Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/787

 J S J S 753 caused by the report of the spies (Num. xiv. 6-9, 38). On the death of Moses he assumed the leadership to which he had previously been designated by his chief, and the book known by his name is entirely occupied with details of the manner in which he carried out the task thus laid to his hand, that of taking possession of the land of Canaan. On the completion of the reconnaissance by the two spies, he left Shittim with his army, preceded by the priest-borne ark of the covenant. The Jordan having been miraculously crossed, his first encampment was at Gilgal. Jericho and Ai soon fell into his hands, and the people of Gibeon became vassals. In the neighbourhood of Gibeon the five kings of the Amorites were crushed in a decisive battle in which the very elements conspired to favour the invader, and (to use the poetical language of the book of Jashar) &quot; the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.&quot; The victorious arms of Israel were now directed northwards against a league of Canaanite potentates under the hegemony of Jabin, king of Hazor ; anticipating the attack of the enemy, Joshua surprised and crushed them at the waters of Merom, Hazor itself being taken and burnt. Thus far the first twelve chapters of the book of Joshua ; the remain ing twelve describe the partition of the (conquered and unconquered) country among the twelve tribes, and conclude with a resume&quot; of his parting exhortations. At the age of one hundred and ten he died and was buried in this inheritance in Timnath-serah, in the territory of Ephraim. For the book of Joshua, an integral part of that part of the Old Testament sometimes spoken of as Hexateuch, the reader is referred to the heading PENTA TEUCH. Critical investigation has shown that the history or Joshua as now sketched is a composite narrative, made up mainly from the two Elohistic (or, as they are now generally called, the Elohistic and the Levitical) documents. Fragments of an account of the con quest of Canaan older than either of these writings are preserved in the book of Judges, and it is generally recognized by recent inquirers that the progress of the Israelites was much slower and their action less united than appears on the face of the book of Joshua as we now read it, the statistics of the Levitical record in particular applying properly to a much later date. From this point of view Joshua appears rather as the leader of Ephraim than of all Israel. He is for the north what Caleb was for the south. See ISRAEL and JUDGES, and compare a paper by Meyer in Stade s Zeitsch. f. ATliche Wiss., vol. i. (1881). See also Ewald, Geschichte, vol. ii. The only extra-Biblical notice of Joshua is the inscription of more than doubtful genuineness given by Procopius (Valid., ii. 20), and mentioned also by Moses of Chorene (Hist. Arm., i. 18). It is said to have stood at Tingis in Mauretania, and to have borne that those who erected it had fled before irja-ovs 6 JOSIAH, the last but four of the kings of Judah, was the son of Amon, whom he succeeded when only eight years old, the people having declared in his favour against the conspirators who had murdered his unworthy father. The circumstances of the regency which must have existed during his minority are not recorded ; it is not until his eighteenth year (for 2 Chr. xxxiv. 3 cannot be set against the explicit testimony of 2 Kings xxii., xxiii.) that he emerges into the light of history, when we find him interested in the repair of the temple at Jerusalem. The religious movement of which this was a symptom took more definite shape with the finding by Hilkiah the high priest of a copy of &quot;the book of the law.&quot; The reasons for believing this to have been (substantially at least) the book of Deuteronomy cannot be detailed here. They were already appreciated by Jerome and Chrysostom, and no very careful examination is required to show that the effect of its perusal was to bring aboiit a religious reformation, which in all its features was in accordance with the pre scriptions and exhortations of that remarkable composition. The main features of the movement (which extended into the adjoining kingdom of Samaria, at that time a loosely governed Assyrian dependency) have already been sketched in the article ISRAEL. On the secular aspects of the reign of Josiah Scripture is almost wholly silent. Thus nothing is related of the great Scythian invasion, which as we know from Herodotus (i. 105) took place at this period, and must have approached Judah, being probably alluded to by Zephaniah and Jeremiah. The storm which shook the great world powers was favourable to the peace of Josiah s kingdom ; the power of Assyria was practically broken, and that of the Chaldeans had not yet developed itself into the aggressive forms it afterwards assumed. But in his thirty-first year Josiah for some unexplained reason was rash enough to place himself in the path of Pharaoh Necho in his military expedition against the king of Assyria ; a disastrous encounter took place at Megiddo, in which he lost at once his crown and life (set. 39). JOSIKA, MiKL6s or NICHOLAS, BAEON (1794-1865), the greatest and, next to J6kai, most prolific Hungarian novelist, was born 28th April 1794, at Torda in Transyl- yania, of aristocratic and wealthy parents. After finishing the usual course of legal studies at Kolozsvar (Klausenburg), he in 1811 at the age of seventeen entered the army, joining a cavalry regiment, with which he subsequently took part in the Italian campaign. In 1813 he was promoted to the grade of sub-lieutenant, and on the battlefield of Mincio (February 8, 1814) to that of lieutenant. Elevated to the rank of captain, he served in the campaign against Napoleon, and was present at the entry of the allied troops into Paris (31st March 1814). In 1818 Josika resigned his commission in the army, returned to Hungary, and married his first wife Elizabeth Kallai. The union proving an unhappy one, J6sika parted from his wife, settled on his estate at Szurdok in Transylvania, and devoted himself to agricultural and literary pursuits. Drawn into the sphere of politics, he took part in the memorable Transylvanian diet of 1834. At about this period J6sika first began to attract attention as a writer of fiction. In 1836 he brought out his Abaft, 2 vols., which laid the foundation of his literary reputation. He was soon afterwards elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of the Kisfaludy Society; of the latter he became, in 1841, director, and in 1842 vice-president. In 1847 Josika appeared at the Transylvanian diet as second deputy for the county of Szolnok, and zealously supported the move ment for the union of Transylvania with Hungary proper. In the same year he was converted to Protestantism, was formally divorced from his wife, and married Baroness Julia Podmaniczky, with whom he continued to live happily until his death. So great was J6sika s literary activity that by the time of the revolution (1848) he had already produced about sixty volumes of romances and novels, besides numerous contributions to literary and political periodicals. Both as magnate of the upper house of the Hungarian diet and by his writings Josika aided the revolutionary movement, with which he was soon personally identified, being chosen one of the members of the com mittee of national defence. Consequently, after the capi tulation at Vilagos (13th August 1849), he found it neces sary to flee the country, and settled first at Dresden and then, in 1850, at Brussels, where he resumed his literary pursuits anonymously. In 1864 he removed to Dresden, in which city he died on the 27th February 1865. The romances of Josika, written somewhat after the style of Sir Walter Scott, are chiefly of a historical and social- political character, his materials being drawn almost entirely from the annals of his own country. Among his more important works may be specially mentioned, besides Abafi The Poet Zrinyi, 1843 ; The last of the Batoris, 1837 ; The BoJiemians in Hungary, 1839 ; Esther, 1853 ; Francis Rdkoczy II., 1861 ; and A VegvdriaJc, a tale of the time XIII. 95