MOSELLE 



MOSES 



325 



Vladimir was united to that of Moscow ; the 

 Kremlin, built in 1300, was in 1367 encircled with 

 stone walls. Moscow continued to grow in area 

 and in political influence, and Ivan III. (1462- 

 1505) assumed the title Czar of all Russia. Its 

 prosperity received serious checks in the next 

 century : it was nearly wholly burned to the 

 ground in 1547, was taken and burned by the 

 Khan of the Crimea in 1571, was hard pressed by 

 the Mongols in 1591, and was the scene of riots 

 arising out of the behaviour of the large Polish 

 retinue who accompanied the bride of the Czar 

 Demetrius early in the 17th century. During 

 the whole of tfiat century the people frequently 

 rose against the czars and their unworthy favour- 

 ites. In 1713 Peter the Great founded St Peters- 

 burg and made it his capital ; but the old merchant 

 families, the old conservative nobles, and the 

 common peasantry still continue to look upon 

 ' Moscow the Holy ' as the real capital of the 

 empire. The city again suffered greatly from fires 

 in 1739, 1748, anil 1753, and the cup of misfortune 

 was filled to the brirn when the city was set on 

 fire and burned in 1812, according to the traditional 

 belief the patriotic act of its own inhabitants to save 

 it from Napoleon and the French (see NAPOLEON). 

 Since then the city has licen in great part rebuilt. 

 The government of Moscow has an area of 12,855 

 sq. ra., and a pop. ( 1887 ) of 2,210,791. 



Moselle (Ger. Motel), a left hand affluent of 

 the Rhine, rises at the south-west extremity of the 

 Vosges Mountains in France, at an elevation of 

 about 2412 feet. Its course is north-westerly as far 

 as Toul, passing Epinal on the way ; thence it pro- 

 ceeds in a north-easterly direction (latterly, with 

 many zigzagnicturesque windings) through Luxem- 

 burg and Rhenish Prussia, and joins the Rhine at 

 Cpblen/, (lowing on its way through Metz, Thion- 

 ville, and Treves. Its entire length is 315 mik's, 

 and it is navigable up to Frouard, 214 miles from 

 Coblenz. Its principal tributaries are the 

 Meurthe, Seille, and Saar on the right, and the 

 Ome, Sure, and Kyll on the left. The wines 

 grown in the basin of the Moselle are noted for 

 their lightness and their delicate aromatic flavour. 



Moselle was formerly a frontier department in 

 the north-east of France, but the greater part of 

 it was taken by Germany after the war of 1870- 

 1871, and lcame as of old part of Lorraine. The 

 small portion left to France was joined to the 

 department of Meurthe. Pop. of Moselle in 1860, 

 452,157. See MEURTHE-ET-MOSELLE. 



Moser, MARY, flower-j>ainter, was the only 

 woman, besides Angelica kauffmann, ever elected 

 an Academician. Her father, a Swiss, George 

 Michael Moser (1704-83), was an enameller and 

 gold-chaser, the first keeper of the Royal Academy ; 

 and she herself died Mrs Lloyd, at a great age in 

 1 -S 1 !l. 



Moses (Heb. Mfahefi; LXX. and Vulgate, 

 Mouses), the <rreat lawgiver and judge, under whose 

 leadership Israel first began to he a nation. The 

 whole subsequent course of Hebrew history and liter- 

 ature l>ears witness to the greatness of his fame and 

 influence ; but the details of his life preserved in 

 that literature, though sometimes very minute, are 

 not, as a whole, very full or satisfying. This was 

 felt to lie the case even when it was believed that 

 the so-called 'Books of Moses' were written by 

 him, and, therefore, so far autobiographical : and 

 now that the Pentateuch (q.v.), or rather Hxa 

 tench, is held not to have taken its present form 

 till at least 800 years after his death, and the 

 historical traditions which it embodies are seen 

 to be of various dates and to represent various 

 phases of growth, the outline of his life and 

 character has become dimmer than ever. He 



still remains, nevertheless, a great historical 

 figure. If we adopt the now very generally 

 accepted belief that Meneptah or Merienptah 

 was the Pharaoh of the Exodus (see EGYPT, 

 Vol. IV. p. 240), Moses was born in the first half of 

 the 14th century B.C. At the time of his birth the 

 'children of Israel' (B'ne Israel) were a pastoral 

 people who had long dwelt on the eastern fringe of 

 the Nile delta, where it begins to merge into the 

 Arabian desert. His name for which a Hebrew 

 interpretation ( ' drawn ; ' the verb is the same as in 

 Psalms, xviii. 16) is offered in Exodus, ii. 10 is now 

 generally supposed to be really of Egyptian origin 

 (perhaps mes or messtt, 'son, 'child'). His fife 

 divides itself into three periods of forty years 

 each (a definite for an indefinite number), during 

 two of which he had long and intimate experience, 

 first of the civilised life of Egypt, and afterwards 

 of the simple nomadic life of the desert. Ulti- 

 mately he became the acknowledged leader of 

 Israel in the movement for civil and religious 

 freedom which led to the Exodus. Thenceforward 

 the scenes of his activity were principally Sinai, 

 'the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples,' En-Mishpat 

 or Kadesh (Gen. xiv. 7), a .locality of which the 

 site is not certainly known, and the plains of 

 Moab to the east of Jordan. The greater part of 

 the time was no doubt passed at Kadesh, which 

 seems to have long been the national headquarters. 

 Here his energy and force of character, combined 

 with a conciliatory meekness (Numb. xii. 3) which 

 has become proverbial, enabled him to establish 

 the beginnings of the national organisation on an 

 enduring basis. At the foundation of the common- 

 wealth as outlined by him lay the theocratic idea, 

 and the faith which had for its formula ' Jehovah 

 is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of 

 Jehovah.' Although there is evidence that the 

 name Jehovah was not unknown in pre-Mosaic 

 times, it was not until now that it became a 

 national watchword. Among the religious institu- 

 tions possessed by Israel were some which their 

 forefathers had carried with them in their early 

 migrations from Chaldea, and others that had been 

 more recently acquired in Egypt. To the former 

 class belonged tlie fundamental institution of 

 sacrifice, and also, possibly, that of the Sabbath ; 

 on the other hand it seems probable that the ideas 

 connected with an ark and a separate priesthood 

 had the later origin. The practices resting on 

 these Moses, as a ' prophet,' extended, regulated, 

 and reformed. It was as a meml>er of the priestly 

 caste ( he belonged to the tribe of Levi ) that at the 

 sanctuary and oracle of Jehovah at the ' Well of 

 Judgment ' ( En-Mishpat) he exercised the functions 

 of law-maker and judg^e, and so laid the founda- 

 tions of that 'Torah ' i.e. ' instruction ' or ' law ' 

 which, handed on by oral tradition and enriched by 

 ever-broadening precedents, ultimately passed into 

 writing in more than one form as tne 'Mosaic 

 legislation.' It does not appear that writing was 

 much used in these early days ; and most modern 

 critics are agreed that the historical portions, as 

 well as almost all the legislative documents, of the 

 Pentateuch belong to a much later time. The 

 poetical compositions which are attributed to 

 Moses the so-called ' Song of Moses ' ( Dent. 

 xxxii.)and Psalm xc. also give internal evidence 

 of more recent authorship. 



After the close of the Old Testament canon Jewish 

 tradition still busied itself about the story of Moses ; 

 some of its later additions liave been preserved in the 

 writings of Philo and Josephns (of. Acts, vii. 22), and 

 many more in the Palestinian Targiim on Exodus. For a 

 pood popular study of the life of Moses, see Kawlinsun's 

 Monet: hit Lift and Timei (1887). A more critical 

 point of view is represented in Wellhausen's Hittorti of 

 Irrael (1885), pp. 429-440; Keuss's Getchichte del Alien 

 Tatamenti (2d ed. 1890); Kenan's Histoire du I'euple 



