insignificant in point of numbers, was chosen as a candlestick for the heavenly light. After the degrading influence of two centuries of Egyptian slavery we may well conceive that their minds were in a state the very reverse of cultivated, that their morals were not much better; that in their whole aspect they would suggest anything rather than what would be expected from the most highly favoured nation upon earth. But they were the witnesses to the Lord's signs and wonders, to his revealed attributes, to his glorious promises, were 'chosen before of God' (APOREXELPOTOVμévo) for this purpose. The infidel may ask why (προκεχειροτονημένοι) were not the Moabites and Canaanites and the inhabitants of the wide world equally enlightened? We can supply no reason, we only point to the fact.

The prophecies given at the close of the Old Testament, beginning with those delivered just before the captivity, including as they do the sublime predictions of Isaiah and the exact chronology of Daniel, were much in advance of all that had gone before in respect of clearness of revelation. And here we again find the keepers of the sacred oracles materially diminished in numbers. The ten tribes never returned from captivity, and were lost among the nations. So that when our Lord himself came down from heaven, when the sign pronounced to Ahaz was given, a single tribe of Israel's sons was alone the chosen witness. At this time the banks of the stream were broken through, or to use the Scripture metaphor-the wall of partition was broken down; nevertheless, the history of the world, subsequent to the ascension of Christ, does not exhibit the wide dissemination of revealed truth that we might have hoped for. Scripture is still silent to the majority of mankind. True, it ought not to be so. God no longer imposes a restriction. The Church is commanded to widen its boundaries. Expansiveness is the very test of spiritual life. But though no corner of the world is left unexplored for the sake of commercial enterprise, or territorial aggrandisement, or scientific research, Christians fail to hold up to their fellow men the light of God's truth. His ways are not made known to the ends of the earth, nor his saving health to all nations. This is not owing to the design of God, but to the neglect of the Church; nevertheless it is a fact in the nature of things, that millions have never received a spoken or written revelation of the will of God.

But we may revert to our Lord's own teaching, and there we find the same withholding of truth from all but a few. If he did not show himself to all the people after he rose from the dead, neither did he declare heavenly things to all the people during his ministry. The chosen witnesses of the resurrection were also

chosen

chosen recipients of Gospel truth. They were emphatically his friends: Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John xv. 14, 15). The circle is, therefore, still more contracted to whom the clearest revelations are made.

The teaching of our Lord was much of it parabolic. This mode was singularly adapted to instruct at one and the same time an outer and an inner circle of hearers. To the former, instruction would be given: the primary force of the parable was the inculcation of moral truth. No one could hear and not receive benefit; but in many instances the crowd went away without receiving any new declaration concerning the reign of Messiah. And our Lord avowed this to his disciples: Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to them that are without all these things are done in parables' (Mark iv. 11). It might be alleged that this was to the Jewish nation a refusal of the mystery, and that they could not be blamed for not accepting him as the Messiah, whose teaching was studiously kept from them. An objector might compare the parables of our Lord to the pillar of cloud, that was a light to the Israelites but darkness to the Egyptians. Now the parable served the same end to the Jewish hearer that the vacated sepulchre did to the nation, and the ark to the antediluvian. It suggested inquiry. Our Lord always told them that were without" what was the subject of his parable. They had their own conceptions of the kingdom; they were interested to an extreme degree in learning all that pertained to it; and if a teacher appeared before them with miraculous attestations of his mission, and told them to what the kingdom might be likened, the least they could do was to ask for a solution, to inquire into the nature of the resemblance. The disciples prosecuted the inquiry which the others neglected; they obtained an answer, not primarily because they were friends, but because they were inquirers; sight was given because they were willing to see, and hearing because they were anxious to hear. Assuredly the Pharisees and Scribes might have done the same, and the judicial blindness that was inflicted upon them had its cause not so much in the sovereignty of God as in their own perverseness and unbelief. The narrowed channel of revelation may everywhere be similarly understood. Nature is one vast parable to which the kingdom of God is likened. None are so far excluded from Divine knowledge, but that they have this book at least open before their eyes: "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that

are

are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.' (Rom. i. 20.)

It would appear that hitherto the revelations of God have been confined to a few, and limited in clearness. But this characteristic does not apply to the next dispensation. Our Lord was silent before Pilate, he spoke little to the Sanhedrim; the sign of the prophet Jonas was an obscure one, and left many unconvinced. But a different sign shall usher in the day of the Son of Man; that sign will be a universal manifestation of Him who showed himself to so few after he rose from the dead. 'Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.' (Matth. xxiv. 30.) Partial convictions will then cease, imperfect evidence will never be offered; man will not grope about for the truth, nor say Lo! here,' or 'Lo! there.' For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

The questions of the infidel, why Jesus appeared only to his friends after the resurrection, why revelation is limited and obscure, are sufficiently answered by the discovery that God has always revealed himself to chosen witnesses, and has never imparted truth to those who manifested an unwillingness to receive it. This accounts in a great measure for the mystery that pervades the Bible. It is also consistent with our state of probation. Sin is possible, or virtue would not merit the name; error is able to intrude itself that the truth may be more valued. Hence, effort is necessary, either in the practice of virtue or the investigation of truth; and the very essence of faith is that it works in the dark; it has respect to the unseen. Truth is best seen against the back-ground of error, and faith is rendered perfect when tried by uncertainty.

Even amongst those who have the Bible in their hands there will be two classes: the friends to whom the Saviour reveals himself, and those who see only the empty tomb. All see not with the same eyes. But if we consider the purposes for which God gives a revelation, the limits to which he restricts it, the small numbers to whom it has ever been addressed, we may infer the general design with which it is constructed, and the patience necessary to become acquainted with all its parts. Humility in receiving the truth, earnestness in seeking it, zeal in practising it, will be the best characteristics of the Scripture student; and he who digs the sacred mine with all the helps that God himself has given, will assuredly obtain a rich reward.

C. D.

POETICAL

POETICAL LEGENDS OF THE TALMUD."

THERE is perhaps no uninspired book of which more has been said and written than of that extraordinary production of the human mind, the Jewish Talmûd. It is proposed in the following pages to give a short description of its nature and origin, and to indicate some of the more remarkable and poetical portions of its

contents.

The laws which were imparted to the Israelites by divine command through Moses, the man of God,' are contained in the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, are a system of legislation the most perfect, and embrace religious, moral, political, social, and ritual enactments.

b

Although Moses had prohibited the Israelites from adding unto the word which he had commanded them, and from diminishing therefrom, yet, as those laws were general, he gave the power of making special applications, when necessary, in the hands of those who should succeed him in the judgment-seat of Israel; saying, that if there should arise anything too hard for them in judgment, the persons so pressed were to go to the place which the Lord should choose, to the priests and to the judge that should be in those days and inquire, and that they were to do according to the sentence which they should pronounce, under the penalty of death.

As long as the Israelities were wanderers in the desert, under the government of Moses, their affairs were so little complicated, that the application of the divine law to specific cases was of rare occurrence. But when they had obtained possession of the promised land, had built cities, and had become a large nation, more intricate disputes of necessity arose, and appeals to the supreme judge became frequent. At first each decision rested on its own merits; but when, in cases that much resembled each other, such decisions became recorded as precedents for future adjudications, these primary decisions were called on man (eleke leMoseh me-Sinai), a decision of Moses from Sinai, which possessed the authority bequeathed to it by their great legislator.

The Mosaic ritual required also many specific directions aud applications, and the necessity of establishing rules for their observance became also necessary. These were also conferred by

This article must be regarded as in some respects a sequel to that on the HEBREW POETRY OF THE MIDDLE AGES, in the last Number of the Journal of SACRED LITERATURE.

b Deut. iv. 2.

e Deut. xvii. 8.

the

the same authority to the teachers of the people. These were delivered verbally, not being contained in the code of laws written down by Moses, and were, it is alleged, preserved from generation to generation by tradition, and delivered solemnly and with severe injunctions to preserve them unaltered from father to son.

It is held that the existence of these traditions during the time of the first Temple may be proved from the writings of the sacred historians and prophets. After its destruction, and the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, the traditions were still preserved, so that a twofold code existed, the ann (torah sebakteb), Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses, the written law, and then byaw nin (torah sebol pe), the verbal or unwritten law, founded upon and explanatory of the former.

During the period of the second temple, the great and influential sect, the Sadducees, denied the authority of this oral law. This sect, however, was not established till long after the return of the Jews from Babylon, and the earliest writer who mentions it is Josephus. The founders of this sect were of the school of Antigonus of Socho, head of the Sanhedrin in the third century before Christ. Zadok and Baithos, two of his disciples, differed from him, joined the Samaritans, who worshipped in their temple on Mount Gerizim, and established the sect which lasted till the reign of Justinian, who denounced them as atheists, and persecuted them with great violence. They are also mentioned by Maimonides, and in the max (Aboth) of Rabbis Nathan and Abraham ben David as schismatics, who gainsaid the divine origin of the oral law and denied the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul; agreeing in many points with the doctrines of the Epicurean philosophers. They were named Sadducees (or Zadokim 'py) and Baithosees from their founders, Zadok and Baithos.

e

But after the destruction of Jerusalem and the bloody persecutions and dispersion of the Jews under Hadrian, who prohibited the practice of their rites, and declared the transmission of the oral law, or the appointing a teacher learned in the law, under the penalty of death, it was feared that the oral law might be forgotten, and that if the chain of tradition became broken it would become obsolete.

It was, therefore, the care of their teachers to prevent this rupture, and to keep their people prepared for that restoration to freedom and nationality, to be again a freeholder and a citizen in, the land of their forefathers. Such were the motives that ren

e

d Jewish Antiquities, lib. iii. c. ii., and xii. and lxiii. of his Jewish Wars. Geschichte, Lehren und Meinungen aller religiösen Sekten der Juden, by P. Beer, Brün, 1822.

dered