Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
in 516 B.C. Later (458 B.C.) Ezra "the scribe" and Nehemiah led home a larger body. The newly returned Jews were fired with a zeal for the observance of the Mosaic ritual—a zeal which had been sharpened in the persecutions and sorrows of exile. The era of the "hagiocracy," of the supreme influence of the priesthood and the rigid adherence to the law, with an inflexible hostility to heathen customs, ensued. The spirit of which prophecy had been the stimulant, and partially the fruit, declined. The political independence of the land was gone for ever. The day of freedom under the Maccabees, after the insurrection (168 B.C.) led by that family against the Syrian successors of Alexander, was short. But Israel "had been thrown into the stream of nations." Its religious influence was to expand as its political strength dwindled. Its subjugation and all its terrible misfortunes were to serve as a means of spreading the leavening influence of its monotheistic faith.
In the year 63 B.C., Pompeius made the Jews tributary to the Romans. In the year 40 B.C., Herod began to reign as a dependent king under Rome.
Hebrew Literature.—The literature of the Hebrews is essentially religious in its whole motive and spirit. This is true even of their historical writings. The marks of the one defining characteristic of their national life—faith in Jehovah and in his sovereign and righteous control—are everywhere seen. Hebrew poetry is mainly lyrical. Relics of old songs are scattered through the historical books. In the Psalms, an anthology of sacred lyrics, the spirit of Hebrew poesy attains to its highest flight. Examples of didactic poetry are the Book of Job, and books like the Proverbs, composed mainly of pithy sayings or gnomes. Nowhere, save in the Psalms, does the spirit of the Hebrew religion and the genius of the people find an expression so grand and moving as in the Prophets, of whom Isaiah is the chief.
ART.—In art the Hebrews did not excel. The plastic arts were generally developed in connection with religion. But the religion of the Hebrews excluded all visible representations of deity. Nor were they proficients in science. "Israel was the vessel in which the water of life was inclosed, in which it was kept cool and pure, that it might thereafter refresh the world."
The HISTORICAL BOOKS of the Old Testament comprise, first, the Pentateuch, which describes the origin of the Hebrew people, the exodus from Egypt, and the Sinaitic legislation. Questions pertaining to the date and authorship of these five books, and of the materials at the basis of them, are still debated among historical critics. It may be regarded as certain, however, that materials belonging to nearly every period of Hebrew literature, from the earliest times, are here combined. The early part of Genesis is designed to explain the genealogy of the Hebrews, and to show how, step by step, they were sundered from other peoples. The narratives in the first ten chapters—as the story of the creation, the flood, etc.—so strikingly resemble legends of other Semitic nations, especially the _Babylonians_and Phoenicians, as to make it plain that all these groups of accounts are historically connected with one another. But the Genesis narratives are distinguished by their freedom from the polytheistic ingredients which disfigure the corresponding narratives elsewhere. They are on the elevated plane of that pure theism which is the kernel of the Hebrew faith. This whole subject is elucidated by Lenormant, in The Beginnings of History (1882). The Book of Joshua relates the history of the conquest of Canaan; Judges, the tale of the heroic age of Israel prior to the monarchy; the Books of Samuel and of Kings, of the monarchy in its glory and its decline; the Books of Chronicles treat of parts of the same era, more from the point of view of the priesthood; Ruth is an idyl of the narrative type; Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther have to do with the return of the Jews from exile, and the events next following.
The POETIC WRITINGS include the Psalter, by many authors; the Proverbs of Solomon and others; Ecclesiastes, which gives the sombre reflections of one who had tasted to the full the pleasures and honors of life; the Canticles, or Song of Solomon, which depicts a young woman's love in its constancy, and victory over temptation.
The PROPHETS are divided into four classes: i. Those of the early period from the twelfth to the ninth century, including Samuel, Elijah, Eliska, etc, who have left no prophetical writings. 2. The prophets of the Assyrian age (800–700 B.C.), where belong Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum. 3. The prophets of the Babylonian age, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel. Here some scholars would place a part of Isaiah. 4. The post-exilian prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, Malackt, Jonah., Daniel, Joel, Obadiah, and considerable portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
The APOCRYPHAL BOOKS belong between the closing of the Old-Testament canon and the New Testament. They are instructive as to that intermediate period. The first Book of Maccabees is specially important for its historical matter; the Books of Wisdom and the Son of Sirach for their moral reflections and precepts.
WORKS RELATING TO HEBREW HISTORY.—EWALD, History of the Israelitish People (Eng. trans., 5 vols.); Milman, History of the Jews (3 vols.); Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (2 vols., 1889); Renan, History of the People of Israel (Eng. trans., 1896); Wellhausen. Israelitische und judische Geschichte (3d ed., 1897); Kent, History of the Hebrew People (1898); Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1899); the Art. Israel by Wellhausen, in the Encycl. Brit., and the one by Guthe in the Encycl. Bibl. The historical works of Jewish scholars, Herzfeld, Jost, Zunz, Graetz, DERENBOURG, etc., are valuable.
CHAPTER V. THE PERSIANS.
In the western part of the plateau of Iran, which extends from the
Suleiman Mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia, were the
Medes. On the southern border of the same plateau, along the Persian Gulf, were the Persians. Both were offshoots of the Aryan family, and had migrated westward from the region of the upper Oxus, from Bactria, the original seat of their religion.
RELIGION.—The ancient religion of the Iranians, including the Medes and Persians, was reduced to a system by the Bactrian sage, Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who, in the absence of authentic knowledge respecting him, may be conjecturally placed at about 1000 B.C. The Zendavesta, the sacred book of the Parsees, the adherents of this religion, is composed of parts belonging to very different dates. It is the fragment of a more extensive literature no longer extant. The Bactrian religion differed from that of their Sanskrit-speaking kindred on the Indus, in being a form of dualism. It grew out of a belief in good demons or spirits, and in evil spirits, making up two hosts perpetually in conflict with each other. At the head of the host of good spirits, in the Zoroastrian creed, was Ormuzd, the creator, and the god of light; at the head of the evil host, was Ahriman, the god of darkness. The one made the world good, the other laid in it all that is evil. The one is disposed to bless man, the other to do him harm. The conflict of virtue and vice in man is a contest for control on the part of these antagonistic powers. In order to keep off the spirits of evil, one must avoid what is morally or ceremonially unclean. He who lived pure, went up at death to the spirits of light. The evil soul departed to consort with evil spirits in the region of darkness. Mithra, the sun-god in the Zoroastrian system, is the equal, though the creature, of Ormuzd. Mithra is the conqueror of darkness, and so the enemy of falsehood. The Medes and Persians were fire-worshipers. To the good spirits, they ascribed life, the fruitful earth, the refreshing waters, fountains and rivers, the tilled ground, pastures and trees, the lustrous metals, also truth and the pure deed. To the evil spirits belonged darkness, disease, death, the desert, cold, filth, sin, and falsehood. The animals were divided between the two realms. All that live in holes, all that hurt the trees and the crops, rats and mice, reptiles of all sorts, turtles, lizards, vermin, and noxious insects, were hateful creatures of Ahriman. To kill any of these was a merit. The dog was held sacred; as was also the cock, who announces the break of day. In the system of worship, sacrifices were less prominent than in India. Prayers, and the iteration of prayers, were of great moment.
THE MAGI.—The Zoroastrian religion