THE SURVEY OF THOUGHT.

66

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.-To our ordinary Protestant thoughts, a Roman Catholic dignitary would find this a rather thorny subject, but from the notice in L'Université Catholique it would seem that Abbé Canet has dealt with it in "a very complete and forcible manner." The history of how he came to write the book deserves notice. In 1888 the French newspaper press intimated the fact that a prize of 15,000 francs would be given by an anonymous donor for the best work "showing the necessity of securing more complete liberty of conscience in institutions and customs." The fact that the centenary of the French Revolution was at hand, and the terms in which the offer was made, clearly showed that the object of the competition was to glorify the Revolution as having accomplished the liberation of the human conscience. M. Canet, by becoming a competitor, let it be seen that "the representatives of anti-Christian liberalism" were not to be allowed to have it all their own way. It is needless to say that he did not get the prize. But he has judged it right to publish his treatise and to appeal from the jury to the world. According to the successful competitor, liberty of conscience. means a universal and absolute toleration of all opinions and doctrines." M. Canet defines it as "a royal power-the sovereign right which a man has to direct his life." "As all government has its laws and rules," so he says, "liberty is subject to limitation. . . . . We conclude that the right we have to direct our intellectual and moral life, however sacred and inviolable it may be, cannot mean freedom from all control." The laws which human liberty ought to recognize have as their aim the guidance of the life to its goaltruth and goodness. The definition he gives of liberty in general is, "the right which an intelligent being has to direct his life according to the laws of liberty and duty, protected in the exercise of that right by the public repression of error and evil, in so far as the interests of society demand it.” And he still further defines liberty of conscience "as the right which the human soul has of directing its religious life under the responsibility of its choice before God-a right over which the civil power has no authority." The Church secured this liberty of conscience for men by establishing a kingdom which is not of this world, and which is therefore quite independent of earthly sovereignties. According to this teaching, the Church is both the power that secures liberty of conscience, and that exercises the just control needed to save it from degenerating into licence. One must confess that M. Canet makes his way through the difficulties of the subject much better than our Protestant prepossessions would have led us to expect.

NO. VI.-VOL. I.-THE THINKER.

HH

THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS.-In an article in L'Université Catholique, M. Jacquier draws attention to some of the most recent archæological discoveries which are of interest for Biblical students. The most important discovery is that of the tablets of Tell el-Amarna, which furnish most valuable information concerning the state of Canaan in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries before the Christian era. These tablets, discovered in 1887 at Tell el-Amarna, on the site of Khoutnaton, the capital founded by Amenophis IV., contain letters sent to that king, to Amenophis III., and perhaps to Amenophis II., by the kings of Babylon, Assyria, and Mitanni, and other royal personages in the valley of the Euphrates, and also by the rulers of cities in Canaan who were vassals of Egypt. The language of these letters, with a few exceptions, is Babylonian, and the character in which they are written is cursive cuneiform. They contain information of great value concerning the history, geography, civilization, and religious condition of Palestine fifty years before the conquest of the country by the Hebrews, but the principal interest they have for us is in the light which they cast upon events recorded in Holy Scripture. As is well known, some critics assert that Chedorlaomer and Melchizedek are mythical personages unknown to history, and that in Gen. xiv. we have a confused narrative founded on the great Assyrian invasions of Palestine in the ninth century B.C. We now know of invasions of the kind about the year 3800 B.C., more than fifteen hundred years before the time of Abraham. For we can now, with the aid of cuneiform inscriptions, fix the date at which Abraham flourished. Among the five kings mentioned in this chapter of Genesis is Amraphel, king of Shinar. M. Halévy has shown that this Amraphel was Hammurabi, king of Babylon. According to the testimony of Nabonidus, Hammurabi lived seven hundred years before Burnaburiash. Now, among the tablets of Tell el-Amarna are found letters of Burnaburiash to Amenophis IV., who reigned in Egypt in the fourteenth century B.C. This fixes the period of Amraphel, and consequently of Abraham, as that of the twenty-second century B.C. The inscriptions, as the researches of M. Halévy conclusively prove, bring Chedorlaomer and the kings who were his vassals into the full light of history. That the peoples of Babylon had many relations with those of Palestine, and exercised upon them a deep and lasting influence, is seen from the facts that the language and writing of Babylon were adopted by the Canaanites as an official and international means of communication, and that the names of divinities and of historical personages are Babylonian. These tablets refer to a time almost contemporary with the conquest of Palestine by the Hebrews; they enable us to describe the state of the country at that period, and above all explain to us how, in consequence of the power of Egypt being weakened and of the mutual warfare of Canaanitish princes, the Hebrews were able to succeed in their enterprise. The state of matters in Palestine in the fifteenth century B.C. is different from what it had been imagined to be. The king of Egypt was a suzerain to whom tribute was paid, but who did not concern himself with what went on in the country. Banditti,

under the leadership of Aziri and Elimelech, overran the country, and even attacked cities, and the king of Egypt sent no help to his governors, in spite of frequent appeals to him. When these adventurers succeeded in establishing themselves in power he accepted them as tributary princes. The question as to whether these newly discovered records contain any allusion to the Hebrew invaders is a very interesting one, but it is impossible at present to give a definite answer to it. The prince of Jerusalem repeatedly complains that the king of Egypt favours wandering "Habiri" at the expense of his governors. Under the command of a certain Elimelech or Malkiel, these Habiri were ravaging the country, and had gained possession of several towns and districts. In a letter of Aziri to Dûdû mercenaries of the name of Jaudu are spoken of. All these names are Semitic; and in the books of Genesis and Numbers, Heber and Malkiel are mentioned as names of grandsons of Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17; Num. xxvi. 45). Can there be any allusion here to a portion of the tribe of Asher? Or may the Habiri be the Hebrews themselves? As for the name Jaudu, it is identical with that of the Jews in the cuneiform inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib. On the other hand, in the list at Karnac of countries tributary to Thothmes III. we find the names of Jacob-el and Joseph-el, which seem to designate the tribes of Israel as a whole. A serious difficulty lies in the way of these identifications. The letters of Tell el-Amarna belong to the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century B.C., and the list at Karnac is still more ancient, as it refers to an expedition about the year 1480 B.C. While, according to the most approved chronology, the Exodus took place at the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the thirteenth century B.C. It may be that the coincidence of names is a mere accident resulting from the respective languages being very closely allied. But if, on the contrary, the identification be accepted, an earlier date will have to be assigned to the invasion of Palestine by the Hebrews, unless, indeed, there was more than one attempt of the kind, the last and most important of which, from a religious point of view, was the Exodus recorded in the Scriptures. These letters furnish the solution of some exegetical difficulties, e.g., in Judges iv. 2, we read of a Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Some critics, not understanding how the king of Hazor could be called king of Canaan, had concluded that the narrative was a combination of two discordant documents. We now know that there was a governor-general at the head of the ruling princes of Canaan. This organization doubtless continued after Palestine had ceased to be subject to Egypt, and Jabin was probably both king of Hazor and suzerain of Canaan. Another detail proves to us how well versed the sacred writer was in the manners and customs of the time he describes. In a letter to the king of Egypt, Burnaburiash, king of Babylon, complains that at Acca (Accho of Judges i. 31), in Canaan, his ambassadors had been mutilated in hands and feet, that they had been trampled upon and the feet of their enemies set upon their prostrate heads. These details remind us of the manner in which Adonibezek was treated, who had himself

inflicted like mutilation upon seventy kings (Judges i. 6, 7), and of the orders given by Joshua to his officers to set their feet upon the necks of the conquered kings (Joshua x. 24).

RECORDS OF THE PAST, VOL. V.—The new volume of the Records of the Past shows very clearly how much uncertainty still prevails as to the exact meaning of many passages in the Cuneiform Inscriptions. In the Introduction to the Inscriptions relating to the Rise of Cyrus, the editor, Professor Sayce, makes the following remarkable admissions. After saying that the comparative difficulty of the cylinder inscription of Cyrus is mainly due to the mutilated character of the text, he adds, "but it is also in some measure owing to our imperfect acquaintance with the rules of Assyro-Babylonian syntax. It is sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to determine where a sentence ends or begins, and a double translation of the passage often becomes possible. Moreover, the construction of the sentences more than once reminds us of the language of the later Hebrew prophets, and is open to the same amount of disputable interpretation" (p. 146). Although these striking remarks refer chiefly to this particular inscription, the statement about the syntax seems to cover a very wide area. If we are intended to understand that the syntax of the cuneiform inscriptions as a whole is thus far very imperfectly understood, it is evident that the alleged testimony of these records must be used with great caution, as it is not only possible, but probable, that increased acquaintance with the structure of the language in which they are written will lead to many alterations in the rendering, some of which will amount to radical changes. Some suggestive illustrations are supplied by the translations which constitute the bulk of this volume. We find, for example, in the Tell el-Amarna tablets that words which are understood by Professor Sayce to mean (p. 69) "the oracle of the mighty king" are supposed by Dr. Zimmern, one of the leading German Assyriologists, to mean "the arm of the mighty king," and that characters which the English scholar renders "black" are regarded by the German as expressing a numeral “five thousand" (p. 76). Elsewhere, we find the Professor uncertain whether certain words mean " servants who belonged to the king" or "servants who acted against the king" (p. 70). On the other hand, there is much in this volume for which Biblical students must be very grateful to Professor Sayce and his colleagues. The light shed by the Tell el-Amarna tablets on the early history of Jerusalem, although, no doubt, closer study will lead to the modification of some details, is a surprising and extremely interesting confirmation of the references to Melchizedek in the Pentateuch. It seems probable that in very early times Jerusalem was a holy city, the seat of an oracle, and that its rulers were not hereditary sovereigns, but priest-kings appointed by the deity. The name "Jerusalem" probably means "City of Salim," or "City of the God of Peace." One of these priest-kings was Melchizedek, "King of Salem." The suggestion of fessor Sayce (pp. 61, 62) that it is clear why the father of Melchizedek is not named—“ He was

priest of El Elyon, the Most High God, and king only in virtue of his priestly office "is curious; but the reader must be careful to accept it as an opinion, not as a certain fact. The relation of dependence to Egypt which prevailed at the time when the tablets were written—that is, not very long before the Exodus cannot, of course, be positively asserted to have existed in the time of Abraham. The curious reference to Mesopotamia and Babylonia in one of the despatches of Ebed-tob, the governor of Jerusalem, furnishes an incidental confirmation of the statements of Genesis and Judges concerning early interference of the rulers of States on the Tigris and the Euphrates with the affairs of Palestine. Additional confirmation is supplied by the inscription of Ammi-satana, a king of Babylon in the twenty-second century before Christ, which, though extremely fragmentary, has a distinct reference to Phoenicia. Not the least valuable portion of the volume is the new translation of the series of prophecies or oracles addressed by eight prophets and prophetesses connected with the shrine of Istar of Arbela to Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib. These singular utterances show plainly that Hebrew prophecy was not an isolated phenomenon, and they constitute a connecting link between it and the oracles of Greece. But here, again, we are reminded of the uncertainty of the decipherment of these cuneiform records. A comparison of this rendering with that supplied thirteen years ago by the same scholar to the earlier series of Records of the Past is not encouraging to the student who wishes to apply the results of Assyriology to Biblical exposition. The words which Mr. Pinches first rendered "When thou in thy heart art agitated, I in thy heart rest do lovingly set' are now translated, "Thou art in the midst of the officers.. I am in the midst of my host. I advance, I rest" (p. 134). Have we any guarantee that in a few years it will not be found out that both these renderings are inaccurate? In spite, however, of these drawbacks, which in the present state of Assyriology are inevitable, the volume is a valuable addition to the series, and well maintains the high place which English scholars have so long held in the study of the languages and literatures of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria. The two translations by French Egyptologists are of minor interest and importance.

INSPIRATION.—It is to be doubted whether Christian theologians will obtain much efficient aid from their modern Jewish brethren in deciding upon the nature of inspiration, if the opinions on the subject stated by the Rev. L. M. Simmons in the Jewish Quarterly Review are generally held in his community. He says, "I believe that the Divine Spirit rested upon the prophets of Israel in a measure that it rested upon no other of God's creatures; but I believe in the immanence of God in history, and I do not deny the inspiration of men like Jesus of Nazareth, or of the prophet of Mecca, or, going outside the Semitic race, of men like Gautama Buddha. I believe that a man who could separate himself from all family ties, from all former friends, to become a simple priest in an alien church, and who could write such a beautiful hymn as Lead, kindly light,' was also inspired. I should