The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)

If the prophets announced the day of judgment and the destruction of the unfaithful, they seldom forgot to describe, in the most glowing colours, Israel's restoration; they remained in the firm conviction that Jehovah's mercy would be as great as his anger: that Jehovah, through the remnant of the faithful and the regenerate Israel, would turn all nations to his service; that again in the future "a shoot would spring from the stock of Jesse;" that the race of David would reign with a renewed divine power (p. 28, 133). These great ideas of the restoration of the renewed and purified Israel, these hopes of the Saviour and restorer from the house of David, are wanting in the Book of the Law. It is simply pointed out, in regard to the kingdom of Israel, "that if Israel returns, Jehovah will lead back the captives, and gather Israel again, and circumcise his heart."428

If it is a subordinate point of view that the Israelites ought to serve Jehovah in order that it may be well with them, this conception nevertheless follows necessarily from the position of the tribal god to the tribe recommended to his protection – and to any unfettered mind the assumption is natural that reward should attend good actions; that the good must prosper and the evil suffer on the earth. The centre of this class of conceptions among the Israelites is not so much to serve for the sake of the hire, as that the worship of Jehovah would have this reward as its immediate consequence. But if at the same time the recompense for service was brought more strongly into prominence among the Jews than among any other nation, if in no other people this legal state of the relation between God and man is established so much in the form of a compact, the prophets had already given an inward and moral meaning to the simple relation of contract between Jehovah and Israel. They looked on it as a marriage (p. 40), and consequently they did not merely reprove the breach of the contract as an outrage on right, but branded it as faithlessness. The Book of the Law also does not remain at the point of the mere contract. The Book asks: "Whether such a mighty thing was ever done or heard of on the earth, as that a God had attempted to take a people to himself out of the midst of the nations by signs, and wonders, and war, and a strong hand and an outstretched arm, by great and wonderful deeds."429 But we are further told, "Jehovah has not inclined to you, and chosen you, because ye were more than all nations – ye were the least of the nations – but because Jehovah loved you."430 "It is the grace of Jehovah that he has inclined to the fathers of Israel, and to them only, to lead them."431 If the relation of the protecting lord to his people thus passes into a relation of free choice and love, the Book of the Law, on the other hand, requires from the Israelites something more than an external worship of Jehovah by gifts and sacrifices. "The command which I give thee is not hidden from thee, nor is it far off, that thou shouldst say, Who will go up to heaven and bring it down, or who will go over the sea and announce it to us? The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart."432 "Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stiff-necked."433 "Ye will find Jehovah if ye seek him with all your heart, and all your soul."434 "What does Jehovah require of thee? That thou shouldst love him with all thy strength, and walk in his ways."435 "Love Jehovah, thy God, with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments alway."436

If the new law seeks to give a value to inwardness, to lifting up the heart, and love to God; if it recognises the moral nature of Jehovah in the heart of man, and in this point is fully in harmony with the requirements of the prophets; yet at the same time, in accordance with the view of the priests, the whole sacrificial service was retained, with the regulations for purification. Even if the priests had been able to adopt the point of view of the prophets – the conception of purely inward elevation, and service with the heart – how could this have been brought into force, and established among the people, or with the kings, who found it no easy task to keep up the ritual of the service of Jehovah beside the sensual Syrian rites? The ritual for the priests, the regulations for their rights and duties, were in existence; the new law was not intended to instruct the priests, it was essentially a rule of life for the laity. Hence in this respect the new law had only to work its way as a supplement, to impress more definitely on the people unity of the worship, and its concentration in the temple at Jerusalem. Thus it was decisively commanded that the Passover also should be kept by all Israelites in Jerusalem (II. 210). In order finally to put an end to the ancient custom of worshipping Jehovah "in the high places," the rule was enforced that all sacrifices should be offered in the temple at Jerusalem: every other place of sacrifice was expressly forbidden, and every sacrifice which was not presented by the priests of the temple. On the other hand, in other departments, the new law exhibits greater moderation. At the festival of the new bread it was enough if every one offered freewill-offerings according to the measure in which "Jehovah has blessed him;" but the Israelite was not to appear before Jehovah with utterly empty hands.437 The new. law moderated the demands for giving the tithe to the Levites. The tithe of the harvest was still to be offered according to ancient custom as a thank-offering for Jehovah in the temple; but it was permitted to redeem the tithe in kind and exchange it for money: finally, the law declared itself content if the tithe were duly paid at least in each third year.438 The tithe of cattle was entirely dropped in the Book of the Law; only the claim of the priests to the male first-born of animals was retained: "With such oxen ye shall not plough: such sheep shall not be shorn; they shall be eaten before Jehovah year by year."439 The new law provided a compensation for the diminution of the tithe, by allowing the Levites, like the priests, to have a share in the sacrifices, if they did service in the temple, and by the rule that the Israelites should invite the Levites to the sacrificial feasts at the thank-offerings and festivals.440 Other requirements of the old law – that a part of the spoils of war should be given to the priests – that in enumerations and levies of the people every one should pay a poll-tax to the temple, were not repeated in the new law.

The most essential point was to put an end to the Canaanitish rites in Israel, and prevent their entrance for the future. The new law therefore had to retain in all its sharpness the opposition to the Canaanites: in the conquered cities at least all that was male was to be "cursed" with the edge of the sword.441 And not less must the strict regulations of the ancient law be kept up about the exclusiveness of Israel towards all other nations, the prohibition of marriages with them (a rule only relaxed in the case of women captured in war),442 and against receiving strangers as citizens and partners of the community. Even the closely-related tribes of the Ammonites and Moabites were not to be received, though families of these tribes in the tenth generation were living in Israel. The only exception allowed by the Book of the Law was in favour of the Edomites, the most closely-related tribe (I. 415). "From the Edomite thou shalt not turn away; he is thy brother?" Edomites were to be received in the third generation. The new law goes further than the old in threatening the worship of every other god than Jehovah with the punishment of death, in demanding that every one who served another god should be brought out to death. Least of all were the next of kin to spare the apostate: they were rather to take the foremost place in the persecution. He who served other gods was brought before the gate, on the evidence of two or three witnesses, and stoned, the witnesses throwing the first stone at him: but the Book of the Law says expressly that the evidence of one witness was not enough.443 In the same way false prophets, who incited to the worship of other gods, even if they did signs and wonders, were put to death.444 "If thy brother," the Book continues, "or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thy own soul, entice thee to serve other gods, thou shalt not spare him; thy hand shall be the first upon him to stone him to death."445 If a city practises idolatry, the inhabitants and every live thing in the city, even the cattle, are to be "cursed" and put to the edge of the sword; all furniture and property is to be brought into the market-place and burnt as a burnt-offering for Jehovah. Then the houses are to be destroyed with fire and never rebuilt.446

The Book of the Law sought to avoid the greatest danger of all, by the provision that the people should not choose any stranger to be king. How could a stranger be king in Israel when no strangers were to be admitted into the people? The king of the people which Jehovah chose must belong to the chosen race. But the new law also adds, that the people are "to make him king whom Jehovah shall choose," a regulation which, in so far as it recognises and sanctions the old right of election, must be intended to guard against the influence of the priests on the possession of the throne, and their decision. For the king himself the Book lays down the rule: not to multiply horses and wives to himself, that his heart turn not away, as had been the case with Solomon and Ahab, and not to greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. He is also to make a copy of the law when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that it may be with him, and "he may read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Jehovah, and observe all the words of the law, and that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren."447

The old law gave the rules of blood-right, and family-right, and in addition canons on the rights of the person, and the protection of property. In the new law the main object was to secure the carrying out and application of these rules of justice in the practice of the tribunal. For this object a definite influence of the priests on the tribunal was required. In principle the Book declares, that "every sentence shall be given after the decision of the priests and Levites,"448 for practice it is contented to prescribe, that judges and overseers were to be placed at all the gates; and then adds: "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment between blood and blood, and between plea and plea, and stroke and stroke in the gates, then thou shalt arise and get thee to the place which Jehovah shall choose (the temple), and come to the priests and Levites and the judge, who shall be there, and do according to the sentence which they pronounce for thee." The man who will not listen to the priest who stands there to minister before Jehovah is to be put to death.449

In the judicial process the new law lays emphasis on the rule that only the testimony of two or three witnesses is to be sufficient,450 and that the testimony is to be strictly proved. The judges are to inquire, and "if the witness is a false witness, and has spoken falsely against his brother, ye shall do to him as he thought to do to his brother."451 Like the old law, the new warns the judge to "have no respect of persons," and adds that he is to take no gift, that he is never to give crooked judgments; least of all, in the case of widows and orphans. "Cursed is he that perverteth the judgment of the fatherless and widow."452

In the canons of law, as in the regulations about the tithes, the new code makes changes only with a view to the carrying out of the law in practice. It goes decidedly beyond the old in the regulations, instituted even in the old law, for the diminution of the severity of the law of debt, and in regard for the oppressed and poor (II. 221). The arrangements about the years of Sabbath and of Jubilee are dropped as impracticable in the new law, and are reduced to the much simpler rule, that in every seventh year, i. e. in the year of Sabbath, an "acquitment is to be made," i. e. every unpaid loan, made before this year, is to be cancelled, with the income upon it. Feeling the evil consequences which might spring from this regulation, the Book of the Law at the same time gives warning that no one is to be misled into refusing loans to the poor from the fear that he could not count on repayment after the year of acquitment.453 The older law requires, as has been already remarked, that in lending to the poor no interest should be taken;454 the new law went further: interest is not to be taken from any Israelite, but only from strangers (i. e. Phenician merchants).455 But here also it is added, that no one for this reason "is to harden his heart, and close his hand before his poor brother; thou shalt lend to him on a pledge (i. e. on sufficient security), what is requisite for his need, and Jehovah will bless thee in all the work of thy hands."456 Thus in Israel money was, in fact, only lent on pledge. The old law forbids to take the cloak of the poor in pledge;457 the new law forbids the creditor, who demands his loan, to enter the house in order to choose a pledge for himself, and lays down the rule that the man who lends money is to wait outside till the debtor brings a pledge. The mill and the mill-stone (as indispensable to every household), and the garment of the widow, are not to be demanded.458

The new law repeatedly gives command that the debtor, who from inability to pay has become the slave of his creditor (II. 221), is not to be called upon to perform the duties of a slave, but is rather to be kept in the house as a hired servant and a serf. It requires that all slaves should participate, not only in the rest of the Sabbath, but in the enjoyment of the festivals of harvest and vintage. It repeats the command to liberate Hebrew slaves in the seventh year, and adds: "And when thou sendest him away free, thou shalt not let him go empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress. Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God redeemed thee." Runaway slaves, who had escaped into another community, were not to be delivered up again to their master, according to the new code.459

The old law gave command: "The hire of the day labourer shall not remain with thee till the morning" (II. 225). The new law requires that it shall be paid before sunset: "for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it."460 The poor, the widow and the orphan in the land, are not to be oppressed; they must be supported before the court, and the hand opened towards them. At the harvest there is to be no gleaning. The scattered ears are not to be gathered any more than the fallen berries in the vineyard. "Hast thou forgotten a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not return to take it; this sheaf shall be, like the gleanings, for the stranger, the widow and the orphan."461 Strictly as the new law maintained the exclusiveness of Israel towards the neighbours (p. 221), it is equally emphatic in taking the part of the individual unprotected stranger who dwells in Israel. "Cursed is he who perverts the judgment of the stranger."462 The law forbids the mocking of afflicted persons owing to infirmities of body; the dumb man is not to be reviled, nor a stumblingblock to be placed in the way of the blind; the man is accursed who causes a blind man to go out of his way.463 A man shall not see the ox or sheep of his brother go astray without leading it back, or keeping it, if the owner is unknown to him; and the same shall be done with all lost property.464 Only the young ones are to be taken from the nest of the bird, and not the mother with them.465 Fruit trees are to be spared even in the land of an enemy.466 The mouth of the thrashing-ox is not to be tied, and even animals must rest on the Sabbath.467

When king Josiah had read this book before the assembly of the elders and the people in the house of Jehovah (p. 213), he vowed that he "would turn after Jehovah, and keep his ordinances and commands, and fulfil with all his heart and soul the words of the covenant written in the book." "And all the people entered into the covenant." The king went vigorously to work to destroy the altars, statues, and symbols of foreign rites which remained in Jerusalem, in the neighbourhood, and the whole country, from the time of Manasses and a yet earlier date. The image of Astarte (p. 209) was removed from the temple, and burnt on the brook Kidron; the altars on the roof of the king's palace, which Ahaz had made, as well as those which Manasses had set up in the court of the temple, were torn down; the place for offering burnt-offerings to Moloch in the valley of Ben Hinnom; the altars of Milcom and Camus, which since Solomon's time had existed on the high places near Jerusalem (II. 195), were purified, "that no one should any more make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire." All the vessels of the worship of Baal and the star-gods were removed, and the houses of the male worshippers thrown down. When the king proceeded to put an end to the ancient worship of Jehovah on the heights, he found greater resistance than in the removal of these foreign rites and their priests. He commanded all the priests of the cities of Judah to come to Jerusalem, and purified the high places "from Geba to Beersheba," even the places at Bethel which Jeroboam II. had set up, against which Amos and Hosea had declaimed.468 The priests who did not obey, and continued to sacrifice at the old places of sacrifice, and on the high places, he caused to be slain as sacrifices at the altars which they refused to desert. Then the Passover was celebrated according to the regulations of the law, "as never before under the kings of Israel and Judah," and tradition proudly declares of Josiah "that before him there arose no king like unto him, nor after him."469

CHAPTER XI.

THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH

Far from the centres of power and civilisation in Hither Asia, beyond the Caucasus and the Black Sea, dwelt wandering tribes who, in the accounts of the Greeks, were generally denoted by the common name of Scyths. It was known at an early time, among the Greeks, that these tribes which dwelt to the north of the Thracians lived on their herds, especially on the milk of their mares. Even the Homeric poems make mention of the "'horse-milkers,' of the 'Thracians,' who live poorly on milk, the most just of men." The name "Scythians" is first found in Hesiod, who calls them "horse-milking eaters of milk, who live on waggons." Æschylus says that the hordes of wandering Scythians live in desolate plains, on the shore of Oceanus, at the farthest, pathless end of the earth, on the lake Mæotis (sea of Azof), and to the east of it; "they dwell in woven tents, which move on wheels, they eat the cheese of mares, and are armed with far-shooting bows."470

The nations of the North come out more plainly in the history of Herodotus, who was far better informed about the North than many later authorities. "The Caspian Sea," he tells us, "is an isolated sea, fifteen days' journey in length, and eight days' journey in breadth, if the oars alone are used." Toward the east of this sea are large plains, in which dwell the Sacæ, and beyond them, on the Jaxartes, the Massagetæ; "beyond the Massagetæ are the Issedones." Beyond the Issedones dwell the Arimaspi.471 On the other side, to the west of the Caspian Sea, is the Caucasus, the largest mountain range on the earth in the height and multitude of its mountains. This range is inhabited by many nations. Northwards of the Caucasus, and to the west as far as the northern point of the Mæotis, and to the Tanais (Don), "a great river," which comes down from the north out of a large lake in the land of the Thyssagetæ, and ends in a still larger lake – the lake of Mæotis – dwelt the Sauromatæ (the Sarmatians). Their land was one great plain, in which grew neither fruit trees nor forest trees, and it stretched upwards along the Tanais for fifteen days' journey. To the north of the land of the Sarmatians dwelt the Budini, the Thyssagetæ, and the Iyrcae. Among the Sarmatians the women, like the men, lived on horseback; they wore the same clothing as the men, and knew how to use the bow and javelin, and went with or without the men to hunt or make war,472 and no Sarmatian maiden married till she had slain an enemy; for the Sarmatians were descendants of the Amazons, who fled from the Thermodon over the Pontus, and there took as husbands young men belonging to these Scythians who called themselves Scoloti: with these they afterwards marched to the east of the Tanais. Hence, according to Herodotus, we must fix the abode of the Sarmatians in the steppes eastward of the lower course of the Don, above the lower Volga, perhaps as far as the Yaik.

The Scythians, who called themselves Scoloti, as Herodotus further tells us, had previously dwelt in the east, and afterwards marched to the west, under the pressure of the Massagetæ. But Aristeas related that the Massagetæ had not driven out the Scythians, but the Arimaspians had driven the Issedones out of their land, and then the Issedones had expelled the Scythians. The Scoloti dwelt to the west of the land of the Sarmatians, on the western bank of the Tanais. Their territory extended along the shore of the Mæotis and Pontus, as far as the mouths of the Ister (Danube). This, the largest of all rivers "which we know," was said to flow down from the Celts, the nation in the extreme west, through the whole of Europe, till it finally reached the land of the Scythians, where it ran into the Pontus by five mouths.473 The peninsula on the west side of the Mæotis, i. e. the Crimea, also belonged, so far as it was level, to the Scyths; but the Tauri dwelt on the mountains in the south-west. The reach from the mouth of the Don as far as the mouths of the Danube is the length of the land of the Scythians; the breadth Herodotus puts at twenty days' journey, i. e. 500 miles, if you go from the Pontus into the main-land to the north.

According to this the territory of the Scoloti extended from the sea upwards in the east about as far as the bend of the Don to the south, and on the Dnieper as far as the rapids in this river; i. e. it comprised the land of the Cossacks on the west of the Don, and the steppe, and further to the west the plains of Moldavia, as far as the Carpathian range.474 Like the land of the Sarmatians, the land of the Scoloti was one vast plain, without trees, with the exception of a strip of forest which extended from the sea on the left bank of the Borysthenes (Dnieper) from three to four days' journey up the river, but rich in grass, as it was watered by large rivers.475 To the west of the Tanais the first river was the Borysthenes, the largest of the Scythian rivers, flowing down through the land; and the soil by the river was so good, that when sown it produced the best corn, and where it was not sown there stood tall grass. Further to the west the Hypanis (Bug) flowed out of a lake, round which pastured white horses, through Scythia to the Pontus; this river had a course of only nine days' journey (225 miles), while the Borysthenes was navigable for fourteen days' journey from the mouth.476 Still further to the west was the Tyras (Dniester), which also flowed out of a lake; by these lakes are doubtless meant the marshes in the upper course of the Bug and Dniester.

To the north, beyond the Scoloti, twenty days' journey, according to Herodotus, from the land of the Tauri, on the west bank of the Tanais, dwelt the Melanchlæni – so called from the black garments which they wore; they had Scythian manners, but were not a tribe of the Scythians. To the west of these lived migratory tribes, without law or justice, of far ruder manners than the Scoloti; they were the only tribes which ate human flesh, and were in consequence called Androphagi. And further yet to the west beside the Androphagi dwelt the Neuri, northwards of the lake from which the Tyras (Dniester) springs, a nation of Scythian manners. Like the Scoloti, the Neuri were the eastern neighbours of the Agathyrsi, through whose land the Maris (the Theiss with the Marosh) flowed down into the Danube.477 But who dwelt beyond the Neuri, the Androphagi, and the Melanchlæni, and further to the east beyond the Argipæans, who dwelt to the north of the Iyrcae, at the foot of lofty mountains (up to these the land was level), and wore Scythian clothing, and lived on the fruits of trees, and of the Issedones, in the north – of this, Herodotus assures us, no one knew anything more than "the accounts given by the Issedones, the Argipæans, and the Scythians." The Issedones related that beyond them dwelt the Arimaspi, one-eyed men, who took the gold from the griffins which were again further to the north. Aristeas of Proconnesus (550 B.C.), who professed to have been among the Issedones, had celebrated the Arimaspi in verse. He said that "beyond the nation of the Issedones, rejoicing in long hair, towards the north, dwelt the Arimaspi, rich in horses, sheep, and oxen, the mightiest men of all, but each in his full face had but one eye surrounded with thick hair."478 Æschylus calls the Arismaspi, "one-eyed riders of horses by the gold-flowing stream;" beside them are the griffins, "the sharp-mouthed, mute hounds of Zeus." "Oceanus," the god of the water surrounding the earth, Æschylus represents as passing through the air of the north, on a griffin, "the four-legged bird."479