Part 7 (1/2)
In 1 Samuel ii. 13-16 we are told how it was the custom of the priests that when any man offered sacrifice, ”the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand.
And he struck it into the pan or kettle, or caldron or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took for himself.”
In the time of David the Lord had a table of shew-bread set before him--that is, a table spread with food in the temple, where he was supposed to come and take it when he desired, just as Africans place meal and liquor in their fetish houses. Such tables were set in the great temple of Bel at Babylon, and the story of Bel and the Dragon in the Apocrypha explains how the priests and their women and children came in by a secret door and ate up the things which were supposed to be consumed by the G.o.d.
While the Lord and the priests were certainly not vegetarians, neither did they insist on a vegetable diet for their people. The Lord's table of fare is set out in Leviticus xi., and a very curious _menu_ it is.
The hare is expressly excluded ”because he cheweth the cud,” although he does nothing of the kind; but ”the locust after his kind, the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the gra.s.shopper after his kind,” are freely permitted. Another divine regulation, and one which throws much light on the divine methods, is recorded in Deut. xvi. 21--”Thou shalt not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is within thy gates that he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien.” To this day the Jews are particular in observing this G.o.dly method of disposing of diseased meat.
To arrive at the truth in regard to the question whether human sacrifice was at one time a portion of the Jewish religion, or whether it was, as the orthodox generally a.s.sert, simply a corruption copied from the surrounding heathen nations, it is necessary to bear in mind that every portion of the Jewish law is of later date than the prophets. The book of the law was only found in the time of King Josiah, who opposed this very practice (2 Kings xxiii. 10), and there is no evidence of its existence before that date. There is reason to believe that the priestly code of Leviticus is later still, dating only from the time of Ezra.
Instead of reflecting the ideas of the age of Moses, it reflects those of almost a thousand years later. It is therefore only in the historical books that we can expect to find traces of what the actual religion of Israel was. There is ample evidence that human sacrifice formed a conspicuous element. Ahaz, King of Judah, ”burnt his children in the fire” (2 Chron. xxviii. 3); Manna.s.seh, King of Judah, was guilty of the same atrocity (2 Chron. x.x.xiii. 6); Jeremiah denounces the children of Judah for having ”built the high place of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire” (vii. 31); Micah remonstrates against both animal and human sacrifice--”Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams; shall I give my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (vi. 7). In the well-known story of Abraham and Isaac, as in the Greek story of Iphigenia, and the Roman one of Valeria Luperca, we have an account of the transition to a less barbarous stage in the subst.i.tution of animal for human sacrifice. It was natural that this legend should be ascribed to the time of the father of the faithful, but there is, as we have seen, abundant evidence of the practice existing long subsequent to the time of Abraham, who was by no means surprised at and in no way demurred to the divine command, ”Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee unto the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (Genesis xxii. 2). Anyone who at the present day should exhibit a faith like unto that of the patriarchal saint would be in jeopardy of finding himself within the walls of a criminal lunatic asylum.
That human sacrifices lasted long after the time of Abraham we have an instance in the case of Jephthah, who vowed that if Jahveh would deliver the children of Ammon into his hand, he would offer up for a burnt offering whosoever came forth from his house to meet him upon his return from his expedition (Judges xi. 30, 31). In order to tone this down the Authorised Version reads ”whatsoever” instead of ”whosoever,” which is supplied in the margin of the Revised Version. Despite the emphatic statement that Jephthah did with her according to his vow, it has been alleged that because his daughter pet.i.tioned to be allowed to bewail her virginity for two months, she was only condemned to a life of celibacy.
This is preposterous. Jahveh, unlike Jesus, had no partiality for the unmarried state. He liked a real sacrifice of blood. To lament childlessness was a common ancient custom, and even the Greek and Latin poets have represented their heroines who were similarly doomed to an early death, such as Antigone, Polyxena, and Iphigenia, as actually lamenting in a very similar manner their virginity or unmarried condition. There is no single instance in the Old Testament of a woman being set apart as a virgin, though, as we have seen, there are numerous indications of human sacrifices.
Even in the Levitical law sanction is given to human sacrifice. ”None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death” (Lev. xxvii. 29). Jahveh insisted on the sacrifice being completed. David sent seven sons of Saul to be hung before the Lord to stay a famine.
That a party remained in Israel who considered human sacrifice a part of their religion is evident also from Jeremiah, who says: ”They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind” (xix. 5). These strong a.s.severations were evidently called forth by a.s.sertions made by persons addicted to such practices, and those persons had the support of Ezekiel, who, in contradiction to the statements of Jeremiah, contended that Jahveh gave them up to pollution, even as he hardened the heart of Pharaoh that they might know that he was the Lord (Ezek. xx. 25-26).
THE Pa.s.sOVER.
”_Christ our pa.s.sover is sacrificed for us_.”
--Paul (1 Cor. v. 7.)
The Pa.s.sover is the most important and impressive festival of the Jews, inst.i.tuted, it is said, by G.o.d himself, and a type of the sacrifice of his only son. Its observance was most rigorously enjoined under penalty of death, and although the circ.u.mstances of the Jews have prevented their carrying out the sacrificial details, they still, in the custom of each head of the family a.s.suming _pro tem_, the _role_ of high priest, preserve the most primitive type of priesthood known.
The Bible account of the inst.i.tution of the Pa.s.sover is utterly incredible. After afflicting the Egyptians with nine plagues, G.o.d still hardens Pharaoh's heart (Exodus x. 27), and tells Moses that ”about midnight” he will go into the midst of Egypt and slay all the firstborn.
But in order that he shall make no mistake in carrying out his atrocious design, he orders that each family of the children of Israel shall take a lamb and kill it in the evening, and smear the doorposts of the house with blood, ”and when I see the blood I will pa.s.s over you.” The omniscient needed this sign, that he might not make a mistake and slay the very people he meant to deliver. One cannot help wondering what would have been the result if some Egyptian, like Morgiana in ”The Forty Thieves,” had wiped off the blood from the Israelite doorposts and sprinkled the doorposts of the Egyptians. Moses received this command on the very day at the close of which the paschal lambs were to be killed.
This was very short notice for communicating with the head of each family about to start on a hurried flight. As the people were two million in number and the lambs had to be all males, without blemish, of one year old, this supposes, on the most moderate computation, a flock of sheep as numerous as the people. Who can credit this monstrous libel on the character of G.o.d and on the intelligence of those to whom such a story is proffered?
What, then, is the correct version of the origin of the Pa.s.sover? Dr.
Hardwicke, in his _Popular Faith Unveiled_, following Sir Wm. Drummond and G.o.dfrey Higgins, says it meant ”nothing more or less than the pa.s.s-over of the sun across the equator, into the constellation Aries, when the astronomical lamb was consequently obliterated or sacrificed by the superior effulgence of the sun.” It is noticeable that the princ.i.p.al festivals of the Jews, as of other nations, were in spring and autumn, at the time of lambing and sowing and when the harvest ripened. But while allowing that this may have determined the time of the festival, I cannot think it covers the ground of its significance. The story relates that when Moses first asked Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, it was that they might celebrate a feast in the wilderness which was accompanied by a sacrifice (see Exodus v. i. and iii. 19). This may be taken as indicating that there was known to be a festival at this season prior to the days of Pharaoh. And at the festival of the spring increase of flocks the G.o.d must of course have his share.
Epiphanius declares that the Egyptians marked their sheep with red, because of the general conflagration which once raged at the time when the sun pa.s.sed over into the sign of Aries, thereby to symbolise the fiery death of those animals who were not actually offered up. Von Bohlen says the ancient Peruvians marked with blood the doors of the temples, royal residences, and private dwellings, to symbolise the triumph of the sun over the winter.
The suggestion that owing to peculiarities of diet or of const.i.tution some pestilence afflicted the Egyptians which pa.s.sed over and spared the Jews, is a very plausible one, and deserves more attention than it has yet received, since it would account for many features in the inst.i.tution. But there remains another signification, which seems indicated in the thirteenth chapter of Exodus in connection with the inst.i.tution of the Pa.s.sover. There we read the order, ”Thou shalt set apart [the margin more properly reads ”cause to pa.s.s over”] unto the Lord, all that openeth the matrix” (verse 12). ”And every firstling of an a.s.s thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou will not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.”* Professor Huxley asks upon this pa.s.sage: ”Is it possible to avoid the conclusion that immolation of their firstborn sons would have been inc.u.mbent on the wors.h.i.+ppers of Jahveh, had they not been thus specially excused?”** In one of the oldest portions of the Pentateuch (Exodus xxii. 29) the command stands simply, ”the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.” In Exodus xii. 27, xxiii. 18, x.x.xiv. 25; and Numbers ix. 13, the Pa.s.sover is spoken of as particularly the Lord's own sacrifice.
* Why is the a.s.s only mentioned besides man? One cannot but suspect that his introduction is an interpolation by the reformed Jews, who had outgrown the custom of human sacrifice, betrayed by the phrase ”thou shalt break his neck.”
** Nineteenth Century, April, 1886.
The law proceeds to enjoin that the father shall tell his son as the reason for the festival, how the Lord ”slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beasts: therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem.” Evidently here is the notion of a subst.i.tutionary offering, although the reason given is not the true reason. In Exodus x.x.xiv. 18-20, the festival is brought into the same connection with immediate reference to the redemption of the firstborn. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have the same idea.
G.o.d commands the patriarch to offer up his only son as a burnt sacrifice (Gen. xxii. 2), an order which he receives without astonishment, and proceeds to execute as if it were the most ordinary business imaginable, without the slightest sign of reluctance. A messenger from Jahveh, however, intervenes and a ram is subst.i.tuted.* I do not doubt that this story, like similar ones found in Hindu and Greek mythology, indicates an era when animal sacrifices were subst.i.tuted for human ones.**
* Observe that Elohim, the old G.o.ds, claim the sacrifice and Jahveh, the new Lord, prevents it.
** It may help us to understand how the sacrifice of an animal may atone for human life, if we notice how in South Africa a Zulu will redeem a lost child from the finder by a bullock.