from Peræa, that is, from the north and from the east of the Holy Land.

It seems, then, that by the year 168 B. C., men calling themselves Jews had spread over all of Palestine, except the little spot of Samaria between Mt. Carmel and the Jordan.

Where did they come from? My explanation is this:

Some of them, including all the Priests and Levites, were Jews in the true sense of the word; that is, descendants of those who with Zerubbabel or with Nehemiah came out of Babylon, but the bulk of them were the old inhabitants of Galilee and Peræa. And who were these old inhabitants? Many of them, indeed, Syrians and Phoenicians in the north, Ammonites and Moabites in the southeast, but most of them descendants of the Israelites whom Tiglath Pileser had left behind when he fell upon Israel in the days of Pekah, and whom Shalmaneser, when he took and destroyed Samaria, did not touch. They had, I suppose, a vague recollection of the laws and of the glories of Israel, and they had nothing to oppose to the earnestness of the Jews, who offered them a living consistent faith, a body of enlightened laws, and a wellrounded ritual in temple and synagogue. And thus the descendants of the northern and eastern tribes, and with them many men of Gentile blood, became Jews by adhesion and conversion.

There are two reasons to sustain this view. Galilee and Peræa were not an absolute waste, into which the Jews from the southwest could immigrate and there found new cities without meeting resistance; nor would they be allowed to conquer for themselves new seats in a country under the rule and protection first of the Persians, and afterwards of the successors of Ptolemy or of Seleucus. And if there had been such wars of conquest, they would have been boastfully recorded; the history of the two hundred and fifty years following Nehemiah would not be such a blank as we find it. In fact, Josephus mentions with pride the successful wars which Hyrcanus, ruling near Heshbon, carried on against the neighboring Arab tribes of the desert.

The second reason is that of language. The Galilean Jews spoke the dialect of the north, closely akin to that of the old northern tribes, of which the first trace is found in the Song of Deborah, the north-country heroine, and practically identical with the speech of Tyre in Hebrew, and with that of Antioch in Aramaic. If the Jews of Galilee had all been real Jews from the country of Judah and Benjamin they would not so quickly have adopted the northern dialect.

A slight confirmation I find in the language of the ritual, the foundation of which was laid between 300 and 150 B. C. Everywhere in the prayers, the people in addressing God call themselves Israel, not Judah, as the latter term might be distasteful to men of the northern tribes.

When the last war broke out, about 68 A. D., which led to the fall of Jerusalem, the Galileans furnished the largest contingent. Their fertile country teemed with a dense population of thrifty, simple-minded, and madly-courageous men. Great numbers of them must have fallen in battle and at the siege of Jerusalem. But one misfortune Galilee then escaped. Titus carried off into exile and slavery only the inhabitants of Judea, and these were naturally sent across the Mediterranean to Italy and Spain. Galilee quickly recovered from the horrors of war and the fearful waste of life; fifty years later, under the lead of Simon Bar Cochba, a pretended Messiah, it raised a new rebellion against the Romans, and for three years they withstood all the forces that the emperor Hadrian could muster against them. But at last the fortress of Bethar fell, and the Galileans also were led into captivity. Perhaps with the purpose of removing them as far as possible from their ancient seats, the Roman emperor caused them to be deported to Worms and Cologne on the lower Rhine. From these Galileans the bulk of the Jews of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Roumania are sprung; and these have in very modern times sent offshoots to northern France, Holland, England, and the United States.

Among these are many who have in their families kept up the tradition of priestly or Levitical descent, but the bulk of them must be the descendants of the four northern tribes, Asher, Zebulun, Issachar, and Naphtali, of the Danites at Dan, or of converted Syrians and Phoenicians that dwelt in Galilee.

The feeling of aversion which the people of Judea in the times of Christ entertained against the men of Galilee had nothing to do with religious prejudices. It was purely social, and very much like that which a blue-grass Kentuckian entertains for a Whitley county mountaineer. This feeling is hardly extinct in our days. As late as thirty-five years ago, the Portuguese Jewish families, or Sephardim, of New York or Charleston, looked down upon the Jews from Germany and Poland as altogether beneath them in social standing, and intermarriages were quite rare. In fact, the Sephardim in this country have mostly fallen from grace by their intermarrying with the Gentiles rather than lowering themselves

to a union with the despised Askenazim, or Germans. But the latter form more than nine tenths of the Jewish nation in our days; the only large bodies of Sephardic Jews are found in Morocco, Italy, and Turkey. It may then be said: The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief of the corner. No tribes are lost; and those of Galilee are in the lead. The swift hind of Naphtali hath outrun the lion of Judah.

L. N. Dembitz.

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky.

PRIMITIVE BUDDHISM: A STUDY.

It is not yet seventy years since a representative of the English government resident in Nepaul became acquainted with the exist ence of a large number of MSS., in the Sanskrit language, which contained a full statement of the Buddhist system. Copies of these MSS., when originals could not be obtained, were soon secured and placed in the public libraries of Europe and made accessible to scholars. English, German, and French philologists and students of comparative religions have vied with each other in their endeavors to master a system which has so profoundly affected the welfare of a large portion of the human race.

Hardly had investigation of these Sanskrit MSS. been begun when it was learned that in Ceylon, in another language, known as the Palì, a language related to the Sanskrit, as the Italian is to the Latin, there were similar treasures of even earlier date. What was of special interest was the fact that the earlier the MSS., in both languages, the more alike were they in thought; yet in course of time the divergence of myths and legends and the corruption of the original simplicity led to the recognition of a southern and a northern Buddhism, according as reference was had to the system as developed in Ceylon, or as modified in the course of its progress to the northeast across Thibet to Mongolia, China, and Japan.

Primitive Buddhism has changed less in Ceylon than in any other country, thanks, doubtless, to native scholars familiar with the Pali language. Colonel Olcott, in 1881, recognized the low estate into which Buddhism had fallen there under the influence of Brahmanism and the religious rites of the primitive native peoples, and the prevalence of devil worship, idolatry, and debas

ing customs; but he also found a few persons who held fast to the leading principles of Buddhism as set forth in the earliest MSS.

It was natural that in Nepaul and in Burmah, countries nearest the region of its origin, northern Buddhism should be found most in accord with the southern; but as the stream gathered impurities, and accepted changes, from each native tribe and country over which it passed, it became quite another thing by the time it reached Mongolia and Japan.

The amount of Buddhist literature now open to scholars, including the earliest instructions of the great teacher, the myths and legends, expositions and commentaries, is said to amount to not less than one million of pages; and it has been computed that the lives of ten men would be required to become thoroughly acquainted with it as a system of thought and practice, — a somewhat instructive comment on its adaptedness to become a world religion, and on the possibility of presenting anything more than a most meagre outline on an occasion like this, of the Buddhism of its founder.1

A glance at the religious thought and life of India prior to the rise of Buddhism seems necessary to a just appreciation of the latter.

The earliest religion of the inhabitants of India was that of most, if not all, nature-peoples, now popularly known as Animism, the worship of evil spirits, a belief in fetichism, witchcraft, charms, amulets, sometimes accompanied with sacrifices of various kinds. Such, too, was the religion of the Scythian and Mongol invaders from the northeast prior to the great Aryan immigration from the northwest which took place as early as the year 2000 before Christ.

These Aryan invaders swept over the northern and central por

1 The principal authorities consulted in the preparation of this paper are Max Müller, J. Murray Mitchell, Bishop Titcomb, Dr. Dods, but especially Rhys Davids, Sir Monier-Williams, and the "Sacred Books of the East,". -a series of volumes now being issued from the press at Oxford under the editorial supervision of Max Müller, containing translations of these sacred books by competent masters, with elaborate introductions and notes that leave nothing to be desired. Since this paper was prepared a volume of lectures on Buddhism by Sir Monier-Williams has been published, which presents the most adequate and on the whole the most satisfactory statement on the subject that has yet appeared. It is some satisfaction to the writer to find that in the results of independent inquiries, covering quite a wide field, he is sustained in his conclusions by Sir Monier in almost every particular.

tions of India, where their descendants still constitute the larger portion of the population. They subdued the earlier inhabitants of the south, but did not supplant them. They brought into India the religious ideas of the various Aryan populations found at a later day in Greece, Italy, and Germany, and these soon became dominant in India in proportion to the completeness of the Aryan conquest. The change in the social life of the people was, if possible, still more marked in consequence of the introduction of caste, as a form of servitude imposed on the conquered races. Only such as betook themselves to the hills and jungles were excepted. It would carry us too far from our purpose to attempt to trace the development of this system, the most elaborate and the most tyrannical ever devised by man.

In the Vedic Hymns, supposed to have been composed between the years 1500 and 1000 B. C., may be traced, apparently in the order of their composition, a gradual descent from the sublime thoughts and aspirations of the earlier poems to the debasement and degradation of polytheistic idolatry. In the earlier hymns, known as the Rig-Veda, there is no trace of idolatry in the use of image worship, no evil divinities, no inculcation of sorcery, no incantation, no obscene practices.1

The decline went on from worse to worse, till by the year 600 B. C. the simple worship of the earlier Vedic times was lost in a ritual of formal service, and the most debasing practices, - its grosser features derived in part at least from the aboriginal races.

In the meanwhile thoughtful men speculated on the problems of life, and worked out systems of philosophy, which, taking up more or less of the current religious errors and superstitions, have, for substance, despite some attempts at reform, the most remarkable of which is Buddhism, prevailed over the millions of India to this day, at first under the name of Brahmanism, and later of Hinduism.

During what is known as the Brahman period, from 800 to 500 B. C., sacerdotalism reached its fullest development. Religious rites were observed in a language that had become obsolete, and were administered by a selfish priesthood whose tyranny and exactions became simply intolerable. They professed to cite the sacred books, while manufacturing new rules to suit the demands of the hour.

During this period the leading Brahman doctrines had become defined as follows: First, the eternity of souls, both the supreme 1 Mitchell, Hinduism Past and Present, p. 34.

LIBRAR

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