' 0. H. Sptirgeua. ' S»ying of llubammad.
LEVITICUS XVI. 22 357
evil angels who formed unholy alliances with the " daughters of men " (Gen. vi 2, 4). But whatever the precise attributes with which Azazel was invested at the time when the ritual of Lev. xvi. was framed, there can be little doubt that the ceremonial was intended as a symbolical declaration that the land and people are now purged from guilt, their sins being handed over to the evil spirit to whom they are held to belong, and whose home is in the desolate wilderness, remote from human habitations (verse 22, "into a land cut off"). No doubt the rite is a survival from an older stage of popular belief, engrafted on, and accommodated to, the sacrificial system of the Hebrews. For the expulsion of evils, whether maladies or sins, from a community, by their being laid symbolically upon a material medium, there are many analogies in other countries. The belief in goblins, or demons (Jinn), haunting the wilderness and vexing the traveller, is particidarly common in Arabia : in the Old Testament it is found in Lev. xvii. 7 ; Isa. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14 (" satyrs," lit. he-goats, and Lilith, the night-monster). Azazel must have been such a spirit, sufficiantly distinguished from the rest, in popular imagination, to receive a special name, and no doubt invested with attributes which, though unknown to us, were perfectly familiar to those for whom the ceremonial of Lev. xvi. was first designed.
^ The rendering of the A.V., " scapegoat," inherited from the " Great Bible " of 1539, may be traced back through Seb. Miinster (" caper abiturus "), Coverdale (" the free goat "), Luther (" der ledige Bock "), and Jerome (" caper emissarius ") to the Greek translation of Symmachus ; but it implies a derivation opposed to the genius of the Hebrew language, besides being inconsistent with the marked antithesis between " for Azazel " and " for Jehovah," which does not leave it open to doubt that the former is conceived as a personal being, to whom (cf. verse 26) the goat is sent. All the principal modern authorities agree in explaining Azazel as a personal name. " Scapegoat " is, however, a felicitous expression ; it has become classical in English ; and there is no reason why it should not be retained as a term descriptive of the goat sent into the wilderness, provided it be clearly understood that it is in no way a rendering of the Hebrew.^
2. The Jewish rite presents marks of strong kinship with similar rites which are still observed in every part of the world
' 8. R, DriT»r.
358 THE SCAPEGOAT
It was originally a rite of exorcism, and was modified into an object-parable of those great ethical lessons which God wished to impress upon the conscience of the chosen people, and in due time upon the human race. On the four great continents, and in many islands of the sea, it is carried out, with the variations due to local conditions, at fixed seasons of the year, or in times of epidemic. In some form or other it must have been in vogue before the dispersion of the primitive races, or at least have been suggested by ideas common to mankind in the cradle-lands of the prehistoric dawn. It was practised amongst unlettered and classical races alike, and in some parts of Europe variant types of the ceremony have survived the spread of the Christian faith.
^ In some of the islands of South-Eastern Asia the ceremony is found in one of its most elementary forms. The custom has, of course, adapted itself to conditions where domestic animals are unknown and the inland areas present no deserts into which a scape-victim bearing the iUs of the people could be dismissed. A ship is prepared on board which rice, eggs, and tobacco are placed, whilst a priest cries out: "All ye sicknesses, measles, agues, depart ! " The ship is carried down to the shore, launched when a breeze begins to blow from off the land, and left to drift out to sea. The priest then cries out, "All the sicknesses are gone ! " and the people who had shut themselves up in their homes through fear come forth again with a sense of relief. In the inland parts of the island the priests brush the people with branches of trees which are supposed to gather up all the evil influences that cleave to their bodies, and then throw the infected branches into the river to be carried out to sea.^
^ A tribe of American Indians make white dogs their scape- victims, and drive them ofif into the prairie, whilst another tribe paint a man black to represent a demon and at last chase him from the village. A similar custom prevails amongst the aborigines of the Chinese Highlands. In times of epidemic a man is chosen for the victim, his face is smeared with paint, and with curses and tomtoms he is then driven forth from the hamlet and forbidden to return.^
3. The Jewish religion took hold upon a truth in this crude observance common to all races, and taught the multitude to look for release from sin by one who should be made sin for them. In the prefigurative ceremony the burden of the assembly's sin was