Part 26

(a) _Codified law_ and the written record of the patriarchal history, as well as the life and work of the lawgiver Moses (to whom the entire body of law came to be ascribed), assumed an ever greater importance. The reverence felt for the canonized _Torah_ or law (the Pentateuch or so-called five books of Moses) grew even into worship. Of this spirit we find clear expression in some of the later psalms, e.g. the elaborate alphabetic Ps. cxix. and the latter portion of Ps. xix. There were various causes which combined to enhance the importance of the written _Torah_ (the "instruction" _par excellence_ communicated by God through Moses). Chief among these were (1) _The conception of God as transcendent_. We have taken due note of Amos, who unfolded the character of Yahweh as universal righteous sovereign; and also the sublime portrayal of His exalted nature in Isa. xl. (verse 15; cf. 22-26, and Job xxxvi. 22-xlii. 6). The intellectual influence of Greece, manifested in Alexandrian philosophy, tended to remove God still further from the human world of phenomena into that of an inaccessible transcendental abstraction. Little, therefore, was possible for the Jew save strict performance of the requirements of the Torah, once for all given to Moses on Sinai, and, in his approach to the awful and unknown mystery, to rely on ceremonial and ascetic performances (see Wendt's _Teaching of Jesus_, i. 55 foll.). The same tendency led the pious worshippers to avoid His awful name and to substitute _Adonai_ in their scriptures or to use in the Mishna the term "name" (_shem_) or "heaven." (2) The _Maccabean conflict_ (165 B.C.) tended to accentuate the national sentiment of antagonism to Hellenic influence. The Hasidim or pious devotees, who arose at that time, were the originators of the Pharisaic movement which was conservative as well as national, and laid stress on the strict performance of the law.

(b) _Eschatology_ in the Judaism of the Greek period began to assume a new form. The pre-exilian prophets (especially Isaiah) spoke of the forthcoming crisis in the world's history as a "day of the Lord." These were usually regarded as visitations of chastisement for national sins and vindications of divine righteousness or judgments, i.e. assertions of God's power as judge (_shophet_). By the older prophets this judgment of God or "day of Yahweh" was never held to be far removed from the horizon of the present or the world in which they lived. But now as we enter the Greek period (320 B.C. and onwards) there is a gradual change from prophecy to _apocalyptic_. "It may be asserted in general terms that whereas prophecy foretells a definite future which has its foundation in the present, apocalyptic directs its anticipations solely and simply to the future, to a new world-period which stands sharply contrasted with the present. The classical model for all apocalyptic is to be found in Dan. vii. It is only after a great war of destruction, a day of Yahweh's great judgment, that the dominion of God will begin" (Bousset). Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. clearly bear the apocalyptic character; so also Isa. xxxiv. and notably Isa. xxiv.-xxvii. Apocalyptic, as Baldensperger has shown, formed a counterpoise to the normal current of conformity to law. It arose from a spiritual movement in answer to the yearning of the heart: "O that Thou mightest rend the heavens and come down and the mountains quake at Thy presence!" (Isa. lxiv. 1 [Heb. lxiii. 19]); and it was intended to meet the craving of souls sick with waiting and disappointment. The present outlook was hopeless, but in the enlarged horizon of time as well as space the thoughts of some of the most spiritual minds in Judaism were directed to the transcendent and ultimate. The present world was corrupt and subject to Satan and the powers of darkness. This they called "the present _aeon_" (age). Their hopes were therefore directed to "the coming aeon." Between the two aeons there would take place the _advent of the Messiah_, who would lead the struggle with evil powers which was called "the agonies of the Messiah." This terrible intermezzo was no longer terrestrial, but was a cosmic and universal crisis in which the Messiah would emerge victorious from the final conflict with the heathen and demonic powers. This victory inaugurates the entrance of the "aeon to come," in which the faithful Jews would enter their inheritance. In this way we perceive the transformation of the old Messianic doctrine through apocalyptic. Of apocalyptic literature we have numerous examples extending from the 2nd century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D. (See especially Charles's _Book of Enoch_.)

The doctrine of the _resurrection of the righteous_ to life in the heavenly world became engrafted on to the old doctrine of Sheol, or the dark shadowy underworld (Hades), where life was joyless and feeble, and from which the soul might be for a brief space summoned forth by the arts of the necromancer. The most vivid portraiture of Sheol is to be found in the exilian passage Isa. xiv. 9-20 (cf. Job x. 21-22). With this also compare the Babylonian _Descent of Ishtar to Hades_. The added conception of the resurrection of the righteous does not appear in the world of Jewish thought till the early Greek period in Isa. xxvi. 19. R. H. Charles thinks that in this passage the idea of resurrection is of purely Jewish and not of Mazdaan (or Zoroastrian) origin, but it is otherwise with Dan. xii. 2; see his _Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian_. Corresponding to heaven, the abode of the righteous, we have _Ge-henna_ (originally _Ge-Hinnom_, the scene of the Moloch rites of human sacrifice), the place of punishment after death for apostate Jews.

(c) _Doctrine of Angels and of Hypostases._--In the writings of the pre-exilian period we have frequent references to supernatural personalities good and bad. It is only necessary to refer to them by name. _Sebaoth_, or "hosts," attached to the name of Yahweh, denoted the heavenly retinue of stars. The _seraphim_ were burning serpentine forms who hovered above the enthroned Yahweh and chanted the Trisagion in Isaiah's consecration vision (Isa. vi.). We have also constant references to "angels" (_malachim_) of God, divine messengers who represent Him and may be regarded as the manifestation of His power and presence. This especially applies to the "angel of Yahweh" or angel of His Presence [Ex. xxiii. 20, 23 (E). Note in Ex. xxxiii. 14 (J) he is called "my face" or "presence"[33] (cf. Isa. lxiii. 9)]. We also know that from earliest times Israel believed in the evil as well as good spirits. Like the Arabs they held that demons became incorporate in serpents, as in Gen. iii. The _nephilim_ were a monstrous brood begotten of the intercourse of the supernatural beings called "sons of God" with the women of earth. We also read of the "evil spirit" that came upon Saul. Contact with Babylonia tended to stimulate the angelology and demonology of Israel. The Hebrew word _shed_ or "demon" is no more than a Babylonian loan word, and came to designate the deities of foreign peoples degraded into the position of demons.[34] _Lilith_, the blood-sucking night-hag of the post-exilian Isa. xxxiv. 14, is the Babylonian _Lilatu_. Whether the _se'irim_ or shaggy satyrs (Isa. xiii. 31; Lev. xvii. 7) and _Azazel_ were of Babylonian origin it is difficult to determine. The emergence of _Satan_ as a definite supernatural personality, the head or prince of the world of evil spirits, is entirely a phenomenon of post-exilian Judaism. He is portrayed as the arch-adversary and accuser of man. It is impossible to deny Persian influence in the development of this conception, and that the Persian Ahriman (Angromainyu), the evil personality opposed to the good, Ahura Mazda, moulded the Jewish counterpart, Satan. But in Judaism monotheistic conceptions reigned supreme, and the Satan of Jewish belief as opposed to God stops short of the dualism of Persian religion. Of this we see evidence in the multiplication of Satans in the Book of Enoch. In the Book of Jubilees he is called _mastema_. In later Judaism _Sammael_ is the equivalent of Satan. Persian influence is also responsible for the _vast multiplication of good spirits or angels_, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c., who play their part in apocalyptic works, such as the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch.

Probably the transcendent nature of the deity in the Judaism of this later period made the interposition of mediating spirits an intellectual necessity (cf. Ps. civ. 4). It also stimulated the creation of _divine hypostases_. First among these may be mentioned _Wisdom_. The roots of this conception belong to pre-exilian times, in which the "word" of divine denunciation was regarded as a quasi-material thing. (It is hurled against offending Israel, Isa. ix. 8.). In the post-exilian cosmogony it is the divine word or fiat that creates the world (Gen. i.; cf. Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9). Out of these earlier conceptions the idea of the divine wisdom (Heb. _hokhmah_) gradually arose during the Persian period. The expression "wisdom," as it is employed in the _locus classicus_, Prov. viii., connotes the contents of the Divine reason--His conscious life, out of which created things emerge. This wisdom is personified. It dwelt with God (Prov. viii. 22 foll.) before the world was made. It is the companion of His throne, and by it He made the world (Prov. iii. 19, viii. 27; cf. Ps. civ. 24). It, moreover, enters into the life of the world and especially man (Prov. viii. 31). This conception of wisdom became still further hypostatized. It becomes redemptive of man. In the Wisdom of Solomon it is the sharer of God's throne ([Greek: paredros]), the effulgence of the eternal light and the outflow of His glory (Wisd. vii. 25, viii. 3 foll., ix. 4, 9); "Them that love her the Lord doth love" (Ecclesiasticus iv. 14). This group of ideas culminated in the Logos of Philo, expressing the world of divine ideas which God first of all creates and which becomes the mediating and formative power between the absolute and transcendent deity and passive formless matter, transmuted thereby into a rational, ordered universe.

In later Jewish literature we meet with further examples of similar hypostases in the form of _Memra_, _Metatron_, _Shechinah_, _Holy Spirit_ and _Bath kol_.

(d) The doctrine of _pre-existence_ is another product of the speculative tendency of the Jewish mind. The Messiah's pre-existent state before the creation of the world is asserted in the Book of Enoch (xlviii. 6, 7). Pre-existence is also asserted of Moses and of sacred institutions such as the New Jerusalem, the Temple, Paradise, the Torah, &c. (Apocal. of Baruch iv. 3-lix. 4; Assumptio Mosis i. 14, 17); Edersheim's _Life and Times of the Messiah_, i. 175 and footnote 1.

11. _Christ resumes the Broken Tradition of Prophetism._--The Psalms of Solomon and the synoptic Gospels (70 B.C.-A.D. 100) clearly reveal the powerful revival of Messianic hopes of a national deliverer of the seed of David. This Messianic expectation had been a fermenting leaven since the great days of Judas Maccabaeus. The conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth, however, were not the Messianic conceptions of his fellow-countrymen, but of the spiritual "son of man" destined to found a kingdom of God which was righteousness and peace. The Torah of Jesus was essentially prophetic and in no sense priestly or legal. The arrested prophetic movement of Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah reappears in John the Baptist and Jesus after an interval of more than five centuries. The new covenant of redeeming grace--the righteousness which is in the heart and not in externalities of legal observance or ceremonial--are once more proclaimed, and the exalted ideals of the suffering servant of Isa. xlix. 6 and Isa. liii. (nearly suppressed in the Targum of Jonathan) are reasserted and vindicated by the words and life of Jesus. Like Jeremiah He foretold the destruction of the temple and suffered the extreme penalties of anti-patriotism. And thus Israel's old prophetic Torah was at length to achieve its victory, for after Jesus came St Paul. "Many shall come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. viii. 11, 12). The fetters of nationalism were to be broken, and the Hebrew religion in its essential spiritual elements was to become the heritage of all humanity.

AUTHORITIES.--1. On Semitic religion generally: Wellhausen's _Reste des arabischen Heidentums_ (2nd ed.) and Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_ (2nd ed.) are chiefly to be recommended. Barton's _Semitic Origins_ is extremely able, but his doctrine of the derivation of male from original female deities is pushed to an extreme. Bathgen's _Beitrage zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_ (1888) is most useful, and contains valuable epigraphic material. Baudissin's _Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_ (1876) is still valuable. See also Kuenen's _National Religions and Universal Religions_ (Hibbert lectures) and Lagrange's _Etudes sur les religions semitiques_ (2nd ed.).

2. On Hebrew religion in particular: specially full and helpful is Kautzsch's article "Religion of Israel" in Hastings's D.B., extra vol.; Marti's recent _Religion des A.T._ (1906) and his _Geschichte der israelitischen Religion_, are clear, compact and most serviceable, and the former work presents the subject in fresh and suggestive aspects. Wellhausen's _Prolegomena_ and _Judische Geschichte_ should be read both for criticism and Hebrew history generally. Duhm's _Theologie der Propheten_ and Robertson Smith's _Prophets of Israel_ should also be consulted. Strongly to be recommended are Smend, _Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte_; Bennett, _Theology of the Old Testament_ and _Religion of the Post-Exilic Prophets_; A. B. Davidson, _The Theology of the Old Testament_, as well as the sections devoted to "Sacralaltertumer" in the _Hebraische Archaologie_ both of Benzinger and also of Nowack. Budde's _Die Religion des Volkes Israel bis zur Verbannung_, as well as Addis's recent _Hebrew Religion_ (1906), is a most careful and scholarly compendium. Harper's Introd. to his _Commentary on Amos and Hosea_ (I. and T. Clark) contains a useful survey of the history of Hebrew religion before the 8th century. Buchanan Gray's _Divine Discipline of Israel_, and A. S. Peake's _Problem of Suffering in the O.T._, are suggestive. See also S. A. Cook, _Religion of Ancient Palestine_.

3. On the history of Judaism till the time of Christ, Schurer's _Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Christi_ (3rd ed.), vol. ii. and in part vol. iii., are indispensable. Bousset's _Religion des Judentums_ (2nd ed.), and Volz, _Die judische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba_, are highly to be commended. Weber's _Judische Theologie_ is a useful compendium of the theology of later Judaism.

4. On the special department of eschatology the standard works are R. H. Charles, _Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian_, and Schwally, _Das Leben nach dem Tode_, as well as Gressmann's suggestive work _Der Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie_, which contains, however, much that is speculative. On apocalyptic generally the introductions to Charles's Book of Enoch, Apocalypse of Baruch, Ascension of Isaiah and Book of Jubilees, should be carefully noted. See also ESCHATOLOGY.

5. On the religion of Babylonia, Jastrow's work is the standard one. Zimmern's Heft ii. in _K.A.T._ (3rd ed.) is specially important to the Old Testament student. See also W. Schrank, _Babylonische Suhnriten_. (O. C. W.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Bathgen, _Beitrage zur semit. Religionsgesch._ p. 11 (Edom); and cf. Schrader, C.O.T. i. 137; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), p. 472 foll. See also _Beitrage_, pp. 13-15; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), pp. 469-472.

[2] _Z.D.M.G._ (1886). It is impossible to discuss the other theories of the origin of this name. See Driver, _Commentary on Genesis_, excursus i. pp. 404-406.

[3] The Tell el-Amarna despatches are crowded with evidences of Canaanite forms and idioms impressed on the Babylonian language of these cuneiform documents. _Ilani_ here simply corresponds to the Canaanite _Elohim_. See opening of the letters of Abimelech of Tyre, Bezold's _Oriental Diplomacy_, Nos. 28, 29, 30.

[4] "Magic and Social Relations" in _Sociological Papers_, ii. 160.

[5] See Kautzsch, "Religion of Israel," in Hastings's _Dict. of the Bible_, extra vol., p. 614.

[6] See Benzinger, _Hebraische Archaologie_, pp. 152, 297 foll. (1st ed.).

[7] The theory was opposed by Noldeke, 1886 (_Z.D.M.G._ p. 157 foll.), as well as Wellhausen, and since then by Jacobs and Zapletal. (_Der Totemismus u. die Religion Israels_). See Stanley A. Cook, "Israel and Totemism," in _J.Q.R._ (April, 1902).

[8] These sacred arks were carried in procession accompanied by symbolic figures. We note in this connexion the form of a sacred bark represented in Meyer's _Hist. of Egypt_ (Oncken series), p. 257, viz. the procession carrying the sacred ark and the bark of the god Amon belonging to the reign of Rameses II. (Lepsius, _Denkmaler_, iii. 189b). See also Birch, _Egypt_ (S.P.C.K.), p. 151 (ark of Khonsu); cf. Jeremias, _Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp. 436-441.

[9] Cf. Zimmern in _Z.D.M.G._ (1904), pp. 199 foll., 458 foll. This view is based on Dr Pinches's discovered list in which _Sapatti_ is called the 15th day (_Proc. of the Soc. of Biblical Arch._, p. 51 foll.). See A. Jeremias, _Das A. T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp. 182-187. Marti, in his stimulating work _Religion des A.T._, pp. 5, 72, advocates the exclusive reference of the word Sabbath to the full moon until the time of Ezekiel on the basis of Meinhold's arguments in _Sabbat u. Woche im A.T._ The latter regards Ezekiel as the organizer of the Jewish community and the originator of the sanctity of the Sabbath as a seventh day (Ezek. xlvi. 1; cf. Ezek. xx. 12, 13, 16, 20, 24, xxii. 8, 26, xxiii. 38, in which the reproaches for the profanation or neglect of the Sabbath in no way sustain Meinhold's view). In opposition to Meinhold, see Lotz in _P.R.E._ (3rd ed., art. "Sabbath," vol. xvii. pp. 286-289). To this Meinhold replies in _Z.A.T.W._ (1909), p. 81 f. Cf. also Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat_. While admitting that a special significance may have been attached in pre-exilian times to the full-moon Sabbath, and that the latter may have been specially intended in the combination "new moon and Sabbath" in the 8th-century prophets (Hos. ii. 13; Amos viii. 5; Isa. i. 13), we are not prepared to deny that the institution of a seventh-day Sabbath was an ancient pre-exilian tradition. The sacredness of the number seven is based on the seven planetary deities to whom each day of the week was respectively dedicated, i.e. was astral in origin. Cf. _C.O.T._ i. 18 foll., and Winckler, _Religionsgeschichtlicher u. geschichtlicher Orient_, p. 39. See also _K.A.T._ (3rd ed.), pp. 620-626. In the Old Testament the sanctity of the number seven is clearly fundamental (e.g. in the Nif'al form _nisba'_, "to swear," in the derivative subst. for "oath," in Beer-sheba', &c.). The seventh day of rest was parallel to the seventh year of release and of the fallow field. It is, therefore, impossible to detach Ex. xxiii. 12 from Ex. xxi. 2. xxiii. 10 foll.; cf. Ex. xxxiv. 21. We therefore hold that the law of the seventh-day Sabbath goes back to the Mosaic age. The general coincidence of the Sabbath or seventh day with the easily recognized first quarter and full moon established its sacred character as _lunar_ as well as planetary.

[10] The tablet is neo-Babylonian and published by Dr Pinches in the _Transactions of the Victoria Institute_, and is cited by Professor Fried. Delitzsch in the notes appended to his first lecture _Babel u. Bibel_ (5th German ed., p. 81 ad fin. and p. 82). On this subject of Babylonian influence over Israel see Jeremias, _Monotheistische Stromungen innerhalb der babylonischen Religion_, and E. Baentsch, _Altorientalischer u. israelitischer Monotheismus_. The text and rendering of the passage are doubtful in the cuneiform letter discovered by Sellin in Ta'annek (biblical Ta'anach, near Megiddo) addressed by Ahi-jawi (? Ahijah) to Ishtar-wasur, in which the following remarkable phrases are read: "May the Lord of the gods protect thy life.... Above thy head is one who is above the towns. See now whether he will show thee good. When he reveals his face, then will they be put to shame and the victory will be complete." The letter appears to belong to about 1400 B.C. See A. Jeremias, _Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp. 315, 316, 323. Sellin, _Ertrag der Ausgrabungen im Orient_.

[11] The allusion in Amos ii. 7; Hos. iv. 13, 14 is sufficiently explicit; cf. Jer. ii. 20-23, iii. 6-11, v. 7, 8. The practice is prohibited in Deut. xxiii. 17.

[12] Column i. 15, 16, 42, 43, ii. 128, iii. 30, 31, iv. 47, 48, &c. Probably we should regard them as differentiated _hypostases_.

[13] Hence the 'Ashtaroth or offspring of flocks in Deut. vii. 13, xxviii. 18. A like function belonged to the Babylonian Ishtar. See "Descent of Ishtar to Hades," Rev. lines 6-10, where universal non-intercourse of sexes follows Ishtar's departure from earth to Hades.

[14] _Proleg. Gesch. Israels_ (2nd ed.), p. 240 foll., cf. p. 258.

[15] _Internat. Crit. Commentary, Judges_, Introd. p. xxx., also p. 367 foll.

[16] [Hebrew: leva] "priest," [Hebrew: levat] "priestess"; see Hommel, _Sud-arabische Chrestomathie_, p. 127; _Ancient Hebrew Tradition_, p. 278 foll.

[17] Moore regards this verse as belonging to the J or older document, _op. cit._ p. 367.

[18] Similarly in ancient Greece. See the instructive passage in Aristotle, _Nic. Eth._ viii. 9 (4, 5), on the relation of Greek sacrifices and festivals to [Greek: koinoniai] and politics: [Greek: ai gar archaiai thusiai kai sunodoi phainontai gignesthai met a tas ton karpon sugkomidas oion aparchai]; cf. Grote on Pan-Hellenic festivals, _History of Greece_, vol. iii., ch. 28.

[19] Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_ (2nd ed.), p. 89.

[20] Though this be an interpolated gloss (Thenius, Budde), it states a significant truth as Kautzsch clearly shows, _op. cit._ p. 672. In Micah iii. 7 the _hozeh_ is mentioned in a sense analogous to the _ro'eh_ or "seer," and coupled with the _qosem_ or "soothsayer," viz. as spurious; cf. Deut. xviii. 10.

[21] No better derivation is forthcoming of the word _nabhi'_, "prophet," than that it is a Katil form of the root _naba_ = Assyr. _nabu_, "speak."

[22] In Isa. iii. 2 the soothsayer is placed on a level with the judge, prophet and elder.