Diary in America, Series Two

by Frederick Marryat

Esdras, however, has been deemed apocryphal. Much has been said concerning the doubtful character of that writer. He wrote in the first century of the Christian church, and Tertullian, St. Ereneus, Clemens Alexandrius, Pico di Mirandola, and many learned and pious men, had great confidence in his writings. Part of them have been adopted by Protestants, and all considered orthodox by Catholics. With all his old Jewish attachments to the prophecies and traditions, Esdras was nevertheless a convert to Christianity. He was not an inspired writer or a prophet, although he assumed to be one, and followed the course as well as the manner of Daniel.

The Book of Esdras, however, is of great antiquity, and as an historical record is doubtless entitled to great respect.

The precise number which left Babylon and other cities, and took to the desert, cannot be accurately known; but they were exceedingly numerous, for the edict of Ahasherus, which decreed their destruction, embraced 127 provinces, and reached from Ethiopia to the Indies. Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in the eleventh century through Persia, mentions that in some of the provinces, at the time of that decree, the Jews occupied forty cities, two hundred boroughs, one hundred castles, which contained 300,000 people. I incline to the opinion that 300,000 of the tribes left Persia.

There is no doubt that, in the march from the Euphrates to the north-east coast of Asia, many of the tribes hesitated in pursuing the journey: some remained in Tartary, many went into China. Alverez states in his History of China, that the Jews had been living in that kingdom for more than six hundred years. He might with great probability have said 1,600 years. He speaks of their being very numerous in some of the provinces, and having synagogues in many of the great cities, especially in that of Hinan and in its metropolis Kai-tong-fu, where he represents them to have a magnificent place of worship, and a repository, the Holy Volume, adorned with richly embroidered curtains, in which they preserve an ancient Hebrew manuscript roll.

They know but little of the Mosaic law, and only repeat the names of David, Abraham, Isaiah, and Jacob. In a Hebrew letter written by the Jews of Cochin-China to their brethren at Amsterdam, they give as the date of their retiring into India, the period when the Romans conquered the Holy Land.

It is clearly evident, therefore, that the tribes, in their progress to a new and undiscovered country, left many of their numbers in China and Tartary, and finally reached the Straits of Behring, where no difficulty prevented their crossing to the north-west coast of America, a distance less than thirty miles, interspersed with the Copper Islands, probably frozen over; and reaching our continent, spread themselves in the course of two thousand years to Cape Horn, the more hardy keeping to the north, to Labrador, Hudson’s Bay, and Greenland; the more cultivated fixing their residence in the beautiful climate and rich possessions of Central America, Mexico, and Peru.

But it may here be asked, could the scattered remnants of Israel have had the courage to penetrate through unknown regions, and encounter the hardships and privations of that inhospitable country? Could they have had the fortitude, the decision, the power, to venture on a dreary pilgrimage of eighteen months, the time mentioned by Esdras as the period of their journey? Could they not? What obstacles had hitherto impeded their progress, that had broken down their energies, or impaired their constancy and fidelity?

They knew that their brethren had severed the chains of Egyptian bondage; had crossed in safety the arm of the Red Sea; had sojourned for years in the wilderness; had encamped near Mount Sinai, and had possessed themselves of the Holy Land.

They remembered the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in all their glory; they had witnessed the erection and destruction of their Temple; they had fought and conquered with the Medes, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They had encountered sufferings upon sufferings unmoved; had bowed their necks submissively to the yoke.

Kings, conquerors, nations, Christians, Mahometans, and Heathens, all had united in the design of destroying the nation; but they never despaired—they knew they were the elect and chosen of the Lord. The oath, that He never would abandon his people, had been fulfilled 3,500 years, and, therefore, with the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, they abandoned the Heathens and the Persian territory, passed the confines of Tartary and China, and, no doubt, through great sufferings, reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, and came in sight of that continent, wherein, as they had reason to believe, “mankind never before had dwelt.”