xix. IS ; comp. Matt. xxii. 39, 4o. For the leg,a, bearing of this beautiful precept and the vindication of its equitable relation to other laws, see Michaelis, Laws of Moses, iv. 292, 293. It is to be observed that the stranger no less than the Hebrew is in cluded within the operation of this precept ; sec ver. 34 of this same chap. and Michaelis, i. 373, 374). This incomparable excellence and beauty of the Israelite laws will go tar to settle a question, which we must now, as briefly as may be, notice.
Now far was Moses indebted to Egypt for hi, Laws 1—From very early times the occasional similarity between the Mosaic institutions and those of various Gentile nations has been observed and variously accounted for. t. Josephus (Contra Apion. ii. 40), with the natural pride of a Jew, said : Our laws have been such as have always Inspired admiration and imitation into all other men ; nay, the earliest Grecian philosophers, though in appearance they observed the laws of their own countries, yet did they in their actions and their philosophic doctrines follow our legisla tor ;' with more to the same effect. A like opinion was held by his countryman and contemporary, Philo, who (Life of Moses, ii. 5) asserts that the beauty and dignity of the legislation of Moses i5 honoured, not among the Jews, but also by all other nations.' Josephus carries the influence of his nation further back than Moses; according tc him (.42ztiq. "zed. i. 8. 2) Abraham was regarded with intense respect even by the Egyptians, whc not only derived their arithmetic and their astro. nomy from the patriarch, but were convinced by his reasonings to modify their accustomed sacred rites.' Origen (Contra Celsum, i. p. 13) sends Pythagoras for his philosophy to the Jews ; Justin Martyr p. 92) makes Moses the teacher of Plato ; while Clement of Alex. combines both statements, ascribing what was good in not only these two philosophers (Stromat. i. p. 342), but in Aristotle also (Stromat. v. p. 595) to the Hebrew Scriptures, and especially to the Mosaic law, which was the object of much admiration in the East. 2. Other writers, however, without denying the influence of Moses, impeach his originality. They observe what they deem an extreme re semblance to the religious ceremonies of the Egypt ians in the Mosaic ritual ; and to account for it, they suppose that the Hebrew lawgiver derived much of, at least, his ceremonial law from Egypt, learned as he was in all the wisdom of that country (Acts vii. 22). The children of Israel are thought by the maintainers of this opinion to have imbibed too much of the superstition of their house of bond age, and to have been in too low a state of intelli gum.< w LC,CIVC LI1C inuLaJ doctrines suited to the worship of Jehovah, without the aid of symbolical representations. Hence the entire ritual system which Moses gave the people was nothing more than an accommodation, not indeed to the mere human weakness, but to the perverse tendencies and idolatrous prejudices of those whom he had to instruct. The apostasy of the golden calf gave proof at once of the obsti nacy of these perverse habits, and of the necessity of dealing with them in such a spirit of accom modation as the law breathes. This low view of the Mosaic ordinances is, according to these writers, warranted by the words of God himself who (Ezek. xx. 25) speaks of statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby the people should not live.' According to Eusebius (Preep. Evang., vii. 8) this opinion had its supporters in early times also. Even in the great Jewish doctor Maimonides, who is yet full of profound respect for the law of Moses, there are many traces of the hypothesis that its divine author observed the principle of accommodation in its structure (Afore Nevochim, iii. 32 [Buxtorf, p. 432]). It was reserved, however, for our own great writers —MARSHAM (ChrOniaiS Canon) ; SPENCER (De legibns Hebr. ritual.) ; and WARBURTON (Dix ine Legation)to concentrate attention on the subject by their very learned discussions. Spencer's erudi tion has probably acquired for the hypothesis a re putation which will always secure to it some fol lowers. Hengstenherg (in his Egypt and the Books of Moses [Clark, 1845]) has applied the results of more recent investigations in Egyptian archaeology, and asserts an Egyptian origin [or reference as he expresses it] for some of the most conspicuous of the Mosaic institutions, including the sacerdotal vestments, the Urim and Thummim, the Cheru bim, the Azazel ' of Lev. xvi., the red heifer of Num. xix., the laws about food, and the Nazarites. In this article we can only indicate, and not discuss, these opinions. They have not escaped severe examination ; and there are some learned writers who have stoutly maintained the very opposite I hypothesis. Witsius wrote his learned treatise, /Egyptiaca, to confute the doctrine of Marsham and Spencer. lie is full of Josephus' idea, that sketch by Mr. Goldwin Smith (hen the Bible sanction American Slavery? pp. 39-94) ; also by Michaelis, vol. ii. pp. 155-191. I. In small points of detail, as well as in large principles, it is interest ing to discover the clemency of the law. We will mention two and have clone. The small rateable value of young slaves of the two sexes would act as a kindly obstacle to their coming into the market at all (Michaelis, ii. 168). m. Our last instance must be quoted in the very words of the legislator —they need no comment : If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun gocth down ; for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his' skin ; wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear ; for I am gracious' (Exod. xxii. 26, 27; Dent. xxiv. 12, 13).* We have said enough to illustrate, in its human aspect, the beneficent and merciful genius of the Mosaic code.
It proves itself worthy of its divine author, whose voice we once more hear in our last quotation, and its spirit cannot be better formulated than in one of its own precepts, upon which the gospel founds a moiety of man's whole duty : Thou shalt love thy there was a divine originality in the Jewish revela tion ; and that the heathen nations, and especially Egypt, instead of helping the Hebrew lawgiver with materials for the sacred code, rather borrowed from him. Spencer's ingenious theories and Wit sius' learned refutations produced an antagonism out of which arose progress in the elucidation of some obscure points in Biblical literature. The two schools of opinion which have followed them have resorted to extreme conclusions both ways, equally difficult, indeed, for the thoughtful student to accept.* It is difficult, on the one hand, to be lieve with Spencer, and still more with Marsham, that heathen superstitions could in any degree have been taken as a substratum whereon to construct a system for the express purpose of checking and de stroying heathenism ; nor, on the other'hand, can it be denied that between the Hebrew religious rites, described in the Pentateuch, and the religious rites of certain heathen nations, a resemblance more or less obvious exists, which it is impossible to prove, or even to imagine, to have been derived from the imitation of a Hebrew ritual. To test the latter difficulty first, Marsham attributes an Egyptian origin to the rite of circumcision; Spencer hesitates, but does not reject Marsham's hypothe sis. Witsius, to save the Biblical prestige of the institution, accounts for the allowed fact, that it was known to the ancient Egyptians, by the con jecture that Abraham, whom we have seen Josephus representing as a great instructor of the Egyptians, communicated to them this sacred rite, which he had himself received from God. Other learned men had resorted to this explanation before Wit sius ; Selden (De Synedr. Vet. Hebr. [Works, vol. i., col. r219-1222]) gives this as his own opinion, and mentions a catena of authorities who have thought with him. But this explanation looks too much like a specious device for evading a diffi culty to command implicit acceptance. Modern research makes it at least doubtful whether circum cision was not known to the Egyptians ' long before the birth of Abraham' (Rawlinson's Herodotus [edit. i.], vol. ii., p. s'r, note 5). It is observable that our Saviour himself uses very general language, which throws back the origin of circumcision to patriarchal times, it may be to the very primeval period ; for his words will suit the Sethite or Shemite patriarchs equally as well as the Abra hamic (John vii. 22). Now this difficulty we can not ignore in our estimate of this question. But it is a light difficulty in comparison with the difficulty which oppresses the entire theory of Spencer. The very enunciation of it seems to involve an absurdity. To check Egyptian tendencies in Israel, Moses gives his people an imitation of certain Egyptian rites and ceremonies : It is in vain that Spencer makes the lawgiver strenuously opposed to some portions of the Egyptian ritual ; for his tolerance of other portions would nullify the effect of that opposition in a nation which the hypothesis repre sents as wayward and indiscriminate in its preju dices ! Bar's strong censure of Spencer's theory is not too severe : God appears as a Jesuit, who makes use of bad means to accomplish a good end . . . . The relation of Israel to the Egyptians, and that of Moses in particular (as represented in the Pentateuch at the time of the Exodus), would rather lead us to expect an intentional shunning of everything Egyptian, especially in religious matters, instead of an imitation and a borrowing. [We may compare in this sense Lev. xviii. 3 : After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do,' etc. ; with Ezek. xx. 7-9]. . . . There was unquestionably the strongest inducement for Moses making the separation of Israel from Egypt as broad as possible. Everything Egyptian must be branded, and the remembrance of it by all means extirpated. But by adopting the ritual of Egypt [as Spencer makes him], Moses would have directly sanctioned what was Egyptian, and would have perpetuated the remembrance of the land of darkness and servitude' (Symbolik, i. 41, 42). We think this a fatal objection to the Spencerian theory. Another damaging point in it is the un certainty of its very principle. At one moment we are told that the destruction of idolatry was the primary intention of the Mosaic laws ; whence their tone was inflexible ; or rather the Israelite mind was to be bent in a direction the very oppo site to that idolatrous one which it had acquired in Egypt. But the reader is no sooner landed on this firm and satisfactory hypothesis, than he encounters another principle incompatible with it—the princi ple of conciliation. The inveterate propensities of the Israelites must not be offended ; and, accord ingly, they are gratified with many Egyptian cus toms, which they had learnt in their bondage and were unwilling to quit ! A careful consideration of both sides of the question induces us to reject the positions maintained both by Spencer and by Witsius. But our rejection of their conclusions is modified by our acceptance of very much of their premises. We think that the learning of Spencer and his associates was well employed in tracing out the features of resemblance in the institutions of the Israelites and their neighbours ; while his oppo nents did not lose their labour in illustrating the ortglnality of those which Moses and his prede cessors gave the Hebrew nation.