21. But, before we enter on any discussion of this important subject, it will be well first to examine briefly how far, independently of any express revelat.ion from God either to man or through man,- at all events any known to us,-the Divine onler, which man being created in God's image to some extent recognises, and against the transgression of which his knowledge of good and evil bears witness, has in different ages of the world been asserted by him in the form of external and positive law. He discovers indeed by his own experience that this order, so far as it affects rela- tions between man and man, is essential to social and national life and further that the order cannot be maintained, and the rights of these relations cannot be protected, except by law. We need only investigate this subject sufficiently to understand 1 Josh. x.xiv. 2 14, 15. ~ Gal. iii. 17. 1 INTRODUCTION 'l'O THE J>ENTATEUOH.
more distinctly on the 0110 hand the value, and indeed the nbsolute necessity to man'• truest and highest life, of a complete revelation of Divine law, and on tho other the form which all law must assume in order to be law indeed, and to effect the purposes for ...,-hich the Divine law itself is given. 22. Not only the sacred history, but also the evidence afforded by the science of comparative jurisprudence 1 indicates that the original constitution of human society was that which is known as the Patriarchal, in which the father of the family possessed absolute authority over its persons and its property. 1n this condition of society the word of the parent was the only human law, he being the representatiYe of God to the family in religion as well ns in secular matters. Traces of this prime- Ya I goYernment have survived even to the pn>-Scnt day in some nations, in the form knm•,,1 to Roman lnw as the "Patria J>otcstas." But as the family life developed it~elf into the various forms of natural life,-a process whioh, as we have already ohse.rved, began and indeed ""as in actiYe operation soon after the Deluge,-we find at all events wherever the nation became large and powerful, tho national sovereign, wcceeding to and superseding the more archaic government. His authority, how- ever. like the paternal, was not that of a mere individual but of the representative of Divinity, and his judgments were regarded as not those of his own personal will but as emanating from n hove: indeed in the mythical history of ancient nations tb.e original kings are with hardly an exception represented as gods or demi-gods. In regard to Egypt, the only great nation of the period preceding the giving of the law by Moses of which we have any description in the sacred history, wo fortun- ately possess in the present day, in addition to the notices in the Holy Scripture, sufficient information from other contemporaneous records, or from subsequent l:istory, to enable us to trace with some certainty the development of J1ational law there. 2 The Egyptians believed that the origin of law was Divine, the god Tlwth ( or Hermes as he was called by the Greeks), who represented the Divine Reason, l,axing first promulgated it for the benefit of man, and their complete code of Lnv being gradually formed by the wisdom of early monarchs and sages, and in~ terpreted from the precedents of the decisions of learned judgP-s in noted cases, which corr.,sponded somewhat to the Responsa prudentium of the Romans, and yet more nearly to the "case made " law of later times. This code was called tho "Eight Books of Thoth." The study of that code was the special duty of those high priests who were called "prophets," and of the king who also held that office. To the king it belonged to legislate, as well as to administer the law, but in all matters of 1,tatc he was assisted by the counsel of the wisest and most distinguished mem- berb of the priestly order.• "We are acquainted with few of the laws of the ancient Egyptians, but the superiority of their legislation has always been aclmow- ledged e.s the cause of the duration of an empire which lasted with the same form of government for a much longer period than the generality of ancient states, Indeed the wisdom of the11e people was proverbial, and was held in such considera- tion by other nations that we find it taken by the Jews as the standard to which 1rnperior learning 4 in their own country was willingly compared: and Moses had pre- pared himself for the duties of a legislator by becoming versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians'' (Wilkinson). 1 See Jifaine'e 'Ancient Law,' p. 122. 2 As the facts u- u,bich I shall e.llude are such as are mentioned in many modem works on Egypt, I clo not considc:- it necessary to give references; but I have taken the statemunt. chiefly, and in some cases v~•·batim, from Sir J. G. Wilkinson's well-known work "See in illustration Ge11. xh. '28, 37, 38; I. 7; nncl Isa. xix. 11, 12 •. 'Cf. Solomon; 1 Kings iv. 30. INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH. xvii