THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Yet this political development opened a new way
for the infiltration of worship of other deities.
While doubtless the large harem of
Develop- Solomon was not formed without refment in erence to political contingencies, it
the Regal was only one of the causes of the Period. erection of sanctuaries to other gods. More significant is the domestication in Israel of the Phenician Ashtoreth (q.v.), the Moabitic Chemosh (q.v.), and the Ammonitic Moloch (q.v.), under whose protection the capital was placed. Thus three motives contributed to the introduction of a syncretistic worship; political motives which in part underlay Solomon's gathering of a harem; the syncretism of calf-worship in the northern kingdom by appropriation of a Baal-cult in Yahweh- worship; and the introduction of new deities under the dynasty of Omri, which passed them on into Judah through Athaliah. In the eighth century, through the development which brought the Mesopotamian powers into the West, a new stream of foreign religious customs began to cut its channel into Israel. New deities, new objects of cultic meaning, were borne on this stream (Jer. xix. 4; Ezek. xxviii. 14), and the worship of the stars was included (II Kings xvii. 16). Amos (v. 26), Isaiah (ii. 5), and the author of the Books of Kings knew of hosts of deities derived from these sources (cf. Jer. xxxix. 3), and in Judah Manasseh opened wide the gates for their entrance. The temple and private houses were made the dwellingplaces of these new deities (II Kings xxi. 3-7, xxiii. 4-12; Ezek. viii. 12). The worship of the sun and of the signs of the zodiac came into prominence, as well as that of the " Queen of Heaven." Tammuz, the Babylonian Adonis (Ezek. viii. 14), and Philistine and Egyptian deities found entrance. While the reformation of Josiah removed the emblems of these cults, the cult itself was not destroyed but continued, not merely in Samaria, but in Jerusalem itself, until the Exile, in syncretistic union with the cult of Yahweh. The persistent strength of the religion of Yahweh in the midst of these assaults was manifested in the opposition of prophecy, contending for the unity of that deity. A point of rebuke is found for Israel in the fact of the fidelity of the heathen to their deities. And the prophet rises to the conception of the world-wide rule of the God of Israel.
While externally the Babylonian exile drew a
boundary line between the idolatrous tendencies of
the earlier people and the post-exilic
Exilic and iconoclastic type, there are many signs
Post-Exilic among the exiles of relapse into the
Develop- old idolatry and of lapses into newer ment. forms (Ezek. xiv. 1-8; Isa. xlii. 17). While it cannot be proved that the Babylonian chief gods Bel, Marduk, Nebo, obtained firm lodgment, a sort of fatalism appeared in the worship of Gad and Meni (qq.v.) as is indicated by Isa. lxv. 11. Traces of adoption of cults from the Persians are hard to discover. The little book of Tobit suggests a mingling from the side of demonology (see Asmodeus). The period immediately before the exit of the religion of the Old Testament shows that intimately connected with the development of
a faith is degeneration and rankness of growth. Thus the Maccabean epoch revealed a last mighty flaring-up of the idolatrous inclination as the prelude to a period of martyrdom and victory for Israelitic faith. Greek religion found ready entrance and firm standing-ground among the Jews. The high priest Joshua, who changed his name to Jason, and Alcimus appeared as leaders of the Greek party. Not only was there sent a contribution to the great official feast of the Melkart-Heracles of Tyre, but in Jerusalem a sanctuary was consecrated to Olympian Zeus and on Gerizim one to Zeus Xenios. Not only this, but there arose in the city before the gates altars to Greek deities like Artemis, Apollo, and Hecate. This time it was not the living word of prophecy which armed the opposition to these doings, but for the first time the written word, through which alone not merely the national religion, but the religion of mankind could be established. (P. Kleineet.)
Bibliography: The literature under Images and Image Worship and the appropriate sections in works on the History of Israel (see under Ahab) should be consulted. Also: F. Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, vol. ii., Darmstadt, 1841; E. M. de Vogue1, Melanges d'archeologie orientale, Paris, 1S6S; A. Kuenen, Godsdienst van Israel, 2 vols., Harlem, 1869-70; R. Smend, Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte, Freiburg, 1893; C. P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion, vol. i., Gotha, 1895; G. B. Gray, Hebrew Proper Names, London, 1896; H. Winckler, Thontafeln von Tel-Amarna, Berlin, 1896, Eng. transl., ib., 1896; Chantepie de la Saussaye, Religionsgeschichte, i. 384-467, Tubingen, 1905; DB, ii. 445-448; EB, ii. 2152-2158; JE, xii. 568-569.
IDUHOEA. See Edom.
IGNATIUS (ig-ne'shi-us) OF ANTIOCH: Little
is known of the life of Ignatius of Antioch except
what may be gathered from the letters
Life of bearing his name. Irenseus (Hcer. V.,
Ignatius, xxviii. 4) quotes him as a martyr who was condemned to be thrown to the beasts; Origen quotes him once (Prologue to Cant.), and in the sixth homily on Luke mentions him as the successor of Peter in the bishopric of Antioch, giving the same account of his death as Irenaeus. Eusebius knows no independent facts, and the chronology of the lists of the bishops of Antioch which he gives is doubtful. He too calls him the second bishop; though the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) combine two traditions by making Peter appoint first Euodius, the immediate predecessor of Ignatius, and then Ignatius. Purely legendary are the assertions that Ignatius was the child mentioned in Matt, xviii. 4, and that he was a disciple of John or of Peter. The Acta Martyrii relating to him must also be abandoned as historical sources. Two independent accounts exist, the Martyrium Colbertinum (first published by Ussher in a Latin version, 1647, then by Ruinart in Greek, 1689), which is identical with the Syriac version given in part by Cureton and in full by Mosinger (1S72); and the Martyrium Vaticanum, published by Dressel from a Vatican manuscript, after Ussher had given a slightly different text from one at Oxford. Besides these there are three others formed by a combination of the two; but the authenticity of even the Colbertinum, which has the best claim, is now seldom defended. This result