[175] Cicero, De natura deorum, iii. 25.
[176] Leist, Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte, p. 219 sqq. Granger, Worship of the Romans, p. 217.
[177] Cicero, De officiis, ii. 3.
[178] Idem, De natura deorum, i. 41.
[179] On the distinction between fas and jus see von Jhering, Geist des römischen Rechts, i. 258.
[183] Supra, [ii. 96], [121 sq.] Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, pp. 48, 103, 104, 123 sq.
The god of Israel was a powerful protector of his chosen people, but he was a severe master who inspired more fear than love. In the pre-prophetic period at least, he was no model of goodness. He had unaccountable moods, his wrath often resembled “rather the insensate violence of angered nature, than the reasonable indignation of a moralised personality”[184]—as appears, for instance, from the suggestion of David that Saul’s undeserved enmity might be due to the incitement of God.[185] At the same time his severity was also a guardian of human relationships. It turned against children who were disrespectful to their parents, against murderers, adulterers, thieves, false witnesses—indeed, the whole criminal law was a revelation of the Lord. He was moreover a protector of the poor and needy,[186] and a preserver of strangers.[187] But offences against God were, in the Ten Commandments, mentioned before offences against man; religious rites were put on the same level with the rules of social morality; neglect of circumcision, or disregard of the precepts of ceremonial cleanliness, or sabbath-breaking, was punished with the same severity as the greatest crimes.[188] “To the ordinary man,” says Wellhausen, “it was not moral but liturgical acts that seemed to be truly religious.”[189] A different opinion, however, was expressed by the Prophets. They opposed the vice of the heart to the outward service of the ritual.[190] God was said by them to desire not sacrifice but mercy,[191] and to hate the hypocritical service of Israel with its feast-days and solemn assemblies;[192] and the true fast was declared to consist in moral welldoing.[193] To them righteousness was the fundamental virtue of Yahveh, and if he punished Israel his anger was no longer a merely fitful outburst, unrelated to Israel’s own wrongdoing, but an essential element of his righteousness.[194] However, as M. Halévy observes, the truly national conceptions of the Hebrews were not those which the Prophets maintained, but those which they opposed.[195] The importance of ritual was more than ever emphasised in the post-prophetic priestly code.