[32] In 2 Samuel xv. 27 David says to Zadok the priest, "Art thou not a seer?" and Gad is called David's seer.
[33] This would at first appear to be inconsistent with the use of the word "prophetess" for Deborah. But it does not follow because the writer of Judges applies the name to Deborah that it was used in her day.
[34] Samuel tells the cook, "Bring the portion which I gave thee, of which I said to thee, Set it by thee." It was therefore Samuel's to give. "And the cook took up the thigh (or shoulder) and that which was upon it and set it before Saul." But, in the Levitical regulations, it is the thigh (or shoulder) which becomes the priest's own property. "And the right thigh (or shoulder) shall ye give unto the priest for an heave-offering," which is given along with the wave breast "unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons as a due for ever from the children of Israel" (Lev. vii. 31-34). Reuss writes on this passage: "La cuisse n'est point agitée, mais simplement prelevée sur ce que les convives mangeront."
[35] See, for example, Elkanah's sacrifice, 1 Sam. i. 3-9.
[36] The ghost was not supposed to be capable of devouring the gross material substance of the offering; but his vaporous body appropriated the smoke of the burnt sacrifice, the visible and odorous exhalations of other offerings. The blood of the victim was particularly useful because it was thought to be the special seat of its soul or life. A West African negro replied to an European sceptic: "Of course, the spirit cannot eat corporeal food, but he extracts its spiritual part, and, as we see, leaves the material part behind" (Lippert, Seelencult, p. 16).
[37] It is further well worth consideration whether indications of former ancestor-worship are not to be found in the singular weight attached to the veneration of parents in the fourth commandment. It is the only positive commandment, in addition to those respecting the Deity and that concerning the Sabbath, and the penalties for infringing it were of the same character. In China, a corresponding reverence for parents is part and parcel of ancestor-worship; so in ancient Rome and in Greece (where parents were even called δεύτεροι καὶ ἐπίγεοι θεοί). The fifth commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between ancestor-worship and monotheism. The larger hereditary share allotted by Israelitic law to the eldest son reminds one of the privileges attached to primogeniture in ancient Rome, which were closely connected with ancestor-worship. There is a good deal to be said in favour of the speculation that the ark of the covenant may have been a relic of ancestor-worship; but that topic is too large to be dealt with incidentally in this place.
[38] "The Scientific Aspects of Positivism," Fortnightly Review, 1869, republished in Lay Sermons.
[39] Œuvres de Bossuet, ed. 1808, t. xxxv. p. 282.
[40] I should like further to add the expression of my indebtedness to two works by Herr Julius Lippert, Der Seelencult in seinen Beziehungen zur alt-hebraischen Religion, and Die Religionen der europäischen Culturvölker, both published in 1881. I have found them full of valuable suggestions.
[41] See among others the remarkable work of Fustel de Coulanges, La cité antique, in which the social importance of the old Roman ancestor-worship is brought out with great clearness.