roved to have once prevailed among the tribes of srael, yet we certainly meet with a conception of sacrifice which regards sacramental communion between the Deity and the offerer as the princi- pal feature—a communion which is established by their jointly partaking of the sacrificial blood (after- wards by the god receiving the blood and the fat, while the offerer has the flesh for his portion).
As to the manifold other rites and usages (mourning customs, the hérem and other warlike practices, human sacrifice, circumcision, celebra- tion of festivals), the original motive has not always been discoverable with certainty; but in most instances the connexion with Animism or some other form of belief in demons is clear enough.
iii. MORAL CONDITIONS.—Not without interest, finally, is the question, What were the moral con-
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
624 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
ann TE ne iieiicinememmesees oo eee ee
ditions which Moses found amongst the Israelitish tribes of his time? It was long the fashion
(especially as the result of Schiller’s essay on ‘ Die
Sendung Mose’s’) to represent the contemporaries of Moses as utterly uncivilized and at the same
time—upon the ground of an Egyptian narrative handed down by Josephus (c. Apion. i, 26)—as a
people quite permeated with leprosy. All the
brighter was the halo of glory about the name of Moses, who was believed to have so quickly trans- formed this half-brutalized horde into a religious
community that stood so high, both intellectually and morally. As a matter of fact, however, the moral conditions in Israel must have been quite the same as we still find existing among the genuine Bedawin at the present day. There is no such thing as acting upon conscious moral
principles; and hence there is no thought of
morality properly so called, but custom exercises a powerful influence, which no one can disregard with impunity. ‘No such thing is wont to be done in Israel’ (2S 13”, cf. also Gn 209 2928 347),— this is the strongest condemnation of an act of wrong-doing. Custom allows even a married man the freest intercourse with concubines and female slaves, but it guards most strictly the honour of the virgin and the married woman; custom de- mands, unconditionally, the execution of blood- revenge, but (at least for a time) subordinates even this duty to the sacredness of a guest’s rights ; custom requires honesty and uprightness towards one’s fellow-tribesmen, but has no scruple about allowing deceit and cheating to be practised on a stranger.—As in social life, so also in matters of cultus it is custom that is the ruling factor. Fear to violate custom, fear of the consequences of such violation—in particular, dread of ceremonial un- dled nese all. this is deeply ingrained; but of ‘sin,’ in the moral sense attached by us to the term, it is impossible to speak.
The condition of things above described was not all at once changed by the proclamation of Jahwism. The force of custom asserted itself even in retaining practices which could never be recon- ciled with any true morality, just as Islam has succeeded only to a very limited extent in trans- forming the character of the genuine Bedawin. Nevertheless, it will be found that, at the very commencement of the religion of Israel, the fruitful germs must have been sown from which— although only very gradually, and at first only among a few—conscious morality sprang up. Without such a germinating power Israel's tri- umph over the undoubtedly superior culture of the Canaanites would be inconceivable.
II. FOUNDING OF THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL (JAHWISM) BY Mosms arr SINAI,
Regarding the work of Moses, regarding the extent and content of the laws pro- mulgated by him, we have very varied accounts in the different sources of the Pentateuch. But there are certain points which they all take for granted as firmly established by tradition : namely, that Moses, of the tribe of Levi, was the first to proclaim Jahweh as the God of the whole people of Israel, and as their Deliverer from the bondage of Egypt; that at Sinai he brought about the conclusion of a ‘covenant’ (see below) between Jahweh and Israel; that he at least laid the foundation of the judicial and ceremonial ordi- nances in Israel, and that he left behind him more or less copious notes on all this,
The supposition that the Pentateuch still con- tains passages from Moses’ own hand is not to be unconditionally set aside. But its scientific proof is now absolutely impossible. Hence the only ques-
and especially
tion can be, Is the correctness of the above pro- positions, which we noted as fixed elements of tradition, demonstrable by backward inferences from later historical facts? Our answer is that to a large extent—all hypercriticism notwithstand- ing—this proof is possible, and that especially in regard to the main points. Amongst the latter we include—
i. THE PERSON OF MOSES AS THE FOUNDER OF THE JAHWEH RELIGION.—1. All attempts to rele- gate the person of Moses to the realm of myth have quite properly been abandoned. It is another question how far the traditions concerning him rest on pure legend. As points that are quite beyond suspicion may be noted: his descent from the tribe of Levi; his name Mosheh (prob. =Egyp. mesu ‘son,’ possibly combined originally with the name of a god); his flight to Sinai on account of a homicide, and his marriage with a Midianite priest’s daughter, Zipporah, who became the mother of two sons; his return to Egypt, and deliverance of the Israelite serfs from Pharaoh; further, his strife with his brother Aaron (whose historicity has been denied on insufficient grounds) and his sister Miriam on account of a Cushite woman; and, finally, his prolonged sojourn in Kadesh, and his death on the east side of Jordan. All these data are derived from the early sources, and their invention is either inconceivable or at. least ex- tremely improbable. On the other hand, the legend of his birth and exposure may have been woven about the (linguistically impossible) inter- pretation of his name in Ex 2”; the names of his parents, Amram and Jochebed, are first known to the Priests’ Code. The assumption that he was ‘instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians’ (Ac 7”) is connected, of course, with his being brought up by Pharaoh’s daughter, but it finds no real support in Ex 2 In any case there is no justification for finding in Moses’ acquaintance with Egyptian mysteries the explanation not only of his intellectual superiority to his fellow-country- men, but even of the Divine name Jahweh and of certain institutions (for example, the sacred Ark) connected with worship, if not, indeed, of the whole activity of Moses as a founder of religion.* Such borrowing on his part is not only incapable of proof, it is extremely improbable; for it is not the way of one ancient people to adopt the gods of another, or even elements of their cultus, at a time when it sees this other people and its gods overcome by another god. Whether Moses was moved to his work by other influences, such as that of the Kenites about Mt. Sinai, will have to be afterwards considered. The ancient tradition of Israel knows of nothing except that he was directly called by Jahweh at Sinai, and, in spite of his refusal at first, sent to deliver his people. The work of Moses is thus traced to Divine revela- tion. How this produced its effect on the mind of Moses, remains a secret to us as much as in all similar cases when God reveals Himself to His chosen instruments. But the fact is not' on that account any the less certain to us, for it is wit- nessed to by its results. However many of the features of that Pandemonism which was common to the Semites may have continued to adhere to the religion of Israel after the time of Moses, it exhibits, even as early as the period of the J udges, features which raise it far above the popular re- ligions of the neighbouring peoples, and which can be explained only as due to the continued influ- ence of a highly endowed spiritual personality.