{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40206/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40206","id":"gutenberg_40206","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40206","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Antiquities","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Ancient","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Phallicism","Rites and ceremonies in the Bible"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBIBLE STUDIES\n\nESSAYS ON PHALLIC WORSHIP AND OTHER CURIOUS RITES AND CUSTOMS\n\nBy J. M. Wheeler\n\n\n     \"There is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that\n     esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.\"\n     --Paul (Romans xiv. 14).\n\n\n1892.\n\nPrinted and Published By G. W. Foote\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nMy old friend Mr. Wheeler asks me to launch this little craft, and I do\nso with great pleasure. She is not a thunderous ironclad, nor a gigantic\nocean liner; but she is stoutly built, well fitted, and calculated to\nweather all the storms of criticism. My only fear is that she will not\nencounter them.\n\nDuring the sixteen years of my friend's collaboration with me in\nmany enterprises for the spread of Freethought and the destruction of\nSuperstition, he has written a vast variety of articles, all possessing\ndistinctive merit, and some extremely valuable. From these he and I have\nmade the following selection. The articles included deal with the Bible\nfrom a special standpoint; the standpoint of an Evolutionist, who reads\nthe Jewish Scriptures in the light of anthropology, and finds infinite\nillustrations in them of the savage origin of religion.\n\nLiterary and scientific criticism of the Old Testament have their\nnumerous votaries. Mr. Wheeler's mind is given to a different study\nof the older half of the Bible. He is bent on showing what it really\ncontains; what religious ideas, rites, and customs prevailed among the\nancient Jews and find expression in their Scriptures. This is a fruitful\nmethod, especially in _our_ country, if it be true, as Dr. Tylor\nobserves, that \"the English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves\nfreely under the pressure of facts.\"\n\nCareful readers of this little book will find it full of precious\ninformation. Mr. Wheeler has a peculiarly wide acquaintance with the\nliterature of these subjects. He has gathered from far and wide, like\nthe summer bee, and what he yields is not an undigested mass of facts,\nbut the pure honey of truth.\n\nMany readers will be astonished at what Mr. Wheeler tells them. We\nhave read the Bible, they will say, and never saw these things. That is\nbecause they read it without knowledge, or without attention. Reading\nis not done with the eyes only, but also with the brain; and the same\nsentences will make various impressions, according as the brain is rich\nor poor in facts and principles. Even the great, strong mind of Darwin\nhad to be plentifully stored with biological knowledge before he could\nsee the meaning of certain simple facts, and discover the wonderful law\nof Natural Selection.\n\nThose who have studied the works of Spencer, Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer, and\nsuch authors, will _not_ be astonished at the contents of this volume.\nBut they will probably find some points they had overlooked; some\nfamiliar points presented with new force; and some fresh views, whose\nnovelty is not their only virtue: for Mr. Wheeler is not a slavish\nfollower of even the greatest teachers, he thinks for himself, and shows\nothers what he has seen with his own eyes.\n\nI hope this little volume will find many readers. Its doing so will\nplease the author, for every writer wishes to be read; why else, indeed,\nshould he write? Only less will be the pleasure of his friend who pens\nthis Preface. I am sure the book will be instructive to most of those\ninto whose hands it falls; to the rest, the few who really study and\nreflect, it will be stimulating and suggestive. Greater praise the\nauthor would not desire; so much praise cannot often be given with\nsincerity.\n\nG. W. Foote.\n\n\n\n\nPHALLIC WORSHIP AMONG THE JEWS.\n\n     \"The hatred of indecency, which appears to us so natural as\n     to be thought innate, and which is so valuable an aid to\n     chastity, is a modern virtue, appertaining exclusively, as\n     Sir G. Staunton remarks, to civilised life. This is shown by\n     the ancient religious rites of various nations, by the\n     drawings on the walls of Pompeii, and by the practices of\n     many savages.\"--C. Darwin, \"Descent of Man\" pt. 1, chap.\n     iv., vol. i., p. 182; 1888.\n\nThe study of religions is a department of anthropology, and nowhere is\nit more important to remember the maxim of the pagan Terence, _Homo sum,\nnihil humani a me alienum puto_. It is impossible to dive deep into any\nancient faiths without coming across a deal of mud. Man has often been\ndefined as a religious animal. He might as justly be termed a dirty and\nfoolish animal. His religions have been growths of earth, not gifts from\nheaven, and they usually bear strong marks of their clayey origin.*\n\n     * The Contemporary Review for June 1888, says (p. 804) \"when\n     Lord Dalhousie passed an Act intended to repress obscenity\n     (in India), a special clause in it exempted all temples and\n     religious emblems from its operation.\"\n\nI am not one of those who find in phallicism the key to all the\nmysteries of mythology. All the striking phenomena of nature--the\nalternations of light and darkness, sun and moon, the terrors of the\nthunderstorm, and of pain, disease and death, together with his\nown dreams and imaginations--contributed to evoke the wonder and\nsuperstition of early man. But investigation of early religion shows it\noften nucleated around the phenomena of generation. The first and final\nproblem of religion concerns the production of things. Man's own body\nwas always nearer to him than sun, moon, and stars; and early man,\nthinking not in words but in things, had to express the very idea of\ncreation or production in terms of his own body. It was so in Egypt,\nwhere the symbol, from being the sign of production, became also\nthe sign of life, and of regeneration and resurrection. It was so in\nBabylonia and Assyria, as in ancient Greece and Troy, and is so till\nthis day in India.\n\nMontaigne says:\n\n\"Fifty severall deities were in times past allotted to this office. And\nthere hath beene a nation found which to allay and coole the lustful\nconcupiscence of such as came for devotion, kept wenches of purpose in\ntheir temples to be used; for it was a point of religion to deale\nwith them before one went to prayers. _Nimirum propter continentiam\nincontinentia neces-saria est, incendium ignibus extinguitur_: 'Belike\nwe must be incontinent that we may be continent, burning is quenched by\nfire.' In most places of the world that part of our body was deified.\nIn that same province some flead it to offer, and consecrated a peece\nthereof; others offered and consecrated their seed.\"\n\nIt is in India that this early worship maybe best studied at the present\nday. The worshippers of Siva identify their great god, Maha Deva, with\nthe linga, and wear on their left arm a bracelet containing the linga\nand yoni. The rival sect of followers of Vishnu have also a phallic\nsignificance in their symbolism. The linga yoni (fig. 1) is indeed one\nof the commonest of religious symbols in India. Its use extends from the\nHimalayas to Cape Comorin. Major-General Forlong says the ordinary Maha\nDeva of Northern India is the simple arrangement shown in fig. 2, in\nwhich we see \"what was I suspect the first Delphic tripod supporting a\nvase of water over the Linga in Yona. Such may be counted by scores in\na day's march over Northern India, and especially at ghats or river\nferries, or crossings of any streams or roads; for are they not Herm\u00e6?\"\nThe Linga Purana tells us that the linga was a pillar of fire in which\nSiva was present. This reminds one of Jahveh appearing as a pillar of\ncloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 1.--The Hindu Maha Deva, or Linga-Yoni]\n\nSo astounded have been many writers at the phenomena presented by\nphallic worship that they have sought to explain it, not only by the\nstory of the fall and the belief in original sin, but by the direct\nagency of devils.* Yet it may be wrong to associate the origin of\nphallic worship with obscenity. Early man was rather unmoral than\nimmoral. Obliged to think in things, it was to him no perversion to\nmentally associate with his own person the awe of the mysterious power\nof production. The sense of pleasure and the desire for progeny of\ncourse contributed. The worship was indeed both natural and inevitable\nin the evolution of man from savagery. When, however, phallic worship\nwas established, it naturally led to practices such as those which\nHerodotus, Diodorus, and Lucian tell us took place in the Egyptian,\nBabylonian, and Syrian religions.\n\n     * See Gougenot des Mousseaux's curious work Dieu et les\n     Dieux, Paris, 1854. When the Luxor monument was erected in\n     Rome, Pope Sixtus V. deliberately exorcised the devils out\n     of possession of it.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Rural Hindu Lingam.]\n\nHume's observation that polytheism invariably preceded monotheism has\nbeen confirmed by all subsequent investigation. The belief in one god or\nsupreme spirit springs out of the belief in many gods or spirits. That\nthis was so with the Jews there is sufficient evidence in the Bible,\ndespite the fact that the documents so called have been frequently\n\"redacted,\" that is corrected, and the evidence in large part erased.\nAn instance of this falsification may be found in Judges xviii. 30 (see\nRevised Version), where \"Manasseh\" has been piously substituted for\nMoses, in order to conceal the fact that the direct descendants of Moses\nwere image worshippers down till the time of the captivity. The Rabbis\ngave what Milton calls \"this insulse rule out of their Talmud; 'That all\nwords, which in the Law are written obscenely, must be changed to more\ncivil words.' Fools who would teach men to read more decently than God\nthought good to write.\"* Instances of euphemisms may be traced in the\ncase of the \"feet\" (Judges iii. 24, Song v. 3, Isaiah vii* 20); \"thigh\"\n(Num. v. 24); \"heel\" (Gen, iii. 15); \"heels\" (Jer. xiii. 22); and \"hand\"\n(Isaiah lvii. 7). This last verse is translated by Dr. Cheyne, \"and\nbehind the door and the post hast thou placed thy memorial, for apart\nfrom me thou hast uncovered and gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and\nobtained a contract from them (?); thou hast loved their bed; thou hast\nbeheld the phallus.\" In his note Dr. Cheyne gives the view of the Targum\nand Jerome \"that 'memorial' = idol (or rather idolatrous symbol--the\nphallus).\"\n\n     * \"Apology for Smectymnus,\" Works, p.84.\n\nThe priests, whose policy it was to keep the nation isolated, did their\nbest to destroy the evidence that the Jews shared in the idolatrous\nbeliefs and practices of the nations around them. In particular the cult\nof Baal and Asherah, which we shall see was a form of phallic worship,\nbecame obnoxious, and the evidence of its existence was sought to be\nobliterated. The worship, moreover, became an esoteric one, known only\nto the priestly caste, as it still is among Roman Catholic initiates,\nand the priestly caste were naturally desirous that the ordinary\nworshipper should not become \"as one of us.\"\n\nIt is unquestionable that in the earliest times the Hebrews worshipped\nBaal. In proof there is the direct assertion of Jahveh himself (Hosea\nii. 16) that \"thou shalt call me _Ishi_ [my husband] and shalt call\nme no more _Baali_.\" The evidence of names, too, is decisive. Gideon's\nother name, Jerubbaal (Jud. vi. 32, and 1 Sam. xii. 11), was\nevidently the true one, for in 2 Sam. xi. 21, the name Jerubbesheth is\nsubstituted. Eshbaal (1 Chron. viii. 33) is called Ishbosheth (2 Sam.\nii. 8, 10). Meribbaal (1 Chron. viii. 34) is Mephibosheth (2 Sam. iv.\n4).* Now _bosheth_ means v \"shame,\" or \"shameful thing,\" and as Dr.\nDonaldson points out, in especial, \"sexual shame,\" as in Gen. ii. 25.\nIn the Septuagint version of 1 Kings xviii. 25, the prophets of Baal\nare called \"the prophets of that shame.\" Hosea ix. 10 says \"they went\nto Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to Bosheth and became abominable\nlike that they loved.\" Micah i. 11 \"having thy Bosheth naked.\" Jeremiah\nxi. 5, \"For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O\nJudah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye\nset up altars to Bosheth, altars to burn incense unto Baal.\"\n\n     * So Baaljadah [1 Chron. xiv. 7] is Eliada [2 Sam. v. 161.]\n     In 1 Chron. xii. 6, we have the curious combination,\n     Baaljah, i.e. Baal is Jah, as the name of one of David's\n     heroes.\n\nThe place where the ark stood, known afterwards as Kirjath-jearim, was\nformerly named Baalah, or place of Baal (I Chron. xiii. 6). The change\nof name took place after David's time, since the writer of 2 Sam. vi. 2\nsays merely that David went with the ark from \"Baale of Judah.\"* Colenso\nnotices that when the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal are said\nto have been destroyed by Elijah, nothing is said of the four hundred\nprophets of the Asherah. \"Also these same '400 prophets,' apparently,\nare called together by Ahab as prophets of JHVH, and they reply in the\nname of JHVH, 1 Kings xxii. 5-6.\"\n\nThat phallicism was an important element in Baal and Asherah worship is\nwell known to scholars, and will be made clear to discerning readers.\nThe frequent allusion to \"groves\" in the Authorised Version must have\npuzzled many a simple student. The natural but erroneous suggestion of\n\"tree worship\" does not fit in very well with the important statement (2\nKings xxiii. 6) that Josiah \"brought out the grove from the house of\nthe Lord.\"** A reference to the Revised Version will show that this\nmisleading word is intended to conceal the real nature of the worship of\nAsherah. The door of life, the conventional form of the Asherah with its\nthirteen flowers or measurements of time, is given in fig. 3.\n\n     * The \"Baal\" was afterwards taken out of all such names of\n     places, and instead of Baal Peor, Baal Meon, Baal Tamar,\n     Baal Shalisha, etc., we find Beth Peor, Beth Meon, Beth\n     Tamar, etc.\n\n     ** Verse vii. says, \"he brake down the houses of the\n     sodomites that were by the house of the Lord, where the\n     women wove hangings for the grove.\" A reference to the Revised\n     Version shows that it was \"in the house of the Lord, where\n     the women wove hangings [or tents] for the Asherah.\" See\n     also Ezek. xvi. 16.\n\nThis worship certainly lasted from the earliest historic times until\nthe seventeenth year of Josiah, B.C. 624. We read how in the days of the\nJudges they \"served Baalim and the groves\" (R.V., \"the Asheroth\"; Judges\niii, 7; see ii. 12, \"Baal and Ash-taroth.) We find that Solomon himself\n\"went after Ashtoreth (1 Kings xi. 5) and that he builded the mount of\ncorruption (margin, i.e., the mount of Olives) for that \"abomination\nof the Zidonians\" (2 Kings xxiii. 13). All the distinctive features\nof Solomon's Temple were Phoenician in character. What the Phoenician\ntemples were like Lucian tells us in his treatise on the goddess\nof Syria. The great pillars Jachin, \"the establisher,\" and Boaz,\n\"strength\"; the ornamentation of palm trees, pomegranates, and lotus\nwork; are all Phoenician and all phallic. The bells and pomegranates\non the priests' garment were emblematic of the paps and full womb.\nThe palm-tree, which appears both in Solomon's temple and in Ezekiel's\nvision, was symbolical, as may be seen in the Assyrian monument (fig.\n4), and which finds a place in Eastern Christian symbolism, with the\nmystic alpha and omega (fig. 5).\n\nThe worship of Astoreth, the Assyrian Ishtar, and Greek Astarte, was\nwidespread. The Phoenicians took it with them to Cyprus and Carthage. In\nthe days of Abraham there was a town called after her (Gen. xiv. 5), and\nto this day her name is preserved in Esther.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Asherah.]\n\nIt is she who is called the Queen of Heaven, to whom the women made\nmoon-shaped cakes and poured libations (Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 17.) Baal\nrepresented the generative, Astoreth the productive power. The pillars\nand asherah, so often alluded to in the Bible, were the palm-tree, with\nmale and female animals frolicking around the tree of life, the female\nnear the fleur de lis and the male near the yoni. Tall and straight\ntrees, especially the palm, were reverenced as symbols. Palm branches\ncarried in procession were signs of fruitfulness and joy.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 4.--From Layard, Culte de Venus, plate I, fig. 20,\ndepicts the mystic signs of their worship, and Dr. Oort* says of the\nname Ashera, \"This word expressed originally a pillar on, or near--not\nonly the altars of Baal--but also the altars of JHVH.\"]\n\nBishop Colenso in his notes to Dr. Oort's work remarks, \"It seems plain\nthat the Ashera (from _ashar_, be straight, erect) was in reality a\nphallus, like the _Linga_ or _Lingam_ of the Hindoos, the sign of the\nmale organ of generation.\"**\n\n     * The Worship of Baalim and Israel, p. 46.\n\n     ** Asher was the tutelary god of Assyria. His emblem was the\n     winged circle.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 5.--The Eastern Christian palm, on which is placed\nthe cross and banners with the Alpha and Omega.]\n\nThere can be little doubt on the matter in the mind of anyone acquainted\nwith ancient faiths and the inevitable phases of human evolution, We\nread (1 Kings xv. 13, Revised Version), that Maachah, the queen mother\nof Asa, \"made an abominable image for an Asherah.\" This the Vulgate\ntranslates \"Priape\" and Movers _pudendum_. Jeremiah, who alludes to the\nsame thing (x. 5), tells that the people said, \"to a stock, Thou art my\nfather, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth\" (ii. 27), that they\n\"defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and with stocks\"\n(iii. 9), playing the harlot \"under every green tree\" (ii. 20, iii. 6,\n13; see also Hosea iv. 13). Isaiah xvii. 8, alludes to the Asherim as\nexisting in his own days, and alludes to these religions in plain terms\n(lvii. 5--8). Micah also prophesies against the \"pillars\" and \"Asherim\"\n(v. 13, 14). Ezekiel xvi. 17, says \"Thou hast also taken thy fair\njewels, of my gold and of silver, which I have given thee, and madest to\nthyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them.\" The margin\nmore properly reads images \"Heb. of a male\" [tsalmi zachar], a male\nhere being an euphemism. As Gesenius says of the metaphor in Numbers\nxxiv. 7 these things are \"ex nostra sensu obscoena, sed Orientalibus\nfamiliaria.\"\n\nThese images are alluded to and prohibited in Deut. iv. 16. It is thus\nevident that some form of phallic worship lasted among the Jews-from the\nearliest times until their captivity in Babylon.\n\nIt is a most significant fact that the Jews used one and the same word\nto signify both \"harlot\" and \"holy.\" \"There shall be no _kedeshah_ of\nthe daughters of Israel\" (Deut. xxiii. 17) means no female consecrated\nto the temple worship. Kuenen says \"it is natural to assume that this\nimpurity was practised in the worship of Jahveh, however much soever the\nlawgiver abhors it.\" It must be noticed, too, that there is no absolute\nprohibition. It only insists that the slaves of desire shall not be of\nthe house of Israel, and stipulates that the money so obtained shall\nnot be dedicated to Jahveh. That this was the custom both in Samaria and\nJerusalem, as in Babylon, may be gathered from Micah i. 7, and Hosea iv.\n14.\n\nDr. Kalisch, by birth a Jew and one of the most fair-minded of biblical\nscholars, says in his note on Leviticus xix. 29: \"The unchaste worship\nof Ashtarte, known also as Beltis and Tanais, Ishtar, Mylitta, and\nAnaitis, Asherah and Ashtaroth, flourished among the Hebrews at\nall times, both in the kingdom of Judah and Israel; it consisted in\npresenting to the goddess, who was revered as the female principle\nof conception and birth, the virginity of maidens as a first-fruit\noffering; and it was associated with the utmost licentiousness.\nThis-degrading service took such deep root, that in the Assyrian period\nit was even extended by the adoption of new rites borrowed from Eastern\nAsia, and described by the name of 'Tents of the Maidens' (Succoth\nBenoth); and it left its mark in the Hebrew language itself, which\nordinarily expressed the notion courtesan by 'a consecrated woman'\n(Kadeshah), and that of sodomite by 'consecrated man' (Kadesh).\"\n\nThe Succoth Benoth in 2 Kings xvii. 30, may be freely rendered\nTabernacles of Venus. Venus is plausibly derived from Benoth, whose\nworship was at an early time disseminated from Carthage and other parts\nof Africa to the shores of Italy. The merriest festival among the Jews\nwas the Feast of Tabernacles. Plutarch (who suggests that the pig was\noriginally worshipped by the Jews, a position endorsed by Mr. J. G.\nFrazer, in his _Golden Bough_, vol. ii., pp. 52, 53) says the Jewish\nfeast of Tabernacles \"is exactly agreeable to the holy rites of\nBacchus.\"* He adds, \"What they do within I know not, but it is very\nprobable that they perform the rites of Bacchus.\"\n\n     * Symposiacs, bk. iv., queat. 6, p. 310, vol. iii.,\n     Plutarch's Morals, 1870.\n\nDr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on 2 Kings xvii. 30, gives the\nfollowing:--\"Succoth-benoth maybe literally translated, _The Tabernacle\nof the Daughters, or Young Women_; or if _Benoth_ be taken as the name\nof a female idol, from birth, _to build up, procreate, children_, then\nthe words will express the tabernacles sacred to the productive powers\nfeminine. And, agreeably to this latter exposition, the rabbins say that\nthe emblem was a hen and chickens. But however this may be, there is\nno room to doubt that these _succoth_ were _tabernacles_, wherein young\nwomen exposed themselves to prostitution in honor of the Babylon goddess\nMelitta.\" Herodotus (lib. i., c. 199; Rawlinson) says: \"Every woman born\nin the country must once in her life go and sit down in the precinct of\nVenus, and there consort with a stranger. Many of the wealthier sort,\nwho are too proud to mix with the others, drive in covered carriages to\nthe precinct, followed by a goodly train of attendants, and there take\ntheir station. But the larger number seat themselves within the holy\nenclosure with wreaths of string about their heads; and here there is\nalways a great crowd, some coming and others going; lines of cord mark\nout paths in all directions among the women, and the strangers pass\nalong them to make their choice. A woman who has once taken her seat\nis not allowed to return home till one of the strangers throws a silver\ncoin into her lap, and takes her with him beyond the holy ground. When\nhe throws the coin he says these words--'The goddess Mylitta prosper\nthee\" (Venus is called Mylitta by the Assyrians). The silver coin may\nbe of any size; it cannot be refused, for that is forbidden by the law,\nsince once thrown it is sacred. The woman goes with the first man who\nthrows her money, and rejects no one. When she has gone with him, and\nso satisfied the goddess, she returns home, and from that time forth\nno gift, however great, will prevail with her. Such of the women as are\ntall and beautiful are soon released, but others who are ugly have to\nstay a long time before they can fulfil the law. Some have waited three\nor four years in the precinct. A custom very much like this is also\nfound in certain parts of the island of Cyprus.\" This custom is alluded\nto in the Apocryphal Epistle of Jeremy (Barch vi. 43): \"The women also\nwith cords about them sitting in the ways, burnt bran for perfume;\nbut if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with him, she\nreproacheth her fellow, that she was not thought as worthy as herself,\nnor her cord broken.\" The Commentary published by the S. P. C. K. says,\n\"Women with cords about them,\" the token that they were devotees\nof Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, called in 2 Kings xvii. 30,\n'Succoth-benoth,' the ropes denoting the obligation of the vow which\nthey had taken upon themselves.\" Valerius Maximus speaks of a temple\nof Sicca Venus in Africa, where a similar custom obtained. Strabo also\nmentions the custom (lib. xvi., c. i., 20), and says, \"The money is\nconsidered as consecrated to Venus.\" In book xi., c. xiv., 16, Strabo\nsays the Armenians pay particular reverence to Ana\u00eftes. \"They dedicate\nthere to her service male and female slaves; in this there is nothing\nremarkable, but it is surprising that persons of the highest rank in the\nnation consecrate their virgin daughters to the goddess. It is customary\nfor these women, after being prostituted a long period at the temple of\nAnaites, to be disposed of in marriage, no one disdaining a connection\nwith such persons. Herodotus mentions something similar respecting the\nLydian women, all of whom prostitute themselves.\" Of the temple of Venus\nat Corinth, Strabo says \"it had more than a thousand women consecrated\nto the service of the goddess, courtesans, whom men and women had\ndedicated as offerings to the goddess\"; and of Comana, in Cappadocia, he\nhas a similar relation (bk. xii., c. iii., 36).\n\nDr. Kalisch also says Baal Peor \"was probably the principle of\ngeneration _par excellence_, and at his festivals virgins were\naccustomed to yield themselves in his honor. To this disgraceful\nidolatry the Hebrews were addicted from very early times; they are\nrelated to have already been smitten on account of it by a fearful\nplague which destroyed 24,000 worshippers, and they seem to have clung\nto its shameful practices in later periods.\"* Jerome says plainly that\nBaal-Peor was Priapus, which some derive from Peor Apis. Hosea says (ix.\n10, Revised Version) \"they came to Baal-Peor and consecrated themselves\nunto the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they\nloved\"; see, too, Num. xxvi. 1, 3. Amos (ii. 7,8) says a son and a\nfather go in unto the same maid in the house of God to profane Jahveh's\nholy name, so that it appears this \"maid\" was regarded as in the service\nof Jahveh. Maimonides says it was known that the worship of Baal-Peor\nwas by uncovering of the nakedness; and this he makes the reason why God\ncommanded the priests to make themselves breeches to wear at the time of\nservice, and why they might not go up to the altar by steps that their\nnakedness might not be discovered.** Jules Soury says*** \"The tents of\nthe sacred prostitutes were generally erected on the high places.\"\n\n     * Leviticus, p. 364.\n\n     ** That even more shameful practices were once common is\n     evident from the narratives in Genesis xix. and Judges xix.\n\n     *** Religion of Israel chap. ix., p. 71.\n\n     **** Leviticus, part i., p. 383. Kork, Die Gotter Syrian, p.\n     103, says the pillars and Asherah stood in the adytum, that\n     is the holy of holies, which represented the genetrix.\n\nIn the temple at Jerusalem the women wove hangings for the Asherah (2\nKings xxiii. 7), that is for concealment in the worship of the genetrix,\nand in the same precincts were the houses of prostitute priests (see\nalso 1 Kings xiv. 24; xv. 12; xxii. 46. Luther translates \"_Hurer_\").\nAlthough Josiah destroyed these, B.C. 624, Kalisch says \"The image of\nAshtarte was probably erected again in the inner court (Jer. xxxii. 34;\nEzek. viii. 6).\" Ezekiel says (xvi. 16), \"And of thy garments thou didst\ntake, and deckedst thy high places with divers colors and playedst\nthe harlot thereupon,\" and (v. 24) \"Thou hast also built unto thee an\neminent place, and hast made thee a high place in every street,\" which\nis plainly translated in the Roman Catholic Douay version \"Thou didst\nalso build thee a common stew and madest thee a brothel house in every\nstreet.\" The \"strange woman,\" against whom the Proverbs warns, practised\nher profession under cover of religion (see Prov. vii. 14). The \"peace\nofferings\" there alluded to were religious sacrifices.\n\nTogether with their other functions the Kadeshah, like the eastern\nnautch girls and bayaderes, devoted themselves to dancing and music (see\nIsaiah xxiii. 16). Dancing was an important part of ancient religious\nworship, as may be noticed in the case of King David, who danced before\nthe ark, clad only in a linen ephod, probably a symbolic emblem (see\nJudges viii. 27), to the scandal of his wife, whom he had purchased by\na trophy of two hundred foreskins from the uncircumcised Philistines (1\nSam. xviii. 27; 2 Sam. vi. 14-16). When the Israelites worshipped the\ngolden calf they danced naked (Exodus xxxii. 19, 25). They sat down to\neat and to drink, and rose up to _play_, the word being the same as that\nused in Gen. xxvi. 8. The word _chag_ is frequently translated \"feast,\"\nand means \"dance.\" In the wide prevalence of sacred prostitution\nSir John Lubbock sees a corroboration of his hypothesis of communal\nmarriage. Mr. Wake, however, refers it to the custom of sexual\nhospitality, a practice widely spread among all savage races, the rite\nlike that of blood covenanting being associated with ideas of kinship\nand friendliness.\n\nWe have seen that the early Jews shared in the phallic worship of the\nnations around them. Despite the war against Baal and Asherah worship\nby the prophets of Jahveh, it was common in the time of the Judges (iii.\n7). Solomon himself was a worshipper of Ashtoreth, a faith doubtless\nafter the heart of the sensual sultan (1 Kings xi. 5). The people of\nJudah \"built them high places and phalli and ashera on every high hill\nand under every green tree. And there were also Sodomites in the land\"\n(1 Kings xiv. 23, 24). The mother of Asa made \"an abominable image for\nan Asherah\" (1 Kings xv. 13).* The images of Asherah were kept in the\nhouse of Jahveh till the time of Josiah (2 Kings xxiii. 6). Dr. Kuenen\nsays (_Religion of Israel_, vol. i., p. 80), \"the images, pillars and\nasheras were not considered by those who worshipped them as antagonistic\nto the acknowledgment of Jahveh as the God of Israel.\" The same writer\ncontends that Jeroboam exhibiting the calves or young bulls could truly\nsay \"These be thy gods, O Israel.\" Remembering, too, that every Jew\nbears in his own body the mark of a special covenant with the Lord, the\nreader may take up his Bible and find much over which pious preachers\nand commentators have woven a pretty close veil. I will briefly notice\na few particulars.\n\n     * Larousse, in his Grande Dictionnaire Universelle, says:\n     \"Le phallos h\u00e9braique fut pedant neuf cent ans le rival\n     souvent victorieux de J\u00e9hovah.\"\n\nWithout going into the question of the translation of Genesis i. 2, it\nis evident from v. 27 that God is hermaphrodite. \"So God created man\nin his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female\n(zakar and nekaba) created he them.\"\n\nIt is not difficult to find traces of phallicism in the allegory of\nthe Garden of Eden. This has been noticed from the earliest times. The\nrabbis classed the first chapters of Genesis with the Song of Solomon\nand certain portions of Ezekiel as not to be read by anyone under\nthirty. The Manich\u00e6ans and other early Christians held the phallic view.\nClement of Alexandria (Strom iii.) admits the sin of Adam consists in\na premature indulgence of the sexual appetite. This view explains why\nknowledge was prohibited and why the first effect of the fall was the\nperception of nakedness. Basilides contended that we should reverence\nthe serpent because it induced Eve to share the caresses of Adam,\nwithout which the human race would never have existed. Many modern\nwriters, notably Beverland and Dr. Donaldson, have sustained the phallic\ninterpretation. Archbishop Whately is also said to have advocated a\nsimilar opinion in an anonymous Latin work published in Germany. Dr.\nDonaldson, who was renowned as a scholar, makes some curious versions\nof the Hebrew. His translation of the alleged \"Messianic promise\"\nin Genesis iii. 15, his adversary, Dr. Perowne, the present Dean of\nPeterborough, says, is \"so gross that it will not bear rendering into\nEnglish.\" A good Hebraist, a Jew by birth, who had never heard of Dr.\nDonaldson's _Jashar_, gave me an exactly similar rendering of this\nverse--which makes it a representation of coition--and instanced the\nphrase \"the serpent was more subtle than the other beasts of the field,\"\nas an illustration of early Jewish humor.\n\nThe French physician, Parise, eloquently says: \"This sublime gift of\ntransmitting life--fatal perogative, which man continually forfeits--at\nonce the mainstay of morality by means of family ties, and the powerful\ncause of depravity--the energetic spring of life and health--the\nceaseless source of disease and infirmity--this faculty involves\nalmost all that man can attain of earthly happiness or misfortune, of\nearthly pleasure or of pain; and the tree of knowledge, of good and evil,\nis the symbol of it, as true as it is expressive.\"\n\nDr. Adam Clarke was so impressed by the difficulty of the serpent having\noriginally gone erect, that he thinks that _nachash_ means \"a creature\nof the ape or ourang-outang kind.\" Yet it has been suggested that a\nkey to the word may be found in Ezekiel xvi. 36, where it is translated\n\"filthiness.\" There is nothing whatever in the story to show that the\nserpent is the Devil. This was an after idea when the Devil had become\nthe symbol of passion and the instigator of lust. De Gubernatis, in his\n_Zoological Mythology_ (vol. ii., p. 399), says \"The phallical serpent\nis the cause of the fall of the first man.\" Many other difficulties in\nthe story become less obscure when it is viewed as a remnant in which a\nphallic element is embodied.\n\nSome have detected a phallic signification in the story of the ark and\nthe deluge, a legend capable of many interpretations. The phallic view\nis represented in the symbols in fig. 6, taken from Jacob Bryant's\nMythology, vol. iv., p. 286, in which the rainbow overshadows the mystic\nark, which carries the life across the restless flood of time, which\ndrowns everything that has life, and promises that seed-time and harvest\nshall endure, and the Ruach broods over the waters. Gerald Massey\ndevotes a section of his _Natural Genesis_ to the typology of the\nArk and the Deluge. M. Clermont-Ganneau holds that the Ruach was the\nfeminine companion of Elohim, and that this idea was continued under the\nname of Kodesh the Euach Kodesh or Holy Ghost, which with the Jews and\nearly Nazarene Christians was feminine.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 6.--The Mystic Ark.]\n\nAnother point to be briefly noticed is Jacob's anointing of the stone\nwhich he slept on, and then erected and called Beth El, or \"house of\nGod,\" the residence of the creative spirit. This was a phallic rite.\nExactly the same anointing of the linga is performed in India till this\nday. It is evident that Jacob's worship of the pillar was orthodox at\nthe time the narrative was written, for God sends him back to the pillar\nto perform his vow (see Gen. xxxv.), and again he goes through phallic\nrites (v. 14). When Paul says, \"Flee fornication. Know ye not that your\nbody is the temple of the Holy Ghost?\" he elevates and spiritualises the\nconception which lay in the word Bethel. According to Philo Byblius, the\nhuge stones common in Syria, as in so many lands, were called Baetylia.\nKalisch says it is not extravagant to suppose that the words are\nidentical. From this custom of anointing comes the conception of the\nMessiah, or Christ the Anointed. Kissing the stone or god appears also\nto have been a religious rite. Thus we read of kissing Baal (1 Kings\nxix. 18) and kissing the \"calves\" (Hos. xiii. 2). Epi-phanius said that\nthe Ophites kissed the serpent which this wretched people called the\nEucharist. They concluded the ceremonies by singing a hymn through him\nto the Supreme Father. (See Fergusson's _Tree and Serpent Worship_, p.\n9.) The kissing of the Mohammedan saint's member and of the Pope's toe\nare probably connected. Amalarius, who lived in the age of Charlemagne,\nsays that on Friday (_Dies Veneris_) the Pope and cardinals crawl on all\nfours along the aisles of St. Peter's to a cross before an altar which\nthey salute and kiss.\n\nMr. Grant Allen, in an article on Sacred Stones in the _Fortnightly\nReview_, Jan., 1890, says:\n\n\"Samuel judged Israel every year at Bethel, the place of Jacob's sacred\npillar; at Gilgal, the place where Joshua's twelve stones were set\nup; and at Mizpeh, where stood the cairn surmounted by the pillars of\nLaban's servant. He, himself, 'took a stone and set it up between Mizpeh\nand Shen'; and its very name, Ebenezer, 'the stone of help,' shows that\nit was originally worshipped before proceeding on an expedition, though\nthe Jehovistic gloss, 'saying Hitherto the Lord hath helped us,' does\nits best, of course, to obscure the real meaning. It was to the stone\ncircle of Gilgal that Samuel directed Saul to go down, saying; 'I\nwill come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice\nsacrifices of peace offerings.' It was at the cairn of Mizpeh that Saul\nwas chosen king; and after the victory over the Ammonites, Saul went\nonce more to the great Stonehenge at Gilgal to 'review the kingdom,'\nand 'There they made Saul king before Jahveh in Gilgal; and there they\nsacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before Jahyeh.'\"\n\nThis last passage, as Mr. Allen points out, is very instructive, as\nshowing that in the opinion of the writer, Jahveh was then domiciled at\nGilgal.\n\nM. Soury, in his note to chap. ii. of his _Religion of Israel_, says:\n\"It is needful to point out, with M. Schrader, that the most ancient\nBabylonian inscriptions in the Accadian tongues, those of Urukh and\nof Ur Kasdim, preserved in the British Museum, were engraved on clay\nphalii. We have here the origin of the usages and customs of religion\nso long followed among the Oanaanites and Hebrews (Y. Movers, _Die\nPhonizer_, I., 591, _et passim_).\"\n\nIn the old hymn embodied in Deut. xxxii., God is frequently called\n_Tsur_, \"The Rock which begat thee,\" etc. Major-General Forlong believes\n\"that the Jews had a Phallus or phallic symbol in their 'Ark of the\nTestimony' or Ark of the Eduth, a word which I hold tries to veil the\nreal objects\" (_Rivers of Life_, vol. i., p. 149). He does not scruple\nto say this was \"the real God of the Jews; that God of the Ark or the\nTestimony, but surely not of Europe\" (vol. i., p. 169). This contention\nis forcibly suggested by the picture of the Egyptian Ark found in Dr.\nSmith's _Bible Dictionary_, art.\n\n\"Ark of the Covenant.\" The Ark of the Testimony, or significant thing,\nthe tabernacle of the testimony and the veil of the testimony alluded to\nin Exodus are never mentioned in Deuteronomy. The Rev. T. Wilson, in his\n_Archaeological Dictionary_, art. \"Sanctum,\" observes that \"the Ark of\nthe Covenant, which was the greatest ornament of the first temple, was\nwanting in the second, but a stone of three inches thick, it is said,\nsupplied its place, which they [the Jews] further assert is still in\nthe Mahommedan mosque called _the temple of the Stone_, which is erected\nwhere the Temple of Jerusalem stood.\" This forcibly suggests that the\nnature of the \"God in the box\" which the Jews carried about with them\nwas similar to that carried in the processions of Osiris and Dionysos.\nAccording to 1 Kings viii. 9 the Ark contained two stones, but the much\nlater writer of Heb. ix. 4 makes it contain the golden pot with manna,\nAaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant.\n\nMr. Sellon, in the papers of the Anthropological Society of London,\n1863-4, p. 327, argues: \"There would also now appear good ground for\nbelieving that the ark of the covenant, held so sacred by the Jews,\ncontained nothing more nor less than a phallus, the ark being the\ntype of the Argha or Yoni (Linga worship) of India.\" Hargrave Jennings\n(_Phallicism_, p. 67) says: \"We know from the Jewish records that the\nark contained a table of stone.... That stone was phallic, and yet\nidentical with the sacred name Jehovah, which, written in unpointed\nHebrew with four letters, is JEVE, or JHVH (the H being merely an\naspirate and the same as E). This process leaves us the two letters I\nand V (in another form, U); then, if we place the I in the V, we have\nthe 'Holy of Holies'; we also have the Linga and Yoni and Argha of the\nHindus, the Isvara and 'Supreme Lord'; and here we have the whole secret\nof its mystic and arc-celestial import confirmed in itself by being\nidentical with the Ling-yoni of the Ark of the Covenant.\"\n\nIn Hosea, who finds it quite natural that the Lord should tell him \"Go\ntake unto thee a wife of whoredoms,\" we find the Lord called his _zakar_\n(translated memorial, xii. 5). In the same prophet we read that Jahveh\ndeclares thou shalt call me _Ishi_ (my husband); and shalt no more\ncall me Baali (ii. 16). Again he says to his people \"I am your husband\"\n(Hosea iii. 14); \"Thy maker is thine husband; Jahveh Sabaoth is his\nname\" (Isaiah liv. 5). I was an husband to them, saith Jahveh (Jer.\nxxxi. 32. See also Jer. iii. 20 and Ezek. xvi. 32). God even does not\nscruple to represent himself in Ezekiel xxiii. as the husband of two\nadulterous sisters. Taking to other deities is continually called\nwhoring and adultery. See Exod. xxxiv. 15, 16; Lev. xx. 5; Num. xxv.\n1-3; Deut. xxxi. 16; xxxii. 16-21; Jud. ii. 17; viii. 27; 1 Chron.\nv. 25; Ps. lxxiii. 27; cvi. 39; Jer. iii. 1, 2, 6; Ezek. xvi. 15, 17;\nxxiii. 3; Hos. i. 2; ii. 4, 5; iv. 13, 15; v. 3, 4; ix. 7. In the\nWisdom of Solomon (xiv. 12), we read: \"For the devising of idols was\nthe beginning of _spiritual_ fornication, and the invention of them the\ncorruption of life.\" Here the word \"spiritual\" is deliberately inserted\nto pervert the meaning. Let any one reflect how such coarse expressions\ncould continually be used unless the writers were used to phallic\nworship. Further consider the narrative in Numbers xxxi., where the\nLord takes a maiden tribute out of 32,000 girls, who must all have been\nexamined. Vestal virgins and nuns are all consecrated like the kadeshim\nto the god, and the god is personified by the priest. In this sense\nphallicism is the key of all the creeds.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 7. Fig. 8]\n\nThat some remnants of phallicism may be traced even in Christianity,\nwill be evident to the readers of _Anacalypsis_, by Godfrey Higgins;\n_Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_, by Dr. Thomas Inman, and\n_Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism Exposed and Explained_,\nby the same author; the valuable _Rivers of Life_, by Major-General\nForlong; a little book on _Idolomania_, by \"Investigator Abhorrens\";\nand another on _The Masculine Cross_, by Sha Rocco (New York, 1874). The\nsign of the cross, certainly long pre-Christian in the Egyptian sign for\nlife, is specially dealt with in the last two works. In fig. 7 we see\nthe connection of the Egyptian tau with the Herm\u00e6. Of fig. 8 General\nForlong (_Rivers of Life_, vol i., p 65) says: \"The Samaritan cross,\nwhich they stamped on their coins, was No. 1, but the Norseman preferred\nNo. 2 (the circle and four stout arms of equal size and weight), and\ncalled it Tor's hammer. It is somewhat like No. 3, which the Greek\nChristians early adopted, though this is more decidedly phallic, and\nshows clearly the meaning so much insisted on by some writers as to all\nmeeting in the centre.\"\n\nThe custom of eating fish on Friday (_Dies Veneris_) is considered a\nsurvival of the days when a peculiar sexual signification was given to\nthe fish, which has such a prominent place in Christian symbolism. Fig.\n9 illustrates the origin of the bishop's mitre.\n\nThe _vescica piscis_, or fish's bladder (fig. 10), is a well-known\necclesiastical emblem of the virgin, often used in church windows,\nseals, etc. The symbol is equally known in India. Its real nature\nis shown in fig. 11, discovered by Layard at Nineveh, depicting its\nworshipper seated on a lotus. The vescica piscis is conspicuously\ndisplayed in fig. 12, copied from a Rosary of the Blessed Virgin,\nprinted at Venice 1582, with the license from the Inquisition, in which\nthe Holy Dove darts his ray, fecundating the Holy Virgin. Many instances\nof Christ in an elliptical aureole may be seen in Didron's _Christian\nIconography_, fig. 71, p. 281, vol. i. strikingly resembles our figure.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 9.; Fig. 10.; Fig. 11.]\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 12.]\n\n\n\n\nCIRCUMCISION.\n\nAmong the many traces that the Jews were once savages I place the\ndistinguishing mark of their race, circumcision. Many explanations have\nbeen given of this curious custom. The account, in Genesis xvii. that\nGod commanded it to Abraham, at the ripe age of 99, critics agree was\nwritten after the exile--that is, thirteen hundred years after the death\nof the patriarch. Now, there is evidence from the Egyptian monuments\nthat circumcision was known long before Abraham's time. This constrains\nDr. Kitto to say, \"God might have selected a practice already in use\namong other nations.\" If so, God must have had a curious taste and an\nuninventive mind. Why, having made people as they are, he should order\nhis chosen race to be mutilated, must be a puzzle to the orthodox. Some\nwriters have absurdly argued that the Egyptians borrowed from the Jews,\nwhom they despised (see Genesis xliii. 32). Apart from the evidence of\nHerodotus and of monuments and mummies to the contrary, this view is\nnever suggested in the Bible, but the testimony of the book of Joshua\n(v. 9) implies the reverse.\n\nThe narrative of the Lord's attempted assassination of Moses (Exodus iv.\n24-26), which we shall shortly examine, has the most archaic complexion\nof any of the biblical references to circumcision, and from it Dr. T. K.\nCheyne argues that the rite is of Arabian origin.* If instituted in the\ntime of Abraham under the penalty of death, it is curious that Moses\nnever circumcised his own son, nor saw to its performance in the\nwilderness for forty years, so that Joshua had personally to circumcise\nover a million males at Gilgal.\n\nLet us now look at the various theories of the origin and purpose of\ncircumcision. Rationalising Jews say it is of a sanatory character. This\nview, though found in Philo, may be dismissed as an after theory to\nmeet a religious difficulty. Most Asiatic nations are uncircumcised. The\nPhilistines did not practice the rite, nor did the Syrians in the time\nof Josephus. Even if in a few cases it might possibly be beneficial,\nthat would be no sufficient reason for imposing it on a whole nation\nunder penalty of death. The fact is, the rite is a religious one.\nIndeed, upon its retention the early controversy between Jews and\nChristians largely turned.\n\nThe view that it is an imposed mutilation of a subject race is suggested\nin Dr. Remondino's _History of Circumcision_, and has the high authority\nof Herbert Spencer. He instances the trophy of foreskins taken by David\nas a dowry for Saul's daughter (1 Sam. xviii. 27), and that Hyrcanus\nhaving subdued the Idumeans, made them submit to circumcision. This,\nhowever, may have been a part of the policy of making them one with the\nJewish race in being tributary to Jahveh. It is not easy to see how a\nmutilation imposed from without should ever become a part of the pride\nof race and be enjoined when all other mutilations were forbidden.\n\n     * Encyclopaedia Britannica, article \"Circumcision.\"\n\nI incline to a view which, although in accord with early sociological\nconditions, I have never yet seen stated. It was suggested to me by the\npassage where Tacitus alludes to this custom among the Jews. It is that\ncircumcision is of the nature of savage totem and tattoo marks--a device\nto distinguish the tribal division from other tribes, and to indicate\nthose with whom the tribe might marry.* If, as has been suggested, the\nmeaning of Genesis xxxiv. 14 is \"one who is uncircumcised is as a woman\nto us,\" this view is confirmed. The Jewish abhorrence to mixed marriages\nand \"the bed of the uncircumcised\" is well known.\n\n     * What Tacitus says is, \"They do not eat with strangers or\n     make marriages with them, and this nation, otherwise most\n     prone to debauchery, abstains from all strange women. They\n     have introduced circumcision in order to distinguish\n     themselves thereby.\"\n\nThe Hebrew distinguishing term for male--_zachar_, which also means\nrecord or _memorial_--will agree with this view, as also with that\nof Dr. Trumbull, which associates circumcision with that of\nblood-covenanting. It seems evident from the narrative in Exodus iv.,\nwhere Zipporah, after circumcising her son, says--not as generally\nunderstood to Moses--\"A bloody husband art thou to me,\" but to\nJahveh, \"Thou art a _Kathan_ of blood\"--i.e., one made akin by\ncircumcision--that this idea of a blood-covenant became interwoven with\nthe rite. It is to be noticed that in the covenant between God and the\nJews women had no share.\n\nDr. Kuenen holds that circumcision is of the nature of a substitute\nfor human sacrifice. No doubt the Jews had such sacrifices, and were\nfamiliar with the idea of substitution; but with this I rather connect\nthe Passover observance. If a sacrifice, it was doubtless phallic--an\noffering to the god on whom the fruit of the womb depended; possibly a\nsubstitution for the barbarous rites by which the priests of Cybele\nwere instituted for office. Ptolemy's Tetrabibles, speaking of the\nneighboring nations, says: \"Many of them devote their genitals to their\ndivinities.\" According to Gerald Massey, \"it was a dedication of the\nfirst-fruits of the male at the shrine of the virgin mother and child,\nwhich was one way of passing the seed through the fire to Moloch.\"\n\nWestrop and Wake (_Phallicism in Ancient Religion_, p. 37) say\n\"Circumcision, in its inception, is a purely phallic rite, having for\nits aim the marking of that which from its associations is viewed with\npeculiar veneration, and it converts the two phases of this superstition\nwhich have for their object respectively the _instrument_ of generation\nand the _agent_.\"\n\nGeneral Forlong, who maintains the phallic view, also holds that \"truth\ncompels us to attach an Aphrodisiacal character to the mutilations of\nthis highly sensual Jewish race.\" This view will not be hastily rejected\nby those who know of the many strange devices resorted to by barbarous\npeoples. Some have believed that circumcision enhances fecundity.\n\nWith the exception of the two first views, which I dismiss as not\nexplaining the religious and permanent character of the rite, all these\nviews imply a special regard being paid to the emblem of generation.\nThis is further confirmed by the manner of oath-taking customary among\nthe ancient Jews. When Abraham swore his servant, he said, \"Put, I pray\nthee, thy hand under my thigh\" (Gen. xxiv. 2). The same euphemism\nis used in the account of Jacob swearing Joseph (xlvii. 29), and the\ncustom, which has lasted among Arabs until modern days, is also alluded\nto in the Hebrew of 1 Chronicles xxix. 24. The Latin testiculi seems\nto point to a similar custom. In the law that no uncircumcised or\nsexually-imperfect person might appear before the shrine of the Lord, we\nmay see yet further evidence that Jewish worship was akin to the phallic\nrites of the nations around them.\n\n\n\n\nMOSES AT THE INN\n\nAnd it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the lord met him, and\nsought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the\nforeskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said,\n\n     Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.\n     So he let him go: then she said,\n     A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.\n     --Exodus iv. 24-26.\n\nAnyone who wishes to note the various shifts to which orthodox people\nwill resort in their attempts to pass off the barbarous records of the\nJews as God's holy word, should demand an explanation of the attempted\nassassination of Moses by Jehovah, as recorded in the above verses. Some\ncommentators say that by the Lord is meant \"the angel of the Lord,\" as\nif Jehovah was incapable of personally conducting so nefarious a piece\nof business. Bishop Patrick says \"The Schechinah, I suppose, appeared\nto him--appeared with a drawn sword, perhaps, as he did to Balaam and\nDavid.\" Some say it was Moses's firstborn the Lord sought to kill. Some\nsay it was at the child's feet the foreskin was cast, others at those of\nMoses, but the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem more properly represent\nthat it was at the feet of God, in order to pacify him.\n\nThe story certainly presents some difficulties. Moses had just had one\nof his numerous interviews with Jehovah, who had told him to go back to\nEgypt, for all those are dead who sought his life. He is to tell Pharaoh\nthat Israel is the Lord's firstborn, and that if Pharaoh will not let\nthe Israelites go he will slay Pharaoh's firstborn. Then immediately\nfollows this passage. Why this sudden change of conduct towards Moses,\nwhose life Jehovah was apparently so anxious to save?\n\nAdam Clarke says the meaning is that the son of Moses had not been\ncircumcised, and therefore Jehovah was about to have slain the child\nbecause not in covenant with him by circumcision, and thus he intended\n[after his usual brutal fashion] to punish the disobedience of the\nfather by the death of the son. Zip-porah getting acquainted with the\nnature of the case, and the danger to which her firstborn was exposed,\ntook a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son. By this act\nthe displeasure of the Lord was turned aside, and Zipporah considered\nherself as now allied to God because of this circumcision. Old Adam\ntries to gloss over the attempted assassination of Moses by pretending\nit was only a child's life that was in danger. But we beg the reader\nto notice that no _child_ is mentioned, but only a son whose age is\nunspecified. Dr. Clarke can hardly have read the treatise of John\nFrischl, _De Circumcisione Zipporo_, or he would surely have admitted\nthat the person menaced with death was Moses, and not his son.\n\nOther commentators say that Zipporah did not like the snipping business\n(although she seems to have understood it at once), and therefore\naddressed her husband opprobriously. Circumcision, we may remark, was\nanciently performed with stone. The Septuagint version records how the\nflints with which Joshua circumcised the people at Gilgal were buried in\nhis grave.\n\nA nice specimen of the modern Christian method of semi-rationalising may\nbe found in Dr. Smith's _Bible Dictionary_, to which the clergy usually\nturn for help in regard to any difficulties in connection with the\nsacred fetish they call the word of God. Smith says:\n\n\"The most probable explanation seems to be, that at the caravanserai\neither Moses or Gershom was struck with what seemed to be a mortal\nillness. In some way, not apparent to us, this illness was connected\nby Zipporah with the fact that her son had not been circumcised. She\ninstantly performed the rite, and threw the sharp instrument, stained\nwith the fresh blood, at the feet of her husband, exclaiming in the\nagony of a mother's anxiety for the life of her child, 'A bloody husband\nthou art, to cause the death of my son.' Then when the recovery from the\nillness took place (whether of Moses or Gershom), she exclaims again, 'A\nbloody husband still thou art, but not so as to cause the child's death,\nbut only to bring about his circumcision.'\"\n\nWe have no hesitation in saying that this most approved explanation is\nthe worst. In seeking to make the story rational, it utterly ignores the\nprimitive ideas and customs by which alone this ancient fragment can be\ninterpreted. One little fact is sufficient to refute it. The Jews never\nuse the word _Khathan_, improperly translated \"husband,\" after marriage.\nThe word may be interpreted spouse, betrothed or bridegroom, but\nnot husband. The Revised Version, which always follows as closely as\npossible the Authorised Version, translates \"a bridegroom of blood.\" But\nthis makes it evident that Moses was not addressed, for no woman having\na son calls her husband \"bridegroom.\" We may now see the true meaning\nof the incident--that by the blood covenant of circumcision, Zipporah\nentered into kinship with Jehovah and thereby claimed his friendship\ninstead of enmity. In ancient times only the good-will of those who\nrecognise the family bond or ties of blood could be relied on. Herbert\nSpencer, in his _Ceremonial Institutions_, contends that bloody\nsacrifices arise \"from the practice of establishing a sacred bond\nbetween living persons by partaking of each other's blood: the derived\nconception, being that those who give some of their blood to the ghost\nof a man just dead and lingering near, effect with it a union which on\nthe one side implies submission, and on the other side friendliness.\"\n\nDr. T. K. Oheyne, in his article on Circumcision in the _Encyclopaedia\nBritannica_, takes the story of Moses at the inn as a proof that\ncircumcision was of Arabic origin. He says; \"Khathan meant originally\nnot 'husband,' but 'a newly admitted member of the family.' So that 'a\nkhathan of blood' meant one who has become a _khathan_, not by marriage,\nbut by circumcision,\" a meaning confirmed by the derived sense of the\nArabic _khatana_, \"to circumcise\"--circumcision being performed in\nArabia at the age of puberty.\n\nThe English of the Catholic Douay version is not so good as the\nAuthorised Version, but it brings us nearer the real meaning of the\nstory. It runs thus:\n\n\"And when he was in his journey, in the inn, the Lord met him and\nwould have killed him. Immediately Sephora took a very sharp stone, and\ncircumcised the foreskin of her son, and touched his feet, and said: A\nbloody spouse art thou to me. And he let him go after she had said: A\nbloody spouse art thou unto me, because of the circumcision.\"\n\nHere it is evidently the feet of the Lord that are touched, as was the\nancient practice in rendering tribute, and we see that the foreskin was\na propitiatory offering.\n\nDr. Trumbull in his interesting book on the Blood Covenant, says:\n\"The Hebrew word _Khathan_ has as its root idea, the binding\nthrough severing, the covenanting by blood; an idea that is in the\nmarriage-rite, as the Orientals view it, and that is in the rite of\ncircumcision also.\" Dr. Trumbull omits to say that the term is not used\nafter marriage, and consequently that it must be taken as applied to the\nLord. Zipporah, being already married, did not need to enter into the\nblood covenant with Moses, but with Jehovah, so that to her and hers the\nLord might henceforth be friendly.\n\nWe do not make much of the inn. There were no public-houses between\nMidian and Egypt. Probably the reference is only to a resting-place or\ncaravanserai. We would, therefore, render the passage thus:\n\nThe Lord met him [Moses] at a halting place and sought to kill him. Then\nZipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it\nat [made it touch] his [the Lord's] feet, and she said: Surely a kinsman\nof blood [one newly bound through blood] art thou to me. So he [the\nLord] let him [Moses] alone.\n\nKuenen considers the passage, in connection with the place where it\nis inserted, indicated that circumcision was a substitute for child\nsacrifice. Any way, it may safely be said that the mark which every Jew\nbears on his own body is a sign that his ancestry worshipped a deity who\nsought to assassinate Moses, and was only to be appeased by an offering\nof blood.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BRAZEN SERPENT, AND SALVATION BY SIMILARS.\n\nHahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, is usually credited with the\nintroduction of the medical maxim, _similta similibus ourantur_--like\nthings are cured by like. Those who would dispute his originality need\nnot refer to the ancient saying familiar to all topers, of \"taking\na hair of the dog that bit you\"; they may find the origin of the\nhomoeopathic doctrine in the great source of all inspiration--the holy\nBible.\n\nThe book of Numbers contains several recipes which would be invaluable\nif divine grace would enable us to re-discover and correctly employ\nthem. There is, for instance, the holy water described in chap. v., the\neffects of which will enable any jealous husband to discover if his wife\nhas been faithful to him or not, and in the case of her guilt enable him\nto dispense with the services of Sir James Hannen.\n\nBut perhaps the most curious prescription in the book is that recorded\nin the twenty-first chapter. The Israelites wandering about for forty\nyears, without travelling forty miles, got tired of the heavenly manna\nwith which the \"universal provider\" supplied them. They looked back on\nthe fried fish, which they \"did eat in Egypt freely,\" the cucumbers,\nmelons, leeks, onions and garlic, wherein the Jewish stomach delighteth,\nand they longed for a change of diet. Upon remonstrating with Moses,\nand stating their preference for Egyptian lentils rather than celestial\nmushrooms, the Lord of his tender mercy sent \"fiery serpents\" (the word\nis properly translated \"seraphim\"), and they bit the people; and much\npeople of Israel died. Then the people prayed Moses to intercede for\nthem, saying, \"We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and\nagainst thee;\" and Jahveh, in direct opposition to his own commandment,\ndirected Moses to \"make a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it\nshall come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it\nshall live.\" Moses accordingly made a serpent of brass, we presume from\nsome of that stolen from the Egyptians, which had the desired effect.\nInstead of being but one monster more, the sight immediately cured the\nwounds, and these seraphim sent by the Lord, ashamed of being beaten by\ntheir brazen brother, skedaddled. Of course it may be contended that a\nseraph is neither in the likeness of anything in heaven above, in\nearth beneath, or in the water, or fire, under the earth, and that\nconsequently Moses in no wise infringed the Decalogue.\n\nCommentators have been puzzled to account for this evident relic of\nserpent worship in a religion so abhorrent of idolatry as that of\nthe Jews. These gentry usually shut their eyes very close to the many\nevidences that the god-guided people were always falling into the\nidolatries of the surrounding nations. Now we know that the Babylonians,\nin common with all the great nations of antiquity, worshipped the\nserpent. It has been thought, indeed, that the name Baal is an\nabbreviation of Ob-el, \"the serpent god.\" In the Apocryphal book of Bel\nand the Dragon, to be found in every Catholic Bible, it says (v. 23):\n\"And in that same place there was a great dragon, which they of Babylon\nworshipped. And the king said unto Daniel, Wilt thou also say that this\nis of brass? Lo, he liveth, he eateth and drinketh, thou canst not say\nthat he is no living god; therefore worship him.\" Serpent worship is\nindeed so widely spread, and of such great antiquity, that it has\nbeen conjectured to have sprung from the antipathy between our monkey\nancestors and snakes. In this legend the brazen serpent is benevolent,\nbut more usually that reptile represents the evil principle. Thus\na story in the Zendavesta (which is clearly allied to, and may have\nsuggested that in Genesis) says that Ahriman assumed a serpent's form\nin order to destroy the first of the human race, whom he accordingly\npoisoned. In the Saddu we read: \"When you kill serpents you shall repeat\nthe Zendavesta, whereby you will obtain great merit; for it is the same\nas if you had killed so many devils.\" It is curious that the serpent\nwhich is the evil genius of Genesis is the good genius in Numbers, and\nthat Jesus himself is represented as comparing himself to it (John iii.\n14). An early Christian sect, the Ophites, found serpent worshipping\nquite consistent with their Christianity.\n\nIt seems likely that this story of the brazen serpent having been made\nby Moses, was a priestly invention to account for its being an object\nof idolatry among the Jews, as we know from 2 Kings xviii. 4, it was\nworshipped down to the time of Hezekiah, that is 700 years after the\ntime of Moses. Hezekiah, we are told, broke the brazen serpent in\npieces, but it must have been miraculously joined again, for the\nidentical article is still to be seen, for a consideration, in the\nChurch of St. Ambrose at Milan. Some learned rabbis regard the brazen\nserpent as a talisman which Moses was enabled to prepare from his\nknowledge of astrology. Others say it was a form of amulet to be copied\nand worn as a charm against disease. Others again declare it was only\nset up _in terrorem_, as a man who has chastised his son hangs up the\nrod against the wall as a warning. Rationalising commentators have\npretended that it was but an emblem of healing by the medical art, a\nsort of sign-post to a camp hospital, like the red cross flag over an\nambulance. These altogether pervert the text, and miss the meaning of\nthe passage. The resemblance of the object set up was of the essence of\nthe cure, as may be seen in 1 Sam. vi. 5. In truth, the doctrine of\nlike curing like, instead of being a modern discovery is a very ancient\nsuperstition. The old medical books are full of prescriptions, or rather\ncharms, founded on this notion.* It is, indeed, one of the recognised\nprinciples in savage magic and medicine that things like each other,\nhowever superficially, affect each other in a mystic way, and possess\nidentical properties. Thus in Melanesia, according to Mr. Codrington,**\n\"a stone in the shape of a pig, of a bread fruit, of a yam, was a most\nvaluable find,\" because it made pigs prolific, and fertilised bread,\nfruit trees, and yam plots.\n\n     * See Myths in Medicine and Old Time Doctors, by Alfred C.\n     Garratt, M.D.\n\n     **  Journal Anthropological Institute, February, 1881.\n\nIn Scotland, too, \"stones were called by the names of the limbs they\nresembled, as 'eye-stanes, head-stane.'\" A patient washed the affected\npart of his body, and rubbed it well with the stone corresponding. In\nprecisely the same way the mandrake* root, being thought to resemble\nthe human body, was supposed to be of wondrous medical efficacy, and was\ncredited with human and super-human powers.** The method of cure, when\nthe Philistines were smitten with emerods and mice, was to make\nimages of the same (1 Sam. vi. 5), and the same idea was found in the\nwell-known superstition of sorcerers making \"a waxen man\" to represent\nan enemy, injuries to the waxen figure being supposed to affect the\nperson represented.\n\n     * Gregor, Folk-lore of North-East Counties, p. 40.\n\n     ** See the paper on \"Moly and Mandragora,\" in A. Lang's\n     Custom and Myth; 1884.\n\nMany curious customs and superstitions may be traced to this belief. In\nold medical works one may still read that to eat of a lion's heart is\na specific to ensure courage, while other organs and certain bulbous\nplants are a remedy for sterility. The virtue of all the ancient\naphrodisiacs resided in their shape. This notion, which largely affected\nthe early history of medicine, is known as the doctrine of signatures.\n\nCertain plants and other natural objects were believed to be so marked\nor stamped that they presented visibly the indications of the diseases,\nor diseased organs, for which they were specifics; these were their\nsignatures. Hence a large portion of the ancient art of medicine\nconsisted in ascertaining what plants were analogous to the symptoms of\ndisease, or to the organ diseased. To this doctrine we owe some popular\nnames of plants, such as eye-bright, liver-wort, spleen-wort, etc. The\nmandrake, from its supposed resemblance to the human form, was credited\nwith marvellous powers, and anyone who will take the trouble to inquire\ninto the folk-lore concerning plants and disease will find that much\ndepends upon the appearance of the remedy.\n\nOne of the most curious peculiarities of Christianity is its doctrine of\na God crucified for sinners. So strange, so repugnant to reason as such\na doctrine is, it was quite consonant to the thoughts of those who held\nthe belief in salvation by similars. If Paul said, since by man came\ndeath by man came also the resurrection of the dead, the development of\nthe doctrine necessitated that if it is God who damns it is also God who\nsaves. Any casual reader of Paul must have been struck by the antithesis\nwhich he constantly draws between the law and the Gospel, works and\nfaith, the fall of man, and the redemption through \"the second Adam.\"\nThe very phrase \"second Adam\" implies this doctrine, which is summed\nup in the statement that \"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the\nlaw, being made a curse for us\" (Gal. iii. 13).\n\nGod, in order to redeem man, had to take on sinful flesh and be himself\nthe curse in order to be the cure. Hence we read in the _Teaching of the\nTwelve Apostles_, chap. xvi., that \"they who endure in their faith shall\nbe saved by the very curse.\" Thus may we understand that which modern\nChristians find so difficult of explanation, viz., that the whole\nChristian world for the first thousand years from St. Justin to St.\nAnselm believed that Christ paid the ransom for sinners to the Devil,\ntheir natural owner. Christ in order to become the Savior had to become\nthe curse, had to die and had to descend to hell, though of course,\nbeing God, he could not stay there. Hence his being likened to the\nbrazen serpent, that remnant of early Jewish fetichism which was smashed\nby Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4). John makes Jesus himself teach that \"as\nMoses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness [as a cure for serpent\nbites] even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever\nbelieveth in him should not perish but have eternal life.\"\n\nSo Iren\u00e6us says (bk. iv., chap. 2), \"men can be saved in no other way\nfrom the old wound of the serpent than by believing in him, who in the\nlikeness of sinful flesh, is lifted up from the earth on the tree of\nmartyrdom, and draws all things to himself and vivified the dead.\" That\nis, Christ was made sinful flesh to be the curse itself, just as the\ninnocent brass appeared a serpent, because the form of the curse was\nnecessary to the cure. Paul dwells on the passage of the law \"Cursed is\nhe that hangeth on a tree,\" with the very object of showing that Christ,\ncursed under the law, was a blessing under his glad tidings. The Fathers\nwere never tired of saying that man was lost by a tree (in Eden) and\nsaved by a tree (on Calvary), that as the curse came in child-birth* and\nthorns, so the world was saved by the birth of Christ and his crown of\nthorns. Justin says, \"As the curse came by a Virgin, so by a Virgin the\nsalvation,\" and this antithesis between Eve and Mary has been carried on\nby Catholic writers down to our own day.\n\n     * Notice too 1 Tim. 15, where women are said to be saved by\n     child birth, their curse.\n\nAs the Christian doctrine of salvation through the blood of Christ has\ncertainly no more foundation in fact than the efficacy of liver-wort\nin liver diseases, we suggest it may have no better foundation than the\nancient superstition of salvation by similars.\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION AND MAGIC.\n\n\"New Presbyter,\" says Milton, \"is but old priest writ large.\" Old\npriest, it may be said, is but older sorcerer in disguise. In early\ntimes religion and magic were intimately associated; indeed, it may be\nsaid they were one and the same. The earliest religion being the\nbelief in spirits, the earliest worship is an attempt to influence or\npropitiate them by means that can only be described as magical; the\nbelief in spirits and in magic both being founded on dreams. Medicine\nmen and sorcerers were the first priests. Herbert Spencer says\n(_Principles of Sociology_, sec. 589): \"A satisfactory distinction\nbetween priests and medicine men is difficult to find. Both are\nconcerned with supernatural agents, which in their original form are\nghosts; and their ways of dealing with these supernatural agents are\nso variously mingled, that at the outset no clear classification can be\nmade.\" Among the Patagonians the same men officiate in the \"threefold\ncapacity of priests, magicians and doctors\"; and among the North\nAmerican Indians the functions of \"sorcerer, prophet, physician,\nexorciser, priest, and rain doctor\" are united.\n\nEverywhere we find the priests are magicians. Their authority rests on\nimagined and dreaded power.\n\nThey are supposed by their spells and incantations to have power over\nnature, or rather the spirits supposed to preside over it. Hence they\nbecame the rulers of the people. The modern priest, who is supposed by\nmuttering a formula to change the nature of consecrated elements or by\nhis prayers to bring blessings on the people, betrays his lineal descent\nfrom the primitive rain-makers and sorcerers of savagery.\n\nThe Bible is full of magic and sorcery. Its heroes are magicians, from\nJahveh Elohim, who puts Adam into a sleep and then makes woman from his\nrib, to Jesus who casts out devils and cures blindness with clay and\nspittle, and whose followers perform similar works by the power of his\nname. The most esteemed persons among the Jews were magicians. Pious\nJacob cheats his uncle by a species of magic with peeled rods. Joseph\nnot only tells fortunes by interpreting dreams but has a divining cup\n(Gen. xliv. 5), doubtless similar to the magic bowls used to the present\nday in Egypt, in which, as described by Lane in his _Modern Egyptians_,\na boy looks and pretends to see images of the future in water.\n\nThe fourth chapter of Exodus gives the initiation of Moses into the\nmagician's art by Jahveh, the great adept, who changes the rod of\nMoses into a serpent and back again into a rod; suddenly makes his hand\nleprous, and as suddenly restores it. Moses and Aaron show themselves\nsuperior magicians to those at the court of Pharaoh, who, when Aaron\ncast down his magic rod and it became a serpent, did in like manner with\ntheir rods, which also became serpents, though Aaron's rod swallowed up\ntheir rods (Exodus vii. 11,12). Upon this passage the learned Methodist\ncommentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, writing at an age when the belief in\nwitchcraft was almost extinct, after remarking that such feats evidently\nrequired something more than jugglery, observes: \"How much more rational\nat once to allow that these magicians had familiar spirits who could\nassume all shapes, change the appearance of the subjects on which they\noperated, or suddenly convey one thing away and substitute another in\nits place.\"\n\nAaron also used his rod to change _all_ the water into blood, a feat\nwhich the Egyptian magicians also contrived to perform--we presume with\nthe aid of spirits. If you believe in spirits, there is no end to the\nsupposition of what they might do. The magic rod of Moses is used to\ndivide the water of the Red Sea, so that the children went through the\nmidst of the sea on dry ground (Ex. xiv. 16), and to draw water from\na rock (Num. xx. 8). Aaron's rod blossoms miraculously to show the\nsuperiority of the tribe of Levi (Num. xvii. 8).\n\nThe Urim and Thummin of Aaron's breastplate were also magical articles\nused in divination (see Num. xxviii. 21; 1 Sam. xxiii. 9, and xxx. 7,\n8). Casting lots was another method of divination often referred to in\nthe Bible. Prov. xvi. 31, says \"The lot is cast into the lap, but the\nwhole disposing thereof is with the Lord.\" It was because \"when Saul\ninquired of Jahveh, Jahveh answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by\nUrim, nor by prophets\" (1 Sam. xxviii. 6), that he resorted to the witch\nof Endor. The ephod and holy plate (Ex. xxviii.), and the phylacteries\nworn as frontlets between the eyes (Deut. vi. 8), were magical amulets.\nModern Arabs wear scraps of the Koran in a similar way. The holy oil\n(Ex. xxx.) and the water of jealousy (Num. v.) were magical, as was\nalso the brazen serpent, adored down to the days of Hezekiah. The great\nWizard's ark was also endowed with magical powers, bringing with it\nvictory and punishing those who infringed its tabu; it was taken\ninto battle. His sanctuary was also called an oracle where the priest\n\"inquired of the Lord\" (2 Sam. xvi. 23; 1 Kings vi. 16).\n\nThe teraphim were also magical, as we learn from Ezek. xxi. 21, where\nthe word is translated \"images.\" The prophet Hosea, one of the very\nearliest of the Old Testament writers (about 740), announced as a\nmisfortune that \"the children of Israel shall abide many days without\na king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an\nimage, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.\" Laban, although a\nbeliever in Elohim, calls the teraphim \"his gods\" (Genesis xxxi. 29,\n30), and so does Micah (Judges xviii. 18-24). The latter chapter shows\nthat the teraphim were worshipped and served by the descendants of Moses\ndown to the time of David (see Revised Version). David's wife Michal\nkept one in the house (1 Sam. xix. 13). It was evidently a fetish\nin human shape. How comes it, then, one may ask, that divination and\nsorcery are denounced in Deuteronomy xviii.? The answer is simple. The\nDeutoronomic law was first found in the time of Josiah, B.C. 641 (see\n2 Kings xxii. 8-11), and there is abundant evidence it was not known\nbefore that time. Josiah, as we learn from 2 Kings xxiii. 24, put away\n\"the familiar spirits, and the wizards and the teraphim and the idols,\"\nas Hezekiah (b.c. 726) had destroyed the brazen serpent. Not only had\nJezebel practised witchcraft (2 Kings ix. 22), but Manasseh, the son\nof Hezekiah, \"dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards\" (2 Chron.\nxxxiii. 6). These, it may be said, were wicked persons.\n\nYet another piece of evidence is derived from the fact that _Nashon_,\nthe chief of the tribe of Judah and one of the ancestry of the blessed\nSavior, signifies \"enchanter.\" Zechariah (b.c. 580) shows the great\nadvance made from the time of Hosea by declaring that \"the teraphim have\nspoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false\ndreams\" (x. 2).\n\nSamuel, like other early priests, was ruler and weather doctor, Elijah\nwas a corpse restorer and rain com-peller. Elisha not only inherited\nhis mantle, but also raised the dead and multiplied food. His very\nbones proved magical. Jesus Christ was a great wonderworker or magician,\ncasting out devils, turning water into wine, healing diseases even by\nthe touch of his magical robe, and finally levitating from earth.\n\nThe charge brought against Jesus by the Jews was that he had stolen\nthe sacred Word and by it wrought miracles. We read in the Gospels that\nJesus \"cast out spirits with his word\" (Matt. viii. 16). Jesus promised\nthat in his _name_ his disciples should cast out devils, and Peter\ndeclared that his name healed the lame (Acts iii. 16). When the Jews\nasked, \"By what power, or by what name have we done this\" (Acts iv. 7),\nPeter answered, \"By the name of Jesus Christ.\" Paul says, \"God hath...\ngiven him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus\nevery knee should bow in heaven and in earth and under the earth\"\n(Philip ii. 9, 10).\n\nAny careful reader of the Bible must have been struck with the frequency\nwith which \"the name of the Lord\" is mentioned, and the care not to\nprofane that name. \"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in\nvain\" is the second commandment, and Christians still speak of God \"in\na bondsman's key with bated breath and whispering humbleness,\" for no\nbetter reason than this old superstition. In Leviticus xxiv. 11 and\n16, the word translated by us \"blasphemeth\" was by the Jews rendered\n\"pronounces,\" so that the son of the Israelitish woman was stoned to\ndeath for pronouncing the ineffable name of J.H.V.H. The Talmud say \"He\nwho attempts to pronounce it shall have no part in the world to come.\"\nOnce a year only, on the day of Atonement, was the high priest allowed\nto whisper the word, even as at the present day \"the word\" is whispered\nin Masonic lodges. The Hebrew Jehovah dates only from the Massoretic\ninvention of points. When the Rabbis began to insert the vowel-points\nthey had lost the true pronunciation of the sacred name. To the letters\nJ. H. V. H. they put the vowels of Edonai or Adonai, _lord_ or _master_,\nthe name which in their prayers they substitute for Jahveh. Moses wanted\nto know the name of the god of the burning bush. He was put off with the\nformula I am that I am. Jahveh having lost his name has become \"I was\nbut am not.\" When Jacob wrestled with the god, angel, or ghost, he\ndemanded his name. The wary angel did not comply (Gen. xxxii. 29.) So\nthe father of Samson begs the angel to say what is his name. \"And the\nangel of the Lord said unto him, why asketh thou thus after my name\nseeing it is _secret_\" (Judges xiii. 18). All this superstition can be\ntraced to the belief that to know the names of persons was to acquire\npower over them.\n\nIn process of time the priest displaces the sorcerer, while still\nretaining certain of his functions. The gods of a displaced religion are\nregarded as devils and their worship as sorcery. Much of the persecution\nof witchcraft which went on in the ages when Christianity was dominant\nwas really the extirpation of the surviving rites of Paganism. It is\ncurious that it is always the more savage races that are believed to\nhave the greatest magical powers. Dr. E. B. Tylor says: \"In the Middle\nAges the name of Finn was, as it still remains among seafaring men,\nequivalent to that of sorcerer, while Lapland witches had a European\ncelebrity as practitioners of the black art. Ages after the Finns\nhad risen in the social scale, the Lapps retained much of their old\nhalf-savage habit of life, and with it naturally their witchcraft, so\nthat even the magic-gifted Finns revered the occult powers of a people\nmore barbarous than themselves.\"\n\nThe same writer continues*: \"Among the early Christians, sorcery was\nrecognised as illegal miracle; and magic arts, such as turning men into\nbeasts, calling up familiar demons, raising storms, etc., are mentioned,\nnot in a sceptical spirit, but with reprobation. In the changed\nrelations of the state to the church under Constantine, the laws against\nmagic served the new purpose of proscribing the rites of the Greek and\nRoman religion, whose oracles, sacrifices and auguries, once carried on\nunder the highest public sanction, were put under the same ban with the\nlow arts of the necromancer and the witch. As Christianity extended its\nsway over Europe, the same antagonism continued, the church striving\nwith considerable success to put down at once the old local religions,\nand the even older practices of witchcraft; condemning Thor and Woden\nas demons, they punished their rites in common with those of the\nsorceresses who bewitched their neighbors and turned themselves into\nwolves or cats. Thus gradually arose the legal persecution of witches\nwhich went on through the Middle Ages under ecclesiastical sanction both\nCatholic and Protestant.\"\n\n     * Encyclopedia Britannica, article \"Magic.\"\n\nBut the religion of Christendom contained scarcely less elements of\nmagical practices than that of Paganism. In the early Christian Church\na considerable section of its ministry was devoted to the casting out of\ndevils. Regulations concerning the same were contained in the canons\nof the Church of England. The magical power of giving absolution and\nremission of sins is still claimed in our national Church. Throughout\nthe course of Christianity, indeed, magical effects have been ascribed\nto religious rites and consecrated objects.\n\nViktor Rydberg, the Swedish author of an interesting work on _The Magic\nof the Middle Ages_, says (p. 85): \"Every monastery has its master\nmagician, who sells _agni Dei_, conception billets, magic incense,\nsalt and tapers which have been consecrated on Candlemas Day, palms\nconsecrated on Palm Sunday, flowers besprinkled with holy water on\nAscension Day, and many other appliances belonging to the great magical\napparatus of the Church.\"\n\nBells are consecrated to this day, because they were supposed to have a\nmagical effect in warding off demons. Their efficacy for this purpose is\nspecifically asserted by St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest doctor of the\nChurch, who lays it down that the changeableness of the weather is owing\nto the constant conflict between good and bad spirits.\n\nBaptism is another magical process. There are people still in England\nwho think harm will come to a child if it is not christened. In\nChristian baptism we have the magical invocation of certain names, those\nof the ever-blessed Trinity. The names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,\nwere used as spells to ward off demons. The process is supposed to have\na magical efficacy, and is as much in the nature of a charm as making\nthe sign of the cross with holy water, or the unction with holy oil, as\na preparation for death. So important was it considered that the saving\nwater should prevent demoniac power, that holy squirts were used to\nbring magical liquid in contact with the child before it saw the light!\n\nThe doctrine of salvation through blood is nothing but a survival of the\nfaith in magic. Volumes might be written on the belief in the magical\nefficacy of blood as a sacrifice, a cementer of kinship, and a means of\nevoking protecting spirits. Blood baths for the cure of certain diseases\nwere used in Egypt and medi\u00e6val Europe. Longfellow alludes to this\nsuperstition in his _Golden Legend_:\n\n    The only remedy that remains\n    Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,\n    Who of her own free will shall die,\n    And give her life as the price of yours!\n    This is the strangest of all cures,\n    And one I think, you will never try.\n\nThe changing of the bread and wine of the Christian sacrament into the\nbody and blood of God is evidently a piece of magic, dependent on the\npriestly magical formula. The affinities of the Christian communion with\nsavage superstition are so many that they deserve to be treated in a\nseparate article. Meanwhile let it be noticed that priests lay much\nstress upon the Blessed Sacrament, for it is this which invests them\nwith magical functions and the awe and reverence consequent upon belief\ntherein.\n\nFormulated prayers are of the nature of magical spells or invocations.\nA prayer-book is a collection of spells for fine weather, rain, or other\nblessings. The Catholic soldier takes care to be armed with a blessed\nscapular to guard off stray bullets, or, in the event of the worst\ncoming, to waft his soul into heaven. The Protestant smiles at this\nsuperstition, but mutters a prayer for the self-same purpose. In essence\nthe procedure is the same. The earliest known Egyptian and Chaldean\npsalms and hymns are spells against sorcery or the influence of evil\nspirits, just as the invocation taught to Christian children--\n\n     Matthew, Mark, Luke And John\n     Bless The Bed That I Lie On.\n\nThe belief in magic, though it shows a survival in Theosophy, as ghost\nbelief does in Spiritism, is dying slowly; and with it, in the long run,\nmust die those religious doctrines and practices founded upon it. No\nmagic can endure scientific scrutiny. Almost expelled from the physical\nworld, it takes refuge in the domain of psychology; but there, too, it\nis being gradually ousted, though it still affords a profitable area for\ncharlantanry.\n\nLucian has a story how Pancrates, wanting a servant, took a door-bar\nand pronounced over it magical words, whereon he stood up, brought him\nwater, turned a spit, and did all the other tasks of a slave. What\nis this, asks Emerson, but a prophecy of the progress of art? Moses\nstriking water from the rock was inferior to Sir Hugh Middleton bringing\na water supply to London.\n\nJesus walking on the water was nothing to crossing the Atlantic by\nsteam. The only true magic is that of science, which is a conquest of\nthe human mind, and not a phantasy of superstition.\n\n\n\n\nTABOOS.\n\nViscount Amberley, in his able _Analysis of Religious Belief_ points\nout that everywhere the religious instinct leads to the consecration of\ncertain actions, places, and things. If this instinct is analysed, it is\nfound at bottom to spring from fear. Certain places are to be dreaded as\nthe abode of evil spirits; certain actions are calculated to propitiate\nthem, and certain things are dangerous, and are therefore tabooed.\n\nFrom Polynesia was derived the word _taboo_ or _tapu_, and the first\nconception of its importance as an element lying at the bottom of many\nof our religious and social conventions; though this is not as yet by\nany means sufficiently recognised.\n\nThe term _taboo_ implies something sacred, reserved, prohibited by\nsupernatural agents, the breaking of which prohibition will be visited\nby supernatural punishment. This notion is one of the most widely\nextended features of early religion. Holy places, holy persons, and holy\nthings are all founded on this conception. Prof. W. Robertson Smith,*\nsays: \"Rules of holiness in the sense just explained, i.e., a system of\nrestrictions on man's arbitrary use of natural things enforced by the\ndread of supernatural penalties, are found among all primitive peoples.\"\n\n     * Religion of the Semites, p. 142.\n\nThe holy ark of the North American Indians was deemed \"so sacred and\ndangerous to be touched\" that no one except the war chief and his\nattendant will touch it \"under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor\nwould the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods for the very same\nreason.\"*\n\n     * Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 162.\n\nIn Numbers iv. 15 we read of the Jewish ark, \"The sons of Kohath shall\ncome to bear it; but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die.\"\nIn 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7, we are told how the Lord smote Uzzah so that he\ndied, simply for putting his hand on the ark to steady it. So the Lord\npunished the Philistines for keeping his ark, and smote fifty thousand\nand seventy men of Bethshemesh, \"because they had looked into the ark of\nthe Lord\" (1 Sam. v. 6).\n\nDisease and death were so constantly thought of as the penalties of\nbreaking taboo that cases are on record of those who, having unwittingly\ndone this, have died of terror upon recognising their error. Mr. Frazer,\nin his _Golden Bough_, instances a New Zealand chief, who left the\nremains of his dinner by the way side. A slave ate it up without asking\nquestions. Hardly had he finished when he was told the food was the\nchief's, and taboo. \"No sooner did he hear the fatal news than he was\nseized by the most extraordinary convulsions and cramp in the stomach,\nwhich never ceased till he died, about sundown the same day.\"\n\nAll the old temples had an adytum, sanctuary, or holy of holies--a place\nnot open to the profane, but protected by rigid taboos. This was the\ncase with the Jews. It was death to enter the holy places, or even to\nmake the holy oil of the priests. Even the name of the Lord was taboo,\nand to this day cannot be pronounced.\n\nTake off your sandals, says God to Moses, for the place whereon you\nstand is taboo. The whole of Mount Horeb was taboo, and we continually\nread of the holy mountain. The ideas of taboo and of holiness are\nadmitted by Prof. Robertson Smith to be at bottom identical.\n\nSome taboos are simply artful, as the prohibition of boats to\nSouth Pacific women, lest they should escape to other islands. When\nTamehameha, the King of the Sandwich Islands, heard that diamonds had\nbeen found in the mountains near Honolulu, he at once declared the\nmountains taboo, in order that he might be the sole possessor.\n\nIn Hawai the flesh of hogs, fowls, turtle, and several kinds of fish,\ncocoa-nuts, and nearly everything offered in sacrifice, were reserved\nfor gods and men, and could not, except in special cases, be consumed\nby women* Some taboos of animals being used for food seem to have been\ndictated by dread or aversion, but others had a foundation of prudence\nand forethought. Thus there is little doubt that the prohibition of the\nsacred cow in India has been the means of preserving that animal from\nextermination in times of famine.\n\nVarious reasons have been assigned for the taboos upon certain kinds of\nfood found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As we have these laws they seem\nto represent a rough attempt at classifying animals it was beneficial\nor hurtful to eat. Some ridiculous mistakes were made by the divine\ntabooist. The hare, a rodent, was declared to \"chew the cud\" (Lev. xi.\n6, Deut. xiv. 7). The camel was excluded because it does not divide the\nhoof; yet in reality it has cloven feet. But doubtless it was seen it\nmight be disastrous to kill the camel for food. Mr. Frazer is of opinion\nthat the pig was originally a sacred animal among the Jews.\n\nThe cause of the custom of tabooing certain kinds of food, which was\nin existence long before the Levitical laws were written, perhaps arose\npartly from reverence, partly from aversion. It may, too, have been\nconnected with the totemism of early tribes. No less than one hundred\nand eighty Bible names have a zoological signification. Caleb, the dog\ntribe; Doeg, the fish tribe; may be instanced as specimens.\n\nTouching the carcass of a dead animal was taboo, and the taboo was\ncontagious. In Lev. xi. 21--25 we find rigorous laws on the subject.\nWhoever carries the carcass of an unclean animal must wash his garments.\nThe objects upon which a carcass accidentally falls, must be washed, and\nleft in water till the evening, and if of earthenware the defilement is\nsupposed to enter into the pores, and the vessel, oven, or stove-range\nmust be broken.\n\nTouching a corpse was taboo among the Greeks,* Romans,** Hindoos,***\nParsees,**** and Phoenicians.(v) If a Jew touched a dead body--even a\ndead animal (Lev. xi. 89)--he became unclean, and if he purified not\nhimself, \"that soul shall be cut off from Israel\" (Num. xix. 13). So\n\"those who have defiled themselves by touching a dead body are regarded\nby the Maoris as in a very dangerous state, and are sedulously shunned\nand isolated.\"(v*) Doubtless it was felt that death was something which\ncould communicate itself, as disease was seen to do.\n\n     * Eurip. Alcest, 100.\n\n     ** Virgil \u00c6n., vi. 221; Tacit. Annal., 162.\n\n     *** Manu, y. 59, 62, 74-79.\n\n     **** Vendid iii. 25-27.\n\n     (v) Lucian Dea Syr., 523\n\n     (v*) J. Gk Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i., p. 169.\n\nWhen iron was first discovered it was invested with mystery and held as\na charm. It was tabooed. The Jews would use no iron tools in building\nthe temple or making an altar (Ex. xx. 25, 1 Kings vi. 7). Roman and\nSabine priests might not be shaved with iron but only with bronze, as\nstone knives were used in circumcision (Ex. iv. 25, Josh. v. 2). To\nthis day a Hottentot priest never uses an iron knife, but always a sharp\nsplint of quartz in sacrificing an animal or circumcising a boy. In the\nboys' game of touch iron we may see a remnant of the old belief in its\ncharm. When Scotch fishermen were at sea and one of them happened to\ntake the name of God in vain, the first man who heard him called out\n\"Cauld airn,\" at which every man of the crew grasped the nearest bit of\niron and held it between his hand for a while.*\n\n     * E. B. Guthrie, Old Scottish Customs, p. 149. Charles\n     Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, iii. 218.\n\nWomen were especially tabooed after childbirth and during menstruation\n(Lev. xii. and xv.) Among the Indians of North America, women at this\ntime are forbidden to touch men's utensils, which would be so defiled by\ntheir touch that their subsequent use would be attended with misfortune.\nThey walk round the fields at night dragging their garments, this being\nconsidered a protection against vermin. Among the Eskimo, of Alaska, no\none will eat or drink from the same cup or dishes used by a woman at her\nconfinement until it has been purified by certain incantations.\n\nIn the Church of England Service, what is now called the \"Thanksgiving\nof Women after Childbirth, commonly called the Churching of Women,\" was\nformerly known as _The Order of the Purification of Women_, and was\nread at the church door before the \"unclean\" creatures were permitted to\nenter the \"holy\" building. This should be known by all women who think\nit their duty to be \"churched\" after fulfilling the sacred office of\nmotherhood.\n\nIn Hebrew the same word signifies at once a holy person, a harlot and a\nsodomite--sacred prostitution having been common in ancient times. Mr.\nFrazer, noticing that the rules of ceremonial purity observed by divine\nkings, priests, homicides, women in child-births, and so on, are in some\nrespects alike, says: \"To us these different classes of persons appear\nto differ totally in character and condition; some of them we should\ncall holy, others we might pronounce unclean and polluted. But the\nsavages make no such moral distinction between them; the conceptions of\nholiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him\nthe common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and\nin danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose\nothers is what we should call spiritual or supernatural--that is,\nimaginary.\"*\n\nFew would suspect it, but it is likely that the custom of wearing Sunday\nclothes comes from certain garments being tabooed in the holy places.\nAmong the Maoris \"A slave or other person would not enter a _wahi tapu_,\nor sacred place, without having first stripped off his clothes; for the\nclothes, having become sacred the instant they entered the precincts\nof the _wahi tapu_, would ever after be useless to him in the ordinary\nbusiness of life.\"** According to the Rabbins, the handling of\nthe scriptures defiles the hands--that is, entails a washing of\npurification. This because the notions of holiness and uncleanness\nare alike merged in the earlier conception of taboo. Blood, the great\ndefilement, is also the most holy thing. Just as with the Hindus to this\nday, the excrements of the cow are the great means of purification.\n\n     * Golden Bough, vol. i., p. 171.\n\n     ** Shortland's Southern Districts of New Zealand, p. 293.\n\nDr. Kalisch says, \"Next to sacrifices purifications were the most\nimportant of Hebrew rituals.\"* The purpose was to remove the stain\nof contact either with the holy or unclean taboos. A holy, or taboo\nwater--or, as it is called in the Authorised Version, \"water of\nseparation\"--was prepared. First, an unblemished red heifer was slain by\nthe son of the high priest outside the camp, then burnt, and as the ash\nmingled with spring water, which was supposed to have a magical effect\nin removing impurities when the tabooed person was sprinkled with it on\nthe third and again on the seventh day. It was called a \"purification\nfor sin\" (Num. xix. 9), and was doubtless good as the blood of the Lamb,\nif not equal to Pear's soap.\n\n     * Leviticus, pt. ii., p. 187.\n\nIn the ninth edition of the _Encylopedia Britannica_, Mr. J. G. Frazer\nsays: \"Amongst the Jews the vow of the Nazarite (Num. vi. 1--21)\npresents the closest resemblance to the Polynesian taboo. The meaning\nof the word Nazarite is 'one separated or consecrated,' and this is\nprecisely the meaning of taboo. It is the head of the Nazarite that is\nespecially consecrated, and so it was in the taboo. The Nazarite might\nnot partake of certain meats and drinks, nor shave his head, nor touch a\ndead body--all rules of taboo.\" Mr. Frazer points out other particulars\nin the mode of terminating the vow. Secondly that some of the rules of\nSabbath observance are identical with the rules of strict taboo; such\nare the prohibitions to do any work, to kindle a fire in the house, to\ncook food and to go out of doors.\n\nWe still have some remnant of the Sabbath taboo, and many a child's\nlife is made miserable by being checked for doing what is tabooed on the\nLord's Day. Other taboos abound. We must not, for instance, question\nthe sacred books, the sacred character of Jesus, or the existence of the\ndivine being. These subjects are tabooed. For reverence is a virtue much\nesteemed by solemn humbugs.\n\n\n\n\nBLOOD RITES.\n\n     \"Without shedding of blood is no remission,\"\n     --Heb. ix. 22.\n\n     There is a fountain filled with blood\n        Drawn from Immanuel's veins,\n     And sinners plunged beneath that flood\n        Lose all their guilty stains.\n\nJudaism was a religion of blood and thunder. The Lord God of Israel\ndelighted in blood. His worshippers praised him as a god of battles\nand a man of war. All his favorites were men of blood. The Lord God\nwas likewise very fond of roast meat, and the smell thereof was a sweet\nsavor unto his nostrils. He had respect to Abel and his bloody offering,\nbut not to Cain and his vegetables. He ordered that in his holy temple\na bullock and a lamb should be killed and hacked to pieces every morning\nfor dinner, and a lamb for supper in the evening. To flavor the repast\nhe had twelve flour cakes, olive oil, salt and spice; and to wash it\ndown he had the fourth part of a hin of wine (over a quart) with a lamb\ntwice a day, the third part of a hin with a ram, and half a hin with a\nbullock (Exodus xxix. 40, Numbers xv. 5-11, xxviii. 7). But his great\ndelight was blood, and from every victim that was slaughtered the blood\nwas caught by the priest in a bason and offered to him upon his altar,\nwhich daily reeked with the sanguine stream from slaughtered animals.\nThe interior of his temple was like shambles, and a drain had to be made\nto the brook Oedron to carry off the refuse.* Incense had to be used to\ntake away the smell of putrifying blood.\n\n     * Smith's Bible Dictionary, article \"Blood.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Altar of Jehovah.]\n\nThe most characteristic customs of the Jews, circumcision and the\nPassover, alike show the sanguinary character of their deity. Because\nMoses did not mutilate his child, the Lord met him at an inn and sought\nto kill him (Exodus iv. 25). The Passover, according to the Jews' own\naccount, commemorated the Lord's slaying all the first-born of Egypt,\nand sparing those of the Jews upon recognising the blood sprinkled upon\nthe lintels and sideposts of the doors; more probably it was a survival\nof human sacrifice. God's worshippers were interdicted from tasting,\nthough not from shedding, the sacred fluid; yet we read of Saul's\narmy that \"the people flew upon the spoil, and took sheep and oxen and\ncalves, and slew them on the ground, and the people did eat them with\nthe blood\" (1 Sam, xiv. 32), much as the Abyssinians cut off living\nsteaks to this day.\n\nChristianity is a modified gospel of gore. The great theme of the\nEpistle to the Hebrews is that the blood and sacrifice of Christ is so\nmuch better than that of animals. The substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus\nChrist is the great inspiration of emotional religion. Revivalists revel\nin \"the blood, the precious blood\":\n\n     Just as I am, without one plea,\n     But that thy blood was shed for me,\n     And that thou bidd'st me come to thee,\n     Oh! Lamb of God, I come, I come!\n\n     Chorus--Jesus paid it all,\n     All to him I owe;\n     Sin had left a crimson stain;\n     He washed it white as snow.\n\nJesus Christ says, \"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood\ndwelleth in me, and I in him,\" and the most holy sacrament of the\nChristian Church consists in this cannabalistic communion.\n\nTo understand this fundamental rite of communion, or, indeed, the\nessence of any other part of the Christian religion, we must go back to\nthose savage ideas out of which it has evolved. It is easy to account\nfor savage superstitions in connection with blood. The life of the\nsavage being largely spent in warfare, either with animals or his fellow\nmen, the connection between blood and life is strongly impressed upon\nhis mind. He sees, moreover, the child formed from the mother, the flow\nof whose blood is arrested. Hence the children of one mother are termed\n\"of the same blood.\" In a state of continual warfare the only safe\nalliances were with those who recognised the family bond. Those who\nwould be friends must be sharers in the same blood. Hence we find all\noyer the savage world rites of blood-covenanting, of drinking together\nfrom the same blood, thereby symbolising community of nature. Like\neating and drinking together, it was a sign of communion and the\nsubstitution of bread and wine for flesh and blood is a sun-worshipping\nrefinement upon more primitive and cannibalistic communion.\n\nDr. Trumbull, in his work on _The Blood Covenant_, has given many\ninstances of shedding blood in celebrating covenants and \"blood\nbrotherhood.\" The idea of substitution is widespread in all early\nreligions. One of the most curious was the sacrament of the natives of\nCentral America, thus noticed by Dr. Trumbull:\n\n\"Cakes of the maize sprinkled with their own blood, drawn from 'under\nthe girdle,' during the religions worship, were 'distributed and eaten\nas blessed bread.' Moreover an image of their god, made with certain\nseeds from the first fruits of their temple gardens, with a certain\ngum, and with the blood of human sacrifices, were partaken of by them\nreverently, under the name, 'Food of our Soul.'\"\n\nHere we have, no doubt, a link between the rude cannibal theory of\nsacrifice and the Christian doctrine of communion.\n\nMillington, in his _Testimony of the Heathen_, cites as illustration of\nExodus xxii. 8, the most telling passages from Herodotus in regard to\nthe Lydians and Arabians confirming alliances in this fashions. The\nwell-known case of Cataline and his fellow conspirators who drank from\ngoblets of wine mixed with blood is of course not forgotten, but Dr.\nTrumbull overlooks the passage in Plutarch's \"Life of Publicola,\" in\nwhich he narrates that \"the conspirators (against Brutus) agreed to\ntake a great and horrible oath, by drinking together of the blood, and\ntasting the entrails of a man sacrificed for that purpose.\" Mr. Wake\nalso in his _Evolution of Morality_, has drawn attention to the\nsubject, and, what is more, to its important place in the history of\nthe evolution of society. Herbert Spencer points out in his \"Ceremonial\nInstitutions,\" that blood offerings over the dead may be explained as\narising in some cases \"from the practice of establishing a sacred bond\nbetween living persons by partaking of each other's blood: the derived\nconception being that those who give some of their blood to the ghost of\na man just dead and lingering near, effect with it a union which on the\none side implies submission, and on the other side, friendliness.\"\n\nThe widespread custom of blood-covenanting illustrates most clearly, as\nDr. Tylor points out, \"the great principle of old-world morals, that man\nowes friendship, not to mankind at large, but only to his own kin; so\nthat to entitle a stranger to kindness and good faith he must become a\nkinsman by blood.\"* That any sane man seated at a table ever said, \"Take\neat, this is my body,\" and \"Drink, this is my blood,\" is ridiculous. The\nbread and wine are the fruits of the the Sun. Justin Martyr, one of the\nearliest of the Christian fathers, informs us that this eucharist was\npartaken in the mysteries of Mithra. The Christian doctrine of partaking\nof the blood of Christ is a mingling of the rites of sun-worshippers\nwith the early savage ceremony of the blood covenant.\n\n     * The origin of the mystery of the Rosy Gross may have been\n     in the savage rite of initiation by baptism with arms\n     outstretched in a cruciform pool of blood. See Nimrod, vol.\n     ii.\n\n\n\n\nSCAPEGOATS.\n\nIn the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus is found a description of the\nrites ordained for the most solemn Day of Atonement. Of these, the\nprincipal was the selection of two goats. \"And Aaron shall cast\nlots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the other for the\nscapegoat\"--(Heb. _Azazel_). The goat on whom Jahveh's lot fell was\nsacrificed as a sin offering, but all the iniquities of the children of\nIsrael were put on the head of Azazel's goat, and it was sent into the\nwilderness. The parallelism makes it clear that Azazel was a separate\nevil spirit or demon, opposed to Jahveh, and supposed to dwell in the\nwilderness. The purification necessary after touching the goat upon\nwhose head the sins of Israel were put corroborates this.* Yet how often\nhas Azazel been instanced as a type of the blessed Savior! And indeed\nthe chief purpose to which Jesus is put by orthodox Christians at the\npresent day is that of being their scapegoat, the substitute for their\nsins.\n\n     * Azazel appears to mean the goat god. The goat, like some\n     other animals, seems to have had a sacred character among\n     the Jews. (See Ex. xxiii. 19, Lev. ix. 3-15, x. 16, xvii.\n     17, Jud. vi. 19, xiii. 15, 1 Sam. xix 18-16, 2 Chron. xi. 15.)\n\nThe doctrine of the transference of sin was by no means peculiar to the\nJews. Both Herodotus and Plutarch tells us how the Egyptians cursed the\nhead of the sacrifice and then threw it into the river. It seems likely\nthat the expression \"Your blood be on your own head\" refers to this\nbelief. (See Lev. xx. 9-11, Psalms vii. 16, Acts xviii. 6.)\n\nAt the cleansing of a leper and of a house suspected of being tainted\nwith leprosy, the Jews had a peculiar ceremony. Two birds were taken,\none killed in an earthern vessel over running water, and the living bird\nafter being dipped in the blood of the killed bird let loose into the\nopen air (Lev. xiv. 7 and 53). The idea evidently was that the bird by\nsympathy took away the plague. The Battas of Sumatra have a rite\nthey call \"making the curse to fly away.\" When a woman is childless\na sacrifice is offered and a swallow set free, with a prayer that\nthe curse may fall on the bird and fly away with it. The doctrine\nof substitution found among all savages flows from the belief in\nsympathetic magic. It arises, as Mr. Frazer says, from an obvious\nconfusion between the physical and the mental. Because a load of stones\nmay be transferred from one back to another, the savage fancies it\nequally possible to transfer the burden of his pains and sorrows to\nanother who will suffer then in his stead. Many instances could be given\nfrom peasant folk-lore. \"A cure current in Sunderland for a cough is\nto shave the patient's head and hang the hair on a bush. When the\nbirds carry the hair to the nests, they will carry the cough with it. A\nNorthamptonshire and Devonshire cure is to put a hair of the patient's\nhead between two slices of buttered bread and give it to a dog. The dog\nwill get the cough and the patient will lose it.\"\n\nMr. Frazer, after showing that the custom of killing the god had been\npractised by peoples in the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages\nof society, says (vol. ii., p. 148): \"One aspect of the custom still\nremains to be noticed. The accumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole\npeople are sometimes laid upon the dying god, who is supposed to bear\nthem away for ever, leaving the people innocent and happy.\" He gives\nmany instances of scapegoats, of sending away diseases in boats, and of\nthe annual expulsion of evils, of which, I conjecture, our ringing-out\nof the old year may, perhaps, be a survival. Of the divine scapegoat, he\nsays:\n\n\"If we ask why a dying god should be selected to take upon himself and\ncarry away the sins and sorrow of the people, it may be suggested\nthat in the practice of using the divinity as a scapegoat, we have\na combination of two customs which were at one time distinct and\nindependent. On the one hand we have seen that it has been customary to\nkill the human or animal god in order to save his divine life from being\nweakened by the inroads of age. On the other hand we have seen that it\nhas been customary to have a general expulsion of evils and sins once\na year. Now, if it occurred to people to combine these two customs, the\nresult would be the employment of the dying god as scapegoat. He was\nkilled not originally to take away sin, but to save the divine life from\nthe degeneracy of old age; but, since he had to be killed at any rate,\npeople may have thought that they might as well seize the opportunity to\nlay upon him the burden of their sufferings and sins, in order that he\nmight bear it away with him to the unknown world beyond the grave.\"*\n\n     * Golden Bough, vol. ii., p. 206.\n\nThe early Christians believed that diseases were the work of devils, and\nthat cures could be effected by casting out the devils by the spell of\na name (see Mark ix. 25-38, etc.) They believed in the transference of\ndevils to swine. We need not wonder, then, that they explained the death\nof their hero as the satisfaction for their own sins. The doctrine of\nthe substitutionary atonement, like that of the divinity of Christ,\nappears to have been an after-growth of Christianity, the foundations\nof both being laid in pre-Christian Paganism. Both doctrines are alike\nremnants of savagery.\n\n\n\n\nA BIBLE BARBARITY.\n\nThe fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers (11--31) exhibits as gross a\nspecimen of superstition as can be culled from the customs of any\nknown race of savages. The divine \"law of jealousy,\" to which I allude,\nprovides that a man who is jealous of his wife may, simply to satisfy\nhis own suspicions, and without having the slightest evidence against\nher, bring her before the priest, who shall take \"holy water,\" and\ncharge her by an oath of cursing to declare if she has been unfaithful\nto her husband. The priest writes out the curse and blots it into the\nwater, which he then administers to the woman. The description of the\neffects of the water is more suitable to the pages of the holy Bible\nthan to those of a modern book. Sufficient to say, if faithful, the holy\nwater has only a beneficial effect on the lady, but if unfaithful,\nits operation is such as to dispense with the necessity of her husband\nwriting out a bill of divorcement.\n\nThe absurdity and atrocity of this divine law only finds its parallel in\nthe customs of the worst barbarians, and in the ecclesiastical laws of\nthe Dark Ages, that is of the days when Christianity was predominant and\nthe Bible was considered as the guide in legislation.\n\nA curious approach to the Jewish custom is that which found place among\nthe savages at Cape Breton. At a marriage feast two dishes of meat were\nbrought to the bride and bridegroom, and the priest addressed himself to\nthe bride thus:\n\n\"Thou that art upon the point of entering the marriage state, know that\nthe nourishment thou art going to take forebodes the greatest calamities\nto thee if thy heart is capable of harboring any ill design against thy\nhusband or against thy nation; should thou ever be led astray by the\ncaresses of a stranger; or shouldst thou betray thy husband or thy\ncountry, the victuals in this vessel will have the effect of a slow\npoison, with which thou wilt be tainted from this very instant. If, on\nthe other hand, thou art faithful to thy husband and thy country, thou\nwilt find the nourishment agreeable and wholesome.\"*\n\n     * Genuine Letters and Memoirs Relating to the Isle of Cape\n     Breton. By T. Pichon. 1760.\n\nThis custom manifestly was, like the Christian doctrine of hell,\ndesigned to restrain crime by operating upon superstitious fear. It was\ndevoid of the worst feature of the Jewish law--the opportunity for crime\ndisguised under the mask of justice. For this we must go to the tribes\nof Africa.\n\nDr. Kitto, in his _Bible Encyclopedia_ (article Adultery), alludes thus\nto the trial by red water among African savages, which, he says, is so\nmuch dreaded that innocent persons often confess themselves guilty in\norder to avoid it.\n\n\"The person who drinks the red water invokes the Fetish to destroy him\nif he is really guilty of the offence of which he is charged. The drink\nis made by an infusion in water of pieces of a certain tree or of herbs.\nIt is highly poisonous in itself; and if rightly prepared, the only\nchance of escape is the rejection of it by the stomach, in which case\nthe party is deemed innocent, as he also is if, being retained, it has\nno sensible effect, which can only be the case when the priests,\nwho have the management of the matters, are influenced by private\nconsiderations, or by reference to the probabilities of the case, to\nprepare the draught with a view to acquittal.\"*\n\n     * In like manner Maimonides, the great Jewish commentator,\n     said that innocent women would give all they had to escape\n     it, and reckoned death preferable (Moreh Nevochim, pt. iii.,\n     ch. xlix.)\n\nDr. Livingstone says the practice of ordeal is common among all the\nnegro natives north of the Zambesi:\n\n\"When a man suspects that any of his wives have bewitched him, he sends\nfor the witch-doctor, and all the wives go forth into the field, and\nremain fasting till the person has made an infusion of the plant called\n'go ho.' They all drink it, each one holding up her hand to heaven\nin attestation of her innocence. Those who vomit it are considered\ninnocent, while those whom it purges are pronounced guilty, and are put\nto death by burning.\"\n\nIn this case, be it noticed, there is no provision for the woman who\nthinks her husband has bewitched her, as in the holy Bible there is\nno law for the woman who conceives she has cause for jealousy; nor,\nalthough she is supernaturally punished, is there any indication of any\npunishment falling on the male culprit who has perhaps seduced her from\nher allegiance to her lord and master.\n\nThroughout Europe, when under the sway of Christian priests, trials by\nordeal were quite common. It was held as a general maxim that God would\njudge as to the righteousness or unrighteousness of a cause. The chief\nmodes of the Judicium Dei, as it was called, was by walking on or\nhandling hot iron; by chewing consecrated bread, with the wish that the\nmorsel might be the last; by plunging the arm in boiling water, or by\nbeing thrown into cold water, to swim being considered a proof of guilt,\nand to sink the demonstration of innocence. Pope Eugenius had the\nhonor of inventing this last ordeal, which became famous as a trial for\nwitches.\n\nDr. E. B. Tylor, whose information on all such matters is only equalled\nby his philosophical insight, says of ordeals:\n\n\"As is well known, they have always been engines of political power in\nthe hands of unscrupulous priests and chiefs. Often it was unnecessary\neven to cheat, when the arbiter had it at his pleasure to administer\neither a harmless ordeal, like drinking cursed water, or a deadly\nordeal, by a dose of aconite or physostigma. When it comes to sheer\ncheating, nothing can be more atrocious than this poison ordeal. In West\nAfrica, where the Oalabar bean is used, the administers can give the\naccused a dose which will make him sick, and so prove his innocence; or\nthey can give him enough to prove him guilty, and murder him in the\nvery act of proof. When we consider that over a great part of that great\ncontinent this and similar drugs usually determine the destiny of\npeople inconvenient to the Fetish man and the chief--the constituted\nauthorities of Church and State--we see before us one efficient cause of\nthe unprogressive character of African society.\"\n\nTrial by ordeal was in all countries, whether Pagan or Christian, under\nthe management of the priesthood. That it originated in ignorance\nand superstition, and was maintained by fraud, is unquestionable.\nChristians, when reading of ordeals among savages, deplore the ignorance\nand barbarity of the unenlightened heathen among whom such customs\nprevail, quite unmindful that in their own sacred book, headed with\nthe words \"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,\" occurs as gross an\ninstance of superstitious ordeal as can be found among the records of\nany people.\n\n\n\n\nBIBLE WITCHCRAFT.\n\n     \"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live\" (Ex. xxii. 18).\n\n     \"If there had been no witches, such a law as this had never\n     been made. The existence of the law, given under the\n     direction of the Spirit of God, proves the existence of the\n     thing... that witches, wizards, those who dwelt with\n     familiar spirits, etc., are represented in the sacred\n     writing as actually possessing a power to evoke the dead, to\n     perform supernatural operations, and to discover hidden or\n     secret things by spells, charms, incantations, etc., is\n     evident to every unprejudiced reader of the Bible.\"--_Dr.\n     Adam Clarice_, Commentary on the above passage.\n\nThus wrote the great Methodist theologian. His master, John Wesley,\nhad previously declared, \"It is true that the English in general, and,\nindeed, most of the men of learning in Europe have given up all accounts\nof witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for\nit, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest\nagainst this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay\nto those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. They well\nknow (whether Christians know it or not) that the giving up witchcraft\nis in effect giving up the Bible.\"*\n\n     * Journal, May 25, 1768, p. 308? vol. iii., Works, 1856. The\n     earlier volumes of the Methodist Magazine abound with tales\n     of diabolical possession.\n\nThat Wesley was right is a fact patent to all who have eyes. From the\nEgyptian magicians, who performed like unto Moses and Aaron with their\nenchantments, to the demoniacs of the Gospels and the \"sorcerers\" of the\nfifteenth verse of the last chapter of Revelation, the Bible abounds in\nreferences to this superstition.\n\nMatthew Henry, the great Bible commentator, writing upon our text, at a\ntime when the statutes against witchcraft were still in force, said: \"By\nour law, consulting, covenanting with, invoking, or employing, any evil\nspirit to any intent whatsoever, and exercising any enchantment, charm,\nor sorcery, whereby hurt shall be done to any person whatsoever, is made\nfelony without benefit of clergy; also, pretending to tell where goods\nlost or stolen may be found, or the like, is an iniquity punishable by\nthe judge, and the second offence with death. The justice of our law\nherein is supported by the law of God here.\"\n\nThe number of innocent, helpless women who have been legally tortured\nand murdered by this law of God is beyond computation.\n\nIn Suffolk alone sixty persons were hung in a single year. The learned\nDr. Zachary Grey states that between three and four thousand persons\nsuffered death for witchcraft from the year 1640 to 1660.*\n\n     * Note on Butler's Hudibras, part ii., canto 8, line 143.\n\nIn Scotland the Bible-supported superstition raged worse than in\nEngland. The clergy there had, as part of their duty, to question their\nparishioners as to their knowledge of witches. Boxes were placed in the\nchurches to receive the accusations, and when a woman had fallen under\nsuspicion the minister from the pulpit denounced her by name, exhorted\nhis parishioners to give evidence against her, and prohibited any one\nfrom sheltering her.* A traveller casually notices having seen nine\nwomen burning together in Leith, in 1664.\n\n\"Scotch witchcraft,\" says Lecky, \"was but the result of Scotch\nPuritanism, and it faithfully reflected the character of its parent.\"**\n\nOn the Continent it was as bad. Catholics and Protestants could unite\nin one thing--the extirpation of witches and infidels. Papal bulls were\nissued against witchcraft as well as heresy. Luther said: \"I would have\nno compassion on these witches--I would burn them all.\"*** In Catholic\nItaly a thousand persons were executed in a single year in the province\nof Como.\n\n     * See The Darker Superstitions of Scotland, by Sir John\n     Graham Dalyell, chap. xviii. Glasgow, 1835.\n\n     ** History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in\n     Europe, vol. i., p. 144.\n\n     *** Colloquia de Fascinationibus.\n\nIn one province of Protestant Sweden 2,500 witches were burnt in 1670.\nStories of the horrid tortures which accompanied witch-finding, stories\nthat will fill the eyes with tears and the heart with raging fire\nagainst the brutal superstition which provoked such \\ barbarities, may\nbe found in Dalyell, Lecky, Michelet, and the voluminous literature of\nthe subject. And all these tortures and executions were sanctioned and\ndefended from the Bible. The more pious the people the more firm their\nconviction of the reality of witchcraft. Sir Matthew Hale, in hanging\ntwo men in 1664, took the opportunity of declaring that the reality of\nwitchcraft was unquestionable; \"for first, the Scripture had affirmed so\nmuch; and, secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against\nsuch persons.\"\n\nWitch belief and witch persecutions have existed from the most savage\ntimes down to the rise and spread of medical science, but nothing is\nmore striking in history than the fact of the great European outburst\nagainst witchcraft following upon the Reformation and the translations\nof God's Holy Word, This was no mere coincidence, but a necessary\nconsequence. \"It was not until after the Reformation that there was any\nsystematic hunting out of witches,\" says J. R. Lowell.*\n\n     * Among my Books, p. 128. Macmillan, 1870.\n\nIf the Bible teaches not witchcraft, then it teaches nothing.\n\nScience and scepticism having made Christians ashamed of this biblical\ndoctrine, as usual they have sought a new interpretation. They say it is\na mistranslation; that _poisoners_ are meant, and not _witches_. Now, in\nthe first place, poisoners were really dealt with by the command, \"Thou\nshalt not kill.\" In the second place, not a single Hebrew scholar\nof repute would venture to so render the word of our text. Its root,\ntranslated \"witch,\" is given by Gesenius as \"to use enchantment.\"\nFuerst, Parkhurst, Frey, Newman, Buxtorf, in short, all Hebrew\nlexicographers, agree. Not one suggests that \"poisoner\" could be\nconsidered an equivalent. The derivatives of this word are translated\nwith this meaning wherever they occur. Thus Exodus vii. 11, \"the wise\nmen and the sorcerers.\" Deuteronomy xviii., 10,11, \"There shalt not be\nfound among you anyone that useth divination, or an observer of times,\nor an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with\nfamiliar spirits, or a wizard or a necromancer.\" 2 Kings ix. 22, \"her\nwitchcrafts.\" 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 6, Manesseh \"used enchantments, and\nused witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards.\"\nIsaiah xlvii. 9 and 12, \"thy sorceries.\" Jeremiah xxvii. 9, \"your\nsorcerers.\" Daniel ii. 2, \"the magicians, and the astrologers, and\nthe sorcerers, and the Chaldeans.\" Micah v. 12, \"And I will cut\noff witchcrafts, and thou shalt have no soothsayers.\" Nahum iii. 4,\n\"witchcrafts.\" Malachi iii. 5, \"I will be a swift witness against the\nsorcerers.\" The only pretence for this rendering of _poisoner_ is the\nfact that Josephus (_Antiquities_, bk. iv., ch. viii., sec. 34) gives a\nlaw against keeping poisons. As there is no such law in the Pentateuch,\nWhiston tried to kill two difficulties with one note, by saying that\nwhat we render a _witch_ meant a poisoner. The Septuagint has also been\nappealed to, but Sir Charles Lee Brenton, in his translation of the\nSeptuagint, has not thought proper to render our text other than, \"Ye\nshall not save the lives of sorcerers.\"\n\nBut apart from texts (of which I have only given those in which occurs\none word out of the many implying the belief), the _thing_ itself\nis woven into the structure of the Bible. Not only do the Egyptian\nenchanters work miracles and the witch of Endor raise Samuel, but the\npower of evil spirits over men is the occasion of most of the miracles\nof Jesus. The very doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible, so\ncherished by Protestant Christians, is but a part of that doctrine of\nmen being possessed by spirits, good and evil, which is the substratum\nof belief in witchcraft.\n\nEven yet this belief is not entirely extinct in England; and Dr. Buckley\nsays that in America a majority of the citizens believe in witchcraft.\nThe modern Roman Catholic priest is cautioned in the rubric concerning\nthe examination of a possessed patient \"not to believe the demon if\nhe profess to be the soul of some saint or deceased person, or a good\nangel.\" As late as 1773 the divines of the Associated Presbytery passed\na resolution declaring their belief in witchcraft, and deploring the\nscepticism that was general. In the Church Catechism, explained by the\nRev. John Lewis, minister of Margate in Kent--a work which went through\nmany editions, and received the sanction of the Society for Promoting\nChristian Knowledge--a copy of which lies before me, published in\n1813, reads (p. 18): \"Q. What is meant by renouncing the Devil?--A.\nThe refusing of all familiarity and contracts with the Devil, whereof\nwitches, conjurors, and such as resort to them are guilty.\"\n\nLet it never be forgotten that this belief which has not only been the\ncause of the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent women, but has\nsent far more into the worst convulsions of madness and despair, is the\nevident and unmistakable teaching of the Bible.\n\n\n\n\nSAUL'S SPIRITUALIST STANCE AT ENDOR.\n\n\"Our own time has revived a group of beliefs and practices which\nhave their roots deep in the very stratum of early philosophy, where\nwitchcraft makes its first appearance. This group of beliefs and\npractices constitutes what is now commonly known as Spiritualism.\"--Dr.\nE. B. Tylor, \"Primitive Culture\" vol. i., p. 128.\n\nThe oldest portion of the Old Testament scriptures are imbedded in the\nBook of Judges and the Books of Samuel. Few indeed of these narratives\nthrow more light on the early belief of the Jews than the story of Saul\nand the witch of Endor. It is hardly necessary to recount the story,\nwhich is told with a vigor and simplicity showing its antiquity and\ngenuineness. Saul, who had incurred Samuel's enmity by refusing to slay\nthe king Agag, after the death of the prophet, found troubles come\nupon him. Alarmed at the strength of his enemies, the Philistines, he\n\"inquired of the Lord.\" But the Lord was not at home. At any rate, he\n\"answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.\"\nThe legitimate modes of learning one's fortune being thus shut up, Saul\nsought in disguise and by night a woman who had an _ob_. or familiar\nspirit. Now Saul had done his best to suppress witchcraft, having \"put\naway those who had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land.\"\nSo when he said to the witch, \"I pray thee divine unto me by the\nfamiliar spirit and bring him up whom I shall name unto thee,\" the woman\nwas afraid, and asked if he laid a snare for her. Saul swore hard and\nfast he would not hurt her, and it is evident from his question he\nbelieved in her powers of necromancy by the aid of the familiar spirit.\nThis alone shows that the Jews, like all uncivilised people, and many\nwho call themselves civilised, believed in ghosts and the possibility of\ntheir return, but, as we shall see, it does not imply that they\nbelieved in future rewards and punishments. Saul's expectations were\nnot disappointed. He asked to see Samuel, and _up_ Samuel came. He asked\nwhat she saw, and she said _Elohirn_, or as we have it, \"gods ascending\nout of the earth.\" In this fact that the same word in Hebrew is used\nfor _ghosts_ and for _gods_, we have the most important light upon the\norigin of all theology.\n\nThe modern Christian of course believes that Samuel as a holy prophet\ndwells in heaven above, and may wonder, if he thinks of the narrative at\nall, why he should be recalled from his abode of bliss and placed under\nthe magic control of this weird, not to say scandalous, female. But\nSamuel came up, not down from heaven, in accordance, of course, with the\nold belief that Sheol, or the underworld, was beneath the earth.\n\nChristian commentators have resorted to a deal of shuffling and\nwriggling to escape the difficulties of this story, and its endorsement\nof the superstition of witchcraft. The _Speakers' Commentary_ suggests\nthat the Witch of Endor was a female ventriloquist, but, disingenuously,\ndoes not explain that ventriloquists in ancient times were really\nsupposed to have a spirit rumbling or talking inside their bodies.\nAs Dr. E. B. Tylor says in that great storehouse of savage beliefs,\n_Primitive Culture_, \"To this day in China one may get an oracular\nresponse from a spirit apparently talking out of a medium's stomach, for\na fee of about twopence-halfpenny.\"\n\nSome make out, because Saul at first asked the woman what she saw, that,\nas at many modern seances, it was only the medium, who saw the ghost,\nand Saul only knew who it was through her, else why should he have asked\nher what form Samuel had?--which elicited the not very detailed reply\nof \"an old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle\"--that is,\nwe suppose, with the ghost of a mantle. She did the seeing and he the\nhearing. But it says \"Saul perceived it was Samuel,\" and prostrated\nhimself, which he would hardly have done at a description. Indeed, the\nwhole narrative is inconsistent with the modern theory of imposture on\nthe part of the witch. Had this been the explanation, the writer should\nhave said so plainly. He should have said her terror was pretended, that\nthe apparition was unreal, and that Saul trembled at the woman's words,\nwhereas it is plainly declared that \"he was sore afraid because of the\nwords of Samuel.\" Moreover, and this is decisive, the spirit utters\na prophecy--not an encouraging, but a gloomy one--which was exactly\nfulfilled.\n\nAll this shows the writer was saturated in supernaturalism. He never\nuses an expression indicating a shadow of a ghost of a doubt of the\nghost. He might easily have said the whole thing was deceit. He does\nnot, for he believed in witchcraft like the priests who ordered \"Thou\nshalt not suffer a witch to live.\" One little circumstance shows his\nsympathy. Samuel says: \"Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?\"\nThis is quite in consonance with savage belief that spirits should not\nbe disturbed. Here was Samuel quietly buried in Ramah, some fifty miles\noff, taking his comfortable nap, may be for millenniums in Sheol, when\nthe old woman's incantations bustle him out of his grave and transport\nhim to Endor. No wonder he felt disquieted and prophesied vengeance to\nSaul and to his sons, \"because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord\nnor executedest his fierce wrath upon Amalek.\"\n\nMatthew Henry and other commentators think that the person who presented\nhimself to Saul was not Samuel, but Satan assuming his appearance. Those\nwho believe in Satan, and that he can transform himself into an angel of\nlight (2 Cor. xi. 14), cannot refuse to credit the possibility of this.\nFolks with that comfortable belief can credit anything. To sensible\npeople it is scarcely necessary to say there is nothing about Satan in\nthe narrative, nor any conceivable reason why he should be credited\nwith a true prophecy. The words uttered are declared to be the words of\nSamuel.*\n\n     * The seventeenth verse stupidly reads, \"The Lord hath done\n     to him as he spake by me.\" The LXX and Vulgate more sensibly\n     reads to thee.\n\nMuch is said of Saul's wickedness, but the only wickedness attributed to\nhim is his mercy in not executing God's fierce wrath. If it was wicked\nto seek the old woman, it is curious God should grant the object he was\nseeking, by raising up one of his own holy servants. Why did the Lord\nemploy such an agency? It looks very much like sanctioning necromancy.\nAnd further, if a spirit returned from the dead to tell Saul he should\ndie and go to Sheol--where Samuel was, for he says \"to-morrow shalt thou\nand thy sons be _with me_\"--why should not spirits now return to tell\nus we are immortal? If the witch of Endor could raise spirits, why not\nLottie Fowler or Mr. Eglinton? Such are the arguments of the spiritists.\nWe venture to think they cannot be answered by the orthodox. To\nus, however, the fact that the beliefs of the spiritists find their\ncountenance in the beliefs of savages like the early Jews is their\nsufficient refutation. Spiritism, as Dr. Tylor says, is but a revival of\nold savage animism.\n\n\n\n\nSACRIFICES.\n\n     No sacrifice to heaven, no help from heaven;\n     That runs through all the faiths of all the world.\n     --Tennyson--Harold.\n\nThe origin and meaning of sacrifices constitute a central problem\nof ancient religion. It links indeed the stronghold of orthodox\nChristianity--its doctrine of the Atonement--with the most barbarous\ncustoms of primitive savages. When we hear of the Lamb slain for\nsinners, the very phrase takes us back to the time when sins were\nformally placed upon the heads of unconscious animals that they might\nbe held accursed instead of man; and to the yet older notion of human\nsacrifice as a most acceptable offering to the gods.\n\nSacrifices were primarily meals offered to the spirits of the dead. It\nis not hard to understand how they arose. The Hindoos who placed upon\nthe grave of an English officer the brandy and cheroots which he loved\nin life in order to propitiate his spirit illustrated a prominent\naspect. Just as men were appeased with gifts, usually of substances\nwhich minister to life, so were spirits supposed to be, and the general\nform which the offering took was something in the shape of what the\nAmericans call a square meal. The Romans never sat down to eat without\nplacing a portion aside for the Lares and Penates. Professor Smith, in\nhis _Lectures on the Religion of the Semites_, gives abundant evidence\nthat the early sacrifices of the Semitic people were animals offered\nat a meal partaken by the worshippers. The sacrifice, he holds, was\noriginally a nourishing of the common life of the kindred and their\ngod by a common meal. The primary communion with deity was communion of\nfood. This may not be very poetical, but it is natural and true. Eating\nand drinking together were primarily signs of fraternity. Only to his\nown kin did early man own duty, and his god was always of his own kin.\nJehovah was, as we are often told, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.\nHe was their father and their king. When Ruth said to Naomi, \"Thy people\nshall be my people, and thy God my God,\" the exclamation showed that\ntaking up new kindred involved a change of worship. Professor Smith\nsays: \"It cannot be too strongly insisted on that the idea of kinship\nbetween gods and men was originally taken in a purely physical sense.\"\nThe modern Christian's explanations of biblical anthropomorphisms may be\ndismissed as unfounded assumptions. The story in Genesis of the sons\nof God going with the daughters of men is one of the remnants of early\nmyths unexplained by later editors.\n\nThe Bible God, as any careful reader will perceive, was very partial to\nroast meat. One of the earliest items recorded of him is that he had\nno respect for Cain and his offering of vegetables, while to Abel who\nbrought him the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, he\nhad respect. He much prefered mutton to turnips. When Noah offered a\nsacrifice, we are told \"He smelt a sweet savor\" (Gen. vii. 21). But\nthe Lord was by no means content with the smell. On his altars huge\nhecatombs of animals were continually being slaughtered, and the\nchoicest portions set aside as the Lord's. The Lord God seems to have\nbeen extremely fond of fat, especially that about the rump. As the\nrichest part of the animal, it was reserved with \"the two kidneys and\nthe fat that is upon them\" especially for the Lord (Lev. iii. 9-11). Let\nit be noticed that the Lord God required no sacrifices except of eatable\nanimals, oxen, rams, goats, lambs, and kids. Fishes he had no regard\nfor, and of birds only turtle doves and pigeons were his favorite\ndishes. Wine and oil he took to wash them down, but never mentioned\nwater. Like his ministers, he lived on the fat of the land,* claiming as\nhis own the firstlings of the flock. From his claim to the first born,\nit appears that Jahveh was originally given to \"long pig,\" but in\nthe case of Abraham's son, he took a ram instead. He was, however,\nso partial to blood that he interdicted the sacred fluid to his\nworshippers, but demanded that it should be poured out upon his altar\n(Deut. xii.) Even the early Christians made it a fundamental rule of\nthe Church that disciples should abstain from blood, and from things\nstrangled (Acts xv. 20). The blood was supposed to be especially the\nLord's.\n\n     * To \"eat the fat\" seems, as in Neh. viii. 10, to have been\n     a biblical expression for good living.\n\nLet not the serious reader suppose we are jesting. Hear what Prof.\nRobertson Smith says.\n\n\"All sacrifices laid upon the altar were taken by the ancients as\nbeing literally the food of the gods. The Homeric deities 'feast on\nhecatombs,' nay particular Greek gods have special epithets designating\nthem as the goat-eater, the ram-eater, the bull-eater, even 'cannibal,'\nwith allusion to human sacrifices. Among the Hebrews the conception that\nJehovah eats the flesh of bulls and drinks the blood of goats, against\nwhich the author of Psalm 1. protests so strongly, was never eliminated\nfrom the ancient technical language of the priestly ritual, in which the\nsacrifices are called _lechem Elohim_, 'the food of the deity.'\"*\n\n     * Religion of the Semites, p. 207.\n\nOur translators of the passages where this phrase occurs (Lev. xxi. 8,\n17, 21, 22; Num. xxviii. 2) have done their best to conceal the meaning,\nbut like the phrase \"wine which cheereth God and man\" (Judges ix. 13),\nit takes us back to the time when gods were supposed, like men, to eat,\ndrink, and be refreshed.\n\nIt was a fundamental rule of the Jewish faith that no one should appear\nbefore the Lord empty handed (Exodus xxiii. 15.) Not to take him an\noffering was as improper as in the East it still is to approach a chief\nor great man without some present. A sacrifice was as imperative as it\nnow is to put something in the church plate. When God made a call on\nAbraham, with Eastern hospitality the patriarch procured water to wash\nhis feet and killed a calf for the entertainment of his visitor. The\nLord God was not a vegetarian but a stout kreophagist. In Numbers (xxix.\n13) he orders as a sacrifice \"of a sweet savor unto the Lord, thirteen\nyoung bullocks, two rams and fourteen lambs of the first year.\"\n\nFrom the frequent mention of the \"sweet savor,\" it seems likely that the\noriginal idea of the god partaking of the food, developed into that of\nhis taking only the essence of the food. As God got less anthropomorphic\nhe lost his teeth and had, poor spirit, to be content with the smell of\nthe good things offered up to him. We gather from Lev. vii. 6 that the\nkidneys, fat and other delicacies really fell to the lot of the priests,\nand some people have found a sufficient reason for the sacrifices to God\nin the fact that the priests liked mutton.\n\nIn 1 Samuel ii. 13-16 we are told how it was the custom of the priests\nthat when any man offered sacrifice, \"the priest's servant came, while\nthe flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand.\nAnd he struck it into the pan or kettle, or caldron or pot; all that the\nfleshhook brought up the priest took for himself.\"\n\nIn the time of David the Lord had a table of shew-bread set before\nhim--that is, a table spread with food in the temple, where he was\nsupposed to come and take it when he desired, just as Africans place\nmeal and liquor in their fetish houses. Such tables were set in the\ngreat temple of Bel at Babylon, and the story of Bel and the Dragon in\nthe Apocrypha explains how the priests and their women and children\ncame in by a secret door and ate up the things which were supposed to be\nconsumed by the God.\n\nWhile the Lord and the priests were certainly not vegetarians, neither\ndid they insist on a vegetable diet for their people. The Lord's table\nof fare is set out in Leviticus xi., and a very curious _menu_ it is.\nThe hare is expressly excluded \"because he cheweth the cud,\" although\nhe does nothing of the kind; but \"the locust after his kind, the\nbald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the\ngrasshopper after his kind,\" are freely permitted. Another divine\nregulation, and one which throws much light on the divine methods, is\nrecorded in Deut. xvi. 21--\"Thou shalt not eat of anything that dieth\nof itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is within thy gates\nthat he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien.\" To this day\nthe Jews are particular in observing this godly method of disposing of\ndiseased meat.\n\nTo arrive at the truth in regard to the question whether human sacrifice\nwas at one time a portion of the Jewish religion, or whether it was,\nas the orthodox generally assert, simply a corruption copied from the\nsurrounding heathen nations, it is necessary to bear in mind that every\nportion of the Jewish law is of later date than the prophets. The book\nof the law was only found in the time of King Josiah, who opposed this\nvery practice (2 Kings xxiii. 10), and there is no evidence of its\nexistence before that date. There is reason to believe that the priestly\ncode of Leviticus is later still, dating only from the time of Ezra.\nInstead of reflecting the ideas of the age of Moses, it reflects those\nof almost a thousand years later. It is therefore only in the historical\nbooks that we can expect to find traces of what the actual religion\nof Israel was. There is ample evidence that human sacrifice formed a\nconspicuous element. Ahaz, King of Judah, \"burnt his children in the\nfire\" (2 Chron. xxviii. 3); Mannasseh, King of Judah, was guilty of the\nsame atrocity (2 Chron. xxxiii. 6); Jeremiah denounces the children of\nJudah for having \"built the high place of Tophet, which is in the valley\nof the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the\nfire\" (vii. 31); Micah remonstrates against both animal and human\nsacrifice--\"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams; shall I\ngive my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the\nsin of my soul?\" (vi. 7). In the well-known story of Abraham and\nIsaac, as in the Greek story of Iphigenia, and the Roman one of Valeria\nLuperca, we have an account of the transition to a less barbarous stage\nin the substitution of animal for human sacrifice. It was natural\nthat this legend should be ascribed to the time of the father of the\nfaithful, but there is, as we have seen, abundant evidence of the\npractice existing long subsequent to the time of Abraham, who was by no\nmeans surprised at and in no way demurred to the divine command, \"Take\nnow thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee unto\nthe land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of\nthe mountains which I will tell thee of\" (Genesis xxii. 2). Anyone\nwho at the present day should exhibit a faith like unto that of the\npatriarchal saint would be in jeopardy of finding himself within the\nwalls of a criminal lunatic asylum.\n\nThat human sacrifices lasted long after the time of Abraham we have an\ninstance in the case of Jephthah, who vowed that if Jahveh would deliver\nthe children of Ammon into his hand, he would offer up for a burnt\noffering whosoever came forth from his house to meet him upon his return\nfrom his expedition (Judges xi. 30, 31). In order to tone this down the\nAuthorised Version reads \"whatsoever\" instead of \"whosoever,\" which\nis supplied in the margin of the Revised Version. Despite the emphatic\nstatement that Jephthah did with her according to his vow, it has been\nalleged that because his daughter petitioned to be allowed to bewail her\nvirginity for two months, she was only condemned to a life of celibacy.\nThis is preposterous. Jahveh, unlike Jesus, had no partiality for\nthe unmarried state. He liked a real sacrifice of blood. To lament\nchildlessness was a common ancient custom, and even the Greek and Latin\npoets have represented their heroines who were similarly doomed to an\nearly death, such as Antigone, Polyxena, and Iphigenia, as actually\nlamenting in a very similar manner their virginity or unmarried\ncondition. There is no single instance in the Old Testament of a woman\nbeing set apart as a virgin, though, as we have seen, there are numerous\nindications of human sacrifices.\n\nEven in the Levitical law sanction is given to human sacrifice. \"None\ndevoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be ransomed; he shall\nsurely be put to death\" (Lev. xxvii. 29). Jahveh insisted on the\nsacrifice being completed. David sent seven sons of Saul to be hung\nbefore the Lord to stay a famine.\n\nThat a party remained in Israel who considered human sacrifice a part of\ntheir religion is evident also from Jeremiah, who says: \"They have built\nalso the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt\nofferings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came\nit into my mind\" (xix. 5). These strong asseverations were evidently\ncalled forth by assertions made by persons addicted to such practices,\nand those persons had the support of Ezekiel, who, in contradiction\nto the statements of Jeremiah, contended that Jahveh gave them up to\npollution, even as he hardened the heart of Pharaoh that they might know\nthat he was the Lord (Ezek. xx. 25-26).\n\n\n\n\nTHE PASSOVER.\n\n     \"_Christ our passover is sacrificed for us_.\"\n     --Paul (1 Cor. v. 7.)\n\nThe Passover is the most important and impressive festival of the Jews,\ninstituted, it is said, by God himself, and a type of the sacrifice of\nhis only son. Its observance was most rigorously enjoined under penalty\nof death, and although the circumstances of the Jews have prevented\ntheir carrying out the sacrificial details, they still, in the custom of\neach head of the family assuming _pro tem_, the _r\u00f4le_ of high priest,\npreserve the most primitive type of priesthood known.\n\nThe Bible account of the institution of the Passover is utterly\nincredible. After afflicting the Egyptians with nine plagues, God still\nhardens Pharaoh's heart (Exodus x. 27), and tells Moses that \"about\nmidnight\" he will go into the midst of Egypt and slay all the firstborn.\nBut in order that he shall make no mistake in carrying out his atrocious\ndesign, he orders that each family of the children of Israel shall take\na lamb and kill it in the evening, and smear the doorposts of the\nhouse with blood, \"and when I see the blood I will pass over you.\" The\nomniscient needed this sign, that he might not make a mistake and slay\nthe very people he meant to deliver. One cannot help wondering what\nwould have been the result if some Egyptian, like Morgiana in \"The\nForty Thieves,\" had wiped off the blood from the Israelite doorposts and\nsprinkled the doorposts of the Egyptians. Moses received this command on\nthe very day at the close of which the paschal lambs were to be killed.\nThis was very short notice for communicating with the head of each\nfamily about to start on a hurried flight. As the people were two\nmillion in number and the lambs had to be all males, without blemish, of\none year old, this supposes, on the most moderate computation, a flock\nof sheep as numerous as the people. Who can credit this monstrous libel\non the character of God and on the intelligence of those to whom such a\nstory is proffered?\n\nWhat, then, is the correct version of the origin of the Passover? Dr.\nHardwicke, in his _Popular Faith Unveiled_, following Sir Wm. Drummond\nand Godfrey Higgins, says it meant \"nothing more or less than the\npass-over of the sun across the equator, into the constellation Aries,\nwhen the astronomical lamb was consequently obliterated or sacrificed by\nthe superior effulgence of the sun.\" It is noticeable that the principal\nfestivals of the Jews, as of other nations, were in spring and autumn,\nat the time of lambing and sowing and when the harvest ripened. But\nwhile allowing that this may have determined the time of the festival, I\ncannot think it covers the ground of its significance. The story relates\nthat when Moses first asked Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, it\nwas that they might celebrate a feast in the wilderness which was\naccompanied by a sacrifice (see Exodus v. i. and iii. 19). This may be\ntaken as indicating that there was known to be a festival at this season\nprior to the days of Pharaoh. And at the festival of the spring increase\nof flocks the god must of course have his share.\n\nEpiphanius declares that the Egyptians marked their sheep with red,\nbecause of the general conflagration which once raged at the time when\nthe sun passed over into the sign of Aries, thereby to symbolise the\nfiery death of those animals who were not actually offered up. Von\nBohlen says the ancient Peruvians marked with blood the doors of the\ntemples, royal residences, and private dwellings, to symbolise the\ntriumph of the sun over the winter.\n\nThe suggestion that owing to peculiarities of diet or of constitution\nsome pestilence afflicted the Egyptians which passed over and spared the\nJews, is a very plausible one, and deserves more attention than it\nhas yet received, since it would account for many features in the\ninstitution. But there remains another signification, which seems\nindicated in the thirteenth chapter of Exodus in connection with the\ninstitution of the Passover. There we read the order, \"Thou shalt set\napart [the margin more properly reads \"cause to pass over\"] unto the\nLord, all that openeth the matrix\" (verse 12). \"And every firstling of\nan ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou will not redeem it,\nthen thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy\nchildren shalt thou redeem.\"* Professor Huxley asks upon this passage:\n\"Is it possible to avoid the conclusion that immolation of their\nfirstborn sons would have been incumbent on the worshippers of Jahveh,\nhad they not been thus specially excused?\"** In one of the oldest\nportions of the Pentateuch (Exodus xxii. 29) the command stands simply,\n\"the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.\" In Exodus xii. 27,\nxxiii. 18, xxxiv. 25; and Numbers ix. 13, the Passover is spoken of as\nparticularly the Lord's own sacrifice.\n\n     * Why is the ass only mentioned besides man? One cannot but\n     suspect that his introduction is an interpolation by the\n     reformed Jews, who had outgrown the custom of human\n     sacrifice, betrayed by the phrase \"thou shalt break his\n     neck.\"\n\n     ** Nineteenth Century, April, 1886.\n\nThe law proceeds to enjoin that the father shall tell his son as the\nreason for the festival, how the Lord \"slew all the firstborn in the\nland of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beasts:\ntherefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix being\nmales; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem.\" Evidently here is\nthe notion of a substitutionary offering, although the reason given is\nnot the true reason. In Exodus xxxiv. 18-20, the festival is brought\ninto the same connection with immediate reference to the redemption of\nthe firstborn. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have the same idea.\nGod commands the patriarch to offer up his only son as a burnt sacrifice\n(Gen. xxii. 2), an order which he receives without astonishment, and\nproceeds to execute as if it were the most ordinary business imaginable,\nwithout the slightest sign of reluctance. A messenger from Jahveh,\nhowever, intervenes and a ram is substituted.* I do not doubt that this\nstory, like similar ones found in Hindu and Greek mythology, indicates\nan era when animal sacrifices were substituted for human ones.**\n\n     * Observe that Elohim, the old gods, claim the sacrifice and\n     Jahveh, the new Lord, prevents it.\n\n     ** It may help us to understand how the sacrifice of an\n     animal may atone for human life, if we notice how in South\n     Africa a Zulu will redeem a lost child from the finder by a\n     bullock.\n\nThe legend is of course far older than the record of it which reaches\nus. In a notable passage in Ezekiel xx. 25, 26, the Lord declares that\nhe had given his people \"statutes that were not good, and judgments\nwhereby they should not live.\" And he continues, \"I polluted them in\ntheir own gifts in that they cause to pass through _the fire_ all that\nopeneth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they\nmight know that I am the Lord.\" The fact that the very same words are\nused in Ezekiel which are found in Exodus xiii. 12, at once suggests\nthat originally the passover was a human sacrifice, and that of the most\nabominable kind--the offering of the firstborn--and that the story of\nthe Lord slaying the firstborn of Egypt was an invention to account for\nthe relics of the custom. We know that such sacrifices did remain as\npart of the Jewish religion. Ezekiel himself says that when they had\nslain their children to their idols, they came the same day in the\nsanctuary to profane it (xxiii. 39). Micah argues against the barbarous\npractice: \"Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of\nmy body for the sin of my soul?\" (vi. 6). Two kings of Judah, Ahaz\nand Manasseh, are recorded to have offered up their children as burnt\nofferings (2 Chron. xxviii. 3, xxxiii. 6), as upon one occasion did the\nking of Moab (2 Kings iii. 27). 2 Chron. xxx., in relating how Hezekiah\ncommanded all Israel to keep the Passover, says that \"they had not done\nit of a long time in such sort as it was written,\" and relates how the\nLevites were ashamed and many yet did eat the Passover otherwise than\nit was written. And in the account of how Josiah broke down the altars\nwhich had been set up by Ahaz and Manasseh one reads \"surely there was\nnot held such a Passover from the days of the judges.\" In other words,\nit had never been kept in the same fashion within human memory. The\nkeeping of the Passover had been different before this reformation, just\nas until the age of Hezekiah the Jews worshipped a brazen serpent, which\nthey afterwards accounted for by ascribing it to Moses, the law-giver\nwho had prohibited all idolatry. On the eve of the Passover, to the\npresent day, the firstborn son among the Jews, who is of full age--i.e.,\nthirteen--fasts. This we take to be a rudimentary survival.\n\nIf then we interpret the offering of the paschal lamb as being\nsubstituted for a human sacrifice, we shall understand how it is at\nonce a thank-offering and yet eaten with \"the bread of affliction,\" the\nmotzahs, or unleavened cakes, and bitter herbs, which are the remaining\nfeatures of the festival, and this may help to explain the accusation\nwhich in all ages has been brought against the Jews, viz., that once in\nseven years at least they required their Passover to be celebrated with\nhuman blood. It is true the accusation has been often brought without\nevidence, but the Jews themselves profess astonishment at the unanimity\nwith which their opponents have fixed upon this charge. Further, we\nshall see that in adopting the paschal lamb as the type of Christ,\nthe substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, the Christians were simply\nreverting to the early savage notion that deities are only to be\nappeased with blood, and to this degraded belief they have added the\nabsurdity that Christ himself was God, thus making God sacrifice himself\nin order to appease himself!\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF JAHVEH.\n\nIn the beginning when men created gods they made them in their own\nimage, cruel, unrestrained and vacillating, All the early religions give\nevidence of the savage nature of ancient man. The departed gods, viewed\nin the light of modern ideals, were all ugly devils. The boasted God of\nthe Jews is no exception. Although the books of the Old Testament do\nnot give us the earliest and doubtless still more savage beliefs of the\nIsraelites, the oldest portions, such as the legends embodied in Genesis\nand the historical books, sufficiently betray that Jahveh was no better\nthan his compeers. It is evident that originally he was only one of many\ngods. He is always spoken of as a family deity--the God of Abraham, of\nIsaac and of Jacob. Human sacrifices were at one time offered to him\n(see Genesis xxii., Leviticus xxvii. 29, Numbers xxv. 4, Judges xi.\n31-39,1 Samuel xv. 23, Micah vi. 6,7). He is anthropomorphic, yet\nanything but a gentleman. In his decalogue he describes himself as \"a\njealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children\nuntil the third and fourth generation.\" He delights in blood and\nsacrifice. He is entitled \"a god of battles,\" \"Lord of hosts,\" and \"a\nman of war.\" He has the form, the movements, and the imperfections of a\nhuman being. Man is said to be made in his image and after his likeness.\nIt is plain these words must be taken in their literal significance,\nsince, a little further on, Adam is described, in the same language, as\nhaving begotten Seth \"in his own likeness and after his image\" (Genesis\nv. 3).\n\nJahveh walks in the garden in the cool of the day. He has come down to\nsee the tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 5). He covers Moses with \"his hand\" so\nthat he should not see \"his face\"; and while Moses stands in a clift of\nthe rock Jahveh shows him \"his back parts\" (Exodus xxxiii. 23). He makes\nclothes for Adam and Eve, and writes his laws with his own finger. After\nsix days' work we are told that \"on the seventh day he rested and was\nrefreshed\" (Exodus xxxi. 17). When Noah sacrificed we are told that\n\"Jahveh smelled a sweet savor\" (Gen. vii. 21). He creates mankind and\nthen regrets their creation--\"It repented Jahveh that he had made man\non the earth and it grieved him at his heart\" (Genesis vi. 6). He puts\na bow in the clouds in order to remember his vow, and again and again he\nrepents of the evil which he thought to do unto his people (see Exodus\nxxxii. 14; Numbers xiv.; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; Jonah iii. 10; etc.)\n\nJacob wrestles with him; and when things do not go as they wish, Moses,\nJoshua, David and Job no more hesitate to remonstrate with their deity\nthan the African hesitates to chide the fetish that does not answer his\nprayers.\n\nIn the early books Jahveh is irascible and unjust. His temper is soon\nup, and his vengeance usually falls on the wrong parties. Eve eats the\nforbidden fruit and all her female descendants are condemned to pains\nat childbirth. Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews go and the firstborn\nchild of every Egyptian family is slain, and other dreadful afflictions\nare poured on the innocent people. David, like a wise king, takes\na census of his nation, and Jahveh punishes him by slaying seventy\nthousand of the people by a pestilence (1 Chron. xxi. 1--17). He\nslaughters fifty thousand inhabitants of the village of Bethshemesh\nfor innocently looking into his travelling-trunk on its return from\ncaptivity (1 Samuel vi. 19). He smites Uzzah for putting his hand to\nsave the ark from falling (2 Samuel vi. 6, 7), and withers Jeroboam's\nhand for venturing to put it upon the altar (1 Kings xiii. 4). He sends\nbears to kill forty-two little children for calling Elisha \"bald-head\"\n(2 Kings ii. 23, 24), and his general conduct is that of a barbarous,\nbloodthirsty and irresponsible tyrant. We say nothing here of the\ncharacter of his favorite people. \"Man paints himself in his gods,\" said\nSchiller.\n\nThe captivity of the Jews and their consequent contact with other\nnations led to their own refinement and an enlarged ideal of their\ndivinity. He improves much in his character, tastes and propensities.\nNehemiah addressed Jahveh in the elevated tone the Persians addressed\nAhura-Mazda. Whereas in the old days Jahveh ordered whole hecatombs of\nsheep and oxen to be sacrificed to him, doubtless because his priests\nliked beef and mutton (they had the meat and he had the smell)--the\nprophet Isaiah in his first chapter writes, \"To what purpose is the\nmultitude of your sacrifices unto me?\" saith Jahveh. \"Wash you, make you\nclean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do\nevil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge\nthe fatherless, plead for the widow.\" Similarly, Micah gives worship an\nethical instead of a ceremonial character: \"Will Jahveh be pleased with\nthousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my\nfirstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my\nsoul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jahveh\nrequire of thee but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with\nthy God.\" Ezekiel bluntly contradicts Moses, and declares that \"the son\nshall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear\nthe iniquity of the son\" (xviii. 20).\n\nThe second Isaiah even looks forward to the time when Gentiles will\nacknowledge the Jewish Jahveh, and Zechariah declares \"Thus saith Jahveh\nof hosts: In those days it shall come to pass that the ten men shall\ntake hold of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the\nskirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have\nheard that God is with you\" (viii. 23).\n\nJewish vanity did not permit tolerance to extend beyond this. Even in\nthe New Testament God only offers salvation to those who believe, and\nmercilessly damns all the rest. \"An honest God is the noblest work of\nman,\" and theists of all kinds have found great difficulty in supplying\nthe article.\n\nHerbert Spencer, in a paper on \"Religion\" in the _Nineteenth Century_*\nwell says: \"If we contrast the Hebrew God described in primitive\ntradition, manlike in appearance, appetites and emotions, with the\nHebrew Gods as characterised by the prophets, there is shown a widening\nrange of power along with a nature increasingly remote from that of man.\nAnd on passing to the conceptions of him which are now entertained,\nwe are made aware of an extreme transfiguration. By a convenient\nobliviousness, a deity who in early times is represented as hardening\nmen's hearts so that they may commit punishable acts, and as employing\na lying spirit to deceive them, comes to be mostly thought of as an\nembodiment of virtues transcending the highest we can imagine.\" And so\nthe idea of God developes\n\n     \"Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.\"\n\n     * January, 1884.\n\nFor the process is not simply from the savage to the civilised--it is\nfrom the definite to the dim. As man advances God retires. With each\nincrease of our knowledge of nature the sphere of the supernatural is\nlessened till all deities and devils are seen to be but reflections of\nman's imagination and symbols of his ignorance.\n\n\n\n\nJOSHUA AND THE SUN.\n\nSavages fail to recognise the limits of their power over nature. Things\nwhich the experience of the race shows us to be obviously impossible\nare not only attempted but believed to be performed by persons in a low\nstage of culture. Miracles always accompany ignorance. No better proof\nof the barbarous and unintelligent state whence we have emerged could be\ngiven than the stories of the supernatural which are found embodied in\nall religions, and also in the customs of savages and the folk-lore of\npeasantry.\n\nPrimitive man thinks of all phenomena as caused by spirits. Hence to\ncontrol the spirits is to control the phenomena. Herodotus (iv., 173)\ntells a curious tale how once in the land of Psylii, the modern Tripoli,\nthe wind blowing from the Sahara dried up all the water-tanks. So the\npeople took counsel and marched in a body to make war on the south wind.\nBut when they entered the desert, the simoon swept down on them and\nburied them. It is still said of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa that \"no\nwhirlwind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen\nsavages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty\ncolumn, in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be\nriding on the blast.\" The Chinese beat gongs and make other noises at an\neclipse, to drive away the dragon of darkness. At an eclipse, too, the\nOjibbeways used to think the sun was being extinguished, so they shot\nfire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus to re-kindle his expiring\nlight. At the present day Theosophists seek to compass magical powers\nwhich in early times were supposed to be generally possessed by\nsorcerers.\n\nRain-making was one of the most common of these supposed powers.\nInstances are found in the Bible. Samuel says: \"I will call unto the\nLord and he shall send thunder and rain,\" and he does so (1 Sam. xii.\n17, 18). So Elijah, by prayer (which in early times meant a magical\nspell), obtained rain. Jesus controls the winds and the waves, walks on\nthe water, and levitates through the air.\n\nMr. J. G. Frazer, in his splendid work _The Golden Bough_ gives many\ninstances of savages making sunshine and staying the sun. Thus \"the\nMelanesians make sunshine by means of a mock sun. A round stone is wound\nabout with red braid and stuck with owl's feathers to represent rays; it\nis then hung on a high tree.\" \"In a pass of the Peruvian Andes stand two\nruined towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped into their walls\nfor the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to another. The net\nis intended to catch the sun.\" Numerous other methods are resorted to by\ndifferent tribes. Jerome, of Prague, travelling among the Lithuanians,\nwho early in the fifteenth century were still Pagans, found a tribe who\nworshipped the sun and venerated a large iron hammer. \"The priests told\nhim at once the sun had been invisible for several months because a\npowerful king had shut it up in a strong tower; but the signs of the\nzodiac had broken open the tower with this very hammer and released the\nsun. Therefore they adored the hammer.\"* Mr. Frazer gives reasons for\nthinking that the fire festivals solemnised at Midsummer in ancient\ntimes were really sun-charms.\n\nThe phenomena of nature were supposed to be at the service of the pious.\nThe thunderbolts of Zeus fell upon the heads of perjurers. Some people\nstill wonder the earth does not open when a man announces himself an\nAtheist. Jahveh just before stopping the sun, pelted the enemies of\nIsrael with hailstones (Joshua x. 11). So Diodorus Siculus (xi. 1)\nrelates how the Persians when on their way to spoil the temple at\nDelphi, were deterred by \"a sudden and incredible tempest of wind and\nhail, with dreadful thunder and lightning, by which great rocks were\nrent to pieces and cast upon the heads of the Persians, destroying them\nin heaps.\" Herodotus too (ii. 142) tells how \"The Egyptians asserted\nthat the sun had four times deviated from his ordinary course.\"\nClergymen cite this as a corroboration of the fact that all ancient\npeoples have similar absurd legends displaying their ignorance of nature\nand consequent superstition. The power of arresting the stars in their\ncourses, and lengthening the days and nights was imputed to witches.\nThus Tibullus says of a sorceress (i. eleg. 2)--\n\n     I've seen her tear the planets from the sky,\n     Seen lightning backward at her bidding fly.\n\nAnd Lucan in his Pharsalia (vi. 462)--\n\n     Whene'er the proud enchantress gives command,\n     Eternal motion stops her active hand;\n     No more Heav'n's rapid circles joarney on,\n     But universal nature stands foredone;\n     The lazy God of day forgets to rise,\n     And everlasting night pollutes the skies.\n\n     * The Golden Bough, vol. i., pp. 24, 25.\n\nNo modern poet would think of saying like Statius that the sun stood\nstill at the unnatural murder of Atreus. Such an idea found its way into\npoetry because it had previously been conceived as a fact.\n\nHence we find numerous similar stories to that of Joshua. Thus it is\nrelated of Bacchus in the Orphic hymns that he arrested the course of\nthe sun and the moon. Mr. Spence Hardy in his _Legends and Theories\nof Buddhists_, shows that arresting the course of the sun was a common\nthing among the disciples of Buddha. We need not be surprised to find\nthat men were once believed to be able to control the sun when we\nreflect that to this day the majority of people fancy there is some\nmagnified non-natural man, they call God, who is able to do the same.\nSeeing the legend of Joshua in its true form as one of numerous similar\ninstances illustrating the barbarity and ignorance of the past, we see\nalso that the whole merit and instruction of the story is taken away by\nthose modern Christians, who speak of it as poetry, or who endeavor to\nreconcile it with the conclusions of science. These explanations were\nnever sought for while miracles were generally credible. Josephus speaks\nof the miracle as a literal one, and the author of Ecclesiasticus xlvi.\n5 says the Lord \"stopped the sun in his anger and made one day as two.\"\n\n\"Rationalistic\" explanations of miracles are often the most irrational,\nbecause they fail to take into account the vast difference between the\nstate of mind which gave rise to the stories, and that which seeks to\nrationalise them.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEBREW PROPHETS.\n\nAnyone who has read an account of the mystery men among savages, will\nhave the clue to the original nature and functions of the inspired\nprophets of Jahveh. These persons occupied a r\u00f4le somewhat similar to\nthat of Brian the hermit, the highland seer described by Sir Walter\nScott in his \"Lady of the Lake.\" They were a sort of cross between the\nbard and the fortuneteller. Divination, though forbidden by the law of\nMoses, was continually resorted to by the superstitious Jews.\n\nThe mysterious Urim and Thummim clearly represented some method of\ndivination. In 1 Kings vi. 16 and Psalms xxviii. 2, the adytum of the\ntemple is called the \"oracle.\" Numerous references are to be found in\nthe Bible to the practice of casting lots, the disposing of which is\nsaid to be \"of the Lord\" (see Num. xxvi. 55, Joshua xiii. 6, 1 Sam. xiv.\n41, Prov. xiv. 33, xviii. 18, and Esther iii. 7), and also to \"inquiring\nof God,\" which was equivalent to divination. Thus in Judges xviii. 5\nfive Danites ask the Levite, who became Micah's priest, to \"ask counsel\nof God\" whether they shall prosper on their way.\n\nThe ninth chapter of the first book of Samuel gives an instructive\nglimpse into the nature of the prophets. Saul, sent to recover his\nfather's asses, and, unable to find them, is told by his servant that\nthere is in the city a man of God, and all what he saith cometh surely\nto pass. Saul, perhaps guessing the lucre-loving propensities of men of\nGod, complains that he has no present to offer. The servant, however,\nhad the fourth part of a shekel of silver (about 8d.) wherewith to cross\nthe seer's palms; and Saul, seeking for asses, is made king over Israel\nby the prophet Samuel. The custom of making a present to the prophet is\nalso alluded to in 1 Kings xiv. 3. Jereboam, when his son falls sick,\nsends his wife to Ahijah the prophet with ten loaves and cracknels and a\ncruse of honey, to inquire his fate. Later on, Micah (iii. 11) complains\nthat \"the prophets divine for money.\" See also Nehe-miah vi. 12. As with\nthe oracles of ancient Greece and Rome (the inspiration of which was\nbelieved by the early Christian fathers, with the proviso that they were\ninspired not by deities, but by devils), the prophets were especially\nconsulted in times of war. Thus, in 1 Kings xxii., Ahab consults 400\nprophets about going to battle against Ramoth-Gilead. He is told to go\nand prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand. Micaiah\nthe prophet, however, explains that he had seen the Lord in counsel with\nall the host of heaven, and the Lord sent a lying spirit to the prophets\nin order to persuade Ahab to go to his destruction. This is quite in\naccordance with the declaration in Ezekiel xiv. 9, that \"if the prophet\nbe deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord hath deceived that\nprophet.\" David on one occasion (1 Sam. xxiii. 9) \"took counsel of God,\"\nas this divination was called, by means of the ephod, probably connected\nwith the Urim and Thummim. He sought to know if he would be safe from\nhis enemy, Saul, if he stayed at Keilah. On receiving an unfavorable\nresponse David decamped. Inquiring of the Lord on another occasion,\nDavid got more particular instructions than were usually imparted by\noracles. He was told not to go up against the Philistines, but to fetch\na compass behind them and come on them over against the mulberry trees\n(2 Sam. v. 23).\n\nWe read, 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, that \"when Saul inquired of the Lord, the\nLord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.\"\nThis, presumably, was because (verse 3) \"Saul had put away those that\nhad familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land.\" He therefore had\nto seek out the witch of Endor to raise the spirit of Samuel.\n\nThe Lord is said to have declared through Moses, \"If there be a prophet\namong you I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and\nwill speak unto him in a dream\" (Num. xii. 6). This method of divine\nrevelation is alluded to in Job xxxiii. 14-16, \"For God speaketh once,\nyea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the\nnight, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;\nthen he openeth the ears of men and sealeth his instruction.\" God came\nto Abimelech in a dream by night and threatened him for taking Abraham's\nwife (Gen. xx. 3). So he revealed himself and his angels to his favorite\nJacob (Gen. xxviii. 12). \"God came to Laban, the Syrian, in a dream\nby night\" (Gen. xxxi. 24) to warn him against touching juggling Jacob.\nJoseph dreams of his own future advancement and of the famine in Egypt,\nand interprets the dreams of others. Gideon was visited by the Lord in\nthe night, and encouraged by some other person's dream (Judges vii.)\nJahveh appeared also to his servant, Sultan Solomon, \"in a dream\nby night\" (1 Kings iii. 5). Daniel, too, was a dreamer and dream\ninterpreter (Dan. ii. 19, vii. 1). God promises through Joel that he\nwill pour his spirit upon all flesh, \"and your sons and your daughters\nshall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall\nsee visions\" (chap. ii. 28).\n\nThe original meaning of the Hebrew word _cohen_ or priest is said to be\n\"diviner.\" It is, I believe, still so in Arabic. Prophets and dreamers\nare frequently classed together in the Bible, as in Deut. xiii. 1: \"If\nthere arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams.\" Jer. xxvii. 9:\n\"Therefore hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to\nyour dreamers.\" Zech. x. 2: \"The diviners have seen a lie, and have told\nfalse dreams.\" When religion is organised the dreamers and interpreters\nof dreams, who are an irresponsible class, fall into the background\nbefore the priests.\n\nNo one can read the account of Balaam's falling, and lying prostrate\nwith his eyes open while prophesying (Numbers xxiv.); and of Saul when,\nafter an evil spirit from God had come upon him (1 Sam. xviii. 10), \"he\nstripped off his clothes also and prophesied in like manner, and lay\ndown naked all that day and all that night; wherefore they say, Is Saul\nalso among the prophets\" (1 Sam. xix. 24), without calling to mind\nthe exhibitions of ecstatic mania among semi-savages. The Shamans\nof Siberia, for instance, work themselves up into fury, supposing or\npretending that in this condition they are inspired by the spirit in\nwhose name they speak, and through whose inspiration they are enabled\nto answer questions as well as to foretell the future. The root of the\nHebrew word for prophet--_Nabi_, said to mean a bubbling up--confirms\nthis view. The vehement gestures and gushing current of speech which\naccompanied their improvisations suggested a fountain bubbling up.\nInsanity and inspiration are closely allied. Various methods were\nresorted to among the ancients to attain the state of ecstacy, when the\nexcited nerves found significance in all around. The Brahmans used the\nintoxicating Soma. At Delphi the Pythia inhaled an incense until she\nfell into a state of delirious intoxication; and the sounds she uttered\nin this state were believed to contain the revelations of Apollo. In\nDavid dancing with all his might and scantily clad before the ark of\nJahveh, we are forcibly reminded of the dervishes and other religious\ndancers. From the mention of music in connection with prophesying (1\nSam. x. 5, xvi. 23, 2 Kings iii. 5), it has been conjectured the Jewish\nprophets anticipated the Salvationists in this means of producing or\nrelieving excitement. In the Mysteries of Isis, in Orphic Cory-bantian\nrevels, music was employed to work the worshippers into a state of\norgiastic frenzy.\n\nThe passage about Saul suggests the nudity or scanty costume of the\nprophets. Isaiah the elder--for the poet who wrote from chap. xl. to\nlxvi. must be distinguished from his predecessor--alleges a commandment\nfrom Jahveh to walk naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah xx. 3).\nApollos, or whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 37), speaks\nof them wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins. A girdle of leather\nseems to have been the sole costume of Elijah (2 Kings i. 8). Micah (i.\n8) says \"I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked.\" Zechariah\nspeaks of the prophets who \"wear a rough garment to deceive,\" and \"say\nI am no prophet I am an husbandman\" (Zech. xiii. 45), which is like what\nAmos (vii. 14) says: \"I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son;\nbut I was an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.\"\n\nIsaiah (xxviii. 7) says, \"the priest and the prophet have erred through\nstrong drink; they are swallowed up of wine.\" Jahveh tells Jeremiah\n\"The prophets prophesy lies in my name, I sent them not, neither have I\ncommanded them, neither spake unto them; they prophesy unto you a false\nvision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their\nheart\" (xiv. 14). Further on he says, \"O Lord thou hast deceived me and\nI was deceived\" (xx. 7). The prophets of Jerusalem, Jeremiah declares,\n\"commit adultery and walk in lies\" (xxiii. 14). Ezekiel too, prophesies\nagainst the prophets and their lying divination (xiii. 2-7). Hosea (ix.\n7) says, \"the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad.\"*\n\n     * See too Isaiah lvi. 11-12; Jer. xxvii. 10-15, xxix. 8-9;\n     Micah iii 5-7.\n\nSome of the prophets can only be described as silly. Such are the two\nin 1 Kings xiii. 5 the prophet who asks to be smitten (1 Kings xii.);\nZedekiah, who makes himself horns of iron; and Micaiah, who opposes him\nwhen a lying sprit comes from the Lord (1 Kings xxii.) To these may be\nadded the man of God (2 Chron. xxv. 7), who made Amaziah dismiss his\n\"hundred thousand mighty men of valor,\" who in consequence fell upon the\ncities of Judah and took much spoil.\n\nThe student of comparative religion in reading of the Hebrew prophets,\nis forcibly reminded of the Hindu sunnyasis and Mussulman fakirs. In the\neast insanity is confounded with inspiration, and Dr. Maudsley, in his\n_Responsibility in Mental Disease_, has given his opinion that several\nof the Hebrew prophets were insane. The dread and respect in which they\nwere held is evinced in the legend of the forty-two children who\nwere slain by bears for calling Elisha bald-head. Their arrogance and\nferocity were exhibited by Samuel, who made Saul king till he found a\nmore serviceable tool in David, and \"hewed Agag in pieces before the\nLord\" (1 Sam. xv. 30); and by Elijah, who destroyed 102 men for obeying\nthe order of their king (2 Kings ii. 9-13), and at another time slew\n850 for a difference of opinion (1 Kings xviii. 19--40). Elisha was\nunscrupulous enough to send Hazael to his master saying he should\ncertainly recover; though at the time he knew he would certainly die (2\nKings viii. 10). Judging by such examples we may congratulate ourselves\nthat the race of prophets is almost extinct.\n\nIt must in fairness be said that some of the prophets used their\ninfluence in protecting the people against their priests and rulers, and\nthat the greater prophets like Isaiah did much to elevate the religion\nof Israel, which in its modern form is largely their creation.\n\n\n\n\nOLD TESTAMENT MARRIAGE.\n\n\"Marriage,\" says Goethe, \"is the beginning and end of all culture.\"\nToo often the end of all culture, the cynic may say. It may safely be\naffirmed that marriage is the chief cause and product of civilisation.\nLike other institutions, it has passed through various stages of growth\namong all nations, the Jews included. It has been said \"Motherhood is\na matter of observation, fatherhood a matter of opinion.\" Certain it is\nthat in early society kinship was reckoned through mothers only. Of this\nwe have some evidence in the Bible. Abraham, the father of the faithful,\nmarried Sarah, \"the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my\nmother\" (Gen. xx. 12). His brother Nahor took the daughter of his other\nbrother, Haran, to wife (Gen. ix. 27-29). Such marriages could not have\noccurred except when relationship through males was not sufficiently\nacknowledged for a bar to marriage to have been raised upon it. Jacob\nhad two sisters to wife at once. Amram, the father of Moses, married his\nown aunt (Exodus ii. 1 and 1 Chron. vii. 3). Even in the time of pious\nKing David marriage with half-sisters was not considered improper, for\nwhen Ammon wished to force his sister Tamar, she said unto him, \"Speak\nunto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee\" (2 Samuel xiii.\n13). Brothers by the same mother are specially distinguished (Deut.\nxiii. 6, Judges viii. 19). The child, moreover, in early times, was\nthought rather to belong to the mother than the father. Thus we find\nthat Ishmael was turned adrift with Hagar, and Hannah, one of the wives\nof Elkanah the Levite, had the right of presenting or devoting her son\nSamuel to Jahveh.\n\nA survival of consanguine marriage is found in Deut. xxv., where it is\nexpressly ordered that when a brother's widow is left childless \"her\nhusband's brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife\"; and\nin the event of his refusing to do so he has to have his shoe loosed and\nhis face spat upon. Of the antiquity of this usage we have evidence in\nGenesis xxxviii. When Er, Judah's firstborn, died, the father commanded\nhis second son, \"Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise\nup seed to thy brother.\" The second son refusing, the thing which he did\ndispleased the Lord, wherefore he slew him. Judah now putting Tamar\noff from taking his next son, she disguised herself and made her\nfather-in-law do his son's duty, he acknowledging \"she hath been more\nrighteous than I.\" The custom is also referred to in the story of Ruth.\nEwald amends Ruth iv. 5: \"Thou must buy also Ruth the Moabitess.\" The\nBible reader will remember that the disgusting story of the patriarch\nLot and his daughters is related without the slightest token of\ndisapproval. The daughters justified themselves by the plea that they\nwould \"preserve seed of our father.\" To understand these narratives,\nthe reader must remember that in the early history of the family it was\ndesirable, in the struggle for existence, that its numbers should not be\ndiminished. Many instances are found in the Bible of the blessing of a\nlarge family. \"Happy is the man who has his quiver full.\" The blessing\non the typical servant of Jahveh is that \"he shall see his seed,\" It\nwas the duty of the next of kin to see that the family stock did not\ndiminish. We find at the beginning of Genesis that, when Abel was\nslain, God gave Seth \"instead.\" In patriarchal life, as exhibited by the\nBedouins, the \"next of kin,\" the _goel_, is a most important personage.\nTo him the tribe looks to avenge or redeem a kinsman's death or\nmisfortune. On him the widow and fatherless depend for support. He is,\nabove all, the blood-balancer, who sees that the house is kept in its\nnormal strength, and who seeks to recruit it as far as possible from\nthe same blood--a state of things implying feud with surrounding tribes.\nJob, in his anguish, can find no stronger consolation this--\"I know\nthat my _goel_ liveth.\" According to the morality of that time, not only\nTamar, but the family was grossly wronged by Onan. By refusing to allow\nShelah to take the duties of _goel_, on the ground of his youth, Judah\nhimself incurred the responsibilities of that office. It was his duty to\nsee that seed was raised. Tamar resorted to cunning, the weapon of the\nweak, and Judah's confession is the real moral of what, to a modern,\nmust be considered the very disgusting story in Genesis xxxviii.\n\nAll the Old Testament heroes, from Lamech downwards, were polygamists.\nIndeed, both polygamy and concubinage were practised by those Hebrew\nsaints who were most distinguished by their piety, faith, and communion\nwith Jahveh. Abraham not only took Hagar as a secondary wife, but\nturned her adrift in the wilderness when it suited his own goodwill and\npleasure. Jacob, who lived under the special guidance of God, married\ntwo sisters at the same time, and each of them presented him with\nconcubines. David, the man after God's own heart, had many wives and\nconcubines (2 Samuel iii. 2-5, v. 13), while Solomon, who was wiser than\nall men, boasted of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines\n(1 Kings xi. 5). Jahveh, while denouncing intermarriage with women of\nforeign races, never says a word against either polygamy or concubinage.\nOn the contrary, both are sanctioned and regulated by the Mosaic law\n(Deut. xxi. 10-15). More than this, God himself is said to have married\ntwo sisters, Aholah and Aholibah (Ezekiel xxiii.), and although this\nis figurative, the figure would never have been used had the fact been\nconsidered sinful.\n\nA Hebrew father might sell his daughter to be a wife, concubine, or\nmaid-servant to an Israelite, and her master might put her away if she\npleased him not (Exodus xxi. 7-11). Women taken captives in war might be\nused as wives and dismissed at pleasure (Deut. xxi. 10-14). In the case\nof the Midianites only virgins were preserved. Moses indignantly asked,\nHave ye saved all the women alive? \"Now therefore kill every male among\nthe little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with\nhim. But all the women children, that hath not known man by lying with\nhim, keep alive for yourselves.\" And the Lord took shares in this maiden\ntribute (Numb, xxxi.)\n\nWoman in the Bible is treated as merchandise. In Jacob's time she was\nbought by seven years' service, but in the time of the prophet Hosea she\nwas valued only at fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of\nbarley. In the Decalogue it is prohibited to covet a man's wife on the\nsame ground as his man slave, his maid slave, his ox, or his ass, or\nanything that is his. Her lord and master could say with Petruchio:\n\n     She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,\n     My household stuff, my field, my barn,\n     My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.\n\nBy God's law a man was permitted to dismiss a wife when she found \"no\nfavor in his eyes,\" by simply writing out a bill of divorcement. There\nis no mention of the woman having any similar power of getting quit of\nher lord and master. If he suspected her fidelity he could compel her to\ngo through an ordeal in which the priest administered to her the water\nof jealousy, which if guilty would cause her to rot, but which was\nharmless if she was innocent. No doubt this was a potent means in\nsecuring wifely devotion and a ready remedy for any hated spouse. In\nthe hands of a friendly priest the concoction would be little likely\nto fail, and even should it prove innocuous there was the expedient of\nwriting a bill of divorcement.\n\nIt is usually said that God \"winked at\" (Acts xvii. 30) these\nproceedings, because of the hardness of the old Jews' hearts, and that\nfrom the beginning it was not so. In proof of this is cited the passage\nin Genesis which says, \"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his\nmother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.\"\nThe proper interpretation of this passage illustrates a very early form\nof marriage still found in some tribes, and known in Ceylon as beenah\nmarriage. Mr. McLennan, one of the highest authorities on primitive\nmarriage, says:\n\n\"In beenah marriage the young husband leaves the family of his birth and\npasses into the family of his wife, and to that he belongs as long as\nthe marriage subsists. The children born to him belong, not to him, but\nto the family of their mother. Living with, he works for, the family\nof his wife; and he commonly gains his footing in it by service. His\nmarriage involves usually a change of village; nearly always (where the\ntribal system is in force) a change of tribe, but always a change of\nfamily. So that, as used to happen in New Zealand, he may be bound even\nto take part in war against those of his father's house. The man\nleaves father and mother as completely as with the Patriarchal Family\nprevailing, a bride would do; and he leaves them to live with his wife\nand her family. That this accords with the passage in Genesis will not\nbe disputed.*\n\n\"Marriage by purchase of the bride and her issue can hardly be thought\nto have been primeval practice. When we find beenah marriage and\nmarriage by purchase as alternatives, therefore it is not difficult to\nbelieve that the former is the older of the two, and it was once in sole\npossession of the field.\"**\n\n     * The Patriarchal Theory, p. 43; 1885.\n\n     ** Ibid, p. 45.\n\nIt was a beenah marriage which Jacob made into the family of Laban, and\nwe find from Genesis xxiv. 1-8 that it was thought not improbable that\nIsaac might do the same. In beenah marriage the children belong to the\nmother's clan, and we thus find that Laban says: \"These daughters are my\ndaughters, and these children my children.\" It was exactly against such\na marriage as that of Jacob, viz., with two women at one time that the\ntext (Lev. xvii. 18) was directed which is so much squabbled about by\nboth opponents of and advocates for marriage with a deceased wife's\nsister. The custom of the Levirate mentioned in Deut. xxv. possibly\nindicates pre-existent polyandry. Lewis, in his _Hebrew Republic_,\nsays: \"In the earliest ages the Levir had no alternative but to take the\nwidow; indeed, she was his wife without any form of marriage.\"\n\nCasting off a shoe, it may be said, is a symbol of foregoing a right;\nthus the relatives of a bride still \"throw slippers.\" The Arabs have\npreserved the ceremony intact. A proverb among them, when a young man\nforegoes his prescriptive right to marry his first cousin, is, \"She was\nmy slipper; I have cast her off\" (Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahabys, i.\n113). Among the Caribs of Venezuela and in Equatorial West Africa, the\neldest son inherits all the wives of his deceased father with the sole\nexception of his own mother. Schweinfurth relates that the same custom\nobtains in Central Africa. On the Gold Coast the throne is occupied by\nthe prince, who gains possession of the paternal harem before his other\nbrothers. Thus Absalom took David's harem in the sight of all Israel\nbefore the old man had gone to glory, as a proof he wished his reign\nto be considered over; and when Adonijah asks his brother Solomon for\nAbishag, the comforter of David's old age, the wise Solomon kills him,\nas thus betraying designs on the throne. In the custom that widows\npassed to the heir with other property, and hence that marriage with the\nwidow grew to be a sign of a claim to the deceased person's possessions,\nwe have a reasonable explanation of what must otherwise appear\nirrational crime. The custom of inheriting widows is adverted to in the\nKoran; and Bendhawi, in his commentary, gives the whole ceremony, which\nconsists in the relative of the deceased throwing his cloak over the\nwidow and saying, \"I claim her.\" The Mormons always defended their\nplurality of wives from the divine book, and polygamy has been defended\nby various Christian ministers, from the Lutheran divine, Joannes Lyser,\nauthor of _Discoursus Politicus de Polygamia_, and the Rev. Martin\nMadan, author of _Thelyphthora_ to the Rev. Mercer Davies, author of\n_Hangar_, and Ap Richard, M.A., who urges a biblical plea for polygamy\nunder the title of _Marriage and Divorce_. Such works have done little\nto bring into favor the divine ordinance of polygamy, but they have done\nmuch to show how unsuited is the morality of \"the word of God\" to\nthe requirements of modern civilisation. Surely it is time that the\nChristians were ashamed of appealing to polygamous Jews for any laws to\nregulate social institutions.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONG OF SOLOMON.\n\nAlthough there is no book with which students of divinity are better\nacquainted than with the \"Song of Songs,\" there is also none of the same\ndimensions over which theologians have expressed so much diversity\nof opinion. Its authorship has been ascribed to Solomon for no better\nreason than because that sensual sultan is one of the subjects of its\nstory. It is true it is one of the oldest books of the Old Testament,\nand begins by calling itself \"the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's\";\nbut the book of Ecclesiastes, which is one of the latest in the Hebrew\ncollection, is also ascribed to Solomon, and possibly with as much\nreason. It has been credited with unfolding the sublime mysteries of\nthe relation of Christ to his Church. It has been called an epithalamium\nupon the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh. According to\na distinguished commentator, De Lyra, the first portion describes the\nhistory of Israel from the time of the Exodus to the birth of Christ,\nwhile from chapter vii. to the end gives the history of the Christian\nChurch to Constantine. The Roman Catholic theologian, Hug, makes it\ntreat of the ten tribes and Hezekiah. Cocceius, in accordance with his\nprinciple that holy scripture meant whatever it could be made to mean,\nfound in the Canticle the history of the Church from its origin to its\nfinal judgment. Hahn sees in it a prediction of the victory obtained\nover the heathen, by the love of Israel, and finds the conversion of the\nnegro in the passage which says, \"We have a little sister, and she\nhath no breasts.\" In short, nearly every possible explanation has\nbeen offered of this portion of the Word of God except the obvious and\nnatural one, that it is an erotic poem. That there is any allegory in\nthe piece is a pure assumption. The theory was unknown before the time\nof the Talmud. The Canticles are never referred to in the New Testament.\nThere is not the slightest indication in the work itself that there is\nany such object. Not the most delicate hint, save in the headings of the\nchapters made by King James's bishops, that by the secret charms of the\nyoung lady we are to understand the mysterious graces of the Christian\nChurch. In all allegories it is necessary the subject should be in\nsome way indicated. The parables of Jesus often proved puzzles to his\ndisciples, but they had no doubt they were parables. Moreover, the\nallegory--if it is one--is absurd or blasphemous. Why should the Church\nsay of God: \"His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy\nand black as a raven\"? or compare his legs to pillars of marble,\nor celebrate other parts of his divine person which are not usually\nmentioned in polite society? Nor is it easy to see why Christ should say\nto the Church: \"Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn,\nwhich came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none\nis barren among them\"; or why he should declare, \"Thy neck is as a tower\nof ivory; thine eyes like the fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gate of\nBath-rabbim; thy nose is as the Tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards\nDamascus.\" Of course, to parody a phrase of Voltaire's, the Holy Ghost\nwas not bound to write like Alfred Tennyson, but, if intended for human\nguidance, one would think the divine meaning should be a little more\napparent.\n\nThe truth of the matter is, an allegorical interpretation has been\nforced into the Song of Solomon in order to relieve the Holy Ghost from\na charge of indecency. Grotius ventured to call the Song of Songs a\nlibertine work. Even the orthodox Methodist commentator, Adam Clarke,\nearnestly exhorted young ministers not to found their sermons on its\ndoubtful phrases. He knew how apt religious people are to mix up carnal\ndesire and appetite with love to their blessed Savior, and was perhaps\naware that a number of Christian hymns might appropriately have been\naddressed to Priapus.*\n\n     * See Rimini's History of the Moravians and Southey's Life\n     of Wesley* vol. i. pp. 188, 387.\n\nIn the Jewish Church no one under the age of thirty was permitted to\nread the Song of Songs, a prohibition which may have assisted to give it\nits sacred character. It is, nevertheless, not more indelicate than many\nother portions of God's Holy Word, and viewed in its proper light as\nan Oriental dramatic love poem, although it cannot be acquitted of\noutraging modern notions of decency, it is not, I think, so much,\nas some other portions of the Bible, open to the charge of teaching\nimmorality. On the contrary, its purpose is commendable. An attentive\nreading of the Revised Version, which is without the misleading\nheadlines, and is divided to indicate the different speakers in the love\ndrama, will make this apparent, and show this little scrap of the Jewish\nnational literature to possess a certain natural beauty which has been\nutterly obscured by the orthodox commentators who, from the time of the\nearly fathers to Hengstenberg and Keil, have sought to associate it with\nChrist and his Church.\n\nSir William Jones, in his essay on the mystical poetry of Persia\nand India, called attention to the sensuous images in which Oriental\nreligious poetry expresses itself. This connection will surprise no\none who has discovered from the history of religion that women and wine\nformed important features in ancient worship. The readiness with which\nungratified sexual passion runs into religious emotion has frequently\nbeen marked by physicians, and finds much corroboration in the\ndevotional works of monks and nuns. But the Song of Songs has nothing\nreligious about it. Even the personages are not religious, as in the\nHindu erotic _Gita Govinda_, by Jayadeva, which tells of the loves of\nBadha and the god Krishna in the guise of a shepherd. Christ and his\nChurch only appear in the headings given to the chapters.\n\nThough to be classed among erotic poems, the Song of Songs cannot fairly\nbe called immoral or obscene. The character of the interlocutors and\nthe division of the scenes is a little uncertain. It is, for instance,\ndubious whether the first speaker is Solomon or the Shulamite. If we\ntake the version of M. R\u00e9ville, the piece opens with the yearnings of\nthe heroine, whom \"the king hath brought into his chambers,\" for her\nabsent lover. \"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy\nlove is better than wine.\" She is black but comely; swarthy, because\nhaving to tend the vineyards she has been scorched by the sun. She is a\nShulammite, or native of Shulam, now Solma, near Carmel--a part renowned\nfor the beauty of its women. It was Abishag, a Shulamite, who was chosen\nwhen they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel\nto warm the bed of old King David. Solomon had seen the fair maid of\nShulam, and, when she went down into the garden of nuts \"to see the\ngreen plants of the valley,\" or ever she was aware, she was abducted. In\nvain, however, does the monarch offer her the best place in his harem.\nAmid the glories of the court she sighs for the shepherd lover from whom\nshe is separated. She tells how early one spring morning her beloved\nengaged her to go out with him. \"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain\nis over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the\nsinging of birds is come. And the voice of the turtle is heard in our\nland and now, although she seeks and finds him not,\" she declares\n\"my beloved is mine and I am his.\" Her constant burden to her harem\ncompanions is, \"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and\nby the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awaken love until\nit please.\"* Love must be spontaneous, she declares, and she refuses to\nyield to the wishes of the libidinous monarch. When Solomon praises her\nshe replies with praises of her beloved peasant swain. She longs for\nhim by day and seeks him in dreams by night. Solomon offers to place\nher above his \"threescore queens and fourscore concubines and virgins\nwithout number\"; but she is home-sick, and prefers the embraces of her\nlover to those of the lascivious king. Her humble vineyard is more to\nher than all the king's riches. The moral is, \"Many waters cannot quench\nlove, neither can the floods drown it: If a man would give all the\nsubstance of his house for love he would utterly be condemned.\" And a\nfar better one too than most morals to be drawn from the pages of the\nOld Testament.\n\n     * Revised Version. The Authorised Version changes the whole\n     purpose of the piece by reading \"that ye stir not up nor\n     awaken my love till he please.\"\n\nThe Song of Songs, which is _not_ Solomon's, is a valuable relic of\nantiquity, both because it utterly refutes the orthodox notion of\nbiblical inspiration, and because it deals with the old old story of\nhuman passion which surges alike in peasants and in princes, and which\nanimated the hearts of men and maidens two thousand years ago even as it\ndoes to-day.\n\n\n\n\nSACRED SEVEN.\n\nIt was natural that in the early ages of human intelligence man should\nattach a superstitious reverence to numbers. The mystery attached to the\nnumber seven has been variously accounted for. Some have explained it by\nthe figures of the square and triangle, others by the stars of the Great\nBear nightly seen overhead. Gerald Massey says: \"The Constellation of\nthe Seven Great Stars (Ursa Major) was probably the primordial figure of\nSeven. Seven was often called the perfect number. Its name as Hept (Eg.)\nis also the name for Plenty--a heap of food and good luck. The Seven\nwere the great heap or cluster of stars, an image of plenty, or a lot\nthat revolved together.\"* My own opinion is that the superstition arose\nin connection first with the menstrual period, and then with the phases\nof the moon as a measurer of time. Its period of twenty-eight days could\nbe twice divided until the week of seven days was reached, and\nthen further division was impossible. Hence we everywhere find the\nsuperstition linked to the days of the week and the seven planets\nsupposed to preside over these days.\n\n     * Natural Genesis, ii., 219.\n\nThe Egyptians worshipped the seven planets, and Herodotus tells us of\ntheir seven castes. So with the Babylonians. From them was derived the\nJewish week. Hesiod, according to Eusebius, said \"The seventh is the\nsacred day.\" What he says in his _Works and Days_ is, \"On the seventh\nday Latona brought forth Apollo\"; and \u00c6schylus, in his _Seven Against\nThebes_, says the number Seven was sacred to Apollo. The moon periods\nwere sacred as measuring time and also in connection with female\nperiodicity. Man discovered the month before the year. Hence the moon\nwas widely worshipped. The worship of the queen of heaven in Palestine\nis alluded to in Jer. vii. 18 and xliv. 17. The superstition of the\nnew moon bringing luck has descended to our own time. When the year was\nreckoned by thirteen moons of twenty-eight days, thirteen was the lucky\nnumber; but when this was changed for the twelve months of solar time,\nthirteen became one too many. The Parsee Bundahisli, according to Gerald\nMassey, exhibits seven races of men--(1) the earth-men, (2) water-men,\n(3) breast-eared men, (4) breast-eyed men, (5) one-legged men, (6)\nbatwinged men, (7) men with tails.\n\nSection 7 of the Kabbalistic Sepher Yezirah* says, \"The seven planets\nin the world are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Seven\ndays in the year are the seven days of the week; seven gates in man,\nmale and female, are two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and the mouth.\"\nAgain, section 15 says, \"By the seven double consonants were also\ndesigned seven worlds, seven heavens, seven lands, seven seas, seven\nrivers, seven deserts, seven days a week, seven weeks from Passover to\nPentecost, there is a cycle of seven years, the seventh is the release\nyear, and after seven release years is jubilee. Hence God loves the\nnumber seven under the whole heaven.\"\n\n     * Trans, by Dr. I. Kalisch, pp. 27 and 81.\n\nThe Bible, it has been remarked, begins in Genesis with a seven, and\nends in the Apocalypse with a series of sevens. God himself took a rest\non the seventh day and was refreshed, or, as the Hebrew reads, took\nbreath. The Passover and other festivals lasted seven days; Jacob\nbowed seven times; Solomon's temple was seven years in building; the\ntabernacle had seven lamps, a candlestick with seven arms, etc. In a\nvariety of passages it seems, like 40, to have been a sort of round\nnumber--as people sometimes say a dozen for an indeterminate quantity.\nThus in Daniel iii. 19 the fiery furnace was to be heated seven times\nmore than it was wont to be heated. In Proverbs (xxiv. 16) we are told\na just man falleth seven times and rises up again. One of the Psalmists\nsays (cix. 164), \"Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy\nrighteous judgments\" (see too Lev. xxvi. 18, 28; Dent, xxviii. 7, 35;\nJob ix; Psalm xii. 6, lxxix. 12; Isaiah iv. 1, xi. 15, xxx. 26; Jer. xv.\n9, Matt. xii. 45). The week induced reckoning by sevens, and led to\nsuch enactments as that the Jews on the seventh day of the seventh month\nshould feast seven days and remain seven days in tents.\n\nThe root idea of the number is that of religious periodicity. We find\nit not only in the Sabbath, but in all other sacred periods. Thus the\nseventh month is ushered in by the Feast of Trumpets, and signalised by\nthe celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles and Yom Kippur. Seven weeks\nis the interval between Passover and Pentecost. The seventh is the\nSabbatical year, when bondsmen were to be released and debts go free.\nWith this custom is connected the binding of youths for seven years\napprenticeship, and of punishing incorrigible offenders for 7, 14, or\n21 years. The year succeeding seven times seven is the Jubilee. The\nearliest form, that of the menstrual period, is shown in the duration of\nvarious kinds of legal uncleanness, as after childbirth, after contact\nwith a corpse, etc. So we have the sprinkling of the house seven times\nwith the water of purification (Lev. xiv. 51), the command of Elisha\nto Naaman to wash in Jordan seven times (2 Kings v. 10). Hezekiah, in\ncleansing the temple, offered seven bullocks, seven rams, and seven\nhe-goats for a sin offering. Septuple actions and agents abound. Thus\nthe blood of sacrifices were sprinkled seven times (Lev. iv. 6, 17; xiv.\n7, 16, 27; xvi. 14, 15). So Jacob bowed to his brother Esau seven times\n(Gen. xxxiii. 3). Balak built for Balaam seven altars, and prepares\nseven oxen and seven rams (Num. xxiii. 1, 4, 14, 29), and Abraham\nemployed seven victims for sacrifice (Gen. xxi. 28, 30). We are reminded\nof the lines in Virgil's \u00c6neid (vi. 58).\n\n     Seven bullocks, yet unyoked, for Phoebus choose,\n     And for Diana, seven unspotted ewes.\n\nThe Hebrew verb _Shaba_, to swear, is evidently derived from _Sheba_\nseven, and denoted a sevenfold affirmation. Herodotus (xiii. 8), tells\nus the manner of swearing among the ancient Arabians included smearing\nseven stones with blood. Sheba is allied to the Egyptian Seb-ti (5-2),\nthe Zend Hapta, Greek Epta, Latin septem. The Pythagoreans said that\nHeptad came from the Greek _Sebo_ to venerate, but Egyptian and other\nAfrican dialects suffice to prove it is far earlier.\n\nThe writer of the Apocalypse had the mystic number on the brain. Dr.\nMilligan has explained the 666 number of the beast, as a fall below the\nsacred seven John of Patmos gives us seven golden candlesticks, (i. 1),\nseven stars (i. 20), seven spirits and churches (iii. 1), seven seals\n(v. 1), trumpets (viii. 2), thunders (x. 34), vials (xvi. 1), and seven\nangels with seven plagues (xvi.) The beast has seven heads, horns and\ncrowns (xii. 3, xiii. 1, xvii. 7). The Lamb with seven horns and seven\neyes (v. 1 ). There are seven spirits before the throne of God (Rev. i.\n4, etc.) like the seven Dhyani Chohans emanating from Parabrahm in Hindu\nTheosophy.\n\nSo Christians have kept up legends of seven wise men, seven wonders of\nthe world, seven champions of Christendom, seven cardinal virtues, seven\ndeadly sins, seven devils in Mary Magdalene, etc. Of course there is no\nbetter reason why there should be seven than the old idea of mystery and\ncompletion attached to the number.\n\nModern Theosophists, too, go in largely for the number seven. There are\nseven planets, seven rounds on each planet and seven races. Every ego\nis composed of seven principles--Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kamarupa, Linga\nSharira, Prana, and Sthula Sharira. It may seem strange that a lady of\nMadame Blavatsky's undoubted powers of imagination should run in the old\nrut. But the well-worn superstitions work the easiest, although to every\ninstructed person this one carries the mind back to the days when men\nknew only of seven planets and measured their time by the moon.","title":"Bible Studies: Essays on Phallic Worship and Other Curious Rites and Customs","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36950}