(x-xi. 27). They contain the genealogies of the sons of Noah, of Japheth, Ham, and Shem, in the tenth chapter; and of Shem again, the head of the branch from which the Hebrews were descended, in the eleventh chapter. These are not the records of individuals. As Augustine long ago pointed out, "nations, not men," are represented. They are ancient ethnographical tables; perhaps the earliest essays at the science which masses men in families and connects the scattered races in organic union. And whereas the ancients generally viewed the nations of the earth as literally of different stocks, these group them upon one tree; thus first hinting the secret of a possible unity of the human race. They show, by various signs, their probable origin in the hoary science of the Chaldeans.

Two legends, bedded amid these tables, call for a passing remark. In "Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord," looms up, through vast vistas of antiquity, the colossal form of the earliest of the mighty empires of earth known to us; an impersonation of a Power such as that which lately, in another form of art, has been reared upon the banks of the Rhinethe gigantic figure of Germania. A rude and warlike Power, leaning on a sword, using brute force brutally, but none the less hunting wild beasts and wilder men from off the earth, after the fashion of King Arthur, as Tennyson has told the story; ordering the bases of civilization, so that even this hunter did a

work "before the Lord"-Who through the hands of warlike Powers is still preparing the way for the Prince of Peace, and using the selfish ambitions of mighty men to further the growth of the brotherly commonwealth of the sons of God.1

In the story of the Tower of Babel we have the earliest known suggestion of the cause of the dispersion of mankind, and of the dissimilarity of human languages—a strange phenomenon to the ancient, as indeed to the modern. The Elohist narrator, in the table of the sons of Noah, had spoken of the distribution of mankind as though brought about naturally; from which it would have followed that the variety of tongues was also a merely natural growth. The Jehovist writer, true to his constant stand-point, saw in such striking phenomena a supernatural cause. His intense ethical spirit saw the consequence of some sin in every apparent disorder. This break-up of unity was a sequence of the process of deterioration that was renewed after the Deluge. It was the result of a divine judgment upon the vainglorious ambitions of man; a judgment which, however, subserved the ulterior aim of Providence, the restoration of man, by barring combinations for evil purposes. Where the tradition originated we may guess from its crystallizing around the vast tower of Babel. The colossal temple of Bel, which rose in the centre of Babylon to a height out-topping

1 See Note 23 to Chapter IV.

the Egyptian pyramids, was one of the wonders of the ancient world. It was a sight which must have strangely stirred the simple Hebrews in the exile, and confirmed the traditional prejudice of their poets against the peoples who forsook the simple, unostentatious life of the tents and said, "Go to, let us make brick; let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach to heaven." Following his usual method, the writer pictures Jehovah as coming down to see the city, and, as moved with jealousy of man's powers-a notion familiar to us from Greek legends-confounding men's speech, so that, no longer understanding one another, they were forced to scatter over the earth; which, as he intimates, in a play upon the word, is meant by Babel. The explanation of the singular phenomenon rather reverses the order of cause and effect. Men separated because, perhaps, of discord growing out of over-crowding; and when separated, amid different scenes and under different climates and engaged in different tasks, they slowly and unconsciously modified their speech, until, through the natural growths of varying dialects, dissimilar languages developed. God works here as elsewhere through natural means and methods. None the less is He working, as the old Hebrew saw, and stated in a crude way. The progress of civilization scatters mankind; and this largely, not alone through natural necessities, but through unnatural compulsion, through the selfish,

scheming ambitions of those who would sit alone upon the earth. Men's alien speech is a sign of an inward alienation, in which they are providentially kept apart for the time. Not even a Napoleon can unite Europe while there is no solidarity of interests. So the earth-creatures creep and crawl where they might climb into the skies of a new order. the swelling words of Ruskin :

In

"The associative work of immodest men is all fruitless and astir with wormy ambition; putridly dissolute and forever on the crawl; so that if it come together for a time it can only be by metamorphosis, the flash of volcanic fire out of the vale of Siddim, vitrifying the clay of it and fastening the slime, only to end in wilder scatteredness; according to the fate of those oldest, mightiest, immodestest of men, of whom it is told in scorn, They had no brick."

When the times come ripe, and men are one in mind and heart again, they will grow into a new unity of speech, and, as brothers, bind themselves into a "federation of man;" on whose colossal institutions, dedicated to the highest, the Lord will come down as upon a sacred temple, "a gate of God," through which the hymn of Humanity will ascend, in antiphon of races and of nations—

"'Am I not thine? Are not these thine?'

And they reply,' Forever mine!""

CHAPTER V.

THE TRADITIONS OF ABRAHAM.

THE second division of Genesis opens at the twenty-seventh verse of the eleventh chapter, in our arrangement, and runs through the rest of the book. It is occupied with the traditions of the patriarchs. Before entering upon its details, a few words may be given to the general character of these traditions.

As we pass from the primeval period, whose story, according to the Hebrew traditions, we have been thus far tracing, into the patriarchal period now opening before us, with its familiar names and realistic scenes, it is natural to imagine that we are leaving legend behind us and are coming upon the solid ground of history.

We must remember, however, that whatever we find in this second division of Genesis is still originally oral tradition; tradition that was not committed to writing until centuries after the periods described. Oral tradition may be, as we know, among peoples who depend on it, singularly tenacious of long past events, even in their minuter features. But when such traditions run far back into dim distances, through imaginative and credu