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RITES AND CEREMONIES.

only awards to theft a twofold or a larger compensation, and prescribes no punishment for infanticide; perjury and lying are not even mentioned, but the animals which may be eaten and the clothes which must be worn are points of extraordinary importance. He who dares to harbour but a doubt of the rights and privileges of the priests may expect the fate of Korah and his companions, and the punishment of death is the penalty annexed to the violation of the sabbath' or the eating of leavened bread2.

If however it were possible to prove that the priesthood existed, even in its rudimentary state, as early as the time of Moses, the Levitical institutions of the Pentateuch are still of such a nature that they could not possibly have been enacted by any single individual; no one man could have founded so complete a hierarchy, and least of all could the leader of a wandering tribe have done So, who in truth was little likely, on an expedition in itself so adventurous, to have ever thought of encumbering himself with "all the heavy baggage," as Goethe terms it, "of petty religious observances,"-a leader too who was unacquainted with the future home of his countrymen, and who possessed no knowledge of the religious systems which then prevailed in Canaan, or of their various special relations to that country. The book of Leviticus, which was said to have been given altogether on Mount Sinai, contains a set of

1 << They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath-day...... The man shall be surely put to death."-Numb. xv. 32, 35.

2 "Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel......Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land."-Exod. xii. 15, 19.

laws so refined and so difficult to be observed, extending to the minutest circumstances of a religious life, that it hardly finds a parallel even in the code of the Brahmins; and in many instances it too clearly manifests the influence of that gnat-straining and pedantic spirit which was carried to such an extreme by the later Rabbins in the Talmud. To this class belong the laws regarding meats, the injunctions respecting the breeding of animals with those of a "diverse kind," the mixture of different seeds, and even the use of different threads in the same texture1. Similar refinements on legislation may be seen in the laws respecting the fringes on garments, the leprosy of houses, and many other enactments of a like character.

Many of the Levitical regulations imply a state of the deepest moral degradation among the people, which is never to be found in tribes of wandering shepherds, but which might easily have arisen among a people who derived their civilization from foreign influence3. Ezekiel laments the existence of the most degrading vices1,

1 Levit. xix.- -"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together."-Deut. xxii. 11.

2 cc Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue."-Numb. xv. 38.

3 This is shown in the laws of purification for the "issues of men,” (whether syphilis or gonorrhoea be the disease which is referred to, —Levit. xv.), in the laws against adultery and fornication, which seem to belong to the period of the Proverbs (compare Prov. ii. 16, v. 3, vi. 26, vii. 10, xxiii. 27.), the laws against sodomy and bestiality, (Levit. xviii. 22, 23, xx. 13, 16.), and above all in the laws against incest, which must have been a crime of frequent occurrence, as we find special terms for its various species, namely, zammah, with the mother or daughter of a wife (Levit. xviii. 17.); tebel, with the daughter-in-law (Lev. xx. 12.); chas'ad, between brother and sister (Levit. xx. 17.).

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In thee have they discovered their father's nakedness, in thee

the origin of which, as of everything bad, the Pentateuch ascribes to the native Canaanites, in order not only to palliate as far as possible the extirpation of the inhabitants, but also to inspire a more lively abhorrence of the most prevalent vices, and, by the gradual insulation of the Israelites, to raise that nation eventually to the high standard of a pure morality. This latter object must never be lost sight of throughout the whole body of the Levitical law; and though it is our duty, in combating inveterate prejudice, to bring forward what appears to be contradictory or inconsistent, when a correct light can thereby be thrown upon the real period to which the laws belong, we would wish at the same time fully to acknowledge the moral character of the Levitical legislation. We discover in the Levitical code the same general features which are found in the laws of Menu, and both these codes have in their history and tendency a striking resemblance to each other. Both exhibit great severity where the rights of the hierarchy are infringed or neglected, but they breathe a spirit of gentleness and humanity in the duties towards our fellow-men, and even towards animals1; both aim at that moral dignity which might be reasonably expected in a sacerdotal legislation; both aim at forming a mixed poli

have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution......And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter."-Ezek. xxii. 10, 11.

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Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother."-Deut. xxii. 1.

"If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her."-Deut. xxv. 5.

tical and religious constitution, adapted to an agricultural people, leading a settled life, in a land which was regarded as holy and had descended to them from their ancestors. In the code of Menu the very boundaries of the country are said to have been drawn by Brahmavarta and Aryavarta1, and whatever lives within them is sacred to Brahma. Again, both codes of laws were intended to present the ideal of a sacerdotal state; the Brahmins, like the Levites, were the representatives of the Deity on earth, and the kings who executed their will were as far as possible limited in power and placed beneath their guidance; neither code was ever carried into practice in all its details, or at least not until the spirit of the people had been entirely benumbed. The Brahminical code had however one advantage over that of the Levites, that the nation existed longer, so that the later Puranas were filled with ceaseless recommendations of the law, whilst the Pentateuch, on the other hand, was compelled in great measure to assert its own authority itself. In both these codes it is impossible to distinguish the portions derived from tradition from those which had been preserved in writing; but they both prove, from the general state of culture they exhibit, that they were first collected into a whole during a period of considerable advancement both in civilization and literature. Again, both the Levitical and the Brahminical codes are ascribed to the Deity himself, just as Menes in Egypt derived his laws from Hermes, Minos in Crete from Zeus, Cadmus at Thebes from an oracle, Lycurgus from Apollo, Numa from the nymph Egeria, Zoroaster from Ormuzd, and Mahommed from the angel Gabriel. In all these cases the object of the legislator 1 See Von Bohlen's Ancient India, i. 17, 22.

was the same, to invest the laws with a higher authority and influence by means of a solemn fiction; but in the Pentateuch of the Hebrews, the gratitude of the people is also expressed towards the founder of their nation, and a lasting monument is raised to that powerful influence which tradition had ascribed to Moses.

It is evident from these general points of agreement, which Michaelis expressly mentions as the distinguishing marks of a theocracy, that the constitution of ancient India is equally entitled to be termed theocratic1; and it may be remarked, that the name of theocracy was first employed by Josephus, though not, as may be easily believed, with all the precision of modern criticism.

Every hierarchy is in fact at the same time a theocracy, or rather, it is the superstructure raised on a theocratical basis, and Leo has been unjustly censured for using these two terms as synonymous.

Divine judgements and sacred decisions by lot are events of constant recurrence in theocratic constitutions; Ormuzd promises abundance and prosperity to his faithful followers; and the prophecies of good or ill fortune are allowed by the Brahminical gods, as well as by Jehovah. The Hebrew prophets laboured to change the form of the hierarchy, but they left its essence the same. Michaelis himself admits, that all those features of the Hebrew theocracy may be recognized in most cases in the religion of other nations, but that in the case of other nations it was imposture, and in that of the Israelites it was truth. How such an argument should be characterized we shall not presume to decide; but we have already said enough, and perhaps more than enough, for unprejudiced readers.

1 Mos. Recht, i. 217.