EXTRA VOL,—22
mot F
THEOCRACY 337 broader or more unexceptionable statement as to the special relation of the true God to Israel as their ruler, and of their relation to Him as His subjects, it would be difficult to imagine.
In other places, however, Josephus describes the Mosaic con- stitution as an ‘aristocracy,’ connecting this with the view that it is also a theocracy, which he indicates without using the term. Thus in his version of Moses’ address to the people at the close of his life,—in which he gives more prominence, so far as provision for government was con- cerned, to the judges who were to be appointed in all their gates, of whom Moses had spoken (Dt 1618 115f; cf. Ant. rv. Vili. 14), than to the priests,—he makes Moses say, ‘An aristo- cracy is best, and the life in harmony therewith ; let not desire for another polity take hold of you, but cherish this one, and having the Jaws as your masters, do all things according to them; for it suffices to have God for your ruler’ (Ant. vy. viii. 17). Later on he explains Samuel’s grief at the people’s demand for a king by his hatred of kings and conviction that an aristocracy is Divine, and that it makes those happy who haye it for their form of polity (Ant. vr. iii. 3). Once more, of the Return from Exile he writes that those who then settled in Jerusalem adopted ‘an aristocratic constitution with an oligarchy, for,’ he adds, ‘the chief priests were at the head of affairs till the descendants of the Hasmonwan became kings’ (Ant, x1. iv. 8). See, further, art. RELIGION or ISRAWL, U. iii. 1.
It is to be observed that Josephus lays no stress on the ‘holiness,’ either official or personal, of the ruling class, as he would have done if he had held the view attributed to him by Wellhausen ; and in the last passage cited he even distinguishes the ‘ oli- garchy’ of priests from that ‘aristocracy’ which he regards as so desirable. It appears that for him the theocratic character of the system lay, not in its formal institutions but in the fact that they were of a kind to throw much on the people them- selves. There was no excessively eminent human personage to intercept the regards that should be turned on God alone. Men were to submit to the laws because they had received them from God, and to depend on His guidance and protection— which included, no doubt, the raising up of leaders for times of special need.
ii. We pass to the actual history of the belief in Jehovah’s kingship over Israel. (a) The connexion of the belief with Semitic religious ideas.—This was one of those conceptions derived from the general stock of Semitic religious ideas, which in Israel came to be immeasurably refined and exalted. In the OT itself we have evidence that in other instances also the tribal or national god was regarded as the king of the tribe or nation. In early times it was the specific duty of the chieftain or king to lead in war, so that the notion of chieftainship or kingship is itself involved in the belief implied in the language of Jephthah (Jg 11%) that the god fought for his people, and won and held the territories in which they dwelt (cf. 1S 26, Ru 1’, and the phrase in Is 10° ‘the king- doms of the idols’). For evidence from other sources, see W. R. Smith, RS! 66f.
(6) The view attributed to Gideon and to Samuel that the establishment of an earthly kingship implied disloyalty to Jehovah.—In two passages in O'T the proposal to establish an earthly monarchy is treated as an infringement of Jehovah’s rights, Jg 8% and 1S8with12". It will be necessary that we should discuss briefly the historical value of these notices. And, first, a few words as to the documents.
There is a large amount of agreement among critics to the effect that in the Book of Judges the work may be traced of a compiler of the age of Deuteronomy, 7.e. the latter period of the Jewish kingdom, who has provided a framework into which he has fitted narratives, and perhaps a collection of narratives, of an earlier age. Some touches, also, are assigned to a post-exilic editor. The question whether Gideon’s refusal of the kingship is a trait introduced by one of the later hands will have to be considered in connexion with the similar view of human monarchy appearing in1Samuel. In the portion of that book which relates to the choice of Saul, two accounts are combined which give distinct, and in some respects differing, views of the transaction. That one in which the desire for a king is repre- sented as an act of disloyalty to Jehovah is generally regarded
as the later of the two. Wellhausen refers it, chiefly because of its attitude on this point, to the exilic or post-exilic time, when
338 THEOCRACY
the monarchy had been overthrown and the government was in the hands of the chief priests (Prolegomena, Eng. tr. pp. 249, 253-6, and 3rd German ed. i. pp. 260, 265-8). The statement in regard to Gideon in Jg 823 he necessarily supposes to have been introduced at the same period (td. Eng. tr. p. 239, and 8rd Germ. ed. p. 249). Other competent critics, however, point out marked affinities between the document embodied in 1 Samuel, which is now in question, and E of the Pentateuch (Budde, ZATW yp. 230f.; Driver, LOT'S p. 177f.); and in the connexion of this acumen with the Northern Kingdom is to be found, according to Budde, the true explanation of its low estimate of the monarchy (ib. pp. 235, 236). He accounts for the words of Gideon in like manner (‘Richter’ in Kurzer Handcom. wr loc., and FEinieit. lixt.). If we must choose between these views, the latter is certainly the more reasonable. It is a pure figment of the imagination, and opposed to all the evidence which we possess, tio suppose that, under the constitution estab- lished after the Exile, men learned to depreciate the monarchy. On the contrary, we know that the hope of its restoration was still cherished ; and, although there was a period in which this hope died down, there is no sign that any other ideal was formed of a nature to exclude it. Indeed, if such had been the case, its revival, without leaving any trace of a struggle between it and other aspirations, would have been well-nigh impossible, There were, on the other hand, no sacred associations with any one of the successive dynasties in the Northern Kingdom, and prophets had been brought into far more frequent and sterner conflict with individual kings. It would be more conceivable that here religious men should have become convinced of an inherent incompatibility between human and Divine sovereignty. But evidence is wanting that such was the case. [In Hos 1310 no opposition to kingship on principle is implied. With regard to Hos 109, see G. A. Smith in Hapositor’s Bible, p. 288, n. 1.]