with a vast array of ceremonial apparatus and parade. Under the Christian economy, on the other hand, the human soul is taught to come directly to God for pardon of its sins. Yet here likewise there is a close analogy in the person of the Redeemer, who is at once Victim and Intercessor. The practical influence, however, of the recourse by the Jewish penitent to the Levitical arrangements, with the necessity of a prescribed sacri- fice, at a special place in a particular manner, and above all by the instrumentality of a public functionary, must have been immense in keeping out of the popular mind the immediate responsibility of each human being to its offended Maker and God. In this respect Romish and Greek Catholicism has gone back to "the weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism, and the exaltation of prelatical and priestly authority invariably tends in the same direction. The apostle Paul everywhere enters his most vigorous and emphatic protest against these assumptions as a corruption of the whole evangelical scheme. The Epistle to the Hebreirs, especially, is a prolonged argument on this topic.
(3.) Immortality. — The survival of the soul after the dissolution of the body is not expressly taught in the Old Testament, but it is continually implied, and not obscurely intimated in the references to the spirits of the departed (e.g. "gathered unto his fathers," i.e. in the world of shades), and in the anticipation of meeting in the other world (e. g. 2 Sam. xii, 23 ; Eccles. xii, 7). Jesus proved this point to the confusion of the Jewish sceptics of his day (Matt, xxii, 32). But the doctrine of the resurrection of the body likewise is so allied to that of the immortality of the soul, that the later Jews appear to have inferred it from the few hints dropped to that effect in their Scriptures (especially, perhaps, from Job xix, 25-27 ; Psa. xvi, 10 ; Isa. xxvi, 19 : Dan. xii, 2), for the Pharisees and Talmudists entertained it as a settled portion of the orthodox faith. Yet it was so far reserved for Christ to establish and illustrate this glorious truth by his own revival from the grave, and his explicit declarations (e. g. John xi, 25), that he may justly be said to have " brought life and immortality to light."
2. Socially and Politically. — Here, too, a few pouits must suffice by way of characterization.
(1.) Marriage. — In no particular, perhaps, is modem civilization more distinguished from tlie cultured nations of antiquity, as well as from modern Paganism and Mo- hammedanism, than in the delicate regard for woman which it has enforced. But this is chiefly due to the moral influence of Christianity, and is directly traceable to the restoration by our Saviour of marriage to its pristine monogamic condition (Matt, xix, 3-12). Here likewise the Gospel appears as much superior to the Mosaic law as the latter does to heathenism. The last tolerated almost indiscriminate licentiousness, and the mythologies of Greece and Rome added the example of a profligate religion with indescribable orgies. But Mosaism, although it restrained, still did not abolish concubinage, and thus left the female sex measurably enthralled by traditionary degradation. To its credit, however, it must be said that it never (except in the limited and late example of the Essenes) ran into the morbid prurience of celibac}-. which has entailed severe evils upon corrupt forms of Christianity.
(2.) Exclusiveness The Jew was hereditarily a
bigot. Territorially, ecclesiasticalh', and commercially his position by the Mosaic economy was an isolated one. and that reserve and suspicion of foreigners, which was originally a safeguard against idolatry, became at length a turbulent, odious, and anti-humanitarian trait of national character. The Hebrew word for the out- side nations ("^15) acquired a sense of proscription, and " Gentile" was regarded by the Israelite as nearly sy- nonymous with " dog." Christianity, on the contrary, "broke down this middle wall of partition," and taught that all men are brethren, alike made by the common
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Father, and equally redeemed by the one Saviour. Zerubbabel encouraged sectarianism (Ezra iv,3) ; Jesus rebuked it (Luke ix, bo). With the Hebrews circum- cision was a test of caste, and is hence contrasted with the essence of Christianity (Gal. v, 2). So liljeral is the genuine spirit of the latter, that no greater reproach or inconsistency, perhaps, in modern times is found among its professors than a similar refusal of fraternity on the ground of some ceremonial or ordinational pe- culiarity.
(3.) Patriotism This partook largely of the above
clannish feeling engendered by Jlosaism. Konie was not more jealous of the rights of citizenship than was Judaism. " Thou shalt love tliy fellow [Jew], and hate thy enemy [the Gentile]," was the interpretation put by the Israelites in general upon the Jlosaic code. True, this was a perversion of its spirit, which repeat- edly enjoins the largest charity towards aliens (Exod. xxiii, !); Lev. xix, 33; Deut. x, 18, etc.), but it was the natural result of the Hebrews' history and train- ing. Hence the Jewish passion for independence, and hence, too, the ambition that nurtured a literal in- terpretation of the glowing pictures in the Old-Testa- ment prophecies concerning the ultimate aggrandize- ment of tlie nation. Christianity, on the other hand, renounced at the outset all pretensions to political power (John xviii, 3G), and enjoined an absolute humility and submission little calculated to awaken patriotic ardor. Indeed, the early Christians were compelled to regard themselves as "])ilgrims and strangers" on earth, and they transferred to the Church and to heaven their ' former attachment to countrymen and fatherland. At the same time their philanthropy became both more intense and more cosmopolitan ; and this depth as well as expansion of patriotism in the truest sense has ever since, with the most earnest Christians, refused to be limited to the accidents of birthplace. The essential brotherhood of all mankind is a principle with which Christianity is slowly leavening the world, and the mil- lennial glory will be but the universal realization of the idea.