THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, C. F. CLAY, MANAGER. flotrtJon : AVE MARIA LANE,; E.C. 50, WELLINGTON STREET. F. A. BROCK HAUS. $eto $ort : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Bombajj anfc Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. [All Rights reserved.} THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL A HISTORICAL SKETCH BY R. L. OTTLEY Canon of Christ Church and Hon. Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford CAMBRIDGE : at the University Press 1905 Una salus et unus Deus : quae autem formant homiriem praecepta multa, et non pauci gradus qui ducunt hominem ad Deum. I REN. c. Haer. iv. 9. 3. PREFATORY NOTE. r I ^HIS book is intended to supplement the Short History of the Hebreivs (published in 1901) in which the writer was unable to deal particularly with the development of religion in Israel. The concluding chapter of the present work will sufficiently indicate the standpoint from which the subject is treated. No attempt is made to deal exhaustively with the theology of the Old Testament, but only to depict in general outline the course of Israel's spiritual history. For the full titles of the works briefly referred to as ' Marti,' ' Smend,' ' Kautzsch,' etc., see page 219. April, 1905. R. L. O. 2092654 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES. PAGE Introductory .......... I Sources and presuppositions . 4 Origin of the Hebrews 7 Semitic conception of Deity 8 Sacred objects ....'..... 12 Mode of worship. . 15 Sacred seasons and customs 17 Social and moral characteristics 19 Holy persons . 21 The religion of the patriarchs 23 CHAPTER II. THE WORK AND INFLUENCE OF MOSES. The Hebrew tradition 26 The sources .......... 27 Origin of Mosaism 28 The name JAHVEH ........ 29 Primitive conceptions ........ 31 The God of Israel ........ 33 His moral requirement 34 The Decalogue 35 Forms of worship 36 The work of Moses ...;.... 38 viii Synopsis of Contents CHAPTER III. FROM MOSES TO SAMUEL. PAGE Results of the conquest . . . . , . ... ' 41 Its effects on religion . . . . . . . . 44 ' Pre-prophetic ' religion : Priests and prophets . . ' . . . * ; 47 Worship in the age of the Judges . . . ... 49 CHAPTER IV. SAMUEL AND HIS WORK. Samuel and prophetism . . . . . . 55 The Nebtim . . . . . --...,........ . ' 58 The foundation of the monarchy . . . . . 59 The theocratic king . . , .\ ' . . . 61 The Temple . . . . . . . ... 62 Disruption of the kingdom . . . . . . 63 Cult of the Syrian Ba^al . . . . . * . 64 The work of Elijah ; . .... . . 64 CHAPTER V. THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROPHETS. The eighth century B.C. . v .-.-.. . . . 67 Effects of the Syrian wars on religion ... . . 68 The Prophets and their work : I. Their conception of Jahveh 70 II. Omnipotence of Israel's God . ;'. . 74 III. Ethical monotheism 75 IV. Israel's relation to Jahveh .... . . . 76 Prophets and priests . 79 True and false prophecy . .*. ... 80 The rise of Assyria v ...... 82 Leading ideas of prophecy ,... 84 V. Jahveh and the heathen 87 Effect of the prophetic teaching .... 88 Synopsis of Contents ix CHAPTER VI. THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C. PAGE Reign of Hezekiah ........ 91 Reaction under Manasseh ....... 92 Prophecy of Zephaniah 93 Prophecy of Jeremiah 94 The Book of Deuteronomy 95 Josiah's reformation 97 Effect of Josiah's death 100 Religious advance : (1) Monotheism 101 (2) Religion and the individual 102 (3) The new covenant 103 The fall of Judah .' 105 CHAPTER VII. ISRAEL IN EXILE. The exile 106 Ezekiel 108 His position 109 His theological ideas : (1) Relation to Deuteronomy no (2) The promise of the Spirit . . . . . 112 (3) Ezekiel's theodicy 114 (4) Doctrine of individual responsibility . . . 115 (5) Ezekiel's program of worship . . . . 117 Literary activity at this period 119 The work of Deutero- Isaiah 121 His teaching as to Israel's deliverance : The method 122 The motive 123 The aim and object . . . . . . . 123 Doctrine of Jahveh's 'servant' 124 x Synopsis of Contents CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNINGS OF JUDAISM. PAGE The return from exile 127 Ezra and Nehemiah 129 The new community : (1) Israel's holiness 132 (2) Worship and sacrifice 137 (3) Ceremonies of purification 143 (4) Holy seasons 144 CHAPTER IX. THE CONTACT OF JUDAISM WITH HELLENISM. Historical survey 152 The domination of Persia its effects on religion . . 153 Judaism and Hellenism 155 Distinct ideals 155 (1) Jewish views of the heathen 156 Universalism . . . . . . . . 159 Prophetic individualism 162 (2) Personal religion 166 The Psalter and its teaching . . . . 169 (3) Hebrew 'wisdom-literature' 172 The conception of wisdom 175 The problem of retribution ' 177 CHAPTER X. THE FINAL STAGE IN PRE-CHRISTIAN JUDAISM. Historical survey 181 (1) The importance of the Law 182 Scribism 183 The conception of God 185 (2) Organisation and functions of the priesthood . 186 Synopsis of Contents xi PAGE (3) Development of Eschatology : The Law and its influence 189 Political conditions 189 Pharisees and Sadducees 190 Jewish Apocalyptic literature .... 192 Eschatological teaching of the Apocalyptists . 195 CHAPTER XI. THE CONSUMMATION IN JESUS CHRIST. Hebrew religion its main characteristics .... 202 I. The fulfilment of prophecy in Christ . . . 206 Prophetic conception of salvation : (1) The advent of Jahveh .... 207 (2) The kingdom of God .... 207 (3) The king, the ' servant,' the ' Son of man ' 208 (4) The new covenant ..... 209 The transformation of ideals .... 209 II. Christ and the Law 212 The ceremonial law . . . . . . 213 The moral law 214 III. The Hagiographa : Problems stated 215 The teaching of Christ 216 Summary 218 LIST OF CHIEF WORKS CONSULTED 219 INDEX I 221 INDEX II 226 CHAPTER 1. THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES. IN a former volume the external history of the Hebrew people has been briefly sketched. We traced in Introductory. ... - ... . broad outline its progress from the dim and remote period when its ancestors formed an insignificant group among the nomad Semitic tribes who wandered in the deserts of Northern Arabia, to the time when it finally lost its inde- pendence and was merged in the Roman Empire. But Israel's importance for the world was at no time merely political. If at the present day the Jewish race survives the strange vicissitudes through which it has passed, it can no longer be said to form, in any true sense, a separate nation. The children of Abraham, in spite of their famous history, are virtually homeless, ' like glowing brands Tost wildly o'er a thousand lands For twice a thousand year 1 .' Israel's unique claim to glory consists in the fact that Almighty God entrusted it with a religious mission to mankind. ' The Law,' says Athanasius in a memorable passage, ' was not for the Jews alone, nor were the prophets sent for them only, but, though sent to the Jews and persecuted by the Jews, they were 1 J. Keble, Christian Year. O. I 2 Religion of Israel [CHAP. for all the world a sacred school of the knowledge of God and of the spiritual life 1 .' In fact the Old Testament history, which describes how God Himself founded a kingdom upon earth and educated a people to be the instrument of His redemptive purpose for mankind, depicts the early stages of a movement which finds its climax and continuation in the New Testament. The Gospel message was originally preached upon the soil of Palestine; it was addressed in the first instance to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; it proclaimed the fulfilment of the age-long hopes and ideals which Hebrew saints and prophets had cherished, and the foundation of a spiritual kingdom which Israel's national polity had vaguely fore- shadowed. Thus, although the Incarnation marked a new beginning in human history, yet regarded merely as an historical event it stood in the closest relation to the previous career of the Jewish people. In one aspect at least it was the crowning point of a slow and continuous development. It was a culmi- nating manifestation in the fulness of time of Him who had progressively revealed Himself to His chosen people by divers portions and in divers manners. The new revelation did not supersede the old, but rather filled it with hitherto unperceived significance. At each stage of Israel's history, in proportion to Israel's spiritual capacity, God disclosed His nature, His purpose, and His moral requirement, and finally in the gift of His Son He satisfied the yearnings and anticipations which His own Spirit had inspired 2 . Accordingly since, to use our Lord's words, salvation is of the Jews*, no study can be more full of interest than that of the history of Hebrew religion, inas- much as it discloses to us the actual method by which God gradually accomplished His purpose of salvation. Moreover, it illustrates the infinite forbearance with which He led the chosen people onwards from very lowly ideas of Deity to a doctrine which the incarnate Son could claim as His own and 1 Athan. de Incarnatione, XII. 5. 2 Cp. Irenaeus, c. Haer. in. 3. 3. * St John iv. . l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 3 re-enforce with divine authority ; from very rude and imperfect notions of righteousness to a type of character which is not essentially changed, but only invested with supreme lustre and power in the sinless holiness of Jesus Christ ; from crude nationalistic hopes and aspirations to the triumphant assurance that the true Messiah, the Son of God, is come in the flesh, is risen indeed, and is enthroned on the right hand of the majesty on high ; that He upholds all things by the word of His power ; that He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet 1 . It is of primary importance in the study of Hebrew religion to remember the principle that 'the beginning finds its true interpretation in the end.' The religious history of Israel is in fact the record of an evolution, and everything depends on the point of view from which it is approached. In the light of the result actually aimed at and attained, that which looks prima facie like a purely natural process is to Christian eyes trans- figured. Even in the earliest and lowest stages of the upward movement the presence of an inspiring and controlling idea can be discerned an idea not indeed consciously realised by the men of the time, yet to some extent moulding their thought and directing their actions. Thus institutions which in them- selves appear common and rudimentary acquire dignity and significance; conceptions rude and distorted dimly suggest sublime and far-reaching truths. It was the great function of prophecy to elucidate the spiritual ideas which underlay the peculiar institutions of Israel and the successive events of its history. In each generation the prophets were the leading spirits, quick to discern the inner meaning of what was passing, or daily enacted, before their eyes, and continually pointing their contemporaries to a time when the ideas em- bodied in the history should find their fulfilment. Accordingly in studying Hebrew religion we have to bear in mind that 1 i St John iv. 2 ; St Luke xxiv. 34 ; Heb. i. 3 ; i Cor. xv. 25. I 2 4 Religion of Israel [CHAP. prophecy contains the true interpretation of the history, and that the distinctive conceptions of Old Testament theology were developed in close connection with the national life. In the present volume the growth of Israel's religion will be described. The sources of information are Sources and presupposi- virtually identical with those which are available for the external history of the Hebrews, but the way in which they will be used is to some extent different. The chief incidents and turning-points in the national history need to be considered in their relation to the development of religious ideas, and the writings of the prophets, historians, psalmists and wise men of Israel assume for the student of Old Testa- ment theology a new importance. These writings do not merely imply or record a particular series of historical events ; they embody the religious thoughts of successive generations. Consequently, it becomes a matter of interest to determine, at least roughly, the chronological order of the Old Testament books, since the account given by different writers of the suc- cessive stages in Israel's religious history will of course vary to some extent with the critical presuppositions of the historian. For present purposes it must suffice to give a summary of the main points on which modern critics of all schools are agreed. i. As regards the pre-Mosaic period, we have to depend on narratives compiled in a comparatively late age (the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.). These narratives embody certain traditions concerning primeval history which were shared by other Semitic peoples ; they give us, in fact, a view of the earliest period which is coloured by the definite religious con- ceptions of the writers, and it must be borne in mind that probably this 'religious colouring' is more important for the purposes of an historian than the actual details of the narrative 1 . 1 Smend, Alttestamentliche Religionsgeschichte, p. 18, ' Was die Genesis Uber die Religion der Erzvater erzahlt, beruht zumeist auf Zuriicktragung spateren Glaubens an die erste Anfange der Geschichte.' l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 5 2. The religion of the Old Testament may be said to begin with the work of Moses. It is impossible to determine precisely how much of the legislation ascribed to him actually belongs to his epoch ; but it is generally admitted that Moses was Israel's earliest lawgiver, and that the Hebrews were sub- jected to the discipline of a legal code, consisting chiefly of moral and social enactments, for some centuries before the beginnings of written prophecy (c. 800). The ' Book of the Covenant' (Exod. xx. xxiii.) is usually regarded as the charter of Mosaism. 3. The most creative period in the history of Hebrew religion is that which is represented by the earliest writing prophets. With prophecy in a somewhat advanced stage must be closely connected the appearance of the book of Deutero- nomy, which exercised a powerful influence both upon religious thought and upon the estimate which historians were led to form of Israel's past career and ideal vocation. The book of Deuteronomy regarded from the ethical point of view reflects the teachings of the earliest written prophecy; regarded as a legislative code it is for the most part an expansion of the essential principles of Mosaism. 4. The fall of Jerusalem (586) marks the beginning of what is perhaps the most important epoch in Israel's religious history. Theology of the noblest type (Ezekiel and Isaiah xl. Ixvi.), a comprehensive system of legislation embracing the entire life of the community (the completed Levitical code), a devotional literature of unsurpassed depth and spiritual force (the Psalter), a body of ethical teaching which is the outcome of systematic reflection on the phenomena of nature and the problems of human life (the ' Wisdom ' literature) all these are characteristic products of the period which began with the exile. During the five centuries which preceded the birth of Jesus Christ, Israel entered as it were into full possession of its spiritual inheritance. It assimilated and in some respects developed the teachings of prophecy; it gradually arrived at 6 Religion of Israel [CHAP. those conceptions of God which implied the possibility of a further and final revelation ; it discovered in what seemed to be a purely national faith the elements of personal religion, and in so doing imparted to Judaism an ' universalistic ' tendency. This general survey of the course of Israel's religious history suffices to show that the development of religion pro- ceeded most rapidly at a later stage than was at one time supposed. The tendency of modern criticism is to attribute much to Moses, but even more to the prophets who succeeded him ; and it assigns special importance to the age of re- flection which followed the downfall of the Hebrew monarchy. It is also evident that the Old Testament itself supplies us with very few data respecting the primitive beliefs and ideas which formed as it were the natural basis of the Old Testament religion. In attempting to reconstruct this earliest stage in Hebrew thought we are for the most part dependent on the help of archaeology and on the analogies suggested by the study of comparative religions. For purposes of convenience our survey will be divided as follows : rSSet L The pre-Mosaic age, during which the Hebrew tribes shared to a considerable extent the ideas and practices of their Semitic kinsfolk. II. The age of Moses, the virtual founder of the religion of JAHVEH. III. The age that intervenes between Moses and the foundation of the monarchy an obscure epoch but one of crucial importance in Israel's religious development. IV. The age of the earliest written prophecy (the eighth century B.C.), when the Hebrews first came into contact or collision with the great world-empires of Western Asia, and began under the guidance of the prophets to realise their function as the people of God and the recipients of a divine revelation. l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 7 V. The period intervening between the fall of the northern kingdom (721) and the exile (586). VI. The exile in Babylon and the subsequent restoration of the Jews to their own land. VII. The age of Judaism, which, roughly speaking, dates from the mission of Ezra (c. 458) and ends with the death of Alexander the Great (323). VIII. The latest phase of the Old Testament religion, when theological ideas were progressively modified by the advance of 'Hellenism.' This phase may be said to find its limit in the final triumph of the Maccabaean movement and the virtual close of the Old Testament Canon, but it needs to be illustrated by the teaching contained in various 'apoca- lyptic ' writings which appeared during the century before and after the birth of Christ. The date and the actual circumstances of the immigration of the Hebrews into Canaan can only be a matter the'^ebrews. f conjecture. The main facts of their earliest history seem to be correctly outlined in the book of Genesis. It is reasonably supposed that the Hebrews originally formed a nomad tribe or group of tribes, dwelling in the deserts south of Palestine ; that they were closely related to the Canaanites, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Ara- maeans, and that for a long period the ancestors of these various peoples lived together and used a common language. In process of time these tribes moved westward into Palestine from the region of upper Mesopotamia. The ancestors of the Canaanites seem to have settled in the western districts ; those of Moab and Ammon occupied the territory eastward of Jordan ; but the Hebrew clans descended into Egypt, and after a pro- longed sojourn there found a permanent settlement in Canaan. It is practically certain that the original ancestors of the Hebrews shared the religious beliefs and customs of the pastoral Semites. Our first chapter will be devoted to a brief description and estimate of this primitive worship. 8 Religion of Israel [CHAP. It must be borne in mind at the outset that no literature belonging to this pre-historic age has been preserved. The famous tablets discovered at Tel-el- Amarna in 1888 do not directly help us, since they make no indisputable mention of the Hebrew tribes. They do, however, prove that the civi- lisation of Palestine in the fourteenth century B.C. was affected to no small extent by the culture of Babylon and Egypt, and it is certain that in the domain of religion the influence of Babylon prevailed. But the Old Testament contains unmistakeable traces of an earlier stage in Hebrew religion than that described in the historical books. Behind the positive religion founded and developed by the inspired organs of divine revelation lies a body of primitive usage and belief which ' formed part of that inheritance from the past into which successive generations of the Semitic race grew up as it were instinctively, taking it as a matter of course that they should believe and act as their fathers had done before them 1 .' A passage in the book of Joshua en- joins the Bene Israel to put away the gods which their fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt 3 , and it is clear, partly from the results of modern investigation, partly from peculiar customs and usages which survive in later times, that the primitive religion of the Hebrew tribes closely resembled that of their Semitic kinsfolk in Arabia*. The first question which meets us is naturally a simple one : What was the ancient Semitic conception of Semitic . r conception of Deity? It has never been conclusively proved that the primitive Semites were in the strict sense polytheists; on the other hand they certainly were not monotheists, though it may be fairly asserted that in their devo- tion to a single tribal god they showed a tendency towards monolatry 4 . The word ' polydaemonism ' has been suggested 1 W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 2. 2 Josh. xxiv. 14. 8 Cp. Smend, p. 19. 4 Smend, p. 26, ' In der semitischen Stammesreligion liegt die letzte geschichtliche Wurzel des Monotheismus.' M. Renan, as is well known, l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 9 as more accurately describing their point of view. Though they recognised the existence of different deities, bound by the tie of kinship to particular tribes, they did not apparently offer simultaneous worship to many gods. They had, however, a very strong sense of the supernatural. To them every striking natural object seemed to conceal the presence of a supernatural being, and such objects came to be regarded with reverence and awe as the abode of the divine power to which worship was directed. Owing perhaps to the ruggedness and barrenness of his ordinary surroundings, the Arabian nomad was occasionally impressed with a sense of the presence of life enforce in things. Nature was for him full of supernatural beings, which were re- garded as manifesting themselves in material objects, animate or inanimate. Such a supernatural being was sometimes called the '^7 (Assyr. ilu; Arab. ilaK) or 'strong one'; sometimes the Ba'al, ' owner,' of the place or object in which he manifested himself. The object itself, whether stone, cave, tree, fountain, or stream, was called beth-el, 'abode of 'El* (Phoen. betyl, Gk. /iWrvAos, /3at.Tv\iov, Lat. baetulus), since the deity or demon was supposed to be actually resident in it. It was, how-) ~) ever, a peculiarity of the Semitic conception that the sacred object was actually treated as the deity himself, who was sup- posed to inhabit the sacred tree or stone ' not in the sense in which a man inhabits a house, but in the sense in which his soul inhabits his body 1 .' Thus the ancient Semite felt himself to be surrounded by spiritual beings, to whom he did not as a rule apply definite maintains that 'even from the most ancient times the Semite patriarch had a secret tendency towards monotheism ' (Histoire du Peuple affiv, odev fows Kal GaXTjs ffr)8ri ira.vra irX^pr] de&v elvai. On the meaning of 'El and other primitive titles of deity see Dr Driver's Book of Genesis, excursus I. In no case is the meaning certain or clear. 2 W. Robertson Smith, op. cit. pp. 117 foil See also Kautzsch in DB, vol. v. p. 613. 3 Piepenbring supports this idea, and suggests that the teraphim repre- sented defunct ancestors (Histoire du Peuple d 1 Israel, p. 28). No particular inference can be drawn from passages in the O. T. which imply reverence for graves, mourning customs, and the use of necromantic arts (e.g. i Sam. xxviii. 13). The facts are collected by Piepenbring, op. cit. pp. 26 foil. Cp. Marti, Gesch. der Isr. Kel. p. 24. Kautzsch, DB, v. 614 foil., questions the alleged indications of ancestor-worship in the O. T. Its existence in the pre-Mosaic period cannot (he thinks) be proved, and at any rate ' no consciousness of it survived to historical times.' I] The Primitive Religion of the Semites \ I said is that in process of time the belief arose that the deity manifested in a particular locality was specially connected with the tribe inhabiting the district, standing to it in the definite and permanent relationship of parent, kinsman, or king. The god was supposed to inhabit the district as its 'lord' or 'owner' (ba'al} and the author of its fertility. He was regarded as a friendly being linked to his worshippers by the bond of kinship, and as forming with them a single community. It was in fact difficult for the primitive mind to conceive of a deity apart from some local habitation : for instance a mountain, like Horeb or Tabor, a fountain or well of 'living (i.e. running) water,' a pro- minent rock or tree. The particular object came to be regarded as the abode of deity a spot where the god had already mani- fested himself and might therefore be continually approached by the clansmen to whom he was bound by the tie of kinship. The earliest narratives of the Old Testament amply illustrate the fact that the worship of the primitive Hebrews iocaiteed ty was usuau< y connected with certain sacred spots. The place where the god was, as it were, con- stantly and visibly present in some prominent natural object became a sanctuary, an appropriate scene for acts of worship. In the book of Genesis the patriarchs are described as offering sacrifices on sites where a theophany had occurred. Shechem, Beersheba, Mamre, Bethel thus became traditional ' holy ' places. There the deity was supposed to reside, and there he was accessible to his worshippers. Sacrifice was accord- ingly offered or gifts were presented in such places, an animal victim being slain beside the sacred stone, cairn, or similar object, while the blood was poured out over it or at its base. Thus Jacob anoints his 'pillar' or pile of stones 1 at Bethel, and calls it the ' house of God.' Probably the most common form of sanctuary was a plot of ground within which stood a sacred stone, marking the scene of a theophany 2 . The stone was 1 Gen. xxviii. 22. Cp. xxxv. 7. 2 Cp. Judg. vi. ao; i Sam. vi. 14. 12 Religion of Israel [CHAP. more than a pledge of the presence of the god ; it was at once an outward embodiment of deity and an altar, and thus the act of anointing it was regarded as an actual means of coming into contact with the deity 1 . In later times the stone was occasion- ally replaced by a primitive altar of earth or stones, on which burnt-sacrifice could be offered, while at the same time a hewn pillar was erected as a visible emblem of the deity's presence. In the same way evergreen trees were in primitive times looked upon as ' demoniac' objects and therefore fnTfounTaTns. sacred. In a barren and thirsty soil such trees were a visible embodiment of creative and life- giving power. We read of Abraham erecting his first altar in Canaan under a terebinth 2 , already known as 'elon moreh ('soothsayer's terebinth' or 'directing terebinth'), a tree sup- posed to give oracles, perhaps, by the rustling of its leaves 8 ; and in later times we find local sanctuaries either planted under green trees 4 or marked by artificial 'asherim ('poles'), which were probably intended to replace trees. It was also natural that wells or fountains should be chosen as sanctuaries. From very ancient times such spots as 'En-mishpat, Beersheba, Dan, and 'En-rogel 5 were regarded as the abode of divine beings who caused the fertilising and healing waters to spring forth. ' The presence of living water in itself gave consecration to the place 8 .' The fountain was honoured as a living being, a source of life, clothing the wilderness with verdure and making the barren soil fruitful. It is perhaps an accidental, but certainly a curious fact, that in the book of Genesis Abraham's acts of worship are 1 Smend, p. 39. J Gen. xii. 6. See Driver, ad loc. Cp. Deut. xi. 30 ; Judg. ix. 37. 3 Cp. W. Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 178. Obs. Tradition ascribed to Abraham the planting of a sacred tamarisk at Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 33). Cp. also Gen. xiii. 18. 4 Cp. Josh. xxiv. 26. 5 Gen. xiv. 7 ; Amos viii. 14 ; i Kings i. 9. 6 Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 155. Cp. Gen. xxvi. 19. l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 13 usually connected with trees, those of Jacob with stones, those of Isaac and Ishmael with wells or fountains. So deeply imbued were the Semites with the idea of a connection between these particular objects and and ? \Ash!grim * e P res ence of deity that in later times, as has been already noticed, they were replaced by artificial symbols which bore the same essential significance. We hear of masseboth and 'asherim as recognised adjuncts of the worship of Jahveh even in the prophetic period. The massebah (Arab, nosb) was an artificial pillar or monumental stone, which served to mark the spot where deity had mani- fested itself. These pillars probably had a long history. Originally rude blocks of stone, placed upright, sufficed to mark the 'holiness' of a particular spot 1 . A circle of such stones was apparently erected by Joshua at Gilgal 2 , and at Shechem, Mizpeh, Gibeon, and other places there existed in historic times monoliths or cairns which legend associated with some famous ancestor of the Hebrews. At a later period pillars of wrought stone were substituted for the ancient cairn and came to be regarded as an indispens- able feature in the sanctuaries at least of northern Israel 3 . Even the magnificent temple of Solomon was not held to be completely furnished until two pillars had been reared beside the entrance 4 . By untutored minds the stone or pillar might be actually identified with the deity 6 ; but more commonly the massebah was venerated as marking the scene of a theophany. On the same principle the 'asherah, an upright pole, was sub- stituted for the sacred tree, by way of symbolising the presence of the numen at the holy place. 'Asherim are mentioned as a standing feature of the sanctuary in Samaria 8 , and they were removed even from the temple at Jerusalem, first by Hezekiah 1 Exod. xxiv. 4. 2 Josh. iv. 20. 3 Hos. iii. 4. 4 i Kings vii. -21. 5 This may be implied in such a passage as Jer. ii. 27. 6 2 Kings xiii. 6. 14 Religion of Israel [CHAP. and afterwards by Josiah '. The writer of Deuteronomy in fact denounces them as relics of heathen superstition 2 . Besides the emblems already described it is probable that the ancient Semites occasionally used images in images. their worship. Such were the teraphim of which we read in the book of Genesis and elsewhere. These seem to have been partly at least of human form, and were probably venerated as household or tutelary gods. They may also have been used for oracular purposes 3 . The so-called 'ephod, associated with teraphim by Hosea (iii. 4) and mentioned several times in the book of Judges, may have been a portable idol used in connection with the casting of lots 4 ; but we cannot certainly trace the use of it to the most ancient period, and on the whole there is little evidence to show that actual idols were ordinary adjuncts of worship in the religion of the Semites, or indeed of other ancient peoples. Primitive man was content to mark the sacredness of a spot by means of an unwrought stone, cairn, or post, and out of this usage the cultus of idols seems to have been developed at a more advanced stage of thought 5 . It is therefore open to question whether the representation of Jahveh under the image of an ox or bull can be traced to the most primitive times, especially when it is considered that the nomads of the desert were not in the habit of breeding cattle 6 . 1 2 Kings xviii. 4, xxiii. 6. 2 Deut. xii. 3, xvi. 21. On some interesting points connected with the later use of 'asAfrim see Robertson Smith, op. cit. pp. 172 note, 175 note. 3 Gen. xxxi. 19; Judg. xvii. 5; I Sam. xix. 13, 16 ; Ezek. xxi. 21; Zech. x. 2. Some have inferred from Exod. xxi. 6 that private houses in later times had near the door an 'Elohitn or ' family god ' ; but Deut. xv. 17 gives no support to this idea. 4 Judg. viii. 27, xvii. 5, etc. Cp. i Sam. xxi. 9. On 'ephod see Smend, p. 41. 8 See Encyc. Bibl. art. ' Idolatry.' 6 Among some Semitic peoples (e.g. the Assyrians and Phoenicians) the serpent seems to have been held in special reverence. See Baudissin, Studien sur Semit. Religionsgeschichte, vol. l. pp. 257 foil. l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites \ 5 In regard to actual rites or forms of worship something can be gathered from the developed practice of later worship times. The spot where a god was supposed to dwell was in any case a ' holy ' place, i.e. it was separated from all profane use and set apart for acts of worship. The presence of deity was acknowledged by such usages as those of removing the shoes when treading the sacred enclo- sure, changing or washing the garments, veiling the head, cleansing the body by special ablutions, etc. In the earliest times the sacred stone or cairn was anointed with liquid offer- ings, oil, water, or the fat of a victim, this being the simplest mode in which the gift of the worshippers could be conveyed to the deity. A more highly developed form of sacrifice doubt- less consisted in the presentation of food ' or of vegetable first- fruits. Animal sacrifices offered by fire mark a more advanced stage in religion, when for the rude stone or cairn originally employed an altar of earth or of unhewn stones was sub- stituted 2 , serving as a table on which a meal might be spread before the deity 3 . The original altar among the Semites was simply a great stone or cairn at which victims were slain, and over or against which was poured out the sacrificial blood, as the appropriate share of the deity. The real import of a bloody sacrifice was that it symbolised and was supposed to effect the closest sacramental union between the deity and his worshippers 4 . The same significance belongs to the occasional application of the life-blood to the worshipper as well as to the sacred stone or altar 5 ; by this means, or by the partition of the victim 1 Cp. Judg. vi. 19. 2 Cp. Exod. xx. 14, 25. s 'Altar' /n2TD) means properly 'place of slaughter' (H2T), and the use of the altar as a table on which a meal was presented to deity was ap- parently later than the use of it as an object over or at which the blood of a victim was shed. See Robertson Smith, op. cit. pp. 184 foil., and cp. such passages as i Sam. xiv. 32 foil, with the descriptions of later ritual in Lev. iii. 3, iv. 7. 4 Cp. Num. xxv. 3, 5. 6 Exod. xxiv. 6, 8. 1 6 Religion of Israel [CHAP. between the offerer and the deity, or again by the passing of both parties between the divided portions of the flesh, a cove- nant-bond was cemented, or, if broken, restored 1 . The sacrifice was in fact the necessary preliminary to a meal, which was itself a token of fellowship a social act in which the deity and his tribesmen or the individual worshipper sealed their fellowship and symbolically expressed a community of interests. The use of fire for the consumption of sacrificial offerings was apparently of later origin. It had a history sacrifice which it is needless to investigate for our present purpose. But it is noteworthy that the disposal by burning of the victim's flesh, as a thing too 'holy' to be consumed by man, led to a change both in the significance of the altar, and in the locale of the sanctuary. From being originally the place of slaughter the altar came to be a hearth for the consumption of the victim by fire, and this change probably led to the choice of ' high places ' (bamotti), i.e. the bare hill-tops near to cities, as suitable spots for disposing of the victim. Thus the ' high places ' of the Semites were originally places of burnt-sacrifice, and they naturally tended to become the chief sanctuaries, furnished with the usual ap- paratus of 'asherim and masseboth. This change is implied in the accounts of the offering of Isaac and of the burnt-sacrifice of Gideon 2 . Further illustrations of the primitive custom in this matter are furnished by the example of David, who selected an elevated spot for the temple, and also by the fact that the Syrians in the reign of Ahab took it for granted that the deities of Israel were 'gods of the hills 3 .' Sacrifice being so potent a means of restoring or confirming the bond that united a deity to his tribe, it was sacrifice natural that in times of distress or anxiety, when a sacrifice of peculiar efficacy seemed to be re- quired, a human victim should be employed. That human 1 Cp. Gen. xv. 9 foil. ; Jer. xxxiv. 18. a Gen. xxii. 2 foil. ; Judg. vi. 26. * i Kings xx. 23. i] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 1 7 sacrifice was not unknown in primitive times may be gathered from the express prohibition of it in the Mosaic law, and from the ancient tradition embodied in the story of the offering of Isaac 1 . The practice is also probably implied in the redemp- tion of the firstborn 2 . The custom of offering human sacrifice evidently prevailed among the heathen neighbours of Israel 8 , and the story of Jephthah's daughter, together with various allusions in the prophetic writings, shows that it lingered long even among the Hebrews 4 . In degenerate times, during the reigns of kings like Ahaz and Manasseh, the feeling of abhor- rence at such practices was apt to grow weak, and hence there was a tendency to revive the old heathen rite in the declining days of the monarchy; but the conviction, fostered by the prophets, that such barbarities were incompatible with the religion of Jahveh manifested itself in the fact that human sacrifices were never offered in the Temple-courts, but in the gloomy valley of Hinnom, south-west of Jerusalem 5 . Whether there were any stated feasts among the primitive Semites is perhaps doubtful; but it is not im- sealons probable that the later Passover represented an ancient solar or astronomical feast, connected with the sacrifice of the firstlings of the flock and herd. It may have been originally observed in times of pestilence, the blood being employed to secure the favour of the tribal deity and immunity from the plague 6 . The feast of the new moon 1 Levit. xviii. 21, xx. 2 ; Deut. xii. 31, xviii. 10 ; Gen. xxii. (on which see Driver's appended note). 2 Exodus xiii. 13, 15. 3 e.g. the Moabites (2 Kings iii. 27). 4 Judg. xi. 34 foil. Cp. Mic. vi. 7 ; Jer. vii. 31, xix. 5. Such sacrifices are mentioned as enormities committed by ungodly kings, like Ahaz and Manasseh. Consider also Ezek. xvi. 20, 21 ; xx. 31 'even unto this day.' 5 See 2 Chr. xxviii. 3, xxxiii. 6 ; i Kings xxiii. 10. 6 The observance of some such ancient tribal festival is implied in Exod. v. 3, viii. 16, and x. 9. The sprinkling of the doorposts (Exod. xii. 22) may have been a reminiscence of the custom of anointing the house- hold ''eldhim with blood. See Marti, Geschichte, p. 41. O. 2 1 8 Religion of Israel [CHAP. and the institution of the Sabbath were probably features in ancient Semitic religion. Both of these would be connected with the fact that the phases of the moon were specially observed by nomadic shepherds, and it is significant that the worship of Sin, the moon-goddess, was a peculiar feature of Semitic paganism. There are also indications that the occasion of sheep-shearing was celebrated as a festival 1 . There can be little doubt that the chief sacred customs of later times already existed in a germinal form in customs ^ e P r e-historic age, for example, abstinence from blood and repugnance to the use of cer- tain animals as food. The practice of circumcision was cer- tainly common among the Semites, as among non-Semitic peoples. There is evidence of its observance among the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Phoenicians. It seems to have been originally a social rite marking the stage when a youth was admitted to full membership in his tribe and to par- ticipation in its worship. Circumcision was in fact not only a tribal badge, but a blood-rite, which had the effect of bringing the individual clansman into fellowship with the tribal deity 2 . It is not clear from the Old Testament when the observance first became definitely connected with the worship of Jahveh. In certain passages of his book the prophet Jeremiah seems to disparage its importance 3 , and at any rate it was not till post- exilic times that it became an indispensable requirement for every son of Israel. Among other ancient usages may be mentioned the habit of consulting the deity in doubtful or difficult emergencies. The god was regarded as the giver of advice, and of judicial sentences in matters of dispute. The 1 Cp. Gen. xxxi. 9, xxxviii. 12 ; i Sam. xxv. 2 Exod. iv. 24 foil, seems to imply the idea that blood-shedding restores union with the deity, and protects from his wrath. The same passage points to the connection of circumcision with marriage, for which it was a kind of preparation. See Driver, Book of Genesis, pp. 189 foil. J See Jerem. iv. 4, vi. 10, ix. 25. Cp. Deut. x. 16, etc. i] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 19 sanctuary became the natural seat of justice ; thus the name ' En-mishpat, 'spring of judgment,' points to the existence of a primitive tribunal beside a sacred fountain '. In the ' Book of the Covenant' justice is administered before the 'elohim doubtless by some ' holy ' person, priest or seer, who probably made use of the sacred lot 8 . It remains to say something of the social and moral pecu- liarities of this primitive age in the history of Social and > . J moral charac- the Semites. We must bear in mind that the general conditions of nomadic life are apt to be singularly uniform, and are therefore unfavourable to culture or to rapid intellectual progress. The pastoral life naturally tends to a habit of indolence, while the relatively low position of women and the practice of polygamy lead to domestic jealousies, which sow the seeds of discord and disunion among the children. Among primitive men the wife is merely one of the principal chattels, standing on a level little higher than that of the ox, the ass, the horse, and the slave. Marriage takes the form of a bargain or covenant with the bride's father 3 . The status of the wife is practically that of a superior slave, and her rights are as yet non-existent ; divorce depends on the husband's pleasure 4 . Similarly the power of the pater- familias is absolute ; he can sell his children into slavery ; can choose for each a wife or husband ; can actually devote them to the tribal god as sacrificial victims 5 . In fact among the Semites, as among the ancient Romans and other peoples, 'the family was based, less upon actual relationship than upon power 6 ;... what we call property, what we call marital right, what we call parental authority, were all originally blended in the general conception of patriarchal power 6 .' 1 Gen. xiv. 7. 2 Exod. xxii. 8. 3 Gen. xxix. 18, 27, xxxiv. 12. 4 Deut. xxiv. i 4. 5 Exod. xxi. 7 ; Gen. xxiv. 3, xxii. 6 Maine, Early Institutions, pp. 312, 313 ; cp. thesame writer's A ndent Law, chap. 5. 2O Religion of Israel [CHAP. The law of blood-revenge is an immemorial custom of the East. It corresponds to the intensity of the Semitic nomad's devotion to his tribe. Only as a member of a clan was he assured of maintenance and protection. Among the Semites the murder of a clansman was an offence not only against the tribe, but against the god whose interests and possessions were identical with those of his clan, and who was indissolubly bound up with its collective life 1 . Blood-revenge was indeed the only way open to primitive society of protecting the life of individuals against the lawless passion or arbitrary violence of their fellows. That there was no moral principle under- lying the primitive institution of blood-revenge is plain from the fact that no distinction seems to have been made in pre- Mosaic times between murder and unintentional homicide. Slavery in one form or another was of course a recognised institution, as is evident from the regulation of it in the ' Book of the Covenant.' Slaves were procured through war, and were apparently kept in perpetual servitude ; but members of a clan who had been sold into slavery were only retained by their owner for a certain number of years, unless they them- selves consented to serve in perpetuity. In such a case the slave was brought to the sanctuary and formally made over to his master 2 . Levirate marriage was also in all probability a primitive institution, but it seems very precarious to connect it, as some writers have done, with the custom of ancestor-worship, as if it were an expedient for maintaining the rites due to the dead 3 . One motive of its observance in historic times was the desire to guard family property from alienation 4 . 1 This is the point of Gen. ix. 6. Cp. Smend, p. 23. 2 Exod. xxi. 2 6. Cp. Deut. xv. 12 foil. Exod. l.c. has been thought to imply that the slave was brought to the door of the dwelling the spot where the family 'eldhim were erected as a token that he accepted as his own the god of his master's family. Some such ceremony may have been customary in pagan times. 3 See e.g. Marti, op. cit. 12, and on the other side Kautzsch, DB, v. 615. 4 Ruth iv. 5. l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 21 We may notice at this point the only ' class distinction ' Hol which was observed by the primitive Semites, sons, priests There seem to have been recognised ' holy ' persons, attached to the sacred enclosure which contained the shrine of a god or the emblem of his presence. The function of these ' priests ' was to declare the will of the deity, to pronounce his decision on points of difficulty, and to give advice or instruction in his name, by using the lot or by consulting the oracle in other ways. A trace of such a class is to be found in such names as 'soothsayer's terebinth ' and 'terebinth of the enchanters 1 .' Priesthood in its more developed sense the function of offering sacrifice on behalf of a family or clan belonged of right to its head or to chosen representa- tives 2 . At the same time there are traces among the Semites of the practice of confining the functions of priesthood to a particular clan or family. Considering the important place of prophecy in historic times it is also probable that the ancient Semites had their 'seers,' whose function it is not easy to distinguish from that of the priesthood 3 , except by saying that the priests were in a sense permanent while the seers were occasional interpreters of the divine will. We may now briefly survey the ground we have traversed in this chapter. In reading the Old Testament we should carefully note those ancient usages which were recognised, Summary. i i i ,-- and in some cases regulated, by the Mosaic re- ligion, or which held their ground alongside of it or even in defiance of it. Such usages justify us in assuming that the Hebrews inherited a certain body of religious ideas and 1 Gen. xii. 6 ; Judg. ix. 37. The functions of the earliest priesthood are implied in passages like Deut. xxxiii. 8 and i Sam. xiv. 41. " Exod. xxiv. 5. 3 Smend, p. 20, remarks that in Arabic the word kdhin 'seer' corre- sponds to the Heb. kdhen 'priest,' 'but,' he adds, 'priest and seer were originally the same person." 22 Religion of Israel [CHAP. practices in common with their heathen neighbours. We may gather from these fragmentary hints the type of worship and ethics which Mosaism endeavoured either to correct or to repress. We must of course remember that the Old Testament picture of the patriarchal age in Israel's history projects into a far-distant past the beliefs and customs of a comparatively civilised period, but we cannot be wrong in supposing that those features of the picture which imply a very elementary state of social morality are really primitive 1 . A somewhat low conception of the position of woman, a spirit of cunning and revenge displayed in the mutual dealings of tribes or individuals these are the darker elements in the picture. On the other hand, a general fidelity to covenant- obligations, a marked respect for the rights of property and for the marriage bond, a strong sense of the inviolable sacred- ness of fellowship in the same clan these are features to which a parallel can be found in the characteristics of nomad races in every part of the world. As regards religious usage, it will have appeared that to the ancient Semites worship was mainly a matter of customary observance. A man found himself, as a member of a clan or tribe, already closely bound to some particular deity whose favour could be secured, or his displeasure averted, only by a rigid fulfilment of prescribed and traditional ceremonies. All ordinary usages and customs of tribal life must have been very closely connected with religion, and many traditional practices and modes of thought were doubtless retained by the Hebrews even at a time when the animism or the nature-worship to which they owed their origin was 'completely overmastered by the fundamental ideas of a higher religion 2 .' 1 In primitive times ' there is no such thing as acting upon conscious moral principles ; and hence there is no thought of morality properly so called, but custom exercises a powerful influence, which no one can dis- regard with impunity.' Kautzsch, DB, V. 624. 2 Schultz, op. cit. vol. I. p. 117. l] The Primitive Religion of the Semites 23 Of this preliminary stage in Hebrew religion the patriarchs may be regarded as types. Abraham in particular Irchs patn can scarcely be looked upon as the personal founder of a pure religion of revelation. He is rather the prototype of all that is highest in the old Semitic religion of all that was best fitted to serve as a foundation for a great moral and religious development 1 . Abraham is in fact a representative of Semitism in two points especially : in his strong consciousness of God, and in the impulse which moved him to separate himself from an alien and more highly de- veloped civilisation. He is the pastoral chief whose life of wandering in the desert has imbued him with a sense of the irresistible power which lies behind the rugged and stern phenomena of nature amid which his lot is cast 2 . In a spirit of awe, of receptivity, of submission to the leadings of his God, he passes from land to land, dwelling in tents, rearing his altar for sacrifice beneath the open sky, shunning the tumult of cities, and sojourning in the broad and silent spaces of the wilderness. This tendency to withdraw from the centres of civilisation and to prefer a life of primitive sim- plicity is illustrated by the narrative of the 'call of Abraham 3 .' Such deliberate abandonment of the idolatrous and highly- developed culture of Babylon is typical of the moral intensity of the pastoral Semites. It marked them out as the people of revelation. It separated them from the corruptions of poly- theism. It was what the New Testament represents it to be an act of faith in which was involved the possibility of a special 1 Smend regards the figures of the patriarchs as personifications of Israel (p. 27). There can be indeed no doubt that the moral traits of their descendants are ascribed to the patriarchs, and even Israel's later experiences in relation to neighbouring peoples seem to be consciously foreshadowed in the patriarchal narratives (ib. p. 98). 2 To Abraham God is known as 'El Shaddai, Gen. xvii. i ; Exod. vi. 3 (P). Cp. the name Znrishaddai in Num. i. 6. 3 Gen. xii. t foil. ; Isai. li. i. 24 Religion of Israel [CHAP. I and unique relationship to God. The name of Abraham thus stands for a symbol of the fact that in the soil of a purely natural religion, the Divine Spirit was at work from the beginning, awakening a higher consciousness of God, and laying the foundation of a movement which was destined to find its climax in the perfect union of man with God in Jesus Christ. CHAPTER II. THE WORK AND INFLUENCE OF MOSES. WE have seen reasons for supposing that the primitive religion of the Hebrew tribes resembled in the main that of other Semitic peoples ; but in the earliest traditions we find indi- cations that while the religion of other nations on the whole tended downwards towards some form of polytheism or nature- worship, the forefathers of the Hebrews were continually advanc- ing towards a higher, purer, and more simple faith faith in a Deity who is both personal and righteous; who is willing to enter into covenant with man and to raise him into the life of con- scious fellowship with God. The intermediate stages between the ' patriarchal ' period and the departure of the tribes from Egypt it is impossible to trace. What is certain is that at the period when the Hebrews invaded Palestine and drove out or subdued its Canaanitish inhabitants the tribes were united, not only by the ties of kinship, but by their common belief in a Deity called JAHVEH, and that this religion possessed elements of strength which welded the loosely-organised clans into a compact nation, and ultimately gave them a decided superiority over the Canaanites who opposed their advance. We find moreover that this type of religion held its ground after the settlement of the Hebrews in the conquered territory, and that it was tenacious and vigorous enough to withstand the disinte- grating influences of heathenism to which it was exposed. 26 Religion of Israel [CHAP. To what is this striking development to be attributed? The uniform tradition of the Hebrews points to tradition" certain important historical events as the occa- sion, and to one commanding personality as the instrument, whereby the change was brought about. According to the narratives of the Pentateuch, the tribes migrated into Egypt and were for some centuries settled in that country. Though at first they found favour with the Egyptian monarchs, yet in process of time they sank into a condition of serfdom, which lasted until they were goaded by their sufferings to rise against their oppressors and to claim their liberty. Under the leadership of Moses, of the tribe of Levi, they made their escape from Egypt, and for more than a generation wandered as nomads in the Sinaitic peninsula 1 . Tradition also relates that the tribes were taught by Moses the elements of a higher religion than that which they had inherited from their ancestors, and that he was the founder of a rudimentary system of law and polity. According to the earliest account, Moses was specially commissioned by God to be the liberator and law- giver of his fellow-tribesmen; he spoke with the authority of a prophet 3 , and acted as mediator between the Hebrews and their God in the character of a priest. In spite of some fanciful and ingenious theories it may be confidently asserted, without insisting too strongly on particular details, that some such chain of events, the existence of some such personality, is absolutely required to explain the subse- quent development of Israel's religion. The departure of the Hebrews from Egypt marks the point at which the political 1 Smend holds that only a few thousands of Hebrews were actually settled in Goshen, and that in the Sinaitic peninsula these amalgamated with kindred and friendly tribes. Thus was developed a national and not merely tribal consciousness (p. 32). This might account for the fact (see below) that the name of Jahveh was not altogether strange to the Hebrews. He was possibly worshipped already by part of the tribes. 3 Cp. Hos. xii. 13. ll] The Work and Influence of Moses 27 and religious life of Israel may be said to begin ; and the personality of Moses is by all reasonable criticism accepted as an assured historical reality 1 . Indeed, the leading events of the history, as Hebrew tradition relates them, seem to be necessarily presupposed in the state of things described or implied in the book of Judges 2 . A word of explanation is necessary touching the character of the sources from which our knowledge of Moses and his work is derived. The last four books of the Pentateuch contain certain his- torical narratives and a considerable mass of legal The sources. . matter. The oldest narratives, those of the Jahvist (J) and the Elohist (E), seem to belong respectively to the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., and were probably combined into a single work about the middle of the seventh century B.C. The 'priestly' narrative (P), though historical in form, is for the most part consciously intended to illustrate certain religious ideas, and to account for the origin of certain laws and institu- tions peculiar to the later Judaism. It is usually held to have been compiled at the close of the sixth or early in the fifth century. Of these sources J is obviously the oldest, and most nearly represents the ancient popular tradition concerning the events of the exodus ; but it must be borne in mind that both J and E are parted by a gulf of some centuries from the incidents which they record, and in point of fact embody the 1 For present purposes it makes little difference whether we accept the Hebrew tradition as it has been uniformly explained hitherto, or whether we adopt the ' advanced hypothesis ' of Winckler, Cheyne, and others, that the true land of DHD, from which the exodus occurred, was not Egypt (Misraim) at all, but a N. Arabian land called Musr or Musir. Very few, if any, of the distinctive features of Hebrew religion can be plausibly traced to Egyptian influence, and even if the Musii theory could be satisfactorily established, it would not affect the tradition respecting the epoch-making work of Moses. For a recent defence of the theory see Dr Winckler's paper in the Hibbert Journal for April, 1904. 2 Smend, p. 16. 28 Religion of Israel [CHAP. ideas of a late age respecting Moses and his work. The main facts, however, are sufficiently clear. The political consolida- tion of the Hebrew tribes was inseparably connected with the origin of their religion. The superiority of this religion over the debased heathenism of Canaan is incontestably proved by the actual conquest. Before they were welded into a single nation, the religion of the Hebrews must have more or less closely resembled that of their Semitic kinsfolk. When they invaded and occupied Palestine their religion did not indeed so far triumph as to completely oust the cultus of the Canaan- itish deities, but at least it maintained itself amid the corruptions of the surrounding heathenism, and the secret of its power is manifest. The characteristic feature of the religion of Jahveh was that it connected religion with morality; it represented the tribal Deity of the Hebrews as at once a God of power and a God of righteousness '. The question has naturally been raised whether Israel's religion owed any of its distinctive features to M^fatem. Egypt or to Midian, with both of which countries Moses was traditionally connected. At present little or no evidence is forthcoming in favour of either alternative. The available facts, indeed, tend to confirm the truth of the account given in the Old Testament itself, that the religion taught by Moses was imparted to him by Divine revelation. Doubtless he found in the ancestral beliefs of the Hebrews the necessary basis for his teaching ; but the simplest explanation of his commanding influence is to be found in the fact that he was a prophet, divinely chosen, inspired, and prepared for his task, and sent to the Hebrews with an authoritative message from the God of their fathers. The work of Moses was, indeed, in the strict sense 'prophetic.' He proclaimed the sovereignty of God and declared His purpose of grace. From the first there was an ethical tendency in his teaching and an 1 Cp. Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 48. Il] The Work and Influence of Moses 29 element of expansiveness. The religion of a family or of a clan became under his guidance the faith of an entire people ; and the keynotes of the system were practically two : first, the exaltation of Jahveh, the deliverer of the Hebrews from bondage, as the one Deity of their allegiance; second, the insistence upon social righteousness as His one essential re- quirement. A single Divine name was proclaimed as the watchword of the religion taught by Moses. It was a name, JAHVEH. not merely proclaimed, but revealed, and like other Hebrew names it was indicative of a character. Such titles as 'Elohim, 'El l Elyon, 'El Shaddai have been correctly described as 'names preceding revelation 1 .' They imply an advance on mere animism, in so far as they suggest the combination of various spiritual forces or beings into a unity 2 ; but the name by which God now manifested Himself to Israel was a personal name, and revealed certain attributes of Deity. The source whence the name Jahveh was derived has been a much-disputed point. The most probable account of it is that it was a name of God already current, either in the family of Moses himself 3 or (as Wellhausen has conjectured) in the tribe of Joseph". It is unlikely that the tribes would have accepted a designation which was entirely strange and un- familiar. The name may have been already known in the Semitic peninsula (e.g. among the nomadic Kenites, or among some Hebrew tribes which had not migrated into Egypt), and 1 Davidson, Theology of the O.T. p. 45, 2 For a recent discussion of these names see Driver's Book of Genesis, pp. 404 foil. Observe that the Christian conception of God gathers up the truths implied in these titles when it acknowledges one God, rbv iroXvibvvfjiov Kal Travrod\jva/j.ov /ecu (AovoeiSTJ TTJV {nr6ffTacriv (Cyr. Hieros. Catech. VI. 7)- 3 Cp. the name of the mother of Moses, Jochebed, Exod. vi. 20 (P), which may mean 'Jahveh is [my tribe's] glory.' (So Cheyne in Enc. Bib.) 4 This supposition falls in with the fact (a) that at a later period we find the ark in possession of that tribe, (6) that the earliest composite name in which ' Jahveh ' is an element appears to be ' Joshua ' or ' Jehoshua. ' 30 Religion of Israel [CHAP. thus Moses could announce to the Hebrews that he was sent to them by the God of their fathers 1 . Again, the derivation and exact meaning of the name are quite uncertain. In the celebrated passage, Exod. iii. 14, the word is connected with the Hebrew verb meaning to be or become, a fact which at least indicates, if not the original sense of the title, yet the ideas which it commonly suggested. As regards its form, the word appears to be the third person singular imperfect of the archaic form then n ame. f havah ( f r ha y ah \ in either HipMl Or Qa/. It might thus mean either (1) 'He who creates,' 'causes to be,' or possibly 'brings things to pass ' ; or (much more probably) (2) ' He who will be,' i.e. the ' eternal ' or ' constant ' being who will progressively manifest Himself in future history as Israel's Creator and Redeemer 2 . This is evidently the traditional explanation implied in Exod. iii. 14. The name was intended to express not what God is in Himself, but rather what He was in relation to Israel : a personal being willing to enter into covenant with man and to reveal Himself progres- sively as occasion might demand ; a being self-consistent and faithful in fulfilling His threatenings and promises; able, more- over, to control the course of history in fulfilment of His pur- pose of grace. The name by its very vagueness implies that ' no words can sum up all that Jahveh will be to His people 3 .' Whatever be the precise import of the title, it is certain 1 Exod. iii. 6, 15, iv. 5. Cp. Smend, p. 17 anm. The 'Kenite hypothesis ' is regarded as improbable by Kautzsch, DB, V. 626. a This is preferable to the suggestion that the word is connected (a) with the Arab, hawah, 'blow' or 'breathe,' and that Jahveh is the god heard in the tempest, the ' storm god ' ; or (b] with hawah in the sense of 'to fall' (Job xxxvii. 6), causative 'to overthrow' or ' prostrate, 'Jahveh being 'the destroyer,' 'the lightning gdd.' See Marti, Geschichte, etc., 17, and Driver, Book of Genesis, pp. 407 foil. Kautzsch in DB, V. 626 examines the alternative suggestions at some length. * W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, lect. ii. note 10. Il] The Work and Influence of Moses 3 1 that Moses proclaimed Jahveh to his people as their God 'the God of the Hebrews.' From the land of Egyp? onwards and throughout their history Jahveh was the God of Israel. In the events of the exodus He had manifested at once His power and His grace : His superiority to the gods of heathendom 2 , and His willingness to redeem an enslaved people in order to unite them by a covenantal bond to Himself. This truth was the foundation-stone of the religion taught by Moses. We must not suppose that the conception of Jahveh held by the mass of the Hebrews was of a very lofty Primitive . } J conceptions of character. He was probably conceived as having a human form, capable of being repre- sented in carved or molten images. He was feared and honoured as a powerful personality 3 , able to intervene in history on Israel's behalf, and having a sole claim on its allegi- ance. At the same time in accordance with the primitive Semitic idea that the god and his clan formed a single community, He was regarded as a tribal or national deity. Jahveh was to the Hebrews what Chemosh was to the Moabites their protector, and the champion of their interests. In time of peace He was their ruler and judge, the fountain of justice and the guardian of sacred custom 4 . In warfare He was their leader ; Israel's enemies were His enemies, and their victories were His 5 . The question as to the existence or non-existence 1 Hos. xiii. 4. 2 Exod. xv. n. 3 The truth of the Divine personality is emphasised by the frequent use of anthropomorphic language, especially in connection with the name Jahveh. Cp. Riehm, ATI. Theologie, n. 3. 4 The similarity between the conception of Jahveh prevalent in Israel and that of Chemosh among the Moabites is well illustrated by the inscrip- tion of Mesha on the 'Moabite Stone.' See Hastings' DB, s.v. 'Moab, Moabites.' B Judg. v. 31 ; i Sam. xxx. 26. With this idea is also connected the law of the 'devoted thing' (DIP!), Lev. xxvii. 28 foil. Cp. Num. xviii. 14; Josh. vii. i, ii. Jahveh is regarded as 'a man of war' (Exod. xv. 3; 32 Religion of Israel [CHAP. of other gods who stood in the same relation to other tribes as Jahveh to Israel, was not raised at this period. Jahveh differed from other gods in respect of His superior might. None could be compared with Him in wonder-working power. It remained for Moses to teach that Jahveh was separated from the gods of the heathen by another point of distinction : namely the fact that he was a God of righteousness. There are evident tokens of the survival of other crude ideas among the Hebrews. It was popularly supposed that Jahveh had His abode on Mount Sinai 1 , or at least that He was specially connected with the wilderness 2 , though not absolutely tied to one spot. He could visit the enslaved people in Egypt, could lead their hosts out of the house of bondage, and fight for them in their battles 3 . His presence in the midst of Israel might be manifested in various modes. He promises that his presence (lit. face] shall go with Israel 4 ; he sends His angel (mal'akh} before His people the being in whom His Name is, i.e. in whom He visibly manifests Himself 5 . The ark of Jahveh (or ark of God} is practically identified with Jahveh Himself; it acts as a guide in the wilderness and is apparently venerated by friends and foes alike as the place of His abode 6 . It has been supposed, cp. Num. x. 35), and probably the very name 'Israel' means "El persists.' The same idea underlies the 'holiness' of the camp (Deut. xxiii. 14), and of the warriors. Cp. the phrase for opening a war 'to consecrate war' (Jer. vi. 4, li. 27 ; Joel iii. 9; cp. Isai. xiii. 3). 1 Smend (p. 30) gives reasons for thinking that this idea was very ancient and deep-rooted. He finds a trace of its survival even in i Kings xix. 8 foil. 3 Cp. Exod. v. 3 ; Judg. v. 4, 5 ; Deut. xxxiii. i. 3 Exod. xvii. 14 foil. ; Num. xxi. 14. 4 Exod. xxxiii. 12 15 (J). 8 Exod. xxiii. 21. The 'angel' like the 'presence' implies a form of manifestation which does not, however, exhaust the fulness of Jahveh's being. 6 See Num. x. 33 36. So in the crossing of Jordan (Josh, iv.) and in the siege of Jericho (Josh, vi.) the ark takes a prominent place. That it Ii] Tlie Work and Influence of Moses 33 with scarcely sufficient reason, that the ark originally con- tained an image of Jahveh, or at least a block of sacred stone (betel], either meteoritic or hewn at Sinai, and serving as a symbol of the Deity's presence 1 . In any case, the idea of Jahveh as localised in the ark, or moving to and fro with the Israelites by means of the presence or the angel, corresponds to a rudimentary stage in Israel's faith, a stage in which the per- sonal action of the Deity cannot be conceived apart from some mode of bodily and local presence. After the settlement in Palestine Jahveh was believed to have taken up His abode in the new territory, and gradually, as men's thoughts of God be- came less materialistic, the idea prevailed that Israel's God was not restricted either to Sinai or to the sacred ark 2 . Whatever may have been Israel's conception of its Deity, it learned from Moses, and held fast the belief, that ?srae? 0d Of this powerful God had deigned to do great things on its behalf and to enter into a covenant-re- lationship with it. Israel henceforth realised that it belonged to Jahveh, and felt itself bound to serve and obey Him only. By a gracious act of deliverance Jahveh had brought the Hebrews to Himself and had become their lawgiver and king. He had chosen them for His peculiar people in order to mani- fest to them His nature and His will. This relationship of Jahveh to His people was thought of as twofold. Jahveh was the father of Israel, not in a moral, physical sense, but in the sense that by His redemptive acts of power He had formed the nation and brought it into existence. He was also honoured implied the presence of Jahveh especially as the war god is shown by i Sam. iv. 7 (cp. 2 Sam. v. 21). See also 2 Sam. vi. 2, where (as elsewhere) the ark is mentioned in connection with the name 'Jahveh of hosts.' 1 The ark was doubtless a very primitive adjunct of the worship of Jahveh, and the close connection of the mal j akh with the ark seems to show that the idea of the 'angel' belongs to the period preceding the conquest of Canaan. We meet with it already in the Song of Deborah (Judg. v. 23). a For a sketch of the later history of the ark see Kautzsch, DB, v. 629. O. 3 34 Religion of Israel [CHAP. as Israel's king, to whom the tribes might look for help in battle, for counsel in difficult emergencies, and for a judicial sentence in cases too hard for human decision. This relationship was established at the time of the exodus ; in the conquest of Palestine it was renewed and confirmed. Accordingly it was required on Israel's side that Jahveh alone should be wor- shipped as king and lord, and in the idea of Jahveh's jealousy we have the germ of true monotheism. The charter of the covenant between Israel and its God is virtually contained in the first 'word' of the decalogue 1 . On the other hand, it was a cardinal doctrine of Moses that T . . , Israel was bound, in virtue of its position as a Jahveh's moral require- covenant-people, to render to Jahveh the accept- able service of a moral obedience. Jahveh was before everything else a God of righteousness, the champion of right against might, the protector of the helpless and poor 2 , re- quiring of His chosen people the observance of a moral law, and punishing moral transgression both in nations and indi- viduals. In this ethical conception of Jahveh we have the central feature of the religion of Moses. The statements of the prophets imply that the distinctive torah or ' direction ' of Moses did not deal mainly with matters of ritual. It was concerned with moral obedience 3 ; it laid down broad principles of morality, such as those which are embodied in the decalogue. Assuming that the 'Book of the Covenant' (Exod. xxi. xxiii.) contains at any rate a nucleus of Mosaic enactments, which were afterwards expanded or revised to suit the conditions of a i Amos ii. 9, iii. i; Hos. ii. 16, xi. i, xii. [3, xiii. 4, 5. Obs. The Pentateuchal tradition is that a covenant was really made at Sinai between God and Israel. There is, as Kautzsch shows, no convincing reason for setting this tradition aside. The account in Exod. xxiv. 4 8 (J) is very explicit, and the whole subsequent history implies that after the exodus the people acknowledged Jahveh as their God and bound themselves to do His will. 8 Exod. xxii. 11 foil. 3 Jer. vii. 11. Cp. Exod. xv. 26. Il] The Work and Influence of Moses 35 later stage in the nation's career, we may describe the code as based on the central idea that Jahveh Himself is Israel's king and judge, and that His chief requirement is that of justice tempered by humanity 1 . 'The law of Israel,' says Professor Robertson Smith in an admirable summary, ' does not yet aim at singularity ; it is enough that it is pervaded by a constant sense that the righteous and gracious Jehovah is behind the law and wields it in conformity with His own holy nature. The law, therefore, makes no pretence at ideality. It contains precepts adapted, as our Lord puts it, to the hardness of the people's heart. The ordinances are not abstractly perfect and fit to be a rule of life in every state of society, but they are fit to make Israel a righteous, humane, and God-fearing people, and to facilitate a healthy growth towards better things 2 .' It may fairly be questioned whether the decalogue in its present form can be ascribed to Moses. In the k>gue deca ~ fi rst pl ace > what appears to be an older and widely different version of the ' ten words ' is found in the book of Exodus (ch. xxxiv. 14 26); secondly, the deca- logue in its present form seems to be influenced by the teaching of the eighth-century prophets 3 . It is also urged that an ex- clusively moral code is not consistent with the predominantly ritualistic character of early religions. Other arguments have 1 The 'Book of the Covenant' perhaps represents the original torah of Moses developed to suit the new conditions of agricultural life. It gives a correct idea of the spirit of the Mosaic torah. 2 The 0. T. in the Jewish Church, p. 343. On the relation of the Mosaic code to that of the Babylonian Hammurabi, see the exhaustive article by Mr Johns in DB, V., esp. pp. 608 foil. 9 Thus the Mosaic origin of the second word is disputed on the ground that image-worship was not definitely prohibited by Elijah and Elisha, and was first denounced by the prophets in the 8th century. As Schultz remarks, it ' will always remain impossible to explain how the worship of God by means of images the unopposed custom in all Israel before the time of Solomon and in the northern kingdom till its fall can be reconciled with the hypothesis of such a fundamental law being in existence ' (0. 7'. Theology, I. 219). 32 36 Religion of Israel [CHAP. been adduced which it is needless to consider in detail 1 . The facts as they stand are perplexing, and justify a suspension of judgment. It is reasonable to suppose that the decalogue in its present form bears traces of expansion in prophetic times; at the same time it lays down principles of morality which are so elementary as to be strictly consistent with what we know of the condition of Israel in Mosaic times. It is difficult to see what other precepts could have been better adapted to lift the Hebrews above the degraded nature-religion of their heathen neighbours, to teach them the true character of their divine Deliverer, and to educate them in the rudiments of social justice and humanity. In short, the 'ten words' as we have them in the Pentateuch 2 may be a later prophetic summary of the great moral ideas contained in the religion of Moses; but there is every reason to suppose that in a brief and easily remembered form the primary moral precepts of the decalogue constituted from the first the foundation of Israel's national development. It is indeed impossible otherwise to account for the vitality and vigour which gave to the Hebrews their physical and moral superiority over the inhabitants of Canaan. The deca- logue has in fact intrinsic credibility as a Mosaic utterance 3 , and we may reasonably accept it as an authentic monument at least in its main substance of the period to which Hebrew tradition assigns it 4 . Some forms of worship were doubtless observed in the wilderness, though it is impossible to point to anv details of cultus prescribed by Moses himself. Some traditional usages seem to have been re- tained or regulated by the lawgiver. There certainly existed a 1 See Smend, p. 47. 2 Exod. xx. ; Deut. v. 3 A. B. Bruce, Christian Apologetics, p. 209. Op. Kautzsch in DB, V. 634. He points out that the decalogue in its primary form is more concerned with rights than with moral duties. 4 On this subject see more in the Short History of the Hebrews, pp. 294 foil. The explanations given of some of the commandments (e.g. the second and fourth) seem certainly to be later prophetic additions. ll] The Work and Influence of Moses 37 primitive sanctuary, or ' tent of meeting,' designed to serve as the seat of the sacred oracle and as a shelter for the ark. In form this structure would resemble the ordinary shepherd's tent, having its outer and inner compartment and standing in an enclosed court. The 'tent of meeting' seems in Mosaic times to have been pitched outside the camp (Exod. xxxiii. 7 ; Num. xi. 26, xii. 4), and not, as was assumed in post-exilic times, at its centre. Sacrifices of some kind must have been offered during the wanderings, but we can only conjecture what their exact significance may have been. According to the primitive Semitic idea, sacrifice was the means of renewing or maintaining the bond which united the people to their god ; and a ceremony like that described in connection with the rati- fication of the covenant (Exod. xxiv.) would probably be repeated on special occasions, e.g. before the tribes engaged in battle with their enemies \ If Moses instituted a regular priesthood, possibly recruited from members of his own tribe (Levi) 2 , it is unlikely that its main function was that of sacrifice. The 'holy' persons of Semitic antiquity were attached to the sanctuary and were its recognised guardians, but they were chiefly employed in con- sulting the oracle touching matters of difficulty. To the priest- hood would naturally fall the task of continuing the work of Moses, i.e. imparting torah to those who asked for guidance, and giving judicial sentences (torotK) in matters of dispute 3 . Thus a traditional and authoritative torah would gradually be formed, and there would be a tendency for the priesthood to become hereditary in certain families. The means by which 1 In Deut. xx. i foil, an exhortation by the priest is mentioned as a preliminary to battle. 2 Moses himself exercised priestly functions, of which the most im- portant was the giving of torah (Exod. xviii. 15 foil.). He is in fact the prototype both of priesthood and prophecy. 8 The Arabs in the same way brought their hard matters to Mohammed and 'his decisions became the law of Islam, as those of Moses were the foundation of the Hebrew torah ' (Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 70). 38 Religion of .Israel [CHAP. Jahveh's will was ascertained was usually the casting of the sacred lot, and it is easy to understand how rapidly the priest- hood would acquire a powerful influence over the mass of the people. The original torah given by Moses, and after his time by the priesthood, was oral 1 ; and the name l En-mishpat ('well of judgment') at Kadesh, which was for a long period the religious centre of the tribes, indicates that the sanctuary was invariably the seat of justice, as well as the place of worship. We can only arrive at a just conception of the part played by Moses in the development of Israel's religion Moses rk f if we tnm k of him not chiefly as lawgiver but as prophet. According to tradition, indeed, he had at one time been an expert in the magic for which the Egyptians were famous. But as time went on he was recognised in his true greatness as a ' man of God ' an inspired organ of the Divine purpose, a leader raised up and enabled by the Spirit of Jahveh. The tendency of later ages was to ascribe to him the whole mass of institutions and ordinances which were framed to meet the needs of successive generations 2 . Doubtless Moses laid a foundation of usage, both in civil and criminal trans- actions, upon which others built 3 . But we now know that legislation was only a subordinate element in his work. He is rather to be considered as the foremost figure in the line of inspired teachers or prophets through whom Almighty God revealed to Israel His character, purpose, and requirement 4 . And although it is not possible to point to any special details of the cultus which can be certainly ascribed to Moses, there is no doubt that in two important points he laid the foundations of Israel's religious development. 1 This is implied in Exod. xviii. 16 foil. The giving of torah was also connected with the sanctuary (Exod. xxxiii. 7 foil.). * These, as Dr Brace observes (Apologetics, p. 221), were 'ascribed to Moses not so much as author, but rather as authority.' 8 This may be inferred from the narrative of Exod. xviii. 13 foil. 4 Hos. xii. 13. Cp. Deut. xxxiv. 10 ; Jer. xv. r. ll] The Work and Influence of Moses 39 i. In the first place he grasped for himself, and taught his fellow-tribesmen, the true significance of the events connected with the departure of the tribes from Egypt. He understood the bearing of these events on the character of Jahveh : His ' holiness ' or separateness from nature, His power, His willing- ness to redeem. In the great deliverance was involved a revelation, which was necessarily the starting-point of a higher religion. Accordingly the central principle of his system was devotion to Jahveh as a gracious Being who had mercifully in- tervened to deliver an enslaved people from bondage'; who had manifested His lordship over nature and His superiority to the deities of the heathen 2 ; who had adopted Israel and brought it into a filial relation to Himself 3 . The loosely or- ganised tribes were in fact welded into a nation by their common relationship to their Deliverer ; and it has been justly remarked that this adhesion of a group of tribes to a single deity marked a step in advance from mere 'henotheism' or 'monolatry' towards monotheism. But it is even more im- portant to notice that in the Mosaic conception of Jahveh lay ' the promise and potency ' not of mere monotheism, but of the ethical monotheism of the great prophets of the eighth century 4 . For Jahveh revealed Himself in the events of the exodus as the God not of a particular territory, but of a people. Throughout the wanderings He walked with them in a tent and in a tabernacle. He led them onwards through the toils of their pilgrimage and brought them into the land of promise. He manifested in deeds His hatred of oppression and injustice, His longsuffering, His compassion, His readiness to forgive, His sustaining power and grace. Thus by kindling and keeping alive Israel's faith in its deliverer, Moses gave the tribes a rallying-point and a bond of union which could never be alto- gether lost from view. 1 Exod. iii. 8. 2 Exod. viii. 10, ix. 14, 16, x. 2, xv. n. 3 Exod. iv. 22 ; Hos. xi. i. 4 Cp. Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 46. Kautzsch says, 'We are quite entitled to claim not ethical monotheism in the strict sense of the term but ethical henotheism for the time of Moses' (DB, V. 632). 4O Religion of Israel [CHAP. II 2. In the second place Moses taught the supreme import- ance in religion of righteous conduct. The deliverance from Egypt formed the basis of a covenant between Jahveh and the ransomed people 1 . The Hebrews became servants of Jahveh, purchased by redemption, and henceforth bound to His service 8 . At the very outset they were subjected to an elementary moral code, and were reminded that a special character was the condition of covenant-fellowship with Jahveh. The moral law was seen to be the supreme tie between God and man ; the foundation was securely laid upon which future legislation could be built up, and the great ethical principles were enunciated which the prophets afterwards developed. In this ethical basis of Mosaism lies its claim to be an important factor in the development of an universal religion 3 . 'What was of permanent significance [in Mosaism] was the paramount place of the Moral Law. ...By placing the ten commandments on its forefront it made good its claim to be an everlasting covenant ; it taught and laid down the moral conditions of religious character, not only for its own time, but for all time. It was a step in religious history of which we can even now but imperfectly measure the greatness 4 .' 1 The conception of Jahveh's relationship to Israel as a covenant is thought to have arisen later than the exodus, perhaps not earlier than the prophetic period (see Wellhausen, Prolegomena, pp. 417 foil.). But see on the other side Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 301 note ; Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, note, xxii. etc. The discussion in Smend, pp. 116 foil., is valuable. a Lev. xxv. 42 ; cp. Ezek. xvi. 8. 3 Cp. Deut. xxix. 14, 15. 4 R. W. Church, The Discipline of the Christian Character, p. 34. It should be also borne in mind that the Mosaic torah had this peculiarity, that it was concerned largely with questions of right and wrong, and thus educated the moral sense of the Hebrews. The supreme value of the Mosaic torah, recognised by the prophets, was that it bore witness to the righteousness of Jahveh, and that it taught Israel the good and the right way. Cp. Smend, p. 77. 'In erster Linie wurde das Recht, das die Thora lehrte, als der Inhalt seines Willens empfunden. Das zu kennen war die Gotteserkenntniss, die Israel zumeist interessirte (Hos. iv. 6).' CHAPTER III. FROM MOSES TO SAMUEL. THE state of things to be described in the present chapter virtually lasted until the fall of the Hebrew monarchy, for the prophets of the eighth century exercised comparatively little influence on the long-established popular religion of their contemporaries. At the same time their polemical utterances throw valuable light on the condition of religion in Israel. The conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews and their settle- ment in the land was, it is needless to say, a fact th^conauest ^ C1 ucial importance in the development of their religion, which was profoundly modified both by the transition from nomadic to agricultural life, and also by contact with the culture and civilisation of the Canaanites. The religion of Canaan in fact penetrated so deeply into that of Israel that the later prophets regard the popular worship of their day as practically Canaanitish. First, however, a word is necessary in regard to the historical conditions and results of the conquest. Speaking broadly, the Hebrews were only able to establish themselves securely in the hill-country of central Palestine. Two tribes, Reuben and Gad, settled in the district east of Jordan. The first advance westwards, that of Simeon and Judah, ended in the virtual annihilation of Simeon and the establishment of Judah in the highlands lying to the west of the Dead Sea. 42 Religion of Israel [CHAP. The second movement, carried out by the tribe of Joseph under the leadership of Joshua, was more successful, and led to the establishment of Shiloh in the hill-country of Ephraim as the chief tribal sanctuary and religious centre. Meanwhile the Canaanites remained in possession of the villages and of many important towns in the lowland districts ; and though the religion of Jahveh proved strong enough to hold the Hebrews together during the actual process of invasion, its influence was afterwards neutralised to a great extent, partly by the mutual jealousies of the tribes, partly by the physical conformation of the land, which rendered tribal cooperation extremely difficult 1 . Again, the policy of Israel in regard to the Canaanites was not one of extermination, nor even of isolation, which was the ideal of later reformers. Some of the tribes (e.g. Judah) coalesced to a great extent with their heathen neighbours 2 , while the bulk of the Canaanitish population was not actually subjugated till the reign of Solomon 3 . Thus the two races became inextricably intermingled, and the process of amalgamation was hastened by the facts that both used nearly the same language, that they freely intermarried, and that the Hebrews were obliged to learn the rudiments of agriculture from their new neighbours. Finally, the spirit of religious exclusiveness, so familiar a feature of later Judaism, was entirely absent 4 . Accordingly the inter- mingling of the Israelites with the inhabitants of the conquered territory tended, as is usually the case in Semitic countries, to religious fusion 5 (syncretism). The worship of Jahveh and the cultus of the Canaanitish nature-deities (bcfalini) at first existed side by side ; but when the Hebrews possessed them- selves of the traditional sanctuaries (bdmoth) of the land, they 1 Cp. Hist, of the Hebrews, p. 102. 2 Judah was from the earliest times a composite tribe. See the art. 'Judah' in Hastings' DB. 3 i Kings ix. 20, 21. 4 Smend, p. 131. 5 Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 39. Ill] From Moses to Samuel 43 soon learned to identify their national deity with the local ba^al, and transferred to the worship of Jahveh the ritual and accessories of the heathen shrines'. It is easy to see how this state of things came about. The Hebrews looked upon ba'al as the owner of the land, and upon the fruits of the soil corn, wine, and oil as his gifts. Naturally therefore having obtained possession of ba'al's territory they felt impelled to seek his favour, for though Jahveh was in a sense present with His people (a fact of which the sacred ark was the pledge), yet Sinai was still regarded as His fixed abode 2 . According to the prevalent Semitic belief, in entering Palestine they had entered the domain of the god of the land and owed him homage as its king 3 . More spiritual ideas could only be slowly developed. The Hebrews still clung to their ancestral faith in Jahveh, and gradually transferred the attributes of the ba'al to Him as the real owner of the land into which He had brought the tribes. The idea slowly tended to prevail that He had taken up His abode in Canaan " and that He was the author of its fertility, the giver of rain and fruitful seasons ; and it is obvious that such a conception gained strength in proportion as the Hebrews became habituated to agricultural pursuits. Thus Hebrew religion at this period became 'syncretistic.' In other words an identification of Jahveh with the ba'alim naturally resulted from the social fusion of the two nationalities 5 . 1 There was also a tendency for the foul and impure rites connected with &z'a/-worship to find their way into the cultus of Jahveh. 2 This is implied in Deborah's Song (Judg. v. 4). Jahveh comes from the south to aid His oppressed people in their conflict with Sisera. Cp. PP- 32, 33- 3 Cp. the similar case in 2 Kings xvii. 25 foil. 4 We cannot trace the growth of the idea that Jahveh not only mani- fested His presence at various localities (Ex. xx. 24) but had His dwelling- place in heaven. This idea, however, is present in J and E (c. 850 750 B.C.). See (e.g.) Gen. xxi. 17, xxii. n (E), xxviii. 12, 17 (E) ; Exod. xix. n, 20 (J). 6 The identification of Jahveh with btfal is implied in the names 44 Religion of Israel [CHAP. The Hebrews appropriated the Canaanitish sanctuaries with their characteristic adjuncts, the pillars, the altars, the sacred poles. Thus in every part of the land there existed some shrine at which Jahveh could be approached, and worshipped as the true ba'al, 'lord,' of the new territory 1 . In every specially fruitful spot He was supposed to manifest Himself as the fountain of life ; and the worship at Canaanitish shrines was justified by the rise of a tradition, or by some dim reminiscence, that at these sacred spots Jahveh had formerly revealed Himself to the forefathers of the Hebrew nation. Of these localities some naturally acquired special prestige and became favourite places of pilgrimage, e.g. Bethel, Dan, Gilgal, and Beersheba. There was thus evidently some risk of the religion of Jahveh degenerating into a mere nature-cult, iigion. 0n polluted by the same coarse and foul rites which had so deeply corrupted the worship of the Canaanites. But there is another side to the picture. It is obvious that without the change from a 'nomadic state to the settled life of an agricultural community the Hebrews could not have advanced to any higher stage in culture nor have made any real religious progress. The life of agriculture, especially in such a country as Palestine, seems to demand a specially close and continuous dependence on the gifts of God, and an habitual realisation occurring in the families of Saul and David, Esh-baal, Meribaal, Beeliada. In the books of Samuel these names are altered in accordance with the stricter ideas of a later age to Ish-bosheth, Mephibosheth, Eliada (2 Sam. v. 16 ; cp. i Chr. xiv. 7). 'Jerubbaal' (Judg. vi. 3-2) has been explained as meaning 'Ba'al (i.e. Jahveh) strives' (Smend), or 'He who contends for Ba'al,' i.e. Jahveh (Kautzsch). That Jahveh was also addressed as welekh, 'king,' appears from such a name as Melchi-shua (r Sam. xiv. 49). 1 Thus David regards his expulsion from his native soil as tantamount to a command to serve other gods (i Sam. xxvi. 19). If an altar is erected to Jahveh outside Canaan, it must be built of soil taken from His land (i Kings v. 17). Cp. the phrase 'Jahveh's land' (Hos. ix. 3 ; Jer. ii. 7). Ill] From Moses to Samuel 45 of His presence and power 1 . The supremacy of Jahveh was safeguarded by the circumstances in which the Hebrew settlers were placed. Their hold on the new territory was partial and precarious; they were still frequently engaged in warfare, and they naturally looked to Jahveh, their Divine cham- pion and protector, for leadership and help. They were persuaded that He was still willing to fight on their behalf 2 ; if they suffered defeat, the cause was not the superiority of the foe but the displeasure of Jahveh. The ark in the camp was the pledge of His presence in the midst of the armies of Israel. There were also other influences tending to keep alive the traditional Mosaic conception of Jahveh. The 'Song of Deborah' (Judg. v.) illustrates the extent to which the spirit of patriotism was fostered, or could be rekindled, by religion. Deborah's appearance in Jahveh's name is the signal for the willing self-oblation of the people 3 . The rise of Naziritism, again, is a noteworthy feature of this epoch. Nazirites (such as Samson) were men self-consecrated to Jahveh, who in token of their vow wore their hair unshorn. They were, like the prophets 4 , devoted to the special service of Jahveh. Their abstinence from wine was a tacit protest against the worship of ba'al (wine being the richest product of the land), and implied a reaction from the culture of Canaan to the simple and austere habits of nomadic life 5 . Probably the earliest ' prophets ' (nebtim) cherished similar ideals. They traversed the land endeavouring to kindle the zeal of their fellow- 1 Cp. Smend, p. 49. 2 Josh. x. 10 ; Judg. iv. 15, v. 23 ; 2 Sam. v. 24. 3 Judg. v. 9, 23. 4 With whom they are coupled by Amos ii. 12. The name Nazirite probably = 'consecrated one.' See Smend, pp. 152, 153; also Kautzsch, DB, v. 657. Naziritism as an organised legal institution is described in Num. vi. Apparently women as well as men might be Nazirites (vi. 2), and the vow might be temporary, not perpetual as in Samson's case. 5 The same feature appears in the Rechabites (Jer. xxxv. 7). 46 Religion of Israel [CHAP. tribesmen on behalf of Jahveh and the land which was now His by right of conquest. Doubtless too the priests attached to the ark were zealous representatives of Israel's ancestral faith, and withstood the tendency to assimilate the worship of Jahveh to the cult of ba'al. Finally, the so-called 'judges 15 were at any rate in intention champions of Israel's religion as well as of its liberties. They were regarded as something more than mere tribal chiefs who in times of oppression rallied the tribes, inspired them with enthusiasm and led them into battle against their enemies. They were looked upon as deliverers raised up by Jahveh and endued with His Spirit in order to lift once more the standard of that faith which the Hebrews had inherited from Moses. They were in fact human representatives of Jahveh, through whom He deigned to bring succour and deliverance to His people when distressed by their enemies, and it is hardly a matter of wonder that in time of peace some at least of the judges should have been allowed to exercise kingly powers. Thus Gideon's informal sway extended over a considerable portion of mid-Palestine, and he even seems to have transmitted his authority to his sons 8 . But Gideon apparently had no thought of a kingship in Israel other than that of Jahveh Himself, though it might be delegated to a human representative. By setting up a costly 'ephod, or image of Jahveh, in his own city of Ophra, he evidently desired to signalise the place as a centre of Jahveh-worship and to enhance his own prestige as a ruler appointed by Jahveh Himself 3 . Such were the general conditions of religion during the period which followed the settlement in Canaan. As regards was a name applied to the king (e.g. Isai. xvi. 5; Am. ii. 3 ; Hos. vii. 7) in virtue of his principal functions. The word t3QK* is apparently only found in the (later) frametvork of the book of Judges, but ' judge ' may well have been a contemporary title of the heroes described in the book. See Smend, p. 64. 2 Judg- v "i' 22 fH' 3 Smend, p. 54. ill] From Moses to Samuel 47 Israel's moral and social life, the period was undoubtedly one of contradictions 1 , or rather, as we may Moral and . . , J social condi- gather from certain passages in the book ot Judges 2 , it was one of rude beginnings. Deeds of furious violence, insecurity of life and property, sexual crimes, blood-feuds, merciless barbarity in war these were characteristic incidents of the time. On the other hand the book of Ruth, despite its apparently late date, may be accepted as giving a pleasing picture of other aspects of social life among the Hebrews at a time when they were beginning to be an agricultural people. If there was much rude violence, there was also a readiness to resent deeds of cruelty 3 ; if there was a tendency to imitate the gross habits of the heathen Canaanites, there was also a jealous adherence to the traditional usages of Israel 4 . Marriage was held in honour and primitive virtues were practised charitableness, open- handed hospitality, neighbourly kindness and good faith. There is in fact good reason to believe that during this age of disorder and religious disintegration, the moral precepts as well as the religious traditions of the Mosaic age were cherished by an inner circle of faithful Israelites 5 . Having thus sketched the main features of the 'pre- prophetic' period in Israel's religious history, we may dwell upon some particular points in more detail. The maintenance of Israel's traditional religion depended for the most part on the work of two classes : the ' 1 priests and the prophets. Apparently the chief centre of priestly influence was Shiloh, though small companies of priests were probably dispersed throughout the country. There would seem to have been no numerous class of priests in old Israel. We hear of only a single priest 1 So Schultz describes it, O. T. Theology, vol. i. p. 150. 2 e.g. chh. xvii. xix. 3 Judg. xix., xx. * i Sam. xiii. 12. 5 See Smend, 10 (pp. 140 151). 48 Religion of Israel [CHAP. in the book of Judges (ch. xvii.) 1 ; Eli and his sons are mentioned as attached to the sacred ark at Shiloh 8 . The first three kings were in the habit of consulting a particular priest 3 . The fact is that sacrifice was not as yet a common or frequent observance, and the offerer in most cases was the head of a family or an official person, for instance the king. The real function of the priest was still that of acting as guardian to a shrine, consulting the sacred image where one existed, and giving torah to such as desired it. Priests were evidently held in high honour as depositaries of torah. They had a prescriptive right to consult the sacred oracle, to declare Jahveh's will in difficult emergencies, and to give His sentence in matters of right and wrong 4 . As regards these functions the priest did not materially differ from the ' seer/ except in being as a rule attached to a particular sanctuary, and in being qualified to consult the oracle 5 . Indeed, the share of the ancient ' seer ' (rtfeh) in up- holding the traditional religion of Jahveh is very vague and uncertain. Samuel is an example of one who was both priest and seer, and it is clear that in primitive times the functions of priest and prophet were almost identical. The office of ' seer ' was probably a survival from ancient pre-Mosaic religion. Divination in divers forms was a standing feature of Semitic heathenism, and Canaanitish ' prophecy ' was scarcely more than divination 6 . The 'seer,' like an ordinary 1 The Levite whom Micah appointed his priest (Judg. xvii. 10) was a lineal descendant of Moses (xviii. 30). It may be inferred that the priest- hood in pre-prophetic times traced its origin and descent to Moses. 2 i Sam. i. 3. 3 Thus Saul consulted Ahijah (i Sam. xiv. 3, 18), David Abiathar, and afterwards Zadok and Ira (i Sam. xxii. 20; 2 Sam. xv. 24 f., xx. 26). 4 Cp. Deut. xxxiii. 9, 10. How the priesthood became connected with the tribe of Levi is a matter of great obscurity. See Baudissin in DB, IV. , s.v. ' Priests and Levites. ' 8 See Robertson Smith, O. T. in Jewish Church, p. 292. 8 Ibid. p. 287. On different modes of consulting the oracle see Kautzsch, DB, v. 663. Ill] From Moses to Samuel 49 soothsayer, was usually consulted in reference to common incidents of every-day life,, but the functions of the seer, whatever they may have been, were quickly merged in those of the priesthood, and the very name was apparently disused at an early date 1 . The type of worship which prevailed during the pre- prophetic period gives us perhaps the clearest Worship in r . . the age of the idea of the conception which the ancient judges. Israelite formed of Jahveh. Its character was remarkably simple. In its essential elements, the worship was identical with that which had, according to ancient Semitic usage, been customary in Canaan before the arrival of the Hebrews. The land was already rich in ' high places ' (b&motK). Almost every town had its sanctuary crowning a neighbouring hill-top. At these ' holy places ' there usually existed a primitive altar of earth or of unhewn stones* on which gifts were presented to the deity, whose presence was symbolised sometimes by a tree or group of trees, more frequently by an 'asherah or a massebah, in some cases by both emblems. Occasionally images of wood or stone (pesilint) were employed in worship ; in process of time these became more elaborate. The primitive image was replaced either by an J ephod, which was apparently a wooden figure covered with plates of precious metal 3 , or by a molten image (massekah}. The form of these images in pre-prophetic times is uncertain, but most probably the type which tended to prevail in ancient Israel was the figure of an ox 4 . In some 1 i Samuel ix. 9. 2 Exod. xx. 24, 25. An altar of hewn stones was probably first erected by Solomon. The touch of an iron implement was for a long time regarded as profaning the altar. 3 See Smend, p. 41. The word appears to mean 'something thrown over.' It perhaps meant originally the garment with which the image was clothed, and so (by extension) the image itself. 4 The practice of worshipping Jahveh under the form of an ox or bull was probably derived from the Canaanites. Num. xxiii. 22, xxiv. 8 seem O. 4 5o Religion of Israel [CHAP. shrines teraphim (probably of human form) were placed beside the 'ephod\ Worship was as a rule the concern of a clan or community, and the offering of sacrifice at a local sanctuary was an occasion of public festivity. The head of a family, or the chief personage in a particular district, usually took the lead in the ceremony. The flesh of the victim furnished provision for a social meal. Sacrifice was not regarded as in any sense an act of propitiation, but rather as a means of renewing the bond of fellowship which united Jahveh to His worshippers. The ritual of the sacrifice was simple enough. The victim was slain, and the blood, as the portion assigned to the deity, was smeared on the altar or poured out at its foot. The whole of the flesh was consumed by the assembled worshippers, with accessories such as bread and wine the occasion being one of merriment and hilarity. The whole act of worship was in fact essentially social 2 , and portions were distributed freely among those present, whether rich or poor 3 . The existence of some sort of hall or building for the holding of the sacrificial feast seems to be implied in i Sam. ix. 22, but buildings for worship were only necessary where there were images. The ark of Jahveh seems to have been sheltered since the time of Moses by a tent, and it was to a tent erected on the hill to suggest that the idea associated with that of the ox was that of creative power or victorious strength. Cp. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 220. Possibly the cult of the brazen serpent was carried on in Judah during this period. 1 See Judg. xvii. 5 ; Hos. iii. 4. Possibly the word teraphim denotes only a single image in some passages, e.g. i Sam. xix. 13. The kissing of the idols by the worshippers is mentioned in i Kings xix. t8 and Hos. xiii. 2. 3 If private persons wished to pay their own 'vows' or 'free- will-' or 'thank-offerings' they would reserve their offerings for some one of the recognised religious feasts, at which their duty might be most conveniently discharged. Cp. i Sam. i. 3, 21. 8 See among other passages i Sam. ix. 12 foil., x. 3, xx. 6 ; 2 Sam. vi. 19 ; Amos iv. 5. Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, pp. 236 foil. Ill] From Moses to Samuel 51 of Zion that David transferred it (2 Sam. vii. 6; vi. 17). The worship thus briefly described, apart from its later accessories, was really a permanent relic of Israel's nomadic life, for slain sacrifice (zebacli) followed by the consumption of the victim at a social meal was in fact the most primitive kind of offering 1 . A later kind of oblation, which no doubt became customary when the Hebrews had exchanged the nomadic for the agricultural life 2 , was the minchah or 'cereal offering.' This was looked upon as a sacred tribute paid to the Deity and taken from the fruits of the soil of which He was the giver. These two kinds of oblation the slain sacrifice and the minchah made up the sum of ordinary religious observances among the Israelites, though the whole burnt-offering was not entirely unknown 3 . The difference between them was that in the case of the zebach the greater portion of the victim's flesh was consumed by the worshippers, whereas the minchah was wholly made over to the Deity and became the perquisite of the priests attached to the sanctuary 4 . The minchah was ordinarily accompanied by a drink-offering (nesek] of wine or oil. There were few fixed times of sacrifice in ancient Israel, and these seem to have had originally no special relation to the worship of Jahveh. The arrival of a guest was a usual occasion for a sacrifice followed by a feast 5 . The new moon was generally observed, for instance by the family 1 The consumption of the victim either whole or in part by fire belongs to a time when spiritual ideas were somewhat more developed. On the one hand the flesh of the victim came to be regarded as too holy for human consumption ; on the other, the use of fire was looked upon as a convenient mode of conveying to the deity, in an etherialised form, his share of the sacrificial food. Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 218. 8 Cp. Exod. xxii. 29, xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26. 3 See, for instance, Judg. vi. 18 foil., xiii. 19 foil. ; i Sam. xiii. 9 foil. 4 Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, pp. 221 foil. Cp. 2 Kings xxiii. 9. 5 See Judg. vi. 18. 42 52 Religion of Israel [CHAP. of Jesse at Bethlehem 1 . The three agricultural feasts or 'pil- grimages/ which were traditional in Canaan and connected with different stages of the harvest, were obvious occasions of sacrifice : the feast of Massoth, when the first-fruits were ga- thered 2 , the feast of weeks, marking the completion of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering when the remaining produce of the soil was brought in 3 . To these may be added the occasion of sheep-shearing". The Sabbath was evidently regarded in pre-prophetic times as a day of cessation from labour, and probably of special worship, and the injunction to observe it is based on reasons of humanity 6 . We are now able to form a general idea of the religious condition of Israel before the eighth century. Summary. TIT \ c j i j Worship was of a naive and simple type and was commonly regarded as the bond which united the com- munity to Jahveh. There were elements in it, moreover, which to a great extent counteracted the tendency towards a debased nature-worship. The ' holy places ' of the Israelites as a rule had their priests, whose duty it was through the teach- ing of torah to keep alive in Israel the light of Jahveh (Isai. ii. 5). Of religious life, properly speaking, there was little. The habitual mood of the people was one of cheerful confidence in the favour of their national Deity. The Hebrews were on the whole a vigorous, prosperous, and liberty-loving people, and 1 i Sam. xx. 5 foil. Cp. Isai. i. 13. The passage in i Sam. xx. shows that though the tribes had long been united in the worship of Jahveh yet the clans still maintained their annual sacra gentilitia at which all the clansmen were bound to be present. Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 258. 2 With the feast of Massoth (' unleavened cakes ') the Passover was apparently combined (Deut. xiv. 23, xvi. i). The Passover seems origin- ally to have been the occasion when the firstlings of the flocks and herds were presented at the sanctuary. Cp. Exod. xxxiv. 19. 8 Exod. xxiii. 16; Judg. ix. 27, xxi. 19. 4 i Sam. xxv. u. 8 Exod. xxiii. 12, xxxiv. 21. Cp. 2 Kings iv. 23; Hos. ii. it; Amos viii. 5. Ill] From Moses to Samuel 53 the sanguine tone of their national life was reflected in their worship. Accordingly we find no trace of special offerings of propitiation at this period'. We read of money-payments in satisfaction for transgressions payments with which a man ' covered ' his sin, and which were duly made to the priests who acted as judges*. But the development of piacular sacrifice was apparently the outcome of a later (the seventh) century, when the pressure of disaster and social distress led to a certain change of attitude towards Jahveh the old joyous confidence yielding to an abiding sense of the divine displeasure. In the pre-prophetic period when things went well the Hebrews had no strong sense of shortcoming. They felt that on the whole Jahveh was well disposed towards them and that He might be trusted to take their part in time of need 3 . Hence it was that in days of distress the popular expectation was directed towards a day of Jahveh a day when He would signally manifest His favour to His people in the discomfiture of their enemies. Indeed we gather from the writings of Amos that this popular belief had by his time degenerated into a crass and delusive fatalism 4 . It was, however, ' a national not a personal providence that was taught by ancient religion 5 .' Individual men in their hours of perplexity or distress found little comfort in the essentially 1 It was part of the imperfection incidental to the early conception of Jahveh that His wrath was regarded as more or less capricious and un- accountable. In time of distress, when Jahveh seemed to withhold His aid, Israel was fain to wait patiently till its cry reached the ears* of Jahveh and moved Him to pity. There was very little sense of personal or national sinfulness. At the same time the sacrificial feast served for atonement in so far as it removed all possible causes of estrangement between God and the worshippers. Cp. i Sam. iii. 14, xxvi. 19; and see Smend, p. 127. 2 Cp. Exod. xxi. 30; i Sam. vi. 3 ; 2 Kings xii. 16; Amos ii. 8; Hos. iv. 8. 3 Such passages as Num. xxiii. 24, Deut. xxxiii. 29 perhaps reflect this mood. They are evidently the outcome of a consciousness of prosperity and of recent success in war. 4 Amos v. 1 8 foil. * Rel. of the Semites, p. 246. 54 Religion of Israel [CHAP. Ill social worship of their fellows. They were tempted to seek the aid of wizards or soothsayers, and to rely on magical ceremonies. Certain usages, such as consulting the dead and offering them sacrifices, seem to have survived to a late period 1 . In Deut. xviii. 10 foil, we have a list of the different agencies from which men might be tempted to seek counsel or succour. But the spirit of the Mosaic religion always tended to exclude these heathenish arts, as inconsistent with faith in the wise and merciful providence of Israel's God 2 . 1 Cp. i Sam. xxviii. 3 foil., and see Schultz, 0. T. Theology, pp. 253, 254; Smend, p. 112 note. 2 The sense of a 'particular providence' is, however, strikingly present in some of the narratives of Genesis, especially perhaps in those of E. See, for instance, Gen. xxi. 1720, xxxi. 5 9, xxxii. i, xxxv. 3, xlv. 5 8, xlviii. 15, 16. In this connection we should perhaps notice the belief in angels and angelic ministry which is a feature of the Hexateuchal narratives J and E. CHAPTER IV. SAMUEL AND HIS WORK. THE type of religion described in the last chapter was that which the prophets of the eighth century found firmly esta- blished among their countrymen. But for a long period influences had been at work which tended to modify and expand the popular conception of Jahveh and His require- ment. As often happens in the history of religion, the efforts of a single individual gave a new impulse and direction to the religious tendencies of the time. In the book of Jeremiah Samuel is classed with Moses as one of Jahveh's most zealous and devoted servants 1 . It was to him that Israel practically owed two of its characteristic institutions prophetism and the monarchy. Samuel was in all probability himself a Nazirite 2 , and he grew to manhood at the central sanctuary of JSJSJJJJJ Shiloh. It has been already pointed out that Naziritism was the outcome of a certain reaction against the worship and customs of Canaan. The Nazirites were regarded by the prophets as a class of men specially raised up by Jahveh to keep alive in Israel the true knowledge of His will 3 . In the case of Samson, the Na'zirite vow was combined with active service in arms against the Philistine 1 Jerem. xv. i ; cp. Ps. xcix. 6. 2 See i Sam. i. n. * Amos ii. n. 56 Religion of Israel [CHAP. oppressors of Israel. Samuel exercised a deeper and more permanent, because a more spiritual, influence on his country- men. As a Nazirite he was a not less ardent patriot than Samson, nor less hostile to foreign domination and alien customs. But as a ' prophet ' he held a foremost place among those whose work was more distinctively religious. According to the earliest account Samuel was a ' seer ' (r C P- Num. xxxv. 31) ; and purification from sin is required even after physical defilement, e.g. contact with a corpse (Num. xix. 12 foil.). 2 See, for instance, the rules relating to the ministry of the priests in Levit. xxi. 3 Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 325. 4 DB, s.v. ' Holiness.' Cp. Levit. xi. 44, xix. 2, xx. 7, 26, xxi. 8. VIII] The Beginnings of Jitdaism 133 Hence P describes even the primitive ' tent ' of the wilderness as having stood in the midst of the camp 1 , the priests being stationed round about it, and, at a distance more or less remote, the various tribes. Admission to the sanctuary depends upon ritual purity, and hence it follows that one class of men is regarded as ' nearer ' to God than another, and that approach to God can only be gained through the mediation of an official class or order. The sign of membership in the holy community was cir- cumcision. Thus a new significance was attached Circumcision. . to a rite which had comparatively little religious importance before the exile 2 . The age of circumcision was fixed at eight days, in order that the child might be ' dedicated as early as possible to the God who was to be its protector through life 3 .' Circumcision was required even of aliens, as a condition of their taking part in the great religious festivals 4 . On the other hand, a circumcised person forfeited all rights and incurred the penalty of death by any open breach of his covenant-obligations (e.g. blasphemy, or profanation of the Sabbath 5 ). For minor ritual offences he incurred the threat of being 'cut off' from Israel a sentence which, while it implied that even ritual offences deserved death, yet left open the possibility of some milder penalty, such as excom- munication, being inflicted 6 . 1 Contrast Ex. xxxiii. 7 n and Num. xi. 24 26 (J). 2 Jeremiah seems to depreciate circumcision in such passages as iv. 3, vi. 10, and ix. 25. Cp. Levit. xxvi. 41. By contrasting the fleshly rite with circumcision of 'heart' and 'ears,' the prophets gave an impulse to the later symbolical interpretation of the rite. Cp. Driver on Genesis, p. 190. 3 Driver, I.e. 4 Ex. xii. 44, 48 (P). 5 Levit. xxiv. 10 foil. ; Num. xv. 32 foil. 6 Cp. Gen. xvii. 14 (neglecting circumcision), Levit. vii. 27 (eating blood), xvii. 9 (irregularity in offering a sacrifice), xxiii. 29 (neglecting the fast of the day of atonement), Num. ix. 13 (non-observance of the passover). See also Exod. xii. 19, xxx. 33 ; Num. xix. 13, 20, etc. 134 Religion of Israel [CHAP. The maintenance of the covenant-relationship between God and Israel, and the renewal of it when broken, fication. f P " r were tne bj ect of that elaborate system of puri- fication which is a peculiar feature of the Priestly Code. Ritual defilement might arise from various causes, e.g. the eating of 'unclean' food, contact with leprosy or a dead body, besides various natural processes or accidents, such as childbirth and other purely physical functions 1 . All species of ' uncleanness ' disqualified a person for approach to God. The unclean person was ipso facto excluded from the holy community till he was purged by lustration and sacrifice. The Levitical ordinances of purification are to be regarded as sur- vivals from a circle of ideas which were characteristic of the primitive religion of the Semites and indeed of the crudest forms of pre-historic heathenism. The retention and systemati- sation in P of what is best described by the word taboo, is connected with the notion that things or processes which man regards with aversion or disgust are also offensive to the Deity. It is obvious, however, that such ' externalisation of holiness ' is not strictly consistent with the genius of a spiritual religion 2 . The requirement of ' holiness ' naturally finds its climax in regulations concerning the priesthood. The hood^ neSt " obscure word kohen may possibly mean 'servant,' 'one who stands before a superior.' It is the special privilege of the Levitical priest that he ' stands before ' Jahveh 3 ; accordingly he must be without blemish 4 . He is re- stricted in regard to his choice of a wife, and is not suffered to defile himself for the dead, except in the case of very near kindred. If unclean from any cause, the priest must separate himself 1 Levit. chh. xi. xv. 2 Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 329. On the origin and rationale of laws of taboo and uncleanness see W. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, esp. the last lecture. See also the article 'Unclean, Uncleanness,' by A. S. Peake in Hastings' DB. 8 So Baudissin in DB, IV. p. 67. 4 Levit. xxi. 16 foil. VI 1 1] The Beginnings of Judaism 135 from contact with holy things'. Thus the different grades of purity corresponded to the position and functions of different classes of persons. In the case of the Levites no higher degree of purity was exacted than in that of ordinary laymen, since the Levites were virtually the representatives of the laity, 'given to God ' for the service of the sanctuary 2 . On the other hand, the requirement in the case of the High Priest was even more strict than in that of the rank and file of the priesthood 3 . The holiness of Israel, as has been already implied, cul- minated in the holiness of the priests. The com- Le'vites 3 "' 1 munity had its official hierarchy, the organisation of which is fully described in the Priestly Code. In Deuteronomy there is apparently no distinction between priests and Levites ; the usual phrase employed in the book is ' the priests the Levites,' or ' the Levite priests.' The original connection of the priesthood with the tribe of Levi is a matter of great obscurity. It has been suggested that ' Levite ' was once the official term for a priest 4 . The link between Deute- ronomy and the Priestly Code is furnished by Ezekiel, who in ch. xliv. directs that those Levites who had officiated at the ancient high places should be excluded from the priesthood, and serve only as inferior ministers or assistants to the regular priesthood (i.e. the descendants of Zadok) at Jerusalem 5 . In P, however, the distinction between priests and Levites is traced back to the time of Moses, and it is further accentuated than in the program of Ezekiel. The hierarchy of P includes three grades of ministers. In the lowest rank stood the Levites or Temple-servitors, 'given 6 ' to the priests (or 'to Jahveh') 1 Levit. xxii. 2. 2 Num. iii. 9, xviii. 6. 3 Levit. xxi. 10 foil. 4 Thus Aaron is called 'the Levite' Ex. iv. 14. Baudissin (in DB, s. v.. 'Priests and Levites') suggests that in Num. xviii. 2, 4 we have an explanation of the word, lewi being connected with latvah ' to attach oneself.' But this seems unsatisfactory. 5 Ezek. xliv. 10 17. 8 nethtiniin, Num. iii. 9. The word nethtnim in Ezra and Nehemiah 136 Religion of Israel [CHAP. for the service of the sanctuary. Their duties were the slaughter of sacrificial victims, washing of the parts to be con- sumed on the altar, the care of the sanctuary, and the bearing of the ark and other sacred furniture when carefully covered by the priests. Above the Levites ranked the priests, the descendants of Zadok 1 . Their functions were henceforth (after the exile) almost exclusively ritual and ceremonial. They alone had the right of entry into the ' holy place ' ; on them devolved the duty of actually presenting the sacrifices, the sprinkling of the sacri- ficial blood, the offering of incense, the care of the lamp and the table of shewbread. They also discharged certain public and quasi-judicial functions, e.g. the pronouncing of persons clean or unclean 2 , but otherwise the ancient duty of giving torah practically passed away from the priesthood, now that the Law existed in a systematic and codified form. Above the priests stood the ' High ' or ' Great Priest,' sometimes called ' the Anointed Priest 3 .' In him culminated the 'holiness' of the community. To him alone belonged the right of entry into the ' Holy of holies.' While the simple dress of the ordinary priest was emblematic of the purity that befitted his office, the vesture of the High Priest shone with the splendour of one who was glorified, as it were, by his peculiar nearness to Deity. He stood ' above the people ' as their representative in things Pertaining to God, and as the organ and instrument of the denotes foreign Temple-servants. Obs. the position of the Levites is not regarded by P as due to any fault, but as an original arrangement of Moses. Contrast Ezek. xliv. 10 foil. 1 P identifies the ' sons of Zadok ' with the ' sons of Aaron ' in order perhaps to admit other descendants of Aaron to priestly rights. 2 Cp. Ezek. xliv. 23; Lev. x. 10, n. 3 See p. 128, note 2. The phrase 'High Priest' occurs first in Hag. i. 14 ; Zech. iii. 8. It is noteworthy that Ezekiel in his ideal program does not seem to contemplate a spiritual head of the hierarchy. The 'prince' of Ezek. xlv., xlvi. is clearly the political representative of the nation, and has no sacerdotal functions assigned him. Vlil] The Beginnings of Judaism 137 heavenly King. His office gained additional dignity and prestige from the fact that it was held for life and was hereditary. The religious organisation of Israel, thus briefly described, closely corresponded to the fundamental thought of a theo- cracy. Jahveh Himself was looked upon as the ruler and guardian of the holy people, exercising His sovereignty and declaring His will through the mediation of the priesthood. The community on its side fulfilled its covenant-obligations and maintained its covenant-.y/tf/w.y partly by the system of sacrifice, partly by strict observance of the laws regulating ceremonial purity. The community approached God through its official representatives. The Priestly Code does not con- ceive the relation of the individual to Jahveh as immediate. The individual Israelite only approaches God, is only accepted by Him, as a member of a community, from which, by neglect of the prescribed conditions, he cuts himself off. 2. Worship. By far the largest part of the Priestly Code is devoted to the regulation of the cultus. Sacrifice was henceforth the appointed means by which Israel was to realise its special privileges as a people admitted to communion with the Most High. In the pre-exilic period the most frequent offerings were those which were accompanied by a sacred meal. In fact the slaughter of animals for food was a religious act, and the necessary preliminary for a social feast ; accordingly, sacrifices were usually offered at the three yearly festivals. The effect of the Deuteronomic reformation had been to secularise the slaughter of animals, since the new code prohibited the offering of sacrifice elsewhere than at the central sanctuary. This last provision was of course a conspicuous and indispensable feature of the restored ritual. The main concern of the Priestly Code is no longer with sacrifice regarded as the free-will offering of an individual or a clan, but with sacrifice in its national aspect as 138 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the solemn public service of a consecrated community. In pre-exilic times the Temple had been to a great extent the shrine not of the nation, but of the capital, or, to speak more strictly, of the reigning monarch 1 . But in the age of the restoration, the Temple became the centre of the national life, and hence- forth the chief function of Israel, now organised as a religious community, was sacrificial worship. That which in the eyes of the prophets was relatively unimportant in comparison with moral obedience, now became the outward symbol and ex- pression of Israel's obedience to the divine Law. On a general survey of the law of sacrifice 2 , we notice that the ancient observances connected with it are for the most part remodelled and re-enforced. Certain heathen elements which had gradually found their way into the ritual were either abolished or invested with new significance. The forms of worship in old Israel had varied in different localities. The newly regulated cultus was comparatively speaking simple and uniform. Admitting of no variations, it was well calculated to serve as an object-lesson to Israel; it suggested the spiritual truths which underlay a divinely-regulated system. Nihil enim vacuum neque sine signo apud Deutn*. The traditional materials of sacrifice remained unaltered : the flesh of calves, goats, sheep, lambs, pigeons and doves ; the chief products of the soil, meal or flour, wine and oil 4 . Further, the precise occasions when sacrifice was to be offered, the manner to be observed, the age, sex, and condition of the victim, the disposal of the various parts all these things were minutely prescribed. For our present purpose it is only necessary to mention the most promi- nent features of the system, in so far as they illustrate the religious and moral conceptions of the post-exilic period. 1 Ezekiel (xlv.) seems to contemplate a severance of the palace from the sanctuary. 2 Lev. chh. i. vii. 3 Iren. ffaer. IV. 21. 3. 4 Incense does not seem to have been used in early pre-exilic times. At any rate the use of it was now greatly extended ; indeed, it was ordered by the Law to be solemnly offered twice daily (Ex. xxx. 7 foil.). VII i] The Beginnings of Judaism 139 The most striking feature of the Levitical system is the important place assigned to piacular sacrifice. facrifi 1 ^ ^" ne jy usness f primitive worship was charac- teristic of an age in which the sense of sin was very slightly developed ; the sacrificial cultus of ancient Israel corresponded to the primitive conditions of agricultural life. The sin-offering in its later sense was almost, if not quite, un- known. Sacrifice was either an act of communion, expressive of a cheerful sense of the Divine favour, or an act of homage in which a gift was conveyed to the Deity. The distresses and perils of the seventh century, however, led to the gradual development of a more sombre type of worship. The cata- strophe of the exile, pointed by the warnings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, gave a powerful stimulus to the sense of sin. During this age, it has been truly said, ' the problem of acceptance with' God exercised every thoughtful mind V Hence in Ezekiel's program and in the Levitical code the element of atonement is specially prominent. The idea of the expiation of sin modified the ordinary conceptions of worship ; and even ancient forms of sacrifice were invested with new significance in proportion as men came to realise more vividly the inviolable holiness of Jahveh, the sinfulness of man, and the need of priestly mediation in the approach to God. The sin-offering is thus an institution distinctive of the Levitical cultus. In the order of thought, indeed, and in rela- tion to covenant-fellowship with God, the sin-offering is followed by the burnt-offering, and that again by the peace-offering 2 ; but in the book of Leviticus the order of treatment is as follows : the burnt-offering, the peace-offering, the sin-offering. (a) The Burnt-offering ("V^) was apparently known, but was not very frequent, in early times. The The burnt- earliest sacrifice was that in which a tribe or offering. family held communion with the Deity by sharing 1 W. Robertson Smith, 0. T. in J. C. p. 380. 2 Cp. Smend, p. 127. See generally Lev. chh. i., ii. 140 Religion of Israel [CHAP. with Him a common meal 1 . The holocaust was probably a later development. It arose in times when the tribal deity was regarded rather with anxious fear than with confidence. To win or retain his favour it was felt that an offering of peculiar value was necessary, and the essential idea of the burnt-offering was originally that of paying a costly tribute to the Divine king. Accordingly, this was an exceptional form of sacrifice, expressive of some special feeling of devotion or self-surrender. Its central feature, as the alternative name 'Y? implies, was the entire consumption of the victim by fire on the altar. In the Le- vitical system the burnt-offering occupied an important place, for the principal act of worship in the Temple was the daily or continual burnt-offering 2 , consisting in the oblation of a spotless lamb every morning and evening. Around this as a centre were grouped the prayers and praises of Israel. Probably the oblation of incense was simultaneously kindled in the Holy Place. Together with the burnt-offering were presented the minchah, 'meal-offering,' a portion of which, called 'the me- morial,' was burned on the altar, and the nesek, or 'drink-offering' of wine. On sabbaths and great festivals the number of victims was increased. The daily burnt-offering was in fact looked upon as an act of national homage to Jahveh, and its cessation was supposed to involve the practical suspension of public worship 3 . (b) In the book of Leviticus the law of the Peace-offering is dealt with next in order 4 . Of this there were several varieties; the thank-offering, the free-will offering, the offering in fulfil- ment of a vow. In ancient times the chief feature of the zebachim was the sacred meal in which the god of the tribe, the officiating priest and the offerer together with his friends 1 It may occasionally have had the significance of a thank-oftering, or even of an atoning sacrifice. Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, p. 329. 2 "Ptpjjl, Ex. xxix. 42; Num. xxviii. 3. 3 Dan. viii. u foil., xi, 31, xii. n. 4 Lev. chh. iii. , vii. vin] The Beginnings of Judaism 141 were supposed to participate. According to the legal ordi- nance, the inner fat portions, in which the sacred life was believed specially to reside, were burned upon the altar as the portion appropriated to the Deity; the 'wave-breast' was the perquisite of the whole body of the priests, the 'heave-shoulder' being assigned to the officiating priest 1 . All that remained was consumed by the offerer and his friends on the day of sacrifice. It is noteworthy, however, that the Levitical law lays the chief stress on the ritual of the sacrifice, while the sacred meal is withdrawn entirely into the background 2 . (c) Piacular sacrifice is, as has been already said, the most distinctive feature of the Levitical system. The language of Ezekiel implies that it was already known, but probably the old 'sin-' and 'trespass-offerings' originally consisted in money- payments made to the priests 3 . Its general purpose was to restore the covenant- communion between God and the wor- shipper which might have been interrupted even by an in- voluntary transgression. Two species of sacrifice are mentioned in the Law: (i) the sin-offering (DKian) for involuntary tres- passes 4 , (2) the guilt-offering (D^), which apparently implied some intentional fraud admitting of compensation some in- fraction of the rights of ownership, or some withholding from God of His due. The distinction between these two classes is not very clear ; possibly it corresponds to the double aspect of sin, regarded on the one hand as demanding expiation, on the other as admitting to a certain extent of restitution. The kind of victim varied according to the grade of the offerer or the magnitude of the offence. The sacrifice was preceded by a verbal confession of guilt, uttered by the worshipper leaning upon the victim's head. The chief feature, however, was the 1 On the significance of 'waving' and 'heaving,' see Oehler, 0. T. Theology, 133; Willis, The Worship of the Old Covenant, pp. 175 foil. 2 Contrast Lev. vii. 14, 15 with Deut. xii. n 25. 3 Cp. i Sam. vi. 3 foil., and 2 Kings xii. 16. See Ezek. xl. 39, xlii. 13, etc. 4 Lev. iv. 142 Religion of Israel [CHAP. ceremonial sprinkling of the blood at spots to which belonged different degrees of sanctity implying different stages of nearness to God. In the case of the other sacrifices the blood was simply poured out at the foot of the altar ; but in the case of the sin-offering it was solemnly sprinkled either on the horns of the altar, or (when carried into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement) upon and before the mercy-seat. The flesh of the victim was withdrawn from common use, as a thing too holy for ordinary food. It was to be eaten in the sanctuary by the priests 1 - The effect of the sin-offering is described in the phrase ' to make atonement' (lit. to make a covering) for the offender. In token of the sinner's dedication of the victim to this office he was ordered to press his hand on its head 2 . This significant act, coupled with the requirement of an unblemished victim and with the ceremonial sprinkling of its blood, seems to imply that the offender relied for the renewal of covenant-fellowship with God on the blood (i.e. on the life) of the victim 3 , which Jahveh accepted as a substitute for the life of the offerer. The blood or life of the animal was the medium of atonement. As offered by the sinner it expressed his penitence, and his sub- mission to the penalties of sin ; as accepted by Jahveh it ' covered ' the sinner's guilt. The blood, being the seat of life, was the most precious gift that man could offer a gift which was supposed to render invisible the sin in expiation of which it was presented 4 . 1 Lev. vi. 24 foil.; x. 17. 2 On this custom (semichah} see Schultz, O. T. Theology, \. 391 [E. T.]: ' By the laying on of his hand the sacrificer dedicates each victim as his own property to some higher object, that object of course varying ac- cording to the intention with which he offers the sacrifice. Thus in the case of a sin-offering he dedicates it as a means of atonement for himself, in order that it may be the bearer and instrument of his repentance.' So Marti, p. 229. 3 See Lev. xvii. ir. * On the word "1g3 see the art. on ' Propitiation ' in Hastings' DB. Vlli] The Beginnings of Judaism 143 The frequency of sin-offerings was a kind of object-lesson Effect of to I srae l> awakening and deepening the conscious- piacuiar ness of sin, and suggesting (as some of the Psalms indicate) the need of Divine grace to effect a true and complete cleansing of heart. On the other hand, there was an obvious danger of confusion between ritual and moral offences. The constant testimony of prophecy that the moral law only was the law of God, was practically ignored in the elaborate system of Levitical atonement. The least ritual offence was regarded as defiling the sanctuary, and every such transgression must be carefully expiated lest Jahveh should be again provoked to forsake His desecrated dwelling-place in Israel's midst. The entire system of piacular sacrifice cul- minates in the observances of the Day of Atonement. 3. Ceremonies of purification. The object aimed at in the various rites of purification enjoined by the Law was to qualify the individual Israelite for taking his part in the services of the sanctuary, and to maintain his fellowship with the holy community. If by any mischance he had incurred defilement, a special ceremony was necessary for his restoration to purity. Everything relating to sexual conditions or to death involved defilement ; the disease of leprosy demanded special rites of purification ; and a Nazirite who had 'separated himself to God for a certain period, was liable to accidents which might interrupt the fulfilment of his vow and necessitate consequent purgation. The chief means of purification was of course the cere- monial use of water. In minor instances of personal unclean- ness, the washing of the body and a short period of seclusion from the congregation were sufficient. In the case of that The idea is that the blood of the sin-offering withdraws the sin from God's sight, annuls it, and so reinstates the sinner in His favour. In such pas- sages as Is. vi. 7, Jer. xviii. 23 it is God Himself who 'covers' the sin, i.e. removes it from His sight. 144 Religion of Israel [CHAP. higher degree of impurity which was incurred through contact Ordinance w ^ a dead body, certain ' water of separation ' ' of the red was ordered to be used. It consisted of pure water mingled with the ashes of a red heifer, which was slain and wholly burnt, together with cedar wood, scarlet wool and hyssop, outside the camp. The ashes were laid up in a 'clean' place apart from the camp, to be mingled with fresh water and used as occasion might require 2 . In this case, as in some others, we have an ordinance which is doubt- less a survival from primitive ritual ; but, like other rites, the law of the red heifer receives a higher symbolic significance in the Levitical code. The heifer was regarded as a special kind of sin-offering, and the whole ordinance vividly impressed on the community the necessity of moral purity for approach to God. In the same way the ceremonies used for the cleansing of the leper 3 symbolised the restoration of the sinner, not merely from a living death, but from a condition of hopeless defilement to a state of purity. 4. Holy seasons. It remains to say something of the chief holy seasons (md'adim) prescribed in the Levitical law. The older feasts are incorporated in the calendar of the Priestly Code, but speaking broadly a fresh significance is given to them. They are altered both in general character and in ceremonial details ; feasts which were originally connected with agriculture become purely ecclesiastical 4 . The Sabbath, for instance, held a place of far greater impor- tance after the exile than it did in earlier times. It became henceforth a token of membership in the holy community 8 . 1 i.e. water to remove uncleanness. Kautzsch suggests that the pollu- tion supposed to be involved in contact with death is to be explained by ' the consciousness that at least part of the mourning and burial customs had their root in another religion,' DB, V. 614. 2 Num. xix. 3 Lev. xiv. Cp. Smend, p. 328. 4 Lev, xxiii. 5 See Exod. xxxi. 12 17, xxxv. j 3; Lev, xxiii. 3. vin] The Beginnings of Judaism 145 Its origin was explained no longer from a human but from a Divine standpoint. It was a solemn commemoration of the rest of God after the work of creation 1 . Hence it was far more rigorously observed than formerly. Even the slightest infringement of the Sabbath rest was punishable by death 3 . The Sabbath was in fact no longer a social, but a purely religious observance. Connected with the Sabbath were the sabbatical year and the year of jubilee. The latter institution is peculiar to P, and there is no evidence that it was ever anything more than an ideal arrangement, intended to enforce the idea that Israel's territory belonged by right to Jahveh 3 . But the principal object of the ordinance was to recall to Israel's memory that aspect of Jahveh's character which had been earliest made known to the chosen people. ' The God who once redeemed His people from Egypt and acquired them as His possession here appears again as a redeemer 4 ,' restoring to the bondman his liberty and mortgaged property to its hereditary possessor. That it had a spiritual significance we may infer from the fact that the year of jubilee was to be proclaimed by sound of trumpets on the Day of Atonement. Possibly the writer of Isaiah ch. Ixi. alludes to the year of jubilee as typical of the Messianic age 5 . The feast of the new moon was only observed with special solemnity in the case of the seventh month (Tisri], which was the first month of the civil year. The opening day of this month was called the feast of Trumpets 6 . The three ancient festivals or ' pilgrimage feasts ' (chaggini) of the agricultural year were retained in the Levitical law, but with some change of character. The Priestly Code contains scarcely any reminiscence of 1 Cp. Gen. ii. i foil. (P), and Ex. xx. ir foil, with Deut. v. 15. 2 Num. xv. 32 foil. 3 Lev. xxv. 8. 4 Oehler, 152. 5 Cp. Lk. iv. 21 ; Heb. iv. 9. 6 Lev. xxiii. 23 foil. O. 10 146 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the real origin of the Passover. Among the ancient Hebrews the Pesach, like the ' sheep-shearing,' was apparently an annual feast, observed in the spring season. It had originally no doubt a certain piacular significance, one of its principal features being the presentation at the sanctuary, and the oblation in sacrifice, of the firstlings of the flock and herd 1 . This ancient observance had features in common with each of the three species of offering. It was a sacrifice of atone- ment, the blood being sprinkled on the altar; parts of the victim were wholly consumed by fire as in the burnt-offering, and the sacrifice was followed by a sacred meal. In P, how- ever, the details of the Passover are definitely connected with the traditional incidents of the exodus. The ancient feast of Massoth, which originally folloived the Pesach and had a distinct significance 2 , is regarded by P as an integral part of it; the domestic character of the celebration is subor- dinated to the purpose of a national commemoration. ' The sacred meal has really become a sacrament, a covenant-meal, at which the members of the holy congregation ... meet together to commemorate the national deliverance 3 .' The public offer- ings take the place of private sacrifices. Thus in New Testament times the Passover had simply acquired a national significance. The feast of Pentecost or Weeks* originally marked the close of the wheat-harvest. It retains in P its primary characteristics as a feast of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth. It was only in post-biblical times that it was supposed to have had some original connection with the delivery of the 1 It is called Zebach in Ex. xii. 27, xxxiv. 25 (JE), and Korban in Num. ix. 7 foil. (P) ; the bitter herbs and the sprinkling of the victim's blood point to a primitive sacrifice of atonement, intended perhaps to secure the divine blessing on the coming harvest. Cp. Schultz, \. 364. 2 The feast of Massoth perhaps inaugurated the harvest the first swing of the sickle (Lev. xxiii. 10). The Pesach was a sacrifice preceding the harvest. The two feasts naturally occurred at about the same period. 3 Schultz, I. 364. 4 Ex. xxxiv. 22. vni] The Beginnings of Judaism 147 Law by Moses on Sinai. The close relation of the feast to the Passover was emphasised by the ' waving ' before the Lord, and assignment to the priest, of the two loaves made from the flour of the new wheat, whereas at the Passover a single sheaf of barley was thus 'waved'.' The Passover and Pentecost marked certain stages in the uncompleted harvest. The feast of Tabernacles originally cele- brated the ingathering of the remaining produce of the soil. It was the most free and joyous of all Jewish festivals. But in P the command to dwell in booths is an antiquarian relic, and is now for the first time connected with Israel's nomadic life in the wilderness. In lieu of the tithes which seem to have been originally offered at this feast, stated sacrifices marked the day as one of religious solemnity 2 . The festival was enriched by splendid and suggestive ceremonies, e.g. the carrying of branches of palm, myrtle, willow and citron, the daily libation of water fetched from the pool of Siloam 3 , and an illumination of ' the court of the women ' on the first day of the feast. The last day (called 'Asereth*} probably marked the close of the whole annual cycle of feasts, and was some- times regarded as constituting a separate feast. An institution which overshadowed even the feasts in importance and solemnity was the Day of Atonement. Atonement ('The Day' as it was called by the later Jews), observed on the tenth day of the 1 Lev. xxiii. 10 20. 2 Josephus, Antiq. vni. 4. i , calls it the holiest and greatest of the feasts. In some passages of the O. T. it is called ' the feast.' See also Joseph. Antiq. in. 10. 4, Kill. 13. 5; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, n. 157 foil. 3 Cp. Isai. xii. 3. 4 On rmy see Ryle on Neh. viii. 18 (Camb. Bible), and White and Driver on Lev. xxiii. 36 (Polychrome Bible). In Lev. xxiii. 36 it is transl. 'solemn assembly' (R.V.) ; cp. Deut. xvi. 8. The alternative, 'closing day' (LXX. e68ioi>), has been suggested (cp. Oehler, O.T. Theology, 156), but this is unlikely. See also Jer. ix. 2; 2 K. x. 20; Am. v. 21. 148 Religion of Israel [CHAP. seventh month, five days before the feast of Tabernacles. The observance of this day stood in very close relation to the entire legal system of expiation and purification ; it ' summed up and interpreted the whole conception of sacrifices which were designed by Divine appointment to gain for man access to God 1 .' Apparently the Day of Atonement was not introduced before the time of Ezra's reforms, and its character was in keeping with the penitential temper which the exile did so much to foster. The fundamental idea of the day was that the community as a whole was defiled by sin and was thereby rendered unholy ; and that it needed some special and periodical purgation in order to restore it to its true posi- tion as the people of God 2 . The ' uncleanness ' of the people involved also that of the Levitical ministers and of the sanctuary itself; for these also an 'atonement' was necessary. Thus in the actual order of ceremonies observed on the day the reconciliation of the priesthood preceded that of the laity. The High Priest began by presenting a sin-offering for him- self and his house. The blood of the victim (a bullock) was solemnly sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat. Next a sin-offering (one of two goats, chosen by lot) was sacrificed for the people, the blood, as before, being sprinkled at the mercy-seat. The Holy Place itself was next purified by the sprinkling of the sacrificial blood on the horns of the altar of incense, and on the brazen altar of burnt-offering. Thus the separate compartments of the sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, and the outer court, were cleansed. Priest, people, and sanctuary were alike reconciled to God. Finally came the dismissal of the other goat. When the High Priest had solemnly confessed over its head the sins of the people, the goat was led away into the wilderness as devoted 1 Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 279. a An observance of this kind, and having a similar intention, is already prescribed in Ezek. xlv. 18 20, which perhaps forms the basis of the elaborate ceremonial described in Lev. xvi. VII i] The Beginnings of Judaism 149 to 'Azazet 1 . This symbolical act (like the loosing of the live bird in connection with the cleansing of the leper) was a kind of pledge or assurance given to Israel that its burden of sin was really lifted off and removed 2 . When all these cere- monies were concluded the High Priest resumed his ' golden vestments ' and offered the regular evening sacrifice an act which implied that the privilege of communion with God was once more restored to the people. The Day of Atonement formed the coping-stone, so to speak, of the whole priestly legislation. The observance of it was a comprehensive way of securing that technical ' holi- ness' which was essential for the approach to Jahveh in His sanctuary 3 . It was a guarantee of the efficacy of the entire cultus. But it also pointed beyond itself to an atoning sacrifice corresponding to the profound ideas of sin and penitence which the ordinance was calculated to suggest a sacrifice not marked, as was the Day of Atonement, by signs of imperfection 4 . It does not fall within the scope of this book to discuss 1 The meaning of this phrase is disputed. Apparently 'Azazel is neither (i) the name of a place, nor (ii) a title of the goat, 'goat for dismissal,' or ' departing goat,' as seems to be implied in the LXX. d7ro7r6yU7rcuos or ei'j TT\V airoiro/J.irr]v (Lev. xvi. 8, 10), Aq. rpayos dTroXvi/uei/os, Eng. 'scape- goat.' 'Azazel is more probably the name of a personal being or demon supposed to inhabit the wilderness (cp. Lev. xvii. 7). If so, we have here perhaps a relic of an ancient heathen rite, the demon being conceived as dXeiKa/cos, ' averter of ill.' In the Book of Enoch 'Azazel occurs as leader of the evil angels of Gen. vi. 2 4. See Book of Enoch, x. 4, with Charles' note. 2 Cp. Lev. xiv. 53. See also Zech. v. 7 foil. 3 The Atonement probably related to all the sins of the year which had not been already expiated by penitence or special piacula. Cp. Hebr. ix. 7, ayvo-fifnara. 4 e.g. (i) the necessity of being often repeated, (2) the use of the blood of irrational victims which can never take away sin, (3) the ad- mission only once in a year of Israel's representative to the Holy of Holies, and the total exclusion of the people. See Heb. ix. 1 50 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the typological significance of the Levitical system. It is certain that it must have exercised a powerful influence on Jewish thought, awakening yearnings and aspirations which nothing less or lower than the kingdom of Christ could satisfy. It is legitimate to argue from the references made to the legal ordinances in the New Testament that the system, regarded as a whole, was a vast prophecy of the Redeemer's Person and Mediatorial work. Here, however, we are only concerned with the significance and effects of the Priestly Code during the period when it was actually in vogue a period when it was above all things necessary that the Jews should jealously guard, amid the disintegrating influences that sur- rounded them, all that was really distinctive in their religion. If Judaism was with any degree of success to resist the subtle power of Hellenism it must needs consolidate its strength under the stern discipline of the Law ; in the Levitical system it must enshrine its peculiar treasure its heritage of belief in one holy, spiritual, and omnipotent God. Ezra and Nehemiah were guided by a true instinct to perceive that the Jews were not as yet sufficiently confirmed in their religion to resist the danger of absorption that was involved in the contact with heathenism ; indeed, as has been said, ' Between promise and fulfilment the law must intervene, as the strict school- master of the immature... If the spirit of the prophetic religion, its ethical monotheism, was to become the fixed inalienable possession of a whole community of people, it was necessary that it should embody itself in the sensible forms of a positive law regulating the whole life 1 .' And if it be objected that in the Levitical ritual the idea of holiness is to a great extent externalised, and that the Law in making sacrifice the principal element in the service of Jahveh undoes the work of the prophets, it may be replied, first, that in the same volume with Leviticus and Numbers 1 Pfleiderer, Gifford Lectures, vol. II. p. 52. VI 1 1] The Beginnings of Judaism 151 was incorporated the older legislation, and especially the Deuteronomic Code, which reflects the essential spirit of pro- phecy ; secondly, that the teaching of the prophets was, if not held in equal veneration, at least not less accessible to the Jew than the Law itself 1 ; thirdly, that as a matter of fact the noblest fruit of the legal discipline of Israel is to be seen rather in the warm, humble, and ardent religion of the Psalter than in the rigid scrupulosities of Pharisaism. While the strict discipline of the Law effectually suppressed the lawless, sensual, and heathenish elements of the older worship, it at the same time fostered the growth of a deep and tender personal piety, to which the law of God was an object, not of aversion and terror, but of devotion and love. 1 It should also be remembered that some passages of post-exilic pro- phecy are calculated to qualify the purely ritualistic tendency of religion at this epoch : see e.g. Isai. Iviii. 3 foil, (the true and the false fast) : cp. Joel ii. 12, 13. On the other hand the general tendency both of Joel and of Isai. Ivi. Ixvi. corresponds to the legalistic temper fostered by the elaboration of worship. CHAPTER IX. THE CONTACT OF JUDAISM WITH HELLENISM. FOR convenience' sake some bare outlines of history may be given at the opening of this chapter. In 538 "ey! Cal the empire of Babylon fell, and the Persians became for two centuries the masters of the East. By the battle of Issus in 333 the supremacy in Western Asia was transferred to Alexander of Macedon. After his death in 323 the suzerainty of Palestine was an object of dispute between Alexander's successors (the diadochi}. The Jews were at different times subject to the sway of different masters. On the whole, with a few brief intervals, Palestine was a depen- dency of Egypt and remained under the rule of the Ptolemies throughout the third century B.C. Early in the second century, however, Antiochus the Great wrested from Egypt the posses- sion of Palestine, which was incorporated in the kingdom of the Seleucidae until the outbreak of the Maccabaean struggle (198167). Accordingly, we now proceed to study the effect on Jewish thought of nearly four centuries of heathen domination. Restored to Palestine by the Persian conqueror Cyrus, the Jewish community found itself encompassed and tion of'persia. to a considerable extent invaded by heathen influences. Judaea was an insignificant province of the Persian empire, and for two centuries the Jews were at the mercy of their heathen masters. It is plain from the CH. IX] The contact of Judaism zvith Hellenism 153 writings of Haggai and Zechariah that while the rise of Persia was hailed by the Jews in exile as the signal of deliverance from hopeless bondage, the Persian yoke was speedily found to be not less galling and burdensome than that of Babylon. The Jews in Palestine enjoyed little real freedom ; their pro- ceedings as a religious community were jealously watched by the Persian satrap of the district ; they were subject not only to heavy taxation, but to enforced service in the Persian armies and to other interferences with personal liberty. In Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt large communities of Jews gradually formed themselves, closely bound to their brethren in Judaea by the ties of race, by the possession and observance of the Law, and by a common interest in the worship of the Temple at Jerusalem 1 . But for all the Jews alike this was a period of inevitable contact with non-Jewish civilisation, and it is a matter of interest to enquire what was Israel's relation to the heathen world, and what were the effects of its intercourse with the Gentiles on religious thought. In answering this question we must bear in mind that the Jew was to some extent unconsciously affected by the religious systems with which he came in contact. The religion of Persia for instance was not of the same type as the grandiose idolatry of Babylon, which excited the scorn of Deutero-Isaiah. The Persian shared with the Jew the belief in a Supreme God who was the enemy of evil and the rewarder of righteous- ness. Again, the elaborate angelology of Zoroastrianism appealed to that Jewish instinct which, while it exalted God to a position of ever higher transcendence, demanded a system of intermediary beings through whom the governance of the world and the operations of the Divine providence might be carried on. The Hebrew doctrine of a celestial host surround- 1 On the close relations subsisting between the Eastern Dispersion and their brethren in Palestine see Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, bk. i. ch. i. 154 Religion of Israel [CHAP. ing the throne of the Most High and executing His will 1 , found its counterpart in the system of Zoroaster, and there can be no doubt that Jewish angelology underwent, in post-exilic times, a marked development as the result of contact with Persian beliefs. In the books of Daniel and Tobit and 2 (or 4) Esdras angels are very prominent figures; in their functions, numbers and organisation the influence of Persia can be distinctly traced. The angels are described as ranked in a hierarchy under seven princes, having special names and functions ; there are angels who act as tutelary spirits assigned to particular nations, and angels who serve as guardians of individual men. In later literature we find angels described as present in the different elements of nature 2 . It is likewise probable that the accentuation in Persian religion of the oppo- sition between a good and evil principle tended to give dis- tinctness to the dim figure of the Old Testament ' Satan.' In post-exilic literature (Zech. iii., the book of Job, and i Chron. xxi.) we have the first distinct conception of Satan as an accuser and tempter of men and the chief representative of a dualistic hostility to God. In the later apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings there is a highly developed demono- logy which can hardly be independent of Persian influence 3 . There is less ground for thinking that the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection and of the last things has affinities with Parsism, though the connection has often been maintained. It is, however, a significant fact that this doctrine first rose into prominence during and after the ' Persian period,' and there seems to be no good reason for denying that Jewish belief on 1 For references see Oehler, O. T, Theology, 196 199. Schultz, I. 330, maintains that ' the development of angelology may be explained from purely O. T. materials.' 2 The same idea appears in Rev. xiv. 18, xvi. 5, xix. 17. On the whole subject see Fairweather in DB, v. p. 286 (art. ' Development of Doctrine'); and Moulton in DB, IV. (art. 'Zoroastrianism'). 3 This influence seems to be specially clear in the case of Tobit. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 155 the subject was developed more or less under Persian stimulus. A few minor details of the eschatology contained in certain apocalyptic books are apparently due to the same influence. At the same time there are many characteristics of later Jewish thought on these subjects which may be fairly attributed to the general tendencies of the post-exilic age, and to the fact that there were fundamental resemblances between the religions of Israel and Persia. It is needless to insist upon any large degree of mutual influence where there already existed a certain spiritual affinity. The contact of Judaism with Hellenism, on the other hand, was fruitful both in spiritual and intellectual results. Sufficient evidence of this is afforded by the Jewish- Alexandrian litera- ture belonging to the two centuries before Christ, the book of Wisdom being perhaps the most typical specimen of its class. At this point, however, we are concerned not so much with the special results that flowed from the fusion of Greek with Hebrew thought, as with the general question, What was the effect on the religion of Israel of that wider intercourse with the Gentile world which began, roughly speaking, with the return from Babylon ? We must, then, bear in mind that during and after the exile two distinct ideals contended for the mastery in MeaiT. Ct Israelitish thought. There was on the one hand the vision of the prophets, crowned by the teaching of Deutero-Isaiah the vision of a Messianic kingdom embracing the heathen nations as fellow-worshippers with Israel of the one true God. On the other hand there was the ideal of Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah the ideal of a ' holy seed' preserving in its integrity the ancestral faith of Israel, separated from the pollutions of heathendom by a ring-fence of legalism, and rendering to Jahveh an acceptable worship of His own ordering and appointment. Each of these ideals found zealous votaries. We see perhaps one phase of the struggle for supremacy in the incidents connected with Ezra's 156 Religion of Israel [CHAP. principal reform the summary expulsion of non-Jewish wives. It is clear that this movement was only successfully carried through by strong-handed measures, and that it roused vehement and prolonged opposition. The schism organised by Manasseh was a direct consequence of Ezra's policy 1 , and it is not accurate to assume that the resentment, of which this secession was a prominent symptom, was wholly selfish. The measures of the reforming party were not merely regarded by many as an unwarrantable outrage on personal liberty : they seemed in a measure to do violence to the spirit of the prophets, and to hinder the fulfilment of their hopes of a kingdom of God em- bracing all the nations of the earth. It has been supposed by some that the book of Ruth is the product of opposition to Ezra's reforms : that it is in effect a plea for the toleration of intermarriage with women of alien race, a plea supported partly by the fact that the first true king was himself traditionally descended from a Moabitess, partly by the suggestion conveyed in the incidents of the story, that the Jews did not possess a monopoly of piety, and that women who, like Ruth, displayed eminent virtues, might be cordially welcomed into the com- munity of Israel if willing to adopt Jewish rites and customs. The book shows that what constitutes a true Israelite is not purity of physical descent, but faith in Jahveh and devotion to Him 2 . The puritan spirit, however, ultimately triumphed, as perhaps was both inevitable and desirable in Jewish view of the view of Israel's immediate needs. But the triumph involved some unfortunate consequences. Spiritual pride was no imaginary danger at a period when devotion to the Law was the characteristic mark of loyalty to 1 Cp. Neh. xiii. 28 foil. 2 Such is the view strongly advocated hy Kuenen, Cornill, Piepenbring and others. See especially Cornill's remark (Einleitung in das A. T. 22), 'Ruth zwar ihrer Abstammung nach eine Heidtn, aber an From- migkeit eine echte Israelitin war, etc.' IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 157 Judaism. Even in the pre-exilic period the heathen were commonly regarded as objects rather of Jahveh's judgment than of His favour. Their territory was 'polluted 1 '; their only hope of salvation lay in adhesion to the chosen people. In- deed, speaking generally, the earlier prophets think of the heathen world as a defiant power opposed to the kingdom of God. In each age of Hebrew history the political situation de- termined what particular nation was representative of the hostile world. It might be Syria, Philistia, Phoenicia, or some other of the petty neighbour kingdoms; to Micah, Isaiah, Nahum it was Assyria, just as to Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Deutero-Isaiah it was Babylon ; to Ezekiel Gog and Magog ; to the writer of Daniel the Seleucid kingdom. Only occasionally did pre-exilic prophecy rise to a wider and more generous conception of the Divine kingdom, and recognise in the oppressors of Israel possible subjects and votaries of Jahveh. After the exile, however, the reaction from heathenism was naturally strong and lasting. Jewish aversion to the world gradually developed into that bitter hatred of the non-Jewish peoples to which Tacitus alludes 2 . Antagonism was intensified partly by the memory of all that Israel had suffered at the hands of the world-power; partly by the frequent ceremonial difficulties involved in any intercourse between law-abiding Jews and their Gentile neighbours. Long before the close of the exile we find traces of this hostile feeling in Ezekiel's description of a comprehensive judgment falling upon the heathen nations 3 , a description which in its details passes far beyond the less ex- plicit denunciations of earlier prophecy 4 . To the Jews of the 1 Amos vii. 17. Cp. Hos. ix. 3. 2 Hist. v. 5 : ' Ad versus omnes alios hostile odium.' 3 Chaps, xxxviii., xxxix. 4 Davidson, The Book of Ezekiel (Camb. Bible), p. 274, says, 'The description seems almost a creation, the embodiment of an idea the idea of the irreconcilable hostility of the nations of the world to the religion of Jehovah.' It is noteworthy that the conception of Ezekiel becomes a standing theme of later apocalyptic prophecy. 158 Religion of Israel [CHAP. Maccabaean epoch the heathen are the enemies of God, a foolish people blaspheming the name of Jahveh 1 . The faithful Israelite could not but invoke the vengeance of God on those who had devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling-place. In some parts of the later literature of the Old Testament the spirit of passionate aversion and disdain finds vent in language of burning intensity. Malachi for instance denounces Edom as the border of wickedness 2 ; the book of Esther narrates an episode which finds its climax in a wholesale slaughter by the Jews of their heathen foes 3 ; the contest between Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine probably aroused that thirst for the destruction of the heathen which pervades the later chapters of the book of Zechariah (ix. xiv.); and from the Maccabaean rising onwards, owing chiefly perhaps to the influence of the book of Daniel, the hatred of aliens grows in intensity, and its practical culmination may be seen in the fanatical excesses of the Zealots in the desperate struggle with Rome 4 . Meanwhile the early prophetic expectation of the ' Day of Jahveh ' a day full of terror, not for the heathen merely, but for the sinners in Zion virtually faded from Is- rael's view. The warnings of Isaiah, Amos, and Zephaniah find indeed some echo in the solemn language of Malachi (iii. i 5, iv. i, 2), but the prevalent tendency among the Jews was to look upon Israel as the 'righteous nation,' and upon 1 Ps. Ixxiv. 10, 18, 22 ; cp. Ixxix. 6 foil. For the hatred of the Samaritans as a renegade sect see Ecclus. 1. 26. 2 Mai. i. 2 4. Cp. the book of Obadiah and Isai. xxxiv. The apo- calyptic visions of a wholesale destruction of the heathen in Joel and Isai. xxiv. xxvii. seem to belong to the age when the Persian empire was near- ing its dissolution (c. 350). 8 Esth. ix. 1416. 4 Cp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. n. 21. 2; Antiq. XI. 6. 5; c. Apion. n. 7, 10, 14, 41; and see Schiirer, 31, pp. 295 foil. [E. T.j. In the post- canonical books (especially in the books of Maccabees and Judith) a temper is displayed which justifies the language of Tacitus. See Schultz, n. 20, 21. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 159 their heathen oppressors as reserved for a fearful vengeance in the day of Jahveh's self-manifestation. The temper of mind which we have been considering was perhaps that of the majority of the Jews; but influences. other influences gradually came into play and tended to strengthen what had never quite died out the yearning for a wider and closer fellowship with man- kind and for the fulfilment of ideals of which prophecy had never wholly lost sight, and to which, during the exile, Deutero- Isaiah had given noble and sublime utterance. The conception of Israel's religion as universal in scope, and of Jerusalem as the centre of a world-wide Universahsm. . . . . . . kingdom in which all nations might be included as worshippers of Jahveh, had not been left without witness even in pre-exilic times. It was foreshadowed in some of the earliest narratives, e.g. those which depicted the negotiations of Amorite or Hittite kings and chieftains with the patriarchs, the exaltation of Joseph in Egypt, the friendly relations of David and Solomon with successive kings of Tyre 1 . The book of Deuteronomy forbade the abhorrence of an Edomite or an Egyptian ; in the third generation their children might even be admitted into the congregation of Jahveh 2 . Further there is a gradual expansion though nt>t always easy to trace in the ideas of pre-exilic prophecy concerning the Messianic kingdom. Amos distinctly teaches that Jahveh controls with a provi- dential purpose the movements of the heathen nations, and (as we have already seen) he extends the area of Jahveh's judicial action so as to include them. Prophecy also speaks of the nations as employed by Jahveh to execute His purposes, and the thought is occasionally suggested that the object of the Divine judgments is the conversion and education of the 1 Gen. xii. 3, 4 (J) is a case in point (the blessing upon Abraham) and possibly Ex. iv. 22 in which Israel's position as ' firstborn ' implies Jahveh's relationship to other nations. Cp. Jer. xxxi. 9. 2 Deut. xxiii. 7, 8. 160 Religion of Israel [CHAP. heathen 1 . In the Messianic age, when Jahveh's purpose of judgment is finally accomplished, the nations will flow to Zion and seek to share the spiritual blessings of the people of God ; the reign of the Messianic king will inaugurate an era of peace in which the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Jahveh 2 . In a remarkable passage which has been already noticed (Isai. xix.), the prophet first describes the chastisement which is destined to prepare Egypt for conversion, and then predicts the coming of a time when Egypt and Assyria shall be united with Israel as recipients of Jahveh's blessing 3 . It is, however, on the eve of the exile and during its con- tinuance that universalistic ideas find their clearest expression. Thus Jeremiah iii. 17 repeats and expands the thought of Micah iv. i ; and Ezekiel, without actually admitting the nations to Messianic blessings, emphatically declares that by the judg- ments inflicted on them they shall be led to know that Jahveh is Israel's God 4 . On the other hand, Deutero-Isaiah represents the heathen peoples as waiting for Jahveh's salvation ; Israel is His messenger to the nations; Cyrus the Persian is honoured as the instrument and symbol of the conversion of the heathen to the worship of the only true God ; Israel shares in the ex- altation of her God, and Jerusalem becomes the centre of a converted world 5 . The rebuilding of the Temple naturally encouraged hopes of this kind. Zechariah speaks of the nations as visiting Jerusalem to seek Jahveh's favour, and Haggai foresees a greater glory for the second than for the first Temple, since all nations 1 Isai. x. 5 foil. Cp. Hab. i. 6; Jer. xxvii. 5; Ezek. xxx. 3 foil.; Dan. ii. 21. See also Zeph. ii. n, iii. 9, 20. 2 Mic. iv. i (Isai. ii. i); Isai. xi. 9. It must be remembered that the date of these passages is very uncertain; but they may be provisionally assumed to be pre-exilic. 8 See p. 88. The passage i Kings viii. 41 foil, should also be com- pared in this connection. 4 Ezek. xxv. xxxii./aj'/. B Isai. xlii. xlix. passim. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 161 shall bring into it their desirable things. The book of Malachi even recognises in the religious earnestness of the Gentiles a form of devotion which Jahveh is willing to accept 1 . Moreover after the exile the ideas of Deutero-Isaiah are developed in passages which probably belong to the Persian age Thus the Law of Deuteronomy xxiii. is abrogated. Even those who have hitherto been excluded from the kingdom of God are admitted thereto ; the house of Jahveh is a house of prayer for all nations (Isai. Ivi.) 2 . Again, in Isai. Ix. Ixii. we perhaps find reflected the aspirations of a yet later age. Israel is here depicted as the priest of humanity; the people of God sees itself surrounded by a galaxy of nations offering their tribute of praise and sub- mission to Jahveh 3 . Finally, in Isai. xxv., xxvi. Zion is exalted as the spiritual metropolis of the world. A feast of Jahveh's providing is made ready for all the nations; the veil spread over them is finally done away 4 . Nor must we forget the note that rings through several of the psalms which describe heathen monarchs as united with the people of the God of Abraham in the service of the true God 5 . The final hope of prophecy is not indeed so much for individual converts 6 as for the turn- ing of whole nations to Jahveh, but it is noteworthy that even in P the distinctions made in Deuteronomy ch. xxiii. between aliens of a different nationality do not reappear. It is assumed that foreigners can become members of the holy community by circumcision and consequent acceptance of the Law. 1 Zech. viii. 20 foil. ; Hag. ii. 6 foil. ; Mai. i. 6. 1 Dr Cheyne surmises that Isai. Ivi. i 8 is addressed to proselytes and to some who, having been forced to become eunuchs at the Persian court, have followed Nehemiah to Jerusalem. He suggests as the date of the passage 444. s On the occasion of these chh. see Cheyne, in Isaiah (Polychrome Bible), p. 195. 4 These chh. seem to belong to the period of Alexander's conquests: see p. 158, note 2. r> Ps. xlvii. ; cp. Ixvii., Ixxii., Ixxxvii., cxvii., cxlviii. B But see i Kings viii. 41 foil. O. Tl 1 62 Religion of Israel [CHAP. There remains one remarkable book that of Jonah in which the universalism of prophecy may be said J h n e a h ok of to find its natural climax, and which proves that the ideals of Deutero-Isaiah had not altogether disappeared even in an age when the pressure of the heathen yoke on Israel must have seemed most galling and severe. Everything points to the conclusion that this book is a didactic narrative or parable intended to enforce a particular lesson, namely, that Jahveh cares for the heathen and cherishes a purpose of grace concerning them ; that they are capable of repentance and amendment, and that Israel only fulfils its ideal destiny in so far as it becomes the prophet and messenger of Divine salvation to the nations. Incidentally the writer of Jonah rebukes the sullen spirit which pervaded the mass of his compatriots in Palestine and elsewhere. They were eagerly awaiting the fulfilment of Jahveh's threatenings. They looked for the speedy overthrow of the heathen powers that oppressed or persecuted Israel, and meanwhile they ignored, or were reluctant to fulfil, their appointed mission to mankind. The self-will of Jonah himself found its counterpart in the self-will of his people. And just as Jeremiah 1 had taught that even the heathen nations might by timely repentance avert the judgments of God, so the writer of Jonah crowns the univer- salism of earlier prophecy by his implied doctrine that Jahveh is no mere national Deity, the God of a single people, but the Creator and Father of mankind, whose mercy is over all His works. In all probability the book of Jonah is the last, as it is the grandest and simplest utterance of the Old Testament on the subject of Jahveh's relation to the heathen world. Apart from the explicit statements of the pre-exilic prophets, we must recollect that there was another element individualism ^ n tne ^ r teaching which tended in the direction of ' universalism.' There is, for instance, the in- 1 Jer. xviii. 7. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 163 dividualism of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jeremiah predicts the coming of a time when Jahveh shall have compassion on His evil neighbours, i.e. the nations which come into collision with Israel or invade its territory with hostile intent 1 . But in his vision of a new covenant under which Jahveh will write His law in the hearts of men, he speaks definitely of religion as a personal possession consisting in the fellowship of man as man with Jahveh 2 . According to Jeremiah, religion essentially im- plies a spiritual relationship to God, independent of the emblems connected with the ancient worship of Israel 3 . The circum- cision of the future is to be that of the heart*. Following the same line of thought, Ezekiel expressly indicates the agency by which this change is destined to come about 5 . Deutero- Isaiah speaks as one who has learned by experience the fulfil- ment of these truths. To him religion means spiritual com- munion between the soul and God. Now in this ' spiritualisa- tion' of religion lay hopes for the heathen world. 'When religion is thus carried back to its deepest centre, to the fellow- ship of man in his heart with God, the separating limits of the national cults fall away as meaningless; the most inward experience of what is purely human can no longer be a privilege of one people above the others ; it must become a thing of the whole of mankind 6 .' The tendency to comprehensiveness became naturally much more pronounced among the Jews of the Dis- persion than in Palestine itself. In great centres of population like Antioch or Alexandria, for instance, Jews and Gentiles were drawn closely together by the exigencies of trade, commerce, and daily intercourse, and there was undoubtedly a certain amount of mutual attraction. The growing wealth of the Jews enabled them to use the educational 1 Jer. xii. 14 foil. 2 Jer. xxxi. 31 foil. 3 Jer. iii. 16. * Jer. xxxii. 39. Cp. Deut. xxx. 6. 6 Ezek. xi. 19, xxxvi. 24 foil. 8 Pfleiderer, Gifford Lectitres, II. p. 50. Cp. Jer. xvi. 19. II 2 164 Religion of Israel [CHAP. opportunities open to them. A Jew frequently became a Greek in language and in habits of life; he could not avoid being influenced by the study of Greek thought and literature. The Greek on the other hand felt himself attracted by the simple creed of. the Jew, and by the comparative purity and upright- ness of his conduct. Moreover, the synagogues were open to foreigners, and Jewish worship exercised something of mis- sionary influence among the Gentiles. Hence we may conclude that although there was apparently little direct attempt to prose- lytise (at least before the Christian era), there existed an eager desire among the Jews of the Dispersion to convert the heathen among whom they dwelt, and indeed the Judaeo-Hellenistic literature seems in part to be inspired by the aim of commend- ing to Gentiles the religion of Moses. The number of pro- selytes 1 admitted into full fellowship with Israel was probably not large ; but there was apparently a considerable number of cultivated heathen who respected and admired the votaries of Judaism, and to some extent accepted its teaching 2 . The attitude of a liberal-minded Jew in regard to Gentile 'en- quirers' is thus described by Josephus 3 : ' Our legislator admits all those that have a mind to observe his laws so to do, and this after a friendly manner, as esteeming that a true union which extends not merely to our own stock, but to those that would live after the same manner with us.' Whatever success Jewish propagandism achieved was due in part to the fact that it became a fashion, especially in the century before and after the birth of Christ, to patronise Oriental religions; but mainly perhaps to the intrinsic character of Hebrew religion. Jewish teachers 1 ' Proselytes of righteousness,' as they were called by the later Rabbis, i.e. those who were circumcised and conformed completely to the Law. 2 These would be oi cre/So/iepot or oi 0o/3oi>yu'ot TOV Qeov of the N. T. See (e.g.) St Lk. vii. i foil, (the Centurion), Acts x. (Cornelius), Acts xiii. 1 6, etc. These would observe the Sabbath and certain distinctions of food. They would contribute to the Temple-treasury, and make a duty of charity to the poor. Cp. Juv. Sat. xiv. 96 foil. 3 c. Apion. II. 29. ix] Tlie contact of Judaism with Hellenism 165 laid stress on its rational character, as opposed to the absurdities of polytheism and idolatry. They insisted that it taught a virtuous life in a complete and satisfactory way, thus appealing to the inarticulate yearning of the Gentile heart for moral purity, for deliverance from sin, and for solace in adversity. Even the bare simplicity of the synagogue-worship and the multitudinous precepts of the ceremonial law did not present an insuperable obstacle to the advance of Judaism. Thus Josephus can exclaim with some reason : ' There is not any city of the Greeks nor yet of the barbarians whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come, and by which our fasts and lighting up of lamps, and many of our prohibi- tions as to food, are not observed. They also endeavour to imitate our mutual concord with one another, the charitable distribution of our goods, our diligence in our trades, and our fortitude in undergoing distresses on account of our laws ; and what is most worthy of wonder, our Law has no bait of pleasure to allure men to it, but it prevails by its own force ; and as God Himself pervades all the world, so hath our Law passed through all the world also 1 .' It is evident that there was a universalistic element in Judaism which, in spite of the exclusive tendency (chiefly prevalent in Palestine), was allowed to find ample scope in the Gentile world. This element becomes even more apparent in the conditions which led to the compilation of the Chokhmah (Wisdom-literature) 2 . We pass on to consider another important feature of post- exilic Judaism namely, the fact that under the shadow of 1 c. Apion. II. 40. Cp. the striking testimony of Seneca quoted by Aug. de Civ. Dei, vi. n : 'Usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo con- valuit ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit ; victi victoribus leges dederunt.' 2 On later proselytism see Schiirer, Hist, of the Jewish People, 31; Hastings' DB, art. 'Proselyte'; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, II. pp. 411, 439 foil. 1 66 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the Law there grew up a rich and deeply-rooted life of per- sonal religion the character and tone of which religion* 1 are b est illustrated by the Psalter that strange and beautiful product of an age generally reputed to be one of barren legalism. In what direction are we to look for the origin of that spirit of fervent personal piety which meets us in the book of Psalms ? Doubtless the downfall of the Jewish State and the overthrow of national hopes and ambitions led to the conception of religion as the personal possession of each individual soul. The book of Deuteronomy, in enjoining the affections of love, fear and joy 1 , suggested the idea that religion was an inward state of heart, and this, as we have seen, was one of the leading thoughts of the prophet Jeremiah. The earlier prophets were not concerned with the fate of the individual as such. They regarded him simply as a member of the community, with the fortunes of which his personal lot was indissolubly bound up. But Jeremiah was led, partly by his own spiritual experience, partly by the circumstances of his age, to lay special stress on personal religion. His own moral isolation forced him to reflect pro- foundly on the relation of the individual to God. He realised in his own life and ministry the need of personal penitence and self-surrender, the certainty that Divine grace alone could produce the new heart which Jahveh demanded 2 . At a time when the innocent seemed to be involved in the fate of the guilty, Jeremiah held out the hope of a conversion of the individual, and he taught that the day was coming when each soul should be held responsible for its own sin 3 . Then came the exile, when the Jews found themselves deprived of all that had hitherto made up their religion, when their sorrows drove them to seek consolation in prayer, when the absence of all external symbols and aids to devotion compelled them to 1 Deut. vi. 5, x. 12, xii. 7, etc. 2 See Jer. xvii. 14, xxiv. 7, xxxi. 18, xxxii. 39, 40; Lam. v. i\. 3 Jer. xxxi. 29. Cp. Deut. xxiv. 16 (qualifying Deut. v. 9). ix] The contact of Judaism ivitli Hellenism 167 realise the great spiritual truths which the outward forms of worship had dimly and figuratively represented 1 . Ezekiel's teaching followed the lines laid down by Jeremiah 2 . It gave prominence to the need of personal conversion ; it com- mended the duties of humility and submission. Thus both the Jews who returned from exile, and those the large majority who were ' dispersed ' in Babylon and elsewhere, discovered through their sufferings the fundamental simplicity of their faith 3 . They learned that God was everywhere present as the refuge and protector of His people, and that com- munion with Him might sufficiently compensate them for the loss of sanctuary and sacrifice. This fact serves to explain the spirit of devotion, the religious intensity, of those who returned from Babylon. They clung in spite of much sorrow- ful disillusionment to the spiritual hopes and ideals of prophecy. They were in a sense other than of old a true people of God. Naturally therefore faithful Israelites discovered in the restored worship of the Temple, and in the study of their sacred literature, a fresh channel for devotion a treasure in the possession of which they realised that the God of their fathers was really brought very nigh unto them 4 . The fulfil- ment of the Law became to each individual an end in itself. The simple service of the synagogues instituted after the age of Ezra or possibly earlier helped to make religion more decidedly the possession and solace of the individual. To take part in the national worship of the Temple at Jerusalem was to devout Jews the very summit of earthly bliss, but the 1 Examples of prayer become frequent in the post-exilic literature. See e.g. Ezra viii. 21 foil.; Dan. vi. n, ix. 3 foil. Cp. Ps. Iv. 17. 2 See Ezek. xxxvi. 26. 3 E. Renan, L'Ecclesiaste, p. 28 : ' Le peuple juif est a la fois le peuple le plus religieux et celui qui a eu la religion la plus simple.' Cp. Monte- fiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 418. 4 Deut. xxx. 14. 1 68 Religion of Israel [CHAP. synagogues were prized as places of instruction and edification. In them the willing soul was enabled to learn Jahveh's require- ment; it could experience the blessedness of being taught of God 1 . Thus the actual effect of the synagogue-worship was that religion became more human and more catholic ; indeed, strange as it may seem, it was rather the teaching of the synagogue than the Temple-worship that developed the re- ligious mood which is reflected in the Psalter 2 . The Psalms exhibit a type of religion which has, on the whole, separated itself from political interests 3 , having discovered in the self- manifestation of God in nature and in the Law, all that is re- quired to nourish and satisfy faith. The faith of the Psalmists is only to a very slight extent influenced by the religious ideas which Israel may have derived from its contact with Gentilism. The Psalter is indeed best accounted for as the product of a reaction 'the reaction of old Israelitish piety against Judaism 4 .' We find in it the characteristic religion taught by the prophets a religion deeper and more simple than that which was em- bodied in the Law and in the cultus. Certainly the Psalmists display an enthusiastic devotion to the Law as the perfect reve- lation of God's will, and a thirst for God which finds its highest satisfaction in the solemnities of the Temple-worship ; but the deepest note in their music is that of devotion to Him who manifests His holiness in the Law ; and though in many cases 1 Isai. liv. 13; John vi. 45. 3 The Psalter as we have it was probably closed not long after the Maccabaean age. Though some of the Psalms are doubtless much more ancient, the book as a whole seems to represent the faith and piety of the Persian and Greek ages (c. 500 200). 3 It is true that the Psalmists inherit the Messianic ideas of prophecy, but they seldom dwell upon the advent or achievements of a personal Messiah (see Pss. ii. , Ixxii., ex.). On the other hand they look for a Messianic age when Jahveh shall reign in Zion and judge Israel's foes. The whole Psalter is Messianic in the sense that it is pervaded by prophetic ideals which only find their fulfilment in Christ. 4 Cornill, Einleitung in das A. T. 41, p. 221. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 169 the ' I ' of the Psalter represents the community in its relation to God, yet we cannot mistake the voice of individual need and aspiration which here finds utterance. The Psalms in short owe their enduring value to the fact that they represent the response of the individual to the Divine revelation. God is brought near to the single soul ; He is appealed to as its unseen judge, searching the hearts and reins 1 , but also as the object of its confidence, its highest good, its solace, its treasure, its joy, its reward. Three elements in the personal religion of the Psalmists deserve special attention. First, the Psalmists' conception of Jahveh is practically the same as that held by the prophets. The pro- Psaim?sts f the Poetic ideas are reproduced and expanded the majesty of God revealed in nature 2 , His un- approachable holiness 3 , His redemptive power and goodness. Further, as we might expect, the prophetic particularism to some extent reappears. The nations of heathendom are marked out for judgment 4 . Only occasionally is there a hint of ' universalism ' in the wider sense 5 . But there is also a new note, characteristic perhaps of the age in which the Psalter was compiled, namely, the thought of Jahveh's relationship to the individual soul, His compassion and lovingkindness, His particular providence. To the Psalmists God is a refuge in any trouble, a stay even in death 6 . The highest good is com- munion with Him 7 , and the converse of the righteous Israelite with God is a pledge of the soul's uninterrupted existence through and after death. The faithful Israelite could com- mend his soul into Jahveh's hands, in confidence that a being whom God had so highly favoured would not utterly perish, or 1 Cp. Pss. vii. 10, xi. 5, cxxxix. 7. Cp. Jer. xi. 20, xvii. 10, xx. 12. 2 Pss. xxix., civ., cxlviii. s Ps. xcix. 4 Pss. ii., ix., Ixviii. 6 Pss. xxii., Ixvii., Ixxxvii. 6 Pss. xvi. ; xvii. -15; xxiii.; xlix, 15. Cp. Pss. ciii., cxlv. 7 Ps. Ixxiii. 170 Religion of Israel [CHAP. be cut away from His hand. Apart from this belief, the Psalmists do not appear to rise above the somewhat cheerless level of the rest of the Old Testament teaching. There is no certain hint of any belief in a resurrection from death 1 . At the most there is a trustful anticipation of deliverance from death, or at any rate of protection from the penal death of the ungodly 2 . Again, the Psalter illustrates very clearly the temper which the study of the Law was calculated to produce. To the Psalmists the Law is no burden, but a cherished gift of God's grace. To study and to know it is the highest blessedness ; faithful observance of it is the way of salvation. And the contemplation of the Law, while it developes that sense of personal integrity which is characteristic of several Psalms', also fosters that consciousness of sin, that humility ( n j^), which was a common feature of post-exilic piety 4 . We find not merely the faithful in Israel, but Israel itself, frequently described in the Psalms and in prophecy by the phrase 'the poor,' an epithet which, apart from its literal sense, implies the feeling of helplessness and spiritual need which drives man to trust in God. Indeed, the whole Jewish community, in its isolation amid heathen foes, could with good reason describe itself as 'the poor 6 .' Both by the study of the Law, and by the contemplation of his national history, stained as it was by repeated sins and apostasies, the Jew was led to that poverty of spirit to which the Gospel of Christ brought a message of hope and joy. 1 On this point see Kautzsch in DB, v. p. 728 a. 2 Cp. Schultz, O. T. Theology, II. 387392. 3 e.g. Pss. xvii., xviii., ci. Obs. ' The inconsistency is only apparent. The assertion of integrity is relative not absolute. It is that of.. .the... chasid, the "godly" man, who is determined to keep well within the bounds of the covenant which is the charter of national religion, and is conscious of having done so.' Davidson in DB, s.v. ' Psalms.' 4 Pss. xxxii., li. On mjy and D^V see Smend's remarks, pp. 446, 447. 5 See e.g. Pss. ix. 18, xl. 17, Ixxii. 4, Ixxxii. 4, etc. Cp. Isai. xxvi. 6. ix] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 171 Once more, the Psalmists have a keen sense of the dignity and blessedness of the national worship at Jerusalem. It is obvious that many of the Psalms are intended for liturgical use, while many others dwell with rapture on the joy of treading the Temple-courts and participating in the sacred services. On the other hand, the prophetic doctrine that Jahveh requires obedience rather than sacrifice is emphatically repeated 1 . The Psalmists teach that contrition and prayer constitute the sacrifice which is most acceptable to God, and they have learned the lesson that if prayer is to be heard and answered, it must be offered by clean hands and with a pure heart 2 . It should perhaps be added that the problems of human life do not figure much in the Psalms, nor, on the whole, do they seem to affect faith adversely. In such a Psalm as the thirty-seventh the current ideas concerning retribution ideas which were not seldom contradicted by actual experience are reasserted. The same must be said of Psalms xlix. and Ixxiii. 3 At the same time the thought now finds distinct expression that spiritual communion with God adequately compensates the righteous man for his undeserved tribulation and for the undeniable prosperity of the wicked. The Psalter by no means represents the whole outcome of Israel's religious life after the exile. It represents what taken by itself might be called a one-sided development the self- withdrawal of the Jew within the boundaries marked by his own religion. To the Psalmists religion is all in all. In the Psalter we find no impress left by the Hellenism which en- vironed Israel. The soul lives amid the hopes and consolations which faith supplies, leaving out of sight, at least for the time, 1 See Pss. xl., 1., Ixix. 2 Pss. iv., v., xv., xxiv., xxvi. 6, Ixvi. 18. * In these Pss. ' the sufferings of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked are alike pronounced to be always only temporary, and hence to be merely a deceitful appearance ' (Kautzsch). 172 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the vicissitudes of contemporary history, and the social, moral, and religious problems presented by the actual con- dition of the nation and of mankind at large. In the ' Wisdom ' literature (neon), on the other hand, we discern the effect of the contact of the Hebrew wfsdom mind with the world that lay beyond the con- fines of Judaism. While the priesthood after the exile occupied itself in the task of organising and elaborating the sacrificial worship which was Israel's national act of homage and devotion to Jahveh, another order of teachers came to the front namely, the ' wise men ' who, even before the exile, had formed along with the prophets and the priests a distinct though not apparently a very prominent or influential class 1 . After the restoration, however, the ' wise men ' virtually took the place of the prophets as teachers of morality, but whereas the prophets had stood more or less aloof from the official exponents of Jahveh's will (the priests), the post-exilic ' Wisdom ' arose in close connection with the worship and instruction of the synagogue. While the priests were necessarily engaged in the service of the sanctuary, it became customary for laymen to take part in the worship of the synagogues, and to assume the duty of giving instruction in the Law, the study and exposition of which became a task quite independent of the cultus. Thus arose the class of ' Scribes,' who made the study of the torah a profession, and when the priesthood as a class yielded more and more to the influence of Hellenism, the Scribes naturally acquired prestige as the loyal guardians of Israel's most cherished possession, and the authoritative teachers of the laity. The 'wise men' who partly compiled from existing materials 1 Jer. viii. 9, ix. 12, xviii. 18. Cp. Is. xxix. 14. Jeremiah speaks as if the ' wise men, ' like the false prophets, held views in regard to Israel's policy which were untheocratic and worldly, and opposed to those of true prophecy. IX] The contact of J2tdaism with Hellenism 173 and partly themselves contributed to the ' Wisdom ' of the Hebrews, may possibly have belonged to the ranks of the Scribes'; but at any rate, though conversant with the Law, they seem to have been in contact with Hellenic thought, and while they took for granted the accepted doctrines of Judaism, they were more interested in questions of practical morality and in the problems of human life than in the customs and traditions of their own nation. Thus they say little or nothing of Israel's peculiar institutions, sacrificial worship and the like 2 . Their point of view may be briefly described as that of Humanists ; in other words, they study human nature and formulate the common principles of conduct from a general and not from a nationalistic standpoint. Even the pre-exilic wisdom did not stand in any close relation to re- ligion. The 'Wisdom' which the ancient Hebrews admired consisted in practical shrewdness and sagacity like that of Solomon, and it is significant that the wise king is honourably compared by the compiler of i Kings with the non-Jewish sages of the east 3 . Indeed, regarded as a distinct class the ' wise men ' of Israel may be compared with the early sages of Greece, who are well described by a Greek writer as ' neither sages nor philosophers, but men of insight with a turn for legislation 4 .' The Hebrew ' wise men ' started with certain dogmatic presuppositions, and their method was entirely un- systematic. They confined themselves to enunciating the truths suggested by common sense and by the universal 1 In the Mishna, contemporary scribes are always styled 'wise men.' See Schiirer, div. n. vol. i. p. 315, and Jerome quoted ib. p. 324. 2 Consider Prov. xv. 8, xxi. 27, which suggest the moral conditions of acceptable worship. 3 i Kings iv. 30. Cp. Jer. xlix. 7 ; Obad. 8. There is some reason for thinking that Job's three friends came from Edom. See Davidson on Job ii. ii (Camb. Bible). 4 Dicaearchus ap. Diog. Laert. I. 40 : oCre (robots, otire i\off6ovs, j 5^ rivas Kal vopoOeTiKofa. Cp. Grote, Hist, of Greece, ill. 315 foil. ; Uebenveg, Hist, of Philosophy, I. 26. 1/4 Religion of Israel [CHAP. experience of mankind. Assuming the existence of the God who had revealed Himself to Israel, the authors of the Wisdom- literature devote themselves to expounding the ways of Provi- dence in the history of nations and individuals, chiefly with a view to the guidance of conduct in ordinary life. If they touch upon the facts of physical nature, it is because they regard the visible creation as the sphere of a Divine self-mani- festation and the instrument of Divine judgment. But the unique interest of the Wisdom-literature lies in the fact that it reflects the contact of Judaism with non-Jewish culture. The wise men recognise that wisdom is not specially confined to the chosen people. In the book of Proverbs, for instance, the very name of Israel does not occur, and the hero of the book of Job is of alien race. In fact, the sojourn of the Jews in Babylon and their dispersion in other lands revealed to them to some extent the religious and intellectual capacities of other nations. They learned in their contact with foreign culture that they were ' neither the sole children of God's love nor the exclusive recipients of His blessings 1 .' In the con- ception of ' Wisdom ' they found what has been happily called 'a middle term between the religion of Israel and the philo- sophy of Greece 2 .' Thus the compilation of the Hebrew Wisdom-literature and its translation into Greek mark a new stage in the advance of Judaism towards the position of a universal religion 3 . Nor should it be forgotten how important an element in the preparation of the world for the Gospel was 1 Cp. Cheyne, Job and Solomon, etc., pp. 117 foil. Toy (in Enc. Bib., s.v, 'Wisdom-literature') says, 'It is to Greek influence that we must ascribe the selection of wisdom (rather than power, kindness, or holiness) as the attribute distinctively representative of God.' 3 A. L. Moore in Lux Mundi, p. 85. * In this connection should be noticed the great importance of the LXX. translation of the O. T. Cheyne (op. at.) points out how in translating the book of Proverbs the Jew had to familiarise himself with the terminology of Greek ethics. ' The very words la, p6vrj(ris, fffoeins, 5iKcuoffi'i>ij were those which were echoing in every lecture-room of Alexandria.' ix] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 175 involved in the development of the Hebrew doctrine of the Divine wisdom. For present purposes it will suffice to touch briefly on two points, (i) the conception of wisdom in the canonical books, (2) the nature of the problems discussed in them. (i) (a) Wisdom viewed subjectively as a gift divinely be- stowed on man has its starting-point in the fear of Jahveh, i.e. in the recognition of God's will as the law of the universe, and of righteousness as His supreme requirement of man. Wisdom, broadly speaking, is theoretic in so far as it devotes itself to the scientific study of nature or of the laws regulating particular arts (e.g. husbandry, or kingship and the government of men 1 ). But more important is the practical wisdom that regulates the ordinary dealings of men in their mutual intercourse. Wisdom is above all a moral quality it is displayed in action, and the great means of acquiring it is ' instruction ' or ' discipline ' ("ip-ID). The motives appealed to in prescribing particular lines of conduct are appropriate to minds trained by the dis- cipline of the Law, that is to say, they are individualistic and prudential. Earthly blessings are commended as the natural result of righteous conduct, and it cannot be said that supra- mundane rewards are anywhere certainly alluded to 2 . On the other hand, the teaching of the book of Proverbs is very far from being a mere appeal to self-interest. The very fact that the basal principle of wisdom is the fear of Jahveh shows that the Hebrew ideal of righteousness is not self-regarding, and it is constantly implied that earthly rewards and blessings are only to be prized in so far as they are tokens of the Divine favour and approbation 3 . Further, the book seems to rise above the purely legal standpoint when it enjoins the purifica- 1 Isai. xxviii. 23; Prov. viii. 15. 2 The passage Prov. xii. 28 is sometimes regarded as an exception (cp. x. 25, xi. 4, xiv. 32, xxiii. 18). But see Oehler, O. T. Theology, 242. 3 Prov. xi. 4, 28, xv. 16, xxx. 7 9. 176 Religion of Israel [CHAP. tion of heart and temper 1 , and when it inculcates actions or virtues which transcend the legal standard, e.g. the control of anger, readiness to overlook an offence, truthfulness, humility, self-discipline, the peaceable temper, bountifulness, compassion towards animals, pity for the misfortunes of a foe and readi- ness to do him good, love which covereth all sins*. Speaking generally, the book supports the teaching of the prophets in its tendency to exalt the moral over the ceremonial law ; while in basing a system of ethics upon the dictates of reason and experience the writers take their stand on ground common to themselves and to the sages of other nations. (b) Wisdom is not merely regarded subjectively as a gift or endowment imparted to man. There is an objective wis- dom the possession and the peculiar attribute of the Most High, yet no ordinary attribute but an actual agent in the creation of the universe. Already in Proverbs ch. viii. 22 foil, wisdom is personified as the first of created beings, the very thought of God, the plan of the universe, having a pre- mundane existence as the instrument through whose agency all things were made. In this aspect wisdom is poetically regarded as objective even in relation to God Himself. Fur- ther, wisdom is the intermediary through which Divine operations are carried on, especially the moral education and perfecting of mankind 3 . In the book of Job (ch. xxviii.) the same conception appears ; indeed, the personification of wisdom marks ' the highest point to which Hebrew thought on the world rose.' ' They who attain to her and live as she directs attain to the thought of God Himself and fulfil His purpose ; human thought and life coincide with or even coalesce in the divine thought and will. In Proverbs the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom ; in Job xxviii. it is all the wisdom possible to man 4 .' 1 Prov. iv. 23, vi. 18, xv. u, xvi. 2. 2 Prov. x. 12. 3 Prov. viii. 31 ; ix. i foil. 4 Davidson, The Book of Job (Camb. Bible), p. Ixii. Other passages IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 177 Thus the mediatorial functions of the Divine wisdom culminate in the moral activities of mankind. (2) The treatment of the problem of retribution in Proverbs is in more or less close accord with the prevalent belief fostered by the Law, which associated righteousness with earthly prosperity, and suffering with sin. But through the experience of life in Palestine after the exile the Jew was often perplexed by the want of correspondence between his theory and the actual facts. In the Wisdom-literature we seem to discern a progressive effort to solve the problem raised by the anomalies of human life, and especially by the sufferings which befell the godly during a period when the Jews were burdened with the yoke of heathen domination. Accordingly in the first instance the perplexity of godly men related to the subject condition of Israel itself. The world was made, as they believed, for Israel's sake, but nevertheless the nation was given over into the hands of the heathen 1 . In process of time, however, the enquiry was transferred from the condition of Israel to the lot of the individual. An explanation was sought of the ways of Divine providence as observed in the daily experience of life. 'For the Jewish philosopher, to whom life was God, it was a necessity to harmonise God and the world 2 .' In the book of Proverbs we see reflected the teaching of the Law, which on the whole encouraged a naive confidence in the belief that sin and suffering, righteousness and pros- perity were invariably associated. The writers take it for which personify wisdom are Ecclus. xxiv. and Wisdom vii., viii. Job speaks of the priceless value of wisdom ; Prov. describes wisdom as the companion of Jahveh in the work of creation ; the book of Wisdom represents wisdom as an all-pervading effluence from the Almighty, the all-powerful agent in creating and ordering the universe. Ben Sirach seems to identify wisdom with the Law. 1 See this complaint expressed at a later time in 2 Esdr. vi. 56 59. 2 Toy in Enc. Bill , I. c. O. 12 178 Religion of Israel [CHAP. granted that the government of God, as reflected in the ordinary arrangements of human society, is righteous, and that virtue and vice meet with their proper reward even in this life. In some passages, it is true, we find hints of a deeper insight, a suggestion that even in the case of the godly adversity may have a probationary and disciplinary value 1 ; but generally speaking the authors of the book continue to repeat a view of Jahveh's providential dealings which was perpetually contradicted by facts. It may be added that Ben Sirach 2 , in Ecclesiasticus, practically adopts the same point of view. The moral tone of the book is on the whole what may be called hedonistic and optimistic. It has no doctrine of a future life, and the writer evidently holds that God deals with every man in this life according to his deserts. There is much more of strong national feeling in Ben Sirach than in Proverbs. He glorifies the Law, and enumerates with pride the great worthies of his race ; the deeper problems which arose from the contact of Israel with the heathen, or of the righteous with the ungodly, scarcely present themselves to his thought. In the book of Job and in several of the Psalms we find evidence of what has been called ' an era of difficulties.' The prosperity of the wicked is a fact that admits of no contra- diction ; the domination of the heathen over the righteous nation was a standing instance in point, and the calamities which fell upon the chosen people continually forced the problem of retribution into notice. The hero of the book of Job is a type of the righteous servant of Jahveh plunged in what might seem to be wholly unmerited tribulation. Various solutions of the problem emerge in the book itself. On the whole the positive teaching of Job centres in two points. The book dwells, first, on the place of suffering as a probationary and purgative element in man's discipline testing fidelity and 1 See Prov. iii. n, 12. 2 The date of the book may be assumed to be between 190 170 B.C. IX] The contact of Judaism with Hellenism 179 refining character 1 ; and, secondly, it suggests the negative principle that the connection between sin and suffering is not constant and invariable, and that therefore ' no argument could be drawn from affliction and ignominy against the person who suffered it 2 .' The book ends, however, by ex- pressly confirming the legal or traditional doctrine of retribution so ardently defended by Job's three friends. The net result of the book is a forcible exposition of the moral difficulty involved in the traditional view, and a clear suggestion of its insufficiency. The writer appears to rest in the thought of the unsearchable power of God, whose ways are past finding out, yet whose mercy is over all His works. In the book of Ecclesiastes the effort to comprehend the mysterious principles of the Divine government is finally abandoned. The writer contents himself with showing that experience is constantly at variance with the idea of visible retribution, and virtually finds refuge in an agnostic position. He maintains that trustful obedience and submission to the revealed will of God is the only possible course for man. At the same time, in the hint of judgment to come which closes the book is implied a presage, as it were, of some new self-manifestation of God, in which the riddle of human destiny will ultimately find its solution. Thus the last word of the Old Testament in regard to the problem of retribution is one of quiescence or resignation. It may, however, be fairly pointed out that the tendency to look for a solution of moral difficulties beyond the limits of this life displays itself in the doctrine of a resurrection of the godly members of the Jewish nation 3 , and ultimately finds clear expression in the post-canonical literature. The doctrine of retribution tends in fact to connect itself with the Messianic expectation, and with the idea of a future 1 This suggestion is first made by Eliphaz (Job v. 17), and is expanded by Elihu in chh. xxxii. xxxvii. 2 J. B. Mozley, Essays, vol. n. 227. 3 Isai. xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. 2. i8o Religion of Israel [CHAP. IX judgment rewarding the righteous and the ungodly members of the nation according to their deeds. It is noteworthy that Jewish eschatological doctrine is so far confined within national- istic limits. The book of Wisdom, the latest product of the Wisdom- literature 1 , points definitely to a future life as the sphere in which the ways of God will finally be manifested. The transitory joys of wickedness are contrasted sharply with the everlasting reward that awaits the righteous 2 . It is perhaps strange that the author of Wisdom has no doctrine of a bodily resurrection, nor does he describe with any exactness the con- ditions of the life beyond the grave. In antagonism, apparently, to the teaching of Ecclesiastes he emphasises the certainty of moral retribution, and his view was that which finally won acceptance among the Jews. The solution of the problem involved in the inequalities of life was thus acknowledged to lie beyond the limits of this life 3 . 1 The book seems to have been composed about the middle of the first century B.C. 2 Wisdom v. 14 foil. * On the doctrine of Wisdom, its scope and history, see Mr Fairweather's art. 'Development of Doctrine,' in DB, v. pp. 280 foil. CHAPTER X. THE FINAL STAGE IN PRE-CHRISTIAN JUDAISM. THE Maccabaean rising (167) and its issue in the triumph of Judaism mark a fresh point of departure in Jewish religious history. What Antiochus aimed at was nothing less than the abolition of all that was distinctive of Judaism, but he also hoped to encourage the spread of Hellenism within his dominions 1 . His project found supporters in Judaea itself, but the violence with which he endeavoured to carry out his purpose defeated itself, by provoking a powerful and lasting reaction among the Jews. It was indeed 'the extreme and radical character of Antiochus' attempt that saved Judaism 8 .' The great mass of the Jewish people rallied to the side of the chasidim in their patriotic struggle for Israel's ancestral faith, and when victory finally crowned their efforts, the triumph of the Jewish arms was hailed as that of the religion of the Law. Hellenism could not be altogether banished from the soil of Palestine, but at least its influence could be successfully resisted by a new devotion to the Law, and especially to those ordinances which most definitely implied Israel's separation from the heathen world the strict observance of the Sabbath and of the rules of ceremonial purity, etc. 1 Tac. Hist. v. 8 : ' Postquam Macedones praepolluere, rex Antiochus demere superstitionem et mores Graecorum dare adnisus, quo minus taeter- rimam gentem in melius mutaret, Parthorum bello prohibitus est.' 2 Schurer, div. i. vol. i. p. 198. 1 82 Religion of Israel [CHAP. Our object in this chapter is to give a sketch of Jewish religion in the stage which it finally reached during the period between the Maccabaean revolt and the opening of the Christian era. I. The first and most obvious consequence of the events . . which confirmed the Tews in the possession and The import- / _ ance of the practice of their religion was the exaltation of the Law to the central place in the system. The Law had by this time become fixed in a complete and permanent form, and it was reverenced as the one source of religious knowledge, the perfect embodiment of the will of God, and a binding rule of daily life 1 . In process of time other Scriptures took their place beside the Law the books of the Prophets, including the historical books known as ' former prophets,' and the Hagiographa. The date when these later collections were first begun or finally completed is quite uncertain. All we can assert is that they existed as separate collections of sacred literature at about the close of the third century before Christ (c. 200), for they are mentioned together in the prologue to the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach (132 B.C.). But the books contained in these later collections (the Prophets and the Writings), though held in great and increasing veneration, seem at no time to have stood on the same level of importance as the Law. All the books were ' Holy Scriptures ' (^npn 'Qro), and in the New Testament are sometimes cited as part of 'the Law 8 ,' but it was not supposed that they added anything material to the original and complete revelation of the Divine will contained in the Law. In fact the tendency was to value them only in so far as they did not contradict the Law. 1 Schiirer, 25, points out that 'the age of this acknowledgment may be determined almost to the day and hour.' It dated from the oc- casion described in Neh. viii. x., the solemn publication of the Law by Ezra. 2 e.g. Rom. iii. 19; i Cor. xiv. 21 ; St Jo. x. 34, xii. 34, xv. 25. x] The final stage in pre-Christian Jtidaism 183 As systematic exegesis was the necessary means for ascer- taining the sense of the Law, the Scribes naturally Scribism. , , ,, . , . , , came to be held in high and increasing esteem . The name of honour by which they were saluted, ' Rabbi,' gradually came to signify ' teacher.' Until the fall of Jeru- salem the Scribes were chiefly congregated in Judaea, but in later times we hear of their presence in Rome and in every important centre of the ' dispersion.' When the Pharisees began to be recognised as a distinct sect among the Jews (c. 150 B.C.) the Scribes as a rule adhered to them as being the most scrupulous observers of the Law, but probably there were Scribes who, for various reasons, chose to belong to the party of the Sadducees*. At any rate the Scribes were looked upon as the accredited guardians, exponents, and (to some extent) administrators of the Law. To them is due that development or expansion of the Law which was such a remarkable feature in Israel's religious life during the two centuries before Christ. The great object which the Scribes set before themselves was the adaptation of the legal require- ments to all possible cases. Hence arose a whole mass of inferential teaching, based upon the written Torah, and resulting in an endless system of casuistry. By means of oral discussion among the Scribes, held in such centres as Jerusalem, Jamnia, or Tiberias, cases of difficulty were successively solved, and the written Law was gradually supplemented by an immense mass of oral tradition, which acquired in process of time an authority equal to that of the Torah itself. This oral interpretation and application of the Law led to the formation of halachah, or ' customary law ' ; and formal rules (niiddotfi) were even laid down for ascertaining it. The halachah of the Scribes was naturally concerned for the most part with matters of cere- monial observance. Ethical teaching proper was the scope of 1 Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 16. 2, calls them iraTpiuv ^tjyijral VO/JLUV. In the N. T. we hear of them as Y/xx/u/tdreis, VO/J.IKM or i>o/j.oSiSdffKa\oi. 2 This is implied in St Mk. ii. 16, St Lk. v. 30, Acts xxiii. 9. 1 84 Religion of Israel [CHAP. the haggadah or 'legend,' by which the historical portions of the Old Testament were amplified in accordance with the ideas, or spiritual needs, of the age 1 . The oral tradition of the Scribes was finally fixed in the Mishna (c. 70 A.D.). Systematic instruction in the Law was soon demanded as a natural consequence of the newly-awakened zeal which followed the Maccabaean rising. At Jerusalem the Temple, in other places the synagogues, were the usual centres for the exercise by the Scribes of their teaching office. But in Christian times we hear of schools, or ' houses of instruction,' in close connection with the synagogues. In these a more detailed theoretic study of the Law was encouraged, with the result that one generation handed on to another the ever-increasing mass of precepts which it was the object of every zealous Israelite to practise or at least to know. The Scribes also naturally acted as assessors in courts of justice and occasionally presided as judges. Some even obtained seats in the Sanhedrin. And just as the sentences of the Scribes were held to be binding in private cases of casuistry, so when they gave public legal decisions their judg- ment was accepted as final and beyond dispute. The Law thus came to mean the Torah together with the precepts inferred therefrom by the learned, and piety tended inevitably to take the form of a painful legalism 2 . The Law then was of supereminent authority. Devotion to it became the very essence of religion, and exact fulfilment of its precepts the outward token of piety. Duties which belonged to the whole community the careful observance of 1 Edersheim remarks that ' the halachah might be described as the apocryphal Pentateuch, the haggadah as the apocryphal prophets ' (Life and Times, etc., I. n, note). 2 It may be observed in passing that the temper of legalism tended to foster the growth of eschatological doctrine, for the faithful observer of the Law looked for his reward not so much in this world as in that which was to come. x] The final stage in pre-Christian Jtidaism 185 feasts and the oblation of the daily sacrifice were of course punctiliously discharged ; but in the daily life of the individual also the influence of the Law was supreme, especially in the matter of ceremonial purity, to which the experience of the faithful during the Maccabaean age gave a new impulse. In regard to men's conception of God two conflicting tendencies may be observed during the period tion oGo e d ~ under review. On the one hand God seemed to be withdrawn by His transcendence from contact with the world. The covenant-name JAHVEH was avoided and replaced by 'Adonai, and such titles as ' Most High,' ' God of heaven,' ' King of heaven,' ' God of the world,' came into vogue '. Naturally, too, a doctrine of intermediary beings was developed, the importance of which consisted in the fact that it provided a solution for the problem of evil in so far as the origin of sin could be traced to a premundane ' fall ' of the angels and the consequent existence of evil angels 2 . The gods of the heathen came to be regarded as ' devils 3 .' At a later time death and sin were traced to Adam, and the serpent of Gen. iii. was identified with the devil 4 . On the other hand, as the importance of the Law was more and more exaggerated, there arose a tendency to degrade the Deity to the level of a judge whose office it was to ad- minister the Law. To the Law in New Testament times was actually ascribed pre-existence. It was even called by Akiba (c. 135 A.D.) the instrument by which the world was made 5 . The Law was in fact nearer to the world than the Creator, who receded from the living interest of men in proportion as their zeal for the Law increased. As regards the observances of religion, they tended to 1 Cp. Dan. iii. 32, iv. 23; Tob. i. 13; Apoc. Bar. xvii. i, xxv. 2, etc. 2 So the Bk. of Enoch, based on Gen. vi. i. Cp. Tob. iii. 17, vi. 17. * Ps. cvi. 37 ; cp. i Cor. x. 20. 4 Wisd. i. 13, 14, ii. 23 foil.; Apoc. Bar. xxiii. 4; 2 Esdr. vii. 46 foil. 5 Pirke Aboth, III. 14. 1 86 Religion of Israel [CHAP. become a matter of strict and formal rule. We read of prayer being offered three times a day in the direction of Jerusalem 1 . Almsgiving was highly esteemed, while fasting became a cus- tomary practice 2 . The ascetic tendency culminated in the life of the Essenes, with whom ceremonial ablutions and abstinence from flesh, wine and marriage were points of obligation. Above all, the severity of the law of the Sabbath was heightened to an extravagant and even fantastic degree, though the strictness of the day does not seem to have been generally felt by ordinary Israelites as a burden 3 . In general it must be admitted that the ceremonial was exalted above the moral Law 4 , and though service for reward is deprecated in a Rabbinic saying 5 , yet a theory of retribution formed a part of Jewish doctrine and was elaborated in very minute detail. In short, there was undoubtedly a danger of true religion be- coming stifled beneath a mass of burdensome observances. The Gospels however bear witness that there were instances in which fidelity to the Law bore noble and beautiful fruit charity, humility, the sense of sin and of dependence on the Divine mercy. II. The organisation and functions of the Jewish priest- hood next claim our attention. Although in process of time and owing to obvious causes the Law came to overshadow the Temple in importance, and the Scribes superseded the priests as the official teachers of religion, yet politically and socially the priests remained a powerful and influential body. They, after all, had taken the most prominent part in the restoration and re-organisation of 1 Dan. vi. 1 1 ; Tob. iii. i r ; i Esdr. iv. 58. a See e.g. Dan. iv. 24, ix. 3, x. 3; Tob. i. 3, 16, xii. 8, 9, xiv. n. 3 See Hastings' DB, s.v. ' Sabbath ' (vol. iv. pp. 320 foil.). 4 See StMk. vii. 10; cp. St Mt. xxiii. 16, 23 foil. 8 Antigonus of Socho (in Pirke Aboth, I. 3) : ' Be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of reward, but be like those who do service without respect to recompense ' (ap. Schlirer, 25, p. 352). x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 187 the nation ; the revival of sacrificial worship had been mainly their work. Further, their unique prerogatives and hereditary privileges gave them extensive influence. They alone could offer sacrifice on behalf of the community and of each indi- vidual Israelite, and in some matters of great social importance, e.g. the rites, and the questions of conscience, relating to marriage and to the disease of leprosy, the office of the priests was naturally one of high authority. Again, since sacrifice could only be offered at Jerusalem, the Temple-priesthood gradually acquired considerable wealth and prestige. Apparently it was soon after the age of Ezra that the priesthood was divided into twenty-four courses, each of which took its regular turn in ministration at the Temple. The Levites who were appointed to assist them were similarly organised. The priests were maintained by a regular system of dues, firstfruits, tithes, and other payments in kind as well as in money; and the general expenses connected with public worship were defrayed by a poll-tax levied on every male of twenty years old and upward. The amount of this tax was originally one-third of a shekel, but was eventually raised to a half-shekel (the 'didrachma' of St Matt. xvii. 24)'. The revenue raised by this tax sufficed to defray the expense of the daily burnt- offerings and of all other sacrifices offered on behalf of the community. Another impost was wood for fuel, which had to be regularly provided 2 , the turn of different clans or families for this service being determined by lot. Besides this com- pulsory tribute the free-will offerings of individuals furnished a copious supply of treasure which was carefully stored in the Temple, and amounted at times to so colossal an amount as to 1 See Neh. x. 33, 34; cp. Exod. xxx. n 16. On the gradual growth of the system see Bp. Kyle's note on Neh., I.e. (Camb. Bible). Vespasian obliged the Jews to pay the didrachma annually into the capitol at Rome. Joseph. B. J. vii. 6. 6. 2 Neh. x. 34, xiii. 21. Cp. Schurer, 24. 1 88 Religion of Israel [CHAP. tempt the greed of foreign potentates'. Splendid gifts were occasionally made to the Temple even by Gentiles, as we gather from the letter of Pseudo-Aristeas relating how Ptolemy Philadelphia sent gifts on the occasion when he requested the High Priest to send him persons competent to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek 3 . The most important function of the priests was that of offering the daily sacrifice, as a representative sacrifice ly act ^ worsm P on behalf of the whole com- munity of Israel. The offering consisted of a yearling lamb offered at dawn and in the evening. The sacrifice was always accompanied by a meal- and drink-offering. The intermission of the daily burnt-offering the 'perpetual offering (tamid)' as it was called was regarded as a supreme calamity 3 . A special meal-offering was also daily presented in the name and at the expense of the High Priest, who himself officiated as a rule on Sabbaths and festivals 4 . The offering of the tamid was accompanied by instrumental music, while the congregation were assembled for prayer in the court of the Temple. A special psalm was appointed to be sung on each day of the week 5 . It is interesting to note that in accordance with the organisation of the priesthood, the whole community was likewise divided into twenty-four courses, or 'watches' (mish- moroth\ each of which took its turn in representing the nation by attendance at the daily sacrifice. In the case of those Israelites who dwelt at a distance from the capital personal attendance was not always possible. Accordingly each course was represented by a deputation who went up to Jerusalem 1 Such attempts to plunder were made by Heliodorus (2 Mace, iii.) and by Antiochus Epiphanes (i Mace. i. 21 foil.). 2 See the letter in Prof. Swete's Introd. to the 0. T. in Greek, p. 525. 8 Dan. viii. u foil., xi. 31, xii. u ; Joseph. B. y. vi. 2. i. 4 Lev. vi. 12 16. 5 For a fine description of the daily service see Ecclus. 1. 1 1 foil. x] The final stage in pre- Christian Judaism 1 89 and 'assisted' at the daily services during one week 1 . The rest of those who belonged to the course made arrangements to meet in some convenient synagogue, and engaged in prayer and the reading of Scripture while the deputation was on duty at the Temple. Thus the tamid became in a real sense a national service. III. The development of Jewish eschatology was closely connected both with the newly-awakened zeal for the Law and with the political situation in which the Jews found themselves placed during and after the Maccabaean rising. On the one hand the Law encouraged those who faithfully observed its precepts by the prospect of a thf 1!aw e f future reward ; and in view of the actual situa- tion, so full of difficulty and distress, in which the devout members of the nation were involved, the tendency arose to push the solution of the problem of retribution beyond the limits of this present life. As a matter of fact the cause of the Law for which martyrs and saints laid down their lives ultimately triumphed ; but many of those who had been the most ardent champions of their faith perished without reaping the expected fruit of their toils and sufferings. Hence arose the belief that a resurrection of pious Israelites to take part in the glories of the Messianic age could alone satisfy the instinct of justice. In another life devotion to the Law would surely meet with an appropriate recompense. The political situation also did much to foster the growth and development of Messianic ideas. When The political situation Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) succeeded to the Syrian throne (175 B.C.), the strife between Judaism and Hellenism in Palestine had almost reached its climax. Jason, who in 174 contrived by bribery and intrigue to oust his brother Onias III from the high-priesthood, was a 1 This body of attendants was called Ma'amdd, ' a station.' See Schiirer, 24, for details. 190 Religion of Israel [CHAP. zealous votary of Greek customs and ideas. Indeed, the proceedings of Jason and his successor Menelaus led to a condition of things in Judaea scarcely distinguishable from civil war. The forcible intervention of Antiochus in the religious disputes of the Jews (170) was the prelude to a stubborn attempt on his part to abolish Judaism altogether (168). The erection of an altar to Zeus Olympics upon the great altar of burnt-offering, the introduction of Pagan cere- monies and the persecution of all who adhered to their ancestral faith, kindled into flame the patriotic ardour of the chasidim headed by the priest Mattathias. The actual course of the struggle has been already briefly traced in a former volume 1 . It may suffice to recall the fact that three years elapsed before the Jews could reap the fruits of their success ; the dedication of the Temple took place in the year 165. In 161 the great Judas fell in battle. His brother Jonathan had no sooner secured the position of leadership than he chose to involve himself in the dynastic quarrels of the kings of Syria. But in 142, Simon, the last surviving son of Mattathias, succeeded in making a treaty with Demetrius II, and secured for himself the dignity of an independent prince. Thus Hellenism was finally overcome, and the cherished hopes of Jewish patriotism were fulfilled. John Hyrcanus (135 105) largely extended the territory claimed by the Jewish State. His successor, Aristobulus I, even assumed the title of ' King of Judaea.' The rise of the Hasmonaean family, however, and the con- stitution of Judaea as an independent secular Sadducee S and State > while il satisfied the patriotic aspirations of the Jews, was by no means the consumma- tion aimed at by that party of loyalists (chasidim) whose devotion to the Law had made them the soul of the resistance to the power of Syria. The leaders of this party had succeeded 1 A Short History of the Hebrews, pp. 259 foil. x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 191 in obtaining the high-priesthood, and even regal dignity ; but what these patriots together with the great mass of their co-religionists desired, was a theocratic republic, whereas the Hasmonaean supremacy virtually represented a- secular monarchy. It is to the practical perception of. this fact that we may most reasonably attribute the rise of the distinct parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees' were the spiritual successors of the chasidim who resisted the aggres- sions of Hellenism. They clung to the Law and to the traditions which had grown up in connection with it, especially to those ordinances of ceremonial purity which served to pro- tect the racial distinctness of the Jew amid the pollutions of heathendom. Pharisaism naturally found its most effective support in the learned labours of the Scribes, who regarded the growing secularity of the Hasmonaean princes with aversion and distrust. This feeling came to a head at the moment when Alexander Jannaeus (104) openly joined the rival party of the Sadducees 2 , who in their own interests encouraged the secular ambitions of the Hasmonaean family and instinctively dreaded the democratic sympathies of the Scribes. A popular revolt against Jannaeus, which was suppressed under circum- stances of merciless cruelty, further embittered the antagonism of the rival sects ; and although Salome Alexandra (78), the successor of Jannaeus, came to terms with the Pharisees, it is evident that the hopes and aims of this party were in the long run incompatible with the aspirations of the reigning family. When, finally, after a troubled interval of about fifteen years, the power of Rome intervened in the affairs of Syria (63), the Pharisees found themselves no nearer the realisation of their hopes. The yoke of the mighty heathen empire was rivetted on the neck of the Jewish people, and patriotism could only set itself more ardently than ever to long and wait for the i.e. 'separatists' i.e. the priestly descendants of Zadok. 1 92 Religion of Israel [CHAP. inauguration of that Messianic age which was destined, as men believed, to bring about the redemption of Israel and the overthrow of its heathen oppressors. It is the hopes, fears, and aspirations of the period we have thus summarily sketched which find their expression in the apocalyptic writings of the two centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. In this strange and fascinating literature we find reflected those religious and political ideas which mainly moulded the temper of the later Judaism, and which either nerved men for a life-and-death struggle with the Roman power, or impelled them to seek for satisfaction in Christianity. The theme of Hebrew prophecy had been the exaltation of Jahveh His sovereignty and that of His "A ^ocal se chosen people over the nations of the world. Zion was destined to be the metropolis of nations, where, as upon an earthly throne, God should reign over the heathen. But the hope of supremacy was continually deferred, and Israel was constantly called upon to suffer the pain of disillusionment. During the period of the Persian and Egyptian domination the hope of Israel in its older form was quite in abeyance; in the stress of the Maccabaean struggle, however, it sprang to fresh and intense life. The newly-awakened conviction that the purpose of Jahveh would ultimately triumph, and that Israel's religion and nationality could never perish, kindled and strengthened the courage of those who took the lead in bidding defiance to Hellenism. In the study of the ancient ideals of prophecy the contemplative found comfort, the active-minded inspiration and .strength. The brighter future which prophecy had anticipated would be realised, not, as Isaiah had imagined, in the near future, but in a new age, ' a world to come,' in which the destiny of nations and individual men would be finally determined. The glories of the Messianic kingdom were more and more closely con- nected with the advent of a supramundane order of things. Thus Messianic doctrine of the older type developed into x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 193 apocalypse, which concerned itself not so much with the present situation as with the future destiny of Israel and of the nations. The details of Messianic prediction were de- veloped, just as the Law had been developed, by a species of Haggadic exegesis (midrash), and the essentially poetical imagery of prophecy became hardened into learned dogma 1 . The Maccabaean victory, as might have been expected, only inflamed the passionate hopes which had Daniei k f sustained the Jews under the pressure of the conflict with Syria, and we see the firstfruits of the newly-kindled ardour of patriotism in the visions of the book of Daniel visions of a liberated and regenerated Israel, of the world-power humiliated and crushed, of the saints of the Most High raised from death to share in the glories of the Messianic kingdom. The influence of this remarkable book on the form henceforth assumed by Messianic prophecy can scarcely be exaggerated. It is the first specimen of a type of literature which was characteristic of the entire epoch now under consideration 2 . The Jewish 'apocalyptic' literature upheld before the eyes of the nation a prospect to which it clung even in the dark and depressing period when the Roman power had firmly established itself in Palestine; it gave them ideals which inspired them in their hopeless con- flict with the might of the empire ; it encouraged the learned to investigate the signs of an approaching end or crisis, which was destined to usher in the age of the Messiah. In their exposition of the prophetic oracles the Jewish teachers were entirely dominated by the supreme interest of the time the longing for deliverance from the yoke of the foreigner. Any- thing like rational exegesis was discarded ; by a process of 1 See Schiirer, 29 [E. T. div. II. vol. ii. pp. 134 foil.]. A useful sketch of later Jewish eschatology will be found in Mr H. St J. Thackeray's book, The Relation of St Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, ch. v. 2 Other O. T. passages of the same ' apocalyptic ' type are Isai. xxiv. xxvii., the book of Joel, and Zech. xii. xiv. o. J3 194 Religion of Israel [CHAP. actually counting the letters of the Hebrew text (gematrid), all sorts of cryptic ideas and predictions were discovered hidden beneath the letter of the Scriptural books. The series of writings of which Daniel is the only canonical specimen are 'apocalyptic' in the sense that the writers one and all clothe the hopes and ideas of their contemporaries in the form of revelations made to some famous worthy of a former age. Speaking generally, they predict a speedy intervention of Jahveh, and endeavour to forecast the precise period of its occurrence, with the object of confirming faith in the glorious future of Israel, and sustaining hope under the pressure of disaster and disappointment. The most important books for the purposes of a history of Israel's religion are the following : the Book of Enoch, the oldest parts of which may have been written between 170 100 B.C. ; the Psalms of Solomon, composed during the period when the Romans were establishing their power in Syria (70 40 B.C.) ; and certain portions of the Sibylline Oracles a curious propagandist product of Hellen- istic Judaism namely, those which belong to the middle of the second century B.C. Various books included among the Old Testament Apocrypha also reflect more or less distinctly the eschatological ideas of the pre-Christian era, notably the book of Tobit and the book of Judith 1 . To a later period, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., belong the book of Baruch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Second book of Esdras, the Second book of the Maccabees 2 . Intermediate writings, which apparently date from the first half of the first 1 On the dates of these books see Cornill's Einleitung in das A.T. pp. 348-9. He suggests the following dates : Sibyll. Orac. iii. 97 807, circa 140 B.C.; Judith, c. 1308.0.; Tobit, c. IIOB.C. ; Pss. So/.,c.6$ 376.0.; Sibyll. Orac. iii. 36 92, c. 43 30 B.C. See also the art. 'Apocalyptic Literature ' by Dr Charles in Encyc. Bib. 2 The Apoc. Bar. and i (or 4) Esdras seem to belong to the time of Dornitian (81 96 A.D.). x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 195 century A.D., are the Assumption of Moses and the Ascension of Isaiah. One remarkable feature of these books, or, to speak more strictly, of their most ancient portions, is that Teaching of th fi of the Messiah is either absent or these books. _ withdrawn into the background. The author of Israel's deliverance is Jahveh Himself. In the passage Dan. vii. 13, for instance, the context plainly shows that the writer is predicting not the advent of a personal Messiah, but the inauguration of a kingdom of the saints which in com- parison with the barbarous world-powers that precede it wears the aspect of humanity. The figures of the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the horned beast (vii. 3 9) are followed by the appearance in glory of one like a son of man. It is true that this expression was afterwards interpreted to mean a personal Messiah, e.g. in the so-called ' similitudes ' of Enoch. But in its original context it seems undoubtedly to denote the Jewish people on whose religion Antiochus Epiphanes (the ' little horn ' of vii. 8) was waging war. The Messianic idea is present, but its form is vague and undefined. In fact, the most characteristic ideas pervading these books are those (i) of Israel's supremacy over the nations, and (2) of a retri- bution awaiting both the righteous and the ungodly (i.e. the heathen oppressors of Israel, and those Israelites who, by open apostasy or personal iniquity, cut themselves off from the holy community). If, however, the later apocryphal and apocalyptic literature be surveyed as a whole, its eschatological teaching may be summarised as follows : (i) In the first place it is noteworthy that the authors of these writings concern themselves with universal and not merely national history 1 . For them the history of the world 1 Thus Jerome ad Panlin. 1 4 speaks of Daniel as ' temporum conscius et totius mundi iX/.' 132 196 Religion of Israel [CHAP. divides itself into two periods : the present age of distress, sin and imperfection (ntn D'tyn), and the world to come (&on D^>yn), a period of bliss and perfection 1 . The writers regard the present age as already drawing towards its close. The world, they believe, has entered, or is about to enter, on the latter days, and the judgment which is appointed to usher in 'the world to come ' is already close at hand 2 . In their account of the world to come the writers to some extent diverge. Some (e.g. the authors of Daniel, Psalms of Solomon, Enoch] ap- parently identify it with the age of Messiah ; others (e.g. 2 Esdras) regard the Messianic kingdom as immediately pre- ceding the age to come. They agree, however, in representing the period of transition from one age to the other as a time of 'travail' and distress 3 . (2) In any case the revelation of the Messiah precedes the dawn of the age to come. In their representations of the Messiah the apocalyptic writers freely reproduce the phrase- ology current in canonical prophecy. The Messiah is called 'the Son of David,' 'the King of Israel,' 'the Son of man 4 ,' even 'Son of God' ('My Son') 5 . But He is essentially a human and mortal being 6 , righteous and holy and uniquely endowed with the spirit of wisdom and might 7 . Some held that the Messiah would be born, as Micah (v. i) had predicted, 1 Cp. St Mt. xii. 32 ; St Lk. x. 34. 2 Hence the phrase Icrxarai W^/**') Core/jot Kaipol in N. T. See James v. 3 ; i Tim. iv. i ; i Tim. iii. i. Cp. i Cor. x. n, and Westcott on Heb. i. 2. 3 Cp. St Mt. xxiv. 8 ciSim (Heb. D^H ^3PI). 4 See Pss. Sol. xvii. 23; Enoch xlvi. i 4. 5 2 Esdr. vii. 28, 29, xiii. 32, 37 ; Enoch cv. 2. 6 Cp. 2 Esdr. vii. 29. Naturally the figure of the Messiah tended to become superhuman, but the opposition to Christianity during the first century A.D. impelled the Jews to insist on His humanity. Cp. Just. Dial. c. Tryph. 49: xal yap iravres ^/uets rbv Xpurrbv ca>Bpuirov e 7 Pss. Sol. xvii. 24 foil. x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 197 at Bethlehem. According to others, He would appear sud- denly and mysteriously, none should know whence 1 . Mean- while He was concealed in heaven till the appointed time of His manifestation (airo/caAui/as, irapovcrta, eXeuo-ts) 2 . He was also conceived as pre-existcnt in the sense that His manifesta- tion was an event predestined in the counsels of God. The time of His appearing, 'the fulness of time,' was pre- determined by God though concealed from men. Hence, to study 'the signs of the times' and to reckon by elaborate calculations the date of Messiah's manifestation, was a leading aim of the apocalyptic writers. Such signs were described by them in imagery derived from the prophetical books. Messiah's coming, they teach, is to be preceded by a period of tribula- tion and perplexity (' birth pangs '), during which the world will be harassed by war, by internecine quarrels in families, by pestilence and famine, and by the frequent appearance of false Messiahs. Fearful signs and omens will appear in heaven ; the sun and moon will be darkened ; apparitions of swords or armies will be seen in the sky 8 . On earth there will be a general dissolution of moral ties and restraints ; sin and violence will abound ; apostasy from the faith will be a common occurrence ; loyal and righteous Israelites will be mercilessly persecuted. The final ' sign ' before Messiah's advent is to be the return of the prophet Elijah, his mission being either to restore peace and order on the earth, or (as many held) to anoint the Messiah for His appointed work*. (3) The task assigned to the Messiah was variously con- ceived by different writers. According to the older type of 1 2 Esdr. xiii. 52. Cp. St John vii. 27. 2 2 Esdr. xii. 32, xiii. 26. Cp. Enoch xlviii. 6, Ixii. 7, and see Acts vii. 52. 3 See Dan. xii. i; 2 Esdr. v. i 12, vi. 24, ix. 6 foil., xiii. 31 foil.; Apoc. Bar. xxv. , Ixx. 2 foil. ; Orac, Sib. iii. 796 foil. ; Ass. Mos. x. 4 Cp. Just. Dial. c. Tryph. 8. Other prophets are occasionally spoken of as forerunners of Messiah; see St Mt. xvi. 14 (Jeremias) ; St Jo. i. 21, vi. 14, vii. 40 (' the Prophet ' of Deut. xviii. 15). 198 Religion of Israel [CHAP. teaching He was expected in the first place to overthrow the ungodly powers whose yoke pressed so heavily on Israel, and next to liberate the chosen people from their oppressors, to bring back all who were captives or dispersed among the heathen, to set up once more the throne of David and to ' restore the kingdom ' to Israel, in other words, to give the Jews victory and domination over their enemies'. The thought of a spiritual regeneration of Israel through forgive- ness of the sins and sanctification of the hearts of the people, though subordinate, is not altogether absent 2 . Indeed, the idea appears somewhat later that the people's repentance and fulfilment of the Law is the necessary preparation for mani- festation of the Messiah 3 . In regard to the heathen, some hope of their ultimate conversion and submission to the rule of the Messiah occasionally emerges in the earlier literature 4 . (4) Touching the duration of the Messianic kingdom there is a certain divergence of view. The earlier writers, e.g. the authors of Daniel and of the Psalms of Solomon, appear to regard the peaceful rule of the Christ as destined to endure for ever 5 . In later writings it is conceived as limited in duration to 400, 600, or 1000 years 6 . It is with the older view that the doctrine of the resurrection was usually con- nected. At the manifestation of Messiah the faithful saints and martyrs of Israel who had already perished were to be raised from the dead and called to participate in the glories of the Messianic kingdom 7 . But in process of time the view 1 Enoch xc. 16 18; i Esdr. vi. 19; xii. 32 foil.; Tob. xiii. 10; Apoc. Bar. Ixxii. ; 2 Mace. ii. 18 ; Bar. iv. 36 foil. Cp. Dan. ii. 44 ; Acts i. 6. 2 Pss. Sol. xvii. 28 foil. ; Enoch xc. 32. s Cp. Schiirer, div. n. vol. i. p. 163. 4 See Tob. xiv. 6, 7; Pss. Sol. xvii. 32 foil. ; Enoch xc. 30. 8 Dan. vii. 27; Pss. Sol. xvii. 4. 6 2 Esdr. vii. 18 ; cp. Rev. xx. 4 6. In Enoch the language is more vague (xci. 13, 14, xcvi. 8). 7 Dan. xii. 2, 13 ; Enoch xci. 10, xcii. 3, ciii. 4; Pss. So!, iii. 16, xiv. 2 ; a Mace. vii. 9. x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 199 prevailed that the kingdom was itself only a stage in the world's history a kind of prelude to the ' age to come ' and not in itself final. At the close of the peaceful reign of Messiah a last conflict was expected to take place. Satan, hitherto bound in She'ol 1 , was to be let loose; the hostile armies of the heathen would encompass Jerusalem, but only to be overthrown by the prowess of Messiah 2 or by the direct intervention of God Himself, and thrust with Satan into Gehenna. At this point the general resurrection both of the righteous and of the ungodly was expected to take place, Jahveh Himself acting as judge and casting the ungodly into hell 3 . It is to be remarked, however, that the opinion of the apocalyptists is not uniform on this subject. Some speak of a resurrection of the righteous only*, others of a double resurrection, the first a resurrection of pious Israelites called to share in the Messianic glories, the second a general resur- rection of all men, godly or ungodly, followed by a judgment of individuals according to their works 5 . This view also seems to underlie certain passages of the Apocalypse 6 . (5) This general resurrection and final judgment were re- garded as inaugurating ' the age to come ' the eternal reign of God. 'the kingdom of heaven 7 .' There would be a new heaven and a neiv earth 9 , a 'new Jerusalem 9 ' in which all who had submitted to Jahveh should have their part. The nature of 1 Cp. Isai. xxiv. 21, 22. 2 Pss. Sol. xvii. 25 foil. ; Apoc. Bar. xxxix. 7 ; 2 Esdr. xii. 32. 3 Apoc. Bar, xxx. i, xliv. 15, li. 2 6; 2 Esdr. vi. 18, vii. 32 foil.; Enoch xc. 20 foil. 4 Pss. Sol. iii. 16, xiv. 2 foil.; 2 Mace. vii. 14. So the Pharisees apparently believed (Joseph. Antiq. XVIII. i. 3). 6 Apoc. Bar. 1. foil.; 2 Esdr. vii. 32; Enoch li. Cp. Dan. xii. i. 6 Rev. xx. 7 Pss. Sol. xvii. 4. 8 Isai. Ixv. 17. 9 Enoch xc. 28, 29; 2 Esdr. vii. 26, xiii. 36; Apoc. Bar. xxxii. 2; cp. Rev. xxi. 2, 10. 2OO Religion of Israel [CHAP. the future state of bliss was described in ancient prophetic imagery as a feast 1 , or in less materialistic fashion as a restora- tion of Paradise with its undying tree of life 2 . It will have appeared that the later eschatology of the Jews was not altogether distinct or free from contradictions. The imagery of the ancient prophets was many-sided and capable of expansion in different directions. But whatever may have been the character of the popular hopes on this subject, there is no doubt that they exercised a most potent influence, and Josephus is doubtless justified in saying that ' what did most incite the Jews to undertake the war [against Rome] was an am- biguous oracle found in their sacred writings to the effect that about that time one from their country should become governor of the world 3 .' To these vague hopes the Pharisees clung tenaciously. The Sadducees on the other hand were in- different. They rejected the doctrines of the resurrection and of angels, not because these found no support in the Law, but because they were closely connected with expectations the fulfilment of which seemed certain to involve the extinction of Jewish independence. The doctrine of a suffering Messiah is, it will have been noticed, conspicuously absent from the current Jewish escha- tology of this epoch. There is some doubtful evidence that the idea was not altogether strange to the Jewish contro- versialists of the early Christian period 4 , but there is no reason 1 See Isai. xxv. 6 foil. 8 Enoch xxv. 4, 5, etc. ; Apoc. Bar. li. 7 14; 2 Esdr. viii. 52. 3 B.J. vi. 5. 4. Cp. Tac. Hist. v. 13; Suet. Vesp. 4. 4 See for instance the admissions of Trypho in Justin's Dial. c. Tryph. cc. 68, 89, 90. Dr Stanton in The Jewish and the Christian Messiah, p. 123, thinks that 'far too much has been made' of Trypho's language, which probably ' is simply a literary device of Justin's in setting forth his argument.' In 2 Esdr. vii. 29 the death of God's 'son Christ' has evidently no relation to the Christian doctrine of atonement. Messiah dies after a long and blissful reign of 400 years. See more in Stanton, I.e., and the same writer's article in Hastings' DB, s.v. ' Messiah.' x] The final stage in pre-Christian Judaism 201 to suppose that it ever became a prevalent or widely-accepted view among the Jews. This we should certainly infer not only from the silence of the extra-canonical writings, but also from the fact that our Lord's disciples were unable to under- stand His predictions on the subject, and that they found in Jewish ' repugnance to such an idea the greatest difficulty they had to encounter in preaching to their countrymen 1 .' In fact, at the opening of the Christian era the Messianic hope of Israel meets us in a completely secularised form. Even the spiritual ideas connected with it by the writers of the Psalms of Solomon seem to have faded from the minds of men. The dominant thought connected with the advent of Messiah was that of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel 2 . The Messiah for whom the Jews in Palestine waited was a victorious warrior and deliverer, but the thought of his personal glory was, as a rule, overshadowed by glowing anticipations of Israel's coming reunion and exaltation. The life, death and resur- rection of Jesus Christ could alone give substance and reality to the forgotten ideals of prophecy ; only in His Person and work could they be perfectly and harmoniously combined. 1 Stanton, op. cit. p. 124. 2 Acts i. 6. Cp. Edersheim, Life and Times, etc., I. pp. 78 foil. CHAPTER XI. THE CONSUMMATION IN JESUS CHRIST. THERE are two elements in the religion of the Hebrews which are specially consistent with its claim to be a religion of revelation. First, we note the persistency of its upward movement. Hebrew Throughout the Old Testament, as F. D. religion Maurice has observed, ' revelation, or the de- claration of God's mind and will of God Himself to man, is assumed as the ground of action and history and knowledge.' Jewish religion became sterile and unspiritual in proportion as this conviction was weakened, and men substituted 'words for realities, faith in notions for faith in God 1 .' Judaism in the days of the true Messiah forgot the witness borne by its own wonderful past to the existence and presence in history of the living God of a Deity whose covenant-name in itself implied the continuity and progres- siveness of revelation, the freedom of the Divine Nature to manifest itself in deeds of grace and power and in the spiritual education of mankind. In Hebrew religion, however, as its story is unfolded to us in the Old Testament, there is a continual and unmistakeable advance from what is natural to what is spiritual, from what is typical to what is true, from 1 F. D. Maurice, The Religions of the World, pt. II. lect. i. CH. XI] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 203 what is rudimentary to what is perfect 1 . Some force is manifestly at work, guiding the evolution of religious thought in one fixed direction and tending perpetually to lift the nation above the level of its surroundings. It is no merely natural process of development that culminates in the faith of men like the Psalmists or the later Isaiah. Most unan- swerably has it been urged that ' the more nearly we can ally the early conditions of Israel to those of Arabian nomads, the more delicate and rare becomes our apprehension of that Divine relationship which, by its perpetual pressure, lifted Israel to its marvellous supremacy, and which, by its absence, left the Arabian to be what he is to day 2 .' The primitive civilisation of Babylonia was, as we now know, of a refined and even in some respects noble type superior, some would claim, in the ethical conceptions which lay at its root, to that of Israel itself 3 . But the fact remains that the advance of moral and religious ideas in Babylonia was completely arrested some two thousand years before Christ, while those of Israel were taken up, as vital and expansive principles, by Christianity. Another distinctive feature of Hebrew religion is the spirit A religion of prophecy. The Old Testament everywhere of prophecy. assumes that God stands in a special relation- ship to the chosen people, and that He has manifested Himself through the agency of individual men whom He has endowed with the power to apprehend, at least in part, the mystery of His ways and of His will. By divers portions and in divers manners, at times and seasons of His own appointment, He 1 Iren. c. Haer. iv. 14. 3 : 'Facile autem ad idola revertentem populum erudiebat, per multas vocationes praestruens eos perseverare et servire Deo ; per ea quae erartt secunda, ad prima vocans, hoc est, per typica ad vera ; et per temporalia ad aeterna; et per carnalia ad spiritalia; et per terrena ad caelestia.' 2 H. S. Holland in Lux Mundi, p. 44. 3 See F. Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, esp. lect. ii. [ed. C. H. W. Johns, M.A.]. 2O4 Religion of Israel [CHAP. has revealed His purpose, preparing the world for the message which was finally disclosed in His Son. Although, therefore, historical criticism has enabled us to trace clearly-marked stages in the history of Hebrew religion, we need always to remember that Israel's teachers and leaders were for the most part conscious organs of the Divine Spirit, who guided them to see further and to think more deeply than their contem- poraries, and revealed to them as they were able to bear it a vision of things to come. The advance of Hebrew thought is a supremely interesting subject of study; but a priori considerations of what ' must have been ' or ' cannot have been' must be strictly controlled when we are dealing with that which bears such obvious marks of being a Divine revelation. It is unwise and unsafe to assume, as criticism is sometimes apt to do, that our knowledge supplies us with an adequate criterion for testing the spiritual capacity of the prophets of Israel, or that we can accurately determine what was, or was not, within the range of their spiritual vision 1 . At the same time Christians are concerned to maintain that regarded as a whole, whatever may have been the precise order or method observed in the Divine self-disclosure, the Old Testament is the record of a progressive revelation ; that in its entirety it may fairly be described as a vast prophecy of a future state of things, and that the history of Hebrew religion, like that of all other evolutionary movements known to us, finds its interpretation in the end towards which it was guided from the first 2 . The history, then, of the Hebrews was a progressive preparation for the Gospel ; the prophets were inspired to lay 1 See an interesting passage in Dr Driver's LOT (ed. 6), p. 306. 2 R. C. Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. xxviii. : ' If evolutionary thought has taught us anything, it has taught us not to exclude the end, ex hypothesi, when we want to understand the true nature of the beginning, but rather to recognise to how large an extent the beginning finds its true interpretation in the end. ' Xl] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 205 hold of the principles at work in the history, to proclaim their tendency and to forecast their issue; the Law was at once a discipline of mind and character, and a typical presentation of truths yet to be disclosed. In a rudimentary form a theocracy was actually established on earth by Moses, a visible kingdom in whose chequered history prophecy gradually recognised the lineaments of the kingdom of heaven revealed by Jesus Christ. The course of the history brought to light the spiritual and moral needs of Israel ; the voice of prophecy kept alive the hope that those needs would be supplied. The history bore unfailing witness to the purpose and providence of Israel's God; prophecy pointed steadily to a time when God Himself should be all in all to His people; when His abiding presence in their midst should be the crown of their desires and the all-sufficient answer to their prayers. And while prophecy was a kind of inspired commentary on the history of Israel and served, like a lamp shining in a dark place\ to sustain faith during the long ages of preparation for the Messiah, the Law was a discipline, or in St Paul's phrase a tutor*, leading men to the school of Christ. Finally, the spiritual experience of devout Israelites, reflected in the sacred poetry and in the Wisdom-literature of the Old Testament, led them to expect, in answer to their yearnings and question- ings, just such a manifestation of grace and truth as actually came by Jesus Christ 3 . In order to obtain a comprehensive view of the different ways in which Hebrew religion finds its consummation in Christ, it may be well to follow the line of thought suggested by the threefold division of the Hebrew canon, and to review in broad outline the elements contributed severally by Pro- phecy, by the Law, and by spiritual experience to the religious education of the Jewish people. 1 2 Pet. i. 19. 2 Gal. iii. 24, R.V. 3 St John i. 17. 2o6 Religion of Israel [CHAP. I. It is natural to speak first of Prophecy. The ideals of Hebrew prophecy were manifold ; they The fulfilment j -,1 u " ^L of prophecy. varied with changing circumstances ; they were moulded and coloured by prevalent historical conditions; they were not always capable of being mutually adjusted and harmonised 1 . At an early period the figure of the Messianic king was brought into prominence ; at another, the righteous servant of Jahveh; at another, a holy community hallowed by the indwelling presence of God; at another, a kingdom of the saints of the Most High. The hope of a Davidic king revived after the Maccabaean struggle, and in proportion as it did so the character and functions of the expected Messiah became more highly idealised, while at the same time His figure became more closely identified with the nationalistic aspirations of the Jews. But there is one keynote in prophecy which never fails : namely, the thought of a redemption wrought by Jahveh Himself and issuing in the triumphant fulfilment of His purpose for Israel. This funda- mental idea was involved in Jahveh's relationship to Israel and it gives unity to the different ideals of prophecy. God Himself the author of salvation, overcoming evil, bringing in everlasting righteousness and establishing His kingdom this is the most characteristic message of the Old Testament, and, indeed, the proof of its inspiration as a book lies in the fact that with a persistency unparalleled in any other literature it witnesses to God and leads to God 2 . We find in Hebrew prophecy four leading conceptions of the method and issues of this Divine act of salvation. 1 Dr Edersheim well remarks, ' All prophecy, in the nature of it, presents but disjecta membra, and it almost seems as if we had to take our stand in the prophet's valley of vision (Ezek. xxxvii.), waiting till, at the bidding of the Lord, the scattered bones should be joined into a body, to which the breath of the Spirit would give life' (Life and Times, etc., vol. I. p. 171). 2 This thought is suggested by the Bp. of Ripon in his Introd. to the Study of the Scriptures (Temple Bible), ch. ix. Xl] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 207 i. The prophets foretell a personal advent of Jahveh to be the judge and saviour of His people. This conception was doubtless suggested by the events of the exodus. Moses and his successors were guided to discern the true significance of those events. They recognised in the deliverance to which Israel owed its national existence the action of a God gracious, powerful and righteous; in the experience of the wilderness they learned His forbearance, tenderness and readiness to forgive ; in the conquest of Palestine they realised His incom- parable might and the constancy of His purpose of grace for Israel. From the conviction thus gained that they were a people saved by Jahveh^, arose the confidence that the Divine purpose would be accomplished : that in the day of the LORD Israel would be delivered from its foes, purified from sin, and see in its ideal glory and completeness the salvation of God. There was no doubt an element of delusion and error in the popular form assumed by this belief; but religious men cherished more spiritual ideas of the expected theophany, and made it the ground of passionate appeal : O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence... to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence' 1 . It was this expectation, elaborated in pecu- liar and sometimes fantastic imagery, which was a principal theme of the later apocalyptic literature. ii. The prophets believed that the goal of Israel's history was the establishment on earth of a kingdom of God. The polity organised by Moses had given visible embodiment to this idea, and it gained substance and vividness when the monarchy was inaugurated by Samuel. The hopes that are called ' Messianic ' in the strict sense connect themselves with the house of David. In the person of David the monarch was taken into a new relationship with Jahveh as His servant 1 Deut. xxxiii. 29. * Isai. Ixiv. i. 208 Religion of Israel [CHAP. and His ' son ' a title which really belonged to Israel itself, but which when transferred to the king acquired a deeper significance 1 . The true ' son ' of Jahveh was not the king as such, but the king regarded as a righteous and God-fearing ruler, the king equipped for his functions by Jahveh's Spirit and exercising authority in His Name 2 . In a word, the 'son- ship ' of the monarch consists in his moral affinity with Israel's Divine king. The theocracy, even in its earthly embodiment, is seen to have a spiritual character and purpose ; as the chosen people of God, Israel is called to holiness and is entrusted with a religious mission to the world. And although the ideal suggested by the character of David and the glories of Solomon's reign was scarcely ever realised in fact by their successors, the hope of Israel was permanently centred in a future ruler who should fulfil the Divine purpose implied in Israel's election, who should rule in righteousness and enlarge the borders of the kingdom until it embraced, as fellow-subjects and fellow-worshippers with Israel, all the nations of the earth, iii. The conception of the kingdom of God thus tended more and more definitely to connect itself with an individual person through and in whom it would be established. Earlier prophets conceived the Messiah as an ideal king, devoted to Jahveh's service and ruling as His son and representative. In days when monarchy had fallen into dishonour, the vision of a king yielded to that of a 'servant of Jahveh' through whose ministry and sufferings the mission of Israel would be accom- plished. In the holy innocence of his life, in the prophetic 1 The notion of divine ' fatherhood ' among the primitive Semites probably had purely physical associations (Robertson Smith, Rel, of the Semites, pp. 41 foil.). As applied to Israel, the title ' son ' implies a moral relationship to Jahveh (Ex. iv. 22; cp. Deut. xiv. i); as applied to the monarch (2 Sam. vii. 14) the moral significance of the phrase is still more evident. Cp. Pss. Ixxxix. 26, 27, and ii. 7; see also Oehler, 0. T. Theology, 165, note 7. 2 Cp. Mic. v. 4 foil.; Isai. ix. 6, xi. i foil, XI] The Constiimnation in Jesus Christ 209 and missionary character of his work, in the atoning virtue of his sufferings, in the fruitfulness of his self-sacrifice, 'the servant of Jahveh ' embodies more completely than the royal figure of earlier prophecy the spiritual purpose and universal scope of the Divine kingdom. The idea implies some recognition of the truth that the true function of the Messiah was ' not to establish a visible Jewish kingdom, but to do in a supreme way the will of God, whether it led to happiness or to misery 1 .' In the apocalyptic literature the figure of the king reappears, but the tendency of the writers is to emphasise not so much the Davidic descent of the Messiah as His relationship to humanity. Such seems to be the real import of the title ' Son of Man.' Apparently it was not at any time a common designation of the Messiah, and our Lord seems to have employed it to illustrate the character rather than the claims of the Messianic office. By Him the title ' Son of Man ' is employed in contexts which suggest lowly and sober ideas of the Messianic dignity ideas of brotherhood with toiling and suffering humanity, self-forgetful ministry to others, faithfulness even unto death 2 . The phrase seems in fact to be coloured by reminiscences of such passages as Isai. liii. and Ps. viii. It implies a consciousness that man's destiny is a lofty one, but that it can only be fulfilled through submission to the common lot and absolute devotion to the will of God^ iv. The prophetic conception of the kingdom of God was gradually spiritualised. Under the discipline of heathen domination, with its distressful accompaniments, Israel learned that the kingdom was essentially 'the realm in which God's will was done.' The original covenant of Jahveh with His people had indeed been irreparably broken 4 , and Israel during and after the exile was weighed down by a consciousness of 1 Gardner, A Historic View of the N. T. lect. iii. 2 See e.g. St Mt. viii. 20, xvii. 22, xxvi. 24; St Mk. ix. 31 ; St Lk. ix. 22. 3 See Hastings' DB, vol. n. pp. 622, 623; vol. iv. p. 587. 4 Jer. xxxi. 32. O. 14 2io Religion of Israel [CHAP. uncleansed guilt which legal ordinances were powerless to remove. The earnest longing for an effectual remission of sins and for grace to fulfil Jahveh's requirement led to pro- founder conceptions of the Messianic deliverance. Since the yoke which pressed upon Israel was not so much that of heathen conquerors as that of sin, a new covenant was necessary to meet its need a covenant under which the heart of the nation should be purified and renewed unto holiness. Such a covenant would necessarily be an act of grace a Divine ordinance or disposition (Sia&j/a/) in which Jahveh would take upon Himself the fulfilment of Israel's obligation by writing the Law in their hearts. Henceforth, therefore, the kingdom for which faith looked was the rule of God Himself over a regenerate people, purged from guilt and sanctified by the power of the Divine Spirit. And although when Jesus Christ came, this expectation had practically faded from the mind of the Jewish people 1 , there was a remnant of faithful souls ready to respond to the preaching of repent- ance, and to welcome with joy the advent of one who should save His people from their sins 2 . In the preaching of Jesus Christ and of His Apostles the Messianic hope underwent a transformation. The trans- formation Elements ignored in the purely nationalistic ideals of Rabbinism were brought into promi- nence. For national deliverance from heathen oppression was substituted the salvation of the individual soul from sin 3 ; the belief in the exaltation of Zion was merged in the conception of a catholic Church embracing both Gentile and Jew; the Messiah Himself combined with the majesty of a king and the 1 Dr Edersheim, op. cit. vol. I. p. 165, remarks on 'the absence of felt need of deliverance from sin .' On the other hand the Psalms of Solomon reflect in a measure the penitential temper which prepared devout Israelites for the Gospel, e.g. Pss. Sol. ii. 16 foil., viii. 27 41. ' 2 St Mt. i. 11. Cp. Acts iii. 26. 3 See Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah, pp. 149 foil. Xl] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 2 1 1 authority of a prophet the traits of the ideal servant of the LORD, entire devotion to God, meekness, willingness to suffer, submission to persecution and death. The Messianic unction was henceforth understood to signify the endowment of the Spirit wherewith Christ was 'anointed' at His baptism. His resurrection and ascension drew men's thoughts to heaven as the sphere from which He had once descended and should here- after come again ; they recognised that His was not merely an earthly kingship, and that the Messianic blessings foretold by prophecy and bestowed by Jesus Christ were not material but spiritual the forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Spirit, the writing of the Law in men's hearts, righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost 1 . Finally, a new and awful light was thrown upon the relationship in which the Messiah stood to the God whose servant and vicegerent He claimed to be. 'The title Son of God lost, or almost so, the associa- tions with specifically Messianic ideas which it might have had 2 .' Thus what meets us in the New Testament dispensation is a development of general principles rather than a precise fulfilment of details. The historic or pictorial details of the prophetic imagery for the most part disappear, and only the great general conceptions of prophecy remain, transfigured and illuminated by the light of the Gospel 3 . The first preachers of Christianity claim for our Lord, not that He was precisely such a Messiah as the Jews expected, but that He was such as their spiritual needs demanded. In His Person and office many divergent lines of prophecy found a meeting- point. The elements of ' a relatively complete ideal ' were in Him combined and harmonised 4 . 1 Rom. xiv. 17. 2 Dr Stanton in Hastings' DB, vol. in. p. 356. See also Dr Sanday's article ' Son of God ' in vol. iv., esp. pp. 374 foil. 3 Cp. Dr Davidson's 0. T. Prophecy, ch. xi., esp. pp. 169 foil. 4 See Stanton, ubl sup. 142 2 1 2 Religion of Israel [CHAP. II We have noticed that in its later stages prophecy connected with the manifestation of the Mes- th/Law" sianic kingdom the forgiveness and removal of sin. There intervened, between the epoch of the prophets and the advent of the Redeemer, some four or five centuries during which Israel was subjected to the disci- pline of the Levitical Law. In its developed system, the Law virtually embodied the Messianic ideal of the priesthood, namely, the presence of Jahveh dwelling in the midst of a regenerate Israel. Its dominant keynote was the holiness of Israel regarded as the chosen people of the Most Holy. Consequently, the Law gave extraordinary prominence to the idea of sin. The practical effect of the legal ordinances was to deepen Israel's sense of the gulf which separated man from God, and to guard by severe restrictions the right of access to Him. Thus it may be fairly said that the Law took up Israel's spiritual education at the point where Prophecy had left it. The Law was in fact, as St Paul expresses it, added because of transgressions, i.e. in order that it might reveal and multiply offences, and so develope the consciousness of guilt and the longing for a dispensation of grace 1 . Accordingly, by a vast and complex system of sacrifices and ceremonies the Law impressed upon the conscience of Israel the all- pervading presence of sin, and it indicated in outline the conditions under which fellowship with God might be attained. Just as the shortcomings of the monarchy at one time gave an impulse to the expectation of an ideal king, so the manifest incapacity of the Levitical ordinances to take away sin quick- ened the desire for the advent of a true Priest who should put away sin by the sacrifice of himself 2 . The Law was an object- lesson which tended to impress upon the Jews the real nature of that Messianic deliverance for which they looked. The 1 Gal. iii. 19; cp. Rom. iii. 20, v. 20. 2 Heb. ix. 16. XI] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 213 hostile power which hindered Israel from the fulfilment of its destiny was sin 1 . The continuity of the Christian Church with Israel is everywhere taken for granted in the New Testament 2 ; and it is the undeniable fact of this continuity that justifies the reflection of Ambrose (based on Heb. x. i), Umbra in lege, imago vero in evangdio, veritas in caelestibus 3 . The details of the Levitical cultus need not detain us. It is enough to note that the legal system, regarded as a whole, served a provi- dential purpose of Divine grace, that it foreshadowed the means by which the true end of religion union with God was ultimately to be obtained, and that as a matter of fact it developed a rare and noble type of spiritual religion (the Psalter). Speaking broadly, indeed, the Law may be regarded in one of two aspects, (i) as a ceremonial system designed to meet, and in part to educate, man's sense of sin and spiritual need ; (ii) as a law of righteousness which man found himself powerless to fulfil. In its former aspect the legal system is dealt with in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Christ is here set forth moniaTiaw. as ^ e High Priest of humanity. He removes by the sacrifice of Himself the sin which hin- dered man from perfect union with God, and He provides a spiritual, and therefore effectual, means of cleansing the conscience and renewing the will. Other passages of the New Testament encourage us to pursue this line of thought : for instance such as apply to the Christian society titles properly belonging to God's ancient people*: such as dwell upon the spiritual significance of circumcision, or describe Jesus Christ as the Paschal victim, the Lamb of God, a propitiation for our sins, 1 E. de Pressense, Jhus-Christ, son temps, etc., p. 294. ' Le joug qui 1'accablait n'etait pas celui de Rome, c'e'tait le peche.' 2 See e.g. St Mt. xix. 28; Rom. xi. 18; Eph. ii. 12, 19. s in Ps. xxxviii. 25 (ap. Willis, Worship of the Old Covenant, p. 14). 4 i St Pet. ii. 9. 214 Religion of Israel [CHAP. a ransom for many 1 . It must suffice barely to indicate the way in which the Law foreshadows the mysteries of the Gospel and the ordinances of the Church 2 a subject which would require a separate treatise. On the other hand, the Old Covenant imposed upon man's will a law of moral obedience. Its discipline The^morai wag i n j- en( ^ e( j t o develope a certain type of character the character which we see exhibited in the devotional language of the Psalms and in the fervent loyalty of the prophets the character of the faithful and devoted 'servant of Jahveh.' The Law failed, as St Paul says, in that it was weak through the flesh* ; and in fact even the highest type of character moulded by the legal dispensation had its limitations and defects. It was not altogether free from impatience, querulousness, vindictiveness, and even self- righteousness. It was destined to give place to something higher, 'as the flower to the fruit, as childhood to manhood*.' In Jesus Christ was manifested the righteousness towards which the discipline of the Old Testament was constantly tending : the spirit or temper which the prophets had par- tially exhibited and which the Law itself had enjoined : the spirit of entire self-consecration to the will of God, whole- hearted love of God and love of man for His sake. Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law, and it was in two sentences taken from its pages that He summed up the whole duty of man 5 . But the complete commentary on His words is to be found in His life : in His filial devotion to God, in His attitude towards sin, in His dealings with the outcast and 1 Rom. ii. 29; Col. ii. n; i Cor. v. 7; St John i. 29; i St John ii. 2; St Mt. xx. 28. 3 Cp. the passage in which Augustine shows summarily how Christ 'fulfilled' the ceremonial law, c. Faust. Munich, xix. 9 ii. 3 Rom. viii. 3. 4 See R. W. Church, The Discipline of the Christian Character, Serm. III.; on the defects of O.T. religion see Bruce, Apologetics, bk. ii. ch. 10. 5 St Mk. xii. 2931. Cp. Church, op. cit. Serm. IV. Xl] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 215 despised, in the completeness of His self-sacrifice. In His teaching and in His actions He unfolded the true content of the Law ; He illustrated the essential meaning of the state- ment that the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good 1 ; by His own mediatorial work and by the free gift of His grace He brought the fulfilment of the Law within the reach of men, ut jam (as Augustine writes) non essent legi subditi per reatum, sed legi sociati per iustitiam' 2 '. Thus in its fullest significance and in all its aspects the Law was fulfilled in Christ. It taught men their own spiritual needs, and the comprehensiveness of the Divine requirement ; it aimed at the consecration of all life, physical and moral ; it set forth union with God as the true end of human nature. It is reasonable to believe that it also foreshadowed the mysteries by which the yearnings and aspirations of those who lived under the yoke of its discipline should be finally satisfied. III. The discipline of the Law was supplemented by the teachings of life itself. What we may call the The Hagrio- , , . , r T , grapha. moral and spiritual experience of Israel is en- shrined in the latest portion of the Hebrew canon. The ' Writings ' (Hagiographd) in fact embody the religious ideas of a people which has passed through many vicissitudes of fortune. They are for the most part the products either of reflection exercising itself on Israel's past history and on the problems of human life, or of religious emotion striving to find appropriate expression. They contribute an element of universality to Israel's religion in so far as they reflect the aspirations and perplexities, not of a particular race, but of humanity. There were indeed problems which pressed heavily upon the Jewish mind in that dreary waste of years which followed the extinction of Israel's national hopes, when religion had become to a certain extent individualistic, and when contact with heathenism had fostered the temper of religious specu- 1 Rom. vii. 14. s c. Faust. Manich. xix. 7. 216 Religion of Israel [CHAP. lation. Inevitable questions arose touching immortality and the future life, a particular providence, the law of Divine retribution, the meaning and purpose of the sufferings of innocence. Scope was thus found within the limits of Jewish faith for a philosophy of life, a ' Wisdom ' which in one aspect indeed has points of contact with Christian thought, but which for the most part stated difficulties which only the Incarnation could solve. The Old Testament, besides being the record of Divine revelation, is also in great measure the self-disclosure of the human heart. It finds a place in its pages for the appeal and complaint of man to God ; it gives utterance to the sorrowful protests of persecuted saints ; it describes their perplexities ; it records their songs of deliver- ance or their patient acquiescence in God's dealings with them. The book of Job may be particularly mentioned as one which exposed the deficiencies of the current doctrine of retribution. It prepared the Jew for a suffering Messiah by reminding him that ' virtue was not always rewarded here, and that therefore no argument could be drawn from affliction and ignominy against the person who suffered it 1 .' Now in the teaching of Jesus Christ two features are equally prominent : its reserve and its positive- The teaching m, , L j u of Christ. ness - * nere are questions, prompted by curio- sity or intellectual restlessness, to which He vouchsafes no answer; there are also matters on which He speaks with perfect clearness and with unique authority. He enunciates great principles ; He leaves points of detail in obscurity. Thus He brings life and immortality to light through the Gospel' 2 , He expressly confirms those presages of a final judgment and a severance of good from bad which had sustained the faith of sages and prophets. He encourages men to believe that the true solution of their perplexities is to be found beyond the limits of this life. He teaches explicitly the all-controlling providence of Almighty God, the care and 1 J. B. Mozley, Essays, vol. II. pp. 227 foil. 2 i Tim. i. 10. xi] The Consummation in Jesus Christ 217 mercy which He extends over all His works. But the suffer- ings of innocence find no explanation elsewhere than in His own Passion and Resurrection. Identifying Himself to the uttermost with the pangs and sorrows of all the ancient martyrs and saints, He set forth in His own Person the meaning and the issue of pain. He appropriated and made His own all that is hardest to bear in the lot of man : temptation, poverty, homelessness, exacting toil, weariness, persecution, failure and disappointment, scorn and ingratitude, the contradiction of sinners, agony of body and mind, a death of shame. He showed how all these things might minister to man's spiritual perfection and might prepare him for the state of glory and blessedness. He showed that while suffering is the necessary mark of God's judgment upon sin, it is not incompatible with personal sinlessness. Thus as His disciples came to understand more deeply Who and What Jesus Christ was, they recognised in His Passion and Resurrection the sufficient answer to their cry for a fresh manifestation of God ; they learned what nothing less or lower could have adequately taught them, that God is light, God is love 1 . The sapiential literature of the Hebrews prepared the way for the Gospel, partly as we have seen by stating Ht h erare d m " problems which the revelation of God in Christ was destined to solve, partly by lifting into prominence the universalistic element in Israel's faith. The ' Wisdom ' formed a link between Judaism and Hellenism, by suggesting the possibility that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness might be acceptable to Him 2 . It contemplated the universe as the sphere of God's moral governance and of His manifested Reason or Word. It pointed forward to Christ as the true reconciler of humanity, in whom all things are summed up, Gentile and Jew are made one, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are concealed 3 . Finally, the Wisdom-literature by its silence no less than by its 1 i St John i. 5, iv. 8. 2 Acts x. 35. 3 Eph. i. 10, ii. 14; Col. ii. 3. 145 218 Religion of Israel [CHAP. XI explicit statements re-enforced the teachings of prophecy in regard to the kind of religion which God could accept and bless, a doctrine which was crowned by the saying of Christ Himself: they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth 1 . Thus throughout the history of Israel, the Spirit of Him to whom are known all His works from the beginning Summary. of the world*, was ever manifestly at work ' enabling those whom He inspired to anticipate His purposes and to read, each in his measure, the Divine thoughts for mankind 3 .' Only when we grasp the significance of St Paul's phrase the fulness of Christ*, can we do justice to the many- sided witness borne to Him by the ancient Scriptures. In narrative and parable, in song and prophecy, different aspects of Christ's kingdom are foreshadowed ; in the ministries of the ancient priesthood His mediatorial work is prefigured ; in the prayers of saints and the cry of martyrs, His voice is heard or His coming anticipated. As we study the Old Testament in the light of modern knowledge we become not less but more convinced that the history of Hebrew religion is an organic whole to which the Messiah and His kingdom are the key ; we become not less but more certain that it was for Christ that Israel and the world waited quern regem ad regendos, et sacerdotem ad sanctificandos fideles suos, universus ille apparatus veteris Instrumenti in generationibus, factts, dictis, sacrifidis, observationibus, festivitatibus, omnibusque eloquiorum praeconiis, et rebus gestis et rerum figuris parturiebat esse venturum 6 . 1 St John iv. 24. 2 Acts xv. 18. 3 Schultz, 0. T. Theology, I. 54. 4 Eph. i. 23. 8 Aug. c. Faust. Munich, xix. 31 s.fin. LIST OF CHIEF WORKS CONSULTED (other than those mentioned in A Short History of the Hebreivs, pp. 313, 314). CORNILL, PROF. C. H., Der Israelitische Prophetismus (Strass- burg, 1894). CORNILL, PROF. C. H., Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Freiburg i. B. und Leipzig, 1896). DAVIDSON, DR A. B., Old Testament Prophecy (T. and T. Clark, 1904). DAVIDSON, DR A. B. The Theology of the Old Testament (T. and T. Clark, 1903). DRIVER, PROF. S. R., The Book of Genesis (Methuen, 1904). KAUTZSCH, PROF. EMIL, Article 'Religion of Israel,' in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, extra volume (T. and T. Clark, 1904). MARTI, PROF. C, Geschichte der Israelitischen Religion (Dritte verbesserte Auflage von A. Kayser's Theologie des A.T., 1897). OEHLER, DR G. F., Theology of the Old Testament (Eng. Trans. T. and T. Clark, 1889). 22O List of chief works consulted PROCKSCH, DR O., Geschichtsbetrachtung und Geschichtliche Uberlieferung bet den Vorexilischen Prop he ten (Leipzig, 1902). RIEHM, DR E., Alttestamentliche Theologie (Halle, 1889). SMEND, PROF. R., Lehrbuch der Alttestamentlichen Religions- geschichte (Freiburg i. B. und Leipzig, 1893). SMITH, PROF. W. ROBERTSON, The Religion of the Semites (A. and C. Black, 1889). STANTON, PROF. V. H., The Jewish and the Christian Messiah (T. and T. Clark, 1886). INDEX I. GENERAL. Abraham, 12, 23 Adam, sin traced to, 185 'Age to come,' the, 196, 199 Agricultural life, effect on Hebrews of, 44 Ahab, 1 6, 64, 65 Ahaz, 17, 82 Akiba, R., 185 Alexander, 152 Alexander Jannaeus, 191 Altars, primitive, 15 Ambrose, quoted, 213 Ammon, 7 Amos, 63, 74, 76, 82-84 Ancestor-worship, 10 note Angelology, Jewish, 154 Anthropomorphism, 31 note, 73 Antiochus III. (the Great), 152 Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, 181, 189, !95 Apocalypse, Jewish, 192 foil. Apocalyptic writings, the chief, 194 their characteristics, 195 foil. Messianic ideas of, 196 foil. Aramaeans, 7 Aristobulus II., 190 Ark, the, 32, 50 Assyria, 81, 82, 87, 92 Athanasius, quoted, i Atonement, Day of, 147 foil. Augustine, quoted, 215, 218 Azariah, 64 Ba'al, worship of the Tyrian, 64 Babylon, empire of, 105 Baruch, Apocalypse of, 194 Beeliada (Eliada), 44 note Beersheba, n, 12, 44 Bethel, 11, 44, 57, 63 Blood, use of, 15, 142 Blood-revenge, law of, 20 Buildings for worship, 50 Bull-worship, 49 note, 63 Burnt-offering, the daily, 139 Burnt-sacrifice, 16, 139 Canaanites, the, 7, 28 Carchemish, battle of, 105 Cereal offerings, 51 Chemosh, 31 Circumcision, origin of, 18 after the exile, 133 Conquest of Palestine, the Hebrew, 41, 42 Covenant, idea of a, 34 note the new, 103 'Covenant, Book of the,' 5 Cyrus, 121, 122, 160 Dan, 12, 44, 63 Daniel, book of, 158, 193, 195 Darius Hystaspis, 127 David, 16, 57 work of, 60, 6 1 Davidic king, the, 85 foil. , 206, 208 222 Index I ' Day of Jahveh,' the, 53, 69, 84, 85, 158 Dead, consultation of the, 54 Deborah, song of, 45 Decalogue, the, 35 foil. Deity, Semitic idea of, 9 foil. localisation of, n Demonology, 154 Deutero- Isaiah, 115, 121, 155, 163 teaching of, 122-126 Deuteronomic reformation, the, 97- 99' .'37 recension of historical books, 119 Deuteronomy, book of, 5 discovery of, 95 its character, 96 foil, its teaching, 166 Diadochi, the, 152 Dispersion, effect of the, 163 Ecclesiastes, teaching of, 179 Ecclesiasticus, book of, 178 Edom, 158 Edomites, 7 Eli, 4 8 Eliashib, grandson of, 131 Elijah, 63-65, 88 Elisha, 63, 66 'En-mishpat, 12, 19, 38 Enoch, book of, 194 'En-rogel, 12 Ephraim, tribe of, 42 Eschatology, Jewish, 189 foil. Esdras, Second (or P'ourth) book of, 194 Eshbaal (Ishbosheth), 44 note Essenes, the, 186 Esther, book of, 158 Evil-Merodach, 108 Exile, the, 106 foil. literary activity during the, 119 return of the Jews from, 127. Exiles, the, condition of, 107, 108 after the return, 129 Exodus, the, 27 note, 31 Ezekiel,. 73, 104 his career and work, 108 foil.' teaching of,, 1 10-1 f8, 155, 157, 163 on the Levites, 135 Ezra, 129, 130, 155, 156 Fatherhood, idea of the Divine, 208 note Feasts, New Moon, 17, 51, 145 masspth ('unleavened bread'), 52 ' weeks,' 52, 146 ' booths,' 52 sheep-shearing, 18, 52 Fire, use of, in sacrifice, 16, 51 note Fountains, sacred, 12 Gad, tribe of, 41 Gibeon, 13 Gideon, 16, 46 Gilgal, 13, 44 GOD, Judaistic conception of, 185 Habakkuk, 104 Haggai, 128 Hagiographa, preparation for Christ in the, 215 foil. Hananiah, 101 Heathen, relation of Jahveh to, 87 Jewish view of the, 156 foil. ' Heave shoulder,' the, 141 Hebrews, origin of the, 7 Hezekiah, 13, 91 ' High places,' the, 16 'High Priest,' the, 118, 136 Hilkiah, 95 Hinnom, valley of, 17 Historical books, compilation of the, 119 'Holiness,' conception of, 71 note, 132 foil. 'Holiness, Law of,' 120 Holland, H. S., quoted, 203 'Holy one of Israel,' the, 71, 123 ' Holy persons,' 21 Hosea, 63, 73, 79, 83 Hoshea, 82 ' Hosts, God of,' 74 Human sacrifice, 16 foil. 'Images, use of, 14 Incense,, .use of, 1 38 note Individual religion, 102 Individualism, prophetic, 162 foil. Irenaeus, quoted, 90 Index I 223 Isaac, 13 offering of, 16, 17 Isaiah, 83, 86-89, 91 [Isaiah], xxiv.-xxvi. , 161 [Isaiah], Ix.-lxii., 161 Isaiah, Ascension of, 195 Ishmael, 13 Israel, the name, 32 note in Egypt, 26 religion in northern, 63 relation of, to Jahveh, 76, 77 after the exile, 132 foil. Issus, battle of, 152 Jacob, ii, 13 JAHVEH, origin of the Name, 29, 30 primitive conception of, 31 His relationship to Israel, 33, 76 His moral requirement, 34 worship of, under form of an ox, 49 note His anger how conceived, 53 note prophetic conception of, 70 foil. His ' holiness,' 71 His righteousness, 71 His lovingkindness, 72 His 'jealousy,' 73 His omnipotence, 74 His relationship to the heathen, 87 Jason, 189 Jehoiachin, 105, 108 Jehoiakim, 99, 101 Jephthah, 17 Jeremiah, 73, 94 foil., 98, 101 foil., 1 66 teaching of, 112, 113, 163 Jeroboam I., 63 Jeroboam II., 67, 82 Jerubbaal, 44 note Jerusalem, 61 fall of, 105 after the exile, 129 Jesse, 52 Jesus ben Sirach, teaching of, 178 Jezebel, 64 Job, book of, 174, 176. teaching of, 178 foil., 216 Jochebed, 29 note John Hyrcanus, 190 Jonah, book of, 162 Jonathan, 190 Josephus quoted, 164, 165 Joshua, 13, 42 Joshua ben Josedech, 128 Josiah, 13, 93 reformation of, 97 death of, 99, 100 Judah, tribe of, 41, 42 religion in, 63, 65 fall of, 105 Judaism, beginnings of, ch. viii., pp. 127 foil. contact of, with Hellenism, ch. ix., pp. 152 foil. Judas Maccabaeus, 190 Judges, the, 46, 59 period of the, 47 worship in the age of the, 49 Judith, book of, 158 note, 194 Justice, administration of, among the Semites, 19 Kenites, the, 29 King, the theocratic, 60, 61 Kingdom, disruption of the, 63 Law, importance of the, 185 foil, fulfilment in Christ of the, 212 foil. Law book, the, published by Ezra, X 3 ' Law of holiness,' 1 20 Leper, cleansing of the, 144 Levirate marriage, 20 Levites, the, 135 Levitical ritual, effect of the, 150 Maccabaean rising, 158, i8i,.i9o Maccabees, books of, 158 note Malachi, book of, 161 Mamre, 1 1 Manasseh, King, 17 reign of, 92 foil. Manasseh, schism of, 156 Marriage, primitive, 19 Levirate, 20 Marriages, mixed, 130, 131 Mattathias, 190 Maurice, F. D., 202 224 Index I Megiddo, battle of, 100 Melchishua, 44 note Melkarth, 62, 64 Menelaus, 190 Meribaal (Mephibosheth), 44 note Messiah, the suffering, 200 Messianic hope, rise of the, 62 Messianic ideas in prophecy, 84 foil, ideal of the priesthood, 117 ideas in later Judaism, 196 foil. Micah, 83, 87 Micaiah, 63, 65 note Mishna, the, 184 Mizpeh, 13 Moab, 7 Moloch, 92 note, 97 Monarchy, foundation of the, 59, 60 Monotheism, ethical, 75, 101 Moon, feast of the new, 17, 51, 145 Mosaism, origin of, 28 Moses, 5, 26 foil. significance of his work, 38 foil. Moses, Assumption of, 195 Naboth, 65 'Name' of Jahveh, in, 112 Nathan, 88 Nationalism, 106 Naziritism, 45, 55 Nebuchadnezzar, 105 Necho, 100 Nehemiah, 129 foil., 155 New Moon, see Moon Obadiah, book of, 158 note Onias III., 189 Passover, the, among the Semites, '7 in pre-prophetic times, 52 note Levitical feast of, 145 foil. Patriarchs, the, 23 Peace-offering, the, 140 Pentateuch, documents of the, 27 Pentecost, feast of, 146 Persia, domination of, 152 foil, religion of, 153 Personal religion, 166 Pfleiderer, O., quoted, 150, 163 Pharisees, the, 183, 191 Philistines, the, 59 Piety, observances of Jewish, 186 Priesthood, among the Semites, 21 in pre-prophetic times, 47 foil. after the exile, 134 foil. organisation of (in Judaism), 186 foil. 'Priestly Code," the, 120, 132 foil. Prophecy, beginnings of, 56-58 false and true, 80 ideals of, 206 foil. fulfilled in Christ, 210, 211 ' Prophets, sons of the,' 57 Prophets, the, relation to Moses, 7 teaching of, 70-90 their view of religion, 78 relation to the nebiim and the priests, 79 foil, preachers of judgment, 81 Messianic ideas of, 84 foil, importance of the, 204 Proverbs, book of, 174 foil. teaching of, 177 Providence, personal, 53, 54 note Psalmists, religion of the, 168 foil. Psalms of Solomon, the, 194 Pseudo-Aristeas, letter of, 188 Ptolemy Philadelphus, 188 Purification, rites of, 134, 143 foil. ' Queen of heaven,' cult of the, 97 Rechabites, 45 note, 64 Red heifer, ordinance of the, 144 Rehoboam, 63 Religion, popular, 69 Remnant, doctrine of the, 89, 94 Resurrection, Jewish doctrine of, 154, 189, 198, 199 Retribution, idea of, in the Psalms, 171 problem of, in Proverbs, 177; in Job, 178; in Ecclesiastes, 179; in Wisdom, 180 Reuben, tribe of, 41 Robertson Smith, W. , quoted, 35 Sabbath, the, 18, 52, 144, 145 Index I 225 Sabbatical year, the, 145 Sacrifice, primitive, 15 human, 16 foil., 92, 97 in pre-prophetic times, 50 piacular, 53, 139, 143 after the exile, 138 foil. the daily, 188 Sadducees, the, 183, 191 Salome Alexandra, 191 Samaria, 13 fall of, 82, 91 Samaritan community, the, 131 Samson, 55 Samuel, work of, 55 foil., 88 Sargon, 82 Saul, 57, 60 Scribes, Scribism, 183, 184 Seasons, holy, 144 foil. Seer, the primitive, 21 in pre-prophetic times, 48, 56 Seleucidae, 152 Semites, the primitive, 8 foil. their conception of deity, 8 foil. their mode of worship, 15 foil. sacred customs, 18 social and moral characteristics, 19 Serpent, the brazen, 91 'Servant of Jahveh,' the, 124 foil., 208, 209 Shalmaneser IV., 82 Shechem, n, 13 Sheep-shearing, festival of, 18, 52 Shiloh, 42 Sibylline Oracles, the, 194 Simeon, tribe of, 41 Simon, 190 Sin-offerings, of money, 53 law of the, 141 foil. Slavery, primitive, 20 Solomon, 13, 60, 61, 62 religious policy of, 62 note 'Son of Man,' 195, 196, 209 'Spirit of Jahveh,' the, in, 112 Star-worship, 92 Stones, sacred, 1 1 Synagogues, 131 Syncretism, 42, 43 Syrians, the, 16 Israel's warfare with, 63, 65 its effects, 67, 68 Tabernacles, feast of, 147 Taboo, 134 Tacitus, 157 Tel-el-Amarna tablets, the, 8 Temple, the, built by Solomon, 13, 62,63 rebuilding of the, 128, 160 after the exile, 138 maintenance of worship in the, 187 profanation and dedication of the, 190 ' Tent of meeting ' (tabernacle), 37 Tiglath Pileser III. (Pul), 82 Tobit, book of, 194 Trees, sacred, 12 Trespass-offering, the, 141 Universalism, prophetic, 159 foil. 'Wave breast,' the, 141 Weeks, feast of, 52, 146 Wisdom, book of, 180 Wisdom, Hebrew, 172 foil. Jewish conception of, 175 foil. Wisdom-literature, preparation for Christ in the, 217 foil. 'Wise men,' the, 172 Worship, forms of, in primitive times, 15 in the wilderness, 36, 37 in pre-prophetic times, 49 foil. during the exile, 108 after the exile, 137 Zadok, the descendants of, 135 foil. Zealots, the, 158 Zechariah, 73 [Zechariah], ix.-xiv., 158 Zedekiah, 105 Zephaniah, teaching of, 93, 94, 102 Zerubbabel, 127 Zoroastrian religion, 153 Zurishaddai, 23 note INDEX II. HEBREW AND SEMITIC WORDS. 'Adon, 10 ^sereth, 147 'Ashtrah, 'asherim, J2, 13, 49, 91, 97 'Azazel, 149 Ba'al, ba'alim, 9, 10, f2, 43 Bdmoth, 16, 49 Beth-el, 9 Chasidim, 190,^191 'Edah, 1 20 '/, 9 './ 'Elyon, 29 ,'jEttlim, 74 'Elohitn, 9, 29 '/(? moreh, 12 './ Shaddai, 23 note, 29 'Ephod, 14, 46, 49 Gematria, 194 Haggadah, 184 Halachah, 183 JAHVEff, 29 foil. Kohen, 134 Korban, 146 note Mtfarn&d, \ 89 Marakh, 32 Massebah, masseboth, 13, 49, 91, 97 Massekah, 49 Massoth, 52 Me'lekh, 10, 44 no'te Middoth, 183 Midrash, 193 . Mine hah, 51, 140 Mishmoroth, 188 Mo'adim, 144 Musr, Musir, 27 note Ndbhi, nebtim, 56 Naioth, 57 Nesek, 51, 140 Nethinim, nethnnim, 135 note Pesach, 146 Pestlim, 49 >?