Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/73

thy children shalt thou redeem" (Exodus the census showed upwards of 22,000 to be first born sons, or about one first born to xiii, 11-13). Thus, instead of offering the oldest born child as a sacrifice to God, he every forty-one males. In a polygamous was redeemed, and the redemption money society it may readily be that a man shall have forty-one sons and that the son actually of five shekels was paid to the priests (Num bers xviii). The Hebrew law-giver found first born shall be known as the Bckhor, the practice of offering the first born as a whereas, if we were to assume that the first born of the mother was meant by the Bckhor, sacrifice existing among the people. To de we should have to suppose that each woman stroy that practice by legislation was impos has forty-one sons and that there were only sible; accordingly, the law-giver adopted it, and with a slight modification made of it a 22,000 mothers among all those who left •Egypt. By this rcdnctio ad absurdum; Jewish custom, superseding the primitive Michaelis seeks to prove this case. brutality of the sacrifice by the custom of redeeming the first born. Among many primitive people the custom prevailed of offering the first born as a sac Legislation as a rule follows the law of rifice to the gods. This custom, like many motion along the lines of least resistance. It others, has been subject to a variety of modi is rarely indeed that a law is of such a char fications among the different peoples among acter as to be entirely opposed to the current whom it exists. That the ancient Hebrews practice and customs of the people and en of prehistoric times practised the same tirely out of harmony with their current rite can hardly be doubted, and some of the habits of thought. Legislation is merely a cases which have already been cited, showing modification of existing institutions and laws. the prevalence of child sacrifice at some peri And this is true of all legislation, whether ods of ancient Hebrew history, may be re it be civil or ecclesiastical. The law of the ferred to again in illustration of this point. early Christian church, which enabled Chris In addition thereto, there seems to be evi tianity to spread among the heathen, illus dence of the ancient existence of this practice trates this truth. The actual engrafting of in the comparatively late law of the sanctifithe system of morals preached by St. Paul cation of the first born. The theory of the upon a heathen stock was impossible without old law was that the first born, whether of making concessions. The practical wisdom man or beast, belonged to God. The prac of the church, therefore, adopted many tice was to sacrifice him. The Mosaic law heathen customs which were deeply and accepted the theory, but modified the prac firmly rooted, and by giving them a slightly tice. The law in Exodus provides as follows: different signification changed them into "Thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that Christian customs, and thus furnished itself openeth the womb, and every firstling that with powerful instruments for the spread of cometh of a beast which thou hast, the male the Christian faith. In the same manner, the shall be the Lord's; and every firstling of an study of the Biblical law will show that many ass thou shalt redeem with the lamb, and if primitive heathen practices were, by the thou wilt not redeem it, thou shalt break its genius of the Hebrew people and its law neck: and all the first born of man among givers, converted into Jewish institutions.