These historic facts seem to indicate the definite channel through which the laws of Moses reached the Grecian mind in its earliest stages of culture and thus wrought themselves into the great fountains of Grecian and Roman civilization and jurisprudence.
(e.) There seem to be strong grounds for the general statement that the greatest reformers of all known history have acted upon the ideas of Moses, and have probably drawn their doctrines more or less directly from that fountain. I will venture to place in this category Zoroaster, Plato, Confucius, Buddha, and Mahomet. These men were in their time reformers of society, of morals, and of jurisprudence. Their influence led toward if not fully unto the doctrine of one God, and by natural consequence to a purer morality and juster views of law and equity; of love to one’s neighbor and purity of life.——I regret that my limits forbid any attempt to present the historic evidence which might support more or less fully these broad, comprehensive statements. The historic evidence that Zoroaster, Plato, and Mahomet drew from Moses is very strong. Of the great Indian reformer and of the Chinese comparatively little is known.
(f.) Of Roman law as finally embodied in the great code of Justinian, it has been already suggested that its best things came from Moses and the Septuagint through Greece and the Egypt of the Ptolemies.——I add two other remarks:—(a) That in the age of Justinian (first half of the sixth Christian century) primitive Christianity had quite fully leavened the publicsentiment and thus the jurisprudence of the then civilized world.——(b.) That when Justinian created a commission of learned jurists to “collect the scattered monuments of ancient jurisprudence,” he recommended them in settling any point to regard neither the number nor the reputation of the jurisconsults who had given opinions on the subject,but to be guided solely by reason and equity.[45]
(g.) Of Alfred the Great (reigned A. D. 871–901) the central testimony of history is that he was severely just. Despite of surroundings almost barbarous, he rose by dint of his irrepressible manliness to become the greatest legislator and scholar of his age, and so was able to lay the foundations for the best and truest glory of the English name. The common law of England and of the English-speaking world began its development under his hand. One fact is of itself a volume of testimony to the spirit of this ancient law. When after a long struggle Wilberforce brought the question before the English bench—Does English law sanction human bondage? the world heard the answer—Never. “Slaves can not breathe in England.” What moment they take in her pure air, they are free! The spirit of her law from the days of Alfred was justice and righteousness between a man and his neighbor. The laws of Moses were in Alfred’s eye; the spirit of those laws filled and fired his noble soul. It is currently said that the telling words which describe the needy as “God’s poor” are original (for our mother Saxon tongue) with him. Moses had reiterated the sentiment long ages before.——Sir Matthew Hale has traced the influence of the Bible generally on the laws of England. Sismondi testifies that Alfred, in causing a republication of the Saxon laws, inserted several statutes taken from the code of Moses, to give new strength and cogency to the principles of morality.
“Thus have the principles of the Mosaic code found their way to a greater or less extent into the jurisprudence of all civilized nations.” [Wines—p. 337.]
It falls within our plan to speak briefly of the civil code of Moses as a series of progressive revelations of God to man.
I have spoken of the law of Sinai as a manifestation of God to man at once sublime in its majesty and most benignly practical in its moral bearings. The civil code—“the statutes and judgments”—carry out yet more fully the practical unfoldings of God’s wisdom and of his sense of justice and right as between man and man. It is not easy to select the most striking cases to illustrate this point, for the whole code is radiant with divine wisdom and aglow with testimonies of his love, manifesting itself in wisest legislation for human welfare.——Confining our attention to the second table of the law of Sinai—man’s relation to his fellow-man—we may consider how much there is here adapted to conserve all the best elements of society—in securing the honor due to parents and rulers; in guarding human life and providing the means for its protection; in making the marriage covenant sacred; on the one hand shielding the sexual relation of the race against abuses most pernicious; and on the other, providing agencies which may enrich man’s social life with priceless blessings. So also the statutes in detail respecting rights of property and rights of reputation are replete with fresh testimonies to the wisdom and the love of the Great Father.——Speaking frankly of the impressions made on my mind by this study of the code of Moses, I must say that no part has seemed to me more deeply imbued with the tenderness and pity of the Lord than the provisions made for the poor, and the restrictions and limitations upon personal servitude. In all his utterances on these points the Lord assumes that no interests of man more need his protection than these, and he comes promptly to the front to give it. He would have us know that over these interests his watchful eye never sleeps; his quick ear is never shut to any cry for help. The rich and the mighty may get on without his special aid; the poor are his own wards and shall never lack his sympathy nor his present hand. Human laws are in great part worthless—at least they miss their most important function—unless they make it their chief endeavor to protect the interests and rights of thosewho, powerless in themselves, drop upon the strong arm of law for their defence. Society and legislation might as well not be as to forget that they exist as appointed of God mainly for the sake of the poor and the otherwise unprotected and unbefriended. Such needy ones every human society will have for the moral trial of those who control society, and I may add, to draw out the sympathy of the Great Father.
These revelations of himself stand forth in sunlight throughout this Mosaic code. They are a glorious advance upon all that the world had seen before. The true mission of civil law is brought out here with great fullness; for it seems to be every-where assumed that if laws protect and befriend the poor, they protect and befriend all. If the spirit of law faithfully guards their interests, it can not well fail to guard all interests that need the guardianship of human legislation. It is a priceless boon to the race to have these ideas so beautifully set forth and so substantially embodied in a code of laws fresh from the hand and from the heart of the Infinite Father.