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

the

Philistines, did not permit them to have smiths lest they should make

weapons and rebel. Samuel himself had united the tribes, and had

inspired them with the sentiments of nationality. They yearned to be free,

and they observed that they lost battles because their enemies were better

officered than themselves. They saw that they needed a military chief

who would himself lead them to the charge, instead of sacrificing a

sucking lamb or kneeling on a neighbouring hill with this hands up in the

air.

 

Samuel, still protesting, elected Saul to the royal office. The young man

was gladly accepted by the people on account of his personal beauty, and

as he belonged to the poorest family of the poorest tribe in Israel, Samuel

hoped that he would be able to preserve the real power in his own hands.

But it so happened that Saul was not only a brave soldier and a good

general; he was also at times a “god-intoxicated man,” and did not require

a third person to bring him the instructions of Jehovah. He made himself

the Head of the Church, as well as of the state, and Samuel was

compelled to retire into private life. It is for this reason that Saul´s

character has been so bitterly attacked by the priest-historians of the Jews.

For what after all are the crimes of which he was guilty? He administered

the battle-offering himself, and he spared the life of a man whom Samuel

had commanded him to kill as a human sacrifice to Jehovah. Saul was by

no means faultless, but his character was pure as snow when compared

with that of his successor. David was undoubtedly the greater general of

the two, yet it was Saul who laid the foundations of the Jewish kingdom.

It was Saul who conquered the Philistines and won freedom for the nation

with no better weapons than their mattocks and their axes and their

sharpened goads. Saul´s persecution of David is the worst stain upon his

life, yet if it is true that David had been in Saul´s lifetime privately

anointed king, he was guilty of treason and deserved to die. But that

story of the anointing might have been invented afterwards to justify his

succession to the throne.

 

At first David took refuge with the Philistines and fought against his own

countrymen. Next he turned brigand, and was joined by all the criminals

and outlaws of the land. The cave of Adullam was his lair, whence he

sallied forth to levy blackmail on the rich farmers and graziers of the

neighbourhood, cutting their throats when they refused to pay. At the

same time, he was a very religious man, and never went on a plundering

expedition without consulting a little image which revealed to him the

orders and wishes of Jehovah, just as the Bedouins always pray to Allah

before they commit a crime, and thank him for his assistance when it has

been successfully performed.

 

Saul was succeeded by his son Ishbosheth, who was accepted by eleven

tribes. But David, supported by his own tribe and by his band of well-trained robbers, defied the nation and made war upon his lawful king. He

had not the shadow of a claim; however, with the help of treason and

assassination he finally obtained the crown. His military genius had then

full scope. He took Jerusalem, a pagan stronghold which during four

hundred years had maintained its independence. He conquered the coast

of the Philistines, the plains of Canaan, the great city of Damascus, and

the tribes of the desert far and near. He garrisoned Arabia Petraea. He

ruled from Euphrates to the Red Sea.

 

This man after God´s own heart had a well-stocked harem, and the usual

intrigues took place. He disinherited his eldest son and left the kingdom

to the son of his favourite wife—a woman for whom he had committed a

crime which had offended the not over-delicate Jehovah. The nation

seemed taken by surprise, and Solomon, in order to preserve the

undivided affections of his people, at once killed his brother and his

party—a coronation ceremony not uncommon in the East.

 

The wisdom of Solomon has become proverbial. But whatever his

intellectual attainments may have been, he did not possess that kind of

wisdom which alone is worthy of a king. He did not attempt to make his

monarchy enduring, his people prosperous and content. He was a true

Oriental sultan, sleek and sensual, luxurious and magnificent, short-sighted and unscrupulous, cutting down the tree to eat the fruit. The

capital of a despot is always favoured, and with the citizens of Jerusalem

he was popular enough. They were in a measure his guests and

companions, the inmates of his house. They saw their city encircled with

enormous walls, and paved with slabs of black and shining stone. Their

eyes were dazzled and their vanity delighted with the splendid buildings

which he raised—the ivory palace, the cedar palace, and the temple. The

pilgrims who thronged to the sanctuary from all quarters of the land, and

the travellers who came for the purposes of trade, brought wealth into the

city. Foreign commerce was a court monopoly, but the city was a part of

the court. Outside the city walls, however, or at least beyond the circle of

the city lands, it was a very different affair. The rural districts were

severely taxed, especially those at a distance from the capital. The tribes

of Israel, which but a few years before had been on terms of complete

equality among themselves, were now trampled underfoot by this upstart

of the House of Judah. The tribe of Ephraim, which had so long enjoyed

supremacy, became restless beneath the yoke. While Solomon yet

reigned the standard of revolt was raised; as soon as he died this empire

of a day dissolved. Damascus became again an independent state. The

Arabs cut the road to the Red Sea. The King of Egypt, who had probably

been Solomon´s liege lord, dispatched an army to fetch away the

treasures of the temple and the palace. The ten tribes seceded, and two

distinct kingdoms were established.

 

The ten tribes of Israel, or the Kingdom of the North, extended over the

lands of Samaria and Galilee. Its capital was Shechem, its sanctuary

Mount Gerizim.

 

Judah and Benjamin, the royal tribes, occupied the highlands of Judea.

Jerusalem was their capital; its temple was their sanctuary, and the

Levites, whom the Israelites had discarded, were their priests. It is

needless to relate the wars which were almost incessantly being waged

between these two miserable kingdoms. When the empire of the Tigris

took the place of Egypt as suzerain of Syria both Israel and Judah sent

their tribute to Nineveh; and as the cuneiform history relates, both of

them afterwards rebelled. Sennacherib marched against them and carried

off the ten tribes into captivity. Judea was more mountainous, and on that

account more difficult to conquer than the land of the North. The Jews,

as they may now be called, defended themselves stoutly, and a camp

plague broke up the army before Jerusalem. By this occurrence Egypt

also was preserved from conquest. At that time Sethos, the priest, was

king, and the soldiers, whose lands he had taken, refused to fight. Both

the Egyptians and the Jews ascribed their escape to a miracle performed

by their respective gods.

 

Great events now took place. The Assyrian empire fell to pieces, and

Nineveh was destroyed. The Medes inherited its power on the east of the

Euphrates; the Chaldeans inherited its power on the west. Egypt under

the Phil-Hellenes was again spreading into Asia, and a terrific duel took

place between the two powers. The Jews managed so well that when the

Egyptian star was in the ascendant they took the side of Babylon; and

when the Babylonians had won the battle of Carchemish the Jews

intrigued with the fallen nation. Nebuchadnezzar gave them repeated

warnings, but at last his patience was exhausted and he levelled the

rebellious city to the ground. Some of the citizens escaped to Egypt; the

aristocracy and priesthood were carried off to Babylon; the peasants alone

were left to cultivate the soil.

 

At Babylon there was a collection of captive kings, each of whom was

assigned his daily allowance and his throne. In this palace of shadows the

unfortunate Jehoiachin ended his days. But the Jewish people were not

treated as captives or as slaves, and they soon began to thrive.

 

When the ten tribes seceded they virtually abandoned their religion. They

withdrew from the temple which they had once acknowledged as the

dwelling of Jehovah; they had no hereditary priesthood; they had no holy

books; and so as soon as they ceased to possess a country they ceased to

exist as a race. But the Jews preserved their nationality intact.

 

Moses had been an Egyptian priest, and the unity of God was a

fundamental article of that religion. The unity of God was also the tenet

of the more intelligent Arabs of the desert. Whether therefore we regard

that great man as an Egyptian or as an Arab, it can scarcely be doubted

that the views which he held of the Deity were as truly unitarian as those

of Mohammed and Abdul-Wahhab. It is, however, quite certain that to

the people whom he led Jehovah was merely an invisible Bedouin chief

who travelled with them in a tent, who walked about the camp at night

and wanted it kept clean, who manoeuvred the troops in battle, who

delighted in massacres and human sacrifice, who murdered people in

sudden fits of rage, who changed his mind, who enjoyed petty larceny

and employed angels to tell lies—who, in short, possessed all the vices of

the Arab character. He also possessed their ideal virtues, for he

prohibited immorality and commanded them to be hospitable to the

stranger, to be charitable to the poor, and to treat with kindness the

domestic beast and the captive wife.

 

It was impossible for Moses to raise their minds to a nobler conception of

the Deity; it would have been as easy to make them see Roman noses

when they looked into a mirror. He therefore made use of their

superstition in order to rule them for their own good, and descended to

trumpetings and fire-tricks which chamber moralists may condemn with

virtuous indignation, but which those who have known what it is to

command a savage mob will not be inclined to criticise severely.

 

When the settlement in Canaan took place the course of events gave rise

to a theory about Jehovah which not only the Israelites held but also the

Philistines. It was believed that he was a mountain god and could not

fight on level ground. He was unlike the pagan gods in one respect,

namely, that he ordered his people to destroy the groves and idols of his

rivals, and threatened to punish them if they worshipped any god but him.

However, as might be supposed, although the Israelites were very loyal

on the mountains, they worshipped other gods when they fought upon the

plains. Whenever they won a battle they sang a song in honour of

Jehovah and declared that he was “a man of war,” but when they lost a

battle they supposed that Baal or Dagon had trodden Jehovah under foot.

The result of this was a mixed religion: they worshipped Jehovah, but

they worshipped other gods as well. Solomon declared when he opened

the temple that Jehovah filled the sky, that there were no other gods but

he. But this was merely Oriental flattery. Solomon must have believed

that there were other gods because he worshipped other gods. His temple

was in fact a Pantheon, and altars were raised on the Mount of Olives to

Moloch and Astarte. After the reign of Solomon, however, the Jews

became