Nemedians

“ WE are at the end of our enquiry, but as often happens in the search after truth, if we have answered one question, we have raised many more; if we have followed one track home, we have had to pass by others that opened off it and led, or seemed to lead, to far other goals than the sacred grove at Nemi. ”

“ This marble Phidias made into a statue of Nemesis, and on the goddess’ head is a crown with some figures of stags, and some small statues of Victory: in one hand she has a branch of an apple tree, in the other a bowl, on which some Ethiopians are carved. As to these Ethiopians I could not myself conjecture what they referred to, nor could I accept the account of those who thought they knew, who say that they were carved on the bowl because of the river Oceanus: for the Ethiopians dwelt by it, and Oceanus was Nemesis’ father. ”

“ It reaches back beyond ancient Rome, comes down through the ages, through Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, through France, Germany and Russia, a secret society, the oldest in the history of the world, and the most powerful, with tentacles reaching into the politics of Free Masonry, of Socialism, of Nihilism, of Maximalism. The society of Nemi, an international society, with leaders in every party, a hidden giant with a hundred groping arms which only need a brain to actuate them all to one purpose. ”

“ And the great Liberation War of Greece was, in its circumstances, calculated to illustrate one great pervading principle of his religion—that heaven will not allow an excess of mortal prosperity. The rock which overhung the bay of Salamis, whence Xerxes looked down on his host, might well bear the statue of Nemesis. Nemesis, in the religious system of the ancient Greeks, is the great divine stewardess, who assigns to man his quota of good or of evil If man takes to himself more good than his share, she adjusts the balance by giving him evil ”

“ Nehemiah, finding it necessary to have the genealogies of the people well investigated and clearly stated, next examined into that matter; and this he did, not only for the sake of their civil rights, that all knowing of what tribe and family they were, they might be directed where to take their possessions; but more especially for the sake of the sanctuary, that none might be admitted to officiate, even as Levites, who were not of the tribe of Levi; or as priests, that were not of the family of Aaron. ”

“ Give them for a prey - They shall be given for a prey. Cover not their iniquity - Their iniquity shall not be covered. Let not their sin be blotted out - Their sin shall not be blotted out. All who know the genius of the Hebrew language, know that the future tense is used to express all these senses. Besides, we may rest assured that Nehemiah's curses, or declaration of God's judgments, had respect only to their bodies, and to their life: not to their souls and the world to come. ”

“ But on the other hand, the Lamanites, because of the hardness of their hearts, brought down many judgments upon their own heads. Nevertheless, they were not destroyed as a nation, but the Lord God sent forth a curse upon them, and they became a dark, loathsome, and filthy people. Before their rebellion, they were white and exceedingly fair, like the Nephites, but the Lord God cursed them in their complexions, and they were changed to a dark color, and they became a wild, savage, and ferocious people, being great enemies to the Nephites, whom they south by every means to destroy. ”

“ In the Persian capital, Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly sympathy, and of great ability—just the man to help them. They told him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt in all these years since the Babylonians had captured it, and how the poor people suffered from robbers and oppressors, who took advantage of their helplessness. ”

“ During the captivity the Jews in Assyria and Babylonia were allowed great privileges. They were considered more in the light of colonists than of slaves, and from the histories, both sacred and secular, we learn that, as stated in the books of Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel, they were occasionally employed in high positions in the state and at court. Nehemiah, though born at Babylon during the captivity, was a Jew of the tribe of Judah, but was cup-bearer to the Persian king, Artaxerxes Longimanus, at Susa. ”

“ When he reached the city he didn’t have a lot of men go before him blowing trumpets and saying that the cupbearer of the great Persian king,
THE CONVERTED CUPBEARER, had arrived from the Persian court, and was going to build the walls of Jerusalem. There are some men who are always telling what they are going to do. Man, let the work speak for itself. You needn’t blow any horns; go and do the work, and it will advertise itself. Nehemiah didn’t have any newspapers writing about him, or any placards. However, there was no small stir. ”

“ Nemesia, festivals in honour of Nemesis. See: Nemesis.
Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesiānus, a Latin poet, born at Carthage, of no very brilliant talents, in the third century, whose poems on hunting and bird-catching were published by Burman, inter scriptores rei venaticæ, 4to, Leiden, 1728.
Nĕmĕsis, one of the infernal deities, daughter of Nox. She was the goddess of vengeance, always prepared to punish impiety, and at the same time liberally to reward the good and virtuous. She is made one of the Parcæ by some mythologists, and is represented with a helm and a wheel. ”

“ It is not indeed probable that they are sprung from the same parents: but their ancestors once formed a group of closely associated peoples who lived beside one another as neighbours and used either the same language or dialects of the same language. The peoples which had in this sense a common origin comprise all those that belong to the stocks of the Hindus, the Persians, the Celts, the Greeks, the Italians, the Teutons and the Slavs, and are known collectively as the Aryans or as the Indo-European peoples. ”

“ I suggest, in passing, that the part of the tradition which relates to the existence "of settlements or nations of white men who lived apart from the other people of the country, and were possessed of an advanced civilization," refers to those conditions that prevailed when the Nephites and Lamanites occupied the land; the former an industrious, civilized race, the latter an idle, savage race, conditions frequently referred to in the Book of Mormon, in describing the status of the Nephites and Lamanites, respectively. ”

“ We are indeed required to speak ill of no man, but never to speak well of bad men. Those that forsake the law praise the wicked, Prov. xxviii. 4. 4. They were so false as to betray Nehemiah's counsels to him; they uttered Nehemiah's words to him, perverting them, no doubt, and putting false constructions upon them, which furnished Tobiah with matter for letters to put him in fear and so drive him from his work and discourage him in it. Thus were all their thoughts against him for evil, yet God thought upon him for good. ”

“ Agoracritus sold the Nemesis to the people of Rhamnus, who had a temple dedicated to that goddess, and made a condition that it should never be set up in Athens. In the museum of the Lateran at Rome there is a small but very beautiful antique statue of Nemesis, which is thought to be a copy of this famous work. As Nemesis was the goddess who meted out fortune according to her idea of right, a measure was her symbol, and the Greek measure of a cubit was generally placed in her hand. ”

“ Now, therefore, it is acknowledged that the tribe of evil dæmons has a very extended power in generation, in human affairs, and in such things as subsist about the earth. Hence, why is it wonderful that a tribe of this kind should effect such works as these? For every man is not able to distinguish a good from an evil dæmon, or by what peculiarities the one is separated from the other. Hence those, who are not able to perceive the difference between the two, absurdly reason concerning the cause of them, and refer this cause to genera superior to nature and the dæmoniacal order. ”

“ To the theory that the priest of Nemi was slain as a representative of the spirit of the grove, it might have been objected that such a custom has no analogy in classical antiquity. But reasons have now been given for believing that the human being periodically and occasionally slain by the Asiatic Greeks was regularly treated as an embodiment of a divinity. ”

“ Various wars now raged between the Lamanites and Nephites. The people of Nephi erected many forts and high mounds to secure themselves from the invasion of their enemies.
The Book of Helaman, which consists of five chapters, [Pg 302] opens with the fortieth year of the reign of the Judges. It details sad accounts of dissensions and war, and strange alternations of prosperity and adversity to the church. A man by the name of Nephi, who was now chief judge, imitated Alma, and laying down his civil office, became a great preacher and prophet, performing miracles and mighty wonders. ”

“ Among the ancients, the admission to the rights of citizenship was every where difficult: the alien needed not to be of a foreign tongue, he might belong to the same nation as the citizen, and even to the same tribe of the nation. The lines of demarcation are drawn in the most varied manner. In the oldest constitution of which we have any authentic knowledge, that of the Jews, we already find such a distinction. The people consists of tribes with unequal rights, just as the tribes of the Romans ”

“ We no longer see stirring on the border-land those confused masses of tribes and communities of whose tumultuous life the Ninevite annals make such frequent record: Elam as an independent state no longer existed, neither did Philipi and Namri, nor the Cossæans, nor Parsua, nor the Medes with their perpetual divisions, nor the Urartians and the Mannai in a constant state of ferment within their mountain territory; all that remained of that turbulent world now constituted a single empire, united under the hegemony of the Medes, and the rule of a successful conqueror. ”

“ Thus ought we to be always upon our guard against our spiritual enemies, not only (as here) while it is light, but when it is dark, for they are the rulers of the darkness of this world. Nay, so very intent was Nehemiah upon his work, and so fast did he hold his servants to it, that while the heat of the business lasted neither he himself nor his attendants went into bed, but every night lay and slept in their clothes (v. 23) , except that they shifted them now and then, either for cleanliness or in a case of ceremonial pollution. ”

“ It is not difficult in the case of countries occupied by Celtic or Teutonic peoples to ascertain what the particular institution was which linked together the beliefs of the people, though it is not easy to trace out all the phases of it. It is the tribe—that system of society which appears as the means by which Greek and Roman, Celt and Teuton, Scandinavian and Slav, Hindu and Persian, were able to conquer, overrun, and finally to settle in the lands which they have made their own. ”

“ When the builders had so far reason to think the design of the enemies broken as to return to their work, yet they were not so secure as to lay down their arms, knowing how restless and unwearied they were in their attempts, and that, if one design failed, they would be hatching another. Thus must we watch always against our spiritual enemies, and not expect that our warfare will be accomplished till our work is. See what course Nehemiah took, that the people might hold themselves in a readiness, in case there should be an attack. ”

“ All betake themselves to their several cities, [73] .
Verse 2
My brother Hanani - This was the person who gave Nehemiah the account of the desolate state of the Jews, [74] . He is now made ruler of Jerusalem, probably because Nehemiah was about to return to the Persian court. And he found this man to be one in whom he could trust:
1. Because he was a faithful man - one who had a proper belief in God, his government, and his protection; and being devoted to the interests of his people, would be faithful in the discharge of his office. ”

“ He discovers that the inhabitants of the holy city are fast becoming foreigners and heathen. He hears the very children in the street talking a language he cannot understand.
So common has marriage with heathen foreigners become, that Nehemiah sees clearly that unless something is done to put a stop to it the next generation will grow up utterly un-Jewish in language, appearance, and dross, and worse still, heathen in their religion, kneeling down to idols of wood and stone, and carrying on in Jerusalem itself all the vile customs and abominations of the heathen. ”

“ The persecuted nation emigrated towards the northern parts of South America, leaving the wicked nation in possession of the middle and southern parts of the same. The former were called Nephites, being led by a prophet whose name was Nephi. The latter were called Lamanites, being led by a very wicked man, whose name was Laman. The Nephites had in their possession a copy of the Holy Scriptures, viz. the five books of Moses, and the prophecies of the holy prophets, down to Jeremiah, in whose days they left Jerusalem. These scriptures were engraved on plates of brass, in the Egyptian language. ”