sorrow, that it must be unflinchingly achieved: that the people must fall, in order that from their ashes the religious idea, phoenix-like, should arise.

The argument of the whole of this first period, is consequently the subjugation of heathenism, within the Jewish people, by the religious idea-and the prophets are the instruments of the conflict and of the triumph.

The position and the task of prophetism has thus been recognised; its true signification now remains to be considered.

105

LECTURE V.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE PROPHETS AND THE

HAGIOGRAPHA.

AMONG the many peculiarities which distinguish the history of the Jewish race from that of all other peoples, (which peculiarities in truth resulted from the idiosyncrasy of the national existence) we may adduce as one perhaps of the most remarkable, the fact, that the genius of this people took its boldest flights, and produced its loftiest creations, at a period of national decline, when the people themselves, fast sinking into moral and religious degradation, had well nigh abandoned their sublime mission. The greatest productions of other nations, have been coeval with their attainment of the zenith of their glory, and the noon of their national existence. Not so with the race of Israel. The lower it fell, the higher soared the latent national genius. This phenomenon, recurring again and again in their history, is not only easy of explanation, but is necessary to this people, since the spiritual essence of the Jewish race, is the eternal never-dying 'Religious Idea,' which, just when the disorganization of its appointed material vessel is apparently impending, must manifest itself with redoubled activity by individual effort, and thus render itself superior to the mutability of all earthly things. Then the prophets arise at a period when Heathenism sits on the throne of Israel, when it had obtained general sway over the people, had insinuated itself into the popular life, and

had thus paved the way to its natural consequence— the overthrow of the people of Israel. For the nation had not only lost that which constituted its true power and strength, that by means of which it had been. enabled to stand in array against a world-the Religious Idea; but had likewise become enervated by Heathenism, in whose train had followed luxury, debauchery, immorality, injustice, oppression, and violence. The prophets repeatedly paint this condition of things in terms of unmitigated disgust and aversion.

Thus had the life of the Jewish people become wholly opposed in its character to Judaism. The only fragments of Judaism then still remembered and practised, viz., the sacrificial service and some few ordinances of the law, had degenerated into mere formal and insignificant observances. The prophets deemed it vain, amid this un-Mosaic life, this wholesale infringement of Judaism, to enforce the Mosaic law. In the first place, they could not have overcome the obstacles which the actual life of the people presented, inasmuch as the idea was wholly lost among them; in the second, the prophets could not fail to perceive that, even in the event of the people's acceptance of a portion of the Mosaic code, that portion would have been but empty ceremonial, since the idea no longer existed in the national mind.

The prophets, therefore, recognized the necessity of even combating so much of the practice of the Mosaic law as had survived, it being opposed to the idea, since it consisted of empty rites, involving mockery and hypocrisy. And this course they, in fact, adopted. Isaiah exclaims in the name of God: 'Of what avail to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith the

Lord. I am cloyed with the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and sabbaths, the assembly proclaimed, I cannot support. What! Impiety blended with a solemn rite? Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth.'* Jeremiah even declares the sacrificial worship to form no integral part of Mosaism.†

The second Isaiah says: 'Is it such a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and sit upon sackcloth and ashes? Wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen-to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out of thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh.'§ The Jewish people having thus lost the Mosaic Idea and adopted Heathenism, it necessarily ensued that the life became un-Mosaic, and that what remained in it of Mosaism, had degenerated into empty form. It was, consequently indispensable, that the prophets should strive above all things to reinstate the religious idea among the people, in order that their life, which had in fact, wholly severed itself from that idea, might again be

* Is. 1. 11.

Jer. 7. 22 and 23.

Vide ante note, page 93.

§ Is. 58. 55.

made to accord with it. This severance rendered it imperative on the prophets, to seek to save the idea, and to imbue with it the heart of the people; and this compelled them to seize upon the religious idea only to aim to develop it and re-establish its sway. But it again thence resulted, that the idea was more generalized, and assumed an appearance of being opposed to, and independent of, material life. While in Mosaism the idea and the life are one and the same, the idea now appeared as self-existent, and severed from the life.*

This separation between the life and the idea was, doubtless, essentially un-Mosaic. It was likewise a great evil; for the union of the idea and the life, alone forms religious truth. It was, nevertheless, a condition of its development, and was in so far necessary; as by its means only, could be effected the dissemination of the religious idea throughout the whole world of man. The idea solely, could win mankind to itself. When, in the due course of its development, it shall have thoroughly permeated the mental being of man, it

*For example: Mosaism had said, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself; consider thy neighbour's rights to be as thine own: every man shall be free; thou shalt not have thy neighbour for a slave, therefore give him his freedom in the seventh year, and let him go free, and furnish him liberally from thy corn, thy herds, and thy wine.' The people had lost this idea of personal freedom on their return to Heathenism, which brought with it castes-slavery: so they did not liberate slaves, nor observe the year of release. The prophets could not, therefore, insist on the observance of the year of release, but were obliged to enforce in general terms, the principle of the equality of rights among mankind, without expressly applying it to actual life. It would have been fruitless to address the people thus: "The gleanings of the field belong to the poor; the second tithe of the third and sixth year.' So they gave general exhortation, ‘Break thy bread,' etc.