Part 1

This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.

Minor errors or inconsistencies in punctuation and formatting have been silently corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any other textual issues encountered during its preparation.

The few Hebrew words and phrases in the text cannot be correctly rendered in this media format. The Hebrew characters are therefore replaced with a direct transliteration rendered in a bold font. Each word is transliterated by the author as well. There were no vowel marks in the text.

Footnotes have been resequenced to be unique, and were moved to the end of the chapter or section. Any references to those notes in the text have been amended as well.

THE THRESHOLD COVENANT

OR

THE BEGINNING OF RELIGIOUS RITES

BY

H. CLAY TRUMBULL

Author of “Kadesh-barnea,” “The Blood Covenant,” “Studies in Oriental Social Life,” etc.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

1896

COPYRIGHT, 1896 BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL

PREFACE.

This work does not treat of the origin of man’s religious faculty, or of the origin of the sentiment of religion; nor does it enter the domain of theological discussion. It simply attempts to show the beginning of religious rites, by which man evidenced a belief, however obtained, in the possibility of covenant relations between God and man; and the gradual development of those rites, with the progress of the race toward a higher degree of civilization and enlightenment. Necessarily the volume is not addressed to a popular audience, but to students in the lessons of primitive life and culture.

In a former volume, “The Blood Covenant,” I sought to show the origin of sacrifice, and the significance of transferred or proffered blood or life. The facts given in that work have been widely accepted as lying at the basis of fundamental doctrines declared in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and have also been recognized as the source of perverted views which have had prominence in the principal ethnic religions of the world. Scholars of as divergent schools of thought as Professors William Henry Green of Princeton, Charles A. Briggs of New York, George E. Day of Yale, John A. Broadus of Louisville, Samuel Ives Curtiss of Chicago, President Mark Hopkins of Williams, Rev. Drs. Alfred Edersheim of Oxford and Cunningham Geikie of Bournemouth, Professor Fréderic Godet of Neuchatel, and many others, were agreed in recognizing the freshness and importance of its investigations, and the value of its conclusions. Professor W. Robertson Smith, of Cambridge, in thanking me for that work, expressed regret that he had not seen it before writing his “Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia.” He afterwards made repeated mention of the work as an authority in its field, in his Burnett Lectures on the “Religion of the Semites.”

This volume grew out of that one. It looks back to a still earlier date. That began as it were with Cain and Abel, while this begins with Adam and Eve. It was while preparing a Supplement for a second edition of that volume that the main idea of this work assumed such importance in my mind that I was led to make a separate study of it, and present it independently. The special theory here advanced is wholly a result of induction. The theory came out of the gathered facts, instead of the facts being gathered in support of the theory.

Of course, these facts are not new, but it is believed that their synthetic arrangement is. It has been a favorite method with students of primitive religions to point out widely different objects of primitive worship and their corresponding cults among different peoples, and then to try to show how the ceremonials of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures were made up from these primitive cults. But the course of investigation here pursued seems to show that the earlier cult was the simple one, which has been developed in the line of the Bible story, and that the other cults, even those baser and more degraded, are only natural perversions of the original simple one. This is a reversal of the usual order in studies of primitive religious rites. Here it is first the simple, then the complex; first the one germ, then the many varieties of growth from that germ.

As this particular subject of investigation seems to be a hitherto untrodden field, I am unable to refer to any published works as my principal sources of information. But I have gathered important related facts from various directions, giving full credit in explicit foot-notes, page by page. Many added facts confirmatory of my position might, undoubtedly, have been found through yet wider and more discerning research, and they will be brought to light by other gleaners in the same field. Indeed, a chief value of this volume will be in the fresh study it provokes on the part of those whom it stimulates to more thorough investigation in the direction here pointed out. And if such study shows an added agreement between some of the main facts of modern scientific investigation and those disclosed in the Bible narrative, that will not be a matter of regret to any fair-minded scholar.

In my earlier studies for this work, I had valuable assistance from the late Mr. John T. Napier; and in my later researches I have been materially assisted by Professors Herman V. Hilprecht, E. Washburn Hopkins, William R. Lamberton, John Henry Wright, Robert Ellis Thompson, Morris Jastrow, Jr., D.G. Brinton, Adolph Erman, W. Max Müller, W. Hayes Ward, M.B. Riddle, Minton Warren, Alfred Gudeman, John P. Peters, M.W. Easton, and A.L. Frothingham, Jr., President George Washburn, Rev. Drs. Marcus Jastrow, H.H. Jessup, George A. Ford, William W. Eddy, and Benjamin Labaree, Rev. William Ewing, Rev. Paulus Moort, Dr. Talcott Williams, Dr. J. Solis Cohen, Dr. A.T. Clay, Dr. T.H. Powers Sailer, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, Mr. S. Schecter, Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing, Captain John G. Bourke, Mr. Khaleel Sarkis, Mr. John T. Haddad, Mr. Montague Cockle, Mr. Le Roy Bliss Peckham, the late Mr. William John Potts, and other specialists. To all these I return my sincere thanks.

Facts and suggestions that came to my notice after the main work was completed, or that, while known to me before, did not seem to have a place in the direct presentation of the argument, have been given a place in the Appendix. These may prove helpful to scholars who would pursue the investigation beyond my limits of treatment.

Comments of eminent specialists in Europe and America, to whom the proof-sheets of the volume were submitted before publication, are given in a Supplement. Important additions are thus made to the results of my researches, which are sure to be valued accordingly.

H.C.T.

PHILADELPHIA, _Passover Week, 1896_.

CONTENTS.

I.

PRIMITIVE FAMILY ALTAR.

(1.) A BLOOD WELCOME AT THE DOOR, 3. (2.) REVERENCE FOR THE THRESHOLD ALTAR, 10. (3.) THRESHOLD COVENANTING IN THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY, 25. (4.) STEPPING OR BEING LIFTED ACROSS THE THRESHOLD, 36. (5.) LAYING FOUNDATIONS IN BLOOD, 45. (6.) APPEALS AT THE ALTAR, 57. (7.) COVENANT TOKENS ON THE DOORWAY, 66. (8.) SYMBOL OF THE RED HAND, 74. (9.) DEITIES OF THE DOORWAY, 94.

II.

EARLIEST TEMPLE ALTAR.

(1.) FROM HOUSE TO TEMPLE, 99. (2.) SACREDNESS OF THE DOOR, 102. (3.) TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN ASIA, 108. (4.) TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN AFRICA, 126. (5.) TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN EUROPE, 132. (6.) TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN AMERICA, 144. (7.) TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN ISLANDS OF THE SEA, 148. (8.) ONLY ONE FOUNDATION, 153.

III.

SACRED BOUNDARY LINE.

(1.) FROM TEMPLE TO DOMAIN, 165. (2.) LOCAL LANDMARKS, 166. (3.) NATIONAL BORDERS, 177. (4.) BORDER SACRIFICES, 184.

IV.

ORIGIN OF THE RITE.

(1.) A NATURAL QUESTION, 193. (2.) AN ANSWER BY INDUCTION, 194. (3.) NO COVENANT WITHOUT BLOOD, 196. (4.) CONFIRMATION OF THIS VIEW, 197.

V.

HEBREW PASS-OVER, OR CROSS-OVER, SACRIFICE.

(1.) NEW MEANING IN AN OLD RITE, 203. (2.) A WELCOME WITH BLOOD, 204. (3.) BASON, OR THRESHOLD, 206. (4.) PASS-OVER OR PASS-BY, 209. (5.) MARRIAGE OF JEHOVAH WITH ISRAEL, 212.

VI.

CHRISTIAN PASSOVER.

(1.) OLD COVENANT AND NEW, 215. (2.) PROFFERED WELCOME BY THE FATHER, 216. (3.) BRIDEGROOM AND BRIDE, 218. (4.) SURVIVALS OF THE RITE, 221.

VII.

OUTGROWTHS AND PERVERSIONS OF THIS RITE.

(1.) ELEMENTAL BEGINNINGS, 223. (2.) MAIN OUTGROWTHS, 225. (3.) CHIEF PERVERSIONS, 228.

APPENDIX.

SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD IN THE MARRIAGE RITE, 243. EXHIBITING THE EVIDENCES, 245. SUBSTITUTE BLOOD FOR DECEPTION, 248. PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OF THE RITE, 250. BIBLE TESTIMONY, 251. WOMAN AS A DOOR, 252. SYMBOLISM OF THE TWO SEXES, 257. SYMBOLISM OF TREE AND SERPENT, 258. COVENANT OF THRESHOLD-CROSSING, 259. DOORKEEPER, AND CARRIER, 263. PASSING OVER INTO A COVENANT, 266. ENGLAND’S CORONATION STONE, 268.

INDEXES.

TOPICAL INDEX, 273. SCRIPTURAL INDEX, 301.

SUPPLEMENT.

COMMENTS OF SPECIALISTS.

FROM THE REV. DR. MARCUS JASTROW, 307. FROM PROFESSOR DR. HERMAN V. HILPRECHT, 309. FROM PROFESSOR DR. FRITZ HOMMEL, 313. FROM PROFESSOR DR. A.H. SAYCE, 314. FROM PROFESSOR DR. W. MAX MÜLLER, 315. FROM PROFESSOR DR. C.P. TIELE, 317. FROM PROFESSOR DR. E. WASHBURN HOPKINS, 318. FROM THE REV. DR. WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, 319. FROM PROFESSOR DR. JOHN P. MAHAFFY, 324. FROM PROFESSOR DR. WILLIAM A. LAMBERTON, 326. FROM PROFESSOR DR. DANIEL G. BRINTON, 328. FROM THE REV. DR. EDWARD T. BARTLETT, 329. FROM PROFESSOR DR. T.K. CHEYNE, 330. ADDITIONAL FROM PROFESSOR DR. FRITZ HOMMEL, 333.

THE THRESHOLD COVENANT.

I. PRIMITIVE FAMILY ALTAR.

1. A BLOOD WELCOME AT THE DOOR.

The primitive altar of the family would seem to have been the threshold, or door-sill, or entrance-way, of the home dwelling-place. This is indicated by surviving customs, in the East and elsewhere among primitive peoples, and by the earliest historic records of the human race. It is obvious that houses preceded temples, and that the house-father was the earliest priest. Sacrifices for the family were, therefore, within or at the entrance of the family domicile.

In Syria and in Egypt, at the present time, when a guest who is worthy of special honor is to be welcomed to a home, the blood of a slaughtered, or a “sacrificed,” animal is shed on the threshold of that home, as a means of adopting the new-comer into the family, or of making a covenant union with him. And every such primitive covenant in blood includes an appeal to the protecting Deity to ratify it as between the two parties and himself.[1] While the guest is still outside, the host takes a lamb, or a goat, and, tying its feet together, lays it upon the threshold of his door. Resting his left knee upon the bound victim, the host holds its head by his left hand, while with his right he cuts its throat. He retains his position until all the blood has flowed from the body upon the threshold. Then the victim is removed, and the guest steps over the blood, across the threshold; and in this act he becomes, as it were, a member of the family by the Threshold Covenant.

The flesh of the slaughtered animal is usually given to the neighbors, although in the case of humbler persons it is sometimes used for the meal of the guest in whose honor it is sacrificed. It may be a larger offering than a lamb or a goat, or it may be a smaller one. Sometimes several sheep are included in the sacrifice. Again, the offering may be a bullock or a heifer, or simply a fowl or a pair of pigeons. The more costly the gift, in proportion to the means of the host, the greater the honor to him who is welcomed.

As illustrative of this idea, a story is commonly told in Syria of a large-hearted man who gave proof of his exceptional devotedness to an honored guest. He had a horse which he prized as only an Oriental can prize and love one. This horse he sent to meet his guest, in order that it might bring him to the home of its owner. When the guest reached the house and dismounted, he spoke warm words in praise of the noble animal. At once the host led the horse to the house door, and cut its throat over the threshold, asking the guest to step over the blood of this costly offering, in acceptance of the proffered Threshold Covenant.

“If you know that one is coming whom you would honor and welcome, you must make ready to have the blood on the threshold when he appears,” said a native Syrian. In case an honored guest arrives unexpectedly, so that there is no time to prepare the customary sacrifice, salt, as representing blood, may be sprinkled on the threshold, for the guest to pass over; or again coffee, as the Muhammadan substitute for the “blood of the grape,”[2] may be poured on it.[3]

Crossing the threshold, or entering the door, of a house, is in itself an implied covenant with those who are within, as shown by the earlier laws of India. He who goes in by the door must count himself, and must be recognized, as a guest, subject to the strictest laws of hospitality. But if he enters the house in some other way, not crossing the threshold, there is no such implied covenant on his part. He may then even despoil or kill the head of the house he has entered, without any breach of the law of hospitality, or of the moral law as there understood.[4] Illustrations of this truth are found in the Mahabharata, as applicable to both a house and a city.[5] “It is in accordance with the strict law of all the law books,” of ancient India, “that one may enter his foe’s house by _a-dvāra_, ‘not by door,’ but his friend’s house only ‘by door.’”[6]

It would seem to have been in accordance with this primitive law of the East that Jesus said: “He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.... I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture. The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”[7]

It is possible that there is an explanation, in this law of the doorway, or threshold, of the common practice among primitive Scandinavians of attacking the inmates of an enemy’s house through the roof instead of by the door;[8] also, of the custom in Greece of welcoming a victor in the Olympian games into his city through a breach in the walls, instead of causing him to enter by the gates, with its implied subjection to all the laws of hospitality.[9] (See Appendix.)

Examples of the blood welcome at the threshold abound in modern Egyptian customs. When the new khedive came to his palace, in 1882, a threshold sacrifice was offered as his welcome. “At the entrance to the palace six buffaloes were slaughtered, two being killed just as the khedive’s carriage reached the gateway. The blood of the animals was splashed across the entrance, so that the horses’ hoofs and wheels of the carriage passed through it. The flesh was afterwards distributed among the poor.”[10]

When General Grant was at Assioot, on the Upper Nile, during his journey around the world, he was doubly welcomed as a guest by the American vice-consul, who was a native of Egypt. A bullock was sacrificed at the steamer landing, and its head was laid on one side of the gang-plank, and its body on the other. The outpoured blood was between the head and the body, under the gang-plank, so that, in stepping from the steamer to the shore, General Grant would cross over it. When he reached the house of the vice-consul, a sheep was similarly sacrificed at the threshold, in such a way that General Grant passed over the blood in entering.[11]

It is also said in Egypt: “If you buy a dahabiyeh,” and therefore are to cross its threshold for the occupancy of your new home on the water, “you must kill a sheep, letting the blood flow on the deck, or side, of the boat, in order that it may be lucky. Your friends will afterwards have to dine on the sheep.”[12] There seems, indeed, to be a survival of this idea in the custom of “christening” a ship at the time of its launching, in England and America, a bottle of wine–the “blood of the grape”[13]–being broken on the bow of the vessel as it crosses the threshold of the deep. And a feast usually follows this ceremony also.[14]

In Zindero, or Gingiro, or Zinder, in Central Africa, a new king is welcomed at the royal residence with a bloody threshold offering. “Before he enters his palace two men are to be slain; one at the foot of the tree by which his house is chiefly supported; the other at the threshold of his door, which is besmeared with the blood of the victim. And it is said ... that the particular family, whose privilege it is to be slaughtered, so far from avoiding it, glory in the occasion, and offer themselves willingly to meet it.”[15]

Among the Arabs in Central Africa, the blood welcome of a guest at the threshold of a home is a prevailing custom. “The usual welcome upon the arrival of a traveler, who is well received in an Arab camp, is the sacrifice of a fat sheep, that should be slaughtered at the door of the hut or tent, so that the blood flows to the threshold.”[16]

On the arrival of strangers among the primitive tribes of Liberia, in West Africa, a fowl is killed, and its blood is sprinkled at the doorway.[17]

Receiving an honored guest with bread and salt, at the threshold of the house he enters, is common in Russia. Bread and salt are symbolic, in primitive thought, of flesh and blood; and this threshold welcome seems to be a survival of the threshold sacrifice.[18]

To step over or across the blood, or its substitute, on the door-sill, is to accept or ratify the proffered covenant; but to trample upon the symbol of the covenant is to show contempt for the host who proffers it, and no greater indignity than this is known in the realm of primitive social intercourse.

2. REVERENCE FOR THE THRESHOLD ALTAR.

The threshold, as the family altar on which the sacrificial blood of a covenant welcome is poured out, is counted sacred, and is not to be stepped upon, or passed over lightly; but it is to be crossed over reverently, as in recognition of Him to whom all life belongs. “On passing the threshold,” in Arabia, “it is proper to say, ‘Bismillah,’ that is, ‘In the name of God.’ Not to do so would be looked upon as a bad augury, alike for him who enters and for those within.”[19] In Syria the belief prevails “that it is unlucky to tread on a threshold.” When they receive a new member to their sect, the Bektashi derwishes of Syria bring him to the threshold, and prayers and sacrifices are offered “on the door-sill.”[20]

“The khaleefs of Bagdad required all those who entered their palace to prostrate themselves on the threshold of the gate, where they had inserted a fragment of the black stone of the temple at Meccah, in order to render it [the threshold] more venerable to those who had been accustomed to press their foreheads against it. The threshold was of some height, and it was a crime to set foot upon it.” In the advice which Nurshivan gives to his son Hormuz, he recommends him to betake himself to the threshold of the Lord; that is, to the “presence of God, in the same fashion in which the poor do, at the gates of the rich. ‘Since you are his slave,’ he says, ‘set your forehead on his threshold.’”[21]

Among the Hindoos, “the threshold is ... sacred in private houses; it is not propitious for a person to remain on it; neither to eat, sneeze, yawn, nor spit whilst there.”[22]

A double welcome is sometimes given to one who is in an official position. Thus, a Syrian, who held a commission from the chief officer of customs in Upper Syria, was surprised at having two sheep sacrificed before him as he approached the door of a house east of the Sea of Galilee; and he graciously protested against the excessive honor shown him. “One sheep is to welcome yourself as a man, and the other is to welcome you as an officer of the government,” was the answer. Loyalty as well as hospitality was indicated in these threshold sacrifices.

Sacredness attaches to the threshold in Persia. It must not be trodden on; but it is often kissed by those who would step over it.[23]

A man should always cross himself when he steps over a threshold in Russia; and, in some portions of the realm, it is believed that he ought not to sit down on the threshold.[24]

High sills, or thresholds, so that one must step over, and not on, them, are in the houses of Finland, and in the houses of many Finns in the United States.[25] The same was true of many Teutonic houses.[26]

To shake hands across a threshold, instead of crossing it, is said, in Finland, to ensure a quarrel.[27] To step over a threshold is, in Lapland, to bring one under the protection of the family within, and of its guardian deity.[28] The same is true among the Magyars.[29]

The ancient Pythagoreans quoted various maxims, supposed to be from the sayings of their great founder, as teaching important lessons for all time. In these maxims there were indications of a peculiar reverence for the threshold and doorway. Thus: “He who strikes his foot against the threshold should go back;” it were unsafe to pursue a movement so inauspiciously begun. And, again: “The doors should be kissed fondly by those who enter or depart.”[30]

“Treading on the threshold was ... tabooed by the Tatars.”[31] Again, on the other side of the globe, in Samoa, to spill water on the door-step, or threshold, when food is brought in, is a cause of anger to the protecting deity of the family. It may drive him away.[32]

In Europe and in America it is by many counted an ill omen to tread upon the threshold of the door on entering a house. To the present day, in portions of Scotland, the idea popularly prevails, that to tread directly upon the boundary lines of division between ordinary flagstones is to endanger one’s soul; hence the very children are careful to avoid stepping upon those lines, in their walking across the courtyards or along the streets, in their every-day passing.

Many a person in the United States, who knows nothing of any superstition connected with this, avoids, if possible, stepping on, instead of over, the cracks or seams of a board walk, or even the seams of a carpet.

All these customs seem to be a survival of the feeling that the threshold is sacred as the primitive altar.

Apart from the reverence for the threshold demanded of those who pass over it, there is an obvious sanctity of the threshold recognized in the placing of images and amulets underneath it, and in the sacrifices and offerings placed on it, as a means of guarding the dwelling within.

In the building of private houses, as well as temples, and city gateways, in ancient Assyria, images of various kinds and sizes, “in bronze, red jasper, yellow stone, and baked earth, ... are buried beneath the stones of the threshold, so as to bar the entrance to all destructive spirits.” Invocations are graven upon these figures.[33]