s 27°, and the late addition to Is 178). With the exception perhaps of Mic 5%, none of these pas- sages goes further back than the time of Josiah. There is, of course, a complete distinction between the ’dsheradh as the sacred pole, and the goddess Asherah, whose existence appears to be now placed beyond doubt by the Tel el-Amarna letters. Her worship (1 K 15%, 2 K 217 234) wears the aspect of pure idolatry, and hence does not come under the category of the religion of Israel.
The use of other figures besides the mazzébah and the ’dshérdh to represent the nearness of the Deity cannot be proved, to say the least of it, for the pre-Mosaic period. In favour of such a view may
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RELIGION OF ISRAEL 621
be urged the tenacity with which the Jahweh cultus clung for a very long period to the use of images of Jahweh ; and it is not impossible that in these the form of the ’é¢m that were once worshipped had been handed down. On the other hand, the notion cannot be admitted that any but images of Jahweh were ever tolerated within the pale of the Jahweh worship. This must hold good also of the Térdphim, even if these were originally derived from the realm of heathendom; and the whole question must accordingly be left for discussion in connexion with the pre-Prophetic cultus of Israel.
3. But, again, the worship of Jahweh retained a number of ritual practices which may be held with all the more certainty to have been derived from the pre-Mosaic period, since they one and all have their analogues in the practices of the heathen Semites. This category includes walking barefoot in sacred places (Ex 3°, Jos 5%; even the going barefoot in token of mourning, 2S 15°, Is 207%, like other forms of uncovering, has to be looked at, as explained above, from the religious point of view); washing the person and the clothes (Kx 19 and often) before approaching the presence of the Deity (cf. the changing of the clothes, Gn 35°). When we find in the Priests’ Code constant in- junctions to wash the person and the clothes in order to recover lost Levitical purity, no doubt the primary intention of these is that outward physical purity ‘is to be the symbol and representation of inward. But, all the same, there is here a relic of those conceptions which led to the attempt, by means of external cleansing, to escape direct injury from demons or even from an angry god. And if in Ex 28 and Ly 64 2 16” the priests are enjoined to wear their official garments only when they are conducting Divine service, the older passage, Ezk 44%, shows that there was a further intention in this than simply to guard against a profanation of the holy garments. The danger was rather that by touching these garments the people would be hallowed; i.e. become forfeit to the sanctuary, and thus require a ransom to be paid for them. Here, again, we make acquaintance with the primi- tive notion that all close contact with the Deity or with anything consecrated to Him was, if not fatal, at least dangerous. But amongst forms of close contact was included the act of looking upon ; hence the covering of the head in presence of the Deity, as is done by Moses in Ex 3° and Elijah in 1 K 193, The same idea, that the beholding of the Deity is fatal, meets us in Gn 16" 32”, Ex 197 33”, In all these instances it is true it is Jahweh that is in question, but it may be regarded as certain that the idea is an inheritance from the pre-Jahwistic era.
4, Of priests in pre-Jahwistic times no recollec- tion has been preserved. In any case there was no need of their services for offering sacrifice, seeing that this office could be performed equally well, even in the worship of J ahweh, by any head of a household. The more menial services were discharged, as still continued to be the case under Moses (Ex 24°), by the young men. On the other hand, designations like ‘ Oracle -terebinth’ (see above, p. 616%) point to the existence of Oracle priests at particular sanctuaries, just as Gn 25” naively assumes the existence of a Jahweh-oracle in the time of Rebekah.
5. There are various passages from which (in combination with the hypothesis of Ancestor Worship) the inference has been drawn that at first only the family or the tribe was regarded as the sacral body. ‘Thus in Ex 21° the slave who does not wish to go free is to be pinned by the ear to the doorpost ‘before God,’ and thus incor-
orated with the sacral body belonging to this bod. The Passover ceremony (see below) likewise
assumes the family to be the sacral body. In1S 20° we read of an annual offering by the family of David; but this does not prevent David’s being at the same time missed at a sacrificial meal (for in ancient times this character belongs to all eating of the flesh of an animal that was lawful for sacrifice) at the New Moon; and there were many other occasions when the sacral fellowship could not possibly be confined to a family or even to a tribe. Thus in war, which from the ancient Semitic point of view always came under the category of religious transactions, it is evident that all comrades in arms formed one sacral fellow- ship, whose members collectively ‘hallow the war,’ i.e. consecrate themselves for battle by abstin- ence from sexual intercourse (cf. 1S 21°, where David pretends to be on military duty ; 28 i) as well as by inaugural offerings (1 S 7° 13%, where the sacrifices are intended to propitiate Jahweh), just as in Ex 19" the people prepare themselves by continence for drawing near to God. Also the prescriptions of Dt 20°7 234, so strange to our notions, are explicable as survivals from a time when certain bodily functions, and in particular sexual relations, were believed to involve danger from demons. *