But the strongest argument in favour of the conclusion that sacrificing to Jahveh for the atonement of sin began in the Mosaic age is, that thus only can subsequent phenomena be explained. The great point in the history of Jewish religion is the magnificent period of the prophets. Their writings are the noblest expression ever given to religious and moral ideas. We explain their pure monotheism by deducing it from the institution of the first commandment, which necessitated in a class obeying it continuously the ultimate development of the belief that Jahveh was the one God “that made the earth and created man upon it, that stretched out the heavens and commanded all their host.”[12] How can we explain their wonderful morality except in the same way? We know from the commandments that moral excellence was required by the religion of Jahveh from the very first. If thus from the beginning morality was impressed on Jahveh’s worshippers by a sacrificial system which declared every sin to be an offence against him that must be expiated at a personal cost, we can understand how any class continuously adhering to him should in time have developed a morality in which sin was hated for its own sake, and goodness made the essence of religion. Such vivid and constant evidence of Jahveh’s hatred of sin would naturally, after many generations, produce the pure morality of the prophets. But otherwise it is inexplicable. A mere theoretical connection between Jahvism and morality might ultimately have made the Jahvists better than the worshippers of other gods, but it could not have created that marvellous passion for righteousness which made the Jewish religion at its best the greatest the world has ever seen. This conclusion does not involve the belief that in the Mosaic age the system of sacrificing for sin was fully developed. If the foundation of it was laid then, the conditions of the problem are satisfied. The system would ensure its own subsequent development. Once Jahveh’s hatred of sin was marked by any practical effect, as time went on, through the moral growth of the people who grasped the doctrine, that hatred would seem to deepen, to become more comprehensive and complete. A conclusion which explains so much, and has probability so greatly in its favour, may fairly be accepted.
If from the age of Moses the religion of Jahveh was thus inseparably connected with morality, all the best of the people would rally round it. Unless Israel at any time was wholly without a remnant that loved righteousness and hated iniquity, Jahvism must always have had its earnest supporters. The same cause, of course, would tend to make it unpopular with the mass of the people. But for this, it would be difficult to understand why the Israelites, down to the captivity, were so persistent in their devotion to strange gods. Jahveh was their national divinity, and a mere love of polytheism could hardly account for this incessant desertion of him. The close connection between Jahvism and morality fully explains the phenomenon. The Israelites in general found Jahveh too severe for them, and turned to gods more tolerant of evil-doing, just as Catholic sovereigns used to choose indulgent confessors. This fact would only confirm the few more strongly in their allegiance. The worshipper of Jahveh would justly extol Jahveh in comparison with Baal, as he compared himself with the worshipper of Baal. And thus through the purity of Jahveh’s adherents their religion would be saved from the contamination of baser elements, and would necessarily develop in simplicity and truth. Sin, at first hated chiefly because Jahveh forbade it, would at last be hated because of its own foulness; Jahveh, at first reverenced merely as the national saviour, would at last be reverenced as the lord of heaven and earth. Down the channel of Jahvism flowed all the higher forces of the national life, till at length they broke forth in the wave of moral and religious energy which finally overcame resistance in the grand struggle of the prophets.
Though the majority of the people usually worshipped other gods, and thus broke their own sacred laws, we are not to suppose that they denied Jahveh’s existence, or even his right to worship. They must have been pure polytheists, believing that many gods reigned in the heavens. Among these they held it to be their right to choose, just as a lower-class Catholic will choose his favourite saint. But they fully admitted that Jahveh was the national god; and in periods of danger, when patriotism was strongly excited, it is likely that for the moment they returned to the exclusive worship of him. Thus the power of Jahvism over the people at large would rise and fall with the national fortunes. When Israel was prosperous, Jahvism prospered too; when Israel declined, Jahvism declined as well. For we may well believe that the Israelites flourished just in proportion as they were united. The book of Judges is probably in the main historically correct. The tribes would drift apart, or even quarrel with each other, and their enemies would overcome them and take their cities. Then a wave of patriotism would sweep over them; they would reunite and become victorious in their turn. From this it is easy to see what credit Jahveh would in time acquire, even among the entire people. Union brought with it national happiness and success, but the adoption of Jahvism was the condition of union. So it would appear to them that by returning to Jahveh and observing the precepts of their sacred law they could always secure prosperity. When serving Jahveh faithfully, they would have good fortune; after falling away from him, they would quickly be plunged in calamity. How soon this would create a conviction of Jahveh’s irresistible power! In their misfortunes they would see Jahveh punishing them for their apostacy; in their successes they would see Jahveh accepting their repentance and restoring his protection.
Thus in time all the people would in one sense become Jahvists. They would believe that Jahveh was their true god, and that they ought to worship him alone. When they turned to other gods, they would do so with a distinct consciousness of evil-doing and a certain expectation of punishment. Jahveh’s severity of moral requirement would render it impossible for them to serve him willingly; they could never become true Jahvists. But in their hearts would always be a sullen fear of Jahveh, a belief that he punished terribly. This was the chord of popular feeling which the prophets touched, and to the existence of which they owed their success.
These conditions would naturally in time produce the belief that a covenant had been concluded at the beginning between Israel and Jahveh. The true Jahvists would of course eagerly proclaim that Israel’s happiness depended on obedience to Jahveh, that calamity was the result of his just anger, and prosperity the consequence of his favour. But that Jahveh should have given notice of this, and shown the ways of good and evil from the first, would soon seem to be necessary. Hence in later times it would be thought that Jahveh had formally concluded a covenant with the Israelites, in which he engaged to protect them and make them prosperous, on condition that they served him and kept his law.[13] All the failures and misfortunes of the nation would be ascribed by the Jahvists to the breaking of this covenant by the people, and the consequent drawing down of the penalties of its violation on their heads.
From the development in Jahvism of this idea that suffering was a divine punishment followed the most important results. If national suffering was considered to be due to national breaking of the law, equally private suffering would be ascribed to private breaking of the law. Sin would be looked on as the cause of suffering. Abstinence from sin was commanded by Jahveh, and so every sin would be a violation of his commands that invited punishment by him. Private suffering would then be regarded as the proof of sin, as Job’s friends regarded it, and as the divine chastisement of it. But of course it would seem right that the chastisement should be proportioned to the sin, and limited for each offence. Thus, in time, suffering would be considered the atonement of sin, Jahveh’s punishment of it, after which his favour would be restored. But sacrifices, as we saw before, were the legal means of atoning for sin. If a man sinned, then, in order to escape the suffering which otherwise would be the penalty of his sin, he would offer a sacrifice. Now Israelitic sacrifices, as they were a pastoral people, were mainly offerings of living beasts. Under these circumstances there would certainly be a tendency to imagine that the penalty of sin was laid on the sacrificial victim, that its suffering and death were accepted as the atonement in place of the suffering of the offender.
Professor Kuenen, basing his opinion on the fact that no direct mention of it occurs in the law, believes that this idea of atonement by vicarious suffering did not enter into the Jewish sacrificial system.[14] The legal permission in certain cases of a sin offering of meal or flour[15] supports his conclusion. On the other hand, vicarious punishment was clearly recognized in one great ceremony of the law. The scapegoat is described as bearing away the sins of the people into the wilderness in which it was left to die.[16] With a tendency of the sacrificial system towards the belief in vicarious punishment, and clear evidence in one instance of its recognition, we may safely assume that it entered to some extent into the feelings of the people when they sacrificed. Probably it was never consciously developed in the law, and so it was not directly mentioned, and, in exceptional cases, inanimate offerings were allowed. But after the sacrificial system had been long in existence, the constant repetition of animal sacrifices would naturally produce the belief. We find the principle of vicarious punishment asserted in the prophets, and fully developed in the sending away of the scapegoat. We may safely conclude, then, that, from the beginning, it was latent in Jahvism, and gradually grew as Jahvism passed into Judaism, until at length it reached maturity in the first great dogma of Christianity.
Such a principle, growing in Jahvism, would tend still more to develop a hatred of sin. Morality exists because, from the simple observation of social phenomena, sin is connected with suffering, and calamity of some kind regarded as its inevitable consequence. But this connection of sin with suffering would be placed far more vividly before the worshipper of Jahveh, as his religion gradually forced on him the belief that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”[17] In the blood of the victim sprinkled on Jahveh’s altar, the Israelite would see stern evidence of the inexorable severity of Jahveh against sin—a severity so great that he could not forgive it without exacting the penalty, though his mercy might allow the transgressor to find a substitute. Harsh and cruel Jahvism thus would be, even rooted in injustice; but in effect it would be grandly moral, stamped with a condemnation of sin that, at such a stage of civilization, was of priceless value.
From the Mosaic age, then, on to the period of the prophets, we can imagine the development of Jahvism in Israel. There was always the nucleus of true Jahvists, who observed the law so far as it existed, and steadily grew in spirituality and moral insight. They were the national party; for them tribal divisions could have had but little importance. From among them, in times when the national fortunes were near ruin, always uprose the deliverers, as the pure flame of their patriotism drew to them the nobler elements of the people. They, in fact, were Israel, a continuous power representing the national life. Through a long struggle, marked by many a martyrdom, they contended against the downward tendencies of the rest of the people, until at length, after the final destruction of Israel’s material greatness, they won the victory and impressed their principles on the entire nation. It was no mere sense of the superiority of Jahvism that sustained them for the longest part of this contest. That could only be felt strongly towards the end, when the chief fruit of the struggle had been gained. Their fierce patriotism was their real strength. To them Jahveh seemed to be King of Israel, and his law the constitution of their state. In idea their government was a theocracy; even an earthly viceroy impaired Jahveh’s prerogatives.[18] This was possible because Jahveh was the national god, universally recognized as such. As the national god, the worship of him was patriotism; he was the ideal object of Israel’s self-love. All their religious feelings flowed in a patriotic channel. Church and state were blended in one; love of their country inspired their passionate devotion to their religion. This close union of religious and national feeling afterwards continued with the relations inverted, patriotic feeling flowing in a religious channel.
In connection with its intense patriotism, Jahvism from the beginning must have been distinguished by a rigid exclusiveness. The greatest danger it had to face was the corruption of the Israelites by the religions of the peoples around them. To guard against this danger, it would naturally insist on the sternest separation of Israel from the Gentile nations. Circumcision, as well as other local customs, it used as means of fulfilling its purpose. Jahvism was probably at first fiercely cruel. The injunctions to extirpate the Canaanites contained in the books of the law, which Professor Kuenen considers to be the expression of the Jewish hatred of foreigners after the captivity, and only “murder on paper,” in all likelihood faithfully represent the feelings of the Jahvists in early times. They must have seen their fellow Israelites constantly deserting Jahveh for the gods of other peoples, and it is natural that they should have wished to remove such temptations in the most effective manner. Probably they did not succeed in gratifying their desires, except in a few instances when national feeling was strongly roused. The Israelites in general, we may be sure, were easily corrupted, and were in too much sympathy with foreign gods to destroy their worshippers. But the Jahvists must have been fierce haters of foreigners, and eager in every way to build an insurmountable wall around Israel. This strict exclusiveness, inevitable and, indeed, praiseworthy in early times, afterwards came into collision with the higher tendencies of Jahvism when it attained its maturity. The subsequent Messianic ideal, as it existed in the noblest minds, involved a struggle against these influences, which, in its youth, had been a hard shell enclosing and protecting the Jewish religion.