He prefers Jensen's solution, which is this: A fast was held before the feast of Purim.[25] Why?
'The best solution appears to be that of Jensen, that the fasting and mourning were originally for the supposed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'[26] Yes; but the Jews had that institution before the exile. In the first days of his own captivity Ezekiel was carried, in the flesh, or out of the flesh, to the temple at Jerusalem. 'Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was towards the north, and, behold, there sat women wailing for Tammuz.'[27]
Now Jensen's solution is that the fast at Purim represents the wailing for Tammuz, or somebody of his type. But, if the Jews did that, as they did, before the exile, and if that was Purim, how did they also borrow Purim after the exile, especially as 'there are good grounds for believing that Purim was unknown to the Jews till after the exile'?[28] How can both views be correct? Or is this March feast of the Tammuz kind an addition to the old pre-exilian Jewish Tammuz feast?
Moreover, Purim is probably, according to Mr. Frazer, 'a mere disguised form of the Sacæa,' which, in his opinion, is the same as Zakmuk.[28] But 'the central feature of the Sacæa appears to have been the saving of the king's life for another year by the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal.'[29] Yet its central feature is also the sorrow for the death and glee for the resurrection 'of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis,' following Jensen. How can the Sacæa have two central features? If it is only an affair of hanging a man to save the king's life, why should the Jews at Jerusalem fast before the vicarious sacrifice of a criminal for the Babylonian king? They did fast, we know. And why should the victim's resurrection (if any) on the following day 'occasion that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim'?[30] What had the Jews to make with the resurrection of a proxy of the king of Babylon?
Mr. Frazer has not, I think, suggested that the kings of Israel or Judah were once annually sacrificed. So why were the Jewish women wailing at the north gate of the Temple? For Tammuz, as we know from Ezekiel; but Tammuz was not a Jewish king, or, if he was, it should be stated. Also, if the Jewish ladies wailed and rejoiced for Tammuz at the Temple in Jerusalem before the exile, how can it be consistently maintained that they knew nothing of these rites till after the exile, and then borrowed them from Babylonians or Persians? If Purim is a Tammuz rite, the Jews had it before the exile, as Ezekiel proves. If it is not a Tammuz rite, why is Jensen's the best solution? for Jensen's solution is that 'the fasting and mourning were originally for the supposed annual death of a Semitic god or hero of the type of Tammuz or Adonis, whose resurrection on the following day occasioned that outburst of joy and gladness which is characteristic of Purim.'[31] Then, once more, that outburst of joy and gladness for the re-arisen Tammuz was[32] probably in the month Tammuz, our June-July. But now[33] it is at Purim—that is, in March.
How are Mr. Frazer's theories to be reconciled with each other and with the facts? Did the Jews wail for Tammuz, in spring, before the exile; and, after the exile, adapt their old rite of a Tammuz fast and feast to the vicarious sacrifice of a condemned criminal (whether in July or in April) in the interests of the king of Babylon? Had they been wont to hang a man, while they wailed for Tammuz, before the exile? If so, why did they hang him, and what did they borrow during the exile? Or was all that they borrowed just the habit of crowning, discrowning, whipping, and hanging a mock-king, as an addition to their pre-exilian Tammuz fast and feast? We have certainly no evidence that they did these cruel things before the exile. And there is no evidence, as we shall see, that they yearly committed the same atrocity after the exile.
V. THEORY OF A HUMAN VICTIM AT PURIM
As Mr. Frazer is to make our Lord one of the annual victims at Purim, he has to try to prove that the Jews did annually hang or crucify a mock-king supposed to be divine at Purim. To be sure neither prophet nor legislator, neither Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, nor Zachariah, says one word about this heathen abomination borrowed by the Jews. Mr. Frazer therefore tries to prove that the man was hanged at Purim by the evidence of 'traces of human sacrifice lingering about the feast of Purim in one or other of those mitigated forms to which I have just referred,' such as the uncertain 'burning an effigy of a man at Tarsus.'[34]
Mr. Frazer is, I think, rather easily satisfied with this kind of testimony to human sacrifice. Every fifth of November a man, called Guy by the populace, is burned in effigy. But, as we know the historical facts, we do not, though science in the distant future may, regard this rite as a trace of Druidical human sacrifice, Guy being a god of the dying foliage of November, when St. Dasius was slain. Mr. Frazer explains the old custom of burning Judas on Easter Saturday as 'all for the purpose of protecting the fields from hail,' and as 'really of pagan origin.'[35] It maybe so: the ashes are used in agricultural magic. But we know that Guy Fawkes is not a relic of human sacrifice. Moreover, it is natural to destroy a foe, like Haman, or John Knox, or Mr. Kruger, in effigy: the thing is often done. The Jews undeniably regarded Haman, on the authority of Esther, as an enemy of their race. So they destroyed him in effigy. In the fifth century of our era, when the hatred between Jews and Christians had become bitter, the Jews, 'in contempt of the Christian religion,' attached the effigy of Haman to a cross. This insult was forbidden by the Codex Theodosianus.[36] Similar doings, without the cross, prevailed at Purim in the Middle Ages. But how does this prove the hanging of a real Haman victim before the rise of Christianity? It merely proves that, after the strife between Jews and Christians began, an effigy of Haman, the national enemy, was crucified 'in contemptu Christianæ fidei,' as the edict says—to annoy the Christians.
But Mr. Frazer has 'some positive grounds' for thinking that 'in former times the Jews, like the Babylonians from whom they appear to have derived their Purim, may at one time have burned, hanged, or crucified a real man in the character of Haman.' We have seen that[37] Purim, if it is a Tammuz feast and fast, was kept by the Jews before they went to Babylon. But, passing that, what are the 'positive grounds'?