3. Preparatory to this result it maintained against the whole Pagan world the doctrine of one God—perfect in character, supreme in power, righteous in all his administrationof rewards and punishments. Only so could it make the idea of God a really wholesome power and his authority effective in sustaining civil government.
4. This divinely given code rested upon justice and equity, and determined every thing by this standard. So doing, it ruled out at once a multitude of interests and ends which human laws have often sought to secure. Its example therefore, in so far at least, was simply and supremely beneficent.
5. In yet further detail, it recognized the common and equal rights of all men, irrespective of condition, rank, wealth—holding constantly the doctrine, “No respect of persons.”
6. It appreciated at their just value the rights of the poor and of all that large class who look only to God and to human law for protection.
We come now to the question of historic fact: Did this Hebrew code and government send forth its influence upon the nations of ancient history? Did it in any perceptible degree leaven the best systems of human law and jurisprudence.——If the proof for the affirmative falls short of positive certainty, what is its amount of probability?
Here we may fitly consider—
(a.) That God chose for Israel the land of Canaan, in the center of the ancient world of mind; immediately between Egypt on the one hand and Babylon, Assyria, Persia—all the great nations of Western Asia—on the other; and closely contiguous to ancient Greece and Rome.
(b.) That David and Solomon became known to all the great powers of the world of their time. Solomon’s renown turned largely on the fact that his people were prosperous and happy, his government well ordered, and his own wisdom in all affairs of state unsurpassed.——It is simply impossible that such examples should drop powerless upon the nations of the earth.
(c.) That at a later period the personal history of Mordecai, of Esther, and especially of Daniel in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar and of Cyrus show that the Jews, their religion, their God, and their law, did impress themselves upon the greatest centers of influence and power in their time.
(d.) This dispersion of the Jews at and after theircaptivity planted them in large numbers in the chief seats of human science and learning; in Egypt on the South-West; in Babylon, Persia, and adjacent countries of the East. It is historically certain that in the age of the Ptolemies, a large body of learned Jews lived in Egypt; that the Old Testament was translated into Greek by request of Ptolemy Philadelphus;that the Egypt of that age was the school of wisdom and jurisprudence for Ancient Greece and was herself the pupil of Moses.[43]——That the best Greek authors knew Moses is matter of history. Longinus quotes from Moses (Gen. 1: 3) in his treatise on Sublimity; Strabo makes honorable mention of him as a law-giver; and Diodorus Siculus acknowledges him to be “the first of legislators from whom all laws had their origin.” Numenius a Greek philosopher of the Pythagorean school, speaking of Plato, exclaims—“What is Plato but Moses Atticising”—i. e. teaching in Attic Greek? Origen believed that Plato drew largely from Moses.——The list of eminent Grecian authors and savans who went personally to Egypt for wisdom and science is long—such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus.There they came into contact with learned Jews and not improbably with the writings of Moses.[44] Prof. Wines (p. 335) cites the learned Grotius as saying—“The most ancient Attic laws, whence in aftertimes the Roman were derived, owe their origin to Moses’ law. That the Grecians, especially the Attics, took their laws from Moses is credible. This is the reason why the Attic laws and the Roman twelve Tables which sprang from them so much resemble the Hebrew laws.”——This similarity between the Attic laws and those of Moses has been noticed by many other learned men, e. g. Josephus, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, Sir Matthew Hale, Archbishop Potter. The last named in his “Grecian Antiquities” has adduced many points ofGrecian law which seem to have been taken from Moses—viz. the laws of divorce; the purgation oath compared with “the oath of jealousy” among the Hebrews; the harvest and vintage festival; the law of first-fruits; the law requiring the best offerings for God; the portion for the priests; protection to the man-slayer at their altars; requiring priests to be unblemished; the agrarian law; laws regulating descent of property, and prohibiting marriage within certain degrees of consanguinity.——Plato in his ideal “Republic” is thought to have drawn largely from Moses.——Clement of Alexandria accosts him (by Apostrophe)—“But as for laws, whatever are true were conveyed to thee from the Hebrews.”