IDOLATRY
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IDOLATRY
identified with Enoch, the reference may be to Enoch of the line of Seth. It is reasonable to suppose that the worship of these antediluvians originated before the Flood, for it is unlikely that it would have been insti- tuted after it. Some Jewish writers, grounding their theory on a forced interpretation of Gen. iv, 26, assign to Enos, the son of Seth, the unenviable notoriety of having been the first to pay divine honors to the host of heaven, and to lead others into the like error (Mai- mon. De Idol, i, 1). E. Solomon Jarchi, on the other hand, while admitting the same verse to contain the first accovmt of the origin of idolatry, luiderstands it as implying the deification of men and plants. Arabic tradition, according to Sir W. Jones, connects the people of Yemen with the same apostasj\ The third in de- scent from Joktan, and therefore a contemporary of Na- hor, took the surname of A bdu Shams, or " servant of the sun," whom he and his family worshipped, while other tribes honored the planets and fixed stars (Hales, Chronol. ii, 59, 4to ed.). Nimrod, again, to whom is as- cribed the introduction of Zabianism, was after his death transferred to the constellation Orion, and on the slen- der foimdation of the expression " Ur of the Chaldees" (Gen. xi, 31) is built the fabulous history of Abraham and Nimrod, narrated in the legends of the Jews and Mussulmans ( Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrash, i, 23 ; Weil, Bill. Leg. p. 47-74; Hyde, Rd. Pen: c. 2).— Smith.
II. Classification of Idolatry. — All immixed systems of idolatry may be classified under the following heads; all mixed systems may be resolved into two or more of them. We give in this connection general illustrations of these species of false worship as evinced by the na- tions associated with the Jewish people, reserving for the next head a more complete survey of the idolatrous systems of the most important of these nations sepa- rately.
1. Low nature-worship, or fetishism, the worship of animals, trees, rivers, hills, and stones. The fetishism of the negroes is thought to admit of a belief in a su- preme intelligence : if this be true, such a belief is either a relic of a higher religion, or else is derived from the Muslim tribes of Africa. Fetishism is closely connected with magic, and the Nigritian priests are universally magicians.
Beast-worship was exemplified in the calves of Jero- boam and the dark hints which seem to point to the goat of Jlendes. There is no actual proof that the Is- raelites ever joined in the service of Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines, though Ahaziah sent stealthily to Baalzebub, the fly-god of Ekron (2 Kings i). Some have explained the allusion in Zeph. i, 9 as referring to a prac- tice connected with the worship of Dagon; comp. 1 Sam. V, 5. The Syrians are stated by Xenophon {Anah. i, 4, § 9) to have paid divine honors to fish. In later times the brazen serpent became the object of idolatrous homage (2 Kings xviii, 4). But whether the latter was regarded with superstitious reverence as a memorial of their early history, or whether incense was offered to it as a symbol of some power of nature, cannot now be ex- actly determined. The threatening in Lev. xxvi, 30, " I will put yoiu: carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols," may fairly be considered as directed against the tendency to regard animals, as in Egypt, as the sym- bols of deity. Tradition says that Nergal, the god of the men of Cuth, the idol of fire according to Leusden {Phil. Ilebr. Mixt. diss. 43), was worshipped under the form of a cock ; Ashima as a he-goat, the emblem of generative power ; Nibhaz as a dog ; Adrammelech as a mule or peacock ; and Anammelech as a horse or pheas- ant.
The singular reverence with which trees have in all ages been honored is not without examjile in the liisto- ry of the Hebrews. The terebinth at Mamre, beneath which Abraham built an altar (Gen. xii, 7 ; xiii, 18), and the memoiial grove planted by him at Beersheba (Gen. xxi, 33), were intimately connected with patri- archal worship though in after ages his descendants
were forbidden to do that which he did with impunity, in order to avoid the contamination of idolatry. Jerome {Onomasticon, s. v. Drys) mentions an oak near Hebron which existed in his infancy, and was the traditional tree beneath which Abraham dwelt. It was regarded with great reverence, and was made an object of wor- ship by the heathen. Modern Palestine abounds with sacred trees. They are found " all over the land cover- ed with bits of rags from the garments of passing vil- lagers, hung up as acknowledgments, or as deprecatory signals and charms; and we find beautiful clumps of oak-trees sacred to a kind of beings called Jacob's daughters" (Thomson, The Land and the Bool; ii, 151). See Grove. As a sjinptom of the rapidly degener- ating spirit, the oak of Shechem, which stood in the sanctuary of Jehovah (Josh, xxiv, 26), and beneath which Joshua set up the stone of witness, perhaps ap- pears in Judges (ix, 37) as " the oak (not ' plain,' as in the A. V.) of soothsayers" or " augurs." This, indeed, may be a relic of the ancient Canaanitish worship ; an older name associated with idolatry, which the conquer- ing Hebrews were commanded and endeavored to oblit- erate (Dent, xii, 3).