, ‘to bring the Peripatetic philosophy out of the law of Moses, and out of the other prophets.’ Thus, when we read that God stood, it meant the stable order of the world; that He created the world in six days, the orderly succession of time; the rest of the Sabbath, the preservation of what was created. And in such manner could the whole system of Aristole be found in the Bible. But how was this to be accounted for? Of course, the Bible had not learned from Aristole, but he and all the other philosphers had learned from the Bible. Thus, according to Aristobulus, Pythagoras, Plato, and all the other sages had really learned from Moses, and the broken rays found in their writings were united in all their glory in the Torah.

It was a tempting path on which to enter, and one on which there was no standing still. It only remained to give fixedness to the allegorical method by reducing it to certain principles, or canons of criticism, and to form the heterogeneous mass of Grecian philosophemes and Jewish theologumena into a compact, if not homogeneous system. This was the work of Philo of Alexandria, born about 20 b.c. It concerns us not here to inquire what were the intermediate links between Aristobulus and Philo. Another and more important point claims our attention. If ancient Greek philosophy knew the teaching of Moses, where was the historic evidence for it? If such did not exist, it must somehow be invented. Orpheus was a name which had always lent itself to literary fraud,¹⁶⁶¹⁶⁶    As Val. Kenaer puts it, Daitr. de Aristob. Jud. p. 73. and so Aristobulus boldly produces (whether of his own or of others’ making) a number of spurious citations from Hesiod, Homer, Linus, but especially from Orpheus, all Biblical and Jewish in their cast. Aristobulus was neither the first nor the last to commit such fraud. The Jewish Sibyl boldly, and, as we shall see, successfully personated the heathen oracles. And this opens, generally, quite a vista of Jewish-Grecia literature. In the second, and even in the third century before Christ, there were Hellenist historians, such as Eupolemus, Artapanus, Demetrius, and Aristeas; tragic and epic poets, such as Ezekiel, Pseudo-Philo, and Theodotus, who, after the manner of the ancient classical writers, but for their own purposes, described certain periods of Jewish history, or sang of such themes as the Exodus, Jerusalem, or the rape of Dinah.

The mention of these spurious quotations naturally leads us to another class of spurious literature, which, although not Hellenistic, has many elements in common with it, and, even when originating with Palestinian Jews is not Palestinian, nor yet has been preserved in its language. We allude to what are known as the Pseudepigraphic, or Pseudonymic Writings, so called because, with one exception, they bear false names of authorship. It is difficult to arrange them otherwise than chronologically - and even here the greatest difference of opinions prevails. Their general character (with one exception) may be described as anti-heathen, perhaps missionary, but chiefly as Apocalyptic. They are attempts at taking up the key-note struck in the prophecies of Daniel; rather, we should say, to lift the veil only partially raised by him, and to point - alike as concerned Israel, and the kingdoms of the world - to the past, the present, and the future, in the light of the Kingship of the Messiah. Here, if anywhere, we might expect to find traces of New Testament teaching; and yet, side by side with frequent similarity of form, the greatest difference - we had almost said contrast - in spirit, prevails.

Many of these works must have perished. In one of the latest of them¹⁶⁷¹⁶⁷    4 Esdras xiv. 44, 46. they are put down at seventy, probably a round number, having reference to the supposed number of the nations of the earth, or to every possible mode of interpreting Scripture. They are described as intended for ‘the wise among the people,’ probably those whom St. Paul, in the Christian sense, designates as ‘knowing the time’¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸    Rom. xiii. 11. ¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹    The καιρͺς of St. Paul seems here used in exactly the same sense as in later Hebrew {hebrew}.  The Septuagint renders it so in five passages (Ezr. 5:3; Dan. 4:33; 6:10; 7:22, 25). of the Advent of the Messiah. Viewed in this light, they embody the ardent aspirataions and the inmost hopes¹⁷⁰¹⁷⁰     Of course, it suits Jewish, writers, like Dr. Jost, to deprecate the value of the Pseudepigrapha. Their ardour of expectancy ill agrees with the modern theories, which would eliminate, if possible, the Messianic hope from ancient Judaism. of those who longed for the ‘consolation of Israel,’ as they understood it. Nor should we judge their personations of authorship according to our Western ideas.¹⁷¹¹⁷¹    Comp. Dillmann in Herzog’s Real-Encykl. vol. xii. p. 301. Pseudonymic writings were common in that age, and a Jew might perhaps plead that, even in the Old Testament, books had been headed by names which confessedly were not those of their authors (such as Samuel, Ruth, Esther). If those inspired poets who sang in the spirit, and echoed the strains, of Asaph, adopted that designation, and the sons of Korah preferred to be known by that title, might not they, who could no longer claim the authority of inspiration seek attention for their utterances by adopting the names of those in whose spirit they professed to write?

The most interesting as well as the oldest of these books are those known as the Book of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, the Psalter of Solomon, and the Book of Jubilees, or Little Genesis. Only the briefest notice of them can here find a place.¹⁷²¹⁷²    For a brief review of the ‘Pseudepigraphic Writings,’ see Appendix I.

The Book of Enoch, the oldest parts of which date a century and a half before Christ, comes to us from Palestine. It professes to be a vision vouchsafed to that Patriacrch, and tells of the fall of the Angels and its consequences, and of what he saw and heard in his rapt journeys through heaven and earth. Of deepest, though often sad, interest, is what it says of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the advent of Messiah and His Kingdom, and of the last things.

On the other hand, the Sibylline Oracles, of which the oldest portions date from about 160 b.c., come to us from Egypt. It is to the latter only that we here refer. Their most interesting parts are also the most characteristic. In them the ancient heathen myths of the first ages of man are welded together with Old Testament notices, while the heathen Theogony is recast in a Jewish mould. Thus Noah becomes Uranos, Shem Saturn, Ham Titan, and Japheth Japetus. Similarly, we have fragments of ancient heathen oracles, so to speak, recast in a Jewish edition. The strangest circumstance is, that the utterances of this Judaising and Jewish Sibyl seem to have passed as the oracles of the ancient Erythraean, which had predicted the fall of Troy, and as those of the Sibyl of Cumae, which, in the infancy of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus had deposited in the Capitol.

The collection of eighteen hymns known as the Psalter of Solomon dates from more than half a century before our era. No doubt the original was Hebrew, though they breathe a somewhat Hellenistic spirit. They express ardent Messianic aspirations, and a firm faith in the Resurrection, and in eternal rewards and punishments.

Different in character from the preceding works is The Book of Jubilees - so called from its chronological arrangement into ‘Jubilee-periods’ - or ‘Little Genesis.’ It is chiefly a kind of legendary supplement to the Book of Genesis, intended to explain some of its historic difficulties, and to fill up its historic lacunæ. It was probably written about the time of Christ - and this gives it a special interest - by a Palestinian, and in Hebrew, or rather Aramæan. But, like the rest of the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic literature which comes from Palestine, or was originally written in Hebrew, we posses it no longer in that language, but only in translation.

If from this brief review of Hellenist and Pseudepigraphic literature we turn to take a retrospect, we can scarcely fail to perceive, on the one hand, the development of the old, and on the other the preparation for the new - in other words, the grand expectancy awakened, and the grand preparation made. One step only remained to complete what Hellenism had already begun. That completion came through one who, although himself untouched by the Gospel, perhaps more than any other prepared alike his co-religionists the Jews, and his countrymen the Greeks, for the new teaching, which, indeed, was presented by many of its early advocates in the forms which they had learned from him. That man was Philo the Jew, of Alexandria.

i.i.40

CHAPTER IV.
PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA, THE RABBIS, AND THE GOSPELS - THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT OF HELLENISM IN ITS RELATION TO RABBINISM AND THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

 

It is strange how little we know of the personal history of the greatest of uninspired Jewish writers of old, though he occupied so prominent a position in his time.¹⁷³¹⁷³    Hausrath (N.T. Zeitg. vol. ii. p. 222 &c.) has given a highly imaginative picture of Philo- as, indeed, of many other persons and things. Philo was born in Alexandria, about the year 20 before Christ. He was a descendant of Aaron, and belonged to one of the wealthiest and most influential families among the Jewish merchant-princes of Egypt. His brother was the political head of that community in Alexandria, and he himself on one occasion represented his co-religionists, though unsuccessfully, at Rome,¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴    39 or 40 a.d. as the head of an embassy to entreat the Emperior Caligula for protection from the persecutions consequent on the Jewish resistance to placing statues of the Emperor in their Synagogues. But it is not with Philo, the wealthy aristocratic Jew of Alexandria, but with the great writer and thinker who, so to speak, completed Jewish Hellenism, that we have here to do. Let us see what was his relation alike to heathen philosophy and to the Jewish faith, of both of which he was the ardent advocate, and how in his system he combined the teaching of the two.

To begin with, Philo united in rare measure Greek learning with Jewish enthusiasm. In his writings he very frequently uses classical modes of expression;¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵    Siegfried has, with immense labor, collected a vast number of parallel expressions, chiefly from Plato and Plutarch (pp. 39-47). he names not fewer than sixty-four Greek writers;¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶    Comp. Grossmann, Quæ st. Phil. i. p. 5 &c. and he either alludes to, or quotes frequently from, such sources as Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Solon, the great Greek tragedians, Plato, and others. But to him these men were scarcely ‘heathen.’ He had sat at their feet, and learned to weave a system from Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. The gatherings of these philosophers were ‘holy,’ and Plato was ‘the great.’ But holier than all was the gathering of the true Israel; and incomparably greater than any, Moses. From him had all sages learned, and with him alone was all truth to be found - not, indeed, in the letter, but under the letter, of Holy Scripture. If in Numb. xxiii. 19 we read ‘God is not a man,’ and in Deut. i. 31 that the Lord was ‘as a man,’ did it not imply, on the one hand, the revelation of absolute truth by God, and, on the other, accommodation to those who were weak? Here, then, was the principle of a twofold interpretation of the Word of God - the literal and the allegorical. The letter of the text must be held fast; and Biblical personages and histories were real. But only narrow-minded slaves of the letter would stop here; the more so, as sometimes the literal meaning alone would be tame, even absurd; while the allegorical interpretation gave the true sense, even though it might occassionally run counter to the letter. Thus, the patriarchs represented states of the soul; and, whatever the letter might bear, Joseph represented one given to the fleshly, whom his brothers rightly hated; Simeon the soul aiming after the higher; the killing of the Egyptian by Moses, the subjugation of passion, and so on. But this allegorical interpretation - by the side of the literal (the Peshat of the Palestinians) - though only for the few, was not arbitrary. It had its ‘laws,’ and ‘canons’ - some of which excluded the literal interpretation, while others admitted it by the side of the higher meaning.¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷     In this sketch of the system of Philo I have largely availed myself of the careful analysis of Siegfried.

To begin with the former: the literal sense must be wholly set aside, when it implied anything unworthy of the Deity, anything unmeaning, impossible, or contrary to reason. Manifestly, this canon, if strictly applied, would do away not only with all anthropomorphisms, but cut the knot wherever difficulties seemed insuperable. Again, Philo would find an allegorical, along with the literal, interpretation indicated in the reduplication of a word, and in seemingly superfluous words, particles, or expressions.¹⁷⁸¹⁷⁸     It should be noted that these are also Talmudical canons, not indeed for allegorical interpretation, but as pointing to some special meaning, since there was not a word or particle in Scripture without a definite meaning and object. These could, of course, only bear such a meaning on Philo’s assumption of the actual inspiration of the LXX. version. Similarly, in exact accordance with a Talmudical canon,¹⁷⁹¹⁷⁹    Baba K 64 a. any repetition of what had been already stated would point to something new. These were comparatively sober rules of exegesis. Not so the licence which he claimed of freely altering the punctuation¹⁸⁰¹⁸⁰    To illustrate what use might be made of such alterations, the Midrash (Ber. R. 65) would have us punctuate Gen. xxvii. 19, as follows: ‘And Jacob said unto his father, I (viz. am he who will receive the ten commandments) - (but) Esau (is) thy firstborn.’ In Yalkut there is the still more curious explanation that in heaven the soul of Jacob was the firstborn! of sentences, and his notion that, if one from among several synonymous words was chosen in a passage, this pointed to some special meaning attaching to it. Even more extravagant was the idea, that a word which occurred in the LXX. might be interpreted according to every shade of meaning which it bore in the Greek, and that even another meaning might be given it by slightly altering the letters. However, like other of Philo’s allegorical canons, these were also adopted by the Rabbis, and Haggadic interpretations were frequently prefaced by: ‘Read not thus - but thus.’ If such violence might be done to the text, we need not wonder at interpretations based on a play upon words, or even upon parts of a word. Of course, all seemingly strange or peculiar modes of expression, or of designation, occurring in Scripture, must have their special meaning, and so also every particle, adverb, or preposition. Again, the position of a verse, its succession by another, the apparently unaccountable presence or absence of a word, might furnish hints for some deeper meaning, and so would an unexpected singular for a plural, or vice versâ, the use of a tense, even the gender of a word. Most serious of all, an allegorical interpretation might be again employed as the basis of another.¹⁸¹¹⁸¹    Each of these positions is capable of ample proof from Philo’s writings, as shown by Siegfried. But only a bare statement of these canons was here possible.

We repeat, that these allegorical canons of Philo are essentially the same as those of Jewish traditionalism in the Haggadah,¹⁸²¹⁸²    Comp. our above outline with the ‘XXV. theses de modis et formulis quibus pr. Hebr. doctores SS. interpretari etc. soliti fuerunt,’ in Surenhusius, Βͺβλος καταλλαγͺς, pp. 57-88. only the latter were not rationalising, and far more brilliant in their application.¹⁸³¹⁸³    For a comparison between Philo and Rabbinic theology, see Appendix II.: ‘Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’ Freudenthal (Hellen. Studien, pp. 67 &c.) aptly designates this mixture of the two as ‘Hellenistic Midrash,’ it being difficult sometimes to distinguish whether it originated in Palestine or in Egypt, or else in both independently. Freudenthal gives a number of curious instances in which Hellenism and Rabbinism agree in their interpretations. For other interesting comparisons between Haggadic interpretations and those of Philo, see Joel, Blick in d. Religionsgesch. i. p. 38 &c. In another respect also the Palestinian had the advantage of the Alexandrian exegesis. Reverently and cautiously it indicated what might be omitted in public reading, and why; what expressions of the original might be modified by the Meturgeman, and how; so as to avoid alike one danger by giving a passage in its literality, and another by adding to the sacred text, or conveying a wrong impression of the Divine Being, or else giving occasion to the unlearned and unwary of becoming entangled in dangerous speculations. Jewish tradition here lays down some principles which would be of great practical use. Thus we are told,¹⁸⁴¹⁸⁴    Ber. 31 b. that Scripture uses the modes of expression common among men. This would, of course, include all anthropomorphisms. Again, sometimes with considerable ingenuity, a suggestion is taken from a word, such as that Moses knew the Serpent was to be made of brass from the similarity of the two words (nachash, a serpent, and nechosheth, brass.)¹⁸⁵¹⁸⁵    Ber. R. 31. Similarly, it is noted that Scripture uses euphemistic language, so as to preserve the greatest delicacy.¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶    Ber. R. 70. These instances might be multiplied, but the above will suffice.

In his symbolical interpretations Philo only partially took the same road as the Rabbis. The symbolism of numbers and, so far as the Sanctuary was concerned, that of colours, and even materials, may, indeed, be said to have its foundation in the Old Testament itself. The same remark applies partially to that of names. The Rabbis certainly so interpreted them.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷    Thus, to give only a few out of many examples, Ruth is derived from ravah, to satiate to give to drink, because David, her descendant, satiated God with his Psalms of praise (Ber. 7 b). Here the principle of the significance of Bible names is deduced from Ps. xlvi. 8 (9 in the Hebrew): ‘Come, behold the works of the Lord, who hath made names on earth,’ the word ‘desolations,’ shamoth, being altered to shemoth, ‘names.’ In general, that section, from Ber. 3 b, to the end of 8 a, is full of Haggadic Scripture interpretations. On fol. 4 a there is the curious symbolical derivation of Mephibosheth, who is supposed to have set David right on halakhic questions, as Mippi bosheth: ‘from my mouth shaming,’ ‘because he put to shame the face of David in the Halakhah.’ Similarly in Siphré (Par. Behaalothekha, ed. Friedmann, p. 20 a) we have very beautiful and ingenious interpretations of the names Reuel, Hobab and Jethro. But the application which Philo made of this symbolism was very different. Everything became symbolical in his hands, if it suited his purpose: numbers (in a very arbitrary manner), beasts, birds, fowls, creeping things, plants, stones, elements, substances, conditions, even sex - and so a term or an expression might even have several and contradictory meanings, from which the interpreter was at liberty to choose.

From the consideration of the method by which Philo derived from Scriptures his theological views, we turn to a brief analysis of these views.¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸     It would be impossible here to give the references, which would occupy too much space.

1. Theology. - In reference to God, we find, side by side, the apparently contradictory views of the Platonic and the Stoic schools. Following the former, the sharpest distinction was drawn between God and the world. God existed neither in space, nor in time; He had neither human qualities nor affections; in fact, He was without any qualities (ͺποιος), and even without any name (ͺͺͺητος) ; hence, wholly uncognisable by man (ͺκατͺληπτος). Thus, changing the punctuation and the accents, the LXX. of Gen. iii. 9 was made to read: ‘Adam, thou art somewhere;’ but God had no somewhere, as Adam seemed to think when he hid himself from Him. In the above sense, also, Ex. iii. 14, and vi. 3, were explained, and the two names Elohim and Jehovah belonged really to the two supreme Divine ‘Potencies,’ while the fact of God’s being uncognisable appeared from Ex. xx. 21.

But side by side with this we have, to save the Jewish, or rather Old Testament, idea of creation and providence, the Stoic notion of God as immanent in the world - in fact, as that alone which is real in it, as always working: in short, to use his own Pantheistic expression, as ‘Himself one and the all’ (εͺς καͺ τͺ πͺν). Chief in His Being is His goodness, the forthgoing of which was the ground of creation. Only the good comes from Him. With matter He can have nothing to do - hence the plural number in the account of creation. God only created the soul, and that only of the good. In the sense of being ‘immanent,’ God is everywhere - nay, all things are really only in Him, or rather He is the real in all. But chiefly is God the wellspring and the light of the soul - its ‘Saviour’ from the ‘Egypt’ of passion. Two things follow. With Philo’s ideas of the sepration between God and matter, it was impossible always to account for miracles or interpositions. Accordingly, these are sometimes allegorised, sometimes rationalistically explained. Further, the God of Philo, whatever he might say to the contrary, was not the God of that Israel which was His chosen people.

2. Intermediary Beings. - Potencies (δυνͺμεις, λͺγοι). If, in what has preceded, we have once and again noticed a remarkable similarity between Philo and the Rabbis, there is a still more curious analogy between his teaching and that of Jewish Mysticism, as ultimately fully developed in the ‘Kabbalah.’ The very term Kabbalah (from qibbel, to hand down) seems to point out not only its descent by oral tradition, but also its ascent to ancient sources. ¹⁸⁹¹⁸⁹    For want of handier material I must take leave to refer to my brief sketch of the Kabbalah in the ‘History of the Jewish Nation,’ pp. 434-446. Its existence is presupposed, and its leading ideas are sketched in the Mishnah.¹⁹⁰¹⁹⁰    Chag. ii. 1. The Targums also bear at least one remarkable trace of it. May it not be, that as Philo frequently refers to ancient tradition, so both Eastern and Western Judaism may here have drawn from one and the same source - we will not venture to suggest, how high up - while each made such use of it as suited their distinctive tendencies? At any rate the Kabbalah also, likening Scripture to a person, compares those who study merely the letter, to them who attend only to the dress; those who consider the moral of a fact, to them who attend to the body; while the initiated alone, who regard the hidden meaning, are those who attend to the soul. Again, as Philo, so the oldest part of the Mishnah¹⁹¹¹⁹¹    Ab. v. 4. designates God as Maqom - ‘the place’ - the τͺπος, the all-comprehending, what the Kabbalists called the EnSoph, ‘the boundless,’ that God, without any quality, Who becomes cognisable only by His manifestations.¹⁹²¹⁹²    In short, the λͺγος σπερματικͺς of the Stoics.

The manifestations of God! But neither Eastern mystical Judaism, nor the philosophy of Philo, could admit of any direct contact between God and creation. The Kabbalah solved the difficulty by their Sephiroth,¹⁹³¹⁹³    Supposed to mean either numerationes, or splendour. But why not derive the word from σφαͺρα? The ten are: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Judgment, Beauty, Triumph, Praise, Foundation, Kingdom. or emanations from God, through which this contact was ultimately brought about, and of which the EnSoph, or crown, was the spring: ‘the source from which the infinite light issued.’ If Philo found greater difficulties, he had also more ready help from the philosophical systems to hand. His Sephiroth were ‘Potencies’ (δυνͺμεις), ‘Words’ (λͺγοι), intermediate powers. ‘Potencies,’ as we imagine, when viewed Godwards; ‘Words,’ as viewed creationwards. They were not emanations, but, according to Plato, ‘archetypal ideas,’ on the model of which all that exists was formed; and also, according to the Stoic idea, the cause of all, pervading all, forming all, and sustaining all. Thus these ‘Potencies’ were wholly in God, and yet wholly out of God. If we divest all this of its philosophical colouring, did not Eastern Judaism also teach that there was a distinction between the Unapproachable God, and God manifest?¹⁹⁴¹⁹⁴    For the teaching of Eastern Judaism in this respect, see Appendix II.: ‘Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

Another remark will show the parallelism between Philo and Rabbinism.¹⁹⁵¹⁹⁵    A very interesting question arises: how far Philo was acquainted with, and influenced by, the Jewish traditional law or the Halakhah. This has been treated by Dr. B. Ritter in an able tractate (Philo u. die Halach.), although he attributes more to Philo than the evidence seems to admit. As the latter speaks of the two qualities (Middoth) of Mercy and Judgment in the Divine Being,¹⁹⁶¹⁹⁶    Jer. Ber. ix. 7. and distinguishes between Elohim as the God of Justice, and Jehovah as the God of Mercy and Grace, so Philo places next to the Divine Word (θεͺος λͺγος), Goodness (ͺγαθοτης), as the Creative Potency (ποιητικͺ δͺναμις), and Power (ͺξουσια), as the Ruling Potency (βασιλικͺ δͺναμις), proving this by a curious etymological derivation of the words for ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ (Θεͺς and κͺριος) - apparently unconscious that the LXX., in direct contradiction, translated Jehovah by Lord (κͺριος), and Elohim by God (Θεͺς)! These two potencies of goodness and power, Philo sees in the two Cherubim, and in the two ‘Angels’ which accompanied God (the Divine Word), when on his way to destroy the cities of the plain. But there were more than these two Potencies. In one place Philo enumerates six, according to the number of the cities of refuge. The Potencies issued from God as the beams from the light, as the waters from the spring, as the breath from a person; they were immanent in God, and yet also without Him - motions on the part of God, and yet independent beings. They were the ideal world, which in its impulse outwards, meeting matter, produced this material world of ours. They were also the angels of God - His messengers to man, the media through whom He reveled Himself.¹⁹⁷¹⁹⁷    At the same time there is a remarkable difference here between Philo and Rabbinism. Philo holds that the creation of the world was brought about by the Potencies, but the Law was given directly through Moses, and not by the mediation of angels. But this latter was certainly the view generally entertained in Palestine as expressed in the LXX. rendering of Deut. xxxii. 2, in the Targumim on that passage, and more fully still in Jos. Ant. xv. 5. 3, in the Midrashim and in the Talmud, where we are told (Macc. 24 a) that only the opening words, ‘I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods but Me,’ were spoken by God Himself. Comp. also Acts vii. 38, 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2.

3. The Logos. - Viewed in its bearing on New Testament teaching, this part of Philo’s system raises the most interesting questions. But it is just here that our difficulties are greatest. We can understand the Platonic conception of the Logos as the ‘archetypal idea,’ and that of the Stoics as the ‘world-reason’ pervading matter. Similarly, we can perceive, how the Apocrypha - especially the Book of Wisdom - following up the Old Testament typical truth concerning ‘Wisdom’ (as specially set forth in the Book of Proverbs) almost arrived so far as to present ‘Wisdom’ as a special ‘Subsistence’ (hypostatising it). More than this, in Talmudical writings, we find mention not only of the Shem, or ‘Name,’¹⁹⁸¹⁹⁸    Hammejuchad, ‘appropriatum;’ hammephorash, ‘expositum,’ ‘separatum,’ the ‘tetragrammaton,’ or four-lettered name, {hebrew}. There was also a Shem with ‘twelve,’ and one with ‘forty-two’ letters (Kidd. 71a). but also of the ‘Shekhinah,’ God as manifest and present, which is sometimes also presented as the Ruach ha Qodesh, of Holy Spirit.¹⁹⁹¹⁹⁹    Or Ruach ham Maqom, Ab. iii. 10, and frequently in the Talmud. But in the Targumim we get yet another expression, which, strange to say, never occurs in the Talmud.²⁰⁰²⁰⁰    Levy (Neuhebr. Wörterb. i. p. 374 a.) seems to imply that in the Midrash the term dibbur occupies the same place and meaning. But with all deference I cannot agree with this opinion, nor do the passages quoted bear it out. It is that of the Memra, Logos, or ‘Word.’ Not that the term is exclusively applied to the Divine Logos.²⁰¹²⁰¹    The ‘word,’ as spoken, is distinguished from the ‘Word’ as speaking, or revealing Himself. The former is generally designated by the term ‘pithgama.’ Thus in Gen. XV. 1, ‘After these words (things) came the “pithgama” of Jehovah to Abram in prophecy, saying, Fear not, Abram, My “Memra” shall be thy strength, and thy very great reward.’ Still, the term Memra, as applied not only to man, but also in reference to God, is not always the equivalent of ‘the Logos.’ But it stands out as perhaps the most remarkable fact in this literature, that God - not as in His permanent manifestation, or manifest Presence - but as revealing Himself, is designated Memra. Altogether that term, as applied to God, occurs in the Targum Onkelos 179 times, in the so-called Jerusalem Targum 99 times, and in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 321 times. A critical analysis shows that in 82 instances in Onkelos, in 71 instances in the Jerusalem Targum, and in 213 instances in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the designation Memra is not only distinguished from God, but evidently refers to God as revealing Himself.²⁰²²⁰²    The various passages in the Targum of Onkelos, the Jerusalem, and the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum on the Pentateuch will be found enumerated and classified, as those in which it is a doubtful, a fair, or an unquestionable inference, that the word Memra is intended for God revealing Himself, in Appendix II.: ‘Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’ But what does this imply? The distinction between God and the Memra of Jehovah is marked in many passages.²⁰³²⁰³    As, for example, Gen. xxviii. 21, ‘the Memra of Jehovah shall be my God.’ Similarly, the Memra of Jehovah is distinguished from the Shekhinah.²⁰⁴²⁰⁴    As, for example, Num. xxiii. 21, ‘the Memra of Jehovah their God is their helper, and the Shekhinah of their King is in the midst of them.’ Nor is the term used instead of the sacred word Jehovah;²⁰⁵²⁰⁵    That term is often used by Onkelos. Besides, the expression itself is ‘the Memra of Jehovah.’ nor for the well-known Old Testament expression ‘the Angel of the Lord;’²⁰⁶²⁰⁶    Onkelos only once (in Ex. iv. 24) paraphrases Jehovah by ‘Malakha.’ nor yet for the Metatron of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and of the Talmud.²⁰⁷²⁰⁷    Metatron, either = μετͺ θρͺνον, or μετͺ τͺραννον. In the Talmud it is applied to the Angel of Jehovah (Ex. xxiii. 20), ‘the Prince of the World,’ ‘the Prince of the Face’ or ‘of the Presence,’ as they call him; he who sits in the innermost chamber before God, while the other angels only hear His commands from behind the veil (Chag. 15 a; 16 a; Toseft. ad Chull. 60 a; Jeb. 16 b). This Metatron of the Talmud and the Kabbalah is also the Adam Qadmon, or archetypal man. Does it then represent an older tradition underlying all these?²⁰⁸²⁰⁸    Of deep interest is Onkelos’ rendering of Deut. xxxiii. 27, where, instead of ‘underneath are the everlasting arms,’ Onkelos has, ‘and by His Memra was the world created,’ exactly as in St John i. 10. Now this divergence of Onkelos from the Hebrew text seems unaccountable. Winer, whose inaugural dissertation, ‘De Onkeloso ejusque paraph. Chald.’ Lips. 1820, most modern writers have followed (with amplifications, chiefly from Luzzato’s Philoxenus), makes no reference to this passage, nor do his successors, so far as I know. It is curious that, as our present Hebrew text of this verse consists of three words, so does the rendering of Onkelos, and that both end with the same word. Is the rendering of Onkelos then a paraphrase, or does it represent another reading? Another interesting passage is Deut. viii. 3. Its quotation by Christ in St. Matt. iv. 4 is deeply interesting, as read in the light of the rendering of Onkelos, ‘Not by bread alone is man sustained, but by every forthcoming Memra from before Jehovah shall man live.’ Yet another rendering of Onkelos is significantly illustrative of 1 Cor. x. 1-4. He renders Deut. xxxiii. 3 ‘with power He brought them out of Egypt; they were led under thy cloud; they journeyed according to (by) thy Memra.’ Does this represent a difference in Hebrew from the admittedly difficult text in our present Bible? Winer refers to it as an instance in which Onkelos ‘suopte ingenio et copiose admodum eloquitur vatum divinorum mentem,’ adding, ‘ita ut de his, quas singulis vocibus inesse crediderit, significationibus non possit recte judicari;’ and Winer’s successors say much the same. But this is to state, not to explain, the difficulty. In general, we may here be allowed to say that the question of the Targumim has scarcely received as yet sufficient treatment. Mr. Deutsch’s Article in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible’ (since reprinted in his ‘Remains’) is, though brilliantly written, unsatisfactory. Dr. Davidson (in Kitto’s Cyclop., vol. iii. pp. 948-966) is, as always, careful, laborious, and learned. Dr. Volck’s article (in Herzog’s Real-Encykl., vol. xv. pp. 672-683) is without much intrinsic value, though painstaking. We mention these articles, besides the treatment of the subject in the Introduction to the Old Testament (Keil, De Wette-Schrader, Bleek-kamphausen, Reuss), and the works of Zunz, Geiger, Noldeke, and others, to whom partial reference has already been made. Frankel’s interesting and learned book (Zu dem Targum der Propheten) deals almost exclusively with the Targum Jonathan, on which it was impossible to enter within our limits. As modern brochures of interest the following three may be mentioned: Maybaum, Anthropomorphien bei Onkelos; Grönemann, Die Jonath. Pentat. Uebers. im Verhaltn. z. Halacha; and Singer, Onkelos im Verhaltn. z. Halacha. Beyond this Rabbinic theology has not preserved to us the doctrine of Personal distinctions in the Godhead. And yet, if words have any meaning, the Memra is a hypostasis, though the distinction of permanent, personal Subsistence is not marked. Nor yet, to complete this subject, is the Memra identified with the Messiah. In the Targum Onkelos distinct mention is twice made of Him,²⁰⁹²⁰⁹     Gen. xlix. 10, 11; Num. xxiv. 17. while in the other Targumim no fewer than seventy-one Biblical passages are rendered with explicit reference to Him.

If we now turn to the views expressed by Philo about the Logos we find that they are hesitating, and even contradictory. One thing, however, is plain: the Logos of Philo is not the Memra of the Targumim. For, the expression Memra ultimately rests on theological, that of Logos on philosophical grounds. Again, the Logos of Philo approximates more closely to the Metatron of the Talmud and Kabbalah. As they speak of him as the ‘Prince of the Face,’ who bore the name of his Lord, so Philo represents the Logos as ‘the eldest Angel,’ ‘the many-named Archangel,’ in accordance with the Jewish view that the name JeHoVaH unfolded its meaning in seventy names for the Godhead.²¹⁰²¹⁰    See the enumeration of these 70 Names in the Baal-ha-Turim on Numb. xi. 16. As they speak of the ‘Adam Qadmon,’ so Philo of the Logos as the human reflection of the eternal God. And in both these respects, it is worthy of notice that he appeals to ancient teaching.²¹¹²¹¹    Comp. Siegfried, u. s., pp. 221-223.

What, then, is the Logos of Philo? Not a concrete personality, and yet, from another point of view, not strictly impersonal, nor merely a property of the Deity, but the shadow, as it were, which the light of God casts - and if Himself light, only the manifested reflection of God, His spiritual, even as the world is His material, habitation. Moreover, the Logos is ‘the image of God’ (εͺκͺν) upon which man was made,²¹²²¹²     Gen. i. 27. or, to use the platonic term, ‘the archetypal idea.’ As regards the relation between the Logos and the two fundamental Potencies (from which all others issue), the latter are variously represented - on the one hand, as proceeding from the Logos; and on the other, as themselves constituting the Logos. As regards the world, the Logos is its real being. He is also its archetype; moreover the instrument (ͺργανον) through Whom God created all things. If the Logos separates between God and the world, it is rather as intermediary; He separates, but He also unites. But chiefly does this hold true as regards the relation between God and man. The Logos announces and interprets to man the will and mind of God (ͺρμηνεͺς καͺ προφͺτης); He acts as mediator; He is the real High-Priest, and as such by His purity takes away the sins of man, and by His intercession procures for us the mercy of God. Hence Philo designates Him not only as the High-Priest, but as the ‘Paraclete.’ He is also the sun whose rays enlighten man, the medium of Divine revelation to the soul; the Manna, or support of spiritual life; He Who dwells in the soul. And so the Logos is, in the fullest sense, Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God, the king of righteousness (βασιλεͺς δͺκαιος), and the king of Salem (βασιλεͺς εͺρͺνης), Who brings righteousness and peace to the soul.²¹³²¹³    De Leg. Alleg. iii. 25, 26. But the Logos ‘does not come into any soul that is dead in sin.’ That there is close similarity of form between these Alexandrian views and much in the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, must be evident to all - no less than that there is the widest possible divergence in substance and spirit.²¹⁴²¹⁴    For a full discussion of this similarity of form and divergence of spirit, between Philo - or, rather, between Alexandrianism - and the Epistle to the Hebrews, the reader is referred to the masterly treatise by Riehm (Der Lehrbegriff d. Hebräerbr. ed. 1867, especially pp. 247-268, 411-424, 658-670, and 855-860). The author’s general view on the subject is well and convincingly formulated on p. 249. We must, however, add, in opposition to Riehm, that, by his own showing the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews displays few traces of a Palestinian training. The Logos of Philo is shadowy, unreal, not a Person;²¹⁵²¹⁵    On the subject of Philo’s Logos generally the brochure of Harnoch (Königsberg, 1879) deserves perusal, although it does not furnish much that is new. In general, the student of Philo ought especially to study the sketch by Zeller in his Philosophie der Gr. vol. iii. pt. ii. 3rd ed. pp. 338-418. there is no need of an atonement; the High-Priest intercedes, but has no sacrifice to offer as the basis of His intercession, least of all that of Himself; the old Testament types are only typical ideas, not typical facts; they point to a Prototypal Idea in the eternal past, not to an Antitypal Person and Fact in history; there is no cleansing of the soul by blood, no sprinkling of the Mercy Seat, no access for all through the rent veil into the immediate Presence of God; nor yet a quickening of the soul from dead works to serve the living God. If the argumentation of the Epistle to the Hebrews is Alexandrian, it is an Alexandrianism which is overcome and past, which only furnishes the form, not the substance, the vessel, not its contents. The closer therefore the outward similarity, the greater is the contrast in substance.

The vast difference between Alexandrianism and the New Testament will appear still more clearly in the views of Philo on Cosmology and Anthropology. In regard to the former, his results in some respects run parallel to those of the students of mysticism in the Talmud, and of the Kabbalists. Together with the Stoic view, which represented God as ‘the active cause’ of this world, and matter as ‘the passive,’ Philo holds the Platonic idea, that matter was something existent, and that is resisted God.²¹⁶²¹⁶    With singular and characteristic inconsistency, Philo, however, ascribes also to God the creation of matter (de Somn. i. 13). Such speculations must have been current among the Jews long before, to judge by certain warning given by the Son of Sirach.²¹⁷²¹⁷    As for example Ecclus. iii. 21-24. ²¹⁸²¹⁸    So the Talmudists certainly understood it, Jer. Chag. ii. 1. And Stoic views of the origin of the world seem implied even in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon (i. 7; vii. 24; viii. 1; xii. 1).²¹⁹²¹⁹    Comp. Grimm, Exeg. Handb. zu d. Apokr., Lief. vi. pp. 55, 56. The mystics in the Talmud arrived at similar conclusions, not through Greek, but through Persian teaching. Their speculations²²⁰²²⁰    They were arranged into those concerning the Maasey Bereshith (Creation), and the Maasey Merkabbah, ‘the chariot’ of Ezekiel’s vision (Providence in the widest sense, or God’s manifestation in the created world). boldly entered on the dangerous ground,²²¹²²¹    Of the four celebrities who entered the ‘Pardes,’ or enclosed Paradise of theosophic speculation, one became an apostate, another died, a third went wrong (Ben Soma), and only Akiba escaped unscathed, according to the Scripture saying, ‘Draw me, and we will run’ (Chag. 14 b). forbidden to the many, scarcely allowed to the few,²²²²²²    'It is not lawful to enter upon the Maasey Bereshith in presence of two, nor upon the Merkabhah in presence of one, unless he be a “sage,” and understands of his own knowledge. Any one who ratiocinates on these four things, it were better for him that he had not been born: What is above and what is below; what was afore, and what shall be hereafter.’ (Chag. ii. 1). where such deep questions as the origin of our world and its connection with God were discussed. It was, perhaps, only a beautiful poetic figure that God had taken of the dust under the throne of His glory, and cast it upon the waters, which thus became earth.²²³²²³     Shem. R. 13. But so far did isolated teachers become intoxicated²²⁴²²⁴     ‘Ben Soma went astray (mentally): he shook the (Jewish) world.’ by the new wine of these strange speculations, that they whispered it to one another that water was the original element of the world,²²⁵²²⁵     That criticism, which one would designate as impertinent, which would find this view in 2 Peter iii. 5, is, alas! not confined to Jewish writers, but hazarded even by De Wette. which had successively been hardened into snow and then into earth.²²⁶²²⁶    Jer. Chag. 77 a. ²²⁷²²⁷    Judah bar Pazi, in the second century. Ben Soma lived in the first century of our era. Other and later teachers fixed upon the air or the fire as the original element, arguing the pre-existence of matter from the use of the word ‘made’ in Gen. i. 7. instead of ‘created.’ Some modified this view, and suggested that God had originally created the three elements of water, air or spirit, and fire, from which all else was developed.²²⁸²²⁸    According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. i. I) the firmament was at first soft, and only gradually became hard. According to Ber. R. 10, God created the world from a mixture of fire and snow, other Rabbis suggesting four original elements, according to the quarters of the globe, or else six, adding to them that which is above and that which is below. A very curious idea is that of R. Joshua ben Levi, according to which all the works of creation were really finished on the first day, and only, as it were, extended on the other days. This also represents really a doubt of the Biblical account of creation. Strange though it may sound, the doctrine of development was derived from the words (Gen. ii. 4). ‘These are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created, in the day when Jahveh Elohim made earth and heavens.’ It was argued, that the expression implied, they were developed from the day in which they had been created. Others seem to have held, that the three principal things that were created - earth, heaven, and water - remained, each for three days, at the end of which they respectively developed what is connected with them (Ber. R. 12). Traces also occur of the doctrine of the pre-existence of things, in a sense similar to that of Plato.²²⁹²²⁹    Ber. R. i.

Like Plato and the Stoics, Philo regarded matter as devoid of all quality, and even form. Matter in itself was dead - more than that, it was evil. This matter, which was already existing, God formed (not made), like an architect who uses his materials according to a pre-existing plan - which in this case was the archetypal world.

This was creation, or rather formation, brought about not by God Himself, but by the Potencies, especially by the Logos, Who was the connecting bond of all. As for God, His only direct work was the soul, and that only of the good, not of the evil. Man’s immaterial part had a twofold aspect: earthwards, as Sensuousness (αͺσθησις); and heavenwards, as Reason (νοͺς). The sensuous part of the soul was connected with the body. It had no heavenly past, and would have no future. But ‘Reason’ (νοͺς) was that breath of true life which God had breathed into man (πνεͺμα) whereby the earthy became the higher, living spirit, with its various faculties. Before time began the soul was without body, an archetype, the ‘heavenly man,’ pure spirit in Paradise (virtue), yet even so longing after its ultimate archetype, God. Some of these pure spirits descended into bodies and so lost their purity. Or else, the union was brought about by God and by powers lower than God (dæmons, δημιουργοͺ). To the latter is due our earthly part. God breathed on the formation, and the ‘earthly Reason’ became ‘intelligent’ ‘spiritual’ soul (ψυχͺ νοερͺ). Our earthly part alone is the seat of sin.²³⁰²³⁰    For further notices on the Cosmology and Anthropology of Philo, see Appendix II.: ‘Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

This leads us to the great question of Original Sin. Here the views of Philo are those of the Eastern Rabbis. But both are entirely different from those on which the argument in the Epistle to the Romans turns. It was neither at the feet of Gamaliel, nor yet from Jewish Hellenism, that Saul of Tarsus learned the doctrine of original sin. The statement that as in Adam all spiritually died, so in Messiah all should be made alive,²³¹²³¹    We cannot help quoting the beautiful Haggadic explanation of the name Adam, according to its three letters, A, D, M - as including these three names, Adam, David, Messiah. finds absolutely no parallel in Jewish writings.²³²²³²    Raymundus Martini, in his ‘Pugio Fidei’ (orig. ed. p. 675; ed. Voisin et Carpzov, pp. 866, 867), quotes from the book Siphré: ‘Go and learn the merit of Messiah the King, and the reward of the righteous from the first Adam, on whom was laid only one commandment of a prohibitive character, and he transgressed it. See how many deaths were appointed on him, and on his generations, and on the generations of his generations to the end of all generations. (Wünsche, Leiden d. Mess. p. 65, makes here an unwarrantable addition, in his translation.) But which attribute (measuring?) is the greater - the attribute of goodness or the attribute of punishment (retribution)? He answered, the attribute of goodness is the greater, and the attribute of punishment the less. And Messiah the King, who was chastened and suffered for the transgressors, as it is said, “He was wounded for our transgressions,” and so on, how much more shall He justify (make righteous, by His merit) all generations; and this is what is meant when it is written, “And Jehovah made to meet upon Him the sin of us all.”’ We have rendered this passage as literally as possible, but we are bound to add that it is not found in any now existing copy of Siphré. What may be called the starting point of Christian theology, the doctrine of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall of Adam, and of the consequent entire and helplesss corruption of our nature, is entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of physical death was indeed traced to the sin of our first parents.²³³²³³    Death is not considered an absolute evil. In short, all the various consequences which Rabbinical writings ascribe to the sin of Adam may be designated either as physical, or, if mental, as amounting only to detriment, loss, or imperfectness. These results had been partially counteracted by Abraham, and would be fully removed by the Messiah. Neither Enoch nor Elijah had sinned, and accordingly they did not die. Comp. generally, Hamburger, Geist d. Agada, pp. 81-84, and in regard to death as connected with Adam, p. 85. But the Talmud expressly teaches,²³⁴²³⁴    Ber. 61 a. that God originally created man with two propensities,²³⁵²³⁵    These are also hypostatised as Angels. Comp. Levy, Chald. Wörterb. p. 342 a; Neuhebr. Wörterb. p. 259, a, b. one to good and one to evil (Yetser tobh, and Yetser hara²³⁶²³⁶     Or with ‘two reins,’ the one, advising to good, being at his right, the other, counselling evil, at his left, according to Eccles. x. 2 (Ber. 61 a, towards the end of the page). ). The evil impulse began immediately after birth.²³⁷²³⁷    Sanh. 91 b. ²³⁸²³⁸    In a sense its existence was necessary for the continuance of this world. The conflict between these two impulses constituted the moral life of man. But it was within the power of man to vanquish sin, and to attain perfect righteousness; in fact, this stage had actually been attained.²³⁹²³⁹    The solitary exception here is 4 Esdras, where the Christian doctrine of original sin is most strongly expressed, being evidently derived from New Testament teaching. Comp. especially 4 Esdras (our Apocryphal 2 Esdras) vii. 46-53, and other passages. Wherein the hope of safety lay, appears in ch. ix.

Similarly, Philo regarded the soul of the child as ‘naked’ (Adam and Eve), a sort of tabula rasa, as wax which God would fain form and mould. But this state ceased when ‘affection’ presented itself to reason, and thus sensuous lust arose, which was the spring of all sin. The grand task, then, was to get rid of the sensuous, and to rise to the spiritual. In this, the ethical part of his system, Philo was most under the influence of Stoic philosophy. We might almost say, it is no longer the Hebrew who Hellenises, but the Hellene who Hebraises. And yet it is here also that the most ingenious and wide reaching allegorisms of Scripture are introduced. It is scarcely possible to convey an idea of how brilliant this method becomes in the hands of Philo, how universal its application, or how captivating it must have proved. Philo describes man’s state as, first one of sensuousness, but also of unrest, misery and unsatisfied longing. If persisted in, it would end in complete spiritual insensibility.²⁴⁰²⁴⁰    Symbolised by Lot’s wife. But from this state the soul must pass to one of devotion to reason.²⁴¹²⁴¹    Symbolised by Ebher, Hebrew. This change might be accomplished in one of three ways: first, by study - of which physical was the lowest; next, that which embraced the ordinary circle of knowledge; and lastly, the highest, that of Divine philosophy. The second method was Askesis: discipline, or practice, when the soul turned from the lower to the higher. But the best of all was the third way: the free unfolding of that spiritual life which cometh neither from study nor discipline, but from a natural good disposition. And in that state the soul had true rest²⁴²²⁴²    The Sabbath, Jerusalem. and joy.²⁴³²⁴³     For further details on these points see Appendix II.: ‘Philo and Rabbinic Theology.’

Here we must for the present pause.²⁴⁴²⁴⁴    The views of Philo on the Messiah will be presented in another connection. Brief as this sketch of Hellenism has been, it must have brought the question vividly before the mind, whether and how far certain parts of the New Testament, especially the fourth Gospel,²⁴⁵²⁴⁵    This is not the place to enter on the question of the composition, date, and authorship of the four Gospels. But as regards the point on which negative criticism has of late spoken strongest, and on which, indeed (as Weiss rightly remarks) the very existence of ‘the Tübingen School’ depends - that of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel, I would refer to Weiss, Leben Jesu (1882: vol. i. pp. 84-139), and to Dr. Salmon’s Introd. to the New Test. pp. 266-365. are connected with the direction of thought described in the preceding pages. Without yielding to that school of critics, whose perverse ingenuity discerns everywhere a sinister motive or tendency in the Evangelic writers,²⁴⁶²⁴⁶    No one not acquainted with this literature can imagine the character of the arguments sometimes used by a certain class of critics. To say that they proceed on the most forced perversion of the natural and obvious meaning of passages, is but little. But one cannot restrain moral indignation on finding that to Evangelists and Apostles is imputed, on such grounds, not only systematic falsehood, but falsehood with the most sinister motives. it is evident that each of them had a special object in view in constructing his narrative of the One Life; and primarily addressed himself to a special audience. If, without entering into elaborate discussion, we might, according to St. Luke i. 2, regard the narrative of St. Mark as the grand representative of that authentic ‘narration’ (διͺγησις), though not by Apostles,²⁴⁷²⁴⁷     I do not, of course, mean that the narration of St. Mark was not itself derived chiefly from Apostolic preaching, especially that of St. Peter. In general, the question of the authorship and source of the various Gospels must be reserved for separate treatment in another place. which was in circulation, and the Gospel by St. Matthew as representing the ‘tradition’ handed down (the παρͺδοσις), by the Apostolic eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,²⁴⁸²⁴⁸    Comp. Mangold’s ed. of Bleek, Einl. in d. N.T. (3te Aufl. 1875), p. 346. we should reach the following results. Our oldest Gospel-narrative is that by St. Mark, which, addressing itself to no class in particular, sketches in rapid outlines the picture of Jesus as the Messiah, alike for all men. Next in order of time comes our present Gospel by St. Matthew. It goes a step further back than that by St. Mark, and gives not only the genealogy, but the history of the miraculous birth of Jesus. Even if we had not the consensus of tradition every one must feel that this Gospel is Hebrew in its cast, in its citations from the Old Testament, and in its whole bearing. Taking its key-note from the Book of Daniel, that grand Messianic text-book of Eastern Judaism at the time, and as re-echoed in the Book of Enoch - which expresses the popular apprehension of Daniel’s Messianic idea - it presents the Messiah chiefly as ‘the Son of Man,’ ‘the Son of David,’ ‘the Son of God.’ We have here the fulfilment of Old Testament law and prophecy; the realisation of Old Testament life, faith, and hope. Third in point of time is the Gospel by St. Luke, which, passing back another step, gives us not only the history of the birth of Jesus, but also that of John, ‘the preparer of the way.’ It is Pauline, and addresses itself, or rather, we should say, presents the Person of the Messiah, it may be ‘to the Jew first,’ but certainly ‘also to the Greek.’ The term which St. Luke, alone of all Gospel writers,²⁴⁹²⁴⁹    With the sole exception of St. Matt. xii. 18, where the expression is a quotation from the LXX. of Is. xlii. 1. applies to Jesus, is that of the παͺς or ‘servant’ of God, in the sense in which Isaiah has spoken of the Messiah as the ‘Ebhed Jehovah,’ ‘servant of the Lord.’ St. Luke’s is, so to speak, the Isaiah-Gospel, presenting the Christ in His bearing on the history of God’s Kingdom and of the world - as God’s Elect Servant in Whom He delighted. In the Old Testament, to adopt a beautiful figure,²⁵⁰²⁵⁰    First expressed by Delitzsch (Bibl. Comm. ü. d. Proph. Jes. p. 414), and then adopted by Oehler (Theol.  d. A. Test. vol. ii. pp. 270-272). the idea of the Servant of the Lord is set before us like a pyramid: at its base it is all Israel, at its central section Israel after the Spirit (the circumcised in heart), represented by David, the man after God’s own heart; while at its apex it is the ‘Elect’ Servant, the Messiah.²⁵¹²⁵¹    The two fundamental principles in the history of the Kingdom of God are selection and development. It is surely remarkable, not strange, that these are also the two fundamental truths in the history of that other Kingdom of God, Nature, if modern science has read them correctly. These two substantives would mark the facts as ascertained; the adjectives, which are added to them by a certain class of students, mark only their inferences from these facts. These facts may be true, even if as yet incomplete, although the inferences may be false. Theology should not here rashly interfere. But whatever the ultimate result, these two are certainly the fundamental facts in the history of the Kingdom of God, and, marking them as such, the devout philosopher may rest contented. And these three ideas, with their sequences, are presented in the third Gospel as centring in Jesus the Messiah. By the side of this pyramid is the other: the Son of Man, the Son of David, the Son of God. The Servant of the Lord of Isaiah and of Luke is the Enlightener, the Consoler, the victorious Deliverer; the Messiah or Anointed: the Prophet, the Priest, the King.

Yet another tendency - shall we say, want? - remained, so to speak, unmet and unsatisfied. That large world of latest and most promising Jewish thought, whose task it seemed to bridge over the chasm between heathenism and Judaism - the Western Jewish world, must have the Christ presented to them. For in every direction is He the Christ. And not only they, but that larger Greek world, so far as Jewish Hellenism could bring it to the threshold of the Church. This Hellenistic and Hellenic world now stood in waiting to enter it, though as it were by its northern porch, and to be baptized at its font. All this must have forced itself on the mind of St. John, residing in the midst of them at Ephesus, even as St. Paul’s Epistles contain almost as many allusions to Hellenism as to Rabbinism.²⁵²²⁵²    The Gnostics, to whom, in the opinion of many, so frequent references are made in the writings of St. John and St. Paul, were only an offspring (rather, as the Germans would term it, an Abart) of Alexandrianism on the one hand, and on the other of Eastern notions, which are so largely embodied in the later Kabbalah. And so the fourth Gospel became, not the supplement, but the complement, of the other three.²⁵³²⁵³    A complement, not a supplement, as many critics put it (Ewald, Weizsäcker, and even Hengstenberg) - least of all a rectification (Godet, Evang. Joh. p. 633). There is no other Gospel more Palestinian than this in its modes of expression, allusions, and references. Yet we must all feel how thoroughly Hellenistic it also is in its cast,²⁵⁴²⁵⁴    Keim (Leben Jesu von Nazara, i. a, pp. 112-114) fully recognises this; but I entirely differ from the conclusions of his analytical comparison of Philo with the fourth Gospel. in what it reports and what it omits - in short, in its whole aim; how adapted to Hellenist wants its presentation of deep central truths; how suitably, in the report of His Discourses - even so far as their form is concerned - the promise was here fulfilled, of bringing all things to remembrance whatsoever He had said.²⁵⁵²⁵⁵    St. John xiv. 26 It is the true Light which shineth, of which the full meridian-blaze lies on the Hellenist and Hellenic world. There is Alexandrian form of thought not only in the whole conception, but in the Logos,²⁵⁶²⁵⁶    The student who has carefully considered the views expressed by Philo about the Logos, and analysed, as in the Appendix, the passages in the Targumim in which the word Memra occurs, cannot fail to perceive the immense difference in the presentation of the Logos by St. John. Yet M. Renan, in an article in the ‘Contemporary Review’ for September 1877, with utter disregard of the historical evidence on the question, maintains not only the identity of these three sets of ideas, but actually grounds on it his argument against the authenticity of the fourth Gospel. Considering the importance of the subject, it is not easy to speak with moderation of assertions so bold based on statements so entirely inaccurate. and in His presentation as the Light, the Life, the Wellspring of the world.²⁵⁷²⁵⁷    Dr. Bucher, whose book, Des Apostels Johannes Lehre vom Logos, deserves careful perusal, tries to trace the reason of these peculiarities as indicated in the Prologue of the fourth Gospel. Bucher differentiates at great length between the Logos of Philo and of the fourth Gospel. He sums up his views by stating that in the Prologue of St. John the Logos is presented as the fulness of Divine Light and Life. This is, so to speak, the theme, while the Gospel history is intended to present the Logos as the giver of this Divine Light and Life. While the other Evangelists ascend from the manifestation to the idea of the Son of God, St. John descends from the idea of the Logos, as expressed in the Prologue, to its concrete realisation in His history. The latest tractate (at the present writing, 1882) on the Gospel of St. John, by Dr. Müller, Die Johann. Frage, gives a good summary of the argument on both sides, and deserves the careful attention of students of the question. But these forms are filled in the fourth Gospel with quite other substance. God is not afar off, uncognisable by man, without properties, without name. He is the Father. Instead of a nebulous reflection of the Deity we have the Person of the Logos; not a Logos with the two potencies of goodness and power, but full of grace and truth. The Gospel of St. John also begins with a ‘Bereshith’ - but it is the theological, not the cosmic Bereshith, when the Logos was with God and was God. Matter is not pre-existent; far less is it evil. St. John strikes the pen through Alexandrianism when he lays it down as the fundamental fact of New Testament history that ‘the Logos was made flesh,’ just as St. Paul does when he proclaims the great mystery of ‘God manifest in the flesh.’ Best of all, it is not by a long course of study, nor by wearing discipline, least of all by an inborn good disposition, that the soul attains the new life, but by a birth from above, by the Holy Ghost, and by simple faith which is brought within reach of the fallen and the lost.²⁵⁸²⁵⁸    I cannot agree with Weiss (u. s., p. 122) that the great object of the fourth Gospel was to oppose the rising Gnostic movement, This may have been present to the Apostle’s mind, as evidenced in his Epistle, but the object in view could not have been mainly, nor even primarily, negative and controversial.

Philo had no successor. In him Hellenism had completed its cycle. Its message and its mission were ended. Henceforth it needed, like Apollos, its great representative in the Christian Church, two things: the baptism of John to the knowledge of sin and need, and to have the way of God more perfectly expounded.²⁵⁹²⁵⁹     Acts xviii 24-28 On the other hand, Eastern Judaism had entered with Hillel on a new stage. This direction led farther and farther away from that which the New Testament had taken in following up and unfolding the spiritual elements of the Old. That development was incapable of transformation or renovation. It must go on to its final completion, and be either true, or else be swept away and destroyed.

i.i.58

CHAPTER V.
ALEXANDRIA AND ROME - THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE CAPITALS OF WESTERN CIVILISATION.

We have spoken of Alexandria as the capital of the Jewish world in the West. Antioch was, indeed, nearer to Palestine, and its Jewish population - including the floating part of it - as numerous as that of Alexandria. But the wealth, the thought, and the influence of Western Judaism centred in the modern capital of the land of the Pharaohs. In those days Greece was the land of the past, to which the student might resort as the home of beauty and of art, the time hallowed temple of thought and of poetry. But it was also the land of desolateness and of ruins, where fields of corn waved over the remains of classic antiquity. The ancient Greeks had in great measure sunk to a nation of traders, in keen competition with the Jews. Indeed, Roman sway had levelled the ancient world, and buried its national characteristics. It was otherwise in the far East; it was otherwise also in Egypt. Egypt was not a land to be largely inhabited, or to be ‘civilised’ in the then sense of the term: soil, climate, history, nature forbade it. Still, as now, and even more than now, was it the dream-land of untold attractions to the traveller. The ancient, mysterious Nile still rolled its healing waters out into the blue sea, where (so it was supposed) they changed its taste within a radius farther than the eye could reach. To be gently borne in bark or ship on its waters, to watch the strange vegetation and fauna of its banks; to gaze beyond, where they merged into the trackless desert; to wander under the shade of its gigantic monuments, or within the wierd avenues of its colossal temples, to see the scroll of mysterious hieroglyphics; to note the sameness of manner and of people as of old, and to watch the unique rites of its ancient religion - this was indeed to be again in the old far-away world, and that amidst a dreaminess bewitching the senses, and a gorgeousness dazzling the imagination.²⁶⁰²⁶⁰    What charm Egypt had for the Romans may be gathered from so many of their mosaics and frescoes. Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. ii. pp. 134-136.

We are still far out at sea, making for the port of Alexandria - the only safe shelter all along the coast of Asia and Africa. Quite thirty miles out the silver sheen of the lighthouse on the island of Pharos²⁶¹²⁶¹    This immense lighthouse was square up to the middle, then covered by an octagon, the top being round. The last recorded repairs to this magnificent structure of blocks of marble were made in the year 1303 of our era. - connected by a mole with Alexandria - is burning like a star on the edge of the horizon. Now we catch sight of the palmgroves of Pharos; presently the anchor rattles and grates on the sand, and we are ashore. What crowd of vessels of all sizes, shapes and nationalities; what a multitude of busy people; what a very Babel of languages; what a commingling of old and new world civilisation; and what a variety of wares piled up, loading or unloading!

Alexandria itself was not an old Egyptian, but a comparatively modern, city; in Egypt and yet not of Egypt. Everything was in character - the city, its inhabitants, public life, art, literature, study, amusements, the very aspect of the place. Nothing original anywhere, but combination of all that had been in the ancient world, or that was at the time - most fitting place therefore to be the capital of Jewish Hellenism.

As its name indicates, the city was founded by Alexander the Great. It was built in the form of an open fan, or rather, of the outspread cloak of a Macedonian horseman. Altogether, it measured (16,360 paces) 3,160 paces more than Rome; but its houses were neither so crowded nor so many-storied. It had been a large city when Rome was still inconsiderable, and to the last held the second place in the Empire. One of the five quarters into which the city was divided, and which were named according to the first letters of the alphabet, was wholly covered by the royal palaces, with their gardens, and similar buildings, including the royal mausoleum, where the body of Alexander the Great, preserved in honey, was kept in a glass coffin. But these, and its three miles of colonnades along the principal highway, were only some of the magnificent architectural adornments of a city full of palaces. The population amounted, probably, to nearly a million, drawn from the East and West by trade, the attractions of wealth, the facilities for study, or the amusements of a singularly frivolous city. A strange mixture of elements among the people, combining the quickness and versatility of the Greek with the gravity, the conservatism, the dream-grandeur, and the luxury of the Eastern.

Three worlds met in Alexandria: Europe, Asia, and Africa; and brought to it, or fetched from it, their treasures. Above all, it was a commercial city, furnished with an excellent harbour - or rather with five harbours. A special fleet carried, as tribute, from Alexandria to Italy, two-tenths of the corn produce of Egypt, which sufficed to feed the capital for four months of the year. A magnificent fleet it was, from the light quick sailer to those immense corn-ships which hoisted a special flag, and whose early arrival was awaited at Puteoli²⁶²²⁶²    The average passage from Alexandria to Puteoli was twelve days, the ships touching at Malta and in Sicily. It was in such a ship, the ‘Castor and Pollux’ carrying wheat, that St. Paul sailed from Malta to Puteoli, where it would be among the first arrivals of the season. with more eagerness than that of any modern ocean-steamer.²⁶³²⁶³    They bore, painted on the two sides of the prow, the emblems of the gods to whom they were dedicated, and were navigated by Egyptian pilots, the most reowned in the world. One of these vessels is described as 180 by 45 feet and of about 1,575 tons, and is computed to have returned to its owner nearly 3,000l. annually. (Comp. Friedländer, u.s. vol. ii. p. 131, &c.) And yet these were small ships compared with those built for the conveyance of marble blocks and columns, and especially of obelisks. One of these is said to have carried, besides an obelisk, 1,200 passenger, a freight of paper, nitre, pepper, linen, and a large cargo of wheat. The commerce of India was in the hands of the Alexandrian shippers.²⁶⁴²⁶⁴    The journey took about three months, either up the Nile, thence by caravan, and again by sea; or else perhaps by the Ptolemy Canal and the Red Sea. Since the days of the Ptolemies the Indian trade alone had increased sixfold.²⁶⁵²⁶⁵    It included gold-dust, ivory, and mother-of-pearl from the interior of Africa, spices from Arabia, pearls from the Gulf of Persia, precious stones and byssus from India, and silk from China. Nor was the native industry inconsiderable. Linen goods, to suit the tastes or costumes of all countries; woolen stuffs of every hue, some curiously wrought with figures, and even scenes; glass of every shade and in every shape; paper from the thinnest sheet to the coarsest packing paper; essences, perfumeries - such were the native products. However idly or luxuriously inclined, still every one seemed busy, in a city where (as the Emperor Hadrian expressed it) ‘money was the people’s god;’ and every one seemed well-to-do in his own way, from the waif in the streets, who with little trouble to himself could pick up sufficient to go to the restaurant and enjoy a comfortable dinner of fresh or smoked fish with garlic, and his pudding, washed down with the favourite Egyptian barley beer, up to the millionaire banker, who owned a palace in the city and a villa by the canal that connected Alexandria with Canobus. What a jostling crowd of all nations in the streets, in the market (where, according to the joke of a contemporary, anything might be got except snow), or by the harbours; what cool shades, delicious retreats, vast halls, magnificent libraries, where the savants of Alexandria assembled and taught every conceivable branch of learning, and its far-famed physicians prescribed for the poor consumptive patients sent thither from all parts of Italy! What bustle and noise among that ever excitable, chatty conceited, vain, pleasure-loving multitude, whose highest enjoyment was the theatre and singers; what scenes on that long canal to Canobus, lined with luxurious inns, where barks full of pleasure-seekers revelled in the cool shade of the banks, or sped to Canobus, that scene of all dissipation and luxury, proverbial even in those days! And yet, close by, on the shores of Lake Mareotis, as if in grim contrast, were the chosen retreats of that sternly ascetic Jewish party, the Therapeutæ,²⁶⁶²⁶⁶    On the existence of the Therapeutes comp. Art. Philo in Smith & Wace’s Dict. of Chr. Biogr. vol. iv. whose views and practices in so many points were kindred to those of the Essenes in Palestine!

This sketch of Alexandria will help us to understand the surroundings of the large mass of Jews settled in the Egyptian capital. Altogether more than an eighth of the population of the country (one million in 7,800,000) was Jewish. Whether or not a Jewish colony had gone into Egypt at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or even earlier, the great mass of its residents had been attracted by Alexander the Great,²⁶⁷²⁶⁷    Mommsen (Röm. Gesch. v. p. 489) ascribes this rather to Ptolemy I. who had granted the Jews equally exceptional privileges with the Macedonians. The later troubles of Palestine under the Syrian kings greatly swelled their number, the more so that the Ptolemies, with one exception, favoured them. Originally a special quarter had been assigned to the Jews in the city - the ‘Delta’ by the eastern harbour and the Canobus canal - probably alike to keep the community separate, and from its convenience for commercial purposes. The priveleges which the Ptolemies had accorded to the Jews were confirmed, and even enlarged, by Julius Cæsar. The export trade in grain was now in their hands, and the harbour and river police committed to their charge. Two quarters in the city are named as specially Jewish - not, however, in the sense of their being confined to them. Their Synagogues, surrounded by shady trees, stood in all parts of the city. But the chief glory of the Jewish community in Egypt, of which even the Palestinians boasted, was the great central Synagogue, built in the shape of a basilica, with double colonnade, and so large that it needed a signal for those most distant to know the proper moment for the responses. The different trade guilds sat there together, so that a stranger would at once know where to find Jewish employers or fellow-workmen.²⁶⁸²⁶⁸    Sukk. 51 b. In the choir of this Jewish cathedral stood seventy chairs of state, encrusted with precious stones, for the seventy elders who constituted the eldership of Alexandria, on the model of the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

It is a strange, almost inexplicable fact, that the Egyptian Jews had actually built a schismatic Temple. During the terrible Syrian persecutions in Palestine Onias, the son of the murdered High-Priest Onias III., had sought safety in Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor not only received him kindly, but gave a disused heathen temple in the town of Leontopolis for a Jewish sanctuary. Here a new Aaronic priesthood ministered, their support being derived from the revenues of the district around. The new Temple, however, resembled not that of Jerusalem either in outward appearance nor in all its internal fittings.²⁶⁹²⁶⁹    Instead of the seven-branched golden candlestick there was a golden lamp, suspended from a chain of the same metal. At first the Egyptian Jews were very proud of their new sanctuary, and professed to see in it the fulfilment of the prediction,²⁷⁰²⁷⁰    Is xix. 18. that five cities in the land of Egypt should speak the language of Canaan, of which one was to be called Ir-ha-Heres, which the LXX. (in their original form, or by some later emendation) altered into ‘the city of righteousness.’ This temple continued from about 160 b.c. to shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. It could scarcely be called a rival to that on Mount Moriah, since the Egyptian Jews also owned that of Jerusalem as their central sanctuary, to which they made pilgrimages and brought their contributions,²⁷¹²⁷¹    Philo, ii. 646, ed. Mangey. while the priests at Leontopolis, before marrying, always consulted the official archives in Jerusalem to ascertain the purity of descent of their intended wives.²⁷²²⁷²    Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 7. The Palestinians designated it contemptuously as ‘the house of Chonyi’ (Onias), and declared the priesthood of Leontopolis incapable of serving in Jerusalem, although on a par with those who were disqualified only by some bodily defect. Offerings brought in Leontopolis were considered null, unless in the case of vows to which the name of this Temple had been expressly attached.²⁷³²⁷³    Men. xiii. 10, and the Gemara, 109 a and b. This qualified condemnation seems, however, strangely mild, except on the supposition that the statements we have quoted only date from a time when both Temples had long passed away.

Nor were such feelings unreasonable. The Egyptian Jews had spread on all sides - southward to Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and westward to, and beyond, the province of Cyrene. In the city of that name they formed one of the four classes into which its inhabitants were divided.²⁷⁴²⁷⁴    Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7, 2. A Jewish inscription at Berenice, apparently dating from the year 13 b.c., shows that the Cyrenian Jews formed a distinct community under nine ‘rulers’ of their own, who no doubt attended to the communal affairs - not always an easy matter, since the Cyrenian Jews were noted, if not for turbulence, yet for strong anti-Roman feeling, which more than once was cruelly quenched in blood.²⁷⁵²⁷⁵    Could there have been any such meaning in laying the Roman cross which Jesus had to bear upon a Cyrenian (St. Luke xxiii. 26)? A symbolical meaning it certainly has, as we remember that the last Jewish rebellion (132-135 a.d.), which had Bar Cochba for its Messiah, first broke out in Cyrene. What terrible vengeance was taken on those who followed the false Christ, cannot here be told. Other inscriptions prove,²⁷⁶²⁷⁶     Jewish inscriptions have also been found in Mauritania and Algiers. that in other places of their dispersion also the Jews had their own Archontes or ‘rulers,’ while the special direction of public worship was always entrusted to the Archisynagogos, or ‘chief ruler of the Synagogue,’ both titles occurring side by side.²⁷⁷²⁷⁷    On a tombstone at Capua (Mommsen, Inscr. R. Neap. 3,657, apud Schürer, p 629). The subject is of great importance as illustrating the rule of the Synagogue in the days of Christ. Another designation on the gravestones πατͺρ συναγωγͺς seems to refer solely to age - one being described as 110 years old. It is, to say the least, very doubtful, whether the High-Priest at Leontopolis was ever regarded as, in any real sense, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt.²⁷⁸²⁷⁸    Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. i. p. 345. In Alexandria, the Jews were under the rule of a Jewish Ethnarch,²⁷⁹²⁷⁹    Marquardt (Röm. Staatsverwalt. vol. i. p. 297). Note 5 suggests that ͺθνος may here mean classes, ordo. whose authority was similar to that of ‘the Archon’ of independent cities.²⁸⁰²⁸⁰    Strabo in Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2 But his authority²⁸¹²⁸¹    The office itself would seem to have been continued. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.) was transferred, by Augustus, to the whole ‘eldership.’²⁸²²⁸²    Philo, in Flacc. ed. Mangey, ii. 527 Another, probably Roman, office, though for obvious reasons often filled by Jews, was that of the Alabarch, or rather Arabarch, who was set over the Arab population.²⁸³²⁸³    Comp. Wesseling, de Jud. Archont. pp. 63, &c., apud Schürer, pp. 627,628. Among others, Alexander, the brother of Philo, held this post. If we may judge of the position of the wealthy Jewish families in Alexandria by that of this Alabarch, their influence must have been very great. The firm of Alexander was probably as rich as the great Jewish banking and shipping house of Saramalla in Antioch.²⁸⁴²⁸⁴    Jos. Ant. xiv. 13. 5; War. i. 13, 5 Its chief was entrusted with the management of the affairs of Antonia, the much respected sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius.²⁸⁵²⁸⁵    Ant. xix 5. 1 It was a small thing for such a man to lend King Agrippa, when his fortunes were very low, a sum of about 7,000l. with which to resort to Italy,²⁸⁶²⁸⁶    Ant. xviii. 6.3 since he advanced it on the guarantee of Agrippa’s wife, whom he highly esteemed, and at the same time made provision that the money should not be all spent before the Prince met the Emperor. Besides, he had his own plans in the matter. Two of his sons married daughters of King Agrippa; while a third, at the price of apostasy, rose successively to the posts of Procurator of Palestine, and finally of Governor of Egypt.²⁸⁷²⁸⁷    Ant. xix. 5. 1; xx. 5. 3 The Temple at Jerusalem bore evidence of the wealth and munificence of this Jewish millionaire. The gold and silver with which the nine massive gates were covered, which led into the Temple, were the gift of the great Alexandrian banker.

The possession of such wealth, coupled no doubt with pride and self-assertion, and openly spoken contempt of the superstitions around,²⁸⁸²⁸⁸    Comp., for example, such a trenchant chapter as Baruch vi., or the 2nd Fragm. of the Erythr. Sibyl, vv. 21-33. would naturally excite the hatred of the Alexandria populace against the Jews. The greater number of those silly stories about the origin, early history, and religion of the Jews, which even the philosophers and historians of Rome record as genuine, originated in Egypt. A whole series of writers, beginning with Manetho,²⁸⁹²⁸⁹    Probably about 200 b.c. made it their business to give a kind of historical travesty of the events recorded in the books of Moses. The boldest of these scribblers was Apion, to whom Josephus replied - a world-famed charlatan and liar, who wrote or lectured, with equal presumption and falseness, on every conceivable object. He was just the man to suit the Alexandrians, on whom his unblushing assurance imposed. In Rome he soon found his level, and the Emperor Tiberius well characterised the irrepressible boastful talker as the ‘tinkling cymbal of the world.’ He had studied, seen, and heard everything - even, on three occasions, the mysterious sound on the Colossus of Memnon, as the sun rose upon it! At least, so he graved upon the Colossus itself, for the information of all generations.²⁹⁰²⁹⁰    Comp. Friedländer, u. s. ii. p. 155. Such was the man on whom the Alexandrians conferred the freedom of their city, to whom they entrusted their most important affairs, and whom they extolled as the victorious, the laborious, the new Homer.²⁹¹²⁹¹     A very good sketch of Apion is given by Hausrath, Neutest. Zeitg. vol. ii. pp. 187-195. There can be little doubt, that the popular favour was partly due to Apion’s virulent attacks upon the Jews. His grotesque accounts of their history and religion held them up to contempt. But his real object was to rouse the fanaticism of the populace against the Jews. Every year, so he told them, it was the practice of the Jews to get hold of some unfortunate Hellene, whom ill-chance might bring into their hands, to fatten him for the year, and then to sacrifice him, partaking of his entrials, and burying the body, while during these horrible rites they took a fearful oath of perpetual enmity to the Greeks. These were the people who battened on the wealth of Alexandria, who had usurped quarters of the city to which they had no right, and claimed exceptional privileges; a people who had proved traitors to, and the ruin of every one who had trusted them. ‘If the Jews,’ he exclaimed, ‘are citizens of Alexandria, why do they not worship the same gods as the Alexandrians?’ And, if they wished to enjoy the protection of the Cæsars, why did they not erect statues, and pay Divine honor to them?²⁹²²⁹²    Jos. Ag. Ap. ii. 4, 5, 6. There is nothing strange in these appeals to the fanaticism of mankind. In one form or another, they have only too often been repeated in all lands and ages, and, alas! by the representatives of all creeds. Well might the Jews, as Philo mourns,²⁹³²⁹³    Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf. wish no better for themselves than to be treated like other men!

We have already seen, that the ideas entertained in Rome about the Jews were chiefly derived from Alexandrian sources. But it is not easy to understand, how a Tacitus, Cicero, or Pliny could have credited such absurdities as that the Jews had come from Crete (Mount Ida - Idæi = Judæi), been expelled on account of leprosy from Egypt, and emigrated under an apostate priest, Moses; or that the Sabbath-rest originated in sores, which had obliged the wanderers to stop short on the seventh day; or that the Jews worshipped the head of an ass, or else Bacchus; that their abstinence from swine’s flesh was due to remembrance and fear of leprosy, or else to the worship of that animal - and other puerilities of the like kind.²⁹⁴²⁹⁴    Comp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 2-4; Plut. Sympos. iv. 5 The educated Roman regarded the Jew with a mixture of contempt and anger, all the more keen that, according to his notions, the Jew had, since his subjection to Rome, no longer a right to his religion; and all the more bitter that, do what he might, that despised race confronted him everywhere, with a religion so uncompromising as to form a wall of separation, and with rites so exclusive as to make them not only strangers, but enemies. Such a phenomenon was nowhere else to be encountered. The Romans were intensely practical. In their view, political life and religion were not only intertwined, but the one formed part of the other. A religion apart from a political organisation, or which offered not, as a quid pro quo, some direct return from the Deity to his votaries, seemed utterly inconceivable. Every country has its own religion, argued Cicero, in his appeal for Flaccus. So long as Jerusalem was unvaquished, Judaism might claim toleration; but had not the immortal gods shown what they thought of it, when the Jewish race was conquered? This was a kind of logic that appealed to the humblest in the crowd, which thronged to hear the great orator defending his client, among others, against the charge of preventing the transport from Asia to Jerusalem of the annual Temple-tribute. This was not a popular accusation to bring against a man in such an assembly. And as the Jews - who, to create a distrubance, had (we are told) distributed themselves among the audience in such numbers, that Cicero somewhat rhetorically declared, he would fain have spoken with bated breath, so as to be only audible to the judges - listened to the great orator, they must have felt a keen pang shoot to their hearts while he held them up to the scorn of the heathen, and touched, with rough finger, their open sore, as he urged the ruin of their nation as the one unanswerable argument, which Materialism could bring against the religion of the Unseen.

And that religion - was it not, in the words of Cicero, a ‘barbarous superstition,’ and were not its adherents, as Pliny had it,²⁹⁵²⁹⁵    Hist. Nat. xiii. 4. ‘a race distinguished for its contempt of the gods?’ To begin with their theology. The Roman philosopher would sympathise with disbelief of all spiritual realities, as, on the other hand, he could understand the popular modes of worship and superstition. But what was to be said for a worship of something quite unseen, an adoration, as it seemed to him, of the clouds and of the sky, without any visible symbol, conjoined with an utter rejection of every other form of religion - Asiatic, Egyptian, Greek, Roman - and the refusal even to pay the customary Divine honor to the Cæsars, as the incarnation of Roman power? Next, as to their rites. Foremost among them was the initiatory rite of circumcision, a constant subject for coarse jests. What could be the meaning of it; or of what seemed like some ancestral veneration for the pig, or dread of it, since they made it a religious duty not to partake of its flesh? Their Sabbath-observance, however it had originated, was merely an indulgence in idleness. The fast young Roman literati would find their amusement in wandering on the Sabbath-eve through the tangled, narrow streets of the Ghetto, watching how the dim lamp within shed its unsavory light, while the inmates mumbled prayers ‘with blanched lips;’²⁹⁶²⁹⁶    Persius v. 184. or they would, like Ovid, seek in the Synagogue occasion for their dissolute amusements. The Thursday fast was another target for their wit. In short, at the best, the Jew was a constant theme of popular merriment, and the theatre would resound with laughter as his religion was lampooned, no matter how absurd the stories, or how poor the punning.²⁹⁷²⁹⁷    Comp. the quotation of such scenes in the Introd. to the Midrash on Lamentations.

And then, as the proud Roman passed on the Sabbath through the streets, Judaism would obtrude itself upon his notice, by the shops that were shut, and by the strange figures that idly moved about in holiday attire. They were strangers in a strange land, not only without sympathy with what passed around, but with marked contempt and abhorrence of it, while there was that about their whole bearing, which expressed the unspoken feeling, that the time of Rome’s fall, and of their own supremacy, was at hand. To put the general feeling in the words of Tacitus, the Jews kept close together, and were ever most liberal to one another; but they were filled with bitter hatred of all others. They would neither eat nor sleep with strangers; and the first thing which they taught their proselytes was to despise the gods, to renounce their own country, and to rend the bonds which had bound them to parents, children or kindred. To be sure, there was some ground of distorted truth in these charges. For, the Jew, as such, was only intended for Palestine. By a necessity, not of his own making, he was now, so to speak, the negative element in the heathen world; yet one which, do what he might, would always obtrude itself upon public notice. But the Roman satirists went further. They accused the Jews of such hatred of all other religionists, that they would not even show the way to any who worshipped otherwise, nor point out the cooling spring to the thirsty.²⁹⁸²⁹⁸    Juv. Sat. xiv. 103, 104 According to Tacitus, there was a political and religious reason for this. In order to keep the Jews separate from all other nations, Moses had given them rites, contrary to those of any other race, that they might regard as unholy what was sacred to others, and as lawful what they held in abomination.²⁹⁹²⁹⁹    Hist. v. 13 Such a people deserved neither consideration nor pity; and when the historian tells how thousands of their number had been banished by Tiberius to Sardinia, he dismisses the probability of their perishing in that severe climate with the cynical remark, that it entailed a ‘poor loss’³⁰⁰³⁰⁰    Ann. ii.85, Comp. Suet. Tib. 36. (vile damnum).

Still, the Jew was there in the midst of them. It is impossible to fix the date when the first Jewish wanderers found their way to the capital of the world. We know, that in the wars under Pompey, Cassius, and Antonius, many were brought captive to Rome, and sold as slaves. In general, the Republican party was hostile, the Cæsars were friendly, to the Jews. The Jewish slaves in Rome proved an unprofitable and troublesome acquisition. They clung so tenaciously to their ancestral customs, that it was impossible to make them conform to the ways of heathen households.³⁰¹³⁰¹    Philo, Leg. ad Caj. ed. Frcf. p. 101. How far they would carry their passive resistance, appears from a story told by Josephus,³⁰²³⁰²    Life 3. about some Jewish priests of his acquaintance, who, during their captivity in Rome, refused to eat anything but figs and nuts, so as to avoid the defilement of Gentile food.³⁰³³⁰³    Lutterbeck (Neutest. Lehrbegr. p. 119), following up the suggestions of Wieseler (Chron. d. Apost. Zeitalt. pp. 384, 402, etc.), regards these priests as the accusers of St. Paul, who brought about his martyrdom. Their Roman masters deemed it prudent to give their Jewish slaves their freedom, either at a small ransom, or even without it. These freedmen (liberti) formed the nucleus of the Jewish community in Rome, and in great measure determined its social character. Of course they were, as always, industrious, sober, pushing. In course of time many of them acquired wealth. By-and-by Jewish immigrants of greater distinction swelled their number. Still their social position was inferior to that of their co-religionists in other lands. A Jewish population so large as 40,000 in the time of Augustus, and 60,000 in that of Tiberius, would naturally included all ranks - merchants, bankers, literati, even actors.³⁰⁴³⁰⁴     Comp., for example, Mart. xi. 94; Jos. Life 3. In a city which offered such temptations, they would number among them those of every degree of religious profession; nay, some who would not only imitate the habits of those around, but try to outdo their gross licentiousness.³⁰⁵³⁰⁵    Martialis, u. s. The ‘Anchialus’ by whom the poet would have the Jew swear, is a corruption of Anochi Elohim (‘I am God’) in Ex. xx. 2. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Isr. vol. vii. p. 27. Yet, even so, they would vainly endeavor to efface the hateful mark of being Jews.

Augustus had assigned to the Jews as their special quarter the ‘fourteenth region’ across the Tiber, which stretched from the slope of the Vatican onwards and across the Tiber-island, where the boats from Ostia were wont to unload. This seems to have been their poor quarter, chiefly inhabited by hawkers, sellers of matches,³⁰⁶³⁰⁶    Mart. i.41; xii. 57. glass, old clothes and second-hand wares. The Jewish burying-ground in that quarter³⁰⁷³⁰⁷     Described by Bosio, but since unknown. Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. iii. pp. 510, 511. gives evidence of their condition. The whole appointments and the graves are mean. There is neither marble nor any trace of painting, unless it be a rough representation of the seven-branched candlestick in red coloring. Another Jewish quarter was by the Porta Capena, where the Appian Way entered the city. Close by, the ancient sanctuary of Egeria was utilized at the time of Juvenal³⁰⁸³⁰⁸    Sat. iii.13; vi. 542. as a Jewish hawking place. But there must have been richer Jews also in that neighborhood, since the burying-place there discovered has paintings - some even of mythological figures, of which the meaning has not yet been ascertained. A third Jewish burying-ground was near the ancient Christian catacombs.

But indeed, the Jewish residents in Rome must have spread over every quarter of the city - even the best - to judge by the location of their Synagogues. From inscriptions, we have been made acquainted not only with the existence, but with the names, of not fewer than seven of these Synagogues. Three of them respectively bear the names of Augustus, Agrippa, and Volumnius, either as their patrons, or because the worshippers were chiefly their attendants and clients; while two of them derived their names from the Campus Martius, and the quarter Subura in which they stood.³⁰⁹³⁰⁹    Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. iii. p.510. The ‘Synagoge Elaias’ may have been so called from bearing on its front the device of an olive-tree, a favourite, and in Rome specially significant, emblem of Israel, whose fruit, crushed beneath heavy weight, would yield the precious oil by which the Divine light would shed its brightness through the night of heathendom.³¹⁰³¹⁰    Midr. R. on Ex. 36. Of course, there must have been other Synagogues besides those whose names have been discovered.

One other mode of tracking the footsteps of Israel’s wanderings seems strangely significant. It is by tracing their records among the dead, reading them on broken tombstones, and in ruined monuments. They are rude, and the inscriptions - most of them in bad Greek, or still worse Latin, none in Hebrew - are like the stammering of strangers. Yet what a contrast between the simple faith and earnest hope which they express, and the grim proclamation of utter disbelief in any future to the soul, not unmixed with language of coarsest materialism, on the graves of so many of the polished Romans ! Truly the pen of God in history has, as so often, ratified the sentence which a nation had pronounced upon itself. That civilisation was doomed which could inscribe over its dead such words as: ‘To eternal sleep;’ ‘To perpetual rest;’ or more coarsely express it thus, ‘I was not, and I became; I was, and am no more. Thus much is true; who says other, lies; for I shall not be,’ adding, as it were by way of moral, ‘And thou who livest, drink, play, come.’ Not so did God teach His people; and, as we pick our way among these broken stones, we can understand how a religion, which proclaimed a hope so different, must have spoken to the hearts of many even at Rome, and much more, how that blessed assurance of life and immortality, which Christianity afterwards brought, could win its thousands, though it were at the cost of poverty, shame, torture, and the arena.

Wandering from graveyard to graveyard, and deciphering the records of the dead, we can almost read the history of Israel in the days of the Cæsars, or when Paul the prisoner set foot on the soil of Italy. When St. Paul, on the journey of the ‘Castor and Pollux,’ touched at Syracuse, he would, during his stay of three days, find himself in the midst of a Jewish community, as we learn from an inscription. When he disembarked at Puteoli, he was in the oldest Jewish settlement next to that of Rome,³¹¹³¹¹     Jos. Ant. xvii. 12. 1; War ii. 7. 1. where the loving hospitality of Christian Israelites constrained him to tarry over a Sabbath. As he ‘went towards Rome,’ and reached Capua, he would meet Jews there, as we infer from the tombstone of one ‘Alfius Juda,’ who had been ‘Archon’ of the Jews, and ‘Archisynagogus’ in Capua. As he neared the city, he found in Anxur (Terracina) a Synagogue.³¹²³¹²    Comp. Cassel, in Ersch u. Gruber’s Encyclop. 2d sect. vol. xxvii. p. 147. In Rome itself the Jewish community was organized as in other places.³¹³³¹³    Acts xxviii. 17. It sounds strange, as after these many centuries we again read the names of the Archons of their various Synagogues, all Roman, such as Claudius, Asteris, Julian (who was Archon alike of the Campesian and the Agrippesian Synagogue priest, the son of Julian the Archisynagogus, or chief of the eldership of the Augustesian Synagogue). And so in other places. On these tombstones we find names of Jewish Synagogue-dignitaries, in every centre of population, in Pompeii, in Venusia, the birthplace of Horace; in Jewish catacombs; and similarly Jewish inscriptions in Africa, in Asia, in the islands of the Mediterranean, in Ægina, in Patræ, in Athens. Even where as yet records of their early settlements have not been discovered, we still infer their presence, as we remember the almost incredible extent of Roman commerce, which led to such large settlements in Britain, or as we discover among the tombstones those of ‘Syrian’ merchants, as in Spain (where St. Paul hoped to preach, no doubt, also to his own countrymen), throughout Gaul, and even in the remotest parts of Germany.³¹⁴³¹⁴    Comp. Friedländer, u. s. vol. ii. pp. 17-204 passim. Thus the statements of Josephus and of Philo, as to the dispersion of Israel throughout all lands of the known world, are fully borne out.

But the special importance of the Jewish community in Rome lay in its contiguity to the seat of the government of the world, where every movement could be watched and influenced, and where it could lend support to the wants and wishes of that compact body which, however widely scattered, was one in heart and feeling, in thought and purpose, in faith and practice, in suffering and in prosperity. ³¹⁵³¹⁵    It was probably this unity of Israelitish interests which Cicero had in view (Pro Flacco, 28) when he took such credit for his boldness in daring to stand up against the Jews - unless, indeed, the orator only meant to make a point in favour of his client. Thus, when upon the death of Herod a deputation from Palestine appeared in the capital to seek the restoration of their Theocracy under a Roman protectorate,³¹⁶³¹⁶    Jos. Ant. xvii. 11. 1; War. ii. 6. 1. no less than 8,000 of the Roman Jews joined it. And in case of need they could find powerful friends, not only among the Herodian princes, but among court favourites who were Jews, like the actor of whom Josephus speaks;³¹⁷³¹⁷    Life 3. among those who were inclined towards Judaism, like Poppæa, the dissolute wife of Nero, whose coffin as that of a Jewess was laid among the urns of the emperors;³¹⁸³¹⁸    Schiller (Gesch. d. Röm. Kaiserreichs, p. 583) denies that Poppæa was a proselyte. It is, indeed, true, as he argues, that the fact of her entombment affords no absolute evidence of this, if taken by itself; but comp. Jos. Ant. xx. 8. 11; Life 3. or among real proselytes, like those of all ranks who, from superstition or conviction, had identified themselves with the Synagogue.³¹⁹³¹⁹    The question of Jewish proselytes will be treated in another place.

In truth, there was no law to prevent the spread of Judaism. Excepting the brief period when Tiberius³²⁰³²⁰    19 a.d. banished the Jews from Rome and sent 4,000 of their number to fight the banditti in Sardinia, the Jews enjoyed not only perfect liberty, but exceptional privileges. In the reign of Cæsar and of Augustus we have quite a series of edicts, which secured the full exercise of their religion and their communal rights.³²¹³²¹    Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, passim, and xvi. 6. These edicts are collated in Krebs. Decreta Romanor. pro Jud. facta, with long comments by the author, and by Levyssohn. In virtue of these they were not to be disturbed in their religious ceremonies, nor in the observance of their sabbaths and feasts. The annual Temple-tribute was allowed to be transported to Jerusalem, and the alienation of these funds by the civil magistrates treated as sacrilege. As the Jews objected to bear arms, or march, on the Sabbath, they were freed from military service. On similar grounds, they were not obliged to appear in courts of law on their holy days. Augustus even ordered that, when the public distribution of corn or of money among the citizens fell on a Sabbath, the Jews were to receive their share on the following day. In a similar spirit the Roman authorities confirmed a decree by which the founder of Antioch, Seleucus I. (Nicator),³²²³²²    Ob.280 b.c. had granted the Jews the right of citizenship in all the cities of Asia Minor and Syria which he had built, and the privilege of receiving, instead of the oil that was distributed, which their religion forbade them to use,³²³³²³    Ab. Sar ii. 6. an equivalent in money.³²⁴³²⁴    Jos. Ant. xii. 3. 1. These rights were maintained by Vespasian and Titus even after the last Jewish war, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of these cities. No wonder, that at the death of Cæsar³²⁵³²⁵    44 b.c. the Jews of Rome gathered for many nights, waking strange feelings of awe in the city, as they chanted in mournful melodies their Psalms around the pyre on which the body of their benefactor had been burnt, and raised their pathetic dirges.³²⁶³²⁶    Suet. Cæs. 84. The measures of Sejanus, and ceased with his sway. Besides, they were the outcome of public feeling at the time against all foreign rites, which had been roused by the vile conduct of the priests of Isis towards a Roman matron, and was again provoked by a gross imposture upon Fulvia, a noble Roman proselyte, on the part of some vagabond Rabbis. But even so, there is no reason to believe that literally all Jews had left Rome. Many would find means to remain secretly behind. At any rate, twenty years afterwards Philo found a large community there, ready to support him in his mission on behalf of his Egyptian countrymen. Any temporary measures against the Jews can, therefore, scarcely be regarded as a serious interference with their privileges, or a cessation of the Imperial favour shown to them.

i.75

CHAPTER VI.
POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE JEWISH DISPERSION IN THE WEST - THEIR UNION IN THE GREAT HOPE OF THE COMING DELIVERER.

It was not only in the capital of the Empire that the Jews enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship. Many in Asia Minor could boast of the same privilege.³²⁷³²⁷    Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, passim; Acts xxii. 25-29. The Seleucidic rulers of Syria had previously bestowed kindred privileges on the Jews in many places. Thus, they possessed in some cities twofold rights: the status of Roman and the privileges of Asiatic, citizenship. Those who enjoyed the former were entitled to a civil government of their own, under archons of their choosing, quite independent of the rule and tribunals of the cities in which they lived. As instances, we may mention the Jews of Sardis, Ephesus, Delos, and apparently also of Antioch. But, whether legally entitled to it or not, they probably everywhere claimed the right of self-government, and exercised it, except in times of persecution. But, as already stated, they also possessed, besides this, at least in many places, the privileges of Asiatic citizenship, to the same extent as their heathen fellow-citizens. This twofold status and jurisdiction might have led to serious complications, if the archons had not confined their authority to strictly communal interests,³²⁸³²⁸    Comp. Acts xix. 14 ix. 2. without interfering with the ordinary administration of justice, and the Jews willingly submitted to the sentences pronounced by their own tribunals.

But, in truth, they enjoyed even more than religious liberty and communal privileges. It was quite in the spirit of the times, that potentates friendly to Israel bestowed largesses alike on the Temple in Jerusalem, and on the Synagogues in the provinces. The magnificent porch of the Temple was ‘adorned’ with many such ‘dedicated gifts.’ Thus, we read of repeated costly offerings by the Ptolemies, of a golden wreath which Sosius offered after he had taken Jerusalem in conjunction with Herod, and of rich flagons which Augustus and his wife had given to the Sanctuary.³²⁹³²⁹    Jos. Ant. xii. 2. 5; xiii. 3. 4; Ag. Ap.ii. 5; Ant. xiv. 16. 4; War v. 13. And, although this same Emperor praised his grandson for leaving Jerusalem unvisited on his journey from Egypt to Syria, yet he himself made provision for a daily sacrifice on his behalf, which only ceased when the last war against Rome was proclaimed.³³⁰³³⁰    Jos. War ii. 10. 4; ii. 17. Even the circumstance that there was a ‘Court of the Gentiles,’ with marble screen beautifully ornamented, bearing tablets which, in Latin and Greek, warned Gentiles not to proceed further,³³¹³³¹    One of these tablets has lately been excavated. Comp. ‘The Temple: its Ministry and Services in the Time of Christ,’ p. 24. proves that the Sanctuary was largely attended by others than Jews, or, in the words of Josephus, that ‘it was held in reverence by nations from the ends of the earth.’³³²³³²    War iv. 4. 3; comp. War ii. 17. 2-4.

In Syria also, where, according to Josephus, the largest number of Jews lived,³³³³³³    War, vii. 3. 3. they experienced special favour. In Antioch their rights and immunities were recorded on tables of brass.³³⁴³³⁴    War, vii. 5. 2.

But, indeed, the capital of Syria was one of their favourite resorts. It will be remembered what importance attached to it in the early history of the Christian Church. Antioch was the third city of the Empire, and lay just outside what the Rabbinists designated as ‘Syria’ and still regarded as holy ground. Thus it formed, so to speak, an advanced post between the Palestinian and the Gentile world. Its chief Synagogue was a magnificent building, to which the successors of Antiochus Epiphanes had given the spoils which that monarch had brought from the Temple. The connection between Jerusalem and Antioch was very close. All that occurred in that city was eagerly watched in the Jewish capital. The spread of Christianity there must have excited deep concern. Careful as the Talmud is not to afford unwelcome information, which might have led to further mischief, we know that three of the principal Rabbis went thither on a mission - we can scarcely doubt for the purpose of arresting the progress of Christianity. Again, we find at a later period a record of religious controversy in Antioch between Rabbis and Christians.³³⁵³³⁵     Comp. generally Neubauer, Géogr. du Talmud, pp. 312, 313. Yet the Jews of Antioch were strictly Hellenistic, and on one occasion a great Rabbi was unable to find among them a copy of even the Book of Esther in Hebrew, which, accordingly, he had to write out from memory for his use in their Synagogue. A fit place this great border-city, crowded by Hellenists, in close connection with Jerusalem, to be the birthplace of the name ‘Christian,’ to send forth a Paul on his mission to the Gentile world, and to obtain for it a charter of citizenship far nobler than that of which the record was graven on tablets of brass.

But, whatever privileges Israel might enjoy, history records an almost continuous series of attempts, on the part of the communities among whom they lived, to deprive them not only of their immunities, but even of their common rights. Foremost among the reasons of this antagonism we place the absolute contrariety between heathenism and the Synagogue, and the social isolation which Judaism rendered necessary. It was avowedly unlawful for the Jew even ‘to keep company, or come unto one of another nation.’³³⁶³³⁶    Acts x.28. To quarrel with this, was to find fault with the law and the religion which made him a Jew. But besides, there was that pride of descent, creed, enlightenment, and national privileges, which St. Paul so graphically sums up as ‘making boast of God and of the law.’³³⁷³³⁷     Comp. Rom. ii. 17-24. However differently they might have expressed it, Philo and Hillel would have been at one as to the absolute superiority of the Jew as such. Pretensions of this kind must have been the more provocative, that the populace at any rate envied the prosperity which Jewish industry, talent, and capital everywhere secured. Why should that close, foreign corporation possess every civic right, and yet be free from many of its burdens? Why should their meetings be excepted from the ‘collegia illicita?’ why should they alone be allowed to export part of the national wealth, to dedicate it to their superstition in Jerusalem? The Jew could not well feign any real interest in what gave its greatness to Ephesus, it attractiveness to Corinth, its influence to Athens. He was ready to profit by it; but his inmost thought must have been contempt, and all he wanted was quietness and protection in his own pursuits. What concern had he with those petty squabbles, ambitions, or designs, which agitated the turbulent populace in those Grecian cities? What cared he for their popular meetings and noisy discussions? The recognition of the fact that, as Jews, they were strangers in a strange land, made them so loyal to the ruling powers, and procured them the protection of kings and Cæsars. But it also roused the hatred of the populace.

That such should have been the case, and these widely scattered members have been united in one body, is a unique fact in history. Its only true explanation must be sought in a higher Divine impulse. The links which bound them together were: a common creed, a common life, a common centre, and a common hope.

Wherever the Jew sojourned, or however he might differ from his brethern, Monotheism, the Divine mission of Moses, and the authority of the Old Testament, were equally to all unquestioned articles of belief. It may well have been that the Hellenistic Jew, living in the midst of a hostile, curious, and scurrilous population, did not care to exhibit over his house and doorposts, at the right of the entrance, the Mezuzah,³³⁸³³⁸    Ber. iii. 3; Meg. i. 8; Moed K. iii. 4; Men. iii. 7. Comp. Jos. Ant. iv.8.13; and the tractate Mezuzah in Kirchheim, Septem libri Talmud. parvi Hierosol. pp. 12-17. which enclosed the folded parchment that, on twenty-two lines, bore the words from Deut. iv. 4-9 and xi. 13-21, or to call attention by their breadth to the Tephillin,³³⁹³³⁹    St. Matt. xxiii. 5; Ber. i. 3; Shabb. vi. 2; vii. 3; xvi. 1; Er. x. 1, 2; Sheq. iii. 2; Meg. i. 8; iv. 8; Moed. Q. iii. 4; Sanh. xi. 3; Men. iii. 7; iv. 1; Kel. xviii. 8; Miqv. x. 3; yad. iii. 3. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tephillin, u. s. pp. 18-21. or phylacteries on his left arm and forehead, or even to make observable the Tsitsith,³⁴⁰³⁴⁰    Moed K. iii. 4; Eduy. iv. 10; Men. iii. 7; iv. 1. Comp. Kirchheim, Tract. Tsitsith, u. s. pp. 22-24. or fringes on the borders of his garments.³⁴¹³⁴¹    The Tephillin enclosed a transcript of Exod. xiii. 1-10, 11-16; Deut. vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21. The Tsitsith were worn in obedience to the injunction in Num. xv. 37 etc.; Deut. xxii. 12 (comp. St. Matt. ix. 20; xiv. 36; St. Mark v. 27; St. Luke viii. 44). Perhaps, indeed, all these observances may at that time not have been deemed incumbent on every Jew.³⁴²³⁴²    It is remarkable that Aristeas seems to speak only of the phylacteries on the arm, and Philo of those for the head, while the LXX. takes the command entirely in a metaphorical sense. This has already been pointed out in that book of gigantic learning, Spencer, De Leg. Heb. p. 1213. Frankel (Uber d. Einfl. d. Pal. Exeg., pp. 89, 90) tries in vain to controvert the statement. The insufficiency of his arguments has been fully shown by Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Volk. Isr. vol. iii. p. 224). At any rate, we do not find mention of them in heathen writers. Similarly, they could easily keep out of view, or they may not have had conveniences for, their prescribed purifications. But in every place, as we have abundant evidence, where there were at least ten Batlanim - male householders who had leisure to give themselves to regular attendance - they had, from ancient times,³⁴³³⁴³    Acts xv. 21. one, and, if possible, more Synagogues.³⁴⁴³⁴⁴    συναγωγͺ Jos. Ant. xix. 6. 3; War, ii. 14. 4, 5; vii. 3. 3; Philo, Quod omnis probus liber, ed. Mangey, ii. p. 458; συναγͺγιον Philo, Ad Caj. ii. p. 591; σαββατεͺον Jos. Ant. xvi. 66. 2  προσευκτͺριονPhilo, Vita Mosis, lib. iii., ii. p. 168. Where there was no Synagogue there was at least a Proseuche,³⁴⁵³⁴⁵    Acts xvi.13 ³⁴⁶³⁴⁶    προσευχͺ Jos. Ant. xiv. 10 23, life 54; Philo, In Flacc. ii. p. 523; Ad Caj. ii. pp. 565, 596; Epiphan. Haer. 1xxx. 1. Comp. Juven. Sat. iii. 296: ‘Ede ubi consistas? in qua te quæro proseucha?’ open sky, after the form of a theatre, generally outside the town, near a river or the sea, for the sake of lustrations. These, as we know from classical writers, were well known to the heathen, and even frequented by them. Their Sabbath observance, their fasting on Thursdays, their Day of Atonement, their laws relating to food, and their pilgrimages to Jerusalem - all found sympathisers among Judaising Gentiles.³⁴⁷³⁴⁷    Comp., among others, Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 76; Juv. Sat. xvi. 96, 97; Hor. Sat. i. 5. 100; 9. 70; Suet. Aug. 93. They even watched to see, how the Sabbath lamp was kindled, and the solemn prayers spoken which marked the beginning of the Sabbath.³⁴⁸³⁴⁸    Persius v. 180. But to the Jew the Synagogue was the bond of union throughout the world. There, on Sabbath and feast days they met to read, from the same Lectionary, the same Scripture-lessons which their brethren read throughout the world, and to say, in the words of the same liturgy, their common prayers, catching echoes of the gorgeous Temple-services in Jerusalem. The heathen must have been struck with awe as they listened, and watched in the gloom of the Synagogue the mysterious light at the far curtained end, where the sacred oracles were reverently kept, wrapped in costly coverings. Here the stranger Jew also would find himself at home: the same arrangements as in his own land, and the well-known services and prayers. A hospitable welcome at the Sabbath-meal, and in many a home, would be pressed on him, and ready aid be proffered in work or trial.

For, deepest of all convictions was that of their common centre; strongest of all feelings was the love which bound them to Palestine and to Jerusalem, the city of God, the joy of all the earth, the glory of His people Israel. ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,’ Hellenist and Eastern equally realised this. As the soil of his native land, the deeds of his people, or the graves of his fathers draw the far-off wanderer to the home of his childhood, or fill the mountaineer in his exile with irrepressible longing, so the sounds which the Jew heard in his Synagogue, and the observances which he kept. Nor was it with him merely matter of patriotism, of history, or of association. It was a religious principle, a spiritual hope. No truth more firmly rooted in the consciousness of all, than that in Jerusalem alone men could truly worship.³⁴⁹³⁴⁹    St. John iv. 20. As Daniel of old had in his hour of worship turned towards the Holy City, so in the Synagogue and in his prayers every Jew turned towards Jerusalem; and anything that might imply want of reverence, when looking in that direction, was considered a grievous sin. From every Synagogue in the Diaspora the annual Temple-tribute went up to Jerusalem,³⁵⁰³⁵⁰    Comp. Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2; xvi. 6, passium; Philo, De Monarchia, ed. Mangey, ii. p. 224; Ad Caj. ii. p. 568; Contra Flacc. ii. p. 524. no doubt often accompanied by rich votive offerings. Few, who could undertake or afford the journey, but had at some time or other gone up to the Holy City to attend one of the great feasts.³⁵¹³⁵¹    Philo, De Monarchia, ii. p. 223. Philo, who was held by the same spell as the most bigoted Rabbinist, had himself been one of those deputed by his fellow-citizens to offer prayers and sacrifices in the great Sanctuary.³⁵²³⁵²    Philo, in a fragment preserved in Euseb., Præpar. Ev. viii. 13. What the Temple was in the estimation of Israel, and what its loss boded, not only to them, but to the whole world, will be shown in a later part of this book. Views and feelings of this kind help us to understand, how, on some great feast, as Josephus states on sufficient authority, the population of Jerusalem - within its ecclesiastical boundaries - could have swelled to the enormous number of nearly three millions.³⁵³³⁵³    War vi. 9. 3; comp. ii. 14. 3

And still, there was an even stronger bond in their common hope. That hope pointed them all, wherever scattered, back to Palestine. To them the coming of the Messiah undoubtedly implied the restoration of Israel’s kingdom, and, as a first part in it, the return of ‘the dispersed.’³⁵⁴³⁵⁴     Even Maimonides, in spite of his desire to minimise the Messianic expectancy, admits this. Indeed, every devout Jew prayed, day by day: ‘Proclaim by Thy loud trumpet our deliverance, and raise up a banner to gather our dispersed, and gather us together from the four ends of the earth. Blessed be Thou, O Lord! Who gatherest the outcasts of Thy people Israel.’³⁵⁵³⁵⁵    This is the tenth of the eighteen (or rather nineteen) benedictions in the daily prayers. Of these the first and the last three are certainly the oldest. But this tenth also dates from before the destruction of Jerusalem. Comp. Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. d. Juden, p. 368. That prayer included in its generality also the lost ten tribes. So, for example, the prophecy³⁵⁶³⁵⁶    Hos. xi. 11. was rendered: ‘They hasten hither, like a bird out of Egypt,’ - referring to Israel of old; ‘and like a dove out of the land of Assyria’ - referring to the ten tribes.³⁵⁷³⁵⁷    Midr. On Cant. i. 15, ed. Warshau, p. 11b. ³⁵⁸³⁵⁸     Comp. Jer. Sanh. x. 6; Sanh. 110 b: Yalk. Shim. And thus even these wanderers, so long lost, were to be reckoned in the field of the Good Shepherd.³⁵⁹³⁵⁹     The suggestion is made by Castelli, Il Messia, p. 253.

It is worth while to trace, how universally and warmly both Eastern and Western Judaism cherished this hope of all Israel’s return to their own land. The Targumim bear repeated reference to it;³⁶⁰³⁶⁰    Notably in connection with Ex. Xii. 42 (both in the Pseudo-Jon. And Jer. Targum); Numb. xxiv. 7 (Jer. Targ.); Deut. xxx.4 (targ. Ps.-Jon.); Is xiv. 29; Jer. xxxiii. 13; Hos. xiv. 7; Zech. x. 6. Dr. Drummond, in his ‘Jewish Messiah,’ p. 335, quotes from the Targum on Lamentations. But this dates from long after the Talmudic period. and although there may be question as to the exact date of these paraphrases, it cannot be doubted, that in this respect they represented the views of the Synagogue at the time of Jesus. For the same reason we may gather from the Talmud and earliest commentaries, what Israel’s hope was in regard to the return of the ‘dispersed.’³⁶¹³⁶¹    As each sentence which follows would necessitate one or more references to different works, the reader, who may be desirous to verify the statements in the text, is generally referred to Castelli, u. s. pp. 251-255. It was a beautiful idea to liken Israel to the olive-tree, which is never stripped of its leaves.³⁶²³⁶²    Men. 53 b. The storm of trial that had swept over it was, indeed, sent in judgment, but not to destroy, only to purify. Even so, Israel’s persecutions had served to keep them from becoming mixed with the Gentiles. Heaven and earth might be destroyed, but not Israel; and their final deliverance would far outstrip in marvellousness that from Egypt. The winds would blow to bring together the dispersed; nay, if there were a single Israelite in a land, however distant, he would be restored. With every honour would the nations bring them back. The patriarchs and all the just would rise to share in the joys Patræ of the new possession of their land; new hymns as well as the old ones would rise to the praise of God. Nay, the bounds of the land would be extended far beyond what they had ever been, and made as wide as originally promised to Abraham. Nor would that possession be ever taken from them, nor those joys be ever succeeded by sorrows.³⁶³³⁶³    The fiction of two Messiahs - one the Son of David, the other the Son of Joseph, the latter being connected with the restoration of the ten tribes - has been conclusively shown to be the post-Christian date (comp. Schöttgen, Horæ Hebr. i. p. 359; and Wünsche, Leiden d. Mess. p. 109). Possibly it was invented to find an explanation for Zech. xii. 10 (comp. Succ. 52 a), just as the Socinian doctrine of the assumption of Christ into heaven at the beginning of His ministry was invented to account for St. John iii. 13. In view of such general expectations we cannot fail to mark with what wonderful sobriety the Apostles put the question to Jesus: ‘Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’³⁶⁴³⁶⁴    Acts i.6.

Hopes and expectations such as these are expressed not only in Talmudical writings. We find them throughout that very interesting Apocalyptic class of literature, the Pseudepigrapha, to which reference has already been made. The two earliest of them, the Book of Enoch and the Sibylline Oracles, are equally emphatic on this subject. The seer in the Book of Enoch beholds Israel in the Messianic time as coming in carriages, and as borne on the wings of the wind from East, and West, and South.³⁶⁵³⁶⁵     Book of En. ch. lvii.; comp. xc.33. Fuller details of that happy event are furnished by the Jewish Sibyl. In her utterances these three events are connected together: the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Temple,³⁶⁶³⁶⁶    B. iii. 286-294; comp. B. v. 414-433. and the restoration of the dispersed,³⁶⁷³⁶⁷    B. iii. 732-735. when all nations would bring their wealth to the House of God.³⁶⁸³⁶⁸    B. iii. 766-783. ³⁶⁹³⁶⁹    M. Maurice Vernes (Hist. Des Idées Messian. pp. 43-119) maintains that the writers of Enoch and Or. Sib. 3 expected this period under the rule of the Maccabees, and regarded one of them as the Messiah. It implies a peculiar reading of history, and a lively imagination, to arrive at such a conclusion. The latter trait specially reminds us of their Hellenistic origin. A century later the same joyous confidence, only perhaps more clearly worded, appears in the so-called ‘Psalter of Solomon.’ Thus the seventeenth Psalm bursts into this strain: ‘Blessed are they who shall live in those days - in the reunion of the tribes, which God brings about.’³⁷⁰³⁷⁰    Ps. of Sol. vxii. 50; comp. also Ps. xi. And no wonder, since they are the days when ‘the King, the Son of David,’³⁷¹³⁷¹    Ps. Sal. xviii. 23. having purged Jerusalem³⁷²³⁷²    v. 25. and destroyed the heathen by the word of His mouth,³⁷³³⁷³    v. 27. would gather together a holy people which He would rule with