Part 5

Secondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay, and therefore no separate fighting profession, is this--that foreign war, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite unknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance of armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued with those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack upon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be lawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all his great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it inevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious motive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he discovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction was required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without sincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words aloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his prophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nation denying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive warfare. But the Jews had no such commission--a proselyte needed more evidences of assent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words, and he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution. Some nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of servitude. But the Romans were so far from treating _their_ language in this way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay for a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the Jews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon foreigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by coming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law, and by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple.

Such was the prodigious state of separation from a Mahometan principle of fanatical proselytism in which the Jews were placed from the very first. One small district only was to be cleared of its ancient idolatrous, and probably desperately demoralized, tribes. Even this purification it was not intended should be instant; and upon the following reason, partly unveiled by God and partly left to an integration, viz., that in the case of so sudden a desolation the wild beasts and noxious serpents would have encroached too much on the human population. So much is expressed, and probably the sequel foreseen was, that the Jews would have lapsed into a wild hunting race, and have outworn that ceremonial propensity which fitted them for a civil life, which formed them into a hive in which the great work of God in Shiloh, His probationary Temple or His glorious Temple and service at Jerusalem, operated as the mysterious instinct of a queen bee, to compress and organize the whole society into a cohesion like this of life. Here, perhaps, lay the reason for not allowing of any sudden summary extirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second principle, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete. Snares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown--in that case the restless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be utterly withdrawn--in that case his faith would undergo no probation. Even upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that aggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it was not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was not to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and to be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment this part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive warfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all other wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no allowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom, Midian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not aggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there remained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever justify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the Jews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted, and wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible atrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole tribe), in which case a bloody exterminating war under God's sanction succeeded and rapidly drew to a close, or else grew out of the ruinous schism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem. And as this schism had no countenance from God, still less could the wars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that could have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic theory of their constitution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole case of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength, struck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in Shiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the last man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies could tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an excessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in the 120,000 men, the true difficulty would lie the other way, to account for its being so much reduced.

It seems to me highly probable that the offence of David in numbering the people, which ultimately was the occasion of fixing the site for the Temple of Jerusalem, pointed to this remarkable military position of the Jewish people--a position forbidding all fixed military institutions, and which yet David was probably contemplating in that very _census_. Simply to number the people could not have been a crime, nor could it be any desideratum for David; because we are too often told of the muster rolls for the whole nation, and for each particular tribe, to feel any room for doubt that the reports on this point were constantly corrected, brought under review of the governing elders, councils, judges, princes, or king, according to the historical circumstances, so that the need and the criminality of such a _census_ would vanish at the same moment. But this was not the _census_ ordered by David. He wanted a more specific return, probably of the particular wealth and nature of the employment pursued by each individual family, so that upon this return he might ground a permanent military organization for the people; and such an organization would have thoroughly revolutionized the character of the population, as well as drawn them into foreign wars and alliances.

It is painful to think that many amiable and really candid minds in search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran towards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the altar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word 'army,' as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects indifferently, and one which in Judæa exclusively could be applied only to such a service as must in its own nature be sudden, brief, and always tending to a decisive catastrophe.

And that this was the true form of the crime, not only circumstances lead me to suspect, but especially the remarkable demur of Joab, who in his respectful remonstrance said in effect that, when the whole strength of the nation was known in sum--meaning from the ordinary state returns--what need was there to search more inquisitively into the special details? Where all were ready to fight cheerfully, why seek for separate _minutiæ_ as to each particular class? Those general returns had regard only to the ordinary _causa belli_--a hostile invasion. And, then, all nations alike, rude or refined, have gone upon the same general outline of computation--that, subtracting the females from the males, this, in a gross general way, would always bisect the total return of the population. And, then, to make a second bisection of the male half would subtract one quarter from the entire people as too young or too old, or otherwise as too infirm for warlike labours, leaving precisely one quarter of the nation--every fourth head--as available for war. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about 1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy _pospolite_ was far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court saved themselves from capture only by a few hours' start of the enemy, and through the enemy's want of cavalry. This danger meantime having vanished, it might be possible that for David personally no other great conspiracy should disturb his seat upon the throne. None of David's sons approached to Absalom in popularity; and yet the subsequent attempt of Adonijah showed that the revolutionary temper was still awake in that quarter. But what David feared, in a further-looking spirit, was the tenure by which his immediate descendants would maintain their title. The danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for regulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things far less determined than amongst monogamous nations--one son pleading his priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother's higher rank, a third pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within the description of _porphyrogeniture_, or royal birth, which is often felt as transcendent as _primogeniture_--even the people, apart from the several pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as grounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds. There seems good reason to think that already the ten tribes, Israel as opposed to Judah, looked upon the more favoured and royal tribe of Judah, with their supplementary section of Benjamin, as unduly favoured in the national economy. Secretly there is little doubt that they murmured even against God for ranking this powerful tribe as the prerogative tribe. The jealousy had evidently risen to a great height; it was suppressed by the vigilant and strong government of Solomon; but at the outset of his son's reign it exploded at once, and the Scriptural account of the case shows that it proceeded upon old grievances. The boyish rashness of Rehoboam might exasperate the leaders, and precipitate the issue; but very clearly all had been prepared for a revolt. And I would remark that by the 'young men' of Rehoboam are undoubtedly meant the soldiers--the body-guards whom the Jewish kings now retained as an element of royal pomp. This is the invariable use of the term in the East. Even in Josephus the term for the military by profession is generally 'the young men'; whilst 'the elders' mean the councilors of state. David saw enough of the popular spirit to be satisfied that there was no political reliance on the permanence of the dynasty; and even at home there was an internal source of weakness. The tribe of Benjamin were mortified and incensed at the deposition of Saul's family and the bloody proscription of that family adopted by David. One only, a grandson of Saul, he had spared out of love to his friend Jonathan. This was Mephibo-sheth; but he was incapacitated for the throne by lameness. And how deep the resentment was amongst the Benjamites is evident from the insulting advantage taken of his despondency in the day of distress by Shimei. For Shimei had no motive for the act of coming to the roadside and cursing the king beyond his attachment to the house of Saul. Humanly speaking, David's prospect of propagating his own dynasty was but small. On the other hand, God had promised him _His_ support. And hence it was that his crime arose, viz., upon his infidelity, in seeking to secure the throne by a mere human arrangement in the first place; secondly, by such an arrangement as must disorganize the existing theocratic system of the Jewish people. Upon this crime followed his chastisement in a sudden pestilence. And it is remarkable in how significant a manner God manifested the nature of the trespass, and the particular course through which He had meant originally, and _did_ still mean, to counteract the worst issue of David's apprehensions. It happened that the angel of the pestilence halted at the threshing-floor of Araunah; and precisely that spot did God by dreams to David indicate as the site of the glorious Temple. Thus it seemed as though in so many words God had declared: 'Now that all is over, your crime and its punishment, understand that your fears were vain. I will continue the throne in your house longer than your anxieties can personally pursue its descent. And with regard to the terrors from Israel, although this event of a great schism is inevitable and essential to My councils, yet I will not allow it to operate for the extinction of your house. And that very Temple, in that very place where My angel was commissioned to pause, shall be one great means and one great pledge to you of My decree in favour of your posterity. For this house, as a common sanctuary to all Jewish blood, shall create a perpetual interest in behalf of Judah amongst the other tribes, even when making war upon Jerusalem.' Witness if it were but that one case where 200,000 captives of Judah were restored without ransom, were clothed completely, were fed, by the very men who had just massacred their fighting relatives.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state--and afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became so splendid that it was made so--white had always been the colour of a monarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty' (Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).--ED.]

[8] This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes a point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the army are called by the names of _laos_, the people; _demos_, the community; and _pleth[=u]s_, the multitude. But no notice is taken throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people, not only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of the chiefs.--ED.

_VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE._

The argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews, flowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of Geneva--never mixing its waters with those which surround it--has been by some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as everywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide the answer. Yet how infinitely better to state it fully, and then show that the evasion has no form at all; but, on the contrary, powerfully argues the inconsistency and incapacity of those who urge it. For instance, I remember Boulanger, a French infidel, whose work was duly translated by a Scotchman, answers it thus: What is there miraculous in all this? he demands. Listen to me, and I will show you in two minutes that it rests upon mere show and pure delusion. How is it, why is it, that the Jews have remained a separate people? Simply from their usages, in the first place; but, secondly, still more from the fact that these usages, which with other peoples exist also in some representative shape, with _them_ modify themselves, shift, alter, adapt themselves to the climate or to the humour or accidents of life amongst those amidst whom chance has thrown them; whereas amongst the Jews every custom, the most trivial, is also part of their legislation; and their legislation is also their religion. (Boulanger, by the way, is far from expressing that objection so clearly as I have here done; but this is his drift and purpose, so far as he knew how to express it.) Take any other people--Isaurians, Athenians, Romans, Corinthians--doubtless all these and many others have transmitted their blood down to our ages, and are now living amongst us by representation. But why do we not perceive this? Why do the Athenians seem to have perished utterly? Simply for this reason: they were a plastic, yielding, unobstinate race. An Athenian lived in a port of Italy, married an Italian woman; thence threw out lines of descent to Milan, thence to Paris; and because his Attic usages were all local, epichorial, and tied to a particular mythology which has given way, or to a superstition which is defunct, or to a patriotic remembrance which has vanished with the land and the sympathy that supported it; hence, and upon other similar arguments, the Athenian has long since melted into the mass with which he was intermixed; he was a unit attached to a vast overpowering number from another source, and into that number he has long since been absorbed; he was a drop in a vast ocean, and long ago he has been confounded with the waters that did not differ, except numerically, from his own. But the Jews are an obstinate, bigoted people; and they have maintained their separation, not by any overruling or coercing miracle, but in a way perfectly obvious and palpable to themselves--obvious by its operation, obvious in its remedy. They would not resign their customs. Upon these ordinances, positive and negative, commanding and forbidding many peculiar rites, consecrating and desecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the stress and emphasis of religion. They would not resign them; they did not expect others to adopt them--not in any case; _à fortiori_ not from a degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of Providential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to blend with other races.

This is the infidel's attempt to rebut, to defeat, utterly to confound, the argumentative force of this most astonishing amongst all historical pictures that the planet presents.

The following is the answer:

It is forgotten that along with the Jews there is another people concerned as illustrations of the same prophetic fatality--of that same inevitable eye, that same perspective of vision, which belonged to those whose eyes God had opened. The Arabs, as children of a common ancestor, ought not to be forgotten in this sentence upon their brother nation. They through Ishmael, the Jews through Isaac, and more immediately through Israel the son of Isaac, were two diverging branches of one original stem; and to both was pronounced a corresponding doom--a sentence which argued in both a principle of duration and self-propagation, that is memorable in any race. The children of Ishmael are the Arabs of the desert. Their destiny as a roving robber nation, and liable to all men's hands, as they indifferently levied spoil on all, was early pronounced. And here, again, we see at once how it will be evaded: it is the desert, it is the climate, it is the solemnity of that unchanging basis, which will secure the unchanging life of its children. But it is remarkable enough that Gibbon and other infidels, kicking violently against this standing miracle (because, if not so in itself, yet, according to Bishop Butler's just explanation concerning miraculous _per de_-_rivationem_ as recording a miraculous power of vision), have by oscillation clung to the fixture of basis, and rejected it; for now Gibbon denies that the Arabs have held this constant tenor of life; they have changed it, he asserts, in large and notorious cases. Well, then, if they have, then at once falls to the ground this alleged overruling coercion _a priori_ of the climate and the desert. Climate and desert do not necessarily coerce them, if in large and notorious cases they have failed to do so. So feels Gibbon; and, by an instinct of timidity, back he flies to the previous evasion--to the natural controlling power of climate and soil, admitting the Scriptural fact, but seeking for it an unscriptural ground, as before he had flown in over-precipitate anxiety to the denial of the Scriptural fact, but in that denial involving a withdrawal of the unscriptural ground.

The sceptics in that instance show their secret sense of a preference from the distracted eagerness with which they fly backwards and forwardwise between two reciprocally hostile evasions.

The answer I reserve, and meantime I remark:

Secondly, that, supposing this answer to have any force, still it meets only one moiety of the Scriptural fatality; viz., the dispersion of the Jews--the fact that, let them be gathered in what numbers they might, let them even be concentrated by millions, therefore in the literal sense _not_ dispersed, yet in the political sense universally understood, they would be dispersed, because never, in no instance, rising to be a people, _sui juris_, a nation, a distinct community, known to the public law of Europe as having the rights of peace and war, but always a mere accident and vagrant excess amongst nations, not having the bare rights of citizenship; so far from being a nation, not being an acknowledged member of any nation. This exquisite dispersion--not ethnographic only, but political--is that half of the Scriptural malediction which the Boulanger answer attempts to meet; but the other half--that they should be 'a byword, an astonishment,' etc.--is entirely blinked. Had the work even prospered, it would still have to recommence. The Armenians are dispersed through all Eastern lands, so are the Arabs; even the descendants of Ali are found severed from their natal soil; but they are not therefore dispersed: they have endured no general indignities.