History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of morals

by P. V. N. Myers

I. The Religious Basis of Hebrew Morality

Introductory: Israel’s historic task a moral one

To the pious Hebrew the rainbow, which to the esthetic Greek was merely the beautiful pathway of Iris, the messenger of Olympus, was Yahweh’s bow hung out from the dark retreating thundercloud as a sign of righteous anger spent and the pledge of a divine covenant and promise. In this ethical interpretation by the Hebrew spirit of this portent is foretokened the history and mission of ancient Israel. It was her allotted task to interpret in ethical terms the phenomena of the world of nature and the drama of human life and history. And it was her happy lot to become the teacher to mankind of the truth of an alone and righteous God, and to be the creator of a moral ideal which is to-day the highest ethical standard of all the races of the Western world, and the most vital moral force at work in universal history.

In the short account which we shall give of Hebrew morality we shall adopt a mode of treatment somewhat different from that followed in describing the moral systems of the peoples already passed in review, for the reason that in the case of the ancient Hebrews the historical material is sufficiently abundant to enable us to trace step by step the development of the ethical ideal and to watch the gradual clarification of the moral consciousness of the race.[334] Hence, after speaking of the religious ideas which formed the basis of the moral code, we shall sketch briefly the evolution of the rudimentary morality of the tribal age of the nation into the high ideal of the prophets of the later time.

The conception of deity; monolatry and monotheism

We have seen how the Persian view of deity molded Persian morality. In a still more decisive way did the Hebrew idea of God, of his character and his relation to Israel and the world, shape and mold the moral ideal of the race.[335]

When the Hebrews in the second millennium before Christ appeared in history, they were in possession of a stock of ideas concerning the gods which was, in all essentials save one, altogether like that held by their Semitic kinsmen of the various lands of southwestern Asia. The single essential point of difference between their religious belief and that of their neighbors was this: the nations about them were polytheists; they were monolatrists; that is, the Hebrews, while they believed in many gods, worshiped only one god, their tribal god Yahweh. As Stade expresses it, “the old Israelite was a theoretical polytheist, but a practical monotheist.”[336]

There is scarcely need that we add in qualification of this, that when the Hebrews first appeared in history they were not all monolatrists. The multitude were then, and for a long time thereafter, polytheists. All that can be affirmed is that in the earliest times of their history there were among them teachers of monolatrism, teachers who inculcated the duty of worshiping a single god, the patron and champion of the nation.

Through what experiences and under what tuition these teachers of Israel made the passage in thought from polytheism to monolatrism we need not now inquire. For our purpose we need simply note the fact and emphasize its supreme historical importance. It marks the beginning of a divergent evolution in religious belief and ethical conviction which in the lapse of time was to lead Israel far apart from her Semitic kinsmen, and make her the standard bearer of a universal religion and a universal morality. For monolatry was with the prophets and seers of Israel only the first step toward monotheism, the doctrine that there is only one God, the Universal Father. This idea of deity was not reached much before the time of the Second Isaiah. Along with this later view of Yahweh there came the thought and conviction that he is a God of absolute righteousness. This conception of God and of his character was, as we shall see, an idea charged with the deepest significance not only for the ethical development in Israel but for the moral life of all mankind.

The belief in a supernaturally revealed law

After this conception of Yahweh, first as a jealous tribal deity and later as the sole God and Universal Father, the belief in a supernaturally revealed law wherein all the duties of man were made known was the most potent force in molding the moral ideal of Israel. It was this belief which made the chief duty of man to be unquestioning obedience to the divine commandments; for the revealed law was the measure of duty—what it enjoined was right, what it forbade was wrong.

This investiture of an outer law, conceived to be of supernatural origin, with sovereign authority over man’s every act, and the subordination to it of the inner law of the individual conscience, had consequences of vast importance for the ethical evolution not only in ancient Israel but also among all the peoples whose moral ideal was essentially an inheritance from her. For where the full duty of man is made to consist in obedience to the minute requirements of an external law there is inevitably created a morality made up largely of artificial ritual duties, and as intelligence grows and the moral consciousness deepens and clarifies, there necessarily arises a conflict between this conventional morality and the natural morality of the human reason and conscience. In such a conflict, in this way created, within the moral life of Israel centers the dramatic interest of her moral history.

Special ground of the Israelites’ feeling that obedience to the law was their highest duty

There was a special reason why the Israelites felt that their first duty was absolute obedience to the revealed will of Yahweh. They possessed a tradition which told how their fathers were serfs in the land of Egypt; how Yahweh, through his servant Moses, had intervened in their behalf, and with a strong arm and with mighty signs had brought them up out of the land of bondage; and how at Mt. Sinai he had entered into a covenant with them in which he pledged to them his powerful protection on condition of their fidelity in his worship and obedience to all his commandments.

This belief was the germ out of which grew most of what was unique in the ethical development of Israel.[337] It played exactly the same part in creating and molding the religious conscience of Israel that the Christian’s belief in the descent of the Son of God into the world and his voluntary death to effect man’s deliverance has had in molding the religious conscience of Christendom. As we advance in our study we shall see how largely the moral consciousness of the Israelites was a creation of this belief in a most sacred covenant between Yahweh and their fathers at the “Terrible Mount” in the wilderness.

The rite of sacrifice

We have seen that religion on the lower levels of culture consists largely in sacrifice; that is, in gifts or offerings either to the spirits of the dead or to the gods. The religion of the ancient Hebrews did not differ in this respect from the religion of other peoples in the same stage of culture.[338] But the evolution of the rite of sacrifice among the Israelites differs from its development among all other peoples in that, under the influence of the Hebrew spirit, the rite was gradually reduced to symbolism and spiritualized. In this process it underwent the most remarkable metamorphoses. Beginning with meat and drink offerings from man to God, it ends with God giving himself a sacrifice for man. The system thus transformed became the great inspirer of ethical sentiment and a unique vehicle of moral instruction.

The vagueness of the belief in an after life

The Israelite’s thought of death and of the after life also reacted powerfully upon his moral feelings and colored all his ethical speculations; for, like the conceptions held of God, the notions entertained of man’s lot after death, as we have seen in the case of the ancient Egyptians, has far-reaching consequences for the moral life.

Now the Hebrew conception of the future state was the same as the Babylonian. Sheol, like the Babylonian Arallu, was a vague and shadowy region beneath the earth, a sad and dismal place which received without distinction the good and the bad. The same fate was allotted all who went down to the grave: “The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master.”[339] There was no return there for good, or for evil: “But the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward.”[340] Memory and hope were there dead: “For in death there is no remembrance of thee.... They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.”[341]

We shall see later how this vague and feebly held idea of the future life reacted upon the evolution of the moral consciousness in Israel, how deeply it influenced the troubled ethical speculations of the more thoughtful minds of the nation, and how it inspired theories of the moral order of the world which have not yet lost their power over the thoughts and the conduct of men.[342] We need in this place merely to point out how it was the absence of a clearly defined belief in a life of rewards and punishments in another world that created, or helped to create, the Messianic ideal, one of the most fruitful conceptions, in its ethical outcomes, that ever entered into the mind of man.