The Hebrew Republic: Chapter 5: Universal Industry, The Inviolability of Private Property, The Sacredness of the Family Relation, The Sanctity of Human Life
Again, the Hebrew state was founded on the industry of all the citizens. This was the eleventh of those fundamental principles, which lay at the basis of the constitution.
This idea has been partially developed already, but it was so vital to the Hebrew legislation that it deserves a distinct consideration. We have seen that a leading object of Moses was to make the country of the Hebrews a vast and busy scene of rural industry. Now, the culture of the earth requires a great number and variety of implements, and a soil of but moderate fertility will afford sustenance to a much larger population than is required for its tillage. In these two ideas, behold the germ of an effective system of mechanical industry, and a powerful stimulus to the cultivation and development of mechanical skill.
The lawgiver's first care was the cultivation of the land, his next to provide that the people might be conveniently and comfortably lodged. He enjoined upon all to labor, that they might not only eat and be satisfied, but that they might also build goodly houses, and dwell therein.1 The counsel of Solomon was but an echo of this Mosaic law: "Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house."2
The various objects of necessity, convenience, and luxury enumerated in the sacred books prove to us that industry and the arts were far from being in a depressed state among the Hebrews. They made divers stuffs of wool, cotton, goat's hair, and, some say, of silk.3
The art of dyeing was in use among them, and reached a high perfection. Their principal colors were blue, crimson, purple, and yellow, which were obtained from vegetables, fishes, and minerals. They labored especially to impart a snowy whiteness to their fabrics used for clothing. Rich stuffs, interwoven with threads of gold, and adorned with fringes of variegated colors, presented to the eye designs of various sorts.
In the construction of the tabernacle, we read of fine twined linen, and of broad tapestries, covered with beautiful figures of delicate workmanship, and joined to each other by clasps of gold. The details in Exodus respecting the proportions of the various pieces, which formed the carpentry of this portable temple, and the numerous articles which constituted its furniture, indicate the use of a great number of instruments, proper for dividing and measuring.
Together with the arts of carpentry, founding, and pottery, the Israelites brought from Egypt the art of engraving precious stones, the art of working metals, the art of inlaying in gold, and the art of molding. The curtains of the tabernacle with their ornaments, the ark overlaid with gold, the mercy-seat with its cherubim, the table of showbread with its furniture, the golden candlestick, the veil, the altars of burnt offering and incense, the ephod with its curious girdle, the breastplate with its mysterious urim and thummim, the priestly vestments, and all the other paraphernalia of the royal tent, must have required, for their construction, a high degree of mechanical ingenuity.
In the reign of Solomon the arts shone out in full effulgence. The temple, the royal palaces, their rich furniture, superb gardens, beautiful works in gold and ivory, splendid concerts of vocal and instrumental music, roads multiplied and handsomely paved, towns and fortresses built and repaired, and the great marble city of Palmyra, starting into life like a vision of beauty, attest the encouragement afforded to the arts by that munificent monarch.
The indignant rebuke of the prophet Amos to the rich and luxurious idlers of his day, is a proof both of the progress of Jewish art and of the stern demand for labor, which the Jewish law made upon all. "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David: that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph."4
Isaiah, complaining of the luxury of the daughters of Zion, enumerates more than twenty articles of their toilet, all costly or elegant, which are as clear an indication of the state of Jewish art, as they are of the pride and ostentation of the Jewish ladies: "In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings, the rings and the nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses and the fine linen, and the hoods and the vails."5
At the time of the captivity, artists abounded in Jerusalem. Of ten thousand heads of families, carried to Babylon at the first invasion, one thousand were workmen in wood and in metals. Winkelman, in his his history of art, has made the following observation on this fact: "We are but slightly acquainted with art among the Hebrew people; nevertheless, it must have reached a certain degree of perfection, at least in design and finish. Among the artists whom Nebuchadnezzar carried captive from the single city of Jerusalem, were a thousand, skilled in inlaid work. It would be difficult to find as many in the largest of our modern cities."
It is sometimes made matter of reproach against the Hebrews, that they left none of those great monuments like the pyramids and temples of Egypt, which struggle successfully against the devastations of time. How little do such persons appreciate the true grandeur of nations! There were not slaves in Palestine to erect such ostentatious structures; and free labor employs itself about things more useful. Voltaire himself takes notice of this fact. He regards the pyramids as a proof of the slavery of the Egyptians, and says that nothing could constrain a free people to rear such masses. The temple, the palace of their heavenly king, is the only monumental edifice, of which the memory has been preserved. This shared the fate of the Jewish people, and, after having served as a fortress in the last efforts of liberty, the nation and the temple fell together.
Since that day the fate of the Jewish people has been one of almost unmingled bitterness. "Scattered and pealed" has been deeply engraved upon its forehead. But they have always displayed much of the energy, activity, and industrious application to business, which distinguished their remote ancestors. This even their worst enemies have been compelled to acknowledge. An old Spanish chronicler, with an ingenuousness which would be amusing, if it did not recall painful memories, says of them: "This portion of humanity was at least good to awaken industry and to pay imposts."
How far these permanent elements of industry may have been the result of the exact and positive spirit of their ancient law, it is impossible now to trace with distinctness. I do not affirm, but I suggest for reflection, whether the economy, the ability, the tenacity, and the energy of the modern Jews, are not due to some profound cause, which is to be sought in the great principles of their original institution.
Again, the inviolability of private property, and the sacredness of the family relation, are principles which entered essentially into the Hebrew constitution.
It cannot be necessary to adduce, at any length, the proof of this proposition, for no one can open the Pentateuch, without meeting it on every page. The whole scope of the second table of the Decalogue is to guard the institution of the family and the institution of property. The right and the advantage of private property are everywhere assumed by Moses. To facilitate its increase, to regulate its use, and to provide for its distribution are leading objects of his law. In this the Hebrew legislator does but echo a sentiment common to all just and wise lawgivers. A political community could not be organized except upon a basis of individual property and right. This is the only bond, strong enough to hold such an association together. Not even a savage tribe could live together without property. The ownership by each member of the body politic of his tools, arms, clothing, and habitation is essential to the rudest form of civil society. None would be willing to till the ground if others had an equal right with him to gather the harvest.
None would even erect a hut, if his next neighbor might enter and take possession the moment it was finished. If the idle and the industrious, if those who waste and those who save, have the same rights, and are to share alike in the fruits of the earth and the products of labor, then prudence, frugality, thrift, and provision for the future become simple impossibilities. All this is recognized in the legislation of Moses. That legislation has no sympathy with a social theory, which has of late gained some currency in the world--a theory which places activity, industry, ability, and virtue upon the same level with indolence, idleness, incapacity, and vice; a theory which begins by offering a premium for ignorance and incompetency, and which must end in the annihilation of all industry, all emulation, and every opening faculty. Neither has the legislation of Moses any sympathy with another principle, which has a prevalence perhaps still more extensive--I mean the principle of a separation of the pecuniary interests of the husband and wife. The husband and wife are regarded by the Mosaic law as one person, having, as it were, but one soul, one interest, one will. Doubtless the doctrine that the man is the head of the woman and that the property of the latter becomes, as a result of the nuptial tie, part and parcel of that of the former, is sometimes productive of much hardship and suffering; but who that reflects on the frailties and passions of human nature can doubt that the contrary doctrine, adopted and applied as a practical principle of legislation, would be attended with evils far greater, both in number and magnitude?
The spirit of the Mosaic law is opposed to the modern radicalism of woman's rights; a radicalism, which boldly avows its purpose of "subverting the existing order of society and dissolving the existing social compact." Moses did not favor the manhood of woman. "Unto the woman he said,...thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."6 Paul interprets this precept, when he says of women, "It is not permitted to them to speak in the churches; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law."7 He speaks in the very spirit of Moses, when he says, "The man is the head of the woman";8 "wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands";9 "Adam was first formed, then Eve."10 Man has a mission and so has woman, to which the wisdom that never errs, has adapted the bodily and mental constitution of each. Man's mission is to subdue and till the earth, to cultivate the mechanic arts, to make roads and dig canals, to carry on commerce, to encounter the perils and fatigues of war, to institute and administer government, to be the shield of woman in moments of danger and sudden alarm--in a word, to perform the rough business of life, that which requires physical strength and endurance. Woman's mission, while it has no less of dignity, is very different from this. It is to be the light and joy of the household, to nourish and train the immortal children within its precincts, to mold the whole mass of mind while in its most plastic state, to fill the throne of the heart, to be the priestess in the sanctuary of home, to be the comfort and support of man in seasons of sorrow and of suffering, to move in the realm of ignorance and want, to shine, to cheer, and to bless in all, the varied ministrations of sympathy and love, from the cradle to the grave. What purer, nobler, holier realm can she desire? "The true nobility of woman is to keep her own sphere, and to adorn it."
Another essential principle of the legislative policy of Moses was the sanctity of human life.
No legislation of antiquity approaches that of the Hebrew lawgiver, in its solicitude to guard the lives of men. The prohibition against killing was one of the ten precepts, which formed what may be called the magna charta of the Hebrew state.11 The crime of murder was punished with death. There was no redemption. It was declared that the land could not be purged of the stains of blood, except by the blood of him who had shed it.12 Even an ox, which had gored a man to death, and, by parity of reason, any other animal, as a goat, a dog, or a horse, that had killed a person by pushing, biting, or kicking, was to be stoned,13 not, indeed, to punish the beast, but the owner, and so to oblige him to be careful in preventing his oxen, dogs, and other domestic animals from injuring his neighbors. The flesh of the goring ox could not be eaten,14 a prohibition which served to keep up a wholesome horror of murder, at the same time that it punished the man by the total loss of his beast. A man who built a house was required to make a battlement, or balustrade, to the roof.15 If he neglected to do this, and a person fell from the roof in consequence, and was killed, the owner of the house brought bloodguiltiness upon himself; he was considered in the light of a murderer.16
A very peculiar statute concerning homicide by an unknown person is recorded in Deuteronomy 21:1-9. This statute will be particularly examined in a subsequent part of this work, and I forbear, therefore, a detail of its provisions at the present time. By consulting the passage, the reader will perceive, that the elders, or magistrates, of the nearest city were obliged to purge themselves and their city of the murder, and make a solemn avowal that they were ignorant of the perpetrator of it. He will perceive also, that, in the absence of the press, nothing could be better fitted than the ceremonies ordained to give publicity to the murder, and to make everyone who had any knowledge of the matter give information concerning it. There can be no doubt that the investigation instituted by the laws of Moses over the body of a person, who had come to his death by means unknown, is the origin of the coroner's inquest in modern times. No ancient law made such provision for the detection of secret murders as this of Moses. That of Plato, which is regarded as the best, simply ordained that if a man was found dead and the murderer could not be ascertained, proclamation should be made that he should not come into any holy place, nor into any part of the whole country; for if he were discovered and apprehended, he should be put to death, be thrown out of the bounds of the country, and have no burial. These provisions of the Mosaic code to beget an abhorrence of murder, and to guard the lives of the citizens, are very remarkable. They evince a humanity in Moses, unknown to all other ancient legislators. They must have tended, in a high degree, to introduce a horror of shedding human blood, and to give intensity to the idea of the sacredness of human life.
