Книга шестая. Религия и законы избранного народа

Chapter 47. Monotheism as the faith of the chosen people The ministry of Moses marks the greatest moment in the historical life of the chosen people, precisely the moment at which a deeply important change took place both in the state of the chosen race itself and in God's attitude towards it. Before him, the chosen race consisted of individual patriarchs, who successively transmitted to each other the promises they had received and the deposit of true religion entrusted to them, receiving at the same time explanations, confirmations and additions in the personal appearances and revelations to them of God or His holy angels. Now the chosen family has multiplied into a whole and numerous people, which, partly under the influence of Egyptian slavery and surrounding idolatry, and partly from natural coarsening in their feelings as a result of long-term alienation from direct communication with the God of their fathers, had lost the ability to such communication, and therefore it was necessary to establish a new way of relationship. For this purpose, the Lord God, who appeared to Moses and through him awakened in the people the consciousness of true religion and the promises associated with it, after liberating the people from Egyptian slavery, again entered into a covenant with him, and the expression of this covenant with the people was the Sinai legislation. It clearly and definitely expresses the entire religious and moral worldview, which hitherto was revealed in parts and was recognized incompletely and fragmentarily. The purpose of the covenant was to set the people of Israel apart from the rest of mankind and to make them a chosen kingdom in which the seeds of salvation could be preserved and grown, destined later to spread to all mankind. When the people of Israel were at the foot of the sacred mountain, the Lord spoke to them through Moses: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you, as if on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Me. Therefore, if you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My special possession among all nations; for all the earth is Mine. And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:36). “All of you stand today before the presence of the Lord your God, the rulers of your tribes, your elders, your overseers, all the Israelites, your children, your wives, and your strangers, who are in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God and the covenant with Him, which the Lord your God is making with you today, that He may make you His people this day, and He may be your God. Let there not be among you any man or woman, or clan or tribe, whose heart will now turn away from the Lord your God, to go and serve the gods of the heathen nations” (Deut. 29:10–13, 18). The main goal of establishing a special “kingdom of Jehovah” is, as can be seen from the passages cited, the preservation of true religion, the teaching of the worship of the one true God, in contrast to the idolatry of other peoples. In order to preserve the true teaching about God, Jehovah enters into an agreement with the people on the conditions, so to speak, that He - the king of the whole earth - becomes primarily the king of the Israeli people, receives supreme power over them, becomes their legislator, whose decrees the people are obliged to accept and sacredly preserve. If the Israelites voluntarily agree to recognize Jehovah as their Lord and king, to maintain His covenant and fulfill the laws, to recognize Him as the one true God and to worship Him only, then Jehovah, being God and the supreme ruler of the whole world, of all the nations of the earth, will take the people of Israel under His special protection, will rule them with special laws, will provide them with the invaluable benefits of the true religion and will give them, as the beloved and chosen people, to all the peoples of the earth, all the blessings of freedom, peace and prosperity. The totality of such relations between Jehovah and the people is “theocracy” or “Divine rule” - in the highest religious and moral meaning of this word. “Theocracy” understood in this way is the true kingdom of God on earth, and the people, chosen by God in order to be the instrument of His providential reign, had to, first of all, in their thoughts realize that primitive truth, which, under the weight of sinful thoughts, was obscured by the majority of people and nations, but which in parts was again revealed and clarified to the chosen righteous and was realized by them. This truth, realized in religion, had to consist in faith in the one true God, and this faith was the basic law and condition of the very chosenness of the people. It was the vital source from which the very right of this people to exist flowed, and without this faith, the very election of the people would have been completely unnecessary. Each people has its own historical task, and if other peoples had a cultural mission, like the Egyptians, or a conquering mission, like the Assyrians, or a trade mission, like the Phoenicians, then the Israelites had their mission precisely to preserve faith in the one true God, lost by other peoples, and to carry this spiritual light through all the centuries of turbulent historical upheavals, until what was the goal of the entire world-historical development of the ancient world was fulfilled, i.e. until Christ comes, who, with His gracious power of redemption, could illuminate from above the hearts and minds of all pagan peoples and make them capable of accepting the faith in the one true God that they had once lost. In view of the importance of this faith in the history of the Israeli people, it is useful to consider in detail its main principles and characteristic features, as they are presented in the Law of Moses and in the subsequent historical life of the people. This question has received all the more importance in modern times because rationalistic criticism, trying to completely shake the entire Old Testament worldview, is trying to prove that the Israeli people were by no means a chosen people, that in their religious beliefs and their institutions they did not stand out at all from a number of other peoples, did not have any special mission peculiar to them and were not even at first the bearer of faith in the one true God, but worshiped, like other Semites, to many gods under different names. Monotheism seems to be an artificial and, moreover, a later innovation, the culprits of which were the later prophets. Before him, the entire religion of the Israelites was crude idolatry with the usual idolatrous rites, human sacrifices and even the disgusting cult of debauchery (kedeshim), like other Semitic peoples. This view, according to rationalists, is the simplest and most natural, since every people gradually improves its religious belief, and the initial degree of religious thinking was precisely polytheism, as the most accessible form of religious belief to the primitive mind. Such points of criticism obviously overthrow the entire edifice of the Old Testament economy. Fortunately, these provisions, although supported by scholarship, reveal their bias and turn out to be completely untenable before the court of strict and impartial science. First of all, the position that the original form of religion in general is polytheism turns out to be completely untenable, and monotheism is only the subsequent highest degree of spiritual thought. Quite the contrary - a thorough study of the history of religion shows that its primitive form is precisely monotheism, and polytheism is only a deviation from this form, as a result of mental darkness and moral coarsening of peoples. In addition to the direct testimony of the Bible, the study of the traditions of mankind everywhere reveals the existence of a universal belief in one God, prior to all idolatry. The Assyrian inscriptions, it is true, do not yet provide us with sufficiently ancient texts to enable us to become positively acquainted with the primitive religion of Babylon and Chaldea, but the hieroglyphic texts of the most ancient era, which are much older than the most ancient wedge-shaped inscriptions, irrefutably prove the primacy of monotheism over polytheism. To prove this, it is enough to cite the testimony of scientists, whose authority is recognized by everyone and in itself constitutes a guarantee of reliability. Thus, the famous Egyptologist de Rouget in his essay “On the Religion of Ancient Peoples,” among other things, says: “we can restore how ancient Egypt taught about God, the world and man. I'm talking about God, not gods. The first feature of this teaching is unity, expressed in the highest degree of energy: “God is one, one, only, And there are no other gods next to Him. – He is the only living being, truly living. You are one, and thousands of beings come from You. He created everything, and He alone was not created...” “Considered in his relations to the world, God is the Creator: He created everything that exists. He is the lord of the existing and the non-existent and. “These texts were written at least one and a half thousand years before Moses... But isn’t this wonderful teaching in Egypt a product of subsequent centuries? Positively no; it existed more than 2,000 years before the Christian era. Quite the contrary, we see that polytheism gradually develops and progresses there without interruption until the time of the Ptolemies. More than 5,000 years ago, a hymn to the unity of God began in the Nile Valley... and we see that only in later times did Egypt come to the most unbridled polytheism" 567. Another Egyptologist, Mariette, speaks in exactly the same sense: “above the entire Egyptian pantheon,” he says, “there hovers the one God, immortal, uncreated, invisible and hidden in the inaccessible depths of his being; He is the Creator of heaven and earth; He created everything that exists, and without Him nothing came into existence - such is God, the teaching of whom was preserved in the secret recesses of the sanctuary. But Egypt could not or did not want to dwell on this sublime purity of teaching” 568. A third Egyptologist, whose testimony also cannot be denied by the enemies of the Bible, namely Maspero, is no less clear in this regard than his other learned brethren. “In the beginning,” he says, “there existed Well, a primeval ocean, in the endless depths of which the embryos of things floated in confusion. From eternity, God was conceived, and He Himself was born in the womb of this liquid substance, which was still formless and, as it were, non-existent. This God of the Egyptians was a single being, perfect, gifted with knowledge and intelligence, so incomprehensible that it is impossible to even say in what way He is incomprehensible. He is the only one, the one who exists in essence, the one who lives in essence, the only life-giver in heaven and on earth, who Himself is not born, the father of fathers, the mother of mothers. Always equal, always unchanging in His unchangeable perfection, always present in the past as in the future, He fills the universe, so that no image in the world can give even the faintest idea of ​​His infinity. He is felt everywhere, but He cannot be touched anywhere. One in essence, He is not one in personality; He is the Father only because He exists; and the perfection of His nature is this, that He ever produces, never failing or ever being exhausted. He does not need to go out of Himself in order to become fertile; He finds in His own being the substance for His eternal work. It is only from the fullness of His being that He conceives His fruit, and since with Him conception cannot be separated from birth, He produces from eternity from Himself another Himself. He is at the same time the Father, Mother and Son of God. Conceived from God, born from God, without exit from God, these three persons are God in God, and not only do not fragment the unity of the divine being, but all three are united in His sole perfection. This God is threefold and alone has all the properties of God - immeasurability, eternity, independence, omnipotent will, boundless goodness 569.” From these testimonies, therefore, it is reliably clear that in the most ancient times in Egypt the idea of ​​the one true God was preserved, as an echo of the primitive true tradition, and at first only one God was meant under various names. Over time, the religion of the inhabitants of the Nile Valley took on a semi-polytheistic, semi-pantheistic hue, but traces of the primitive tradition persisted even later, so that even under Darius II, Egyptian scribes and priests sang the following hymn in glorification of God: He alone created Himself in Millions of ways... “The Egyptian inscriptions, under the degenerate symbols of crude polytheism,” rightly says the famous Orientalist Vogue, “reveal the existence of true religious teaching. Learned interpreters of these inscriptions, with the help of formulas and images, have shown that the basis of the Egyptian religion, despite apparent appearances, was the belief in one and eternal God; less personal God than the God of the Bible and in any case less different from created matter, the Egyptian God is always incorporeal, invisible, without beginning and without end: the countless deities of the Egyptian pantheon are the personified properties, the deified powers of a being incomprehensible and inaccessible. As the cause and prototype of the visible world, He has a dual existence, He embodies in Himself the two principles of every earthly work: the male principle and the female principle; and this duality in unity served as the basis for the origin of a number of female deities.” This is precisely the God whom Egyptologists reveal to us 571. Although we do not yet have sufficient data to determine the essence of the Assyro-Chaldean religion in its primitive state, it is nevertheless possible to form some idea about this religion, as it becomes clear from the wedge-shaped inscriptions - and these inscriptions fully confirm the same as the hieroglyphic texts. “The religion of Assyria and Babylon,” says Lenormand, “was in its fundamental principles and in the general spirit that permeated its speculation, a religion of the same kind as the religion of Egypt and, in general, all the religions of the pagan world. If we penetrate beyond the outer shell of crude polytheism in which it was clothed in popular superstitions, and rise to the ideas of a higher order that were their starting point, then there we will find the basic concept of divine unity, the last remnant of primitive revelation, but distorted by the monstrous inventions of pantheism" 572. “At the basis of the Cushitic religions, as at the basis of all other religions,” says Maspero, “we find God at the same time one and many different: one because matter flows from Him, and He is mixed with matter; diverse because each of the acts that He performs in Himself on matter is considered, as it were, the work of a different being and bearing a special name. At the beginning, these individual beings are not yet distributed according to the degrees of the correct hierarchy; they coexist without subordination, and each of them enjoys preferential worship over all others in a certain city or among a certain people: Anu in Uruk, Bel in Nipur, Sin in Ur, Marduk in Babylon. Anu, Bel, Sin, Marduk represent only one and the same being, but this single being, which has so many different names, has a dual essence: it unites in one and the same person two principles necessary for any work, namely, the male principle and the female principle. Each god is doubled in a corresponding goddess: Anu and Sin in the goddess Nana, Bel in Belit, Marduk in Tsarpanit. Divine beings are no longer understood separately, but under the guise of numbers, and each of the numbers composed by them is only an expression of the original one God, despite the duality of its nature, just as He is one, despite the multitude of His names” 573. The Cushitic religion of which Maspero speaks here is one and the same as the primitive religion of the Chaldeans. We find the same primitive monotheism in Phenicia, Canaan and Syria. “The cult of the Phoenician god Baal,” says the most authoritative scholar in the field of Phoenician inscriptions, namely Vogue, “originally contained the belief in one God, just as the neighboring cults of Bel the Assyrian, Adad the Syrian, Moloch the Ammonite, Marne the Philistine and other deities, in their very names contain the idea of ​​unity and supreme supremacy. The multitude of minor Baals speaks no more against this original unity than does the division of the Egyptian God into deified powers; only in Phenicia does this distribution of divine power have a more geographical and political, if one may say so, character than a philosophical one. Here it is not so much the deity itself, but the local sanctuaries that gave birth to secondary gods, the Baals, as the patrons of the main cities. Baal, idolized in Tire, in Sidon, in Tarsus, became Baal-Zur, Baal-Sidon, Baal-Tarsus. As such, he may take on a special name, which may subsequently obscure his original character in the popular imagination; but it does not prevent the continuation of the vague concept of its original unity. This is exactly what one inscription proves to us, consisting of two words: “Mel-Karte,” the great god of Tire, whose cult was widely spread by the Tyrian colonists, was none other than the Baal of the metropolis: “Mr. Mel-Karte, Baal of Tire!” - this is how the dedication of two lamps sacrificed to him, found on the island of Malta, begins. This is the supreme god, considered as a local deity, especially the patron of cities, and this idea is fully consistent with the very etymology of the word, since Mel-Kart is only an abbreviation of the words Melek-Karat, that is, “king of the city.” The same thing, in the opinion of a learned Orientalist, is noticed when we delve into the essence of female deities. The very name of the female deities shows that they were formed from the deification of the name of the same gods. Thus, Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, standing in the inscription of Esmunatzer next to Baal of Sidon, is called Shem-Baal, that is, the name of Baal, and in another place - the “face” of Baal. These names “name” and “face” in the minds of the people subsequently acquired a real character, and completely independent deities, namely female ones, were formed from them. “So, Astarte is precisely the personification of the name to which all ancient religions attached a mysterious meaning. The Phoenicians gave this name a separate existence; and this fact throws an interesting light on the origin of the Phoenician myths and the very mode of their development. Here, one might say, the very fact of the transformation of the ideas that created the entire Phoenician pantheon is tangibly presented: we see how the initial abstractions served as the reason for the origin of polytheism. Among the Jews, the concepts “Name of the Lord”, “Face of the Lord” did not destroy divine unity, just as even more figurative expressions did not destroy it - “Voice of the Lord”, “Hand of the Lord”. The same thing happened at first among the Phoenicians, but their original concepts changed, although they retained the formulas in which they were expressed before; the idea of ​​a female deity arose, an idea which, so to speak, doubled the creative power without destroying its essential unity, but which opened the door to all sorts of errors and all sorts of abuses of practical polytheism" 574 . From the above evidence of the most important representatives of Egyptology, Assyriology and Phoenician epigraphy, it is sufficiently clear that the original form of religion among these idolatrous peoples was precisely monotheism, traces of which were preserved in their most ancient monuments, clearly indicating that their polytheism was only a later creation and the result of the darkening of primitive true religious concepts. If this is how it turns out among pagan and idolatrous peoples, then the more understandable the fact becomes that monotheism is the essential religion of the chosen people, that very people whom Providence destined to be the bearer of this religious truth among the pagan world, which over time was plunging into more and more religious error. Despite this, the latest rationalistic criticism is intensifying to show that the original form of religion of the chosen people was precisely polytheism, so that monotheism is only a later artificial implantation in it. “The original religion of the children of Israel,” says one recent critic, 575 “was a naturalistic religion, in which the stellar element predominated. Even if the Bible did not expressly speak about it, we would find on almost every page of the ancient books of Israel and the prophets of the eighth century facts that testify to the idolatrous fetishism and naturalistic polytheism of the Semites. The Bible repeatedly portrays the descendants of Abraham as idolaters and polytheists. In the book of Joshua, Terah, the father of Abraham, is portrayed as a pagan and polytheist, like his ancestors who lived in ancient times “beyond the river,” that is, beyond the Euphrates... Rachel steals idols from her father... Jacob buries under an oak tree, near Shechem, idols, talismans and amulets taken from the members of his house” 576. To this it must be said that all these facts do not at all prove that all Jews were originally polytheists. In addition to the fact that the idolatry of Terah, the father of Abraham, does not serve as proof that the descendants of Abraham were also idolaters, the very passage quoted from the book of Joshua shows, on the contrary, that they were monotheists, since it testifies to the contrast between the religion of the descendants of Abraham and the religion of his ancestors (Joshua 24:2, 3). This book even very clearly states that God brought Abraham to the land of Canaan precisely for the purpose of removing the father of the Jews from the idolatrous environment of Chaldea and from under the disastrous influence of his kinship. The subsequent tradition also testified to this, as far as it was preserved by the Ammonite Achior. “Hear, my lord, the word from the mouth of your servant,” he said to Holofernes; “I will tell you the truth about this people (that is, the Jews) who live near you in this mountainous country, and no lie will come out of the mouth of your servant. This people comes from the Chaldeans. First they settled in Mesopotamia, because they did not want to serve the gods of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans, and they deviated from the path of their ancestors, and began to worship the God of heaven, the God whom they knew; and the Chaldeans drove them out from before their gods - and they fled to Mesopotamia, and dwelt there for a long time” (Judith. 5:5-8). - “This reasoning of the Ammonite,” says one German critic, “contains historical data dating back to the remotest antiquity and deserves special attention” 577. From Abraham to Jesus Christ, the people of Israel, although often unfaithful, worshiped one and even the only God, the one whom they holy in all things. Scripture calls the God of his fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. “We know,” Ewald rightly says, “how difficult it has been for the religion of Jehovah, with its sublime ideas and the duties it imposes, to gain a firm foothold among the people since the time of Moses. But, on the other hand, of all the ancient memories that the Mosaic religion presents to us, there is none that is more unshakable than this, that the God whom Moses proclaimed to his people is one and the same as the God of their ancestors; he is different from the gods of all other peoples, but essentially the same, who was worshiped by the three main patriarchs, the forefathers of this people. The idea of ​​this identity could not be introduced into the Mosaic religion later. It comes from the very beginning and has always been preserved in the bosom of this people as a sacred memory of the greatest importance, and in the most ancient Mosaic times the people called Jehovah simply the God of their father, i.e. Jacob, closely connecting himself with his past. It is impossible that such solid evidence, fully supported by science, could turn out to be deceptive.” 578 The passage in Genesis that Jacob buried the idols of his family under an oak tree only proves that Jacob was not an idolater. It even clearly shows us that the gods idolized by some members of the family of this patriarch were strangers: Jacob directly said to the members of his house and to everyone who was with him: “throw away the foreign gods that are among you - Elohe gannegar” (Gen. 35:2). These and other similar facts, of which many could be cited, fully prove that among the Israelites there were quite a few idolaters, but they do not at all prove that all of them were originally idolaters. Of course, if critics only argued that the Israelites often fell into idolatry, then we would have no reason to argue with them; The Bible testifies to this on every page, and no one has ever thought of denying it. Driven by an unbridled inclination to foreign religions, to those wild deities who fed on the blood of children and of whom blind fear forced them to fear, or to those “happy and sensual deities” who gave a sacred character to the satisfaction of the lowest passions, and to which their own sensual attraction prompted them to incline, they, from time to time, idolized the false gods of all nations who came into contact with them - Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Syrians, Sabeans, and in the time of the Maccabees, out of advantage or weakness, even idolized the Greek Syrian gods. Meanwhile, this idolatrous cult, without any exception, is depicted to us not as a legal, correct, universal, truly national cult, but as infidelity, deficiency, fornication, crime. Even in the worst times in the history of the kingdom of Israel, after the fall of the ten tribes, when, during the reign of the wicked Ahab, even the prophet Elijah gave in to despondency, not only in Judea, but even within the separated idolatrous tribes, Jehovah counted another 7,000 faithful worshipers who never bowed the knee to Baal and did not give him any honor (1 Kings 19:18). All these false gods, revered by the unfaithful Israelites, who rather listened to the voices of their passions than to the voices of their conscience, did not represent the God of Israel, who is one, the living God, the only God: “Jehovah (thy God) is God, and there is no other besides Him” 579 . These are alien gods or, in the literal sense, Gods other than the true God, the Elilim, that is, nonentities, and the Gillulim, that is, abominations, as they are often called in the Pentateuch 580. While all the idolatrous Semites, worshiping their national gods, at the same time recognized the divinity of the gods of neighboring peoples, both Jehovah and others, while they feared them and diligently avoided everything that could bring their wrath upon them, so the Assyrian conqueror of Arabia with honor sends to the queen he defeated the statues of the Arabian gods, limiting himself to a dedicatory inscription on them to the god Assur, to testify to the superiority of the power of their god - the Israelites attributed true divinity only to their one God; they considered all those who were revered by foreign peoples to be false gods; they treated them with contempt, and the prophets depicted the futility of idols in pictures whose eloquence is beyond reach. There is only one place in the Bible that seems to present some exception to this rule. This is precisely in the book of Judges, where Jephthah, sending an embassy to the king of the Ammonites, instructs his messengers to tell him: “Do you not possess what Chemosh your god (Elohim) has given you? and we possess what the Lord our God (Elohim) has given us as an inheritance” (Judges 11:24). But this passage represents only diplomatic language, and is not a confession of faith, and, therefore, does not at all prove that Jephthah believed in the divinity of Chemosh. It only proves that the judge of Israel wanted to speak to the king in the Ammonite language, which was pleasant to him, in order to achieve the desired peace through this. But even if we were to take these words in their literal severity, then, despite this separate passage, there would still be quite a bit of evidence left that there was a deep difference in how the Jews understood their God and how neighboring peoples understood their gods. The sons of Israel, making sacrifices to idols, did it out of weakness and passion; but these cases of unfaithfulness of the chosen people, these “fornications,” as the prophets call them in their energetic language, with all their criminality, do not at all change the essence of Israel’s own religion. King Solomon gives us the example of the weak and wavering son of Jacob. He recognizes the unity of God, confesses Him and praises Him, and despite this, submitting to unworthy weaknesses, he worshiped disgusting idols; on the day of the dedication of the majestic church, erected by him to the glory of the living God, he precisely said in his sublime prayer: “that all nations may know that the Lord is God, and there is none beside Him” (1 Kings 8:60); and several years later (so incomprehensible is the weakness of the human heart!), to please his wives, whose temptations he did not know how to resist, he built churches in honor of Moloch, Chemosh, Astarte - the most cruel and most disgusting deities. This is precisely the history of Israel. He knew the true God from the very beginning, but fear or lust often plunged him to the foot of the pagan gods with their inhuman and shameful cult. His fathers, his leaders, before the fall of the ten tribes, were generally monotheists, but the mass of the people sometimes fell into idolatry with amazing enthusiasm. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, the fathers of the twelve tribes; Moses, liberator of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery; Joshua, conqueror of the promised land; Samuel, who gave him the first king; David, the most glorious hero and the most valiant of his monarchs, the most famous and popular of his poets; the prophets, these people so amazing in their originality that the likes of them cannot be found in any other time and among any other people - all these great men were worshipers of the one God. From many other places, it is enough to cite in confirmation of this a few passages from the sublime hymns of the sweet psalmist of Israel. In the Psalm, which begins with the words: “I will love You, O Lord, my strength,” the psalmist exclaims enthusiastically: “For who is God except the Lord (Jehovah)”? (Ps. 16:32). Then in the Psalm. “God protect me,” composed, according to the best scholars, at the time when the persecutions of Saul forced David to live among the idolatrous Philistines, the psalmist exclaims: “Keep me, O God, for I trust in You. I said to the Lord: You are my Lord; Let the sorrows of those multiply Which flow to a strange God; I will not pour out their bloody libations, And I will not remember their names with my lips, The Lord is part of my inheritance and my cup, You hold my lot” (Ps. 15:1–6). When the prophet Nathan announced the promise of God, David, thanking God, exclaimed: “Great in all things are You, my Lord (Jehovah), Lord (Elohim), And there is no God except You and 581. These and similar sayings show how deeply the idea of ​​the one true God lay in the hearts of the best representatives of the people; but this idea had deep roots even among the mass of the people in general, so that even those who sometimes indulged in idolatry were more deceived in their hearts than in their minds. This is confirmed by one circumstance, which, by its very surprise, is completely indisputable. In the East, the religious beliefs of both peoples and individuals were in ancient times imprinted in some way in their own names, so that these names can serve as a means of becoming acquainted with their religion, like certain fossils and geological deposits. The religious history of the peoples of the East is told in them with sincerity beyond suspicion and is told by a witness who seems to be half-conscious. Among the Jews, as among other Semites, the name of God was often included as a component in their names. If they had been polytheists from the very beginning, we would have found indelible features of this in the names of their fellows, since it is not in the power of any historian, no forger, to change historical names. Meanwhile, their monotheism is manifested here with amazing clarity. Among the Phoenicians we meet all their gods in their own names: Adelem the Tyrian - “servant of the Elims or gods”; Baleazar, king of Tire - “Baal is help”; Addastarte, king of Tire - “servant of Ashtoreth”, etc. In the same way, it is enough to take a list of the kings of Assyria and Babylonia to get acquainted with their main gods: Assurbanipal means “God Assur gave a son”; Belsarussal (Balthazar) – “the god Bel protects the king”; Sennacherib - “Sin (the moon god) multiplied the brothers”; Nergalsarussur (Neriglissar) - “the god Nirgal protects the king”; Nabukudurutsur (Nebuchadnezzar) – “the god Sky protects the crown, etc. It was the same with the Egyptians. But among the Jews, besides a very limited number of exceptions, which are controversial and in any case not of great importance, in their proper names, where only the deity enters as a complex element, we always encounter the names of the true God El or Ia, an abbreviation of the word Jehovah. During the counting of the Israelites in the wilderness, among the twelve heads of the tribes, eight are listed, whose names are composed of El and some quality (Numbers 1:5–15). Jehovah, or Ia for short, is found in the names of all the kings of Judah, from Abijah the son of Rehoboam to the captivity of Babylon, with the exception of only four. El and Ia are also found, and one is indifferently used instead of the other, in the entire subsequent history of the chosen people: children were dedicated to El or Jehovah, as they are now dedicated to the saints, after whom they are named. Even those kings who shamefully indulged in the worship of false gods, like those Christian parents who still give their children a Christian education, although they themselves do not live like Christians, these kings gave their children religious names that constituted a condemnation of their own unbelief and their own lives. So, Ahab, that wicked king Ahab, who built the church of Baal in Samaria and installed Asherah there, the husband of the Sidonian Jezebel, the most stubborn patroness of the cult of false gods, this Ahab gave his son the name Ahaziah, which means “Jehovah owns me,” and gave his daughter the name Athaliah, that is, “Jehovah is my strength.” The same phenomenon is observed among all the kings of Israel, although they, in their political views, were unfaithful to the true God: this is, in any case, an amazing proof of the vitality and firmness of monotheism in the hearts of the sons of Jacob. Chapter 48. Various names of God and the antiquity of monotheism Cases of idolatry reported in St. The Scriptures, therefore, do not prove by themselves that there were ever no worshipers of the true God among the Israelites. To prove that polytheism was the original religion of the Israelite people, it would be necessary to prove that, apart from the foreign gods to which they often made sacrifices after the example of neighboring peoples, they also, from the patriarchal era, worshiped several different gods, recognized by everyone and enjoying legal recognition. To prove this, criticism intensifies. God in the Bible is not called by just one specific name. This plurality of names, according to critics, serves as irrefutable proof of the plurality of gods. Indeed, the Hebrew language calls God by various names: El or Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai, Shaddai, Elyon, just as in the language of the Christian peoples He is called the Eternal, the Lord, the Almighty, the Most High. But the plurality of names in itself is by no means irreconcilable with the unity of God. It is known that even Muslims, such strict monotheists, have at least 99 different names to designate the one God. The plurality of God's names in itself has no meaning. Nothing can be concluded from this until it is established that these names are not simple synonyms, but, on the contrary, mean different personalities. This is what rationalist critics claim. According to them, El is the supreme God of the Jews, Jehovah is the deified sun; at the same time, El is supposed to be the most ancient God, and Jehovah began to be idolized only after the exodus from Egypt. “This God El, who remained the national God of the children of Israel until the time of the exit from Egypt,” says the newest critic, “and who almost always appears in the narrative along with some attribute, such as. El-Elyon, El-Shaddai, El-Kanna, El-Gai - this God El, apparently, was common to all families of the Semitic race: El is found in the Phoenician colonies, in Carthage. As for its universality, El in the Semitic pantheon is the same as “Dyaus” in the Indo-European pantheon. The idea of ​​God, in Assyrian, is expressed by the word Ilu, and the idiographic character of this concept had in the beginning the form of a star. This was the highest deity of the Babylonians, as indicated by the very name of the great city, the main deity of which was El, namely Bab-El or Bab-Ilu (“gate of El”). According to Sanchoniaton, Kronos is called El by the Phoenicians. Thus, the supreme God of the children of Israel was the same as the supreme god of the Canaanites" 582. Pointing out this circumstance, the critic is trying precisely to prove that the Israelites, calling God El, did not imagine any other deity than the one whom other Semites worshiped. But he could have extended this generalization even further and said that Al was even the God of Jesus Christ, who in His mortal agony cried out on the cross, “Either-Or lama sabachthani”; that it was the God of the human race, because the name of God is found in all human languages, and El has no other meaning. The Israelites were forced to call God El in the same way as the Chaldeans and Canaanites, because they spoke the same language, and in their language God was called El, just as Christian peoples now do, for example. of the Roman tribe, the French, Italians and Spaniards, call God by the same word Dieu, Dio and Dios, although this word is none other than Djaus, which in Sanskrit means "brilliant", the same as Zeus, which in Greek means Jupiter; because this name is the general name by which, despite its origin, the idea of ​​God is expressed in one branch of the Indo-European languages. From the use of El, therefore, one cannot at all conclude about the polytheism of the Jews, just as one cannot conclude from the use of the word Deus about the polytheism of the newest Romance peoples. All analogies, on the contrary, make us think that Ilu originally meant in Assyrian the one God. This word is used as a common noun in wedge-shaped inscriptions. The gods are called Ilui and with particular expressiveness Ilani. The proper name of each deity was usually preceded as an identifying sign by the ideographic sign Ilu; Sky, Merodach, Samas, Sin, in a word, all the gods of the Assyro-Chaldean pantheon are Ilu. Ilu Nebo is the overseer of the other Ilu; Ilu Merodach is the greatest of Ilu; Ilu Samas (Sun) is the great judge of Ilu; Ilu Sin (Moon) is the ruler of Ilu; goddess, mistress of the gods, Belita is the mother of Ilu; the altars are called the sockets of the gods. Ilu himself is called Abu-Ili, that is, the father of the gods. If Ilu had not first denoted one God, then he would not have thus become a common name for all gods. This name, even in Assyrian, as in Hebrew, does not have a feminine form; at least it is unknown. The goddesses are called “belites,” that is, mistresses, which in itself already shows that the goddesses represent the work of a later era, as a result of which the already existing feminine form Bela, which means “lord,” was attached to them, a word that was generally applied to gods and people in Semitic languages, and did not exclusively belong to the deity, like Ilu. Thus, the commonality of the name of God El among the Israelites, together with other Semites, does not at all prove that they imagined the deity to be the same as other pagan peoples. On the contrary, everything shows that El over time acquired the meaning of the only God of the Jews. This is eg. It is clear from the fact that they often call God a jealous God. Why is Al so often called jealous? The sacred text fully explains this: because He did not allow the chosen people to idolize other gods next to Him: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me; for I am the Lord your God, El-Kannah, a jealous God.”583 Is it possible to express the unity of God more clearly? Other qualities attributed to El are also intended to distinguish Him from the false gods, who were also called Elami in Semitic languages. When El is not accompanied by any attribute, so that it is not confused with the elim of idolaters, this name is usually preceded by a specific member (Ha-El), to show that here we are talking about the one true God (Gen. 31:13; Deut. 7:9, etc.). But having failed in this argumentation, criticism seeks support in another unique biblical expression, namely Elohim, by which name God is most often called in the Bible. This name is plural and is the same word as the Aramaic Scarlet, or the well-known Arabic word Allah. According to famous Hebraists such as Gesenius and Fürst, Elohim is only an elongated form, a type of especially expressive form of the name El. But despite this, rationalist criticism with particular insistence points to this expression as evidence or at least a memory of the primitive polytheism of the Israelites. Here's what for example. says the newest critic: “This name of the deity, found in almost every verse, namely Elohim, is in the plural. This, he says, is a plural form for expressing greatness and superiority - so be it. It is known that, wherever possible, the later editors of the sacred books put in the singular words that were originally in the plural, but they were not able to so completely eradicate every trace of polytheism that there were no striking traces left in some figures of speech that survived the destruction of the ancient Israelite beliefs. Popular figures of speech, the most faithful and authentic monuments of the ideas of the people, did not always succumb to the pious doubts of the scribes 584. In certain parallel places, the oldest edition agreed on the verb with Elohim, while the newest edition put it in the singular. Even more than this was done. In some sections, from which there is a double edition, you can see how everywhere the word Jehovah was substituted in place of Elohim (Ps. 14 and 53). In the books of the Prophets, the general expression for deity is exclusively Jehovah. The word Elohim is very rare in this sense, and is used only in certain formulas or figures of speech, sanctified by custom. On the contrary, the further we go in time to the ancient monuments of Jewish literature, the more often we encounter the use of the word Elohim. In the books of Leviticus and Numbers, with the exception of the twelfth to twenty-fourth chapters, Jehovah already completely dominates, while in Exodus the Elohistic and Jehovahistic documents are almost balanced with each other, and in the book of Genesis the former dominate. In our opinion, Elohim is only the plural of Eloah. Elohim thus refers to several Elohim. Elohim is an irrefutable and obvious proof of the original polytheism of the sons of Israel” 585. In our opinion, Elohim is also the plural of the only Eloah formed in later times; but it does not at all designate several initial Eloahs and does not in any way prove the original polytheism of the sons of Israel. First of all, we note that in the ancient Hebrew language the word “Elohim” was used exclusively in the plural!.. “Only much later, by the seventh century,” says Ewald 586, “poets who always loved neologisms, like Job, Isaiah, Habakkuk and then writers who were under Aramaic influence, like Daniel, Nehemiah, the author of the books of Chronicles, used the singular Eloah." Thus Elohim was originally one of those words that does not have a single form, as is found in all other languages. But why is this? After many centuries, it is difficult, of course, to penetrate the secrets of the formation of languages; but nevertheless, guided by certain analogies of Hebrew grammar, scholars assert, and not without probability, that the plural form Elohim was adopted to signify that God contained the sum of all perfections. This opinion is essentially accepted by scientists who enjoy great authority even in the rationalist camp, for example. Furst. “The ancient use of the plural Elohim to designate God,” says Fuerst, “is extremely common, because antiquity looked upon the deity as an assembly of infinite powers.”587 It is remarkable that in the Ethiopian language, which has two types of plural form, one for collective names, the other for ordinary nouns, the plural collective form (amlak) is attached to the name of God. In the Hebrew language, the plural form is often used instead of the singular form to express individual objects, but indefinite ones, consisting of a number of elements and in some way intangible, like life, youth, old age 588. Elohim, despite the plural number, nevertheless remains a single name for God, and it means the same as Adonai, Shaddai, etc. These phrases surprise us at first, but they will not be surprising at all if we pay attention to the fact that completely similar phrases exist in modern languages. To confirm this, it is enough to point out the use of plural forms, for example. “you”, “they” when addressing one person. For an ancient Israelite, such a turn would seem even more amazing than our use of the name of a singular God in the plural seems to us. But from such a use of pronouns, no criticism will conclude that the person to whom such an address is made is not a single person, but a plural one. The conclusion from the word Elohim regarding the plurality of gods among the ancient Israelites is also illegal. But even beyond these clear arguments, there is evidence in the Bible that decisively destroys all the false construction of rationalistic criticism regarding the polytheism of the Israelites. This opinion is entirely based on the assumption that the word Elohim was originally a truly plural form, always consistent with plural verbs, and that as a result it could not be used to designate a singular person. Only later, as if in the interests of monotheism, was it given the meaning of the singular, and through a change in the number of verbs they tried to erase the traces of ancient polytheism. This whole construction collapses at its very core if it turns out to be possible to prove with indisputable quotations that in all eras the word Elohim has been used to designate an individual being, and there is nothing easier than this. In all the books of the Old Testament, no matter what era they belong to, there are passages that, by their very essence, could not undergo any change and where the word Elohim is attached to a single noun. “Jehovah is my El, the Elohim of my father,” sang the chosen people after crossing the Red Sea. In many similar places, Jehovah, who is undoubtedly the only name, is also called Elohim. Even Baal, Ashtoreth, Dogon, Beelzebub, each separately, are also called Elohim 589. Having failed with the word Elohim, rationalist criticism proceeds to prove its favorite thought, using the very word Jehovah, which, in its opinion, is of later origin, but at the same time bears traces of ancient idolatry, since Jehovah means the God of light and fire. “When the descendants of Terah,” says the critic, “left Chaldea and crossed to the other side of the Euphrates, they, among other gods, worshiped God Java (Jehovah). It has now been proven that during the exodus from Egypt, in the desert, and even in the era of the judges, light and fire were for the Israelites not symbols of deity, but deity itself. Jave - the God of light and fire - is nothing more than the sun, revered like Molech. Like Moloch, Jawe was depicted as a young calf made of metal - copper, iron and gold" 590. This statement is so decisive that one has to almost take the critic’s word for it, especially when he says that “it has now been proven.” In reality, science has not yet proven that Jehovah is the sun. The critic, apparently, wants to establish this position with the help of one Greek oracle of Apollo of Clarus, the authenticity of which he accepts after Mowers, although many scholars, following Jablonsky and Gesenius, continue to attribute the origin of this oracle to a Judaizing Gnostic. Apollo specifically states that “Iao is the greatest of the gods, Hell in winter, Zeus in spring, Sun in summer and gentle Iao in autumn.” The epithet of pleasant and gentle, given here to Iao, clearly shows that we are talking about Adonis. Thus, in Phenicia, Iao was considered the source of life, revitalizing all nature. Iao is the sun. We do not need to insist that it is not the Phoenicians, much less the Greeks of Asia Minor at the beginning of our era, who need to find out what the Jehovah of the Jews was in the times of Abraham and Moses. This oracle, if it had proved thoroughly that Jehovah is the sun during one quarter of the year, would likewise prove that he is Pluto and Jupiter during winter and spring. If we ask the Israelites themselves, they will answer us that Jehovah is not the sun, but the Creator of the sun, and that He is distinct from it, as a worker from His work, and they were forbidden, under pain of stoning, “to worship the sun or the moon, or all the host of heaven, since the Lord (Jehovah), their God, has assigned these lights to all nations under the whole heaven” (Deut. 17:3–5; 4:19). They will tell us how they sang with their psalmist: “Hallelujah, praise the Lord from heaven, praise him in the highest, praise him sun and moon, praise him all the stars of light” (Ps. 149:1-3). The sacred books often tell us about the idolatrous cult rendered to the sun by the unbelieving Israelites; but the object of their sacrilegious worship is called Semes, and not Jehovah 591. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that would give the right to identify Jehovah with the sun. True, in some places in the Bible, for example. it is said that the Lord is a consuming fire, and various sacrifices were offered to Him, in the offering of which fire really had primary significance, especially in burnt offerings. But this circumstance does not at all give any right to the conclusion drawn by criticism. In fact, Christians also light fire in their churches in front of images of God, the Savior and saints, have a kind of unquenchable lamps, and yet no one from here thinks or has the right to conclude that the object of Christian worship is the sun or fire. From all that has been said, it clearly follows that El, Elohim and Jehovah are only different names denoting one and the same God, just as in our language there are different names for denoting God - Lord, Most High, Almighty, Eternal, Master, etc. To establish that each of these words expresses a separate deity in the Bible, it would be necessary to prove that each of them is a being different in its attributes, in its special functions and special cults. Among the pagan Semites, each god had a special temple and special priests; Each city had its own special god. The Jews themselves, when they indulged in idolatry, also had special churches and special priests for their idols, whom the author of the book of Kings, to express his contempt and in order not to desecrate the sacred name of cohenim, that is, the priests of the true God, calls the Aramaic word kemarim. If El, Elohim and Jehovah, according to rationalistic criticism, were different gods, then let them show us where the church of Elau was, in contrast to the church of Elohim or the church of Jehovah; what were the priests who served the cult of each of them, and what were the distinctive rites of each of these cults; which city of Palestine idolized El or Elohim and which worshiped Jehovah. This question is very important, but criticism has not even tried to examine it. In all mythologies, the gods differ from each other precisely by their external features, as well as by their genealogical relationships and various properties. Why is there nothing like this in the Bible? How did even the fertile imagination of the rationalists fail to discover St. There are no traces of genealogical relationships in the Scriptures, no special feature distinguishing El from Elohim or Jehovah, such as. Do Jupiter differ from Juno, Apollo from Mercury, Heaven from Melitta, Baal from Astarte? The reason for this is clear, and it is that we have Assyrian and Canaanite mythology, but there is no Jewish mythology. One wedge-shaped inscription is enough to find out what properties the individual gods of Nineveh differed from each other. Thus, on the sculpted oxen of Khorsabad we read “Samas (Sun) gives me luck in my intentions; Bean brings me abundance; Bel-El forms the basis of my city; Militta-Taut rubs ointment on her chest; Oannes contributes to the labors of my hand; Istara leads people into battle; Salman presides over marriages; the mistress of the gods (Belita) helps women in labor...; Assur lengthens the years of the kings he installed, protects the troops of the city walls; Ninip, who laid the first stone, strengthens the walls until the most distant times" 592. That's how many separate gods with completely different properties we find in ten lines of wedge-shaped inscriptions, and at the same time there is nothing similar in the entire Bible. In Assurbanipal's library, countless mythological fragments, genealogies of gods, and tiles were discovered that list the deities worshiped in every city of Assyria and Babylonia. There is nothing like it in the entire collection of sacred books; there are no traces of mythological genealogy there either. The Hebrew language did not even have a special word for the goddess, so the Jews had to also call the goddess Ashtoreth Elohim. There is not a single divine trait in the sacred books that is not applied indifferently to Elohim or Jehovah. The Hebraists, who wanted at all costs to discover even the shadow of a difference in the use of these two synonyms, with great difficulty, with the most careful and subtle analysis, could only declare that God is called Elohim when the sacred text depicts Him as the God of the universe in general, and is called Jehovah when He is considered as the God of Israel in particular, and despite this, they were forced to admit that this general rule, which in essence says nothing in favor of rationalism, suffers from numerous exceptions 593 . “Elohim and Jehovah,” says the rationalist Furst, “are indifferently used one instead of the other, both in prose and in poetry, without any difference in meaning.”594 You only have to open the Bible to see this. “Know,” Moses says to his people, “that the Lord (Jehovah) your God (Elohim) is God (Elohim), the faithful God (El”) 595. “The God of gods is the Lord” (El Elohim Jehovah), says the sons of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh (repeating twice “El Elohim Jehovah”), He knows (knows in the singular), and let Israel know” - with which formula they solemnly confirmed the truth of their oath” 596. After this, one can no longer wish for a more decisive proof of the identity of these three divine names during the exodus from Egypt, since this expression is found in one of the most ancient books of the Bible. Many similar quotes could be given. But to finish this matter, we will quote the following beautiful passages from the psalmist: “Keep me safe, O God (El), for I trust in You. I said to the Lord (Jehovah): You are my Lord (Adonai). I will go to the altar of God (Elohim), to God (El) of my joy and gladness And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God (Elohim, my Elohim). Arise, Lord (Jehovah), my God (El), Lift up Your hand, do not forget Your oppressed to the end. Why does the wicked despise God (Elohim), Saying in your heart: Will you not seek it?” 597. Notwithstanding such clear evidence of the primitive existence of monotheism among the chosen people, - a monotheism which found such a solemn proclamation in the legislation of Sinai, rationalistic criticism continues to defend its position regarding the original polytheism of the Jews, and to confirm its idea, it adduces various evidence in favor of the fact that monotheism is of later origin and is only an innovation of the prophets. This is precisely the opinion of the majority of the newest rationalists. The famous Dutch scholar Thiele, considering it completely proven that the Israelites were originally polytheists, says: “Meanwhile, thanks especially to the activities of the prophetic schools, strict Jabism (that is, the religion of Jehovah) unconsciously and imperceptibly assimilated several elements of the native religion (Canaanite) and brought them into harmony with its spirit and with its desires. This is especially noticeable in cosmogony, in stories about paradise, the flood, etc. Likewise, the image of the terrible God of the desert, Javeh, little by little began to borrow various features from the beneficent Baal, the god of blessing and abundance. In this way, the idea of ​​the first, without losing its original character, was noticeably softened. From that time on, there was no need to supplement his cult with the idolization of the Canaanite god of agriculture. Jaweh was now sufficiently like Baal that he alone could meet the needs of a civilized and sedentary population.” What was said in the previous chapter has already proven in advance how much falseness lies in such provisions. The prophets had no business creating monotheism when it already existed before them. We will not return to this fact, which has already been previously proven, and will limit ourselves only to the observation that the belief in the unity of God is so little the work of the prophets that all the texts that have already been cited above to prove the faith of the Israeli people in one God were extracted not from prophetic books, but from historical books, most of which are older than the era of kings and prophets. So arbitrary and contrary to all truth are the inventions of unbelieving rationalism! It is no less false to portray Baal as a beneficent god in contrast to Jehovah, who is depicted with the features of some terrible God. Baal was a god whom his priests revered by inflicting bloody wounds on themselves and offering him human sacrifices 598. As for the true God, is it even necessary to remind that one of His properties is justice, and another is mercy 599. How can Jehovah be portrayed solely as a terrible God, when the sacred text a hundred times depicts Him as the deliverer of His people from the slavery of Egypt, leading them to a fertile and happy land flowing with milk and honey, loving His children and demanding love from them, carrying them on his wings, just as an eagle carries its children? Isn’t this the God who created heaven and earth and then blessed the work of His hands—the God of abundance and blessing! How can one attribute these properties to Baal and take them away from the true God? Not a single pagan deity, no matter what name it was called, was ever understood by its idolizers as a father, filled with love and tenderness for people; the Israelites alone revered Jehovah as their Creator in the strictest sense of the word; only they alone considered themselves true creatures, created in His image and likeness. Finally, it is no less false that the Israelites ascribed to their God the character of Baal and that this was supposed to be the origin of monotheism. The sons of Jacob were so far from identifying the Canaanite god with their own God that at the time to which this merger is attributed, history shows them as unfaithful to Jehovah, having betrayed whom they committed idolatry to Baal. Even Thiele is forced to admit this, despite the contradiction into which he falls into this. “This gradual modification of the idea of ​​deity,” he says, “opened the way for the reforming activity of the great prophets, who, beginning in the eighth century B.C., began to insist on the exclusive worship of Jehovah. To achieve this goal, they rebelled not only against the god of fire, usually called by the Israelites only Moloch, to whom in the Assyrian period, undoubtedly following the example of their neighbors, they sacrificed their children and people in general, but also against the honors given to the native Baal, and even against the positively national cult of the sun, moon and stars, to which many Israelites still remained faithful. From this passage it appears that the God of Israel was no more mingled with Baal than with Molech, the sun, the moon, and the stars, to whom the idolatrous Israelites, during the period of the kings, as before, often performed sacrilegious worship. Therefore, the combination between the false god and the true God is completely imaginary. Thiele also admits this somewhat reluctantly, saying that after the captivity the Jews no longer worshiped either Baal or Molech. However, it was not in this era, according to him, that monotheism became the finally established religion of the Israeli people. “The prophets, he says, were not only teachers of their people, but also interpreters of what was happening in the depths of the soul of the people. Monotheism, which was the last and most unique fruit of prophetic preaching, grew slowly before the Babylonian captivity and always remained unconditionally national. From the concept of Jehovah's supremacy over the other gods of the land came the idea of ​​His unconditional dominion over Israel. The first prophets of reformed mosaicism did not significantly depart from this point of view. Even the book of Deuteronomy, written certainly in their spirit, still ascribes to each nation its own special god, while Israel took the Almighty for themselves. Jeremiah the first and after him the Babylonian Isaiah, with even greater energy and inspiration, express the idea that Javeh is the eternal God, next to whom there are no others and in comparison with whom other gods are nothing more than vanity” 601. Thus, according to Tila and scholars belonging to the same school, Jehovah was at first a national God, existing alongside foreign gods. Little by little, thanks to the prophets, this national God came to the fore; all other gods were considered inferior to Him in power, until, with the further development accomplished by the last prophets, they were brought down and overthrown from their altars; and only then was Jehovah declared to be the one God, and all others fell into insignificance before him. Meanwhile, even after such a decisive step, the concept of deity has not yet reached its full development. “The pantheistic monotheism of the Aryans, which considers all deities to be simple names of the one, infinite, embracing everything, remained alien to them,” Thiele continues; and even the most famous of them could not rise to the universal monotheism of the Gospel, which completely destroyed the limits of nationality in religion. The great significance of the preaching of the prophets lies in their moral character and in the pure, sublime idea that they gave regarding their Java. But even this concept of deity is not yet complete, and their universalism remains not alien to particularism. What they opposed to the religions of foreign peoples was not yet a universal religion, but only their own national religion, and they expected that everyone would turn to it and recognize the one supremacy of their national God. To this it must be said that, according to the prophets, all nations recognize not just the supremacy of Jehovah, but His Divine unity. They will honor Him not as the national God of the Jews, but as the only God, Creator of heaven and earth. Christianity did not at all change the character of the Deity to whom the people of Abraham worshiped; Jesus Christ revealed to us truths that we did not know, but He Himself said that He did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). The same goes for the prophets, who did not appear at all in order to change the concept of their ancestors regarding Jehovah. They by no means created a beneficent God in the image of Baal and did not attribute to the national deity a supremacy that their ancestors allegedly did not know. In order to substantiate these false positions, Thiele inverts the entire chronology of Jewish literature: he attributes, in accordance with the rationalist school, the composition of Deuteronomy to a very late time; the second part of Isaiah is attributed to a prophet who lived during the Babylonian captivity; but, despite all these anachronisms, he can draw his conclusions only when he pays absolutely no attention to the facts standing in his way. To overthrow the enemies of the Bible, it is enough to cite at least one passage from the prophets where the ideas attributed to them are formally expressed. Sacred writers never present their theology as completely new; on the contrary, they constantly declare that what they preach is faith in the God of their fathers, in the God of Jacob, as Isaiah calls Him in his second chapter, the authenticity of which no one disputes; as Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, calls Him, and so the psalmists call Him 602. The prophets not only do not think of introducing anything new, but, on the contrary, want to preserve the old religion. The Israelites had both true and false prophets; both were constantly in conflict with each other; but their disputes always concern the events they proclaim or the false deities that supposedly inspired them; and at the same time they never had any disputes about the essence of the true God or about the way of understanding Him. It is true that the prophets sometimes call false gods the gods of the nations and call Jehovah their God, the God of Israel. But to suppose from this that the Israelites and the prophets themselves considered Jehovah to be only a national God is to abuse these expressions and give them a meaning which they really do not have. Is God now for us a separate and national God, next to whom other gods exist, only on the basis that we appeal to Him as our God, and talk about the gods of the pagans, Greeks and Romans? We, of course, do not at all think by this to attribute to Jupiter or Apollo even the slightest divine character and simply conform our speech to everyday life. The Israelites did exactly the same thing: they gave Baal the name of the god of Canaan, because the Canaanites considered him that way; they called Jehovah the God of Israel, because Israel only revered Him as God. Consequently, there is not the slightest right to classify them as polytheists, just as there is not the slightest right to consider ourselves polytheists, although we use completely similar figures of speech. When the sacred books, not from the relative and historical point of view, but from the absolute and metaphysical point of view, talk about what God is, they express themselves in a completely different way; they represent Him not only as the adored Lord of Israel, but as the supreme Ruler of heaven and earth. It was He who created everything that exists, and, therefore, there is nothing divine except Him, and the idols that lost people reverence as deities are nothing more than creatures. The first line of the Bible is an excellent confession of faith for the monotheist and is the key to everything holy. Scripture. She does not express this great truth in any abstract way, but by proclaiming it in the simplest and most definite words, she makes this fundamental doctrine accessible to the understanding of all: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That says it all; no philosopher, no ancient people, or even a new one, has invented formulas and expressions that would be equal to these. Here the existence of any secondary god is denied along with the One who alone, without any outside help, in a single word, that is, by His will, created everything that exists. Thus, the very first verse of the Bible proclaims faith in one God, and everything that rationalists put forward against this cannot stand against the sacred texts. It should also be noted that rationalists in their system do not at all explain the origin of belief in one God. It is known where it comes from. It has its own special character, is not at all similar to the pantheistic monotheism of the Aryans, and, despite this, rationalistic criticism does not indicate any satisfactory reason for explaining all these phenomena. All that criticism can say in this regard is that in the 8th century BC a law ascribed to Moses suddenly appears, which, instead of being older than the prophets, turns out to be their work or later than them, and the whole people accept this fiction. “This prophetic movement,” says rationalism through the mouth of Thiele, “gave birth to a religious sect or sub-legal religion, the foundations of which had already been laid before the captivity of Babylon by the law concocted in the reign of Josiah, during and after the captivity by Ezekiel and the priest-legislators, and which was organized mainly by Ezra, in the form of a priestly state. From the mosaicism of the prophets Judaism emerged” 603. In response to this, it is enough to quote the words of a modern theologian who has carefully studied the theory of the newest rationalist school. “Let us examine,” says Abbé Broglie, “the new history of Israel, summarized in this formula: the prophets are the authors of the religion of Israel, the law came after the prophets. What is the essence of this theory? She suggests that before the prophets there was no religious law. In this case, having no law, the people of Israel had to follow the customs of neighboring peoples and should have been pagan... In this pagan country, suddenly, for some unknown reason, prophets appear, proclaiming the purest and most sublime monotheism. Even more strange is that these prophets, speaking in the name of the one God, Jehovah, and proclaiming Him the Creator of the World, are listened to by these pagan people and revered as special exponents of the divine will. The teaching of these prophets also has a very striking character - it is dogmatic and moral and never has a liturgical character: they consider it not rituals, but the disposition of the heart, that is pleasing to the Almighty. This is precisely what emerges from their authentic works, and this is not denied even by the writers of the school in question. But in the time of Hezekiah a new miracle appears. From the depths of this primitive foundation of pagan religion, on which the moral, and not the liturgical teaching of the prophets, lay as a layer, a new cult arises - the narrowest liturgical monotheism, which is characterized by the absence of any image and the unity of its sanctuary. This system thus consists of a twofold spontaneous production: the work of the monotheistic prophets among a pagan people, and the work of the liturgists who emerged from the prophetic school, in which liturgical doctrine had no significance. If we compare this newly invented story in Germany with our old biblical history, with that which admits that monotheism and worship without images both originate from Moses; that the prophets and priests from the tribe of Aaron constitute two rows of representatives of the same teaching of the same faith in one God, and that the combined activity of these two classes of figures, partly separated during the division of the Israelite people, produced precisely the religious reform of Hezekiah, then every sane and conscientious person will undoubtedly say that verisimilitude is on the side of the old history, that is, on the side of that for which tradition and written monuments speak. What then remains in favor of the opposite opinion? Absolutely nothing, except for one thing: namely, the authority of several of the newest German scientists. But in our eyes this authority has no significance in the present case - first of all, because the question of the relative antiquity of the law of Moses and the prophets concerns such great and obvious facts that here one must rather be guided by common sense than by petty erudition, and secondly because, on biblical soil, rationalistic critics deserve little faith, since any contact with supernatural objects produces in them something like vertigo, manifested in such unreasonable hypotheses that no one would ever accept them if it were a matter of simple civil history" 604. Chapter 49. Human sacrifices and kedeshim Rationalism, not limiting itself to relegating the general religious view of the chosen people to the level of pagan religions, tries to find in the Bible individual traces of ancient paganism with its most characteristic institutions. And this rationalism, unfortunately, is already penetrating into the pages of general history courses. Thus, in the famous “History of the Ancient World” by Max Duncker we read: “we know that Jehovah was called upon on the heights and on the mountains; that He manifested Himself in thunder, lightning, and earthquakes; that He Himself appeared in flaming clouds and in fire; that He was a jealous and terrible God, whose very sight struck with death. Since He hated all productivity, everything that came out of the mother’s womb for the first time, according to the ancient concept, belonged to Him: the first fruits, everything firstborn from animals and from a woman. This right of God, the substitution of the Levites in the place of the firstborn, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac undoubtedly prove that the Jews in general had human sacrifices... Jephthah condemns his daughter to a burnt offering and sacrifices her... Samuel slays Agag before Jehovah at Gilgal. The Gibeonites say: “Let the seven sons (of Saul) be given to us, so that we may hang them before Jehovah in Gibeah. And they hanged them on the mountain before Jehovah.” Jehovah, it is true, does not establish human sacrifices like the sacrifices of the tribes of the same race, the Ammonites and Moabites, or the sacrifices of the Canaanites, but He orders the ransoming of the firstborn by a certain sacrifice. Circumcision also appears to have been a substitute for the blood sacrifice intended to ransom the life of every male child." 605 These words contain everything that can be given to prove that the existence of human sacrifices in honor of Jehovah was an undoubted fact and continued until the time of Josiah, perhaps even until the return from the captivity of Babylon. But such positivity at the same time shows to what extent the latest criticism is blinded by preconceived opinions and, contrary to the undoubted and obvious statements of sacred documents, affirms what only corresponds to these opinions. True, Duncker had enough impartiality to remember and take into account, when proclaiming his bold provisions, the law of the book of Leviticus, which prohibits, on pain of death, the making of human sacrifices 606, but subsequent critics have completely overlooked such an insignificant, in their opinion, circumstance, and shamelessly support the stated provisions. That among the Israelites there were sufficiently inhuman or wicked people to sacrifice their children to Molech is also testified to by St. Scripture. Human sacrifice was one of the greatest crimes of the Canaanite peoples, one of those for which God condemned them to destruction (Deut. 18:10 and 12). Not all Israelis knew how to avoid being infected by this bad example; many also became guilty of a double crime against nature and against the manifest will of God; but in any case, they did not make these monstrous sacrifices to Jehovah, and thus it is not the religion of the people of God that should be blamed. Sacred history presents us with only one example where Jehovah demands a person as a sacrifice, that is, when He precisely wanted to test Abraham and thereby prove his obedience and his faith. This expression “test” (nissa), used by the writer of life (Gen. 22:1), alone is sufficient to prove how the author of the book of Genesis treated human sacrifices. The subsequent narrative likewise shows that this barbaric custom was completely condemned by God. The sacrifice of Isaac is not a human sacrifice, since at this time man was not actually slain, and heaven itself opposed this sacrifice; it was only an edifying confirmation for Abraham and his descendants of the teaching, which in the time of Moses became a formal law, prohibiting the shedding of human blood in honor not only of Jehovah (the legislator does not even imagine the possibility of such a thought appearing in the soul of his people), but even in honor of Moloch, a foreign god. The very expressions used in Deuteronomy show that the Israelites considered human sacrifice not a national custom, but a foreign custom. If the Israelites were guilty of such a crime, 607 then St. Scripture could not then point to him as the reason for the rejection of these nations, expelled in favor of the Israelites. As for the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter by his father, then, as will be shown below, this fact, upon closer examination, may be subject to a completely different explanation, namely in the sense of a simple dedication of the daughter to the service of God in virginity, as most of the most serious interpreters of the present time are inclined to do. But even apart from this, such a case, as an isolated one, would not at all speak in favor of the existence of such a custom in general, since Jephthah himself, as a man who came from a low moral environment and spent most of his life in the wild steppes among idolatrous peoples, could naturally be infected with their own religious views, and thus, out of falsely understood religious zeal, could perform a sacrifice prohibited by law; but then this sacrifice, as arising from a rash vow, in itself loses all evidentiary force. The criticism then points to Samuel's slaughter of Agag to Jehovah; but to explain this circumstance, it is necessary to delve into the very authenticity of the expression, which says not “Jehovah,” but “before Jehovah,” which means that God, whose punishing hand nothing escapes, was a witness to this execution of the predatory king. It is enough to read the fifteenth chapter and the Book of Kings to be convinced that the death of Agag was a political measure and not a religious sacrifice. Samuel commanded Saul to undertake a war of extermination against the Amalekites and not to spare anyone’s life. The King of Israel actually exterminated the entire defeated people with the edge of the sword, but, carried away by a feeling of greed, he left for himself as booty all the best of the herds, household goods, clothing, and saved the life of the leader of the enemies. Such an act was so displeasing to the Lord that He rejected Saul. And so, in order to make amends for the act of disobedience of this king, the prophet put the king of the Amalekites to death. Only a person little acquainted with the customs of the Jews can imagine that an idolater could be considered a sacrifice worthy of being offered to Jehovah, since the law strictly forbade offering a sacrifice that was not pure and unblemished. The Canaanites themselves were so imbued with the idea that only an innocent victim could be pleasing to the deity, that they chose children as the subject of their barbaric sacrifices. Finally, with regard to the third reference to the Gibeonites, it is also known to everyone that they, not out of religious jealousy, but out of their own vengeance, sought the death of seven members of the family of Saul, whom they considered responsible for the unfair treatment of this king towards them. One must already feel a complete lack of proper arguments in order to turn criminals, or at least those considered such, into human victims, execution into sacrifice, and the scaffold into an altar. But what does the dedication of the firstborn to Jehovah mean, the critic asks, what is circumcision in general, if not a modification of these human sacrifices, which inevitably took place as a result of the ennoblement of morals? Circumcision, established before the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, even before the sacrifice of Isaac, who was taken to Mount Moriah for slaughter only several years after circumcision, cannot at all be considered a modification of human sacrifices. Holy Scripture directly defines its meaning in the very narrative of its establishment: “This is My covenant, which you must keep between Me and you, and between your descendants after you (in their generations); Let all your males be circumcised. Circumcise your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Gen. 17:10, 11). The dedication of the firstborn to the Lord is by no means a remembrance of human sacrifices, as is again clear from the law itself: “You shall ransom every firstborn of man from your sons,” says the law. “And when your son asks you afterwards, saying, “What is this?” Then say to him: With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. For when Pharaoh persisted in letting us go, the Lord put to death all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of cattle: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that opens the womb, male, and I ransom every firstborn of my sons” (Ex. 13:13–15). Not content with such obvious inconsistencies with the historical circumstances of the matter, criticism tries to find traces of human sacrifices even in the prophets, and one recent critic allegedly discovered in the prophet Isaiah new evidence of the existence of such sacrifices in honor of Jehovah. But if he, apparently, had not counted on the general unfamiliarity with the Semitic language on the part of the readers of the magazine where he published his critical articles, then in any case he would have presented a rare example of the frivolity with which criticism allows itself to treat the sacred text. “During the entire period of the monarchy,” says Suri, “human sacrifice took place in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, especially in the valley of Ginnom, near Jerusalem, south of Mount Zion. There was the famous tophet, a special kind of firehouse, the fire in which was constantly maintained by the priests. Here are a few words of the prophet Isaiah, on which we can dwell with the special attention they deserve, since they, in my opinion, do not leave any doubt regarding the essence of the tophet: “for the tophet was built long ago; it is prepared for Moloch, deep and wide; in its fire there is a lot of fire and wood; the breath of Jehovah burns like a stream of sulfur" (Ex. 30:33). they threw their firstborn to Jave, the sacrificial flame, devoured these offerings" 608. It is difficult to collect in a few words more nonsense than there is in the given place. So, first of all, the word “tophet” used by Isaiah does not mean that part of the valley of Ginnom, which was called Tophet; this is only a figurative expression for the place where the corpses were burned. 609, like all the best Hebraists in Germany without exception. Then, the second nonsense: the prophet Isaiah is not talking about Moloch, but about the king of Assyria, which, obviously, is a completely different matter. All modern interpreters agree in this regard. The critic changed the Masaret text of the Bible, which does not speak about Moloch, which would not make sense in this place, but about Melek, that is, the (Assyrian) king Sennacherib. Then, the critic translates the last part of the text: “the breath of Jehovah burns like a stream of sulfur”; meanwhile, in reality the text reads: “the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, will kindle it” (bonfire). The critic gave the verb baar the meaning of burning, whereas it means here “to light”, “to embrace”, and at the same time forgot or deliberately left out the complement of this verb (b a), namely the pronoun that stands instead of “bonfire” and prevents giving this place the meaning that is attributed to it. Finally, regardless of these obvious absurdities in detail, the entire translation, in its entirety, is an absurdity, since the prophet does not speak at all about human sacrifices, but about the burning of corpses. One of the most elementary, simplest and indisputable rules of criticism requires determining the meaning of sayings by context or by preceding and subsequent sayings. Meanwhile, this newest critic, both here and in many other places, has completely forgotten this rule. Otherwise, he would not have fallen into these enormous absurdities, because this thirtieth chapter of the book of St. Isaiah is so clear in itself that there cannot be two different interpretations regarding it. The Prophet condemns in it the Jews, who placed their hope in Egypt and counted on it for protection against the Assyrians. But it is not people, but Jehovah himself who will deliver them from these enemies. “And the Lord will roar with His majestic voice, and will reveal His trembling arm in great wrath and in the flames of consuming fire, in a storm and a flood, and in a hail of stones. For at the voice of the Lord Assyrian, smitten with the rod, will tremble. For the tophet (place for burning corpses) had long been established (for burning the corpses of killed Assyrian warriors); it is prepared for the king (Sennacherib), deep and wide; there is a lot of fire and wood in its fire; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, will kindle it” (Ex. 30:30–33). From this we can see how unfounded is the position of rationalistic criticism when it tries to reduce the religion of the chosen people to the same level as the religions of other pagan peoples. But prejudice is higher than all reason, and criticism not only does not consider itself obliged to take into account indisputable data that goes against its preconceived opinions, but, on the contrary, seeks other data in order to reduce the religion of Jehovah to the level of ugly pagan cults in other respects. Thus, not content with accusing the religion of Jehovah of involvement in human sacrifice, criticism (fortunately, in the person of its least competent representatives) throws in the face of this religion an even more vile and disgusting accusation, as if it was also involved in the outrageous cult of debauchery, which was a feature of the idolatry of the Canaanite peoples. “After human sacrifice,” says the rationalist writer, “religious prostitution was an essential feature of the primitive religion of the children of Israel. The fornicators were of both sexes. Men were called kedeshim, women kedeshot, that is, initiates who took a vow. The Book of Deuteronomy testifies that both brought the proceeds of their debauchery to the treasury of the church of Javeh. This was precisely what partially paid for the expenses of the cult in Jerusalem, as well as in Byblos and Paphos” 610. This, according to rationalist criticism, is the God who destroyed Sodom to punish these unnatural vices: He supposedly received worship from his fans through the very crimes that were committed in Sodom! The critic asserts that this constitutes an essential feature of the original religion of Israel, and in proof of this he even cites the evidence of a book, which, in his opinion, was written only in the reign of Josiah, that is, almost a thousand years after Moses, and which says everything exactly contrary to what is attributed to it. Let's open for example. the book of Deuteronomy, and we read the following: “There shall not be a harlot among the daughters of Israel, and there shall not be a fornicator among the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God by any vow, for both are an abomination to the Lord your God.” (Deut. 23:17, 18) And the book in which such a passage is found supposedly proves, according to critics, that the kedeshim and kedeshot (fornicators and harlots) brought the proceeds from their fornication into the treasury of the church of Jabe, that they were received there, and that, as if with the help of these offerings, the expenses of the cult in Jerusalem were partly paid, as was the case in the church of Venus in Paphos! The cited critic obviously acts as a historian would do, who, in order to depict the morals and customs of a certain people, would leaf through the code of laws on punishments and would attribute to it all the crimes that he would find prohibited there. No legislation was as strict against prostitution as the legislation of Moses. While the newest laws tolerate it, the law of Moses certainly forbade it to the daughters of the Israelites, and if not in letter, then in spirit - and to all others, both natives and foreigners. He carried his severity in this regard to the point that he condemned to burning the daughter of a priest who violated the rules of modesty 611. That these strict regulations were not always observed, this, of course, should not be a matter of special surprise, especially among us. There was a time when the church of God was desecrated by the temporary triumph of idolatry, which brought the kedeshim into the houses adjacent to the temple in Jerusalem. King Josiah destroyed these dwellings. Similar ill-fated periods of triumphant wickedness are known in modern times. At the end of the last century, a shameful courtesan, as we know, sat on the throne of Notre Dame of Paris, and even very recently in some states of Christian Europe one can hear the most terrible blasphemies against true religion and God. But these follies dishonor only their perpetrators. The religion of Jehovah was no more tainted by the abominations of the Qedeshim, than Christianity by the blasphemous saturnalia of some commune. To give some credit to his more than risky assurances, the critic assures that “never has the human race had a more voluptuous temperament,” and as proof of this he cites the testimony of Tacitus, who calls the Jews “the most devoted people to fornication,” 612 and the depiction of a Jewish woman, imitating in this regard the most shameless writers, whose dirty frankness is known to everyone. This image, where the oriental dancer is elevated to the type of all Israeli women, is as false as it is indecent. If the laws of Moses failed to protect the morals of the people from the invasion of corruption, then they at least achieved that the Israelite people were among all the Asian peoples those who could best avoid corruption. Most historians even admit that the courtesans of Palestine were not natives of the country itself at all, and many see proof of this in the name often given to them nokria, “foreigner” 613. But, be that as it may, even if the Jews and Jewish women were exactly as critics portray them, does it follow that they performed a religious act in honor of Jehovah out of satisfaction of their passions? We know that the sons of Israel did not always know how to control their hearts, we know that in the desert many of them could not resist the temptations of the cult of Baal-Peor; but we also know that Moses, in order to intimidate all those who might feel tempted to imitate them, later mercilessly put the guilty to death. And religion is only responsible for what it decrees. The original religion of Israel, instead of approving licentiousness, formally and strictly forbids it. We have seen in what a strange way the critic turns the prohibition of the law into a proof of his position. The other arguments he gives do no more credit to his resourcefulness. “Such sacrifices,” he says, “were generally offered on the high places, and the tents of religious harlots were usually pitched next to the head of Baal or Jabe and the symbol of Asherah.” There is an obvious lie here: not one of the texts 614 cited by the author to prove his position, not a single text in the Bible at all, says that the tents of harlots should be placed next to the head of Jave or in general in honor of Jehovah; Not a single text proves the commission of shamelessness of the Canaanite cult; on the contrary, all of them formally condemn them. But the critic continues: “The Bible calls the holiday of religious fornication Sukot Benot, that is, the tent of the maidens. The case is obviously about the Babylonian festival of the Sakei. The opinion of Mowers, who equates this name with the name of one of the greatest holidays of the Jewish year, namely the Feast of Tabernacles, has now gained predominance in science. Let us add that in Palestine there was even a city, the name of which, obviously, comes from sukkot - tent. The critic no doubt hoped that no one would delve into the basis of this argument, otherwise he would hardly have dared to write it. This entire argument is a distorted presentation of Lenormand's treatise on Berose, made in order to confirm a preconceived opinion. In fact, the learned historian does not at all give the right to such an identification of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles with the Babylonian Feast of the Sacaeans, and on the contrary, Lenormand directly says that the Feast of Tabernacles in the Law of Moses was a holiday dedicated to the true God in gratitude for a good harvest” 615. This fact sufficiently shows what dishonest means rationalistic criticism sometimes uses just to cast a shadow of doubt on the religion of Jehovah! 616 After all that has been said, we can draw a general conclusion. The original religion of Israel, its true religion at all times, was monotheism. The service of Jehovah was never polluted by Canaanite cruelties or Babylonian abominations. For several centuries, the people of God were the guardians and bearers of faith in the unity of God, since this people were, as it were, a preacher and apostle of the true faith among the pagan peoples. He fulfilled his mission, not by the greatness of his genius, not by the progressive development of his ideas or his institutions, but by the grace of God, notwithstanding his polytheistic tendencies. Its entire history bears the visible imprint of the activities of Providence. This is precisely the majestic conclusion that emerges from everything that we have said so far. Left to its own devices, the family of Abraham would have quickly plunged into the abyss of idolatry; now it would hardly have been known even to inveterate scholars, who would have sought to resolve the question of what it was, as they seek to resolve the question of what were the Sumirians, Akkadians, Hittites, Rotenna and many other tribes, whose names are now revealed on the monuments of Egypt and Assyria. The Lord, who leads the human race according to the intentions of His mercy, did not want the same to happen to His chosen people, and treated them as His beloved son. Never did a father raise his son with more tenderness, never surround him with more care and thrift, like God did for His chosen people. He first brought Abraham out of Mesopotamia to preserve his faith. He made him live, like his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob, in Palestine, which was to become a land of monotheism when Israel grew into a strong nation. But the family of Abraham lived there only as long as was necessary in order to deeply imprint in the memory of their future family the idea that this promised land was his inherited land, which he would one day conquer and take possession of. Inclined to idolatry, while still living in small numbers among a people who spoke the same language, had the same customs, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who of necessity had to marry Canaanite women, which their fathers still avoided, would soon disappear among the masses, extinguish the flame of faith in their hearts and accept the cult of the Canaanites, from whom they differed only in religion. In order to prevent this disaster, when the Israelites were sufficiently imbued with the idea that they would eventually become the owners of Palestine, God removed them from here and then brought them here again when the family of Jacob became a large people capable of living there independently and independently. In anticipation of this, Providence forced all these people to move to Egypt, i.e. to a country where he was forced to live alienated from others, because he was an object of disgust for the natives, had as his patrons the hated conquerors of the country and had nothing in common with the Egyptians either in language, or in morals, or in customs. There he was not tempted to abandon his own religion and exchange it for the religion of Mizraim: no, he felt there in relation to the cult of the Egyptian gods all the disgust that a mistreated slave feels towards his cruel master, an oppressed slave towards his oppressor. The more alien he became to his persecutors, the more attached he became to the God of his fathers. True, from the history of his liberation we see that slavery weakened the spirit of the once so brave sons of Jacob. But we do not discover the slightest trace of opposition to the instructions of Moses regarding the religion of Jehovah. Only after the exit from Egypt did idolatry manifest itself in the worship of the golden calf. Until this time the mass of the people remained faithful, and the cases of polytheism pointed out by the prophets were only the exception. When the people became capable of independently occupying the land of Canaan, when a new courageous generation appeared, brought up amid trials in the barren desert and the harsh life spent in it, then this bearer of monotheism took possession of the holy land, from which he had to emerge no earlier than the moment when he had to carry out a new mission, in the era of the Babylonian captivity and the founding of Christianity. Heaven itself, apparently, created Palestine in order to deposit there the treasures of primitive revelation. Take a look at the map of the world known to the ancients, and you will see that the Promised Land was geographically its center, heart, or, as they said at that time, the navel of the earth 617. Delve into the peculiarities of the location of this country, and you will notice that located in some way at the point of contact of three parts of the ancient world - at the point through which all the great trade routes ran that led to Phenicia, which was then the worldwide storage place for the goods and industry of all peoples, it was at the same time, by the very nature and characteristics of its soil, deprived of trade and industry, and as a result of international life. There was only one river and, moreover, a non-navigable one, which was lost in the Dead Sea and did not provide any way out of it. The most convenient shores of the Mediterranean Sea - the rich Shephelah plain - only later belonged to the Israelis. For a long time they had to be content with mountains and valleys, this huge collection of rocky walls, deep ruts, caves, necks and hills. The Prophet Isaiah accurately depicted his fatherland, calling it a “fenced vineyard.” This country was thus more free than any other from any foreign contact, and Israel lived there in the necessary alienation in order to preserve, without any impure admixture, the deposit of tradition entrusted to it. But when the moment came for the scattering of the precious seed of monotheism to all four corners of heaven, this alienation and separation ceased, Israel in the twinkling of an eye spread from this center to all points of the circumference. He scattered along all the great routes of communication that connected Asia with Africa and with Europe through Syria. The Babylonian captivity scattered his sons throughout the then-inhabited earth, and when the Savior of the world came and sent His apostles everywhere to preach the gospel, the apostles already found in all cities Jews who had already prepared their minds to accept the doctrine of the one God, and every synagogue where they preached the Christian gospel usually constituted the first node of the Christian community. This is God’s work, not man’s work! Only blind prejudice can deny here the guiding finger of divine Providence. Chapter 50. Immortality of the soul and afterlife Together with faith in the one true God, faith in the immortality of the soul and in the rewards and punishments expected in the afterlife for the corresponding deeds of earthly life are inextricably linked. This belief is so much the main feature of St. Scripture and is so consistent with the entire internal character of the Old Testament that until later times there was no doubt about the existence of such a faith; but in modern times, rationalist criticism has found it possible to question this belief. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to consider this subject. First of all, it should be noted that faith in the immortality of the soul is a universal faith. There is no people who do not have such a faith, and one of the most significant indicators of this belief are funeral customs. Thus, the Chaldeans apparently had a special kind of sacred place for tombs, which their piety surrounded with special reverence, because in the cities of Lower Chaldea and especially in Varka, the ancient Erech of the time of Nimrod, countless human remains are discovered. At first, researchers felt great surprise at not finding Assyrian tombs in Assyria. But later it was discovered that the necropolis of Assyria was Chaldea. The bodies of the dead were apparently floated down the Tigris and Euphrates to this latter country, as to a sacred land. The sarcophagi in which the bodies were placed were small in size: giving as little space as possible to each deceased, while, apparently, they were guided by the idea of ​​leaving room for numerous future generations. Most of the coffins are decorated. They are made of clay, not burnt, but sun-dried. Their shape is quite closely similar to the shape of a large shoe. From the outside one can see regular rows of relief decorations, between which the image of a human figure with bent legs is repeated more than once, with the right hand resting on the thigh, and the left armed with a short dagger. The upper part of the coffin has a large hole at one of its ends. This hole was closed with a flat lid, carefully sealed around the edges. The bodies of the dead buried in Chaldea were wrapped in various bandages or shrouds, as is described in the Gospel when talking about the resurrection of Lazarus. Only the arms folded on the chest and the head remained free. In each hand was a kind of war club with a round head, which no doubt represented a religious emblem, although its meaning is still unknown. To protect the tepa from rotting, they were apparently coated with earthen resin. It is worth noting that these sarcophagi often contain various jewelry, painted and carved bricks, which are, without a doubt, family monuments, lamps and especially vases, which were placed in the graves, apparently for the use of the dead in another life, since they contained various food substances. At Mughair, ancient Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, Taylor found two vases in each coffin: one still contained date stones, and the other bird bones, fish bones and other remains of food 618 . This concern for the dead and all these funeral rites clearly indicate the belief of the Assyro-Babylonians in the immortality of the soul. Although we know very little about the burial of the first Israeli patriarchs in the land of Canaan, we still know enough about them to see the importance they attached to the tombs. Abraham wanted to have a family tomb, the place for which he bought at a high price. There he buried Sarah, his wife, he was buried there himself, and his son Isaac and Rebekah, Isaac's wife, were subsequently buried there. Jacob buried his wife, Leah, there, and persistently exhorted his sons on his deathbed to bury himself there, which they did. Joseph likewise bequeathed that his body should be transferred to the Promised Land when his people took possession of it, and his descendants actually buried him also among the ancient patriarchs at Shechem. All this suggests that the branch of the Chaldean tribe, resettled from the banks of the Euphrates into Palestine, accorded to the mortal remains of their dead honors almost similar to those accorded them in their homeland, and attached to these rites the same sublime significance, confirming by them the belief in the eternal life of the soul after death. Besides these funerary customs, the account of the flood preserved by Berosus gives direct and positive evidence of the Babylonian belief in an afterlife. When, after drying the earth, Xisuthr made a sacrifice to the gods, he disappeared along with those accompanying him. Meanwhile, those who remained in the ship, not seeing his return, in turn went down to earth and began to look for him, calling him by name, but they did not find him anymore, and a voice was heard from above, telling them: “Honor the gods! Xisuthr, as a reward for his piety, was taken to live here with the gods, as were his wife, his son, and the sailor of the ship.” The wedge-shaped inscription about the flood generally confirms this narrative of Berosus and thus provides a guarantee for its deep antiquity: it shows that a person who escaped the flood received immortality from the gods. Izdubar goes to the river mouths only for this purpose - to look for it in order to learn the secret of the possibility of living forever. Gazizadra ends his story about the great flood with the words: “If Gazizadra, his wife and people are taken to become equal to the gods, then Gazizadra will live in a secret place at the mouth of the streams. They took me and placed me in a secluded place at the mouth of the streams.” These passages, it is true, do not contain a clear confession of belief in the immortality of the soul, but from them we at least see that the Chaldeans believed in the possibility of human immortality and, more importantly, considered this immortality a reward for virtue. But there are other passages that are more expressive in this regard, and especially remarkable are the hymns, the so-called prayers for the king and the legend about the descent of Istara into hell. The Assyro-Chaldean heaven is described in these hymns under various forms, as the abode of bliss, the house of life, the earth of life. The life of the blessed is depicted as pleasant: they rest on their beds, drink clean drinks in the company of their friends and their relatives. The warrior has around him the spoils that he took during the battles along with the captives, and he gives great feasts in his tent. The very story about Istara’s descent into hell presupposes the existence of an afterlife. The Aral Sea, the unchangeable land, the land of the dead among the Babylonians and Assyrians, fully corresponds to the hell of the most ancient Greek poets. The Chaldeans' belief in an afterlife is, in any case, undeniable. They believed in the home of the dead, in unchangeable lands from which there is no return, in places of darkness and darkness, where there is no other food except dust, and where souls fly like birds. To enter there, you need to lose everything. The goddess who reigns there is unforgiving, even in relation to other gods and especially in relation to Istara, the goddess of life. There is a table in the British Museum which speaks of the existence of even a god of hell, and this table begins with the words: “The abyss where the lord son of life descends, the burning passion of Istara, Lord of the habitation of the dead, Lord of the hill of the abyss." The inscription then continues with a series of comparisons depicting the desolation of the ditch that serves as the entrance to hell, the horrors of the region that the god receives, deprived of the love of the heavenly goddess 619. Despite the ambiguities associated with these and similar inscriptions, it is in any case certain that in the countries that were the cradle of the Jews, the belief in the existence of the soul after death had a firm existence. If we move from Chaldea, where Abraham was born, to the land of Egypt, where his descendants became a people, then we will enter that very country whose inhabitants, in the eyes of the ancients, were considered the first teachers of faith in the immortality of the soul 620. We do not think that the Egyptians specifically discovered this great teaching: it was not an invention of man, but a revelation of God. Nevertheless, the evidence of Greek antiquity is valuable in that it shows where exactly the Greek philosophers borrowed their ideas on this important subject. At any rate, the less ancient of the Greek philosophers themselves attributed an Eastern origin to the ideas they preached concerning the state of the soul after death. Thus, Plato, wanting to give sanction to his teaching about the afterlife, cites the story of Ger the Armenian; Socrates cites the testimony of the sorcerer Gobryas when he describes to Antiochus the state of souls in the underworld, where they descend after death. One of the Greek philosophers who, after Pherecydes, his teacher, most contributed to the development of psychology in the West, Pythagoras, according to the expressive testimony of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, borrowed his ideas about the soul from Egypt. As a result of this, it was the Egyptian doctrine of the future life that became so famous among all the peoples of antiquity. The origin of this belief was lost in the darkness of time. The recently discovered Ebers Papyrus, dating back to the 17th century BC. and apparently representing a copy of a much older document, deals, among other things, with diseases and the relations of soul and body, showing to what antiquity psychological research in the Nile Valley dates back. Everyone now knows that the Egyptians always believed in the immortality of the soul, together with the doctrine of punishments and rewards” 621. From the famous Book of the Dead, some copies of which go back to a very distant era, it can be seen that the ideas of the Egyptians about the future life are as ancient as the very existence of this people 622. This book shows, as was already partly known from the testimony of the ancients, that man after his death was brought by Horus to the judgment seat of Osiris, who sat on his throne. There, before the four geniuses of amenti, that is, the seat of the dead, the deceased had to justify himself before 42 judges of 42 types of sins. The soul had to defend its righteousness before the underground judge with such a speech: “Respect to you, lords of truth and righteousness! Respect to you, great god, master of truth and righteousness! I have come to you, oh my lord, and I present myself to you to contemplate your perfections! For it is known that I know your name and the names of these 42 deities who are with you in the chamber of truth and righteousness, living on the ruins of sinners and feeding on their blood on the day when words are weighed before Osiris the truthful. Double spirit, master of truth and righteousness, is your name. I, of course, know you, the lords of truth and righteousness; I brought you the truth, I destroyed lies through you. I have not committed any deception against people! I did not oppress the widow; I did not lie in court, I did not admit lies! I didn't do anything prohibited! I did not extort from the work supervisor daily more work than he had to do!.. I was not careless! I wasn't lazy! I wasn't weak! I was not weak! I didn't do anything that was disgusting to the gods! I did not humiliate the slave before his master! I didn't slander! I didn't make you cry! I didn't kill anyone! I did not order the murders to be carried out by deception. I did not deceive anyone! I did not take bread from the churches! I did not deprive the gods of sacrifice! I did not take food or clothing from the dead! I did not make fraudulent purchases! I didn't change the grain measures! I didn't cheat even a finger! I did not capture other people's fields! I did not make fraudulent purchases using weights on the scales! I did not take milk from the mouths of babies! I didn't hunt sacred animals in their pastures! I didn't snare sacred birds! I didn't catch sacred fish in their ponds! I didn't dam water during her time! I did not cross the branches of the water in its current! I did not extinguish the sacred fire in his hearth! I did not insult the divine circle in its chosen gifts! I did not steal oxen that belonged to the gods! I did not insult God in his procession! I'm clean! I'm clean! I'm clean!" 623. The deeds of the deceased in the afterlife were weighed on the scales of truth and recorded by Thoth, with Anubis overseeing the weighing itself. If a person led an impeccable life, he “became Osiris,” entered into bliss and lived in the fields of Aalu among the gods in constant light, on the banks of the heavenly Nile. If, on the contrary, his life was criminal, then he turned into an animal and was locked in a dark place to be punished there. These beliefs were not only written down on the Papyri, but also penetrated into morals, so that they were of very great importance and became, so to speak, tangible in life. It was impossible to walk in Egypt without seeing these scenes of judgment and weighing of souls, which were depicted on the monuments, just as it was impossible not to witness several times the offerings made in honor of the dead, those magnificent funerals, where long processions dragged on with extraordinary solemnity, in which whole masses of mourners declared their grief with the most expressive signs. No other people of antiquity imbued their entire life with the idea of ​​immortality as much as the Egyptians. Their tomb architecture was highly original and the most remarkable of their creations, because for the Egyptian the most important task of earthly life was to prepare for the hereafter. The entire religion, the entire philosophy of the ancient Egyptians is based on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the existence of posthumous retribution. The Israelites lived among the Egyptians for a long time. Hence no sane person can deny that they were unfamiliar with the ideas of the Egyptians regarding the future life. They saw, as we see, images of scenes of the future life and the funeral itself; they often heard stories about the judgment of souls; They themselves embalmed Jacob and Joseph according to the Egyptian method, and in honor of Jacob they made the same funeral processions as were usually done in honor of the great dignitaries of the Pharaoh's palace. In view of this, it is absolutely impossible to assume, as some recent researchers suggest, that the Israelis had no concept of the immortality of the soul. Having the concept of immortality, they accepted it. We absolutely do not find anywhere a refutation of this belief on their part. If they had rejected it, we would have found traces of this rejection in their sacred books. The Pentateuch formally rejects and condemns all the errors and all the reprehensible practices of the nations with which Israel came into contact. To reject everything that seemed reprehensible or dangerous was, no doubt, one of the purposes that the lawgiver of the children of Israel had in mind. Meanwhile, not a single critic can currently cite a single word from the books of Moses against the belief in the immortality of the soul, and there is absolutely nothing in the law that would give grounds to deny this belief. The great legislator of Israel was so imbued with faith in the afterlife that he did not attack this belief of the oppressors of his people, even in view of the fact that the cult of the dead, as he could not help but know, could become a source of dangerous delusion for his people. He ordered the sacrifice of animals, which the Egyptians revered as gods (Exodus 8:26; 29:1), he broke and ground into powder the golden calf, which the Israelites had made an idol for themselves, in the likeness of the Egyptians (Exodus 32:20); he destroyed three thousand people in order to show all his disgust for such Egyptian idolatry (Ex. 32:28); Moreover, he vigorously condemned the well-known funeral rites (Lev. 19:27, 28; Deut. 14:1, 26:14); he forbade, as an abomination, the calling of the dead (Deut. 18:11, 12); but at the same time, he said nothing, absolutely nothing, even in this last prohibition, either against the veneration of the dead or against the existence of an afterlife. Moreover, the honors given to the dead are even directly legitimized in several places in the Pentateuch. But even in addition to these negative conclusions, positive and direct evidence can be given in favor of the Israeli belief in the immortality of the soul. They undoubtedly had the idea of ​​immortality, since they considered death to be a punishment for the firstborn of three, and they believed that Adam and Eve would not have stopped living if they had not violated the commandments of God. Death itself, in their minds, was not the complete and complete destruction of man. After the fall, the descendants of Adam, condemned to bear the consequences of the sin of their forefather, lived here only as a place of exile in a foreign land. From the time of James and David to the apostles Peter and Paul, the same voice was constantly heard in the breasts of the people of God: “for we have no permanent city here,” says the apostle. Paul, “but we are looking for the future” 624. “Hear, O Lord, my prayer,” King David prayed, “for I am a stranger with You and a stranger, like all my fathers” (See Ps. 38:13; 119:19, 54). “The days of my wandering are one hundred and thirty years; The days of my life are small and miserable, and have not reached the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their wanderings” (Gen. 47:9). These were the words with which Jacob answered, upon his arrival in Egypt, to Pharaoh’s question about years. “He called his life a wandering on earth, because he had a consciousness of the afterlife,” Delitzsch rightly notes. “Those who say so,” notes the ap. Paul, “show that they are looking for the fatherland. And if they had in their thoughts the fatherland from which they came, they would have time to return. But they sought what was better, that is, what was heavenly” (Heb. 11:14–16). Death, according to the views of the ancient Israelites, was the end of the earthly wandering. For them, dying meant returning to their fathers, joining their people. These wonderful expressions, which can be read in all the books of the Bible and especially in the Pentateuch 625, “mean more than ordinary dedication to the earth,” says Delitzsch. “Just as the expression that the patriarchs died with busy days indicates not only satiety and dissatisfaction with the labors of this life, but also the expectation of a better life; so, in the same way, application to fathers means not only the reunification of their bodies, but also the reunification of their very personalities” 626. These expressions thus constitute a compelling proof of the Israelite belief in the immortality of the soul. They very clearly distinguish in their language death, burial and the application of the deceased to his fathers. It would be in vain to argue, as some critics try, that “to be gathered to his people,” “to return to his fathers,” means, as it were, to be buried in the same tomb or in the same place: Abraham, who “was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25: 8), was buried in Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah, while Terah, his father, died in Hebron, in Syria, and his ancestors lived and died in Chaldea. Ishmael also “was gathered to his people” (Gen. 25:17), although he was not buried in the tomb of his father, Isaac. The death of Jacob is described in this way in the book of Genesis: “And Jacob finished his testament to his sons, and laid his feet on the bed, and died, and was gathered to his people” (Gen. 49:33). When he “kissed himself before his people,” Joseph threw himself on the lifeless body of his father and covered it with kisses and tears: then the mortal remains of the patriarch were embalmed, the Egyptians mourned for 70 days, and only after these ceremonies Joseph went to bury his father in the tomb of Abraham. Jacob, therefore, venerated his people much earlier than his remains were placed next to those of his ancestors. Deprived of the promise to enter the Promised Land, Aaron died on Mount Hor and was buried there. Not a single Israeli was laid down with him, and yet it is also said about him that he “was gathered to his people” (Num. 20:24; Deut. 32:50). Moses, in turn, died on Mount Nebo, beyond the Jordan, in the country of Moab, and no one knew the place of his burial, and meanwhile he also “was gathered to his people” (Deut. 32:50; 34:6). The shadow of Samuel in Endor announces to Saul that he will be with him tomorrow (1 Samuel 28:19), while the king, killed in Aphek, was not buried next to the prophet who anointed him. It is clear, therefore, that to be "taken to the fathers" is a very different matter from being buried, and the Israelites of Moses' time believed in a place where souls were gathered after death. This seat of the souls of the ancestors, as will be shown below, was called Sheol. It was not only known by its essence, but also under this name already in the time of the patriarchs. When Jacob was told about the death of his son Joseph, he gave himself up to intense grief, and when his children wanted to console him, he answered: “I will go down to my son in the grave with sorrow” (Sheol) (Gen. 37:35). This Sheol was obviously not a simple tomb, as some of the more recent commentators and translators have suggested, because Jacob assumed that his son had been torn to pieces or devoured by a wild beast, and therefore could not hope that his bones could rest next to those of Joseph. Thus, already in the era of the patriarchs and Moses, in the Pentateuch itself, we find indisputable traces of the Israelis’ belief in the immortality of the soul. These traces are also found in other books of the Old Testament, and in confirmation of this there is enough, for example. remember the famous story of Saul, when in his despair he summoned the already deceased Samuel. This very thing, to call the dead, clearly presupposes the existence of the soul of the person called beyond the grave. Moses strictly forbade the calling of the dead as an abomination (Deut. 17:11, 12). But this superstition, based on the reality of the existence of an afterlife, was so ingrained among the people that even later prophets, such as for example. the prophet Isaiah, had to rebel against this superstition, although no doubt with little success. “And when they say to you, this prophet said: turn to the callers of the dead, and to sorcerers, and whisperers, and ventriloquists, then answer: should not the people turn to their God? Do the dead ask about the living? Turn to the law and the revelation” (Isa. 8:19). The very persistence of these superstitious customs among the Israelites at all times of their history serves as indisputable proof of their belief in an afterlife. Otherwise, it would be absurd to think that the people turned questions about their fate to creatures whose existence they did not recognize. In the book of Proverbs, the immortality of the soul is explicitly defined literally. In that part of this book, the compilation of which is generally attributed to King Solomon, it is said: “in the path of righteousness there is life, and in its path there is immortality” 627. Here the expression al mavet with undeniable clarity points precisely to immortality in its psychological meaning, as recognized by the highest, most authoritative Hebraists, even despite the rationalistic bias of their thought in other respects. But if the Israelites undoubtedly had a belief in the immortality of the soul, then what was that underworld, which, obviously, was a gathering place for souls? This place in the Bible is called, as we said, Sheol, and this name appears at least 65 times. Orientalists disagree about the origin of the word Sheol. Some derive it from saal, “to dig,” and give it the meaning of cave; others, on the contrary, derive it from saal “to demand,” in which sense it means: “an insatiable place that never ceases to demand new victims.” Some interpreters believe that in some places sheol simply means tomb. Be that as it may, all scholars, which is especially important in the present case, agree that, at least in most cases, the word Sheol does not mean the tomb, which is called in Hebrew keber, but the place where souls live after death. This opinion has been recognized at all times 628. This opinion of scientists is very clearly confirmed by a number of places that show that among the Israelites Sheol really meant the place where souls retired after death, and that in this location they did not lose consciousness and life, and, therefore, the Israelites at all times accepted the immortality of the soul and the existence of another world. Here is a description of the kingdom of the dead as represented by the sacred books. They descend to this abode at the end of their present life. It is entered, according to a poetic description found in various places, by special gates, which are also called mouths and which can expand without measure 629. This place is extremely deep, dark and gloomy, although it is naked before God. It is vast, insatiable, inexorable and inexorable 630. According to other testimonies, in Sheol there are places even more remote and deeper, designated, no doubt, for souls burdened with sins. This is what Moses in his last song calls “hell,” that is, the most distant Sheol (Deut. 32:22). All souls pass into this abode of the dead, and this gathering place is designated for all people, it is “the house of assembly of all the living” (Job 30:23; Gen. 37:36; Num. 16:30). The inhabitants of Sheol are called several times in the Bible Rephaim, a word that sometimes means a tribe of giants, but when applied to sinners apparently means weak and powerless creatures. Rephaim are devoid of some life force, but they are not devoid of all strength, nor all consciousness. The prophet Isaiah, in the majestic chapter where he predicts the fall of the king of Babylon, gives us the opportunity to penetrate into Sheol itself and thus describes the state of its inhabitants: “The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of rulers,” the prophet proclaims... “the whole earth rests (now), rests, shouts for joy... The hell of the underworld has come into motion for you, to meet you at your entrance; I awakened for you the Rephaim, all the leaders of the earth; raised up all the kings of the heathen from their thrones. They will all tell you: and you have become powerless, like us! And you became like us! Your pride has been cast into the pit, with all your noise; a worm will spread under you, and worms will cover you. How you fell from the sky, Lucifer, son of the dawn! The one who trampled the nations crashed to the ground. And I said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven above the stars of God, I will exalt my throne and sit on the mountain, in the assembly of gods, on the edge of the north; I will ascend to the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But you are cast into hell, into the depths of the underworld; those who see you look closely at you, ponder about you: is this the man who shook the earth, shook kingdoms, made the universe a desert and destroyed its cities, and did not let his captives go home? All the kings of the nations - all lie with honor, each in his own tomb; but you are cast out outside your tomb, like a despised branch, like the clothing of those who are slain, slain with the sword, who are cast into stone pits, you are like a corpse trampled underfoot” (Isaiah 14:5–19). By Sheol we generally mean that place of meeting of the dead in general, then the sojourn of the good, now the sojourn of the evil, or rather the place where all the dead descend, as Job and Moses say. Hezekiah contrasts it with the land of the living, without any distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous (Isa. 38:18–19). The psalmist also says that this is a place where every living person will be forced to retire (Ps. 89:48). But in the book of Numbers Sheol there is a chasm in which divine wrath consumed Korah and his rebellious companions (Num. 16:33). In the book of Job we read: “Drought and heat absorb snow water; So the grave (Sheol) is for sinners" 631. In the psalms and other places several times it means the abiding of the good: “You will not leave my soul in hell (sheol),” sings David, speaking on behalf of the Messiah, “and you will not allow Your holy one to see corruption” (Ps. 15:10). Based on these places, bl. Augustine and some other fathers and teachers of the church distinguished two hells before the coming of Jesus Christ: one - the upper one, where the souls of the righteous lived until the sacrament of atonement opened the gates of heaven for them, and the other - the lower one, where the wicked were thrown. In any case, it is clear that although the name Sheol is indifferently given in the Old Testament to the place of good and the place of evil, this in any case does not mean that the good and the evil were mixed together, much less that they suffered the same torment together (cf. Luke 16:26). But there is no doubt that the souls of the righteous, while in Sheol, did not receive due rewards for their services and did not enjoy bliss. That is why in some places it is said that during this stay of the dead it was impossible to glorify God 632. From all that has been said, it clearly follows that the Israelis believed in the immortality of the soul and the existence of an afterlife. “The idea,” says one scholar, “which the Old Testament gives us of the afterlife, differs less than one might at first suppose from the idea which the pagans had of hell, unless one is misled by the mythological veils which envelop it. The superiority of the Old Testament in this respect generally lies in the sobriety of its images and in the fact that it bases the existence of Sheol on monotheism. But death had not yet lost its power, and eternal life did not manifest itself in all its fullness" 633. In general, we find among peoples of the most diverse languages, customs and origins traditions that are closely connected, if we do not take into account exaggerations and diversity in color, with biblical tradition. Hesiod in his Theogony shows that all men descend to the abode of hell. Homer depicts the souls of the dead as dwelling in a dark land, in that sad place where the sun never shines and where shadows wander with sorrow. This community of ideas must come from a common source, which cannot be other than primitive revelation, since a person by himself cannot know what happens after death. Since peoples of completely different origins had similar ideas on this subject, these ideas could not be a figment of the imagination, but represent the remainder of the revelations made by God to the forefather of the human race. It must always be borne in mind that only through supernatural communication can we know in a positive way what is happening in another life, especially regarding reward and punishment, which we will now consider. Before exploring this question, it is worth noting that Christianity is not interested in the answer. At least I even had to say along with St. John Chrysostom, that the promise of a future life was not in that incomplete revelation that was made to the Israelites by Moses, and that in general in the Pentateuch no promises of an afterlife are made, promises that are clearly announced only by Christ and the Gospel, Christianity would not have suffered at all from such an answer. This would only happen if it were proven that the Israeli religion, for which Christianity serves as a complement and on which it rests, was itself based on an error, namely on the denial of the immortality of the soul. But such a statement cannot stand up to serious scrutiny even for a moment. In fact, it is quite known that in no place in the holy books is there any denial of reward for deeds in the afterlife. At the same time, it must also be borne in mind that in the most ancient books, and especially in the Pentateuch, nowhere is the teaching about rewards and punishments after death formally set forth. “The Law of Moses,” says Bossuet, gave man only a primary concept of the essence of the soul and its bliss: the secrets of the afterlife were not then publicly revealed, and only in the time of the Messiah did this great light shine openly for everyone. Only a new generation of people began to place faith in a future life as the basis of their religion” 634. It is known that one of the main features that distinguishes the Jewish religion from the Christian religion is the predominant significance that belief in heaven and hell has in the latter - a significance, traces of which we notice little in the former until the time of the Maccabees. But one must distinguish between knowledge of a certain doctrine and the influence it has on minds. Even Christian dogmas, equally recognized in all centuries, nevertheless manifested themselves differently in the lives of peoples at different times. It is indisputable that the veneration of the Ever-Virgin, for example. was recognized and existed at all times in the church, but it did not always appear under the same forms, and even now it varies in its external expression in different places and among different peoples. Therefore, it is not surprising that Moses spoke about the afterlife and the rewards in it not in the same clear language, as for example. said the ap. Paul to the disciples of Christ: “Our citizenship is in heaven. Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things” (Phil. 3:20; Col. 3:2). The sons of Jacob were not free enough from sensuality to perceive such high lessons and rise to such sublime thoughts. Whole centuries had to pass before the Redeemer found the earth sufficiently prepared to receive the divine seed and fertilize it. But by the time of His coming everything had already changed: He wanted to found a universal religion, and it had to be given a broader basis than the basis of the Jewish religion. Then it was no longer possible to associate earthly blessings only with the observance of the law, since the new church had to embrace not only the people, like the ancient one, but all the peoples of the earth. Antagonism between the members of the great universal church as peoples was inevitable. But if there inevitably had to be, so to speak, material competitions between them, a struggle for influence or for various material interests, then at least they could be directed by the same spiritual impulse towards their highest goal, the possession of heaven. It has often been argued that Moses did not speak clearly about rewards beyond the grave in order to prevent the danger of idolatry among the Israelites. This idea was strongly insisted on by such scientists as, for example. Bossuet and friend. But there were other reasons for this. Moses did not claim to have given his people a new religion: he only wanted to protect the religion of the patriarchs from all impurities, surrounding it, so to speak, with a protective fence. He strongly insisted on those points that were in danger of modification or distortion, such as. the unity of God, and did not stop at others. He was more of a civil and political legislator than a religious transformer. In his code he did not present the future life as a sanction of the law he established; It is also true what Bl. says. Augustine that “in that covenant, which is rightly called the old and given on Mount Sinai, there are no open promises except about earthly bliss”; but what's surprising about this? Who would be surprised, for example. the fact that heaven and hell are not mentioned in our civil codes? Still less did Moses compose a philosophical or theological treatise in the modern sense of the word. The ancient eastern people had no idea about a speculative book, compiled according to a correct and strict method and examining a subject from all its sides, without omitting a single one. These methods of the descendants of the Aryans were completely unknown to the sons of Shem. The author of the Pentateuch preserved the history of his people, he refuted the prevailing errors and abuses, but he found it unnecessary to talk about what was known to everyone and what everyone believed. If the Decalogue had been compiled by some peripatetic or scholastic, he would probably have put the proof of the existence of God at the head of everything. Moses, on the contrary, does not make such a statement regarding the existence of God: it was always presupposed by itself, and therefore he never formulated it. The same applies to the issue of rewards in the afterlife. He knew about them, which cannot be doubted, since he was brought up in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and the Egyptians allowed it; he believed in them, since he nowhere denied them, and although he refuted and exposed everything that seemed to him false in the opinions and beliefs of the peoples among whom his people lived, he did not consider it necessary to mention his faith in this regard, since this mention seemed completely unnecessary. The Jews at all times admitted that there were many truths that were not written down in the law, but which were preserved and passed down among them from generation to generation by oral tradition: the belief in rewards and punishments in the afterlife was among these truths. Having made these preliminary remarks, let us now indicate those traces of this truth which we find in the sacred books. The first is the story of Enoch. “Enoch,” says the sacred writer of everyday life, “walked with God; and he was no more, because God took him” (Gen. 5:24). The capture of Enoch is undoubtedly presented as a reward for his piety. The words, although very unclear, spoken by God after the flood, apparently represent the prohibition of murder and contain the threat of punishment in the afterlife: “I will exact for your blood, in which is your life; I will require it from every beast; I will also require the life of a man from the hand of a man, from the hand of his brother” (Gen. 9:5). Passing over many other passages, the meaning of which is quite clear, in support of the truth in question, we will go straight to the book of Ecclesiastes. Jewish and Christian traditions attribute the composition of Ecclesiastes to Solomon, and Reish, in a special work, proved that there is no reason to reject this ancient opinion. Here are some teachings from Ecclesiastes. In this book the immortality of the soul and the future judgment of God are subjects of mental proof, and the author presents them as a conclusion drawn from the study of the morals of the world. In other words, Ecclesiastes tries to establish and confirm through speculation a belief that already exists among the people. How can a person satisfy the irresistible need that he feels to establish a permanent harmony between his faculties? How can he follow his heart and his passions, and at the same time listen to his mind and his best instincts? Alas! the solution to this difficult problem is impossible for man here on earth. Pleasures produce satiety; often they are bad, and virtue condemns them. Virtue, in turn, does not protect against suffering and unhappiness; the wicked, apparently, are often even happier than the righteous, trampled upon by him; wickedness triumphs even before the judges. What can explain this disorder, so contrary to the goodness and truth of God? And here’s what: “I saw under the sun: a place of judgment, and there was lawlessness; there is a place of truth, but there is untruth. And I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every thing and judgment on every thing” (Eccl. 3:16, 17). Consequently, it is there, before the judgment seat of God, in the afterlife, that all the mysteries of this life will be resolved. From this thought, it is the author of Ecclesiastes who draws the general conclusion of his entire book: “know that for all this God will bring you to judgment... and the dust will return to the ground, as it was; and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Let us hear the essence of everything: fear God and keep His commandments, because this is everything for man. For God will bring every work into judgment, even every secret thing, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl. 11:11; 12:7, 13, 14) Thus, if in the Old Testament we do not yet see the sun, so to speak, in its midday brilliance, then undoubtedly we already see its dawn there. The Old Testament, of course, does not describe beatitudes that the elect have not yet enjoyed; this became possible only with the coming of Jesus Christ, who alone could open the doors of heaven and reveal all the wonders of paradise; but everything there already makes one anticipate this great event, and here, as elsewhere, the Old Testament was a preparation for the New. Finally, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is closely connected with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and this doctrine also finds clear echoes in the Old Testament books and especially in the book of Job. It is known that the book of Job aims to resolve the issue of industry. Man suffers, and moreover, the righteous suffers: how can God strike the innocent with the same disasters as he strikes the guilty? This issue is discussed in detail in the famous conversation between Job and his three friends, and during these discussions Job more than once expresses his hope that God will in any case do justice after death and that the final reward will be made after the resurrection of the body: “I know,” he says, “my Redeemer lives, And on the last day He will rise from the dust This is my disintegrating skin; And I will see God in my flesh. My eyes, not the eyes of another, will see Him." 635. The great sufferer, whom his friends accused of secret sin, knew and in a prophetic vision foresaw his avenger and his Redeemer; in it he greets the chief and author of the future life, the source of eternal reward, - the one who in due time will appear in order to restore this emaciated body, now decaying and disgusting. It was this hope that kept the sufferer’s spirits up and served as the reason for his calm. Almost all the church fathers recognized in the quoted words of Job a very clear profession of faith in the resurrection of the body, and in the first centuries of the church after persecution, pious Christians inscribed this act of faith on the tombs as an expression of their own belief. And so, let's make a general conclusion. The Israelites clearly distinguished the soul from the body; they believed in her immortality and future life; they had at least a presentiment of reward in the future life and of the resurrection of bodies. We are, of course, far from not recognizing that the idea of ​​a future life does not occupy as much space in the Old Testament in general and in the book of Job in particular as in the New Testament and Christian books. These truths were fully revealed only in Christianity. When the Savior, in one of his most beautiful parables, considered the question of the unequal and apparently unfair distribution of goods and evils in this world, he resolved it in a nutshell in the most clear and positive way: poor Lazarus, having suffered here, was carried into Abraham’s bosom; on the contrary, the wicked rich man, who enjoyed himself here on earth, was cast into hell (Luke 16:22). Job received his reward already here on earth, and the sacred author does not talk about his reward in heaven. But it would be absurd to neglect the source of a small stream, which will soon become a big river, and to deny the light of the rising sun just because it has not yet reached its midday shine. Chapter 51. Religious Establishments As the Ruler or King of his chosen people, the Lord God had to have a special place of presence among the people, and the tabernacle became such a place. According to its structure, the tabernacle was divided into three parts: the outer court, the sanctuary and the holy of holies. The outer court was a regular quadrangle, with a space of 100 cubits in length and 50 in width; it was surrounded on all sides by a fence five cubits high, interrupted only by the entrance door on the east side. The entrance door was twenty cubits wide and was covered with elegantly embroidered and multi-colored curtains. At the front of the courtyard was the altar of burnt offering, on which all sacrifices were offered except the sin offering, which was offered outside the camp. This altar was a box 5 square cubits wide and 3 high; it was made, like all the main accessories of the tabernacle, from shittim wood, lined with wrought copper and had a copper grate inside for firewood, and on the sides there were rings for carrying it on poles. The elevations protruding from the corners, the so-called “horns,” served as a place, holding onto which served as an expression of the desire to completely surrender to the mercy of God, as well as ensuring inviolability and security for people seeking salvation from vengeance. Between this altar and the tabernacle itself there was a copper laver, which contained water for the priests to wash. Then the door led to the tabernacle itself, precisely to its first compartment, the so-called sanctuary. It occupied two-thirds of the entire space of the tabernacle and represented the second (after the outer court) step in the gradual approach to co-presence with God. It contained three special accessories: 1) an altar of incense, located in the very middle of the sanctuary, 2) a meal on the right, and 3) a lamp on the left. The incense altar (like a table, 2 cubits high and 1 cubit wide and long) was overlaid with gold and had rings on the sides for carrying it on poles. On it, every morning and evening, incense of fragrant herbs was brought - first by Aaron and his sons, and then by the priests, who took turns performing their worship, and on the most important occasions by the high priest. The incense fire was taken from the altar of burnt offering, and its lighting was a symbol of the priest’s intercession before God for the people, who at that time were praying in the courtyard of the tabernacle. Bringing “alien” fire or arbitrarily appropriating this priestly service was considered a great crime. Nadab and Abihu were killed for this very crime. The meal was an oblong table with legs - two cubits in length, and width and 1 1/2 in height. On this table were twelve loaves, six on each side, with incense on top. These breads, which were called showbread because of their offering to Jehovah, were changed again every Saturday by the priests, who ate the old ones in the sanctuary, and no one had the right to eat from them. On the right or south side of the altar of incense stood a lamp made of cast and beaten gold and weighing a whole talent. It was like a tree with six branches, which, together with the main trunk, made up seven separate lights. The lamps were lit during the evening offering, and the main lamp was unquenchable. The lamp illuminated the entire space of the sanctuary, but its light did not penetrate through the heavy curtain that separated the second and holiest part of the tabernacle from the sanctuary - namely, the Holy of Holies, which occupied one third of the entire space of the tabernacle. The interior of this compartment was immersed in impenetrable, mysterious darkness and it contained only one, but the most sacred item, namely the Ark of the Covenant. It was also made of shittim wood and was a small box (2 1/2 cubits in length and 1 1/2 in width and height), which was lined with pure gold on the outside and inside. On a cover made of pure gold were two cherubim with faces bowed towards each other and wings touching, and between them was the very throne of Jehovah, “who dwelt between the cherubim.” This place was also called the place of propitiation, because there Jehovah was revealed on the great day of atonement as a God forgiving iniquity, crime, and sin. Inside the ark were the tablets of the covenant, and next to them a golden vessel with manna and Aaron's rod that blossomed. Gold rings at the lower corners of the ark were used to carry it on poles while traveling. Considered as a place of co-presence of God, the tabernacle was the church of the Old Testament church, and as a result, with its entire structure, it clearly prefigured the Church of Christ, as a place where humanity, redeemed by Christ, entered into the closest communion and unity with the Divine. The very entrance to the tabernacle from the east meant that the Old Testament church was still awaiting the appearance of the sun of righteousness - Christ. Along with Jews and pagans, pagans could enter its courtyard, and this foreshadowed the future calling into the Church of Christ of all the descendants of Adam, i.e. all peoples of the earth. The altar and laver that stood in the courtyard of the tabernacle depicted: the first the universal sacrifice - Christ, who opened the entrance to the kingdom of heaven for all people, and the second served as an image of the font of baptism, through which we enter the New Testament church. The sanctuary, in which only priests could stand, represented true Christian believers. The lamp, the table with the showbread and the altar of incense typified I. Christ, who enlightens, nourishes and lifts up our prayers to God the Father. The Holy of Holies, into which only the high priest could enter once a year with sacrificial blood, meant heaven itself, where Christ the Savior entered with His blood for us before the face of God. The Ark of the Covenant with the tablets of the Ten Commandments was, as it were, the very throne of the Lord God, who spoke His holy will to people. The entire Sinai legislation served as an expression of the will of God, which in its individual decrees is divided into religious laws, moral laws and laws of citizenship. The essence of religious laws is expressed in the first four commandments, which make up the first tablet. They define the true relationship of man to God, and to strengthen it in the popular consciousness, external institutions were established, which, grouped around the tabernacle, consisted of sacred persons, times and actions. The sacred persons were chosen from the chosen people to be dedicated to the exclusive service of God. They made up the entire tribe of Levi, and according to the three parts of the tabernacle they were divided into three degrees - Levites, priests and high priest. The Levites were simple clergymen who were appointed to correct the lower duties at the tabernacle. When moving, they had to carry the tabernacle with all its accessories, monitor the order, cleanliness and safety of sacred objects and vessels; prepare the necessary materials for the sacred ceremony and take care of the receipt of proper income for the maintenance of the tabernacle and its institutions. All male members of the tribe of Levi, except the family of Aaron, between the ages of 30 and 50 were considered Levites. They were divided into three classes, according to their ancestral origin from the three sons of Levi - Gerson, Kohath and Merari, and each class was assigned special duties in serving and especially in moving the tabernacle. They entered the ministry through a special dedication, which consisted of their purification, ordination and sacrifice. All the sons and then the descendants of Aaron, worthy of this sacred title due to their moral and physical qualities, were priests. They were dedicated to their service through sprinkling with sacred blood mixed with blood. They had the responsibility to offer sacrifices at certain times in the courtyard of the tabernacle and incense in the sanctuary, to light a lamp in it every evening, to change the showbread every Sabbath, to blow the trumpets to convene the people, to cleanse leprosy and other uncleanness according to a special order, and to teach the people in the law of God. As representatives of the clergy, they were given a special robe in which they had to wear during the clergy. Their attire consisted of 1) a lower linen dress - overdrags "to cover bodily nudity from the loins to the shins", 2) an upper white dress" of a chiton, which went down to the floor and was picked up at the waist by a white 3) belt decorated with multi-colored embroidery; then a round head covering - a turban - completed this vestment for the priests, for whom there were no shoes, since the sanctity of the place of worship required performing the service with bare feet. At the head of the sacred persons was the high priest, whose highest position was assigned personally to Aaron, and then to the eldest in his family by succession. He alone was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, which he did once a year, on the day of atonement, for the sprinkling of blood. The dignity of his highest rank did not allow him to participate in the burial or tear his clothes as a sign of sadness. Initiation into this rank was accomplished through the abundant pouring of the mura stored at the tabernacle onto the head of the initiate, who at the same time put on the special clothes assigned to the high priestly rank. These clothes were much more magnificent and elaborate than those of the priests. In addition to the usual priestly clothes, they also wore a special sleeveless robe or 1) an outer chasuble, knitted from purple-blue wool with an elegantly trimmed collar and decorated at the bottom with multi-colored apples and golden bells. On top of this was worn 2) an ephod or a special short garment with gold clasps on the shoulders, of which on each there was an onyx stone with the names of the twelve tribes carved on them, six on each. The ephod was fastened with a special belt, identical in color and workmanship. Then there was a special 3) breastplate or breastplate, attached with blue laces and gold rings; twelve precious stones sparkled on it, set in gold, three in a row, with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel also carved on them. In connection with the confidant there were also the mysterious Urim and Thummim (“councils and perfections”), through which the will of God was communicated to the high priest. 4) The head turban of the high priest differed from a simple priestly one not only in its greater luxury, but especially in that on the front of it there was a gold tablet with the inscription carved on it: Holy Place of the Lord. The High Priest of the chosen people was, in the height and greatness of his ministry, a type of “the great High Priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God” (Heb. 4:14). In addition to the sacred persons by office, there were also sacred persons by vow, the so-called Nazirites, i.e. dedicated to the service of God. Nazarenes were required to abstain from wine and grapes, from cutting their hair and from all defilement. The Nazarite vow was given either for life, or only for a certain time. In the latter case, it was resolved by making a threefold sacrifice and burning hair on the altar. The sacred times established by law are divided into three categories: 1) times associated with the establishment of the Sabbath, 2) great historical holidays, and 3) the day of atonement. The Sabbath, as a day of rest, is one of the most primitive institutions, dating back to the creation of the world: “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” (Gen. 1:3). Sinai legislation only confirmed its establishment, as the commandment itself shows: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” This is a sacred rest from everyday hard work, with which a person is forced to earn his daily bread, a day of joyful rest in communion with God, who Himself “on the seventh day rested and was refreshed” (Ex. 31:17). This commandment does not encourage idle laziness, but only prohibits work for selfish purposes, serving mammon. Instead of this labor, the Sabbath should be dedicated to the service of God. On this day, the people gathered in the tabernacle for worship, which consisted of a double offering of sacrifices, and the showbread was renewed. The celebration of the Sabbath served as the basis for other solemn holidays established at specific, larger periods of time. These include: a) the New Moon Festival, which was celebrated at the first appearance of each moon, which was announced to the people by two silver trumpets. The holiday consisted of intensive sacrifices. b) The Feast of Trumpets, celebrated on the first day of the month of Tisri, with which the civil year began, but which was the seventh, so to speak, Sabbath month of the sacred year. Since this day always fell on Saturday, its very observance had the character of Sabbath. Its offensive was announced by trumpets, from which it received its name. Then, with the expansion of the circle of Sabbath, great periodic holidays were established, celebrated several times a year. This included the Sabbath year. Just as every seventh day and seventh month was sanctified, so every seventh year should have been sanctified. The peculiarity of the Sabbath year was that during it the earth itself, as entirely belonging to the Lord, had to observe the Sabbath, that is, rest from cultivation. All the fruits that produced themselves were given to the poor and animals for use. The Sabbath year was also called the “year of forgiveness” because during this year creditors were required to forgive debts to their debtors (Deut. 15:1, 2). In the same year, every Israeli who fell into slavery was granted freedom. The end of the seven Sabbath years was d) the year of jubilee, which took place every fiftieth year. It began on the 10th day of the seventh month, Tisri, the great day of purification. After the solemn sacrifices, the sound of the jubilee trumpet was heard, “declaring freedom on earth to all its inhabitants.” The land was not cultivated, as in the Sabbath year. All the lands that the poor had lost over the past half-century were again returned to them as full property free of charge. All slaves were freed. Everything was restored to the same form as it was during the initial division of the Promised Land. The Jubilee year completed the great circle of Sabbath years, after which, in a certain sense, everything was renewed, entering, as it were, into a new life. In addition to the circle of Sabbath holidays, there were three special great historical holidays, on which all male people had to appear before the face of Jehovah (in the tabernacle or subsequently in the church) with the established offering to God. These holidays not only served to commemorate great events in the history of the Israeli people, but each of them had its own special meaning. The first of them, Easter, marked the beginning of the harvest, the second, Pentecost, its end, and the third, the Feast of Tabernacles, the time of gathering grapes and all the fruits of the year. They connected with each other so that they formed one great circle. Easter was in the first month of the holy year; After seven weeks Pentecost came, and in the seventh month came the Feast of Tabernacles. Passover served as a commemoration for the Israelites of the beginning of their deliverance from slavery and entry into the state of a free people; Pentecost is the giving of the law, and the Feast of Tabernacles represented for them a joyful comparison between settled life in a fertile land and wandering in the desert. a) Passover, which was the most solemn of the three annual festivals, was celebrated for seven days, beginning with the evening which ended the fourteenth day of Nissan or Aviv, the first month of the holy year. It was established on the night before the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and although some changes occurred in its execution over time, in general it was performed in the same way as the first time it was established. Easter had the deepest educational significance. In its original sense, it was at the same time a sacrifice, in which the most innocent of the animal kingdom was offered in atonement for those guilty of sin, and a joyful celebration on the occasion of deliverance - a celebration at the same time historical, and therefore Easter was eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread (in remembrance of the bitterness of Egyptian slavery and hasty preparations for deliverance from it, in the position of wanderers hurrying on their way). In its highest meaning, it was a clear type of the redemptive work of Christ, who, like “our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7), and, moreover, slain at the very time of the ritual Passover, as “a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). b) Pentecost, the festival of the harvest, was, as it were, a complement to Easter. It lasted only one day, 50 days after the 16th of Nissan, at the end of May. The interval between them was the difficult time of the harvest, and on the day of Pentecost the first loaves of the newly harvested fruit were sacrificed. This holiday was also associated with the remembrance of the giving of the Sinai Law. c) The Feast of Tabernacles completed the circle of annual holidays and was distinguished by great rejoicing. It was at the same time a thanksgiving for the harvest and a remembrance of the time when the Israelites lived in “tabernacles” or tents during their wanderings in the wilderness. It took place in the fall, when all the fruits of the earth had already been collected, and lasted seven days, ending with the eighth day of the “sacred meeting.” During these seven days (from the 15th to the 22nd of the month of Tisri), the people lived in huts made of tree branches, which is why they got their name, the Feast of Tabernacles. Quite apart from these solemn holidays was the day of purification, the only day of repentance and fasting according to the law of Moses. It was observed five days before the Feast of Tabernacles and had the character of a solemn Sabbath, when everyone had to stop their work and “humble their souls” under pain of extermination from the people. The rituals established for this day marked the contrition of the people for the sins committed in the past year, and the absolution performed by the high priest in the Holy of Holies, which he entered on that very day. All the sacrifices of this day were made by the high priest himself and ended with the expulsion of the “scapegoat” into the desert, as if taking away with him the entire burden of the sins of the people. The educational significance of this symbolic rite was that the final redemption of the human race would be absolutely “not by the blood of goats and calves,” but by “the mediator of the new covenant” - Christ. Sacred rites were inextricably linked with sacred times. They consisted almost exclusively of sacrificial offerings borrowed from the animal or plant kingdom. There is a clear difference between them: sacrifices in the proper sense, when the thing offered was completely or partly destroyed in the sacrificial fire, and offerings, when the offering was only, as it were, consecrated in the face of Jehovah and then consumed by the sacrificer. Sacrifices were divided into five types: 1) The burnt offering, so called because everything offered was completely burned on the altar, meant that the offerer belonged entirely to God and that he surrendered himself soul and body to the will of God. This sacrifice could be made either for the entire people, or for individuals who had to offer a sacrificial animal out of their goodwill and, moreover, in compliance with all the rules established by law when choosing sacrificial animals, which could be a calf, a ram, a goat, and even a turtle dove or a dove. Those who offered sacrifice laid their hands on the sacrificial animal in front of the altar as a sign of transferring their sins onto it. Then the sacrificial animal was slaughtered, the priest sprinkled its blood on the altar and finally burned the entire sacrifice, except for the skin, which was given to the priest. 2) The sin sacrifice was offered to atone for sins committed out of ignorance or weakness, either by the priest or by any of the people, as well as to cleanse them from any possible sin or defilement. 3) The guilt offering was offered for conscious sins or crimes, as well as for all actions associated with defilement. These two sacrifices differed from the burnt offering in that the meat of the sacrificed animals (except blood and fat) went to the priests, who consumed it in the courtyard of the tabernacle. 4) The sacrifice of peace was offered either as an expression of special gratitude to God, or as a vow, or as a special offering of joy and love. Of what was offered, part of it was burned, the chest and shoulder were provided to the priests, and the rest could be consumed by the offerer. 5) The bloodless sacrifice consisted of the offering of flour, oil, wine and incense. These items were partly added to the first four types of victims. Just as the first four kinds of sacrifices signified the offering of life to God, so this kind signified the bringing to Him of the fruits of the earth. The offerings of various fruits, the firstfruits of which were always consecrated in the tabernacle or church, come close to this last type of sacrifice, and then their general consumption as food began. All these sacred rites were performed by priests and were accompanied by prayers and established rituals, described in detail in the book of Leviticus. All the sacred rites described were aimed at maintaining holiness in the people, who, as chosen ones, were supposed to be a “holy people.” For the same purpose, special laws and rituals were established, the implementation of which could help maintain holiness among the people. These are moral laws. Their essence is expressed in the commandments of the second table, and it consists in demanding from each person both personal moral and bodily purity, as well as truth and philanthropy in relation to others. In particular, these include: 1) the ancient law of circumcision, confirmed by the Sinaitic legislation; 2) laws on the initiation of firstborn males; 3) about protecting personal purity through the prohibition of coming into contact with unclean objects, and 4) about separating animals into clean and unclean, with permission to eat only the former as food or sacrifice. “Divine rule,” as the basis of the life of the Israeli people, was not limited only to the religious and moral area, but penetrated the entire structure of civil life, both state and social and economic. In this regard, “divine rule” is reflected in the fact that Jehovah, as the King and Judge of the chosen people, established in His kingdom through a series of divinely wise laws such justice that the surrounding nations did not know and which made the Israeli state a model even in this regard. This will be quite clear from a brief review of the basic principles of state-social life, as they are set out in the Mosaic legislation, in comparison with the principles of statehood of other ancient peoples of the East. Chapter 52. State and public laws The essence of the statehood of ancient peoples consisted in the irreconcilable separation of rulers and subordinates, expressed in the division of the people into castes, of which some occupied a dominant position and enjoyed all the rights and conveniences of this position - legally and economically, while others, on the contrary, were powerless tools of the former, serving only as a means to ensure their best position. Such injustice should not have taken place in a theocratic state, where, by the very essence of “divine rule,” there was no division of the people into full-fledged rulers and powerless subordinates, because all members are equally subordinate to the Supreme King - Jehovah - therefore, everyone is equal before Him, which is why everyone equally participated in the “sworn agreement with Him”: the leaders of the tribes, elders, overseers, wives, children and strangers, from chopping wood to drawing water (Deut. 29:10–13). If in this way all members of the people participated equally in the agreement with Jehovah, which formed the basis of the state, then naturally they should all have the same rights in the state they themselves established, they should all be equal. From this follows the main consequence of the theocratic principle for state life - the equality of everyone in the state. And this equality becomes the basis of all state-social relations. The great legislator, having laid the theocratic principle with its indicated general consequence as the basis of the state, extended the action of this principle to all private relations by private regulations, so that, in addition to religious equality (which goes without saying and does not require proof), he established economic, social and political equality. Viewed from this side, the Mosaic state, in its basis and essence, is a sharp contrast to all the ancient Eastern states, which were based on violence and injustice. In contrast to them, which perverted the primitive truth of human relations, it represents the realization, within the limits of possibility, of the true idea of ​​the state in its normal state - a realization conceivable, of course, only under the condition of special guidance and care on the part of the Supreme King. To confirm the general thoughts stated above, we will consider the beginnings of the statehood of Moses in their application to the most important relations of social life. Moses placed agriculture as the basis for the economic well-being of his state. The choice of such a basis for the state belongs rather to the legislator himself than to the people, who in their previous history knew little about agriculture. Although the first people - Adam, Cain and Noah - were already engaged in cultivating the land, in the subsequent patriarchal period the predominant occupation was cattle breeding, as can be seen, among other things, from the history of Abraham. There is news that Isaac and Jacob were also engaged in agriculture (Gen. 26:12; 37:7), but apparently their main occupation was still cattle breeding, so that after moving to Egypt, despite the Egyptians’ aversion to cattle breeders, Joseph’s brothers answered Pharaoh’s question: what is their occupation? - They answered: “Your servants are shepherds of the sheep, both we and our fathers” (Gen. 47:3). Cattle breeding remained the main free occupation of the Israelites in Egypt, as can be seen from the fact that the brothers asked Pharaoh for permission to settle in the land of Goshen precisely in view of its convenience for cattle breeding, and were famous as the best cattle breeders, so that Pharaoh himself chose from among them caretakers over his own herds (Gen. 47:4–6). The people, of necessity, also engaged in cattle breeding during their 40-year wandering through the desert. Thus, the idea of ​​​​founding a state mainly on agriculture belongs to Moses. The motivation for this was both the geographical conditions of the country and higher state considerations. Palestine in ancient times was distinguished by its extraordinary fertility (Gen. 26:12), and therefore by this it already called upon its inhabitants to use its products through the cultivation of the land. Fertile soil certainly provides convenience for cattle breeding; but cattle breeding also requires large expanses of land, while Palestine, designated for the habitation of the Jewish people, with its two million population, did not provide such conveniences for cattle breeding. Judging by the number of people, the land plots could not be large, and therefore, in order to obtain enough fruits for food, it was necessary to engage in cultivation of the land, agriculture. But higher state considerations were of even greater importance when establishing a state based on agriculture. Until that time, the Israeli people were a nomadic tribe that did not yet have strong principles of citizenship - they were in a situation in which correct state life was impossible. But then he received a higher calling, became the “kingdom” of Jehovah, the chosen people, who were supposed to serve as the guardian and disseminator of the highest truths. Therefore, the nomadic life, which was neglected by the then civilized world (Gen. 46:34), could not correspond to the height of the people’s position: they had to begin a new, cultural life, and therefore, in place of the nomadic, necessarily associated with cattle breeding, they had to choose an agricultural way of life, as having more inclinations for social development. For state purposes, agriculture provides incomparably more benefits than cattle breeding: it develops a love of work, this main lever of social development, ties a person to the inhabited land, and thus, on the one hand, makes it possible to establish certain principles of citizenship, and on the other, develops love for the country or patriotism, which constitutes the soul of the state - in a word, it represents all the conditions for the development and strength of the state. The legislator apparently had these conditions in mind when he founded his state on agriculture. But agriculture itself can only serve the true benefit of the state when it is based on economic justice, by virtue of which each member of the state should be given equal ownership of the land and full use of all the products of his hands. Ancient states did not know such justice: usually only privileged castes owned land, and the remaining classes, not having land, necessarily entered into slavish economic dependence on the former, cultivated their lands, and naturally did not receive the entire amount of the products of their labor, but only what the ruling caste removed from them, i.e. as much as is enough not to die of hunger. Hence the amazing extremes of wealth and poverty, luxury and misery, which we encounter in ancient Eastern states even during periods of their greatest prosperity. The Mosaic state knows no such injustice. Having founded the state on agriculture, the legislator at the same time defined it with such regulations, thanks to which it could become a source of equal well-being for all. Since all members of the people participated in the agreement with Jehovah, and since one of the conditions of the agreement on the part of Jehovah was the granting of the promised land, then naturally all members of the state had to use the land equally - there should have been no arbitrary seizures, no legalized advantages of some over others. Based on this theocratic principle, the legislator divided the land equally among all Israelites. As a unit for dividing the land, only large collective units of the people were taken - tribes, tribes and families (Num. 26:55; 33:54), but the division was carried out in such a way that whichever tribe was more numerous received more land, and whichever was smaller received less land (Num. 26:54), so that, in the end, with the private division of the inheritances that fell to the share of one or another tribe or generation, equal plots could be obtained for each Israeli (male) as the head of a private household. Under this order of land ownership, each Israelite was the owner of a plot of land known to him, from which he could receive the entire amount of products produced by his free labor. And since land was supposed to serve as the main source of wealth, in view of the even distribution of land among the Israelis, equality in status or economic equality was necessarily assumed. If, upon entering the land, the previously accumulated wealth (in herds) of individuals could give them an advantage over others who did not have herds, then such a violation of economic equality was eliminated by the fact that it was the tribes richest in livestock who remained in the lands on the other side of the Jordan and, as it were, separated from the main mass of the people, where statehood based on the theocratic principle was primarily supposed to develop, and therefore could not influence its economic relations (Num. 32:1 et seq.). But economic well-being depends not only on the amount of land, but also on the amount of labor applied to the land, frugality and many private, random conditions. And since diligence, frugality and other qualities, depending on the personal characteristics of different individuals, are naturally not the same, then, of course, the well-being depending on them cannot always maintain the degree of equality given during the division of land: the well-being of some, thanks to their hard work and frugality, gradually increases, while the well-being of others, thanks to their opposite qualities, decreases. Gradually developing in these opposite directions, the welfare of some may rise to the point that they will have the opportunity to acquire new plots in order to begin farming on a larger scale; others, on the contrary, become poorer to the point that they will no longer be able to cultivate their plots, and therefore, in order to get something for them, they will be forced to sell them. Hence, while some become large landowners, others become completely landless, and after consuming the money taken for the plots sold, they must, of necessity, go to work for the former and thus become economically and personally dependent on them. This is the usual process of development of economic inequality. In the Mosaic state, however, such inequality should not have taken place, since it would have violated the equality of the members of the state before Jehovah, and the agreement with Him, in which everyone equally participated, would have been violated. Therefore, the legislator furnished land ownership with such regulations, thanks to which the presented process of development of inequality suffered significant restrictions. This process received its full force only if the land, the main source of wealth, was the full property of its owner, so that he could fully dispose of it at his own discretion, and, therefore, could sell it. But such complete ownership of the land was incompatible with the supreme supremacy of Jehovah, who alone is the complete owner of the land, and the Israelites are only His settlers. “My land, says Jehovah: you are strangers and sojourners with Me; therefore the land must not be sold forever” (Lev. 25:23). By virtue of this law, an Israelite could sell his plot only until a certain period, until the year of jubilee, in which the sold plot was again returned to the first owner (Lev. 25:13) and thus equality in land ownership was restored. In this order of things, economic equality could not be significantly violated at all, and in any case, extremes of wealth and poverty, landowning aristocracy and proletariat could not arise. Many other decrees and institutions in the Mosaic state 636 were also aimed at maintaining possible economic equality. If, therefore, the state consisted of equal landowners who had an equal source of wealth, then, of course, different classes of people could not develop, differing from each other in their economic well-being and social status. And in this respect, the Mosaic state represents a striking contrast to other ancient states. In these last times, the resulting inequality was consolidated by a law that recognized as normal that system of social life, according to which some classes, having seized all power and all the land into their hands, were recognized as if born for power and wealth, while others were born for slavery and poverty. Hence the formation of castes, which constitute a flagrant violation of individual rights. In the Mosaic state, under the influence of the theocratic principle, such violation of individual rights did not take place. Here, just as everyone participated in the agreement with Jehovah at the founding of the state, so everyone should have enjoyed equal rights in the state they founded. Here, all members of the state were equally free citizens and were not constrained by any restrictions in their development. Civil equality was conditioned by equality before the law. Since the legislator is Jehovah, before whom everyone is equal, then, of course, His laws are the same for everyone, and this equality before the law was carried out with such consistency that it was also recognized for the settlers who lived among the Israeli people. “There is one law and one rights,” says the legislator, “let them be for you and for the stranger living with you” 637. As a result, in the Mosaic state there were no persons without rights, such as, for example. are assumed according to the Roman laws on slaves, for whom these laws completely deny personality and make them a thing, and which would be completely dependent on the arbitrariness of others, such as for example. The Romans had wives and children who were completely dependent on their husbands and fathers. Here, on the contrary, the law recognized the full personality of all members of the state and, accordingly, equally ensured and protected the rights of all. A master who mistreated his slave lost all right to him and had to set him free. Here, parents did not have the right to the lives of their children, and the power of the father, in contrast to Roman laws, was limited to the point that he could not even dispose of the inheritance at will, but had to obey certain laws on inheritance. In general, the rights of the sexes were equal. Based on economic equality, this legal or civil equality received full meaning and strength. Hence the absence of division into castes in the Eastern sense of the word in the Mosaic state. But the principle of equality here is carried even further: here not only are there no castes in the Eastern sense, but there is not even any division into classes in the sense of privileged and unprivileged classes. Neither the hereditary aristocracy and democracy that existed in ancient Greece, nor the division of the people into full-fledged patricians and politically unequal plebeians, allowed by Roman legislation, nor feudalism in the medieval sense - the Mosaic legislation knows nothing of the kind: they are granted social equality to all citizens. A special class in the Mosaic state is only the class of priests and Levites, who came exclusively from one tribe of Levi. But closer examination does not allow us to attach to this priestly class the significance that the priestly castes of other peoples had in a parallel case. While these latter constituted special classes of people, distinguished by their very origin (from the deity), endowed with all sorts of social and state rights and privileges, which placed them above other classes and, therefore, gave them enormous political significance and high social position, in the Mosaic state all the rights and privileges of priests relate exclusively to the religious sphere, and not at all to the social or political. The very separation of the tribe of Levi exclusively for religious service, within the meaning of the Mosaic Law, was determined by the desire to have servants of Jehovah who were constantly ready, brought up from childhood in respect and reverence for their work, although even with such a separation the class of priests did not have exceptional significance, because the people of Israel in their entirety are a “holy people,” a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:5 and 6; Deut. 7:6). As for the social and political sphere, the rights of the priestly class even suffer restrictions in comparison with the rest of the people. Thus, economically, they were placed in a lower position than the people, because during the division of the land they were not given land plots (Num. 26:62). In relation to the means of material support, they were thus made dependent on the people, fed from the altar, tithes and gifts (Num. 18:20-24 and generally 8-32). The socio-economic position of the tribe of Levi is sufficiently determined by the fact that the law, speaking about the provision of widows, orphans, aliens and generally disadvantaged members of the state, always mentions the “Levite” among them (Deut. 14:27–29; 16:11, 14). In civil terms, the rights of the Levites were also limited. True, they sometimes occupied the positions of judges (Deut. 17:9), but these positions were not their exclusive property, but were granted to them only in view of their close acquaintance with the law; Mostly, the judges were chosen from among the people themselves (Ex. 18:25, 26; Deut. 1:13–16). They were completely removed from state affairs proper, so that we do not see their participation even in “national” state meetings, and there was no representative from them in the meetings of “the chosen men of the community, the rulers of the tribes of their fathers, the heads of thousands of Israel” (Num. 1:16), although at the same time the high priest, as the highest religious person in a theocratic state, in important cases stood at the head of the court, which had theocratically character (Num. 27:2; Chr. 19:8–11). In general, as can be seen from the above, if the tribe of priests existed as a separate class, then in any case this did not violate general social and political equality: all members of the state had the same rights in it. Equality of rights in the state is necessarily associated with equality of responsibilities in relation to it. The Mosaic state here is also a sharp contrast to the abnormally developed ancient states. In them there was usually no correspondence between rights and duties, as required by state justice, but on the contrary, full-fledged classes or castes enjoyed complete freedom from responsibilities and heavy state duties, and the powerless classes bore all the burdens of state. This order of things is incompatible with simple state justice, and even more so incompatible with the highest theocratic principle that animated the Mosaic state. It was in this state that a fair correspondence of rights and duties was realized - and since the rights of all members of the state were equal, then the responsibilities in relation to the state were also equal. The first and most important duty in relation to the state, even now, and even more so in the ancient world, is the duty to protect the state - hence military service is the most important and at the same time the most difficult of state duties, and its fair distribution is one of the most important tasks of the legislator. In the Mosaic state, its fair distribution, thanks to the simplicity of social relations, was simple: since all members of the state equally enjoyed the rights given by the state, then, of course, everyone had to defend and protect it. Hence the principle of universal conscription: every Israeli from 20 years of age and above was subject to it (Numbers 1:3, 26:2). The universality of military service, in addition to state justice, was also caused by the political conditions of the state of the people, since the country that was assigned to them to inhabit, they had to acquire with weapons; but even after the conquest and settlement in the country, the people, surrounded on all sides by enemies, constantly had to be ready to defend themselves from attacks, often unexpected (Ex. 17:8; Judges 6:3). As for the procedure for performing conscription itself, it was distinguished by its harmonious organization. They enrolled in military service evenly in each tribe, generation and family (Num. 1:2), and according to these parts of the people, various units of the army were formed. The entire army was apparently divided into two conscriptions, of which the first consisted of young men of 20 years or more, and the second of the rest of the male population. Separate lists were kept for both departments of the army, according to which they were convened in wartime. – The universality of military service, however, must be understood not in an unconditional sense, but only in relation to the obligation of everyone to it. The law allows for some limitations on generality. Thus, the Levites were completely exempted from military service, which was determined both by their special purpose and by their lack of land ownership in the state; therefore, they were not included in the counting of the people for military service (Numbers 2:33). Those for whom, due to the special circumstances of their family life, it was especially difficult to part with their family or household, were also exempt from military service. Before the start of the war, the guards had to announce benefits to everyone who fit into certain categories defined by law. “Let the overseers announce to the people, saying: Whoever built a new house and did not renovate it, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle, and another renew it. And whoever planted a vineyard and did not use it, let him go and return to his home, lest he die in battle and another should take advantage of it.” In this case, the Israelite, therefore, was exempt from military service for four years, since according to the law the fruits could be enjoyed only in the fifth year after planting (Lev. 19:25). “And whoever is betrothed to his wife and does not take her, let him go and return to his home, lest he die in battle, and another take her” (Deut. 20:5–7). A newly married person was equally exempt from military service (as well as from all others). “If anyone, says the law, has recently taken a wife, then let him not go to war, but let him remain in his house for one year and please his wife whom he has taken” (Deut. 24:5). In addition, strictly speaking, no one was forced into military service, and therefore everyone who felt incapable of war and did not have the courage necessary for military affairs was exempted from it. “And the overseers will also announce to the people and say: let him who is fearful and faint-hearted go and return to his home, lest he make the hearts of his brothers timid, like his own heart” (Deut. 20:8). Thus, in the Mosaic state, with universal military conscription, justice was observed in relation to some persons for whom, due to the special circumstances of their social, family or personal condition, this conscription could be especially difficult. The principle of equality in the Mosaic state retained its significance in relation to other responsibilities to the state. Along with military service, imposed on citizens by the duty of external protection of the state, there is another duty imposed by the duty of maintaining and preserving internal institutions in the state - tax service. In the Mosaic state, this duty was not imposed exclusively on one class of people, but had a universal character, equally extending to all members of the state. Taxation, however, due to the simplicity of the state organization, which did not develop into institutions that would need outside support, did not have a definite state character under Moses and even under the judges. The only institution that at this time needed support and for which taxation was actually established by law was a religious institution with its tabernacle and class of priests, therefore taxation has an exclusively religious character. This type of duty included, first of all, the so-called redemption tax, which was paid by everyone “entering the enumeration,” i.e. on the list of those fit for war (Numbers 1, 2 and 3). It consisted of half a shekel of silver (Exodus 30:12–14) and was used “for the service of the tabernacle of meeting” (Exodus 30:16). Then comes the tithe of all the fruits, which went to the Levites “for their service, because they perform services in the tabernacle of meeting” (Numbers 18:21); another tithe “from all the production of seeds,” wine and oil, herds and flocks for the national celebration (Deut. 14:22 and 23); the first fruits of all productions, which were also brought for the organization of a public celebration, in which, among other things, the poor members of the state took part (Deut. 26:1–5). All these religious duties were equally obligatory for everyone - the law does not divide the people into taxable and non-taxable. Another remarkable thing about the laws on taxation is that the tax, determined by tithes, was income, i.e. was not determined once and for all, but was constantly adjusted to the amount of income 638 and only a small redemption tax of half a shekel was paid equally to both rich and poor. The law allowed, however, private benefits from all duties for special cases of family life. “If someone has recently taken a wife, then he should not go to war, and nothing should be placed on him; let him remain free in his house for one year, and please his wife whom he has taken” (Ex. 30:15). By this law, a recently married person was exempted not only from military service, but also from all other duties, and, consequently, taxation, for one year. The legislator gives this person the freedom to devote all his attention and labor to improving his newly founded household and to consolidating the newly concluded marriage. This exception from the law on universal taxation in favor of individuals did not violate equality, since the benefits it provided could be enjoyed equally by every Israeli after marriage. Thus, as can be seen from the above, under the influence of the theocratic principle, the highest social justice was realized in the Mosaic state, expressed in equality consistently carried out in all spheres of public life. The members of this state are all equally equal - in condition and position, in rights and duties. If all members are equally equal and have full rights in the state, then obviously they all have the right to participate in the governance of their state. A sharp distinction between rulers and subordinates usually exists where, due to special historical circumstances, special privileged classes have developed, which, thanks to their wealth and education, naturally take on the role of hereditary rulers of the state. Where there are no such privileged classes, and where everyone is equally equal in all respects, there naturally all members of the state take part in important state affairs or in the government of the state, although of course through elected representatives. Hence - representation, as the main expression of the form of government in the Mosaic state. This form was of particular importance here in view of the fact that in the Mosaic state, partly on the basis of ancient law, partly on the basis of the direct laws of Moses, there was a selective principle on a large scale, applied in all spheres of state and public life. The peculiarity and nature of the electoral principle and the representative form of government will become clear when the internal structure of the social body of the Jewish people is revealed. The main features of the internal structure of the Israeli national body were formed even before the conclusion of the treaty with Jehovah, and, therefore, outside the influence of the theocratic principle, so that when the state was founded on the theocratic principle, the internal organization of the people was already ready-made material from which the legislator established the new state. Therefore, in order to understand the peculiarities of the organization of the new state, it is necessary to consider the main features of the historically established and strengthened organic system of the people themselves. The people of Israel originated in Egypt from twelve brothers - the sons of Jacob. These ancestors of the people, despite their blood relationship, bore such sharp imprints of individuality that characteristically distinguished them from one another (which, by the way, was expressed in the prophetic blessing of their father, who, according to the peculiarities of their character, foreshadowed a different fate for them) (Gen. 49), that even in their descendants they did not form one formless mass, but produced twelve different tribes 639 that retained their independence feature and formed the basis of the organization of the people. These tribes, or, as they are usually called, tribes, constituted the first division of the people, the largest members of the national body, which had their own genealogy, their own history, their own internal structure and self-government. Each of the tribes in turn was divided into several small parts, in a gradual and organic sequence descending to the most primary collective unit - the family or home. The first of these divisions is a tribe or generation, which was a whole group of families related to each other by descent from one common ancestor, who in turn descended from the main ancestor, the father of the tribe. The generation was thus divided into families or houses of the fathers, understood in a broad sense, since each of these houses was divided into several separate farms and houses. But in general, this unit was apparently considered the last one to have civil significance in public life, since the main place on which the stated division is based, it precisely ends the gradation of divisions, presuming behind it individual individuals. This is the order in which these units acted in one criminal case, therefore with all the rigor of the legal process: “Come up, all of you, according to your tribes; The tribe that the Lord will indicate, let it come up according to tribes; let the tribe that the Lord designate be suitable according to their families; Let the family that the Lord appoints be suited one person at a time” (Joshua 7:14. Cf. 16–18). Thus, in official public life, the gradation of only three degrees of division of the national body was taken into account and had social significance: tribe, tribe and family. In accordance with these degrees, the political system of the people was developed. During the patriarchal period of the people’s existence, when they did not actually constitute a people in the political sense, but were an insignificant tribe, they were naturally governed on the basis of tribal life, when all power, both civil and religious, was concentrated in their hands by the head of the tribe, the father of the family. This is how the people were governed under the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But already in Egypt, when 12 different tribes were formed from one family, recognizing themselves as independent members of the people, the patriarchal order turned out to be outdated, inappropriate for the degree of development of the people, and therefore was replaced by a representative one, when the people were no longer governed by one head, but by representatives of the tribes - the so-called “elders of the children of Israel” (Exodus 3:16; 4:29). These “elders,” consisting of people wise in life and experience, were already the heads of individual tribes, not in the patriarchal sense, i.e. not as sovereign rulers of the tribes, having the power assigned to them only by virtue of the tribal principle, but as representatives of the people in the social sense, as chosen ones and exponents of their consciousness. The representation in full force declared itself already in Egypt. Thus, we see that Moses, with his proposal to free the people from slavery, addresses the “elders of the children of Israel,” in full conviction that their consent or decision will be the consent and decision of the entire people (Ex. 4:29). And indeed, when Aaron (who spoke for Moses due to his well-known lack of language) conveyed the words of Jehovah to the elders, and Moses performed signs before them, the elders believed the messenger of the great brothers, and their decision so expressed the decision of the absent people that the text completely identifies the elders with the people, saying: “And the people believed. And they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and saw their suffering, and they bowed down and worshiped” (Ex. 4:29–31). Such was the historical everyday basis on which the legislator had to create a new state. Consisting of twelve independent tribes, the people of Israel represented in their external organization a union united by theocratic principles, political interests and blood relationships. Such an organization, given the historically established and long-existing representative government of the people in individual tribes, also presupposed for the general state life of the people a form of government in which each tribe, while maintaining its independence, would participate in the general government of the people through its representatives. This was indeed the case. National affairs were usually decided by representatives of all tribes, elected from among themselves by the people. The representative system of the Mosaic state was developed gradually, depending on the requirements of historical circumstances, but always on the basis of those already given for it, which were presented both in the very organization of the people and in their legal customs. Therefore, it has a close connection with the internal organization of the people. According to the division of the people into twelve tribes, it was headed by 12 of their representatives, chosen one from each tribe (excluding the tribe of Levi, which, due to its special purpose and position, did not participate in the political affairs of the people). These are the so-called “chosen men of the community, rulers of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands of Israel” 641. Each of them occupied the position of a prince in his tribe, and in general among the people - the position of a representative of his tribe. The meeting of these representatives constituted the first group at the head of the government of the people. They were convened on important political matters that mattered to the entire people (Num. 1:2–4). The second group of representatives of the people consisted of the chosen 70 men: “And the Lord said to Moses: Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be elders and overseers thereof, and take them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will go down and speak with you there, and I will take from the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, so that they may bear the burden of the people with you, and not you alone.” (Numbers 11:16 and 17). These seventy men were chosen, as can be seen from the text, from among the elders of the people of Israel. It is difficult to determine what served as the criterion for their election and why exactly 70 of them were chosen. In accordance with the organic division of the people, according to which each tribe was divided into tribes or generations, one can think that these seventy men were made up, among other things, from the leaders of the tribes or generations 642. These representatives of the people constituted a permanent senate, which Moses constantly had with him as advisers and assistants. And such an institution was fully consistent with the legislative goals of Moses, since the consent of the elders and representatives of the people and the trust that they inspired in the measures taken by the legislator and in the laws he established, in any case, could have great moral significance for the people. They also, fully knowing the people and their needs, could serve as the best representatives of the interests of the people, which the legislator had to keep in mind when achieving the most lofty state goals. This council of the seventy seems to be given in Num. 16:25, which says that Moses, on the occasion of the well-known indignation of Korah, Dabathan and Abiron, was followed by the “elders of Israel.” Finally, the third and largest group of representatives of the people were the so-called “chiefs” or “judges” of the people. This position was established by Moses in the desert, on the advice of his father-in-law Jethro, to facilitate the work of governing the people. When Jethro saw that every day, from morning to night, Moses was forced to deal with small matters that arose between the people, and in general to delve into all the details of governing them, so that because of this he could lose sight of the highest interests of the people’s life, he said to him: “You are not doing this well. You will exhaust both yourself and the people, for this matter is too difficult for you: you alone cannot correct it. And so listen to my words: I will give you advice: be a mediator for the people before God and present (his) affairs to God. Teach them statutes and laws, show them the way they should go and the things they should do. Out of all the people, you must choose capable people, truthful people who hate self-interest, and make them leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens. Let them judge the people at all times, and report to you about every important matter, and judge all small matters themselves: and it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you” (Ex. 18:14-26). Moses listened to his father-in-law's wise advice. He proposed this business to the people, and when they said that it was a “good thing,” he allowed the people themselves to choose for themselves “wise, understanding and experienced men according to their tribes” and made them leaders (Deut. 1:9-15). These “chiefs,” as can be seen from the very motive of their appointment, were obliged to deal with the analysis of small private cases, and cases of greater or lesser importance were referred to the judgment of one or another superior - in ascending or descending order. To determine the nature and significance of these small authorities, it is important to determine their relationship to the natural gradation of the dismemberment of the national organism. The first two groups of representatives of the people fully correspond, as shown above, to the first two degrees of division - tribes and generations. Do not these petty bosses also correspond to the third degree of gradation - families? There are no clear indications of this in the legislation - moreover, the mathematical harmony of the decimal system of this bureaucracy obviously immediately makes it impossible to assume that these newly elected leaders are identical with the heads of families, since families naturally never represent such numerical certainty and harmony, nevertheless this system is close precisely to the third degree of division of the national organism, namely to families. Each family had at its head a representative, the so-called “elder,” who, before the establishment of the new system, of course, managed the affairs that concerned exclusively one of his family, although this management did not have an official, legally recognized character. The number of such elders, in accordance with the number of families, was numerous, which can be seen from the fact that 250 of them participated in the Korah conspiracy (Numbers 16:2). Now, when the choice of new leaders was proposed, the people first of all, of course, turned to the elders with their choice, since they were accustomed to seeing in them those “wise, prudent and experienced men” whom Moses proposed to choose. If there could not be a number of elders that would be sufficient to fill new positions, then the missing number could be selected from ordinary men who had the specified qualities. This, in all likelihood, was the case, since the “families” were, in any case, a larger group than a dozen, and, consequently, there could not be enough heads of families or elders to fill all official positions, so that many bosses, of necessity, had to be chosen from ordinary men, not elders. And such a choice did not contradict the natural division of the people into three degrees, did not destroy the ancient order of self-government, but, on the contrary, gave it greater harmony of the social structure, introduced a new “communal” element into the tribal principles, giving greater freedom to the individual, freeing it from the exclusive dominance of the tribal principle. The presented sketch of the dismemberment of the folk organism, with a definition for each member of the circle and the organs of its activity, shows what a harmonious system this organism represented both in its structure and in its life activity. In this harmonious system, the two most important conditions necessary for the normal development of the body are met: the strength and unity of the whole and the independence of its parts. The independence of the parts of the body was determined both by their very origin and by their strict demarcation from each other. Considered separately, each tribe seemed to be a completely independent republic - with its own special government, its own special national and social life, with its own special relationships and interests. It had at the head of the administration a representative of the tribe, who was an independent, independent prince of his independent republic, although due to the extraordinary development of self-awareness in the lower divisions of the tribe, his power was limited: he ruled the tribe as its elected representative, and not as its autocratic ruler. His power was limited to the elders of the tribe, as representatives of its lower divisions - generations and families. Each tribe was thus governed by representatives of all its parts - the elders of generations, families and representatives of parts of the decimal system, i.e. leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens, who all together constituted the people's assembly of the tribe with the prince of the tribe at the head, as if the chairman of the assembly 643. Such an assembly managed and considered matters relating to the entire tribe, and in this regard the tribes were given complete independence. There are several examples in history showing that the general meeting of a tribe decided issues about the war of its tribe with surrounding peoples and in general about relations towards them. Thus, when the deputies from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (“sons of Joseph”) told Joshua that the inheritance given to them was not enough for them, he left them to obtain lands for themselves through conquest from neighboring nations 644 . The most remarkable example of this kind appears in the testimony of 1 Chron. 5:19–23, according to which the Trans-Jordanian tribes, even during the reign of Saul, independently fought a very important war, in which the other tribes took almost no part - only “help was given to them against their enemies” (v. 20), i.e. aid was given in the sense that one state gives it to another. Twelve such free tribes constituted one common state, one common national organism. The general unity of these free communities found strong support both in the natural kinship among themselves, and in the common history they had just experienced, rich in great memories, in the unity of the slavery they endured and the liberation they received. The supreme connecting link between them was the theocratic principle, by virtue of which all the tribes became one “kingdom of Jehovah,” one people of God, with whom Jehovah entered into an agreement that imposed on all tribes the same obligations and gave the same rights, binding them by the unity of moral and material interests. Due to all these conditions, which gave support to the consciousness of unity, the people of Israel, despite the extraordinary development of independence in its individual parts, were clearly aware of their unity and vividly responded to all events that were significant not only for the entire people, but also for its individual parts. But the most powerful means that served as a connecting element for all the tribes were the general people's assemblies, which met on important matters affecting the entire people. These meetings, both in terms of their significance in the social and state life of the people and in terms of their composition, deserve special attention 645. The national assembly was important in a theocratic state. It was the highest expression of the people's will and could not have been more consistent with the basic structure of the people's body. The Israeli state, as shown above, consisted of several parts that lived an independent life, independently deciding all private matters that concerned each of them separately. But there were also matters that concerned and had significance for all the tribes together, and, therefore, required a decision that would be the decision of all of them, the decision of the whole people. To reach such a decision, it was necessary to know the will of all the tribes or the will of the entire people. The expression of this will was the national assembly. There are almost no legal definitions regarding this assembly, its establishment, composition and order of business in the law: it was such a common occurrence for the Israeli people that it did not need such definitions. The law, completely leaving for it those procedures that are established by common law, makes only one regulation regarding the assembly, namely about the procedure for convening its members (Num. 10: 1-4). History provides many indications regarding the existence of a national assembly. It is sometimes called simply “assembly” (Deut. 31:30; Num. 16:2), sometimes “society,” which is sometimes with the prefix “all” - the whole community (Ex. 12:3; Num. 27:21; Deut. 31:30). Such an assembly was composed of the elders of the people and in its organization fully reflected the general organization of the people. Both the heads of tribes and generations, as well as the rest of the elders and leaders of the people took part in it. Judging by the number of elders and leaders among the people, the national assembly was a huge assembly, consisting of more than 1/10 of the entire male population 646, because it also included the ten leaders. (Deut. 31:28) Despite such a large number of people, it did not represent a disorderly mass, and thanks to the strict gradualism in the importance of the representation of certain members of the assembly, it represented a well-organized popular assembly. It was divided primarily into two sections. These branches are clearly distinguished in law and could meet separately, as is evident from the law regarding the calling of the assembly (Num. 10:1–4). The first department was composed of the most important representatives of the people - the heads of tribes and generations. These chosen men constituted the standing council of the people's assembly (Num. 11:16 and 17). This council, in turn, was divided into two departments: the highest and the lowest. The first consisted of twelve princes of the people, the leaders of the twelve tribes, and was sometimes convened separately from the second, as was the case, for example. on the occasion of the numbering of the people, when only these “chosen men of the congregation, the rulers of the tribes of their fathers, the heads of the thousands of Israel” were convened (Numbers 1:16). The second department consisted of the leaders of the generations, but was not convened separately from the first, but together with it was part of the highest department of the assembly (Numbers 10:4; 11:16; Exodus 24:1), constituting together with it the “council of seventy.” This department apparently constituted an ordinary administrative assembly, dealing with the current affairs of state life, as can be seen in part from its purpose “to bear the burden” of governing the people (Num. 11:17). Another department of the national assembly consisted of the remaining representatives of the people - the elders of the families or, according to the new organization given by Moses - the overseers of the people and the heads of the decimal units, i.e. leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens, or judges in general (Deut. 29:10; Josh. 23:2). This lower department is usually called “society” in contrast to the higher department called “princes” (Num. 10:3; 27:2). In contrast to the highest, it was not permanent, but gathered on especially important occasions. In addition to the general division according to the importance of representation, the assembly, of course, also retained its division into tribes, tribes and families, so that each tribe could separately express its opinion on a well-known issue. As for the order of the meeting, as can be seen from the description (Josh. 23:2; 24:1, 16, 21) of the people's meeting, which gathered before the death of Joshua to receive the last instructions from him, the meeting took place in such a way that only those closest to him, the chief elders (heads of tribes and generations), received instructions from the lips of the leader, and then they passed on what was accepted to the rest of the representatives, who expressed their agreement or disagreement exclamations 647. It is most likely that meetings in general took place in a similar way: members of the two main branches of the meeting consulted among themselves, made certain decisions, and then the result of these meetings was presented to the rest of the meeting, which expressed its agreement or disagreement. The meeting was convened with two silver trumpets specially prepared for this purpose (Numbers 10:2). “When one trumpet is blown, the princes and captains of Israel will be gathered to you” 648, i.e. members of the first chamber, the first two main branches of the assembly - the heads of tribes and generations; and when both trumpets were blown, all the members of the congregation, “the whole congregation,” were to gather (Num. 10:3). This method of convening people's representatives into an assembly was, of course, possible only at a time when the people constituted another camp, crowded in one place; when he settled throughout the cities of Palestine, so that it became impossible to give information to different cities with two trumpets, then a national assembly was convened through special messengers (2 Chron. 30:6). Meetings usually took place at some place especially sacred to the entire people. At first, such a place usually served as a tabernacle, the place before the entrance to it (Num. 10:3), which is why the tabernacle itself is often called the “tent of meeting” (Lev. 4:4, 5, 7; Num. 10:3), and later in various cities, and mainly in the city of Mizpah (Judg. 11:11; 20:1; 1 Sam. 7:5; 10:17 ). The national assembly was convened for various important events: for a solemn national service (Exodus 12:47), for general prayer to avert impending disasters (Num. 25:5 and 6; Joel 2:15), for the adoption of new laws (Exodus 19:7 and 8; Lev. 8:3, 4, 5, etc.), for trial and execution of sentences in important cases of crime. (Num. 15:32, 35; Lev. 24:14), for establishing political relations with neighboring peoples, declaring war, concluding peace and treaties (Josh. 9:18), and in general, all the most important matters of the internal and external life of the people, even the very form of government, were under his jurisdiction, as was later the case with the establishment of royal power. Thus, in its internal structure, the Israeli state was supposed to represent a form of popular self-government, under the supreme leadership of Jehovah. “Divine government” in this case is not any special form of government - unlike monarchy, oligarchy or democracy (as Josephus mistakenly thought), but there is only the general leadership of God, under which the state life of the people could develop freely and take all sorts of forms that turned out to be useful or necessary due to historical circumstances in the life of the people. Therefore, during his wanderings in the desert and the conquest of the Promised Land, he was led by military dictators (Moses and Joshua); then random leaders and judges acted (during the time of the judges) and then the monarchy was established. All these forms of government could equally be reconciled with “government by God”, if only the rulers acted according to the specified law and private manifestations of the will of the Supreme King of the people - Jehovah. Chapter 53. Socio-economic laws The government of God, traces of which are indicated in the field of state laws, appears with no less clarity in the laws relating to socio-economic life, in which it also introduces the highest principles of wisdom and justice, unknown among the ancient peoples of the pagan world. We will consider the most important of these laws, and first of all the laws on land ownership. The general view of the Mosaic legislation on the land, as the main subject of ownership, bears the full character of a miraculous government of God. Here, instead of the natural principle of ownership, expressed in seizure, by virtue of which, as Rousseau says, a person arbitrarily encloses a part of the land and says, “this is mine,” without paying attention to whether others will get as much as he captured or not, although they have the same right with him, here in the Mosaic legislation the theocratic principle predominates, excluding any seizure. The land, according to this legislation, is the property of Jehovah alone, as its full-fledged manager by the right of the Creator in general and by the right of the donor of the Palestinian land to the chosen people in particular. “My land,” says Jehovah: “you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Lev. 25:20–21). If the land is the complete and exclusive property of Jehovah alone, then this already excludes the possibility of unauthorized seizure of it into private ownership. It can become such only with the permission of its rightful owner, and in this case the injustice that is natural with unauthorized seizure is eliminated. A similar view of land, as the exclusive property of some common principle, appears to be found in some other legislation, such as. in Egyptian, where the land also did not constitute anyone’s private property, but belonged to one pharaoh (Gen. 47:20, 21). Based on this apparent similarity, some suggest that the Mosaic law regarding the exclusive ownership of the earth by Jehovah is an imitation of the Egyptian social order to which the Israelites were accustomed from childhood 649 . But in this opinion, in addition to the lack of commonality to all explanations of known beliefs or institutions of one people by borrowing them from another, 650 there is an attempt to compare phenomena that are essentially incomparable, although similar in appearance. There is a fundamental difference between the Egyptian social order and the Mosaic legislation. Among the Egyptians, this social order is the result of natural-historical conditions, the brainchild of a national disaster, which gave the pharaoh the opportunity to seize the land into his own property, dispossess small owners of land and become the sovereign, sole owner of all Egyptian lands. Consequently, this order, by its very origin, is an abnormal phenomenon. Further, this abnormal phenomenon led to other abnormalities: landless small owners, of necessity, entered into slavish dependence on the pharaoh, surrendered to him to the fullest of his will, became his slaves “from one end of Egypt to the other,” and this slavish dependence was expressed by a heavy tax in favor of the pharaoh, equal to a fifth of the income. Since, further, the land was given to farmers for rent, it is natural that it was given unevenly to everyone, but depending on the wealth of each. Hence the new abnormality, due to which the wealthier farmers could in turn seize the land, leaving the less wealthy either without land at all, or with very little of it, and thus plunging them into all sorts of miseries of poverty. Thus, the Egyptian social order of land ownership, as a result of popular disaster, led to even greater national disasters, to a terrible development of poverty. The view of the Mosaic legislation on land ownership is completely different. According to this view, the land is the property of Jehovah alone, not by virtue of its seizure from the previous owners, but by right of the Creator. Jehovah, by free choice, gives this eternal property of his to the people of Israel, imposing on them for this the well-known obligations specified in the treaty. In giving land to the people of Israel, Jehovah does not leave it to all the accidents of personal seizure, as was the case with the Egyptians, a seizure that necessarily introduces inequality and injustice, but introduces an equal distribution of the land “according to the number of names” of the male sex (Num. 26:53). Thus, just as the social order of land ownership among the Egyptians is dominated by the completely natural-historical law of seizure with all its injustices and disasters, so on the contrary, in the Law of Moses the theocratic principle dominates, by virtue of which the highest idea of ​​justice subordinates the natural-historical law and, in place of unauthorized seizure, introduces the principle of equal distribution of land into possession. The essence of the theocratic principle in this case is the equal right of all members of the Mosaic state to the land. When the people of Israel were numbered by generation and family in the male line, Jehovah said to Moses: “For this purpose the land must be divided according to the number of names.” “The land must be divided by lot; according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall receive inheritance” (Num. 26:53–54). These commands contain the essence of the agrarian laws of Moses, which determine the economic situation of the people. A more specific definition of this general law is expressed in the following command: “to those who are more numerous, give them more inheritance, and to those who are fewer in number, give them less inheritance; everyone must be given an inheritance in proportion to the number of those included in the number” (Numbers 26:55). Since the calculation took place according to all three degrees of division of the people - by tribes, tribes and families, it is obvious that the land was distributed among these same groups. Since the law does not indicate other units when dividing the land, one can think that the division was limited only to these three, and the allotment determined for the family, as a smaller unit, should be considered a lower land unit, beyond which the division defined by the law no longer extended. But this does not mean that the division did not extend further in reality. The specified land unit is the lowest only in socio-legal terms and is established in accordance with the lowest degree of division of the national body - the family. But just as the family was naturally divided into several private houses or farms, there is no reason to deny that the family’s allotment was divided according to the number of these farms, although at the same time, just as these individual houses or farms were not taken into account by the legislation, they equally did not take into account these small plots allocated for individual houses or farms from the general allotment belonging to the family. The law left such private division to the discretion of individual communities and customary law, and it could descend to the lowest unit - the allotment of each individual. The difference between this private division and the legalized or official one, apparently, was that the units of the latter division were stable and unchanged, while the units of the private division were constantly changing in accordance with the change in the number and composition of the existing owners. There are many references to personal land ownership in the law. So eg. Personal ownership of land is presupposed by the law of the year of jubilee, which speaks of the sale and redemption of private properties belonging to individuals (Num. 36:7). Since individuals are organically included in families, tribes, tribes, then land ownership from a number of plots constituting personal ownership is correctly combined into land units that constitute the communal property of families, tribes, and tribes. But these latter, with their right to land, should not have served to limit the rights of personal ownership, but on the contrary, as more durable, in comparison with the individual, social units, they should have served as a guarantee of personal ownership, strictly monitoring the integrity of their possession. The integrity of the tribal ownership was legalized by the definition “so that the inheritance of the children of Israel should not pass from tribe to tribe” (Lev. 25:25, 26, 28), which was achieved by a law that did not allow the possibility of inheritance passing from one tribe to another. Equally, the tribe had to strictly monitor its possession (Num. 33:54), which was expressed in the special appointment of ambassadors, whose duties were, through ransom, to preserve the integrity of the tribal possession. This gradation of rights to land ownership excellently ensured the inviolability of both communal and personal property. In this order of things and in view of the fact that the Mosaic state was supposed to be predominantly agricultural and that, as was self-evident, each Israeli would cultivate the plot of land that fell to his lot, the members of the state would consist of free farmers - owners, all residents of the state, in view of the fertility of the Palestinian soil, even if they could not be too rich, could have a significant, approximately equal, degree of well-being and material contentment. But, as the learned researcher of Mosaic law, Salschutz 651, notes, such is the nature of human relations that such uniformity of condition and the personal independence associated with it cannot be completely preserved for a long time. Natural disasters, family and personal misfortunes, unequal degrees of enterprise and frugality in different members of society and many other reasons lead over time to the fact that from equally wealthy people more wealthy and less wealthy begin to stand out. With the further development of this relationship, among the less wealthy individuals are identified who, not having enough funds to properly cultivate the land and at the same time having an oppressive need to satisfy their needs, are forced to sell their plot, which naturally passes into the hands of the wealthier and makes them rich. Thus, under the unlimited dominance of natural economic conditions for the distribution of wealth, or under the dominance of the principle of uncontrolled development known in economic science 652, initial economic equality is replaced by unevenness in the distribution of material wealth. While some become poorer and poorer, others accumulate wealth more and more, and in the end there appear astonishing extremes of poverty (pauperism) on the one hand, and excessive wealth (plutocracy) on the other. Such an abnormality in the distribution of material goods is the greatest social evil and serves as the cause of internal unrest, weakening and destruction of the state, as was the case, for example. in the Roman Empire, and as is partly noticeable in the states of Western Europe at the present time. Many legislators tried to put a barrier to the development of this evil, but their efforts were mostly in vain. This great attempt is also found in the Mosaic legislation, but here it has the character not only of an attempt, but also of an existing law. To prevent the development of this social evil, the Mosaic legislation limits the right of personal exclusive property. This limitation is achieved by various laws, which, while providing significant freedom to personal ownership, tend to place next to it, without contradicting or harming it, within certain limits, the general use of personal property. This is the definition by which everyone is granted free use of the fruits of someone else’s field or vineyard, although this use is limited to personal consumption at a given time, with the prohibition of stockpiling “When you enter into your neighbor’s vineyard, you can eat the berries to your fill, as much as your soul desires, but do not put it in your vessel. When you come into your neighbor’s harvest, pluck the ears of corn with your hands, but do not bring a sickle into your neighbor’s harvest” (Deut. 33:24–25). This definition, of course, refers to strangers and the poor, but it could also serve as a counterweight to the desire to accumulate excessive wealth. But this measure was only of secondary importance in countering the development of extreme poverty. Of greater importance in relation to maintaining economic equality and preventing the development of extremes of pauperism and plutocracy is another legalization that also limits the right of personal ownership. This is the legalization of the inalienability of land ownership. “The land should not be sold forever; for the land is Mine (says Jehovah); you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Lev. 25:23). The theocratic meaning of this law is that Jehovah, as the sole owner of the land and the giver of it to the chosen people, does not provide the use of the land to all accidents of natural-historical conditions that necessarily lead to the specified social evil, but subordinates these conditions to the principle of supreme justice, according to which the initially established equality must be constantly maintained and developed. The theocratic principle in this regard corresponds to another political-economic theory, the theory of state intervention, according to which the state should take upon itself the task of regulating the economic relations of citizens. The Mosaic legislation, as stated above, achieves this by limiting the right of personal property. An Israeli owner could sell his plot only for a certain time, after which the plot again, according to the law, without any compensation, had to return to the original owner, or to his heirs. This law was practically implemented in the famous institution of the Sabbath Year system. The system of Sabbath years has the greatest theocratic-economic significance in the system of Mosaic legislation. Based on the general meaning of “Saturday” in the Old Testament Worldview, as a day of rest from activity in remembrance of the completion of Jehovah’s creative activity and as a day of witnessing the “goodness” of creation, the system of Sabbath years had its highest purpose to serve as a periodically correct point for the return of social relations, which had deviated from the norm in their development, to their original state. It, so to speak, was called upon to serve as a regenerating force, bringing disordered human relations to the norm in which they were placed when they were initially established and from which they deviated under the influence of natural-historical conditions. This system is unparalleled in world history and its establishment was possible only in a theocratic state, where the theocratic principle, the principle of the highest idea of ​​justice, dominated over the principles of sinful, natural-historical conditions that completely suppressed the development of the rest, extra-covenantal humanity. The system of Sabbath years consisted of a double gradation, which, starting with the seventh year, ended with the fiftieth, which completed the seventh of seventh years (7x71) and served as a dividing point, after which a new seventh of seventh years began. Every seventh year is called a “Sabbath year,” and every fiftieth year is called a “Year of Jubilee.” The main decree of the Mosaic legislation regarding the Sabbath year is the requirement of rest for the earth. “The earth must rest on the Sabbath of the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof: and in the seventh year shall there be a Sabbath of rest for the earth, a Sabbath of the Lord; You shall not sow your field and you shall not prune your vineyard” (Lev. 25:2 and 4; Ex. 22:10–11). The theocratic meaning of this law is indicated above: it is determined by the general meaning of the Sabbath, and in relation to the land is expressed in the restoration of that integrity, that virginity (so to speak), which it had at creation (in relation to the Israelites - during the distribution of the land), but which it lost during the continuation of its cultivation and depletion. But the theocratic meaning of the Sabbath year was associated with many other meanings of a socio-economic nature. Thus, the “rest of the earth”, repeating periodically, in agronomic terms had the meaning of steam, fertilizing the earth. Soil fertilization (in the proper sense) was unknown in ancient times. Therefore, leaving the land alone, with the significant development of cattle breeding, which supplied natural material for fertilizing the soil (since the herds could constantly remain in the fields this whole year), served as the best means of restoring the depleted plant power of the land. Even more important and more characteristic in relation to the general view of the Mosaic legislation on land and property is another law on the Sabbath year, or, more precisely, an addition to the first law on the rest of the earth. Having prohibited the cultivation of the land and sowing on it in the seventh year, the law continues: “Whatever grows in your harvest,” you shall not reap, and do not remove the grapes from your unpruned vines: let this be a year of rest for the earth. And this shall be food for all of you throughout the Sabbath of the land, for you and for your manservant and your maidservant, and for your hired servant, and for your sojourner who lodges with you; and to your livestock and to the beasts that are in your land, all its produce shall be for food” (Lev. 25:5–7). By this law, all the products of the earth, grown 653 without artificial care for it, are provided for the common use of everyone who needs them, even those who, in ordinary times, limited by the conditions of property rights, do not have the right to use them, without the permission of the owner or possessor. The theocratic significance of this law lies in the fact that it seemed to restore that period of human life when people, still unspoiled by sin and uninfected by narrow egoistic instincts that isolate a person into the sphere of personal interests, often obscure even the consciousness of universal human brotherhood, not yet divided into classes by gender and condition, lived a common life and enjoyed the benefits of nature on the rights of complete equality. From this theocratic significance of this law, its social significance is also clear. By providing private property for general use, the law achieved this double benefit - in socio-economic and socio-moral terms. Natural-historical conditions, no matter how they were suppressed and no matter how their actions were regulated by the theocratic principle, quickly led to an uneven distribution of material wealth and little by little led to the separation of the rich from the poor, producing socio-economic inequality, with all its disasters. The law in question smoothed out, to a certain extent, the resulting inequality. By abolishing for a whole year the right of exclusive use of the fruits of the land on the part of the owners and providing the use of them to everyone who needs them, making them a common property, the law thereby deprived rich owners of the opportunity to accumulate wealth for a whole year (which, of course, for them, using a significant number of labor hands and land plots, was incomparably more convenient and easier than for the poor). Meanwhile, the poor and all those dispossessed in the harsh struggle of life, having lost their plots of land, being forced to sell them to the rich, could now freely enjoy the products of all fields and vineyards. This thought is clearly expressed in another form of the same law: “In the seventh year, you shall leave the land alone, so that the poor of your people may feed, and with the remains after them, the law adds, the beasts of the field may eat,” as we know, who, thanks to man’s greed, are also often deprived of the necessary food assigned to them by nature. “Do the same to your vineyard and your olive tree” (Ex. 23:11). In social and moral terms, this law had the beneficial effect that the provision of fruits for common use contributed to the maintenance and stimulation of the consciousness of the brotherhood of people, often obscured by the developed inequality in position and condition, and prevented the strong development of narrow, self-interested selfishness, which secludes a person from all the noble impulses of philanthropy into the sphere of personal interests. But the question arises: could economic difficulties arise from this law, which prohibits the cultivation of the land and the sowing of grain in the seventh year (Lev. 25:20)? In other words, could the Palestinian soil, without cultivation and sowing, produce enough food to feed the people? This is a serious question, and many researchers have dwelled on it, finding it difficult even to reconcile its positive solution with the general reasonableness of the legislation. But the matter can be easily explained if we take into account historical and geographical data regarding the characteristics of Palestine. Prohibiting sowing, the legislator, however, speaks of the use of the products and fruits of the earth, and so significant that after the satisfaction of the owners with all their households, workers, livestock, and after the satisfaction of the poor and settlers, who obviously do not have their own fields and therefore have to enjoy the fruits from the same fields of the property owners, he also suggests leftovers (Ex. 23:11), which are provided as food to the beasts of the field. It is clear that the law assumes a good harvest without sowing, and historical and geographical data fully confirm this assumption. It is known that biblical, classical and generally ancient writers who wrote about Palestine unanimously, with the exception of Strabo, who knew little about Palestine, speak with admiration about its climatic conditions and extraordinary fertility. This, according to Jehovah’s saying, is “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3), “the beauty of all lands” (Ezek. 20:6), “the land, according to the description of Moses, is good, where there is wheat, barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranate trees, olive trees and honey, a land in which the people will eat bread without scarcity and will lack nothing” (Deut. 8:7–9). Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Josephus Flavius, Justin the philosopher and others depict the fertility of Palestine in the same colors. Such evidence from the ancients is confirmed by modern researchers and travelers. Thus, Graetz notes: “It is true that the land that once flowed with milk and honey has changed - the gaze sees devastation everywhere. But even now, where only the human hand cultivates the soil, extraordinary fertility appears.” If we take into account such luxury and fertility of the Promised Land, then it is not surprising that even without artificial sowing, rich fields grew solely from randomly fallen grains, the more significant the harvest, the greater the quantity. And this phenomenon is not unprecedented: according to Strabo, in Albania it was possible to reap two or three harvests from one sowing. In Numidia, from the fallen grains, ordinary harvests grew the next summer, and in Hyrcania, where there was not even proper agriculture, bread was born from the grains that fell during the harvest 654. The likelihood of this phenomenon in Palestine is even greater if we take into account the law that prohibited reaping the field to the edge and gleaning what was left (Lev. 19:9; 23:22). Under such conditions, the harvest could be significant even without sowing, not to mention the orchards and vineyards that could bear fruit without care even in countries less fertile than Palestine. But, explaining in a natural way the possibility of a harvest without sowing, we do not thereby exclude here the special effect of the “blessing of God”, which was promised by Jehovah himself in the sixth year. On the contrary, it seems to us that the particular fear of difficulties that could arise from the law of the peace of the earth, forcing some learned researchers to resort to various theories and stretches (Michaelis), stemmed from a one-sided, narrowly naturalistic view of the subject, ignoring or even completely excluding 655 the miraculous element in the fate of the chosen people. This is all the more necessary to say regarding the anniversary year, where, on the occasion of the confluence of two years of peace for the earth, naturalistic theory comes into even greater confusion, but where the miraculous element appears all the more clearly. The Jubilee year constitutes the highest level in the development of the idea of ​​the Sabbath and a further gradation in the Sabbath system according to the Mosaic laws on land and property. “Count yourself seven Sabbath years, seven times seven years, so that in the seven Sabbath years you will have forty-nine years. And sanctify the fiftieth year, that you may have a jubilee” (Lev. 25:8–11). If we follow the literal meaning of the text of this law, then there can be no question about when this year was celebrated. The direct, literal meaning of the law is that the jubilee was set on the 50th year, after a successive series of seven weeks of summer, and was different from the seventh sabbatical year. But with this understanding, there is the possibility of an even greater economic difficulty than that presented in the law on the Sabbath year, since then it would have to be assumed that the land remained uncultivated for two years in a row. Finding it difficult to reconcile such an understanding with legislative wisdom, some scientific researchers argue that the anniversary could only take place in 49, i.e. it was nothing less than the seventh sabbatical year, as the final point of the entire sabbatical circle. But antiquity, with the exception of some later scholars, is not in favor of this opinion. Philo and Josephus clearly speak of the year of jubilee as the fiftieth 656. The main motive for this far-fetched explanation lies, as stated above, in the fear of economic difficulties arising from leaving fields without cultivation and sowing for two years in a row. The naturalistic tendency of this theory was indicated above and its inconsistency was also shown there. Here we will only supplement what has been said, indicating the reasons for the inconsistency of such a theory in its particular application to the anniversary year. The fear of the possibility of economic difficulties arising, given the complete dominance of ordinary economic conditions, is assumed by the legislator himself (Lev. 25:20), but he also eliminates it: “If you say: what will we eat in the seventh year, when we will neither sow nor gather our produce? I will send My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it will bring you three years’ worth” (Lev. 25:20–21). Consequently, here, in addition to the natural means of Palestine discussed above for eliminating economic difficulties, the theocratic principle receives full significance, the essence of which includes, among other things, the subordination of natural conditions to a higher leadership principle. The predominance of such a beginning, understandable in the establishment of the Sabbath year, even becomes necessary in the establishment of the jubilee year, which, in terms of the greatness of its tasks, is a completely unprecedented phenomenon in history. The essence of the Mosaic legislation regarding the year of jubilee lies in the requirement to restore the order of things that was established during the division of the land into the possession of the Israelites and from which it deviated in its development under the influence of natural historical conditions. And since this order consisted of an equal distribution of land into ownership and personal freedom for each member of the theocratic state, its restoration had to consist in the return of land ownership and personal freedom to those who had lost them in the harsh struggle of life during a fifty-year period. “In the year of jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession,” and “until the year of jubilee, let (your brother) work for you, and then let him depart from you, he and his children with him, and return to his tribe, and enter again into the possession of his fathers” (Lev. 25:13 and 40–41). These few words express the essence of the law on the year of jubilee, and from them one can see the great significance of these laws in theocratic and social terms. According to the meaning of this law, the anniversary year was supposed to serve as a certain time during which the once established order of socio-economic relations, an order whose main principle was equality, was again restored to its previous state. The Sabbath year was intended to restore only the earth to its previous state, while the jubilee year embraced both the earth and people. “The specific meaning of the jubilee year, in contrast to the Sabbath year, lies in the idea of ​​salutary restoration and the return of theocracy to the primitive divine order, in which everyone is free and everyone is guaranteed his earthly well-being. God, who once delivered his people from the slavery of Egypt and took them into his own property, is now the Deliverer in order to restore the personal freedom of those who fell into slavery and return to the impoverished that share of participation in earthly goods that they were deprived of” 657. Socially, the establishment of the anniversary year had as its task to counteract and destroy those abnormalities that are inevitable in the life of human society during its ordinary, left to itself, socio-economic development. In this regard, the establishment of the jubilee year represents a happy, as Salschutz puts it, 658 solution to the problem on which legislators of various nations worked. It has already been said what this world problem is: it lies in achieving such a regulation of human relations that it would be impossible for the emergence or at least the strong development of social evil - an extremely uneven distribution of material wealth, excessive wealth on the one hand and extreme poverty on the other. The institution of the Jubilee Year achieved this goal as far as possible. The fifty-year period, while giving the owner significant freedom in the disposal of his property, at the same time limited this freedom, putting necessary limits on it, beyond which it would serve to the detriment of the owner himself, exposing him to all the contingencies and dangers of losing his possession forever. Only this institution served as a reliable means of counteracting such evil and was precisely adapted to prevent the division of the people into various classes of wealth, into rich nobles and poor workers, and to constantly maintain equality between them, as free landowners. Chapter 54. Debt laws The laws on debts, which represent one of the forms of disposal of property, in the Mosaic legislation are closely related to the general legislation on property and are imbued with the same sublime theocratic spirit that distinguishes all Mosaic legislation on property. This theocratic spirit is here expressed in an institution that, if not identical in name, is identical in essence with the institution of the Sabbath year. This is the establishment of the so-called “year of forgiveness.” “In the seventh year you shall remit forgiveness” (Deut. 15:1), says the law. The law does not determine what kind of seventh year it is: whether it coincided with the seventh Sabbath year, or constituted a special seven-day system. But in view of the fact that the character of this year fully corresponds to the character of the Sabbath year and that the law does not determine the moment from which the counting of the seventh years of forgiveness should begin, which would be necessary if it represented a new system independent of the Sabbath, it is possible with sufficient grounds to identify the year of forgiveness with the Sabbath year. This is how most researchers look at the matter. In this case, the year of forgiveness loses its independent meaning and is only one side of the Sabbath year, but this does not make it lose its great significance; on the contrary, the Sabbath year gives it even more strength, introducing it into the majestic Sabbath system, which embraces the entire circle of the social and civil life of the people. But before indicating the significance of the Sabbath year in the field of debt laws, let us first consider the characteristic features of debt relations between members of the Mosaic state. The members of the Mosaic state, based exclusively on agriculture and partly on cattle breeding, were alien to the spirit of speculation, supported and developed among the people by trade and other similar industries. Therefore, they were also unaware of that credit - the source of debt obligations of people among themselves - which is a necessary accessory of our speculative-industrial time, when a huge number of people live not by directly extracting products from the earth, but by artificially increasing the value of these products, which requires grandiose combinations and enterprises that require large expenses, which are possible only with the widespread development of credit. In the Mosaic state, debt obligations were caused only by necessity, when, as a result of developing inequality, some - the impoverished - were forced to turn to others - the rich - for a loan in order to improve their material circumstances. “If you have one of your brothers who is poor in your land, do not harden your heart and do not close your hand against your poor brother, but open your hand to him and give him a loan, according to his need, what he needs” (Deut. 15:8). Debt obligations in this case, as serving not as a means for speculation, but as a means of alleviating an inevitable social evil - inequality in wealth, as a means of escaping poverty, should have received legislative regulation in accordance with their purpose. In themselves, debt obligations, serving as an expression of economic inequality, tend to further consolidate this inequality, since they place the debtor, hoping through a loan to improve his difficult circumstances, in a dependent position on the creditor, who receives, by virtue of the debt obligation, a certain right to the actions and property of the debtor, in a certain sense, to his person. This dependence increases on the conditions that accompany the debt obligation and which, moreover, are assigned in most cases by the creditor. The burden of the debt obligation will be felt even more when the loan does not produce the expected relief from everyday circumstances, but as a result of some misfortune will only fall as a new burden on the head of the unfortunate poor man. Then debt obligations, intended to alleviate the severity of social evil, themselves become this evil, and finding a way to eliminate it from social life constitutes the same great social problem as the very question of eliminating social inequality in general seems to be. The Mosaic legislation presents the following way of solving this problem. Since debt obligations in the Mosaic state were caused by oppressive need, legislation tries by all means to alleviate these obligations. Thus, it prohibits the usual charging of interest or growth in these obligations and, in general, all kinds of mercenary activities. “If your brother becomes poor and declines among you, then support him, whether he is a stranger or a settler, so that he may live with you. Do not take growth or profit from it, and fear your God. You shall not give him your silver at interest, and you shall not give him your bread for gain” (Lev. 25:35–37). There was a lot of debate regarding the fairness and expediency of such legalization. Interest, according to the view of political-economic science, is the soul of debt obligations: only they and benefits in general motivate the giving of a certain part of one’s wealth or money to another for use. Debt obligations are unthinkable without the prospect of benefits. The fairness of charging interest is determined by three conditions: 1) the danger of losing the amount given, requiring reward for the risk; 2) the benefit that the debtor derives from the borrowed amount, therefore, the participation of the creditor in making this benefit possible, and 3) remuneration for the benefit that the creditor himself could derive from the loaned amount 659. These conditions for the fairness of charging interest on loaned capital seem to contradict the Mosaic law, which categorically prohibits all “growth” and “profit.” But this is only apparent. In fact, all these conditions, apparently inevitable in debt obligations, lost their significance in the field of social relations of the members of the Mosaic state. Thus, the danger of losing the loaned amount was eliminated by the reliable security of a plot of land, which was owned by each Israeli, and, consequently, by the debtor, and in addition, the loan was secured by a widely developed system of collateral, as we will see below. The second condition for the justice of charging interest, namely the benefit that the borrower derives from the borrowed amount, seems fair only where self-interest is the predominant passion. “It is a very small amount of justice,” says Michaelis, that I should take a piece of the profit that another receives without any damage to me, although through my money. After all, I do not demand remuneration from another for the candle that he lights from my candle, although he earns money by taking the light from me. In the same position is the one who, without any labor or danger on his part, lends to another the money lying unused in his possession - “quasi lumen de suo limine accendere facit” 660. This consideration takes on even greater significance in the Mosaic state, where, as stated above, the loan was made not for speculation, but in view of oppressive need and poverty. Such a view, of course, could be most natural and lively in a theocratic state, in the kingdom of humanity and supreme justice. Some difficulty in justifying the Mosaic legislation, apparently, is represented by the third condition for the fairness of charging interest - namely, the need for remuneration for the benefit that the owner himself would receive with the help of the money lent or his property in general. But this difficulty is also eliminated by the peculiarities of the socio-economic structure of the Mosaic state. Capital brings great benefits only where there is the possibility of rapid turnover, precisely with a significant development of trade and the spirit of speculative enterprises. Such conditions did not exist in the Mosaic agricultural state. Therefore, capital, partly in the form of silver, and mostly in the form of raw products - bread, fruits, etc., had to lie with their owner without use, subject to rust, rotting and destruction from mice, worms and other harmful insects. Given this order of things, it is natural that it is more profitable for a capitalist to lend his capital to another under sure security than to keep it for himself, since the debtor, obliged to repay the debt in the same quantity and of the same quality as he borrowed, will be the guardian of the capital from any damage. Thus, in the conditions of the socio-economic structure of the Mosaic state, the third condition of fairness in the collection of interest, inevitable in our modern European order, completely loses its force, since the capitalist, by giving away his idle capital, does not lose anything, but, on the contrary, gains, thereby saving it from significant damage. These are the laws on debt obligations and the conditions for its execution in relation to the Israeli, in the area of ​​​​the socio-economic order of the Mosaic state. The law takes on a different character in relation to a foreigner. Following the prohibition against giving capital on interest to an Israeli, the law adds: “You shall give to a foreigner on interest, but you shall not lend to your brother on interest” (Deut. 23:20). At first glance at such a difference in the law in relation to the Israeli and the foreigner - a difference leaning in favor of the former and to the detriment of the latter - one can see in this a narrowly national exclusivity of the law, excluding any non-Israelite from enjoying the benefits of the national Israeli institution. But such a view is not entirely reasonable. True, exclusivity in the law cannot be completely denied: it necessarily appears due to the fact that Jehovah established his kingdom, with its special principles, only among and for the sons of Israel; but in this case, the difference in the law on debts made by the legislator in relation to a foreigner is not caused by national selfishness, which prevailed among all the peoples of the ancient world, but by the natural features of the conditions in which debt obligations in relation to a foreigner are placed. Here, debt obligations leave the area of ​​the socio-economic system of the Mosaic state, which gave them the characteristic feature we have considered, and enter the area of ​​ordinary economic conditions, and as a result, those conditions of fairness in the collection of interest, which lost it due to the peculiarities of the socio-economic system in the Mosaic state, again gain legal force. Thus, by giving his capital to a foreigner, for example, a rich merchant from Tire or Sidon (after all, in most cases only such could go abroad for a loan), the lender exposed its integrity to significant danger, in any case much more significant than by giving it away within the country on sure security. Hence, justice requires reward for risk. In this case, the second condition requiring the collection of interest also comes into force. If a rich speculator from Sidon, using 10 talents of silver borrowed from an Israeli, acquired the same amount of silver with a clever turn, then he owes such an acquisition to none other than the Israeli, since without his favor all the dexterity and resourcefulness of the speculator would have been in vain. Would it be unfair if he rewarded the Israeli for the favor? Of course not. Finally, the third condition for the fairness of charging interest in relation to a foreigner also receives its usual meaning. True, the capital, being in the owner’s possession, may not have brought him personal benefits, as was shown above, but in this case the public and state interest takes on special significance. Even if the capital did not find a beneficial use for its owner personally, then in any case he could always find a beneficial use for society or the state in the form of loans to poor members of society to improve their material circumstances. And besides this, reserve capital in the state is always useful, since it could always serve as a guarantee against social disasters, famine, etc. Therefore, the export of capital abroad for the state constitutes, if not direct, then indirect damage, for which it has the right to receive compensation, in this case in the form of interest for the personal use of the owner of the capital. We assume a case where the capital did not find profitable use in the country for its owner personally; if he found such a use, then the justice of charging interest from a foreigner is indisputable. The difference in the law on debt obligations in relation to an Israeli and a foreigner is sufficiently justified by the difference in the motives and purposes of concluding debt obligations by both. While a foreigner, a rich merchant from Tire or Sidon, borrowed capital for trading purposes, in the form of bold speculation and, perhaps, easy gain, for the accumulation of new riches to wealth, the Israelite borrowed only out of need, in the form of improving his bad economic circumstances, as the law suggests, always calling the debtor “poor brother”, “poor brother”, “poor of the people”, etc. (Exod. 22:25; Deut. 15:8 etc.). This explains the moral and social motive that requires a difference in the law. If for the former the loan was a matter of thirst for acquisition, and for the latter a matter of necessity, then charging interest for the former is not a burden, while for the latter it would be an unbearable burden. That the legislator had in mind this difference in the position of those entering into a loan is clear from the fact that the same foreigner, but living in Palestine, therefore, in the area of ​​​​the socio-economic conditions of a theocratic state, enjoys in the law on debts the same advantages over a real foreigner, i.e. those who accidentally enter the country, which are provided to Israelis. “If your brother becomes poor and declines among you, then support him, whether he is a stranger or a settler, so that he may live with you. Do not take growth or profit from him” (Lev. 25:35–36). Due to the same difference in the position of borrowers, the legislator, leaving the conclusion of a loan by a foreigner to a good, free agreement between him and the lender, considers it necessary to add a special moral admonition to the rich in concluding a loan to a poor Israeli or alien, so that they do not refuse a request for a loan. “Do not harden your heart,” the lawgiver addresses the rich, and do not close your hand before your poor brother. But open your hand to him and lend him, according to his need, what he needs” (Deut. 15:7-8). The loan was secured by collateral. The system of pledges in the Mosaic legislation is widely developed, although its origin owes to the legal customs of the people. The legislator only streamlines the system of pledges established by custom, eliminating from it those abnormalities that placed a heavy burden on the debtor and encouraged the greed of the creditor. These abnormalities could consist in the fact that a greedy lender, taking advantage of the hopeless situation of a poor man asking him for a loan, could seize as collateral either valuable things (if there were any) worth many times greater than the debt, with the goal of using them in the event of a forfeit of the debtor, or basic necessities, the deprivation of which makes the life of the poor man even more bleak. Therefore, the legislator prescribes some restrictions regarding the requirement of collateral. Thus, the creditor did not have the right to enter the house himself to take the collateral, but had to wait on the street until the borrower himself gave him the collateral. “If you lend something to your neighbor, do not go to his house to take a deposit from him; stand in the street, and the one to whom you lent will bring you his pledge into the street” (Deut. 24:10–11). The practical importance of this legalization lies in the fact that it protected the debtor from the impudent greed of the lender, who, having entered the house, taking advantage of the debtor’s hopeless situation, could seize the best thing that caught his eye in the house and take it instead of the agreed pledge, or even together with the pledge as gratitude for the favor, without meeting strong protest from the poor man, straitened by circumstances, “If you take as a pledge for your neighbor's clothing, return it before the sun goes down. For she is the only cover; she is the garment of his body: what will he sleep in?” ( Ex. 22:26, ​​27 ). Here the right to take basic necessities as collateral from the poor is obviously limited - in this case, outer clothing, as can be seen from another version of this law in Deut. 24:12–13. To understand the meaning of this law, one must take into account that clothing (outer) in the east even now often consists of a simple, quadrangular piece of material, which also serves as a blanket at night, protecting the person sleeping in the open air from the very significant cold at night and the cold gusty winds that suddenly appear from Lebanon, easily causing a fatal cold. This clothing was not worn during the day, since, due to its significant weight and inconvenient cut, it was inconvenient to walk in it, much less work; therefore, the debtor could easily pledge it for the day, but could not do without it for the night. The right to take a deposit from the widow is further limited. “Thou shalt not take a widow’s clothing as collateral” (Deut. 24:17) – the law categorically states, absolutely prohibiting taking clothing as collateral from a helpless widow. The same absolute prohibition extends to essential items. So eg. It is prohibited to take as collateral a hand mill, which in ancient times, which did not know large mechanical mills, served as a necessary accessory for every householder, satisfying the needs of preparing daily food. “No one should take the upper and lower millstone 661 as collateral, for such a one takes a soul as collateral” (Deut. 24:6), the legislator adds, thereby indicating the severity of depriving the debtor of an essential item in the economy, in life. This legalization, specifically expressed in the example of a hand mill, of course extends to other essential items in the household, such as. agricultural implements, working animals, etc. etc., although the legislator does not directly speak about this (cf. Job 24:3). In the event of a debtor's penalty and the taken collateral is insufficient to repay the loan, the lender has security in all of the debtor's property - movable and immovable. The legislator does not say this directly, but this is clearly presupposed by the legal conditions for the alienation of possession. If the main condition for this social phenomenon seems to be impoverishment (Lev. 25:25 and 39), then, according to ordinary logic, its condition could also be a penalty on debt obligations, as one of the forms of “poverty.” The system of pledges, as presented above, could develop from debt obligations a social evil, which would fall with all its weight on the poor members of the state. But it could not become this way thanks to the wise law by which the legislator limited the area of ​​debt relations. He also introduced a theocratic institution in the field of debt relations, which was designed to periodically restore the normal relationship between members of the theocratic state, disrupted by natural economic conditions. This is the institution of the year of forgiveness already mentioned above. “In the seventh year you shall remit forgiveness,” says the law (Deut. 15:1). It has already been said above that this “seventh year” coincides with the Sabbath year. Now let's move on to analyzing the particular definitions of this law and indicating its theocratic and socio-economic significance. Having laconically announced the establishment of a year of forgiveness, the legislator immediately explains the essence of this establishment. “Forgiveness consists in this, says the law, so that every creditor who has lent to his neighbor forgives the debt (literally: weakens his hand) and does not collect from his neighbor or (in Hebrew - and) from his brother; for forgiveness (absolution, relaxation, remissio) has been proclaimed for the Lord’s sake.” This is the text of this famous, unparalleled in the history of legislation, the Mosaic Law on debt forgiveness. The direct meaning of the law, as it appears at first glance in the cited (synodal) text, is obviously that in the seventh year there should have been complete forgiveness of debts, the unconditional termination of the creditor's right to demand from the debtor the amount lent to him, in a word, the complete termination of all debt relations between them 662. But understood this way, this law is so lofty and so inconsistent with our modern mercantile justice that it remains completely incomprehensible to most of the newest researchers of the Mosaic law, who therefore try to give it a different meaning, namely that forgiveness did not consist in the unconditional termination of the lender’s right to demand from the debtor the amount loaned to him, but only in the termination of this right during the seventh year, after which the lender again assumed his rights and again he could demand from the debtor the amount he had borrowed. This is how Michaelis, Salschutz and other researchers of the Mosaic legislation explain this law. The basis for such an understanding is usually the considerations of Michaelis, according to which “the complete forgiveness of debts in the seventh year, on the one hand, would make poverty an easy craft and would overindulge laziness and idleness, and on the other hand, for the one who could lend, in any case it would serve as a sufficient and fair reason to refuse applicants for a loan.” “What a terrible despotism,” exclaims Michaelis, not of one tyrant, but of many thousands, all who only wear a torn suit, would weigh down on the rich! I don’t even want to talk about justice: everyone will understand it for themselves if he is put in such a position that tomorrow all debt obligations must be destroyed, and today a poor man came to him to ask for a loan, whom the law forbids to refuse under fear of being considered stingy and unmerciful. I only ask: what state could withstand such a right? Who would have the desire to acquire and be rich if he had to be taxed every seven years by every poor man? A rich person would certainly be forced either to leave (and the sooner the better) the country where such unjust laws exist, or to pretend to be poor, as happens in despotic states, where a greedy despot, under all sorts of pretexts, tries to appropriate for himself the wealth of rich people.”663 Based on such considerations, one arrives at the indicated understanding of the law. But, as is easy to see, these considerations come from an incorrect point of view on the subject. All of the named researchers look at the law under study from a modern point of view, apply to it the scale of our ordinary social relations and lose sight of the sharp features of the social system of the Mosaic state. This is where its apparent injustice comes from - the same phenomenon that we have already noted when considering the Mosaic law of not charging growth. In order to judge the possibility or impossibility of a direct understanding of the law in question, one must take into account the peculiarities of the moral state and socio-economic system of Israeli society. The abnormal phenomena depicted by Michaelis in gloomy colors, which could supposedly arise from the law on forgiveness of debts, suggest such extreme demoralization that cannot be allowed in a young people who have just gone through a difficult educational school that revived them (in a forty-year wandering in the desert). Further, they assume such a social separation of the poor from the rich, such a hostile opposition between them, which is again unusual for the socio-economic system of the Mosaic state. True, the Mosaic legislation positively affirms the inevitable existence of the poor 664, but social laws aimed at the possible prevention of the development of poverty, and the presumptive expression of the law about the possibility of the non-existence of the poor (Deut. 15:4) provide sufficient grounds for the conclusion that poverty was an exceptional phenomenon in the Mosaic state; prosperity prevailed. In this case, Michaelis’s assumption about thousands of unscrupulous, greedy rags falling on the unfortunate rich man no longer has any basis. If we further take into account the communal nature of self-government and the social system, in which the individual is always under more or less strong control of society, which can determine with approximate accuracy the moral and economic state of the individual, then the impudence of a slacker who expects to make a living by borrowing from the rich without return, there can be no place: it will always be appreciated by society and will receive appropriate restrictions. Thus, from this perspective, a law on unconditional debt forgiveness does not seem impossible - in the social sense. If we now turn to the positive study of the law on debt forgiveness, then in its particulars there is a lot of data for its direct understanding. First of all, the strong, laconically solemn tone of the law makes it immediately clear that here we are not talking about some ordinary law (after all, it would be such if it were understood in the sense of deferring payments for a year in case the fields were not cultivated or sowed), but about an extraordinary law, bearing the bright stamp of theocratism. “In the seventh year do forgiveness.” This supposed singularity of the law, inconsistent with the selfish inclinations of the owners of property, served as a sufficient motive for the legislator to address them with a special admonition not to refuse applicants for a loan. “If you have one of your brothers who is poor, do not harden your heart and do not close your hand against your poor brother. But open your hand to him and lend him, according to his need, what he needs” (Deut. 15:7, 8). But in view of the differences in the understanding of the law in question, the following passage of the law is especially noteworthy: “Beware lest a lawless thought enter into your heart: the seventh year is approaching, the year of forgiveness; and so that your eye does not become unkind to your poor brother, and you do not refuse him; for he will cry to the Lord, and the great of three will be upon you” (Deut. 15:9). This persistent conviction from the legislator to wealthy people not to refuse the poor a requested loan in view of the approach of the seventh year indicates as clearly as possible the true meaning of the law on unconditional forgiveness of debts. In fact, what sufficient basis would there be for the legislator to address a special, persistent admonition to the lenders not to refuse the requested loan, if the forgiveness of debts consisted of a simple deferment of their demand for the seventh year? What sufficient motive would have the expression of the law: “and when you give to him, your heart should not grieve” (Deut. 15:10)? If the law of forgiveness consisted of a simple postponement of the demand for the seventh year, then there would be no reason for the creditor to fear the seventh year, since during the seventh, Sabbath year, the capital in any case had to remain unused, in view of the legalized peace of the land, and therefore there could not even be sufficient motives for demanding it from the debtor. Hence, any fear and sorrow would be incomprehensible and pointless. Thus, fear and sorrow could only be caused by the complete forgiveness of debts in the seventh year. But even in this case, these fears and sorrow could arise not as a result of the sad position of the rich man, depicted by Michaelis, in which he was placed by this law, but as a result of the vicious love of greed, due to which he was burdened by the law, which serves the public good and represents a legal expression of philanthropy and charity towards the suffering and disadvantaged brothers by fate. In order to fully understand the meaning of these admonitions, the civil justice of their demands, one must take into account the essence of the Mosaic legislation's view of duty. Debt, according to this legislation, was exclusively motivated by poverty, and a loan was regarded as a form of charity, or even as alms, for which appropriate recompense was promised. “Therefore the Lord your God will bless you,” says the lawgiver, in all your works and in everything that is done with your hands” (Deut. 15:10). The meaning of the admonitions in this case will be not to refuse benefit to the needy, even if it remains, thanks to the establishment of the year of forgiveness, unrewarded by the benefited person. True, the form of loan in which this charity is invested gives it a slightly different character, apparently implying reward, giving, return of what was received, and therefore, in view of the approaching year of forgiveness, apparently justifying the grief and fear of the lender who lends without the hope of receiving the given amount. But in essence, this justification does not have sufficient basis. If the creditor gave loans long before the year of forgiveness, then, of course, the loan received the legal form of a debt obligation, giving the lender the right to demand from the debtor the amount borrowed by him for five to six years, and, therefore, depending on the condition of the repayment period, the lender, in the event of a penalty or deliberate evasion of the debtor from payment, could achieve satisfaction through judicial procedure. But the loan received the form of charity when it was concluded before the year of forgiveness and, judging by the economic condition of the borrower, did not represent a guarantee of payment. In this case, of course, the lender could directly look at the loan as a form of charity and commensurate its size with his good disposition and fortune. However, nothing prohibited the debtor, if he had improved his circumstances thanks to the loan, from rewarding the lender or repaying the loan even after a year of forgiveness. Thus, in public and civil terms there are no obstacles to a direct understanding of the law on debt forgiveness. There are even fewer obstacles to such an understanding of the law in theocratic terms. On the contrary, in this respect the law receives its greatest confirmation and highest meaning. The essence of the theocratic principle in socio-economic terms was to counteract the natural-economic principle of development, which has a constant tendency to violate socio-economic equality, and, therefore, to maintain this equality, and in case of violation, to restore it. Debt obligations are a product of socio-economic inequality, a product of natural economic development, and therefore are themselves in conflict with the theocratic principle. The action of the theocratic principle in this case should be expressed, as always, in the desire to restore equality, and, consequently, to eliminate inequality and all its consequences, which include, among other things, debt obligations. The debt, therefore, as an abnormal phenomenon from the point of view of theocratism, at the moment of complete triumph of theocratism (in the year of forgiveness), if it had not been repaid before, had to endure full repayment or forgiveness. The effect of the year of forgiveness, of course, extended to all types of debt obligations. Consequently, debts in the proper sense were forgiven, and the collateral taken to secure the loan was returned. But probably forgiveness did not extend to such items that were with the lender not only as collateral, but had already come to him as payment of a debt, therefore, legally became his property. This includes, among other things, plots of land that have already been received legally in payment of a debt. This conclusion logically follows from the fact that the paid debt was no longer subject to the year of forgiveness, otherwise one would have to admit the incongruous idea that in the year of forgiveness the lender was obliged to forgive the already paid debt and, therefore, return to the debtor the amount taken from him to repay the loan. Plots of land taken in payment of debts were subject to special special laws, according to which the plots were returned to the first owner in the jubilee year. The Mosaic legislation is distinguished by the same sublime theocratic character in all other decrees, of which only the most outstanding are discussed in more detail here. In conclusion, we can make a general description of the Mosaic legislation as an entire system imbued with the spirit of divine truth and wisdom. Chapter 55. General character of the Mosaic legislation and conclusion The Mosaic legislation, being miraculous and extraordinary in the very manner of its external communication, is even more miraculous in its historical purpose and essence. Its purpose is fully consistent with the special position of the people of Israel in history. This people, among all nations, was chosen by God as the bearer of great historical principles, which would subsequently spread to all humanity. After the fall of man, sinfulness and depravity gained predominance over all of humanity, became the main driving principle of all of his life, penetrated into all his institutions and relationships, so that the healthy embryos of true development, which at creation were the basis of his life and activity, almost completely died out. The development of mankind, which began in the wrong direction, naturally could not lead it to the goal of its destination, but gradually moved more and more away from it, constantly reducing the amount of good and justice and, on the contrary, constantly increasing the amount of evil and untruth. In such an order of things, the goal of world history would never have been realized. People of this direction, in whom, due to the corruption of natural forces and abilities, physical abilities gained predominance over spiritual ones, increasingly surrendered to the flow of the naturally sinful order, in it they found the best satisfaction of their corrupted aspirations. The result of such a development would be the complete suppression of the noblest and most sublime powers of the human spirit, the boundless dominance of brute force, merciless egoism, the complete perversion of human relations, in which arbitrariness would take the place of justice, the oppression of the weak by the strong - in the end, humanity would come to the extreme degree of corruption and trampling of all human dignity, as was partly the case among ancient peoples, where, with a complete perversion of religious, moral and social concepts, even laws contributed to further corruption, increasing injustice, serving as a means of oppressing the weak and poor. Meanwhile, the ultimate goal of world-historical development - reconciliation with God and the gradual restoration of the primitive state, should have been realized, unless humanity were to morally perish in the end. To realize this great goal, the Israeli people were chosen, who, even in their ancestors, were distinguished by the greatest ability to preserve true concepts, healthy embryos of true development, and by the greatest moral energy, which gave them the opportunity to fight against the universally dominant evil, as can be seen from the history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other ancestors of the Jewish people. An alliance was already concluded with Abraham (Gen. 17:7, etc.) with the goal of preserving true religion and, in general, the foundations of true development, but there such a goal had not yet found full expression. This union received complete consecration and consolidation at the time of legislation. Here the solemn election of the Israeli people as the bearer of the great truths of world-historical development took place. “You will be,” said Jehovah to the people of Israel, “my inheritance among all nations; you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5 and 6). This is a legal definition of the position of the Israeli people in history. From here its purpose becomes clear. He had to, contrary to the prevailing principle of sinful, abnormal development, represent the norm of true development, keep within himself the seeds of this development, cultivate them and, if possible, spread them in the surrounding world - to be, in the words of the prophet, a beacon for the nations (Is. 42:6). Therefore, everything that was holy, just, and humane, which had no place in the pagan world, had to find recognition and fulfillment in it. Contrary to the rough principles of the pagan world, which consisted in the predominance of carnal forces over spiritual ones, the spiritual principle should have gained predominance here, boundless egoism should have been limited in recognizing the equality of another person, injustice should have given way to the highest law of truth - hence the entire structure of public and private life should have received a direction in which the principles underlying it could most easily be expressed. The history of the Israeli people represents the dominance of such principles. But these principles were not created by him himself, they were given to him in legislation. Consequently, he could fulfill his above-mentioned purpose only by accepting and implementing the law, by embodying its principles in all forms of his life. This is the essence of the covenant or union between God and the people of Israel. According to such a goal of the union, legislation, as the main means of the union, represents the corresponding essence and content. By its internal nature, legislation is completely theocratic. It is so not so much by its origin as by its purpose and essence. There are two sides to biblical theocratism. One side, which researchers usually take as the full expression of theocratism, is that Jehovah is in a special relationship with the Israeli people, is their king, and in accordance with this position “unites in himself all state relations,” being directly or indirectly through his bodies - special elected representatives - a legislator, judge, leader 665, etc. But this is only one side of theocratism, and, moreover, one might say, external. In this sense, theocratism is a general phenomenon for a certain period in the historical development of peoples (differing only in the degree of truth or falsity) and therefore does not represent anything special, characteristic exclusively of the chosen people. In relation to this people, the other side of theocratism is of particular importance - internal and, one might say, philosophical. It is determined by the above-mentioned special position of the Israeli people in world history. Jehovah chose him in order to make him the guardian of the principles of true normal development, which did not find a place in the rest of humanity, which had completely surrendered to the principles of natural sinful development. These principles, having penetrated the consciousness and life of the chosen people, according to the idea of ​​theocratism, were supposed to develop the historical soil on which the great truths that were supposed to lead humanity to the fulfillment of its destiny could best develop and be preserved. Therefore, Jehovah, by his union with the chosen people, took them out of the cycle of natural sinful development, freed them from the influence of dark historical forces and gave them the law of holiness, by fulfilling which the people could truly fulfill the world-historical mission entrusted to them. This law of holiness fundamentally represents all the evidence that supports the presented understanding of the inner meaning of biblical theocracy. The Mosaic legislation in its general principles truly represents the norm of truly human development, which alone could lead humanity to the fulfillment of its purpose and to which the legislative wisdom of none of the sages of the ancient world rose. This idea is most clearly proven by the remarkable phenomenon that even in modern times, legislative wisdom or state-legal science in its progressive development, carried out on the independent basis of scientific research, in its best results represents nothing more than an approximation to the principles of Mosaic legislation. All the best that the latest sociological sciences strive for and what they consider to be their best fruit in determining the norm in social relations - all this was contained in the principles of the Mosaic legislation and in most cases was carried out in the practice of the state-social life of the Mosaic state. This view finds full confirmation in determining the relationship of Mosaic law to the state of social and state life at the present time. In the Mosaic Law, says a profound researcher of it 666, we are amazed to encounter many of the most important questions that concern our time, which threaten to shake the entire system of our state and social life established for centuries, at which modern science is perplexed, and which, however, in the Mosaic Law found their satisfactory solution on the peaceful path of legislative wisdom. There is a lot in this law that is instructive for our time, and we would have long ago taken advantage of its instructions, if next to Roman law, with its amazingly majestic tasks and harmonious arrangement, but at the same time with its shy formalism, with its cruel family laws, which bear the indelible stamp of slavery, which does not recognize and tramples on any dignity of the human person, if next to it were also carefully studied by noble, simple features of the Mosaic legislation, which, as researchers who have delved deeper into its contents unanimously recognize, is distinguished by a truly sublime and free spirit.” This spirit penetrates and animates all forms of social life of the Mosaic state, starting from the state form itself to the form of family relations. This is how the same researcher groups and characterizes the main principles of state-social life according to the Mosaic Law, moreover, bearing in mind their relationship to the principles of this life at the present time 667. In ancient times, for most peoples, the individual was absorbed by the state. Even representatives of the highest development of the human spirit, philosophers, such as. Plato did not rise to the level of appreciating the individual in his own dignity, regardless of his relationship to the state, and therefore in his “ideal societies” he sacrificed him and his family to the state. In the Middle Ages, on the contrary, the individual gained illegal dominance over the state: everyone, relying solely on their weapons, with a knightly courageous, independent spirit, followed their own path. This state of affairs is abnormal from the point of view of true sociology: both are extremes that have no justification for themselves. True sociology finds the norm in such a combination of these extremes, in which each individual belongs equally to himself and to society; using freedom himself, he would at the same time coordinate it with the law, with the freedom of all; forming part of the whole, he was not absorbed by it, but remained independent and, moreover, was in such conditions of life and activity that, while providing all the means to achieve personal goals, at the same time would bring these personal goals into agreement with the goals of the whole society, so that the satisfaction of the former would at the same time be the satisfaction of the latter. Currently, people are working on solving such a social problem, but a happy solution to it still remains only a pious desire (pia desideria) of the political and social sciences. Meanwhile, such a solution seems to be already ready in the state-social system of the Mosaic state, although of course under the form of ancient, patriarchal relations characteristic of it in time. Here the main grain of social forms is the “community”, in which the entire people, through their leaders, found full expression of all their needs and requirements; each member found in it complete protection and provision of their rights and freedoms. With its strong, organic connection, the community did not absorb or suppress the personal independence of its individual members, as was the case in all ancient states; on the contrary, it served to ensure this independence against the illegal claims of some individual members, thereby realizing the main goal of the Mosaic legislation - the greatest development of a sense of freedom among the people. This is where the remarkable phenomenon observed in the history of the Israeli people comes from: often unknown individuals suddenly appeared at the head of the people and became heroes of historical events. Here the prophets - these great figures in the history of the Israeli people - found the protection of freedom of speech, and freely castigated the vices and crimes of not only ordinary people, but even kings. Here a capable person, no matter what his previous position, could immediately acquire historical significance; a simple farmer became the leader of the militia and freed the people from foreign enslavement. These facts would be completely incomprehensible to us, it would be incomprehensible how a person, even a woman, suddenly became the head of the people, received universal recognition among the people, if we did not know the structure of that living social organism in which all members were in an organically normal relationship both to the whole and to each other. Of course, such patriarchal popular representation is more convenient in a small people than in large nations, but for us in this case, the main importance is the idea of ​​​​this representation, and not its application in modern states. In close connection with such a basic idea of ​​​​the social system are other institutions of the Mosaic state, which are still the subject of aspiration for the socio-political sciences. This includes - universal conscription, as an expression of the equal participation of all members of the state in the most important events of its life; the absence of class differences and privileges, as an expression of the equality of all before the law and the state. The idea of ​​equality in the Mosaic state found such wide application that even foreigners were not excluded from using it on an equal basis with members of the state. This political equality found strong support in economic equality, in the equal distribution of material goods. This latter, together with other institutions aimed at preserving economic equality and preventing its violation, is the most remarkable phenomenon in general in the history of human societies, and in view of the fact that many legislators vainly sought to establish it, even considered only as an experience of legislative wisdom, has deep interest. On the basis of this establishment, the abnormal phenomenon of our time - the extremes of wealth and poverty - did not take place, and the terrible question of our time - the elimination of the development of pauperism, which threatens to shake and overthrow the entire social system, found a happy solution there. In social and family relations in the Mosaic state, the principle of modern sociology was also implemented - equality of the sexes and normal relations between parents and children. Particularly noteworthy is the legal definition of the status of women. Here she was not a powerless slave of a despot-husband, she was not confined to a harem, but was considered a full-fledged mistress of the house along with her husband, and therefore was as independent as her husband, openly took part in solemn meetings of the people and even in political events - in general, she enjoyed a freedom unparalleled in the East, almost the same as what modern sociology considers normal for modern states. And a number of remarkable facts from biblical history show how nobly and with what benefit they used this freedom for the state. Finally, Mosaic legislation is the only one in the East that does not know slavery in the proper sense (ancient and modern) of the word - slavery, which humiliated human dignity, rejected the natural equality of people, created from people whole masses of some kind of intermediate creatures between people and animals, and in general represented a blatant injustice, a complete violation of the dignity and rights of the human person. The divine genius of the legislator was able to raise this shameful phenomenon of slavery to normal, necessary service relations in public life, almost to the extent that they exist now. All these rights of individuals and classes of the people, remarkable for their time, found strong support for themselves in universal law, which was achieved by the simplest means, such as. public reading of the law at public assemblies. Such a broad legal education at that time made all members of the people not only able to defend their rights, but also made it possible for the formation and existence of a purely people's court, a jury trial in its simplest form. Hence the Mosaic legislation, in judicial terms, is an exponent of truly human judgment. From ancient times until the last century, it represents the only example of a court that did not know torture and generally cruel, shameful executions. Complete impartiality and the strictest incorruptibility were the highest duty and dignity of this court - therefore, here too the Mosaic legislation serves as a representative of a norm that has eternal significance, and therefore has been adopted by modern sociology. In a word, all the beginnings of this legislation, in their general ideal expressions, are the essence of the beginnings of the normal development of social relations and, as such, invariably retain and will retain their significance for modern sociology. From the presented outline of the main forms of Mosaic legislation, the conclusion clearly follows that the principles of Mosaic legislation really represent the norm of truly human development, as it should be so that humanity can fulfill its destiny, and therefore in this sense they are universal 668. These principles still live and form the basis of modern civilization, although the latter does not always consciously use them. The essence of modern cultural development lies precisely in the fact that it has absorbed the principles underlying the development of the Mosaic legislation in their spiritualized Christian form, which brought them out of their narrow one-sided application to the life of one closed people. Actually, European (Greco-Roman) culture is important only as an additional force, which laid only the material foundation for the newest civilization: and everything that is higher than matter, in which the dominance of the spirit is expressed - the main driving force of true development - all this is borrowed from the principles of Mosaic law, which is, among other things, indicated by the mandatory meaning of the decalogue, recognized by all moral and legal codes of Europe. Such universality of the principles of Mosaic legislation, which turned out to be in full agreement with the highest level of religious worldview - Christianity, which finally restored for all mankind the principles of true development, is most clearly proven by their above-mentioned role in world history, as a norm among universal error, which alone could lead humanity to the realization of its goal - the restoration of the lost primitive state. This is also the philosophical side of biblical theocratism, which inspired the legislation of Moses. This is what the Mosaic legislation is like in its ideal principles. In this respect it is universal. But these ideal principles were intended to be realized in the life of one people, which in world history, in addition to its general significance, also has its own special character, distinguishing it from all other peoples - a people with a unique history, unique local customs and mores - a people bearing the indelible stamp of temporary, local and tribal conditions and characteristics. Therefore, it is natural that the ideal principles, being implemented in the life of this one people, suffered changes in their application corresponding to the characteristics of the people: in theory, remaining universal, in practice they took the form of temporary, local, exceptional laws. Hence, the Mosaic legislation, in addition to the considered universal side, has another side, from which it appears to be private legislation that has conditional, local, national significance. Viewed from this latter aspect, it primarily has a close relationship to the state of the Israeli people at the moment in history when it found them. This was the moment of Israel's transition from the state of a tribe to the state of a nation, when it definitely stepped onto the stage of world history, took upon itself certain tasks and assumed a certain position. In the life of a people, as in the life of an individual, several stages of moral and physical growth and development alternate. For Israel, the patriarchal period was a period of childhood, when it was mainly governed by feelings and the force of natural kinship, with the addition of a few, simple and fragmentary laws. The national period was a period of youth, in which the laws of kindred feeling give way to certain regulations of law, a system of precise laws necessary to control the vigorous and impetuous activity of youth. A preliminary wandering through the silent desert alone with God could serve as a sufficient means of awakening in the people the consciousness of the importance of the moment of life into which they were entering, and thus they could consciously enter into a period of national existence. Legislation with strict legal forms is thus the sign and seal of the transition of the Israeli people to a state of national existence. At the same time, the legislation of Moses is closely related to the entire past life of the Israeli people. Divided into periods, the history of each people is nevertheless one indivisible organism; for her, different periods are only different states of one and the same organism. Therefore, previous states necessarily condition subsequent ones and serve as the basis on which and under the influence of which a further moment of development is developed. Hence, in the history of a people, any inconsistency in development is unthinkable - nothing new can appear that does not have support and contact for itself in the old past. The Mosaic legislation is no exception in this regard. Although new in its principles and form, it is not entirely new in its content, which often borrows from the old customary law developed by past history. No matter how simple the history of the Israeli people was before the Sinai legislation, it nevertheless had its own right, its own law, developed and approved by custom. There are clear indications of this in history. So, long before the Mosaic legislation, in history there are indications of the honoring of the Sabbath, certain punishments for murder, for adultery, the existence of the law of adultery, the difference between clean and unclean animals (Gen. 9:6; 38:8, 24; 8:20. Exod. 16:23, 27–29). All these are facts of customary law, which were then completely included in the Mosaic legislation, constituting the historical soil on which new legislation could more easily take root. The wise legislator could not ignore this ancient customary law, because only that legislative or state institution is strong which is laid on a solid historical foundation. The distinctive feature of legislative genius is to carry out transformative work on ready-made, but raw, unprocessed material, to develop basic principles for it and to revive it with a new, higher spirit. This is precisely the relationship to common law in which the Mosaic legislation stands. The legislator uses this material of customary law, uses it as the basis for his legislative work, and on this basis creates a wonderful new legislative edifice. In its basic principles, the Sinai legislation, especially in the abbreviated presentation of its moral principles in the decalogue, has universal significance and was intended for the guidance of all mankind. It based the relationship between people on the truth, which was finally confirmed by the Lawgiver of the New Testament, namely the truth: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). Many private decrees are aimed at introducing this truth into the consciousness of the people. But on the other hand, since this legislation was primarily intended for a separate people who already had their own ingrained customs and habits, standing at a low level of moral and cultural development, unable to immediately rise to the heights of the divine and universal truths offered to them, then in many of the provisions of the law one cannot help but see concessions to the deep-rooted views of the Israeli people, the low level of their moral development, in a word, their “cruelty” 669. This explains the establishment of the well-known law of equal retribution: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Ex. 21:24). And in general the influence of this condition on legislation is so significant that in many cases it rather adapts to ancient customs than introduces new laws, so that without regard to this circumstance the true meaning and significance of this or that law would often remain unclear. Thus, the punishment for filial disobedience to parents (stoning Deut. 21:18-21) may seem cruel; but if we take into account in general the strength of parental power during the period of the patriarchal state of the people, or in general in the early periods of national existence (as, for example, in Rome), then the law of Moses is already a significant step forward in the field of humanity and personal law, since it limits the arbitrariness of parental power by transferring the case to a public court. The law of unfaithfulness (consisting of the duty of a brother or closest relative to “restore the seed” of his deceased childless brother or relative) was also allowed in the form of a concession to an established custom. In former times, this custom apparently existed on a wider scale among the Asian peoples, and in the Sinai legislation it was more likely to be restricted than sanctified. The law of bloody vengeance is also an example of a reasonable limitation and weakening of an ancient barbaric custom, which was so rooted in the customs and morals of the people that it could not be completely destroyed. This everyday aspect of legislation generally appears strongly in laws on punishment for crimes. When dealing with a stiff-necked and self-willed people, the legislator does not spare the rod in teaching this people to strictly comply with these laws, and many crimes, especially against religion and moral purity, are punishable by death. It was precisely this aspect of the Sinai legislation that showed that it had only a temporary purpose to prepare the people for the acceptance of another higher law - the law of grace given by the Savior of the world for all times. And His very coming was marked by all the decrees of the ritual law, which was a shadow of what was to come and therefore had to end with the appearance of the thing itself, i.e. redemption in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Sinai legislation marks the time when the Israelis entered a period of independent national existence. But at the same time it serves as an exponent of a new stage of his spiritual development and civilization. Hitherto it was completely under the influence of Egyptian civilization and did not have its own written language. Now for the first time he has literature, and sacred historical literature at that, which describes his historical fate from the very creation of the world. This literature had its origin in Moses, who wrote five books known generally as the law or Pentateuch, and more specifically as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The book of Genesis describes the fate of the world and humanity from the creation of the world to the death of Jacob and Joseph in Egypt. It covers a period of 3,800 years and was written by Moses, according to Jewish tradition, while he was still in the land of Midian, precisely for the purpose of awakening in the people of Israel the memory of the great promises of their fathers. The book of Exodus tells the story of the Israelites' stay in Egypt, the exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Sinai legislation, and the building of the tabernacle. The book of Leviticus sets out in detail the ritual side of the Sinai legislation, and it is so named because the performance of all these rites was left to the tribe of Levi, as chosen for sacred service. The Book of Numbers got its name from the population numbers described in it and contains the story of a forty-year wandering through the desert before approaching the Jordan. Deuteronomy describes the events of the last two months in the wilderness, and it gets its name from the fact that it repeats all the previously issued laws and compiles them into a more accessible book of law. It ends with a description of the death of Moses with final praise of him (chap. 34). All of these books in their entirety (except for the last chapter of Deuteronomy) were written by Moses himself, and their scrolls, like a precious shrine, were kept in the Ark of the Covenant. But Moses was not only a legislator and historian of his people, but also a divinely inspired poet and psalmist. After him, several divinely inspired songs and prayers remained, some of which were placed in his historical books, and one prayer was included in the book of songs or Psalms, and constitutes the 89th psalm, as its inscription shows: “The Prayer of Moses, the man of God.” It begins with the words: “Lord! You are our refuge forever and ever. Before the mountains were born, You formed the earth and the universe, and from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” Moses died 120 years, of which 80 passed before the Israelites left Egypt and 40 after the exodus. These figures, together with the general indication that 430 years passed from the giving of the promise to Abraham to the law (Gal. 3:17), serve as the basis for calculating this period. If half of the last figure is taken for the time spent in Egypt before the giving of the law (which is quite consistent with the testimony regarding the years of Moses, as well as with the fact that he was a representative of the third generation after Levi, i.e. his great-grandson) and add 40 years of wandering in the desert, then the sum of these figures (21540 = 255) will approximately determine the duration of the stated period of Biblical history. This period, which, based on the data of world history, should be attributed to the 17th–15th centuries BC, was marked by some important events in the life of the rest of humanity. From Egypt (perhaps at the same time as Moses) came the famous Kekrops, who was the first to transfer the fruits of the high civilization of ancient Egypt to the virgin soil of Greece and founded the later famous city of Athens. Around the same time, Hellenus, the son of the mythical Deucalion, entered Thessaly, and after expelling the Pelasgians from there, he settled in it and became the ancestor of the Hellenic people. On the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, in the vicinity of the Promised Land, the later famous city of Tire was founded, which at one time concentrated worldwide maritime trade in its hands and subsequently was in a friendly alliance with the kings of the people of Israel. Thus, with the appearance of the chosen people in the field of world history, new peoples also entered the field, who were supposed to serve as representatives of paganism in its highest development and power. The chosen people were to defeat him by the power of true religion and the law of God. De Rouge, Conférence sur la religion des anciens Egyptiens, April 14, 1869, pp. 12, 17, 26. This abstract directly refutes those who think that polytheism preceded monotheism. Mariette-Bey, Notice du Musée de Boulaq, 2nd Alexandria edition 1868, p. 20. Maspero, Histoire, 2nd ed., pp. 27, 28. German Egyptologists also admit that monotheism was the primary form of religion in Egypt. Thus, Ebers says: “the only God who produced Himself and is the source of His own being, the double God, at the same time his own Father and Son, who is today, yesterday and tomorrow and is called I am, who am (anuk-pu-anuk), clearly appears from the theological writings of ancient Egypt; of course, this account is so densely obscured and so heavily overwhelmed with countless and motley images of the rich world of gods Nile Valley, that his being can only be understood and known with difficulty by the uninitiated. The Book of the Dead, the inscriptions on tombs and monuments, provide rich material for research in this area.” Ebers, Durch Gosen, p. 528. Brugsch, Reise nach der grossen Oase El Khargeh, in 4°, Leipzig, 1878, p. 49–52. Vogué, Melanges d'archéologie orientale, 1868, pp. 50, 51. Lenormant, Manuel de l'histoire, 4th ed., vol. II, pp. 180, 181. Maspero, Histoire, pp. 148, 149. Max Dupker also admits. primitive monotheism of the Babylonian religion. See his Geschichte des Alterthums, 4th ed. 1874, vol. I, p. 201. Vogue, Melanges, pp. 51–56. Jules Soury, in Revue des deux Mondes, February 1872, p. 603. Wolff, Das Bucb Judith, in 8°, Leipzig, 1861, p. 137. Ewald, Jahrbücher der biblischen Wissenschaft, v. X, p. 10. Deut. 4:35. See also Deut. 4:32–39; 6:4; 10:17; 32:39 ; 2 Sam. 7:22 ; 1 Kings 8:60 and so on. Majestic place Deut. 6:4 (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”) is, as it were, a confession of the faith of the Jews. Jews even now copy this passage on a piece of parchment and attach it to their forehead and left hand when performing their morning prayer. This parchment is called the word that begins this place: “Sema.” Deut. 6:14; 7:4; Leviticus. 19:4; Deut. 29:17, and in other places. Gillulim is undoubtedly a contemptuous name and means, according to some, stercora. 2 Sam. 7:22. – Wed. great place near Isa. 45:5–8, 21. Revue des deux mondes, February 1872, p. 557. Ref. 20:2–5. These words are repeated in Deut. 5:9. The same idea is expressed in Ex. 34:14 ; Deut. 4:24; 6:15. Life 20:13; 35:7; Ref. 32:4, 8; Deut. 5:26; I. Nav. 24:19. Compare 1 Gift. 17:26; 2 Sam. 7:23; 1 Kings 19:2; Is. 58:12; Jer. 10:10; 23:36. Revue des deux mondes, pp. 583–584. The only form of Eloah is actually more ancient, because we meet it twice in poetry, in the song of Moses: Deut. 32:15, 17. Fürst, Hebräisches Handwörterbuch, 2nd ed. 1863, vol. I, p. 88. Haïm, nehurim, zequenim. Cm. Gesenius, Lehrgebäude, § 124, p. 535. Ref. 15:2. See Gen. 17:7; Deut. 4:39; 1 Kings 18:21 ; Jude 1:31 and so on. Revue des deux inondes, pp. 580, 581. It is not superfluous to note, however, that Suri himself, in his Etudes historiques, admitted the falsity of likening Jehovah to Molech. It is he who says on page 28: Jabe is no more the God of Egypt, just as he is not Moloch. I mean the god of fire or the sun, at least at his origin." Ezek. 8:16; 2 Kings 23:11. Oppert, Inscriptions de Dour-Sarkayan, pp. 10, 111. Cm. Kurtz, Geschichte des alten Bundes, t. I, c.Tp. 18 et seq. Fürst, Hebräisches Handwörterbuch, 2 t. I, CTp. 88. Deut. 7:9. Jehovah is called more than 200 times in Deuteronomy as the Elohim of Israel. Nav. 22:22. The same expression is found in Ps. 4:1. Ps. 15:1, 2; 42:4; 9:33, 34. Tsar. 18:26–28; Jerem. 19:5. Ref. 20:6 etc.; see Ref. 2:22 etc. Tiele, Manuel, pp. 87, 88. Tiele, Manuel, approx. 56, p. 88, 89. Is. 2:3; Mich. 4:2; Ps. 18:2; 22:6; 44:8; 73:10; 79:2 etc. Tiele, Manuel, approx. 57, p. 90. Abbé de Broglie, “L’unité du sanctuaire dans la religion d’Israel et la date du Pentatenque.” Cm. "Annales de philosophie chrétienne", November 1880, pp. 101–103. Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, 3rd ed. Berlin, 1863, vol. I, pp. 277, 278. Leo 20:25; 17:21. See also Deut. 12:31; 18:10. Deut 12:31. Sp. Lion. 20:2: “Whosoever of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that dwell among the Israelites, giveth of his children to Molech, he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him.” Revue des deux mondes, 1872, p. 586. We must give credit to the critic for crossing out this passage in a separate edition of his critical inheritances. In its Hebrew Concordance and in its Dictionary. Revue des deux mondes. 1872, pp. 599–601. Lion. 19:29 ; Deut. 23:19; Lion. 21:9. "Projcctissima ad libidinem gens." See Winer, Biblisches Realwörterbuch, 2nd ed. vol. I, pp. 612, 3 supra. vol. I, p. 917. Ref. 57:7ff.; 2 Kings 17:30; 23:7; Ezek. 23:14 : Os. 4:13. Lenormant, Essai de commentaire des fragments cosmogoniques de Berose, pp. 171–172. We must pay tribute to the French critic that, having expressed a similar position, in a separate edition of his articles he admitted the falsity of his own likening and destroyed this passage. Iz. 28:12. According to the Vulgate translation it reads: “umbilieus terrae”; according to the Russian synodal translation “top of the earth”. Taylor, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, t. xv, 1855, p. 269 ​​et seq. Loftus, Travels, p. 202. Lenormant, Premieres civilisations, vol. II, p. 95. De Rouge, Revue archéologique, 1860, t. I, pp. 73. Report on the Ebers Papyrus, see. In Journal Officiel, June 1, 1873. The "Book of the Dead", also called the "funeral rite", is a collection of prayers divided into 165 chapters: these prayers were to be read by the dead in order to give their soul the strength to endure the trials of the afterlife and to purify it in view of the future judgment. To enable the deceased to read these prayers accurately, a more or less complete copy of the book was always placed with the mummy; during the reign of the 12th dynasty, part of it was written even on sarcophagi. The Louvre Museum houses a rich collection of copies of the Book of the Dead. "Book of the Dead", chapter 123; Maspero, Histoire, pp. 44, 45. Heb. 13:14; Wed 2 Cor. 5:6–8; Ephesus 2:19. – See also 1 Pet. 2:11. Life 15:15; 25:8, 17; 35:29 ; Number 20:24, 26; Deut. 31:16 ; Court. 2:10; 2 Kings 22:20 ; Jer. 8:2 etc. Delitsch, Die Genesis, 1853, t. I, p. 425. Proverbs 12:28 . In the Russian synodal translation, instead of “immortality,” there is “no death.” Greek translators translate the word Sheol in 61 cases with the word “hell,” that is, a word that in Greek meant the place where souls went after separation from the body. Only twice did they translate this word with the word “death” (2 Samuel 22:6; Proverbs 23:14. The Greek translators omitted this word in two other places where it is used in Hebrew, namely: Job 24:19, Ezek. 32:21). In the Latin Vulgage this word is constantly translated by the words internus or inferi, inferus (48 times internus, 17 times interi or inferus). The term Sheol has become so common to denote the indwelling of souls that Onkelos and Jonathan in their Chaldean paraphrases usually retained it (with the exception of five places). The Samaritan text of the Pentateuch is read everywhere by Shiol. The Saoirse translation of the Bible always renders the word sheol in the Old Testament and the word “hell” corresponding to it in the New Testament as shiul. Most German Hebraists, even among the rationalists, admit that the ancient translations correctly conveyed the meaning of Sheol; they themselves most often convey it with the word Schattenreich, that is, “the kingdom of shadows,” or Unterwelt (“underworld,” “hell” (Kiobel, Fürst, etc.) locus ubi mortui, umbrarum instar, degunt, says Rosenmüller. Genesius defines it this way: “Locus subterraneus... habitatus a mortuorum animabus.” Life 37:35; Is. 38:10; Job. 17:16; Is. 5:14. Job. 11:8; 10:21, 22; 26:6; Deut. 32:22; Avv. 2:5; Proverbs 1:12; 30:16 ; Is. 5:14; Song 8:6. Is. 38:18; Ps. 113:17; Var. 2:17. Güder in Herzog, Real-Eacyclopàdie, t. v. 1856, p. 441. Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle, partie II, ch. XIX. Oeuvres, ed. Vives, t, xxiv. pp. 459, 460. For more details, see below - next. chapter. Number 15:16; 29. Leo 24:22. Ref. 12:49 . Saalschutz, Mos. Recht, Cap. 35, § 1. In fact, thirteen tribes were formed, since due to special circumstances the generation of Joseph, descended from his two sons - Ephraim and Manasseh, formed themselves into two tribes; however, in the political life of the people, which is actually subject to our consideration, only 12 tribes mattered, since the tribe of Levi was excluded from political life. The text says: “signs before the eyes of the people,” and “the people” obviously means the elders, since from v. 29 it is clear that only the elders were present. Ref. 4:29. Number 1:16. “Thousand” is often used in the sense of an indefinite set, in this case in the sense of a tribe. According to the genealogical table Num. 24, compiled after a careful counting of the people, it turns out that the ancestors, if such ancestors are the sons and grandsons of the ancestors of the tribes, and in the tribes of Joseph the great-grandsons (from Gilead), there were 58. Since the law does not say that 70 elders were chosen in addition to the 12 leaders of the tribes, then the representatives of these 58 generations, together with 12 heads, in all likelihood made up themselves that assembly of seventy men (584-12-70), which was called upon to share with Moses the burden of ruling the people. This view of the composition of this assembly of 70 elders seems simpler and more natural than, for example, Ewald’s view, according to which the assembly was composed of representatives of the tribes, six from each tribe, a view that forces the number of elders to be changed by adding two more members. Ewald, Alterthümer, p. 328. There are no exact indications of such an “assembly,” but it is presupposed both by the general structure of the people’s organization and by frequently occurring expressions that necessarily imply representation. Thus, the expressions are often found: “the sons of such and such a tribe said” (Joshua 17:14). Obviously, here we do not mean all the Israelites of a certain tribe, but only its deputies, elected members of the assembly. Nav. 17:14–18. Judgment, 4:10; 18, 19 and 20 chapters. When considering the political structure in the Mosaic state, one is involuntarily struck by its similarity with the organization of government in the United States of North America. The tribes, in their administrative independence, fully correspond to the states, each of which also represents an independent republic with its own ruler, its own special parliament and with its own special laws, and as independent parts included in the general union of the state. The federal government is made up of representatives of all states, constitutes the so-called congress, which consists of two groups - the Senate and the House of Representatives, which fully correspond to the two highest groups of representatives in the Mosaic state - 12 and 70 elders. Instead of a Jewish national assembly, there is an improved system of popular voting. The only significant difference between these two state systems is that in the Mosaic state there was no time to develop a legally defined executive body, as it exists in the United States in the person of the President of the Union Government. To the Court. 20 there appears to be a case where the assembly consisted of 400,000 “foot soldiers drawing sword.” But this meeting obviously consisted not only of representatives, but of the people themselves, and was of an extraordinary nature - a meeting of the people for military purposes. Nav. 24:1, 16, 21. The same procedure for office work was known to exist in Greece and Rome in primitive times. Chiskh. 10:4. Here, in all likelihood, we need to understand not the leaders of thousands, but the leaders of tribes or generations. Wed. Number 1:16. Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, Part II, p. 19. 1777 Elsewhere, Michaelis himself indirectly recognizes the shortcoming of the borrowing explanation. Saying that Moses borrowed the basis of his agricultural state from the Egyptians, he adds with bewilderment: “but it is known, however, that for some reason the state of the ancient Romans had a similar structure.” Erster Theil. S. 161. Saalschütz, Mos. Recht, Kar. 12, § 140. Received the technical name - the principle of laissez passer, laissez faire. And they, as we will see below, are very significant. For quotes, see our essay “Law. Moses,” pp. 111 and 112. This view is clearly evident in the works of Michaelis and Salschutz. See eg. Michaelis, 2 Th. page 31; Saalschutz. Mos. Recht, pp. 142–143 et al. Philon, Opp. II, 391; Jos., Antiqq. III, 12, 3 Oehler, Theologie d. A. Testaments, pp. 510–541. Mosaisches Recht, S. 154, Michaelis, Mos. Recht, Th. III, § 152. S. 51–53. Hand mills consisted of two stones, of which the upper one was movable and the lower one was stationary. Work was usually performed in poor families by women, and in large farms by slaves. Talmudists and Jewish scholars understand this law in the sense of complete forgiveness of debts. Kpobel, Kurzgef. exeg. Handbuch acc. place. Michaelis, Mos. Recht, § 158. “The poor will always be in the midst of your land” - Deuteronomy 15 Oehler, Alttestam. Theologie, p. 305. Saalschutz, Mosaisches Recht, Einl. Bemerk., pp. 15. Saalschütz, Das Mosaische Recht, Einleitende Bemerkungen, XV-XVIII. Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, T. II, art. Law of Moses, p. 68, a. Such dependence and adaptation to the characteristics of the people is indicated by the well-known saying of Jesus Christ about the law of Moses, about divorce (Matthew 19: 7, 8), which in the form as it is given in the legislation of Moses does not correspond to the purpose and holiness of the marriage union and the basic principles of the Mosaic legislation, but constitutes a direct concession to the character of the people, the low level of their moral development, in a word, their “hardness of heart.”