The Anglo-Saxons -- Who they
are -- Sharon Turnet's history of them -- Their
emigration to England -- The Octarthy -- Egbert
crowned the first king of England, A. D 800 -- The incursion
of the Danes -- And last, William the Conqueror, 1066, who is
found to be the leader of Benjamin -- Himself a
Benjamite -- How Benjamin escaped from Jerusalem and wandered
to Denmark, thence to France -- The ten tribes now all in the
isles of the sea; yet all ignorant of their own identity.
The period of residence of these Israelites in
Germany (now called Anglo-Saxons) is not definitely known, but can be
inferred from tile time of the ingress into England, A. D. 446. Here we
now reach the historic grounds thoroughly traveled over. All the histories
of England, whether written by Hume, Macaulay, Knight, Green or any other,
are pretty nearly unanimous in assigning the date about the middle of the
fifth century of the Christian era; ( The exact dates as given by Oxonian:
The first invasion was A.D. 449,the last about 590. During this period
eight little kingdoms were established in England, called the
"Ochtarehy.") but who these Anglo-Saxons were, no one seems to have known.
On this topic all these historians are silent, and, indeed, the inquiry
seems never to have been instituted as to the origin of these people until
the very close of A. D. 1799, when it is said the question arose in
England, Who are the Anglo-Saxons? Who were their ancestors?
Where did they come from?
In the investigation of this subject one Sharon
Turner took the lead, and in the history which he finally gives we find he
began by tracing them back, step by step, till he landed them in "the
cities of the Medes on the River Gozan," where he left them; the very
place to which Israel was carried captive by Shalnmneser, B. C. 720, and
this he did, not dreaming that these Anglo-Saxons had anything to do with
"the lost tribes of Israel" He builded better than he knew.
But
during the present century, and indeed within these last few years, the
attention of different men has been called to the investigation of this
subject, and it is now found that the Anglo-Saxons are indeed the very
Israelites, whose capital was Samaria, and after being besieged by the
king of Assyria for three years, was destroyed and all carried captive to
Assyria.
The Anglo-Saxons, being now established in England under the name of the "Ochtarchy," they seem to have quietly maintained this form of government until A. D. 800, when these eight little kingdoms were all consolidated into one, and the crown put upon Egbert's head. This, then, seems to have been the beginning of the government of Great Britain in its present form.
Not long after this the piratical northmen came up
from Norway and Denmark. These Danes (Danites) began tearing around --
robbing and plundering wherever they went, so that there was little no
peace in England until A. D. 1066, when William tile Conquer came over
from Normandy with his army, and, at the Battle of Hastings, subdued the
whole and put tile crown on his own head!
But who was this William? and whence came he?
It is declared by the best authority that William was none other than the
leader of the tribe of Benjamin! The very Benjamin lent to Judah for a
time, according to I Kings, 11:9-13. And hence we find that Benjamin was
given to Judah, and remained in that kingdom -- did not go off with the
ten tribes under Jeroboam, but continued with ,Judah till the Babyloniah
captivity, went to Babylon, returned to ,Jerusalem at the end of seventy
years, and remained, i. e., a portion of the tribe, till the destruction
of Jerusalem under Titus, the Roman general, A. D. 70.
At that time it is said that all this remnant
of Benjamin escaped from Jerusalem, and fled to the north to find their
brethren of "ten-tribed Israel" (Jer. 6:1, ye children of Benjamin, gather
yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem." Also, Eusebius's
"Historia Ecclesia," Blook IIIi, 5: 2. Also, Josephus's "Wars of the
.Jews," II, 19: 7. The word rendered, "contrary to all expectation," is
"tarasogoata." This word may also mean: "Without any show of reason.")
That this was the remnant only of Benjamin,
will appear when it is called to mind that Paul said, "I am all Israelite
of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." (Rom. 2: 1.) From this
and from other things it is evident that some of the Benjamites had before
the coming of Christ left Judah, and had already found their way north to
their brethren, some of whom were known to be at this time in the region
of Tarsus, where Paul was born, and whither this remnant of Benjamin fled
to join themselves to their own proper kingdom; for Benjamin was loaned to
Judah for a time only, at the end of which Benjamin was led away back to
Israel by the same unseen hand that has led Israel in all his
wanderings.
Then it is found that Benjamin was led through
Asia Minor over into Europe; thence north across the Danube, and on till
he found Dan in Denmark. From here he migrated south through Holland and
Belgium, and finally established himself in France, building one of' the
most magnificent kingdoms then existing in Europe, called Normandy
(Northmen.)
Oxonian says: "There were also representatives
of Benjamin spread over the whole length and breadth of Asia Minor, and it
is not too much to say that the Apostolic churches were mainly the fruit
of the reception of the truth by Benjamin and of the work of Paul, himself
an Israelite, of the tribe of Benjamin."
From this it seems evident that the Asiatic
Christians of the first two centuries were mainly of the tribe of
Benjamin; one section of them, the Galatians, being as already shown,
Israelites of the remnant which escaped.
But how did Benjamin and these Galatian
Israelites join their brethren in the "Isles of the West?"
In the year A. D. 267, as we are told by Prof.
Max Muller, (Lectures on the Science of Language. Series 1, p. 188.)
"the Goths made a raid from Europe to Asia, Galatia, and Cappadocia, and
the Christian captives whom they carried back to the Danube were they who
spread the light of the Gospel among the Goths."
This short sentence carries Benjamin half-way
to Britain. And from here it is not difficult to find how they might have
made their way through to Britain.
As a further illustration of Benjamin, let us
listen to the words of Lord Macaulay: "The Normans were then the foremost
race of Christendom. Their valor and ferocity had made them conspicuous
among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage western Europe.
Their sails were long the terror of both coasts
of the channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of
the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestrieht
and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the
strangers a fertile province -- (Normandy). Without laying aside the
dauntless valor which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to
the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the
knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they
settled.
That chivalrous spirit which has exercised so
powerful an influence on the politics, morals and manners of all the
European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the
Norman nobles. But their chief fame was derived from their military
exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea,
witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valor. One Norman knight,
at the head of a handful of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught.
Another founded the monarchy of the two Sicilies, and saw the Emperors
both of the East and of the West fly before his arms."
What now can be conceived as a more perfect
fulfillment of Jacob's prediction? Gen. 49:27, "Benjamin shall raven
as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall
divide the spoil."
Here, then, we have, since Benjamin has
arrived, eleven tribes of "the Kingdom of Israel," Benjamin being the
eleventh in number. But there is no evidence that any one of this vast
number has the remotest idea of his own identity. History does not furnish
a single ray of evidence that the least surmise existed in the mind of any
one of these eleven tribes that they were indeed descended from Israel of
old.
They had now been lost, not only to themselves,
but to the history of the world also, for many long centuries. As in
Hosea, 9:17, "My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken
unto him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations." Also Hosea, 3 4:
"For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and
without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and
without an ephod, and without a teraphim," thus utterly obliterating all
knowledge of their nationality, their language, their religious
institutions--everything of their tribal relations, etc.-- so that no one
dreamed even who he might be.
How then shall it be known who is who? I
answer, to man this is not known, but to God alone; for shall not He who
said, "I will sift the house of Israel (not Judah) among all nations, like
as corn is sifted in a sieve; vet shall not the least grain fall upon the
earth," (Amos, 9:9); shall not He who has said, "There is not a sparrow
falleth to the ground without your Heavenly Father, and the very hairs of
your head are all numbered," shall not He have care of his people Israel.
of whom He has said, "I will never leave nor forsake thee" and "I have
loved thee with an everlasting love"?
Can He forget so that He shall not know the
tribal name of every one of these long-lost Israelites? He must be an
atheist who doubts this. Indeed, we must give up all knowledge of
God and of everything else, if we doubt this great truth! But, alas! it is
nevertheless too true that we have all been so nearly practical atheists
that we have lived, indeed, have been taught to believe that at the
beginning God wound up the machinery of the universe and then retired, to
let the whole develop itself as chance might seem to direct.
What can this be but practical atheism? But
Christ taught us that every -- the most minutest -- thing does not escape
the continual present sustaining care of our Heavenly Father. Here is
rock. Here is a foundation on which one can build, and on this foundation
alone can safety be found.
Here then, Israel has been gathered, according
to Isa. 41:1, "Keep silence before me, O Islands, and let the people renew
their strength. And here in these islands, this Anglo-Saxon people have
grown and "renewed their strength," in all unwonted manner.
Here have they spread abroad, on the east and
on the west, on the north and on the south, till their land became too
strait for them; till at length the cry is heard, "Give place to us where
we may dwell." Then are colonies planted in the deserts, which soon
blossom as the rose. And "the waste places of the earth" are now being
peopled by this very Israel, and her colonies are found in all hinds and
in the islands of the seas, till now the promise to Abraham is indeed
fulfilled, Gen. 12:2: "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will
bless thee, and make thy name great. Again, I will set thee high above all
the nations of the earth; thou shalt be the head and not the tail." (Deut.
28:13.)