74 



MOSES MUSK W A. 



destination. A ritual, composed of n thou- 

 sand minute ceremonies, and, as a whole, allegorical I y 

 designating a covenant with God, to be incessantly 

 renewed l>y offerings, prayer, and purification, imposed 

 on them the duty of continual diligence in the service 

 of their heavenly King. To the race of Levi, to 

 which Moses belonged, he assigned the care of the 

 religious service, and of seeing that the laws were 

 obeyed, investing, not his sons (whom lie allowed to 

 take their place among the common Levites), but the 

 descendants of his brother Aaron, as God commanded, 

 with the first office in the kingdom, that of high- 

 priest. To this tribe, excluded from all property in 

 land, the other tribes were to pay tithes : they were 

 subjected to the authority of elders and judges, and 

 the firmness of their political union was secured 

 by certain festivals, to be celebrated by them in com- 

 mon, and by exclusive devotion to the service of God 

 in the tabernacle, a movable temple, regarded with 

 a\vc, as the appointed dwelling of Jehovah, into the 

 interior of which the priests .alone were allowed to 

 enter, and where, moreover, all the taxes were depo- 

 sited, so that it was the central point of all the riches 

 of the nation. 



These are the chief points in the legislation of 

 Moses, which, even if it displays some Egyptian 

 features, yet plainly manifests the endeavour to wean 

 the Hebrews from Egyptian customs and prejudices, 

 and to elevate them to political and religious inde- 

 pendence, and far surpasses, in originality and eleva- 

 tion of principle, in consistency and expressiveness, 

 and, what most proves its heavenly origin, in proofs 

 of true humanity, the boasted legislation of Solon and 

 Lycurgns. Yet its importance was not at once re- 

 cognised by the Hebrews. 



When they were already near the end of their 

 journey towards Canaan, Moses saw himself com- 

 pelled, in consequence of new evidences of discontent, 

 to lead them back into the desert, and forty years of 

 toilsome wandering must be passed there : the severe 

 punishments which the law threatens against trans- 

 gressors must be executed in all their rigour : all those 

 who had attained to man's estate at their departure 

 from Egypt must die, before the law could be 

 thoroughly known, and become habitual with those 

 who had been born during the wandering. Moses 

 himself, distressed with cares, troubles, and occupa- 

 tions of all kinds, was not permitted to live to see 

 the complete accomplishment of his plan, on account 

 of a murmur which, in the midst of his distresses, he 

 allowed to escape against his God. After he had 

 appointed Joshua to be the leader of the Hebrews, 

 and had taken a solemn farewell of the people, he 

 ascended a mountain in Peraea, beyond Jordan, from 

 which he surveyed the land of promise, which he 

 could not enter, and closed his eventful life in his 

 120th year. He prevented all superstitious reverence 

 for his bones by his command, that his remains should 

 be buried secretly, and the place of his grave con- 

 cealed from the people. 



The books which stand under his name at the head 

 of the Old Testament are the monument of his 

 worth. As it has been supposed thaf the material 

 upon which he wrote was stone, and as it was hardly 

 possible for works of the size of the Mosaic to be 

 written at length on such a material, critics have 

 attributed their collection, and arrangement in five 

 books (whence their name, in Greek, Pentateuch), to 

 a later writer, of the time of David or Solomon. But 

 M. Greppo, in his essay on the hieroglyphic system 

 of Champollion) translated by Isaac Stuart, Boston, 

 1830), maintains that Moses might have written on 

 papyrus, and refers to an Egyptian manuscript on 

 papyrus, in the museum at Turin, containing an act 

 drawn up in the reign of Thouthmosis III., two i ?n- 



turics at least before Moses ; and it is generally 

 admitted that much must have been written by him, 

 as the laws, which he could not trust to uncertain 

 tradition, in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 

 It is equally certain that lie is the author of the mag- 

 lificent songs, in which he celebrates the deliverance 

 of the Israelites from the Red sea, and blesses and 

 takes leave of the people before his death. The 

 collection of the several portions of his writings into 

 a whole, may be the work of a later time, which can- 

 not be fixed within more precise limits than those 

 above-mentioned See Michaelis's Introduction to 

 the Scriptures of the Old Testament (in German); 

 Astruc's Conjectures upon the original Sources from 

 which it appears that Moses composed the Book of 

 Genesis (in French, 1753); De Wette's Contributions 

 to the History of the Old Testament (in German, Jena, 

 1804); Vater's Commentary upon the Pentateuch (in 

 German, Halle, 1805) ; Eichhoni's Augusti's Ber- 

 thold's Introductions to the Old Testament (in Ger- 

 man); Fabcr's Horae Mosaicas, or Dissertations on 

 'he Pentateuch. 



MOSES ;, a sort of boat. See Boat. 

 MOSES, CHORONENSIS, an historian and geographer, 

 and archbishop of Chorene, now Kerona, in Armenia 

 flourished about A. D. 462. (See Armenian Litera- 

 ure.) His principal work, a History of Armenia, 

 from the Deluge to the Middle of the tifih Century, 

 was first published with a Latin version, by John and 

 William Whiston, in 1736, and, though mixed up 

 with a great deal of fable, is a valuable history, con- 

 taining many narratives not elsewhere to be found. 

 He was also the author of an Abridgment of Geo- 

 graphy, first published at Amsterdam, in 1668, and 

 several canticles, which are sung in Armenian, on the 

 anniversary of Christ's presentation to the temple. 



MOSHEIM, JOHANN LORENZ, one of the most 

 distinguished German theologians, was born at Lii- 

 beck, in 1694, studied at Kiel, and, in 1719, became 

 a member of the faculty of philosophy there. His 

 reputation as a teacher, writer, and preacher, soon 

 procured several flattering offers of promotion, which 

 he declined ; but, in 1723, he ziccepted the place of 

 professor of theology at Helmstadt, where he was 

 soon after (1726) made ecclesiastical and consistorial 

 counsellor, and abbot of Marienthal and Michaelstein. 

 With these places he also held that of inspector-gen- 

 eral of the schools in the duchy of Wolfenbiittel. In 

 1747, he was appointed chancellor of the university 

 of Gottingen, where he remained till his death in 

 1755, lecturing daily on ecclesiastical history and 

 most other departments of theology. Dr Mosheim 

 was the father of ecclesiastical history. His princi- 

 pal work on this subject is the Instittitiones Histories 

 Ecclesiasticee. Libri iv. (Helmstadt, 1755\ which was 

 afterwards published under various other forms, and 

 translated into German, with additions ; also into 

 English, by doctor Maclaine. His Sittenlehre der 

 heiligen Schrift (5 vols., 1573), continued by Miller 

 (4 vols.), is valuable for its completeness, and for its 

 practical character. In the department of pulpit 

 eloquence, lie rendered important services by his 

 Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen,and by his Heilige 

 Reden, and is considered by the Germans the father 

 of sacred eloquence in Germany, and an improver of 

 German didactic prose. 



MOSKWA, BATTLE OF THE (called by the Rus- 

 sians the battle of Borodino, from the village of that 

 name, on which their right rested) ; gained by 

 Napoleon, September 7, 1812, over the Russians 

 under Kutusott'. who had taken the command August 

 29. The Russian commander took his position, Sep- 

 tember l,at Borodino, with the purpose of defending 

 the capital against the advancing enemy. The Rus- 

 sians occupied a gentle rising on the left bank of the 



