Now the religion of the clan, the ideas of which determine the character of later Semitic systems, may be briefly described as follows. Each clan has its own G.o.d, perhaps he was originally an animal, at any rate he is the father or ancestor of the clan, he is of the same blood with them, he belongs to them and to no other clan.
So far the a.s.sertion that the Semites are naturally monotheists is true; but the same is true of all totemistic or clannish communities.
A man is born into a community with such a divine head, and the worship of that G.o.d is the only one possible to him. Should he be expelled from his clan he is driven away from his G.o.d, and he cannot obtain access into another clan except by a formal adoption as a stranger client. The link, on the other hand between the G.o.d and his clansmen is of the strongest. He joins in all their enterprises, after being consulted on the subject, and having a sacrifice offered to him, which renews the union of the clansmen to him and to each other. Their wars are his wars; when any of them is injured or slain he joins in their necessary acts of retaliation; it is a religious duty for each of them to be faithful to the others, and to keep up the tribal customs, of which the G.o.d approves.
Thus the Semites have as many G.o.ds as they have clans; and these G.o.ds do not greatly differ from each other. As long, moreover, as the clans are at constant feud, no single G.o.d can grow very great. It is only when one clan conquers others, that a king-G.o.d can arise to rule over all alike as a monarch rules over his n.o.bles and their provinces. But in this type of deity the genius of Semitic religion is already expressed. The G.o.d of the Semite is not a nature-power who bears the same aspect to all men, but a member of a particular clan, a person to whom the clansman occupies the same position of natural subordination as he does to his father or his chief. The G.o.d takes his name not from a part of nature but from a human relationship. He is "Baal," master or owner, he is "Adon," lord; in later circ.u.mstances he is "Melech," king. "El," mighty one, hero, is a more generic term; like our "G.o.d," it is applied to any divine being.
These deities, it will be noticed, are all masculine; but it is not to be supposed that the Semites had no G.o.ddesses. Not to speak of the G.o.ddesses of Babylonia, mere doubles of the G.o.ds whose names they bore (chapter vii.), the earliest Semites are believed by several great scholars to have had a G.o.ddess but no G.o.d. The matriarchal state of society, in which the mother alone ruled the family, came before the patriarchal, and so the reign of the G.o.ddess came before that of the G.o.d. Each community has its own Al-lat, "The Lady," as she is called in Arabia, a strict and exacting lady, not to be confounded with the licentious G.o.ddesses of later times; and in all Semitic lands traces of her early prevalence are found.[2] As the male G.o.d came to the front, the female became a less definite figure, till she was generally a mere counterpart of the male G.o.d, with little character of her own. With G.o.ds of this type there is little scope for mythology. The history of the G.o.d is that of the tribe; the G.o.ds are too little independent of their human clients to form a society by themselves, or to give rise to stories about their doings.
[Footnote 2: See Robertson Smith"s _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_.]
This is one side of the natural history of the Semitic G.o.ds; but that history has another side. The lands in which the Semites dwelt were full from the first of sacred spots; and we have to notice that the G.o.d of a clan is also the G.o.d of a certain piece of earth where he is supposed to dwell, which is regarded as his property, and the fertility of which is ascribed to his beneficence. In the Bible we read of sacred trees, of sacred wells, of sacred stones or mounds, and of stones or pillars which were connected with sacrifice. In various Semitic lands there are also sacred streams and sacred caves.
The Semites in fact had their share of the inheritance the whole world has derived from the earliest times, of prehistoric religious sites and objects. A spirit spoke in the rustling of the branches of the tree, counsel could be procured at the spring; wherever there appeared to be something mysterious in nature, a spirit was believed to dwell; and especially in woods and fertile spots, where wild beasts originally had their lair, a spirit was thought to reside, which was approached with fear. Many of these superst.i.tions the various branches of the Semites long continued to hold;[3] but the race superseded in the main this world of spirits by a set of G.o.ds, and the magic addressed to spirits by religious observances addressed to G.o.ds. The genius or jinn haunting the thicket, who had no regular worshippers, but was an object of fear to all, and had to be propitiated or controlled by mysterious arts, gave way to the G.o.d of a clan, who took up his residence there, and received the regular worship of his clansmen; the stone became the symbol of a deity who had been asked and had consented to become identified with it for the purpose of the stated rites of the clan. In this way the clan G.o.ds became localised as the clans tended to acquire fixed settlements, and each sacred spot was occupied by the deity of the clan who dwelt around it. The view was held that each G.o.d was to be found at the spot where, on some marked occasion, he had given evidence of his power, and he who wished to enquire of that G.o.d had to go there. It might happen that the G.o.d manifested his power at another spot to one of his dependents on a journey, as Jehovah did to Jacob at Bethel (Genesis xxviii.). Then that spot also was recognised as a holy one where communication could be had with the deity, and the apparatus of worship was erected there so that the intercourse might be suitably carried on, as Jacob is reported to have done. In time also it came to be thought that each G.o.d had his land which belonged to him, on which alone his worship was possible, and so the earth was parcelled out among a number of deities; and Naaman, who wishes to worship Jehovah in his Syrian home, carries off two mules" burden of Jehovah"s soil, to make in the midst of Syria a little piece of the land of the G.o.d of Israel (2 Kings v.).
[Footnote 3: The late Professor Ives Curtius in a paper read to the Basel Congress (1905, _Verhandlungen_, p. 154), on "Traces of Early Semitic Religion in Syria," gives details of local sanctuaries still resorted to in that country.]
One circ.u.mstance remains to be mentioned which const.i.tutes a marked difference between the Semitic and the Aryan religions. Aryan religion has its centre in the household; the hearth is its altar, and the G.o.ds of the domestic cult are the departed ancestors of the family. Semitic religion is without this cult; the hearth is not an altar; the religious community is not the family but the clan. The worship of ancestors, if, as there is reason to believe, it had once been practised by the Semites (the Arabs tied a camel to the grave of the dead chief), lost at a very early period all practical importance. While the early Semites believed in the continued existence of the departed, they thought of them as beings quite dest.i.tute of energy, as "shades laid in the ground," and did not worship them. The other world occupied, therefore, a very small s.p.a.ce in Semitic thought. Religion confined itself to this life; after death, it was held, even religion came to an end. A man must enjoy the society of his G.o.d in this life; after death he could take part in no sacrifice, and could render to his G.o.d no thanks nor service.
From what has been said the character of sacrifice among the Semites is readily understood. Sacrifice is not domestic but takes place at the spot where the G.o.d is thought to reside, or where the symbol stands which represents him. Usually this was an upright monolith, such as is found in every part of the world, and the central act of the sacrifice consisted in applying the blood of the new-slain victim to this stone. The blood was thus brought near to the G.o.d, the clansmen also may have touched the blood at the same time; and the act meant that the G.o.d and the tribesmen, all coming into contact with the blood, which originally perhaps was that of the animal totem of the clan, declared that they were of the same blood, and renewed the bond which connected them with each other. A further feature of early Semitic sacrifice is also that the slaughter and the blood ceremony are succeeded by a banquet, at which the G.o.d is thought to sit at table with his clients, his share being exposed for him on the stone or altar. When he came to be believed to dwell aloft, his share was burned with fire so that the smell or finer essence of it might ascend to him. Many examples may be collected in the early historical books of the Old Testament of sacrifices which are at the same time social and festive occasions; in fact, in early Israel every act of slaughter was a sacrifice, and every sacrifice a banquet. The people dance and make merry before their G.o.d, of whose favour they have just become a.s.sured once more by the act of communion they have observed.
The undertaking they have on hand is hallowed by his approval, so that they can boldly advance to it; the corporate spirit of the tribe is quickened by renewed contact with its head; all thoughts of care are far away; the religious act makes the worshippers simply and unaffectedly happy, if it does not even fill them with an orgiastic ecstasy.
This careless happiness, in connection with religious acts, is found also in Babylonian sacrifice. It is not, however, peculiar to the Semites, but is characteristic of the religion of the early world in general. Nor is it peculiar to this race that religion does not address the individual as such, but only as a member of his tribe, and that it provides small comfort for private sorrows or longings.
The sad face is out of place in the presence of the G.o.d. Religion is essentially a happy thing; sin is not yet thought of, and if things go wrong, the tribe never entertains any doubt but that with proper sacrifices and promises the G.o.d will show them his favour again and renew their prosperity. All this is not specially Semitic, but simply early religion. What is specially Semitic is, to repeat that with which we set out, that G.o.ds are worshipped whose relations to their worshippers are borrowed from existing forms of society. The G.o.d is the father or the master or the champion, of the circle of worshippers; he is of their kindred, he is their greatest and strongest clansman, he belongs to them and to none but them. This, whether it is derived--as Professor Robertson Smith thinks--from the ideas of totemism or not, leads to a religion which is exclusive and intense, and cannot be trifled with. The G.o.d who is a man"s master, and the head of his clan, stands in a more imperative position towards him than the G.o.d of the sky, or than a departed ancestor. He does not change with the seasons or the weather, nor is there any doubt as to his intentions and demands. Semitic religion, even at this stage, is a very real thing, and may easily, in favouring circ.u.mstances, become a force of overmastering energy.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED
Hommel, _Die Semitischen Volker und Sprachen_.
"Semites," by McCurdy, in Hastings" _Bible Dictionary_, vol. v.
c.u.mont, _Les Religions orientales dans la Paganisme Romain_, 1907.
CHAPTER XI CANAANITES AND PHENICIANS
When the Children of Israel crossed the Jordan and settled in Palestine, they found that country inhabited by a race of men who spoke the same language as themselves, and who were much further advanced than they in civilisation. The letters of El-Amarna which belong to this period show Syria to have been full of small theocratic states, all pervaded, though now under the power of Egypt, by Babylonian culture, each with a G.o.d and a settled worship of its own. The Israelites of a later time regarded the Canaanites with such disdain that they reckoned them (Genesis x. 6, 15) as belonging to an inferior race; but the two peoples belonged to the same race, and had many common ideas and practices. In religion they resembled each other, or Israel could never have been tempted so strongly, and for so long a period, to adopt the rites of the people they conquered.
The Israelites were not the only people who invaded the land of the Canaanites and stayed in it. Three such invasions took place: those of the Phenicians, of the Philistines, and of the Hebrews--the first and third being Semitic peoples, and perhaps the second also. The Philistines, settling on the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, had a Semitic religion, of which the fish-G.o.d Dagon, the Fly-Baal of Ekron, and the Ashtoreth, probably of Ascalon, are known figures. The Philistines, however, lost ultimately their separate character, and ceased to exist as an independent people. It will not be necessary for us to mention them again. The Phenicians, settling on the northern sea-board of Syria, where great trade routes to East and West converged, and where good harbours could be made, became a nation of merchants, and kept up active communication with the great kingdoms of the East, with Egypt, and with the islands and the distant sh.o.r.es of Western Europe. The carriers of the ancient world, they transmitted to Europe not only the spices and the fabrics but also the ideas and the practices of Asia, and rendered to the world the inestimable service of awaking the slumbering energies of the Aryan peoples to new life.
A short chapter may be devoted to the religion of the Canaanites and to that of the Phenicians, not because these were important in themselves, for in neither was there anything original or anything destined to survive, but because of the light they throw on other religions which were to have a great career. It was in conflict with the Canaanite religion that the faith of Israel first realised its true nature and was led to organise itself in a manner befitting its character. And from Phenicia both Israel and Greece accepted many a suggestion, both in external matters connected with worship and in matters of a deeper nature.
The religion of the Canaanites is well known to us from the Old Testament. It is such a system as we found that of the Semites to be, with certain peculiar developments, of which we have already seen something in our chapter on Babylonia. A local community recognises an invisible head, with whom it meets at the sacred spot, whom it regards as overlord or master, of whose favour it is in no doubt, and whom it serves with sacrifices and with lively manifestations of joy at certain fixed periods. The G.o.d is called Baal. This, however, is not a proper name but a t.i.tle; it means lord, master, and the Baal may have a name of his own in addition: we hear of Baal Peor, the lord of Peor, and of many another. Baals are spoken of in the plural; we read in Judges ii. 11 and in other pa.s.sages that the Israelites followed the Baals, that is the G.o.ds of the Canaanites. Each place has its own Baal, who is worshipped at the local sanctuary. The sanctuary is at an elevated spot outside the town or village, either on a natural eminence or on a mound artificially made for the purpose; these are the "high places" of the Old Testament; originally Canaanite places of worship, they drew to themselves also the worship of Israel. The apparatus of worship at these shrines is of a very simple nature. An upright stone represents the G.o.d; it is not a statue of him, being unhewn and having no resemblance to the human figure. He was supposed to come to the stone when meeting with his worshippers; and in the earliest times of Semitic religion this stone served the purpose of an altar: the gifts, which were not originally burned, were laid upon it, or the blood of the victim was applied to it. But besides the altar and the upright stone or _ma.s.sebah_ the Canaanite shrine had another piece of furniture. A ma.s.sive tree-trunk, fixed in the ground and with some of its branches perhaps still remaining, represented the female deity who is the invariable companion of the Baal. This is the Ashera of Canaan, a word which in the Authorised Version is translated "grove," after an error of the Vulgate, but which in the Revised Version is rightly left untranslated. (Judges iii. 7, vi. 25; 2 Kings xxiii. 6, there is one in the Temple at Jerusalem; etc.) The word Ashera is in such pa.s.sages the designation of the tree which stood to represent the G.o.ddess; whether it is ever the proper name of the G.o.ddess herself is doubtful. At any rate Ashera, like Baal, is not the name of one historic deity, but a name applied to the G.o.ddess of each place all over the country.
The character of Canaanite religion is clearly revealed in its apparatus of worship. We saw that the Babylonians added to many of the G.o.ds of their country a female counterpart, turning the name of the G.o.d into a feminine form (chapter vii., also chapter x.). In Canaan we find that Semitic worship is addressed to pairs of deities; there is a G.o.d and a G.o.ddess at each shrine. While it would be wrong to regard this as the general type of Semitic religion,--our chapter on that subject points to a different conclusion, and the great G.o.ds of Phenicia, of Moab, and of Israel are solitary beings,--we must recognise that the worship of G.o.d and G.o.ddess was widespread in Semitic peoples. In Canaan it is not difficult to understand it. We have here the worship of an agricultural community; and as the Baal is the lord of the soil and the author of its fertility, who is ent.i.tled to receive the first-fruits, so the Ashera is the fertile matron who represents the principle of increase. The Old Testament leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of worship which was carried on at these shrines. The festivals were those of the farmer"s calendar; the Baal is presented with the first-fruits of corn and wine and oil, in the midst of general feasting and boisterous merry-making. His consort, on the other hand, is served with rites applying in the most direct manner the principle she represents. The shrine has a staff of female attendants for this part of the service of religion. The rustic worship of Palestine thus shows us a side of the religion of Western Asia which we know from other sources to have been widely diffused. A female deity like the Babylonian Ishtar (chapter vii.), is served with impure rites in great cities as well as in country districts, and her worship spread westwards with other Eastern products. She is found as Baalit, as Mylitta,[1] as Astarte; the Greeks call her Aphrodite, and her horrid worship found entrance in various Greek cities.
[Footnote 1: Herod. i. 199.]
To the Israelites the worship of Canaan proved a great temptation (Numbers xxv.), but they gradually rose above it. The Phenicians also came to have G.o.ds of a much higher character, and of these also we must speak. The Phenicians were not original in their religion any more than in their art; their religion began with the ordinary Semitic notions as these had been applied by the older population in Syria, and they improved it by borrowing from various parts of the world with which they trafficked. So various were their borrowings that it is impossible to draw up a consistent system of their G.o.ds.
One town has one set of G.o.ds, another town another, and the same deity wears different and even opposite characters in different places. All that can be done is to single out a few features which we can see to have been on the whole characteristic of Phenician religion, and to have enabled it to influence the worship of other peoples.
The Phenicians were very much in earnest about the maintenance of state and of religion. In their successive city-states of Sidon, Tyre, and Carthage, we see them exhibiting an intense devotion to the commonwealth, and very much under the influence of their priesthood.
Semitic religion tends to grow more sombre and intense as it develops; and the Phenicians, while still holding the principle of a G.o.d and G.o.ddess, concentrate their worship more and more on a single divine figure, and come to regard that figure from a greater distance and with greater awe. The liberal and easy-going Baals and Asheras of agricultural life are not suited to the temple of a great commercial city; a figure of more dignity is wanted. And thus above the crowd of Baals there appears the Moloch or king, a much greater being and requiring a much statelier service. Moloch also is not originally a proper name; there are various Molochs or king-G.o.ds who rise above the Baals, and the individuals have special designations, as Melcarth, "king of the city." This type of deity occurs not with the Phenicians only, but with several other Syrian peoples about the same time. The Moloch of Sidon and Tyre is a being of the same character as the chief G.o.ds of Moab, Ammon, and Israel. He has to do not only with the blessings of agricultural life, but with state and government. He is the founder of a state; he is the inventor of navigation and of purple; he is the first king; when a colony is sent out, it goes with his approval, and he himself leads the expedition; he is the dread ruler whom none must disobey; the majesty, the power, and the enterprise of the state are all embodied in him. And as the king-G.o.d is far above the landlord-G.o.d in power, he is infinitely removed from him in character also. The chief G.o.ds of Sidon and Tyre have nothing luxurious or effeminate about them. They are strict and awful beings, and must not be incautiously approached. They retain their primitive character as sources of life, but they are destroyers of life as well. Pure and holy themselves, they require purity and holiness in all who draw near to them. Their priests are celibates, their priestesses virgins. They require sacrifices of a very different nature from those of the Baals, more costly and more dreadful. Human sacrifices appear to have been a regular feature of their worship: when the Israelites turn to the worship of Phenician G.o.ds, or when they copy Phenician practices, we hear of their "making their children pa.s.s through the fire"--that is, offering them up as burnt-sacrifices. The Moloch requires what is most costly as a sacrifice, or what will cause the strongest thrill of terror in his worship. Even the first-born child is not to be kept back from him (2 Kings xxiii. 10, Jerem. vii. 31, cf. Micah vi. 7).
So far the origin of the Phenician G.o.ds is simple. They are purely Semitic deities, formed on the pattern of human rulers and deriving their attributes from that character. When a state becomes highly organised before it is quite civilised in other respects, its religion is apt to be stern and cruel; of this various instances may be found in the history of religion, and the present is one of them.
The Phenician G.o.ds were of such a character as to favour the survival of savage practices; the Semite, as we saw, is extremely matter-of-fact and practical in his religion, and a G.o.d who was a king would receive the same kind of offerings as the king of Sidon or of Tyre was accustomed to. A strict and dreadful religion thus survives beyond the savage state; pleasure is taken in trampling on natural feelings and in setting forth shocking spectacles at the bidding of the deity.
Astral Deities of Phenicia.--It is not possible to arrange in a system the remaining phenomena of Phenician religion. In the historical period the G.o.ds have another character besides that of being heads and rulers of communities. They are connected with the heavenly bodies. The chief G.o.d, whatever name he bears, El, Baal, Moloch, Rimmon, or Adonis, is always the sun. A sun-G.o.d may have come from Egypt or Babylon, but there is no reason why the Phenicians may not have had a sun-G.o.d from the first, whose character spread to their other deities. And in accordance with the tendency above spoken of, the sun-G.o.d has a consort. Sometimes his consort is the earth; and then we have a sensuous and immoral worship such as that of the Canaanites. Sometimes it is the moon; her name is Astarte or Ashtoreth, and she is a very different being from the Ashera of Canaan; the names are not the same, and the characters are opposite.
Ashtoreth, like the primitive Semitic G.o.ddess (chapter x.), is a chaste matron; she is represented robed and in stately att.i.tude, and is a fit companion for the strict Moloch of the cities. Her worship is described to us by Jeremiah, in whose time the matrons of Jerusalem made cakes for her and poured out drink-offerings and burned incense to her as the "queen of heaven"; all this was done with the knowledge and co-operation of their husbands, so that the worship had nothing immoral about it. This strict G.o.ddess is not to be identified with Istar of Babylonia, although the names are alike.
Istar is not a moon-G.o.ddess like Ashtoreth; in Babylonia, in fact, the moon is masculine, and the characters of the two G.o.ddesses are opposite. The Sidonian Astarte and the Canaanite Ashera represent two opposing types of female deity, both of which may possibly have their reflections in Greece--the latter in the lower forms of the worship of Aphrodite, and the former in the figures of such strict maiden G.o.ddesses as Artemis and Athene.
Another worship which prevailed in Phenicia should not be left unnoticed--that of the Cabiri. There were temples of the Cabiri in several of the towns; their worship, however, was secret, and little was known of it even in antiquity. We know at all events that the Cabiri were seven in number, and the number is thought to be connected, not with the seven planets, but with the seven heavenly spheres of early astronomy. They have a head called Eshmun, who is the G.o.d of the eighth or highest sphere. The Cabiri are beings of a moral character; they are not only mighty ones and creators, but they are the children of Sydyk--that is, of Righteousness; and they give counsel. It is here that the tendency to speculative exaltation of the deity appears in Phenicia; but there is little of it, and neither in this direction nor in that of morals was the religion destined to have any remarkable growth. The service of the G.o.ds was so closely identified with the service of the state,--for either the priest and the king were one, as in Israel after the exile, or nothing could be done without the priesthood,--that no independent religious development was possible. In a theocracy religion cannot grow, at least it cannot be openly acknowledged to do so; and the prophet and reformer finds every influence arrayed against him.
How greatly Israel was indebted to Phenician art is known to all. It was by artificers from Tyre that Solomon"s royal buildings were planned and executed, when he had married a daughter of Egypt and was compelled to aim at some magnificence. A royal temple formed part of these buildings, and was necessarily erected according to the ideas which prevailed in the more advanced neighbouring kingdoms. It was from the same source that the Greeks a century or two later drew suggestions for their sacred architecture; and thus we find that the ground-plan of Solomon"s temple and that of the Greek temple are closely similar. Both are to be traced ultimately to the model derived by the Phenicians from Egypt. And those who borrowed from Phenicia the form of their temple, borrowed many other things too. In the porch of Solomon"s temple stood two great pillars of bronze, which were called Jachin and Boaz; they were simply the symbols which stood at the entrance to every Phenician temple of the sun-G.o.d worshipped there. The priests of Israel were dressed like those of Tyre and Sidon; they offered the same animals as sacrifices, they received the same dues for their maintenance. When so much apparatus was borrowed, it is no wonder that the G.o.ds of Phenicia were at times worshipped at Jerusalem. We see from this whole chapter that the religion of Israel was not so much apart from that of the other Syrian peoples as we have been wont to imagine. Even in his religion Israel owed something to his neighbours; his religion came to be better than theirs, but it was the result of a movement in which they also had taken part.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED
The Histories of Antiquity. E. Meyer, Duncker (see p. 101).
Tiele"s _Egyptische en Mesopotamische G.o.dsdiensten_. Book II.: Phenicia and Israel.
The Histories of Israel, especially Kuenen, _The Religion of Israel_.
F. Jeremias, in De la Saussaye, vol. i. pp. 348-383.
E. Meyer, "Phenicia," in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_.
CHAPTER XII ISRAEL
It is a circ.u.mstance of the greatest value for the science of religion that the Old Testament is so well known. That book is the most valuable literary storehouse we possess of the facts and ideas connected with the early religion of mankind; it is the best text-book of the earlier portion of our subject. In our chapters on primitive worship, as well as in that on the Semites, we have drawn largely from this source, and for the earlier stages of the religion of Israel we may refer to these chapters. We have now, however, to deal specially with the religion of the Old Testament, and to endeavour to show, as has been done in other cases, what was its specific character, and how its character determined its history. The story to be told in this chapter is, even apart from our special interest in it, as fascinating as any in this volume; it was through a mental movement of unparalleled grandeur, as well as through an outward history of tragic and entrancing interest, that the Jews came to possess the religion which was the desire of all nations, and the chief preparation for Christianity.
We have to begin, however, with repeating in this case what has been and will be the burden of our opening paragraphs in many chapters of this book, namely that the traditional ideas about the nature of this religion require to be corrected, and that its sacred books as they now stand do not accurately represent its history. The Old Testament literature has suffered in a high degree what seems to be the predestined fate of every set of sacred books. Old materials and new are mixed up together in it; many works have been revised by later editors, and so much changed, that laborious critical processes are necessary before they can be used by the historian. In forming his first impressions as to the relations the books bear to each other, and as to the purport of the whole, the reader is naturally guided by the order in which he finds them; but the order in which the sacred books of the Jews stand in the Old Testament was fixed from a peculiar point of view at a late age in Jewish history, and is in many respects quite unnatural and misleading. To come to particulars; the Old Testament as it stands suggests that the Law was the earliest product of Jewish literature, and that all the details of ritual, as well as of moral and social duty, were fixed for the Jews at the very outset of their history; and it suggests that the books of the prophets were written last. This, till quite recently, was generally believed to be the case, but by the labours of a series of ill.u.s.trious scholars of the Old Testament the conclusion has been reached, which is now less and less disputed, that the earlier prophetic books come first in chronological order, and that the law, which is not all of one piece, but contains a number of codes of different periods, together with a collection of legends and traditions drawn from various quarters and subjected to editorial treatment, did not a.s.sume the form in which we have it till after the exile. The historical books, in which no doubt various ancient pieces are embodied, were written under the inspiration of prophetic ideas; and the latest books of all are those which stand in the centre of the Old Testament in the English Bible; the Psalter, which had been growing during a long period before it came to contain its present number of pieces, the books of morals and philosophy, and the book of Job. Daniel belongs to the period of the Maccabees. The historian, therefore, starts from the age of the prophets of the eighth century B.C. The writings of these great men afford a graphic picture of their time, and an entirely trustworthy account of the mental furniture Israel then possessed. From this fixed point the student is able to infer what happened to Israel in earlier times, and to judge of the spirit in which the early history of the people was afterwards written and edited. The history of Israel which the student arrives at after these critical processes differs, it is true, in very important respects from that which appears at first sight on the face of the Bible. But the same thing has occurred in the case of other nations. The sacred books of Persia also have to be turned outside in before they furnish the historian with an account he can accept. Even of the speeches of Mohammed the same is true. Those who undertake the task of codifying sacred literatures have to consider the purpose to which the books are to be put in the community, and to arrange them so as best to serve that purpose; they do not ask, How must they be arranged so as to exhibit the true sequence of the history?--that interest only arises much later--but, How will they best serve the needs of the community? The order of books in sacred collections is, therefore, fixed by practical considerations, now of one kind and now of another, and not according to the requirements of the student of history. We now proceed to give the outline of the history of the religion of Israel as it appears in the light of recent critical investigation.
Israel consisted originally of a group of tribes, bound together by the memory of a great deliverance they had experienced in common, and of battles in which they had fought side by side. Accustomed to the free life of shepherds, they had been enslaved in Egypt and held to intolerable tasks; but they had made their escape in a wonderful manner under a leader who had known how to kindle them to heroic efforts by reminding them of their religious traditions. Under his leadership they had visited the Sinaitic peninsula after leaving Egypt, and had wandered in the regions to the north of Sinai, till at last they conquered territory to the east of Jordan, on which some of them settled, while others crossed the Jordan, and took up their abodes among the Canaanite tribes whom they found there.
The nation and the religion came into the world at the same time.
Although the tribes retained their separate G.o.ds and religious observances, and families among them also had their own family cults, the bond by which they had been formed into a people and made capable of common action was stronger than these earlier ties; the G.o.d whom Moses proclaimed as their head inspired in them an enthusiasm and vigour unknown before. His name was Yahweh, and is said to have a metaphysical meaning, and to designate the G.o.d as more really existing than any other. This is doubted; what is certain is that Moses declared that Yahweh promised to be with the tribes, and that they took him for their G.o.d. Jehovah, to use the more familiar form of the name, was perhaps the G.o.d of the most powerful of the tribes; he was probably a nature-G.o.d, and connected with storms and thunder, and he had his seat at Mount Sinai. Thither the tribes repaired to hold a solemn meeting with him; from there he was afterwards represented as coming forth when about to do any mighty act for his people. He is thought of as a being who cannot be seen, since he dwells in clouds and darkness. He utters his voice in thunder and storm; he is possessed of irresistible energy which he unfolds in battle, and in which he causes his people to share when he goes before them to war. But he is also a G.o.d of counsel, and takes the greatest interest in the moral and social life of his people. His human representatives, aided by his spirit, settle disputes which are laid before them, and p.r.o.nounce authoritative counsels on difficult matters. This kind of guidance is constantly going on, so that Jehovah is felt to be watching over the conduct of his people, and to be an effective helper and guide in their domestic concerns, which not every G.o.d attends to, as well as in their meetings with their enemies.
The Early Ritual was Simple.--In all this we have a very apt example of the advance which, as we saw in a former chapter, religion makes when it becomes national instead of merely tribal; when the great G.o.d of the nation takes his place above the G.o.ds of the tribes. In Israel, however, it is not the case that the national religion, when it appears, at once develops a higher style of worship, and draws attention to itself by greater pomp and deeper solemnity of form. The priestly legislation of Exodus and Leviticus, indeed, represents this as having been the case. Here the tribes have scarcely adopted the service of Jehovah, when an army of thousands of priests is called into being, for whose maintenance elaborate provision is made, and a splendid and highly-organised worship is arranged. This directory of worship, however, most scholars are agreed, never was in operation till after the exile: we see in it the worship which Ezra and his fellow-scribes aimed at introducing in the second temple at Jerusalem. The worship of the wilderness and of the early period of Israel in Canaan was of a very different nature. The leading features and principles of it differed little from what we have described in former parts of this book (chapter v., chapter x.). It was conducted according to custom rather than statute, and its leading characteristic was that it was a common meal at which the G.o.d was present along with his worshippers, and a.s.surances were given that the good understanding still continued which bound the tribesmen to their G.o.d and each other. It was by the person of his G.o.d rather than by a more elaborate worship, or a more numerous priesthood, that Israel was distinguished from Moab and Ammon.
Contact with Canaanite Religion.--After being delivered out of Egypt by the power of Jehovah, and entering Canaan, Israel was placed in a position in which it is wonderful, indeed, that the national character and the national religion were not merged in those of the surrounding population. Bringing with them the few ideas and the scanty appliances of the wilderness, they found themselves dwelling amid a people whose civilisation was fully formed, and who possessed a comparatively elaborate worship. The tribes of Canaan spoke the same language, and were of the same race with themselves, but had advanced to the higher life of agriculture and of cities. Their worship was the same in principle as that of Israel, but it had a higher organisation. The land was studded with sacred places, the sanct.i.ty of which Israel could not deny, and which formed centres of pilgrimage and worship. The worship of the Canaanites was described in last chapter (chapter xi.); the reader will remember the upright stone (ma.s.seba) representing the Baal, and the tree-trunk (ashera), if there was no living tree, representing the G.o.ddess. If all this or most of it was new to the Israelites, so was the sacred year which fixed the seasons of worship in Canaan. Minor festivals were fixed by the appearance of the new moon, or by the regular return of the seventh day (it is doubtful if the Sabbath was observed in the wilderness, it is connected with agriculture, and is scarcely compatible with pastoral life); greater ones by the epochs of the year, such as harvest and vintage. The worship connected with agriculture in the early world is of a noisy and frantic order; and where G.o.ds are worshipped who are connected with fertility, it is apt, as we saw, to be marked by s.e.xual features.
Danger of Fusion.--The Israelites were naturally prompted to adopt what they could of the religion of the Canaanites. The old sacred places of the land, whether connected with their own ancestral traditions or not, they could not help adopting; it would have been strange, indeed, if, when they became agriculturists, they had not adopted the agricultural festivals; and if, as was natural, they regarded the Baal of the Canaanite as the lord of the land and the giver of its fertility, their thanks for the harvest would be addressed to him (Hosea ii. 8). Their worship of Jehovah could not be left poorer than that which their neighbours addressed to Baal; for it also they erected asheras and made use of standing stones, and of Jehovah also they had images. One of these, which was destroyed by Hezekiah, was in the form of a serpent: in other places Jehovah was worshipped under the form of a bull. Where an image of him was kept, he could be consulted by means of lots or in other ways. The ark or chest which was kept at one of the more important shrines, represented him most fully; it was carried into battle, and he was thought to go with it.