The Bible: what it is Part 17

'I propose to adopt a different and more natural solution of the difficulty. In 1 Chronicles ii., 11, Salmon is named "Salma," which shows that there are some doubtful points in this genealogy. This was likely to be the case; for the book being compiled out of original papers, like all the rest of the Jewish History after the captivity of Babylon, the compilers were likely to be puzzled by many discrepancies of this nature, and choosing to preserve as much as possible the form of their original sources, they have retained even their errors also.'

(_Vide_ "Hebrew Records.")

*Chapter i., v. 15. It seems unlikely that a Jewish woman would recommend her daughter-in-law to commit idolatry.

Verse 22. Ruth did not _return_ to Bethlehem, never having been there before.

*Chapter iv. v. 17. Obed was the son of Ruth, the Moabitish woman. He was the father of Jesse, and grandfather of David, and, by the law of Moses, the descendants of a Moabite for ten generations shall not enter the congregation of the Lord (see page 85), so that David, 'the man after G.o.d's own heart,' and Solomon, his son, and six of their succeeding generations, were barred out of the congregation. I wonder whether David knew this when he 'danced before the Lord;' or Solomon when about to erect the temple.

Paine spoke of the Book of Ruth as 'an idle bungling story, {118} foolishly told, n.o.body knows by whom, about a strolling country girl, creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz.' Bishop Watson thus comments on this:--

'As to Ruth, you do an injury to her character. She was not a strolling country girl. She had been married ten years; and being left a widow without children, she accompanied her mother-in-law returning into her native country, out of which with her husband and her two sons she had been driven by a famine. The disturbances in France have driven many men with their families to America; if, ten years hence, a woman, having lost her husband and her children, should return to France with a daughter-in-law, would you be justified in calling the daughter-in-law a strolling country girl? But she "crept slily to bed to her cousin Boaz."

I do not find it so in the history. As a person imploring protection, she laid herself down at the foot of an aged kinsman's bed, and she rose up with as much innocence as she had laid herself down. She was afterwards married to Boaz, and reputed by all her neighbours a virtuous woman; and they were more likely to know her character than you are.

Whoever reads the Book of Ruth, bearing in mind the simplicity of ancient manners, will find it an interesting story of a poor young woman following in a strange land the advice, and affectionately attaching herself to the fortunes, of the mother of her deceased husband.'

The Bishop is apparently indignant that Ruth should be accused of 'creeping slily to bed,' but the Bible account is certainly that without the knowledge of Boaz 'she came softly and uncovered his feet and laid her down.' I cannot find the Bishop's authority for the statement that Ruth lay down at the foot of 'an aged kinsman's bed.' Boaz is not stated to be an old man. He evidently considered that it was necessary to keep Ruth's visit a secret, and appears to have been young enough to have children after his marriage. As for her neighbours reputing her 'a virtuous woman,' that is nothing, for they were not aware of her nocturnal visit to the bed-chamber of Boaz. This book scarcely needs further comment at my hands. It is ridiculous to suppose it to be a revelation from G.o.d, and with the exception of Ruth's devotedness to her mother-in-law, there are no points raised in it worthy of a prolonged notice.

BOOK IX. SAMUEL

'The two Books of Samuel form but one in the Hebrew Canon. In the Septuagmt and Vulgate translations they are called the First and Second Books of Kings, and those which we call the First and Second Books of Kings are termed the Third and Fourth Books of Kings. This diversity is to be regretted; ancient histories should at far as is possible be kept in their original form. There seems to be no adequate reason for cla.s.sifying these books, as they are cla.s.sified in {119} our Bibles; for they contain quite as much of the history of David as of Samuel. But the impression prevailed that Samuel was their author; and as Protestants in endeavouring to run counter to Roman Catholics, have magnified the importance of the Old Testament exactly in proportion as they have decried the use of reason, the translators have so arranged the Books as to produce the most striking effect; and thus an individual existence has been given to that which has none, but which really is only a part of the whole. Yet, notwithstanding first, the separation of Samuel from Kings, and then its division into two parts, the work bears on the face of it the strong fact that it could not have been written by Samuel: for the twenty-fifth chapter of the first book begins with the words:--'And Samuel died!' Thus more than half of the whole was obviously composed by a later writer. But we shall see by an examination of the book in order that the whole of it owes its origin to a date later than that of Samuel.' ( _Vide_ 'Hebrew Records.')

*Chapter i., v. 5, says that Elkanah gave Hannah 'a worthy portion.' The Douay renders it 'But to Anna he gave one portion with sorrow.'

Verse 6. What 'adversary' is this? The phrase may possibly refer to the other wife, but of this there is not the slightest evidence in the wording of the text; sterility has been a subject of reproach amongst the Jews, as also amongst the Arabs, and some other nations.

Verses 6 to 19. It is probable that in the country district, where the family of Elkanah dwelt, that the barrenness of Hannah was a matter of notoriety. The vow also could not fail to be divulged, and its apparent success to create a great sensation. The superst.i.tious people who traced the hand of G.o.d in everything, would of course say that Samuel was his special sift.

*Chapter ii., v. 5. 'The barren hath born seven.' If Hannah here referred to herself, she must have spoken in the spirit of prophecy, and even then must have erred in her prophetic dreamings, as by verse 21 she only appears to have had five children, and, excluding Samuel from amongst those, it would still leave one short of the number.

Verse 8. What are these pillars upon which the world is set? How many pillars are there, and upon what do they rest? Or is this an oriental figure of speech not capable of a literal interpretation?

Verses 1 to 10. It is scarcely probable that Hannah the wife of a country farmer composed this song--it is more likely to have been composed by a Levite, or perhaps by the writer of the story.

Verses 13 to 16. 'This narrative presents various subjects of instruction: at first it pictures the simplicity, or rather the grossness of the manners of the times very a.n.a.logous to the age of Homer. This Hebrew people were mostly composed of rustics, living on their little properties, which they had cultivated with their own hands, as the Druzes do now. The only cla.s.s, a little elevated, a little less ignorant, was the tribe of Levi--that is, the priests, who lived idle, supported by the voluntary, or forced offerings of the nation; this {120} cla.s.s had more time than means to employ the mind. This shows itself here in the tone and style of the narrator, who, by his knowledge of the duties of the priests, evinced himself a man of the craft. We might compare this Levite to the monks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, writing: their holy histories under the auspices of superst.i.tion and credulity. In this relation we see the essential character of the priest, whose first and constant object of attention is the pot or kettle, on which his existence depends; and this reveals the motives of all that display of victims and sacrifices which play so great a part among the ancients.

'Until now I could not conceive the advantage of converting the courts and the porches of temples into slaughter-houses. [ _Vide_ remarks on page 67.] I could not reconcile the idea of the hideous spectacle of the choking of sensitive animals, of the shedding of oceans of blood, of the filthiness of entrails, with the ideas which we were taught of the divine majesty, of the divine goodness that repels to a distance the gross necessities which these practices suppose. In reflecting on that which has just been noticed, I perceive the solution of the enigma. I see that in their primitive state the ancients were as one; as are yet the Tartars of Asia, and their brothers, the savages of America, ferocious men, contending constantly against dangers, and struggling with those necessities--the violence of which raises all the sensibilities; men accustomed to shed blood in the chase, on which their subsistence depended. In this state, the first ideas which they had--the only ones they entertained of the divinity--represented him as a being more powerful than themselves; but reasoning and perceiving like them, having their pa.s.sions and their character. The whole history shows the truth of this.

'By this mode of reasoning, these savages thought that every unlucky accident, every misfortune which happened to them, was the consequence of the hate, the resentment, the envy of some concealed agent, of some irascible secret power, vindictive, like themselves, and consequently susceptible like them to be appeased by prayers and gifts. From this idea originated the spontaneous habits of religious offerings, the practice of which shows itself amongst all savages, both ancient and modern. But, as in all times and in all societies, there were men more subtle and more cunning than the mult.i.tude, there was soon found some old savage, who, not entertaining this belief, or being undeceived, conceived the idea of turning it to his profit. Supposed to possess secret means, particular recitations for calming the anger of the G.o.ds, genii, or spirits, and to render them propitious, the vulgar, ignorant, and always credulous, especially when bound by fear, or stimulated by desire, addressed itself to this favoured mortal. Hence a mediator const.i.tuted between man and the divinity: hence a seer, a juggler, a priest, as all the Tartars have, as have most savages and the negroes.

These jugglers found it convenient to live at the expense of others, and perfected their art by causing delusions and deceptions. This it was which gave birth to the sacerdotal phantasmagoria. At present, as these physical means are understood, we perceive these {121} artifices in the prodigies of the ancient oracles, and in the miracles of the ancient Magi.

'At the time when the trade became advantageous an a.s.sociation of adepts was formed, and the rules of the a.s.sociation became the basis of the priesthood; but as these a.s.sociations of divines, of seers, of interpreters, and of ministers of the G.o.ds, employed all their time in their public functions, and in their secret practices, it was necessary that their daily and annual subsistence should be provided for by a regular system. The practice, until then casual, of offerings and voluntary sacrifices, was const.i.tuted an obligatory tribute; conscience was regulated by legislation; the people led to the altar and the porch of the temple the choice of their flocks, of their lambs, their beeves, and their calves; they brought corn, wine, and oil. The sacerdotal inst.i.tution had the income, the nation had the ceremonies, the prayers, and everybody was content. The rest does not require explanation; I only remark that the division of animals into pure and impure appears to be derived from their goodness for eating, or the disadvantage as injurious or disagreeable when eaten. Hence the reason why the rank he-goat was rejected in the desert; why the old tough ram was entirely burned; why the measly and scabby hog was despised; but this is saying enough of the kitchen of the priests of Israel.' (_Vide_ Volney.)

The priests of the Israelites are similar in some respects to the priests of the Christian Church. The Jew-priest took all that he could, if not by fair means then by force; our priests follow their example.

They have seized a poor old woman's family Bible to pay t.i.thes; they have pocketed t.i.thes until unable to sign their names to the receipts for their income, and then when nearly at the point of death, they have bargained for a handsome retiring pension before they would resign their priesthood; yet these are the men who 'lay up for themselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor mot doth corrupt.' Voltaire says:--

'Priests in a state approach nearly to what preceptors are in private families: it is their province to teach, pray, and supply example. They ought to have no authority over the masters of the house; at least until it can be proved that he who gives the wages ought to obey him who receives them.

'Prayer is not dominion, nor exhortation despotism. A good priest ought to be a physician to the soul. If Hippocrates had ordered his patients to take h.e.l.lebore under pain of being hanged, he would have been more insane and barbarous than Phalaris, and would have had little practice.

When a priest says--Worship G.o.d, be just, indulgent, and compa.s.sionate, he is then a good physician: when he says--Believe me, or you shall be burnt, he is an a.s.sa.s.sin.

'The magistrate ought to support and restrain the priest in the same manner as the father of a family insures respect to the preceptor, and prevents him from abusing it. The agreement of Church and State is of all systems the 'most monstrous.' (_Philosophical Dictionary_) {122} Verse 22. The nation must have improved rapidly in morals when its judges and priests were so extremely virtuous. It is instructive to a devout believer to observe that the Church has not degenerated, and that the priests appointed by G.o.d were as vicious as those since appointed by the State.

Verse 25. 'Because the Lord would slay them.' What terrible cruelty this seems to harden people's hearts in order to destroy them. But to whom did G.o.d make known his intentions? Was it to one man only; to the priest who repeated it? Have we not, then, good reason to attribute it rather to the bearer of the message, to the self-styled interpreter of G.o.d's will? It is clear that this could never come from a loving and just G.o.d, but rather from a Jewish mouth, from the heart of a fanatic and ferocious Hebrew, full of the pa.s.sions and prejudices which he attributes to his idol.

Verses 30 to 36. When the _immutable_ Deity decreed that the house of Aaron should be his priests for ever, did he foresee the offences of Eli and his children? If not, his attribute of foreknowledge is taken away; if he did, then the whole story is absurd.

'In this account we have first a conversation divulged. But by whom? Eli would not have boasted of it; it was the man of G.o.d who made it known.

What interest had he to prepare the minds for a change desired by many, even by the greatest number? In his quality of prophet and preacher this man of G.o.d must have known the successor announced. Might he not act already in concert with him? His prediction is found to be in favour of Samuel. Might not Samuel play a part in this affair? The axiom rightly says:--He has done it, who had an interest to do it. Should it not have been Samuel in this case? Observe that Eli was blind, and that any one might have spoken to him, and he not have known the person. There is here the management of knavery. Samuel is not impeached; but he is arraigned. As to the prediction against the two sons of Eli on the same day, it is evident how easy it was to the writer or copyist to interpolate afterwards.' (_Vide_ Volney.)

*Chapter iii., v. 1. 'And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.' What this means I do not profess to explain, but I take the opportunity of allowing Voltaire to deal with the subject generally:--

'When I speak of vision I do not mean the admirable manner in which our eyes perceive objects, and in which the pictures of all that we see are painted on the retina. This matter has been so learnedly treated by so many great geniuses that there is no further remnant to glean after their harvests.

'My subject is the innumerable mult.i.tude of visions, with which so many holy personages have been favoured or tormented; which so many idiots are believed to have seen; with which so many knavish men and women have duped the world, either to get the reputation of being favoured by heaven, which is very flattering, or to gain money, which is still more so to rogues in general. 'Calmet and Langlet have made ample collections of these visions. {123} The most interesting in my opinion is the one which has produced the greatest effects, since it has tended to reform three parts of the Swiss--that of the young Jacobin, Yetzer. This Yetzer saw the Holy Virgin and St. Barbara several times; who informed him of the marks of Jesus Christ. He received from a Jacobin confessor a host, powdered with a.r.s.enic, and the Bishop of Lausanne would have had him burnt for complaining that he was poisoned. These abominations were one of the causes of the misfortune which happened to the Bernese, of ceasing to be Catholic, Apostolical, and Roman.

'I am sorry that I have no visions of this consequence to tell you of.

Yet you will confess that the vision of the reverend father Cor-delius, of Orleans, in 1534, approaches the nearest to it, though still very distant. The criminal process which it occasioned is still in ma.n.u.script in the library of the King of France, No. 1770.

'The ill.u.s.trious house of St. Memin did great good to the convent of the Cordeliers, and had their vault in the Church. The wife of a Lord of St.

Memin, provost of Orleans, being dead, her husband, believing that his ancestors had sufficiently impoverished themselves by giving to the monks, gave the brothers a present, which did not appear to them considerable enough. These good Franciscans conceived a plan for disinterring the deceased, to force the widower to have her buried again in holy ground, and to pay them better. The project was not clever, for the Lord of St. Memin would not have failed to have buried her elsewhere. But folly often mixes with knavery.

'At first, the soul of the lady of St. Memin appeared only to two brothers. She said to them--"I am d.a.m.ned, like Judas; because my husband has not given sufficient." The two knaves who related these words perceived not that they must do more harm to the convent than good. The aim of the convent was to extort money from the Lord of St. Memin, for the repose of his wife's soul. Now if Madame de St. Memin was d.a.m.ned, all the money in the world could not save her. They got no more; the Cordeliers lost their labour.

'At this time there was very little good sense in France: the nation had been brutalised by the invasion of the Franks, and afterwards by the invasion of scholastic theology; but in Orleans there were some persons who reasoned. If the Great Being permitted the soul of Madame de St.

Memin to appear to two Franciscans, it was not natural, they thought, for this soul to declare itself d.a.m.ned like Judas. This comparison appeared to them to be unnatural. This lady had not sold our Lord Jesus Christ for thirty deniers; she was not hanged; her intestines had not obtruded themselves; and there was not the slightest pretext for comparing her to Judas.

'This caused suspicion; and the rumour was still greater in Orleans, because there were already heretics there who believed not in certain visions, and who, in admitting absurd principles, did not always fail to draw good conclusions. The Cordeliers, therefore, changed their battery, and put the lady in purgatory.

'She therefore appeared again, and declared that purgatory was her {124} lot; but she demanded to be disinterred. It was not the custom to disinter those in purgatory; but they hoped that Monsieur St. Memin would prevent this extraordinary affront by giving money. This demand of being thrown out of the Church augmented the suspicions. It was well known that souls often appeared; but they never demanded to be disinterred.

'From this time the soul spoke no more, but it haunted everybody in the convent and church. The brother Cordeliers exorcised it. Brother Peter, of Arras, adopted a very awkward manner of conjuring it. He said to it--If thou art the soul of the late Madame de St. Memin, strike four knocks; and the four knocks were struck. If thou art d.a.m.ned, strike six knocks; and the six knocks were struck. If thou art still tormented in h.e.l.l, because thy body is buried in holy-ground, knock six more times; and the other six knocks were heard still more distinctly. If we disinter thy body, and cease praying to G.o.d for thee, wilt thou be the less d.a.m.ned? Strike five knocks to certify it to us; and the soul certified it by five knocks. [Spirit-rapping is therefore more ancient than is generally supposed.} 'This interrogation of the soul, made by Peter, of Arras, was signed by twenty-two Cordeliers, at the head of which was the reverend father provincial. This father provincial the next day asked it the same questions, and received the same answers.

'It will be said that the soul having declared that it was in purgatory, the Cordeliers should not have supposed that it was in h.e.l.l; but it is not my fault if theologians contradict one another.

'The Lord of St. Memin presented a request to the king against the father Cordeliers. They presented a request on their sides; the king appointed judges, at the head of whom was Adrian Fumee, master of requests.

'The Procureur-General of the commission required that the said Cordeliers should be burned; but the sentence only condemned them to make the "amende honorable," with a torch in their bosom, and to be banished from the kingdom. This sentence is of February 18th, 1535.

'After such a vision, it is useless to relate any others: they are all a species either of knavery or folly. Visions of the first kind are under the province of justice; those of the second are either visions of diseased fools, or of fools in good health. The first belong to medicine, the second to Bedlam.'

Verse 3. 'Before the lamp of G.o.d went out.' I presume this refers to some lamp kept burning in the tabernacle; but it is a strange mode of description.

Verses 4 to 21. 'Now to appreciate this narrative, I do not intend to reason on its leading features: G.o.d comes into a chamber, stands before a bed, speaks as a person of flesh and bones. What should I think of a person who would believe such a fable? I shall confine myself to the conduct and character of Samuel. And first, I demand who saw, who heard, all that was said; who related it, who made it public? It could not be Eli; it could be only Samuel, who was {125} actor, witness, and narrator. He alone had an interest to invent and promulgate. Without him who could have specified the minute details of this adventure? It is evident that we have here a scene of phantasmagoria, resembling those which took place among the ancients in the sanctuaries of the temples, and for the responses of the oracles. The young adept was encouraged to it by the physical and moral feebleness of the high-priest Eli; perhaps by the instigation of some person concealed behind the curtain, and having interests and pa.s.sions which we cannot now ascertain; though it is most probable that Samuel trusted to no one. What remains to be afterwards seen of his dissimulation, seems to fix the balance on this side. Divulging was not so difficult; he might have been satisfied with the confidence of a servant, a devoted friend, an old or a young priestess, that the apparition of G.o.d, the oracle of the holy ark might be rumoured, acquiring from mouth to mouth an intensity of cert.i.tude and belief.

'"But Samuel increased (says the text) and G.o.d was with him, and none of his words fell to the ground: and all Israel knew that he was become a prophet of G.o.d; and G.o.d continued to appear in Shiloh." As to the word _prophet_ the historian tells us that, at this epoch, the Hebrew term [------] (_nebiah_) was unknown: that the word [--------] (_raeh_) was used, which signifies _seer_. Here, then, we have a posthumous writer, who connected at pleasure the memoirs which Samuel, or some other contemporary, had composed. It pleased him to set down, as a positive fact, the belief of all Israel in this fable, while he himself knew nothing of the matter. If we had memoirs of those times from several hands, we should have materials for reasonable judgment. It is said in the text, that for some time the word of the Lord had become scarce, and that there appeared no more visions. Why was this? because there were some incredulous; because there had happened bad examples, false oracles, divulging of sacerdotal knavery, which had awakened the good sense of the higher cla.s.s among the people. The blind and fanatic credulity remained, as it always happens, among the mult.i.tude; it was on them that Samuel calculated, and we shall see on the installation of Saul, that he had always against him a party of unbelievers, powerful enough to compel him to use management, and even to oblige him to abdicate.' (_Vide_ Volney.)

*Chapter iv., v. 4. 'The ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts which dwelleth between the cherubims.' The Douay translates the same thus:--'The ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts sitting upon the cherubims.' As to cherubim see page 21. The word translated ark is [------] (_aroun_). In Parkhurst, under the root [----], I find the following remarks which are worthy of consideration:--