imperfections meet us everywhere in the Old Testament. The passions of man are ascribed to God. The Jews had a mythology as well as the Greeks: they transform law into miracles; earth into a dream-land; it rains manna for eight and thirty years, and the smitten rock pours out water. We see a gradual progress in this as in all mythologies: first, God appears in person; walks in the garden in the cool of the day; eats and drinks; makes contracts with his favourites; is angry, resentful, sudden and quick in quarrel, and changes his plans at the advice of a cool man. Then it is the Angel of God who appears to man. It is deemed fatal for man to see Jehovah. His messenger comes to Manoah, and vanishes in the flame of the sacrifice; the angel of Jehovah appears to David. Next it is only in dreams, visions, types, and symbols that the Most High approaches his children. He speaks to them by night; comes in the rush of thoughts, but is not seen. The personal Form, and the visible Angel, have faded and disappeared as the daylight assumed its power. The nation advanced; its Religion and mythology advanced with it. Then again, sometimes God is represented as but a local deity; Jacob is surprised to find him in a foreign land: next he is only the God of the Hebrews. At last, the only living and true God.
There is a similar progress in the notions of the service God demands. Abraham must offer Isaac; with Moses, slain beasts are sufficient; Micah has outgrown the Mosaic form in some respects, and says, “Shall Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams; shall I give the first-born of my body for the sin of my soul? what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?” A spiritual man in the midst of a formal people saw the pure truth which they saw not. Does the Old Testament claim to be master of the soul? By no means; it is only a phantom conjured up by superstition that scares us in our sleep. Does the truth it contains make it a miraculous book? It is poor logic which thinks what is false can cease to be false, though never so many wonders are wrought in its defence.[1]
- ↑ On the Old Testament, its authors' inspiration, &c., see some valuable remarks in Spinoza, Tract. theol. polit. Ch. I.-X. XII. XIII. See Norton, Vol. II. Append. D, and his Letter to Blanco White in Thom, ubi sup. Vol. II. p.
