whole. In the beginning "Elohim[24] created the heaven and the earth."
Heaven and earth were not primitive existences from which the gods
proceeded, as the Gentiles taught; on the contrary, the "Powers"
preceded and created heaven and earth. {128} Whether by "creation" is
meant "causing to be where nothing was before" or "shaping of something
which pre-existed," seems to me to be an insoluble question.
As I have pointed out, the second verse has an interesting parallel in
Jeremiah iv. 23: "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void;
and the heavens, and they had no light." I conceive that there is no
more allusion to chaos in the one than in the other. The earth-disk lay
in its watery envelope, like the yolk of an egg in the _glaire_, and
the spirit, or breath, of Elohim stirred the mass. Light was created as
a thing by itself; and its antithesis "darkness" as another thing. It
was supposed to be the nature of these two to alternate, and a pair of
alternations constituted a "day" in the sense of an unit of time.
The next step was, necessarily, the formation of that "firmament," or
dome over the earth-disk, which was supposed to support the celestial
waters; and in which sun, moon, and stars were conceived to be set, as
in a sort of orrery. The earth was still surrounded and covered by the
lower waters, but the upper were separated from it by the "firmament,"
beneath which what we call the air lay. A second alternation of
darkness and light marks the lapse of time.
After this, the waters which covered the earth-disk, under the
firmament, were drawn away into certain regions, which became seas,
while the part laid bare became dry land. In accordance with the
notion, universally accepted in antiquity, that moist earth possesses
the potentiality of giving rise to living beings, the land, at the
command of Elohim, "put forth" all sorts of plants. They are made to
appear thus early, not, I apprehend, from any notion that plants are
lower in the scale of being than animals (which would seem to be
inconsistent with the prevalence of tree worship among ancient people),
but rather because animals obviously depend on plants; and because,
without crops and harvests, there seemed to be no particular need of
heavenly signs for the seasons.
These were provided by the fourth day's work. Light existed already;
but now vehicles for the distribution of light, in a special manner and
with varying degrees of intensity, were provided. I conceive that the
previous alternations of light and darkness were supposed to go on; but
that the "light" was {129} strengthened during the daytime by the sun,
which, as a source of heat as well as of light, glided up the firmament
from the east, and slid down in the west, each day. Very probably each
day's sun was supposed to be a new one. And, as the light of the day
was strengthened by the sun, so the darkness of the night was weakened
by the moon, which regularly waxed and waned every month. The stars
are, as it were, thrown in. And nothing can more sharply mark the
doctrinal purpose of the author, than the manner in which he deals with
the heavenly bodies, which the Gentiles identified so closely with
their gods, as if they were mere accessories to the almanac.
Animals come next in order of creation, and the general notion of the
writer seems to be that they were produced by the medium in which they
live; that is to say, the aquatic animals by the waters and the
terrestrial animals by the land. But there was a difficulty about
flying things, such as bats, birds, and insects. The cosmogonist seems
to have had no conception of "air" as an elemental body. His "elements"
are earth and water, and he ignores air as much as he does fire. Birds
"fly above the earth in the open firmament" or "on the face of the
expanse" of heaven. They are not said to fly through the air. The
choice of a generative medium for flying things, therefore, seemed to
lie between water and earth; and, if we take into account the
conspicuousness of the great flocks of water-birds and the swarms of
winged insects, which appear to arise from water, I think the
preference of water becomes intelligible. However, I do not put this
forward as more than a probable hypothesis. As to the creation of
aquatic animals on the fifth, that of land animals on the sixth day,
and that of man last of all, I presume the order was determined by the
fact that man could hardly receive dominion over the living world
before it existed; and that the "cattle" were not wanted until he was
about to make his appearance. The other terrestrial animals would
naturally be associated with the cattle.
The absurdity of imagining that any conception, analogous to that of a
zoological classification, was in the mind of the writer will be
apparent, when we consider that the fifth day's work must include the
zoologist's _Cetacea_, _Sirenia_, and seals,[25] all of which are {130}
_Mammalia_; all birds, turtles, sea-snakes and, presumably, the fresh
water _Reptilia_ and _Amphibia_; with the great majority of
_Invertebrata_.
The creation of man is announced as a separate act, resulting from a
particular resolution of Elohim to "make man in our image, after our
likeness." To learn what this remarkable phrase means we must turn to
the fifth chapter of Genesis, the work of the same writer. "In the day
that Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made he him; male
and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name Adam
in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty
years and begat _a son_ in his own likeness, after his image; and
called his name Seth." I find it impossible to read this passage
without being convinced that, when the writer says Adam was made in the
likeness of Elohim, he means the same sort of likeness as when he says
that Seth was begotten in the likeness of Adam. Whence it follows that
his conception of Elohim was completely anthropomorphic.
In all this narrative I can discover nothing which differentiates it,
in principle, from other ancient cosmogonies, except the rejection of
all gods, save the vague, yet anthropomorphic, Elohim, and the
assigning to them anteriority and superiority to the world. It is as
utterly irreconcilable with the assured truths of modern science, as it
is with the account of the origin of man, plants, and animals given by
the writer of the second chief constituent of the Hexateuch in the
second chapter of Genesis. This extraordinary story starts with the
assumption of the existence of a rainless earth, devoid of plants and
herbs of the field. The creation of living beings begins with that of a
solitary man; the next thing that happens is the laying out of the
Garden of Eden, and the causing the growth from its soil of every tree
"that is pleasant to the sight and good for food"; the third act is the
formation out of the ground of "every beast of the field, and every
fowl of the air"; the fourth and last, the manufacture of the first
woman from a rib, extracted from Adam, while in a state of anaesthesia.
Yet there are people who not only profess to take this monstrous legend
seriously; but who declare it to be reconcilable with the Elohistic
account of the creation!
* * * * *
{131}
IV
THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY
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 I have at various times 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 {132} 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 {133}
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 one or two 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 {134} Samuel.[26] 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 {135} 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 {136} 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."[27] 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.
{137}
The account continues:--
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 hand 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).
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[28] in
fact translates the passage "Alors Saul reconnut que c'etait Samuel." {138}
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: engastrimuthos], 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 _Ob_." _Ob_ 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.[29]
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, {139} 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:--
Jahveh killeth and maketh alive,
He bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up
(1 Sam. ii. 6).
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 {140} 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 _Elohim_ 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 {141} 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:--
[_Elohim_ 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.
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?"