* The seventeenth verse stupidly reads, "The Lord hath done
to him as he spake by me." The LXX and Vulgate more sensibly
reads to thee.
Much is said of Saul's wickedness, but the only wickedness attributed to him is his mercy in not executing God's fierce wrath. If it was wicked to seek the old woman, it is curious God should grant the object he was seeking, by raising up one of his own holy servants. Why did the Lord employ such an agency? It looks very much like sanctioning necromancy. And further, if a spirit returned from the dead to tell Saul he should die and go to Sheol—where Samuel was, for he says "to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me"—why should not spirits now return to tell us we are immortal? If the witch of Endor could raise spirits, why not Lottie Fowler or Mr. Eglinton? Such are the arguments of the spiritists. We venture to think they cannot be answered by the orthodox. To us, however, the fact that the beliefs of the spiritists find their countenance in the beliefs of savages like the early Jews is their sufficient refutation. Spiritism, as Dr. Tylor says, is but a revival of old savage animism.
SACRIFICES.
No sacrifice to heaven, no help from heaven;
That runs through all the faiths of all the world.
—Tennyson—Harold.
The origin and meaning of sacrifices constitute a central problem of ancient religion. It links indeed the stronghold of orthodox Christianity—its doctrine of the Atonement—with the most barbarous customs of primitive savages. When we hear of the Lamb slain for sinners, the very phrase takes us back to the time when sins were formally placed upon the heads of unconscious animals that they might be held accursed instead of man; and to the yet older notion of human sacrifice as a most acceptable offering to the gods.
Sacrifices were primarily meals offered to the spirits of the dead. It is not hard to understand how they arose. The Hindoos who placed upon the grave of an English officer the brandy and cheroots which he loved in life in order to propitiate his spirit illustrated a prominent aspect. Just as men were appeased with gifts, usually of substances which minister to life, so were spirits supposed to be, and the general form which the offering took was something in the shape of what the Americans call a square meal. The Romans never sat down to eat without placing a portion aside for the Lares and Penates. Professor Smith, in his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, gives abundant evidence that the early sacrifices of the Semitic people were animals offered at a meal partaken by the worshippers. The sacrifice, he holds, was originally a nourishing of the common life of the kindred and their god by a common meal. The primary communion with deity was communion of food. This may not be very poetical, but it is natural and true. Eating and drinking together were primarily signs of fraternity. Only to his own kin did early man own duty, and his god was always of his own kin. Jehovah was, as we are often told, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was their father and their king. When Ruth said to Naomi, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God," the exclamation showed that taking up new kindred involved a change of worship. Professor Smith says: "It cannot be too strongly insisted on that the idea of kinship between gods and men was originally taken in a purely physical sense." The modern Christian's explanations of biblical anthropomorphisms may be dismissed as unfounded assumptions. The story in Genesis of the sons of God going with the daughters of men is one of the remnants of early myths unexplained by later editors.
The Bible God, as any careful reader will perceive, was very partial to roast meat. One of the earliest items recorded of him is that he had no respect for Cain and his offering of vegetables, while to Abel who brought him the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, he had respect. He much prefered mutton to turnips. When Noah offered a sacrifice, we are told "He smelt a sweet savor" (Gen. vii. 21). But the Lord was by no means content with the smell. On his altars huge hecatombs of animals were continually being slaughtered, and the choicest portions set aside as the Lord's. The Lord God seems to have been extremely fond of fat, especially that about the rump. As the richest part of the animal, it was reserved with "the two kidneys and the fat that is upon them" especially for the Lord (Lev. iii. 9-11). Let it be noticed that the Lord God required no sacrifices except of eatable animals, oxen, rams, goats, lambs, and kids. Fishes he had no regard for, and of birds only turtle doves and pigeons were his favorite dishes. Wine and oil he took to wash them down, but never mentioned water. Like his ministers, he lived on the fat of the land,* claiming as his own the firstlings of the flock. From his claim to the first born, it appears that Jahveh was originally given to "long pig," but in the case of Abraham's son, he took a ram instead. He was, however, so partial to blood that he interdicted the sacred fluid to his worshippers, but demanded that it should be poured out upon his altar (Deut. xii.) Even the early Christians made it a fundamental rule of the Church that disciples should abstain from blood, and from things strangled (Acts xv. 20). The blood was supposed to be especially the Lord's.
* To "eat the fat" seems, as in Neh. viii. 10, to have been
a biblical expression for good living.
Let not the serious reader suppose we are jesting. Hear what Prof. Robertson Smith says.