the foundation of a better religion as the basis of a higher life. But how few are able amid storms and passions really to perceive the truths invisibly germinating on such a soil, to discern them by the divine light, and to carry them out with a divine confidence! That the eye of Moses discerned them, that it therefore suffered itself to be opened by the divine spirit to discern them, constitutes the immeasurable significance of his life. That there is no redemption from Egyptian bondage but in free obedience to the clearly perceived will of the Heavenly Lord; no deliverance from idolatry and the whole superstition of Egypt but by the service of the purely spiritual God: these truths, and such as these, must have come before the eye of Moses in all the power of a divine illumination while as yet they had never been recognised with equal certainty by any one. And when we reflect with what overpowering force every truth, as it first starts up with distinct brightness, penetrates and renovates the entire man, we are able to understand how Moses could no longer remain with his father-in-law as a peaceful shepherd, when, as the Fifth Narrator says, he had seen the glorious bright fire shoot forth from the bush at Sinai, and heard the Divinè voice issue from its midst.

Finally, religion is for man an absolutely authoritative and decisive power, because in all his acts he aims-whether mistakenly or not—either at obeying a law above him, or at gaining an attainable blessing. There is something which ultimately binds and constrains a man in his decisions and acts-something, therefore, which he fears, whether it be the right object of fear or not. If this is so, then the revelation of religion to others, i.e. prophecy, must possess an absolute authority, as a power to which all who draw near submit, with the sacrifice of their repugnance, when it really possesses weight and influence. But to acquire clear perceptions in religion is one of the most indispensable and consequently one of the earliest requirements of the human soul. Therefore prophecy naturally busies itself in every people at the earliest period, in founding a religion to be generally acknowledged, and in establishing large and enduring communities around its sacred fire. And so, when an earlier civilisation has been destroyed, new communities and states then form themselves around the reawakened prophetic power, as we saw only in 1848 in Africa with Abdelkâdir, and even later in Asia under Shamil and his predecessors. According to every indication, we must imagine

From the interior of Africa at the present day, some lesser examples are given by Lepsius, Briefe aus Aegypten und Aethiopien, p. 193, 210 sq.

the Israel of that age to have been, on the one hand, in such a state of antique simplicity and purity of life that it readily submitted itself to the voice of prophecy, while on the other, it was driven by extraordinary distress to consign itself to a firmer guidance and a closer union. Thus it was that Moses as a great Prophet could at that time become at once the all-uniting and controlling leader of the people; and-what later on was impossible even to a great Prophet-he was able to be by the mere power of the Divine word for a long period the universally acknowledged leader and the mighty ruler, nay even the new lawgiver, of his people. If he, in an age which yet needed the establishment of a fixed social order and a generally accepted religion, and which was therefore, as it were, called on to trust such a Prophet in everything, was himself impelled by the wonderful truths just mentioned, and, strong in their strength, led a people penetrated by the power and obedient to the light of the same truths; then he became of necessity a Prophet with whom none before or after could compare. For in fact, the highly civilised Egyptians still possessed Prophets;' but at that time, since other powers-the sacerdotal and the regal-had acquired the real authority, they had long declined in importance, although they still occupied the first place in external dignity and rank; and Moses was distinguished from them, as from all heathen prophets, by the truths of pure religion which were exclusively his. From the later Prophets in Israel, however, he was distinguished by being the founder of that community in which, only through him and his institutions, they obtained the sphere of their activity. In his history, therefore, we see a unique example of a people, who throughout many decads, in a decisive crisis of their history, unswervingly submitted themselves to the sway of those higher truths which a Prophet first revealed, and to the bright light of which he had inured his eyes. This free guidance of a noble spirit, and this free obedience of a willing people, cannot appear too marvellous in our eyes. And if the prophetic energy rose in Moses to so amazing a height that his entire life and every action served as guide and motive to a willingly obedient people, we can understand how the Fifth Narrator could say 2 that Moses, though wanting in that faculty of ready speech which is the instrument of ordinary prophets, so that he was obliged

As we now know not only from the reports of the Hebrews and other foreigners, but also from the old Egyptian writings themselves.

2 Ex. iv. 10-16; but the Book of Origins had already briefly alluded to this, so that it must have had some foundation in tradition: Ex. vi. 12 sq., vii. 1 sq.

to have recourse to Aaron as his own prophet, i.e. spokesman, was not on account of this defect deemed in the sight of God unworthy of his high vocation. In fact this conception is only one among many by which the Old Testament seeks to express the superiority of this greatest of the Prophets above all others.

3. In thus recognising in Moses the greatest and most original of prophets, but still a prophet only, we pronounce that in him the last and highest revelation of the divine in man was not manifested; for the prophet is the energetic proclaimer of a higher life, creates the impulse towards that life, and sternly requires conformity to it; but he does not present the actuality of that life in its blessed repose and perfection. Therefore he is not that which the Old Testament itself ultimately requires as its completion, and with which it concludes -the Messiah. But though this cannot be denied, the real greatness of Moses and of his work cannot be too clearly and distinctly realised by us. We therefore dwell upon it somewhat longer here at the beginning of his life, particularly as in recent times it has often been misunderstood.

There is nothing so characteristic of the community of Israel throughout all the centuries of its existence, and of the noble striving of its people, as the courageous direction of thought and act to the purely divine, the exclusive reliance on the true spiritual God and the blessings of life given by him. In this consisted the life and growth, as well as the glory and pride, of the people in Canaan. This was the aspiration which especially distinguished them from all other nations of antiquity; and even though this fundamental basis of the true community was at times neglected or violated by the people, contrary to their own mission, yet all the pure and noble spirits in the nation always returned to it again, recognising it with growing constancy and conviction as the greatest necessity of the life of the individual as well as of the whole community, and with ever increasing power and success leading others to hold faithfully to it. When did that national aspiration, thus peculiarly directed and defined, take its rise? When did that extraordinary courage, sincerity, and elevation of soul spring up, not merely weakly and transitorily, but as the indestructible possession of the entire community? Did the great prophets of the tenth, ninth, and eighth centuries create it all? Each word of theirs, and their very existence and ministry, testify that in their day that higher stage of spiritual elevation had been long reached in Israel, and was always assumed by them as the product of a

distant antique age. None can dispute this who have any true understanding of the utterances of a Hosea or an Amos, or of the history of an Elijah. Or did the times of Samuel and David with all their glory first kindle the holy fire of this aspiration? But (passing over for the present all that is to be subsequently explained) the strange difficulty and delay in the establishment of a monarchy-the true mission and the slowly matured fruit of that age-proves that a religion had been long in existence which, contrary to that of other nations, made reverence for the invisible Lord and King, and obedience to him alone, its greatest commandment. We shall be least of all inclined to attribute the origination of such an aspiration to the perplexed period of the Judges. Besides, among other indications, the song of Deborah, Judges v., points most clearly to an earlier glorious time of the formation of the people of Jahve. Thus by this method also we are brought back to the Mosaic period as the origin and completion of all the noble aspiration and peculiar tendency of this community; and if we could only ascribe the second commandment, Thou shalt not make to thyself any idol,' with certainty to Moses, that word declaring to all men, in opposition to all the other religions of the age, the pure spirituality of God and the necessity of a purely spiritual worship of him, would of itself prove that the entire spiritual course of later generations must have taken its rise and received its indelible bias from Moses and his age. We do not assert that the whole circle of truths connected with or rising from this foundation were as fully recognised or as certainly made his own by Moses as by later prophets, especially after Amos and Hosea. That could not be, from the mere fact that many of the errors with which they had to contend must have been entirely unknown in his day. Still less do we assert that in actual life Moses always acted unfalteringly in accordance with these truths, or gave a perfect example in following them out to their uttermost results; for the first recognition and foundation of a truth stretching to infinitude is necessarily separated by a long interval from its perfectly corresponding expression in life; and Moses was not Christ, either in intrinsic possibility or according to the declarations and representations of the Pentateuch. The whole history shows that we have only to ascribe to him the pure healthy germ of all truth respecting a spiritual God, and the first powerful inexhaustible impulse given by the establishment of the community to the enduring preservation and fruitful development of that germ. But in fact, in spiritual matters, everything depends upon laying an indestructible right

foundation; and every one who knows this and reflects on the nature of that basis of spiritual truth of which we here speak, will not hesitate to conclude that the man who took the lead with such a commencement must, in intrinsic power and greatness of soul, have been one of the first among the few whom posterity ever reverences as originators of truths perpetually self-renovating, and as guides to a better life.

Even the most original and capacious mind, indeed, requires for its development and efficiency a favourable moment that rouses and calls forth its energies. But when we inquire what kind of influences seconded Moses, we find our information to be remarkably defective on that point. Powerful impulses from without must have stirred him; for a view of life and direction of thought so spiritual and so sharply defined as had their first expression through him, not only presuppose a vehement conflict between fundamentally different tendencies, but many previous stages of early culture, not of the lowest order. Now Egypt, in the midst of whose learning Moses was brought up, had been for many centuries, as testified by its monuments, at a high stage of civilisation, particularly in the arts and dexterities of practical life; and when we desire to bring before us a more living picture of the great deliverer of his people, we are prone to think of him as described by the Third and Fourth Narrators,' vying with the most learned men and skilful enchanters of Egypt. But Moses' characteristics do not consist in such knowledge and such arts, which there gradually degenerated into priestly artifices. On the contrary, the insight and power peculiar to him, as well as the direction towards the spiritual and the invisible, implanted by him in the community, form the direct antithesis to the wellknown principles and acts of the Egyptian priests and nobles. Now, although among the Egyptians themselves, various views were then arising on higher religion (p. 462 sq.), yet nothing really better became prevalent among them. That the deliverance and reconstitution of Israel sprang from Titanic struggles between the Egyptians and the Hebrews, is the glorious recollection of the entire nation at every period of its existence. That this strife was inseparably associated with a sharp conflict between two essentially different religions follows from the way in which the traditions invariably describe Jahve as in strife with the Egyptian gods. And it is still more distinctly proved

2

1 Ex. vii. 11, 22, viii. 14 [18.] 2 Just as many Hindu traditions of combats between Vishnu and Çiva, Daitjas or Asuras and Suras, have sprung from stories of violent religious combats between

the different parties. How ancient this conception is in the Old Testament, is seen in the words, Ex. xv. 11; Num. xxxiii. 4.