§ 3. At the same time with the monotheistic idea there arose a multitude of religious views, which necessarily had an influence on the development of the myths into history. And insofar as the Hebraisation of the Elôhîm-idea confirmed, and even became the centre of the consciousness of nationality, the conversion of the myths into national history, of which the previous chapter treated, naturally received a peculiarly religious tone.
Here we see the germ of that theocratic character which people take a pleasure in introducing into the earliest history of the Hebrews, but which unquestionably presupposes a high development of the Elôhîm-idea. The theocratic system is a league between the religious and the national ideas. As the myths were transformed in the preceding period into national history, so now in this Elohistic time, their interpretation in a national sense is supplemented by a theocratic aim, which again imprints a new stamp on the old mythology, and exhibits the thoughts and feelings of the Hebrews in richer measure than before. Those legendary figures which at the time of National aspiration became Patriarchs or forefathers of the Hebrew nation, now enter the service of the theocratic or religious idea, and become pious servants and favourites of God. Mythical events and contests which in the national period were converted into national history of primeval times, now take a liturgical or religious turn. Not till now could the question, why Abraham was willing to kill Isaac, arise distinctly in the mind. And the answer was at hand: he did it at the command of Elôhîm—he sacrificed, for he was Elôhîm’s faithful servant, capable of sacrifice. The other Patriarchs also become pious, God-fearing individuals; their adventures and lives become types of Elohistic piety, as they had previously been made types of the history of the nation. The political idea also, i.e. the conviction that it was necessary for the Hebrew nation to possess the territory which they called their own, is carried back to the patriarchal age in the repeated promises of Elôhîm to the Patriarchs that their descendants should possess themselves of the land of Canaan. This was the highest, the religious sanction of the National idea; and this conception the most prominent factor in the production of the direction imparted at this time to the stories of the Patriarchs. The national legends had only aimed at proving by documents the noble ancestry of the Hebrew nation and the high antiquity of their antagonism to the nations who subsequently were their enemies; and endeavoured to demonstrate that the national character and the national preeminence of the Hebrews were founded in the earliest times, and could be fully justified from the history of their ancestors. In this later religious and theocratic epoch, on the other hand, there is infused into the legends a tendency to transform the ancestors into religious prototypes and individuals in whom the ancient preference of Elôhîm for the Hebrew nation could be exhibited, and the truth established that this preference of Elôhîm was a primeval distinction which advantageously marked off the Hebrews from the other nations of Canaan.
This accordingly determines the form impressed on the myths, which had already suffered several modifications, by the rise of a religious and theocratic course of ideas; and I deem it unnecessary to exhibit in detail every portion of the matter constituting the Hebrew legendary lore in which this stratum of development is observable. Scarcely any part of the stories of the Patriarchs is free from this new force of development, and we should have to reproduce them all in their fullest extent to give a collection of examples of what has been said. It must, however, be added, that this impulse to the further development of the legends is not confined to those relating to Canaan. The same impulse draws the history of the Hebrews in Egypt also into the sphere of its operation. For, independently of the fact, that the conception of the residence of the Hebrews in the land of the Pharaohs receives a theocratic modification, the later mutual relation of the Hebrew and the Egyptian nations is prefigured in the patriarchal story, and gains a prototype in the relation of Abraham to Pharaoh. A famine in Canaan obliges Abraham to move into Egypt; and this journey is made the reason why ‘Jahveh plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues’ (Gen. XII. 17), until ‘Pharaoh gave an order to some men concerning him, and they escorted away Abraham and his wife, and all who belonged to him’ (v. 20). This foreshadowing of later historical events and the insertion of them into the body of old stories is, as we see, an important factor in the development of Hebrew stories. Each epoch works into the old legendary matter whatever preeminently occupies the mind of the age, in such a manner as to indicate the intellectual attitude and tendency of the later time.
§ 4. There is still another feature of the development of legends to be mentioned—one which is closely bound up with an important alteration of the political institutions of the Hebrew nation. This feature, though nearly connected with the National transformation of the legends, historically belongs to the age with which we have to do in this chapter. This stage of development of the legends may best be termed the Differentiation of the National Legends.
The political and religious centralisation, which formed the program of the first two representatives of the Davidical dynasty, and which bound the highest power in the state to one city, Jerusalem, as a geographical centre, and to one family, as the visible representative of that power, did not meet with unmixed applause everywhere. Jerusalem lies close to the southern limit of the Hebrew territory. If the South came to the front, the northern parts of the kingdom might be deprived of all influence on affairs of state and religion. The inhabitants of the northern district were practically condemned to be only bearers of the burdens, imposed on the subjects of the kingdom through the luxury growing up in the centre of monarchy and of religion; for very little enjoyment of, or pride in, this splendour could fall to their share. And then the religious centralisation took all importance and influence from the sanctuaries and places of assembly in the North, which before the centralisation were spread over the whole kingdom in due proportion. Nothing, therefore, could be more natural than the reaction in the North, which spread after the death of Solomon under his weak successor, and ended with the division of the kingdom. The history of this division and the circumstances connected with it are sufficiently well known from the Old Testament narrative (1 Kings XII.), in which no essential element is devoid of historical credibility. All of it is a natural consequence of the then condition of the Hebrew kingdom. Now it is very intelligible that in the northern district, the centralising and theocratic spirit, which was at bottom the reason of the political secession, could not find an entrance, and that therefore the northern district remained at the Elohistic stage as it was before an advance had been made to pure Monotheism—in relation to religion scarcely yet separated from Canaanism, but with respect to nationality sharing the common Hebrew sentiment. Accordingly, in the spiritual development of the Northern kingdom, the theocratic interpretation of the past ages of the nation, excited by the centralising movement, is not merely treated as unimportant, but positively does not appear at all. This, of course, is true not only of the spiritual condition of the northern Hebrews after the secession, but of their spiritual life during the whole period of the formation of the theocratic spirit in the South. For the very fact that the Northerns possessed little knowledge of and no inclination for this tendency, then all-powerful in the commonwealth, gave an impetus to the secessionistic aspirations, which under the strong rule of Solomon had no opportunity of declaring themselves, but burst out all the more forcibly and persistently at the commencement of a feebler reign. But while the theocratic spirit, so peculiar to the Southern kingdom, forms a distinction between the characters of the North and of the South, intense national consciousness and national opposition to the Canaanites is common to both. This feeling grew up equally in both of them. But even in respect to this, the political separation naturally produced its consequences. Nationality is very closely tied to political unity. The abstract idea of nationality becomes illusory if there is no united state in which it appears in a concrete form. The consciousness of national oneness is enfeebled, if the political state does not coincide with the nation in a single idea. Hence we see how eager nations divided into separate political states are for a struggle for union, when once their national consciousness wakes out of sleep. On the other hand, in states formed by a union of peoples of various nationalities, we observe a certainly justifiable endeavour, on the part of the strongest and therefore ruling nationality, to inoculate the weaker ones with its own national sentiment, and thereby produce a common feeling of unity.
The political separation of the Northern region from the centralised Hebrew state, produced a remarkable and very important alteration in the sense of nationality hitherto worked out in common. The political opposition between North and South encouraged also the recognition of a difference in their common genealogy. As the general Hebrew idea of nationality found nourishment in the store of legends, so also the consciousness of this secondary difference sought justification in the mythology. This sense of difference came to light more clearly in the northern Hebrews than in the southern. The former wrote the name Joseph on their banner, and derived themselves directly from that son of the common ancestor, and in opposition to the southerns laid more and more stress on this special feature of their origin; moreover, it was not so much Joseph that concerned them as Ephraim, who is named a son of Joseph. We must not forget that this name Ephraim has only a secondary origin. For when the national purpose of the story was once drafted in the mind of the people, it was developed in details in a most independent fashion. The biography of the ancestors was worked out exhaustively; that to which the existing legendary matter offered no suggestion or occasion was supplied by the restless activity of the popular sentiment. In various places in Canaan sepulchral caves had been pointed out from the earliest times—or rather caves which were employed for sepulture; for it is pretty certain that they were originally intended rather for the living than for the dead. Now could anything be simpler than to imagine the bones of ancestors to have been placed there, and to bind to these places the sacred piety which was felt by an enthusiastic nation for venerated progenitors? It is generally known that such an origin of traditions relating to graves is not uncommon in the history of civilisation and religion. Saints’ graves have as many interpretations fastened on them as feast-days and popular festivals. Hebron was a place suitable for this treatment, and so popular tradition placed there the bones of the Patriarchs and their wives, and attached the general national piety to the place. Accordingly King David acted in sympathy with the lately aroused national enthusiasm, when he chose Hebron for his residence (2 Sam. II. 1, 11). And the popular belief concerning the graves of the Patriarchs was so firmly fixed in the soul of the nation as to become in later generations a meeting-point of the piety of three religions towards their sacred antiquity. Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians vie with each other in the adorations which they lavish on the ‘Double Cave’ at Hebron. Mohammedans, who place the prophet Ibrâhîm al-Chalîl higher than either Jews or Christians, have done more for the authenticity of the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron than either of the older religions, from which they received the tradition concerning them. I know of no literary work emanating from Christians or Jews, written in defence of the authenticity of this cave. Conviction was left to faith and piety rather than to historical certainty. But it was a Mohammedan—not even an Arab, but a Persian—that undertook this task. ʿAlî b. Jaʿfar al-Râzî wrote a book entitled al-musfir lil-ḳulûb ʿan ṣiḥḥat ḳabr Ibrâhîm Isḥâḳ wa-Yaʿḳûb ‘Enlightener of hearts concerning the correctness of the grave of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Ibn Baṭûṭâ of Maġreb (North-Western Africa), a great Mohammedan traveller, who made a pilgrimage to al-Chalîl (Hebron), quotes largely from this book on occasion of his description of the Graves of the Patriarchs.[[658]] But popular tradition has preserved far more recollections of graves of Patriarchs and Prophets than Scripture, and Mohammedan tradition considerably more than Jewish. This testifies eloquently how incomplete stories are felt to be as long as they can tell only of events and persons without connecting everything with a definite locality. Popular tradition always feels the want of topographical completion, as long as it can give no distinct account of the places where the events of which it speaks took place, where its favourite heroes lived and worked, where they were cradled and where they slept their last sleep. This impulse was felt in ancient times, and produced the localisation of myths. Accordingly, the Mohammedan popular tradition knows of the grave of Adam on the mountain Abû Ḳubeys,[[659]] of that of Eve at Jeddâ, of that of Cain and Abel at Ṣâliḥîyyâ, a suburb of Damascus, of that of Seth in the valley of Yahfûfâ in Antilibanus,[[660]] and of those of some of Jacob’s sons, as of Reuben at Jahrân, a place in the south of Arabia,[[661]] of Asher and Naphtali at Kafarmandâ, between ʿAkkâ (Acre) and Tiberias. Even Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was a person sufficiently interesting to popular tradition to have a grave assigned to her;[[662]] just as Mohammedan tradition asserts the grave of Ham to be in the district of Damascus,[[663]] and that of the forefather of the Canaanites to be at Chörbet râs Kenʿan near Hebron,[[664]] and also shows that of Uriah at the edge of the desert beyond the Jordan.[[665]] The Mohammedans took interest also in the grave of Aaron, and it was from them that the Jews received the local tradition relating to it.[[666]] But it also happens not unfrequently, that popular tradition allows one and the same patriarch or prophet to be buried at several places, often far distant from each other. Various countries take a pride in possessing the last remains of venerated persons, and vie with each other for this privilege. Even so established a tradition as that which placed the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron, and was especially firm with regard to Abraham (al-Chalîl), is not so irremovable but that it could be localised somewhere else also. The district of Damascus has its tradition of Abraham, and the village of Berze its cave with Abraham’s grave.[[667]] The most noteworthy instance of the kind is the grave of Moses himself. It is well known that the Bible has nothing definite to say of the place of interment of this prophet; and hence in the Jewish popular tradition the prevailing idea is that it is impossible to discover the place where rest the bones of the Prophet with whom the origin of religion is so closely connected—the very same thing as the Sunnite Mohammedans assert of the grave of ʿAlî.[[668]] ‘And he (Jahveh) buried him[[669]] in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, and no man has known his grave up to the present day’ (Deut. XXXIV. 6). The little Pesiḳtâ thinks the purpose of this was ‘that the Israelites might not pay divine honours to his grave, and raise a sanctuary at it, and also that the heathen should not desecrate the place by idolatry and abominations.’ It is at least certain that, as appears from the Biblical words just cited, the grave of Moses was imagined to be in the valley and beyond the Jordan; for the Prophet had never crossed the river. It may also probably have been in the region thus indicated in the Bible, that, according to an assertion in the older Midrâsh on Deuteronomy, a Roman Emperor—a royal precursor of the Palestine Exploration Society—sent explorers to find the grave, in vain: ‘The government of the Imperial house sent people out with the order, Go and see where Moses’ grave is. So they went and searched above, and they saw something below; so they went down again, and saw it above. So they divided themselves, and again those above saw it below and those below saw it above.’[[670]] Islâm, however, possesses the grave of Moses at several places. The best known place is the hill Nebî Mûsa, a very beautiful eminence in a romantic situation, well worth visiting by a slight but fatiguing détour from the road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea; not much visited by pilgrims now on account of its inconvenient position. Here, in the centre of a ruined compound, is to be seen the grave of the Prophet, a great sarcophagus, the carpet covering which bears an inscription informing us of its venerable contents. Thus this grave is not in the valley, but on a hill; not beyond the Jordan, but on the Jerusalem side. But also an old mosque at Damascus was said, at all events six hundred years ago, to contain the sepulchral monument of Moses;[[671]] and his grave is also said to be on a hill called Hôreb, three days’ journey from Moḳḳa.[[672]]
For Aaron’s burial-place Mohammedan tradition has assigned two places, one about where it would be looked for according to the Biblical account,[[673]] and the other, which is chiefly visited as Aaron’s Grave, on the hill Ohod.[[674]] This last position has been brought into connexion with a legend of Moses and Aaron staying in the Hedjaz.[[675]] An Arabic savant, ʿAbd-al-Ġanî al-Nâbulsî, finds an occasion, in his book of Travels, to notice the circumstance that the grave of the same Patriarch is shown at numerous places.[[676]] Sometimes an inscription is found at every one of these burial-places. But such inscriptions are not made with mala fides by mere deceivers of the people. They are only the written expression of what lives in popular belief; and when inscriptions occur at various places referring to the grave of the same prophet, the reason is that the local popular tradition of each of those places happened to be reduced to writing.[[677]] An interesting example of this is the grave of the Prophet of the nation of ʿAd, the disappearance of which—an unsolved ethnological riddle—occasioned the rise of the Mohammedan legend of the prophet Hûd. The grave of this prophet is shown both at Damascus[[678]] and in the region of Ẓafâr in the south of Arabia, the scene of his activity. Ibn Baṭûṭâ, who visited both tombs, reports that both were marked with an inscription in the following words: ‘This is the grave of Hûd, son of ʿÂbir: the most excellent prayers and greetings for him!’[[679]]
The grave of Rachel is also marked out by tradition, which puts it in the neighbourhood of Ephrâth, subsequently and still called Bêth-lechem (Beth-lehem). This sepulchre is to the present day the object of pilgrimage to the adherents of three religions. The myth calls Joseph the son of Rachel, and we know of Ephrayîm (Ephraim) as son of Joseph. Now the name Ephrayîm seems to belong to the period of the differentiation of the national legends, and to be a secondary form to Ephrâth, which passes for the burial-place of his ancestress. For we find also the derivative noun Ephrâthî, i.e. ‘belonging to Ephrâth,’ in the two senses ‘a man from the place Ephrâth’ and ‘a descendant of Ephraim;’ and Ephraim himself is called Ephrâthâ in a passage in the Psalms.[[680]] The prophet Samuel and his ancestors are also said to have been Ephrâthî-men (1 Sam. I. 1).[[681]] This identity between the name of the burial-place of Joseph’s mother and the name of his son is probably not accidental, but produced under the influence of the national tendencies of the North; and the reaction of the spirit of the South may have suppressed the old name of the place and substituted the modern Bêth-lechem. Now in my view the name Ephrayîm was originally not a personal but a national name. After the separation the Northern Hebrews called themselves ‘those belonging to Ephrâth.’ For the word Ephrayîm has the form of a plural of a so-called relative adjective (Arabic nisbâ), derived from Ephrâth by throwing off the feminine formative syllable ath and attaching the new formative syllable directly to the base of the word. Of this Semitic mode of formation the Arabic gives a good instance; there the feminine ending of the proper name (t) is regularly cast off in forming the nisbâ, and the relative termination is attached to the body of the word: e.g. from Baṣratun not Baṣratî but Baṣrî, ‘a man of Basrâ.’ In Hebrew, the feminine termination is cast off when it appears in the shortened form â; e.g. Yehûdâ (Judah), whence Yehûdî; Timnâ, whence Timnî. But an instance occurs in which even the termination th is cast off before the formation of the relative. Instead of Kerêthî, the form generally used in the phrase hak-Kerêthî wehap-Pelêthî ‘the Kerethites and the Pelethites,’ the form Kârî is found (2 Sam. XX. 23 Kethîbh); the th[[682]] being discarded, and the vowel of the first syllable lengthened by way of compensation (productio suppletoria). I assume the same formation in the present case (though the regular Ephrâthî is also used), the termination of the relative adjective being attached directly to the base Ephr, after the rejection of the th. We know further that the idiom of the Northern part of the region covered by the Hebrew language contained much that is generally called Aramaism. The Aramaic relative adjectives are formed in ay, and they are occasionally met with in Hebrew also;[[683]] Ephray, forming the plural Ephrayîm, is an instance. This latter form accordingly signifies ‘those belonging to Ephrâth,’ and is the national name of the Hebrews of the North, used afterwards as a designation of their ancestor. Many instances of a similar proceeding occur in the Biblical genealogies.
Thus the Northern Hebrews possess national memories connecting them with Joseph-Ephraim. It is therefore quite natural that, as the national difference which parted the Northern from the Southern people became more evident, vivid and acknowledged, the mind of the former was more occupied with the cycle of stories about the person and adventures of Joseph. The existing mass of stories offered abundant opportunity for this, and more productive matter could scarcely be imagined than the story of the hatred of the brethren towards Joseph, the Patriarch of the North. The Northerns consequently seized this portion of the Patriarchal history, and worked it out in the interest of their national separatism, always contriving to let the supremacy of Joseph above Judah clearly appear. They take pleasure in representing Judah crouching in the dust before Joseph the ruler, and owing his life entirely to the will of the generous brother, towards whom he had formerly borne such bitter ill-will. Joseph is brought forward with satisfaction and pride as the brother whom the aged father treated with the greatest favour and distinction, and whose life alone was able to revive his fainting spirits; while Joseph’s mother was the only woman whom the Patriarch really loved, whereas the Southerns were descended partly from the ugly Leah, Judah’s mother, who became Jacob’s wife only by deceit and craft, and partly from slaves.
National stories are created by the awaking consciousness of opposition; and, as we have seen, they transfer to primeval times the national spirit of opposition, which is an affair of the present, and ascribe a reflex of it to the respective ancestors. This is the spirit of the stories of Joseph, worked out by the Northern in opposition to the Southern Hebrews. The enmity of the two Hebrew kingdoms is transferred to the earliest times, and prefigured in the picture of the relation between Joseph and his brethren. The chief portions of this mass of Northern stories which were reduced to writing at a later time, and thus fixed in a definite form, were contained in the ancient document distinguished by most critics as the ‘Book of Uprightness’ (Sêpher hay-Yâshâr).[[684]]