_COMMENCEMENT OF MONOTHEISM AND THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MYTHS._
§ 1. We have seen a new feeling aroused in the breast of the Hebrews,
and gaining such force and intensity as to fill their souls with a new
thought and impart spiritual significance and direction to their
political life.
In the history of the world there sometimes appear nations endowed with
very small power of influencing the outside world, and whose
intellectual mission is quite subjective, or, if we prefer so to call
it, negative, insofar as their entire historical life is taken up by the
realisation of the endeavour not to fall victims to some foreign
intellect bearing down upon them from the outside, but to preserve their
individual being, their peculiarity, their nationality, not merely in an
ethnological but in an historical sense also.
The Hebrew nation was preserved from the state of intellectual passivity
by the aroused consciousness of national individuality. The
consciousness of individuality awoke, and as soon as it was fully
roused, there began that section of the life of the nation which was
distinguished by a peculiar productiveness on the domain of ideas. The
influences received from outside could be neither extinguished nor
cancelled, seeing that to them was mainly due the formation of the mind
of the nation; but the national consciousness had now introduced a new
condition of further civilisation, which caused these foreign elements
to be dealt with in a peculiar and independent way. No doubt a long time
was needed to allow the results of this national reaction to strike root
in the soul of the nation; but we shall see that a true Hebraism was
formed by slow progress out of Canaanism, until at last the choicest and
noblest minds of the nation seized upon the idea which gave full
expression to the principle of nationality and freed it from the last
traces of Canaanitish influence.
§ 2. The consequences of the national reaction are exhibited in the
first representatives of the house of David, in the history of the
Hebrew nation and in the desire of political unity to put an end to the
old disunion and give strength against the Canaanites. The religious and
political centralisation, which forms the program of David and Solomon,
was the first and most forcible expression of the roused national
spirit. I will leave the political arrangements on one side; for
although they certainly come within the range of the general description
which I have to give of the character of the period, yet the nature of
these studies urges me more to consider the forces which act on the
history of religion. With reference to this I must prefix some almost
self-evident remarks on the relation of Polytheism to Monotheism:
self-evident I say, yet even now still doubted and disputed, because on
this subject even the least prejudiced inquirers on questions of
antiquity and the history of ancient civilisation still use words in
accordance with the old traditional system.[642] The idea that a
Monotheistic instinct is inherent in a certain race or certain nations
is refuted by historical facts so far as relates to the Semites, the
consideration of whose psychological condition had suggested the
opinion, and has also been exhibited as generally untenable by
Steinthal’s and Max Müller’s psychological criticism of the meaning of
instinct. But equally untrue is the idea of an original Monotheism,
which later in history dissolved into Polytheism. This idea, which
moreover identified the original monotheism with that of the Bible,
prevailed almost universally in former times. Recently Rougemont, a
French ethnologist, has endeavoured, in his work ‘Le Peuple Primitif’
(1855), to find a basis for it by supposing Polytheism to have sprung
out of the original Monotheism through the medium of Pantheism by reason
of a superfluity of religious life and over-richness in poetical
inspiration.[643] Of course many theological systems endeavour to
maintain this position; but also scholars who are but little influenced
by theological prepossessions sometimes support it in their special
provinces of study, having recourse to methods of deduction inspired
mainly by an obsolete mysticism. So, for example, the sound scholar
François Lenormant assumes that in Egypt Polytheism grew out of an
original Monotheism by the process expressed in the following words:
‘L’idée de Dieu se confondit avec les manifestations de sa puissance;
ses attributs et ses qualités furent personnifiés en une foule d’agents
secondaires distribués dans une ordre hiérarchique, concourant à
l’organisation générale du monde et à la conservation des êtres.’[644]
This is the old story of the separation of the notion of a single god,
given by an alleged primeval revelation, into its parts and factors!
Another renowned investigator of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquity,
Jules Oppert, also, speaks of a common monotheistic groundwork of all
human religion.[645] But from the nature of the case, and in accordance
with the laws of development of the human mind which can be deduced from
experience, the fact is the very reverse. The history of the development
of religion, modified of course in accordance with our more educated
conception of its origin, appears in the main to be what old Hume
asserted of it in his ‘Natural History of Religion:’ ‘It seems certain,
that, according to the natural progress of human thought, the ignorant
multitude must first entertain some groveling and familiar notion of
superior powers, before they stretch their conception to that perfect
Being, who bestowed order on the whole frame of nature. We may as
reasonably imagine, that men inhabited palaces before huts and cottages,
or studied geometry before agriculture, as assert that the Deity
appeared to them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent,
before he was apprehended to be a powerful though limited being, with
human passions and appetites, limbs and organs. _The mind rises
gradually from inferior to superior._’[646] This becomes still surer
when we remember that religion begins where mythology, from the elements
of which theistic religion takes its rise, ceases to live. For as these
elements are always very numerous, it is not possible but that every
religion must begin with a multitude of divine figures, i.e. with
Polytheism. For it is impossible to point to any mythology which has to
do with only one single name; yet from such a one alone could a
monotheistic religion spring directly. Accordingly Polytheism is the
historical _prius_ of Monotheism, which can never exhibit itself except
as historically evolved out of Polytheism. The brilliant company of
Olympian gods is therefore older than the first stirring of monotheistic
feeling among the Greeks. Those who invert the historical order transfer
to the religious condition of primitive humanity that which is only
postulated by their own mind, and ascribe to the primeval man a
religious tendency which in themselves was the result of laborious
abstract speculations.
But all the contents of the human mind, like those of the material
world, are subject to a constant evolution, or progressive change of
form into something more perfect; and so Polytheism has an inherent
tendency to further development, being indeed itself the result of a
similar development of mythology. This tendency paves the way for the
approach of Monotheism; for this it is to which the polytheistic stages
of religion tend in their further development. We may see in the human
mind, equally on a large and on a small scale, the inclination to the
unification of whatever is similar in kind though hitherto divided into
many individuals; abstraction and formation of general ideas are the
climax of his power of thought. So is it in politics, and so also in the
conception of nature.
The same unifying mental action, operating on the development of
religion, creates in Polytheism an active tendency towards Monotheism.
Even in those ethnological races for whom, in contradistinction to the
Semitic race, Renan vindicates a polytheistic instinct, this tendency is
active; and in any sphere which exhibits a complete and finished chain
of religious evolution, we always find at the beginning Polytheism and
at the end the Unitarian idea of God, whether in the form of Pantheistic
Monism or of abstract personal Monotheism; whether coupled with the
ideas of the Transcendency, or that of the Immanency, of God; whether
excited by religious contemplation and absorption as with the Hebrew
prophets, or by philosophical speculation as with the Greek sages. A
mode of transition from Polytheism to Monotheism is found in the
religious system which, while assuming a multitude of gods,
distinguishes one of them as the most powerful, as the ruler not only of
the world, but of the company of gods also. This system, to which
Homer’s conception of Zeus as πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε belongs, possesses
quite as much of Monotheism as of Polytheism, and expresses powerfully
the monotheistic inclination concealed in Polytheism. Max Müller justly
makes a distinction between Monotheism and Henotheism. A penetrating
investigation of the Greek and the Indian literatures, the chief
representatives of what Renan calls the polytheistic instinct, would
prove the gradual formation of strata of monotheistic transformation,
which attached themselves to Aryan polytheism and drew it in the
monotheistic direction. Classical philologians have not neglected the
study of the religious spirit on this subject, which prevails in the
Greek tragedians and historians, not to mention the philosophical
writers.
We have noted two kinds of impulse which usually promote a monotheistic
revolution from Polytheism: religious absorption and contemplation on
the one hand, and philosophical speculation on the other. Another
powerful force must be mentioned in this connexion—the form of political
institutions. This also exercises no small influence on the formation of
the idea of God. If man has ascribed to the Deity the attribute of might
and sovereignty, which is very natural to him, he will then apply to the
gods the idea of power which he has gained by experience of human
rulers, and will estimate their power according to the quality which he
perceives every day in his earthly sovereigns; for the picture of these
forms his sole conception of beings endowed with might and dominion.
Only in the Immortals, he extends into infinity whatever he observes in
his earthly rulers as something finite; since that which excites
religious feeling in man is the impulse ‘to advance beyond what is given
him, beyond what he finds existing, and to push forward from the limited
to the illimitable and absolutely perfect.’ But this advance beyond what
we have here is more than ‘in itself a valuation of what we have, a
measuring of it against the infinite,’ as Steinthal admirably describes
it in his fine lecture on ‘Myth and Religion.’[647] It also connects the
valuation of the infinite, and the quality attributed to it, with what
we have here and know from daily experience. Hence the tendency of
religious ideas is directly dependent on the ideas which are embodied in
political and social life. Thus it was said by so early a writer as
Aristotle, ‘that all men say that the gods are under regal rule, because
they themselves, some even now, and others in ancient times, have been
so ruled; for men conceive not only the forms but the lives also of the
gods as similar to their own.’[648] And similarly Schelling says,
briefly, ‘It seems hardly necessary to point out how closely magisterial
power, legislature, morals, and even occupations are bound up with
conceptions of the gods in all nations.’[649] What, for instance, are
the inhabitants of the Hellenic Olympus? A powerful and conscious
Aristocracy, at the head of which stands the most powerful among
them—not all-powerful, for he is dependent on a mightier Fate, which
prevents his accomplishing all that his will has determined, and even on
the surrounding aristocracy of the other gods, who once bound their
powerful ruler! He owes his dominion to this very aristocracy: when Zeus
had gained the victory over the Titans, says Hesiod,[650] the gods
offered him the supreme rule (ὤτρυνον βασιλεύεμεν ἠδὲ ἀνάσσειν), and
when he had entered upon it, he distributed offices and dignities among
his electors (ὁ δὲ τοῖσιν ἐῢ διεδάσσατο τιμάς). Are these different
circumstances from those of the aristocratic republics of Greece?—is the
relation of Zeus to the subordinate gods unlike that of the εἵς κοίρανος
to the members of the aristocracy who are subject to his command, but
yet possess a considerable influence over him? Turning from the
classical Hellenes to the boisterous Bedâwî, of Arabia, we discover a
conception of God under the very same point of view. A great
investigator of Arabia observes: ‘Nor did I ever meet, among the genuine
nomade tribes, with any individual who took a more spiritual view,
whether of the Deity, of the soul of man, or of any other disembodied
being soever. _God is for them a chief_ [a Nomad Sheikh!] ..., somewhat
more powerful of course than their own headman, or even than Ṭelâl
himself, but in other respects of much the same style and
character.’[651] If we turn our thoughts to a religious system of most
recent origin, our experience is still the same. To the inhabitants of
the Salt-Lake City in America, God is the President of immortal beings.
‘The employment of familiar political ideas, or application of political
figures to theocratic ends, as in speaking of the Presidency of God,
colonies, eligibility, race, is a natural and obvious device.’[652]
This, however, must rather be referred to apperception than to
symbolism.
In a despotic state the conception of God must take a different
direction, because the apperception of the notion of dominion and power
is essentially different. This may be observed not only in nations of
high culture, but even in tribes living in a state of nature, on a
comparison of their religious and political conditions; though in the
latter case we have not the means of pursuing the analogy with the same
certainty. But, by way of illustration, I will refer to a comparison of
the political condition of the Negro tribes which incline to a
monotheistic view of religion with those of the polytheistic
Polynesians.[653] Molina, too, found in Chili that the god Pillan’s
government of the world agrees exactly with the Araucanian political
system, and concludes with the observation, ‘These ideas are certainly
very rude; but it must be acknowledged that the Araucanians are not the
only people who have regulated the things of heaven by those of the
earth.’[654] But we will now stay on the firmer ground of civilised
nations. Let us take, for instance, the great Assyrian empire. One
powerful ruler, endowed with unlimited authority, at whose commands
great and small, high-born and slave, bend the knee, to whose arbitrary
will almost the whole of Western Asia is subject, guides the destinies
of his colossal empire, independent of men. After him follow the
Viceroys of the separate provinces, Satraps, and a host of officials of
court and state with accurately defined powers and in distinct order of
rank. Whoever honours them and is obedient to them, only honours in them
the King of kings, and exhibits his obedience to the all-powerful lord.
Thus it was at the flourishing period of this immense empire; and to
this political system corresponds exactly the religious idea, which grew
up parallel with the growth of the empire from small beginnings. At the
head of many subordinate gods stands the ‘God of gods,’ to whom all the
sacrifices and expressions of homage offered to the subordinate, so to
speak, satrap-gods, are indirectly presented. He is adored in the
temples built in honour of his subordinates (see supra, p. 122). He is
the ‘God of Armies,’ just as the King of kings is ‘Lord of Armies.’ In a
word, we have to do with a form of religion that combines absolute
monarchy with Polytheism. And is it surprising, considering the
influence exercised by the mighty Assyrian empire on Western Asia, the
nations of which it surpassed in manners and culture, that this form of
religion became the prevailing tone of theology throughout the region?
Thus, while political division promotes in religion Polytheism,
political unity and centralisation help the monotheistic development to
break forth. As, when the political system is centralised, individuals
only contribute to form a united political organism, and lose their
personality in special functions which make each different from the
other, so the idea of one common god arises and prevails over the many
local deities, who are then subordinated to the former as their supreme
Lord.
In the Hebrew nation likewise it was the political centralisation which
established itself in the epoch distinguished by the names of David and
Solomon, which at the same time conduced to the confirmation of
Monotheism. It cannot be known for certain what sort of worship it was
that was practised at various places in the land beside the so-called
‘Ark of the Covenant’ (arôn hab-berîth), before David removed the Ark to
the political centre, and Solomon erected the magnificent Temple, of
which the Books of Kings and the Chronicles give so elaborate an
architectural description. But it must be assumed that the monotheistic
working-out of the Elôhîm-idea in the Hebrew nation coincided with the
centralising movement, that is with the period when the king directed
the religious sentiment of the whole people to Jerusalem. This religious
development again became powerful and was greatly encouraged by the
newly strengthened National spirit, the influence of which on the
spiritual life of the people was traced in the preceding chapter. For
since the Hebrew nation was conscious of occupying a position of strict
alienation from the tribes among and near which it dwelt, the exclusive
tendency and negative character of this consciousness clung also to its
conception of God, and thus it formed the idea of One God, who was the
divine opposite to the gods of the nations, corresponding to the idea of
the Hebrew nation as a nation opposed to the other nations. So long as
the nation had no living consciousness of its national separation, and
had not advanced to the point of saying ‘I am something quite different
from you,’ no reason was forthcoming why the Hebrews should hold a
negative position towards the objects of worship of other peoples; and
they were, in fact, quite dependent on the latter, and receptive in
temper. But having once risen to a consciousness of their own
individuality, they regarded their own God exclusively as the Existing
one, and denied the existence of the gods of nations towards which it
acknowledged a national opposition. The germs of this religious
development, so favourable to Monotheism, are bound up with the rise of
a strong national consciousness; but the latter would not alone avail to
create Monotheism at one blow; it only stimulates and encourages, but
has need of other psychical and historical coefficients. Eduard
Hartmann, who, in his recent work on the Philosophy of Religion, justly
insists on the influence of the idea of nationality upon the growth of
Monotheism, calls attention to another stage in the relation of the
nation to the gods of strange peoples—that at which the strange gods are
looked on as _usurpers_. Speaking of the three phases of development of
Hebrew monotheism, he says:[655] ‘With the increase of national feeling,
their pride in their God was heightened. From the moment when they
raised him to the position of sole creator of heaven and earth, they
could not but regard the dominion of other gods on the earth created by
Jehovah as usurped, and could only hope for the honour of their own God
that ultimately the peoples would turn to him and adore him as the
highest God, the only creator of the world. But then the progressive
development of Monotheism went further, to the point of not merely
regarding the strange gods as usurpers beside Jehovah, but of declaring
them to be _false_ gods.’ What is the exact meaning of this view of
_usurping_ gods in the growth of Monotheism? In the growth of religions
there is no stage at which certain divine persons are acknowledged as
powerful and influential on the fate of the world or of a nation, and
yet treated as possessing _illegitimate_ power and _influence_. Their
power might be unjustly exercised, but never illegitimate. The existence
of gods is identified with their legitimacy. The conquest of some gods
by others, which is told in theogonies and mythologies, is not explained
by supposing one of the contending powers to have usurped his power, but
by regarding the conquered as weaker than the conquering one.
This monotheistic development was very gradual, and passed through many
stages in unfolding itself out of Polytheism. People spoke of the ‘God
of the Elôhîms of Israel’ (Êl elôhê Yisrâʾêl), without giving any
account as to who these Elôhîms were and what were their names. Whatever
may be said, the plural form Elôhîm itself, the interpretation of which
as _pluralis majestatis_ belongs to the stage of pure Monotheism,
decidedly indicates that a plural conception was inherent in this word.
Such expressions, created by polytheistic imagination, were retained at
the monotheistic stages. Like the myth, they lost their original
signification, and were used by zealous monotheists without any idea of
the Polytheism which had created them and been expressed by them. This
Monotheism comes to light in the monotheistic turn which was given to
the name Elôhîm; and the stronger the national life, and the intenser
the national sentiment grew, so much more eagerly did the people grasp
this Elôhîm-idea as a national one, entirely ignoring the fact that the
name was not its exclusive property. At the conclusion of the national
development the Elohistic monotheism attained perfection; but from the
very beginning the mind of the nation lived in the conviction that
‘Elôhîm was not like the Elôhîms of the nations.’ The monotheistic turn
given to the word is distinctly impressed on the form hâ-Elôhîm = ὁ
Θεός, which is related to Elôhîm exactly as among Mohammedans Allâh to
Ilâh. An important part in the encouragement of this monotheistic
development was played by the Levitical priesthood, which conducted the
centralised worship; as also by those inspired men of action who
appeared as teachers and monitors in the early days of the monarchy,
precursors of the later great Prophets, harbingers of the epoch of the
_Prophètes écrivains_, as Renan correctly calls them.[656] The later
Prophets, although when writing history they depict these precursors as
completely imbued with their own intentions, did not ignore their
position as precursors. Elijah and Samuel were prototypes of prophecy,
in whose lives and actions the prophetic historian of a later time
unfolded his own program; but even they are endowed with infirmities
foreign to later Jahveism; and these faults are characterised as such. A
prophet of the Postexilian period, in which a history of the growth of
Jahveism as reconciled with the law (tôrâ), with Moses as law-giving
prophet at the head, was already brought into notice, regarded Elijah as
the precursor of the ‘great and dreadful day of Jahveh.’ Malachi, namely
(III. 22, 23 [IV. 4, 5]), one of the chief representatives of the
reconciliation effected between the two opposites, Sacerdotalism and
Jahveism, exhorts the people to remember the Tôrâ of Moses, and in the
same breath speaks of Elijah, the chief member of the old school of
prophecy, as precursor of the great day of Jahveh. These are two
reminiscences, valuable in a religious sense to the prophet of the
Postexilian period.[657] However gradual may have been the full
development of Monotheism among the Hebrews, on a consideration of the
chronology it is impossible to deny that it had a far more rapid course
there than elsewhere. This rapidity of revolution is expressed very
significantly in the monotheistic turn given to the word Elôhîm, which
looks as if (to use mathematical language) the separate Elôahs had been
added up and put in a bracket to represent a Divine Unity, adequate to
the sudden national unity produced out of political divisions only just
composed.
Thus the awakened idea of Nationality left its impress also on the
domain of religion. But it is now quite intelligible that the religious
expression thereby introduced, possessed an obvious defect, inasmuch as
it bore on its front a contradiction which no mere National sentiment
could get rid of, the word Elôhîm being common to the Hebrews and the
Canaanites. This contradiction gave the first stimulus to the creation
of the word ‘Jahveh,’ the specially Hebrew term. The origin of this
Divine name may therefore be most probably assigned to this period, as a
necessary result of the religious element of the idea of Nationality. An
agricultural people could very easily grasp the idea of God as an idea
of ‘him who makes to be, who produces;’ and it is not impossible that
this appellation had its first origin at the time of the formation of a
myth of civilisation, and passed from a primitive solar to a later
religious significance. But during this whole period Jahveh remained a
mere word, a _flatus oris_, an Elôhîm connected with the nation. No
deeper meaning, distinguishing Jahveh from the Canaanitish Elôhîm, was
as yet attached to the word; that belongs to a later age, that of the
Prophets. Moreover, the name itself did not at first force its way deep
into the soul of the whole people, but remained as something external,—a
Divine name, identical with hâ-Elôhîm, and implying no more. Fights,
such as the Prophets fought, first created the Jahveh-religion in
opposition to Elohism. Accordingly, it will be best to lay no stress on
the existence of the Name before the point at which it obtains a
religious significance and begins to be filled with its lofty
conception.
§ 3. At the same time with the monotheistic idea there arose a multitude
of religious views, which necessarily had an influence on the
development of the myths into history. And insofar as the Hebraisation
of the Elôhîm-idea confirmed, and even became the centre of the
consciousness of nationality, the conversion of the myths into national
history, of which the previous chapter treated, naturally received a
peculiarly religious tone.
Here we see the germ of that theocratic character which people take a
pleasure in introducing into the earliest history of the Hebrews, but
which unquestionably presupposes a high development of the Elôhîm-idea.
The theocratic system is a league between the religious and the national
ideas. As the myths were transformed in the preceding period into
national history, so now in this Elohistic time, their interpretation in
a national sense is supplemented by a theocratic aim, which again
imprints a new stamp on the old mythology, and exhibits the thoughts and
feelings of the Hebrews in richer measure than before. Those legendary
figures which at the time of National aspiration became Patriarchs or
forefathers of the Hebrew nation, now enter the service of the
theocratic or religious idea, and become pious servants and favourites
of God. Mythical events and contests which in the national period were
converted into national history of primeval times, now take a liturgical
or religious turn. Not till now could the question, why Abraham was
willing to kill Isaac, arise distinctly in the mind. And the answer was
at hand: he did it at the command of Elôhîm—he _sacrificed_, for he was
Elôhîm’s faithful servant, capable of sacrifice. The other Patriarchs
also become pious, God-fearing individuals; their adventures and lives
become types of Elohistic piety, as they had previously been made types
of the history of the nation. The political idea also, _i.e._ the
conviction that it was necessary for the Hebrew nation to possess the
territory which they called their own, is carried back to the
patriarchal age in the repeated promises of Elôhîm to the Patriarchs
that their descendants should possess themselves of the land of Canaan.
This was the highest, the religious sanction of the National idea; and
this conception the most prominent factor in the production of the
direction imparted at this time to the stories of the Patriarchs. The
national legends had only aimed at proving by documents the noble
ancestry of the Hebrew nation and the high antiquity of their antagonism
to the nations who subsequently were their enemies; and endeavoured to
demonstrate that the national character and the national preeminence of
the Hebrews were founded in the earliest times, and could be fully
justified from the history of their ancestors. In this later religious
and theocratic epoch, on the other hand, there is infused into the
legends a tendency to transform the ancestors into _religious_
prototypes and individuals in whom the ancient preference of Elôhîm for
the Hebrew nation could be exhibited, and the truth established that
this preference of Elôhîm was a primeval distinction which
advantageously marked off the Hebrews from the other nations of Canaan.
This accordingly determines the form impressed on the myths, which had
already suffered several modifications, by the rise of a religious and
theocratic course of ideas; and I deem it unnecessary to exhibit in
detail every portion of the matter constituting the Hebrew legendary
lore in which this stratum of development is observable. Scarcely any
part of the stories of the Patriarchs is free from this new force of
development, and we should have to reproduce them all in their fullest
extent to give a collection of examples of what has been said. It must,
however, be added, that this impulse to the further development of the
legends is not confined to those relating to Canaan. The same impulse
draws the history of the Hebrews in Egypt also into the sphere of its
operation. For, independently of the fact, that the conception of the
residence of the Hebrews in the land of the Pharaohs receives a
theocratic modification, the later mutual relation of the Hebrew and the
Egyptian nations is prefigured in the patriarchal story, and gains a
prototype in the relation of Abraham to Pharaoh. A famine in Canaan
obliges Abraham to move into Egypt; and this journey is made the reason
why ‘Jahveh plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues’ (Gen. XII.
17), until ‘Pharaoh gave an order to some men concerning him, and they
escorted away Abraham and his wife, and all who belonged to him’ (v.
20). This foreshadowing of later historical events and the insertion of
them into the body of old stories is, as we see, an important factor in
the development of Hebrew stories. Each epoch works into the old
legendary matter whatever preeminently occupies the mind of the age, in
such a manner as to indicate the intellectual attitude and tendency of
the later time.
§ 4. There is still another feature of the development of legends to be
mentioned—one which is closely bound up with an important alteration of
the political institutions of the Hebrew nation. This feature, though
nearly connected with the National transformation of the legends,
historically belongs to the age with which we have to do in this
chapter. This stage of development of the legends may best be termed the
_Differentiation_ of the National Legends.
The political and religious centralisation, which formed the program of
the first two representatives of the Davidical dynasty, and which bound
the highest power in the state to one city, Jerusalem, as a geographical
centre, and to one family, as the visible representative of that power,
did not meet with unmixed applause everywhere. Jerusalem lies close to
the southern limit of the Hebrew territory. If the South came to the
front, the northern parts of the kingdom might be deprived of all
influence on affairs of state and religion. The inhabitants of the
northern district were practically condemned to be only bearers of the
burdens, imposed on the subjects of the kingdom through the luxury
growing up in the centre of monarchy and of religion; for very little
enjoyment of, or pride in, this splendour could fall to their share. And
then the religious centralisation took all importance and influence from
the sanctuaries and places of assembly in the North, which before the
centralisation were spread over the whole kingdom in due proportion.
Nothing, therefore, could be more natural than the reaction in the
North, which spread after the death of Solomon under his weak successor,
and ended with the division of the kingdom. The history of this division
and the circumstances connected with it are sufficiently well known from
the Old Testament narrative (1 Kings XII.), in which no essential
element is devoid of historical credibility. All of it is a natural
consequence of the then condition of the Hebrew kingdom. Now it is very
intelligible that in the northern district, the centralising and
theocratic spirit, which was at bottom the reason of the political
secession, could not find an entrance, and that therefore the northern
district remained at the Elohistic stage as it was before an advance had
been made to pure Monotheism—in relation to religion scarcely yet
separated from Canaanism, but with respect to nationality sharing the
common Hebrew sentiment. Accordingly, in the spiritual development of
the Northern kingdom, the theocratic interpretation of the past ages of
the nation, excited by the centralising movement, is not merely treated
as unimportant, but positively does not appear at all. This, of course,
is true not only of the spiritual condition of the northern Hebrews
after the secession, but of their spiritual life during the whole period
of the formation of the theocratic spirit in the South. For the very
fact that the Northerns possessed little knowledge of and no inclination
for this tendency, then all-powerful in the commonwealth, gave an
impetus to the secessionistic aspirations, which under the strong rule
of Solomon had no opportunity of declaring themselves, but burst out all
the more forcibly and persistently at the commencement of a feebler
reign. But while the theocratic spirit, so peculiar to the Southern
kingdom, forms a distinction between the characters of the North and of
the South, intense national consciousness and national opposition to the
Canaanites is common to both. This feeling grew up equally in both of
them. But even in respect to this, the political separation naturally
produced its consequences. Nationality is very closely tied to political
unity. The abstract idea of nationality becomes illusory if there is no
united state in which it appears in a concrete form. The consciousness
of national oneness is enfeebled, if the political state does not
coincide with the nation in a single idea. Hence we see how eager
nations divided into separate political states are for a struggle for
union, when once their national consciousness wakes out of sleep. On the
other hand, in states formed by a union of peoples of various
nationalities, we observe a certainly justifiable endeavour, on the part
of the strongest and therefore ruling nationality, to inoculate the
weaker ones with its own national sentiment, and thereby produce a
common feeling of unity.
The political separation of the Northern region from the centralised
Hebrew state, produced a remarkable and very important alteration in the
sense of nationality hitherto worked out in common. The political
opposition between North and South encouraged also the recognition of a
difference in their common genealogy. As the general Hebrew idea of
nationality found nourishment in the store of legends, so also the
consciousness of this secondary difference sought justification in the
mythology. This sense of difference came to light more clearly in the
northern Hebrews than in the southern. The former wrote the name Joseph
on their banner, and derived themselves directly from that son of the
common ancestor, and in opposition to the southerns laid more and more
stress on this special feature of their origin; moreover, it was not so
much Joseph that concerned them as Ephraim, who is named a son of
Joseph. We must not forget that this name Ephraim has only a secondary
origin. For when the national purpose of the story was once drafted in
the mind of the people, it was developed in details in a most
independent fashion. The biography of the ancestors was worked out
exhaustively; that to which the existing legendary matter offered no
suggestion or occasion was supplied by the restless activity of the
popular sentiment. In various places in Canaan sepulchral caves had been
pointed out from the earliest times—or rather caves which were employed
for sepulture; for it is pretty certain that they were originally
intended rather for the living than for the dead. Now could anything be
simpler than to imagine the bones of ancestors to have been placed
there, and to bind to these places the sacred piety which was felt by an
enthusiastic nation for venerated progenitors? It is generally known
that such an origin of traditions relating to graves is not uncommon in
the history of civilisation and religion. Saints’ graves have as many
interpretations fastened on them as feast-days and popular festivals.
Hebron was a place suitable for this treatment, and so popular tradition
placed there the bones of the Patriarchs and their wives, and attached
the general national piety to the place. Accordingly King David acted in
sympathy with the lately aroused national enthusiasm, when he chose
Hebron for his residence (2 Sam. II. 1, 11). And the popular belief
concerning the graves of the Patriarchs was so firmly fixed in the soul
of the nation as to become in later generations a meeting-point of the
piety of three religions towards their sacred antiquity. Mohammedans,
Jews, and Christians vie with each other in the adorations which they
lavish on the ‘Double Cave’ at Hebron. Mohammedans, who place the
prophet Ibrâhîm al-Chalîl higher than either Jews or Christians, have
done more for the authenticity of the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron
than either of the older religions, from which they received the
tradition concerning them. I know of no literary work emanating from
Christians or Jews, written in defence of the authenticity of this cave.
Conviction was left to faith and piety rather than to historical
certainty. But it was a Mohammedan—not even an Arab, but a Persian—that
undertook this task. ʿAlî b. Jaʿfar al-Râzî wrote a book entitled
al-musfir lil-ḳulûb ʿan ṣiḥḥat ḳabr Ibrâhîm Isḥâḳ wa-Yaʿḳûb ‘Enlightener
of hearts concerning the correctness of the grave of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob.’ Ibn Baṭûṭâ of Maġreb (North-Western Africa), a great Mohammedan
traveller, who made a pilgrimage to al-Chalîl (Hebron), quotes largely
from this book on occasion of his description of the Graves of the
Patriarchs.[658] But popular tradition has preserved far more
recollections of graves of Patriarchs and Prophets than Scripture, and
Mohammedan tradition considerably more than Jewish. This testifies
eloquently how incomplete stories are felt to be as long as they can
tell only of events and persons without connecting everything with a
definite locality. Popular tradition always feels the want of
topographical completion, as long as it can give no distinct account of
the places where the events of which it speaks took place, where its
favourite heroes lived and worked, where they were cradled and where
they slept their last sleep. This impulse was felt in ancient times, and
produced the localisation of myths. Accordingly, the Mohammedan popular
tradition knows of the grave of Adam on the mountain Abû Ḳubeys,[659] of
that of Eve at Jeddâ, of that of Cain and Abel at Ṣâliḥîyyâ, a suburb of
Damascus, of that of Seth in the valley of Yahfûfâ in Antilibanus,[660]
and of those of some of Jacob’s sons, as of Reuben at Jahrân, a place in
the south of Arabia,[661] of Asher and Naphtali at Kafarmandâ, between
ʿAkkâ (Acre) and Tiberias. Even Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was a
person sufficiently interesting to popular tradition to have a grave
assigned to her;[662] just as Mohammedan tradition asserts the grave of
Ham to be in the district of Damascus,[663] and that of the forefather
of the Canaanites to be at Chörbet râs Kenʿan near Hebron,[664] and also
shows that of Uriah at the edge of the desert beyond the Jordan.[665]
The Mohammedans took interest also in the grave of Aaron, and it was
from them that the Jews received the local tradition relating to
it.[666] But it also happens not unfrequently, that popular tradition
allows one and the same patriarch or prophet to be buried at several
places, often far distant from each other. Various countries take a
pride in possessing the last remains of venerated persons, and vie with
each other for this privilege. Even so established a tradition as that
which placed the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron, and was especially
firm with regard to Abraham (al-Chalîl), is not so irremovable but that
it could be localised somewhere else also. The district of Damascus has
its tradition of Abraham, and the village of Berze its cave with
Abraham’s grave.[667] The most noteworthy instance of the kind is the
grave of Moses himself. It is well known that the Bible has nothing
definite to say of the place of interment of this prophet; and hence in
the Jewish popular tradition the prevailing idea is that it is
impossible to discover the place where rest the bones of the Prophet
with whom the origin of religion is so closely connected—the very same
thing as the Sunnite Mohammedans assert of the grave of ʿAlî.[668] ‘And
he (Jahveh) buried him[669] in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite
Beth-Peor, and _no man has known his grave up to the present day_’
(Deut. XXXIV. 6). The little Pesiḳtâ thinks the purpose of this was
‘that the Israelites might not pay divine honours to his grave, and
raise a sanctuary at it, and also that the heathen should not desecrate
the place by idolatry and abominations.’ It is at least certain that, as
appears from the Biblical words just cited, the grave of Moses was
imagined to be in the valley and beyond the Jordan; for the Prophet had
never crossed the river. It may also probably have been in the region
thus indicated in the Bible, that, according to an assertion in the
older Midrâsh on Deuteronomy, a Roman Emperor—a royal precursor of the
Palestine Exploration Society—sent explorers to find the grave, in vain:
‘The government of the Imperial house sent people out with the order, Go
and see where Moses’ grave is. So they went and searched above, and they
saw something below; so they went down again, and saw it above. So they
divided themselves, and again those above saw it below and those below
saw it above.’[670] Islâm, however, possesses the grave of Moses at
several places. The best known place is the hill Nebî Mûsa, a very
beautiful eminence in a romantic situation, well worth visiting by a
slight but fatiguing détour from the road from Jerusalem to the Dead
Sea; not much visited by pilgrims now on account of its inconvenient
position. Here, in the centre of a ruined compound, is to be seen the
grave of the Prophet, a great sarcophagus, the carpet covering which
bears an inscription informing us of its venerable contents. Thus this
grave is not in the valley, but on a hill; not beyond the Jordan, but on
the Jerusalem side. But also an old mosque at Damascus was said, at all
events six hundred years ago, to contain the sepulchral monument of
Moses;[671] and his grave is also said to be on a hill called Hôreb,
three days’ journey from Moḳḳa.[672]
For Aaron’s burial-place Mohammedan tradition has assigned two places,
one about where it would be looked for according to the Biblical
account,[673] and the other, which is chiefly visited as Aaron’s Grave,
on the hill Ohod.[674] This last position has been brought into
connexion with a legend of Moses and Aaron staying in the Hedjaz.[675]
An Arabic savant, ʿAbd-al-Ġanî al-Nâbulsî, finds an occasion, in his
book of Travels, to notice the circumstance that the grave of the same
Patriarch is shown at numerous places.[676] Sometimes an inscription is
found at _every one_ of these burial-places. But such inscriptions are
not made with _mala fides_ by mere deceivers of the people. They are
only the written expression of what lives in popular belief; and when
inscriptions occur at various places referring to the grave of the same
prophet, the reason is that the local popular tradition of each of those
places happened to be reduced to writing.[677] An interesting example of
this is the grave of the Prophet of the nation of ʿAd, the disappearance
of which—an unsolved ethnological riddle—occasioned the rise of the
Mohammedan legend of the prophet Hûd. The grave of this prophet is shown
both at Damascus[678] and in the region of Ẓafâr in the south of Arabia,
the scene of his activity. Ibn Baṭûṭâ, who visited both tombs, reports
that both were marked with an inscription in the following words: ‘This
is the grave of Hûd, son of ʿÂbir: the most excellent prayers and
greetings for him!’[679]
The grave of Rachel is also marked out by tradition, which puts it in
the neighbourhood of Ephrâth, subsequently and still called Bêth-lechem
(Beth-lehem). This sepulchre is to the present day the object of
pilgrimage to the adherents of three religions. The myth calls Joseph
the son of Rachel, and we know of Ephrayîm (Ephraim) as son of Joseph.
Now the name Ephrayîm seems to belong to the period of the
differentiation of the national legends, and to be a secondary form to
Ephrâth, which passes for the burial-place of his ancestress. For we
find also the derivative noun Ephrâthî, _i.e._ ‘belonging to Ephrâth,’
in the two senses ‘a man from the place Ephrâth’ and ‘a descendant of
Ephraim;’ and Ephraim himself is called Ephrâthâ in a passage in the
Psalms.[680] The prophet Samuel and his ancestors are also said to have
been Ephrâthî-men (1 Sam. I. 1).[681] This identity between the name of
the burial-place of Joseph’s mother and the name of his son is probably
not accidental, but produced under the influence of the national
tendencies of the North; and the reaction of the spirit of the South may
have suppressed the old name of the place and substituted the modern
Bêth-lechem. Now in my view the name Ephrayîm was originally not a
personal but a national name. After the separation the Northern Hebrews
called themselves ‘those belonging to Ephrâth.’ For the word Ephrayîm
has the form of a plural of a so-called _relative_ adjective (Arabic
_nisbâ_), derived from Ephrâth by throwing off the feminine formative
syllable _ath_ and attaching the new formative syllable directly to the
base of the word. Of this Semitic mode of formation the Arabic gives a
good instance; there the feminine ending of the proper name (_t_) is
regularly cast off in forming the _nisbâ_, and the relative termination
is attached to the body of the word: e.g. from Baṣrat^{un} not Baṣratî
but Baṣrî, ‘a man of Basrâ.’ In Hebrew, the feminine termination is cast
off when it appears in the shortened form _â_; _e.g._ Yehûdâ (Judah),
whence Yehûdî; Timnâ, whence Timnî. But an instance occurs in which even
the termination _th_ is cast off before the formation of the relative.
Instead of Kerêthî, the form generally used in the phrase hak-Kerêthî
wehap-Pelêthî ‘the Kerethites and the Pelethites,’ the form Kârî is
found (2 Sam. XX. 23 Kethîbh); the _th_[682] being discarded, and the
vowel of the first syllable lengthened by way of compensation
(_productio suppletoria_). I assume the same formation in the present
case (though the regular _Ephrâthî_ is also used), the termination of
the relative adjective being attached directly to the base Ephr, after
the rejection of the _th_. We know further that the idiom of the
Northern part of the region covered by the Hebrew language contained
much that is generally called Aramaism. The Aramaic relative adjectives
are formed in _ay_, and they are occasionally met with in Hebrew
also;[683] Ephray, forming the plural Ephrayîm, is an instance. This
latter form accordingly signifies ‘those belonging to Ephrâth,’ and is
the national name of the Hebrews of the North, used afterwards as a
designation of their ancestor. Many instances of a similar proceeding
occur in the Biblical genealogies.
Thus the Northern Hebrews possess national memories connecting them with
Joseph-Ephraim. It is therefore quite natural that, as the national
difference which parted the Northern from the Southern people became
more evident, vivid and acknowledged, the mind of the former was more
occupied with the cycle of stories about the person and adventures of
Joseph. The existing mass of stories offered abundant opportunity for
this, and more productive matter could scarcely be imagined than the
story of the hatred of the brethren towards Joseph, the Patriarch of the
North. The Northerns consequently seized this portion of the Patriarchal
history, and worked it out in the interest of their national separatism,
always contriving to let the supremacy of Joseph above Judah clearly
appear. They take pleasure in representing Judah crouching in the dust
before Joseph the ruler, and owing his life entirely to the will of the
generous brother, towards whom he had formerly borne such bitter
ill-will. Joseph is brought forward with satisfaction and pride as the
brother whom the aged father treated with the greatest favour and
distinction, and whose life alone was able to revive his fainting
spirits; while Joseph’s mother was the only woman whom the Patriarch
really loved, whereas the Southerns were descended partly from the ugly
Leah, Judah’s mother, who became Jacob’s wife only by deceit and craft,
and partly from slaves.
National stories are created by the awaking consciousness of opposition;
and, as we have seen, they transfer to primeval times the national
spirit of opposition, which is an affair of the present, and ascribe a
reflex of it to the respective ancestors. This is the spirit of the
stories of Joseph, worked out by the Northern in opposition to the
Southern Hebrews. The enmity of the two Hebrew kingdoms is transferred
to the earliest times, and prefigured in the picture of the relation
between Joseph and his brethren. The chief portions of this mass of
Northern stories which were reduced to writing at a later time, and thus
fixed in a definite form, were contained in the ancient document
distinguished by most critics as the ‘Book of Uprightness’ (Sêpher
hay-Yâshâr).[684]
I must here refer to a very ingenious theory concerning the matter in
hand, which was propounded not long ago by A. Bernstein.[685] He
imagines the differentiation of the mass of Hebrew stories to have been
such that the story of Abraham, the Patriarch of Hebron, belongs to the
Southern kingdom, whilst that of Jacob, the Patriarch of Beth-el, was
produced by the political tendencies of the Northern realm. Before these
more recent stories he supposes the oldest of the Patriarchal stories,
which was connected with the worship at Beer-sheba, to have existed, but
to have been afterwards obscured by the later legend about Abraham.
Bernstein leaves these stories of political tendency to fight it out
together, and entangles them in the antagonism between North and South,
until at last after the disappearance of the opposition they become
common property and are blended together. Although from what has been
said there appears to be no question but that in the treatment of the
legendary matter, the political situation was no insignificant factor,
yet it is impossible to set up the three Patriarchs as products of mere
political tendencies. For we have proved that the origin of their names
goes back to the very earliest age when myths were first created. No
doubt this or that feature in the _tout ensemble_ of the story took a
different character according as it was handed down by the inhabitants
of the Northern or of the Southern kingdom; and sensible interpreters
have long paid particular attention to these differences. But the names
are not later _inventions_ or fictions; they are primeval, and among the
oldest elements of the Hebrew language; and, similarly, the most
prominent features of the stories, derived from the ancient myth, are
free from all that national or political tendency which attached itself
in much later times to the ancient material.
§ 5. In general the Northern kingdom, in which no theocratic tendency
seized on and transformed the existing mass of stories, held the
legends, which were guided in a national direction, firmer, and felt
more affection for them. Besides the Patriarchal stories, those which
fill up the age of the Judges (Shôpheṭîm) gave the most scope to
national pride. There the stories of the true Hebrew national heroes and
their heroic battles with the Philistines are found. In respect to
theocracy this whole age has little importance, and the stories were
utterly incapable of a theocratic transformation. For the very aim of
Hebrew theocracy was, first to prefigure the theocratic destiny of the
Hebrews in the history of the primeval age, and then to show in as
favourable a light as possible the beneficent revolution brought on by
the house of David. But for this purpose it was essential that this
period of theocratic movement should contrast advantageously with an
untheocratic time, unfavourable to any such movement, and that the
spirit of David’s rule should be the very opposite of the preceding
administrations. Consequently, the stories of the Judges suffered no
theocratic transformation. But transformation and development constitute
the very life of Legend, which, if not accommodated to the new current
of feeling, is abandoned, and ceases to live; having in its old form no
meaning to a new age.
There are unequivocal testimonies which prove that to the theocratic
mind the stories of the Judges were utterly dead, and were consequently
neglected by it. Two of these testimonies deserve especial mention. The
Book of Chronicles (dibhrê hay-yâmîm), which we have been long
accustomed to regard as a history written in a strictly sacerdotal
spirit, enumerating by name all the priests, Levites, singers and
door-keepers of the central sanctuary of Jerusalem, utters not a
syllable respecting the entire period of the Judges, but commences the
history proper at the death of Saul and accession of David. And another
part of the Canon, the Book of Ruth, the object of which is to connect
David’s genealogy with an idyl, and which expresses the moderate
theocratic ideas of the restoration, while the matter of its narrative
occupies no determinate chronological position, indicates this very
chronological vagueness by the words wa-yehî bîmê shephôt
hash-shôpheṭîm, ‘it was in the days when the Judges ruled,’ _i.e._ it
was once in the olden time (Ruth I. 1). The ‘Judges’ time' here denotes
an indeterminate period, whose chronology is effaced. That period, in
fact, does labour under an indefiniteness which almost baffles the
chronologist, and the Biblical Canon itself could only be drawn up by
leaving an excessively lax connexion between the three periods—the
occupation of Canaan by the Hebrews, the monarchy after David, and the
untheocratic period lying between the two.
But the Northern spirit was strongly attracted to the period of the
Judges and the stories belonging to it, since it felt itself to be the
continuator of the homogeneous spirit of the history of the times before
David; and thus literature is indebted to an author belonging to the
Northern kingdom for the ground-work of the Book of Judges.[686] Thus
then was accomplished the division of the mass of legends of the
Hebrews.
-----
Footnote 642:
Hartung, in the first part of his _Religion und Mythologie der
Griechen_, contradicts himself again and again on this subject. At
first he makes monotheism precede all development of religion (p. 3),
then he sees nothing religious at all in monotheism (p. 28), and next
the growth of religion proceeds from polytheism to monotheism, not the
reverse way (p. 32).
Footnote 643:
Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, I. 363 _note_.
Footnote 644:
_La Magie chez les Chaldéens_, p. 72.
Footnote 645:
_Annales de la Philosophie chrétienne_, an 1858, p. 260.
Footnote 646:
_Essays, Moral, Political and Literary_, ed. Green and Grose, vol. II.
p. 311; compare Buckle’s _History of Civilisation in England_, in 3
vols. vol. I. p. 251; Pfleiderer, _Die Religion und ihre Geschichte_,
II. 17. Before Hume the view that Polytheism was a degradation of a
previous Monotheism was generally admitted. But Hume’s exposition did
not put an end to this radically false idea. Creuzer’s great work,
_Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen_, is
based on this false assumption, and Schelling’s Philosophy of Religion
starts from the same premiss. And many able English scholars still
speak again and again of the degradation of the primeval Monotheism
into Polytheism. Not only one-sided theologians start from this axiom;
Gladstone’s mythological system, in his _Studies on Homer and the
Homeric Age_, and _Juventus Mundi_ is founded upon it, all progress in
history, philology and mythology notwithstanding.
Footnote 647:
In Virchow and Holtzendorff’s _Sammlung gemeinverständlicher
wissenschaftlicher Vorträge_, 1870, Heft 97, p. 20.
Footnote 648:
_Polit._ I. 1. 7: καὶ τοὺς θεοὺς δὲ διὰ τοῦτο πάντες φασὶ
βασιλεύεσθαι, ὅτι καὶ αὐτοι, οἱ μὲν ἔτι καὶ νῦν, οἱ δὲ τὸ ἀρχαῖον
ἐβασιλεύοντο· ὥσπερ δὲ καὶ τὰ εἴδη ἑαυτοῖς ἀφομοιοῦσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι,
οὕτω καὶ τοὺς βίους τῶν θεῶν. Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_,
I. 466, says: ‘Considering the multitude of superhuman beings, it is
certainly very natural to follow the analogy of human relations, which
is often carried out with great consistency, and to assume gradations
of power among them, one being regarded as the first and highest of
all. But this idea may easily be rendered unfruitful through the very
analogy which suggested it, because in human society the power and
repute of individuals are frequently changing.’ But even this fact is
not unfruitful with regard to religion; for on this analogy a world of
gods with a head liable to change may be imagined.
Footnote 649:
Schelling’s _Sämmtliche Werke_ (Cotta’s edition, 1856), II. Abth. I,
52 (_Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie_).
Footnote 650:
_Theogon._ vv. 882–85.
Footnote 651:
Palgrave, _Central and Eastern Arabia_, I. 33.
Footnote 652:
Von Holtzendorff in the _Zeitsch. für Völkerpsychologie etc._, 1868,
V. 378.
Footnote 653:
Waitz, _l.c._ II. 126 _et seq._ and especially pp. 167, 439, on the
religion and politics of the Negroes, and Gerland in the sixth volume
of the same work (_passim_) on similar institutions among the
Polynesians.
Footnote 654:
In Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, II. 306.
Footnote 655:
_Die Religion der Zukunft_, Berlin 1874, p. 102.
Footnote 656:
_Histoire générale etc._, p. 131.
Footnote 657:
Thus this much-discussed verse contains no prophecy, but a
recollection of the phases of the growth of religion in past times.
Footnote 658:
_Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah_, I. 115 _et seq._ The jealousy with which the
Mohammedans for a long time forbad Christians and Jews to visit the
graves of the Patriarchs only began at the year 664 A.H. ‘L’an 664
Bibars défendit aux chrétiens et aux juifs d’entrer dans le temple de
Hébron; avant cette époque ils y allaient librement, moyennant une
rétribution’ (Quatremère, _Mémoire géogr. et hist. sur l’Égypte_,
Paris 1841, II. 224).
Footnote 659:
Ibn Ḳuteybâ, _Handbuch der Geschichte_, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 10.
Footnote 660:
Burton and Drake, _Unexplored Syria_, London 1872, I. 33.
Footnote 661:
Yâḳût, _Muʿjam_, IV. 291. 11 _et seq_.
Footnote 662:
_Ibid._, p. 438. 16.
Footnote 663:
Burton and Drake, _l.c._ p. 35.
Footnote 664:
Rosen in _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, XI. 59.
Footnote 665:
Yâḳût, III. 720. 3.
Footnote 666:
Zunz, _Geogr. Literatur der Juden_, no. 109, _Gesammelte Schriften_,
I. 191.
Footnote 667:
Alfred von Kremer, _Mittelsyrien und Damaskus_, Vienna 1853, p. 118.
Footnote 668:
al-Damîrî, _Ḥayât al-ḥaywân_, I. 59: ‘ʿAlî is the earliest Imâm whose
burial-place is not known. It is said that before his death he ordered
it to be kept secret, knowing that the sons of Umayya would attain to
power, and that his grave would not then be safe from desecration.
Nevertheless, his grave is shown at various places.’
Footnote 669:
Or ‘And _they_ buried him’ (LXX. ἔθαψαν), as it is understood by many
excellent scholars.—TR.
Footnote 670:
Siphrê debhê Rabh, ed. M. Friedmann, Vienna 1864, § 357 and note 42 of
the editor.
Footnote 671:
Yâḳût, II. 589. 21.
Footnote 672:
Sepp, _Jerusalem und das Heilige Land_, II. 245.
Footnote 673:
_Ṭûr Hârûn_, Yâḳût, III. 559; Ḳazwînî, I. 168; see Burckhardt in
Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 392.
Footnote 674:
_Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1862, XVI. 688.
Footnote 675:
Burton, _Personal Narrative etc._, 1st ed. II. 117, or 2nd ed. I. 331.
Footnote 676:
_Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., l.c._ p. 656. On duplicates in Mohammedan and
Christian traditions about graves, see Sepp’s article on Samaria and
Sichem, (_Ausland_, 1875, pp. 470–72).
Footnote 677:
A _mala fides_ should not be assumed even in the case of inscriptions
like those mentioned by Procopius, _De Bello Vandalico_, V. 2. 13; see
Munk’s _Palestina_, German translation by Levy, p. 193, note 5. They
are everywhere old legendary popular traditions, which in later time
become fixed by an inscription. From such inscriptions we must
distinguish fictitious sepulchral monuments, in which the intention to
delude is manifest, _e.g._ the inscription on the graves of Eldad and
Medad, on which see Zunz, _l.c._ no. 43, p. 167. On Jewish accounts of
the burial-places of the ancients Zunz, _l.c._ pp. 182 and 210, should
be consulted.
Footnote 678:
Sepp, _l.c._, II. 269.
Footnote 679:
_Voyages_, I. 205, II. 203. A brief list of graves of prophets which
are shown at Tiberias and some other places is given in Yâḳût, III.
512.
Footnote 680:
See Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 141.
Footnote 681:
If this means that he belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, it is easy to
understand why the author of the Chronicle (1 Chr. IV. 18 _et seq._)
claims him for the tribe of Levi, when we consider the generally
acknowledged Levitical tendency of that late book of history. It would
appear to one holding Levitical sentiments impossible that a man who
is said to have often offered sacrifices (1 Sam. IX. 13), and to have
served in the sanctuary of Shiloh under the High-priest Eli, should
have been anything but a Levite.
Footnote 682:
Consequently the discarded ת th must be regarded as an inflexion, and
shows us that the word has no connexion with Crete.
Footnote 683:
Ewald, _Ausführl. Lehrb. d. hebr. Sprache_, § 164. c; _Grammar_
transl. Nicholson, § 343 end.
Footnote 684:
Aug. Knobel, _Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua_, p. 544. On
the Northern origin of this book most candid Biblical critics are
agreed.
Footnote 685:
_Ursprung der Sagen von Abraham, Isak und Jakob_. Kritische
Untersuchung von A. Bernstein. Berlin 1871.
Footnote 686:
As the drawing up of the Canon belongs to an age in which the
antagonism between North and South had ceased to exist, the literary
products of the North which were still preserved from old times
obtained a place in it, though always brought into harmony with the
all-pervading theocratic character by occasional interpolated
modifications of sentiment.
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