supplement this address to Judeans, composed an epistle of Baruch to the Ten Tribes. In a style of rhetorical prolixity, and with little depth of meaning, it exhorts them with special fervour to patience and repentance; and its language about the transitory nature of the world sounds quite Christian. Although it nowhere clearly alludes to Christianity in any way, it was certainly composed by a Christian.' To this period we may appropriately affix the book of Tobit also, which appears to have arisen, like the book of Baruch, among the Judeans in the East, and is probably not much later. Its origin in the remote East is indicated not merely by the accurate knowledge of the scene of its story,2 and the use of proper names that were only native there, but also by the ultimate object of the work itself. This is nothing else than to recommend to the confessors of the true religion scattered in foreign countries and at vast distances from Jerusalem, not only the performance of their religious duties, but also in particular the maintenance of the closest connection with Jerusalem and its temple as a sacred obligation. In brief, the little book contains an energetic summons to glorify the true God 'among and before the Heathen.'4 For the vivid portrayal of this truth, the author chooses suitable representatives from the past. In the general design and execution, the book of Job floated before his mind as his model; but he shapes the forms which seemed necessary for his purpose with far greater freedom, and avails himself fully of the new-born possibility of perfect epic art. Accordingly he sets up a great hero of this truth in Tobit, a man whose very name, Goodness, immediately betrays his real nature. It is the peculiarity of the conception of the true religion entertained by this writer that, so far as its intrinsic human character is concerned, he places it in goodness This production is now found only among the Syrians, and is known by them as 1 Bar.; printed in the Paris and London Polyglotts. From Tob. vi. 1 it might seem that the author had not known that the ancient Nineveh lay on the left bank of the Tigris; but at his time the old city had been long ago destroyed, and we may suppose with much probability that the residence of the author far to the east in Media prevented him from being exactly acquainted with the precise situation of the ancient Nineveh. That the name Tigris signified river in general, and is consequently not to be interpreted here in too definite a meaning, cannot at any rate be proved from Herod. v. 52 (where VOL. V. Р the name Zaßards has fallen out between Tpíros and wurós); and although Nineveh reappears as late as the Middle Ages (see Wakedii Lib. de Mesopot. exp. p. xxii.), yet the Anabasis proves that at the time when our book was written the name was not in use. 3 Such as that of the evil spirit Asmodeus, iii. 8 sqq., whose name was derived from the Zend Ashemaogha or Aeshmaogha, see the Vêndîdâd, ix. 188, 193, x. 23; Bundehesh, xxiii. What perverse opinions are still maintained on this subject may be seen from the Jahrbb. der Bibl. Wiss. vol. viii. p. 181 sq. See the principal passages, xiii. 3, 5 sq., compared with i. 4-8, v. 13. 5 P. 183 sq. of thought and conduct, and represents it as only perfected in unwearied beneficence. In particular, he regards prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and justice, as the four great virtues,' but the foundation of them all is love and goodness. Tobit, however, was compelled to look for some securely-established place on earth as the divine shelter and protection of the true religion. For this end, although an inhabitant of the disloyal kingdom of the Ten Tribes, belonging to the northern tribe of Naphtali, he nevertheless continually directed (so it is related) all his affections towards the sanctuary in Jerusalem. With the utmost readiness he observed all the duties there required, and even when he was carried away captive by Shalmaneser to Nineveh, together with many of his countrymen, under the most depressing sufferings and the changes of a series of rulers of most various characters down to the times of Esarhaddon, he never ceased through every vicissitude to maintain the most spotless goodness. But though this goodness never allows itself to be bent by the most diverse trials, the despair of his wife almost reduces him to despair as well, and he finds relief only in fervent prayer. As in the book of Job, the wife of Tobit plays much the same part of contrast, but only so far as is compatible with the limits of the tender and truly child-like spirit which breathes through this poetic composition. In the meantime, by the side of this man of tried fidelity there rise two younger figures, into which his greatness and glory may pass if they strive to become like him. One is his son, named Tobias2 (Tobijah, i.e. the good one of God); the other, at a far distant place, is a maiden named Sara, who, like Tobit, innocently suffers the bitterest persecutions at the hands of men, and from the depths of her distress calls aloud to God. According to xii. 8; the essence of goodness, on the other hand, is most briefly expressed in the words does underl rothons, iv. 15. There is no reason whatever for deriving this from Matt. vii. 12, since all anticipations shine like sparks in the Old Testament, and to this it must be added that the scope of the goodness which is here required only extends to co-religionists. The maxim ἅ τις παθεῖν ἐχθαίρει μὴ ποιεῖν αὐτόν is an old Jewish maxim, according to Philo (quoted in Eus. Præp. Ev. viii. 7, 6); Hillel had a similar one (see the Jahrbb. der Bibl. Wiss. vol. x. p. 71) according to the Gemara to Shabbath 31a; and similar precepts are enunciated not only by Greeks like Isocrates and Menander (see the Jahrbb., loc. cit., and Land's Anecdota Syr. vol. i. p. 69, 13), but also in Kung tsö's Tschung jung, xiii. 3. But it cannot be maintained that the four cardinal virtues were set up out of conscious opposition to the four proclaimed by the Greek philosophers from Plato onwards (which will be discussed hereafter), since the book under consideration nowhere contains the remotest hint of such a contrast.-Moreover, the narrative in Tob. i. 10 sq. is much simpler than the similar one in Dan. i. 8 sq. 2 In many MSS. the father also is named Tobias, and the book after him. This has given rise from easily conceivable causes to a confusion which ought to have been entirely avoided. I have called the book Tobit throughout. At the same moment, however, that they are both endeavouring to strengthen their panting souls in prayer, their requests are already granted. Raphael is sent in human form as the genial companion of Tobias; he arranges a marriage between the two young people, and proves at the same time the great deliverer of all out of every trouble; until at length he is obliged to make himself known, and then he disappears amid their united blessings. This is the framework of the elevated (i.e. divine) representation. The description of the circumstances, though in many cases only sketched in slight outlines, is nevertheless everywhere animated by the true breath of poesy. The delineation of Raphael, in particular, is of great beauty, in so far as he, having once assumed human form, behaves exactly like a noble-minded man, and achieves the highest and divinest purposes with human means, as though he were really nothing more than man.' It is impossible to form any conception of the religion of the Old Testament and its effect on life more gentle and genial, more child-like and domestic, than that presented in this little work. It exhibits a final glorification of many of the most beautiful and profound elements in the Old Testament, and as an instance of poetic art it shows us for the first time the perfect Epos, though some of its details are worked up no higher than the Idyllic form. For sublimity and power of pure thought, as well as for the satisfactory and complete working out of its ideas, it is certainly separated from the book of Job by an interval as wide as that which parts the ages in which they were respectively produced. It only displays a pleasing neatness and gratifying warmth in the carrying out of minor thoughts and purposes. In this it resembles the book of Ruth,2 but it serves in the same way to prove how triumphantly and nobly the religion of the Old Testament, when compelled to retire more and more from a position of great public influence on the people and the state, still maintained itself in the private tranquillity and the indestructible sanctuary of the home, and rose here to its purest glory as the cherished religion of the heart. Moreover the complete suppression of all mention and praise of the law is as great a departure from the prevailing usage of the time as it is gratifying and instructive; it proves that the true religion can live without boasting of the sacred letter. But the outlook to It must not, however, be supposed that this was in any way an imitation of the conception of Athêne in the Odyssey; on the other hand, the original idea was already implied in passages like Gen. xviii. sq. 2 Vol. i. p. 154 sq. 2 1 Jerusalem as the great eternal sanctuary far away reappears as a last sublime prospect. This forms in fact the proper conclusion to the book; and as the poet keeps up with a firm hand the description of his hero as living in the Assyrian captivity before the first destruction of Jerusalem, he is able, in the prophecy of the dying Tobit about the glorification which is to be expected after its fall, to quicken at the same time many of the Messianic hopes of his own day.-This book, then, together with that already analysed, constitutes the fairest monument of the spirit of the Judeans in the distant east during those centuries, and, as a picture of the life and activity of many of the better-minded among them, possesses a peculiar importance. Produced somewhere in those remote countries, it certainly remained there a considerable time without becoming much known in the west, until, in the course of the last century B.C., or even later still, it was translated from the semi-Hebrew in which it was written into Greek. No sooner was this done than it found many readers, and, like all popular books, was speedily diffused in very different forms. In particular it was, in numerous manuscripts, more or less abridged, until at length, after the original text had been lost, it was translated back again into Hebrew as into other languages. That a work produced at that period among the Judeans of the east blossomed into many not dissimilar compositions may be concluded with certainty from its own words; but how much of Tob. xiii., and again in xiv. 1-6. 2 The exact contrast to this is supplied by southern Egypt, into the deserts of which the evil spirits were to be banished, Tob. viii. 3.—The Median Rages, iv. 1, the ruins of which are still visible at this day near Teherân, and bear the name of Rai, is said by Strabo, Geogr. xi. 13, 6, not to have been founded till the time of Seleucus I.; but that it was in existence much earlier is clear from the Vêndidad, i. 10, the great cuneiform inscriptions of Behistun, ii. 13, iii. 1, and Arrian, Hist. iii. 20. No doubt the Greek usage in passages like viii. 6, ii. 6, xiii. 17 sq., points with some force to the LXX, but we can only infer from this that the Greek translation of many of the books was already well known to the translator, not that the original language of the book was Greek. In fact, the Greek translation of this book is almost too literal, and is frequently unintelligible without knowledge of the later Hebrew and many passages quoted from the Old Testament sound quite differently from what they do in the LXX. The Greek text now most widely adopted has larger and smaller hiatuses in many passages which might be supplied from old retranslations; and a new edition of the whole book is much to be desired. The long sentence in xiv. 10 contains an allusion to a similar production of earlier date on Haman and Achiachar; and though the name and conception of the wicked Haman occur again at any rate in the book of Esther, yet of Achiachar, who is here made the relative and protector of Tobit, we know absolutely nothing, although the indications in i. 21 sq., ii. 10 (where enopeven is to be read), imply that many and important facts about him were narrated elsewhere. The אֲחִיעָכָר name should probably be spelt and sounds quite historical.-These traces, in particular, render it probable that the book of Tobit is older than that of Esther. The author certainly had before him the whole of our present collection of the prophets (including the book of his materials our poet may have drawn from the domestic histories of the Israelite families, we can no longer determine in detail, and where the leading personages are pure creations of the imagination it is a matter of comparative indifference.— Both books, however, are memorable in so far as they supply us with the latest testimonies to the spirit of the true religion in those regions of the east where Nahum, Ezekiel, and many another real prophet, had once laboured. III. THE TEMPLE ON GERÎZÎM-THE EXPEDITION OF ALEXANDER. There were now in Jerusalem itself, and probably also in Samaria, which was always closely dependent on the destinies of Phoenicia, two parties formed, corresponding to the division which, as we have already seen,' had already taken place in Phoenicia. One of these, although for the moment cast violently on the ground by the Persian supremacy, never surrendered its secret aversion towards it, and hoped for fresh and more prosperous times; the other, after the last great Persian victory, was all the more scrupulous in its obedience. Before, however, investigating this state of things more closely, at the time of the conquest of Alexander, we must not fail to notice another important occurrence, viz. the building of the Temple of the Samaritans. 2 These two events are connected together by the narrative in Josephus, the age of which has been already discussed,3 in the following manner. The son of the high-priest John, Jaddûa, who died at an advanced age soon after the victorious expedition of Alexander, had had a brother named Manasseh, to whom the Persian governor of Samaria, Sanballat, had given his daughter Nicaso in marriage. The elders of Jerusalem, however, faithfully representing the Jonah) and the Psalter; but there is no views of their fellow-citizens, coarse historical sense; but on the other hand, it is equally perverse to place this and the book of Baruch in still later times. P. 206. 2 Ant. xi. 7, 2, c. 8, cf. xiii. 9, 1, and other passages, in which Josephus always repeats the same statement. Similar to this is the Greek narrative in the spurious Kallisthenes, printed in C. Müller's appendix to Dübner's Arrian (Paris, published by Didot, 1846), cap. 24, p. 82 sq. 3 P. 48 note 1. |