If the view here given of the origin of this rite of the Threshold
Covenant be correct, there will be found traces of the truth in the
different religions of mankind. And this is the case, as shown in
religious literatures, in history, and in primitive customs and beliefs.
The most ancient expression of the religious thought and feeling of the
Aryan races is found in the Vedas and their accompanying literature. The
Brahmanas, in this literature, deal with the sacrificial element in
public and family worship, and with the rites and ceremonies pertaining
to religion. In the description of the construction of the household
altars and the high altars, there is abundant evidence that the woman is
recognized as the primitive altar, and that the form of the woman is
made the pattern of the altar form.
It is distinctly declared as to the shape of the altar, standing east
and west, that it “should be broader on the west side, contracted on the
middle, and broad again on the east side; for thus shaped they praise a
woman: ‘broad about the hips, somewhat narrower between the shoulders,
and contracted in the middle [or about the waist].’” Again, it is said,
in explanation, that “the altar (_vedi_, feminine) is female, and the
fire (_agni_, masculine) is male.”[526] This identifying of the altar
with the woman, of the offering with the man, and of their union with
worship and covenanting, is repeatedly found in the Brahmanas.[527]
Even as far back as the Vedas themselves the term _yoni_, or doorway of
physical life, is used as synonymous with altar.[528] And the production
of sacred fire, for purposes of worship, by twisting a stick in softened
wood, is described in the Rig-Vedas as a form of this covenant rite.
These facts point to this origin of the threshold altar of covenant and
sacrifice.
At present in India the most widely recognized visible aid in worship is
the representation of the _linga_ and the _yoni_ combined. This symbol
nominally stands for Siva; but that seems to be only because Saivism
predominates in modern Hindooism. The idea of this symbolic combination
long antedates this prominence of Siva worship.[529]
A form of Booddhist prayer in Tibet, said to be repeated more frequently
than any other known among men, is “the six-syllabled sentence, ‘_Om
mani padme Hūm_,’–‘Om! the Jewel in the Lotus! Hum!’” This prayer is
simply a euphemism for the primitive Threshold Covenant, as here
explained, with an ejaculatory invocation and ascription before and
after it.[530] It seems to be a survival of the thought that here was
the beginning of religious rites, and that all covenant worship must
continue in its spirit and power.
Every repetition of that prayer, by speech or by mechanism, is supposed
to affect the progress of a soul in its crossing the threshold of one of
the stages of being in the universe. It is a help to a new birth for
some soul somewhere.
There would thus appear to be no room for doubt in this matter in the
language and customs of the primitive Aryan peoples, and there are also
confirmations of the idea among the Semites. A legend that has a place
among the Jews and the Muhammadans, tells of a visit of Abraham to the
home of Hagar and Ishmael in Arabia.[531] An Amalekite wife of Ishmael
refused hospitality to Abraham, and in consequence Abraham left a
message to Ishmael to “change his threshold.” This message Ishmael
understood to mean the putting away of his wife and the taking of
another, and he acted accordingly. In the Arabic “a wife” is one of the
meanings of the term “threshold.”[532]
And the term “gate,” or “door,” had among the rabbis a specific
application to the altar of family covenanting. Thus Buxtorf, in his
definings of “_janua_” and “_ostium_,” says plainly: “_Apud rabbinos
etiam est ‘ostium ventris muliebris.’_” And he quotes the saying of a
disappointed bridegroom : “_Ostium apertum inveni._”[533]
Among the early Babylonians and Egyptians, as among other primitive
peoples, the twofold symbols of sex are counted the sacred emblem of
life, and as such are borne by the gods of life, and by those who have
the power of life and death from those gods. The circle and rod, or ring
and bolt, conjoined, are in the right hand of the Babylonian sun-god
Shamash;[534] as, in the _ankh_, or _crux ansata_, they are in the right
hand of every principal deity of ancient Egypt.[535] It is much the same
with the Phœnicians and others.[536]
In the innermost shrine of the most sacred Shinto temples of Japan, the
circular mirror, and the straight dagger, with the same meaning as the
circle and rod in Babylonia and Egypt and Phœnicia, are the only
indications of the presence of deity; and the worshipers in those
temples can come no farther than the threshold of the shrine containing
these emblems.[537]
Wherever, among the primitive peoples in America, as elsewhere, the red
hand is found as a symbol of covenant, and of life and strength through
covenant, it would seem to point to this primal meaning of the hand
stamp of blood at the doorway of life in a sacred covenant. There are
indications in Central American sculptures of the sacredness attaching
to the covenant rite between the first pair; and the combined symbols of
sex are represented there as in the East.[538]
It is a well-known fact that the public exhibit of the primitive
Threshold Covenant, as here explained, has been continued as a mode of
reverent worship among primitive peoples in the South Sea Islands, down
to modern times. The testimony of Captain Cook, the famous navigator, is
specific on this point.[539] It is also to be noted that in these
islands the two supports of the altar, or table of sacrifice, are
seemingly symbols of the two sexes, similar to those used in the far
East.[540]
All of the gathered facts concerning the Threshold Covenant in different
lands and in different times, as presented in the foregoing pages, would
seem to be in accordance with this view of the origin of the rite, as
with no other that can be suggested. The main symbolism of both the Old
and the New Testament also seem to indicate the same beginning.
V.
HEBREW PASS-OVER, OR CROSS-OVER,
SACRIFICE.