Kic.,Liijfl Q^ r\. ■Y^ E M. .5' AlvING A^ UTH 'i" *' i ' i> Mil If 1 '■^^l ill l' ! •h . , , :. ''-•'ti'' 1 'iir:- t rl;*; *!!''. .;'i=!'; 1 ''iiiii!(i "'' " jv:,!;r. ■ Division 'B^ W *^ (o Section .4-. SGB RELIGION IN THE MAKING THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd TORONTO THE RELIGION IN MAKING A Study in Biblical Sociology SAMUEL G. SMITH, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D. HEAD PROFESSOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1910 AM rights reserved Copyright 1909 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Printed January, 1910 THE MASON-HENRY press SYRACUSE, NEW YORK FOREWORD For nearly twenty years I have been teaching sociology to the upper classmen in the University of Minnesota. During about the same length of time I have been teaching the Bible to special classes in connection with the Peoples Church of St. Paul. It was not until ten years ago that the thought occurred to me that there is anything in common between these two departments of labor. About that time I formed the opinion that sociology might prove one of the best instruments for the interpretation of the Bible, and that, on the other hand, the Bible might prove to be one of the best sources of sociological material. My subsequent studies have been largely influenced by this con- clusion. During two winters I pursued the joint study with selected companies of students. The work seemed so promising that four years ago I offered work in biblical sociology to my classes in the university. This book is a condensation of a part of the work done in the university classes. The survey of the subject will be completed by an- other volume in the course of preparation dealing vi FOREWORD with the domestic, poHtical, and industrial life of the Hebrews. I have avoided notes, debates, and citation of authorities, in the interest of brevity and clearness. Acknowledgrpent of obHgations to various authorities will be made in the bij^liography which accompanies this work. The book, however, is a fresh study at first hand of the Bible in the light of the principles of sociology. So far as I know, the term "biblical sociology" was first used in my announcements. It has since been adopted by two or three other writers. Samuel G. Smith St. Paul CONTENTS Chap. Page I. Some Aspects of the Religious Problem.. i II. Science of Sociology 15 III. The Social Value of Religion 23 IV. Scientific Views of the Bible 33 V. The Land and the People 41 VI. Development of the Idea of God 57 VII. Sacred Persons: The Making of the Priest.. 90 The Tribe of Levi 107 Development of the Prophets no VIII. Sacred Places: The Altar 114 The High Places 121 The Temple 127 The Synagogue 140 IX. Sacred Services : Early Sacrifices 143 The Religion of Fasting 157 Ritual of the Temples 162 X. Sacred Objects: The Ark 180 Other Sacred Materials 188 XI. Sacred Days i97 XII. Hebrew Conception of Sanctity 210 XIII. Some Resultant Conclusions 226 Bibliography 244 Index 247 vu KELiaiON IN THE MAKING CHAPTER I SOME ASPECTS OF THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM The beauty of the lily is not challenged because it grows out of the muck. The roots of all the social values in the world are planted in darkness and ignorance. Men have only grown wise by the rejection of their mistakes. The true interpretation of history is not found by emphasis of the ignorance and the weakness of early men, but rather in remembering that we are forevermore their debtors because out of their lowly experiences have grown the beautiful forms of goodness and of truth. The study of the world's experience breeds hope for the future because of faith in the past. One of the greatest influences in modern life flows from the Hebrew life and literature. The present need is to frankly acknowledge our obligation rather than to discover wherein the Hebrew was weak or at fault. To discover what our debt is to the Hebrew I I 2 RELIGION IN THE MAKING people it is necessary to investigate their history and to learn what ideas and institutions they have given worthy of becoming part of the permanent inheritance of the world. Every age has some religious problems and some ages have many religious problems. These prob- lems arise because new individuals are born to refresh the life of the race. These individuals must be taught the faith of their fathers, but there will be some of them who wish to make changes. The pressure of strong men is the great force in society that makes for social changes. It has been agreed, on the whole, that these social changes are to be called progress. There is decay and death, no doubt, in the social order. Peoples and civilizations perish because they are unfit for the struggle of existence. But the whole history of the world taken together indicates to us more clearly than it did to Hegel the definite if not steady progress in human institutions. Some ages are characterized by great religious unrest and others by great intellectual disturbance. Intellectual disturbances born of new knowledge bring always a time of debate. The children of the new day fling out their challenges to the various forms of the social inheritance. In these times the creeds are put upon the rack, but not the creeds of religion any more than the creeds of science or of THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 3 politics. Readjustments must be made. In making them changes occur, and the period which brings the most disturbance to the conservative mind is the period which, at last, results in the greatest advantage to the world. We are at the close of an era of the greatest intellectual disturbance that the world has ever known. The time has seen vast changes in government, and the creation of nearly all the modern constitutions, as well as the re-crea- tion of every form of scientific knowledge. Re- ligion could not escape, and the storm that has broken over all churches in all lands is the severest since the Reformation, and will doubtless be re- garded in time to come as one of the most tre- mendous in all human history. The men of tradition while accepting as much of the new knowledge as they can use in their fields of work, wish to either reject altogether the new influ- ence upon religious faith, or, at least, to reduce it to its lowest terms. Scholars quite universally condemn the traditionalist. He has gradually been elbowed out of all the universities and his place is vacant among the seats of the mighty. The schol- ars say that traditionalism is dead; that all the old views of inspiration and revelation with their accompanying dogmas can no longer be held by the sincere mind. Meantime the man of traditions 4 RELIGION IN THE MAKING seems to have a strange hold upon the multitude. The scholars say that it is because the multitude is not yet sufficiently instructed, but that is not the reason. It is rather because the man of tradition is frequently very sincere and very strong in his own religious life. In spite of absurdities of thought and ridiculous mistakes of fact, the people are moved by any man who seems intoxicated with a passion for their good. Such a man does not speak like the scribes, and he conquers by fresh enthusiasm while he fails in fresh knowledge. The fundamental reason for his power is that religion is something essential to human nature. The biblical critic has had his word, and with his weapons he has driven panic-stricken hosts under the shelter of the fortresses of antiquity. He has taken the Bible and dismembered it book by book and piece by piece. He has counted and lettered the documents. He has even printed the different authorities in different colors, and with much real ability and a great deal of sound scholarship he has demanded his right to be heard. At this point he cannot be gainsaid, but the trouble with the critic is that he has not done enough. He has dethroned the old Bible but he has not enthroned any new oracle. His successes have saddened the world. If the critic has put to flight his enemies, he has also THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 5 greatly disappointed his friends. He has brought neither peace nor comfort. Some of the work of the critic will doubtless remain, but the permanent results will take their place as material for the upbuilding of a new temple for the living faith of a living present. The evolutionist comes into the field of religion as he comes into every other field of human action to give a universal law by which every kind of his- tory is explained. Matter, life, man, institutions, begin simply and become complex. They begin indefinite in form and become definite both in organ and in function. So far as this principle is applicable, it sheds wonderful light on the history of the universe in general, but most of all upon the history of this world in particular. But most evolutionists lack vision and have very little imag- ination. They do not see the limits of the law which has been discovered. They do not see that though the law of evolution in some form or other may become more universal than even that of gravitation, it leaves untouched at last the funda- mental problems of life and of religion. The ordinary evolutionist thinks that he is rid of God to-day and that he will be rid of religion to-morrow. But the discovery of a process, however wide- spread, is no inquiry into power of any kind, and 6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING a law may be universal in its applicability to the visible world and have little meaning for the psychical experiences of the race. The ethnologist is one of our most interesting modern acquisitions. He studies and compares the customs, laws, habits, and manners of peoples, kin- dreds and tongues. He studies the apparatus of religion as among the most interesting remains from bygone days. He finds resemblances among tribes so remote from each other that no historic contact has been possible. The curious thing about the ethnologist is that if he finds customs in some other religion that bear a strong resemblance to something in the Bible, he feels quite sure that he has rendered the biblical fact of no special im- portance. He sees the tremendous influence of religion as a human experience in all the forms of human history, but he thinks that while from the religious instinct and tradition have come agri- culture, the practical arts, and the fine arts, since he has found religion to be a universal experience, one religion is just as worthless as another, and having done their work in the world, they will all pass away. But the ethnologist does not tell us when religion, which is the life in the engine, is dead, by what new power or authority he will work new miracles of history. THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 7 Grateful to the men of tradition, to the critic, to the evolutionist, and to the ethnologist, for all they have done, this study seeks to claim some gift from each of them in order to make a study of Hebrew institutions under the influence of the science of sociology. From any point of view there are serious diffi- culties in the scientific study of human kind. It is sometimes even asserted that there are no human sciences, and there are not in the sense of the multi- plication table and the binomial theorem. The studies of life are all more intricate than the study of matter. The higher the form of organization, the more complex it is, and the wider the range of its activities. Man is the most complex form of life. His motives and desires, his hopes and fears, his loves and hates, set him as far apart from every other animal as though he belonged to another world. Perhaps he does. It may some time be admitted that there is a transcendent element in man which defies scientific analysis. But though our knowledge of him may be incomplete, he will remain the most interesting creature in the world. The study of the group, or men in the mass, gives us more definite results. We learn to trace the genesis of institutions and to find that certainly in r,ome matters this human being so elusive is yet 8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING put under law. It is the business of science to observe social facts and forces and to study the sequence of events. Early studies of men made perhaps too much of the external resemblances be- tween the institutions of different peoples. These resemblances are very convenient for purposes of classification. They enable us to group and relate our -facts, but they must not be too much depended upon for definite results. Many houses, for example, look much alike, but the homes which they shelter within are leagues apart in dignity and beauty. It is the spirit within the thing which gives it value. Another difficulty which must be frankly ad- mitted is that much of the material in the Bible is foreign to our modern life. There is a strangeness about Palestine itself from which the traveler can- not escape. He is at home, it may be, in Paris and Berlin, but he remains a stranger in Jerusalem or Damascus. It is not easy for the western mind to get the point of view of the orient. The eastern mind was so large, so vague, it covered so much emotion, it had such gift of imagination. It brooded and dreamed and often closed its eyes and sat still for long periods of time. Europeans wish definiteness, system, order. These things are not found in the Bible. The very lack of system, the THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 9 indefiniteness of dates which were normal enough to the men who wrote the Bible, made their work, particularly under scientific scrutiny, a good deal like a confusion of tongues. Mindful at least of some of the difficulties of the task, the object of this study is to examine the various methods by which the Hebrews expressed their religious life, to note whether there were changes and developments in the history of that life, and for this purpose the altar, the priest, the ritual, and the other instruments of the religion of the Bible are to be examined. In harmony with the best modern thinking we must attempt to gather some knowledge of the psychical forces back of these visible expressions, and out of the record to evoke the soul of this religion — its idea of God. The problem of the Old Testament from the point of view of sociology must be separated from the Christian problem. It is an effort to conceive the Old Testament history as it really was before Christianity, to note its characteristics and to reckon its values. Since environment is an important element in the development of a nation, we must take a glance at the land and the people in order to find setting for the work. The method will be to accept the facts stated in lO RELIGION IN THE MAKING the Bible as substantially correct, but to select them under a system that will seek to organize the facts and relate them to different periods of his« torical unfolding. It may be frankly admitted that many problems will be left untouched, but the task, if successful, should prove an introduction to a valuable way of looking at the Bible. No intelli- gent person should shrink from the scrutiny of the religious beginnings any more than from the early conditions of any other form of social life. As the study of biology gathers beauty in the eyes of its votary as he sees in lower forms of life a prophecy of beings much higher in the scale, so all human origins are of interest to the patient student of the conditions surrounding early men. The genetic idea of history furnishes a new set of values. The etching of a mammoth made by a pre-historic hand in a bone cave is vastly more important to the his- tory of civilization than any Madonna painted by the hand of Raphael. We need a new notion of validity. The discov- ery of progress in the Bible does not make it less a divine book than it was before. Nay, the history of the progress may be so conceived as to render the story more divine. The value of human inter- pretation must always depend upon the correctness of a man's knowledge of his facts and the wisdom THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM n with which he combines them. The honest inter- pretation of fact by the social man, that is to say by the common mind of any social group, is doubt- less better for that group than a wiser interpreta- tion would be. It is what this social man can understand and it is what he needs to know. This view covers the whole range of human affairs. Nature has been variously interpreted both by individuals and by peoples. And all these different readings ultimately flow into that thing which we call science. But they are written down one above the other until human experience of nature is a great palimpsest in which the former theories are studied only that their places may be usurped. Equally the interpretation of what is the proper method of conducting human life has given rise to standards of conduct. Man has not changed phys- ically since the earliest ages. His world is here. He has had his various personal and social ques- tions to ask and to answer, and the interpretations vary from that of the brute man to the highest moral creed of the purest sage. Let no one despise the work of the brute man. Nothing ever written by saint or philosopher is so wonderful as these dim awakenings of the child conscience through which the race learned by painful effort to set 12 RELIGION IN THE MAKING bounds to passion and to live under law that men might develop as social beings. The various interpretations of religion grow out of variations in human life and experience. The beginnings of religion are as crude as the begin- nings of government. The state began in the per- son of some one man who took the lead of his clan in time of battle or distress because he was stronger and wiser than the rest. The state died when the crisis passed and with each new need it was revived again by some new leader. So read also the stories of the Judges of Israel. This flickering of authority and insecurity of power make us marvel not the less but the more at the splendid dignity and usefulness of the modern state. Its constitution and laws, its officers and its authority, are not weakened by the humbleness of the origin of political institutions. The institutions of religion began when men in a common service sought to express a common need and to seek a common good. These began to be visible and organized when men made some spot where they had worshiped before, a permanent trysting place for new appeals to the unseen powers. Religion in modern times is of no less value, and has no less truth and beauty because in the minds THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 13 of those far-off worshipers there were behefs and feeUngs which we now regard as superstitious. While we study the history of the Hebrews we are also slowly learning that God has never left Himself without a witness, but that through all men and by all faiths, He has been coming more and more into communion with the race. Any real faith in a real God must teach that all men are cared for by Him, all men share His life, and all men according to the measure of their need and their capacity receive His revelations. With respect to these problems one of the most illuminating questions to ask is "Was man active or passive in the making of religion?" This ques- tion is perhaps the most divisive that can be asked. It seems to separate men into naturalists and super- naturalists. The believer in the supernatural is wont to say that all the knowledge and worship in religion come as a direct gift from an active God to a passive man. The naturalist, on the other hand, would have us believe that the making of religion was done by an active man working largely upon material in his own heart and brain, and that God was either absent or passive in the perform- ance. It does not seem necessary to have these two camps divide religious men in modern times. The revelation of the thought and life of God could 14 RELIGION IN THE MAKING never rise above the knowledge and capacity of the man to whom it was revealed. This man, yearning with longing and hopes too great for speech, was sure to make many and many a mistake. He would often misunderstand even the voice of God Himself. 'Thus saith the Lord" cannot always oe trusted. Nevertheless through the travail of the generations men were active in cooperation with all their environment, physical and psychical, seek- ing to understand and to interpret. His reverence made man great. CHAPTER II SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY The modern science of sociology has furnished a method of interpretation for nearly every field of scientific inquiry. If it has not yet furnished itself with principles and methods of great defi- niteness, it has done more. It has furnished a point of view for the study of human activity of peculiar significance. History, economics, politics, and all human sciences have been brought into relation with each other to such an extent that the bound- aries of each have become uncertain and a nobler unity of knowledge seems emergent. For the purposes of this study it is necessary to define sociology in order to indicate the nature and scope of the science. This is the more necessary because the word has been used as the title of all kinds of theories and as the object of numerous reform programs. But it is a science and so deals with facts and their interpretation. It demands the inductive method. As the science of society it finds its social facts related to space and gives rise to social geography. It finds them in relation to IS l6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING time and hence there is a history of society. But it is not the isolated fact that is the object of inter- est. It is the social fact as one of a series. Acts tend to group themselves. Given a certain degree of development in the state, and correspondences are found in the form of the family and in the quality of religious institutions. Societies are not made, they grow. Society exhibits certain organs or institutions through which it does its work and expresses its life. Similarity of social organs does not mean that the two groups in comparison neces- sarily have a common origin or that one group has borrowed from the other. These social resem- blances mark a much profounder law, namely, that societies at similar stages of development, under similar conditions, manifest similar characteristics. The form of the family, that is, whether the home shelters one wife or several, is not based upon what we moderns call moral grounds so much as it is upon the supply of food products and the economic and political organization of the group. Nor does this statement mean that ethical motives are not universal and profoundly significant. Sociology may be defined as a study of the agents, processes, results, and tendencies of social development. The active agents are human beings, and a study of them as related to the history of any SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY 17 form of society is much more than the taking of a census to find their numbers or the studying of their race in order to ascertain their quality, though these facts are each important. A social group must be distinguished from the forms of social institutions through which it works. It is a body of people, large or small, with common social inter- ests, who live and work together. The size of the group will depend upon the fer- tility of the soil, the extent of the territory, but most of all upon the degree of culture. Abundance of food is necessary to any civilization. Surplus food makes the artisan, the merchant, and the artist possible, but cultural development is necessary to provide social organs at once sufficiently complex and sufficiently elastic to meet the needs of rich and varied forms of living. It is agreed by students of the question that low-grade people can only live in small groups, no matter what their other advantages. The organization of the group must increase in definiteness as it increases in size. The clan may have a small organization, but the tribe is more than a group of clans. Each clan in the tribe may maintain its own special organization, but all the clans in the tribe must unite in a common life and organization, or there is no tribe. A tribe may get along with a ritual of life ordered by inherited cus- l8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING torn, but when the tribe becomes a nation, custom becomes law and the exercise of power is regulated to such degree that in effect every nation possesses a constitution whether it be a written document or not. The agents of social evolution must be studied as a social group, but it must be remembered that the group is fashioned by the place where it lives, for that furnishes soil, natural resources, climate and occupation. But it would be a very meager account of a social group to furnish a full statement of its physical surroundings and to give a complete analysis of its social organization. The strength of a group consists in the number of interests which it holds in common. When it has one history, one custom, one religion, one land, and when it has also a practical equality of economic conditions, the group is strong in a social sense, though it may have neither army for defense nor large natural resources for its activities. But not alone must these things be considered. There is a further matter more difficult of definition as It Is harder to put in scientific form. And that is the study of the soul of the social group. The common faiths, aspirations, ideas, and hopes of a people are its essential life. These may manifest themselves in SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY 19 action, in literature, or in both. Very similar physi- cal surroundings may be occupied by very unlike social groups, nay, the same country with its rivers, mountains, and plains, may be occupied by succes- sive groups vastly different both in structure and in action. The social group reacts upon the individuals which compose it and tends to give to each indi- vidual not only practical methods for living, as toiler, student, and worshiper, but also to pour into him as far as he is able to receive it, the whole psychical content of its inherited life. In some groups there are found individuals impatient of the past and with sufficient strength to resist, or even to lead, the entire body of people. Among some peoples these supermen are very infrequent. In the lower groups they are entirely absent. But the group which is richest in available leadership rises in the scale of organized life and becomes increas- ingly important. Great races have produced great individuals who have been the makers of social variation, — that is, of progress. The great men were not all of one sort. Some fought battles and some made laws. Some were skilful in practical affairs and some touched harps to new music. The influence of group upon group became more important as the world began to be filled. It was 20 RELIGION IN THE MAKING not always easy for wise Abraham to send Lot and his cattle in some other direction because the whole land lay before him. As men passed from the nomad state as hunters or shepherds, built for themselves houses, cultivated the soil, took up defi- nite occupations, and saturated the whole of life with local color, the action and reaction of the types of social life became increasingly impressive. When alien races and diverse faiths confronted each other, it might not always be the cause of war, but it was always the occasion of psychical conflict. Israel by the Nile or near the Euphrates must reckon with Egyptian or with Persian. It must be noted that the deeper the contrast between the forms of life, the more significant the impact. Turk and Armenian are each different and each worse because the fortunes of history have brought them into relationship, but Germany and England are each greater because of the other. So much has been said of the agents of social development, it will not be needful to linger at length upon the other parts of the definition of sociology. A study of the processes of social development marks the action and reaction of the group upon its physical surroundings, its increase in size, the changes in form and content of its physical inherit- SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY 21 ance, the influences of war and peace, the growth of leaders and of leadership, and, in brief, the whole physiology of the social life. The results of social development are realized in institutions. In the earlier forms of history they are often only rudimentary. Even the three pri- mary institutions, the family, the church, and the state, are often confused one with the other. The larger the group and the wider the range of its activities, the greater the number of its institutions and the more definite are the tasks assigned to each of them. Nor must an institution be regarded as anything else than a living thing. It has its growth, undergoes its changes, and does its work. The larger the group and the richer its life, the greater is the number of its institutions and the more per- fectly are they related one to the other. The great- est fact in human history is the final evolution of the state as the dominant form of social organiza- tion. But the supremacy of the state is so modern that it may almost be called a startling innovation. Having studied the agents of social development, marked its processes, and reckoned with its results, there remains only the examination of its tenden- cies. These of course will be diflferent at different times in the life of the social group and each group will differ from every other. In a study of the 22 RELIGION IN THE MAKING tendencies of social evolution, the historian becomes prophet, and he may be even a scientific prophet, surely a new thing among men, if he can compare the social group of which he speaks with other social groups, an older past, and a more venerable development. But the chief value of the study of the tendencies of social development is not to lead men to submit blindly to what has always happened. It is rather to stir their creative faculty and to quicken in them a sense of obligation to repeat the victories and to avoid the mistakes of those who have gone before. Sociology is more than an instru- ment for the interpretation of history. It aspires to be counselor and guide to the leaders of men. The outstanding fact in human history is the march of the race toward opportunity and freedom. The early man was largely influenced by climate and soil. The cultivated man builds for himself, not alone houses for shelter, but all manner of con- ventions against the brute tyrannies of matter and of force. He not only has a wider fauna than any other animal, but he has also enriched his diet from every corner of the globe. So he seeks to make every op- portunity and every possession available in every place. Neither men nor nations have yet realized upon the great gift of freedom. But the triumphant psychical man will one day be king of the world. CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL VALUE OF RELIGION What Schopenhauer calls the "will to live" has certain definite methods of fulfilment. The pri- mary activity of every living being is to satisfy hunger for food. In order that life may be per- petuated, it has been necessary that the next satisfaction is sex hunger. These two desires pro- vide for the continuance of the individual and the perpetuation of the species. But they are both animal desires and are shared by men with all the lower forms of life. These two hungers are primary, universal, necessary. Speech is sometimes regarded as the distinctive human achievement, but if by speech is meant means of communication, it is evident that lower animals are able, at least to some degree, to convey to each other thought and emotion. Distinct sounds are used throughout the animal world to convey emotions of joy or fear, love or hate. Nor is man the only social being. Very highly organized and complex social life is found among animals so low in the scale as bees and ants, and, 23 24 RELIGION IN THE MAKING in a less marked degree, the higher animals group themselves together for a longer or shorter time in ways that indicate the purpose. But man is the only animal that has a religion. To him it has always been necessary to interpret the forces round about him in terms of the super- natural. It is generally agreed that some form of religion is found among all tribes of men. His religion marks him a man, and the nature of his religion gives an account of the kind of man he has become. Religion recognizes a common bond between the worshiper and the object of his worship, but it also recognizes his companions as fellow worshipers with like needs and relationships. Society has always been held together by the com- mon interests in which its members have shared. The strength of the interests describes the strength of the society. After the most elementary wants are satisfied, every social group is chiefly marked by the object which it worships and the way in which it offers its devotions. The unity of the human race is disclosed in the oneness of its interests. All human beings that live together must have some kind of a government and so the political interest is universal, though it mani- fests itself all the way from the occasional chief chosen for a special purpose at a special time, to SOCIAL VALUE OF RELIGION 25 the most complex and orderly constitutional gov- ernment. Human interest in beauty is well nigh universal, and the satisfaction of this desire must be recognized as a common human need, though its expression varies from the most primitive muti- lations of the body to the highest forms of sculpture or painting. In like manner the religious interest is universal and it is fundamentally human though it varies from the lowest form of idol worship to the loftiest con- ception of a Supreme Soul giving thought and life to all His works while He transcends them in the unexplored deeps of His own being. One man may hunt food alone ; two human beings may found a family ; but religion requires the cooperation of the entire social group whether it be small or large. There have been many definitions of religion, but each man who has defined it seems to have his own form of faith or of unfaith which he wishes to describe. Matthew Arnold tells us that religion is "morality touched by emotion," but if there be any- thing sure in the study of religious phenomena it is the conclusion that morality is not, primarily, a part of religion at all but a later growth from the same roots. So when Kant declares that "religion consists in our recognizing all our duties as divine commands," he is speaking of a man who knows 26 RELIGION IN THE MAKING himself as part of a moral order in relation to a God who is a righteous ruler. In other words, he is speaking of Emmanuel Kant. Herbert Spencer somewhere described religion as an "a priori theory of the universe," yet no one knew better than Herbert Spencer that primitive and undeveloped man has no universe, no abstract terms, and no abstract thoughts. A man without a world and without a theory could hardly hold religion on the terms suggested by Mr. Spencer, who was doubtless thinking of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mr. Huxley says that "reverence and love for the ethical ideal and a desire to realize that ideal in life" is the true formula for religion, but Mr. Huxley had inherited an ethical ideal which he still loyally held though he had cut it away from the faith out of whose roots his ideal had grown. Edward Caird is a man entitled to respect for many reasons, but when he says "a man's religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the universe: the summed-up meaning of his whole consciousness of things," it seems plain that if he is not talking of Edward Caird, he is talking about either Plato or Hegel. Max Mueller has perhaps come as close to a definition that would include every form of religion as any other writer when he ?a3^s "religion is the sense of our dependence upon something or SOCIAL VALUE OF RELIGION 27 some one else. All nations join in some way or other in the words of the Psalmist 'He hath made us and not we ourselves.' " But religion is some- thing more than a sense of dependence, though that is certainly the first half of it. In addition to a sense of dependence or of common fortunes with a supernatural power or powers, religion involves also the idea of duties growing out of that relation, so that faith in the supernatural and the corre- sponding worship or service make up the primary basis of every religion. The duties belonging to religion are first of all service rendered to the Supreme Power itself, but afterwards the idea of duty expands to include one's duty to himself and to his fellow man. All religions seem to have some common ele- ments. They begin with some idea of God. They proceed to some responsibility of conduct from which good or ill surely follow. They end with the hope that life will outlast death. In some form or other God, Retribution, and Immortality are fundamental to every religion. The practical workings of religion are distin- guished, however, chiefly by the conception of sin as a form of alienation and of worship as a method of reconciliation. The nature of sin Is one of the essential marks of difference between reUglons. 28 RELIGION IN THE MAKING The Hebrew sense of sin, founded upon the thought of a fire-smitten mountain that quaked under the burning feet of an awful Jehovah uttering his law in tones of thunder, is instinct with the beginnings of righteousness. On the other hand, a Greek Olympus, where the jocund gods enjoy a happy suc- cession of banquets with a divine digestion that can never be impaired, presents a picture of celestial powers engaged in breaking all the commandments that Jehovah has ever given. The Greek concep- tion of sin, therefore, has little to do with what we moderns call morality. It will be seen at last that every religion has its essence in the idea which it holds of God. The idol or the totem are curious efforts to make visible to human senses the god which early men began to worship. Ancestor worship, nature worship, and hero worship grew out of a dominant idea which interprets for the worshiper most perfectly his conception of the supernatural. The various forms of monotheism have been possible because the one God which each of them has recognized possessed qualities which were unknown to the god of the other religion. Religion is an effort at the interpre- tation of power and of life. Manifestly, the kind of power the object of worship possesses and the way in which he uses the power will determine the SOCIAL VALUE OF RELIGION 29 attitude of the worshiper and the sort of duties he thinks must be practised. Every people that has a history has also a history of its religion. Every religion passes through cer- tain stages of development. The conquerors im- pose their gods upon the conquered, or, on the other hand, they enlarge their pantheon to take in the gods of the land of which they have taken possession. It is only a strong people that can have a god like Zeus, and it is only a cultivated people that can worship at the altar of Apollo. It will be seen how fundamental is the social interest in the problems of religion. In all the forms of social life religion is one of the great unit- ing forces, and in some forms of social life it is the controlling social bond. A scientific interest in religion does not depend upon questions about its truth or its falseness. For science it is enough that religion exists, therefore it must be studied, but when it is seen to be not only an important social fact, but also the greatest social fact, the study of society is incomplete and unscientific unless it can give an account of the religion of the social group which is studied. The relation of the religious order to the political order is one of the great facts of history. Church and state may be identical ; the church may be con- 30 RELIGION IN THE MAKING trolled by the state; the state may be controlled by the church; or each form of organization may be free from the other. To put it another way: The king and the priest may be the same man ; the king may make the priest ; the priest may make the king ; or the two may be rivals for social leadership. In the development of religion there are ideas and there are institutions, though both may be rudi- mentary. A person called the prophet represents the ideas while the priest represents the institutions. The prophet belongs to the present and the future; the priest belongs essentially to the past. The prophet speaks in the name of living inspiration; the priest is set to guard a holy tradition. Prophet and priest are often represented in the Hebrew scriptures as not being on very friendly terms, but the same is true elsewhere. Socrates was put to death at the instigation of the priests of Athens because of his impiety toward the gods and his bad influence upon the youth, though Socrates was probably the most religious man in Greece. From the point of view of social science we study the effects of its religion upon the life of a people. Religion, like every other human activity, has its expense account. As a government has its officers and its army which are vindicated when there is peace and order, so religion has its natural expenses. SOCIAL VALUE OF RELIGION 31 It costs for the building of temples, maintenance of priests, the offering of sacrifices, and the various demands upon the time and strength of its wor- shipers. But the religions of the world have a very large credit account. They have not only furnished architecture and all the other arts which the temple shelters, so that beauty has in every, time been the servant of religion, but the religion of a people has done much more. It has furnished those ideas and motives which have created the largest life and the noblest activities. If the idea of God is the most creative in the realm of philosophy, the ideas which grew out of it are the most sustaining in the realm of human action. More than the dis- covery of the use of iron or of steel or of electricity, is the tremendous dynamic of the ideas of Provi- dence and Immortality. Because of them men have been strong to do and to suffer. By their aid man ceased to be the abject coward he was when history began and becomes a hero armed to fight against fate. The facts of religion belong to the interpretation of human experience in psychical terms. The be- liefs, the sanctions and the duties of religion are very important parts of the equipment of the social mind. As the social mind of any people becomes richer, its possible life becomes larger and more 32 RELIGION IN THE MAKING varied. No really great people is possible without the leadership of men of religious genius. As every people finds its best interpretation in religion, and the religion of every people is an inter- pretation of its idea of God, so the way in which the idea of God is held is the most important fact for any people or any time. It is important, there- fore, to study the development of the idea of God among the Hebrews, since religion was to them the most important human interest and since their con- tribution to the religious life is decidedly the most important fact in the religious life of the world. CHAPTER IV SCIENTIFIC VIEWS OF THE BIBLE There are various methods of using the Hebrew scriptures. For Christian people the most reverent and the most profitable is to read them with devo- tion and affection. Every devout person makes an abridgment of the Bible. At last the divine hand has written those passages which illuminate his experience, throw light as he conceives upon the dealings of God with men, but, especially, those words are divine which find his soul, soothe his fears, awaken his hopes, and help him to leave the world of cold and coarse facts to find a transcend- ent and a universal experience. He may defend all the Psalms, but he does not often read them all and some of them he does not love. But there are lyrics, full of compassion and gracious, which have permanent power to stir his soul. When he has a sense of sin, nowhere else can he find such interpre- tation of repentance as in the Bible. When he has a sense of need, nowhere else is there such a prom- ise of divine help. He reads there the story of the sorrows, the defeats, the sins, the restorations, and 3 33 34 RELIGION IN THE MAKING the victories of the whole roll-call of human saints, and he feels that he may dare to share the promises which were effective in the ancient days. Quite different is the study of the Bible from the literary point of view. With authority masters of words classify the contents, divide them into various departments of prose and poetry, study the form in which the material Is cast, and make visible the content of worth and of beauty. John Bright was nourished largely upon the Bible and became the most forceful Saxon orator of his day. John Ruskin, of an almost opposite type of gift and character, tells the world that it was through the study of the Bible In his youth that he acquired "the faculty of taking pains," and was saved from the Imitation of base or common forms of speech. Almost every great writer of English is under special, as well as general, obligation to the literary form of the Old Testament. The historical study of the Bible may deal with political facts of the Hebrew people in relation with other nations, and lead to a study of archaeology or other survivals of pre-Christian history. Or It may be a study of the religious life of the Old Testament In comparison with the other great forms of faith, and so furnish the basis for the science of comparative religion. SCIENTIFIC VIEWS OF THE BIBLE 35 Once again, the Bible may be studied with a critical apparatus and method, inspecting manu- scripts and texts in order to decide upon correct readings. This criticism studies and compares the various versions, suggests emendations and makes restorations, although, for obvious reasons, this task is quite different between the two Testaments. The higher criticism studies the authorship, the date, the content, and the integrity of the various books of the Bible. All scholars practically agree that the critical method of Bible study in its two forms has become an intellectual necessity in the interests of human knowledge. The right of critical study is, I suppose, fully conceded. The battle now rages about the results of critical study. The most important and continuous professional study of the scriptures throughout the centuries has been in the interest of the science of theology. Most churchmen of every class have regarded the Bible as the final source of authority for religious opinions, and all churchmen have regarded its statements of great weight and significance. The study of the Bible here undertaken is neither devotional, literary, historical, critical, nor theology ical. It will seek, so far as possible, to turn aside from current forms of debate and to take the Bible out of the arena for a quiet study of its contents. 36 RELIGION IN THE MAKING The object of that study is sociological. It will seek a frank account of the growth and function of the various Hebrew institutions, with some attempt at their comparison with like institutions in similar social groups. It is believed that the Bible is par- ticularly adapted to such treatment. It furnishes such a naive and first-hand account of the origin and development of institutions and it will probably appear that the historical parts of the Old Testa- ment are among our most precious possessions for the purpose of scientific study. Such a study, if successful, will furnish guidance for the interpre- tation of the Bible in the other departments in which it is used. And it may be found that the sociological examination of the Bible will be of importance as an introduction to the general science of sociology. When general principles can stand the test of concrete illustration, they are at once more secure and more serviceable. The New Testament is not available for sociolog- ical study because it does not present institutionst in sufficient perspective. The elevation of special discussions of particular incidents in human life into general principles for the conduct of all life, is an extremely difficult task. It does not question the permanent value or even the divine origin of the Sermon on the Mount to say that its literal use SCIENTIFIC VIEWS OF THE BIBLE 37 for the reconstruction of society is an impossible performance. The document is not even an essay upon the structure of society. It is neither scientific in form nor in purpose. It is the glowing utterance of a burning heart. It seeks the regeneration of individuals, and to degrade it into a social program is both a social and a religious danger. As a social program it would lose significance. The essays in this direction from Plato's Republic downward have been interesting as literary output, but have not been important as social forces. The Acts of the Apostles gives some account of an institution, namely the Christian Church, but the statements are so limited and the information so fragmentary that they are scarcely important, even for the study of the Christian Church as an institu- tion of history. For the purposes of sociology, the single Book of Judges is worth more than the whole New Testament. The value of those vener- able stories from a scientific point of view is beyond price. Some material for the study of Hebrew institu- tions may be found outside of the Bible, and of these use may properly be made. To serve a prac- tical purpose, the results of studies in primitive culture and a knowledge of current sociological literature will be assumed. The problem of Hebrew 38 RELIGION IN THE MAKING origins, with its manifold vexations, will not be undertaken. The general results of studies in Semitic culture will be accepted without debate. The object of the study will be to apply the sociological method as indicated in the definition of the science to the facts of the Hebrew organic life. The Hebrew social group will be seen to have been family, clan, tribe, and nation, and therefore to fol- low the usual method of procedure in the history of social groups. The changes from the nomadic to the settled life in Palestine should have power- fully influenced the form of social institutions, and that this was the actual result is manifest. The three primary institutions, the family, the church, and the state, undergo modifications and come to distinctness of function. Modern social life is char- acterized by the development of the state to the position of the first rank, practically inclusive of all other institutions. On the other hand, the Hebrew records show the great significance of the church as the source of law, the controller of domestic life, while the state, during most of the history, is only a dependent child. The well-known geography of Palestine indicates a poverty for the Hebrew commonwealth beyond what seems to be exhibited in the account of the kingdom at its best. There may be some oriental SCIENTIFIC VIEWS OF THE BIBLE 39 exuberance in the descriptions, but we are here brought face to face with an account of societies which is very well known to the literature of social science. Human societies are divided into military and industrial. For the industrial form of society the need of great fertility and natural resources Is obvious. The military type of society, on the other hand, seeks what it wants and takes it if it has the power. The Hebrew type of society was military. At Its strongest, its capital Jerusalem was a splen- did robber fortress from which tribute was levied upon surrounding peoples. The Hebrews had more than their share. Religious Institutions bulk large as a social Influ- ence among the Hebrews, and this Is the reason why the Jews have survived as a people while they have perished as a state. The soul of the Hebrew people will be found in its Idea of God and It Is with that Idea as a permanent dynamic In human affairs that science has to do. It has been a common mistake of both friends and enemies of religion to suppose that religious facts were somehow outside the ordinary range of human affairs, and had no cor- respondences with the usual human and social activities. Perhaps the most Important conclusion from the result of the study of Hebrew Institutions will 40 RELIGION IN THE MAKING be the recognition of the power of rehgious ideas and their correlation with poHtical and economic concerns. Industrial institutions, as well as the family and the state, were profoundly influenced by the local conditions under which the Hebrew peo- ple lived at various times in their social experience. The religious significance of their ideas embodied in their institutions has a note of universal author- ity, and it is of the first scientific importance to dis- cover their nature and history. The sociological study of the idea of God differs entirely from either its philosophical or its religious significance, and it is worth while to consider the distinction. Philosophy has to do with the specu- lative aspects of the idea; religion has to do with its power to inspire worship and create character; but science has to watch the working form that the idea takes and its practical aspects in the realm of affairs. The development of the idea of God in Hebrew history sheds light upon the analogous unfolding first of all of the religious forms, but afterward of all other institutions. CHAPTER V THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE The conditions under which a people lives and works have long been known to be influential in shaping character and forming institutions. Of this matter Aristotle speaks in his Politics. Early civilizations began on the shores of fertile rivers, both on account of a surplus of bread supply and of the ease of transportation. The kind of native food to be had was vastly important in determining the kind of order a social group could develop. It is hard for us to feel how important these facts are because we have covered the earth with means of transportation and have laid under tribute the resources of every land and of every climate. The earliest men, possibly more susceptible to physical influences, as Wallace suggests, were profoundly impressed with the class of facts we are considering, but even a people like the Israelites who lived in the midst of the ages rather than in the early times, who were protected by a great many conventions, and with whom also transportation had become an organized fact, were yet conditioned in the number 41 42 RELIGION IN THE MAKING of people possible to the nation, in the form of their occupations, and in the nature of their civiliza- tion by the size and resources of the land which they inherited. The country called Palestine was never large, though of course the boundaries differed at different periods. Nor is it the purpose in this work to give any full account of the geography and resources of the country, yet a few facts must be noted. The extent of Palestine was about one hundred and sixty miles long and sixty miles wide. There were about six thousand square miles west of the Jordan and four thousand square miles east of the Jordan. Palestine, therefore, was about the size of the state of Vermont, about half the size of Greece, and about one sixth the size of England. The Jordan valley extends from the sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The mountains are, in the main, chalk and limestone with volcanic rocks about Galilee. The northern part of the country was more fertile, its valleys were wider. About Hebron in the south was found a stretch of country that would do for the pasturage of flocks and the culti- vation of fields. The most of the southern part consists of narrow valleys where the hills must be terraced in order to protect the soil, and since the LAND AND THE PEOPLE 43 rain when it comes is often fierce, these terraces were frequently washed away and the soil must be carried back again at the expense of a good deal of labor. However, the country would yield a large food supply with careful culture, particularly as two or three crops a year might be secured. There was the necessity for irrigation, as the lack of rain was often a danger of famine. Down by the sea there were parts of great beauty as well as great fertility. The German colonies have shown what can be done with the country in their orange groves and fields round about Jaffa, and the splendid beauty of the country on the terraced slopes above Beirut can scarcely be surpassed in the world. But these places were for the most part in the hands of the enemies of Israel. The mountains are not so high but much more numerous than the popular imagination would gather from the Bible record. The heights about Jerusalem were from two thou- sand five hundred feet to three thousand feet. There are a good many springs in various parts of the country, some forty within twenty miles of Jerusalem, with some hot springs in the Jordan valley. On account of the irregularity of the water fall, cisterns and the preservation of rain-water were important. Water systems, including "Solo- mon's pools" of uncertain date, were undertaken. 44 RELIGION IN THE MAKING The climate varied from a mild temperate in the north to a tropical in the lower Jordan. The mean temperature of the country was about seventy- degrees. Rapid changes in temperature, however, occurred, and east of the Jordan it might go down to the freezing point at night and rise to eighty degrees the next day. Such a variety of temiperature, even in a small country, indicates the possibility of a wide range of flora, and so it was. No less than three thousand species of flov/ers have been enumerated. Among the trees were oaks, maples, poplars, pine, cedar, as well as some mulberry and palm trees. Among the fruits were apples, quinces, pears, apricots, citrons, olives, pomegranates, grapes, and figs. Wheat and barley were also grown as well as cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons, and sugar-cane. The fauna combined Asia and Africa in its birds, reptiles, and mammals. The deer, badger, bear, leopard, wolf, and jackal were not unknown, and the useful animals were domesticated. As many as forty-three species of fish have been enumerated in Galilee and the Jordan. The mineral resources of the country were very meager. Some iron and copper have been found in the north, and asphalt, salt, and phosphates in the south. LAND AND THE PEOPLE 45 The country can hardly be said to correspond to some of the glowing accounts that we find in the oriental writers of the Bible. It was not a land where bread could be eaten without scarceness unless the population were comparatively small, and certainly it was not "a land whose stones were iron and out of whose hills thou mayst dig brass" (Deut. viii. 9). One of the rules of war indicates the value of the fruit trees, for they were not to destroy them when they were making siege and thus bring famine — "For the tree of the field is man's life" (Deut. xx. 19). The resources of the land indicate that skill and industry must be of great importance to any people who would make it their home, but as Holland was able to reclaim from the sea the fields and gardens, so the sons of Israel were able to develop this coun- try. The description of it as "a land flowing with milk and honey" is certainly somewhat exuberant unless we take the phrase to mean that there were bees in the wild rocks and trees and that it was a good grazing country. The fact is too obvious and too prosaic to be quite just as interpretation. It must be remembered that before the men of Israel came into this land, it had been occupied for, probably, thousands of years and had been a high- way of old civilizations. There was an Egyptian 46 RELIGION IN THE MAKING road along the coast of Mt. Carmel and thence north that branched from Carmel along the Plains of Esdraelon to Galilee, thence to Damascus. From Damascus caravans passed and repassed to the east and southeast. From Damascus directly south to Elath on the Red Sea was another high- way. Their neighbors, the Phoenicians, were al- ready masters of the seas, so that from a very early date in the history of Israel commerce was possible to them, and the craftsmanship which commerce makes possible. Just as in Damascus to-day out of the crudest shops and the simplest tools exquis- ite work is produced, so classes of the Hebrews became skilled workmen. Though there is the pathetic saying in the Judges that there was a time when there was no smith in Israel. The later prophets, however, speak of workers in silver, brass, and iron, and the whole range of imagery indicates progress in the industrial arts. The possibility of industry and commerce is very important to the social study because of its influence upon the size of the social group. Three millions of people may have been the highest number of inhabitants ever known to the Hebrew nation, but, on the other hand, a high state of development in their work as gardeners and an extension of industry into other LAND AND THE PEOPLE 47 lines would have enabled them to reach a popula- tion of twice the number. The influence of physical environment upon a people must also be coupled with the thought that man himself makes changes of marked importance. He removes forests and changes the amount and time of the rainfall. He drains the country and effects evaporation. By the processes of drainage he enlarges his rivers, and, again, he makes them small by cultivating the valleys through which they flow, absorbing the drainage of the watersheds in his fields. He guides the channels of rivers, changes their courses, and builds bulwarks against the sea. He erects cities, builds roads, digs canals. These things he did in ancient times, and later he has learned to tunnel mountains. One of the most important influences which he has exerted has been upon the distribution of life. Friendly plants and animals he has increased in number. He has fought against all noxious forms of life and has so far succeeded as to indicate In time to come a complete victory. This physical work of men has not only affected the world, but the work has changed the men as they have done it. It has been their princi- pal school in which they have developed strength and have learned knowledge. An Intensive civilization has always been the 48 RELIGION IN THE MAKING result of successful cultivation of fertile soil, liber- ating labor for industrial and commercial employ- ments. It must be conceded that Israel worked out an important civilization. So great a literature would have been impossible to a rude people. The strength of the army, when all deductions are made, is sufficient to show the strength of the peo- ple. The luxury of the upper classes, so strongly denounced by the prophets, indicates a surplus of wealth. Palestine was not the finest country in the world, but a country that could breed such war- riors, poets, and sages, must have proved more favorable for human livelihood than many critics have supposed. Perhaps in the balance of advan- tages and difficulties there was exactly the sort of conditions for making a great breed of men. Scotland, Norway, and New England, as well as Greece, have been chiefly noted for the making of men. Palestine, in some respects superior, was in this respect at least the equal of any of them. The land from the snow peak of the great Mt. Hermon in the Lebanon range down to the Dead Sea, and from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, offers such a variety of soil and climate, and the location, practically at the junction of three conti- nents, offers such contiguity that it was in some respects the best place on the planet for the develop- LAND AND THE PEOPLE 49 ment of a race with a cosmopolitan mission, and in the midst of it the location of Jerusalem, surrounded by hills and easily defended, was an ideal fortress for a small but warlike nation. When this country began to be inhabited it is not possible to decide. It is enough to know that neither the native dates nor the equally simple gene- alogy of the early books of the Bible can be re- garded as coming into the realm of historic facts. It is not necessary here to go into any extended discussion of the antiquity of man or the methods by which he developed a civilization through struggle and reaction. Scholars now agree that such interpretation may be given to the record as to leave room enough for all the requirements of modern science. The victory of geology has been followed by that of biology and anthropology. But while this is true, it must be remembered that the substantial historicity of the Old Testament never stood on firmer ground than it does at present. And sociology comes to reenforce the claim of the validity of the records by exhibiting the normal development of its history, and this latest science can work with the Hebrew material in exactly the same spirit and under the guidance of the same principles as it would work with the genesis of either Egyptian or Greek institutions. 4 50 RELIGION IN THE ?^IAKING But who were these Hebrews? They were cer- tainly not near the beginnings of things, and we cannot take the short account between the opening of Genesis and the call of Abraham as anything like a full narrative of the history of the human family. Nor will it do to suppose that Shem, Ham and Japhet were a lonely trinity who peopled the whole earth. The Semites were a great race and of very great antiquity. Long before Joshua led his people across the Jordan and long before the promises were made to Abram, the Semites were in Canaan. And before Nebuchadnezzar lived, and long before Moses, the Babylonians had overrun Canaan. Arabia was probably the cradle of the Semitic peo- ples, and these peoples included not only Arabi- ans, but Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Canaanites. It is now certain that the speech of Canaan, Edom, and Moah were dialects of one language. The "language of Canaan" was one speech just as the speech of Britain is one language. The Moabite Stone, now to be seen in the museum of the Louvre, with its thirty-four lines in the Hebrew-Phoenician characters and which records the victory of Mesha, king of Moab, over Israel, is a proof discovered to us in modern times of the substantial unity of these people, which is far more LAND AND THE PEOPLE 51 important than the trivial verification of the result of a single battle. When the sons of Israel came into Palestine, they v^ere coming to the land of their kinsmen. But it is pretty v^ell assured that not only were there Semites, but there v^ere also fragments of that great Mongolian empire which recent historians are trying to fit into ancient his- tory — the empire of the Hittites. Aryans there were also, among them probably the Philistines along the sea. It seems quite certain also that the Semites, dominant as they were in the valley of the Euphrates, had at that time also made for them- selves a place in Egypt, being those somewhat mysterious shepherd kings who for perhaps one hundred years were in control. That Thothmes who turned Asia out of Africa is as significant in his day as those Greek heroes who turned back the tide of the Persians. The splendid ruin of the great temple at Karnak tells the story and indicates that even at that time Palestine had a good degree of civilization. Other works must tell of the Egyptian library at Tel-el-Amarna, and the vast discoveries in the valley of the Euphrates. Enough to say here that Israel was not only related to great and powerful peoples, but its home in Palestine lay between the two important civilizations of Egypt 52 RELIGION IN THE MAKING and the Euphrates. These two were part of its environment. It would be a gross mistake to suppose that environment is chiefly physical, at least after the human race passes beyond the primitive stages. It is chiefly social. It is the action of group upon group, taking two chief forms, war and commerce, and it is perhaps difficult to decide which form of contact is the more effective influence. The Is- raelites had not only the larger life of the Eu- phrates from which they are said to have come in the loins of Abraham, and of Egypt where the sons of Jacob made their home, but they had a much more intricate social environment in the families of Canaan, many of them their kinsmen whom they found in the land, who lived with them, who were absorbed by them, but not wdthout the defeated leaving many and many a mark upon the institu- tions and life of the conquerors. This is the old story of history. The men of the soil strangely influence the life of the foreigners who come to rule over them. So did the Greeks affect the Romans, which was the influence of culture, and so did the Saxons triumph at last over the invading Normans, which was the influence of numbers and of strength. Of this we shall see more as we study the development of religious institutions. LAND AND THE PEOPLE 53 More definitely to consider the question of the Hebrew people, it is necessary to offer some con- siderations upon the subject of the race problem. No other question has been more eagerly studied in recent years, and no other important question seems further from adequate solution. The dis- tinctions of language have been given up, so far as modern peoples are concerned. Widely variant strains of blood may use common speech, as German or English, and we cannot decide in the same simple manner that the men of Gilead did when they demanded that the men of Ephraim should try to say "shibboleth" (Judges xii. 6). But lan- guage was at one time much more significant of blood relationship than it is to-day. The most obvious characteristic of race distinction is that of color, and we still have the white, yellow, and black races as the three great distinctions of the human family. But color shades into color and as many as thirty-two races have been delimited by color shades. Of late years the matter of head form, particularly among the French writers and those influenced by them, has been more significant of race distinction than any other single fact, and we read of the "long head," the "round head," and the "medium head," as descriptive of races, par- ticularly the three types that seem to be recognized 54 RELIGION IN THE MAKING among the people of Europe. But the doctrine that the men with the long heads succeed in living in the lowlands, amassing wealth and gaining power, may just as readily give way to the doctrine that low- lands, wealth, and power tend to develop a longer form of head in the men who possess them. The color distinctions of the race are very old, however unsatisfactory they may be from a scientific point of view. The characteristic distinction in features seems also to be ancient, and scholars claim to have recog- nized upon Egyptian monuments thousands of years old the likeness of Aryan, Mongolian, and Negro. Lester F. Ward, the American sociologist, was the first to emphasize distinctly the psychical fac- tors in human development as opposed to the idea that social groups grow, develop, and decay, just as plants or animals do. In this matter he stood over against the position taken by Herbert Spencer. We may not agree with his conception of what a psychical factor Is, nor even follow him in his con- clusions as to what the psychical factor does, but the distinction has become one of the greatest moment to all students of social science. In some form or other the doctrine of mental qualities and resources as marks of distinction among the peo- ples of the earth is coming into sway over the minds of scholars. Gabriel Tarde, whose untimely LAND AND THE PEOPLE 55 death the world of thinkers mourns, in his work on the Laws of Imitation set forth with great force, if not with the customary GalHc clearness, the method by which from man to man, from brute to brute, the social contagion spreads. Others have worked in the same field who may not now be mentioned, but the conclusion from many labors in many fields amounts to a practical demonstration that the physical environment is chiefly effective in its con- trol of a social group when that social group is undeveloped, small in numbers, and is engaged in piteous struggle for a livelihood. As the group ad- vances in civilization, it learns more and more to control its physical surroundings; as the soil and climate lose their controlling power, other bonds become of more importance. It is then a question of ideas, faiths, and traditions embodied in the institutions of the state and the church which have the greatest weight. The conventions which shield every organized social group from the domination of geography are the forms and forces of most scientific value. Social groups tend to form what has been called "the social mind," but perhaps even more marked is the fact that they develop what may be called a social character. That character reveals itself in the way in which a people works and the ends which it seeks. Among the early 56 RELIGION IN THE MAKING tribes some were military and loved to fight and steal. Some developed a spirit of peace which degenerated at times into cowardice. These men must take upon them the burden of toil. It would be easy to show that the art, the literature, and all the higher expressions of the life of the various peoples, fully support the doctrine here set forth. The significance of the race type of the Hebrew in neither ancient nor modern times has been in any question of head form, for in this he seems to assim- ilate to the people among whom he lives. It is not at all in the special marks of physiognomy sometimes seen and with which we associate the word ''J^w." In Palestine the Jew, the Arab, and the Syrian can scarcely be marked one from the other save in the various Jew groups living together in Jerusalem. It was the content of the religious experience of the Hebrew that made him a chosen and a peculiar people. It was his pathetic and age-long struggle after God, a struggle unique among the nations of the earth. When the Hebrew is described as one of the Semites, he has not been disclosed. It is far more scientific to say the Hebrews were the people of Jehovah. Their common religious life marks them in their history as a nation, and it is the same common religious life which has thus far preserved them as one people in the Dispersion. CHAPTER VI DEVELOPMENT OE THE IDEA OF GOD In order to get on it is desirable to avoid, so far as possible, all questions of philosophy, as well as the ordinary debates of criticism and of theology. Before proceeding to an examination of the part that the idea of God plays in the unfolding of Hebrew institutions, it is necessary to obtain a clear view of certain important particulars. The object of the discussion is not to justify nor to con- demn the Bible view of God, nor even to exhibit what that view is, except in so far as it is necessary to have some definiteness in the idea in order to show just how it worked in making changes in the Hebrew religious life. First of all, it is necessary to observe that changes in the form of the idea of God are clearly exhibited in the Bible history. And this will be seen to be one of the chief causes for the existence of that history. The whole history of sacred places and persons, of sacrijfices and of rituals, of festivals and of fasts, is the effort of men to express fitly their idea of God. If what may be termed the 57 58 RELIGION IN THE MAKING apparatus of religion undergoes serious modifica- tion, it is because the fundamental religious ideas have also undergone change. Philosophy may be under compulsion to account for the idea of God, but sociology accepts the idea of God as an historic fact and seeks to exhibit its workings in human affairs. Fortunately we do not have to attempt an explanation of religious origins. Religion is a human experience at once primary and universal. It is found in some form among all peoples. It is probably the most distinctive human interest. Man is most man when he prays. Other animals show rudiments of the property idea. The religious interest and the economic in- terest are the two great forces to take account of in estimating human experience. The altar and the prayer, the hope and the fear, arise where God is. The Hebrew people in having a religion share in the common experience of the race. The uniqueness of Hebrew history consists in the fact that religion is from the beginning and to the end its chief interest. Among no other people is there anything like such a history of the idea of God as among the Hebrews. It was their unique experi- ence to begin with a form of religion showing many processes of earlier survivals but which worked out in the course of centuries into a per- THE IDEA OF GOD 59 manent form of monotheism. The Greek thinkers developed a form of monotheism, but it was as an object of speculative thought. The Greek people had no part in the process. East India, and even Egypt, may have had some latent form of mono- theism, but it is the gray mist of a sterile specula- tion and is not warm with the red blood of a vital human experience. All the philosophies and the- ologies of the Christian centuries have built upon the idea of God as worked out by the Hebrew peo- ple. It is the one illustration of human history showing an age-long process of a great idea work- ing out to completeness and perfection. It is there- fore with the exhibition of the idea of God as a living thing among living men that our studies have to do. It is necessary to clear up a possible misconcep- tion. It may be supposed that the suggestion that the idea of God could undergo any development is essentially a denial of the reality of the being of God. Some would hold that unless the thought of God was revealed in its fulness at the beginning and remained unchanged to the end, then there is no other God than men have made for themselves in the different ages. To such minds the history of the Idea of God has the same curious interest as 6o RELIGION IN THE MAKING the exhibition of costumes in some historical museum. It is necessary to pause here and take our bear- ings. Men at no time have been able to hold views on any subject except as related to human experi- ence and except as conditioned by human culture. The same stars have lit up the sky of night since the beginning, but it needed the slow development of mathematics and the still slower development of the telescope to furnish for us a map of the heavens and an intelligible account of other worlds than ours. The study of the stars as a history passes from astrology into astronomy with the enlarge- ment of human experience and with the develop- ment of science. It would not be rational to say that there is no such thing as beauty because Art has a history. From some points of view the crude and pathetic beginnings of artistic representation in the adorn- ment, or even mutilation, of the body are more impressive than painting, statue, or cathedral. They exhibit the stir of life behind the heart of man and the promises of the Infinite travail before there shall be born to the race any authoritative expression of human wonder and imagination. The experience of every living thing is affected by its own organization and environment. The THE IDEA OF GOD 6l humblest insect mirrors just as much of the uni- verse as it can use. The same holds true of the rudest savage and the noblest sage. It would be impossible for a man who had no conception of the world to know that God is the creator of the world. There are savages who have no name for the whole of the island on which they live. They only name a part of it. The primitive man is incapable of general conceptions. He may know green or yel- low, but he has no name for color. He may recog- nize oak or pine, but he has no word for tree. Though such a man had angels for interpreters and a book let down from heaven for authority, he could never comprehend the statement that "the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding." Polytheism grows out of concreteness. Each form of power may be divine, but one God who sums up all power is impossible where forces have no manifest unity and so can have no common ex- pression. Ancestor worship will flourish where clan is marked off from clan, where enmities are strange and deep, and where the shadowy thought of the founder of the race becomes impressive as the noblest object of personal experience. The family, the clan, the tribe, and the nation as forms 62 RELIGION IN THE MAKING of social groups are influential in determining not alone the nature of worship, the position of the priesthood, the nature of the shrine, but also the character of the fundamental ideas which religion seeks to express. The Hebrew history therefore shares with other human history in the disclosure and the unfolding of religious ideas and of religious life. It differs from every other history in the value of its experience and the permanence of the result. In dealing with the material furnished by the Bible, the problem to exhibit the idea of God actually at work among men, and hence the record as history, must remain our chief concern. The literature lends itself to this treatment because most of the modern problems were entirely foreign to the minds of the men who wrote the books and the material is furnished for us without preconception or prejudice. For the sake of those who would understand, a word is offered here not needful to the scope of our scientific study. But it is a word that may be spoken from one man to another to help him in his difficulty. The universe is a perpetual library of perfect revelation. It exhibited a perfect botany before Linnaeus and a perfect astronomy before Copernicus. It contained a perfect catalog of all THE IDEA OF GOD 63 possible natural forces and of human power over them before a single mechanical appliance was in the hand of man. It also contained a perfect reve- lation of the life, the thought, and the will of that Being who is the soul of the universe before ever altars smoked, or poet sang, or seer had vision, or prophet spoke. The best and wisest men, whether mechanics or scholars, saints or philosophers, are those who have read most humbly the library of the universe and who have worked most loyally with the forces it contains in accordance with the laws by which they operate. Living men in every time have been those who have felt the throb of a com- mon life which is universal. Such men not alone listen for, but also hear the word of the Lord, and these men know that the holy line of God's prophets remains unbroken. It is hard for us to understand many things in the Hebrew record because we have no Hebrew sense of the importance of the Name. Names of individuals were given on account of special char- acteristics. Names were changed to signalize some special event or some particular change in charac- ter. If the names of men were thus particularly significant, of how much greater moment was the name of God. The modern idea of blasphemy Is the calling down a curse from God upon men. It 64 RELIGION IN THE MAKING does not seem to have been so among the Hebrews. Blasphemy was of special importance because it cast contempt upon the divine name. It was, there- fore, treason against the Most High. The sin of the son of Shelomith (Lev. xxiv. ii) was that he blasphemed the Name and cursed. In the Second Law (Deut. xxviii. 58) the people were called upon to fear ''this glorious and fearful name Jehovah thy God" under penalty of all the plagues and diseases that had been known by Egypt. Jehovah was this sacred name. Again and again in the account in Exodus, Jehovah is called by way of eminence the ''God of the Hebrews." Nearly seven thousand times does this name occur in the Old Testament scriptures, and the history of the idea of God is largely concerned with transactions which Jehovah had with his ov/n people. The only other sacred name that we need to consider with any particularity is Elohim, which is often found in combination with Jehovah. Jehovah Elohim, or the Lord God. But the word Elohim is significant because it is not always used as another name of Jehovah. The gods of Egypt were also called Elohim (Ex. xii. 12). This word Elohim seems to signify the Heavenly Powers and may be regarded either as plural or singular. So it is the name distinctive of the great hymn of creation with THE IDEA OF GOD 65 which Genesis begins. But in the giving of the sacred law, the commandment was "Thou shalt have no other Elohim before me" (Ex. xx. 3). The men of Ashdod recognized that there was a "god of Israel" who could be called Elohim just as rightly as their own Dagon (i Sam. v. 7). When Israel sang its deliverance from Egypt and Pharaoh's host, they chanted "Jehovah is a man of war; Jehovah is his name." Then they compare him to other Heavenly Powers. "Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the Elohim? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." As Jehovah is a man of war, so he is often significantly called "the Lord of Hosts." In both first and second Samuel this God of the armies is mentioned in connection with the sacred ark, the symbol of his presence, in time of battle. But in the passages in the prophets, of which there are very many, the Lord of Hosts seems to have become far more than the God of the ranks of Israel. He is the Jehovah of the angels, the Lord of the stars and all the hosts of heaven. To sum up briefly, the particular name for the divine being, the name of the jealous God who has chosen Israel for his bride and who stands distinct over against all other celestial powers, is Jehovah. But this Jehovah, preeminent over all others, is 5 66 RELIGION IN THE MAKING called again and again by the name given to divini- ties in general. His place among them, however, is held secure. As one of the old Hebrew lyrics sings, ''Give unto Jehovah, O ye Elohim, give unto Jehovah glory and strength." For our purposes it is not necessary to consider the various theories of the documents used in composition of the Hebrew books as exhibited by the use of the divine names. A consistent development of the idea of God is not found in the scriptures. Some would explain this by the confusion of the documents and the accidents of editors. Whatever truth there may be in these contentions, it does not really affect the problem, for it may be noted that the development of no other great human interest is regular. Men do not ascend in wisdom and character step by step. Individuals may be explicable as the interpreters of groups conditioned by particular social circum- stances, while the individuals whom we select as to another. It Is at the roots of social growths that the unities are found. For our purposes we accept the narrative as it stands, and with very few sug- gestions It is self-explanatory. God comes occa- sionally to meet with those for whom He cares. He glorifies by His presence the emergencies of life. Even in the gracious garden where man Is yet untouched by sin, Adam has no constant companion- THE IDEA OF GOD 6*7 ship but hears the voice of God in the cool of the day as he walks in the garden. And this presence is so palpable that Adam and his wife think to hide among the trees (Gen. iii. 8). Cain holds a con- versation with the Lord and intimates the divine ignorance by the question which proclaims his own folly. It is a conversation that no man would have dared to hold who knew that God is all-seeing (Gen. iv. 9, 10). In the curious story of the building of Babel, the project was that the tower should reach unto heaven. This was as though the Greeks had under- taken to storm the heights of Olympus. Jehovah in his upper palaces heard the account of this effort but he does not seem to have understood the full force of it, for the record is "Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded" (Gen. xi. 5). The foundations of the tower were all laid; the structure was on its way ; being one people with one language, danger impended, and Jehovah adds, "And now nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do." To save the sanctity of the divine abode, the common language was confounded, the men were scattered abroad, the city building was aban- doned, and a primitive explanation of the race question was left on record. 68 RELIGION IN THE MAKING In the case of Noah how near do we come to those early Semitic interpretations of sacrifice where God partakes of a meal with those with whom He has special relations. An altar is builded to the Lord and the clean beasts become burnt offerings, and when the Lord had smelled the sweet savor, like one content after a sensuous experience, He says in His heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake" (Gen. viii. 20, 21). In numbers of cases God appears in human or in angel form. In the great appearance of the Lord to Abram (Gen. xv.), God comes in dreams and visions to make His promises of inheritance and of posterity. But when that promise to him was renewed (Gen. xviii.), the Lord appeared in the form of three men, visible as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. And these celestial visitors partook of the hospitality of Abram and entered into conversation, in which the Lord declares to Abram the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram pleads with the destroying angel to spare the cities of the plains. Two angels come to Sodom and become the guests of Lot. But these angels were men who could seize his hand and urge him forth from the doomed place. But the two men melt into one Lord with whom Lot pleads that he may go to a little city, and when Lot THE IDEA OF GOD 69 and his daughters have escaped to Zoar, this curious thing happens: "The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." No one can read the stories, if at all rid of preconceptions, without recognizing here a divine duality. Earlier still, in the Hagar story (Gen. xvi), the angel of the Lord finds the woman by a fountain of water in the wilderness, and she understands that she is speaking with God for she calls His name, "Thou God seest me." In the strange case of Abraham oflFering Isaac, a story which seems to have been told in order to put away human sacrifice out of Israel, the angel of the Lord stops him in the act of sacrificing his son by calling down to him out of heaven (Gen. xxii.). There seems no question that the ordinary dwell- ing place of God was recognized in the days of the patriarchs as being in some crystal heaven above, but that at times the Lord graciously condescended to come down among men. The angel of the Lord seems to have some incarnation or manifestation of a visible presence, though even Abraham seems to understand that there is a permanent God of heaven in addition to these manifestations, for the Lord God of heaven promises him to send His angel before him into the land. So Abraham recalls long after (Gen. xxiv. 4-7). 70 RELIGION IN THE MAKING In the case of Jacob the Lord speaks down to him out of heaven from the top of the angel-bur- dened ladder and announces that He is the family God, the Jehovah God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and Jacob promises Him after waking from the happy dream, ten per cent of all the profit that he may make in the foreign country if Jehovah will only care for him until he come back again in peace, and he says significantly "then shall Jehovah be my God" (Gen. xxviii.), but who shall be your God, O Jacob, if things go wrong and you are not protected ? In the story of Laban and Jacob, significant to us in many ways, Laban acknowledges that the God of Jacob's clan has spoken the night before, and consequently He will do him no harm. But yet he demands that his household gods which Rachel has stolen should be returned (Gen. xxxi.). Jacob goes his way, the angels of the Lord meet him on the way, and later the lonely Jacob wrestles with a man until the breaking of the day, and it was not until his thigh shrank and the morning broke that the newly baptized Israel, no longer a supplanter, discovered that his struggle had been with God (Gen. xxxii.). Many tribes of men have worshiped the sun in the heavens and fire upon the earth as the symbol THE IDEA OF GOD 71 of the sun god. It is not necessary to think of the men who stood before altars upon mountain places watching for the first rays of the sun to smite their eyes, as the regenerators of religion, nor to feel assured on a thousand tokens in a thousand places that this great cult was one of the early manifesta- tions of religion. We turn away from the appearances in bodily form which characterized the period of the patri- archs to the opening of the career of Moses when he came to Horeb, called significantly "the moun- tain of God," to indicate that it was the very local dwelling-place and chief seat on earth of this sovereign Lord. There the angel of the Lord appeared in the flame of fire. Though the bush burned, it was not consumed, and the voice of God spoke to him out of the midst of the flame and proclaimed himself the God of the early clans, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face and God declared to him there the special name Jehovah, the Ever Living One, by which He would be known hereafter (Ex. lii.). Not only did Jehovah appear here as a fire god, but long afterwards the night was illumined for the camps of Israel, not alone by fires of their own making, but by that mysterious pillar of fire, token of the divine presence. In the calamity which was de- 72 RELIGION IN THE MAKING scribed as overtaking the men who offered strange incense before the Lord, it was denied to Korah, Dathan and Abiram to die the common death. Not only did the earth open and swallow them up, but a fire came down from the Lord and consumed two hundred and fifty men (Num. xvi.)- It became a tradition in Israel, and long after Isaiah him- self continued the symbol ''and the light of Israel shall be for a fire and His Holy One for a flame." The author of the Second Law declares *'The Lord Thy God is a consuming fire." And once more, "Understand, therefore, this day that the Lord thy God is He which goeth before thee as a consuming fire who shall destroy thee and shall bring thee down before thy face" (Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3). No wonder that this fiery symbol became a tra- dition in Israel, for in the solemn memory of the giving of the Law the account is "And Mt. Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord de- scended upon it in fire and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace ; and the whole mountain quaked greatly ; and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel (Ex. xix. 18, xxiv. 17). The author of Deu- teronomy puts upon the lips of Moses a strong THE IDEA OF GOD 73 warning that fire and nothing else is to remain the symbol of God, for in recalling to their memory what had passed at Mt. Sinai, he says, "And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voices of the words but saw no simili- tude; only ye heard the voice; Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in word, for then it was that he proclaimed ^Jehovah by name/ " In spite of fire and earth- quake, mountain storm of flame and smoke, and all the lofty words of the sternly spoken law, this is He, "Jehovah Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingklndness and truth, keeping lovingkindness for thousands, for- getting iniquity and transgression and sin." Yet is Jehovah a jealous God and yet idolatry is the iniquity of the fathers which is to be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Jehovah is the Name. It is not to be used for vanity, and it is Jehovah who demands one day in seven for His service. In all the stories and symbolisms we see the working of a practical monotheism in making the beginnings of a nation. This was in the wilderness as it was to be generations after, the great uniting force that bound together the nation and that pre- 74 RELIGION IN THE MAKING served the people when in the tide of years it was scattered abroad over the face of the earth. This man Moses is revealed to us clearly across the generations. However we may take from him, and perhaps rightly, many of the statutes called by his name, however much we may be inclined to suppose that many of the words placed in the record upon his lips were later voices in Hebrew history, yet more than ever as we go forward in our study will it appear that there is a permanent and irredu- cible tradition which places him among the greatest men of history. As Mahomet some two thousand years after gathered other Semitic tribes and taught them that the Lord is one God, so the greater Moses under greater difficulties laid the foundations of the state in spite of the current idolatry of the people as shown again and again through the his- tory, upon the rock of one God, their Deliverer, Lawgiver, Providence, and Judge. Nor does it afifect the historicity of his work to suppose that after he was dead, the people failed to live up to his high levels, to remember his revelations, and to practise his requirements. Of that further evolu- tion of the divine idea we have yet to speak. The Book of Psalms is the great hymnbook of the ages, and includes lyrics of such difference of content and purpose that they must be referred to almost THE IDEA OF GOD 75 the entire range of Hebrew history. There is one of the psalms, perhaps an ancient fragment, which seems to sum up the divine idea of the wilderness period as the Jehovah of Moses : The cords of Sheol were round about me; The snares of death came upon me. In my distress I called upon Jehovah, And cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of his temple, And my cry before him came into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the mountain quaked And were shaken because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoured: Coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, And came down; And thick darkness was under his feet; And he rode upon a cherub, And did fly Yea, he soared upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his hiding place, his pavilion round about him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed. Hailstones and coals of fire. Jehovah also thundered in the heavens And the Most High uttered his voice Hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them.; Yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters appeared, And the foundations of the world were laid bare, At thy rebuke, O Jehovah At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from on high, he took me; He drew me out of many waters. ^6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING The transactions of Joshua, so far as the con- quest is concerned, are fully set forth. But as Joshua was only a lesser Moses, so there is no con- tribution of particular moment to his idea of Gk)d. Jehovah is certainly still a man of war, and all the enemies whom they met in the promised land were conquered by a series of astounding victories. The account is given of the division of the land, and the days come for Joshua to relinquish his power, and in his farewell message he bids the people believe that he, their warrior king, was as nothing, for "Ye have seen all that Jehovah your God hath done unto all these nations because of you, for Jehovah your God he it is that hath fought for you. He hath driven out before you great nations and strong. One man of you shall chase a thousand for Jehovah, your God, he it is that fighteth for you as he spake unto you. Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which Jehovah your God spake concerning you" (Josh, xxiii.). There had been idolatries among their fathers* Beyond the River the ancestors of Abraham had served other gods, so likewise Moses had found them serving the gods of Egypt, but Jehovah was the God of Israel and they must be true to their faith with Him or the anger of Jehovah would be kindled against them. THE IDEA OF GOD 'jy It is evident that many changes must take place in the idea of God and in the working of that idea when these people are settled in the land of Canaan. Whether the account of the origin of the nation be accepted in all the fulness of its detail, or whether the critical idea of a rallying point In the Negeb with the slow progress into the promised land be accepted, the ritual of religion, as well as the conceptions which lay at the foundations of religious observance, must undergo a powerful modification. The free worship of clans with rever- ence for their own deity must give way before the god of a nation as the tribes slowly weld into one people and the beginnings of organized govern- ment arise. The relation of Jehovah to the land which His people inhabit is one of the things which meets us at the outset. The tribes of Reuben and of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh were to live east of the Jordan and the record is "They built there an altar by the Jordan, a great altar to look upon." This altar was a subject of much controversy, (Josh, xxii.) and the explanation is of particular moment. The trans-Jordanic tribes declare that this altar is not built for burnt-ofifering or any sacrifice, but rather as a great altar of witness. It was a witness for their inheritance in the rule of 78 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Israel. It is a monument to be appealed to in all the future. '*In time to come your children might speak unto our children saying, What have ye to do with Jehovah, the God of Israel, for Jehovah hath made the Jordan a border between us and you, ye children of Reuben and children of Gad. Ye have no fortune In Jehovah. So might your children make our children cease from fearing Jehovah." That the question of the limitation of the domain of Jehovah was a possible question is highly illuminating. It will be necessary to take note of this in a later connection. A new era opens for Israel and for the student with the Book of Judges. The incoherent tribes, the powerful enemies, the hero stories, and the special deliverances, the occasional interventions in behalf of his people, are of the utmost interest in showing the formative period both of religion and of politics. The development of the hero Into the function of the judge, the prophet as king-maker, and the history of the development of sacrifice to the growth of ritual, Is all before our eyes. Jehovah appears to the people at Bochim In the form of an angel as he had done to their early forefathers. It Is discovered to us In the first chapter of Judges that the destruction of the Canaanltes was by no means so complete as the account of the vie- THE IDEA OF GOD 79 tories of Joshua had led us to suppose. And there were two explanations of the fact. The first ex- planation is religious, for the angel of Jehovah says, "1 made ye to go up out of Egypt and I said I will never break my covenant with the inhabitants of this land. I shall break down their altars. But ye have not hearkened unto my voice. Wherefore I also said I will not drive them out from before you but they shall be as thorns in your sides and their gods shall be a snare unto you." And so It was that so soon as the children of Israel were fairly in the promised land, they forsook the God of their fathers and began to serve the Baalim, the settled gods of the land which they had come to inherit. And this struggle of the national religion with the religion of the land seems to have continued until Jehovah absorbed all the authority of the Baalim, while, on the other hand, the ritual of Israel seems to have been enriched by the local festivities of their Semitic kinsmen. But in the third chapter of Judges the political motive for the survival of the Canaanltes is set forth. "These are the nations which Jehovah left to prove Israel by them even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan. Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know to teach them war at the least such as beforetime knew nothing thereof.*' And 8o RELIGION IN THE MAKING so the children of Israel dwelt among the former inhabitants of the land, intermarried with them, shared their manners and customs and became obedient to their forms of religion (Judges iii. i-6). But Jehovah was still in the land and in the Song of Deborah, that "mother in Israel," we are called again to witness the glory of Jehovah, the God of Israel. Once more He is upon the war-march; once more He is the Lawgiver, and the mountains quake at the presence of Jehovah. He is not always here but when He comes the mountains do quake, even Sinai, the special place for His appearance upon the earth. As domestic as His appearance to Abraham is His coming to Gideon when the angel of the Lord appears once again face to face and uses the staff in His hand to give the touch of fire to the sacrifice which has been prepared. This heartens him to throw down the altar of Baal and to build an altar unto Jehovah. The history of Samson has for its prophecy the appearance of an angel of Jehovah bringing the promise of a son, and here we have the union of the angel of the covenant with the fire god of later times, for it came to pass when IManoah offered sacrifice as the flame went up toward heaven the angel ascended in the flame. Much more gentle and less dramatic was the coming of Jehovah to THE IDEA OF GOD 8l Hannah, the mother of Samuel, the great founder of the Hebrew commonwealth. Special significance attaches to hills and moun- tains with respect to the idea of God. Altars are built on hills, and when later a central shrine was established, it was the rival high places always that must be broken down. Moses with Aaron and Hur were on the top of a hill to obtain a blessing of the Lord in time of battle, and Joshua smites all the country of the hills and of the south. The con- quest of Jerusalem was significant, not alone for its use as a stronghold, but because the glory of its hills was a symbol of divine strength. One of the Psalmists sings, "Who shall dwell in thy holy hill," and again, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence my help cometh," and still an- other psalm declares, "the strength of the hills is his also." This identification of Jehovah with the high places was not confined to the fact that at Sinai there came forth the law, for in the conquest we read, "And the Lord was with Judah and he drave out the Inhabitants of the mountains but could not drive out the Inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of Iron" (Judges i. 19), and It Is no explanation to say that It was Judah who could not drive out the Inhabitants of the valleys rather than the Lord, for why would not 6 S2 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Jehovah come down also unto the valley with Judah? This tradition was one accepted not only by the writer of Judges but seems to have spread abroad beyond the confines of Israel. In the days of the great Ahab, king of Israel, the servants of the invading king of Syria declared in comfort of his defeat, 'Their god is a god of the hills, therefore they are stronger than we, but let us fight against them in the plain and surely we shall be stronger than they." The next year Ben Hadad gathered his hosts and returned to fight against Israel, and now came the time to wipe out the reproach which had existed for generations. The tradition was helped by the fact that the Philistines and the Phoenicians occupied the plains along the sea, and that where the north stretched toward the great desert made beautiful by the rivers of Damascus, other princes ruled. But in the time of the new invasion "a man of God came near and spoke unto the king of Israel and said thus saith Jehovah, Be- cause the Syrians have said Jehovah is a God of the hills but he is not a God of the valleys, there- fore will I deliver all of this great multitude into thy hand and ye shall know that I am Jehovah." A great slaughter of the Syrians followed and never again in Israel or elsewhere will the proverb THE IDEA OF GOD g^ be heard, ''Jehovah is a God of the hills and is not a God of the plains." It is probable that inasmuch as Baal was recog- nized as the god of cultivated land, giver of the bounty of the fields whose symbol is the sun, this god of the Canaanites appealed to the imagination of the people of Israel. The traditions of Israel turned toward the wilderness. It was there Jehovah had wrought for them His mighty won- ders and even the great Elijah when he wished to be alone with God arose and like Moses spent forty days and forty nights in Horeb, the mount of God. The special significance of the land as related to its god is well indicated by the case of Naaman, for after he had been healed of Elisha and was to return to Damascus he was not able to serve Jehovah on foreign soil, and so he asks to be permitted to carry away the soil of Israel that he might have where- with to offer sacrifice. "And Namaan said, Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth, for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacri- fice unto other gods but unto Jehovah.'" As in the political fiction if the flag of a nation floats over a ship on the sea or over the ambassador's house in a foreign land there it carries the nation's sover- eignty, so this removal of earth might carry the 84 RELIGION IN THE MAKING sovereignty of Jehovah even to the shadow of the house of Rimmon. David v^as a true servant of Jehovah. Black sins he committed, no doubt, but among them was not the sin of idolatry. Like Abraham and Moses he expected a permanent nation which God should establish for Himself to be His people forever. As Jehovah had chosen Israel for His people, so He had chosen David for their king, and as the kingdom was to last forever, so were his house and throne. Only once in the administration of his kingdom did David sin against Jehovah, and the dark story states, "the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them saying. Go number Israel and Judah" (2 Sam. xxiv. i). The answer to this sin of David was a pestilence of three days and a destroy- ing angel sent forth to smite the people. Just where the sin was in numbering Israel the record does not well inform us, nor are we helped by the account of the later writer who declares, "And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel'* ( i Chron. xxi. i ) . The only thing that stands out clearly is the fact that David pre- ferred pestilence to either famine or destructive war and he declares to the prophet Gad, "Let us fall now into the hand of Jehovah, for his mercies THE IDEA OF GOD 85 are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man" (2 Sam. xxiv. 14). Solomon the son and successor of David, not only reared a temple to Jehovah which stood as a chapel royal to his own palace, but he also crowded the surrounding spaces with altars to various divinities until the temple hill had as many shrines as the Acropolis of Athens. The stories of the kings of Israel and Judah with the practical contest ever going forward between the lonely and jealous Jehovah upon the one side and the various forms of foreign worship upon the other, has one dramatic and splendid period when that stern monotheist, Elijah, enters into the struggle with Ahab and the priests of Baal. The victory that he won in the name of Jehovah, who once again as in the days of Moses answered by fire, has gathered to it many wonder stories, but it has also remained a monumental fact in the history and experience of Israel. As Moses was the great- est of the lawgivers, so Elijah became the greatest of the prophets. He wrote no book. There are left to us very few of his spoken words, but his figure stands out with greater clearness than that of any other hero in all the history. We have briefly followed the course of the his- tory of the idea of God and it seems evident that it runs parallel with the social history of Israel. S6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Jehovah is a family God, a clan God, a tribal God, and a national God as the social group changes and enlarges. He becomes at last the universal God in the religious climax of the Hebrew life. It began with an almost universal polytheism in which it is well recognized that other peoples have their own gods who confer benefits upon them, as Jepthah in his controversy with the king of Ammon says, "Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess so whomsoever Jehovah our God hath dispossessed from before us, them will he possess" (Judges xi. 24). But Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, was to fall upon all the deities of Canaan. The victory of Jehovah was to become universal, and it is sig- nificant that this view comes to its throne when the war powers struggle for Israel, when its doom is forecast and when out of the struggle there arises upon the consciousness of Israel for the first time among men the conception of a universal philosophy of history. That philosophy is based upon religion and the roll-call of the nations is made that the doom of them all may be pronounced. Thus does vision conquer fact in the days which waited for the destruction of the visible throne of David. The Book of Deuteronomy contains the great law, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one THE IDEA OF GOD 87 Jehovah, and thou shalt love Jehovah, thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Whatever be the truth of the date and authorship of the Book of Deuteronomy, there is no question at all that it did not exist as an early law for the Hebrew people. It did not exist as a law during all the period of the making of the nation and the earlier part of the monarchy. As a historic influence it belongs to the times of the prophets. But it is of the historic unfolding of the idea with which we have to do and not merely its literary conception. The thought of God contained in Deuteronomy, in the Book of Job, and in many of the Psalms, finds its full unfolding in the prophets. Beyond the majesty of the prophets the human mind has never gone, and with them the permanent message of Israel to humanity is finally expressed. The history of Israel really ended with the great voices that spoke out of the captivity by the rivers of Babylon. What follows after must be sketched in order to show political and ecclesiastical forms, but the great anguish of the human soul was in the struggle to find his God and having found Him he knew at once "The Lord our God is one God." He is everywhere present. "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me; thou know- 88 RELIGION IN THE MAKING est my downsitting and uprising; thou under- standest my thought forever" (Psa. cxxxix. 2). This omnipresent God has no rival. The ancient deities are dead. 'Thus saith Jehovah, king and redeemer of Israel, Jehovah of Hosts. I am the first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God" (Isa. xliv. 6). This God is as strong as He is universal. ''Ah Lord Jehovah, behold, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for thee, the great and almighty God ; Jehovah of Hosts is his name, great in council and mighty in work, whose eyes are upon all the ways of the sons of men" (Jer. xxxii. 17-19). Not alone is Jehovah enthroned but He also has a law. He himself is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works. The whole earth is full of His glory because men when they praise Him may cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts!" but Jehovah is as compassionate as He is great and holy and righteous. If the wicked will forsake their evil ways and evil thoughts by repentance, they may find life. The heavenly throne increased in splendor as the glory of the earthly throne grew dim. This universal and triumphant Lord quick- ened in the souls of His servants the psalm of an unquenchable hope. He shared in the sorrows of THE IDEA OF GOD 89 His people. He would level the mountains, lift up the valleys, and make the wilderness blossom as a garden. Through all the painful centuries men had been groping their way. They had worked with such fragments of the divine idea as they could find and use. They had built altars. They had painfully constructed rituals, but at length they had ended all the weary journey and from the summit of their painful way they had caught the vision of the everlasting truth and beauty, and they spoke their discovery to the souls of men in living words that can never perish. CHAPTER VII SACRED PERSONS THE MAKING OF THE PRIEST The ideas of God, of Providence, of Immortal- ity, are fundamental to religion. The idea of duty in its modern sense is a later addition, but some form of the idea of duty to God is as primitive as the thought of God itself. Different peoples differ in the order and in the insistence of these ideas. With the Hebrews on the whole, the idea of God was the strongest factor in the making of their institutions. Where ancestor worship is the chief cult of the people the idea of immortality is the most important. India and China, each in its own way, have laid emphasis upon conduct. The idea of Providence has its dark as well as its bright side, and these are both reflected in forms of worship. The early gods are whimsical and passion-driven. The old Greek poets thought they could not be depended upon nor their actions predicted. They were also set free from the usual moral limitations that belong to men. Perhaps the greatest practical gain to the religious convictions of the world is that 90 SACRED PERSONS 91 given to us by the later Hebrews when they disclose a God who Himself lives by law and reigns in righteousness. The institutions of worship have their development and are efforts to embody in visible forms the great ideas which furnish the basis of religion. The development of associate human life marks the distinct unfolding of particular institutions. It is by no means true that all civilizations begin as the Hebrew with a patriarchial age. That required a pastoral people. But in the early social group there are no such distinct institutions as family, church, and state. The relation of church and state is not so much one of conscious union as it is that the two functions are performed by one form of organization. This appears in highly developed civilizations as among the Egyptians, and, to a large extent, among the Greeks and Romans. The supremacy of the church in ancient Egypt is seen, where the king could only be crowned after having become a priest. The sacred and secular duties were two sides of one office. When a social group comes to have a definite order, so far at least as to have one man at its head, in the earlier times domestic, religious, and political functions are per- formed by the chief. Leadership of the horde or clan fell to the man who was strongest or bravest. 92 RELIGION IN THE MAKING but in the beginning his duties were not regular or defined. It was the crisis of danger that brought him to the front. Because he could fight he was also permitted to rule. At a time when only the animal wants were insistent and the ability to satisfy them was small, the physical life was the chief object of interest. It was impossible for crude and undeveloped men without organized industries, dependent at first upon hunting and fishing, and the native fruits of the earth, to live in large com- panies. The smallness of the early social group pre- vented anything like full organization, just as much as the lack of capacity made men unfit for varied duties. All of the higher development of a people, as well as the enlargement of the size of the social group, needed the foundation of material success, and first of all was the importance of a surplus food supply. The beginnings of agriculture are the beginnings of a possible civilization. The head of the clan, or tribe, is at once soldier, law giver, judge and priest; as the functions are all found in one person, so the exercise of them has no rule except that of certain customs, growing w^ith time, which are handed down from generation to generation. When prosperity increases, the group enlarges, the ofiiclal functions become more varied, and, at the same time, more definite. Early laws SACRED PERSONS 93 are few and unwritten. Early religious ceremonies are simple, and neither the time nor the method of them is well defined. The laws grew age by age in number and exactness. At length they are re- duced to writing. If a code be found anywhere that is full, explicit, and minute, though we find nothing of its origin, we are sure that it comes at a late period in the development of the people. If a ritual be full and varied, giving exact directions, both as to formal acts of worship and the religious sanctions of the ordinary conduct of life, we know that the religion is old and has gathered its defi- niteness through many generations. A complex life must always be an orderly life. When the king, the lawgiver, the judge, the soldier, and the priest, are different individuals, the functions of each must be accurately described that there be no clash of authority. It will be seen, therefore, that the development of institutions and the development of authority run on parallel lines. They cannot become definite in function any faster than they are limited in scope. The familiar doctrine of the division of labor, by which each workman is given a small and definite task that, at the expense of variety of activity, he may gain great technical skill, indicates a universal law. Industry cannot assume these 94 RELIGION IN THE MAKING definite divisions until it becomes developed and enlarged. The shoemaker at his bench used to make a shoe. Now no man makes a shoe, but only a part of one in a great factory, but in combination with many other persons the shoe is made. The shoemaker at his bench represents at once the largeness and the imperfection of authority in a social group exercised by one person. The factory exhibits the order and life of a highly developed community. , The development of the priesthood follows the order of the development of all other offices with special functions in human institutions. The functions are at first vague, and may be performed by any suitable person. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the primary phenomena of re- ligion relate to sacred acts rather than to sacred persons. It will be seen that the development of the priesthood in Israel follows the order observed in the development of the priesthood elsewhere just as the priesthood universally follows the order of the development of all official functions from vagueness to definiteness, from the free volition of the individual to the authority of the social group. Chronologically we should deal, therefore, first with forms of worship, but it seems better in the logical order to watch first the development of the SACRED PERSONS 95 priesthood. In the account of the origins, both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices though Adam still lived, and it was the younger son who was accepted. Sacrifice was not in the beginning confined to the head of the family. Jacob set up his altar at Bethel and upon the pillar poured out the oil of sacrifice. Prayers and revelations were confined to no sacred guild, but were for those in whom the need was. The period of Moses and Joshua we pass by in order to study the growth of the institution in those ages when the nation was manifestly in process of formation. And here again it is necessary to emphasize the attitude of this study which is to seek to see things at work and to interpret all other data by that method. We find in the Book of Judges no organized priesthood, no developed ritual, and so far as the sons of Israel are concerned, the ritual law, so full and complete in Leviticus, did not exist. The angel of the Lord when he appeared to Gideon did not stop to ask him of what tribe he was, but said : "Build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock and take the second bullock and offer a burnt sacrifice" (Judges vi. 26). And Gideon of the tribe of Manasseh obeyed him. Manoah was not of the tribe of Levi, and held no priestly office, but "the angel of the Lord said. If 96 RELIGION IN THE MAKING thou wilt offer a burnt-offering thou must offer it unto the Lord ... so Manoah took a kid with a meat-offering and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord" (Judges xiii. 16-19). There were priests of the Lord in Shiloh, EH and his sons, and the ac- count seems to indicate a regular order of worship, but, at all events, when David appears we discover something in Hebrew history which has occurred many times elsewhere, namely, the union of king and priest in one person. David built an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah at the command of Gad the prophet, and there he offered burnt-offer- ings and peace-offerings. Now David was of the tribe of Judah, and if he had lived in the later ages he would not have been allowed to offer sacrifices, but that it was permitted in those times the narra- tive leaves us no doubt, for as the result of these sacrifices "the Lord was entreated for the land and the plague was stayed in Israel" (2 Sam. xxiv.). That this service was not by accident it may be noted that David at the solemn time of bringing the Ark to an official position in Israel, not only offered burnt-offerings, but to make the event even more significant, he gave the priestly benediction. "He blest the people in the name of the Lord of Hosts" (2 Sam. vi. 15-18). Solomon, the builder of the temple, continued the SACRED PERSONS 97 functions of priest exercised by his father. After his sacramental dream he came to Jerusalem and in the solemn presence of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord "he offered up burnt-offerings and offered peace-offerings" (i Kings iii. 15). But if there was one time more than another when a limited priesthood definitely appointed would have its place and its power, it was at the solemn dedica- tion of the completed temple. Here Solomon not only presided over the sacrifices but offers the memorable prayer of dedication (i Kings viii. 22). And if it be supposed that inasmuch as the stately temple was, in effect, a royal chapel, we might find here an explanation of the unique act of royal priesthood, that thought is dissipated by the further statement that thereafter regularly Solomon minis- tered as a priest: "and three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt-offerings and peace-offerings upon the altar which he built unto the Lord" (i Kings ix. 25). The dramatic case of Elijah, prophet and not priest, whose sacrifice on Mt. Carmel was accepted by fire from heaven, as well as the humbler account of Ahaz, making offerings upon his return from Damascus, show how extended in time was this freedom of priestly service. This doctrine of the general priesthood of the 7 98 RELIGION IN THE MAKING people seems to have been confirmed by an early- statute prescribing a method of service for use by the people generally : "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and shall sacrifice thereon thy burnt- offerings and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen. In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee, and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it" (Ex. xx. 24-26). The priests had the charge of the sanctuaries where these existed; they consulted oracles; they conducted the services of religions. The develop- ment of a particular order of men in Israel to whom was committed the function of the priest- hood may be traced, though not without difficulty. According to the early record, Moses seems to have been the priest of the tent of meeting in the wilderness while Joshua kept guard over it. It was Moses who pitched the tabernacle without the camp, and when he went to the tabernacle every man rose up and stood in his tent door. At the same time, the record seems to indicate that every man might go himself to seek the Lord at this tabernacle outside the camp (Ex. xxxiii. 7-1 1). Here Moses seems not only to have been lawgiver and judge, but also priest. The union of these functions in SACRED PERSONS 99 one man is quite characteristic of primitive society. The development of a particular priesthood is recognized in the early histories. The curious case of Micah of Mt. Ephraim is interesting in several ways. His mother had dedicated eleven hundred shekels of silver to make a graven image and a molten image, and these were to be dedicated unto the Lord though He had from the mount declared "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Micah seems to have had a chapel of his own, and to have furnished it with the instruments of re- ligion. One of his sons he made a priest. A young Levite came to him, was adopted into the family, supplanted the son, was consecrated by Micah himself, and became his private chaplain. When in their invasion the sons of Dan discovered the chapel, the images, and the priest, they begged the young Levite to go with them, saying: "Be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel?" (Judges xvii. xviii.). The significant thing here is the manifest revelation that the children of Dan had no priest and no proper sanctuary. It is very evident from the state of society disclosed through- out all these early records that there was no well- organized church with regular clergy and services, 100 RELIGION IN THE MAKING any more than there was a regularly organized state with king and court. There was a house of the Lord in Shiloh in the days of Samuel, whither he went and where Eli and his sons served as priests, and all the evidence points to the slow and irregu- lar evolution of the sacred office. What then became of the priesthood of Aaron? It is quite within reason to suppose that Moses may have handed over the function of priest to his brother, as many another chieftain has done in the course of history. It is possible, also, that even at that time the office was promised to his heirs and successors. We read that Phinehas the grand- son of Aaron turned away the wrath of Jehovah from Israel and to him there came this promise: "Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and he shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God" (Num. xxv. 13). It is perfectly certain that at the time the Second Law was written not only were the priests recognized as belonging exclusively to the tribe of Levi, but the priests themselves seem as superior officers to be distinguished from the general body of the Levites. There was to be no inheritance for them in Israel, but they were to have a share in the fruits and flocks of the other tribes. SACRED PERSONS lOI In the days of David the house of Zadok came to a position of leadership which seems to have re- mained to them thereafter. Abiathar had been the high priest. In the time of the conspiracy of Absalom, Zadok and Abiathar are named together as high priests, and here Zadok's name comes first. The interpretation of this matter is found later, when we discover that Abiathar intrigued that the succession of the throne after the death of David should descend to Adonijah, while Zadok stood with Nathan the prophet in favor of the succession of Solomon. We have here an account of a reli- gious intrigue in politics which makes it sound as though it might have been in the Middle Ages at any of the courts of Europe. The family of Zadok never lost this preeminence, according to Ezekiel, who declares that the sons of Zadok among the sons of Levi are those who come near to the Lord to minister unto him, and the house of Zadok becomes thereafter the ruling religious family. As Solomon banished Abiathar, so after the division of the king- dom Jeroboam made a house of high places for Israel, and made priests of the lowest of the people who were not of the sons of Levi. The struggle between church and state, priest and king, is one of the recurrent facts in human history. Samuel, representing religion, commands 102 RELIGION IN THE MAKING the throne in anointing Saul and afterward removes the scepter from Saul and anoints David. In the northern kingdom religion in the person of the prophets sets up one dynasty and pulls down an- other. But in the great royal days of David and of Solomon they organized the functions of religion and the priest was subordinate to the king. After the captivity the priest came to the control which remained permanent during the life of the nation. It is not easy to sift out the record of the laws, but it is very evident what was the course of the history. In early days the head of the family offered the sacrifice, identifying the father and the priest. After the development of the tribes and during the formation of the nation, important men of any station might act in the capacity of priest at the altar of sacrifice. Gradually the priestly order is erected out of the tribe of Levi, and then out of a single family of that tribe, for whose action special regulations, full and minute, are found in the final law. To the priests was committed the care of the sanctity of Israel, and under penalty of death no one might offer sacrifice save the priestly tribe. It may be noted that the function of the priest is not the same throughout the history, and this must be briefly considered. In early time they have SACRED PERSONS 103 to do with oracles, and here the priest seems to join hands with the wise man or the soothsayer. This function compares with that of the oracle among the Greeks and other peoples. Ultimately this passes away and the priest becomes the minis- ter of a ritual and the servant of an altar. The Second Law enlarges upon the judicial function of the priest. He not only taught the law, but he also decided difficult cases. "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment between blood and blood, then shalt thou arise and get thee up unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, accord- ing to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee and according to the judgments which they shall tell thee thou shalt do" (Deut. xvii. 8-25). Many times in the prophets were the priests spoken of as the lawyers and sometimes as the judges of Israel, and their teaching function is expressly de- clared. In the final type of the priestly code, how- ever, the judicial functions of the priest seem to have entirely given way and his exclusive offices became to minister at the altar and to guard the sanctity of Israel. Though Ezekiel recognizes the judicial function of the priesthood, it is only in matters of the canon and not of the civil law (Ezek. xliv. 24). Another function of the priesthood was patriotic. 104 RELIGION IN THE MAKING He was not expected to arm himself with coat of mail as many a priest and bishop has done and go out to battle with his own hands, but at least he must inspire and promise for his people the help of Jehovah, the God of battles. "When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seest horses and chariots and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is with thee which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and it shall be when ye are come nigh unto the battle that the priest shall approach and speak unto the peo- ple and shall say unto them, Hear O Israel, ye ap- proach this day into battle against your enemies. Let not your hearts faint, fear not and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them for the Lord your God is he that goeth with you to fight for you and against your enemies to save you'* (Deut. XX. 1-6). The final development of the priesthood, of course, is connected with the establishment of one central shrine at Jerusalem where alone sacrifices might be offered. But this must be left for a special discussion of sacred places. The history of the development of the priesthood in Israel com- pares with the unfolding of the same office among other peoples. The priestly function is usually con- fined to the family unit in the first instance, and SACRED PERSONS 105 where there is no established priesthood the family worship propitiates ancestors, as happened all the way from Madagascar to India. When great temples were erected for national worship at na- tional capitals, the primitive worship to the house- hold gods was still conducted by private families. It has been quite common that the eldest male in family or clan should be the priest. Every Israelite seems to have been competent to offer sacrifices up to the time of David; and in Egypt, as in India, it was regarded as important that every family should have a son to perform the due rites of sacrifice. It is sure that when families cease to be nomads and settle in village communities, the chief acts as priest. Among many peoples the ruler was the chief priest, just as in Great Britain King Edward is the head of the English Church. All the way from Sparta to Scandinavia kings and chiefs assumed religious functions, and Solomon and David were quite within the usual royal preroga- tives when they ministered at holy places. With the development of the complex life of a people by the increase of territory and the growth of numbers, the ruler delegates some of his functions, and there arises as separate from his person though dependent upon him, the military leader, the judge, and the priest. Along with the develop- Io6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING ment of the divine office of priest goes the increas- ing complexity of the rehgious ritual. Simple and occasional rites will no longer serve. Appointed feast days, the growth of rigorous duties, and the complexities of worship increase the arduous tasks of religion, and the varied functions call for a par- ticular religious caste. As the Hebrew priest promised the help of Jehovah to the warlike Hebrews, so the priests promised help from the gods among the more warlike Spartans. The judicial function of the priest is not only illustrated in old English and German law, but is found among the tribes of both South America and Africa as well. To sum up: We have seen the slow development in Israel of a special priestly caste. We have found that the services of religion become highly specialized when the central authority becomes ex- tended and complete. It will be seen that the ritual becomes more and more extended and exact as time goes on. Whether the Book of Leviticus were written by Moses or not is of no importance to this study, but this study shows that the observ- ance of the Book of Leviticus lies at the comple- tion of the development of the Jewish Church. SACRED PERSONS 107 THE TRIBE OF LEVI The problem of the priestly tribe has no difficul- ties from the point of view of its organization as developed after the Exile, and as existent in the later times in Jerusalem. The passage in Genesis does not speak well of Levi. He and his brother Simeon are included in the same condemnation — "cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel ; I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel" (Gen. xlix. 7). The whole tribe of Levi seems to have been set apart for religious service. An elaborate account of the organization of the tribe of Levi is found in Numbers. The command is, "And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron and unto his sons; they are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel" (Num. iii. 9). According to this history, Jehovah claimed all of the first-born males of the children of Israel, but He accepted the tribe of Levi instead of the first-born of all the tribes. According to the account in Deuteronomy, it was after the death of Aaron that the tribe was chosen. Their duties are briefly stated thus: "At that time Jehovah set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, to stand before Jehovah to minister unto him and to bless in his name unto this day" (Deut. x. 8). I08 RELIGION IN THE MAKING In the account of the distribution of the land in Joshua, we are told that the children of Joseph were the head of two tribes and "therefore they gave no part unto the Levites in the land save cities to dwell in with their suburbs." However, the title deed to lands recorded in the Book of Joshua were not immediately of sufficient authority to put the owners of them into possession of the land, as we learn in the historic story of the growth of Israel. After the kingdom was divided, Jeroboam chose two old sanctuaries, one at Bethel and the other at Dan, and "made priests from among all the people that were not of the sons of Levi," which is a dis- tinct intimation that at the time of the division of the kingdom the southern part of the kingdom had definitely accepted the idea that the Levites were a sacred tribe. It is to be noted, however, that the prophets Amos and Hosea do not deny the levitical rank to the northern priests. There seems to have been no formal distinction between the priests and Levites in any of the earlier history. Any male of the house of Levi was en- titled to be a priest. The Levites are specially men- tioned as having authority to give the divine bless- ing, which, of course, is essentially a priestly function. Lists of various cities are given, with their sur- SACRED PERSONS 109 rounding fields that were bestowed upon the tribe of Levi for their support instead of a share in the inheritance of the tribes. It is also stated that a tenth of all that was possessed by Israel was the share of the tribe. Some of the cities that belonged to the Levites were ancient holy cities and that may account for the growth of the tradition. It was late in the history of Israel when a number of these cities came into possession of the kingdom, and they could not have been religious gratuities without the consent of those who occupied them. The building of the royal temple at Jerusalem and the organization of an elaborate service would call for a definite organization of men to perform the duties. Accordingly we find that David had some thirty-eight thousand Levites ; twenty-four thousand of them took care of the temple and its sacrifices, six thousand were officers and judges, four thousand were porters and four thousand were musicians. This account is given in Chronicles, which is, confessedly, of late origin. It is manifest that as there was no developed priesthood, so there could be no developed sub- ordinate organization in times of confusion and prior to orderly social development. The Chronicles give us a full account of priestly genealogies, but I suppose that no one would insist upon the perfect no RELIGION IN THE MAKING correctness of all the genealogies in the Old Testa- ment. After the Exile, priests and Levites were carefully distinguished from each other. The priests seem to have been more numerous than the Levites and the religious function had become a holy office rather than the function of a tribe. No clear view of the development of the religious order can be taken without having in mind the gradual exclusion of outside places of worship and the development of the central shrine at Jerusalem. The development of the uniqueness of Jerusalem must run parallel to the definiteness of function upon the part of the men who performed the serv- ice. But it is not until the great reforms under Josiah that unity of religion begins to have a sub- stantial foundation in Israel. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROPHETS The unprofessional holy office in Israel was that held by individuals, usually not anointed, called prophets. They belonged to no special tribe; they seem to have been inducted into office by no special ceremony ; but their development runs parallel with that of Israel and throws great light upon much of its life. Indeed, the most valuable history in the Old Testament is that found in the Books of the Prophets. The prophet, however, was not left SACRED PERSONS m without a special place in the Second Law. If a prophet should urge idolatry, such a speaker or dreamer of dreams is to be put to death, because Jehovah is the one who redeemed Israel from the house of bondage. A prophet also is commanded to speak the truth, and if the thing does not follow nor come to pass, this is the thing which the Lord has not spoken and such a prophet was to be put to death; but this law seems to have been a little too rigorous and in practice it was modified to teach that the predictions of prosperity must not fail, but that if the predictions of evil turn the people to repent- ance, then the disaster may be averted. The per- formance of Saul has been pushed too far in the effort to show that the early prophets were simply given to frenzy and ecstasy. Saul was manifestly an insane man as, among other things, the gusts of temper in which he cast his javelin at David indicate. And Samuel, the man who anointed Saul as king, is conspicuous as prophet as well as being a politician and a judge. The notices of prophets that we have in the early days of the kings all indicate the sober character of these men. Nathan and Gad are typical wise men who have influence with the king and with his people. Though there were no glorious vestments shining with jewels to 112 RELIGION IN THE MAKING mark the prophet, yet he was not without his own particular kind of vestment. The hairy mantle of the great Elijah was probably not unusual, just as the goat's hair mantle was of special significance to the Bedouins, and when one of the later prophets speaks of the days to come he adds, "neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive." The divinations seem to have been connected rather with the function of the priest than with that of the prophet. Diviners, oracles, magicians, sooth- sayers, were found in some form or other among many peoples. Moses met them in Egypt, Daniel found them in Babylon, Greece had her Delphi, and so on among many peoples and tribes. The notices of the prophets are hardly sufficient to indicate that there were regular communities In which they lived In common after the fashion of monasteries. And yet it would seem from the stories of Elijah and Elisha that possibly there were. However, It was not from these schools, nor as representing their special wisdom, that the great prophetic voices spoke. Elijah shows what the prophet can do in politics and that here he may even be the rival of the priest, for he destroys the throne in two kingdoms and anoints Hazael for Syria and Jehu for Israel while he left the succes- sion of his own office to Elisha. SACRED PERSONS 113 It is a great step forward to the time when Amos has his contests with the priest of Bethel; contests with priests both true and false were repeated generation by generation. These literary prophets manifest a splendid individualism. With them there were no guilds, no mechanism of religion, no shrines and no wonders. Their great messages are in the beginning essentially ethical messages. They are addressed to their own people and to their own time. They deal not alone with personal conduct, but with messages of political wisdom, reveaHng keenness of insight, as well as righteousness of aim. The qualities that made these writings immortal are not vague and doubtful forecasts of particular events, but they tingle through and through with a conception of righteousness, scorn of dishonor, and hatred of the lie. And this is not all. From the first to the last of them they speak an abiding faith in the final triumph of righteousness. The psalm of hope cannot die out of their hearts. Not all of them were so radiant and glowing as the great prophet who wrote hymns to take the place of those psalms of Zion which the captives could not sing by the rivers of Babylon. Let others hang their harps on the willows. His mighty hand should strike from one harp a note of triumph so distinct that the music still lives in the world and can never die until the sun grows cold. 8 CHAPTER VIII SACRED PLACES THE ALTAR Every religion has had its sacred places. Natur- ally, the nature of the religion has influenced the conception of the sacred place. There have been holy caves, holy fountains, holy trees, holy altars, holy temples, and holy areas of land sometimes not inclosed at all or inclosed by walls. Ancestor wor- shipers have had a tendency to make their tombs places devoted to their religion. Sacred trees and fountains have come into nature worship, and it may be that sacred caves have even descended from the cave dwellers. The sacred place shows a de- velopment parallel to that of the sacred man. Among the Hebrews, as among most peoples, the altars were older than temples. The first recorded altar is that of Noah built unto the Lord upon landing from his voyage, when he took of every clean beast and every clean fowl and offered them. This altar was probably of earth, and that seems to have been the primitive form. An ancient law reads : "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me 114 SACRED PLACES 115 and shalt sacrifice thereon; in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee" (Ex. xx. 24). The expression ''all places where I record my name" is significant as indicating the general origin of sacred places. In the account of the wanderings of Abraham when he moved unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, he built an altar unto the Lord after having pitched his tent and called upon the name of the Lord (Gen. xii. 8). Where the ark is said to have landed and where Abraham pitched his tent in the promised land, there was sufficient community of interest between God and man for an altar to be erected. But once again Abraham returns to Bethel: "He came unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called on the name of the Lord." This recurrent visit indicates the growth of holy places, and so Bethel, renewed again and again in the history of Israel by sacred transactions, became at last per- manently one of the holy places of Israel. It may not have been wholly by accident that Jacob set up his pillar at Bethel, or it may be that this was some other place but still chosen as a House of God because of the holy dream. At a later time in the history of Jacob, the Lord commanded him to "arise, go up to Bethel and dwell Il6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING there, and make there an altar unto God;" and we read further that Jacob took from his people in preparation for this worship, all their strange gods, and their earrings, and "J^^ob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." Here is a notice of the holy tree and the beginning of another holy shrine. Shechem, too, is a place honored by a visit from Abraham. It was where Joshua uttered his farewell to Israel, and "there he took a great stone and set up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord," and here went the ten tribes to set up Rehoboam as king. Another of the sacred places of Israel was the town called Hebron. It was here also that Abram rested his tent for a long residence and built there an altar unto the Lord. The place was further sanctified by the memorable theophany when the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamreh and "he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day." And after the great battle of Israel with Amalek, Moses set up an altar and called the name of it "The Lord my Banner." It is evident that the erection of an altar was proper in any place of significance, and in the days of the making of Israel recorded in Judges and Samuel, there were altars in many places. The SACRED PLACES 117 general law was that sacred history made the loca- tion of the events also sacred. In like manner there were certain sacred moun- tains, Mt. Sinai by way of preeminence, but also Mt. Moriah with Gerizim and Ebal. The earlier law had suggested earth as the proper material for an altar. We come to the time of Solomon's temple, and here we find an altar made of brass. According to the chronicler this altar was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high, but notwithstanding the size of this altar, it was necessary for the king to hallow the middle of the court, and there he offered burnt- offerings and meat-offerings, evidently upon an altar of earth according to the ancient law. The altar of stone was permitted in the law though it was not to be hewn stone, but there is no account of any authority for a brazen altar. But it was going further away from the tradi- tions of the fathers when King Ahaz, on a cere- monial visit at Damascus to TIglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, saw an altar that pleased him at Damascus and sent to his principal priest, Urijah, the fashion of the altar and the pattern of it, ac- cording to all the workmanship thereof, that a copy might be made for him ; and when Ahaz had returned from Damascus he found the altar Il8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING already erected. It seems that he himself offered his own sacrifices, and it seems that this altar became his own special way of approaching God. Sacred trees have already been referred to. Abraham is said to have planted one in Beersheba. It was under an oak at Shechem that Jacob hid his treasures ; It was under an oak that Gideon met the angel of the Lord and there built an altar, and, long before, the nurse of Rebecca was buried at Bethel under an oak. The sign came to David that he should fight against the Philistines when he heard "the sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees, for then shall the Lord go out before thee to smite the hosts of the Philistines" (2 Sam. V. 24). The prophet Hosea indicates that there were licentious rites of religion that took place "under oaks and poplars and elms because the shadow thereof is good." Ezekiel In his vision was brought Into the Inner court of the Lord's house and even between the porch and the altar he saw "five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, their faces toward the east, and they worshiped the sun toward the east." Ezekiel also says that at the gate of the Lord there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Tammuz repre- sented the sun of life. Under the withering sun he died, but came to life again the next spring. SACRED PLACES 119 Such is the Babylonian myth which was the fore- runner of All Souls' Day. The worship of the planets seems to have come late, although there were altars upon the roofs of the houses in the days of Ahaz and there were symbolical horses for the sun in front of the house of the Lord. It was significant when Isaiah re- buked the astrologers, the star-gazers, and the monthly foretellers, calling the attention of his people to the shining heavens in these words : "Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things; that bringeth out their host by num- ber; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth" (Isa. xl. 26). The Book of Deuteronomy was doubtless the book of the law which Hilkiah, the high priest, brought unto the young king Josiah. That was a great day for Israel and for the world, whoever wrote the Book of Deuteronomy and wherever Hilkiah found it. For we read that whereas hith- erto they have been permitted to worship at any altar which might serve, the time should come when there would be one place "which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command 120 RELIGION IN THE MAKING you; your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices and your tithes" (Deut. xii.). Hitherto the eating of flesh was always accom- panied with divine sacrifice ; henceforth, if they were too far away from the place which God hath chosen, they might kill and eat in their gates wherever they were and whatsoever the soul lusted for. It was a great reformation that Josiah undertook in answer to this copy of the law; not alone were vessels of Baal destroyed but the altars to Baal round about Jerusalem were broken down and destroyed. The horses to the sun and the altars upon the tops of the upper chambers of the houses, the strange altars which Manasseh had made in the house of the Lord, these were all destroyed. The very dust of them was cast into the brook Kidron and the valley of Tophet was defiled so that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire as a sacrifice to Moloch. Not only these altars were destroyed, but the altar at Bethel was broken down and stamped small to powder. The sepulchers were robbed of their bones, and the bones were burned upon the altar of Bethel in order to pollute it forever. This was the beginning of the new doctrine of one great altar and a central shrine where the feasts of religion might properly take place. SACRED PLACES 121 THE HIGH PLACES The elevations of the earth with wide-reaching views and the sense of exaltation which comes to the man who stands upon their summits have had much significance in the history of religion. It is far older than the thought that a temple is more conspicuous and so more significant because of its elevated position. And besides, this is not a universal fact. It probably came in with a form of nature worship that was connected with the heavenly bodies. The great height became an altar, and there men beheld the first rays of light which gilded the earth with the symbol of universal life and power. Reference has already been made to the signifi- cance of hills and mountains in the religion of Israel. Jehovah was the God of the hills. It is also important to note, however, that this by no means exhausts the historical uses of high places, and it is necessary to give a brief account of them that we may understand their value for the Semites. These men, whether from the Euphrates or from the Nile, were men of the lowlands, where life may be easy and labor well rewarded, but was always commonplace, and they felt the fascination of the sterile heights where life seems noble and the soul IS free. So it was that the Hebrews, whether in the 122 RELIGION IN THE MAKING worship of Jehovah or falling into their oft-time idolatries, set great store by the high places. When Saul visited Samuel at the town of Ramah he not only went to the high places above the town, but the prophet took him apart upon the roof of the house, — but that is not so surprising, since the roofs of houses were prepared ordinarily for the re- ception of guests. It is important to note that the high place was also the holy place without refer- ence to the form of religion. When Saul called a council of those who were nearest to him at the time that David had gathered his men in the cave of Adullam, the council was called in a grove on a high place near Gibeah. It was at the same place where the first feast took place when he was the guest of Samuel at the time of the anointing. This sacred place he sought again when the question arose of the security of his throne. It was not enough for Jeroboam to make idols for the worship of the northern kingdom, but he also established high places with groves on the high hills and the green trees that were adapted to the services. When Elijah nerved himself for the final issue between Jehovah and the Baalim, he bade all Israel gather unto Mt. Carmel as unto a sacred height where the contest might be less doubtful. And when his spirit was broken and he knew not what to do, he SACRED PLACES 123 went to Horeb the mount of God and there he had speech with his divine Ruler. Afterwards, instead of Horeb, there was the mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem upon which stood the House of the God of Jacob, and the call to the people was, Let us go up *'and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall come forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. ii. 3). The great reformation under Hezekiah, who had for one of his counselors the prophet Isaiah, re- veals him as a special servant of God. "He trusted in Jehovah, the God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among the kings of Judah nor among them that were before him." Not only did he rebel against the king of Assyria and smite the Philistines, but in his religious reformation he removed the high places and brake the pillars. We also now hear of one altar and one place of wor- ship that is alone permitted to the people of Judah, and that is the temple in Jerusalem. Even the inter- national politics between Egypt and Assyria are not enough to prevent the revival of the religious interest that was to be most far-reaching in Its consequences. In the still greater reformation under Josiah to which reference has already been made, the high places in the cities of Judah upon 124 RELIGION IN THE MAKING which incense had formerly been offered were destroyed, and the mount of corruption built by Solomon for the various gods to whom he fur- nished hospitality was also broken and defiled. If the high places were, some of them, ancient shrines of the Canaanites and they had been adopted by Israel upon his arrival in the land, we may see in this conflict between Jehovah and the Baalim two stages : one in which the high places were accepted as in their very nature adapted to become holy unto the Lord; but when the second stage enters, and the rule of Jehovah becomes not only supreme but with a definite center at Jerusalem, the high places became an abomination. Every recurrent idolatry would find its place upon some high hill, and so the attitude of the prophets toward the high places becomes luminous with a religious purpose. Hosea declares in his denunciations, "I will visit upon her the days of Baalim wherein she burns incense to them." Before him Amos declares, "And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste." Jeremiah wails, "Their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills." Ezekiel had identified the high places with idolatry in the most definite manner. "Ye shall know that I am Lord when their slain men SACRED PLACES 125 shall be among their idols round about their altars upon every high hill in all the tops of the moun- tains and under every green tree and under every thick oak" (Ezek. vi. 13). Even the sacred tree of the earlier times has fallen under condemnation. Ezekiel also furnishes us a very valuable connec- tion when he says : 'Thus saith the Lord God : yet in this your fathers have blasphemed me in that they have committed a trespass against me. For when I had brought them into the land for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill and all the thick trees and they offered there their sacrifices and there they presented the provocation of their offering; there also they made their sweet savor and they poured out their drink offerings (Ezek. xx. 27-29). Still more clear does the situation become when we read the statutes of Deuteronomy, for they indi- cate the Canaanitish origin of high places as well as the later sanctity of a central shrine, which must doom them as places of worship. Thus the Second Law : "Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations that ye have dispossessed served their gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree ; but unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his 126 RELIGION IN THE MAKING habitation shall ye seek and thither thou shalt come" (Deut. xii. 1-7). We are not surprised, therefore, to find that Leviticus in forecasting the future in the spirit of Ezekiel declares, ''And I will destroy your high places and cut down your sun images and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols and my soul shall abhor you" (Lev. xxvi. 30). These conclusions seem to be well founded. The worship of the Baalim upon certain high places which became sanctuaries was already existent when Israel entered the land. The conquerors accepted the traditions of the conquered with re- spect to the holy memories that belonged to the places within the land. For a long time the worship of Jehovah by those who were faithful to him was conducted v/ithout rebuke upon high places. When the temple was established at the capital in Jerusalem, it was already a prophecy of a single place of worship. The destruction of the high places was not all in the interests of the worship of Jehovah as against the strange gods. It was in the interest of the concentration of worship with which the statesmanship of the priest Hilkiah seems to have had as much to do as had the pious devo- tion of the king Hezekiah. The voice of the prophets is raised in condem- SACRED PLACES 127 nation of the high places because by their time the mountains, the hills, and the green trees had come to symbolize idolatry, and for them their destruction was in the interests of the worship of Jehovah as the one God. Here is one of the numerous interests in which priest and prophet combine though obvi- ously from different reasons. THE TEMPLE The story of the temple in human history would represent an account of the cultural development of religion. As the altar was essential to the wor- shipers in all sacrificial religions, so the temple was representative of the presence of God in every re- ligion. The chief altar always stood outside the temple. The temple itself was regarded literally as a House of God. It was because the divine pres- ence needed to be recognized by an official house other than that occupied by the worshiper that architecture had its beginnings, its unfolding, and its highest significance. Temples were required to shelter the statues of the gods and in some form or other all the ancient religions made their temples their divine dwelling places. Into every new temple by some special dedication the divine presence was invoked and it was not a presence of the imagina- tion or the emotion, but a definite presence of 128 RELIGION IN THE MAKING veritable reality. All religions sang psalms like to the Hebrew hymn: "Arise, O Lord, into thy rest- ing place; thou and the ark of thy strength. For Jehovah hath chosen Zion ; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my resting place forever. Here will I dwell; for I have desired it" (Psa. cxxxii.). The Hebrews were not alone in the possession of a Holy of Holies, the dark room where God especially did dwell and where He wrapped Himself round with clouds and thick darkness. For the Greek oracles and mysteries there were such awful shadows, and Egyptian temples had within them a seat of special sanctity. It is not necessary to dwell at length upon the tabernacle said to have been made in the wilderness. A single obscure reference to the tabernacle as having been set up In Shiloh by Joshua Is the only historic allusion to it after the wilderness, and Its dimensions are described as being essentially the same as the temple of Solomon. The sanctuary at Shiloh, however, seems to have continued for some time as, at least, a principal place of worship, for in the Book of Judges we read that the House of God was In Shiloh (Judges xvlii. 31). There were doubtless many temples of more or less importance in Palestine besides the later ones at Jerusalem. We read that the men of Shechem held the religious SACRED PLACES 129 festival of the vineyard ''and went into the house of their God and did eat and drink" (Judges ix. 27). If the PhiHstines had temples, as the story of Sam- son declares, it is quite certain that other parts of the land were similarly favored. There seems also to have been a temple to Jehovah in Nob which David found in the care of the priest Ahimelech who also gave to him and to his young men food from the holy bread. Solomon's temple stands at the beginning of Hebrew temple history because it was the first temple built in the capital city, at least the first temple for the worship of Jehovah. It is not neces- sary to enter into any detailed description further than it may be necessary to illuminate some of its features. The temple is said to have been like the temple at Hierapolis described by Lucian, and If so, it was of Phoenician architecture. Ruskin has taught us the use of conventionalized nature in ornament, which at once helps us to see how the palm tree and the cherub were the chief decorations of this temple. The cherub was a winged sphinx and the palm with winged animals may be seen In fragments of decorations in the Louvre. Some have thought that the cherub was a gift from the architecture of Assyria, but Ezeklel Intimates that It came from Tyre. "Thou art the anointed cherub 9 130 RELIGION IN THE MAKING that covereth ; and I have set thee so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. I have cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God and I have destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire" (Ezek. xxviii. 14-18). This, however, may have been only a sym- bolical use of the cherub to indicate the glory of Tyre. The heart of the temple was the Holy of Holies. There was an outer chamber called the Holy Place. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies were covered with a roof probably resting upon pillars like the temple of Gaza. The external measurements of the house outside was forty-five cubits by ninety cubits, much smaller that the great cathedrals with which we are familiar. In front of the temple were two free pillars of bronze said to have been eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference. These bronze pillars are said to have been cast by Hiram, king of Tyre. Some think that the portal of the porch of the temple rested upon them. Two similar pillars are de- scribed by Herodotus as having been in the sanctu- ary of Melkarth at Tyre. There were capitals of lily work which were lotus flowers used for the purpose of ornament. Similar capitals have been found in Cyprus. The partition SACRED PLACES 131 between the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place was made of olive wood. The Holy Place was floored with cypress and paneled with cedar. On three sides of the temple there were three stories of small chambers, the walls gradually thinning in their ascent. The windows must have been above these chambers. This temple was surrounded by an inner court the size of which we do not know, but in Ezekiel's temple, which of course is an ideal description and was never realized, the size of the court is given as one hundred by one hundred cubits. The inner court was surrounded by a wall made of three courses of hewn stone and cedar beams. The outer court extended to the edge of Temple Hill and was surrounded by walls, making it part of the citadel. The inner court was the general place of assembly of the people, and in front of the temple the sacrifices were offered. The Holy Place was used for the offering of incense, but the temple building itself was not for the people except that in their behalf certain services were performed, and the Holy of Holies was set apart for the use of the High Priest. The temple, therefore, must be under- stood as a central symbol of the religious life of the people, but in no sense a place of assembly. Elaborate description Is given of the furnishings of the temple, but it Is not necessary In this connec- 132 RELIGION IN THE MAKING tion to follow that part of the subject. They were probably more costly and important than some of our later scholars believe. The temple was plundered first by Shishak of Egypt, who ''took away the treasures of the House of Jehovah and the treasures of the king's house; he even took the shields of gold which Solomon had made" (i Kings xiv. 26). This invasion of Shishak is corroborated by the inscriptions in Egypt. There is a more doubtful reference to a second plundering by the Philistines. Once more, Joash, king of Israel, plundered the temple, taking ''all the gold and silver and all the vessels that were found in the house of Jehovah and in the treasures of the king's house" (2 Kings xiv. 14). Once again, Nebuchad- rezzar, king of Babylon, robbed the temple and carried out thence "All the treasures of the house of Jehovah and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solo- mon, king of Israel, had made in the temple of Jehovah" (2 Kings xxiv. 13). Eleven years after the city was captured and the temple destroyed. It is not likely that the king of Babylon obtained quite as much plunder as the face of the narrative indi- cates, for certainly Shishak had been there before him. The effect of the Exile must be more fully con- SACRED PLACES 133 sidered in the treatment of the poHtical fortunes of Israel. There seems Httle question that it had also a profound effect upon its religious life. After the Exile we hear no more of idolatry in any form, nor is there the note of any important prophetic voice. The ritual became complete and the priest was in authority. It is because of the relation of the priest to the government of later Israel that fuller discussion must be postponed. It is necessary, however, to have some correct view of the situation. It is often taken for granted that the entire body of the people was removed from Judea to Babylon. When Jehoiachim, after a feeble defense, surrendered to the Babylonian army, he was ordered, together with the most distinguished men and such portable booty as could be found, to be sent to Babylon, but eleven years after the ruler of the Babylonian province which had been erected out of the kingdom of Judah planned an insurrec- tion of international proportions. In 586 the suc- cessful siege came to an end, the temple and the royal palace were destroyed, and the high priest and a number of important Jews were put to death. The blinded Zedekiah and a considerable number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were taken to Babylon. There was still a later deportation in consequence of local troubles. It seems that alto- 134 RELIGION IN THE MAKING gether there were about four thousand six hundred males (Jer. Hi. 28-30) but according to the account in Kings the number must have been considerably larger, perhaps as many as twelve thousand men. It is certain that many of the families also accom- panied them, so that probably some forty thousand went into exile. It will be seen, therefore, that a large number of people must have remained in and about Jerusalem. It would seem from writings of the prophets that the Hebrews in Babylon, many of them, com- promised their religious life at the same time that they shared in the prosperity of their new home. It is evident that the Jews were given a favorable position by their new masters. The friendship of the Persian king Cyrus may have had some relig- ious basis, though the discussion of that question would lead us too far afield. The return of the exiles under Ezra was by the permission of the king and the voluntary choice of the Hebrews. The number was not large, being about five or six thousand people altogether. But the men who returned were full of puritan zeal and were making a religious journey with a religious purpose. This body, however, though small, was also invested with the function of government, and Ezra and Nehemiah after many difficulties sue- SACRED PLACES 135 ceeded in reestablishing the old worship though much modified in details, and upon the ruins of the Davidic kingdom erected a reign of priests. During the years of the Exile, the old religion was kept up, at least in some degree, by the Hebrews who remained at home, though they had drawn to themselves a good many foreigners and doubtless had fallen into many errors. The new reformation was complete and explicit and the temple was re- built. The people were content with the ruins of the old temple for such services as were held until they were stirred by the preaching of Haggai and Zachariah, who accused them of caring more for their own homes than for the House of God. We know but little of the dimensions or structure of the second temple and it was doubtless built along the lines of the temple of Solomon, but it was a small building without ornament, and there was an altar of unhewn stones instead of the great altar of Solomon. There were some old men who had seen the former temple and they were moved to tears at the dedication of the new one (Ezra iii. 12). We learn from i Maccabees that there was an Inner court in which the altar was placed to which the laity had access, and Josephus informs us that the high priest Janneus built about it a wooden in- closure. We are also informed that there was a 136 RELIGION IN THE AIAKING Holy of Holies and in the Holy Place a table of show-bread and an altar of incense. Ezekiel gives us a law of exclusion and insists that the inner court should be alone for the Jews. "Thou shalt say to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations in that ye have brought in foreigners uncircumcised in heart and uncircum- cised in flesh to be in my sanctuary to profane it, even my house" (Ezek. xliv. 7). The second temple suffered as did the first from foreign invasion. The great revolt and the hero- isms of the Maccabees followed upon the robbery of the temple and the desecration of its altar. Judas Maccabeus is said to have so fortified the temple that it became the fortress of Jerusalem. The Roman generals, Pompey and Crassus, captured and plundered it, but it had served its purpose as the home of the new Judaism which had succeeded to that of Moses and the prophets. The temple built by Herod which succeeded the temple of the Exiles is described at some length by Josephus. The entire temple area was surrounded by a wall along which were porticos supported by four rows of Corinthian columns of white marble richly carved. The court itself was paved with mosaic. The porches and the arches of this outer SACRED PLACES 137 court were not regarded as strictly sacred. A plat- form arose fifteen cubits above the outer court, from which fourteen steps led to a narrow terrace and then five steps more from the terrace to the gate of the inner court. A wall ran around the whole of the inner court beneath the steps, and on it were placed tablets forbidding any man not a Jew to cross the threshold. One of these tablets discovered after the lapse of many centuries may now be seen at the museum in Constantinople. At the top of the steps there was a wall rising nearly twenty feet surrounding the inner court. A cross wall within the inner court from north to south gave an outer space for women, but the use of the temple buildings proper was for men. The gates had double doors covered with silver and gold. The great gate to the east is said to have been forty cubits broad and fifty cubits high. Within the inner court there was still, separated from the rest of it, another corridor surrounded by a breastwork of stone. This was the court for the priests. From this court twelve steps led to the level of the temple proper. The ground floor and the dimensions of the building are said to have been the same as in Solomon's temple. When the city was captured, it was discovered that though there was a Holy of Holies in the temple separated by a costly curtain 138 RELIGION IN THE MAKING of Babylonian workmanship made of purple and scarlet and hyacinth, colors to symbolize the uni- verse, the place itself was quite empty, as though it were some inner home of prayer that might have belonged to the great mosque itself w^hich has suc- ceeded the temple. Above the gates was ornamen- tation of golden vines and grape clusters. The temple had an upper story of the same dimensions as the lower. The eastern front of the temple was the significant part of it. According to Josephus, the porch was one hundred cubits wide and one hundred cubits high with a gateway no less than seventy cubits high and twenty cubits broad. Above this gate was placed a golden eagle and the name of Agrlppa. East from the porch stood the altar of burnt-offering made of unhewn stone. In the southwest corner there was a channel for drain- ing the sewage into the Kidron. Twenty rings were in the ground for tying the animals to be dedicated in sacrifice. Cedar beams rested upon eight pillars of marble for hanging the carcasses of the animals slain and there were eight marble tables to prepare the flesh. This temple required many years for its building and was doubtless the most splendid temple that the Hebrew people had ever possessed. We have seen the development of the place of worship from any chance spot sanctified by a SACRED PLACES 139 dream, or some special event, we have noted the growth of sanctities about a place where a wan- derer sleeps in his chance journey, or where a tent is pitched gathers to itself in time by other events and other interests an increasing value, and even though we think as some do that Bethel, Gilgal, Shechem.and other holy places were inherited from the inhabitants of the land, it still remains that with every new memory there came an added cause for devotion until Israel had its holy cities just as India, Egypt, or Greece. After the time of David, Jerusalem became pre- eminently the holy city, though sacrifice was still offered in other places. The new temple of Solomon joined royalty with religion, and from that day for- ward Jerusalem increased In rank. The reforms of Josiah and Hezekiah sought to make effective the doctrine based upon Deuteronomy that only in one place was the name of Jehovah to be found and sacrifice offered. This doctrine was framed and completed by the returning exiles who established the second temple where the priest and the Levitical law had full sway. How complete this victory of the priests was, may be seen in the fact that when It was replaced under Herod by a third temple stand- ing at the time of the opening of the Christian era, the masons and carpenters who toiled upon it were 140 RELIGION IN THE MAKING taken from the priestly families, so that no pro- fane hand might even have part in the building. Whether the story be true or not, the persistence of the tradition shows how effective was the priestly control. THE SYNAGOGUE With the second temple and the priestly control which it indicated, the voice of the prophet seems to have been forever hushed, but it was not so. The prophetic spirit never quite vanishes from the souls of men and always finds for itself some means of communication. Among the returning exiles that place was the synagogue. Primarily, the synagogue is the title of a local community with either religious or civil jurisdiction and some- times with both. More narrowly, it came to mean the building in which the assembly met. Perhaps during the Exile synagogues were organized both in Babylon and in Palestine, but they certainly began soon after the return. Jewish communities outside of Jerusalem needed some opportunity for developing the social forms of religion besides the occasional ones when they made their pil- grimages to Jerusalem. The synagogue became an institution of discipline and control in the civil life of the community as well as in its religious life, and to be excommunicated from the synagogue SACRED PLACES 141 was as much dreaded by a pious Jew as banish- ment from the altars of his religion was feared by medieval kings. The council of elders was the ruling body, consisting of twenty- three members in the larger towns and of seven members in the smaller communities. Their methods of punish- ment were more than excommunication. They had the power of scourging and, in the earlier days, are said to have even condemned men to death. Instead of permanent excommunication, for light offenses the culprit was excluded from the syna- gogue for a few days. The chief furniture of the synagogue was a chest containing the scroll of the Law. The functions of the synagogue were teach- ing the Law and worship, and it was also a place for children to attend school. Instruction seems to have preceded worship in rank of function in the synagogue. After the destruction of Jerusalem the synagogue came more and more into prominence not only in Babylon and Egypt, but throughout the Dispersion. The service consisted in call to wor- ship, prayer, reading from the Law, reading from the prophets, the exposition and the benediction. Any layman might officiate in the service, and dif- ferent persons took different parts. When the temple was destroyed, the holy fires died out and the sacred csn^^'lestick no longer gave its light, the 142 RELIGION IN THE MAKING synagogue survived all the wreck of the years and essentially lives to-day as the home of Jewish worship. Institutions are the expression of the social Hfe, but, meantime, the essential spirit is in the hearts of men. It is not content with ancient dwelling places. The spirit of the reformer is something more than a spirit of protest. It is a demand for the fresh expression of abiding life and St. Francis and St. Bernard within the bosom of the Roman Church were as truly reformers as Martin Luther or John Calvin. Buddha and Confucius w^ere re- formers. The final fact is that the progressive man assures himself of new revelations and exhibits his treasures under new forms of thought and worship. CHAPTER IX SACRED SERVICES EARLY SACRIFICES It is probable that prayer preceded sacrifice, but it was not prayer in liturgical form. Doubtless prayer was instinctive to the men who became dimly conscious of supernatural powers that af- fected the fortunes of human lives. In times of danger or of need heart-cries from the child-man were flung forth just as a little child now instinct- ively appeals to its mother. It was a long time before the social significance of religious service took on any form of ritual or of psalm. The development of the institution of sacrifice is the important matter at the foundation of the Hebrew social religious life. It would be a mis- take, however, to suppose that sacrifice was a thing peculiar to the Hebrew people. It has been as widespread as the race and its facts fall into the order of historic unfolding just as do all the other institutions of men. Ancestor worshipers and na- ture worshipers alike offer sacrifices. It has been 143 144 RELIGION IN THE MAKING suggested that they were regarded as common meals between the clan god and his own people. There seems to have been an instinctive union with the sacred animal who is partaken of as being in pos- session of the common life of the man and of their god. The gods are conceived as hungry and need- ing food. Sacrifice is a common meal between all the members of the clan as well as between the men and their god. It renews the bond of life between them all to thus eat together. The basis of the Semitic clan was always kinship; primarily, by actual descent and then including also those adopted into the clan by suitable rites. The way in which the god partook of his food differed among different peoples.* Sometimes his share was left to be eaten by wild animals who lurked near the altar. It was thought that the blood was the life, and this was poured out upon the sacred stone for divine use. Burnt-oft'erings came in as a tribute to the more subtle idea that the gods would not eat crude flesh but were pleased to have the fragrant smoke as a means of refreshment. A spring festival was very widespread. Pastoral peoples had their chief religious rites at the season when the flocks bore their young, and agricultural people not only recognized the seed-time and sought a blessing from the gods of the sun and the rain, but they also SACRED SERVICES 145 remembered their obligation when harvests were reaped and the vintage was gathered. Animal food was not common among early men. Family meals, as we understand them, were of course unknown. So it turned out among many tribes that their slaughter of an animal from the flocks was a reli- gious service and the clan gathered for the common meal while the god received his share. Out of these simpler rites grew larger festivals. A more abundant wealth brought more frequent sacrifices. These became a joyous religious gathering of the old time, full of cheer and merry-making. The more somber forms of sacrifice among all nations seem to belong to their later development. These were accented among the Hebrews at the time when the faith that material good was the chief blessing from Jehovah had broken down under the nation's calamities. Fixed times, places, and methods for sacrifices in the nature of the case were of slow development. An exact and complicated ritual would be im- possible to primitive men. It is a thing that must grow. It would be influenced by the occupation of the people, as well as by the size of the social group, the nature of the country in which they lived, and the degree of their religious unfolding. If the study of the development of the priesthood 10 146 RELIGION IN THE MAKING is well founded, it would be expected that the development of sacrifice would have a similar his- tory. Variety in worship, therefore, must result from the variety of culture among different ages and peoples. But since man is man, there is also a fundamental unity. There is, first of all, an effort for communion with the unseen powers. The needy man would bring them near; he would serve his god with what is precious to himself. But this is not all. There is a sense of danger which falls like a shadow upon the craven human heart, and as his conscience becomes more and more awakened, there is also a sense of the awful problem of evil. In all the broken fragments of primitive faiths which have come to us in the bewildering multi- tude of human rituals and altars, in the many cults extending from the rude worship of the fetich to the open-eyed vision of the highest seer, all lines converge for the expression of one supreme aspira- tion : To be rid of evil and to find peace for the soul. In this universal experience the history of the Bible exhibits a definite participation, and in the course of its history there will be seen many traces of additions and changes besides the normal changes which occur In the transition from the clan group to the developed nation. The story of Abel who offered from his flocks SACRED SERVICES 147 and of Cain who brought the fruits of the earth, brings out an antagonism that hes in the nature of the case. The story is with the same class of facts that met Zarathustra; and Darmesteter, the trans- lator of the Zend-Avesta, suggests that the fruits of the earth is the oldest form of sacrifice. There seem to have been two rival sects and Zarathustra was able to bring them together. But besides the offerings of animals represented by Abel, the developed system of the Hebrew also included obla- tions of grain, meal, bread, and oil, so that Cain and Abel, quarreling at the beginning, find them- selves reconciled in the developed form of worship. The victory of Abel seems to have continued as far as we can judge, for Noah is described as offer- ing burnt-offerings to the Lord of every clean beast and of every clean bird. On the other hand, when Jacob was on his journey he poured oil upon the pillar as an accompaniment to his prayer. References to sacrifice are scant in Genesis, though feasts with the angels of the Lord in which Abraham was the host must be regarded as essen- tially the same as the primitive Semitic sacrifice, only in this case the divine being came in visible form and is described as eating the flesh that was set before Him. The history of the patriarchal age recognizes that the ritual of sacrifice was a 148 RELIGION IN THE MAKING development. There are no prescriptions and no ritual of time or place. Here at least we are upon sure ground. Israel in Egypt is described as having substan- tially adopted the religion of his masters. Such is the habit of slaves, if the relation continues long; but when Moses came down into Egypt he is reported as coming to them in the name of the God of their fathers, the Jehovah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in order to recall them to a his- toric faith and to quicken in them the sense of sep- aration from the Egyptians. The happy phrase of Professor Giddings, ''consciousness of kind," is per- haps never so applicable as in the case of oneness of religious faith and observance. That is a con- sciousness in which ranges earth and heaven, time and eternity. At the bidding of Jehovah, Moses says, "Let my people go that they may serve me." In further colloquy with Pharaoh, Moses said, "Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-ofiferings that we may sacrifice unto Jehovah our God," and he demanded all the cattle because "we know not with what we must serve Jehovah until we come thither." The statement in the story that they must go three days' journey out of Egypt in order to worship their God is suggestive of the need of a new place in order to restore the old SACRED SERVICES 149 religion. The duel between Jehovah of the patri- archs and the gods of Pharaoh closes in the midst of direful plagues in which Egypt is defeated. Whether the blood upon the lintel that marked the Hebrew houses is to be regarded as a limitation in the mind of Moses as to whether God knew in what houses the Hebrews lived, may be doubted. It is more likely that it was a part of the service itself, the offering of blood. The three days' journey came and went, but there is no account given of any sacrifices to fill up the expectation upon which the exodus was based. Much as we have of laws and ordinances respecting sacrifice, in the documents containing the history of the wanderings we have very little notice of such acts of worship. Amos distinctly says that there were no sacrifices offered during the forty years in the wilderness. It is prob- able that he means that such services were irreg- ular. Jethro, father-in-law of Moses, and priest of Midian, celebrated worship as the religious host of the leaders of the people (Ex. xviii. i). It was cer- tainly irregular that Moses and Aaron should par- take of a burnt-offering sacrificed to Jehovah by one who was not a member of any of the twelve tribes. To sum up thus far: Few notices are found in the stories of the patriarchs that refer to sacrifices, and these do not indicate any developed order. I50 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Such historic facts as we have with respect to the wanderings in the wilderness leave us in precisely the same position with respect to that period. The promised land is entered without the ritual law being in operation. According to the Book of Joshua, circumcision was not practised while in the wilderness and after the circumcision the Passover was kept in the Plains of Jericho. This seems to reenforce the statement of Amos, otherwise unsup- ported, save by the silences of the narrative. If sacrifices had been developed, or important as part of the daily life of the Hebrews, it seems certain that some account would have been preserved in the stones of the wanderings. We come, therefore, once more to the beginnings of the nation, and here it would be expected that a story of the development of sacrifice similar to the rise of the priesthood would be indicated. After their victory over their old enemies, the Amalekites, among the spoils of war Saul declared to Samuel, "The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto Jehovah, thy God." It is true that Samuel very much disapproved of this performance, for he says that Jehovah commanded that there should be no spoil but that the Amale- kites should be utterly consumed. However this r!iay be, the celebration of victory by sacrifice and SACRED SERVICES 151 the offerings before their gods of the spoils of war, is quite a universal fact in religious history. But there is a significant note in this story which must not be passed by. It is the first glimpse we have into a higher moral order as the finest fruit of religion. Saul and his people had disobeyed. This was the worst of all errors. No sacrifice could make it good, for the prophet-priest cries out, ''Hath Jehovah as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams" (i Sam. xv.). This doctrine of the spoils of war produces a cloud of witnesses as to the nature of religious worship. It is probable that the cannibal instinct had been more widespread than some anthropolo- gists suppose. An enemy slain in battle often sus- tained with his flesh the strength of the living. Religious rites often accompanied the sacrifice of captives. This brings us to the question of human sacrifices among the Hebrews. A number of notices are found among the prophets Indicating that in their idolatries the Hebrews practised the sacrifice of their sons and daughters. Perhaps only once, and that In the prophet Micah, Is there an Intimation that human sacrifice might have been practised In the worship of Jehovah. "Shall I give 152 RELIGION IN THE MAKING my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" In the days of Ahab it is said that Hiel the Bethehte built Jericho. *'He laid the foundation thereof with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub" (i Kings xvi. 34). Joshua, indeed, had cursed the man that should rebuild the stricken city of Jericho with the loss of the eldest and the youngest sons, but there are not wanting those who interpret the case of Hiel as a human sacrifice to further his ambitions. But we may believe that Hiel was a Baal worshiper. The classical passage in the early period referring to human sacrifice is the case of Jephthah. This mighty man of valor, like William the Conqueror, was of doubtful birth, but nevertheless, when his people were in trouble they called upon him to fight as their leader against the children of Ammon. Byron has made a poem of the hero, but the ac- count in the record is very explicit: "And Jeph- thah vowed a vow unto Jehovah and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be Jehovah's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering." This he said when the spirit of SACRED SERVICES 153 Jehovah was upon him. The hosts of Jephthah entered into the battle and Jehovah deHvered their enemies into his hand. The outcome of the story is, "And Jephthah came to Mizpah unto his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances. And she was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daugh- ter. And it came to pass when he saw her that he rent his clothes and said Alas ! my daughter, thou hast brought me very low and thou art one of them that trouble me for I have opened my mouth unto Jehovah and I cannot go back." Two months she wailed with her companions upon the mountains, and when she returned unto her father's house, ''He did with her according to his vow which he had vowed." This story would seem incredible and the modern reader could scarcely believe it true, did we not have an equally celebrated story, foundation of many a drama in both ancient and modern times. Agamemnon, according to the Greek story, had angered the goddess Artemis, and the holy oracle declared that the death of his daughter Iphlgenia was the only means of propitiation. The daughter was consecrated In order that the Greek fleet might sail against Troy. There are several forms of the story, but one of them is that the goddess carried 154 RELIGION IN THE MAKING her away in a cloud to Taurus and a stag was sub- stituted for her in the sacrifice. We have here an ahiiost exact parallel of Abraham offering up Isaac. Iphigenia having become a priestess at Taurus, afterward saved her brother from being put to death as a stranger. While there is a great resem- blance between the stories, there is one very marked dift'erence. In the Greek story the king's daughter is a propitiation for the anger of the goddess, but in the Hebrew story there is no idea of propitiation. The sacrifice is a thank-offering in celebration of a victory which had been given as a divine bounty. There is a pathetic story told of the hanging of seven sons of Saul, men hung unto the Lord, so the story reads, that a famine might be stayed in Israel. The famine had come on account of the sin of Saul, who had not kept faith with some sons of Gibeon. Though Saul was dead, yet his sin lingered in blighted fields and withered pastures. The one person in the story that makes a beautiful figure is Rizpah, the daughter of Saul, who watched over the hanging bodies that the birds of the air might not tear them by day nor the beasts of the field glut their hunger by night, and this she did until at last the bodies were taken down by the king's o'rder and a family sepulchre was made for the house of Saul (2 Sam. xxi). SACRED SERVICES 155 The story would be comparatively simple as a means by which the new king rid himself of possible rivals in the future were it not for the saying, "And after that God was entreated for the land." But the beautiful figure of Rizpah quickens the imagi- nation like that of Niobe, who stood in the midst of her children as one after another they were shot to death by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis. Human sacrifices were doubtless rare. There is no remote provision for them in the legislation, and they are essentially foreign to the religion of Israel. The social and informal character of sacrifice in this period of formation is disclosed in the account of the sacrificial meal which Samuel prepared for Saul before he anointed him king. The special point at which the meat became religious was not the manner of its killing, for it was prepared for food. The sacred man blessed the sacrifice after it was ready to be eaten, and the cheerful meal to thirty persons in the guest chamber of Samuel's rather extensive house calls to mind rather the dinner of some Saxon baron in the midst of his retainers than the solemn ritual of a religious serv- ice (i Sam. ix.). It is very Important to note the joyous character of these early feasts. The account of the "feast of Jehovah from year to year in 156 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Shiloh" seems to have been a thanksgiving for the fruit of the vine and was not preceded by any- solemn self-condemnation; rather the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance in the dances which were appointed, and then it was that the sons of Benja- min seized them, each man a wife. It is a pretty definite parallel to the famous rape of the Sabine women by which the men of Rome founded families. It might be thought that one of these stories was borrowed from the other, were it not for the fact that just such seizures, real or pretended, are the commonplaces among tribes where the custom re- quires that they make marriages outside their own ranks. When Moses came back to the camp it was the tumult of the dancing of the people that made known the worship of the golden calf before the new object of the people's reverence was visible. The prophets indicate excesses in these festivals of a gross and immoral nature. Isaiah intimates that both priest and prophet were often drunken, so much so that they were not able to fulfil the functions of their office. Hosea gives a picture of worship that recalls the most horrible things that were said of the ancient Phoenicians' pollution of their temples. SACRED SERVICES 157 THE RELIGION OF FASTING In the moral discipline of religion there are two chief elements. The first consists in the question of sharing things of value with the divine powers. Through long processes and accompanied by the growth of new conceptions of God there arises a series of positive obligations, either of formal wor- ship or of practical conduct, and generally of both. The other side of religion consists In Its prohi- bitions. These are as varied In number and form as are the positive duties. The teaching of Con- fucius has more to say about the positive duties; the religion of Buddha gives more attention to the prohibitions. But some degree of asceticism be- longs to all human faiths, even to the most joyous forms of nature worship. As religions differ from each other, so does the same religion differ In the various stages of its development In the proportion between the positive and the negative elements. Fasting, degradation In clothing (the familiar sackcloth and ashes of the Hebrew tradition), flagel- lations, and mutilations are all methods that have been employed. The ascetic elem.ent was not strongly marked In the Hebrew religion, but that it existed must be noted, and something must be said with respect to Its manifestations. In general, the ascetic element Increased as time went on. As the 158 RELIGION IN THE MAKING family and the clan element in worship was de- graded by the development of the central worship, and as this increased in pomp and dignity, the simple joyousness of the primitive feasts passed away. The Puritan idea of the Sabbath was not ancient in Israel. It developed after the Exile, with increasing number and definiteness of statutes for its observance that were unknown in the ancient law. The value of fasting is one of the matters that may be briefly discussed as an illustration of the whole subject. After the shocking crime of the children of Benjamin, battle raged between them and the tribes of Israel, and after the defeat of the day the children of Israel wept and came and gath- ered at Bethel and there before the Lord they wept and fasted from morning until evening and so they turned away affliction and Jehovah led them to victory (Judges xx.). Saul ordered a fast from the morning until the even, and though the people of Israel were distressed on account of the com- mand, none of them tasted any food that day. Both of these cases have to do with fasting with reference to obtaining the divine favor in battle. When Saul and Jonathan went down in unsuccess- ful conflict the people "mourned and wept and fasted until even for Saul and for Jonathan, his SACRED SERVICES 159 son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword." David and his people fasted until evening, but the men of Jabesh-Gilead, more devoted to the house of Saul, buried the bodies under the tamarisk tree and fasted seven days (i Sam. xxxi. 13). When Elijah foretold the downfall of Ahab, though this mighty man had never been celebrated for his piety, yet in the presence of common calamity, ''It came to pass when Ahab heard those words he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly" (i Kings xxi. 27). But fasting was more than a sign of mourning. There are some notices of occasional fasts before the offering of sacrifice and such notable fasts as those of Moses and of Elijah with reference to their prophetic office. Fasting was connected with re- pentance. Jeremiah gives an account of a national fast before the Lord for all the people of Jerusalem and its surroundings on account of the misfortunes that had overtaken the nation. The prophet Joel declares that fasting, weeping, and mourning are to be connected with "turning unto the Lord of the sinner with all his heart." Other national fasts for reasons more or less secular are recited, as Joel's account of one when the locusts came. Ezra, i6o RELIGION IN THE MAKING Nehemiah, and Esther all led the people to absti- nence from food. There seem to have been four great public fast days that were established, though the order for them is not found in the developed statutes of the Bible. The fast and feast of Purim, based on the Book of Esther, a comparatively late observance, is still celebrated amiong the Jews. It is interesting on account of its being both a fast and a feast, a fast because of the counsel of Haman that the Jews be put to death, and a feast because of the Jews' triumph over him. This is probably a sufficiently full account of the observances of fast- ing, but there remains to be mentioned the attitude of the prophets toward it. Once again we hear the ethical note denying the spiritual value o£ external observances. It is the regeneration of the soul that the prophets ask for rather than a mortification of the flesh. Says Jeremiah: "When they fast I will not hear their cry. I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence" (Jer. xiv. 12). Isaiah sees the futility of the fast and declares: "Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not. Wherefore have we afflicted our soul and thou takest no knowledge. Behold in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure: Behold ye fast for strife and contention and to smite with the fist of wickedness : ye fast not SACRED SERVICES j^j this day so as to make your voice to be heard on high. Is such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul ? Is it to bow down his head as a rush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to Jehovah? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wicked- ness, to undo the bands of the yoke and to let the oppressed go free ? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house ? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thy healing shall spring forth speedily; then shalt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou shalt cry and he will say Here I am" (Isa. Iviii.). It is the great familiar voice of all the nobler teachers and sages of the race. Religious observ- ances have, indeed, their value, but that value must be interpreted not by priestly ritual and special ceremonies. They are not to be used as shields of comfort against the wrath of an angry God, but they are to express the social love of children who bow together at the common altars of their Father. Once again, it is the prophet who must be our final leader and interpreter. II l62 RELIGION IN THE MAKING RITUAL OF THE TEMPLES Allusion has already been made to the general law that ritual becomes more complex and services more numerous as the social group which practices them becomes larger and more stable. The state- ment here made with respect to religious institu- tions is of course the same in fact with regard to the growth of all law, custom, and social organization. It seems well, therefore, to give some account of the developed order of the Hebrew ritual at this point in order that the task may be easier in mark- ing some steps in its growth. As the temple of Jerusalem became the one place to offer sacrifices and fell entirely under the control of the priests, it was natural that the services should become more stately and more ceremonial, and, on the other hand, less vital to all the people. From the ac- count of Josephus of the service in Herod's temple, we learn that there were twenty thousand priests who were divided into twenty-four courses and each course was responsible for the daily sacrifice for one week at a time, the high priest only appear- ing on rare occasions, his political and secular re- sponsibilities being too great to allow of his giving much time to the service of religion. Instead of following the order of Leviticus that the high SACRED SERVICES 163 priest should himself offer the meal offering every day, the rule was changed and it was thought to be enough if he paid for the meal. There were twenty-four courses of Levites, also, including the various officers from musicians to doorkeepers. The people were divided into twenty- four courses for attendance upon the services. For each week the proper course of priests, Levites and people must be represented. It will be noted that the division of labor was quite considerable, and that it really only required two weeks in the year for the temple service and if any of the people were absent from the city, they might go to the local synagogue for worship. It was necessary to have a pretty complete organ- ization of the temple area itself. There seem to have been three divisions of officers, as there were head officers for each of the twenty-four courses. The first division of officers was those who con- trolled the stores, the furniture, and the treasures; the heads of all these divisions were priests. Next there were officials of the police department, who were mostly Levites, and were guards stationed at night chiefly for the purpose of preventing the Gen- tiles coming in. Finally, there were special officers for the orderly guidance of the public worship. These had many of them become hereditary. The l64 RELIGION IN THE MAKING officiating priests were divided by lot into certain classes to perform given duties. These lots were presided over by officers apointed for the pur- pose. There was an officer to see that the various kinds of offerings were prepared and other officials were engaged in making show-bread and prepar- ing frankincense. There \vere the keepers of the priestly garments, a guild of heralds, and a guild of musicians. At this time these were Levites. There was regular vv'orship every day, but the daily offering, when it came upon the Sabbath or upon festival occasions, changed its form and the number of offerings was increased. Besides the offerings which may be regarded as official, there were many private sacrifices made by private persons without definite precept of law except that they had to be prepared and offered in a regular manner. In following the order of the daily w^orship there are three things noted. First, the slaughter and preparation of the sacrifice: second, the offering of incense, as well as of sacrifice accompanied by prayer ; and third, praise and thanksgiving. The priests on duty slept in the inner court just outside the temple. They arose early, took their baptismal bath, divided into two parties, one going east and the other west with lij^hted torches, and when they met they greeted each other v/ith "It is well ; all is SACRED SERVICES 165 well." Having completed the circuit of the temple area, they went to the Hall of the Sanhedrin where lots were cast for the different parts of the serv- ices. The first priest selected bathed his hands and feet and then cleansed the ashes from the altar of sacrifice.. Other priests cleansed the surroundings from debris and placed wood in order for burning. While this was going on, other priests were en- gaged in baking- the meal offering in what was known as the Place of the Pancake Makers. The second company of priests were engaged in slaugh- tering the victim. When the first rays of the dawn lighted up the heights at the south of the city, the lamb was brought forth and led to the place of slaughter, and the ninety-three sacred vessels were brought from the utensil cham.ber. The temple gates were then opened and the heralds gave three blasts upon the silver trumpets, being the signal for the Levites and the male worshipers in the course appointed for that day to assemble. The great gates of the Holy Place were opened and the slaughter took place. After that was accom- plished, two priests entered the Holy Place, cleansed the golden altar of incense, while another priest trimmed and relighted the lamps. Six pieces of the lamb were carried by six priests to the altar; seven priests brought the offering of flour and l66 RELIGION IN THE MAKING eight priests baked the meal-offering while it re- quired nine priests to bring the wine and drink- offering. Then back to the Hall of Polished Stone where the lots were first cast, and there was a service of prayer. The three great sections of the law which were to be repeated by every Israelite every day were then spoken, the primary one be- ing, ''Hear, O Israel! Jehovah our God is one Jehovah," with the verses following (Deut. vi. 4-9, xi. 13-21). The ten commandments were repeated and the benediction was given. After the prayers and blessing, the third lot determined who should offer the incense and the fourth lot decided who should lay the parts of the lamb upon the altar. A golden saucer which was covered contained within it a smaller saucer holding the incense. An assistant priest brought a live coal from the great altar outside, which he emptied into a golden pan upon the altar of incense within the Holy Place. Going Into the sanctuary a gong Is struck to notify the priests to hasten to worship and the Levites to find their places In the choir. The chief of the officiating priests Is now left alone within the Holy Place. He opens the covered bowl, takes out the saucer containing the Incense and empties It upon the live coals. The incense ascended in clouds of smoke. The people waiting In the court of the SACRED SERVICES 167 temple when they saw the smoke coming out of the door prostrated themselves upon the ground, spreading out their hands in prayer. The smoke died down, and the priests who had been engaged in the Holy Place went out to the steps of the porch and with uplifted hands pronounced the bene- diction. The worship closed with a service of praise. Levites with instrument and voice ren- dered the psalm of the day. At the close of each section of the psalm a body of priests blew three blasts upon silver trumpets while the people bowed down and worshiped. After this public and official service was over, private sacrifices were proceded with. The evening service was nearly a repetition of that of the morning. There were many special religious occasions be- side the seventh-day observances to which more particular reference is made elsewhere. There were three great festivals, the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. They were all of them agricultural festivals, and some have argued that they were festivals of the land of Canaan adopted by the Hebrews upon their arrival. There is no doubt at all that the festivals have local color and local significance, but the Passover was a modification of the widespread spring festival, and was In existence In' some form long before the t68 religion in the making emigration from Egypt. If this were so, very wise was it of Moses as a sagacious leader to rebaptize this festival with new meaning and consecrate it to the special recognition of Jehovah, and so he says, ^'Remember this day in which ye came out from Egypt out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought thee forth from this place." The Passover was kept in memory of the deliverance of Israel's first-born from the plague' of Egypt, and also the liberation of the Hebrews from the Egyptian bondage. The lamb and the unleavened bread were the chief elements of the feast. The Hebrews were to assemble in family groups ready for the impending journey, loins girded, feet shod, staves in their hands. It was to be a roast lamb and in this night of vigil unto the Lord the entire lamb was to be eaten and if any- thing was left, it must be consumed by fire (Ex. xii.). The completeness enjoined in eating the Passover has a parallel also in the account given of the festival held by the Arabs in the end of the fourth century where they sacrificed a white camel to Venus and ate it all during the night. Here was doubtless a similar transformation, only these changes were marks of degeneration. From the beginning, the Passover was a family festival as well as a national one. SACRED SERVICES 169 The second great festival was that of Pentecost. It was essentially a harvest festival. Indeed the harvest festival seems to have lasted for fifty days, counting from the second day of the Passover, and it ends with the great festival which comes with the cutting of the wheat, the last of the cereals to be garnered. It was, naturally, a joyous festival, and the wave loaves were to be brought as a special offering, but also accompanied by animal sacrifices. The place of Pentecost as a nature feast is very evident, but in addition to this, the Jews made it an occasion for the celebration of the giving of the Ten Commandments. The Feast of Tabernacles is the third great feast and celebrates the end of the nature year, com- ing at the close of the fruit harvest. Branches were cut from palm trees and from the willows of the brook, there were processions with festival dances, and doubtless in the earlier days the occa- sion was much similar to the wine festivals In the German Rhine country. The later significance of the festival refers it to a celebration of the days when their fathers sojourned in the wilderness and dwelt in tents. This seven-day holiday was re- garded sometimes as specially to be observed by living in booths made from the branches of the trees. This came to be its final form. There were lyo RELIGION IN THE MAKING to be daily burnt-offerings with proper meal-offer- ings. In the famous account given in Nehemiah we have perhaps the most definite notice: ''And they found written in the law how that Jehovah had commanded by Moses that the children of Is- rael should dwell in booths in the feast of the sev- enth month, and that they should publish and pro- claim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, Go forth into the mount and fetch olive branches and branches of wild olives and myrtle branches and palm branches, and branches of thick trees to make booths as it is written. So the people went forth and brought them and made themselves booths every one upon the roof of his house and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the broad place of the water gate, and in the broad place of the gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of them that were come again out of the captivity made to themselves and dwelt in the booths. For since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, until that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness" (Neh. viii. 14-18). Some critics have supposed because of this account that the Feast of Taber- nacles was entirely post-exilic, but it does not seem necessary to make this contention. The emphasis lies upon the fact that it had not been celebrated SACRED SERVICES 171 theretofore by dwelling for a week in booths, a duty enjoined in Leviticus, and an operative law after the Exile but nowhere else. The fundamental significance of the three festi- vals would indicate that in some form or other they had been observed from very early times : The first when the flocks began to multiply, the second when the grains were gathered, and the third a final jubilee of the wine and oil, signifying the time of the orchard and the vineyard. The Second Law in Deuteronomy adds the direc- tion that these festivals should be celebrated at the central shrine, so the law came to be that three times a year all the males of the country were com- manded to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem. While this was not rigorously observed, it was at least so far observed as to give the festivals very important social and national significance. The effect upon the world's history of great pilgrimages is a subject that some one should adequately deal with. These festivals gave a sense of a common religion to all the worshipers, but they also lent themselves to the development of a common na- tional life. One religion and one land had in the three great festivals an emphasis of increasing power and value. In the great days the men of Ephralm and the 172 RELIGION IN THE MAKING men of Judah forgot all local distinctions in the common worship at the central shrine, and it be- came a consistent expression of the unity of the nation. Jerusalem with its services became more and more an object of devotion. A late psalm expresses it : I was glad when they said unto me Let us go unto the house of Jehovah. Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem that are builded as a city that is compact to- gether whither the tribes go up Even the tribes of Jehovah Eor an ordinance for Israel. To give thanks unto the name of Jehovah." It seems certain that the Paschal feast was very ancient. It belonged to a shepherd people. The great Shiloh festival was a yearly thanksgiving after the vintage (Judges xxi.). It may be also noted that a similar festival was held at Shechem and was connected with heathen festivities (Judges ix.). This festival assumed a national character at the time of the dedication of the temple and all Israel came, a great assembly, and it was a double festival, "Seven days and seven days." From this happy occasion the people went away "joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that Jehovah had showed unto David his servant and unto Israel his people" (i Kings viii.). SACRED SERVICES 173 The Feast of the New Moon belonged naturally to the shepherd era and is a feast of quite wide- spread observance. It became at length recognized in Israel as one of the great feasts, especially the one held in the seventh month. The Feast of Sheep Shearing was one that was observed in the pastoral districts. This was a local feast, but the dignity of it can be seen by the fact that it was celebrated on one occasion by no less a person than the king's son Absalom (2 Sam. xiii. 23). The family and clan festivals gradually died out as the history centralized into one people, but that such festivals continued to a comparatively late date we know because David earnestly asked leave to go to Bethlehem, "And he said, let me go I pray thee, for our family have a sacrifice in the city and my brother he hath commanded me to be there." So Jonathan excused to his father, Saul, the absence from his table of the man who was to be his succes- sor on the throne. This significant statement indi- cates that at this time there was nothing like a prescribed and legalized national sacrifice for it would have been absurd to make such an excuse to Saul in a matter where he could have known how false were the statements. The matter of atoning sacrifices came late in the 174 RELIGION IN THE MAKING history of Israel, whatever place they may have had in the laws. There is no account of a day of atonement being observed at any time prior to the Exile. Under the head of the Day of Atonement we have the first command for the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies when once a year he makes an atonement for himself with a bullock which is a sin-offering, and then he cast lots upon two goats, one to be for Jehovah and the other for Azazel. The ten days before the great day of sac- rifice were days of penitence and effort to renew the heart of Israel, and to prepare to receive the gift of his mercy. It was not only a time of repentance, but upon this great day after the lenten days were passed, they came before the Lord, joy- ful, and clad in white garments. The Day of Atonement was, therefore, both a fast day and a festival. The prayers contained confession of sin and an appeal for forgiveness. The Law of the Atonement was read to the people and the whole service ends with a sevenfold exclamation, "The Lord he is God!" This day also came to be at last an all-souls day, when candles were brought to be burned in the synagogue in memory of the dead. Two goats were offered, one becoming the scape- goat upon whom the lot fell that it should belong to Azazel. He was sent forth into the wilderness SACRED SERVICES 175 bearing the sins of the nation. This was obviously an offering to the devil, perhaps not seriously but rather as sending to him the sins of the people, a gift of his own come home. The blood of the sin- offering was sprinkled upon the Holy of Holies for the purification of the priesthood and of the nation, and when the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies, his annual privilege, enveloped as he was by a cloud of incense, great emphasis was laid in the minds of the people upon the prayer that he offered there for the nation. Later, this annual Day of Atonement took on more and more a high religious character, representing the annual regeneration of the Hebrew nation and the union of their life with the divine life. The Feast of Trumpets is a rest day and also a day of sacrifice. It represents the beginning of the separation for the Day of Atonement. And the Day of Atonement itself is opened with noise of trumpets throughout Israel. The question of the Sabbath we shall leave for a particular discussion apart from the questions of its use. It seems clear that the development of the ritual of Israel must have followed without any particular variations the development of its history, but particularly the mak- ing of the priesthood. With no priesthood there could be no established and permanent ritual. 176 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Without a nation, there could not have been national religious festivals. In various parts of the land, the ancient tribal and clan customs for a long time held sway. The agricultural quality of the festivals could not fail to be strongly marked by the particular character of the fruits of the earth. It seems plain that the three great festivals, the Passover, Pentecost, and the Tabernacles, were made to fit the great periods of agricultural life. Such festivals could not have been brought from Egypt; they could not have been practised in the wilderness, though the Passover and Pentecost may easily have been ancient Semitic festivals which were transformed while the people of Israel lived among their kinsmen the Canaanites, and then transfigured as the religion of Jehovah became dominant in the land. The religious year of Israel extended over seven months and was a summer- time period. There also came to be festivals of New Years, both civil and ecclesiastical, the former coming in the spring and the latter in the autumn. There is also a parallel between the development of these sacrifices and the development of the idea of God. As the divine idea became cleansed and exalted, the ritual became more and more solemn and sacrificial. Nor does it seem to be any defect in this religion if it can be shown that the atoning SACRED SERVICES 177 idea in sacrifice came late. The loftier the divine idea, the more difficult to make an approach into his awful presence. A single reference to Azazel has been made. The goat offered to Azazel was not sacrificed but was sent away into the wilderness, although it is said that he was pushed ofif from a precipice. The story is that as he was thrown from the rock, twelve miles away from the city of Jerusa- lem, at a given signal the people celebrated the event with dancing and much festivity. Azazel seems to have been in the Semitic mythology the spirit of evil. We have here reduced to fixed form the triumph of good over evil. It can hardly be, as Mr. Moncure Conway suggests, that this was an efifort on the part of the people to make sure of being on the right side, whether evil or good should prove the stronger. So far from being a late cere- mony, though found only in the Book of Leviticus, it is not unlikely to have been some shred of an ancient faith of which we have here only a fragment. It must be noted that so far as we can see, the priest controlled the religious institutions more and more as they were developed, but the prophets also have some words to say. These great men called upon the people to rend their hearts and not their garments. The later psalms are full of revolt 12 178 RELIGION IN THE MAKING against mere mechanism of ritual, and see in it no permanent value. Sings one : "For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Very explicit is the voice of another to whom Jehovah says: "I will take no bullock out of thy house Nor he-goats out of thy folds For every beast of the forest is mine And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountain And the wild beasts of the fields are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell thee For the world is mine and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls Or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving And pay thy vows unto the Most High And call upon him in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me." Such was the higher content of the Hebrew religion. Did space permit, scores of citations from the prophets could be given to indicate their attitude in the matter of their nation's ritual. The body of religion might be in external altars and temples ; the dramatic services of religion might require sac- rifice and festival, but neither altars nor the one institution of the temple in all its services were of SACRED SERVICES 179 any final validity save as they gave expression to the soul of religion which dwelt within them and which was a constant renewal of the covenant which they held with Jehovah whom they worshiped. CHAPTER X SACRED OBJECTS THE ARK The most significant and the most original object in the reHgious furniture of the Hebrews was a box, probably something over four feet long and about three feet wide and three feet high, called the Ark of Jehovah or the Ark of the Cove- nant. It is vain to compare the Ark with those boxes used for carrying about idols in processions on the banks of the Euphrates or with those boats used for the same purpose on the river Nile. There is a suggestion of the sacred chest of the Hebrews in the belief that the image of the goddess Pallas must be preserved in order to secure the safety of the city of Troy. In like manner, early images, crude and inartistic, are said to have been pre- served in Greece because they had fallen from heaven and were special symbols of divine beings. The notices of the Ark of the Covenant are so numerous and its position in the life of Israel is so unique, that it may well be said that this box is the most Important sacred object that the world has i8o SACRED OBJECTS ' i8i ever seen. There is a tendency among modern scholars to reduce the whole history of Israel to the domain of legend devised about the time of the Exile, but the Ark of the Covenant is securely en- trenched in the earlier history. There can be no question that the holy box was made, and it is not at all impossible to believe that the account of its making given in Exodus is substantially correct and if there were an Ark, it is easy to believe that there was also a tabernacle for the sheltering of the Ark, though the account of the tabernacle and of the furniture was not made in the days of Moses and is doubtless too opulent to be perfectly his- toric. The first notice we have of the use of the Ark was as a leader in battle, and in this use there are very many parallels, except that among other peoples the images of their gods were taken into battle, possibly for the more express purpose of the divine help, but possibly also in part as men to-day carry flags. The record is, "And it came to pass when the Ark set forward that Moses said, Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee; and when it rested he said. Return, O Jehovah, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel" (Num. x. 35, 36). Nor did it do at that time to omit the presence of the Ark. "They presumed to go up to i82 RELIGION IN THE MAKING the top of the mountain; nevertheless the Ark of the covenant of Jehovah and Moses departed not out of the camp; then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain, and smote them and beat them down." According to the later law the Ark was always to be kept in the Holy of Holies, but an interesting passage in the Book of Joshua informs us that at the time of the sin of Achan, who preserved clothing, silver and gold after the destruction of Jericho, there resulted a defeat for Israel. When they encompassed the next town we read that "Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the Ark of Jehovah until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust upon their heads" (Joshua vii. 6). This indicates that so far from the Ark of the Covenant being kept secluded from the people, at least the elders of the people used it as a holy shrine at which they offered prayers. For many generations we have no notice of the Ark and when we hear of it again it does not seem to have the old-time power. At this time when Samuel was the ruling leader of Israel, so far as they had one head, the Ark of the Covenant was established in the sanctuary in Shiloh. The Philis- tines, persistent enemies of Israel, set themselves in battle array, and when Israel fled before the Philis- SACRED OBJECTS 183 tines the elders of the people suddenly bethought themselves of the Ark and said, ''Let us fetch the Ark of the covenant of Jehovah out of Shiloh unto us that it may come among us and save us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from thence the Ark of the covenant of Jehovah of hosts who sitteth above the cherubim" (i Sam. iv.). The earth rang again while all Israel shouted as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into camp. The Philistines recognized this Ark as a particular symbol of the divine pres- ence and they said, "God has come into the camp," but notwithstanding the joy of Israel and the terror of the Philistines, the issue of the battle was a great slaughter of the Hebrews. The Ark of God was taken and its keepers were slain. When Eli was informed of the death of his sons — a man now nearly one hundred years old — he still withstood the shock ; but when mention was made that the Ark of God was taken, this was more than the loss of his children, and he fell from his seat stricken so that he died. The result of the battle against the Philistines was a sad fate for Israel. "And the Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod." When the Philistines took the Ark of God they brought it unto the house of, Dagon l84 RELIGION IN THE MAKING and set it by Dagon. The degradation could not have been more complete. Israel defeated, the Ark taken, and, worse than all, it is set up in a heathen temple. But misfortune befell the Philis- tines. From the house of Dagon the Ark was carried forth, for the god Dagon fell upon his face to the ground in the night because of the holy Ark. From place to place it went and during seven months the Philistines were smitten. At last with repentance and with gifts they returned to Israel this chest as full of plague as ever was Pandora's box. For a long time the Ark remained practically ig- nored, but when David has his wars with the Philistines, he bethinks him of the Ark of God, and with a great company of men, and with all manner of music and much jubilee, the Ark was brought from the house of Abinadad. And now a new terror is discovered. This Ark cannot be touched by any unsanctified hand, and w^hen the rashness of Uzzah cost him his life, it is recorded that David was afraid of Jehovah that day, and it was only after the Ark had blessed the house of Obed-edom that he dared to bring it up into his own city. Some kind of a sanctuary was provided until the temple of Solom.on was builded, when it was the central object in the Holy of Holies be- neath the mercy seat, at each end of which was a SACRED OBJECTS 185 cherub, and here was the place that God made him- self known. According to the Second Law, the tribe of Levi was separated to the Lord to bear the Ark of the Covenant, as well as to stand before the Lord to minister unto him and to bless his name. Accord- ing to the later law the Holy of Holies within the veil was not to be entered lightly even by the high priest, because God appeared in the cloud upon the mercy seat (Lev. xvi. 2). And when the temple was finally completed, the bringing of the Ark was a great festival in Israel, and there the object for which the temple was really built was carried in an innumerable procession, and priestly hands bore 'The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord unto his place unto the oracle of the house to the most holy place, even unto the wings of the cheru- bim." A precedent had been established for the Ark having a fixed dwelling-place from which the Lord should work and no longer should it take vagrant journeys for holy or any other pilgrimage. When Zadok, the high priest and father of the priestly family, proposed at the time of the defec- tion of Absalom that the Ark should be borne away, David replied, "Carry back the Ark of God unto the city: if I shall find favor in the eyes of l86 RELIGION IN THE MAKING the Lord he will bring me again and show me both it and his habitation" (2 Sam. xv. 25). And what was this Ark and why its vast signifi- cance to this people? It is hard to interpret a glorified fetich among a people one of whose great- est laws was, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," but that in some way or other it filled a similar place to that filled in other religions by idols or by oracles, there can be no question. And what did this acacia box contain? According to a later tradition of Israel, there was a golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant. However this may have been in the beginning, it is definitely stated that when Solomon brought the Ark into his temple "there was noth- ing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb when Jehovah made a covenant wath the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt" (i Kings viii. 9). Once in the temple, the Ark lost its individuality and became part of the holy shrine. Of the final fortunes of the Ark we are left in ignorance. Whether it was carried away in some of the plun- derings of the temple by successful enemies, we do not know ; or whether, as tradition says, before the capture of Jerusalem, Jeremiah hid both the Ark of the Covenant and the holy fire in a cave whence SACRED OBJECTS 187 it shall sometime be brought forth as the standard of a new kingdom of Israel, we do not know. Ezra does not mention the Ark of the Covenant, and there is no post-exilic account of it. It was certainly, therefore, not an invention of the later priests, as some critics would have us think. The lost history of all the furnishings of the Holy of Holies has in it a tragic element. Tacitus declares that when the desecrating Roman general, Pompey, invaded the Holy of Holies, he found therein noth- ing. The vanished sanctities lay near the heart of the religion. The sanctities had indeed vanished from the Holy of Holies, but these were not dead. The synagogue, perhaps gift of the prophets in its origin and certainly keeping alive as far as possible the prophetic spirit, had its sacred chest containing its roll of scriptures. Instead of one Ark of the Covenant, there were as many in Israel as there were synagogues. Both institutions and sanctities may change their forms while the beating heart of life has taken for itself another body. As the mar- riage ring upon the hand of a woman meant in the first place slavery, but came later to mean the bond of love, so the reincarnations of history are full of examples of ancient symbols taking on new and larger meanings. 188 RELIGION IN THE MAKING OTHER SACRED MATERIALS Among the garments of the high priest was his ephod, which seems to have been the central fact in the holy garments which are described as being intended *'for glory and for beauty." There was a breastplate, and an ephod, a robe and a coat of checker work, a miter or. turban, and a girdle. These are described as having been made with strik- ing colors, blue, and purple, and scarlet, as well as ornamented with gold and precious stones. Two onyx stones were to contain the names of the twelve tribes of Israel to be borne upon his breast con- tinually before the Lord, but also the mysterious Urim and Thummim were placed in the breastplate of judgment, and these he bore when he went in before Jehovah, and so did Aaron bear the judg- ment of the children of Israel upon his heart. The ephod was covered with embroidery from which depended golden bells, that the sound of music might go with him when he entered the Holy Place before the Lord. Upon his holy turban there was a plate of pure gold bearing the legend "Holy to Jehovah." Such and more is the account of the holy vestments of the high priest (Ex. xxviii.). Now it is necessary to follow the changes of this vestment called the ephod, which is the only thing that has a special history. When Samuel minis- SACRED OBJECTS 189 tered before the Lord, being a child, he was girded with a Hnen ephod (i Sam. ii. 18). David is said to have worn a linen ephod as he danced before the Lord with all his might when the Ark was brought up to the city of David. But long before these days, to refer once more to the story of Micah, the graven image that called for a house of the gods to shelter it, also demanded an ephod and teraphim. Of the teraphim we read in the cleansing of the house of Jacob before they went to Bethel. And once again there was an image laid in the bed by Michal in order to permit David to escape. This image seems to have been of good size, for with its head laid upon a pillow of goat's hair and covered with a cloak, it simulated the size of a man, and when messengers came in and discovered the tera- phim, David was escaped. The ephod seems later to have become an object carried in the hand, as in the time when Saul found that the Philistines demanded the presence of the Ark of God in order to make the oracle complete. Lots were cast and the people escaped, and then Jonathan was taken because he had eaten of honey the day of the battle, though his father had charged the people with an oath saying, "Cursed be the m.an that eateth any food until it be evening, and I be avenged on mine enemies," and when Saul found I90 RELIGION IN THE MAKING that it was Jonathan who had defied his curse, he doomed him to death ; but Jonathan was a great favorite with the people as well as a great warrior, and they on their side made an oath, "As Jehovah liveth there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he hath wrought with God this day" (i Sam. xiv.). And in another important story we read that this ephod was used as an oracle, for when David had fought with the Philistines and saved the inhabit- ants of Keilah while Saul came down to destroy him, he demanded that Abiathar the priest bring down the ephod, and with the ephod the question was asked whether on Samuel's approach the men of Keilah would deliver him up or not, and the answer through the oracle directly from Jehovah was, 'They will deliver thee up, and so it happened that David and his six hundred departed from Keilah and went whithersoever they could go." There is some lack of clearness about the method, but judging by practices in other religions we may well decide that the ephod had pockets in which were cast, as among the Arabs, white stones and black stones, meaning "Yes" and "No." So the Urim and Thummim may have been equally used for asking direct questions, being placed in the pocket of the ephod. SACRED OBJECTS 191 Looking into the future has been a favorite occu- pation among many peoples widely scattered. Flights of birds, the entrails of animals, and par- ticularly the liver, have been regarded as important. So we read, "Till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snarer and knoweth not that it is for his life." With divinations of various kinds came also the appeal to the dead for informa- tion, as where Saul sought the spirit of Samuel, the method of which was so bitterly condemned by Isaiah, and in response to the historic witch of Endor the prophet cries, ''And when they shall say unto you. Seek unto them that hath familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter ; should not a people seek unto their God. On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead." The sacred stone as an article used in worship has a varied history. Egypt and India give us examples, as well as Druids in their various homes and the Semites almost everywhere. Joshua sanc- tifies the sanctuary to Jehovah at Shechem by set- ting up a sacred stone under the holy tree, and again at Gilgal after crossing the Jordan. The earliest mention of a holy stone was the one set up by Jacob upon which oil was poured. When Rachel died and was buried in Bethlehem It is said that "J^cob set up a pillar (Massebah) upon her 192 RELIGION IN THE MAKING grave," and this pillar of Rachel became a holy stone for generations. The need of a son for com- memoration was important in all religions that had ancestor worship. This gives special interest to the statement that Absalom had reared for himself in his lifetime a memorial pillar saying, "I have no son to keep my name in remembrance, and he called the pillar after his own name and it is called Absalom's monument unto this day" (2 Sam. xviii. 18.) The holy stone was a common accompaniment of the various high places of worship. The crom- lechs, like those of the Druids, are found east of the Jordan, and also in the country about Galilee. The holy stone in some form or other has been used in most of the ancient forms of religion. It was found regularly at the sanctuaries of Canaan. It is declared that the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites had altars, stone pillars, and also holy posts, and these the people of Israel were com- manded to cut down (Ex. xxxiv. 13). It is also said that a stone obelisk has been discovered on the Isle of Cyprus with an inscription indicating that it was used as a holy stone. Sacred stones were gen- eral in the Arab world as well as among the Greeks and Romans. The holy stone is the foundation of the stone altar but after altars were erected, stone SACRED OBJECTS 193 columns frequently stood beside them that were not used directly in the service. It is possible the free pillars erected before Solomon's temple may have been conventionalized masseboth. Among some peoples these stones were believed to be actually possessed by the gods whom they wor- shiped, and form the foundation for the sculptured beauty of later idols among artistic peoples. The sacred post or Ashera stood at the Canaanite places of worship by nearly all altars that were important in the sacred places and even at a comparatively late date these sacred posts were found by the altars of the temple in Jerusalem. In Josiah's great reformation these were some of the things which he destroyed. There seem to be many forms of these posts, and it is known that they were used by the Cyprians and the Phoenicians. The Ashera seems to have been originally regarded as a living tree, but the holy tree is not quite parallel to the conventionalized post known as the Ashera. The Second Law forbade the Ashera: "Thou shalt not plant thee an ashera of any kind of wood beside the altar of Jehovah thy God." This post seems by evidence outside of the Old Testament to have been in some way or other a representative of the divine presence. It hardly seems possible, as some scholars affirm, that, the i3 194 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Ashera was the name of a goddess, as is intimated by the Tel-Amarna letters. There could probably be traced, were it worth while, some relation be- tween the Ashera and the totem which still sur- vives as the representative of the faith of a clan, and while the Ashera was never any vital part of the national worship of the Hebrews, that it played its subordinate part, and perhaps an important one in some localities among scattered clans, there can be no question. The facts with respect to the sa- cred stone and the sacred post seem to be that they were not confined to the worship of Jehovah and not characteristic, therefore, of Israel. They were erected to Jehovah in common with other gods. The law used by Josiah forbade their use, and though there seems little doubt that they were in some way or other used as a fetich, they were gradually eliminated under the influence of the prophets, and the later development of Israel. Another object unique in the history of Israel is the brazen serpent, though in some form or other the serpent had been worshiped ages before in Egypt. When Hezekiah undertook his extensive reformation, it is said that he not only broke down the holy stones and cut down the holy posts, but he also "brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made, for unto those days the children of Israel SACRED OBJECTS 195 did burn incense to it, and he called it a piece of brass" (2 Kings xviii. 4). So passed away under the assault of this great iconoclast one of the sacred objects of Israel, rever- ence of which had doubtless become to them a form of idolatry. Like most ancient peoples the Hebrews wore various kinds of ornaments that were regarded as sacred because the wearing of them afforded them protection. It is not necessary to follow this sub- ject further than to call attention to a specific form of amulet mentioned in the Second Law. 'There- fore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thine house, and upon thy gates : That your days may be multiplied and the days of your children in the land which Jehovah sware unto your fathers to give them" (Deut. xi. 18). Thus instead of the earring to keep away evils, or the charmed stone, perhaps inhabited by some god, to wear in a ring, and all the various forms which these protections have taken, at least in the Second Law there was nothing so important as reverence for the word of the Lord as written down in holy commandments, and if they wore these, they did ig6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING well, and later writers made a still further advance when they urge that the real protection is to write that law upon the heart. Every form of organized religion must have its holy apparatus, from the plainest meeting house to the most majestic temple, from the simplest symbols of a holy brotherhood to the most ornate vestments of the priesthood and the splendid vessels of a com- plicated ritual. The extent of the temple does not depend entirely upon either the numbers or the wealth of the people, but upon the devotion which they hold to the objects of their worship. But religions grow magnificent as they grow older, for reverence is two parts memory and one part devo- tion. The Jehovah of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still thrills the devout modern Jew because he was the early clan god of his fathers. So time hallows objects of religion and their sanctity gathers with the years, but if the object represent a doctrine that is outgrown, or forms of worship that stand in the way of the real advance of the people, some strong arm will arise to break it In pieces and say, "It is not for your worship ; it is only a piece of brass." CHAPTER XI SACRED DAYS Times and seasons are as much a necessity of every religion as sacred services. All social inter- ests require some kind of a calendar. Religious festivals among every people have either been called by special proclamations, or have been celebrated at fixed and regular times. The summer and winter solstice have been venerable religious occasions among the most widely scattered tribes. But doubtless earlier than the celebration of the movements of the sun was the recognition of the phases of the moon. Among shepherd people in tropical or semi-tropical countries the moon was a gentle guardian, while the sun with its fierce, with- ering heat was looked upon as an open enemy. The changes of the moon were so obvious that among many primitive peoples, as among the North American Indians, time was counted by moons rather than by years. The four phases of the moon naturally led to the division of time into weeks. This was a common discovery of men so widely separated that communication between them was 197 198 RELIGION IN THE MAKING not likely. The week, therefore, was the earliest temporal basis of the social order. It existed among men before ever Abraham traveled west. It remained, however, for the Hebrews to estab- lish upon the basis of the week a Sabbath Day, the origin of which is obscure, but that it is essentially a Hebrew contribution to the social and religious history of the world there can no longer be any doubt. It is given to some men to desire to take every glory away from the Hebrew people. Ob- scure Babylonian references have been erected into a theory that the Sabbath Day was a child of the Euphrates. It is not necessary to consider that question technically. It is enough to note that at the time of the captivity, as well as befoi-e it, the Sabbath was regarded as a special bond between Jehovah and his people. It is necessary, however, to consider the matter in some detail. In the creation story we read that the world was made in six days and that God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it. In the account of the Com- mandments the reason given for the Sabbath Day as an obligation for men was that in six days God made the heavens and the earth and rested upon the seventh day (Ex. xx. 9-1 1). Though modern knowledge has destroyed the six days by extending them into six great periods, and though even the SACRED DAYS i^g periods themselves melt into each other so that this basis for Sabbath rest gives no support in our times, it is at least suggestive of the high reverence in which the day was held when the first chapter of Genesis was written. The Second Law gives a dif- ferent reason for keeping the Sabbath. It is as a memorial ''that thou wast a servant in Egypt" (Deut. V. 15). A man in bondage can keep no Sabbath by his own choice. You Hebrews deliv- ered from Egypt and now in a land of your own, no longer servants, may have a Sabbath for your- selves but give it also to your cattle and your slaves. So shall you forever show that you are not un- worthy of your inheritance. Thus does the writer recognize the Sabbath as a perpetual symbol of the liberty of Israel. There are very few mentions of the Sabbath in the earlier history. In the account of the wander- ings the story of the manna in the wilderness is illuminated by the recognition of a rest day. The manna gathered on the day before the Sabbath was to be double in quantity and kept sweet for the two days (Ex. xvi. 2^). We have an account of a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath who was stoned for his misconduct (Num. xv. 32). It is very certain that the penalty of death which was prescribed for those who violated the Sabbath rest 200 RELIGION IN THE MAKING was not generally enforced. The directions, how- ever, for keeping the Sabbath are sufficiently ex- plicit. Not only was the death penalty prescribed, but there were specific indications that no excuse could be accepted for Sabbath labor. "In earing time and in harvest shalt thou rest." The plea of special emergency would not do. Thus far the Sabbath may have been justified then, as now, upon the ground of the value of definite periods of rest between definite periods of labor, but this Hebrew Sabbath is something more. Very striking is the use of the word "sign" as a note of Sabbath observance. As the plagues of Egypt were set for signs that God would protect his people, so in a more permanent manner this choice of a Sabbath Day is declared by Jehovah to be a badge of loyalty. ''Verily ye shall keep my Sabbath, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that ye may know that I am Jehovah who sanctifieth you" (Ex. xxxi. 13). That this doctrine of a sign was no less marked than the belief in a special covenant between Jehovah and his people is discovered in the prophet Ezekiel, who after giving an account of the deliv- erance of Israel from Egj^pt and speaking of the statutes and commandments by which men were to live, he adds, ''Moreover also I gave them my SACRED DAYS 201 Sabbath to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am Jehovah that sanctifieth them." It is true that the prophet complains that they have profaned the Sabbath just as they re- jected the laws because their hearts went after their idols. He declares that this happened in the wilderness and doubtless it happened among many of the captives with whom he lived. The Sabbath could only be a sign between Jehovah and his people so long as it was something unique. In the very nature of the case it could not be a bor- rowed institution. The second Isaiah goes even further and opens the way for a mission to other peoples, and this is to be a sign that the foreigner has been accepted as a worshiper of Jehovah. "Every one that keepeth the Sabbath from profan- ing it and holdeth fast my covenant, even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer : for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isa. Ivi.). The Sabbath Day was made a taboo for work but it was a festival of joy. It was not only a day for religious worship, but it was also a day of feasts and of plenty. The notion of the taboo comes out still more strongly in the Sabbath year which the later law provides for the land. Nor does the law intimate that the land was to lie fallow for the sake 202 RELIGION IN THE MAKING of better harvests the next year. The land itself is said to keep a Sabbath to Jehovah (Lev. xxv. 3), and very explicit is the statement that this Sabbath rest of the land is to be devoted to the poor and to the cattle. They shall gather and they shall feed at will, and it is to cover not the field alone, but the vineyard and the orchard as well. The year after the Sabbath year is not conspicuous for its fruitful- ness; rather is it the year before the land lies idle. "Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year and it shall bring forth fruit for three years" (Lev. xxv. 21). The full development of the Sabbath law for Israel did not come in Bible times. Long after Leviticus was written the rabbis spent much time in defining what was right and what was wrong for the Sabbath Day. Precept after precept multi- plied until one of the most difficult duties of the Jew was to keep himself from sin in this particular matter by the knowledge and observance of the refined etiquette which applied to the solemn day. It is not necessary to take up the question of what the rival schools of Shammai and Hillel prescribed. The gentle tolerance of Hillel accords with the freedom of modern times, but the sons of the Puritans, though less numerous in their precepts, were just as rigid in their proscriptions as the SACRED DAYS 203 austere Shammai, the great Jewish puritan of the first century. It is not needful to dwell longer upon the Sabbath Day than to point out that it was for rest from labor, for the worship of Jehovah, for the joy of life, and was the great ritual day that sepa- rated the Hebrew people from the nations which surrounded them. The Sabbath Day has been adopted by Christian- ity, and has become a part of the religious tradi- tions which that faith has accepted from the Hebrew people. The curious controversy as to whether the first day of the week or the seventh may rightly be observed as the Sabbath vanishes at once under a consideration of the history. There can be no doubt that the Sabbath in the beginning depended upon the week, as the week was furnished by the phases of the moon. But four weeks of seven days each did not satisfy the lunar requirements. So wherever the phases of the moon furnish the time measure, the new moon is always the beginning of the month, though one or two days may be dropped in the process. Lunar weeks were sometimes of seven and sometimes of eight days' duration. It was, therefore, no strictly recurrent day which was marked as the Sababth. Hebrew law reckoned the Sabbath from sunset to sunset. But as sunsets vary 204 RELIGION IN THE" MAKING in time very much during the year, we have an- other interference with the exactness of the time. This adds a further difficulty to the calculation. The months were arranged by adding an extra month as often as it was required, and even the names of the months were changed in order to meet the necessities of the solar year. The calen- dar of the second Hillel does not exactly agree with the Gregorian, and in the course of the centuries the day would be completely changed. There can be no question that again and again in early times days were inserted in the lunar year to make it correspond with the solar year. The Julian calen- dar was an effort to create a scientific year, but it was only about one hundred and fifty years ago that an English statute cut out eleven days, making the third of September the fourteenth in order to conform to the fact of the solar year. There is some indication also that the Sabbath Day was intentionally changed by the Hebrews themselves. They were to count from the morrow after the Sabbath fifty days, and then make a proclamation of a holy convocation with no servile work, and this was a statute forever (Lev. xxiii. 15-21). If from this solemn convocation the new Sabbath was dated, it would appear that in the course of seven years each day in the week would SACRED DAYS 205 take its place as the Sabbath. The uncertainty of the time also is indicated by the fact that it was the only one in the week which had a name, the other days being numbered. As there is not the slightest evidence that the present Sunday of our calendar corresponds to any fact in Christian history, so also does Saturday fail to have any historical sig- nificance to the Jew. The debate about days is of no importance and the institution of the Sabbath rests upon the week and upon a definite time in each week being set apart according to the devel- oped Hebrew law. The prophets of Israel were in accord with the priests upon the value of the Sabbath. Amos in- deed rebukes those who would swallow up the needy and cause the poor of the land to suffer. These sinners eagerly wait for the new moon to be gone that they may sell grain, and for the Sabbath to be over that they may sell wheat, when they would proceed to deal falsely with scant measure and bad coins (Amos viii. 4). Isaiah utters the rebuke of Jehovah to the wicked who still sought him in new moons and Sabbaths and assemblies. He cannot brook the union of iniquity and solemn meetings. No, they must repent if they would seek God. "Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isa. i. 17). 2o6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING Nor do we wait until late in the history of the Jews to find the keeping of the Sabbath numbered among the moral obligations of the people. Jere- miah, who was to know and to feel the sorrows of his race as no other man, sees in the neglected Sabbath one of the chief causes of the miseries of Zion. They may still hope, in spite of threatened danger, if they will cease to bear burdens and do' work on the appointed days of rest. They must hallow the Sabbath, and "then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, and this city shall remain forever'* (Jer. xvii. 25). When the destruction of the city had been accomplished the ruin is complete because "Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and Sab- bath to be forgotten in Zion. And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest" (Lam. .ii. 6). The second Isaiah, who has little to say in favor of ceremonials, and who so bitterly rebukes some of them, yet sees in the Sabbath the hope of his people. "If thou wilt turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, then shalt thou delight thyself In Jehovah and I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and I will feed thee with the heritage of SACRED DAYS 207 Jacob thy father" (Isa. Iviii. 13). Ezekiel in the captivity has much to say on the Sabbath question. The indictment against Israel in the wilderness is that though they received statutes by which men should live, and Sabbaths as a sign between them, and Jehovah to show continually their separation unto his service, they refused to walk in his stat- utes, and they greatly profaned his Sabbaths (Ezek. XX.). And he argues that for the very reason that they neglected the Sabbaths of Jehovah, they also fell into the worship of other gods, into profane services, and evil lives. Later he recurs to the same theme and wishes to make plain their guilt by coupling the wronging of the fatherless and the widow with the despising of holy things and the profanation of the Sabbath. Again and again does he upbraid the people for their unfaithfulness to Jehovah and for their manifold sins, and chief among them is this : 'They have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths" (Ex. xxii, 26). When that zealous reformer Nehemiah was seek- ing to rebuild the broken commonwealth after the captivity was ended, he went about the task with great directness. The old covenants with Jehovah were recalled and a strict separation from the alien peoples was enforced. The new community at Jerusalem entered into "a curse and an oath to 2o8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING walk in God's law." They would keep all the com- mandments, they would not intermarry with for- eigners, nor would they buy or sell upon the Sabbath. In spite of oath and curse the people did not keep faith. Nehemiah found men treading wine- presses on the Sabbath, and others bringing asses through the gates laden with sheaves, as well as with wine and grapes and figs. He called together the nobles of the people and reproached them for this sin of profanation, and tells them that as their fathers brought destruction once upon the city, so they in turn will meet the same doom that follows Sabbath breakers. The energetic puritan was not content with words, but on the even before the Sabbath he ordered the city gates to be closed, and to make sure he set his own servants to watch dur- ing the day. Then from the wall he denounced the Tyrian merchants who were waiting outside hoping to enter as usual, and he finally declared to them, that if they should appear again on the Sabbath Day he himself would lay hands on them. It is a realistic story and reveals the wisdom of the states- man as well as the zeal of the churchman. The sacred day was a necessity for the sacred service. Later teachers of Israel elaborated and codified the directions for the keeping of the Sabbath, and SACRED DAYS 209 made a calendar covering the prescribed feasts and services of the year. By this time names were given to the other days, and the seventh day of the week became the permanent Sabbath except for the intercalation required in keeping the solar year. The Ark is gone, but not the holy law. The temple hill is occupied by the shrine of a bastard faith which has neither smoking altar nor gorgeous ritual, but the institution of the Sabbath remains as a legacy from the Hebrews to the nations of the world. It was supported by priest and prophet and ruler and seems to have been so central to the life of developed Israel that it survived every shock of disaster. Beginning as a lunar mark of time around which grew Semitic sacrifices, perhaps long before the Hebrew people, with the sons of Israel it grew into definiteness and power. Lunar feasts have been known among peoples from all races, but the Sab- bath with its triple authority of worship, rest, and good cheer, had its origin in Israel. 14 CHAPTER XII HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY In modern thought the conception of sanctity has an ethical element. We think of the term ''holiness," whether applied to a person or to an act, as free from wrongdoing. All this is very differ- ent in the development of the religious history of the world. A truly ethical content in religion is never ancient. Moral law reveals itself in early times in the form of customs handed down from generation to generation, and these for the most part have to do with the preservation of human life and the restraint of human hate. Rules of conduct that were sacred within the social group had no application to foreigners or strangers. Even the Ten Commandments were for the use of Hebrews among Hebrews and did not govern their conduct with people outside of Israel. The history of the social order reveals great changes in the standards of conduct. These were different for different times and among different peoples. Even the most fundamental rights and wrongs vary among differ- ent peoples. It was quite general in primitive life 210 HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 211 to hold that the preservation of sex purity was a duty wholly belonging to women, and the thought that only married women were under any obliga- tion was very widespread. The most primary and universal moral laws relate to the rights of prop- erty, and of necessity these grow more and more impressive as property increases. The rights of property, however, grow out of the necessity of peace within the group. The property of the stranger was common plunder. The idea of sanctity in Israel at the beginning had little or nothing to do with our modern notion of right and wrong. A surface reading of the his- tory discloses that men held eminent for piety violated nearly every one of our modern standards of conduct. The moral ideals which held rule in Israel differed from age to age. It will be found for the most part these differences run parallel with the development of the idea of God. We expect to find in the prophets a conception of holiness quite different from that recognized in the public and organized religion. The notion of sanctity in Israel consists fundamentally in the thought of a thing set apart from common use. The person or the deed either belongs to God, or, at least, is separated from the conduct of common life. It will be found that the moral life of Israel undergoes change from 212 RELIGION IN THE MAKING what is essentially a ritual of life to that which be- comes an experience of righteousness. The stand- ards of Abraham and David are certainly not the same as those of Ezekiel and Nehemiah. It will not be possible to give any complete account of- these ethical changes, but there are certain phases of them that are essential to the present study. The religious history of the world does not show that one religion takes the place of another. There is no clearly marked line between fetich, nature, worship, polytheism, and monotheism. Later relig- ions are always superimposed on earlier faiths. Any new faith to succeed must take unto itself a great many of the precious, primitive, and inherited traditions. The conqueror may make his gods rul- ers in the pantheon of a subject people, but he must leave some niches for the degraded deities. The pantheon of Rome was enlarged to include the chief divinities of the empire. The history of Babylonia and Assyria shows changes in divine authority which ran parallel to the changes in human govern- ment. The general tendency of civilization is to relieve itself of traditions no longer valuable, but the process is not rapid. The sanctions of custom are often greater than the sanctions of law. The student of society must study his problem in the light of the fact that survivals from earlier relig- HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 213 ions may be found anywhere. Buddhism could not make its way in the world without regard to the earlier faiths. Christianity must compromise with both Judaism and Paganism. No reformation has ever been complete. The lingering infallibilities assert themselves in those communions which most strongly protest individual freedom and responsi- bility. In the development of the religion of Israel many traces are to be found of lower forms of faith. The obvious struggle between the worship of many gods and the worship of Jehovah is only one of the facts that must be considered. It has already been noted that peoples of a cer- tain level of culture are likely to develop similar institutions. So it happens that among peoples separated both In time and space there are found marked coincidenceSj both In government and in religion. The altar is not Hebrew. It belongs to all peoples who offer sacrifices. The duty of build- ing a temple was not given to Solomon alone, but to every ruler who recognized the dignity of wor- ship and the Importance of religion. One of the most widespread and at the same time one of the most curious survivals of primitive faith Is what Is known as the Taboo. A thing tabooed Is one that must not be touched. Food that is taboo is that which must not be eaten. A 214 RELIGION IN THE MAKING taboo may be permanent or temporary. It seems to have grown out of the experiences of calamity. If certain acts were done and certain evil results followed, henceforth the acts which caused the evil must be avoided. If all evil experiences were to become the rule, the whole of life would come to a standstill, and so it became necessary for custom and law to codify the prohibitions. The taboo seems to have been in the first place wholly con- nected with religion. The evil consequences of the dangerous act followed directly from the doing. A man who touched the prohibited object or en- gaged in the prohibited deed was liable to disease or sudden death. Where civil rule grew strong, the king or chief imposed the taboo. In safe hands it became a valuable aid to human progress. The right of property and the duty of chastity were made strong by means of the taboo. In recent times the taboo system has been found in full de- velopment in the South Sea Islands. Hawaii fur- nishes us the word. But in some form or other the taboo is so general that some writers have held that it was at the very foundation of the religious experience of the race. As food offered In sacrifice to Jehovah was reserved for the priests, so among the Sandwich Islanders animals or fruits offered in sacrifice to the gods were reserved to men and were HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 215 not allowed to women. Not alone were the temples and utensils of religion not to be touched by com- mon hands, but both the person and the property of chief and priest were held to be taboo. Penal- ties, both from gods and men, were meted out to the common man who touched the thing sanctified or set apart from common use. Persons in power learned to increase their property by means of the taboo. If a chief called anything a part of his per- son, it became his own. A taboo might be proclaimed for special pur- poses as, for example, when the fruit was ripe, or it might be proclaimed for a special time. A strict taboo allowed no canoe to touch the waters, no fire to burn, no person to bathe. It might even go so far that no dog was allowed to bark nor any cock to crow. To carry out the taboo the mouth of the dog or cock was tied up. In New Zealand any dead person was taboo, and if a canoe carried a corpse, it was never used again. If a man had slain an enemy, he was taboo for ten days. A man taboo could not eat his food with his hands ; he must be fed by others. This service failing, he must eat directly with his mouth like any animal. Among many tribes women were taboo in times of war, and the fighting men left them at home, as one of the stories with respect to David illustrates. The 2l6 RELIGION IN THE MAKING subject of taboo has been discussed by Spencer, Tylor, Frazer, and, more recently, by Reinach. Traces of the taboo are reported in almost all coun- tries and it has been used by almost all religions. It is also found in modern life. Mothers in rear- ing children are not always able to give reasons why objects must not be touched, but by some means or other children are made to understand. It is still necessary to post public signs "Keep Off the Grass" and canes and umbrellas are taboo in public museums and art galleries. The history of man in the Bible opens with a characteristic taboo. The story of Eden may have been rewritten by some late hand at some late date, as the critics affirm, but every student of primitive culture will feel sure that the substance of the story Is very ancient. It came from no one man. It is the resultant of the meditation of a people upon the great problems of labor, sin, and death. The difficulties of moral discipline are inherent in the story. The Ten Commandments are not important to a solitary pair, but In such a garden a prohibited tree which might not be' touched and whose fruit might not be eaten was a natural beginning to dis- tinctions of conduct which were to increase in num- ber, in value, and In sanctions through all the de- velopment of the race. The tree of knowledge was HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 217 profaned but the tree of life was preserved. In this case, as in many others, the taboo was an object of value. Among the Hebrews the name of Jehovah be- came taboo. They would not profane by speech the sacred syllables, and substituted for it the word Adonai. No hierarchy can exist without services and places which are prohibited to common men and which are reserved for the priests. The Ark of Israel was taboo and when David attempted to bring it up to his own city, the well-meaning Uzzah was stricken dead because he touched the Ark en- dangered by the jolting car. The Holy of Holies in which the Ark rested at last was the most impres- sive taboo in Israel. As the temple itself was for the priests, so at last the Holy of Holies came to be for the high priest alone and into it he himself might go but once a year. The people of Israel were separated to Jehovah. All other gods were made taboo to them. With- out a question during a long part of their history they believed in the existence and power of other gods, and often fell into idolatry, but this was the violation of a taboo and great penalties were ex- acted. In Israel there was a holy tribe. It was the tribe of Levi which was separated unto the Lord. 2i8 RELIGION IN THE MAKING It was not that the Levites were better than other men and no modern sense must be read into their sanctification. They were chosen for a special work and they represented all Israel in the sacred duties. A similar doctrine is not unknown to recent times, when the character of the priest is regarded as of no great importance. It is the office that is holy and his duties in performing the ritual are quite apart from his private life. There were some religious bodies which were separatists from the rest of Israel in a particular manner. The Nazarites by special vows were sep- arated from the rest of the people for the service of Jehovah. It is easy to understand the prohibi- tion to avoid the use of wine and strong drink, but why were they forbidden to eat grapes, fresh or dry, and why might not the Nazarites touch any- thing of the grape, even from the kernel to the husk? We are dealing here with something very ancient. While under his vows the Nazarite sep- arated unto Jehovah was holy, but his holiness had no ethical significance. Because he was holy he must let the hair of his head grow long. He might not go near to a dead body, even though it were that of his father or his mother, because his sep- aration unto God is upon his head. During the time for which the vows were made he could not HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 219 attend even his mother's funeral. This is a kind of hoHness which no modern mind can understand. A dead person was taboo. The contact with the corpse made a person taboo though it was not a question of actual pollution, even of the flesh, for however much he might wash in water, the record nearly always stands "He shall be unclean until evening." It was not an actual filth, but it was ceremonial. In effect it was a penance appointed for an improper deed. In New Guinea there is precisely the same taboo among natives, even until this day. Another subject which must hold our attention is the relation of the totem to religious history. The totem pole is usually composed of three figures, partly animal and partly human. The totem itself is the sacred animal of a particular family or clan, which is supported at the top of the totem pole. The word "totem" is furnished by the American Indians. The totem itself is more widespread than the totem pole and the underlying ideas are of the greatest significance. The totem is founded upon the idea that certain animals have special relations with certain groups of men. These relations are vital to human interests and so take on a religious form. Among many peoples the totem animal was regarded as the ancestor of the clan. The totem 220 RELIGION IN THE MAKING animal is not to be killed or eaten. The religion of old Egypt developed perhaps to its fullest extent the doctrine of the relation of human and divine meeting in the animal world. The wolf of Athens was buried, like the gazelle of Arabia, if it was accidentally killed, with the same honors as though it were a member of the clan. The sacred animal may not be killed except under necessity and even then it is regarded as practically a murder. Frazer reports a California tribe which renders worship to the buzzard and celebrates a feast annually by killing the buzzard without the loss of a drop of blood. They preserve his feathers in order to make a sacred vestment for their medicine-men. They bury the body in sacred earth amidst the lamenta- tions of old women. It seems not to have been unusual to have an occasional sacrifice of the totem animal which was protected all the rest of the year. By eating a piece of the flesh under special emer- gencies, it was thought that divine strength might be obtained. Among some peoples other than the California Indians the feathers or skin of the totem animal were used In religious ceremonies. The totem Idea seems so strange to the civilized man that It Is almost Impossible to place ourselves In an understanding m.ood. It may assist us to remember that Just as the totem pole protected the HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 221 dwelling, as the totem figure was often tattooed upon the body or painted upon the clothing, so we have among the sanctities of modern life a very close resemblance. Who can explain the distinction which America gives to the eagle, England to the lion and Russia to the bear ? The totem figure was often borne into battle like a flag. Enough has been said to prepare us for the dis- crimination of the Hebrews between the clean and the unclean in the animal life. How ancient this was we do not know. It is quite certain that it did not belong to the later development of Israel, but was rather a survival from very early times. In the stories of Genesis are many interesting ex- amples, but none more so than the suggestion that Noah was bidden to recognize the clean and the unclean animals by number as he went into the ark. Unfortunately we are given no list of either class. In the later law certain animals were pre- scribed as clean and as unclean, and those that part the hoof and chew the cud were to be eaten and other beasts were to be unclean. Specifically, camels, hares, rock badgers and swine were pro- hibited. The law proceeds to specify that creatures from the water must have fins and scales, and so on through a discussion of things fit for food (Lev. xi.). There seems to be neither sanitary nor ethical 222 RELIGION IN THE MAKING reasons underlying these prohibitions though a number of them appeal to us. There seems no special reason why swine should be prohibited as food save on account of their rather filthy habits, but in this respect the fowl is quite as much a scavenger as the pig. Plutarch intimates that the Jewish reason for abstaining from swine flesh was because the pig was held to be a sacred animal. Of this, however, there is no trace in the Bible. The civilized instinct rejects without any apparent reason certain animals which seem to be well adapted for food. The entire law of clean and unclean, both for common men and for priests, indicates that it is ceremonial rather than real, just as sanctification had in it no true ethical idea, for a field or an animal might be sanctified unto Jehovah just as truly as a man. The evident changes in the standards of truth- fulness, chastity, honor and honesty are manifold. Abraham, the father of the faithful, and David, the man after God's own heart, would neither of them do for modern saints. It is not until later times that the relation between conduct and character became evident. The priest was holy, Jerusalem was holy, and Zion holy, because they were the places of sacred services and the dwelling place of Jehovah. In the HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 223 ritual sacrifice of Israel there was no element of holiness as we understand it. In the altar sacrifices the people felt that they were giving something of value to God, as it seems likely in the earlier sacri- fices they were having a mystic form of communion with God. But the time was sure to come when something more was needed than this sense of sep- aration to express the requirements of human conduct. As the conception of the holiness of God took on forms that have been permanent among men in the voices of the prophets and singers of the later cen- turies, we find also that social righteousness assumes new forms. This is the essential reason why fasts and feasts are decried by the prophets. Forms of worship, however noble, are not enough. The exactions of the strong, the tyrannies of the rich, the brutalities of princes and the corruptions of life are denounced in burning words such as might well be used to-day against the sins of modern society. The service of Jehovah must now manifest Itself in rectitude of life and in the fulfilment of social obligations. Ezekiel, priest as he was, shuddered because of the unclean animals that he found in his temple vision, but Zechariah declares that holiness unto the Lord is not a thing which belongs to those ob- ^24 RELIGION IN THE MAKING jects and services which have been known as sacred. Sanctity is not a property of those things set apart from common use. He looks forward to the time when the things most secular shall become sacred, hence he declares, "In that time shall there be upon the bells of the horses Holiness unto the Lord and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar" (Zech. xiv. 20). Joel, Indeed, teaches a future for Jerusalem when both city and temple mountain shall be holy be- cause no strangers shall pass through the streets, but Isaiah sings in nobler terms : "One cried unto another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." The priest might deal with ceremonial uncleanness. He might keep the mother out of the sanctuary for a month because the sacred function had unfitted her for worship, but the prophet knew how to sing and how to characterize uncleanness. Purity was to be had not by formal rules but by coming in contact with the Ever-Living and the All-Cleansing God. Life must exhibit a moral heroism. Every religion has to deal with conduct. It prescribes things to be done and things to be left undone, and all these prescriptions were as schoolmasters leading to the higher law. For Isaiah the time came when the clean and the unclean of the traditional law would HEBREW CONCEPTION OF SANCTITY 225 no longer serve. Ritual indeed might continue and make itself perfect in future generations, but in the development of conduct men came more and more to long for realities. To deal justly and to love mercy were more than altars and stone. Once again, the rising tide of life found expression through prophetic voices. The law of Jehovah must become ennobled as the character of Jehovah became more fully recognized. It was inevitable that the judge of the whole earth must do right and nothing less than righteousness in man would He exact. Taboo and Totem were servants of the Lord in the beginnings of human conduct. They trained men to discrimination. They aided men to measure fields, to recognize property, to construct homes. But they were servants of the Lord, while men were on the march to the dignity of loftier conceptions. The time was to come when the law of God should reveal itself in a more perfect man- ner. Not alone in moral precept nor in prophet's scorn, but in the hymns of the people also was this truth to be found. So the spiritual nature of the requirements of God are finally sung: "The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul. The pre- cepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart. The fear of Jehovah is clean, enduring forever. The ordinances of Jehovah are true and righteous alto- gether" (Psa. xix.). 15 CHAPTER XIII SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS The great body of religious facts contained in the Old Testament can be grouped under a few heads. Besides, these classes of facts show inti- mate connection. Where facts, whether social or physical, can be grouped, science may arise. Where there are recurrent sequences, it may be conjec- tured that facts are governed by law. Classes of facts in the same realm of human experience in one social group may be compared with similar classes of facts in another social group. This con- clusion shows the possibility of a science of religion. No one is more aware of the incompleteness of the study presented in this work than the author. Nor is the genetic process in every class of facts clearly evident in every stage of the Hebrew his- tory. May it be asked, however, that possible critics will consider that since the process is shown in these different classes of facts, and in some of them quite completely, the argument for no one of the chapters stands by itself, and the connection of worship, sacred persons, sacred places, and sacred 226 SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 227 services, is so intimate that where a process is clearly shown in one of them, it may rightly be presupposed in the other connected systems of facts. In other words, the argument is cumulative. A separate study might have been made of the religious laws, but it is scarcely necessary, since they come out in the topics that have been presented. We are accustomed to think of canon and civil law as distinct departments. It was not so among the Hebrews any more than it was among some other ancient peoples, and we must not project too many of our modern ideas backward to the destruc- tion of our historic perspective. The "Law of Moses" became a current phrase in Israel. We have seen the processes of religion grow and there IS no doubt that the code grew also. Distinct changes were made in the ritual service and it was completed late in the history. We are able to note the growth of the Sabbath law as though it were under our very eyes. It was not finally formulated until after the books of the Bible were written. Some indications of the growth and changes of law leave room at once for the supposition that the code of Moses grew as the times required. This is true of every living form of law in every land. The code of a state or the statutes of a na- tion do not cease to remain the central authority 228 RELIGION IN THE MAKING because of additions and amendments. That is the way in which they keep their authority. Nor was the phrase the ''Law of Moses" in any sense ever a pious fraud. The Jews beHeved that IMoses gave the first structure to the government. It could not have remained unchanged throughout all the gen- erations, like a petrified wonder from the desert of the wanderings. Neither the code of Justinian nor the code Napoleon was written by the man whose name it bears. And yet the historic relation of each man with his work was real enough to entitle him to the honor of the production. How many of the statutes found in the different books were codified by Moses we do not know, and even should it prove that there are several codes and that these were handed down from different sources, it by- no means follows that there is not in each of the codes material that Moses himself gave to his peo- ple. The constitution of Israel, however, belongs to a discussion of the form of its state. The early stories of Genesis will, I think, be found by every scientific mind to bear traces of great antiquity, no matter when they took their present form. The story of William Tell was not created by Schiller, nor yet by Goethe whose notes were used in its production, but is thought by literary students to be a world-old story presented SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 229 under modern forms. Such stories as the Garden, and Babel, and the Flood, as well as the quarrel of Cain and Abel, bear the marks of hoary antiquity. It is probable that they could not even have been conceived so late in the history as the period of Moses. Some persons speak of the Book of Judges as though it were a collection of unhistor- ical tales put together late in Hebrew history. The thing is impossible. The hero stories are precisely the same stuff as the hero stories that lie at the beginning of all nations whose early histories have been studied. They may be so rem.ote from us that in some cases we cannot even tell what deep and true meaning they disclosed to those who loved them and put them into their sacred scriptures. For us it is enough to remember that the Book of Judges is to the student of the science of society as great a delight as a fresh cliff tossed by some earth- quake would be to a geologist should he discover in the fossils the remains of rare species hitherto unknown to the museums of the world. It may not be readily admitted that the history of the idea of God falls into four distinct periods, that of the Patriarchs, of Moses, of the early kings, and of the prophets. No one supposes that the periods were distinct. One period flows into an- other. The thoughts of one period survive to a 230 RELIGION IN THE MAKING later date, just as remote peasants, both in Britain and in Germany, are said to still pray both to God and to the Devil, not knowing which will have the upper hand. This is certainly a religious survival which does not belong to the faith which the peas- ants profess. No scientific man would doubt that commands were uttered in the name of Jehovah which came only from mistaken human lips. The early Jehovah was so unpitying and implacable that we can scarcely understand how at last He came to be like a Father pitying His children. It may be urged, and with some show of reason, that the fire symbol for the Jehovah of the wan- derings is overworked in the discussion, and it may be urged that with a little industry it might have been made to appear that He was also the God of the clouds and of the rain. Where there is poly- theism, it is easy enough to furnish as many gods as are required by the experiences of life, and in the wealth of oriental imagery many moods of the divine being are interpreted under many figures, but the fire sym.bol is the most persistent as it is the most revealing representation. Let it be remembered also that the development of the idea of God was a matter of social interest and was not a personal affair. So far as Israel was concerned He was the God of the people, and when SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 231 Israel was smitten He was the God of the remnant who should be gathered and made a great nation. Of the personal fatherhood of God for the indivi- dual, there is scarce a trace in the Old Testament. To certain minds the distinction of sanctity as ceremonial and not real in the earlier history may come with something of a shock. Yet the develop- ment of moral ideals is one of the commonplaces of all human history. The strange survival of the scapegoat found in the late code must seem re- markable to those not familiar with the part which animals play in the development of religions. The taboo as a correct name for many facts in the Old Testament may be questioned, but it can hardly be questioned by those who have learned that some Russian peasants will refuse to eat a dove because they regard it as a continuing symbol of the divine presence. It may perhaps be fairly said that my treatment of the prophet is more favorable to his order than my treatment of the priest. I think that is true. Even when one knows that certain things are mat- ters of temperament it is sometimes hard to avoid them. While all that has been said of the prophets I believe to be true, it is certainly possible that more might be said in favor of the priest. The priest stands for institutions and the social order. No 232 RELIGION IN THE MAKING teacher of social science can question the educative value of institutions. They are the only means by which we save the mental and social wealth of ancient times and transmit them to ages yet to be. As the custodian of the past and as a teacher of the present, the priest under every religion is the most valuable of men. To a developed and organized religion the priest is not only valuable, he is neces- sary. Without him there can be no ascertained body of belief, no prescribed rules of conduct, no maintenance of holy traditions. As a rule the priest in the developmient of religion has been not the author of superstition but the enemy of it. Super- stitions he mxay cherish, but these must be recog- nized, authoritative, and sufficiently few in num- ber. And so among every people there has been a great mass of folk-lore, legends, and also super- natural beings which have been entirely unrecog- nized by the organized religion. They have been cast out by the leaders of society as unfit for pres- ervation. But these orphan children of the imagi- nation have not infrequently been very dear to the loving hearts of the common people. The prophet plays a difficult role in history and very much depends upon him. Without new thought there can be no new expression of life. He deals with the untried. The same people who listen SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 233 with attention to the priest are ready to stone the prophet, but it is not enough to get himself stoned or to have built for him afterward a costly sepul- cher. The words of the prophet must be tried in the furnace of affliction and only those messages which are able to survive all tests and which are at last woven into the social fabric of the future possess any value. It is time to sum up the general results of the Hebrew religious development, and to ask what legacy of permanent character these people left to the world. Their greatest gift and the greatest possession which ever came to the world from any source is the thought of one God. If, as it seems, they com- menced with very narrow notions of the Divine Being, limited and passionate like themselves, the quest after Him becomes even more pathetic and heroic. From time to time the illuminating man was born among them who added something of power and dignity to that which they had con- ceived. It must never he forgotten that it was no theoretical or scholastic pursuit of a great subject. The thought of God was a working theory of prac- tical life, for the individual, indeed, but chiefly for the nation. He was not dethroned as many another deity has been by the defeat of his people. It was 234 RELIGION IN THE MAKING precisely at the moment of the greatest humiliation of Israel that the thought of God broadened, deepened, and widened, until it filled the universe and ordered the destiny of the nations. This is not the place to consider what changes the idea of God has undergone since the days of the Hebrews, but fundamentally the monotheism of the world is the monotheism of the Hebrew prophets. If we consider the history of culture, this relig- ious development is the great miracle of human his- tory. Outside of their religious life and literature, the Hebrews would be unnoticed among the na- tions of antiquity. In almost every way inferior to the nations that surrounded them, they are greatly distanced by both Egypt and Greece in all that exhibits human intellect. Aristotle, indeed, could furnish arguments for the being of God which stimulated the labors of theologians centuries after- ward, but in the history of Greece there were no chapters written in blood and tears because of philosophical monotheism. This Jehovah was the God of good and evil, of life and death, of riches and poverty, who rewarded them when they did well, who punished them when they did wrong, and who went with them through all the manifold struggles of their nation^s life. SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS ^35 Of the intellectual form in which they robed this great conception there is little that need to be said. There were no formal explanations, there was no orderly category of attributes. Not a single phil- osophical argument is found anywhere. The idea of God had cost them too much for speech. It was the only incontestable treasure which they held after the weary centuries. At the beginning the clan god may have partaken with them of a com- mon meal, as was the case in the sacrifices of other Semites. At last they had a God who shared with them in every fortune and misfortune, who bore their sorrows and carried their afflictions. He was the constant sharer of their life. Though this conquest of the idea of God was religious and not intellectual, it has had a more tre- mendous influence upon the intellect of the world than all other ancient thoughts combined. Modem knowledge is only to-day beginning to spell out the meaning of the word "unity." Before science furnished us with a Cosmos, He who was God from everlasting, before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and the world were made, was the sufficient ground for every possible unity of modern science and philosophy. Since the days of the Hebrews the intellectual effort of the world 236 RELIGION IN THE MAKING has largely put its stress into an effort to apply the idea of God to all phases of human inquiry. Not only has nature come into order and unity because there is one God, but the world of men feels the throb of a common life. If there is one God and Father of us all, then the human race is one. If the human race be one, its common inter- ests have particular value for every individual and for every people. It is clear, therefore, that the philanthropic interest is as much the offspring of the idea of God as are the great intellectual conclusions. The second contribution of the Hebrews to the life of the world is its standard of righteousness. As they discovered that God Himself was righteous, so at last they came to understand that those who would live in peaceful fellowship with Him, must also be righteous. The social structure for their religion led to social conceptions of righteousness. Sins against the family, as well as sins in the busi- ness world, the wretched greed of the rich and strong, as well as the failure to worship, were part of the standard of conduct. God had put Himself under law and man must also live under law. Search the standards of any other people and their views of conduct have no modern meaning, but the pages of the prophets might be wet with fresh tears SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 237 because of the sorrows of the broken and the fallen in our midst. They not only ring true, but they also furnish the loftiest conceptions of life that the world has yet known. Institutions come and go. They furnish a tab- ernacle for some great idea, and by and by, rent and torn, they are cast aside and the idea moves on to new dwelling places. The institutions of the Hebrews are not of special significance except for the nature of the soul that lived within them. There is one institution, however, which is an exception, and their Holy Sabbath is the most formal contri- bution made by the Hebrews to the institutions of the world. Other people had times and deeds which they called holy, but it was given to this people to consecrate one seventh of their time to public worship and to private devotion. The great day meant rest, reverence, and delight. This con- tribution has come to the modern world. We have not carefully kept the treasure that has been handed down to us, but we have learned to buttress the institution by all the arguments based upon business success, rational hygiene, and practical sagacity. There is also a gift in the substance of the Hebrew religion which has come from them rather than from any other source. It is the idealization of the doctrine of sacrifice. The earlier thought 238 RELIGION IN THE MAKING of sacrifice was communion with God and the later thought was giving to Him something of value as a token of obligation for benefits received. But it was among the Hebrews themselves that the idea of sacrifice was transformed and exalted. They learned to oflfer the sacrifice of righteousness and that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. Their prophets taught them that the Lord desired mercy and not sacrifice, and so it came to pass that even the ritual of their religion meant for those who were instructed and inspired only the symbol of great spiritual realities. Thus understood, sacri- fice also has become one of the chief admirations of the modern mind. There is a deeper question that in the religious debates of the times constantly recurs. To shape it in conformity with our task may be stated thus: What relation has this religious experience of the Hebrew people to final realities? Suppose this Hebrew did think noble thoughts ! — Is there any- thing in the final essence of things that corresponds to his ideas? He thought conduct was important, but does the deed of a man have anything like the serious import that he would have us believe? He teaches us about a God, but is there any being who receives his prayers or listens to his psalms ? Does the Hebrew faith have any validity for positive SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 239 science beyond any other faith? These are some of the questions that must be heard and answered. It is particularly important for us to find out whether the genetic process in history which we call progress has any place for that which is eternal, valid and real. It is one of the commonplaces of philosophy to say that man corresponds with his universe. But it is not common to see the limi- tations of this statement or to follow it to its conclusions. In the world of perception we discover at last that eye and ear can be trusted. We have learned to measure distances ; we know how to use our hands ; we find that the flesh is cunningly devised to meet the requirements of our daily needs; the world answers to our senses. But it is not the individual experience that can be trusted. It is the social ex- perience. The eccentric individual must be balanced by the soundness of the social whole. So it happens that the instructed child sees and hears and handles as he has been bidden. The experiences of old generations are born again in him. As men increase in experience and In wisdom, they find that the world responds to them in a way in which it has not done to their ancestors. A citizen of the Athens of Pericles coming into any modern town would have difficulty in believing 240 RELIGION IN THE MAKING that all the resources for human comfort that have been discovered and applied were really existent in his own time, but were not used. It is not in human notions about things that we find reality, but it is in relations between man and his world. The final proof of any machine is that it will do the work for which it has been made. The final scientific proof of value is the capacity to survive. Color, form, and sound are three permanent sensa- tions from which the normal body cannot escape. In like manner God, Immortality, and Retribution are words which contain a psychical content from which no social group in the history of human life has ever been able to escape. The senses corre- spond to the physical world sufficiently for us to work by them and accomplish our tasks, but these great psychical forces bring us into correspondence with a world other than that of the senses, and have been of sublime import in the history of the race. Three artists paint a landscape, each from a dif- ferent point of view. The pictures are different but the landscape remains the same. The history of every religion contains an interpretation, up to the measure of the capacity of its time and its people, of what no doubt are greater realities than those disclosed by color or form. Every religion has just as much truth in it as its correctness of SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 241 interpretation of the ultimate facts of life. Inter- pretations change age by age. The universe, sat- urated with divine thought and throbbing with divine life, remains the same. We walk in the midst of revelations. We receive what we are able to understand. It must happen, therefore, that there is a history of religion if there is a history of the development of man. Bring Plato back and let him know the language of any savage and yet he cannot talk philosophy to the savage for two reasons. One is the savage would not understand, but the practical difficulty would be that the language of the savage would have no words to convey Plato's thoughts. If Plato could not interpret himself to a savage, how can we expect that the Eternal Reason is ever able to perfectly express Himself to human minds or in human speech? The expression of religion by means of religious institutions, therefore, has no finality. Men will always seek to clothe their faith in new garments. The voices of new prophets will continue to be heard, and new messages will cheer the hearts of men. But in the struggle and conflict of all the ages, in the agonies of sorrow and in the terrors of death the great thoughts of God, Immortality, and Retribution have been capable of survival. If the 16 242 RELIGION IN THE MAKING senses of men correspond to the physical world so that they may be trusted, how much more do the souls of men correspond also to the vaster and more real world of spirit and fact. The awkward savage may make a crude sketch of a tree while the accomplished artist may repro- duce it with perfect fidelity. It is the same tree. The savage receives the revelation of God with as much mind and skill as he possesses. The philo- sophic saint interprets him under the noblest forms of thought and passion. It is the same God. Rites superstitious, or even cruel, may surround the early forms of worship among barbaric men. The noblest music and the finest speech may assist the devotions of the civilized worshiper. It is one religion, how- ever diverse in form, one effort to recognize and strengthen the human relations with the divine being. If the Hebrew people had left us nothing but the memory of their struggle, they would have left us rich. The knowledge that once in human history the whole genius of a people was spent in search after God is enough to prove that mankind is not wholly base. If they had not given their con- ceptions glorious form and expression ; if their poets and prophets had not hymned the sweetest music, yet the conception of what life really is and what it really means, the system of values which they have SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 243 bequeathed to us, would still leave them the leaders of the race. It is true there was change and prog- ress in the course of their religious development, and this makes that history the more glorious. Not to them any more than to us did the oracles of God speak to unwilling hearts and minds. The search after God was a noble and difficult quest not because He would escape them, but because only as they developed by struggle were they able to perceive Him or understand His voice. The Hebrew history is a part of the final civilization of the world. To the men of vision the world has always owed its debt. More than the marvels of Greece or the more hoary antiquities of Egypt, more than the accuracies of modern science or the inventions of modern in- dustry, are these messages out of the Hebrew cen- turies to every man and woman who wishes to think truly and to live nobly. BIBLIOGRAPHY It would be quite impossible to give a full list of the works bearing upon the problems which have been discussed, but I name the following as among those which have been useful to me in my studies : Politics Aristotle Philosophic der Geschichte als So- ciologie Barth, Paul The Basis of Social Relations Brinton, Daniel G. Evolution of Religion Caird, Edzvard Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion Caird, John The Origin and Religious Content of the Psalter Cheyne, T. K. Introduction a la Sociologie De Greef, G. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. Driver, S. R. De la Division du Travail Social Durkeim, Emile Les Regies de la Methode Sociolo- gique Durkeim, Emile The Golden Bough Eraser, J. G. Principles of Sociology Giddings, F. H. Inductive Sociology Giddings, F. H. Descriptive Sociology Giddings, F. H. Der Rassenkampf Gumplowics, L. Outlines of Sociology Gumplowics, L. Philosophy of Religion Hegel, G. W. F. Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere Hehen, Victor Antiquities Joscphus Les Selections Sociales Lapouge, G. Vacher Sociology Letourneau, C. 244 BIBLIOGRAPHY 245 Gedanketi uber den Social Wissen- schaft der Zukunft Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion Introduction to Social Philosophy Lectures on the Science of Religion Sacred Books of the East Philosophy and Development of Re- ligion Cultes, Mythes et Religions History of the People of Israel Foundations of Sociology Conception of God Bau und Leben des Socialen Korpers General Sociology Historical Geography in the Holy Land Old Testament in the Jewish Church The Religion of the Semites Prophets of Israel First Principles Principles of Sociology History of the Jewish Church Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic Les Lois de ITmitation La Logique Sociale Primitive Culture Dynamic Sociology Psychic Factors of Civilization Pure Sociology History of Israel Analytical Concordance Encyclopedia Biblica Jewish Encyclopedia Dictionary of the Bible Lilienfeld, P. von Lotze, Hermann Mackenzie, John S. Muller^ Max Miiller^ Max Piieiderer, Otto Reinach, S. Re nan, Ernest Ross, Edward A, Royce, Josiah SchdMe, A. Small, Albion W. Smith, G. A. Smith, W. R. Smith, W. R. Smith, W. R. Spencer, Herbert Spencer, Herbert Stanley, A. P. Stein, Ludwig Tarde, Gabriel Tarde, Gabriel Tylor, Edw. B. Ward, Lester F. Ward, Lester F. Ward, Lester F. Wellhausen, I. Young Cheyne & Black Singer Hastings INDEX Aaron, priesthood of, p. lOO Abraham offering Isaac, p. 69 Abram, appearance of the Lord to, p. 68 Altar at Bethel, p. 115, 120 Altar, development of, p. 115 Altar not Hebrew alone, p. 141 Altars erected in any place of significance, p. 116 Altars, materials for, p. 117 Altars upon roofs of houses, p. 120 Amulets, wearing of, p. 196 Ark a holy shrine, p. 186 Ark a symbol of divine presence, p. 183 Ark a leader in battle, p. 181 Ark, contents of, p. 186 Ark the central object in Holy of Holies of Solo- mon's Temple, p. 184 Ark the most significant object in the religious furniture of Hebrews, p. 180 Art, history of, p. 60 Ascetic element not strong- ly marked in Hebrew religion, p. 157 Ashera, or sacred post, p. 193 Atonement, law of, p. 174 Azazel, offering to, p. 174 Baal the god of the culti- vated land, p. 83 Babel, the story of, p. ^y Bible, devotional study of, p. Z2> Bible, historical study of, p. ZZ Bible, literary point of view of, p. 34 Bible, material of, p. 48 Bible, progress in, p. 10 Biblical critic, p. 4 Blasphemy, Hebrew idea of, P- ^Z Brazen serpent one of the unique objects in history of Israel, p. 194 Buzzard, worship of, p. 220 Canaan, language of, p. 50 Character shaped by con- ditions under which people live, p. 41 Church and state, p. 29 Church, significance of in Hebrew life, p. 38 247 248 INDEX Church, supremacy of in ancient Egypt, p. 91 Clean and unclean a cer- monial law, p. 222 Clean and unclean among the Hebrews, p. 222 Complex life always order- ly, p. 93 David a true servant of Jehovah, p. 94 Development of priesthood follows order of develop- ment of other offices, p. 94 Divinations connected with function of priest rather than prophet, p. 112 Division of labor indicates a universal law, p. 93 Eden story ancient in sub- stance, p. 219 Elijah and politics, p. 112 Elijah the greatest of the prophets, p. 85 Elohim, significance of, p. 64 Environment, in life of a people, p. 9 Environment, man makes changes in, p. 47 Environment not chiefly physical, p. 52 Ephod of high priest, p. 188 Ephod used as oracle, p. 189 Ethnologist, the, p. 6 Evolutionist, the, p. 5 Exile, effect of upon politi- cal fortunes of Israel, p. 133 Exiles, return of under Ezra, p. 134 Fast and feast of Purim, p. 160 Fasting, attitude of prophets toward, p. 160 Fasting more than a sign of mourning, p. 159 Fasting, value of, p. 158 Feast of New Moon, p. 173 Feast of Sheep Shearing, p. 173 Feast of Trumpets, p. 175 Feasts, character of in time of Samuel, p. 155 Festivals of Passover, Pen- tecost and Tabernacles, p. 167-8-9 Freedom of priestly service shown by Elijah and Ahaz, p. 97 Genesis bears mark of great antiquity, p. 228 Gideon, angel appears to, p. 80 Greek monotheism, p. 59 Hagar, story of, p. 69 Hebrew history a part of the final civilization of the world, p. 243 Hebrew history differs from every other, p. 62 INDEX 249 Hebrew religious life, methods of expression, p. 9 Hebrews, genesis of, p. 50 Hebrews inferior to neigh- boring nations, p. 234 Hebrews not alone in pos- session of a Holy of Holies, p. 128 Hebron one of the sacred places, p. 116 Hezekiah, reformation un- der, p. 123 High place the holy place, p. 122 High places condemned by the prophets, p. 126 High places identified with idolatry by Ezekiel, p. 124 High places of Canaanitish origin, p. 123 High places, significance of, p. 121 High places, value of to Semites, p. 121 High places visited by Saul, p. 122 High priest, garment of, p. 188 Hills and mountains, sig- nificance of, p. 81 History, genetic idea of, p. ID History of idea of God parallel with social history of Israel, p. 85 Human interpretation, value of, p. 10 Idea of God, changes in, p. 57 Idea of God, Immortality and Retribution capable of survival, p. 241 Idea of God the essence of every religion, p. 28 Idea of God the soul of the Hebrew religion, p. 9, 32 Idea of one God the great gift to the world by He- brews, p. 233 Ideas and institutions in the development of re- ligion, p. 30 Influence of group upon group, p. 19 Israel related to great peoples, p. 51 Jacob, appearance of the Lord to, p. 70 Jehovah, relation of to the land, p. 77 Jehovah the fire god, p. 71 Jehovah the god of the hills, p. 81 Jehovah the sacred name, p. 64, 65 Jerusalem the holy city after time of David, p. 139 Josiah, refbrmation of, p. 1 10, 120 Joshua only a lesser Moses, p. 76 250 INDEX Judges, Book of, p. 78 King and priest in one person when David ap- pears, p. 96 Law of Moses, p. 227, 228 Laws grew age by age in number and exactness, p. 93 Levi, development of tribe of, p. 102 Levi, priests belonged to tribe of, p. 100, 102 Lot, appearance of angels to, p. 68 Man not the only social be- ing, p. 23 Man the only animal that has a religion, p. 24 March of the race toward opportunity and freedom, p. 22 Micah, case of, p. 99 Moabite stone, p. 50 Moon, phases of early cele- brated, p. 197 Moses, appearance of God to, p. 73 Moses at Horeb, p. 71 Moses lawgiver and judge as well as priest, p. 98 Moses the priest of the tent of meeting, p. 98 Naaman, case of, p. 83 Names, importance of in Hebrew record, p. 63 Nazarites, vows of, p. 218 New Testament not avail- able for sociological study, P- 36 Oriental point of view, p. 8 Palestine a highway of old civilizations, p. 45 Palestine, climate of, p. 44 Palestine, fauna of, p. 44 Palestine, favorable to de- velopment of great breed of men, p. 48 Palestine, flora of, p. 44 Palestine, geography of, p. 42, 43 Palestine, industrial arts of, p. 46 Palestine, mineral resources of, p. 44 Palestine when first inhab- ited, p. 49 Paschal feast very ancient, p. 172 Philosophy of history based upon religion, p. 86 Polytheism grows out of concreteness, p. 61 Prayer preceded sacrifice, p. 143 Prayers and revelations con- fined to no sacred creed, P- 95 INDEX 2SI Priest and levites carefully distinguished after the Exile, p. no Priest, function of com- pared to that of Greek oracles, p. 103 Priest, function of not the same throughout history, p. 102 Priest must be a man of patriotism, p. 103 Priest stands for insti- tutions, p. 231 Priesthood, final develop- ment of, p. 104, 105 Priests the lawyers and sometimes judges of Israel, p. 103 Prophet's attitude in mat- ter of ritual, p. 178 Prophets deal with untried, p. 232 Prophets, development of, p. no Prophets had a special place in Second Law, p. m Prophets' messages ethical, p. 113 Psychical factors in human development, p. 54 Race problem, p. 53 Relation of religious order to political order one of the great facts of history, p. 29 Religion a human experi- ence primary and univer- sal, p. 58 Religion, beginnings of, p. 12 Religion, definitions of, p. 25, 26 Religion has its expense account, p. 30 Resemblances, social, p. 19 Righteousness of standard the second contribution of Hebrews to the world, p. 236 Sabbath a festival of joy, p. 201 Sabbath a legacy from the Hebrews to the world, p. 209 Sabbath a sign, p. 200 Sabbath keeping a moral obligation among the Jews, p. 205 Sabbath, origin of obscure, p. 197 Sabbath, prophets' attitude toward, p. 205 Sabbath the great ritual day of the Hebrews, p. 202 Sacred stone as an article used in worship, p. 192 Sacrifice (human) among the Hebrews, p. i53 Sacrifice as atonement came late in the history, p. 173 2$2 INDEX Sacrifice, development of, p. 143 Sacrifice, fruits of the earth the oldest form of, p. 144 Sacrifice in celebration of victory over enemies, p. 150 Sacrifice not confined to head of family in begin- ning, p. 95 Sacrifice not offered in Wil- derness, p. 149 Sacrifice of Cain and Abel, p. 147 Sacrifice of Iphigenia, p. 153 Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter, p. 152, 153 Sacrifice of Saul's sons, p. 154 Sacrifice, the ritual of a development, p. 147 Samson, history of, p. 80 Samuel a prophet as well as politician and judge, p. Ill Sanctity, idea of in Israel, 210, 211 Sanctuaries, where they ex- isted, in charge of a priest, p. 98 Scapegoat, offering of, p. 174 Scientific study of human kind, p. 7 Second temple an imitation of Solomon's, p. 135 Shechem one of the sacred places, p. 118 Shelomith, sin of, p. 64 Sin, Greek conception of, p. 28 Sin, Hebrew sense of, p. 28 Social development, tenden- cies of, p. 21 Social group, size of, p. 17 Social group, soul of, p. 18 Social group, strength of, p. 18 Social groups, fashioned by place, p. 19 Society, industrial form of, p. 39 Society, military type of, p. 39 Sociological method applied to facts of Hebrew life, p. 38 Sociology, definition of, p. 16 Sociology, science of, p. 15 Solomon continued functions of priest, p. 96 Solomon's temple, descrip- tion of, p. 129 Solomon's temple the first in Jerusalem, p. 128 Song of Deborah, p. 80 State, beginnings of, p. 12 Study of the group, p. 7 Sun worship one of the early manifestations of religion, p. 70 Surplus food necessary to civilization, p. 17 INDEX 253 Synagogue, functions of, p. 140 Synagogue, meaning of the, p. 140 Taboo, a survival of primi- tive faith, p. 218 Tarde, Gabriel, p. 55 Temple built by Herod, p. 136, 137 Temple, plunderings of, p. 132 Temple, ritual of, p. 162, 163, 164, 165, 166 Temple, story of, p. 127 Ten Commandments for use of Hebrews among them- selves, p. 210 Totem idea, p. 220 Totem pole, p. 219, 220 Tradition, men of, p. 3 Trees, sacred, p. 118 Universe a library of per- fect revelation, p. 62 Warde, Lester F., p. 54 Zadok, house of, p. loi By FRANCIS O. 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