CHAPTER I.
THE FOUNDATION OF MONOTHEISM.
At the time of the birth of Christianity, only in one portion of the Roman world could a new and pure religion have arisen. The fusion of the empire had, by destroying their national basis, fatally weakened the Pagan religions; so far as real feeling was concerned, they had passed into the hands of the ignorant classes exclusively, and had lost the vitality in which alone the higher religious forces can germinate. Philosophies, resting on a common basis of contempt of the popular polytheism, were the refuge of the more enlightened. Between philosophers and those who still believed in the power of the ancient gods there existed a vast mass of people who had religious instincts with no sure means of satisfying them, ripe subjects for the new religion which they looked for but could not originate. At this time, throughout the Pagan world, a high and systematic morality could only be reared on an intellectual basis which destroyed sympathy with common men; in no part of it could have been developed the pure enthusiasm needed for the founding of a great religion.
One region of the empire alone was free from the symptoms of religious decay. In the small district of Palestine, with many offshoots scattered over the world, lived a people who professed a religion of the purest type. And this religion was not a lightly held philosophical theory; its adherents clung to it with a passionate tenacity, and were ever ready to face martyrdom in its defence. It was a pure monotheism, and morality was inculcated by it, indeed, maintained by it, in the strongest and most effective fashion. With justice Josephus could assert that Greek philosophers only followed the example of his countrymen, and taught doctrines which the Jewish sacred law had made practical realities.[1] For Judaism was not an esoteric creed which only the more cultured Jews fully understood; the lowest of the people grasped its principles, abhorred the idea of polytheism, detested even the smallest advance towards idolatry, and regarded every sin as a violation of divine decrees. Such a religion, pure and strongly held, was fit to be the parent of a noble religious system. In it originated the earliest doctrines of the religion which now sprang from it and conquered the Roman world. And as Judaism was in a special sense a national religion, its development must be examined in the history of the Jewish people.
We cannot, with any approach to historical certainty, assert more respecting the social and political condition of the first known ancestors of the Jews, than that they belonged to a race of nomad tribes wandering in the district which, roughly speaking, lies between Egypt and Palestine. In endeavouring to ascertain the religious ideas of this race, we may safely assume that the character of their religion was determined by the circumstances of their position. Living in a region which is either desert or barren and unprofitable land, the softer influences of nature could not affect them. The terror of nature would fascinate them; lightning and tempest would speak to them of their gods, and from the harshness of their surroundings they would derive the gloomiest impressions of the powers of the supernatural world. Their religion would be essentially a religion of fear.[2] Having little to deify on the earth around them, their mythology would be based on the phenomena of the sky. Sun and moon and stars would be their divinities, and to these they would ascribe jealous and implacable tempers. This sternness of their religion would carry with it many advantages. Their deities would be more majestic, more removed from themselves, than the gods of happier peoples, and the humility they would feel in worship would have within it the seeds of a higher religious development. A still more important feature of their mythology would be its narrowness. The poverty of their environment would cause their gods to be few and limited in number. No fresh divinities would discredit the older ones and reveal the weakness of their theology. And this would be likely to produce a serious effect on the outward form of their religion.
Whenever a common polytheism is professed by peoples politically separate, there is a tendency to localise deities. Now a large mythology throws great difficulties in the way of this tendency. If there are many gods, each one individually is too unimportant to be the divinity of a people, and the political divisions of course being few, after every tribe or state has appropriated a deity, a surplus is left with no particular duty to discharge. When this occurs, it usually results that the national deities are formed into a higher order of gods; and probably divine oligarchies, like that of the Hellenic mythology, are always created in this manner. But it is obvious that if the number of gods is small at the time of the formation of political divisions, the process of localization is greatly facilitated. The fewer they are, the more honour attaches to the gods individually; each one is sufficiently dignified to become the god of a separate people. After a system of this kind has been fully developed, the gods form a federal council, in which each state or tribe has a representative. The quarrels and rivalries of the earthly bodies are of course transferred to their heavenly representatives; all local patriotism expresses itself in the general religion.
From the evidence of the early records of the Jewish people we may conclude that the race from which they sprang went through a process of this character. In these, Israel, whether as a tribe or as a people, is often described as associating with other tribes or peoples, and comparing its own god with theirs, a common basis of religious belief being assumed.[3] The god of Israel seems to be regarded as superior to the other gods; but this does not imply that distinctions of rank were recognized in the common mythology. An intelligent Englishman would hardly assert that his country is now the chief European power; but if any other state were named as a possible enemy, he would probably say that his own was more than a match for it. In the same way, patriotism expressing itself in religion, the Israelites considered their own god, or heavenly representative, more than a match for any other, and this naturally involved a belief in his superiority. From these conditions a spurious monotheism would necessarily result. In proportion as their patriotism was strong, the Israelites would worship exclusively the tribal god, though thoroughly believing in the existence of others. This, of course, is only polytheism, but it contains within it the possibility of monotheistic development.
Such probably was the state of the religious ideas of the Israelites at the time they came into connection with Egypt. Previously they had been one among many cognate tribes having a common polytheistic mythology. In this mythology they had a tribal god, whom they worshipped without denying the existence of the rest. While mixing and constantly coming into collision with other tribes, each owning, of course, a similar deity, tribal patriotism must have made them, for the most part, devote themselves to this god exclusively. When they arrived in Egypt, they found there a system of religion utterly unlike their own, and this would confirm them in adherence to it. Being then a small tribe, they could more easily pay strict allegiance to the tribal god. As they increased in numbers, both through ordinary growth and through receiving accessions from cognate peoples outside, this allegiance would begin to be endangered. While they were a small tribe often meeting with other tribes which had different gods, patriotism would make them cling to their own. But when they became a large tribe, and ceased to come in contact with other branches of their race, not only would tendencies towards polytheism in actual worship be strengthened, but the check upon them in the shape of tribal patriotism would be weakened. They would thus be likely to drift back into the racial polytheism, their tribal god being lost in the rest. The opposition to the Egyptian religion[4] would rather help this tendency, as it would throw them more on their feelings of race. So, on the whole, it is probable that the Israelites, during their connection with Egypt, became more or less ordinary polytheists.
In one respect, however, their relations with Egypt must have tended to maintain their adherence to the tribal god. The period of struggle against Egyptian power which preceded their departure from Egypt must, by stimulating their patriotism, have prevented the remembrance of his old rank from being wholly lost. Patriotism could not have been completely disassociated from the divinity who had formerly been the centre round which it rallied. The outburst of patriotic fervour necessarily accompanying the actual conflict with Egypt, as well as its ultimate success, must have enormously increased the influence of the tribal god. For a time, we may be sure, he regained his original distinction, and became to the Israelites the representative of heaven. During the first serious fighting in Palestine, he would for the same reason retain his power. But then, as the national warfare degenerated into a series of detached tribal contests, the old tendency towards polytheistic worship would revive. To ascertain what forces counteracted this tendency, we must consider a new question.
Judaism may as well be said to have been founded by Moses as Christianity by Christ. Even if we knew nothing of its founder, there are features of Christianity which we could only explain by referring them to the influence of a personal character. There are peculiarities of Judaism, too, which have to be traced back to the personality of its founder. Moses and Christ, indeed, are inseparably connected in history. One completed what the other began. Without Moses, Christ could hardly have existed; without Christ, the work of Moses would have been of little value to the world. This presumption from internal probability corroborates the traditional evidence, and justifies us in accepting its general outline.
If the Israelites migrated from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and thus began their national life, it was very natural that he should be to some extent their legislator as well. Their leader, under such circumstances, must have had great ability, and also enormous power. His ability, together with his power, would lead him to consolidate the energies of his people, in order to fit them for the difficult task lying before them; and this could only be done by a system of legislation. Accordingly, we may assume that the foundation of the Jewish law was laid by Moses, though it is very hard to ascertain what that foundation actually was. The ten commandments, in their simplest form, are generally admitted to be relics of the Mosaic age. To account for the first and most important of these we have, in particular, to call in the authority of Moses. “I am Jahveh thy god; thou shalt have none other gods beside me,” is the foundation stone of the development of monotheism. It implies the existence of polytheism, but it decrees that polytheism shall be abolished. If the people, or any class of the people, continuously obeyed it, they had in time to become pure monotheists. If they ceased to think of other gods, these gods would ultimately pass out of remembrance, and Jahveh alone would occupy heaven. Jewish monotheism, with all its wonderful consequences, must be ascribed to the framer of the first commandment.