THE HOLY LAND.
There can be no doubt that the Mount Moriah where Abraham would have sacrificed his son is the same spot as the Moriah upon which Solomon built the temple. "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah" (2 Chron. iii. 1). [Footnote 150] It is also probable that it is the same place as the Salem mentioned in Genesis xiv. 18, of which Melchisedek was king; for in Psalm lxxvi. 2 we read, "In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion." Josephus calls Melchisedek King of Solyma, a name afterward altered to Hierosolyma. But the first mention of the name Jerusalem occurs in Joshua x. 1, where Adoni-zedec is spoken of as "King of Jerusalem." There are to be gathered from sacred and secular annals the records of twenty-one invasions of this ancient city by hostile armies. The first attack was made upon her by the children of Judah, shortly after the death of Joshua. They fought against Jerusalem, took it, put it to the fire and sword (Judges i. 1-8); but they were unable to expel the Jebusites, nor were the children of Benjamin any more successful, but they both dwelt with the Jebusites in the city; the Jebusites being probably driven from the lower part to Mount Sion, where they remained until the time of David, who marched against Jerusalem, drove them from Mount Sion, and called it the City of David.
[Footnote 150: Also confirmed by Josephus, Antiq i, 13-2.]
The Ark of the Covenant was conveyed there, an altar built, and Jerusalem became the imperial residence, the centre of the political and religious history of the Israelites. Its glory was enhanced by the labors of Solomon, but under his son Rehoboam ten tribes revolted, so that Jerusalem became only the capital of Judah, with whom the tribe of Benjamin alone remained faithful. During the reign of this king, Shishak, the Egyptian monarch, invaded the holy city and ransacked the temple. Then about a hundred years rolled by, when Amaziah was king of Judah, and Joash of Israel; the latter marched against Jerusalem, threw down the wall, and the temple was once more rifled of its treasures. In the next century Manasseh the king was taken captive by the Assyrians to Babylon but ultimately restored. In consequence of the strange intermeddling of Josiah, a few years later, when Pharao-necho, king of Egypt, was on his march, he was killed in battle, and the latter directed his army toward Jerusalem, and placed Eliakim on the throne by the name of Jehoiakim. The advance of this Egyptian king is confirmed by Herodotus. [Footnote 151]
[Footnote 151: Herodotus, Euterpe, 159. He also mentions a victory gained by him at Magdola, then says that he took the city of Cadytis
.
This city Cadytis is generally accepted as Jerusalem, which was called "holy," "Hakkodesh." The shekel was marked "Jerusalem Kedusha," a Syriac corruption of the Hebrew "Kodesh." Then the word Jerusalem was omitted, and "Kedusha" only used, which, being translated into Greek, became
as quoted by Herodotus.]
Against Jehoiakim, however, came Nebuchadnezzar, who ravaged the city more than once, and after a siege of two years, in the reign of Zedekiah, burned it down, took all the sacred vessels to Babylon with the two remaining tribes (the other ten were already in captivity); and now that the temple was destroyed, the city in ruins, and [{501}] the people all in bondage, it appeared as if the prediction of her prophets had already been accomplished. But a time of rejoicing was yet to come, and though the chosen people did writhe under Babylonish tyranny, and did hitting their harps on the willows, there was still a prophet of hope among them in the person of Daniel. This was the time alluded to in that beautiful psalm composed after their return, in allusion to an occasion when their persecutors had asked them tauntingly to sing one of their national songs for their amusement, the Hebrew words of which, if we may be allowed the expression, glitter with tears:
"By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,
Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song;
And they that wasted us required of us mirth,
Saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song
In a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning;
If I do not remember thee,
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief Joy."
In the time of Cyrus their deliverance came; they were released from captivity, and there was a mighty "going up" to Jerusalem when the temple was rebuilt and the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away were restored; money, too, was given them, and the works, after being interrupted for a time by difficulties, were resumed under Darius Hystaspes and completed. Some time afterward another large body of Jews came up to the holy city with Ezra, and the capital was once more active with busy life and once more became glorious.
Alexander the Great marched against the Jews, but was prevented from entering the city by the intercession of the high priest—a scene which found its parallel in after-times, when the aged Leo went to the camp of Attila, and by his entreaties diverted that semi-Christian barbarian from Rome. After the death of Alexander, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, surprised the Jews on their Sabbath day, when he knew they would not fight; he made an easy conquest, and carried off thousands of Jews into Egypt.
For a hundred years of comparative peace this fated city remained under the Ptolemies, when it fell into the hands of the Syrians. Antiochus Epiphanes, their king, after his Egyptian campaigns, finding his treasure-chest nearly empty, bethought him of sacking the temple of Jerusalem, marched his army upon the city, pillaged it, slew about forty thousand people, and sold as many more into slavery. He then endeavored to exterminate the ceremonial; a pagan altar was set up and sacrifice made to Jupiter. The Maccabaean revolution broke out, and the city was ultimately recovered by the hero, Judas Maccabaeus, when a new phase of priesthood was established, which we shall notice elsewhere. Things went on thus until about the year 60 B.C., when Pompey seized the city and massacred twelve thousand Jews in the temple courts. Thus it fell into the hands of the Romans, against whom it rebelled, and by whom ultimately, after the most terrible siege recorded in history, it was taken and subjected to violations over which the mind even now shudders; its temple was ransacked, violated, and burned, its priests butchered, pagan rites were celebrated in its holy place, its maidens were ravished, its palaces burned down, an unrestrained carnage was carried on, Jews were crucified on crosses as long as trees could be found to make them, and when the woods were exhausted they were slain in cold blood. Nearly a million of Jews are said to have fallen in this terrible conflict. For fifty years after there is no mention of Jerusalem in history. They kept themselves quiet, watching eagerly and stealthily for an opportunity of throwing off the hated Roman yoke. About the year 131 A-D., Adrian, to prevent any outbreak, ordered the city to be fortified. The Jews rebelled at once, but were so completely crushed by the [{502}] year 135 that this date has always been accepted as that of their final dispersion. The holy city was then made a Roman colony, the Jews were forbidden to enter into its walls under pain of immediate death, the very name was altered to the pagan one of AElia Capitolina, a temple was erected on Mount Moriah to Jupiter Capitolinus, and Jerusalem was henceforth spoken of by this pagan name until the days of Constantine, when pilgrimages were rife, and the Christians began to turn their steps toward the city whose streets had been hallowed by the footsteps of Christ. Helena, the emperor's mother, wandered there in penitence, built a church on the site of the nativity, and agitated Christendom to its foundations by the announcement of the discovery of the true cross. Constantine then built a church on the site of the Holy Sepulcher, and at last the Jews were admitted once a year into the city of their glory to sing penitential psalms over their degradation. The sorrows of the place were not yet ended, for in the year 614 the Persians fell upon Jerusalem, and this time the Christians suffered, ninety thousand of whom were killed. Then it was retaken by the Romans, when the Emperor Heraclius marched in triumph through its streets with the real cross on his shoulders. In 637, however, it fell into the hands of Arabic Saracens, from whom the Turks took it in 1079. Then came that marvellous agitation of Europe, when she poured out her millions of devotees to drive the Saracen from the holy land; and in 1099 Godfrey de Bouillon was proclaimed King of Jerusalem by the victorious Crusaders. The Christians held it for eighty-eight years, when Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, wrested it from them in 1187, and they held it until the year 1517, when the Ottoman Turks seizing upon Jerusalem, made the twenty-first and last invasion which this devoted city has undergone, and in their hands it still remains.
In the very earliest ages of Christianity people begin to bend their steps toward Jerusalem and to write their travels. Some of these variations are extant, and the earliest is called "Itinerarium a Burdigala Hierusalem usque:" it was written by a Christian of Bordeaux, who went to the Holy Land in the year 333, about two years before the church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated by Constantine and his mother Helena. It is to be gleaned also from the works of the Greek fathers that pilgrimages to Jerusalem were becoming so frequent as to lead to many abuses. St. Porphyry, after living as a recluse in Egypt, went to the Holy Land, visited Jerusalem, and finally settled in the country as Bishop of Gaza. Toward the end of the fourth century (385), St. Eusebius of Cremona and St. Jerome went there and founded a monastery at Bethlehem. St. Paula also visited it about the same time. In the seventh century we have St. Antonius going there and telling us he admired the beauty of the Jewish women who lived at Nazareth. In the year 637, the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens interrupted the the flow of visitors, but Areulf, a French bishop, went there toward the end of the century. In the early part of the eighth century the Anglo Saxons began to go there. Willibald, a relative of Boniface, paid a visit to Jerusalem in 724. Then the war with the Greeks interposed, and we do not hear much about the Holy Land until the end of the eighth century, when, through the friendship of Charlemagne with Haroun al Raschid, the Christians were once more allowed to go to the Holy Sepulcher. A monk, called Bernard Sapiens, went in 870, and wrote anon account of it. Then the celebrated Gerbert, who was afterward pope, under the title of Sylvester II., went to Jerusalem in 986, came back and wrote a work, in which he made the holy city mourn her misfortunes and woes, her wasted temples and violated sacred places; then he appealed to the whole Christian world to go and help her. France [{503}] and Italy began to move. The Saracens heard of this agitation, and interdicted the Christians in their dominions from worshipping, turned their temples into stables, and threw down the church of the Holy Sepulcher and others in the year 1008. At the tidings of this devastation Europe was aroused, and in fact we may fairly say that Gerbert's book of travel was the first spark that fired the conflagration of the Crusades. The first narrative we have of any pilgrim who followed the Crusades is by Saewulf, a Saxon, and a very interesting narration he has left; he went in the year 1102, was a monk of Malmesbury Monastery, and is mentioned by the renowned William of that abbey in his Gesta Pontificum. There are accounts also in the twelfth century by Benjamin of Tudela; in the fourteenth by Sir John Mandeville; in the fifteenth by Bertrandon de la Brocquière; and in the sixteenth by Henry Maundrell. [Footnote 152]
[Footnote 152: See Early Travels in Palestine, An interesting collection of itineraries and ancient visits to the Holy Land, by Mr. Thomas Wright.]
Modern times have multiplied books on the Holy Land, but those mentioned above are nearly all that are extent of early periods. In our own day there is a tendency to revive the subject; we have had many books lately, good, bad, and indifferent, upon Holy Land—Wanderings in Bible Lands and Scenes, Horeb and Jerusalem, Sinai and Palestine, Giant Cities of Bashan, Jerusalem as It Is, and many others, of which we cannot stop to say more than that they are generally interesting and readable. It would take a wretched writer, indeed, to make a dull book upon the Holy Land; the subject itself and the scenes enlist the attention at once. But the last pilgrim who has returned from that sacred city and emptied his wallet for our inspection has produced a book not only valuable as an interesting account of travel, but useful as an excellent commentary upon the incidents of the Bible and the life and work of our Lord. There have been many reviews of this book as a book of travel, but it is in this higher light more particularly that we wish to examine Mr. Hepworth Dixon's two volumes on the Holy Land. From the very earliest times down to the present, Jaffa or Joppa seems to be the portal of Palestine to western travellers, who are, it appears, compelled to make their début in Palestine in no very dignified manner. The water-gate of Jaffa, Mr. Dixon tells us, faces the sea, and is "no more than a slit or window in the wall about six feet square." Through this narrow opening all importations from the west must be hoisted from the canoes; "such articles as pashas, bitter beer, cotton cloth, negroes, antiquaries, dervishes, spurious coins and stones, monks, Muscovite bells, French clocks, English damsels and their hoops, Circassian slaves, converted Jews, and Bashi Bazouks." Once safe through this slit in the wall, the stranger is ushered into a town whose scenes recall to his imagination the Arabian Nights of his childhood, so little has the Holy Land changed; the dress of the people and their customs being so little altered that Haroun, if he were allowed to take another midnight trip with his vizier, would be quite at home. Marvellous it is, too, that civilization has left another peculiarity untouched in Palestine. Mr. Dixon tells us that after "three months of Syrian travel you will learn to treat a skeleton in the road with as much indifference as a gentleman in a turban and a lady in a veil." Whatever dies in the plain lies there—asses, camels, or men. The travelling baggage of an Arab includes a winding-sheet, in which he may be rolled by his companion, if he has one, and covered with sand; bodies are found, too, who, in the last gasp, had striven to cover their faces with the loose sand. There is no exaggeration in this statement—the Saxon Saewulf, who went there in the year 1102, nearly eight centuries ago, draws the same picture. He says:
"Went from Joppa to Jerusalem, two days' journey by a mountainous road, very rough and dangerous on account of the Saracens, who lie in wait for the Christians to rob and spoil them. Numbers of human bodies lie by the wayside, torn to pieces by wild beasts, many of whom have been cut off by Saracens; some, too, have perished from heat, and thirst for want of water, and others from too much drinking."
Travelling in the Holy Land is not mere sport; there are a myriad of dangers to be avoided and watched for, armed Bedaween are prowling about, bands of horsemen scour across the plain like clouds over the sky.
"Horsemen!" cries Yakoub, reining in. "Hushing the still night, and with hands on our revolvers, bending forward toward the dim fields on our left hand, we can hear the footfall of horses crushing their way through stubble and stones. In a moment while they sounded afar off, they are among us; fine dark figures, on brisk little mares, and poising above them their bamboo spears. A word or two of parley, in which Ishmael has his share, and we are asking each other for the news. . . . . Perhaps they consider us too strong to be robbed, for a Bedaween rarely thinks it right to attack under an advantage of five to one."
At dawn of day they arrive at the spot where once stood Modin, the birth place of the Maccabees, now a den of robbers, called Latrun. This spot is a most interesting one, and Mr. Dixon rapidly sketches the results of the events which were transacted here, showing how from the Maccabaean revolt sprang the Great Separation, a new kind of priesthood, and also, for which the influence of the captivity had already prepared them, the ignoring of the written law of Moses, and the introduction and veneration of the oral law or tradition of the elders. The peculiar aspects of the Jews at the time of the Roman domination and the advent of Christ, their hopes and opinions, may be traced back to the drama which was played out on this spot. We propose, then, to pause for a moment to sketch the history of that period, as it is the keystone to the whole fabric of Jewish degeneracy.
About half a century before the birth of Christ the Jews had fallen into the hands of the Romans, and in the writings of Tacitus we have a description of them, an attempt at investigation into their history, and a version of Roman opinion upon them, which is the more interesting as it affords an admirable corroboration of what is recorded in the Scriptures. Tacitus endeavors very ingeniously to make them come originally from Crete, on account of their name, Idaeos or Judaeos, from Mount Ida, in Crete. We must bear in mind that it is scarcely probable that Tacitus could have read Genesis. Then he mentions other theories which were in vogue as to the origin of this strange people, who were beginning to be very troublesome to the Romans. In the first theory we get a slight trace of the sacred tradition; certain people, he say, declare that a great multitude in the reign of Isis overflowed Egypt and discharged themselves into the lands of Judea and the surrounding neighborhood, some call them a race of AEthiops, others Assyrians; and we are told there were some even who claimed for them a far more renowned descent from the
mentioned by Homer, whence they called their great city Hiero-Solyma. These theories are very ingenious, but they only serve to prove that the eye of the philosophical historian of the Romans had never rested on the Jewish records. Still the character he gives of them is the one they have universally borne in the world; he speaks also of "Moyses," who gave them a distinct legislation; he mentions "circumcision" and their abstinence from certain kinds of meet; he records their national exclusiveness, their immovable obstinacy, their notion of one God, so strange to the a pagan mind, and the temple, without images, equally absurd.
Though the Romans treated the Jews, as indeed they did all the people they conquered, with great forbearance, still they had a sort of secret dislike for them, and in the [{505}] and they served them as they served no other race of people subject to their power. And this feeling was reciprocated by the Jews, who now more than ever longed for the advent of the great Deliverer, whom they also more than ever felt must come in the shape of a warrior, with power and majesty to sweep these Romans out of the country, and restore Jerusalem to her former position of splendor and renown. There can be no question that the political circumstances in which the Jews were placed at the time of the coming of Christ helped to unfit them for his reception, by fostering that idea of a great temporal sovereign which had been implanted in their bosom. But this idea was of much older origin than their troubles with the Romans. It is an interesting fact that the Maccabaean revolution, which restored the priesthood, may be looked upon as the event which first taught the Jews that fatal error. Before that time they had a more spiritual conception of the Messiah, but the events which followed in the wake of the heroism of Judas Maccabaeus changed the whole character of their hopes. Let us review those circumstances, for it is only by doing so we can properly understand how the Jews came to be so persistent in their expectations of a great omnipotent temporal sovereign. Antiochus Epiphanes, upon the death of his brother, Seleucus Philopator, king of Syria, seized upon the vacant throne, although Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, was alive at Rome, where he had been sent as a hostage. In Daniel xi. 21, we glean that he obtained the kingdom by flattery, which receives some support from what Livy says about his extravagant rewards (Livy xli. c.20). He had undertaken several campaigns against Egypt, and was on his return from one of these, with wasted army and exhausted treasury, when it occurred to him that if he could only plunder the temple of the Jews, it would go far to recruit his finances. He turned his army at once toward Jerusalem, marched upon it, and sacked it. An altar was raised and sacrifice made to Jupiter in the holy place. Then he endeavored to abolish the ceremonial, and to introduce pagan worship, when the Jews, exasperated beyond endurance, were ripe all over the country for revolt, but dared not rise. At this time, however, there dwelt in a little village called Modin, not far from Emmaus, a family who were called the Maccabees, for what reason it is now impossible to ascertain; but this family, who had lived there in the peaceable obscurity of village life, were destined to become heroic. It consisted of an aged father, Mattathias, and five sons. Antiochus Epiphanes had sent his officers to this village to erect an altar in the Jewish place of worship for sacrifice to the gods, when Mattathias boldly declared that he would resist it. The altar was set up, and one miserable renegade Jew was advancing toward it to make the pagan offering, when he was slain on the spot by Mattathias. The family then fled to the wilderness, and concealed themselves; they were soon joined by others; a band was formed, which gradually increased, until it became numerous enough to attack towns. Then Mattathias died, and his son, even more memorable in the history of patriotism, came forward, and took the command of the gathering confederation, now a disciplined army. Apollonius was sent against him, whom Judas met boldly on the field of battle, and slew. The same success attended him in his encounter with the Syrian general, Seron. Antiochus now saw the necessity of vigorous measures to prevent the Jews from recovering their independence; he went to Persia to recruit his treasures, while Lysias, the regent, sent an army to Judea of 40,000 foot and 7,000 cavalry, which was reinforced by auxiliaries from the provinces, and even by Jews who were already becoming jealous of the fame of Judas. The Jewish hero pointed out to his [{506}] followers the desperate odds against which they would have to contend, and resolved upon employing a stratagem. By a forced march he reached a portion of the enemy encamped at Emmaus and surprised them, with complete success: several portions of the army were put to flight, and a great booty secured. Another and more numerous army was sent against him, but with no success. At the head of 10,000 followers, fired by fanaticism, Judas put to flight the army of Lysias, 60,000 strong, and marched on Jerusalem to purify the temple and restore it to its glory. The festival of Purification was then inaugurated. Day by day the successes of Judas increased, when Antiochus Eupator, who had succeeded Antiochus Epiphanes, invaded Judea, and only made peace with Judas in consequence of dissensions at home. He was murdered by his uncle, Demetrius, who seized the kingdom and confirmed the peace with Judas, but took possession of the citadel of Jerusalem, placing his general, Nicanor, there with troops. Suspicions were then entertained that treachery was being plotted between Judas and this general; the matter was pressed, when Nicanor cleared himself, and Judas was obliged to flee. A battle took place, which he won, and another victory followed at Beth-horon, in which Nicanor fell. Re-enforcements strengthened the enemy, and Judas was compelled to retire to Laish with 3,000 followers, where he was attacked at a disadvantage. Only 800 of his men remained faithful to him, but with these he boldly encountered the avenging hosts of Demetrius, and found a hero's death on the field. Though Judas was dead, yet the Maccabaean spirit was not extinct. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, rallied their companions, and took the lead, fortifying themselves in a strong position in the neighborhood of Tekoa. Jonathan bid fair to equal Judas; he avoided an open engagement with the Syrians, but kept his position, and harassed the enemy for the space of two years, when events brought about what perhaps the slender forces of his army would have never accomplished. A pretender to the throne of Syria sprang up in the person of Alexander Balas, the reputed natural son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and a party was soon found to promote his claim against Demetrius. By this time Jonathan's little body of troops had been augmented by continued re-enforcements, and his position was such that to the contending parties in Syria it became clear that if either could win over this obstinate Jew to his cause it would decide the matter. Demetrius took the first step, by making him at once general of the forces in Judea and governor of Jerusalem; but Jonathan was in no hurry, he suspected the wily Demetrius, and having received overtures from Alexander Balas, that if he would espouse his cause he would make him high priest when he was on the throne of Syria, he yielded. These overtures were accompanied by the present of a purple robe, and Jonathan, who, doubtless, saw in the dissensions of his enemies the opportunity for Jerusalem, accepted the proposition, joined Alexander, who slew Demetrius in battle, and ascended the throne of Syria. True to his engagement, he made Jonathan high priest, with the rank of prince, and did all he could to ensure his fidelity. Jonathan afterward attended the marriage of Alexander with a daughter of the King of Egypt, at Ptolemais, where he received many marks of consideration from the Syrian and Egyptian monarchs. He ultimately fell, however, a victim to treachery, and was succeeded by his brother Simon, who confirmed the Jews in their independence in return, for which, in 131 B.C., they passed a decree, by which the dignity of high priest and prince of the Jews was made hereditary in the family of Simon. Thus was founded the long line of Asmonean priests, which remained unbroken down to about thirty-four years before Christ. The Mosaic principle was set aside, and [{507}] from this time the changes came over the Jews and their institutions which are admirably sketched by Mr. Dixon in the two chapters on the Great Separation and the Oral Law, which we recommend to the careful perusal of any one who wishes to form a clear idea of the origin of the state of Judaism at the time of our Lord. He thus sums up in a sentence the results of the Maccabaean insurrection:
"The main issues, then, as regards the faith and policy in Israel of that glorious revolt of Modin, w the elevation of a fighting sect to power; the general adoption of separative principles; the substitution of an explanatory law for the Covenant; a change in the divine succession of high priests, and a lawless union of the spiritual and secular forces."
The Idyls of Bethlehem form a most interesting chapter: the death of Rachel, the idyl of Ruth, the episode of Saul, the house of Chimham, the idyl of Jeremiah, and the birth of our Saviour, are all sketched in a manner which tends to impress these well-known scenes upon the mind indelibly. A chapter on Syrian Khans, which throws much light upon the incident of the birth of Christ, we would like to extract did not the exigencies of space forbid. The reader will find in the chapters, The Inn of Bethlehem, The Province of Galilee, Herod the Great, John the Baptist, and Jewish Parties, an admirable introduction to those scenes of the life and wanderings of our blessed Lord which are contained in the second part of the book, and to which we wish to devote the remainder of this paper.
When speaking of the early life of Jesus, Mr. Dixon takes up the question of the obscurity of his origin, that favorite point with the sceptics of all ages, from the "Is not this the carpenter's son?" of the Jews, down to puerile objections of the German Strauss. He has shown that it was the custom to teach the youth of all classes some useful art; and the best born and greatest men in Jewish history had been instructed in such trades as weaving, tent-making etc. Beside, certain trades were held in honor. We cannot understand this if we think of carpentering by the contemptuous estimate of modern life. That contempt for hand-labor was unknown in the early ages of Scripture history. Adam dressed the garden, Abel was a keeper of sheep, Cain a tiller of the ground. Tubal Cain a smith; and so, among the Jews, it was a reproach to any man if he had not been taught one of the useful mechanical arts. It was dignified by the Almighty himself, who, we are told—
"Called by name Bezaleel, . . . and he hath filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work. And he hath put it in his heart that he may teach." Exod. xxxv. 30-34.
This reverence was cherished by the Jews; carpentering was always looked upon as a noble occupation; the fact that the carpenter might have to go into the temple to labor would have rescued that occupation from contempt. This is a striking peculiarity of eastern life; and elsewhere the objection of the sceptic to the humble origin of Jesus has been well answered:
"The princes of Turkey in Egypt are still instructed in the mechanical arts, one being made a brazier, another a carpenter, a third a good weaver, and so on. Said Pasha was a good mechanic, Ishmael Pasha is not inferior to his brother. Much of the domestic life of Israel has been lost to us, but still we know something of the crafts in which many of the most famous rabbis and doctors had been taught to excel. We know that Hillel practised a trade. St. Paul was a tent-maker, Rabbi Ishmael was a needle-maker, Rabbi Jonathan a cobbler. Rabbi Jose was a tanner. Rabbi Simon was a weaver. Among the Talmudists there was a celebrated Rabbi Joseph who was a carpenter. What then becomes of Strauss's inference that Joseph must have been a man of low birth—not of the stock of David—because he followed a mechanical trade?" [Footnote 153]
[Footnote 153: Athenaeum, 27th Jan., 1866.]
We may conclude this point by adding that among the Jews the only trades which could prevent a man from attaining to the dignity of high priest were weavers, barbers, fullers, perfumers, cuppers, and tanners.
But to return to the life and work of Jesus. His fame was gradually spreading, and he went about the small towns and hamlets:
"Capernaum, Chorazin Magdala, Bethsaida, Dalmanutha Gerasa, preaching in the synagogues, visiting the fishing-boats and threshing-floors, healing the sick, and comforting the poor; gentle in his aspect and in his life; wise as a sage and simple as a child; winning people to his views by the charm of his manner and the beauty of his sayings."
His first aim was to win the Jews from the Oral Law, to convince them of its emptiness; it is the key to the following scenes graphically depicted by Mr. Dixon. Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the feast of Purim, and was walking by the Pool of Bethesda in the sheet market, a spot he had to pass daily. On the thanks of this pool were crowds of sick, the halt, aged, and blind, a spectacle sure to attract the eye of Jesus:
"It was the Sabbath day.
"In the temple hard by, these wretches could hear the groaning of bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs under the sacrificial knife, the shouting of dealers as they sold doves and shekels. Bakers were hurrying through with bread. The captain of the temple was on duty with his guards. Priests were marching in procession, and crowds of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of flame leaped faintly from the altars on which the priests were sprinkling blood . . . but the wretches who lay around (the pool) on their quilts and rugs, the blind, the leprous, and the aged poor, drew no compassion from the busy priests. One man, the weakest of the weak, had been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over this man Jesus paused and said:
"'Wilt thou be made whole?'
"'Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me."
The Compassionate answered him:
"'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'
"At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. Rising from the ground he folded up his quilt, taking it on his arm to go away; but some of the Pharisees seeing him get up and roll his bed into a coil, run toward him crying: 'It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee two carry thy bed.' It was certainly an offense against the Oral Law."
The Jews had turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a curse.
"From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred trumpet, called the shofa, blown from the temple wall, announcing that the seventh had commenced, he was not allowed to tight a fire or make a bed, to boil him a pot; he could not pool his ass from a ditch, nor raise and arms in defense of his life . . . A Jew could not quit his camp, his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might not begin a journey; if going along a road, he must rest from sundown till the same event of the coming day. He might not carry a pencil, a kerchief a shekel in his belt; if he required a handkerchief for use, he had to tie it round his leg. If he offended against one of these rules, he was held to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest of sinners. Some rabbins held that a man ought not to change his position, but that, whether he was standing or sitting when the shofa sounded, he should stand or sit immovable as a stone until the Sabbath had passed away."
Jesus broke the Oral Law that he might bring his followers to a sense of its degrading spirit, and announced the new truth that "The Sabbath is made for man; not and for the Sabbath." After two very interesting chapters upon Antipas Herod and Herodias, we have once upon the Synagogue. Some writers have striven to claim the remotest antiquity for this institution, but in all probability it might be dated from the captivity. There would be a natural desire to meet together away from the pagans, by whom they were surrounded, to pray to their God, to sing their psalms, and to read the law. This gave rise to the synagogue, which means no more then a "meeting together;" but after the Maccabaean insurrection it became a popular institution, and every little village had its synagogue. Now, as much of the work of Christ was done in the synagogue, as he loved to go into them and to take part [{509}] in their services, it is desirable that we should have a clear notion of what a synagogue was:
"A house of unhewn stones taken up from the hillside; squat and square of the ancient Hebrew style, having a level roof, but neither spire nor tower, neither dome nor minaret to enchant the eye; such was the simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. . . Inside a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish schools with seats for the men, rough sofas of wood half covered with rushes and straw; a higher seat stands in the centre like that of a mosque, for the elders of the town, a desk for the reader of the day; at the south end a closet, concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah, a written copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A silver lamp is always kept burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a pulpit, a reading-desk, are the chief articles of furniture in the room. . . . . In olden times women were allowed to enter with the men, though they were even then parted from father and son by a wooden screen. . . . Before entering a synagogue a man is expected to dip his hands into water. . . . Ten persons are necessary to form a meeting; every town or city having a synagogue appointed ten men called batlanim (men of leisure), who were bound to appear at the hour of prayer. . . Higher in office was the chazzan, who took charge of the house and scroll. . . The meturgeman was an interpreter of the law, whose duty it was to stand near the reader for the day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him were the elders. . . . When the people came in they first bowed to the ark; the elders took their places on the raised platform; the rich went up to high seats near the ark; the poor sat on wooden sofas, matted with straw. . . . A prayer was said, one of the Psalms of David sung. The chazzan walked up to the veil, which he drew aside with reverence, lifted the ark from its niche, took out the torah, carried the roll round the benches, every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his palm; the sheliach read the lesson for the day; at its close the elder expounded the text in a sort of sermon, when the torah was carried back, the prayers began. . . . Every hearer had in those times a right to express his opinion of the sacred text, and of what it meant."
Our Lord availed himself of this right, which every Jew possessed, of speaking in the synagogue upon the text which had been read; and Mr. Dixon has worked up two scenes well known in the career of our Lord, with all the surrounding incidents and scenery, so graphically and so accurately that no one could read these descriptions without rising from them with a clearer and more complete understanding of the simple statement of the gospel. The gospels were not written as historical sketches, but as vehicles for the vital truth they contain; consequently anything that resuscitates the scene and reproduces the incidents as they took place, with all their peculiar surroundings, must be of great value in assisting us to comprehend more readily, and to retain in our minds more vividly the events of our Lord's career. We think this is more preeminently the characteristic aim and achievement of this work than of the many others we have read upon the subject, and we shall instance one, the scene in the synagogue of Capernaum. The first alluded to was the declaration of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth; but as many of the incidents are included in this of Capernaum, we content ourselves with giving it somewhat in detail, as an illustration of the peculiarity we have already mentioned. Let the reader first peruse the simple statement in the gospel of St. John, vi. ch., 25 v., to the end, and then the following; or better still the whole of chapter xvii. in the second volume of Mr. Dixon's work, called The Bread of Life, and he will rise from it with a much more vivid conception of one of the most trying scenes in our Lord's history. On the steps of the synagogue a motley crowd had collected, eager, excited, and curious, for it was just after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and they were full of it; they had heard of it in all its stupendous power; it was the miracle of all miracles most likely to overpower the Jewish mind; it recalled to them the words of Jehovah:
"At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God."
And this man, this son of Joseph the carpenter, had fed 5,000 people on fire barley loaves and two small fishes. They saw the little boat on the beach in which Jesus had come; they had heard of his walking on the water that very night; and now the crowd was increasing, for the country was aroused, and people came flocking from all parts to see this man who did such marvellous things.
"Jesus sat in the synagogue in his usual place. The Jews poured in, each man and woman making lonely reverence toward the ark. . . , The service began with the prayer of sweet incense, after which the congregation, the batlanim leading, sang Psalms of David; when these were sung, the chazzan, going up to the ark, drew aside the veil and took out the sacred roll, which he carried round the aisles to the reader of the day, who raised it in his hands, so that all who were present could see the sacred text. Then the whole congregation rose. . . . Opening the scroll, the reader read out the section or chapter for the day. . . . When the lesson was finished the chazzan took the scroll from the reader and carried it back to its place behind the veil. Then when the roll was restored to the ark, they sang other psalms, after which the elder delivered the midrash, an exposition of the text which had been read. The time now being come to question and be question, all eyes turned on the Teacher who had fed the 5,000 men. . . . Their questions were Sharp and loud:
"'Rabbi, when camest thou hither?'
"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye ask me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed."
"Then they asked him:
"'What must we do that we may work the works of God?'
"To which he answered, with a second public declaration, that he was Christ the Son of God:
"'This is the word of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.'
"'What sign showest thou that we may see and believe thee! What dost thou work?'
"Full of the great act which many witnesses declared that they had seen in the desert beyond the lake, they wished to have it repeated before their eyes; so they said to him:
"'Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.'
"Jesus took up their thought.
"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world.'
"'Rabbi, evermore give us this bread.'
"Jesus answered them:
"' I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. . . . . . For I am come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. '. . .
"The elders, the batlanim, the chazzan gazed into each other's faces, and began to murmur against him, just as the men of Nazareth had murmured against him.
"'Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How is it, then, that he saith, I am come down from heaven?"
"Jesus spoke to them again:
"Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him; and I will raise him up the last. . . . I am the bread of life. . . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever; yea, and the bread that I will give you is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'
"Strange doctrines for Jews to weigh. Then leapt hot words among them, and some of those who had meant to believe in him drew back. If he were the Christ, the Son of David, the King of Israel, why was he not marching on Jerusalem, why not driving out the Romans, why not assuming a kingly crown? 'How can this Man give us his flesh to eat?'
"The Lord spoke again, still more to their discontent and chagrin, seeing that they wanted an earthly Christ:
"'Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.'
"This was too much for many, even for some who had been brought to the door of belief. . . . . The service of the synagogue ended, the elders came down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in word and mocking spirit. They wanted facts; he had given them truth. They hungered for miraculous bread, for a new shower of manna; he had offered them symbolically his flesh and blood. They had set their hearts on finding a captain who would march against the Romans, who would would cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him for earth, and he had answered them with heaven."
But the scene was drawing to a close; Jesus went on with his work after this tumult in the synagogue, opposing himself to the senseless rites of the Pharisees, defying the oral law, healing the sick, and preaching to the people. Passing through the country from Galilee a Syro-Phenecian woman who had heard of him, and perhaps seen him, ran after him in the road, and besought him to heal her daughter who was a lunatic. The disciples urged him to send her away, for his life would not have been safe if he had another conflict with the Jews in that quarter, and to heal this Gentile woman's child would be sure to bring them on his track. Turning to the woman, Jesus told her he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel; but she persisted, crying, "Lord, help me!" an evidence of faith which was quite sufficient, and Jesus turned to her and said, "Great is thy faith, O woman, be it unto thee as thou wilt." This was a fatal blow to the Jewish exclusiveness, a Gentile had been called into the church, and the pride of the Jew humbled forever. On the last Sabbath day which Jesus spent on earth, he struck another blow at the ceremonial law, by taking his disciples to dine at the house of one Simon a leper. He had reached Bethany, and taken up his abode in the house of Martha and Mary, among the outcast and the poor, for that last seven days now called in the church the holy week. The scene was an impressive one. The city, as far as the eye could reach, was one vast encampment, caravans were arriving from every direction, bringing thousands of Jews to the feast, who, selecting their ground, drove four stakes into the earth, drew long reeds round them, and covered them with leaves, making a sort of bower; others brought small tents with them; the whole city, Mount Gibeon, the plain of Rephaim, the valley of Gihon, the hill of Olivet, were all studded with tense, and crowded with busy people hastening to finish their preparations before the shofa should sound at sunset, and the Sabbath begin, when no man could work. In the temple, the priests, the doctors, the money-changers, the bakers of shew-bread, were all at work, and the last panorama in the life of Christ commenced.
On the first day in Holy Week, now known as Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on an ass's colt, a prominent figure in the festivities, for the crowds rushed up see him, with their palms, and marched with him singing psalms; they had come out from Jerusalem to meet him, and they escorted him into the city. At night he returned to Bethany.
On the Monday and Tuesday he went early to the temple, mixing among the people, restoring sight to the blind, and preaching to the poor. As his life began with a series of temptations, so it was the will of his Father that he should be persecuted with them at its close—a lesson we may all do well to dwell upon. Up to the last days of his life Jesus was subjected to temptations. On the Tuesday some emissaries of the Sanhedrim came to the court where he was preaching to question him, and gather evidence against him. They found him amongst a crowd of Baptists, and demanded his authority for teaching. Christ retorted by putting them to the dilemma of stating whether John's baptism was of heaven or not; they were too much afraid of the people to say it was of men, and if they said of heaven, Jesus would have reproached them for their want of faith; they confessed their ignorance. Then each party tried to entrap him.
The Pharisees brought him a woman taken in adultery. By the Mosaic law this offence would have been punished with death. But the Roman government would have executed any Jew who would venture to carry out such a law, and therefore the question seemed to compel Jesus to speak either against Moses or the Romans. He quietly turned to the witnesses, and told the man who was [{512}] innocent among them to cast the first stone at her.
The Herodians tempted him on a point of tribute. They had two taxes, one to God and one to Caesar, both were disputed, and they consulted him in order to involve him with God or Caesar; but he foiled them by confirming both:
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
They began to be astonished.
The Sadducees tempted him with their dogma of the non-resurrection. They told him sneeringly of a woman who had married seven husbands, and they wanted to know whose she would be in the life to come. Jesus replied calmly:
"In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven."
And the Sadducees with their philosophy, their learning, and their unbelief, retired in confusion.
On the Wednesday he remained in Bethany in seclusion, while Judas was arranging for his safe betrayal to Annas and the nobles.
Thursday Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover, and at sunset that day he and the twelve sat down to the last supper; Judas left to see Annas, and after singing a hymn, the other disciples rose from the table, passed through the sheep-gate into the Cedron valley, and came to Gethsemane. Here Jesus withdrew, and while his disciples were sleeping, he watched and prayed until the betrayers came, and the kiss of Judas revealed him to them. The Sanhedrim was summoned in the dead of the night, and when the members arrived they found Annas examining witnesses, but with no avail, they could not substantiate any charge against him that the Roman government would allow them to punish with death. Annas told him to speak for himself, but he would not. The high priest then said, "Art thou the Christ?" he said, "I am." Then Annas asked him who were his disciples, and Jesus replied: "I spake openly to the world, I taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews resort, in secret I have said nothing; ask them which heard me, they know what I have said." The officer of the temple smote him, and Annas ordered him to be bound with cords, and when it was day they went in a body to the palace of Caiaphas. Here Jesus was questioned again, and answered that he was the Christ, the high priest rent his clothes, in sign that it was blasphemy and worthy of death. The Sanhedrim pronounced him guilty, and the officers carried him to the Praetorian gates and delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. The vacillation of Pilate and the last scene in our Lord's career are known to all. Mr. Dixon leaves them with the observation, "They form a divine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers who could not err."
A good book is its own best eulogy, and we may safely leave this of Mr. Dixon's to itself; but we cannot refrain from testifying our appreciation of such a valuable addition to the records of eastern travel. It is superfluous to say that it is excellently written, as it emanates from the 10, not of a tyro, but of a master-craftsman, whose style is too well known to need eulogy, a style graphic, pointed, and impressive, the result of clear vision and accurate delineation, strengthened by a sort of Frith-like power of grouping as witness the description of the street life of Jaffa, which, as an exquisite piece of word-painting, is perfect.
The reader is led through the sacred scenes of the Holy Land by an artist as well as a scholar, who as he journeys on revives the life of the past; we see the patriarchal life, the tents, the flocks grazing on the hills, the ready-writer with his and lingering and the city gate. We here David's minstrelsy and the tramp of Maccabaean soldierly; we peer into the depths of [{513}] one of those ancient wells build by the patriarchs, and listen to the conversation of the Samaritan woman with that wonderful stranger; we linger at the wayside Khan, and see how natural is the tale of the gospel. As we near Jerusalem the grander figures of the panorama pass over the scene, the Herods in their luxury and pride, in their humiliation and their sins, the grim towers of Macherus and the dark deed behind its walls when the head of the messenger of God fell to please a wanton woman, and terror was struck into the heart of the tyrant; the splendid ceremonial service of the temple, with its altars, its sacrifices, and its robed priests; the Sadducees luxuriating in their palaces, with servants, carriages, gardens, living their voluptuous, godless lives; the Pharisees with their demure aspect, broad and multiplied phylacteries; the elements of Roman soldiery, the imperial eagles hovering over the scene as the Jews past by scowling at the pagan rulers of the holy city; and then that marvellous god-like figure wandering about the streets followed by crowds of people, now entering the temple courts to preach to them, and now stopping on his way to heal some lame man or leper; his wanderings' along the wearying roads of Galilee; his mingling with the people in the synagogues, the popular gathering-place; his taking part in the service and reading the Scriptures; his final coming up to the holy city, the betrayal, this scenes of his trial, the frantic eagerness of the Jews, the vacillation of Pilate, the terrible suspense and the ultimate triumph of his foes, all these and many more incidents of biblical and gospel history are revived and enacted, as it were, amid the very scenes and in the very places where they once took place. We repeat again, that this work is an excellent commentary and illustration of the gospel narrative; and though pen of its author has been nobly wielded in the controversial defence of that gospel, yet perhaps even greater good may be done by this exhibition and illustration of the life and work of Christ. To hold him up to the eyes of men is the best antidote to scepticism; and whatever tends to do that, to plant the image of Christ in the hearts of men, is a good work; the illustration of his individuality, standing out as he did in his times, and as he does in every time, distinct from all men and things. We take up the great work of any age, its characteristic achievement, and we find the impress of the age stamped indelibly upon it; it smacks of the time and the scenes. Homer is pervaded with the valor of a mythic heroism, bloodshed and victory. Dante is the very best reflection of mediaevalism—its deep, superstitious piety, its weird dreams, and its peculiar theology. Shakespeare, though he has written with spotless purity, yet bears traces of the tolerated licentiousness of the Elizabethan age. But Christ and his gospel stand out distinct, totally distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony, and licentious unbelief; paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and Rabbinical fantasies, when, rising up in the midst of all this debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his gospel, pure among rottenness, gentle in the midst of violence, holy among flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world, not from oriental barbarism, not from western paganism, not from Jewish corruption; it could then have come from no other place than heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon what was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with systems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and taken [{514}] ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system, which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality, its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the mind. Therefore we think, in conclusion. that the best thing for Christians still to do in this world is, to lift up Christ before the eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be listed up boldly and faithfully, be it by the voice, the pencil, or the pen (as in this instance before us), or, better still by the more impressive exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. If we wish to save men, let us display him always and everywhere in the confidence that he will fulfil his own divine promise—"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."