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THE

BAPTIST MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1859.

EGYPT, PERSIA, AND JUDAISM.

TWICE, before their final dispersion among the nations, were the Hebrew people captives and "strangers in a strange land;" once in their infancy, and once as they were verging towards ruin and rejection. Each time they were made to dwell among one of the master-races of the ancient world-the Egyptian and the Medo-Persian. What influence did their protracted sojourns exert upon their national character and faith and mode of life? How far were they indebted for their creed and worship to Egypt and to Persia? Is the Mosaic ritual an absolutely independent, divinely instituted system; or did Moses derive, in any measure, his secular and religious teaching from the wisdom of the Egyptians? There are many remarkable affinities between the creed of ancient Persia and the doctrines of Scripture. Did the Jews, on their return from Babylon, bring back those articles of Magian and Iranian faith? It is to a discussion of these questions, raised by modern infidelity, that the new volume of the Cambridge "Christian Advocate" is devoted.* Its profound and various learning, vigorous good sense, sound critical judgment, admirable arrangement, and lucid perspicacious style, render it worthy of all praise. To those who desire fairly to estimate the spiritual meaning, influence, and value of the Egyptian and Medo-Persian systems, we cordially recommend this volume. Availing ourselves of its guidance, and freely using its facts, we propose to present our readers with a brief summary of the case as here argued. As our space is limited we shall pass over the portion devoted to the religion of Egypt very hastily indeed.

The Hebrew people "went down into Egypt" a mere handful of nomade shepherds. Brought thus into contact with, and subjected for so long a period to, the influence of a people whose political organisation, religious system, and civilisation, were already very fully developed, a transforming influence must have been exerted upon them. The sons of Abraham could not fail to have received some very deep impressions from their protracted sojourn in the empire of the Pharaohs. And it is matter of history that such was the case. It is impossible to read the narrative

"Christ and other Masters: an Historical Inquiry into some of the chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World. By Charles Hardwick, Christian Advocate in the University of Cambridge. Part IV.: Religions of Egypt and Medo-Persia." Macmillan & Co.

VOL. III.-NEW SERIES.

7

of their wandering in the wilderness without perceiving this fact. If they had not altogether forgotten "the God of their fathers, of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob," their faith in him was swallowed up and lost in a vast mass of idolatrous superstitions. They were saturated to the heart's core with Egyptian ideas. Even under the awful shadows of Sinai, and whilst the echoes of the Divine voice had scarcely ceased to reverberate amid its solitudes, they fashion for themselves a golden calf as their god,-showing how strong a hold the bull Apis had upon their veneration. And we find them again and again wistfully calling to mind "the flesh pots of Egypt," or remembering "the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.

Now might we not fairly suppose, that "Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and all whose human knowledge was derived from that source, would have established a system evincing a marked affinity with it?

"Educated from his earliest childhood in the court of the Egyptian monarch, and, it may be, actually initiated into the sacred circles of the priesthood, was he not both skilled in the symbolic ordinances of the Egyptian worship, and enabled to discern the hidden truths which lay enveloped in the midst of it? If many of the oldest Greek philosophers, as Thales, Pythagoras, or Plato, who had sojourned there for a shorter period, could return exulting from the land of Egypt laden with a rich variety of intellectual spoil; if, through their visits, many a germ of mathematical science, and the outlines of a purer system of ethics and theology, were rescued from comparative oblivion; if an enlarged conception of the grandeur of the universe or a more fascinating list of dogmas, such as transmigration and the like, had been widely spread along the shores of the Mediterranean, why should not the foster child of Pharaoh's daughter have been equally imbued with reverence for the ideas and institutions of his adopted country, or at least inclined to tolerate in others what, to lofty spirits like his own, may have been radiant with the light of true philosophy ?"

These questions have been turned into direct statements by rationalistic writers, who have not hesitated to assert that the Mosaic dispensation originated, not at Sinai, but at the court of the Pharaohs and among the priesthood of Egypt. Thus Miss Martineau says that Plato "sat where Moses sat, at the feet of the priests, gaining, as Moses gained, an immortal wisdom from their lips." Many specific affinities between the two systems have been pointed out in confirmation of this view. The scapegoat, the red heifer, the rite of circumcision, the division into tribes, a priestly caste, and the system of sacrifices, have all been adduced. The Cherubim have been found or imagined in the Sphinx. The Urim and Thummim have been identified with the jewelled breastplate worn by the Egyptian judge, and for the word Thummim an Egyptian derivation has been invented. Mr. Hardwick examines these assertions with great acuteness, and disproves them with irresistible logic. He conclusively establishes the absolute independence of the Mosaic system, both doctrinal and ritual. We may class this among the strongest negative evidences of its divine origin, that it should, under the circumstances, have been so free from all Egyptian influence. The human learning of the great Hebrew legislator was from first to last Egyptian. The fondness of his fellowcountrymen for Egyptian ritualism was such as to baffle all the wisest schemes designed to counteract it. Yet we find that the religious system which he drew up for them was not merely independent of, but directly antagonist to, that under which he and they had been brought up. Bearing all the circumstances in mind, we can hardly hesitate to say, "This is the finger of God." Few moral miracles are greater than this, that the unity of the Deity should have been asserted by a legislator and received by a people who were brought up amid the polytheism and

animal worship of Egypt, where, in the words of Horace, "you could more easily find a god than man."

Nearly a thousand years after their exodus from Egypt the children of Israel were again exiles from the land promised to their fathers. Their banishment was this time the effect and punishment of their apostasy to "the abominations of the heathen." They enslaved themselves to the idolatries of Egypt, and God punished them by handing them over as slaves to the kings of Persia and Assyria and Babylonia. The Persians, into whose hands they ultimately fell, were an extraordinary people, who may fairly claim to take their place in the very front rank among the masterr-aces of the world. "If a poetical recollection of Paradise sufficed for the moral destiny of man-if the pure feeling, enthusiasm, and admiration for sidereal nature were alone capable of revealing the glories of the celestial abodes and of the heavenly hosts, of opening to mental eyes the gates of eternal light-if this were the one thing necessary, and of the first necessity for man-if it were or could be conformable to the will of God that the eternal empire of light should be diffused over the whole earth by the enthusiasm of martial glory, by the generous valour and heroic magnanimity of a chivalric nobility, such as the Persian undoubtedly was-then, indeed, would the Persians hold the preeminence and be entitled to claim the first rank among those four nations that were nearest the source of primeval revelation."-Schlegel's Philosophy of History.

This captivity of the Jews and their deportation from their own land into that of the neighbouring nations, had a marked effect upon them. It cured them at once and for ever of their old tendency to relapse into heathenism. "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that carried us captive required of us a song, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Deep and passionate longing for home, with its solemn feasts and pure worship, was excited in the breasts of the exiles; and they uttered the solemn vow: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." Returning to his own land, the Hebrew no more bowed in adoration to the graven images which had ensnared the heart of his fathers, no longer worshipped the elemental powers of nature, nor was his "heart secretly enticed" when he "looked on the sun as it shineth," or "the moon walking in brightness." His idolatries were henceforth of a more refined and spiritual character. Into the gross superstitions of the heathen he never again relapsed.

Other changes, less manifest and palpable, but not less real, passed over them at the same time. Truths, only obscurely hinted at before, now begin to take a prominent place in the teachings of the prophets and in the faith of the nation. The arrangement of the prophetical books, in neglect of chronological order, tends to obscure this fact. But a careful study of the Hebrew scriptures discloses not only a steady progression in the truth inculcated, but shows that about the time at which the chosen people came into contact with the Medo-Persian race, there did occur a great development of Divine knowledge. Of this fact we have a sufficient explanation given by the sacred writers themselves.

"It is observable," says Mr. Hardwick, "that the trying period of captivity, when the Hebrew could no longer celebrate the ritual worship of his fathers, was selected as the aptest time for inculcating lessons of Divine wisdom on the subject of a new economy and a truer service of the heart; while prophecies of the Messiah, in accordance with the law of progress and expansion, which prevails in all their earlier stages, had now been detached more plainly from the thought of national triumph or disaster, and invested with their fullest form and their most spiritual expression."

If we will reflect upon the influence of the captivity upon the Jews,

we shall perceive that it afforded the most fitting opportunity for those revelations which were needed to complete the canon of the Old Testament, and formed a most important link in the chain of causes which prepared for the Messiah's advent. But modern infidelity has ignored all these explanations, and insisted upon it that the later prophets learned the truths they taught from their Persian masters. That there are very remarkable affinities between the doctrines held by the Medes, Persians, and Babylonians, and various articles of the Jewish and Christian faith, is too evident to be called in question. These affinities were, indeed, greatly exaggerated by their first discoverers. The antique and oriental feelings of Zoroaster became modernised, Europeanised, and Christianised, in passing through the mind of D'Anquetil, who first made the western world acquainted with the Zendavesta. Not a few inaccuracies have been pointed out, which, when corrected, make the points of similarity less numerous and striking. But enough remain to afford matter for curious speculation. In the words of Schegel

"Their views of God and religion were more akin to the Hebrew doctrines than those of any other nation. Of the King of Heaven and the Father of Eternal Light, and of the pure World of Light, of the Eternal Word by which all things were created, of the seven mighty Spirits that stand next to the Throne of Light and Omnipotence, and of the glory of those heavenly hosts which encompass that throne; next, of the origin of evil, and of the Prince of Darkness, the monarch of those rebellious spirits-the enemies of all good; they, in a great measure, entertained completely similar or, at least, very kindred tenets to those of the Hebrews."

These affinities, and others more specific, to be pointed out hereafter, are too remarkable to be explained away as mere casual coincidences; and the question arises as to how we shall account for them. The hypothesis of the modern neologian and rationalistic party has, at least, the merit of simplicity. It is, that the Hebrew prophets, brought into contact with the highly philosophical systems of Ancient Persia, appropriated those parts which served their purposes, gave tham a Jewish form and colour, and then passed them off as revelations from heaven. Unhappily for this explanation, it labours under one irremediable defect. It is, not merely, without evidence, but is in direct opposition to all the known facts of the case. There is no proof that the prophets of the captivity were ever brought into contact with the worshippers of Ormuzd and the followers of Zoroaster. The supposition that they were, has no other proof than what arises from confounding together, in a community of faith, Persian, Median, and Babylonian mythologies. The age of Zoroaster, and

his

sages,

were

very existence, are involved in the utmost uncertainty. The tendency of modern criticism is to resolve him into a myth. Yet Daniel has been gravely reckoned among his disciples. The copies of the Zendavesta, and other sacred books of the Persian faith, bear unmistakable traces of interpolation and corruption, even down to a period so late as the third century of our era. It is now generally admitted, that passages which have been quoted as genuine relics of the ancient faith of Persian foisted into the books by some of the innumerable sects of Gnostics. Yet these documents are brought forward as the source whence the volume of inspiration drew some of its most precious truths! The earliest date which can be assigned to the oldest portions of these volumes is a few. centuries before the birth of Christ. Nothing but the inconceivable and insatiable credulity of infidelity can believe that doctrines which are found in the books of Moses can have originated in writings which did not exist till nearly a thousand years had rolled away. These are some, and only some, of the difficulties which lie in the way of the infidel hypothesis.