3, Freedom from Superstition. — As a result of this single eye to the glory of a supreme God, Mosaism was calculated to deliver its followers from those chimerical fears and goblin doubts which continually haunt the votaries of polytheism and damonism. The Jew was not distracted bj' luicertainty at which of many often contradictory shrines he should pay his homage, nor any uncertainty as to whether his God was able or will- ing to heed and answer his petition. No ghostly hor- rors veiled his cultus, nor mystic rites overshadowed his introduction into the divine presence. There were no subordinate imps or questionable demi-gods that might thwart the higher designs, nor any petty envy in the bosom of a jealous deity. True, there was Satan and his host of fallen angels against him ; but he believed that these were mere creature powers, tethereil (Job i, 12 ; ii, G) by the Almighty with whom he was in cove- nant, and therefore harmless while he maintained that allegiance. There was no peopling by his imagination of every brook and dale and hill and wood with naiads and nymphs and fauns and satyrs of superhuman power and antihuman whim. There were for him no lucky and unlucky daj's, no capricious auguries and enigmat- ic oracles, no conjuring spells and omens of fortune. There was no blind fate, but everything was in the hand of an all-wise, beneficent Creator, Upholder, and Ruler. This gave a nobilitj', a magnanimity, an ex- pansiveness to his views of life and destiny, wliich raised him out of the puerile calculations and belittling aspi- rations, the undefined guesses and terrors that took up so large a share of the heathen's time and attention. True, he had his festal and his fasting seasons, his rou- tine of sacrifice and ceremony ; but these were all fixed and conclusive, and were grounded on some clear his- torical or prophetical principle, so that they enlisted his intelligent interest. It was the hair-splitting techni- calities of the rabbins that introduced bewilderment of mind and morals into the later Judaism. The drivel- ling trash of the Talmud is an excrescence upon Mosa- ism. Such fables and endless distinctions were a fash- ion worthier of heathenism (Tit. iii, 9).
4. Sublime Views of the Future World.— 'SYg have al-
MOSAYLIMA
672
MOSCHUS
ready touched upon this theme, but for another pur- pose; its importance and pertinence here call for a spe- cial notice. To a thoughtful mind, the destiny of the soul beyond the grave is a most momentous consider- ation. Hence pagan philosophy has exercised its most earnest efforts to solve the problem, but in vain. The pall that covers the bier was to them an impenetrable veil. Socrates and his most spiritual disciples, Plato, and Cicero, could only conjecture the fate of the human spirit. True, all religions hold to a future retribution, and this implies a survival of the soul after death. Yet this view was so beclouded with mythological poetry and metaphysical speculation, that the passage into eternity was truly ''a leap in the dark" even to the most cultivated heathen. The light of revelation alone could pierce the gloom that shrouded the spirit as it passed away from consciousness and observation. The hare fact of immortality might indeed be guessed — or rather, perhaps, the surmise was a trace of the pristine truth of Eden. But the circumstances of that state, es- pecially the possibility and conditions of happiness in the future world, were even a more absorbing question ; for continued existence without this assurance would hardly be deemed a real boon. On this point it is evi- dent that the Jew never had any doubt ; and hence he was ready to meet death cheerfully and even gladly. We repeat that martyrs could not have been possible without the faith which the Bible— whether of the Old or the New Testament — inspired. Mosaism, so far as we know, furnished the first written revelation of God's will to man, and the first authentic clew to man's origin, moral relations, and final destiny. This gave the be- liever in the Mosaic code, with its concomitants and sequents, an immense advantage over Gentile theoso- phists and religionists of however high a grade. lie could not only walk more securely in the path well-pleasing to heaven, but he knew assuredly that it would, if per- severed in, at length conduct him thither in everlasting bliss. Even the dawning beams of that celestial illu- mination enabled Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, .Job, and doubtless many other ante-Mosaic, but not extra-He- braic saints to tread with firm and elastic step that s.i- cre<l road, and Christianity is but the noontide blaze of the same effulgence from the one great Sun of PJight- eousncss which shone with a clear and steady, but not vet full lustre, on the horizon of Mosaism (Psa. Ixxxiv,
ii).
Mosaylima. See Mohammedan Sects, in this vol.. p. IJ t.
Moscato, .It DAii, a noted physician and rabbi at Mantua, where he died in the year 1580, is the author of an important commentary on the Kozari of the cele- brated Jehudah ha-Levi ben-Samuel (q. v.), entitled nnw;' hip, The Voice ofJudah (Venice, l.")9-l). He also wrote, under the title of fTliin;' nisnS?, The Dis- persed of Judah, fifty-two lectures on diverse matters (Venice, 1589; republished at Warsaw, 1871). See FUrst, Bibl. Jiid. ii, 391 sq. ; De Rossi, Dizionario storico degli antori Khrd. s. v.; Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge (Berlin, W.Vl), p. 4:i2.