"
He also goes on to say: "We are further referred to the legislation of
Moses, ... comprising civil and criminal, ceremonial and ecclesiastical,
moral and social law in varying compass. This legislation, however, cannot
have come from Moses.... Such legislation can only have arisen after
Israel had lived a long time in the new home."
To take these arguments in order,--for they must be so dealt with to
develop any reasonable theory of the Mosaic philosophy,--Moses, doubtless,
was a ruthless conqueror, as his dealings with Sihon and Og sufficiently
prove. "So the Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of
Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him
remaining....
"And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon,
utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city." [Footnote:
Deut. III, 3-6.]
There is nothing extraordinary, or essentially barbarous, in this attitude
of Moses. The same theory of duty or convenience has been held in every
age and in every land, by men of the ecclesiastical temperament, at the
very moment at which the extremest doctrines of charity, mercy, and love
were practised by their contemporaries, or even preached by themselves.
For example:
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the two great convents of Cluny
and Citeau, together, formed the heart of monasticism, and Cluny and
Citeau were two of the richest and most powerful corporations in the
world, while the south of France had become, by reason of the eastern
trade, the wealthiest and most intelligent district in Europe.
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