Then in the [fourteenth chapter] we have seen what is the relative strength of that evidence which vouches for the genuineness and for the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, as compared with that on the ground of which classical literature is accepted as real, and trustworthy. The superiority which we have claimed for the canonical writings results from:—1. The number of copies that have come down to modern times. 2. The high antiquity of some of these extant manuscripts. 3. The extent of geographical surface over which copies were diffused at an early date. 4. The importance attached to them by their possessors. 5. The reverential care with which manuscripts were executed. 6. The separation, and the mutual hostility of those in whose custody the books were conserved. 7. The visible influence of the writings upon the conduct and opinions of nations, from age to age. 8. The mass, and the intricacy of quotations from them. 9. The existence of ancient versions. 10. The vernacular extinction of the languages in which the books were written. 11. The means of comparison with spurious and imitative books. 12. The strength of the inference derivable from the genuineness of the books, to the credibility of their contents. The facts referred to under these twelve heads well deserve the reader’s careful attention, and with this view they are here recapitulated.
But now there is one ground of comparison, quite proper to an argument of this sort, to omit all allusion to which might seem to indicate a consciousness of weakness; for, on the ground which is now in view, there is an apparent advantage largely on the side of classical literature, and profane history. Let us then look into this defective portion, as it may seem, of the Biblical evidence, and measure its actual importance.
With this purpose in view, we return, for an hour, to the British Museum. In passing through these saloons we find ourselves visibly confronted with the memorials of each of the principal developments of ancient civilization; and with some also of those that were very limited, and obscure, and temporary. Ample and multifarious, and admirable are the monuments—in marble and in metal, of what the men of other countries have been, and of what they have done, in ages so long gone by. Here, for instance, is the Egypt of three or four thousand years ago—its people, and their employments; and here its despotisms, its dynasties—so many—are set forth in their gigantic semblances; and we may actually touch surfaces that were chiselled and polished at the time when—or before that time, Abraham was journeying from Mesopotamia towards Canaan. Here also is the Assyrian despot, and here the Babylonian and the mighty builder, and the lord of fifty nations—here they now hold their court, and show us before what glories, and what terrors it was that millions of men bent the knee, and kissed the dust, in the times of Samuel, and of Solomon, and of Hezekiah. Here are substantial displays of the earliest developments of the human mind, under wholly different conditions—physical, social, political. Here are the earliest conceptions of Greek taste, intelligence, and free ideality; all these are vouched for; and mementos are before us of the Lycian people also, and of the Lydian, and of the Etruscan; and as we come down to later times, Greek art, and Roman art, bring us into familiar correspondence, not only with national characteristics, but with the individual persons of those ages. Now, during those times, the people of Palestine were passing from the lower to the upper culminating point of their national existence. Where, then, in this great assemblage of the nations of antiquity—where is Palestine? Are there none here to represent her, and to challenge a place for a people whose literature has pervaded the civilised world? The books of the people of Palestine are in every home—in every sacred edifice—they are found in palaces, and in cottages, and they are treasured near to the hearts of the good—high and low, and are extant in the memories of all. Why then should not the men of Palestine, and why should not its religious rites, be represented in the marbles, and in the metals, of our museums?
It may indeed be said that the ancient Palestine is not altogether absent from the museums of Europe; for among tens of thousands of samples of the mintages of antiquity, there are found a few coins of the Maccabean times, with their innocent and homely symbols; and in the series of the Imperial coins there are some vouchers for the fact of the overthrow of the Jewish state; there is the woman seated by the palm—the representative of the Judæa Devicta. Need we ask the reason of this absence of sculptured memorials of this one among the nations of antiquity?—The want of sculpture is, in truth, this people’s glory; the absence of the vouchers we might look for is indeed a voucher, attesting the noblest of all distinctions—that of having so long possessed and maintained, a free social polity, and a true theology.
If at this time an order were given to remove from the British Museum all memorials of the cruel tyrannies, and of the sensual idolatries of Egypt, and of Assyria, and of Greece, and of Rome—if every article were expelled that gives evidence of the oppressive despotisms, or of the vicious religions of ancient nations, how meagre an exhibition would remain after such a clearance had been effected! It is therefore this people’s glory—a glory unrivalled—that no sculptures are extant to represent it in the museums of Europe! Nevertheless, there are monuments of its history to be found, if we look for them where it is reasonable to make the search; namely, in Palestine itself, and at Jerusalem especially.
A few—say five or six—of the principal cities of antiquity, have continued to be inhabited from the very earliest times to this time;—such are—Damascus, Constantinople, Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The consequences of this uninterrupted occupation of the same sites, have been—more or less so in each instance—such as these—the preservation of some of the most ancient basement structures; the superposition of the structures of each age, in layers or deposits, resembling the strata of the earth’s crust; the commingling of older materials with the more recent buildings in the mason’s work; and, generally, the creation of a modern town, lifted up, as one might say, upon the head and shoulders of the ancient city. Such cities, in exploring which we find evidence of their having undergone these several conditions, may fitly be called—Historical Cities; and from these sources alone—or if there were none else available—we might gather abundant materials, adapted to the purpose of illustrating the written history of nations, and of giving to it the most conclusive confirmations.
The briefest exemplification of what we here affirm, taking up two or three instances only, would occupy a great space. The educated reader does not need to be told what has actually been done, in this way, in regard to Athens and Rome. Something of the same kind has, also, within a few years, been effected in relation to Jerusalem; but in this instance very much remains to be done; and much will undoubtedly be effected, at no distant time, when the Turkish guardianship of Palestine shall have ceased; or when Mahometan jealousy shall have given way to European intelligence. We advert to this instance, in concluding this volume, because it properly brings into view—at once, the several kinds of facts and statements which belong to our argument.
It is thus, then, that we bring the modern Jerusalem into our prospect. Two short periods excepted—after the capture and overthrow of the city—Jerusalem has been inhabited, continuously, throughout a period of three thousand years; and during all that length of time a written history has attended its fortunes, even from the earliest age, to this present time. If in this place indulgence might be given to a metaphor—and to such a metaphor—we should say that, looking at the entire mass of authentic history as an organic body, Jerusalem—the same hard material from age to age—is the vertebral stay of all history; or, in homely phrase, that this one city is the very back-bone of chronology. This is certain, and it has become more and more evident from year to year of late, that in every instance in which the leading events of the Hebrew and Jewish history may be ascertained with precision, such fixed points send forth ribs which give support to the loose matters of Egyptian, and Assyrian, and Persian and Macedonian history.
It is peculiar to this one ancient city to have passed under the hand, and to have been for a length of time in the occupation of each of the great empires that have had a place and a name in the world, during the course of three thousand years. Each of these powers has solidly monumented itself within, and about its walls. A narrow space indeed is this to contain the architectures of ten empires; or, to be more precise, of seven empires, and of three royal holdings. Yet so it is; and in attestation of the fact, and as a consequence of it, if at this moment we were fitting ourselves out for a six or twelve months’ explorative sojourn in the Holy City, we should think it indispensable to pack our portmanteaus with books, ancient and modern, which, retrogressively catalogued, would include—I. The principal modern works or guide-books, which show what the Franks have done in recent times in the way of church-building, monasteries, hospitals, hospices, and private residencies. II. Such records as there may be (if any) of Turkish doings in the same or similar modes; and much has been done by the pashas in the repairs of the walls, and in alterations and repairs within and around the Haram. III. The Arabic writers (they are more than a few), the post-Islamic, and the ante-Islamic—such as Abulfeda, and others, in whose writings incidental notices, at least, occur of the Saracenic structures of their “Al Kuds.” There is much relating to the mosque of Omar, and of Al Aksa. IV. The entire mass of the crusading histories—the writers who are brought together in that bulky folio, the “Gesta Dei per Frankos.” With these there must come very many writers of the fifteenth and following centuries, who treat of the topography of Palestine, such as Adrichomius, in the “Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ.” V. The Byzantine writers who touch upon the churches and monasteries of the Holy Land; with Procopius, and his account of the buildings of Justinian: the early Itineraries, Greek and Latin; and among these Jerome must find his place. VI. Some of the Greek Fathers—Cyril of Jerusalem and Eusebius. VII. The Greek and Roman profane historians, in series; from whom we learn all that can be known of the fate and fortunes of the city after its overthrow, and during the years of its desecration, as the Ælia Capitolina, by heathen temples and their impure rites. VIII. Josephus, and the Book of Maccabees, are our authority as to Herod’s structures, of which many unquestionable remains are discernible among the ruins of the city. The same writer, and perhaps some of the rabbis, give the evidence that is required for interpreting the existing remains of the Asmonean period; thenceforward, or, we should say, higher up, it is—IX. To the Hebrew prophets and historians that we must look for the light we need, so far as the written memorials of the times of Ezra, Nehemiah, Hezekiah, Solomon, David, may afford it.
Thus it appears that, in carrying forward those explorations which already have in part been made, and which are now in progress, and which may be effected hereafter at Jerusalem, what we are doing, and what we shall yet be doing, is this—we are taking up the ancient written records of this city, page after page, and we are verifying each of our authorities by aid of the architectural remains of the same times—even from the remotest periods, down to this age. It is this Jerusalem which, beyond any other ancient site, furnishes the means, and the material, for thus collating and verifying the literary records of a people, by means of its extant monuments.