he says, serve ye every one his idols, but pollute no more my holy name with your gifts and with your idols." 21 $ 12. REFORMATION OF JEHOVISM. About seven centuries before the Christian era, the date ascribed by Ewald to his "fourth Mosaical narrator," there seems to have been a general movement of religious reform through Asia, connected in India with the name of Buddha, in Persia (or Media) with that of Zoroaster, and, a century later, extending itself by Xenophanes and Heraclitus into Greece. The prevailing character of this reform appears to have been a conviction of the evils connected with nature worship, producing efforts more or less violent to bend its forms into compliance with an improved moral consciousness. The monotheism elsewhere the chief object of reform had by the Hebrews been already to a certain extent attained. Jehovah had accosted Israel in the desert, and had there wooed the reluctant bride, binding her to himself by a solemn covenant or contract. But hitherto he had proved a sanguinary bridegroom". Instead of the righteous betrothal antedated by the prophets', he had been a stern exactor of atonement, and his contract was written in blood. He proved his people as he "tempted" or "proved" their most venerated ancestor, and it was at the price of his own "sons and daughters" that he turned his 21 Ezek. xx. 39. Compared with this the words of the prohibition (Lev. xviii. 21) thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch, neither shalt thou profane the name of Jehovah thy God, deserve notice. Comp. Isa. xlviii. 1. 1 Geschicht. i. P. 123. 2 Baal Berith "Lord of the Covenant." Judg. viii. 33. 3 Exod. iv. 24, 25. 5 Gen. xxii. Comp. Judg. ii. 22; iii. 4. Hos. ii. 19, 20. merciless sword against their enemies. It was long before his character improved, or rather before his people came to know him better. Even his right was not wholly undisputed; for since the covenant of prosperity and succour implied in it was based not on a true appreciation of divine impartiality, but on intense nationalism, the Hebrews were constantly tempted under calamity to change their god for some other whom events had proved to be a more efficacious protector. The first efforts of the prophets were therefore directed to assert the superiority and truth of the jealous Hebrew God. They met the tendency to revolt by declaring that misfortune instead of being any proof of his weakness or desertion, was a punishment purposely inflicted by him for prior sin. But while asserting the indefeasible right and supremacy of Jehovah, they introduced a new spirit into his worship. Although still in regard to the immediate present contemplating a God of fear, they were always looking beyond to a time when fear would be absorbed in love; when the same all-powerful Being who had permitted the temporary punishment of the Israelites would restore them to favour, and renewing the ancient marital relation would no longer be called Baal, “ my Lord," but Ishi, "my husband."7 Their admonitions were summed up in the ambiguous but comprehensive precept of implicit obedience to God and to his duly-appointed messengers. But on the proper construction of the term "God" and the authentication of his message depended the whole controversy. The God of the reforming prophet was no longer the God of the common people. The Assyrian chief Rabshakeh directly asserts this in his derisive reply to Hezekiah's profession of reliance on divine aid; "Is not this the very God whose altars Hezekiah hath Exod. xii. 13. 28. Dettt. xxxii. 41, 42. Ezek. xvi. 20; xxi. 3 sq. The severe conditions attached by Joshua's prediction to the rebuilding of Jericho (Josh. vi. 26), seem notwithstanding the literal fulfilment reported by Josephus, to have had the same meaning as the fire and blood of the Roman Palilia (Dion. H. i. 88. Ovid, Fast. iv. 727 sq.), and the satiating the dragon of Ares before building Thebes. 7 Hos. ii. 16. 1 Sam. xv. 22. Jer. vii. 23. taken away, and has said to Judah Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem."" All reforms are innovations, and all innovations are unpopular. Every one was eager to deny the authenticity of a distasteful message, while the reformer who wished to withdraw the rude worshipper from local superstitions to a central shrine under his own exclusive influence1o, eagerly endeavoured to make the transition as easy as possible by introducing the new principle under the ancient name. The prophets represent their lessons as the old law, the true statutes and judgments of Jehovah", while impliedly exhibiting the falsehood of their own assertion. "It was not I," says the God of Jeremiah 12, "who commanded you to build the high place of Tophet which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom in order to burn your sons and your daughters in the fire." No such horrors emanated from me. "They built high places to Baal in the valley of Hinnom to offer their sons and their daughters to Moloch, which I have not commanded them, neither came it into my mind to conceive that men would commit such enormities." "The prophets who directed them were prophets of lies, not emissaries of mine". True, I was the God of your fathers who brought you out of Egypt; but you forsook and forgot me 15, or rather you never knew me 1. You were worshipping Moloch, or a calf, at the very time when you pretend to have been under the guidance of your legislator, Moses". Therefore, I allowed you to follow the bent of your own corrupt imaginations, and punished you both in the wilderness and up to this day, by scattering you among the nations." The ancient idolatry might be described either as a rebellion against the true Jehovah, as things which "he could not away with," or as a judicial blindness authorized and per 66 mitted by him. He might say to his misguided people either that they who attached so much importance to empty symbols had not even the small merit of having offered them to himself, since they had been really offered to Moloch and Chiun18; or he might say, your contumacy induced me to give you 'statutes that were not good;' so that it was by a deliberate penal arrangement on my part that you polluted yourselves with your own gifts in that you caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make you desolate, to the end that you might know that I am the Lord."20 19 21 The whole of the Israelitish monarchs had been idolators; of those of Judah two only, excepting only David, were approved to aftertimes as orthodox ". No better standard of orthodoxy would probably ever have arisen but for the civilizing influences which grew up in connection with the temple establishment and mercantile industry of Judæa. The pro phets employed these influences in a free spirit, boldly denouncing formalism, immorality, and idolatry. Their god 22 was the supreme unity opposed to that dualistic separation of nature-worship which leads in practice to extremes of sensuality or cruelty, to the licentious Baal or dire Moloch 23. However, the sincere but mistaken Jehovistic rites so emphatically repudiated afterwards were not at first severely noticed. Ahaz appears in Isaiah rather weak than wicked; the weakness of fear leads to the same issue as fanaticism, and Isaiah's silence in regard to contemporary proceedings" may be thought instead of acquitting the monarch to implicate himself. Yet in view of an ultimate ascendancy of benevolence, of a time when harsh anomalies would cease and peace and justice reign triumphant, the prophets were eventually enabled to develope the 18 Amos v. 26. 20 Comp. Isa. lxiii. 17. 22 2 Kings xviii. 22; xix. 4. 19 Ezek. xx. 25. Rom. i. 24. 23 The latter worshipped by those adversaries of Isaiah who "made a covenant with Death" (xxviii. 15. 18); as the people of Gades worshipped the same concep tion. Philostr. V. A. v. 4. Comp. Isa. vii. 11; viii. 19; also xlv. 7. Amos v. 8. 24 2 Kings xvi. 3. "26 eternal principle that “ mercy is better than sacrifice," 25 that "sin is not to be washed out by bloodshed.' It was under their influence that the great external change was effected of abolishing the "high places," and bringing all the people to take part in a better worship in the capital. The change was difficult. Many refused to attend or to purify themselves according to the new regulations; they even ridiculed the proposal, for the real object was the abrogation of the most important and imposing part of the old ceremony, the sacrificial immolation or "bloody token" of the old covenant". The quick return of court and nation after the death of Hezekiah to idolatry proves the feeble hold which the new opinions had yet gained over the nation at large; and Manasseh expressly sanctioned the former sanguinary rite by delivering his own son to the flames 28. The long continuance of the reign of this wicked king repressed the efforts of reformers; but in the eighteenth year of his second successor, when many adherents of reform had obtained high offices in the state, and most of the priests had adopted its principles, a favourable occasion seemed to have arrived for a new effort. The "book of the law" supposed to have been found in the temple by the highpriest was probably only a brief exposition of prophetical morality in a sententious form, accompanied with corresponding changes of ceremonial, especially of the passover. Up to this epoch of Josiah's reign idolatry had been the established religion. It was only by some impressive measure that the people could be influenced to resign their usual habits. Such an expedient seems to have been the discovery of "the book," a book strangely enough never before heard of as missed or lost, and which though it naturally caused no astonishment to the high priest, was both surprising and alarming to the king. It was now found that the contemplated changes were a revival of the old law which king and people had immemorially been 25 Hos. vi. 6. 26 Mic. vi. 7. 27 Gen. xvii. 10; xxii. 16; ix. 12. Exod. xii. 13. |