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Title: The Religion of Ancient Palestine

In the Second Millenium B.C.

Author: Stanley A. Cook

Release Date: December 25, 2012 [EBook #41704]

Language: English

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[Illustration: Cover]

THE
RELIGION OF ANCIENT
PALESTINE

IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

_In the Light of Archæology and the Inscriptions_

By

STANLEY A. COOK, M.A.

EX-FELLOW, AND LECTURER IN HEBREW AND SYRIAC, GONVILLE AND CAIUS

COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AUTHOR OF 'A GLOSSARY OF THE ARAMAIC
INSCRIPTIONS,' 'THE LAWS OF MOSES AND THE CODE OF
HAMMURABI,' 'CRITICAL NOTES ON OLD
TESTAMENT HISTORY,' ETC.
 LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
1908

{v}

PREFACE

The following pages deal with the religion of Ancient Palestine, more
particularly in the latter half of the Second Millennium, B.C. They
touch upon the problem of the rise and development of Israelite
religion; a problem, however, which does not lie within the scope of
the present sketch (pp. 4, 114 _sq._). The Amarna tablets, Egyptian
records, and the results of recent excavation form the foundation, and
the available material has been interpreted in the light of comparative
religion. The aim has been to furnish a fairly self-contained
description of the general religious conditions from external or
non-biblical sources, and this method has been adopted partly on
account of the conflicting opinions which prevail among those who have
investigated the theology of the Old Testament in its relation to
modern research. Every effort has been made to present the evidence
accurately and fairly; although lack of space has prevented discussion
of the more interesting features of the old Palestinian religion and of
the various secondary problems which arose from time to time. {vi}
Some difficulty has been caused by the absence of any more or less
comprehensive treatment of the subject; although, from the list of
authorities at the end it will be seen that the most important sources
have only quite recently become generally accessible. These, and the
few additional bibliographical references given in the footnotes are
far from indicating the great indebtedness of the present writer to the
works of Oriental scholars and of those who have dealt with comparative
religion. Special acknowledgements are due to Mr. F. Ll. Griffith,
M.A., Reader in Egyptology, University of Oxford; to the Rev. C. H. W.
Johns, M.A., Lecturer in Assyriology, Queen's College, Cambridge, and
King's College, London; and to Mr. R. A. S. Macalister, M.A., F.S.A.,
Director of the Palestine Exploration Fund's excavations at Gezer.
These gentlemen enhanced their kindness by reading an early proof, and
by contributing valuable suggestions and criticisms. But the
responsibility for all errors of statement and opinion rests with the
present writer.

STANLEY A. COOK.

_July_ 1908.

{vii}

CONTENTS
CHAP.

I. INTRODUCTORY:

The Subject--Method--Survey of Period and Sources--The Land and People,

. . . 1-12

II. SACRED SITES:

The Sanctuary of Gezer--Other Sacred Places--Their Persistence--The

Modern Places of Cult, . . . 13-23

III. SACRED OBJECTS:

Trees--Stones--Images and Symbols, . . . 24-32

IV. SACRED RITES AND PRACTICES:

General Inferences--Disposal of the Dead--Jar-burial--Human

Sacrifice--Foundation Sacrifice--Importance of Sacrifice--Broken
Offerings--'Holy' and 'Unclean'--Sacred Animals, . . . 33-49

V. THE WORLD OF SPIRITS:

Awe--Charms--Oracles--Representatives of Supernatural Powers--The

Dead--Animism--The Divinity of Kings--Recognised Gods, . . . 50-65

{viii}

VI. THE GODS:

Their Vicissitudes--Their Representative Character--In Political

Treaties and Covenants--The Influence of Egypt--Treatment of Alien
Gods, . . . 66-82

VII. THE PANTHEON:

Asiatic Deities in Egypt--Sutekh--Baal--Resheph--

Kadesh--Anath--Astarte--Ashirta Sun-deity--(Shamash)--Moon-god (Sin)
--Addu (Hadad)--Dagon--Nebo--Ninib
--Shalem--Gad--'Righteousness'--Nergal --Melek--Yahweh (Jehovah), . . .
83-97

VIII. CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT:

Miscellaneous Ideas--The Underlying Identity of Thought--Influence of

Babylonia--Conclusion, . . . 98-115

PRINCIPAL SOURCES AND WORKS OF REFERENCE, . . . 116

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, . . . 118

INDEX, . . . 119

{1}

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT PALESTINE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

+The Subject.+--By the Religion of Ancient Palestine is meant that of

the Semitic land upon which was planted the ethical monotheism of
Judaism. The subject is neither the growth of Old Testament theology,
nor the religious environment of the Israelite teachers: it anticipates
by several centuries the first of the great prophets whose writings
have survived, and it takes its stand in the second millennium B.C.,
and more especially in its latter half. It deals with the internal and
external religious features which were capable of being shaped into the
forms with which every one is familiar, and our Palestine is that of
the Patriarchs, of Moses, Joshua, and the Judges, an old land which
modern research has placed in a new light.

Successive discoveries of contemporary {2} historical and archæological

material have made it impossible to ignore either the geographical
position of Palestine, which exposes it to the influence of the
surrounding seats of culture, or its political history, which has
constantly been controlled by external circumstances. Although
Palestine reappears as only a small fraction of the area dominated by
the ancient empires of Egypt and Western Asia, the uniqueness of its
experiences can be more vividly realised. If it is found to share many
forms of religious belief and custom with its neighbours, one is better
able to sever the features which were by no means the exclusive
possession of Israel from those which were due to specific influences
shaping them to definite ends, and the importance of the little land in
the history of humanity can thereby be more truly and permanently
estimated.

+Method.+--Although Palestine was the land of Judaism and of

Christianity, and has subsequently been controlled by Mohammedanism, it
has preserved common related elements of belief, which have formed, as
it were, part of the unconscious inheritance of successive generations.
They have not been ousted by those positive religions which traced
their origin to deliberate and epoch-making {3} innovators, and they
survive to-day as precious relics for the study of the past. Indeed,
the _comparative method_, which investigates points of resemblance and
difference among widely-severed peoples, can avail itself in our case
of Oriental conservatism, and may range over a single but remarkably
extensive field. From the archæology and inscriptions of Ancient
Babylonia to Punic Carthage, from the Old Testament to the writings of
Rabbinical Judaism, from classical, Syrian, and Arabian authors to the
observations of medieval and modern travellers, one may accumulate a
store of evidence which is mutually illustrative or supplementary. But
it would be incorrect to assume that every modern belief or rite in
Palestine, for example, necessarily represents the old religion: there
have been reversion and retrogression; some old practices have
disappeared, others have been modified or have received a new
interpretation. This warning is necessary, because one must be able to
trace the paths traversed by the several rites and beliefs which have
been arrested, before the religion of any age can be placed in its
proper historical perspective. Unfortunately the sources do not permit
us to do this for our period. The Old Testament, it is true, covers
this period, and its writers frequently {4} condemn the worship which
they regard as contrary to that of their national God. But the Old
Testament brings with it many serious problems, and, for several
reasons, it is preferable to approach the subject from external and
contemporary evidence. Although its incompleteness has naturally
restricted our treatment, the aim has been to describe, in as
self-contained a form as possible, the general religious conditions to
which this evidence points, and to indicate rather more incidentally
its bearing upon the numerous questions which are outside the scope of
the following pages.

+Survey of Period and Sources.+--Many different elements must have

coalesced in the history of Palestinian culture from the days of the
early palaeolithic and neolithic inhabitants. It is with no
rudimentary people that we are concerned, but with one acquainted with
bronze and exposed to the surrounding civilisations. The First
Babylonian Dynasty, not to ascend further, brings with it evidence for
relations between Babylonia and the Mediterranean coast-lands, and
intercourse between Egypt and Palestine dates from before the invasion
of the Hyksos.[1] With the expulsion of {5} these invaders (about 1580
B.C.), the monarchs of Egypt enter upon their great campaigns in
Western Asia, and Palestine comes before us in the clear light of
history. The Egyptian records of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties
furnish valuable information on the history of our period. Babylonia
and Assyria lie in the background, and the rival parties are the
kingdom of the Nile and the non-Semitic peoples of North Syria and Asia
Minor ('Hittites') whose influence can probably be traced as far south
as Jerusalem. Under Thutmose III. (fifteenth century) Egypt became the
queen of the known world and the meeting-place of its trade and
culture. But the northern peoples only awaited their opportunity, and
fresh campaigns were necessary before Amenhotep III. (about 1400 B.C.)
again secured the supremacy of Egypt. His successor, the idealist
Amenhotep IV. (or Ikhnaton), is renowned for his temporary religious
reform, and, at a time when Egypt's king was almost universally
recognised, he established in Egypt what was practically a universal
god. Meanwhile, amid internal confusion in Egypt, Hittites pressed
downwards from Asia Minor, seriously weakening the earlier Hittite
kingdom of Mitanni (North Syria and Mesopotamia). The cuneiform
tablets discovered in 1887 {6} at El-Amarna in Middle Egypt contain a
portion of the diplomatic correspondence between Western Asia (from
Babylonia to Cyprus) and the two Amenhoteps, and a few tablets in the
same script and of about the same age have since been unearthed at
Lachish and Taanach. It is at this age that we meet with the restless
Khabiri, a name which suggests a connection with that of the 'Hebrews.'
The progress of this later Hittite invasion cannot be clearly traced;
at all events, Sety I. (Sethos, about 1320 B.C.) was obliged to
recommence the work of his predecessors, but recovered little more than
Palestine. Ramses II., after much fighting, was able to conclude a
treaty with the Hittites (about 1290), the Egyptian version of which is
now being supplemented by the Hittite records of the proceedings.
Nevertheless, his successor, Merneptah, claims conquests extending from
Gezer to the Hittites, and among those who 'salaamed' (_lit._ said
'peace') he includes the people (or tribe) Israel.

[1] For approximate dates, see the Chronological Table.

The active intercourse with the Aegean Isles during this age can be
traced from Asia Minor to Egypt (notably at El-Amarna), and movements
in the Levant had accompanied the pressure southwards from Asia Minor
in the time of the Amenhoteps. A similar combination was defeated by
{7} Ramses III. (about 1200); among its constituents the Philistines
may doubtless be recognised. But Egypt, now in the Twentieth Dynasty,
was fast losing its old strength, and the internal history of Palestine
is far from clear. Apart from the sudden extension of the Assyrian
empire to the Mediterranean under Tiglath-pileser I. (about 1100 B.C.),
no one great power, so far as is known, could claim supremacy over the
west; and our period comes to an end at a time when Palestine,
according to the Israelite historians, was laying the foundation of its
independent monarchy.

Palestine has always been open to the roaming tribes from Arabia and
the Syrian desert, tribes characteristically opposed to the inveterate
practices of settled agricultural life. Arabia, however, possessed
seats of culture, though their bearing upon our period cannot yet be
safely estimated. But a temple with an old-established and
contemporary cult, half Egyptian and half Semitic, has been recovered
by Professor Petrie at Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and
the archæological evidence frequently illustrates the results of the
excavations in Palestine. Excavations have been undertaken at Tell
el-Hesy (Lachish), at various sites in the lowlands of Judah (including
Tell es-Sāfy, perhaps Gath), at {8} Gezer, Taanach, and Tell
el-Mutesellim (Megiddo), and, within the last few months, at Jericho.
Much of the evidence can be roughly dated, and fortunately the age
already illuminated by the Amarna tablets can be recognised. Its
culture associates it with North Syria and Asia Minor, and reveals
signs of intercourse with the Aegean Isles; but, as a whole, it is the
result of a gradual development, which extends without abrupt gaps to
the time of the Hebrew monarchy and beyond. Chronological
dividing-lines cannot yet be drawn, and consequently the archæological
evidence which illustrates the 'Amarna' age is not characteristic of
that age alone.

+The Land and People.+--For practical purposes a distinction between

Palestine and Syria is unnecessary, apart from the political results of
their contiguity to Egypt and Asia Minor respectively. Egypt at the
height of its power was a vast empire of unprecedented wealth and
splendour, and the imported works of art or the descriptions of the
spoils of war speak eloquently of the stage which material culture had
reached throughout Western Asia. Even the small townships of Palestine
and Syria--the average city was a small fortified site surrounded by
dwellings, {9} sometimes with an outer wall--could furnish rich booty
of suits of armour, elegant furniture, and articles of gold and silver.
The pottery shows some little taste, music was enjoyed, and a great
tunnel hewn out of the rock at Gezer is proof of enterprise and skill.
The agricultural wealth of the land was famous. Thutmose III. found
grain 'more plentiful than the sand of the shore'; and an earlier and
more peaceful visitor to N. Syria, Sinuhe (about 2000 B.C.), speaks of
the wine more plentiful than water, copious honey, abundance of oil,
all kinds of fruits, cereals, and numberless cattle. Sinuhe was
welcomed by a sheikh who gave him his eldest daughter and allowed him
to choose a landed possession. Life was simpler and less civilised
than in Egypt, but not without excitement. He led the tribesmen to
war, raiding pastures and wells, capturing the cattle, ravaging the
hostile districts. Indeed, 'lions and Asiatics' were the familiar
terror of Egyptian travellers, and the turbulence of the petty
chieftains, whose intrigues and rivalries swell the Amarna letters,
made any combined action among themselves exceptional and transitory.
We gather from these letters that foreign envoys were provided with
passports or credentials addressed to the 'Kings of Canaan,' to ensure
their speedy and safe passage {10} as they traversed the areas of the
different local authorities. Such royal commissioners are already met
with in the time of Sinuhe.

Egyptian monuments depict the people with a strongly marked Semitic

physiognomy, and that physical resemblance to the modern native which
the discovery of skeletons has since endorsed. We can mark their dark
olive complexion; the men with pointed beards and with thick bushy
hair, which is sometimes anointed, and the women with tresses waving
loosely over their shoulders. The slender maidens were admired and
sought after by the Egyptians, and later (in the Nineteenth Dynasty) we
find the men in request as gardeners and artisans, and some even hold
high positions in the administration of Egypt. The script and language
of Babylonia were still in use in the fifteenth century, although the
supremacy of that land belonged to the past; they were used in
correspondence between Western Asia and Egypt, also among the Hittites,
and even between the chieftains of Palestine. Apart from the tablets
found at Lachish and Taanach, several were unearthed at Jericho,
uninscribed and ready for use. But the native language in Palestine
and Syria was one which stands in the closest relation to the classical
Hebrew of the {11} Old Testament, and it differed only dialectically
from the Moabite inscription of Mesha (about 850 B.C.), the somewhat
later Hamathite record of Ben-hadad's defeat, and the Phoenician
inscriptions.

The general stock of ideas, too, was wholly in accord with Semitic, or
rather, Oriental thought, and the people naturally shared the
paradoxical characteristics of the old Oriental world:--a simplicity
and narrowness of thought, intensity, fanaticism, and even ferocity.[2]
To these must be added a keen imagination, necessarily quickened by the
wonderful variety of Palestinian scenery, which ranges from rugged and
forbidding deserts to enchanting valleys and forests. The life of the
people depended upon the soil and the agricultural wealth, and these
depended upon a climate of marked contrasts, which is found in some
parts (_e.g._ the lower Jordan valley) to be productive of physical and
moral enervation. In a word, the land is one whose religion cannot be
understood without an attentive regard to those factors which were
unalterable, and to those specific external influences which were
focussed upon it in the entire course of the Second {12} Millennium
B.C. We touch the land at a particular period in the course of its
very lengthy history; it is not the beginnings of its religion, but the
stage it had reached, which concerns us.
[2] See Th. Nöldeke, _Sketches from Eastern History_ (London, 1892),
chap. i., 'Some Characteristics of the Semitic Race.'

{13}

CHAPTER II

SACRED SITES

+The Sanctuary of Gezer.+--Of the excavations in Palestine none have

been so prolific or so fully described as those undertaken by Mr.
Macalister on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund at Gezer. This
ancient site lies about eighteen miles W.N.W. of Jerusalem, and,
between its two knolls, on a commanding position, one of the most
striking which Palestine can offer, were found the remains of a
sanctuary whose history must have extended over several centuries.
Gezer itself has thrown the strongest light upon the religion of the
land, and a brief description of its now famous 'high-place' will form
a convenient introduction to the cult and ritual of the period.

Looking eastwards we face eight rough monoliths, which stretch in a

slightly concave line, about 75 feet in length, from north to south.
They are erected upon a platform of stones about {14} 8 feet wide; they
vary from 5-½ ft. to 10 ft. in height, and have uniformly a fairer
surface on the western (front) than on the eastern side. Number 1, on
the extreme right, is the largest (10 ft. 2 in. high, and 4 ft. 7 in.
by 2 ft. 6 in.). Next (No. 2), stands the smallest (5 ft. 5 in. high,
1 ft. 2 in. by 1 ft. 9 in.), whose pointed top with polished spots on
the surface speaks of the reverent anointing, stroking and kissing
which holy stones still enjoy at the present day. No. 7, the last but
one on our extreme left, is of a limestone found around Jerusalem and
in other districts, but not in the neighbourhood of Gezer. Under what
circumstances this stone was brought hither can only be conjectured
(see p. 80). The pillar (7 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 10 in. by 1 ft. 3
in.) bears upon its front surface a peculiar curved groove; No. 1, too,
has a groove across the top, and four in all have hollows or cup-marks
upon their surfaces. Nos. 4 and 8 are more carefully shaped than the
rest, and the latter stands in a circular socket, and is flanked on
either side by the stumps of two broken pillars. Yet another stone lay
fallen to the south of No. 1, and there is some reason to suppose that
this and the unique No. 2 belonged to the earliest stage in the history
of the sanctuary. In front of Nos. 5 {15} and 6 is a square stone
block (6 ft. 1 in. by 5 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in.), with a cavity (2 ft. 10
in. by 1 ft. 11 in. by 1 ft. 4 in.); a curved groove runs along the
front (the western side) of the rim. It is disputed whether this stone
held some idol, stele, or pillar; or whether it was a trough for ritual
ablutions similar to those which Professor Petrie recognised at Serabit
el-Khadem, or whether, again, it was a sacrificial block upon which the
victim was slain.

In the area behind (east of) these monoliths are entrances leading to
two large underground caverns which appear to have been used originally
for habitation; their maximum diameters are about 40 ft. and 28 ft.,
and they extend nearly the whole length of the alignment. The caverns
were connected by a passage, so short that any sound in one could be
distinctly heard in the other, so small and crooked, that it is easy to
imagine to what use these mysterious chambers could be put. In the
larger cave a jar containing the skeleton of an infant rested upon a
stone, and close by were the remains of an adult. Further behind the
pillars was found a bell-shaped pit containing numerous animal and
human bones. In a circular structure in front of pillars Nos. 7 and 8,
the bronze model of a cobra lay amid {16} potsherds and other debris.
A little distance to the south in a bank of earth were embedded several
broken human skulls, cow-teeth, etc.; the heads had evidently been
severed before burial, and there was no trace of the bodies. Below the
whole area, before and more particularly behind the pillars, several
infants were found buried head-downwards in large jars; they were
mostly new-born, and two, as also two older children, bore marks of
fire. Finally, throughout the debris that had accumulated upon the
floor of the sanctuary were innumerable objects typical of
nature-worship, representations in low relief of the nude
mother-goddess of Western Asia, and male emblems roughly made of
limestone, pottery, bone, and other material.

+Other Sacred Places.+--Scarcely fifty yards to the south of these

pillars was a rock-surface about ninety feet by eighty, covered with
over eighty of the singular cup-marks or hollows which we have already
observed. One little group surrounded by small standing-stones was
connected by a drain which led to a subterranean cave. Here, too, was
another almost concealed chamber, and the discovery of a number of
bones of the swine (an animal seldom found elsewhere in Gezer) gave
{17} weight to the suggestion that mysterious rites were practised.

Although the monoliths of Gezer do not appear to have lost their sacred
character until perhaps the sixth century B.C., they were not the only
place of cult in the city. Above, on the eastern hill, were the
remains of an elaborate building measuring about 100 ft. by 80 ft..
Its purpose was shown by the numerous religious emblems found within
its precincts. In two circular structures were the broken fragments of
the bones of sheep and goats--devoid of any signs of cooking or
burning. Jars containing infants had been placed at the corners of
some of the chambers; and below an angle of a courtyard close by, a pit
underneath the corner-stone disclosed bones and potsherds, the latter
bearing upon them the skull of a young girl.

At the north-east edge of the plateau of Tell es-Sāfy the

excavations brought to light a building with monoliths; in the debris
at their feet were the bones of camels, sheep and cows. At the east
end of the hill of Megiddo, Dr. Schumacher found pillars with cup-marks
enclosed in a small building about 30 ft. by 15 ft.; a block of stone
apparently served as the sacrificial altar. Besides several amulets
and small idols, at one of the {18} corners were jars containing the
skeletons of new-born infants. The structure belonged to a great
series of buildings about 230 ft. long and 147 ft. broad. At the same
site also was discovered a bare rock with hollows; it was approached by
a step, and an entrance led to a subterranean abode containing human
and other bones. At Taanach, Dr. Sellin found a similar place of
sacrifice with cavities and channel; the rock-altar had a step on the
eastern side, and close by were a number of flint-knives, jars with
infants (ranging up to two years of age), and the remains of an adult.

Continued excavation will no doubt throw fuller light upon the old
sacred places, their varying types, and their development; even the
recent discovery of a small pottery model of the façade of a shrine is
suggestive. It represents an open fore-court and a door-way on either
side of which is a figure seated with its hands upon its knees. The
figure wears what seems to be a high-peaked cap; it is presumably
human, but the nose is curiously rounded, and one recalls the quaint
guardians of the temple-front found in other parts of Western Asia.

+Their Persistence.+--Whether the choice of a {19} sacred place was

influenced by chance, by some peculiar natural characteristic, or by
the impressiveness of the locality, nothing is more striking than its
persistence. Religious practice is always conservative, and once a
place has acquired a reputation for sanctity, it will retain its fame
throughout political and even religious vicissitudes. The history of
Gezer, for example, goes back to the neolithic age, but the religious
development, to judge from the archæological evidence, is unbroken, and
although there came a time when the city passed out of history,
Palestine still has its sacred stones and rock-altars, buildings and
tombs, caves and grottoes, whose religious history must extend over
untold ages. At both Gezer and Tell es-Sāfy a sacred tomb actually
stands upon the surface of the ground quite close to the site of the
old holy places.

At Serabit the caves with their porticoes had evolved by the addition
of chambers, etc., into a complicated series sacred to the
representative goddess of the district and to the god of the Egyptian
miners. It is estimated that the cult continued for at least a
thousand years. In the neighbourhood of Petra several apparent
'high-places' have been found. They are perched conspicuously to catch
the rays of the morning {20} sun or in view of a holy shrine; and the
finest of them is approached by two great pillars, 21 to 22 feet high.
Although as a whole they may be ascribed to 300 B.C.-100 A.D., their
altars, basins, courts, etc., probably permit us to understand the more
imperfect remains of sanctuaries elsewhere.[1] But independently of
these, from Sinai to North Syria an imposing amount of evidence
survives in varying forms for the history of the sacred sites of
antiquity. In the rock-altars of the modern land with cup-marks and
occasionally with steps, with the shrine of some holy saint and an
equally holy tree, sometimes also with a mysterious cave, we may see
living examples of the more undeveloped sanctuaries. For a result of
continued evolution, on the other hand, perhaps nothing could be more
impressive than the Sakhra of the Holy Temple at Jerusalem, where, amid
the associations of three thousand years of history, the bare rock,
with hollows, cavities, channels, and subterranean cave, preserves the
primitive features without any essential change.[2]

[1] G. Dalman, _Petra und seine Felsheiligtümer_ (Leipzig, 1908).

[2] R. Kittel, Studien zur Hebräischen Archäologie und

Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1908), chap. i. Chap. ii. illustrates
primitive rock-altars of Palestine and their development.

+The Modern Places of Cult.+--Notwithstanding {21} the religious and

political vicissitudes of Palestine, the old centres of cult have never
lost the veneration of the people, and their position in modern popular
belief and ritual affords many a suggestive hint for their history in
the past. Although Mohammedanism allows few sacred localities, the
actual current practice, in Palestine as in Asia Minor, attaches
conceptions of great sanctity to a vast number of places. The shrines
and sacred buildings dotted here and there upon elevated sites form a
characteristic feature of the modern land, and there is abundant
testimony that they are the recipients of respect and awe far more real
than that enjoyed by the more official or orthodox religion. Although
they are often placed under the protection of Islam by being known as
the tombs of saints, prophets, and holy sheikhs, this is merely a
disguise; and although it is insisted that the holy occupants are only
mediators, they are the centre of antique rites and ideas which
orthodox Mohammedanism rejects. Their power is often rated above that
of Allah himself. Oaths by Allah are freely taken and as freely
broken, those at the local shrines rarely (if ever) fail; the coarse
and painful freedom of language, even in connection with Allah, becomes
restrained when the natives visit their holy place.

{22}

The religious life of the peasants is bound up with the shrines and
saints. There they appeal for offspring, healing, and good harvests;
there they dedicate the first-fruits, firstlings, and their children,
and in their neighbourhood they prefer to be buried. No stranger may
intrude heedlessly within the sacred precincts, and one may see the
worshipper enter barefooted praying for permission as he carefully
steps over the threshold. The saint by supernatural means is able to
protect everything deposited in the vicinity of the tomb, which can
thus serve as a store or treasure-house. He is supreme over a local
area; he is ready even to fight for his followers against the foe; for
all practical purposes he is virtually the god of the district. Some
of the shrines are sacred to a woman who passes for the sister or the
daughter of a saint at the same or a neighbouring locality. Even the
dog has been known to have a shrine in his honour, and the animal
enters into Palestinian folk-lore in a manner which this unclean beast
of Mohammedanism hardly seems to deserve. As a rule the people will
avoid calling the occupant of the shrine by name, and some
circumlocutionary epithet is preferred: the famous sheikh, father of
the lion, rain-giver, dwarf, full-moon, or (in case of {23} females)
the lady of child-birth, the fortunate, and the like.

The shrines are the centres of story and legend which relate their
origin, legitimise their persistence, or illustrate their power. In
the course of ages the name of the saint who once chose to reveal
himself there has varied, and the legends of earlier figures have been
transferred and adjusted to names more acceptable to orthodoxy. Some
of the figures have grown in importance and have thus extended their
sphere of influence, and as difference of sect is found to be no
hindrance to a common recognition of the power of the saint, the more
famous shrines have been accepted by worshippers outside the original
circle. In course of time, too, isolated figures have gained
supremacy, and have superseded earlier distinct authorities, with the
result that the same name will be found under a number of locally
diverging types. Most conspicuous of all are St. George and the
ever-youthful prophet Elijah, who have inherited numerous sacred places
and their cults, in the same manner as St. George has become the
successor of Apollo in the Greek isles. Similarly the Virgin Mary, in
her turn, has frequently taken the place formerly held by the female
deities of antiquity.
{24}

CHAPTER III

SACRED OBJECTS

The modern holy places, under the care of some minister, dervish, or
priestly family, are the scenes of periodic visits, liturgical
unctions, processions, the festal display of lights, etc., and although
in the course of their lengthy history there have been certain
modifications, it is to them that one must look for the persisting
religion which underlay the older official cults. The rocks with
cup-marks and channels, the gloomy caves and grottoes, the mountain
summits, the springs or fountains which still receive the offerings of
worshippers, the holy trees, the sacred sacrificial stones--these form
the fundamental substructure of the land's religion, and whatever be
the true origin of their sanctity, they continue to be visited when
superhuman aid is required.

+Trees.+--It is not the shrines alone which are sacred on the ground
that some saint had once {25} revealed his presence there; there are
trees (the terebinth, and more especially the oak) which are inviolable
because spirits have made them their abode, or which owe their
supernatural qualities to some holy being who is currently supposed to
have reclined beneath them. Such trees are virtually centres of
worship. Incense is burned to them, and they receive sacrifices and
offerings; they are loaded with food, gifts, and (on special occasions)
with lamps. They give oracles, and the sick sleep beneath their shade,
confident that a supernatural messenger will prescribe for their
ailments. They are decked with rags, which thus acquire wonderful
properties; and the worshipper who leaves a shred as a pledge of
attachment or, it may be, to transfer a malady, will take away a rag
which may serve as a charm. Sacred trees were well known to early
writers, and according to the Talmud there were some beneath which
priests sat but did not eat of their fruit, remains of heathen
sacrifice might be found there, and the Jew who sat or passed in its
shade became ceremonially impure. It is unnecessary, however, to
multiply examples of a feature to which the Old Testament also attests;
popular belief has universally associated religious and superstitious
ideas with those beneficent objects which appear {26} to be as much
imbued with motion, animation, and feeling as man himself.

The sacred tree tends to become conventionalised and is replaced by the

trunk or post. As the home of a powerful influence there is an
inclination to symbolise it, and to identify it with the supernatural
being, with the deity itself. The development of the image (not
necessarily female) from an aniconic wooden post can be illustrated by
the pillars representative of Osiris, by the head of Hathor of Byblos
(p. 75 _sq._) upon a pillar in Egypt (Nineteenth Dynasty), and by the
votive tablets at Serabit bearing the head of Hathor mounted upon a
pole, which stands upon a base, or is flanked by a tree on either side.
Some tree-like post is evidently intended by the _ashērah_ of the
Old Testament, a common object at the 'high-places' during the
monarchy. In this case, the relation between the tree and deity is
absolute, and we shall meet with a goddess of this name (see below, p.
87).

+Stones.+--The inanimate stone is partly commemorative, partly

representative. In Palestine we see it marked with the curious hollows
which, when found upon the bare rock, served, amid a variety of
purposes, for libations and for the blood {27} of the sacrifices. The
erect pillar appears to be secondary, but dates, at least in Serabit,
from before our period. The hollows upon such stones are equally
adapted for offerings, although, when they are lateral, it is probable
that they were smeared or anointed like the door-posts of a modern
shrine. These holes are also transferred to slabs or are replaced by
vessels, while the stone itself is not merely 'the place of sacrificial
slaughter' (the literal meaning of 'altar' in the Old Testament), but
embodies the power whose influence is invoked. It is practically a
fetish, the tangible abode of the recipient of veneration. At Serabit
Professor Petrie discovered before a stele a flat altar-stone which
bore cavities (Twelfth Dynasty), and even in Abyssinia at Aksum have
been observed great monoliths, at whose base stood stone blocks with
vessels and channels. Similar combinations have been found at
Carthage. Throughout, neither the stone nor the significance attached
to it remains the same. The sacred stone may lose its value and be
superseded, and it by no means follows that the number of pillars
implies an equal number of in-dwelling beings. While the stone
develops along one line as an object of cult and becomes an altar, it
takes other forms when, by an easy confusion of sentiment, {28} it
comes to represent a deity (of either sex). It is then shaped or
ornamented to depict the conceptions attached to the holy occupant, and
when this deity is anthropomorphic, the pillar becomes a rude image,
and finally the god in human form. It is now clothed and decked with
ornaments. Thus, one finds the groove along the top or the bifurcation
suggestive of early steps towards the representation of the horns of an
animal; or, as among the pillars at Gezer, one perceives two (Nos. 4
and 8) which assume some resemblance to a _simulacrum Priapi_.

The growing wealth of cult, the influence of novel ideas, and the
transformation of the attributes of a deity make the history of the
evolution of the objects of cult extremely intricate. At the same
place and time they may be found in varying stages of development, and
if the interpretation of the several features as they appealed to
worshippers is often obscure to us, the speculations of the
contemporary writers cannot always be accepted without careful inquiry.

+Images and Symbols.+--Thutmose III. relates that he carried off from

Megiddo and the Lebanon a silver statue in beaten work; also some
object [words are lost] with a head of gold, {29} the staff having
human faces, and a royal image of ebony wrought with gold, the head of
which was adorned with lapis lazuli. Although no sacred statues of
Ancient Palestine have as yet come to light--if they escaped the zeal
of later iconoclasts--it would seem that they were of no mean
workmanship, and it may be inferred that they did not differ radically
from the gods and goddesses whose outward appearance can be observed on
the monuments of Western Asia. This inference is supported by the
repeated discovery, in course of excavation, of representations of a
goddess who was evidently the embodiment of life and fertility. A few
figurines and numerous small 'Astarte-plaques,' with moulds for their
manufacture, prove the prevalence of a mother-goddess and patroness of
nature, essentially identical with that familiar in the old Oriental
religions. The plaques, which are about 6 to 7 inches in length, offer
a large variety of types from the coarsest exaggeration of sexuality to
highly conventionalised forms. The goddess is generally nude, but a
bronze figurine from Taanach gives her a conical head-dress and a thin
robe reaching down to her ankles. The characteristic type at this
city, however, depicts a striated crown, rings on neck and feet, and is
{30} generally suggestive of Babylonian influence. Otherwise, when
depicted with bracelets, necklace and lotus-flowers, she resembles the
Egyptian Hathor; indeed she is often marked with the Egyptian uraeus.
A specimen from Tell es-Sāfy curiously combines an Egyptianised form
of the goddess with typical Babylonian five- and six-rayed stars. Yet
a fourth variety with huge and disfiguring earrings finds its parallels
in North Syria and Cyprus. The occurrence and combination of elements
of different origin are instructive for the culture and religion of
Palestine. This fourth type has sometimes a bird-like head, which
recalls a curious example from Lachish with large ears and hooked nose
or beak. A small bronze image of the goddess, which was found at
Gezer, among broken lamps and pottery within the area of the pillars,
gives her horns which coil downwards like those of a ram. It is
through such development and modification that the horns of the great
goddess could come to be regarded as the representation of a crescent
moon when philosophical speculation busied itself with the heavenly
bodies. The traces of animal attributes take another form in various
rude and almost shapeless objects of bronze which have been
interpreted, thanks to a more realistic {31} specimen from the Judæan
Tell Zakariya, as models of an amphibious creature with human head and
the tail of a fish. Here it is natural to see the famous Derceto or
Atargatis, well known later as a deity of the Astarte type, and, as an
illustration of the evolution of symbols, it may be added that a
splendid Carthaginian sarcophagus of a priestess represents a woman of
strange beauty with the lower part of the body so draped as to give it
a close resemblance to a fish's tail.[1]

[1] Mabel Moore, _Carthage of the Phoenicians in the Light of Modern

Excavation_ (London, 1905), p. 146 _sq._ and frontispiece.

The manifold representations of the Palestinian 'good goddess' extend

over a lengthy period, and vary in taste and nuance from the crudest of
specimens to veritable artistic products of the Seleucid age. They
indicate that the fundamental religious conceptions agreed with those
of Western Asia as a whole, and it may be assumed that the conclusions
which can be drawn from the figurines and plaques of this deity would
apply, _mutatis mutandis_, to others.

Among other objects which hardly belong to public cult, but were
probably for household or private use, may be noticed the small idols;
_e.g._ one from Megiddo in the clumsy 'snow-man' {32} technique,
another from Jericho with the head of a bull. Numerous small phalli
have also been unearthed. Some are roughly carved in human shape,
others approximate the form of a fish. They do not necessarily belong
to the cult of any male deity, but the true significance of these and
other small emblems is often uncertain. As with the many small models
of the heads of bull, cow, or serpent, or the two small conical stones
from the temple at Serabit, each with a groove along the base, it is
often difficult to distinguish the fetishes and symbols, which involve
ideas of some relationship with a supernatural being, from the charms,
amulets, and talismans, wherein other religious ideas are involved.
The possibility that some of the objects are really toys cannot be
excluded.

{33}

CHAPTER IV

SACRED RITES AND PRACTICES

+General Inferences.+--That the old places of cult had their duly

ordained officials may be taken for granted; even the smallest of them,
like those of to-day, must have had appointed attendants. The Amarna
letters mention the wealthy temple of Byblos with the handmaidens of
the goddess of the city, and in Merneptah's reign we hear of a man of
Gaza who is described as a servant of Baal. We may be sure, also, that
the rites and festivals were similar to those usually prevalent among
agricultural peoples. The nature-worship of the age can be realised
from a survey of the old cults of Western Asia, and from the
denunciations of the Old Testament, which prove the persistence of
older licentious rites. Popular religion often continues to tolerate
practices which social life condemns, and the fertility of crops,
cattle, and of man himself, was co-ordinated {34} by an uncontrollable
use of analogy in which the example was set by the 'sacred' men and
women of the sanctuaries (_kādesh_; Deut. xxiii. 17, R.V. marg.).
Sympathetic magic--the imitation of the cause to produce a desired
effect--underlay a variety of rites among a people whose life depended
upon the gifts of the soil, whose religion was a way of life. Here,
however, we are restricted chiefly to some miscellaneous evidence which
the excavations suggest.

+The Disposal of the Dead.+--Incineration or cremation had been

originally practised by a people physically distinct from that among
whom inhumation prevailed. The latter innovation has been ascribed to
the invading Semites. Subsequently, in Carthage, cremation is found to
re-enter, presumably through foreign influence; but the two practices
co-exist, even in the same family, and it is probable that there, at
all events, cremation was only followed in special circumstances. A
large burial-cave at Gezer with a thick layer of burnt ash proves the
lengthy duration of the earlier custom. The same cave was afterwards
utilised by those who inhumed their dead, and thenceforth there is
little evolution in the history of early Palestinian burial. No
particular {35} orientation predominates; the dead are placed upon a
layer of stones, or within cists, or in pits in the floor of the
caverns. Both the contracted or squatting and the outstretched
attitude occur. From the story of Sinuhe (p. 9), it would seem that
burial in a sheep-skin was also customary. The needs of the dead are
supplied by vessels of food, which occasionally show traces of burning;
drink was more important, and the large jars sometimes contain small
cups for the convenience of the thirsty soul. In the case of a jug
with two mammillary projections one is reminded of a type usually
associated at Carthage with the burial of infants. A variety of
miscellaneous objects provided for other needs: weapons, jewels,
ostrich eggs, seals, scarabs, amulets, small figures in human or animal
form, etc. Especially characteristic of the later tombs are the
abundant deposits of lamps.

The abode of the dead being one of the centres of the religion of the
living, the tomb always possesses sanctity. The internal arrangements,
with platforms or hewn benches, will often suggest some burial-ritual.
The cup-marks, which frequently appear near or even in the tomb itself,
like those still to be seen upon Palestinian dolmens, could serve for
sacrifices or libations, {36} or to collect the refreshing rain for the
soul of the deceased. Or, again, later usage will suggest that they
were planted with flowers which, like the 'Gardens of Adonis,'
symbolised the mysteries of death and revival. Often, the dead are
buried beneath the streets (if the narrow windings deserve that name),
or within the houses, under circumstances which preclude the
foundation-sacrifices to be noticed presently. This feature is
scarcely accidental; it is well known elsewhere, and was probably
intended to keep the spirit of the dead near its former abode, over
which it could continue to exercise a benevolent influence.

+Jar Burial.+--It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between an

ordinary burial and some sacrificial ceremony. The burial of new-born
or very young infants in jars, in or near some sacred locality (p. 16
_sq._), points very strongly to the sacrifice of the first-born to
which the Old Testament bears witness (Micah vi. 7). But where the
circumstances make this view less probable, the special treatment of
those who died in early infancy needs consideration. In inhumation and
the return of the dead to the ground we are in the midst of ideas
associated {37} with 'mother-earth,' the begetter of all things. The
burial in a contracted or squatting position might naturally represent
the usual crouched posture of the individual as he sat in life-time
among his fellows; it might also point to a belief in the re-birth of
the soul of the dead. The jar-burials, where the infant is inserted
head downwards, are more suggestive of the latter, and evidence from
Africa and Asia shows that provision is sometimes made for the re-birth
of still-born or very young babes on the conviction that at some future
occasion they will enter again into a mother's womb. The numerous
emblems of nature-worship and the mother-goddess, especially at Gezer,
raise the presumption that the deities of the place were powers of
fertility and generation; and, just as the shrines of saints to-day are
visited by would-be mothers who hope for offspring, it is not
improbable that in olden times those who had been prematurely cut off
from the living were interred in sacred sites venerated by the women.
This view, which has been proposed by Dr. J. G. Frazer, will not apply
of course to those jar-burials where human-sacrifice is clearly
recognisable.[1]

[1] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, pp. 77 _sq._, 82 _sq._.

{38}

+Human Sacrifice.+--A gruesome discovery was made in a cistern at Gezer

where, together with a number of adult skeletons, lay the upper half of
a young girl about sixteen years of age. Near the mouth were the
decapitated heads of two girls. In another case at Gezer (described as
a 'foundation deposit') the upper half of the skeleton of a youth had
been placed with two adults. Perhaps we should here include the cases
where only a few bones of the deceased were preserved, _e.g._ in one
tomb the skull and certain other bones were missing. Vessels, also,
were found containing only one or two human bones: the patella of an
adult, the calvaria of a skull; but in the majority of instances they
belonged to infants. Partial burial of this character has been
explained on the theory of cannibalism; this practice, often based on
the idea of absorbing the attributes of the deceased, has left
scattered traces among the Semites. But the dismemberment of the dead
(known at Susa, Egypt, and common to many savage races) admits of other
explanations, whether, for example, we observe the use of bones as
amulets (p. 51 _sq._), or recall the story of the severed Osiris. In
the latter, however, it may be suspected that a sacrifice for magical
purposes underlies an aetiological {39} legend.[2] The bank of skulls
south of the monoliths of Gezer (p. 16) may perhaps recall the mound
(or pillar?) of heads which certain Assyrian kings erected in front of
the cities they conquered (_e.g._ Ashur-nasir-pal I.). Such a deed,
like their holocaust of children after a victory, was no unmeaning
ferocity; religion entered profoundly into ancient life, and every war
was a 'holy war.' The horrid rites in honour of the gods who fought
for their followers are to be traced in Egypt, Assyria, and the Old
Testament, and even as late as 307 B.C. the Carthaginians after their
defeat of Agathocles slew the choicest prisoners 'before the altar in
front of the holy tent.'

[2] J. G. Frazer, Adonis, etc., pp. 273 _sq._, 321, and especially 331
_sqq._ Here one may perhaps refer to the tradition that the prophet
Isaiah was sawn in half, hidden as he was in a tree (comp. also Ep.
Hebrews, xi. 37).

The widespread custom of _Foundation Sacrifice_ survives in Palestine

when popular opinion requires that blood shall be shed at the
inauguration of every important building, at the breaking-up of
unoccupied land, or at the opening of a new well. Thus, a sheep was
sacrificed at the building of a jetty for the landing of the German
Emperor at Haifa in 1898. The rite is a propitiation to the _numen_ of
the place.

{40} Mohammed in his day tried to prohibit such sacrifices to the

_jinn_, but the inveterate sentiment is summed up in the words of a
modern native: 'every house must have its death, either man, woman,
child, or animal.' The animal-victim is recognised as a substitute,
and vulgar superstition still associates with the foundation of
buildings some vague danger to human life--if not its loss. Traditions
of human sacrifice are recorded by mediæval and older writers, and
excavation has disclosed authentic examples. At Gezer the skeleton of
an adult female had been placed under the corner of a house, and the
bones of infants were often found in or under the walls of houses down
to the later Israelite period. At Megiddo, a young girl of about
fifteen was laid across a foundation-stone, and a victim at the foot of
a tower in Taanach was a child scarcely in its teens. A jar with the
remains of a new-born infant rested upon a platform in the Gezer
crematorium, and the evidence allowed the inference that it was a
dedicatory sacrifice when the cave was taken over and used for
inhumation. Infants buried in jars were found, together with bowls and
lamps, under the foundations in Gezer as late as the latter part of the
Israelite monarchy, although a modification had already been {41}
introduced in the simple deposits of lamps and bowls, usually at the
corners of houses or chambers or under the jambs of doors. If the
bowls represent the sacrificial offerings, the significance of the
lamps is uncertain. The victim in the rite had not been burned, but
probably buried alive, and it may be conjectured that the
identification of life and light (familiar from the Old Testament)
underlies the symbolical lamp. The modern Palestinian custom of
hanging lights in shrines, etc., in cases of sickness possibly involves
the same association of ideas. On the other hand, the lamps found in
tombs naturally recall the widespread custom of lighting the soul on
its dark journey, or of kindling a lamp in the home to enable it to
retrace its steps on the anniversary. These purely burial lamps are
very well known (_e.g._ in Carthage), and they survive in Palestine to
the Christian age, when they are inscribed with such distinctive
mottoes as 'Christ is my light,' or 'the light of Christ shines for
all.'

+The Importance of Sacrifice+ makes itself felt at every sacred site

from the enormous quantities of burnt ash before the caves of Serabit
to the similar accumulations upon the summit of Mount Hermon. The
worshipper believes that the rite {42} brings him into contact with the
powers who are to be nourished, invoked, or recompensed. Its
prevalence vividly indicates man's dependence upon them throughout the
seasons of the year and on the great occasions of life: birth,
circumcision (already practised in our period), marriage and death.
Underlying the sacrifice is the profound significance of blood. It is
the seat of existence; it has potent virtues whether for protection,
expiation, or purification; and the utmost care is taken to dispose of
it according to established usage. The fat, too, has no less its
living qualities, and since the oldest unguents were animal
fats--modern usage is often content with butter--it is probable that
anointing originally had a deeper meaning than would at first appear.
Wanton bloodshed called for vengeance, and when a Babylonian king
demanded that Ikhnaton should slay the Canaanites who had killed his
merchants, and thus 'bring back their blood' and prevent retaliation,
the inveterate blood-revenge of primitive social life finds an early
illustration. But as a sacrifice, the slaughter of human victims,
though perhaps not regular, was at least not exceptional, and the
frightful bloodshed which the Old Testament attests emphasises the
difficulties which confronted those teachers {43} of Israel who would
disassociate their national God from an inveterate practice (Ezek. xvi.
20 _sq._, xx. 31).

For a striking illustration of the diffusion and persistence of human

sacrifice we may refer to Carthage where the distress caused by
Agathocles in 310 B.C. was attributed to the wrath of the god to whom
the rich had been offering purchased children instead of their own.
But there is a general tendency in religion to soften crude rites, save
when a particularly efficacious offering is felt necessary in the midst
of some grave crisis, and of the changes in that background of cult
which has survived throughout the history of Palestine, the
substitution of the animal for the human victim is the most
significant. Yet, as we have seen, the idea of human sacrifice has not
entirely disappeared (p. 40). The animal is still recognised as a
'ransom,' and in the present rite of that name loss of human life is
averted by the sacrifice of some animal, and it is explained that the
sacrifice will combat and overcome the cause of the impending danger.
It would be only logical, therefore, to proceed on the assumption that
the greater the danger the more powerful and efficacious must be the
sacrifice. Current beliefs thus {44} afford suggestive hints for
earlier usage, and when we learn that to-day a natural death finds
consolation in the thought that it may have been the ransom for
another, we meet with an idea that could be put into practice: it is no
great step to the ceremonies (observed in Africa) which give effect to
the conviction that a man's life may be prolonged or his old age
recuperated by the actual sacrifice of another human being. It is
essentially the same idea when Egyptian kings, like Amenhotep II. and
Ramses II. slew the prisoners of war that they themselves or their name
'might live for ever.' (On the _name_, see below, p. 60.)

Sacrificial rites were never irrational, however difficult it may be to

perceive their object, and from a survey of comparative custom one can
sometimes picture the scenes by which they were accompanied. It is
only by such means that one can conjecturally explain the discovery
near the temple-area at Gezer of animal bones, sliced, hacked, and
broken into fragments, with no signs of having been cooked. One is
tempted to refer to a rite practised by the Arabs of the Sinaitic
desert towards the close of the fourth century A.D. The old ascete,
Nilus, describes a solemn procession of chanting worshippers {45} who
move around an altar of rude stones upon which is bound a camel. The
beast is stabbed, and the leader drinks of the gushing blood. At once
the assembly hack the victim to pieces, devouring it raw until the
whole is consumed--the entire ceremony begins with the rise of the
morning star (in whose honour it was performed) and ends with the
rising sun. Was some rite of this kind practised in Palestine? It
must be a matter for conjecture; the least that can be said is that the
scene is not too barbaric for our land and period.

+Broken Offerings,+ _e.g._ figurines, models, and other articles, when

found deposited in tombs, have been explained in the light of
comparative custom as destroyed or 'killed' to the end that their
'soul' may accompany that of the deceased. But other ideas are
evidently involved when the area of the sanctuary at Serabit proved to
be covered with a mass of pottery, plaques, bracelets, wands, sistra,
etc., so fragmentary that no single specimen could be pieced together.
At Gezer, also, although the plaques of the goddess were fairly tough,
all had been broken, and apparently with intention. We may compare the
modern custom of breaking pottery in fulfilment of a {46} vow, an
interesting illustration of which was furnished by the late Professor
Curtiss from Bludan on the road from Zebedany to Damascus. At a spot,
familiarly known as the 'mother of pieces,' is a rock-platform with
cave, shrine, sacred grove and hereditary ministers. Hither come the
women to break a jar when they have gained their one wish, and it is
singular to observe that the traditions which are attached to the
custom include the belief that a girl, the patroness of the shrine,
lies buried there. The likeness to the suggested rites at Gezer will
be noticed (p. 37). But the stories do not elucidate the peculiar
treatment of the offerings, and the usage finds its most probable
explanation in the persuasion that things once dedicated or put to a
sacred use are 'holy,' and cannot be used for ordinary purposes. We
touch upon a fundamental institution embodying a series of apparently
paradoxical ideas--the universal 'tabu.'

+'Holy' and 'Unclean.'+--The terms Holy or Sacred (comp. the Latin

_sacer_) are not to be understood in the ethical or moral sense. A
holy thing is one which has been set aside, dedicated, or restricted;
it is charged with supernatural influence which is contagious;
everything {47} that comes in contact with it also becomes holy. In
some cases it is provided that this inconvenient sanctity may be
purged; in others, the thing has to be destroyed. When the Talmud says
that a Canonical Book of the Old Testament 'defiles' the hand, it means
that the very sanctity of the book demands that the hand should be
ceremonially purified or cleansed before touching anything else. 'Holy
and unclean things,' to quote Robertson Smith, 'have this in common,
that in both cases certain restrictions lie on men's use of and contact
with them, and that the breach of these restrictions involves
supernatural dangers. The difference between the two appears, not in
their relation to man's ordinary life, but in their relation to the
gods. Holy things are not free to man, because they pertain to the
gods; uncleanness is shunned, according to the view taken in the higher
Semitic religions, because it is hateful to the god, and therefore not
to be tolerated.'

+Sacred Animals,+ in the light of the above, are those associated with
cults which might be regarded as illegitimate. An example is afforded
by the pig which enters into the rites and myths of Adonis, Attis,
Ninib, and Osiris. In a cavern south of the monoliths of Gezer a
number of {48} pig-bones lay underneath a shaft which led to the
cup-marked surface above (p. 16); the circumstances recall the
Thesmophoria, the caves and vaults in the Greek area connected with
Demeter and Proserpine, and the use of the pig in mystic rites of
chthonic and agricultural deities. In Palestine and Syria the animal
was used in certain exceptional sacrifices which were recognised as
idolatrous (Isaiah lxv. 4; lxvi. 17), and it was an open question
whether it was really polluted or holy. If, as the excavations
suggest, the sacrifice of the swine dates from the earliest inhabitants
of Gezer, with whom it was also a domestic animal, it is interesting to
observe the persistence of its character as a proper sacrificial animal
from pre-Semitic times by the side of the apparently contradictory
belief that it was also unclean.

The camel bones at Tell es-Sāfy, also, are of interest since

Robertson Smith has shown that the animal (which became 'unclean' to
the Israelites), though used by the Arabs for food and sacrifice, was
associated with ideas of sanctity, and its flesh was forbidden to
converts to Christianity. The model of a bronze cobra found in a
temple-enclosure (p. 15) might be conjecturally explained, but it will
suffice to remember that {49} serpents were and still are connected
with spirits both benevolent and malevolent. The recurrence of models
of the animal-world, the numerous representations upon seals of deer,
gazelles, etc. (animals connected with Astarte), or the predilection
for the lion upon objects discovered at Megiddo need not have any
specific meaning for the religious ideas. On the other hand, the
animal-like attributes which appear upon some plaques of the
mother-goddess are scarcely meaningless. There is no ground for the
assumption that Palestine was without the animal-deities and the
deities with special sacred animals, which have left their traces in
the surrounding lands, and it would be misleading to suppose that the
myths and legends which have grown up around these features account for
their origin. The conviction that man was made in the likeness of the
gods (who are therefore anthropomorphic) implies certain conceptions of
their nature, the development of which belongs to the history of
religion, and in turning next to the spirit-world of Ancient Palestine
it is necessary that we should be prepared to appreciate a mental
outlook profoundly different from our own.
{50}

CHAPTER V

THE WORLD OF SPIRITS

+Awe.+--A fundamental sense of awe was felt in the presence of anything

unusual or contrary to experience, and man's instinctive philosophy
shaped his ideas from the suggestions of daily life, accounting for all
cases of causation by assimilating them to the intentional acts of
voluntary agents like himself. There was no doubt of the existence and
influence of surrounding unseen powers; they must be cajoled, appeased,
bribed and rewarded. Some were inevitably malevolent; with others man
could enter into relations which were mutually beneficial. Even at the
present day there is no clear distinction between what we should call
the natural and the supernatural; a demon or a saint can appear in
human or animal form; and the marvel or miracle is that which happens
to lie outside the intellectual horizon of the individual. The modern
phenomena can be traced back through {51} early sources and appear now
in grosser and now in more elevated forms; even the presence of any
advanced material culture, or of more spiritual conceptions of the
Godhead does not annihilate that lower supernaturalism which flourishes
uncontrolled among more rudimentary races. It would be unreasonable to
suppose that the religion of our period was more free from imprecision
than that of more progressive peoples: the whole routine of life
brought the individual into constant contact with unseen agencies, and
the world of spirits involved a medley of beliefs, more embarrassing to
the modern inquirer who seeks to systematise them, than to the Oriental
mind which has always been able and willing to accept the incredible
and the contradictory.

Man's relations with the spirits whom he shuns or seeks are illustrated
in magical practices; _e.g._ incantation, symbolic magic (p. 34).
+Charms,+ on the other hand, possess a magical virtue which is
effective without interference on the part of the possessor. Many
little objects of this character have been unearthed: pendants of red
coral (still a prophylactic against the evil eye), beads (still
supposed to possess curative properties), small articles cut out of
bone {52} (especially the heads of human femora, sawn off and
perforated). Here may be included the occasional jewels (_e.g._ a
silver pendant crescent)--amulets and ornaments were closely
associated, and the latter continue to convey ideas which could be
regarded as idolatrous (compare Gen. xxxv. 4). The representations of
Egyptian gods and the 'Horus-eyes' should also be mentioned here.
'Eyes' are still on sale in the East, they are expected to be on the
watch for evil influences. But the anxiety to avert evil and to
procure favour need not involve an intelligent interest in the means
employed, and some of the objects (when not originally possessed by
Egyptian settlers) may have as much bearing upon the question of
Egyptian influence upon the religion of Palestine as the use of foreign
(Phoenician?) formulæ in Egyptian magical texts.

+Oracles+ are obtained at those places where supernatural beings have

manifested themselves, or from their symbols or their human
representatives. In the stone enclosures at Serabit Professor Petrie
would recognise the sacred places visited by those who worked the mines
and hoped for useful dreams. The value attached to visions of the
night needs no telling, and when the {53} Egyptian king Merneptah saw
in his sleep the god Ptah offering him the sword of victory, or when
the god Ashur directed the Lydian Gyges to 'lay hold of the feet' of
Ashurbanipal (_i.e._ place himself under his protection), we perceive
among relatively advanced societies important factors in the growth of
all religions. Divine advice and help could be granted by the statues
of the gods: a cuneiform tablet from Taanach refers to an omen given by
the finger of the goddess Ashirat, and the writer asks for the sign and
its interpretation. As in the 'nodding' of the gods in Egyptian
records the _modus operandi_ must not be too closely examined. Some of
the old caverns of Palestine were certainly used for magical or
religious purposes, and when we find them connected by small and curved
passages, it is not improbable that they were the scenes of oracles,
theophanies, and the like (p. 15 _sq._). As Mr. Macalister has
observed, apropos of such caverns in the lowlands of Judah and at
Gezer, mysterious responses and wonders could be easily contrived, and
would be as convincing to the ignorant as the Miracle of the Holy Fire
is to the modern Russian pilgrim in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem. The association of caves and other hidden resorts with the
{54} worship of deities and oracles is well-known in other fields
(_e.g._ Greece). Susa also had a god of oracles who dwelt in secret
retreats, and other deities whose remote haunts were burned by
Ashurbanipal when he carried them off.

+The representatives of the supernatural powers+ include prophets,

priests, and even kings; they are also the possessors of supernatural
qualities, the one involved the other. Between the modern Palestinian
_majnūn_ ('possessed by the jinn') and fakir, and the prophet of
old--contemptuously called 'madman'--the difference is one of degree.
The frenzied utterer is capable of incalculable good or harm, and often
enjoys a respect out of all keeping with his merits. His very sanctity
places him in a class by himself, and he is allowed a licence which
would not be tolerated in others. An early example of inspiration
appears in the story of Wenamon of Egypt who visited Zakarbaal of
Byblos, probably in the reign of Ramses XII. (about 1100 B.C.).
Although the envoy had with him the statue of the great Egyptian god
Amon, for nineteen days he received scant courtesy and was unable to
obtain the desired interview. At length, as the king was sacrificing
to his gods, one of his noble youths {55} was seized with ecstasy which
lasted the whole night, and in this state he demanded that 'the
messenger of Amon' be summoned (for the sequel see below, p. 74 _sq._).
Prophecy, as Dr. Frazer has shown, by means of numerous examples, is 'a
phenomenon of almost world-wide occurrence,' and it is important to
remember that the relations between man and the spirit-world are not to
be estimated in the light of modern preconceptions. There were
orthodox and unorthodox relations, legitimate and illegitimate
communion, true and false representatives of the supernatural powers;
distinctions were maintained although the evidence is often
insufficient for us to appreciate older standpoints. Broadly speaking,
it may be affirmed that the test lay in the communal aspect of religion
(whether of clan, tribe, or people) which was opposed to practices
which were private or independent of the official cult.

+The dead,+ in their turn, depart into the mysterious unseen which
looms so largely in the thoughts of the living, and burial and mourning
rites are shaped by many different principles depending upon theories
of the nature of spirits, affection for the dead, the safety of his
soul, fear of malignant influences, etc. But the {56} interpretation
of the religious rites which attended every crisis in life becomes
unusually difficult when the community suffer a loss, and perhaps no
other study stands so much in need of careful 'comparative' treatment.
Unfortunately Palestine has furnished no funerary texts, and little
direct evidence; the dead 'go to their fate,' the king of Mitanni fasts
on the day he hears of the death of Amenhotep III., and Zakarbaal of
Byblos offers to show Wenamon the tomb where the members of a former
embassy sleep (_lit._ lie, or pass the night). A people accustomed to
the annual death and revival of nature might easily formulate theories
of the survival of the dead, and care is accordingly taken to provide
for the needs of the deceased (p. 35). But the same thoughts are not
necessarily symbolised by the same rites. Thus, cremation, the earlier
custom, may have been intended to sever the soul from the body, to
destroy the haunting spirit, or to prevent contamination and contagion.
However, the subsequent use of the Gezer crematorium by those who
practised inhumation involved a continuity of thought, albeit with some
adaptation and adjustment, since identical conceptions of death and the
dead scarcely encircled the two distinct customs. This is instructive
for the growth of {57} complex ideas, and the subsequent prohibition in
Palestine of certain mourning rites may find a probable explanation in
their association with cults which were regarded as illegitimate.

The attitude of the living towards the dead raises the problem of
ancestor-worship and the relation between deified ancestors and gods.
In the absence of contemporary evidence from Ancient Palestine, we may
notice the inscription of King Panammu of North Syria (eighth century),
where he acknowledges his indebtedness to his gods, especially Hadad,
to whose honour he erects a colossal statue of the deity. The text
invokes the god's blessing upon the successor to the throne, provided
that the latter when he sacrifices makes mention of Panammu's soul with
Hadad or prays that Panammu's soul may eat and drink with the god.
Should these duties be neglected, Hadad is besought not to accept the
sacrifices, to refuse his requests; and sleeplessness and other
troubles are called down upon the unfilial descendant. It appears from
this, therefore, that while the dead relies upon the attentions of the
living, and it was necessary that his name should be kept fresh; the
dead could only exert an indirect influence, and the soul or vital
principle, apart from the body, could be {58} regarded as potent only
through its companionship with the deity. This may be supplemented
from Egypt in the account of the relations between Ramses II. and his
dead father, Sety I. The latter is reminded of the benefits which his
son had conferred upon him, his statue, and his _ka_ or vital force.
These he may still continue to enjoy, and, since he now has the
companionship of the gods, Ramses beseeches him to influence them to
grant him a long reign. The deceased king acknowledges the bread and
water which had been regularly offered to him; and relates that he has
become a god more beautiful than before; he now mingles with the great
gods, and he declares that he has successfully interceded on his son's
behalf.

The dead relied upon his descendants and upon the benevolence of future
generations, and Egyptian kings (at least) hoped to partake of the food
offered to the recognised deities. Religious and other works were
undertaken that the 'name' might 'live.' Promises and threats were
freely made to ensure due attention, and were usually respected by the
living; but the frequent acts of desecration would indicate that fear
of the dead was not necessarily a predominating or lasting feeling, at
all events outside a man's {59} own family. The above-mentioned
Panammu and Ramses are somewhat exceptional cases since individuals,
distinguished by rank, sanctity, or even more ordinary qualifications,
readily acquire distinguished positions in after-life. Moreover,
Ramses, at all events, was already a god, in his life-time, in
accordance with Egyptian belief, and all those who had had the
advantage of being representatives of the supernatural powers scarcely
lost this relative superiority. The protection afforded by famous
tombs and the virtues of the dust taken from such sacred spots are
recognised to the present day. The venerated shrines regularly found
their justification in the traditions which encircled the illustrious
occupant: to violate them was not merely an insult, it struck a blow at
one of the centres of cult and prosperity. Unfortunately for the
problem, by the side of the tendency to elevate an illustrious ancestor
must be placed the very human and inveterate weakness of tracing for
oneself a noble ancestry. Like the claim of the modern Palestinian
peasant to be descended from the alleged occupant of the local shrine
which he venerates, every apparent case of ancestor-worship stands in
need of a critical examination. As in most problems of religion,
ambiguity of terminology (viz. 'worship') {60} is responsible for much
confusion. It must be admitted that there would be a natural
inclination for every individual to regard his dead ancestor in the
spirit-world as more powerful and influential than himself. If this
were so even when there were recognised gods, it is obvious that
allowance must be made for the crucial stages, before the deities
gained that recognition, and after they had lost it.

Space prevents any adequate reference to the part which +animism+ has
held in the history of Palestinian religion; without a recognition of
this fundamental factor in all religions much of our evidence would be
unintelligible.[1] When we take the ideas which are associated with
the _name_, we find that it has magical powers, its use enlists or
confers protection or possession; it is the nature or essence of the
thing which bears it--indeed, almost identical with it (comp. Is. xxx.
27). Hence the meaning of names is always instructive. The
supposition that the child who bears an animal-name will acquire
something of the quality of the animal in question (whatever be the
original {61} motive) preserves more than metaphor, and indicates a
stage when man saw little difference between animals and himself. Even
at the present day it is still believed that the soul of an ancestor
can reappear in an animal (comp. p. 50). In like manner, the personal
names of our period which denote kinship with a deity point to a belief
in a physical relationship as natural as the conviction of the modern
native when he refers to Allah in terms which imply that man is in
every detail the literal image of the Almighty. A difference between
human and superhuman is scarcely recognised at the present day. The
women of the land continue to visit the holy sites to obtain offspring,
and it is freely acknowledged that welis and spirits of the dead can be
physical fathers. This absence of any clear dividing-line between
natural and supernatural is inveterate. The Egyptian Pharaoh of old
was both a god and the son of a god, and a record is preserved of the
visit of the god Amon to queen Ahmose in the form of her husband. The
halo of divinity was perhaps not so distinct as in earlier times, but
in their king the people still saw the earthly likeness of the deity.

[1] It must suffice to refer to works dealing with primitive religion,

see E. Clodd, _Animism, the Seed of Religion_ (London, 1905), A. C.
Haddon, _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), in this series.

+The Divinity of kings+ was a fundamental belief {62} which reveals

itself in a variety of forms through Western Asia and Egypt. The
inscriptions of Gudea, the code of Khammurabi, the Assyrian records and
the praises of the Pharaohs reflect conceptions which are materialised
now in the insignia of the kings, and now in their costume and toilet.
In a Babylonian myth the royal ornaments lay before the supreme god
awaiting the monarch; in Egypt the king is the god's _ka_, his
first-born; chosen, created and crowned by the divine father. The
kings stood in the closest relationship to the gods; they were not only
the heads of the state, they were also (in early Assyria) priest-kings,
and in Egypt theoretically all offerings for the living and the dead
were made by the Pharaoh. All this was neither mere empty formality
nor an isolated eccentricity. It is quite in accordance with the
powers commonly ascribed to divine representatives, that the control of
the rain and storm is held to depend upon the influence of Ramses II.
with the weather-god. It is equally intelligible (from anthropological
evidence) when the same king caused the gods to take up their abode in
the images which had been prepared for them!

Khammurabi could declare that he carried in his bosom the people of

Sumer and Akkad, and {63} the Pharaoh could call himself the husband of
Egypt, while Egypt was 'the only daughter of Re (the sun-god) whose son
sits upon the throne.' Not only was he the incarnation and the son of
the deity (or of all the recognised deities), but he was the cause of
the land's fruitfulness, prosperity, and protection. The Pharaoh, 'the
god of all people' (as he is once called), received the adoration of
his subjects, and one could sometimes believe that he was more
essentially a deity than the gods themselves, were it not that the
subordinate gods always maintained their hold upon the people locally.
With all allowance for the difference between conventional and
practical religion, the fundamental relations between land, people,
ruler and the deity persisted in many related though varying forms,
which are extremely interesting in any consideration of the social
changes at the rise of a monarchy and after its downfall.

This digression is necessary, because, although the practical working

of such beliefs as these may perplex us, the fact remains that they
were shared in Palestine. The petty rulers in the Amarna letters
thoroughly recognise the divine nature of the king who was a god and
had the god for his father (see p. 78 _sq._). Later, when Palestine
had its {64} own king, the 'Lord's anointed' was almost as the deity
himself (Ex. xxii. 28, cp. 2 Sam. xiv. 17); king and cult were one
(Hos. iii. 4), and the king's death could be regarded as the extinction
of the nation's lamp (2 Sam. xxi. 17). Not to mention other details,
the Messianic ideals of the divinely-begotten son and of the ruler
whose origin was of aforetime preserve the inveterate belief in the
divine ancestry of rulers, an honour which in other lands continued to
be conferred upon rather than claimed by them.

+Recognised gods.+--It is very important to find that the

representatives or possessors of divine powers are the worshippers of
their deity in life and his inferiors in death. The recognised gods
have their definite circles of clients, and if their human
representatives are subsequently worshipped or even deified, this is a
not unnatural development, especially as the official deities are apt
to be at the mercy of political and religious changes. The older gods
can be degraded and sink to the rank of demons (from newer
stand-points), but the petty deities and the lower supernatural beings
are as little influenced by external vicissitudes as the lower ranks of
humanity with whom they always stand in closer relationship. {65}
Their persistence in popular belief is as typical as the descent of the
more august beings, although even the latter are understood to retain
an influence which those of more recent introduction have not yet
acquired or are unable to exert. While the general fundamental
conceptions remain virtually unchanged, they are shaped by the social
and political institutions, for religious and political life formed
part of the same social organism.

{66}

CHAPTER VI

THE GODS

+Their vicissitudes.+--The deities were not originally personifications

of any one power of nature; like the secular heads of small local
groups they were the supreme patrons of their little circle. They were
usually nameless, but were known by an epithet, or were styled 'god'
(_el_) or 'lord, owner' (_baal_), with the corresponding feminine form.
Each might be distinguished by the name of its locality. The 'god' of
Sidon was otherwise the 'Baal' of Sidon, the 'goddess' of Byblos was
known as the 'Baalath' of the city; the Baal of Tyre was called
Melkart, _i.e._ simply 'king of the city'; the proper-name of the Baal
of Harran was Sin (the moon-god); the Baal of Heaven, according to
Philo of Byblos, was the Sun. When Baal and El were used as generic
terms, their application was perfectly intelligible locally; and when
they occur in forty or more place-names, and numerous old personal
names {67} in Palestine, it is unnecessary to suppose that they
represent two distinct and definite deities. From the old Palestinian
names we learn that the deity is high, great and good; he opens,
builds, heals, sows, gathers; he remembers, hastens, helps, protects,
blesses, etc.[1] Such conceptions would be generally true of all; the
power of each was not unlimited, but it extended to all that man
usually desired.

[1] Apart from names whose meaning is uncertain (_e.g._ Jacob-el, God
supplants?), the list could be easily enlarged; a number of names of
western (as opposed to the usual Babylonian) type can be gleaned from
the records of the First Babylonian Dynasty.

From the general resemblance subsisting between the distinct local gods
it was possible to regard them as so many forms of a single god; and
when groups combined and individual gods were fused, multiplicity of
types ensued. The status of a local tutelary was affected when
commercial intercourse widened the horizon of both the traveller and
the native; and in the growth of political power and the rise of a
kingship the conceptions entertained of the deity's attributes and
powers were elevated. Through the extension of authority the way lay
open to groups of gods who could not be fused, and equally to the
superiority of one national patron deity over the rest. {68} Political
or other changes led to the promotion of this or the other god, and
prominent or specialised deities in superseding others acquired fresh
attributes, though local divergencies were again necessarily retained.
This does not complete the vicissitudes of the gods or the intricacies
caused by assimilation or identification. A popular epithet or
appellative could appear by the side of the proper deity as a new
creation, or the deity was sub-divided on cosmical and astral theories.
The female deity (whose name may be without the usual distinguishing
mark of gender) could even change her sex; the specific name could also
become employed as a common term for any deity, and the plural 'gods'
could be applied to a single being as a collective representation of
the characteristics it embodied.

Amid the intricate careers of the great names, the local deities
obstinately survived in popular religious life. They have found their
parallel in the welis or patrons, saints and holy sheikhs of the modern
shrines (see _pp._ 21 _sqq._). The modern analogy is instructive in
many points of detail, particularly when we observe the vicissitudes
which the occupants of the shrines have experienced. It is natural to
ask for the ancient counterparts of the Allah, the supreme god in the
{69} official religion, who, as we have said, is vague and remote in
the practical religious life of the peasant of to-day. A series of
well-defined historical events made him pre-eminent over all other gods
and goddesses and established Mohammedanism; internal and external
causes shaped the varying conceptions of his nature, and gave birth to
numerous sects. All the Oriental religions have this twofold aspect:
the historical circumstances which affected the vicissitudes of the
deities, and the more subtle factors which have influenced forms of
belief. But we have no direct information upon the rise of the general
conditions in Palestine during our period, and such problems as the
origin of the term El 'God' (common to all the Semitic peoples) belong
to the pre-historic ages.

+Their representative character.+--When the gods reign like feudal

princes over their principalities their sphere is limited and other
districts or kingdoms belong to other gods. Residence in an alien land
brought one under the influence of alien gods, whose reality was not
denied, though their power could be variously estimated. At Serabit,
for example, the Egyptians had combined the worship of their god Sopdu
with that of the {70} local 'lady of turquoise,' whom they identified
with their Hathor, and the caves and temples of both stood side by
side. The Egyptian inscriptions there refer to 'the gods and goddesses
of this land,' and an officer, probably of the Twelfth Dynasty,
encourages a cult which was largely utilitarian: 'Offer ye to the
mistress of heaven, appease ye Hathor; if ye do it, it will be
profitable to you; if ye increase to her, it shall be well among you.'
Some centuries later, we read that Ramses III., desirous of the
precious treasures, sent clothes and rich presents to his 'mother'
Hathor, 'lady of the turquoise.'

The relationship between countries and their respective national gods

(cp. Judges xi. 24) is frequently illustrated. When Tushratta, king of
Mitanni, writes to Amenhotep III., he ascribes a victory to the
weather-god Teshub (if that was the native name), and trusts that his
lord Teshub will never permit him to be angry with his 'brother' the
king of Egypt. Similarly, he prays that the sun-god (Shamash) and the
goddess Ishtar may go before his daughter and make her in accord with
the king's heart.[2] On {71} the other hand, it is 'the gods,' or
Teshub and Amon (of Egypt),[3] who will make the present alliance a
lasting one, and his gods and those of his 'brother,' or Ishtar, 'lady
of ladies,' and Amon who will guard the damsel on the journey and give
her favour with the king.

[2] In the names in chapters vi. and vii., the more familiar Astarte is
employed for Ashtart (Old Testament, Ashtoreth). Where cuneiform
evidence is used the Babylonian form (_e.g._ Shamash, Ishtar) is
usually retained.

[3] Amon, the predominant god of Egypt, owed his rise from an obscure
local deity of Thebes to the political growth of the city. He was then
assimilated to Re (the solar-orb) of Heliopolis.

Towards the close of the reign of Amenhotep III. Tushratta despatched

to Egypt, Ishtar of Nineveh 'lady of lands, lady of heaven,' in
pursuance to her oracle 'to the land that I love I will go.' She was
doubtless sent to exercise her powers in Egypt, and Tushratta expresses
the hope that the king may revere her tenfold more than on the occasion
of a previous visit. He also invokes a hundred thousand years and
great joy for his 'brother' and himself. There is a parallel to this
in the late popular story where Ramses II. sent one of the images of
Khonsu (moon-god and god of healing) to cure a Hittite princess, the
sister of his queen, of an evil spirit. The god accompanied by a
priest was received with all reverence, the demon was expelled and
allowed to depart in peace to the place he desired, and a great feast
was celebrated. Indeed, the {72} Hittite chief kept the useful god
with him for nearly four years, when, frightened by a vision of the god
flying upwards towards Egypt, he restored it to its rightful soil. The
very human limitations of the deities render it necessary that some
representation or emblem should be employed when their help is required.

+In political Treaties and Covenants+ the representative gods of the

respective countries are invoked as witnesses, and their curses are
expected to fall upon the defaulter. It was generally felt that curses
as well as blessings had a very real potency, and the thrilling
denunciations at the end of Khammurabi's Code of Laws and contemporary
examples from Egypt threaten desolation, hunger, thirst, flaming fire,
and the avenging pursuit of the gods. Political treaties are
instructive for the light they throw upon the ruling powers. In
Esarhaddon's treaty with Baal, king of Tyre (677-6 B.C.), the gods of
the latter are Baal-shamen (Baal of heaven), two other specified Baals,
Melkart of Tyre, Eshmun and the goddess Astarte. Later, in Hannibal's
covenant with Philip of Macedon, the Carthaginian gods are enumerated
in two triads, then follow the gods who took part in war, and finally,
sun, moon, earth, {73} rivers, harbours (?) and streams. But the most
illuminating example is the Egyptian version of the treaty (about
1290), between Ramses II. and the Kheta (Hittites), the two great rival
influences over the intervening lands. Here the representative heads
of Egypt and the Kheta are respectively the sun-god Re and Sutekh
(_i.e._ Set, the Egyptian equivalent of a weather- or storm-god whose
native name can only be conjectured). Formerly, we learn, '[the] god
prevented hostilities' between the two lands by treaty, and this new
pact is made for 're-establishing the relations which Re made and
Sutekh made for the land of Egypt with the land of Kheta' to prevent
future warfare. The thousand gods male and female both of the Kheta
and of Egypt are called to witness. Those of the former are
particularly interesting, they comprise the sun-god lord of heaven, the
sun-god of the city of Ernen (also called 'lord of every land'), Sutekh
lord of heaven, Sutekh of Kheta, Sutekh of the city of Ernen, and the
Sutekh of various specified cities, Antheret (probably Astarte) of the
land of Kheta, nine gods and goddesses of certain named cities. Next
come 'the queen of heaven; gods, lords of swearing; the mistress of the
soil, the mistress of swearing, Teshker, the mistress of the {74}
mountains, and the rivers of the land of Kheta,' and, finally, the gods
of a North Syrian ally of Kheta. On the Egyptian side are Amon, the
sun-god, Sutekh (here an Egyptian deity, see p. 83), the male and
female gods of the mountains and the rivers of Egypt, of the heavens,
the soil, the great sea, the wind and the storms. The treaty also bore
a representation of the king of the Kheta and his queen embraced
respectively by Sutekh the ruler of the heavens, and a goddess whose
name is lost. To the gods of Palestine there is no reference;
Palestine did not enjoy political independence.

+The Influence of Egypt.+--Our latest source is the Egyptian account of

the visit of Wenamon to Byblos to procure cedar-wood from Lebanon for
the sacred-barge of Amon-Re, King of Gods (about 1100). The human
messenger took with him the divine messenger in the shape of a statue
of 'Amon-of-the-Way,' reputed to confer life and health; a sacred image
upon which no common eye might gaze. When at length Zakarbaal granted
an interview (see p. 54), he was inclined to ignore the political
supremacy of Egypt, although he appears to allow that Amon had
civilised Egypt and thence all lands, and that {75} artisanship and
teaching had come from Egypt to his place of abode. Wenamon, for his
part, showed that former kings not only sold cedars to Egypt, but spent
their lives sacrificing to Amon. Even the evidence of 'the journal of
his fathers' did not remove the king's reluctance. But the envoy urged
the claim of Amon to be lord and possessor of the sea and of Lebanon,
and solemnly warned Zakarbaal: 'wish not for thyself a thing belonging
to Amon-Re, yea the lion loves his own.' Ultimately the king sent the
wood, and he commemorated his obedience to Amon-Re by an inscription
which was likely to be profoundly beneficial. For, as the envoy
observed, should Byblos be visited by Egyptians who were able to read
the stele with his name (the all-essential adjunct), he would 'receive
water in the West (the world of the dead where the sun-god descended
nightly) like the gods who are here' (presumably at Byblos).

Although the narrative is written from an Egyptian standpoint, the

conviction which is ascribed to Zakarbaal finds a parallel in the
familiar story of the journey of Osiris, the founder of Egyptian
civilisation, from the Delta to Byblos. Even before the Hyksos period
Egyptian women named themselves after the Baalath of Byblos {76} whom
they identified with Hathor and evidently regarded as an appropriate
patroness.[4] The connection between Egypt and the port of Lebanon may
have been exceptionally close, but there were Egyptian settlements at
Gezer, Megiddo, and the north at an equally early age. Under the
conquerors of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the daughters of the small
tributaries were taken into the royal harem, and the sons were removed
as hostages and safely guarded in Egypt. Some of the latter settled
down, others were appointed in due course to the thrones of their
fathers, after having received the necessary anointing-oil from the
great king. One of the latter recalls in the Amarna letters how he had
served the king in Egypt and had stood at the royal gate, and from the
grave-stone of a Palestinian soldier at El-Amarna we may see how
settlement upon Egyptian soil had led to the acceptance of Egyptian
ideas of the other world.

[4] A. Erman, _Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache_, xlii. p. 109.

Meanwhile Palestine and Syria were under the direction of Egyptian

authorities, to whose presence the Amarna letters frequently allude,
and one of the writers quaintly likens the solicitude of a certain
official on his behalf to that of a {77} mother or a father. Where
there were Egyptians or where princes had been in Egypt, some trace of
the national religion may be expected, and it is probable that every
military garrison possessed some kind of sanctuary. Moreover, Thutmose
III. had dedicated three cities in the Lebanon district to Amon; later,
Egyptian gods 'dwelt' in the north at Tunip. A stele, a few miles
south of Tell 'Ashtarah (cp. the name Ishtar) in Bashan represents Sety
I. offering a libation to Amon, and the pure Egyptian workmanship
points to a strong foreign influence in the locality. Ramses II. set
up a statue of his majesty in Tunip, and a city in South Lebanon was
called after his name. Still descending, we read that cities were set
apart for Amon-Re in the reign of Ramses III., and this king built in
Canaan 'a mysterious house like the horizon of heavens which is in the
sky' (_i.e._ the abode of the sun-god), with a great statue of
'Amon-of-Ramses-ruler-of-Heliopolis,' to which the natives brought
tribute, 'for it was divine.'

Elsewhere, Ramses III. asserts that he built strongholds in Asia in

honour of Amon, taxing them year by year to bring their offerings to
the _ka_ of the 'lord of gods.' Accordingly, down to the first half of
the twelfth century the cult of Amon followed the extension of Egyptian
{78} supremacy, and although the subsequent political history is
obscure, the story of Wenamon would indicate that some sixty or seventy
years later the prestige of the god's name was not entirely lost.
Wenamon's claim corresponds to the explicit recognition (in the Amarna
letters) that the land belonged to Egypt's gods; it was the natural
corollary of political extension. Like Zakarbaal and his ancestors,
all the tributary princes were expected to acknowledge the suzerainty
of Egypt's king and his deity. To refrain from sacrificing to the
conqueror's gods was one of the signs of open revolt, as we know from
Assyria and Babylonia. The king identified himself with the sun, like
the contemporary Hittite king Subbiluliuina and other monarchs, from
Khammurabi 'the Sun of Babylonia' who 'caused light to go forth over
the lands of Sumer and Akkad' to the Assyrian Shalmaneser II. Although
the result is confusing, the subordinate chiefs of Palestine and Syria
were accustomed to the thought. They address the king as their gods,
their Sun, the son of the Sun whom the Sun loves, the Sun in heaven,
the Sun of the lands, or the everlasting Sun. This deified Sun or
Shamash (to retain the Babylonian form) answers to the Egyptian Re or
Amon. So Abimilki (Abimelech) of Tyre writes, {79} 'My lord is the Sun
which goes up over the lands daily according to the decision of the Sun
(Shamash) his gracious father.' And again, 'I have said to the Sun,
the father of the king, my lord, "when shall I see the face of the
king, my lord?"' Another writer ascribes his victory to the king's
gods and Sun which went before his face. The chief of Megiddo, in a
letter interesting for its glosses in the native language, announces
his intentions should the king's gods assist him, and other writers
invoke the god or gods of the king and acknowledge the might of
Shamash. Nevertheless, the identification of the Egyptian and the
Asiatic sun-god would not, and probably did not, prevent them from
being regarded as two deities, and a private tablet at Taanach not only
recognises the god Amon and the weather-god Addu, but even appears to
add Shamash. It is natural to suppose from the identification of the
king, the sun, and the national sun-god Amon (or Shamash) that many
apparently ordinary rites had a deeper significance, whether it was the
anointing of a vassal or the fasting for a dead monarch (p. 56). The
custom of offering sacrifices on behalf of kings is well attested, and
it is possible that the position of divine kings throws light upon the
fact that {80} the king of Cyprus has to explain his failure to send a
representative to Egypt when Amenhotep was celebrating a sacrificial
feast.

+The Treatment of Alien Gods+ depends largely upon political relations

(cp. _pp._ 69 _sqq._). New settlers might add the established deities
of the soil to their own. A conqueror might recognise the deities of
the district to which he laid claim. The gods of a defeated land were
not invariably deposed, although the Assyrian kings would sometimes
destroy them or present them to their own deities. Mesha king of Moab
(about 850 B.C.) records that he brought before his god certain
captured objects of cult, and it is possible that the pillar at Gezer
which is not of local origin had a history of this kind (p. 14). The
Philistines were dismayed at the 'mighty gods' which the Hebrews, in
accordance with a familiar custom, took with them into battle, and, on
another occasion, their own gods, left behind in their flight, were
carried away by David (1 Sam. iv. 8, 2 Sam. v. 21). The mere capture
of the gods was sometimes enough to lead to overtures for peace. But
an Assyrian king would even repair the dilapidated captive deities, and
having inscribed upon them the 'might' of his god and {81} the 'writing
of his name' would restore them to a trusted vassal. In Palestine the
petty rulers enjoyed considerable freedom provided they paid their
tribute, and supported their suzerain. We do not learn that Egypt
sought to amalgamate subdued peoples and make of them 'one folk'
(_lit._ mouth), as was claimed by Tiglath-Pileser I. and other Assyrian
kings. Nor do we find that the Egyptian king sent skilled emissaries
to teach (as Sargon II. says) 'the fear of God and the king,' although,
if the reference be merely to the promulgation of the official cult,
this was probably the chief results also of Egypt's supremacy.

On the other hand, a Syrian prince who had recaptured his Sun-god from
the Hittites besought Amenhotep III. (whom he addresses as 'Son of
Shamash') to put his name upon it as his fathers had done in the past.
The text is somewhat obscure, but the recognition of the Asiatic
Shamash is clear, and intelligible on the identification of Shamash and
Amon-Re. So, also, when the king of Byblos asserts that 'the gods,
Shamash, and the Baalath' of the city had brought about the king's
accession, we have to remember that the goddess had long before been
identified with the Egyptian Hathor. At a later date, a stele found
north of Tell 'Ashtarah depicts Ramses II. {82} paying homage to a
deity whose crown, horn, and Semitic title prove him (or her) to be a
native deity whom the king evidently respected.[5] Respect for alien
gods ceases when they are found to be powerless; but Egypt was
constantly troubled by her warlike Asiatics, and so far from their gods
being ignored or rejected, they entered Egypt and found an extremely
hospitable reception (see Chapter vii). Asiatic conquerors in Egypt
appear to have been less tolerant. The Hyksos ruled 'in ignorance of
Re,' and their god (Sutekh) was planted in the land; and, later, during
the brief period of anarchy when a Palestinian or Syrian chief held
Egypt until his overthrow by Setnakht, the upstarts 'made the gods like
men and no offerings were presented in the temples.' We may assume
then that the religion of our land remained practically unchanged
during Egyptian supremacy except in so far as this involved the
official recognition of the Egyptian national god and his
representative upon the throne.

[5] _Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins_, xiv. p. 142, xv. p.

205. The stele, known as the 'stone of Job,' has entered into the
worship of a Moslem place of prayer, and is appropriately connected
with a story of the patriarch, many traditions of whom are current in
this part of Hauran.

{83}

CHAPTER VII

THE PANTHEON

Until the necessary evidence comes to light it is scarcely possible to

do more than collect a few notes upon some of the gods and goddesses of
our period. The most important sources are from Babylonia, Assyria,
and Egypt; but some additional information can be gleaned from
Palestinian names, allowance being made for the fact that a personal
name compounded with that of a deity is not enough to prove that the
bearer was its worshipper.

+Asiatic Deities in Egypt+ date from before the age of the Hyksos
invasion, as can be gathered from the history of the mixed cult at
Serabit and from the introduction of Baalath of Byblos (p. 75).
Apophis, a Hyksos king, has left an altar dedicated to his 'father
Sutekh,' who had set all lands under his feet, and after the expulsion
of the Hyksos, this foreign deity, {84} Egyptianised as Set (or
Sutekh), became firmly established. Both SUTEKH and BAAL were regarded
as essentially gods of battle, and the latter often occurs in
descriptions of the prowess of the Pharaohs of the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties. Thus, the king is like Baal in the lands, mighty
in strength, far-reaching in courage, strong-horned; he is like Sutekh
great in might. He is the equal of Baal, 'his real son for ever,' and
he is as Baal in his hour (_i.e._ of manifestation). When he appears
upon the battlefield like Baal, his flame consumes the foe, and Amon-Re
announces to Ramses III., 'I overthrow for thee every land, when they
see thy majesty in strength, like my son, Baal in his wrath.' Baal is
in his limbs; his roaring is like Baal in heaven, and his enemies fall
down in fear of him like Baal. Baal was virtually identical with
Sutekh who is represented as a foreign god and is sometimes horned
(_e.g._ at Serabit). A curious scarab shows a winged Sutekh with
horned cap and long streamer standing upon a lion.

Another foreigner is RESHEPH, lord of heaven, lord of eternity, or

governor of the gods; he is the warrior, the god of fire and lightning
(subsequently identified with Apollo). Valiant Egyptian officers are
likened to him. He appears on {85} the Egyptian monuments with Semitic
profile, and conical hat (or otherwise a fillet) from which projects
the head of a gazelle; he holds a lance and shield in the left hand,
and in his right a club. According to a magical text his consort was
'_-t-m_, a deity who seems to be combined with Shamash in an old North
Palestinian place-name, and may recur in the familiar Obed (servant of)
-Edom. In Egypt Resheph also formed a triad with Min (the old
harvest-deity and god of reproduction) and the goddess KADESH ('holy').
The last, whose name suggests the sacred licentious rites of Asiatic
cults (p. 33 _sq._), is called lady of heaven, mistress of the gods,
the eye of Re, etc. She was assimilated to Hathor, and stands nude
upon a lion with lotus flowers in her right hand and a serpent in her
left; her head framed with heavy tresses of hair is sometimes
surmounted by the sun-disk between two horns. Among foreign
war-goddesses Egypt had ANATH, well known from Palestinian place-names.
Her priesthood at Thebes is mentioned under Thutmose III., and the
favourite daughter of Ramses II. was named 'daughter of Anath.' The
deity is represented sitting clothed upon a throne with lance and
shield in the right hand and battle-axe in the left; or holding instead
the papyrus sceptre and {86} the emblem of life she stands erect clad
in a panther-skin; her feathered crown sometimes has a pair of horns at
the base. She is called lady of heaven, or of the world, daughter of
the sun, mother, etc., and is often paired with Astarte.

ASTARTE found a place in several Egyptian temples. We also hear of her

prophets, and a fragmentary myth apparently describes how, as daughter
of Ptah, she entered the pantheon of Memphis. Here, as we learn from
another text, Egyptian and foreign deities met together, and among the
latter is a Baalath Saphun (B. of the North?), whose male counterpart
appears in Baal-Zephon near the Red Sea (Ex. xiv. 2) and the equivalent
Baal-Sapun, one of the gods of king Baal (see p. 72). The Egyptians
depict Astarte with the head of a lioness, driving her quadriga over
the foe; and as goddess of war she is 'mistress of horses and lady of
chariots.' But that both Anath and Astarte were also dissolute
goddesses is recognised in a text which ascribes their creation to Set.
The prevalence of the cult of the goddess of love and war in Palestine
is well known from the references in the Old Testament to Ashtoreth (an
intentional perversion to suggest _bōsheth_ 'shame'), from the
place-names, and from the plaques which {87} indicate numerous minor
local types (p. 29). In the Amarna tablets Astarte (or rather the
Babylonian Ishtar) coalesces with ASHIRTA who is sometimes written in
the plural (Ashrati). Like the place-names Anathoth (the Anaths) and
Ashtaroth (the Astartes), the different conceptions of the goddess in
all her local forms seem to be combined in one term. Ashirta appears
to have been essentially the goddess of the west. In a text of the
First Babylonian Dynasty she is paired with Ramman as 'bride of the
king of heaven, lady of exuberance (or vigour) and splendour'; later,
she is called the consort of the 'lord of the mountain,' an appellative
corresponding to the Baal of Lebanon. In old Arabia she was the wife
of the moon-god, and the masculine form Ashir, on cuneiform Cappadocian
tablets of our period, seems to be no other than the great god Ashur
himself. Her name cannot be severed from the _Ashērah_, but it is
not clear whether it was transferred to or derived from the object of
cult (see p. 26). The intricacy of the history of the divine-names
will be understood when the Assyrian equivalent of Beth (house of) -El
becomes the name of a deity, or when the plural of Ishtar is used of
goddesses in general, or when Resheph (above) in Hebrew denotes a
spark, {88} flame, or fire-bolt. But the career of the goddess of love
and war is even more complicated. The phonetic equivalent of Ishtar in
old Arabia was a god (so perhaps also in Moab, ninth century), and
Ishtar herself appears in Assyria with a beard and is likened to the
god Ashur, thus finding a later parallel in the bearded Aphrodite
(Astarte, Venus) of Cyprus.

The sex of the sun-deity SHAMASH is equally confusing, for, although he

was lord of heaven (p. 73), and kings of Egypt and the Hittites
identified themselves with him, the deity was female in old Arabia,
among earlier Hittite groups, and probably once, also, in Palestine and
Syria.[1] Place-names compounded with Shemesh attest the prevalence of
the deity, and around the district of Gezer lie Beth-Shemesh and the
stories of Samson (sun) wherein solar elements have been recognised.
Among pastoral and agricultural peoples, however, the moon is more
important. To the prominence of new-moon festivals and the probable
connection between the lunar body and the name Jericho we must add the
moon-god SIN, in Sinai and the desert of Sin {89} in the south of
Palestine, and in the north at Harran, where his worship survived to
the Christian era. At Hamath, in N. Syria, about 800 B.C., Shamash and
the moon-god find a place by the side of the supreme 'Baal of heaven.'
Later, at Nerab near Aleppo the moon-god is associated with his wife
_N-k-l_ (Nin-gal 'the great lady'), Shamash, and Nusku (fire-god,
messenger of Bel). Specific Assyrian influence might be expected at
this date, but the consort's name appears in an Egyptian magical text,
not later than the Twentieth Dynasty, as the wife of 'the high god'
(here, the Sun?).[2]

[1] H. Winckler, _Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft_

(Berlin, 1907), No. 35, p. 53; _id._, Amarna Tablets, No. 208, 1. 22
(Knudtzon, No. 323).

[2] A. H. Gardiner, _Zeit. f. Aeg. Spr._, xliii. p. 97.

Quite as prominent as the sun was the weather-god, god of storm,

lightning and thunder. Known as Teshub (p. 70), Hadad, Ramman (comp.
the Biblical Rimmon), Adad, Dad, Bir, etc., the form ADDU, which was
recognised as the god's 'Amorite' designation, is adopted here in
preference to the more familiar Aramæan HADAD. This is supported by
the spelling of the name of Rib-Addi, king of Byblos. The interchange
of Baal and Addu in certain names in the Amarna letters shows that Addu
could naturally be called Baal, and to the Egyptians he was apparently
_the_ Baal. The importance of {90} the weather-god in the religion of
agricultural and pastoral peoples may be illustrated from one of
Khammurabi's curses: 'May Adad, lord of abundance, regent of heaven and
earth, my helper, deprive him (_i.e._ the disobedient) of the rain from
heaven and the water-floods from the springs; may he bring his land to
destruction through want and hunger; may he break loose furiously over
his city and turn his land into the heap left by a storm.' The gifts
of Addu preserved men from dearth and starvation; a too plenteous
supply brought flood and ruin. Thus the god had a twofold aspect, and
his thunder in the heavens, his fiery darts, in fact the destructive
side of his character made him an appropriate war-god. This aspect of
the nature-deity was especially cultivated by warlike peoples.

Babylonian and Hittite sculptures depict the god brandishing a hammer

with his right hand, while the left holds up a triad of
lightning-flashes or thunder-bolts. On an inscription from North Syria
(eighth century) Hadad has horns, and with this agrees the association
of the bull with the god. Like all predominant gods he includes a
variety of attributes, and we may conjecture that the small heads of
bulls unearthed by the excavations are connected with his worship (p.
32). {91} The inscription in question (see also p. 57) places Hadad at
the head of a small pantheon with El, Resheph, R-k-b--el (steed,
chariot, or charioteer of El) and Shamash. In the Amarna letters one
writer calls the king of Egypt his Addu, and Abimelech of Tyre, who
likens him to both Shamash and Addu, addresses him as 'he who gives his
thunder in the heavens like Addu.'

Together with this combination it is to be noticed that while

Khammurabi 'the Sun of Babylonia' calls himself the mighty bull who
gores the enemy, old Egyptian scenes actually represent 'the strong
bull' breaking down fortresses with its horns or expelling the
inhabitants. The Pharaoh was symbolised by the bull, and even the
Egyptian sun-god is styled 'the bull of the gods.' The animal is
doubtless typical of generative force and of strength, while the union
of the attributes of Shamash and Addu are intelligible since to the sun
and weather man owed the necessaries of life. It is noteworthy that
the two deities are prominent in the Hittite treaty, where each is
called 'lord of heaven' (p. 73), and, as early as the nineteenth
century, the Assyrian compound-name Shamshi-Adad indicates that they
could be easily combined. The name is borne by two kings; one a
'priest-king' {92} of the god Ashur, the other a son of Ishme-Dagan
('D. hears').

Dagan (DAGON) has left his traces in place-names and in the ruler,
'Dagan is strong' (Amarna letters). The deity seems to have been of
Assyrian or Mesopotamian rather than of Babylonian origin. It is
possible that he was a corn-god. The Babylonian NEBO, the 'teacher,'
can only be recovered from place-names in Judah and Moab. NINIB
(native form is uncertain), both sun- and war-god, appears in the
Amarna letters in two place-names (one in the vicinity of Jerusalem),
and in the personal-name 'Servant of Ninib.' The swine was sacred to
Ninib, as also to Tammuz and the Phoenician Adonis; but neither of the
latter can be traced in our period.

SHALEM, in Jeru-salem (Uru-salim in the Amarna letters), has been

identified (on the analogy of Jeru-el) with a god who is known later in
Phoenicia, Assyria, and North Arabia, and who is perhaps combined with
Resheph on an Egyptian stele of our period. He was perhaps identified
with Ninib. The antiquity of GAD, the deity of fortune, can be assumed
from place-names. In a disguised form the goddess, 'Fortune' was the
guardian-deity of the cities in the Greek age, and allusion is made in
the Talmud to the couch {93} reserved for the 'luck of the house.' A
deified 'Righteousness' (_sedek_) has been inferred from a name in the
Amarna age; it would find a parallel in 'Right' and 'Integrity' the
sons of the Assyrian god Sham ash, and both 'Integrity' and
'Righteousness' find a place in the Phoenician cosmogony which, in
spite of its late dress, preserves many old features which recur in
Hebrew myths.

The Babylonian NERGAL, god of war, burning heat and pestilence, and
ruler of Hades, the deity with whom was identified Saturn (and also
Mars), should find a place in the pantheon. A seal from Taanach
describes its owner as 'servant of Nergal' (p. 110), and the king of
Cyprus reports to Egypt the desolation caused by the god's hand. Even
as late as the third century B.C. we hear of a Phoenician who was his
high-priest. As a solar fire-god he had in the west the name Sharrab
or Sharraph with which the familiar Seraph may be identified. The god
El of later Phoenician myth (the Greek Kronos; Saturn) was depicted
with six-wings like the Seraphim. He was the god to whom children were
sacrificed, whence the story that he had set the example by killing his
own. If infants had been slain to Sharrab in Palestine, this would be
in harmony with Nergal's character, and it may {94} be noticed that
Nusku, who is sometimes associated with Nergal, was symbolised by a
lamp (cp. above, p. 41). In the Old Testament the grim rites belong to
Molech (properly Melek), but there are independent reasons for the view
that the latter was the proper-name of the Phoenician El.[3] However
this may be, the name MELEK, although really an appellative ('king'),
passes over into a true proper-name; but it is not clear whether this
is the case in our period where we meet with the personal names
'servant of Melek' (or, the king), 'El is Melek,' etc.

[3] M.-J. Lagrange, _Études sur les Rel. Sémitiques_, p. 107 _sq._

It is uncertain whether there is external evidence for the name YAHWEH

(Jehovah), the national God of the Israelites. Unambiguous examples
outside Palestine appear in North Syria in the eighth century in the
form Yau (Yahu), which in one name interchanges with El. Cuneiform
evidence for the name in the First Babylonian Dynasty has been adduced,
and in the abbreviated Ya it possibly occurs in 'house of Ya,' a
Palestinian town taken by Thutmose III. Further, in Akhi-yami (or,
yawi), the author of a cuneiform tablet from Taanach, an identification
with Akhiyah (the Biblical Ahijah) is not improbable, although other
explanations are possible. While {95} other writers salute Ishtar (or
Astarte)-Washur, the governor of Taanach, with: May Addu, or may the
gods preserve thy life, Ahijah (?) invokes 'the lord of the gods.' In
the course of his letter he asks whether there is still lamentation for
the lost cities or have they been recovered, and continues: 'there is
over my head some one (who is) over the cities; see, now, whether he
will do good with thee; further, if he shows anger, they will be
confounded, and the victory will be mighty.' It is not clear whether
these words refer to the divine Pharaoh or to a deity, the supreme god
whom he invokes. If the latter view be correct, it is difficult to
decide whether the reference be to the Sun-god, patronised by the
ruling powers (whether Egyptian or Hittite), or the great Addu who
would be quite in keeping with the allusions to war and victory. Some,
however, would recognise a Providence, or, from their interpretation of
the writer's name, Yahweh himself. But a single tablet has little
evidential value and we can merely mention the possibilities.

The preceding paragraphs touch only the fringe of an important

subject--the Palestinian pantheon in and after the Amarna age.
Egyptian supremacy involved the recognition of Amon-Re, but it is
difficult to determine to what extent this deity {96} differed from the
Palestinian Shamash. Excavations illustrate the result of intercourse,
especially in the southern part of the land, but the numerous
characteristic scarabs, and the representations of Osiris, Isis, Ptah,
Sebek, Anubis, and the ever-popular Bes (with moulds), need have no
significance for the gods of Palestine. They may not always be
specifically Egyptian; Bes, for example, appears to be of non-Egyptian
ancestry. Further, a number of the names in the Amarna letters are
neither Egyptian nor Semitic, but of northern origin, and the name of
the king of Jerusalem, 'servant of Khiba,' introduces a goddess of the
earlier 'Hittite' peoples whose influence upon Palestine is to be
inferred upon other grounds.[4]

[4] H. Winckler (_Mittheil._, No. 35), p. 48.

In Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria numerous deities of varying rank were

venerated by the people. Bes, himself, in spite of his subordinate
position in the pantheon was a favourite among all Egyptians outside
the more elevated classes. The popular beings, like the popular
religious ideas, are not to be found in royal inscriptions or
temple-hymns. The state and the priesthood often refused to recognise
them, but they are to be found not rarely among the {97} personal names
of ordinary individuals. This probably holds true also of Palestine,
and consequently we must not suppose that the influence of foreigners
upon the _popular_ cults of the land is to be ignored or that the more
honourable names which we have been noticing were the sole claimants to
the worship of the peasantry.[5]

[5] Comp. M. Jastrow, _Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens_, i. p. 164

_sq._; H. P. Smith, 'Theophorous Proper Names in the Old Testament,' in
_O. T. and Semitic Studies in memory of William Rainey Harper_, i.
_pp._ 35-64 (Chicago, 1908).

{98}

CHAPTER VIII

CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT--CONCLUSION

+Miscellaneous Ideas.+--Although the native literature of our period

consists almost entirely of the begging-letters and reports in the
Amarna Tablets, yet even from the language addressed to the human
representative of the Sun-God, we may gain some idea of the
intellectual environment, some hints, it may be, suggestive of the
religious thought of the age.[1] The Egyptian monarch is addressed not
only as king of lands, king of battle but as a god (pp. 63, 78). His
commands are as powerful as the Sun (Shamash) in Heaven; he is like the
Sun which rises over the lands every day, and, as for the rising of the
Sun in Heaven, so the writers await the words which come from his
mouth. They keep the king's command day and night and acknowledge that
the king will curse {99} the man who does not serve him. He who
hearkens not to the word of the king, his lord, his city and house go
to ruin, and his name will not be in the land for ever; but (says the
writer, the king of Tyre) the servant who hearkens to his lord, his
city and house flourish, and his name is unto eternity, 'for thou art
the Sun which rises over me and the wall of bronze which is lifted up
for me.'

[1] It need hardly be remarked that the paragraphs classifying the more
interesting ideas in the letters from Palestine and Syria have been
made as literal as possible.
The vassals do obeisance seven and seven times; they prostrate
themselves upon breast and back. (Both attitudes are illustrated in
the rather later tomb of Harmheb.) They call themselves the throne on
which the king sits, his footstool, the dust of his feet and of the
soles of his sandals. They are the ground upon which he treads, the
dirt over which he walks; his yoke is upon their neck and they bear it.
'Whether we mount up to heaven or descend to earth, our head is still
in your hand,' writes one, and he makes the following striking
acknowledgement: 'I look here and I look there and there is no light,
but I look to my lord the king and there is light; and though a brick
move away from under its coping, I will not move away from under the
feet of my lord.' These phrases, which were evidently popular, are
used by two {100} other writers. A vassal thus declares his fidelity:
'I have not sinned in aught against the king my lord, I have not
sinned; may the lord my king know his evil-doers.' Another seeks the
way to his lord, and from his lord deserts not. A confident vassal
prays the king not to take anything to heart; let not thy heart be
pained, he writes. One writer asks if he is a dog that he should not
obey the royal commands, and a second emphasises his remarks by a
repetition of the oath 'as the king, my lord, liveth.'

The king of Byblos, who calls his city the king's faithful handmaid,
complains of a deed against his city which had not been done since
eternity; the dogs (_i.e._ his adversaries) act after their hearts and
cause the king's cities to go up in smoke. The fields are like a wife
without a husband through lack of sustenance. He himself is caught
like a bird in a cage. Again, he is old and stricken with disease; the
gods of Byblos are enraged, and the illness is very severe, but, he
continues, 'I have opened (confessed) my sins to the gods.' He
declares that since the day he received favour from the king his heart
had not changed, his face is (fixed) to serve him; if the king's heart
is for his city (or, elsewhere, if it is on his heart) let him send
help.

{101}

The vassals write that they stretch out their hand to the king's feet,
or pray that the king may extend his hand unto them. The citizens of
Tunip assert: 'thy city weeps and its tears flow; there is no seizing
of the hand (help) for us.' The ruler of Beirut trusts that the royal
troops may shatter the heads of the king's enemies, while his servant's
eyes gaze (_i.e._ with pleasure) upon the king's life. The elders of a
city entreat: 'May the king our lord hearken to the words of his true
servants, and give a present to his servants, while our enemies look on
and eat the dust; let not the king's breath depart from us.' The king
is the breath of his vassals' lives; they rejoice when it reaches them,
for without it they cannot live. The thought was a common one, and in
an Egyptian text the defeated Hittites are represented as saying to
Ramses II. 'in praising the Good God (_i.e._ the king) "Give to us the
breath that thou givest, lo, we are under thy sandals."' Equally
interesting are the words of the prince of Sidon on the receipt of
tidings from the king, 'my heart rejoiced, my head was uplifted and my
eyes shone.'

Finally, the king of Jerusalem in his letters to his god, his Sun,
protests that one has slandered him (_lit._ eaten the pieces). While
other writers {102} disclaim guilt or sin (_khitu_), _i.e._ rebellion,
he asserts that he has been loyal (_saduk_) in his dealings. He
acknowledges that neither his father nor his mother appointed him in
his place, the king's strong arm has set him up in his father's house,
he has 'put his name upon Jerusalem for ever,' therefore he cannot
abandon its territory. Indeed, his recognition of Pharaoh's supremacy
is unique, and in one of his communications to the king his Sun, after
the usual obeisance ('at the feet of my lord, seven times and seven
times I fall'), he declares that his lord 'has put his name upon the
East and upon the West.'

+The Underlying Identity of Thought+ throughout the old Oriental world

shows itself alike in Egyptian texts and in Hittite tablets from
Boghaz-keui. The literature of Babylonia, Assyria, and often, too, of
Egypt so frequently has analogies and parallels in the Old Testament,
that we may assume that similar points of contact would be found, had
we some of the religious writings of the Palestine of our period.
Though we do not know how the Palestinian addressed his gods, the
evidence whether direct or indirect partially enables us to fill the
gap. Even the simplicity and poverty of Oriental pastoral life have
never {103} been accompanied by a corresponding inferiority of
expression or dearth of religious reflection. An unbiased examination
of the external religious literature shows the position which the
deities held in the thoughts of their groups of worshippers. Religion
was quite part of life, and the same fundamental conceptions underlay
the manifold social-religious systems whether tribal or monarchical.
To their head each group looked for all the gifts of nature and also
for protection and succour; him they were loyally prepared to sustain,
and they expected a corresponding loyalty on his part.

A topical example of the identity of thought is furnished by a hymn of

the monotheist Ikhnaton in honour of Aton. The deities are largely
what circumstances make them; the extension of Egypt's empire extended
the supremacy of the national-god, the situation encouraged the
conception of a world-god. Now, this domesticated and somewhat weak
monarch, holding himself aloof from politics, endeavoured to found a
cult of the sun-disc which was characteristically devoid of the usual
association of the sun with the destructive aspect of the storm- or
weather-god. Like other individual faiths, it was stamped with a
profound spirit of humanity. Ikhnaton's deity {104} was the sole god,
beside whom there was no other; the beginning of life, the creator of
'the countries of Syria, Nubia, the land of Egypt'; the maker of all
mankind diverse in speech, and of all that is upon the earth and on
high. It was a despotic and ill-timed monotheism. It introduced a
cult which was too far from ordinary worship, one which threatened to
overthrow the old-established deities. What was probably more
important was the fact that the deity had not the forceful and
dominating attributes of the old sun-god. He was not a god of war,
and, from the current standpoint, would be of no avail in the political
storms which were beating upon the Egyptian empire in Asia. But this
remarkable attempt at a reform claims attention especially because the
cult was as little upon traditional and specifically Egyptian lines as
was the idea of the beneficent life-giving sun whose rays were not
confined to Egypt alone. As Professor Breasted has observed, the hymn
is especially interesting for its similarity in thought and sequence
with the late Psalm civ. There is no evidence, however, that any
effort was made to spread Ikhnaton's cult over the Egyptian dominions
in Western Asia, and the possibility of Asiatic influence upon the
shaping of the cult cannot be altogether excluded. We quote a {105}
few lines from Professor Breasted's translation to illustrate
Ikhnaton's conceptions of the sun-god, whose worship was one of the
most popular in Babylonia and Assyria, who, indeed, was regarded there
not merely as an illuminator but as a supreme and righteous judge, the
god of truth and justice.

'When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,

Thou fillest every land with thy beauty.
* * * * *
When thou settest in the western horizon of heaven,
The world is in darkness like the dead.
* * * * *
Bright is the earth when thou risest in the horizon,
When thou shinest as Aton by day.
The darkness is banished, when thou sendest forth thy rays.
* * * * *
How manifold are all thy works,
They are hidden from before us,
O thou sole god, whose powers no other possesseth,
Thou didst create the earth according to thy desire,
While thou wast alone.
* * * * *
The world is in thy hand,
Even as thou hast made them.
When thou hast risen, they live.
When thou settest, they die.
For thou art duration, beyond thy mere limbs,
By thee man liveth,
And their eyes look upon thy beauty,
Until thou settest.'[2]

[2] See further the appreciative account of the reform by J. H.

Breasted, _History of Egypt_, _pp._ 355-378.

{106}

+The Influence of Babylonia.+--The fact that Palestine used the script

and language of Babylonia suggests that it shared other features of its
culture. Among the Amarna Tablets were Babylonian mythological texts
which had been carefully studied or used for reading-exercises in
Egypt. One, the myth of Eresh-ki-gal and Nergal, narrating the descent
of the latter into Hades, recalls the story of Persephone. Another,
the myth of Adapa, tells how the hero who refused the food and water of
life in heaven was denied the gift of immortality. It is inconceivable
that Palestinian speculation did not turn to the mysteries of life and
death, or that a people should acknowledge Nergal--or any other
deity--without some formal beliefs. May we assume, therefore, that
Palestinian thought was pre-eminently Babylonian? The question is as
important for our period as for the Old Testament, and, in the absence
of texts wherewith to institute a comparison, we conclude with a brief
account of the bearing of the available evidence upon the problem.

The formulated beliefs, the theology, and the mythology which all races
possess to some degree or other have grown up from that primitive
philosophy of man which seeks to explain all that he saw about him.
The old question: {107} 'What mean ye by this service?' (Exod. xii. 26)
is typical of the inquiry which ritual (and indeed all other) acts
invariably demand; the danger lies in our assuming that the proffered
explanations necessarily describe their origin, and in confusing the
essential elements with those which are accidental and secondary. The
excavations at Gezer suggest an illustration. What rites were
practised in its caves or in the great tunnel which leads to the
subterranean spring cannot be asserted, but there is a living tradition
that the waters of the flood burst forth in the neighbourhood. Similar
flood-stories can be localised elsewhere. In Hierapolis water was
poured into a chasm below the sanctuary twice a year, and according to
the Pseudo-Lucian it was here that the waters of Deucalion's flood were
absorbed--hence the rite! But Melito reports that water was emptied
into a well in the city in order to subdue a subterranean
demon--evidently some earlier chthonic deity. Similar water-rites were
known in Palestine and Syria as a 'descent' or _Yerīd_, and it may
be presumed that an echo of the term survives in _'Ain Yerdeh_ at the
foot of Gezer. We do not reach the root of the matter, but we can
notice the diverse explanations of the same rite (which probably
originated in a charm {108} to procure rain), the ubiquity of certain
traditions, their persistence, and the ease with which they adjust
themselves. Further, it is instructive to observe how the rite has
been shaped in the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and has been dressed in
accordance with specific religious beliefs (cp. Zech. xiv. 16 _sq._).

Some archæological details may next be summarised. An altar at

Taanach, with protuberances suggestive of horns, bore in bold relief
winged animals with human faces, lions, a tree with a goat on either
side, and a small human figure clutching a serpent. Though it may
belong to the eighth or seventh century, similar scenes recur upon
seals and other objects of all dates. Animals (especially of the deer
or gazelle kind) are common, either alone or in conjunction with trees
or men. Man-headed bulls with wings, sphinxes, and scenes of combat
also appear. The ubiquitous myth of the dragon-slayer finds a parallel
in the Egyptian scene of a foreign god (Sutekh) piercing the serpent
with his spear, or in the later grandiose representations of the sturdy
boy at Petra who grips the dragon.[3] One {109} seal shows a
seven-branched tree grasped by two men with the sun and moon on one
side and two stags on the other. In a second, a human figure stands
before a kind of pillar which is surmounted by an eight-rayed star. A
third had been impressed upon a tablet from Gezer which bore nineteen
distinct objects, including sun, moon, star, serpent, fish, crab,
animals, etc. Some of the signs were at once recognised as zodiacal,
and less elaborate specimens from Gezer and Megiddo furnish parallels.
But inscribed Babylonian boundary-stones of our period bear analogous
symbols; they are the emblems of the deities whose powers are thus
invoked by the inscription should the land-mark be damaged or removed.
The more gods, the more powerful the charm.

[3] The former is given by F. L. Griffith, _Proceedings of the Society

of Biblical Archæology_, xvi. p. 87, the latter by A. Jeremias, _Alte
Test._, etc., p. 456 _sqq._, fig. 151.

Such objects with all their Babylonian associations may in certain

cases have been imported or copied from foreign originals; the scenes
could have been absolutely meaningless or even subject to a new
interpretation. But it is as difficult to treat every apparently
foreign object as contrary to Palestinian ideas, as it is to determine
how sacrificial and other scenes would otherwise have been depicted.
Religion found its expression in art; art was the ally of idolatry, and
the later uncompromising attitude of Judaism towards {110} display of
artistic meaning implies that the current symbolism, etc., reflected
intelligible religious conceptions. But it does not follow that these
conceptions were everywhere identical.

Again, when a scimitar from a tomb at Gezer resembles that which a

priest holds in a sacrificial scene upon a Gezer seal, we may suppose
that the seal represents a familiar Palestinian ceremony. But the same
type of weapon is found in Assyria and Egypt in the age of the
Nineteenth Dynasty, and it is therefore impossible to treat it or the
scene as _distinctively_ Palestinian. The ubiquity of the
dragon-conflict, too, warns us that the same underlying motive will
present itself in a great variety of external shapes, and it is
interesting to find that the idea of the slayer as a _child_ actually
points away from Babylonia. Features which find their only parallel in
the accumulation of Babylonian evidence are not inevitably of
Babylonian origin. Our land was exposed to diverse influences, an
illustration of which is afforded by certain seals with cuneiform
characters. The owner of one is styled a servant of Nergal (see p.
93); it bears Egyptian symbols (those of life and beauty), and a scene
of adoration, partly Egyptian and partly Babylonian in treatment. It
has been ascribed to the First Dynasty of Babylon. Later {111} come
the seals of the Sidonian Addumu 'beloved of the gods (?)' and his son;
on one is an Egyptianised representation of Set, Horus, and Resheph.
Yet another combines two conventional scenes, the priest leading a
worshipper before a deity (Babylonian), a king slaying a kneeling enemy
(Egyptian).[4] In the presence of such fusion the problem becomes more
complex. If, in the Greek age, it is found that Adonis and Osiris or
Astarte of Byblos and Isis resembled each other so closely that it was
sometimes difficult to determine which deity was being celebrated, the
relation between the Baalath of Byblos and Hathor, or between Shamash
and Amon-Re could have been equally embarrassing in our period. In
fact, as Palestine continues to be brought into line with other lands
the task of determining _specific_ external influences becomes more
intricate.

[4] See (_a_), Sellin, _Tell Ta'annek_, fig. 22, _pp._ 27 _sq._, 105
(Vincent, _Canaan_, fig. 117, p. 170 _sq._); (_b_) Winckler,
_Altorient. Forschungen_, iii. p. 177 _sq._; and (_c_) E. J. Pilcher,
_Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, xxiii. p. 362.

Finally, whatever was the true effect of the early Babylonian

supremacy, both Palestine and Syria, when not controlled by Egypt, were
influenced by the northern power of Mitanni and by the Hittites who
preserve distinctive features {112} of their own. According to
Professor Sayce most of the seals we have been noticing are Syrian
modifications of the Babylonian type, and 'the more strictly
archæological evidence of Babylonian influence upon Canaan is
extraordinarily scanty.'[5] It is obvious that one must allow for the
direct influence exerted upon the religious conditions from a quarter
of which very little is known as yet. The fact that Babylonian was
used in Palestine and among the Hittite peoples clearly does not allow
sweeping inferences. Indeed, so far from the script or language having
been imposed from without, the people of Mitanni apparently borrowed
the cuneiform script and adapted it to their own language; while, in
the Amarna Tablets, the native tongue of Palestine and Syria has left a
distinct impress upon the Babylonian.[6] This individuality repeats
itself in Palestinian pottery, which has neither originality of concept
nor fertility of resource. But it has vigour and vitality, and has not
developed into the superior art with which it came into contact. In
general the archæological evidence shows very {113} clearly that
Palestine was not absorbed by Babylonian culture, still less by that of
Egypt.[7]

[5] A. H. Sayce, _Archæology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_ (London,

1907), _pp._ 151 _sq._

[6] For Mitanni, see Sayce, _op. cit._, p. 167; and for the dialect of
the Amarna letters, Zimmern, _Keilinschr. u. d. Alte Test._, p. 651.

[7] Cp. Vincent, _op. cit._, p. 341 (also p. 439 and note 1).

+Conclusion.+--Recent research gives us a glimpse of the Religion of

Ancient Palestine which becomes more distinct as it is found to be in
general harmony with Oriental religions. The picture, as we see it, is
neither Egyptian nor Babylonian, and if the latter colours it, this was
inevitable, partly through the still obscure relations under the First
Babylonian Dynasty, partly (though indirectly) through the influence of
the northern peoples, and again partly because both (as opposed to
Egypt) are Semitic. The picture, nevertheless, has distinctive traits
of its own. By the side of sacred places of cult and rites often cruel
and gross appear those indications of loftier elements which prove that
we have no mere inchoate nature-worship. This co-existence need cause
no surprise. The institutions which combine to make civilisation do
not necessarily move at the same rate or in parallel lines, either with
each other or with the progress of religious thought. A variety of
stages of development--such as can be observed in a single province of
modern India--could have been easily found amid {114} conflicting
political groups, or in the presence of foreign mercenaries or
settlers. One may also assume that then, as now, there were the usual
contrasts between the exposed sea-ports and the small inland townships,
between the aristocracy and the peasantry, between the settled
agriculturists and the roaming sons of the desert.

The fundamental religious conceptions have from time to time been

elevated and ennobled by enlightened minds; but what European culture
was unable to change in the age of Greek and Roman supremacy,
influences of Oriental origin could not expel. Official cults,
iconoclastic reforms, new positive religions have left the background
substantially unaltered, and the old canvas still shows through the
coatings it has received.

Our evidence has taken us down through the age of Egyptian supremacy,
which can be traced to the time of Ramses III., if not to the days of
Wenamon and Zakarbaal (1100 B.C.). With the decay of Egypt we reach
the close of a period which corresponds broadly to that wherein
Israelite history has placed the Patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, and the
Judges. The picture which the external sources furnish was not effaced
at a stroke. But the transformation from Egypt's suzerainty to an
independent Israelite monarchy, {115} from the polytheism of the Amarna
age to the recognition of a single God does not belong to these pages.
The rise of Yahweh as the national God, and the development of
conceptions regarding his nature must be sought in the native Israelite
records themselves, and in such external evidence as the future may
produce. Our task is finished when we point out that the external
(archæological) evidence does not reveal that hiatus which would have
ensued had there been a dislocation of earlier conditions by invading
Israelite tribes; earlier forms are simply developed, the evolution is
a progressive one.[8]

[8] Cp. R. A. S. Macalister, 'Excavation of Gezer,' _Quarterly

Statements_, 1904, p. 123; 1907, p. 203; Sellin, _op. cit._, p. 102;
_id._, _Der Ertrag der Ausgrabungen in Orient für die Erkenntnis der
Entwicklung der Religion Israels_ (Leipzig, 1905), _pp._ 33, 36 _sq._,
39 _sq._, see, in general, Vincent, _op. cit._, _pp._ 19 _sq._, 147
_sqq._, 199-204, 225, 345, 352 _sq._, 463 _sq._, and S. A. Cook,
_English Historical Review_, 1908, _pp._ 325 _sq._

{116}

PRINCIPAL SOURCES AND WORKS OF REFERENCE

For the Excavations: R. A. S. Macalister, 'Reports on the Excavation of

Gezer,' in the _Quarterly Statements_ of the Palestine Exploration Fund
(October 1902-October 1905; July 1907-July 1908); _id._, _Bible
Side-lights from the Mound of Gezer_ (London, 1906, numerous
illustrations); Ernst Sellin, 'Tell Ta'annek,' in the _Denkschriften_
of the Vienna Academy (1904-5); W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Researches in
Sinai_ (London, 1906); Hugues Vincent, _Canaan d'après l'Exploration
Recente_ (Paris, 1907; a valuable account, from the archæological
standpoint, of the results of excavation contained in the above works
and elsewhere); G. Schumacher, _Tell el-Mutesellim_ (Leipzig, 1908),
vol. i., text and plates.

Evidence from Babylonian or Assyrian Texts: H. Winckler, _The

Tell-el-Amarna Tablets_ (London, 1896); new edition by J. A. Knudtzon,
_Die El-Amarna-Tafeln_ (Leipzig, 1907-8; Parts i.-x.); H. Zimmern, _Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_ (Berlin, 1903; pp. 345-643); A.
Jeremias, _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients_ (Leipzig,
1906); M. Jastrow, _Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens_ (Giessen,
1905--).

Egyptian Sources: W. M. Müller, _Asien und Europa nach Alt-ägyptischen

Denkmälern_ (Leipzig, 1893); {117} J. H. Breasted, _History of Egypt_
(London, 1906); _id._, _Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents_
(1906-7); _Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache_, etc. etc.

Of general works, W. R. Smith, _Lectures on the Religion of the

Semites: the Fundamental Institutions_ (London, 1894), is naturally
indispensable. Important, also, are G. A. Barton, _A Sketch of Semitic
Origins, Social and Religious_ (New York, 1902); Marie-Joseph Lagrange,
_Études sur les Religions Sémitiques_ (Paris, 1905); J. G. Frazer,
_Adonis, Attis, and Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental
Religion_ (London, 1907). For Modern Semitic Religion there is a large
mass of scattered evidence; the most illuminating works are those of C.
M. Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_ (Cambridge, 1888); S. I. Curtiss,
_Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_ (London, 1902); A. Jaussen,
_Coutumes des Arabes au Pays de Moab_ (Paris, 1908). For the history
of the period may be consulted the works of G. Maspero (_Histoire
Ancienne_; Paris, 1904, etc.), or the popular account, with typical
illustrations, by G. Cormack, _History of Palestine in Early Times_
(forthcoming).

For those unacquainted with modern comparative study in the field of

religion, one of the most serviceable introductory books is J. A.
Macculloch's _Comparative Theology_ (Churchman's Library, London, 1902).

{118}

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

The following dates are based upon the latest researches, but are to be
regarded as provisional. Some Biblical dates are added for comparison,
those marked with an asterisk follow the margin of the Authorised
Version.

FIRST BABYLONIAN DYNASTY (the

'Khammurabi age') between . . . . . . . . . . . . 2060-1800 B.C.

TWELFTH EGYPTIAN DYNASTY, began about . . . . . . . 2000.

Abram enters Canaan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1921*.
Descent of Jacob into Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . 1706*.
Hyksos invasion of Egypt, about . . . . . . . . . . 1680.

EIGHTEENTH EGYPTIAN DYNASTY . . . . . . . . . . . . 1580-1350.

Thutmose III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1500.
Exodus of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1491*.
Invasion of Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1451*.
Amenhotep III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1411.
Amenhotep IV. (Ikhnaton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1375.

NINETEENTH EGYPTIAN DYNASTY . . . . . . . . . . . . 1350-1200.

Sety I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1320.
Ramses II. (? Pharaoh of the oppression,
Exod. i. 11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310.
Merneptah (? Pharaoh of the Exodus;
defeats Israel in Palestine) . . . . . . . . . . . 1244.

TWENTIETH EGYPTIAN DYNASTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1200-1090.

Ramses III. (first mention of Philistines) . . . . . 1200-1169.
Ramses XII. (? age of Eli) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118.
Tiglath-pileser I., about . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100.
Saul, King of Israel (? 1025) . . . . . . . . . . . 1095*.
David, King of Judah (? 1010) . . . . . . . . . . . 1056*.
Solomon, about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 970.

{119}

INDEX

ADDU, weather-god, 79, 89 _sq._, 95.

Adonis, 36, 47, 92, 111.

Aegean isles, 6, 8.

Agriculture, 7, 9 _sq._, 11, 33 _sq._, 88, 90.

Allah, 21, 61, 68.

Altar, 18 _sqq._, 27, 39, 108.

Amarna tablets, 6 8, 10, 33, 63, 76, 78, 92, 96, 98 _sqq._, 106, 112,
etc.

Amenhotep II., 44.

Amenhotep III., 5 _sq._, 56, 70 _sq._, 81, 118.

Amenhotep IV. _See_ Ikhnaton.

Amon, the god, 54 _sq._, 61, 71, 74 _sqq._, 77 _sq._, 81, 95, 111.
_See_ Re.

Amulets, 17, 32, 35, 38, 51 _sq._

Anath, goddess, 85.

Ancestor-worship, 57 _sqq._

Animals, 22, 30 _sq._, 39_sq._, 43 _sqq._, 47 _sqq._, 50, 61, 85, 108
_sq._

Animism, 60.

Anointing, 14, 27, 42, 64, 76, 79.

Anubis, 96.

Anthropomorphism, 28, 49.

Apollo, 23, 84.

Arabia, 7, 87 _sq._, 92.

Archæology, 2, 7 _sq._, etc.

Arts, 8 _sq._, 112 _sq._

_Ashērah_, 26, 87.

Ashirat, Ashirta, goddess, 53, 87.

Tell 'Ashtarah, 77, 81.

Ashur, the god, 53, 87 _sq._, 92.

Assyria, 5, 7, 39, 62, 78, 87 _sqq._, 92, 102.

Astarte, 29 _sq._, 45, 49, 70, 73, 86 _sq._

Atargatis, 31.

Aton, 103 _sqq._

BAAL (title 'lord'), 66 _sq._ _See_ Heaven.

Baal (proper name), 33, 84, 89.

Baalath (title 'lady'), 66, 86. _See_ Byblos.

Baal-Zephon, 86.

Babylonia, 4 _sq._, 10, 30, 62, 70, 87, 90 _sqq._, 94, 102, 106 _sqq._,
110 _sqq._, 118.

Bes, 96.

Blood-revenge, 42.

Bludan (near Damascus), 46.

Broken offerings, 45 _sq._

Bull, 32, 90 _sq._

Burial, 15, 17 _sq._, 36 _sq._, 40. _See_ Dead.

Byblos, 66, 74 _sq._, 83, 100. _See_ Zakarbaal.

CAMEL, 17, 45, 48.

Cannibalism, 38.

Carthage, 3, 27, 31, 34 _sq._, 39, 41, 43, 72.

Caves, 15 _sq._, 19 _sq._, 24, 34, 38, 41, 46, 53, 107.

Charms, 32, 38, 51 _sq._, 107, 109.

Cobra, model of, 15, 48.

Cremation, 34, 40, 56.

Cup-marks, 14, 16, 20, 26, 35 _sq._

Curse, 72, 90, 98.

DAGON, 92.

Dead, disposal of, 22, 34 _sqq._; in religion, 55 _sqq._, 58 _sqq._, 75.

Demons, 50 _sq._, 64, 71.

Derceto, 31.
Dog, 22, 100.

Dreams, 25, 52 _sq._

EGYPT, historical sketch, 4 _sqq._; influence of national cult, 74

_sqq._, 95 _sqq._; received Asiatic gods, 83 _sqq._, etc.

El (title 'god'), 66 _sq._, 69.

El (proper name), 91, 93 _sq._

Emblems, 32, 72, 109.

FETISH, 27, 32.

Fish, 31 _sq._, 109.

Foundation sacrifice, 39 _sq._, 43.

GAD (the god), 92.

Gaza, 33.

Gezer, 6, 8 _sq._, 13 _sqq._, 17, 19, 28, 30, 34, 37 _sqq._, 44 _sqq._,
76, 80, 88, 107, 109 _sq._

Gods. _See_ chaps. vi. and vii.; gods and animals, 47 _sqq._; demons
and spirits, 50, 64; kinship with men, 61 _sqq._; their human
representatives, 54 _sq._, 57, 59, 62 _sqq._; their vicissitudes, 66
_sqq._; subordinate gods, 68, 69 _sq._, 96 _sq._; national gods, 64
_sq._, 67 _sqq._; lord or king of gods, 74, 77, 84, 95. _See_ Saints.

Gudea, 62.

HADAD, 57, 89 _sq._ _See_ Addu.

Hathor, 26, 30, 70, 76, 81, 85, 111.

Heaven, king or lord of (title), 66, 72 _sqq._, 84, 87 _sqq._, 91; lady
or mistress of, 70 _sq._, 73, 85 _sq._

Hittites, 5 _sq._, 71, 73 _sq._, 78, 81, 88, 90 _sq._, 96, 101 _sq._,
111 _sq._

Holy, sacred, 34, 46 _sqq._, 85.

Horus, 111.

Horus-eyes, 52.

Human sacrifices, 38 _sqq._, 42 _sq._

Hyksos invasion, 4 _sq._, 82 _sq._, 118.

IDOLS, 17, 26, 28 _sq._, 31 _sq._, 49, 53 _sq._, 71 _sq._, 77.

Ikhhaton, 5, 42, 103 _sqq._, 118.

Infant burial or sacrifice, 15 _sqq._, 36 _sqq._, 93 _sq._

Ishtar, 70 _sq._, 87 _sq._, 95.

Isis, 96, 111.

Israel, Israelite religion, 1 _sqq._, 6, 8, 10 _sq._, 17, 33 _sq._, 36,

39 _sqq._, 42 _sq._, 47 _sq._, 64, 80, 86, 88, 94, 102, 104, 106, 108
_sq._, 114 _sq._

JEHOVAH. _See_ Yahweh.

Jericho, 8, 10, 32, 88.

Jerusalem, 5, 14, 20, 53, 92, 96, 101 _sq._

_Jinn_ (demon, _q.v._), 40, 54.

_Kādēsh_ ('holy'), 34, 85.

Khammurabi, 62, 72, 78, 90 _sq._, 118.

Khiba, 96.

Khonsu, 71.

Kings, divinity of, 59, 61 _sqq._, 78 _sq._, 98; their breath or

spirit, 101.

Kinship with supernatural beings, 60 _sq._, 62 _sq._, 83 _sq._

LACHISH, 7, 30.

Lamps, 25, 35, 40 _sq._, 94.

Lebanon, 28, 77, 87.

Legends, 23, 49. _See_ Myths.

Lion, 49, 84.

Loyalty (_s-d-k_), 102 _sq._

MAGIC, 34, 38, 51, 53, 55.

Megiddo, 8, 17, 28, 31, 40, 49, 76, 79, 109.

Melek (king), 94.

Merneptah, 6, 33, 53, 118.

Mesha, king of Moab, 11, 80.

Messianic ideals, 64.

Mitanni, 5, 70, 111 _sq._

Mohammedanism, 21 _sq._, 40, 68 _sq._ _See_ Palestine.

Molech, 94.

Monotheistic tendencies, 5, 23, 67 _sqq._, 72 _sq._, 81, 95 _sq._, 103

_sq._

Moon god, 88 _sq._

Murder, 42.

Myths, 49, 62, 86, 106 _sqq._, 110 _sq._

NAME, 44, 57 _sq._, 60, 81, 99, 102.

Nebo, 92.

Nergal, 93, 106, 110.

Nin-gal, 89.

Ninib, 47, 92.

Nusku, 89, 94.

OATH, 21, 100.

Oracles, 25, 52 _sq._

Oriental thought, 11, 102, 113.

Ornaments, 52.

Osiris, 26, 38, 47, 75, 96.

PALESTINE, history, 4 _sqq._; land and people, 8 _sqq._; modern

religion, 21 _sqq._, 25, 37, 39 _sqq._, 43 _sq._, 46, 50, 53, 59, 68
_sq._; its gods, chaps. vi. _sq._; thought, 98 _sqq._; chronology, 118.

Petra, 19 _sq._; 108.

Philistines, 7, 80. _See_ Dagon.

Phoenician gods, 72, 92 _sq._

Pillars, 13 _sqq._, 26 _sq._, 109.

Politics and religion, 64 _sq._, 67 _sq._, 72, 78, 80.

Prophets, 54 _sq._, 86.

Ptah, 53, 96.

RAM, 30.

Ramman, 87, 89.

Ramses II., 6, 44, 58, 62, 71, 73, 77, 81, 85, 101, 118.

Ramses III., 7, 70, 77, 114, 118.

'Ransom,' the, 43 _sq._

Re, 63, 71, 73. _See_ Amon.

Resheph, 84 _sq._, 87, 92, 111.

SACRIFICE, 15 _sqq._, 22, 25, 27, 36, 38 _sqq._, 41 _sqq._, 79.

es-Sāfy, 7, 17, 19, 30.

Saints (welis, etc., in modern Palestine); virtually local gods, 21

_sqq._, 24 _sq._; their vicissitudes, 23; resemble those of the gods,
67 _sq._; appear in animal form, 22, 50; physical fathers, 59, 61.
_See_ Gods, Tombs.

Samson, 88.

Sanctuaries, 13 _sqq._, 77; their persistence, 19 _sqq._; in modern

religion, 21 _sqq._, 24, 37.

Seals, 93, 108 _sqq._

Sebek, 96.

Serabit el-khadem (Sinaitic peninsula), 7, 15, 19, 26 _sq._, 32, 41,

45, 52, 69, 84.

Seraph, 93.

Serpents, 15, 32, 48, 108.

Set. _See_ Sutekh.

Sety I., 6, 58, 77, 118.

Shalem, 92.

Shamash, sun (-deity), 70 _sq._, 78 _sqq._, 88 _sqq._, 93, 95 _sq._,

98, 111. _See_ Sun.

Shamshi-Adad, 91.

Sin, 55, 100, 102.

Sin (the god), 66, 88 _sq._

Sinuhe, 9, 35.

Soul, the, 37, 41, 45, 57.

Spirits, 50 _sqq._

Stones, 13 _sqq._, 26 _sq._, 32.

Sun-god. _See_ Amon, King, Re, Shamash.

Susa (in Elam), 38, 54.

Sutekh (Set), title and proper-name (cp. Baal, El), 73 _sq._, 82, 84,
108, 111.

Swine, 16, 48, 92.

Symbols. _See_ Emblems.

TAANACH, 8, 18, 29, 40, 53, 93 _sq._, 108.

Teshub, 70 _sq._, 89.

Thought, Oriental, 11, 102 _sqq._

Thutmose III., 5, 9, 28, 77, 85, 94, 118.

Tiglath-pileser I., 7, 81, 118.

Tombs, 19, 21 _sqq._, 35 _sqq._, 46, 59.

Trees, 25 _sq._

Tushratta (King of Mitanni), 56, 70 _sq._

UNCLEAN, 47 _sq._

VOWS, 46.

WAR, 22, 39, 72, 80, 82, 84 _sqq._, 90, 93, 95, 104.

Water-rites, 107 _sq._

Weli (patron). _See_ Saint.

Wenamon. _See_ Zakarbaal.

YAHWEH, 94 _sq._ _See_ Israel.

ZAKARBAAL, 54, 56, 74 _sq._, 78, 114.

Tell Zakariya, 31.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN.

ANIMISM.

By EDWARD CLODD, Author of _The Story of Creation_.

PANTHEISM.

By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON, Author of _The Religion of the Universe_.

THE RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA.

By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese in the University of

Cambridge.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.

By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, Author of

_Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion_.

ISLAM.

By SYED AMEER ALI, M.A., C.I.E., late of H.M.'s High Court of

Judicature in Bengal, Author of _The Spirit of Islam_ and _The Ethics
of Islam_.

MAGIC AND FETISHISM.

By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at Cambridge

University.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.

THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of the British Museum.

BUDDHISM. 2 vols.

By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The Royal Asiatic

Society.

HINDUISM.

By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and

MSS., British Museum.

SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION.

By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the _Oxford English Dictionary_.

CELTIC RELIGION.

By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University College,

Aberystwyth.

THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

By CHARLES SQUIRE, Author of _The Mythology of the British Islands_.

JUDAISM.

By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge

University, Author of _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_.

SHINTO. By W. G. ASTON, C.M.G.

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU.

By LEWIS SPENCE, M.A.

THE RELIGION OF THE HEBREWS.

By Professor JASTROW.

Transcriber's notes:

Plus signs (+) denote +bolded+ characters.

Underscores (_) denote _italics_.

Page numbers are shown in curly braces, e.g. "{4}".

Footnote numbers are shown in square brackets, e.g. "[4]".

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Stanley A. Cook

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