HI. Character, Work; and Writinrjs of Moses. — It will be best to confine ourselves here to such indications of these as transpire through the general framework of the Scripture narrative, or appear in traditions and pro- fane accounts.
It is important to trace his relation to his immediate circle of followers. In the exodus he takes the decisive lead on the night of the flight. Up to that point he and Aaron appear almost on an equality; but after that Moses is usually mentioned alone. Aaron still held the second place, but the character of interi)reter to Moses Avhich he had borne in speaking to Pharaoh withdraws, and it would seem as if Moses henceforth became altogether, what hitherto he had only been in part, the prophet of the people. Another who occupies a place nearly equal to Aaron, though we knoAv but little of him, is Hur, of the tribe of Judah, husband of Miriam, and grandfather, of the artist Bezalcel (Jose()hus, .4 H^ iii, 2, 4). He and Aaron arc the chief supporters of Clo- ses in moments of weariness or excitement. His adviser with regard to the route through the wilderness, as well as in the judicial arrangements, was, as we have seen, Jethro. His servant, occupying the same relation to him as Elisha to Elijah, or (iehazi to Elislia, was the youthful Hoshea (afterwards Joshua). Miriam always held the indcpenilent position to which her age entitled her. Her part was to supply the voice and song to her brother's prophetic power.
But Moses is incontestably the chief personage of the history, in a sense in which no one else is described be- fore or since. In the narrative, the phrase is constantly recurring, " The Lord spake unto Jloses," " ]Moses spake unto the children of Israel." In the traditions of the desert, whether late or early, his name predominates over that of every one else : " The Wells of Moses"— on the shores of the Red Sea ; '• the ]\Ioiuitain of Moses" (Jebel MAsa) — near the convent of St. Catharine; the Kavinc of Moses (Shuk MAsa)— at iSIount St. Catharine; the Valley of Moses (Wady JIftsa)— at Pctra. "The Books of Moses" are so called (as afterwards the Books of- Samuel), in all pnibability, from his being the chief subject of tliem. Tlic very word " Mosaism" has been in later times ajijilied (as the proper name of no other saint of the (). T.) to tlie wliole religion. Even as applied to tessellated pavement ("^losaic," Mnsivum, iwvaiiov, fiovadiKiiv) there is some ])rol)altility that the expres- sion is derived from the variegated pavement of tlie later Temple, which had then become the representa- tive of the religion of Moses (sec an essay of Hedslob in tlie Zvitsrhrift (kr Ikutsch. Mor;/tid. Gese'lk. xiv, G«3).
It has sometimes been attemjitcd to reduce this great character into a mere passive instrument of the divine
Will, as though he had himself borne no conscious part in the actions in which he figures, or the messages which he delivers. This, however, is as incompatible with the general tenor of the scriptural account as it is with the common language in which he has been de- scribed by the Church in all ages. Tlie fre(pient ad- dresses of the Divinity to him no more contravene his I personal activity and intelligence than in the case of ' Elijah, Isaiah, or Paul. In the X. T. the Mosaic legis- j lation is expressly ascribed to him : " Moses gave you circumcision" (John vit, 22). '• Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you" (JIatt. xix, 8). "Did not Moses give you the law?" (John vii, 19). " Moses accuseth you" (John v, 45). Paul goes so far as to speak of him as the founder of the Jewish religion : " They were all baptized unto Moses" (1 Cor. x, 2). He is constantly called "a prophet." In the poetical lan- guage of the O. T. (Xumb. xxi, 18; Deut. xxxiii, 21), and in the popidar language both of Jews and Christians, he is known as " the Lawgiver." The terms in which his legislation is described by Philo (1". M. ii, 1-4) are decisive as to the ancient Jewish view. He must be considered, like all the saints and heroes of the Bible, as a man of marvellous gifts, raised up by divine Provi- dence for a special purpose ; but as led, both by his own disposition and by the pcciUiarity of the revelation which he received, into a closer communion with the invisible world than was vouchsafed to any other in the Old Testament.
Such a marvellous character was not exempted from the most virulent attacks of that criticism called the Eationalismus vuhjaris, which at one time threatened to devour every fragment of antiquity. The historj' of j\Ioses was considered merely a tissue of contradictory statements, till Voltaire (in Questions sur V Encyclope- die, § 127) boldly called his very existence in question. The exodus of Israel, of which Moses was the sole in- strument, was deprived of its strictly historical basis. Goethe wantonly reduced the forty years' wandering to two years. Most of the halting-places named in the books of Exodus and Numbers were deemed unhistor- ical, and the whole chain of events was said to be pure- ly mythical. De Wette {Kritik der israelitisc/ien Ge- srhichte), Gramberg {IhH;iionxideen), Vatke {Biblische Theolofjie), Von Bohlen {Connnentar zvm Durhe Gen- esis), and George (Jiidiscfie Feste) combine to reduce the whole to a fable. Even the best substantiated acts of Moses — such as the construction of tlie taber- nacle, the founding of an hereditary priesthood, tlie ap- pointment of cities of refuge — were assumed to have been stripped of every vestige of historical veracity. The finding of the Law (2 Kings xxii, 8) was said to prove nothing of its Mosaic authorship, because the Egyptian ])riests pretended to have become jiossessed of the books of Hermes in the same way. The fables of stone, as evidence of the historical activity of Closes, were said to be no evidence, because no mention is made of them at the revelation of the Decalogue (Exod. xx), but only on a later occasion, in chap. xxii. The testi- mony of their existence (1 Kings viii, 9) in the days of Solomon was thought not worthy to be depended upon, because the author lived after the destruction of .leru- salem ! By such frivolous assertions Nork finds him- self authorized (see IJebraisch-clialdaiscli-rahbiiii.<ches ]Vorterbnc/i) to resolve the character of INIosos into a mythical personage ; and to reduce the marvellous exo- dus, and ihe subsequent joiiruey through the wilderness, to a level with the mythological coiuiiiests of Osiris or those of Bacchus, in each of whom iiersonilications of the solar year were recognised. !Moscs is contrasted with Bacchus, whose grandfather Kadmus placed him in an ark and exposed bim to the ocean (see J.J. ^liil- ler, Ik' Mose in JUnchitm converso [Jena, lGt)7j). The GiiO.OOO lighting men in Israel are assumed to l)e so many stars, which ancient astronomers believed to ex- ist. The wonder-working rod of Closes was considered to be as pure a tiction as the serpent-rod of Hermes.