The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

that they were so employed we know. Stone worship and

star idolatry, with the adoration of ancestral shades, prevailed within

Arabia in ancient times, and even now are not extinct. “The servant of the

sun” was one of the titles of their ancient kings. Certain honours are yet

paid to the morning star. But in that country the one-god belief was

always that of the higher class of minds, at least within historic time; it is

therefore not incorrect to term it the Arabian creed. We shall now

proceed to show in what manner that belief, having mingled with foreign

elements, became a national religion, and how from that religion sprang

two other religions which overspread the world.

 

Long after the building of the Pyramids, but before the dawn of Greek

and Roman life, a Bedouin sheikh named Abraham, accompanied by his

nephew Lot, migrated from the plains which lie between the Tigris and

Euphrates, crossed over the Syro-Arabian desert, and entered Canaan, a

country about the size of Wales lying below Phoenicia between the desert

and the Mediterranean Sea. They found it inhabited by a people of

farmers and vine-dressers, living in walled cities and subsisting on the

produce of the soil. But only a portion of the country was under

cultivation: they discovered wide pastoral regions unoccupied by men,

and wandered at their pleasure from pasture to pasture and from plain to

plain. Their flocks and herds were nourished to the full, and multiplied

so fast that the Malthusian Law came into force; the herdsmen of

Abraham and Lot began to struggle for existence; the land could no

longer bear them both. It was therefore agreed that each should select a

region for himself. A similar arrangement was repeated more than once

in the lifetime of the patriarch. When his illegitimate sons grew up to

man´s estate he gave them cattle and sent them off in the direction of the

east.

 

At certain seasons of the year he encamped beneath the walls of cities,

and exchanged the wool of his flocks for flour, oil, and wine. He

established friendships with the native kings, and joined them in their

wars. He was honoured by them as a prince, for he could bring three

hundred armed slaves into the field, and his circle of tents might fairly be

regarded as a town. Before their canvas doors sat the women spinning

wool and singing the Mesopotamian airs, while the aged patriarch in the

Great Tent, which served as the forum and the guesthouse, measured out

the rations for the day, gave orders to the young men about the stock, and

sat in judgement on the cases which were brought before him, as king and

father to decide.

 

He bought from the people of the land a field and a cave, in which he

buried his wife and in which he was afterwards himself interred. He was

succeeded by Isaac as head of the family. Esau and Jacob, the two sons

of Isaac, appear to have been equally powerful and rich.

 

Up to this time the children of Abraham were Bedouin Arabs—nothing

more. They worshipped Eloah or Allah, sometimes erecting to him a

rude altar on which they sacrificed a ram or kid; sometimes a stone pillar

on which they poured a drink, and then smeared it with oil to his honour

and glory. Sometimes they planted a sacred tree. The life which they led

was precisely that of the wandering Arabs who pasture their flocks on the

outskirts of Palestine at the present day. Not only Ishmael, but also Lot,

Esau, and various Abrahamites of lesser note became the fathers of

Arabian tribes. The Beni-Israel did not differ in manners and religion

from the Beni-Ishmael and Beni-Esau, and Beni-Lot. It was the

settlement of the clan in a foreign country, the influence of foreign

institutions, which made the Israelites a peculiar people. It was the sale

of the shepherd boy—at first a house-slave, then a prisoner, then a

favourite of the Pharaoh—which created a destiny for the House of Jacob,

separated it from the Arab tribes, and educated it into a nationality.

When Joseph became a great man he obtained permission to send for his

father and his brethren. The clan of seventy persons, with their women

and their slaves, came across the desert by the route of the Syrian

caravan. The old Arab, in his course woollen gown and with his staff in

his hand, was ushered into the royal presence. He gave the king his

blessing in the solemn manner of the East, and after a short conversation

was dismissed with a splendid gift of land. When Jacob died his

embalmed corpse was carried up to Canaan with an Egyptian escort and

buried in the cave which Abraham had bought. Joseph had married the

daughter of a priest of Heliopolis, but his two sons did not become

Egyptians; they were formally admitted into the family by Jacob himself

before he died.

 

When Joseph also died the connection between the Israelites and the

court came to an end. They led the life of shepherds in the fertile

pasturelands which had been bestowed upon them by the king. In course

of time the twelve families expanded into twelve tribes, and the tribe

itself became a nation. The government of Memphis observed the rapid

increase of this people with alarm. The Israelites belonged to the same

race as the hated Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. With their long beards and

flowing robes they reminded the Egyptians of the old oppressors. It was

argued that the Bedouins might again invade Egypt, and in that case the

Israelites would take their side. By way of precaution the Israelites were

treated as prisoners of war, disarmed, and employed on the public works.

And as they still continued to increase it was ordered that all their male

children should be killed. It was doubtless the intention of the

government to marry the girls as they grew up to Egyptians, and so to

exterminate the race.

 

One day the king´s daughter, as she went down with her girls to the Nile

to bathe, found a Hebrew child exposed on the waters in obedience to the

new decree. She adopted the boy and gave him an Egyptian name. He

was educated as a priest, and became a member of the university of

Heliopolis. But although his face was shaved and he wore the surplice,

Moses remained a Hebrew in his heart. He was so overcome by passion

when he saw an Egyptian illusing an Israelite that he killed the man upon

the spot. The crime became known: there was a hue and cry; he escaped

to the peninsula of Sinai, and entered the family of an Arab sheikh.

 

The peninsula of Sinai lies clasped between two arms of the Red Sea. It

is a wilderness of mountains covered with a thin, almost transparent

coating of vegetation which serves as pasture to the Bedouin flocks.

There is one spot only—the oasis of Feiran—where the traveller can tread

on black, soft earth and hear the warbling of birds among the trees, which

stand so thickly together that he is obliged as he walks to part the

branches from his face. The peninsula had not escaped the Egyptian

arms; tablets may yet be seen on which are recorded in paintings and

hieroglyphics five thousand years old the victories of the Pharaohs over

the people of the land. They also worked mines of copper in the

mountains, and heaps of slag still remain. But most curious of all are the

Sinaitic inscriptions, as they are called—figures of animals rudely

scrawled on the upright surface of the black rocks and mysterious

sentences in an undeciphered tongue.

 

Among the hills which crown the high plateau there is one which at that

time was called the Mount of God. It was holy ground to the Egyptians,

and also to the Arabs, who ascended it as pilgrims and drew off their

sandals when they reached the top. Nor is it strange that Sinai should

have excited reverence and dread; it is indeed a weird and awful land.

Vast and stern stand the mountains, with their five granite peaks pointing

to the sky; avalanches like those of the Alps, but of sand, not of snow,

rush down their naked sides with a clear and tinkling sound resembling

convent bells; a peculiar property resides in the air; the human voice can

be heard at a surprising distance, and swells out into a reverberating roar;

and sometimes there rises from among the hills a dull booming sound like

the distant firing of heavy guns.

 

Let us attempt to realise what Moses must have felt when he was driven

out of Egypt into such a harsh and rugged land. Imagine this man, the

adopted son of a royal personage, the initiated priest, sometimes turning

the astrolabe towards the sky, perusing the papyrus scroll, or watching the

crucible and the alembic; sometimes at the great metropolis enjoying the

busy turmoil of the street, the splendid pageants of the court, reclining in

a carpeted gondola or staying with a noble at his country house. In a

moment all is changed. He is alone on the mountain-side, a shepherd´s

crook in his hand. He is a man dwelling in a tent; he is married to the

daughter of a barbarian; his career is at an end. Never more will he enter

that palace where once he was received with honour, where now his name

is uttered only with contempt. Never more will he discourse with grave

and learned men in the peaceful college gardens, beneath the willows that

hang over the Fountain of the Sun. Never more will he see the people of

his tribe whom he loves so dearly, and for whom he endures this

miserable fate. They will suffer, but he will not see them; they will

mourn, but he will not hear them—or only in his dreams. In his dreams he

hears them and sees them, alas, too well. He hears the whistling of the

lash and the convulsive sobs and groans. He sees the poor slaves toiling

in the field, their hands brown with the clammy clay. He sees the

daughters of Israel carried off to the harem with struggling arms and

streaming hair, and then—O lamentable sight!—the chamber of the

woman in labour—the seated shuddering, writhing form—the mother

struggling against maternity—the tortured one dreading her release—for

the kings´s officer is standing by the door, and as soon as the male child

is born its life is at an end.

 

The Arabs with whom he was living were also children of Abraham, and

they related to him legends of the ancient days. They told him of the

patriarchs who lay buried in Canaan with their wives; they told him of

Eloah, whom his fathers had adored. Then, as one who returns to a long

lost home, the Egyptian priest returned to the simple faith of the desert, to

the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. As he wandered on the

mountain heights he looked to the west and he saw a desert: beyond it lay

Egypt, the house of captivity, the land of bandage. He looked to the east

and he saw a desert: beyond it lay Canaan, the home of his ancestors, a

land of peace and soon to be a land of hope. For now new ideas rose

tumultuously within him. He began to see visions and to dream dreams.

He heard voices and beheld no form; he saw trees which blazed with fire

and yet were not consumed. He became a prophet; he entered the ecstatic

state.

 

Meanwhile the king had died; a new Pharaoh had mounted on the throne;

Moses was able to return to Egypt and to carry out the great design which

he had formed. He announced to the elders of