and evanescent religious system that the immortal Legislator adjured his disciples to live for ever, generation after generation, in the practice of its precepts, and to evince through the observance of them their piety, their wisdom, and their understanding? We Jews think not. We hold that Moses must have regarded the Sinaitic dispensation, as Scripture fully justifies us in believing, in another light than that of a temporary system, when he converged all its ordinances into one common focus, ' ", "You shall be holy;" and when he called on his hearers to "circumcise their hearts,' without which the Abrahamic rite would not avail, and proclaimed again and again that uprightness of thought and deed constitutes the very kernel of the code of Sinai. We hear the same doctrine from the lips of Samuel, "To obey God is better than sacrifice." Even David, than whom no one was ever more passionately attached to the Levitical economy, cries out in the hour of his remorse that sacrifice profiteth naught, and that the only atonement acceptable with the Righteous Lord is a contrite and regenerated spirit. In like manner the prophets of the Hebrew monarchy, the primary object of whose mission is to implant in the minds of the people of Israel the essential truth that sacrifice is valueless save as an external form, whilst the moral element is the life and soul of Mosaism. Few are the words, but precious is the doctrine, embodied in them by the prophet Micah, that what God re

1 Levit. xix. 2.

3

1 Sam. xv. 22.

2 Deut. x. 16.

4 See Ps. li. 18, 19.

quires of man is not to bring sacrifice but y

,To do what is right » משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע לכת

to love what is benevolent, and to walk in humility before God." All this is in complete harmony with the outcome of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which I have adopted as a general text.

The Babylonian captivity wrought many changes in the ideas of the exiles of Judah, as it did in their political relations, and in some respects in their system of worship; but no change whatever is perceptible in the maintenance of the great ethical principles on which the religion of Moses is based. A notable instance of this is recorded in the Book of Zachariah. It would appear that during the exile certain fasts had been kept commemorative of direful events that had befallen the Hebrew State, and which culminated in the fall of Jerusalem and its Temple. But now that a colony of exiles had come back to their fatherland, they sent a deputation to Zachariah to inquire whether these fasts were to be continued. The Prophet says very little about the fasts themselves, but note well with what especial emphasis he gives out the Divine oracle: "When ye fasted, did ye fast for Me, and when you ate and drank, did ye not eat and drink for yourselves?" 2 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion one to the other. Oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, nor the poor, nor the stranger, and purpose no evil in your heart

1 Mic. vi. 8.

2 Zach. vii. 5, 6.

against your brother." 1 Surely nothing can be plainer than the prophetic teaching here set forth, that Judaism consists more in inward than in outward religion, and is to be recognised more in its essence than in its accident.

On the character and the bearing of the Book of Ecclesiastes it may not be out of place to offer a word or two of remark, as the work has excited more attention amongst Biblical critics than any other section of the Hagiographa, the Book of Job perhaps alone excepted. Though the commentaries written on this book would have themselves formed a library, the last word about it has not yet been spoken. Mendelssohn made this book of the canon a close and especial study, and he has much to say on the character of its contents, as well as on the title which it bears of p. Considerable atten

: קהלת title which it bears

1 Zach. vii. 9, 10.

2 In R. David Friedlander's Preface to by *** nbnp nban

באור רבנו משה בן מנחם (ברלין ה" תיק'מיט) I find הכלל הידוע בהתר הספקות בדברי הספר הזה שלא כל הנאמר בו הוא דעת שלמה המלך ע"ה באמת, כי אם פעמים ידבר כנושא ונותן כדבר שואל ומשיב כדרך החוקרים :

"One general rule applicable to the solution of the difficulties presented in this book is, not to set down all the opinions advanced as if they were truly those of Solomon himself, but that he occasionally ventures on hypotheses after the manner of metaphysical investigators."

M. Renan, in an article on Ecclesiastes ("Revue des Deux Mondes," Feb. 1882), fixes the character of the age as described in nap about 125 before the Christian era. According to this writer, the ancient Hebrew literature, comprising the greater part of the Bible, does not extend beyond the year 500 before the same era, and Ecclesiastes is more recent still (p. 738). The historical vagueness which leaves the

tion has also been bestowed on it by non-Jewish Biblical scholars, including Ewald and Jahn. If the heading might be construed into an indication of the contents of the work, it would go some way to justify the view, that it embodies an anthology of opinions on the end and aim of life, as propounded by divergent schools of thought from various stand-points. The writer, whoever he was— for opinion is much divided about ascribing it to Solomon-sums up in the concluding words, selected for the text, the practical result of the varying and oft-conflicting opinions which he has confronted. The master-truth with which we have now to deal is brought out into prominence by the author, that man's wisdom as well as His duty here below is "to fear God and keep his commandments." the same time he proclaims his belief in a future state,

At

Sur

reader in doubt whether to fix on a date somewhat later than 500 or 125 is hardly astonishing in M. Renan. prises and paradoxes are his favourites. In the same essay (p. 742) he says, "A strange people [the Jews] forsooth, so constituted as to exhibit all contrasts! They have given God to the world, and they hardly believe in Him."

What the Talmud (Baba Bathra, fol. 15a) says about Hezekiah and others in reference to the Books of Isaiah, Proverbs, Canticles and Ecclesiastes does not transfer to Hezekiah and his assistants the authorship of the books mentioned, but the act of consigning them to writing. The Targum agrees with Ibn-Ezra in identifying nbp with Solomon. Even amongst the advanced Biblical critics in our own days, the genuineness of the book is not without defenders. De Wette sums up in the following words :-" We shall not go far wrong, if we place the composition of this book in the latter days of the Persian rule or in the commencement of the Macedonian period, when, besides Ecclesiastes, similar literary fictions were admitted."

where all will have to render an account of their lives upon the earth.

Ample room there certainly is for a divergence of opinion with respect to the character and the contents of the book, as well as to its authorship and its age; but little doubt can exist about the writer's ideas touching the practical character of the religion of Moses, which, as the text-words affirm, does not consist in profound speculation, nor in refined theory, nor in scholasticism, any more than it does in idle debate about things that lie beyond the province of the human understanding; but in ethical sentiment and useful action; in other words, "the fear of God and the keeping of His commandments." Here, then, our common Judaism is described as commensurate with all the relations in life, to which we stand to God and to mankind.

By far the majority of non-Jewish writers in this country, who discuss in magazines and other periodicals the comparative merits of the Church and the Synagogue, fall into strange errors touching Biblical and post-Biblical history, as well as with respect to the Synagogue and its teachings. It is probable enough that these errors have their origin in an all-engrossing doctrinal bias, and this is in no inconsiderable degree fostered by the authorised English version, which does not simply confine itself to the work of translation, but also assumes by its theological system of headings of chapters, as will presently be shown, the office of exposition. The origin of Judaism and its development ought surely to be studied in the