fined, and homage rendered to wisdom ; all these mark
it as the utterance of the purest of human hearts, a
pearl in the bright coronet formed of the creations of
Israel's genius.

While the Book of Job rises to the loftiest sphere of
religious meditation, the Proverbs descend to the con-
sideration of practical daily life. The Proverbs are, as
a whole, intended to demonstrate the applicability of



122 LECTURE V.

the law of God to every-day life, and its operation on
material existence. " The fear of the Lord is the be-
ginning of wisdom/' is one of the opening declarations
of the book, and the enforcement of this teaching its
unwearied aim. With this fear we stumble not we
keep far removed from evil we fall into no snares and
we lengthen our days. Unshaken trust in God, firm as
the rock, is our shield and our fortress, the surest weapon
of defence in life. For God, who abhorreth deception, but
who hath pleasure in him who walks in innocence,
blesseth the upright, and permitteth him not to fall.
True it is, that He leaveth not the righteous unproved ;
but him whom He loveth the Lord chasteneth, as a
father his child; and He ordereth for fixed objects,
in wisdom and mercy, all things aright.

We would here subjoin the following brief remarks :
1st. In the Psalms and in the Book of Job we meet with
repeated allusions to nature. The Psalms, (especially
the 19th and the 104th) place Nature and Revelation in
juxta-position, and refer frequently to the works of God
in nature, as proofs of the Divine Existence. The Book
of Job recurs again and again to nature, and deduces
from her operations, the solution of his argument.
How different is all within the realms of heathenism.
Considering nature as the starting point, it evolved,
from the conflict of the various elements in nature, two
or more gods; failing to perceive the unity of nature
herself. But the religious idea went forth from God,
through Him recognises nature to be one, a uniform
single work of the Creator, and perceives in nature,
thus understood, its own verification. 2nd. Since the
main theme of these Writings is the individual and his
idiosyncrasy, they naturally revert more frequently and



THE HAGIOGRAPHA. 123

more explicitly to the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul. On the whole, however, in them, as in the
books of Moses and the Prophets, this doctrine is rather
set forth as a pre-acknowledged, pre-accepted truth,*
than insisted on as the basis of all religion, on which the
superstructure is to be reared, and which should be the
aim and end of religious teaching. Moses and the prophets
were alike incomprehensible without the pre-conception
of the immortality of the soul ; they include it, in truth,
in the doctrine of man's creation in the image of his
Creator. But their aim and scope is the 'here,' to
mould and form this into an independent and religious
unity. The Hagiographa are, in this matter, conceived
wholly in the Mosaic spirit. And these two characteristics
testify that these Writings, are but offshoots from Mo-
saism their great root, in which are to be found their
firm groundwork and significance. But they are, in
themselves, the unfolding of the religious Idea in the
individual.

Here then we have reached the close of the first
period of the existence of the religious Idea, and of its de-
positaries and bearers, the Hebrew people. That period
comprehends two phases, the founding of the religious
idea in Mosaism, and its conquest over heathenism in
the midst of the Jewish race, by Prophetism. In this
victory it suffered, it is true, the severance of the idea
and the life ; but by that severance it effected a general
diffusion of the religious idea, in its destination for all
the human race ; and further, it prepared its development
in the individual. From this juncture we behold the
religious idea stepping forth into a larger arena, into the

* Besides being clearly expressed in passages too numerous
for citation. A. M. G.



124 LECTURE V.

whole world of man. At the same time, the Jewish
race quits the narrow boundaries of Palestine, to spread
itself, in its \vide dispersions, over the earth. We pause
here. I shall in my next lectures, proceed to the ex-
amination of the important subjects of Talmudism, on
the one hand, and of Christianity and Moslemism on
the other.



125



LECTURE VI.

THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OP TALMUDI8M.

THE first small colonies of Jews (whose numbers were
subsequently augmented by other bodies) that returned
from the Babylonian captivity to Palestine, were neces-
sarily composed of those exiles, who, faithful to the
standard of the Prophets, had kept themselves aloof from
the habits and manners and the Idolatry of Babylon,
and held fast to Mosaism, though perhaps regarding it
merely as a peculiarity of the Jewish race.

Their total alienation from Heathenism was further
confirmed by the erection of the Second Temple, by the
influence of the three last prophets, and by the efforts
of the two upright but somewhat stern legislators, Ezra
and Nehemiah. Holding official situations at the Per-
sian Court, and being thereby invested with something
of a judicial character, they enforced the observance of
many municipal regulations in popular life, and intro-
duced many ordinances for the re-establishment and re-
organization of divine worship.

Prom that moment, all admixture of heathen elements
will be found to have wholly and finally disappeared
from amid the Jewish race. Happily, under the mild and
tolerant sAvay of the Persian monarchs, centuries of
tranquillity passed over the heads of that race centu-



126 LECTURE VI.

ries of internal and external growth, during which they
acquired organic consistency and firmness. Of these
years of peace and progress, nothing can be observed,
since nothing is known of them, nor did anything occur
in them worthy to be recorded. Even the overthrow of
the Persian monarchy by Alexander the Great, caused
but a brief interruption to this halcyon interval of calm.
This small and no longer independent nation could but
bend reed-like beneath the world's mighty events, but
could not be crushed by their pressure. So that the dis-
sensions and conflicts among Alexander's generals passed
over the laud, like a summer shower, the Jews yielding
homage now to the Egyptian Ptolemies, now to the
Syrian Seleucidae. The struggle in which the Jews them-
selves were destined to engage, began when the rest of
the world had almost regained tranquillity, and has con-
tinued, with but small interruption, from that moment
up to the present day. The more firmly the Jews esta-
blished themselves on the broad basis of Mosaism, the
more evident did it become that it presented, not an
ideal, but a real contrast to Heathenism, a contrast in-
herent in the very being, physical and mental, of the
Jewish race. The heathen world, restored to peace,
awoke to the consciousness that this antagonism existed;
it took up arms and combatted it, as for life and death.
After Heathenism had thus opposed the Religious Idea
within the Hebrew race, and had succumbed to that
idea within Judaism itself, foreign heathenism turned
to bay, to do battle with it in the persons of the Jews,
then and evermore its bearers.

The first champion of Heathenism in the fight against
the Religious Idea, was the Seleucide, Antiochus Epipha-
nes. He sought to exterminate, not the Jews, but Judaism.



THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OF TALMUDISM. 127

He used every means to compel the Jews to bend the
knee before his idols. Then arose a small band of
Jews, to do glorious battle in a glorious cause. Then it
was again shown what a handful of people, when bound
together by one intense and animating principle, may
achieve, even though the power of a world be arrayed
against them. As the Greeks fought against the Per-
sian Colossus, the Swiss against the Burgundians and
and Austria, so fought the little band of the Maccabees
against the host of the Syrian, ten against a thousand.
Hurrying from victory to victory, they ere long restored,
not only the religious idea, but also freedom and inde-
pendence to their people and country. Bearing on high
the trophies of this triumph, the Jews regained for a
time their historical position as a nation among the
nations, governed by native rulers, who soon exchanged
the priest's mitre for the king's diadem.

But it was the struggle which had quickened into pul-
sation the life-current in the hearts of the Jews. Tran-
quillity once restored, the ruling families exhausted them-
selves by mutual dissensions, splitting the people into
parties, that attacked each other with all the virulence
of fraternal animosity. Morality and religion were thus
undermined. The opposing factions themselves sum-
moned the second champion of Heathenism, the Roman,
into Judea, which country he would doubtless soon have
visited unbidden, since it lay in his path of conquest.

The people having thus lost their internal self-de-
pendence, by means of the disunion and conflicts of
their leaders, submitted almost without resistance to the
yoke of Rome. But her rule degenerated s6on into
unheard-of oppression on the part of the exacting go-
vernors, who transplanted the despotism then prevailing



128 LECTURE VI.

in the imperial court of Rome, to the soil of the pro-
vinces. In the Jewish race there yet dwelt a fund of
strength, which had long disappeared from the other de-
pendent states of the empire. So soon as discontent
and hatred came to prevail between the governors and
the governed, it was impossible but that religious strife
should speedily ensue. Everything heathen was ob-
noxious to the Jew, as everything Jewish was ludicrous
and contemptible in the eyes of the Roman. To render
idolatrous worship to the statues of the Caesars in the
temple, was repugnant and impossible to the Jew, while
his incomprehensible refusal was regarded by the Roman
as being prompted by a spirit of resistance only. The
igniting spark was not long ere it fell on this inflam-
mable heap.

The Jews rose en masse with desperate fury against the
Romans, and soon -freed their land from the presence of
an enemy, whose sway at that very time extended from
the Euphrates, over the lands watered by the Danube,
the Weser, and the Tweed, to the shores of the Atlantic
Ocean, and from the Atlas Mountains to the sources of
the Nile. Two distinct but equally dangerous circum-
stances co-operated to render a war of extermination
inevitable its fatal issue certain. The first of these
was the invasion of Judsea by countless legions,
flushed with a long course of conquest under the vete-
ran generalship of Vespasian and Titus. The second
and more fatal condition of this impending ruin, was
the internal dismemberment of the people, who, lacking
one ruling spirit, were torn into factions by their several
contending leaders. During the continuance of the war
with the Romans, these rival chiefs, some of them ani-
mated by the fiercest zeal, others advocating submission



THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OF TALMUDISM. 129

to the invading forces, had even availed themselves of
every brief suspension of arms granted by the foreign
foe, to renew their bloody and suicidal domestic strug-
gles. In the final conflict, brilliant was the courage, in-
flexible the firmness, undaunted the perseverance, and
heroic the spirit of self-sacrifice, displayed by the Jews.
They rushed into the burning temple, snatched the
golden seats of the priests from the flames, to cast them
on the heads of the besiegers. More than a million
Jews fell in this war; 97,000 were taken prisoners.
Some of these were put to death, others sold as slaves,
others sent to work in the mines; and others reserved to
be carried captives to Rome, and there torn in pieces by
wild beasts in the public games. The existence of the
Jews as a people was annihilated. But did all this involve
the annihilation of Judaism ? No ! in truth. Though
in many a page of history the designs of Providence are
legible, surely they are nowhere so clearly to be read, so
deeply to be revered as in this one. All other nations of
antiquity were to perish. The Hebrew Race alone was
eternally to endure. And the conditions necessary to
its preservation had been long prepared.

A large portion of the Jews of the captivity had
remained behind, in the countries washed by the Tigris
and the Euphrates. After the re-establishment of their
brethren in Palestine, they had there formed themselves
into communities. Their several conquerors, from the
time of Alexander downwards, had caused large colonies
of Jews to be transplanted to the cities they respectively
built. The internal dissensions prevailing during the
closing years of their national existence, had induced
many Jews to emigrate to other countries, long before
the destruction of Jerusalem. Thus a wide net of



130 LECTURE VI.

Jewish communities had been gradually spread over the
then known world. Numerous bands of Jews had ga-
thered themselves into communities in various parts
throughout the eastern countries of Asia, throughout
the whole of Syria, Egypt, and Cyrene, Italy and
Greece. Some had wandered into Spain and Gaul, and
some had advanced even beyond the Danube and the
Rhine. The endurance of Jewdom had thus been long
ensured. The fugitives from Palestine found every-
where cities of refuge well prepared to receive them,
and from them they could again, in their turn, secure
others. The Jews had besides their identity of race,
a characteristic which imbued their lives with a purport
peculiar to themselves, and wholly distinct from that
of the rest of the world, a religious purport. They
could not therefore, after the loss of their nationality,
be amalgamated with their conquerors, as other nations
had been, but were forced universally to keep themselves
apart and self-dependent. Thus a second time did the
religious idea become the salvation of its bearers ; that
by means of which the Jews achieved their own preser-
vation.

Although the dreadful catastrophe in Asia could not,
it is true, at first remain inoperative on the destinies of
the dispersed Jewish communities, yet the Jews in
Africa and Asia rose again and again in active revolt
against the Roman dominion.

After these convulsive and expiring efforts of the
love for freedom, in which the lives of hundreds of
thousands of Jews were sacrificed, they necessarily lived
through a period of peace and security. For Heathen-
ism being itself in a state of progressive dissolution, had
no longer the strength requisite to oppose this antago-



THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OF TALMUDISM. 181

nistic principle of Judaism. At length the Jews re-
ceived, as did all other conquered nations, the right of
Roman citizenship, and began by degrees to participate
in public life. The struggle was not renewed until
Christianity ascended the throne of Rome. It termi-
nated in the entire isolation of the Jews, and their
expulsion from civil and municipal society.

A passing glance must now be bestowed on the inner
life of Judaism during the second period of Jewish na-
tional existence. Judging from external manifestations,
we at once perceive the absence of all creative intellec-
tual power. Of this, all the writings that have come
down to us from that period, give evidence. They con-
sist, partly of the remnants* of the past, such as the three
last prophets, the book of Esther, and the Chronicles ;
partly of imitations devoid of all originality, and there-
fore preserved to us by means of translations only, like
the Apocrypha; and partly of un-Jewish off-shoots,
grafted on a Jewish stem, like Daniel of the Asiatic,
Philo of the Egypto-Greek, character, or of a mixture
of Greek and Roman, like Josephus. But within this
apparent stagnation of Jewish intellect, there was latent
and preparing to work itself out, a new and comprehen-
sive growth which had struck root and shot forth its
branches, in the last century before the fall of Jerusalem,
although its matured fruit was first revealed to the sight
of man many centuries after that event.

It has been seen, that early in the annals of Judaism
there was introduced the severance of the Idea from the

* Spatlinge der Vergangenheit. Surely this term can scarcely
be applied to Malachi, whose mission was all-important, since his
closing exhortation, " Remember ye the law of Moses my
servant," iv. 4, joins indissolubly the very last with the very first
link of the great chain of divine revelation.

K 2



l.'W LECTURE VI.

Life, which in Mosaism form a Unity. It has been seen
also that Prophetism, in fulfilment of its purpose, had,
when the popular life had become un-Mosaic, directed its
efforts to the development of the Idea. Now that the
Jewish race had again devoted itself to Mosaism, it was
sought above all things to impart to the life a Mosaic
character. The intellectual power of the national mind
being at that period exhausted and insignificant, the
Mosaic Idea was thrust in the back ground, and the
Mosaic life forced prominently forward. But this con-
dition of things was, ere long, disturbed by two circum-
stances. In the first place, human life can never be
raised to a high standard, unless it is animated by that
which is, in the abstract, truth. If not so inspired, it
must become more or less conventional and soulless. In
the second, there existed then so great a diversity in the
historical positions of the people, that a national ob-
servance of the whole of Mosaism could not be even
contemplated. The result of the first circumstance was
the strictest adherence to the letter of the Mosaic law,
while the Mosaic idea was neither realized nor under-
stood. The consequence of the second was, that the
popular every-day life came to require numberless regula-
tions, nowhere contained even in the letter of the Mosaic
writings.* Besides, national life had itself produced
national customs and national views, which, though not
actually un-Mosaic, have no real place and foundation in
the writings of Moses. Finally, what further operated
in this direction is this, that the law of Moses indicates
so much, for the observance of which in practice much
detail is required. Allow me to examine these propo-
sitions somewhat more closely.

* Their introduction was, in fact, an infringement both of the
letter and the spirit, 5 Mos. 4. 2. A. M. G.



THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OF TALMUD1SM. 133

The unfavourable circumstances under which the
Israelites entered into possession of the land of Canaan
such as their small numerical strength, and the vicinity
of so many hostile nations, by whom their possession of
every hand's breadth of territory was disputed, and
lastly, their .being subservient to a foreign power, were
all so many obstacles to the establishment of their polity
on the true Mosaic basis, viz., the equal division of the
soil. Though the principles of entire personal freedom
and equality of civil rights were carried as far as possible
into practice, yet by the partial neglect of the Mosaic
territorial enactments, an un-Mosaic tendency was im-
parted to the constitution. This soon became manifest
in the non-observance of the Sabbatical Year and of the
Jubilee in their true spirit and signification, their cere-
monial ordmances being at the same time fulfilled. The
Mosaic temple-service was strictly performed, long after
its true life had become extinct, under the pressure of a
political condition that had suggested other requirements.
Family worship, assemblages for devotional purposes
in all parts of the country and without the walls of the
temple, meetings for instruction and prelections : all
these were institutions for which the Pentateuch fur-
nishes no enactment, or for which, (for example, the
reading of the law)* Moses provided after a wholly
different manner. Either these arrangements were
made irrespectively of the Mosaic code, as in the instance
just quoted, or it was sought to establish customs ana-

* The Pentateuch fixes reading of the whole law once in every
seven years ;t now, a portion is read every Sabbath.



t True ; that is, for the assembled nation ; but its individual
study was enjoined on every human being day by day and hour
by hour : need I quote ' Hear O Israel !' etc. (o Mos. 6. 4 10.
Compare also Joshua 1. 8). A. M. G.



134 LECTURE VI.

logons to the Mosaic institutions. Thus, instead of
sacrifices, the offering up of certain prayers was enjoined.
But this arrangement was so far opposed to the Mosaic
ideal conception of sacrifices, that while they were for
the most part voluntary, the prayer was offered by the
whole community, and was fixed and obligatory.

What were the inevitable consequences of these varying,
and in some respects, mutually counteracting circum-
stances? One was, the unconditional authority of the Mo-
saic code; the other, its interpretation by uninspired
organs. Of what nature was this interpretation or com-
mentary? It was in part narrowly restricted to the very
letter of the law, and yet it was a free interpretation, since
it included much foreign matter, which had by its means
to be referred to the letter of the law, much extraneous
element, whose origin had to be sought and found in
that code. This appears to be paradoxical, and yet it is
not so : a rational interpretation is directed to the dis-
covery of the true purport and spirit of the text;
these once ascertained, they are admitted to be un-
changeable. An interpretation of the letter only, has no
regard to the rational signification ; the commentator's
efforts are directed to the search of something prede-
termined upon as discoverable in the letter. Till this
is found, the letter even is freely handled.*

* I select one from many examples. The Talmudists were
desirous of finding in the Scriptures the principle of deciding in
court and council, according to the majority of votea For this
purpose they select from Exodus 23. 2, " Follow not the multi-
tude for evil; testify not in a matter of right by complying
with the multitude, forcing (blending) right." In this text, the
Talmudists separated DtSn? D'3"l HilK (after the multitude,
forcing right) from the preceding portion of the verse, and they
interpret these words by "the majority must be bowed to" where-
by they deduce the principle of deciding by the majority from a
passage which rather conveys a contrary precept. It ought,



THE SECOND TEMPLE THE ORIGIN OF TALMUDISM. 135

Such then was the nature of that, which then and
thenceforward was to form and fill the intellectual life
of the Jew, and which imparted to the third phase of
Judaism Talmudism its distinctive and inalienable
characteristic. That characteristic was the peculiar in-
terpretation of Holy Writ. This interpretation, Midrasch,
was at one and the same time literal in respect of the
letter, and free as regards the spirit and meaning. It was
also divided into two distinct branches of inquiry ; the
one was that of the law, the other that of the doctrinal,
moral, and historical contents of Scripture. In the
latter division, it was necessary that the interpretation
should be especially free and unfettered ; this mode of
explanation gave rise to a huge growth of moral ramifi-
cations. Thus was accumulated an inexhaustible store
of parables, metaphors, fables, anecdotes, aphorisms

before all, to be remarked, that the supposition of a pious fraud
is, in this case, completely out of the question, such being im-
possible in the presence of the great number of scholars to be
found in an entire nation ; this reasoning is the simple product
of the method followed by the Talmudists in their consideration
of the subject. Just as unreasonable would it be to decry as an
intentional fraud the mythical interpretation adopted in the
Christian church, according to which the whole institution of
sacrifices was merely typical of the Christian dispensation, al-
though the verbal meaning of the text is subjected by this mode
of interpreting to no less violence than by the Talmudists. In
like manner, the Talmudists employ frequently a different read-
ing altogether, notwithstanding the authority of the letter, nay,
just because of the letter in the passage cited ; for instance,
2T ?y is substituted for 2") ?JJ, with the view of giving a reason
for the formality (observed in courts) of requiring the vote of
the younger assessors before the question was put to the more
aged. (On this passage vide Kashi, who frankly says, "The
Talmudists have many commentaries on this passage, but not