lxi. 1) and expressed itself as a word of instruction of Yahweh

(_torah_); see Isa. 1. 10. Now when the Hebrew religion was reduced to written form it began to be a book-religion, and since the book consisted of fixed rules and enactments, religion began to acquire a stereotyped character. It will be seen in the sequel that this was destined to be the growing tendency of Jewish religious life--to conform itself to prescribed rules, in other words, it became _legalism_. (d) Lastly, the old genial life of the high places, in which the "new moon" or Sabbath or the annual festival was a sacrificial feast of communion, in which the members of the local community or clan enjoyed fellowship with one another--all this picturesque life ceased to be. And though there was positive gain in the removal of idolatrous and corrupt modes of worship, there was also positive loss in the disappearance of this old genial phase of Hebrew social life and worship. It involved a vast difference to many a Judaean village when the festival pilgrimage was no longer made to the familiar local sanctuary with its hoary associations of ancient heroic or patriarchal story, but to a distant and comparatively unfamiliar city with its stately shrine and priesthood.

8. _Ezekiel's System._--Ezekiel was the successor of Jeremiah and inherited his conceptions. But though the younger prophet adopted the ideas respecting personal religion and individual responsibility from the elder, the characters of the two men were very different. Jeremiah, when he foretold the destruction of the external state and temple ritual, found no resource save in a reconstruction that was internal and spiritual. In this he was true to his prophetic impulse and genius. But Ezekiel was, as Wellhausen well describes him, "a priest in prophet's mantle." While Jeremiah's tendency was spiritual and ideal, Ezekiel's was constructive and practical. He was the first to foretell with clearness the return of his people from captivity foreshadowed by Jeremiah, and he set himself the task even in the midnight darkness of Israel's exile to prepare for the nation's renewed life. The external bases of Israel's religion had been swept away, and in exchange for these Jeremiah had led his countrymen to the more permanent internal grounds of a spiritual renewal. But a religion could not permanently subsist in this world of space and time without some external concrete embodiment. It was the task of Ezekiel to take up once more the broken threads of Israel's religious traditions, and weave them anew into statelier forms of ritual and national polity. The priest-prophet's keen eye for detail, manifested in the elaborate vision of the wheels and living creatures (Ezek. i.) and in his lamentation on Tyre (chap. xxvii.), is also exhibited in the visions contained in chaps. xl.-xlviii., which describe the ideal reconstructed temple and theocracy of the restored Israel. The foreground is filled by the temple and its precincts. The officiating priests are now the descendants of the line of Zadok belonging to the tribe of Levi. Thus the priesthood is still further restricted as compared with the restriction already noted in the Deuteronomic legislation. It is the sons of Zadok only that have any right to offer sacrifice at the altar of burnt offering (xliii. 19, xliv. 15 foll.). The Levites, who formerly ministered in the high places, now discharge the subordinate offices of gate-keepers and slaughterers of the sacrificial victims.

Another element in this ideal scheme which comes into prominence is the sharp distinction between _holy_ and _profane_. The word _holiness_ (_qodesh_) in primitive Hebrew usage partook of the nature of taboo, and came to be applied to whatever, whether thing or person, stood in close relation to deity and belonged to him, and could not, therefore, be used or treated like other objects not so related, and so was separated or stood apart. The idea underlying the word, which to _us_ is invested with deep ethical meaning, had only this non-ethical, ritual significance in Ezekiel. Unlike the old temple and city, the ideal temple of Ezekiel is entirely separate from the city of Jerusalem. In the immediate surroundings of the temple there is an open space. Then come two concentric forecourts of the temple. The temple stands in the midst of what is called the _gizrah_ or space severed off. The outer court lies higher than the open space, the inner court higher still, and the temple-building in the centre highest of all. No heathen may tread the outer court, no layman the inner court, while the holiest of all may not be trodden even by the priest Ezekiel but only by the angel who accompanies him. "The temple-house has a graduated series of compartments increasing in sanctity inwards" (Davidson). In the innermost the presence of Yahweh abides.

We are here moving in a realm of ideas prevailing in ancient Israel respecting _holiness_, _uncleanness_ and _sin_, which are ceremonial and not ethical; see especially Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_, 2nd ed., p. 446 foll. (additional note B.) on holiness, uncleanness and taboo. It is, of course, true that the ethical conception of sin as violation of righteousness and an act of rebellion against the divine righteous will had been developed since the days of Amos and Isaiah; but, as we have already observed, cultus and prophetic teaching were separated by an immense gulf, and in spite of the reformation of 621 B.C. still remain separated. In the sacrificial system of sin-offerings (_hattath_ and _'asham_) we have to do with sin as ceremonial violation and neglect (frequently involuntary), or violation of holiness in the old sense of the term or as personal uncleanness (touching a corpse, eating unclean food, sexual impurity, &c.). In the historical evolution of Hebrew sacrifice it is remarkable how long this non-ethical and primitive survival of old custom still survived, even far into post-exilian times. (See SACRIFICE; also Moore's art. "Sacrifice" in _Ency. Bibl._)

One conspicuous feature of Ezekiel's system is the predominance of piacular sacrifice. It undoubtedly existed in pre-exilian Israel, especially in times of crisis or calamity, for the appeasement of an offended deity (2 Sam. xxiv. 18 foll.), and in Deut. xxi. 1-9, we have details of the purificatory rite which was necessary when human blood was shed; but now and in the future propitiatory sacrifice and ideas of propitiation began to overshadow all the other forms of sacrifice and their ideas. Ezekiel prescribes a half-yearly ritual of sin-offering whereby atonement was to be made (xlv. 18-20). We shall see subsequently to what great institution this led the way.

Ezekiel's system constituted an _ecclesiastical_ in place of a political organization, a _church-state_ in place of a nation. We clearly discern how this reacted on his Messianic conceptions. In his earlier oracles (xxxiv. 23 foll.) we find one shepherd ruling over united Israel, viz. Yahweh's servant David, whereas in the ideal scheme detailed in chap. xl. et seq. the role of the prince as a ruler is a very shadowy one. The prince, it is true, has a central domain, but his functions are ecclesiastical and subordinate and his powers strictly limited (xlvi. 3-8, 12, 16-18).

Thus the exile period marks the parting of the ways in the development of Hebrew religion. In the Deutero-Isaiah we reach the highest point in the evolution of prophetism. It is true that we have some noble resounding echoes in the lyrical passages lx.-lxii. In the Trito-Isaiah during the post-exilian period, and in such psalm literature as Pss. xxii., xxxvii., l., lxii., cvii., cxlv. 9-12 and others; and also in Isa. xxxv., which is obviously a lyrical reproduction of earlier literature. But it cannot be said that we possess in later literature any fresh contribution to the conception of God or any presentation of a higher ideal of human life[30] or national destiny than that which meets us in chap. xl. or in the servant-passages of the Deutero-Isaiah. It may with truth be said that _after Jeremiah we discern the parting of the ways_. The _first_ is represented by the Deutero-Isaiah, who constitutes the climax and close of Hebrew prophetism, which is henceforth (with the possible exception of the Trito-Isaiah, Malachi and Jonah, who reproduce some features of the earlier prophecy) a virtually arrested development. The _second path_ is that which is traced out by the priest-prophet Ezekiel, and is that of _legalism_, which was destined to secure a permanent place in the life and literature of the Jewish people. It is essentially the path which may be summed up in the word _Judaism_, though, as will be shown in the sequel, Judaism came to include many other factors. The statement, however, remains virtually true, since Judaism is mainly constituted by the body of legal precepts called the Torah, and, moreover, by the post-exilian Torah.

9. _Post-exilian Law--The Priestercodex._[31]--The oracles of Malachi clearly reveal the continued influence of the book of Deuteronomy in his day. But the new conditions created by the return of the exiles and the germinating influence of Ezekiel's ideas developed a process of new legislative construction. The code of holiness (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.) is the most obvious product of that influence. The ideas of expiation and atonement so prevalent in Ezekiel's scheme, which there find expression in the half-yearly sacrificial celebrations, are expressed in Lev. xvi. in the single _annual great fast of atonement_. It is impossible to enter here into the numerous details of that impressive ceremonial. Two special features, however, which characterize the celebration should here be noted: (a) The person of the _high priest_, who is throughout the entire drama the chief and indeed the sole actor. This supreme official, who was destined ultimately to take the place of the king in the church-nation of post-exilian Judaism, is mentioned for the first time in Zech. iii. 1[32] (in the person of Joshua). In the Priestercodex he stands at the head of the priests, who are, in the post-exilian system, the _sons of Aaron_ and possessed the sole right to offer the temple sacrifices. On the great day of atonement the high priest appears in a vicarious and representative capacity, and offers on behalf of the whole nation which he was considered to embody in his sacred person. (b) The rite of the _goat devoted to Azazel_. There can be little doubt that _Azazel_ was an evil demon (like an Arabic Jinn) of the desert. The goat set apart for Azazel was in the concluding part of the ceremonial brought before the high priest, who laid both his hands upon it and confessed over it the sins of the people. It was then carried off by an appointed person to a lonely spot and there set free.

In later post-exilian times this great day of atonement became to an increasing degree a day of humiliation for sin and penitent sorrow, accompanied by confession; and the sins confessed were not only of a purely ceremonial character, whether voluntary or inadvertent, but also sins against righteousness and the duties which we owe to God and man. This element of public confession for sin became more prominent in the days when synagogal worship developed, and prayer took the place of the sacrificial offerings which could only be offered in the Jerusalem temple. The development of the priestly code of legislation (Priestercodex) was a gradual process, and probably occupied a considerable part of the 5th century B.C. The Hebrew race now definitely entered upon the new path of organized Jewish legalism which had been originally marked out for it by Ezekiel in the preceding century. It became a holy people on holy ground. Circumcision and Sabbath, separation from marriage with a foreigner, which rendered a Jew unclean, as well as strict conformity to the precepts of the Torah, constituted henceforth an adamantine bond which was to preserve the Jewish communities from disintegration.

10. _The later Post-exilian Developments in Jewish Religion._--These may be briefly referred to under the following aspects:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[23] Kautzsch, in his profoundly learned article on the "Religion of Israel," to which frequent reference has been made, exhibits (pp. 669-671) an excess of scepticism, in our opinion, towards the views propounded by Gunkel in 1895 (_Schopfung und Chaos_) respecting the intimate connexion between the early Hebrew cosmogonic ideas and those of Babylonia. Stade indeed (_Z.A.T.W._, 1903, pp. 176-178) maintained that the conception of Yahweh as creator of the world could not have arisen till after the middle of the 8th century as the result of prophetic teaching, and that it was not till the time of Ezekiel that Babylonian conceptions entered the world of Hebrew thought in any fulness. Such a theory appears to ignore the remarkable results of archaeology since 1887. At that time Stade's position might have appeared reasonable. It was the conclusion to which Wellhausen's brilliant literary analysis, when not supplemented by the discoveries at Tell el-Amarna and Tell el-Hesi, appeared to many scholars (by no means all) inevitably to conduct us. But the years 1887 to 1891 opened many eyes to the fact that the Hebrews lived their life on the great highways of intercourse between Egypt on the one hand, and Babylonia, Assyria and the N. Palestinian states on the other, and that they could scarcely have escaped the all-pervading Babylonian influences of 2000-1400 B.C. It is now becoming clearer every day, especially since the discovery of the laws of Khammurabi, that, if we are to think sanely about Hebrew history _before_ as well as after the exile, we can only think of Israel as part of the great complex of Semitic and especially Canaanite humanity that lived its life in western Asia between 2000 and 600 B.C.; and that while the Hebrew race maintained by the aid of prophetism its own individual and exalted place, it was not less susceptible _then_, than it has been since, to the moulding influences of great adjacent civilizations and ideas. Cf. C. H. W. Johns in _Interpreter_, pp. 300-304 (in April 1906), on prophetism in Babylonia.

[24] There is some danger in too strictly construing the language of the prophets and also the psalmists. It is not to be supposed that either Amos or Isaiah would have countenanced the total suppression of all sacrificial observance. It was the existing ceremonial observance _divorced from the ethical piety_ that they denounced. The speech of prophecy is poetical and rhetorical, not strictly defined and logical like that of a modern essayist. See Moore in _Encyc. Bibl._, "Sacrifice," col. 4222.

[25] Viz. Budde in _Die so-genannten Ebed-Jahweh Lieder u. die Bedeutung des Knechtes Jahwehs in Jes. xl.-lv._ (Giessen, 1900); Karl Marti in his well-known commentary on Isaiah, and F. Giesebrecht, _Der Knecht Jahwes des Deuterojesaja_. The special servant-songs which Duhm asserts can be readily detached from the texture of the Deutero-Isaiah without disturbance to its integrity are Isa. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, l. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12.

[26] We have here followed Dillmann's construction of a difficult passage which Duhm attempts to simplify by omission of the complicating clause without altering the general sense.

[27] Thus in comparison with the "book of the covenant," Deuteronomy adds the stipulation in reference to the release of the slave; that his master was to provide him liberally from his flocks, his corn and his wine (Deut. xv. 13, 14). See Hastings's _D.B._, arts. "Servant," "Slave," p. 464, where other examples may be found. In war fruit-trees are to be spared (Deut. xx. 19 foll.), whereas the old universal practice is the barbarous custom Elisha commended (2 Kings iii. 19) of ruthlessly destroying them.

[28] Driver, _Internat. Commentary on Deuteronomy_, Introd. p. xxx.

[29] It should be noted that in P (Code of Holiness) Lev. xvii. 15 foll. the resident alien (_ger_) is placed on an equality with the Jew.

[30] We shall have to note the emergence of the doctrine of the _resurrection of the righteous_ in later Judaism, which is obviously a fresh contribution of permanent value to Hebrew doctrine. On the other hand, the doctrine of _pre-existence_ is speculative rather than religious, and applies to institutions rather than persons.

[31] The legislative portions are mainly comprised in Ex. xxxv.-end, Leviticus entire and Num. i.-x.

[32] But this term (literally the _chief_ priest) was already in use during the regal period to designate the head priest of an important sanctuary such as Jerusalem (2 Kings xii. 11).

[33] Cf. the Phoenician parallel of "Face of Baal," worshipped as Tanit, "queen of Heaven" (Bathgen, _Beitrage zur Semit. Religionsgeschichte_, p. 55 foll.); also the place Penuel (face of God).

[34] Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. Baal Zebub of the Philistine Ekron became the Beelzebub who was equivalent to Satan.

HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, one of the books of the New Testament. In the oldest MSS. it bears no other title than "To Hebrews." This brief heading embraces all that on which Christian tradition from the end of the 2nd century was unanimous; and it says no more than that the readers addressed were Christians of Jewish extraction. This would be no sufficient address for an epistolary writing (xiii. 22) directed to a definite circle of readers, to whose history repeated reference is made, and with whom the author had personal relations (xiii. 19, 23). Probably, then, the original and limited address, or rather salutation, was never copied when this treatise in letter form, like the epistle to the Romans, passed into the wider circulation which its contents merited. In any case the Roman Church, where the first traces of the epistle occur, about A.D. 96 (1 Clement), had nothing to contribute to the question of authorship except the negative opinion that it was not by Paul (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ iii. 3): yet this central church was in constant connexion with provincial churches.

The earliest positive traditions belong to Alexandria and N. Africa. The Alexandrine tradition can be traced back as far as a teacher of Clement, presumably Pantaenus (Euseb. _Eccl. Hist._ vi. 14), who sought to explain why Paul did not name himself as usual at the head of the epistle. Clement himself, taking it for granted that an epistle to Hebrews must have been written in Hebrew, supposes that Luke translated it for the Greeks. Origen implies that "the men of old" regarded it as Paul's, and that some churches at least in his own day shared this opinion. But he feels that the language is un-Pauline, though the "admirable" thoughts are not second to those of Paul's unquestioned writings. Thus he is led to the view that the ideas were orally set forth by Paul, but that the language and composition were due to some one giving from memory a sort of free interpretation of his teacher's mind. According to some this disciple was Clement of Rome; others name Luke; but the truth, says Origen, is known to God alone (Euseb. vi. 25, cf. iii. 38). Still from the time of Origen the opinion that Paul wrote the epistle became prevalent in the East. The earliest African tradition, on the other hand, preserved by Tertullian[1] (_De pudicitia_, c. 20), but certainly not invented by him, ascribed the epistle to Barnabas. Yet it was perhaps, like those named by Origen, only an inference from the epistle itself, as if a "word of exhortation" (xiii. 22) by the Son of Exhortation (Acts iv. 36; see BARNABAS). On the whole, then, the earliest traditions in East and West alike agree in effect, viz. that our epistle was not by Paul, but by one of his associates.

This is also the twofold result reached by modern scholarship with growing clearness. The vacillation of tradition and the dissimilarity of the epistle from those of Paul were brought out with great force by Erasmus. Luther (who suggests Apollos) and Calvin (who thinks of Luke or Clement) followed with the decisive argument that Paul, who lays such stress on the fact that his gospel was not taught him by man (Gal. i.), could not have written Heb. ii. 3. Yet the wave of reaction which soon overwhelmed the freer tendencies of the first reformers, brought back the old view until the revival of biblical criticism more than a century ago. Since then the current of opinion has set irrevocably against any form of Pauline authorship. Its type of thought is quite unique. The Jewish Law is viewed not as a code of ethics or "works of righteousness," as by Paul, but as a system of religious rites (vii. 11) shadowing forth the way of access to God in worship, of which the Gospel reveals the archetypal realities (ix. 1, 11, 15, 23 f., x. 1 ff., 19 ff.). The Old and the New Covenants are related to one another as imperfect (earthly) and perfect (heavenly) forms of the same method of salvation, each with its own type of sacrifice and priesthood. Thus the conception of Christ as High Priest emerges, for the first time, as a central point in the author's conception of Christianity. The Old Testament is cited after the Alexandrian version more exclusively than by Paul, even where the Hebrew is divergent. Nor is this accidental. There is every appearance that the author was a Hellenist who lacked knowledge of the Hebrew text, and derived his metaphysic and his allegorical method from the Alexandrian rather than the Palestinian schools. Yet the epistle has manifest Pauline affinities, and can hardly have originated beyond the Pauline circle, to which it is referred not only by the author's friendship with Timothy (xiii. 23), but by many echoes of the Pauline theology and even, it seems, of passages in Paul's epistles (see Holtzmann, _Einleitung in das N. T._, 1892, p. 298). These features early suggested Paul as the author of a book which stood in MSS. immediately after the epistles of that apostle, and contained nothing in its title to distinguish it from the preceding books with like headings, "To the Romans," "To the Corinthians," and the like. A similar history attaches to the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (see CLEMENTINE LITERATURE).

Everything turns, then, on internal criticism of the epistle, working on the distinctive features already noticed, together with such personal allusions as it affords. As to its first readers, with whom the author stood in close relations (xiii. 19, 23, cf. vi. 10, x. 32-34), it used generally to be agreed that they were "Hebrews" or Christians of Jewish birth. But, for a generation or so, it has been denied that this can be inferred simply from the fact that the epistle approaches all Christian truth through Old Testament forms. This, it is said, was the common method of proof, since the Jewish scriptures were the Word of God to all Christians alike. Still it remains true that the exclusive use of the argument from Mosaism, as itself implying the Gospel of Jesus the Christ as final cause ([Greek: telos]), does favour the view that the readers were of Jewish origin. Further there is no allusion to the incorporation of "strangers and foreigners" (Eph. ii. 19) with the people of God. Yet the readers are not to be sought in Jerusalem (see e.g. ii. 3), nor anywhere in Judaea proper. The whole Hellenistic culture of the epistle (let alone its language), and the personal references in it, notably that to Timothy in xiii. 23, are against any such view: while the doubly emphatic "all" in xiii. 24 suggests that those addressed were but part of a community composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Caesarea, indeed, as a city of mixed population and lying just outside Judaea proper--a place, moreover, where Timothy might have become known during Paul's two years' detention there--would satisfy many conditions of the problem. Yet these very conditions are no more than might exist among intensely Jewish members of the Dispersion, like "the Jews of Asia" (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, _The Letters to the Seven Churches_, 155 f.), whose zeal for the Temple and the Mosaic ritual customs led to Paul's arrest in Jerusalem (Acts xix. 27 f., cf. 20 f.), in keeping both with his former experiences at their hands and with his forebodings resulting therefrom (xx. 19, 22-24). Our "Hebrews" had obviously high regard for the ordinances of Temple worship. But this was the case with the dispersed Jews generally, who kept in touch with the Temple, and its intercessory worship for all Israel, in every possible way; in token of this they sent with great care their annual contribution to its services, the Temple tribute. This bond was doubtless preserved by Christian Hellenists, and must have tended to continue their reliance on the Temple services for the forgiveness of their recurring "sins of ignorance"--subsequent to the great initial Messianic forgiveness coming with faith in Jesus. Accordingly many of them, while placing their hope for the future upon Messiah and His eagerly expected return in power, might seek assurance of present forgiveness of daily offences and cleansing of conscience in the old mediatorial system. In particular the annual Day of Atonement would be relied on, and that in proportion as the expected Parousia tarried, and the first enthusiasm of a faith that was largely eschatological died away, while ever-present temptation pressed the harder as disappointment and perplexity increased.

Such was the general situation of the readers of this epistle, men who rested partly on the Gospel and partly on Judaism. For lack of a true theory as to the relation between the two, they were now drifting away (ii. 1) from effective faith in the Gospel, as being mainly future in its application, while Judaism was a very present, concrete, and impressive system of religious aids--to which also their sacred scriptures gave constant witness. The points at which it chiefly touched them may be inferred from the author's counter-argument, with its emphasis in the spiritual ineffectiveness of the whole Temple-system, its high-priesthood and its supreme sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. With passionate earnestness he sets over against these his constructive theory as to the efficacy, the heavenly yet unseen reality, of the definitive "purification of sins" (i. 3) and perfected access to God's inmost presence, secured for Christians as such by Jesus the Son of God (x. 9-22), and traces their moral feebleness and slackened zeal to want of progressive insight into the essential nature of the Gospel as a "new covenant," moving on a totally different plane of religious reality from the now antiquated covenant given by Moses (viii. 13).

The following plan of the epistle may help to make apparent the writer's theory of Christianity as distinct from Judaism, which is related to it as "shadow" to reality:

_Thesis_: The finality of the form of religion mediated in God's Son, i. 1-4.

i. The supreme excellence of the Son's Person (i. 5-iii. 6), as compared with (a) angels, (b) Moses.

Practical exhortation, iii. 7-iv. 13, leading up to:

ii. The corresponding efficacy of the Son's High-priesthood (iv. 14-ix.).

(1) The Son has the qualifications of all priesthood, especially sympathy.

Exhortation, raising the reader's thought to the height of the topic reached (v. 11-vi. 20).

(2) The Son as absolute high priest, in an order transcending the Aaronic (vii.) and relative to a Tabernacle of ministry and a Covenant higher than the Mosaic in point of reality and finality (viii., ix.).

(3) His Sacrifice, then, is definitive in its effects ([Greek: teteleioke]), and supersedes all others (x. 1-18).