The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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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 βgod-intoxicated man,β 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 SaulΒ΄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. SaulΒ΄s persecution of David is the worst stain upon his
life, yet if it is true that David had been in SaulΒ΄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 GodΒ΄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 wifeβa 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
partyβa 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 raisedβthe 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 SolomonΒ΄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 liesβwho, 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 βa man of war,β 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
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