THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES.
I. THE PHOENICIANS, SYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, CARTHAGINIANS, AND ARABIANS.
In the Semitic races the religious spirit rose above nature-worship in
the effort to separate God from nature, and to elevate him above nature
as Lord, Baal (plural Baalim, either from the different places where he
was worshiped, or the various names under which he was worshiped), Bel,
El, Adon (Adonis). Thus Bel among the Babylonians, Baal among the
Ammonites and Moabites, was the god of light, the lord of heaven, the
creator of mankind, who had his throne above the clouds and was invoked
on mountains.[7] Also the title Molech and Baal Molech to designate the
Supreme Being among the ancient Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and the
nations nearest related to Israel, the Moabites and Ammonites, as well
as the derived names Milcom (Kamos) [Chemosh, Eng. ver.], among the
Ammonites, and Melkartht at Tyre and Carthage, indicate, like Baal, an
original effort to conceive God as the ruler of nature. Agreeing with
this conception of the Deity, there is manifest, as well in the worship
of Baal as of Molech and the female Astarte (Melecheth)[8] [Ashtaroth,
Eng. ver.], worshiped with him, partly in the abstinence from marriage,
partly in the human sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of the
first-born, the aim, through abnegation of the life of sense, and
through the sacrifice, even though unnatural, of what is dearest to man,
to appease a divinity who as lord and governor rules and subjects to
himself the power of nature and every propensity of sense.[9]
In spite of the effort to elevate the Deity as Lord and King above
nature, most of the Semitic nations gradually sank back into the old
nature-worship, and, uniting with the worship of the highest God, Baal
and Bel, that of a female divinity under the names of Baaltis, Beltis,
Aschera, Mylitta, they made religion to consist in the sacrifice of
chastity to the will of the Deity, as the fruitful, productive power of
nature, and thus fell into gross immorality.[10]
Religion appears in another form among the Semites in the worship of the
stars among the Babylonians and ancient Arabians. This astrolatry,
originally a kind of fetichism, became nature-worship, and gradually
rose to the worship of the intelligence manifested to our contemplation
in the movement of the heavenly luminaries. Astrology arose, and
religion no longer expressed itself in passive acquiescence, but was
united with the effort to guide the life by the knowledge to be drawn,
as men imagined, from the motion of the stars.
ISRAELITISH RELIGION.
_a. Its origin. The patriarchal religion. Mosaism. Prophetism._
While most of the Semitic nations, in opposition to the effort to
elevate God above nature as lord and governor, returned to the old
nature-religion with its grossly sensual worship of the divine, and
others got no farther than to the conception of a deity, who, like a
consuming fire, stood opposed to nature, and was to be appeased and
propitiated by human sacrifices, there was developed among the
Israelitish people, gradually and in constantly higher measure, in
connection with a higher moral and religious disposition, the worship of
God as a being who, though distinct from nature, is yet not opposed to
it, and thus no longer demands human sacrifices, but obedience and moral
consecration.
The common origin of the religion of the Israelites and that of their
Semitic relations, though hardly evident even in the oldest monuments of
the Hebrew literature, appears from the following facts and particulars:
firstly, the composition of Israelitish names not only with El, but also
with Baal, such as Jerubbaal (adversary of Baal), (Gideon),[11]
Esbaal,[12] Meribbaal,[13] names which afterwards, on account of the
aversion which the ever-increasing distance in religion between the
Israelitish nation and the nations related to it must, from the nature
of the case, have inspired against the name of Baal, are changed into
Jerubboseth,[14] Isboseth,[15] and Mephiboseth[16], as also the
interchanging of El and Baal,[17] of Baal-jada[18] and Eljada,[19] seem
to point to an ancient period when the name Baal (Lord) was used, like
El, Elohim, El Eljon, El Schaddai, Adonai, even among the Israelites,
to designate the Supreme Being. Secondly, the God of Abraham (Elohim),
although he desires no human sacrifices, nevertheless praises the
willingness of the father to offer up his first-born, and sees in that
the highest proof of devotedness and obedience.[20] Thirdly,
circumcision, already before Moses[21] the bloody symbol of consecration
to God,[22] and also the right of Jahveh to the first-born, and the
necessity of ransoming them from him,[23] imply an earlier conception of
the deity as a being, who, although on a higher development of the
religion he is not indeed any longer thought to desire human sacrifice,
nevertheless has a right to such a sacrifice, and thus demands indemnity
for remitting it. Fourthly, the later conception, of Jahveh as a
destroying fire, and the way in which the God of Israel is conceived in
connection with fire, and as manifesting himself in fire,[24] betray,
even in the midst of a more advanced religious development, an original
relationship with the like conceptions of the other Semites. Fifthly,
even in the orthodox Jahveh-worship, some symbols, as the twelve oxen in
the porch of the temple,[25] the horns of the altar for
burnt-offerings,[26] perhaps also the in part oxlike form of the
cherubim,[27] point to an earlier worship of the deity under the form of
an ox, the symbol of the highest might, especially among the Semitic
races.[28]
In confirmation of the supposition thus suggested of a community of
origin in the religion of the Israelites and in that of the nations
related to them, there is also to be remarked, firstly, the sympathy
always felt among the people of Israel for the worship of Baal and
Molech, in face of the strongest opposition on the part of the
prophets;[29] secondly, the statement of Amos,[30] that even in the
wilderness the Israelites worshiped Molech; thirdly, the fact that in
the time of the Judges, Jephthah offered his daughter to Jahveh,[31] and
still later the feeling, not driven out even by Mosaism, that the wrath
of Jahveh must be appeased by human blood,[32] a necessity which David
recognizes;[33] fourthly, the ancient custom in Israel, as in the
nations related to them, of worshiping the deity on mountains and
heights,[34] against which the priestly legislation strove in the
interest of the pure worship of Jahveh;[35] fifthly, the heterodox
worship of Jahveh in the kingdom of the ten tribes under the form of a
calf.[36]
From all this it seems fair to conclude that the religion of the oldest
forefathers of Israel had its root originally in one and the same soil
with the religion of the other Semites. Out of an earlier
nature-religion there developed among the Semites the conception of
Baal, the lord of nature, and of Molech with his inhuman worship. While,
however, the other Semites remained in this lower stage, or rather sank
back more and more into the immorality of the nature-religion,--an
hypothesis suggested by a comparison of the religious state of the
nations of Canaan in Abraham's time with their state at the time of the
conquest of the land by Joshua and afterwards,--in the family of
Abraham, religious consciousness rose to the recognition of a deity,
who, although he had a right to human sacrifices, yet did not claim such
sacrifices, but was satisfied with men's willingness to bring them to
him. With this higher development of religion, the names of the Supreme
Being, Baal and Molech, originally common to the whole race, came more
and more into contempt, and were regarded as the expression of
abominable idolatry,[37] while even the worship of Jahveh under the form
of a calf, originally permitted, was later branded by the prophets as
heresy.
Though it was in the family of Abraham that even in Mesopotamia[38] the
beginning of this higher development of the Semitic religion showed
itself, which, after his migration to Canaan became the heritage of his
family, yet the patriarch of Israel did not stand alone in this respect
among the Semites. The old Canaanitish chieftains also of the
patriarchal period, Melchizedek and Abimelech, worship the same God as
he,[39] while on the other hand in his own family not all traces of
polytheistic superstition have disappeared,[40] and these traces are
also visible still later in Israel.[41]
The patriarchal religion, which afterwards with the great majority fell
into oblivion, was recalled afresh to men's minds by Moses, and the God
of the fathers was preached by him under the name before unknown of
Jahveh,[42] to whom, with the exclusion of all other gods, religious
worship is due.[43] The Jahveh of Moses, like the El Eljon of the
patriarchs, is the one only object of worship (Deus Unus), yet without
excluding the possibility of other gods existing.[44] Not until later
did the more developed conception of Jahveh arise as the one only God
(Deus unicus),[45] who is throned in heaven, and like the Elohim of the
patriarchs, encircled by celestial beings (Bene Elohim, Malakim,
Angels), who execute his commands, yet are not objects of religious
adoration.
The religious standpoint of Moses is the legal. Jehovah stands related
to his people as the Holy, as lawgiver and judge; and the true moral
consecration to God is symbolically expressed in the ritual, especially
in the sacrifice, while the relation of the people to God is based upon
the mediation of the priests. Along with this, and out of Mosaism, after
the time of Samuel, prophetism was developed, in which independent
religious conviction, outside the limits of the priesthood, and without
distinction of rank or birth,[46] awoke among the people. Prophetism, in
the domain of religion, is the development of the religious spirit to
individual independence and freedom. The prophet, rising above the legal
standpoint and outward ceremonial, puts the essence of true worship in
morality,[47] but recognizes also along with the deepest feeling of
dependence upon God, in the independence[48] and spontaneity of the
religious and moral life, the irresistible power of the divine spirit,
by which the Most High, though apart from the world and throned in
heaven, puts himself into the closest and most intimate communion with
the true worshiper. Thus the gulf which divided Jahveh, as a God afar
off, from the world and his worshipers, closed up more and more. With
the conviction of the pureness and truth[49] of her religion, Israel
felt the calling to raise it to the religion of the world, and in the
realization of this she saw the ideal of the future.[50]
_b. The Israelitish religion after the Captivity._
The free character which distinguished prophetism in the religion of
Israel changed, after the return of the people from captivity,
especially with the party of the Pharisees, to literalness and
formalism. The prophets gave place to the synagogue, the living
proclamation of the truth to scriptural erudition, the spirit of
freedom to slavish subjection to Scripture and tradition. As the ancient
productions of the Indian literature, originally the expression of the
popular thought of India, were elevated by the Brahmins into Veda, holy,
inspired scripture, so also the religious literature of Israel took on
the character of a closed Canon, so that what was once the expression of
religious life became now rule of faith. The standpoint of the law which
prophetism had already overcome was again strongly maintained, the law
enriched with a number of new ordinances, and the essence of religion
made to consist partly in dogmatic speculation, partly in a merely
outward service, devoid of inner life. The Messianic prediction, or the
expectation that the kingdom, divided in Rehoboam's reign, once more
united under a prince of the house of David, should be exalted to new
bloom and lustre,--which in the older prophets was the natural and
historically explicable form in which the ideal of Israel's future
presented itself to the seer, but which, under the influence of the
changed political conditions, had already been replaced in the later
prophecy by the more general conception of a future triumph of the true
religion of which Israel was the bringer,--[51]returned, yet not as the
ideal of the prophetic spirit, but as a dogma, the product of scriptural
interpretation. The pure monotheism, by which formerly a place in the
Providence of God had been allotted to everything, even to moral
evil,[52] became corrupted, under the influence of Parsism, by the
conception of two kingdoms, of God and of the Devil. The angels,
originally the messengers of Providence, became under mythological
names, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c., so many middle beings who filled
the space between the Deity, existing apart from the world, and the
world. The lower world (sheol, [Greek: aidês]), formerly the general
abode of the dead, of bad and good without distinction, was split into
two parts, paradise and gehenna, and became a place of recompense, and,
along with this, religion, once an end, became the means of warding off
a dreaded punishment, or of gaining a future of bliss. The doctrine of
immortality, as the continuation of man's moral development, which was
formerly unknown in Israel, appeared, as in the later Parsism, in the
form of a bodily resurrection of the dead, at first of the righteous
only, but afterwards in the form of a general resurrection, by mediation
of the Messiah, at whose appearing, which was expected just before the
end of the present state of things, the great judgment of the world, of
living and dead, was to be held, heaven and earth renewed, and the
kingdom of God founded. Beside the learned party of the Pharisees stood
the Sadducees, who subordinated religion to politics, rejected the
Messianic idea and the authority of tradition, and, in denying
immortality in the form of a bodily resurrection, failed to perceive the
truth of immortality, for whose recognition the premises and germs
existed in the religion of Israel, though not as yet developed. The
third party, that of the Essenes, was marked by quiet piety, and in many
respects also by excessive asceticism. In the midst of the Pharisaic
formalism, the unbelief of the Sadducees, and the pietism of the
Essenes, there was yet in Israel a seed of true worshipers, who, though
not above the dogmatic prejudices of their time, had heart and mind open
for the true religion, and who set the true blessing to be looked for
from the Messiah in the satisfying of their religious and moral needs.
3. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
The Israelitish religion, which reached its highest stage of development
in prophetism, but which among the later Jews after Ezra degenerated,
with the Pharisees into formalism and worship of the letter, with the
Essenes into mysticism and asceticism, and which with the Sadducees,
along with the sacrifice of the prophetic ideal of the future, was
subordinated to politics, developed in Christianity, but freed from once
cherished national expectations and outward forms, into a purely
spiritual knowledge and worship of God. Jesus fathomed the deep meaning
of the religion of his people, and its original fitness to become,
through higher development, the religion of the world. Jesus devoted
himself to the end of forming the human race into one great society (the
kingdom of heaven), of which religion should be the soul and life, and,
convinced of his calling, proclaimed himself as the Son of man, who, as
such, belonged not to Israel alone, but to mankind. Jesus combated both
the formalism and exclusiveness of the Pharisees, and the unbelief of
the Sadducees, and with word and deed preached a religion which,
independent of all outward form, took hold of the human heart, and
which, developing into an independent principle in man, was to find its
commission, not in the authority of Scripture or tradition, not even in
that of his name, but in its own power and truth. In him religion
appeared as the power of self-sacrificing love, which fears not even
death, and to which dying is not the losing of life, but the development
of life. In distinction from other religions, in which either God and
man are strangers to each other, and opposed to each other, or man's
personality is, as it were, sunk in God, Christianity is the religion by
which man, in the full enjoyment of individual development, and with the
sense of his own strength, lives in the consciousness of the most entire
dependence upon God. Religion in its highest form, conceived as the
oneness of man with God, is realized in Christianity.[53]
4. ISLAMISM.
The religion of the ancient nomadic tribes of the Arabian peninsula
originally exhibited a polytheistical character, in the form of the
worship, in part of sacred stones, in part of the powers of nature,
especially of the stars, whose position and motion were thought to exert
an influence, beneficent or baneful, upon the destinies of men. With
these conceptions was combined a certain leaning toward monotheism,
which manifested itself especially in the common worship of Allah taala
(equivalent to El Eljon), which was afterwards quickened and
strengthened by association with the Jewish tribes, with whom they held
themselves to be related by descent from Abraham. The Parsee doctrine of
demons, also, was not unknown in Arabia, after the conquest of the
Persians in the fifth century. After the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries, Christianity also, though in a corrupt form, or, definitely,
in the form of Monophysitism and Nestorianism, which had been condemned
by the church, became established in Arabia.
Amid such diverse elements, there was need of unity in the domain of
religion, a need for which Mohammed, after the example of others of his
family, sought to provide.
He was born at Mecca (571) of an honorable family, belonging to the
Koreish tribe. Finding no satisfaction for his restless spirit in the
trade to which after his parents' death he had at first devoted himself,
he gave himself up, in solitary retirement, to quiet meditation, and
became more and more convinced of his calling to put an end, by means of
a better religion, to the confusion existing among his countrymen with
regard to religion. The religious idea which overmastered him presented
itself to his powerful Oriental imagination in the form of a vision as a
revelation of Allah taala, made to him in the fortieth year of his life
by mediation of the angel Gabriel. His conviction, thus acquired, was
confirmed by revelations afterwards received; and, shared at first with
a small circle of trusted friends, gradually spread wider, until at last
Mohammed came forward in the ancient sanctuary, the Kaaba, at Mecca, as
prophet of Allah. For this he was pursued by his countrymen, and fled
from thence to Medina, in the year 622, the beginning of the Moslem era.
The number of his followers increasing, he had recourse to arms. He
conquered Mecca in 630, and made the Kaaba, after destroying the idols
in it, the sanctuary of the new religion.
The doctrine of Mohammed (Islam, submission to God, whence his followers
take the name of Moslems), is contained in the Koran. The various
Suras, or divisions, originally the revelations received by the prophet
at different periods of his life reduced to writing, were, soon after
his death, united by Abu Bekr into one holy book, under the name of the
Koran (al Kitab, the book), which, like the Bible among the later Jews
and Christians, was clothed with divine authority. The central doctrine
of Mohammed is the belief in one God, Allah, who, as the Creator and
Lord of all things, in strictest isolation from the world, is throned in
heaven. All that takes place upon the earth befalls according to the
eternal decree of God, a conception in which, at least among the
Orthodox Moslems, the Sunnites, who are distinguished in this respect,
as in others, from the dissenting Shiites, there is no place left for
human freedom. This God has from the earliest times revealed himself to
some privileged men, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus (Isa). To the
last is due the honor of having been the reformer of degenerate Judaism.
He is not, as the Christians of Mohammed's time taught, the Son of God
in a metaphysical sense, much less God himself,--Allah is one, he
neither begets nor is begotten,--but a prophet of human descent. The
greatest and last prophet is Mohammed himself, in whom prophetism
reached its fulfillment. Along with the doctrine regarding God and his
relation to the world, prayer, hospitality, and benevolence occupy a
prominent place in the teaching of Mohammed, looked at from its
practical side, and also the belief in a future life, in the
Jewish-Parsee form of the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the
world, future reward and punishment, paradise and hell. The truth of
this divine revelation rests upon the very fact of its having been
revealed, and, according to Mohammed, it no more needs scientific proof
than confirmation by miracles, to which Islamism did not appeal until
later.
The opinion which formerly prevailed among Christians that Mohammed was
an impostor, a false prophet, was bound up with the conception that God,
to the exclusion of other nations, had revealed himself immediately and
supernaturally first to Israel, and afterwards through Christ to all
mankind. Hence it followed that Christianity was not prized as the
highest religion, existing along with less developed forms of religion,
but was opposed as the only true religion to all others, which were
regarded as the fruit of imposture and error, an opinion to which the
religious and political struggles in which Islam and Christendom have
been involved also richly contributed. Mohammed was seer and prophet,
filled with fiery zeal for religion, and, while he stands indeed in this
respect, both personally and with regard to the contents of his
preaching and the means by which he sought to gain admission for his
doctrine, below the seers of Israel, and far below the founder of
Christianity, yet, on the other hand, his monotheism, abstract as it is,
must be regarded as a wholesome reaction against the ever-increasing
polytheistical superstition to which in his time the Christian church of
the East especially had sunk. Islamism stands, however, below original
Christianity, the religion of Jesus and the Apostles, in that, by
separating God, as the abstract one Supreme Being, from the world, it
leaves no place for the doctrine of God's immanence, or the indwelling
of the Spirit of God in man. Hence in Islamism the divine revelation
remains purely mechanical, with no natural point of connection in man,
and therefore there is no possibility of an enduring prophetism, which
is the fundamental principle of Christianity. From this separation of
God and man, the Mohammedan doctrine of predestination, in distinction
from the Christian, acquires its abstract and fatalistic character,
whereby man, instead of being regarded as a being in whose free activity
God's power and life are glorified, is conceived as a passive instrument
of a higher power. To true moral independence, therefore, the Moslem
does not attain. His religion is legal and external, and therefore
intolerant and exclusive; and when Islamism, led by excited passion and
a heated imagination, disregarded the sanctity of marriage, and held up
as a reward before the faithful Moslem a paradise characterized by
sensual enjoyment, it missed at once the deep moral and spiritual
character of Christianity. To these defects must be ascribed the fact
that Islamism, adapted to the need of the East, and therefore spread
over a large part of Asia and Africa, has not, with the exception of the
empire of Turkey, and for a time also of Spain, penetrated Europe; and,
overshadowed by a higher development of humanity, has reached its
highest bloom, while Christianity, brought back to its original purity,
remains the religion of the civilized world.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Translated from the Dutch of Prof. J.H. Scholten, by F.T.
Washburn. This constitutes the first part of Prof. Scholten's History of
Religion and Philosophy. (_Geschiedenis der Godsdienst en
Wijsbegeerte._) Third edition. Leyden, 1863. Of this work there is a
translation in French by M. Albert Réville (Paris, 1861); but this
translation, which was made from an earlier edition, is very defective
in the first part, Prof. Scholten having added a great deal in his last
edition. There is also a translation of it in German, by D.E.R.
Redepenning (Elberfeld, 1868). This German translation has been revised
and enlarged by Prof. Scholten, and is therefore superior in some
respects to the original Dutch. The present translation has been revised
upon it.]
[Footnote 2: According to Buusen 3000 or 2500 B.C., Haug 2000 B.C., Max
Müller 1200 B.C., Max Duncker 1300 or 1250 B.C., and according to
Roeth. I. p. 348, who still puts Vistaspa before Darius Hystaspes,
between 589 and 512 B.C.]
[Footnote 3: The doctrine of the _Zervana akarana_ (infinite time) as
the original One, from which the opposition between Ormuzd and Ahriman
was held to spring, dates from a later period.]
[Footnote 4: [Greek: Zeus kelainephês, ahidheri nahiôn, nephelêgerheta
Zeus, Herê bohôpis, glaukhôpis Hathhênê].]
[Footnote 5: Of the Germans Tacitus writes, _Germ._, c. 9, "Eos nec
cohibere parietibus Deos neque in ullam humanioris speciem assimilare,
ex magnitudine coelestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac nemora consecrant
deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia
vident."]
[Footnote 6: Among the Roman writers who furnish us with information
upon the religion of the Germans, Tacitus deserves mention, in his
"Germania," as well as in his "Annales" _passim_. The chief source with
regard to the Norse religion is the older Edda, under the title "Edda
Sæmundar hin Froda."]
[Footnote 7: Numb. xxii. 41; xxiii. 28; 2 Kings, xxiii. 5.]
[Footnote 8: Judges, ii. 13; 1 Sam. vii. 4; xii. 10; 1 Kings, xi. 5, 7,
33; 2 Kings, xxiii. 13; Jer. vii. 18; xliv. 17, 19.]
[Footnote 9: Levit. xviii. 21; xx. 2; 2 Kings, iii. 26, 27; xvi. 3;
xxiii. 10; Ps. cvi. 38; Jer. vii. 31; xix. 5; xxxii. 35; Micah, vi. 7;
Ezek. xv. 4, 6; [?] xvi. 20, Comp. I Kings, xviii: 28.]
[Footnote 10: Numb. xxv. I, _et seq_; Josh. xxii. 17; Baruch, vi. 41,
43.]
[Footnote 11: Judges, vi. 32. and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 12: 1 Chron. viii. 33; ix. 39.]
[Footnote 13: 1 Chron. viii. 34; ix. 40.]
[Footnote 14: 2 Sam. xi. 21.]
[Footnote 15: 2 Sam. ii. 8, and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 16: 2 Sam. iv. 4, and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 17: Judges, viii. 33; ix. 4. Comp. with ix. 46.]
[Footnote 18: 1 Chron. xiv. 7.]
[Footnote 19: 1 Chron. iii. 8; 2 Sam. v. 16.]
[Footnote 20: Gen. xxii.]
[Footnote 21: Gen. xvii. 23-27.]
[Footnote 22: Ex. iv. 24-26.]
[Footnote 23: Ex. xiii. 2, 12-16; xxii. 28, 29; xxx. 11-16; xxxiv. 19,
20.]
[Footnote 24: Gen. xv. 17; Ex. iii. 2; xix. 16-18; xxiv. 17; xl. 38;
Levit. x. 2; Numb. xvi. 35; Deut. iv. 15, 24; v. 24, 25.]
[Footnote 25: 1 Kings, vii. 25, 29.]
[Footnote 26: Ex. xxvii. 2.]
[Footnote 27: Comp. Ezek. i. 10; x. 14.]
[Footnote 28: 1 Kings, xviii. 23.]
[Footnote 29: 1 Kings, xi. 5; 2 Kings, xvi. 3; xxi. 3; xxiii. 4, _et
seq_; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 3; Ezek. xvi. 20, 21; Jer. xix. 5.]
[Footnote 30: Amos. v. 25, 26.]
[Footnote 31: Judges, xi. 30-40.]
[Footnote 32: Ex. xxxii. 27-29; Numb. xxv. 4.]
[Footnote 33: 2 Sam. xxi. 1-14.]
[Footnote 34: 1 Kings, iii. 2; xi. 7; 2 Kings, xii. 3; xiv. 4; xvii. 11;
xviii. 4; xxiii. 5, 19; 2 Chron. xxi. 11.]
[Footnote 35: 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3; Ezek. vi. 3; xx. 28.]
[Footnote 36: 1 Kings, xii. 28, 33. Comp. Ex. xxxii. 4, 19.]
[Footnote 37: Levit. xviii. 21; xx. 2; Deut. xii. 31.]
[Footnote 38: Gen. xxiv, xxviii.]
[Footnote 39: Gen. xiv. 18-20; xx. 3, 4.]
[Footnote 40: Gen. xxxi. 19, 30, _et seq_; xxxv. 2-4; Joshua, xxiv. 2,
14.]
[Footnote 41: Judges, xviii. 14, _et seq_; 1 Sam. xix. 13; 2 Kings,
xviii. 4; Ezek. xx. 7.]
[Footnote 42: Ex. iii. 13, _et seq_; vi. 2.]
[Footnote 43: Ex. xx. 2, 3.]
[Footnote 44: Ex. viii. 10; xv. 11; xviii. 11; xx. 3.]
[Footnote 45: Deut vi. 4; iv. 28, 35; xxxii. 39; Isaiah, xliv. 6, 8;
xlv. 5, 6.]
[Footnote 46: Amos, vii. 14.]
[Footnote 47: Isa. i. 11-18; Jer. vii. 21-23.]
[Footnote 48: Dutch, _zelfstandigheid_, literally, self-existence;
without an equivalent, as far as I know, in vernacular English.--Tr.]
[Footnote 49: _Zelfstandigheid_, again, expressing objective existence,
reality, independent of subjective thought or feeling.--Tr.]
[Footnote 50: Jer. xxxi. 31, _et seq_; Isa. ii. 2-4; Amos, ix. 12; Isa.
xxv. 6; lii. 15; lvi. 6, 7; lxvi. 23; Zech. viii. 23; xiv. 9, 16.]
[Footnote 51: Isa. liii.]
[Footnote 52: Job i, ii.--Tr.]
[Footnote 53: The most original sources of the Christian religion are
the Synoptic Gospels, in which, however, criticism must distinguish
between the older and later portions. The fourth Gospel is marked by a
more profound speculation upon the person and the work of Christ, by
which the Christian mind freed itself entirely from the Jewish forms in
which Jesus, as a popular teacher in Israel, had set forth his
doctrine.]