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+PG's The The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study
+#11 in our series by Thomas Henry Huxley
+This is Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
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+Title:  The The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study
+Title:  This is Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
+
+Author:  Thomas Henry Huxley
+
+May, 2001  [Etext #2634]
+
+
+PG's The The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study
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+The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study
+by Thomas Henry Huxley
+This is Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
+
+
+
+
+I conceive that the origin, the growth, the decline, and the
+fall of those speculations respecting the existence, the powers,
+and the dispositions of beings analogous to men, but more or
+less devoid of corporeal qualities, which may be broadly
+included under the head of theology, are phenomena the study of
+which legitimately falls within the province of the
+anthropologist. And it is purely as a question of anthropology
+(a department of biology to which, at various times, I have
+given a good deal of attention) that I propose to treat of the
+evolution of theology in the following pages.
+
+With theology as a code of dogmas which are to be believed, or
+at any rate repeated, under penalty of present or future
+punishment, or as a storehouse of anaesthetics for those who
+find the pains of life too hard to bear, I have nothing to do;
+and, so far as it may be possible, I shall avoid the expression
+of any opinion as to the objective truth or falsehood of the
+systems of theological speculation of which I may find occasion
+to speak. From my present point of view, theology is regarded as
+a natural product of the operations of the human mind, under the
+conditions of its existence, just as any other branch of
+science, or the arts of architecture, or music, or painting are
+such products. Like them, theology has a history. Like them
+also, it is to be met with in certain simple and rudimentary
+forms; and these can be connected by a multitude of gradations,
+which exist or have existed, among people of various ages and
+races, with the most highly developed theologies of past and
+present times. It is not my object to interfere, even in the
+slightest degree, with beliefs which anybody holds sacred; or to
+alter the conviction of any one who is of opinion that, in
+dealing with theology, we ought to be guided by considerations
+different from those which would be thought appropriate if the
+problem lay in the province of chemistry or of mineralogy.
+And if people of these ways of thinking choose to read beyond
+the present paragraph, the responsibility for meeting with
+anything they may dislike rests with them and not with me.
+
+We are all likely to be more familiar with the theological
+history of the Israelites than with that of any other nation.
+We may therefore fitly make it the first object of our studies;
+and it will be convenient to commence with that period which
+lies between the invasion of Canaan and the early days of the
+monarchy, and answers to the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C.
+or thereabouts. The evidence on which any conclusion as to the
+nature of Israelitic theology in those days must be based is
+wholly contained in the Hebrew Scriptures--an agglomeration of
+documents which certainly belong to very different ages, but of
+the exact dates and authorship of any one of which (except
+perhaps a few of the prophetical writings) there is no evidence,
+either internal or external, so far as I can discover, of such a
+nature as to justify more than a confession of ignorance, or, at
+most, an approximate conclusion. In this venerable record of
+ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is really a library
+comparable to a selection of works from English literature
+between the times of Beda and those of Milton, we have the
+stratified deposits (often confused and even with their natural
+order inverted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral
+life of Israel during many centuries. And, embedded in these
+strata, there are numerous remains of forms of thought which
+once lived, and which, though often unfortunately mere
+fragments, are of priceless value to the anthropologist.
+Our task is to rescue these from their relatively unimportant
+surroundings, and by careful comparison with existing forms of
+theology to make the dead world which they record live again.
+In other words, our problem is palaeontological, and the method
+pursued must be the same as that employed in dealing with other
+fossil remains.
+
+Among the richest of the fossiliferous strata to which I have
+alluded are the books of Judges and Samuel.<1> It has often been
+observed that these writings stand out, in marked relief from
+those which precede and follow them, in virtue of a certain
+archaic freshness and of a greater freedom from traces of late
+interpolation and editorial trimming. Jephthah, Gideon and
+Samson are men of old heroic stamp, who would look as much in
+place in a Norse Saga as where they are; and if the varnish-
+brush of later respectability has passed over these memoirs of
+the mighty men of a wild age, here and there, it has not
+succeeded in effacing, or even in seriously obscuring, the
+essential characteristics of the theology traditionally ascribed
+to their epoch.
+
+There is nothing that I have met with in the results of Biblical
+criticism inconsistent with the conviction that these books give
+us a fairly trustworthy account of Israelitic life and thought
+in the times which they cover; and, as such, apart from the
+great literary merit of many of their episodes, they possess the
+interest of being, perhaps, the oldest genuine history, as apart
+from mere chronicles on the one hand and mere legends on the
+other, at present accessible to us.
+
+But it is often said with exultation by writers of one party,
+and often admitted, more or less unwillingly, by their
+opponents, that these books are untrustworthy, by reason of
+being full of obviously unhistoric tales. And, as a notable
+example, the narrative of Saul's visit to the so-called "witch
+of Endor" is often cited. As I have already intimated, I have
+nothing to do with theological partisanship, either heterodox or
+orthodox, nor, for my present purpose, does it matter very much
+whether the story is historically true, or whether it merely
+shows what the writer believed; but, looking at the matter
+solely from the point of view of an anthropologist, I beg leave
+to express the opinion that the account of Saul's necromantic
+expedition is quite consistent with probability. That is to say,
+I see no reason whatever to doubt, firstly, that Saul made such
+a visit; and, secondly, that he and all who were present,
+including the wise woman of Endor herself, would have given,
+with entire sincerity, very much the same account of the
+business as that which we now read in the twenty-eighth chapter
+of the first book of Samuel; and I am further of opinion that
+this story is one of the most important of those fossils, to
+which I have referred, in the material which it offers for the
+reconstruction of the theology of the time. Let us therefore
+study it attentively--not merely as a narrative which, in the
+dramatic force of its gruesome simplicity, is not surpassed, if
+it is equalled, by the witch scenes in Macbeth--but as a piece
+of evidence bearing on an important anthropological problem.
+
+We are told (1 Sam. xxviii.) that Saul, encamped at Gilboa,
+became alarmed by the strength of the Philistine army gathered
+at Shunem. He therefore "inquired of Jahveh," but "Jahveh
+answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor
+by prophets."<2> Thus deserted by Jahveh, Saul, in his
+extremity, bethought him of "those that had familiar spirits,
+and the wizards," whom he is said, at some previous time, to
+have "put out of the land"; but who seem, nevertheless, to have
+been very imperfectly banished, since Saul's servants, in answer
+to his command to seek him a woman "that hath a familiar
+spirit," reply without a sign of hesitation or of fear, "Behold,
+there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor"; just as,
+in some parts of England, a countryman might tell any one who
+did not look like a magistrate or a policeman, where a "wise
+woman" was to be met with. Saul goes to this woman, who, after
+being assured of immunity, asks, "Whom shall I bring up to
+thee?" whereupon Saul says, "Bring me up Samuel." The woman
+immediately sees an apparition. But to Saul nothing is visible,
+for he asks, "What seest thou?" And the woman replies, "I see
+Elohim coming up out of the earth." Still the spectre remains
+invisible to Saul, for he asks, "What form is he of?" And she
+replies, "An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a robe."
+So far, therefore, the wise woman unquestionably plays the part
+of a "medium," and Saul is dependent upon her version of
+what happens.
+
+The account continues:--
+
+<quote>And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he bowed with
+his face to the ground and did obeisance. And Samuel said to
+Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul
+answered, I am sore distressed: for the Philistines make war
+against me, and Elohim is departed from me and answereth me no
+more, neither by prophets nor by dreams; therefore I have called
+thee that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
+And Samuel said, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing that
+Jahveh is departed from thee and is become thine adversary?
+And Jahveh hath wrought for himself, as he spake by me, and
+Jahveh hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand and given it to
+thy neighbour, even to David. Because thou obeyedst not the
+voice of Jahveh and didst not execute his fierce wrath upon
+Amalek, therefore hath Jahveh done this thing unto thee this
+day. Moreover, Jahveh will deliver Israel also with thee into
+the hands of the Philistines; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy
+sons be with me: Jahveh shall deliver the host of Israel also
+into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell straightway his
+full length upon the earth and was sore afraid because of the
+words of Samuel ..." (v. 14-20).
+<end quote>
+
+The statement that Saul "perceived" that it was Samuel is not to
+be taken to imply that, even now, Saul actually saw the shade of
+the prophet, but only that the woman's allusion to the prophetic
+mantle and to the aged appearance of the spectre convinced him
+that it was Samuel. Reuss<3> in fact translates the passage
+"Alors Saul reconnut que c'etait Samuel." Nor does the dialogue
+between Saul and Samuel necessarily, or probably, signify that
+Samuel spoke otherwise than by the voice of the wise woman.
+The Septuagint does not hesitate to call her [Greek], that is to
+say, a ventriloquist, implying that it was she who spoke--and
+this view of the matter is in harmony with the fact that the
+exact sense of the Hebrew words which are translated as "a woman
+that hath a familiar spirit" is "a woman mistress of <i>Ob.</i>"
+<i>Ob</i> means primitively a leather bottle, such as a wine
+skin, and is applied alike to the necromancer and to the spirit
+evoked. Its use, in these senses, appears to have been suggested
+by the likeness of the hollow sound emitted by a half-empty skin
+when struck, to the sepulchral tones in which the oracles of the
+evoked spirits were uttered by the medium. It is most probable
+that, in accordance with the general theory of spiritual
+influences which obtained among the old Israelites, the spirit
+of Samuel was conceived to pass into the body of the wise woman,
+and to use her vocal organs to speak in his own name--for I
+cannot discover that they drew any clear distinction between
+possession and inspiration.<4>
+
+If the story of Saul's consultation of the occult powers is to
+be regarded as an authentic narrative, or, at any rate, as a
+statement which is perfectly veracious so far as the intention
+of the narrator goes--and, as I have said, I see no reason for
+refusing it this character--it will be found, on further
+consideration, to throw a flood of light, both directly and
+indirectly, on the theology of Saul's countrymen--that is to
+say, upon their beliefs respecting the nature and ways of
+spiritual beings.
+
+Even without the confirmation of other abundant evidences to the
+same effect, it leaves no doubt as to the existence, among them,
+of the fundamental doctrine that man consists of a body and of a
+spirit, which last, after the death of the body, continues to
+exist as a ghost. At the time of Saul's visit to Endor, Samuel
+was dead and buried; but that his spirit would be believed to
+continue to exist in Sheol may be concluded from the well-known
+passage in the song attributed to Hannah, his mother:--
+
+<quote>
+Jahveh killeth and maketh alive;
+He bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up.
+                             (1 Sam. ii. 6.)
+<end quote>
+
+And it is obvious that this Sheol was thought to be a place
+underground in which Samuel's spirit had been disturbed by the
+necromancer's summons, and in which, after his return thither,
+he would be joined by the spirits of Saul and his sons when they
+had met with their bodily death on the hill of Gilboa. It is
+further to be observed that the spirit, or ghost, of the dead
+man presents itself as the image of the man himself--it is the
+man, not merely in his ordinary corporeal presentment (even down
+to the prophet's mantle) but in his moral and intellectual
+characteristics. Samuel, who had begun as Saul's friend and
+ended as his bitter enemy, gives it to be understood that he is
+annoyed at Saul's presumption in disturbing him; and that, in
+Sheol, he is as much the devoted servant of Jahveh and as much
+empowered to speak in Jahveh's name as he was during his sojourn
+in the upper air.
+
+It appears now to be universally admitted that, before the
+exile, the Israelites had no belief in rewards and punishments
+after death, nor in anything similar to the Christian heaven and
+hell; but our story proves that it would be an error to suppose
+that they did not believe in the continuance of individual
+existence after death by a ghostly simulacrum of life. Nay, I
+think it would be very hard to produce conclusive evidence that
+they disbelieved in immortality; for I am not aware that there
+is anything to show that they thought the existence of the souls
+of the dead in Sheol ever came to an end. But they do not seem
+to have conceived that the condition of the souls in Sheol was
+in any way affected by their conduct in life. If there was
+immortality, there was no state of retribution in their
+theology. Samuel expects Saul and his sons to come to him
+in Sheol.
+
+The next circumstance to be remarked is that the name of
+<i>Elohim</i> is applied to the spirit which the woman sees
+"coming up out of the earth," that is to say, from Sheol.
+The Authorised Version translates this in its literal sense
+"gods." The Revised Version gives "god" with "gods" in the
+margin. Reuss renders the word by "spectre," remarking in a note
+that it is not quite exact; but that the word Elohim expresses
+"something divine, that is to say, superhuman, commanding
+respect and terror" ("Histoire des Israelites," p. 321).
+Tuch, in his commentary on Genesis, and Thenius, in his
+commentary on Samuel, express substantially the same opinion.
+Dr. Alexander (in Kitto's "Cyclopaedia" s. v. "God") has the
+following instructive remarks:--
+
+<quote>
+[<i>Elohim</i> is] sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen
+powers or superhuman beings that are not properly thought of as
+divine. Thus the witch of Endor saw "Elohim ascending out of the
+earth" (1 Sam. xxviii. 13), meaning thereby some beings of an
+unearthly, superhuman character. So also in Zechariah xii. 8, it
+is said "the house of David shall be as Elohim, as the angel of
+the Lord," where, as the transition from Elohim to the angel of
+the Lord is a minori ad majus, we must regard the former as a
+vague designation of supernatural powers.
+<end quote>
+
+Dr. Alexander speaks here of "beings"; but there is no reason to
+suppose that the wise woman of Endor referred to anything but a
+solitary spectre; and it is quite clear that Saul understood her
+in this sense, for he asks "What form is HE of?"
+
+This fact, that the name of Elohim is applied to a ghost, or
+disembodied soul, conceived as the image of the body in which it
+once dwelt, is of no little importance. For it is well known
+that the same term was employed to denote the gods of the
+heathen, who were thought to have definite quasi-corporeal forms
+and to be as much real entities as any other Elohim.<5> The
+difference which was supposed to exist between the different
+Elohim was one of degree, not one of kind. Elohim was, in
+logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, Chemosh, Dagon,
+Baal, and Jahveh were species. The Israelite believed Jahveh to
+be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of Elohim. The
+inscription on the Moabite stone shows that King Mesa held
+Chemosh to be, as unquestionably, the superior of Jahveh. But if
+Jahveh was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the
+undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations,"
+why is it to be assumed that he also was not thought of as
+having a human shape? It is possible for those who forget that
+the time of the great prophetic writers is at least as remote
+from that of Saul as our day is from that of Queen Elizabeth, to
+insist upon interpreting the gross notions current in the
+earlier age and among the mass of the people by the refined
+conceptions promulgated by a few select spirits centuries later.
+But if we take the language constantly used concerning the Deity
+in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, or
+Kings, in its natural sense (and I am aware of no valid reason
+which can be given for taking it in any other sense), there
+cannot, to my mind, be a doubt that Jahveh was conceived by
+those from whom the substance of these books is mainly derived,
+to possess the appearance and the intellectual and moral
+attributes of a man; and, indeed, of a man of just that type
+with which the Israelites were familiar in their stronger and
+intellectually abler rulers and leaders. In a well-known passage
+in Genesis (i. 27) Elohim is said to have "created man in his
+own image, in the image of Elohim created he him." It is "man"
+who is here said to be the image of Elohim--not man's soul
+alone, still less his "reason," but the whole man. It is obvious
+that for those who call a manlike ghost Elohim, there could be
+no difficulty in conceiving any other Elohim under the same
+aspect. And if there could be any doubt on this subject, surely
+it cannot stand in the face of what we find in the fifth
+chapter, where, immediately after a repetition of the statement
+that "Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made he
+him," it is said that Adam begat Seth "in his own likeness,
+after his image." Does this mean that Seth resembled Adam only
+in a spiritual and figurative sense? And if that interpretation
+of the third verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis is absurd,
+why does it become reasonable in the first verse of the
+same chapter?
+
+But let us go further. Is not the Jahveh who "walks in the
+garden in the cool of the day"; from whom one may hope to "hide
+oneself among the trees"; of whom it is expressly said that
+"Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
+Israel," saw the Elohim of Israel (Exod. xxiv. 9-11); and that,
+although the seeing Jahveh was understood to be a high crime and
+misdemeanour, worthy of death, under ordinary circumstances,
+yet, for this once, he "laid not his hand on the nobles of
+Israel"; "that they beheld Elohim and did eat and drink";
+and that afterwards Moses saw his back (Exod. xxxiii. 23)--is
+not this Deity conceived as manlike in form? Again, is not the
+Jahveh who eats with Abraham under the oaks at Mamre, who is
+pleased with the "sweet savour" of Noah's sacrifice, to whom
+sacrifices are said to be "food"<6>--is not this Deity depicted
+as possessed of human appetites? If this were not the current
+Israelitish idea of Jahveh even in the eighth century B.C.,
+where is the point of Isaiah's scathing admonitions to his
+countrymen: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
+unto me? saith Jahveh: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams
+and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of
+bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats" (Isa. i. 11). Or of
+Micah's inquiry, "Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams
+or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" (vi. 7.) And in the
+innumerable passages in which Jahveh is said to be jealous of
+other gods, to be angry, to be appeased, and to repent; in which
+he is represented as casting off Saul because the king does not
+quite literally execute a command of the most ruthless severity;
+or as smiting Uzzah to death because the unfortunate man
+thoughtlessly, but naturally enough, put out his hand to stay
+the ark from falling--can any one deny that the old Israelites
+conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of
+a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?
+There appears to me, then, to be no reason to doubt that the
+notion of likeness to man, which was indubitably held of the
+ghost Elohim, was carried out consistently throughout the whole
+series of Elohim, and that Jahveh-Elohim was thought of as a
+being of the same substantially human nature as the rest, only
+immeasurably more powerful for good and for evil.
+
+The absence of any real distinction between the Elohim of
+different ranks is further clearly illustrated by the
+corresponding absence of any sharp delimitation between the
+various kinds of people who serve as the media of communication
+between them and men. The agents through whom the lower Elohim
+are consulted are called necromancers, wizards, and diviners,
+and are looked down upon by the prophets and priests of the
+higher Elohim; but the "seer"<7> connects the two, and they are
+all alike in their essential characters of media. The wise woman
+of Endor was believed by others, and, I have little doubt,
+believed herself, to be able to "bring up" whom she would from
+Sheol, and to be inspired, whether in virtue of actual
+possession by the evoked Elohim, or otherwise, with a knowledge
+of hidden things, I am unable to see that Saul's servant took
+any really different view of Samuel's powers, though he may have
+believed that he obtained them by the grace of the higher
+Elohim. For when Saul fails to find his father's asses, his
+servant says to him--
+
+<quote>
+Behold, there is in this city a man of Elohim, and he is a man
+that is held in honour; all that he saith cometh surely to pass;
+now let us go thither; peradventure, he can tell us concerning
+our journey whereon we go. Then said Saul to his servant, But
+behold if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is
+spent in our vessels and there is not a present to bring to the
+man of Elohim. What have we? And the servant answered Saul again
+and said, Behold I have in my hand the fourth part of a shekel
+of silver: that will I give to the man of Elohim to tell us our
+way. (Beforetime in Israel when a man went to inquire of Elohim,
+then he said, Come and let us go to the Seer: for he that is now
+called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer<8>)
+(1 Sam. ix. 6-10).
+<end quote>
+
+In fact, when, shortly afterwards, Saul accidentally meets
+Samuel, he says, "Tell me, I pray thee, where the Seer's house
+is." Samuel answers, "I am the Seer." Immediately afterwards
+Samuel informs Saul that the asses are found, though how he
+obtained his knowledge of the fact is not stated. It will be
+observed that Samuel is not spoken of here as, in any special
+sense, a seer or prophet of Jahveh, but as a "man of Elohim"--
+that is to say, a seer having access to the "spiritual powers,"
+just as the wise woman of Endor might have been said to be a
+"woman of Elohim"--and the narrator's or editor's explanatory
+note seems to indicate that "Prophet" is merely a name,
+introduced later than the time of Samuel, for a superior kind of
+"Seer," or "man of Elohim."<9>
+
+Another very instructive passage shows that Samuel was not only
+considered to be diviner, seer, and prophet in one, but that he
+was also, to all intents and purposes, priest of Jahveh--though,
+according to his biographer, he was not a member of the tribe of
+Levi. At the outset of their acquaintance, Samuel says to Saul,
+"Go up before me into the high place," where, as the young
+maidens of the city had just before told Saul, the Seer was
+going, "for the people will not eat till he come, because he
+doth bless the sacrifice" (1 Sam. x. 12). The use of the word
+"bless" here--as if Samuel were not going to sacrifice, but only
+to offer a blessing or thanksgiving--is curious. But that Samuel
+really acted as priest seems plain from what follows. For he not
+only asks Saul to share in the customary sacrificial feast, but
+he disposes in Saul's favour of that portion of the victim which
+the Levitical legislation, doubtless embodying old customs,
+recognises as the priest's special property.<10>
+
+Although particular persons adopted the profession of media
+between men and Elohim, there was no limitation of the power, in
+the view of ancient Israel, to any special class of the
+population. Saul inquires of Jahveh and builds him altars on his
+own account; and in the very remarkable story told in the
+fourteenth chapter of the first book of Samuel (v. 37-46), Saul
+appears to conduct the whole process of divination, although he
+has a priest at his elbow. David seems to do the same.
+
+Moreover, Elohim constantly appear in dreams--which in old
+Israel did not mean that, as we should say, the subject of the
+appearance "dreamed he saw the spirit"; but that he veritably
+saw the Elohim which, as a soul, visited his soul while his body
+was asleep. And, in the course of the history of Israel Jahveh
+himself thus appears to all sorts of persons, non-Israelites as
+well as Israelites. Again, the Elohim possess, or inspire,
+people against their will, as in the case of Saul and Saul's
+messengers, and then these people prophesy--that is to say,
+"rave"--and exhibit the ungoverned gestures attributed by a
+later age to possession by malignant spirits. Apart from other
+evidence to be adduced by and by, the history of ancient
+demonology and of modern revivalism does not permit me to doubt
+that the accounts of these phenomena given in the history of
+Saul may be perfectly historical.
+
+In the ritual practices, of which evidence is to be found in the
+books of Judges and Samuel, the chief part is played by
+sacrifices, usually burnt offerings. Whenever the aid of the
+Elohim of Israel is sought, or thanks are considered due to him,
+an altar is built, and oxen, sheep, and goats are slaughtered
+and offered up. Sometimes the entire victim is burnt as a
+holocaust; more frequently only certain parts, notably the fat
+about the kidneys, are burnt on the altar. The rest is properly
+cooked; and, after the reservation of a part for the priest, is
+made the foundation of a joyous banquet, in which the
+sacrificer, his family, and such guests as he thinks fit to
+invite, participate.<11> Elohim was supposed to share in the
+feast, and it has been already shown that that which was set
+apart on the altar, or consumed by fire, was spoken of as the
+food of Elohim, who was thought to be influenced by the
+costliness, or by the pleasant smell, of the sacrifice in favour
+of the sacrificer.
+
+All this bears out the view that, in the mind of the old
+Israelite, there was no difference, save one of degree, between
+one Elohim and another. It is true that there is but little
+direct evidence to show that the old Israelites shared the
+widespread belief of their own, and indeed of all times, that
+the spirits of the dead not only continue to exist, but are
+capable of a ghostly kind of feeding and are grateful for such
+aliment as can be assimilated by their attenuated substance, and
+even for clothes, ornaments, and weapons.<12> That they were
+familiar with this doctrine in the time of the captivity is
+suggested by the well-known reference of Ezekiel (xxxii. 27) to
+the "mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone
+down to [Sheol] hell with their weapons of war, and have laid
+their swords under their heads." Perhaps there is a still
+earlier allusion in the "giving of food for the dead" spoken of
+in Deuteronomy (xxvi. 14).<13>
+
+It must be remembered that the literature of the old Israelites,
+as it lies before us, has been subjected to the revisal of
+strictly monotheistic editors, violently opposed to all kinds of
+idolatry, who are not likely to have selected from the materials
+at their disposal any obvious evidence, either of the practice
+under discussion, or of that ancestor-worship which is so
+closely related to it, for preservation in the permanent records
+of their people.
+
+The mysterious objects known as <i>Teraphim,</i> which are
+occasionally mentioned in Judges, Samuel, and elsewhere,
+however, can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as indications
+of the existence both of ancestor-worship and of image-worship
+in old Israel. The teraphim were certainly images of family
+gods, and, as such, in all probability represented deceased
+ancestors. Laban indignantly demands of his son-in-law,
+"Wherefore hast thou stolen my Elohim?" which Rachel, who must
+be assumed to have worshipped Jacob's God, Jahveh, had carried
+off, obviously because she, like her father, believed in their
+divinity. It is not suggested that Jacob was in any way
+scandalised by the idolatrous practices of his favourite wife,
+whatever he may have thought of her honesty when the truth came
+to light; for the teraphim seem to have remained in his camp, at
+least until he "hid" his strange gods "under the oak that was by
+Shechem" (Gen. xxxv. 4). And indeed it is open to question if he
+got rid of them then, for the subsequent history of Israel
+renders it more than doubtful whether the teraphim were regarded
+as "strange gods" even as late as the eighth century B.C.
+
+The writer of the books of Samuel takes it quite as a matter of
+course that Michal, daughter of one royal Jahveh worshipper and
+wife of the servant of Jahveh <i>par excellence,</i> the pious
+David, should have her teraphim handy, in her and David's
+chamber, when she dresses them up in their bed into a simulation
+of her husband, for the purpose of deceiving her father's
+messengers. Even one of the early prophets, Hosea, when he
+threatens that the children of Israel shall abide many days
+without "ephod or teraphim" (iii. 4), appears to regard both as
+equally proper appurtenances of the suspended worship of Jahveh,
+and equally certain to be restored when that is resumed. When we
+further take into consideration that only in the reign of
+Hezekiah was the brazen serpent, preserved in the temple and
+believed to be the work of Moses, destroyed, and the practice of
+offering incense to it, that is, worshipping it, abolished--that
+Jeroboam could set up "calves of gold" for Israel to worship,
+with apparently none but a political object, and certainly with
+no notion of creating a schism among the worshippers of Jahveh,
+or of repelling the men of Judah from his standard--it seems
+obvious, either that the Israelites of the tenth and eleventh
+centuries B.C. knew not the second commandment, or that they
+construed it merely as part of the prohibition to worship any
+supreme god other than Jahveh, which precedes it.
+
+In seeking for information about the teraphim, I lighted upon
+the following passage in the valuable article on that subject by
+Archdeacon Farrar, in Ritto's "Cyclopaedia of Biblical
+Literature," which is so much to the purpose of my argument,
+that I venture to quote it in full:--
+
+<quote>
+The main and certain results of this review are that the
+teraphim were rude human images; that the use of them was an
+antique Aramaic custom; that there is reason to suppose them to
+have been images of deceased ancestors; that they were consulted
+oracularly; that they were not confined to Jews; that their use
+continued down to the latest period of Jewish history;
+and lastly, that although the enlightened prophets and strictest
+later kings regarded them as idolatrous, the priests were much
+less averse to such images, and their cult was not considered in
+any way repugnant to the pious worship of Elohim, nay, even to
+the worship of him "under the awful title of Jehovah." In fact,
+they involved <i>a monotheistic idolatry very different indeed
+from polytheism;</i> and the tolerance of them by priests, as
+compared with the denunciation of them by the prophets, offers a
+close analogy to the views of the Roman Catholics respecting
+pictures and images as compared with the views of Protestants.
+It was against this use of idolatrous symbols and emblems in a
+monotheistic worship that the <i>second</i> commandment was
+directed, whereas the first is aimed against the graver sin of
+direct polytheism. But the whole history of Israel shows how
+utterly and how early the law must have fallen into desuetude.
+The worship of the golden calf and of the calves at Dan and
+Bethel, against which, so far as we know, neither Elijah nor
+Elisha said a single word; the tolerance of high places,
+teraphim and betylia; the offering of incense for centuries to
+the brazen serpent destroyed by Hezekiah; the occasional
+glimpses of the most startling irregularities sanctioned
+apparently even in the temple worship itself, prove most
+decisively that a pure monotheism and an independence of symbols
+was the result of a slow and painful course of God's disciplinal
+dealings among the noblest thinkers of a single nation, and not,
+as is so constantly and erroneously urged, the instinct of the
+whole Semitic race; in other words, one single branch of the
+Semites was under God's providence <i>educated</i> into pure
+monotheism only by centuries of misfortune and series of
+inspired men (vol. iii. p. 986).
+<end quote>
+
+It appears to me that the researches of the anthropologist lead
+him to conclusions identical in substance, if not in terms, with
+those here enunciated as the result of a careful study of the
+same subject from a totally different point of view.
+
+There is abundant evidence in the books of Samuel and elsewhere
+that an article of dress termed an <i>ephod</i> was supposed to
+have a peculiar efficacy in enabling the wearer to exercise
+divination by means of Jahveh-Elohim. Great and long continued
+have been the disputes as to the exact nature of the ephod--
+whether it always means something to wear, or whether it
+sometimes means an image. But the probabilities are that it
+usually signifies a kind of waistcoat or broad zone, with
+shoulder-straps, which the person who "inquired of Jahveh" put
+on. In 1 Samuel xxiii. 2 David appears to have inquired without
+an ephod, for Abiathar the priest is said to have "come down
+with an ephod in his hand" only subsequently. And then David
+asks for it before inquiring of Jahveh whether the men of Keilah
+would betray him or not. David's action is obviously divination
+pure and simple; and it is curious that he seems to have worn
+the ephod himself and not to have employed Abiathar as a medium.
+How the answer was given is not clear though the probability is
+that it was obtained by casting lots. The <i>Urim</i> and
+<i>Thummim</i> seem to have been two such lots of a peculiarly
+sacred character, which were carried in the pocket of the high
+priest's "breastplate." This last was worn along with the ephod.
+
+With the exception of one passage (1 Sam. xiv. 18) the ark is
+ignored in the history of Saul. But in this place the Septuagint
+reads "ephod" for ark, while in 1 Chronicles xiii. 3 David says
+that "we sought not unto it [the ark] in the days of Saul."
+Nor does Samuel seem to have paid any regard to the ark after
+its return from Philistia; though, in his childhood, he is said
+to have slept in "the temple of Jahveh, where the ark of Elohim
+was" (1 Sam. iii. 3), at Shiloh and there to have been the seer
+of the earliest apparitions vouchsafed to him by Jahveh.
+The space between the cherubim or winged images on the canopy or
+cover (<i>Kapporeth</i>) of this holy chest was held to be the
+special seat of Jahveh--the place selected for a temporary
+residence of the Supreme Elohim who had, after Aaron and
+Phineas, Eli and his sons for priests and seers. And, when the
+ark was carried to the camp at Eben-ezer, there can be no doubt
+that the Israelites, no less than the Philistines, held that
+"Elohim is come into the camp" (iv. 7), and that the one, as
+much as the other, conceived that the Israelites had summoned to
+their aid a powerful ally in "these (or this) mighty Elohim"--
+elsewhere called Jahve-Sabaoth, the Jahveh of Hosts. If the
+"temple" at Shiloh was the pentateuchal tabernacle, as is
+suggested by the name of "tent of meeting" given to it in
+1 Samuel ii. 22, it was essentially a large tent, though
+constituted of very expensive and ornate materials; if, on the
+other hand, it was a different edifice, there can be little
+doubt that this "house of Jahveh" was built on the model of an
+ordinary house of the time. But there is not the slightest
+evidence that, during the reign of Saul, any greater importance
+attached to this seat of the cult of Jahveh than to others.
+Sanctuaries, and "high places" for sacrifice, were scattered all
+over the country from Dan to Beersheba. And, as Samuel is said
+to have gone up to one of these high places to bless the
+sacrifice, it may be taken for tolerably certain that he knew
+nothing of the Levitical laws which severely condemn the high
+places and those who sacrifice away from the sanctuary hallowed
+by the presence of the ark.
+
+There is no evidence that, during the time of the Judges and of
+Samuel, any one occupied the position of the high priest of
+later days. And persons who were neither priests nor Levites
+sacrificed and divined or "inquired of Jahveh," when they
+pleased and where they pleased, without the least indication
+that they, or any one else in Israel at that time, knew they
+were doing wrong. There is no allusion to any special observance
+of the Sabbath; and the references to circumcision are indirect.
+
+Such are the chief articles of the theological creed of the old
+Israelites, which are made known to us by the direct evidence of
+the ancient record to which we have had recourse, and they are
+as remarkable for that which they contain as for that which is
+absent from them. They reveal a firm conviction that, when death
+takes place, a something termed a soul or spirit leaves the body
+and continues to exist in Sheol for a period of indefinite
+duration, even though there is no proof of any belief in
+absolute immortality; that such spirits can return to earth to
+possess and inspire the living; that they are, in appearance and
+in disposition, likenesses of the men to whom they belonged, but
+that, as spirits, they have larger powers and are freer from
+physical limitations; that they thus form a group among a number
+of kinds of spiritual existences known as Elohim, of whom
+Jahveh, the national God of Israel, is one; that, consistently
+with this view, Jahveh was conceived as a sort of spirit, human
+in aspect and in senses, and with many human passions, but with
+immensely greater intelligence and power than any other Elohim,
+whether human or divine. Further, the evidence proves that this
+belief was the basis of the Jahveh-worship to which Samuel and
+his followers were devoted; that there is strong reason for
+believing, and none for doubting, that idolatry, in the shape of
+the worship of the family gods or teraphim, was practised by
+sincere and devout Jahveh-worshippers; that the ark, with its
+protective tent or tabernacle, was regarded as a specially, but
+by no means exclusively, favoured sanctuary of Jahveh; that the
+ephod appears to have had a particular value for those who
+desired to divine by the help of Jahveh; and that divination by
+lots was practised before Jahveh. On the other hand, there is
+not the slightest evidence of any belief in retribution after
+death, but the contrary; ritual obligations have at least as
+strong sanction as moral; there are clear indications that some
+of the most stringent of the Levitical laws were unknown even to
+Samuel; priests often appear to be superseded by laymen, even in
+the performance of sacrifices and divination; and no line of
+demarcation can be drawn between necromancer, wizard, seer,
+prophet, and priest, each of whom is regarded, like all the
+rest, as a medium of communication between the world of Elohim
+and that of living men.
+
+The theological system thus defined offers to the anthropologist
+no feature which is devoid of a parallel in the known theologies
+of other races of mankind, even of those who inhabit parts of
+the world most remote from Palestine. And the foundation of the
+whole, the ghost theory, is exactly that theological speculation
+which is the most widely spread of all, and the most deeply
+rooted among uncivilised men. I am able to base this statement,
+to some extent, on facts within my own knowledge. In December
+1848, H.M.S. <i>Rattlesnake,</i> the ship to which I then
+belonged, was anchored off Mount Ernest, an island in Torres
+Straits. The people were few and well disposed; and, when a
+friend of mine (whom I will call B.) and I went ashore, we made
+acquaintance with an old native, Paouda by name. In course of
+time we became quite intimate with the old gentleman, partly by
+the rendering of mutual good offices, but chiefly because Paouda
+believed he had discovered that B. was his father-in-law.
+And his grounds for this singular conviction were very
+remarkable. We had made a long stay at Cape York hard by;
+and, in accordance with a theory which is widely spread among
+the Australians, that white men are the reincarnated spirits of
+black men, B. was held to be the ghost, or <i>narki,</i> of a
+certain Mount Ernest native, one Antarki, who had lately died,
+on the ground of some real or fancied resemblance to the latter.
+Now Paouda had taken to wife a daughter of Antarki's, named
+Domani, and as soon as B. informed him that he was the ghost of
+Antarki, Paouda at once admitted the relationship and acted upon
+it. For, as all the women on the island had hidden away in fear
+of the ship, and we were anxious to see what they were like, B.
+pleaded pathetically with Paouda that it would be very unkind
+not to let him see his daughter and grandchildren. After a good
+deal of hesitation and the exaction of pledges of deep secrecy,
+Paouda consented to take B., and myself as B.'s friend, to see
+Domani and the three daughters, by whom B. was received quite as
+one of the family, while I was courteously welcomed on
+his account.
+
+This scene made an impression upon me which is not yet effaced.
+It left no question on my mind of the sincerity of the strange
+ghost theory of these savages, and of the influence which their
+belief has on their practical life. I had it in my mind, as well
+as many a like result of subsequent anthropological studies,
+when, in 1869,<14> I wrote as follows:--
+
+<quote>
+There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word,
+but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, Ancestor-worship,
+Hero-worship, and Demonology of primitive savages are all, I
+believe, different manners of expression of their belief in
+ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-
+way events which is its concomitant. Witchcraft and sorcery are
+the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they stand in
+the same relation to religious worship as the simple
+anthropomorphism of children or savages does to theology.
+<end quote>
+
+I do not quote myself with any intention of making a claim to
+originality in putting forth this view; for I have since
+discovered that the same conception is virtually contained in
+the great "Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle" of Bossuet, now
+more than two centuries old:--
+
+<quote>
+Le culte des hommes morta faisoit presque tout le fond de
+l'idolatrie; presque tous les hommes sacrificient aux manes,
+c'est-a-dire aux ames des morts. De si anciennes erreurs nous
+font voir a la verite combien etoit ancienne la croyance de
+l'immortalite de l'ame, et nous montrent qu'elle doit etre
+rangee parmi les premieres traditions du genre humain.
+Mais l'homme, qui gatoit tout, en avoit etrangement abuse,
+puisqu'elle le portoit a sacrificer aux morts. On alloit meme
+jusqu'a cet exces, de leur sacrifier des hommes vivans; ou tuoit
+leurs esclaves, et meme leurs femmes, pour les aller servir dans
+l'autre monde."<15>
+<end quote>
+
+Among more modern writers J. G. Muller, in his excellent
+"Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen" (1855), clearly
+recognises "gespensterhafter Geisterglaube" as the foundation of
+all savage and semi-civilised theology, and I need do no more
+than mention the important developments of the same view which
+are to be found in Mr. Tylor's "Primitive Culture," and in the
+writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer, especially his recently-
+published "Ecclesiastical Institutions."<16>
+
+It is a matter of fact that, whether we direct our attention to
+the older conditions of civilised societies, in Japan, in China,
+in Hindostan, in Greece, or in Rome,<17> we find, underlying all
+other theological notions, the belief in ghosts, with its
+inevitable concomitant sorcery; and a primitive cult, in the
+shape of a worship of ancestors, which is essentially an attempt
+to please, or appease their ghosts. The same thing is true of
+old Mexico and Peru, and of all the semi-civilised or savage
+peoples who have developed a definite cult; and in those who,
+like the natives of Australia, have not even a cult, the belief
+in, and fear of, ghosts is as strong as anywhere else. The most
+clearly demonstrable article of the theology of the Israelites
+in the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. is therefore simply
+the article which is to be found in all primitive theologies,
+namely, the belief that a man has a soul which continues to
+exist after death for a longer or shorter time, and may return,
+as a ghost, with a divine, or at least demonic, character, to
+influence for good or evil (and usually for evil) the affairs of
+the living. But the correspondence between the old Israelitic
+and other archaic forms of theology extends to details. If, in
+order to avoid all chance of direct communication, we direct our
+attention to the theology of semi-civilised people, such as the
+Polynesian Islanders, separated by the greatest possible
+distance, and by every conceivable physical barrier, from the
+inhabitants of Palestine, we shall find not merely that all the
+features of old Israelitic theology, which are revealed in the
+records cited, are found among them; but that extant information
+as to the inner mind of these people tends to remove many of the
+difficulties which those who have not studied anthropology find
+in the Hebrew narrative.
+
+One of the best sources, if not the best source, of information
+on these topics is Mariner's <i>Tonga Islands,</i> which tells
+us of the condition of Cook's "Friendly Islanders" eighty years
+ago, before European influence was sensibly felt among them.
+Mariner, a youth of fair education and of no inconsiderable
+natural ability (as the work which was drawn up from the
+materials he furnished shows), was about fifteen years of age
+when his ship was attacked and plundered by the Tongans:
+he remained four years in the islands, familiarised himself with
+the language, lived the life of the people, became intimate with
+many of them, and had every opportunity of acquainting himself
+with their opinions, as well as with their habits and customs.
+He seems to have been devoid of prejudices, theological or
+other, and the impression of strict accuracy which his
+statements convey has been justified by all the knowledge of
+Polynesian life which has been subsequently acquired.
+
+It is desirable, therefore, to pay close attention to that which
+Mariner tells us about the theological views of these people:--
+
+<quote>
+The human soul,<18> after its separation from the body, is
+termed a <i>hotooa</i> (a god or spirit), and is believed to
+exist in the shape of the body; to have the same propensities as
+during life, but to be corrected by a more enlightened
+understanding, by which it readily distinguishes good from evil,
+truth from falsehood, right from wrong; having the same
+attributes as the original gods, but in a minor degree, and
+having its dwelling for ever in the happy regions of Bolotoo,
+holding the same rank in regard to other souls as during this
+life; it has, however, the power of returning to Tonga to
+inspire priests, relations, or others, or to appear in dreams to
+those it wishes to admonish; and sometimes to the external eye
+in the form of a ghost or apparition; but this power of
+reappearance at Tonga particularly belongs to the souls of
+chiefs rather than of matabooles" (vol. ii. p. 130).
+<end quote>
+
+The word "hotooa" is the same as that which is usually spelt
+"atua" by Polynesian philologues, and it will be convenient to
+adopt this spelling. Now under this head of "<i>Atuas</i> or
+supernatural intelligent beings" the Tongans include:--
+
+<quote>
+1. The original gods. 2. The souls of nobles that have all
+attributes in common with the first but inferior in degree.
+3. The souls of matabooles<19> that are still inferior, and have
+not the power as the two first have of coming back to Tonga to
+inspire the priest, though they are supposed to have the power
+of appearing to their relatives. 4. The original attendants or
+servants, as it were, of the gods, who, although they had their
+origin and have ever since existed in Bolotoo, are still
+inferior to the third class. 5. The <i>Atua pow</i> or
+mischievous gods. 6. <i>Mooi,</i> or the god that supports the
+earth and does not belong to Bolotoo (vol. ii. pp. 103, 104).
+<end quote>
+
+From this it appears that the "Atuas" of the Polynesian are
+exactly equivalent to the "Elohim" of the old Israelite.<20>
+They comprise everything spiritual, from a ghost to a god, and
+from "the merely tutelar gods to particular private families"
+(vol, ii. p. 104), to Ta-li-y-Tooboo, who was the national god
+of Tonga. The Tongans had no doubt that these Atuas daily and
+hourly influenced their destinies and could, conversely, be
+influenced by them. Hence their "piety," the incessant acts of
+sacrificial worship which occupied their lives, and their belief
+in omens and charms. Moreover, the Atuas were believed to visit
+particular persons,--their own priests in the case of the higher
+gods, but apparently anybody in that of the lower,--and to
+inspire them by a process which was conceived to involve the
+actual residence of the god, for the time being, in the person
+inspired, who was thus rendered capable of prophesying (vol. ii.
+p. 100). For the Tongan, therefore, inspiration indubitably
+was possession.
+
+When one of the higher gods was invoked, through his priest, by
+a chief who wished to consult the oracle, or, in old Israelitic
+phraseology, to "inquire of," the god, a hog was killed and
+cooked over night, and, together with plantains, yams, and the
+materials for making the peculiar drink <i>kava</i> (of which
+the Tongans were very fond), was carried next day to the priest.
+A circle, as for an ordinary kava-drinking entertainment, was
+then formed; but the priest, as the representative of the god,
+took the highest place, while the chiefs sat outside the circle,
+as an expression of humility calculated to please the god.
+
+<quote>
+As soon as they are all seated the priest is considered as
+inspired, the god being supposed to exist within him from that
+moment. He remains for a considerable time in silence with his
+hands clasped before him, his eyes are cast down and he rests
+perfectly still. During the time the victuals are being shared
+out and the kava preparing, the matabooles sometimes begin to
+consult him; sometimes he answers, and at other times not;
+in either case he remains with his eyes cast down. Frequently he
+will not utter a word till the repast is finished and the kava
+too. When he speaks he generally begins in a low and very
+altered tone of voice, which gradually rises to nearly its
+natural pitch, though sometimes a little above it. All that he
+says is supposed to be the declaration of the god, and he
+accordingly speaks in the first person, as if he were the god.
+All this is done generally without any apparent inward emotion
+or outward agitation; but, on some occasions, his countenance
+becomes fierce, and as it were inflamed, and his whole frame
+agitated with inward feeling; he is seized with an universal
+trembling, the perspiration breaks out on his forehead, and his
+lips turning black are convulsed; at length tears start in
+floods from his eyes, his breast heaves with great emotion, and
+his utterance is choked. These symptoms gradually subside.
+Before this paroxysm comes on, and after it is over, he often
+eats as much as four hungry men under other circumstances could
+devour. The fit being now gone off, he remains for some time
+calm and then takes up a club that is placed by him for the
+purpose, turns it over and regards it attentively; he then looks
+up earnestly, now to the right, now to the left, and now again
+at the club; afterwards he looks up again and about him in like
+manner, and then again fixes his eyes on the club, and so on for
+several times. At length he suddenly raises the club, and, after
+a moment's pause, strikes the ground or the adjacent part of the
+house with considerable force, immediately the god leaves him,
+and he rises up and retires to the back of the ring among the
+people (vol. i. pp. 100, 101).
+<end quote>
+
+The phenomena thus described, in language which, to any one who
+is familiar with the manifestations of abnormal mental states
+among ourselves, bears the stamp of fidelity, furnish a most
+instructive commentary upon the story of the wise woman of
+Endor. As in the latter, we have the possession by the spirit or
+soul (Atua, Elohim), the strange voice, the speaking in the
+first person. Unfortunately nothing (beyond the loud cry) is
+mentioned as to the state of the wise woman of Endor. But what
+we learn from other sources (<i>e.g.</i> 1 Sam. x. 20-24)
+respecting the physical concomitants of inspiration among the
+old Israelites has its exact equivalent in this and other
+accounts of Polynesian prophetism. An excellent authority,
+Moerenhout, who lived among the people of the Society Islands
+many years and knew them well, says that, in Tahiti, the
+<i>role</i> of the prophet had very generally passed out of the
+hands of the priests into that of private persons who professed
+to represent the god, often assumed his name, and in this
+capacity prophesied. I will not run the risk of weakening the
+force of Moerenhout's description of the prophetic state by
+translating it:--
+
+<quote>
+Un individu, dans cet etat, avait le bras gauche enveloppe d'un
+morceau d'etoffe, signe de la presence de la Divinite. Il ne
+parlait que d'un ton imperieux et vehement. Ses attaques, quand
+il allait prophetiser, etaient aussi effroyables qu'imposantes.
+Il tremblait d'abord de tous ses membres, la figure enflee, les
+yeux hagards, rouges et etincelants d'une expression sauvage.
+Il gesticulait, articulait des mots vides de sens, poussait des
+cris horribles qui faisaient tressaillir tous les assistants, et
+s'exaltait parfois au point qu'on n'osait par l'approcher.
+Autour de lui, le silence de la terreur et du respect. ...
+C'est alors qu'il repondait aux questions, annoncait l'avenir,
+le destin des batailles, la volonte des dieux; et, chose
+etonnante! au sein de ce delire, de cet enthousiasme religieux,
+son langage etait grave, imposant, son eloquence noble et
+persuasive.<21>
+<end quote>
+
+Just so Saul strips off his clothes, "prophesies" before Samuel,
+and lies down "naked all that day and night."
+
+Both Mariner and Moerenhout refuse to have recourse to the
+hypothesis of imposture in order to account for the inspired
+state of the Polynesian prophets. On the contrary, they fully
+believe in their sincerity. Mariner tells the story of a young
+chief, an acquaintance of his, who thought himself possessed by
+the Atua of a dead woman who had fallen in love with him, and
+who wished him to die that he might be near her in Bolotoo.
+And he died accordingly. But the most valuable evidence on this
+head is contained in what the same authority says about King
+Finow's son. The previous king, Toogoo Ahoo, had been
+assassinated by Finow, and his soul, become an Atua of divine
+rank in Bolotoo, had been pleased to visit and inspire Finow's
+son--with what particular object does not appear.
+
+<quote>
+When this young chief returned to Hapai, Mr. Mariner, who was
+upon a footing of great friendship with him, one day asked him
+how he felt himself when the spirit of Toogoo Ahoo visited him;
+he replied that he could not well describe his feelings, but the
+best he could say of it was, that he felt himself all over in a
+glow of heat and quite restless and uncomfortable, and did not
+feel his own personal identity, as it were, but seemed to have a
+mind different from his own natural mind, his thoughts wandering
+upon strange and unusual subjects, though perfectly sensible of
+surrounding objects. He next asked him how he knew it was the
+spirit of Toogoo Ahoo? His answer was, 'There's a fool! How can
+I tell you <i>how</i> I knew it! I felt and knew it was so by a
+kind of consciousness; my <i>mind</i> told me that it was Toogoo
+Ahoo (vol. i. pp. 104, 105).
+<end quote>
+
+Finow's son was evidently made for a theological disputant, and
+fell back at once on the inexpugnable stronghold of faith when
+other evidence was lacking. "There's a fool! I know it is true,
+because I know it," is the exemplar and epitome of the sceptic-
+crushing process in other places than the Tonga Islands.
+
+The island of Bolotoo, to which all the souls (of the upper
+classes at any rate) repair after the death of the body, and
+from which they return at will to interfere, for good or evil,
+with the lives of those whom they have left behind, obviously
+answers to Sheol. In Tongan tradition, this place of souls is a
+sort of elysium above ground and pleasant enough to live in.
+But, in other parts of Polynesia, the corresponding locality,
+which is called Po, has to be reached by descending into the
+earth, and is represented dark and gloomy like Sheol. But it was
+not looked upon as a place of rewards and punishments in any
+sense. Whether in Bolotoo or in Po, the soul took the rank it
+had in the flesh; and, a shadow, lived among the shadows of the
+friends and houses and food of its previous life.
+
+The Tongan theologians recognised several hundred gods;
+but there was one, already mentioned as their national god, whom
+they regarded as far greater than any of the others, "as a great
+chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth"
+(Mariner, vol. ii. p. 106). He was also god of war, and the
+tutelar deity of the royal family, whoever happened to be the
+incumbent of the royal office for the time being. He had no
+priest except the king himself, and his visits, even to royalty,
+were few and far between. The name of this supreme deity was
+Ta-li-y-Tooboo, the literal meaning of which is said to be "Wait
+there, Tooboo," from which it would appear that the peculiar
+characteristic of Ta-li-y-Tooboo, in the eyes of his
+worshippers, was persistence of duration. And it is curious to
+notice, in relation to this circumstance, that many Hebrew
+philologers have thought the meaning of Jahveh to be best
+expressed by the word "Eternal." It would probably be difficult
+to express the notion of an eternal being, in a dialect so
+little fitted to convey abstract conceptions as Tongan, better
+than by that of one who always "waits there."
+
+The characteristics of the gods in Tongan theology are exactly
+those of men whose shape they are supposed to possess, only they
+have more intelligence and greater power. The Tongan belief
+that, after death, the human Atua more readily distinguishes
+good from evil, runs parallel with the old Israelitic conception
+of Elohim expressed in Genesis, "Ye shall be as Elohim, knowing
+good from evil." They further agreed with the old Israelites,
+that "all rewards for virtue and punishments for vice happen to
+men in this world only, and come immediately from the gods"
+(vol. ii. p. 100). Moreover, they were of opinion that though
+the gods approve of some kinds of virtue, are displeased with
+some kinds of vice, and, to a certain extent, protect or forsake
+their worshippers according to their moral conduct, yet neglect
+to pay due respect to the deities, and forgetfulness to keep
+them in good humour, might be visited with even worse
+consequences than moral delinquency. And those who will
+carefully study the so-called "Mosaic code" contained in the
+books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, will see that, though
+Jahveh's prohibitions of certain forms of immorality are strict
+and sweeping, his wrath is quite as strongly kindled against
+infractions of ritual ordinances. Accidental homicide may go
+unpunished, and reparation may be made for wilful theft. On the
+other hand, Nadab and Abihu, who "offered strange fire before
+Jahveh, which he had not commanded them," were swiftly devoured
+by Jahveh's fire; he who sacrificed anywhere except at the
+allotted place was to be "cut off from his people"; so was he
+who ate blood; and the details of the upholstery of the
+Tabernacle, of the millinery of the priests' vestments, and of
+the cabinet work of the ark, can plead direct authority from
+Jahveh, no less than moral commands.
+
+Amongst the Tongans, the sacrifices were regarded as gifts of
+food and drink offered to the divine Atuas, just as the articles
+deposited by the graves of the recently dead were meant as food
+for Atuas of lower rank. A kava root was a constant form of
+offering all over Polynesia. In the excellent work of the Rev.
+George Turner, entitled <i>Nineteen Years in Polynesia</i>
+(p. 241), I find it said of the Samoans (near neighbours of
+the Tongans):--
+
+<quote>
+<i>The offerings</i> were principally cooked food. As in ancient
+Greece so in Samoa, the first cup was in honour of the god.
+It was either poured out on the ground or <i>waved</i> towards
+the heavens, reminding us again of the Mosaic ceremonies.
+The chiefs all drank a portion out of the same cup, according to
+rank; and after that, the food brought as an offering was
+divided and eaten '<i>there before the Lord.</i>'
+<end quote>
+
+In Tonga, when they consulted a god who had a priest, the
+latter, as representative of the god, had the first cup; but if
+the god, like Ta-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. In Tonga and Samoa there were many sacred places or
+<i>morais,</i> with houses of the ordinary construction, but
+which served as temples in consequence of being dedicated to
+various gods; and there were altars on which the sacrifices were
+offered; nevertheless there were few or no images. Mariner
+mentions none in Tonga, and the Samoans seem to have been
+regarded as no better than atheists by other Polynesians because
+they had none. It does not appear that either of these peoples
+had images even of their family or ancestral gods.
+
+In Tahiti and the adjacent islands, Moerenhout (t. i. p. 471)
+makes the very interesting observation, not only that idols were
+often absent, but that, where they existed, the images of the
+gods served merely as depositories for the proper
+representatives of the divinity. Each of these was called a
+<i>maro aurou,</i> and was a kind of girdle artistically adorned
+with red, yellow, blue, and black feathers--the red feathers
+being especially important--which were consecrated and kept as
+sacred objects within the idols. They were worn by great
+personages on solemn occasions, and conferred upon their wearers
+a sacred and almost divine character. There is no distinct
+evidence that the <i>maro aurou</i> was supposed to have any
+special efficacy in divination, but one cannot fail to see a
+certain parallelism between this holy girdle, which endowed its
+wearer with a particular sanctity, and the ephod.
+
+According to the Rev. R. Taylor, the New Zealanders formerly
+used the word <i>karakia</i> (now employed for "prayer") to
+signify a "spell, charm, or incantation," and the utterance of
+these karakias constituted the chief part of their cult. In the
+south, the officiating priest had a small image, "about eighteen
+inches long, resembling a peg with a carved head," which reminds
+one of the form commonly attributed to the teraphim.
+
+<quote>
+The priest first bandaged a fillet of red parrot feathers under
+the god's chin, which was called his pahau or beard; this
+bandage was made of a certain kind of sennet, which was tied on
+in a peculiar way. When this was done it was taken possession of
+by the Atua, whose spirit entered it. The priest then either
+held it in the hand and vibrated it in the air whilst the
+powerful karakia was repeated, or he tied a piece of string
+(formed of the centre of a flax leaf) round the neck of the
+image and stuck it in the ground. He sat at a little distance
+from it, leaning against a tuahu, a short stone pillar stuck in
+the ground in a slanting position and, holding the string in his
+hand, he gave the god a jerk to arrest his attention, lest he
+should be otherwise engaged, like Baal of old, either hunting,
+fishing, or sleeping, and therefore must be awaked. ... The god
+is supposed to make use of the priest's tongue in giving a
+reply. Image-worship appears to have been confined to one part
+of the island. The Atua was supposed only to enter the image for
+the occasion. The natives declare they did not worship the image
+itself, but only the Atua it represented, and that the image was
+merely used as a way of approaching him.<22>
+<end quote>
+
+This is the excuse for image-worship which the more intelligent
+idolaters make all the world over; but it is more interesting to
+observe that, in the present case, we seem to have the
+equivalents of divination by teraphim, with the aid of something
+like an ephod (which, however, is used to sanctify the image and
+not the priest) mixed up together. Many Hebrew archaeologists
+have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes used for an
+image (particularly in the case of Gideon's ephod), and the
+story of Micah, in the book of Judges, shows that images were,
+at any rate, employed in close association with the ephod.
+If the pulling of the string to call the attention of the god
+seems as absurd to us as it appears to have done to the worthy
+missionary, who tells us of the practice, it should be
+recollected that the high priest of Jahveh was ordered to wear a
+garment fringed with golden bells.
+
+<quote>
+And it shall be upon Aaron to minister; and the sound thereof
+shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before
+Jahveh, and when he cometh out, that he die not (Exod.
+xxviii. 35).
+<end quote>
+
+
+An escape from the obvious conclusion suggested by this passage
+has been sought in the supposition that these bells rang for the
+sake of the worshippers, as at the elevation of the host in the
+Roman Catholic ritual; but then why should the priest be
+threatened with the well-known penalty for inadvisedly beholding
+the divinity?
+
+In truth, the intermediate step between the Maori practice and
+that of the old Israelites is furnished by the Kami temples in
+Japan. These are provided with bells which the worshippers who
+present themselves ring, in order to call the attention of the
+ancestor-god to their presence. Grant the fundamental assumption
+of the essentially human character of the spirit, whether Atua,
+Kami, or Elohim, and all these practices are equally rational.
+
+The sacrifices to the gods in Tonga, and elsewhere in Polynesia,
+were ordinarily social gatherings, in which the god, either in
+his own person or in that of his priestly representative, was
+supposed to take part. These sacrifices were offered on every
+occasion of importance, and even the daily meals were prefaced
+by oblations and libations of food and drink, exactly answering
+to those offered by the old Romans to their manes, penates, and
+lares. The sacrifices had no moral significance, but were the
+necessary result of the theory that the god was either a deified
+ghost of an ancestor or chief, or, at any rate, a being of like
+nature to these. If one wanted to get anything out of him,
+therefore, the first step was to put him in good humour by
+gifts; and if one desired to escape his wrath, which might be
+excited by the most trifling neglect or unintentional
+disrespect, the great thing was to pacify him by costly
+presents. King Finow appears to have been somewhat of a
+freethinker (to the great horror of his subjects), and it was
+only his untimely death which prevented him from dealing with
+the priest of a god, who had not returned a favourable answer to
+his supplications, as Saul dealt with the priests of the
+sanctuary of Jahveh at Nob. Nevertheless, Finow showed his
+practical belief in the gods during the sickness of a daughter,
+to whom he was fondly attached, in a fashion which has a close
+parallel in the history of Israel.
+
+<quote>
+"If the gods have any resentment against us, let the whole
+weight of vengeance fall on my head. I fear not their vengeance
+--but spare my child; and I earnestly entreat you, Toobo Totai 
+[the god whom he had evoked], to exert all your influence with
+the other gods that I alone may suffer all the punishment they
+desire to inflict (vol. i. p. 354).
+<end quote>
+
+So when the king of Israel has sinned by "numbering the people,"
+and they are punished for his fault by a pestilence which slays
+seventy thousand innocent men, David cries to Jahveh:--
+
+<quote>
+Lo, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep,
+what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me,
+and against my father's house" (2 Sam. xxiv. 17).
+<end quote>
+
+Human sacrifices were extremely common in Polynesia; and, in
+Tonga, the "devotion" of a child by strangling was a favourite
+method of averting the wrath of the gods. The well-known
+instances of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter and of David's
+giving up the seven sons of Saul to be sacrificed by the
+Gibeonites "before Jahveh," appear to me to leave no doubt that
+the old Israelites, even when devout worshippers of Jahveh,
+considered human sacrifices, under certain circumstances, to be
+not only permissible but laudable. Samuel's hewing to pieces of
+the miserable captive, sole survivor of his nation, Agag,
+"before Jahveh," can hardly be viewed in any other light.
+The life of Moses is redeemed from Jahveh, who "sought to slay
+him," by Zipporah's symbolical sacrifice of her child, by the
+bloody operation of circumcision. Jahveh expressly affirms that
+the first-born males of men and beasts are devoted to him;
+in accordance with that claim, the first-born males of the
+beasts are duly sacrificed; and it is only by special permission
+that the claim to the first-born of men is waived, and it is
+enacted that they may be redeemed (Exod. xiii. 12-15). Is it
+possible to avoid the conclusion that immolation of their first-
+born sons would have been incumbent on the worshippers of
+Jahveh, had they not been thus specially excused? Can any other
+conclusion be drawn from the history of Abraham and Isaac?
+Does Abraham exhibit any indication of surprise when he receives
+the astounding order to sacrifice his son? Is there the
+slightest evidence that there was anything in his intimate and
+personal acquaintance with the character of the Deity, who had
+eaten the meat and drunk the milk which Abraham set before him
+under the oaks of Mamre, to lead him to hesitate--even to wait
+twelve or fourteen hours for a repetition of the command? Not a
+whit. We are told that "Abraham rose early in the morning" and
+led his only child to the slaughter, as if it were the most
+ordinary business imaginable. Whether the story has any
+historical foundation or not, it is valuable as showing that the
+writer of it conceived Jahveh as a deity whose requirement of
+such a sacrifice need excite neither astonishment nor suspicion
+of mistake on the part of his devotee. Hence, when the incessant
+human sacrifices in Israel, during the age of the kings, are put
+down to the influence of foreign idolatries, we may fairly
+inquire whether editorial Bowdlerising has not prevailed over
+historical truth.
+
+An attempt to compare the ethical standards of two nations, one
+of which has a written code, while the other has not, is beset
+with difficulties. With all that is strange and, in many cases,
+repulsive to us in the social arrangements and opinions
+respecting moral obligation among the Tongans, as they are
+placed before us, with perfect candour, in Mariner's account,
+there is much that indicates a strong ethical sense. They showed
+great kindliness to one another, and faithfulness in standing by
+their comrades in war. No people could have better observed
+either the third or the fifth commandment; for they had a
+particular horror of blasphemy, and their respectful tenderness
+towards their parents and, indeed, towards old people in
+general, was remarkable.
+
+It cannot be said that the eighth commandment was generally
+observed, especially where Europeans were concerned;
+nevertheless a well-bred Tongan looked upon theft as a meanness
+to which he would not condescend. As to the seventh commandment,
+any breach of it was considered scandalous in women and as
+something to be avoided in self-respecting men; but, among
+unmarried and widowed people, chastity was held very cheap.
+Nevertheless the women were extremely well treated, and often
+showed themselves capable of great devotion and entire
+faithfulness. In the matter of cruelty, treachery, and
+bloodthirstiness, these islanders were neither better nor worse
+than most peoples of antiquity. It is to the credit of the
+Tongans that they particularly objected to slander; nor can
+covetousness be regarded as their characteristic;
+for Mariner says:--
+
+<quote>
+When any one is about to eat, he always shares out what he has
+to those about him, without any hesitation, and a contrary
+conduct would be considered exceedingly vile and selfish (vol.
+ii p. 145).
+<end quote>
+
+In fact, they thought very badly of the English when Mariner
+told them that his countrymen did not act exactly on that
+principle. It further appears that they decidedly belonged to
+the school of intuitive moral philosophers, and believed that
+virtue is its own reward; for
+
+<quote>
+Many of the chiefs, on being asked by Mr. Mariner what motives
+they had for conducting themselves with propriety, besides the
+fear of misfortunes in this life, replied, the agreeable and
+happy feeling which a man experiences within himself when he
+does any good action or conducts himself nobly and generously as
+a man ought to do; and this question they answered as if they
+wondered such a question should be asked" (vol. ii. p. 161).
+<end quote>
+
+One may read from the beginning of the book of Judges to the end
+of the books of Samuel without discovering that the old
+Israelites had a moral standard which differs, in any essential
+respect (except perhaps in regard to the chastity of unmarried
+women), from that of the Tongans. Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and
+David are strong-handed men, some of whom are not outdone by any
+Polynesian chieftain in the matter of murder and treachery;
+while Deborah's jubilation over Jael's violation of the primary
+duty of hospitality, proffered and accepted under circumstances
+which give a peculiarly atrocious character to the murder of the
+guest; and her witch-like gloating over the picture of the
+disappointment of the mother of the victim--
+
+<quote>
+The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice,
+Why is his chariot so long in coming? (Jud. v. 28.)
+<end quote>
+
+--would not have been out of place in the choral service of the
+most sanguinary god in the Polynesian pantheon.
+
+With respect to the cannibalism which the Tongans occasionally
+practised, Mariner says:--
+
+<quote>
+Although a few young ferocious warriors chose to imitate what
+they considered a mark of courageous fierceness in a
+neighbouring nation, it was held in disgust by everybody else
+(vol. ii. p. 171).
+<end quote>
+
+That the moral standard of Tongan life was less elevated than
+that indicated in the "Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.)
+may be freely admitted. But then the evidence that this Book of
+the Covenant, and even the ten commandments as given in Exodus,
+were known to the Israelites of the time of Samuel and Saul, is
+(to say the least) by no means conclusive. The Deuteronomic
+version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly discrepant from
+that which stands in Exodus. Would any later writer have
+ventured to alter the commandments as given from Sinai, if he
+had had before him that which professed to be an accurate
+statement of the "ten words" in Exodus? And if the writer of
+Deuteronomy had not Exodus before him, what is the value of the
+claim of the version of the ten commandments therein contained
+to authenticity? From one end to the other of the books of
+Judges and Samuel, the only "commandments of Jahveh" which are
+specially adduced refer to the prohibition of the worship of
+other gods, or are orders given <i>ad hoc,</i> and have nothing
+to do with questions of morality.
+
+In Polynesia, the belief in witchcraft, in the appearance of
+spiritual beings in dreams, in possession as the cause of
+diseases, and in omens, prevailed universally. Mariner tells a
+story of a woman of rank who was greatly attached to King Finow,
+and who, for the space of six months after his death, scarcely
+ever slept elsewhere than on his grave, which she kept carefully
+decorated with flowers:--
+
+<quote>
+One day she went, with the deepest affliction, to the house of
+Mo-oonga Toobo, the widow of the deceased chief, to communicate
+what had happened to her at the <i>fytoca</i> [grave] during
+several nights, and which caused her the greatest anxiety.
+She related that she had dreamed that the late How [King]
+appeared to her and, with a countenance full of disappointment,
+asked why there yet remained at Vavaoo so many evil-designing
+persons; for he declared that, since he had been at Bolotoo, his
+spirit had been disturbed<22> by the evil machinations of wicked
+men conspiring against his son; but he declared that "the youth"
+should not be molested nor his power shaken by the spirit of
+rebellion; that he therefore came to her with a warning voice to
+prevent such disastrous consequences (vol. i. p. 424).
+<end quote>
+
+On inquiry it turned out that the charm of <i>tattao</i> had
+been performed on Finow's grave, with the view of injuring his
+son, the reigning king, and it is to be presumed that it was
+this sorcerer's work which had "disturbed" Finow's spirit. The
+Rev. Richard Taylor says in the work already cited: "The account
+given of the witch of Endor agrees most remarkably with the
+witches of New Zealand" (p. 45).
+
+The Tongans also believed in a mode of divination (essentially
+similar to the casting of lots) the twirling of a cocoanut.
+
+<quote>
+The object of inquiry ... is chiefly whether a sick person will
+recover; for this purpose the nut being placed on the ground, a
+relation of the sick person determines that, if the nut, when
+again at rest, points to such a quarter, the east for example,
+that the sick man will recover; he then prays aloud to the
+patron god of the family that he will be pleased to direct the
+nut so that it may indicate the truth; the nut being next spun,
+the result is attended to with confidence, at least with a full
+conviction that it will truly declare the intentions of the gods
+at the time (vol. ii. p. 227).
+<end quote>
+
+Does not the action of Saul, on a famous occasion, involve
+exactly the same theological presuppositions?
+
+<quote>
+Therefore Saul said unto Jahveh, the Elohim of Israel, Shew the
+right. And Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot: but the people
+escaped. And Saul said, Cast <i>lots</i> between me and Jonathan
+my son. And Jonathan was taken. And Saul said to Jonathan, Tell
+me what thou hast done. ... And the people rescued Jonathan so
+that he died not (1 Sam. xiv. 41-45).
+<end quote>
+
+As the Israelites had great yearly feasts, so had the
+Polynesians; as the Israelites practised circumcision, so did
+many Polynesian people; as the Israelites had a complex and
+often arbitrary-seeming multitude of distinctions between clean
+and unclean things, and clean and unclean states of men, to
+which they attached great importance, so had the Polynesians
+their notions of ceremonial purity and their <i>tabu,</i> an
+equally extensive and strange system of prohibitions, violation
+of which was visited by death. These doctrines of cleanness and
+uncleanness no doubt may have taken their rise in the real or
+fancied utility of the prescriptions, but it is probable that
+the origin of many is indicated in the curious habit of the
+Samoans to make fetishes of living animals. It will be
+recollected that these people had no "gods made with hands," but
+they substituted animals for them.
+
+At his birth
+
+<quote>
+every Samoan was supposed to be taken under the care of some
+tutelary god or <i>aitu</i> [= Atua] as it was called. The help
+of perhaps half a dozen different gods was invoked in succession
+on the occasion, but the one who happened to be addressed just
+as the child was born was marked and declared to be the child's
+god for life.
+
+These gods were supposed to appear in some <i>visible
+incarnation,</i> and the particular thing in which his god was
+in the habit of appearing was, to the Samoan, an object of
+veneration. It was in fact his idol, and he was careful never to
+injure it or treat it with contempt. One, for instance, saw his
+god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle,
+another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard;
+and so on, throughout all the fish of the sea and birds and
+four-footed beasts and creeping things. In some of the shell-
+fish even, gods were supposed to be present. A man would eat
+freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of
+another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he
+would consider it death to injure or eat."<23>
+<end quote>
+
+We have here that which appears to be the origin, or one of the
+origins, of food prohibitions, on the one hand, and of totemism
+on the other. When it is remembered that the old Israelites
+sprang from ancestors who are said to have resided near, or in,
+one of the great seats of ancient Babylonian civilisation, the
+city of Ur; that they had been, it is said for centuries, in
+close contact with the Egyptians; and that, in the theology of
+both the Babylonians and the Egyptians, there is abundant
+evidence, notwithstanding their advanced social organisation, of
+the belief in spirits, with sorcery, ancestor-worship, the
+deification of animals, and the converse animalisation of gods--
+it obviously needs very strong evidence to justify the belief
+that the rude tribes of Israel did not share the notions from
+which their far more civilised neighbours had not
+emancipated themselves.
+
+But it is surely needless to carry the comparison further.
+Out of the abundant evidence at command, I think that sufficient
+has been produced to furnish ample grounds for the belief, that
+the old Israelites of the time of Samuel entertained theological
+conceptions which were on a level with those current among the
+more civilised of the Polynesian islanders, though their ethical
+code may possibly, in some respects, have been
+more advanced.<24>
+
+A theological system of essentially similar character,
+exhibiting the same fundamental conceptions respecting the
+continued existence and incessant interference in human affairs
+of disembodied spirits, prevails, or formerly prevailed, among
+the whole of the inhabitants of the Polynesian and Melanesian
+islands, and among the people of Australia, notwithstanding the
+wide differences in physical character and in grade of
+civilisation which obtain among them. And the same proposition
+is true of the people who inhabit the riverain shores of the
+Pacific Ocean whether Dyaks, Malays, Indo-Chinese, Chinese,
+Japanese, the wild tribes of America, or the highly civilised
+old Mexicans and Peruvians. It is no less true of the Mongolic 
+nomads of Northern Asia, of the Asiatic Aryans and of the
+Ancient Greeks and Romans, and it holds good among the
+Dravidians of the Dekhan and the negro tribes of Africa.
+No tribe of savages which has yet been discovered, has been
+conclusively proved to have so poor a theological equipment as
+to be devoid of a belief in ghosts, and in the utility of some
+form of witchcraft, in influencing those ghosts. And there is no
+nation, modern or ancient, which, even at this moment, has
+wholly given up the belief; and in which it has not, at one time
+or other, played a great part in practical life.
+
+This <i>sciotheism,</i><25> as it might be called, is found, in
+several degrees of complexity, in rough correspondence with the
+stages of social organisation, and, like these, separated by no
+sudden breaks.
+
+In its simplest condition, such as may be met with among the
+Australian savages, theology is a mere belief in the existence,
+powers, and disposition (usually malignant) of ghostlike
+entities who may be propitiated or scared away; but no cult can
+properly be said to exist. And, in this stage, theology is
+wholly independent of ethics. The moral code, such as is implied
+by public opinion, derives no sanction from the theological
+dogmas, and the influence of the spirits is supposed to be
+exerted out of mere caprice or malice.
+
+As a next stage, the fundamental fear of ghosts and the
+consequent desire to propitiate them acquire an organised ritual
+in simple forms of ancestor-worship, such as the Rev. Mr. Turner
+describes among the people of Tanna (<i>l.c.</i> p. 88); and
+this line of development may be followed out until it attains
+its acme in the State-theology of China and the Kami-
+theology<26> of Japan. Each of these is essentially ancestor-
+worship, the ancestors being reckoned back through family
+groups, of higher and higher order, sometimes with strict
+reference to the principle of agnation, as in old Rome; and, as
+in the latter, it is intimately bound up with the whole
+organisation of the State. There are no idols; inscribed tablets
+in China, and strips of paper lodged in a peculiar portable
+shrine in Japan, represent the souls of the deceased, or the
+special seats which they occupy when sacrifices are offered by
+their descendants. In Japan it is interesting to observe that a
+national Kami--Ten-zio-dai-zin--is worshipped as a sort of
+Jahveh by the nation in general, and (as Lippert has observed)
+it is singular that his special seat is a portable litter-like
+shrine, termed the Mikosi, in some sort analogous to the
+Israelitic ark. In China, the emperor is the representative of
+the primitive ancestors, and stands, as it were, between them
+and the supreme cosmic deities--Heaven and Earth--who are
+superadded to them, and who answer to the Tangaloa and the Maui
+of the Polynesians.
+
+Sciotheism, under the form of the deification of ancestral
+ghosts, in its most pronounced form, is therefore the chief
+element in the theology of a great moiety, possibly of more than
+half, of the human race. I think this must be taken to be a
+matter of fact--though various opinions may be held as to how
+this ancestor-worship came about. But on the other hand, it is
+no less a matter of fact that there are very few people without
+additional gods, who cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as
+deified ancestors.
+
+With all respect for the distinguished authorities on the other
+side, I cannot find good reasons for accepting the theory that
+the cosmic deities--who are superadded to deified ancestors even
+in China; who are found all over Polynesia, in Tangaloa and
+Maui, and in old Peru, in the Sun--are the product either of the
+"search after the infinite," or of mistakes arising out of the
+confusion of a great chief's name with the thing signified by
+the name. But, however this may be, I think it is again merely
+matter of fact that, among a large portion of mankind, ancestor-
+worship is more or less thrown into the background either by
+such cosmic deities, or by tribal gods of uncertain origin, who
+have been raised to eminence by the superiority in warfare, or
+otherwise, of their worshippers.
+
+Among certain nations, the polytheistic theology, thus
+constituted, has become modified by the selection of some one
+cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is due on
+the part of that nation (though it is by no means denied that
+other nations have a right to worship other gods), and thus
+results a worship of one God--<i>monolatry,</i> as Wellhausen
+calls it--which is very different from genuine monotheism.<27>
+In ancestral sciotheism, and in this <i>monolatry,</i> the
+ethical code, often of a very high order, comes into closer
+relation with the theological creed. Morality is taken under the
+patronage of the god or gods, who reward all morally good
+conduct and punish all morally evil conduct in this world or the
+next. At the same time, however, they are conceived to be
+thoroughly human, and they visit any shadow of disrespect to
+themselves, shown by disobedience to their commands, or by
+delay, or carelessness, in carrying them out, as severely as any
+breach of the moral laws. Piety means minute attention to the
+due performance of all sacred rites, and covers any number of
+lapses in morality, just as cruelty, treachery, murder, and
+adultery did not bar David's claim to the title of the man after
+God's own heart among the Israelites; crimes against men may be
+expiated, but blasphemy against the gods is an unpardonable sin.
+Men forgive all injuries but those which touch their self-
+esteem; and they make their gods after their own likeness, in
+their own image make they them.
+
+It is in the category of monolatry that I conceive the theology
+of the old Israelites must be ranged. They were polytheists, in
+so far as they admitted the existence of other Elohim of divine
+rank beside Jahveh; they differed from ordinary polytheists, in
+so far as they believed that Jahveh was the supreme god and the
+one proper object of their own national worship. But it will
+doubtless be objected that I have been building up a fictitious
+Israelitic theology on the foundation of the recorded habits and
+customs of the people, when they had lapsed from the ordinances
+of their great lawgiver and prophet Moses, and that my
+conclusions may be good for the perverts to Canaanitish
+theology, but not for the true observers of the Sinaitic
+legislation. The answer to the objection is that--so far as I
+can form a judgment of that which is well ascertained in the
+history of Israel--there is very little ground for believing
+that we know much, either about the theological and social value
+of the influence of Moses, or about what happened during the
+wanderings in the Desert.
+
+The account of the Exodus and of the occurrences in the Sinaitic
+peninsula; in fact, all the history of Israel before the
+invasion of Canaan, is full of wonderful stories, which may be
+true, in so far as they are conceivable occurrences, but which
+are certainly not probable, and which I, for one, decline to
+accept until evidence, which deserves that name, is offered of
+their historical truth. Up to this time I know of none.<28>
+Furthermore, I see no answer to the argument that one has no
+right to pick out of an obviously unhistorical statement the
+assertions which happen to be probable and to discard the rest.
+But it is also certain that a primitively veracious tradition
+may be smothered under subsequent mythical additions, and that
+one has no right to cast away the former along with the latter.
+Thus, perhaps the fairest way of stating the case may be
+as follows.
+
+There can be no <i>a priori</i> objection to the supposition
+that the Israelites were delivered from their Egyptian bondage
+by a leader called Moses, and that he exerted a great influence
+over their subsequent organisation in the Desert. There is no
+reason to doubt that, during their residence in the land of
+Goshen, the Israelites knew nothing of Jahveh; but, as their own
+prophets declare (see Ezek. xx.), were polytheistic idolaters,
+sharing in the worst practices of their neighbours. As to their
+conduct in other respects, nothing is known. But it may fairly
+be suspected that their ethics were not of a higher order than
+those of Jacob, their progenitor, in which case they might
+derive great profit from contact with Egyptian society, which
+held honesty and truthfulness in the highest esteem. Thanks to
+the Egyptologers, we now know, with all requisite certainty, the
+moral standard of that society in the time, and long before the
+time, of Moses. It can be determined from the scrolls buried
+with the mummified dead and from the inscriptions on the tombs
+and memorial statues of that age. For, though the lying of
+epitaphs is proverbial, so far as their subject is concerned,
+they gave an unmistakable insight into that which the writers
+and the readers of them think praiseworthy.
+
+In the famous tombs at Beni Hassan there is a record of the life
+of Prince Nakht, who served Osertasen II., a Pharaoh of the
+twelfth dynasty as governor of a province. The inscription
+speaks in his name: "I was a benevolent and kindly governor who
+loved his country. ... Never was a little child distressed nor a
+widow ill-treated by me. I have never repelled a workman nor
+hindered a shepherd. I gave alike to the widow and to the
+married woman, and have not preferred the great to the small in
+my gifts." And we have the high authority of the late Dr. Samuel
+Birch for the statement that the inscriptions of the twelfth
+dynasty abound in injunctions of a high ethical character.
+"To feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the
+naked, bury the dead, loyally serve the king, formed the first
+duty of a pious man and faithful subject."<29> The people for
+whom these inscriptions embodied their ideal of praiseworthiness
+assuredly had no imperfect conception of either justice or
+mercy. But there is a document which gives still better evidence
+of the moral standard of the Egyptians. It is the "Book of the
+Dead," a sort of "Guide to Spiritland," the whole, or a part, of
+which was buried with the mummy of every well-to-do Egyptian,
+while extracts from it are found in innumerable inscriptions.
+Portions of this work are of extreme antiquity, evidence of
+their existence occurring as far back as the fifth and sixth
+dynasties; while the 120th chapter, which constitutes a sort of
+book by itself, and is known as the "Book of Redemption in the
+Hall of the two Truths," is frequently inscribed upon coffins
+and other monuments of the nineteenth dynasty (that under which,
+there is some reason to believe, the Israelites were oppressed
+and the Exodus took place), and it occurs, more than once, in
+the famous tombs of the kings of this and the preceding dynasty
+at Thebes.<30> This "Book of Redemption" is chiefly occupied by
+the so-called "negative confession" made to the forty-two Divine
+Judges, in which the soul of the dead denies that he has
+committed faults of various kinds. It is, therefore, obvious
+that the Egyptians conceived that their gods commanded them not
+to do the deeds which are here denied. The "Book of Redemption,"
+in fact, implies the existence in the mind of the Egyptians, if
+not in a formal writing, of a series of ordinances, couched,
+like the majority of the ten commandments, in negative terms.
+And it is easy to prove the implied existence of a series which
+nearly answers to the "ten words." Of course a polytheistic and
+image-worshipping people, who observed a great many holy days,
+but no Sabbaths, could have nothing analogous to the first or
+the second and the fourth commandments of the Decalogue;
+but answering to the third, is "I have not blasphemed;" to the
+fifth, "I have not reviled the face of the king or my father;"
+to the sixth, "I have not murdered;" to the seventh, "I have not
+committed adultery;" to the eighth, "I have not stolen," "I have
+not done fraud to man;" to the ninth, "I have not told
+falsehoods in the tribunal of truth," and, further, "I have not
+calumniated the slave to his master." I find nothing exactly
+similar to the tenth commandment; but that the inward
+disposition of mind was held to be of no less importance than
+the outward act is to be gathered from the praises of kindliness
+already cited and the cry of "I am pure," which is repeated by
+the soul on trial. Moreover, there is a minuteness of detail in
+the confession which shows no little delicacy of moral
+appreciation--"I have not privily done evil against mankind,"
+"I have not afflicted men," "I have not withheld milk from the
+mouths of sucklings," "I have not been idle," "I have not played
+the hypocrite," "I have not told falsehoods," "I have not
+corrupted woman or man," "I have not caused fear," "I have not
+multiplied words in speaking."
+
+Would that the moral sense of the nineteenth century A.D. were
+as far advanced as that of the Egyptians in the nineteenth
+century B.C. in this last particular! What incalculable benefit
+to mankind would flow from strict observance of the commandment,
+"Thou shalt not multiply words in speaking!" Nothing is more
+remarkable than the stress which the old Egyptians, here and
+elsewhere, lay upon this and other kinds of truthfulness, as
+compared with the absence of any such requirement in the
+Israelitic Decalogue, in which only a specific kind of
+untruthfulnes is forbidden.
+
+If, as the story runs, Moses was adopted by a princess of the
+royal house, and was instructed in all the wisdom of the
+Egyptians, it is surely incredible that he should not have been
+familiar from his youth up, with the high moral code implied in
+the "Book of Redemption." It is surely impossible that he should
+have been less familiar with the complete legal system, and with
+the method of administration of justice, which, even in his
+time, had enabled the Egyptian people to hold together, as a
+complex social organisation, for a period far longer than the
+duration of old Roman society, from the building of the city to
+the death of the last Caesar. Nor need we look to Moses alone
+for the influence of Egypt upon Israel. It is true that the
+Hebrew nomads who came into contact with the Egyptians of
+Osertasen, or of Ramses, stood in much the same relation to
+them, in point of culture, as a Germanic tribe did to the Romans
+of Tiberius, or of Marcus Antoninus; or as Captain Cook's Omai
+did to the English of George the Third. But, at the same time,
+any difficulty of communication which might have arisen out of
+this circumstance was removed by the long pre-existing
+intercourse of other Semites, of every grade of civilisation,
+with the Egyptians. In Mesopotamia and elsewhere, as in
+Phenicia, Semitic people had attained to a social organisation
+as advanced as that of the Egyptians; Semites had conquered and
+occupied Lower Egypt for centuries. So extensively had Semitic
+influences penetrated Egypt that the Egyptian language, during
+the period of the nineteenth dynasty, is said by Brugsch to be
+as full of Semitisms as German is of Gallicisms; while Semitic
+deities had supplanted the Egyptian gods at Heliopolis and
+elsewhere. On the other hand, the Semites, as far as Phenicia,
+were extensively influenced by Egypt.
+
+It is generally admitted<31> that Moses, Phinehas (and perhaps
+Aaron), are names of Egyptian origin, and there is excellent
+authority for the statement that the name <i>Abir,</i> which the
+Israelites gave to their golden calf, and which is also used to
+signify the strong, the heavenly, and even God,<32> is simply
+the Egyptian Apis. Brugsch points out that the god, Tum or Tom,
+who was the special object of worship in the city of Pi-Tom,
+with which the Israelites were only too familiar, was called
+Ankh and the "great god," and had no image. Ankh means "He who
+lives," "the living one," a name the resemblance of which to the
+"I am that I am" of Exodus is unmistakable, whatever may be the
+value of the fact. Every discussion of Israelitic ritual seeks
+and finds the explanation of its details in the portable sacred
+chests, the altars, the priestly dress, the breastplate, the
+incense, and the sacrifices depicted on the monuments of Egypt.
+But it must be remembered that these signs of the influence of
+Egypt upon Israel are not necessarily evidence that such
+influence was exerted before the Exodus. It may have come much
+later, through the close connection of the Israel of David and
+Solomon, first with Phenicia and then with Egypt.
+
+If we suppose Moses to have been a man of the stamp of Calvin,
+there is no difficulty in conceiving that he may have
+constructed the substance of the ten words, and even of the Book
+of the Covenant, which curiously resembles parts of the Book of
+the Dead, from the foundation of Egyptian ethics and theology
+which had filtered through to the Israelites in general, or had
+been furnished specially to himself by his early education;
+just as the great Genevese reformer built up a puritanic social
+organisation on so much as remained of the ethics and theology
+of the Roman Church, after he had trimmed them to his liking.
+
+Thus, I repeat, I see no <i>a priori</i> objection to the
+assumption that Moses may have endeavoured to give his people a
+theologico-political organisation based on the ten commandments
+(though certainly not quite in their present form) and the Book
+of the Covenant, contained in our present book of Exodus.
+But whether there is such evidence as amounts to proof, or, I
+had better say, to probability, that even this much of the
+Pentateuch owes its origin to Moses is another matter.
+The mythical character of the accessories of the Sinaitic
+history is patent, and it would take a good deal more evidence
+than is afforded by the bare assertion of an unknown writer to
+justify the belief that the people who "saw the thunderings and
+the lightnings and the voice of the trumpet and the mountain
+smoking" (Exod. xx. 18); to whom Jahveh orders Moses to say, "Ye
+yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
+Ye shall not make other gods with me; gods of silver and gods of
+gold ye shall not make unto you" (<i>ibid.</i> 22, 23), should,
+less than six weeks afterwards, have done the exact thing they
+were thus awfully forbidden to do. Nor is the credibility of the
+story increased by the statement that Aaron, the brother of
+Moses, the witness and fellow-worker of the miracles before
+Pharaoh, was their leader and the artificer of the idol.
+And yet, at the same time, Aaron was apparently so ignorant of
+wrongdoing that he made proclamation, "Tomorrow shall be a feast
+to Jahveh," and the people proceeded to offer their burnt-
+offerings and peace-offerings, as if everything in their
+proceedings must be satisfactory to the Deity with whom they had
+just made a solemn covenant to abolish image-worship. It seems
+to me that, on a survey of all the facts of the case, only a
+very cautious and hypothetical judgment is justifiable. It may
+be that Moses profited by the opportunities afforded him of
+access to what was best in Egyptian society to become
+acquainted, not only with its advanced ethical and legal code,
+but with the more or less pantheistic unification of the Divine
+to which the speculations of the Egyptian thinkers, like those
+of all polytheistic philosophers, from Polynesia to Greece,
+tend; if indeed the theology of the period of the nineteenth
+dynasty was not, as some Egyptologists think, a modification of
+an earlier, more distinctly monotheistic doctrine of a long
+antecedent age. It took only half a dozen centuries for the
+theology of Paul to become the theology of Gregory the Great;
+and it is possible that twenty centuries lay between the
+theology of the first worshippers in the sanctuary of the Sphinx
+and that of the priests of Ramses Maimun.
+
+It may be that the ten commandments and the Book of the Covenant
+are based upon faithful traditions of the efforts of a great
+leader to raise his followers to his own level. For myself, as a
+matter of pious opinion, I like to think so; as I like to
+imagine that, between Moses and Samuel, there may have been many
+a seer, many a herdsman such as him of Tekoah, lonely amidst the
+hills of Ephraim and Judah, who cherished and kept alive these
+traditions. In the present results of Biblical criticism,
+however, I can discover no justification for the common
+assumption that, between the time of Joshua and that of
+Rehoboam, the Israelites were familiar with either the
+Deuteronomic or the Levitical legislation; or that the theology
+of the Israelites, from the king who sat on the throne to the
+lowest of his subjects, was in any important respect different
+from that which might naturally be expected from their previous
+history and the conditions of their existence. But there is
+excellent evidence to the contrary effect. And, for my part, I
+see no reason to doubt that, like the rest of the world, the
+Israelites had passed through a period of mere 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.
+
+
+All the more remarkable, therefore, is the extraordinary change
+which is to be noted in the eighth century B.C. The student who
+is familiar with the theology implied, or expressed, in the
+books of Judges, Samuel, and the first book of Kings, finds
+himself in a new world of thought, in the full tide of a great
+reformation, when he reads Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah,
+and Jeremiah.
+
+The essence of this change is the reversal of the position
+which, in primitive society, ethics holds in relation to
+theology. Originally, that which men worship is a theological
+hypothesis, not a moral ideal. The prophets, in substance, if
+not always in form preach the opposite doctrine. They are
+constantly striving to free the moral ideal from the stifling
+embrace of the current theology and its concomitant ritual.
+Theirs was not an intellectual criticism, argued on strictly
+scientific grounds; the image-worshippers and the believers in
+the efficacy of sacrifices and ceremonies might logically have
+held their own against anything the prophets have to say; it was
+an ethical criticism. From the height of his moral intuition--
+that the whole duty of man is to do justice and to love mercy
+and to bear himself as humbly as befits his insignificance in
+face of the Infinite--the prophet simply laughs at the idolaters
+of stocks and stones and the idolaters of ritual. Idols of the
+first kind, in his experience, were inseparably united with the
+practice of immorality, and they were to be ruthlessly
+destroyed. As for sacrifices and ceremonies, whatever their
+intrinsic value might be, they might be tolerated on condition
+of ceasing to be idols; they might even be praiseworthy on
+condition of being made to subserve the worship of the true
+Jahveh--the moral ideal.
+
+If the realm of David had remained undivided, if the Assyrian
+and the Chaldean and the Egyptian had left Israel to the
+ordinary course of development of an Oriental kingdom, it is
+possible that the effects of the reforming zeal of the prophets
+of the eighth and seventh centuries might have been effaced by
+the growth, according to its inevitable tendencies, of the
+theology which they combated. But the captivity made the fortune
+of the ideas which it was the privilege of these men to launch
+upon an endless career. With the abolition of the Temple-
+services for more than half a century, the priest must have lost
+and the scribe gained influence. The puritanism of a vigorous
+minority among the Babylonian Jews rooted out polytheism from
+all its hiding-places in the theology which they had inherited;
+they created the first consistent, remorseless, naked
+monotheism, which, so far as history records, appeared in the
+world (for Zoroastrism is practically ditheism, and Buddhism
+any-theism or no-theism); and they inseparably united therewith
+an ethical code, which, for its purity and for its efficiency as
+a bond of social life, was and is, unsurpassed. So I think we
+must not judge Ezra and Nehemiah and their followers too hardly,
+if they exemplified the usual doom of poor humanity to escape
+from one error only to fall into another; if they failed to free
+themselves as completely from the idolatry of ritual as they had
+from that of images and dogmas; if they cherished the new
+fetters of the Levitical legislation which they had fitted upon
+themselves and their nation, as though such bonds had the
+sanctity of the obligations of morality; and if they led
+succeeding generations to spend their best energies in building
+that "hedge round the Torah" which was meant to preserve both
+ethics and theology, but which too often had the effect of
+pampering the latter and starving the former. The world being
+what it was, it is to be doubted whether Israel would have
+preserved intact the pure ore of religion, which the prophets
+had extracted for the use of mankind as well as for their
+nation, had not the leaders of the nation been zealous, even to
+death, for the dross of the law in which it was embedded.
+The struggle of the Jews, under the Maccabean house, against the
+Seleucidae was as important for mankind as that of the Greeks
+against the Persians. And, of all the strange ironies of
+history, perhaps the strangest is that "Pharisee" is current, as
+a term of reproach, among the theological descendants of that
+sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those
+primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence.
+They, like their historical successors, our own Puritans, have
+shared the general fate of the poor wise men who save cities.
+
+A criticism of theology from the side of science is not thought
+of by the prophets, and is at most indicated in the books of Job
+and Ecclesiastes, in both of which the problem of vindicating
+the ways of God to man is given up, though on different grounds,
+as a hopeless one. But with the extensive introduction of Greek
+thought among the Jews, which took place, not only during the
+domination of the Seleucidae in Palestine, but in the great
+Judaic colony which flourished in Egypt under the Ptolemies,
+criticism, on both ethical and scientific grounds, took a
+new departure.
+
+In the hands of the Alexandrian Jews, as represented by Philo,
+the fundamental axiom of later Jewish, as of Christian
+monotheism, that the Deity is infinitely perfect and infinitely
+good, worked itself out into its logical consequence--agnostic
+theism. Philo will allow of no point of contact between God and
+a world in which evil exists. For him God has no relation to
+space or to time, and, as infinite, suffers no predicate beyond
+that of existence. It is therefore absurd to ascribe to Him
+mental faculties and affections comparable in the remotest
+degree to those of men; He is in no way an object of cognition;
+He is [Greek] and [Greek]<33>--without quality and
+incomprehensible. That is to say the Alexandrian Jew of the
+first century had anticipated the reasonings of Hamilton and
+Mansell in the nineteenth, and, for him, God is the Unknowable
+in the sense in which that term is used by Mr. Herbert Spencer.
+Moreover, Philo's definition of the Supreme Being would not be
+inconsistent with that "substantia constans infinitis
+attributis, quorum unumquodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam
+exprimit," given by another great Israelite, were it not that
+Spinoza's doctrine of the immanence of the Deity in the world
+puts him, at any rate formally, at the antipodes of theological
+speculation. But the conception of the essential
+incognoscibility of the Deity is the same in each case.
+However, Philo was too thorough an Israelite and too much the
+child of his time to be content with this agnostic position.
+With the help of the Platonic and Stoic philosophy, he
+constructed an apprehensible, if not comprehensible, quasi-deity
+out of the Logos; while other more or less personified divine
+powers, or attributes, bridged over the interval between God and
+man; between the sacred existence, too pure to be called by any
+name which implied a conceivable quality, and the gross and evil
+world of matter. In order to get over the ethical difficulties
+presented by the naive naturalism of many parts of those
+Scriptures, in the divine authority of which he firmly believed,
+Philo borrowed from the Stoics (who had been in like straits in
+respect of Greek mythology), that great Excalibur which they had
+forged with infinite pains and skill--the method of allegorical
+interpretation. This mighty "two-handed engine at the door" of
+the theologian is warranted to make a speedy end of any and
+every moral or intellectual difficulty, by showing that, taken
+allegorically or, as it is otherwise said, "poetically" or, "in
+a spiritual sense," the plainest words mean whatever a pious
+interpreter desires they should mean. In Biblical phrase, Zeno
+(who probably had a strain of Semitic blood in him) was the
+"father of all such as reconcile." No doubt Philo and his
+followers were eminently religious men; but they did endless
+injury to the cause of religion by laying the foundations of a
+new theology, while equipping the defenders of it with the
+subtlest of all weapons of offence and defence, and with an
+inexhaustible store of sophistical arguments of the most
+plausible aspect.
+
+The question of the real bearing upon theology of the influence
+exerted by the teaching of Philo's contemporary, Jesus of
+Nazareth, is one upon which it is not germane to my present
+purpose to enter. I take it simply as an unquestionable fact
+that his immediate disciples, known to their countrymen as
+"Nazarenes," were regarded as, and considered themselves to be,
+perfectly orthodox Jews, belonging to the puritanic or pharisaic
+section of their people, and differing from the rest only in
+their belief that the Messiah had already come. Christianity, it
+is said, first became clearly differentiated at Antioch, and it
+separated itself from orthodox Judaism by denying the obligation
+of the rite of circumcision and of the food prohibitions,
+prescribed by the law. Henceforward theology became relatively
+stationary among the Jews,<34> and the history of its rapid
+progress in a new course of evolution is the history of the
+Christian Churches, orthodox and heterodox. The steps in this
+evolution are obvious. The first is the birth of a new
+theological scheme arising out of the union of elements derived
+from Greek philosophy with elements derived from Israelitic
+theology. In the fourth Gospel, the Logos, raised to a somewhat
+higher degree of personification than in the Alexandrian
+theosophy, is identified with Jesus of Nazareth. In the
+Epistles, especially the later of those attributed to Paul, the
+Israelitic ideas of the Messiah and of sacrificial atonement
+coalesce with one another and with the embodiment of the Logos
+in Jesus, until the apotheosis of the Son of man is almost, or
+quite, effected. The history of Christian dogma, from Justin to
+Athanasius, is a record of continual progress in the same
+direction, until the fair body of religion, revealed in almost
+naked purity by the prophets, is once more hidden under a new
+accumulation of dogmas and of ritual practices of which the
+primitive Nazarene knew nothing; and which he would probably
+have regarded as blasphemous if he could have been made to
+understand them.
+
+As, century after century, the ages roll on, polytheism comes
+back under the disguise of Mariolatry and the adoration of
+saints; image-worship becomes as rampant as in old Egypt;
+adoration of relics takes the place of the old fetish-worship;
+the virtues of the ephod pale before those of holy coats and
+handkerchiefs; shrines and calvaries make up for the loss of the
+ark and of the high places; and even the lustral fluid of
+paganism is replaced by holy water at the porches of the
+temples. A touching ceremony--the common meal originally eaten
+in pious memory of a loved teacher--becomes metamorphosed into a
+flesh-and-blood sacrifice, supposed to possess exactly that
+redeeming virtue which the prophets denied to the flesh-and-
+blood sacrifices of their day; while the minute observance of
+ritual is raised to a degree of punctilious refinement which
+Levitical legislators might envy. And with the growth of this
+theology, grew its inevitable concomitant, the belief in evil
+spirits, in possession, in sorcery, in charms and omens, until
+the Christians of the twelfth century after our era were sunk in
+more debased and brutal superstitions than are recorded of the
+Israelites in the twelfth century before it.
+
+The greatest men of the Middle Ages are unable to escape the
+infection. Dante's "Inferno" would be revolting if it were not
+so often sublime, so often exquisitely tender. The hideous
+pictures which cover a vast space on the south wall of the Campo
+Santo of Pisa convey information, as terrible as it is
+indisputable, of the theological conceptions of Dante's
+countrymen in the fourteenth century, whose eyes were addressed
+by the painters of those disgusting scenes, and whose
+approbation they knew how to win. A candid Mexican of the time
+of Cortez, could he have seen this Christian burial-place, would
+have taken it for an appropriately adorned Teocalli.
+The professed disciple of the God of justice and of mercy might
+there gloat over the sufferings of his fellowmen depicted as
+undergoing every extremity of atrocious and sanguinary torture
+to all eternity, for theological errors no less than for moral
+delinquencies; while, in the central figure of Satan,<35>
+occupied in champing up souls in his capacious and well-toothed
+jaws, to void them again for the purpose of undergoing fresh
+suffering, we have the counterpart of the strange Polynesian and
+Egyptian dogma that there were certain gods who employed
+themselves in devouring the ghostly flesh of the Spirits of the
+dead. But in justice to the Polynesians, it must be recollected
+that, after three such operations, they thought the soul was
+purified and happy. In the view of the Christian theologian the
+operation was only a preparation for new tortures continued for
+ever and aye.
+
+With the growth of civilisation in Europe, and with the revival
+of letters and of science in the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, the ethical and intellectual criticism of theology
+once more recommenced, and arrived at a temporary resting-place
+in the confessions of the various reformed Protestant sects in
+the sixteenth century; almost all of which, as soon as they were
+strong enough, began to persecute those who carried criticism
+beyond their own limit. But the movement was not arrested by
+these ecclesiastical barriers, as their constructors fondly
+imagined it would be; it was continued, tacitly or openly, by
+Galileo, by Hobbes, by Descartes, and especially by Spinoza, in
+the seventeenth century; by the English Freethinkers, by
+Rousseau, by the French Encyclopaedists, and by the German
+Rationalists, among whom Lessing stands out a head and shoulders
+taller than the rest, throughout the eighteenth century; by the
+historians, the philologers, the Biblical critics, the
+geologists, and the biologists in the nineteenth century, until
+it is obvious to all who can see that the moral sense and the
+really scientific method of seeking for truth are once more
+predominating over false science. Once more ethics and theology
+are parting company.
+
+It is my conviction that, with the spread of true scientific
+culture, whatever may be the medium, historical, philological,
+philosophical, or physical, through which that culture is
+conveyed, and with its necessary concomitant, a constant
+elevation of the standard of veracity, the end of the evolution 
+of theology will be like its beginning--it will cease to have
+any relation to ethics. I suppose that, so long as the human
+mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to
+personify its intellectual conceptions. The science of the
+present day is as full of this particular form of intellectual
+shadow-worship as is the nescience of ignorant ages.
+The difference is that the philosopher who is worthy of the name
+knows that his personified hypotheses, such as law, and force,
+and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, while the
+ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions of
+reality. So, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find
+the practice of morality made easier by the use of theological
+symbols. And unless these are converted from symbols into idols,
+I do not see that science has anything to say to the practice,
+except to give an occasional warning of its dangers. But, when
+such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I think the
+highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that
+these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications
+of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they
+have replaced.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+(1) Even the most sturdy believers in the popular theory that
+the proper or titular names attached to the books of the Bible
+are those of their authors will hardly be prepared to maintain
+that Jephthah, Gideon, and their colleagues wrote the book of
+Judges. Nor is it easily admissible that Samuel wrote the two
+books which pass under his name, one of which deals entirely
+with events which took place after his death. In fact, no one
+knows who wrote either Judges or Samuel, nor when, within the
+range of 100 years, their present form was given to these books.
+
+(2) My citations are taken from the Revised Version, but for
+Lord and God I have substituted Jahveh and Elohim.
+
+(3) I need hardly say that I depend upon authoritative Biblical
+critics, whenever a question of interpretation of the text
+arises. As Reuss appears to me to be one of the most learned,
+acute, and fair-minded of those whose works I have studied, I
+have made most use of the commentary and dissertations in his
+splendid French edition of the Bible. But I have also had
+recourse to the works of Dillman, Kalisch, Kuenen, Thenius,
+Tuch, and others, in cases in which another opinion
+seemed desirable.
+
+(4) See "Divination," by Hazoral, <i>Journal of
+Anthropology,</i> Bombay, vol. i. No. 1.
+
+(5) See, for example, the message of Jephthah to the King of the
+Ammonites: "So now Jahveh, the Elohim of Israel, hath
+dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and
+shouldest thou possess them? Wilt not thou possess that which
+Chemosh, thy Elohim, giveth thee to possess?" (Jud. xi. 23, 24).
+For Jephthah, Chemosh is obviously as real a personage
+as Jahveh.
+
+(6) For example: "My oblation, my food for my offerings made by
+fire, of a sweet savour to me, shall ye observe to offer unto me
+in their due season" (Num. xxviii. 2).
+
+(7) In 2 Samuel xv. 27 David says to Zadok the priest, "Art thou
+not a seer?" and Gad is called David's seer.
+
+(8) This would at first appear to be inconsistent with the use
+of the word "prophetess" for Deborah. But it does not follow
+because the writer of Judges applies the name to Deborah that it
+was used in her day.
+
+(9) Samuel tells the cook, "Bring the potion which I gave thee,
+of which I said to thee, Set it by thee." It was therefore
+Samuel's to give. "And the cook took up the thigh (or shoulder)
+and that which was upon it and set it before Saul." But, in the
+Levitical regulations, it is the thigh (or shoulder) which
+becomes the priest's own property. "And the right thigh (or
+shoulder) shall ye give unto the priest for an heave-offering,"
+which is given along with the wave breast "unto Aaron the priest
+and unto his sons as a due for ever from the children of Israel"
+(Lev. vii. 31-34). Reuss writes on this passage: "La cuisse
+n'est point agitee, mais simplement <i>prelevee</i> sur ce que
+les convives mangeront."
+
+(10) See, for example, Elkanah's sacrifice, 1 Sam. i. 3-9.
+
+(11) The ghost was not supposed to be capable of devouring the
+gross material substance of the offering; but his vaporous body
+appropriated the smoke of the burnt sacrifice, the visible and
+odorous exhalations of other offerings. The blood of the victim
+was particularly useful because it was thought to be the special
+seat of its soul or life. A West African negro replied to an
+European sceptic: "Of course, the spirit cannot eat corporeal
+food, but he extracts its spiritual part, and, as we see, leaves
+the material part behind" (Lippert, <i>Seelencult,</i> p. 16).
+
+(12) It is further well worth consideration whether indications
+of former ancestor-worship are not to be found in the singular
+weight attached to the veneration of parents in the fourth
+commandment. It is the only positive commandment, in addition to
+those respecting the Deity and that concerning the Sabbath, and
+the penalties for infringing it were of the same character.
+In China, a corresponding reverence for parents is part and
+parcel of ancestor-worship; so in ancient Rome and in Greece
+(where parents were even called [secondary and earthly]). The
+fifth commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent
+compromise between ancestor-worship and monotheism. The larger
+hereditary share allotted by Israelitic law to the eldest son
+reminds one of the privileges attached to primogeniture in
+ancient Rome, which were closely connected with ancestor-
+worship. There is a good deal to be said in favour of the
+speculation that the ark of the covenant may have been a relic
+of ancestor-worship; but that topic is too large to be dealt
+with incidentally in this place
+
+(13) "The Scientific Aspects of Positivism," <i>Fortnightly
+Review,</i> 1869, republished in <i>Lay Sermons.</i>
+
+(14) OEuvres de Bossuet, ed. 1808, t. xxxv. p. 282.
+
+(15) I should like further to add the expression of my
+indebtedness to two works by Herr Julius Lippert, <i>Der
+Seelencult in seinen Beziehungen zur alt-hebraischen
+Religion</i> and <i>Die Religionen der europaischen
+Culturvolker,</i> both pubished in 1881. I have found them full
+of valuable suggestions.
+
+(16) See among others the remarkable work of Fustel de
+Coulanges, <i>La Cite antique,</i> in which the social
+importance of the old Roman ancestor-worship is brought out with
+great clearness.
+
+(17) Supposed to be "the finer or more aeriform part of the
+body," standing in "the same relation to the body as the perfume
+and the more essential qualities of a flower do to the more
+solid substances" (Mariner, vol. ii. p. 127).
+
+(18) A kind of "clients" in the Roman sense.
+
+(19) It is worthy of remark that [Greek] among the Greeks, and
+<i>Deus</i> among the Romans, had the same wide signification.
+The <i>dii manes</i> were ghosts of ancestors=Atuas of
+the family.
+
+(20) <i>Voyages aux iles du Grand Ocean,</i> t. i. p. 482.
+
+(21) <i>Te Ika a Maui: New Zealand and its Inhabitants,</i>
+p. 72.
+
+(22) Compare: "And Samuel said unto Saul, Why hast thou
+disquieted me?" (I Sam. xxviii. l5)
+
+(23) Turner, <i>Nineteen Years in Polynesia,</i> p. 238.
+
+(24) See Lippert's excellent remarks on this subject, <i>Der
+Seelencult,</i> p. 89.
+
+(25) <i>Sciography</i> has the authority of Cudworth,
+<i>Intellectual System,</i> vol. ii. p. 836. Sciomancy [Greek],
+which, in the sense of divination by ghosts, may be found in
+Bailey's <i>Dictionary</i> (1751) also furnishes a precedent for
+my coinage.
+
+(26) "Kami" is used in the sense of Elohim; and is also, like
+our word "Lord," employed as a title of respect among men, as
+indeed Elohim was.
+
+(27) [The Assyrians thus raised Assur to a position of
+pre-eminence.]
+
+(28) I refer those who wish to know the reasons which lead me to
+take up this position to the works of Reuss and Wellhausen, [and
+especially to Stade's <i>Geschichte des Volkes Israel.</i>]
+
+(29) Bunsen. <i>Egypt's Place,</i> vol. v. p.129, note.
+
+(30) See Birch, in <i>Egypt's Place,</i> vol. v; and Brugsch,
+<i>History of Egypt.</i>
+
+(31) Even by Graetz, who, though a fair enough historian, cannot
+be accused of any desire to over-estimate the importance of
+Egyptian influence upon his people.
+
+(32) Graetz, <i>Geschichte der Juden,</i> Bd. i. p. 370.
+
+(33) See the careful analsyis of the work of the Alexandrian
+philosopher and theologian (who, it should be remembered, was a
+most devout Jew, held in the highest esteem by his countrymen)
+in Siegfried's <i>Philo von Alexandrien,</i> 1875. [Also Dr.
+J. Drummond's <i>Philo Judaeus,</i> 1888.]
+
+(34) I am not unaware of the existence of many and widely
+divergent sects and schools among the Jews at all periods of
+their history, since the dispersion. But I imagine that orthodox
+Judaism is now pretty much what it was in Philo's time;
+while Peter and Paul, if they could return to life, would
+certainly have to learn the catechism of either the Roman,
+Greek, or Anglican Churches, if they desired to be considered
+orthodox Christians.
+
+(35) Dante's description of Lucifer engaged in the eternal
+mastication of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot--
+   "Da ogni bocca dirompea co' denti
+      Un peccatore, a guisa di maciulla,
+      Si che tre ne facea cosė dolenti.
+    A quel dinanzi il mordere era nulla,
+      Verso 'l graffiar, che tal volta la schiena
+      Rimanea della pelle tutta brulla"--
+is quite in harmony with the Pisan picture and perfectly
+Polynesian in conception.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of PG's The The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study
+This is Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
+End of "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
+
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