Transcriber’s Note:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
For more transcriber’s notes, please go to the end of this e-book.
THE
BLOOD COVENANT
A PRIMITIVE RITE
AND ITS BEARINGS ON SCRIPTURE
BY
H. CLAY TRUMBULL D.D.
Author of “Kadesh Barnea.”
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1885
COPYRIGHT, 1885
BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL
GRANT & FAIRES
PHILADELPHIA
PREFACE.
It was while engaged in the preparation of a book--still unfinished--on
the Sway of Friendship in the World’s Forces, that I came upon facts
concerning the primitive rite of covenanting by the inter-transfusion
of blood, which induced me to turn aside from my other studies, in
order to pursue investigations in this direction.
Having an engagement to deliver a series of lectures before the Summer
School of Hebrew, under Professor W. R. Harper, of Chicago, at the
buildings of the Episcopal Divinity School, in Philadelphia, I decided
to make this rite and its linkings the theme of that series; and I
delivered three lectures, accordingly, June 16-18, 1885.
The interest manifested in the subject by those who heard the Lectures,
as well as the importance of the theme itself, has seemed sufficient
to warrant its presentation to a larger public. In this publishing,
the form of the original Lectures has, for convenience sake, been
adhered to; although some considerable additions to the text, in the
way of illustrative facts, have been made, since the delivery of the
Lectures; while other similar material is given in an Appendix.
From the very freshness of the subject itself, there was added
difficulty in gathering the material for its illustration and
exposition. So far as I could learn, no one had gone over the ground
before me, in this particular line of research; hence the various items
essential to a fair statement of the case must be searched for through
many diverse volumes of travel and of history and of archæological
compilation, with only here and there an incidental disclosure in
return. Yet, each new discovery opened the way for other discoveries
beyond; and even after the Lectures, in their present form, were
already in type, I gained many fresh facts, which I wish had been
earlier available to me. Indeed, I may say that no portion of the
volume is of more importance than the Appendix; where are added facts
and reasonings bearing directly on well-nigh every main point of the
original Lectures.
There is cause for just surprise that the chief facts of this entire
subject have been so generally overlooked, in all the theological
discussions, and in all the physio-sociological researches, of
the earlier and the later times. Yet this only furnishes another
illustration of the inevitably cramping influence of a pre-conceived
fixed theory,--to which all the ascertained facts must be
conformed,--in any attempt at thorough and impartial scientific
investigation. It would seem to be because of such cramping, that no
one of the modern students of myth and folk-lore, of primitive ideas
and customs, and of man’s origin and history, has brought into their
true prominence, if indeed he has even noticed them in passing, the
universally dominating primitive convictions: that the blood is the
life; that the heart, as the blood-fountain, is the very soul of every
personality; that blood-transfer is soul-transfer; that blood-sharing,
human, or divine-human, secures an inter-union of natures; and that
a union of the human nature with the divine is the highest ultimate
attainment reached out after by the most primitive, as well as by the
most enlightened, mind of humanity.
Certainly, the collation of facts comprised in this volume grew out
of no pre-conceived theory on the part of its author. Whatever theory
shows itself in their present arrangement, is simply that which the
facts themselves have seemed to enforce and establish, in their
consecutive disclosure.
I should have been glad to take much more time for the study of
this theme, and for the re-arranging of its material, before its
presentation to the public; but, with the pressure of other work upon
me, the choice was between hurrying it out in its present shape, and
postponing it indefinitely. All things considered, I chose the former
alternative.
In the prosecution of my investigations, I acknowledge kindly aid
from Professor Dr. Georg Ebers, Principal Sir William Muir, Dr. Yung
Wing, Dean E. T. Bartlett, Professors Doctors John P. Peters and J. G.
Lansing, the Rev. Dr. M. H. Bixby, Drs. D. G. Brinton and Charles W.
Dulles, the Rev. Messrs. R. M. Luther and Chester Holcombe, and Mr. E.
A. Barber; in addition to constant and valuable assistance from Mr.
John T. Napier, to whom I am particularly indebted for the philological
comparisons in the Oriental field, including the Egyptian, the Arabic,
and the Hebrew.
At the best, my work in this volume is only tentative and suggestive.
Its chief value is likely to be in its stimulating of others to fuller
and more satisfactory research in the field here brought to notice.
Sufficient, however, is certainly shown, to indicate that the realm of
true Biblical theology is as yet by no means thoroughly explored.