CHAPTER V

INFLUENCE OF EGYPTIAN THOUGHT ON JEWISH VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY

THOUGH it has been boldly asserted in some quarters on many occasions that until after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon, they, as a people, entertained no clearly defined belief in a future life, such a declaration appears incredible in the light of Israel’s general history, and the extremely large amount of Egyptian influence which entered into the composition of early Jewish doctrines. Judaism has been from its inception a moral system of faith and practice, laying far more stress upon a righteous life than upon any amount of simple creed or doctrine, and it stands to reason that so eminently ethical a faith as that of Israel must appear, in the eyes of many, to undervalue the extreme stress laid upon a future existence which has characterized a very large amount of accepted Christian teaching. There seems good historical foundation for the time-honored tradition that a multitude of Hebrews at one time lived under Egyptian rule, and that they at length went out of Egypt and gradually established themselves as a nation in Palestine. But, as the book of Exodus unmistakably informs us, the people who accomplished their exodus at the time of the overthrow of the Pharaonic dynasty were a “mixed multitude,” by no means exclusively of Hebrew origin or of Israelitish faith.

The Old Testament does not seem greatly concerned with any definite theories of a future life, though it abounds in narratives which, if accepted in any degree literally, teach spirit-communion in an unmistakable manner. It should never be forgotten that the Mosaic law was intended to be a practical guide to life on earth regardless of what particular views of a hereafter might be entertained, and one of the most palpable reasons for much silence concerning the future life may have been the excessive attention paid to beliefs concerning it by the Egyptians, whose spiritualism had doubtless greatly deteriorated and become largely mingled with highly objectionable practices. But though it is often urged that the Old Testament is, as a whole, at deadly variance with all attempts to communicate with the spiritual world, such an inference is entirely unwarranted, and it has grown out of a most erroneous habit of confounding simple spirit-communion with those abominable necromantic practices which are degrading and revolting in the extreme wherever practiced, and with which all that rightfully pertains to spiritualism has never had the least affinity. There was never a time when prophets in Israel believed only in the possibility of holding unlawful intercourse with the unseen spheres, but when they most scathingly denounced iniquitous customs, they surely condemned them because they were perversions and desecrations of faculties and powers which should be righteously employed instead of prostituted. Shortly before the period of the Exodus, magic in Egypt had so far fallen from its primitive high estate that the priests and wonder-workers connected with the temples not only often resorted to trickery, but frequently endeavored to cast unholy and injurious spells over all who came into collision with their schemes and interests; and as it can never be successfully denied that occult agencies are dangerous weapons in the hands of the unscrupulous, the prophets in Israel were doubtless actuated by the noblest motives, looking to the general welfare, when they vehemently protested against wizards, witches, sorcerers, necromancers, and all others who were seeking to intimidate the fearful, and in some instances to practice the Black Art, which in modern France is known as Satanism.

The trial of strength recorded in the book of Exodus as having taken place on the banks of the Nile, between Moses and Aaron on one side and Pharaoh’s soothsayers on the other, is clearly intended to call attention to the distinctly doubtful character of all bewildering phenomena which are not accompanied or followed by some beneficent result. The Bible tells us that equal success, phenomenally speaking, was secured by both parties, and it was only when the good work of healing the afflicted was to be accomplished that Moses and Aaron triumphed and their antagonists met with complete defeat. However valuable may be all psychic phenomena from a strictly scientific standpoint, as throwing light upon the workings of some hidden force in Nature and latent faculty in man, from all ethical view-points we must attach value only to that which, in some direction at least, is calculated to really confer benefit on man or beast.

Spiritualists to-day, in common with many who do not rank themselves in that category, are rapidly arising to a sense of responsibility for the sort of phenomena they encourage, and are coming clearly to see that many facts may be wonderful yet undesirable. Egypt had had a wonderful and glorious past, references to which are made in the book of Genesis, which describes a happy situation when people of different nationalities and occupations lived and worked side by side, coöperating rather than competing. In those palmy ancient days we are told that Pharaoh the Egyptian monarch and Joseph the Hebrew counselor worked together in beneficent accord. The stress laid upon dreams and their interpretation in that older time is specially significant, as it throws a flood of light on noteworthy psychic experiences which were then and there almost universally credited. To foretell coming events through the agency of night visions was no uncommon experience with seers of old, and though the Pharaohs themselves seem not to have been able to clearly define the significance of their own visions, they did not hesitate to have recourse to interpreters more clairvoyant or clairsentient than themselves. The Hebrew is a psychic race, and the Bible deals very largely with incidents in the lives of noble prophets which tally closely with much that is now exciting scientific interest the wide world over.

To say that any useful and elevating phase of spiritualism is condemned in the Pentateuch is to utter an absurdity, though there are laws and precepts therein which denounce iniquitous practices in unmeasured terms. Legislation in the ancient Jewish state may have been excessive, but its entire tendency was to increase rather than to curtail liberty. The practice of sorcery was intended to wreak vengeance, to work mischief generally, to curse one's neighbors or to injure their belongings, and for that cause it was placed under the ban. But sorcery has no connection with any innocent or normal exercise of any psychic gift or spiritual endowment. As the general trend of Egyptian belief in a future life was clearly in the interests of morality it was not condemned in the Mosaic code, and because of its wide-spread acceptance among the people it needed not that any legislator should specially instruct the masses concerning it. We may fairly infer that in early days of Jewish communal life in Palestine the prevailing views entertained concerning life beyond the grave did not differ radically from those enunciated and elaborated in that fascinating compendium of Egyptian doctrine, "The Book of the Dead," a fair English translation of which, at least in its main features, is published both in New York and London. In that marvelous transcript of ancient ceremony and philosophy we find much that is in complete accord with the famous Jewish saying, "God's people are all the righteous," and we know that modern English scholars of high renown, notably Thomas Huxley and Matthew Arnold, have laid great stress upon the Jewish concept that righteous life alone, not race or creed, is a passport to blessedness with the Eternal.

Egyptian philosophy was in essence monotheistic, with a polytheistic accompaniment. The many subordinate divinities of Egypt are not necessarily at variance with the different orders of Sephiroth acknowledged in the Jewish Kabala, and indeed also in the Ninety-fifth Psalm and in many other places in Hebrew sacred literature we find the Eternal One spoken of as a great King above all gods, having supreme dominion over all lesser divinities.

Much that must appear contradictory to the cursory student of the Bible is readily elucidated as soon as we admit its distinctly Spiritualistic element. We are told that the Supreme Being is always invisible, but God's angels are seen by men and hold conversations with them. Three angels appear as young men to Abraham, two of whom go on to another place while one remains with the patriarch. There are but two possible explanations of such a narrative; either the theory that those angels were spiritual beings sufficiently materialized for Abraham and others to behold them, or that they were inspired men sufficiently open to spiritual influx to be rightly called God's special messengers because they had apprehended spiritual order to a much greater extent than ordinary. It seemed nothing singular for the spiritual world to break in, so to speak, in patriarchal times upon common scenes of daily living, yet the actual number of people who were sensitive enough to take cognizance of these psychic irruptions seems to have been but small. The same mistake is being made to-day that was often made of old, viz., that of failing to discriminate between lawful use and illicit abuse of psychic potencies. A witch meant a poisoner, and particularly one who sought to accomplish the ends of malevolence by invoking the aid of charms and incantations and purposely affiliating with such occult influences as could be used for evil ends. But the woman at En-dor whom Saul consulted, and who declared she saw the departed Samuel, is described in the text as only an innocent clairvoyant. Much has been made, by commentators averse to Spiritualism, of the sin of Saul in consulting this woman, whereas the narrative itself distinctly shows us that the unhappy king's missteps before he went to her had already brought him into such condition that, so far as his earthly career was concerned, his fate was sealed already, it was therefore in vain that he sought to "disturb" Samuel.

Samuel had been Saul's counselor on earth for many years, but the wayward monarch had time and time again rejected the prophet's warning, then, when the consequences of his repeated errors had made his throne so insecure that it had already virtually slipped from under him, Saul in desperation sought to gain an interview with Samuel, hoping to be shown a way to avert an impending catastrophe. Samuel could not help Saul to retain his earthly throne, for it was then too late to undo the mischief that had been accomplished. Such is the narrative in outline.

That much-abused story serves to illustrate a mighty verity and to enforce a greatly needed moral lesson, that we be wise betimes; but it does not justify any of the diatribe indulged in by fanatics, who wrest from it its obvious ethical instructiveness and misemploy it as a weapon which they seek to direct against all attempt at communion with friends departed from the range of mortal vision.

It is indeed true that individual human immortality is not very clearly taught in the Old Testament, but it is inferred in many places, and Jewish rabbis of ripe scholarly attainments have not been lacking through a long course of centuries, who have found in original Hebrew texts, of which we usually get but very poor translations, what they consider conclusive evidence that nothing but the fleshly tabernacle was ever believed to pass away or to be destroyed even if a heaven-sent deluge came and swept away “all flesh wherein was the breath of life.”

The so-called pessimistic book known as Ecclesiastes, though it apparently denies the immortality of the soul, at least in the opinion of many of its critics, does not actually do more than contrast the inevitable outcome of divers ways of living, and in one famous passage, in which it seemingly makes man and brute synonymous, it really raises the question of who knows enough to discriminate between the man and the animal, and who can explain why the breath of the one floats upward and the other downward when each is living normally.

Here again we have a recurrence of primitive Egyptian teaching. The sensualist and the egotist, even though such may have gathered much external information of which they are extremely proud, find at length that self-indulgence and intellectual conceit yield finally only the bitter fruit of weary dissatisfaction. They, on the other hand, who have chosen a life of righteousness find peace and satisfaction.

Greek philosophy is present in Ecclesiastes, but much Greek thought was continuous from Egypt. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son,” is a phrase which admits of considerable wealth of explanation, for though Egypt literally declined and its glory was scattered between Greece and Israel,—Persia and Rome were also indebted to “Mizraim” for much of their philosophy. That mystic, ancient land so graphically referred to in Isaiah (especially in Chapter XIX) lives to-day not only as a monument to departed glory, but as a fruitful field from which scholars are now busily gathering information which throws enormous light upon the history of the ancient world and reveals the roots of much modern philosophy and theology freely accepted in Christendom.

The famous school of Philo of Alexandria embodied very much of the ancient Egyptian spirit at its best. Philo sought to unite Hebrew with Greek philosophy, combining stern righteousness as set forth in an uncompromising moral code with the charming beauty with which Hellenic thought endowed all with which it came in contact.

Judaism to-day, with its many schools and parties, ranging from extreme orthodoxy to radical reform, still preserves many traces of the “ornaments” and other valuables which tradition says the Israelites took out of Egypt.

“They spoiled the Egyptians,” is not a mere reference to the removal of earthly goods from one country to another. The phrase has deeper reference to the passing of Egypt's philosophy, together with much ceremonial accompaniment, out of the Nile country to the banks of the Jordan.

Saul of Tarsus, known to the Christian world as Paul the Apostle, made multitudinous references in several of his epistles to the faith of Egypt, and when he wrote to the Corinthians, (Corinth being a Grecian seaport having much trade with the Egyptian coast), he refers to the Egyptian scriptures far more frequently than to the Hebrew Law. If we carefully compare I Cor. 14 with much that is contained in “The Book of the Dead,” we shall find a striking similarity between the views expressed in both places concerning our inner and outer bodies, and also as touching the nature of the resurrection. No hint is given that the identical physical robe is to be resumed, but quite the contrary, the comparison between the body left behind and the body to be made manifest is as between bare grain or seed and the fruitage which eventually it yields.

Some sort of resurrection from the dead has always been taught in Israel, but Jewish sages, like the illustrious Moses Maimonides,—who in the twelfth century of the present era drew up the famous thirteen articles of Jewish faith,—have always contented themselves with saying simply that the resurrection will be when and as God pleases, leaving details completely aside.

As the Unity of God and a righteous life are the only two essentials of Jewish religion, we can well understand how natural it is that there can be different parties in Jewry and different views on many points and yet Israel can remain a solidarity.