The Project Gutenberg EBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 4, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 4 "Jevons, Stanley" to "Joint" Author: Various Release Date: October 14, 2012 [EBook #41055] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYC. BRITANNICA, VOL 15, SLICE 4 *** Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY (1835-1882), English economist and logician, was born at Liverpool on the 1st of September 1835. His father, Thomas Jevons, a man of strong scientific tastes and a writer on legal and economic subjects, was an iron merchant. His mother was the daughter of William Roscoe. At the age of fifteen he was sent to London to attend University College school. He appears at this time to have already formed the belief that important achievements as a thinker were possible to him, and at more than one critical period in his career this belief was the decisive factor in determining his conduct. Towards the end of 1853, after having spent two years at University College, where his favourite subjects were chemistry and botany, he unexpectedly received the offer of the assayership to the new mint in Australia. The idea of leaving England was distasteful, but pecuniary considerations had, in consequence of the failure of his father’s firm in 1847, become of vital importance, and he accepted the post. He left England for Sydney in June 1854, and remained there for five years. At the end of that period he resigned his appointment, and in the autumn of 1859 entered again as a student at University College, London, proceeding in due course to the B.A. and M.A. degrees of the university of London. He now gave his principal attention to the moral sciences, but his interest in natural science was by no means exhausted: throughout his life he continued to write occasional papers on scientific subjects, and his intimate knowledge of the physical sciences greatly contributed to the success of his chief logical work, The Principles of Science. Not long after taking his M.A. degree Jevons obtained a post as tutor at Owens College, Manchester. In 1866 he was elected professor of logic and mental and moral philosophy and Cobden professor of political economy in Owens college. Next year he married Harriet Ann Taylor, whose father had been the founder and proprietor of the Manchester Guardian. Jevons suffered a good deal from ill health and sleeplessness, and found the delivery of lectures covering so wide a range of subjects very burdensome. In 1876 he was glad to exchange the Owens professorship for the professorship of political economy in University College, London. Travelling and music were the principal recreations of his life; but his health continued bad, and he suffered from depression. He found his professorial duties increasingly irksome, and feeling that the pressure of literary work left him no spare energy, he decided in 1880 to resign the post. On the 13th of August 1882 he was drowned whilst bathing near Hastings. Throughout his life he had pursued with devotion and industry the ideals with which he had set out, and his journal and letters display a noble simplicity of disposition and an unswerving honesty of purpose. He was a prolific writer, and at the time of his death he occupied the foremost position in England both as a logician and as an economist. Professor Marshall has said of his work in economics that it “will probably be found to have more constructive force than any, save that of Ricardo, that has been done during the last hundred years.” At the time of his death he was engaged upon an economic work that promised to be at least as important as any that he had previously undertaken. It would be difficult to exaggerate the loss which logic and political economy sustained through the accident by which his life was prematurely cut short.
Jevons arrived quite early in his career at the doctrines that constituted his most characteristic and original contributions to economics and logic. The theory of utility, which became the keynote of his general theory of political economy, was practically formulated in a letter written in 1860; and the germ of his logical principles of the substitution of similars may be found in the view which he propounded in another letter written in 1861, that “philosophy would be found to consist solely in pointing out the likeness of things.” The theory of utility above referred to, namely, that the degree of utility of a commodity is some continuous mathematical function of the quantity of the commodity available, together with the implied doctrine that economics is essentially a mathematical science, took more definite form in a paper on “A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy,” written for the British Association in 1862. This paper does not appear to have attracted much attention either in 1862 or on its publication four years later in the Journal of the Statistical Society; and it was not till 1871, when the Theory of Political Economy appeared, that Jevons set forth his doctrines in a fully developed form. It was not till after the publication of this work that Jevons became acquainted with the applications of mathematics to political economy made by earlier writers, notably Antoine Augustin Cournot and H. H. Gossen. The theory of utility was about 1870 being independently developed on somewhat similar lines by Carl Menger in Austria and M.E.L. Walras in Switzerland. As regards the discovery of the connexion between value in exchange and final (or marginal) utility, the priority belongs to Gossen, but this in no way detracts from the great importance of the service which Jevons rendered to English economics by his fresh discovery of the principle, and by the way in which he ultimately forced it into notice. In his reaction from the prevailing view he sometimes expressed himself without due qualification: the declaration, for instance, made at the commencement of the Theory of Political Economy, that “value depends entirely upon utility,” lent itself to misinterpretation. But a certain exaggeration of emphasis may be pardoned in a writer seeking to attract the attention of an indifferent public. It was not, however, as a theorist dealing with the fundamental data of economic science, but as a brilliant writer on practical economic questions, that Jevons first received general recognition. A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold (1863) and The Coal Question (1865) placed him in the front rank as a writer on applied economics and statistics; and he would be remembered as one of the leading economists of the 19th century even had his Theory of Political Economy never been written. Amongst his economic works may be mentioned Money and the Mechanism of Exchange (1875), written in a popular style, and descriptive rather than theoretical, but wonderfully fresh and original in treatment and full of suggestiveness, a Primer on Political Economy (1878), The State in Relation to Labour (1882), and two works published after his death, namely, Methods of Social Reform and Investigations in Currency and Finance, containing papers that had appeared separately during his lifetime. The last-named volume contains Jevons’s interesting speculations on the connexion between commercial crises and sun-spots. He was engaged at the time of his death upon the preparation of a large treatise on economics and had drawn up a table of contents and completed some chapters and parts of chapters. This fragment was published in 1905 under the title of The Principles of Economics: a Fragment of a Treatise on the Industrial Mechanism of Society, and other Papers.
Jevons’s work in logic went on pari passu with his work in political economy. In 1864 he published a small volume, entitled Pure Logic; or, the Logic of Quality apart from Quantity, which was based on Boole’s system of logic, but freed from what he considered the false mathematical dress of that system. In the years immediately following he devoted considerable attention to the construction of a logical machine, exhibited before the Royal Society in 1870, by means of which the conclusion derivable from any given set of premisses could be mechanically obtained. In 1866 what he regarded as the great and universal principle of all reasoning dawned upon him; and in 1869 he published a sketch of this fundamental doctrine under the title of The Substitution of Similars. He expressed the principle in its simplest form as follows: “Whatever is true of a thing is true of its like,” and he worked out in detail its various applications. In the following year appeared the Elementary Lessons on Logic, which soon became the most widely read elementary textbook on logic in the English language. In the meantime he was engaged upon a much more important logical treatise, which appeared in 1874 under the title of The Principles of Science. In this work Jevons embodied the substance of his earlier works on pure logic and the substitution of similars; he also enunciated 362 and developed the view that induction is simply an inverse employment of deduction; he treated in a luminous manner the general theory of probability, and the relation between probability and induction; and his knowledge of the various natural sciences enabled him throughout to relieve the abstract character of logical doctrine by concrete scientific illustrations, often worked out in great detail. Jevons’s general theory of induction was a revival of the theory laid down by Whewell and criticized by Mill; but it was put in a new form, and was free from some of the non-essential adjuncts which rendered Whewell’s exposition open to attack. The work as a whole was one of the most notable contributions to logical doctrine that appeared in Great Britain in the 19th century. His Studies in Deductive Logic, consisting mainly of exercises and problems for the use of students, was published in 1880. In 1877 and the following years Jevons contributed to the Contemporary Review some articles on J. S. Mill, which he had intended to supplement by further articles, and eventually publish in a volume as a criticism of Mill’s philosophy. These articles and one other were republished after Jevons’s death, together with his earlier logical treatises, in a volume, entitled Pure Logic, and other Minor Works. The criticisms on Mill contain much that is ingenious and much that is forcible, but on the whole they cannot be regarded as taking rank with Jevons’s other work. His strength lay in his power as an original thinker rather than as a critic; and he will be remembered by his constructive work as logician, economist and statistician.
See Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons, edited by his wife (1886). This work contains a bibliography of Jevons’s writings. See also Logic: History.
JEW, THE WANDERING, a legendary Jew (see Jews) doomed to wander till the second coming of Christ because he had taunted Jesus as he passed bearing the cross, saying, “Go on quicker.” Jesus is said to have replied, “I go, but thou shalt wait till I return.” The legend in this form first appeared in a pamphlet of four leaves alleged to have been printed at Leiden in 1602. This pamphlet relates that Paulus von Eizen (d. 1598), bishop of Schleswig, had met at Hamburg in 1542 a Jew named Ahasuerus (Ahasverus), who declared he was “eternal” and was the same who had been punished in the above-mentioned manner by Jesus at the time of the crucifixion. The pamphlet is supposed to have been written by Chrysostomus Dudulaeus of Westphalia and printed by one Christoff Crutzer, but as no such author or printer is known at this time—the latter name indeed refers directly to the legend—it has been conjectured that the whole story is a myth invented to support the Protestant contention of a continuous witness to the truth of Holy Writ in the person of this “eternal” Jew; he was to form, in his way, a counterpart to the apostolic tradition of the Catholic Church.
The story met with ready acceptance and popularity. Eight editions of the pamphlet appeared in 1602, and the fortieth edition before the end of the following century. It was translated into Dutch and Flemish with almost equal success. The first French edition appeared in 1609, and the story was known in England before 1625, when a parody was produced. Denmark and Sweden followed suit with translations, and the expression “eternal Jew” passed as a current term into Czech. In other words, the story in its usual form spread wherever there was a tincture of Protestantism. In southern Europe little is heard of it in this version, though Rudolph Botoreus, parliamentary advocate of Paris (Comm. histor., 1604), writing in Paris two years after its first appearance, speaks contemptuously of the popular belief in the Wandering Jew in Germany, Spain and Italy.
The popularity of the pamphlet and its translations soon led to reports of the appearance of this mysterious being in almost all parts of the civilized world. Besides the original meeting of the bishop and Ahasuerus in 1542 and others referred back to 1575 in Spain and 1599 at Vienna, the Wandering Jew was stated to have appeared at Prague (1602), at Lübeck (1603), in Bavaria (1604), at Ypres (1623), Brussels (1640), Leipzig (1642), Paris (1644, by the “Turkish Spy”), Stamford (1658), Astrakhan (1672), and Frankenstein (1678). In the next century the Wandering Jew was seen at Munich (1721), Altbach (1766), Brussels (1774), Newcastle (1790, see Brand, Pop. Antiquities, s.v.), and on the streets of London between 1818 and 1830 (see Athenaeum, 1866, ii. 561). So far as can be ascertained, the latest report of his appearance was in the neighbourhood of Salt Lake City in 1868, when he is said to have made himself known to a Mormon named O’Grady. It is difficult to tell in any one of these cases how far the story is an entire fiction and how far some ingenious impostor took advantage of the existence of the myth.
The reiterated reports of the actual existence of a wandering being, who retained in his memory the details of the crucifixion, show how the idea had fixed itself in popular imagination and found its way into the 19th-century collections of German legends. The two ideas combined in the story of the restless fugitive akin to Cain and wandering for ever are separately represented in the current names given to this figure in different countries. In most Teutonic languages the stress is laid on the perpetual character of his punishment and he is known as the “everlasting,” or “eternal” Jew (Ger. “Ewige Jude”). In the lands speaking a Romance tongue, the usual form has reference to the wanderings (Fr. “le Juif errant”). The English form follows the Romance analogy, possibly because derived directly from France. The actual name given to the mysterious Jew varies in the different versions: the original pamphlet calls him Ahasver, and this has been followed in most of the literary versions, though it is difficult to imagine any Jew being called by the name of the typical anti-Semitic king of the Book of Esther. In one of his appearances at Brussels his name is given as Isaac Laquedem, implying an imperfect knowledge of Hebrew in an attempt to represent Isaac “from of old.” Alexandre Dumas also made use of this title. In the Turkish Spy the Wandering Jew is called Paul Marrane and is supposed to have suffered persecution at the hands of the Inquisition, which was mainly occupied in dealing with the Marranos, i.e. the secret Jews of the Iberian peninsula. In the few references to the legend in Spanish writings the Wandering Jew is called Juan Espera en Dios, which gives a more hopeful turn to the legend.
Under other names, a story very similar to that given in the pamphlet of 1602 occurs nearly 400 years earlier on English soil. According to Roger of Wendover in his Flores historiarum under the year 1228, an Armenian archbishop, then visiting England, was asked by the monks of St Albans about the well-known Joseph of Arimathaea, who had spoken to Jesus and was said to be still alive. The archbishop claimed to have seen him in Armenia under the name of Carthaphilus or Cartaphilus, who had confessed that he had taunted Jesus in the manner above related. This Carthaphilus had afterwards been baptized by the name of Joseph. Matthew Paris, in repeating the passage from Roger of Wendover, reported that other Armenians had confirmed the story on visiting St Albans in 1252, and regarded it as a great proof of the Christian religion. A similar account is given in the chronicles of Philippe Mouskès (d. 1243). A variant of the same story was known to Guido Bonati, an astronomer quoted by Dante, who calls his hero or villain Butta Deus because he struck Jesus. Under this name he is said to have appeared at Mugello in 1413 and at Bologna in 1415 (in the garb of a Franciscan of the third order).
The source of all these reports of an ever-living witness of the crucifixion is probably Matthew xvi. 28: “There be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” As the kingdom had not come, it was assumed that there must be persons living who had been present at the crucifixion; the same reasoning is at the root of the Anglo-Israel belief. These words are indeed quoted in the pamphlet of 1602. Again, a legend was based on John xxi. 20 that the beloved disciple would not die before the second coming; while another legend (current in the 16th century) condemned Malchus, whose ear Peter cut off in the garden of Gethsemane (John xvii. 10), to wander perpetually till the second coming. The legend alleges that he had been so condemned for having scoffed at Jesus. These legends and the 363 utterance of Matt. xvi. 28 became “contaminated” by the legend of St Joseph of Arimathaea and the Holy Grail, and took the form given in Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris. But there is nothing to show the spread of this story among the people before the pamphlet of 1602, and it is difficult to see how this Carthaphilus could have given rise to the legend of the Wandering Jew, since he is not a Jew nor does he wander. The author of 1602 was probably acquainted either directly or indirectly with the story as given by Matthew Paris, since he gives almost the same account. But he gives a new name to his hero and directly connects his fate with Matt. xvi. 28.
Moncure D. Conway (Ency. Brit., 9th ed., xiii. 673) attempted to connect the legend of the Wandering Jew with a whole series of myths relating to never-dying heroes like King Arthur, Frederick Barbarossa, the Seven Sleepers, and Thomas the Rhymer, not to speak of Rip Van Winkle. He goes even farther and connects our legend with mortals visiting earth, as the Yima in Parsism, and the “Ancient of Days” in the Books of Daniel and Enoch, and further connects the legend with the whole medieval tendency to regard the Jew as something uncanny and mysterious. But all these mythological explanations are supererogatory, since the actual legend in question can be definitely traced to the pamphlet of 1602. The same remark applies to the identification with the Mahommedan legend of the “eternal” Chadhir proposed by M. Lidzbarski (Zeit. f. Assyr. vii. 116) and I. Friedländer (Arch. f. Religionswiss. xiii. 110).
This combination of eternal punishment with restless wandering has attracted the imagination of innumerable writers in almost all European tongues. The Wandering Jew has been regarded as a symbolic figure representing the wanderings and sufferings of his race. The Germans have been especially attracted by the legend, which has been made the subject of poems by Schubart, Schreiber, W. Müller, Lenau, Chamisso, Schlegel, Mosen and Koehler, from which enumeration it will be seen that it was a particularly favourite subject with the Romantic school. They were perhaps influenced by the example of Goethe, who in his Autobiography describes, at considerable length, the plan of a poem he had designed on the Wandering Jew. More recently poems have been composed on the subject in German by Adolf Wilbrandt, Fritz Lienhard and others; in English by Robert Buchanan, and in Dutch by H. Heijermans. German novels also exist on the subject, by Franz Horn, Oeklers, Laun and Schucking, tragedies by Klinemann, Haushofer and Zedlitz. Sigismund Heller wrote three cantos on the wanderings of Ahasuerus, while Hans Andersen made of him an “Angel of Doubt.” Robert Hamerling even identifies Nero with the Wandering Jew. In France, E. Quinet published a prose epic on the subject in 1833, and Eugène Sue, in his best-known work, Le Juif errant (1844), introduces the Wandering Jew in the prologues of its different sections and associates him with the legend of Herodias. In modern times the subject has been made still more popular by Gustave Doré’s elaborate designs (1856), containing some of his most striking and imaginative work. Thus, probably, he suggested Grenier’s poem on the subject (1857).
In England, besides the ballads in Percy’s Reliques, William Godwin introduced the idea of an eternal witness of the course of civilization in his St Leon (1799), and his son-in-law Shelley introduces Ahasuerus in his Queen Mab. It is doubtful how far Swift derived his idea of the immortal Struldbrugs from the notion of the Wandering Jew. George Croly’s Salathiel, which appeared anonymously in 1828, gave a highly elaborate turn to the legend; this has been republished under the title Tarry Thou Till I Come.
Bibliography.—J. G. Th. Graesse, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden (1844); F. Helbig, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden (1874); G. Paris, Le Juif errant (1881); M. D. Conway, The Wandering Jew (1881); S. Morpugo, L’ Ebreo errante in Italia (1891); L. Neubaur, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden (2nd ed., 1893). The recent literary handling of the subject has been dealt with by J. Prost, Die Sage vom ewigen Juden in der neueren deutschen Literatur (1905); T. Kappstein, Ahasver in der Weltpoesie (1905).
JEWEL, JOHN (1522-1571), bishop of Salisbury, son of John Jewel of Buden, Devonshire, was born on the 24th of May 1522, and educated under his uncle John Bellamy, rector of Hampton, and other private tutors until his matriculation at Merton college, Oxford, in July 1535. There he was taught by John Parkhurst, afterwards bishop of Norwich; but on the 19th of August 1539 he was elected scholar of Corpus Christi college. He graduated B.A. in 1540, and M.A. in 1545, having been elected fellow of his college in 1542. He made some mark as a teacher at Oxford, and became after 1547 one of the chief disciples of Peter Martyr. He graduated B.D. in 1552, and was made vicar of Sunningwell, and public orator of the university, in which capacity he had to compose a congratulatory epistle to Mary on her accession. In April 1554 he acted as notary to Cranmer and Ridley at their disputation, but in the autumn he signed a series of Catholic articles. He was, nevertheless, suspected, fled to London, and thence to Frankfort, which he reached in March 1555. There he sided with Coxe against Knox, but soon joined Martyr at Strassburg, accompanied him to Zurich, and then paid a visit to Padua.
Under Elizabeth’s succession he returned to England, and made earnest efforts to secure what would now be called a low-church settlement of religion. Indeed, his attitude was hardly distinguishable from that of the Elizabethan Puritans, but he gradually modified it under the stress of office and responsibility. He was one of the disputants selected to confute the Romanists at the conference of Westminster after Easter 1559; he was select preacher at St Paul’s cross on the 15th of June; and in the autumn was engaged as one of the royal visitors of the western counties. His congé d’élire as bishop of Salisbury had been made out on the 27th of July, but he was not consecrated until the 21st of January 1560. He now constituted himself the literary apologist of the Elizabethan settlement. He had on the 26th of November 1559, in a sermon at St Paul’s Cross, challenged all comers to prove the Roman case out of the Scriptures, or the councils or Fathers for the first six hundred years after Christ. He repeated his challenge in 1560, and Dr Henry Cole took it up. The chief result was Jewel’s Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae, published in 1562, which in Bishop Creighton’s words is “the first methodical statement of the position of the Church of England against the Church of Rome, and forms the groundwork of all subsequent controversy.” A more formidable antagonist than Cole now entered the lists in the person of Thomas Harding, an Oxford contemporary whom Jewel had deprived of his prebend in Salisbury Cathedral for recusancy. He published an elaborate and bitter Answer in 1564, to which Jewel issued a Reply in 1565. Harding followed with a Confutation, and Jewel with a Defence, of the Apology in 1566 and 1567; the combatants ranged over the whole field of the Anglo-Roman controversy, and Jewel’s theology was officially enjoined upon the Church by Archbishop Bancroft in the reign of James I. Latterly Jewel had been confronted with criticism from a different quarter. The arguments that had weaned him from his Zwinglian simplicity did not satisfy his unpromoted brethren, and Jewel had to refuse admission to a benefice to his friend Laurence Humphrey (q.v.), who would not wear a surplice. He was consulted a good deal by the government on such questions as England’s attitude towards the council of Trent, and political considerations made him more and more hostile to Puritan demands with which he had previously sympathized. He wrote an attack on Cartwright, which was published after his death by Whitgift. He died on the 23rd of September 1571, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, where he had built a library. Hooker, who speaks of Jewel as “the worthiest divine that Christendom hath bred for some hundreds of years,” was one of the boys whom Jewel prepared in his house for the university; and his Ecclesiastical Polity owes much to Jewel’s training.
Jewel’s works were published in a folio in 1609 under the direction of Bancroft, who ordered the Apology to be placed in churches, in some of which it may still be seen chained to the lectern; other editions appeared at Oxford (1848, 8 vols.) and Cambridge (Parker Soc., 4 vols.). See also Gough’s Index to Parker Soc. Publ.; Strype’s Works (General Index); Acts of the Privy Council; Calendars of Domestic and Spanish State Papers; Dixon’s and Frere’s Church Histories; and Dictionary of National Biography (art. by Bishop Creighton).
JEWELRY (O. Fr. jouel, Fr. joyau, perhaps from joie, joy; Lat. gaudium; retranslated into Low Lat. jocale, a toy, from jocus, by misapprehension of the origin of the word), a collective term for jewels, or the art connected with them—jewels being personal ornaments, usually made of gems, precious stones, &c., with a setting of precious metal; in a restricted sense it is also common to speak of a gem-stone itself as a jewel, when utilized in this way. Personal ornaments appear to have been among the very first objects on which the invention and ingenuity of man were exercised; and there is no record of any people so rude as not to employ some kind of personal decoration. Natural objects, such as small shells, dried berries, small perforated stones, feathers of variegated colours, were combined by stringing or tying together to ornament the head, neck, arms and legs, the fingers, and even the toes, whilst the cartilages of the nose and ears were frequently perforated for the more ready suspension of suitable ornaments.
Amongst modern Oriental nations we find almost every kind of personal decoration, from the simple caste mark on the forehead of the Hindu to the gorgeous examples of beaten gold and silver work of the various cities and provinces of India. Nor are such decorations mere ornaments without use or meaning. The hook with its corresponding perforation or eye, the clasp, the buckle, the button, grew step by step into a special ornament, according to the rank, means, taste and wants of the wearer, or became an evidence of the dignity of office. Nor was the jewel deemed to have served its purpose with the death of its owner, for it is to the tombs of ancient peoples that we must look for evidence of the early existence of the jeweller’s art.
The jewelry of the ancient Egyptians has been preserved for us in their tombs, sometimes in, and sometimes near the sarcophagi which contained the embalmed bodies of the wearers. An amazing series of finds of the intact jewels of five princesses of the XIIth Dynasty (c. 2400 B.C.) was the result of the excavations of J. de Morgan at Dāhshur in 1894-1895. The treasure of Princess Hathor-Set contained jewels with the names of Senwosri (Usertesen) II. and III., one of whom was probably her father. The treasure of Princess Merit contained the names of the same two monarchs, and also that of Amenemhē III., to whose family Princess Nebhotp may have belonged. The two remaining princesses were Ita and Khnumit.
Fig. 1. |
The art of the nameless Memphite jewellers of the XIIth Dynasty is marked by perfect accuracy of execution, by sureness of intention, by decorative instinct and sobriety in design, and by the serviceable nature of the jewels for actual wear. All forms of work are represented—including chiselling, soldering, inlaying with coloured stones, moulding and working with twisted wires and filigree. Here also occurs the earliest instance of granulated work, with small grains of gold, soldered on a flat surface (fig. 1). The principal items in this dazzling group are the following: Three gold pectorals (fig. 2 and Plate I. figs. 35, 36) worked à jour (with the interstices left open); on the front side they are inlaid with coloured stones, the fine cloisons being the only portion of the gold that is visible; on the back, the gold surfaces are most delicately carved, in low relief. Two gold crowns (Plate I. figs. 32, 34), found together, are curiously contrasted in character. The one (fig. 32) is of a formal design, of gold, inlaid (the plume, Plate I. fig 33, was attached to it); the other (fig. 34) has a multitude of star-like flowers, embodied in a filigree of daintily twisted wires. A dagger with inlaid patterns on the handle shows extraordinary perfection of finish.
Fig. 2. |
Fig. 3. |
Nearly a thousand years later we have another remarkable collection of Egyptian art in the jewelry taken from the coffin of Queen Aah-hotp, discovered in 1859 by Mariette in the entrance to the valley of the tombs of the kings and now preserved in the Cairo museum. Compared with the Dāhshur treasure the jewelry of Aah-hotp is in parts rough and coarse, but none the less it is marked by the ingenuity and mastery of the materials that characterize all the work of the Egyptians. Hammered work, incised and chased work, the evidence of soldering, the combinations of layers of gold plates, together with coloured stones, are all present, and the handicraft is complete in every respect.
A diadem of gold and enamel, found at the back of the head of the mummy of the queen (fig. 3), was fixed in the back hair, showing the cartouche in front. The box holding this cartouche has on the upper surface the titles of the king, “the son of the sun, Aahmes, living for ever and ever,” in gold on a ground of lapis lazuli, with a chequered ornament in blue and red pastes, and a sphinx couchant on each side. A necklace with three pendant flies (fig. 4) is entirely of gold, having a hook and loop to fasten it round the neck. Fig. 5 is a gold drop, inlaid with turquoise or blue paste, in the shape of a fig. A gold 365 chain (fig. 6) is formed of wires closely plaited and very flexible, the ends terminating in the heads of water fowl, and having small rings to secure the collar behind. To the centre is suspended by a small ring a scarabaeus of solid gold inlaid with lapis lazuli. We have an example of a bracelet, similar to those in modern use (fig. 7), and worn by all persons of rank. It is formed of two pieces joined by a hinge, and is decorated with figures in repoussé on a ground inlaid with lapis lazuli.
Fig. 4. | Fig. 5. |
Fig. 6. |
Fig. 7. | Fig. 8. |
Fig. 9.—From Archaeologia, vol. 59, p. 447, by permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London. |
That the Assyrians used personal decorations of a very distinct character, and no doubt made of precious materials, is proved by the bas-reliefs from which a considerable collection of jewels could be gathered, such as bracelets, ear-rings and necklaces. Thus, for example, in the British Museum we have representations of Assur-nazir-pal, king of Assyria (c. 885-860 B.C.), wearing a cross (fig. 8) very similar to the Maltese cross of modern times. It happens, however, that the excavations have not hitherto been fertile in actual remains of gold work from Assyria. Chance also has so far ordained that the excavations in Crete should not be particularly rich in ornaments of gold. A few isolated objects have been found, such as a duck and other pendants, and also several necklaces with beads of the Argonaut shell-fish pattern. More striking than these is a short bronze sword. The handle has an agate pommel, and is covered with gold plates, engraved with spirited scenes of lions and wild goats (fig. 9, A. J. Evans in Archaeologia, 59, 447). In general, however, the gold jewelry of the later Minoan periods is more brilliantly represented by the finds made on the mainland of Greece and at Enkomi in Cyprus. Among the former the gold ornaments found by Heinrich Schliemann in the graves of Mycenae are pre-eminent.
Fig. 10. | Fig. 11. |
Fig. 12. |
Fig. 13. |
The objects found ranged over most of the personal ornaments still in use; necklaces with gold beads and pendants, butterflies (fig. 10), cuttlefish (fig. 11), single and concentric circles, rosettes and leafage, with perforations for attachment to clothing, crosses and stars formed of combined crosses, with crosses in the centre forming spikes—all elaborately ornamented in detail. The spiral forms an incessant decoration from its facile production and repetition by means of twisted gold wire. Grasshoppers or tree crickets in gold repoussé suspended by chains and probably used for the decoration of the hair, and a griffin (fig. 12), having the upper part of the body of an eagle and the lower parts of a lion, with wings decorated with spirals, are among the more remarkable examples of perforated ornaments for attachment to the clothing. There are also perforated ornaments belonging to necklaces, with intaglio engravings of such subjects as a contest of a man and lion, and a duel of two warriors, one of whom stabs his antagonist in the throat. There are also pinheads and brooches formed of two stags lying down (fig. 13), the bodies and necks crossing each other, and the horns meeting symmetrically above the heads, forming a finial. The heads of these ornaments were of gold, with silver blades or pointed pins inserted for use. The bodies of the two stags rest on fronds of the date-palm growing out of the stem which receives the pin. Another remarkable series is composed of figures of women with doves. Some have one dove resting on the head; others have three doves, one on the head and the others resting on arms. The arms in both instances are extended to the elbow, the hands being placed on the breasts. These ornaments are also perforated, and were evidently sewed on the dresses, although there is some evidence that an example with three doves has been fastened with a pin.
An extraordinary diadem was found upon the head of one of the bodies discovered in the same tomb with many objects similar to those noticed above. It is 25 in. in length, covered with shield-like or rosette ornaments in repoussé, the relief being very low but perfectly distinct, and further ornamented by thirty-six large leaves of repoussé gold attached to it. As an example of design and perfection of detail, another smaller diadem found in another tomb may be noted (fig. 14). It is of gold plate, so thick as to require no “piping” at the back to sustain it; but in general the repoussé examples have a piping of copper wire.
Fig. 14. |
The admirable inlaid daggers of the IVth grave at Mycenae are unique in their kind, with their subjects of a lion hunt, of a lion chasing a herd of antelopes, of running lions, of cats hunting wild duck, of inlaid lilies, and of geometric patterns. The subjects are inlaid in gold of various tints, and silver, in bronze plates which are inserted in the flat surfaces of the dagger-blades. In part also the subjects are rendered in relief and gilded. The whole is executed with marvellous precision and vivid representation of motion. To a certain limited extent these daggers are paralleled by a dagger and hatchet found in the treasure of Queen Aah-hotp mentioned above, but in their most characteristic features there is little resemblance. The gold ornaments found by Schliemann at Hissarlik, the supposed site of Troy, divide themselves, generally speaking, into two groups, one being the “great treasure” of diadems, ear-rings, beads, bracelets, &c., which seem the product of a local and uncultured art. The other group, which were found in smaller “treasures,” have spirals and rosettes similar to those of Mycenae. The discovery, however, of the gold treasures of the Artemision at Ephesus has brought out points of affinity between the Hissarlik treasures and those of Ephesus, and has made any reasoning difficult, in view of the uncertainties surrounding the Hissarlik finds. The group with 366 Mycenaean affinities (fig. 15) includes necklaces, brooches, bracelets (g), hair-pins (a), ear-rings (c, d, e, f), with and without pendants, beads and twisted wire drops. The majority of these are ornamented with spirals of twisted wire, or small rosettes, with fragments of stones in the centres. The twisted wire ornaments were evidently portions of necklaces. A circular plaque decorated with a rosette (h) is very similar to those found at Mycenae, and a conventionalized eagle (k) is characteristic of much of the detail found at that place as well as at Hissarlik. They were all of pure gold, and the wire must have been drawn through a plate of harder metal—probably bronze. The principal ornaments differing from those found at Mycenae are diadems or head fillets of pure hammered gold (b) cut into thin plates, attached to rings by double gold wires, and fastened together at the back with thin twisted wire. To these pendants (of which those at the two ends are nearly three times the length of those forming the central portions) are attached small figures, probably of idols. It has been assumed that these were worn across the forehead by women, the long pendants falling on each side of the face.
Fig. 15. |
The jewelry of the close of the Mycenaean period is best represented by the rich finds of the cemetery of Enkomi near Salamis, in Cyprus. This field was excavated by the British Museum in 1896, and a considerable portion of the finds is now at Bloomsbury. It was rich in all forms of jewelry, but especially in pins, rings and diadems with patterns in relief. In its geometric patterns the art of Enkomi is entirely Mycenaean, but special stress is laid on the mythical forms that were inherited by Greek art, such as the sphinx and the gryphon.
Figs. | 37-48 | (Plate I.) | are examples of the late Mycenaean treasures from Enkomi. |
” | 37, 38 | ” | Ear-rings. |
” | 39 | ” | Diadem, to be tied on the forehead. The impressed figure of a sphinx is repeated twelve times. |
” | 40, 41, 46 | ” | Ear-rings, originally in bull’s head form (fig. 40). Later, the same general form is retained, but decorative patterns (figs. 41, 46) take the place of the bull’s head. |
” | 42 | ” | Pin, probably connected by a chain with a fellow, to be used as a cloak fastening. |
” | 43 | ” | Pomegranate pendant, with fine granulated work. |
” | 44, 45 | ” | Pins as No. 42. The heads are of vitreous paste. |
” | 46 | (See above.) | |
” | 47 | ” | Pendant ornament, in lotus-form, of a pectoral, inlaid with coloured pastes. |
” | 48 | ” | Small slate cylinder, set in filigree. |
Another find of importance was that of a collection of gold ornaments from one of the Greek islands (said to be Aegina) which also found its way to the British Museum. Here we find the themes of archaic Greek art, such as a figure holding up two water-birds, in immediate connexion with Mycenaean gold patterns.
Figs. | 49-53 | (Plate I.) | are specimens from this treasure. |
” | 49 | ” | Plate with repoussé ornament for sewing on a dress. |
” | 50 | ” | Pendant. Figure with two water-birds, on a lotus base, and having serpents issuing from near his middle, modified from Egyptian forms. |
” | 51 | ” | Ring, with cut blue glass-pastes in the grooves. |
” | 52 | ” | Pendant ornament, repoussé, and originally inlaid with pieces of cut glass-paste. |
” | 53 | ” | Pendant ornament, with dogs and apes, modified from Egyptian forms. |
For the beginnings of Greek art proper, the most striking series of personal jewels is the great deposit of ornaments which was found in 1905 by D. G. Hogarth in the soil beneath the central basis of the archaic temple of Artemis of Ephesus. The gold ornaments in question (amounting in all to about 1000 pieces) were mingled with the closely packed earth, and must necessarily, it would seem, have been in the nature of votive offerings, made at the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 6th century B.C. The hoard was rich in pins, brooches, beads and stamped disks of gold. The greater part of the find is at Constantinople, but a portion was assigned to the British Museum, which had undertaken the excavations.
Figs. | 54-58 | (Plate II.) | Examples of the Ephesus hoard. |
” | 54 | ” | Electrum pin, with pomegranate head. |
” | 55 | ” | Hawk ornament. |
” | 56 | ” | Electrum pin. |
” | 57, 58 | ” | Electrum ornaments for sewing on drapery. |
The cemeteries of Cyprus have yielded a rich harvest of jewelry of Graeco-Phoenician style of the 7th and following centuries B.C. Figs. 16 and 17 are typical examples of a ring and ear-ring from Cyprus.
Fig. 16. | Fig. 17. |
Greek, Etruscan and Roman ornaments partake of very similar characteristics. Of course there is variety in design and sometimes in treatment, but it does not rise to any special individuality. Fretwork is a distinguishing feature of all, together with the wave ornament, the guilloche, and the occasional use of the human figure. The workmanship is often of a character which modern gold-workers can only rival with their best skill, and can never surpass.
Fig. 18. |
Plate I.
EARLY EGYPTIAN. | |
(From Enkomi.) | (From the Greek Islands.) |
LATE MYCENAEAN. |
Plate II.
GREEK. | |
ETRUSCAN. | ROMAN. |
The Greek jewelry of the best period is of extraordinary delicacy and beauty. Fine examples are shown in the British Museum from Melos and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, however, the most brilliant collection of such ornaments is that of the Hermitage, which was derived from the tombs of Kerch and the Crimea. It contains examples of the purest Greek work, together with objects which must have been of local origin, as is shown by the themes which the artist has chosen for his reliefs. Fig. 18 illustrates the jewelry of the Hermitage (see also Ear-Ring).
As further examples of Greek jewelry see the pendant oblong ornament for containing a scroll (fig. 19).
Fig. 19. | Fig. 20. | Fig. 21. |
The ear-rings (figs. 20, 21) are also characteristic.
Figs. | 59-70 | (Plate II.) | Examples of fine Greek jewelry, in the British Museum. |
” | 59-60 | ” | Pair of ear-rings, from a grave at Cyme in Aeolis, with filigree work and pendant Erotes. |
” | 61 | ” | Small bracelet. |
” | 62-63 | ” | Small gold reel with repoussé figures of Nereid with helmet of Achilles, and Eros. From Cameiros (Rhodes). |
” | 64 | ” | Filigree ornament (ear-ring?) with Eros in centre. From Syria. |
” | 65 | ” | Medallion ornament with repoussé head of Dionysos and filigree work. (Blacas coll.) |
” | 66 | ” | Stud, with filigree work. |
” | 67-68 | ” | Pair of ear-rings, of gold, with filigree and enamel, from Eretria. |
” | 69 | ” | Diadem, with filigree, and enamel scales, from Tarquinii. |
” | 70 | ” | Necklace pendants. |
Etruscan jewelry at its best is not easily distinguished from the Greek, but it tends in its later forms to become florid and diffuse, without precision of design. The granulation of surfaces practised with the highest degree of refinement by the Etruscans was long a puzzle and a problem to the modern jeweller, until Castellani of Rome discovered gold-workers in the Abruzzi to whom the method had descended through many generations. He induced some of these men to go to Naples, and so revived the art, of which he contributed examples to the London Exhibition of 1872 (see Filigree).
Figs. | 71-77 | (Plate II.) | are well-marked examples of Etruscan work, in the British Museum. |
” | 71 | ” | Pair of sirens, repoussé, forming a hook and eye fastening. From Chiusi (?). |
” | 72 | ” | Early fibula. Horse and chimaera. (Blacas coll.) |
” | 74 | ” | Medallion-shaped fibula, of fine granulated work, with figures of sirens in relief, and set with dark blue pastes. (Bale coll.) |
” | 73, 75 | ” | Pair of late Etruscan ear-rings. |
” | 76, 77 | ” | Pair of late Etruscan ear-rings, in the florid style. |
The jewels of the Roman empire are marked by a greater use of large cut stones in combination with the gold, and by larger surfaces of plain and undecorated metal. The adaptation of imperial gold coins to the purposes of the jeweller is also not uncommon.
Figs. | 78-82 | (Plate II.) | Late Roman imperial jewelry, in the British Museum. |
” | 78 | ” | Large pendant ear-ring, set with stones and pearls. From Tunis, 4th century. |
” | 79 | ” | Pierced-work pendant, set with a coin of the emperor Philip. |
” | 80 | ” | Ear-ring, roughly set with garnets. |
” | 81 | ” | Bracelet, with a winged cornucopia as central ornament, set with plasmas, and with filigree and leaf work. |
” | 82 | ” | Bracelet, roughly set with pearls and stones. From Tunis, 4th century. |
With the decay of the Roman empire, and the approach of the barbarian tribes, a new Teutonic style was developed. An important example of this style is the remarkable gold treasure, discovered at Pétrossa in Transylvanian Alps in 1837, and now preserved, as far as it survives, in the museum of Bucharest. A runic inscription shows that it belonged to the Goths. Its style is in part the classical tradition, debased and modified; in part it is a singularly rude and vigorous form of barbaric art. Its chief characteristics are a free use of strongly conventionalized animal forms, such as great bird-shaped fibulae, and an ornamentation consisting of pierced gold work, combined with a free use of stones cut to special shapes, and inlaid either cloisonné-fashion or in a perforated gold plate. This part of the hoard has its affinities in objects found over a wide field from Siberia to Spain. Its rudest and most naturalistic forms occur in the East in uncouth objects from Siberian tombs, whose lineage however has been traced to Persepolis, Assyria and Egypt. In its later and more refined forms the style is known by the name, now somewhat out of favour (except as applied to a limited number of finds), of Merovingian.
Fig. 22. | Fig. 23. | Fig. 24. |
Fig. 25. | Fig. 26. | Fig. 27. |
Fig. 28. |
The so-called Merovingian jewelry of the 5th century, and the Anglo-Saxon of a later date, have as their distinctive feature thin plates of gold, decorated with thin slabs of garnet, set in walls of gold soldered vertically like the lines of cloisonné enamel, with the addition of very decorative details of filigree work, beading and twisted gold. The typical group are the contents of the tomb of King Childeric (A.D. 481) now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. In Figs. 22 and 23 we have examples of Anglo-Saxon fibulae, the first being decorated with a species of cloisonné, in which garnets are inserted, while the other is in hammered work in relief. A pendant (fig. 24) is also set with garnets. The buckles (figs. 25, 26, 27) are remarkably characteristic examples, and very elegant in design. A girdle ornament in gold, set with garnets (fig. 28), is an example of Carolingian design of a high class. Another remarkable group of barbaric jewelry, dated by coins as of the beginning of the 7th century, was excavated at Castel Trosino near the Picenian Ascoli, and is attributed to the Lombards. See Monumenti antichi (Accademia dei Lincei), xii. 145.
We turn now to the Celtic group of jewelled ornaments, which has an equally long and independent line of descent. The characteristic Celtic ornaments are of hammered work with details in repoussé, having fillings-in of vitreous paste, coloured enamels, amber, and in the later examples rock crystal with a smooth rounded surface cut en cabochon. The 368 whole group is a special development within the British Isles of the art of the mid-European Early Iron age, which in its turn had been considerably influenced by early Mediterranean culture. In its early stages its special marks are combinations of curves, with peculiar central thickenings which give a quasi-naturalistic effect; a skilful use of inlaid enamels, and the chased line. After the introduction of Christianity, a continuous tradition combined the old system with the interlaced winding scrolls and other new forms of decoration, and so led up to the extreme complexity of early Irish illumination and metal work.
A remarkable group of gold ornaments of the pre-Christian time (probably of the 1st century) was discovered about 1896, in the north-west of Ireland, and acquired by the British Museum. It was subsequently claimed by the Crown as treasure trove, and after litigation was transferred to Dublin (see Archaeologia, lv., pl. 22).
Fig. 29. |
Figs. 29 and 30 are illustrations of two brooches of the latest period in this class of work. The first is 13th century; the latter is probably 12th century, and is set with paste, amber and blue.
Rings are the chief specimens now seen of medieval jewelry from the 10th to the 13th century. They are generally massive and simple. Through the 16th century a variety of changes arose; in the traditions and designs of the cinquecento we have plenty of evidence that the workmen used their own designs, and the results culminated in the triumphs of Albert Dürer, Benvenuto Cellini and Hans Holbein. The goldsmiths of the Italian republics must have produced works of surpassing excellence in workmanship, and reaching the highest point in design as applied to handicrafts of any kind. The use of enamels, precious stones, niello work and engraving, in combination with skilful execution of the human figure and animal life, produced effects which modern art in this direction is not likely to approach, still less to rival.
Fig. 30. |
In fig. 31 illustrations are given of various characteristic specimens of the Renaissance and later forms of jewelry. A crystal cross set in enamelled gold (a) is German work of the 16th century. The pendant reliquary (b), enamelled and jewelled, is of 16th century Italian work, and so probably is the jewel (c) of gold set with diamonds and rubies. The Darnley or Lennox jewel (d), now in the possession of the king, was made about 1576-1577 for Lady Margaret Douglas, countess of Lennox, the mother of Henry Darnley. It is a pendant golden heart set with a heart-shaped sapphire, richly jewelled and enamelled with emblematic figures and devices. It also has Scottish mottoes around and within it. The ear-ring (e) of gold, enamelled, hung with small pearls, is an example of 17th century Russian work, and another (f) is Italian of the same period, being of gold and filigree with enamel, also with pendant pearls. A Spanish ear-ring, of 18th century work (g), is a combination of ribbon, cord and filigree in gold; and another (h) is Flemish, of probably the same period; it is of gold open work set with diamonds in projecting collets. The old French-Normandy pendant cross and locket (l) presents a characteristic example of peasant jewelry; it is of branched open work set with bosses and ridged ornaments of crystal. The ear-ring (j) is French of 17th century, also of gold open work set with crystals. A small pendant locket (k) is of rock crystal, with the cross of Santiago in gold and translucent crimson enamel; it is 16th or 17th century Spanish work. A pretty ear-ring of gold open scroll work (m), set with minute diamonds and three pendant pearls, is Portuguese of 17th century, and another ear-ring (n) of gold circular open work, set also with minute diamonds, is Portuguese work of 18th century. These examples fairly illustrate the general features of the most characteristic jewelry of the dates quoted.
During the 17th and 18th centuries we see only a mechanical kind of excellence, the results of the mere tradition of the workshop—the lingering of the power which when wisely directed had done so much and so well, but now simply living on traditional forms, often combined in a most incongruous fashion. Gorgeous effects were aimed at by massing the gold, and introducing stones elaborately cut in themselves or clustered in groups. Thus diamonds were clustered in rosettes and bouquets; rubies, pearls, emeralds and other coloured special stones were brought together for little other purpose than to get them into a given space in conjunction with a certain quantity of gold. The question was not of design in its relation to use as personal decoration, but of the value which could be got into a given space to produce the most striking effect.
The traditions of Oriental design as they had come down through the various periods quoted, were comparatively lost in the wretched results of the rococo of Louis XIV. and the inanities of what modern revivalists of the Anglo-Dutch call “Queen Anne.” In the London exhibition of 1851, the extravagances of modern jewelry had to stand comparison with the Oriental examples contributed from India. Since then we have learnt more about these works, and have been compelled to acknowledge, in spite of what is sometimes called inferiority of workmanship, how completely the Oriental jeweller understood his work, and with what singular simplicity of method he carried it out. The combinations are always harmonious, the result aimed at is always achieved; and if in attempting to work to European ideas the jeweller failed, this was rather the fault of the forms he had to follow, than due to any want of skill in making the most of a subject in which half the thought and the intended use were foreign to his experience.
A collection of peasant jewelry got together by Castellani for the Paris exhibition of 1867, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrates in an admirable manner the traditional jewelry and personal ornaments of a wide range of peoples in Europe. This collection, and the additions made to it since its acquisition by the nation, show the forms in which these objects existed over several generations among the peasantry of France (chiefly Normandy), Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, and also show how the forms popular in one country are followed and adopted in another, almost invariably because of their perfect adaptation to the purpose for which they were designed.
Apart from these humbler branches of the subject, in the middle of the 19th century the production of jewelry, regarded as a personal art, and not as a commercial and anonymous industry, was almost extinct. Its revival must be associated with the artistic movement which marked the close of that century, and which found emphatic expression in the Paris international exhibition of 1900. For many years before 1895 this industry, though prosperous from the commercial point of view, and always remarkable from that of technical finish, remained stationary as an art. French jewelry rested on its 369 reputation. The traditions were maintained of either the 17th and 18th centuries or the style affected at the close of the second empire—light pierced work and design borrowed from natural flowers. The last type, introduced by Massin, had exercised, indeed, a revolutionary influence on the treatment of jewelry. This clever artist, not less skilful as a craftsman, produced a new genre by copying the grace and lightness of living blossoms, thus introducing a perfectly fresh element into the limited variety of traditional style, and by the use of filigree gold work altering its character and giving it greater elegance. Massin still held the first rank in the exhibition of 1878; he had a marked influence on his contemporaries, and his name will be remembered in the history of the goldsmith’s art to designate a style and a period. Throughout these years the craft was exclusively devoted to perfection of workmanship. The utmost finish was aimed at in the mounting and setting of gems; jewelry was, in fact, not so much an art as a high-class industry; individual effort and purpose were absent.
Fig. 31. |
Up to that time precious stones had been of such intrinsic value that the jeweller’s chief skill lay in displaying these costly stones to the best advantage; the mounting was a secondary consideration. The settings were seldom long preserved in their original condition, but in the case of family jewels were renewed with each generation and each change of fashion, a state of things which could not be favourable to any truly artistic development of taste, since the work was doomed, sooner or later, to destruction. However, the evil led to its own remedy. As soon as diamonds fell in value they lost at the same time their overwhelming prestige, and refined taste could give a preference to trinkets which derived their value and character from artistic design. This revolutionized the jeweller’s craft, and revived the simple ornament of gold or silver, which came forward but timidly at first, till, in the Salon of 1895, it burst upon the world in the exhibits of René Lalique, an artist who was further confirmed in his remarkable position by the exhibition of 1900. What specially stamps the works of Lalique is their striking originality. His work may be considered from the point of view of design and from that of execution. As an artist he has completely reconstructed from the foundation the scheme of design which had fed the poverty-stricken imagination of the last generation of goldsmiths. He had recourse to the art of the past, but to the spirit rather than the letter, and to nature for many new elements of design—free double curves, suave or soft; opalescent harmonies of colouring; reminiscences, with quite a new feeling, of Egypt, Chaldea, Greece and the East, or of the art of the Renaissance; and infinite variety of floral forms even of the humblest. He introduces also the female nude in the form of sirens and sphinxes. As a craftsman he has effected a radical change, breaking through old routine, combining all the processes of the goldsmith, the chaser, the enameller and the gem-setter, and freeing himself from the narrow lines in which the art had been confined. He ignores the hierarchy of gems, caring no more on occasion for a diamond than for a flint, since, in his view, no stone, whatever its original estimation, has any value beyond the characteristic expression he lends it as a means to his end. Thus, while he sometimes uses diamonds, rubies, sapphires or emeralds as a background, he will, on the other hand, give a conspicuous position to common stones—carnelian, agate, malachite, jasper, coral, and even materials of no intrinsic value, such as horn. One of his favourite stones is the opal, which lends itself to his arrangements of colour, and which has in consequence become a fashionable stone in French jewelry.
In criticism of the art of Lalique and his school it should be observed that the works of the school are apt to be unsuited to the wear and tear of actual use, and inconveniently eccentric in their details. Moreover, the preciousness of the material is an almost inevitable consideration in the jeweller’s craft, and cannot be set at naught by the artist without violating the canons of his art.
The movement which took its rise in France spread in due course to other countries. In England the movement conveniently described as the “arts and crafts movement” affected the design of jewelry. A group of designers has aimed at purging the jeweller’s craft of its character of mere gem-mounting in conventional forms (of which the more unimaginative, representing stars, bows, flowers and the like, are varied by such absurdities as insects, birds, animals, figures of men and objects made up simply of stones clustered together). Their work is often excellently and fancifully designed, but it lacks that exquisite perfection of execution achieved by the incomparable craftsmen of France. At the same time English sculptor-decorators—such as Alfred Gilbert, R.A., and George J. Frampton, A.R.A.—have produced objects of a still higher class, but it is usually the work of the goldsmith rather than of the jeweller. Examples may be seen in the badge executed by Gilbert for the president of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours and in the mayoral chain for Preston. Symbolism here enters into the design, which has not only an ornamental but a didactic purpose.
The movement was represented in other countries also. In the United States it was led by L. C. Tiffany, in Belgium by Philippe Wolfers, who occupies in Belgium the position which in France is held by René Lalique. If his design is a little heavier, it is not less beautiful in imagination or less masterly in execution. Graceful, ingenious, fanciful, elegant, fantastic by turns, his objects of jewelry and goldsmithery have a solid claim to be considered créations d’art. It has also been felt in Germany, Austria, Russia and Switzerland. It must be admitted that many of the best artists who have devoted themselves to jewelry have been more successful in design than in securing the lightness and strength which are required by the wearer, and which were a characteristic in the works of the Italian craftsmen of the Renaissance. For this reason many of their masterpieces are more beautiful in the case than upon the person.
Modern Jewelry.—So far we have gone over the progress and results of the jeweller’s art. We have now to speak of the production of jewelry as a modern art industry, in which large numbers of men and women are employed in the larger cities of Europe. Paris, Vienna, London and Birmingham are the most important centres. An illustration of the manufacture as carried on in London and Birmingham will be sufficient to give an insight into the technique and artistic manipulation of this branch of art industry; but, by way of contrast, it may be interesting to give in the first place a description of the native working jeweller of Hindustan.
He travels very much after the fashion of a tinker in England; his budget contains tools, materials, fire pots, and all the requisites of his handicraft. The gold to be used is generally supplied by the patron or employer, and is frequently in gold coin, which the travelling jeweller undertakes to convert into the ornaments required. He squats down in the corner of a courtyard, or under cover of a veranda, lights his fire, cuts up the gold pieces entrusted to him, hammers, cuts, shapes, drills, solders with the blow-pipe, files, scrapes and burnishes until he has produced the desired effect. If he has stones to set or coloured enamels to introduce, he never seems to make a mistake; his instinct for harmony of colour, like that of his brother craftsman the weaver, is as unerring as that of the bird in the construction of its nest. Whether the materials are common or rich and rare, he invariably does the very best possible with them, according to native ideas of beauty in design and combination. It is only when he is interfered with by European dictation that he ever vulgarizes his art or makes a mistake. The result may appear rude in its finish, but the design and the thought are invariably right. We thus see how a trade in the working of which the “plant” is so simple and wants are so readily met could spread itself, as in years past it did at Clerkenwell and at Birmingham before gigantic factories were invented for producing everything under the sun.
It is impossible to find any date at which the systematic production of jewelry was introduced into England. Probably the Clerkenwell trade dates its origin from the revocation of the edict of Nantes, as the skilled artisans in the jewelry, clock and watch, and trinket trades appear to have been descendants of the emigrant Huguenots. The Birmingham trade would appear to have had its origin in the skill to which the workers in fine steel had attained towards the middle and end of the 18th century, a branch of industry which collapsed after the French Revolution.
Modern jewelry may be classified under three heads: (1) objects in which gems and stones form the principal portions, and in which the work in silver, platinum or gold is really only a means for carrying out the design by fixing the gems or stones in the position arranged by the designer, the metal employed being visible only as a setting; (2) when gold work plays an important part in the development of the design, being itself ornamented by engraving (now rarely used) or enamelling or both, the stones and gems being arranged in subordination to the gold work in such positions as to give a decorative effect to the whole; (3) when gold or other metal is alone used, the design being wrought out by hammering in repoussé, casting, engraving, chasing or by the addition of filigree work (see Filigree), or when the surfaces are left absolutely plain but polished and highly finished.
Of course the most ancient and primitive methods are those wholly dependent upon the craft of the workman; but gradually various ingenious processes were invented, by which greater accuracy in the portions to be repeated in a design could be produced with certainty and economy: hence the various methods of stamping used in the production of hand-made jewelry, which are in themselves as much mechanical in relation to the end in view as if the whole object were stamped out at a blow, twisted into its proper position as regards the detail, or the various stamped portions fitted into each other for the mechanical completion of the work. It is therefore rather difficult to draw an absolute line between hand-made and machine-made jewelry, except in extreme cases of hand-made, when everything is worked, so to speak, from the solid, or of machine-made, when the hand has only to give the ornament a few touches of a tool, or fit the parts together if of more than one piece.
The best and most costly hand-made jewelry produced in England, whether as regards gold work, gems, enamelling or engraving, is made in London, and chiefly at Clerkenwell. A design is first made with pencil, sepia or water colour, and when needful with separate enlargement of details, everything in short to make the drawing thoroughly intelligible to the working jeweller. According to the nature and purpose of the design, he cuts out, hammers, files and brings into shape the constructive portions of the work as a basis. Upon this, as each detail is wrought out, he solders, or (more rarely) fixes by rivets, &c., the ornamentation necessary to the effect. The human figure, representations of animal life, leaves, fruit, &c., are modelled in wax, moulded and cast in gold, to be chased up and finished. As the hammering goes on the metal becomes brittle and hard, and then it is passed though the fire to anneal or soften it. In the case of elaborate examples of repoussé, after the general forms are beaten up, the interior is filled with a resinous compound, pitch mixed with fire-brick dust; and this, forming a solid but pliable body underneath the metal, allows of the finished details being wrought out on the front of the design, and being finally completed by chasing. When stones are to be set, or when they form the principal portions of the design, the gold or other metal has to be wrought by hand so as to receive them in little cup-like orifices, these walls of gold enclosing the stone and allowing the edges to be bent over to secure it. Setting is never effected by cement in well-made jewelry. Machine-made settings have in recent years been made, but these are simply cheap imitations of the true hand-made setting. Even strips of gold have been used, serrated at the edges to allow of being easily bent over, for the retention of the stones, true or false.
Great skill and experience are necessary in the proper setting of stones and gems of high value, in order to bring out the greatest amount of brilliancy and colour, and the angle at which a diamond (say) shall be set, in order that the light shall penetrate at the proper point to bring out the “spark” or “flash,” is a subject of grave consideration to the setter. Stones set in a haphazard, slovenly manner, however brilliant in themselves, will look commonplace by the side of skilfully set gems of much less fine quality and water. Enamelling (see Enamel) has of late years largely taken the place of “paste” or false stones.
Engraving is a simple process in itself, and diversity of effect can be produced by skilful manipulation. An interesting variety in the effect of a single ornament may be produced by the combination of coloured gold of various tints. This colouring is a process requiring skill and experience in the manipulation of the materials according to the quality of the gold and the amount of silver alloy in it. The objects to be coloured are dipped in a boiling mixture of salt, alum and saltpetre. Of general colouring it may be said that the object aimed at is to enhance the appearance of the gold by removing the particles of alloy on the surface, and thus allowing the pure gold only to remain visible to the eye. The process has, however, gone much out of fashion. It is apt to rot the solder, and repairs to gold work can be better finished by electro-gilding.
The application of machinery to the economical production of certain classes of jewelry, not necessarily imitations, but as much “real gold” work, to use a trade phrase, as the best hand-made, has been on the increase for many years. Nearly every kind of gold chain now made is manufactured by machinery, and nothing like 371 the beauty of design or perfection of workmanship could be obtained by hand at, probably, any cost. The question therefore in relation to chains is not the mode of manufacture, but the quality of the metal. Eighteen carat gold is of course preferred by those who wear chains, but this is only gold in the proportion of 18 to 24, pure gold being represented by 24. The gold coin of the realm is 22 carat; that is, it contains one-twelfth of alloy to harden it to stand wear and tear. Thus 18 carat gold has one-fourth of alloy, and so on with lower qualities down to 12, which is in reality only gold by courtesy. It must be remembered that the alloys are made by weight, and as gold is nearly twice as heavy as the metal it is mixed with, it only forms a third of the bulk of a 12 carat mixture.
The application of machinery to the production of personal ornaments in gold and silver can only be economically and successfully carried on when there is a large demand for similar objects, that is to say, objects of precisely the same design and decoration throughout. In machine-made jewelry everything is stereotyped, so to speak, and the only work required for the hand is to fit the parts together—in some instances scarcely that. A design is made, and from it steel dies are sunk for stamping out as rapidly as possible from a plate of rolled metal the portion represented by each die. It is in these steel dies that the skill of the artist die-sinker is manifested. Brooches, ear-rings, pinheads, bracelets, lockets, pendants, &c., are struck out by the gross. This is more especially the case in silver and in plated work—that is, imitation jewelry—the base of which is an alloy, afterwards gilt by electro-plating. With these ornaments imitation stones in paste and glass, pearls, &c., are used, and it is remarkable that of late years some of the best designs, the most simple, appropriate and artistic, have appeared in imitation jewelry. It is only just to those engaged in this manufacture to state distinctly that their work is never sold wholesale for anything else than what it is. The worker in gold only makes gold or real jewelry, and he only makes of a quality well known to his customers. The producer of silver work only manufactures silver ornaments, and so on throughout the whole class of plated goods.
It is the retailer who, if he is unprincipled, takes advantage of the ignorance of the buyer and sells for gold that which is in reality an imitation, and which he bought as such. The imitations of old styles of jewelry which are largely sold in curiosity shops at foreign places of fashionable resort are said to be made in Germany, especially at Munich.
Bibliography.—For the Dāhshur jewels, see J. de Morgan and others; Fouilles à Dahchour, Mars-Juin 1894 (Vienna, 1895) and Fouilles à Dahchour en 1894-1895 (Vienna, 1903). For the Aah-hotep jewels, see Mariette, Album de Musée de Boulaq, pls. 29-31; Birch, Facsimiles of the Egyptian Relics discovered in the Tomb of Queen Aah-hotep (1863). For Cretan excavations, see A. J. Evans, in Annual of the British School at Athens, Nos. 7 to 11; Archaeologia, vol. lix. For excavations at Enkomi, see Excavations in Cyprus, by A. S. Murray and others (1900). For Schliemann’s excavations, see Schliemann’s works; also Schuchhardt, Schliemann’s Excavations; Perrot & Chipiez, Histoire de l’Art, vi. For the Greek Island treasure, see A. J. Evans, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. For Ephesus gold treasure, see D. G. Hogarth, British Museum Excavations at Ephesus; The Archaic Artemisia. For the Hermitage Collection from South Russia, see Gillé, Antiquités du Bosphore Cimmérien (reissued by S. Reinach), and the Comptes rendus of the Russian Archaeological Commission (St Petersburg). For later jewelry, Pollak, Goldschmiedearbeit. For Treasure of Pétrossa, A. Odobesco, Le Trésor de Pétrossa. For the European and west Asiatic barbaric jewelry, see O. M. Dalton, in Archaeologia, lviii. 237, and the Treasure of the Oxus (British Museum, 1905). For the whole history, G. Fontenay, Les Bijoux anciens et modernes (Paris [Quantin], 1887). For the recent movement, Léonce Bénédite, “La Bijouterie et la joaillerie, à l’exposition universelle; René Lalique,” in the Revue des arts décoratifs, 1900 (July, August).
JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1840-1909), American novelist, was born in South Berwick, Maine, on the 3rd of September 1849. She was a daughter of the physician Theodore H. Jewett (1815-1878), by whom she was greatly influenced, and whom she has drawn in A Country Doctor (1884). She studied at the Berwick Academy, and began her literary career in 1869, when she contributed her first story to the Atlantic Monthly. Her best work consists of short stories and sketches, such as those in The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). The People of Maine, with their characteristic speech, manners and traditions, she describes with peculiar charm and realism, often recalling the work of Hawthorne. She died at South Berwick, Maine, on the 24th of June 1909.
Among her publications are: Deephaven (1877), a series of sketches; Old Friends and New (1879); Country By-ways (1881); A Country Doctor (1884), a novel; A Marsh Island (1885), a novel; A White Heron and other Stories (1886); The King of Folly Island and other People (1888); Strangers and Wayfarers (1890); A Native of Winby and other Tales (1893); The Queen’s Twin and other Stories (1899), and The Tory Lover (1901), an historical novel.
JEWS (Heb. Yehūdi, man of Judah; Gr. Ἰουδαῖοι; Lat. Judaei), the general name for the Semitic people which inhabited Palestine from early times, and is known in various connexions as “the Hebrews,” “the Jews,” and “Israel” (see § 5 below). Their history may be divided into three great periods: (1) That covered by the Old Testament to the foundation of Judaism in the Persian age, (2) that of the Greek and Roman domination to the destruction of Jerusalem, and (3) that of the Diaspora or Dispersion to the present day.
I.—Old Testament History
I. The Land and the People.—For the first two periods the history of the Jews is mainly that of Palestine. It begins among those peoples which occupied the area lying between the Nile on the one side and the Tigris and the Euphrates on the other. Surrounded by ancient seats of culture in Egypt and Babylonia, by the mysterious deserts of Arabia, and by the highlands of Asia Minor, Palestine, with Syria on the north, was the high road of civilization, trade and warlike enterprise, and the meeting-place of religions. Its small principalities were entirely dominated by the great Powers, whose weakness or acquiescence alone enabled them to rise above dependence or vassalage. The land was traversed by old-established trade routes and possessed important harbours on the Gulf of ‘Akaba and on the Mediterranean coast, the latter exposing it to the influence of the Levantine culture. It was “the physical centre of those movements of history from which the world has grown.” The portion of this district abutting upon the Mediterranean may be divided into two main parts:—Syria (from the Taurus to Hermon) and Palestine (southward to the desert bordering upon Egypt). The latter is about 150 m. from north to south (the proverbial “Dan to Beersheba”), with a breadth varying from 25 to 80 m., i.e. about 6040 sq. m. This excludes the land east of the Jordan, on which see Palestine.
From time to time streams of migration swept into Palestine and Syria. Semitic tribes wandered northwards from their home in Arabia to seek sustenance in its more fertile fields, to plunder, or to escape the pressure of tribes in the rear. The course leads naturally into either Palestine or Babylonia, and, following the Euphrates, northern Syria is eventually reached. Tribes also moved down from the north: nomads, or offshoots from the powerful states which stretch into Asia Minor. Such frequently recurring movements introduced new blood. Tribes, chiefly of pastoral habits, settled down among others who were so nearly of their own type that a complete amalgamation could be effected, and this without any marked modification of the general characteristics of the earlier inhabitants. It is from such a fusion as this that the ancestors of the Jews were descended, and both the history and the genius of this people can be properly understood only by taking into account the physical features of their land and the characteristics of the Semitic races in general (see Palestine, Semitic Languages).
2. Society and Religion.—The similarity uniting the peoples of the East in respect of racial and social characteristics is accompanied by a striking similarity of mental outlook which has survived to modern times. Palestine, in spite of the numerous vicissitudes to which it has been subjected, has not lost its fundamental characteristics. The political changes involved in the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian or Persian conquests surely affected it as little as the subsequent waves of Greek, Roman and other European invasions. Even during the temporary Hellenization in the second great period the character of the people as a whole was untouched by the various external influences which produced so great an effect on the upper classes. When the foreign civilization perished, the old culture once more came to the surface. Hence it is possible, by a comprehensive comparative study of Eastern peoples, in both ancient and modern times, to supplement and illustrate within certain limits our direct knowledge of the early Jewish people, and thus to understand more clearly those characteristics which were 372 peculiar to them, in relation to those which they shared with other Oriental peoples.
Even before authentic history begins, the elements of religion and society had already crystallized into a solid coherent structure which was to persist without essential modification. Religion was inseparable from ordinary life, and, like that of all peoples who are dependent on the fruits of the earth, was a nature-worship. The tie between deities and worshippers was regarded as physical and entailed mutual obligations. The study of the clan-group as an organization is as instructive here as in other fields. The members of each group lived on terms of equality, the families forming a society of worship the rites of which were conducted by the head. Such groups (each with its local deity) would combine for definite purposes under the impulse of external needs, but owing to inevitable internal jealousies and the incessant feuds among a people averse from discipline and authority, the unions were not necessarily lasting. The elders of these groups possessed some influence, and tended to form an aristocracy, which took the lead in social life, although their authority generally depended merely upon custom. Individual leaders in times of stress acquired a recognized supremacy, and, once a tribe outstripped the rest, the opportunities for continued advance gave further scope to their authority. “The interminable feuds of tribes, conducted on the theory of blood-revenge, ... can seldom be durably healed without the intervention of a third party who is called in as arbiter, and in this way an impartial and wise power acquires of necessity a great and beneficent influence over all around it” (W. R. Smith). In time, notwithstanding a certain inherent individualism and impatience of control, veritable despotisms arose in the Semitic world, although such organizations were invariably liable to sudden collapse as the old forms of life broke down with changing conditions.1
3. Early History.2—Already in the 15th century B.C. Palestine was inhabited by a settled people whose language, thought and religion were not radically different several hundred years later. Small native princes ruled as vassals of Egypt which, after expelling the Hyksos from its borders, had entered upon a series of conquests as far as the Euphrates. Some centuries previously, however, Babylonia had laid claim to the western states, and the Babylonian (i.e. Assyrian) script and language were now used, not merely in the diplomatic correspondence between Egypt and Asia, but also for matters of private and everyday life among the Palestinian princes themselves. To what extent specific Babylonian influence showed itself in other directions is not completely known. Canaan (Palestine and the south Phoenician coast land) and Amor (Lebanon district and beyond) were under the constant supervision of Egypt, and Egyptian officials journeyed round to collect tribute, to attend to complaints, and to assure themselves of the allegiance of the vassals. The Amarna tablets and those more recently found at Taannek (bibl. Taanach), together with the contemporary archaeological evidence (from Lachish, Gezer, Megiddo, Jericho, &c.), represent advanced conditions of life and culture, the precise chronological limits of which cannot be determined with certainty. This age, with its regular maritime intercourse between the Aegean settlements, Phoenicia and the Delta, and with lines of caravans connecting Babylonia, North Syria, Arabia and Egypt, presents a remarkable picture of life and activity, in the centre of which lies Palestine, with here and there Egyptian colonies and some traces of Egyptian cults. The history of this, the “Amarna” age, reveals a state of anarchy in Palestine for which the weakness of Egypt and the downward pressure of north Syrian peoples were responsible. Subdivided into a number of little local principalities, Palestine was suffering both from internal intrigues and from the designs of this northern power. It is now that we find the restless Ḥabiru, a name which is commonly identified with that of the “Hebrews” (’ibrīm). They offer themselves where necessary to either party, and some at least perhaps belonged to the settled population. The growing prominence of the new northern group of “Hittite” states continued to occupy the energies of Egypt, and when again we have more external light upon Palestinian history, the Hittites (q.v.) are found strongly entrenched in the land. But by the end of the first quarter of the 13th century B.C. Egypt had recovered its province (precise boundary uncertain), leaving its rivals in possession of Syria. Towards the close of the 13th century the Egyptian king Merneptah (Mineptah) records a successful campaign in Palestine, and alludes to the defeat of Canaan, Ascalon, Gezer, Yenuam (in Lebanon) and (the people or tribe) Israel.3 Bodies of aliens from the Levantine coast had previously threatened Egypt and Syria, and at the beginning of the 12th century they formed a coalition on land and sea which taxed all the resources of Rameses III. In the Purasati, apparently the most influential of these peoples, may be recognized the origin of the name “Philistine.” The Hittite power became weaker, and the invaders, in spite of defeat, appear to have succeeded in maintaining themselves on the sea coast. External history, however, is very fragmentary just at the age when its evidence would be most welcome. For a time the fate of Syria and Palestine seems to have been no longer controlled by the great powers. When the curtain rises again we enter upon the historical traditions of the Old Testament.
4. Biblical History.—For the rest of the first period the Old Testament forms the main source. It contains in fact the history itself in two forms: (a) from the creation of man to the fall of Judah (Genesis-2 Kings), which is supplemented and continued further—(b) to the foundation of Judaism in the 5th century B.C. (Chronicles—Ezra-Nehemiah). In the light of contemporary monuments, archaeological evidence, the progress of scientific knowledge and the recognized methods of modern historical criticism, the representation of the origin of mankind and of the history of the Jews in the Old Testament can no longer be implicitly accepted. Written by an Oriental people and clothed in an Oriental dress, the Old Testament does not contain objective records, but subjective history written and incorporated for specific purposes. Like many Oriental works it is a compilation, as may be illustrated from a comparison of Chronicles with Samuel-Kings, and the representation of the past in the light of the present (as exemplified in Chronicles) is a frequently recurring phenomenon. The critical examination of the nature and growth of this compilation has removed much that had formerly caused insuperable difficulties and had quite unnecessarily been made an integral or a relevant part of practical religion. On the other hand, criticism has given a deeper meaning to the Old Testament history, and has brought into relief the central truths which really are vital; it may be said to have replaced a divine account of man by man’s account of the divine. Scholars are now almost unanimously agreed that the internal features are best explained by the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis. This involves the view that the historical traditions are mainly due to two characteristic though very complicated recensions, one under the influence of the teaching of Deuteronomy (Joshua to Kings, see § 20), the other, of a more priestly character (akin to Leviticus), of somewhat later date (Genesis to Joshua, with traces in Judges to Kings, see § 23). There are, of course, numerous problems relating to the nature, limits and dates of the two recensions, of the incorporated sources, and of other sources (whether early or late) of independent origin; and here there is naturally room for much divergence of opinion. Older material (often of composite origin) has been used, not so much for the purpose of providing historical information, as with the object of showing the religious significance of past history; 373 and the series Joshua-Kings is actually included among the “prophets” in Jewish reckoning (see Midrash). In general, one may often observe that freedom which is characteristic of early and unscientific historians. Thus one may note the reshaping of older material to agree with later thought, the building up of past periods from the records of other periods, and a frequent loss of perspective. The historical traditions are to be supplemented by the great body of prophetic, legal and poetic literature which reveal contemporary conditions in various internal literary, theological or sociological features. The investigation of their true historical background and of the trustworthiness of their external setting (e.g. titles of psalms, dates and headings of prophecies) involves a criticism of the historical traditions themselves, and thus the two major classes of material must be constantly examined both separately and in their bearing on one another. In a word, the study of biblical history, which is dependent in the first instance upon the written sources, demands constant attention to the text (which has had an interesting history) and to the literary features; and it requires a sympathetic acquaintance with Oriental life and thought, both ancient and modern, an appreciation of the necessity of employing the methods of scientific research, and (from the theological side) a reasoned estimate of the dependence of individual religious convictions upon the letter of the Old Testament.4
In view of the numerous articles in this work dealing with biblical subjects,5 the present sketch is limited to the outlines of the traditional history; the religious aspect in its bearing upon biblical theology (which is closely bound up with the traditions) is handled separately under Hebrew Religion. The related literature is enormous (see the bibliographies to the special articles); it is indexed annually in Orientalische Bibliographie (Berlin), and is usefully summarized in the Theologische Jahresbericht (Berlin). On the development of the study of biblical history see C. A. Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture (1899), especially ch. xx. The first scientific historical work was by H. Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Israel (1843; 3rd ed., 1864-1868; Eng. trans., 1869-1883), popularized by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley in his Hist. of the Jewish Church (1863-1879). The works of J. Wellhausen (especially Prolegomena to the Hist. of Israel, Eng. trans., 1885, also the brilliant article “Israel” in the 9th ed. of the Ency. Brit., 1879) were epoch-making; his position was interpreted to English readers by W. Robertson Smith (Old Test. in Jewish Church, 1881, 2nd ed., 1892; Prophets of Israel, 1882, 2nd ed. by T. K. Cheyne, 1902). The historical (and related) works of T. K. Cheyne, H. Graetz, H. Guthe, F. C. Kent, A. Kittel, W. H. Kosters, A. Kuenen, C. Piepenbring, and especially B. Stade, although varying greatly in standpoint, are among the most valuable by recent scholars; H. P. Smith’s Old Test. Hist. (“International Theological Library,” Edinburgh, 1903) is in many respects the most serviceable and complete study; a modern and more critical “Ewald” is a desideratum. For the works of numerous other scholars who have furthered Old Testament research in the past it must suffice to refer to the annotated list by J. M. P. Smith, Books for O.T. Study (Chicago, 1908).
For the external history, E. Schrader, Cuneiform Inscr. and the Old Testament (Eng. trans. by O. C. Whitehouse, 1885-1888) is still helpful; among the less technical works are J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments; B. Paton, Syria and Palestine (1902); G. Maspero, Hist. ancienne (6th ed., 1904); A. Jeremias, Alte Test. im Lichte d. Alten Orients (2nd ed., 1906); and especially Altoriental. Texte u. Bilder zum Alten Test., ed. by H. Gressman, with A. Ungnad and H. Ranke (1909). The most complete is that of Ed. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterthums (2nd ed., 1907 sqq.). That of Jeremias follows upon the lines of H. Winckler, whose works depart from the somewhat narrow limits of purely “Israelite” histories, emphasize the necessity of observing the characteristics of Oriental thought and policy, and are invaluable for discriminating students. Winckler’s own views are condensed in the 3rd edition—a re-writing—of Schrader’s work (Keilinschr. u. d. Alte Testament, 1903), and, with an instructive account of the history of “ancient nearer Asia,” in H. F. Helmolt’s World’s History, iii. 1-252 (1903). All modern histories of any value are necessarily compromises between the biblical traditions and the results of recent investigation, and those studies which appear to depart most widely from the biblical or canonical representation often do greater justice to the evidence as a whole than the slighter or more conservative and apologetic reconstructions.6 Scientific biblical historical study, nevertheless, is still in a relatively backward condition; and although the labours of scholars since Ewald constitute a distinct epoch, the trend of research points to the recognition of the fact that the purely subjective literary material requires a more historical treatment in the light of our increasing knowledge of external and internal conditions in the old Oriental world. But an inductive and deductive treatment, both, comprehensive and in due proportion, does not as yet (1910) exist, and awaits fuller external evidence.7
5. Traditions of Origin.—The Old Testament preserves the remains of an extensive literature, representing different standpoints, which passed through several hands before it reached its present form. Surrounded by ancient civilizations where writing had long been known, and enjoying, as excavation has proved, a considerable amount of material culture, Palestine could look back upon a lengthy and stirring history which, however, has rarely left its mark upon our records. Whatever ancient sources may have been accessible, whatever trustworthy traditions were in circulation, and whatever a knowledge of the ancient Oriental world might lead one to expect, one is naturally restricted in the first instance to those undated records which have survived in the form which the last editors gave to them. The critical investigation of these records is the indispensable prelude to all serious biblical study, and hasty or sweeping deductions from monumental or archaeological evidence, or versions compiled promiscuously from materials of distinct origin, are alike hazardous. A glimpse at Palestine in the latter half of the second millennium B.C. (§ 3) prepares us for busy scenes and active intercourse, but it is not a history of this kind which the biblical historians themselves transmit. At an age when—on literary-critical grounds—the Old Testament writings were assuming their present form, it was possible to divide the immediately preceding centuries into three distinct period. (a) The first, that of the two rival kingdoms: Israel (Ephraim or Samaria) in the northern half of Palestine, and Judah in the south. Then (b) the former lost its independence towards the close of the 8th century B.C., when a number of its inhabitants were carried away; and the latter shared the fate of exile at the beginning of the 6th, but succeeded in making a fresh reconstruction some fifty or sixty years later. Finally (c), in the so-called “post-exilic” period, religion and life were reorganized under the influence of a new spirit; relations with Samaria were broken off, and Judaism took its definite character, perhaps about the middle or close of the 5th century. Throughout these vicissitudes there were important political and religious changes which render the study of the composite sources a work of unique difficulty. In addition to this it should be noticed that the term “Jew” (originally Yehudi), in spite of its wider application, means properly “man of Judah,” i.e. of that small district which, with Jerusalem as its capital, became the centre of Judaism. The favourite name “Israel” with all its religious and national associations is somewhat ambiguous in an historical sketch, since, although it is used as opposed to Judah (a), it ultimately came to designate the true nucleus of the worshippers of the national god Yahweh as opposed to the Samaritans, the later inhabitants of Israelite territory (c). A more general term is “Hebrew” (see Hebrew Language), which, whether originally identical with the Ḥabiru or not (§ 3), is used in contrast to foreigners, and this non-committal ethnic 374 deserves preference where precise distinction is unnecessary or impossible.
The traditions which prevailed among the Hebrews concerning their origin belong to a time when Judah and Israel were regarded as a unit. Twelve divisions or tribes, of which Judah was one, held together by a traditional sentiment, were traced back to the sons of Jacob (otherwise known as Israel), the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. Their names vary in origin and probably also in point of age, and where they represent fixed territorial limits, the districts so described were in some cases certainly peopled by groups of non-Israelite ancestry. But as tribal names they invited explanation, and of the many characteristic traditions which were doubtless current a number have been preserved, though not in any very early dress. Close relationship was recognized with the Aramaeans, with Edom, Moab and Ammon. This is characteristically expressed when Esau, the ancestor of Edom, is represented as the brother of Jacob, or when Moab and Ammon are the children of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (see Genealogy: Biblical). Abraham, it was believed, came from Harran (Carrhae), primarily from Babylonia, and Jacob re-enters from Gilead in the north-east with his Aramaean wives and concubines and their families (Benjamin excepted). It is on this occasion that Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. These traditions of migration and kinship are in themselves entirely credible, but the detailed accounts of the ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as given in Genesis, are inherently doubtful as regards both the internal conditions, which the (late) chronological scheme ascribes to the first half of the second millennium B.C., and the general circumstances of the life of these strangers in a foreign land. From a variety of independent reasons one is forced to conclude that, whatever historical elements they may contain, the stories of this remote past represent the form which tradition had taken in a very much later age.
Opinion is at variance regarding the patriarchal narratives as a whole. To deny their historical character is to reject them as trustworthy accounts of the age to which they are ascribed, and even those scholars who claim that they are essentially historical already go so far as to concede idealization and the possibility or probability of later revision. The failure to apprehend historical method has often led to the fallacious argument that the trustworthiness of individual features justifies our accepting the whole, or that the elimination of unhistorical elements will leave an historical residuum. Here and frequently elsewhere in biblical history it is necessary to allow that a genuine historical tradition may be clothed in an unhistorical dress, but since many diverse motives are often concentrated upon one narrative (e.g. Gen. xxxii. 22-32, xxxiv., xxxviii.), the work of internal historical criticism (in view of the scantiness of the evidence) can rarely claim finality. The patriarchal narratives themselves belong to the popular stock of tradition of which only a portion has been preserved. Many of the elements lie outside questions of time and place and are almost immemorial. Some appear written for the first time in the book of Jubilees, in “the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs” (both perhaps 2nd century B.C.) and in later sources; and although in Genesis the stories are now in a post-exilic setting (a stage earlier than Jubilees), the older portions may well belong to the 7th or 6th cent. This question, however, will rest upon those criteria alone which are of true chronological validity (see further Genesis).
The story of the settlement of the national and tribal ancestors in Palestine is interrupted by an account of the southward movement of Jacob (or Israel) and his sons into a district under the immediate influence of the kings of Egypt. After an interval of uncertain duration we find in Exodus a numerous people subjected to rigorous oppression. No longer individual sons of Jacob or Israel, united tribes were led out by Moses and Aaron; and, after a series of incidents extending over forty years, the “children of Israel” invaded the land in which their ancestors had lived. The traditions embodied in the books Exodus-Joshua are considerably later than the apparent date of the events themselves, and amid the diverse and often conflicting data it is possible to recognize distinct groups due to some extent to distinct historical conditions. The story of the “exodus” is that of the religious birth of “Israel,” joined by covenant with the national god Yahweh8 whose aid in times of peril and need proved his supremacy. In Moses (q.v.) was seen the founder of Israel’s religion and laws; in Aaron (q.v.) the prototype of the Israelite priesthood. Although it is difficult to determine the true historical kernel, two features are most prominent in the narratives which the post-exilic compiler has incorporated: the revelation of Yahweh, and the movement into Palestine. Yahweh had admittedly been the God of Israel’s ancestors, but his name was only now made known (Exod. iii. 13 sqq., vi. 2 seq.), and this conception of a new era in Yahweh’s relations with the people is associated with the family of Moses and with small groups from the south of Palestine which reappear in religious movements in later history (see Kenites). Amid a great variety of motives the prominence of Kadesh in south Palestine is to be recognized, but it is uncertain what clans or tribes were at Kadesh, and it is possible that traditions, originally confined to those with whom the new conception of Yahweh is connected, were subsequently adopted by others who came to regard themselves as the worshippers of the only true Yahweh. At all events, two quite distinct views seem to underlie the opening books of the Old Testament. The one associates itself with the ancestors of the Hebrews and has an ethnic character. The other, part of the religious history of “Israel,” is essentially bound up with the religious genius of the people, and is partly connected with clans from the south of Palestine whose influence appears in later times. Other factors in the literary growth of the present narratives are not excluded (see further § 8, and Exodus, The).9
6. The Monarchy of Israel.—The book of Joshua continues the fortunes of the “children of Israel” and describes a successful occupation of Palestine by the united tribes. This stands in striking contrast to other records of the partial successes of individual groups (Judg. i.). The former, however, is based upon the account of victories by the Ephraimite Joshua over confederations of petty kings to the south and north of central Palestine, apparently the specific traditions of the people of Ephraim describing from their standpoint the entire conquest of Palestine.10 The book of Judges represents a period of unrest after the settlement of the people. External oppression and internal rivalries rent the Israelites, and in the religious philosophy of a later (Deuteronomic) age the period is represented as one of alternate apostasy from and of penitent return to the Yahweh of the “exodus.” Some vague recollection of known historical events (§ 3 end) might be claimed among the traditions ascribed to the closing centuries of the second millennium, but the view that the prelude to the monarchy was an era when individual leaders “judged” all Israel finds no support in the older narratives, where the heroes of the age (whose correct sequence is uncertain) enjoy only a local fame. The best historical narratives belong to Israel and Gilead; Judah scarcely appears, and in a relatively old poetical account of a great fight of the united tribes against a northern adversary lies outside the writer’s horizon or interest (Judg. v., see Deborah). Stories of successful warfare and of temporary leaders (see Abimelech; Ehud; Gideon; Jephthah) form an introduction to the institution of the Israelite monarchy, an epoch of supreme importance in biblical history. The heroic figure who stands at the head is Saul (“asked”), and two accounts of his rise are recorded. (1) The Philistines, a foreign people whose presence in Palestine 375 has already been noticed, had oppressed Israel (cf. Samson) until a brilliant victory was gained by the prophet Samuel, some account of whose early history is recorded. He himself held supreme sway over all Israel as the last of the “judges” until compelled to accede to the popular demand for a king. The young Saul was chosen by lot and gained unanimous recognition by delivering Jabesh in Gilead from the Ammonites. (2) But other traditions represent the people scattered and in hiding; Israel is groaning under the Philistine yoke, and the unknown Saul is raised up by Yahweh to save his people. This he accomplishes with the help of his son Jonathan. The first account, although now essential to the canonical history, clearly gives a less authentic account of the change from the “judges” to the monarchy, while the second is fragmentary and can hardly be fitted into the present historical thread (see Saul). At all events the first of a series of annalistic notices of the kings of Israel ascribes to Saul conquests over the surrounding peoples to an extent which implies that the district of Judah formed part of his kingdom (1 Sam. xiv. 47 seq). His might is attested also by the fine elegy (2 Sam. i. 19 sqq.) over the death of two great Israelite heroes, Saul and Jonathan, knit together by mutual love, inseparable in life and death, whose unhappy end after a career of success was a national misfortune. Disaster had come upon the north, and the plain of Jezreel saw the total defeat of the king and the rout of his army. The court was hastily removed across the Jordan to Mahanaim, where Saul’s son Ishbaal (Ish-bosheth), thanks to his general Abner, recovered some of the lost prestige. In circumstances which are not detailed, the kingdom seems to have regained its strength, and Ishbaal is credited with a reign of two years over Israel and Gilead (2 Sam. ii. 8-10; contrast v. 11). But at this point the scanty annals are suspended and the history of the age is given in more popular sources. Both Israel and Judah had their own annals, brief excerpts from which appear in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, and they are supplemented by fuller narratives of distinct and more popular origin. The writings are the result of a continued literary process, and the Israelite national history has come down to us through Judaean hands, with the result that much of it has been coloured by late Judaean feeling. It is precisely in Saul’s time that the account of the Judaean monarchy, or perhaps of the monarchy from the Judaean standpoint, now begins.
7. The Monarchy of Judah.—Certain traditions of Judah and Jerusalem appear to have looked back upon a movement from the south, traces of which underlie the present account of the “exodus.” The land was full of “sons of Anak,” giants who had terrified the scouts sent from Kadesh. Caleb (q.v.) alone had distinguished himself by his fearlessness, and the clan Caleb drove them out from Hebron in south Judah (Josh. xv. 14 sqq.; cf. also xi. 21 seq.). David and his followers are found in the south of Hebron, and as they advanced northwards they encountered wondrous heroes between Gath and Jerusalem (2 Sam. xxi. 15 sqq.; xxiii. 8 sqq.). After strenuous fighting the district was cleared, and Jerusalem, taken by the sword, became the capital. History saw in David the head of a lengthy line of kings, the founder of the Judaean monarchy, the psalmist and the priest-king who inaugurated religious institutions now recognized to be of a distinctly later character. As a result of this backward projection of later conceptions, the recovery of the true historical nucleus is difficult. The prominence of Jerusalem, the centre of post-exilic Judaism, necessarily invited reflection. Israelite tradition had ascribed the conquest of Jerusalem, Hebron and other cities of Judah to the Ephraimite Joshua; Judaean tradition, on the other hand, relates the capture of the sacred city from a strange and hostile people (2 Sam. v.). The famous city, within easy reach of the southern desert and central Palestine (to Hebron and to Samaria the distances are about 18 and 35 miles respectively), had already entered into Palestinian history in the “Amarna” age (§ 3). Anathoth, a few miles to the north-east, points to the cult of the goddess Anath, the near-lying Nob has suggested the name of the Babylonian Nebo, and the neighbouring, though unidentified, Beth-Ninib of the Amarna tablets may indicate the worship of a Babylonian war and astral god (cf. the solar name Beth-Shemesh). Such was the religious environment of the ancient city which was destined to become the centre of Judaism. Judaean tradition dated the sanctity of Jerusalem from the installation of the ark, a sacred movable object which symbolized the presence of Yahweh. It is associated with the half-nomad clans in the south of Palestine, or with the wanderings of David and his own priest Abiathar; it is ultimately placed within the newly captured city. Quite another body of tradition associates it with the invasion of all the tribes of Israel from beyond the Jordan (see Ark). To combine the heterogeneous narratives and isolated statements into a consecutive account is impossible; to ignore those which conflict with the now predominating views would be unmethodical. When the narratives describe the life of the young David at the court of the first king of the northern kingdom, when the scenes cover the district which he took with the sword, and when the brave Saul is represented in an unfavourable light, one must allow for the popular tendency to idealize great figures, and for the Judaean origin of the compilation. To David is ascribed the sovereignty over a united people. But the stages in his progress are not clear. After being the popular favourite of Israel in the little district of Benjamin, he was driven away by the jealousy and animosity of Saul. Gradually strengthening his position by alliance with Judaean clans, he became king at Hebron at the time when Israel suffered defeat in the north. His subsequent advance to the kingship over Judah and Israel at Jerusalem is represented as due to the weak condition of Israel, facilitated by the compliance of Abner; partly, also, to the long-expressed wish of the Israelites that their old hero should reign over them. Yet again, Saul had been chosen by Yahweh to free his people from the Philistines; he had been rejected for his sins, and had suffered continuously from this enemy; Israel at his death was left in the unhappy state in which he had found it; it was the Judaean David, the faithful servant of Yahweh, who was now chosen to deliver Israel, and to the last the people gratefully remembered their debt. David accomplished the conquests of Saul but on a grander scale; “Saul hath slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands” is the popular couplet comparing the relative merits of the rival dynasts. A series of campaigns against Edom, Moab, Ammon and the Aramaean states, friendly relations with Hiram of Tyre, and the recognition of his sovereignty by the king of Hamath on the Orontes, combine to portray a monarchy which was the ideal.
But in passing from the books of Samuel, with their many rich and vivid narratives, to the books of Kings, we enter upon another phase of literature; it is a different atmosphere, due to the character of the material and the aims of other compilers (see § 9 beginning). David, the conqueror, was followed by his son Solomon, famous for his wealth, wisdom and piety, above all for the magnificent Temple which he built at Jerusalem. Phoenician artificers were enlisted for the purpose, and with Phoenician sailors successful trading-journeys were regularly undertaken. Commercial intercourse with Asia Minor, Arabia, Tarshish (probably in Spain) and Ophir (q.v.) filled his coffers, and his realm extended from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt. Tradition depicts him as a worthy successor to his father, and represents a state of luxury and riches impressive to all who were familiar with the great Oriental courts. The commercial activity of the king and the picture of intercourse and wealth are quite in accordance with what is known of the ancient monarchies, and could already be illustrated from the Amarna age. Judah and Israel dwelt at ease, or held the superior position of military officials, while the earlier inhabitants of the land were put to forced labour. But another side of the picture shows the domestic intrigues which darkened the last days of David. The accession of Solomon had not been without bloodshed, and Judah, together with David’s old general Joab and his faithful priest Abiathar, were opposed to the son of a woman who had been the wife of a Hittite warrior. The era of the Temple of Jerusalem starts with a new régime, another captain of the army 376 and another priest. Nevertheless, the enmity of Judah is passed over, and when the kingdom is divided for administrative purposes into twelve districts, which ignore the tribal divisions, the centre of David’s early power is exempt from the duty of providing supplies (1 Kings iv.). Yet again, the approach of the divided monarchy is foreshadowed. The employment of Judaeans and Israelites for Solomon’s palatial buildings, and the heavy taxation for the upkeep of a court which was the wonder of the world, caused grave internal discontent. External relations, too, were unsatisfactory. The Edomites, who had been almost extirpated by David in the valley of Salt, south of the Dead Sea, were now strong enough to seek revenge; and the powerful kingdom of Damascus, whose foundation is ascribed to this period, began to threaten Israel on the north and north-east. These troubles, we learn, had affected all Solomon’s reign, and even Hiram appears to have acquired a portion of Galilee. In the approaching disruption writers saw the punishment for the king’s apostasy, and they condemn the sanctuaries in Jerusalem which he erected to the gods of his heathen wives. Nevertheless, these places of cult remained some 300 years until almost the close of the monarchy, when their destruction is attributed to Josiah (§ 16). When at length Solomon died the opportunity was at once seized to request from his son Rehoboam a more generous treatment. The reply is memorable: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” These words were calculated to inflame a people whom history proves to have been haughty and high-spirited, and the great Israel renounced its union with the small district of Judah. Jeroboam (q.v.), once one of Solomon’s officers, became king over the north, and thus the history of the divided monarchy begins (about 930 B.C.) with the Israelite power on both sides of the Jordan and with Judah extending southwards from a point a few miles north of Jerusalem.
8. Problems of the Earliest History.—Biblical history previous to the separation of Judah and Israel holds a prominent place in current ideas, since over two-fifths of the entire Old Testament deals with these early ages. The historical sources for the crucial period, from the separation to the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.), occupy only about one-twelfth, and even of this about one-third is spread over some fifteen years (see below, § 11). From the flourishing days of the later monarchy and onwards, different writers handled the early history of their land from different standpoints. The feeling of national unity between north and south would require historical treatment, the existence of rival monarchies would demand an explanation. But the surviving material is extremely uneven; vital events in these centuries are treated with a slightness in striking contrast to the relatively detailed evidence for the preceding period—evidence, however, which is far from being contemporary. Where the material is fuller, serious discrepancies are found; and where external evidence is fortunately available, the independent character of the biblical history is vividly illustrated. The varied traditions up to this stage cannot be regarded as objective history. It is naturally impossible to treat them from any modern standpoint as fiction; they are honest even where they are most untrustworthy. But the recovery of successive historical nuclei does not furnish a continuous thread, and if one is to be guided by the historical context of events the true background to each nucleus must be sought. The northern kingdom cherished the institution of a monarchy, and in this, as in all great political events, the prophets took part. The precise part these figures play is often idealized and expresses the later views of their prominence. It was only after a bitter experience that the kingship was no longer regarded as a divine gift, and traditions have been revised in order to illustrate the opposition to secular authority. In this and in many other respects the records of the first monarchy have been elaborated and now reveal traces of differing conceptions of the events (see Dan; David; Eli; Samuel; Saul; Solomon). The oldest narratives are not in their original contexts, and they contain features which render it questionable whether a very trustworthy recollection of the period was retained. Although the rise of the Hebrew state, at an age when the great powers were quiescent and when such a people as the Philistines is known to have appeared upon the scene, is entirely intelligible, it is not improbable that legends of Saul and David, the heroic founders of the two kingdoms, have been put in a historical setting with the help of later historical tradition. It is at least necessary to distinguish provisionally between a possibly historical framework and narratives which may be of later growth—between the general outlines which only external evidence can test and details which cannot be tested and appear isolated without any cause or devoid of any effect.
Many attempts have been made to present a satisfactory sketch of the early history and to do justice to (a) the patriarchal narratives, (b) the exodus from Egypt and the Israelite invasion, and (c) the rise of the monarchy. As regards (b), external evidence has already suggested to scholars that there were Israelites in Palestine before the invasion; internal historical criticism is against the view that all the tribes entered under Joshua; and in (a) there are traces of an actual settlement in the land, entirely distinct from the cycle of narratives which prepare the way for (b). The various reconstructions and compromises by modern apologetic and critical writers alike involve without exception an extremely free treatment of the biblical sources and the rejection of many important and circumstantial data.11 On the one hand, a sweeping invasion of all the tribes of Israel moved by a common zeal may, like the conquests of Islam, have produced permanent results. According to this view the enervating luxury of Palestinian culture almost destroyed the lofty ideal monotheism inculcated in the desert, and after the fall of the northern tribes (latter part of the 8th cent.) Judah is naturally regarded as the sole heir. But such a conquest, and all that it signifies, conflict both with external evidence (e.g. the results of excavation), and with any careful inspection of the narratives themselves. On the other hand, the reconstructions which allow a gradual settlement (perhaps of distinct groups), and an intermingling with the earlier inhabitants, certainly find support in biblical evidence, and they have been ingeniously built up with the help of tribal and other data (e.g. Gen. xxxiv., xxxviii.; Judg. i. ix.). But they imply political, sociological and religious developments which do not do justice either to the biblical evidence as a whole or to a comprehensive survey of contemporary conditions.12 Thus, one of the important questions is the relation between those who had taken part in the exodus and the invasion and those who had not. This inquiry is further complicated by (c), where the history of Israel and Judah, as related in Judges and 1 Samuel, has caused endless perplexity. The traditions of the Ephraimite Joshua and of Saul the first king of (north) Israel virtually treat Judah as part of Israel and are related to the underlying representations in (a). But the specific independent Judaean standpoint treats the unification of the two divisions as the work of David who leaves the heritage to Solomon. The varied narratives, now due to Judaean editors, preserve distinct points of view, and it is extremely difficult to unravel the threads and to determine their relative position in the history. Finally, the consciousness that the people as a religious body owed everything to the desert clans (b) (see § 5) subsequently leaves its mark upon (north) Israelite history (§ 14), but has not the profound significance which it has in the records of Judah and Jerusalem. Without sufficient external and independent evidence wherewith to interpret in the light of history the internal features of the intricate narratives, any reconstruction would naturally be hazardous, and all attempts must invariably be considered in the light of the biblical evidence itself, the date of the Israelite exodus, and the external conditions. Biblical criticism is concerned with a composite (Judaean) history based upon other histories (partly of non-Judaean origin), and the relation between native written sources and external contemporary evidence (monumental and archaeological) distinctly forbids any haphazard selection from accessible sources. The true nature of this relation can be readily observed in other fields (ancient Britain, Greece, Egypt, &c.), where, however, the native documents and sources have not that complexity which characterizes the composite biblical history. (For the period under review, as it appears in the light of existing external evidence, see Palestine: History.)
9. The Rival Kingdoms.—The Palestine of the Hebrews was but part of a great area breathing the same atmosphere, and there was little to distinguish Judah from Israel except when they were distinct political entities. The history of the two kingdoms is contained in Kings and the later and relatively less trustworthy Chronicles, which deals with Judah alone. In the former a separate history of the northern kingdom has been combined with Judaean history by means of synchronisms in accordance with a definite scheme. The 480 years from the foundation of the temple of Jerusalem back to the date of the exodus (1 Kings vi. 1) corresponds to the period forward to the return from the exile (§ 20). This falls into three equal divisions, of which the first ends with Jehoash’s temple-reforms and the second with Hezekiah’s death. The kingdom of Israel lasts exactly half the time. 377 Of the 240 years from Jeroboam I., 80 elapse before the Syrian wars in Ahab’s reign, these cover another 80; the famous king Jeroboam II. reigns 40 years, and 40 years of decline bring the kingdom to an end. These figures speak for themselves, and the present chronology can be accepted only where it is independently proved to be trustworthy (see further W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, pp. 144-149). Next, the Judaean compiler regularly finds in Israel’s troubles the punishment for its schismatic idolatry; nor does he spare Judah, but judges its kings by a standard which agrees with the standpoint of Deuteronomy and is scarcely earlier than the end of the 7th century B.C. (§§ 16, 20). But the history of (north) Israel had naturally its own independent political backgrounds and the literary sources contain the same internal features as the annals and prophetic narratives which are already met with in 1 Samuel. Similarly the thread of the Judaean annals in Kings is also found in 2 Samuel, although the supplementary narratives in Kings are not so rich or varied as the more popular records in the preceding books. The striking differences between Samuel and Kings are due to differences in the writing of the history; independent Israelite records having been incorporated with those of Judah and supplemented (with revision) from the Judaean standpoint (see Chronicles; Kings; Samuel).
The Judaean compiler, with his history of the two kingdoms, looks back upon the time when each laid the foundation of its subsequent fortunes. His small kingdom of Judah enjoyed an unbroken dynasty which survived the most serious crises, a temple which grew in splendour and wealth under royal patronage, and a legitimate priesthood which owed its origin to Zadok, the successful rival of David’s priest Abiathar. Israel, on the other hand, had signed its death-warrant by the institution of calf-cult, a cult which, however, was scarcely recognized as contrary to the worship of Yahweh before the denunciations of Hosea. The scantiness of political information and the distinctive arrangement of material preclude the attempt to trace the relative position of the two rivals. Judah had natural connexions with Edom and southern Palestine; Israel was more closely associated with Gilead and the Aramaeans of the north. That Israel was the stronger may be suggested by the acquiescence of Judah in the new situation. A diversion was caused by Shishak’s invasion, but of this reappearance of Egypt after nearly three centuries of inactivity little is preserved in biblical history. Only the Temple records recall the spoliation of the sanctuary of Jerusalem, and traditions of Jeroboam I. show that Shishak’s prominence was well known.13 Although both kingdoms suffered, common misfortune did not throw them together. On the contrary, the statement that there was continual warfare is supplemented in Chronicles by the story of a victory over Israel by Abijah the son of Rehoboam. Jeroboam’s son Nadab perished in a conspiracy whilst besieging the Philistine city of Gibbethon, and Baasha of (north) Israel seized the throne. His reign is noteworthy for the entrance of Damascus into Palestinian politics. Its natural fertility and its commanding position at the meeting-place of trade-routes from every quarter made it a dominant factor until its overthrow. In the absence of its native records its relations with Palestine are not always clear, but it may be supposed that amid varying political changes it was able to play a double game. According to the annals, incessant war prevailed between Baasha and Abijah’s successor, Asa. It is understood that the former was in league with Damascus, which had once been hostile to Solomon (1 Kings xi. 24 seq.)—it is not stated upon whom Asa could rely. However, Baasha at length seized Ramah about five miles north of Jerusalem, and the very existence of Judah was threatened. Asa utilized the treasure of the Temple and palace to induce the Syrians to break off their relations with Baasha. These sent troops to harry north Israel, and Baasha was compelled to retire. Asa, it is evident, was too weak to achieve the remarkable victory ascribed to him in 2 Chron. xiv. (see Asa). As for Baasha, his short-lived dynasty resembles that of his predecessors. His son Elah had reigned only two years (like Ishbaal and Nadab) when he was slain in the midst of a drunken carousal by his captain Zimri. Meanwhile the Israelite army was again besieging the Philistines at Gibbethon, and the recurrence of these conflicts points to a critical situation in a Danite locality in which Judah itself (although ignored by the writers), must have been vitally concerned. The army preferred their general Omri, and marching upon Zimri at Tirzah burnt the palace over his head. A fresh rival immediately appeared, the otherwise unknown Tibni, son of Ginath. Israel was divided into two camps, until, on the death of Tibni and his brother Joram, Omri became sole king (c. 887 B.C.). The scanty details of these important events must naturally be contrasted with the comparatively full accounts of earlier Philistine wars and internal conflicts in narratives which date from this or even a later age.
10. The Dynasty of Omri.—Omri (q.v.), the founder of one of the greatest dynasties of Israel, was contemporary with the revival of Tyre under Ithobaal, and the relationship between the states is seen in the marriage of Omri’s son Ahab to Jezebel, the priest-king’s daughter. His most notable recorded achievement was the subjugation of Moab and the seizure of part of its territory. The discovery of the inscription of a later king of Moab (q.v.) has proved that the east-Jordanic tribes were no uncivilized or barbaric folk; material wealth, a considerable religious and political organization, and the cultivation of letters (as exemplified in the style of the inscription) portray conditions which allow us to form some conception of life in Israel itself. Moreover, Judah (now under Jehoshaphat) enjoyed intimate relations with Israel during Omri’s dynasty, and the traditions of intermarriage, and of co-operation in commerce and war, imply what was practically a united Palestine. Alliance with Phoenicia gave the impulse to extended intercourse; trading expeditions were undertaken from the Gulf of Akaba, and Ahab built himself a palace decorated with ivory. The cult of the Baal of Tyre followed Jezebel to the royal city Samaria and even found its way into Jerusalem. This, the natural result of matrimonial and political alliance, already met with under Solomon, receives the usual denunciation. The conflict between Yahweh and Baal and the defeat of the latter are the characteristic notes of the religious history of the period, and they leave their impression upon the records, which are now more abundant. Although little is preserved of Omri’s history, the fact that the northern kingdom long continued to be called by the Assyrians after his name is a significant indication of his great reputation. Assyria14 was now making itself felt in the west for the first time since the days of Tiglath-Pileser I. (c. 1100 B.C.), and external sources come to our aid. Assur-nazir-pal III. had exacted tribute from north Syria (c. 870 B.C.), and his successor Shalmaneser II., in the course of a series of expeditions, succeeded in gaining the greater part of that land. A defensive coalition was formed in which the kings of Cilicia, Hamath, the Phoenician coast, Damascus and Ammon, the Arabs of the Syrian desert, and “Ahabbu Sirlai” were concerned. In the last, we must recognize the Israelite Ahab. His own contribution of 10,000 men and 12,000 chariots perhaps included levies from Judah and Moab (cf. for the number 1 Kings x. 26). In 854 the allies at least maintained themselves at the battle of Karkar (perhaps Apamea to the north of Hamath). In 849 and 846 other indecisive battles were fought, but the precise constitution of the coalition is not recorded. In 842 Shalmaneser records a campaign against Hazael of Damascus; no coalition is mentioned, although a battle was fought at Sanir (Hermon, Deut. iii. 9), and the cities of Hauran to the south of Damascus were spoiled. Tribute was received from Tyre and Sidon; and Jehu, who was now king of Israel, sent his gifts of gold, silver, &c., to the conqueror. The Assyrian inscription (the so-called “Black Obelisk” now in the British Museum), which records the submission of the petty kings, gives an interesting representation of the humble Israelite emissaries with their long fringed robes and strongly marked physiognomy (see Costume, fig. 9). Yet another expedition in 839 would seem to 378 show that Damascus was neither crushed nor helpless, but thenceforth for a number of years Assyria was fully occupied elsewhere and the west was left to itself. The value of this external evidence for the history of Israel is enhanced by the fact that biblical tradition associates the changes in the thrones of Israel and Damascus with the work of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, but handles the period without a single reference to the Assyrian Empire. Ahab, it seems, had aroused popular resentment by encroaching upon the rights of the people to their landed possessions; had it not been for Jezebel (q.v.) the tragedy of Naboth would not have occurred. The worship of Baal of Tyre roused a small circle of zealots, and again the Phoenician marriage was the cause of the evil. We read the history from the point of view of prophets. Elijah of Gilead led the revolt. To one who favoured simplicity of cult the new worship was a desecration of Yahweh, and, braving the anger of the king and queen, he foreshadowed their fate. Hostility towards the dynasty culminated a few years later in a conspiracy which placed on the throne the general Jehu, the son of one Jehoshaphat (or, otherwise, of Nimshi). The work which Elijah began was completed by Elisha, who supported Jehu and the new dynasty. A massacre ensued in which the royal families of Israel and Judah perished. While the extirpation of the cult of Baal was furthered in Israel by Jonadab the Rechabite, it was the “people of the land” who undertook a similar reform in Judah. Jehu (q.v.) became king as the champion of the purer worship of Yahweh. The descendants of the detested Phoenician marriage were rooted out, and unless the close intercourse between Israel and Judah had been suddenly broken, it would be supposed that the new king at least laid claim to the south. The events form one of the fundamental problems of biblical history.
11. Damascus, Israel and Judah.—The appearance of Assyria in the Mediterranean coast-lands had produced the results which inevitably follow when a great empire comes into contact with minor states. It awakened fresh possibilities—successful combination against a common foe, the sinking of petty rivalries, the chance of gaining favour by a neutrality which was scarcely benevolent. The alliances, counter-alliances and far-reaching political combinations which spring up at every advance of the greater powers are often perplexing in the absence of records of the states concerned. Even the biblical traditions alone do not always represent the same attitude, and our present sources preserve the work of several hands. Hazael of Damascus, Jehu of Israel and Elisha the prophet are the three men of the new age linked together in the words of one writer as though commissioned for like ends (1 Kings xix. 15-17). Hostility to Phoenicia (i.e. the Baal of Tyre) is as intelligible as a tendency to look to Aramaean neighbours. Though Elisha sent to anoint Jehu as king, he was none the less on most intimate terms with Bar-hadad (Old. Test. Ben-hadad) of Damascus and recognized Hazael as its future ruler. It is a natural assumption that Damascus could still count upon Israel as an ally in 842; not until the withdrawal of Assyria and the accession of Jehu did the situation change. “In those days Yahweh began to cut short” (or, altering the text, “to be angry with”) “Israel.” This brief notice heralds the commencement of Hazael’s attack upon Israelite territory east of the Jordan (2 Kings x. 32). The origin of the outbreak is uncertain. It has been assumed that Israel had withdrawn from the great coalition, that Jehu sent tribute to Shalmaneser to obtain that monarch’s recognition, and that Hazael consequently seized the first opportunity to retaliate. Certain traditions, it is true, indicate that Israel had been at war with the Aramaeans from before 854 to 842, and that Hazael was attacking Gilead at the time when Jehu revolted; but in the midst of these are other traditions of the close and friendly relations between Israel and Damascus! With these perplexing data the position of Judah is inextricably involved.
The special points which have to be noticed in the records for this brief period (1 Kings xvii.-2 Kings xi.) concern both literary and historical criticism.15 A number of narratives illustrate the work of the prophets, and sometimes purely political records appear to have been used for the purpose (see Elijah; Elisha). If Elijah is the prophet of the fall of Omri’s dynasty, Elisha is no less the prophet of Jehu and his successors; and it is extremely probable that his lifework was confined to the dynasty which he inaugurated.16 In the present narratives, however, the stories in which he possesses influence with king and court are placed before the rise of Jehu, and some of them point to a state of hostility with Damascus before he foresees the atrocities which Hazael will perpetrate. But Ahab’s wars with Syria can with difficulty be reconciled with the Assyrian evidence (see Ahab), and the narratives, largely anonymous, agree in a singular manner with what is known of the serious conflicts which, it is said, began in Jehu’s time. Moreover, the account of the joint undertaking by Judah (under Jehoshaphat) and Israel against Syria at Ramoth-Gilead at the time of Ahab’s death, and again (under Ahaziah) when Jehoram was wounded, shortly before the accession of Jehu, are historical doublets, and they can hardly be harmonized either with the known events of 854 and 842 or with the course of the intervening years. Further, all the traditions point clearly to the very close union of Israel and Judah at this period, a union which is apt to be obscured by the fact that the annalistic summaries of each kingdom are mainly independent. Thus we may contrast the favourable Judaean view of Jehoshaphat with the condemnation passed upon Ahab and Jezebel, whose daughter Athaliah married Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat. It is noteworthy, also, that an Ahaziah and a Jehoram appear as kings of Israel, and (in the reverse order) of Judah, and somewhat similar incidents recur in the now separate histories of the two kingdoms. The most striking is a great revolt in south Palestine. The alliance between Jehoshaphat and Ahab doubtless continued when the latter was succeeded by his son Ahaziah, and some disaster befell their trading fleet in the Gulf of Akaba (1 Kings xxii. 48 seq.; 2 Chron. xx. 35-37). Next came the revolt of Moab (2 Kings i. 1), and Ahaziah, after the briefest of reigns, was followed by Jehoram, whose Judaean contemporary was Jehoshaphat (ch. iii.), or perhaps rather his own namesake (i. 17). The popular story of Jehoram’s campaign against Moab, with which Edom was probably allied (see Moab), hints at a disastrous ending, and the Judaean annals, in their turn, record the revolt of Edom and the Philistine Libnah (see Philistines), and allude obscurely to a defeat of the Judaean Jehoram (2 Kings viii. 20-22). Further details in 2 Chron. xxi.-xxii. 1 even record an invasion of Philistines and Arabians (? Edomites), an attack upon Jerusalem, the removal of the palace treasures and of all the royal sons with the sole exception of Jehoahaz, i.e. Ahaziah (see Jehoram; Jehoshaphat). Had the two kingdoms been under a single head, these features might find an explanation, but it must be allowed that it is extremely difficult to fit the general situation into our present history, and to determine where the line is to be drawn between trustworthy and untrustworthy details. Moreover, of the various accounts of the massacre of the princes of Judah, the Judaean ascribes it not to Jehu and the reforming party (2 Kings x. 13 seq.) but to Athaliah (q.v.). Only the babe Jehoash was saved, and he remained hidden in the Temple adjoining the palace itself. The queen, Athaliah, despite the weak state of Judah after the revolt in Philistia and Edom, actually appears to have maintained herself for six years, until the priests slew her in a conspiracy, overthrew the cult of Baal, and crowned the young child. It is a new source which is here suddenly introduced, belonging apparently to a history of the Temple; it throws no light upon the relations between Judah with its priests and Israel with its prophets, the circumstances of the regency under the priest Jehoiada are ignored, and the Temple reforms occupy the first place in the compiler’s interest. The Judaean annals then relate Hazael’s advance to Gath; the city was captured and Jerusalem was saved only by using the Temple and palace treasure as a bribe. On the other hand, Chronicles has a different story with a novel prelude. Jehoash, it is said, turned away from Yahweh after the death of Jehoiada and gave heed to the Judaean nobles, “wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for their guilt,” prophets were sent to bring them back but they turned a deaf ear. The climax of iniquity was the murder of Jehoiada’s son Zechariah. Soon after, a small band of Syrians entered Judah, destroyed its princes, and sent the spoil to the king of Damascus; the disaster is regarded as a prompt retribution (2 Chron. xxiv.). The inferiority of Chronicles as a historical source and its varied examples of “tendency-writing” must be set against its possible access to traditions 379 as trustworthy as those in Kings.17 In the present instance the novel details cannot be lightly brushed aside. The position of Judah at this period must be estimated (a) from the preceding years of intimate relationship with Israel to the accession of Jehu, and (b) from the calamity about half a century later when Jerusalem was sacked by Israel. The Judaean narratives do not allow us to fill the gap or to determine whether Judaean policy under the regent Jehoiada would be friendly or hostile to Israel, or whether Judaean nobles may have severed the earlier bond of union. If the latter actually occurred, the hostility of the Israelite prophets is only to be expected. But it is to be presumed that the punishment came from Israel—the use of Syrian mercenaries not excluded—and if, instead of using his treasure to ward off the invasion of Syria, Jehoash bribed Damascus to break off relations with Israel, an alternative explanation of the origin of the Aramaean wars may be found.18
12. The Aramaean Wars.—If the records leave it uncertain (a) whether Jehu (like Tyre and Sidon) sent tribute to Shalmaneser as a sign of submission or, while severing relations with Hazael, sought the favour of Assyria, and (b) whether Judah only escaped Hazael’s vengeance by a timely bribe or, in freeing itself from Israel, had bribed Hazael to create a diversion, it appears that the southern kingdom suffered little in the disastrous wars between Damascus and Israel. There were, indeed, internal troubles, and Jehoash perished in a conspiracy. His son Amaziah had some difficulty in gaining the kingdom and showed unwonted leniency in sparing the children of his father’s murderers. This was a departure from the customs of the age, and was perhaps influenced less by generosity than by expediency. Israel, on the other hand, was almost annihilated. The Syrians seized Gilead, crossed over into Palestine, and occupied the land. Jehu’s son Jehoahaz saw his army made “like the dust in threshing,” and the desperate condition of the country recalls the straits in the time of Saul (1 Sam. xiii. 6, 7, 19-22), and the days before the great overthrow of the northern power as described in Judges v. 6-8. The impression left by the horrors of the age is clear from the allusions to the barbarities committed by Damascus and its Ammonite allies upon Gilead (Amos i. 3, 13), and in the account of the interview between Elisha and Hazael (2 Kings viii. 12). Several of the situations can be more vividly realized from the narratives of Syrian wars ascribed to the time of Omri’s dynasty, even if these did not originally refer to the later period. Under Joash, son of Jehoahaz, the tide turned. Elisha was apparently the champion, and posterity told of his exploits when Samaria was visited with the sword. Thrice Joash smote the Syrians—in accordance with the last words of the dying prophet—and Aphek in the Sharon plain, famous in history for Israel’s disasters, now witnessed three victories. The enemy under Hazael’s son Ben-hadad (properly Bar-hadad) was driven out and Joash regained the territory which his father had lost (2 Kings xiii. 25); it may reasonably be supposed that a treaty was concluded (cf. 1 Kings xx. 34). But the peace does not seem to have been popular. The story of the last scene in Elisha’s life implies in Joash an easily contented disposition which hindered him from completing his successes. Syria had not been crushed, and the failure to utilize the opportunity was an act of impolitic leniency for which Israel was bound to suffer (2 Kings xiii. 19). Elisha’s indignation can be illustrated by the denunciation passed upon an anonymous king by the prophetic party on a similar occasion (1 Kings xx. 35-43).
At this stage it is necessary to notice the fresh invasion of Syria by Hadad (Adad)-nirari, who besieged Mari, king of Damascus, and exacted a heavy tribute (c. 800 B.C.). A diversion of this kind may explain the Israelite victories; the subsequent withdrawal of Assyria may have afforded the occasion for retaliation. Those in Israel who remembered the previous war between Assyria and Damascus would realize the recuperative power of the latter, and would perceive the danger of the short-sighted policy of Joash. It is interesting to find that Hadad-nirari claims tribute from Tyre, Sidon and Beth-Omri (Israel), also from Edom and Palaštu (Philistia). There are no signs of an extensive coalition as in the days of Shalmaneser; Ammon is probably included under Damascus; the position of Moab—which had freed itself from Jehoram of Israel—can hardly be calculated. But the absence of Judah is surprising. Both Jehoash (of Judah) and his son Amaziah left behind them a great name; and the latter was comparable only to David (2 Kings xiv. 3). He defeated Edom in the Valley of Salt, and hence it is conceivable that Amaziah’s kingdom extended over both Edom and Philistia. A vaunting challenge to Joash (of Israel) gave rise to one of the two fables that are preserved in the Old Testament (Judg. ix. 8 sqq.; see Abimelech). It was followed by a battle at Beth-shemesh; the scene would suggest that Philistia also was involved. The result was the route of Judah, the capture of Amaziah, the destruction of the northern wall of Jerusalem, the sacking of the temple and palace, and the removal of hostages to Samaria (2 Kings xiv. 12 sqq.). Only a few words are preserved, but the details, when carefully weighed, are extremely significant. This momentous event for the southern kingdom was scarcely the outcome of a challenge to a trial of strength; it was rather the sequel to a period of smouldering jealousy and hostility.
The Judaean records have obscured the history since the days of Omri’s dynasty, when Israel and Judah were as one, when they were moved by common aims and by a single reforming zeal, and only Israel’s vengeance gives the measure of the injuries she had received. That the Judaean compiler has not given fuller information is not surprising; the wonder is that he should have given so much. It is one of those epoch-making facts in the light of which the course of the history of the preceding and following years must be estimated. It is taken, strangely enough, from an Israelite source, but the tone of the whole is quite dispassionate and objective. It needs little reflection to perceive that the position of Jerusalem and Judah was now hardly one of independence, and the conflicting chronological notices betray the attempt to maintain intact the thread of Judaean history. So, on the one hand, the year of the disaster sees the death of the Israelite king, and Amaziah survives for fifteen years, while, on the other, twenty-seven years elapse between the battle and the accession of Uzziah, the next king of Judah.19
The importance of the historical questions regarding relations between Damascus, Israel and Judah is clear. The defeat of Syria by Joash (of Israel) was not final. The decisive victories were gained by Jeroboam II. He saved Israel from being blotted out, and through his successes “the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as of old” (2 Kings xiii. 5, xiv. 26 seq.). Syria must have resumed warfare with redoubled energy, and a state of affairs is presupposed which can be pictured with the help of narratives that deal with similar historical situations. In particular, the overthrow of Israel as foreshadowed in 1 Kings xxii. implies an Aramaean invasion (cf. vv. 17, 25), after a treaty (xx. 35 sqq.), although this can scarcely be justified by the events which followed the death of Ahab, in whose time they are now placed.
For the understanding of these great wars between Syria and Israel (which the traditional chronology spreads over eighty years), for the significance of the crushing defeats and inspiring victories, and for the alternations of despair and hope, a careful study of all the records of relations between Israel and the north is at least instructive, and it is important to remember that, although the present historical outlines are scanty and incomplete, some—if not all—of the analogous descriptions in their present form are certainly later than the second half of the 9th century B.C., the period in which these great events fall.20
13. Political Development.—Under Jeroboam II. the borders of Israel were restored, and in this political revival the prophets again took part.21 The defeat of Ben-hadad by the king of 380 Hamath and the quiescence of Assyria may have encouraged Israelite ambitions, but until more is known of the campaigns of Hadad-nirari and of Shalmaneser III. (against Damascus, 773 B.C.) the situation cannot be safely gauged. Moab was probably tributary; the position of Judah and Edom is involved with the chronological problems. According to the Judaean annals, the “people of Judah” set Azariah (Uzziah) upon his father’s throne; and to his long reign of fifty-two years are ascribed conquests over Philistia and Edom, the fortification of Jerusalem and the reorganization of the army. As the relations with Israel are not specified, the sequel to Amaziah’s defeat is a matter for conjecture; although, when at the death of Jeroboam Israel hastened to its end amid anarchy and dissension, it is hardly likely that the southern kingdom was unmoved. All that can be recognized from the biblical records, however, is the period of internal prosperity which Israel and Judah enjoyed under Jeroboam and Uzziah (qq.v.) respectively.
It is difficult to trace the biblical history century by century as it reaches these last years of bitter conflict and of renewed prosperity. The northern kingdom at the height of its power included Judah, it extended its territory east of the Jordan towards the north and the south, and maintained close relations with Phoenicia and the Aramaean states. It had a national history which left its impress upon the popular imagination, and sundry fragments of tradition reveal the pride which the patriot felt in the past. An original close connexion is felt with the east of the Jordan and with Gilead; stories of invasion and conquest express themselves in varied forms. In so far as internal wealth and luxury presuppose the control of the trade-routes, periodical alliances are implied in which Judah, willingly or unwillingly, was included. But the Judaean records do not allow us to trace its independent history with confidence, and our estimate can scarcely base itself solely upon the accidental fulness or scantiness of political details. In the subsequent disasters of Israel (§ 15) we may perceive the growing supremacy of Judah, and the Assyrian inscriptions clearly indicate the dependence of Judaean politics upon its relations with Edom and Arab tribes on the south-east and with Philistia on the west. Whatever had been the effect of the movement of the Purasati some centuries previously, the Philistines (i.e. the people of Philistia) are now found in possession of a mature organization, and the Assyrian evidence is of considerable value for an estimate of the stories of conflict and covenant, of hostility and friendship, which were current in south Palestine. The extension of the term “Judah” (cf. that of “Israel” and “Samaria”) is involved with the incorporation of non-Judaean elements. The country for ten miles north of Jerusalem was the exposed and highly debatable district ascribed to the young tribe of Benjamin (the favourite “brother” of both Judah and Joseph; Gen. xxxvii., xxxix. sqq.); the border-line between the rival kingdoms oscillated, and consequently the political position of the smaller and half-desert Judaean state depended upon the attitude of its neighbours. It is possible that tradition is right in supposing that “Judah went down from his brethren” (Gen. xxxviii. 1; cf. Judg. i. 3). Its monarchy traced its origin to Hebron in the south, and its growth is contemporary with a decline in Israel (§ 7). It is at least probable that when Israel was supreme an independent Judah would centre around a more southerly site than Jerusalem. It is naturally uncertain how far the traditions of David can be utilized; but they illustrate Judaean situations when they depict intrigues with Israelite officials, vassalage under Philistia, and friendly relations with Moab, or when they suggest how enmity between Israel and Ammon could be turned to useful account. Tradition, in fact, is concentrated upon the rise of the Judaean dynasty under David, but there are significant periods before the rise of both Jehoash and Uzziah upon which the historical records maintain a perplexing silence.
The Hebrews of Israel and Judah were, political history apart, men of the same general stamp, with the same cult and custom; for the study of religion and social usages, therefore, they can be treated as a single people. The institution of the monarchy was opposed to the simpler local forms of government, and a military régime had distinct disadvantages (cf. 1 Sam. viii. 11-18). The king stood at the head, as the court of final appeal, and upon him and his officers depended the people’s welfare. A more intricate social organization caused internal weakness, and Eastern history shows with what rapidity peoples who have become strong by discipline and moderation pass from the height of their glory into extreme corruption and disintegration.22 This was Israel’s fate. Opposition to social abuses and enmity towards religious innovations are regarded as the factors which led to the overthrow of Omri’s dynasty by Jehu, and when Israel seemed to be at the height of its glory under Jeroboam II. warning voices again made themselves heard. The two factors are inseparable, for in ancient times no sharp dividing-line was drawn between religious and civic duties: righteousness and equity, religious duty and national custom were one.
Elaborate legal enactments codified in Babylonia by the 20th century B.C. find striking parallels in Hebrew, late Jewish (Talmudic), Syrian and Mahommedan law, or in the unwritten usages of all ages; for even where there were neither written laws nor duly instituted lawgivers, there was no lawlessness, since custom and belief were, and still are, almost inflexible. Various collections are preserved in the Old Testament; they are attributed to the time of Moses the lawgiver, who stands at the beginning of Israelite national and religious history. But many of the laws were quite unsuitable for the circumstances of his age, and the belief that a body of intricate and even contradictory legislation was imposed suddenly upon a people newly emerged from bondage in Egypt raises insurmountable objections, and underestimates the fact that legal usage existed in the earliest stages of society, and therefore in pre-Mosaic times. The more important question is the date of the laws in their present form and content. Collections of laws are found in Deuteronomy and in exilic and post-exilic writings; groups of a relatively earlier type are preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 14-26, xx. 23-xxiii., and (of another stamp) in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. (now in post-exilic form). For a useful conspectus of details, see J. E. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby. The Hexateuch (vol. i., appendix); C. F. Kent, Israel’s Laws and Legal Enactments (1907); and in general I. Benzinger, articles “Government,” “Family” and “Law and Justice,” Ency. Bib., and G. B. Gray, “Law Literature,” ib. (the literary growth of legislation). Reference may also be made, for illustrative material, to W. R. Smith, Kinship and Marriage, Religion of the Semites; to E. Day, Social Life of the Hebrews; and, for some comparison of customary usage in the Semitic field, to S. A. Cook, Laws of Moses and Code of Hammurabi.
14. Religion and the Prophets.—The elements of the thought and religion of the Hebrews do not sever them from their neighbours; similar features of cult are met with elsewhere under different names. Hebrew religious institutions can be understood from the biblical evidence studied in the light of comparative religion; and without going afield to Babylonia, Assyria or Egypt, valuable data are furnished by the cults of Phoenicia, Syria and Arabia, and these in turn can be illustrated from excavation and from modern custom. Every religion has its customary cult and ritual, its recognized times, places and persons for the observance. Worship is simpler at the smaller shrines than at the more famous temples; and, as the rulers are the patrons of the religion and are brought into contact with the religious personnel, the character of the social organization leaves its mark upon those who hold religious and judicial functions alike. The Hebrews shared the paradoxes of Orientals, and religious enthusiasm and ecstasy were prominent features. Seers and prophets of all kinds ranged from those who were consulted for daily mundane affairs to those who revealed the oracles in times of stress, from those who haunted local holy sites to those high in royal favour, from the quiet domestic communities to the austere mountain recluse. Among these were to be found the most sordid opportunism and the most heroic self-effacement, the crassest supernaturalism and—the loftiest conceptions of practical morality. A development of ideals and a growth of spirituality can be traced which render the biblical writings with their series of prophecies a unique 381 phenomenon.23 The prophets taught that the national existence of the people was bound up with religious and social conditions; they were in a sense the politicians of the age, and to regard them simply as foretellers of the future is to limit their sphere unduly. They took a keen interest in all the political vicissitudes of the Oriental world. Men of all standards of integrity, they were exposed to external influences, but whether divided among themselves in their adherence to conflicting parties, or isolated in their fierce denunciation of contemporary abuses, they shared alike in the worship of Yahweh whose inspiration they claimed. A recollection of the manifold forms which religious life and thought have taken in Christendom or in Islam, and the passions which are so easily engendered among opposing sects, will prevent a one-sided estimate of the religious standpoints which the writings betray; and to the recognition that they represent lofty ideals it must be added that the great prophets, like all great thinkers, were in advance of their age.
The prophets are thoroughly Oriental figures, and the interpretation of their profound religious experiences requires a particular sympathy which is not inherent in Western minds. Their writings are to be understood in the light of their age and of the conditions which gave birth to them. With few exceptions they are preserved in fragmentary form, with additions and adjustments which were necessary in order to make them applicable to later conditions. When, as often, the great figures have been made the spokesmen of the thought of subsequent generations, the historical criticism of the prophecies becomes one of peculiar difficulty.24 According to the historical traditions it is precisely in the age of Jeroboam II. and Uzziah that the first of the extant prophecies begin (see Amos and Hosea). Here it is enough to observe that the highly advanced doctrines of the distinctive character of Yahweh, as ascribed to the 8th century B.C., presuppose a foundation and development. But the evidence does not allow us to trace the earlier progress of the ideas. Yahwism presents itself under a variety of aspects, and the history of Israel’s relations to the God Yahweh (whose name is not necessarily of Israelite origin) can hardly be disentangled amid the complicated threads of the earlier history. The view that the seeds of Yahwism were planted in the young Israelite nation in the days of the “exodus” conflicts with the belief that the worship of Yahweh began in the pre-Mosaic age. Nevertheless, it implies that religion passed into a new stage through the influence of Moses, and to this we find a relatively less complete analogy in the specific north Israelite traditions of the age of Jehu. The change from the dynasty of Omri to that of Jehu has been treated by several hands, and the writers, in their recognition of the introduction of a new tendency, have obscured the fact that the cult of Yahweh had flourished even under such a king as Ahab. While the influence of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha is clearly visible, it is instructive to find that the south, too, has its share in the inauguration of the new era. At Horeb, the mount of God, was located the dramatic theophany which heralded to Elijah the advent of the sword, and Jehu’s supporter in his sanguinary measures belongs to the Rechabites, a sect which felt itself to be the true worshipping community of Yahweh and is closely associated with the Kenites, the kin of Moses. It was at the holy well of Kadesh, in the sacred mounts of Sinai and Horeb, and in the field of Edom that the Yahweh of Moses was found, and scattered traces survive of a definite belief in the entrance into Palestine of a movement uncompromisingly devoted to the purer worship of Yahweh. The course of the dynasty of Jehu—the reforms, the disastrous Aramaean wars, and, at length, Yahweh’s “arrow of victory”—constituted an epoch in the Israelite history, and it is regarded as such.25
The problem of the history of Yahwism depends essentially upon the view adopted as to the date and origin of the biblical details and their validity for the various historical and religious conditions they presuppose. Yahwism is a religion which appears upon a soil saturated with ideas and usages which find their parallel in extra-biblical sources and in neighbouring lands. The problem cannot be approached from modern preconceptions because there was much associated with the worship of Yahweh which only gradually came to be recognized as repugnant, and there was much in earlier ages and in other lands which reflects an elevated and even complex religious philosophy. In the south of the Sinaitic peninsula, remains have been found of an elaborate half-Egyptian, half-Semitic cultus (Petrie, Researches in Sinai, xiii.), and not only does Edom possess some reputation for “wisdom,” but, where this district is concerned, the old Arabian religion (whose historical connexion with Palestine is still imperfectly known) claims some attention. The characteristic denunciations of corruption and lifeless ritual in the writings of the prophets and the emphasis which is laid upon purity and simplicity of religious life are suggestive of the influence of the nomadic spirit rather than of an internal evolution on Palestinian soil. Desert pastoral life does not necessarily imply any intellectual inferiority, and its religious conceptions, though susceptible of modification, are not artificially moulded through the influence of other civilizations. Nomadic life is recognized by Arabian writers themselves as possessing a relative superiority, and its characteristic purity of manner and its reaction against corruption and luxury are not incompatible with a warlike spirit. If nomadism may be recognized as one of the factors in the growth of Yahwism, there is something to be said for the hypothesis which associates it with the clans connected with the Levites (see E. Meyer, Israeliten, pp. 82 sqq.; B. Luther, ib. 138). It is, however, obvious that the influence due to immigrants could be, and doubtless was, exerted at more than one period (see §§ 18, 20; also Hebrew Religion; Priest).
15. The Fall of the Israelite Monarchy.—The prosperity of Israel was its undoing. The disorders that hastened its end find an analogy in the events of the more obscure period after the death of the earlier Jeroboam. Only the briefest details are given. Zechariah was slain after six months by Shallum ben Jabesh in Ibleam; but the usurper fell a month later to Menahem (q.v.), who only after much bloodshed established his position. Assyria again appeared upon the scene under Tiglath-pileser IV. (745-728 B.C.).26 His approach was the signal for the formation of a coalition, which was overthrown in 738. Among those who paid tribute were Raṣun (the biblical Rezin) of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, the kings of Tyre, Byblos and Hamath and the queen of Aribi (Arabia, the Syrian desert). Israel was once more in league with Damascus and Phoenicia, and the biblical records must be read in the light of political history. Judah was probably holding aloof. Its king, Uzziah, was a leper in his latter days, and his son and regent, Jotham, claims notice for the circumstantial reference (2 Chron. xxvii.; cf. xxvi. 8) to his subjugation of Ammon—the natural allies of Damascus—for three years. Scarcely had Assyria withdrawn before Menahem lost his life in a conspiracy, and Pekah with the help of Gilead made himself king. The new movement was evidently anti-Assyrian, and strenuous endeavours were made to present a united front. It is suggestive to find Judah the centre of attack.27 Raṣun and Pekah directed their blows from the north, Philistia threatened the west flank, and the Edomites who drove out the Judaeans from Elath (on the Gulf of ‘Akaba) were no doubt only taking their part in the concerted action. A more critical situation could scarcely be imagined. The throne of David was then occupied by the young Ahaz, Jotham’s son. 382 In this crisis we meet with Isaiah (q.v.), one of the finest of Hebrew prophets. The disorganized state of Egypt and the uncertain allegiance of the desert tribes left Judah without direct aid; on the other hand, opposition to Assyria among the conflicting interests of Palestine and Syria was rarely unanimous. Either in the natural course of events—to preserve the unity of his empire—or influenced by the rich presents of gold and silver with which Ahaz accompanied his appeal for help, Tiglath-pileser intervened with campaigns against Philistia (734 B.C.) and Damascus (733-732). Israel was punished by the ravaging of the northern districts, and the king claims to have carried away the people of “the house of Omri.” Pekah was slain and one Hoshea (q.v.) was recognized as his successor. Assyrian officers were placed in the land and Judah thus gained its deliverance at the expense of Israel. But the proud Israelites did not remain submissive for long; Damascus had indeed fallen, but neither Philistia nor Edom had yet been crushed.
At this stage a new problem becomes urgent. A number of petty peoples, of whom little definite is known, fringed Palestine from the south of Judah and the Delta to the Syrian desert. They belong to an area which merges itself in the west into Egypt, and Egypt in fact had a hereditary claim upon it. Continued intercourse between Egypt, Gaza and north Arabia is natural in view of the trade-routes which connected them, and on several occasions joint action on the part of Edomites (with allied tribes) and the Philistines is recorded, or may be inferred. The part played by Egypt proper in the ensuing anti-Assyrian combinations is not clearly known; with a number of petty dynasts fomenting discontent and revolt, there was an absence of cohesion in that ancient empire previous to the rise of the Ethiopian dynasty. Consequently the references to “Egypt” (Heb. Miṣrayim, Ass. Muṣri) sometimes suggest that the geographical term was really extended beyond the bounds of Egypt proper towards those districts where Egyptian influence or domination was or had been recognized (see further Mizraim).
When Israel began to recover its prosperity and regained confidence, its policy halted between obedience to Assyria and reliance upon this ambiguous “Egypt.” The situation is illustrated in the writings of Hosea (q.v.). When at length Tiglath-pileser died, in 727, the slumbering revolt became general; Israel refused the usual tribute to its overlord, and definitely threw in its lot with “Egypt.” In due course Samaria was besieged for three years by Shalmaneser IV. The alliance with So (Seveh, Sibi) of “Egypt,” upon whom hopes had been placed, proved futile, and the forebodings of keen-sighted prophets were justified. Although no evidence is at hand, it is probable that Ahaz of Judah rendered service to Assyria by keeping the allies in check; possible, also, that the former enemies of Jerusalem had now been induced to turn against Samaria. The actual capture of the Israelite capital is claimed by Sargon (722), who removed 27,290 of its inhabitants and fifty chariots. Other peoples were introduced, officers were placed in charge, and the usual tribute re-imposed. Another revolt was planned in 720 in which the province of Samaria joined with Hamath and Damascus, with the Phoenician Arpad and Ṣimura, and with Gaza and “Egypt.” Two battles, one at Karkar in the north, another at Rapiḥ (Raphia) on the border of Egypt, sufficed to quell the disturbance. The desert peoples who paid tribute on this occasion still continued restless, and in 715 Sargon removed men of Tamūd, Ibādid, Marsiman, Ḥayāpa, “the remote Arabs of the desert,” and placed them in the land of Beth-Omri. Sargon’s statement is significant for the internal history; but unfortunately the biblical historians take no further interest in the fortunes of the northern kingdom after the fall of Samaria, and see in Judah the sole survivor of the Israelite tribes (see 2 Kings xvii. 7-23). Yet the situation in this neglected district must continue to provoke inquiry.
16. Judah and Assyria.—Amid these changes Judah was intimately connected with the south Palestinian peoples (see further Philistines). Ahaz had recognized the sovereignty of Assyria and visited Tiglath-pileser at Damascus. The Temple records describe the innovations he introduced on his return. Under his son Hezekiah there were fresh disturbances in the southern states, and anti-Assyrian intrigues began to take a more definite shape among the Philistine cities. Ashdod openly revolted and found support in Moab, Edom, Judah, and the still ambiguous “Egypt.” This step may possibly be connected with the attempt of Marduk (Merodach)-baladan in south Babylonia to form a league against Assyria (cf. 2 Kings xx. 12); at all events Ashdod fell after a three years’ siege (711) and for a time there was peace. But with the death of Sargon in 705 there was another great outburst; practically the whole of Palestine and Syria was in arms, and the integrity of Sennacherib’s empire was threatened. In both Judah and Philistia the anti-Assyrian party was not without opposition, and those who adhered or favoured adherence to the great power were justified by the result. The inevitable lack of cohesion among the petty states weakened the national cause. At Sennacherib’s approach, Ashdod, Ammon, Moab and Edom submitted; Ekron, Ascalon, Lachish and Jerusalem held out strenuously. The southern allies (with “Egypt”) were defeated at Eltekeh (Josh. xix. 44). Hezekiah was besieged and compelled to submit (701). The small kings who had remained faithful were rewarded by an extension of their territories, and Ashdod, Ekron and Gaza were enriched at Judah’s expense. These events are related in Sennacherib’s inscription; the biblical records preserve their own traditions (see Hezekiah). If the impression left upon current thought can be estimated from certain of the utterances of the court-prophet Isaiah and the Judaean countryman Micah (q.v.), the light which these throw upon internal conditions must also be used to gauge the real extent of the religious changes ascribed to Hezekiah. A brazen serpent, whose institution was attributed to Moses, had not hitherto been considered out of place in the cult; its destruction was perhaps the king’s most notable reform.
In the long reign of his son Manasseh later writers saw the deathblow to the Judaean kingdom. Much is related of his wickedness and enmity to the followers of Yahweh, but few political details have come down. It is uncertain whether Sennacherib invaded Judah again shortly before his death, nevertheless the land was practically under the control of Assyria. Both Esar-haddon (681-668) and Assur-bani-pal (668-c. 626) number among their tributaries Tyre, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Ascalon, Gaza and Manasseh himself,28 and cuneiform dockets unearthed at Gezer suggest the presence of Assyrian garrisons there (and no doubt also elsewhere) to ensure allegiance. The situation was conducive to the spread of foreign customs, and the condemnation passed upon Manasseh thus perhaps becomes more significant. Precisely what form his worship took is a matter of conjecture; but it is possible that the religion must not be judged too strictly from the standpoint of the late compiler, and that Manasseh merely assimilated the older Yahweh-worship to new Assyrian forms.29 Politics and religion, however, were inseparable, and the supremacy of Assyria meant the supremacy of the Assyrian pantheon.
If Judah was compelled to take part in the Assyrian campaigns against Egypt, Arabia (the Syrian desert) and Tyre, this would only be in accordance with a vassal’s duty. But when tradition preserves some recollection of an offence for which Manasseh was taken to Babylon to explain his conduct (2 Chron. xxxiii.), also of the settling of foreign colonists in Samaria by Esar-haddon (Ezra iv. 2), there is just a possibility that Judah made some attempt to gain independence. According to Assur-bani-pal all the western lands were inflamed by the revolt of his brother Samas-sum-ukin. What part Judah took in the Transjordanic disturbances, in which Moab fought invading Arabian tribes on behalf of Assyria, is unknown (see Moab). Manasseh’s son Amon fell in a court intrigue and “the people of the land,” after avenging the murder, set up in his place the infant Josiah (637). The circumstances imply a regency, but the records are silent upon 383 the outlook. The assumption that the decay of Assyria awoke the national feeling of independence is perhaps justified by those events which made the greatest impression upon the compiler, and an account is given of Josiah’s religious reforms, based upon a source apparently identical with that which described the work of Jehoash. In an age when the oppression and corruption of the ruling classes had been such that those who cherished the old worship of Yahweh dared not confide in their most intimate companions (Mic. vii. 5, 6), no social reform was possible; but now the young Josiah, the popular choice, was upon the throne. A roll, it is said, was found in the Temple, its contents struck terror into the hearts of the priests and king, and it led to a solemn covenant before Yahweh to observe the provisions of the law-book which had been so opportunely recovered.
That the writer (2 Kings xxii. seq.) meant to describe the discovery of Deuteronomy is evident from the events which followed; and this identification of the roll, already made by Jerome, Chrysostom and others, has been substantiated by modern literary criticism since De Wette (1805). (See Deuteronomy; Josiah.) Some very interesting parallels have been cited from Egyptian and Assyrian records where religious texts, said to have been found in temples, or oracles from the distant past, have come to light at the very time when “the days were full.”30 There is, however, no real proof for the traditional antiquity of Deuteronomy. The book forms a very distinctive landmark in the religious history by reason of its attitude to cult and ritual (see Hebrew Religion, § 7). In particular it is aimed against the worship at the numerous minor sanctuaries and inculcates the sole pre-eminence of the one great sanctuary—the Temple of Jerusalem. This centralization involved the removal of the local priests and a modification of ritual and legal observance. The fall of Samaria, Sennacherib’s devastation of Judah, and the growth of Jerusalem as the capital, had tended to raise the position of the Temple, although Israel itself, as also Judah, had famous sanctuaries of its own. From the standpoint of the popular religion, the removal of the local altars, like Hezekiah’s destruction of the brazen serpent, would be an act of desecration, an iconoclasm which can be partly appreciated from the sentiments of 2 Kings xviii. 22, and partly also from the modern Wahhabite reformation (of the 19th century). But the details and success of the reforms, when viewed in the light of the testimony of contemporary prophets, are uncertain. The book of Deuteronomy crystallizes a doctrine; it is the codification of teaching which presupposes a carefully prepared soil. The account of Josiah’s work, like that of Hezekiah, is written by one of the Deuteronomic school: that is to say, the writer describes the promulgation of the teaching under which he lives. It is part of the scheme which runs through the book of Kings, and its apparent object is to show that the Temple planned by David and founded by Solomon ultimately gained its true position as the only sanctuary of Yahweh to which his worshippers should repair. Accordingly, in handling Josiah’s successors the writer no longer refers to the high places. But if Josiah carried out the reforms ascribed to him they were of no lasting effect. This is conclusively shown by the writings of Jeremiah (xxv. 3-7, xxxvi. 2 seq.) and Ezekiel. Josiah himself is praised for his justice, but faithless Judah is insincere (Jer. iii. 10), and those who claim to possess Yahweh’s law are denounced (viii. 8). If Israel could appear to be better than Judah (iii. 11; Ezek. xvi., xxiii.), the religious revival was a practical failure, and it was not until a century later that the opportunity again came to put any new teaching into effect (§ 20). On the other hand, the book of Deuteronomy has a characteristic social-religious side; its humanity, philanthropy and charity are the distinctive features of its laws, and Josiah’s reputation (Jer. xxii. 15 seq.) and the circumstances in which he was chosen king may suggest that he, like Jehoash (2 Kings xi. 17; cf. xxiii. 3), had entered into a reciprocal covenant with a people who, as Micah’s writings would indicate, had suffered grievous oppression and misery.31
17. The Fall of the Judaean Monarchy.—In Josiah’s reign a new era was beginning in the history of the world. Assyria was rapidly decaying and Egypt had recovered from the blows of Assur-bani-pal (to which the Hebrew prophet Nahum alludes, iii. 8-10). Psammetichus (Psamtek) I., one of the ablest of Egyptian rulers for many centuries, threw off the Assyrian yoke with the help of troops from Asia Minor and employed these to guard his eastern frontiers at Defneh. He also revived the old trading-connexions between Egypt and Phoenicia. A Chaldean prince, Nabopolassar, set himself up in Babylonia, and Assyria was compelled to invoke the aid of the Aškuza. It was perhaps after this that an inroad of Scythians (q.v.) occurred (c. 626 B.C.); if it did not actually touch Judah, the advent of the people of the north appears to have caused great alarm (Jer. iv.-vi.: Zephaniah). Bethshean in Samaria has perhaps preserved in its later (though temporary) name Scythopolis an echo of the invasion.32 Later, Necho, son of Psammetichus, proposed to add to Egypt some of the Assyrian provinces, and marched through Palestine. Josiah at once interposed; it is uncertain whether, in spite of the power of Egypt, he had hopes of extending his kingdom, or whether the famous reformer was, like Manasseh, a vassal of Assyria. The book of Kings gives the standpoint of a later Judaean writer, but Josiah’s authority over a much larger area than Judah alone is suggested by xxiii. 19 (part of an addition), and by the references to the border at Riblah in Ezek. vi. 14, xi. 10 seq. He was slain at Megiddo in 608, and Egypt, as in the long-distant past, again held Palestine and Syria. The Judaeans made Jehoahaz (or Shallum) their king, but the Pharaoh banished him to Egypt three months later and appointed his brother Jehoiakim. Shortly afterwards Nineveh fell, and with it the empire which had dominated the fortunes of Palestine for over two centuries (see § 10). Nabonidus (Nabunaid) king of Babylonia (556 B.C.) saw in the disaster the vengeance of the gods for the sacrilege of Sennacherib; the Hebrew prophets, for their part, exulted over Yahweh’s far-reaching judgment. The newly formed Chaldean power at once recognized in Necho a dangerous rival and Nabopolassar sent his son Nebuchadrezzar, who overthrew the Egyptian forces at Carchemish (605). The battle was the turning-point of the age, and with it the succession of the new Chaldean or Babylonian kingdom was assured. But the relations between Egypt and Judah were not broken off. The course of events is not clear, but Jehoiakim (q.v.) at all events was inclined to rely upon Egypt. He died just as Nebuchadrezzar, seeing his warnings disregarded, was preparing to lay siege to Jerusalem. His young son Jehoiachin surrendered after a three months’ reign, with his mother and the court; they were taken away to Babylonia, together with a number of the artisan class (596). Jehoiakim’s brother, Mattaniah or Zedekiah, was set in his place under an oath of allegiance, which he broke, preferring Hophra the new king of Egypt. A few years later the second siege took place. It began on the tenth day of the tenth month, January 587. The looked-for intervention of Egypt was unavailing, although a temporary raising of the siege inspired wild hopes. Desertion, pestilence and famine added to the usual horrors of a siege, and at length on the ninth day of the fourth month 586, a breach was made in the walls. Zedekiah fled towards the Jordan valley but was seized and taken to Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah (45 m. south of Hamath). His sons were slain before his eyes, and he himself was blinded and carried off to Babylon after a reign of eleven years. The Babylonian Nebuzaradan was sent to take vengeance upon the rebellious city, and on the seventh day of the fifth month 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed. The Temple, palace and city buildings were burned, the walls broken down, the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and other leaders were put to death, and a large body of people was again carried away. The disaster became the great epoch-making event for Jewish history and literature.
Throughout these stormy years the prophet Jeremiah (q.v.) had realized that Judah’s only hope lay in submission to Babylonia. Stigmatized as a traitor, scorned and even imprisoned, he had not ceased to utter his warnings to deaf ears, although Zedekiah himself was perhaps open to persuasion. Now the penalty had been paid, and the Babylonians, whose policy was less destructive than that of Assyria, contented themselves with appointing as governor a certain Gedaliah. The new centre was Mizpah, a commanding eminence and sanctuary, about 5 m. N.W. of Jerusalem; and here Gedaliah issued an appeal to the people to 384 be loyal to Babylonia and to resume their former peaceful occupations. The land had not been devastated, and many gladly returned from their hiding-places in Moab, Edom and Ammon. But discontented survivors of the royal family under Ishmael intrigued with Baalis, king of Ammon. The plot resulted in the murder of Gedaliah and an unsuccessful attempt to carry off various princesses and officials who had been left in the governor’s care. This new confusion and a natural fear of Babylonia’s vengeance led many to feel that their only safety lay in flight to Egypt, and, although warned by Jeremiah that even there the sword would find them, they fled south and took refuge in Tahpanhes (Daphnae, q.v.), afterwards forming small settlements in other parts of Egypt. But the thread of the history is broken, and apart from an allusion to the favour shown to the captive Jehoiachin (with which the books of Jeremiah and Kings conclude), there is a gap in the records, and subsequent events are viewed from a new standpoint (§ 20).
The last few years of the Judaean kingdom present several difficult problems.
(a) That there was some fluctuation of tradition is evident in the case of Jehoiakim, with whose quiet end (2 Kings xxiv. 6 [see also Lucian]; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 8 [Septuagint]) contrast the fate foreshadowed in Jer. xxii. 18 seq., xxxvi. 30 (cf. Jos. Ant. x. 6, 2 seq.). The tradition of his captivity (2 Chron. xxxvi. 6; Dan. i. 2) has apparently confused him with Jehoiachin, and the latter’s reign is so brief that some overlapping is conceivable. Moreover, the prophecy in Jer. xxxiv. 5 that Zedekiah would die in peace is not borne out by the history, nor does Josiah’s fate agree with the promise in 2 Kings xxii. 20. There is also an evident relation between the pairs: Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah (e.g. length of reigns), and the difficulty felt in regard to the second and third is obvious in the attempts of the Jewish historian Josephus to provide a compromise. The contemporary prophecies ascribed to Jeremiah and Ezekiel require careful examination in this connexion, partly as regards their traditional background (especially the headings and setting), and partly for their contents, the details of which sometimes do not admit of a literal interpretation in accordance with our present historical material (cf. Ezek. xix. 3-9, where the two brothers carried off to Egypt and Babylon respectively would seem to be Jehoahaz and his nephew Jehoiachin).
(b) Some fluctuation is obvious in the number, dates and extent of the deportations. Jer. lii. 28-30 gives a total of 4600 persons, in contrast to 2 Kings xxiv. 14, 16 (the numbers are not inclusive), and reckons three deportations in the 7th (? 17th), 18th and 23rd years of Nebuchadrezzar. Only the second is specifically said to be from Jerusalem (the remaining are of Judaeans), and the last has been plausibly connected with the murder of Gedaliah, an interval of five years being assumed. For this twenty-third year Josephus (Ant. x. 9, 7) gives an invasion of Egypt and an attack upon Ammon, Moab and Palestine (see Nebuchadrezzar).
(c) That the exile lasted seventy years (? from 586 B.C. to the completion of the second temple) is the view of the canonical history (2 Chron. xxxvi. 21; Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10; Zech. i. 12; cf. Tyre, Isa. xxiii. 15), but it is usually reckoned from the first deportation, which was looked upon as of greater significance than the second (Jer. xxiv. xxix.), and it may be a round number. Another difficulty is the interpretation of the 40 years in Ezek. iv. 6 (cf. Egypt, xxix. 11), and the 390 in v. 5 (Septuagint 150 or 190; 130 in Jos. x. 9, 7 end). A period of fifty years is allowed by the chronological scheme (1 Kings vi. 1; cf. Jos. c. Ap. i. 21), and the late book of Baruch (vi. 3) even speaks of seven generations. Varying chronological schemes may have been current and some weight must be laid upon the remarkable vagueness of the historical information in later writings (see Daniel).
(d) The attitude of the neighbouring peoples constitutes another serious problem (cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 2 and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5, where Lucian’s recension and the Septuagint respectively add the Samaritans!), in view of the circumstances of Gedaliah’s appointment (Jer. xl. 11, see above) as contrasted with the frequent prophecies against Ammon, Moab and Edom which seem to be contemporary (see Edom; Moab).
(e) Finally, the recurrence of similar historical situations in Judaean history must be considered. The period under review, with its relations between Judah and Egypt, can be illustrated by prophecies ascribed to a similar situation in the time of Hezekiah. But the destruction of Jerusalem is not quite unique, and somewhat later we meet with indirect evidence for at least one similar disaster upon which the records are silent. There are a number of apparently related passages which, however, on internal grounds, are unsuitable to the present period, and when they show independent signs of a later date (in their present form), there is a very strong probability that they refer to such subsequent disasters. The scantiness of historical tradition makes a final solution impossible, but the study of these years has an important bearing on the history of the later Judaean state, which has been characteristically treated from the standpoint of exiles who returned from Babylonia and regard themselves as the kernel of “Israel.” From this point of view, the desire to intensify the denudation of Palestine and the fate of its remnant, and to look to the Babylonian exiles for the future, can probably be recognized in the writings attributed to contemporary prophets.33
18. Internal Conditions and the Exile.—Many of the exiles accepted their lot and settled down in Babylonia (cf. Jer. xxix. 4-7); Jewish colonies, too, were being founded in Egypt. The agriculturists and herdsmen who had been left in Palestine formed, as always, the staple population, and it is impossible to imagine either Judah or Israel as denuded of its inhabitants. The down-trodden peasants were left in peace to divide the land among them, and new conditions arose as they took over the ownerless estates. But the old continuity was not entirely broken; there was a return to earlier conditions, and life moved more freely in its wonted channels. The fall of the monarchy involved a reversion to a pre-monarchical state. It had scarcely been otherwise in Israel. The Israelites who had been carried off by the Assyrians were also removed from the cult of the land (cf. 1 Sam. xxvi. 19; Ruth i. 15 seq.). It is possible that some had escaped by taking timely refuge among their brethren in Judah; indeed, if national tradition availed, there were doubtless times when Judah cast its eye upon the land with which it had been so intimately connected. It would certainly be unwise to draw a sharp boundary line between the two districts; kings of Judah could be tempted to restore the kingdom of their traditional founder, or Assyria might be complaisant towards a faithful Judaean vassal. The character of the Assyrian domination over Israel must not be misunderstood; the regular payment of tribute and the provision of troops were the main requirements, and the position of the masses underwent little change if an Assyrian governor took the place of an unpopular native ruler. The two sections of the Hebrews who had had so much in common were scarcely severed by a border-line only a few miles to the north of Jerusalem. But Israel after the fall of Samaria is artificially excluded from the Judaean horizon, and lies as a foreign land, although Judah itself had suffered from the intrusion of foreigners in the preceding centuries of war and turmoil, and strangers had settled in her midst, had formed part of the royal guard, or had even served as janissaries (§ 15, end).
Samaria had experienced several changes in its original population,34 and an instructive story tells how the colonists, in their ignorance of the religion of their new home, incurred the divine wrath. Cujus regio ejus religio—settlement upon a new soil involved dependence upon its god, and accordingly priests were sent to instruct the Samaritans in the fear of Yahweh. Thenceforth they continued the worship of the Israelite Yahweh along with their own native cults (2 Kings xvii. 24-28, 33). Their descendants claimed participation in the privileges of the Judaeans (cf. Jer. xli. 5), and must have identified themselves with the old stock (Ezra iv. 2). Whatever recollection they preserved of their origin and of the circumstances of their entry would be retold from a new standpoint; the ethnological traditions would gain a new meaning; the assimilation would in time become complete. In view of subsequent events it would be difficult to find a more interesting subject of inquiry than the internal religious and sociological conditions in Samaria at this age.
To the prophets the religious position was lower in Judah than in Samaria, whose iniquities were less grievous (Jer. iii. 11 seq., xxiii. 11 sqq.; Ezek. xvi. 51). The greater prevalence of heathen elements in Jerusalem, as detailed in the reforms of Josiah or in the writings of the prophets (cf. Ezek. viii.), would 385 at least suggest that the destruction of the state was not entirely a disaster. To this catastrophe may be due the fragmentary character of old Judaean historical traditions. Moreover, the land was purified when it became divorced from the practices of a luxurious court and lost many of its worst inhabitants. In Israel as in Judah the political disasters not only meant a shifting of population, they also brought into prominence the old popular and non-official religion, the character of which is not to be condemned because of the attitude of lofty prophets in advance of their age. When there were sects like the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv.), when the Judaean fields could produce a Micah or a Zephaniah, and when Israel no doubt had men who inherited the spirit of a Hosea, the nature of the underlying conditions can be more justly appreciated. The writings of the prophets were cherished, not only in the unfavourable atmosphere of courts (see Jer. xxxvi., 21 sqq.), but also in the circles of their followers (Isa. viii. 16). In the quiet smaller sanctuaries the old-time beliefs were maintained, and the priests, often perhaps of the older native stock (cf. 2 Kings xvii. 28 and above), were the recognized guardians of the religious cults. The old stories of earlier days encircle places which, though denounced for their corruption, were not regarded as illegitimate, and in the form in which the dim traditions of the past are now preserved they reveal an attempt to purify popular belief and thought. In the domestic circles of prophetic communities the part played by their great heads in history did not suffer in the telling, and it is probable that some part at least of the extant history of the Israelite kingdom passed through the hands of men whose interest lay in the pre-eminence of their seers and their beneficent deeds on behalf of these small communities. This interest and the popular tone of the history may be combined with the fact that the literature does not take us into the midst of that world of activity in which the events unfolded themselves.
Although the records preserve complete silence upon the period now under review, it is necessary to free oneself from the narrow outlook of the later Judaean compilers. It is a gratuitous assumption that the history of (north) Israel ceased with the fall of Samaria or that Judah then took over Israelite literature and inherited the old Israelite spirit: the question of the preservation of earlier writings is of historical importance. It is true that the situation in Israel or Samaria continues obscure, but a careful study of literary productions, evidently not earlier than the 7th century B.C., reveals a particular loftiness of conception and a tendency which finds its parallels in Hosea and approximates the peculiar characteristics of the Deuteronomic school of thought. But the history which the Judaean writers have handed down is influenced by the later hostility between Judah and Samaria. The traditional bond between the north and south which nothing could efface (cf. Jos. Ant., xi. 8, 6) has been carried back to the earliest ages; yet the present period, after the age of rival kingdoms, Judah and Israel, and before the foundation of Judaism, is that in which the historical background for the inclusion of Judah among the “sons” of Israel is equally suitable (§§ 5, 20, end). The circumstances favoured a closer alliance between the people of Palestine, and a greater prominence of the old holy places (Hebron, Bethel, Shechem, &c.), of which the ruined Jerusalem would not be one, and the existing condition of Judah and Israel from internal and non-political points of view—not their condition in the pre-monarchical ages—is the more crucial problem in biblical history.35
19. Persian Period.36—The course of events from the middle of the 6th century B.C. to the close of the Persian period is lamentably obscure, although much indirect evidence indicates that this age holds the key to the growth of written biblical history. It was an age of literary activity which manifested itself, not in contemporary historical records—only a few of which have survived—but rather in the special treatment of previously existing sources. The problems are of unusual intricacy and additional light is needed from external evidence. It will be convenient to turn to this first. Scarcely 40 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, a new power appeared in the east in the person of Cyrus the Great. Babylon speedily fell (539 B.C.) and a fresh era opened. To the petty states this meant only a change of masters; they now became part of one of the largest empires of antiquity. The prophets who had marked in the past the advent of Assyrians and Chaldeans now fixed their eyes upon the advance of Cyrus, confident that the fall of Babylon would bring the restoration of their fortunes. Cyrus was hailed as the divinely appointed saviour, the anointed one of Yahweh. The poetic imagery in which the prophets clothed the doom of Babylon, like the romantic account of Herodotus (i. 191), falls short of the simple contemporary account of Cyrus himself. He did not fulfil the detailed predictions, and the events did not reach the ideals of Hebrew writers; but these anticipations may have influenced the form which the Jewish traditions subsequently took. Nevertheless, if Cyrus was not originally a Persian and was not a worshipper of Yahweh (Isa. xli. 25), he was at least tolerant towards subject races and their religions, and the persistent traditions unmistakably point to the honour in which his memory was held. Throughout the Persian supremacy Palestine was necessarily influenced by the course of events in Phoenicia and Egypt (with which intercourse was continual), and some light may thus be indirectly thrown on its otherwise obscure political history. Thus, when Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, made his great expedition against Egypt, with the fleets of Phoenicia and Cyprus and with the camels of the Arabians, it is highly probable that Palestine itself was concerned. Also, the revolt which broke out in the Persian provinces at this juncture may have extended to Palestine; although the usurper Darius encountered his most serious opposition in the north and north-east of his empire. An outburst of Jewish religious feeling is dated in the second year of Darius (520), but whether Judah was making a bold bid for independence or had received special favour for abstaining from the above revolts, external evidence alone can decide. Towards the close of the reign of Darius there was a fresh revolt in Egypt; it was quelled by Xerxes (485-465), who did not imitate the religious tolerance of his predecessors. Artaxerxes I. Longimanus (465-425), attracts attention because the famous Jewish reformers Ezra and Nehemiah flourished under a king of this name. Other revolts occurred in Egypt, and for these and also for the rebellion of the Persian satrap Megabyzos (c. 448-447), independent evidence for the position of Judah is needed, since a catastrophe apparently befell the unfortunate state before Nehemiah appears upon the scene. Little is known of the mild and indolent Artaxerxes II. Mnemon (404-359). With the growing weakness of the Persian empire Egypt reasserted its independence for a time. In the reign of Artaxerxes III. Ochus (359-338), Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus were in revolt; the rising was quelled without mercy, and the details of the vengeance are valuable for the possible fate of Palestine itself. The Jewish historian Josephus (Ant. xi. 7) records the enslavement of the Jews, the pollution of the Temple by a certain Bagoses (see Bagoas), and a seven years’ punishment. Other late sources narrate the destruction of Jericho and a deportation of the Jews to Babylonia and to Hyrcania (on the Caspian Sea). The evidence for the catastrophes under Artaxerxes I. and III. (see Artaxerxes), exclusively contained in biblical and in external tradition respectively, is of particular importance, since several biblical passages refer to disasters similar to those of 586 but presuppose different conditions and are apparently of later origin.37 The murder of Artaxerxes III. by 386 Bagoses gave a set-back to the revival of the Persian Empire. Under Darius Codomannus (336-330) the advancing Greek power brought matters to a head, and at the battle of Issus in 333 Alexander settled its fate. The overthrow of Tyre and Gaza secured the possession of the coast and the Jewish state entered upon the Greek period. (See § 25.)
During these two centuries the Jews in Palestine had been only one of an aggregate of subject peoples enjoying internal freedom provided in return for a regular tribute. They lived in comparative quietude; although Herodotus knows the Palestinian coast he does not mention the Jews. The earlier Persian kings acknowledged the various religions of the petty peoples; they were also patrons of their temples and would take care to preserve an ancient right of asylum or the privileges of long-established cults.38 Cyrus on entering Babylon had even restored the gods to the cities to which they belonged.39 Consequently much interest attaches to the evidence which illustrates the environment of the Jews during this period. Those who had been scattered from Palestine lived in small colonies, sometimes mingling and intermarrying with the natives, sometimes strictly preserving their own individuality. Some took root in the strange lands, and, as later popular stories indicate, evidently reached high positions; others, retaining a more vivid tradition of the land of their fathers, cherished the ideal of a restored Jerusalem. Excavation at Nippur (q.v.) in Babylonia has brought to light numerous contract tablets of the 5th century B.C. with Hebrew proper names (Haggai, Hanani, Gedaliah, &c.). Papyri from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, of the same age, proceed from Jewish families who carry on a flourishing business, live among Egyptians and Persians, and take their oaths in courts of law in the name of the god “Yahu,” the “God of Heaven,” whose temple dated from the last Egyptian kings. Indeed, it was claimed that Cambyses had left the sanctuary unharmed but had destroyed the temples of the Egyptians. In Elephantine, as in Nippur, the legal usages show that similar elements of Babylonio-Assyrian culture prevailed, and the evidence from two such widely separated fields is instructive for conditions in Palestine itself.40
20. The Restoration of Judah.—The biblical history for the Persian period is contained in a new source—the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, whose standpoint and period are that of Chronicles, with which they are closely joined. After a brief description of the fall of Jerusalem the “seventy years” of the exile are passed over, and we are plunged into a history of the return (2 Chron. xxxvi.; Ezra i.). Although Palestine had not been depopulated, and many of the exiled Jews remained in Persia, the standpoint is that of those who returned from Babylon. Settled in and around Jerusalem, they look upon themselves as the sole community, the true Israel, even as it was believed that once before Israel entered and developed independently in the land of its ancestors. They look back from the age when half-suppressed hostility with Samaria had broken out, and when an exclusive Judaism had been formed. The interest of the writers is as usual in the religious history; they were indifferent to, or perhaps rather ignorant of, the strict order of events. Their narratives can be partially supplemented from other sources (Haggai; Zechariah i.-viii.; Isa. xl.-lxvi.; Malachi), but a consecutive sketch is impossible.41
In 561 B.C. the captive Judaean king, Jehoiachin, had received special marks of favour from Nebuchadrezzar’s son Amil-marduk. So little is known of this act of recognition that its significance can only be conjectured. A little later Tyre received as its king Merbaal (555-552) who had been fetched from Babylonia. Babylonia was politically unsettled, the representative of the Davidic dynasty had descendants; if Babylon was assured of the allegiance of Judah further acts of clemency may well have followed. But the later recension of Judaean history—our sole source—entirely ignores the elevation of Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27 sqq.; Jer. lii. 31-34), and proceeds at once to the first year of Cyrus, who proclaims as his divine mission the rebuilding of the Temple (538). The Judaean Sheshbazzar (a corruption of some Babylonian name) brought back the Temple vessels which Nebuchadrezzar had carried away and prepared to undertake the work at the expense of the royal purse. An immense body of exiles is said to have returned at this time to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, who was of Davidic descent, and the priest Jeshua or Joshua, the grandson of the murdered Seraiah (Ezra i.-iii.; v. 13-vi. 5). When these refused the proffered help of the people of Samaria, men of the same faith as themselves (iv. 2), their troubles began, and the Samaritans retaliated by preventing the rebuilding. The next historical notice is dated in the second year of Darius (520) when two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, came forward to kindle the Judaeans to new efforts, and in spite of opposition the work went steadily onwards, thanks to the favour of Darius, until the Temple was completed four years later (Ezra v. 2, vi. 13 sqq.). On the other hand, from the independent writings ascribed to these prophets, it appears that no considerable body of exiles could have returned—it is still an event of the future (Zech. ii. 7, vi. 15); little, if anything, had been done to the Temple (Hag. ii. 15); and Zerubbabel is the one to take in hand and complete the great undertaking (Zech. iv. 9). The prophets address themselves to men living in comfortable abodes with olive-fields and vineyards, suffering from bad seasons and agricultural depression, and though the country is unsettled there is no reference to any active opposition on the part of Samaritans. So far from drawing any lesson from the brilliant event in the reign of Cyrus, the prophets imply that Yahweh’s wrath is still upon the unfortunate city and that Persia is still the oppressor. Consequently, although small bodies of individuals no doubt came back to Judah from time to time, and some special mark of favour may have been shown by Cyrus, the opinion has gained ground since the early arguments of E. Schrader (Stud. u. Krit., 1867, pp. 460-504), that the compiler’s representation of the history is untrustworthy. His main object is to make the new Israel, the post-exilic community at Jerusalem, continuous, as a society, with the old Israel.42 Greater weight must be laid upon the independent evidence of the prophetical writings, and the objection that Palestine could not have produced the religious fervency of Haggai or Zechariah without an initial impulse from Babylonia begs the question. Unfortunately the internal conditions in the 6th century B.C. can be only indirectly estimated (§ 18), and the political position must remain for the present quite uncertain. In Zerubbabel the people beheld once more a ruler of the Davidic race. The new temple heralded a new future; the mournful fasts commemorative of Jerusalem’s disasters would become feasts; Yahweh had left the Temple at the fall of Jerusalem, but had now returned to sanctify it with his presence; the city had purged its iniquity and was fit once more to become the central sanctuary. So Haggai sees in Zerubbabel the representative of the 387 ideal kingdom, the trusted and highly favoured minister who was the signet-ring upon Yahweh’s hand (contrast Hag. ii. 24 with Jer. xxii. 23). Zechariah, in his turn, proclaims the overthrow of all difficulties in the path of the new king, who shall rule in glory supported by the priest (Zech. vi.). What political aspirations were revived, what other writers were inspired by these momentous events are questions of inference.
A work which inculcates the dependence of the state upon the purity of its ruler is the unfinished book of Kings with its history of the Davidic dynasty and the Temple. Its ideals culminate in Josiah (§ 16, end), and there is a strong presumption that it is intended to impress upon the new era the lessons drawn from the past. Its treatment of the monarchy is only part of a great and now highly complicated literary undertaking (traceable in the books Joshua to Kings), inspired with the thought and coloured by language characteristic of Deuteronomy (especially the secondary portions), which forms the necessary introduction. Whatever reforms Josiah actually accomplished, the restoration afforded the opportunity of bringing the Deuteronomic teaching into action; though it is more probable that Deuteronomy itself in the main is not much earlier than the second half of the 6th century B.C.43 It shows a strong nationalist feeling which is not restricted to Judah alone, but comprises a greater Israel from Kadesh in Naphtali in the north to Hebron in the south, and even extends beyond the Jordan. Distinctive non-Judaean features are included, as in the Samaritan liturgical office (Deut. xxvii. 14-26), and the evidence for the conclusion that traditions originally of (north) Israelite interest were taken over and adapted to the later standpoint of Judah and Jerusalem (viz. in the Deuteronomic book of Kings) independently confirms the inferences drawn from Deuteronomy itself. The absence of direct testimony can be partially supplied by later events which presuppose the break-up of no inconsiderable state, and imply relations with Samaria which had been by no means so unfriendly as the historians represent. A common ground for Judaism and Samaritanism is obvious, and it is in this obscure age that it is to be sought. But the curtain is raised for too brief an interval to allow of more than a passing glimpse at the restoration of Judaean fortunes; not until the time of Nehemiah, about 140 years after the fall of Jerusalem, does the historical material become less imperfect.
Upon this blank period before the foundation of Judaism (§§ 21, 23) much light is also thrown by another body of evidence. It has long been recognized that 1 Chron. ii. and iv. represent a Judah composed mainly of groups which had moved up from the south (Hebron) to the vicinity of Jerusalem. It includes Caleb and Jerahmeel, Kenite or Rechabite families, scribes, &c., and these, as “sons” of Hezron, claim some relationship with Gilead. The names point generally to an affinity with south Palestine and north Arabia (Edom, Midian, &c.; see especially the lists in Gen. xxxvi.), and suggest that certain members of a closely related collection of groups had separated from the main body and were ultimately enrolled as Israelites. It is also recognized by many scholars that in the present account of the exodus there are indications of the original prominence of traditions of Kadesh, and also of a journey northwards in which Caleb, Kenites and others took part (§ 5). On these and on other grounds besides, it has long been felt that south Palestine, with its north Arabian connexions, is of real importance in biblical research, and for many years efforts have been made to determine the true significance of the evidence. The usual tendency has been to regard it in the light of the criticism of early Israelite history, which demands some reconstruction (§ 8), and to discern distinct tribal movements previous to the union of Judah and Israel under David. On the other hand, the elaborate theory of T. K. Cheyne involves the view that a history dealing with the south actually underlies our sources and can be recovered by emendation of the text. Against the former is the fact that although certain groups are ultimately found in Judah (Judg. i.), the evidence for the movement—a conquest north of Kadesh, almost at the gate of the promised land—explicitly mentions Israel; and against the latter the evidence again shows that this representation has been deliberately subordinated to the entrance of Israel from beyond the Jordan.44 In either case the history of separate sections of people may have been extended to Israel as a whole, but there is no evidence for any adequate reconstruction. Yet the presence of distinct representations of the history may be recognized, and since the Judaean compilers of the Old Testament have incorporated non-Judaean sources (e.g. the history of the northern monarchy), it is obvious that, apart from indigenous Judaean tradition, the southern groups which were ultimately enrolled in Judah would possess their own stock of oral and written lore. Hence it is noteworthy that the late editor of Judges has given the first place to Othniel, a Kenizzite, and therefore of Edomite affinity, though subsequently reckoned as a Judaean (Judg i. 13, iii. 9; cf. Gen. xxxvi. 11; 1 Chron. iv. 13). Of Kenite interest is the position of Cain, ancestor of heroes of culture and of the worship of Yahweh (Gen. iv. 17 sqq.). One fragmentary source alludes to a journey to the Midianite or Kenite father-in-law of Moses with the Ark (q.v.); another knows of its movements with David and the priest Abiathar (a name closely related to Jether or Jethro; cf. also 1 Chron. iv. 17). Distinctively Calebite are the stories of the eponym who, fearless of the “giants” of Palestine, gained striking divine promises (Num. xiv. 11-24); Caleb’s overthrow of the Hebronite giants finds a parallel in David’s conflicts before the capture of Jerusalem, and may be associated with the belief that these primitive giants once filled the land (Josh. xi. 21 seq.; see § 7, and David; Samuel, Books of). Calebite, too, are Hebron and its patron Abraham, and both increase in prominence in the patriarchal narratives, where, moreover, an important body of tradition can have emanated only from outside Israel and Judah (see Genesis). Although Judah was always closely connected with the south, these “southern” features (once clearly more extensive and complete) are found in the Deuteronomic and priestly compilations, and their presence in the historical records can hardly be severed from the prominence of “southern” families in the vicinity of Jerusalem, some time after the fall of Jerusalem. The background in 1 Chron. ii. presupposes the desolation after that disaster, and some traces of these families are found in Nehemiah’s time; and while the traditions know of a separation from Edom (viz. stories of Jacob and his “brother” Esau), elsewhere Edom is frequently denounced for unbrotherly conduct in connexion with some disaster which befell Jerusalem, apparently long after 586 B.C. (see § 22).45 The true inwardness of this movement, its extent and its history, can hardly be recovered at present, but it is noteworthy that the evidence generally involves the Levites, an ecclesiastical body which underwent an extremely intricate development. To a certain extent it would seem that even as Chronicles (q.v.) has passed through the hands of one who was keenly interested in the Temple service, so the other historical books have been shaped not only by the late priestly writers (symbolized in literary criticism by P), but also by rather earlier writers, also of priestly sympathies, but of “southern” or half-Edomite affinity. This is independently suggested by the contents and vicissitudes of the purely ecclesiastical traditions.46
Recent criticism goes to show that there is a very considerable body of biblical material, more important for its attitude to the history than for its historical accuracy, the true meaning of which cannot as yet be clearly perceived. It raises many serious problems which concentrate upon that age which is of the greatest importance for the biblical and theological student. The perplexing relation between the admittedly late compilations and the actual course of the early history becomes still more intricate when one observes such a feature as the late interest in the Israelite tribes. No doubt there is much that is purely artificial and untrustworthy in the late (post-exilic) representations of these divisions, but it is almost incredible that the historical foundation for their early career is severed from the written sources by centuries of warfare, immigration and other disturbing factors. On the one hand, conservative scholars insist upon the close material relation between the constituent sources; critical scholars, on the other hand, while recognizing much that is relatively untrustworthy, refrain from departing from the general outlines of the canonical history more than is absolutely necessary. Hence the various reconstructions of the earlier history, with all their inherent weaknesses. But 388 historical criticism is faced with the established literary conclusions which, it should be noticed, place the Deuteronomic and priestly compilations posterior to the great changes at and after the fall of the northern monarchy, and, to some extent, contemporary with the equally serious changes in Judah. There were catastrophes detrimental to the preservation of older literary records, and vicissitudes which, if they have not left their mark on contemporary history—which is singularly blank—may be traced on the representations of the past. There are external historical circumstances and internal literary features which unite to show that the application of the literary hypotheses of the Old Testament to the course of Israelite history is still incomplete, and they warn us that the intrinsic value of religious and didactic writings should not depend upon the accuracy of their history.47 Future research may not be able to solve the problems which arise in the study of the period now under discussion; it is the more necessary, therefore, that all efforts should be tested in the light of purely external evidence (see further § 24; and Palestine: History).
21. Nehemiah and Ezra.—There is another remarkable gap in the historical traditions between the time of Zerubbabel and the reign of Artaxerxes I. In obscure circumstances the enthusiastic hopes have melted away, the Davidic scion has disappeared, and Jerusalem has been the victim of another disaster. The country is under Persian officials, the nobles and priests form the local government, and the ground is being prepared for the erection of a hierocracy. It is the work of rebuilding and reorganization, of social and of religious reforms, which we encounter in the last pages of biblical history, and in the records of Ezra and Nehemiah we stand in Jerusalem in the very centre of epoch-making events. Nehemiah, the cup-bearer of Artaxerxes at Susa, plunged in grief at the news of the desolation of Jerusalem, obtained permission from the king to rebuild the ruins. Provided with an escort and with the right to obtain supplies of wood for the buildings, he returned to the city of his fathers’ sepulchres (the allusion may suggest his royal ancestry). His zeal is represented in a twofold aspect. Having satisfied himself of the extent of the ruins, he aroused the people to the necessity of fortifying and repopulating the city, and a vivid account is given in his name of the many dangers which beset the rebuilding of the walls. Sanballat of Horon, Tobiah the Ammonite, and Gashmu the Arabian (? Edomite) unceasingly opposed him. Tobiah and his son Johanan were related by marriage to Judaean secular and priestly families, and active intrigues resulted, in which nobles and prophets took their part. It was insinuated that Nehemiah had his prophets to proclaim that Judah had again its own king; it was even suggested that he was intending to rebel against Persia! Nehemiah naturally gives us only his version, and the attitude of Haggai and Zechariah to Zerubbabel may illustrate the feeling of his partisans. But Tobiah and Johanan themselves were worshippers of Yahweh (as their names also show), and consequently, with prophets taking different sides and with the Samaritan claims summarily repudiated (Neh. ii. 20; cf. Ezra iv. 3), all the facts cannot be gathered from the narratives. Nevertheless the undaunted Judaean pressed on unmoved by the threatening letters which were sent around, and succeeded in completing the walls within fifty-two days.48
In the next place, Nehemiah appears as governor of the small district of Judah and Benjamin. Famine, the avarice of the rich, and the necessity of providing tribute had brought the humbler classes to the lowest straits. Some had mortgaged their houses, fields and vineyards to buy corn; others had borrowed to pay the taxes, and had sold their children to their richer brethren to repay the debt. Nehemiah was faced with old abuses, and vehemently contrasted the harshness of the nobles with the generosity of the exiles who would redeem their poor countrymen from slavery. He himself had always refrained from exacting the usual provision which other governors had claimed; indeed, he had readily entertained over 150 officials and dependants at his table, apart from casual refugees (Neh. v.). We hear something of a twelve-years’ governorship and of a second visit, but the evidence does not enable us to determine the sequence (xiii. 6). Neh. v. is placed in the middle of the building of the walls in fifty-two days; the other reforms during the second visit are closely connected with the dedication of the walls and with the events which immediately follow his first arrival when he had come to rebuild the city. Nehemiah also turns his attention to religious abuses. The sabbath, once a festival, had become more strictly observed, and when he found the busy agriculturists and traders (some of them from Tyre) pursuing their usual labours on that day, he pointed to the disasters which had resulted in the past from such profanation, and immediately took measures to put down the evil (Neh. xiii. 18; cf. Jer. xvii. 20 sqq.; Ezek. xx. 13-24; Isa. lvi. 2, 6; lviii. 13). Moreover, the maintenance of the Temple servants called for supervision; the customary allowances had not been paid to the Levites who had come to Jerusalem after the smaller shrines had been put down, and they had now forsaken the city. His last acts were the most conspicuous of all. Some of the Jews had married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, and the impetuous governor indignantly adjured them to desist from a practice which was the historic cause of national sin. Even members of the priestly families had intermarried with Tobiah and Sanballat; the former had his own chamber in the precincts of the Temple, the daughter of the latter was the wife of a son of Joiada the son of the high priest Eliashib. Again Nehemiah’s wrath was kindled. Tobiah was cast out, the offending priest expelled, and a general purging followed, in which all the foreign element was removed. With this Nehemiah brings the account of his reforms to a conclusion, and the words “Remember me, O my God, for good” (xiii. 31) are not meaningless. The incidents can be supplemented from Josephus. According to this writer (Ant. xi. 7, 2), a certain Manasseh, the brother of Jaddua and grandson of Joiada, refused to divorce his wife, the daughter of Sanballat. For this he was driven out, and, taking refuge with the Samaritans, founded a rival temple and priesthood upon Mt Gerizim, to which repaired other priests and Levites who had been guilty of mixed marriages. There is little doubt that Josephus refers to the same events; but there is considerable confusion in his history of the Persian age, and when he places the schism and the foundation of the new Temple in the time of Alexander the Great (after the obscure disasters of the reign of Artaxerxes III.), it is usually supposed that he is a century too late.49 At all events, there is now a complete rupture with Samaria, and thus, in the concluding chapter of the last of the historical books of the Old Testament, Judah maintains its claim to the heritage of Israel and rejects the right of the Samaritans to the title50 (see § 5).
In this separation of the Judaeans from religious and social intercourse with their neighbours, the work of Ezra (q.v.) requires notice. The story of this scribe (now combined with the memoirs of Nehemiah) crystallizes the new movement inaugurated after a return of exiles from Babylonia. The age can also be illustrated from Isa. lvi.-lxvi. and Malachi (q.v.). There was a poor and weak Jerusalem, its Temple stood in need of renovation, its temple-service was mean, its priests unworthy of their office. On the one side was the grinding poverty of the poor; on the other the abuses of the governors. There were two leading religious parties: one of oppressive formalists, exclusive, strict 389 and ritualistic; the other, more cosmopolitan, extended a freer welcome to strangers, and tolerated the popular elements and the superstitious cults which are vividly depicted (Isa. lxv. seq.). But the former gained the day, and, realizing that the only hope of maintaining a pure worship of Yahweh lay in a forcible isolation from foreign influence, its adherents were prepared to take measures to ensure the religious independence of their assembly. It is related that Ezra, the scribe and priest, returned to Jerusalem with priests and Levites, lay exiles, and a store of vessels for the Temple. He was commissioned to inquire into the religious condition of the land and to disseminate the teaching of the Law to which he had devoted himself (Ezra vii.). On his arrival the people were gathered together, and in due course he read the “book of the Law of Moses” dally for seven days (Neh. viii.). They entered into an agreement to obey its teaching, undertaking in particular to avoid marriages with foreigners (x. 28 sqq.). A special account is given of this reform (Ezra ix. seq.) and the description of Ezra’s horror at the prevalence of intermarriage, which threatened to destroy the distinctive character of the community, sufficiently indicates the attitude of the stricter party. The true seed of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners (not, however, without some opposition) and formed an exclusively religious body or “congregation.” Dreams of political freedom gave place to hopes of religious independence, and “Israel” became a church, the foundation of which it sought in the desert of Sinai a thousand years before.
22. Post-exilic History.—The biblical history for the period in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is exceptionally obscure, and it is doubtful how far the traditions can be trusted before we reach the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra vii. sqq., Neh.). The records belonging to this reign represent four different stages: (a) The Samaritans reported that the Jews who had returned from the king to Jerusalem were rebuilding the city and completing its walls, an act calculated to endanger the integrity of the province. Artaxerxes accordingly instructed them to stop the work until he should give the necessary decree, and this was done by force (Ezra iv. 7-23, undated; 1 Esdras ii. 16 sqq. mentions a building of the Temple!). (b) It was in the 7th year (i.e. 458 B.C.) that Ezra returned with a small body of exiles to promulgate the new laws he had brought and to set the Temple service in order.51 Fortified with remarkable powers, some of which far exceed the known tolerance of Persian kings, he began wide-sweeping marriage reforms; but the record ceases abruptly (vii.-x.). (c) In the 20th year (445 B.C.) Nehemiah returned with permission to rebuild the walls, the citadel and the governor’s house (Neh. ii. 5, 8; see § 21 above). But (d), whilst as governor he accomplishes various needed reforms, there is much confusion in the present narratives, due partly to the resumption of Ezra’s labours after an interval of twelve years, and partly to the closely related events of Nehemiah’s activity in which room must be found for his twelve-years’ governorship and a second visit. The internal literary and historical questions are extremely intricate, and the necessity for some reconstruction is very generally felt (for preliminary details, see Ezra and Nehemiah). The disaster which aroused Nehemiah’s grief was scarcely the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., but a more recent one, and it has been conjectured that it followed the work of Ezra (in b above). On the other hand, a place can hardly be found for the history of Ezra before the appearance of Nehemiah; he moves in a settled and peaceful community such as Nehemiah had helped to form, his reforms appear to be more mature and schematic than those of Nehemiah; and, whilst Josephus handles the two separately, giving Ezra the priority, many recent scholars incline to place Nehemiah’s first visit before the arrival of Ezra.52 That later tradition should give the pre-eminence to the priestly reforms of Ezra is in every way natural, but it has been found extremely difficult to combine the two in any reconstruction of the period. Next, since there are three distinct sources, for (a) above, and for the work of Nehemiah and of Ezra, implicit reliance cannot be placed upon the present sequence of narratives. Thus (a), with its allusion to a further decree, forms a plausible prelude to the return of either Ezra (vii. 13) or Nehemiah (i. 3, ii. 3); and if it is surprising that the Samaritans and other opponents, who had previously waited to address Artaxerxes (Ezra iv. 14 sqq., v. 5, 17), should now interfere when Nehemiah was armed with a royal mandate (Neh. ii. 7-9), it is very difficult not to conclude that the royal permits, as now detailed, have been coloured by Jewish patriotism and the history by enmity to Samaria. Finally, the situation in the independent and undated record (a) points to a return, a rebuilding (apparently after some previous destruction), and some interference. This agrees substantially with the independent records of Nehemiah, and unless we assume two disasters not widely separated in date—viz. those presupposed in (a) and (c)—the record in (a), may refer to that stage in the history where the other source describes the intrigues of the Samaritans and the letters sent by Tobiah (cf. Tabeel in Ezra iv. 7) to frighten Nehemiah (Neh. vi. 19).53 Their insinuations that Nehemiah was seeking to be ruler and their representations to Artaxerxes would be enough to alarm the king (cf. Neh. vi. 5-9, 19, and Ezra iv. 15 seq., 20 seq.), and it may possibly be gathered that Nehemiah at once departed to justify himself (Neh. vii. 2, xiii. 4, 6). Nevertheless, since the narratives are no longer in their original form or sequence, it is impossible to trace the successive steps of the sequel; although if the royal favour was endorsed (cf. the account ascribed to the time of Darius, Ezra v. seq.), Nehemiah’s position as a reformer would be more secure.
Although there was a stock of tradition for the post-exilic age (cf. Daniel, Esther, 1 Esdras, Josephus), the historical narratives are of the scantiest and vaguest until the time of Artaxerxes, when the account of a return (Ezra iv. 12), which otherwise is quite ignored, appears to have been used for the times of Darius (1 Esdras iv. seq.) and subsequently of Cyrus (Ezra i.-iii.). Moreover, although general opinion identifies our Artaxerxes with the first of that name, certain features suggest that there has been some confusion with the traditions of the time of Artaxerxes II. and III. (§ 19). But the problems are admittedly complicated, and since one is necessarily dependent upon scanty narratives arranged and rearranged by later hands in accordance with their own historical theories, it is difficult to lay stress upon internal evidence which appears to be conclusive for this or that reconstruction.54 The main facts, however, are clear. Jerusalem had suffered some serious catastrophe before Nehemiah’s return; a body of exiles returned, and in spite of interference the work of rebuilding was completed; through their influence the Judaean community underwent reorganization, and separated itself from its so-called heathen neighbours. How many years elapsed from beginning to end can hardly be said. Tradition concentrated upon Ezra and his age many events and changes of fundamental importance. The canonical history has allowed only one great destruction of Jerusalem, and the disaster of 586 B.C. became the type for similar disasters, but how many there were criticism can scarcely decide.55 Allusions to Judah’s sufferings at the hands of Edom, Moab and Ammon often imply conditions which are not applicable to 586. A definite series knows of an invasion and occupation by Edom (q.v. end), a people with whom Judah, as the genealogies show, had once been intimately connected. The unfriendliness of the “brother” people, which added so much to the bitterness of Judah, although associated with the events of 586 (so especially 1 Esdras iv. 45), probably belongs to a much later date.56 The tradition that Edomites burned the Temple and occupied part of Judah (ib. vv. 45, 50) is partially confirmed by Ezek. xxxv. 5, 10, xxxvi. 5; Ps. cxxxvii. 7; but the assumption that Darius, as in 1 Esdras, helped the Jews against them can with difficulty be maintained. The interesting conjecture that the second Temple suffered another disaster in the obscure gap which follows the time of Zerubbabel has been urged, after Isa. lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12, by Kuenen (afterwards withdrawn) and by Sellin, and can be independently confirmed. In the records of Nehemiah the ruins of the city are extensive (ii. 8, 17, iii.; cf. Ecclus. xlix. 13), and the tradition that Nehemiah rebuilt this Temple (Jos. Ant. xi. 5, 6; 2 Macc. i. 18) is supported (a) by the explicit 390 references to the rebuilding of the Temple in the reign of Artaxerxes (1 Esdras ii. 18, not in Ezra iv. 12; but both in a context relating to the history of the Temple), and (b) by the otherwise inaccurate statement that the Temple was finished according to the decree of “Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (Ezra vi. 14).
The untrustworthy account of the return in the time of Cyrus (Ezra i. sqq.) or Darius (1 Esdras iv. seq.; probably the older form) is curiously indebted to material which seems to have belonged to the history of the work of Nehemiah (cf. Ezra ii. with Neh. vii.), and the important return in the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra iv. 12) seems to be connected with other references to some new settlement (Neh. xi. 20, 23, 25, especially xii. 29). The independent testimony of the names in Neh. iii. is against any previous large return from Babylon, and clearly illustrates the strength of the groups of “southern” origin whose presence is only to be expected (p. 285). Moreover, the late compiler of 1 Chronicles distinguishes a Judah composed almost wholly of “southern” groups (1 Chron. ii. and iv.) from a subsequent stage when the first inhabitants of Jerusalem correspond in the main to the new population after Nehemiah had repaired the ruins (1 Chron. ix. and Neh. xi.). Consequently, underlying the canonical form of post-exilic history, one may perhaps recognize some fresh disaster, after the completion of Zerubbabel’s temple, when Judah suffered grievously at the hands of its Edomite brethren (in Malachi, date uncertain, vengeance has at last been taken); Nehemiah restored the city, and the traditions of the exiles who returned at this period have been thrown back and focussed upon the work of Zerubbabel. The criticism of the history of Nehemiah, which leads to this conjecture, suggests also that if Nehemiah repulsed the Samaritan claims (ii. 20; cf. Ezra iv. 3, where the building of the Temple is concerned) and refused a compromise (vi. 2), it is extremely unlikely that Samaria had hitherto been seriously hostile; see also C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies, pp. 321-333.
Biblical history ends with the triumph of the Judaean community, the true “Israel,” the right to which title is found in the distant past. The Judaean view pervades the present sources, and whilst its David and Solomon ruled over a united land, the separation under Jeroboam is viewed as one of calf-worshipping northern tribes from Jerusalem with its one central temple and the legitimate priesthood of the Zadokites. It is from this narrower standpoint of an exclusive and confined Judah (and Benjamin) that the traditions as incorporated in the late recensions gain fresh force, and in Israel’s renunciation of the Judaean yoke the later hostility between the two may be read between the lines. The history in Kings was not finally settled until a very late date, as is evident from the important variations in the Septuagint, and it is especially in the description of the time of Solomon and the disruption that there continued to be considerable fluctuations.57 The book has no finale and the sudden break may not be accidental. It is replaced by Chronicles, which, confining itself to Judaean history from a later standpoint (after the Persian age), includes new characteristic traditions wherein some recollection of more recent events may be recognized. Thus, the south Judaean or south Palestinian element shows itself in Judaean genealogies and lists; there are circumstantial stories of the rehabilitation of the Temple and the reorganization of cultus; there are fuller traditions of inroads upon Judah by southern peoples and their allies. There is also a more definite subordination of the royal authority to the priesthood (so too in the writings of Ezekiel, q.v.); and the stories of punishment inflicted upon kings who dared to contend against the priests (Jehoash, Uzziah) point to a conflict of authority, a hint of which is already found in the reconciliation of Zerubbabel and the priest Joshua in a passage ascribed to Zechariah (ch. vi.).
23. Post-exilic Judaism.—With Nehemiah and Ezra we enter upon the era in which a new impulse gave to Jewish life and thought that form which became the characteristic orthodox Judaism. It was not a new religion that took root; older tendencies were diverted into new paths, the existing material was shaped to new ends. Judah was now a religious community whose representative was the high priest of Jerusalem. Instead of sacerdotal kings, there were royal priests, anointed with oil, arrayed with kingly insignia, claiming the usual royal dues in addition to the customary rights of the priests. With his priests and Levites, and with the chiefs and nobles of the Jewish families, the high priest directs this small state, and his death marks an epoch as truly as did that of the monarchs in the past. This hierarchical government, which can find no foundation in the Hebrew monarchy, is the forerunner of the Sanhedrin (q.v.); it is an institution which, however inaugurated, set its stamp upon the narratives which have survived. Laws were recast in accordance with the requirements of the time, with the result that, by the side of usages evidently of very great antiquity, details now appear which were previously unknown or wholly unsuitable. The age, which the scanty historical traditions themselves represent as one of supreme importance for the history of the Jews, once seemed devoid of interest, and it is entirely through the laborious scholarship of the 19th century that it now begins to reveal its profound significance. The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, that the hierarchical law in its complete form in the Pentateuch stands at the close and not at the beginning of biblical history, that this mature Judaism was the fruit of the 5th century B.C. and not a divinely appointed institution at the exodus (nearly ten centuries previously), has won the recognition of almost all Old Testament scholars. It has been substantiated by numerous subsidiary investigations in diverse departments, from different standpoints, and under various aspects, and can be replaced only by one which shall more adequately explain the literary and historical evidence (see further, p. 289).
The post-exilic priestly spirit represents a tendency which is absent from the Judaean Deuteronomic book of Kings but is fully mature in the later, and to some extent parallel, book of Chronicles (q.v.). The “priestly” traditions of the creation and of the patriarchs mark a very distinct advance upon the earlier narratives, and appear in a further developed form in the still later book of Jubilees, or “Little Genesis,” where they are used to demonstrate the pre-Mosaic antiquity of the priestly or Levitical institutions. There is also an unmistakable development in the laws; and the priestly legislation, though ahead of both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, not to mention still earlier usage, not only continues to undergo continual internal modification, but finds a further distinct development, in the way of definition and interpretation, outside the Old Testament—in the Talmud (q.v.). Upon the characteristics of the post-exilic priestly writings we need not dwell.58 Though one may often be repelled by their lifelessness, their lack of spontaneity and the externalization of the ritual, it must be recognized that they placed a strict monotheism upon a legal basis. “It was a necessity that Judaism should incrust itself in this manner; without those hard and ossified forms the preservation of its essential elements would have proved impossible. At a time when all nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs, were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the Graeco-Roman Empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the ocean. When the natural conditions of independent nationality all failed them, they nevertheless artificially maintained it with an energy truly marvellous, and thereby preserved for themselves, and at the same time for the whole world, an eternal good.”59
If one is apt to acquire too narrow a view of Jewish legalism, the whole experience of subsequent history, through the heroic age of the Maccabees (q.v.) and onwards, only proves that the minuteness of ritual procedure could not cramp the heart. Besides, this was only one of the aspects of Jewish literary activity. The work represented in Nehemiah and Ezra, and put into action by the supporters of an exclusive Judaism, certainly won the day, and their hands have left their impress upon the historical traditions. But Yahwism, like Islam, had its sects and tendencies, and the opponents to the stricter ritualism always had followers. Whatever the predominant party might think of foreign marriages, the tradition of the half-Moabite origin of David serves, in the beautiful idyll of Ruth (q.v.), to suggest the debt which Judah and Jerusalem owed to one at least of its neighbours. Again, although some may have desired a self-contained community opposed to the heathen neighbours of Jerusalem, the story of Jonah implicitly contends against the attempt of Judaism to close its doors. The conflicting tendencies were incompatible, but Judaism retained the 391 incompatibilities within its limits, and the two tendencies, prophetical and priestly, continue, the former finding its further development in Christianity.60
The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis (§ 4) does not pretend to be complete in all its details and it is independent of its application to the historical criticism of the Old Testament. No alternative hypothesis prevails, mere desultory criticism of the internal intricacies being quite inadequate. Maintaining that the position of the Pentateuch alone explains the books which follow, conservative writers concede that it is composite, has had some literary history, and has suffered some revision in the post-exilic age. Their concessions continue to become ever more significant, and all that follows from them should be carefully noticed by those who are impressed by their arguments. They identify with Deuteronomy the law-roll which explains the noteworthy reforms of Josiah (§ 16); but since it is naturally admitted that religious conditions had become quite inconsistent with Mosaism, the conservative view implies that the “long-lost” Deuteronomy must have differed profoundly from any known Mosaic writings to which earlier pious kings and prophets had presumably adhered. Similarly, the “book of the Law of Moses,” brought from Babylon by Ezra (Ezra vii.; Neh. viii.), clearly contained much of which the people were ignorant, and conservative writers, who oppose the theory that a new Law was then introduced, emphasize (a) the previous existence of legislation (to prove that Ezra’s book was not entirely a novelty), and (b) the gross wickedness in Judah (as illustrated by the prophets) from the time of Josiah to the strenuous efforts of the reformers on behalf of the most fundamental principles of the national religion. This again simply means that the Mosaism of Ezra or Nehemiah must have differed essentially from the priestly teaching prior to their arrival. The arguments of conservative writers involve concessions which, though often overlooked by their readers, are very detrimental to the position they endeavour to support, and the objections they bring against the theory of the introduction of new law-books (under a Josiah or an Ezra) apply with equal force to the promulgation of Mosaic teaching which had been admittedly ignored or forgotten. Their arguments have most weight, however, when they show the hazardous character of reconstructions which rely upon the trustworthiness of the historical narratives. What book Ezra really brought from Babylon is uncertain; the writer, it seems, is merely narrating the introduction of the Law ascribed to Moses, even as a predecessor has recounted the discovery of the Book of the Law, the Deuteronomic code subsequently included in the Pentateuch.
The importance which the biblical writers attach to the return from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes forms a starting-point for several interesting inquiries. Thus, in any estimate of the influence of Babylonia upon the Old Testament, it is obviously necessary to ask whether certain features (a) are of true Babylonian origin, or (b) merely find parallels or analogies in its stores of literature; whether the indebtedness goes back to very early times or to the age of the Assyrian domination or to the exiles who now returned. Again, there were priestly and other families—some originally of “southern” origin—already settled around Jerusalem, and questions inevitably arise concerning their relation to the new-comers and the literary vicissitudes which gave us the Old Testament in its present form. To this age we may ascribe the literature of the Priestly writers (symbolized by P), which differs markedly from the other sources. Yet it is clear from the book of Genesis alone that in the age of Priestly writers and compilers there were other phases of thought. Popular stories with many features of popular religion were current. They could be, and indeed had been made more edifying; but the very noteworthy conservatism of even the last compiler or editor, in contrast to the re-shaping and re-writing of the material in the book of Jubilees, indicates that the Priestly spirit was not that of the whole community. But through the Priestly hands the Old Testament history passed, and their standpoint colours its records. This is especially true of the history of the exilic and post-exilic periods, where the effort is made to preserve the continuity of Israel and the Israelite community (Chronicles—Ezra—Nehemiah). The bitterness aroused by the ardent and to some extent unjust zeal of the reforming element can only be conjectured. The traditions reveal a tendency to legitimate new circumstances. Priesthoods, whose traditions connect them with the south, are subordinated; the ecclesiastical records are re-shaped or re-adjusted; and a picture is presented of hierarchical jealousies and rivalries which (it was thought) were settled once and for all in the days of the exodus from Egypt. Many features gain in significance as the account of the Exodus, the foundation of Israel, is read in the light of the age when, after the advent of a new element from Babylonia, the Pentateuch assumed its present shape; it must suffice to mention the supremacy of the Aaronite priests and the glorification of uncompromising hostility to foreign marriages.61 The most “unhistorical” tradition has some significance for the development of thought or of history-writing, and thus its internal features are ultimately of historical value. Only from an exhaustive comparison of controlling data can the scattered hints be collected and classified. There is much that is suggestive, for example, in the relation between the “post-exilic” additions to the prophecies and their immediately earlier form; or in the singular prominence of the Judaean family of Perez (its elevation over Zerah, a half-Edomite family, Gen. xxxviii.; its connexion with the Davidic dynasty, Ruth iv.; its position as head of all the Judaean sub-divisions, 1 Chron. ii. 5 sqq.); or in the late insertion of local tradition encircling Jerusalem; or in the perplexing attitude of the histories towards the district of Benjamin and its famous sanctuary of Bethel (only about 10 m. north of Jerusalem). Although these and other phenomena cannot yet be safely placed in a historical frame, the methodical labours of past scholars have shed much light upon the obscurities of the exilic and post-exilic ages, and one must await the more comprehensive study of the two or three centuries which are of the first importance for biblical history and theology.
24. Old Testament History and External Evidence.—Thus the Old Testament, the history of the Jews during the first great period, describes the relation of the Hebrews to surrounding peoples, the superiority of Judah over the faithless (north) Israelite tribes, and the reorganization of the Jewish community in and around Jerusalem at the arrival of Ezra with the Book of the Law. The whole gives an impression of unity, which is designed, and is to be expected in a compilation. But closer examination reveals remarkable gaps and irreconcilable historical standpoints. For all serious biblical study, the stages in the growth of the written traditions and the historical circumstances which they imply, must inevitably be carefully considered, and upon the result depends, directly or indirectly, almost every subject of Old Testament investigation. Yet it is impossible to recover with confidence or completeness the development of Hebrew history from the pages of the Old Testament alone. The keen interest taken by the great prophets in the world around them is not prominent in the national records; political history has been subordinated, and the Palestine which modern discovery is revealing is not conspicuous in the didactic narratives. To external evidence one must look, therefore, for that which did not fall within the scope or the horizon of the religious historians. They do not give us the records of the age of the Babylonian monarch Khammurabi (perhaps Amraphel, Gen. xiv.), of the Egyptian conquests in the XVIIIth and following dynasties, or of the period illustrated by the Amarna tablets (§ 3). They treat with almost unique fullness a few years in the middle of the 9th century B.C., but ignore Assyria; yet only the Assyrian inscriptions explain the political situation (§ 10 seq.), and were it not for them the true significance of the 8th-7th centuries could scarcely be realized (§ 15 seq.). It would be erroneous to confuse the extant sources with the historical material which might or must have been accessible, or to assume that the antiquity of the elements of history proves or presupposes the antiquity of the records themselves, or even to deny the presence of some historical kernel merely on account of unhistorical elements or the late dress in which the events are now clothed. External research constantly justifies the cautious attitude which has its logical basis in the internal conflicting character of the written traditions or in their divergence from ascertained facts; at the same time it has clearly shown that the internal study of the Old Testament has its limits. Hence, in the absence of more complete external evidence one is obliged to recognize the limitations of Old Testament historical criticism, even though this recognition means that positive reconstructions are more precarious than negative conclusions.
The naïve impression that each period of history was handled by some more or less contemporary authority is not confirmed by a criticism which confines itself strictly to the literary evidence. An interest in the past is not necessarily confined to any one age, and the critical view that the biblical history has been compiled from relatively late standpoints finds support in the still later treatment of the events—in Chronicles as contrasted with Samuel—Kings or in Jubilees as contrasted with Genesis.62 It is instructive to observe in Egypt the form which old traditions have taken in Manetho (Maspero, Rec. de travaux, xxvii., 1905, l. 22 seq.); cf. also the late story of Rameses II. and the Hittites (J. H. Breasted, Anc. Rec. of Egypt, iii. 189 seq.); while in Babylonia one may note the didactic treatment, after the age of Cyrus, of the events of the time of Khammurabi (A. H. Sayce, Proc. Soc. Biblical Archaeol., 1907, pp. 13 sqq.).
The links which unite the traditional heroes with Babylonia (e.g. Abraham, Ezra), Mesopotamia (e.g. Jacob), Egypt (e.g. Joseph, 392 Jeroboam), Midian (e.g. Moses, Jethro), &c., like the intimate relationship between Israel and surrounding lands, have a significance in the light of recent research. Israel can no longer be isolated from the politics, culture, folk-lore, thought and religion of western Asia and Egypt. Biblical, or rather Palestinian, thought has been brought into the world of ancient Oriental life, and this life, in spite of the various forms in which it has from time to time been shaped, still rules in the East. This has far-reaching consequences for the traditional attitude to Israelite history and religion. Research is seriously complicated by the growing stores of material, which unfortunately are often utilized without attention to the principles of the various departments of knowledge or aspects of study. The complexity of modern knowledge and the interrelation of its different branches are often insufficiently realized, and that by writers who differ widely in the application of such material as they use to their particular views of the manifold problems of the Old Testament. It has been easy to confuse the study of the Old Testament in its relation to modern religious needs with the technical scientific study of the much edited remains of the literature of a small part of the ancient East. If there was once a tendency to isolate the Old Testament and ignore comparative research, it is now sometimes found possible to exaggerate its general agreement with Oriental history, life and thought. Difficulties have been found in the supernatural or marvellous stories which would be taken as a matter of course by contemporary readers, and efforts are often made to recover historical facts or to adapt the records to modern theology without sufficient attention to the historical data as a whole or to their religious environment. The preliminary preparation for research of any value becomes yearly more exacting.
Many traces of myth, legend and “primitive” thought survive in the Old Testament, and on the most cautious estimate they presuppose a vitality which is not a little astonishing. But they are now softened and often bereft of their earlier significance, and it is this and their divergence from common Oriental thought which make Old Testament thought so profound and unique. The process finds its normal development in later and non-biblical literature; but one can recognize earlier, cruder and less distinctive stages, and, as surely as writings reflect the mentality of an author or of his age, the peculiar characteristics of the extant sources, viewed in the light of a comprehensive survey of Palestinian and surrounding culture, demand a reasonable explanation. The differences between the form of the written history and the conditions which prevailed have impressed themselves variously upon modern writers, and efforts have been made to recover from the Old Testament earlier forms more in accordance with the external evidence. It may be doubted, however, whether the material is sufficient for such restoration or reconstruction.63 In the Old Testament we have the outcome of specific developments, and the stage at which we see each element of tradition or belief is not always isolated or final (cf. Kings and Chronicles). The early myths, legends and traditions which can be traced differ profoundly from the canonical history, and the gap is wider than that between the latter and the subsequent apocalyptical and pseudepigraphical literature.
Where it is possible to make legitimate and unambiguous comparisons, the ethical and spiritual superiority of Old Testament thought has been convincingly demonstrated, and to the re-shaping and re-writing of the older history and the older traditions the Old Testament owes its permanent value. While the history of the great area between the Nile and the Tigris irresistibly emphasizes the insignificance of Palestine, this land’s achievements for humanity grow the more remarkable as research tells more of its environment. Although the light thrown upon ancient conditions of life and thought has destroyed much that sometimes seems vital for the Old Testament, it has brought into relief a more permanent and indisputable appreciation of its significance, and it is gradually dispelling that pseudo-scientific literalism which would fetter the greatest of ancient Oriental writings with an insistence upon the verity of historical facts. Not internal criticism, but the incontestable results of objective observation have shown once and for all that the relationship between the biblical account of the earliest history (Gen. i.-xi.) and its value either as an authentic record (which requires unprejudiced examination) or as a religious document (which remains untouched) is typical. If, as seems probable, the continued methodical investigation, which is demanded by the advance of modern knowledge, becomes more drastic in its results, it will recognize ever more clearly that there were certain unique influences in the history of Palestine which cannot be explained by purely historical research. The change from Palestinian polytheism to the pre-eminence of Yahweh and the gradual development of ethical monotheism are facts which external evidence continues to emphasize, which biblical criticism must investigate as completely as possible. And if the work of criticism has brought a fuller appreciation of the value of these facts, the debt which is owed to the Jews is enhanced when one proceeds to realize the immense difficulties against which those who transmitted the Old Testament had to contend in the period of Greek domination. The growth of the Old Testament into its present form, and its preservation despite hostile forces, are the two remarkable phenomena which most arrest the attention of the historian; it is for the theologian to interpret their bearing upon the history of religious thought.
II.—Greek Domination
25. Alexander the Great.—The second great period of the history of the Jews begins with the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great, disciple of Aristotle, king of Macedon and captain-general of the Greeks. It ends with the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of the Roman Empire, which was, like Alexander, at once the masterful pupil and the docile patron of Hellenism. The destruction of Jerusalem might be regarded as an event of merely domestic importance; for the Roman cosmopolitan it was only the removal of the titular metropolis of a national and an Oriental religion. But, since a derivative of that religion has come to be a power in the world at large, this event has to be regarded in a different light. The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 concludes the period of four centuries, during which the Jews as a nation were in contact with the Greeks and exposed to the influence of Hellenism, not wholly of their own will nor yet against it. Whether the master of the provinces, in which there were Jews, be an Alexander, a Ptolemy, a Seleucid or a Roman, the force by which he rules is the force of Greek culture. These four centuries are the Greek period of Jewish history.
The ancient historians, who together cover this period, are strangely indifferent to the importance of the Jews, upon which Josephus is at pains to insist. When Alexander invaded the interior of the Eastern world, which had hitherto remained inviolable, he came as the champion of Hellenism. His death prevented the achievement of his designs; but he had broken down the barrier, he had planted the seed of the Greek’s influence in the four quarters of the Persian Empire. His successors, the Diadochi, carried on his work, but Antiochus Epiphanes was the first who deliberately took in hand to deal with the Jews. Daniel (viii. 8) describes the interval between Alexander and Antiochus thus: “The he-goat (the king of Greece) did very greatly: and when he was strong the great horn (Alexander) was broken; and instead of it came up four other ones—four kingdoms shall stand up out of his nation but not with his power. And out of one of them came forth a little horn (Antiochus Epiphanes) which waxed exceeding great towards the south (Egypt) and towards the East (Babylon) and towards the beauteous land (the land of Israel).” The insignificance of the Jewish community in Palestine was their salvation. The reforms of Nehemiah were directed towards the establishment of a religious community at Jerusalem, in which the rigour of the law should be observed. As a part of the Persian Empire the community was obscure and unimportant. But the race whose chief sanctuary it guarded and maintained was the heir of great traditions and ideals. In Egypt, moreover, in Babylon and in Persia individual Jews had responded to the influences of their environment and won the respect of the aliens whom they despised. The law which they cherished as their standard and guide kept them united and conscious of their unity. And the individuals, who acquired power or wisdom among those outside Palestine shed a reflected glory upon the nation and its Temple.
In connexion with Alexander’s march through Palestine Josephus gives a tradition of his visit to Jerusalem. In Arrian’s narrative of Alexander’s exploits, whose fame had already faded before the greater glory of Rome, there is no mention of the visit or the city or the Jews. Only Tyre and Gaza barred the way to Egypt. He took, presumably, the coast-road in order to establish and retain his command of the sea. The rest of Palestine, which is called Coele-Syria, made its submission and furnished supplies. Seven days after the capture of Gaza Alexander was at Pelusium. According to the tradition which Josephus has preserved the high priest refused to transfer his allegiance and Alexander marched against Jerusalem after the capture of Gaza. The high priest dressed in his robes went out to meet him, and at the sight Alexander remembered a dream, in which such a man had appeared to him as the appointed leader of his expedition. So the danger was averted: Alexander offered sacrifice and was shown the prophecy of Daniel, which spoke of him. It is alleged, further, that at this time certain Jews who could not refrain from intermarriage with 393 the heathen set up a temple on Mt Gerizim and became the Samaritan schism (§ 21 above). The combination is certainly artificial and not historical. But it has a value of its own inasmuch as it illustrates the permanent tendencies which mould the history of the Jews. It is true that Alexander was subject to dreams and visited shrines in order to assure himself or his followers of victory. But it is not clear that he had such need of the Jews or such regard for the Temple of Jerusalem that he should turn aside on his way to Egypt for such a purpose.
However this may be, Alexander’s tutor had been in Asia and had met a Jew there, if his disciple Clearchus of Soli is to be trusted. “The man,” Aristotle says, “was by race a Jew out of Coele-Syria. His people are descendants of the Indian philosophers. It is reported that philosophers are called Calani among the Indians and Jews among the Syrians. The Jews take their name from their place of abode, which is called Judaea. The name of their city is very difficult; they call it Hierusaleme. This man, then, having been a guest in many homes and having come down gradually from the highlands to the sea-coast, was Hellenic not only in speech but also in soul. And as we were staying in Asia at the time, the man cast up at the same place and interviewed us and other scholars, making trial of their wisdom. But inasmuch as he had come to be at home with many cultured persons he imparted more than he got.” The date of this interview is probably determined by the fact that Aristotle visited his friend Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, in 347-345 B.C. There is no reason to doubt the probability or even the accuracy of the narrative. Megasthenes also describes the Jews as the philosophers of Syria and couples them with the Brahmins of India. This hellenized Jew who descended from the hills to the coast is a figure typical of the period.
26. The Ptolemies.—After the death of Alexander Palestine fell in the end to Ptolemy (301 B.C.) and remained an Egyptian province until 198 B.C. For a century the Jews in Palestine and in Alexandria had no history—or none that Josephus knew. But two individuals exemplify the different attitudes which the nation adopted towards its new environment and its wider opportunities, Joseph the tax-farmer and Jesus the sage.
The wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (Sirach) is contained in the book commonly called Ecclesiasticus (q.v.). At a time when men were attracted by the wisdom and science of the Greeks, he taught that all wisdom came from Yahweh who had chosen Israel to receive it in trust. He discouraged inquiries into the nature and purpose of things: it was enough for him that Yahweh had created and ruled the universe. If a man had leisure to be wise—and this is not for many—he should study the Scriptures which had come down, and so become a scribe. For the scribe, as for the man at the plough-tail, the Law was the rule of life. All, however much or little preoccupied with worldly business, must fear God, from whom come good things and evil, life, death, poverty and riches. It was not for men to meddle with secrets which are beyond human intelligence. Enough that the individual did his duty in the state of life in which he was set and left behind him a good name at his death. The race survives—“the days of Israel are unnumbered.” Every member of the congregation of Israel must labour, as God has appointed, at some handicraft or profession to provide for his home. It is his sacred duty and his private interest to beget children and to train them to take his place. The scholar is apt to pity the smith, the potter, the carpenter and the farmer: with better reason he is apt to condemn the trader who becomes absorbed in greed of gain and so deserts the way of righteousness and fair dealing. As a teacher Jesus gave his own services freely. For the soldier he had no commendation. There were physicians who understood the use of herbs, and must be rewarded when their help was invited. But, whatever means each head of a family adopted to get a livelihood, he must pay the priest’s dues. The centre of the life of Israel was the Temple, over which the high priest presided and which was inhabited by Yahweh, the God of Israel. The scribe could train the individual in morals and in manners; but the high priest was the ruler of the nation.
As ruler of the nation the high priest paid its tribute to Egypt, its overlord. But Josephus reports of one Onias that for avarice he withheld it. The sequel shows how a Jew might rise to power in the civil service of the Egyptian Empire and yet remain a hero to some of the Jews—provided that he did not intermarry with a Gentile. For Joseph, the son of Tobiah and nephew of Onias, went to court and secured the taxes of Palestine, when they were put up to auction. As tax-farmer he oppressed the non-Jewish cities and so won the admiration of Josephus.
But while such men went out into the world and brought back wealth of one kind or another to Palestine, other Jews were content to make their homes in foreign parts. At Alexandria in particular Alexander provided for a Jewish colony which soon became Hellenic enough in speech to require a translation of the Law. It is probable that, as in Palestine an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew text was found to be necessary, so in Alexandria the Septuagint grew up gradually, as need arose. The legendary tradition which even Philo accepts gives it a formal nativity, a royal patron and inspired authors. From the text which Philo uses, it is probable that the translation had been transmitted in writing; and his legend probably fixes the date of the commencement of the undertaking for the reign of Ptolemy Lagus.
The apology for the necessary defects of a translation put forward by the translator of Ecclesiasticus in his Prologue shows that the work was carried on beyond the limits of the Law. Apparently it was in progress at the time of his coming to Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes I. or II. He seems to regard this body of literature as the answer to the charge that the Jews had contributed nothing useful for human life. Once translated into Greek, the Scriptures became a bond of union for the Jews of the dispersion and were at least capable of being used as an instrument for the conversion of the world to Judaism. So far as the latter function is concerned Philo confesses that the Law in his day shared the obscurity of the people, and seems to imply that the proselytes adopted little more than the monotheistic principle and the observance of the Sabbath. According to Juvenal the sons of such proselytes were apt to go farther and to substitute the Jewish Law for the Roman—
Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges; Judaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt ius Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moyses. |
27. The Seleucids.—Toward the end of the 3rd century the Palestinian Jews became involved in the struggle between Egypt and Syria. In Jerusalem there were partisans of both the combatants. The more orthodox or conservative Jews preferred the tolerant rule of the Ptolemies: the rest, who chafed at the isolation of the nation, looked to the Seleucids, who inherited Alexander’s ideal of a united empire based on a universal adoption of Hellenism. At this point Josephus cites the testimony of Polybius:—“Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, advanced into the highlands and subdued the nation of the Jews in the winter. After the defeat of Scopas, Antiochus gained Batanaea and Samaria and Abila and Gadara, and a little later those of the Jews who live round the Temple called Jerusalem adhered to him.” From this it appears that the pro-Syrian faction of the Jews had been strong and active enough to bring an Egyptian army upon them (199-198 B.C.). Josephus adds that an Egyptian garrison was left in Jerusalem. This act of oppression presumably strengthened the Syrian faction of the Jews and led to the transference of the nation’s allegiance. The language of Polybius suggests that he was acquainted with other Jewish communities and with the fame of the Temple: in his view they are not an organized state. They were not even a pawn in the game which Antiochus proposed to play with Rome for the possession of Greece and Asia Minor. His defeat left the resources of his kingdom exhausted and its extent diminished; and so the Jews became important to his successors for the sake of their wealth and their position on the frontier. To pay his debt to Rome he was compelled to resort to extraordinary methods of raising money; he actually met his death (187 B.C.) in an attempt to loot the temple of Elymais.
The pro-Syrian faction of the Palestinian Jews found their opportunity in this emergency and informed the governor of Coele-Syria that the treasury in Jerusalem contained untold sums of money. Heliodorus, prime minister of Seleucus Philopator, who succeeded Antiochus, arrived at Jerusalem in his progress through Coele-Syria and Phoenicia and declared the treasure confiscate to the royal exchequer. According to the Jewish legend Heliodorus was attacked when he entered the Temple by a horse with a terrible rider and by two young men. He was scourged and only escaped with his life at the intercession of Onias the high priest, who had pleaded with him vainly that the treasure included the deposits of widows and orphans and also some belonging to Hyrcanus, “a man in very high position.” Onias was accused by his enemies of having given the information which led to this outrage and when, relying upon the support of the provincial governor, they proceeded to attempt assassination, he fled to Antioch and appealed to the king.
When Seleucus was assassinated by Heliodorus, Antiochus IV., his brother, who had been chief magistrate at Athens, came 394 back secretly “to seize the kingdom by guile” (Dan. xi. 21 seq.). On his accession he appointed Jesus, the brother of Onias, to the high-priesthood, and sanctioned his proposals for the conversion of Jerusalem into a Greek city. The high priest changed his name to Jason and made a gymnasium near the citadel. The principle of separation was abandoned. The priests deserted the Temple for the palaestra and the young nobles wore the Greek cap. The Jews of Jerusalem were enrolled as citizens of Antioch. Jason sent money for a sacrifice to Heracles at Tyre; and the only recorded opposition to his policy came from his envoys, who pleaded that the money might be applied to naval expenditure. Thus Jason stripped the high-priesthood of its sacred character and did what he could to stamp out Judaism.
Menelaus supplanted Jason, obtaining his appointment from the king by the promise of a larger contribution. In order to secure his position, he contrived the murder of Onias, who had taken sanctuary at Daphne. This outrage, coupled with his appropriation of temple vessels, which he used as bribes, raised against Menelaus the senate and the people of Jerusalem. His brother and deputy was killed in a serious riot, and an accusation was laid against Menelaus before Antiochus. At the inquiry he bought his acquittal from a courtier and his accusers were executed. Antiochus required peace in Jerusalem and probably regarded Onias as the representative of the pro-Egyptian faction, the allies of his enemy.
During his second Egyptian campaign a rumour came that Antiochus was dead, and Jason made a raid upon Jerusalem. Menelaus held the citadel and Jason was unable to establish himself in the city. The people were presumably out of sympathy with Hellenizers, whether they belonged to the house of Onias or that of Tobiah. When Antiochus finally evacuated Egypt in obedience to the decree of Rome, he thought that Judaea was in revolt. Though Jason had fled, it was necessary to storm the city; the drastic measures which Menelaus advised seem to indicate that the poorer classes had been roused to defend the Temple from further sacrilege. A massacre took place, and Antiochus braved the anger of Yahweh by entering and pillaging the Temple with impunity. The author of 2 Maccabees infers from his success that the nation had forfeited all right to divine protection for the time (2 Macc. v. 18-20).
The policy which Antiochus thus inaugurated he carried on rigorously and systematically. His whole kingdom was to be unified; Judaism was an eccentricity and as such doomed to extinction. The Temple of Jerusalem was made over to Zeus Olympius: the temple of Gerizim to Zeus Xenius. All the religious rites of Judaism were proscribed and the neighbouring Greek cities were requested to enforce the prohibition upon their Jewish citizens. Jerusalem was occupied by an army which took advantage of the Sabbath and proceeded to suppress its observance. An Athenian came to be the missionary of Hellenism and to direct its ceremonies, which were established by force up and down the country.
28. The Maccabees.—Jerusalem and Gerizim were purged and converted to the state religion with some ease. Elsewhere, as there, some conformed and some became martyrs for the faith. And the passive resistance of those who refused to conform at length gave rise to active opposition. “The king’s officers who were enforcing the apostasy came into the city of Modein to sacrifice, and many of Israel went over to them, but Mattathias ... slew a Jew who came to sacrifice and the king’s officer and pulled down the altar” (1 Macc. ii. 15 sqq.). Whether led by this Mattathias or not, certain Jews fled into the wilderness and found a leader in Judas Maccabaeus his reputed son, the first of the five Asmonean (Hasmonean) brethren. The warfare which followed was like that which Saul and David waged against the Philistines. Antiochus was occupied with his Parthian campaign and trusted that the Hellenized Jews would maintain their ascendancy with the aid of the provincial troops. In his last illness he wrote to express his confidence in their loyalty. But the rebels collected adherents from the villages; and, when they resolved to violate the sabbath to the extent of resisting attack, they were joined by the company of the Assideans (Hasidim). Such a breach of the sabbath was necessary if the whole Law was to survive at all in Palestine. But the transgression is enough to explain the disfavour into which the Maccabees seem to fall in the judgment of later Judaism, as, in that judgment, it is enough to account for the instability of their dynasty. Unstable as it was, their dynasty was soon established. In the country-side of Judaea, Judaism—and no longer Hellenism—was propagated by force. Apollonius, the commander of the Syrian garrison in Jerusalem, and Seron the commander of the army in Syria, came in turn against Judas and his bands and were defeated. The revolt thus became important enough to engage the attention of the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, if not of Lysias the regent himself. Nicanor was despatched with a large army to put down the rebels and to pay the tribute due to Rome by selling them as slaves. Judas was at Emmaus; “the men of the citadel” guided a detachment of the Syrian troops to his encampment by night. The rebels escaped in time, but not into the hills, as their enemies surmised. At dawn they made an unexpected attack upon the main body and routed it. Next year (165 B.C.) Lysias himself entered the Idumaean country and laid siege to the fortress of Bethsura. Judas gathered what men he could and joined battle. The siege was raised, more probably in consequence of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes than because Judas had gained any real victory. The proscription of the Jewish religion was withdrawn and the Temple restored to them. But it was Menelaus who was sent by the king “to encourage” (2 Macc. xi. 32) the Jews, and in the official letters no reference is made to Judas. Such hints as these indicate the impossibility of recovering a complete picture of the Jews during the sovereignty of the Greeks, which the Talmudists regard as the dark age, best left in oblivion.
Judas entered Jerusalem, the citadel of which was still occupied by a Syrian garrison, and the Temple was re-dedicated on the 25th of Kislev (164 B.C.). So “the Pious” achieved the object for which presumably they took up arms. The re-establishment of Judaism, which alone of current religions was intolerant of a rival, seems to have excited the jealousy of their neighbours who had embraced the Greek way of life. The hellenizers had not lost all hope of converting the nation and were indisposed to acquiesce in the concordat. Judas and his zealots were thus able to maintain their prominence and gradually to increase their power. At Joppa, for example, the Jewish settlers—two hundred in all—“were invited to go into boats provided in accordance with the common decree of the city.” They accepted the invitation and were drowned. Judas avenged them by burning the harbour and the shipping, and set to work to bring into Judaea all such communities of Jews who had kept themselves separate from their heathen neighbours. In this way he became strong enough to deal with the apostates of Judaea.
In 163 Lysias led another expedition against these disturbers of the king’s peace and defeated Judas at Bethzachariah. But while the forces were besieging Bethzur and the fortress on Mount Zion, a pretender arose in Antioch, and Lysias was compelled to come to terms—and now with Judas. The Jewish refugees had turned the balance, and so Judas became strategus of Judaea, whilst Menelaus was put to death.
In 162 Demetrius escaped from Rome and got possession of the kingdom of Syria. Jakim, whose name outside religion was Alcimus, waited upon the new king on behalf of the loyal Jews who had hellenized. He himself was qualified to be the legitimate head of a united state, for he was of the tribe of Aaron. Judas and the Asmoneans were usurpers, who owed their title to Lysias. So Alcimus-Jakim was made high priest and Bacchides brought an army to instal him in his office. The Assideans made their submission at once. Judas had won for them religious freedom: but the Temple required a descendant of Aaron for priest and he was come. But his first act was to seize and slay sixty of them: so it was clear to Judas at any rate, if not also to the Assideans who survived, that political independence was necessary if the religion was to be secure. In face of his active opposition Alcimus could not maintain himself 395 without the support of Bacchides and was forced to retire to Antioch. In response to his complaints Nicanor was appointed governor of Judaea with power to treat with Judas. It appears that the two became friends at first, but fresh orders from Antioch made Nicanor guilty of treachery in the eyes of Judas’s partisans. Warned by the change of his friend’s manner Judas fled. Nicanor threatened to destroy the Temple if the priests would not deliver Judas into his hands. Soon it came to his knowledge that Judas was in Samaria, whither he followed him on a sabbath with Jews pressed into his service. The day was known afterwards as Nicanor’s day, for he was found dead on the field (Capharsalama) by the victorious followers of Judas (13th of Adar, March 161 B.C.). After this victory Judas made an alliance with the people of Rome, who had no love for Demetrius his enemy, nor any intention of putting their professions of friendship into practice. Bacchides and Alcimus returned meanwhile into the land of Judah; at Elasa “Judas fell and the rest fled” (1 Macc. ix. 18). Bacchides occupied Judaea and made a chain of forts. Jonathan, who succeeded his brother Judas, was captain of a band of fugitive outlaws. But on the death of Alcimus Bacchides retired and Jonathan with his followers settled down beyond the range of the Syrian garrisons. The Hellenizers still enjoyed the royal favour and Jonathan made no attempt to dispossess them. After an interval of two years they tried to capture him and failed. This failure seems to have convinced Bacchides that it would be well to recognize Jonathan and to secure a balance of parties. In 158 Jonathan began to rule as a judge in Michmash and he destroyed the godless out of Israel—so far, that is, as his power extended. In 153 Alexander Balas withdrew Jonathan from his allegiance to Demetrius by the offer of the high-priesthood. He had already made Jerusalem his capital and fortified the Temple mount: the Syrian garrisons had already been withdrawn with the exception of those of the Akra and Bethzur. In 147 Jonathan repaid his benefactor by destroying the army of the governor of Coele-Syria, who had espoused the cause of Demetrius. The fugitives took sanctuary in the temple of Dagon at Azotus. “But Jonathan burned the temple of Dagon and those who fled into it.” After the death of Balas he laid siege to the Akra; and “the apostates, who hated their own nation,” appealed to Demetrius. Jonathan was summoned to Antioch, made his peace and apparently relinquished his attempt in return for the addition of three Samaritan districts to his territory. Later, when the people of Antioch rose against the king, Jonathan despatched a force of 3000 men who played a notable part in the merciless suppression of the insurrection. 1 Maccabees credits them with 100,000 victims. Trypho, the regent of Antiochus VI., put even greater political power into the hands of Jonathan and his brother Simon, but finally seized Jonathan on the pretext of a conference. Simon was thus left to consolidate what had been won in Palestine for the Jews and the family whose head he had become. The weakness of the king enabled him to demand and to secure immunity from taxation. The Jewish aristocracy became peers of the Seleucid kingdom. Simon was declared high priest: Rome and Sparta rejoiced in the elevation of their friend and ally. In the hundred and seventieth year (142 B.C.) the yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel and the people began to date their legal documents “in the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews.” The popular verdict received official and formal sanction. Simon was declared by the Jews and the priests their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet. The garrison of the Akra had been starved by a close blockade into submission, and beyond the boundaries of Judaea “he took Joppa for a haven and made himself master of Gazara and Bethsura.”
29. John Hyrcanus and the Sadducees.—But in 138 B.C. Antiochus Sidetes entered Seleucia and required the submission of all the petty states, which had taken advantage of the weakness of preceding kings. From Simon he demanded an indemnity of 1000 talents for his oppression and invasion of non-Jewish territory: Simon offered 100 talents. At length Antiochus appeared to enforce his demand in 134. Simon was dead (135 B.C.) and John Hyrcanus had succeeded his father. The Jewish forces were driven back upon Jerusalem and the city was closely invested. At the feast of tabernacles of 132 Hyrcanus requested and Antiochus granted a week’s truce. The only hope of the Jews lay in the clemency of their victorious suzerain, and it did not fail them. Some of his advisers urged the demolition of the nation on the ground of their exclusiveness, but he sent a sacrifice and won thereby the name of “Pious.” In subsequent negotiations he accepted the disarmament of the besieged and a tribute as conditions of peace, and in response to their entreaty left Jerusalem without a garrison. When he went on his last disastrous campaign, Hyrcanus led a Jewish contingent to join his army, partly perhaps a troop of mercenaries (for Hyrcanus was the first of the Jewish kings to hire mercenaries, with the treasure found in David’s tomb). After his death Hyrcanus took advantage of the general confusion to extend Jewish territory with the countenance of Rome. He destroyed the temple of Gerizim and compelled the Idumaeans to submit to circumcision and embrace the laws of the Jews on pain of deportation.
In Jerusalem and in the country, in Alexandria, Egypt and Cyprus, the Jews were prosperous (Jos. Ant. xiii. 284). This prosperity and the apparent security of Judaism led to a breach between Hyrcanus and his spiritual directors, the Pharisees. His lineage was (in the opinion of one of them at least) of doubtful purity; and so it was his duty to lay down the high-priesthood and be content to rule the nation. That one man should hold both offices was indeed against the example of Moses, and could only be admitted as a temporary concession to necessity. Hyrcanus could not entertain the proposal that he should resign the sacred office to which he owed much of his authority. The allegation about his mother was false: the Pharisee who retailed it was guilty of no small offence. A Sadducean friend advised Hyrcanus to ask the whole body of the Pharisees to prescribe the penalty. Their leniency, which was notorious, alienated the king or probably furnished him with a pretext for breaking with them. The Pharisees were troublesome counsellors and doubtful allies for an ambitious prince. They were all-powerful with the people, but Hyrcanus with his mercenaries was independent of the people, and the wealthy belonged to the sect of the Sadducees. The suppression of the Pharisaic ordinances and the punishment of those who observed them led to some disturbance. But Hyrcanus “was judged worthy of the three great privileges, the rule of the nation, the high-priestly dignity, and prophecy.” This verdict suggests that the Sadducees, with whom he allied himself, had learned to affect some show of Judaism in Judaea. If the poor were ardent nationalists who would not intermingle with the Greeks, the rich had long outgrown and now could humour such prejudices; and the title of their party was capable of recalling at any rate the sound of the national ideal of righteousness, i.e. Sadaqah.
The successor of Hyrcanus (d. 105) was Judas Aristobulus, “the friend of the Greeks,” who first assumed the title of king. According to Strabo he was a courteous man and in many ways useful to the Jews. His great achievement was the conquest of a part of Ituraea, which he added to Judaea and whose inhabitants he compelled to accept Judaism.
The Sadducean nobility continued in power under his brother and successor Alexander Jannaeus (103-78); and the breach between the king and the mass of the people widened. But Salome Alexandra, his brother’s widow, who released him from prison on the death of her husband and married him, was connected with the Pharisees through her brother Simon ben Shetach. If his influence or theirs dictated her policy, there is no evidence of any objection to the union of the secular power with the high-priesthood. The party may have thought that Jannaeus was likely to bring the dynasty to an end. His first action was to besiege Ptolemais. Its citizens appealed to Ptolemy Lathyrus, who had been driven from the throne of Egypt by his mother Cleopatra and was reigning in Cyprus. Alexander raised the siege, made peace with Ptolemy and secretly sent to Cleopatra 396 for help against her son. The result of this double-dealing was that his army was destroyed by Ptolemy, who advanced into Egypt leaving Palestine at the mercy of Cleopatra. But Cleopatra’s generals were Jews and by their protests prevented her from annexing it. Being thus freed from fear on the side of Ptolemy, Alexander continued his desultory campaigns across the Jordan and on the coast without any apparent policy and with indifferent success. Finally, when he officiated as high priest at the feast of tabernacles he roused the fury of the people by a derisive breach of the Pharisaic ritual. They cried out that he was unworthy of his office, and pelted him with the citrons which they were carrying as the Law prescribed. Alexander summoned his mercenaries, and 6000 Jews were killed before he set out on his disastrous campaign against an Arabian king. He returned a fugitive to find the nation in armed rebellion. After six years of civil war he appealed to them to state the conditions under which they would lay aside their hostility. They replied by demanding his death and called in the Syrians. But when the Syrians chased him into the mountains, 6000 Jews went over to him and, with their aid, he put down the rebellion. Eight hundred Jews who had held a fortress against him were crucified; 8000 Pharisees fled to Egypt and remained there. Offering an ineffectual resistance to the passage of the Syrian troops, Alexander was driven back by Aretas, king of Arabia, against whom they had marched. His later years brought him small victories over isolated cities.
On his deathbed it is said that Alexander advised his wife to reverse this policy and rely upon the Pharisees. According to the Talmud, he warned her “to fear neither the Pharisees nor their opponents but the hypocrites who do the deed of Zimri and claim the reward of Phinehas:” the warning indicates his justification of his policy in the matter of the crucifixions. In any case the Pharisees were predominant under Alexandra, who became queen (78-69) under her husband’s will. Hyrcanus her elder son was only high priest, as the stricter Pharisees required. All the Pharisaic ordinances which Hyrcanus had abolished were reaffirmed as binding. Simon ben Shatach stood beside the queen: the exiles were restored and among them his great colleague Jehudah ben Tabai. The great saying of each of these rabbis is concerned with the duties of a judge; the selection does justice to the importance of the Sanhedrin, which was filled with Pharisees. The legal reforms which they introduced tended for the most part to mercy, but the Talmud refers to one case which is an exception: false witnesses were condemned to suffer the penalty due to their victim, even if he escaped. This ruling may be interpreted as part of a campaign directed against the counsellors of Alexander or as an instance of their general principle that intention is equivalent to commission in the eye of the Law. The queen interposed to prevent the execution of those who had counselled the crucifixion of the rebels and permitted them to withdraw with her younger son Aristobulus to the fortresses outside Jerusalem. Against their natural desire for revenge may be set the fact that the Pharisees did much to improve the status of women among the Jews.
On the death of Alexandra (69 B.C.) Aristobulus disputed the succession of Hyrcanus. When their forces met at Jericho, Hyrcanus, finding that the bulk of his following deserted to Aristobulus, fled with those who remained to the tower Antonia and seized Aristobulus’s wife and children as hostages for his own safety. Having this advantage, he was able to abdicate in favour of Aristobulus and to retire into private life. But he was not able to save his friends, who were also the enemies of the reigning king. In fear of reprisals Antipas (or Antipater), the Idumaean, his counsellor, played on the fears of Hyrcanus and persuaded him to buy the aid of the Nabataean Arabs with promises. Aristobulus could not withstand the army of Aretas: he was driven back upon Jerusalem and there besieged. The Jews deserted to the victorious Hyrcanus: only the priests remained loyal to their accepted king; many fled to Egypt.
30. The Romans and the Idumaeans.—At this point the power of Rome appeared upon the scene in the person of M. Aemilius Scaurus (stepson of Sulla) who had been sent into Syria by Pompey (65 B.C.). Both brothers appealed to this new tribunal and Aristobulus bought a verdict in his favour. The siege was raised. Aretas retired from Judaea; and Aristobulus pursued the retreating army. But, when Pompey himself arrived at Damascus, Antipater, who pulled the strings and exploited the claims of Hyrcanus, realized that Rome and not the Arabs, who were cowed by the threats of Scaurus, was the ruler of the East. To Rome, therefore, he must pay his court. Others shared this conviction: Strabo speaks of embassies from Egypt and Judaea bearing presents—one deposited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus bore the inscription of Alexander, the king of the Jews. From Judaea there were three embassies pleading, for Aristobulus, for Hyrcanus, and for the nation, who would have no king at all but their God.
Pompey deferred his decision until he should have inquired into the state of the Nabataeans, who had shown themselves to be capable of dominating the Jews in the absence of the Roman army. In the interval Aristobulus provoked him by his display of a certain impatience. The people had no responsible head, of whom Rome could take cognisance: so Pompey decided in favour of Hyrcanus and humoured the people by recognizing him, not as king, but as high priest. Antipater remained secure, in power if not in place. The Roman supremacy was established: the Jews were once more one of the subject states of Syria, now a Roman province. Their national aspirations had received a contemptuous acknowledgment, when their Temple had been desecrated by the entry of a foreign conqueror.
Aristobulus himself had less resolution than his partisans. When he repented of his attempted resistance and treated with Pompey for peace, his followers threw themselves into Jerusalem, and, when the faction of Hyrcanus resolved to open the gates, into the Temple. There they held out for three months, succumbing finally because in obedience to the Law (as interpreted since the time of Antiochus Epiphanes) they would only defend themselves from actual assault upon the sabbath day. The Romans profited by this inaction to push on the siege-works, without provoking resistance by actual assaults until the very end. Pompey finally took the stronghold by choosing the day of the fast, when the Jews abstain from all work, that is the sabbath (Strabo). Dio Cassius calls it the day of Cronos. On this bloody sabbath the priests showed a devotion to their worship which matched the inaction of the fighting men. Though they saw the enemy advancing upon them sword in hand they remained at worship untroubled and were slaughtered as they poured libation and burned incense, for they put their own safety second to the service of God. And there were Jews among the murderers of the 12,000 Jews who fell.
The Jews of Palestine thus became once more a subject state, stripped of their conquests and confined to their own borders. Aristobulus and his children were conveyed to Rome to grace their conqueror’s triumphal procession. But his son Alexander escaped during the journey, gathered some force, and overran Judaea. The Pharisees decided that they could not take action on either side, since the elder son of Alexandra was directed by the Idumaean Antipater; and the people had an affection for such Asmonean princes as dared to challenge the Roman domination of their ancestral kingdom. The civil war was renewed; but Aulus Gabinius, the proconsul, soon crushed the pretender and set up an aristocracy in Judaea with Hyrcanus as guardian of the Temple. The country was divided into five districts with five synods; and Josephus asserts that the people welcomed the change from the monarchy. In spite of this, Aristobulus (56 B.C.) and Alexander (55 B.C.) found loyalists to follow them in their successive raids. But Antipater found supplies for the army of Gabinius, who, despite Egyptian and Parthian distractions, restored order according to the will of Antipater. M. Crassus, who succeeded him, plundered the Temple of its gold and the treasure (54 B.C.) which the Jews of the dispersion had contributed for its maintenance. It is said that Eleazar, the priest who guarded the treasure, offered Crassus the golden beam as ransom for the whole, knowing, what no one else knew, that it was mainly composed of wood. So Crassus departed to 397 Parthia and died. When the Parthians, elated by their victory over Crassus (53 B.C.) advanced upon Syria, Cassius opposed them. Some of the Jews, presumably the partisans of Aristobulus, were ready to co-operate with the Parthians. At any rate Antipater was ready to aid Cassius with advice; Taricheae was taken and 30,000 Jews were sold into slavery (51 B.C.). In spite of this vigorous coercion Cassius came to terms with Alexander, before he returned to the Euphrates to hold it against the Parthians.
Two years later Julius Caesar made himself master of Rome and despatched the captive Aristobulus with two legions to win Judaea (49 B.C.). But Pompey’s partisans were beforehand with him: he was taken off by poison and got not so much as a burial in his fatherland. At the same time his son Alexander was beheaded at Antioch by Pompey’s order as an enemy of Rome. After the defeat and death of Pompey (48 B.C.) Antipater transferred his allegiance to Caesar and demonstrated its value during Caesar’s Egyptian campaign. He carried with him the Arabs and the princes of Syria, and through Hyrcanus he was able to transform the hostility of the Egyptian Jews into active friendliness. These services, which incidentally illustrate the solidarity and unity of the Jewish nation and the respect of the communities of the dispersion for the metropolis, were recognized and rewarded. Before his assassination in 44 B.C. Julius Caesar had confirmed Hyrcanus in the high-priesthood and added the title of ethnarch. Antipater had been made a Roman citizen and procurator of the reunited Judaea. Further, as confederates of the senate and people of Rome, the Jews had received accession of territory, including the port of Joppa and, with other material privileges, the right of observing their religious customs not only in Palestine but also in Alexandria and elsewhere. Idumaean or Philistine of Ascalon, Antipater had displayed the capacity of his adoptive or adopted nation for his own profit and theirs. And when Caesar died Suetonius notes that he was mourned by foreign nations, especially by the Jews (Caes. 84).
In the midst of all this civil strife the Pharisees and all who were preoccupied with religion found it almost impossible to discern what they should do to please God. The people whom they directed were called out to fight, at the bidding of an alien, for this and that foreigner who seemed most powerful and most likely to succeed. In Palestine few could command leisure for meditation; as for opportunities of effective intervention in affairs, they had none, it would seem, once Alexander was dead.
There is a story of a priest named Onias preserved both by Josephus and in the Talmud, which throws some light upon the indecision of the religious in the period just reviewed. When Aretas intervened in the interest of Hyrcanus and defeated Aristobulus, the usurper of his brother’s inheritance, the people accepted the verdict of battle, sided with the victor’s client, and joined in the siege of Jerusalem. The most reputable of the Jews fled to Egypt; but Onias, a righteous man and dear to God, who had hidden himself, was discovered by the besiegers. He had a name for power in prayer; for once in a drought he prayed for rain and God had heard his prayer. His captors now required of him that he should put a curse upon Aristobulus and his faction. On compulsion he stood in their midst and said: “O God, king of the universe, since these who stand with me are thy people and the besieged are thy priests, I pray thee that thou hearken not to those against these, nor accomplish what these entreat against those.” So he prayed—and the wicked Jews stoned him.
Unrighteous Jews were in the ascendant. There were only Asmonean princes, degenerate and barely titular sons of Levi, to serve as judges of Israel—and they were at feud and both relied upon foreign aid. The righteous could only flee or hide, and so wait dreaming of the mercy of God past and to come. As yet our authorities do not permit us to follow them to Egypt with any certainty, but the Psalms of Solomon express the mind of one who survived to see Pompey the Great brought low. Although Pompey had spared the temple treasure, he was the embodiment of the power of Rome, which was not always so considerately exercised. And so the psalmist exults in his death and dishonour (Ps. ii.): he prayed that the pride of the dragon might be humbled and God shewed him the dead body lying upon the waves—and there was none to bury it. As one of those who fear the Lord in truth and in patience, he looks forward to the punishment of all sinners who oppress the righteous and profane the sanctuary. For the sins of the rulers God had rejected his people; but the remnant could not but inherit the promises, which belong to the chosen people. For the Lord is faithful unto those who walk in the righteousness of his commandments (xiv. 1): in the exercise of their freewill and with God’s help they will attain salvation. As God’s servant, Pompey destroyed their rulers and every wise councillor: soon the righteous and sinless king of David’s house shall reign over them and over all the nations (xvii.).
31. Herod the Great.—After the departure of Caesar, Antipater warned the adherents of Hyrcanus against taking part in any revolutionary attempts, and his son Herod, who, in spite of his youth, had been appointed governor of Galilee, dealt summarily with Hezekiah, the robber captain who was overrunning the adjacent part of Syria. The gratitude of the Syrians brought him to the knowledge of Sextus Caesar the governor of Syria; but his action inspired the chief men of the Jews with apprehension. Complaint was made to Hyrcanus that Herod had violated the law which prohibited the execution of even an evil man, unless he had been first condemned to death by the Sanhedrin. At the same time the mothers of the murdered men came to the Temple to demand vengeance. So Herod was summoned to stand his trial. He came in answer to the summons—but attended by a bodyguard and protected by the word of Sextus. Of all the Sanhedrin only Sameas “a righteous man and therefore superior to fear” dared to speak. Being a Pharisee he faced the facts of Herod’s power and warned the tribunal of the event, just as later he counselled the people to receive him, saying that for their sins they could not escape him. Herod put his own profit above the Law, acting after his kind, and he also was God’s instrument. The effect of the speech was to goad the Sanhedrin into condemning Herod: Hyrcanus postponed their decision and persuaded him to flee. Sextus Caesar made him lieutenant-governor of Coele Syria, and only his father restrained him from returning to wreak his revenge upon Hyrcanus.
It is to be remembered that, in this and all narratives of the life of Herod, Josephus was dependent upon the history of Herod’s client, Nicolaus of Damascus, and was himself a supporter of law and order. The action of the Sanhedrin and the presence of the women suppliants in the Temple suggest, if they do not prove, that this Hezekiah who harassed the Syrians was a Jewish patriot, who could not acquiesce and wait with Sameas.
Malichus also, the murderer or reputed murderer of Antipater, appears to have been a partisan of Hyrcanus, who had a zeal for Judaism. When Cassius demanded a tribute of 700 talents from Palestine, Antipater set Herod, Phasael and this Malichus, his enemy, to collect it. Herod thought it imprudent to secure the favour of Rome by the sufferings of others. But some cities defaulted, and they were apparently among those assigned to Malichus. If he had been lenient for their sakes or in the hope of damaging Antipater, he was disappointed; for Cassius sold four cities into slavery and Hyrcanus made up the deficit. Soon after this (43 B.C.) Malichus succeeded, it is said, in poisoning Antipater as he dined with Hyrcanus, and was assassinated by Herod’s bravoes.
After the departure of Cassius, Antipater being dead, there was confusion in Judaea. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, made a raid and was with difficulty repulsed by Herod. The prince of Tyre occupied part of Galilee. When Antony assumed the dominion of the East after the defeat of Cassius at Philippi, an embassy of the Jews, amongst other embassies, approached him in Bithynia and accused the sons of Antipater as usurpers of the power which rightly belonged to Hyrcanus. Another approached him at Antioch. But Hyrcanus was well content to forgo the title to political power, which he could not exercise in practice, and Antony had been a friend of Antipater. So Herod and Phasael continued to be virtually kings of the Jews: Antony’s court required large remittances and Palestine was not exempt.
In 40 B.C. Antony was absent in Egypt or Italy; and the Parthians swept down upon Syria with Antigonus in their train. Hyrcanus and Phasael were trapped: Herod fled by way of Egypt to Rome. Hyrcanus, who was Antigonus’ only rival, was mutilated and carried to Parthia. So he could no more be 398 high priest, and his life was spared only at the intercession of the Parthian Jews, who had a regard for the Asmonean prince. Thus Antigonus succeeded his uncle as “King Antigonus” in the Greek and “Mattathiah the high priest” in the Hebrew by grace of the Parthians.
The senate of Rome under the influence of Antony and Octavian ratified the claims of Herod, and after some delay lent him the armed force necessary to make them good. In the hope of healing the breach, which his success could only aggravate, and for love, he took to wife Mariamne, grandniece of Hyrcanus. Galilee was pacified, Jerusalem taken and Antigonus beheaded by the Romans. From this point to the end of the period the Jews were dependents of Rome, free to attend to their own affairs, so long as they paid taxes to the subordinate rulers, Herodian or Roman, whom they detested equally. If some from time to time dared to hope for political independence their futility was demonstrated. One by one the descendants of the Asmoneans were removed. The national hope was relegated to an indefinite future and to another sphere. At any rate the Jews were free to worship their God and to study his law: their religion was recognized by the state and indeed established.
This development of Judaism was eminently to the mind of the rulers; and Herod did much to encourage it. More and more it became identified with the synagogue, in which the Law was expounded: more and more it became a matter for the individual and his private life. This was so even in Palestine—the land which the Jews hoped to possess—and in Jerusalem itself, the holy city, in which the Temple stood. Herod had put down Jewish rebels and Herod appointed the high priests. In his appointments he was careful to avoid or to suppress any person who, being popular, might legitimize a rebellion by heading it. The Pharisees, who regarded his rule as an inevitable penalty for the sins of the people, he encouraged. Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas his disciple were in special honour with him, Josephus says, when he re-entered Jerusalem and put to death the leaders of the faction of Antigonus. How well their teaching served his purpose is shown by the sayings of two rabbis who, if not identical with these Pharisees, belong to their period and their party. Shemaiah said, “Love work and hate lordship and make not thyself known to the government.” Abtalion said, “Ye wise, be guarded in your words: perchance ye may incur the debt of exile.” Precepts such as these could hardly fall to effect some modification of the reckless zeal of the Galileans in the pupils of the synagogue. Many if not all of the professed rabbis had travelled outside Palestine: some were even members of the dispersion, like Hillel the Babylonian, who with Shammai forms the second of the pairs. Through them the experience of the dispersion was brought to bear upon the Palestinian Jews. Herod’s nominees were not the men to extend the prestige of the high-priesthood at the expense of these rabbis: even in Jerusalem the synagogue became of more importance than the Temple. Hillel also inculcated the duty of making converts to Judaism. He said, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them nigh to the Law.” But even he reckoned the books of Daniel and Esther as canonical, and these were dangerous food for men who did not realize the full power of Rome.
So long as Herod lived there was no insurrection. Formally he was an orthodox Jew and set his face against intermarriage with the uncircumcised. He was also ready and able to protect the Jews of the dispersion. But that ability was largely due to his whole-hearted Hellenism, which was shown by the Greek cities which he founded in Palestine and the buildings he erected in Jerusalem. In its material embodiments Greek civilization became as much a part of Jewish life in Palestine as it was in Alexandria or Antioch; and herein the rabbis could not follow him.
When all the Jewish people swore to be loyal to Caesar and the king’s policy, the Pharisees—above 6000—refused to swear. The king imposed a fine upon them, and the wife of Pheroras—Herod’s brother—paid it on their behalf. In return for her kindness, being entrusted with foreknowledge by the visitation of God, they prophesied that God had decreed an end of rule for Herod and his line and that the sovereignty devolved upon her and Pheroras and their children.
From the sequel it appears that the prophecy was uttered by one Pharisee only, and that it was in no way endorsed by the party. When it came to the ears of the king he slew the most responsible of the Pharisees and every member of his household who accepted what the Pharisee said. An explanation of this unwarrantable generalization may be found in the fact that the incident is derived from a source which was unfavourable to the Pharisees: they are described as a Jewish section of men who pretend to set great store by the exactitude of the ancestral tradition and the laws in which the deity delights—as dominant over women-folk—and as sudden and quick in quarrel.
Towards the end of Herod’s life two rabbis attempted to uphold by physical force the cardinal dogma of Judaism, which prohibited the use of images. Their action is intelligible enough. Herod was stricken with an incurable disease. He had sinned against the Law; and at last God had punished him. At last the law-abiding Jews might and must assert the majesty of the outraged Law. The most conspicuous of the many symbols and signs of his transgression was the golden eagle which he had placed over the great gate of the Temple; its destruction was the obvious means to adopt for the quickening and assertion of Jewish principles.
By their labours in the education of the youth of the nation, these rabbis, Judas and Matthias, had endeared themselves to the populace and had gained influence over their disciples. A report that Herod was dead co-operated with their exhortations to send the iconoclasts to their appointed work. And so they went to earn the rewards of their practical piety from the Law. If they died, death was inevitable, the rabbis said, and no better death would they ever find. Moreover, their children and kindred would benefit by the good name and fame belonging to those who died for the Law. Such is the account which Josephus gives in the Antiquities; in the Jewish War he represents the rabbis and their disciples as looking forward to greater happiness for themselves after such a death. But Herod was not dead yet, and the instigators and the agents of this sacrilege were burned alive.
32. The Settlement of Augustus.—On the death of Herod in 4 B.C. Archelaus kept open house for mourners as the Jewish custom, which reduced many Jews to beggary, prescribed. The people petitioned for the punishment of those who were responsible for the execution of Matthias and his associates and for the removal of the high priest. Archelaus temporized; the loyalty of the people no longer constituted a valid title to the throne; his succession must first be sanctioned by Augustus. Before he departed to Rome on this errand, which was itself an insult to the nation, there were riots in Jerusalem at the Passover which he needed all his soldiery to put down. When he presented himself before the emperor—apart from rival claimants of his own family—there was an embassy from the Jewish people who prayed to be rid of a monarchy and rulers such as Herod. As part of the Roman province of Syria and under its governors they would prove that they were not really disaffected and rebellious. During the absence of Archelaus, who would—the Jews feared—prove his legitimacy by emulating his father’s ferocity, and to whom their ambassadors preferred Antipas, the Jews of Palestine gave the lie to their protestations of loyalty and peaceableness. At the Passover the pilgrims attacked the Roman troops. After hard fighting the procurator, whose cruelty provoked the attack, captured the Temple and robbed the treasury. On this the insurgents were joined by some of Herod’s army and besieged the Romans in Herod’s palace. Elsewhere the occasion tempted many to play at being king—Judas, son of Hezekiah, in Galilee; Simon, one of the king’s slaves, in Peraea. Most notable of all perhaps was the shepherd Athronges, who assumed the pomp of royalty and employed his four brothers as captains and satraps in the war which he waged upon Romans and king’s men alike—not even Jews escaped him unless they brought him contributions. 399 Order was restored by Varus the governor of Syria in a campaign which Josephus describes as the most important war between that of Pompey and that of Vespasian.
At length Augustus summoned the representatives of the nation and Nicholaus of Damascus, who spoke for Archelaus, to plead before him in the temple of Apollo. Augustus apportioned Herod’s dominions among his sons in accordance with the provisions of his latest will. Archelaus received the lion’s share: for ten years he was ethnarch of Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria, with a yearly revenue of 600 talents. Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, with a revenue of 200 talents. Philip, who had been left in charge of Palestine pending the decision and had won the respect of Varus, became tetrarch of Batanaea, Trachonitis and Auranitis, with 100 talents. His subjects included only a sprinkling of Jews. Up to his death (A.D. 34) he did nothing to forfeit the favour of Rome. His coins bore the heads of Augustus and Tiberius, and his government was worthy of the best Roman traditions—he succeeded where proconsuls had failed. His capital was Caesarea Philippi, where Pan had been worshipped from ancient times, and where Augustus had a temple built by Herod the Great.
33. Archelaus.—Augustus had counselled Archelaus to deal gently with his subjects. But there was an outstanding feud between him and them; and his first act as ethnarch was to remove the high priest on the ground of his sympathy with the rebels. In violation of the Law he married a brother’s widow, who had already borne children, and in general he showed himself so fierce and tyrannical that the Jews joined with the Samaritans to accuse him before the emperor. Archelaus was summoned to Rome and banished to Gaul; his territory was entrusted to a series of procurators (A.D. 6-41), among whom was an apostate Jew, but none with any pretension even to a semi-legitimate authority. Each procurator represented not David but Caesar. The Sanhedrin had its police and powers to safeguard the Jewish religion; but the procurator had the appointment of the high priests, and no capital sentence could be executed without his sanction.
34. The Procurators.—So the Jews of Judaea obtained the settlement for which they had pleaded at the death of Herod; and some of them began to regret it at once. The first procurator Coponius was accompanied by P. Sulpicius Quirinius, legate of Syria, who came to organize the new Roman province. As a necessary preliminary a census (A.D. 6-7) was taken after the Roman method, which did not conform to the Jewish Law. The people were affronted, but for the most part acquiesced, under the influence of Joazar the high priest. But Judas the Galilean, with a Pharisee named Sadduc (Sadduk), endeavoured to incite them to rebellion in the name of religion. The result of this alliance between a revolutionary and a Pharisee was the formation of the party of Zealots, whose influence—according to Josephus—brought about the great revolt and so led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70. So far as this influence extended, the Jewish community was threatened with the danger of suicide, and the distinction drawn by Josephus between the Pharisees and the Zealots is a valid one. Not all Pharisees were prepared to take such action, in order that Israel might “tread on the neck of the eagle” (as is said in The Assumption of Moses). So long as the Law was not deliberately outraged and so long as the worship was established, most of the religious leaders of the Jews were content to wait.
It seems that the Zealots made more headway in Galilee than in Judaea—so much so that the terms Galilean and Zealot are practically interchangeable. In Galilee the Jews predominated over the heathen and their ruler Herod Antipas had some sort of claim upon their allegiance. His marriage with the daughter of the Arabian king Aretas (which was at any rate in accordance with the general policy of Augustus) seems to have preserved his territory from the incursions of her people, so long as he remained faithful to her. He conciliated his subjects by his deference to the observances of Judaism, and—the case is probably typical of his policy—he joined in protesting, when Pilate set up a votive shield in the palace of Herod within the sacred city. He seems to have served Tiberius as an official scrutineer of the imperial officials and he commemorated his devotion by the foundation of the city of Tiberias. But he repudiated the daughter of Aretas in order to marry Herodias and so set the Arabians against him. Disaster overtook his forces (A.D. 36) and Tiberius, his patron, died before the Roman power was brought in full strength to his aid. Caligula was not predisposed to favour the favourites of Tiberius; and Antipas, having petitioned him for the title of king at the instigation of Herodias, was banished from his tetrarchy and (apparently) was put to death in 39.
Antipas is chiefly known to history in connexion with John the Baptist, who reproached him publicly for his marriage with Herodias. According to the earliest authority, he seems to have imprisoned John to save him from the vengeance of Herodias. But—whatever his motive—Antipas certainly consented to John’s death. If the Fourth Gospel is to be trusted, John had already recognized and acclaimed Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah for whom the Jews were looking. By common consent of Christendom, John was the forerunner of the founder of the Christian Church. It was, therefore, during the reign of Antipas, and partly if not wholly within his territory, that the Gospel was first preached by the rabbi or prophet whom Christendom came to regard as the one true Christ, the Messiah of the Jews. Josephus’ history of the Jews contains accounts of John the Baptist and Jesus, the authenticity of which has been called in question for plausible but not entirely convincing reasons. However this may be, the Jews who believed Jesus to be the Christ play no great part in the history of the Jews before 70, as we know it. Many religious teachers and many revolutionaries were crucified within this period; and the early Christians were outwardly distinguished from other Jews only by their scrupulous observance of religious duties.
The crucifixion of Jesus was sanctioned by Pontius Pilate, who was procurator of Judaea A.D. 26-36. Of the Jews under his predecessors little enough is known. Speaking generally, they seem to have avoided giving offence to their subjects. But Pilate so conducted affairs as to attract the attention not only of Josephus but also of Philo, who represents for us the Jewish community of Alexandria. Pilate inaugurated his term of office by ordering his troops to enter Jerusalem at night and to take their standards with them. There were standards and standards in the Roman armies: those which bore the image of the emperor, and therefore constituted a breach of the Jewish Law, had hitherto been kept aloof from the holy city. On learning of this, the Jews repaired to Caesarea and besought Pilate to remove these offensive images. Pilate refused; and, when they persisted in their petition for six days, he surrounded them with soldiers and threatened them with instant death. They protested that they would rather die than dare to transgress the wisdom of the laws; and Pilate yielded. But he proceeded to expend the temple treasure upon an aqueduct for Jerusalem; and some of the Jews regarded the devotion of sacred money to the service of man as a desecration. Pilate came up to Jerusalem and dispersed the petitioners by means of disguised soldiers armed with clubs. So the revolt was put down, but the excessive zeal of the soldiers and Pilate’s obstinate adherence to his policy widened the breach between Rome and the stricter Jews. But the death of Sejanus in 31 set Tiberius free from prejudice against the Jews; and, when Pilate put up the votive shields in Herod’s palace at Jerusalem, the four sons of Herod came forward in defence of Jewish principles and he was ordered to remove them. In 35 he dispersed a number of Samaritans, who had assembled near Mt Gerizim at the bidding of an impostor, in order to see the temple vessels buried there by Moses. Complaint was made to Vitellius, then legate of Syria, and Pilate was sent to Rome to answer for his shedding of innocent blood. At the passover of 36 Vitellius came to Jerusalem and pacified the Jews by two concessions: he remitted the taxes on fruit sold in the city, and he restored to their custody the high priest’s vestments, which Herod Archelaus and the Romans had kept in the tower Antonia. The vestments had been stored there since the time 400 of the first high priest named Hyrcanus, and Herod had taken them over along with the tower, thinking that his possession of them would deter the Jews from rebellion against his rule. At the same time Vitellius vindicated the Roman supremacy by degrading Caiaphas from the high-priesthood, and appointing a son of Annas in his place. The motive for this change does not appear, and we are equally ignorant of the cause which prompted his transference of the priesthood from his nominee to another son of Annas in 37. But it is quite clear that Vitellius was concerned to reconcile the Jews to the authority of Rome. When he marched against Aretas, his army with their standards did not enter Judaea at all; but he himself went up to Jerusalem for the feast and, on receipt of the news that Tiberius was dead, administered to the Jews the oath of allegiance to Caligula.
35. Caligula and Agrippa I.—The accession of Caligula (A.D. 37-41) was hailed by his subjects generally as the beginning of the Golden Age. The Jews in particular had a friend at court. Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, was an avowed partisan of the new emperor and had paid penalty for a premature avowal of his preference. But Caligula’s favour, though lavished upon Agrippa, was not available for pious Jews. His foible was omnipotence, and he aped the gods of Greece in turn. In the provinces and even in Italy his subjects were ready to acknowledge his divinity—with the sole exception of the Jews. So we learn something of the Palestinian Jews and more of the Jewish community in Alexandria. The great world (as we know it) took small note of Judaism even when Jews converted its women to their faith; but now the Jews as a nation refused to bow before the present god of the civilized world. The new Catholicism was promulgated by authority and accepted with deference. Only the Jews protested: they had a notion of the deity which Caligula at all events did not fulfil.
The people of Alexandria seized the opportunity for an attack upon the Jews. Images of Caligula were set up in the synagogues, an edict deprived the Jews of their rights as citizens, and finally the governor authorized the mob to sack the Jewish quarter, as if it had been a conquered city (38). Jewesses were forced to eat pork and the elders were scourged in the theatre. But Agrippa had influence with the emperor and secured the degradation of the governor. The people and the Jews remained in a state of civil war, until each side sent an embassy (40) to wait upon the emperor. The Jewish embassy was headed by Philo, who has described its fortunes in a tract dealing with the divine punishment of the persecutors. Their opponents also had secured a friend at court and seem to have prevented any effective measure of redress. While the matter was still pending, news arrived that the emperor had commanded Publius Petronius, the governor of Syria, to set up his statue in the temple of Jerusalem. On the intervention of Agrippa the order was countermanded, and the assassination of the emperor (41) effectually stopped the desecration.
36. Claudius and the Procurators.—Claudius, the new emperor, restored the civic rights of the Alexandrian Jews and made Agrippa I. king over all the territories of Herod the Great. So there was once more a king of Judaea, and a king who observed the tradition of the Pharisees and protected the Jewish religion. There is a tradition in the Talmud which illustrates his popularity. As he was reading the Law at the feast of tabernacles he burst into tears at the words “Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which is not thy brother”; and the people cried out, “Fear not, Agrippa; thou art our brother.” The fact that he began to build a wall round Jerusalem may be taken as further proof of his patriotism. But the fact that he summoned five vassal-kings of the empire to a conference at Tiberias suggests rather a policy of self-aggrandisement. Both projects were prohibited by the emperor on the intervention of the legate. In 44 he died. The Christian records treat his death as an act of divine vengeance upon the persecutor of the Christian Church. The Jews prayed for his recovery and lamented him. The Gentile soldiers exulted in the downfall of his dynasty, which they signalized after their own fashion. Claudius intended that Agrippa’s young son should succeed to the kingdom; but he was overruled by his advisers, and Judaea was taken over once more by Roman procurators. The success of Agrippa’s brief reign had revived the hopes of the Jewish nationalists, and concessions only retarded the inevitable insurrection.
Cuspius Fadus, the first of these procurators, purged the land of bandits. He also attempted to regain for the Romans the custody of the high priest’s vestments; but the Jews appealed to the emperor against the revival of this advertisement of their servitude. The emperor granted the petition, which indeed the procurator had permitted them to make, and further transferred the nomination of the high priest and the supervision of the temple from the procurator to Agrippa’s brother, Herod of Chalcis. But these concessions did not satisfy the hopes of the people. During the government of Fadus, Theudas, who claimed to be a prophet and whom Josephus describes as a wizard, persuaded a large number to take up their possessions and follow him to the Jordan, saying that he would cleave the river asunder with a word of command and so provide them with an easy crossing. A squadron of cavalry despatched by Fadus took them alive, cut off the head of Theudas and brought it to Jerusalem.
Under the second procurator Tiberius Alexander, an apostate Jew of Alexandria, nephew of Philo, the Jews suffered from a great famine and were relieved by the queen of Adiabene, a proselyte to Judaism, who purchased corn from Egypt. The famine was perhaps interpreted by the Zealots as a punishment for their acquiescence in the rule of an apostate. At any rate Alexander crucified two sons of Simon the Galilean, who had headed a revolt in the time of the census. They had presumably followed the example of their father.
Under Ventidius Cumanus (48-52) the mutual hatred of Jews and Romans, Samaritans and Jews, found vent in insults and bloodshed. At the passover, on the fourth day of the feast, a soldier mounting guard at the porches of the Temple provoked an uproar, which ended in a massacre, by indecent exposure of his person. Some of the rebels intercepted a slave of the emperor on the high-road near the city and robbed him of his possessions. Troops were sent to pacify the country, and in one village a soldier found a copy of Moses’ laws and tore it up in public with jeers and blasphemies. At this the Jews flocked to Caesarea, and were only restrained from a second outbreak by the execution of the soldier. Finally, the Samaritans attacked certain Galileans who were (as the custom was) travelling through Samaria to Jerusalem for the passover. Cumanus was bribed and refused to avenge the death of the Jews who were killed. So the Galileans with some of the lower classes of “the Jews” allied themselves with a “robber” and burned some of the Samaritan villages. Cumanus armed the Samaritans, and, with them and his own troops, defeated these Jewish marauders. The leading men of Jerusalem prevailed upon the rebels who survived the defeat to disperse. But the quarrel was referred first to the legate of Syria and then to the emperor. The emperor was still disposed to conciliate the Jews; and, at the instance of Agrippa, son of Agrippa I., Cumanus was banished.
37. Felix and the Revolutionaries.—Under Antonius Felix (52-60) the revolutionary movement grew and spread. The country, Josephus says, was full of “robbers” and “wizards.” The high priest was murdered in the Temple by pilgrims who carried daggers under their cloaks. Wizards and impostors persuaded the multitude to follow them into the desert, and an Egyptian, claiming to be a prophet, led his followers to the Mount of Olives to see the walls of Jerusalem fall at his command. Such deceivers, according to Josephus, did no less than the murderers to destroy the happiness of the city. Their hands were cleaner but their thoughts were more impious, for they pretended to divine inspiration.
Felix the procurator—a king, as Tacitus says, in power and in mind a slave—tried in vain to put down the revolutionaries. The “chief-robber” Eleazar, who had plundered the country for twenty years, was caught and sent to Rome; countless robbers of less note were crucified. But this severity cemented the alliance of religious fanatics with the physical-force party and induced the ordinary citizens to join them, in spite of the punishments 401 which they received when captured. Agrippa II. received a kingdom—first Chalcis, and then the tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias—but, though he had the oversight of the Temple and the nomination of the high priest, and enjoyed a reputation for knowledge of Jewish customs and questions, he was unable to check the growing power of the Zealots. His sister Drusilla had broken the Law by her marriage with Felix; and his own notorious relations with his sister Berenice, and his coins which bore the images of the emperors, were an open affront to the conscience of Judaism. When Felix was recalled by Nero in 60 the nation was divided against itself, the Gentiles within its gates were watching for their opportunity, and the chief priests robbed the lower priests with a high hand.
In Caesarea there had been for some time trouble between the Jewish and the Syrian inhabitants. The Jews claimed that the city was theirs, because King Herod had founded it. The Syrians admitted the fact, but insisted that it was a city for Greeks, as its temples and statues proved. Their rivalry led to street-fighting: the Jews had the advantage in respect of wealth and bodily strength, but the Greek party had the assistance of the soldiers who were stationed there. On one occasion Felix sent troops against the victorious Jews; but neither this nor the scourge and the prison, to which the leaders of both factions had been consigned, deterred them. The quarrel was therefore referred to the emperor Nero, who finally gave his decision in favour of the Syrians or Greeks. The result of this decision was that the synagogue at Caesarea was insulted on a Sabbath and the Jews left the city taking their books of the Law with them. So—Josephus says—the war began in the twelfth year of the reign of Nero (A.D. 66).
38. Festus, Albinus and Florus.—Meanwhile the procurators who succeeded Felix—Porcius Festus (60-62), Albinus (62-64) and Gessius Florus (64-66)—had in their several ways brought the bulk of the nation into line with the more violent of the Jews of Caesarea. Festus found Judaea infested with robbers and the Sicarii, who mingled with the crowds at the feasts and stabbed their enemies with the daggers (sicae) from which their name was derived. He also, had to deal with a wizard, who deceived many by promising them salvation and release from evils, if they would follow him into the desert. His attempts to crush all such disturbers of the peace were cut short by his death in his second year of office.
In the interval which elapsed before the arrival of Albinus, Ananus son of Annas was made high priest by Agrippa. With the apparent intention of restoring order in Jerusalem, he assembled the Sanhedrin, and being, as a Sadducee, cruel in the matter of penalties, secured the condemnation of certain lawbreakers to death by stoning. For this he was deposed by Agrippa. Albinus fostered and turned to his profit the struggles of priests with priests and of Zealots with their enemies. The general release of prisoners, with which he celebrated his impending recall, is typical of his policy. Meanwhile Agrippa gave the Levites the right to wear the linen robe of the priests and sanctioned the use of the temple treasure to provide work—the paving of the city with white stones—for the workmen who had finished the Temple (64) and now stood idle. But everything pointed to the destruction of the city, which one Jesus had prophesied at the feast of tabernacles in 62. The Zealots’ zeal for the Law and the Temple was flouted by their pro-Roman king.
By comparison with Florus, Albinus was, in the opinion of Josephus, a benefactor. When the news of the troubles at Caesarea reached Jerusalem, it became known also that Florus had seized seventeen talents of the temple treasure (66). At this the patience of the Jews was exhausted. The sacrilege, as they considered it, may have been an attempt to recover arrears of tribute; but they were convinced that Florus was providing for himself and not for Caesar. The revolutionaries went about among the excited people with baskets, begging coppers for their destitute and miserable governor. Stung by this insult, he neglected the fire of war which had been lighted at Caesarea, and hastened to Jerusalem. His soldiers sacked the upper city and killed 630 persons—men, women and children. Berenice, who was fulfilling a Nazarite vow, interposed in vain. Florus actually dared to scourge and crucify Jews who belonged to the Roman order of knights. For the moment the Jews were cowed, and next day they went submissively to greet the troops coming from Caesarea. Their greetings were unanswered, and they cried out against Florus. On this the soldiers drew their swords and drove the people into the city; but, once inside the city, the people stood at bay and succeeded in establishing themselves upon the temple-hill. Florus withdrew with all his troops, except one cohort, to Caesarea. The Jews laid complaint against him, and he complained against the Jews before the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, who sent an officer to inquire into the matter. Agrippa, who had hurried from Alexandria, entered Jerusalem with the governor’s emissary. So long as he counselled submission to the overwhelming power of Rome the people complied, but when he spoke of obedience to Florus he was compelled to fly. The rulers, who desired peace, and upon whom Florus had laid the duty of restoring peace, asked him for troops; but the civil war ended in their complete discomfiture. The rebels abode by their decision to stop the daily sacrifice for the emperor; Agrippa’s troops capitulated and marched out unhurt; and the Romans, who surrendered on the same condition and laid down their arms, were massacred. As if to emphasize the spirit and purpose of the rebellion, one and only one of the Roman soldiers was spared, because he promised to become a Jew even to the extent of circumcision.
39. Josephus and the Zealots.—Simultaneously with this massacre the citizens of Caesarea slaughtered the Jews who still remained there; and throughout Syria Jews effected—and suffered—reprisals. At length the governor of Syria approached the centre of the disturbance in Jerusalem, but retreated after burning down a suburb. In the course of his retreat he was attacked by the Jews and fled to Antioch, leaving them his engines of war. Some prominent Jews fled from Jerusalem—as from a sinking ship—to join him and carried the news to the emperor. The rest of the pro-Roman party were forced or persuaded to join the rebels and prepared for war on a grander scale. Generals were selected by the Sanhedrin from the aristocracy, who had tried to keep the peace and still hoped to make terms with Rome. Ananus the high priest, their leader, remained in command at Jerusalem; Galilee, where the first attack was to be expected, was entrusted to Josephus, the historian of the war. The revolutionary leaders, who had already taken the field, were superseded.
Josephus set himself to make an army of the inhabitants of Galilee, many of whom had no wish to fight, and to strengthen the strongholds. His organization of local government and his efforts to maintain law and order brought him into collision with the Zealots and especially with John of Giscala, one of their leaders. The people, whom he had tried to conciliate, were roused against him; John sent assassins and finally procured an order from Jerusalem for his recall. In spite of all this Josephus held his ground and by force or craft put down those who resisted his authority.
In the spring of 67 Vespasian, who had been appointed by Nero to crush the rebellion, advanced from his winter quarters at Antioch. The inhabitants of Sepphoris—whom Josephus had judged to be so eager for the war that he left them to build their wall for themselves—received a Roman garrison at their own request. Joined by Titus, Vespasian advanced into Galilee with three legions and the auxiliary troops supplied by Agrippa and other petty kings. Before his advance the army of Josephus fled. Josephus with a few stalwarts took refuge in Tiberias, and sent a letter to Jerusalem asking that he should be relieved of his command or supplied with an adequate force to continue the war. Hearing that Vespasian was preparing to besiege Jotapata, a strong fortress in the hills, which was held by other fugitives, Josephus entered it just before the road approaching it was made passable for the Roman horse and foot. A deserter announced his arrival to Vespasian, who rejoiced (Josephus says) that the cleverest of his enemies had thus voluntarily imprisoned himself. After some six weeks’ siege the place was stormed, and its 402 exhausted garrison were killed or enslaved. Josephus, whose pretences had postponed the final assault, hid in a cave with forty men. His companions refused to permit him to surrender and were resolved to die. At his suggestion they cast lots, and the first man was killed by the second and so on, until all were dead except Josephus and (perhaps) one other. So Josephus saved them from the sin of suicide and gave himself up to the Romans. He had prophesied that the place would be taken—as it was—on the forty-seventh day, and now he prophesied that both Vespasian and his son Titus would reign over all mankind. The prophecy saved his life, though many desired his death, and the rumour of it produced general mourning in Jerusalem. By the end of the year (67) Galilee was in the hands of Vespasian, and John of Giscala had fled. Agrippa celebrated the conquest at Caesarea Philippi with festivities which lasted twenty days.
In accordance with ancient custom Jerusalem welcomed the fugitive Zealots. The result was civil war and famine. Ananus incited the people against these robbers, who arrested, imprisoned and murdered prominent friends of Rome, and arrogated to themselves the right of selecting the high priest by lot. The Zealots took refuge in the Temple and summoned the Idumaeans to their aid. Under cover of a storm, they opened the city-gates to their allies and proceeded to murder Ananus the high priest, and, against the verdict of a formal tribunal, Zacharias the son of Baruch in the midst of the Temple. The Idumaeans left, but John of Giscala remained master of Jerusalem.
40. The Fall of Jerusalem.—Vespasian left the rivals to consume one another and occupied his army with the subjugation of the country. When he had isolated the capital and was preparing to besiege it, the news of Nero’s death reached him at Caesarea. For a year (June 68-June 69) he held his hand and watched events, until the robber-bands of Simon Bar-Giora (son of the proselyte) required his attention. But, before Vespasian took action to stop his raids, Simon had been invited to Jerusalem in the hope that he would act as a counterpoise to the tyrant John. And so, when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in fulfilment of Josephus’ prophecy, and deputed the command to Titus, there were three rivals at war in Jerusalem—Eleazar, Simon and John. The temple sacrifices were still offered and worshippers were admitted; but John’s catapults were busy, and priest and worshippers at the altar were killed, because Eleazar’s party occupied the inner courts of the Temple. A few days before the passover of 70 Titus advanced upon Jerusalem, but the civil war went on. When Eleazar opened the temple-gates to admit those who wished to worship God, John of Giscala introduced some of his own men, fully armed under their garments, and so got possession of the Temple. Titus pressed the attack, and the two factions joined hands at last to repel it. In spite of their desperate sallies, Jerusalem was surrounded by a wall, and its people, whose numbers were increased by those who had come up for the passover, were hemmed in to starve. The famine affected all alike—the populace, who desired peace, and the Zealots, who were determined to fight to the end. At last John of Giscala portioned out the sacred wine and oil, saying that they who fought for the Temple might fearlessly use its stores for their sustenance. Steadily the Romans forced their way through wall after wall, until the Jews were driven back to the Temple and the daily sacrifices came to an end on the 17th of July for lack of men. Once more Josephus appealed in vain to John and his followers to cease from desecrating and endangering the Temple. The siege proceeded and the temple-gates were burned. According to Josephus, Titus decided to spare the Temple, but—whether this was so or not—on the 10th of August it was fired by a soldier after a sortie of the Jews had been repelled. The legions set up their standards in the temple-court and hailed Titus as imperator.
Some of the Zealots escaped with John and Simon to the upper city and held it for another month. But Titus had already earned the triumph which he celebrated at Rome in 71. The Jews, wherever they might be, continued to pay the temple-tax; but now it was devoted to Jupiter Capitolinus. The Romans had taken their holy place, and the Law was all that was left to them.
41. From A.D. 70 to A.D. 135.—The destruction of the Temple carried with it the destruction of the priesthood and all its power. The priests existed to offer sacrifices, and by the Law no sacrifice could be offered except at the Temple of Jerusalem. Thenceforward the remnant of the Jews who survived the fiery ordeal formed a church rather than a nation or a state, and the Pharisees exercised an unchallenged supremacy. With the Temple and its Sadducean high priests perished the Sanhedrin in which the Sadducees had competed with the Pharisees for predominance. The Sicarii or Zealots who had appealed to the arm of flesh were exterminated. Only the teachers of the Law survived to direct the nation and to teach those who remained loyal Jews, how they should render to Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and to God what belonged to God. Here and there hot-headed Zealots rose up to repeat the errors and the disasters of their predecessors. But their fate only served to deepen the impression already stamped upon the general mind of the nation. The Temple was gone, but they had the Law. Already the Jews of the Dispersion had learned to supplement the Temple by the synagogue, and even the Jews of Jerusalem had not been free to spend their lives in the worship of the Temple. There were still, as always, rites which were independent of the place and of the priest; there had been a time when the Temple did not exist. So Judaism survived once more the destruction of its central sanctuary.
When Jerusalem was taken, the Sicarii still continued to hold three strongholds: one—Masada—for three years. But the commander of Masada realized at length that there was no hope of escaping captivity except by death, and urged his comrades to anticipate their fate. Each man slew his wife and children; ten men were selected by lot to slay the rest; one man slew the nine executioners, fired the palace and fell upon his sword. When the place was stormed the garrison consisted of two old women and five children who had concealed themselves in caves. So Vespasian obtained possession of Palestine—the country which Nero had given him—and for a time it was purged of revolutionaries. Early Christian writers assert that he proceeded to search out and to execute all descendants of David who might conceivably come forward as claimants of the vacant throne.
In Egypt and in Cyrene fugitive Zealots endeavoured to continue their rebellion against the emperor, but there also with disastrous results. The doors of the Temple in Egypt were closed, and its sacrifices which had been offered for 243 years were prohibited. Soon afterwards this temple also was destroyed. Apart from these local outbreaks, the Jews throughout the empire remained loyal citizens and were not molested. The general hope of the nation was not necessarily bound up with the house of David, and its realization was not incompatible with the yoke of Rome. They still looked for a true prophet, and meanwhile they had their rabbis.
Under Johanan ben Zaccai (q.v.) the Pharisees established themselves at Jamnia. A new Sanhedrin was formed there under the presidency of a ruler, who received yearly dues from all Jewish communities. The scribes through the synagogues preserved the national spirit and directed it towards the religious life which was prescribed by Scripture. The traditions of the elders were tested and gradually harmonized in their essentials. The canon of Scripture was decided in accordance with the touchstone of the Pentateuch. Israel had retired to their tents to study their Bible.
Under Vespasian and Titus the Jews enjoyed freedom of conscience and equal political rights with non-Jewish subjects of Rome. But Domitian, according to pagan historians, bore hardly on them. The temple-tax was strictly exacted; Jews who lived the Jewish life without openly confessing their religion and Jews who concealed their nationality were brought before the magistrates. Proselytes to Judaism were condemned either to death or to forfeiture of their property. Indeed it would seem that Domitian instituted a persecution of the Jews, to which Nerva his successor put an end. Towards the end of Trajan’s reign (114-117) the Jews of Egypt and Cyrene rose against their Greek neighbours and set up a king. The rebellion spread to Cyprus; and when Trajan advanced from Mesopotamia into Parthia the Jews of Mesopotamia revolted. The massacres they perpetrated were avenged in kind and all the insurrections were quelled when Hadrian succeeded Trajan.
In 132 the Jews of Palestine rebelled again. Hadrian had forbidden circumcision as illegal mutilation: he had also replaced Jerusalem by a city of his own, Aelia Capitolina, and the temple of Yahweh by a temple of Jupiter. Apart from these bitter provocations—the prohibition of the sign of the covenant and the desecration of the sacred place—the Jews had a leader who was recognized as Messiah by the rabbi Aqiba. Though the majority of the rabbis looked for no such deliverer and refused to admit his claims, Barcochebas (q.v.) drew the people after him to struggle for their national independence. For three years and a half he held his own and issued coins in the name of Simon, which commemorate the liberation of Jerusalem. Some attempt was apparently made to rebuild the Temple; and the Jews of the Dispersion, who had perhaps been won over by Aqiba, supported the rebellion. Indeed even Gentiles helped them, so that the whole world (Dio Cassius says) was stirred. Hadrian sent his best generals against the rebels, and at length they were driven from Jerusalem to Bethar (135). The Jews were forbidden to enter the new city of Jerusalem on pain of death.
Bibliography.—The most comprehensive of modern books dealing with the period is Emil Schürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (3 vols., Leipzig, 1901 foll.). Exception has been taken to a certain lack of sympathy with the Jews, especially the rabbis, which has been detected in the author. But at least the book remains an indispensable storehouse of references to ancient and modern authorities. An earlier edition was translated into English under the title History of the Jewish People (Edinburgh, 1890, 1891). Of shorter histories, D. A. Schlatter’s Geschichte Israel’s von Alexander dem Grossen bis Hadrian (2nd ed., 1906) is perhaps the least dependent upon Schürer and attempts more than others to interpret the fragmentary evidence available. Dr R. H. Charles has done much by his editions to restore to their proper prominence in connexion with Jewish history the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Book of Jubilees, Enoch, &c. But Schürer gives a complete bibliography to which it must suffice to refer. For the Sanhedrin see Synedrium.
III.—From the Dispersion to Modern Times
42. The Later Empire.—With the failure in 135 of the attempt led by Barcochebas to free Judaea from Roman domination a new era begins in the history of the Jews. The direct consequence of the failure was the annihilation of political nationality. Large numbers fell in the actual fighting. Dio Cassius puts the total at the incredible figure of 580,000, besides the incalculable number who succumbed to famine, disease and fire (Dio-Xiphilin lxix. 11-15). Jerusalem was rebuilt by Hadrian, orders to this effect being given during the emperor’s first journey through Syria in 130, the date of his foundations at Gaza, Tiberias and Petra (Reinach, Textes relatifs au Judaïsme, p. 198). The new city was named Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of Jehovah there arose another temple dedicated to Jupiter. To Eusebius the erection of a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Christ was an act of mockery against the Christian religion. Rome had been roused to unwonted fury, and the truculence of the rebels was matched by the cruelty of their masters. The holy city was barred against the Jews; they were excluded, under pain of death, from approaching within view of the walls. Hadrian’s policy in this respect was matched later on by the edict of the caliph Omar (c. 638), who, like his Roman prototype, prevented the Jews from settling in the capital of their ancient country. The death of Hadrian and the accession of Antoninus Pius (138), however, gave the dispersed people of Palestine a breathing-space. Roman law was by no means intolerant to the Jews. Under the constitution of Caracalla (198-217) all inhabitants of the Roman empire enjoyed the civil rights of the Cives Romani (Scherer, Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden, p. 10).
Moreover, a spiritual revival mitigated the crushing effects of material ruin. The synagogue had become a firmly established institution, and the personal and social life of the masses had come under the control of communal law. The dialectic of the school proved stronger to preserve than the edge of the sword to destroy. Pharisaic Judaism, put to the severest test to which a religious system has ever been subject, showed itself able to control and idealize life in all its phases. Whatever question may be possible as to the force or character of Pharisaism in the time of Christ, there can be no doubt that it became both all-pervading and ennobling among the successors of Aqiba (q.v.), himself one of the martyrs to Hadrian’s severity. Little more than half a century after the overthrow of the Jewish nationality, the Mishnah was practically completed, and by this code of rabbinic law—and law is here a term which includes the social, moral and religious as well as the ritual and legal phases of human activity—the Jewish people were organized into a community, living more or less autonomously under the Sanhedrin or Synedrium (q.v.) and its officials.
Judah the prince, the patriarch or nāsī who edited the Mishnah, died early in the 3rd century. With him the importance of the Palestinian patriarchate attained its zenith. Gamaliel II. of Jamnia (Jabne Yebneh) had been raised to this dignity a century before, and, as members of the house of Hillel and thus descendants of David, the patriarchs enjoyed almost royal authority. Their functions were political rather than religious, though their influence was by no means purely secular. They were often on terms of intimate friendship with the emperors, who scarcely interfered with their jurisdiction. As late as Theodosius I. (379-395) the internal affairs of the Jews were formally committed to the patriarchs, and Honorius (404) authorized the collection of the patriarch’s tax (aurum coronarium), by which a revenue was raised from the Jews of the diaspora. Under Theodosius II. (408-450) the patriarchate was finally abolished after a régime of three centuries and a half (Graetz, History of the Jews, Eng. trans. vol. ii. ch. xxii.), though ironically enough the last holder of the office had been for a time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect. The real turning-point had been reached earlier, when Christianity became the state religion under Constantine I. in 312.
Religion under the Christian emperors became a significant source of discrimination in legal status, and non-conformity might reach so far as to produce complete loss of rights. The laws concerning the Jews had a repressive and preventive object: the repression of Judaism and the prevention of inroads of Jewish influences into the state religion. The Jews were thrust into a position of isolation, and the Code of Theodosius and other authorities characterize the Jews as a lower order of depraved beings (inferiores and perversi), their community as a godless, dangerous sect (secta nefaria, feralis), their religion a superstition, their assemblies for religious worship a blasphemy (sacrilegi coetus) and a contagion (Scherer, op. cit. pp. 11-12). Yet Judaism under Roman Christian law was a lawful religion (religio licita), Valentinian I. (364-375) forbade the quartering of soldiers in the synagogues, Theodosius I. prohibited interference with the synagogue worship (“Judaeorum sectam nulla lege prohibitam satis constat”), and in 412 a special edict of protection was issued. But the admission of Christians into the Jewish fold was punished by confiscation of goods (357), the erection of new synagogues was arrested by Theodosius II. (439) under penalty of a heavy fine, Jews were forbidden to hold Christian slaves under pain of death (423). A similar penalty attached to intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and an attempt was made to nullify all Jewish marriages which were not celebrated in accordance with Roman law. But Justinian (527-565) was the first to interfere directly in the religious institutions of the Jewish people. In 553 he interdicted the use of the Talmud (which had then not long been completed), and the Byzantine emperors of the 8th and 9th centuries passed even more intolerant regulations. As regards civil law, Jews were at first allowed to settle disputes between Jew and Jew before their own courts, but Justinian denied to them and to heretics the right to appear as witnesses in the public courts against orthodox Christians. To Constantine V. (911-959) goes back the Jewish form of oath which in its later development required the Jew to gird himself with thorns; stand in water; and, holding the scroll of the Torah in his hand, invoke upon his person the leprosy of Naaman, the curse of Eli and the fate of Korah’s sons should he perjure himself. This was the original of all the medieval forms of oath more judaico, which still prevailed in many European lands till the 19th century, and are even now maintained by some of the Rumanian courts. Jews were by the law of Honorius excluded from the army, from public offices and dignities (418), from acting as advocates (425); only the curial offices were open to them. Justinian gave the finishing touch by proclaiming in 537 the Jews absolutely ineligible for any honour whatsoever (“honore fruantur nullo”).
43. Judaism in Babylonia.—The Jews themselves were during this period engaged in building up a system of isolation on their own side, but they treated Roman law with greater hospitality than it meted out to them. The Talmud shows the influence of that law in many points, and may justly be compared to it as a monument of codification based on great principles. The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia about 500. The land which, a millennium before, had been a prison for the Jewish exiles was now their asylum of refuge. For a long time it formed their second fatherland. Here, far more than on Palestinian soil, was built the enduring edifice of rabbinism. The population of the southern part of Mesopotamia—the strip of land enclosed between the Tigris and the Euphrates—was, according to Graetz, mainly Jewish; while the district extending for about 70 m. on the east of the Euphrates, from Nehardea in the north to Sura in the south, became a new Palestine with Nehardea for its Jerusalem. The Babylonian Jews were practically independent, and the exilarch (resh-galutha) or prince of the captivity was an official who ruled the community as a vassal of the Persian throne. The exilarch claimed, like the Palestinian patriarch, descent from the royal house of David, and exercised most of the functions of 404 government. Babylonia had risen into supreme importance for Jewish life at about the time when the Mishnah was completed. The great rabbinic academies at Sura and Nehardea, the former of which retained something of its dominant rôle till the 11th century, had been founded, Sura by Abba Arika (q.v.) (c. 219), but Nehardea, the more ancient seat of the two, famous in the 3rd century for its association with Abba Arika’s renowned contemporary Samuel, lost its Jewish importance in the age of Mahomet.
To Samuel of Nehardea (q.v.) belongs the honour of formulating the principle which made it possible for Jews to live under alien laws. Jeremiah had admonished his exiled brothers: “Seek ye the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace” (Jer. xxix. 7). It was now necessary to go farther, and the rabbis proclaimed a principle which was as influential with the synagogue as “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” became with the Church. “The law of the government is law” (Baba Qama 113 b.), said Samuel, and ever since it has been a religious duty for the Jews to obey and accommodate themselves as far as possible to the laws of the country in which they are settled or reside. In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia, laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighbourhood arose the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the intellectual life of Israel in Babylonia. These academies were organized on both scholastic and popular lines; their constitution was democratic. An outstanding feature was the Kallah assemblage twice a year (in Elul at the close of the summer, and in Adar at the end of the winter), when there were gathered together vast numbers of outside students of the most heterogeneous character as regards both age and attainments. Questions received from various quarters were discussed and the final decision of the Kallah was signed by the Resh-Kallah or president of the general assembly, who was only second in rank to the Resh-Metibta, or president of the scholastic sessions. Thus the Babylonian academies combined the functions of specialist law-schools, universities and popular parliaments. They were a unique product of rabbinism; and the authors of the system were also the compilers of its literary expression, the Talmud.
44. Judaism in Islam.—Another force now appears on the scene. The new religion inaugurated by Mahomet differed in its theory from the Roman Catholic Church. The Church, it is true, in council after council, passed decisions unfriendly to the Jews. From the synod at Elvira in the 4th century this process began, and it was continued in the West-Gothic Church legislation, in the Lateran councils (especially the fourth in 1215), and in the council of Trent (1563). The anti-social tendency of these councils expressed itself in the infliction of the badge, in the compulsory domicile of Jews within ghettos, and in the erection of formidable barriers against all intercourse between church and synagogue. The protective instinct was responsible for much of this interference with the natural impulse of men of various creeds towards mutual esteem and forbearance. The church, it was conceived, needed defence against the synagogue at all hazards, and the fear that the latter would influence and dominate the former was never absent from the minds of medieval ecclesiastics. But though this defensive zeal led to active persecution, still in theory Judaism was a tolerated religion wherever the Church had sway, and many papal bulls of a friendly character were issued throughout the middle ages (Scherer, p. 32 seq.).
Islam, on the other hand, had no theoretic place in its scheme for tolerated religions; its principle was fundamentally intolerant. Where the mosque was erected, there was no room for church or synagogue. The caliph Omar initiated in the 7th century a code which required Christians and Jews to wear peculiar dress, denied them the right to hold state offices or to possess land, inflicted a poll-tax on them, and while forbidding them to enter mosques, refused them the permission to build new places of worship for themselves. Again and again these ordinances were repeated in subsequent ages, and intolerance for infidels is still a distinct feature of Mahommedan law. But Islam has often shown itself milder in fact than in theory, for its laws were made to be broken. The medieval Jews on the whole lived, under the crescent, a fuller and freer life than was possible to them under the cross. Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate (see Gaon), the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and wide, while the exilarchate was local. The gaonate enjoyed a practical tolerance remarkable when contrasted with the letter of Islamic law. And as the Bagdad caliphate tended to become more and more supreme in Islam, so the gaonate too shared in this increased influence. Not even the Qaraite schism was able to break the power of the geonim. But the dispersion of the Jews was proceeding in directions which carried masses from the Asiatic inland to the Mediterranean coasts and to Europe.
45. In Medieval Europe: Spain.—This dispersion of the Jews had begun in the Hellenistic period, but it was after the Barcochebas war that it assumed great dimensions in Europe. There were Jews in the Byzantine empire, in Rome, in France and Spain at very early periods, but it is with the Arab conquest of Spain that the Jews of Europe began to rival in culture and importance their brethren of the Persian gaonate. Before this date the Jews had been learning the rôle they afterwards filled, that of the chief promoters of international commerce. Already under Charlemagne this development is noticeable; in his generous treatment of the Jews this Christian emperor stood in marked contrast to his contemporary the caliph Harun al-Rashid, who persecuted Jews and Christians with equal vigour. But by the 10th century Judaism had received from Islam something more than persecution. It caught the contagion of poetry, philosophy and science.64 The schismatic Qaraites initiated or rather necessitated a new Hebrew philology, which later on produced Qimḥi, the gaon Saadiah founded a Jewish philosophy, the statesman Ḥasdai introduced a new Jewish culture—and all this under Mahommedan rule. It is in Spain that above all the new spirit manifested itself. The distinctive feature of the Spanish-Jewish culture was its comprehensiveness. Literature and affairs, science and statecraft, poetry and medicine, these various expressions of human nature and activity were so harmoniously balanced that they might be found in the possession of one and the same individual. The Jews of Spain attained to high places in the service of the state from the time of the Moorish conquest in 711. From Hasdai ibn Shaprut in the 10th century and Samuel the nagid in the 11th the line of Jewish scholar-statesmen continued till we reach Isaac Abrabanel in 1492, the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. This last-named event synchronized with the discovery of America; Columbus being accompanied by at least one Jewish navigator. While the Spanish period of Jewish history was thus brilliant from the point of view of public service, it was equally notable on the literary side. Hebrew religious poetry was revived for synagogue hymnology, and, partly in imitation of Arabian models, a secular Hebrew poetry was developed in metre and rhyme. The new Hebrew Piyut found its first important exponent in Kalir, who was not a Spaniard. But it is to Spain that we must look for the best of the medieval poets of the synagogue, greatest among them being Ibn Gabirol and Halevi. So, too, the greatest Jew of the middle ages, Maimonides, was a Spaniard. In him culminates the Jewish expression of the Spanish-Moorish culture; his writings had an influence on European scholasticism and contributed significant elements to the philosophy of Spinoza. But the reconquest of Andalusia by the Christians associated towards the end of the 15th century with the establishment of the Inquisition, introduced a spirit of intolerance which led to the expulsion of the Jews and Moors. The consequences of this blow were momentous; it may be said to inaugurate the ghetto period. In Spain Jewish life had participated in the general life, but the expulsion—while it dispersed 405 the Spanish Jews in Poland, Turkey, Italy and France, and thus in the end contributed to the Jewish emancipation at the French Revolution—for the time drove the Jews within their own confines and barred them from the outside world.65
46. In France, Germany, England, Italy.—In the meantime Jewish life had been elsewhere subjected to other influences which produced a result at once narrower and deeper. Under Charlemagne, the Jews, who had begun to settle in Gaul in the time of Caesar, were more than tolerated. They were allowed to hold land and were encouraged to become—what their ubiquity qualified them to be—the merchant princes of Europe. The reign of Louis the Pious (814-840) was, as Graetz puts it, “a golden era for the Jews of his kingdom, such as they had never enjoyed, and were destined never again to enjoy in Europe”—prior, that is, to the age of Mendelssohn. In Germany at the same period the feudal system debarred the Jews from holding land, and though there was as yet no material persecution they suffered moral injury by being driven exclusively into finance and trade. Nor was there any widening of the general horizon such as was witnessed in Spain. The Jewries of France and Germany were thus thrown upon their own cultural resources. They rose to the occasion. In Mainz there settled in the 10th century Gershom, the “light of the exile,” who, about 1000, published his ordinance forbidding polygamy in Jewish law as it had long been forbidden in Jewish practice. This ordinance may be regarded as the beginning of the Synodal government of Judaism, which was a marked feature of medieval life in the synagogues of northern and central Europe from the 12th century. Soon after Gershom’s death, Rashi (1040-1106) founded at Troyes a new school of learning. If Maimonides represented Judaism on its rational side, Rashi was the expression of its traditions.
French Judaism was thus in a sense more human if less humane than the Spanish variety; the latter produced thinkers, statesmen, poets and scientists; the former, men with whom the Talmud was a passion, men of robuster because of more naïve and concentrated piety. In Spain and North Africa persecution created that strange and significant phenomenon Maranism or crypto-Judaism, a public acceptance of Islam or Christianity combined with a private fidelity to the rites of Judaism. But in England, France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy. The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal. The evil was wrought, not by the regular armies of the cross who were inspired by noble ideals, but by the undisciplined mobs which, for the sake of plunder, associated themselves with the genuine enthusiasts. In 1096 massacres of Jews occurred in many cities of the Rhineland. During the second crusade (1145-1147) Bernard of Clairvaux heroically protested against similar inhumanities. The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York, where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism. Economically and socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews (see J. Jacobs, Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 379). Socially they suffered by the outburst of religious animosity. One of the worst forms taken by this ill-will was the oft-revived myth of ritual murder (q.v.), and later on when the Black Death devastated Europe (1348-1349) the Jews were the victims of an odious charge of well-poisoning. Economically the results were also injurious. “Before the crusades the Jews had practically a monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connexion between Europe and the East brought about by the crusades raised up a class of merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onwards restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent” (op. cit.). After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of servi camerae, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs. At the personal whim of rulers, whether royal or of lower rank, the Jews were expelled from states and principalities and were reduced to a condition of precarious uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth. Pope Innocent III. gave strong impetus to the repression of the Jews, especially by ordaining the wearing of a badge. Popular animosity was kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations. In 1306 Philip IV. expelled the Jews from France, nine years later Louis X. recalled them for a period of twelve years. Such vicissitudes were the ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own inner life—the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption—that saved them from utter demoralization and despair. Curiously enough in Italy—and particularly in Rome—the external conditions were better. The popes themselves, within their own immediate jurisdiction, were often far more tolerant than their bulls issued for foreign communities, and Torquemada was less an expression than a distortion of the papal policy. In the early 14th century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent shared in this gracious change. Robert of Aragon—vicar-general of the papal states—in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in their literary and scientific ambitions. Small coteries of Jewish minor poets and philosophers were formed, and men like Kalonymos and Immanuel—Dante’s friend—shared the versatility and culture of Italy. But in Germany there was no echo of this brighter note. Persecution was elevated into a system, a poll-tax was exacted, and the rabble was allowed (notably in 1336-1337) to give full vent to its fury. Following on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany; even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable rights, extensive massacres took place.
In effect the Jews became outlaws, but their presence being often financially necessary, certain officials were permitted to “hold Jews,” who were liable to all forms of arbitrary treatment, on the side of their “owners.” The Jews had been among the first to appreciate the commercial advantages of permitting the loan of money on interest, but it was the policy of the Church that drove the Jews into money-lending as a characteristic trade. Restrictions on their occupations were everywhere common, and as the Church forbade Christians to engage in usury, this was the only trade open to the Jews. The excessive demands made upon the Jews forbade a fair rate of interest. “The Jews were unwilling sponges by means of which a large part of the subjects’ wealth found its way into the royal exchequer” (Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, ch. xii.). Hence, though this procedure made the Jews intensely obnoxious to the peoples, they became all the more necessary to the rulers. A favourite form of tolerance was to grant a permit to the Jews to remain in the state for a limited term of years; their continuance beyond the specified time was illegal and they were therefore subject to sudden banishment. Thus a second expulsion of the Jews of France occurred in 1394. Early in the 15th century John Hus—under the inspiration of Wycliffe—initiated at Prague the revolt against the Roman Catholic Church. The Jews suffered in the persecution that followed, and in 1420 all the Austrian Jews were thrown into prison. Martin V. published a favourable bull, but it was ineffectual. The darkest days were nigh. Pope Eugenius (1442) issued a fiercely intolerant missive; the Franciscan John of Capistrano moved the masses to activity by his eloquent denunciations; even Casimir IV. revoked the privileges of the Jews in Poland, when the Turkish capture of Constantinople (1453) offered a new asylum for the hunted Jews of Europe. But in Europe itself the catastrophe was not arrested. The Inquisition in Spain led to the expulsion of the Jews (1492), and this event involved not only the latter but the whole of the Jewish people. “The Jews everywhere felt as if the temple had again been destroyed” (Graetz). Nevertheless, the result was not all evil. If fugitives are for the next half-century to be met with in all parts of Europe, yet, especially in the Levant, there grew up thriving Jewish 406 communities often founded by Spanish refugees. Such incidents as the rise of Joseph Nasi (q.v.) to high position under the Turkish government as duke of Naxos mark the coming change. The reformation as such had no favourable influence on Jewish fortunes in Christian Europe, though the championship of the cause of toleration by Reuchlin had considerable value. But the age of the ghetto (q.v.) had set in too firmly for immediate amelioration to be possible. It is to Holland and to the 17th century that we must turn for the first real steps towards Jewish emancipation.
47. Period of Emancipation.—The ghetto, which had prevailed more or less rigorously for a long period, was not formally prescribed by the papacy until the beginning of the 16th century. The same century was not ended before the prospect of liberty dawned on the Jews. Holland from the moment that it joined the union of Utrecht (1579) deliberately set its face against religious persecution (Jewish Encyclopedia, i. 537). Maranos, fleeing to the Netherlands, were welcomed; the immigrants were wealthy, enterprising and cultured. Many Jews, who had been compelled to conceal their faith, now came into the open. By the middle of the 17th century the Jews of Holland had become of such importance that Charles II. of England (then in exile) entered into negotiations with the Amsterdam Jews (1656). In that same year the Amsterdam community was faced by a serious problem in connexion with Spinoza. They brought themselves into notoriety by excommunicating the philosopher—an act of weak self-defence on the part of men who had themselves but recently been admitted to the country, and were timorous of the suspicion that they shared Spinoza’s then execrated views. It is more than a mere coincidence that this step was taken during the absence in England of one of the ablest and most notable of the Amsterdam rabbis. At the time, Menasseh ben Israel (q.v.) was in London, on a mission to Cromwell. The Jews had been expelled from England by Edward I., after a sojourn in the country of rather more than two centuries, during which they had been the licensed and oppressed money-lenders of the realm, and had—through the special exchequer of the Jews—been used by the sovereign as a means of extorting a revenue from his subjects. In the 17th century a considerable number of Jews had made a home in the English colonies, where from the first they enjoyed practically equal rights with the Christian settlers. Cromwell, upon the inconclusive termination of the conference summoned in 1655 at Whitehall to consider the Jewish question, tacitly assented to the return of the Jews to this country, and at the restoration his action was confirmed. The English Jews “gradually substituted for the personal protection of the crown, the sympathy and confidence of the nation” (L. Wolf, Menasseh ben Israel’s Mission to Cromwell, p. lxxv.). The city of London was the first to be converted to the new attitude. “The wealth they brought into the country, and their fruitful commercial activity, especially in the colonial trade, soon revealed them as an indispensable element of the prosperity of the city. As early as 1668, Sir Josiah Child, the millionaire governor of the East India company, pleaded for their naturalization on the score of their commercial utility. For the same reason the city found itself compelled at first to connive at their illegal representation on ’Change, and then to violate its own rules by permitting them to act as brokers without previously taking up the freedom. At this period they controlled more of the foreign and colonial trade than all the other alien merchants in London put together. The momentum of their commercial enterprise and stalwart patriotism proved irresistible. From the exchange to the city council chamber, thence to the aldermanic court, and eventually to the mayoralty itself, were inevitable stages of an emancipation to which their large interests in the city and their high character entitled them. Finally the city of London—not only as the converted champion of religious liberty but as the convinced apologist of the Jews—sent Baron Lionel de Rothschild to knock at the door of the unconverted House of Commons as parliamentary representative of the first city in the world” (Wolf, loc. cit.).
The pioneers of this emancipation in Holland and England were Sephardic (or Spanish) Jews—descendants of the Spanish exiles. In the meantime the Ashkenazic (or German) Jews had been working out their own salvation. The chief effects of the change were not felt till the 18th century. In England emancipation was of democratic origin and concerned itself with practical questions. On the Continent, the movement was more aristocratic and theoretical; it was part of the intellectual renaissance which found its most striking expression in the principles of the French Revolution. Throughout Europe the 18th century was less an era of stagnation than of transition. The condition of the European Jews seems, on a superficial examination, abject enough. But, excluded though they were from most trades and occupations, confined to special quarters of the city, disabled from sharing most of the amenities of life, the Jews nevertheless were gradually making their escape from the ghetto and from the moral degeneration which it had caused. Some ghettos (as in Moravia) were actually not founded till the 18th century, but the careful observer can perceive clearly that at that period the ghetto was a doomed institution. In the “dark ages” Jews enjoyed neither rights nor privileges; in the 18th century they were still without rights but they had privileges. A grotesque feature of the time in Germany and Austria was the class of court Jews, such as the Oppenheims, the personal favourites of rulers and mostly their victims when their usefulness had ended. These men often rendered great services to their fellow-Jews, and one of the results was the growth in Jewish society of an aristocracy of wealth, where previously there had been an aristocracy of learning. Even more important was another privileged class—that of the Schutz-Jude (protected Jew). Where there were no rights, privileges had to be bought. While the court Jews were the favourites of kings, the protected Jews were the protégés of town councils. Corruption is the frequent concomitant of privilege, and thus the town councils often connived for a price at the presence in their midst of Jews whose admission was illegal. Many Jews found it possible to evade laws of domicile by residing in one place and trading in another. Nor could they be effectually excluded from the fairs, the great markets of the 18th century. The Sephardic Jews in all these respects occupied a superior position, and they merited the partiality shown to them. Their personal dignity and the vast range of their colonial enterprises were in striking contrast to the retail traffic of the Ashkenazim and their degenerate bearing and speech. Peddling had been forced on the latter by the action of the gilds which were still powerful in the 18th century on the Continent. Another cause may be sought in the Cossack assaults on the Jews at an earlier period. Crowds of wanderers were to be met on every road; Germany, Holland and Italy were full of Jews who, pack on shoulder, were seeking a precarious livelihood at a time when peddling was neither lucrative nor safe.
But underneath all this were signs of a great change. The 18th century has a goodly tale of Jewish artists in metal-work, makers of pottery, and (wherever the gilds permitted it) artisans and wholesale manufacturers of many important commodities. The last attempts at exclusion were irritating enough; but they differed from the earlier persecution. Such strange enactments as the Familianten-Gesetz, which prohibited more than one member of a family from marrying, broke up families by forcing the men to emigrate. In 1781 Dohm pointed to the fact that a Jewish father could seldom hope to enjoy the happiness of living with his children. In that very year, however, Joseph II. initiated in Austria a new era for the Jews. This Austrian reformation was so typical of other changes elsewhere, and so expressive of the previous disabilities of the Jews, that, even in this rapid summary, space must be spared for some of the details supplied by Graetz. “By this new departure (19th of October 1781) the Jews were permitted to learn handicrafts, arts and sciences, and with certain restrictions to devote themselves to agriculture. The doors of the universities and academies, hitherto closed to them, were thrown open.... An ordinance of November 2 enjoined that the Jews were everywhere considered fellow-men, and all excesses against them were 407 to be avoided. The Leibzoll (body-tax) was also abolished, in addition to the special law-taxes, the passport duty, the night-duty and all similar imposts which had stamped the Jews as outcast, for they were now (Dec. 19) to have equal rights with the Christian inhabitants.” The Jews were not, indeed, granted complete citizenship, and their residence and public worship in Vienna and other Austrian cities were circumscribed and even penalized. “But Joseph II. annulled a number of vexatious, restrictive regulations, such as the compulsory wearing of beards, the prohibition against going out in the forenoon on Sundays or holidays, or frequenting public pleasure resorts. The emperor even permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables and their sons, to wear swords (January 2, 1782), and especially insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly manner towards Jews.”
48. The Mendelssohn Movement.—This notable beginning to the removal of “the ignominy of a thousand years” was causally connected with the career of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786; q.v.). He found on both sides an unreadiness for approximation: the Jews had sunk into apathy and degeneration, the Christians were still moved by hereditary antipathy. The failure of the hopes entertained of Sabbatai Zebi (q.v.) had plunged the Jewries of the world into despair. This Smyrnan pretender not only proclaimed himself Messiah (c. 1650) but he was accepted in that rôle by vast numbers of his brethren. At the moment when Spinoza was publishing a system which is still a dominating note of modern philosophy, this other son of Israel was capturing the very heart of Jewry. His miracles were reported and eagerly believed everywhere; “from Poland, Hamburg and Amsterdam treasures poured into his court; in the Levant young men and maidens prophesied before him; the Persian Jews refused to till the fields. ‘We shall pay no more taxes,’ they said, ‘our Messiah is come.’” The expectation that he would lead Israel in triumph to the Holy Land was doomed to end in disappointment. Sabbatai lacked one quality without which enthusiasm is ineffective; he failed to believe in himself. At the critical moment he embraced Islam to escape death, and though he was still believed in by many—it was not Sabbatai himself but a phantom resemblance that had assumed the turban!—his meteoric career did but colour the sky of the Jews with deeper blackness. Despite all this, one must not fall into the easy error of exaggerating the degeneration into which the Jewries of the world fell from the middle of the 17th till the middle of the 18th century. For Judaism had organized itself; the Shulḥan aruch of Joseph Qaro (q.v.), printed in 1564 within a decade of its completion, though not accepted without demur, was nevertheless widely admitted as the code of Jewish life. If in more recent times progress in Judaism has implied more or less of revolt against the rigors and fetters of Qaro’s code, yet for 250 years it was a powerful safeguard against demoralization and stagnation. No community living in full accordance with that code could fail to reach a high moral and intellectual level.
It is truer to say that on the whole the Jews began at this period to abandon as hopeless the attempt to find a place for themselves in the general life of their country. Perhaps they even ceased to desire it. Their children were taught without any regard to outside conditions, they spoke and wrote a jargon, and their whole training, both by what it included and by what it excluded, tended to produce isolation from their neighbours. Moses Mendelssohn, both by his career and by his propaganda, for ever put an end to these conditions; he more than any other man. Born in the ghetto of Dessau, he was not of the ghetto. At the age of fourteen he found his way to Berlin, where Frederick the Great, inspired by the spirit of Voltaire, held the maxim that “to oppress the Jews never brought prosperity to any government.” Mendelssohn became a warm friend of Lessing, the hero of whose drama Nathan the Wise was drawn from the Dessau Jew. Mendelssohn’s Phaedo, on the immortality of the soul, brought the author into immediate fame, and the simple home of the “Jewish Plato” was sought by many of the leaders of Gentile society in Berlin. Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch into German with a new commentary by himself and others introduced the Jews to more modern ways of thinking. Two results emanated from Mendelssohn’s work. A new school of scientific study of Judaism emerged, to be dignified by the names of Leopold Zunz (q.v.), H. Graetz (q.v.) and many others. On the other hand Mendelssohn by his pragmatic conception of religion (specially in his Jerusalem) weakened the belief of certain minds in the absolute truth of Judaism, and thus his own grandchildren (including the famous musician Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) as well as later Heine, Börne, Gans and Neander, embraced Christianity. Within Judaism itself two parties were formed, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and as time went on these tendencies definitely organized themselves. Holdheim (q.v.) and Geiger (q.v.) led the reform movement in Germany and at the present day the effects of the movement are widely felt in America on the Liberal side and on the opposite side in the work of the neo-orthodox school founded by S. R. Hirsch (q.v.). Modern seminaries were established first in Breslau by Zacharias Fränkel (q.v.) and later in other cities. Brilliant results accrued from all this participation in the general life of Germany. Jews, engaged in all the professions and pursuits of the age, came to the front in many branches of public life, claiming such names as Riesser (d. 1863) and Lasker in politics, Auerbach in literature, Rubinstein and Joachim in music, Traube in medicine, and Lazarus in psychology. Especially famous have been the Jewish linguists, pre-eminent among them Theodor Benfey (1809-1881), the pioneer of modern comparative philology; and the Greek scholar and critic Jakob Bernays (1824-1881).
49. Effect of the French Revolution.—In close relation to the German progress in Mendelssohn’s age, events had been progressing in France, where the Revolution did much to improve the Jewish condition, thanks largely to the influence of Mirabeau. In 1807 Napoleon convoked a Jewish assembly in Paris. Though the decisions of this body had no binding force on the Jews generally, yet in some important particulars its decrees represent principles widely adopted by the Jewish community. They proclaim the acceptance of the spirit of Mendelssohn’s reconciliation of the Jews to modern life. They assert the citizenship and patriotism of Jews, their determination to accommodate themselves to the present as far as they could while retaining loyalty to the past. They declare their readiness to adapt the law of the synagogue to the law of the land, as for instance in the question of marriage and divorce. No Jew, they decided, may perform the ceremony of marriage unless civil formalities have been fulfilled; and divorce is allowed to the Jews only if and so far as it is confirmatory of a legal divorce pronounced by the civil law of the land. The French assembly did not succeed in obtaining formal assent to these decisions (except from Frankfort and Holland), but they gained the practical adhesion of the majority of Western and American Jews. Napoleon, after the report of the assembly, established the consistorial system which remained in force, with its central consistory in the capital, until the recent separation of church and state. Many French Jews acquired fame, among them the ministers Crémieux (1796-1879), Fould, Gondchaux and Raynal; the archaeologists and philologians Oppert, Halévy, Munk, the Derenbourgs, Darmesteters and Reinachs; the musicians Halévy, Waldteufel and Meyerbeer; the authors and dramatists Catulle Mendès and A. d’Ennery, and many others, among them several distinguished occupants of civil and military offices.
50. Modern Italy.—Similar developments occurred in other countries, though it becomes impossible to treat the history of the Jews, from this time onwards, in general outline. We must direct our attention to the most important countries in such detail as space permits. And first as to Italy, where the Jews in a special degree have identified themselves with the national life. The revolutions of 1848, which greatly affected the position of the Jews in several parts of Europe, brought considerable gain to the Jews of Italy. During the war against Austria in the year named, Isaac Pesaro Marogonato was finance minister in Venice. Previously to this date the Jews were still confined to the ghetto, but in 1859, in the Italy united under Victor 408 Emanuel II., the Jews obtained complete rights, a privilege which was extended also to Rome itself in 1870. The Italian Jews devoted themselves with ardour to the service of the state. Isaac Artom was Cavour’s secretary, L’ Olper a counsellor of Mazzini. “The names of the Jewish soldiers who died in the cause of Italian liberty were placed along with those of their Christian fellow soldiers on the monuments erected in their honour” (Jewish Encyclopedia, vii. 10). More recently men like Wollemberg, Ottolenghi and Luzzatti rose to high positions as ministers of state. Most noted of recent Jewish scholars in Italy was S. D. Luzzatto (q.v.).
51. Austria.—From Italy we may turn to the country which so much influenced Italian politics, Austria, which had founded the system of “Court Jews” in 1518, had expelled the Jews from Vienna as late as 1670, when the synagogue of that city was converted into a church. But economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the provinces or from the markets of the capital. As has been pointed out above, certain protected Jews were permitted to reside in places where the expulsion of the Jews had been decreed. But Maria Theresa (1740-1780) was distinguished for her enmity to the Jews, and in 1744 made a futile attempt to secure their expulsion from Bohemia. “In 1760 she issued an order that all unbearded Jews should wear a yellow badge on their left arm” (Jewish Encyclopedia, ii. 330). The most petty limitations of Jewish commercial activity continued; thus at about this period the community of Prague, in a petition, “complain that they are not permitted to buy victuals in the market before a certain hour, vegetables not before 9 and cattle not before 11 o’clock; to buy fish is sometimes altogether prohibited; Jewish druggists are not permitted to buy victuals at the same time with Christians” (op. cit.). So, too, with taxation. It was exorbitant and vexatious. To pay for rendering inoperative the banishment edict of 1744, the Jews were taxed 3,000,000 florins annually for ten years. In the same year it was decreed that the Jews should pay “a special tax of 40,000 florins for the right to import their citrons for the feast of booths.” Nevertheless, Joseph II. (1780-1790) inaugurated a new era for the Jews of his empire. Soon after his accession he abolished the distinctive Jewish dress, abrogated the poll-tax, admitted the Jews to military service and their children to the public schools, and in general opened the era of emancipation by the Toleranzpatent of 1782. This enlightened policy was not continued by the successors of Joseph II. Under Francis II. (1792-1835) economic and social restrictions were numerous. Agriculture was again barred; indeed the Vienna congress of 1815 practically restored the old discriminations against the Jews. As time went on, a more progressive policy intervened, the special form of Jewish oath was abolished in 1846, and in 1848, as a result of the revolutionary movement in which Jews played an active part, legislation took a more liberal turn. Francis Joseph I. ascended the throne in that year, and though the constitution of 1849 recognized the principle of religious liberty, an era of reaction supervened, especially when “the concordat of 1855 delivered Austria altogether into the hands of the clericals.” But the day of medieval intolerance had passed, and in 1867 the new constitution “abolished all disabilities on the ground of religious differences,” though anti-Semitic manipulation of the law by administrative authority has led to many instances of intolerance. Many Jews have been members of the Reichsrath, some have risen to the rank of general in the army, and Austrian Jews have contributed their quota to learning, the arts and literature. Löw, Jellinek, Kaufmann, as scholars in the Jewish field; as poets and novelists, Kompert, Franzos, L. A. Frankl; the pianist Moscheles, the dramatist Mosenthal, and the actor Sonnenthal, the mathematician Spitzer and the chess-player Steinitz are some of the most prominent names. The law of 1890 makes it “compulsory for every Jew to be a member of the congregation of the district in which he resides, and so gives to every congregation the right to tax the individual members” (op. cit.). A similar obligation prevails in parts of Germany. A Jew can avoid the communal tax only by formally declaring himself as outside the Jewish community. The Jews of Hungary shared with their brethren in Austria the same alternations of expulsion and recall. By the law “De Judaeis” passed by the Diet in 1791 the Jews were accorded protection, but half a century passed before their tolerated condition was regularized. The “toleration-tax” was abolished in 1846. During the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, the Jews suffered severely in Hungary, but as many as 20,000 Jews are said to have joined the army. Kossuth succeeded in granting them temporary emancipation, but the suppression of the War of Independence led to an era of royal autocracy which, while it advanced Jewish culture by enforcing the establishment of modern schools, retarded the obtaining of civic and political rights. As in Austria, so in Hungary, these rights were granted by the constitution of 1867. But one step remained. The Hungarian Jews did not consider themselves fully emancipated until the Synagogue was “duly recognized as one of the legally acknowledged religions of the country.” This recognition was granted by the law of 1895-1896. In the words of Büchler (Jewish Encyclopedia, vi. 503): “Since their emancipation the Jews have taken an active part in the political, industrial, scientific and artistic life of Hungary. In all these fields they have achieved prominence. They have also founded great religious institutions. Their progress has not been arrested even by anti-Semitism, which first developed in 1883 at the time of the Tisza-Eslar accusation of ritual murder.”
52. Other European Countries.—According to M. Caimi the present Jewish communities of Greece are divisible into five groups: (1) Arta (Epirus); (2) Chalcis (Euboea); (3) Athens (Attica); (4) Volo, Larissa and Trikala (Thessaly); and (5) Corfu and Zante (Ionian Islands). The Greek constitution admits no religious disabilities, but anti-Semitic riots in Corfu and Zante in 1891 caused much distress and emigration. In Spain there has been of late a more liberal attitude towards the Jews, and there is a small congregation (without a public synagogue) in Madrid. In 1858 the edict of expulsion was repealed. Portugal, on the other hand, having abolished the Inquisition in 1821, has since 1826 allowed Jews freedom of religion, and there are synagogues in Lisbon and Faro. In Holland the Jews were admitted to political liberty in 1796. At present more than half of the Dutch Jews are concentrated in Amsterdam, being largely engaged in the diamond and tobacco trades. Among famous names of recent times foremost stands that of the artist Josef Israels. In 1675 was consecrated in Amsterdam the synagogue which is still the most noted Jewish edifice in Europe. Belgium granted full freedom to the Jews in 1815, and the community has since 1808 been organized on the state consistorial system, which till recently also prevailed in France. It was not till 1874 that full religious equality was granted to the Jews of Switzerland. But there has been considerable interference (ostensibly on humanitarian grounds) with the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food (Sheḥitah) and the method was prohibited by a referendum in 1893. In the same year a similar enactment was passed in Saxony, and the subject is a favourite one with anti-Semites, who have enlisted on their side some scientific authorities, though the bulk of expert opinion is in favor of Sheḥitah (see Dembo, Das Schlachten, 1894). In Sweden the Jews have all the rights which are open to non-Lutherans; they cannot become members of the council of state. In Norway there is a small Jewish settlement (especially in Christiania) who are engaged in industrial pursuits and enjoy complete liberty. Denmark has for long been distinguished for its liberal policy towards the Jews. Since 1814 the latter have been eligible as magistrates, and in 1849 full equality was formally ratified. Many Copenhagen Jews achieved distinction as manufacturers, merchants and bankers, and among famous Jewish men of letters may be specially named Georg Brandes.
The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the European record. In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly treated than in any other part of the world. In the remotest past Jews were settled in much of 409 the territory now included in Russia, but they are still treated as aliens. They are restricted to the pale of settlement which was first established in 1791. The pale now includes fifteen governments, and under the May laws of 1892 the congestion of the Jewish population, the denial of free movement, and the exclusion from the general rights of citizens were rendered more oppressive than ever before. The right to leave the pale is indeed granted to merchants of the first gild, to those possessed of certain educational diplomas, to veteran soldiers and to certain classes of skilled artisans. But these concessions are unfavourably interpreted and much extortion results. Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery. Fierce massacres occurred in Nizhniy-Novgorod in 1882, and in Kishinev in 1903. Many other pogroms have occurred, and the condition of the Jews has been reduced to one of abject poverty and despair. Much was hoped from the duma, but this body has proved bitterly opposed to the Jewish claim for liberty. Yet in spite of these disabilities there are amongst the Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and successful lawyers and scientists. In Rumania, despite the Berlin Treaty, the Jews are treated as aliens, and but a small number have been naturalized. They are excluded from most of the professions and are hampered in every direction.
53. Oriental Countries.—In the Orient the condition of the Jews has been much improved by the activity of Western organizations, of which something is said in a later paragraph. Modern schools have been set up in many places, and Palestine has been the scene of a notable educational and agricultural revival, while technical schools—such as the agricultural college near Jaffa and the schools of the alliance and the more recent Bezalel in Jerusalem—have been established. Turkey has always on the whole tolerated the Jews, and much is hoped from the new régime. In Morocco the Jews, who until late in the 19th century were often persecuted, are still confined to a mellah (separate quarter), but at the coast-towns there are prosperous Jewish communities mostly engaged in commerce. In other parts of the same continent, in Egypt and in South Africa, many Jews have settled, participating in all industrial and financial pursuits. Recently a mission has been sent to the Falashas of Abyssinia, and much interest has been felt in such outlying branches of the Jewish people as the Black Jews of Cochin and the Bene Israel community of Bombay. In Persia Jews are often the victims of popular outbursts as well as of official extortion, but there are fairly prosperous communities at Bushire, Isfahan, Teheran and Kashan (in Shiraz they are in low estate). The recent advent of constitutional government may improve the condition of the Jews.
54. The United Kingdom.—The general course of Jewish history in England has been indicated above. The Jews came to England at least as early as the Norman Conquest; they were expelled from Bury St Edmunds in 1190, after the massacres at the coronation of Richard I.; they were required to wear badges in 1218. At the end of the 12th century was established the “exchequer of the Jews,” which chiefly dealt with suits concerning money-lending, and arranged a “continual flow of money from the Jews to the royal treasury,” and a so-called “parliament of the Jews” was summoned in 1241; in 1275 was enacted the statute de Judaismo which, among other things, permitted the Jews to hold land. But this concession was illusory, and as the statute prevented Jews from engaging in finance—the only occupation which had been open to them—it was a prelude to their expulsion in 1290. There were few Jews in England from that date till the Commonwealth, but Jews settled in the American colonies earlier in the 17th century, and rendered considerable services in the advancement of English commerce. The Whitehall conference of 1655 marks a change in the status of the Jews in England itself, for though no definite results emerged it was clearly defined by the judges that there was no legal obstacle to the return of the Jews. Charles II. in 1664 continued Cromwell’s tolerant policy. No serious attempt towards the emancipation of the Jews was made till the Naturalization Act of 1753, which was, however, immediately repealed. Jews no longer attached to the Synagogue, such as the Herschels and Disraelis, attained to fame. In 1830 the first Jewish emancipation bill was brought in by Robert Grant, but it was not till the legislation of 1858-1860 that Jews obtained full parliamentary rights. In other directions progress was more rapid. The office of sheriff was thrown open to Jews in 1835 (Moses Montefiore, sheriff of London was knighted in 1837); Sir I. L. Goldsmid was made a baronet in 1841, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected to Parliament in 1847 (though he was unable to take his seat), Alderman (Sir David) Salomons became lord mayor of London in 1855 and Francis Goldsmid was made a Q.C. in 1858. In 1873 Sir George Jessel was made a judge, and Lord Rothschild took his seat in the House of Lords as the first Jewish peer in 1886. A fair proportion of Jews have been elected to the House of Commons, and Mr Herbert Samuel rose to cabinet rank in 1909. Sir Matthew Nathan has been governor of Hong-Kong and Natal, and among Jewish statesmen in the colonies Sir Julius Vogel and V. L. Solomon have been prime ministers (Hyamson: A History of the Jews in England, p. 342). It is unnecessary to remark that in the British colonies the Jews everywhere enjoy full citizenship. In fact, the colonies emancipated the Jews earlier than did the mother country. Jews were settled in Canada from the time of Wolfe, and a congregation was founded at Montreal in 1768, and since 1832 Jews have been entitled to sit in the Canadian parliament. There are some thriving Jewish agricultural colonies in the same dominion. In Australia the Jews from the first were welcomed on perfectly equal terms. The oldest congregation is that of Sydney (1817); the Melbourne community dates from 1844. Reverting to incidents in England itself, in 1870 the abolition of university tests removed all restrictions on Jews at Oxford and Cambridge, and both universities have since elected Jews to professorships and other posts of honour. The communal organization of English Jewry is somewhat inchoate. In 1841 an independent reform congregation was founded, and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have always maintained their separate existence with a Ḥaham as the ecclesiastical head. In 1870 was founded the United Synagogue, which is a metropolitan organization, and the same remark applies to the more recent Federation of Synagogues. The chief rabbi, who is the ecclesiastical head of the United Synagogue, has also a certain amount of authority over the provincial and colonial Jewries, but this is nominal rather than real. The provincial Jewries, however, participate in the election of the chief rabbi. At the end of 1909 was held the first conference of Jewish ministers in London, and from this is expected some more systematic organization of scattered communities. Anglo-Jewry is rich, however, in charitable, educational and literary institutions; chief among these respectively may be named the Jewish board of guardians (1859), the Jews’ college (1855), and the Jewish historical society (1893). Besides the distinctions already noted, English Jews have risen to note in theology (C. G. Montefiore), in literature (Israel Zangwill and Alfred Sutro), in art (S. Hart, R.A., and S. J. Solomon, R.A.) in music (Julius Benedict and Frederick Hymen Cowen). More than 1000 English and colonial Jews participated as active combatants in the South African War. The immigration of Jews from Russia was mainly responsible for the ineffective yet oppressive Aliens Act of 1905. (Full accounts of Anglo-Jewish institutions are given in the Jewish Year-Book published annually since 1895.)
55. The American Continent.—Closely parallel with the progress of the Jews in England has been their steady advancement in America. Jews made their way to America early in the 16th century, settling in Brazil prior to the Dutch occupation. Under Dutch rule they enjoyed full civil rights. In Mexico and Peru they fell under the ban of the Inquisition. In Surinam the Jews were treated as British subjects; in Barbadoes, Jamaica and New York they are found as early as the first half of the 17th century. During the War of Independence the Jews of America took a prominent part on both sides, for under the British rule many had risen to wealth and high social position. After the Declaration of Independence, Jews are found all over America, where they 410 have long enjoyed complete emancipation, and have enormously increased in numbers, owing particularly to immigration from Russia. The American Jews bore their share in the Civil War (7038 Jews were in the two armies), and have always identified themselves closely with national movements such as the emancipation of Cuba. They have attained to high rank in all branches of the public service, and have shown most splendid instances of far-sighted and generous philanthropy. Within the Synagogue the reform movement began in 1825, and soon won many successes, the central conference of American rabbis and Union College (1875) at Cincinnati being the instruments of this progress. At the present time orthodox Judaism is also again acquiring its due position and the Jewish theological seminary of America was founded for this purpose. In 1908 an organization, inclusive of various religious sections, was founded under the description “the Jewish community of New York.” There have been four Jewish members of the United States senate, and about 30 of the national House of Representatives. Besides filling many diplomatic offices, a Jew (O. S. Straus) has been a member of the cabinet. Many Jews have filled professorial chairs at the universities, others have been judges, and in art, literature (there is a notable Jewish publication society), industry and commerce have rendered considerable services to national culture and prosperity. American universities have owed much to Jewish generosity, a foremost benefactor of these (as of many other American institutions) being Jacob Schiff. Such institutions as the Gratz and Dropsie colleges are further indications of the splendid activity of American Jews in the educational field. The Jews of America have also taken a foremost place in the succour of their oppressed brethren in Russia and other parts of the world. (Full accounts of American Jewish institutions are given in the American Jewish Year-Book, published annually since 1899.)
56. Anti-Semitism.—It is saddening to be compelled to close this record with the statement that the progress of the European Jews received a serious check by the rise of modern anti-Semitism in the last quarter of the 19th century. While in Russia this took the form of actual massacre, in Germany and Austria it assumed the shape of social and civic ostracism. In Germany Jews are still rarely admitted to the rank of officers in the army, university posts are very difficult of access, Judaism and its doctrines are denounced in medieval language, and a tone of hostility prevails in many public utterances. In Austria, as in Germany, anti-Semitism is a factor in the parliamentary elections. The legend of ritual murder (q.v.) has been revived, and every obstacle is placed in the way of the free intercourse of Jews with their Christian fellow-citizens. In France Edouard Adolphe Drumont led the way to a similar animosity, and the popular fury was fanned by the Dreyfus case. It is generally felt, however, that this recrudescence of anti-Semitism is a passing phase in the history of culture (see Anti-Semitism).
57. The Zionist Movement.—The Zionist movement (see Zionism), founded in 1895 by Theodor Herzl (q.v.) was in a sense the outcome of anti-Semitism. Its object was the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine, but though it aroused much interest it failed to attract the majority of the emancipated Jews, and the movement has of late been transforming itself into a mere effort at colonization. Most Jews not only confidently believe that their own future lies in progressive development within the various nationalities of the world, but they also hope that a similar consummation is in store for the as yet unemancipated branches of Israel. Hence the Jews are in no sense internationally organized. The influence of the happier communities has been exercised on behalf of those in a worse position by individuals such as Sir Moses Montefiore (q.v.) rather than by societies or leagues. From time to time incidents arise which appeal to the Jewish sympathies everywhere and joint action ensues. Such incidents were the Damascus charge of ritual murder (1840), the forcible baptism of the Italian child Mortara (1858), and the Russian pogroms at various dates. But all attempts at an international union of Jews, even in view of such emergencies as these, have failed. Each country has its own local organization for dealing with Jewish questions. In France the Alliance Israélite (founded in 1860), in England the Anglo-Jewish Association (founded in 1871), in Germany the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, and in Austria the Israelitische Allianz zu Wien (founded 1872), in America the American Jewish Committee (founded 1906), and similar organizations in other countries deal only incidentally with political affairs. They are concerned mainly with the education of Jews in the Orient, and the establishment of colonies and technical institutions. Baron Hirsch (q.v.) founded the Jewish colonial association, which has undertaken vast colonizing and educational enterprises, especially in Argentina, and more recently the Jewish territorial organization has been started to found a home for the oppressed Jews of Russia. All these institutions are performing a great regenerative work, and the tribulations and disappointments of the last decades of the 19th century were not all loss. The gain consisted in the rousing of the Jewish consciousness to more virile efforts towards a double end, to succour the persecuted and ennoble the ideals of the emancipated.
58. Statistics.—Owing to the absence of a religious census in several important countries, the Jewish population of the world can only be given by inferential estimate. The following approximate figures are taken from the American Jewish Year-Book for 1909-1910 and are based on similar estimates in the English Jewish Year-Book, the Jewish Encyclopedia, Nossig’s Jüdische Statistik and the Reports of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. According to these estimates the total Jewish population of the world in the year named was approximately 11,500,000. Of this total there were in the British Empire about 380,000 Jews (British Isles 240,000, London accounts for 150,000 of these; Canada and British Columbia 60,000; India 18,000; South Africa 40,000). The largest Jewish populations were those of Russia (5,215,000), Austria-Hungary (2,084,000), United States of America (1,777,000), Germany (607,000, of whom 409,000 were in Prussia), Turkey (463,000, of whom some 78,000 resided in Palestine), Rumania (250,000), Morocco (109,000) and Holland (106,000). Others of the more important totals are: France 95,000 (besides Algeria 63,000 and Tunis 62,000); Italy 52,000; Persia 49,000; Egypt 39,000; Bulgaria 36,000; Argentine Republic 30,000; Tripoli 19,000; Turkestan and Afghanistan 14,000; Switzerland and Belgium each 12,000; Mexico 9000; Greece 8000; Servia 6000; Sweden and Cuba each 4000; Denmark 3500; Brazil and Abyssinia (Falashas) each 3000; Spain and Portugal 2500; China and Japan 2000. There are also Jews in Curaçoa, Surinam, Luxemburg, Norway, Peru, Crete and Venezuela; but in none of these does the Jewish population much exceed 1000.
Bibliography.—H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden (11 vols., 1853-1875; several subsequent editions of separate volumes; Eng. trans. 5 vols., 1891-1892); the works of L. Zunz; Jewish Encyclopedia passim; publications of Jewish societies, such as Études Juives, Jewish historical societies of England and America, German historical commission, Julius Barasch society (Rumania), Societas Litteraria Hungarico-Judaica, the Viennese communal publications, and many others to which may be added the 20 vols. of the Jewish Quarterly Review; Scherer, Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden (1901); M. Güdemann Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden (1880, &c.); A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Israel among the Nations (1895); I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1896); G. F. Abbott, Israel in Europe (1905); G. Caro, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden (1908); M. Philippson, Neueste Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes (1907, &c.); Nossig, Jüdische Statistik (1903); and such special works as H. Gross, Gallia Judaica (1897), &c.
1 On the homogeneity of the population, see further, W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites (2nd ed., chaps, i.-iii.); T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, pp. 1-20 (on “Some Characteristics of the Semitic Race”); and especially E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altertums (2nd ed., i. §§ 330, sqq.). For the relation between the geographical characteristics and the political history, see G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land.
2 For fuller information on this section see Palestine: History, and the related portions of Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt, Hittites, Syria.
3 Or land Israel, W. Spiegelberg, Orient. Lit. Zeit. xi. (1908), cols. 403-405.
4 It is useful to compare the critical study of the Koran (q.v.), where, however, the investigation of its various “revelations” is simpler than that of the biblical “prophecies” on account of the greater wealth of independent historical tradition. See also G. B. Gray, Contemporary Review (July 1907); A. A. Bevan, Cambridge Biblical Essays (ed. Swete, 1909), pp. 1-19.
5 See primarily Bible: Old Testament; the articles on the contents and literary structure of the several books; the various biographical, topographical and ethnical articles, and the separate treatment of the more important subjects (e.g. Levites, Prophet, Sacrifice).
6 On the bearing of external evidence upon the internal biblical records, see especially S. R. Driver’s essay in Hogarth’s Authority and Archaeology; cf. also A. A. Bevan, Critical Review (1897, p. 406 sqq., 1898, pp. 131 sqq.); G. B. Gray, Expositor, May 1898; W. G. Jordan, Bib. Crit. and Modern Thought (1909), pp. 42 sqq.
7 For the sections which follow the present writer may be permitted to refer to his introductory contributions in the Expositor (June, 1906; “The Criticism of the O.T.”); the Jewish Quarterly Review (July 1905-January 1907 = Critical Notes on O.T. History, especially sections vii.-ix.); July and October 1907, April 1908; Amer. Journ. Theol. (July 1909, “Simeon and Levi: the Problem of the Old Testament”); and Swete’s Cambridge Bib. Essays, pp. 54-89 (“The Present Stage of O.T. Research”).
8 On the name see Jehovah, Tetragrammaton.
9 The story of Joseph has distinctive internal features of its own, and appears to be from an independent cycle, which has been used to form a connecting link between the Settlement and the Exodus; see also Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme (1906), pp. 228, 433; B. Luther, ibid. pp. 108 seq., 142 sqq. Neither of the poems in Deut. xxxii. seq. alludes to an escape from Egypt; Israel is merely a desert tribe inspired to settle in Palestine. Apparently even the older accounts of the exodus are not of very great antiquity; according to Jeremiah ii. 2, 7 (cf. Hos. ii. 15) some traditions of the wilderness must have represented Israel in a very favourable light; for the “canonical” view, see Ezekiel xvi., xx., xxiii.
10 The capture of central Palestine itself is not recorded; according to its own traditions the district had been seized by Jacob (Gen. xlviii. 22; cf. the late form of the tradition in Jubilees xxxiv.). This conception of a conquering hero is entirely distinct from the narratives of the descent of Jacob into Egypt, &c. (see Meyer and Luther, op. cit. pp. 110, 227 seq., 415, 433).
11 This is especially true of the various ingenious attempts to combine the invasion of the Israelites with the movements of the Ḥabiru in the Amarna period (§ 3).
12 Cf. Winckler, Keil. u. das Alte Test. p. 212 seq.; also his “Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung” in Mitteilungen der Vorderasiat. Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1906) and Religionsgeschichtlicher u. gesch. Orient (Leipzig, 1906); A. Jeremias, Alte Test. (p. 464 seq.); B. Baentsch, Altorient. u. Israel. Monotheismus (pp. 53, 79, 105, &c.); also Theolog. Lit. Blatt (1907) No. 19. On the reconstructions of the tribal history, see especially T. K. Cheyne, Ency. Bib. art. “Tribes.” The most suggestive study of the pre-monarchical narratives is that of E. Meyer and B. Luther (above; see the former’s criticisms on the reconstructions, pp. 50, 251 sqq., 422, n. 1 and passim).
13 2 Chron. xii. 8, which is independent of the chronicler’s artificial treatment of his material, apparently points to some tradition of Egyptian suzerainty.
14 See for chronology, Babylonia and Assyria, §§ v. and viii.
15 See Jew. Quart. Rev. (1908), pp. 597-630. The independent Israelite traditions which here become more numerous have points of contact with those of Saul in 1 Samuel, and the relation is highly suggestive for the study of their growth, as also for the perspective of the various writers.
16 See W. R. Smith (after Kuenen), Ency. Bib., col. 2670; also W. E. Addis, ib., 1276, the commentaries of Benzinger (p. 130) and Kittel (pp. 153 seq.) on Kings; J. S. Strachan, Hastings’s Dict. Bible, i. 694; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. of Holy Land, p. 582; König and Hirsch, Jew. Ency. v. 137 seq. (“legend ... as indifferent to accuracy in dates as it is to definiteness of places and names”); W. R. Harper, Amos and Hosea, p. xli. seq. (“the lack of chronological order ... the result is to create a wrong impression of Elisha’s career”). The bearing of this displacement upon the literary and historical criticism of the narratives has never been worked out.
17 Careful examination shows that no a priori distinction can be drawn between “trustworthy” books of Kings and “untrustworthy books” of Chronicles. Although the latter have special late and unreliable features, they agree with the former in presenting the same general trend of past history. The “canonical” history in Kings is further embellished in Chronicles, but the gulf between them is not so profound as that between the former and the underlying and half-suppressed historical traditions which can still be recognized. (See also Palestine: History.)
18 For the former (2 Kings xii. 17 seq.) cf. Hezekiah and Sennacherib (xviii. 13-15), and for the latter, cf. Asa and Baasha (1 Kings xv. 18-20; above).
19 It is possible that Hadad-nirari’s inscription refers to conditions in the latter part of his reign (812-783 B.C.), when Judah apparently was no longer independent and when Jeroboam II. was king of Israel. The accession of the latter has been placed between 785 and 782. It is now known, also, that Ben-hadad and a small coalition were defeated by the king of Hamath; but the bearing of this upon Israelite history is uncertain.
20 Cf. generally, 1 Sam. iv., xxxi.; 2 Sam. ii. 8; 1 Kings xx., xxii.; 2 Kings vi. 8-vii. 20; also Judges v. (see Deborah).
21 Special mention is made of Jonah, a prophet of Zebulun in (north) Israel (2 Kings xiv. 25). Nothing is known of him, unless the very late prophetical writing with the account of his visit to Nineveh rests upon some old tradition, which, however, can scarcely be recovered (see Jonah).
22 This is philosophically handled by the Arabian historian Ibn Khaldūn, whose Prolegomena is well worthy of attention; see De Slane, Not. et extraits, vols. xix.-xxi., with Von Kremer’s criticisms in the Sitz. d. Kais. Akad. of Vienna (vol. xciii., 1879); cf. also R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, i. 157 sqq.
23 Cf. J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris (1907), p. 67: “Prophecy of the Hebrew type has not been limited to Israel; it is indeed a phenomenon of almost world-wide occurrence; in many lands and in many ages the wild, whirling words of frenzied men and women have been accepted as the utterances of an in-dwelling deity. What does distinguish Hebrew prophecy from all others is that the genius of a few members of the profession wrested this vulgar but powerful instrument from baser uses, and by wielding it in the interest of a high morality rendered a service of incalculable value to humanity. That is indeed the glory of Israel....”
24 The use which was made in Apocalyptic literature of the traditions of Moses, Isaiah and others finds its analogy within the Old Testament itself; cf. the relation between the present late prophecies of Jonah and the unknown prophet of the time of Jeroboam II. (see § 13, note 5). To condemn re-shaping or adaptation of this nature from a modern Western standpoint is to misunderstand entirely the Oriental mind and Oriental usage.
25 The condemnation passed upon the impetuous and fiery zeal of the adherents of the new movement (cf. Hos. i. 4), like the remarkable vicissitudes in the traditions of Moses, Aaron and the Levites (qq.v.), represents changing situations of real significance, whose true place in the history can with difficulty be recovered.
26 Formerly thought to be the third of the name.
27 Perhaps Judah had come to an understanding with Tiglath-pileser (H. M. Haydn, Journ. Bib. Lit., xxviii. 1909, pp. 182-199); see Uzziah.
28 The fact that these lists are of the kings of the “land Ḥatti” would suggest that the term “Hittite” had been extended to Palestine.
29 So K. Budde, Rel. of Israel to Exile, pp. 165-167. For an attempt to recover the character of the cults, see W. Erbt, Hebräer (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 150 sqq.
30 See G. Maspero, Gesch. d. morgenländ. Völker (1877), p. 446; E. Naville, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeol. (1907), pp. 232 sqq., and T. K. Cheyne, Decline and Fall of Judah (1908), p. 13, with references. [The genuineness of such discoveries is naturally a matter for historical criticism to decide. Thus the discovery of Numa’s laws in Rome (Livy xl. 29), upon which undue weight has sometimes been laid (see Klostermann, Der Pentateuch (1906), pp. 155 sqq., was not accepted as genuine by the senate (who had the laws destroyed), and probably not by Pliny himself. Only the later antiquaries clung to the belief in their trustworthiness.—(Communicated.)]
31 Both kings came to the throne after a conspiracy aimed at existing abuses, and other parallels can be found (see Kings).
32 But see N. Schmidt, Ency. Bib., “Scythians,” § 1.
33 So also one can now compare the estimate taken of the Jews in Egypt in Jer. xliv. with the actual religious conditions which are known to have prevailed later at Elephantine, where a small Jewish colony worshipped Yahu (Yahweh) at their own temple (see E. Sachau, “Drei aram. Papyrusurkunde,” in the Abhandlungen of the Prussian Academy, Berlin, 1907).
34 Sargon had removed Babylonians into the land of Hatti (Syria and Palestine), and in 715 B.C. among the colonists were tribes apparently of desert origin (Tamud, Hayapa, &c.); other settlements are ascribed to Esar-haddon and perhaps Assur-bani-pal (Ezra iv. 2, 10). See for the evidence, A. E. Cowley, Ency. Bib., col. 4257; J. A. Montgomery, The Samaritans, pp. 46-57 (Philadelphia, 1907).
35 The growing recognition that the land was not depopulated after 586 is of fundamental significance for the criticism of “exilic” and “post-exilic” history. G. A. Smith thus sums up a discussion of the extent of the deportations: “... A large majority of the Jewish people remained on the land. This conclusion may startle us with our generally received notions of the whole nation as exiled. But there are facts which support it” (Jerusalem, ii. 268).
36 On the place of Palestine in Persian history see Persia: History, ancient, especially § 5 ii.; also Artaxerxes; Cambyses; Cyrus; Darius, &c.
37 The evidence for Artaxerxes III., accepted by Ewald and others (see W. R. Smith, Old Testament in Jewish Church, p. 438 seq.; W. Judeich, Kleinasiat. Stud., p. 170; T. K. Cheyne, Ency. Bib., col. 2202; F. C. Kent, Hist. [1899], pp. 230 sqq.) has however been questioned by Willrich, Judaica, 35-39 (see Cheyne, Ency. Bib., col. 3941). The account of Josephus (above) raises several difficulties, especially the identity of Bagoses. It has been supposed that he has placed the record too late, and that this Bagoses is the Judaean governor who flourished about 408 B.C. (See p. 286, n. 3.)
38 Thus a decree of Darius I. takes the part of his subjects against the excessive zeal of the official Gadatas, and grants freedom of taxation and exemption from forced labour to those connected with a temple of Apollo in Asia Minor (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, xiii. 529; E. Meyer, Entstehung des Judenthums, p. 19 seq.; cf. id. Forschungen, ii. 497).
39 In addition to this, the Egyptian story of the priest Uza-hor at the court of Cambyses and Darius reflects a policy of religious tolerance which illustrates the biblical account of Ezra and Nehemiah (Brugsch, Gesch. Aeg. pp. 784 sqq.; see Cheyne, Jew. Relig. Life after the Exile, pp. 40-43).
40 From Têma in north Arabia, also, there is monumental evidence of the 5th century B.C. for Babylonian and Assyrian influence upon the language, cult and art. For Nippur, see Bab. Exped. of Univ. of Pennsylvania, series A., vol. ix. (1898), by H. V. Hilprecht; for Elephantine, the Mond papyri, A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri Discovered at Assuan (1906), and those cited above (p. 282, n. 1). For the Jewish colonies in general, see H. Guthe, Ency. Bib., art. “Dispersion” (with references); also below, § 25 sqq.
41 See Ezra and Nehemiah with bibliographical references, also T. K. Cheyne, Introd. to Isaiah (1895); Jew. Religious Life after the Exile (1898); E. Sellin, Stud. z. Entstehungsgesch. d. jüd. Gemeinde (1901); R. H. Kennett in Swete’s Cambridge Biblical Essays (pp. 92 sqq.); G. Jahn, Die Bücher Esra u. Nehemja (1909); and C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (1910).
42 There is an obvious effort to preserve the continuity of tradition (a) in Ezra ii. which gives a list of families who returned from exile each to its own city, and (b) in the return of the holy vessels in the time of Cyrus (contrast 1 Esdras iv. 43 seq.), a view which, in spite of Dan. i. 2, v. 2 seq., conflicts with 2 Kings xxiv. 13 and xxv. 13 (see, however, v. 14). That attempts have been made to adjust contradictory representations is suggested by the prophecy ascribed to Jeremiah (xxvii. 16 sqq.) where the restoration of the holy vessels finds no place in the shorter text of the Septuagint (see W. R. Smith, Old Test. and Jew. Church, pp. 104 sqq.).
43 The view that Deuteronomy is later than the 7th century has been suggested by M. Vernes, Nouvelle hypothèse sur la comp. et l’origine du Deut. (1887); Havet, Christian. et ses origines (1878); Horst, in Rev. de l’hist. des relig., 1888; and more recently by E. Day, Journ. Bib. Lit. (1902), pp. 202 sqq.; and R. H. Kennett, Journ. Theol. Stud. (1906), pp. 486 sqq. The strongest counter-arguments (see W. E. Addis, Doc. of Hexat. ii. 2-9) rely upon the historical trustworthiness of 2 Kings xxii. seq. Weighty reasons are brought also by conservative writers against the theory that Deuteronomy dates from or about the age of Josiah, and their objections to the “discovery” of a new law-roll apply equally to the “re-discovery” and promulgation of an old and authentic code.
44 See, for Cheyne’s view, his Decline and Fall of Judah. Introduction (1908). The former tendency has many supporters; see, among recent writers, N. Schmidt, Hibbert Journal (1908), pp. 322 sqq.; C. F. Burney, Journ. Theol. Stud. (1908), pp. 321 sqq.; O. A. Toffteen, The Historic Exodus (1909), pp. 120 sqq.; especially Meyer and Luther, Die Israeliten, pp. 442-440, &c. For the early recognition of the evidence in question, see J. Wellhausen, De gentibus et familiis Judaeis (Göttingen, 1870); Prolegomena (Eng. trans.), pp. 216 sqq., 342 sqq., and 441-443 (from art. “Israel,” § 2, Ency. Brit. 9th ed.); also A. Kuenen, Relig. of Israel (i. 135 seq., 176-182); W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, pp. 28 seq., 379.
45 For the prominence of the “southern” element in Judah see E. Meyer, Entstehung d. Judenthums (1896), pp. 119, 147, 167, 177, 183 n. 1; Israeliten, pp. 352 n. 5, 402, 429 seq.
46 See § 23 end, and Levites. When Edom is renowned for wisdom and a small Judaean family boasts of sages whose names have south Palestinian affinity (1 Chron. ii. 6), and when such names as Korah, Heman, Ethan and Obed-edom, are associated with psalmody, there is no inherent improbability in the conjecture that the “southern” families settled around Jerusalem may have left their mark in other parts of the Old Testament. It is another question whether such literature can be identified (for Cheyne’s views, see Ency. Bib. “Prophetic Literature,” “Psalms,” and his recent studies).
47 One may recall, in this connexion, Caxton’s very interesting prologue to Malory’s Morte d’Arthur and his remarks on the permanent value of the “histories” of this British hero. [Cf. also Horace, Ep. 1. ii. and R. Browning, “Development.”]
48 It is noteworthy that Josephus, who has his own representation of the post-exilic age, allows two years and four months for the work (Ant. xi. 5, 8).
49 The papyri from Elephantine (p. 282, n. 1, above) mention as contemporaries the Jerusalem priest Johanan (cf. the son of Joiada and father of Jaddua, Neh. xii. 22), Bagohi (Bagoas), governor of Judah, and Delaiah and Shelemiah sons of Sanballat (408-407 B.C.) They ignore any strained relations between Samaria and Judah, and Delaiah and Bagohi unite in granting permission to the Jewish colony to rebuild their place of worship. If this fixes the date of Sanballat and Nehemiah in the time of the first Artaxerxes, the probability of confusion in the later written sources is enhanced by the recurrence of identical names of kings, priests, &c., in the history.
50 The Samaritans, for their part, claimed the traditions of their land and called themselves the posterity of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. But they were ready to deny their kinship with the Jews when the latter were in adversity, and could have replied to the tradition that they were foreigners with a tu quoque (Josephus, Ant. ix. 14, 3; xi. 8, 6; xii. 5, 5) (see Samaritans).
51 The statement that the king desired to avoid the divine wrath may possibly have some deeper meaning (e.g. some recent revolt, Ezra vii. 23).
52 It must suffice to refer to the opinions of Bertholet, Buhl, Cheyne, Guthe, Van Hoonacker, Jahn, Kennett, Kent, Kosters, Marquart, Torrey, and Wildeboer.
53 C. F. Kent, Israel’s Hist. and Biog. Narratives (1905), p. 358 seq. The objections against this very probable view undervalue Ezra iv. 7-23 and overlook the serious intricacies in the book of Nehemiah.
54 There are three inquiries: (a) the critical value of 1 Esdras, (b) the character of the different representations of post-exilic internal and external history, and (c) the recovery of the historical facts. To start with the last before considering (a) and (b) would be futile.
55 For example, to the sufferings under Artaxerxes III. (§ 19) have been ascribed such passages as Isa. lxiii. 7-lxiv. 12; Ps. xliv., lxxiv., lxxix., lxxx., lxxxiii. (see also Lamentations). In their present form they are not of the beginning of the 6th century and, if the evidence for Artaxerxes III. proves too doubtful, they may belong to the history preceding Nehemiah’s return, provided the internal features do not stand in the way (e.g. prior or posterior to the formation of the exclusive Judaean community, &c.). Since the book of Baruch (named after Jeremiah’s scribe) is now recognized to be considerably later (probably after the destruction of Jerusalem A.D. 70), it will be seen that the recurrence of similar causes leads to a similarity in the contemporary literary productions (with a reshaping of earlier tradition), the precise date of which depends upon delicate points of detail and not upon the apparently obvious historical elements.
56 See H. Winckler, Keil. u. Alte Test., 295, and Kennett, Journ. Theol. Stud. (1906), p. 487; Camb. Bib. Essays, p. 117. The Chaldeans alone destroyed Jerusalem (2 Kings xxv.); Edom was friendly or at least neutral (Jer. xxvii. 3, xl. 11 seq.). The proposal to read “Edomites” for “Syrians” in the list of bands which troubled Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 2) is not supported by the contemporary reference, Jer. xxxv. 11.
57 It is at least a coincidence that the prophet who took the part of Tobiah and Sanballat against Nehemiah (vi. 10 seq.) bears the same name as the one who advised Rehoboam to acquiesce in the disruption (1 Kings xii. 21-24), or announced the divine selection of Jeroboam (ib. v. 24, Septuagint only).
58 See Hebrew Religion, § 8 seq., and the relevant portions of the histories of Israel.
59 J. Wellhausen, art. “Israel,” Ency. Brit. 9th ed., vol. xiii. p. 419; or his Prolegomena, pp. 497 seq.
60 An instructive account of Judaism in the early post-exilic age on critical lines (from the Jewish standpoint) is given by C. G. Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures (1892), pp. 355 sqq.; cf. also the sketch by I. Abrahams, Judaism (1907).
61 Cf. the story of Phinehas, Num. xxv. 6 sqq.; on Gen. xxxiv., see Simeon. Apropos of hostility towards Samaria, it is singular that the term of reproach, “Cutheans,” applied to the Samaritans is derived from Cutha, the famous seat of the god Nergal, only some 25 m. N.E. of Babylon itself (see above, p. 286, n. 4).
62 The various tendencies which can be observed in the later pseudepigraphical and apocalyptical writings are of considerable value in any consideration of the development of thought illustrated in the Old Testament itself.
63 Reference may be made to H. Winckler, Gesch. Israels, ii. (1900); W. Erbt, Die Hebräer (1906); and T. K. Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel (1907).
64 On the writers mentioned below see articles s.v.
65 For the importance of the Portuguese Jews, see Portugal: History.
JEWSBURY, GERALDINE ENDSOR (1812-1880), English writer, daughter of Thomas Jewsbury, a Manchester merchant, was born in 1812 at Measham, Derbyshire. Her first novel, Zoe: the History of Two Lives, was published in 1845, and was followed by The Half Sisters (1848), Marian Withers (1851), Constance Herbert (1855), The Sorrows of Gentility (1856), Right or Wrong (1859). In 1850 she was invited by Charles Dickens to write for Household Words; for many years she was a frequent contributor to the Athenaeum and other journals and magazines. It is, however, mainly on account of her friendship with Thomas Carlyle and his wife that her name is remembered. Carlyle described her, after their first meeting in 1841, as “one of the most interesting young women I have seen for years; clear delicate sense and courage looking out of her small sylph-like figure.” From this time till Mrs Carlyle’s death in 1866, Geraldine Jewsbury was the most intimate of her friends. The selections from Geraldine Jewsbury’s letters to Jane Welsh Carlyle (1892, ed. Mrs Alexander Ireland) prove how confidential were the relations 411 between the two women for a quarter of a century. In 1854 Miss Jewsbury removed from Manchester to London to be near her friend. To her Carlyle turned for sympathy when his wife died; and at his request she wrote down some “biographical anecdotes” of Mrs Carlyle’s childhood and early married life. Carlyle’s comment was that “few or none of these narratives are correct in details, but there is a certain mythical truth in all or most of them;” and he added, “the Geraldine accounts of her (Mrs Carlyle’s) childhood are substantially correct.” He accepted them as the groundwork for his own essay on “Jane Welsh Carlyle,” with which they were therefore incorporated by Froude when editing Carlyle’s Reminiscences. Miss Jewsbury was consulted by Froude when he was preparing Carlyle’s biography, and her recollection of her friend’s confidences confirmed the suspicion that Carlyle had on one occasion used physical violence towards his wife. Miss Jewsbury further informed Froude that the secret of the domestic troubles of the Carlyles lay in the fact that Carlyle had been “one of those persons who ought never to have married,” and that Mrs Carlyle had at one time contemplated having her marriage legally annulled (see My Relations with Carlyle, by James Anthony Froude, 1903). The endeavour has been made to discredit Miss Jewsbury in relation to this matter, but there seems to be no sufficient ground for doubting that she accurately repeated what she had learnt from Mrs Carlyle’s own lips. Miss Jewsbury died in London on the 23rd of September 1880.
JEW’S EARS, the popular name of a fungus, known botanically as Hirneola auricula-judae, so called from its shape, which somewhat resembles a human ear. It is very thin, flexible, flesh-coloured to dark brown, and one to three inches broad. It is common on branches of elder, which it often kills, and is also found on elm, willow, oak and other trees. It was formerly prescribed as a remedy for dropsy.
JEW’S HARP, or Jew’s Trump (Fr. guimbarde, O. Fr. trompe, gronde; Ger. Mundharmonica, Maultrommel, Brummeisen; Ital. scaccia-pensieri or spassa-pensiero), a small musical instrument of percussion, known for centuries all over Europe. “Jew’s trump” is the older name, and “trump” is still used in parts of Great Britain. Attempts have been made to derive “Jew’s” from “jaws” or Fr. jeu, but, though there is no apparent reason for associating the instrument with the Jews, it is certain that “Jew’s” is the original form (see the New English Dictionary and C. B. Mount in Notes and Queries (Oct. 23, 1897, p. 322). The instrument consists of a slender tongue of steel riveted at one end to the base of a pear-shaped steel loop; the other end of the tongue, left free and passing out between the two branches of the frame, terminates in a sharp bend at right angles, to enable the player to depress it by an elastic blow and thus set it vibrating while firmly pressing the branches of the frame against his teeth. The vibrations of the steel tongue produce a compound sound composed of a fundamental and its harmonics. By using the cavity of the mouth as a resonator, each harmonic in succession can be isolated and reinforced, giving the instrument the compass shown. The lower harmonics of the series cannot be obtained, owing to the limited capacity of the resonating cavity. The black notes on the stave show the scale which may be produced by using two harps, one tuned a fourth above the other. The player on the Jew’s harp, in order to isolate the harmonics, frames his mouth as though intending to pronounce the various vowels. At the beginning of the 19th century, when much energy and ingenuity were being expended in all countries upon the invention of new musical instruments, the Maultrommel, re-christened Mundharmonica (the most rational of all its names), attracted attention in Germany. Heinrich Scheibler devised an ingenious holder with a handle, to contain five Jew’s harps, all tuned to different notes; by holding one in each hand, a large compass, with duplicate notes, became available; he called this complex Jew’s harp Aura1 and with it played themes with variations, marches, Scotch reels, &c. Other virtuosi, such as Eulenstein, a native of Würtemberg, achieved the same result by placing the variously tuned Jew’s harps upon the table in front of him, taking them up and setting them down as required. Eulenstein created a sensation in London in 1827 by playing on no fewer than sixteen Jew’s harps. In 1828 Sir Charles Wheatstone published an essay on the technique of the instrument in the Quarterly Journal of Science.
1 See Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, 1816), p. 506, and Beilage 5, where the construction of the instruments is described and illustrated and the system of notation shown in various pieces of music.
JEZEBEL (Heb. ī-zebel, perhaps an artificial form to suggest “un-exalted,” a divine name or its equivalent would naturally be expected instead of the first syllable), wife of Ahab, king of Israel (1 Kings xvi. 31), and mother of Athaliah, in the Bible. Her father Eth-baal (Ithobal, Jos., contra Ap. i. 18) was king of Tyre and priest of the goddess Astarte. He had usurped the throne and was the first important Phoenician king after Hiram (see Phoenicia). Jezebel, a true daughter of a priest of Astarte, showed herself hostile to the worship of Yahweh, and to his prophets, whom she relentlessly pursued (1 Kings xviii. 4-13; see Elijah). She is represented as a woman of virile character, and became notorious for the part she took in the matter of Naboth’s vineyard. When the Jezreelite1 sheikh refused to sell the family inheritance to the king, Jezebel treacherously caused him to be arrested on a charge of treason, and with the help of false witnesses he was found guilty and condemned to death. For this the prophet Elijah pronounced a solemn curse upon Ahab and Jezebel, which was fulfilled when Jehu, who was anointed king at Elisha’s instigation, killed the son Jehoram, massacred all the family, and had Jezebel destroyed (1 Kings xxi.; 2 Kings ix. 11-28). What is told of her comes from sources written under the influence of strong religious bias; among the exaggerations must be reckoned 1 Kings xviii. 13, which is inconsistent with xix. 18 and xxii. 6. A literal interpretation of the reference to Jezebel’s idolatry (2 Kings ix. 22) has made her name a byword for a false prophetess in Rev. ii. 20. Her name is often used in modern English as a synonym for an abandoned woman or one who paints her face.
1 According to another tradition Naboth lived at Samaria (xxi. 1 [LXX.], 18 seq.; cf. xxii. 38). A similar confusion regarding the king’s home appears in 2 Kings x. 11 compared with vv. 1, 17.
JEZREEL (Heb. “God sows”), the capital of the Israelite monarchy under Ahab, and the scene of stirring Biblical events (1 Sam. xxix. 1; 1 Kings xxi.; 2 Kings ix. 21-37). The name was also applied to the great plain (Esdraelon) dominated by the city (“valley of Jezreel,” Josh. xvii. 16, &c.). The site has never been lost, and the present village Zercīn retains the name radically unchanged. In Greek (e.g. Judith) the name appears under the form Ἐσδραηλά; it is Stradela in the Bordeaux Pilgrim, and to the Crusaders the place was known as Parvum Gerinum. The modern stone village stands on a bare rocky knoll, 500 ft. above the broad northern valley, at the north extremity of a long ledge, terminating in steep cliffs, forming part of the chain of Mt Gilboa. The buildings are modern, but some scanty remains of rock-hewn wine presses and a few scattered sarcophagi mark the antiquity of the site. The view over the plains is fine and extensive. It is vain now to look for Ahab’s palace or Naboth’s vineyard. The fountain mentioned in 1 Sam. xxix. 1 is perhaps the fine spring ‘Ain el Meiyyita, north of the village, a shallow pool of good water full of small fish, rising between black basalt boulders: or more probably the copious ‘Ain Jalūd.
A second city named Jezreel lay in the hill country of Judah, somewhere near Hebron (Josh. xv. 56). This was the native place of David’s wife Abinoam (1 Sam. xxv. 43).
See, for an excellent description of the scenery and history of the Israelite Jezreel, G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. xix.
JHABUA, a native state of Central India, in the Bhopawar agency. Area, with the dependency of Rutanmal, 1336 sq. m. 412 Pop. (1901), 80,889. More than half the inhabitants belong to the aboriginal Bhils. Estimated revenue, £7000; tribute, £1000. Manganese and opium are exported. The chief, whose title is raja, is a Rajput of the Rathor clan, descended from a branch of the Jodhpur family. Raja Udai Singh was invested in 1898 with the powers of administration.
The town of Jhabua (pop. 3354) stands on the bank of a lake, and is surrounded by a mud wall. A dispensary and a guesthouse were constructed to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
JHALAWAR, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency, pop. (1901), 90,175; estimated revenue, £26,000; tribute, £2000. Area, 810 sq. m. The ruling family of Jhalawar belongs to the Jhala clan of Rajputs, and their ancestors were petty chiefs of Halwad in the district of Jhalawar, in Kathiawar. About 1709 one of the younger sons of the head of the clan left his country with his son to try his fortunes at Delhi. At Kotah he left his son Madhu Singh, who soon became a favourite with the maharaja, and received from him an important post, which became hereditary. On the death of one of the Kotah rajas (1771), the country was left to the charge of Zalim Singh, a descendant of Madhu Singh. From that time Zalim Singh was the real ruler of Kotah. He brought it to a wonderful state of prosperity, and under his administration, which lasted over forty-five years, the Kotah territory was respected by all parties. In 1838 it was resolved, with the consent of the chief of Kotah, to dismember the state, and to create the new principality of Jhalawar as a separate provision for the descendants of Zalim Singh. The districts then severed from Kotah were considered to represent one-third (£120,000) of the income of Kotah; by treaty they acknowledged the supremacy of the British, and agreed to pay an annual tribute of £8000. Madan Singh received the title of maharaja rana, and was placed on the same footing as the other chiefs in Rajputana. He died in 1845. An adopted son of his successor took the name of Zalim Singh in 1875 on becoming chief of Jhalawar. He was a minor and was not invested with governing powers till 1884. Owing to his maladministration, his relations with the British government became strained, and he was finally deposed in 1896, “on account of persistent misgovernment and proved unfitness for the powers of a ruling chief.” He went to live at Benares, on a pension of £2000; and the administration was placed in the hands of the British resident. After much consideration, the government resolved in 1897 to break up the state, restoring the greater part to Kotah, but forming the two districts of Shahabad and the Chaumahla into a new state, which came into existence in 1899, and of which Kunwar Bhawani Singh, a descendant of the original Zalim Singh, was appointed chief.
The chief town is Patan, or Jhalrapatan (pop. 7955), founded close to an old site by Zalim Singh in 1796, by the side of an artificial lake. It is the centre of trade, the chief exports of the state being opium, oil-seeds and cotton. The palace is at the cantonment or chhaoni, 4 m. north. The ancient site near the town was occupied by the city of Chandrawati, said to have been destroyed in the time of Aurangzeb. The finest feature of its remains is the temple of Sitaleswar Mahadeva (c. 600).
JHANG, a town and district of British India, in the Multan division of the Punjab. The town, which forms one municipality with the newer and now more important quarter of Maghiana, is about 3 m. from the right bank of the river Chenab. Founded by Mal Khan, a Sial chieftain, in 1462, it long formed the capital of a Mahommedan state. Pop. (1901), 24,382. Maghiana has manufactures of leather, soap and metal ware.
The District of Jhang extends along both sides of the Chenab, including its confluences with the Jhelum and the Ravi. Area, 3726 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 378,695, showing an apparent decrease of 13% in the decade, due to the creation of the district of Lyallpur in 1904. But actually the population increased by 132% on the old area, owing to the opening of the Chenab canal and the colonization of the tract irrigated by it. Within Jhang many thousands of acres of government waste have been allotted to colonists, who are reported to be flourishing. A branch of the North-Western railway enters the district in this quarter, extending throughout its entire length. The Southern Jech Doab railway serves the south. The principal industries are the ginning, pressing and weaving of cotton.
Jhang contains the ruins of Shorkot, identified with one of the towns taken by Alexander. In modern times the history of Jhang centres in the famous clan of Sials, who exercised an extensive sway over a large tract between Shahpur and Multan, with little dependence on the imperial court at Delhi, until they finally fell before the all-absorbing power of Ranjit Singh. The Sials of Jhang are Mahommedans of Rajput descent, whose ancestor, Rai Shankar of Daranagar, emigrated early in the 13th century from the Gangetic Doab. In the beginning of the 19th century Maharaja Ranjit Singh invaded Jhang, and captured the Sial chieftain’s territory. The latter recovered a small portion afterwards, which he was allowed to retain on payment of a yearly tribute. In 1847, after the establishment of the British agency at Lahore, the district came under the charge of the British government; and in 1848 Ismail Khan, the Sial leader, rendered important services against the rebel chiefs, for which he received a pension. During the Mutiny of 1857 the Sial leader again proved his loyalty by serving in person on the British side. His pension was afterwards increased, and he obtained the title of khan bahadur, with a small jagir for life.
JHANSI, a city and district of British India, in the Allahabad division o£ the United Provinces. The city is the centre of the Indian Midland railway system, whence four lines diverge to Agra, Cawnpore, Allahabad and Bhopal. Pop. (1901), 55,724. A stone fort crowns a neighbouring rock. Formerly the capital of a Mahratta principality, which lapsed to the British in 1853, it was during the Mutiny the scene of disaffection and massacre. It was then made over to Gwalior, but has been taken back in exchange for other territory. Even when the city was within Gwalior, the civil headquarters and the cantonment were at Jhansi Naoabad, under its walls. Jhansi is the principal centre for the agricultural trade of the district, but its manufactures are small.
The District of Jhansi was enlarged in 1891 by the incorporation of the former district of Lalitpur, which extends farther into the hill country, almost entirely surrounded by native states. Combined area, 3628 sq.m. Pop. (1901), 616,759 showing a decrease of 10% in the decade, due to the results of famine. The main line and branches of the Indian Midland railway serve the district, which forms a portion of the hill country of Bundelkhand, sloping down from the outliers of the Vindhyan range on the south to the tributaries of the Jumna on the north. The extreme south is composed of parallel rows of long and narrow-ridged hills. Through the intervening valleys the rivers flow down impetuously over ledges of granite or quartz. North of the hilly region, the rocky granite chains gradually lose themselves in clusters of smaller hills. The northern portion consists of the level plain of Bundelkhand, distinguished for its deep black soil, known as mar, and admirably adapted for the cultivation of cotton. The district is intersected or bounded by three principal rivers—the Pahuj, Betwa and Dhasan. The district is much cut up, and portions of it are insulated by the surrounding native states. The principal crops are millets, cotton, oil-seeds, pulses, wheat, gram and barley. The destructive kans grass has proved as great a pest here as elsewhere in Bundelkhand. Jhansi is especially exposed to blights, droughts, floods, hailstorms, epidemics, and their natural consequence—famine.
Nothing is known with certainty as to the history of this district before the period of Chandel rule, about the 11th century of our era. To this epoch must be referred the artificial reservoirs and architectural remains of the hilly region. The Chandels were succeeded by their servants the Khangars, who built the fort of Karar, lying just outside the British border. About the 14th century the Bundelas poured down upon the plains, and gradually spread themselves over the whole region which now bears their name. The Mahommedan governors were constantly making irruptions into the Bundela country; and in 413 1732 Chhatar Sal, the Bundela chieftain, called in the aid of the Mahrattas. They came to his assistance with their accustomed promptitude, and were rewarded on the raja’s death in 1734, by the bequest of one-third of his dominions. Their general founded the city of Jhansi, and peopled it with inhabitants from Orchha state. In 1806 British protection was promised to the Mahratta chief, and in 1817 the peshwa ceded to the East India Company all his rights over Bundelkhand. In 1853 the raja died childless, and his territories lapsed to the British. The Jhansi state and the Jalaun and Chanderi districts were then formed into a superintendency. The widow of the raja considered herself aggrieved because she was not allowed to adopt an heir, and because the slaughter of cattle was permitted in the Jhansi territory. Reports were spread which excited the religious prejudices of the Hindus. The events of 1857 accordingly found Jhansi ripe for mutiny. In June a few men of the 12th native infantry seized the fort containing the treasure and magazine, and massacred the European officers of the garrison. Everywhere the usual anarchic quarrels rose among the rebels, and the country was plundered mercilessly. The rani put herself at the head of the rebels, and died bravely in battle. It was not till November 1858, after a series of sharp contests with various guerilla leaders, that the work of reorganization was fairly set on foot.
JHELUM, or Jehlam (Hydaspes of the Greeks), a river of northern India. It is the most westerly of the “five rivers” of the Punjab. It rises in the north-east of the Kashmir state, flows through the city of Srinagar and the Wular lake, issues through the Pir Panjal range by the narrow pass of Baramula, and enters British territory in the Jhelum district. Thence it flows through the plains of the Punjab, forming the boundary between the Jech Doab and the Sind Sagar Doab, and finally joins the Chenab at Timmu after a course of 450 miles. The Jhelum colony, in the Shahpur district of the Punjab, formed on the example of the Chenab colony in 1901, is designed to contain a total irrigable area of 1,130,000 acres. The Jhelum canal is a smaller work than the Chenab canal, but its silt is noted for its fertilizing qualities. Both projects have brought great prosperity to the cultivators.
JHELUM, or Jehlam, a town and district of British India, in the Rawalpindi division of the Punjab. The town is situated on the right bank of the river Jhelum, here crossed by a bridge of the North-Western railway, 103 m. N. of Lahore. Pop. (1901), 14,951. It is a modern town with river and railway trade (principally in timber from Kashmir), boat-building and cantonments for a cavalry and four infantry regiments.
The District of Jehlum stretches from the river Jhelum almost to the Indus. Area, 2813 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 501,424, showing a decrease of 2% in the decade. Salt is quarried at the Mayo mine in the Salt Range. There are two coal-mines, the only ones worked in the province, from which the North-Western railway obtains part of its supply of coal. The chief centre of the salt trade is Pind Dadan Khan (pop. 13,770). The district is crossed by the main line of the North-Western railway, and also traversed along the south by a branch line. The river Jhelum is navigable throughout the district, which forms the south-eastern portion of a rugged Himalayan spur, extending between the Indus and Jhelum to the borders of the Sind Sagar Doab. Its scenery is very picturesque, although not of so wild a character as the mountain region of Rawalpindi to the north, and is lighted up in places by smiling patches of cultivated valley. The backbone of the district is formed by the Salt Range, a treble line of parallel hills running in three long forks from east to west throughout its whole breadth. The range rises in bold precipices, broken by gorges, clothed with brushwood and traversed by streams which are at first pure, but soon become impregnated with the saline matter over which they pass. Between the line of hills lies a picturesque table-land, in which the beautiful little lake of Kallar Kahar nestles amongst the minor ridges. North of the Salt Range, the country extends upwards in an elevated plateau, diversified by countless ravines and fissures, until it loses itself in tangled masses of Rawalpindi mountains. In this rugged tract cultivation is rare and difficult, the soil being choked with saline matter. At the foot of the Salt Range, however, a small strip of level soil lies along the banks of the Jhelum, and is thickly dotted with prosperous villages. The drainage of the district is determined by a low central watershed running north and south at right angles to the Salt Range. The waters of the western portion find their way into the Sohan, and finally into the Indus; those of the opposite slope collect themselves into small torrents, and empty themselves into the Jhelum.
The history of the district dates back to the semi-mythical period of the Mahābhārata. Hindu tradition represents the Salt Range as the refuge of the five Pandava brethren during the period of their exile, and every salient point in its scenery is connected with some legend of the national heroes. Modern research has fixed the site of the conflict between Alexander and Porus as within Jhelum district, although the exact point at which Alexander effected the passage of the Jhelum (or Hydaspes) is disputed. After this event, we have little information with regard to the condition of the district until the Mahommedan conquest brought back literature and history to Upper India. The Janjuahs and Jats, who now hold the Salt Range and its northern plateau respectively, appear to have been the earliest inhabitants. The Ghakkars seem to represent an early wave of conquest from the east, and they still inhabit the whole eastern slope of the district; while the Awans, who now cluster in the western plain, are apparently later invaders from the opposite quarter. The Ghakkars were the dominant race at the period of the first Mahommedan incursions, and long continued to retain their independence. During the flourishing period of the Mogul dynasty, the Ghakkar chieftains were prosperous and loyal vassals of the house of Baber; but after the collapse of the Delhi Empire Jhelum fell, like its neighbours, under the sway of the Sikhs. In 1765 Gujar Singh defeated the last independent Ghakkar prince, and reduced the wild mountaineers to subjection. His son succeeded to his dominions, until 1810, when he fell before the irresistible power of Ranjit Singh. In 1849 the district passed, with the rest of the Sikh territories, into the hands of the British.
JHERING, RUDOLF VON (1818-1892), German jurist, was born on the 22nd of August 1818 at Aurich in East Friesland, where his father practised as a lawyer. Young Jhering entered the university of Heidelberg in 1836 and, after the fashion of German students, visited successively Göttingen and Berlin. G. F. Puchta, the author of Geschichte des Rechts bei dem römischen Volke, alone of all his teachers appears to have gained his admiration and influenced the bent of his mind. After graduating doctor juris, Jhering established himself in 1844 at Berlin as privatdocent for Roman law, and delivered public lectures on the Geist des römischen Rechts, the theme which may be said to have constituted his life’s work. In 1845 he became an ordinary professor at Basel, in 1846 at Rostock, in 1849 at Kiel, and in 1851 at Giessen. Upon all these seats of learning he left his mark; beyond any other of his contemporaries he animated the dry bones of Roman law. The German juristic world was still under the dominating influence of the Savigny cult, and the older school looked askance at the daring of the young professor, who essayed to adapt the old to new exigencies and to build up a system of natural jurisprudence. This is the keynote of his famous work, Geist des römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwickelung (1852-1865), which for originality of conception and lucidity of scientific reasoning placed its author in the forefront of modern Roman jurists. It is no exaggeration to say that in the second half of the 19th century the reputation of Jhering was as high as that of Savigny in the first. Their methods were almost diametrically opposed. Savigny and his school represented the conservative, historical tendency. In Jhering the philosophical conception of jurisprudence, as a science to be utilized for the further advancement of the moral and social interests of mankind, was predominant. In 1868 Jhering accepted the chair of Roman Law at Vienna, where his lecture-room was crowded, not only with regular students but 414 with men of all professions and even of the highest ranks in the official world. He became one of the lions of society, the Austrian emperor conferring upon him in 1872 a title of hereditary nobility. But to a mind constituted like his, the social functions of the Austrian metropolis became wearisome, and he gladly exchanged its brilliant circles for the repose of Göttingen, where he became professor in 1872. In this year he had read at Vienna before an admiring audience a lecture, published under the title of Der Kampf um’s Recht (1872; Eng. trans., Battle for Right, 1884). Its success was extraordinary. Within two years it attained twelve editions, and it has been translated into twenty-six languages. This was followed a few years later by Der Zweck im Recht (2 vols., 1877-1883). In these two works is clearly seen Jhering’s individuality. The Kampf um’s Recht shows the firmness of his character, the strength of his sense of justice, and his juristic method and logic: “to assert his rights is the duty that every responsible person owes to himself.” In the Zweck im Recht is perceived the bent of the author’s intellect. But perhaps the happiest combination of all his distinctive characteristics is to be found in his Jurisprudenz des täglichen Lebens (1870; Eng. trans., 1904). A great feature of his lectures was his so-called Praktika, problems in Roman law, and a collection of these with hints for solution was published as early as 1847 under the title Civilrechtsfälle ohne Entscheidungen. In Göttingen he continued to work until his death on the 17th of September 1892. A short time previously he had been the centre of a devoted crowd of friends and former pupils, assembled at Wilhelmshöhe near Cassel to celebrate the jubilee of his doctorate. Almost all countries were worthily represented, and this pilgrimage affords an excellent illustration of the extraordinary fascination and enduring influence that Jhering commanded. In appearance he was of middle stature, his face clean-shaven and of classical mould, lit up with vivacity and beaming with good nature. He was perhaps seen at his best when dispensing hospitality in his own house. With him died the best beloved and the most talented of Roman-law professors of modern times. It was said of him by Professor Adolf Merkel in a memorial address, R. v. Jhering (1893), that he belonged to the happy class of persons to whom Goethe’s lines are applicable: “Was ich in der Jugend gewünscht, das habe ich im Alter die Fülle,” and this may justly be said of him, though he did not live to complete his Geist des römischen Rechts and his Rechtsgeschichte. For this work the span of a single life would have been insufficient, but what he has left to the world is a monument of vigorous intellectual power and stamps Jhering as an original thinker and unrivalled exponent (in his peculiar interpretation) of the spirit of Roman law.
Among others of his works, all of them characteristic of the author and sparkling with wit, may be mentioned the following: Beiträge zur Lehre von Besitz, first published in the Jahrbücher für die Dogmatik des heutigen römischen und deutschen Privat-rechts, and then separately; Der Besitzwille, and an article entitled “Besitz” in the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (1891), which aroused at the time much controversy, particularly on account of the opposition manifested to Savigny’s conception of the subject. See also Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz (1885); Das Schuldmoment im römischen Privat-recht (1867); Das Trinkgeld (1882); and among the papers he left behind him his Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropäer, a fragment, has been published by v. Ehrenberg (1894). See for an account of his life also M. de Jonge, Rudolf v. Jhering (1888); and A. Merkel, Rudolf von Jhering (1893).
JIBITOS, a tribe of South American Indians, first met with by the Franciscans in 1676 in the forest near the Huallaga river, in the Peruvian province of Loreto. After their conversion they settled in villages on the western bank of the river.
JIBUTI (Djibouti), the chief port and capital of French Somaliland, in 11° 35′ N., 43° 10′ E. Jibuti is situated at the entrance to and on the southern shore of the Gulf of Tajura about 150 m. S.W. of Aden. The town is built on a horseshoe-shaped peninsula partly consisting of mud flats, which are spanned by causeways. The chief buildings are the governor’s palace, customs-house, post office, and the terminal station of the railway to Abyssinia. The houses in the European quarter are built of stone, are flat-roofed and provided with verandas. There is a good water supply, drawn from a reservoir about 2½ m. distant. The harbour is land-locked and capacious. Ocean steamers are able to enter it at all states of wind and tide. Adjoining the mainland is the native town, consisting mostly of roughly made wooden houses with well thatched roofs. In it is held a large market, chiefly for the disposal of live stock, camels, cattle, &c. The port is a regular calling-place and also a coaling station for the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, and there is a local service to Aden. Trade is confined to coaling passing ships and to importing goods for and exporting goods from southern Abyssinia via Harrar, there being no local industries. (For statistics see Somaliland, French.) The inhabitants are of many races—Somali, Danakil, Gallas, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Indians, besides Greeks, Italians, French and other Europeans. The population, which in 1900 when the railway was building was about 15,000, had fallen in 1907 to some 5000 or 6000, including 300 Europeans.
Jibuti was founded by the French in 1888 in consequence of its superiority to Obok both in respect to harbour accommodation and in nearness to Harrar. It has been the seat of the governor of the colony since May 1896. Order is maintained by a purely native police force. The port is not fortified.
JICARILLA, a tribe of North American Indians of Athapascan stock. Their former range was in New Mexico, about the headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos, and they are now settled in a reservation on the northern border of New Mexico. Originally a scourge of the district, they are now subdued, but remain uncivilized. They number some 800 and are steadily decreasing. The name is said to be from the Spanish jicara, a basket tray, in reference to their excellent basket-work.
JIDDA (also written Jeddah, Djiddah, Djeddeh), a town in Arabia on the Red Sea coast in 21° 28′ N. and 39° 10′ E. It is of importance mainly as the principal landing place of pilgrims to Mecca, from which it is about 46 m. distant. It is situated in a low sandy plain backed by a range of hills 10 m. to the east, with higher mountains behind. The town extends along the beach for about a mile, and is enclosed by a wall with towers at intervals, the seaward angles being commanded by two forts, in the northern of which are the prison and other public buildings. There are three gates, the Medina gate on the north, the Mecca gate on the east, and the Yemen gate (rarely opened) on the south; there are also three small posterns on the west side, the centre one leading to the quay. In front of the Mecca gate is a rambling suburb with shops, coffee houses, and an open market place; before the Medina gate are the Turkish barracks, and beyond them the holy place of Jidda, the tomb of “our mother Eve,” surrounded by the principal cemetery.
The tomb is a walled enclosure said to represent the dimensions of the body, about 200 paces long and 15 ft. broad. At the head is a small erection where gifts are deposited, and rather more than half-way down a whitewashed dome encloses a small dark chapel within which is the black stone known as El Surrah, the navel. The grave of Eve is mentioned by Edrisi, but except the black stone nothing bears any aspect of antiquity (see Burton’s Pilgrimage, vol. ii.).
The sea face is the best part of the town; the houses there are lofty and well built of the rough coral that crops out all along the shore. The streets are narrow and winding. There are two mosques of considerable size and a number of smaller ones. The outer suburbs are merely collections of brushwood huts. The bazaars are well supplied with food-stuffs imported by sea, and fruit and vegetables from Taif and Wadi Fatima. The water supply is limited and brackish; there are, however, two sweet wells and a spring 7½ m. from the town, and most of the houses have cisterns for storing rain-water. The climate is hot and damp, but fever is not so prevalent as at Mecca. The harbour though inconvenient of access is well protected by coral reefs; there are, however, no wharves or other dock facilities and cargo is landed in small Arab boats, sambuks.
The governor is a Turkish kaimakam under the vali of Hejaz, and there is a large Turkish garrison; the sharif of Mecca, however, through his agent at Jidda exercises an authority 415 practically superior to that of the sultan’s officials. Consulates are maintained by Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Holland, Belgium and Persia. The permanent population is estimated at 20,000, of which less than half are Arabs, and of these a large number are foreigners from Yemen and Hadramut, the remainder are negroes and Somali with a few Indian and Greek traders.
Jidda is said to have been founded by Persian merchants in the caliphate of Othman, but its great commercial prosperity dates from the beginning of the 15th century when it became the centre of trade between Egypt and India. Down to the time of Burckhardt (1815) the Suez ships went no farther than Jidda, where they were met by Indian vessels. The introduction of steamers deprived Jidda of its place as an emporium, not only for Indian goods but for the products of the Red Sea, which formerly were collected here, but are now largely exported direct by steamer from Hodeda, Suakin, Jibuti and Aden. At the same time it gave a great impulse to the pilgrim traffic which is now regarded as the annual harvest of Jidda. The average number of pilgrims arriving by sea exceeds 50,000, and in 1903-1904 the total came to 74,600. The changed status of the port is shown in its trade returns, for while its exports decreased from £250,000 in 1880 to £25,000 in 1904, its imports in the latter year amounted to over £1,400,000. The adverse balance of trade is paid by a very large export of specie, collected from the pilgrims during their stay in the country.
JIG, a brisk lively dance, the quick and irregular steps of which have varied at different times and in the various countries in which it has been danced (see Dance). The music of the “jig,” or such as is written in its rhythm, is in various times and has been used frequently to finish a suite, e.g. by Bach and Handel. The word has usually been derived from or connected with Fr. gigue, Ital. giga, Ger. Geige, a fiddle. The French and Italian words are now chiefly used of the dance or dance rhythm, and in this sense have been taken by etymologists as adapted from the English “jig,” which may have been originally an onomatopoeic word. The idea of jumping, jerking movement has given rise to many applications of “jig” and its derivative “jigger” to mechanical and other devices, such as the machine used for separating the heavier metal-bearing portions from the lighter parts in ore-dressing, or a tackle consisting of a double and single block and fall, &c. The word “jigger,” a corruption of the West Indian chigoe, is also used as the name of a species of flea, the Sarcopsylla penetrans, which burrows and lays its eggs in the human foot, generally under the toe nails, and causes great swelling and irritation (see Flea).
JIHAD (also written Jehad, Jahad, Djehad), an Arabic word of which the literal meaning is an effort or a contest. It is used to designate the religious duty inculcated in the Koran on the followers of Mahomet to wage war upon those who do not accept the doctrines of Islam. This duty is laid down in five suras—all of these suras belonging to the period after Mahomet had established his power. Conquered peoples who will neither embrace Islam nor pay a poll-tax (jizya) are to be put to the sword. (See further Mohammedan Institutions.) By Mahommedan commentators the commands in the Koran are not interpreted as a general injunction on all Moslems constantly to make war on the infidels. It is generally supposed that the order for a general war can only be given by the caliph (an office now claimed by the sultans of Turkey). Mahommedans who do not acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Ottoman sultan, such as the Persians and Moors, look to their own rulers for the proclamation of a jihad; there has been in fact no universal warfare by Moslems on unbelievers since the early days of Mahommedanism. Jihads are generally proclaimed by all persons who claim to be mahdis, e.g. Mahommed Aḥmad (the Sudanese mahdi) proclaimed a jihad in 1882. In the belief of Moslems every one of their number slain in a jihad is taken straight to paradise.
JIMENES (or Ximenes) DE CISNEROS, FRANCISCO (1436-1517), Spanish cardinal and statesman, was born in 1436 at Torrelaguna in Castile, of good but poor family. He studied at Alcalá de Henares and afterwards at Salamanca; and in 1459, having entered holy orders, he went to Rome. Returning to Spain in 1465, he brought with him an “expective” letter from the pope, in virtue of which he took possession of the archpriestship of Uzeda in the diocese of Toledo in 1473. Carillo, archbishop of Toledo, opposed him, and on his obstinate refusal to give way threw him into prison. For six years Jimenes held out, and at length in 1480 Carillo restored him to his benefice. This Jimenes exchanged almost at once for a chaplaincy at Siguenza, under Cardinal Mendoza, bishop of Siguenza, who shortly appointed him vicar-general of his diocese. In that position Jimenes won golden opinions from ecclesiastic and layman; and he seemed to be on the sure road to distinction among the secular clergy, when he abruptly resolved to become a monk. Throwing up all his benefices, and changing his baptismal name Gonzales for that of Francisco, he entered the Franciscan monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, recently founded by Ferdinand and Isabella at Toledo. Not content with the ordinary severities of the noviciate, he added voluntary austerities. He slept on the bare ground, wore a hair-shirt, doubled his fasts, and scourged himself with much fervour; indeed throughout his whole life, even when at the acme of his greatness, his private life was most rigorously ascetic. The report of his sanctity brought crowds to confess to him; but from them he retired to the lonely monastery of Our Lady of Castañar; and he even built with his own hands a rude hut in the neighbouring woods, in which he lived at times as an anchorite. He was afterwards guardian of a monastery at Salzeda. Meanwhile Mendoza (now archbishop of Toledo) had not forgotten him; and in 1492 he recommended him to Isabella as her confessor. The queen sent for Jimenes, was pleased with him, and to his great reluctance forced the office upon him. The post was politically important, for Isabella submitted to the judgment of her father-confessor not only her private affairs but also matters of state. Jimenes’s severe sanctity soon won him considerable influence over Isabella; and thus it was that he first emerged into political life. In 1494 the queen’s confessor was appointed provincial of the order of St Francis, and at once set about reducing the laxity of the conventual to the strictness of the observantine Franciscans. Intense opposition was continued even after Jimenes became archbishop of Toledo. The general of the order himself came from Rome to interfere with the archbishop’s measures of reform, but the stern inflexibility of Jimenes, backed by the influence of the queen, subdued every obstacle. Cardinal Mendoza had died in 1495, and Isabella had secretly procured a papal bull nominating her confessor to his diocese of Toledo, the richest and most powerful in Spain, second perhaps to no other dignity of the Roman Church save the papacy. Long and sincerely Jimenes strove to evade the honour; but his nolo episcopari was after six months overcome by a second bull ordering him to accept consecration. With the primacy of Spain was associated the lofty dignity of high chancellor of Castile; but Jimenes still maintained his lowly life; and, although a message from Rome required him to live in a style befitting his rank, the outward pomp only concealed his private asceticism. In 1499 Jimenes accompanied the court to Granada, and there eagerly joined the mild and pious Archbishop Talavera in his efforts to convert the Moors. Talavera had begun with gentle measures, but Jimenes preferred to proceed by haranguing the fakihs, or doctors of religion, and loading them with gifts. Outwardly the latter method was successful; in two months the converts were so numerous that they had to be baptized by aspersion. The indignation of the unconverted Moors swelled into open revolt. Jimenes was besieged in his house, and the utmost difficulty was found in quieting the city. Baptism or exile was offered to the Moors as a punishment for rebellion. The majority accepted baptism; and Isabella, who had been momentarily annoyed at her archbishop’s imprudence, was satisfied that he had done good service to Christianity.
On the 24th of November 1504 Isabella died. Ferdinand at once resigned the title of king of Castile in favour of his daughter Joan and her husband the archduke Philip, assuming instead 416 that of regent. Philip was keenly jealous of Ferdinand’s pretensions to the regency; and it required all the tact of Jimenes to bring about a friendly interview between the princes. Ferdinand finally retired from Castile; and, though Jimenes remained, his political weight was less than before. The sudden death of Philip in September 1506 quite overset the already tottering intellect of his wife; his son and heir Charles was still a child; and Ferdinand was at Naples. The nobles of Castile, mutually jealous, agreed to entrust affairs to the archbishop of Toledo, who, moved more by patriotic regard for his country’s welfare than by special friendship for Ferdinand, strove to establish the final influence of that king in Castile. Ferdinand did not return till August 1507; and he brought a cardinal’s hat for Jimenes. Shortly afterwards the new cardinal of Spain was appointed grand inquisitor-general for Castile and Leon.
The next great event in the cardinal’s life was the expedition against the Moorish city of Oran in the north of Africa, in which his religious zeal was supported by the prospect of the political and material gain that would accrue to Spain from the possession of such a station. A preliminary expedition, equipped, like that which followed, at the expense of Jimenes, captured the port of Mers-el-Kebir in 1505; and in 1509 a strong force, accompanied by the cardinal in person, set sail for Africa, and in one day the wealthy city was taken by storm. Though the army remained to make fresh conquests, Jimenes returned to Spain, and occupied himself with the administration of his diocese, and in endeavouring to recover from the regent the expenses of his Oran expedition. On the 28th of January 1516 Ferdinand died, leaving Jimenes as regent of Castile for Charles (afterwards Charles V.), then a youth of sixteen in the Netherlands. Though Jimenes at once took firm hold of the reins of government, and ruled in a determined and even autocratic manner, the haughty and turbulent Castilian nobility and the jealous intriguing Flemish councillors of Charles combined to render his position peculiarly difficult; while the evils consequent upon the unlimited demands of Charles for money threw much undeserved odium upon the regent. In violation of the laws, Jimenes acceded to Charles’s desire to be proclaimed king; he secured the person of Charles’s younger brother Ferdinand; he fixed the seat of the cortes at Madrid; and he established a standing army by drilling the citizens of the great towns. Immediately on Ferdinand’s death, Adrian, dean of Louvain, afterwards pope, produced a commission from Charles appointing him regent. Jimenes admitted him to a nominal equality, but took care that neither he nor the subsequent commissioners of Charles ever had any real share of power. In September 1517 Charles landed in the province of Asturias, and Jimenes hastened to meet him. On the way, however, he fell ill, not without a suspicion of poison. While thus feeble, he received a letter from Charles coldly thanking him for his services, and giving him leave to retire to his diocese. A few hours after this virtual dismissal, which some, however, say the cardinal never saw, Francisco Jimenes died at Roa, on the 8th of November 1517.
Jimenes was a bold and determined statesman. Sternly and inflexibly, with a confidence that became at times overbearing, he carried through what he had decided to be right, with as little regard for the convenience of others as for his own. In the midst of a corrupt clergy his morals were irreproachable. He was liberal to all, and founded and maintained very many benevolent institutions in his diocese. His whole time was devoted either to the state or to religion; his only recreation was in theological or scholastic discussion. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy points about the cardinal is the advanced period of life at which he entered upon the stage where he was to play such leading parts. Whether his abrupt change from the secular to the regular clergy was the fervid outcome of religious enthusiasm or the far-seeing move of a wily schemer has been disputed; but the constant austerity of his life, his unvarying superiority to small personal aims, are arguments for the former alternative that are not to be met by merely pointing to the actual honours and power he at last attained.
In 1500 was founded, and in 1508 was opened, the university of Alcalá de Henares, which, fostered by Cardinal Jimenes, at whose sole expense it was raised, attained a great pitch of outward magnificence and internal worth. At one time 7000 students met within its walls. In 1836 the university was removed to Madrid, and the costly buildings were left vacant. In the hopes of supplanting the romances generally found in the hands of the young, Jimenes caused to be published religious treatises by himself and others. He revived also the Mozarabic liturgy, and endowed a chapel at Toledo, in which it was to be used. But his most famous literary service was the printing at Alcalá (in Latin Complutum) of the Complutensian Polyglott, the first edition of the Christian Scriptures in the original text. In this work, on which he is said to have expended half a million of ducats, the cardinal was aided by the celebrated Stunica (D. Lopez de Zuñiga), the Greek scholar Nuñez de Guzman (Pincianus), the Hebraist Vergara, and the humanist Nebrija, by a Cretan Greek Demetrius Ducas, and by three Jewish converts, of whom Zamora edited the Targum to the Pentateuch. The other Targums are not included. In the Old Testament Jerome’s version stands between the Greek and Hebrew. The synagogue and the Eastern church, as the preface expresses it, are set like the thieves on this side and on that, with Jesus (that is, the Roman Church) in the midst. The text occupies five volumes, and a sixth contains a Hebrew lexicon, &c. The work commenced in 1502. The New Testament was finished in January 1514, and the whole in April 1517. It was dedicated to Leo X., and was reprinted in 1572 by the Antwerp firm of Plantin, after revision by Benito Arias Montano at the expense of Philip II. The second edition is known as the Biblia Regia or Filipina.
The work by Alvaro Gomez de Castro, De Rebus Gestis Francisci Ximenii (folio, 1659, Alcalá), is the quarry whence have come the materials for biographies of Jimenes—in Spanish by Robles (1604) and Quintanilla (1633); in French by Baudier (1635), Marsollier (1684), Flèchier (1694) and Richard (1704); in German by Hefele (1844, translated into English by Canon Dalton, 1860) and Havemann (1848); and in English by Barrett (1813). See also Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella; Revue des Deux Mondes (May 1841) and Mém. de l’Acad. d’hist. de Madrid, vol. iv.
JIND, a native state of India, within the Punjab. It ranks as one of the Cis-Sutlej states, which came under British influence in 1809. The territory consists of three isolated tracts, amid British districts. Total area, 1332 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 282,003, showing a decrease of 1% in the decade. Estimated gross revenue £109,000; there is no tribute. Grain and cotton are exported, and there are manufactures of gold and silver ornaments, leather and wooden wares and cloth. The chief, whose title is raja, is a Sikh of the Sidhu Jat clan and of the Phulkian family. The principality was founded in 1763, and the chief was recognized by the Mogul emperor in 1768. The dynasty has always been famous for its loyalty to the British, especially during the Mutiny, which has been rewarded with accessions of territory. In 1857 the raja of Jind was actually the first man, European or native, who took the field against the mutineers; and his contingent collected supplies in advance for the British troops marching upon Delhi, besides rendering excellent service during the siege. Raja Ranbir Singh succeeded as a minor in 1887, and was granted full powers in 1899. During the Tirah expedition of 1897-98 the Jind imperial service infantry specially distinguished themselves. The town of Jind, the former capital, has a station on the Southern Punjab railway, 80 m. N.W. of Delhi. Pop. (1901), 8047. The present capital and residence of the raja since 1827 is Sangrur; pop. (1901), 11,852.
JINGO, a legendary empress of Japan, wife of Chūai, the 14th mikado (191-200). On her husband’s death she assumed the government, and fitted out an army for the invasion of Korea (see Japan, § 9). She returned to Japan completely victorious after three years’ absence. Subsequently her son Ojen Tenno, afterwards 15th mikado, was born, and later was canonized as Hachiman, god of war. The empress Jingo ruled over Japan till 270. She is still worshipped.
As regards the English oath, usually “By Jingo,” or “By the living Jingo,” the derivation is doubtful. The identification with the name of Gingulph or Gengulphus, a Burgundian saint who was martyred on the 11th of May 760, was a joke on the part of R. H. Barham, author of the Ingoldsby Legends. Some explain the word as a corruption of Jainko, the Basque name for God. It has also been derived from the Persia jang (war), St Jingo being the equivalent of the Latin god of war, Mars; and is even explained as a corruption of “Jesus, Son of God,” Je-n-go. In 417 support of the Basque derivation it is alleged that the oath was first common in Wales, to aid in the conquest of which Edward I. imported a number of Basque mercenaries. The phrase does not, however, appear in literature before the 17th century, first as conjurer’s jargon. Motteux, in his “Rabelais,” is the first to use “by jingo,” translating par dieu. The political use of the word as indicating an aggressive patriotism (Jingoes and Jingoism) originated in 1877 during the weeks of national excitement preluding the despatch of the British Mediterranean squadron to Gallipoli, thus frustrating Russian designs on Constantinople. While the public were on the tiptoe of expectation as to what policy the government would pursue, a bellicose music-hall song with the refrain “We don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if we do,” &c., was produced in London by a singer known as “the great MacDermott,” and instantly became very popular. Thus the war-party came to be called Jingoes, and Jingoism has ever since been the term applied to those who advocate a national policy of arrogance and pugnacity.
For a discussion of the etymology of Jingo see Notes and Queries, (August 25, 1894), 8th series, p. 149.
JINN (Djinn), the name of a class of spirits (genii) in Arabian mythology. They are the offspring of fire, but in their form and the propagation of their kind they resemble human beings. They are ruled by a race of kings named “Suleyman,” one of whom is considered to have built the pyramids. Their central home is the mountain Kāf, and they manifest themselves to men under both animal and mortal form and become invisible at will. There are good and evil jinn, and these in each case reach the extremes of beauty and ugliness.
JIREČEK, JOSEF (1825-1888), Czech scholar, was born at Vysoké Mýto in Bohemia on the 9th of October 1825. He entered the Prague bureau of education in 1850, and became minister of the department in the Hohenwart cabinet in 1871. His efforts to secure equal educational privileges for the Slav nationalities in the Austrian dominions brought him into disfavour with the German element. He became a member of the Bohemian Landtag in 1878, and of the Austrian Reichsrat in 1879. His merits as a scholar were recognized in 1875 by his election as president of the royal Bohemian academy of sciences. He died in Prague on the 25th of November 1888.
With Hermenegild Jireček he defended in 1862 the genuineness of the Königinhof MS. discovered by Wenceslaus Hanka. He published in the Czech language an anthology of Czech literature (3 vols., 1858-1861), a biographical dictionary of Czech writers (2 vols., 1875-1876), a Czech hymnology, editions of Blahoslaw’s Czech grammar and of some Czech classics, and of the works of his father-in-law Pavel Josef Šafařik (1795-1861).
His brother Hermenegild Jireček, Ritter von Samakow (1827- ), Bohemian jurisconsult, who was born at Vysoké Mýto on the 13th of April 1827, was also an official in the education department.
Among his important works on Slavonic law were Codex juris bohemici (11 parts, 1867-1892), and a Collection of Slav Folk-Law (Czech, 1880), Slav Law in Bohemia and Moravia down to the 14th Century (Czech, 3 vols. 1863-1873).
Jireček, Konstantin Josef (1854- ), son of Josef, taught history at Prague. He entered the Bulgarian service in 1879, and in 1881 became minister of education at Sofia. In 1884 he became professor of universal history in Czech at Prague, and in 1893 professor of Slavonic antiquities at Vienna.
The bulk of Konstantin’s writings deal with the history of the southern Slavs and their literature. They include a History of the Bulgars (Czech and German, 1876), The Principality of Bulgaria (1891), Travels in Bulgaria (Czech, 1888), &c.
JIZAKH, a town of Russian Central Asia, in the province of Samarkand, on the Transcaspian railway, 71 m. N.E. of the city of Samarkand. Pop. (1897), 16,041. As a fortified post of Bokhara it was captured by the Russians in 1866.
JOAB (Heb. “Yah[weh] is a father”), in the Bible, the son of Zeruiah, David’s sister (1 Chron. ii. 16). His brothers were Asahel and Abishai. All three were renowned warriors and played a prominent part in David’s history. Abishai on one occasion saved the king’s life from a Philistine giant (2 Sam. xxi. 17), and Joab as warrior and statesman was directly responsible for much of David’s success. Joab won his spurs, according to one account, by capturing Jerusalem (1 Chron. xi. 4-9); with Abishai and Ittai of Gath he led a small army against the Israelites who had rebelled under Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 2); and he superintended the campaign against Ammon and Edom (2 Sam. xi. 1, xii. 26; 1 Kings xi. 15). He showed his sturdy character by urging the king after the death of Absalom to place his duty to his people before his grief for the loss of his favourite son (2 Sam. xix. 1-8), and by protesting against David’s proposal to number the people, an innovation which may have been regarded as an infringement of their liberties (2 Sam. xxiv.; 1 Chron. xxi. 6).
The hostility of the “sons of Zeruiah” towards the tribe of Benjamin is characteristically contrasted with David’s own generosity towards Saul’s fallen house. Abishai proposed to kill Saul when David surprised him asleep (1 Sam. xxvi. 8), and was anxious to slay Shimei when he cursed the king (2 Sam. xvi. 9). But David was resigned to the will of Yahweh and refused to entertain the suggestions. After Asahel met his death at the hands of Abner, Joab expostulated with David for not taking revenge upon the guilty one, and indeed the king might be considered bound in honour to take up his nephew’s cause. But when Joab himself killed Abner, David’s imprecation against him and his brother Abishai showed that he dissociated himself from the act of vengeance, although it brought him nearer to the throne of all Israel (2 Sam. iii.). Fear of a possible rival may have influenced Joab, and this at all events led him to slay Amasa of Judah (2 Sam. xx. 4-13). The two deeds are similar, and the impression left by them is expressed in David’s last charges to Solomon (1 Kings ii.). But here Joab had taken the side of Adonijah against Solomon, and was put to death by Benaiah at Solomon’s command, and it is possible that the charges are the fruit of a later tradition to remove all possible blame from Solomon (q.v.). It is singular that Joab is not blamed for killing Absalom, but it would indeed be strange if the man who helped to reconcile father and son (2 Sam. xiv.) should have perpetrated so cruel an act in direct opposition to the king’s wishes (xviii. 5, 10-16). A certain animus against Joab’s family thus seems to underlie some of the popular narratives of the life of David (q.v.).
JOACHIM OF FLORIS (c. 1145-1202), so named from the monastery of San Giovanni in Fiore, of which he was abbot, Italian mystic theologian, was born at Celico, near Cosenza, in Calabria. He was of noble birth and was brought up at the court of Duke Roger of Apulia. At an early age he went to visit the holy places. After seeing his comrades decimated by the plague at Constantinople he resolved to change his mode of life, and, on his return to Italy, after a rigorous pilgrimage and a period of ascetic retreat, became a monk in the Cistercian abbey of Casamari. In August 1177 we know that he was abbot of the monastery of Corazzo, near Martirano. In 1183 he went to the court of Pope Lucius III. at Veroli, and in 1185 visited Urban III. at Verona. There is extant a letter of Pope Clement III., dated the 8th of June 1188, in which Clement alludes to two of Joachim’s works, the Concordia and the Expositio in Apocalypsin, and urges him to continue them. Joachim, however, was unable to continue his abbatial functions in the midst of his labours in prophetic exegesis, and, moreover, his asceticism accommodated itself but ill with the somewhat lax discipline of Corazzo. He accordingly retired into the solitudes of Pietralata, and subsequently founded with some companions under a rule of his own creation the abbey of San Giovanni in Fiore, on Monte Nero, in the massif of La Sila. The pope and the emperor befriended this foundation; Frederick II. and his wife Constance made important donations to it, and promoted the spread of offshoots of the parent house; while Innocent III., on the 21st of January 1204, approved the “ordo Florensis” and the “institutio” which its founder had bestowed upon it. Joachim died in 1202, probably on the 20th of March.
Of the many prophetic and polemical works that were attributed to Joachim in the 13th and following centuries, only those enumerated in his will can be regarded as absolutely authentic. These are the Concordia novi et veteris Testamenti (first printed at Venice in 1519), the Expositio in Apocalypsin (Venice, 1527), the Psalterium decem chordarum (Venice, 1527), together with some “libelli” against the Jews or the adversaries of the Christian faith. It is very probable that these “libelli” are the writings entitled Concordia Evangeliorum, Contra Judaeos, De articulis fidei, Confessio fidei and De unitate Trinitatis. The last is perhaps the work which was condemned by the Lateran council in 1215 as containing an erroneous 418 criticism of the Trinitarian theory of Peter Lombard. This council, though condemning the book, refrained from condemning the author, and approved the order of Floris. Nevertheless, the monks continued to be subjected to insults as followers of a heretic, until they obtained from Honorius III. in 1220 a bull formally recognizing Joachim as orthodox and forbidding anyone to injure his disciples.
It is impossible to enumerate here all the works attributed to Joachim. Some served their avowed object with great success, being powerful instruments in the anti-papal polemic and sustaining the revolted Franciscans in their hope of an approaching triumph. Among the most widely circulated were the commentaries on Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel, the Vaticinia pontificum and the De oneribus ecclesiae. Of his authentic works the doctrinal essential is very simple. Joachim divides the history of humanity, past, present and future, into three periods, which, in his Expositio in Apocalypsin (bk. i. ch. 5), he defines as the age of the Law, or of the Father; the age of the Gospel, or of the Son; and the age of the Spirit, which will bring the ages to an end. Before each of these ages there is a period of incubation, or initiation: the first age begins with Abraham, but the period of initiation with the first man Adam. The initiation period of the third age begins with St Benedict, while the actual age of the Spirit is not to begin until 1260, the Church—mulier amicta sole (Rev. xii. 1)—remaining hidden in the wilderness 1260 days. We cannot here enter into the infinite details of the other subdivisions imagined by Joachim, or into his system of perpetual concordances between the New and the Old Testaments, which, according to him, furnish the prefiguration of the third age. Far more interesting as explaining the diffusion and the religious and social importance of his doctrine is his conception of the second and third ages. The first age was the age of the Letter, the second was intermediary between the Letter and the Spirit, and the third was to be the age of the Spirit. The age of the Son is the period of study and wisdom, the period of striving towards mystic knowledge. In the age of the Father all that was necessary was obedience; in the age of the Son reading is enjoined; but the age of the Spirit was to be devoted to prayer and song. The third is the age of the plena spiritus libertas, the age of contemplation, the monastic age par excellence, the age of a monachism wholly directed towards ecstasy, more Oriental than Benedictine. Joachim does not conceal his sympathies with the ideal of Basilian monachism. In his opinion—which is, in form at least, perfectly orthodox—the church of Peter will be, not abolished, but purified; actually, the hierarchy effaces itself in the third age before the order of the monks, the viri spirituales. The entire world will become a vast monastery in that day, which will be the resting-season, the sabbath of humanity. In various passages in Joachim’s writings the clerical hierarchy is represented by Rachel and the contemplative order by her son Joseph, and Rachel is destined to efface herself before her son. Similarly, the teaching of Christ and the Apostles on the sacraments is considered, implicitly and explicitly, as transitory, as representing that passage from the significantia to the significata which Joachim signalizes at every stage of his demonstration. Joachim was not disturbed during his lifetime. In 1200 he submitted all his writings to the judgment of the Holy See, and unreservedly affirmed his orthodoxy; the Lateran council, which condemned his criticism of Peter Lombard, made no allusion to his eschatological temerities; and the bull of 1220 was a formal certificate of his orthodoxy.
The Joachimite ideas soon spread into Italy and France, and especially after a division had been produced in the Franciscan order. The rigorists, who soon became known as “Spirituals,” represented St Francis as the initiator of Joachim’s third age. Certain convents became centres of Joachimism. Around the hermit of Hyères, Hugh of Digne, was formed a group of Franciscans who expected from the advent of the third age the triumph of their ascetic ideas. The Joachimites even obtained a majority in the general chapter of 1247, and elected John of Parma, one of their number, general of the order. Pope Alexander IV., however, compelled John of Parma to renounce his dignity, and the Joachimite opposition became more and more vehement. Pseudo-Joachimite treatises sprang up on every hand, and, finally, in 1254, there appeared in Paris the Liber introductorius ad Evangelium aeternum, the work of a Spiritual Franciscan, Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino. This book was published with, and as an introduction to, the three principal works of Joachim, in which the Spirituals had made some interpolations.1 Gherardo, however, did not say, as has been supposed, that Joachim’s books were the new gospel, but merely that the Calabrian abbot had supplied the key to Holy Writ, and that with the help of that intelligentia mystica it would be possible to extract from the Old and New Testaments the eternal meaning, the gospel according to the Spirit, a gospel which would never be written; as for this eternal sense, it had been entrusted to an order set apart, to the Franciscan order announced by Joachim, and in this order the ideal of the third age was realized. These affirmations provoked very keen protests in the ecclesiastical world. The secular masters of the university of Paris denounced the work to Pope Innocent IV., and the bishop of Paris sent it to the pope. It was Innocent’s successor, Alexander IV., who appointed a commission to examine it; and as a result of this commission, which sat at Anagni, the destruction of the Liber introductorius was ordered by a papal breve dated the 23rd of October 1255. In 1260 a council held at Arles condemned Joachim’s writings and his supporters, who were very numerous in that region. The Joachimite ideas were equally persistent among the Spirituals, and acquired new strength with the publication of the commentary on the Apocalypse. This book, probably published after the death of its author and probably interpolated by his disciples, contains, besides Joachimite principles, an affirmation even clearer than that of Gherardo da Borgo of the elect character of the Franciscan order, as well as extremely violent attacks on the papacy. The Joachimite literature is extremely vast. From the 14th century to the middle of the 16th, Ubertin of Casale (in his Arbor Vitae crucifixae), Bartholomew of Pisa (author of the Liber Conformitatum), the Calabrian hermit Telesphorus, John of La Rochetaillade, Seraphin of Fermo, Johannes Annius of Viterbo, Coelius Pannonius, and a host of other writers, repeated or complicated ad infinitum the exegesis of Abbot Joachim. A treatise entitled De ultima aetate ecclesiae, which appeared in 1356, has been attributed to Wycliffe, but is undoubtedly from the pen of an anonymous Joachimite Franciscan. The heterodox movements in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries, such as those of the Segarellists, Dolcinists, and Fraticelli of every description, were penetrated with Joachimism; while such independent spirits as Roger Bacon, Arnaldus de Villa Nova and Bernard Délicieux often comforted themselves with the thought of the era of justice and peace promised by Joachim. Dante held Joachim in great reverence, and has placed him in Paradise (Par., xii. 140-141).
See Acta Sanctorum, Boll. (May), vii. 94-112; W. Preger in Abhandl. der kgl. Akad. der Wissenschaften, hist, sect., vol. xii., pt. 3 (Munich, 1874); idem, Gesch. d. deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1874); E. Renan, “Joachim de Flore et l’Évangile éternel” in Nouvelles études d’histoire religieuse (Paris, 1884); F. Tocco, L’Eresia nel medio evo (Florence, 1884); H. Denifle, “Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni” in Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengesch. des Mittelalters, vol. i.; Paul Fournier, “Joachim de Flore, ses doctrines, son influence” in Revue des questions historiques, t. i. (1900); H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, vol. iii. ch. i. (London, 1888); F. Ehrle’s article “Joachim” in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexikon. On Joachimism see E. Gebhardt, “Recherches nouvelles sur l’histoire du Joachimisme” in Revue historique, vol. xxxi. (1886); H. Haupt, “Zur Gesch. des Joachimismus” in Briegers Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch., vol. vii. (1885).
1 Preger is the only writer who has maintained that the three books in their primitive form date from 1254.
JOACHIM I. (1484-1535), surnamed Nestor, elector of Brandenburg, elder son of John Cicero, elector of Brandenburg, was born on the 21st of February 1484. He received an excellent education, became elector of Brandenburg on his father’s death in January 1499, and soon afterwards married Elizabeth, daughter of John, king of Denmark. He took some part in the political complications of the Scandinavian kingdoms, but the early years of his reign were mainly spent in the administration of his electorate, where by stern and cruel measures he succeeded in restoring some degree of order (see Brandenburg). He also improved the administration of justice, aided the development of commerce, and was a friend to the towns. On the approach of the imperial election of 1519, Joachim’s vote was eagerly solicited by the partisans of Francis I., king of France, and by those of Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles V. Having treated with, and received lavish promises from, both parties, he appears to have hoped for the dignity for himself; but when the election came he turned to the winning side and voted for Charles. In spite of this step, however, the relations between the emperor and the elector were not friendly, and during the next few years Joachim was frequently in communication with the enemies of Charles. Joachim is best known as a pugnacious adherent of Catholic orthodoxy. He was one of the princes who urged upon the emperor the necessity of enforcing the Edict of Worms, and at several diets was prominent among the enemies of the Reformers. He was among those who met at Dessau in July 1525, and was a member of the league established at Halle in November 1533. But his wife adopted the reformed faith, and in 1528 fled for safety to Saxony; and he had the mortification of seeing these doctrines also favoured by other members of his family. Joachim, who was a patron of learning, established the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder in 1506. He died at Stendal on the 11th of July 1535.
See T. von Buttlar, Der Kampf Joachims I. von Brandenburg gegen den Adel (1889); J. G. Droysen, Geschichte der Preussischen Politik (1855-1886).
JOACHIM II. (1505-1571), surnamed Hector, elector of Brandenburg, the elder son of Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, was born on the 13th of January 1505. Having passed some time at the court of the emperor Maximilian I., he married in 1524 a daughter of George, duke of Saxony. In 1532 he led a contingent of the imperial army on a campaign against the Turks; and soon afterwards, having lost his first wife, married Hedwig, daughter of Sigismund I., king of Poland. He became elector of Brandenburg on his father’s death in July 1535, and undertook the government of the old and middle marks, while the new mark passed to his brother John. Joachim took a prominent part in imperial politics as an advocate of peace, though with a due regard for the interests of the house of Habsburg. He attempted to make peace between the Protestants and the emperor Charles V. at Frankfort in 1539, and subsequently at other places; but in 1542 he led the German forces on an unsuccessful campaign against the Turks. When the war broke out between Charles and the league of Schmalkalden in 1546 the elector at first remained neutral; but he afterwards sent some troops to serve under the emperor. With Maurice, elector of Saxony, he persuaded Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to surrender to Charles after the imperial victory at Mühlberg in April 1547, and pledged his word that the landgrave would be pardoned. But, although he felt aggrieved when the emperor declined to be bound by this promise, he refused to join Maurice in his attack on Charles. He supported the Interim, which was issued from Augsburg in May 1548, and took part in the negotiations that resulted in the treaty of Passau (1552), and the religious peace of Augsburg (1555). In domestic politics he sought to consolidate and strengthen the power of his house by treaties with neighbouring princes, and succeeded in secularizing the bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus. Although brought up as a strict adherent of the older religion, he showed signs of wavering soon after his accession, and in 1539 allowed free entrance to the reformed teaching in the electorate. He took the communion himself in both kinds, and established a new ecclesiastical organization in Brandenburg, but retained much of the ceremonial of the Church of Rome. His position was not unlike that of Henry VIII. in England, and may be partly explained by a desire to replenish his impoverished exchequer with the wealth of the Church (see Brandenburg). After the peace of Augsburg the elector mainly confined his attention to Brandenburg, where he showed a keener desire to further the principles of the Reformation. By his luxurious habits and his lavish expenditure on public buildings he piled up a great accumulation of debt, which was partly discharged by the estates of the land in return for important concessions. He cast covetous eyes upon the archbishopric of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt, both of which he secured for his son Frederick in 1551. When Frederick died in the following year, the elector’s son Sigismund obtained the two sees; and on Sigismund’s death in 1566 Magdeburg was secured by his nephew, Joachim Frederick, afterwards elector of Brandenburg. Joachim, who was a prince of generous and cultured tastes, died at Köpenick on the 3rd of January 1571, and was succeeded by his son, John George. In 1880 a statue was erected to his memory at Spandau.
See Steinmüller, Einführung der Reformation in die Kurmark Brandenburg durch Joachim II. (1903); S. Isaacsohn, “Die Finanzen Joachims II.” in the Zeitschrift für Preussische Geschichte und Landeskunde (1864-1883); J. G. Droysen, Geschichte der Preussischen Politik (1855-1886).
JOACHIM, JOSEPH (1831-1907), German violinist and composer, was born at Kittsee, near Pressburg, on the 28th of June 1831, the son of Jewish parents. His family moved to Budapest when he was two years old, and he studied there under Serwaczynski, who brought him out at a concert when he was only eight years old. Afterwards he learnt from the elder Hellmesberger and Joseph Böhm in Vienna, the latter instructing him in the management of the bow. In 1843 he went to Leipzig to enter the newly founded conservatorium. Mendelssohn, after testing his musical powers, pronounced that the regular training of a music school was not needed, but recommended that he should receive a thorough general education in music from Ferdinand David and Moritz Hauptmann. In 1844 he visited England, and made his first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, where his playing of Ernst’s fantasia on Otello made a great sensation; he also played Beethoven’s concerto at a Philharmonic concert conducted by Mendelssohn. In 1847-1849 and 1852 he revisited England, and after the foundation of the popular concerts in 1859, up to 1899, he played there regularly in the latter part of the season. On Liszt’s invitation he accepted the post of Konzertmeister at Weimar, and was there from 1850 to 1853. This brought Joachim into close contact with the advanced school of German musicians, headed by Liszt; and he was strongly tempted to give his allegiance to what was beginning to be called the “music of the future”; but his artistic convictions forced him to separate himself from the movement, and the tact and good taste he displayed in the difficult moment of explaining his position to Liszt afford one of the finest illustrations of his character.
His acceptance of a similar post at Hanover brought him into a different atmosphere, and his playing at the Düsseldorf festival of 1853 procured him the intimate friendship of Robert Schumann. His introduction of the young Brahms to Schumann is a famous incident of this time. Schumann and Brahms collaborated with Albert Dietrich in a joint sonata for violin and piano, as a welcome on his arrival in Düsseldorf. At Hanover he was königlicher Konzertdirektor from 1853 to 1868, when he made Berlin his home. He married in 1863 the mezzo soprano singer, Amalie Weiss, who died in 1899. In 1869 Joachim was appointed head of the newly founded königliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. The famous “Joachim quartet” was started in the Sing-Akademie in the following year. Of his later life, continually occupied with public performances, there is little to say except that he remained, even in a period which saw the rise of numerous violinists of the finest technique, the acknowledged master of all. He died on the 15th of August 1907.
Besides the consummate manual skill which helped to make him famous in his youth, Joachim was gifted with the power of interpreting the greatest music in absolute perfection: while Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms were masters, whose works he played with a degree of insight that has never been approached, he was no less supreme in the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann; in short, the whole of the classical repertory has become identified with his playing. No survey of Joachim’s artistic career would be complete which omitted mention of his absolute freedom from tricks or mannerism, his dignified bearing, and his unselfish character. His devotion to the highest ideals, combined with a certain austerity and massivity of style, brought against him an accusation of coldness from admirers of a more effusive temperament. But the answer to this is given by the depth and variety of expression which his mastery of the resources of his instrument put at his command. His biographer (1898), Andreas Moser, expressed his essential characteristic in the words, “He plays the violin, not for its own sake, but in the service of an ideal.”
As a composer Joachim did but little in his later years, and the works of his earlier life never attained the public success which, in the opinion of many, they deserve (see Music). They undoubtedly have a certain austerity of character which does not appeal to every hearer, but they are full of beauty of a grave and dignified kind; and in such things as his “Hungarian concerto” for his own instrument the utmost degree of difficulty is combined with great charm of melodic treatment. The “romance” in B flat for violin and the variations for violin and orchestra are among his finest things, and the noble overture in memory of Kleist, as well as the scena for mezzo soprano from Schiller’s Demetrius, show a wonderful degree of skill in orchestration as well as originality of thought. Joachim’s place in musical history as a composer can only be properly appreciated in the light of his intimate relations with Brahms, with whom he studiously refrained from putting himself into independent rivalry, and to whose work as a composer he gave the co-operation of one who might himself have ranked as a master.
There are admirable portraits of Joachim by G. F. Watts (1866) and by J. S. Sargent (1904), the latter presented to him on the 16th of May 1904, at the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of his first appearance in England.
JOAN, a mythical female pope, who is usually placed between Leo IV. (847-855) and Benedict III. (855-858). One account has it that she was born in England, another in Germany of English parents. After an education at Cologne, she fell in love with a Benedictine monk and fled with him to Athens disguised as a man. On his death she went to Rome under the alias of Joannes Anglicus (John of England), and entered the priesthood, eventually receiving a cardinal’s hat. She was elected pope under the title of John VIII., and died in childbirth during a papal procession.
A French Dominican, Steven of Bourbon (d. c. 1261) gives the legend in his Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. He is believed to have derived it from an earlier writer. More than a hundred authors between the 13th and 17th centuries gave circulation to the myth. Its explosion was first seriously undertaken by David Blondel, a French Calvinist, in his Éclaircissement de la question si une femme a été assise au siège papal de Rome (1647); and De Joanna Papissa (1657). The refutation was completed by Johann Dollinger in his Papstfabeln des Mittelalters (1863; Eng. trans. 1872).
JOAN OF ARC, more properly Jeanneton Darc, afterwards known in France as Jeanne d’Arc1 (1411-1431), the “Maid of Orleans,” was born between 1410 and 1412, the daughter of Jacques Darc, peasant proprietor, of Domremy, a small village in the Vosges, partly in Champagne and partly in Lorraine, and of his wife Isabeau, of the village of Vouthon, who from having made a pilgrimage to Rome had received the usual surname of Romée. Although her parents were in easy circumstances, Joan never learned to read or write, and received her sole religious instruction from her mother, who taught her to recite the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo. She sometimes guarded her father’s flocks, but at her trial in 1431 she strongly resented being referred to as a shepherd girl. In all household work she was specially proficient, her skill in the use of the needle not being excelled (she said) by that of any matron even of Rouen. In her childhood she was noted for her abounding physical energy; but her vivacity, so far from being tainted by any coarse or unfeminine trait, was the direct outcome of an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament. Towards her parents her conduct was uniformly exemplary, and the charm of her unselfish kindness made her a favourite in the village. As she grew to womanhood she became inclined to silence, and spent much of her time in solitude and prayer. She repelled all attempts of the young men of her acquaintance to win her favour; and while active in the performance of her duties, and apparently finding her life quite congenial, inwardly she was engrossed with thoughts reaching far beyond the circle of her daily concerns.
At this time, through the alliance and support of Philip of Burgundy, the English had extended their conquest over the whole of France north of the Loire in addition to their possession of Guienne; and while the infant Henry VI. of England had in 1422 been proclaimed king of France at his father’s grave at St Denis, Charles the dauphin (still uncrowned) was forced to watch the slow dismemberment of his kingdom. Isabella, the dauphin’s mother, had favoured Henry V. of England, the husband of her daughter Catherine; and under Charles VI. a visionary named Marie d’Avignon declared that France was being ruined by a woman and would be restored by an armed virgin from the marches of Lorraine. To what extent this idea worked in Joan’s mind is doubtful. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s tract, De prophetiis Merlini, there is a reference to an ancient prophecy of the enchanter Merlin concerning a virgin ex nemore canuto, and it appears that this nemus canutum had been identified in folk-lore with the oak wood of Domremy. Joan’s knowledge of the prophecy does not, however, appear till 1429; and already before that, from 1424, according to her account at her trial, she had become imbued with a sense of having a mission to free France from the English. She heard the voices of St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret urging her on. In May 1428 she tried to obtain from Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, an introduction to the dauphin, saying that God would send him aid, but she was rebuffed. When, however, in September the English (under the earl of Salisbury) invested Orleans, the key to the south of France, she renewed her efforts with Baudricourt, her mission being to relieve Orleans and crown the dauphin at Reims. By persistent importunity, the effect of which was increased by the simplicity of her demeanour and her calm assurance of success, she at last prevailed on the governor to grant her request; and in February 1429, accompanied by six men-at-arms, she set out on her perilous journey to the court of the dauphin at Chinon. At first Charles refused to see her, but popular feeling in her favour induced his advisers to persuade him after three days to grant her an interview. She is said to have persuaded him of the divine character of her commission by discovering him though disguised in the crowd of his courtiers, and by reassuring him regarding his secret doubts as to his legitimacy. And Charles was impressed by her knowledge of a secret prayer, which (he told Dunois) could only be known to God and himself. Accordingly, after a commission of doctors had reported that they had found in her nothing of evil or contrary to the Catholic faith, and a council of matrons had reported on her chastity, she was permitted to set forth with an army of 4000 or 5000 men designed for the relief of Orleans. At the head of the army she rode clothed in a coat of mail, armed with an ancient sword, said to be that with which Charles Martel had vanquished the Saracens, the hiding-place of which, under the altar of the parish church of the village of Ste Catherine de Fierbois, the “voices” had revealed to her; she carried a white standard of her own design embroidered with lilies, and having on the one side the image of God seated on the clouds and holding the world in His hand, and on the other a representation of the Annunciation. Joan succeeded in entering Orleans on the 29th of April 1429, and through the vigorous and unremitting sallies of the French the English gradually became so discouraged that on the 8th of May they raised the siege. It is admitted that her extraordinary pluck and sense of leadership were responsible for this result. In a single week (June 12 to 19), by the capture of Jargeau and Beaugency, followed by the great victory of Patay, where Talbot was taken prisoner, the English were driven beyond the Loire. With some difficulty the dauphin was then persuaded to set out towards Reims, which he entered with an army of 12,000 men on the 16th of July, Troyes having yielded on the way. On the following day, holding the sacred banner, Joan stood beside Charles at his coronation in the cathedral.
The king then entered into negotiations with a view to detaching Burgundy from the English cause. Joan, at his importunity, remained with the army, but the king played her false when she attempted the capture of Paris; and after a failure on the 8th of September, when Joan was wounded,2 his troops were disbanded. Joan went into Normandy to assist the duke of Alençon, but in December returned to the court, and on the 29th she and her family were ennobled with the surname of du Lis. Unconsoled by such honours, she rode away from the court in March, to assist in the defence of Compiègne against the duke of Burgundy; and on the 24th of May she led an unsuccessful sortie against the besiegers, when she was surrounded and taken prisoner. Charles, partly perhaps on account of his natural indolence, partly on account of the intrigues at the court, made no effort to effect her ransom, and never showed any sign of interest in her fate. By means of negotiations instigated and prosecuted with great perseverance by the university of Paris and the Inquisition, and through the persistent scheming of Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais—a Burgundian partisan, who, chased from his own see, hoped to obtain the archbishopric of Rouen—she was sold in November by John of Luxemburg and Burgundy to the English, who on the 3rd of January 1431, at the instance of the 421 university of Paris, delivered her over to the Inquisition for trial. After a public examination, begun on the 9th of January and lasting six days, and another conducted in the prison, she was, on the 20th of March, publicly accused as a heretic and witch, and, being in the end found guilty, she made her submission at the scaffold on the 24th of May, and received pardon. She was still, however, the prisoner of the English, and, having been induced by those who had her in charge to resume her male clothes, she was on this account judged to have relapsed, was sentenced to death, and burned at the stake on the streets of Rouen on the 30th of May 1431. In 1436 an impostor appeared, professing to be Joan of Arc escaped from the flames, who succeeded in inducing many people to believe in her statement, but afterwards confessed her imposture. The sentence passed on Joan of Arc was revoked by the pope on the 7th of July 1456, and since then it has been the custom of Catholic writers to uphold the reality of her divine inspiration.
During the latter part of the 19th century a popular cult of the Maid of Orleans sprang up in France, being greatly stimulated by the clerical party, which desired to advertise, in the person of this national heroine, the intimate union between patriotism and the Catholic faith, and for this purpose ardently desired her enrolment among the Saints. On the 27th of January 1894 solemn approval was given by Pope Leo XIII., and in February 1903 a formal proposal was entered for her canonization. The Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1904 was made the occasion for a public declaration by Pope Pius X. that she was entitled to the designation Venerable. On the 13th of December 1908 the decree of beatification was published in the Consistory Hall of the Vatican.
As an historical figure, it is impossible to dogmatize concerning the personality of Joan of Arc. The modern clerical view has to some extent provoked what appears, in Anatole France’s learned account, ably presented as it is, to be a retaliation, in regarding her as a clerical tool in her own day. But her character was in any case exceptional. She undoubtedly nerved the French at a critical time, and inspired an army of laggards and pillagers with a fanatical enthusiasm, comparable with that of Cromwell’s Puritans. Moreover, as regards her genuine military qualities we have the testimony of Dunois and d’Alençon; and Captain Marin, in his Jeanne d’Arc, tacticien et stratégiste (1891), takes a high view of her achievements. The nobility of her purpose and the genuineness of her belief in her mission, combined with her purity of character and simple patriotism, stand clear. As to her “supranormal” faculties, a matter concerning which belief largely depends on the point of view, it is to be remarked that Quicherat, a freethinker wholly devoid of clerical influences, admits them (Aperçus nouveaux, 1850), saying that the evidence is as good as for any facts in her history. See also A. Lang on “the voices” in Proc. Soc. Psychical Research, vol. xi.
Authorities.—For bibliography see Le Livre d’or de Jeanne d’Arc (1894), and A. Molinier, Sources de l’histoire de France (1904). Until the 19th century the history of Joan of Arc was almost entirely neglected; Voltaire’s scurrilous satire La Pucelle, while indicative of the attitude of his time, may be compared with the very fair praises in the Encyclopédie. The first attempt at a study of the sources was that of L’Averdy in 1790, published in the third volume of Mémoires of the Academy of Inscriptions, which served as the base for all lives until J. Quicherat’s great work, Le Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (1841-1849), a collection of the texts so full and so vivid that they reveal the character and life of the heroine with great distinctness. Michelet’s sketch of her work in his Histoire de France, one of the best sections of the history, is hardly more vivid than these sources, upon which all the later biographies (notably that of H. A. Wallon, 1860) are based. See also A. Marty, L’Histoire de Jeanne d’Arc d’après des documents originaux, with introduction by M. Sepet (1907); P. H. Dunand, Jeanne d’Arc et l’église (1908); and especially Andrew Lang, The Maid of France (1908). The Vie de Jeanne d’Arc, by Anatole France (2 vols., 1908), is brilliant and erudite, but in some respects open to charges of inaccuracy and prejudice in its handling of the sources (see the criticism by Andrew Lang in The Times, Lit. Suppl., May 28, 1908). The attempt to establish the reality of the “revelations” and consequently to obtain the canonization of Joan of Arc led the Catholic party in France to publish lives (such as Sepet’s, 1869) in support of their claims. Excellent works worth special mention are: Siméon Luce, Jeanne d’Arc à Domremy; L. Jarry, L’Armée anglaise au siège d’Orleans (1892); J. J. Bourassé, Miracles de Madame Sainte Kathérine de Fierbois (1858, trans. by A. Lang); Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps, L’Armée anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d’Arc (1892); R. P. Agroles, S.J., La Vraie Jeanne d’Arc. For the “false Pucelle” see A. Lang’s article in his Valet’s Tragedy (1903). Of the numerous dramas and poems of which Joan of Arc has been the subject, mention can only be made of Die Jungfrau von Orleans of Schiller, and of the Joan of Arc of Southey. A drama in verse by Jules Barbier was set to music by C. Gounod (1873).
1 In the act of ennoblement the name is spelt Day, due probably to the peculiar pronunciation. It has been disputed whether the name was written originally d’Arc or Darc. It is beyond doubt that the father of Joan was not of noble origin, but Bouteiller suggests that at that period the apostrophe did not indicate nobility. Her mother, it may be noted, is called “de Vouthon.”
2 The Porte St Honoré where Joan was wounded stood where the Comédie Française now stands.
JOANES (or Juanes), VICENTE (1506-1579), head of the Valencian school of painters, and often called “the Spanish Raphael,” was born at Fuente de la Higuera in the province of Valencia in 1506. He is said to have studied his art for some time in Rome, with which school his affinities are closest, but the greater part of his professional life was spent in the city of Valencia, where most of the extant examples of his work are now to be found. All relate to religious subjects, and are characterized by dignity of conception, accuracy of drawing, truth and beauty of colour, and minuteness of finish. He died at Bocairente (near Jativa) while engaged upon an altarpiece in the church there, on the 21st of December 1579.
JOANNA (1479-1555), called the Mad (la Loca), queen of Castile and mother of the emperor Charles V., was the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, and was born at Toledo on the 6th of November 1479. Her youngest sister was Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. In 1496 at Lille she was married to the archduke Philip the Handsome, son of the German King Maximilian I., and at Ghent, in February 1500, she gave birth to the future emperor. The death of her only brother John, of her eldest sister Isabella, queen of Portugal, and then of the latter’s infant son Miguel, made Joanna heiress of the Spanish kingdoms, and in 1502 the cortes of Castile and of Aragon recognized her and her husband as their future sovereigns. Soon after this Joanna’s reason began to give way. She mourned in an extravagant fashion for her absent husband, whom at length she joined in Flanders; in this country her passionate jealousy, although justified by Philip’s conduct, led to deplorable scenes. In November 1504 her mother’s death left Joanna queen of Castile, but as she was obviously incapable of ruling, the duties of government were undertaken by her father, and then for a short time by her husband. The queen was with Philip when he was wrecked on the English coast and became the guest of Henry VII. at Windsor; soon after this event, in September 1506, he died and Joanna’s mind became completely deranged, it being almost impossible to get her away from the dead body of her husband. The remaining years of her miserable existence were spent at Tordesillas, where she died on the 11th of April 1555. In spite of her afflictions the queen was sought in marriage by Henry VII. just before his death. Nominally Joanna remained queen of Castile until her death, her name being joined with that of Charles in all public documents, but of necessity she took no part in the business of state. In addition to Charles she had a son Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., and four daughters, among them being Maria (1505-1558), wife of Louis II., king of Hungary, afterwards governor-general of the Netherlands.
See R. Villa, La Reina doña Juana la Loca (Madrid, 1892); Rösler, Johanna die Wahnsinnige (Vienna, 1890); W. H. Prescott, Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella (1854); and H. Tighe, A Queen of Unrest (1907).
JOANNA I. (c. 1327-1382), queen of Naples, was the daughter of Charles duke of Calabria (d. 1328), and became sovereign of Naples in succession to her grandfather King Robert in 1343. Her first husband was Andrew, son of Charles Robert, king of Hungary, who like the queen herself was a member of the house of Anjou. In 1345 Andrew was assassinated at Aversa, possibly with his wife’s connivance, and at once Joanna married Louis, son of Philip prince of Taranto. King Louis of Hungary then came to Naples to avenge his brother’s death, and the queen took refuge in Provence—which came under her rule at the same time as Naples—purchasing pardon from Pope Clement VI. by selling to him the town of Avignon, then part of her dominions. Having returned to Naples in 1352 after the departure of Louis, Joanna lost her second husband in 1362, and married James, king of 422 Majorca (d. 1375), and later Otto of Brunswick, prince of Taranto. The queen had no sons, and as both her daughters were dead she made Louis I. duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France, her heir. This proceeding so angered Charles, duke of Durazzo, who regarded himself as the future king of Naples, that he seized the city. Joanna was captured and was put to death at Aversa on the 22nd of May 1382. The queen was a woman of intellectual tastes, and was acquainted with some of the poets and scholars of her time, including Petrarch and Boccaccio.
See Crivelli, Della prima e della seconda Giovanna, regine di Napoli (1832); G. Battaglia, Giovanna I., regina di Napoli (1835); W. St C. Baddeley, Queen Joanna I. of Naples (1893); Scarpetta, Giovanna I. di Napoli (1903); and Francesca M. Steele, The Beautiful Queen Joanna I. of Naples (1910).
JOANNA II. (1371-1435), queen of Naples, was descended from Charles II. of Anjou through his son John of Durazzo. She had been married to William, son of Leopold III. of Austria, and at the death of her brother King Ladislaus in 1414 she succeeded to the Neapolitan crown. Her life had always been very dissolute, and although now a widow of forty-five, she chose as her lover Pandolfo Alopo, a youth of twenty-six, whom she made seneschal of the kingdom. He and the constable Muzio Attendolo Sforza completely dominated her, and the turbulent barons wished to provide her with a husband who would be strong enough to break her favourites yet not make himself king. The choice fell on James of Bourbon, a relative of the king of France, and the marriage took place in 1415. But James at once declared himself king, had Alopo killed and Sforza imprisoned, and kept his wife in a state of semi-confinement; this led to a counter-agitation on the part of the barons, who forced James to liberate Sforza, renounce his kingship, and eventually to quit the country. The queen now sent Sforza to re-establish her authority in Rome, whence the Neapolitans had been expelled after the death of Ladislaus; Sforza entered the city and obliged the condottiere Braccio da Montone, who was defending it in the pope’s name, to depart (1416). But when Oddo Colonna was elected pope as Martin V., he allied himself with Joanna, who promised to give up Rome, while Sforza returned to Naples. The latter found, however, that he had lost all influence with the queen, who was completely dominated by her new lover Giovanni (Sergianni) Caracciolo. Hoping to re-establish his position and crush Caracciolo, Sforza favoured the pretensions of Louis III. of Anjou, who wished to obtain the succession of Naples at Joanna’s death, a course which met with the approval of the pope. Joanna refused to adopt Louis owing to the influence of Caracciolo, who hated Sforza; she appealed for help instead to Alphonso of Aragon, promising to make him her heir. War broke out between Joanna and the Aragonese on one side and Louis and Sforza, supported by the pope, on the other. After much fighting by land and sea, Alphonso entered Naples, and in 1422 peace was made. But dissensions broke out between the Aragonese and Catalans and the Neapolitans, and Alphonso had Caracciolo arrested; whereupon Joanna, fearing for her own safety, invoked the aid of Sforza, who with difficulty carried her off to Aversa. There she was joined by Louis whom she adopted as her successor instead of the ungrateful Alphonso. Sforza was accidentally drowned, but when Alphonso returned to Spain, leaving only a small force in Naples, the Angevins with the help of a Genoese fleet recaptured the city. For a few years there was peace in the kingdom, but in 1432 Caracciolo, having quarrelled with the queen, was seized and murdered by his enemies. Internal disorders broke out, and Gian Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto, led a revolt against Joanna in Apulia; Louis of Anjou died while conducting a campaign against the rebels (1434), and Joanna herself died on the 11th of February 1435, after having appointed his son René her successor. Weak, foolish and dissolute, she made her reign one long scandal, which reduced the kingdom to the lowest depths of degradation. Her perpetual intrigues and her political incapacity made Naples a prey to anarchy and foreign invasions, destroying all sense of patriotism and loyalty both in the barons and the people.
Authorities.—A. von Platen, Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1414 al 1423 (1864). C. Cipolla, Storia, della signoria Italiana (1881), where the original authorities are quoted. (See also Naples; Sforza.)
JOASH, or Jehoash (Heb. “Yahweh is strong, or hath given”), the name of two kings of Palestine in the Bible.
1. Son of Ahaziah (see Jehoram, 2) and king of Judah. He obtained the throne by means of a revolt in which Athaliah (q.v.) perished, and his accession was marked by a solemn covenant, and by the overthrow of the temple of Baal and of its priest Mattan(-Baal). In this the priest Jehoiada (who must have continued to act as regent) took the leading part. The account of Joash’s reign is not from a contemporary source (2 Kings xi. 4-xii. 16), and 2 Chronicles adds several new details, including a tradition of a conflict between the king and priests after the death of Jehoiada (xxii. 11; xxiv. 3, 15 sqq.).1 At an unstated period, the Aramaeans under Hazael captured Gath, and Jerusalem only escaped by buying off the enemy (2 Kings xii. 17 sqq.). This may perhaps be associated with the Aramaean attacks upon Israel (2 below), but the tradition recorded in 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 seq. differs widely and cannot be wholly rejected. The king perished in a conspiracy, the origin of which is not clear; it may have been for his attack upon the priests, it was scarcely for the course he took to save Jerusalem. He was succeeded by his son Amaziah, whose moderation in avenging his father’s death receives special mention. After defeating the Edomites, Amaziah turned his attention to Israel.
2. Son of Jehoahaz and king of Israel. Like his grandfather Jehu, he enjoyed the favour of the prophet Elisha, who promised him a triple defeat of the Aramaeans at Aphek (2 Kings xiii. 14 sqq. 22-25). The cities which had been taken from his father by Hazael the father of Ben-hadad were recovered (cf. 1 Kings xx. 34, time of Ahab) and the relief gained by Israel from the previous blows of Syria prepared the way for its speedy extension of power. When challenged by Amaziah of Judah, Joash uttered the famous fable of the thistle and cedar (for another example see Judg. ix. 8-15; see also Abimelech), and a battle was fought at Beth-shemesh, in which Israel was completely successful. An obscure statement in 2 Chron. xxv. 13 would show that this was not the only conflict; at all events, Amaziah was captured, the fortifications of Jerusalem were partially destroyed, the treasures of the Temple and palace were looted, and hostages were carried away to Samaria. According to one statement, Amaziah survived the disaster fifteen years, and lost his life in a conspiracy; but there is a gap in the history of Judah which the narratives do not enable us to fill (1 Kings xv. 1; see xiv. 17, 23). See further Uzziah; Jeroboam (2); and Jews.
1 That the murder of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron. l.c.) is referred to in Matt. xxiii. 35, Luke xi. 51 is commonly held; but see Cheyne, Ency. Bib. col. 5373.
JOB. The book of Job (Heb. איוב ‘Iyyob, Gr. Ἰώβ), in the Bible, the most splendid creation of Hebrew poetry, is so called from the name of the man whose history and afflictions and sayings form the theme of it.
Contents.—As it now lies before us it consists of five parts. 1. The prologue, in prose, chr. i.-ii., describes in rapid and dramatic steps the history of this man, his prosperity and greatness corresponding to his godliness; then how his life is drawn in under the operation of the sifting providence of God, through the suspicion suggested by the Satan, the minister of this aspect of God’s providence, that his godliness is selfish and only the natural return for unexampled prosperity, and the insinuation that if stripped of his prosperity he will curse God to His face. These suspicions bring down two severe calamities on Job, one depriving him of children and possessions alike, and the other throwing the man himself under a painful malady. In spite of these afflictions Job retains his integrity and ascribes no wrong to God. Then is described the advent of Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—who, having heard of Job’s calamities, come to condole with him. 2. The body of the book, in poetry, ch. iii.-xxxi., contains a series of speeches in which the problem of Job’s afflictions and the relation of external evil to the righteousness of God and the conduct of men are brilliantly discussed. This part, after Job’s passionate outburst in ch. iii., is divided into three cycles, each containing six speeches, one by each of the friends, and three by Job, one in reply to each of theirs (ch. iv.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.; xxii.-xxxi.), although in the last cycle the 423 third speaker Zophar fails to answer (unless his answer is to be found in ch. xxvii.). Job, having driven his opponents from the field, carries his reply through a series of discourses in which he dwells in pathetic words upon his early prosperity, contrasting with it his present humiliation, and ends with a solemn repudiation of all the offences that might be suggested against him, and a challenge to God to appear and put His hand to the charge which He had against him and for which He afflicted him. 3. Elihu, the representative of a younger generation, who has been a silent observer of the debate, intervenes to express his dissatisfaction with the manner in which both Job and his friends conducted the cause, and offers what is in some respects a new solution of the question (xxxii.-xxxvii.). 4. In answer to Job’s repeated demands that God would appear and solve the riddle of his life, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. The divine speaker does not condescend to refer to Job’s individual problem, but in a series of ironical interrogations asks him, as he thinks himself capable of fathoming all things, to expound the mysteries of the origin and subsistence of the world, the phenomena of the atmosphere, the instincts of the creatures that inhabit the desert, and, as he judges God’s conduct of the world amiss, invites him to seize the reins, gird himself with the thunder and quell the rebellious forces of evil in the universe (xxxviii.-xlii. 6). Job is humbled and abashed, lays his hand upon his mouth, and repents his hasty words in dust and ashes. No solution of his problem is vouchsafed; but God Himself effects that which neither the man’s own thoughts of God nor the representations of the friends could accomplish: he had heard of him with the hearing of the ear without effect, but now his eye sees Him. This is the profoundest religious deep in the book. 5. The epilogue, in prose, xlii. 7-17, describes Job’s restoration to a prosperity double that of his former estate, his family felicity and long life.
Design.—With the exception of the episode of Elihu, the connexion of which with the original form of the poem may be doubtful, all five parts of the book are essential elements of the work as it came from the hand of the first author, although some parts of the second and fourth divisions may have been expanded by later writers. The idea of the composition is to be derived not from any single element of the book, but from the teaching and movement of the whole piece. Job is unquestionably the hero of the work, and in his ideas and his history combined we may assume that we find the author himself speaking and teaching. The discussion between Job and his friends of the problem of suffering occupies two-thirds of the book, or, if the space occupied by Elihu be not considered, nearly three-fourths, and in the direction which the author causes this discussion to take we may see revealed the main didactic purpose of the book. When the three friends, the representatives of former theories of providence, are reduced to silence, we may be certain that it was the author’s purpose to discredit the ideas which they represent. Job himself offers no positive contribution to the doctrine of evil; his position is negative, merely antagonistic to that of the friends. But this negative position victoriously maintained by him has the effect of clearing the ground, and the author himself supplies in the prologue the positive truth, when he communicates the real explanation of his hero’s calamities, and teaches that they were a trial of his righteousness. It was therefore the author’s main purpose in his work to widen men’s views of the providence of God and set before them a new view of suffering. This purpose, however, was in all probability subordinate to some wider practical design. No Hebrew writer is merely a poet or a thinker. He is always a teacher. He has men before him in their relations to God,1 and usually not men in their individual relations, but members of the family of Israel, the people of God. It is consequently scarcely to be doubted that the book has a national scope. The author considered his new truth regarding the meaning of affliction as of national interest, and as the truth then needful for the heart of his people. But the teaching of the book is only half its contents. It contains also a history—deep and inexplicable affliction, a great moral struggle, and a victory. The author meant his new truth to inspire new conduct, new faith, and new hopes. In Job’s sufferings, undeserved and inexplicable to him, yet capable of an explanation most consistent with the goodness and faithfulness of God, and casting honour upon his faithful servants; in his despair bordering on unbelief, at last overcome; and in the happy issue of his afflictions—in all this Israel may see itself, and from the sight take courage, and forecast its own history. Job, however, is not to be considered Israel, the righteous servant of the Lord, under a feigned name; he is no mere parable (though such a view is found as early as the Talmud); he and his history have both elements of reality in them. It is these elements of reality common to him with Israel in affliction, common even to him with humanity as a whole, confined within the straitened limits set by its own ignorance, wounded to death by the mysterious sorrows of life, tortured by the uncertainty whether its cry finds an entrance into God’s ear, alarmed and paralysed by the irreconcilable discrepancies which it seems to discover between its necessary thoughts of Him and its experience of Him in His providence, and faint with longing that it might come into His place, and behold him, not girt with His majesty, but in human form, as one looketh upon his fellow—it is these elements of truth that make the history of Job instructive to Israel in the times of affliction when it was set before them, and to men of all races in all ages. It would probably be a mistake, however, to imagine that the author consciously stepped outside the limits of his nation and assumed a human position antagonistic to it. The chords he touches vibrate through all humanity—but this is because Israel is the religious kernel of humanity, and because from Israel’s heart the deepest religious music of mankind is heard, whether of pathos or of joy.
Two threads requiring to be followed, therefore, run through the book—one the discussion of the problem of evil between Job and his friends, and the other the varying attitude of Job’s mind towards God, the first being subordinate to the second. Both Job and his friends advance to the discussion of his sufferings and of the problem of evil, ignorant of the true cause of his calamities—Job strong in his sense of innocence, and the friends armed with their theory of the righteousness of God, who giveth to every man according to his works. With fine psychological instinct the poet lets Job altogether lose his self-control first when his three friends came to visit him. His bereavements and his malady he bore with a steady courage, and his wife’s direct instigations to godlessness he repelled with severity and resignation. But when his equals and the old associates of his happiness came to see him, and when he read in their looks and in their seven days’ silence the depth of his own misery, his self-command deserted him, and he broke out into a cry of despair, cursing his day and crying for death (iii.). Job had somewhat misinterpreted the demeanour of his friends. It was not all pity that it expressed. Along with their pity they had also brought their theology, and they trusted to heal Job’s malady with this. Till a few days before, Job would have agreed with them on the sovereign virtues of this remedy. But he had learned through a higher teaching, the events of God’s providence, that it was no longer a specific in his case. His violent impatience, however, under his afflictions and his covert attacks upon the divine rectitude only served to confirm the view of his sufferings which their theory of evil had already suggested to his friends. And thus commences the high debate which continues through twenty-nine chapters.
The three friends of Job came to the consideration of his history with the principle that calamity is the result of evil-doing, as prosperity is the reward of righteousness. Suffering is not an accident or a spontaneous growth of the soil; man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards; there is in human life a tendency to do evil which draws down upon men the chastisement of God (v. 6). The principle is thus enunciated by Eliphaz, from whom the other speakers take their cue: where there is suffering there has been sin in the sufferer. Not suffering in itself, but the effect of it on the sufferer is what gives insight into his true character. Suffering is not always punitive; it is sometimes disciplinary, designed to wean the good man from his sin. If he sees in his suffering the monition of God and turns from his evil, his future shall be rich in peace and happiness, and his latter estate more prosperous than his first. If he murmurs or resists, he can only perish under the multiplying chastisements which his impenitence will provoke. Now this principle is far from being a peculiar crotchet of the friends; its truth is undeniable, though they erred in supposing that it would cover the wide providence of God. The principle is the fundamental idea of moral government, the expression of the natural conscience, a principle common more or less to all peoples, though perhaps more prominent in the Semitic mind, because all religious ideas are more prominent and simple there—not suggested to Israel first by the law, but found and adopted by the law, though it may be sharpened by it. It is the fundamental principle of prophecy no less than of the law, and, if possible, of the wisdom of philosophy of the Hebrews more than of either. Speculation among the Hebrews had a simpler task before it than it had in the West or in the farther East. The Greek philosopher began his operations upon the sum of things; he threw the universe into his crucible at once. His object was to effect some analysis of it, so 424 that he could call one element cause and another effect. Or, to vary the figure, his endeavour was to pursue the streams of tendency which he could observe till he reached at last the central spring which sent them all forth. God, a single cause and explanation, was the object of his search. But to the Hebrew of the later time this was already found. The analysis resulting in the distinction of God and the world had been effected for him so long ago that the history and circumstances of the process had been forgotten, and only the unchallengeable result remained. His philosophy was not a quest of God whom he did not know, but a recognition on all hands of God whom he knew. The great primary idea to his mind was that of God, a Being wholly just, doing all. And the world was little more than the phenomena that revealed the mind and the presence and the operations of God. Consequently the nature of God as known to him and the course of events formed a perfect equation. The idea of what God was in Himself was in complete harmony with His manifestation of Himself in providence, in the events of individual human lives, and in the history of nations. The philosophy of the wise did not go behind the origin of sin, or referred it to the freedom of man; but, sin existing, and God being in immediate personal contact with the world, every event was a direct expression of His moral will and energy; calamity fell on wickedness, and success attended right-doing. This view of the moral harmony between the nature of God and the events of providence in the fortunes of men and nations is the view of the Hebrew wisdom in its oldest form, during what might be called the period of principles, to which belong Prov. x. seq.; and this is the position maintained by Job’s three friends. And the significance of the book of Job in the history of Hebrew thought arises in that it marks the point when such a view was definitely overcome, closing the long period when this principle was merely subjected to questionings, and makes a new positive addition to the doctrine of evil.
Job agreed that afflictions came directly from the hand of God, and also that God afflicted those whom He held guilty of sins. But his conscience denied the imputation of guilt, whether insinuated by his friends or implied in God’s chastisement of him. Hence he was driven to conclude that God was unjust. The position of Job appeared to his friends nothing else but impiety; while theirs was to him mere falsehood and the special pleading of sycophants on behalf of God because He was the stronger. Within these two iron walls the debate moves, making little progress, but with much brilliancy, if not of argument, of illustration. A certain advance indeed is perceptible. In the first series of speeches (iv.-xiv.), the key-note of which is struck by Eliphaz, the oldest and most considerate of the three, the position is that affliction is caused by sin, and is chastisement designed for the sinner’s good; and the moral is that Job should recognize it and use it for the purpose for which it was sent. In the second (xv.-xxi.) the terrible fate of the sinner is emphasized, and those brilliant pictures of a restored future, thrown in by all the speakers in the first series, are absent. Job’s demeanour under the consolations offered him afforded little hope of his repentance. In the third series (xxii. seq.) the friends cast off all disguise, and openly charge Job with a course of evil life. That their armoury was now exhausted is shown by the brevity of the second speaker, and the failure of the third (at least in the present text) to answer in any form. In reply Job disdains for a time to touch what he well knew lay under all their exhortations; he laments with touching pathos the defection of his friends, who were like the winter torrents looked for in vain by the perishing caravan in the summer heat; he meets with bitter scorn their constant cry that God will not cast off the righteous man, by asking: How can one be righteous with God? what can human weakness, however innocent, do against infinite might and subtlety? they are righteous whom an omnipotent and perverse will thinks fit to consider so; he falls into a hopeless wail over the universal misery of man, who has a weary campaign of life appointed him; then, rising up in the strength of his conscience, he upbraids the Almighty with His misuse of His power and His indiscriminate tyranny—righteous and innocent He destroys alike—and challenges Him to lay aside His majesty and meet His creature as a man, and then he would not fear Him. Even in the second series Job can hardly bring himself to face the personal issue raised by the friends. His relations to God absorb him almost wholly—his pitiable isolation, the indignities showered on his once honoured head, the loathsome spectacle of his body; abandoned by all, he turns for pity from God to men and from men to God. Only in the third series of debates does he put out his hand and grasp firmly the theory of his friends, and their “defences of mud” fall to dust in his hands. Instead of that roseate moral order on which they are never weary of insisting, he finds only disorder and moral confusion. When he thinks of it, trembling takes hold of him. It is not the righteous but the wicked that live, grow old, yea, wax mighty in strength, that send forth their children like a flock and establish them in their sight. Before the logic of facts the theory of the friends goes down; and with this negative result, which the author skilfully reaches through the debate, has to be combined his own positive doctrine of the uses of adversity advanced in the prologue.
To a modern reader it appears strange that both parties were so entangled in the meshes of their preconceptions regarding God as to be unable to break through the broader views. The friends, while maintaining that injustice on the part of God is inconceivable, might have given due weight to the persistent testimony of Job’s conscience as that behind which it is impossible to go, and found refuge in the reflection that there might be something inexplicable in the ways of God, and that affliction might have some other meaning than to punish the sinner or even to wean him from his sin. And Job, while maintaining his innocence from overt sins, might have confessed that there was such sinfulness in every human life as was sufficient to account for the severest chastisement from heaven, or at least he might have stopped short of charging God foolishly. Such a position would certainly be taken up by an afflicted saint now, and such an explanation of his sufferings would suggest itself to the sufferer, even though it might be in truth a false explanation. Perhaps here, where an artistic fault might seem to be committed, the art of the writer, or his truth to nature, and the extraordinary freedom with which he moves among his materials, as well as the power and individuality of his dramatic creations, are most remarkable. The rôle which the author reserved for himself was to teach the truth on the question in dispute, and he accomplishes this by allowing his performers to push their false principles to their proper extreme. There is nothing about which men are usually so sure as the character of God. They are ever ready to take Him in their own hand, to interpret His providence in their own sense, to say what things are consistent or not with His character and word, and beat down the opposing consciences of other men by His so-called authority, which is nothing but their own. The friends of Job were religious Orientals, men to whom God was a being in immediate contact with the world and life, to whom the idea of second causes was unknown, on whom science had not yet begun to dawn, nor the conception of a divine scheme pursuing a distant end by complicated means, in which the individual’s interest may suffer for the larger good. The broad sympathies of the author and his sense of the truth lying in the theory of the friends are seen in the scope which he allows them, in the richness of the thought and the splendid luxuriance of the imagery—drawn from the immemorial moral consent of mankind, the testimony of the living conscience, and the observation of life—with which he makes them clothe their views. He remembered the elements of truth in the theory from which he was departing, that it was a national heritage, which he himself perhaps had been constrained not without a struggle to abandon; and, while showing its insufficiency, he sets it forth in its most brilliant form.
The extravagance of Job’s assertions was occasioned greatly by the extreme position of his friends, which left no room for his conscious innocence along with the rectitude of God. Again, the poet’s purpose, as the prologue shows, was to teach that afflictions may fall on a man out of all connexion with any offence of his own, and merely as the trial of his righteousness; and hence he allows Job, as by a true instinct of the nature of his sufferings, to repudiate all connexion between them and sin in himself. And further, the terrible conflict into which the suspicions of the Satan brought Job could not be exhibited without pushing him to the verge of ungodliness. These are all elements of the poet’s art; but art and nature are one. In ancient Hebrew life the sense of sin was less deep than it is now. In the desert, too, men speak boldly of God. Nothing is more false than to judge the poet’s creation from our later point of view, and construct a theory of the book according to a more developed sense of sin and a deeper reverence for God than belonged to antiquity. In complete contradiction to the testimony of the book itself, some critics, as Hengstenberg and Budde, have assumed that Job’s spiritual pride was the cause of his afflictions, that this was the root of bitterness in him which must be killed down ere he could become a true saint. The fundamental position of the book is that Job was already a true saint; this is testified by God Himself, is the radical idea of the author in the prologue, and the very hypothesis of the drama. We might be ready to think that Job’s afflictions did not befall him out of all connexion with his own condition of mind, and we might be disposed to find a vindication of God’s ways in this. There is no evidence that such an idea was shared by the author of the book. It is remarkable that the attitude which we imagine it would have been so easy for Job to assume, namely, while holding fast his integrity, to fall back upon the inexplicableness of providence, of which there are such imposing descriptions in his speeches, is just the attitude which is taken up in ch. xxviii. It is far from certain, however, that this chapter is an integral part of the original book.
The other line running through the book, the varying attitude of Job’s mind towards God, exhibits dramatic action and tragic interest of the highest kind, though the movement is internal. That the exhibition of this struggle in Job’s mind was a main point in the author’s purpose is seen from the fact that at the end of each of his great trials he notes that Job sinned not, nor ascribed wrong to God (i. 22; ii. 10), and from the effect which the divine voice from the whirlwind is made to produce upon him (xl. 3). In the first cycle of debate (iv.-xiv.) Job’s mind reaches the deepest limit of estrangement. There he not merely charges God with injustice, but, unable to reconcile His former goodness with His present enmity, he regards the latter as the true expression of God’s attitude towards His creatures, and the former, comprising all his infinite creative skill in weaving the delicate organism of 425 human nature and the rich endowments of His providence, only as the means of exercising His mad and immoral cruelty in the time to come. When the Semitic skin of Job is scratched, we find a modern pessimist beneath. Others in later days have brought the keen sensibility of the human frame and the torture which it endures together, and asked with Job to whom at last all this has to be referred. Towards the end of the cycle a star of heavenly light seems to rise on the horizon; the thought seizes the sufferer’s mind that man might have another life, that God’s anger pursuing him to the grave might be sated, and that He might call him out of it to Himself again (xiv. 13). This idea of a resurrection, unfamiliar to Job at first, is one which he is allowed to reach out of the necessities of the moral complications around him, but from the author’s manner of using the idea we may judge that it was familiar to himself. In the second cycle the thought of a future reconciliation with God is more firmly grasped. That satisfaction or at least composure which, when we observe calamities that we cannot morally account for, we reach by considering that providence is a great scheme moving according to general laws, and that it does not always truly reflect the relation of God to the individual, Job reached in the only way possible to a Semitic mind. He drew a distinction between an outer God whom events obey, pursuing him in His anger, and an inner God whose heart was with him, who was aware of his innocence; and he appeals from God to God, and beseeches God to pledge Himself that he shall receive justice from God (xvi. 19; xvii. 3). And so high at last does this consciousness that God is at one with him rise that he avows his assurance that He will yet appear to do him justice before men, and that he shall see Him with his own eyes, no more estranged but on his side, and for this moment he faints with longing (xix. 25 seq.).2
After this expression of faith Job’s mind remains calm, though he ends by firmly charging God with perverting his right, and demanding to know the cause of his afflictions (xxvii. 2 seq.; xxxi. 35, where render: “Oh, that I had the indictment which mine adversary has written!”). In answer to this demand the Divine voice answers Job out of the tempest: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” The word “counsel” intimates to Job that God does not act without a design, large and beyond the comprehension of man; and to impress this is the purpose of the Divine speeches. The speaker does not enter into Job’s particular cause; there is not a word tending to unravel his riddle; his mind is drawn away to the wisdom and majesty of God Himself. His own words and those of his friends are but re-echoed, but it is God Himself who now utters them. Job is in immediate nearness to the majesty of heaven, wise, unfathomable, ironical over the littleness of man, and he is abased; God Himself effects what neither the man’s own thoughts of God nor the representations of his friends could accomplish, though by the same means. The religious insight of the writer sounds here the profoundest deeps of truth.
Integrity.—Doubts whether particular portions of the present book belonged to the original form of it have been raised by many. M. L. De Wette expressed himself as follows: “It appears to us that the present book of Job has not all flowed from one pen. As many books of the Old Testament have been several times written over, so has this also” (Ersch and Gruber, Ency., sect. ii. vol. viii.). The judgment formed by De Wette has been adhered to more or less by most of those who have studied the book. Questions regarding the unity of such books as this are difficult to settle; there is not unanimity among scholars regarding the idea of the book, and consequently they differ as to what parts are in harmony or conflict with unity; and it is dangerous to apply modern ideas of literary composition and artistic unity to the works of antiquity and of the East. The problem raised in the book of Job has certainly received frequent treatment in the Old Testament; and there is no likelihood that all efforts in this direction have been preserved to us. It is probable that the book of Job was but a great effort amidst or after many smaller. It is scarcely to be supposed that one with such poetic and literary power as the author of chap. iii-xxxi., xxxviii.-xli. would embody the work of any other writer in his own. If there be elements in the book which must be pronounced foreign, they have been inserted in the work of the author by a later hand. It is not unlikely that our present book may, in addition to the great work of the original author, contain some fragments of the thoughts of other religious minds upon the same question, and that these, instead of being loosely appended, have been fitted into the mechanism of the first work. Some of these fragments may have originated at first quite independently of our book, while others may be expansions and insertions that never existed separately. At the same time it is scarcely safe to throw out any portion of the book merely because it seems to us out of harmony with the unity of the main part of the poem, or unless several distinct lines of consideration conspire to point it out as an extraneous element.
The arguments against the originality of the prologue—as, that it is written in prose, that the name Yahweh appears in it, that sacrifice is referred to, and that there are inconsistencies between it and the body of the book—are of little weight. There must have been some introduction to the poem explaining the circumstances of Job, otherwise the poetical dispute would have been unintelligible, for it is improbable that the story of Job was so familiar that a poem in which he and his friends figured as they do here would have been understood. And there is no trace of any other prologue or introduction having ever existed. The prologue, too, is an essential element of the work, containing the author’s positive contribution to the doctrine of suffering, for which the discussion in the poem prepares the way. The intermixture of prose and poetry is common in Oriental works containing similar discussions; the reference to sacrifice is to primitive not to Mosaic sacrifice; and the author, while using the name Yahweh freely himself, puts the patriarchal Divine names into the mouth of Job and his friends because he regards them as belonging to the patriarchal age and to a country outside of Israel. That the observance of this rule had a certain awkwardness for the writer appears perhaps from his allowing the name Yahweh to slip in once or twice (xii. 9, cf. xxviii. 28) in familiar phrases in the body of the poem. The discrepancies, such as Job’s references to his children as still alive (xix. 17, the interpretation is doubtful), and to his servants, are trivial, and even if real imply nothing in a book admittedly poetical and not historical. The objections to the epilogue are equally unimportant—as that the Satan is not mentioned in it, and that Job’s restoration is in conflict with the main idea of the poem—that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness. The epilogue confirms the teaching of the poem when it gives the divine sanction to Job’s doctrine regarding God in opposition to that of the friends (xlii. 7). And it is certainly not the intention of the poem to teach that earthly felicity does not follow righteousness; its purpose is to correct the exclusiveness with which the friends of Job maintained that principle. The Satan is introduced in the prologue, exercising his function as minister of God in heaven; but it is to misinterpret wholly the doctrine of evil in the Old Testament to assign to the Satan any such personal importance or independence of power as that he should be called before the curtain to receive the hisses that accompany his own discomfiture. The Satan, though he here appears with the beginnings of a malevolent will of his own, is but the instrument of the sifting providence of God. His work was to try; that done he 426 disappears, his personality being too slight to have any place in the result.
Much graver are the suspicions that attach to the speeches of Elihu. Most of those who have studied the book carefully hold that this part does not belong to the original cast, but has been introduced at a considerably later time. The piece is one of the most interesting parts of the book; both the person and the thoughts of Elihu are marked by a strong individuality. This individuality has indeed been very diversely estimated. The ancients for the most part passed a very severe judgment on Elihu: he is a buffoon, a boastful youth whose shallow intermeddling is only to be explained by the fewness of his years, the incarnation of folly, or even the Satan himself gone a-mumming. Some moderns on the other hand have regarded him as the incarnation of the voice of God or even of God himself. The main objections to the connexion of the episode of Elihu with the original book are: that the prologue and epilogue know nothing of him; that on the cause of Job’s afflictions he occupies virtually the same position as the friends; that his speeches destroy the dramatic effect of the divine manifestation by introducing a lengthened break between Job’s challenge and the answer of God; that the language and style of the piece are marked by an excessive mannerism, too great to have been created by the author of the rest of the poem; that the allusions to the rest of the book are so minute as to betray a reader rather than a hearer; and that the views regarding sin, and especially the scandal given to the author by the irreverence of Job, indicate a religious advance which marks a later age. The position taken by Elihu is almost that of a critic of the book. Regarding the origin of afflictions he is at one with the friends, although he dwells more on the general sinfulness of man than on actual sins, and his reprobation of Job’s position is even greater than theirs. His anger was kindled against Job because he made himself righteous before God, and against his friends because they found no answer to Job. His whole object is to refute Job’s charge of injustice against God. What is novel in Elihu, therefore, is not his position but his arguments. These do not lack cogency, but betray a kind of thought different from that of the friends. Injustice in God, he argues, can only arise from selfishness in Him; but the very existence of creation implies unselfish love on God’s part, for if He thought only of Himself, He would cease actively to uphold creation, and it would fall into death. Again, without justice mere earthly rule is impossible; how then is injustice conceivable in Him who rules over all? It is probable that the original author found his three interlocutors a sufficient medium for expression, and that this new speaker is the creation of another. To a devout and thoughtful reader of the original book, belonging perhaps to a more reverential age, it appeared that the language and bearing of Job had scarcely been sufficiently reprobated by the original speakers, and that the religious reason, apart from any theophany, could suggest arguments sufficient to condemn such demeanour on the part of any man. (For an able though hardly convincing argument for the originality of the discourses of Elihu see Budde’s Commentary.)
It is more difficult to come to a decision in regard to some other portions of the book, particularly ch. xxvii. 7-xxviii. In the latter part of ch. xxvii. Job seems to go over to the camp of his opponents, and expresses sentiments in complete contradiction to his former views. Hence some have thought the passage to be the missing speech of Zophar. Others, as Hitzig, believe that Job is parodying the ideas of the friends; while others, like Ewald, consider that he is recanting his former excesses, and making such a modification as to express correctly his views on evil. None of these opinions is quite satisfactory, though the last probably expresses the view with which the passage was introduced, whether it be original or not. The meaning of ch. xxviii. can only be that “Wisdom,” that is, a theoretical comprehension of providence, is unattainable by man, whose only wisdom is the fear of the Lord or practical piety. But to bring Job to the feeling of this truth was just the purpose of the theophany and the divine speeches; and, if Job had reached it already through his own reflection, the theophany becomes an irrelevancy. It is difficult, therefore, to find a place for these two chapters in the original work. The hymn on Wisdom is a most exquisite poem, which probably originated separately, and was brought into our book with a purpose similar to that which suggested the speeches of Elihu. Objections have also been raised to the descriptions of leviathan and behemoth (ch. xl. 15-xli.). Regarding these it may be enough to say that in meaning these passages are in perfect harmony with other parts of the Divine words, although there is a breadth and detail in the style unlike the sharp, short, ironical touches otherwise characteristic of this part of the poem. (Other longer passages, the originality of which has been called into question, are: xvii. 8 seq.; xxi. 16-18; xxii. 17 seq.; xxiii. 8 seq.; xxiv. 9, 18-24; xxvi. 5-14. On these see the commentaries.)
Date.—The age of such a book as Job, dealing only with principles and having no direct references to historical events can be fixed only approximately. Any conclusion can be reached only by an induction founded on matters which do not afford perfect certainty, such as the comparative development of certain moral ideas in different ages, the pressing claims of certain problems for solution at particular epochs of the history of Israel, and points of contact with other writings of which the age may with some certainty be determined. The Jewish tradition that the book is Mosaic, and the idea that it is a production of the desert, written in another tongue and translated into Hebrew, want even a shadow of probability. The book is a genuine outcome of the religious life and thought of Israel, the product of a religious knowledge and experience that were possible among no other people. That the author lays the scene of the poem outside his own nation and in the patriarchal age is a proceeding common to him with other dramatic writers, who find freer play for their principles in a region removed from the present, where they are not hampered by the obtrusive forms of actual life, but are free to mould occurrences into the moral form that their ideas require.
It is the opinion of some scholars, e.g. Delitzsch, that the book belongs to the age of Solomon. It cannot be earlier than this age, for Job (vii. 17) travesties the ideas of Ps. viii. in a manner which shows that this hymn was well known. To infer the date from a comparison of literary coincidences and allusions is however a very delicate operation. For, first, owing to the unity of thought and language which pervades the Old Testament, in which, regarded merely as a national literature, it differs from all other national literatures, we are apt to be deceived, and to take mere similarities for literary allusions and quotations; and, secondly, even when we are sure that there is dependence, it is often uncommonly difficult to decide which is the original source. The reference to Job in Ezek. xiv. 14 is not to our book, but to the man (a legendary figure) who was afterwards made the hero of it. The affinities on the other hand between Job and Isa. xl.-lv. are very close. The date, however, of this part of Isaiah is uncertain, though it cannot have received its final form, if it be composite, long before the return. Between Job iii. and Jer. xx. 14 seq. there is, again, certainly literary connexion. But the judgment of different minds differs on the question which passage is dependent on the other. The language of Jeremiah, however, has a natural pathos and genuineness of feeling in it, somewhat in contrast with the elaborate poetical finish of Job’s words, which might suggest the originality of the former.
The tendency among recent scholars is to put the book of Job not earlier than the 5th century B.C. There are good reasons for putting it in the 4th century. It stands at the beginning of the era of Jewish philosophical inquiry—its affinities are with Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Solomon, a body of writings that belongs to the latest period of pre-Christian Jewish literary development (see Wisdom Literature). Its points of connexion with Isa. xl.-lv. relate only to the problem of the suffering of the righteous, and that it is later than the Isaiah passage appears from the fact that this latter is national and ritual in scope, while Job is universal and ethical.
The book of Job is not literal history, though it reposes on historical tradition. To this tradition belong probably the name of Job and his country, and the names of his three friends, and perhaps also many other details impossible to specify particularly. The view that the book is entirely a literary creation with no basis in historical tradition is as old as the Talmud (Baba Bathra, xv. 1), in which a rabbi is cited who says: Job was not, and was not created, but is an allegory. This view is supported by Hengstenberg and others. But pure poetical creations on so extensive a scale are not probable in the East and at so early an age.
Author.—The author of the book is wholly unknown. The religious life of Israel was at certain periods very intense, and at those times the spiritual energy of the nation expressed itself almost impersonally, through men who forgot themselves and were speedily forgotten in name by others. Hitzig conjectures that the author was a native of the north on account of the free criticism of providence which he allows himself. Others, on account of some affinities with the prophet Amos, infer that he belonged to the south of Judah, and this is supposed to account 427 for his intimate acquaintance with the desert. Ewald considers that he belonged to the exile in Egypt, on account of his minute acquaintance with that country. But all these conjectures localize an author whose knowledge was not confined to any locality, who was a true child of the East and familiar with life and nature in every country there, who was at the same time a true Israelite and felt that the earth was the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and whose sympathies and thought took in all God’s works.
Literature.—Commentaries by Ewald (1854); Renan (1859); Delitzsch (1864); Zöckler in Lange’s Bibelwerk (1872); F. C. Cook in Speaker’s Comm. (1880); A. B. Davidson in Cambridge Bible (1884); Dillmann (1891); K. Budde (1896); Duhm (1897). See also Hoekstra, “Job de Knecht van Jehovah” in Theol. Tijdschr. (1871), and, in reply, A. Kuenen, “Job en de leidende Knecht van Jahveh,” ibid. (1873); C. H. H. Wright in Bib. Essays (1886); G. G. Bradley, Lects. on Job (2nd ed., 1888); Cheyne, Job and Solomon (1887); Dawson, Wisd. Lit. (1893); D. B. Macdonald, “The Original Form of the Legend of Job” in Journ. Bib. Lit. (1895); E. Hatch, Essays in Bib. Gk. (1889); A. Dillmann, in Trans. of Roy. Pruss. Acad. (1890).
1 Exceptions must be made in the cases of Esther and the Song of Songs, which do not mention God, and the original writer in Ecclesiastes who is a philosopher.
2 This remarkable passage reads thus: “But I know that my redeemer liveth, and afterwards he shall arise upon the dust, and after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, without my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger; my reins within me are consumed with longing.” The redeemer who liveth and shall arise or stand upon the earth is God whom he shall see with his own eyes, on his side. The course of exegesis was greatly influenced by the translation of Jerome, who, departing from the Itala, rendered: “In novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum ... et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea videbo deum meum.” The only point now in question is whether: (a) Job looks for this manifestation of God to him while he is still alive, or (b) after death, and therefore in the sense of a spiritual vision and union with God in another life; that is, whether the words “destroyed” and “without my flesh” are to be taken relatively only, of the extremest effects of his disease upon him, or literally, of the separation of the body in death. A third view which assumes that the words rendered “without my flesh,” which run literally, “out of my flesh,” mean looking out from my flesh, that is, clothed with a new body, and finds the idea of resurrection repeated, perhaps imports more into the language than it will fairly bear. In favour of (b) may be adduced the persistent refusal of Job throughout to entertain the idea of a restoration in this life: the word “afterwards”; and perhaps the analogy of other passages where the same situation appears, as Ps. xlix. and lxxiii., although the actual dénouement of the tragedy supports (a). The difference between the two senses is not important, when the Old Testament view of immortality is considered. To the Hebrew the life beyond was not what it is to us, a freedom from sin and sorrow and admission to an immediate divine fellowship not attainable here. To him the life beyond was at best a prolongation of the life here; all he desired was that his fellowship with God here should not be interrupted in death, and that Sheol, the place into which deceased persons descended and where they remained, cut off from all life with God, might be overleapt. On this account the theory of Ewald, which throws the centre of gravity of the book into this passage in ch. xix., considering its purpose to be to teach that the riddles of this life shall be solved and its inequalities corrected in a future life, appears one-sided. The point of the passage does not lie in any distinction which it draws between this life and a future life; it lies in the assurance which Job expresses that God, who even now knows his innocence, will vindicate it in the future, and that, though estranged now, He will at last take him to His heart.
JOBST, or Jodocus (c. 1350-1411), margrave of Moravia, was a son of John Henry of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, and grandson of John, the blind king of Bohemia. He became margrave of Moravia on his father’s death in 1375, and his clever and unscrupulous character enabled him to amass a considerable amount of wealth, while his ambition led him into constant quarrels with his brother Procop, his cousins, the German king Wenceslaus and Sigismund, margrave of Brandenburg, and others. By taking advantage of their difficulties he won considerable power, and the record of his life is one of warfare and treachery, followed by broken promises and transitory reconciliations. In 1385 and 1388 he purchased Brandenburg from Sigismund, and the duchy of Luxemburg from Wenceslaus; and in 1397 he also became possessed of upper and lower Lusatia. For some time he had entertained hopes of the German throne and had negotiated with Wenceslaus and others to this end. When, however, King Rupert died in 1410 he maintained at first that there was no vacancy, as Wenceslaus, who had been deposed in 1400, was still king; but changing his attitude, he was chosen German king at Frankfort on the 1st of October 1410 in opposition to Sigismund, who had been elected a few days previously. Jobst however was never crowned, and his death on the 17th of January 1411 prevented hostilities between the rival kings.
See F. M. Pelzel, Lebensgeschichte des römischen und böhmischen Königs Wenceslaus (1788-1790); J. Heidemann, Die Mark Brandenburg unter Jobst von Mähren (1881); J. Aschbach, Geschichte Kaiser Sigmunds (1838-1845); F. Palacky, Geschichte von Böhmen, iii. (1864-1874); and T. Lindner, Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches vom Ende des 14 Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation, i. (1875-1880).
JOB’S TEARS, in botany, the popular name for Coix Lachryma-Jobi, a species of grass, of the tribe maydeae, which also includes the maize (see Grasses). The seeds, or properly fruits, are contained singly in a stony involucre or bract, which does not open until the enclosed seed germinates. The young involucre surrounds the female flower and the stalk supporting the spike of male flowers, and when ripe has the appearance of bluish-white porcelain. Being shaped somewhat like a large drop of fluid, the form has suggested the name. The fruits are esculent, but the involucres are the part chiefly used, for making necklaces and other ornaments. The plant is a native of India, but is now widely spread throughout the tropical zone. It grows in marshy places; and is cultivated in China, the fruit having a supposed value as a diuretic and anti-phthisic. It was cultivated by John Gerard, author of the famous Herball, at the end of the 16th century as a tender annual.
JOCASTA, or Iocasta (Ἰοκάστη; in Homer, Ἐπικάστη), in Greek legend, wife of Laïus, mother (afterwards wife) of Oedipus (q.v.), daughter of Menoeceus, sister (or daughter) of Creon. According to Homer (Od. xi. 271) and Sophocles (Oed. Tyr. 1241), on learning that Oedipus was her son she immediately hanged herself; but in Euripides (Phoenissae, 1455) she stabs herself over the bodies of her sons Eteocles and Polynices, who had slain each other in single combat before the walls of Thebes.
JOCKEY, a professional rider of race-horses, now the current usage (see Horse-racing). The word is by origin a diminutive of “Jock,” the Northern or Scots colloquial equivalent of the name “John” (cf. Jack). A familiar instance of the use of the word as a name is in “Jockey of Norfolk” in Shakespeare’s Richard III. v. 3, 304. In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was applied to horse-dealers, postilions, itinerant minstrels and vagabonds, and thus frequently bore the meaning of a cunning trickster, a “sharp,” whence “to jockey,” to outwit, or “do” a person out of something. The current usage is found in John Evelyn’s Diary, 1670, when it was clearly well known. George Borrow’s attempt to derive the word from the gipsy chukni, a heavy whip used by horse-dealing gipsies, has no foundation.
JODELLE, ÉTIENNE, seigneur de Limodin (1532-1573), French dramatist and poet, was born in Paris of a noble family. He attached himself to the poetic circle of the Pléiade (see Daurat) and proceeded to apply the principles of the reformers to dramatic composition. Jodelle aimed at creating a classical drama that should be in every respect different from the moralities and soties that then occupied the French stage. His first play, Cléopâtre captive, was represented before the court at Reims in 1552. Jodelle himself took the title rôle, and the cast included his friends Remy Belleau and Jean de la Péruse. In honour of the play’s success the friends organized a little fête at Arcueil when a goat garlanded with flowers was led in procession and presented to the author—a ceremony exaggerated by the enemies of the Ronsardists into a renewal of the pagan rites of the worship of Bacchus. Jodelle wrote two other plays. Eugène, a comedy satirizing the superior clergy, had less success than it deserved. Its preface poured scorn on Jodelle’s predecessors in comedy, but in reality his own methods are not so very different from theirs. Didon se sacrifiant, a tragedy which follows Virgil’s narrative, appears never to have been represented. Jodelle died in poverty in July 1573. His works were collected the year after his death by Charles de la Mothe. They include a quantity of miscellaneous verse dating chiefly from Jodelle’s youth. The intrinsic value of his tragedies is small. Cléopâtre is lyric rather than dramatic. Throughout the five acts of the piece nothing actually happens. The death of Antony is announced by his ghost in the first act; the story of Cleopatra’s suicide is related, but not represented, in the fifth. Each act is terminated by a chorus which moralizes on such subjects as the inconstancy of fortune and the judgments of heaven on human pride. But the play was the starting-point of French classical tragedy, and was soon followed by the Médée (1553) of Jean de la Péruse and the Aman (1561) of André de Rivaudeau. Jodelle was a rapid worker, but idle and fond of dissipation. His friend Ronsard said that his published poems gave no adequate idea of his powers.
Jodelle’s works are collected (1868) in the Pléiade française of Charles Marty-Laveaux. The prefatory notice gives full information of the sources of Jodelle’s biography, and La Mothe’s criticism is reprinted in its entirety.
JODHPUR, or Marwar, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. Area, 34,963 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 1,935,565, showing a decrease of 23% in the decade, due to the results of famine. Estimated revenue, £373,600; tribute, £14,000. The general aspect of the country is that of a sandy plain, divided into two unequal parts by the river Lūni, and dotted with picturesque conical hills, attaining in places an elevation of 3000 ft. The river Lūni is the principal feature in the physical aspects of Jodhpur. One of its head-streams rises in the sacred lake of Pushkar in Ajmere, and the main river flows through Jodhpur in a south-westerly direction till it is finally lost in the marshy ground at the head of the Runn of Cutch. It is fed by numerous tributaries and occasionally overflows its banks, fine crops of wheat and barley being grown on the saturated soil. Its water is, as a rule, saline or brackish, but comparatively sweet water is obtained from wells sunk at a distance of 20 or 30 yds. from the river bank. The famous salt-lake of Sambhar is situated on the borders of Jodhpur and Jaipur, and two smaller lakes of the same description lie within the limits of the state, 428 from which large quantities of salt are extracted. Marble is mined in the north of the state and along the south-east border.
The population consists of Rathor Rājputs (who form the ruling class), Brāhmans, Charans, Bhāts, Mahajans or traders, and Jāts. The Charans, a sacred race, hold large religious grants of land, and enjoy peculiar immunities as traders in local produce. The Bhāts are by profession genealogists, but also engage in trade. Mārwāri traders are an enterprising class to be found throughout the length and breadth of India.
The principal crops are millets and pulses, but wheat and barley are largely produced in the fertile tract watered by the Lūni river. The manufactures comprise leather boxes and brass utensils; and turbans and scarfs and a description of embroidered silk knotted thread are specialities of the country.
The Mahārājā belongs to the Rathor clan of Rājputs. The family chronicles relate that after the downfall of the Rathor dynasty of Kanauj in 1194, Sivajī, the grandson of Jāi Chānd, the last king of Kanauj, entered Mārwār on a pilgrimage to Dwarka, and on halting at the town of Pāli he and his followers settled there to protect the Brāhman community from the constant raids of marauding bands. The Rathor chief thus laid the foundation of the state, but it was not till the time of Rāo Chānda, the tenth in succession from Sivajī, that Mārwār was actually conquered. His grandson Jodha founded the city of Jodhpur, which he made his capital. In 1561 the country was invaded by Akbar, and the chief was forced to submit, and to send his son as a mark of homage to take service under the Mogul emperor. When this son Udāi Singh succeeded to the chiefship, he gave his sister Jodhbāi in marriage to Akbar, and was rewarded by the restoration of most of his former possessions. Udāi Singh’s son, Gaj Singh, held high service under Akbar, and conducted successful expeditions in Gujarat and the Deccan. The bigoted and intolerant Aurangzeb invaded Mārwār in 1679, plundered Jodhpur, sacked all the large towns, and commanded the conversion of the Rathors to Mahommedanism. This cemented all the Rājput clans into a bond of union, and a triple alliance was formed by the three states of Jodhpur, Udāipur and Jaipur, to throw off the Mahommedan yoke. One of the conditions of this alliance was that the chiefs of Jodhpur and Jaipur should regain the privilege of marriage with the Udāipur family, which they had forfeited by contracting alliances with the Mogul emperors, on the understanding that the offspring of Udāipur princesses should succeed to the state in preference to all other children. The quarrels arising from this stipulation lasted through many generations, and led to the invitation of Mahratta help from the rival aspirants to power, and finally to the subjection of all the Rājput states to the Mahrattās. Jodhpur was conquered by Sindhia, who levied a tribute of £60,000, and took from it the fort and town of Ajmere. Internecine disputes and succession wars disturbed the peace of the early years of the century, until in January 1818 Jodhpur was taken under British protection. In 1839 the misgovernment of the rājā led to an insurrection which compelled the interference of the British. In 1843, the chief having died without a son, and without having adopted an heir, the nobles and state officials were left to select a successor from the nearest of kin. Their choice fell upon Rājā Takht Sinh, chief of Ahmednagar. This chief, who did good service during the Mutiny, died in 1873. Mahārajā Jaswant Singh, who died in 1896, was a very enlightened ruler. His brother, Sir Pertab Singh (q.v.), conducted the administration until his nephew, Sardar Singh, came of age in 1898. The imperial service cavalry formed part of the reserve brigade during the Tirah campaign.
The state maintains a railway running to Bikanir, and there is also a branch railway into Sind. Gold, silver and copper money is coined. The state emblems are a jhar or sprig of seven branches and a khanda or sword. Jodhpur practically escaped the plague, but it suffered more severely than any other part of Rajputana from the famine of 1899-1900. In February 1900 more than 110,000 persons were in receipt of famine relief.
The city of Jodhpur is 64 m. by rail N.W. of Mārwār junction, on the Rajputana railway. Pop. (1901), 60,437. It was built by Rāo Jodha in 1459, and from that time has been the seat of government. It is surrounded by a strong wall nearly 6 m. in extent, with seventy gates. The fort, which stands on an isolated rock, contains the mahārājā’s palace, a large and handsome building, completely covering the crest of the hill on which it stands, and overlooking the city, which lies several hundred feet below. The city contains palaces of the mahārājā, and town residences of the thākurs or nobles, besides numerous fine temples and tanks. Building stone is plentiful and close at hand, and the architecture is solid and handsome. Three miles north of Jodhpur are the ruins of Mandor, the site of the ancient capital of the Parihar princes of Mārwār, before its conquest by the Rathors. Mills for grinding flour and crushing grain have been constructed for the imperial service troops. The Jaswant college is affiliated to the B.A. standard of the Allahabad university. To the Hewson hospital a wing for eye diseases was added in 1898, and the Jaswant hospital for women is under an English lady doctor.
JOEL. The second book among the minor prophets in the Bible is entitled The word of Yahweh that came to Joel the son of Pethuel, or, as the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac and other versions read, Bethuel. Nothing is recorded as to the date or occasion of the prophecy. Most Hebrew prophecies contain pointed references to the foreign politics and social relations of the nation at the time. In the book of Joel there are only scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet’s own people are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons; and even here there are features in the description which have led many expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. The most remarkable part of the book is the eschatological picture with which it closes; and the way in which the plague of locusts appears to be taken as foreshadowing the final judgment—the great day or assize of Yahweh, in which Israel’s enemies are destroyed—is so unique as greatly to complicate the exegetical problem. It is not therefore surprising that the most various views are still held as to the date and meaning of the book. Allegorists and literalists still contend over the first and still more over the second chapter, and, while the largest number of recent interpreters accept Credner’s view that the prophecy was written in the reign of Joash of Judah (835-796 B.C.?), a powerful school of critics (including A. B. Davidson) follow the view suggested by Vatke (Bib. Theol. p. 462 seq.), and reckon Joel among the post-exile prophets. Other scholars give yet other dates: see the particulars in the elaborate work of Merx. The followers of Credner are literalists; the opposite school of moderns includes some literalists (as Duhm), while others (like Hilgenfeld, and in a modified sense Merx) adopt the old allegorical interpretation which treats the locusts as a figure for the enemies of Jerusalem.
There are cogent reasons for placing Joel either earlier or later than the great series of prophets extending from the time when Amos first proclaimed the approach of the Assyrian down to the Babylonian exile. In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place. This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets from Amos to the captivity. He presupposes a nation of Yahweh-worshippers, whose religion has its centre in the temple and priesthood of Zion, which is indeed conscious of sin, and needs forgiveness and an outpouring of the Spirit, but is not visibly divided, as the kingdom of Judah was between the adherents of spiritual prophecy and a party whose national worship of Yahweh involved for them no fundamental separation from the surrounding nations. The book, therefore, must have been written before the ethico-spiritual and the popular conceptions of Yahweh came into conscious antagonism, or else after the fall of the state and the restoration of the community of Jerusalem to religious rather than political existence had decided 429 the contest in favour of the prophets, and of the Law in which their teaching was ultimately crystallized.
The considerations which have given currency to an early date for Joel are of various kinds. The absence of all mention of one great oppressing world-power seems most natural before the westward march of Assyria involved Israel in the general politics of Asia. The purity of the style is also urged, and a comparison of Amos i. 2, Joel iii. 16 (Heb. iv. 16), and Amos ix. 13, Joel iii. 18 (iv. 18), has been taken as proving that Amos knew our book. The last argument might be inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joel ii. 2, Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3) make it not incredible that the purity of his style—which is rather elegant than original and strongly marked—is in large measure the fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. When the whole people is mustered in ch. i., the elders or sheikhs of the municipality and the priests of the temple are the most prominent figures. The king is not mentioned—which on Credner’s view is explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash, when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power—and the princes, councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh and his people is perfectly natural. They were hard masters but not invaders, and under them the enemies of the Jews were their neighbours, just as appears in Joel.1 Those, however, who place our prophet in the minority of King Joash draw a special argument from the mention of Phoenicians, Philistines and Edomites (iii. 4 seq., 19), pointing to the revolt of Edom under Joram (2 Kings viii. 20) and the incursion of the Philistines in the same reign (2 Chron. xxi. 16, xxii. 1). These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back to an early date by the reference in Amos i. 9. This argument is rather specious than sound. Edom’s hostility to Judah was incessant, but the feud reached its full intensity only after the time of Deuteronomy (xxiii. 7), when the Edomites joined the Chaldaeans, drew profit from the overthrow of the Jews, whose land they partly occupied, and exercised barbarous cruelty towards the fugitives of Jerusalem (Obad. passim; Mal. i. 2 seq.; Isa. lxiii.). The offence of shedding innocent blood charged on them by Joel is natural after these events, but hardly so in connexion with the revolt against Joram.
As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history, and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes. Gaza in fact was a slave emporium as early as the time of Amos (i. 6), and continued so till Roman times.
Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch. iii., it must rest on special features of the trade in slaves, which was always an important part of the commerce of the Levant. In the time of Amos the slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were sold en masse to Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians).2 It is probable that some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia and the East. But the traffic in this direction hardly became extensive till a later date. In Deut. xxviii. 68, Egypt is still the chief goal of the maritime slave trade, and in Ezek. xxvii. 13 Javan exports slaves to Tyre, not conversely. Thus the allusion to Javan in Joel better suits a later date, when Syrian slaves were in special request in Greece.3 And the name of Javan is not found in any part of the Old Testament certainly older than Ezekiel. In Joel it seems to stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians, Sabaeans, ch. iii. 8), the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea. This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish = Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.
Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner’s theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before Joash. From this time down to the last period of the Hebrew monarchy Egypt was not the enemy of Judah.
If the arguments chiefly relied on for an early date are so precarious or can even be turned against their inventors, there are others of an unambiguous kind which make for a date in the Persian period. It appears from ch. iii. 1, 2, that Joel wrote after the exile. The phrase “to bring again the captivity” would not alone suffice to prove this, for it is used in a wide sense, and perhaps means rather to “reverse the calamity,”4 but the dispersion of Israel among the nations, and the allotment of the Holy Land to new occupants, cannot fairly be referred to any calamity less than that of the captivity. With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a quite different standpoint; otherwise indeed the books of northern prophets and historians could never have been admitted into the Jewish canon. Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of Joash’s minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada.5 And the assumption that there was a period before the prophetic conflicts of the 8th century B.C. when spiritual prophecy had unchallenged sway, when there was no gross idolatry or superstition, when the priests of Jerusalem, acting in accord with prophets like Joel, held the same place as heads of a pure worship which they occupied after the exile (cf. Ewald, Propheten, i. 89), is not consistent with history. It rests on the old theory of the antiquity of the Levitical legislation, so that in fact all who place that legislation later than Ezekiel are agreed that the book of Joel is also late. In this connexion one point deserves special notice. The religious significance of the plague of drought and locusts is expressed in ch. i. 9 in the observation that the daily meat and drink offering are cut off, and the token of new blessing is the restoration of this service, ch. ii. 14. In other words, the daily offering is the continual symbol of gracious intercourse between Yahweh and his people and the main office of religion. This conception, which finds its parallel in Dan. viii. 11, xi. 31, xii. 11, is quite in accordance with the later law. But under the monarchy the daily oblation was the king’s private offering, and not till Ezra’s reformation did it become the affair of the community and the central act of national worship (Neh. x. 33 seq.).6 That Joel wrote not only after the exile but after the work of Ezra and Nehemiah may be viewed as confirmed by the allusions to the walls of Jerusalem in ch. ii. 7, 9. Such is the historical basis which we seem to be able to lay for the study of the exegetical problems of the book.
The style of Joel is clear (which hardly favours an early date), and his language presents peculiarities which are evidences of a late origin. But the structure of the book, the symbolism and the connexion of the prophet’s thoughts have given rise to much controversy. It seems safest to start from the fact that the prophecy is divided into two well-marked sections by ch. ii. 18, 19a. According to the Massoretic vocalization, which is in harmony with the most ancient exegetical tradition as contained in the LXX, these words are historical: “Then the Lord was jealous,... and answered and said unto his people, Behold,” &c. Such is the natural meaning of the words as pointed.
Thus the book falls into two parts. In the first the prophet speaks in his own name, addressing himself to the people in a lively description of a present calamity caused by a terrible plague of locusts which threatens the entire destruction of the country, and appears to be the vehicle of a final consuming judgment (the day of Yahweh). There is no hope save in repentance and prayer; and in ch. ii. 12 the prophet, speaking now for the first time in Yahweh’s name, calls the people to a solemn fast at the sanctuary, and invites the intercession of the priests. The calamity is described in the strongest colours of Hebrew hyperbole, and it seems arbitrary to seek too literal an interpretation of details, e.g. to lay weight on the four names of locusts, or to take ch. i. 20 of a conflagration produced by drought, when it appears from ii. 3 that the ravages of the locusts themselves are compared to those of fire. But when due allowance is made for 430 Eastern rhetoric, there is no occasion to seek in this section anything else than literal locusts. Nay, the allegorical interpretation, which takes the locusts to be hostile invaders, breaks through the laws of all reasonable writing; for the poetical hyperbole which compares the invading swarms to an army (ii. 4 seq.) would be inconceivably lame if a literal army was already concealed under the figure of the locusts. Nor could the prophet so far forget himself in his allegory as to speak of a victorious host as entering the conquered city like a thief (ii. 9). The second part of the book is Yahweh’s answer to the people’s prayer. The answer begins with a promise of deliverance from famine, and of fruitful seasons compensating for the ravages of the locusts. In the new prosperity of the land the union of Yahweh and his people shall be sealed anew, and so the Lord will proceed to pour down further and higher blessings. The aspiration of Moses (Num. xi. 29) and the hope of earlier prophets (Isa. xxxii. 15, lix. 21; Jer. xxxi. 33) shall be fully realized in the outpouring of the Spirit on all the Jews and even upon their servants (Isa. lxi. 5 with lvi. 6, 7); and then the great day of judgment, which had seemed to overshadow Jerusalem in the now averted plague, shall draw near with awful tokens of blood and fire and darkness. But the terrors of that day are not for the Jews but for their enemies. The worshippers of Yahweh on Zion shall be delivered (cf. Obad. v. 17, whose words Joel expressly quotes in ch. ii. 32), and it is their heathen enemies, assembled before Jerusalem to war against Yahweh, who shall be mowed down in the valley of Jehoshaphat (“Yahweh judgeth”) by no human arm, but by heavenly warriors. Thus definitively freed from the profane foot of the stranger (Isa. lii. 1), Jerusalem shall abide a holy city for ever. The fertility of the land shall be such as was long ago predicted in Amos ix. 13, and streams issuing from the Temple, as Ezekiel had described in his picture of the restored Jerusalem (Ezek. xlvii.), shall fertilize the barren Wādi of Acacias. Egypt and Edom, on the other hand, shall be desolate, because they have shed the blood of Yahweh’s innocents. Compare the similar predictions against Edom, Isa. xxxiv. 9 seq. (Mal. i. 3), and against Egypt, Isa. xix. 5 seq., Ezek. xxix. Joel’s eschatological picture appears indeed to be largely a combination of elements from older unfulfilled prophecies. Its central feature, the assembling of the nations to judgment, is already found in Zeph. iii. 8, and in Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, where the wonders of fire and blood named in Joel ii. 30 are also mentioned (Ezek. xxxviii. 22). The other physical features of the great day, the darkening of the lights of heaven, are a standing figure of the prophets from Amos v. 6, viii. 9, downwards. It is characteristic of the prophetic eschatology that images suggested by one prophet are adopted by his successors, and gradually become part of the permanent scenery of the last times; and it is a proof of the late date of Joel that almost his whole picture is made up of such features. In this respect there is a close parallelism, extending to minor details, between Joel and the last chapters of Zechariah.
That Joel’s delineation of the final deliverance and glory attaches itself directly to the deliverance of the nation from a present calamity is quite in the manner of the so-called prophetic perspective. But the fact that the calamity which bulks so largely is natural and not political is characteristic of the post-exile period. Other prophets of the same age speak much of dearth and failure of crops, which in Palestine then as now were aggravated by bad government, and were far more serious to a small and isolated community than they could ever have been to the old kingdom. It was indeed by no means impossible that Jerusalem might have been altogether undone by the famine caused by the locusts; and so the conception of these visitants as the destroying army, executing Yahweh’s final judgment, is really much more natural than appears to us at first sight, and does not need to be explained away by allegory. The chief argument relied upon by those who still find allegory at least in ch. ii. is the expression haṣṣephōnī, “the northerner”7 [if this rendering is correct], in ii. 20. In view of the other points of affinity between Joel and Ezekiel, this word inevitably suggests Gog and Magog, and it is difficult to see how a swarm of locusts could receive such a name, or if they came from the north could perish, as the verse puts it, in the desert between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. The verse remains a crux interpretum, and no exegesis hitherto given can be deemed thoroughly satisfactory; but the interpretation of the whole book must not be made to hinge on a single word in a verse which might be altogether removed without affecting the general course of the prophet’s argument.
The whole verse is perhaps the addition of an allegorizing glossator. The prediction in v. 19, that the seasons shall henceforth be fruitful, is given after Yahweh has shown his zeal and pity for Israel, not of course by mere words, but by acts, as appears in verses 20, 21, where the verbs are properly perfects recording that Yahweh hath already done great things, and that vegetation has already revived. In other words, the mercy already experienced in the removal of the plague is taken as a pledge of future grace not to stop short till all God’s old promises are fulfilled. In this context v. 20 is out of place. Observe also that in v. 25 the locusts are spoken of in the plain language of chap. i.
See the separate commentaries on Joel by Credner (1831), Wünsche (1872), Merx (1879). The last-named gives an elaborate history of interpretation from the Septuagint down to Calvin, and appends the Ethiopic text edited by Dillmann. Nowack and Marti should also be consulted (see their respective series of commentaries); also G. A. Smith, in The Book of the Twelve Prophets, vol. i. (1896), and S. R. Driver, Joel and Amos (1897). On the language of Joel, see Holzinger, Z. A. T. W. (1889), pp. 89-131. Of older commentaries the most valuable is Pocock’s (Oxford, 1691). Bochart’s Hierozoïcon may also be consulted.
1 In the A.V. of ii. 17 it appears that subjection to a foreign power is not a present fact but a thing feared. But the parallelism and v. 19 justify the rendering in margin of R.V. “use a byword against them.”
2 The hypothesis of an Arabian Javan, applied to Joel iii. 6 by Credner, Hitzig, and others, may be viewed as exploded (see Stade, “Das Volk Javan,” 1880, reprinted in his Akad. Reden u. Abhandlungen, 1899, pp. 123-142). The question, however, has to be re-examined; later interpreters, e.g. the LXX translators, may have misunderstood. The text of the passages has to be critically treated anew. See Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel (on Gen. x. 2).
3 Compare Movers, Phönizisches Alterthum, iii. i. 70 seq.
4 See Ewald on Jer. xlviii. 47, Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschrift (1873), p. 519; Schwally, Z. A. T. W., viii. 200, and Briggs on Ps. xiv. 7.
5 Stade not unreasonably questions whether 2 Kings xii. 1-3 implies the paramount political influence of Jehoiada.
6 See Wellhausen, Geschichte Israels, p. 78 seq.; Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels (1883), p. 82 seq.
7 It has been suggested that Ṣaphon, which is often rather troublesome if rendered “the north,” may be a weakened form of ṣib’ōn, a current popular corruption of shimo’n = Ishmael. In Ezek. xxxviii. 15 it is distinctly said that Gog is to come from the recesses of Ṣāphōn. “Meshech” and “Tubal” are no hindrance to this view, if the names of the so-called “sons of Japheth” are critically examined. For they, too, as well as Ṣāphōn, can be plausibly shown to represent regions of North Arabia. See Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Anc. Israel, on Gen. x. 2-4.
JOEL, MANUEL (1826-1890), Jewish philosopher and preacher. After teaching for several years at the Breslau rabbinical seminary, founded by Z. Frankel, he became the successor of Abraham Geiger in the rabbinate of Breslau. He made important contributions to the history of the school of Aqiba (q.v.) as well as to the history of Jewish philosophy, his essays on Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides being of permanent worth. But his most influential work was connected with the relations between Jewish philosophy and the medieval scholasticism. He showed how Albertus Magnus derived some of his ideas from Maimonides and how Spinoza was indebted to the same writer, as well as to Hasdai Crescas. These essays were collected in two volumes of Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie (1876), while another two volumes of Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte (1880-1883) threw much light on the development of religious thought in the early centuries of the Christian era. Equally renowned were Joel’s pulpit addresses. Though he was no orator, his appeal to the reason was effective, and in their published form his three volumes of Predigten (issued posthumously) have found many readers.
JOFFRIN, JULES FRANÇOIS ALEXANDRE (1846-1890), French politician, was born at Troyes on the 16th of March 1846. He served in the Franco-German War, was involved in the Commune, and spent eleven years in England as a political exile. He attached himself to the “possibilist” group of the socialist party, the section opposed to the root-and-branch measures of Jules Guesde. He became a member of the municipal council of Paris in 1882, and vice-president in 1888-1889. Violently attacked by the Boulangist organs, L’Intransigeant and La France, he won a suit against them for libel, and in 1889 he contested the 18th arrondissement of Paris with General Boulanger, who obtained a majority of over 2000 votes, but was declared ineligible. Joffrin was only admitted to the Chamber after a heated discussion, and continued to be attacked by the nationalists. He died in Paris on the 17th of September 1890.
JOGUES, ISAAC (1607-1646), French missionary in North America, was born at Orleans on the 10th of January 1607. He entered the Society of Jesus at Rouen in 1624, and in 1636 was ordained and sent, by his own wish, to the Huron mission. In 1639 he went among the Tobacco Nation, and in 1641 journeyed to Sault Sainte Marie, where he preached to the Algonquins. Returning from an expedition to Three Rivers he was captured by Mohawks, who tortured him and kept him as a slave until the summer of 1643, when, aided by some Dutchmen, he escaped to the manor of Rensselaerwyck and thence to New Amsterdam. After a brief visit to France, where he was treated with high honour, he returned to the Mohawk country in May 1646 and ratified a treaty between that tribe and the Canadian government. Working among them as the founder of the Mission of the Martyrs, he incurred their enmity, was tortured as a sorcerer, and finally killed at Ossernenon, near Auriesville, N.Y.
See Parkman, The Jesuits in North America (1898).
JOḤANAN BEN ZACCAI, Palestinian rabbi, contemporary of the Apostles. He was a disciple of Hillel (q.v.), and after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus was the main instrument in the preservation of the Jewish religion. During the last decades of the Temple Joḥanan was a member of the Sanhedrin and a skilled controversialist against the Sadducees. He is also reported to have been head of a great school in the capital. In the war with Rome he belonged to the peace party, and finding that the Zealots were resolved on carrying their revolt to its inevitable sequel, Joḥanan had himself conveyed out of Jerusalem in a coffin. In the Roman camp the rabbi was courteously received, and Vespasian (whose future elevation to the imperial dignity Joḥanan, like Josephus, is said to have foretold) agreed to grant him any boon he desired. Joḥanan obtained permission to found a college at Jamnia (Jabneh), which became the centre of Jewish culture. It practically exercised the judicial functions of the Sanhedrin (see Jews, § 40 ad fin.). That chief literary expression of Pharisaism, the Mishnah, was the outcome of the work begun at Jamnia. Joḥanan solaced his disciples on the fall of the Temple by the double thought that charity could replace sacrifice, and that a life devoted to the religious law could form a fitting continuation of the old theocratic state. “Joḥanan felt the fall of his people more deeply than anyone else, but—and in this lies his historical importance—he did more than any one else to prepare the way for Israel to rise again” (Bacher).
See Graetz, History of the Jews (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. ch. xiii.; Weiss, Dor dor ve-doreshav, ii. 36; Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaiten, vol. i. ch. iii.
JOHANNESBURG, a city of the Transvaal and the centre of the Rand gold-mining industry. It is the most populous city and the commercial capital of South Africa. It is built on the southern slopes of the Witwatersrand in 26° 11′ S. 28° 2′ E., at an elevation of 5764 ft. above the sea. The distances by rail from Johannesburg to the following seaports are: Lourenço Marques, 364 m.; Durban, 483 m.; East London, 659 m.; Port Elizabeth, 714 m.; Cape Town, 957 m. Pretoria is, by rail, 46 m. N. by E.
The town lies immediately north of the central part of the main gold reef. The streets run in straight lines east and west or north and south. The chief open spaces are Market Square in the west and Government Square in the south of the town. Park railway station lies north of the business quarter, and farther north are the Wanderers’ athletic sports ground and Joubert’s Park. The chief business streets, such as Commissioner Street, Market Street, President Street and Pritchard Street, run east and west. In these thoroughfares and in several of the streets which intersect them are the offices of the mining companies, the banks, clubs, newspaper offices, hotels and shops, the majority being handsome stone or brick buildings, while the survival of some wooden shanties and corrugated iron buildings recalls the early character of the town.
Chief Buildings, &c.—In the centre of Market Square are the market buildings, and at its east end the post and telegraph offices, a handsome block of buildings with a façade 200 ft. long and a tower 106 ft. high. The square itself, a quarter of a mile long, is the largest in South Africa. The offices of the Witwatersrand chamber of mines face the market buildings. The stock exchange is in Marshall Square. The telephone exchange is in the centre of the city, in Von Brandis Square. The law courts are in the centre of Government Square. The Transvaal university college is in Plein Square, a little south of Park station. In the vicinity is St Mary’s (Anglican) parish hall (1905-1907), the first portion of a large building planned to take the place of “Old” St Mary’s Church, the “mother” church of the Rand, built in 1887. The chief Jewish synagogue is in the same neighbourhood. In Kerk Street, on the outskirts of central Johannesburg, is the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, the headquarters of the vicar apostolic of the Transvaal. North of Joubert’s Park is the general hospital, and beyond, near the crest of the hills, commanding the town and the road to Pretoria, is a fort built by the Boer government and now used as a gaol. On the hills, some 3 m. E.N.E. of the town, is the observatory, built in 1903. Johannesburg has several theatres and buildings adapted for public meetings. There is a race-course 2 m. south of the town under the control of the Johannesburg Turf Club.
The Suburbs.—North, east and west of the city proper are suburbs, laid out on the same rectangular plan. The most fashionable are to the east and north—Jeppestown, Belgravia, Doornfontein, the Berea, Hillbrow, Parktown, Yeoville and Bellevue. Braamfontein (with a large cemetery) lies north-west and Fordsburg due west of the city. At Fordsburg are the gas and electric light and power works, and north of Doornfontein there is a large reservoir. There are also on the Rand, and dependent on the gold-mining, three towns possessing separate municipalities—Germiston and Boksburg (q.v.), respectively 9 m. and 15 m. E. of Johannesburg, and Krugersdorp (q.v.), 21 m. W.
The Mines and other Industries.—South, east and west of the city are the gold mines, indicated by tall chimneys, battery houses and the compounds of the labourers. The bare veld is dotted with these unsightly buildings for a distance of over fifty miles. The mines are worked on the most scientific lines. Characteristic of the Rand is the fine white dust arising from the crushing of the ore, and, close to the batteries, the incessant din caused by the stamps employed in that operation. The compounds in general, especially those originally made for Chinese labourers, are well built, comfortable, and fulfil every hygienic requirement. Besides the buildings, the compounds include wide stretches of veld. To enter and remain in the district, Kaffirs require a monthly pass for which the employer pays 2s. (For details of gold-mining, see Gold.) A railway traverses the Rand, going westward past Krugersdorp to Klerksdorp and thence to Kimberley, and eastward past Springs to Delagoa Bay. From Springs, 25 m. E. of Johannesburg, is obtained much of the coal used in the Rand mines.
The mines within the municipal area produce nearly half the total gold output of the Transvaal. The other industries of Johannesburg include brewing; printing and bookbinding, timber sawing, flour milling, iron and brass founding, brick making and the manufacture of tobacco.
Health, Education and Social Conditions.—The elevation of Johannesburg makes it, despite its nearness to the tropics, a healthy place for European habitation. Built on open undulating ground, the town is, however, subject to frequent dust storms and to considerable variations in the temperature. The nights in winter are frosty and snow falls occasionally. The average day temperature in winter is 53° F., in summer 75°; the average annual rainfall is 28 in. The death-rate among white inhabitants averages about 17 per thousand. The principal causes of death, both among the white and coloured inhabitants, are diseases of the lungs—including miners’ phthisis and pneumonia—diarrhoea, dysentery and enteric. The death-rate among young children is very high.
Education is provided in primary and secondary schools maintained by the state. In the primary schools education is 432 free but not compulsory. The Transvaal university college, founded in 1904 as the technical institute (the change of title being made in 1906), provides full courses in science, mining, engineering and law. In 1906 Alfred Beit (q.v.) bequeathed £200,000 towards the cost of erecting and equipping university buildings.
In its social life Johannesburg differs widely from Cape Town and Durban. The white population is not only far larger but more cosmopolitan, less stationary and more dependent on a single industry; it has few links with the past, and both city and citizens bear the marks of youth. The cost of living is much higher than in London or New York. House rent, provisions, clothing, are all very dear, and more than counter-balance the lowness of rates. The customary unit of expenditure is the threepenny-bit or “tickey.”
Sanitary and other Services.—There is an ample supply of water to the town and mines, under a water board representing all the Rand municipalities and the mining companies. A water-borne sewerage system began to be introduced in 1906. The general illuminant is electricity, and both electrical and gas services are owned by the municipality. The tramway service, opened in 1891, was taken over by the municipality in 1904. Up to 1906 the trams were horse-drawn; in that year electric cars began running. Rickshaws are also a favourite means of conveyance. The police force is controlled by the government.
Area, Government and Rateable Value.—The city proper covers about 6 sq. m. The municipal boundary extends in every direction some 5 m. from Market Square, encloses about 82 sq. m. and includes several of the largest mines. The local government is carried on by an elected municipal council, the franchise being restricted to white British subjects (men and women) who rent or own property of a certain value. In 1908 the rateable value of the municipality was £36,466,644, the rate 2¼d. in the £, and the town debt £5,500,000.
Population.—In 1887 the population was about 3000. By the beginning of 1890 it had increased to over 25,000. A census taken in July 1896 showed a population within a radius of 3 m. from Market Square of 102,078, of whom 50,907 were whites. At the census of April 1904 the inhabitants of the city proper numbered 99,022, the population within the municipal area being 155,642, of whom 83,363 were whites. Of the white inhabitants, 35% were of British origin, 51,629 were males, and 31,734 females. Of persons aged sixteen or over, the number of males was almost double the number of females. The coloured population included about 7000 British Indians—chiefly small traders. A municipal census taken in August 1908 gave the following result: whites 95,162; natives and coloured 78,781; Asiatics 6780—total 180,687.
History.—Johannesburg owes its existence to the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand reefs. The town, named after Johannes Rissik, then surveyor-general of the Transvaal, was founded in September 1886, the first buildings being erected on the part of the reef where are now the Ferreira and Wemmer mines. These buildings were found to cover valuable ore, and in December following the Boer government marked out the site of the city proper, and possession of the plots was given to purchasers on the 1st of January 1887. The exploitation of the mines led to a rapid development of the town during the next three years. The year 1890 was one of great depression following the exhaustion of the surface ore, but the provision of better machinery and cheaper coal led to a revival in 1891. By 1892 the leading mines had proved their dividend-earning capacity, and in 1895 there was a great “boom” in the shares of the mining companies. The linking of the town to the seaports by railways during 1892-1895 gave considerable impetus to the gold-mining industry. Material prosperity was accompanied, however, by political, educational and other disadvantages, and the desire of the Johannesburgers—most of whom were foreigners or “Uitlanders”—to remedy the grievances under which they suffered led, in January 1896, to an abortive rising against the Boer government (see Transvaal: History). One result of this movement was a slight advance in municipal self-government. Since 1887 the management of the town had been entrusted to a nominated sanitary board, under the chairmanship of the mining commissioner appointed by the South African Republic. In 1890 elected members had been admitted to this board, but at the end of 1897 an elective stadsraad (town council) was constituted, though its functions were strictly limited. There was a great development in the mining industry during 1897-1898 and 1899, the value of the gold extracted in 1898 exceeding £15,000,000, but the political situation grew worse, and in September 1899, owing to the imminence of war between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the majority of the Uitlanders fled from the city. Between October 1899, when war broke out, and the 31st of May 1900, when the city was taken by the British, the Boer government worked certain mines for their own benefit. After a period of military administration and of government by a nominated town council, an ordinance was passed in June 1903 providing for elective municipal councils, and in December following the first election to the new council took place. In 1905 the town was divided into wards. In that year the number of municipal voters was 23,338. In 1909 the proportional representation system was adopted in the election of town councillors.
During 1901-1903, while the war was still in progress or but recently concluded, the gold output was comparatively slight. The difficulty in obtaining sufficient labour for the mines led to a successful agitation for the importation of coolies from China (see Transvaal: History). During 1904-1906 over 50,000 coolies were brought to the mines, a greatly increased output being the result, the value of the gold extracted in 1905 exceeding £20,000,000. Notwithstanding the increased production of gold, Johannesburg during 1905-1907 passed through a period of severe commercial depression, the result in part of the unsettled political situation. In June 1907 the repatriation of the Chinese coolies began; it was completed in February 1910.
An excellent compilation, entitled Johannesburg Statistics, dealing with almost every phase of the city’s life, is issued monthly (since January 1905) by the town council. See also the Post Office Directory, Transvaal (Johannesburg, annually), which contains specially prepared maps, and the annual reports of the Johannesburg chamber of commerce. For the political history of Johannesburg, see the bibliography under Transvaal.
JOHANNISBERG, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, in the Rheingau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 6 m. S. of Rüdesheim by railway. The place is mainly celebrated for the beautiful Schloss which crowns a hill overlooking the Rhine valley, and is surrounded by vineyards yielding the famous Johannisberger wine. The Schloss, built in 1757-1759 by the abbots of Fulda on the site of a Benedictine monastery founded in 1090, was bestowed, in 1807, by Napoleon upon Marshal Kellermann. In 1814 it was given by Francis, emperor of Austria, to Prince Metternich, in whose family it still remains.
JOHN (Heb. יוחנן), Yōḥānān, “Yahweh has been gracious,” Gr. Ἰωάννης, Lat. Joannes, Ital. Giovanni, Span. Juan, Port. João, Fr. Jean, Ger. Johannes, Johann [abbr. Hans], Gael. Ian, Pol. and Czech Jan, Hung. János), a masculine proper name common in all Christian countries, its popularity being due to its having been borne by the “Beloved Disciple” of Christ, St John the Evangelist, and by the forerunner of Christ, St John the Baptist. It has been the name of twenty-two popes—the style of Popes John XXII. and XXIII. being due to an error in the number assumed by John XXI. (q.v.)—and of many sovereigns, princes, &c. The order followed in the biographical notices below is as follows: (1) the Apostle, (2) the Baptist, (3) popes, (4) Roman emperors, (5) kings; John of England first, the rest in the alphabetical order of their countries, (6) other sovereign princes, (7) non-sovereign princes, (8) saints, (9) theologians, chroniclers, &c. These princes who are known by a name in addition to John (John Albert, &c.) will be found after the article John, Gospel of.
JOHN, the Apostle, in the Bible, was the son of Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman, and Salome. It is probable that he was born at Bethsaida, where along with his brother James he followed 433 his father’s occupation. The family appears to have been in easy circumstances; at least we find that Zebedee employed hired servants, and that Salome was among those women who contributed to the maintenance of Jesus (Mark i. 20, xv. 40, 41, xvi. 1). John’s “call” to follow our Lord occurred simultaneously with that addressed to his brother, and shortly after that addressed to the brothers Andrew and Simon Peter (Mark i. 19, 20). John speedily took his place among the twelve apostles, sharing with James the title of Boanerges (“sons of thunder,” perhaps strictly “sons of anger,” i.e. men readily angered), and became a member of that inner circle to which, in addition to his brother, Peter alone belonged (Mark v. 37, ix. 2, xiv. 33). John appears throughout the synoptic record as a zealous, fiery Jew-Christian. It is he who indignantly complains to Jesus, “We saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us,” and tells Him, “We forbade him” for that reason (Mark ix. 38); and who with his brother, when a Samaritan village will not receive Jesus, asks Him, “Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke ix. 54). The book of Acts confirms this tradition. After the departure of Jesus, John appears as present in Jerusalem with Peter and the other apostles (i. 13); is next to Peter the most prominent among those who bear testimony to the fact of the resurrection (iii. 12-26, iv. 13, 19-22); and is sent with Peter to Samaria, to confirm the newly converted Christians there (viii. 14, 25). St Paul tells us similarly that when, on his second visit to Jerusalem, “James,” the Lord’s brother, “and Cephas and John, who were considered pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision” (Gal. ii. 9). John thus belonged in 46-47 to the Jewish-Christian school; but we do not know whether to the stricter group of James or to the milder group of Peter (ibid. ii. 11-14).
The subsequent history of the apostle is obscure. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus (in Euseb., H. E. iii. 31; v. 24), attests in 196 that John “who lay on the bosom of the Lord rests at Ephesus”; but previously in this very sentence he has declared that “Philip one of the twelve apostles rests in Hierapolis,” although Eusebius (doubtless rightly) identifies this Philip not with the apostle but with the deacon-evangelist of Acts xxi. 8. Polycrates also declares that John was a priest wearing the πέταλον (gold plate) that distinguished the high-priestly mitre. Irenaeus in various passages of his works, 181-191, holds a similar tradition. He says that John lived up to the time of Trajan and published his gospel in Ephesus, and identifies the apostle with John the disciple of the Lord, who wrote the Apocalypse under Domitian, whom Irenaeus’s teacher Polycarp had known personally and of whom Polycarp had much to tell. These traditions are accepted and enlarged by later authors, Tertullian adding that John was banished to Patmos after he had miraculously survived the punishment of immersion in burning oil. As it is evident that legend was busy with John as early as the time of Polycrates, the real worth of these traditions requires to be tested by examination of their ultimate source. This inquiry has been pressed upon scholars since the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse or of the Fourth Gospel, or of both these works, has been disputed. (See John, Gospel of, and Revelation, Book of.) The question has not been strictly one between advanced and conservative criticism, for the Tübingen school recognized the Apocalypse as apostolic, and found in it a confirmation of John’s residence in Ephesus. On the other hand, Lützelberger (1840), Th. Keim (Jesus v. Naz., vol. i., 1867), J. H. Scholten (1872), H. J. Holtzmann (esp. in Einl. in d. N. T., 3rd ed., 1902), and other recent writers, wholly reject the tradition. It has had able defenders in Steitz (Stud. u. Krit., 1868), Hilgenfeld (Einl., 1875) and Lightfoot (Essays on Supernatural Religion, collected 1889). W. Sanday (Criticism of Fourth Gospel, 1905) makes passing admissions eloquent as to the strength of the negative position; whilst amongst Roman Catholic scholars, A. Loisy (Le 4me. Ev., 1903) stands with Holtzmann, and Th. Calmes (Ev. selon S. Jean, 1904, 1906) and L. Duchesne (Hist. anc. de l’Egl., 1906) exhibit, with papal approbation, the inconclusiveness of the conservative arguments.
The opponents of the tradition lay weight on the absence of positive evidence before the latter part of the 2nd century, especially in Papias and in the epistles of Ignatius and of Irenaeus’s authority, Polycarp. They find it necessary to assume that Irenaeus mistook Polycarp; but this is not a difficult task, since already Eusebius (c. 310-313) is compelled to point out that Papias testifies to two Johns, the Apostle and a presbyter, and that Irenaeus is mistaken in identifying those two Johns, and in holding that Papias had seen John the Apostle (H. E. iii. 39, 5, 2). Irenaeus tells us, doubtless correctly, that Papias was “the companion of Polycarp”: this fact alone would suffice, given his two mistakes concerning Papias, to make Irenaeus decide that Polycarp had seen John the Apostle. The chronicler George the Monk (Hamartolus) in the 9th century, and an epitome dating from the 7th or 8th century but probably based on the Chronicle of Philip of Side (c. 430), declare, on the authority of the second book of Papias, that John the Zebedean was killed by Jews (presumably in 60-70). Adolf Harnack, Chron. d. altchr. Litt. (1897), pp. 656-680), rejects the assertion; but the number of scholars who accept it as correct is distinctly on the increase.
JOHN THE BAPTIST, in the Bible, the “forerunner” of Jesus Christ in the Gospel story. By his preaching and teaching he evidently made a great impression upon his contemporaries (cf. Josephus, Ant. xviii., § 5). According to the birth-narrative embodied in Luke i. and ii., he was born in “a city of Judah” in “the hill country” (possibly Hebron1) of priestly parentage. His father Zacharias was a priest “of the course of Abijah,” and his mother Elizabeth, who was also of priestly descent, was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose senior John was by six months. This narrative of the Baptist’s birth seems to embody some very primitive features, Hebraic and Palestinian in character, and possibly at one time independent of the Christian tradition. In the apocryphal gospels John is sometimes made the subject of special miraculous experiences (e.g. in the Protevangelium Jacobi, ch. xxii., where Elizabeth fleeing from Herod’s assassins cried: “Mount of God, receive a mother with her child,” and suddenly the mountain was divided and received her).
In his 30th year (15th year of the emperor Tiberius, ? A.D. 25-26) John began his public life in the “wilderness of Judaea,” the wild district that lies between the Kedron and the Dead Sea, and particularly in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, where multitudes were attracted by his eloquence. The central theme of his preaching was, according to the Synoptic Gospels, the nearness of the coming of the Messianic kingdom, and the consequent urgency for preparation by repentance. John was evidently convinced that he himself had received the divine commission to bring to a close and complete the prophetic period, by inaugurating the Messianic age. He identified himself with the “voice” of Isa. xl. 3. Noteworthy features of his preaching were its original and prophetic character, and its high ethical tone, as shown e.g. in its anti-Pharisaic denunciation of trust in mere racial privilege (Matt. iii. 9). Herein also lay, probably, the true import of the baptism which he administered to those who accepted his message and confessed their sins. It was an act symbolizing moral purification (cf. Ezek. xxxvi. 25; Zech. xiii. 1) by way of preparation for the coming “kingdom of heaven,” and implied that the Jew so baptized no longer rested in his privileged position as a child of Abraham. John’s appearance, costume and habits of life, together with the tone of his preaching, all suggest the prophetic character. He was popularly regarded as a prophet, more especially as a second Elijah. His preaching awoke a great popular response, particularly among the masses of the people, “the people of the land.” He had disciples who fasted (Mark ii. 18, &c.), who visited him 434 regularly in prison (Matt. xi. 2, xiv. 12), and to whom he taught special forms of prayer (Luke v. 33, xi. 1). Some of these afterwards became followers of Christ (John i. 37). John’s activity indeed had far-reaching effects. It profoundly influenced the Messianic movement depicted in the Gospels. The preaching of Jesus shows traces of this, and the Fourth Gospel (as well as the Synoptists) displays a marked interest in connecting the Johannine movement with the beginnings of Christianity. The fact that after the lapse of a quarter of a century there were Christians in Ephesus who accepted John’s baptism (Acts xviii. 25, xix. 3) is highly significant. This influence also persisted in later times. Christ’s estimate of John (Matt. xi. 7 seq.) was a very high one. He also pointedly alludes to John’s work and the people’s relation to it, in many sayings and parables (sometimes in a tone of irony). The duration of John’s ministry cannot be determined with certainty: it terminated in his imprisonment in the fortress of Machaerus, to which he had been committed by Herod Antipas, whose incestuous marriage with Herodias, the Baptist had sternly rebuked. His execution cannot with safety be placed later than A.D. 28.
In the church calendar this event is commemorated on the 29th of August. According to tradition he was buried at Samaria (Theodoret, H. E. iii. 3).
1 There is no reason to suppose that Jutta is intended by the πόλις Ἰούδα of Luke i. 39: the tradition which makes ‘Ain Karim, near Jerusalem, the birthplace of the Baptist only dates from the crusading period.
JOHN I., pope from 523 to 526, was a Tuscan by birth, and was consecrated pope on the death of Hormisdas. In 525 he was sent by Theodoric at the head of an embassy to Constantinople to obtain from the emperor Justin toleration for the Arians; but he succeeded so imperfectly in his mission that Theodoric on his return, suspecting that he had acted only half-heartedly, threw him into prison, where he shortly afterwards died, Felix IV. succeeding him. He was enrolled among the martyrs, his day being May 27.
JOHN II., pope from 533 to 535, also named Mercurius, was elevated to the papal chair on the death of Boniface II. During his pontificate a decree against simony was engraven on marble and placed before the altar of St Peter’s. At the instance of the emperor Justinian he adopted the proposition unus de Trinitate passus est in carne as a test of the orthodoxy of certain Scythian monks accused of Nestorian tendencies. He was succeeded by Agapetus I.
JOHN III., pope from 561 to 574, successor to Pelagius, was descended from a noble Roman family. He is said to have been successful in preventing an invasion of Italy by the recall of the deposed exarch Narses, but the Lombards still continued their incursions, and, especially during the pontificate of his successor Benedict I., inflicted great miseries on the province.
JOHN IV., pope from 640 to 642, was a Dalmatian by birth, and succeeded Severinus after the papal chair had been vacant four months. While he adhered to the repudiation of the Monothelitic doctrine by Severinus, he endeavoured to explain away the connexion of Honorius I. with the heresy. His successor was Theodorus I.
JOHN V., pope from 685 to 686, was a Syrian by birth, and on account of his knowledge of Greek had in 680 been named papal legate to the sixth ecumenical council at Constantinople. He was the successor of Benedict II., and after a pontificate of little more than a year, passed chiefly in bed, was followed by Conon.
JOHN VI., pope from 701 to 705, was a native of Greece, and succeeded to the papal chair two months after the death of Sergius I. He assisted the exarch Theophylact, who had been sent into Italy by the emperor Justinian II., and prevented him from using violence against the Romans. Partly by persuasion and partly by means of a bribe, John succeeded in inducing Gisulf, duke of Benevento, to withdraw from the territories of the empire.
JOHN VII., pope from 705 to 707, successor of John VI., was also of Greek nationality. He seems to have acceded to the request of the emperor Justinian II. that he should give his sanction to the decrees of the Quinisext or Trullan council of 692. There are several monuments of John in the church of St Maria Antiqua at the foot of the Palatine hill; others were formerly in the chapel of the Virgin, built by him in the basilica of St Peter. He was succeeded by Sisinnius.
JOHN VIII., pope from 872 to 882, successor of Adrian II., was a Roman by birth. His chief aim during his pontificate was to defend the Roman state and the authority of the Holy See at Rome from the Saracens, and from the nascent feudalism which was represented outside by the dukes of Spoleto and the marquises of Tuscany and within by a party of Roman nobles. Events, however, were so fatally opposed to his designs that no sooner did one of his schemes begin to realize itself in fact than it was shattered by an unlooked-for chance. To obtain an influential alliance against his enemies, he agreed in 875, after death had deprived him of his natural protector, the emperor Louis II., to bestow the imperial crown on Charles the Bald; but that monarch was too much occupied in France to grant him much effectual aid, and about the time of the death of Charles he found it necessary to come to terms with the Saracens, who were only prevented from entering Rome by the promise of an annual tribute. Carloman, the opponent of Charles’s son Louis, soon after invaded northern Italy, and, securing the support of the bishops and counts, demanded from the pope the imperial crown. John attempted to temporize, but Lambert, duke of Spoleto, a partisan of Carloman, whom sickness had recalled to Germany, entered Rome in 878 with an overwhelming force, and for thirty days virtually held John a prisoner in St Peter’s. Lambert was, however, unsuccessful in winning any concession from the pope, who after his withdrawal carried out a previous purpose of going to France. There he presided at the council of Troyes, which promulgated a ban of excommunication against the supporters of Carloman—amongst others Adalbert of Tuscany, Lambert of Spoleto, and Formosus, bishop of Porto, who was afterwards elevated to the papal chair. In 879 John returned to Italy accompanied by Boso, duke of Provence, whom he adopted as his son, and made an unsuccessful attempt to get recognized as king of Italy. In the same year he was compelled to give a promise of his sanction to the claims of Charles the Fat, who received from him the imperial crown in 881. Before this, in order to secure the aid of the Greek emperor against the Saracens, he had agreed to sanction the restoration of Photius to the see of Constantinople, and had withdrawn his consent on finding that he reaped from the concession no substantial benefit. Charles the Fat, partly from unwillingness, partly from natural inability, gave him also no effectual aid, and the last years of John VIII. were spent chiefly in hurling vain anathemas against his various political enemies. According to the annalist of Fulda, he was murdered by members of his household. His successor was Marinus.
JOHN IX., pope from 898 to 900, not only confirmed the judgment of his predecessor Theodore II. in granting Christian burial to Formosus, but at a council held at Ravenna decreed that the records of the synod which had condemned him should be burned. Finding, however, that it was advisable to cement the ties between the empire and the papacy, John gave unhesitating support to Lambert in preference to Arnulf, and also induced the council to determine that henceforth the consecration of the popes should take place only in the presence of the imperial legates. The sudden death of Lambert shattered the hopes which this alliance seemed to promise. John was succeeded by Benedict IV.
JOHN X., pope from 914 to 928, was deacon at Bologna when he attracted the attention of Theodora, the wife of Theophylact, the most powerful noble in Rome, through whose influence he was elevated first to the see of Bologna and then to the archbishopric of Ravenna. In direct opposition to a decree of council, he was also at the instigation of Theodora promoted to the papal chair as the successor of Lando. Like John IX. he endeavoured to secure himself against his temporal enemies through a close alliance with Theophylact and Alberic, marquis of Camerino, then governor of the duchy of Spoleto. In December 915 he granted the imperial crown to Berengar, and with the assistance of the forces of all the princes of the Italian peninsula he took the field in person against the Saracens, over whom he gained a 435 great victory on the banks of the Garigliano. The defeat and death of Berengar through the combination of the Italian princes, again frustrated the hopes of a united Italy, and after witnessing several years of anarchy and confusion John perished through the intrigues of Marozia, daughter of Theodora. His successor was Leo VI.
JOHN XI., pope from 931 to 935, was the son of Marozia and the reputed son of Sergius III. Through the influence of his mother he was chosen to succeed Stephen VII. at the early age of twenty-one. He was the mere exponent of the purposes of his mother, until her son Alberic succeeded in 933 in overthrowing their authority. The pope was kept a virtual prisoner in the Lateran, where he is said to have died in 935, in which year Leo VII. was consecrated his successor.
JOHN XII., pope from 955 to 964, was the son of Alberic, whom he succeeded as patrician of Rome in 954, being then only sixteen years of age. His original name was Octavian, but when he assumed the papal tiara as successor to Agapetus II., he adopted the apostolic name of John, the first example, it is said, of the custom of altering the surname in connexion with elevation to the papal chair. As a temporal ruler John was devoid of the vigour and firmness of his father, and his union of the papal office—which through his scandalous private life he made a byword of reproach—with his civil dignities proved a source of weakness rather than of strength. In order to protect himself against the intrigues in Rome and the power of Berengar II. of Italy, he called to his aid Otto the Great of Germany, to whom he granted the imperial crown in 962. Even before Otto left Rome the pope had, however, repented of his recognition of a power which threatened altogether to overshadow his authority, and had begun to conspire against the new emperor. His intrigues were discovered by Otto, who, after he had defeated and taken prisoner Berengar, returned to Rome and summoned a council which deposed John, who was in hiding in the mountains of Campania, and elected Leo VIII. in his stead. An attempt at an insurrection was made by the inhabitants of Rome even before Otto left the city, and on his departure John returned at the head of a formidable company of friends and retainers, and caused Leo to seek safety in immediate flight. Otto determined to make an effort in support of Leo, but before he reached the city John had died, in what manner is uncertain, and Benedict V. had mounted the papal chair.
JOHN XIII., pope from 965 to 972, was descended from a noble Roman family, and at the time of his election as successor to Leo VIII. was bishop of Narni. He had been somewhat inconsistent in his relations with his predecessor Leo, but his election was confirmed by the emperor Otto, and his submissive attitude towards the imperial power was so distasteful to the Romans that they expelled him from the city. On account of the threatening procedure of Otto, they permitted him shortly afterwards to return, upon which, with the sanction of Otto, he took savage vengeance on those who had formerly opposed him. Shortly after holding a council along with the emperor at Ravenna in 967, he gave the imperial crown to Otto II. at Rome in assurance of his succession to his father; and in 972 he also crowned Theophano as empress immediately before her marriage. On his death in the same year he was followed by Benedict VI.
JOHN XIV., pope from 983 to 984, successor to Benedict VII., was born at Pavia, and before his elevation to the papal chair was imperial chancellor of Otto II. Otto died shortly after his election, when Boniface VII., on the strength of the popular feeling against the new pope, returned from Constantinople and placed John in prison, where he died either by starvation or poison.
JOHN XV., pope from 985 to 996, generally recognized as the successor of Boniface VII., the pope John who was said to have ruled for four months after John XIV., being now omitted by the best authorities. John XV. was the son of Leo, a Roman presbyter. At the time he mounted the papal chair Crescentius was patrician of Rome, but, although his influence was on this account very much hampered, the presence of the empress Theophano in Rome from 989 to 991 restrained also the ambition of Crescentius. On her departure the pope, whose venality and nepotism had made him very unpopular with the citizens, died of fever before the arrival of Otto III., who elevated his own kinsman Bruno to the papal dignity under the name of Gregory V.
JOHN XVI.,, pope or antipope from 997 to 998, was a Calabrian Greek by birth, and a favourite of the empress Theophano, from whom he had received the bishopric of Placentia. His original name was Philagathus. In 995 he was sent by Otto III. on an embassy to Constantinople to negotiate a marriage with a Greek princess. On his way back he either accidentally or at the special request of Crescentius visited Rome. A little before this Gregory V., at the end of 996, had been compelled to flee from the city; and the wily and ambitious Greek had now no scruple in accepting the papal tiara from the hands of Crescentius. The arrival of Otto at Rome in the spring of 998 put a sudden end to the treacherous compact. John sought safety in flight, but was discovered in his place of hiding and brought back to Rome, where after enduring cruel and ignominious tortures he was immured in a dungeon.
JOHN XVII., whose original name was Sicco, succeeded Silvester II. as pope in June 1003, but died less than five months afterwards.
JOHN XVIII., pope from 1003 to 1009, was, during his whole pontificate, the mere creature of the patrician John Crescentius, and ultimately he abdicated and retired to a monastery, where he died shortly afterwards. His successor was Sergius IV.
JOHN XIX., pope from 1024 to 1033, succeeded his brother Benedict VIII., both being members of the powerful house of Tusculum. He merely took orders to enable him to ascend the papal chair, having previously been a consul and senator. He displayed his freedom from ecclesiastical prejudices, if also his utter ignorance of ecclesiastical history, by agreeing, on the payment of a large bribe, to grant to the patriarch of Constantinople the title of an ecumenical bishop, but the general indignation which the proposal excited throughout the church compelled him almost immediately to withdraw from his agreement. On the death of the emperor Henry II. in 1024 he gave his support to Conrad II., who along with his consort was crowned with great pomp at St Peter’s in Easter of 1027. John died in 1033, in the full possession of his dignities. A successor was found for him in his nephew Benedict IX., a boy of only twelve years of age.
JOHN XXI. (Pedro Giuliano-Rebulo), pope from the 8th of September 1276 to the 20th of May 1277 (should be named John XX., but there is an error in the reckoning through the insertion of an antipope), a native of Portugal, educated for the church, became archdeacon and then archbishop of Braga, and so ingratiated himself with Gregory X. at the council of Lyons (1274) that he was taken to Rome as cardinal-bishop of Frascati, and succeeded Gregory after an interregnum of twenty days. As pope he excommunicated Alphonso III. of Portugal for interfering with episcopal elections and sent legates to the Great Khan. He was devoted to secular science, and his small affection for the monks awakened the distrust of a large portion of the clergy. His life was brought to a premature close through the fall of the roof in the palace he had built at Viterbo. His successor was Nicholas III.
John XXI. has been identified since the 14th century, most probably correctly, with Petrus Hispanus, a celebrated Portuguese physician and philosopher, author of several medical works—notably the curious Liber de oculo, trans. into German and well edited by A. M. Berger (Munich, 1899), and of a popular textbook in logic, the Summulae logicales. John XXI. is constantly referred to as a magician by ignorant chroniclers.
See Les Registres de Grégoire X. et Jean XXI., published by J. Guiraud and E. Cadier in Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Paris, 1898); A. Potthast, Regesta pontif. Roman., vol. 2 (Berlin, 1875); F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. v., trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-1902); R. Stapper, Papst Johann XXI. (Münster, 1898); J. T. Köhler, Vollständige Nachricht von Papst Johann XXI. (Göttingen, 1760).
JOHN XXII., pope from 1316 to 1334, was born at Cahors, France, in 1249. His original name was Jacques Duèse, and he came either of a family of petty nobility or else of well-to-do middle-class parents, and was not, as has been popularly supposed, the son of a shoemaker. He began his education with the Dominicans at Cahors, subsequently studied law at Montpellier, and law and medicine in Paris, and finally taught at Cahors and Toulouse. At Toulouse he became intimate with the bishop Louis, son of Charles II., king of Naples. In 1300 he was elevated to the episcopal see of Fréjus by Pope Boniface VIII. at the instance of the king of Naples, and in 1308 was made chancellor of Naples by Charles, retaining this office under Charles’s successor, Robert of Anjou. In 1310 Pope Clement V. summoned Jacques to Avignon and instructed him to advise upon the affair of the Templars and also upon the question of condemning the memory of Boniface VIII. Jacques decided on the legality of suppressing the order of the Templars, holding that the pope would be serving the best interests of the church by pronouncing its suppression; but he rejected the condemnation of Boniface as a sacrilegious affront to the church and a monstrous abuse of the lay power. On the 23rd of December 1312 Clement appointed him cardinal-bishop of Porto, and it was while cardinal of Porto that he was elected pope, on the 7th of August 1316. Clement had died in April 1314, but the cardinals assembled at Carpentras were unable to agree as to his successor. As the two-thirds majority requisite for an election could not be obtained, the cardinals separated, and it was not until the 28th of June 1316 that they reassembled in the cloister of the Dominicans at Lyons, and then only in deference to the pressure exerted upon them by Philip V. of France. After deliberating for more than a month they elected Robert of Anjou’s candidate, Jacques Duèse, who was crowned on the 5th of September, and on the 2nd of October arrived at Avignon, where he remained for the rest of his life.
More jurist than theologian, John defended the rights of the papacy with rigorous zeal and as rigorous logic. For the restoration of the papacy to its old independence, which had been so gravely compromised under his immediate predecessors, and for the execution of the vast enterprises which the papacy deemed useful for its prestige and for Christendom, considerable sums were required; and to raise the necessary money John burdened Christian Europe with new taxes and a complicated fiscal system, which was fraught with serious consequences. For his personal use, however, he retained but a very small fraction of the sums thus acquired, and at his death his private fortune amounted to scarce a million florins. The essentially practical character of his administration has led many historians to tax him with avarice, but later research on the fiscal system of the papacy of the period, particularly the joint work of Samaran and Mollat, enables us very sensibly to modify the severe judgment passed on John by Gregorovius and others.
John’s pontificate was continually disturbed by his conflict with Louis of Bavaria and by the theological revolt of the Spiritual Franciscans. In October 1314 Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria had each been elected German king by the divided electors. Louis was gradually recognized by the whole of Germany, especially after his victory at Mühldorf (1322), and gained numerous adherents in Italy, where he supported the Visconti, who had been condemned as heretics by the pope. John affected to ignore the successes of Louis, and on the 8th of October 1323 forbade his recognition as king of the Romans. After demanding a respite, Louis abruptly appealed at Nuremberg from the future sentence of the pope to a general council (December 8, 1323). The conflict then assumed a grave doctrinal character. The doctrine of the rights of the lay monarchy sustained by Occam and John of Paris, by Marsilius of Padua, John of Jandun and Leopold of Bamberg, was affirmed by the jurists and theologians, penetrated into the parlements and the universities, and was combated by the upholders of papal absolutism, such as Alvaro Pelayo and Alonzo Trionfo. Excommunicated on the 21st of March 1324, Louis retorted by appealing for a second time to a general council, which was held on the 22nd of May 1324, and accused John of being an enemy to the peace and the law, stigmatizing him as a heretic on the ground that he opposed the principle of evangelical poverty as professed by the strict Franciscans. From this moment Louis appeared in the character of the natural ally and even the protector of the Spirituals against the persecution of the pope. On the 11th of July 1324 the pope laid under an interdict the places where Louis or his adherents resided, but this bull had no effect in Germany. Equally futile was John’s declaration (April 3, 1327) that Louis had forfeited his crown and abetted heresy by granting protection to Marsilius of Padua. Having reconciled himself with Frederick of Austria, Louis penetrated into Italy and seized Rome on the 7th of January 1328, with the help of the Roman Ghibellines led by Sciarra Colonna. After installing himself in the Vatican, Louis got himself crowned by the deputies of the Roman people; instituted proceedings for the deposition of John, whom the Roman people, displeased by the spectacle of the papacy abandoning Rome, declared to have forfeited the pontificate (April 18, 1328); and finally caused a Minorite friar, Pietro Rainalucci da Corvara, to be elected pope under the name of Nicholas V. John preached a platonic crusade against Louis, who burned the pope’s effigy at Pisa and in Amelia. Soon, however, Louis felt his power waning, and quitted Rome and Italy (1329). Incapable of independent action, the antipope was abandoned by the Romans and handed over to John, who forced him to make a solemn submission with a halter round his neck (August 15, 1330). Nicholas was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and died in obscurity at Avignon; while the Roman people submitted to King Robert, who governed the church through his vicars. In 1317, in execution of a bull of Clement V., the royal vicariate in Italy had been conferred by John on Robert of Anjou, and this appointment was renewed in 1322 and 1324, with threats of excommunication against any one who should seize the vicariate of Italy without the authorization of the pope. One of John’s last acts was his decision to separate Italy from the Empire, but this bull was of no avail and fell into oblivion. After his death, however, the interdict was not removed from Germany, and the resistance of Louis and his theologians continued.
A violent manifestation of this resistance took place in connexion with the accusation of heresy brought against the pope. On the third Sunday in Advent 1329, and afterwards in public consistory, John had preached that the souls of those who have died in a state of grace go into Abraham’s bosom, sub altari Dei, and do not enjoy the beatific vision (visio facie ad faciem) of the Lord until after the Last Judgment and the Resurrection; and he had even instructed a Minorite friar, Gauthier of Dijon, to collect the passages in the Fathers which were in favour of this doctrine. On the 27th of December 1331 a Dominican, Thomas of England, preached against this doctrine at Avignon itself and was thrown into prison. When news of this affair had reached Paris, the pope sent the general of the Minorites, Gerard Odonis, accompanied by a Dominican, to sustain his doctrine in that city, but King Philip VI., perhaps at the instigation of the refugee Spirituals in Paris, referred the question to the faculty of theology, which, on the 2nd of January 1333, declared that the souls of the blessed were elevated to the beatific vision immediately after death; the faculty, nevertheless, were of opinion that the pope should have propounded his erroneous doctrine only “recitando,” and not “determinando, asserendo, seu etiam opinando.” The king notified this decision to the pope, who assembled his consistory in November 1333, and gave a haughty reply. The theologians in Louis’s following who were opposed to papal absolutism already spoke of “the new heretic, Jacques de Cahors,” and reiterated with increasing insistency their demands for the convocation of a general council to try the pope. John appears to have retracted shortly before his death, which occurred on the 4th of December 1334.1
John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of absolute religious poverty, the exalted Franciscans. Clement V., at the council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull Quorundam exigit (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull Quorundam by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard Délicieux. Shortly afterwards four Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. In the bull Sancta Romana et universa ecclesia (December 28, 1318) John definitively excommunicated them and condemned their principal book, the Postil (commentary) on the Apocalypse (February 8, 1326). The bull Quia nonnunquam (March 26, 1322) defined the derogations from the rule punished by the pope, and the bull Cum inter nonnullos (November 12, 1323) condemned the proposition which had been admitted at the general chapter of the Franciscans held at Perugia in 1322, according to which Christ and the Apostles were represented as possessing no property, either personal or common. The minister general, Michael of Cesena, though opposed to the exaggerations of the Spirituals, joined with them in protesting against the condemnation of the fundamental principle of evangelical poverty, and the agitation gradually gained ground. The pope, by the bull Quia quorundam (November 10, 1324), cited Michael to appear at Avignon at the same time as Occam and Bonagratia. All three fled to the court of Louis of Bavaria (May 26, 1328), while the majority of the Franciscans made submission and elected a general entirely devoted to the pope. But the resistance, aided by Louis and merged as it now was in the cause sustained by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, became daily bolder. Treatises on poverty appeared on every side; the party of Occam clamoured with increasing imperiousness for the condemnation of John by a general council; and the Spirituals, confounded in the persecution with the Beghards and with Fraticelli of every description, maintained themselves in the south of France in spite of the reign of terror instituted in that region by the Inquisition.
See M. Souchon, Die Papstwahlen von Bonifaz VIII. bis Urban VI. (Brunswick, 1888); Abbé Albe, Autour de Jean XXII. (Rome, 1904); K. Müller, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Bayern mit der Curie (Tübingen, 1879 seq.); W. Preger, “Mémoires sur la lutte entre Jean XXII. et Louis de Bavière” in Abhandl. der bayr. Akad., hist. sec., xv., xvi., xvii.; S. Riezler, Die litterar. Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwigs des Baiers (Leipzig, 1874); F. Ehrle, “Die Spiritualen” in Archiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters (vols. i. and ii.); C. Samaran and G. Mollat, La Fiscalité pontificale en France au xive siècle (Paris, 1905); A. Coulon and G. Mollat, Lettres secrètes et curiales de Jean XXII. se rapportant à la France (Paris, 1899, seq.).
1 On the 29th of January 1336 Pope Benedict XII. pronounced a long judgment on this point of doctrine, a judgment which he declared had been included by John in a bull which death had prevented him from sealing.
JOHN XXIII. (Baldassare Cossa), pope, or rather antipope from 1410 to 1415, was born of a good Neapolitan family, and began by leading the life of a corsair before entering the service of the Church under the pontificate of Boniface IX. His abilities, which were mainly of an administrative and military order, were soon rewarded by the cardinal’s hat and the legation of Bologna. On the 29th of June 1408 he and seven of his colleagues broke away from Gregory XII., and together with six cardinals of the obedience of Avignon, who had in like manner separated from Benedict XIII., they agreed to aim at the assembling of a general council, setting aside the two rival pontiffs, an expedient which they considered would put an end to the great schism of the Western Church, but which resulted in the election of yet a third pope. This act was none the less decisive for Baldassare Cossa’s future. Alexander V., the first pope elected at Pisa, was not perhaps, as has been maintained, merely a man of straw put forward by the ambitious cardinal of Bologna; but he reigned only ten months, and on his death, which happened rather suddenly on the 4th of May 1410, Baldassare Cossa succeeded him. Whether the latter had bought his electors by money and promises, or owed his success to his dominant position in Bologna, and to the support of Florence and of Louis II. of Anjou, he seems to have received the unanimous vote of all the seventeen cardinals gathered together at Bologna (May 17). He took the name of John XXIII., and France, England, and part of Italy and Germany recognized him as head of the Catholic church.
The struggle in which he and Louis II. of Anjou engaged with Ladislaus of Durazzo, king of Sicily, and Gregory XII.’s chief protector in Italy, at first went in John’s favour. After the brilliant victory of Roccasecca (May 19, 1411) he had the satisfaction of dragging the standards of Pope Gregory and King Ladislaus through the streets of Rome. But the dispersion of Louis of Anjou’s troops and his carelessness, together with the lack of success which attended the preaching of a crusade in Germany, France and England, finally decided John XXIII. to abandon the French claimant to the throne of Sicily; he recognized Ladislaus, his former enemy, as king of Naples, and Ladislaus did not fail to salute John XXIII. as pope, abandoning Gregory XII. (June 15, 1412). This was a fatal step: John XXIII. was trusting in a dishonest and insatiable prince; he would have acted more wisely in remaining the ally of the weak but loyal Louis of Anjou. However, it seemed desirable that the reforms announced by the council of Pisa, which the popes set up by this synod seemed in no hurry to carry into effect, should be further discussed in the new council which it had been agreed should be summoned about the spring of 1412. But John was anxious that this council should be held in Rome, a city where he alone was master; the few prelates and ambassadors who very slowly gathered there held only a small number of sessions, in which John again condemned the writings of Wycliffe. John was attacked by the representatives of the various nations and reprimanded even for his private conduct, but endeavoured to extricate himself from this uncomfortable position by gratifying their desires, if not by reforming abuses. It is, however, only fair to add that he took various half-measures and gave many promises which, if they had been put into execution, would have confirmed or completed the reforms inaugurated at Pisa. But on the 3rd of March 1413 John adjourned the council of Rome till December, without even fixing the place where the next session should be held. It was held at Constance in Germany, and John could only have resigned himself to accepting such an uncertain meeting-place because he was forced by distress, isolation and fear to turn towards the head of the empire. Less than a year after the treaty concluded with Ladislaus of Durazzo, the latter forced his way into Rome (June 8, 1413), which he sacked, expelling John, to whom even the Florentines did not dare to throw open their gates for fear of the king of Sicily. Sigismund, king of the Romans, not only extorted, it is said, a sum of 50,000 florins from the pontiff in his extremity, but insisted upon his summoning the council at Constance (December 9). It was in vain that, on the death of Ladislaus, which took place unexpectedly (August 6, 1414), John was inspired with the idea of breaking his compact with Sigismund and returning to Rome, at the same time appealing to Louis of Anjou. It was too late. The cardinals forced him towards Germany by the most direct road, without allowing him to go by way of Avignon as he had projected, in order to make plans with the princes of France.
On the 5th of November 1414 John opened the council of Constance, where, on Christmas Day, he received the homage of the head of the empire, but where his lack of prestige, the defection of his allies, the fury of his adversaries, and the general sense of the necessity for union soon showed only too clearly how small was the chance of his retaining the tiara. He had to take a solemn oath to abdicate if his two rivals would do the same, and this concession, which was not very sincere, gained him for the last time the honour of seeing Sigismund prostrate at his feet (March 2, 1415). But on the night of the 20th-21st of March, having donned the garments of a layman, with a cross-bow slung at his side, he succeeded in making his escape 438 from Constance, accompanied only by a single servant, and took refuge first in the castle of Schaffhausen, then in that of Laufenburg, then at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and finally at Brisach, whence he hoped to reach Alsace, and doubtless ultimately Avignon, under the protection of an escort sent by the duke of Burgundy. The news of the pope’s escape was received at Constance with an extraordinary outburst of rage, and led to the subversive decrees of the 4th and 5th sessions, which proclaimed the superiority of the council over the pope. Duke Frederick of Austria had hitherto sheltered John’s flight; but, laid under the ban of the empire, attacked by powerful armies, and feeling that he was courting ruin, he preferred to give up the pontiff who had trusted to him. John was brought back to Freiburg (April 27), and there in vain attempted to appease the wrath which he had aroused by more or less vague promises of resignation. His trial, however, was already beginning. The three cardinals whom he charged with his defence hastily declined this compromising task. Seventy-four charges were drawn up, only twenty of which were set aside after the witnesses had been heard. The accusation of having poisoned Alexander V. and his doctor at Bologna was not maintained. But enough deeds of immorality, tyranny, ambition and simony were found proved to justify the severest judgment. He was suspended from his functions as pope on the 14th of May 1415, and deposed on the following 29th of May.
However irregular this sentence may have been from the canonical point of view (for the accusers do not seem to have actually proved the crime of heresy, which was necessary, according to most scholars of the period, to justify the deposition of a sovereign pontiff), the condemned pope was not long in confirming it. Baldassare Cossa, now as humble and resigned as he had before been energetic and tenacious, on his transference to the castle of Rudolfzell admitted the wrong which he had done by his flight, refused to bring forward anything in his defence, acquiesced entirely in the judgment of the council which he declared to be infallible, and finally, as an extreme precaution, ratified motu proprio the sentence of deposition, declaring that he freely and willingly renounced any rights which he might still have in the papacy. This fact has subsequently been often quoted against those who have appealed to the events of 1415 to maintain that a council can depose a pope who is scandalizator ecclesiae.
Cossa kept his word never to appeal against the sentence which stripped him of the pontificate. He was held prisoner for three years in Germany, but in the end bought his liberty from the count palatine. He used this liberty only to go to Florence, in 1419, and throw himself on the mercy of the legitimate pope. Martin V. appointed him cardinal-bishop of Tusculum, a dignity which Cossa only enjoyed for a few months. He died on the 22nd of December 1419, and all visitors to the Baptistery at Florence may admire, under its high baldacchino, the sombre figure sculptured by Donatello of the dethroned pontiff, who had at least the merit of bowing his head under his chastisement, and of contributing by his passive resignation to the extinction of the series of popes which sprang from the council of Pisa.
JOHN I. (925-976), surnamed Tzimisces, East Roman emperor, was born of a distinguished Cappadocian family. After helping his uncle Nicephorus Phocas (q.v.) to obtain the throne and to restore the empire’s eastern provinces he was deprived of his command by an intrigue, upon which he retaliated by conspiring with Nicephorus’ wife Theophania to assassinate him. Elected ruler in his stead, John proceeded to justify his usurpation by the energy with which he repelled the foreign invaders of the empire. In a series of campaigns against the newly established Russian power (970-973) he drove the enemy out of Thrace, crossed Mt Haemus and besieged the fortress of Dorystolon on the Danube. In several hard-fought battles he broke the strength of the Russians so completely that they left him master of eastern Bulgaria. He further secured his northern frontier by transplanting to Thrace some colonies of Paulicians whom he suspected of sympathising with their Saracen neighbours in the east. In 974 he turned against the Abassid empire and easily recovered the inland parts of Syria and the middle reaches of the Euphrates. He died suddenly in 976 on his return from his second campaign against the Saracens. John’s surname was apparently derived from the Armenian tshemshkik (red boot).
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vi. (ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, History of Greece, ii. 334-360 (ed. 1877); G. Schlumberger, L’Épopée Byzantine, i. 1-326 (1896).
JOHN II. (1088-1143), surnamed Comnenus and also Kalojoannes (John the Good), East Roman emperor, was the eldest son of the East Roman emperor Alexius, whom he succeeded in 1118. On account of his mild and just reign he has been called the Byzantine Marcus Aurelius. By the personal purity of his character he effected a notable improvement in the manners of his age, but he displayed little vigour in internal administration or in extirpating the long-standing corruptions of the government. Nor did his various successes against the Hungarians, Servians and Seljuk Turks, whom he pressed hard in Asia Minor and proposed to expel from Jerusalem, add much to the stability of his empire. He was accidentally killed during a wild-boar hunt on Mt Taurus, on the 8th of April 1143.
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 228 seq. (ed. Bury, 1896).
JOHN III. (1193-1254), surnamed Vatatzes and also Ducas, East Roman emperor, earned for himself such distinction as a soldier that in 1222 he was chosen to succeed his father-in-law Theodore I. Lascaris. He reorganized the remnant of the East Roman empire, and by his administrative skill made it the strongest and richest principality in the Levant. Having secured his eastern frontier by an agreement with the Turks, he set himself to recover the European possessions of his predecessors. While his fleet harassed the Latins in the Aegean Sea and extended his realm to Rhodes, his army, reinforced by Frankish mercenaries, defeated the Latin emperor’s forces in the open field. Though unsuccessful in a siege of Constantinople, which he undertook in concert with the Bulgarians (1235), he obtained supremacy over the despotats of Thessalonica and Epirus. The ultimate recovery of Constantinople by the Rhomaic emperors is chiefly due to his exertions.
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 431-462 (ed. Bury, 1896); G. Finlay, History of Greece, iii. 196-320 (ed. 1877); A. Meliarakes, Ἱστορία τοῦ Βασιλείου τῆς Νικαίας καὶ τοῦ Δεσποτάτου τῆς Ἠπείρου, pp. 155-421 (1898).
JOHN IV. (c. 1250-c. 1300), surnamed Lascaris, East Roman emperor, son of Theodore II. His father dying in 1258, Michael Palaeologus conspired shortly after to make himself regent, and in 1261 dethroned and blinded the boy monarch, and imprisoned him in a remote castle, where he died a long time after.
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 459-466 (ed. Bury, 1896); A. Meliarakes, Ἱστορία τοῦ Βασιλείου τῆς Νικαίας (Athens, 1898), pp. 491-528.
JOHN V. or VI. (1332-1391), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor, was the son of Andronicus III., whom he succeeded in 1341. At first he shared his sovereignty with his father’s friend John Cantacuzene, and after a quarrel with the latter was practically superseded by him for a number of years (1347-1355). His reign was marked by the gradual dissolution of the imperial power through the rebellion of his son Andronicus and by the encroachments of the Ottomans, to whom in 1381 John acknowledged himself tributary, after a vain attempt to secure the help of the popes by submitting to the supremacy of the Roman Church.
See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 495 seq., vii. 38 seq. (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 70-96 (1903).
JOHN VI. or V. (c. 1292-1383), surnamed Cantacuzene, East Roman emperor, was born at Constantinople. Connected with the house of Palaeologus on his mother’s side, on the accession of Andronicus III. (1328) he was entrusted with the supreme administration of affairs. On the death of the emperor in 1341, Cantacuzene was left regent, and guardian of his son John Palaeologus, who was but nine years of age. Being suspected 439 by the empress and opposed by a powerful party at court, he rebelled, and got himself crowned emperor at Didymoteichos in Thrace, while John Palaeologus and his supporters maintained themselves at Constantinople. The civil war which ensued lasted six years, during which the rival parties called in the aid of the Servians and Turks, and engaged mercenaries of every description. It was only by the aid of the Turks, with whom he made a disgraceful bargain, that Cantacuzene brought the war to a termination favourable to himself. In 1347 he entered Constantinople in triumph, and forced his opponents to an arrangement by which he became joint emperor with John Palaeologus and sole administrator during the minority of his colleague. During this period, the empire, already broken up and reduced to the narrowest limits, was assailed on every side. There were wars with the Genoese, who had a colony at Galata and had money transactions with the court; and with the Servians, who were at that time establishing an extensive empire on the north-western frontiers; and there was a hazardous alliance with the Turks, who made their first permanent settlement in Europe, at Callipolis in Thrace, towards the end of the reign (1354). Cantacuzene was far too ready to invoke the aid of foreigners in his European quarrels; and as he had no money to pay them, this gave them a ready pretext for seizing upon a European town. The financial burdens imposed by him had long been displeasing to his subjects, and a strong party had always favoured John Palaeologus. Hence, when the latter entered Constantinople at the end of 1354, his success was easy. Cantacuzene retired to a monastery (where he assumed the name of Joasaph Christodulus) and occupied himself in literary labours. He died in the Peloponnese and was buried by his sons at Mysithra in Laconia. His History in four books deals with the years 1320-1356. Really an apologia for his own actions, it needs to be read with caution; fortunately it can be supplemented and corrected by the work of a contemporary, Nicephorus Gregoras. It possesses the merit of being well arranged and homogeneous, the incidents being grouped round the chief actor in the person of the author, but the information is defective on matters with which he is not directly concerned.
Cantacuzene was also the author of a commentary on the first five books of Aristotle’s Ethics, and of several controversial theological treatises, one of which (Against Mohammedanism) is printed in Migne (Patrologia Graeca, cliv.). History, ed. pr. by J. Pontanus (1603); in Bonn, Corpus scriptorum hist. Byz., by J. Schopen (1828-1832) and Migne, cliii., cliv. See also Val Parisot, Cantacuzène, homme d’état et historien (1845); E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxiii.; and C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
JOHN VI. or VII. (1390-1448), surnamed Palaeologus, East Roman emperor, son of Manuel II., succeeded to the throne in 1425. To secure protection against the Turks he visited the pope and consented to the union of the Greek and Roman churches, which was ratified at Florence in 1439. The union failed of its purpose, but by his prudent conduct towards the Ottomans he succeeded in holding possession of Constantinople, and in 1432 withstood a siege by Sultan Murad I.
See Turkey: History; and also E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vi. 97-107 (ed. Bury, 1896); E. Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, pp. 115-130 (1903).
JOHN (1167-1216), king of England, the youngest son of Henry II. by Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born at Oxford on the 24th of December 1167. He was given at an early age the nickname of Lackland because, unlike his elder brothers, he received no apanage in the continental provinces. But his future was a subject of anxious thought to Henry II. When only five years old John was betrothed (1173) to the heiress of Maurienne and Savoy, a principality which, as dominating the chief routes from France and Burgundy to Italy, enjoyed a consequence out of all proportion to its area. Later, when this plan had fallen through, he was endowed with castles, revenues and lands on both sides of the channel; the vacant earldom of Cornwall was reserved for him (1175); he was betrothed to Isabella the heiress of the earldom of Gloucester (1176); and he was granted the lordship of Ireland with the homage of the Anglo-Irish baronage (1177). Henry II. even provoked a civil war by attempting to transfer the duchy of Aquitaine from the hands of Richard Cœur de Lion to those of John (1183). In spite of the incapacity which he displayed in this war, John was sent a little later to govern Ireland (1185); but he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the settlers from the hostile septs. Remaining henceforth at his father’s side he was treated with the utmost indulgence. But he joined with his brother Richard and the French king Philip Augustus in the great conspiracy of 1189, and the discovery of his treason broke the heart of the old king (see Henry II.).
Richard on his accession confirmed John’s existing possessions; married him to Isabella of Gloucester; and gave him, besides other grants, the entire revenues of six English shires; but excluded him from any share in the regency which was appointed to govern England during the third crusade; and only allowed him to live in the kingdom because urged to this concession by their mother. Soon after the king’s departure for the Holy Land it became known that he had designated his nephew, the young Arthur of Brittany, as his successor. John at once began to intrigue against the regents with the aim of securing England for himself. He picked a quarrel with the unpopular chancellor William Longchamp (q.v.), and succeeded, by the help of the barons and the Londoners, in expelling this minister, whose chief fault was that of fidelity to the absent Richard. Not being permitted to succeed Longchamp as the head of the administration, John next turned to Philip Augustus for help. A bargain was struck; and when Richard was captured by Leopold, duke of Austria (December 1192), the allies endeavoured to prevent his release, and planned a partition of his dominions. They were, however, unable to win either English or Norman support and their schemes collapsed with Richard’s return (March 1194). He magnanimously pardoned his brother, and they lived on not unfriendly terms for the next five years. On his deathbed Richard, reversing his former arrangements, caused his barons to swear fealty to John (1199), although the hereditary claim of Arthur was by the law of primogeniture undoubtedly superior.
England and Normandy, after some hesitation, recognized John’s title; the attempt of Anjou and Brittany to assert the rights of Arthur ended disastrously by the capture of the young prince at Mirebeau in Poitou (1202). But there was no part of his dominions in which John inspired personal devotion. Originally accepted as a political necessity, he soon came to be detested by the people as a tyrant and despised by the nobles for his cowardice and sloth. He inherited great difficulties—the feud with France, the dissensions of the continental provinces, the growing indifference of England to foreign conquests, the discontent of all his subjects with a strict executive and severe taxation. But he cannot be acquitted of personal responsibility for his misfortunes. Astute in small matters, he had no breadth of view or foresight; his policy was continually warped by his passions or caprices; he flaunted vices of the most sordid kind with a cynical indifference to public opinion, and shocked an age which was far from tender-hearted by his ferocity to vanquished enemies. He treated his most respectable supporters with base ingratitude, reserved his favour for unscrupulous adventurers, and gave a free rein to the licence of his mercenaries. While possessing considerable gifts of mind and a latent fund of energy, he seldom acted or reflected until the favourable moment had passed. Each of his great humiliations followed as the natural result of crimes or blunders. By his divorce from Isabella of Gloucester he offended the English baronage (1200); by his marriage with Isabella of Angoulême, the betrothed of Hugh of Lusignan, he gave an opportunity to the discontented Poitevins for invoking French assistance and to Philip Augustus for pronouncing against him a sentence of forfeiture. The murder of Arthur (1203) ruined his cause in Normandy and Anjou; the story that the court of the peers of France condemned him for the murder is a fable, but no legal process was needed to convince men of his guilt. In the later quarrel with Innocent III. (1207-1213; see Langton, 440 Stephen) he prejudiced his case by proposing a worthless favourite for the primacy and by plundering those of the clergy who bowed to the pope’s sentences. Threatened with the desertion of his barons he drove all whom he suspected to desperation by his terrible severity towards the Braose family (1210); and by his continued misgovernment irrevocably estranged the lower classes. When submission to Rome had somewhat improved his position he squandered his last resources in a new and unsuccessful war with France (1214), and enraged the feudal classes by new claims for military service and scutages. The barons were consequently able to exact, in Magna Carta (June 1215), much more than the redress of legitimate grievances; and the people allowed the crown to be placed under the control of an oligarchical committee. When once the sovereign power had been thus divided, the natural consequence was civil war and the intervention of the French king, who had long watched for some such opportunity. John’s struggle against the barons and Prince Louis (1216), afterwards King Louis VIII., was the most creditable episode of his career. But the calamitous situation of England at the moment of his death, on the 19th of October 1216, was in the main his work; and while he lived a national reaction in favour of the dynasty was out of the question.
John’s second wife, Isabella of Angoulême (d. 1246), who married her former lover, Hugh of Lusignan, after the English king’s death, bore the king two sons, Henry III. and Richard, earl of Cornwall; and three daughters, Joan (1210-1238), wife of Alexander II., king of Scotland, Isabella (d. 1241), wife of the emperor Frederick II., and Eleanor (d. 1274), wife of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, and then of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. John had also two illegitimate sons, Richard and Oliver, and a daughter, Joan or Joanna, who married Llewelyn I. ab Iorwerth, prince of North Wales, and who died in 1236 or 1237.
Authorities.—The chief chronicles for the reign are Gervase of Canterbury’s Gesta regum, Ralf of Coggeshall’s Chronicon, Walter of Coventry’s Memoriale, Roger of Wendover’s Flores historiarum, the Annals of Burton, Dunstaple and Margan—all these in the Rolls Series. The French chronicle of the so-called “Anonyme de Béthune” (Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, vol. xxiv.), the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d’Angleterre (ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1840) and the metrical biography of William the Marshal (Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, ed. Paul Meyer, 3 vols., Paris, 1891, &c.) throw valuable light on certain episodes. H. S. Sweetman’s Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, vol. i. (Rolls Series); W. H. Bliss’s Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, vol. i. (Rolls Series); Potthast’s Regesta pontificum, vol. i. (Berlin, 1874); Sir T. D. Hardy’s Rotuli litterarum clausarum (Rec. Commission, 1835) and Rotuli litterarum patentium (Rec. Commission, 1835) and L. Delisle’s Catalogue des actes de Philippe Auguste (Paris, 1856) are the most important guides to the documents. Of modern works W. Stubbs’s Constitutional history, vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); the same writer’s preface to Walter of Coventry, vol. ii. (Rolls Series); Miss K. Norgate’s John Lackland (London, 1902); C. Petit-Dutaillis’ Étude sur la vie et le règne de Louis VIII. (Paris, 1894) and W. S. McKechnie’s Magna Carta (Glasgow, 1905) are among the most useful.
JOHN I. (1350-1395), king of Aragon, was the son of Peter IV. and his third wife Eleanor of Sicily. He was born on the 27th of December 1350, and died by a fall from his horse, like his namesake, cousin and contemporary of Castile. He was a man of insignificant character, with a taste for artificial verse.
JOHN II. (1397-1479), king of Aragon, son of Ferdinand I. and of his wife Eleanor of Albuquerque, born on the 29th of June 1397, was one of the most stirring and most unscrupulous kings of the 15th century. In his youth he was one of the infantes (princes) of Aragon who took part in the dissensions of Castile during the minority and reign of John II. Till middle life he was also lieutenant-general in Aragon for his brother and predecessor Alphonso V., whose reign was mainly spent in Italy. In his old age he was engaged in incessant conflicts with his Aragonese and Catalan subjects, with Louis XI. of France, and in preparing the way for the marriage of his son Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile, which brought about the union of the crowns. His troubles with his subjects were closely connected with the tragic dissensions in his own family. John was first married to Blanche of Navarre, of the house of Evreux. By right of Blanche he became king of Navarre, and on her death in 1441 he was left in possession of the kingdom for his life. But a son Charles, called, as heir of Navarre, prince of Viana, had been born of the marriage. John from the first regarded his son with jealousy, which after his second marriage with Joan Henriquez, and under her influence, grew into absolute hatred. He endeavoured to deprive his son of his constitutional right to act as lieutenant-general of Aragon during his father’s absence. The cause of the son was taken up by the Aragonese, and the king’s attempt to join his second wife in the lieutenant-generalship was set aside. There followed a long conflict, with alternations of success and defeat, which was not terminated till the death of the prince of Viana, perhaps by poison given him by his stepmother, in 1461. The Catalans, who had adopted the cause of Charles and who had grievances of their own, called in a succession of foreign pretenders. In conflict with these the last years of King John were spent. He was forced to pawn Rousillon, his possession on the north-east of the Pyrenees, to Louis XI., who refused to part with it. In his old age he was blinded by cataract, but recovered his eyesight by the operation of couching. The Catalan revolt was pacified in 1472, but John had war, in which he was generally unfortunate, with his neighbour the French king till his death on the 20th of January 1479. He was succeeded by Ferdinand, his son by his second marriage, who was already associated with his wife Isabella as joint sovereign of Castile.
For the history, see Rivadeneyra, “Cronicás de los reyes de Castilla,” Biblioteca de antares españoles, vols. lxvi, lxviii (Madrid, 1845, &c.); G. Zurita, Anales de Aragon (Saragossa, 1610). The reign of John II. of Aragon is largely dealt with in W. H. Prescott’s History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1854).
JOHN (1296-1346), king of Bohemia, was a son of the emperor Henry VII. by his wife Margaret, daughter of John I., duke of Brabant, and was a member of the family of Luxemburg. Born on the 10th of August 1296, he became count of Luxemburg in 1309, and about the same time was offered the crown of Bohemia, which, after the death of Wenceslas III., the last king of the Premyslides dynasty in 1306, had passed to Henry, duke of Carinthia, under whose weak rule the country was in a very disturbed condition. The emperor accepted this offer on behalf of his son, who married Elizabeth (d. 1330), a sister of Wenceslas, and after Henry’s departure for Italy, John was crowned king of Bohemia at Prague in February 1311. Henry of Carinthia was driven from the land, where a certain measure of order was restored, and Moravia was again united with Bohemia. As imperial vicar John represented his father at the diet of Nuremberg in January 1313, and was leading an army to his assistance in Italy when he heard of the emperor’s death, which took place in August 1313. John was now a candidate for the imperial throne; but, on account of his youth, his claim was not regarded seriously, and he was persuaded to give his support to Louis, duke of Upper Bavaria, afterwards the emperor Louis the Bavarian. At Esslingen and elsewhere he aided Louis in his struggle with Frederick the Fair, duke of Austria, who also claimed the Empire; but his time was mainly passed in quelling disturbances in Bohemia, where his German followers were greatly disliked and where he himself soon became unpopular, especially among the nobles; or in Luxemburg, the borders of which county he was constantly and successfully striving to extend. Restless, adventurous and warlike, John had soon tired of governing his kingdom, and even discussed exchanging it with the emperor Louis for the Palatinate; and while Bohemia was again relapsing into a state of anarchy, her king was winning fame as a warrior in almost every part of Europe. He fought against the citizens of Metz and against his kinsman, John III., duke of Brabant; he led the knights of the Teutonic Order against the heathen in Lithuania and Pomerania and promised Pope John XXII. to head a crusade; and claiming to be king of Poland he attacked the Poles and brought Silesia under his rule. He obtained Tirol by marrying his son, John Henry, to Margaret Maultasch, the heiress of the county, assisted the emperor to defeat and capture Frederick the Fair at the battle of Mühldorf in 1322, and was alternately at peace and at war with the dukes 441 of Austria and with his former foe, Henry of Carinthia. He was a frequent and welcome visitor to France, in which country he had a personal and hereditary interest; and on several occasions his prowess was serviceable to his brother-in-law King Charles IV., and to Charles’s successor Philip VI., whose son John, afterwards King John II., married a daughter of the Bohemian king. Soon after the battle of Mühldorf, the relations between John and the emperor became somewhat strained, partly owing to the king’s growing friendship with the Papacy and with France, and partly owing to territorial disputes. An agreement, however, was concluded, and John undertook his invasion of Italy, which was perhaps the most dazzling of his exploits. Invited by the citizens of Brescia, he crossed the Alps with a meagre following in 1331, quickly received the homage of many of the cities of northern Italy, and soon found himself the ruler of a great part of the peninsula. But his soldiers were few and his enemies were many, and a second invasion of Italy in 1333 was followed by the dissipation of his dreams of making himself king of Lombardy and Tuscany, and even of supplanting Louis on the imperial throne. The fresh trouble between king and emperor, caused by this enterprise, was intensified by a quarrel over the lands left by Henry of Carinthia, and still later by the interference of Louis in Tirol; and with bewildering rapidity John was allying himself with the kings of Hungary and Poland, fighting against the emperor and his Austrian allies, defending Bohemia, governing Luxemburg, visiting France and negotiating with the pope. About 1340 the king was overtaken by blindness, but he continued to lead an active life, successfully resisting the attacks of Louis and his allies, and campaigning in Lithuania. In 1346 he made a decisive move against the emperor. Acting in union with Pope Clement VI. he secured the formal deposition of Louis and the election of his own son Charles, margrave of Moravia, as German king, or king of the Romans, in July 1346. Then journeying to help Philip of France against the English, he fought at the battle of Crécy, where his heroic death on the 26th of August 1346 was a fitting conclusion to his adventurous life.
John was a chivalrous and romantic personage, who enjoyed a great reputation for valour both before and after his death; but as a ruler he was careless and extravagant, interested only in his kingdom when seeking relief from his constant pecuniary embarrassments. After the death of his first wife, who bore him two sons, Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., and John Henry (d. 1375), and who had been separated from her husband for some years, the king married Beatrice (d. 1383), daughter of Louis I., duke of Bourbon, by whom he had a son, Wenceslas (d. 1383). According to Camden the crest or badge of three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich dien, borne by the prince of Wales was originally that of John of Bohemia and was first assumed by Edward the Black Prince after the battle of Crécy. There is no proof, however, that this badge was ever worn by John—it certainly was not his crest—and its origin must be sought elsewhere.
See J. Schötter, Johann, Graf von Luxemburg and König von Böhmen (Luxemburg, 1865); F. von Weech, Kaiser Ludwig der Bayer und König Johann von Böhmen (Munich, 1860), and U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques, tome v. (Paris, 1905).
JOHN I. (1358-1390), king of Castile, was the son of Henry II., and of his wife Joan, daughter of John Manuel of Villena, head of a younger branch of the royal house of Castile. In the beginning of his reign he had to contend with the hostility of John of Gaunt, who claimed the crown by right of his wife Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel. The king of Castile finally bought off the claim of his English competitor by arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt, in 1387. Before this date he had been engaged in hostilities with Portugal which was in alliance with John of Gaunt. His first quarrel with Portugal was settled by his marriage, in 1382, with Beatrix, daughter of the Portuguese king Ferdinand. On the death of his father-in-law in 1383, John endeavoured to enforce the claims of his wife, Ferdinand’s only child, to the crown of Portugal. He was resisted by the national sentiment of the people, and was utterly defeated at the battle of Aljubarrota, on the 14th of August 1385. King John was killed at Alcalá on the 9th of October 1390 by the fall of his horse, while he was riding in a fantasia with some of the light horsemen known as the farfanes, who were mounted and equipped in the Arab style.
JOHN II. (1405-1454), king of Castile, was born on the 6th of March 1405, the son of Henry III. of Castile and of his wife Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt. He succeeded his father on the 25th of December 1406 at the age of a year and ten months. It was one of the many misfortunes of Castile that the long reign of John II.—forty-nine years—should have been granted to one of the most incapable of her kings. John was amiable, weak and dependent on those about him. He had no taste except for ornament, and no serious interest except in amusements, verse-making, hunting and tournaments. He was entirely under the influence of his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, till his second wife, Isabella of Portugal, obtained control of his feeble will. At her instigation he threw over his faithful and able favourite, a meanness which is said to have caused him well-deserved remorse. He died on the 20th of July 1454 at Valladolid. By his second marriage he was the father of Isabella “the Catholic.”
JOHN I. (b. and d. 1316), king of France, son of Louis X. and Clemence, daughter of Charles Martel, who claimed to be king of Hungary, was born, after his father’s death, on the 15th of November 1316, and only lived seven days. His uncle, afterwards Philip V. has been accused of having caused his death, or of having substituted a dead child in his place; but nothing was ever proved. An impostor calling himself John I., appeared in Provence, in the reign of John II., but he was captured and died in prison.
JOHN II. (1319-1364), surnamed the Good, king of France, son of Philip VI. and Jeanne of Burgundy, succeeded his father in 1350. At the age of 13 he married Bona of Luxemburg, daughter of John, king of Bohemia. His early exploits against the English were failures and revealed in the young prince both avarice and stubborn persistence in projects obviously ill-advised. It was especially the latter quality which brought about his ruin. His first act upon becoming king was to order the execution of the constable, Raoul de Brienne. The reasons for this are unknown, but from the secrecy with which it was carried out and the readiness with which the honour was transferred to the king’s close friend Charles of La Cesda, it has been attributed to the influence and ambition of the latter. John surrounded himself with evil counsellors, Simon de Buci, Robert de Lorris, Nicolas Braque, men of low origin who robbed the treasury and oppressed the people, while the king gave himself up to tournaments and festivities. In imitation of the English order of the Garter, he established the knightly order of the Star, and celebrated its festivals with great display. Raids of the Black Prince in Languedoc led to the states-general of 1355, which readily voted money, but sanctioned the right of resistance against all kinds of pillage—a distinct commentary on the incompetence of the king. In September 1356 John gathered the flower of his chivalry and attacked the Black Prince at Poitiers. The utter defeat of the French was made the more humiliating by the capture of their king, who had bravely led the third line of battle. Taken to England to await ransom, John was at first installed in the Savoy Palace, then at Windsor, Hertford, Somerton, and at last in the Tower. He was granted royal state with his captive companions, made a guest at tournaments, and supplied with luxuries imported by him from France. The treaty of Brétigny (1360), which fixed his ransom at 3,000,000 crowns, enabled him to return to France, but although he married his daughter Isabella to Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, for a gift of 600,000 golden crowns, imposed a heavy feudal “aid” on merchandise, and various other taxes, John was unable to pay more than 400,000 crowns to Edward III. His son Louis of Anjou, who had been left as hostage, escaped from Calais in the summer of 1363, and John, far in arrears in the payments of the ransom, surrendered himself again “to maintain his royal honour which his son had sullied.” He landed in England in January 1364 and was received with great honour, lodged again in the Savoy, and was a 442 frequent guest of Edward at Westminster. He died on the 8th of April, and the body was sent back to France with royal honours.
See Froissart’s Chronicles; Duc d’Aumale, Notes et documents relatifs à Jean, roi de France, et à sa captivité (1856); A. Coville, in Lavisse’s Histoire de France, vol. iv., and authorities cited there.
JOHN (Zapolya) (1487-1540), king of Hungary, was the son of the palatine Stephen Zapolya and the princess Hedwig of Teschen, and was born at the castle of Szepesvár. He began his public career at the famous Rákos diet of 1505, when, on his motion, the assembly decided that after the death of the reigning king, Wladislaus II., no foreign prince should be elected king of Hungary. Henceforth he became the national candidate for the throne, which his family had long coveted. As far back as 1491 his mother had proposed to the sick king that his daughter Anne should be committed to her care in order, subsequently, to be married to her son; but Wladislaus frustrated this project by contracting a matrimonial alliance with the Habsburgs. In 1510 Zapolya sued in person for the hand of the Princess Anne in vain, and his appointment to the voivody of Transylvania (1511) was with the evident intention of removing him far from court. In 1513, after a successful raid in Turkish territory, he hastened to Buda at the head of 1000 horsemen and renewed his suit, which was again rejected. In 1514 he stamped out the dangerous peasant rising under Dozsa (q.v.) and the infernal torments by means of which the rebel leader was slowly done to death were the invention of Zapolya. With the gentry, whose hideous oppression had moved the peasantry to revolt, he was now more than ever popular, and, on the death of Wladislaus II., the second diet of Rákos (1516) appointed him the governor of the infant king Louis II. He now aimed at the dignity of palatine also, but the council of state and the court party combined against him and appointed István Báthory instead (1519). The strife of factions now burnt more fiercely than ever at the very time when the pressure of the Turk demanded the combination of all the national forces against a common danger. It was entirely due to the dilatoriness and dissensions of Zapolya and Báthory that the great fortress of Belgrade was captured in 1521, a loss which really sealed the fate of Hungary. In 1522 the diet would have appointed both Zapolya and Báthory captains-general of the realm, but the court set Zapolya aside and chose Báthory only. At the diets of Hátvan and Rákos in 1522, Zapolya placed himself at the head of a confederation to depose the palatine and the other great officers of state, but the attempt failed. In the following year, however, the revolutionary Hátvan diet drove out all the members of the council of state and made István Verböczy, the great jurist, and a friend of Zapolya, palatine. In the midst of this hopeless anarchy, Suleiman I., the Magnificent, invaded Hungary with a countless army, and the young king perished on the field of Mohács in a vain attempt to stay his progress, the contradictory orders of Louis II. preventing Zapolya from arriving in time to turn the fortunes of the day. The court party accused him of deliberate treachery on this occasion; but the charge must be pronounced groundless. His younger brother George was killed at Mohács, where he was second commander-in-chief. Zapolya was elected king of Hungary at the subsequent diet of Tokaj (Oct. 14), the election was confirmed by the diet of Székesfehérvár (10th of November), and he was crowned on the following day with the holy crown.
A struggle with the rival candidate, the German king Ferdinand I., at once ensued (see Hungary: History) and it was only with the aid of the Turks that king John was able to exhaust his opponent and compel him to come to terms. Finally, in 1538, by the compact of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand recognized John as king of Hungary, but secured the right of succession on his death. Nevertheless John broke the compact by bequeathing the kingdom to his infant son John Sigismund under Turkish protection. John was the last national king of Hungary. His merit, as a statesman, lies in his stout vindication of the national independence, though without the assistance of his great minister György Utiesenovich, better known as “Frater George” (Cardinal Martinuzzi (q.v.)), this would have been impossible. Indirectly he contributed to the subsequent conquest of Hungary by admitting the Turk as a friend.
See Vilmos Fraknoi, Ungarn vor der Schlacht bei Mohács (Budapest, 1886); L. Kupelwieser, Die Kämpfe Ungarns mit den Osmanen bis zur Schlacht bei Mohács (Vienna, 1895); Ignacz Acsády, History of the Hungarian Realm, vol. i. (Hung.) (Budapest, 1902-1904).
JOHN OF BRIENNE (c. 1148-1237), king of Jerusalem and Latin emperor of Constantinople, was a man of sixty years of age before he began to play any considerable part in history. Destined originally for the Church, he had preferred to become a knight, and in forty years of tournaments and fights he had won himself a considerable reputation, when in 1208 envoys came from the Holy Land to ask Philip Augustus, king of France, to select one of his barons as husband to the heiress, and ruler of the kingdom, of Jerusalem. Philip selected John of Brienne, and promised to support him in his new dignity. In 1210 John married the heiress Mary (daughter of Isabella and Conrad of Montferrat), assuming the title of king in right of his wife. In 1211, after some desultory operations, he concluded a six years’ truce with Malik-el-Adil; in 1212 he lost his wife, who left him a daughter, Isabella; soon afterwards he married an Armenian princess. In the fifth crusade (1218-1221) he was a prominent figure. The legate Pelagius, however, claimed the command; and insisting on the advance from Damietta, in spite of the warnings of King John, he refused to accept the favourable terms of the sultan, as the king advised, until it was too late. After the failure of the crusade, King John came to the West to obtain help for his kingdom. In 1223 he met Honorius III. and the emperor Frederick II. at Ferentino, where, in order that he might be connected more closely with the Holy Land, Frederick was betrothed to John’s daughter Isabella, now heiress of the kingdom. After the meeting at Ferentino, John went to France and England, finding little consolation; and thence he travelled to Compostella, where he married a new wife, Berengaria of Castile. After a visit to Germany he returned to Rome (1225). Here he received a demand from Frederick II. (who had now married Isabella) that he should abandon his title and dignity of king, which—so Frederick claimed—had passed to himself along with the heiress of the kingdom. John was now a septuagenarian “king in exile,” but he was still vigorous enough to revenge himself on Frederick, by commanding the papal troops which attacked southern Italy during the emperor’s absence on the sixth crusade (1228-1229). In 1229 John, now eighty years of age, was invited by the barons of the Latin empire of Constantinople to become emperor, on condition that Baldwin of Courtenay should marry his second daughter and succeed him. For nine years he ruled in Constantinople, and in 1235, with a few troops, he repelled a great siege of the city by Vataces of Nicaea and Azen of Bulgaria. After this last feat of arms, which has perhaps been exaggerated by the Latin chroniclers, who compare him to Hector and the Maccabees, John died in the habit of a Franciscan friar. An aged paladin, somewhat uxorious and always penniless, he was a typical knight errant, whose wanderings led him all over Europe, and planted him successively on the thrones of Jerusalem and Constantinople.
The story of John’s career must be sought partly in histories of the kingdom of Jerusalem and of the Latin Empire of the East, partly in monographs. Among these, of which R. Röhricht gives a list (Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, p. 699, n. 3), see especially that of E. de Montcarmet, Un chevalier du temps passé (Limoges, 1876 and 1881).
JOHN III. (Sobieski) (1624-1696), king of Poland, was the eldest son of James Sobieski, castellan of Cracow, and Theofila Danillowiczowna, grand-daughter of the great Hetman Zolkiewski. After being educated at Cracow, he made the grand tour with his brother Mark and returned to Poland in 1648. He served against Chmielnicki and the Cossacks and was present at the battles of Beresteczko (1651) and Batoka (1652), but was one of the first to desert his unhappy country when invaded by the Swedes in 1654, and actually assisted them to conquer the Prussian provinces in 1655. He returned to his lawful allegiance 443 in the following year and assisted Czarniecki in his difficult task of expelling Charles X. of Sweden from the central Polish provinces. For his subsequent services to King John Casimir, especially in the Ukraine against the Tatars and Cossacks, he received the grand bâton of the crown, or commandership-in-chief (1668). He had already (1665) succeeded Czarniecki as acting commander-in-chief. Sobieski had well earned these distinctions by his extraordinary military capacity, but he was now to exhibit a less pleasing side of his character. He was in fact a typical representative of the unscrupulous self-seeking Polish magnates of the 17th century who were always ready to sacrifice everything, their country included, to their own private ambition. At the election diet of 1669 he accepted large bribes from Louis XIV. to support one of the French candidates; after the election of Michael Wisniowiecki (June 19, 1669) he openly conspired, again in the French interest, against his lawful sovereign, and that too at the very time when the Turk was ravaging the southern frontier of the republic. Michael was the feeblest monarch the Poles could have placed upon the throne, and Sobieski deliberately attempted to make government of any kind impossible. He formed a league with the primate Prazmowski and other traitors to dethrone the king; when (1670) the plot was discovered and participation in it repudiated by Louis XIV., the traitors sought the help of the elector of Brandenburg against their own justly indignant countrymen. Two years later the same traitors again conspired against the king, at the very time when the Turks had defeated Sobieski’s unsupported lieutenant, Luzecki, at Czertwertyworska and captured the fortress of Kamieniec (Kamenetz-Podolskiy), the key of south-eastern Poland, while Lemberg was only saved by the valour of Elias Lancki. The unhappy king did the only thing possible in the circumstances. He summoned the tuszenia pospolite, or national armed assembly; but it failed to assemble in time, whereupon Michael was constrained to sign the disgraceful peace of Buczacz (Oct. 17, 1672) whereby Poland ceded to the Porte the whole of the Ukraine with Podolia and Kamieniec. Aroused to duty by a series of disasters for which he himself was primarily responsible, Sobieski now hastened to the frontier, and won four victories in ten days. But he could not recover Kamieniec, and when the tuszenia pospolite met at Golenba and ordered an inquiry into the conduct of Sobieski and his accomplices he frustrated all their efforts by summoning a counter confederation to meet at Szczebrzeszyn. Powerless to oppose a rebel who was at the same time commander-in-chief, both the king and the diet had to give way, and a compromise was come to whereby the peace of Buczacz was repudiated and Sobieski was given a chance of rehabilitating himself, which he did by his brilliant victory over an immense Turkish host at Khotin (Nov. 10, 1673). The same day King Michael died and Sobieski, determined to secure the throne for himself, hastened to the capital, though Tatar bands were swarming over the frontier and the whole situation was acutely perilous. Appearing at the elective diet of 1674 at the head of 6000 veterans he overawed every other competitor, and despite the persistent opposition of the Lithuanians was elected king on the 21st of May. By this time, however, the state of things in the Ukraine was so alarming that the new king had to hasten to the front. Assisted by French diplomacy at the Porte (Louis XIV. desiring to employ Poland against Austria), and his own skilful negotiations with the Tatar khan, John III. now tried to follow the example of Wladislaus IV. by leaving the guardianship of the Ukraine entirely in the hands of the Cossacks, while he assembled as many regulars and militiamen as possible at Lemberg, whence he might hasten with adequate forces to defend whichever of the provinces of the Republic might be in most danger. But the appeal of the king was like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and not one gentleman in a hundred hastened to the assistance of the fatherland. Even at the end of August Sobieski had but 3000 men at his disposal to oppose to 60,000 Turks. Only his superb strategy and the heroic devotion of his lieutenants—notably the converted Jew, Jan Samuel Chrzanowski, who held the Ottoman army at bay for eleven days behind the walls of Trembowla—enabled the king to remove “the pagan yoke from our shoulders”; and he returned to be crowned at Cracow on the 14th of February 1676. In October 1676, in his entrenched camp at Zaravno, he with 13,000 men withstood 80,000 Turks for three weeks, and recovered by special treaty two-thirds of the Ukraine, but without Kamieniec (treaty of Zaravno, Oct. 16, 1676).
Having now secured peace abroad Sobieski was desirous of strengthening Poland at home by establishing absolute monarchy; but Louis XIV. looked coldly on the project, and from this time forth the old familiar relations between the republic and the French monarchy were strained to breaking point, though the final rupture did not come till 1682 on the arrival of the Austrian minister, Zerowski, at Warsaw. After resisting every attempt of the French court to draw him into the anti-Habsburg league, Sobieski signed the famous treaty of alliance with the emperor Leopold against the Turks (March 31, 1683), which was the prelude to the most glorious episode of his life, the relief of Vienna and the liberation of Hungary from the Ottoman yoke. The epoch-making victory of the 12th of September 1683 was ultimately decided by the charge of the Polish cavalry led by Sobieski in person. Unfortunately Poland profited little or nothing by this great triumph, and now that she had broken the back of the enemy she was left to fight the common enemy in the Ukraine with whatever assistance she could obtain from the unwilling and unready Muscovites. The last twelve years of the reign of John III. were a period of unmitigated humiliation and disaster. He now reaped to the full the harvest of treason and rebellion which he himself had sown so abundantly during the first forty years of his life. A treasonable senate secretly plotting his dethronement, a mutinous diet rejecting the most necessary reforms for fear of “absolutism,” ungrateful allies who profited exclusively by his victories—these were his inseparable companions during the remainder of his life. Nay, at last his evil destiny pursued him to the battlefield and his own home. His last campaign (in 1690) was an utter failure, and the last years of his life were embittered by the violence and the intrigues of his dotingly beloved wife, Marya Kazimiera d’Arquien, by whom he had three sons, James, Alexander and Constantine. He died on the 17th of June 1696, a disillusioned and broken-hearted old man.
See Tadeusz Korzon, Fortunes and Misfortunes of John Sobieski (Pol.) (Cracow, 1898); E. H. R. Tatham, John Sobieski (Oxford, 1881); Kazimierz Waliszewski, Archives of French Foreign Affairs, 1674-1696, v. (Cracow, 1881); Ludwik Piotr Leliwa, John Sobieski and His Times (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882-1885); Kazimierz Waliszewski, Marysienka Queen of Poland (London, 1898); Georg Rieder, Johann Sobieski in Wien (Vienna, 1882).
JOHN I. (1357-1433), king of Portugal, the natural son of Pedro I. (el Justicieiro), was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of April 1357, and in 1364 was created grand-master of Aviz. On the death of his lawful brother Ferdinand I., without male issue, in October 1383, strenuous efforts were made to secure the succession for Beatrice, the only child of Ferdinand I., who as heiress-apparent had been married to John I. of Castile (Spain), but the popular voice declared against an arrangement by which Portugal would virtually have become a Spanish province, and John was after violent tumults proclaimed protector and regent in the following December. In April 1385 he was unanimously chosen king by the estates of the realm at Coimbra. The king of Castile invaded Portugal, but his army was compelled by pestilence to withdraw, and subsequently by the decisive battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385) the stability of John’s throne was permanently secured. Hostilities continued intermittently until John of Castile died, without leaving issue by Beatrice, in 1390. Meanwhile the king of Portugal went on consolidating the power of the crown at home and the influence of the nation abroad. In 1415 Ceuta was taken from the Moors by his sons who had been born to him by his wife Philippa, daughter of John, duke of Lancaster; specially distinguished in the siege was Prince Henry (q.v.) afterwards generally known as “the Navigator.” John I., sometimes surnamed “the Great,” and sometimes “father of his country,” died on the 444 11th of August 1433, in the forty-eighth year of a reign which had been characterized by great prudence, ability and success; he was succeeded by his son Edward or Duarte, so named out of compliment to Edward III. of England.
See J. P. Oliveira Martins, Os filhos de D. João I. and A vida de Nun’ Alvares (Lisbon, 2nd ed. 1894).
JOHN II. (1455-1495), the Perfect, king of Portugal, succeeded his father, Alphonso V., in August 1481. His first business was to curtail the overgrown power of his aristocracy; noteworthy incidents in the contest were the execution (1483) of the duke of Braganza for correspondence with Castile, and the murder, by the king’s own hand, of the youthful duke of Viseu for conspiracy. This reign was signalized by Bartholomeu Diaz’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Maritime rivalry led to disputes between Portugal and Castile until their claims were adjusted by the famous treaty of Tordesillas (June 7, 1494). John II. died, without leaving male issue, in October 1495, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Emmanuel (Manoel) I.
See J. P. Oliveira Martins, O principe perfeito (Lisbon, 1895).
JOHN III. (1502-1557), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon, on the 6th of June 1502, and ascended the throne as successor of his father Emmanuel I. in December 1521. In 1524 he married Catherine, sister to the Emperor Charles V., who shortly afterwards married the infanta Isabella, John’s sister. Succeeding to the crown at a time when Portugal was at the height of its political power, and Lisbon in a position of commercial importance previously unknown, John III., unfortunately for his dominions, became subservient to the clerical party among his subjects, with disastrous consequences to the commercial and social prosperity of his kingdom. He died of apoplexy on the 6th of June 1557, and was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian, then a child of only three years.
JOHN IV. (1603-1656), the Fortunate, king of Portugal, was born at Villaviciosa in March 1603, succeeded to the dukedom of Braganza in 1630, and married Luisa de Guzman, eldest daughter of the duke of Medina Sidonia, in 1633. By the unanimous voice of the people he was raised to the throne of Portugal (of which he was held to be the legitimate heir) at the revolution effected in December 1640 against the Spanish king, Philip IV. His accession led to a protracted war with Spain, which only ended with the recognition of Portuguese independence in a subsequent reign (1668). He died on the 6th of November 1656, and was succeeded by his son Alphonso VI.
JOHN V. (1689-1750), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 22nd of October 1689, and succeeded his father Pedro II. in December 1706, being proclaimed on the 1st of January 1707. One of his first acts was to intimate his adherence to the Grand Alliance, which his father had joined in 1703. Accordingly his general Das Minas, along with Lord Galway, advanced into Castile, but sustained the defeat of Almanza (April 14). In October 1708 he married Maria Anna, daughter of Leopold I., thus strengthening the alliance with Austria; the series of unsuccessful campaigns which ensued ultimately terminated in a favourable peace with France in 1713 and with Spain in 1715. The rest of his long reign was characterized by royal subservience to the clergy, the kingdom being administered by ecclesiastical persons and for ecclesiastical objects to an extent that gave him the best of rights to the title “Most Faithful King,” bestowed upon him and his successors by a bull of Pope Benedict XIV. in 1748. John V. died on the 31st of July 1750, and was succeeded by his son Joseph.
JOHN VI. (1769-1826), king of Portugal, was born at Lisbon on the 13th of May 1769, and received the title of prince of Brazil in 1788. In 1792 he assumed the reins of government in name of his mother Queen Mary I., who had become insane. He had been brought up in an ecclesiastical atmosphere, and, being naturally of a somewhat weak and helpless character, was but ill adapted for the responsibilities he was thus called on to undertake. In 1799 he assumed the title of regent, which he retained until his mother’s death in 1816. (For the political history of his regency, see Portugal.) In 1816 he was recognized as king of Portugal but he continued to reside in Brazil; the consequent spread of dissatisfaction resulted in the peaceful revolution of 1820, and the proclamation of a constitutional government, to which he swore fidelity on his return to Portugal in 1822. In the same year, and again in 1823, he had to suppress a rebellion led by his son Dom Miguel, whom he ultimately was compelled to banish in 1824. He died at Lisbon on the 26th of March 1826, and was succeeded by Pedro IV.
JOHN (1801-1873), king of Saxony, son of Prince Maximilian of Saxony and his wife Caroline of Parma (d. 1804), was born at Dresden on the 12th of December 1801. As a boy he took a keen interest in literature and art (also in history, law, and political science), and studied with the greatest ardour classical and German literature (Herder, Schiller, Goethe). He soon began to compose poetry himself, and drew great inspiration from a journey in Italy (1821-1822), the pleasure of which was however darkened by the death of his brother Clemens. In Pavia the prince met with Biagioli’s edition of Dante, and this gave rise to his lifelong and fruitful studies of Dante. The first part of his German translation of Dante was published in 1828, and in 1833 appeared the complete work, with a valuable commentary, which met with a great success. Several new editions appeared under his constant supervision, and he collected a complete library of works on Dante.
On his return from Italy he was betrothed to Princess Amalia of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian Joseph. He thus became the brother-in-law of Frederick William IV., king of Prussia, with whom he had a deep and lasting friendship. His wife Amalia died on the 8th of November 1877, having borne him nine children, two of whom, Albert and George, later became kings of Saxony.
On his return to Dresden, John was called in 1822 to the privy board of finance (Geheimes Finanzkollegium) and in 1825 became its vice-president. Under the leadership of the president, Freiherr von Manteuffel, he acquired a thorough knowledge of administration and of political economy, and laid the foundations of that conservatism which he retained throughout life. These new activities did not, however, interrupt his literary and artistic studies. He came into still closer relations with politics and government after his entry into the privy council in 1830. During the revolution in Saxony he helped in the pacification of the country, became commandant of the new national guard, the political tendencies of which he tried to check, and took an exceptionally active part in the organization of the constitution of the 4th of September 1831 and especially in the deliberations of the upper chamber, where he worked with unflagging energy and great ability. Following the example of his father, he taught his children in person, and had a great influence on their education. On the 12th of August 1845, during a stay at Leipzig, the prince was the object of hostile public demonstrations, the people holding him to be the head of an alleged ultramontane party at court, and the revolution of 1848 compelled him to interrupt his activities in the upper chamber. Immediately after the suppression of the revolution he resumed his place and took part chiefly in the discussion of legal questions. He was also interested in the amalgamation of the German historical and archaeological societies. On the death of his brother Frederick Augustus II., John became, on the 9th of August 1854, king of Saxony. As king he soon won great popularity owing to his simplicity, graciousness and increasingly evident knowledge of affairs. In his policy as regards the German confederation he was entirely on the side of Austria. Though not opposed to a reform of the federal constitution, he held that its maintenance under the presidency of Austria was essential. This view he supported at the assembly of princes at Frankfort in August and September 1863. He was unable to uphold his views against Prussia, and in the war of 1866 fought on the side of Austria. It was with difficulty that, on the conclusion of peace, Austrian diplomacy succeeded in enabling the king to retain his crown. After 1866 King John gradually became reconciled to the new state of affairs. He entered the North German 445 confederation, and in the war of 1870-71 with France his troops fought with conspicuous courage. He died at Dresden on the 29th of October 1873.
See J. Petzholdt, “Zur Litteratur des Königs Johann,” Neuer Anzeiger für Bibliographie (1858, 1859, 1871, 1873, 1874); “Aphorismen über unsern König J.,” Bote von Geising (1866-1869); Das Büchlein vom König Johann (Leipzig, 1867); H. v. Treitschke, Preussische Jahrbücher 23 (1869); A. Reumont, “Elogio di Giovanni, Rè di Sassonia,” Dagli Atti della Accademia della Crusca (Florence, 1874); J. P. von Winterstein, Johann, König von Sachsen (Dresden, 1878), and in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1881); H. Ermisch, Die Wettiner und die Landesgeschichte (Leipzig, 1902); O. Kaemmel, Sächsische Geschichte (Leipzig, 1899, Sammlung Göschen).
JOHN I. (d. 1294), duke of Brabant and Lorraine, surnamed the Victorious, one of the most gifted and chivalrous princes of his time, was the second son of Duke Henry III. and Aleidis of Burgundy. In 1267 his elder brother Henry, being infirm of mind and body, was deposed in his favour. In 1271 John married Margaret, daughter of Louis IX. of France, and on her death in childbirth he took as his second wife (1273) Margaret of Flanders, daughter of Guy de Dampierre. His sister Marie was espoused in 1275 to Philip III. (the Bold) of France, and during the reign of Philip and his son Philip IV. there were close relations of friendship and alliance between Brabant and France. In 1285 John accompanied Philip III. in his expedition against Peter III., king of Aragon, but the duchy of Limburg was the scene of his chief activity and greatest successes. After the death of Waleran IV. in 1279 the succession to this duchy was disputed. His heiress, Ermengarde, had married Reinald I. count of Gelderland. She died childless, but her husband continued to rule in Limburg, although his rights were disputed by Count Adolph of Berg, nephew to Waleran IV. (see Limburg). Not being strong enough to eject his rival, Adolph sold his rights to John of Brabant, and hostilities broke out in 1283. Harassed by desultory warfare and endless negotiations, and seeing no prospect of holding his own against the powerful duke of Brabant, Reinald made over his rights to Henry III. count of Luxemburg, who was a descendant of Waleran III. of Limburg. Henry III. was sustained by the archbishop of Cologne and other allies, as well as by Reinald of Gelderland. The duke of Brabant at once invaded the Rhineland and laid siege to the castle of Woeringen near Bonn. Here he was attacked by the forces of the confederacy on the 5th of June 1288. After a bloody struggle John of Brabant, though at the head of far inferior numbers, was completely victorious. Limburg was henceforth attached to the duchy of Brabant. John consolidated his conquest by giving his daughter in marriage to Henry of Luxemburg (1291). John the Victorious was a perfect model of a feudal prince in the days of chivalry, brave, adventurous, excelling in every form of active exercise, fond of display, generous in temper. He delighted in tournaments, and was always eager personally to take part in jousts. On the 3rd of May 1294, on the occasion of some marriage festivities at Bar, he was wounded in the arm in an encounter by Pierre de Bausner, and died from the effects of the hurt.
Bibliography.—H. Barlandus, Rerum gestarum a Brabantiae ducibus historia usque in annum 1526 (Louvain, 1566); G. C. van der Berghe, Jean le Victorieux, duc de Brabant (1259-1294), (Louvain, 1857); K. F. Stallaert, Gesch. v. Jan I. van Braband en zijne tijdvak (Brussels, 1861); A. Wauters, Le Duc Jean Ier et le Brabant sous le règne de ce prince (Brussels, 1859).
JOHN, or Hans (1513-1571), margrave of Brandenburg-Cüstrin, was the younger son of Joachim I., elector of Brandenburg, and was born at Tangermünde on the 3rd of August 1513. In spite of the dispositio Achillea which decreed the indivisibility of the electorate, John inherited the new mark of Brandenburg on his father’s death in July 1535. He had been brought up as a strict Catholic, but soon wavered in his allegiance, and in 1538 ranged himself definitely on the side of the Reformers. About the same time he joined the league of Schmalkalden; but before the war broke out between the league and the emperor Charles V. the promises of the emperor had won him over to the imperial side. After the conclusion of the war, the relations between John and Charles became somewhat strained. The margrave opposed the Interim, issued from Augsburg in May 1548; and he was the leader of the princes who formed a league for the defence of the Lutheran doctrines in February 1550. The alliance of these princes, however, with Henry II., king of France, does not appear to have commended itself to him and after some differences of opinion with Maurice, elector of Saxony, he returned to the emperor’s side. His remaining years were mainly spent in the new mark, which he ruled carefully and economically. He added to its extent by the purchase of Beeskow and Storkow, and fortified the towns of Cüstrin and Peitz. He died at Cüstrin on the 13th of January 1571. His wife Catherine was a daughter of Henry II., duke of Brunswick, and as he left no sons the new mark passed on his death to his nephew John George, elector of Brandenburg.
See Berg, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Markgrafen Johann von Küstrin (Landsberg, 1903).
JOHN (1371-1419), called the Fearless (Sans Peur), duke of Burgundy, son of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and Margaret of Flanders, was born at Dijon on the 28th of May 1371. On the death of his maternal grandfather in 1384 he received the title of count of Nevers, which he bore until his father’s death. Though originally destined to be the husband of Catherine, sister of Charles VI. of France, he married in 1385 Margaret, daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria, an alliance which consolidated his position in the Netherlands. In the spring of 1396 he took arms for Hungary against the Turks and on the 28th of September was taken prisoner by the Sultan Bayezid I. at the bloody battle of Nicopolis, where he earned his surname of “the Fearless.” He did not recover his liberty until 1397, and then only by paying an enormous ransom. He succeeded his father in 1404, and immediately found himself in conflict with Louis of Orleans, the young brother of Charles VI. The history of the following years is filled with the struggles between these two princes and with their attempts to seize the authority in the name of the demented king. John endeavoured to strengthen his position by marrying his daughter Margaret to the dauphin Louis, and by betrothing his son Philip to a daughter of Charles VI. Like his father, he looked for support to the popular party, to the tradesmen, particularly the powerful gild of the butchers, and also to the university of Paris. In 1405 he opposed in the royal council a scheme of taxation proposed by the duke of Orleans, which was nevertheless adopted. Louis retaliated by refusing to sanction the duke of Burgundy’s projected expedition against Calais, whereupon John quitted the court in chagrin on the pretext of taking up his mother’s heritage. He was, however, called back to the council to find that the duke of Orleans and the queen had carried off the dauphin. John succeeded in bringing back the dauphin to Paris, and open war seemed imminent between the two princes. But an arrangement was effected in October 1405, and in 1406 John was made by royal decree guardian of the dauphin and the king’s children.
The struggle, however, soon revived with increased force. Hostilities had been resumed with England; the duke of Orleans had squandered the money raised for John’s expedition against Calais; and the two rivals broke out into open threats. On the 20th of November 1407 their uncle, the duke of Berry, brought about a solemn reconciliation, but three days later Louis was assassinated by John’s orders in the Rue Barbette, Paris. John at first sought to conceal his share in the murder, but ultimately decided to confess to his uncles, and abruptly left Paris. His vassals, however, showed themselves determined to support him in his struggle against the avengers of the duke of Orleans. The court decided to negotiate, and called upon the duke to return. John entered Paris in triumph, and instructed the Franciscan theologian Jean Petit (d. 1411) to pronounce an apology for the murder. But he was soon called back to his estates by a rising of the people of Liége against his brother-in-law, the bishop of that town. The queen and the Orleans party took every advantage of his absence and had Petit’s discourse solemnly refuted. John’s victory over the Liégeois at Hasbain on the 23rd of September 1408, enabled him to return to Paris, where he 446 was reinstated in his ancient privileges. By the peace of Chartres (March 9, 1409) the king absolved him from the crime, and Valentina Visconti, the widow of the murdered duke, and her children pledged themselves to a reconciliation; while an edict of the 27th of December 1409 gave John the guardianship of the dauphin. Nevertheless, a new league was formed against the duke of Burgundy in the following year, principally at the instance of Bernard, count of Armagnac, from whom the party opposed to the Burgundians took its name. The peace of Bicêtre (Nov. 2, 1410) prevented the outbreak of hostilities, inasmuch as the parties were enjoined by its terms to return to their estates; but in 1411, in consequence of ravages committed by the Armagnacs in the environs of Paris, the duke of Burgundy was called back to Paris. He relied more than ever on the support of the popular party, which then obtained the reforming Ordonnance Cabochienne (so called from Simon Caboche, a prominent member of the gild of the butchers). But the bloodthirsty excesses of the populace brought a change. John was forced to withdraw to Burgundy (August 1413), and the university of Paris and John Gerson once more censured Petit’s propositions, which, but for the lavish bribes of money and wines offered by John to the prelates, would have been solemnly condemned at the council of Constance. John’s attitude was undecided; he negotiated with the court and also with the English, who had just renewed hostilities with France. Although he talked of helping his sovereign, his troops took no part in the battle of Agincourt (1415), where, however, two of his brothers, Anthony, duke of Brabant, and Philip, count of Nevers, fell fighting for France.
In 1417 John made an attack on Paris, which failed through his loitering at Lagny;1 but on the 30th of May 1418 a traitor, one Perrinet Leclerc, opened the gates of Paris to the Burgundian captain, Villiers de l’Isle Adam. The dauphin, afterwards King Charles VI., fled from the town, and John betook himself to the king, who promised to forget the past. John, however, did nothing to prevent the surrender of Rouen, which had been besieged by the English, and on which the fate of the kingdom seemed to depend; and the town was taken in 1419. The dauphin then decided on a reconciliation, and on the 11th of July the two princes swore peace on the bridge of Pouilly, near Melun. On the ground that peace was not sufficiently assured by the Pouilly meeting, a fresh interview was proposed by the dauphin and took place on the 10th of September 1419 on the bridge of Montereau, when the duke of Burgundy was felled with an axe by Tanneguy du Chastel, one of the dauphin’s companions, and done to death by the other members of the dauphin’s escort. His body was first buried at Montereau and afterwards removed to the Chartreuse of Dijon and placed in a magnificent tomb sculptured by Juan de la Huerta; the tomb was afterwards transferred to the museum in the hôtel de ville.
By his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, he had one son, Philip the Good, who succeeded him; and seven daughters—Margaret, who married in 1404 Louis, son of Charles VI., and in 1423 Arthur, earl of Richmond and afterwards duke of Brittany; Mary, wife of Adolph of Cleves; Catherine, promised in 1410 to a son of Louis of Anjou; Isabella, wife of Olivier de Châtillon, count of Penthièvre; Joanna, who died young; Anne, who married John, duke of Bedford, in 1423; and Agnes, who married Charles I., duke of Bourbon, in 1425.
See A. G. P. Baron de Barante, Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne, (Brussels, 1835-1836); B. Zeller, Louis de France et Jean sans Peur (Paris, 1886); and E. Petit, Itinéraire de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur (Paris, 1888).
1 This incident earned for him among the Parisians the contemptuous nickname of “John of Lagny, who does not hurry.”
JOHN (1468-1532), called the Steadfast, elector of Saxony, fourth son of the elector Ernest, was born on the 30th of June 1468. In 1486, when his eldest brother became elector as Frederick III., John received a part of the paternal inheritance and afterwards assisted his kinsman, the German king Maximilian I., in several campaigns. He was an early adherent of Luther, and, becoming elector of Saxony by his brother’s death in May 1525, was soon prominent among the Reformers. Having assisted to suppress the rising led by Thomas Munzer in 1525, he helped Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to found the league of Gotha, formed in 1526 for the protection of the Reformers. He was active at the diet of Spires in 1526, and the “recess” of this diet gave him an opportunity to reform the church in Saxony, where a plan for divine service was drawn up by Luther. The assertions of Otto von Pack that a league had been formed against the elector and his friends induced John to ally himself again with Philip of Hesse in March 1528, but he restrained Philip from making an immediate attack upon their opponents. He signed the protest against the “recess” of the diet of Spires in 1529, being thus one of the original Protestants, and was actively hostile to Charles V. at the diet of Augsburg in 1530. Having signed the confession of Augsburg, he was alone among the electors in objecting to the election of Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., as king of the Romans. He was among the first members of the league of Schmalkalden, assented to the religious peace of Nuremberg in 1532, and died at Schweidnitz on the 16th of August 1532. John was twice married and left two sons and two daughters. His elder son, John Frederick, succeeded him as elector, and his younger son was John Ernest (d. 1553). He rendered great services to the Protestant cause in its infancy, but as a Lutheran resolutely refused to come to any understanding with other opponents of the older faith.
See J. Becker, Kurfürst Johann von Sachsen und seine Beziehungen zu Luther (Leipzig, 1890); J. Janssen, History of the German People (English translation), vol. v. (London, 1903); L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1882).
JOHN, DON (1545-1578), of Austria, was the natural son of the emperor Charles V. by Barbara Blomberg, the daughter of an opulent citizen of Regensburg. He was born in that free imperial city on the 24th of February 1545, the anniversary of his father’s birth and coronation and of the battle of Pavia, and was at first confided under the name of Geronimo to foster parents of humble birth, living at a village near Madrid; but in 1554 he was transferred to the charge of Madalena da Ulloa, the wife of Don Luis de Quijada, and was brought up in ignorance of his parentage at Quijada’s castle of Villagarcia not far from Valladolid. Charles V. in a codicil of his will recognized Geronimo as his son, and recommended him to the care of his successor. In September 1559 Philip II. of Spain publicly recognized the boy as a member of the royal family, and he was known at court as Don Juan de Austria. For three years he was educated at Alcalá, and had as school companions his nephews, the infante Don Carlos and Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma. With Don Carlos his relations were especially friendly. It had been Philip’s intention that Don John should become a monk, but he showed a strong inclination for a soldier’s career and the king yielded. In 1568 Don John was appointed to the command of a squadron of 33 galleys, and his first operations were against the Algerian pirates. His next services were (1560-70) against the rebel Moriscos in Granada. In 1571 a nobler field of action was opened to him. The conquest of Cyprus by the Turks had led the Christian powers of the Mediterranean to fear for the safety of the Adriatic. A league between Spain and Venice was effected by the efforts of Pope Pius V. to resist the Turkish advance to the west, and Don John was named admiral in chief of the combined fleets. At the head of 208 galleys, 6 galleasses and a number of smaller craft, Don John encountered the Turkish fleet at Lepanto on the 7th of October 1571, and gained a complete victory. Only forty Turkish vessels effected their escape, and it was computed that 35,000 of their men were slain or captured while 15,000 Christian galley slaves were released. Unfortunately, through divisions and jealousies between the allies, the fruits of one of the most decisive naval victories in history were to a great extent lost.
This great triumph aroused Don John’s ambition and filled his imagination with schemes of personal aggrandizement. He thought of erecting first a principality in Albania and the Morea, and then a kingdom in Tunis. But the conclusion by Venice of a separate peace with the sultan put an end to the 447 league, and though Don John captured Tunis in 1573, it was again speedily lost. The schemes of Don John found no support in Philip II., who refused to entertain them, and even withheld from his half-brother the title of infante of Spain. At last, however, he was appointed (1576) governor-general of the Netherlands, in succession to Luis de Requesens. The administration of the latter had not been successful, the revolt headed by the prince of Orange had spread, and at the time of Don John’s nomination the Pacification of Ghent appeared to have united the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands in determined opposition to Spanish rule and the policy of Philip II. The magic of Don John’s name, and the great qualities of which he had given proof, were to recover what had been lost. He was, however, now brought into contact with an adversary of a very different calibre from himself. This was William of Orange, whose influence was now supreme throughout the Netherlands. The Pacification of Ghent, which was really a treaty between Holland and Zeeland and the other provinces for the defence of their common interests against Spanish oppression, had been followed by an agreement between the southern provinces, known as the Union of Brussels, which, though maintaining the Catholic religion and the king’s authority, aimed at the expulsion of the Spanish soldiery and officials from the Netherlands. Confronted by the refusal of the states general to accept him as governor unless he assented to the conditions of the Pacification of Ghent, swore to maintain the rights and privileges of the provinces, and to employ only Netherlanders in his service, Don John, after some months of fruitless negotiations, saw himself compelled to give way. At Huey on the 12th of February 1577 he signed a treaty, known as the “Perpetual Edict,” in which he complied with these terms. On the 1st of May he made his entry into Brussels, but he found himself governor-general only in name, and the prince of Orange master of the situation. In July he suddenly betook himself to Namur and withdrew his concessions. William of Orange forthwith took up his residence at Brussels, and gave his support to the archduke Matthias, afterwards emperor, whom the states-general accepted as their sovereign. Meanwhile Philip had sent large reinforcements to Don John under the leadership of his cousin Alexander Farnese. At the head of a powerful force Don John now suddenly attacked the patriot army at Gemblours, where, chiefly by the skill and daring of Farnese, a complete victory was gained on the 31st of January 1578. He could not, however, follow up his success for lack of funds, and was compelled to remain inactive all the summer, chafing with impatience at the cold indifference with which his appeals for the sinews of war were treated by Philip. His health gave way, he was attacked with fever, and on the 1st of October 1578, at the early age of 33, Don John died, heartbroken at the failure of all his soaring ambitions, and at the repeated proofs that he had received of the king his brother’s jealousy and neglect.
See Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, Don John of Austria 1547-1575 (1883) and the bibliography under Philip II. of Spain.
JOHN, DON (1629-1679), of Austria, the younger, recognized as the natural son of Philip IV., king of Spain, his mother, Maria Calderon, or Calderona, being an actress. Scandal accused her of a prodigality of favours which must have rendered the paternity of Don John very dubious. He was, however, recognized by the king, received a princely education at Ocaña, and was amply endowed with commanderies in the military orders, and other forms of income. Don John was sent in 1647 to Naples—then in the throes of the popular rising first led by Masaniello—with a squadron and a military force, to support the viceroy. The restoration of royal authority was due rather to the exhaustion of the insurgents and the follies of their French leader, the duke of Guise, than to the forces of Don John. He was next sent as viceroy to Sicily, whence he was recalled in 1651 to complete the pacification of Catalonia, which had been in revolt since 1640. The excesses of the French, whom the Catalans had called in, had produced a reaction, and Don John had not much more to do than to preside over the final siege of Barcelona and the convention which terminated the revolt in October 1652. On both occasions he had played the peacemaker, and this sympathetic part, combined with his own pleasant manners and handsome person with bright eyes and abundant raven-black hair—a complete contrast to the fair complexions of the Habsburgs—made him a popular favourite. In 1656 he was sent to command in Flanders, in combination with the prince of Condé, then in revolt against his own sovereign. At the storming of the French camp at Valenciennes in 1656, Don John displayed brilliant personal courage at the head of a cavalry charge. When, however, he took a part in the leadership of the army at the Dunes in the battle fought against Turenne and the British forces sent over by Cromwell in 1658, he was completely beaten, in spite of the efforts of Condé, whose advice he neglected, and of the hard fighting of English Royalist exiles. During 1661 and 1662 he commanded against the Portuguese in Estremadura. The Spanish troops were ill-appointed, irregularly paid and untrustworthy, but they were superior in numbers and some successes were gained. If Don John had not suffered from the indolence which Clarendon, who knew him, considered his chief defect, the Portuguese would have been hard pressed. The greater part of the south of Portugal was overrun, but in 1663 the Portuguese were reinforced by a body of English troops, and were put under the command of the Huguenot Schomberg. By him Don John was completely beaten at Estremos. Even now he might not have lost the confidence of his father, if Queen Mariana, mother of the sickly infante Carlos, the only surviving legitimate son of the king, had not regarded the bastard with distrust and dislike. Don John was removed from command and sent to his commandery at Consuegra. After the death of Philip IV. in 1665 Don John became the recognized leader of the opposition to the government of Philip’s widow, the queen regent. She and her favourite, the German Jesuit Nithard, seized and put to death one of his most trusted servants, Don José Malladas. Don John, in return, put himself at the head of a rising of Aragon and Catalonia, which led to the expulsion of Nithard on the 25th of February 1669. Don John was, however, forced to content himself with the viceroyalty of Aragon. In 1677, the queen mother having aroused universal opposition by her shameless favour for Fernando de Valenzuela, Don John was able to drive her from court, and establish himself as prime minister. Great hopes were entertained of his administration, but it proved disappointing and short. Don John died on the 17th of September 1679.
The career of Don John can be followed in J. C. Dunlop’s Memoirs of Spain 1621-1700 (Edin. 1834).
JOHN OF BEVERLEY, ST (d. 721), English bishop, is said to have been born of noble parents at Harpham, in the east riding of Yorkshire. He received his education at Canterbury under Archbishop Theodore, the statement that he was educated at Oxford being of course untrue. He was for a time a member of the Whitby community, under St Hilda, and in 687 he was consecrated bishop of Hexham and in 705 was promoted to the bishopric of York. He resigned the latter see in 718, and retired to a monastery which he had founded at Beverley, where he died on the 7th of May 721. He was canonized in 1037, and his feast is celebrated annually in the Roman Church on the 7th of May. Many miracles of healing are ascribed to John, whose pupils were numerous and devoted to him. He was celebrated for his scholarship as well as for his virtues.
The following works are ascribed to John by J. Bale: Pro Luca exponendo (an exposition of Luke); Homiliae in Evangelia; Epistolae ad Herebaldum, Audenam, et Bertinum; and Epistolae ad Hyldam abbatissam. See life by Folcard, based on Bede, in Acta SS. Bolland.; and J. Raine’s Fasti eboracenses (1863).
JOHN OF THE CROSS, ST (1542-1591), Spanish mystic, was born at Ontiveros (Old Castile) on the 24th of June 1542. He became a professed Carmelite in 1564, and was ordained priest at Salamanca in 1567. He met with much opposition in his efforts to introduce the reforms proposed by St Theresa, and was more than once imprisoned. His real name was Juan de Yepez y Álvarez; in religion he was known as Juan de San Matias till 1568, when he adopted the name of Juan de la Cruz. 448 Broken by persecution, he was sent to the monastery of Ubeda, where he died in 1591; his Obras espirituales were published posthumously in 1618. He was beatified in 1674 and canonized on the 27th of December 1726. The lofty symbolism of his prose is frequently obscure, but his lyrical verses are distinguished for their rapturous ecstasy and beauty of expression.
Some of his poems have been translated with great success by Arthur Symons in Images of Good and Evil; the most convenient edition of his works, which have been frequently reprinted, is that contained in vol. xvi. of the Biblioteca de autores españoles.
JOHN OF ASIA (or of Ephesus), a leader of the Monophysite Syriac-speaking Church in the 6th century, and one of the earliest and most important of Syriac historians. Born at Āmid (Diarbekr) about 505, he was there ordained as a deacon in 529, but in 534 we find him in Palestine, and in 535 he passed to Constantinople. The cause of his leaving Āmid was probably either the great pestilence which broke out there in 534 or the furious persecution directed against the Monophysites by Ephraim (patriarch of Antioch 529-544) and Abraham (bishop of Āmid c. 520-541). In Constantinople he seems to have early won the notice of Justinian, one of the main objects of whose policy was the consolidation of Eastern Christianity as a bulwark against the heathen power of Persia. John is said by Barhebraeus (Chron. eccl. i. 195) to have succeeded Anthimus as Monophysite bishop of Constantinople, but this is probably a mistake.1 Anyhow he enjoyed the emperor’s favour until the death of the latter in 565 and (as he himself tells us) was entrusted with the administration of the entire revenues of the Monophysite Church. He was also sent, with the rank of bishop, on a mission for the conversion of such heathen as remained in Asia Minor, and informs us that the number of those whom he baptized amounted to 70,000. He also built a large monastery at Tralles on the hills skirting the valley of the Meander, and more than 90 other monasteries. Of the mission to the Nubians which he promoted, though he did not himself visit their country, an interesting account is given in the 4th book of the 3rd part of his History.2 In 546 the emperor entrusted him with the task of rooting out the secret practice of idolatry in Constantinople and its neighbourhood. But his fortunes changed soon after the accession of Justin II. About 571 Paul of Asia, the orthodox or Chalcedonian patriarch, began (with the sanction of the emperor) a rigorous persecution of the Monophysite Church leaders, and John was among those who suffered most. He gives us a detailed account of his sufferings in prison, his loss of civil rights, &c., in the third part of his History. The latest events recorded are of the date 585, and the author cannot have lived much longer; but of the circumstances of his death nothing is known.
John’s main work was his Ecclesiastical History, which covered more than six centuries, from the time of Julius Caesar to 585. It was composed in three parts, each containing six books. The first part seems to have wholly perished. The second, which extended from Theodosius II. to the 6th or 7th year of Justin II., was (as F. Nau has recently proved)3 reproduced in full or almost in full, in John’s own words, in the third part of the Chronicle which was till lately attributed to the patriarch Dionysius Telmaharensis, but is really the work of an unknown compiler. Of this second division of John’s History, in which he had probably incorporated the so-called Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, considerable portions are found in the British Museum MSS. Add. 14647 and 14650, and these have been published in the second volume of Land’s Anecdota Syriaca. But the whole is more completely presented in the Vatican MS. (clxii.), which contains the third part of the Chronicle of pseudo-Dionysius. The third part of John’s history, which is a detailed account of the ecclesiastical events which happened in 571-585, as well as of some earlier occurrences, survives in a fairly complete state in Add. 14640, a British Museum MS. of the 7th century. It forms a contemporary record of great value to the historian. Its somewhat disordered state, the want of chronological arrangement, and the occasional repetition of accounts of the same events are due, as the author himself informs us (ii. 50), to the work being almost entirely composed during the times of persecution. The same cause may account for the somewhat slovenly Syriac style. The writer claims to have treated his subject impartially, and though written from the narrow point of view of one to whom Monophysite “orthodoxy” was all-important, it is evidently a faithful reproduction of events as they occurred. This third part was edited by Cureton (Oxford, 1853), and was translated into English by R. Payne-Smith (Oxford, 1860) and into German by J. M. Schönfelder (Munich, 1862).
John’s other known work was a series of Biographies of Eastern Saints, compiled about 569. These have been edited by Land in Anecdota Syriaca, ii. 1-288, and translated into Latin by Douwen and Land (Amsterdam, 1889). An interesting estimate of John as an ecclesiastic and author was given by the Abbé Duchesne in a memoir read before the five French Academies on the 25th of October 1892.
1 See Land, Joannes Bischof von Ephesos, pp. 57 seq.
2 Cf. Land’s Appendix (op. cit. 172-193).
3 See Bulletin critique, 15th June and 25th Aug. 1896, and 25th Jan. 1897; Journal asiatique, 9th series, vol. viii. (1896) pp. 346 sqq. and vol. ix. (1897) p. 529; also Revue de l’Orient chrétien, Suppl. trimestriel (1897), pp. 41-54, 455-493; and compare Nöldeke in Vienna Oriental Journal (1896), pp. 160 sqq. The facts are briefly stated in Duval’s Littérature syriaque, p. 192. A full analysis of this second part of John’s history has been given by M. Nau.
JOHN OF DAMASCUS (Johannes Damascenus) (d. before 754), an eminent theologian of the Eastern Church, derives his surname from Damascus, where he was born about the close of the 7th century. His Arabic name was Mansur (the victor), and he received the epithet Chrysorrhoas (gold-pouring) on account of his eloquence. The principal account of his life is contained in a narrative of the 10th century, much of which is obviously legendary. His father Sergius was a Christian, but notwithstanding held a high office under the Saracen caliph, in which he was succeeded by his son. John is said to have owed his education in philosophy, mathematics and theology to an Italian monk named Cosmas, whom Sergius had redeemed from a band of captive slaves. About the year 730 he wrote several treatises in defence of image-worship, which the emperor, Leo the Isaurian, was making strenuous efforts to suppress.
Various pieces of evidence go to show that it was shortly after this date that he resolved to forsake the world, divided his fortune among his friends and the poor, and betook himself to the monastery of St Sabas, near Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life. After the customary probation he was ordained priest by the patriarch of Jerusalem. In his last years he travelled through Syria contending against the iconoclasts, and in the same cause he visited Constantinople at the imminent risk of his life during the reign of Constantine Copronymus. With him the “mysteries,” the entire ritual, are an integral part of the Orthodox system, and all dogma culminates in image-worship. The date of his death is uncertain; it is probably about 752. John Damascenus is a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his festival being observed in the former on the 29th of November and on the 4th of December, and in the latter on the 6th of May.
The works of Damascenus give him a foremost place among the theologians of the early Eastern Church, and, according to Dorner, he “remains in later times the highest authority in the theological literature of the Greeks.” This is not because he is an original thinker but because he compiled into systematic form the scattered teaching of his theological predecessors. Several treatises attributed to him are probably spurious, but his undoubted works are numerous and embrace a wide range. The most important contains three parts under the general title Πηγὴ γνώσεως (“The Fountain of Knowledge”). The first part, entitled Κεφάλαια φιλοσοφικά, is an exposition and application of theology of Aristotle’s Dialectic. The second, entitled Περὶ αίρέσεων (“Of Heresies”), is a reproduction of the earlier work of Epiphanius, with a continuation giving an account of the heresies that arose after the time of that writer. The third part, entitled Ἔκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως (“An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”), is much the most important, containing as it does a complete system of theology founded on the teaching of the fathers and church councils, from the 4th to the 7th century. It thus embodies the finished result of the theological thought of the early Greek Church. Through a Latin translation made by Burgundio of Pisa in the 12th century, it was well known to Peter Lombard and Aquinas, and in this way it influenced the scholastic theology of the West. Another well-known work is the Sacra parallela, a collection of biblical passages followed by illustrations drawn from other scriptural sources and from the fathers. There is much merit in his hymns and “canons”; one of the latter is very familiar as the hymn “The Day of Resurrection, Earth tell it out abroad.” John of Damascus has sometimes been called the “Father of Scholasticism,” and the “Lombard of the Greeks,” but these epithets are appropriate only in a limited sense.
The Christological position of John may be summed up in the following description:1 “He tries to secure the unity of the two 449 natures by relegating to the divine Logos the formative and controlling agency. It is not a human individual that the Logos assumes, nor is it humanity, or human nature in general. It is rather a potential human individual, a nature not yet developed into a person or hypostasis. The hypostasis through which this takes place is the personal Logos through whose union with this potential man, in the womb of Mary, the potential man acquires a concrete reality, an individual existence. He has, therefore, no hypostasis of himself but only in and through the Logos. It is denied that he is non-hypostatic (ἀνυπόστατος); it is affirmed that he is en-hypostatic (ἐνυπόστατος). Two natures may form a unity, as the body and soul in man. So man, both soul and body, is brought into unity with the Logos; there being then one hypostasis for both natures.” There is an interchange of the divine and human attributes, a communication of the former which deifies the receptive and passive human nature. In Christ the human will has become the organ of the divine will. Thus while John is an adherent of Chalcedon and a dyothelite, the drift of his teaching is in the monophysite direction. “The Chalcedonian Definition is victorious, but Apollinaris is not overcome”; what John gives with the one hand he takes away with the other. On the question of the Atonement he regards the death of Christ as a sacrifice offered to God and not a ransom paid to the devil.
Literature.—The Life of John of Damascus was written by John, patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th century (Migne, Patrol. Graec., xciv. 429-489). The works were edited by Le Quien (2 vols., fol., Paris, 1712) and form vols. 94 to 96 in Migne’s Greek series. A monograph by J. Langen was published in 1879. A. Harnack’s History of Dogma is very full (see especially vols. iii. and iv.; on the image-worship controversy, iv. 322 seq.), and so are the similar works of F. Loofs-Seeberg and A. Dorner. See also O. Bardenhewer’s Patrologie, and other literature cited in F. Kattenbusch’s excellent article in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopädie, vol. ix.
1 G. P. Fisher, Hist. of Chr. Doctrine, 159 seq. More fully in R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, ii. 138-146.
JOHN OF HEXHAM (c. 1160-1209), English chronicler, is known to us merely as the author of a work called the Historia XXV. annorum, which continues the Historia regum of Simeon of Durham and contains an account of English events 1130-1153. From the title, as given in the only manuscript, we learn John’s name and the fact that he was prior of Hexham. It must have been between 1160 and 1209 that he held this position; but the date at which he lived and wrote cannot be more accurately determined. Up to the year 1139 he follows closely the history written by his predecessor, Prior Richard; thenceforward he is an independent though not a very valuable authority. He is best informed as to the events of the north country; his want of care, when he ventures farther afield, may be illustrated by the fact that he places in 1145 King Stephen’s siege of Oxford, which really occurred in 1142. Even for northern affairs his chronology is faulty; from 1140 onwards his dates are uniformly one year too late. Prior Richard is not the only author to whom John is indebted; he incorporates in the annal of 1138 two other narratives of the battle of the Standard, one in verse by the monk Serlo, another in prose by Abbot Ailred of Rievaux; and also a poem, by a Glasgow clerk, on the death of Sumerled of the Isles.
The one manuscript of John’s chronicle is a 13th century copy; MS. C. C. C. Cambridge, cxxxix. 8. The best edition is that of T. Arnold in Symeonis monachi opera, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, 1885). There is an English translation in J. Stevenson’s Church Historians of England, vol. iv. (London, 1856).
JOHN OF IRELAND (Johannis de Irlandia), (fl. 1480), Scottish writer, perhaps of Lowland origin, was resident for thirty years in Paris and later a professor of theology. He was confessor to James IV. and also to Louis XI. of France, and was rector of Yarrow (de Foresta) when he completed, at Edinburgh, the work on which rests his sole claim as a vernacular writer. This book, preserved in MS. in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh (MS. 18, 2, 8), and labelled “Johannis de Irlandia opera theologica,” is a treatise in Scots on the wisdom and discipline necessary to a prince, especially intended for the use of the young James IV. The book is the earliest extant example of original Scots prose. It was still in MS. in 1910, but an edition was promised by the Scottish Text Society. In this book John refers to two other vernacular writings, one “of the commandementis and uthir thingis pretenand to the salvacioune of man,” the other, “of the tabill of confessioune.” No traces of these have been discovered. The author’s name appears on the registers of the university of Paris and on the rolls of the Scottish parliaments, and he is referred to by the Scottish historians, Leslie and Dempster.
See the notices in John Lyden’s Introduction to his edition of the Complaynt of Scotlande (1801), pp. 85 seq.; The Scottish Antiquary, xiii. 111-115 and xv. 1-14. Annotated extracts are given in Gregory Smith’s Specimens of Middle Scots (1902).
JOHN OF RAVENNA. Two distinct persons of this name, formerly confused and identified with a third (anonymous) Ravennese in Petrarch’s letters, lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century.
1. A young Ravennese born about 1347, who in 1364 went to live with Petrarch as secretary. In 1367 he set out to see the world and make a name for himself, returned in a state of destitution, but, growing restless again, left his employer for good in 1368. He is not mentioned again in Petrarch’s correspondence, unless a letter “to a certain wanderer” (vago cuidam), congratulating him on his arrival at Rome in 1373, is addressed to him.
2. Son of Conversanus (Conversinus, Convertinus). He is first heard of (Nov. 17, 1368) as appointed to the professorship of rhetoric at Florence, where he had for some time held the post of notary at the courts of justice. This differentiates him from (1). He entered (c. 1370) the service of the ducal house of Padua, the Carraras, in which he continued at least until 1404, although the whole of that period was not spent in Padua. From 1375 to 1379 he was a schoolmaster at Belluno, and was dismissed as too good for his post and not adapted for teaching boys. On the 22nd of March 1382, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at Padua. During the struggle between the Carraras and Viscontis, he spent five years at Udine (1387-1392). From 1395-1404 he was chancellor of Francis of Carrara, and is heard of for the last time in 1406 as living at Venice. His history of the Carraras, a tasteless production in barbarous Latin, says little for his literary capacity; but as a teacher he enjoyed a great reputation, amongst his pupils being Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino of Verona.
3. Malpaghini (De Malpaghinis), the most important. Born about 1356, he was a pupil of Petrarch from a very early age to 1374. On the 19th of September 1397 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and eloquence at Florence. On the 9th of June 1412, on the re-opening of the studio, which had been shut from 1405 to 1411 owing to the plague, his appointment was renewed for five years, before the expiration of which period he died (May 1417). Although Malpaghini left nothing behind him, he did much to encourage the study of Latin; among his pupils was Poggio Bracciolini.
The local documents and other authorities on the subject will be found in E. T. Klette, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, vol. i. (1888); see also G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums, who, however, identifies (1) and (2).
JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 1115-1180), English author, diplomatist and bishop, was born at Salisbury between the years 1115 and 1120. Beyond the fact that he was of Saxon, not of Norman race, and applies to himself the cognomen of Parvus, “short,” or “small,” few details are known regarding his early life; but from his own statements it is gathered that he crossed to France about 1136, and began regular studies in Paris under Abelard, who had there for a brief period re-opened his famous school on Mont St Geneviève. After Abelard’s retirement, John carried on his studies under Alberich of Reims and Robert of Melun. From 1138 to 1140 he studied grammar and the classics under William of Conches and Richard l’Evêque, the disciples of Bernard of Chartres, though it is still a matter of controversy whether it was in Chartres or not (cf. A. Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au moyen âge, 1895). Bernard’s teaching was distinguished partly by its pronounced Platonic tendency, partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater Latin writers; and the influence of the latter feature is noticeable in all John of Salisbury’s works. About 1140 he was at Paris studying theology under Gilbert de la Porrée, then under Robert Pullus and Simon of Poissy. In 1148 he resided at 450 Moûtiers la Celle in the diocese of Troyes, with his friend Peter of Celle. He was present at the council of Reims, presided over by Pope Eugenius III., and was probably presented by Bernard of Clairvaux to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, at whose court he settled, probably about 1150. Appointed secretary to Theobald, he was frequently sent on missions to the papal see. During this time he composed his greatest works, published almost certainly in 1159, the Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium et de vestigiis philosophorum and the Metalogicus, writings invaluable as storehouses of information regarding the matter and form of scholastic education, and remarkable for their cultivated style and humanist tendency. After the death of Theobald in 1161, John continued as secretary to Thomas Becket, and took an active part in the long disputes between that primate and his sovereign, Henry II. His letters throw light on the constitutional struggle then agitating the English world. With Becket he withdrew to France during the king’s displeasure; he returned with him in 1170, and was present at his assassination. In the following years, during which he continued in an influential situation in Canterbury, but at what precise date is unknown, he drew up the Life of Thomas Becket. In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his life. In 1179 he took an active part in the council of the Lateran. He died at or near Chartres on the 25th of October 1180.
John’s writings enable us to understand with much completeness the literary and scientific position of the 12th century. His views imply a cultivated intelligence well versed in practical affairs, opposing to the extremes of both nominalism and realism a practical common sense. His doctrine is a kind of utilitarianism, with a strong leaning on the speculative side to the modified literary scepticism of Cicero, for whom he had unbounded admiration. He was a humanist before the Renaissance, surpassing all other representatives of the school of Chartres in his knowledge of the Latin classics, as in the purity of his style, which was evidently moulded on that of Cicero. Of Greek writers he appears to have known nothing at first hand, and very little in translations. The Timaeus of Plato in the Latin version of Chalcidius was known to him as to his contemporaries and predecessors, and probably he had access to translations of the Phaedo and Meno. Of Aristotle he possessed the whole of the Organon in Latin; he is, indeed, the first of the medieval writers of note to whom the whole was known. Of other Aristotelian writings he appears to have known nothing.
The collected editions of the works are by J. A. Giles (5 vols., Oxford, 1848), and by Migne, in the Patrologiae cursus, vol. 199: neither accurate. The Policraticus was edited with notes and introductions by C. C. I. Webb, Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi Carnotensis Policratici (Oxford, 1909), 2 vols. The most complete study of John of Salisbury is the monograph by C. Schaarschmidt, Johannes Sarisberiensis nach Leben und Studien, Schriften und Philosophie, 1862, which is a model of accurate and complete workmanship. See also the article in the Dict. Nat. Biog.
JOHN (1290-c. 1320), surnamed the Parricide, and called also John of Swabia, was a son of Rudolph II. count of Habsburg and Agnes daughter of Ottakar II. king of Bohemia, and consequently a grandson of the German king Rudolph I. Having passed his early days at the Bohemian court, when he came of age he demanded a portion of the family estates from his uncle, the German king Albert I. His wishes were not gratified, and with three companions he formed a plan to murder the king. On the 1st of May 1308 Albert in crossing the river Reuss at Windisch became separated from his attendants, and was at once attacked and killed by the four conspirators. John escaped the vengeance of Albert’s sons, and was afterwards found in a monastery at Pisa, where in 1313 he is said to have been visited by the emperor Henry VII., who had placed him under the ban. From this time he vanishes from history. The character of John is used by Schiller in his play Wilhelm Tell.
JOHN, THE EPISTLES OF. The so-called epistles of John, in the Bible, are not epistles in the strict sense of the term, for the first is a homily, and encyclical or pastoral (as has been recognized since the days of Bretschneider and Michaelis), while the other two are brief notes or letters. Nor are they John’s, if John means the son of Zebedee. The latter conclusion depends upon the particular hypothesis adopted with regard to the general Johannine problem, yet even when it is held that John the apostle (q.v.) survived to old age in Ephesus, the second and third epistles may be fairly ascribed (with Erasmus, Grotius, Credner, Bretschneider, Reuss, &c.) to John the presbyter1, as several circles in the early church held (“Opinio a plerisque tradita,” Jerome: De vir. ill. 18). An apostle indeed might call himself a presbyter (cf. 1 Pet. v. 1). But these notes imply no apostolic claim on the part of the author, and, although their author is anonymous, the likelihood is that their composition by the great Asiatic presbyter John led afterwards to their incorporation in the “instrumentum” of John the apostle’s writings, when the prestige of the latter had obscured the former. All hypotheses as to their pseudonymity or composition by different hands may be dismissed. They would never have floated down the stream of tradition except on the support of some primitive authority. If this was not connected with John the apostle the only feasible alternative is to think of John the presbyter, for Papias refers to the latter in precisely this fashion (Euseb. H. E. iii. 39, 15; καὶ τοῦτο ὁ π. ἔλεγε).
The period of all three lies somewhere within the last decade of the 1st century and the first decade of the 2nd. No evidence is available to determine in what precise order they were written, but it will be convenient to take the two smaller notes before the larger. The so-called Second Epistle of John is one of the excommunicating notes occasionally despatched by early Christian leaders to a community (cf. 2 Cor. v. 9). The presbyter or elder warns a Christian community, figuratively addressed as “the elect lady” (cf. 13 with 1 Pet. i. 1; v, 13; also the plural of 6, 8, 10 and 13), against some itinerant (cf. Didache xi. 1-2) teachers who were promulgating advanced Docetic views (7) upon the person of Christ. The note is merely designed to serve (12) until the writer arrives in person. He sends greetings to his correspondents from some community in which he is residing at present (13), and with which they had evidently some connexion.
The note was familiar to Irenaeus2 who twice (i. 16, 3, iii. 16, 8) cites 10-11, once quoting it from the first epistle by mistake, but no tradition has preserved the name of the community in question, and all opinions on the matter are guess-work. The reference to “all who know the truth” (ver. 1) is, of course, to be taken relatively (cf. Rev. ii. 23); it does not necessarily imply a centre like Antioch or Rome (Chapman). Whiston thought of Philadelphia, and probably it must have been one of the Asiatic churches.
The so-called Third Epistle of John belongs to the ἐπίστολαι συστάτικαι (2 Cor. iii. 1) of the early church, like Rom. xvi. It is a private note addressed by the presbyter to a certain Gaius, a member of the same community or house-church (9) as that to which 2 John is written. A local errorist, Diotrephes (9-10) had repudiated the authority of the writer and his party, threatening even to excommunicate Gaius and others from the church (cf. Abbott’s Diatessarica, § 2258). With this opponent the writer promises (10) to deal sharply in person before very long. Meantime (14) he despatches the present note, in hearty appreciation of his correspondent’s attitude and character.
The allusion in 9 (ἔγραψα) refers in all likelihood to the “second” epistle (so Ewald, Wolf, Salmon, &c.). In order to avoid the suggestion that it implied a lost epistle, ἂν was inserted at an early stage in the textual history of the note. If ἐκκλήσιας could be read in 12, Demetrius would be a presbyter; in any case, he is not to be identified with Demas (Chapman), nor is 451 there any reason to suppose (with Harnack)3 that the note of 9 was written to, and suppressed by, him. What the presbyter is afraid of is not so much that his note would not be read (Ewald, Harnack), as that it would not be acted upon.
These notes, written originally on small sheets of papyrus, reveal the anonymous presbyter travelling (so Clem. Alex. Quis dives salv. xlii.) in his circuit or diocese of churches, and writing occasional pastoral letters, in which he speaks not only in his own name but in that of a coterie of like-minded Christians.4 It is otherwise with the brochure or manifesto known as the “first epistle.” This was written neither at the request of its readers nor to meet any definite local emergency, but on the initiative of its author (i. 4) who was evidently concerned about the effect produced upon the Church in general by certain contemporary phases of semi-gnostic teaching. The polemic is directed against a dualism which developed theoretically into docetic views of Christ’s person (ii. 22, iv. 2, &c.), and practically into libertinism (ii. 4, &c.).5 It is natural to think, primarily, of the churches in Asia Minor as the circle addressed, but all indications of date or place are absent, except those which may be inferred from its inner connexion with the Fourth Gospel.
The plan of the brochure is unstudied and unpremeditated, resembling a series of variations upon one or two favourite themes rather than a carefully constructed melody. Fellowship (κοινωνία) with God and man is its dominant note. After defining the essence of Christian κοινονία (i. 1-3),6 the writer passes on to its conditions (i. 5-ii. 17), under the antithesis of light and darkness. These conditions are twofold: (a) a sense of sin, which leads Christians to a sense of forgiveness7 through Jesus Christ, (b) and obedience to the supreme law of brotherly love (cf. Ignat. Ad Smyrn. 6). If these conditions are unfulfilled, moral darkness is the issue, a darkness which spells ruin to the soul. This prompts the writer to explain the dangers of κοινωνία (ii. 18-29), under the antithesis of truth and falsehood, the immediate peril being a novel heretical view of the person of Christ. The characteristics of the fellowship are then developed (iii. 1-12), as sinlessness and brotherly love, under the antithesis of children of God (cf. ii. 29, “born of Him”) and children of the devil. This brotherly love bulks so largely in the writer’s mind that he proceeds to enlarge upon its main elements of confidence towards God (iii. 13-24), moral discernment (iv. 1-6), and assurance of union with God (iv. 7-21), all these being bound up with a true faith in Jesus as the Christ (v. 1-12).8 A brief epilogue gives what is for the most part a summary (v. 13-21) of the leading ideas of the homily.9
Disjointed as the cause of the argument may seem, a close scrutiny of the context often reveals a subtle connexion between paragraphs which at first sight appear unlinked. Thus the idea of the κόσμος passing away (ii. 17) suggests the following sentences upon the nearness of the παρούσια (ii. 18 seq.), whose signs are carefully noted in order to reassure believers, and whose moral demands are underlined (ii. 28, iii. 3). Within this paragraph10 even the abrupt mention of the χρίσμα has its genetical place (ii. 20). The heretical ἀντίχριστοι, it is implied, have no χρίσμα from God; Christians have (note the emphasis on ὑμεῖς), owing to their union with the true Χρίστος. Again, the genetic relation of iii. 4 seq. to what precedes becomes evident when we consider that the norm of Christian purity (iii. 3) is the keeping of the divine commandments, or conduct resembling Christ’s on earth (iii. 3-ii. 4-6), so that the Gnostic11 breach of this law not only puts a man out of touch with Christ (iii. 6 seq.), but defeats the very end of Christ’s work, i.e. the abolition of sin (iii. 8). Thus iii. 7-10 resumes and completes the idea of ii. 29; the Gnostic is shown to be out of touch with the righteous God, partly because he will not share the brotherly love which is the expression of the righteousness, and partly because his claims to sinlessness render God’s righteous forgiveness (i. 9) superfluous. Similarly the mention of the Spirit (iii. 24) opens naturally into a discussion of the decisive test for the false claims of the heretics or gnostic illuminati to spiritual powers and gifts (iv. 1 seq.); and, as this test of the genuine Spirit of God is the confession of Jesus Christ as really human and incarnate, the writer, on returning (in iv. 17 seq.) to his cardinal idea of brotherly love, expresses it in view of the incarnate Son (iv. 9), 452 whose mission furnishes the proof of God’s love as well as the example and the energy of man’s (iv. 10 seq.). The same conception of the real humanity of Jesus Christ as essential to faith’s being and well-being is worked out in the following paragraph (v. 1-12), while the allusion to eternal life (v. 11-12) leads to the closing recapitulation (v. 13-21) of the homily’s leading ideas under this special category.
The curious idea, mentioned by Augustine (Quaest. evang. ii. 39), that the writing was addressed ad Parthos, has been literally taken by several Latin fathers and later writers (e.g. Grotius, Paulus, Hammond), but this title probably was a corruption of ad sparsos (Wetstein, Wegschneider) or of πρὸς παρθένους (Whiston: the Christians addressed as virgin, i.e. free from heresy), if not of παρθένος, as applied in early tradition to John the apostle. The circle for which the homily was meant was probably, in the first instance, that of the Fourth Gospel, but it is impossible to determine whether the epistle preceded or followed the larger treatise. The division of opinion on this point (cf. J. Moffat, Historical New Testament, 1901, p. 534) is serious, but the evidence for either position is purely subjective. There are sufficient peculiarities of style and conception12 to justify provisionally some hesitation on the matter of the authorship. The epistle may have been written by a different author, or, from a more popular standpoint, by the author of the gospel, possibly (as some critics hold) by the author of John xxi. But res lubrica, opinio incerta.
It is unsafe to lay much stress upon the apparent reminiscence of iv. 2-3 (or of 2 John 7) in Polycarp, ad Phil. 7 reading ἐληλυθότα instead of ἑληλυθέναι), though, if a literary filiation is assumed, the probability is that Polycarp is quoting from the epistle, not vice versa (as Volkmar contends, in his Ursprung d. unseren Evglien 47 seq.). But Papias is said by Eusebius (H. E. iii. 39) to have used ἡ Ἰωάννου προτέρα (= ἡ Ἰωάννου πρώτη, v. 8?), i.e. the anonymous tract, which, by the time of Eusebius, had come to be known as 1 John, and we have no reason to suspect or reject this statement, particularly as Justin Martyr, another Asiatic writer, furnishes clear echoes of the epistle (Dial. 123). The tract must have been in circulation throughout Asia Minor at any rate before the end of the first quarter of the 2nd century.13 The terminus a quo is approximately the period of the Fourth Gospel’s composition, but there is no valid evidence to indicate the priority of either, even upon the hypothesis that both came from the same pen. The aim of each is too special to warrant the conclusion that the epistle was intended to accompany or to introduce the gospel.
Literature.—The most adequate modern editions of the three epistles are by Westcott (3rd ed., 1892), H. J. Holtzmann (Hand-Commentar zum N. T., 3rd ed., 1908), B. Weiss (in Meyer, 6th ed., 1900), Baljon (1904) and J. E. Belser (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906). Briefer English notes are furnished by W. Alexander (Speaker’s Commentary, 1881), W. H. Bennett (Century Bible, 1901) and H. P. Forbes (Internat. Handbooks to New Testament, vol. iv. 1907), while Plummer has a concise edition of the Greek text (in The Cambridge Greek Testament, 1886). Huther’s edition (in Meyer, 1880) has been translated into English (Edinburgh, 1882), like Rothe’s (1878) invaluable commentary on the first epistle (cf. Expository Times, vols. iii. v.). Otto Baumgarten’s popular edition in Die Schriften des N. T. (1907) is, like that of Forbes, written from practically the same standpoint as Holtzmann’s. The earlier commentaries of Alford (2nd ed., 1862), C. A. Wolf (2nd ed., 1885), Ewald (Die Joh. Briefe übersetzt und erklaert, Göttingen, 1861-1862), and Lücke (3rd ed., revised by Bertheau, 1856) still repay the reader, and among previous editions those of W. Whiston (Comm. on St John’s Three Catholic Epistles, 1719) and de Wette (1837, &c.) contain material of real exegetical interest. Special editions of the first epistle have been published by John Cotton (London, 1655), Neander (1851; Eng. trans. New York, 1853), E. Haupt (1869; Eng. trans. 1879), Lias (1887) and C. Watson (1891, expository) among others. Special studies by F. H. Kern (De epistolae Joh. consilio, Tübingen, 1830), Erdmann (Primae Joh. epistolae argumentum, nexus et consilium, Berlin, 1855), C. E. Luthardt (De primae Joannis epistolae compositione, 1860), J. Stockmeyer (Die Structur des ersten Joh. Briefes, Basel, 1873) and, most elaborately, by H. J. Holtzmann (Jahrb. für protest. Theologie, 1881, pp. 690 seq.; 1882, pp. 128 seq., 316 seq., 460 seq.). To the monographs already noted in the course of this article may be added the essays by Wiesinger (Studien und Kritiken, 1899, pp. 575 seq.) and Wohlenberg (“Glossen zum ersten Johannisbrief,” Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 233 seq., 632 seq.). On 2 John there are special commentaries and studies by Ritmeier (De electa domina, 1706), C. A. Kriegele (De κυρία Johannis, 1758), Carpzov (Theolog. exegetica, pp. 105-208), H. G. B. Müller (Comment. in secundam epistolam Joannis, 1783), C. Klug (De authentia, &c., 1823), J. Rendel Harris (Expositor, 6th series, 1901, pp. 194 seq.), W. M. Ramsay (ibid., pp. 354 seq.) and Gibbins (ibid., 1902, pp. 228-236), while, in addition to Hermann’s Comment, in Joan. ep. III. (1778), P. L. Gachon (Authenticité de la deuxième et troisième épîtres de Jean, 1851), Poggel (Der zweite und dritte Briefe d. Apostel Johannis, 1896), and Chapman (Journal of Theological Studies, 1904, “The Historical Setting of the Second and the Third Epistles of St John”), have discussed both of the minor epistles together. General studies of all three are furnished by H. J. Holtzmann in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon, iii. 342-352, Sabatier (Encyclop. des sciences religieuses, vii. 177 seq.), S. Cox (The Private Letters of St Paul and St John, 1867), Farrar (Early Days of Christianity, chs. xxxi., xxxiv. seq.), Gloag (Introduction to Catholic Epistles, 1887, pp. 256-350), S. D. F. Salmond in Hasting’s Dict. Bible (vol. ii), G. H. Gilbert (The First Interpreters of Jesus, 1901, pp. 301-332), and V. Bartlet (The Apostolic Age, 1900, pp. 418 seq.; from a more advanced critical position by Cone (The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations, 1893, pp. 320-327), P. W. Schmiedel (Ency. Bib., 2556-2562, also in a pamphlet, Evangelium, Briefe, und Offenbarung des Johannes, 1906; Eng. trans. 1908), J. Réville (Le Quatrième Evangile, 1901, pp. 49 seq.) and Pfleiderer (Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed., 1902, pp. 390 seq.). The problem of the epistles is discussed incidentally by many writers on the Fourth Gospel, as well as by writers on New Testament introduction like Zahn, Jacquier, Barth and Belser, on the Conservative side, and Hilgenfeld, Jülicher and von Soden on the Liberal. On the older Syriac version of 2 and 3 John, see Gwynn’s article in Hermathena (1890), pp. 281 seq. On the general reception of the three epistles in the early Church, Zahn’s paragraphs (in his Geschichte d. N. T. Kanons, i. 209 seq., 374 seq., 905 seq.; ii. 48 seq., 88 seq.) are the most adequate.
1 So Selwyn, Christian Prophets (pp. 133-145), Harnack, Heinrici (Das Urchristenthum, 1902, pp. 129 seq.), and von Soden (History of Early Christian Literature, pp. 445-446), after Renan (L’Église chrétienne, pp. 78 seq.). Von Dobschütz (Christian Life in the Primitive Church, pp. 218 seq.) and R. Knopf (Das nachapost. Zeitalter, 1905, pp. 32 seq., &c.) are among the most recent critics who ascribe all three epistles to the presbyter.
2 On the early allusions to these brief notes, cf. Gregory: The Canon and Text of the New Testament (1907), pp. 131, 190 seq., Westcott’s Canon of the New Testament, pp. 218 seq., 355, 357, 366, &c., and Leipoldt’s Geschichte d. neut. Kanons (1907), i. pp. 66 seq., 78 seq., 99 seq., 151 seq., 192 seq., 232 seq.
3 In his ingenious study (Texte und Untersuchungen, xv. 3), whose main contention is adopted by von Dobschütz and Knopf. On this view (for criticism see Belser in the Tübing. Quartalschrift, 1897, pp. 150 seq., Krüger in Zeitschrift für die wiss. Theologie, 1898, pp. 307-311, and Hilgenfeld: ibid. 316-320), Diotrephes was voicing a successful protest of the local monarchical bishops against the older itinerant authorities (cf. Schmiedel, Ency. Bib., 3146-3147). As Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (Hermes, 1898, pp. 529 seq.) points out, there is a close connexion between ver. 11 and ver. 10. The same writer argues that, as the substitution of ἀγαπήτος for φίλτατος (ver. 1) “ist Schönrednerei und nicht vom besten Geschmacke,” the writer adds ὅν ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ.
4 This is the force of the ἡμεῖς in 3 John 9-10 (cf. 1 John iv. 6, 14) “The truth” (3 John 3-5) seems to mean a life answering to the apostolic standard thus enforced and exemplified.
5 Several of these traits were reproduced in the teaching of Cerinthus, others may have been directly Jewish or Jewish Christian. The opposition to the Messianic rôle of Jesus had varied adherents. The denial of the Virgin-birth, which also formed part of the system of Cerinthus, was met by anticipation in the stories of Matthew and Luke, which pushed back the reception of the spirit from the baptism to the birth, but the Johannine school evidently preferred to answer this heresy by developing the theory of the Logos, with its implicate of pre-existence.
6 On the vexed question whether the language of this paragraph is purely spiritual or includes a realistic reference, cf. G. E. Findlay (Expositor, 1893, pp. 97 seq.), and Dr E. A. Abbott’s recent study in Diatessarica, §§ 1615-1620. The writer is controverting the Docetic heresy, and at the same time keeping up the line of communications with the apostolic base.
7 The universal range (ii. 2) ascribed to the redeeming work of Christ is directed against Gnostic dualism and the Ebionitic narrowing of salvation to Israel; only ἡμεῖς here denotes Christians in general, not Jewish Christians. On the answer to the Gnostic pride of perfectionism (i. 8), cf. Epict. iv. 12, 19. The emphasis on “you all” (ii. 20) hints at the Gnostic aristocratic system of degrees among believers, which naturally tended to break up brotherly love (cf. 1 Cor. viii. 1 seq.). The Gnostics also held that a spiritual seed (cf. iii. 9) was implanted in man, as the germ of his higher development into the divine life; for the Valentinian idea cf. Iren. Adv. Haer. i. 64, and Tertull. De anima, 11 [haeretici] “nescio quod spiritale semen infulciunt animae”. Cf. the general discussions by Häring in Theologische Abhandlungen C. von Weizsäcker gewidmet (1892), pp. 188 seq., and Zahn in Wanderungen durch Schrift u. Geschichte (1892), pp. 3-74.
8 Cf. Denney, The Death of Christ (1902), pp. 269-281. The polemical reference to Cerinthus is specially clear at this point. The death of Jesus was not that of a phantom, nor was his ministry from the baptism to the crucifixion that of a heavenly aeon which suffered nothing: such is the writer’s contention. “In every case the historical is asserted, but care is taken that it shall not be materialized: a primacy is given to the spiritual.... Except through the historical, there is no Christianity at all, but neither is there any Christianity till the historical has been spiritually comprehended.” The well-known interpolation of the three heavenly witnesses (v. 7) has now been proved by Karl Künstle (Das Comma Johanneum, 1905) to have originally come from the pen of the 4th century Spaniard, Priscillian, who himself denied all distinctions of person in the Godhead.
9 On the “sin to death” (v. 16) cf. Jubilees xxi. 22, xxvi. 34 with Karl’s Johann. Studien (1898), i. 97 seq. and M. Goguel’s La Notion johannique de l’esprit (1902), pp. 147-153, for the general theology of the epistle. The conceptions of light and life are best handled by Grill in his Untersuchungen über die Entstehung des vierten Evgliums (1902), pp. 301 seq., 312 seq.
10 In Preuschen’s Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft (1907), pp. 1-8, von Dobschütz tries to show that the present text of ii. 28-iii. 12 indicates a revision or rearrangement of an earlier text. Cludius (Uransichten des Christentums, Altona, 1808) had already conjectured that a Gnostic editor must have worked over a Jewish Christian document.
11 Dr Alois Wurm’s attempt (Die Irrlehrer im ersten Johannesbriefe, 1903) to read the references to errorists solely in the light of Jewish Christianity ignores or underrates several of the data. He is supported on the whole by Clemen, in Preuschen’s Zeitschrift (1905), pp. 271-281. There is certainly an anti-Jewish touch, e.g. in the claim of iii. 1 (note the emphatic ἡμῖν), when one recollects the saying of Aqiba (Aboth iii. 12) and Philo’s remark, καὶ γὰρ εἰ μήπω ἴκανοι θεοῦ παῖδες νομίζεσθαι γεγόναμεν, ἀλλά τοι τῆς ἀειδοῦς εἰκόνος αὐτοῦ, λόγου τοῦ ἱερωτ άτου θεοῦ γὰρ εἰκὼν λόγος ὁ πρεσβύτατος (De conf. ling. 28). But the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul and Cerinthus (Epiph. Haer. xxviii.), is too well based in the tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic reflection, and the internal evidence of this manifesto corroborates it clearly.
12 “The style is not flowing and articulated; the sentences come like minute-guns, as they would drop from a natural Hebrew. The writer moves, indeed, amidst that order of religious ideas which meets us in the Fourth Gospel, and which was that of the Greek world wherein he found himself. He moves amongst these new ideas, however, not with the practised felicity of the evangelist, but with something of helplessness, although the depth and serene beauty of his spirit give to all he says an infinite impressiveness and charm” (M. Arnold; God and the Bible, ch. vi.).
13 By the end of the 2nd century it appears to have been fairly well-known, to judge from Origen, Irenaeus (iii. 16, 8), and Clement of Alexandria (Stran. ii. 15, 66). In the Muratorian canon, which mentions two epistles of John, it seems to be reckoned (cf. Kuhn, Das Murat. Fragment, pp. 58 f.) as an appendix or sequel to the Fourth Gospel. The apparent traces of its use in Ignatius (cf. Smyrn. vi. 2 = 1 John iii. 17; Smyrn. vii = 1 John iii. 14, and Eph. xviii. = 1 John v. 6) seem too insecure, of themselves, to warrant any hypothesis of filiation.
JOHN, GOSPEL OF ST, the fourth and latest of the Gospels, in the Bible, and, next to that of St Mark, the shortest. The present article will first describe its general structure and more obvious contents; compare it with the Synoptic Gospels; and draw out its leading characteristics and final object. It will then apply the tests thus gained to the narratives special to this Gospel; and point out the book’s special difficulties and limits, and its abiding appeal and greatness. And it will finally consider the questions of its origin and authorship.
Analysis of Contents.—The book’s chief break is at xiii. 1, the solemn introduction to the feet-washing: all up to here reports Jesus’ signs and apologetic or polemical discourses to the outer world; hence onwards it pictures the manifestation of His glory to the inner circle of His disciples. These two parts contain three sections each.
1. (i.) Introduces the whole work (i. 1-ii. 11). (a) The prologue, i. 1-18. The Logos existed before creation and time; was with the very God and was God; and all things were made through Him. For in this Logos is Life, and this Life is a Light which, though shining in darkness, cannot be suppressed by it. This true Light became flesh and tabernacled amongst us; and we beheld His glory, as of an Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John the Baptist testified concerning Him, the Logos-Light and Logos-Life incarnate; but this Logos alone, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared the very God. (b) The four days’ work (i. 19-51). On the first three days John declares that he is not the Christ, proclaims Jesus to be the Christ, and sends his own disciples away to Jesus. On the fourth day, Jesus Himself calls Philip and Nathanael. (c) The seventh day’s first manifestation of the Incarnate Light’s glory (ii. 1-11 ); Jesus at Cana turns water into wine.
(ii.) Records the manifestations of the Light’s and Life’s glory and power to friend and foe (ii. 22-vi. 71). (d) Solemn inauguration of the Messianic ministry (ii. 12-iii. 21): cleansing of the Temple and prophecy of His resurrection; discourse to Nicodemus on baptismal regeneration. (e) Three scenes in Judea, Samaria, Galilee respectively (iii. 32-iv. 54): the Baptist’s second testimony; Jesus’ discourse 453 with the woman at the well concerning the spiritual, universal character of the new religion; and cure of the ruler’s son, the reward of faith in the simple word of Jesus. (f) Manifestation of Jesus as the vivifying Life-Logos and its contradiction in Judea, v.: the paralytic’s cure. (g) Manifestation of Jesus as the heaven-descended living Bread and its contradiction in Galilee, vi.: multiplication of the loaves; walking on the waters; and His discourse on the holy Eucharist.
(iii.) Acute conflict between the New Light and the old darkness (vii.-xii). (h) Self-manifestation of the Logos-Light in the Temple (vii. 1-x. 39). Journey to the feast of tabernacles; invitation to the soul athirst to come to Him (the fountain of Life) and drink, and proclamation of Himself as the Light of the world; cure of the man born blind; allegory of the good shepherd. The allegory continued at the feast of the dedication. They strive to stone or to take Him. (i) The Logos-Life brings Lazarus to life; effects of the act (x. 40-xii. 50). Jesus withdraws beyond Jordan, and then comes to Bethany, His friend Lazarus being buried three days; proclaims Himself the Resurrection and the Life; and calls Lazarus back to life. Some who saw it report the act to the Pharisees; the Sanhedrim meets, Caiaphas declares that one man must die for the people, and henceforward they ceaselessly plan His death. Jesus withdraws to the Judaean desert, but soon returns, six days before Passover, to Bethany; Mary anoints Him, a crowd comes to see Him and Lazarus, and the hierarchs then plan the killing of Lazarus also. Next morning He rides into Jerusalem on an ass’s colt. Certain Greeks desire to see Him: He declares the hour of His glorification to have come: “Now My soul is troubled.... Father, save Me from this hour. But for this have I come unto this hour: Father, glorify Thy Name.” A voice answers, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again”: some think that an angel spoke; but Jesus explains that this voice was not for His sake but for theirs. When lifted up from earth, He will draw all men to Himself; they are to believe in Him, the Light. The writer’s concluding reflection: the small success of Jesus’ activity among the Jews. Once again He cries: “I am come a Light into the world, that whoso believeth in Me should not abide in darkness.”
2. The Logos-Christ’s manifestation of His life and love to His disciples, during the last supper, the passion, the risen life (xiii.-xx.).
(iv.) The Last Supper (xiii.-xvii.) (j) Solemn washing of the disciples’ feet; the beloved disciple; designates the traitor; Judas goes forth, it is night (xiii. 1-30). (k) Last discourses, first series (xiii. 31-xiv. 31): the new commandment, the other helper; “Arise, let us go hence.” Second series (xv. 1-xvi. 33): allegory of the true vine; “Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend”; the world’s hatred; the spirit of truth shall lead them into all truth; “I came forth from the Father and am come into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father”; “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (l) The high-priestly prayer (xvii). “Father, glorify Thy Son ... with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was ... that to as many as Thou hast given Him, He should give eternal life.” “I pray for them, I pray not for the world. I pray also for them that shall believe in Me through their word, that they may be all one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee.”
(v.) The Passion (xviii.-xix.). (m) In the garden: the Roman soldiers come to apprehend Him, fall back upon the ground at His declaration “I am He.” Peter and Malchus. (n) Before Annas at night and Caiaphas at dawn; Peter’s denials (xviii. 12-27). (o) Before Pilate (xviii. 28-40). Jesus declares, “My kingdom is not of this world. I have come into the world that I may bear witness to the truth: everyone that is of the truth, heareth My voice”; Pilate asks sceptically “What is truth?” and the crowd prefers Barabbas. (p) The true king presented to the people as a mock-king; His rejection by the Jews and abandonment to them (xix. 1-16). (q) Jesus carries His cross to Golgotha, and is crucified there between two others; the cross’s title and Pilate’s refusal to alter it (xix. 17-22). (r) The soldiers cast lots upon His garments and seamless tunic; His mother with two faithful women and the beloved disciple at the cross’s foot; His commendation of His mother and the disciple to each other; His last two sayings in deliberate accomplishment of scripture “I thirst,” “It is accomplished.” He gives up the spirit; His bones remain unbroken; and from His spear-lanced side blood and water issue (xix. 23-37). (s) The two nobles, Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, bind the dead body in a winding sheet with one hundred pounds of precious spices, and place it in a new monument in a near garden, since the sabbath is at hand.
(vi.) The risen Jesus, Lord and God (xx.). (t) At early dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen, finding the stone rolled away from the monument, runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that the Lord’s body has been removed. Peter and the other disciple run to the grave; the latter, arriving first, enters only after Peter has gone in and noted the empty grave-clothes—enters and believes. After their departure, Mary sees two angels where His body had lain and turning away beholds Jesus standing, yet recognizes Him only when He addresses her. He bids her “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended”; but to tell His brethren “I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God.” And she does so. (u) Second apparition (xx. 19-23). Later on the same day, the doors being shut, Jesus appears amongst His disciples, shows them His (pierced) hands and side, and solemnly commissions and endows them for the apostolate by the words, “As the Father hath sent Me, so I send you,” and by breathing upon them saying “Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose sins ye retain, they are retained.” (v) Third apparition and culminating saying; conclusion of entire book (xx. 24-31). Thomas, who had been absent, doubts the resurrection; Jesus comes and submits to the doubter’s tests. Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God”; but Jesus declares “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” “Now Jesus,” concludes the writer, “did many other signs, ... but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in His name.”
The above analysis is rough, since even distantly placed sections, indeed the two parts themselves, are interrelated by delicate complex references on and back. And it omits the account of the adulteress (vii. 53-viii. 11): (a valuable report of an actual occurrence which probably belonged to some primitive document otherwise incorporated by the Synoptists), because it is quite un-Johannine in vocabulary, style and character, intercepts the Gospel’s thread wherever placed, and is absent from its best MSS. It also omits xxi. This chapter’s first two stages contain an important early historical document of Synoptic type: Jesus’ apparition to seven disciples by the Lake of Galilee and the miraculous draught of fishes; and Peter’s threefold confession and Jesus’ threefold commission to him. And its third stage, Jesus’ prophecies to Peter and to the beloved disciple concerning their future, and the declaration “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them, and we know that his testimony is true,” is doubtless written by the redactor of the previous two stages. This writer imitates, but is different from, the great author of the first twenty chapters.
Comparison with the Synoptists.—The following are the most obvious differences between the original book and the Synoptists. John has a metaphysical prologue; Matthew and Luke have historical prologues; and Mark is without any prologue. The earthly scene is here Judea, indeed Jerusalem, with but five breaks (vi. 1-vii. 10) is the only long one; whilst over two-thirds of each Synoptist deal with Galilee or Samaria. The ministry here lasts about three and a half years (it begins some months before the first Passover, ii. 13; the feast of v. 1 is probably a second; the third occurs vi. 4; and on the fourth, xi. 55, He dies): whilst the Synoptists have but the one Passover of His death, after barely a year of ministry. Here Jesus’ teaching contains no parables and but three allegories, the Synoptists present it as parabolic through and through. Here not one exorcism occurs; in the Synoptists the exorcisms are as prominent as the cures and the preaching, John has, besides the passion, seven accounts in common with the Synoptists: the Baptist and Jesus, (i. 19-34); cleansing of the Temple (ii. 13-16); cure of the centurion’s (ruler’s) servant (son) (iv. 46-54); multiplication of the loaves (vi. 1-13); walking upon the water (vi. 16-21); anointing at Bethany, (xii. 1-8); entry into Jerusalem (xii. 12-16): all unique occurrences. In the first, John describes how the Baptist, on Jesus’ approach, cries “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world”; and how he says “I saw the spirit descending upon Him, and I bore witness that this is the Son of God.” But the Synoptists, especially Mark, give the slow steps in even the apostles’ realization of Jesus’ Messianic character; only at Caesarea Philippi Simon alone, for the first time, clearly discerns it, Jesus declaring that His Father has revealed it to Him, and yet Simon is still scandalized at the thought of a suffering Messiah (Mark viii. 28-34). Only some two weeks before the end is He proclaimed Messiah at Jericho (x. 46-48); then in Jerusalem, five days before dying for this upon the cross (xi. 1-10, xv. 37). As to the Baptist, in all three Synoptists, he baptizes Jesus, and in Mark i. 10, 11 it is Jesus who sees the Spirit descending upon Himself on His emerging from beneath the water, and it is to Himself that God’s voice is addressed; in John, Jesus’ baptism is ignored, only the Spirit remains hovering above Him, as a sign for the Baptist’s instruction. And in Matt. xi. 2-6, the Baptist, several months after the Jordan scene, sends from his prison to ascertain if Jesus is indeed the Messiah; in John, the Baptist remains at large so as again (iii. 22-36) to proclaim Jesus’ heavenly provenance. The cleansing of the Temple occurs in the Synoptists four days before His death, and instantly determines the hierarchs to seek His destruction (Mark xi. 15-18); John puts it three years back, as an appropriate frontispiece to His complete claims and work.
The passion-narratives reveal the following main differences. John omits, at the last supper, its central point, the great historic act of the holy eucharist, carefully given by the Synoptists and St Paul, having provided a highly doctrinal equivalent in the discourse on the living bread, here spoken by Jesus in Capernaum over a year before the passion (vi. 4), the day after the multiplication of the loaves. This transference is doubtless connected with the change in the relations between the time of the Passover meal and that of His death: in the Synoptists, the Thursday evening’s supper is a true Passover meal, the lamb had been slain that afternoon and Jesus dies some twenty-four hours later; in John, the supper is not a Passover-meal, the Passover is celebrated on Friday, and Jesus, proclaimed here from the first, the Lamb of God, dies whilst the paschal lambs, His prototypes, are being slain. The scene in the garden is without the agony of Gethsemane; a faint echo of this historic anguish appears in the scene with the Greeks four days earlier, and even that peaceful 454 appeal to, and answer of, the Father occurs only for His followers’ sakes. In the garden Jesus here Himself goes forth to meet His captors, and these fall back upon the ground, on His revealing Himself as Jesus of Nazareth. The long scenes with Pilate culminate in the great sayings concerning His kingdom not being of this world and the object of this His coming being to bear witness to the truth, thus explaining how, though affirming kingship (Mark xv. 2) He could be innocent. In John He does not declare Himself Messiah before the Jewish Sanhedrin (Mark xiv. 61) but declares Himself supermundane regal witness to the truth before the Roman governor. The scene on Calvary differs as follows: In the Synoptists the soldiers divide His garments among them, casting lots (Mark xv. 24); in John they make four parts of them and cast lots concerning His seamless tunic, thus fulfilling the text, “They divided My garments among them and upon My vesture they cast lots”: the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, which twice describes one fact, being taken as witnessing to two, and the tunic doubtless symbolizing the unity of the Church, as in Philo the high priest’s seamless robe symbolizes the indivisible unity of the universe, expressive of the Logos (De ebrietate, xxi.). In the Synoptists, of His followers only women—the careful, seemingly exhaustive lists do not include His mother—remain, looking on “from afar” (Mark xv. 40); in John, His mother stands with the two other Marys and the beloved disciple beneath the cross, and “from that hour the disciple took her unto his own (house),” while in the older literature His mother does not appear in Jerusalem till just before Pentecost, and with “His brethren” (Acts i. 14). And John alone tells how the bones of the dead body remained unbroken, fulfilling the ordinance as to the paschal lamb (Exod. xii. 46) and how blood and water flow from His spear-pierced side: thus the Lamb “taketh away the sins of the world” by shedding His blood which “cleanseth us from every sin”; and “He cometh by water and blood,” historically at His baptism and crucifixion, and mystically to each faithful soul in baptism and the eucharist. The story of the risen Christ (xx.) shows dependence on and contrast to the Synoptic accounts. Its two halves have each a negative and a positive scene. The empty grave (1-10) and the apparition to the Magdalen (11-18) together correspond to the message brought by the women (Matt. xxviii. 1-10); and the apparition to the ten joyously believing apostles (19-23) and then to the sadly doubting Thomas (24-29) together correspond to Luke xxiv. 36-43, where the eleven apostles jointly receive one visit from the risen One, and both doubt and believe, mourn and rejoice.
The Johannine discourses reveal differences from the Synoptists so profound as to be admitted by all. Here Jesus, the Baptist and the writer speak so much alike that it is sometimes impossible to say where each speaker begins and ends: e.g. in iii. 27-30, 31-36. The speeches dwell upon Jesus’ person and work, as we shall find, with a didactic directness, philosophical terminology and denunciatory exclusiveness unmatched in the Synoptist sayings. “This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (xvii. 3), is part of the high-priestly prayer; yet Père Calmes, with the papal censor’s approbation, says, “It seems to us impossible not to admit that we have here dogmatic developments explicable rather by the evangelist’s habits of mind than by the actual words of Jesus.” “I have told you of earthly things and you believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” (iii. 12), and “Ye are from beneath, I am from above” (viii. 23), give us a Plato-(Philo-) like upper, “true” world, and a lower, delusive world. “Ye shall die in your sins” (viii. 21); “ye are from your father the devil” (viii. 44); “I am the door of the sheep, all they that came before Me are thieves and robbers,” (x. 7, 8); “they have no excuse for their sin” (xv. 22)—contrast strongly with the yearning over Jerusalem: “The blood of Abel the just” and “the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias” (Matt. xxiii. 35-37; and “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” Luke xxiii. 34). And whilst the Synoptist speeches and actions stand in loose and natural relation to each other, the Johannine deeds so closely illustrate the sayings that each set everywhere supplements the other: the history itself here tends to become one long allegory. So with the woman at the well and “the living water”; the multiplication of the loaves and “the living Bread”; “I am the Light of the world” and the blind man’s cure; “I am the Resurrection and the Life” and the raising of Lazarus; indeed even with the Temple-cleansing and the prophecy as to His resurrection, Nicodemus’s night visit and “men loved the darkness rather than the light,” the cure of the inoperative paralytic and “My Father and I work hitherto,” the walking phantom-like upon the waters (John vi. 15-21; Mark vi. 49), and the declaration concerning the eucharist, “the spirit it is that quickeneth” (John vi. 63). Only some sixteen Synoptic sayings reappear here; but we are given some great new sayings full of the Synoptic spirit.
Characteristics and Object.—The book’s character results from the continuous operation of four great tendencies. There is everywhere a readiness to handle traditional, largely historical, materials with a sovereign freedom, controlled and limited by doctrinal convictions and devotional experiences alone. There is everywhere the mystic’s deep love for double, even treble meanings: e.g. the “again” in iii. 2, means, literally, “from the beginning,” to be physically born again; morally, to become as a little child; mystically, “from heaven, God,” to be spiritually renewed. “Judgment” (κρίσις), in the popular sense, condemnation, a future act; in the mystical sense, discrimination, a present fact. There is everywhere the influence of certain central ideas, partly identical with, but largely developments of, those less reflectively operative in the Synoptists. Thus six great terms are characteristic of, or even special to, this Gospel. “The Only-Begotten” is most nearly reached by St Paul’s term “His own Son.” The “Word,” or “Logos,” is a term derived from Heracleitus of Ephesus and the Stoics, through the Alexandrian Jew Philo, but conceived here throughout as definitely personal. “The Light of the World” the Jesus-Logos here proclaims Himself to be; in the Synoptists He only declares His disciples to be such. “The Paraclete,” as in Philo, is a “helper,” “intercessor”; but in Philo he is the intelligible universe, whilst here He is a self-conscious Spirit. “Truth,” “the truth,” “to know,” have here a prominence and significance far beyond their Synoptic or even their Pauline use. And above all stand the uses of “Life,” “Eternal Life.” The living ever-working Father (vi. 57; v. 17) has a Logos in whom is Life (i. 4), an ever-working Son (v. 17), who declares Himself “the living Bread,” “the Resurrection and the Life,” “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (vi. 51; xi. 25; xiv. 16): so that Father and Son quicken whom they will (v. 21); the Father’s commandment is life everlasting, and Jesus’ words are spirit and life (xii. 50; vi. 63, 68). The term, already Synoptic, takes over here most of the connotations of the “Kingdom of God,” the standing Synoptic expression, which appears here only in iii. 3-5; xviii. 36. Note that the term “the Logos” is peculiar to the Apocalypse (xix. 13), and the prologue here; but that, as Light and Life, the Logos-conception is present throughout the book. And thus there is everywhere a striving to contemplate history sub specie aeternitatis and to englobe the successiveness of man in the simultaneity of God.
Narratives Peculiar to John.—Of his seven great symbolical, doctrinally interpreted “signs,” John shares three, the cure of the ruler’s son, the multiplication of the loaves, the walking on the waters, with the Synoptists: yet here the first is transformed almost beyond recognition; and the two others only typify and prepare the eucharistic discourse. Of the four purely Johannine signs, two—the cures of the paralytic (v. 1-16), and of the man born blind (ix. 1-34)—are, admittedly, profoundly symbolical. In the first case, the man’s physical and spiritual lethargy are closely interconnected and strongly contrasted with the ever-active God and His Logos. In the second case there is also the closest parallel between physical blindness cured, and spiritual darkness dispelled, by the Logos-Light as described in the accompanying discourse. Both narratives are doubtless based upon actual occurrences—the cures narrated in Mark ii., iii., viii., x. and scenes witnessed by the writer in later times; yet here they do but picture our Lord’s spiritual work in the human soul achieved throughout Christian history. We cannot well claim more than these three kinds of reality for the first and the last signs, the miracle at Cana and the resurrection of Lazarus.
For the marriage-feast sign yields throughout an allegorical meaning. Water stands in this Gospel for what is still but symbol; thus the water-pots serve here the external Jewish ablutions—old bottles which the “new wine” of the Gospel is to burst (Mark ii. 22). Wine is the blood of the new covenant, and He will drink the fruit of the vine new in the Kingdom of God (Mark xiv. 23-25); the vineyard where He Himself is the true Vine (Mark xii. 1; John xv. 1). And “the kingdom of heaven is like to a marriage-feast” (Matt. xxii. 2); Jesus is the Bridegroom (Mark ii. 19); “the marriage of the Lamb has come” (Rev. xix. 7). “They have no wine”: the hopelessness of the old conditions is announced here by the true Israel, the Messiah’s spiritual mother, the same “woman” who in Rev. xii. 2, 5 “brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations.” Cardinal Newman admits that the latter woman “represents the church, this is the real or direct sense”; yet as her man-child 455 is certainly the Messiah, this church must be the faithful Jewish church. Thus also the “woman” at the wedding and beneath the cross stands primarily for the faithful Old Testament community, corresponding to the beloved disciple, the typical New Testament follower of her Son, the Messiah: in each case the devotional accommodation to His earthly mother is equally ancient and legitimate. He answers her “My hour is not yet come,” i.e. in the symbolic story, the moment for working the miracle; in the symbolized reality, the hour of His death, condition for the spirit’s advent; and “what is there between Me and thee?” i.e. “My motives spring no more from the old religion,” words devoid of difficulty, if spoken thus by the Eternal Logos to the passing Jewish church. The transformation is soon afterwards accomplished, but in symbol only; the “hour” of the full sense is still over three years off. Already Philo says “the Logos is the master of the spiritual drinking-feast,” and “let Melchisedeck”—the Logos—“in lieu of water offer wine to souls and inebriate them” (De somn. ii. 37; Legg. all. iii. 26). But in John this symbolism figures a great historic fact, the joyous freshness of Jesus’ ministerial beginnings, as indicated in the sayings of the Bridegroom and of the new wine, a freshness typical of Jesus’ ceaseless renovation of souls.
The raising of Lazarus, in appearance a massive, definitely localized historical fact, requires a similar interpretation, unless we would, in favour of the direct historicity of a story peculiar to a profoundly allegorical treatise, ruin the historical trustworthiness of the largely historical Synoptists in precisely their most complete and verisimilar part. For especially in Mark, the passing through Jericho, the entry into Jerusalem, the Temple-cleansing and its immediate effect upon the hierarchs, their next day’s interrogatory, “By what authority doest thou these things?” i.e. the cleansing (x. 46-xi. 33), are all closely interdependent and lead at once to His discussions with His Jerusalem opponents (xii. xiii.), and to the anointing, last supper, and passion (xiv. xv). John’s last and greatest symbolic sign replaces those historic motives, since here it is the raising of Lazarus which determines the hierarchs to kill Jesus (xi. 46-52), and occasions the crowds which accompany and meet Him on His entry (xii. 9-19). The intrinsic improbabilities of the narrative, if taken as direct history, are also great: Jesus’ deliberate delay of two days to secure His friend’s dying, and His rejoicing at the death, since thus He can revivify His friend and bring His disciples to believe in Himself as the Life; His deliberate weeping over the death which He has thus let happen, yet His anger at the similar tears of Lazarus’s other friends; and His praying, as He tells the Father in the prayer itself, simply to edify the bystanders: all point to a doctrinal allegory. Indeed the climax of the whole account is already reached in Jesus’ great saying: “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me ... shall not die for ever,” and in Martha’s answer: “I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who hast come into the world” (xi. 26, 27); the sign which follows is but the pictorial representation of this abiding truth. The materials for the allegory will have been certain Old Testament narratives, but especially the Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ raisings of Jairus’s daughter and of the widow’s son (Mark v.; Luke vii.). Mary and Martha are admittedly identical with the sisters in Luke x. 38-42; and already some Greek fathers connect the Lazarus of this allegory with the Lazarus of the parable (Luke xvi. 19-31). In the parable Lazarus returns not to earth, since Abraham foresees that the rich man’s brethren would disbelieve even if one rose from the dead; in the corresponding allegory, Lazarus does actually return to life, and the Jews believe so little as to determine upon killing the very Life Himself.
Special Difficulties and Special Greatness.—The difficulties, limitations and temporary means special to the book are closely connected with its ready appeal and abiding power; let us take both sets of things together, in three couples of interrelated price and gift.
The book’s method and form are pervadingly allegorical; its instinct and aim are profoundly mystical. Now from Philo to Origen we have a long Hellenistic, Jewish and Christian application of that all-embracing allegorism, where one thing stands for another and where no factual details resist resolution into a symbol of religious ideas and forces. Thus Philo had, in his life of Moses, allegorized the Pentateuchal narratives so as to represent him as mediator, saviour, intercessor of his people, the one great organ of revelation, and the soul’s guide from the false lower world into the upper true one. The Fourth Gospel is the noblest instance of this kind of literature, of which the truth depends not on the factual accuracy of the symbolizing appearances but on the truth of the ideas and experiences thus symbolized. And Origen is still full of spontaneous sympathy with its pervading allegorism. But this method has lost its attraction; the Synoptists, with their rarer and slighter pragmatic rearrangements and their greater closeness to our Lord’s actual words, deeds, experiences, environment, now come home to us as indefinitely richer in content and stimulative appeal. Yet mysticism persists, as the intuitive and emotional apprehension of the most specifically religious of all truths, viz. the already full, operative existence of eternal beauty, truth and goodness, of infinite Personality and Spirit independently of our action, and not, as in ethics, the simple possibility and obligation for ourselves to produce such-like things. And of this elemental mode of apprehension and root-truth, the Johannine Gospel is the greatest literary document and incentive extant: its ultimate aim and deepest content retain all their potency.
The book contains an intellectualist, static, determinist, abstractive trend. In Luke x. 25-28, eternal life depends upon loving God and man; here it consists in knowing the one true God and Christ whom He has sent. In the Synoptists, Jesus “grows in favour with God and man,” passes through true human experiences and trials, prays alone on the mountain-side, and dies with a cry of desolation; here the Logos’ watchword is “I am,” He has deliberately to stir up emotion in Himself, never prays for Himself, and in the garden and on the cross shows but power and self-possession. Here we find “ye cannot hear, cannot believe, because ye are not from God, not of My sheep” (viii. 47, x. 26); “the world cannot receive the spirit of truth” (xiv. 17). Yet the ethical current appears here also strongly: “he who doeth the truth, cometh to the light” (iii. 21), “if you love Me, keep My commandments” (xiv. 15). Libertarianism is here: “the light came, but men loved the darkness better than the light,” “ye will not come to Me” (iii. 19, v. 40); hence the appeal “abide in Me”—the branch can cease to be in Him the Vine (xv. 4, 2). Indeed even those first currents stand here for the deepest religious truths, the prevenience of God and man’s affinity to Him. “Not we loved God (first), but He (first) loved us”; “let us love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John iv. 10, 19); “no man can come to Me, unless the Father draw him” (vi. 44), a drawing which effects a hunger and thirst for Christ and God (iv. 14, vi. 35). Thus man’s spirit, ever largely but potential, can respond actively to the historic Jesus, because already touched and made hungry by the all-actual Spirit-God who made that soul akin unto Himself.
The book has an outer protective shell of acutely polemical and exclusive moods and insistences, whilst certain splendid Synoptic breadths and reconciliations are nowhere reached; but this is primarily because it is fighting, more consciously than they, for that inalienable ideal of all deepest religion, unity, even external and corporate, amongst all believers. The “Pneumatic” Gospel comes thus specially to emphasize certain central historical facts; and, the most explicitly institutional and sacramental of the four, to proclaim the most universalistic and developmental of all Biblical sayings. Here indeed Jesus will not pray for the world (xvii. 9); “ye shall die in your sins,” He insists to His opponents (viii. 44, 24); it is the Jews generally who appear throughout as such; nowhere is there a word as to forgiving our enemies; and the commandment of love is designated by Jesus as His, as new, and as binding the disciples to “love one another” within the community to which He gives His “example” (xv. 12, xiii. 34, 15). In the Synoptists, the 456 disciples’ intolerance is rebuked (Mark ix. 38-41); Jesus’ opposition is everywhere restricted to the Pharisees and the worldly Sadducees; He ever longs for the conversion of Jerusalem; the great double commandment of love is proclaimed as already formulated in the Mosaic law (Mark xii. 28-34); the neighbour to be thus loved and served is simply any and every suffering fellow-man; and the pattern for such perfect love is found in a schismatical Samaritan (Luke x. 25-37). Yet the deepest strain here is more serenely universalist even than St Paul, for here Jesus says: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should ... have everlasting life” (iii. 16). True, the great prologue passage (i. 9) probably reads “He was the true Light coming into the world, that enlighteneth every man,” so that the writer would everywhere concentrate his mind upon the grace attendant upon explicit knowledge of the incarnate, historic Christ. Yet Christian orthodoxy, which itself has, all but uniformly, understood this passage of the spiritual radiation throughout the world of the Word before His incarnation, has been aided towards such breadth as to the past by the Johannine outlook into the future. For, in contrast to the earliest Synoptic tradition, where the full Christian truth and its first form remain undistinguished, and where its earthly future appears restricted to that generation, in John the Eternal Life conception largely absorbs the attention away from all successiveness; Jesus’ earthly life does not limit the religion’s assimilation of further truth and experience: “I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now,” “the Father will give you another Helper, the spirit of truth, who will abide with you for ever” (xvi. 12, xiv. 15). This universalism is not simply spiritual; the external element, presupposed in the Synoptists as that of the Jewish church within which Jesus’ earthly life was spent, is here that of the now separate Christian community: He has other sheep not of this fold—them also He must bring, there will be one fold, one shepherd; and His seamless tunic, and Peter’s net which, holding every kind of fish, is not rent, are symbols of this visible unity. Ministerial gradations exist in this church; Jesus begins the feet-washing with Peter, who alone speaks and is spoken to; the beloved disciple outruns Peter to Jesus’ monument, yet waits to go in till Peter has done so first; and in the appendix the treble pastoral commission is to Peter alone: a Petrine pre-eminence which but echoes the Synoptists. And sacramentalism informs the great discourses concerning rebirth by water and the spirit, and feeding on the Living Bread, Jesus’ flesh and blood, and the narrative of the issue of blood and water from the dead Jesus’ side. Indeed so severe a stress is laid upon the explicitly Christian life and its specific means, that orthodoxy itself interprets the rebirth by water and spirit, and the eating the flesh and drinking the blood to which entrance into the Kingdom and possession of interior life are here exclusively attached, as often represented by a simple sincere desire and will for spiritual purification and a keen hunger and thirst for God’s aid, together with such cultual acts as such souls can know or find, even without any knowledge of the Christian rites. Thus there is many “a pedagogue to Christ,” and the Christian visible means and expressions are the culmination and measure of what, in various degrees and forms, accompanies every sincerely striving soul throughout all human history.
Origin and Authorship.—The question as to the book’s origin has lost its poignancy through the ever-increasing recognition of the book’s intrinsic character. Thus the recent defenders of the apostolic authorship, the Unitarian James Drummond (1903), the Anglican William Sanday (1905), the Roman Catholic Theodore Calmes (1904), can tell us, the first, that “the evangelist did not aim at an illustrative picture of what was most characteristic of Jesus”; the second, that “the author sank into his own consciousness and at last brought to light what he found there”; the third, that “the Gospel contains an entire theological system,” “history is seen through the intervening dogmatic development,” “the Samaritan woman is ... a personification,” “the behaviour of the Greeks is entirely natural in such a book.” We thus get at cross-purposes with this powerful, profound work. Only some such position as Abbé Loisy’s critical summing up (1903) brings out its specific greatness. “What the author was, his book, in spite of himself, tells us to some extent: a Christian of Judeo-Alexandrine formation; a believer without, apparently, any personal reminiscence of what had actually been the life, preaching and death of Jesus; a theologian far removed from every historical preoccupation, though he retains certain principal facts of tradition without which Christianity would evaporate into pure ideas; and a seer who has lived the Gospel which he propounds.” “To find his book beautiful and true, we need but take it as it is and understand it.” “The church, which has never discussed the literary problem of this Gospel, in nowise erred as to its worth.”
Several traditional positions have indeed been approximately maintained or reconquered against the critics. As to the Gospel’s date, critics have returned from 160-170 (Baur), 150 (Zeller), 130 (Keim), to 110-115 (Renan) and 80-110 (Harnack): since Irenaeus says its author lived into the times of Trajan (90-117), a date somewhere about 105 would satisfy tradition. As to the place, the critics accept proconsular Asia with practical unanimity, thus endorsing Irenaeus’s declaration that the Gospel was published in Ephesus. As to the author’s antecedents, critics have ceased to hold that he could not have been a Jew-Christian (so Bretschneider, 1820), and admit (so Schmiedel, (1901) that he must have been by birth a Jew of the Dispersion, or the son of Christian parents who had been such Jews. And as to the vivid accuracy of many of his topographical and social details, the predominant critical verdict now is that he betrays an eye-witness’s knowledge of the country between Sichem and Jordan and as to Jerusalem; he will have visited these places, say in 90, or may have lived in Jerusalem shortly before its fall. But the reasons against the author being John the Zebedean or any other eyewitness of Jesus’ earthly life have accumulated to a practical demonstration.
As to the external evidence for the book’s early date, we must remember that the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation, though admittedly earlier, are of the same school, and, with the great Pauline Epistles, show many preformations of Johannine phrases and ideas. Other slighter prolusions will have circulated in that Philonian centre Ephesus, before the great Gospel englobed and superseded them. Hence the precariousness of the proofs derived from more or less close parallels to Johannine passages in the apostolic fathers. Justin Martyr (163-167) certainly uses the Gospel; but his conception of Jesus’ life is so strictly Synoptic that he can hardly have accepted it as from an apostolic eyewitness. Papias of Hierapolis, in his Exposition of the Lord’s Sayings (145-160) appears nowhere to have mentioned it, and clearly distinguishes between “what Andrew, Peter, ... John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples spoke,” and “what Aristion and the presbyter John, the Lord’s disciples, say.” Thus Papias, as Eusebius about 314 insists, knew two Johns, and the apostle was to him a far-away figure; indeed early medieval chroniclers recount that Papias “in the second book of the Lord’s sayings” asserted that both the sons of Zebedee were “slain by Jews,” so that the apostle John would have died before 70. Irenaeus’s testimony is the earliest and admittedly the strongest we possess for the Zebedean authorship; yet, as Calmes admits, “it cannot be considered decisive.” In his work against the Heresies and in his letter to Florinus, about 185-191, he tells how he had himself known Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, and how Polycarp “used to recount his familiar intercourse with John and the others who had seen the Lord”; and explicitly identifies this John with the Zebedean and the evangelist. But Irenaeus was at most fifteen when thus frequenting Polycarp; writes thirty-five to fifty years later in Lyons, admitting that he noted down nothing at the time; and, since his mistaken description of Papias as “a hearer of John” the Zebedean was certainly reached by mistaking the presbyter for the apostle, his additional words “and a companion of Polycarp” point to this same mistaken identification having also operated in his mind with regard to Polycarp. In any case, 457 the very real and important presbyter is completely unknown to Irenaeus, and his conclusion as to the book’s authorship resulted apparently from a comparison of its contents with Polycarp’s teaching. If the presbyter wrote Revelation and was Polycarp’s master, such a mistake could easily arise. Certainly Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, made a precisely similar mistake when about 190 he described the Philip “who rests in Hierapolis” as “one of the twelve apostles,” since Eusebius rightly identifies this Philip with the deacon of Acts xxi. A positive testimony for the critical conclusion is derived from the existence of a group of Asia Minor Christians who about 165 rejected the Gospel as not by John but by Cerinthus. The attribution is doubtless mistaken. But could Christians sufficiently numerous to deserve a long discussion by St Epiphanius in 374-377, who upheld the Synoptists, stoutly opposed the Gnostics and Montanists, and had escaped every special designation till the bishop nicknamed them the “Alogoi” (irrational rejectors of the Logos-Gospel), dare, in such a time and country, to hold such views, had the apostolic origin been incontestable? Surely not. The Alexandrian Clement, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome and Augustine only tell of the Zebedean what is traceable to stories told by Papias of others, to passages of Revelation and the Gospel, or to the assured fact of the long-lived Asian presbyter.
As to the internal evidence, if the Gospel typifies various imperfect or sinful attitudes in Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman and Thomas; if even the mother appears to symbolize faithful Israel: then, profoundly spiritual and forward-looking as it is, a type of the perfect disciple, not all unlike Clement’s perfect “Gnostic,” could hardly be omitted by it; and the precise details of this figure may well be only ideally, mystically true. The original work nowhere identifies this disciple with any particular historic figure. “He who saw” the lance-thrust “hath borne witness, and his witness is true,” is asserted (xix. 35) of the disciple. Yet “to see” is said also of intuitive faith, “whoso hath seen Me, hath seen the Father” (xiv. 9); and “true” appears also in “the true Light,” “the true Bread from heaven,” as characterizing the realities of the upper, alone fully true world, and equals “heavenly” (iii. 12); thus a “true witness” testifies to some heavenly reality, and appeals to the reader’s “pneumatic,” i.e. allegorical, understanding.
Only in the appendix do we find any deliberate identification with a particular historic person: “this is the disciple who witnessed to and who wrote these things” (24) refers doubtless to the whole previous work and to “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” identified here with an unnamed historic personage whose recent death had created a shock, evidently because he was the last of that apostolic generation which had so keenly expected the second coming (18-23). This man was so great that the writer strives to win his authority for this Gospel; and yet this man was not John the Zebedean, else why, now he is dead and gone, not proclaim the fact? If the dead man was John the presbyter—if this John had in youth just seen Jesus and the Zebedean, and in extreme old age had still seen and approved the Gospel—to attribute this Gospel to him, as is done here, would not violate the literary ethics of those times. Thus the heathen philosopher Iamblichus (d. c. 330) declares: “this was admirable” amongst the Neo-Pythagoreans “that they ascribed everything to Pythagoras; but few of them acknowledge their own works as their own” (de Pythag. vita, 198). And as to Christians, Tertullian about 210 tells how the presbyter who, in proconsular Asia, had “composed the Acts of Paul and Thecla” was convicted and deposed, for how could it be credible that Paul should confer upon women the power to “teach and baptize” as these Acts averred? The attribution as such, then, was not condemned.
The facts of the problem would all appear covered by the hypothesis that John the presbyter, the eleven being all dead, wrote the book of Revelation (its more ancient Christian portions) say in 69, and died at Ephesus say in 100; that the author of the Gospel wrote the first draft, here, say in 97; that this book, expanded by him, first circulated within a select Ephesian Christian circle; and that the Ephesian church officials added to it the appendix and published it in 110-120. But however different or more complicated may have been the actual origins, three points remain certain. The real situation that confronts us is not an unbroken tradition of apostolic eye-witnesses, incapable of re-statement with any hope of ecclesiastical acceptance, except by another apostolic eye-witness. On one side indeed there was the record, underlying the Synoptists, of at least two eye-witnesses, and the necessity of its preservation and transmission; but on the other side a profound double change had come over the Christian outlook and requirements. St Paul’s heroic labours (30-64) had gradually gained full recognition and separate organization for the universalist strain in our Lord’s teaching; and he who had never seen the earthly Jesus, but only the heavenly Christ, could even declare that Christ “though from the Jewish fathers according to the flesh” had died, “so that henceforth, even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we no further know Him thus,” “the Lord is the Spirit,” and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” And the Jewish church, within which Christianity had first lived and moved, ceased to have a visible centre. Thus a super-spatial and super-temporal interpretation of that first markedly Jewish setting and apprehension of the Christian truth became as necessary as the attachment to the original contingencies. The Fourth Gospel, inexplicable without St Paul and the fall of Jerusalem, is fully understandable with them. The attribution of the book to an eye-witness nowhere resolves, it everywhere increases, the real difficulties; and by insisting upon having history in the same degree and way in John as in the Synoptists, we cease to get it sufficiently anywhere at all. And the Fourth Gospel’s true greatness lies well within the range of this its special character. In character it is profoundly “pneumatic”; Paul’s super-earthly Spirit-Christ here breathes and speaks, and invites a corresponding spiritual comprehension. And its greatness appears in its inexhaustibly deep teachings concerning Christ’s sheep and fold; the Father’s drawing of souls to Christ; the dependence of knowledge as to Christ’s doctrine upon the doing of God’s will; the fulfilling of the commandment of love, as the test of true discipleship; eternal life, begun even here and now; and God a Spirit, to be served in spirit and in truth.
Bibliography.—See also the independent discussion, under Revelation, Book of, of the authorship of that work. Among the immense literature of the subject, the following books will be found especially instructive by the classically trained reader: Origen’s commentary, finished (only to John xiii. 33) in 235-237 (best ed. by Preuschen, 1903). St Augustine’s Tractatus in Joannis Ev. et Ep., about 416. The Spanish Jesuit Juan Maldonatus’ Latin commentary, published 1596 (critical reprint, edited by Raich, 1874), a pathfinder on many obscure points, is still a model for tenacious penetration of Johannine ideas. Bretschneider’s short Probabilia de Evangelii ... Joannis Apostoli indole et origine (1820), the first systematic assault on the traditional attribution, remains unrefuted in its main contention. The best summing up and ripest fruit of the critical labour since then are Professor H. J. Holtzmann’s Handkommentar (2nd ed., 1893) and the respective sections in his Einleitung in d. N. T. (3rd ed., 1892) and his Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologie (1897), vol. 2. Professor C. E. Luthardt’s St John, Author of the Fourth Gospel (Eng. trans., with admirable bibliography by C. R. Gregory, 1875), still remains the best conservative statement. Among the few critically satisfactory French books, Abbé Loisy’s Le Quatrième évangile (1903) stands pre-eminent for delicate psychological analysis and continuous sense of the book’s closely knit unity; whilst Père Th. Calmes’ Évangile selon S. Jean (1904) indicates how numerous are the admissions as to the book’s character and the evidences for its authorship, made by intelligent Roman Catholic apologists with Rome’s explicit approbation. In England a considerably less docile conservatism has been predominant. Bp Lightfoot’s Essays on ... Supernatural Religion (1874-1877; collected 1889) are often masterly conservative interpretations of the external evidence; but they leave this evidence still inconclusive, and the formidable contrary internal evidence remains practically untouched. Much the same applies to Bp Westcott’s Gospel according to St John (1882), devotionally so attractive, and in textual criticism excellent. Dr James Drummond’s Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel (1903) does not, by its valuable survey of the external evidence, succeed in giving credibility to the eyewitness origin of such a book as this is admitted to be. Professor W. Sanday’s slighter Criticism of the Fourth Gospel (1905) is in a similar position. Professor P. W. Schmiedel’s 458 article “John s. of Zebedee” in the Ency. Bib. (1901) is the work of a German of the advanced left. Dr E. A. Abbott’s laborious From Letter to Spirit (1903), Joannine Vocabulary (1904) and Grammar (1906) overflow with statistical details and ever acute, often fanciful, conjecture. Professor F. C. Burkitt’s The Gospel History (1906) vigorously sketches the book’s dominant characteristics and true function. E. F. Scott’s The Fourth Gospel (1906) gives a lucid, critical and religiously tempered account of the Gospel’s ideas, aims, affinities, difficulties and abiding significance.
JOHN ALBERT (1459-1501), king of Poland, third son of Casimir IV. king of Poland and Elizabeth of Austria. As crown prince he distinguished himself by his brilliant victory over the Tatars at Kopersztyn in 1487. He succeeded his father in 1492. The loss of revenue consequent upon the secession of Lithuania placed John Albert at the mercy of the Polish Sejmiki or local diets, where the szlachta, or country gentry, made their subsidies dependent upon the king’s subservience. Primarily a warrior with a strong taste for heroic adventure, John Albert desired to pose as the champion of Christendom against the Turks. Circumstances seemed, moreover, to favour him. In his brother Wladislaus, who as king of Hungary and Bohemia possessed a dominant influence in Central Europe, he found a counterpoise to the machinations of the emperor Maximilian, who in 1492 had concluded an alliance against him with Ivan III. of Muscovy, while, as suzerain of Moldavia, John Albert was favourably situated for attacking the Turks. At the conference of Leutschau in 1494 the details of the expedition were arranged between the kings of Poland and Hungary and the elector Frederick of Brandenburg, with the co-operation of Stephen, hospodar of Moldavia, who had appealed to John Albert for assistance. In the course of 1496 John Albert with great difficulty collected an army of 80,000 men in Poland, but the crusade was deflected from its proper course by the sudden invasion of Galicia by the hospodar, who apparently—for the whole subject is still very obscure—had been misled by reports from Hungary that John Albert was bent upon placing his younger brother Sigismund on the throne of Moldavia. Be that as it may, the Poles entered Moldavia not as friends, but as foes, and, after the abortive siege of Suczawa, were compelled to retreat through the Bukowina to Sniatyn, harassed all the way by the forces of the hospodar. The insubordination of the szlachta seems to have been one cause of this disgraceful collapse, for John Albert confiscated hundreds of their estates after his return; in spite of which, to the end of his life he retained his extraordinary popularity. When the new grand master of the Teutonic order, Frederic of Saxony, refused to render homage to the Polish crown, John Albert compelled him to do so. His intention of still further humiliating the Teutonic order was frustrated by his sudden death in 1501. A valiant soldier and a man of much enlightenment, John Albert was a poor politician, recklessly sacrificing the future to the present.
See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).
JOHN ANGELUS (d. 1244), emperor of Thessalonica. In 1232 he received the throne from his father Theodore, who, after a period of exile, had re-established his authority, but owing to his loss of eyesight resolved to make John the nominal sovereign. His reign is chiefly marked by the aggressions of the rival emperor of Nicaea, John Vatatzes, who laid siege to Thessalonica in 1243 and only withdrew upon John Angelus consenting to exchange the title “emperor” for the subordinate one of “despot.”
See G. Finlay, History of Greece, vol. iii. (1877).
JOHN FREDERICK I. (1503-1554), called the Magnanimous, elector of Saxony, was the elder son of the elector, John the Steadfast, and belonged to the Ernestine branch of the Wettin family. Born at Torgau on the 30th of June 1503 and educated as a Lutheran, he took some part in imperial politics and in the business of the league of Schmalkalden before he became elector by his father’s death in August 1532. His lands comprised the western part of Saxony, and included Thuringia, but in 1542 Coburg was surrendered to form an apanage for his brother, John Ernest (d. 1553). John Frederick, who was an ardent Lutheran and had a high regard for Luther, continued the religious policy of his father. In 1534 he assisted to make peace between the German king Ferdinand I. and Ulrich, duke of Württemberg, but his general attitude was one of vacillation between the emperor and his own impetuous colleague in the league of Schmalkalden, Philip, landgrave of Hesse. He was often at variance with Philip, whose bigamy he disliked, and his belief in the pacific intentions of Charles V. and his loyalty to the Empire prevented him from pursuing any definite policy for the defence of Protestantism. In 1541 his kinsman Maurice became duke of Saxony, and cast covetous eyes upon the electoral dignity. A cause of quarrel soon arose. In 1541 John Frederick forced Nicholas Amsdorf into the see of Naumburg in spite of the chapter, who had elected a Roman Catholic, Julius von Pflug; and about the same time he seized Wurzen, the property of the bishop of Meissen, whose see was under the joint protection of electoral and ducal Saxony. Maurice took up arms, and war was only averted by the efforts of Philip of Hesse and Luther. In 1542 the elector assisted to drive Henry, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, from his duchy, but in spite of this his relations with Charles V. at the diet of Spires in 1544 were very amicable. This was, however, only a lull in the storm, and the emperor soon began to make preparations for attacking the league of Schmalkalden, and especially John Frederick and Philip of Hesse. The support, or at least the neutrality, of Maurice was won by the hope of the electoral dignity, and in July 1546 war broke out between Charles and the league. In September John Frederick was placed under the imperial ban, and in November Maurice invaded the electorate. Hastening from southern Germany the elector drove Maurice from the land, took his ally, Albert Alcibiades, prince of Bayreuth, prisoner at Rochlitz, and overran ducal Saxony. His progress, however, was checked by the advance of Charles V. Notwithstanding his valour he was wounded and taken prisoner at Mühlberg on the 24th of April 1547, and was condemned to death in order to induce Wittenberg to surrender. The sentence was not carried out, but by the capitulation of Wittenberg (May 1547) he renounced the electoral dignity and a part of his lands in favour of Maurice, steadfastly refusing however to make any concessions on religious matters, and remained in captivity until May 1552, when he returned to the Thuringian lands which his sons had been allowed to retain, his return being hailed with wild enthusiasm. During his imprisonment he had refused to accept the Interim, issued from Augsburg in May 1548, and had urged his sons to make no peace with Maurice. After his release the emperor had restored his dignities to him, and his assumption of the electoral arms and title prevented any arrangement with Maurice. However, after the death of this prince in July 1553, a treaty was made at Naumburg in February 1554 with his successor Augustus. John Frederick consented to the transfer of the electoral dignity, but retained for himself the title of “born elector,” and received some lands and a sum of money. He was thus the last Ernestine elector of Saxony. He died at Weimar on the 3rd of March 1554, having had three sons by his wife, Sibylla (d. 1554), daughter of John III., duke of Cleves, whom he had married in 1527, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Frederick. The elector was a great hunter and a hard drinker, whose brave and dignified bearing in a time of misfortune won for him his surname of Magnanimous, and drew eulogies from Roger Ascham and Melanchthon. He founded the university of Jena and was a benefactor to that of Leipzig.
See Mentz, Johann Friedrich der Grossmütige (Jena, 1903); Rogge, Johann Friedrich der Grossmütige (Halle, 1902) and L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1882).
JOHN FREDERICK (1529-1595), called der Mittlere, duke of Saxony, was the eldest son of John Frederick, who had been deprived of the Saxon electorate by the emperor Charles V. in 1547. Born at Torgau on the 8th of January 1529, he received a good education, and when his father was imprisoned in 1547 459 undertook the government of the remnant of electoral Saxony which the emperor allowed the Ernestine branch of the Wettin family to keep. Released in 1552 John Frederick the elder died two years later, and his three sons ruled Ernestine Saxony together until 1557, when John Frederick was made sole ruler. This arrangement lasted until 1565, when John Frederick shared his lands with his surviving brother, John William (1530-1573), retaining for himself Gotha and Weimar. The duke was a strong, even a fanatical, Lutheran, but his religious views were gradually subordinated to the one idea of regaining the electoral dignity then held by Augustus I. To attain this end he lent a willing ear to the schemes of Wilhelm von Grumbach, who came to his court about 1557 and offered to regain the electoral dignity and even to acquire the Empire for his patron. In spite of repeated warnings from the emperor Ferdinand I., John Frederick continued to protect Grumbach, and in 1566 his obstinacy caused him to be placed under the imperial ban. Its execution was entrusted to Augustus who, aided by the duke’s brother, John William, marched against Gotha with a strong force. In consequence of a mutiny the town surrendered in April 1567, and John Frederick was delivered to the emperor Maximilian II. He was imprisoned in Vienna, his lands were given to his brother, and he remained in captivity until his death at Steyer on the 6th of May 1595. These years were mainly occupied with studying theology and in correspondence. John Frederick married firstly Agnes (d. 1555) daughter of Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and widow of Maurice, elector of Saxony, and secondly Elizabeth (d. 1594) daughter of Frederick III., elector palatine of the Rhine, by whom he left two sons, John Casimir (1564-1633) and John Ernest (1566-1638). Elizabeth shared her husband’s imprisonment for twenty-two years.
See A. Beck, Johann Friedrich der Mittlere, Herzog zu Sachsen (Vienna, 1858); and F. Ortloff, Geschichte der Grumbachischen Händel (Jena, 1868-1870).
JOHN GEORGE I. (1585-1656), elector of Saxony, second son of the elector Christian I., was born on the 5th of March 1585, succeeding to the electorate in June 1611 on the death of his elder brother, Christian II. The geographical position of electoral Saxony hardly less than her high standing among the German Protestants gave her ruler much importance during the Thirty Years’ War. At the beginning of his reign, however, the new elector took up a somewhat detached position. His personal allegiance to Lutheranism was sound, but he liked neither the growing strength of Brandenburg nor the increasing prestige of the Palatinate; the adherence of the other branches of the Saxon ruling house to Protestantism seemed to him to suggest that the head of electoral Saxony should throw his weight into the other scale, and he was prepared to favour the advances of the Habsburgs and the Roman Catholic party. Thus he was easily induced to vote for the election of Ferdinand, archduke of Styria, as emperor in August 1619, an action which nullified the anticipated opposition of the Protestant electors. The new emperor secured the help of John George for the impending campaign in Bohemia by promising that he should be undisturbed in his possession of certain ecclesiastical lands. Carrying out his share of the bargain by occupying Silesia and Lusatia, where he displayed much clemency, the Saxon elector had thus some part in driving Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, from Bohemia and in crushing Protestantism in that country, the crown of which he himself had previously refused. Gradually, however, he was made uneasy by the obvious trend of the imperial policy towards the annihilation of Protestantism, and by a dread lest the ecclesiastical lands should be taken from him; and the issue of the edict of restitution in March 1629 put the coping-stone to his fears. Still, although clamouring vainly for the exemption of the electorate from the area covered by the edict, John George took no decided measures to break his alliance with the emperor. He did, indeed, in February 1631 call a meeting of Protestant princes at Leipzig, but in spite of the appeals of the preacher Matthias Hoë von Hohenegg (1580-1645) he contented himself with a formal protest. Meanwhile Gustavus Adolphus had landed in Germany, and the elector had refused to allow him to cross the Elbe at Wittenberg, thus hindering his attempt to relieve Magdeburg. But John George’s reluctance to join the Protestants disappeared when the imperial troops under Tilly began to ravage Saxony, and in September 1631 he concluded an alliance with the Swedish king. The Saxon troops were present at the battle of Breitenfeld, but were routed by the imperialists, the elector himself seeking safety in flight. Nevertheless he soon took the offensive. Marching into Bohemia the Saxons occupied Prague, but John George soon began to negotiate for peace and consequently his soldiers offered little resistance to Wallenstein, who drove them back into Saxony. However, for the present the efforts of Gustavus Adolphus prevented the elector from deserting him, but the position was changed by the death of the king at Lützen in 1632, and the refusal of Saxony to join the Protestant league under Swedish leadership. Still letting his troops fight in a desultory fashion against the imperialists, John George again negotiated for peace, and in May 1635 he concluded the important treaty of Prague with Ferdinand II. His reward was Lusatia and certain other additions of territory; the retention by his son Augustus of the archbishopric of Magdeburg; and some concessions with regard to the edict of restitution. Almost at once he declared war upon the Swedes, but in October 1636 he was beaten at Wittstock; and Saxony, ravaged impartially by both sides, was soon in a deplorable condition. At length in September 1645 the elector was compelled to agree to a truce with the Swedes, who, however, retained Leipzig; and as far as Saxony was concerned this ended the Thirty Years’ War. After the peace of Westphalia, which with regard to Saxony did little more than confirm the treaty of Prague, John George died on the 8th of October 1656. Although not without political acumen, he was not a great ruler; his character appears to have been harsh and unlovely, and he was addicted to drink. He was twice married, and in addition to his successor John George II. he left three sons, Augustus (1614-1680), Christian (d. 1691) and Maurice (d. 1681) who were all endowed with lands in Saxony, and who founded cadet branches of the Saxon house.
John George II. (1613-1680), elector of Saxony, was born on the 31st of May 1613. In 1657, just after his accession, he made an arrangement with his three brothers with the object of preventing disputes over their separate territories, and in 1664 he entered into friendly relations with Louis XIV. He received money from the French king, but the existence of a strong anti-French party in Saxony induced him occasionally to respond to the overtures of the emperor Leopold I. The elector’s primary interests were not in politics, but in music and art. He adorned Dresden, which under him became the musical centre of Germany; welcoming foreign musicians and others he gathered around him a large and splendid court, and his capital was the constant scene of musical and other festivals. His enormous expenditure compelled him in 1661 to grant greater control over monetary matters to the estates, a step which laid the foundation of the later system of finance in Saxony. John George died at Freiberg on the 22nd of August 1680.
John George III. (1647-1691), elector of Saxony, the only son of John George II., was born on the 20th of June 1647. He forsook the vacillating foreign policy of his father and in June 1683 joined an alliance against France. Having raised the first standing army in the electorate he helped to drive the Turks from Vienna in September 1680, leading his men with great gallantry; but disgusted with the attitude of the emperor Leopold I. after the victory, he returned at once to Saxony. However, he sent aid to Leopold in 1685. When Louis XIV.’s armies invaded Germany in September 1688 John George was one of the first to take up arms against the French, and after sharing in the capture of Mainz he was appointed commander-in-chief of the imperial forces. He had not, however, met with any notable success when he died at Tübingen on the 12th of September 1691. Like his father, he was very fond of music, but he appears to have been less extravagant than John George II. His wife was Anna Sophia, daughter of Frederick III. king of 460 Denmark, and both his sons, John George and Frederick Augustus, became electors of Saxony, the latter also becoming king of Poland as Augustus II.
John George IV. (1668-1694), elector of Saxony, was born on the 18th of October 1668. At the beginning of his reign his chief adviser was Hans Adam von Schöning (1641-1696), who counselled a union between Saxony and Brandenburg and a more independent attitude towards the emperor. In accordance with this advice certain proposals were put before Leopold I. to which he refused to agree; and consequently the Saxon troops withdrew from the imperial army, a proceeding which led the chagrined emperor to seize and imprison Schöning in July 1692. Although John George was unable to procure his minister’s release, Leopold managed to allay the elector’s anger, and early in 1693 the Saxon soldiers rejoined the imperialists. This elector is chiefly celebrated for his passion for Magdalene Sibylle von Neidschütz (d. 1694), created in 1693 countess of Rochlitz, whom on his accession he publicly established as his mistress. John George left no legitimate issue when he died on the 27th of April 1694.
JOHN1 MAURICE OF NASSAU (1604-1679), surnamed the Brazilian, was the son of John the Younger, count of Nassau-Siegen-Dillenburg, and the grandson of John, the elder brother of William the Silent and the chief author of the Union of Utrecht. He distinguished himself in the campaigns of his cousin, the stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange, and was by him recommended to the directors of the Dutch West India company in 1636 to be governor-general of the new dominion in Brazil recently conquered by the company. He landed at the Recife, the port of Pernambuco, and the chief stronghold of the Dutch, in January 1637. By a series of successful expeditions he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from Sergipe on the south to S. Luis de Maranham in the north. He likewise conquered the Portuguese possessions of St George del Mina and St Thomas on the west coast of Africa. With the assistance of the famous architect, Pieter Post of Haarlem, he transformed the Recife by building a new town adorned with splendid public edifices and gardens, which was called after his name Mauritstad. By his statesmanlike policy he brought the colony into a most flourishing condition and succeeded even in reconciling the Portuguese settlers to submit quietly to Dutch rule. His large schemes and lavish expenditure alarmed however the parsimonious directors of the West India company, but John Maurice refused to retain his post unless he was given a free hand, and he returned to Europe in July 1644. He was shortly afterwards appointed by Frederick Henry to the command of the cavalry in the States army, and he took part in the campaigns of 1645 and 1646. When the war was ended by the peace of Münster in January 1648, he accepted from the elector of Brandenburg the post of governor of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg, and later also of Minden. His success in the Rhineland was as great as it had been in Brazil, and he proved himself a most able and wise ruler. At the end of 1652 he was appointed head of the order of St John and made a prince of the Empire. In 1664 he came back to Holland; when the war broke out with England supported by an invasion from the bishop of Münster, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Dutch forces on land. Though hampered in his command by the restrictions of the states-general, he repelled the invasion, and the bishop, Christoph von Galen, was forced to conclude peace. His campaigning was not yet at an end, for in 1673 he was appointed by the stadtholder William III. to command the forces in Friesland and Groningen, and to defend the eastern frontier of the Provinces. In 1675 his health compelled him to give up active military service, and he spent his last years in his beloved Cleves, where he died on the 20th of December 1679. The house which he built at the Hague, named after him the Maurits-huis, now contains the splendid collections of pictures so well known to all admirers of Dutch art.
Bibliography.—Caspar Barlaeus, Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum historia, sub praefectura illustrissimi comitis J. Mauritii Nassoviae (Amsterdam, 1647); L. Driessen, Leben des Fürsten Johann Moritz von Nassau (Berlin, 1849); D. Veegens, Leven van Jaan Maurits, Graaf van Nassau-Siegen (Haarlem, 1840).
1 This name is usually written Joan, the form used by the man himself in his signature—see the facsimile in Netscher’s Les Hollandais en Brésil.
JOHN O’ GROAT’S HOUSE, a spot on the north coast of Caithness, Scotland, 14 m. N. of Wick and 1¾ m. W. of Duncansby Head. It is the mythical site of an octagonal house said to have been erected early in the 16th century by one John Groot, a Dutchman who had migrated to the north of Scotland by permission of James IV. According to the legend, other members of the Groot family followed John, and acquired lands around Duncansby. When there were eight Groot families, disputes began to arise as to precedence at annual feasts. These squabbles John Groot is said to have settled by building an octagonal house which had eight entrances and eight tables, so that the head of each family could enter by his own door and sit at the head of his own table. Being but a few miles south of Dunnet Head, John o’ Groat’s is a colloquial term for the most northerly point of Scotland. The site of the traditional building is marked by an outline traced in turf. Descendants of the Groot family, now Groat, still live in the neighbourhood. The cowry-shell, Cypraea europaea, is locally known as “John o’ Groat’s bucky.”
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, an American educational institution at Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. Its trustees, chosen by Johns Hopkins (1794-1873), a successful Baltimore merchant, were incorporated on the 24th of August 1867 under a general act “for the promotion of education in the state of Maryland.” But nothing was actually done until after the death of Johns Hopkins (Dec. 24, 1873), when his fortune of $7,000,000 was equally divided between the projected university and a hospital, also to bear his name, and intended to be an auxiliary to the medical school of the university. The trustees of the university consulted with many prominent educationists, notably Charles W. Eliot of Harvard, Andrew D. White of Cornell, and James B. Angell of the university of Michigan; on the 30th of December 1874 they elected Daniel Coit Gilman (q.v.) president. The university was formally opened on the 3rd of October 1876, when an address was delivered by T. H. Huxley. The first year was largely given up to consultation among the newly chosen professors, among whom were—in Greek, B. L. Gildersleeve; in mathematics, J. J. Sylvester; in chemistry, Ira Remsen; in biology, Henry Newell Martin (1848-1896); in zoology, William Keith Brooks (1848-1908); and in physics, Henry Augustus Rowland (1848-1901). Prominent among later teachers were Arthur Cayley in mathematics, the Semitic scholar Paul Haupt (b. 1858), Granville Stanley Hall in psychology, Maurice Bloomfield in Sanskrit and comparative philology, James Rendel Harris in Biblical philology, James Wilson Bright in English philology, Herbert B. Adams in history, and Richard T. Ely (b. 1854) in economics. The university at once became a pioneer in the United States in teaching by means of seminary courses and laboratories, and it has been eminently successful in encouraging research, in scientific production, and in preparing its students to become instructors in other colleges and universities. It includes a college in which each of five parallel courses leads to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, but its reputation has been established chiefly by its other two departments, the graduate school and the medical school. The graduate school offers courses in philosophy and psychology, physics, chemistry and biology, historical and economic science, language and literature, and confers the degree of Doctor of Philosophy after at least three years’ residence. From its foundation the university had novel features and a liberal administration. Twenty annual fellowships of $500 each were opened to the graduates of any college. Petrography and laboratory psychology were among the new sciences fostered by the new university. Such eminent outsiders were secured for brief residence and lecture courses as J. R. Lowell, F. J. Child, Simon Newcomb, H. E. von Holst, F. A. Walker, William James, Sidney Lanier, James Bryce, E. A. Freeman, W. W. Goodwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace. President Gilman gave up his presidential duties on the 1st of 461 September 1901, Ira Remsen1 succeeding him in the office. The medical department, inaugurated in 1893, is closely affiliated with the excellently equipped Johns Hopkins Hospital (opened in 1889), and is actually a graduate school, as it admits only students holding the bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. The degree of Doctor of Medicine is conferred after four years of successful study, and advanced courses are offered. The department’s greatest teachers have been William Osler (b. 1849) and William Henry Welch (b. 1850).
The buildings of the university were in 1901 an unpretentious group on crowded ground near the business centre of the city. In 1902 a new site was secured, containing about 125 acres amid pleasant surroundings in the northern suburbs, and new buildings were designed in accordance with a plan formed with a view to secure harmony and symmetry. In 1907 the library contained more than 133,000 bound volumes. Among the numerous publications issued by the university press are: American Journal of Mathematics, Studies in Historical and Political Science, Reprint of Economic Tracts, American Journal of Philology, Contributions to Assyriology and Semitic Philology, Modern Language Notes, American Chemical Journal, American Journal of Insanity, Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity, Reports of the Maryland Geological Survey, and Reports of the Maryland Weather Service. The institution is maintained chiefly with the proceeds of the endowment fund. It also receives aid from the state, and charges tuition fees. Its government is entrusted to a board of trustees, while the direction of affairs of a strictly academic nature is delegated to an academic council and to department boards. In 1907-1908 the regular faculty numbered 175, and there was an enrolment of 683 students, of whom 518 were in post-graduate courses.
On the history of the university see Daniel C. Gilman, The Launching of a University (New York, 1906), and the annual reports of the president.
1 Ira Remsen was born in New York City on the 10th of February 1846, graduated at the college of the City of New York in 1865, studied at the New York college of physicians and surgeons and at the university of Göttingen, was professor of chemistry at Williams College in 1872-1876, and in 1876 became professor cf chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. He published many textbooks of chemistry, organic and inorganic, which were republished in England and were translated abroad. In 1879 he founded the American Chemical Journal.
JOHNSON, ANDREW (1808-1875), seventeenth president of the United States, was born at Raleigh, North Carolina, on the 29th of December 1808. His parents were poor, and his father died when Andrew was four years old. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor, his spare hours being spent in acquiring the rudiments of an education. He learned to read from a book which contained selected orations of great British and American statesmen. The young tailor went to Laurens Court House, South Carolina, in 1824, to work at his trade, but returned to Raleigh in 1826 and soon afterward removed to Greeneville in the eastern part of Tennessee. He married during the same year Eliza McCardle (1810-1876), much his superior by birth and education, who taught him the common school branches of learning and was of great assistance in his later career. In East Tennessee most of the people were small farmers, while West Tennessee was a land of great slave plantations. Johnson began in politics to oppose the aristocratic element and became the spokesman and champion of the poorer and labouring classes. In 1828 he was elected an alderman of Greeneville and in 1830-1834 was mayor. In 1834, in the Tennessee constitutional convention he endeavoured to limit the influence of the slaveholders by basing representation in the state legislature on the white population alone. In 1835-1837 and 1839-1841 Johnson was a Democratic member of the state House of Representatives, and in 1841-1843 of the state Senate; in both houses he uniformly upheld the cause of the “common people,” and, in addition, opposed legislation for “internal improvements.” He soon was recognized as the political champion of East Tennessee. Though his favourite leaders became Whigs, Johnson remained a Democrat, and in 1840 canvassed the state for Van Buren for president.
In 1843 he was elected to the national House of Representatives and there remained for ten years until his district was gerrymandered by the Whigs and he lost his seat. But he at once offered himself as a candidate for governor and was elected and re-elected, and was then sent to the United States Senate, serving from 1857 to 1862. As governor (1853-1857) he proved to be able and non-partisan. He championed popular education and recommended the homestead policy to the national government, and from his sympathy with the working classes and his oft-avowed pride in his former calling he became known as the “mechanic governor.” In Congress he proved to be a tireless advocate of the claims of the poorer whites and an opponent of the aristocracy. He favoured the annexation of Texas, supported the Polk administration on the issues of the Mexican War and the Oregon boundary controversy, and though voting for the admission of free California demanded national protection for slavery. He also advocated the homestead law and low tariffs, opposed the policy of “internal improvements,” and was a zealous worker for budget economies. Though opposed to a monopoly of political power in the South by the great slaveholders, he deprecated anti-slavery agitation (even favouring denial of the right of petition on that subject) as threatening abolition or the dissolution of the Union, and went with his sectional leaders so far as to demand freedom of choice for the Territories, and protection for slavery where it existed—this even so late as 1860. He supported in 1860 the ultra-Democratic ticket of Breckinridge and Lane, but he did not identify the election of Lincoln with the ruin of the South, though he thought the North should give renewed guarantees to slavery. But he followed Jackson rather than Calhoun, and above everything else set his love of the Union, though believing the South to be grievously wronged. He was the only Southern member of Congress who opposed secession and refused to “go with his state” when it withdrew from the Union in 1861. In the judgment of a leading opponent (O. P. Morton) “perhaps no man in Congress exerted the same influence on the public sentiment of the North at the beginning of the war” as Johnson. During the war he suffered much for his loyalty to the Union. In March 1862 Lincoln made him military governor of the part of Tennessee captured from the Confederates, and after two years of autocratic rule (with much danger to himself) he succeeded in organizing a Union government for the state. In 1864, to secure the votes of the war Democrats and to please the border states that had remained in the Union, Johnson was nominated for vice-president on the ticket with Lincoln.
A month after the inauguration the murder of Lincoln left him president, with the great problem to solve of reconstruction of the Union. All his past career and utterances seemed to indicate that he would favour the harshest measures toward ex-Confederates, hence his acceptability to the most radical republicans. But, whether because he drew a distinction between the treason of individuals and of states, or was influenced by Seward, or simply, once in responsible position, separated Republican party politics from the question of constitutional interpretation, at least he speedily showed that he would be influenced by no acrimony, and adopted the lenient reconstruction policy of Lincoln. In this he had for some time the cordial support of his cabinet. During the summer of 1865 he set up provisional civil governments in all the seceded states except Texas, and within a few months all those states were reorganized and applying for readmission to the Union. The radical congress (Republican by a large majority) sharply opposed this plan of restoration, as they had opposed Lincoln’s plan: first, because the members of Congress from the Southern States (when readmitted) would almost certainly vote with the Democrats; secondly, because relatively few of the Confederates were punished; and thirdly, because the newly organized Southern States did not give political rights to the negroes. The question of the status of the negro proved the crux of the issue. Johnson was opposed to general or immediate negro suffrage. A bitter contest began in Feb. 1866, between the president and the Congress, which refused to admit representatives 462 from the South and during 1866 passed over his veto a number of important measures, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act, and submitted to the States the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Johnson took a prominent and undignified part in the congressional campaign of 1866, in which his policies were voted down by the North. In 1867 Congress threw aside his work of restoration and proceeded with its own plan, the main features of which were the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates and the enfranchisement of negroes. On the 2nd of March 1867 Congress passed over the president’s veto the Tenure of Office Act, prohibiting the president from dismissing from office without the consent of the Senate any officer appointed by and with the advice and consent of that body, and in addition a section was inserted in the army appropriation bill of this session designed to subordinate the president to the Senate and the general-in-chief of the army in military matters. The president was thus deprived of practically all power. Stanton and other members of his cabinet and General Grant became hostile to him, the president attempted to remove Stanton without regard to the Tenure of Office Act, and, finally, to get rid of the president, Congress in 1868(February-May) made an attempt to impeach and remove him, his disregard of the Tenure of Office Act being the principal charge against him. The charges1 were in part quite trivial, and the evidence was ridiculously inadequate for the graver charges. A two-thirds majority was necessary for conviction; and the votes being 35 to 19 (7 Republicans and 12 Democrats voting in his favour on the crucial clauses) he was acquitted. The misguided animus of the impeachment as a piece of partisan politics was soon very generally admitted; and the importance of its failure, in securing the continued power and independence of the presidential element in the constitutional system, can hardly be over-estimated. The rest of his term as president was comparatively quiet and uneventful. In 1869 he retired into private life in Tennessee, and after several unsuccessful efforts was elected to the United States Senate, free of party trammels, in 1875, but died at Carter’s Station, Tenn., on the 31st of July 1875. The only speech he made was a skilful and temperate arraignment of President Grant’s policy towards the South.
President Johnson’s leading political principles were a reverence of Andrew Jackson, unlimited confidence in the people, and an intense veneration for the constitution. Throughout his life he remained in some respects a “backwoodsman.” He lacked the finish of systematic education. But his whole career sufficiently proves him to have been a man of extraordinary qualities. He did not rise above untoward circumstances by favour, nor—until after his election as senator—by fortunate and fortuitous connexion with great events, but by strength of native talents, persistent purpose, and an iron will. He had strong, rugged powers, was a close reasoner and a forcible speaker. Unfortunately his extemporaneous speeches were commonplace, in very bad taste, fervently intemperate and denunciatory; and though this was probably due largely to temperament and habits of stump-speaking formed in early life, it was attributed by his enemies to drink. Resorting to stimulants after illness, his marked excess in this respect on the occasion of his inauguration as vice-president undoubtedly did him harm with the public. Faults of personality were his great handicap. Though approachable and not without kindliness of manner, he seemed hard and inflexible; and while president, physical pain and domestic anxieties, added to the struggles of public life, combined to accentuate a naturally somewhat severe temperament. A lifelong Southern Democrat, he was forced to lead (nominally at least) a party of Northern Republicans, with whom he had no bond of sympathy save a common opposition to secession; and his ardent, aggressive convictions and character, above all his complete lack of tact, unfitted him to deal successfully with the passionate partisanship of Congress. The absolute integrity and unflinching courage that marked his career were always ungrudgingly admitted by his greatest enemies.
See L. Foster, The Life and Speeches of Andrew Johnson (1866); D. M. De Witt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903); C. E. Chadsey, The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction (1896); and W. A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (1898). Also see W. A. Dunning’s paper “More Light on Andrew Johnson” (in the American Historical Review, April 1906), in which apparently conclusive evidence is presented to prove that Johnson’s first inaugural, a notable state paper, was written by the historian George Bancroft.
1 The charges centred in the president’s removal of Secretary Stanton, his ad interim appointment of Lorenzo Thomas, his campaign speeches in 1866, and the relation of these three things to the Tenure of Office Act. Of the eleven charges of impeachment the first was that Stanton’s removal was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; the second, that the appointment of Thomas was a violation of the same law; the third, that the appointment violated the Constitution; the fourth, that Johnson conspired with Thomas “to hinder and prevent Edwin M. Stanton ... from holding ... office of secretary for the department of war”; the fifth, that Johnson had conspired with Thomas to “prevent and hinder the execution” of the Tenure of Office Act; the sixth, that he had conspired with Thomas “to seize, take and possess the property of the United States in the department of war,” in violation of the Tenure of Office Act; the seventh, that this action was “a high misdemeanour”; the eighth, that the appointment of Thomas was “with intent unlawfully to control the disbursements of the moneys appropriated for the military service and for the department of war”; the ninth, that he had instructed Major-General Emory, in command of the department of Washington, that an act of 1867 appropriating money for the army was unconstitutional; the tenth, that his speeches in 1866 constituted “a high misdemeanour in office”; and the eleventh, the “omnibus” article, that he had committed high misdemeanours in saying that the 39th Congress was not an authorized Congress, that its legislation was not binding upon him, and that it was incapable of proposing amendments. The actual trial began on the 30th of March (from the 5th of March it was adjourned to the 23rd, and on the 24th of March to the 30th). On the 16th of May, after sessions in which the Senate repeatedly reversed the rulings of the chief justice as to the admission of evidence, in which the president’s counsel showed that their case was excellently prepared and the prosecuting counsel appealed in general to political passions rather than to judicial impartiality, the eleventh article was voted on and impeachment failed by a single vote (35 to 19; 7 republicans and 12 democrats voting “Not guilty”) of the necessary two-thirds. After ten days’ interval, during which B. F. Butler of the prosecuting counsel attempted to prove that corruption had been practised on some of those voting “Not guilty,” on the 26th of May a vote was taken on the second and third articles with the same result as on the eleventh article. There was no vote on the other articles.
JOHNSON, BENJAMIN (c. 1665-1742), English actor, was first a scene painter, then acted in the provinces, and appeared in London in 1695 at Drury Lane after Betterton’s defection. He was the original Captain Driver in Oronooko (1696), Captain Fireball in Farquhar’s Sir Harry Wildair (1701), Sable in Steele’s Funeral (1702), &c.; as the First Gravedigger in Hamlet and in several characters in the plays of Ben Jonson he was particularly good. He succeeded, also, to Thomas Doggett’s rôles.
JOHNSON, EASTMAN (1824-1906), American artist, was born at Lovell, Maine, on the 29th of July 1824. He studied at Düsseldorf, Paris, Rome and The Hague, the last city being his home for four years. In 1860 he was elected to the National Academy of Design, New York. A distinguished portrait and genre painter, he made distinctively American themes his own, depicting the negro, fisherfolk and farm life with unusual interest. Such pictures as “Old Kentucky Home” (1867), “Husking Bee” (1876), “Cranberry Harvest, Nantucket” (1880), and his portrait group “The Funding Bill” (1881) achieved a national reputation. Among his sitters were many prominent men, including Daniel Webster; Presidents Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland and Harrison; William M. Evarts, Charles J. Folger; Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, James McCosh, Noah Porter and Sir Edward Archbald. He died in New York City on the 5th of April 1906.
JOHNSON, REVERDY (1796-1876), American political leader and jurist, was born at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 21st of May 1796. His father, John Johnson (1770-1824), was a distinguished lawyer, who served in both houses of the Maryland General Assembly, as attorney-general of the state (1806-1811), as a judge of the court of appeals (1811-1821), and as a chancellor of his state (1821-1824). Reverdy graduated from St John’s college in 1812. He then studied law in his father’s office, was admitted to the bar in 1815 and began to practise in Upper Marlborough, 463 Prince George’s county. In 1817 he removed to Baltimore, where he became the professional associate of Luther Martin, William Pinkney and Roger B. Taney; with Thomas Harris he reported the decisions of the court of appeals in Harris and Johnson’s Reports (1820-1827); and in 1818 he was appointed chief commissioner of insolvent debtors. From 1821 to 1825 he was a state senator; from 1825 to 1845 he devoted himself to his practice; from 1845 to 1849, as a Whig, he was a member of the United States Senate; and from March 1849 to July 1850 he was attorney-general of the United States. In 1856 he became identified with the conservative wing of the Democratic party, and four years later supported Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency. In 1861 he was a delegate from Maryland to the peace convention at Washington; in 1861-1862 he was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. After the capture of New Orleans he was commissioned by Lincoln to revise the decisions of the military commandant, General B. F. Butler, in regard to foreign governments, and reversed all those decisions to the entire satisfaction of the administration. In 1863 he again took his seat in the United States Senate. In 1868 he was appointed minister to Great Britain and soon after his arrival in England negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon treaty for the settlement of disputes arising out of the Civil War; this, however, the Senate refused to ratify, and he returned home on the accession of General U. S. Grant to the presidency. Again resuming his practice he was engaged by the government in the prosecution of Ku-Klux cases. He died on the 10th of February 1876 at Annapolis. He repudiated the doctrine of secession, and pleaded for compromise and conciliation. Opposed to the Reconstruction measures, he voted for them on the ground that it was better to accept than reject them, since they were probably the best that could be obtained. As a lawyer he was engaged during his later years in most of the especially important cases in the Supreme Court of the United States and in the courts of Maryland.
JOHNSON, RICHARD (1573-1659?), English romance writer, was baptized in London on the 24th of May 1573. His most famous romance is The Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom (1596?). The success of this book was so great that the author added a second and a third part in 1608 and 1616. His other stories include: The Nine Worthies of London (1592); The Pleasant Walks of Moorefields (1607); The Pleasant Conceites of Old Hobson (1607), the hero being a well-known haberdasher in the Poultry; The Most Pleasant History of Tom a Lincolne (1607); A Remembrance of ... Robert Earle of Salisbury (1612); Looke on Me, London (1613); The History of Tom Thumbe (1621). The Crown Garland of Golden Roses ... set forth in Many Pleasant new Songs and Sonnets (1612) was reprinted for the Percy Society (1842 and 1845).
JOHNSON, RICHARD MENTOR (1781-1850), ninth vice-president of the United States, was born at Bryant’s Station, Kentucky, on the 17th of October 1781. He was admitted to the bar in 1800, and became prominent as a lawyer and Democratic politician, serving in the Federal House of Representatives and in the Senate for many years. From 1837 to 1841 he was vice-president of the United States, to which position he was elected over Francis Granger, by the Senate, none of the four candidates for the vice-presidency having received a majority of the electoral votes. The opposition to Johnson within the party greatly increased during his term, and the Democratic national convention of 1840 adopted the unprecedented course of refusing to nominate anyone for the vice-presidency. In the ensuing election Johnson received most of the Democratic electoral votes, but was defeated by the Whig candidate, John Tyler. He died in Frankfort, Kentucky, on the 19th of November 1850.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer, was the son of Michael Johnson (1656-1731), bookseller and magistrate of Lichfield, who married in 1706 Sarah Ford (1669-1759). Michael’s abilities and attainments seem to have been considerable. He was so well acquainted with the contents of the volumes which he exposed for sale that the country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed, there was a strong religious and political sympathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a Jacobite in heart. The social position of Samuel’s paternal grandfather, William Johnson, remains obscure; his mother was the daughter of Cornelius Ford, “a little Warwickshire Gent.”
At a house (now the Johnson Museum) in the Market Square, Lichfield, Samuel Johnson was born on the 18th of September 1709 and baptized on the same day at St Mary’s, Lichfield. In the child the physical, intellectual and moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discernible: great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, and his parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch would cure him. In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court chaplains and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy’s features, which were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye; and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. But the force of his mind overcame every impediment. Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such ease and rapidity that at every school (such as those at Lichfield and Stourbridge) to which he was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own devices. He learned much at this time, though his studies were without guidance and without plan. He ransacked his father’s shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way; but much that was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his proficiency in that language was not such that he could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist, and he soon acquired an extensive knowledge of Latin literature. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning. Once, while searching for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of Petrarch’s works. The name excited his curiosity, and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the diction and versification of his own Latin compositions show that he had paid at least as much attention to modern copies from the antique as to the original models.
While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualified to pore over books, and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His business declined; his debts increased; it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either university; but a wealthy neighbour offered assistance; and, in reliance on promises which proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of the most learned among them declared that he had never known a freshman of equal attainments.
At Oxford Johnson resided barely over two years, possibly less. He was poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned them away 464 in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendancy. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and acquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope’s “Messiah” into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not exactly Virgilian; but the translation found many admirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope himself.
The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course of things, have become a Bachelor of Arts; but he was at the end of his resources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had not been kept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731 he was under the necessity of quitting the university without a degree. In the following winter his father died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds.
His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady’s shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord’s Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of death; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him.
With such infirmities of body and of mind, he was left, at two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained during about five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birthplace and his early home, he had inherited some friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts, learning and knowledge of the world, did himself honour by patronizing the young adventurer, whose repulsive person, unpolished manners and squalid garb moved many of the petty aristocracy of the neighbourhood to laughter or disgust. At Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no way of earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion in the house of a country gentleman; but a life of dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian, with notes containing a history of modern Latin verse; but subscriptions did not come in, and the volume never appeared.
While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. The object of his passion was Mrs Elizabeth Porter (1688-1752), widow of Harry Porter (d. 1734), whose daughter Lucy was born only six years after Johnson himself. To ordinary spectators the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces which were not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish rouge from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real fashion, his Tetty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, graceful and accomplished of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted; she had, however, a jointure of £600 and perhaps a little more; she came of a good family, and her son Jervis (d. 1763) commanded H.M.S. “Hercules.” The marriage, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day (July 9, 1735) till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument at Bromley he placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, “Pretty creature!”
His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house at Edial near Lichfield and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away, and only three pupils came to his academy. The “faces” that Johnson habitually made (probably nervous contortions due to his disorder) may well have alarmed parents. Good scholar though he was, these twitchings had lost him usherships in 1735 and 1736. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the master and his lady.
At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, determined to seek his fortune in London as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of his tragedy of Irene in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. Never since literature became a calling in England had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the Government. The least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. But literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not yet begun to flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose works were popular—such an author as Thomson, whose Seasons was in every library, such an author as Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a greater run than any drama since The Beggar’s Opera—was sometimes glad to obtain, by 465 pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, “You had better get a porter’s knot and carry trunks.” Nor was the advice bad, for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet.
Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connexion from which he could expect more than bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this time of trial. “Harry Hervey,” said Johnson many years later, “was a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him.” At Hervey’s table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpennyworth of meat and a pennyworth of bread at an alehouse near Drury Lane.
The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and à la mode beef shops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to ferocity. Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library.
About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London he was fortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Edward Cave (q.v.) on the Gentleman’s Magazine. That periodical, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only one in the kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circulation. Johnson was engaged to write the speeches in the “Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput” (see Reporting), under which thin disguise the proceedings of parliament were published. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre indeed and inaccurate, of what had been said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory, not from rational conviction—for his serious opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another—but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens. In his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverel preach at Lichfield Cathedral, and had listened to the sermon with as much respect and probably with as much intelligence, as any Staffordshire squire in the congregation. The work which had been begun in the nursery had been completed by the university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in England; and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. Charles II. and James II. were two of the best kings that ever reigned. Laud was a prodigy of parts and learning over whose tomb Art and Genius still continued to weep. Hampden deserved no more honourable name than that of the “zealot of rebellion.” Even the ship-money Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and action, he fancied that he was a slave. He hated Dissenters and stock-jobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and Continental connexions. He long had an aversion to the Scots, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine. But Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition.
A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labours, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his age. It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of the satire in which Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons’ nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. Pope’s admirable imitations of Horace’s Satires and Epistles had recently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal.
Johnson’s London appeared without his name in May 1738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem; but the sale was rapid and the success complete. A second edition was required within a week. Those small critics who are always desirous to lower established reputations ran about proclaiming that the anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope’s own peculiar department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, that he joined heartily in the applause with which the appearance of a rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of London. Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet. The attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller’s hack.
It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving pamphleteers and index-makers. Among Johnson’s associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the board where he sat cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, indulged himself at night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the City. But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was Richard Savage, an earl’s son, a shoemaker’s apprentice, 466 who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribands in St James’s Square, and had lain with fifty pounds weight of irons on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by the riotous profusion with which he squandered their bounty, and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and lay down to rest under the piazza of Covent Garden in warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get to the furnace of a glass house. Yet in his misery he was still an agreeable companion. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the prime minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over-decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the west of England, lived there as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743 died, penniless and heartbroken, in Bristol Gaol.
Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited about his extraordinary character and his not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture in Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our language. But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead; and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence.
The Life of Savage was anonymous; but it was well known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years which followed, he produced no important work; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued to grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson’s reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a Dictionary of the English Language, in two folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task.
The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom and humanity; and he had since become secretary of state. He received Johnson’s homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door.
Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his Dictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which he passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quotations for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more agreeable kind. In January 1749 he published The Vanity of Human Wishes, an excellent imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, for which he received fifteen guineas.
A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy of Irene, begun many years before, was brought on the stage by his old pupil, David Garrick, now manager of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very different clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick’s head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson’s temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, and sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Garrick now brought Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. After nine representations the play was withdrawn. The poet however cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation.
About a year after the representation of Irene, he began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners and literature. This species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the Tatler, and by the still more brilliant success of the Spectator. A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The Lay Monastery, the Censor, the Freethinker, the Plain Dealer, the Champion, and other works of the same kind had had their short day. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator appeared the first number of the Rambler. From March 1750 to March 1752 this paper continued to come out every Tuesday and Saturday.
From the first the Rambler was enthusiastically admired by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only five numbers had appeared, pronounced it equal if not superior to the Spectator. Young and Hartley expressed their approbation not less warmly. In consequence probably of the good offices of Bubb Dodington, who was then the confidential adviser of Prince Frederick, two of his royal highness’s gentlemen carried a gracious message to the printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester House. But Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield.
By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly received. Though the price of a number was only twopence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid 467 even to absurdity. But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, to the constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers.
The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left her husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. Her opinion of his writings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, or the judgment of the Monthly Review. The chief support which had sustained him through the most arduous labour of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length complete.
It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectus had been addressed. Lord Chesterfield well knew the value of such a compliment; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Since the Rambler had ceased to appear, the town had been entertained by a journal called the World, to which many men of high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers of the World, the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the authority of a dictator, nay, of a pope, over our language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardy advances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without a dedication. In the Preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.
Johnson’s Dictionary was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines and philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner.
The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson’s fame, added nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to relate that twice in the course of the year which followed the publication of this great work he was arrested and carried to sponging-houses, and that he was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary for the man who had been formerly saluted by the highest authority as dictator of the English language to supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edition of Shakespeare by subscription, and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called the Literary Magazine. Few of these papers have much interest; but among them was one of the best things that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns’ Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil.
In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled the Idler. During two years these essays continued to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and indeed impudently pirated, while they were still in the original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be described as a second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part.
While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he had seen her, but he had not failed to contribute largely out of his small means to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright, and the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain, for the book was Rasselas, and it had a great success.
The plan of Rasselas might, however, have seemed to invite severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakespeare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the 18th century; for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the 18th century, and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton discovered and which was not fully received even at Cambridge till the 18th century. Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened as himself or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished as Mrs Lennox or Mrs Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our ball-rooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. “A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of each other. Such,” says Rasselas, “is the common process of marriage.” A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as flourishing in the days of the Oracle of Delphi.
By such exertions as have been described Johnson supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate Dictionary he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and contumelious reflexions on the Whig party. The excise, which was a favourite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the lord privy seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word “renegade.” A pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray his country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It 468 seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George III. had ascended the throne, and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends, and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous; Oxford was becoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring; Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson’s Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and with very little hesitation accepted.
This event produced a change in Johnson’s whole way of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the morning, without fearing either the printer’s devil or the sheriff’s officer.
One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakespeare; he had lived on those subscriptions during some years; and he could not without disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort, and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as often as he received the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. Happily for his honour, the charm which held him captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morning, to St John’s Church, Clerkenwell, in the hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, confident in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual, and in October 1765 appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition of Shakespeare.
This publication saved Johnson’s character for honesty, but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The Preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively he had during many years observed human life and human nature. The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister’s admirable examination of Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic.1 Johnson had, in his prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of his predecessors. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that very part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakespeare should be conversant. In the two folio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age except Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might easily in a few months have made himself well acquainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this was a necessary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would be the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with the works of Aeschylus and Euripides to publish an edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shakespeare, without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, read a single scene of Massinger, Ford, Dekker, Webster, Marlow, Beaumont or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. He had, however, acquitted himself of a debt which had long lain heavy on his conscience and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was honoured by the university of Oxford with a doctor’s degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and by the king with an interview, in which his majesty most graciously expressed a hope that so excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two or three political tracts.
But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely balanced period of the Rambler. But in his talk there were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair proportion of words in -osity and -ation. All was simplicity, ease and vigour. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learning, of casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject: on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sat at the same table with him in an eating-house. But his conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in the commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunkmaker and the pastrycook. Goldsmith was the representative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy. There, too, were Gibbon the greatest historian and Sir William Jones the greatest linguist of the age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of stage effect. Among the most constant attendants were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely different characters and habits—Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life, and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste and his sarcastic wit.
Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was 469 regarded with little respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat among them. This was James Boswell (q.v.), a young Scots lawyer, heir to an honourable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him.
To a man of Johnson’s strong understanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnson hated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechizing him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as, “What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?” Johnson was a water-drinker and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed little better than an habitual sot. It was impossible that there should be perfect harmony between two such companions. Indeed, the great man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion, in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During twenty years the disciple continued to worship the master; the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each other. Boswell practised in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and could pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits his chief business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson’s habits, to turn the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say something remarkable, and to fill quarto notebooks with minutes of what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of which was afterwards constructed the most interesting biographical work in the world.
Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connexion less important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his happiness, than his connexion with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called “the endearing elegance of female friendship.” Mrs Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise, was wanting to his sick room. It would seem that a full half of Johnson’s life during about sixteen years was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and sometimes to Brighton, once to Wales and once to Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner—a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinach, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter of Mrs Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who had a wide practice, but among the very poorest class, poured out Johnson’s tea in the morning and completed this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant war with each other, and with Johnson’s negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to Streatham or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs Williams and Mrs Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him.
The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson’s sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as in the Middle Ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have overcome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new theories. During the following year he employed himself in recording his adventures. About the beginning of 1775 his Journey to the Hebrides was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. His prejudice against the Scots had at length become little more than matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in censure Johnson’s tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotsmen, with Lord Mansfield at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotsmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more dishonourable to their country than anything that he had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed, another for being a pensioner; a third informed the world that one of the doctor’s uncles had been convicted of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishman. Macpherson, whose Fingal had been treated in the Journey as an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel.
Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had early resolved never to be drawn into controversy; and he adhered to his resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of which controversialists are made. In conversation he was a singularly eager, acute and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he had recourse to sophistry; and when heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But when he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of a retort. One Scotsman, bent on vindicating the fame of Scots learning, defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter:—
“Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum.”
But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written down but by himself.
Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the Journey to the Hebrides, Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between England and her American colonies had reached a point at which no amicable adjustment was possible. War was evidently impending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with advantage be employed to inflame the nation against the opposition at home, and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic. He had already written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign and domestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though hardly worthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the counters of Almon and Stockdale. But his Taxation no Tyranny was a pitiable failure. Even Boswell was forced to own that in this unfortunate piece he could detect no trace of his master’s powers. The general opinion was that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the Rambler were beginning to feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man would best consult his credit by writing no more. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners; but political history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between the colonies and the mother country was a question about which he had really nothing to say. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay.
On Easter Eve 1777 some persons, deputed by a meeting which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook the task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been closed: from old Grub Street traditions; from the talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers, who had long been lying in parish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button, Cibber, who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists, Orrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift and Savage, who had rendered services of no very honourable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sat down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes—small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781.
The Lives of the Poets are, on the whole, the best of Johnson’s works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied. Savage’s Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circumstances he had written little and had talked much. When therefore he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly, and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the Journey to the Hebrides, and in the Lives of the Poets is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. Among the Lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley, Dryden and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, that of Gray; the most controverted that of Milton.
This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, much just and much unjust censure; but even those who were loudest in blame were attracted by the book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. The booksellers, when they saw how far his performance had surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. Indeed Johnson, though he did not despise or affect to despise money, and though his strong sense and long experience ought to have qualified him to protect his own interests, seems to have been singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, Robertson received £4500 for the History of Charles V.
Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. The strange dependants to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more; and it was soon plain that the old Streatham intimacy could not be maintained upon the same footing. Mrs Thrale herself confessed that without her husband’s assistance she did not feel able to entertain Johnson as a constant inmate of her house. Free from the yoke of the brewer, she fell in love with a music master, high in his profession, from Brescia, named Gabriel Piozzi, in whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. The secret of this attachment was soon discovered by Fanny Burney, but Johnson at most only suspected it.
In September 1782 the place at Streatham was from motives of economy let to Lord Shelburne, and Mrs Thrale took a house at Brighton, whither Johnson accompanied her; they remained for six weeks on the old familiar footing. In March 1783 Boswell was glad to discover Johnson well looked after and staying with Mrs Thrale in Argyll Street, but in a bad state of health. Impatience of Johnson’s criticisms and infirmities had been steadily growing with Mrs Thrale since 1774. She now went to Bath with her daughters, partly to escape his supervision. Johnson 471 was very ill in his lodgings during the summer, but he still corresponded affectionately with his “mistress” and received many favours from her. He retained the full use of his senses during the paralytic attack, and in July he was sufficiently recovered to renew his old club life and to meditate further journeys. In June 1784 he went with Boswell to Oxford for the last time. In September he was in Lichfield. On his return his health was rather worse; but he would submit to no dietary régime. His asthma tormented him day and night, and dropsical symptoms made their appearance. His wrath was excited in no measured terms against the re-marriage of his old friend Mrs Thrale, the news of which he heard this summer. The whole dispute seems, to-day, entirely uncalled-for, but the marriage aroused some of Johnson’s strongest prejudices. He wrote inconsiderately on the subject, but we must remember that he was at the time afflicted in body and mentally haunted by dread of impending change. Throughout all his troubles he had clung vehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have set out for Rome and Naples but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit of labours which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of his friends hoped that the Government might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year, but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand one English winter more.
That winter was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against pain but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, and though Boswell was absent, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham sat much in the sick-room. Frances Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, received the last pressure of his friend’s hand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson’s mind. Windham’s servant, who sat up with him during his last night, declared that “no man could appear more collected, more devout or less terrified at the thoughts of the approaching minute.” At hour intervals, often of much pain, he was moved in bed and addressed himself vehemently to prayer. In the morning he was still able to give his blessing, but in the afternoon he became drowsy, and at a quarter past seven in the evening on the 13th of December 1784, in his seventy-sixth year, he passed away. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian—Cowley and Denham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior and Addison.
Bibliography.—The splendid example of his style which Macaulay contributed in the article on Johnson to the 8th edition of this encyclopaedia has become classic, and has therefore been retained above with a few trifling modifications in those places in which his invincible love of the picturesque has drawn him demonstrably aside from the dull line of veracity. Macaulay, it must be noted, exaggerated persistently the poverty of Johnson’s pedigree, the squalor of his early married life, the grotesqueness of his entourage in Fleet Street, the decline and fall from complete virtue of Mrs Thrale, the novelty and success of the Dictionary, the complete failure of the Shakespeare and the political tracts. Yet this contribution is far more mellow than the article contributed on Johnson twenty-five years before to the Edinburgh Review in correction of Croker. Matthew Arnold, who edited six selected Lives of the poets, regarded it as one of Macaulay’s happiest and ripest efforts. It was written out of friendship for Adam Black, and “payment was not so much as mentioned.” The big reviews, especially the quarterlies, have always been the natural home of Johnsonian study. Sir Walter Scott, Croker, Hayward, Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle (whose famous Fraser article was reprinted in 1853) and Whitwell Elwin have done as much as anybody perhaps to sustain the zest for Johnsonian studies. Macaulay’s prediction that the interest in the man would supersede that in his “Works” seemed and seems likely enough to justify itself; but his theory that the man alone mattered and that a portrait painted by the hand of an inspired idiot was a true measure of the man has not worn better than the common run of literary propositions. Johnson’s prose is not extensively read. But the same is true of nearly all the great prose masters of the 18th century. As in the case of all great men, Johnson has suffered a good deal at the hands of his imitators and admirers. His prose, though not nearly so uniformly monotonous or polysyllabic as the parodists would have us believe, was at one time greatly overpraised. From the “Life of Savage” to the “Life of Pope” it developed a great deal, and in the main improved. To the last he sacrificed expression rather too much to style, and he was perhaps over conscious of the balanced epithet. But he contributed both dignity and dialectical force to the prose movement of his period.
The best edition of his works is still the Oxford edition of 1825 in 9 vols. At the present day, however, his periodical writings are neglected, and all that can be said to excite interest are, first the Lives of the Poets (best edition by Birkbeck Hill and H. S. Scott, 3 vols., 1905), and then the Letters, the Prayers and Meditations, and the Poems, to which may doubtfully be added the once idolized Rasselas. The Poems and Rasselas have been reprinted times without number. The others have been re-edited with scrupulous care for the Oxford University Press by the pious diligence of that most enthusiastic of all Johnsonians, Dr Birkbeck Hill. But the tendency at the present day is undoubtedly to prize Johnson’s personality and sayings more than any of his works. These are preserved to us in a body of biographical writing, the efficiency of which is unequalled in the whole range of literature. The chief constituents are Johnson’s own Letters and Account of his Life from his Birth to his Eleventh Year (1805), a fragment saved from papers burned in 1784 and not seen by Boswell; the life by his old but not very sympathetic friend and club-fellow, Sir John Hawkins (1787); Mrs Thrale-Piozzi’s Anecdotes (1785) and Letters; the Diary and Letters of Fanny Burney (D’Arblay) (1841); the shorter Lives of Arthur Murphy, T. Tyers, &c.; far above all, of course, the unique Life by James Boswell, first published in 1791, and subsequently encrusted with vast masses of Johnsoniana in the successive editions of Malone, Croker, Napier, Fitzgerald, Mowbray Morris (Globe), Birrell, Ingpen (copiously illustrated) and Dr Birkbeck Hill (the most exhaustive).
The sayings and Johnsoniana have been reprinted in very many and various forms. Valuable work has been done in Johnsonian genealogy and topography by Aleyn Lyell Reade in his Johnsonian Gleanings, &c., and in the Memorials of Old Staffordshire (ed. W. Beresford). The most excellent short Lives are those by F. Grant (Eng. Writers) and Sir Leslie Stephen (Eng. Men of Letters). Professor W. Raleigh’s essay (Stephen Lecture), Lord Rosebery’s estimate (1909), and Sir Leslie Stephen’s article in the Dictionary of National Biography, with bibliography and list of portraits, should be consulted. Johnson’s “Club” (“The Club”) still exists, and has contained ever since his time a large proportion of the public celebrities of its day. A “Johnson Club,” which has included many Johnson scholars and has published papers, was founded in 1885. Lichfield has taken an active part in the commemoration of Johnson since 1887, when Johnson’s birthplace was secured as a municipal museum, and Lichfield was the chief scene of the Bicentenary Celebrations of September 1909 (fully described in A. M. Broadley’s Dr Johnson and Mrs Thrale, 1909), containing, together with new materials and portraits, an essay dealing with Macaulay’s treatment of the Johnson-Thrale episodes by T. Seccombe). Statues both of Johnson and Boswell are in the market-place at Lichfield. A statue was erected in St Paul’s in 1825, and there are commemorative tablets in Lichfield Cathedral, St Nicholas (Brighton), Uttoxeter, St Clement Danes (London), Gwaynynog and elsewhere.
1 This famous dictum of Macaulay, though endorsed by Lord Rosebery, has been energetically rebutted by Professor W. Raleigh and others, who recognize both sagacity and scholarship in Johnson’s Preface and Notes. Johnson’s wide grasp of the discourse and knowledge of human nature enable him in a hundred entangled passages to go straight to the dramatist’s meaning.—(T. Se.)
JOHNSON, SIR THOMAS (1664-1729), English merchant, was born in Liverpool in November 1664. He succeeded his father in 1689 as bailiff and in 1695 as mayor. From 1701 to 1723 he represented Liverpool in parliament, and he was knighted by Queen Anne in 1708. He effected the separation of Liverpool from the parish of Walton-on-the-Hill; from the Crown he obtained the grant to the corporation of the site of the old castle where he planned the town market; while the construction of the first floating dock (1708) and the building of St Peter’s and St George’s churches were due in great measure to his efforts. He was interested in the tobacco trade; in 1715 he conveyed 130 Jacobite prisoners to the American plantations. In 1723, having lost in speculation the fortune which he had inherited from his father, he went himself to Virginia as collector of customs on the Rappahannock river. He died in Jamaica in 1729. A Liverpool street is named Sir Thomas Buildings after him.
JOHNSON, THOMAS, English 18th-century wood-carver and furniture designer. Of excellent repute as a craftsman and an artist in wood, his original conceptions and his adaptations of other men’s ideas were remarkable for their extreme flamboyance, and for the merciless manner in which he overloaded them with thin and meretricious ornament. Perhaps his most inept design is that for a table in which a duck or goose is displacing water that falls upon a mandarin, seated, with his head on one side, upon the rail below. No local school of Italian rococo ever produced more extravagant absurdities. His clocks bore scythes and hour-glasses and flashing sunbeams, together with whirls and convolutions and floriated adornments without end. On the other hand, he occasionally produced a mirror frame or a mantelpiece which was simple and dignified. The art of artistic plagiarism has never been so well understood or so dexterously practised as by the 18th-century designers of English furniture, and Johnson appears to have so far exceeded his contemporaries that he must be called a barefaced thief. The three leading “motives” of the time—Chinese, Gothic and Louis Quatorze—were mixed up in his work in the most amazing manner; and he was exceedingly fond of introducing human figures, animals, birds and fishes in highly incongruous places. He appears to have defended his enormities on the ground that “all men vary in opinion, and a fault in the eye of one may be a beauty in that of another; ’tis a duty incumbent on an author to endeavour at pleasing every taste.” Johnson, who was in business at the “Golden Boy” in Grafton Street, Westminster, published a folio volume of Designs for Picture Frames, Candelabra, Ceilings, &c. (1758); and One Hundred and Fifty New Designs (1761).
JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM (1715-1774), British soldier and American pioneer, was born in Smithtown, County Meath, Ireland, in 1715, the son of Christopher Johnson, a country gentleman. As a boy he was educated for a commercial career, but in 1738 he removed to America for the purpose of managing a tract of land in the Mohawk Valley, New York, belonging to his uncle, Admiral Sir Peter Warren (1703-1752). He established himself on the south bank of the Mohawk river, about 25 m. W. of Schenectady. Before 1743 he removed to the north side of the river. The new settlement prospered from the start, and a valuable trade was built up with the Indians, over whom Johnson exercised an immense influence. The Mohawks adopted him and elected him a sachem. In 1744 he was appointed by Governor George Clinton (d. 1761) superintendent of the affairs of the Six Nations (Iroquois). In 1746 he was made commissary of the province for Indian affairs, and was influential in enlisting and equipping the Six Nations for participation in the warfare with French Canada, two years later (1748) being placed in command of a line of outposts on the New York frontier. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put a stop to offensive operations, which he had begun. In May 1750 by royal appointment he became a member for life of the governor’s council, and in the same year he resigned the post of superintendent of Indian affairs. In 1754 he was one of the New York delegates to the inter-colonial convention at Albany, N.Y. In 1755 General Edward Braddock, the commander of the British forces in America, commissioned him major-general, in which capacity he directed the expedition against Crown Point, and in September defeated the French and Indians under Baron Ludwig A. Dieskau (1701-1767) at the battle of Lake George, where he himself was wounded. For this success he received the thanks of parliament, and was created a baronet (November 1755). From July 1756 until his death he was “sole superintendent of the Six Nations and other Northern Indians.” He took part in General James Abercrombie’s disastrous campaign against Ticonderoga (1758), and in 1759 he was second in command in General John Prideaux’s expedition against Fort Niagara, succeeding to the chief command on that officer’s death, and capturing the fort. In 1760 he was with General Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797) at the capture of Montreal. As a reward for his services the king granted him a tract of 100,000 acres of land north of the Mohawk river. It was due to his influence that the Iroquois refused to join Pontiac in his conspiracy, and he was instrumental in arranging the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. After the war Sir William retired to his estates, where, on the site of the present Johnstown, he built his residence, Johnson Hall, and lived in all the style of an English baron. He devoted himself to colonizing his extensive lands, and is said to have been the first to introduce sheep and blood horses into the province. He died at Johnstown, N.Y., on the 11th of July 1774. In 1739 Johnson had married Catherine Wisenberg, by whom he had three children. After her death he had various mistresses, including a niece of the Indian chief Hendrick, and Molly Brant, a sister of the famous chief Joseph Brant.
His son, Sir John Johnson (1742-1830), who was knighted in 1765 and succeeded to the baronetcy on his father’s death, took part in the French and Indian War and in the border warfare during the War of Independence, organizing a loyalist regiment known as the “Queen’s Royal Greens,” which he led at the battle of Oriskany and in the raids (1778 and 1780) on Cherry Valley and in the Mohawk Valley. He was also one of the officers of the force defeated by General John Sullivan in the engagement at Newtown (Elmira), N.Y., on the 29th of August 1779. He was made brigadier-general of provincial troops in 1782. His estates had been confiscated, and after the war he lived in Canada, where he held from 1791 until his death the office of superintendent-general of Indian affairs for British North America. He received £45,000 from the British government for his losses.
Sir William’s nephew, Guy Johnson (1740-1788), succeeded his uncle as superintendent of Indian affairs in 1774, and served in the French and Indian War and, on the British side, in the War of Independence.
See W. L. Stone, Life of Sir William Johnson (2 vols., 1865); W. E. Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations (1891) in “Makers of America” series; Augustus C. Buell, Sir William Johnson (1903) in “Historic Lives Series”; and J. Watts De Peyster, “The Life of Sir John Johnson, Bart.,” in The Orderly Book of Sir John Johnson during the Oriskany Campaign, 1776-1777, annotated by William L. Stone (1882).
JOHNSTON, ALBERT SIDNEY (1803-1862), American Confederate general in the Civil War, was born at Washington, Mason county, Kentucky, on the 3rd of February 1803. He graduated from West Point in 1826, and served for eight years in the U.S. infantry as a company officer, adjutant, and staff officer. In 1834 he resigned his commission, emigrated in 1836 to Texas, then a republic, and joined its army as a private. His rise was very rapid, and before long he was serving as commander-in-chief in preference to General Felix Huston, with whom he fought a duel. From 1838 to 1840 he was Texan secretary for war, and in 1839 he led a successful expedition against the Cherokee Indians. From 1840 to the outbreak of the Mexican War he lived in retirement on his farm, but in 1846 he led a regiment of Texan volunteers in the field, and at Monterey, as a staff officer, he had three horses shot under him. In 1849 he returned to the United States army as major and paymaster, and in 1855 became colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry (afterwards 5th), in which his lieut.-colonel was Robert E. Lee, and his majors were Hardee and Thomas. In 1857 he commanded the expedition sent against the Mormons, and performed his difficult and dangerous mission so successfully that the objects of the expedition were attained without bloodshed. He was rewarded with the brevet of brigadier-general. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 Johnston, then in command of the Pacific department, resigned his commission and made his way to Richmond, where Pres. Jefferson Davis, whom he had known at West Point, at once made him a full general in the Confederate army and assigned him to command the department of Kentucky. Here he had to guard a long and weak line from the Mississippi to the Alleghany Mountains, which was dangerously advanced on account of the political necessity of covering friendly country. The first serious advance of the Federals forced him back at once, and he was freely criticized and denounced for what, in ignorance of the facts, the Southern press and people regarded as a weak and irresolute defence. Johnston himself, who had entered upon the Civil War with the reputation of being the foremost soldier on either side, bore with 473 fortitude the reproaches of his countrymen, and Davis loyally supported his old friend. Johnston then marched to join Beauregard at Corinth, Miss., and with the united forces took the offensive against Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing. The battle of Shiloh (q.v.) took place on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862. The Federals were completely surprised, and Johnston was in the full tide of success when he fell mortally wounded. He died a few minutes afterwards. President Davis said, in his message to the Confederate Congress, “Without doing injustice to the living, it may safely be said that our loss is irreparable,” and the subsequent history of the war in the west went far to prove the truth of his eulogy.
His son, William Preston Johnston (1831-1899), who served on the staff of General Johnston and subsequently on that of President Davis, was a distinguished professor and president of Tulane University. His chief work is the Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston (1878), a most valuable and exhaustive biography.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER (1849-1889), American historian, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 29th of April 1849. He studied at the Polytechnic institute of Brooklyn, graduated at Rutgers College in 1870, and was admitted to the bar in 1875 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he taught in the Rutgers College grammar school from 1876 to 1879. He was principal of the Latin school of Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1879-1883, and was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) from 1884 until his death in Princeton, N.J., on the 21st of July 1889. He wrote A History of American Politics (1881); The Genesis of a New England State—Connecticut (1883), in “Johns Hopkins University Studies”; A History of the United States for Schools (1886); Connecticut (1887) in the “American Commonwealths Series”; the article on the history of the United States for the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, reprinted as The United Stales: Its History and Constitution (1887); a chapter on the history of American political parties in the seventh volume of Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America, and many articles on the history of American politics in Lalor’s Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and Political History of the United States (1881-1884). These last articles, which like his other writings represent much original research and are excellent examples of Johnston’s rare talent for terse narrative and keen analysis and interpretation of facts, were republished in two volumes entitled American Political History 1763-1876 (1905-1906), edited by Professor J. A. Woodburn.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH (1804-1871), Scottish geographer, was born at Kirkhill near Edinburgh on the 28th of December 1804. After an education at the high school and the university of Edinburgh he was apprenticed to an engraver; and in 1826 joined his brother (afterwards Sir William Johnston, lord provost of Edinburgh) in a printing and engraving business, the well-known cartographical firm of W. and A. K. Johnston. His interest in geography had early developed, and his first important work was the National Atlas of general geography, which gained for him in 1843 the appointment of Geographer-Royal for Scotland. Johnston was the first to bring the study of physical geography into competent notice in England. His attention had been called to the subject by Humboldt; and after years of labour he published his magnificent Physical Atlas in 1848, followed by a second and enlarged edition in 1856. This, by means of maps with descriptive letterpress, illustrates the geology, hydrography, meteorology, botany, zoology, and ethnology of the globe. The rest of Johnston’s life was devoted to geography, his later years to its educational aspects especially. His services were recognized by the leading scientific societies of Europe and America. He died at Ben Rhydding, Yorkshire, on the 9th of July 1871. Johnston published a Dictionary of Geography in 1850, with many later editions; The Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, begun in 1855; an atlas of military geography to accompany Alison’s History of Europe in 1848 seq.; and a variety of other atlases and maps for educational or scientific purposes. His son of the same name (1844-1879) was also the author of various geographical works and papers; in 1873-1875 he was geographer to a commission for the survey of Paraguay; and he died in Africa while leading the Royal Geographical Society’s expedition to Lake Nyasa.
JOHNSTON, ARTHUR (1587-1641), Scottish physician and writer of Latin verse, was the son of an Aberdeenshire laird Johnston of Johnston and Caskieben, and on his mother’s side a grandson of the seventh Lord Forbes. It is probable that he began his university studies at one, or both, of the colleges at Aberdeen, but in 1608 he proceeded to Italy and graduated M.D. at Padua in 1610. Thereafter he resided at Sedan, in the company of the exiled Andrew Melville (q.v.), and in 1619 was in practice in Paris. He appears to have returned to England about the time of James I.’s death and to have been in Aberdeen about 1628. He met Laud in Edinburgh at the time of Charles I.’s Scottish coronation (1633) and was encouraged by him in his literary efforts, partly, it is said, for the undoing of Buchanan’s reputation as a Latin poet. He was appointed rector of King’s College, Aberdeen, in June 1637. Four years later he died at Oxford, on his way to London, whither Laud had invited him.
Johnston left more than ten works, all in Latin. On two of these, published in the same year, his reputation entirely rests: (a) his version of the Psalms (Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica et canticorum evangelicorum, Aberdeen, 1637), and (b) his anthology of contemporary Latin verse by Scottish poets (Deliciae poetarum scotorum hujus aevi illustrium, Amsterdam, 1637). He had published in 1633 a volume entitled Cantici Salomonis paraphrasis poetica, which, dedicated to Charles I., had brought him to the notice of Laud. The full version of the Psalms was the result of Laud’s encouragement. The book was for some time a strong rival of Buchanan’s work, though its good Latinity was not superior to that of the latter. The Deliciae, in two small thick volumes of 699 and 575 pages, was a patriotic effort in imitation of the various volumes (under a similar title) which had been popular on the Continent during the second decade of the century. The volumes are dedicated by Johnston to John Scot of Scotstarvet, at whose expense the collected works were published after Johnston’s death, at Middelburg (1642). Selections from his own poems occupy pages 439-647 of the first volume, divided into three sections, Parerga, Epigrammata and Musae Aulicae. He published a volume of epigrams at Aberdeen in 1632. In these pieces he shows himself at his best. His sacred poems, which had appeared in the Opera (1642), were reprinted by Lauder in his Poetarum Scotorum musae sacrae (1739). The earliest lives are by Lauder (u.s.) and Benson (in Psalmi Davidici, 1741). Ruddiman’s Vindication of Mr George Buchanan’s Paraphrase (1745) began a pamphlet controversy regarding the merits of the rival poets.
JOHNSTON, SIR HENRY HAMILTON (1858- ), British administrator and explorer, was born on the 12th of June 1858 at Kennington, London, and educated at Stockwell grammar school and King’s College, London. He was a student for four years in the painting schools of the Royal Academy. At the age of eighteen he began a series of travels in Europe and North Africa, chiefly as a student of painting, architecture and languages. In 1879-1880 he visited the then little known interior of Tunisia. He had also a strong bent towards zoology and comparative anatomy, and carried on work of this description at the Royal College of Surgeons, of whose Hunterian Collection he afterwards became one of the trustees. In 1882 he joined the earl of Mayo in an expedition to the southern part of Angola, a district then much traversed by Transvaal Boers. In 1883 Johnston visited H. M. Stanley on the Congo, and was enabled by that explorer to visit the river above Stanley Pool at a time when it was scarcely known to other Europeans than Stanley and De Brazza. These journeys attracted the attention of the Royal Geographical Society and the British Association, and the last-named in concert with the Royal Society conferred on Johnston the leadership of the scientific expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro which started from Zanzibar in April 1884. Johnston’s work in this region was also under the direction of Sir John Kirk, British consul at Zanzibar. While in the Kilimanjaro district Johnston concluded treaties with the chiefs of Moshi and Taveta (Taveita). These treaties or concessions were transferred to the merchants who founded the British East Africa Company, and in the final agreement with Germany Taveta fell to Great Britain. In October 1885 Johnston was appointed British vice-consul in 474 Cameroon and in the Niger delta, and he became in 1887 acting consul for that region. A British protectorate over the Niger delta had been notified in June 1885, and between the date of his appointment and 1888, together with the consul E. H. Hewett, Johnston laid the foundations of the British administration in that part of the delta not reserved for the Royal Niger Company. His action in removing the turbulent chief Ja-ja (an ex-slave who had risen to considerable power in the palm-oil trade) occasioned considerable criticism but was approved by the Foreign Office. It led to the complete pacification of a region long disturbed by trade disputes. During these three years of residence in the Gulf of Guinea Johnston ascended the Cameroon Mountain, and made large collections of the flora and fauna of Cameroon for the British Museum.
In the spring of 1889 he was sent to Lisbon to negotiate an arrangement for the delimitation of the British and Portuguese spheres of influence in South-East Africa, but the scheme drawn up, though very like the later arrangement of those regions, was not given effect to at the time. On his return from Lisbon he was despatched to Mozambique as consul for Portuguese East Africa, and was further charged with a mission to Lake Nyasa to pacify that region, then in a disturbed state owing to the attacks of slave-trading Arabs on the stations of the African Lakes Trading Company—an unofficial war, in which Captain (afterwards Colonel Sir Frederick) Lugard and Mr (afterwards Sir Alfred) Sharpe distinguished themselves. Owing to the unexpected arrival on the scene of Major Serpa Pinto, Johnston was compelled to declare a British protectorate over the Nyasa region, being assisted in this work by John Buchanan (vice-consul), Sir Alfred Sharpe, Alfred Swann and others. A truce was arranged with the Arabs on Lake Nyasa, and within twelve months the British flag, by agreement with the natives, had been hoisted over a very large region which extended north of Lake Tanganyika to the vicinity of Uganda, to Katanga in the Congo Free State, the Shiré Highlands and the central Zambezi. Johnston’s scheme, in fact, was that known as the “Cape-to-Cairo,” a phrase which he had brought into use in an article in The Times in August 1888. According to his arrangement there would have been an all-British route from Alexandria to Cape Town. But by the Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 the British sphere north of Tanganyika was abandoned to Germany, and the Cape-to-Cairo route broken by a wedge of German territory. Johnston returned to British Central Africa as commissioner and consul-general in 1891, and retained that post till 1896, in which year he was made a K.C.B. His health having suffered much from African fever, he was transferred to Tunis as consul-general (1897). In the autumn of 1899 Sir Harry Johnston was despatched to Uganda as special commissioner to reorganize the administration of that protectorate after the suppression of the mutiny of the Sudanese soldiers and the long war with Unyoro. His two years’ work in Uganda and a portion of what is now British East Africa were rewarded at the close of 1901 by a G.C.M.G. In the spring of the following year he retired from the consular service. After 1904 he interested himself greatly in the affairs of the Liberian republic, and negotiated various arrangements with that negro state by which order was brought into its finances, the frontier with France was delimited, and the development of the interior by means of roads was commenced. In 1903 he was defeated as Liberal candidate for parliament at a by-election at Rochester. He met with no better success at West Marylebone at the general election of 1906.
For his services to zoology he was awarded the gold medal of the Zoological Society in 1902, and in the same year was made an honorary doctor of science at Cambridge. He received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical and the Royal Scottish Geographical societies, and other medals for his artistic work from South Kensington and the Society of Arts. His pictures, chiefly dealing with African subjects, were frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was the author of numerous books on Africa, including British Central Africa (1897); The Colonization of Africa (1899); The Uganda Protectorate (1902); Liberia (1906); George Grenfell and the Congo (1908). During his travels in the north-eastern part of the Congo Free State in 1900 he was instrumental in discovering and naming the okapi, a mammal nearly allied to the giraffe. His name has been connected with many other discoveries in the African fauna and flora.
JOHNSTON, JOSEPH EGGLESTON (1807-1891), American Confederate general in the Civil War, was born near Farmville, Prince Edward county, Virginia, on the 3rd of February 1807. His father, Peter Johnston (1763-1841), a Virginian of Scottish descent, served in the War of Independence, and afterwards became a distinguished jurist; his mother was a niece of Patrick Henry. He graduated at West Point, in the same class with Robert E. Lee, and was made brevet second lieutenant, 4th Artillery, in 1829. He served in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars, and left the army in 1837 to become a civil engineer, but a year afterwards he was reappointed to the army as first lieutenant, Topographical Engineers, and breveted captain for his conduct in the Seminole war. During the Mexican war he was twice severely wounded in a reconnaissance at Cerro Gordo, 1847, was engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battles of Contreras, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey, the storming of Chapultepec, and the assault on the city of Mexico, and received three brevets for gallant and meritorious service. From 1853 to 1855 he was employed on Western river improvements, and in 1855 he became lieut.-colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry. In 1860 he was made quartermaster-general, with the rank of brigadier-general. In April 1861 he resigned from the United States army and entered the Confederate service. He was commissioned major-general of volunteers in the Army of Virginia, and assisted in organizing the volunteers. He was later appointed a general officer of the Confederacy, and assigned to the command of the Army of the Shenandoah, being opposed by the Federal army under Patterson. When McDowell advanced upon the Confederate forces under Beauregard at Manassas, Johnston moved from the Shenandoah Valley with great rapidity to Beauregard’s assistance. As senior officer he took command on the field, and at Bull Run (Manassas) (q.v.) won the first important Confederate victory. In August 1861 he was made one of the five full generals of the Confederacy, remaining in command of the main army in Virginia. He commanded in the battle of Fair Oaks (May 31, 1862), and was so severely wounded as to be incapacitated for several months. In March 1863, still troubled by his wound, he was assigned to the command of the south-west, and in May was ordered to take immediate command of all the Confederate forces in Mississippi, then threatened by Grant’s movement on Vicksburg. When Pemberton’s army was besieged in Vicksburg by Grant, Johnston used every effort to relieve it, but his force was inadequate. Later in 1863, when the battle of Chattanooga brought the Federals to the borders of Georgia, Johnston was assigned to command the Army of Tennessee at Dalton, and in the early days of May 1864 the combined armies of the North under Sherman advanced against his lines. For the main outlines of the famous campaign between Sherman and Johnston see American Civil War (§ 29). From the 9th of May to the 17th of July there were skirmishes, actions and combats almost daily. The great numerical superiority of the Federals enabled Sherman to press back the Confederates without a pitched battle, but the severity of the skirmishing may be judged from the casualties of the two armies (Sherman’s about 26,000 men, Johnston’s over 10,000), and the obstinate steadiness of Johnston by the fact that his opponent hardly progressed more than one mile a day. But a Fabian policy is never acceptable to an eager people, and when Johnston had been driven back to Atlanta he was superseded by Hood with orders to fight a battle. The wisdom of Johnston’s plan was soon abundantly clear, and the Confederate cause was already lost when Lee reinstated him on the 23rd of February 1865. With a handful of men he opposed Sherman’s march through the Carolinas, and at Bentonville, N.C., fought and almost won a most gallant and skilful battle against heavy odds. But the Union troops steadily advanced, growing in strength as they went, and a few days after Lee’s surrender at 475 Appomattox Johnston advised President Davis that it was in his opinion wrong and useless to continue the conflict, and he was authorized to make terms with Sherman. The terms entered into between these generals, on the 18th of April, having been rejected by the United States government, another agreement was signed on the 26th of April, the new terms being similar to those of the surrender of Lee. After the close of the war Johnston engaged in civil pursuits. In 1874 he published a Narrative of Military Operations during the Civil War. In 1877 he was elected to represent the Richmond district of Virginia in Congress. In 1887 he was appointed by President Cleveland U.S. commissioner of railroads. Johnston was married in early life to Louisa (d. 1886), daughter of Louis M’Lane. He died at Washington, D.C., on the 21st of March 1891, leaving no children.
It was not the good fortune of Johnston to acquire the prestige which so much assisted Lee and Jackson, nor indeed did he possess the power of enforcing his will on others in the same degree, but his methods were exact, his strategy calm and balanced, and, if he showed himself less daring than his comrades, he was unsurpassed in steadiness. The duel of Sherman and Johnston is almost as personal a contest between two great captains as were the campaigns of Turenne and Montecucculi. To Montecucculi, indeed, both in his military character and in the incidents of his career, Joseph Johnston bears a striking resemblance.
See Hughes, General Johnston, in “Great Commanders Series” (1893).
JOHNSTONE, a police burgh of Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the Black Cart, 11 m. W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901), 10,503. The leading industries include flax-spinning, cotton manufactures (with the introduction of which in 1781 the prosperity of the town began), paper-making, shoe-lace making, iron and brass foundries and engineering works. There are also coal mines and oil works in the vicinity. Elderslie, 1 m. E., is the reputed birthplace of Sir William Wallace, but it is doubtful if “Wallace’s Yew,” though of great age, and “Wallace’s Oak,” a fine old tree that perished in a storm in 1856, and the small castellated building (traditionally his house) which preceded the present mansion in the west end of the village, existed in his day.
JOHNSTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Fulton county, New York, U.S.A., on Cayadutta Creek, about 4 m. N. of the Mohawk river and about 48 m. N.W. of Albany. Pop. (1890), 7768; (1900), 10,130 (1653 foreign-born); (1905, state census), 9765; (1910) 10,447. It is served by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville railroad, and by an electric line to Schenectady. The city has a Federal building, a Y.M.C.A. building, a city hall, and a Carnegie library (1902). The most interesting building is Johnson Hall, a fine old baronial mansion, built by Sir William Johnson in 1762 and his home until his death; his grave is just outside the present St John’s episcopal church. Originally the hall was flanked by two stone forts, one of which is still standing. In 1907 the hall was bought by the state and was placed in the custody of the Johnstown Historical Society, which maintains a museum here. In the hall Johnson established in 1766 a Masonic lodge, one of the oldest in the United States. Other buildings of historical interest are the Drumm House and the Fulton county court house, built by Sir William Johnson in 1763 and 1772 respectively, and the gaol (1772), at first used for all New York west of Schenectady county, and during the War of Independence as a civil and a military prison. The court house is said to be the oldest in the United States. Three miles south of the city is the Butler House, built in 1742 by Colonel John Butler (d. 1794), a prominent Tory leader during the War of Independence. A free school, said to have been the first in New York state, was established at Johnstown by Sir William Johnson in 1764. The city is (after Gloversville, 3 m. distant) the principal glove-making centre in the United States, the product being valued at $2,581,274 in 1905 and being 14.6% of the total value of this industry in the United States. The manufacture of gloves in commercial quantities was introduced into the United States and Johnstown in 1809 by Talmadge Edwards, who was buried there in the colonial cemetery. The value of the total factory product in 1905 was $4,543,272 (a decrease of 11.3% since 1900). Johnstown was settled about 1760 by a colony of Scots brought to America by Sir William Johnson, within whose extensive grant it was situated, and in whose honour, in 1771, it was named. A number of important conferences between the colonial authorities and the Iroquois Indians were held here, and on the 28th of October 1781, during the War of Independence, Colonel Marinus Willett (1740-1830) defeated here a force of British and Indians, whose leader, Walter Butler, a son of Colonel John Butler, and, with him, a participant in the Wyoming massacres, was mortally wounded near West Canada creek during the pursuit. Johnstown was incorporated as a village in 1808, and was chartered as a city in 1895.
JOHNSTOWN, a city of Cambria county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Conemaugh river and Stony creek, about 75 m. E. by S. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890), 21,805; (1900), 35,936, of whom 7318 were foreign-born, 2017 being Hungarians, 1663 Germans, and 923 Austrians; (1910 census) 55,482. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio railways. The city lies about 1170 ft. above the sea, on level ground extending for some distance along the river, and nearly enclosed by high and precipitous hills. Among the public buildings and institutions are the Cambria free library (containing about 14,000 volumes in 1908), the city hall, a fine high school, and the Conemaugh Valley memorial hospital. Roxbury Park, about 3 m. from the city, is reached by electric lines. Coal, iron ore, fire clay and limestone abound in the vicinity, and the city has large plants for the manufacture of iron and steel. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $28,891,806, an increase of 35.2% since 1900. A settlement was established here in 1791 by Joseph Jahns, in whose honour it was named, and the place was soon laid out as a town, but it was not incorporated as a city until 1889, the year of the disastrous Johnstown flood. In 1852 a dam (700 ft. long and 100 ft. high), intended to provide a storage reservoir for the Pennsylvania canal, had been built across the South Fork, a branch of the Conemaugh river, 12 m. above the city, but the Pennsylvania canal was subsequently abandoned, and in 1888 the dam was bought and repaired by the South Fork hunting and fishing club, and Conemaugh lake was formed. On the 31st of May 1889, during a heavy rainfall, the dam gave way and a mass of water 20 ft. or more in height at its head swept over Johnstown at a speed of about 20 m. an hour, almost completely destroying the city. The Pennsylvania railroad bridge withstood the strain, and against it the flood piled up a mass of wreckage many feet in height and several acres in area. On or in this confused mass many of the inhabitants were saved from drowning, only to be burned alive when it caught fire. Seven other towns and villages in the valley were also swept away, and the total loss of lives was 2000 or more. A relief fund of nearly $3,000,000 was raised, and the city was quickly rebuilt.
JOHOR (Johore is the local official, but incorrect spelling), an independent Malayan state at the southern end of the peninsula, stretching from 2° 40′ S. to Cape Romania (Ramūnya), the most southerly point on the mainland of Asia, and including all the small islands adjacent to the coast which lie to the south of parallel 2° 40′ S. It is bounded N. by the protected native state of Pahang, N.W. by the Negri Sembilan and the territory of Malacca, S. by the strait which divides Singapore island from the mainland, E. by the China Sea, and W. by the Straits of Malacca. The province of Mūar was placed under the administration of Johor by the British government as a temporary measure in 1877, and was still a portion of the sultan’s dominions in 1910. The coast-line measures about 250 m. The greatest length from N.W. to S.E. is 165 m., the greatest breadth from E. to W. 100 m. The area is estimated at about 9000 sq. m. The principal rivers are the Mūar, the most important waterway in the south of the peninsula; the Johor, up which river the old capital of the state was situated; the Endau, which marks the boundary with Pahang; and the Bātu Pāhat and Sĕdĕli, of 476 comparative unimportance. Johor is less mountainous than any other state in the peninsula. The highest peak is Gūnong Lēdang, called Mt Ophir by Europeans, which measures some 4000 ft. in height. Like the rest of the peninsula, Johor is covered from end to end by one vast spread of forest, only broken here and there by clearings and settlements of insignificant area. The capital is Johor Bharu (pop. about 20,000), situated at the nearest point on the mainland to the island of Singapore. The fine palace built by the sultan Abubakar is the principal feature of the town. It is a kind of Oriental Monte Carlo, and is much resorted to from Singapore. The capital of the province of Mūar is Bandar Maharani, named after the wife of the sultan before he had assumed his final title. The climate of Johor is healthy and equable for a country situated so near to the equator; it is cooler than that of Singapore. The shade temperature varies from 98.5° F. to 68.2° F. The rainfall averages 97.28 in. per annum. No exact figures can be obtained as to the population of Johor, but the best estimates place it at about 200,000, of whom 150,000 are Chinese, 35,000 Malays, 15,000 Javanese. We are thus presented with the curious spectacle of a country under Malay rule in which the Chinese outnumber the people of the land by more than four to one. It is not possible to obtain any exact data on the subject of the revenue and expenditure of the state. The revenue, however, is probably about 750,000 dollars, and the expenditure under public service is comparatively small. The revenue is chiefly derived from the revenue farms for opium, spirits, gambling, &c., and from duty on pepper and gambier exported by the Chinese. The cultivation of these products forms the principal industry. Areca-nuts and copra are also exported in some quantities, more especially from Mūar. There is little mineral wealth of proved value.
History.—It is claimed that the Mahommedan empire of Johor was founded by the sultan of Malacca after his expulsion from his kingdom by the Portuguese in 1511. It is certain that Johor took an active part, only second to that of Achin, in the protracted war between the Portuguese and the Dutch for the possession of Malacca. Later we find Johor ruled by an officer of the sultan of Riouw (Rīau), bearing the title of Tumĕnggong, and owing feudal allegiance to his master in common with the Bĕndahāra of Pahang. In 1812, however, this officer seems to have thrown off the control of Riouw, and to have assumed the title of sultan, for one of his descendants, Sultan Husain, ceded the island of Singapore to the East India Company in 1819. In 1855 the then sultan, Ali, was deposed, and his principal chief, the Tumĕnggong, was given the supreme rule by the British. His son Tumĕnggong Abubakar proved to be a man of exceptional intelligence. He made numerous visits to Europe, took considerable interest in the government and development of his country, and was given by Queen Victoria the title of maharaja in 1879. On one of his visits to England he was made the defendant in a suit for breach of promise of marriage, but the plaintiff was non-suited, since it was decided that no action lay against a foreign sovereign in the English law courts. In 1885 he entered into a new agreement with the British government, and was allowed to assume the title of sultan of the state and territory of Johor. He was succeeded in 1895 by his son Sultan Ibrahīm. The government of Johor has been comparatively so free from abuses under its native rulers that it has never been found necessary to place it under the residential system in force in the other native states of the peninsula which are under British control, and on several occasions Abubakar used his influence with good effect on the side of law and order. The close proximity of Johor to Singapore has constantly subjected the rulers of the former state to the influence of European public opinion. None the less, the Malay is by nature but ill fitted for the drudgery which is necessary if proper attention is to be paid to the dull details whereby government is rendered good and efficient. Abubakar’s principal adviser, the Dāto ’Mĕntri, was a worthy servant of his able master. Subsequently, however, the reins of government came chiefly into the hands of a set of young men who lacked either experience or the serious devotion to dull duties which is the distinguishing mark of the English civil service. Mūar, in imitation of the British system, is ruled by a rāja of the house of Johor, who bears the title of resident.
JOIGNY, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Yonne, 18 m. N.N.W. of Auxerre by the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway. Pop. (1906), 4888. It is situated on the flank of the hill known as the Côte St Jacques on the right bank of the Yonne. Its streets are steep and narrow, and old houses with carved wooden façades are numerous. The church of St Jean (16th century), which once stood within the enceinte of the old castle, contains a representation (15th century) of the Holy Sepulchre in white marble. Other interesting buildings are the church of St André (12th, 16th and 17th centuries), of which the best feature is the Renaissance portal with its fine bas-reliefs; and the church of St Thibault (16th century), in which the stone crown suspended from the choir vaulting is chiefly noticeable. The Porte du Bois, a gateway with two massive flanking towers, is a relic of the 10th century castle; there is also a castle of the 16th and 17th centuries, in part demolished. The hôtel de ville (18th century) shelters the library; the law-court contains the sepulchral chapel of the Ferrands (16th century). The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a communal college for boys. It is industrially unimportant, but the wine of the Côte St Jacques is much esteemed.
Joigny (Joviniacum) was probably of Roman origin. In the 10th century it became the seat of a countship dependent on that of Champagne, which after passing through several hands came in the 18th century into the possession of the family of Villeroi. A fragment of a ladder preserved in the church of St André commemorates the successful resistance offered by the town to the English in 1429.
JOINDER, in English law, a term used in several connexions.
Joinder of causes of action is the uniting in the same action several causes of action. Save in actions for the recovery of land and in actions by a trustee in bankruptcy a plaintiff may without leave join in one action, not several actions, but several “causes of action.” Claims by or against husband and wife may be joined with claims by or against either of them separately. Claims by or against an executor or administrator as such may be joined with claims by or against him personally, provided such claims are alleged to arise with reference to the estate of which the plaintiff or defendant sues or is sued as executor or administrator. Claims by plaintiffs jointly may be joined with claims by them or any of them separately against the same defendant.
Joinder in pleading is the joining by the parties on the point of matter issuing out of the allegations and pleas of the plaintiff and the defendant in a cause and the putting the cause upon trial.
Joinder of parties.—Where parties may jointly, severally or in the alternative bring separate actions in respect of or arising out of the same transaction or series of transactions they may, by Order XVI. of the rules of the supreme court, be joined in one action as plaintiffs.
JOINERY, one of the useful arts which contribute to the comfort and convenience of man. As the arts of joinery and carpentry are often followed by the same individual, it appears natural to conclude that the same principles are common to both, but a closer examination leads to a different conclusion. The art of carpentry is directed almost wholly to the support of weight or pressure, and therefore its principles must be sought in the mechanical sciences. In a building it includes all the rough timber work necessary for support, division or connexion, and its proper object is to give firmness and stability. The art of joinery has for its object the addition in a building of all the fixed woodwork necessary for convenience or ornament. The joiner’s works are in many cases of a complicated nature, and often require to be executed in an expensive material, therefore joinery requires much skill in that part of geometrical science which 477 treats of the projection and description of lines, surfaces and solids, as well as an intimate knowledge of the structure and nature of wood. A man may be a good carpenter without being a joiner at all, but he cannot be a joiner without being competent, at least, to supervise all the operations required in carpentry. The rough labour of the carpenter renders him in some degree unfit to produce that accurate and neat workmanship which is expected from a modern joiner, but it is no less true that the habit of neatness and the great precision of the joiner make him a much slower workman than the man practised in works of carpentry. In carpentry framing owes its strength mainly to the form and position of its parts, but in joinery the strength of a frame depends to a larger extent upon the strength of the joinings. The importance of fitting the joints together as accurately as possible is therefore obvious. It is very desirable that a joiner shall be a quick workman, but it is still more so that he shall be a good one, and that he should join his materials with firmness and accuracy. It is also of the greatest importance that the work when thus put together shall be constructed of such sound and dry materials, and on such principles, that the whole shall bear the various changes of temperature and of moisture and dryness, so that the least possible shrinkage or swelling shall take place; but provision must be made so that, if swelling or shrinking does occur, no damage shall be done to the work.
In early times every part was rude, and jointed in the most artless manner. The first dawnings of the art of modern joinery appear in the thrones, stalls, pulpits and screens of early Gothic cathedrals and churches, but even in these it is indebted to the carver for everything that is worthy of regard. With the revival of classic art, however, great changes took place in every sort of construction. Forms began to be introduced in architecture which could not be executed at a moderate expense without the aid of new principles, and these principles were discovered and published by practical joiners. These authors, with their scanty geometrical knowledge, had but confused notions of these principles, and accordingly their descriptions are often obscure, and sometimes erroneous. The framed wainscot of small panels gave way to the large bolection moulded panelling. Doors which were formerly heavily framed and hung on massive posts or in jambs of cut stone, were now framed in light panels and hung in moulded dressings of wood. The scarcity of oak timber, and the expense of working it, subsequently led to the importation of fir timber from northern Europe, and this gradually superseded all other material save for special work.
Tools and Materials.—The joiner operates with saws, planes, chisels, gouges, hatchet, adze, gimlets and other boring instruments (aided and directed by chalked lines), gauges, squares, hammers, wallets, floor cramps and a great many other tools. His operations consist principally of sawing and planing in all their varieties, and of setting out and making joints of all kinds. There is likewise a great range of other operations—such as paring, gluing up, wedging, pinning, fixing, fitting and hanging—and many which depend on nailing and screwing, such as laying floors, boarding ceilings, wainscoting walls, bracketing, cradling, firring, and the like. In addition to the wood on which the joiner works, he requires also glue, white lead, nails, brads, screws and hinges, and accessorily he applies bolts, locks, bars and other fastenings, together with pulleys, lines, weights, holdfasts, wall hooks, &c. The joiner’s work for a house is for the most part prepared at the shop, where there should be convenience for doing everything in the best and readiest manner, so that little remains when the carcase is ready and the floors laid but to fit, fix and hang. The sashes, frames, doors, shutters, linings and soffits are all framed and put together, i.e. wedged up and cleaned off at the shop; the flooring is planed and prepared with rebated or grooved edges ready for laying, and the moulded work—the picture and dado rails, architraves, skirtings and panelling—is all got out at the shop. On a new building the joiner fits up a temporary workshop with benches, sawing stools and a stove for his glue pot. Here he adjusts the work for fitting up and makes any small portions that may still be required.
The preparation of joinery entirely by hand is now the exception—a fact due to the ever-increasing use of machines, which have remarkably shortened the time required to execute the ordinary operations. Various machines rapidly and perfectly execute planing and surfacing, mortising and moulding, leaving the craftsman merely to fit and glue up. Large quantities of machine-made flooring, window-frames and doors are now imported into England from Canada and the continent of Europe. The timber is grown near the place of manufacture, and this, coupled with the fact that labour at a low rate of wages is easily obtainable on the Continent, enables the cost of production to be kept very low.
The structure and properties of wood should be thoroughly understood by every joiner. The man who has made the nature of timber his study has always a decided advantage over those who have neglected this. Timber shrinks considerably in the width, but not appreciably in the length. Owing to this shrinkage certain joints and details, hereinafter described and illustrated, are in common use for the purpose of counteracting the bad effect this movement would otherwise have upon all joinery work.
The kinds of wood commonly employed in joinery are the different species of North European and North American pine, oak, teak and mahogany (see Timber). The greater part of English joiners’ work is executed in the northern pine exported from the Baltic countries. Hence the joiner obtains the planks, deals, battens and strips from which he shapes his work. The timber reaches the workman from the sawmills in a size convenient for the use he intends, considerable time and labour being saved in this way.
A log of timber sawn to a square section is termed a balk. In section it may range from 1 to 1½ ft. square. Planks are formed by sawing the balk into sections from 11 to 18 in. wide and 3 to 6 in. thick, and the term deal is applied to sawn stuff 9 in. wide and 2 to 4½ in. thick. Battens are boards running not more than 3 in. thick and 4 to 7 in. wide. A strip is not thicker than 1½ in., the width being about 4 in.
Fig. 1. |
Joints.—Side joints (fig. 1) are used for joining boards together edge to edge, and are widely employed in flooring. In the square joint the edges of the boards are carefully shot, the two edges to be joined brought together with glue applied hot, and the boards tightly clamped and left to dry, when the surface is cleaned off with the smoothing plane. A joint in general use for joining up boards for fascias, panels, linings, window-boards, and other work of a like nature is formed in a similar manner to the above, but with a cross-grained tongue inserted, thereby greatly strengthening the work at an otherwise naturally weak point. This is termed a cross-tongued and glued joint. The dowelled joint is a square glued joint strengthened with hard wood or iron dowels inserted in the edge of each board to a depth of about ¾ in. and placed about 18 in. apart. The matched joint is shown in two forms, beaded and jointed. Matched boarding is frequently used as a less expensive substitute for panelled framing. Although of course in appearance it cannot compare with the latter, it has a somewhat ornamental appearance, and the moulded joints allow shrinkage to take place without detriment to the appearance of the work. The rebated joint is used in the meeting styles of casements and folding doors, and it is useful in excluding draughts and preventing observation through the joint.
Fig. 2. |
Of the angle joints (fig. 2) in common use by the joiner the following are the most important. The mitre is shown in the drawing, and is so well known as to need little description. Although simple, it needs a practised and accurate hand for its proper execution. The common mitre is essentially weak unless reinforced with blocks glued into the angle at the back of it, and is therefore often strengthened with a feather of wood or iron. Other variations of the mitre are the mitre and butt, used where the pieces connected are of unequal thickness; the mitre and rebate, with a square section which facilitates nailing or screwing; the mitre rebate and feather, similar to the latter, with a feather giving additional strength to the joint; and the mitre groove and tongue, having a tongue worked on the material itself in place of the feather of the last-named joint. The last two methods 478 are used in the best work, and, carefully worked and glued, with the assistance of angle blocks glued at the back, obviate the necessity of face screws or nails. The keyed mitre consists of a simple mitre joint, which after being glued up has a number of pairs of saw cuts made across the angle, into which are fitted and glued thin triangular slips of hard wood, or as an alternative, pieces of brass or other metal. Other forms of angle joints are based on the rebate with a bead worked on in such a position as to hide any bad effects caused by the joint opening by shrinkage. They may be secured either by nailing or screwing, or by glued angle blocks.
The dovetail is a most important joint; its most usual forms are illustrated in fig. 3. The mitre dovetail is used in the best work. It will be seen that the dovetail is a tenon, shaped as a wedge, and it is this distinguishing feature which gives it great strength irrespective of glue or screws. It is invaluable in framing together joiners’ fittings; its use in drawers especially provides a good example of its purpose and structure.
Fig. 3.—Dovetails. |
Fig. 4.—Prevention of Warping. |
Warping in Wide Boards.—It is necessary to prevent the tendency to warp, twist and split, which boards of great width, or several boards glued together edge to edge, naturally possess. On the other hand, swelling and shrinking due to changes in the humidity of the atmosphere must not be checked, or the result will be disastrous. To effect this end various simple devices are available. The direction of the annular rings in alternate boards may be reversed, and when the boards have been carefully jointed with tongues or dowels and glued up, a hard-wood tapering key, dovetail in section, may be let into a wide dovetail at the back (fig. 4). It must be accurately fitted and driven tightly home, but, of course, not glued. Battens of hard wood may be used for the same purpose, fixed either with hard-wood buttons or by means of brass slots and screws, the slots allowing for any slight movement that may take place. With boards of a substantial thickness light iron rods may be used, holes being bored through the thickness of the boards and rods passed through; the edges are then glued up. This method is very effective and neat in appearance, and is specially suitable when a smooth surface is desired on both sides of the work.
Mouldings are used in joinery to relieve plain surfaces by the contrasts of light and shade formed by their members, and to ornament or accentuate those particular portions which the designer may wish to bring into prominence. Great skill and discrimination are required in designing and applying mouldings, but that matter falls to the qualified designer and is perhaps outside the province of the practical workman, whose work is to carry out in an accurate and finished manner the ideas of the draughtsman. The character of a moulding is greatly affected by the nature and appearance of the wood in which it is worked. A section suitable for a hard regularly grained wood, such as mahogany, would probably look insignificant if worked in a softer wood with pronounced markings. Mouldings worked on woods of the former type may consist of small and delicate members; woods of the latter class require bold treatment.
Fig. 5.—Mouldings. |
The mouldings of joinery, as well as of all other moulded work used in connexion with a building, are usually worked in accordance with full-sized detail drawings prepared by the architect, and are designed by him to conform with the style and class of building. There are, however, a number of moulded forms in common use which have particular names; sections are shown of many of these in fig. 5. Most of them occur in the classic architecture of both Greeks and Romans. A striking distinction, however, existed in the mouldings of these two peoples; the curves of the Greek mouldings were either derived from conic sections or drawn in freehand, while in typical Roman work the curved components were segments of a circle. Numerous examples of the use of these forms occur in ordinary joinery work, and may be recognized on reference to the illustrations, which will be easily understood without further description.
Mouldings may be either stuck or planted on. A stuck moulding is worked directly on to the framing it is used to ornament; a planted moulding is separately worked and fixed in position with nails or screws. Beads and other small mouldings should always be stuck; larger ones are usually planted on. In the case of mouldings planted on panelled work, the nails should be driven through the moulding into the style or rail of the framing, and on no account into the panel. By adopting the former method the panel is free to shrink—as it undoubtedly will do—without altering the good appearance of the work, but should the moulding be fixed to the panel it will, when the latter shrinks, be pulled out of place, leaving an unsightly gap between it and the framing.
Flooring.—When the bricklayer, mason and carpenter have prepared the carcase of a building for the joiner, one of the first operations is that of laying the floor boards. They should have been stacked under cover on the site for some considerable time, in order to be thoroughly well seasoned when the time to use them arrives. The work of laying should take place in warm dry weather. The joints of flooring laid in winter time or during wet weather are sure to open in the following summer, however tightly they may be cramped up during the process of laying. An additional expense will then be incurred by the necessity of filling in the opened joints with wood slips glued and driven into place. Boards of narrow width are better and more expensive than wide ones. They may be of various woods, the kinds generally preferred, on account of their low comparative cost and ease of working, being yellow deal and white deal. White deal or spruce is an inferior wood, but is frequently used with good results for the floors of less important apartments. A better floor is obtained with yellow deal, which, when of good quality and well seasoned, is lasting and wears well. For floors where a fine appearance is desired, or which will be subjected to heavy wear, some harder and tougher material, such as pitch pine, oak, ash, maple or teak, should be laid. These woods are capable of taking a fine polish and, finished in this way, form a beautiful as well as a durable floor.
Many of the side joints illustrated in fig. 1 are applied to flooring boards, which, however, are not usually glued up. The heart side of the board should be placed downwards so that in drying the tendency will be for the edges to press more tightly to the joists instead of curling upwards. The square joint should be used only on ground floors; if it is used for the upper rooms, dust and water will drop through the crevices and damage the ceiling beneath. Dowelled joints are open to the same objection. One of the best and most economical methods is the ploughed and tongued joint. The tongue may be of hard wood or iron, preferably the latter, which is stronger and occupies very narrow grooves. The tongue should be placed as near the bottom of the board as is practicable, leaving as much wearing material as possible. Two varieties of secret joints are shown in fig. 1.—the splayed, rebated, grooved and tongued, and the rebated, grooved and tongued. Owing to the waste of material in forming these joints and the extra labour involved in laying the boards, they are costly and are only used when it is required that no heads of nails or screws should appear on the surface. The heading joints of flooring are often specified to be splayed or bevelled, but it is far better to rebate them.
Wood block floors are much used, and are exceedingly solid. The blocks are laid directly on a smoothed concrete bed or floor in a damp-proof mastic having bitumen as its base; this fulfils the double purpose of preventing the wood from rotting, and securing the blocks in their places. To check any inclination to warp and rise, however, the edges of the blocks in the better class of floors are connected by dowels of wood or metal, or by a tongued joint. The blocks may be from 1 to 3 in. thick, and are usually 9 or 12 in. long by 3 in. wide.
Parquet floors are made of hard woods of various kinds, laid in patterns on a deal sub-floor, and may be of any thickness from ¼ to 479 1¼ in. Great care should be taken in laying the sub-floor, especially for the thinner parquet. The boards should be in narrow widths of well-seasoned stuff and well nailed, for any movement in the sub-floor due to warping or shrinking may have disastrous results on the parquet which is laid upon it. Plated parquet consists of selected hard woods firmly fixed on a framed deal backing. It is made in sections for easy transport, and these are fitted together in the apartment for which they are intended. When secured to the joists these form a perfect floor.
Fig. 6.—Built-up Skirting tongued to floor. |
Skirtings.—In joinery, the skirting is a board fixed around the base of internal walls to form an ornamental base for the wall (see fig. 7). It also covers the joint between the flooring and the wall, and protects the base of the wall from injury. Skirtings may be placed in two classes—those formed from a plain board with its upper edge either left square or moulded, and those formed of two or more separate members and termed a built-up skirting (fig. 6). Small angle fillets or mouldings are often used as skirtings. The skirting should be worked so as to allow it to be fixed with the heart side of the wood outwards; any tendency to warp will then only serve to press the top edge more closely to the wall. In good work a groove should be formed in the floor and the skirting tongued into it so that an open joint is avoided should shrinkage occur. The skirting should be nailed only near the top to wood grounds fixed to wood plugs in the joints of the brickwork. These grounds are about ¾ to 1 in. thick, i.e. the same thickness as the plaster, and are generally splayed or grooved on the edge to form a key for the plaster. A rough coat of plaster should always be laid on the wall behind the skirting in order to prevent the space becoming a harbourage for vermin.
Fig. 7. |
Dados.—A dado, like a skirting, is useful both in a decorative and a protective sense. It is filled in to ornament and protect that portion of the wall between the chair or dado rail and the skirting. It may be of horizontal boards battened at the back and with cross tongued and glued joints, presenting a perfectly smooth surface, or of matched boarding fixed vertically, or of panelled framing. The last method is of course the most ornate and admits of great variety of design. The work is fixed to rough framed wood grounds which are nailed to plugs driven into the joints of the brickwork. Fig. 7 shows an example of a panelled dado with capping moulding and skirting. A picture rail also is shown; it is a small moulding with the top edge grooved to take the metal hooks from which pictures are hung.
Walls are sometimes entirely sheathed with panelling, and very fine effects are obtained in this way. The fixing is effected to rough grounds in a manner similar to that adopted in the case of dados. In England the architects of the Tudor period made great use of oak framing, panelled and richly carved, as a wall covering and decoration, and many beautiful examples may be seen in the remaining buildings of that period.
Windows.—The parts of a window sash are distinguished by the same terms as are applied to similar portions of ordinary framing, being formed of rails and styles, with sash bars rebated for glazing. The upright sides are styles; the horizontal ones, which are tenoned into the styles, are rails (fig. 7).
Sashes hung by one of their vertical edges are called casements (fig. 8). They are really a kind of glazed door and sometimes indeed are used as such, as for example French casements (fig. 9). They may be made to open either outwards or inwards. It is very difficult with the latter to form perfectly water-tight joints; with those opening outwards the trouble does not exist to so great an extent. This form of window, though almost superseded in England by the case frame with hung sashes, is in almost universal use on the Continent. Yorkshire sliding sashes move in a horizontal direction upon grooved runners with the meeting styles vertical. They are 480 little used, and are apt to admit draughts and wet unless efficient checks are worked upon the sashes and frames.
Fig. 8.—Casement window fitted with shutters. |
Lights in a position difficult of access are often hung on centre pivots. An example of this method is shown in fig. 8; metal pivots are fixed to the frame and the sockets in which these pivots work are screwed to the sash. Movement is effected by means of a cord fixed so that a slight pull opens or closes the window to the desired extent, and the cord is then held by being tied to, or twisted round, a small metal button or clip, or a geared fanlight opener may be used. For the side sashes of lantern lights and for stables and factories this form of window is in general use.
Fig. 9.—Details of French Casement to open inwards. |
In the British Isles and in America the most usual form of window is the cased frame with double hung sliding sashes. This style has many advantages. It is efficient in excluding wet and draughts, ventilation may be easily regulated and the sashes can be lowered and raised with ease without interference with any blinds, curtains or other fittings, that may be applied to the windows. In the ordinary window of this style, however, difficulty is experienced in cleaning the external glass without assuming a dangerous position on the sill, but there are many excellent inventions now on the market which obviate this difficulty by allowing—usually on the removal of a small thumb-screw—the reversal of the sash on a pivot or hinge. For a small extra cost these arrangements may be provided; they will be greatly appreciated by those who clean the windows. The cased frames are in the form of boxes to enclose the iron or lead weights which balance the sashes (fig. 7), and consist of a pulley style—which takes the wear of the sashes and is often of hard wood on this account—an inside lining, and an outside lining; these three members are continued to form the head of the frame. The sashes are connected with the weights by flax lines working over metal pulleys fixed in the pulley styles. For heavy sashes with plate glass, chains are sometimes used instead of lines. Access to the weights for the purpose of fitting new cords is obtained by removing the pocket piece. A thin back lining is provided to the sides only and is not required in the head. The sill is of oak weathered to throw off the water. A parting bead separates the sashes, and the inside bead keeps them in position. A parting slip hung from the head inside the cased frame separates the balancing weights and ensures their smooth working. The inside lining is usually grooved to take the elbow and soffit linings, and the window board is fitted into a groove formed in the sill. The example shown in fig. 7 has an extra deep bottom rail and bead; this enables the lower sash to be raised so as to permit of ventilation between the meeting rails without causing a draught at the bottom of the sash. This is a considerable improvement upon the ordinary form, and the cost of constructing the sashes in this manner is scarcely greater.
Bay windows with cased frames and double hung sashes often require the exercise of considerable ingenuity in their construction in order that the mullions shall be so small as not to intercept more light than necessary; at the same time the sashes must work easily and the whole framing be stable and strong. The sills should be mitred and tongued at the angles and secured by a hand-rail bolt. Frequently it is not desired to hang all the sashes of a bay window, the side lights being fixed. To enable smaller angle mullions to be obtained, the cords of the front windows may be taken by means of pulleys over the heads of the side lights and attached to counter-balance weights working in casings at the junction of the window with the wall. This enables solid angle mullions to be employed. If all the lights are required to be hung the difficulty may be surmounted by hanging two sashes to one weight. Lead weights take up less space than iron, and are used for heavy sashes.
In framing and fixing skylights and lantern lights also great care is necessary to ensure the result being capable of resisting rough weather and standing firm in high winds. Glue should not be used in any of the joints, as it would attract moisture from the atmosphere and set up decay. Provision must be made for the escape of the water which condenses on and runs down the under side of the glass, by means of a lead-lined channelled moulding, provided with zinc or copper pipe outlets. The skylight stands on a curb raised at least 6 in. to allow of the exclusion of rain by proper flashing. The sashes of the lantern usually take the form of fixed or hung casements fitted to solid mullions and angle posts which are framed into and support a solid head. The glazed framing of the roof is made up of moulded sash bars framed to hips and ridges of stronger section, these rest on the head, projecting well beyond it in order to throw off the water.
Shutters for domestic windows have practically fallen into disuse, but a reference to the different forms they may take is perhaps necessary. They may be divided into two classes—those fixed to the outside of the window and those fixed inside. They may be battened, panelled or formed with louvres, the latter form admitting air and a little light. External shutters are generally hung by means of hinges to the frame of the window: when the window is set in a reveal these hinges are necessarily of special shape, being of large projection to enable the shutters to fold back against the face of the wall. Internally fixed shutters may be hinged or may slide either vertically or horizontally. Hinged folding boxed shutters are shown in the illustration of a casement window (fig. 8), where the method of working is clearly indicated; they are usually held in position by means of a hinged iron bar secured with a special catch. Lifting shutters are usually fitted in a casing formed in the window back, and the window board is hinged to lift up, to allow the shutters to be raised by means of rings fixed in their upper edges. The shutters are balanced by weights enclosed with casings in the manner described for double hung sashes. The panels are of course filled in with wood and not glazed. The shutters are fixed by means of a thumb-screw through the meeting rails, the lower sash being supported on the window board which is closed down when the sashes have been lifted out. Shutters sliding horizontally are also used in some cases, but they are not so convenient as the forms described above.
Shop-fronts.—The forming of shop-fronts may almost be considered a separate branch of joiner’s work. The design and construction are attended by many minor difficulties, and, the requirements greatly varying with almost every trade, careful study and close attention to detail are necessary. In the erection of shop-fronts, in order to allow the maximum width of glass with the minimum amount of obstruction, many special sections of sash bars and stanchions are used, the former often being reinforced by cast iron or steel of suitable form. For these reasons the construction of shop-fronts and fittings has been specialized by makers having a knowledge of the requirements of different trades and with facilities for making the special wood and metal fittings and casings necessary. Fig. 10 shows an example of a simple shop-front in Spanish mahogany with rolling shutters and spring roller blind; it indicates the typical construction of a front, and reference to it will inform the reader on many points which need no further description. The London Building Act. 1894 requires the following regulations to be complied with in shop-fronts:—(1) In streets of a width not greater than 30 ft. a shop-front may project 5 in. beyond the external wall of the building to which it belongs, and the cornice may project 13 in. (2) In streets of a width greater than 30 ft., the projections of the shop-front may be 10 in. and of the cornice 18 in. beyond the building line. No woodwork of any shop-front shall be fixed higher than 25 ft. above the level of the public pavement. No woodwork shall be fixed nearer than 4 in. to the centre of the party wall. The pier of brick or stone must project at least an inch in front of the woodwork. These by-laws will be made clear on reference to fig. 10, which is of a shop-front designed to face on to a road more than 30 ft. wide.
Rolling shutters for shop-fronts are made by a number of firms, and are usually the subject of a separate estimate, being fixed by the makers themselves. The shutter consists of a number of narrow strips of wood, connected with each other by steel bands hinged at every joint, or it may be formed in iron or steel. This construction allows it to be coiled upon a cylinder containing a strong spring and usually fixed on strong brackets behind the fascia. The shutter 481 is guided into position by the edges working in metal grooves a little under an inch wide. When the width of the opening to be closed renders it necessary to divide the shutters into more than one portion, grooved movable pilasters are used, and when the shutters have to be lowered these are fixed in position with bolts, the shutter working on the grooved edges of the pilasters. Spring roller canvas blinds work on a similar principle. The wrought-iron blind arms are capable, when the blind is extended, of being pushed up by means of a sliding arrangement, and fixed with a pin at a level high enough to allow foot passengers to pass along the pavement under them.
Fig. 10.—Shop-front. |
Doors.—External doors are usually hung to solid frames placed in the reveals of the brick or stone wall. The frames are rebated for the door and ornamented by mouldings either stuck or planted on. The jambs or posts are tenoned, wedged and glued to the head, and the feet secured to the sill by stub tenons or dowels of iron. Solid window frames are of similar construction and are used chiefly for casements and sashes hung on centres as already described. Internal doors are hung to jamb linings (fig. 7). They are usually about 1½ in. thick and rebated for the door. When the width of jamb allows it, panelling may be introduced as in the example shown. The linings are nailed or screwed to rough framed grounds 1 in. in thickness plugged or nailed to the wall or partition. Architraves are the borders or finishing mouldings fixed around a window or door opening, and screwed or nailed to wood grounds. They are variously moulded according to the fancy of the designer. The ordinary form of architrave is shown in the illustration of a cased window frame (fig. 8), and a variation appears in the combined architrave and over door frieze and capping fitted around the six-panelled door (fig. 7). The latter would need to be worked and framed in the shop and fixed entire. Polished hard wood architraves may be secretly fixed, i.e. without the heads of nails or screws showing on the face, by putting screws into the grounds with their heads slightly projecting, and hanging the moulding on them by means of keyhole slots formed in the back.
Doors may be made in a variety of ways. The simplest form, the common ledged door, consists of vertical boards with plain or matched joints nailed to horizontal battens which correspond to the rails in framed doors. For openings over 2 ft. 3 in. wide, the doors should be furnished with braces. Ledged and braced doors are similar, but have, in addition to the ledges at the back, oblique braces which prevent any tendency of the door to drop. The upper end of the brace is birdsmouthed into the under side of the rail near the lock edge of the door and crosses the door in an oblique direction to be birdsmouthed into the upper edge of the rail below, near the hanging edge of the door. This is done between each pair of rails. Framed ledged and braced doors are a further development of this form of door. The framing consists of lock and hanging styles, top, middle and bottom rails, with oblique braces between the rails. These members are tenoned together and the door sheathed with boarding. The top rail and styles are the full thickness of the door, the braces and middle and bottom rails being less by the thickness of the sheathing boards, which are tongued into the top rail and styles and carried down over the other members to the bottom of the door. The three forms of door described above are used mainly for temporary purposes, and stables, farm buildings and outhouses of all descriptions. They are usually hung by wrought-iron cross garnet or strap hinges fixed with screws or through bolts and nuts.
Fig. 11.—Forms of Panelling. |
Fig. 12.—Joints. |
The doors in dwelling-houses and other buildings of a like character are commonly framed and panelled in one of the many ways possible. The framing consists of styles, rails and muntins or mountings, and these members are grooved to receive and hold the panels, which are inserted previously to the door being glued and wedged up. The common forms are doors in four or six rectangular panels, and although they may be made with any form and number of panels, the principles of construction remain the same. The example shown in fig. 7 is of a six-panel door, with bolection moulded raised panels on one side, and moulded and flat panels on the other (fig. 11).
A clear idea of the method of jointing the various members may be obtained from fig. 12. The tongues of raised panels should be of parallel thickness, the bevels being stopped at the moulding. The projecting ends or horns of the styles are cut off after the door has been glued and wedged, as they prevent the ends of the styles being damaged by the wedging process.
Where there is a great deal of traffic in both directions swing doors, either single or double, are used. To open them it is necessary simply to push, the inconvenience of turning a handle and shutting the door after passing through being avoided, as a spring causes the door to return to its original position without noise. They are usually glazed and should be of substantial construction. The door is hinged at the top on a steel pivot; the bottom part fits into a metal shoe connected with the spring, which is placed in a box fixed below the floor.
For large entrances, notably for hotels and banks, a form of door working on the turnstile principle is frequently adopted. It is formed of four leaves fixed in the shape of a cross and working on top and bottom central ball-bearing steel pivots, in a circular framing which forms a kind of vestibule. The leaves of the door are fitted with slips of india-rubber at their edges which, fitting close to the circular framing, prevent draughts.
When an elegant appearance is desired, and it is at the same time necessary to keep the cost of production as low as possible, doors of pine or other soft wood are sometimes covered with a veneer or thin layer of hard wood, such as oak, mahogany or teak, giving the appearance of a solid door of the better material. Made in the ordinary way, however, the shrinkage or warping of the soft wood is very liable to cause the veneer to buckle and peel off. Veneered doors made on an improved method obviating this difficulty have been placed on the market by a Canadian company. The core is made up of strips of pine with the grain reversed, dried at a temperature of 200° F., and glued up under pressure. Both the core and the hard wood veneer are grooved over their surfaces, and a special damp-resisting glue is applied; the two portions are then welded together under hydraulic pressure. By reason of their construction these doors possess the advantages of freedom from shrinking, warping and splitting, defects which are all too common in the ordinary veneered and solid hard wood doors.
The best glue for internal woodwork is that made in Scotland. Ordinary animal glue should not be used in work exposed to the weather as it absorbs damp and thus hastens decay; in its place a compound termed beaumontique, composed of white lead, linseed oil and litharge, should be employed.
Church Work.—Joinery work in connexion with the fitting up of church interiors must be regarded as a separate branch of the joiner’s art. Pitchpine is often used, but the best work is executed in English oak; and when the screens, stalls and seating are well designed and made in this material, a distinction and dignity of effect are added to the interior of the church which cannot be obtained in any other medium. The work is often of the richest character, and frequently enriched with elaborate carving (fig. 13). Many beautiful specimens of early work are to be seen in the English Gothic cathedrals and churches; good work of a later date will be found in many churches and public buildings erected in more recent years. Fine examples of Old English joinery exist at Hampton Court Palace, the Temple Church in London, the Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, and Haddon Hall. Specimens of modern work are to be seen in Beverley Minster in Yorkshire, the Church of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, London, and the Wycliffe Hall Chapel at Oxford. Other examples both ancient and modern abound in the country.
Carving is a trade apart from ordinary joinery, and requires a special ability and some artistic feeling for its successful execution. But even in this work machinery has found a place, and carved ornaments of all descriptions are rapidly wrought with its aid. Small carved mouldings especially are evolved in this manner, and, being incomparably cheaper than those worked by manual labour, are used freely where a rich effect is desired. Elaborately carved panels also are made by machines and a result almost equal to work done entirely by hand is obtained if, after machinery has done all in its power, the hand worker with his chisels and gouges puts the finishing touches to the work.
Ironmongery.—In regard to the finishing of a building, no detail calls for greater consideration than the selection and accurate fixing of suitable ironmongery, which includes the hinges, bolts, locks, door and window fittings, and the many varieties of metal finishings required for the completion of a building. The task of the selection belongs to the employer or the architect; the fixing is performed by the joiner.
Fig. 13. |
Of hinges, the variety termed butts are in general use for hanging doors, and are so called from being fitted to the butt edge of the door. They should be of wrought iron, cast-iron butts being liable to snap should they sustain a shock. Lifting butts are made with a removable pin to enable the door to be removed and replaced without unscrewing. Rising butts have oblique joints which cause the door to rise and clear a thick carpet and yet make a close joint with the floor when shut. Hinges of brass or gun-metal are used in special circumstances. Common forms of hinges used on ledged doors are the cross garnet and the strap. There are many varieties of spring hinges designed to bring the door automatically to a desired position. With such hinges a rubber stop should be fixed on the floor or other convenient place to prevent undue strain through the door being forced back.
Among locks and fastenings the ordinary barrel or tower bolt needs no description. The flush barrel is a bolt let in flush with the face of a door. The espagnolette is a development of the tower bolt and extends the whole height of the door; a handle at a convenient height, when turned, shooting bolts at the top and bottom simultaneously. Their chief use is for French casements. The padlock is used to secure doors by means of a staple and eye. The stock lock is a large rim lock with hard wood casing and is used for stables, church doors, &c.; it is in the form of a dead lock opened only by a key, and is often used in conjunction with a Norfolk latch. The metal cased rim lock is a cheap form for domestic and general use. The use of a rim lock obviates the necessity of forming a mortice in the thickness of the door which is required when a mortice lock is used. Finger plates add greatly to the good appearance of a door, 483 and protect the painted work. Sash fasteners are fixed at the meeting rails of double hung sashes to prevent the window being opened from the outside and serve also to clip the two sashes tightly together. They should be of a pattern to resist the attack of a knife inserted between the rails. Sash lifts and pulls of brass or bronze are fitted to large sashes. Ornamental casement stays and fasteners in many different metals are made in numerous designs and styles. Fanlight openers for single lights, or geared for a number of sashes, may be designed to suit positions difficult of access.
The following are the principal books of reference on this subject: J. Gwilt, Encyclopaedia of Architecture; Sutcliffe, Modern House Construction; Rivington, Notes on Building Construction (3 vols.); H. Adams, Building Construction; C. F. Mitchell, Building Construction; Robinson, Carpentry and Joinery; J. P. Allen, Practical Building Construction; J. Newlands, Carpenter and Joiner’s Assistant; Bury, Ecclesiastical Woodwork; T. Tredgold and Young, Joinery; Peter Nicholson, Carpenter and Joiner’s Assistant.
JOINT (through Fr. from Lat. junctum, jungere, to join), that which joins two parts together or the place where two parts are joined. (See Joinery; Joints.) In law, the word is used adjectivally as a term applied to obligations, estates, &c., implying that the rights in question relate to the aggregate of the parties joined. Obligations to which several are parties may be several, i.e. enforceable against each independently of the others, or joint, i.e. enforceable only against all of them taken together, or joint and several, i.e. enforceable against each or all at the option of the claimant (see Guarantee). So an interest or estate given to two or more persons for their joint lives continues only so long as all the lives are in existence. Joint-tenants are co-owners who take together at the same time, by the same title, and without any difference in the quality or extent of their respective interests; and when one of the joint-tenants dies his share, instead of going to his own heirs, lapses to his co-tenants by survivorship. This estate is therefore to be carefully distinguished from tenancy in common, when the co-tenants have each a separate interest which on death passes to the heirs and not to the surviving tenants. When several take an estate together any words or facts implying severance will prevent the tenancy from being construed as joint.
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