The exclusive admirer of the hypothesis of Totemism will find evidence for his belief in worship of the golden calf7 and the bulls. The partisan8 of nature-worship will insist on Jehovah’s connection with storm, thunder, and the fire of Sinai. On the other hand, whoever accepts our suggestions will incline to see, in the early forms of belief in Jehovah, a shape of the widely diffused9 conception of a Moral Supreme10 Being, at first (or, at least, when our information begins) envisaged11 in anthropomorphic form, but gradually purged12 of all local traits by the unexampled and unique inspiration of the great Prophets. They, as far as our knowledge extends, were strangely indifferent to the animistic element in religion, to the doctrine13 of surviving human souls, and so, of course, to that element of Animism which is priceless — the purification of the soul in the light of the hope of eternal life. Just as the hunger after righteousness of the Prophets is intense, so their hope of finally sating that hunger in an eternity14 of sinless bliss15 and enjoyment16 of God is confessedly inconspicuous. In short, they have carried Theism to its austere18 extreme — ‘though He slay19 me, yet will I trust in Him’ — while unconcerned about the rewards of Animism. This is certainly a strange result of a religion which, according to the anthropological20 theory, has Animism for its basis.
We therefore examine certain forms of the animistic hypothesis as applied22 to account for the religion of Israel. The topic is one in which special knowledge of Hebrew and other Oriental languages seems absolutely indispensable; but anthropological speculators have not been Oriental scholars (with rare exceptions), while some Oriental scholars have borrowed from popular anthropology23 without much critical discrimination. These circumstances must be our excuse for venturing on to this difficult ground.
It is probably impossible for us to trace with accuracy the rise of the religion of Jehovah. ‘The wise and learned’ dispute endlessly over dates of documents, over the amount of later doctrine interpolated into the earlier texts, over the nature, source, and quantity of foreign influence — Chaldaean, Accadian, Egyptian, or Assyrian. We know that Israel had, in an early age, the conception of the moral Eternal; we know that, at an early age, that conception was contaminated and anthropomorphised; and we know that it was rescued, in a great degree, from this corruption25, while always retaining its original ethical26 aspect and sanction. Why matters went thus in Israel and not elsewhere we know not, except that such was the will of God in the mysterious education of the world. How mysterious that education has been is best known to all who have studied the political and social results of Totemism. On the face of it a perfectly27 crazy and degrading belief — on the face of it meant for nothing but to make the family a hell of internecine28 hatred29 — Totemism rendered possible — nay30, inevitable31 — the union of hostile groups into large and relatively32 peaceful tribal33 societies. Given the materials as we know them, we never should have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should thus have been done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of the conditions of the problem.
An example of anthropological theory concerning Jehovah was put forth34 by Mr. Huxley.1 Mr. Huxley’s general idea of religion as it is on the lowest known level of material culture — through which the ancestors of Israel must have passed like other people — has already been criticised. He denied to the most backward races both cult24 and religious sanction of ethics35. He was demonstrably, though unconsciously, in error as to the facts, and therefore could not start from the idea that Israel, in the lowest historically known condition of savagery36, possessed38, or, like other races, might possess, the belief in an Eternal making for righteousness. ‘For my part,’ he says, ‘I see no reason to doubt that, like the rest of the world, the Israelites had passed through a period of mere39 ghost-worship, and had advanced through ancestor-worship and Fetishism and Totemism to the theological level at which we find them in the Books of Judges and Samuel.’2
But why does he think the Israelites did all this? The Hebrew ghosts, abiding40, according to Mr. Huxley, in a rather torpid41 condition in Sheol, would not be of much practical use to a worshipper. A reference in Deuteronomy xxvi. 14 (Deuteronomy being, ex hypothesi, a late pious42 imposture) does not prove much. The Hebrew is there bidden to remind himself of the stay of his ancestors in Egypt, and to say, ‘Of the hallowed things I have not given aught for the dead’ — namely, of the tithes43 dedicated44 to the Levites and the poor. A race which abode45 for centuries among the Egyptians, as Israel did — among a people who elaborately fed the kas of the departed — might pick up a trace of a custom, the giving of food for the dead, still persevered46 in by St. Monica till St. Ambrose admonished47 her. But Mr. Huxley is hard put to it for evidence of ancestor-worship or ghost-worship in Israel when he looks for indications of these rites49 in ‘the singular weight attached to the veneration50 of parents in the Fourth Commandment.’3 The Fourth Commandment, of course, is a slip of the pen. He adds: ‘The Fifth Commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between ancestor-worship and Monotheism.’ Long may children practise this excellent compromise! It is really too far-fetched to reason thus: ‘People were bidden to honour their parents, as a compromise between Monotheism and ghost-worship.’ Hard, hard bestead is he who has to reason in that fashion! This comes of ‘training in the use of the weapons of precision of science.’
Mr. Huxley goes on: ‘The Ark of the Covenant51 may have been a relic52 of ancestor-worship;’ ‘there is a good deal to be said for that speculation.’ Possibly there is, by way of the valuable hypothesis that Jehovah was a fetish stone which had been a grave-stone, or perhaps a lingam, and was kept in the Ark on the plausible53 pretext54 that it was the two Tables of the Law!
However, Mr. Huxley really finds it safer to suppose that references to ancestor-worship in the Bible were obliterated55 by late monotheistic editors, who, none the less, are so full and minute in their descriptions of the various heresies56 into which Israel was eternally lapsing57, and must not be allowed to lapse58 again. Had ancestor-worship been a péché mignon of Israel, the Prophets would have let Israel hear their mind on it.
The Hebrews’ indifference59 to the departed soul is, in fact, a puzzle, especially when we consider their Egyptian education — so important an element in Mr. Huxley’s theory.
Mr. Herbert Spencer is not more successful than Mr. Huxley in finding ancestor-worship among the Hebrews. On the whole subject he writes:
‘Where the levels of mental nature and social progress are lowest, we usually find, along with an absence of religious ideas generally, an absence, or very slight development, of ancestor-worship. . . . Cook [Captain Cook], telling us what the Fuegians were before contact with Europeans had introduced foreign ideas, said there were no appearances of religion among them; and we are not told by him or others that they were ancestor-worshippers.’4
Probably they are not; but they do possess a Being who reads their hearts, and who certainly shows no traces of European ideas. If the Fuegians are not ancestor-worshippers, this Being was not developed out of ancestor-worship.
The evidence of Captain Cook, no anthropologist60, but a mariner61 who saw and knew little of the Fuegians, is precisely62 of the sort against which Major Ellis warns us.5 The more a religion consists in fear of a moral guardian63 of conduct, the less does it show itself, by sacrifice or rite48, to the eyes of Captain Cook, of his Majesty’s ship Endeavour. Mr. Spencer places the Andamanese on the same level as the Fuegians, ‘so far as the scanty65 evidence may be trusted.’ We have shown that (as known to Mr. Spencer in 1876) it may not be trusted at all; the Andamanese possessing a moral Supreme Being, though they are not, apparently66, ancestor-worshippers. The Australians ‘show us not much persistence67 in ghost-propitiation,’ which, if it exists, ceases when the corpses68 are tied up and buried, or after they are burned, or after the bones, carried about for a while, are exposed on platforms. Yet many Australian tribes possess a moral Supreme Being.
In fact ghost-worship, in Mr. Spencer’s scheme, cannot be fairly well developed till society reaches the level of ‘settled groups whose burial-places are in their midst.’ Hence the development of a moral Supreme Being among tribes not thus settled, is inconceivable, on Mr. Spencer’s hypothesis.6 By that hypothesis, ‘worshipped ancestors, according to their remoteness, were regarded as divine, semi-divine, and human.’7 Where we find, then, the Divine Being among nomads69 who do not remember their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory is refuted by facts. We have the effect, the Divine Being, without the cause, worship of ancestors.
Coming to the Hebrews, Mr. Spencer argues that ‘the silence of their legends (as to ancestor-worship) is but a negative fact, which may be as misleading as negative facts usually are.’ They are, indeed; witness Mr. Spencer’s own silence about savage37 Supreme Beings. But we may fairly argue that if Israel had been given to ancestor-worship (as might partly be surmised70 from the mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would not have spared them for their crying. The Prophets were unusually outspoken72 men, and, as they undeniably do scold Israel for every other kind of conceivable heresy73, they were not likely to be silent about ancestor-worship, if ancestor-worship existed. Mr. Spencer, then, rather heedlessly, though correctly, argues that ‘nomadic74 habits are unfavourable to evolution of the ghost-theory.’8 Alas75, this gives away the whole case! For, if all men began as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable even to the ordinary ghost, how did the Australian and other nomads develop the Supreme Being, who, ex hypothesi, is the final fruit of the ghost-flower? If you cannot have ‘an established ancestor-worship’ till you abandon nomadic habits, how, while still nomadic, do you evolve a Supreme Being? Obviously not out of ancestor-worship.
Mr. Spencer then assigns, as evidence for ancestor-worship in Israel, mourning dresses, fasting, the law against self-bleeding and cutting off the hair for the dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14) about ‘I have not given aught thereof for the dead.’ ‘Hence, the conclusion must be that ancestor-worship had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it was repressed by a higher worship.’9 But whence came that higher worship which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic habits?
There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive76 way among the Hebrews. ‘Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead’ (Deut. xiv. 1). ‘Neither shall men lament77 for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead’ (by way of counter-irritant to grief); ‘neither shall men give them the cup of consolation78 to drink for their father or their mother,’ because the Jews were to be removed from their homes.10 ‘Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.’11
It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as sacrifices to the ghost of the dead. But one has seen a man strike himself a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss not by death, and I venture to fancy that cuttings and gashings at funerals are merely a more violent form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world. One of John Nicholson’s native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior’s death, saying, ‘What is left worth living for?’ This was not a sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner’s hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in Psalm79 cvi. 28, ‘They joined themselves unto Baal–Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead,’ is usually taken by commentators80 as a reference to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an acquiescence81 in foreign burial rites. All this additional evidence does not do much to prove ancestor-worship in Israel, though the secrecy82 of the burial of Moses, ‘in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,’ may indicate a dread83 of a nascent84 worship of the great leader.12 The scene of the defection in Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs after the girls and the gods of Moab: ‘And Moab called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.’ Psalm cvi. is obviously a later restatement of this addiction85 to the Moabite gods, and the Psalm adds ‘they ate the sacrifices of the dead.’
It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-worship among the Hebrews was, at the utmost, rudimentary. Otherwise it must have been clearly denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel. Therefore, as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-worship in Israel could not be developed at once into the worship of Jehovah.
Though ancestor-worship among the Hebrews could not be fully86 developed, according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it was fully developed, according to the Rev87. A.W. Oxford88. ‘Every family, like every old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the worship of its ancestors, the hearth89 was the altar, the head of the family the priest. . . . The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common religion, the worship of its reputed ancestor. The chief of the tribe was, of course, the priest of the cult.’ Of course; but what a pity that Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable90 to their theory! And how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know? Well, ‘there is no direct proof,’ oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a family dinner party. This hardly covers the large assertions made by Mr. Oxford. His second citation91 is so unlucky as to contradict his observation that ‘of course’ the chief of the tribe was the priest of the cult. Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is not the chief of his tribe (Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house. He ‘consecrated one of his own sons who became his priest,’ till he got hold of a casual young Levite, and said, ‘Be unto me a father and a priest,’ for ten shekels per annum, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging92.
In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief’s being priest of his ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe. Some moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young Levite, and seized a few idols93 which Micah had permitted himself to make. And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for ancestor-worship!13
All this appears to be derived94 from some incoherent speculations95 of Stade. For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that the different tribes or clans96 had different religions. This must be so, because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be priest to a clan97 than to an individual? It is as if a patron offered a rich living to somebody’s private chaplain, saying that the new position was more creditable and lucrative98. This would hardly prove a difference of religion between the individual and the parish.14
Mr. Oxford next avers99 that ‘the earliest form of the Israelite religion was Fetishism or Totemism.’ This is another example of Stade’s logic21. Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues, could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation100, while Totemism could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America, Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent101 Supreme Being co-existing among savages102, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once totemistic) as it does of Pawnees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is set in examinations!15
We also learn from Mr. Oxford’s popular manual of German Biblical conjecture103 that ‘Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a Being easily roused to wrath104,’ a thing most incident to loving fathers.
Again, Mr. Oxford avers that ‘the old Israelites knew no distinction between physical and moral evil. . . . The conception of Jehovah’s holiness had nothing moral in it’ (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: ‘In all ancient primitive peoples . . . religion furnishes a motive105 for law and morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as in that of the Israelites.’16
We began by examining Mr. Huxley’s endeavours to find traces of ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer’s efforts in the same quest, and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to Mr. Huxley’s account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah.
From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he gathers that the Witch cried out, ‘I see Elohim.’ These Elohim proved to be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse106 to her own interests, and uncommonly107 dangerous to her life. This is, psychically108, interesting. The point, however, is that Elohim is a term equivalent to Red Indian Wakan, Fijian Kahu, Maori or Melanesian Mana, meaning the ‘supernatural,’ the vaguely109 powerful — in fact X. This particular example of Elohim was a phantasm of the dead, but Elohim is also used of the highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same genus as a ghost — so Mr. Huxley reasons. ‘The difference which was supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of kind.’17
‘If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the undoubtedly110 zoomorphic or anthropomorphic “gods of the nations,” why is it to be assumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?’ He was thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur111. We demur when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still incompletely developed) is called by her Elohim, therefore the highest Elohim is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not in kind. Elohim, or El, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind, because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal112 and without beginning.
Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,18 whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: ‘of his origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is Tá-li-y-Tooboo = “Wait-there-Tooboo.”’ ‘He is a great chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.’ He, and other ‘original gods’ of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated113 from the atua, which are ‘the human soul after its separation from the body.’ All Tongan gods are atua (Elohim), but all atua are not ‘original gods,’ unserved by priests, and unpropitiated by food or libation, like the highest God, Tá-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of Tonga. ‘He occasionally inspires the How’ (elective King), but often a How is not inspired at all by Tá-li-y-Tooboo, any more than Saul, at last, was inspired by Jehovah.
Surely there is a difference in kind between an eternal, immortal God, and a ghost, though both are atua, or both are Elohim — the unknown X.
Many people call a ghost ‘supernatural;’ they also call God ‘supernatural,’ but the difference between a phantasm of a dead man and the Deity114 they would admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind. We have shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions of ‘ghost’ and ‘Supreme Being’ are different, not only in kind, but in origin. The ghost comes from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as originally thought of, does not. All Gods are Elohim, kalou, wakan; all Elohim, kalou, wakan are not Gods.
A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that Tá-li-y-Tooboo did so. ‘If the god, like Tá-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by the god himself. When the first cup of Kava was filled, the mataboole who acted as master of the ceremonies said, “Give it to your god,” and it was offered, though only as a matter of form.’19
This is incorrect. In the case of Tá-li-y-Tooboo ’there is no cup filled for the god.‘20 ’Before any cup is filled the man by the side of the bowl says: “The Kava is in the cup”’ (which it is not), ‘and the mataboole answers, “Give it to your god;”’ but the Kava is not in the cup, and the Tongan Eternal receives no oblation115.
The sacrifice, says Mr. Huxley, meant ‘that the god was either a deified ghost, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these.’21 But as Tá-li-y-Tooboo had no sacrifice, contrary to Mr. Huxley’s averment, he was not ‘a deified ghost, or a being of like nature to these.’ To the lower, non-ghostly Tongan gods the animistic habit of sacrifice had been extended, but not yet to the Supreme Being.
Ah, if Mr. Gladstone, or the Duke of Argyll, or some bishop116 had made a misstatement of this kind, how Mr. Huxley would have crushed him! But it is a mere error of careless reading, such as we all make daily.
It is manifest that we cannot prove Jehovah to be a ghost by the parallel of a Tongan god, who, by ritual and by definition, was not a ghost. The proof therefore rests on the anthropomorphised pre-prophetic accounts, and on the ritual, of Jehovah. But man naturally ‘anthropises’ his deities117: he does not thereby118 demonstrate that they were once ghosts.
As regards the sacrifices to Jehovah, the sweet savour which he was supposed to enjoy (contrary to the opinion of the Prophets), these sacrifices afford the best presumption119 that Jehovah was a ghost-god, or a god constructed on ghostly lines.
But we have shown that among the lowest races neither are ghosts worshipped by sacrifice, nor does the Supreme Being, Darumulun or Puluga, receive food offerings. We have also instanced many Supreme Beings of more advanced races, Ahone, and Dendid, and Nyankupon, who do not sniff120 the savour of any offerings. If then (as in the case of Taa-roa), a Supreme Being does receive sacrifice, we may argue that a piece of animistic ritual, not connected with the Supreme Being in Australia or Andaman, not connected with his creed3 in Virginia or Africa (where ghost-gods do receive sacrifice), may in other regions be transferred from ghost-gods to the Supreme Being, who never was a ghost. There seems to be nothing incredible or illogical in the theory of such transference.
On a God who never was a ghost men may come to confer sacrifices (which are not made to Baiame and the rest) because, being in the habit of thus propitiating121 one set of bodiless powers, men may not think it civil or safe to leave another set of powers out. By his very nature, man must clothe all gods with some human passions and attributes, unless, like a large number of savages, he leaves his high God severely122 alone, and is the slave of fetishes and spectres. But that practice makes against the ghost-theory.
In the attempt to account thus, namely by transference, for the sacrifices to Jehovah, we are met by a difficulty of our own making. If the Israelites did not sacrifice to ancestors (as we have shown that there is very scant64 reason for supposing that they did), how could they transfer to Jehovah the rite which, by our hypothesis, they are not proved to have offered to ancestors?
This is certainly a hard problem, harder (or perhaps easier) because we know so very little of the early history of the Hebrews. According to their own traditions, Israel had been in touch with all manner of races much more advanced than themselves in material culture, and steeped in highly developed polytheistic Animism. According to their history, the Israelites ‘went a-whoring’ incorrigibly123 after strange gods. It is impossible, perhaps, to disentangle the foreign and the native elements.
It may therefore be tentatively suggested that early Israel had its Ahone in a Being perhaps not yet named Jehovah. Israel entertained, however, perhaps by reason of ‘nomadic habits,’ only the scantiest124 concern about ancestral ghosts. We then find an historical tradition of secular125 contact between Israel and Egypt, from which Israel emerges with Jehovah for God, and a system of sacrifices. Regarding Jehovah as a revived memory of the moral Supreme Being whom Israel must have known in extremely remote ages (unless Israel was less favoured than Australians, Bushmen, or Andamanese), we might look on the sacrifices to him as an adaptation from the practices of religion among races more settled than Israel, and more civilised.22
Speculation on subjects so remote must be conjectural126, but our suggestion would, perhaps, account for sacrifices to Jehovah, paid by a race which, by reason of ‘nomadic habits,’ was never much given to ancestor-worship, but had been in contact with great sacrificing, polytheistic civilisations. Mr. Huxley, however, while he seems to slur127 the essential distinction between ghost-gods and the Eternal, grants, later, that ‘there are very few people(s?) without additional gods, which cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors.’ Tá-li-y-Tooboo, of course, is one of these gods, as is Jehovah. Mr. Huxley gives no theory of how these gods came into belief, except the suggestion that ‘the polytheistic theology has become modified by the selection of the cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is due on the part of that nation,’ without prejudice to the right of other nations to worship other gods.23 This is ‘monolatry,’ and ‘the ethical code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the theological creed,’ why, we are not informed. Nor do we learn out of what polytheistic deities Jehovah was selected, nor for what reason. The hypothesis, as usual, breaks down on the close relation between the ethical code and the theological creed, among low savages, with a relatively Supreme Being, but without ancestor-worship, and without polytheistic gods from whom to select a heavenly chief.
Whence came the moral element in the idea of Jehovah? Mr. Huxley supposes that, during their residence in the land of Goshen (and a fortiori before it), the Israelites ‘knew nothing of Jehovah.’24 They were polytheistic idolaters. This follows, apparently, from Ezekiel xx. 5: ‘In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt.’ The Biblical account is that the God of Moses’s fathers, the God of Abraham, enlightened Moses in Sinai, giving his name as ‘I am that I am’ (Exodus128 iii. 6, 14; translation uncertain). We are to understand that Moses, a religious reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage129, a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic Beni–Israel. They were no longer to ‘defile themselves with the idols of Egypt,’ as they had obviously done. We really know no more about the matter. Wellhausen says that Jehovah was ‘originally a family or tribal god, either of the family of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph.’ How a family could develop a Supreme Being all to itself, we are not informed, and we know of no such analogous130 case in the ethnographic field. Again, Jehovah was ‘only a special name of El, current within a powerful circle.’ And who was El?25 ‘Moses was not the first discoverer of the faith.’ Probably not, but Mr. Huxley seems to think that he was.
Wellhausen’s and other German ideas filter into popular traditions, as we saw, through ‘A Short Introduction to the History of Ancient Israel’ (pp. 19, 20), by the Rev. A.W. Oxford, M.A., Vicar of St. Luke’s, Soho. Here follows Mr. Oxford’s undeniably ‘short way with Jehovah.’ ‘Moses was the founder131 of the Israelite religion. Jehovah, his family or tribal god, perhaps originally the God of the Kenites, was taken as a tribal god by all the Israelite tribes. . . . That Jehovah was not the original god of Israel’ (as the Bible impudently132 alleges) ‘but was the god of the Kenites, we see mainly from Deut. xxxiii. 2, Judges v. 4, 5, and from the history of Jethro, who, according to Judges i. 16, was a Kenite.’
The first text says that, according to Moses, ‘the Lord came from Sinai,’ rose up from Seir, and shone from Mount Paran. The second text mentions Jehovah’s going up out of Seir and Sinai. The third text says that Jethro, Moses’s Kenite (or Midianite) father-in-law, dwelt among the people of Judah; Jethro being a priest of Midian. How all this proves that ‘Moses was a great impostor,’ as the poet says, and that Jehovah was not ‘the original God of Israel,’ but (1) Moses’s family or tribal god, or (2) ‘the god of the Kenites,’ I profess133 my inability to comprehend.
Wellhausen himself had explained Jehovah as ‘a family or tribal god, either of the family of Moses’ (tribe of Levi) ‘or of the tribe of Joseph.’ It seems to be all one to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god of Moses’s tribe or quite the reverse, ‘a Kenite god.’ Yet it really makes a good deal of difference! For in a complex of tribes, speaking one language, it is to the last degree unexampled (within my knowledge) that one tribe, or family, possesses, all to itself, a family god who is also the Creator and is later accepted as such by all the other tribes. One may ask for instances of such a thing in any known race, in any stage of culture. Peru will not help us — not the Creator, Pachacamac, but the Sun, is the god of the Inca family. If, on the other hand, Jehovah was a Kenite god, the Kenites were a half-Arab Semitic people connected with Israel, and may very well have retained traditions of a Supreme Being which, in Egypt, were likely to be dimmed, as Exodus asserts, by foreign religions. The learned Stade, to be sure, may disbelieve in Israel’s sojourn134 in Egypt, but that revolutionary opinion is not necessarily binding135 on us and involves a few difficulties.
Have critics and manual-makers no knowledge of the science of comparative religion? Are they unaware137 that peoples infinitely138 more backward than Israel was at the date supposed have already moral Supreme Beings acknowledged over vast tracts139 of territory? Have they a tittle of positive evidence that early Israel was benighted140 beyond the darkness of Bushmen, Andamanese, Pawnees, Blackfeet, Hurons, Indians of British Guiana, Dinkas, Negroes, and so forth? Unless Israel had this rare ill-luck (which Israel denies) of course Israel must have had a secular tradition, however dim, of a Supreme Being. We must ask for a single instance of a family or tribe, in a complex of semi-barbaric but not savage tribes of one speech, owning a private deity who happened to be the Maker136 and Ruler of the world, and, as such, was accepted by all the tribes. Jehovah came out from Sinai, because, there having been a Theophany at Sinai, that mountain was regarded as one of his seats.26
We have seen that it seemed to make no difference to Mr. Oxford whether Jehovah was a god of Moses’s family or tribe or a Kenite god. The former (with the alternative of Joseph’s family or tribal god) is Wellhausen’s theory. The latter is Stade’s.27 Each is inconsistent with the other; Wellhausen’s fancy is inconsistent with all that we know of religious development: Stade’s is hopelessly inconsistent with Exodus iv. 24–26, where Moses’s Kenite wife reproaches him for a ceremony of his, not of her, religion. Therefore the Kenite differed from the Hebrew sacra.
The passage is very extraordinary, and is said by critics to be very archaic141. After the revelation of the Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased142 Jehovah’s wrath by circumcising her boy with a flint. ‘A bloody143 husband art thou to me,’ she said, ‘because of the circumcision’ — an Egyptian, but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the sacra of Moses were of Kenite origin.
Without being a scholar, or an expert in Biblical criticism, one may protest against the presentation to the manual-reading intellectual middle classes of a theory so vague, contradictory144, and (by all analogy) so impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from German writers. Of course, the whole subject, so dogmatically handled, is mere matter of dissentient opinion among scholars. Thus M. Renan derives145 the name of Jehovah from Assyria, from ‘Aramaised Chaldaeanism.’28 In that case the name was long anterior146 to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local god of Sinai, or a provincial147 deity in Palestine.29 He was known to very ancient sages148, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In short, we have no certainty on the subject.30
I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated149 prejudice against Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other collection of documents, linguistically150, historically, and in the light of the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are conspicuous17 for acumen151: the humblest layman152 can see that. But one may protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, too, against the presentation of inconsistent and probably baseless critical hypotheses in the dogmatic brevity of cheap handbooks.
Yet again, whence comes the moral element in Jehovah? Mr. Huxley thinks that it possibly came from the ethical practice and theory of Egypt. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, ‘a sort of Guide to Spirit Land,’ there are moral chapters; the ghost tells his judges in Amenti what sins he has not committed. Many of these sins are forbidden in the Ten Commandments.
They are just as much forbidden in the nascent morality of savage peoples. Moses did not need the Book of the Dead to teach him elementary morals. From the mysteries of Mtanga he might have learned, also, had he been present, the virtue153 of unselfish generosity154. If the creed of Jehovah, or of El, retained only as much of ethics as is under divine sanction among the Kurnai, adaptation from the Book of the Dead was superfluous155.
The care for the departed, the ritual of the Ka, the intense pre-occupation with the future life, which, far more than its morality, are the essential characteristics of the Book of the Dead — Israel cared for none of these animistic things, brought none of these, or very little of these, out of the land of Egypt. Moses was certainly very eclectic; he took only the morality of Egypt. But as Mr. Huxley advances this opinion tentatively, as having no secure historical authority about Moses, it hardly answers our question, Whence came the moral element in Jehovah? One may surmise71 that it was the survival of the primitive divinely sanctioned ethics of the ancient savage ancestors of the Israelite, known to them, as to the Kurnai, before they had a pot, or a bronze knife, or seed to sow, or sheep to herd156, or even a tent over their heads. In the counsels of eternity Israel was chosen to keep burning, however obscured with smoke of sacrifice, that flame which illumines the darkest places of the earth, ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel’ — a flame how litten a light whence shining, history cannot inform us, and anthropology can but conjecture. Here scientific nescience is wiser than the cocksureness of popular science, with her ghosts and fetish-stones, and gods that sprang from ghosts, which ghosts, however, could not be developed, owing to nomadic habits.
It appears, then, if our general suggestion meets with any acceptance, that what occurred in the development of Hebrew religion was precisely what the Bible tells us did occur. This must necessarily seem highly paradoxical to our generation; but the whole trend of our provisional system makes in favour of the paradox157. If savage nomadic Israel had the higher religious conceptions proved to exist among several of the lowest known races, these conceptions might be revived by a leader of genius. They might, in a crisis of tribal fortunes, become the rallying point of a new national sentiment. Obscured, in some degree, by acquaintance with ‘the idols of Egypt,’ and restricted and localised by the very national sentiment which they fostered, these conceptions were purified and widened far beyond any local, tribal, or national restrictions158 — widened far as the flammantia moenia mundi — by the historically unique genius of the Prophets. Blended with the doctrine of our Lord, and recommended by the addition of Animism in its pure and priceless form — the reward of faith, hope, and charity in eternal life — the faith of Israel enlightened the world.
All this is precisely what occurred, according to the Old and New Testaments159. All this is just what, on our hypothesis, might be expected to occur if, out of the many races which, in their most backward culture, had a rude conception of a Moral Creative Being, relatively supreme, one race endured the education of Israel, showed the comparative indifference of Israel to Animism and ghost-gods, listened to the Prophets of Israel, and gave birth to a greater than Moses and the Prophets.
To this result the Logos, as Socrates says, has led us, by the path of anthropology.
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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stele
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| n.石碑，石柱 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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anthropological
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| adj.人类学的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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internecine
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| adj.两败俱伤的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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tithes
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| n.（宗教捐税）什一税，什一的教区税，小部分( tithe的名词复数 ) | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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covenant
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| n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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pretext
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obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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heresies
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| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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anthropologist
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| n.人类学家，人类学者 | |
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mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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nomads
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| n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 )；流浪者；游牧生活；流浪生活 | |
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surmised
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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psalm
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| n.赞美诗，圣诗 | |
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commentators
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| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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citation
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| n.引用，引证，引用文；传票 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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avers
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| v.断言( aver的第三人称单数 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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wrath
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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107
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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108
psychically
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| adv.精神上 | |
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109
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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110
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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111
demur
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| v．表示异议，反对 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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113
discriminated
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| 分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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oblation
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| n.圣餐式；祭品 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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118
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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propitiating
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| v.劝解，抚慰，使息怒( propitiate的现在分词 ) | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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incorrigibly
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| adv.无法矫正地；屡教不改地；无可救药地；不能矫正地 | |
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scantiest
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| adj.（大小或数量）不足的，勉强够的( scanty的最高级 ) | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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conjectural
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| adj.推测的 | |
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127
slur
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| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
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exodus
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| v.大批离去，成群外出 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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impudently
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profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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derives
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| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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sages
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| n.圣人( sage的名词复数 )；智者；哲人；鼠尾草（可用作调料） | |
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antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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150
linguistically
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| adv. 语言的, 语言学的 | |
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acumen
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| n.敏锐，聪明 | |
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152
layman
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| n.俗人，门外汉，凡人 | |
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153
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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154
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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155
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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156
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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158
restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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testaments
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| n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 )；实际的证明 | |
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