Emile Zola - "The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Complete"

Lloyd Osbourne - "The Motormaniacs"

Thomas Moore - "Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1"

John Buchan. - "Huntingtower."

Warning: file_get_contents(http://www.publishersnewswire.com/RSS/news4.xml) [function.file-get-contents]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found in /home/farmy/public_html/knownwriters.net/inc/rss.php on line 8

Books: Prolegomena to the History of Israel

J >> Julius Wellhausen >> Prolegomena to the History of Israel




The favourite illustrations of the power of religion in the Israel
ot that period are drawn from the instances of great prophets who
raised kings out of the dust and smote them to it again. But the
influence and importance of these is generally exaggerated in the
accounts we have. That among them there occasionally occurred
manifestations of such power as to give a new turn in history is
indeed true; a figure like that of Elijah is no mere invention.
But such a man as he was a prophecy of the future rather than an
actual agent in shaping the present. On the whole, religion was
a peaceful influence, conserving rather than assailing the existing
order of things. The majority of the prophets were no revolutionists;
rather in fact were they always too much inclined to prophesy in
accordance with the wishes of the party in power. Besides, in
ordinary circumstances their influence was inferior to that of
the priests, who were servants of royalty at the chief
sanctuaries, but everywhere attached to the established order.

The Torah of Jehovah still continued to be their special charge.
It was not even now a code or law in our sense of the word;
Jehovah had not yet made His Testament; He was still living and
active in Israel. But the Torah appears during this period to
have withdrawn itself somewhat from the business of merely
pronouncing legal decisions and to have begun to move in a freer
field. It now consisted in teaching the knowledge of God, in
showing the right God-given way where men were not sure of
themselves. Many of the counsels of the priests had become a
common stock of moral convictions, which, indeed, were all of them
referred to Jehovah as their author, yet had ceased to be matters
of direct revelation. Nevertheless the Torah had still occupation
enough, the progressive life of the nation ever affording matter
for new questions.

Although in truth the Torah and the moral influence of Jehovah
upon the national life were things much weightier and much more
genuinely Israelitic than the cultus, yet this latter held on the
whole a higher place in public opinion. To the ordinary man it
was not moral but liturgical acts that seemed to be truly
religious. Altars of Jehovah occurred everywhere, with sacred
stones and trees--the latter either artificial (Asheras) or
natural--beside them; it was considered desirable also to have
water in the neighbourhood (brazen sea). In cases where a temple
stood before the altar it contained an ephod and teraphim, a kind
of images before which the lot was cast by the priest. Of the
old simplicity the cultus retained nothing; at the great
sanctuaries especially (Bethel, Gilgal, Beersheba) it had become
very elaborate. Its chief seasons were the agricultural
festivals--the passover, the feast of weeks, and most especially
the feast of the ingathering at the close of the year. These were
the only occasions of public worship properly so called, at which
every one was expected to attend; in other cases each worshipper
sought the presence of God only in special circumstances, as for
example at the beginning and at the end of particular undertakings.
The cultus, as to place, time, matter, and form, belonged almost
entirely to the inheritance which Israel had received from Canaan;
to distinguish what belonged to the worship of Jehovah from that
which belonged to Baal was no easy matter. /1/

******************************************
1. The description of the cultus by the Prophet Hosea shows this
very clearly. It is obvious enough, hov ever, that the object
was to serve JEHOVAH, and not any foreign deity, by this worship.
*****************************************


It was the channel through which also paganism could and did ever
anew gain admittance into the worship of Jehovah. Yet that
publicity of the cultus which arose out of the very nature of Jehovah,
and in consequence of which the teraphim even were removed from the
houses to the temples, cannot but have acted as a corrective against
the most fatal excesses.

As for the substance of the national faith, it was summed up
principally in the proposition that Jehovah is the God of Israel.
But "God" was equivalent to "helper;" that was the meaning of
the word. "Help," assistance in all occasions of life,--that was
what Israel looked for from Jehovah, not "salvation" in the
theological sense. The forgiveness of sins was a matter of
subordinate importance; it was involved in the "help," and was a
matter not of faith but of experience. The relation between the
people and God was a natural one as that of son to father; it did
not rest upon observance of the conditions of a pact. But it was
not on that account always equally lively and hearty; Jehovah
was regarded as having varieties of mood. To secure and retain
His favour sacrifices were useful; by them prayer and
thanksgiving were seconded.

Another main article of faith was that Jehovah judges and
recompenses, not after death (then all men were thought to be
alike), but upon the earth. Here, however, but little account
was taken of the individual; over him the wheel of destiny
remorselessly rolled; his part was resignation and not hope.
Not in the career of the individual but in the fate of families
and nations did the righteousness of Jehovah find scope for its
manifestation; and this is the only reason why the religion
could dispense with the conceptions of heaven and hell. For the
rest, it was not always easy to bring the second article into
correlation with the first; in practice the latter received the
superior place.

It need hardly be said that superstition of every kind also
abounded. But the superstition of the Israelites had as little
real religious significance as had that poetical view of nature
which the Hebrews doubtless shared in greater or less degree with
all the other nations of antiquity.



6. THE FALL OF SAMARIAQ.


Under King Jeroboam II., two years before a great earthquake that
served ever after for a date to all who had experienced it, there
occurred at Bethel, the greatest and most conspicuous sanctuary
of Jehovah in Israel, a scene full of significance. The multitude
were assembled there with gifts and offerings for the observance
of a festival, when there stepped forward a man whose grim
seriousness interrupted the joy of the feast. It was a Judaean,
Amos of Tekoa, a shepherd from the wilderness bordering on the
Dead Sea. Into the midst of the joyful tones of the songs which
with harp and tabor were being sung at the sacred banquet he
brought the discordant note of the mourner's wail. For over all
the joyous stir of busy life his ear caught the sounds of death:
"the virgin of Israel is fallen, never more to rise;
lies prostrate in her own land with no one to lift her up."
He prophesied as close at hand the downfall of the kingdom which
just at that moment was rejoicing most in the consciousness of
power, and the deportation of the people to a far-off northern land.

There was something rotten in the state of Israel in spite of
the halcyon days it enjoyed under Jeroboam II. From the indirect
results of war, from changes in the tenure and in the culture of
the soil, from defective administration of justice, the humbler
classes had much to suffer; they found that the times were evil.
But it was not this that caused Amos to foresee the end of Israel,
not a mere vague foreboding of evil that forced him to leave his
flocks; the dark cloud that threatened on the horizon was plain
enough--the Assyrians. Once already at an earlier date they had
directed their course south-westwards, without, however, on that
occasion becoming a source of danger to the Israelites. But now
that the bulwark against the Assyrians, Aram of Damascus, was
falling into ruins, a movement of these against Lebanon in the time
of Jeroboam II. opened to Israel the alarming prospect that
sooner or later they would have to meet the full force of the
irresistible avalanche.

What then? The common man was in no position truly to estimate
the danger; and, so far as he apprehended it, he lived in the
firm faith that Jehovah would not abandon His people in their
straits. The governing classes prided themselves on the military
resources of Israel, or otherwise tried to dismiss from their
minds all thought of the gravity of the situation. But Amos heard
the question distinctly enough, and did not hesitate to answer
it: the downfall of Israel is imminent. It was nothing short of
blasphemy to utter anything of this kind, for everything, Jehovah
Himself included, depended on the existence of the nation. But
the most astounding thing has yet to come; not Asshur, but Jehovah
Himself, is bringing about the overthrow of Israel; through Asshur
it is Jehovah that is triumphing over Israel. A paradoxical
thought--as if the national God were to cut the ground from under
His own feet! For the faith in Jehovah as the God of Israel was
a faith that He intervenes on behalf of His people against all
enemies, against the whole World; precisely in times of danger
was religion shown by staying oneself upon this faith. Jehovah
might indeed, of course, hide His face for a time, but not
definitively; in the end He ever arose at last against all
opposing powers. "The day of the Lord" was an object of hope
in all times of difficulty and oppression; it was understood
as self-evident that the crisis would certainly end in favour of
Israel. Amos took up the popular conception of that day; but how
thoroughly did he change its meaning! "Woe to them who long
for the day of the Lord!--What to you is the day of the Lord,?
It is darkness, not light." His own opposition to the popular
conception is formulated in a paradox which he prefixes as theme
to the principal section of his book:--"Us alone does Jehovah
know," say the Israelites, drawing from this the inference that
He is on their side, and of course must take their part. "You
only do I know," Amos represents Jehovah as saying, "therefore do
I visit upon you all your sins."

If the question, Whereon did Jehovah's relation to Israel
ultimately rest? be asked, the answer, according to the popular
faith, must substantially be that it rested on the fact that
Jehovah was worshipped in Israel and notamong the heathen, that
in Israel were His altars and His dwelling. His cultus was the
bond between HiM and the nation; when therefore it was desired
to draw the bond still closer, the solemn services of religion
were redoubled. But to the conception of Amos Jehovah is no
judge capable of accepting a bribe; with the utmost indignation
he repudiates the notion that it is possible to influence
Him by gifts and offerings. Though Israel alone has served Him
he does not on that account apply any other standard to it than
to other nations (chaps. i. ii.). If Israel is better known to
Him, it does not follow that on that account He shuts His eyes and
blindly takes a side. Neither Jehovah nor His prophet recognises
two moral standards; right is everywhere right, wrong always
wrong, even though committed against Israel's worst enemies (ii. 1).
What Jehovah demands is righteousness,--nothing more and
nothing less; what He hates is injustice. Sin or offence to the
Deity is a thing of purely moral character; with such emphasis
this doctrine had never before been heard. Morality is that for
the sake of which all other things exist; it is the alone
essential thing in the world. It is no postulate, no idea, but at
once a necessity and a fact, the most intensely living of
personal powers-Jehovah the God of Hosts. In wrath, in ruin, this
holy reality makes its existence known; it annihilates all that
is hollow and false.

Amos calls Jehovah the God of Hosts, never the God of Israel.
The nation as such is no religious conception to him; from its mere
existence he cannot formulate any article of faith. Sometimes it
seems as if he were denying Israel's prerogative altogether. He
does not really do so, but at least the prerogative is
conditional and involves a heavy responsibility. The saying in
iii. 2 recalls Luke xii. 47. The proposition "Jehovah knows
Israel" is in the mouth of Amos almost the same thing as "Israel
knows Jehovah; " save only that this is not to be regarded as
any merit on Israel's part, but as a manifestation of the grace of
Jehovah, who has led His people by great deeds and holy men, and
so made Himself known. Amos knows no other truth than that
practical one which he has found among his own people and nowhere
else, Iying at the foundation of life and morality, and which he
regards as the product of a divine providential ordering of
history. From this point of view, so thoroughly Israelitish, he
pronounces Israel's condemnation. He starts from premisses
generally conceded, but he accentuates them differently and
draws from them divergent conclusions.

Amos was the founder, and the purest type, of a new phase of
prophecy. The impending conflict of Asshur with Jehovah and
Israel, the ultimate downfall of Israel, is its theme. Until that
date there had subsisted in Palestine and Syria a number of petty
kingdoms and nationalities, which had their &iendships and
enmities with one another, but paid no heed to anything outside
their own immediate environment, and revolved, each on its own axis,
careless of the outside world, until suddenly the Assyrians burst
in upon them. These commenced the work which was carried on by
the Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, and completed by the Romans.
They introduced a new factor, the conception of the world,--the world
of course in the historical sense of that expression. In presence
of that conception the petty nationalities lost their centre of
gravity, brute fact dispelled their illusions, they flung their
gods to the moles and to the bats (Isaiah ii.). The prophets of
Israel alone did not allow themselves to be taken by surprise by
what had occurred, or to be plunged ih despair; they solved by
anticipation the grim problem which history set before them.
They absorbed into their religion that conception of the world
which was destroying the religions of the nations, even before it
had been fully grasped by the secular consciousness. Where
others saw only the ruin of everything that is holiest, they saw
the triumph of Jehovah over delusion and error. Whatever else
might be overthrown, the really worthy remained unshaken. They
recognised ideal powers only, right and wrong truth and falsehood;
second causes were matters of indifference to them, they were no
practical politicians. But they watched the course of events
attentively, nay, with passionate interest. The present, which
was passing before them, became to them as it were the plot of a
divine drama which they watched with an intelligence that
anticipated the _denouement_. Everywhere the same goal of the
development, everywhere the same laws. The nations are the
_dramatis personae_, Israel the hero, Jehovah the poet of the
tragedy. /1/

*****************************
1. In very much the same way the threatened and actual political
annihilation Of Ionia led to the rise of Greek philosophy
(Xenophanes, Heraclitus).
*****************************

The canonical prophets, the series of whom begins with Amos, were
separated by an essential distinction from the class which had
preceded them and which still continued to be the type of the
common prophet. They did not seek to kindle either the
enthusiasm or the fanaticism of the multitude; they swam not
with but against the stream. They were not patriotic, at least
inthe ordinary acceptation of that word; they prophesied not good
but evil for their people (Jer. xxviii. 8). Until their time
the nation had sprung up out of the conception of Jehovah; now
the conception of Jehovah was casting the nation into the shade.
The natural bond between the two was severed, and the relation
was henceforward viewed as conditional. As God of the
righteousness which is the law of the whole universe, Jehovah
could be Israel's God only in so far as in Israel the right was
recognised and followed. The ethical element destroyed the
national character of the old religion. It still addressed itself,
to be sure, more to the nation and to society at large than to
the individual; it insisted less upon a pure heart than upon
righteous institutions; but nevertheless the first step towards
universalism had been accomplished, towards at once the general
diffusion and the individualisation of religion. Thus, although
the prophets were far from originating a new conception of God,
they none the less were the founders of what has been called
"ethical monotheism." But with them this ethical monotheism was no
product of the "self-evolution of dogma," but a progressive step
which had been called forth simply by the course of events. The
providence of God brought it about that this call came at an
opportune period, and not too suddenly. The downfall of the nation
did not take place until the truths and precepts of religion were
already sbong enough to be able to live on alone; to the
prophets belongs the merit of having recognised the independence
of these, and of having secured perpetuity to Israel by refusing
to allow the conception of Jehovah to be involved in the ruin of
the kingdom. They saved faith by destroying illusion.

The event which Amos had foreseen was not long in coming. The
Israelites flew spontaneously, like "silly doves," into the net
of the Assyrians. Zechariah ben Jeroboam was overthrown after a
short reign, Shallum his murderer and successor was also unable to
hold his own, and was followed after the horrors of a civil war by
Menahem ben Gadi (745 B.C). But Menahem, in the presence of
domestic (and perhaps also foreign) assailants, /1/ had no other

**********************************
1. It is not inconceivable that the wars carried on by
Tiglath-pileser II. against Hamath had some connection with his
interventions in favour of Menahem. The kingdom of Hamath, which
may have been threatened by Jeroboam II., may have availed
itself of the state of matters which followed his death to secure
its own aggrandisement at Israel's expense; in correspondence
with this attack from the northern side another by Judah in
concert with Hamath may well have been made from the south. In
this way, though not without the aid of pure hypothesis, it might
be possible to fit into the general historical connection the
fragmentary Assyrian notices about Azariah of Judah aud his
relations to Hamath; the explanations suggested by the
Assyriologists have hitherto been total failures. But in that
case it would certainly be necessary to assume that the Assyrians
were badly informed as to the nature of the relations between
Hamath and Judah, and also as to the individual who at that time
held the throne of Judah. Uzziah (= Azariah), who in his old age
had become a leper, could only nominally at best have been king
of Judah then.
*************************************

resort than to purchase by payment of a great tribute the assistance
of King Tiglath-pileser II., who at that time was giving new force
to the Assyrian predominance in these regions. By such means he
succeeded in attaining his immediate end, but the further
consequence was that the rival party in the state turned for
support to Egypt, and Palestine now became the arena of conflict
between the two great world-powers.

Menahem transmitted his kingdom to Pekahiah; Pekahiah was murdered
about 735 B.C. by Pekah, and Pekah himself shortly afterwards
was overthrown. All this happened within a few years. It would
have been possible to conjecture the state of the country in
these circumstances, even if we had not been informed of it by
means of the prophetical book of Hosea, which dates from the time
when the Assyrians had begun indeed to tamper with the country,
but had not yet shown their full design. After the death of
Jeroboam II. there had been wild outbursts of partisan war; none
of the kings who in quick succession appeared and disappeared had
real power, none established order. It was as if the danger from
without, which was only too obviously threatening the existence
of the kingdom, had already dissolved all internal bonds; every
one was at war with his neighbour. Assyrians and Egyptians were
called in to support this or that government; by such expedients
the external confusion was, naturally, only increased. Was there
any other quarter in which help could yet be sought? The
people, led by the priests, turned to the altars of Jehovah, and
outdid itself in pious works, as if by any such illusory means,
out of all relation to the practical problem in hand, the gangrene
of anarchy could possibly be healed. Still more zealous than
Amos against the cultus was Hosea, not merely on the ground that
it had the absurd motive of forcing Jehovah's favour, but also
because it was of heathenish character, nature-worship and
idolatry. That Jehovah is the true and only helper is certainly
not denied by Hosea. But His help is coupled with the condition
that Israel shall undergo a complete change, and of such a change
he sees no prospect. On this account the downfall of the state is
in Hosea's view inevitable, but not final ruin, only such an
overthrow as is necessary for the transition to a new and fair
recommencement. In Hosea's prophecies the relation between Jehovah
and Israel is conceived of as dissoluble, and as actually on the point
of being dissolved, but it has struck its roots so deep that it
must inevitably at last establish itself again.

The first actual collision between Israel and Assyria occurred in
734. Resin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, had
united in an expedition against Judah, where at that time Ahaz ben
Jotham occupied the throne. But Ahaz parried the blow by placing
himself under the protection of the Assyrians, who perhaps would
in any case have struck in against the alliance between Aram and
Israel. Tiglath-pileser made his first appearance in 734, first on
the sea-coast of Palestine, and subsequently either in this or in
the following year took up his quarters in the kingdom of the ten
tribes. After he had ravaged Galilee and Gilead, he finally
concluded a peace with Samaria conditionally on his receiving the
head of King Pekah and a considerable yearly tribute. Hosea ben
Elah was raised to the throne in Pekah's place and acknowledged by
the Assyrian as a vassal For some ten years he held his position
quietly, regularly paying his dues. But when at the death of
Tiglath-pileser the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms rebelled _en masse_,
Samaria also was seized with the delirium of patriotic fanaticism
(Isaiah xxviii.). Relying upon the help of Seve, king of Ethiopia
and Egypt, Hosea ventured on a revolt from Assyria. But the
Egyptians left him in the lurch as soon as Shalmaneser IV.,
Tiglath-pileser's successor, invaded his territory. Before his
capital had fallen, Hosea himself fell into the hands of the
Assyrians. Samaria offered a desperate resistance, and succumbed
only to Sargon, Shalmaneser's successor (72I). Energetic
measures were adopted by the victor for the pacification of the
country; he carried all the inhabitants of mark into captivity
to Calachene, Gozanitis, and Armenia. Much light is thrown upon
the conditions of the national religion then and upon its
subsequent development by the single fact that the exiled
Israelites were absorbed by the surrounding heathenism without
leaving a trace behind them, while the population of Judah, who
had the benefit of a hundred years respite, held their faith fast
throughout the period of the Babylonian exile, and by means of it
were able to maintain their own individuality afterwards in all
the circumstances that arose. The fact that the fall of Samaria
did not hinder but helped the religion of Jehovah is entirely due
to the prophets. That they had foreseen the downfall of the
state, and declared in the name of religion that it was
inevitable, was a matter of much greater historical importance
than the actual downfall itself.



7. THE DELIVERANCE OF jUDAH.


Hitherto the small kingdom of Judah had stood in the background.
Its political history had been determined almost exclusively by
its relation to Israel. Under the dynasty of Omri the original
enmity had been changed into a close but perhaps not quite
voluntary friendship. Judah found itself drawn completely into
the train of the more powerful neighbouring state, and seems even
to have rendered it military service. The fall of the house of
Omri was an ominous event for Judah as well as Israel; Jehu, as
he passed to the throne, put to death not only Ahaziah the king
but also two and forty other members of the royal house of David
who had fallen into his hands; and those who still survived,
children for the most part, were murdered wholesale by the regent
Athaliah for reasons that are unknown. Only one little boy,
Joash, was concealed from her fury, and by a successful
conspiracy six years afterwards uas placed upon the throne of his
ancestors. At that time the Syrians were extending their
incursions to Judah and Philistia, and Joash bought them off from
Jerusalem with the temple treasures. Perhaps it was this disgrace
that he expiated with his death; in like manner perhaps the
assassination of his successor Amaziah is to be accounted for by
the discredit he had incurred by a reckless and unsuccessful war
against Israel. Just as Israel was beginning to recover itself
after the happy termination of the Syrian wars, Judah also
experienced its period of highest prosperity. What Jeroboam II.
was to the northern kingdom, Uzziah was to that of the south. He
appears to have obtained possession of Edom, and for a
considerable time to have held that one province of David's
conquests which fell to Judah; and at the trading port of Elath
he revived the commerce which Solomon had created. The prosperity
of his long reign was uninterrupted till in his later years he was
smitten with leprosy, and found it necessary to hand over the
affairs of the kingdom to his son Jotham. But Jotham appears to
have died about the same time as his father,--his successor, still
in very early youth (Isaiah iii. 12), being Ahaz ben Jotham
ben Uzziah.