CHAPTER IX. PRE-PROPHETIC RELIGION CONTINUED-VISIBLE The calf-worship considered, as to the source from which it came, and as to the regard in which it was held-Arguments of Vatke and Kuenen from history and from prophetical books-Elijah and Elisha-Amos— Dr Davidson's statement-Argument drawn from the ephod-Meaning of the word, and its alleged use to signify an image―Gideon's ephodMicah and the Danites-Vatke's account of the ephod-Kuenen's contradictory accounts-The whole argument uncertain-Stade's pruningknife—“ An altar in the land of Egypt and a pillar by its border”A passage in Iosca examined. WE have next to consider the proofs brought forward to show that the Israelites, like the neighbouring nations, were in the habit of making visible representations of their national God, and considered it no aberration from their ancestral faith to do so. On this line of argument, reliance is particularly placed upon such facts as the practice of calf-worship, the use and veneration of the ephod, and various considerations drawn from the prophetical and historical writings. These we must therefore consider in detail. I. As to the calf-worship, Kuenen says confidently: "Jahveh was worshipped in the shape of a young bull. It may not be doubted that the bull-worship was really the worship of Jahveh."1 The account given of the making of the golden calf in the wilderness (Exod. xxxii. 8, 23), and the setting up of calves in the northern kingdom (1 Kings xii. 28), show plainly enough that there was something in this form or accompaniment of worship, which not only did not shock the religious sense of the mass of the people, but even commended itself to them as fitting and lawful. The question is, Was it part and parcel of the ancestral faith and worship, to such a degree that the preservers of the true Jahaveh tradition saw in it no defection from the severity of that religion? To arrive at a solution of this question, we must inquire, (a) on the one hand, from what source the calf-worship came -whether, that is to say, it is a remnant of old preMosaic or even pre-Abrahamic superstition cropping up at a later time, or whether it came along with and as part of the Israelite belief in Jahaveh, or finally, whether it was borrowed and incorporated into their own religion from the religion of some other people; and (b) on the other hand, whether it is formally approved of or not reprobated by those who in the most special manner stood forth as representatives of the true Jahaveh worship. (a) As to the origin of the calf-worship, there is much to be said in favour of the view that the Israelites became familiar with it in Egypt, and brought it with them as an inheritance of degradation from that country. The Old Testament writers do not say that it was borrowed from Egypt-indeed they do not tell us whence it came-but there remain the two facts, that it appeared first in the history immediately after the exodus, and that Jeroboam I., who set it up in the northern kingdom, had lived for some time in Egypt and had a patron in the Pharaoh of Relig. of Israel (Eng. tr.), vol. i. p. 235. 1 The Calf-Worship. 217 his time. Moreover, we find even as late as Ezekiel the firm tradition of an early corruption of Israelite faith with the superstitions of Egypt. In several passages that prophet speaks of the "idols of Egypt" (xx. 7, 8) as having had a sinister influence on Israel at the time of the exodus; and of the whoredoms in Egypt committed in the nation's youth (xxiii. 3, 8, 19, 21). In the same way, in the parting address of Joshua, the gods which their fathers served beyond the river are classed with those which they served in Egypt as corruptions to be put away (Josh. xxiv. 14). It is true that in these passages the worship of the calf or the ox is not expressly mentioned; but when it is remembered that the city of On, in which the ox Mnevis was worshipped, lay in Goshen or on its borders,1 the coincidence of the appearance of the calf-worship immediately after the exodus 2 with these references to Egyptian idolatry, is very striking and suggestive. Gramberg, for example, who derived the calfworship from Egypt, explained its prevalence in Israel after this fashion: The worship of Apis, once borrowed by a people prone to a visible cultus, maintained itself all along as a private and unofficial worship, side by side with the ritual connected with the ark. Jeroboam, seeing that the Jerusalem Court had possession of the ark, and that the Temple ritual had no image, made the worship of Jahaveh Apis the official cultus in his new state, this arrangement being favoured by the fact that Dan 1 Ebers in Riehm's Handwörterbuch, Art. On, p. 1111 f. Comp. p. 529, Art. Gosen. It may be observed in passing, that modern critics, as a rule, find no difficulty in accepting as a historical fact the making of the golden calf in the desert, although they will not admit that the tabernacle was also made in the wilderness. Kuenen is consistent in saying (Rel. Isr., i. p. 235) "it is doubtful whether the bull-worship in the desert is historical." was already the seat of an image - worship of Jahaveh, though not perhaps of the calf - worship.1 There is the obvious objection to this theory, that a people just delivered from bondage to a foreign yoke was not likely to set up as a symbol of the God that delivered them the very image of the god of their oppressors. Moreover, although the Egyptians carried about images of bulls in sacred processions, yet the object of their veneration was a live bull, Apis. The difficulty indeed is so great, that we are rather led to believe that the calf, whatever else it was to Israel, was not the actual symbol of any Egyptian deity, but was adopted as a distinctive symbol of their own god by a people whose religious sense had been so utterly debauched by residence in Egypt, that they considered some visible representation of the deity necessary. Their long sojourn among a people whose religious service was so overlaid with symbolism and imagery could not have been without its effect in this direction; just as there are in the ritual and other laws of the Hebrews very striking resemblances to the customs of Egypt-in the Urim and Thummim, for example. The readiness, nay eagerness, with which the people in the desert accepted the golden calf as the symbol of the God that had brought them out of Egypt, the ease with which the worship of the calves was introduced by Jeroboam, and the fact that in both cases a calf or young bull was taken as a symbol, are thought by some to have a deeper root. The golden calf in the desert could scarcely have been a sudden thought; and we must either think of Israel having become thoroughly impregnated with Egyptian idolatrous notions, or having even in their own blood, so to speak, a leaning in that direction. 1 Gramberg, Krit. Gesch. d. Religionsideen des A. T. (1829), i. p. 444. It is still more difficult to explain Jeroboam's step as a simple imitation of the gods of Egypt. He could hardly, one would think, have appealed to Aaron's act as a precedent; although, indeed, the people in the desert is represented as using the same language as Jeroboam (comp. Exod. xxxii. 4, 8, with 1 Kings xii. 28). Nor could his action have well commended itself to the acceptance of a people who had ceased to have sympathy with such visible representations of the deity from the time of the exodus. Hence some of the soberer critics of modern times believe that the representation of the deity in this form was an old Hebrew idea, or one of those ideas common to the Hebrews, with their Semitic kindred and other nations. Against this view it may be urged that in the stories of Abraham and the other patriarchs there is no reference to calf or ox worship as remaining elements of pre-Abrahamic religion, although teraphim are mentioned as remaining in the family of Jacob. Yet since Abraham is represented as coming forth from an idolatrous land, since the symbolism of bulls was common in Assyria, and since the Israelites took to this form of representation so easily, there is a good deal of support for the view that it rests on an old inherent conception. We must not ignore the fact that there is ever in the human mind a craving for visible forms to express religious conceptions; and history shows that this tendency does not disappear with the acceptance nor even with the constant recognition of pure spiritual truth. We need not be astonished at Israel, at the time in question, manifesting the tendency, nor charge them with a crass materialistic idolatry in so doing. They wished, let us suppose, to have 1 See their names in König's Hauptprobleme, p. 57, from which, also, a good deal of what is here stated is derived. |