While on the subject of the influence of Babylon it will be convenient to notice here that this influence is not confined to legal matters, but can be traced in certain legendary elements in the Old Testament. The ideal of the Priests' Code would not tolerate heathen mythology that could be detected as such, to appear in its work, and yet there are definite traces of such mythology to be found in "P"s account of the creation in Gen. i. The discovery of the libraries of Assurbanipal has brought to light records of a mythological cosmogony which, while utterly different in conception and spirit from Genesis, is sufficiently similar to suggest some degree of connection. This Babylonian Epic of creation deals not so much with the remarkably scientific idea of a gradual creation of our earth out of chaotic materials, but with a conflict of gods and monsters which is supposed to have taken place before the creation. In the opening verses of the Bible there is a reference to the partition of the deep, which is here called by the non-Hebrew name Tehom, into two parts: the waters above and the waters under the firmament. Now in the Babylonian story the actual creation of the earth is preceded by a mighty struggle between Marduk, the sun-god (the Merodach of the Bible) and a great dragon symbolical of the primeval waters, which bears the name Tiamat, the Babylonian form of Tehom. The influence of this myth is the more certainly to be traced in Genesis, because it appears elsewhere in the Old Testament under the form of a legend of a conflict between Jehovah and Rahab, a mighty dragon; and this legend is generally in some way connected with creation (Job ix. 13; xxvi. 12; Isa. li. 9; Ps. lxxxix. 10). There is also a Babylonian story of the flood which keeps even closer to the Bible narrative, and it may be seen from the Babylonian version that this is more probably another form of the dragon myth than a common memory of a tremendous deluge. A Babylonian seal cylinder in the British Museum bears the picture of a man and woman standing one on each side of a sacred tree, from which they are picking fruit, while a serpent coils around the tree; but no written explanation of this very suggestive picture has been discovered. These mythical stories have come down from primitive Semitic times, but we cannot fail to notice that while their ancestry is undoubtedly common, there is a tremendous difference between the stage reached under the inspiration of the Hebrew genius and the crude Polytheism of the Babylonian stories. Their connection in some way is unmistakable, but still more certain is their different ethical and religious level. The fact of the borrowing does not deny the inspiration; it rather reveals how powerful that inspiration was.
To turn now to a consideration of the work of the Priests. We must doubtless concede to the workers a very lofty motive: it was nothing less than an endeavour to include the whole of the nation's life under the conception that God was dwelling among His people, and that the nation must be holy because He is holy.
But in the working out of this purpose the ideal is neither secured nor maintained. The holiness of God is insisted on with much reiteration, but it is conceived of as a physical rather than a moral attribute. It is really only a conception of the unapproachability of God unless certain purely ritual and physical conditions are observed. For the enforcement of this idea the old custom of sacrifice was elaborated and strictly defined, but strangely enough, without explicit teaching as to its meaning. This is peculiar, and it seems to have remained largely unnoticed, for many Biblical expositors have adopted without inquiry the idea that the sacrifices were substitutionary, piacular, and typical of the sacrifice of Christ. The piacular meaning suggests itself at so many points that it is startling to find that it cannot be borne out by careful examination. The sacrifices are in most instances only efficacious for the forgiveness of unintentional sins, or for the atonement of ritualistic mistakes made in ignorance or through inadvertence. The ceremony of laying the hands of the offerer on the head of the intended victim, suggests that a symbolical transference of guilt is taking place, and yet only in one case is this accompanied by a confession of sins, and there the victim is not slain, but led away for Azazel. The sin-offering involved the death of the animal, but an animal was not absolutely necessary for the purpose, and flour might be substituted; and even where we have the slain animal, the idea that the animal has taken the place of the sinner seems to be excluded by the fact that its flesh is regarded as "most holy." The offerings are said to make atonement, but we are not told how this is affected unless in the passage that states that "it is the blood that maketh atonement, by reason of the life." The word translated "atonement" means simply "a covering," and of course may mean that the blood, which is symbolical of the offered life, either covers the eyes of God from beholding the sin, or covers the sinner. We are left then, either with the deduction that the exact significance of the sacrifices was not mentioned because everyone knew what it was, or that it has not been told because it was too mysterious, or that there was no definite meaning attached to them. Originally sacrifice did not bear a piacular significance, but it would be unsafe to argue from this that no substitutionary value was attached to the Levitical sacrifices by these priestly lawyers; indeed the only safe conclusion seems to be that the priests adopted these sacrifices, which were time-honoured, as the proper ritual for the approach to God, without any definite inquiry as to their meaning. But taking the Levitical system as a whole there seems to underlie it the theory of symbolical, although not piacular substitution. God owns man entirely, and that by right: his time, possessions, flocks, and lands; and demands from him the completest recognition of this ownership. Now in practice, this absolute demand can only be recognised by substitute and proxy; and so we have the recognition of God's claims by the observance of one holy day in seven, by the ransom of the first-born, by the sabbatical and jubilee years, by the tithes, and especially by the sacrifices. His dwelling in the land is symbolised by the respect paid to one symbolical holy place; and the continual service He demands is represented by the daily service carried on by the Levitical caste. But even if this be the intention of the system, it is nowhere so defined, and therefore it is not surprising to find that people soon forgot the symbolical meaning, and treated the symbol as a thing sufficient in itself; with the result, that the service of God came to be restricted to a performance of rites that had lost all significance. One explanation would soon silence any criticism of this scheme that might arise, namely, that God had so ordained that men should worship Him. But deeper still there lay a radical misconception of the very nature of God and of the service He seeks. God was conceived as inimical not so much to man's sin, as to man himself; and this danger was averted by the use of protective rites which needed to be performed with scrupulous care, lest a mistake might bring down on the worshipper immediate and awful destruction, quite irrespective of his moral condition. Doubtless the nation might be impressed by these means with the awful aloofness of God, and there must often have accompanied this some notion of the ethical character that was expressed in this separateness; but the means taken for satisfying this character and demand in the nature of God could never have had any other result than it did, namely, the conception that attention to details of ritual could be a substitute for the much more difficult service of repentance and righteousness. It is possible that we may be under-estimating the real motive of the Priests' work and its actual success in preserving religion under these forms; but the radical evil is clearly exposed when we come to the time of another calamity, that which befel the nation under Antiochus Epiphanes, when no other method of averting the anger of God seems to have been thought of, except that of increasing the rigour of this ritual law and fencing it round with still further restrictions, until it became a burden too heavy to be borne.
Such a régime utterly failed to understand the teaching of Jesus and could only regard His religion as impious and lacking in all that was essential, reverential, or good, and it was "the Law" which put Jesus to death. It is much to be deplored that the Sacrifice of Christ has in turn been explained to the conscience touched to penitence and tenderness by the story of the Cross, rather by the analogy of the Old Testament sacrifices than by its complete superiority to them as based upon a different and ethical order; for the rags and tatters of the Levitical system still impede the religious life; allowing men to think that God is content with substitutes, can be placated with blood, and is more concerned with abstract regulations than with moral change. And so there still hang about religion the same inconsistencies, the same slaughter of the prophets, the same blindness to the eternal demands of personal and social righteousness. The motive of the work of the Priests may have been to enforce the prophetic repentance, but to gain this end they compromised with unspiritual ritual, and on that compromise Christ was, and is still crucified.
[THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS]
Titles of the Psalms, descriptive of their contents:—
(1) Song, Heb. Shirah. A lyrical poem for singing. Probably the earliest title, which in some instances may have belonged to the original composition.
(2) Michtam, perhaps, "a golden piece." The title indicates their artistic form and choice contents. They were probably all taken from a previous collection.
(3) Maschil, a meditative poem, from a collection made perhaps in the late Persian period.
(4) Psalm, Heb. Mizmor. The name given to a collection used for public worship, probably in the early Greek period.
(5) Shiggaion, (Ps. vii.; also in plural, Hab. iii. 1.) Some take this to mean a wild, passionate composition, but this Psalm hardly bears that character. Perhaps we may expect a textual corruption from Neginah: a song accompanied with musical instruments.
(6) A song of Ascents: used in the processions to the Temple.
(7) A prayer.
On the question of the Davidic authorship of the Psalms, the following passages should be examined; they would appear to be in hopeless disagreement with the life of David as depicted in the historical books. Ps. v. 8–10; vi. 7, f.; xii. 1–4; xvii. 9–14; xxii.; xxvii. 10, 12; xxxv. 11–21; xli. 5–9; liv. 2–6; lxii. 3, f. The Psalms which are ascribed to some definite occasion in David's life are not on the whole any more suitable to the situation, although there is generally some single phrase which probably gave rise to this identification.
The great commentator Ewald, on literary grounds ascribed the following Psalms to David because of their originality and dignified spirit: Ps. iii.; iv.; vii.; viii.; xi.; xv.; xviii.; xix. 1–6; xxiv. 1–6; xxiv. 7–10; xxix.; xxxii.; lx. 6–9; lxviii. 13–18; ci.; cxliv. 12–14.
Briggs would not go so far as to indicate Davidic Psalms, but would put as far back as the Early Monarchy, Ps. vii., xiii., xviii., xxiii., xxiv. b, lx. a, and cx.
[Lecture IX]
THE RELIGION OF THE PSALMISTS
The principles of Biblical criticism have often been traced to a vigorous application of the theory of evolution to the growth of religious ideas. Such an application, if without the support of facts, would discredit all critical results; but as a matter of fact, the critical readjustment of the Old Testament does not give a perfect progression in religious development. Indeed, it leaves us with a perplexing story of decline from high attainment. The Law follows the Prophets, and no theory can recognise the Law as an advance upon prophetic teaching. The national rejection of the Prophets is the central tragedy of Hebrew history and prepares us for the national rejection of Jesus. Yet between the Prophets and the religion of the Gospels we are able to trace an almost continuous link in the religion of the Psalmists. This connection is somewhat obscured by the early date assigned to the Psalms by uncritical tradition, by the heterogeneous character of the collection, and by its continual redaction in the interest of the purpose to which they were adapted. In adopting this collection of religious poems for the purpose of public praise, it is more than likely that additions were made, in order that they might more fitly express the need of the time, while reverence for the writings, by the time at least, of the final edition of the work, operated to preserve the original; as may be seen, for instance, in the addition made to the fifty-first Psalm (ver. 18, 19), which in its original form condemns the very worship in which it was used. Moreover the collection is as much a prayer-book as a hymn-book, for many of the Psalms are really prayers, and five of them are actually so entitled. The book was certainly used in the Temple services, but on the whole it must have seemed more fitted for the non-sacrificial and non-ceremonial worship of the synagogue, or for the private devotions of pious men and women. However and wherever used, it must have nourished a deep personal religion and kept alive hopes to which Christianity afterwards appealed.