CHAPTER V.

Of Moses.

I.

The ambitious, who have always been grand masters of the art of trickery, have always followed this method in expounding their laws, and to oblige the people to submit to them they have persuaded them that they had received them either from a God or a Goddess.

Although there was a multitude of Divinities, those who worshipped them called Pagans had no general system of Religion. Each republic, each state and city, each particular place had its own rites and thought of the Divinity as fancy dictated. Following this came legislators more cunning than these first tricksters, and who employed methods more studied and more certain for the propagation and perpetuity of their laws, as well as the culture of such ceremonies and fanaticism as they deemed proper to establish.

Among the great number Arabia and its frontiers has given birth to three who have been distinguished as much by the kind of laws and worship which they established, as by the idea they have given of a Divinity to their followers, and the means they have taken to cause this idea to be received and their laws to be approved.

Moses is the most ancient; Jesus coming after labored after his manner in preserving the foundation of his laws while abolishing the remainder; and Mahomet appearing later on the scene has taken from one and the other religion to compose his own, and therefore he is declared the enemy of all the Gods.

Let us see the character of these three Legislators, examine their conduct, and then judge afterwards who are the best founded: those who revered them as Holy men and Gods, or those who treated them as schemers and impostors.

II.

The celebrated Moses, grandson of a great magician, [28] by the account of Justin Martyr, had all the advantages proper for what he afterwards became. It is well known that the Hebrews, of whom he became the Chief, were a nation of shepherds whom King Pharaoh Orus I. received in his country in consideration of services that he had received from one of them in the time of a great famine. He gave them some lands in the east of Egypt in a country fertile in pasturage, and consequently adapted for their flocks.

During 200 years they rapidly increased, because, being considered foreigners they were not required to serve in the armies of Pharaoh, and because of the natural advantages of the lands which Orus had granted them. Some bands of Arabs came to join them as brothers, for they were of a similar race, and they increased so astonishingly that the land of Goshen not being able to contain them they spread all over Egypt, giving Pharaoh Memnon II. good reason to fear that they might be capable of some dangerous attempt in case Egypt was attacked (as happened soon after) by their active enemies, the Ethiopians.

Thus a policy of state compelled this Prince to curtail their privileges, and to seek means to weaken and enslave them. Pharaoh Orus II. surnamed Busiris because of his cruelty, and who succeeded Memnon, followed his plan regarding the Jews. Wishing to perpetuate his memory by the erection of the Pyramids and building the city of Thebes, he condemned the Hebrews to labor at making bricks, the material in the earth of their country being adapted for this purpose. During this servitude the celebrated Moses was born, in the same year that the King issued an edict to cast all the male Hebrew children into the Nile, seeing that he had no surer means of exterminating this rabble of foreigners.

Moses was exposed to perish in the waters in a basket covered with pitch, which his mother placed in the rushes on the banks of the river. It chanced that Thermitis, daughter of Orus, was walking near the shore and hearing the cries of the child, the natural compassion of her sex inspired her to save it.

Orus having died, Thermitis succeeded him, and Moses having been presented to her, she caused him to be educated in a manner befitting the son of a Queen of the wisest and most polished nation of the universe. In a word he was tutored in all the science of the Egyptians, and it is admitted, and they have represented Moses to us as the greatest politician, the wisest philosopher and the most famous magician of his time. It followed that he was admitted to the order of Priesthood, which was in Egypt what the Druids were in Gaul, that is to say--everything.

Those who are not familiar with what the government of Egypt was, will be pleased to know that the famous dynasties having come to an end, the entire country was dependent upon one Sovereign who divided it into several provinces of no great extent. The governors of these countries were called monarchs, and they were ordinarily of the powerful order of Priests, who possessed nearly one-third of Egypt. The king named these monarchs, and if we can believe the authors who have written of Moses and compare what they have said with what Moses himself has written, we may conclude that he was monarch of the land of Goshen, and that he owed his elevation to Thermitis, who had also saved his life.

We see what Moses was in Egypt, where he had both time and means to study the manners of the Egyptians, and those of his nation: their governing passions, their inclinations, and all that would be of service to him in his effort to excite the revolution of which he was the promoter.

Thermitis having died, her successor renewed the persecution against the Hebrews, and Moses having lost his previous favor, and fearing that he could not justify several homicides that he had committed, took the precaution to flee.

He retired to Arabia Petrea, on the confines of Egypt, and chance brought him to the home of a tribal chief of the country. His services, and the talents that his master remarked in him, merited his good graces and one of his daughters in marriage. It is here to be noted that Moses was such a bad Jew, and knew so little of the redoubtable God whom he invented later, that he wedded an idolatress, and did not even think of having his children circumcised.

It was in the Arabian deserts, while guarding the flocks of his father-in-law and brother-in-law, he conceived the design of avenging the injustice which had been done him by the King of Egypt, by bringing trouble and sedition in the court of his states; and he flattered himself that he could easily succeed in this by reason of his talents, as by the disposition which he knew he would find in his nation already incensed against the government by reason of the bad treatment that they had been caused to suffer.

It appears by the history which he has told of this revolution, or at least by the author of the books attributed to Moses, that Jethro, his brother-in-law, was in the conspiracy, as well as his brother Aaron and his sister Mary, who had remained in Egypt, and with whom he could arrange to hold correspondence. As may be seen by the sequel he had formed a vast plan in good politics, and he could put in service against Egypt all the science he had learned there, and the pretended Magic in which he was more subtle and skillful than all those at the Court of Pharaoh who possessed the same accomplishments. It was by these pretended miracles that he gained the confidence of those of his nation that he caused to rebel. He joined to them thousands of mutinous Egyptians, Ethiopians and Arabs. Boasting the power of his Divinity and the frequent interviews he held with Him, and causing Him to intervene in all the measures he took with the chiefs of the revolt, he persuaded them so well that they followed him to the number of 600,000 combatants--besides the women and children--across the deserts of Arabia, of which he knew all the windings.

After a six days march on a laborious retreat, he commanded his followers to consecrate the seventh to his God by a public rest, to make them believe that this God favored him, that he approved his sway, and that no one could have the audacity to contradict him.

There were never any people more ignorant than the Hebrews, and consequently none more credulous. To be convinced of this profound ignorance, it is only necessary to recall the condition of these people in Egypt when Moses made them revolt. They were hated by the Egyptians because of their pastoral life, persecuted by the Sovereign and employed in the vilest labor.

Among such a populace it was not very difficult for Moses to avail himself of his talents. He made them believe that his God (whom he sometimes simply called an angel)--the God of their Fathers--appeared to him, that it was by his order that he took care to lead them, that he had chosen him for Governor, and that they would be the favored people of this God, provided they believed what he said on his part.

He added to his exhortations on the part of his God, the adroit use of his prestige, and the knowledge that he had of nature. He confirmed what he said to them by what might be called miracles, always easy to perform, and which made a great impression on an imbecile populace.

It may be remarked above all, that he believed he had found a sure method for holding this people submissive to his orders, in making accessory of the statement that God himself was their leader: by night a column of fire and a cloud by day. But it can be proved that this was the grossest trick of this impostor, and that it might serve him for a long time. He had learned during his travels that he had made in Arabia, a country vast and uninhabited, that it was the custom of those who traveled in companies to take guides who conducted them in the night by means of a brazier, the flame of which they followed, and in the day time by the smoke of the same brazier which all the members of the caravan could see, and consequently not go astray. This custom prevailed among the Medes and Assyrians, and it is quite natural that Moses used it, and made it pass for a miracle, and a mark of the protection of his God. If I may not be believed when I say that this was a trick, let Moses himself be believed, who in Numbers, Chap. x. v. 29-33, asks his brother-in-law, Hobab, to come with the Israelites, that he may show them the roads, because he knew the country. This is demonstrative, for if it was God who marched before Israel night and day in the cloud and the column of fire could they have a better guide? Meanwhile here is Moses exhorting his brother-in-law by the most pressing motives of interest to serve him as Guide. Then the cloud and the column of fire was God only for the people, and not for Moses, who knew what it was.

These poor unfortunates thus seduced, charmed at being adopted by the Master of God, as they were told, emerging from a hard and cruel bondage, applauded Moses and swore to obey him. His authority was thus confirmed. He sought to perpetuate it, and under pretext of establishing divine worship, or of a supreme God of whom he said he was the lieutenant, he made his brother and his children chiefs of the Royal Palace, that is to say, of the place where miracles were performed out of the sight and presence of the people.

So he continued these pretended miracles, at which the simple were amazed and others stupefied, but which caused those who were wise and who saw through these impostures to pity them. However skillful Moses was, and how many clever tricks he knew how to do, he would have had much trouble to secure obedience if he had not a strong army. [29] Deceit without force has rarely succeeded.

It was in order to have assured means to maintain obedience against the discerning that he continued to place in his own faction those of his tribe, giving them all the important charges and exempting them from the greater part of the labors. He knew how to create jealousies among the other tribes, some of whom took his part against the others. Finally assuring adroitly to his interest those who appeared the most enlightened, by placing them in his confidence, he secured them by giving them employment of distinction.

After that he found some of these idiots had the courage to reproach his bad faith; that under his false pretense of justice and equity he was seizing everything. As the sovereign authority was vested in his blood in such manner that no one had a right to aspire to it, they considered finally that he was less their father than their tyrant.

On such occasions Moses by cunning policy confounded these free-thinkers and spared none who censured his government.

With such precautions, and cloaking his punishments under the name of Divine vengeance, he continued absolute, and to finish in the same way he began, that is to say by deceit and imposture, he chose an extraordinary death. He cast himself in an abyss in a lonely place where he retired from time to time under pretext of conferring with God, and which he had long designed for his tomb. His body never having been found, it was believed that his God had taken him, and that he had become like Him.

He knew that the memories of the patriarchs who preceded him were held in great veneration when their sepulchres were found, but that was not sufficient for an ambition like his. He must be revered as a God for whom death had no terrors, and to this end all his efforts were directed since the beginning of his reign when he said that he was established of God--to be the God of Pharaoh. Elijah [30] gave his example, also Romulus [31], Empedocles [32] and all those who from a desire to immortalize their names, have concealed the time and place of their death so that they would be deemed immortal.