The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it
was never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that
the number of proselytes was never much superior to that of
apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the
distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single
family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like
the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received
a system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper
and, as it were, the national God of Israel; and, with the most
jealous care, separated his favourite people from the rest of
mankind. The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied
with so many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances
that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable
hostility with all their neighbours. They had been commanded
to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes; and the execution
of the Divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness
of humanity. With the other nations they were forbidden
to contract any marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of
receiving them into the congregation, which, in some cases, was
perpetual, almost always extended to the third, to the seventh,
or even to the tenth generation. The obligation of preaching
to the Gentiles the faith of Moses had never been inculcated as
a precept of the law, nor were the Jews inclined to impose it
on themselves as a voluntary duty. In the admission of new
citizens, that unsocial people was actuated by the selfish vanity
of the Greeks, rather than by the generous policy of Rome. The
(descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that they
alone were the heirs of the covenant; and they were apprehensive
of diminishing the value of their inheritance, by sharing it
too easily with the strangers of the earth. A larger acquaintance
with mankind extended their knowledge without correcting
their prejudices; and, whenever the God of Israel acquired
any new votaries, he was much more indebted to the inconstant
humour of polytheism than to the active zeal of his own missionaries.[1]
The religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a
particular country, as well as for a single nation; and, if a strict
obedience had been paid to the order that every male, three
times in the year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah,
it would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have
spread themselves beyond the narrow limits of the promised
- ↑ All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been very ably treated by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, I. vi. c. 6. 7.
