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7. Table of Contents
Python: Real-World Data Science
Meet Your Course Guide
What's so cool about Data Science?
Course Structure
Course Journey
The Course Roadmap and Timeline
1. Course Module 1: Python Fundamentals
1. Introduction and First Steps – Take a Deep Breath
A proper introduction
Enter the Python
About Python
Portability
Coherence
Developer productivity
An extensive library
Software quality
Software integration
Satisfaction and enjoyment
What are the drawbacks?
Who is using Python today?
Setting up the environment
Python 2 versus Python 3 – the great debate
What you need for this course
Installing Python
Installing IPython
Installing additional packages
How you can run a Python program
Running Python scripts
Running the Python interactive shell
Running Python as a service
Running Python as a GUI application
How is Python code organized
8. How do we use modules and packages
Python's execution model
Names and namespaces
Scopes
Guidelines on how to write good code
The Python culture
A note on the IDEs
2. Object-oriented Design
Introducing object-oriented
Objects and classes
Specifying attributes and behaviors
Data describes objects
Behaviors are actions
Hiding details and creating the public interface
Composition
Inheritance
Inheritance provides abstraction
Multiple inheritance
Case study
3. Objects in Python
Creating Python classes
Adding attributes
Making it do something
Talking to yourself
More arguments
Initializing the object
Explaining yourself
Modules and packages
Organizing the modules
Absolute imports
Relative imports
Organizing module contents
Who can access my data?
Third-party libraries
Case study
4. When Objects Are Alike
9. Basic inheritance
Extending built-ins
Overriding and super
Multiple inheritance
The diamond problem
Different sets of arguments
Polymorphism
Abstract base classes
Using an abstract base class
Creating an abstract base class
Demystifying the magic
Case study
5. Expecting the Unexpected
Raising exceptions
Raising an exception
The effects of an exception
Handling exceptions
The exception hierarchy
Defining our own exceptions
Case study
6. When to Use Object-oriented Programming
Treat objects as objects
Adding behavior to class data with properties
Properties in detail
Decorators – another way to create properties
Deciding when to use properties
Manager objects
Removing duplicate code
In practice
Case study
7. Python Data Structures
Empty objects
Tuples and named tuples
Named tuples
Dictionaries
Dictionary use cases
10. Using defaultdict
Counter
Lists
Sorting lists
Sets
Extending built-ins
Queues
FIFO queues
LIFO queues
Priority queues
Case study
8. Python Object-oriented Shortcuts
Python built-in functions
The len() function
Reversed
Enumerate
File I/O
Placing it in context
An alternative to method overloading
Default arguments
Variable argument lists
Unpacking arguments
Functions are objects too
Using functions as attributes
Callable objects
Case study
9. Strings and Serialization
Strings
String manipulation
String formatting
Escaping braces
Keyword arguments
Container lookups
Object lookups
Making it look right
Strings are Unicode
11. Converting bytes to text
Converting text to bytes
Mutable byte strings
Regular expressions
Matching patterns
Matching a selection of characters
Escaping characters
Matching multiple characters
Grouping patterns together
Getting information from regular expressions
Making repeated regular expressions efficient
Serializing objects
Customizing pickles
Serializing web objects
Case study
10. The Iterator Pattern
Design patterns in brief
Iterators
The iterator protocol
Comprehensions
List comprehensions
Set and dictionary comprehensions
Generator expressions
Generators
Yield items from another iterable
Coroutines
Back to log parsing
Closing coroutines and throwing exceptions
The relationship between coroutines, generators, and
functions
Case study
11. Python Design Patterns I
The decorator pattern
A decorator example
Decorators in Python
The observer pattern
12. An observer example
The strategy pattern
A strategy example
Strategy in Python
The state pattern
A state example
State versus strategy
State transition as coroutines
The singleton pattern
Singleton implementation
The template pattern
A template example
12. Python Design Patterns II
The adapter pattern
The facade pattern
The flyweight pattern
The command pattern
The abstract factory pattern
The composite pattern
13. Testing Object-oriented Programs
Why test?
Test-driven development
Unit testing
Assertion methods
Reducing boilerplate and cleaning up
Organizing and running tests
Ignoring broken tests
Testing with py.test
One way to do setup and cleanup
A completely different way to set up variables
Skipping tests with py.test
Imitating expensive objects
How much testing is enough?
Case study
Implementing it
14. Concurrency
13. Threads
The many problems with threads
Shared memory
The global interpreter lock
Thread overhead
Multiprocessing
Multiprocessing pools
Queues
The problems with multiprocessing
Futures
AsyncIO
AsyncIO in action
Reading an AsyncIO future
AsyncIO for networking
Using executors to wrap blocking code
Streams
Executors
Case study
2. Course Module 2: Data Analysis
1. Introducing Data Analysis and Libraries
Data analysis and processing
An overview of the libraries in data analysis
Python libraries in data analysis
NumPy
pandas
Matplotlib
PyMongo
The scikit-learn library
2. NumPy Arrays and Vectorized Computation
NumPy arrays
Data types
Array creation
Indexing and slicing
Fancy indexing
Numerical operations on arrays
Array functions
14. Data processing using arrays
Loading and saving data
Saving an array
Loading an array
Linear algebra with NumPy
NumPy random numbers
3. Data Analysis with pandas
An overview of the pandas package
The pandas data structure
Series
The DataFrame
The essential basic functionality
Reindexing and altering labels
Head and tail
Binary operations
Functional statistics
Function application
Sorting
Indexing and selecting data
Computational tools
Working with missing data
Advanced uses of pandas for data analysis
Hierarchical indexing
The Panel data
4. Data Visualization
The matplotlib API primer
Line properties
Figures and subplots
Exploring plot types
Scatter plots
Bar plots
Contour plots
Histogram plots
Legends and annotations
Plotting functions with pandas
Additional Python data visualization tools
15. Bokeh
MayaVi
5. Time Series
Time series primer
Working with date and time objects
Resampling time series
Downsampling time series data
Upsampling time series data
Timedeltas
Time series plotting
6. Interacting with Databases
Interacting with data in text format
Reading data from text format
Writing data to text format
Interacting with data in binary format
HDF5
Interacting with data in MongoDB
Interacting with data in Redis
The simple value
List
Set
Ordered set
7. Data Analysis Application Examples
Data munging
Cleaning data
Filtering
Merging data
Reshaping data
Data aggregation
Grouping data
3. Course Module 3: Data Mining
1. Getting Started with Data Mining
Introducing data mining
A simple affinity analysis example
What is affinity analysis?
Product recommendations
16. Loading the dataset with NumPy
Implementing a simple ranking of rules
Ranking to find the best rules
A simple classification example
What is classification?
Loading and preparing the dataset
Implementing the OneR algorithm
Testing the algorithm
2. Classifying with scikit-learn Estimators
scikit-learn estimators
Nearest neighbors
Distance metrics
Loading the dataset
Moving towards a standard workflow
Running the algorithm
Setting parameters
Preprocessing using pipelines
An example
Standard preprocessing
Putting it all together
Pipelines
3. Predicting Sports Winners with Decision Trees
Loading the dataset
Collecting the data
Using pandas to load the dataset
Cleaning up the dataset
Extracting new features
Decision trees
Parameters in decision trees
Using decision trees
Sports outcome prediction
Putting it all together
Random forests
How do ensembles work?
Parameters in Random forests
Applying Random forests
17. Engineering new features
4. Recommending Movies Using Affinity Analysis
Affinity analysis
Algorithms for affinity analysis
Choosing parameters
The movie recommendation problem
Obtaining the dataset
Loading with pandas
Sparse data formats
The Apriori implementation
The Apriori algorithm
Implementation
Extracting association rules
Evaluation
5. Extracting Features with Transformers
Feature extraction
Representing reality in models
Common feature patterns
Creating good features
Feature selection
Selecting the best individual features
Feature creation
Creating your own transformer
The transformer API
Implementation details
Unit testing
Putting it all together
6. Social Media Insight Using Naive Bayes
Disambiguation
Downloading data from a social network
Loading and classifying the dataset
Creating a replicable dataset from Twitter
Text transformers
Bag-of-words
N-grams
Other features
18. Naive Bayes
Bayes' theorem
Naive Bayes algorithm
How it works
Application
Extracting word counts
Converting dictionaries to a matrix
Training the Naive Bayes classifier
Putting it all together
Evaluation using the F1-score
Getting useful features from models
7. Discovering Accounts to Follow Using Graph Mining
Loading the dataset
Classifying with an existing model
Getting follower information from Twitter
Building the network
Creating a graph
Creating a similarity graph
Finding subgraphs
Connected components
Optimizing criteria
8. Beating CAPTCHAs with Neural Networks
Artificial neural networks
An introduction to neural networks
Creating the dataset
Drawing basic CAPTCHAs
Splitting the image into individual letters
Creating a training dataset
Adjusting our training dataset to our methodology
Training and classifying
Back propagation
Predicting words
Improving accuracy using a dictionary
Ranking mechanisms for words
Putting it all together
9. Authorship Attribution
19. Attributing documents to authors
Applications and use cases
Attributing authorship
Getting the data
Function words
Counting function words
Classifying with function words
Support vector machines
Classifying with SVMs
Kernels
Character n-grams
Extracting character n-grams
Using the Enron dataset
Accessing the Enron dataset
Creating a dataset loader
Putting it all together
Evaluation
10. Clustering News Articles
Obtaining news articles
Using a Web API to get data
Reddit as a data source
Getting the data
Extracting text from arbitrary websites
Finding the stories in arbitrary websites
Putting it all together
Grouping news articles
The k-means algorithm
Evaluating the results
Extracting topic information from clusters
Using clustering algorithms as transformers
Clustering ensembles
Evidence accumulation
How it works
Implementation
Online learning
An introduction to online learning
20. Implementation
11. Classifying Objects in Images Using Deep Learning
Object classification
Application scenario and goals
Use cases
Deep neural networks
Intuition
Implementation
An introduction to Theano
An introduction to Lasagne
Implementing neural networks with nolearn
GPU optimization
When to use GPUs for computation
Running our code on a GPU
Setting up the environment
Application
Getting the data
Creating the neural network
Putting it all together
12. Working with Big Data
Big data
Application scenario and goals
MapReduce
Intuition
A word count example
Hadoop MapReduce
Application
Getting the data
Naive Bayes prediction
The mrjob package
Extracting the blog posts
Training Naive Bayes
Putting it all together
Training on Amazon's EMR infrastructure
13. Next Steps…
Chapter 1 – Getting Started with Data Mining
21. Scikit-learn tutorials
Extending the IPython Notebook
Chapter 2 – Classifying with scikit-learn Estimators
More complex pipelines
Comparing classifiers
Chapter 3: Predicting Sports Winners with Decision Trees
More on pandas
Chapter 4 – Recommending Movies Using Affinity Analysis
The Eclat algorithm
Chapter 5 – Extracting Features with Transformers
Vowpal Wabbit
Chapter 6 – Social Media Insight Using Naive Bayes
Natural language processing and part-of-speech tagging
Chapter 7 – Discovering Accounts to Follow Using Graph Mining
More complex algorithms
Chapter 8 – Beating CAPTCHAs with Neural Networks
Deeper networks
Reinforcement learning
Chapter 9 – Authorship Attribution
Local n-grams
Chapter 10 – Clustering News Articles
Real-time clusterings
Chapter 11 – Classifying Objects in Images Using Deep
Learning
Keras and Pylearn2
Mahotas
Chapter 12 – Working with Big Data
Courses on Hadoop
Pydoop
Recommendation engine
More resources
4. Course Module 4: Machine Learning
1. Giving Computers the Ability to Learn from Data
How to transform data into knowledge
The three different types of machine learning
Making predictions about the future with supervised learning
22. Classification for predicting class labels
Regression for predicting continuous outcomes
Solving interactive problems with reinforcement learning
Discovering hidden structures with unsupervised learning
Finding subgroups with clustering
Dimensionality reduction for data compression
An introduction to the basic terminology and notations
A roadmap for building machine learning systems
Preprocessing – getting data into shape
Training and selecting a predictive model
Evaluating models and predicting unseen data instances
Using Python for machine learning
2. Training Machine Learning Algorithms for Classification
Artificial neurons – a brief glimpse into the early history of
machine learning
Implementing a perceptron learning algorithm in Python
Training a perceptron model on the Iris dataset
Adaptive linear neurons and the convergence of learning
Minimizing cost functions with gradient descent
Implementing an Adaptive Linear Neuron in Python
Large scale machine learning and stochastic gradient
descent
3. A Tour of Machine Learning Classifiers Using scikit-learn
Choosing a classification algorithm
First steps with scikit-learn
Training a perceptron via scikit-learn
Modeling class probabilities via logistic regression
Logistic regression intuition and conditional probabilities
Learning the weights of the logistic cost function
Training a logistic regression model with scikit-learn
Tackling overfitting via regularization
Maximum margin classification with support vector machines
Maximum margin intuition
Dealing with the nonlinearly separable case using slack
variables
Alternative implementations in scikit-learn
23. Solving nonlinear problems using a kernel SVM
Using the kernel trick to find separating hyperplanes in
higher dimensional space
Decision tree learning
Maximizing information gain – getting the most bang for the
buck
Building a decision tree
Combining weak to strong learners via random forests
K-nearest neighbors – a lazy learning algorithm
4. Building Good Training Sets – Data Preprocessing
Dealing with missing data
Eliminating samples or features with missing values
Imputing missing values
Understanding the scikit-learn estimator API
Handling categorical data
Mapping ordinal features
Encoding class labels
Performing one-hot encoding on nominal features
Partitioning a dataset in training and test sets
Bringing features onto the same scale
Selecting meaningful features
Sparse solutions with L1 regularization
Sequential feature selection algorithms
Assessing feature importance with random forests
5. Compressing Data via Dimensionality Reduction
Unsupervised dimensionality reduction via principal component
analysis
Total and explained variance
Feature transformation
Principal component analysis in scikit-learn
Supervised data compression via linear discriminant analysis
Computing the scatter matrices
Selecting linear discriminants for the new feature subspace
Projecting samples onto the new feature space
LDA via scikit-learn
24. Using kernel principal component analysis for nonlinear
mappings
Kernel functions and the kernel trick
Implementing a kernel principal component analysis in
Python
Example 1 – separating half-moon shapes
Example 2 – separating concentric circles
Projecting new data points
Kernel principal component analysis in scikit-learn
6. Learning Best Practices for Model Evaluation and
Hyperparameter Tuning
Streamlining workflows with pipelines
Loading the Breast Cancer Wisconsin dataset
Combining transformers and estimators in a pipeline
Using k-fold cross-validation to assess model performance
The holdout method
K-fold cross-validation
Debugging algorithms with learning and validation curves
Diagnosing bias and variance problems with learning curves
Addressing overfitting and underfitting with validation curves
Fine-tuning machine learning models via grid search
Tuning hyperparameters via grid search
Algorithm selection with nested cross-validation
Looking at different performance evaluation metrics
Reading a confusion matrix
Optimizing the precision and recall of a classification model
Plotting a receiver operating characteristic
The scoring metrics for multiclass classification
7. Combining Different Models for Ensemble Learning
Learning with ensembles
Implementing a simple majority vote classifier
Combining different algorithms for classification with
majority vote
Evaluating and tuning the ensemble classifier
Bagging – building an ensemble of classifiers from bootstrap
samples
25. Leveraging weak learners via adaptive boosting
8. Predicting Continuous Target Variables with Regression Analysis
Introducing a simple linear regression model
Exploring the Housing Dataset
Visualizing the important characteristics of a dataset
Implementing an ordinary least squares linear regression model
Solving regression for regression parameters with gradient
descent
Estimating the coefficient of a regression model via scikit-
learn
Fitting a robust regression model using RANSAC
Evaluating the performance of linear regression models
Using regularized methods for regression
Turning a linear regression model into a curve – polynomial
regression
Modeling nonlinear relationships in the Housing Dataset
Dealing with nonlinear relationships using random forests
Decision tree regression
Random forest regression
A. Reflect and Test Yourself! Answers
Module 2: Data Analysis
Chapter 1: Introducing Data Analysis and Libraries
Chapter 2: Object-oriented Design
Chapter 3: Data Analysis with pandas
Chapter 4: Data Visualization
Chapter 5: Time Series
Chapter 6: Interacting with Databases
Chapter 7: Data Analysis Application Examples
Module 3: Data Mining
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Data Mining
Chapter 2: Classifying with scikit-learn Estimators
Chapter 3: Predicting Sports Winners with Decision Trees
Chapter 4: Recommending Movies Using Affinity Analysis
Chapter 5: Extracting Features with Transformers
Chapter 6: Social Media Insight Using Naive Bayes
26. Chapter 7: Discovering Accounts to Follow Using Graph
Mining
Chapter 8: Beating CAPTCHAs with Neural Networks
Chapter 9: Authorship Attribution
Chapter 10: Clustering News Articles
Chapter 11: Classifying Objects in Images Using Deep
Learning
Chapter 12: Working with Big Data
Module 4: Machine Learning
Chapter 1: Giving Computers the Ability to Learn from Data
Chapter 2: Training Machine Learning
Chapter 3: A Tour of Machine Learning Classifiers Using
scikit-learn
Chapter 4: Building Good Training Sets – Data Preprocessing
Chapter 5: Compressing Data via Dimensionality Reduction
Chapter 6: Learning Best Practices for Model Evaluation and
Hyperparameter Tuning
Chapter 7: Combining Different Models for Ensemble
Learning
Chapter 8: Predicting Continuous Target Variables with
Regression Analysis
B. Bibliography
Index
28. Python: Real-World Data
Science
A course in four modules
Unleash the power of Python and its robust data science
capabilities with your Course Guide Ankita Thakur
Learn to use powerful Python libraries for effective data processing
and analysis
To contact your Course Guide
Email: <[email protected]>
29. Meet Your Course Guide
Hello and welcome to this Data Science with Python course. You
now have a clear pathway from learning Python core features right
through to getting acquainted with the concepts and techniques of
the data science field—all using Python!
This course has been planned and created for you by me Ankita
Thakur – I am your Course Guide, and I am here to help you
have a great journey along the pathways of learning that I have
planned for you.
I've developed and created this course for you and you'll be
seeing me through the whole journey, offering you my thoughts
and ideas behind what you're going to learn next and why I
recommend each step. I'll provide tests and quizzes to help you
reflect on your learning, and code challenges that will be pitched
just right for you through the course.
If you have any questions along the way, you can reach out to
me over e-mail or telephone and I'll make sure you get
everything from the course that we've planned – for you to start
your career in the field of data science. Details of how to contact
me are included on the first page of this course.
30. What's so cool about Data
Science?
What is Data Science and why is there so much of buzz about this in
the world? Is it of great importance? Well, the following sentence
will answer all such questions:
"This hot new field promises to revolutionize industries from business to government, health care to
academia."
--The New York Times
The world is generating data at an increasing pace. Consumers,
sensors, or scientific experiments emit data points every day. In
finance, business, administration, and the natural or social sciences,
working with data can make up a significant part of the job. Being
able to efficiently work with small or large datasets has become a
valuable skill. Also, we live in a world of connected things where
tons of data is generated and it is humanly impossible to analyze all
the incoming data and make decisions. Human decisions are
increasingly replaced by decisions made by computers. Thanks to
the field of Data Science!
Data science has penetrated deeply in our connected world and
there is a growing demand in the market for people who not only
understand data science algorithms thoroughly, but are also capable
of programming these algorithms. A field that is at the intersection
of many fields, including data mining, machine learning, and
statistics, to name a few. This puts an immense burden on all levels
of data scientists; from the one who is aspiring to become a data
scientist and those who are currently practitioners in this field.
Treating these algorithms as a black box and using them in decision-
making systems will lead to counterproductive results. With tons of
algorithms and innumerable problems out there, it requires a good
32. serious danger. Thus, John Hyrcanus destroyed the temple of the
Sâmaritans (who also worshiped Jehovah) on Mount Gerizim, and
the Jews actually commemorated the event by a semi-festival.
Alexander Jannasus, too, carried on wars of conquest against his
neighbors. In one of these he took the town of Gaza, and evinced
the treatment to be expected from him by letting loose his army on
the inhabitants and utterly destroying their city. It was no doubt
their unsocial and proud behavior towards all who were not Jews
that provoked the heathens to try their temper by so many insults
directed to the sensitive point—their religion. Culpable as this was, it
must be admitted that it was in some degree the excessive
scrupulosity of the Jews in regard to things indifferent in themselves
that exposed them to so much annoyance. Had they been content to
permit the existence of Hellenic or Roman customs side by side with
theirs, they might have been spared the miseries which they
subsequently endured. But the Scriptures, from beginning to end,
breathed a spirit of fierce and exclusive attachment to Jehovah; he
was the only deity; all other objects of adoration were an
abomination in his sight. Penetrated with this spirit, the Jews
patiently submitted to the yoke of every succeeding authority—
Chaldeans, Syrians, Egyptians, Romans—until the stranger presumed
to tamper with the national religion. Then their resistance was fierce
and obstinate. The great rebellion which broke out in the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes, under the leadership of Mattathias, was
provoked by the attempt of that monarch to force Greek institutions
on the Jewish people. The glorious dynasty of the Asmoneans were
priests as well as kings, and the royal office, indeed, was only
assumed by them in the generation after that in which they had
borne the priestly office, and as a consequence of the authority
derived therefrom. Under the semi-foreign family of the Herods, who
supplanted the Asmoneans, and ruled under Roman patronage, as
afterwards under the direct government of Rome, it was nothing but
actual or suspected aggressions against the national faith that
provoked the loudest murmurs or the most determined opposition. It
was this faith which had upheld the Jews in their heroic revolt
against Syrian innovations. It was this which inspired them to
33. support every offshoot of the Asmonean family against the odious
Herod. It was this which led them to entreat of Pompey that he
would abstain from the violation of the temple; to implore Caligula,
at the peril of their lives, not to force his statue upon them; to raise
tumults under Cumanus, and finally to burst the bonds of their
allegiance to Rome under Gessius Florus. It was this which sustained
the war that followed upon that outbreak—a war in which even the
unconquerable power of the Roman Empire quailed before the
unrivaled skill and courage of this indomitable race; a war of which I
do not hesitate to say that it is probably the most wonderful, the
most heroic, and the most daring which an oppressed people has
ever waged against its tyrants.
But against such discipline as that of Rome, and such generals as
Vespasian and Titus, success, however brilliant, could be but
momentary. The Jewish insurrection was quelled in blood, and the
Jewish nationality was extinguished—never to revive. One more
desperate effort was indeed made; once more the best legions and
the best commanders of the Empire were put in requisition; once
more the hopes of the people were inflamed, this time by the
supposed appearance of the Messiah, only to be doomed again to a
still more cruel disappointment. Jerusalem was razed to the ground;
Aelia Capitolina took its place; and on the soil of Aelia Capitolina no
Jew might presume to trespass. But if the trials imposed on the faith
of this devoted race by the Romans were hard, they were still
insignificant compared to those which it had to bear from the
Christian nations who inherited from them the dominion of Europe.
These nations considered the misfortunes of the Jews as proceeding
from the divine vengeance on the crime they had committed against
Christ; and lest this vengeance should fail to take effect, they made
themselves its willing instruments. No injustice and no persecution
could be too bad for those whom God himself so evidently hated.
Besides, the Jews had a miserable habit of acquiring wealth; and it
was convenient to those who did not share their ability or their
industry to plunder them from time to time. But the Jewish race and
the Jewish religion survived it all. Tormented, tortured, robbed, put
34. to death, hunted from clime to clime; outcasts in every land,
strangers in every refuge, the tenacity of their character was proof
against every trial, and superior to every temptation. In this unequal
combat of the strong against the weak, the synagogue has fairly
beaten the Church, and has vindicated for itself that liberty which
during centuries of suffering its enemy refused to grant. Eighteen
hundred years have passed since the soldiers of Titus burned down
the temple, laid Jerusalem in ashes, and scattered to the winds the
remaining inhabitants of Judea; but the religion of the Jews is
unshaken still; it stands unconquered and unconquerable, whether
by the bloodthirsty fury of the legions of Rome, or by the still more
bloodthirsty intolerance of the ministers of Christ.
Subdivision I.—The Historical Books.
It is scarcely necessary to say that no complete account of the
contents of the Old Testament can be attempted here. To accomplish
anything like a full description of its various parts, and to discuss the
numerous critical questions that must arise in connection with such a
description, would in itself require a large volume. In a treatise on
comparative religion, anything of this kind would be out of place. It
is mainly in its comparative aspect that we are concerned with the
Bible. Hence many very interesting topics, such, for instance, as the
age or authorship of the several books, must be passed over in
silence. Tempting as it may be to turn aside to such inquiries, they
have no immediate bearing on the subject in hand. Whatever may
be the ultimate verdict of Biblical criticism respecting them, the
conclusions here reached will remain unaffected. All that I can do is
to assume without discussion the results obtained by the most
eminent scholars, in so far as they appear to me likely to be
permanent. That the Book of Genesis, for example, is not the work
of a single writer, but that at least two hands may be distinguished
in it; that the Song of Solomon is, as explained both by Renan and
Ewald, a drama, and not an effusion of piety; that the latter part of
Isaiah is not written by the same prophet who composed the former,
35. —are conclusions of criticism which I venture to think may now be
taken for granted and made the basis of further reasoning. At the
same time I have taken for granted—not as certain, but as likely to
be an approximation to the truth—the chronological arrangement of
the prophets proposed by Ewald in his great work on that portion of
Scripture. Further than this, I believe there are no assumptions of a
critical character in the ensuing pages.
First, then, it is to be observed that the problems which occupied
the writers of the Book of Genesis, and which in their own fashion
they attempted to solve, were the same as those which in all ages
have engaged the attention of thoughtful men, and which have been
dealt with in many other theologies besides that of the Hebrews.
The Hebrew solution may or may not be superior in simplicity or
grandeur to the solutions of Parsees, Hindus, and others; but the
attempt is the same in character, even if the execution be more
successful. The authors of Genesis endeavor especially to account
for:—
1. The Creation of the Universe.
2. The Origin of Man and Animals.
3. The Introduction of Evil.
4. The Diversity of Languages.
Although the fourth of these questions is, so far as I am aware,
not a common subject of consideration in popular mythologies, the
first three are the standard subjects of primitive theological
speculation. Let us begin with the Creation.
One of the earliest inquiries that human beings address
themselves to when they arrive at the stage of reflection is:—How
did this world in which we find ourselves come into being? Out of
what elements was it formed? Who made it, and in what way? A
natural and obvious reply to such an inquiry is, that a Being of
somewhat similar nature to their own, though larger and more
powerful, took the materials of which the world is formed and
moulded them, as a workman moulds the materials of his handicraft,
36. into their present shape. The mental process gone through in
reaching this conclusion is simply that of pursuing a familiar analogy
in such a manner as to bring the unknown within the range of
conceptions applicable to the known. The solution, as will be seen
shortly, contrives to satisfy one-half of the problem only by leaving
the other half out of consideration. This difficulty, however, does not
seem to have occurred to the ancient Hebrew writers who
propounded the following history of the Creation of the Universe:—
"In the beginning," they say, "God created the heavens and the
earth. And the earth was desolate and waste, and darkness on the
face of the abyss, and the Spirit of God hovering on the face of the
waters. And God said: Let there be light, and there was light. And
God saw the light that it was good, and God divided between the
light and the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And it was Evening, and it was Morning:
one day.
"And God said: Let there be a vault for separation of the waters,
and let it divide between waters and waters." Hereupon he made the
vault, and separated the waters above it from those below it. The
vault he called Heavens. This was his second day's work. On the
third, he separated the dry land from the sea, "and saw that it was
good;" besides which he caused the earth to bring forth herbs and
fruit-trees. "And God said: Let there be lights in the vault of the
heavens to divide between the day and between the night, and let
them be for signs and for times and for days and for years."
Hereupon he made the sun for the day, the moon for the night, and
the stars. "And God put them on the vault of the heavens to give
light to the earth, and to rule by day and by night, and to separate
between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
And it was evening, and it was morning; the fourth day" (Gen. i. 1-
19).
Let us pause a moment here before passing on to the next branch
of the subject: the creation of animals and man. The author had two
questions before him; how the materials of the universe came into
37. being, and how, when in being, they assumed their present forms
and relative positions. Of the first he says nothing, unless the first
verse be taken to refer to it. But this can scarcely be; for the
expression, "God made the heavens and the earth," cannot easily be
supposed to refer to the original production of the matter out of
which the heavens and the earth were subsequently made. Rather
must we take it as a short heading, referring to the creation which is
about to be described. And in any case, the manner in which there
came to be anything at all out of which heavens and earth could be
constructed is not considered. We are left apparently to suppose
that matter is coeval with the Deity; for the author never faces the
question of its origin, which is the real difficulty in all such
cosmogonies as his, but hastens at once to the easier task of
describing the separation and classification of materials already in
existence.
Somewhat similar to the Hebrew legend, both in what it records
and in what it omits, is the story of creation as told by the Quichés
in America:—
"This is the first word and the first speech. There were
neither men nor brutes, neither birds, fish, nor crabs, stick
nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing
but the sky; the face of the land was hidden. There was
naught but the silent sea and the sky. There was nothing
joined, nor any sound, nor thing that stirred; neither any
to do evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on
foot; only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only it
in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, and
darkness, and the night; nothing but the Maker and
Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent" (M. N. W., p. 196.—
Popol Vuh, p. 7).
Another cosmogony is derived from the Mixtecs, also aborigines of
America:—
38. "In the year and in the day of clouds, before ever were
either years or days, the world lay in darkness; all things
were orderless, and a water covered the slime and the
ooze that the earth then was" (M. N. W., p. 196).
Two winds are in this myth the agents employed to effect the
subsidence of the waters, and the appearance of dry land. In
another account, related by some other tribes, the muskrat is the
instrument which divides the land from the waters. These myths, as
Mr. Brinton, who has collected them, truly remarks, are "not of a
construction, but a reconstruction only, and are in that respect
altogether similar to the creative myth of the first chapter of
Genesis."
In the Buddhistic history of the East Mongols, the creation of the
world is made, as in Genesis, the starting point of the relation. But
the creative forces in this mythology are apparently supposed to be
inherent in primeval matter. Hence we have a Lucretian account of
the movements of the several parts of the component mass without
any consideration of the question how the impulse to these
movements was originally given. "In the beginning there arose the
external reservoir from three different masses of matter; namely,
from the creative air, from the waving water, and from the firm,
plastic earth. A strong wind from ten-quarters now brought about
the blue atmosphere. A large cloud, pouring down continuous rain,
formed the sea. Dry land arose by means of grains of dust collecting
on the surface of the ocean, like cream on milk."[91]
Although the sacred writings of the Parsees contain no connected
account of the creation, yet this void is fully supplied by traditions
which have acquired a religious sanction, and have entered into the
popular belief. Those traditions are found in the Bundehesh and the
Shahnahmeh, works of high authority in the Parsee system.
According to them, Ahura-Mazda, the good principle, induced his
rival, Agra-Mainyus, the evil principle, to enter into a truce of nine
thousand years, foreseeing that by means of this interval he would
39. be able to subdue him in the end. Agra-Mainyus, having discovered
his blunder, went to the darkest hell, and remained there three
thousand years. Ahura-Mazda took advantage of this repose to
create the material world. He produced the sky in forty-five days, the
water in sixty, the earth in seventy-five, the trees in thirty, the cattle
in eighty, and human beings in seventy-five; three hundred and
sixty-five days were thus occupied with the business of creation. It
will be observed that, though the time taken is longer, the order of
production is the same in the Parsee as in the Hebrew legend. This
fact tends to confirm the supposition, which will hereafter appear
still more probable, of an intimate relation between the two.
Always prone to speculation, the Hindus were certain to find in the
dark subject of creation abundant materials for their mystic theories.
Various explanations are accordingly given in the Rig-Veda. Thus,
the following account is found in the tenth Book:—
"Let us, in chanted hymns, with praise, declare the
births of the gods,—any of us who in this latter age may
behold them. Brâhmanaspati blew forth these births like a
blacksmith. In the earliest age of the gods, the existent
sprang from the non-existent: thereafter the regions
sprang from Uttānapad. The earth sprang from Uttānapad,
from the earth sprang the regions: Daksha sprang from
Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha. Then the gods were born,
and drew forth the sun, which was hidden in the ocean"
(O. S. T., vol. v. p. 48.—Rig-Veda, x. 72).
With higher wisdom, another Vaidik Rishi declares it impossible to
know the origin of the universe:—
"There was then neither nonentity nor entity: there was
no atmosphere, nor sky above. What enveloped [all]?
Where, in the receptacle of what, [was it contained]? Was
it water, the profound abyss? Death was not then, nor
immortality; there was no distinction of day or night. That
One breathed calmly, self-supported; there was nothing
40. different from, or above, it. In the beginning darkness
existed, enveloped in darkness. All this was
undistinguishable water. That One which lay void, and
wrapped in nothingness, was developed by the power of
fervor. Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ
of mind; [and which] sages, searching with their intellect,
have discovered in their heart to be the bond which
connects entity with nonentity. The ray [or cord] which
stretched across these [worlds], was it below or was it
above? There were there impregnating powers and mighty
forces, a self-supporting principle beneath, and energy
aloft. Who knows, who here can declare, whence has
sprung, whence, this creation? The gods are subsequent
to the development of this [universe]; who then knows
whence it arose? From what this creation arose, and
whether [any one] made it or not, he who in the highest
heaven is its ruler, he verily knows, or even he does not
know" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 356.—Rig-Veda, x. 129).
A later narrative ascribes creation to the god Prajapati, who, it is
said, having the desire to multiply himself, underwent the requisite
austerities, and then produced earth, air, and heaven (A. B., vol. ii.
p. 372).
We now return to Genesis, which proceeds to its second problem:
the creation of living creatures and of man. This is solved in two
distinct fashions by two different writers. The first relates that on the
fifth day God said, "Let the waters swarm with the swarming of
animals having life, and let birds fly to and fro on the earth, on the
face of the vault of the heavens." Having thus produced the
inhabitants of the ocean and air on the fifth day, he produced those
of earth on the sixth. On this day too he made man in his own
image, and created them male and female. The whole of his work
was now finished, and on the seventh day he enjoyed repose from
his creative exertions, for which reason he blessed the seventh day
(Gen. 1-ii. 3).
41. Here the first account of creation ends; the second begins with a
descriptive title at the fourth verse of the second chapter. The writer
of this version, unlike his predecessor, instead of ascribing the
creation of man to the immediate fiat of Elohim, describes the
process as resembling one of manufacture. God formed the human
figure out of the dust of the earth, and then blew life into it, a
conception drawn from the wide-spread notion of the identity of
breath with life. Again the narrator of the second story varies from
the narrator of the first about the creation of the sexes. In the first,
the male and female are made together. In the second, a deep sleep
falls upon the man, during which God takes out a rib from his side
and makes the woman out of it. Generally speaking, it may be
remarked that the former writer moves in a more transcendental
sphere than the latter. He likes to conceive the origin of the world,
with all its flora and all its fauna, as arising from the simple power of
the word of God. How they arise he never troubles himself to say.
The latter is more terrestrial. God with him is like a powerful artist;
extremely skilled indeed in dealing with his materials, but
nevertheless obliged to adapt his proceedings to their nature and
capabilities. This author delights in the concrete and particular; and
not only does he aim at relating the order of the creation, but also at
making the modus operandi more or less intelligible to his hearers.
A somewhat different account of the origin of man is given in the
traditions of Samoa, one of the Fiji islands. These traditions also
describe an epoch when the earth was covered with water.
"Tangaloa, the great Polynesian Jupiter," sent his daughter to find a
dry place. After a long time she found a rock. In subsequent visits
she reported that the dry land was extending. "He then sent her
down with some earth and a creeping plant, as all was barren rock.
She continued to visit the earth and return to the skies. Next visit,
the plant was spreading. Next time, it was withered and
decomposing. Next visit, it swarmed with worms. And the next time,
the worms had become men and women! A strange account of
42. man's origin!" On which it may be remarked, as a curious
psychological phenomenon, tending to illustrate the effects of habit,
that the missionary considers it "a strange account of man's origin"
which represents God as making him from worms, but readily
accepts another in which he is made out of dust.
The third question dealt with in Genesis is that of the origin of
evil. This is a problem which has engaged the attention and
perplexed the minds of many inquirers besides these ancient
Hebrews, and for which most religions provide some kind of solution.
The manner in which it is treated here is as follows:—
When God made Adam, he placed him in a garden full of delights,
and especially distinguished by the excellence of its fruit-trees. There
was one of these trees, however, the fruit of which he did not wish
Adam to eat. He accordingly gave him strict orders on the subject in
these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayst eat; but of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, of that thou mayst not eat, for
on what day thou eatest thereof, thou diest the death" (Gen. ii. 16,
17). This order we must suppose to have been imparted by Adam to
Eve, who was not produced until after it had been given. At any
rate, we find her fully cognizant of it in the ensuing chapter, where
the serpent appears upon the scene and endeavors, only too
successfully, to induce her to eat the fruit. After yielding to the
temptation herself, she induced her husband to do the like;
whereupon both recognized the hitherto unnoticed fact of their
nudity, and made themselves aprons of fig-leaves. Shortly after this
crisis in their lives God came down to enjoy the cool of the evening
in the garden; and Adam and Eve, feeling their guilt, ran to hide
themselves among the trees. God called Adam, and the latter replied
that he had hidden himself because he was naked. But God at once
asked who had told him he was naked. Had he eaten of the
forbidden tree? Of course Adam and Eve had to confess, and God
then cursed the serpent for his gross misconduct, and punished the
man by imposing labor upon him, and the woman by rendering her
liable to the pains of childbirth. He also condescended so far as to
43. become the first tailor, making garments of skins for Adam and Eve.
But though he had thus far got the better of them by his superior
strength, he was not without apprehension that they might outwit
him still. "And God, the Everlasting, spoke: See, the man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he should stretch
out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live
forever! Therefore God, the Everlasting, sent him out of the garden
of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken"
(Gen. iii. 22, 23). And in order to make quite sure that the man
should not get hold of the tree of life, a calamity which would have
defeated his intention to make him mortal, he guarded the approach
to it by means of Cherubim, posted as sentinels with the flame of a
sword that turned about. In this way he conceived that he had
secured himself against any invasion of his privilege of immortality
on the part of the human race.
Like the myth of creation, the myth of a happier and brighter age,
when men did not suffer from any of the evils that oppress them
now, is common, if not universal. Common too, if not equally
common, is the notion that they fell from that superior state by
contracting the stain of sin. I need scarcely refer to the classical
story of a golden age, embodied by Hesiod in his "Works and Days,"
nor to the fable of Pandora allowing the ills enclosed in the box to
escape into the world. But it may be of interest to remark, that the
conception of a Paradise was no less familiar to the natives of
America than to those of Europe. "When Christopher Columbus,"
observes Brinton, "fired by the hope of discovering this terrestrial
paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found a new
world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding
themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a
long-lost garden of their youth" (M. N. W., p. 87). Elsewhere he
says: "Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old
story repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt....
'Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and roses, very
luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices'" (M. N. W., p. 90).
Corresponding to the golden age among the Greeks was the Parsee
44. conception of the reign of Yima, a mythological monarch who was in
immediate and friendly intercourse with Ahura-Mazda. Yima's
kingdom is thus described in the Vendidad: "There was there neither
quarreling nor disputing; neither stupidity nor violence; neither
begging nor imposture; neither poverty nor illness. No unduly large
teeth; no form that passes the measure of the body; none of the
other marks, which are marks of Agra-Mainyus, that he has made on
men" (Av., vol. i. p. 76.—Vendidad, Fargard ii. 116 ff.). In another
passage, found in the Khorda-Avesta, not only is the happiness of
Yima's time depicted, but it is also distinctly asserted that he fell
through sin. "During his rule there was no cold, no heat, no old age,
no death, no envy created by the Devas, on account of the absence
of lying, previously, before he (himself) began to love lying, untrue
speeches. Then, when he began to love lying, untrue speeches,
Majesty fled from him visibly with the body of a bird" (Av., vol. iii. p.
175.—Khorda-Avesta, xxxv. 32, 34).
More elaborately than in any of these systems is the fall of man
described in the mythology of Buddhism. In this religion, as in that
of the Jews, man is of divine origin, though after a somewhat
different fashion. A spiritual being, or god, fell from one of the upper
spheres, to be born in the world of man. Through the progressive
increase of this being arose "the six species of living creatures in the
three worlds." The most eminent of these species, Man, enjoyed an
untold duration of life (another point in which Buddhistic legends
resemble those of the Hebrews). Locomotion was carried on through
the air; they did not consume impure terrestrial food, but lived on
celestial victuals; and propagation, since there was no distinction of
sex, was carried on by means of emanation. They did not require
sun or moon, for they saw by their own light. Alas! one of these
pure beings was tempted by a fool called earth-butter and ate it.
The rest followed its example. Hereupon the heavenly food
vanished; the race lost their power of going about the sky, and
ceased to shine by their own light. This was the origin of the evil of
the darkening of the mind. As a consequence of these deeds, sun,
moon, and stars appeared. Still greater calamities were in store for
45. men. Another, at another time, ate a different kind of food, an
example again followed by the rest. In consequence of this, the
distinctions of sex were established in them; passion arose; they
began to beget children. This was the origin of the evil of sensual
love. On a further occasion, one of them ate wild rice, and all lived
for a time on wild rice, gathered as it was needed for immediate
consumption. But when some foolish fellow took it into his head to
collect enough for the following day, the rice ceased to grow without
cultivation. This was the origin of the evil of idle carelessness. It
being now necessary to cultivate rice, persons began to appropriate
and quarrel about land, and even to kill one another. This was the
origin of the evil of anger. Again, some who were better off hid their
stores from those who were not so well off. This was the origin of
the evil of covetousness. In course of time the age of men began to
decline so as to be expressible in numbers. It continues gradually to
decline until a turning-point arrives, at which it again increases (G.
O. M., p. 5-9).
Several points of similarity between the Hebrew myth and that
just narrated will doubtless occur to the reader. The fall of man is
due, in this, as in Genesis, to the eating of a peculiar food by a
single person; and this example is followed, in the one case, by the
only other inhabitant; in the other, by all. The calamity thus entailed
does not terminate in the loss of former pleasures, but extends to
the introduction of crime and sexual relations. Eve is cursed by
having to bear children; the same misfortune happened to the
Buddhist women. Cain quarreled with Abel and killed him; so did the
landed proprietors in the Indian legend quarrel with and kill one
another.
The fourth question which appeared to have engaged the
attention of the authors of Genesis was that of the variety of
languages. How was it, if all mankind were descended from a single
pair, and if again all but the Noachian family had been drowned, that
they did not all speak the pure language in which Adam and Eve had
conversed with their Creator in Paradise? Embarrassed by their own
46. theories, the writers attempted to account for the phenomenon of
the diverse modes of speech in use among men by an awkward
myth. Men had determined to build a town, with a tower which
should reach to heaven. Jehovah, however, came down one day to
see what they were about, and was filled with apprehension that, if
they succeeded in this undertaking, he might find it impossible to
prevent them from carrying out their wishes in other ways also,
whatever those wishes might be. So he determined to confound
their language, that they might not understand one another, and by
this happy contrivance put an end to the construction of the
dangerous tower (Gen. xi. 1-9).
We have anticipated the course of the narrative in order to
consider the solutions offered in Genesis of the four principal
problems with which it attempts to deal. We must now return to the
point at which we left the parents of the race, namely, immediately
after their expulsion from Eden. They now began to beget children
rapidly; and Adam's eldest son, Cain, afterwards killed his second
son, Abel, for which Jehovah cursed him as he had previously cursed
his parents. Adam and Eve had several other children, and (though
this is nowhere expressly stated, but only implied) the brothers and
sisters united in marriage to carry out the propagation of the
species. In course of time, however, the "sons of God" began to
admire the beauty of the "daughters of men," and to take wives
from among them. Jehovah, indignant at such a scandal, fixed the
limits of man's life—which had hitherto been measured by centuries
—at 120 years. At the same time there were giants on earth. Now
Jehovah saw that the human race was extremely wicked, so much
so, that he began to wish he had never created it. To remedy this
blunder, however, he determined to destroy it; and in order that the
improvement should be thorough, to destroy along with it all cattle,
creeping things, and birds, who had not (so far as we are aware,)
entered into the same kind of irregular alliances with other species
as men. Nevertheless, he had still a lingering fondness for his
handiwork, badly as it had turned out; and therefore determined to
preserve enough of each kind of animal, man included, to carry on
47. the breed without the necessity of resorting a second time to
creation. Acting upon this resolve, he ordered an individual named
Noah to build an ark of gopher-wood, announcing that he would
shortly destroy all flesh, but wished to save Noah and his three sons,
with their several wives. He also desired him to take two members of
each species of beasts and birds, or, according to another account,
seven of each clean beast and bird, and two of each unclean beast;
but in any case taking care that each sex should be represented in
the ark. When Noah had done all this, the waters came up from
below and down from above, and there was an increasing flood for
forty days. All terrestrial life but that which floated in the ark was
destroyed. At last the waters began to ebb, and finally the ark rested
on the 17th day of the 7th month on Mount Ararat. After forty more
days Noah sent out a raven and a dove, of which only the dove
returned. In seven days he sent the dove again, and it returned,
bringing an olive-leaf; and after another week, when he again sent it
out, it returned no more. It was not, however, till the 27th of the 2d
month of the ensuing year (these chroniclers being very exact about
dates) that the earth was dried, and that Noah and his party were
able to quit the ark. To commemorate the goodness of God in
drowning all the world except himself and his family, Noah erected
an altar and offered burnt-offerings of every clean beast and every
clean fowl. The effect was instantaneous. So pleased was Jehovah
with the "pleasant smell," that he resolved never to destroy all living
beings again, though still of opinion that "the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. vi. 7, 8).
The myth of the deluge is very general. The Hebrews have no
exclusive property in it. Many different races relate it in different
ways. We may easily suppose that the partial deluges to which they
must often have been witnesses suggested the notion of a universal
deluge, in which not only a few tribes or villages perished, but all the
inhabited earth was laid under water; or the memory of some actual
flood of unusual dimensions may have survived in the popular mind,
and been handed down with traits of exaggeration and distortion
48. such as are commonly found in the narratives of events preserved
by oral tradition. Let us examine a few instances of the flood-myth.
The Fijians relate that the god "Degei was roused every morning
by the cooing of a monstrous bird," but that two young men, his
grandsons, one day accidentally killed and buried it. Degei having,
after some trouble, found the dead body, determined to be avenged.
The youths "took refuge with a powerful tribe of carpenters," who
built a fence to keep out the god. Unable to take the fence by storm,
Degei brought on heavy floods, which rose so high that his
grandsons and their friends had to escape in "large bowls that
happened to be at hand." They landed at various places; but it is
said that the two tribes became extinct (Viti, p. 394).
The Greenlanders have "a tolerably distinct tradition" of a flood.
They say that all men were drowned excepting one. This one beat
with his stick upon the ground and thereby produced a woman
(Grönland, p. 246).
Kamtschatka has a somewhat similar legend, except that it admits
a larger number of survivors. Very many, according to this version,
were drowned, and the waves had sunk those who had got into
boats; but others took refuge in rafts, binding the trees together to
make them. On these they saved themselves with their provisions
and all their property. When the waters subsided, the rafts remained
on the high mountains (Kamtschatka, p. 273).
Among the North Americans "the notion of a universal deluge"
was, in the time of the Jesuit De Charlevoix, "rather wide-spread." In
one of their stories, told by the Iroquois, all human beings were
drowned; and it was necessary, in order to re-populate the earth, to
change animals into men (N. F., vol. iii. p. 345).
The Tupis of Brazil are supposed to be named after Tupa, the first
of men, "who alone survived the flood" (M. N. W., p. 185). Again,
"the Peruvians imagined that two destructions had taken place, the
first by a famine, the second by a flood; according to some a few
49. only escaping, but, after the more widely accepted opinion,
accompanied by the absolute extirpation of the race." The present
race came from eggs dropped out of heaven (Ibid., p. 213). Several
other tribes relate in diverse forms this world-wide story. In one of
the versions, found in an old Mexican work, a man and his wife are
saved, by the directions of their god, in a hollow cypress. In another,
the earth is destroyed by water, because men "did not think nor
speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused
their birth." "Because they had not thought of their Mother and
Father, the Heart of Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the
face of the earth grew dark, and a pouring rain commenced, raining
by day, raining by night" (Ibid., p. 206 ff.).
The diluvian legend appears in a very singular form in India in the
Satapatha Brâhmana. There it is stated, that in the basin which was
brought to Manu to wash his hands in, there was one morning a
small fish. The fish said to him, "Preserve me, I shall save thee."
Manu inquired from what it would save him. The fish replied that it
would be from a flood which would destroy all creatures. It informed
Manu that fishes, while small, were exposed to the risk of being
eaten by other fishes; he was therefore to put it first into a jar; then
when it grew too large for that, to dig a trench and keep it in that;
that when it grew too large for the trench, to carry it to the ocean.
Straightway it became a large fish, and said: "Now in such and such
a year, then the flood will come; thou shalt therefore construct a
ship, and resort to me; thou shalt embark in the ship when the flood
rises, and I shall deliver thee from it." Manu took the fish to the sea,
and in the year that had been named, "he constructed a ship and
resorted to him. When the flood rose, Manu embarked in the ship.
The fish swam towards him. He fastened the cable of the ship to the
fish's horn. By this means he passed over this northern mountain.
The fish said, 'I have delivered thee; fasten the ship to a tree. But
lest the water should cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain,
as much as the water subsides, so much shalt thou descend after it.'
He accordingly descended after it as much (as it subsided).... Now
the flood had swept away all these creatures; so Manu alone was
50. left here" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 183). The story goes on to relate that
Manu, being quite alone, produced a woman by "arduous religious
rites," and that with this woman, who called herself his daughter,
"he begot this offspring, which is this offspring of Manu," that is, the
existing human race.
After the flood, the history proceeds for some time to narrate the
lives of a series of patriarchs, the mythological ancestors of the
Hebrew race. Of these the first is Abram, afterwards called Abraham;
to whom a solemn promise was made that he was to be the
progenitor of a great nation; that Jehovah would bless those who
blessed him, and curse those who cursed him; and that in him all
generations of the earth should be blessed (Gen. xii. 1-3). When
Abraham visited Egypt, he desired his wife Sarah to call herself his
sister, fearing lest the Egyptians should kill him for her sake. She did
so, and was taken into Pharaoh's harem in consequence of her false
statement; but Jehovah plagued Pharaoh, and his house so severely
that the truth was discovered, and Sarah was restored to her lawful
husband. It is remarkable that Abraham is stated to have
subsequently repeated the same contemptible trick, this time
alleging by way of excuse that Sarah really was his step-sister; and
that Abraham's son, Isaac, is said to have done the same thing in
reference to Rebekah (Gen. xii. 10-20, xx., xxvi. 6-11). Abimelech,
king of Gerar, who was twice imposed upon by these patriarchs,
must have thought it a singular custom of the family thus to pass off
their wives as sisters. Apparently, too, both of them were quite
prepared to surrender their consorts to the harems of foreign
monarchs rather than run the smallest risk in their defense.
Abraham, at ninety-nine years of age, was fortunate in all things
but one: he had no legitimate heir. But this too was to be given him.
Jehovah appeared to him, announced himself as Almighty God, and
established with Abraham a solemn covenant. He promised to make
him fruitful, to give his posterity the land of Canaan, in which he
then was, and to cause Sarah to have a son. At the same time he
desired that all males should be circumcized, an operation which was
51. forthwith performed on Abraham, his illegitimate son Ishmael, and
all the men in his house (Gen. xvii). In due time Sarah had a son
whom Abraham named Isaac. But when Isaac was a lad, and all
Abraham's hopes of posterity were centered in him as the only child
of Sarah, God one day commanded him to sacrifice him as a burnt-
offering on a mountain in Moriah. Without a murmur, without a word
of inquiry, Abraham prepared to obey this extraordinary injunction,
and was only withheld from plunging the sacrificial knife into the
bosom of his son by the positive interposition of an angel. Looking
about, he perceived a ram caught in a thicket, and offered him as a
burnt offering instead of Isaac. For this servile and unintelligent
submission, he was rewarded by Jehovah with further promises as to
the amazing numbers of his posterity in future times (Gen. xxi. 1-8;
xxii. 1-19).
The tradition of human sacrifice, thus preserved in the story of
Abraham and Isaac, is found also in a curious narrative of the
Aitareya Brâhmana. That sacred book also commemorates an
important personage, in this instance a king, who had no son.
Although he had a hundred wives, yet none of them bore him a
male heir. He inquired of his priest, Narada, what were the
advantages of having a son, and learned that they were very great.
"The father pays a debt in his son, and gains immortality," such was
one of the privileges to be obtained by means of a son. The Rishi
Narada therefore advised King Harischandra to pray to Varuna for a
son, promising at the same time to sacrifice him as soon as he was
born. The king did so. "Then a son, Rohita by name, was born to
him. Varuna said to him, 'A son is born to thee, sacrifice him to me.'
Harischandra said, 'An animal is fit for being sacrificed, when it is
more than ten days old. Let him reach this age, then I will sacrifice
him to thee. At ten days Varuna again demanded him, but now his
father had a fresh excuse, and so postponed the sacrifice from age
to age until Rohita had received his full armor." Varuna having again
claimed him, Harischandra now said, "Well, my dear, to him who
gave thee unto me, I will sacrifice thee now." But Rohita, come to
man's estate, had no mind to be sacrificed, and ran away to the
52. wilderness. Varuna now caused Harischandra to suffer from dropsy.
Rohita, hearing of it, left the forest, and went to a village, where
Indra, in disguise, met him and desired him to wander. The advice
was repeated every year until Rohita had wandered six years in the
forest. This last year he met a poor Rishi, named Ajigarta, who was
starving, to whom he offered one hundred cows for one of his three
sons as a ransom for himself in the sacrifice to be offered to Varuna.
The father having objected to the eldest, and the mother to the
youngest, the middle one Sunahsepa, was agreed upon as the
ransom, and the hundred cows were paid for him. Rohita presented
to his father the boy Sunahsepa, who was accepted by the god with
the remark that a Brahman was worth more than a Kshattriya.
"Varuna then explained to the king the rites of the Rajasuya
sacrifice, at which on the day appointed for the inauguration he
replaced the (sacrificial animal) by a man."
But at the sacrifice a strange incident occurred. No one could be
found willing to bind the victim to the sacrificial post. At last his
father offered to do it for another hundred cows. Bound to the stake,
no one could be found to kill him. This act also his father undertook
to do for a third hundred. "He then whetted his knife and went to kill
his son. Sunahsepa then got aware that they were going to butcher
him just as if he were no man (but a beast). 'Well,' said he, 'I will
seek shelter with the gods.' He applied to Prajapati, who referred
him to another god, who did the same; and thus he was driven from
god to god through the pantheon, until he came to Ushas, the dawn.
However, as he was praising Ushas, his fetters fell off, and
Harischandra's belly became smaller; until at the last verse he was
free, and Harischandra well." Sunahsepa was now received among
the priests as one of themselves, and he sat down by Visvamitra, an
eminent Rishi. Ajigarta, his father, requested that he might be
returned to him, but Visvamitra refused, "for," he said, "the gods
have presented him to me." From that time forward he became
Visvamitra's son. At this point, however, Ajigarta himself entreated
his son to return to his home, and the answer of the latter is
remarkable. "Sunahsepa answered, 'What is not found even in the
53. hands of a Shudra, one has seen in thy hand, the knife (to kill thy
son); three hundred cows thou hast preferred to me, O Angiras.'
Ajigarta then answered, 'O my dear son! I repent of the bad deed I
have committed; I blot out this stain! one hundred of the cows shall
be thine!' Sunahsepa answered, 'Who once might commit such a sin,
may commit the same another time. Thou art still not free from the
brutality of a Shudra, for thou hast committed a crime for which no
reconciliation exists.' 'Yes, irreconcilable (is this act),' interrupted
Visvamitra!" (A. B., p. 460-469.)
On the likeness of this story to the Hebrew legend of the intended
sacrifice of Isaac, and on the difference between the two, I shall
comment elsewhere. From the days of Abraham the history proceeds
through a series of patriarchal biographies—those of Isaac and
Rebekah, of Jacob and Rachel, of Joseph and his brothers—to the
captivity of the Israelites in Egypt under the successor of the
monarch whose prime minister Joseph had been. It is at this point
that the history of the Hebrews as a distinct nation may be said to
begin. The patriarchs belong to universal history. But from the days
of the Egyptian captivity it is the fortunes of a peculiar tribe, and
afterwards of an independent people that are followed. We have
their deliverance from slavery, their progress through the wilderness,
their triumphant establishment in their destined home, the rise,
decline, and fall of their national greatness, depicted with much
graphic power, and intermingled with episodes of the deepest
interest. It would not be consistent with the plan or limits of this
work to follow the history through its varied details; all we can do is
to touch upon it here and there, where the adventures, institutions,
or imaginations of the Hebrews present points of contact with those
of other nations as recorded in their authorized writings.
It was only by the especial favor of Jehovah that the Hebrew
slaves were enabled to escape from Egypt at all. That deity
appointed a man named Moses as their leader; and, employing him
as his mouthpiece, desired Pharaoh to let them go. On Pharaoh's
refusal, he visited Egypt with a series of calamities; all of them
54. inadequate to the object in view, until at length Pharaoh and all his
army were overwhelmed in the Red Sea, which had opened to allow
the Israelites to pass. These last now escaped into the wilderness,
where, under the guidance of Moses, they wandered for forty years,
undergoing all sorts of hardships, before they reached the promised
land. During the course of their travels, Jehovah gave Moses ten
commandments, which stand out from a mass of other injunctions
and enactments, by the solemnity with which they were delivered,
and by the extreme importance of their subject-matter. They are
reported to have been given to Moses by Jehovah in person on
Mount Sinai, in the midst of a very considerable amount of noise and
smoke, apparently intended to be impressive. By these laws the
Israelites were ordered—
1. To have no other God but Jehovah.
2. To make no image for purposes of worship.
3. Not to take Jehovah's name in vain.
4. Not to work on the Sabbath day.
5. To honor their parents.
6. Not to kill.
7. Not to commit adultery.
8. Not to steal.
9. Not to bear false witness against a neighbor.
10. Not to covet.
Concerning these commandments, it may be observed that the
acts enjoined or forbidden are of very different characters. Some of
the obligations thus imposed are universally binding, and the
precepts relating to them form a portion of universal ethics. Others
again are of a purely special theological character, and have no
application at all except to those who hold certain theological
doctrines. Lastly, others command states of mind only, which have
no proper place in positive laws enforced under penalties. To
illustrate these remarks in detail: the four commandments against
killing, stealing, adultery, and calumny are of universal obligation,
and though they are far from exhausting the list of actions which a
55. moral code should prohibit, yet properly belong to it and are among
its most important constituents. But the first, second, third, and
fourth commandments presuppose a nation believing in Jehovah as
their God; and even with that proviso the fourth, requiring the
observance of a day of rest, is purely arbitrary; belonging only to
ritual, not to morals. To place it along with prohibitions of murder
and theft, is simply to confuse in the minds of hearers the all-
important distinction between special observances and universal
duties. Again, the fifth and tenth commandments require mere
emotional conditions; respect for parents in the one case, absence of
covetousness in the other. No doubt both these mental conditions
have actions and abstinences from action as their correlatives; but it
is with these last that law should deal, and not with the mere states
of feeling over which no commandment can exercise the smallest
control. Law may forbid us to annoy our neighbor, or do him an
injury on account of his wife whom we love, or his estate which we
desire to possess; but it is idle to forbid us to wish that the wife or
the estate were ours.
These errors are avoided in the five fundamental commandments
of Buddhism, which relate wholly to matters that, if binding upon
any, are binding upon all. They are these:—
1. Not to kill.
2. Not to steal.
3. Not to indulge in illicit pleasures of sex.
4. Not to lie.
5. Not to drink intoxicating liquors.[92]
No doubt the fifth is not of equal importance with the rest; yet its
intention is simply to put a stop to drunkenness, and this it
accomplishes, like teetotal societies, by requiring entire abstinence.
Probably in hot climates, and with populations not capable of much
self-control, this was the wisest way. The third commandment, as I
have presented it, is somewhat vague, but this is because the form
in which it is given by the authorities is not always the same.
56. Sometimes it appears as a mere prohibition of all unchastity; but the
more probable view appears to be that of Burnouf, who interprets it
as directed against adultery, in substantial accordance with
Alabaster, who renders it as an injunction "not to indulge the
passions, so as to invade the legal or natural rights of other men."
In the eight principal commandments of the Parsees, the breach
of which was to be punished with death, there is the the same
confusion of theological and natural duties as in the Hebrew Bible.
The Parsees were forbidden—
1. To kill a pure man (i. e., a Parsee).
2. To put out the fire Behram.
3. To throw the impurity from dead bodies into fire or water.
4. To commit adultery.
5. To practice magic or contribute to its being practiced.
6. To throw the impurity of menstruating women into fire or
water.
7. To commit sodomy with boys.
8. To commit highway-robbery or suicide (Av., vol. ii. p. lx).
Besides these commandments, Jehovah gave his people a vast
mass of laws, amounting in fact to a complete criminal code,
through his mouthpiece Moses. Among these laws were those which
were written on the two tables of stone, commonly though
erroneously supposed to have been the ten commandments of the
twentieth chapter. The express statement of Exodus forbids such a
supposition. It is there stated that when God had finished
communing with Moses he gave him "two tables of testimony, tables
of stone, written with the finger of God." This most valuable
autograph Moses had the folly to break in his anger at finding that
the Israelites, led by his brother Aaron, had taken to worshiping a
golden calf in his absence (Ex., xxxi. 18, and xxxii. 19). God,
however, desired him to prepare other tables like those he had
destroyed, and kindly undertook to write upon them the very words
that had been on the first. Apparently, however, he only dictated
57. them to Moses, who is said to have written upon the tables "the
words of the covenant, the ten commandments." What these words
were there can be no doubt, for he had begun his address to Moses
by saying, "Behold, I make a covenant;" and had concluded it by the
expression, "Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these
words have I made a covenant with thee and with Israel" (Ex. xxxiv.
1-28). Now the commandments thus asserted to have been written
on the tables of stone were very different from the ten given before
on Mount Sinai, and resemble more closely still the style of those
quoted from the Parsee books. Yet they were evidently deemed by
the writers of great importance, from the honor ascribed to them of
having been originally written in God's own handwriting on stone.
Their purport is:—1. To forbid any covenant with the inhabitants of
the land to which the Israelites were going, and to enjoin them to
"destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their
groves;"—2. To require the observance of the feast of unleavened
bread;—3. To lay claim to firstlings for Jehovah, and demand their
redemption;—4. To command the Sabbatical rest;—5. To enjoin the
observance of the feast of weeks;—6. To desire that all males should
appear thrice yearly before the Lord;—7. To forbid the sacrifice of
blood with leaven;—8. To forbid leaving the sacrifice of the feast of
the passover till morning;—9. To demand the first-fruits for Jehovah;
—10. To forbid seething a kid in its mother's milk.[93]
Eminent as Moses was, and high as he stood in the favor of his
God, he was not permitted to lead his people to Canaan. Jehovah
punished him for a momentary weakness by depriving him of that
privilege, which was reserved for Joshua. Just as the waters of the
Red Sea were cleft in two to allow the Israelites to quit Egypt, so
were those of the Jordan cleft in two to allow them to enter Canaan.
No sooner did the feet of the priests bearing the ark touch the water,
than the portion of the river below was cut off from that above, the
upper waters rising into a heap (Josh. iii). Striking as this miracle is,
it is not more so than that performed by Visvamitra, an Indian sage.
When he arrived at a river which he desired to cross, that holy man
said: "Listen, O sisters, to the bard who has come to you from afar
58. with wagon and chariot. Sink down; become fordable; reach not up
to our chariot-axles with your streams. (The rivers answer): We shall
listen to thy words, O bard; thou hast come from far with wagon and
chariot. I will bow down to thee like a woman with full breast
(suckling her child), as a maid to a man will I throw myself open to
thee. (Visvamitra says): When the Bharatas, that war-loving tribe,
sent forward, impelled by Indra, have crossed thee, then thy
headlong current shall hold on its course. I seek the favor of you the
adorable. The war-loving Bharatas have crossed; the Sage has
obtained the favor of the rivers. Swell on, impetuous and fertilizing;
fill your channels; roll rapidly" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 340).
So that the very same prodigy which, according to the Book of
Joshua, was wrought for the benefit of the Hebrew people in
Palestine, was, according to the Rig-Veda, wrought for the benefit of
a warlike tribe in India.
After their arrival and settlement in Palestine the Israelites passed
through a period of great trouble and disturbance. The government
was a direct theocracy; men appointed by God, that is, self-
appointed, put themselves at the head of affairs and governed with
more or less success under the inspiration, and in the name of
Jehovah. During this time the people were exposed to great
annoyance from their enemies the Philistines, by whom they were
for a certain space held in subjugation. The legend of the national
hero and deliverer, Samson, falls within this period of depression
under a foreign yoke. Samson is the Jewish Herakles, and his
exploits are altogether as fabulous as those of his Hellenic
counterpart; though it is not impossible that such a personage as
Samson may have lived and may have led the people with some
glory against their hereditary enemies. Many internal disturbances
contributed to render the condition of the Israelites under their
theocracy far from enviable; and at length, under the government of
Samuel, the last representative of this state of things, the people
could bear their distress no longer and united to demand a king. The
request was undoubtedly a wise one; for the authority of a monarch
59. was eminently needed to give internal peace and protection against
external attacks to the distracted nation. Samuel, however, was
naturally opposed to such a change. His feelings and his interests
were alike concerned in the maintenance of the direct government
of Jehovah, whose plenipotentiary he was. But all his
representations that the proposal to elect a king was a crime in the
eyes of God, were unavailing. He was compelled to yield, and
selected, as the monarch appointed by Jehovah himself, a young
man named Saul. Before long, however, Jehovah discovered that he
had made a mistake, and that Saul was not the kind of man he had
hoped to find him. Samuel was therefore desired to anoint David to
supplant him. In other words, Saul did not prove the obedient
instrument which Samuel had hoped to make of him, and he
therefore entered into a secret conspiracy to procure his deposition.
The conduct of Saul, and his relations to David, have probably been
misrepresented by the ecclesiastical historians, who persistently
favor David. Nevertheless, they cannot wholly disguise the lawless
and savage career of this monarch before his accession to the
throne, of which at length he obtained possession. Nor was his
conduct during his occupation of it altogether exemplary. He,
however, promoted the views of the priestly party, and this was
enough to cover a multitude of sins.
His son Solomon who succeeded him was the most magnificent of
the monarchs of Israel and the last who ruled over the undivided
kingdom. He was especially renowned for his wisdom, which is
exemplified by a famous decision. Two women came before him to
dispute the ownership of an infant. One of them stated that the
other, who was alone in the same house with her, had killed her own
child by lying upon it during the night, and taken the living child
from its mother while that mother was asleep. The other asserted
that the living child was hers. Having heard the two statements, the
king ordered the living child to be cut in two and half given to each
woman. Hereupon the one declared that she would prefer to resign
it altogether; but the other professed her acquiescence in the
judgment. The king at once awarded it to her who had been willing
60. to resign it rather than see it divided (1 Kings, iii. 16-28). Equal, or
perhaps even greater wisdom, was displayed by a monarch whose
history is recorded in one of the sacred books of Buddhism. Two
women were contending before him about their right to a boy. He
desired each of them to take hold of it by one of its hands and to
pull at it; the one who succeeded in getting it to keep it. She who
was not the mother pulled unmercifully; whereas the true mother,
though stronger than her rival, only pulled gently in order to avoid
hurting it. The king perceived the truth, and adjudged it to the one
who had pulled it gently (G. O. M., p. 344).
Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon, failing to conciliate
the people at his accession, brought about the schism between
Sâmaria and Judea, between the ten tribes and the two, which was
never afterwards healed. After this the government in each kingdom
may be described as absolute monarchy tempered by prophetical
admonition. The prophets, who formed a kind of professional body
of advisers in the interest of Jehovah, made it their business to
reprove the crimes, and especially the idolatries of the kings. They
exercised the kind of influence which a corps diplomatique may
sometimes exercise on a feeble court. The monarchs sometimes
attended to their advice; sometimes rejected it; and they receive
commendation or reproof at the hands of the historians according to
their conduct in this respect. Two of these prophets, Elijah and
Elisha, were men of great eminence, and their actions are recorded
at length. Such was the power of Elisha that when, on one occasion,
he cursed some children who had called him bald head, she-bears
came out of the wood and ate forty-two of them (2 Kings, ii. 23-25).
Respect for ecclesiastics or prophets is sometimes inculcated by such
decided measures as these. A young Buddhist monk once laughed at
another for the alacrity with which he leapt over a grave, saying he
was as active as a monkey. The man whom he had ridiculed told him
that he belonged to the highest rank in the Church; that is, that he
was an Arhat. Upon hearing this the young monk was so alarmed
that all his hair stood on end, and he begged for forgiveness. His
repentance saved him from being born in hell; but because he had
61. laughed at an Arhat he was condemned to be born 500 times as a
monkey (G. O. M., p. 351).
Elisha's powers in other respects were not less wonderful. He
could cause iron to swim, could foretell the course of events in a
war, could restore the dead to life, and could smite the king's
enemies with blindness (2 Kings, vi. 7). In this last accomplishment
he has rivals, as Canon Callaway has correctly noted, among the
Amazulu priests. The Amazulus have a word in their language to
describe the practice. "It is called an umlingo," they say, if, when a
chief is about to fight with another chief, his doctors cause a
darkness to spread among his enemies, so they are unable to see
clearly (R. S. A., vol. iii. p. 338).
The kingdom of Israel, unfaithful to the worship of Jehovah, fell
under the yoke of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria; while Judah, though
attacked and summoned to submit, by his successor, Sennacherib
(or more correctly Sanherib), remained independent some time
longer. The King of Judah was at this time Hezekiah, a man
thoroughly imbued with the principles of the Jehovistic party, and
therefore much lauded by the historians. The prophet of the day was
Isaiah, one of the most eminent of those who have filled the
prophetic office. Isaiah warmly encouraged Hezekiah to resist the
designs of conquest cherished by Sanherib, and promised a
successful issue. The messengers of the Assyrian monarch had
insultingly reproached Jehovah with his inability to deliver the land,
alleging that none of the gods of the territories which he had
conquered had availed them anything. But a signal confutation of
this profane belief in large armies as against deities was about to be
given, and that in a manner which gave an equally signal triumph to
Jehovah, the god of the Jews, and Ptah, the god of the Egyptians.
Sanherib was engaged in an expedition against Egypt, which was
governed at this time by a priest-king, resembling Hezekiah in the
piety of his character. This priest was in bad odor with his army, who
refused to assist him against the invaders. During his trouble on this
account, the god whom he served appeared to him in his sleep and
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