Part 30 (1/2)

In fact ghost-wors.h.i.+p, in Mr. Spencer's scheme, cannot be fairly well developed till society reaches the level of 'settled groups whose burial-places are in their midst.' Hence the development of a moral Supreme Being among tribes _not_ thus settled, is inconceivable, on Mr. Spencer's hypothesis.[6] By that hypothesis, 'wors.h.i.+pped ancestors, according to their remoteness, were regarded as divine, semi-divine, and human.'[7] Where we find, then, the Divine Being among nomads who do not remember their great-grandfathers, the Spencerian theory is refuted by facts. We have the effect, the Divine Being, without the cause, wors.h.i.+p of ancestors.

Coming to the Hebrews, Mr. Spencer argues that 'the silence of their legends (as to ancestor-wors.h.i.+p) is but a negative fact, which may be as misleading as negative facts usually are.' They are, indeed; witness Mr. Spencer's own silence about savage Supreme Beings. But we may fairly argue that if Israel had been given to ancestor-wors.h.i.+p (as might partly be surmised from the mystery about the grave of Moses) the Prophets would not have spared them for their crying. The Prophets were unusually outspoken men, and, as they undeniably do scold Israel for every other kind of conceivable heresy, they were not likely to be silent about ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, if ancestor-wors.h.i.+p existed. Mr. Spencer, then, rather heedlessly, though correctly, argues that 'nomadic habits are unfavourable to evolution of the ghost-theory.'[8] Alas, this gives away the whole case! For, if all men began as nomads, and nomadic habits are unfavourable even to the ordinary ghost, how did the Australian and other nomads develop the Supreme Being, who, _ex hypothesi_, is the final fruit of the ghost-flower? If you cannot have 'an established ancestor-wors.h.i.+p' till you abandon nomadic habits, how, while still nomadic, do you evolve a Supreme Being? Obviously not out of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p.

Mr. Spencer then a.s.signs, as evidence for ancestor-wors.h.i.+p in Israel, mourning dresses, fasting, the law against self-bleeding and cutting off the hair for the dead, and the text (Deut. xxvi. 14) about 'I have not given aught thereof for the dead.' 'Hence, the conclusion must be that ancestor-wors.h.i.+p had developed as far as nomadic habits allowed, before it was repressed by a higher wors.h.i.+p.'[9] But whence came that higher wors.h.i.+p which seems to have intervened immediately after the cessation of nomadic habits?

There are obvious traces of grief expressed in a primitive way among the Hebrews. 'Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead' (Deut. xiv. 1). 'Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead' (by way of counter-irritant to grief); 'neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or their mother,' because the Jews were to be removed from their homes.[10] 'Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.'[11]

It may be usual to regard inflictions, such as cutting, by mourners, as sacrifices to the ghost of the dead. But one has seen a man strike himself a heavy blow on receiving news of a loss _not_ by death, and I venture to fancy that cuttings and gas.h.i.+ngs at funerals are merely a more violent form of appeal to a counter-irritant of grief, and, again, a token of recklessness caused by a sorrow which makes void the world. One of John Nicholson's native adorers killed himself on news of that warrior's death, saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference to the ritual of G.o.ds who are no G.o.ds. But it rather seems to indicate an acquiescence in foreign burial rites. All this additional evidence does not do much to prove ancestor-wors.h.i.+p in Israel, though the secrecy of the burial of Moses, 'in a valley of the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,' may indicate a dread of a nascent wors.h.i.+p of the great leader.[12] The scene of the defection in Psalm cvi., Beth-peor, is indicated in Numbers xxv., where Israel runs after the girls and the G.o.ds of Moab: 'And Moab called the people unto the sacrifices of their G.o.ds; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their G.o.ds. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor.' Psalm cvi. is obviously a later restatement of this addiction to the Moabite G.o.ds, and the Psalm adds 'they ate the sacrifices of the dead.'

It is plain that, for whatever reason, ancestor-wors.h.i.+p among the Hebrews was, at the utmost, rudimentary. Otherwise it must have been clearly denounced by the Prophets among the other heresies of Israel. Therefore, as being at the most rudimentary, ancestor-wors.h.i.+p in Israel could not be developed at once into the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah.

Though ancestor-wors.h.i.+p among the Hebrews could not be fully developed, according to Mr. Spencer, because of their nomadic habits, it _was_ fully developed, according to the Rev. A.W. Oxford. 'Every family, like every old Roman and Greek family, was firmly held together by the wors.h.i.+p of its ancestors, the hearth was the altar, the head of the family the priest....

The bond which kept together the families of a tribe was its common religion, the wors.h.i.+p of its reputed ancestor. The chief of the tribe was, of course, the priest of the cult.' Of course; but what a pity that Mr.

Huxley and Mr. Spencer omitted facts so invaluable to their theory! And how does the Rev. Mr. Oxford know? Well, 'there is no direct proof,'

oddly enough, of so marked a feature in Hebrew religion but we are referred to 1 Sam. xx. 29 and Judges xviii. 19. 1 Sam. xx. 29 makes Jonathan say that David wants to go to a family sacrifice, that is, a family dinner party. This hardly covers the large a.s.sertions made by Mr. Oxford. His second citation is so unlucky as to contradict his observation that 'of course' the chief of the tribe was the priest of the cult. Micah, in Judges xvii., xviii., is _not_ the chief of his tribe (Ephraim), neither is he even the priest in his own house. He 'consecrated one of his own sons who became his priest,' till he got hold of a casual young Levite, and said, 'Be unto me a _father_ and a priest,' for ten shekels _per annum_, a suit of clothes, and board and lodging.

In place, then, of any remote reference to a chief's being priest of his ancestral ghosts, we have here a man of one tribe who is paid rather handsomely to be family chaplain to a member of another tribe. Some moss-troopers of the tribe of Dan then kidnapped this valuable young Levite, and seized a few idols which Micah had permitted himself to make.

And all this, according to our clerical authority, is evidence for ancestor-wors.h.i.+p![13]

All this appears to be derived from some incoherent speculations of Stade.

For example, that learned German cites the story of Micah as a proof that the different tribes or clans had different religions. This _must_ be so, because the Danites asked the young Levite whether it was not better to be priest to a clan than to an individual? It is as if a patron offered a rich living to somebody's private chaplain, saying that the new position was more creditable and lucrative. This would hardly prove a difference of religion between the individual and the parish.[14]

Mr. Oxford next avers that 'the earliest form of the Israelite religion was Fetis.h.i.+sm or Totemism.' This is another example of Stade's logic.

Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi, Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues, could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America, Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent Supreme Being co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once totemistic) as it does of p.a.w.nees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is set in examinations![15]

We also learn from Mr. Oxford's popular manual of German Biblical conjecture that 'Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a Being easily roused to wrath,' a thing most incident to loving fathers.

Again, Mr. Oxford avers that 'the old Israelites knew no distinction between physical and moral evil.... The conception of Jehovah's holiness had nothing moral in it' (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: 'In all ancient primitive peoples ... religion furnishes a motive for law and morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as in that of the Israelites.'[16]

We began by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to find traces of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-wors.h.i.+p) among the Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest, and the more dogmatic a.s.sertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of Jehovah.

From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting.

The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the 'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of kind.'[17]

'If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic ”G.o.ds of the nations,” why is it to be a.s.sumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?' He _was_ thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur. We demur when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still incompletely developed) is called by her _Elohim_, therefore the highest _Elohim_ is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not in kind. _Elohim_, or _El_, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind, because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal and without beginning.

Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,[18]

whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: 'of his origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is Ta-li-y-Tooboo = ”Wait-there-Tooboo.”' 'He is a great chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other '_original_ G.o.ds' of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated from the _atua_, which are 'the human soul after its separation from the body.' All Tongan G.o.ds are _atua_ (_Elohim_), but all _atua_ are not 'original G.o.ds,'

unserved by priests, and unpropitiated by food or libation, like the highest G.o.d, Ta-li-y-Tooboo, the Eternal of Tonga. 'He occasionally inspires the How' (elective King), but often a How is not inspired at all by Ta-li-y-Tooboo, any more than Saul, at last, was inspired by Jehovah.

Surely there is a difference _in kind_ between an eternal, immortal G.o.d, and a ghost, though both are _atua_, or both are _Elohim_--the unknown X.

Many people call a ghost 'supernatural;' they also call G.o.d 'supernatural,' but the difference between a phantasm of a dead man and the Deity they would admit, I conceive, to be a difference of kind. We have shown, or tried to show, that the conceptions of 'ghost' and 'Supreme Being' are different, not only in kind, but in origin. The ghost comes from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as originally thought of, does not. All G.o.ds are _Elohim, kalou, wakan_; all _Elohim, kalou, wakan_ are not G.o.ds.

A ghost-G.o.d should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that Ta-li-y-Tooboo did so. 'If the G.o.d, like Ta-li-y-Tooboo, had no priest, then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by the G.o.d himself. _When the first cup of Kava was filled_, the mataboole who acted as master of the ceremonies said, ”Give it to your G.o.d,” and it was offered, though only as a matter of form.'[19]

This is incorrect. In the case of Ta-li-y-Tooboo _'there is no cup filled for the G.o.d.'_[20] _'Before any cup is filled_ the man by the side of the bowl says: ”The Kava is in the cup”' (which it is not), 'and the mataboole answers, ”Give it to your G.o.d;”' but the Kava is _not_ in the cup, and the Tongan Eternal receives no oblation.

The sacrifice, says Mr. Huxley, meant 'that the G.o.d was either a deified ghost, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these.'[21] But as Ta-li-y-Tooboo had no sacrifice, contrary to Mr. Huxley's averment, he was _not_ 'a deified ghost, or a being of like nature to these.' To the lower, non-ghostly Tongan G.o.ds the animistic habit of sacrifice had been extended, but not yet to the Supreme Being.