a theocracy founded on laws supposed to have been personally given by Jehovah, and placed under his immediate sanction. That which impressed the mind of the Hebrew was the direct communication between Jehovah and his people, which he firmly believed to take place. Whatever was commanded in the name of Jehovah, therefore, received an authority which it could never otherwise obtain. Dean Milman1 supposes that the superstitious veneration for the law which was exhibited by the Jews was only gradually acquired. We know, however, with what veneration the Romans regarded their primitive statutes, and it is highly probable that the same feeling was extremely strong among the Hebrews from the commencement of their history as a separate nation. The influence which that feeling had over the Jewish mind is well shown by the writer just referred to. He says: "The consecration of the second temple, and the re-establishment of the State, was accompanied by the ready and solemn recognition of the law. By degrees, attachment to the law sank deeper and deeper into the national character; and it was not merely at once their Bible and their statutebook, it entered into the most minute detail of common life. But no written law can provide for all possible contingencies; whether general and comprehensive, or minute and multifarious, it equally requires the expositor to adapt it to the immediate case which may occur, either before the public tribunal, or that of the private conscience. Hence the law became a deep and intricate study. Certain men rose to acknowledged eminence for their ingenuity in explaining, their readiness in applying, their facility in quoting, and their clearness in offering solutions of the difficult passages of the written statutes. Learning in the law became the 1 "History of the Jews" (4th Edition), vol. i., p. 133, note.

great distinction to which all alike paid deferential homage. Public and private affairs depended on the sanction of this self-formed spiritual aristocracy.

Every duty of life, of social intercourse between man and man, to omit its weightier authority as the national code of criminal and civil jurisprudence, was regulated by an appeal to the book of the law."1

There is no doubt that the sense of duty thus created would in many minds be very powerful and productive of much social good. It would be accompanied, however, by extreme narrow-mindedness and by absurd moral prejudices. There would, moreover, be great danger that the broad duties of morality would be sacrificed to the petty requirements of ceremonial law. It was because the law was supposed to be the actual word of Jehovah that it had from the very first so great an influence over the Hebrew mind. All its commands were' binding, because they rested on the will of Jehovah. Apart from this they had no authority. The same principle required, however, that the laws which more immediately concerned the duties owing to Jehovah himself should be viewed as of greater importance than those which relate only to man. From the earliest period of the Jewish State, the most prominent part of the legislation had reference to religious ceremonial observances, and so long as these were duly attended to, the necessity of conforming to the simple moral requirements of social law would come gradually to be more and more lost sight of. There would, in fact, be a tendency to revert to the condition of semi-barbarous life, where the religious sense is developed at the expense of all that we know as morality. That this was the case among the Hebrews under the later kings is evident from the denunciations of the prophets, who 1 "History of the Jews" vol. ii., p. 409.

deplored the moral degradation of the people much more than their want of religious zeal. Thus we read: “The word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of Jehovah, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the Elohim of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt : Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.' No doubt, after the return from the captivity, there was in many respects a change for the better; but it is evident from the state of things in Jerusalem, during its last siege by the Romans, that the moral condition of the Jews had again reached a very low point, although religious fanaticism was then as strong as at any other period.

2

"1

Probably among no people pretending to any great degree of culture, was what Mr Bain calls the sentimental side of morality, so strongly and persistently developed. Jesus bitterly complained of the Scribes and Pharisees that they put their tradition in the place of the law, applying to them the saying, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do

1 Jeremiah, vii. 1, seq.

2 See Milman, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 170, seq., 289, seq.

"1

2

they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Elsewhere he accuses them of laying on men's shoulders heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and he denounces them as hypocrites: "For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith." While thus pandering to a depraved religious sense, the Jews neglected the moral duties required for the "public security," the result being the destruction of the Hebrews as a people. The cause is obvious. When the laws of morality are founded simply on the will of God, so soon as the sense of religion is weakened, or becomes limited in its object to sentimental" observances, the sanctions of morality disappear, and with them nearly all traces of moral principle. Thus it was with the Hebrews, among whom morality was always subordinate to religion, and in whom, therefore, religious emotions and sentiments were cultivated at the expense of the moral conscience.3

When discussing the form of government which was established under Moses, Ewald ascribes the recognition of the Spiritual God as the sole ruler of the people, even in secular matters, to the power of the higher religion which rose upon the soil of older communities.* Not merely the existence of such a religion, but the teaching of it “with a perfectly living fulness," Ewald thinks is implied in the giving of the Ten Commandments, if these are considered in their intrinsic character and significance.5 This is a somewhat feeble basis for such 1 St Matthew, xv. 3, seq.

2 Do., xxiii. 4, seq., 23 seq.

3 This is not inconsistent with the view entertained by the author of "Literature and Dogma." Righteousness-that is, religion-is pre-eminently revealed in the Bible, but Israel fell for want of righteousness, or of that "morality touched by emotion" in which religion of the highest type may be said to consist. 5 Do., p. 582.

Op. cit., p. 568.

a superstructure, and yet it probably expresses nearly the truth. There is no essential connection between morality and religious feeling, and therefore the weakness of moral principle exhibited by the Hebrews was no bar to the existence of such a religion as Ewald refers to. Its fundamental idea is deliverance, and its fundamental thought is that only the pure spiritual God is the true Redeemer of all those who in their spirit do not dwell far from his, and who desire to be no more estranged from him.1 The theocracy in which the religion of Moses embodied itself required that every individual should " acknowledge himself the servant and champion of Jahveh," the entire nation resolving "to seek its entire life and happiness only in sedulously avoiding all human violence and caprice, and always following the better truth alone when once perceived."? Tried by this test, however, it would seem that the idea of spiritual deliverance was far from being firmly grasped by the Hebrew mind during the earlier stages of the national development. The Israelite was essentially material in his aspirations, and as long life and an abundance of all that makes life desirable were the objects most eagerly sought after, so the deliverance present to the Hebrew mind was that from a condition of misery in Egyptian bondage. The facts of early Hebrew history are, indeed, such as that we can only suppose the idea of a spiritual deliverance to have been formed at a later period of the national life, and to have been read into its past records, or else that it was confined originally to a few persons-men spiritually privileged and was only gradually awakened in the popular mind. Probably the latter is the view really entertained by Ewald, who says, "We cannot hold too firmly that the mighty and revolutionising thought with which Jahveism entered the 2 Do., p. 571.

1 Op. cit., p. 533, seq.