03. § 1. The Condition of the Human Race at the Time of Abraham’s Call
§ 1. The Condition of the Human Race at the Time of Abraham’s Call 1. In a Political Aspect.
AFTER the flood the population increased with rapid strides. The long duration of life, a powerful constitution, and the ease with which all the necessities of life could be procured, all tended to promote an increase much more rapid than what was common to later times. The population of the earth, according to Genesis 11, first proceeded from Shinar or Babylonia, the most southern part of the region between the Euphrates and the Tigris, beyond Mesopotamia, a plain with rich soil, the most fruitful land of interior Asia. Thither the descendants of Noah repaired after the flood, and there they dwelt, still connected by community of tongue and unity of mind, until with the latter the former also gradually disappeared, and everything was dispersed on every side. With respect to the manner of life of the first race of men, a hypothesis has frequently been suggested that men without exception passed through the various stages of uncivilised life until they arrived at agriculture. But this hypothesis, which rests on no historical basis, is contradicted by history. According to the account given in Genesis, agriculture is as old and original as the pastoral life; and if it existed before the flood, it is impossible to see how the descendants of these shepherds should have been obliged to rise to it again step by step. Of Noah it is expressly stated that he devoted himself to agriculture, and especially to the cultivation of the vine. And, moreover, in the countries of Asia and Africa, where agriculture was exceptionally flourishing, especially in Egypt and Babylonia, we are altogether unable to trace its origin. “So far as history and tradition reach,” says Schlosser in his General Historic Survey of the History of the Ancient World, part i. p. 39, “we find those kinds of grass which have been improved by culture already cultivated as kinds of grain; and their wild state, as well as their proper home, can only be matter of conjecture,” which is also the case with the original species and home of the domestic animals. The zoologist, A. Wagner, in his History of the Primitive World, has shown that we are acquainted with no wild stock of all our domestic animals, especially of the cow, the sheep, the goat, the horse, the camel, and the dog; but at most only with individuals who have become wild. He proves also that the time of their introduction into the domestic state cannot be determined; and that a new stock has not been added to the old in the course of time. “The help of those domestic animals,” he remarks, “without which a higher state of cultivation cannot exist, seems therefore not to have been devised and attained by man, but rather to have been originally given to him.” The botanist, Zuccarini, remarks, “In answer to the question, ‘What man reaped the first harvest?’ we have no tradition to which any probability attaches, no monument; but still, so far as we know, no blade growing wild.” According to this, therefore, there was from the beginning not a succession but a co-existence of the various modes of life. In the case of each individual race and people, the choice was partly determined by its character, which was to a great extent moulded by the individuality of its ancestors (we have remarkable examples of this in Ishmael and Esau); but still more strongly and permanently by the nature of the residence allotted to each. A land, such as Egypt for example, where the whole natural condition was an incentive to agriculture, which so richly rewarded a little labour, must by degrees have led its inhabitants to this pursuit, even if in accordance with their disposition they had originally more inclination for some other mode of life. The great wastes of Mesopotamia would have compelled a race, which had by any circumstance been led to immigrate thither, to embrace a nomadic life, even if it had formerly been given to agriculture. Districts like those at Astaboras in Ethiopia make agriculture and cattle-rearing so impracticable, that for thousands of years their inhabitants have remained hunters, without having made the least step towards a higher civilisation, although surrounded by cultivated nations. And just as the mode of life adopted by races and peoples was dependent on the character of the soil and the climate; so these, in conjunction with the manner of life and ethical development, gave rise to great diversities among the nations of the earth, so great that many have been led by observation, in contradiction to the Old and New Testament Scriptures, to deny the descent from one human pair, and to maintain an essential difference of races. This hypothesis is contradicted by the fact, not to mention other reasons, that among those nations whose descent from one and the same stock cannot be denied, there are almost as great differences as among those to which different stems have been assigned. This. is the case especially among the African peoples. Nowhere is the influence of climate and manner of life more perceptible than among them. “The inhabitants of the northern coast,” says Heeren, “in complexion and form differ very little from Europeans. The difference appears to become more and more marked the nearer we approach the equator; the colour becomes darker; the hair more like wool; the profile shows striking differences; finally the man becomes completely a negro. Again, on the other side of the equator, this form appears to be lost amid just as many varieties; the Kaffirs and Hottentots have much in common with the negroes, but without being completely negroes.” We must consider further, that the influence of climatic and other conditions is still retained among those who settle in other latitudes in modern times, where the peculiarities are much more strongly defined than in the softer and more pliant primitive times, and which therefore possess a much stronger power of resistance. Bishop Heber speaks thus of the Persians, Tartars, and Turks who had penetrated into Hindoostan, part i. p. 217 of the translation of his Life, “It is remarkable how all these people after a few generations, even without intermixing with the Hindoos, acquire the deep olive tint almost like a negro, which therefore seems peculiar to the climate. The Portuguese intermarry only among themselves; or, if they can, with Europeans; but these very Portuguese have become as black after the lapse of three centuries’ residence in Africa as the Kaffirs. If the heat has power to originate a difference, it is possible that other peculiarities of the climate may give rise to other differences; and allowing these to have operated from three to four thousand years, it becomes very difficult to determine the limits of their efficacy.” Finally, we must take into consideration the analogy of the changes in the animal world in various localities. “All national varieties,” says Blumenbach, “in the form and complexion of the human body are in no wise more striking or more incomprehensible than those into which so many other species of organized bodies, especially among domestic animals, degenerate under our eyes.” P. Wagner, a successor of Blumenbach, gives expression to the same sentiment in his work Menschenchōpfung und Seelensubstanz, p. 17, which appeared in Gottingen in 1854: “The possibility of descent from one pair cannot be scientifically contested in accordance with physiological principles. In separate colonized countries we see among men and beasts peculiarities arise and become permanent, which reminds us, though remotely, of the formation of races.” Compare the ample refutation of the hypothesis of a number of primitive men in the first volume of Humboldt’s Kosmos; in K. Wagner’s Anthropologie, 2d vol., Kempten 1834, p. 102 et seq.; in Tholuck’s Essay, Was ist das Resultat der Wissenschaft in Bezug auf die Urwelt, verm. Schriften, Th. 2, p. 239 et seq.; and in the second part of A. Wagner’s Urgeschichte der Erde; also in a work by Schultz, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte, Gotha 1865. All these, together with others, draw attention to the fact that there are black Jews in Asia; that the negroes of the United States in the course of a hundred and fifty years have travelled over a good quarter of the distance which separates them from the white men; that America has changed the Anglo-Saxon type, and from the English race has derived a new white race, which may be called the Yankee race; that the Arabs in Nubia have become perfectly black; and that when we hear a Dyak who has been rescued from barbarism, or a poor Hottentot maiden speak gratefully of that which Jesus has done for them, we are unable to divest ourselves of the feeling that here is flesh of our flesh. Lange, in his Dogm. ii. p. 332 et seq., shows that diversities are not however to be attributed to climatic influences alone. We must not overlook the fact that the germs of the various types of the human race must have been in existence from the beginning; and that climatic influences and a different mode of education have only developed these germs. Ungewitter, in his Introduction to the Geography of Australia, which appeared in the year 1853, makes some striking observations on the influence of a different moral developm.ent. And the greater or less culture of the people was closely connected with their mode of life. Culture was already considerably advanced before the flood. Judging from what revelation tells us of the condition of the first man, it could not be otherwise. Among those nations who, by the character of their lands, were led to agriculture and commerce, the original culture was not only retained, but continued to advance; so it was, for example, in Egypt and Phoenicia. Among the hunting and shepherd peoples, on the contrary, original culture must soon have been lost had it not been that, as Abraham’s stock, they had a special capacity for civilisation, and dwelt in the midst of agricultural nations; otherwise they must have fallen back into complete barbarism. The perception of this has led many to adopt the hypothesis already refuted, viz. that the original condition of humanity has in general been one closely resembling that of the animals. There are numerous arguments subversive of this view. We shall only quote here what Link says in his Urwelt und das Alterthum. 2d ed. part i. p. 346: “It is a remarkable phenomenon that neither in antiquity nor in modern times has any nation been found which, according to credible witnesses, does not possess the knowledge of fire, and of the means of producing it, although many nations are now known whose ability to discover fire we may reasonably question. It is highly probable therefore that all nations sprang from one stem, and that savage nations have fallen, if not from a high, at least from a higher cultivation. In some cases we are able to prove certainly that wildness is only degeneracy. Among American savages the language has been found to resemble that of the Japanese in many points; and therefore it has been supposed that they are descended from shipwrecked Japanese. Among this race culture must have been very readily lost; for they are altogether unproductive, only imitative. Whoever stepped out of the intercourse of nations lost his prototypes, and at the same time his position. Aristotle calls man a
After these observations it is incumbent on us to treat of the separate nations which were already in existence at the time when Abraham appeared, and came into contact with him or his posterity. How necessary this sketch is for understanding all subsequent history is self-evident; and we have also the example of Moses, who, before passing on to the history of Abraham, gives a genealogic-historical survey of the national ancestry, with special reference to their connection with the history of the chosen people.
We begin here with the country which we have already termed the second cradle of the human race, as that from which the dispersion of men after the flood over the whole earth went forth, viz. the territory of Babylonia, so important for the later history of the East generally, and for that of the Israelites in particular. Here was the site of the city Babylon, which did not attain that greatness which its ruins now attest till many centuries later,—in the time of the Chaldaic supremacy, and especially under Nebuchadnezzar. It was overthrown by the combined strength of the tribes who united for this undertaking, forming a kind of confederate state. Not long afterwards other towns, also worthy of mention, were founded. It was here that in all probability, soon after the dispersion of the races, one of those who had remained, a member of the Hamitic tribe of the Cushites, founded a despotic government. He undertook a conquering foray from a distant land; and after-time, in accordance with the Oriental custom, gave him from the beginning the name of Nimrod, rebel, viz. against the order of God,—
Mesopotamia, the northern portion of the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, bounded on the south by Babylonia and on the north by Armenia, was already in the time of Abraham, as it is still, overrun with nomadic tribes, for whom by its natural character it is specially adapted;—it is in the interior a steppe-land. Here the ancestors of Abraham settled down; hence Abraham began his wanderings; and here his kindred continued to sojourn. That the original inhabitants of Mesopotamia were the Chaldaeans is evident from the name Ur Chasdim, the present Urfa in the north of Hatra; comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, x. 3, pp. 159, 243; as also from Job 1:17, where from Mesopotamia they make an incursion into the neighbouring Uz. The Chaldseans were at home not only in Mesopotamia, but in Babylonia. They were of Semitic origin and tongue. Yet, like the Assyrians, they must have been considerably influenced by the neighbouring Indo-Persian races, as appears from the names of their kings and gods. It is a remarkable fact that the Chaldaeans are not named in the table of nations; but because Ur Chasdim had already appeared in the history of Abraham, we must expect to find them here disguised under some other name. The most probable hypothesis is that they were descended from Arphaxad, who is mentioned in Genesis 10:22, together with Elam and Asshur, among the descendants of Shem. This is the opinion of Josephus. How to interpret the prefixed
We now pass on to that part of western South Asia which is situated on this side of the Euphrates; and since we possess no information relative to the political condition of Syria at the time of Abraham, we must pass at the same time to Palestine. This country was at that time inhabited by two different races. The principal one, of which we must speak at greater length on account of its exceptional importance in the whole history of the Old Testament, was that of the Canaanites, or according to their Greek name, the Phoenicians. And here we must first examine into the correctness of the view which has become pretty widely extended since the argument of Michaelis, and has recently been defended by Bertheau in his History of the Israelites, Gottingen 1842, and by Ewald and Kurtz, viz. that the Canaanites originally dwelt on the Persian Gulf, and only settled in Palestine at a later time. The advocates of this view appeal to two arguments: (1.) To the testimony of several ancient authors, who expressly say that the Phoenicians came from the Persian Gulf or from the Red Sea. But on nearer consideration these witnesses lose much of their value. Only Herodotus and Strabo are independent. Herodotus, who lived for a long time in Tyre, in the principal passage, chap. i. 1, designates not the Phoenicians, but the Persians, as the originators of this account. But how could this, a new nation, that is to say, one which did not awake to historical consciousness until a comparatively late period, know anything more definite respecting the origin of the Phoenicians than they themselves? and they regarded themselves as Autochthons. But these witnesses refer principally to a time to which the heathen consciousness did not extend, so that we cannot sufficiently wonder at the uncritical procedure which treats them with as much respect as if they referred to some fact in historical times. Their testimony loses still more of its value when we examine the probable sources of their accounts; and we are able to do this with the greater certainty since the authors themselves give us some information respecting these sources. In some passages Strabo expressly says that the doubtful assumption of some, that the Phoenicians originally came from the Red Sea (to which the Persian Gulf also belongs), is founded on the names of the islands Tylus and Aradus, which have been combined with the names of the cities, Tyre and Aradus. A second source quoted, both by Strabo and others, was the name Phoenicians. “It has been assumed,” says Strabo, “that they are called Phoenicians, because the sea is termed Red.” These two sources fully suffice to explain the origin of this opinion, especially as all later accounts are dependent on those of Herodotus and Strabo. (2.) Michaelis tries to prove, even from Scripture, from Genesis 12:16, Genesis 13:7, that the Canaanites were a people who only immigrated at a later time. For there it is said that the Canaanites were already in the land at the time of Abraham. But this proof is based on an evidently false interpretation of these passages: the already is introduced. We are told, merely by way of illustrating the relations of Abraham, that the land was not empty on his arrival, but was in the possession of the Canaanites, so that he was obliged to dwell there as a stranger, and could not call a foot-breadth of it his own. The opinion that the Phoenicians originally dwelt on the Red Sea has therefore no argument of any weight in its favour. On the contrary, it is at variance with the account given in Genesis, according to which the Canaanites appear as the original inhabitants of their land; no other races are mentioned as having been found there and expelled by them, as was the case with the Philistines, Idumaeans, and Moabites. Bertheau and Ewald have indeed adopted this view; but the races which they state to have been dispossessed were themselves of Canaanitish origin. It is evident from Deuteronomy 3:8, Deuteronomy 4:47, Deuteronomy 31:4, that the Rephites belonged to the Canaanites; and it is impossible to separate the race of giants who dwelt in Canaan from the Canaanites, for it was only the territory of the Canaanites which was given by God to the Israelites, and they were careful to avoid every encroachment on other boundaries. Moreover, the giants in Canaan are in Amos 2:9 (comp. with Numbers 13:32-33) expressly called Canaanites. That the Horites, whom Ewald also classes among the original nations, were Canaanites, will appear afterwards. (Compare the copious refutation of the hypothesis of Ewald and Bertheau in the treatise by Kurtz, Die Ureinwohner Paldstinas, Guerike’s Zeitschrift, 1845, 3 Heft.) In the whole table of nations, which is so exceedingly ample and accurate where the Canaanites are concerned, we find no mention whatever of original inhabitants dispossessed by the Canaanites. And further, it is related in Genesis 10:18-19, how the Canaanites spread themselves over the land as their tribes increased by degrees from a few members to considerable nationalities. This leads us to infer that they found the land empty and at their service. In Genesis 10:15 the personified Sidon is called the first-born of Canaan; therefore it has been said that Sidon was the oldest settlement of the Canaanites; and since it is one of the most northern states, this points to an emigration from Babylonia through Mesopotamia and Syria, which is rendered more probable by the analogy of Abraham’s wandering, that also took a north-easterly direction. If the immigration had been from Arabia, the southern settlements must have been the earliest. The extent of the land of Canaan is given in Genesis 10:19. It reached from Sidon to Gerar, as far as Gaza, thence to Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, as far as Lasha. Sidon is here termed the northern boundary, because there was at this time no Phoenician town of any importance above it, except Hamath in Syria; although the Phoenicians still occupied the narrow space between the sea and Lebanon, as far as the Syrian boundary. The south-western and southern boundary appears to have been formed by the Philistine towns Gerar and Gaza; the south-eastern limit of the land being the cities in the fruitful plain, which were afterwards covered by the Dead Sea. The eastern boundary, Lasha, is uncertain; according to Jerome, it is the later Callirrhoe on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, noted for its warm baths. The most important tribes of the Canaanites were the Amorites and the Hittites: hence the nation is often called by their name, particularly by that of the former. Ewald is mistaken in his recent attempt to maintain that the Canaanites also were originally only a single, separate, powerful branch of the nation, and that their name was afterwards transferred to the whole nation, whose real name has been lost. The only passage, Numbers 13:29, which is brought forward in favour of this assumption does not prove it. “The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea.” As for the dwellers beside the sea, writers have contented themselves with giving the general name of the people, either because they were ignorant of the more accurate one, or because it had no special interest at the time. At first the Israelites had intercourse only with those who dwelt in the southern range of mountains. There is just as little foundation for Ewald’s assumption that all Canaanitish nationalities were included in the four great divisions of the Amorites, Hittites, Canaanites, and Hivites. There is not a single proof that the remaining nationalities stood in a subordinate relation to these. The Canaanites were at that time an agricultural and commercial people. Commerce is first mentioned in Scripture in Genesis 49:13, in the blessing of Jacob, where it is spoken of as a privilege conferred on Zebulun, or properly on Israel; for in Zebulum is only exemplified that which belongs to the whole—he is to dwell on the shores of the sea, in the neighbourhood of Sidon, that he may have opportunity for profitable trade. But at that time commerce could only have been in its first beginning; for those great Asiatic kingdoms with which the Phoenicians were afterwards connected in so many ways were not yet in existence; most of the lands bordering on the sea were still occupied by nomads who could offer no great commercial advantage. Navigation was still in its infancy, although the situation of the Phoenician towns was so favourable to commerce by sea; and notwithstanding the excellence of the materials which their country offered for shipbuilding. At that time, and for long afterwards, Sidon was the principal city of the country. Tyre, although it had probably been founded already, is not once mentioned in the Pentateuch. It first appears in Joshua 19:29. Even in Abraham’s time we find the land far from being occupied by the number of Canaanites which it could bear. The Canaanites willingly yielded to Abraham the use of large districts. He was at liberty to traverse the whole land; and everywhere found sustenance for his flocks. We can form a pretty correct idea of the gradual growth of the population. Jacob and Esau have no longer room in the land for their flocks, which together were certainly not more numerous than those of Abraham. Esau therefore repairs to Mount Seir, afterwards Idumea. On the return of the Hebrews from Egypt the land was already almost overfilled with inhabitants. The constitution of the Canaanites was at the time of Abraham essentially the same as in later times. Compare the description of the latter by Heeren, i. 2, p. 14 et seq. The land was divided into a number of cities with their townships, of which each had an independent king. Thus, for example, we find in Genesis kings of the separate cities in the region of what was afterwards the Dead Sea; a king of Salem, afterwards Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of the Jebusites; a king of Sichem, etc. Then, as in later times, the kings sought to obviate the injurious effect of this dismemberment by mutual covenants to submit to the guidance of the most powerful. Thus the kings of the vale of Siddim united against their common enemies from Interior Asia. Then the seat of government was at Sodom; as among the Canaanites dwelling on the sea the seat of government was originally at Sidon, afterwards at Tyre. In primitive, as in late times, the power of the kings was limited. We infer this principally from the negotiations of the prince of Sichem with his subjects, in Genesis 34. Despotism was kept down by civilisation, which had early been promoted by agriculture and commerce; and we find them already considerably advanced in Genesis. It appears also, that in some cities an aristocratic or democratic constitution existed. Among the Hittites at Hebron, according to Genesis 23, the highest power seems to have rested with an assembly of the people. In later time we find a similar constitution in the city of Gibeon, comp. Joshua 9. Their elders and kings decided everything. And in the list of Canaanitish kings conquered by Joshua, Joshua 12, there is no mention of a king of Gibeon. The influence of the priesthood, which was afterwards so powerful, seems not yet to have been in existence, if we may judge from the history of Melchizedek and from the complete silence respecting the priesthood elsewhere. Among the Canaanites it existed from the beginning in a corrupt root of sin. They were a reprobate people. This appears from Genesis 9:25, where, on account of the sin of Ham, Canaan his son is cursed, for no other reason than because of the foreknowledge that Ham’s sin would be perpetuated, especially in Canaan and his race. Already, in Abraham’s time, the day was at hand when the iniquity of the Amorites should be full. Genesis 15:16; when it should have reached the highest point which infallibly draws down avenging justice. This deep corruption of the Canaanites, to which testimony is borne by classical writers, forms one of the presuppositions in favour of the decrees of God with respect to the guidance of His people. Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 28, foretells that the spirit of commerce would overgrow all nobler feelings, and thus become a snare to them. And it is observable that the Canaanites, although of Hamitic origin, must in early times have been in close contact with Semitic races. We are led to this conclusion by the fact that their language belongs to the Semitic stock; but the inference that the Canaanites must therefore necessarily have been a branch of the Semitic stock has been arrived at too hastily. And yet the circumstance cannot be explained, as some old authors have attempted, by the fact that the Canaanites adopted their language from the patriarchs. We are so little acquainted with the associations of races in the primitive world, where the small number of members made it so easy for language to pass from one to the other, that mere community of language has not power to destroy the weight of express reiterated testimony, contained in a document whose credibility has proved itself even to those who are accustomed to regard it only as human testimony. We have, moreover, on our side the analogy of the very important Semitic element in the language of the Egyptians, which also can only have been derived from close intercourse with Semitic races in primitive times. But analogies lead us still further. Leo, p. 109, points out that in the lapse of time almost all the Hamites have lost their language; and it is certain that they have all been supplanted by Semitic dialects, as Arabic is now the prevailing language in Egypt. He attributes this to the circumstance that among the Hamitic nations there was a special inclination towards the external side of life,—thus, in the Old Testament, Canaanite and merchant are convertible terms,—and for this reason a want of attraction towards the inner, deeper sides of spiritual life. Among such nations language is something extraneous, which is readily relinquished. “If we knew the Semitic dialect of Canaan better,” Leo goes on to say, “we should be sure to find in its character evidences of the presence of Hamitic modes of thought, and should find it to be a kind of low Hebrew.” From the Canaanites we pass on to their neighbours the Philistines, the inhabitants of the southern coast of Palestine, reaching from Egypt to Ekron, almost opposite Jerusalem. From the statement of Genesis, that the territory of the Canaanites extended as far as Gaza, we are not at liberty to infer that the stretch of coast from Gaza to Ekron was not taken from the Canaanites by the Philistines until a later time. The Canaanitish territory really extended as far south as Gaza, but did not quite reach to the sea. The author says this almost expressly; for before Gaza he mentions Gerar as the eastern limit of the Canaanitish territory. And this very Gerar is spoken of in Genesis as the most important place, and the seat of a Philistine king, in whose dominions the patriarchs sometimes took up their abode, using for pasturage the land which was not set apart for agriculture, to which the Philistines as well as the Canaanites were addicted. Afterwards, however, the city seems to have lost its importance. In late history, already in Joshua 13:3, we find other cities named as the Philistine centres, viz. Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Askalon, and Gath, the seats of the five kings of the Philistines; while Genesis mentions but one king of the whole race. This change must be attributed to the increase of trade, by which means Gerar, so far distant from the sea, must have been pushed into the background. The Philistines were not, like the Canaanites, a nation who had already dwelt in the land from the time of their ancestors. This is indicated by their name, which, not without probability, has been derived from
We now pass from Asia to Africa. Here the only country which attracts our attention is Egypt, where the beginnings of civilisation date from a very early period. It has been a favourite hypothesis of recent historiography, especially adorned by Heeren, that this culture had not its root in the country itself, but had come to it from Ethiopia, particularly from Meroe. But this hypothesis is already relinquished. The originality of Egyptian culture is more and more recognised. Wilkinson, part i. p. 37, speaks of the notion that the colonization and civilisation of Egypt came down the Nile from Ethiopia as being quite set aside by recent investigations. The monuments of art in Ethiopia are not only inferior to those in Egypt, but also bear far less the impress of originality. Herodotus, ii. 30, also bears testimony to the priority of the Egyptians; and derives the civilisation of the Ethiopians from Egyptian refugees. At the same time, it remains true that the proper heart of Egypt was the south. Ezekiel names Pathros, or the most southern part of Egypt, as the birthland of Egypt, Ezekiel 29:14; and Herodotus, in Book ii. chap. 15, speaks of very early migrations from Thebais to Lower Egypt, which latter, however, was the seat of empire in the time of the Pentateuch. Another unfortunate hypothesis is that which makes Egypt to have been divided into several kingdoms in ancient times: a theory which has only been invented in order to dispose of the long succession of kings of Manetho, which might now easily be got rid of in some other way. The sacred narrative, monuments, classical writers, Manetho himself, all recognise but one Egyptian kingdom. Compare the copious refutation of this forced hypothesis, which was first brought forward by Eusebius, in Rosellini, i. p. 98 et seq. The name Mizraim itself is an argument in favour of the original unity. It has reference to the division of the land into Upper and Lower Egypt. Yet the dual does not denote the two separately, but only in combination. At the time of the patriarchs, the colonization and cultivation of Egypt were already complete; the priesthood, at least towards the end of this period, was already organized. How great their political power was even at that time appears from the fact that Joseph, when he was raised to the highest office in the state, was obliged to marry a daughter of the high priest at On or Heliopolis; and that the possessions of the priests remained, while the other inhabitants, when the famine arose, were obliged to give up their territories to the king, and to receive them from him as a loan; comp. Genesis 47:22. It is evident from existing monuments, that among all the countries of the world Egypt attained the highest degree of culture at a very early period. “Practical life,” says Leo, “has on all sides built upon Egyptian inheritance.” In this respect Israel could and must learn from Egypt. But with respect to the higher conditions of existence, Egypt, like all the Hamitic nations, stood very low. We have already observed that recent Egyptian discoveries have been much less useful for the chronology and history of ancient Egypt than for its archgeology. We can, therefore, only regard it as an error when Bunsen (whom Lepsius afterwards followed) charges the biblical chronology with error; on the basis of his Egyptian chronology which rests upon a tissue of hypotheses. Löbell, in the 1st volume of the Weltgeschichte, Leipzig 1846, has expressed himself in opposition to this view. Whoever makes himself acquainted with the condition of the biblical chronology by independent investigation, will not be in the least imposed on by the confidence with which Bunsen asserts his hypotheses against it; making a measure of that which is to be measured. With the same confidence we find him declaring a bad mutilation of the Johannine Epistles to be the original. Döllinger, in his Streitschrift against Bunsen’s Hippolytus, has unsparingly disclosed the groundlessness of this assumption.
2. In a religious aspect.
Noah and his sons could not yet have lost the knowledge of the true God, although the crime of Ham shows how soon its moral influence began to decline. But the corruption of human nature was so great that the remembrance of the judgment of the flood could not long repress the outbreak of the fruit of this corruption, viz. idolatry. If once an inner connection with God, community of life with Him, be destroyed through sin, nothing outward, no traditionary knowledge, can preserve the knowledge of God in its purity. Only the spiritual man can know and worship God in spirit and in truth; the sensual and sinful man draws God down into his own confined sphere, partly from want of power to rise to Him, partly on account of his propensity to sin. He cannot bear the contrast which exists between his belief and his life. He must, therefore, suppress the outward knowledge of the true God, and stifle the inward voice which bears testimony to Him. He must create to himself higher beings who are subject to the same sins and weaknesses with himself, that he may excuse his own badness and silence his conscience by their example. We see this in rationalism, which attributes its own moral laxity to God. Thus when the descendants of Noah had spread themselves farther over the earth, the revelations of God to the fathers were soon forgotten or disfigured. The rapidity with which such decay takes place may be seen by a glance at the present religious condition. Half a century has sufficed for rationalism to make almost completely a tabula rasa. Men were not able to give up God entirely. Although alienated from God, they yet felt the necessity of belief in a being exalted above their own weakness. For their whole existence seemed to them to be conditioned by a higher, and dependent on it. This was a real necessity, proving the possibility of a return of the human race to God. But fallen men could not find real satisfaction for area! want. Because they were unable to rise above nature to their Creator, they sought God in nature; because they stood in awe of the holy God, the punisher of the wicked and the rewarder of the good, they preferred making to themselves a physical god. They gave divine honour to that in nature which struck them by its beauty and use, or by its powerful and mysterious efficacy.
We may distinguish certain stages in idolatry, without, however, being able to maintain that all nations have passed through them in regular succession. The fundamental principle of idolatry is the confounding of nature and God, the intermingling of world-consciousness and God-consciousness, which must necessarily arise when sin becomes so powerful as to destroy the knowledge of the holiness of God and of His absolute personality over the world, with its high, strict, and inexorable moral demands, its claim to absolute sovereignty of will. Pantheism is not perhaps the production of the scientific reflection of later times; although it may have given it its form. With respect to its essence it is as old as sin. Compare, the Introduction to Symbolism and Mythology of F. Creuzer, who was the first of all mythologists to recognise the footsteps of idolatry on the pantheism of phantasy, but has made a great mistake in regarding this pantheism as a product of the healthy condition of man. “To regard nothing, absolutely nothing, in the whole visible corporeal world as quite dead, but to invest even the stone with a kind of life, is the peculiarity of this method of thought.” “That which later pantheistic abstraction comprises in the sentence, ‘Nothing can be thought of which is not an image of the deity,’ is fundamentally the old belief among such nations.” At the first step all nature is regarded as an image and mirror of the one God, the whole life of nature as His life, each of its powers as His power. The
Yet there were nations who happily remained at this second step of idolatry. This was the case especially with the Persians, who in the worship of the stars and the elements totally abstained from that of images; comp. Herodotus, i. 131. These nations were therefore most susceptible to the influence of revelation; in them the divine was not quite so degraded as in those who stood on the third step. In very early times the all-prevailing sensuousness and phantasy, corrupted by sin, led to the grossest materialism. “A universal impulse of human nature,” says Creuzer, “at a very early period demanded definite outward signs and symbols for indefinite feelings and dim presentiments. When we see even those nations who were star-worshippers fall into idolatry, we cannot wonder that this should be the case where sensuous pantheism prevailed; and when a universal reign of physical nature seized a powerful people with blind force, it was then urgently demanded that the form and power of this god should be made visible.” At first the symbol passed more or less for what it was, a sign, a mere representation. Worship was not given to the symbol, but to the thing symbolized. Soon, however, symbol and symbolized were confounded. It is very significant that among the Greeks the statuaries were called god-makers,
Finally, the last step was taken when the development of mythology was added to the abuse of the symbol. The sources of mythology have been well unfolded by Creuzer. If once the partition-wall between God and nature and man be removed, not only is the divine humanized, but the human is also deified. The acts of those who rendered service to a nation were immensely exaggerated by tradition; they themselves were glorified by feasts, sculptures, processions, mimic representations, songs, and invocations. Soon the apotheosis is complete: either the number of gods is increased by a new one; or the tradition of a human benefactor of the nation is intermingled with that of an already existing god, and both are identified. Ancient biblical modes of expression are misconstrued, or understood in their rough and literal sense. That which was originally only symbolically-clothed doctrine is now treated as history; and inventive phantasy is occupied in adorning it more and more; still bringing more connection into it. Homer has many examples of this. In his traditions of the gods there is not unfrequently an ideal background, which, however, is no longer recognised by himself; comp. Nägelsbach, Homerische Theologie, Einleitung. A mass of fable is called forth by the historical interpretation of symbolical statuary. Remarkable phenomena and products of nature give occasion” to the continuation of the history of the gods from whose agency they are derived. Among nations like the Greeks the distinction between truth and fiction is quite lost, and mythology is transferred from the region of truth to that of beauty; the tradition of the gods is altered and developed according to their laws. By the contact of various peoples the gods and the myths pass from one to another, each by additions and alterations adapting the traditions to its own national character. If we examine, by the help of the narrative in Genesis, how far idolatry had already advanced at the time of Abraham’s call, we arrive at the result, that at that time there was scarcely a single nation among whom religious truth had been preserved in perfect purity; but that in most of them the last traces of it had not yet disappeared. The religious state at the time of Abraham’s call appears to have been just what we should have expected—a transition-state, idolatry on the increase, true religion on the wane. Let us prove this with respect to the most important races and nations. That even Abraham’s race was not free from idolatry appears from Joshua 24:2, “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor; and they served other gods;” and Joshua 24:14, “Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood.” The nature of this idolatry we learn from Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:30; Genesis 31:35, according to which Laban worshipped a kind of house-gods or Penates called Teraphim. Yet the worship of the true God had not quite disappeared from the family of Abraham. It appears that the Teraphim were worshipped only as inferior gods, through whom it was believed that the favour of the highest god might be secured, and by whose means he would impart counsel and knowledge respecting the future. Fallen man, conscious of his estrangement from God, seeks to fill up the gap with intermediate beings. Yet in the family of Abraham the traditions of the creation, the fall, the flood, etc., were preserved pure, and unsullied by any mixture of idolatry, being afterwards recorded by Moses in Genesis. Abraham already knew the highest God when he first revealed Himself to him! Laban acknowledges the most high God, the common object of Jacob’s worship and his own. Genesis 31:53, while he calls the Teraphim his gods, the particular which he has together with the universal. This supreme God he calls “the God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father.” Jacob holds religious communion with him, which would not be conceivable if Laban were an actual idolater. The corruption of morals into which the Canaanites had fallen even in the time of Abraham, comp. Genesis 15:16, leads us to suppose, judging from the close connection of sin and idolatry, that the latter had already made considerable advance among them. And yet it appears from the history of the priest-king, Melchizedek of Salem, that the true God had His servants even among the Canaanites. We certainly infer from the manner in which he characterizes the true God, as “the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth,” Genesis 14:19, that the worship of inferior subordinate deities and the deification of nature was already common in his day and among his people. For the more definite designation by which he represents himself as Abraham’s co-religionist has undoubted relation to prevailing religious error and delusion, which is also implied in the zeal with which he seeks to find in Abraham an associate in faith. Rarum carum. The Canaanitish Hittites in Hebron, according to Genesis 23:6, still retain so much religious susceptibility that they recognise in Abraham a prince of God, which would be impossible if they had quite lost the knowledge of a supreme God, and of a life devoted to Him. Among the Philistines also at the time of Abraham are to be found traces of the remains of a pure knowledge of God. Abraham confesses, Genesis 20:11, his error in supposing that they were totally without the fear of God, acknowledges the territory of the