379 HOW BOTH SIDES WERE SUPPLEMENTED IN THE THE GREAT SABBATH-CYCLE. When the sacred tabernacle we have been describing had been happily erected in the community which assembled round about Jahveh, and within it the eternal sacrificial fire was joyously blazing, it seemed as though the existence of the established community of Jahveh in this state of development should be as eternal as that of the sacrificial fire. The words, They my people, I their God,' 2 along with the true religion, would seemed to have been realised in fact and secured in undisturbed existence. Jahveh had now, as it were, acquired a permanent peaceful dwelling among this single nation of the earth; and the rising column of fire and smoke, which hung without intermission over the visible Sanctuary, even if it were really only the result of the daily sacrificial fire, was deemed by the people, just because without it they would still have believed in the guardian presence of Jahveh, to be the visible image and realisation of this dwelling of the glory of the Most High in its midst." But no one can have understood better than the great founder of the community that in all this there was involved a joyous belief in the realisation of the true religion and community, as well as a sure confidence in the same, rather than the actual realisation itself. How little the divine demands for sanctity and righteousness of life, as they have been described 380 above, were fully satisfied by the community, and how little all the national institutions which were built thereon would remain 1 P. 115 sqq. The description in Ex. xl. 43-46; Lev. ix. 23 sq., must be compared with the other in Num. ix. 15 sqq., in order to understand how the Book of Origins still reproduces an historical, very clearsighted view of these matters dating from the primitive days of the community; comp. Hist. ii. p. 217 sqq. The later Rabbi nical term for this dwelling of God in the midst of his people, or the visible manifestation of this eternal glory, is taken from Ex. xxix. 45 sq, xl. 35.— There is a similarity in spite of differences in the belief that guardian angels conduct cooling winds over the Ka'aba and the Mohammedans assembled round it, Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, i. p. 256 sq., 292 sq. undisturbed, would have been made sufficiently plain to Moses by the incidents of his own long leadership, even if he would not have expected it for other reasons. No doubt there had been a time when by the establishment of the community of Jahveh all previous impurity had been, as it were, washed away, and the foundation was laid in the life of the nation for an entirely new, pure, holy commencement. So, too, there had been a time when these demands were not only plainly promulgated, but were also acknowledged by the nation as binding on itself. This was the commencement of an inner perfection and glory, corresponding to the above outward manifestation. Nevertheless, troubles began to arise again soon enough; and it became sufficiently obvious that even all the expiatory- and guilt-offerings, nay, that all temporal punishments, could not suffice to root them out. Indeed, it became evident that the gradual progress of time imperceptibly brought with it a variety of new evils, which in the end were mighty and perceptible enough, and which threatened to destroy the most intrinsic life of the entire realm. Insidious evils like these, which are little amenable to law, and gradually work their way in with more and more disastrous consequences, are enemies from which, it is true, even our modern Christian kingdoms suffer; and many such have sprung into being, owing to the contingencies of recent centuries. Nor will it ever be possible, in the course of human history, to provide against all possibilities of evil which the future may bring forth. Make the best and purest start possible, and yet before long new evils will find entrance, partly from remnants of the former state of things, partly from the fresh impulses of the new condition, so long as humanity continues to develope, and stirrings of evil exist to remind man how far he still is from the goal of his history. Yet, in our case, the insidious evils need not inevitably become very dangerous. We have only to give fair play to the working, on the one hand, of the now perfected, extant, revelation of true religion; and, on the other hand, of the rich 391 experience, capabilities, and knowledge, that have already been acquired. In the ancient world, on the contrary, especially in remote antiquity, even among the people of Israel, the inner work of true religion was not nearly so far completed that every man everywhere could easily tell what he ought to do, and what to leave undone; and there was far from being any superfluity, either of historical experience or of higher capabilities and knowledge, such as would suffice to establish, e.g. the civil law of debt upon unassailable principles. Moreover, the insidious 1 P. 181 sqq. evils grow all the more dangerous in every realm, in proportion to the closeness with which it seeks to shut itself up in itself. And the kingdom of Jahveh rested on a very narrow self-contained nationality, and on a conscious sharp opposition towards all the other kingdoms of the existing world. We can thus imagine how earnest would be the endeavours made by Moses and the other great souls of his time to encounter the inevitable deficiencies in the right way, and everywhere to restore the original purity and health of the body corp rate when it had been imperceptibly undermined. Nevertheless, the means which they adopted for achieving this end, and which then seemed the most effective and best, could not well have been obtained anywhere, save from the whole life and tissue of the ancient religion; so that what was already in force reappears once again here, only in a new and stronger form. It was essentially necessary to appoint certain longer or shorter periods, when all that had been overthrown or become exhausted might be restored to its original pure and healthy life; just as our modern representative assemblies meet at regular intervals to effect a grand purification of the whole condition of the nation. But what was specially characteristic of these ancient periods was, that, in order to satisfy more effectively the divine demands for holiness and uprightness, and supplement all that was defective, the human 382 efforts and strivings towards God, as Antiquity understood them,' were at such times stimulated to the highest pitch. The endeavour to supplement all human action or endurance, wherever men felt this to be requisite in order to satisfy the divine demands for holiness and uprightness, took accordingly the form of sacrifice, as Antiquity understood it; and here we meet with the highest application of sacrifice which could possibly proceed from the ancient ideas in regard to it. Similar institutions are to be found in the laws of many ancient realms, and still exist in Islám, that belated shoot from the mighty stem of true religion, aiming at surpassing its two fellow-shoots which had already sprouted and grown great, but in reality remaining behind both. For a similar irrepressible feeling of an inner want, and hence a similar craving to supplement ordinary laws by more drastic measures, which are held in reserve, must have pervaded every religion and legislation which, although striving after the highest, yet fell short of its aim in something essential. But nowhere do 1 Pp. 12-133. we see this supplemental process carried through all possible details with so firm a hand, and bearing so palpably the mark of being due to one great thought, as we do in Jahveism. On a close investigation, it appears as certain as anything can be that these final offshoots of the ancient legislation sprang altogether, as the expression of a single idea, from the mind of the the arch-legislator. So if the Sabbath was at once the highest and the most characteristic sacrifice of Jahveism,' the one in which the latter's whole meaning was most perfectly expressed, and which on that account strove with its whole power to penetrate all things, it became a matter of course that the great attempt to supplement all earlier laws should be connected with the Sabbath, and make this the sole point of departure. And, as a fact, no other foundation was so admirably adapted for the erection of a new high-towering stronghold, which should be a fortress capable of upholding and protecting all else. In regard 383 to the determination of the above-mentioned longer or shorter intervals for a purification and restoration of the great Whole, the sabbatical number, Seven, was easily capable of a varied and extended application. And in regard to the general significance of such intervals, this too could be included in the higher significance of the Sabbath. For, as on ordinary sabbaths there was to be rest from the care and occupations of ordinary life, so on these greater sabbaths there was to be a universal cessation of ordinary national life; only their rest should embrace a wider sphere, and have in view remoter purposes. Yet, as the weekly sabbath rest, regularly recurring at the shortest intervals, only aimed at a fresh gathering up and strengthening of the spirit, and hence at a new vigorous commencement of work, so the greater and greatest sabbaths, recurring at longer and longer intervals, should bring greater and greatest rest with the sole view of restoring all the earthly constituents of the kingdom of Jahveh once again to their original and necessary purity, health, and uprightness. Only with this meaning and for this purpose was there a multiplication and wider extension of the simple sabbath as the firm foundation and centre of the organism of Jahveism. The fundamental thought is the same, only working in wider spheres in order to subdue unto itself a continually greater and farther-stretching province. From this follows the further important consequence, that what holds good in the smaller circle will repeat itself in the larger, only 1 P. 97 $4. Ꮓ on a more extended scale, so that nothing can be wanting from the larger which has been given in the smaller, until in the largest circle all that the fundamental thought is capable of producing is realised in fact. The individual, as well as each particular community, ought to withdraw on every weekly sabbath from the toil and moil of common life, and seek strength in God for fresh activity. Starting from this fact, we observe three provinces, each one 384 more important than its predecessor, which, in the progress of time, lose their original virtue and strength far more imperceptibly and gradually than the individual, but nevertheless to an extent which is at least evident and prejudicial enough, so that they, too, each require their several sabbaths at the proper periods. These three provinces are the following: the national character, as something still of vital importance to religion; the soil possessed by the nation, as the great instrument for its physical maintenance; and, finally, the whole kingdom itself, so far as it is a permanent institution of a human, and therefore perishable, nature. In this triple series of great provinces is contained everything outside the individual man and particular sections of the realm, which was liable to a gradual decay and destruction, merely under the influence of time, and which was all the inore exposed thereto the longer the elements of decay remained concealed. But while the national religion and morals needed to be again refreshed and strengthened after a period reckoned in months, hence when possible once a year, the nourishing soil of mother-earth only required the same in the course of years; and the kingdom, although human and perishable, ought nevertheless to rest fairly upon such good laws and institutions, that only after the lapse of decades and centuries should it need a purification and revival extending to its fundamental basis. In this way the simple weekly sabbath was supplemented by a sabbath-month, which was the seventh in the year, and as such determined the date of all the other annual festivals, i.e., of the greater sabbaths-just as the days of the week are governed by the higher and more sacred day,—and embraced all the simple weekly sabbaths in itself, as it was itself embraced within the circle of the year. This sabbath-month was again supplemented by the sabbath-year, which recurred every seventh year from the one which was chosen as the commencement, and furnished a starting point from which the whole series could be reckoned. This, in the last place, was supplemented by a sabbath-sabbathyear, which was the seventh sabbath-year (reckoned rather as |