CHAPTER XII ISAIAH ON PROVIDENCE

Even when I was in the act of rolling up the book of Isaiah, very late at night, it occurred to me that the question “Is there a life after death?” might be connected with another, “Is there to be hereafter a reign of righteousness?” I tried to give my mind rest by thinking of other things; but this second question came back to me again and again both before and after I retired to rest. Epictetus spoke about “the sceptre and throne of Diogenes”: but I knew he would not assert that the philosopher’s “sceptre” implied any present kingdom except over his own mind and the minds of a small band of Cynics—small in comparison with Stoics and Epicureans, and nothing at all in comparison with the non-philosophic myriads. As for a kingdom of righteousness after death in another world, I was now certain that Epictetus did not expect it; and I began to doubt whether he expected such a kingdom at any time in this world. If to believe in Providence means to believe in a God who foresees and prepares that which is best—I could not understand where Epictetus could find a basis for such a belief.

With the Jews, it was otherwise. They, I could see, had received a special training, which made them, more than any other nation known to me, begin by expecting a reign of righteousness on earth. Beginning thus, and being largely disappointed, they might be led on to expect a reign of righteousness in heaven. Their history was like a collection of stories for children, teeming with what a child might call[110] surprises, but a prophet judgments—evil, uppermost, suddenly cast down; humble patient goodness, chastened by pains and trials, lifted up to lordship over its past oppressors. Examples occurred to me before I slept, and many more during the night, in my waking moments. I had not noticed them so clearly when reading the Law consecutively. Now, grouped together, they came almost as a new revelation—if not of history, at all events of legend, and of a nation’s thoughts, and of the training through which the Jew Paul must have passed in his childhood and youth.

First, there was Abraham—Abraham the homeless, going out from unbelievers to worship the one God, and receiving a promise that he should be the father of blessing, for multitudes in all the nations of the earth; Abraham the childless, rewarded with the child of promise; Abraham the kind and yielding, who gave way to his kinsman Lot, so that the older patriarch was content with the inferior pastures while the younger chose the fertile lands of Sodom and Gomorrah; Abraham the father of the one child that embodied the truth of the one God, offering up that child on the altar, and receiving him back as if from Hades; Abraham the landless, without a foot of ground in the land promised to him, buying with money a cave to bury his family. “Surely,” I said, “the story of Abraham, in itself, is a compendium of national history not indeed for Rome, but for a nation of peace (if only the nation could live up to it!) most fit for training a child to become a citizen in the City of Righteousness!”

If the life of Abraham was full of surprises or paradoxes, so too were the lives of the other patriarchs and leaders of the nation. Isaac, “laughter,” laid himself down to die in appearance, but to “laugh” at death in reality. Esau was the “elder,” yet he was to “serve the younger.” Jacob was promised lordship over his brother in the future, but he bowed down before him in the present. The same patriarch, a poor man, with nothing but his “staff,” became rich and prosperous. Yet, because he had deceived his father, he in turn was deceived by his children and sorely tried by their contentions. Through Samuel, the little child, God rebuked Eli the high priest; and[111] the little one became the prophet and judge of Israel. David, the despised and youngest of many brethren, became the greatest of Israel’s kings.

Such was the history of the great men of the ancient Jews—tried, but triumphing over trial. On the other hand, the history of the mass of the common people, from the time when they were a family of twelve sons, shewed them as going astray, lying, quarrelling and rebelling. For this they were punished by plagues and enemies; then, delivered by judges or prophets; but only, as it seemed, again to fall away, and to be delivered again; so that the reader of the histories, apart from the prophecies, might well suppose that these ebbs and flows were to go on for ever; that Israel was to be always imperfect, always liable to rebellion; and that the promise to Abraham was never to be fulfilled. More especially might a reader of the histories anticipate this when he saw the great empires of the east, Assyria and Babylon, leading the tribes away into captivity and destroying Jerusalem and the Temple.

Such were my thoughts by night concerning the Law and the Histories of Israel. Resuming the study of the prophecy early next morning, I perceived that in the sins and backslidings of the people there was yet another and far deeper illustration of what might be called “the law of paradoxes.” Not only came prosperity out of adversity but also righteousness out of sin, and out of punishment promise. Some of Isaiah’s most comforting prophecies arose from the invasion of Israel by Assyria. In this connexion there came a promise about a “child” that was to be “born,” of whom it was said “the government shall be upon his shoulder.” These things reminded me of passages in the poems, where the poet—musing on the chastisements and deliverances that followed the sins of Israel—exclaims “His mercy endureth for ever,” or “I remember the days of old, I meditate on all thy doings.” In the history of Greece and Rome I could find comparatively few stories of such “doings.” How indeed could I reasonably expect them? Romans and Greeks worship many Gods, but only one Father of Gods and men. Athens might claim Athene, and other cities might have their special patrons among the Gods. But how[112] could it be supposed that the Father of Gods and men would make any one nation His peculiar care? Virgil says that Venus was on the side of the future Rome, and that Jupiter favoured Venus; but Juno intervenes for Carthage. Then Jupiter has to compromise between Juno and Venus, or to conciliate Juno by laying the blame on fate! “How different,” I exclaimed, “all this is from the Hebrew egotism that represents the one God as continually saying to Israel ‘Thee have I chosen’!”

Yet I had hardly uttered the word “egotism” before I felt inclined to qualify it, adding, “But it is not ‘egotism’ from Paul’s point of view.” For indeed Paul seemed to think that God chose Abraham, not for Abraham’s own sake—or at all events not merely for Abraham’s own sake—but for the sake of “all the nations of the earth,” to bring light and truth to them. Epictetus spoke of Diogenes as “bearing on himself the orb of the world’s vast cares.” Somewhat similarly—when I took up the Law of the Jews to revise the thoughts that had come to me in the night—I found the Law describing the life of Abraham the friend of God. For I did not find Abraham blessed or happy—as the world would use the terms “blessing” and “happiness.”

Abraham begins as a homeless wanderer, going forth from his kindred at the bidding of the one true God; and a homeless wanderer he remains to the end. He is a father of kings but no king himself, not even a landowner! He has to buy with money land enough to bury his dead! His life is one of intercession as well as concession. Abraham intercedes for the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah, feeling it a painful thing that even a few righteous should suffer with the many. Once indeed Abraham becomes a soldier. But it is not for himself. It is for his kinsman and for the rescue of captives. Abraham makes himself a servant, waiting at table upon his guests. Abraham offers to God the life of his only son. If Paul was right, and if the children of Abraham mean the men that do such things as these in such a spirit as this, and if “the seed of Abraham” is the man that incarnates this spirit, then, I thought, there was perhaps no egotism when the prophet of[113] Israel represented God as saying to the descendant of Abraham, “Thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” For it may mean “I have not chosen the rich, I have not chosen the great and strong. I have chosen the good and kind and truthful and courageous; him only have I chosen.” And soon afterwards God says, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,” that is to say, “I have not chosen thee to make thee selfishly happy and prosperous, but to make thee my servant, like Abraham, for the service of all the world.”

The same truth appeared to apply to Moses, who, next to Abraham, might be called the greatest of the “servants of the Lord.” Even from the cradle he was in peril of death. He delivered his countrymen, as it were, against their will. The burden of their rebellions pressed on him through his life, and caused him to be cut off from the land of promise in the moment of his death. He saw it from afar off but was not allowed to enter it. He was prohibited because of his sin; and his sin fell upon him because his people sinned. “The Lord was wroth with me,” said Moses, “for your sakes.” That was the greatest burden of all. With the lives of Abraham and Moses before me, it seemed that the greatest servants were also the greatest sufferers.

Having this fresh light, I turned again to the description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. Did the prophet mean some particular prince of the house of David who was actually “chosen in the furnace of affliction” in order to deliver Israel? Or did he mean Israel itself, scattered through the world and afflicted in order that it might deliver the world? Plato modelled his Republic in the form of a man: had Isaiah any such double meaning? Did he predict a second David delivering sinful Israel, and also a purified Israel delivering a sinful world? Was he carried, so to speak, by the past into the future? That is to say, had he in mind some prince actually tortured and imprisoned, and as good as dead, for the sake of the people, and did the prophet regard this prince as destined to be raised up from the darkness of the prison house and to reign on earth? Or else was the prince, though actually[114] killed, destined to be raised up and to reign after death in his own person, or to reign in the person of his descendants?

About all these questions I felt that it was not for me to judge. I did not know enough about the history of the people and the language of their poets and prophets. But there remained with me this general truth, as being not only at the bottom of this prophecy, but also pervading the history of Israel, namely, that in order to make a great nation, great men must die for its sake. And I began to conceive a possibility that the greatest of all men, some real “son of Abraham”—I mean some spiritual son of Abraham, not necessarily a Jew—might arise in the history of the world, who might be willing to die not for one nation alone but for all the nations of the empire. But how? And against what enemies? As soon as I asked myself these questions, the conception faded away. I thought of Nero enthroned in Rome, and of the Beast enthroned in the heart of man. Against either of these foes I did not understand how the death of any “son of Abraham,” or “servant of God,” could avail. How could such a Servant “divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was delivered over to death”? This was beyond me.

For the rest, Isaiah appeared to me to carry on throughout the book of his prophecies that thread of unexpectedness about which I spoke above—I mean, that what prophets (foreseeing them) call judgments, men of the world (not foreseeing) call surprises. Yes, and even prophets and righteous men—not foreseeing enough—often lift up their hands in amazement, exclaiming, “This hath God wrought!” or “The stone that the builders rejected hath become the headstone of the corner!” But there was a dark as well as a bright side in these surprises. The disappointments were often most strange. For example, Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord “high and lifted up.” But with what result? The prophet himself was straightway cast down with the thought of being “unclean.” Even afterwards, when his lips had been cleansed with the coal from off the altar so that he might deliver God’s message, the message was, “Hear ye, indeed, but understand not!”—because his warning was to be rejected. And so it was throughout, paradox on[115] paradox! Israel was “chosen” in one sentence, “backsliding” in the next. The “despised and rejected” servant was to be “lifted up.” The transgressions of the world were to be taken away by a deliverer, who was to be “reckoned among transgressors.” Sometimes, as if despairing of the noble and learned among his own people, the prophet seemed to appeal to the poor and simple, according to the words of David, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength!” Sometimes he even seemed to turn away from Israel itself—at all events from the majority of the nation—to the remnant, and to the pious among other nations, as though they, yes, even foreigners, might receive the fulfilment of the promise made to the seed of Abraham!

Amid all these (to me) perplexing paradoxes, one thing was clear—constituting a great difference between Isaiah and Epictetus. The former saw God in history. The latter did not. Epictetus said (as I have shewn in a previous chapter) that, up to the time of death, man can always find peace by following the “logos” within himself during life; after death he ceases to exist. “Bearing these things in mind,” said he, “and seeing the sun and moon and stars, and enjoying the earth and sea, man is not deserted any more than unhelped.” These words now returned to my mind, and I perceived the force of what they did not say. They said that God was to be seen in the sun and moon and stars; but they did not say that He was to be seen where Isaiah saw Him, in the nations of the earth controlled by the Supreme. It is true that Isaiah, too—like Epictetus—bade his readers look up to the stars as witnesses to God. But Isaiah seemed to me to reckon men superior to stars.

David certainly did so. David had “considered” all the glories of the visible heaven. Yet he counted them inferior to “man,” who was “made but little lower than God,” and inferior to the “son of man,” who had received “dominion” over God’s works. In the same spirit, Isaiah, as it seemed to me, spoke of the Maker of the heavenly bodies as being adorable, not because He had made them multitudinous and bright, but because He led them like a flock—as though even a star might wander[116] but for the kindness of the divine Shepherd. Moreover God seemed to him to be controlling the mighty powers of the heaven for the service of man, “Behold, the Lord, the Lord, He cometh with strength, and His arm with lordship. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. As a shepherd shall He shepherd His sheep, and with His arm He shall gather the lambs, and encourage those that are with young. Who measured out the water with His hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with His fingers? Who established the mountains by measure and the valleys with a scale? Who hath known the mind of the Lord and who hath become His fellow counsellor so as to instruct Him?”

Thus, according to the prophet, there was to be a great advent in which God was to “come” with “reward.” He predicted a future “shepherding” of the “sheep” and “gathering” of the “lambs,” corresponding to the past “measuring” of the “heaven.” According to the philosopher there was to be no such future. All things were to go round and round. Instead of “sheep” or “lambs,” bubbles in an eddy seemed a more appropriate metaphor to describe the results of human life in accordance with the general tendency of Epictetian doctrine.