Chapter 18

Following the course of the river, he at length arrived at the gates of Paradise. The gates were shut. He knocked, and, with his usual impetuosity, demanded admittance. "Thou canst not be admitted here," exclaimed a voice from within; "this gate is the Lord's." "I am the Lord--the Lord of the earth," rejoined the impatient chief. "I am Alexander the Conqueror. Will you not admit _me_?" "No," was the answer; "here we know of no conquerors, save such as conquer their passions: _None but the just can enter here_." Alexander endeavoured in vain to enter the abode of the blessed--neither entreaties nor menaces availed. Seeing all his attempts fruitless, he addressed himself to the guardian of Paradise, and said: "You know I am a great king, who has received the homage of nations. Since you will not admit me, give me at least some token that I may show an astonished world that I have been where no mortal has ever been before me." "Here, madman," said the guardian of Paradise--"here is something for thee. It may cure the maladies of thy distempered soul. One glance at it may teach thee more wisdom than thou hast hitherto derived from all thy former instructors. Now go thy ways."

Alexander took the present with avidity, and repaired to his tent. But what was his confusion and surprise to find, on examining his present, that it was nothing but a fragment of a human skull. "And is this," exclaimed he, "the mighty gift that they bestow on kings and heroes? Is this the fruit of so much toil and danger and care?" Enraged and disappointed, he threw it on the ground. "Great king," said one of the learned men who were present, "do not despise this gift. Contemptible as it may appear in thine eyes, it yet possesses some extraordinary qualities, of which thou mayest soon be convinced, if thou wilt but cause it to be weighed against gold or silver." Alexander ordered this to be done. A pair of scales were brought. The skull was placed in one, a quantity of gold in the other; when, to the astonishment of the beholders, the skull over-balanced the gold. More gold was added, yet still the skull preponderated. In short, the more gold there was put in the one scale the lower sank that which contained the skull. "Strange," exclaimed Alexander, "that so small a portion of matter should outweigh so large a mass of gold! Is there nothing that will counterpoise it?" "Yes," answered the philosophers, "a very little matter will do it." They then took some earth and covered the skull with it, when immediately down went the gold, and the opposite scale ascended. "This is very extraordinary," said Alexander, astonished. "Can you explain this phenomenon?" "Great king," said the sages, "this fragment is the socket of a human eye, which, though small in compass, is yet unbounded in its desires. The more it has, the more it craves. Neither gold nor silver nor any other earthly possession can ever satisfy it. But when it is once laid in the grave and covered with a little earth, there is an end to its lust and ambition."

* * * * *

Shakspeare's well-known masterly description of the Seven Ages of Man, which he puts into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques (_As You Like It_, ii, 7), was anticipated by Rabbi Simon, the son of Eliezer, in this Talmudic description of

_The Seven Stages of Human Life._

Seven times in one verse did the author of Ecclesiastes make use of the word _vanity_, in allusion to the seven stages of human life.[95]

[95] Eccles., i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the singular, making altogether _seven_.

The first commences in the first year of human existence, when the _infant_ lies like a king on a soft couch, with numerous attendants about him, all ready to serve him, and eager to testify their love and attachment by kisses and embraces.

The second commences about the age of two or three years, when the darling _child_ is permitted to crawl on the ground, and, like an unclean animal, delights in dirt and filth.

Then at the age of ten, the thoughtless _boy_, without reflecting on the past or caring for the future, jumps and skips about like a young kid on the enamelled green, contented to enjoy the present moment.

The fourth stage begins about the age of twenty, when the _young man_, full of vanity and pride, begins to set off his person by dress; and, like a young unbroken horse, prances and gallops about in search of a wife.

Then comes the _matrimonial state_, when the poor _man_, like a patient ass, is obliged, however reluctantly, to toil and labour for a living.

Behold him now in the _parental state_, when surrounded by helpless children craving his support and looking to him for bread. He is as bold, as vigilant, and as fawning, too, as the faithful dog; guarding his little flock, and snatching at everything that comes in his way, in order to provide for his offspring.

At last comes the final stage, when the decrepit _old man_, like the unwieldy though most sagacious elephant, becomes grave, sedate, and distrustful. He then also begins to hang down his head towards the ground, as if surveying the place where all his vast schemes must terminate, and where ambition and vanity are finally humbled to the dust.

* * * * *

But the Talmudist, in his turn, was forestalled by Bhartrihari, an ancient Hindú sage, one of whose three hundred apothegms has been thus rendered into English by Sir Monier Williams:

Now for a little while a child; and now An amorous youth; then for a season turned Into a wealthy householder; then, stripped Of all his riches, with decrepit limbs And wrinkled frame, man creeps towards the end Of life's erratic course; and, like an actor, Passes behind Death's curtain out of view.

Here, however, the Indian philosopher describes human life as consisting of only four scenes; but, like our own Shakspeare, he compares the world to a stage and man to a player. An epigram preserved in the _Anthologia_ also likens the world to a theatre and human life to a drama:

This life a theatre we well may call, Where every actor must perform with art; Or laugh it through, and make a farce of all, Or learn to bear with grace a tragic part.

It is surely both instructive and interesting thus to discover resemblances in thought and expression in the writings of men of comprehensive intellect, who lived in countries and in times far apart.

VI

WISE SAYINGS OF THE RABBIS.

"Concise sentences," says Bacon, "like darts, fly abroad and make impressions, while long discourses are flat things, and not regarded." And Seneca has remarked that "even rude and uncultivated minds are struck, as it were, with those short but weighty sentences which anticipate all reasoning by flashing truths upon them at once." Wise men in all ages seem to have been fully aware of the advantage of condensing into pithy sentences the results of their observations of the course of human life; and the following selection of sayings of the Jewish Fathers, taken from the _Pirke Aboth_ (the 41st treatise of the Talmud, compiled by Nathan of Babylon, A.D. 200), and other sources, will be found to be quite as sagacious as the aphorisms of the most celebrated philosophers of India and Greece:

This world is like an ante-chamber in comparison with the world to come; prepare thyself in the ante-chamber, therefore, that thou mayest enter into the dining-room.

Be humble to a superior, and affable to an inferior, and receive all men with cheerfulness.

Be not scornful to any, nor be opposed to all things; for there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything which hath not its place.

Attempt not to appease thy neighbour in the time of his anger, nor comfort him in the time when his dead is lying before him, nor ask of him in the time of his vowing, nor desire to see him in the time of his calamity.[96]

[96] "Do not," says Nakhshabí, "try to move by persuasion the soul that is afflicted with grief. The heart that is overwhelmed with the billows of sorrow will, by slow degrees, return to itself."

Hold no man responsible for his utterances in times of grief.

Who gains wisdom? He who is willing to receive instruction from all sources. Who is rich? He who is content with his lot. Who is deserving of honour? He who honoureth mankind. Who is the mighty man? He who subdueth his temper.[97]

[97] "He who subdueth his temper is a mighty man," says the Talmudist; and Solomon had said so before him: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city" (Prov. xvi, 32). A curious parallel to these words is found in an ancient Buddhistic work, entitled _Buddha's Dhammapada_, or Path of Virtue, as follows: "If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors." (Professor Max Müller's translation, prefixed to _Buddhagosha's Parables_, translated by Captain Rogers.)

When a liar speaks the truth, he finds his punishment in being generally disbelieved.

The physician who prescribes gratuitously gives a worthless prescription.

He who hardens his heart with pride softens his brains with the same.

The day is short, the labour vast; but the labourers are still slothful, though the reward is great, and the Master presseth for despatch.[98]

[98] Cf. Saádí, _ante_, page 41, "Life is snow," etc.

He who teacheth a child is like one who writeth on new paper; and he who teacheth old people is like one who writeth on blotted paper.[99]

[99] Locke was anticipated not only by the Talmudist, as above, but long before him by Aristotle, who termed the infant soul _tabula rasa_, which was in all likelihood borrowed by the author of the Persian work on the practical philosophy of the Muhammedans, entitled _Akhlák-i-Jalaly_, who says: "The minds of children are like a clear tablet, equally open to all inscriptions."

First learn and then teach.

Teach thy tongue to say, "I do not know."

The birds of the air despise a miser.

If thy goods sell not in one city, take them to another.

Victuals prepared by many cooks will be neither cold nor hot.[100]

[100] Too many cooks spoil the broth.--_English Proverb_.

Two pieces of money in a large jar make more noise than a hundred.[101]

[101] Two farthings and a thimble In a tailor's pocket make a jingle.--_English Saying_.

Into the well which supplies thee with water cast no stones.[102]

[102] "Don't speak ill of the bridge that bore you safe over the stream" seems to be the European equivalent.

When love is intense, both find room enough upon one bench; afterwards, they may find themselves cramped in a space of sixty cubits.[103]

[103] Python, of Byzantium, was a very corpulent man. He once said to the citizens, in addressing them to make friends after a political dispute: "Gentlemen, you see how stout I am. Well, I have a wife at home who is still stouter. Now, when we are good friends, we can sit together on a very small couch; but when we quarrel, I do assure you, the whole house cannot contain us."--_Athenæus_, xii.

The place honours not the man; it is the man who gives honour to the place.

Few are they who see their own faults.[104]

[104] Compare Burns:

O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend: be discreet.[105]

[105] See the Persian aphorisms on revealing secrets, _ante_, p. 48.--Burns, in his "Epistle to a Young Friend," says:

Aye free aff hand your story tell When wi' a bosom crony, But still keep something to yoursel' Ye scarcely tell to ony.

Poverty sits as gracefully upon some people as a red saddle upon a white horse.

Rather be thou the tail among lions than the head among foxes.[106]

[106] The very reverse of our English proverb, "Better to be the head of the commonalty than the tail of the gentry."

The thief who finds no opportunity to steal considers himself an honest man.

Use thy noble vase to-day, for to-morrow it may perchance be broken.

Descend a step in choosing thy wife; ascend a step in choosing thy friend.

A myrtle even in the dust remains a myrtle.[107]

[107] Saádí has the same sentiment in his _Gulislán_--see _ante_, p. 49.

Every one whose wisdom exceedeth his deeds, to what is he like? To a tree whose branches are many and its roots few; and the wind cometh and plucketh it up, and overturneth it on its face.[108]

[108] See also Saádí's aphorisms on precept and practice, _ante_, p. 47.

If a word spoken in time be worth one piece of money, silence in its place is worth two.[109]

[109] Here we have a variant of Thomas Carlyle's favourite maxim, "Speech is silvern; silence is golden."

Silence is the fence round wisdom.[110]

[110] "Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he were sensible of this he would not be ignorant."--_Saádí_.

A saying ascribed to Esop has been frequently cited with admiration. The sage Chilo asked Esop what God was doing, and he answered that he was "depressing the proud and exalting the humble." A parallel to this is presented in the answer of Rabbi Jose to a woman who asked him what God had been doing since the creation: "He makes ladders on which he causes the poor to ascend and the rich to descend," in other words, exalts the lowly and humbles the haughty.

* * * * *

The lucid explanation of the expression, "I, God, am a jealous God," given by a Rabbi, has been thus elegantly translated by Coleridge:[111]

[111] _The Friend_, ed. 1850, vol. ii, p. 249.

"Your God," said a heathen philosopher to a Hebrew Rabbi, "in his Book calls himself a jealous God, who can endure no other god besides himself, and on all occasions makes manifest his abhorrence of idolatry. How comes it, then, that he threatens and seems to hate the worshippers of false gods more than the false gods themselves?"

"A certain king," said the Rabbi, "had a disobedient son. Among other worthless tricks of various kinds, he had the baseness to give his dogs his father's names and titles. Should the king show anger with the prince or his dogs?"

"Well-turned," replied the philosopher; but if God destroyed the objects of idolatry, he would take away the temptation to it."

"Yea," retorted the Rabbi; "if the fools worshipped such things only as were of no farther use than that to which their folly applied them--if the idol were always as worthless as the idolatry is contemptible. But they worship the sun, the moon, the host of heaven, the rivers, the sea, fire, air, and what not. Would you that the Creator, for the sake of those fools, should ruin his own works, and disturb the laws applied to nature by his own wisdom? If a man steal grain and sow it, should the seed not shoot up out of the earth because it was stolen? O no! The wise Creator lets nature run its own course, for its course is his own appointment. And what if the children of folly abuse it to evil? The day of reckoning is not far off, and men will then learn that human actions likewise reappear in their consequences by as certain a law as that which causes the green blade to rise up out of the buried cornfield."

* * * * *

Not less conclusive was the form of illustration employed by Rabbi Joshuah in answer to the emperor Trajan. "You teach," said Trajan, "that your God is everywhere. I should like to see him." "God's presence," replied the Rabbi, "is indeed everywhere, but he cannot be seen. No mortal can behold his glory." Trajan repeated his demand. "Well," said the Rabbi, "suppose we try, in the first place, to look at one of his ambassadors." The emperor consented, and Joshuah took him into the open air, and desired him to look at the sun in its meridian splendour. "I cannot," said Trajan; "the light dazzles me." "Thou canst not endure the light of one of his creatures," said the Rabbi, "yet dost thou expect to behold the effulgent glory of the Creator!"

* * * * *

Our selections from the sayings of the Hebrew Fathers might be largely extended, but we shall conclude them with the following: A Rabbi, being asked why God dealt out manna to the Israelites day by day, instead of giving them a supply sufficient for a year, or more, answered by a parable to this effect: There was once a king who gave a certain yearly allowance to his son, whom he saw, in consequence, but once a year, when he came to receive it; so the king changed his plan, and paid him his allowance daily, and thus had the pleasure of seeing his son each day. And so with the manna: had God given the people a supply for a year they would have forgotten their divine benefactor, but by sending them each day the requisite quantity, they had God constantly in their minds.

* * * * *

There can be no doubt that the Rabbis derived the materials of many of their legends and tales of Biblical characters from foreign sources; but their beautiful moral stories and parables, which "hide a rich truth in a tale's pretence," are probably for the most part of their own invention; and the fact that the Talmud was partially, if not wholly, translated into Arabic shortly after the settlement of the Moors in Spain sufficiently accounts for the early introduction of rabbinical legends into Muhammedan works, apart from those found in the Kurán.

_ADDITIONAL NOTES._

ADAM AND THE OIL OF MERCY.

In the apocryphal Revelation of Moses, which appears to be of Rabbinical extraction, Adam, when near his end, informs his sons; that, because of his transgression, God had laid upon his body seventy strokes, or plagues. The trouble of the first stroke was injury to the eyes; the trouble of the second stroke, of the hearing; and so on, in succession, all the strokes should overtake him. And Adam, thus speaking to his sons, groaned out loud, and said, "What shall I do? I am in great grief." And Eve also wept, saying: "My lord Adam, arise; give me the half of thy disease, and let me bear it, because through me this has happened to thee; through me thou art in distresses and troubles." And Adam said to Eve: "Arise, and go with our son Seth near Paradise, and put earth upon your heads, and weep, beseeching the Lord that he may have compassion upon me, and send his angel to Paradise, and give me of the tree out of which flows the oil, that thou mayest bring it unto me; and I shall anoint myself and have rest, and show thee the manner in which we were deceived at first."... And Seth went with his mother Eve near Paradise, and they wept there, beseeching God to send his angel to give them the Oil of Compassion. And God sent to them the archangel Michael, who said to them these words: "Seth, man of God, do not weary thyself praying in this supplication about the tree from which flows the oil to anoint thy father Adam; for it will not happen to thee now, but at the last times.... Do thou again go to thy father, since the measure of his life is fulfilled, saving three days."

The Revelation, or Apocalypse, of Moses, remarks Mr. Alex. Walker (from whose translation the foregoing is extracted: _Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations_, 1870), "belongs rather to the Old Testament than to the New. We have been unable to find in it any reference to any Christian writing. In its form, too, it appears to be a portion of some larger work. Parts of it at least are of an ancient date, as it is very likely from this source that the celebrated legend of the Tree of Life and the Oil of Mercy was derived"--an account of which, from the German of Dr. Piper, is given in the _Journal of Sacred Literature_, October, 1864, vol. vi (N.S.), p. 30 ff.

MUSLIM LEGEND OF ADAM'S PUNISHMENT, PARDON, DEATH, AND BURIAL.

When "our first parents" were expelled from Paradise, Adam fell upon the mountain in Ceylon which still retains his name ("Adam's Peak"), while Eve descended at Júddah, which is the port of Mecca, in Arabia. Seated on the pinnacle of the highest mountain in Ceylon, with the orisons of the angelic choirs still vibrating in his ears, the fallen progenitor of the human race had sufficient leisure to bewail his guilt, forbearing all food and sustenance for the space of forty days.[112] But Allah, whose mercy ever surpasses his indignation, and who sought not the death of the wretched penitent, then despatched to his relief the angel Gabriel, who presented him with a quantity of wheat, taken from that fatal tree[113] for which he had defied the wrath of his Creator, with the information that it was to be for food to him and to his children. At the same time he was directed to set it in the earth, and afterwards to grind it into flour. Adam obeyed, for it was part of his penalty that he should toil for sustenance; and the same day the corn sprang up and arrived at maturity, thus affording him an immediate resource against the evils of hunger and famine. For the benevolent archangel did not quit him until he had farther taught him how to construct a mill on the side of the mountain, to grind his corn, and also how to convert the flour into dough and bake it into bread.

[112] The number Forty occurs very frequently in the Bible (especially the Old Testament) in connection with important events, and also in Asiatic tales. It is, in fact, regarded with peculiar veneration alike by Jews and Muhammedans. See notes to my _Group of Eastern Romances and Stories_ (1889), pp. 140 and 456.

[113] The "fruit of the forbidden tree" was not an apple, as we Westerns fondly believe, but _wheat_, say the Muslim doctors.

With regard to the forlorn associate of his guilt, from whom a long and painful separation constituted another article in the punishment of his disobedience, it is briefly related that, experiencing also for the first time the craving of hunger, she instinctively dipped her hand into the sea and brought out a fish, and laying it on a rock in the sun, thus prepared her first meal in this her state of despair and destitution.