CAUSE. Jews. cient world, and the facility* with which the most different and THE FIRST. even hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's Zeal of the superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves (1), emerged from obscurity under the suc (1) Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit, despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who visited Asia, whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See l. ii. c. 104. *This facility has not always prevented intolerance, which seems inherent in the religious spirit, when armed with authority. The separation of the ecclesiastical and civil power appears to be the only means of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with opinions, made the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors; witness the Persians, the Egyptians, even the Greeks and Romans. 1st. The Persians. Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians, condemned to death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had offered divine honours to their god, Apis: he caused the god to be brought before him, struck him with his dagger, commanded the priests to be scourged, and ordered a general massacre of all the Egyptians who should be found celebrating the festival of Apis: he caused all the statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with this intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery, and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his oracles. See Herod. iii. 25 to 29. 37. Xerxes, during his invasion of Greece, acted on the same principles: he destroyed all the temples of Greece and Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. 1. vii. p. 533. and x. p. 887. Strabo, 1. xiv. p. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.-They thought themselves defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten at the same table with a man of a different belief from their own. "He who has voluntarily killed any sacred animal is punished with death; but if any one, even involuntarily, has killed a cat or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme penalty: the people drag him away, treat him in the most cruel, manner, sometimes without waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the time when king Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the Roman people, while the multitude were paying court with all possible attention to the strangers who came from Italy ** a Roman having killed a cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties of the nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from punishment, though he had committed the crime involuntarily." Diod. Sic. i. 83. Juvenal, in his 13th Satire, describes the sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried so : 3d. The Greeks. "Let us not here," says the Abbé Guenée, "refer to the cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism; the Ephesians prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks armed one against the other by religious zeal in the Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful cruelties inflicted by three successors of Alexander upon the Jews, to force them to abandon their religion; nor of Antiochus expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek our proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen made a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his country, to defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An express law severely punished all discourses against the gods and a rigid decree ordered the denunciation of all who should deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the severity of the law. The proceedings commenced against Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of Alcibiades; Aristotle oblige to fly; Stilpo banished, Anaxagoras hardly escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services to his country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to appear before the tribunals and make his defence * *; a priestess executed for having introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned and drinking the hemlock, because he was accused of not recognizing those of his country, &c.: these facts attest too loudly, to be called in question, the religious intolerance of the most humane and enlightened people in Greece." Lettres de quelques Juifs à Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley on Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.—M.) 4th. The Romans.-The laws of Rome were not less express and severe. The intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the Romans, as high as the laws of the twelve tables; the prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times. Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors; witness the counsel of Maecenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable, that I think it right to insert it entire. "Honour the gods cessors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations (2). The sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial manners, seemed to mark them out a distinct species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their implacable hatred to the rest of humankind (3). Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of the eircumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mytho logy of the Greeks (4). According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised (5). (2) Diodorus Siculus, 1. xl. Dion Cassius, 1. xxxvii. p. 121. Tacit. Hist. v. 1-9. Justin, xxxvi. 2, 3. The letter of this law is not to be found in the present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane. Maimonides openly teaches, that if an idolater fall into the water, a Jew ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 28.* (4) A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice. See Prideaux's Connection, vol. ii. p. 285.t (5) Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28.‡ yourself," says Maecenas to Augustus, "in every way according to the usage of your ancestors, and compel (άváy xaε) others to worship them. Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods (τοὺς δὲ δὴ ξενίζοντας μίσει καὶ κόλαζε), not only for the sake of the gods (he who de spises them wili respect no one), but because those who introduce new gods engage a multitude of persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions bound by oaths, and confederacies, and associations, things dangerous to a monarchy." Dion Cass. 1. ii. c. 36. (But, though some may differ from it, see Gibbon's just observation on this passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117.; impugned indeed by M. Guizot, note in loc.)—M. Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote for their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not leave to his citi zens. freedom of religious worship; and Cicero expressly prohibits them from having other gods than those of the state. Lettres de quelques Juifs à Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.—G. According to M. Guizot's just remarks, religious intolerance will always ally itself with the pase sions of man, however different those passions may be. In the instances quoted above, with the Persians it was the pride of despotism: to conquer the gods of a country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the local jealousy of neighbouring towns. In Greece, persecution was in general connected with political party; in Rome, with the stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. Gibbon has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit of Paganism, that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of the times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism through the progress of reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of philosophical opinions among the higher orders. 2d. The Roman character, in which the political always predominated over the religious part. The Romans were contented with having bowed the world to an uniformity of subjection to their power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less important unifor mity of religion.—M. *It is diametrically opposed to its spirit and to its letter; see among other passages, Deut. v. 18, 19. (God) "loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenalis a satirist, whose strong expressions can hardly be received as his toric evidence, and he wrote after the horrible cruelties of the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some cause for the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the world. The Jew was a bigot,, but his religion was not the only source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of mutual wrong and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from mankind, did Maimonides write? - M. The Herodians were probably more of a po litical party than a religious sect, though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii. 108. The ediets of Julius Cæsar and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs. Decret. pro Judæis} in favour of the nation in general, or of the Asiatic Jews, speak a different language.-M. The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be offered for his prosperity in the city of Jerusalem (6); while the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into a Roman province (7). The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem, was defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded death much less than such an idolatrous profanation (8). Their attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. increase. This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so Its gradual ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character, since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their forefathers: When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai; when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were suspended for the convenience of the Israelites; and when temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King, placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of of Phoenicia (9). As the protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a propors tionable degree of vigour and purity. The contemporaries of Moses (6) Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See Sueton. in August. c. 93., and Casaubon's notes on that passage. (7) See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6. xviii. 3.; and De Bell. Judaic. i. 33. and ii. 9. edit. Havercamp. * (8) Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus ni templo locare, arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9, Philo and Josephus gave a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria. At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, king Agrippa fainted away; and did not recover his senses until the third day. (Hist. of Jews, ii, 181,,&c.) (9) For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one hundred and thirty very beautiful lines the two large and learned syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject *This was during the government of Pontius Pilate (Hist. of Jews, ii. 156.) Probably, in part to avoid this collision, the Roman governor in Their religion better suited to defence than to and Joshua had beheld with careless indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry; and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses (10). The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the numconquest. ber of proselytes was never much superior to that of apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous care separated his favourite people from the rest of mankind. The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcileable hostility with all their neighbours. They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the Divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity. With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law, nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a voluntary duty. In the admission of new citizens, that unsocial people was actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the gene→ (10) "How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewn among them?" (Numbers, xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic history.*; * Among a rude and barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary wonders, would weaken or destroy the effect of real miracle. At the period of the Jewish history referred to in the passage from Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,-the fears of an unwarlike people just rescued from debasing slavery, and commanded to attack a fierce, a wellarmed, a gigantic, and a far more numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent apostacy of the Jews, their religion was beyond their state of civilisation. Nor is it uncommon for a people to cling with passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend, even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of Jesus, was most ardently believed and most resolutely asserted by the eye-witnesses of the fact. -N. rous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more indebted to the inconstant humour of polytheism than to the active zeal of his own missionaries (11). The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits of the promised land (12). That obstacle was indeed removed by the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an empty sanctuary (13), were at a loss to discover what could be the object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices. Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigour on those parts of the law which it was in their power to practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue (14). zeal of Christianity. Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the More liberal world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being, (11) All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been very ably treated by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 6, 7. (12) See Exod. xxiv. 23. Deut. xvi. 16., the commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History, vol. i. p. 603. edit. fol. (13) When Pompey, using or abusing the right of conquest, entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with amazement, "Nulla intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania arcana." Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with regard to the Jews, Nil præter nubes et cœli numen adorant. (14) A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be seen in Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 6. |