PART IV.
I. God and His Book
|WHEN the deity had finished making his world, the bible says that he looked his creation all over, and behold, everything that he had made "was good." He was, according to this report, perfectly pleased with his work. He was proud of the world he had created, for it was made in his own image. But in the very next chapter we read that the first woman God ever made deceived her husband, and the first man deserted his wife, by throwing the blame of his transgression upon her, instead of coming to her defense. And the first son ever born to a mother--Cain--turned out to be a murderer--the murderer of his only brother. And the world itself, which a moment ago had been pronounced good, became so wicked in a short time that it had to be drowned. Who would care to be the author of such a world!
Of course, it will be said that the collapse of God's world was the devil's fault, but where did _he_ come from? Why was there a devil in a universe created by God, and in his own image? That is the question against which all theologies dash themselves to pieces. If the deity was powerless against the devil, he could, at least, have refrained from creating a world for the devil to work his mischief in. If you can not remove the quicksand, would you build a house on it?
Moreover, this throwing the blame upon somebody else is the very tactics which Adam and Eve resorted to. But did it help them? When Adam was asked why he ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree, he threw the blame upon his wife. When the woman was interrogated, she threw the blame upon the serpent, and now when we ask the "Lord God" why his world went to pieces so soon after he had pronounced it perfect, he throws the blame upon the devil. Well, that will not do. If shirking his responsibility did not save Adam nor his innocent progeny--the human race--why should it save the deity?
The story of Cain and Abel is the first episode on, earth. The two were brothers. Abel was a shepherd; Cain, a farmer. Surely they needed each other, both commercially and socially. According to the bible, there were altogether only four people in the world, at this time, and, therefore, from every point of view, it was more than a dastardly crime to kill one of the members of this precious group.
What was the cause of the hatred which led to the first bloodshed? Unfortunately these two brothers had a _religion_. But for their religion they would never have hated one another, nor would murder have stained the opening pages of history. Cain offered the Lord for a sacrifice, of the product of his farm; Abel brought to the altar a head or two of cattle. They were both trying to please the Lord, each worshiping him according to his light. Ah! but that is not enough; there is only one worship that is orthodox. All others are taboo. God accepts Abel's flesh offering, and rejects Cain's vegetables. Then the trouble begins. The murder of Abel by Cain started the religious persecutions which have blackened the face of man. To this source may be traced the inquisitions, the crusaders the wholesale massacres which have made history a horror and a shudder. The first bloodshed was in the name of religion. The first murder was committed at the altar of God. It was a religious difference which defiled with blood the cradle of the human race. But who was responsible for the first murder in the world? The deity! Had God been pleased to accept a vegetable offering with as much pleasure as roasting flesh, or, had he said, "Never mind me; be good to one another," he would have removed thereby the most powerful motive for religious persecution. The Cain and Abel story compels us to say that the first persecutor was the "Lord God" himself.
And how could these two brothers tell that God had accepted one offering and rejected the other? How can men tell to-day that God likes the Catholic worship better than the Protestant or the Moslem? Who can enlighten us on this subject? In the case of Cain and Abel, in all probability, the flesh offering, being oily or fat, burned readily on the altar; while the vegetables, being fresh and wet, or covered with the soil, did not burn as readily, or they smoked instead of going up in a flame, which natural circumstance was seized upon as a supernatural revelation, and made the pretext for the most infamous deed on record--fratricide.
And where did these two brothers get the idea that God was fond either of flesh or of vegetables? That is an interesting question. In the days of ignorance and fear, when the crocodile in the river was a god, it was supposed that the monster had power to hurt people. He must, therefore, be appeased. The rumor went abroad that the monster was very fond of little children. "Let us throw him a child for his breakfast," suggests a priest. The suggestion is followed. With prayers, incantations, prostrations--with incense, and chants, on stated occasions, the crocodile is presented a child. To bribe the evil powers, to put them in a friendly frame of mind by gifts of food and drink, of song and prayer, in order to turn their wrath into compassion--such was the beginning of human sacrifices. At first the gods were very particular. They demanded human flesh for their breakfast, and not until man was sufficiently strong to make his own terms, did the gods consent to accept the flesh of the animal.
The Deity Demands Human Flesh
|THE object of human and animal sacrifices in the bible, as in all the older religions, was to placate the deity. The Jews would not have offered Jehovah the flesh of man and beast, did they not believe that their god was not only exceedingly fond of roast meats, but that this was the only way to secure any favors from him. When an oriental desired a favor of his king or chieftain, he approached him with many gifts, as well as with prostrations and compliments. The way to be admitted to an audience with Jehovah was to praise him loudly, and to offer him the best part of the spoils.
The psychological phase of the institution of sacrifices and worship is very instructive. Even as a child tries to put its father in an amiable state of mind before presenting its petition, the believer's motive in coming forward with precious gifts--the flesh even of his own little ones--or with elaborate and highly finished compliments, is to throw a spell upon the deity, to charm him, as it were, into granting the petitioner his request. The savage actually believed that the savour of burning flesh, and the sight of palpitating blood shed at the altars, so delighted or intoxicated the deity that almost any favor could be wrested from him while in that condition. The object of the soft hymns and cajoling prayers in the churches to-day have the same purpose for which the sacrifices and dances of the barbarians were instituted. How to charm the deity, to please and engage his services, is the end and aim of every kind of worship.
The word gospel is a combination of good and spell. To read it, is to become spellbound, according to the teaching of the churches. In the same sense, a prayer-book is a collection of _spells_, to be used in approaching the deity. If we desire rain from him, we must use the petition, or the spell, expressly prepared for that purpose; if we desire good harvests, or success in war, or the removal from the land of the plague or infidelity, we must use other spells. "We ask it all in Jesus' name," is the way nearly all prayers close. That is one of the irresistible spells. "Ask it in my name," says Jesus, because the belief was current that there was magic in a name. That is to say, some names were spells. The word charm comes from the Latin _carmen_. But that is also the word for song or hymn. To sing to a god is to charm him, or bind him with a spell. The purpose of the chants is to _enchant_ the deity, that is to say, to intoxicate him with praise, as the savage tried to intoxicate him with his roasts and reeking altars.
The service of the gods was very much more expensive in olden times than now. Men had to part with their own children to keep on good terms with the powers above. But, as often explained, the secular interests of life always act as a check on the follies and absurdities of religion. Instead of throwing his children to the crocodile, or burning them alive upon the altar, the natural affections prevailed upon man to experiment with animal flesh as an offering to his gods. As man developed in power and independence, he compelled the gods to draw up a new contract, or a new testament, which not only forbade human, and later also animal, sacrifices, but allowed an offering of fruit, flowers and vegetables to take the place of flesh and blood at the altars. In each new bargain, the crocodile was the loser and man the gainer. The history of progress is the history of the successive bargains or covenants or testaments between man and the crocodile, or man and the powers he fears, each new contract adding to the rights of man and clipping from the claims of the crocodile. Is not this very interesting? What the Christians or Jews call a progressive religion simply means that God is satisfied with less now, or demands less now, than he was wont to in the days of man's ignorance and impotence.
The yoke of Jehovah is very much easier and not at all so pinching as formerly. His ten thousand categorical commandments, his taboos, his long list of ceremonial observances of new moons and Sabbaths, and the mysteries and dogmas which had to be accepted upon penalty of excommunication and damnation, have been one after the other discarded as non-essentials, with the result that one may now join either the Christian or the Jewish church upon one's own terms--and this they call being _liberal_.
What a blessing has Rationalism been even to the churches! It has saved them from shedding the blood of their children, saved them their domestic animals, and saved also the waste of their garden products, for the gods now get nothing but "words" for an offering. The deity, who at one time turned away from Cain's vegetable and fruit offering, and preferred the smell of roasting flesh, is now glad enough to get a few verbal compliments once a week.
But in the bible, God has not yet heard of "reformed" Judaism or of "liberal" Christianity, and hence he will accept nothing less than human and animal sacrifices. "Let me have blood, and more blood," is the refrain of revelation. How many of the believers in the bible are aware that God demanded by the mouth of Moses the first born of his people? Not only did he slay the first born of Egypt, but he also insisted upon having for himself the first fruits of the womb, as well as of the land of the chosen people.
_Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death._ *
* Leviticus xxvii, 28,29.
And Nehemiah relates how the faithful Jews, those who did not follow the example of the heathen, continued under all circumstances to bring "the firstfruits of our ground, and the firstfruits of all fruits of all trees, year by year, unto the house of the Lord: Also the _first born of our sons_ (daughters not acceptable), and of our cattle, as is written in the law." *
* Nehemiah x, 35,36.
And this is the book that must be circulated by the millions as the greatest and best in all the world! Even as the Old Testament demanded the sacrifice of the sons of the people, the New Testament demands the sacrifice of the Son of God. Look at the animal about to be bound and made ready for the knife of the priest. See its struggles and hear its moan! But that is nothing compared to the piteous wail of the human child torn from its parents' arms to be offered as a sacrifice to the crocodile! Nay, behold the agony of Christ on the cross and listen to his heartrending cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If God failed to hear thee, O Jesus! humanity has heard thy prayer, and there shall be no more murder on the altars of the crocodile!
The story of how Abraham was tempted, as it is said, to sacrifice his son to Jehovah, is well known. Abraham did not object at all. Neither was he shocked, or surprised, when commanded to kill his own son. It does not seem to have been an unusual thing for Jehovah to demand human flesh for his diet. Abraham started to do as his religion required of him. That is my complaint against religion. It makes a man willing to commit any crime under heaven in the name of God! And there is not an American clergyman who has the courage to say that such a commandment--requiring a father to butcher his son--should never have been given, or that, having been given, it should be stricken out of the bible. And had Abraham been a man, he would have become an out and out Atheist before he would have tied his little boy hand and foot and pulled out his knife!
But the clergyman is on hand with his excuses. He has no arguments, he has only _excuses_. God was only trying Abraham's faith, he tells us. Indeed! Did not the deity know in advance how Abraham would act under the circumstances? "Is it not true," ask again, the defenders of the bible, "that Abraham was not allowed to destroy his son, Isaac?" Yes, but God allowed Jephthah to kill his _daughter!_ The story of this unfortunate father is told in the following verses:
_And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering._
Jehovah accepted the bargain and gave Jephthah the victory.
_And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter!_
Then the poor man explains to his child the vow he had made unto the Lord. The young woman was willing to be offered up as a "burnt offering" unto the Lord, if she could have two months' time to wander about and bewail her sad fate.
_And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed._ *
* Judges xi, 30-39.
Why should Americans have anything to do with an Asiatic cult which tempts a father to kill the son that had called him _papa_, or which actually permits a father to burn alive his only child--the child that ran to greet him with a kiss? There was a good excuse to burn the clothes, or the timbrels with which Jephtha's daughter ran to meet her father, instead of the young lady herself. A good argument could have been made that the first object the returning general saw was the timbrels in her hand, but the Lord would not accept anything less than human flesh in those days.
There are many other examples in the "Holy Bible" as objectionable as those already mentioned. Frequently the only way to turn away the "wrath of God" from the people, was to hang a few heads against the sun, or massacre a whole community, children included, or to draw the sword upon the members of one's own family. What does the reader think of all this--in the bible! Why are not men ashamed to print and distribute twenty million copies a year of a book so foreign to the best feelings of our age and country? Why should such a book be forced into our homes and schools, or placed in the hands of our little ones immediately after they have left their cradles? Why should there be a copy of this book in every room of every hotel in the land?
Before dismissing this subject it would be well to point out that the long practice of human and animal sacrifices is responsible for the cruelty to children and animals in modern times. Humanity to our dumb neighbors has not been one of the distinguished virtues of either Jews or Christians, and though we live in the twentieth century we have to support societies specially devoted to preventing cruelty to children. In the same way associations have been organized to protect animals against mistreatment.
That the bible gives little thought to the rights of animals may be inferred not only from St. Paul's rather brutal exclamation, "Does God care for the oxen?" but also from the practice among the Jews to this day, of tormenting an animal before killing him for food. In the _Humane Review_, an eye witness of the Jewish method of slaughter to provide _Kosher_ meat for the market gives the following description of the operation:
_As soon as the animal has been brought into the slaughtering chamber it is thrown to the ground either by attaching a rope or chain to the legs and then suddenly hauling on it, or by twisting the head upward and sideways by means of an appliance attached to the horns and passing under the jaw, in such a way that the animal loses its balance and falls to the ground, in doing which it not infrequently injures itself so that there is loss of blood or fracture of horn or rib. The animal is then rendered powerless by having its feet bound together, or the tail drawn through the hind legs forward and upward, while one of the slaughtermen places his foot on the animal's stomach and prevents its attempting to offer resistance. The head is then forced down so that it rests on the horns, and the nose is pressed against the floor. This can only be done by the exertion of great force on the part of the slaughtermen, with corresponding resistance, involving terror and suffering on that of the animal. The Jewish official who performs the act of slaughter then passes his hand over the animal's tightly drawn throat, and mutters the so-called "Schechita" prayer. He then cuts the animal's throat right through the vertebrae, drawing the knife to and fro in so doing. The blood which spurts from the severed arteries is scattered like rain by the breath which escapes from the lungs, and as the breath is drawn in it enters the gullet and lungs with a loud rattling noise. The gaping wound yawns wide, the animal opens and closes its eyes, rolling them to and fro, and opens and shuts its mouth as though gasping for breath. If the flow of blood from the arteries in the neck ceases, one of the slaughtermen--not the Jewish official--draws them out, cuts away part of them with the surrounding tissues, and throws the severed portion away. And while all this is going on the animal is alive and conscious of pain and terror._
II. The Portrait of God in the Bible
|TO prove the charge that the bible God is quite unfit for modern purposes, we have only to open the "holy" book at almost any page to find such positive commandments as the following emanating from him:
_Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass._*
Slaughter on a small scale, or at intervals, does not seem to satisfy the bible deity. Like a vortex, he cries for more, more.
_But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee._ **
* I Samuel, xv, 3.
** Deuteronomy xx, 16, 17.
We would never have thought of calling attention to these gory pages but for the protection of our homes and schools, which the clergy insist should be placed under bible influence and instruction. And they have all the money and prestige in the world to force this book into our homes, and will do so if they catch the modern world napping for a moment.
It is not only the heathen that are put to the edge of the sword, but the Jews themselves are repeatedly slaughtered on the flimsiest pretext. When the people expressed any disagreement or complaint, or offered any criticism, they were "consumed" by the fire of the Lord. * When the Jews longed for a change of diet, and remembered the better food they enjoyed in the land of Egypt, the anger of the Lord was kindled:
_And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp.... And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague._ **
When he was less angry, he "sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." *** On one occasion nothing less than the massacre of five hundred thousand of his own chosen people would restore his good temper. **** Is there any strong reason why a book containing such demoralizing stories should be translated into every language and carried into every country under the sun? And is it not time for the American people to shut this "holy" book out of their homes, as it is already shut out of their public schools?
* Numbers xi, I.
** Numbers, xxi, 6.
*** Numbers xi, 4-6, 31-33.
**** II Chronicles, xiii, 17.
Not only did the commandments to kill and destroy proceed from the deity, but the bible represents him as angry when his agents show any pity or weakness in carrying out his designs. Saul is dethroned for sparing the cattle of the people he had been sent by the Lord to destroy. But Saul spared the best of the cattle, after he had destroyed all the men, women and children "to sacrifice unto the Lord." By doing this he had hoped to please the Lord, but not so. "It repented me," says Jehovah, "that I have set up Saul to be king." David, on the other hand, was after "God's own heart," because he was made of sterner stuff. As this bible character is often held up as a pattern, and as children are expected to love David as one of the best and holiest men in the bible--of whom Jesus was descended--it may not be amiss to recite a few of the stories in which this "man of God" figured so prominently. In David we see the picture of his God. My hand really trembles as I write the following verse:
_And he (David) brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes. Even so dealt David with all the cities of the children of Ammon._ *
Could anything be more repugnant to civilized races than such unnecessary inhumanity? We are trying to introduce a milder form of capital punishment than hanging, but surely it is not the bible that has softened our manners. I have so much faith in the saving common sense of the average American or European that I believe if they would only read the bible, and become better acquainted with it, they would not hesitate to do all in their power, even if it involved much personal inconvenience and loss, to break forever the power of these Semitic tales of war and plunder. Is there no more courage left in the world? "Oh, but nobody believes in these parts of the bible any more." Very well, then, why print and sell them at the rate of twenty million copies a year? But let us continue the story of David:
_And he... put them under saws... and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln_. **
* I Chronicles, xx, 3.
** II Samuel, xii, 31.
"And made them pass through the brick-kiln."
Well! and is that in the bible? If the Lord could not prevent such barbarity, could he not have prevented, at least, the publishing of such criminal details? The American public is about to pass a law prohibiting the newspapers from entering into the details of the daily murders and other horrible crimes they report. It is claimed, and justly, that such particular descriptions of acts of cruelty and shame familiarize the young, especially, with the worst phases of life, and by suggestion lead them astray. But the bible sins in this respect more flagrantly than any modern journal, not excepting the yellowest of them. Written, on the whole, by barbarians who lived in an age of brigandage and massacre, the bible not only gives details of crime which would not be tolerated in any modern publication, but, what is infinitely more injurious to the cause of morality, it sets upon unmentionable acts of cruelty and debauchery the stamp of divine approval. Once more, I repeat that I would never have devoted any labor to the discussion of the contents of the bible, if it were not that this is the great idol of the civilized world to-day--this the "holy" book, the reading of which it is the desire of the churches to make compulsory in the home and the school, and this the word of God without which, it is claimed, there can be no morality!
Even as there is a movement to purge the daily newspapers of offensive details of lawlessness and crime, there is also a movement to clear the billboards of objectionable displays and advertisements, and the theaters of such plays and moving pictures as offend good taste and corrupt the manners of young and old.
Still another worthy effort is in the direction of omitting from children's schoolbooks descriptions of war and carnage, in order to win them over to the nobler cause of peace. But why do not good men and women, who have bravely undertaken these needed reforms, try their hand also on the Jewish-Christian bible? I challenge these reformers, who would expunge from children's text-books the descriptions of battles and slaughters, to find a single passage in the secular history of Europe and America which can compare with the descriptions of David's divine method of warfare.
_And thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon._ *
* II Samuel xii, 31.
"Unto all the cities." Goodness! It is not only upon one or two special offenders that these atrocities are practiced, but upon "all the cities." And think of the state of heart and mind of a man that could be such a monster! But there is something more appalling still: think of the head and heart of the people of the twentieth century who dare not denounce such barbarities because they are in the bible, and who translate these details into every language under the sun for edification in morals!
Of course, there are also many "good things" in the bible, but if all the good editorials in newspapers can not atone for or justify the publication of offensive matter in other columns of the paper, why should the "good things in the bible" be quoted to cover up or excuse such terrible passages as those quoted above? And if it be said that neither Jews nor Christians approve of all the things in the bible, I ask, again, why then do they go on translating and disseminating the book without expunging the objectionable parts? If they have the courage to so rewrite the history of nations, or report the news of the world, as to omit all wanton descriptions of brutal and vulgar conduct, why have they not the courage to put the bible through the same purifying process? Who or what are they afraid of?
A Bible Saint
|THE story of David, which is placed in children's hands for their edification, is really that of a brigand, the personnel of whose followers is given in the following words:
_And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he (David) became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men._ *
Led by their "holy" captain, they went about to murder and plunder. Hiding themselves in caves and mountain fastnesses, they became a terror to people laboring in the fields or traveling from place to place. These freebooters, naturally enough, preferred going with David to staying at home to be sued for unpaid bills. So "every one that was in debt" joined the robber band. The thoroughness with which David and his marauders did their work won for them the favor of Jehovah.
_And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying,
So did David._ **
* I Samuel xxii, 2.
** Samuel xxvii, 11.
David never did anything without first consulting the Lord. He was not only cruel, but he was also a coward, for unless his God positively assured him of victory, he would not fight. The way he ascertained the mind of the Lord shows him to have been as superstitious as he was unmerciful and cowardly. And this is the Saint David--the flower of Judaism and Christianity combined! Religion has so perverted the judgment of men that they admire in the bible what they would despise anywhere else.
_And David said to Abiathar, the priest... I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David. And David enquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. _*
An _ephod_ was a cloak made according to the instructions of God, and worn by the priest. David consulted the cloak, and the cloak answered him. Perhaps there was some one in the cloak; at any rate the cloak spoke. David evidently had other gods besides Jehovah and the _ephod_, whom he kept at his home for consultation. On one occasion his wife Michal placed one of these domestic gods in David's bed, to mislead his pursuers. ** But his gods, big or small, did not object to his barbarities:
_Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law._ ***
* I Samuel xxx, 7,8.
** I Samuel xix, 13.
*** I Samuel xviii, 27.
Do parents desire their children to read such impure stories?
David puts the scalping Indians to shame. On one occasion, after God had greatly blessed him and given him the throne of Israel, David, who had already hundreds of wives and concubines, caught sight of the wife of one of his soldiers. To possess her, he coolly planned, and, without scruple, caused to be executed one of the meanest murders on record, that of the husband of the woman he coveted. The only person punished for this act of David was the innocent babe born of the crime. What justice!
From this time on, David became, if anything, more offensive in his conduct than ever before. Having escaped punishment for the foul murder of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, he caused to be hanged seven of the sons and grandsons of his ancient rival, Saul, on the pretext that the three years' famine in the land would terminate by this sacrifice. Indeed, he had consulted the Lord before hanging these innocent youths, with the result that, immediately after the seven corpses fell to the ground "before the Lord," the famine ceased. * It is curious how the deity always agrees with a powerful king or emperor. Kaiser, czar, and sultan always obey God, because he never tells them to do anything they do not want to do, and because he always approves of what they desire to do. Kings and emperors have the deity under perfect control.
* II Samuel xxi, 1-9.
Such was David's unrelenting spite that, when on his death-bed, he extracted a promise from his successor to the throne never to forgive or to show mercy to any one that had ever offended him. Mentioning his enemy by name, "his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood," he hissed, as he expired. * It would be perfectly safe to say that there is not another character of equal prominence in history, with so many vices and so few virtues, as that of David, concerning whom it is said that "he was a man after God's own heart," and to whom is given the highest praise in the bible by the deity himself:
_My servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes. _**
* I Kings ii, 9.
** I Kings xiv, 8.
III. The Bible and Judaism
|IT is in examining the fundamental teachings of Judaism that we discover the blighting influence of the bible upon Jewish thought and conduct. In all the Old Testament there is not even a suggestion that it is a duty to love the Gentile, or to treat him justly at least. Judaism believed the world outside Israel lost, and _rejoiced_ in it.
To Judaism the Gentile was not worth saving. A stranger might of his own accord, seeing the light of Israel, unite himself with the people of God, but it was no part of the Jewish religion to concern itself about the balance of mankind. Moses Mendelsohn, in an otherwise admirable letter to the celebrated French theologian Lavater, who had sought to convert him to Christianity, says that the religion of the Jew takes no thought of the salvation of people outside Israel:
"The religion of my fathers does not wish to be extended... Our rabbis unanimously teach that the written and oral laws which form conjointly our revealed religion are obligatory on our nation only." The bible then does not concern itself about enlightening any other people than the Jews. Not only all attempts to spread abroad the truths of revelation are strictly forbidden, but the Gentile who, of his own accord even, asks to share with the Jew the blessings of his religion is to be rejected. "Our rabbis," continues Mendelsohn in this same letter, "... enjoin us to dissuade by forcible remonstrances every one who comes forward to be converted." Evidently, then, Judaism was never meant for humanity at large. It was the religion of a tribe. People speak of the mission or the message of Judaism; but how could a religion have a message for mankind when it recognized no mankind outside Israel? Was not the doctrine of a chosen people, which is the _spina dorsi_ of the bible, the negation of human brotherhood? Was not its severe prohibition of intermarriage calculated to keep the Jew separate and an alien in every land?
The bible-writers were shrewd enough to know that nothing would end their régime, or overthrow all race and creed wars by which that authority was maintained, quicker than intermarriage, and hence they did not hesitate to denounce it as an act of national suicide. It is a pity that after many hundred years of residence among Gentiles, the hold of the bible on the Jews in respect to getting into intimate relations with people not of their own faith and race is as firm as ever. In a Jewish catechism, in use in their Sunday-schools, we read:
_Q. What other ordinances has God made to prevent our falling into sin?
A. Those which forbid our associating with bad men or intermarrying with wicked and idolatrous nations._
The child is thus taught to look upon all non-Jews as "wicked and idolatrous," and forming relations with them as "falling into sin."
This is supported by a text from the bible. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son," etc. *
* Deuteronomy vii, 3.
A religion which forbids a man to marry the woman he loves because she is of a different faith is a separatist religion.
Another question in this Jewish catechism reads: "Are we commanded still to keep ourselves distinct from other nations?"
To which the child answers, "Assuredly," etc. Observe the word "still," in the question, which shows the old law is as binding as ever. How can the rabbis justify such unfriendly teaching? And how reconcile it with their protests against anti-Semitism? If the Gentile will not take the Jew into his club, the Jew shuts his home to the Gentile. But why should not a Jew marry a Gentile? Moses and Ezra will not allow it? And why should the twentieth century be bound by Moses and Ezra? How can God be a universal father, and all peoples his children, if it is a crime deserving of death, as the bible plainly announces in many places, for one of his children to love another not of the same faith? This is the negation of brotherhood in the holiest sense of the word. The Catholic who denies salvation to all outside his church is not worse than the orthodox Jew. The Hebrew who has the courage to marry the woman he loves, in spite of all the theological fulminations of Moses and Ezra, does more to bring Israel into intimate fellowship with the world of to-day and more to unite all races in the bonds of brotherhood than all the rabbis of Jewry. The way to free Israel is to educate the Jew away from the rabbi, and, _entre nous_, rabbi is only another name for priest.
The bible evidently does not believe either in equality or in brotherhood. Will it be right to allow the teachers in our public schools, where all races and creeds are wrapped in the folds of one flag, to read from a book that teaches the boys and girls, who will be the men and women of the future, to hate one another? And yet the bible is guilty, we regret to say, of that very crime. Not only does it make it a capital crime for a Jew to love a Gentile, but he must not even be "on the square" with him.
_Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.... Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury._ *
Evidently the stranger is not a brother, else why does it say again:
_Of the children of the strangers... shall ye buy... they shall be your bondmen forever: but over your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule one over another with vigor._ **
and again:
_Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien._ ***
* Deuteronomy xxiii, 19, 20.
** Leviticus xxv, 45, 46.
*** Deuteronomy xiv, 21.
To give or to sell putrid flesh to the Gentile, or the _Goim_, is that the way to educate and prepare the world for brotherhood?
The defenders of the bible have often pleaded that the wars of extermination in the bible had for their object the preservation of the chosen people from idolatrous associations. To keep pure the religion revealed from above it was necessary, it is argued, to kill and destroy the surrounding races and forbid the Jews under severe penalties from entering into close relations with them. But how does selling bad meat to the Gentiles help to preserve the purity of a religion? How does enslaving the stranger contribute to the same end? If it is association with the Gentile that is feared, why were the Jews permitted to buy slaves of them and live with them in the same house or field? And how does lending money upon usury to the stranger help to protect the divine religion from contamination? Candidly speaking, it is difficult to see how anybody with a touch of the spirit of love and humanity in his breast can believe in the Old Testament. The fall of the bastile did not mark the dawn of a better day for France more than the fall of the bible will for both Jews and Gentiles.
One of the most hopeful signs of the day is that the cultivated Jew has completely broken away from the religion of his ancestors. The synagogues are even emptier than the churches. Of course, this has greatly alarmed the orthodox element. Recently the junior rabbi of the wealthiest New York synagogue, * in a sermon, on the first day of Passover, publicly attacked the Rationalists among the Jews, and held them responsible for the disrepute into which has fallen the religion of the bible:
* Temple Emanuel.
_The old tree that brought forth many beauteous blossoms is almost stripped of its foliage, and one by one the golden autumn leaves are falling as the older men and women of the congregation pass to their rest. There is no springtime here. It is the winter that is before us. For we have no youth, no young Jews and Jewesses to take the place of the elders. Let each family of the congregation ask itself where the young are, and the answer will be--not within the synagogue, but outside of it, indifferent to it; and faithless and disloyal to Judaism!_
Continuing his wail, the rabbi said:
_Look among you! Your sons and your daughters, many of them, are marrying outside of their people. They are rearing their children with all modern accomplishments, but with no religion. Their homes are bare of piety and of the spirit of prayer. Some of them perhaps are engaged in charitable work, but the work of charity is a negative work at the best, and with our young men and women it is very seldom carried on in the spirit of Jewish brotherhood, but rather in a spirit of remote pity mingled with disdain. Are you satisfied with this result of your reform of Judaism?_
Of course, when this rabbi speaks of religion he means Judaism; and when he speaks of brotherhood, he means "Jewish brotherhood." It is as impossible to make Judaism tolerant, as it is Christianity. Fortunately, many of the fellow Jews of this rabbi did not hesitate to combat a teaching which aims to hold the Jews back while the whole world is moving forward. Why should the Jew remain an Asiatic in religious thought and practice? It may be to the profit of the rabbi to keep the Jew tied to the apron strings of the past, and to prevent his exodus from the wilderness of Sinai, but what spells prosperity for the rabbi or the priest spells ruin for the people. Look at Ireland. The priests wear gold chains and live in palatial residences--they increase and multiply--while Ireland is depopulated and wasted to the bone. Not until both Catholic and Jew dare to disobey their priests, do they begin to prosper and enjoy the liberties and blessings of life. As a Jewish scholar expresses it, the question is not whether or not the Jews shall embrace Christianity or remain Jews, but whether they shall be Asiatic or American.
IV. Bible and Talmud
|ANOTHER way of showing how the Old Testament has injured the thought and conduct of the Jewish race--as it has of all other races which have accepted its authority, although, not to the same extent, for the obvious reason that they have wandered from its teaching more freely and daringly than the Jews--would be by examining Jewish religious literature, especially the Talmud.
The rank and file of the orthodox Jews regard the Talmud with almost as great a reverence as the Old Testament. Even by advanced rabbis it is regarded as the best commentary on Mosaic morals and ritual. The Talmud is to the Jews what the decisions and interpretations of church councils are to the Catholics. The Talmud has been called the "Revelation on the Lip," that is to say, the unwritten word of God. For an intelligent understanding of Judaism, a knowledge of the Talmud is as indispensable as that of the Old Testament. We will make a few quotations here to show that the Talmud goes even beyond the Old Testament, if that were possible, in regarding the Gentile as an enemy, instead of as a brother. Many among the Jews are as ignorant of the contents of the Talmud, as many among the Christians are of the contents of the bible. Let me reproduce a few of the Talmudic texts:
_If the ox of an Israelite bruise the ox of a Gentile, the Israelite is exempt from paying damages; but should the ox of a Gentile bruise the ox of an Israelite, the Gentile is bound to recompense him in full._ *
If one finds lost property in a locality where the majority are Israelites, he is bound to proclaim it, but he is not bound to do so if the majority be Gentiles. **
If one who intends to kill a Gentile, he slay an Israelite... he shall be free. ***
An alien forfeits the right to his own property in favor of the Jews. ****
Rabbi Shemuel says advantage may be taken of the mistakes of a Gentile. He once bought a gold plate as a copper of a Gentile for four zouzim, and then cheated him out of one zouz in the bargain. Rabbi Cahana says that he swindled a Gentile, while the Gentile assured him that he confidently trusted to his honesty. (v)
It is also expressly urged (Bava Kama, fol. 113, col. 1 ), to resort to false and adroit pretexts to secure the acquittal of a guilty Jew. Compare this from the "people of God" with the following from a Pagan Poet: =
``` _If ever called
```To give thy witness in a dubious case,
```Though Phalaris himself should bid thee lie
```On pain of torture in his flaming bull,
```Disdain to barter innocence for life,_
```To which life owes its luster and its worth.(vi)=
* Talmud, Bava Kame, fol. 38, col. 1.
** Bava Metzia, fol. 24, col. 1.
*** Sanhédrin, fol. 78, col. 2.
**** Bava Kama, fol. 38, col. 1.
v Bava Kama, fol. 118, col. 2.
vi Juvenal, Sat. 8,1,80.
Doctor Edersheim quotes the following from the Talmud:
_The best of the Gentiles kill; the best among serpents, crush its head._
Now this is the book which is to the orthodox Jew in Poland and Russia what the Pope is to the Italian and Spanish peasantry. That it is binding upon the conscience of every believing Jew may be inferred from the following:
_Whosoever transgresses any of the sayings of the scribes is guilty of death._ *
The Talmud with its twelve large folio volumes, represents the national literature of the Jews for a long period of time. What its worth is, aside from the few scattered passages quoted above, may be seen from the following estimate:
_But yet I venture to say that it would be impossible to find less wisdom, less eloquence and less high morality, imbedded in a vaster bulk of what is utterly valueless to mankind--to say nothing of those parts of it which are indelicate and even obscene--than in any other national literature of the same extent._ **
* Eiruvin, fol. 21, col. 2.
** Dean Farrar, in A Talmudic Miscellany.
But what Canon Farrar says of the Talmud could with equal truth be said of the bulk of the bible. The Jews could ask for no better illustration of the baneful influence of the bible upon their national literature for long centuries than the worthless character of the Talmudic writings.
It would have been a real miracle for the Jews to have developed a great literature, or to have created a great civilization like that of the Hellens or the Latins, with an infallible bible, and its offspring, the Talmud, blocking their progress on every side. It is interesting to note that the only races of antiquity which blossomed morally, as well as intellectually, are those which had no _revelation_ to hamper their free movements or to stunt their growth. The unfortunate Jews went through life carrying the burden of Jehovah. The Greeks made sport of their gods; Jehovah made sport of the Jews.
If in modern times the Jews have produced first-class scholars in nearly every branch of the activities of the mind, it is because, like the glorious Spinoza, the heretic Jew who was cursed and expelled from the synagogue, they have divorced barren Judaism and "taken for spouse" science--the only redeemer that redeems. I sincerely hope--and there are many signs that this hope will be realized in the not distant future--that even as the French after centuries of submission to Rome threw off its yoke and came out of Catholicism into modern thought--not a few individuals only, but the best part of the nation--government and all; and as Spain, the most Catholic country in the world, is preparing to follow the example of France; and as noble little Portugal has just reasoned and voted itself out of the papacy into freedom of thought and action, I earnestly hope that the Jews, too, after untold centuries of intellectual bondage to an Asiatic religion, which is inimical to culture and humanity, will come out of the synagogue _en masse_, thereby registering their protest against both bible and Talmud, and proving, as the French have done, for instance, that they are great enough to change their religion.
The fear that the decline of Judaism will bring about national disintegration is without foundation. If the Jew is an American in America, an Englishman in England, a German in Germany--how can his withdrawal from Judaism affect his nationality? Is Judaism the name of a nation or of a religion? It is argued that the Jews are compelled to cling to one another, and to keep together in a body, because of the general prejudice against them. Will I be forgiven if I were to say that Judaism is largely responsible for this fearful prejudice. Is there a text in bible or Talmud, which any rabbi could quote, to prove that Jew and Gentile should love and respect one another and dwell together in fraternal relations, taking and giving in marriage, as though they were one people? Produce such a text! And if there be not, is it any wonder that the Gentile, the world over, and in all the ages, has looked upon the Jew as an alien? It is not true that the cause of the prejudice against the Jew is the charge that his ancestors crucified Christ. That is a foolish argument. It is invented by the rabbis to throw dust into the eyes of inquirers. Then why did the ancient Romans, long before Christ, entertain a prejudice against the Jews? The Latin authors explained the reason for the prejudice: It was the religious scruple of the Jew against mingling cordially and honestly with people other than his own. Judaism shut up the Jew in his shell. To come in contact with a non-Jew, to treat him, in every respect, as a brother, was blasphemy. Is it any wonder that Cicero, writing about the Jews, said that the Romans were better acquainted with the Hindus who lived thousands of miles away, than with the Jews who lived next door to them? It was the exclusiveness of the Jew which created and which, alas, prevents from dying, the prejudice against them. It is far from my purpose to contend that this is the only source of the ill-feeling between Jew and Christian, but I am confident that were the Jews to abandon Judaism, an Asiatic religion which will not assimilate modern thought, and abandon also such rites and ceremonies which are unbecoming to a civilized people, and enter into the most intimate domestic relations with their neighbors, in a few generations the ugly sectarian and racial prejudices, lacking their daily nourishment, will waste away and die. "Ah, but if we do that, we will lose our Judaism," says the rabbi. Keep your Judaism, if you prefer it to humanity. Of course, the Christians, too, must outgrow their exclusive religion. But my point is that the Christians, as in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and America are coming out of the old faiths _en masse_, while there is as yet no such definite movement among the Jews. True enough, here and there one meets a Jew who has all but repudiated Judaism. As a representative of this class is the writer of the article on Judaism in _Chambers' Encyclopedia_--Doctor Krauskopf, of Philadelphia. This gentleman almost completely strips Judaism of all its biblical and Talmudic features. The program put forth by him is of so very radical a character as hardly to deserve the title of Judaism. It comes near leaving out supernaturalism altogether.
"We discard," says Doctor Krauskopf, "the belief in a God who is a man magnified, who has his abode somewhere in the interstellar spaces. We discard the belief that the bible was written by God, or by man under the immediate dictation of God, and that its teachings are therefore infallible.... We discard the belief in the coming of a human Messiah who will lead us back to Palestine, establish us as the rulers of the world, and make all nations tributaries to us. We discard the belief in bodily resurrection, hell-torments, Paradisian rewards, prophecy, superstitions, all biblical and rabbinical beliefs, rites and ceremonies and institutions, which neither elevate nor sanctify our lives." * Another step, and Judaism will be swallowed up in Rationalism.
Will Judaism take that other step? The Jew will; but I fear that Judaism will not. Like Christianity and every other form of organized religion, Judaism is too aged to put forth new shoots. Abandon it, is my earnest suggestion. It has hurt the Jew. Judaism has made the Jew narrow and anti-social. At a Jewish Congress held at Basle in 1898, Doctor Mandelstam, Professor in the University of Kiev, said: "The Jews energetically reject the idea of fusion with other nationalities, and cling firmly to their historical hope--that is, of a world empire." Again, Dr. Leopold Kahn, the Vienna rabbi, in 1901 declared that "the Jew will never be able to assimilate himself; he will never adopt the customs and ways of other peoples. The Jew remains Jew under all circumstances. Every assimilation is purely exterior." **
* On the Progress of Liberty of Thought, C. E. Plumpter, page 71.
* Ethical World, August, 1911.
The educated Jews everywhere should combat such bigotry. If the Jewish people desire universal respect and equality, they must fuse with other people, which they can only do by coming out of the ancient oriental wilderness. To say that the jews energetically reject the idea of "fusion with other nationalities," is to expose them to the charge that they are the sworn enemies of the human race. Rabbis, beware!
During the recent Race Congress in London, Mr. H. Snell spoke as follows on this important question:
_Regarding the question from the standpoint of ethical internationalism, it is not the Jew, but Judaism, that is at fault. As a citizen pursuing his daily avocation, sharing in the duties and responsibilities of the common life, the Jew is the equal of his English neighbor, and should be so regarded. He is a reliable business man, a loyal comrade and a good friend. The Jew in the synagogue is a totally different matter. It is the curse of organized religion that it divides men from their fellows, and engenders strife rather than harmony. The moment the orthodox Jew remembers his Judaism, he ceases to be one with the nation in which he lives, and he falls back upon those racial prejudices which certainly perpetuate, even if they did not actually create, the aversion with which he is regarded. It is, I repeat, not the citizen Jew, but the theocratic Jew and the financial Jew, that constitutes the problem. No people can expect to be loved when they, through their habits and institutions, openly deride the institutions and customs of the nations under whose laws they live. The orthodox Jew is not an Englishman or a German, even though he may happen to have been born in the countries named. In so far as he obeys the Jewish law he represents a firm, isolated, yet international political unity, having as its goal the dominancy of the Jewish people. The land in which he lives does not appear to count. The Jewish people become a State within a State, living their own life, and cutting themselves off from the customs and ideals of the populations among whom they exist, and through whom they attain to material comfort. The Jew will not eat or drink with his Gentile neighbors; their marriage laws are not good enough for him; he regards marriage with any one outside his race with horror; he will not accept the day of rest enjoined by the peoples among whom he dwells for his own Sabbath, but makes one day's rest in seven practically impossible for large sections of the people by insisting upon a special day of his own. It is this senseless isolation of Judaism, and its badly concealed contempt for the Gentile, that make the change of attitude toward the Jew so difficult._
The prejudice against the Jew is one of the most degrading things in modern life. Such is the solidarity of humanity that what hurts one is bound to hurt also the other. But we see no solution of the Jewish problem except in the complete emancipation of the Jew from Judaism, and of the Christian from Christianity. Reason will unite what religion has put asunder.
V. The Masterpiece of the Bible--Solomon's Temple
|THE masterpiece of the bible was Jerusalem. The proudest building in the "holy city" was Solomon's temple. Both Jehovah and his people exerted themselves to do their utmost to build a temple that was to be the envy of all ages and peoples. Preparations for its erection were begun in the reign of David, to whom God gave untold wealth. It is related in the bible that--
_David the king... prepared for the holy house, even three thousand talents * of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses withal... Then the chief of the fathers and princes of the tribe of Israel... offered willingly, and gave for the service of the house of God of gold five thousand talents and ten thousand drams, and of silver ten thousand talents, and of brass eighteen thousand talents, and one hundred thousand talents of iron._ **
* Cruden makes a talent of gold about 35,000, and a talent of silver about 2,000.
** Chronicles xxix, 1-7.
Here then was a sum which in our money would run up to about three hundred millions of dollars. We are not going to ask how the chief of a petty tribe, in one of the poorest and most barren parts of Asia, could, at so remote a time, raise so enormous a fund; our desire is only to show the elaborate preparations undertaken for the erection of Solomon's temple. But this is not the only reference to the big sums of money and other precious things which David collected for the temple, which was to be the glory of Jerusalem. Elsewhere in the bible we read:
_Now, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of the Lord an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass and iron without weight._ *
This was fabulous wealth. David must have had a gold mine of miraculous proportions. Mongredien, as quoted by G. W. Foote, of England, estimates that the total value of all the gold and silver of every sort in the British Isles barely amounts to seven hundred millions of dollars, and David, the bible says, raised, "in my trouble," when times were not very prosperous, three thousand and six hundred millions in gold, and nearly two thousand and two hundred millions in silver. For no other building were such preparations ever made.
But money alone was not all that was needed. A wise king, indeed the wisest that ever sat on a throne, if the bible is to be believed, appeared just at this time to take charge of the building of the temple. The Lord asked Solomon to draw upon him for whatever he wanted. "Ask what I shall give thee," ** he said. Solomon asked for wisdom, and got very much more.
_And God said to him... I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any rise like unto thee. And I have also given thee... both riches and honour_. ***
* I Chronicles xxii, 14.
** I Kings iii, 5.
*** I Kings iii, 11-14.
Thus equipped Solomon took up the work of preparation for the building of a suitable monument to Jehovah, which his father, David, had begun. One of the first things Solomon did was to put thirty thousand men to the task of gathering material for the construction of the temple. For the space of four years this crowd of men traveled into foreign countries in search of timber, as well as of skilled men for the temple:
_So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.... And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses. *
And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them. **
So was he seven years in building it._ ***
Four years collecting materials, and seven years building the temple--eleven years altogether. And "threescore and ten thousand men," added to "fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain," plus "three thousand and six hundred" overseers, make a hundred and fifty-three thousand men in the service of the temple. By adding to this number the thirty thousand traveling abroad for the same object, we get the grand total of one hundred and eighty-three thousand and six hundred laborers devoting eleven years to the erection of the temple.
When at last the monument which had taxed the whole nation and its God to the utmost was completed, people came from far and near to behold it and its royal architect:
_And when the Queen of Sheba **** heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions.
* I Kings v, 10-14.
** 1 Kings vi, 38.
*** II Chronicles ii, 2.
**** Country unknown.
... and Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not.
And when the Queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built.
And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her.... And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones._ *
There was no more spirit in her, I suppose, means she was dumb with astonishment. Indeed, the fame of the temple of Solomon threw a sort of magic spell upon all the rival nations of the world, hypnotizing them into submission to Israel:
_And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his heart And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year._ **
* II Chronicles ix, 1-9.
** II Chronicles ix, 23,24.
Everything turns into silver and gold. Every one of Jehovah's favorites, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, became exceeding rich. In the present instance, not only are "all the kings of the earth" on their knees before the man who conceived and carried into completion so stupendous a monument--one of the seven or eight wonders of the world--but they also empty their purses in his lap. The temple is already earning a dividend.
But when we draw nigh unto this bible masterpiece to take its measurements, we find that the one hundred and eighty-three thousand and six hundred men, working for eleven years, and spending the wealth of many modern countries put together, produced only what we would call to-day an unusually small meeting-house.
_And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.
And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house._ *
* I Kings vi, 2.
Now a cubit is the length of the forearm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, or about eighteen inches. The Egyptian cubit was about twenty inches. It is not quite certain whether the Hebrew cubit was as long. Some commentators, wishing to help Solomon's temple, stretch the cubit to nearly twenty-six inches. Figuring, however, on the basis of the cubit of bible times, the Egyptian cubit, to ascertain the size of Solomon's temple, we find that this national monument of Israel, the pride of the desert, was about ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high; which would have cost to-day, when labor and material are very much higher, but a few thousand dollars, and a short time to build it in. Surely not all the gold and silver which David and his son Solomon raised by taxing the people, and by collecting tribute from foreign powers were spent in the erection of this modest little chapel! Into what other channels could the money have been diverted? Who did the stealing? Nobody, really. It was only mythical wealth, and a mythical army of workmen, building a mythical temple. The real temple which was destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked must have been a very inexpensive affair.
The only striking feature of the vaunted Solomonic edifice was its porch, which was altogether out of proportion to the rest of the building, being one hundred and forty feet higher than the temple itself. But the eccentric porch, climbing up a hundred and forty feet higher than the building it was designed to serve, as well as the building itself, and the untold moneys it cost, together with the huge army of toilers, existed only in the imagination of the Jewish scribe. We have only to think of the pyramids of Egypt, the cities and temples of Babylonia, the still-abiding wonder of Baal-bec--the temple of the sun, to realize that even when they vaunt their gifts and possessions, even with their passion for inflation and swagger, the bible writers do not rise to the level of the achievements of their heathen neighbors.
But it is only by comparing Athens with Jerusalem that we realize how very much more wonderful is the truth of paganism than Jewish fiction. It is not our intention to enumerate the masterpieces of Athens. To preserve even its dust and broken fragments, museums far more stupendous than Solomon's temple have been reared all over the world. Was not Athens--as a city, as a place of habitation, as a school for the mind, as a spectacle for the eye, as the home of liberty--better than Jerusalem? And is not the book or books which tell the story of the wonderful Greeks--how they lived, and thought, and sang, and wrought their masterpieces--better than the book which tells the story of the desert? Both Judaism and Christianity will disappear, but Greece, that is to say, science, that is to say, art, that is to say, civilization, will continue to produce masterpieces, and yet remain as prolific as time.