The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study by Thomas Henry Huxley (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📕

There is abundant evidence in the books of Samuel and elsewhere that an article of dress termed an <i>ephod</i> was supposed to have a peculiar efficacy in enabling the wearer to exercise divination by means of Jahveh-Elohim. Great and long continued have been the disputes as to the exact nature of the ephod—

whether it always means something to wear, or whether it sometimes means an image. But the probabilities are that it usually signifies a kind of waistcoat or broad zone, with shoulder-straps, which the person who “inquired of Jahveh” put on. In 1 Samuel xxiii. 2 David appears to have inquired without an ephod, for Abiathar the priest is said to have “come down with an ephod in his hand” only subsequently. And then David asks for it before inquiring of Jahveh whether the men of Keilah would betray him or not. David’s action is obviously divination pure and simple; and it is curious that he seems to have worn the ephod himself and not to have employed Abiathar as a medium.

How the answer was given is not clear though the probability is that it was obtained by casting lots. The <i>Urim</i> and <i>Thummim</i> seem to have been two such lots of a peculiarly sacred character, which were carried in the pocket of the high priest’s “breastplate.” This last was worn along with the ephod.

With the exception of one passage (1 Sam. xiv. 18) the ark is ignored in the history of Saul. But in this place the Septuagint reads “ephod” for ark, while in 1 Chronicles xiii. 3 David says that “we sought not unto it [the ark] in the days of Saul.”

Nor does Samuel seem to have paid any regard to the ark after its return from Philistia; though, in his childhood, he is said to have slept in “the temple of Jahveh, where the ark of Elohim was” (1 Sam. iii. 3), at Shiloh and there to have been the seer of the earliest apparitions vouchsafed to him by Jahveh.

The space between the cherubim or winged images on the canopy or cover (<i>Kapporeth</i>) of this holy chest was held to be the special seat of Jahveh—the place selected for a temporary residence of the Supreme Elohim who had, after Aaron and Phineas, Eli and his sons for priests and seers. And, when the ark was carried to the camp at Eben-ezer, there can be no doubt that the Israelites, no less than the Philistines, held that “Elohim is come into the camp” (iv. 7), and that the one, as much as the other, conceived that the Israelites had summoned to their aid a powerful ally in “these (or this) mighty Elohim”—

elsewhere called Jahve-Sabaoth, the Jahveh of Hosts. If the “temple” at Shiloh was the pentateuchal tabernacle, as is suggested by the name of “tent of meeting” given to it in 1 Samuel ii. 22, it was essentially a large tent, though constituted of very expensive and ornate materials; if, on the other hand, it was a different edifice, there can be little doubt that this “house of Jahveh” was built on the model of an ordinary house of the time. But there is not the slightest evidence that, during the reign of Saul, any greater importance attached to this seat of the cult of Jahveh than to others.

Sanctuaries, and “high places” for sacrifice, were scattered all over the country from Dan to Beersheba. And, as Samuel is said to have gone up to one of these high places to bless the sacrifice, it may be taken for tolerably certain that he knew nothing of the Levitical laws which severely condemn the high places and those who sacrifice away from the sanctuary hallowed by the presence of the ark.

There is no evidence that, during the time of the Judges and of Samuel, any one occupied the position of the high priest of later days. And persons who were neither priests nor Levites sacrificed and divined or “inquired of Jahveh,” when they pleased and where they pleased, without the least indication that they, or any one else in Israel at that time, knew they were doing wrong. There is no allusion to any special observance of the Sabbath; and the references to circumcision are indirect.

Such are the chief articles of the theological creed of the old Israelites, which are made known to us by the direct evidence of the ancient record to which we have had recourse, and they are as remarkable for that which they contain as for that which is absent from them. They reveal a firm conviction that, when death takes place, a something termed a soul or spirit leaves the body and continues to exist in Sheol for a period of indefinite duration, even though there is no proof of any belief in absolute immortality; that such spirits can return to earth to possess and inspire the living; that they are, in appearance and in disposition, likenesses of the men to whom they belonged, but that, as spirits, they have larger powers and are freer from physical limitations; that they thus form a group among a number of kinds of spiritual existences known as Elohim, of whom Jahveh, the national God of Israel, is one; that, consistently with this view, Jahveh was conceived as a sort of spirit, human in aspect and in senses, and with many human passions, but with immensely greater intelligence and power than any other Elohim, whether human or divine. Further, the evidence proves that this belief was the basis of the Jahveh-worship to which Samuel and his followers were devoted; that there is strong reason for believing, and none for doubting, that idolatry, in the shape of the worship of the family gods or teraphim, was practised by sincere and devout Jahveh-worshippers; that the ark, with its protective tent or tabernacle, was regarded as a specially, but by no means exclusively, favoured sanctuary of Jahveh; that the ephod appears to have had a particular value for those who desired to divine by the help of Jahveh; and that divination by lots was practised before Jahveh. On the other hand, there is not the slightest evidence of any belief in retribution after death, but the contrary; ritual obligations have at least as strong sanction as moral; there are clear indications that some of the most stringent of the Levitical laws were unknown even to Samuel; priests often appear to be superseded by laymen, even in the performance of sacrifices and divination; and no line of demarcation can be drawn between necromancer, wizard, seer, prophet, and priest, each of whom is regarded, like all the rest, as a medium of communication between the world of Elohim and that of living men.

The theological system thus defined offers to the anthropologist no feature which is devoid of a parallel in the known theologies of other races of mankind, even of those who inhabit parts of the world most remote from Palestine. And the foundation of the whole, the ghost theory, is exactly that theological speculation which is the most widely spread of all, and the most deeply rooted among uncivilised men. I am able to base this statement, to some extent, on facts within my own knowledge. In December 1848, H.M.S. <i>Rattlesnake,</i> the ship to which I then belonged, was anchored off Mount Ernest, an island in Torres Straits. The people were few and well disposed; and, when a friend of mine (whom I will call B.) and I went ashore, we made acquaintance with an old native, Paouda by name. In course of time we became quite intimate with the old gentleman, partly by the rendering of mutual good offices, but chiefly because Paouda believed he had discovered that B. was his father-in-law.

And his grounds for this singular conviction were very remarkable. We had made a long stay at Cape York hard by; and, in accordance with a theory which is widely spread among the Australians, that white men are the reincarnated spirits of black men, B. was held to be the ghost, or <i>narki,</i> of a certain Mount Ernest native, one Antarki, who had lately died, on the ground of some real or fancied resemblance to the latter.

Now Paouda had taken to wife a daughter of Antarki’s, named Domani, and as soon as B. informed him that he was the ghost of Antarki, Paouda at once admitted the relationship and acted upon it. For, as all the women on the island had hidden away in fear of the ship, and we were anxious to see what they were like, B.

pleaded pathetically with Paouda that it would be very unkind not to let him see his daughter and grandchildren. After a good deal of hesitation and the exaction of pledges of deep secrecy, Paouda consented to take B., and myself as B.‘s friend, to see Domani and the three daughters, by whom B. was received quite as one of the family, while I was courteously welcomed on his account.

This scene made an impression upon me which is not yet effaced.

It left no question on my mind of the sincerity of the strange ghost theory of these savages, and of the influence which their belief has on their practical life. I had it in my mind, as well as many a like result of subsequent anthropological studies, when, in 1869,<14> I wrote as follows:—

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There are savages without God in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, Ancestor-worship, Hero-worship, and Demonology of primitive savages are all, I believe, different manners of expression of their belief in ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-way events which is its concomitant. Witchcraft and sorcery are the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they stand in the same relation to religious worship as the simple anthropomorphism of children or savages does to theology.

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I do not quote myself with any intention of making a claim to originality in putting forth this view; for I have since discovered that the same conception is virtually contained in the great “Discours sur l’Histoire Universelle” of Bossuet, now more than two centuries old:—

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Le culte des hommes morta faisoit presque tout le fond de l’idolatrie; presque tous les hommes sacrificient aux manes, c’est-a-dire aux ames des morts. De si anciennes erreurs nous font voir a la verite combien etoit ancienne la croyance de l’immortalite de l’ame, et nous montrent qu’elle doit etre rangee parmi les premieres traditions du genre humain.

Mais l’homme, qui gatoit tout, en avoit etrangement abuse, puisqu’elle le portoit a sacrificer aux morts. On alloit meme jusqu’a cet exces, de leur sacrifier des hommes vivans; ou tuoit leurs esclaves, et meme leurs femmes, pour les aller servir dans l’autre monde.”<15>

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Among more modern writers J. G. Muller, in his excellent “Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen” (1855), clearly recognises “gespensterhafter Geisterglaube” as the foundation of all savage and semi-civilised theology, and I need do no more than mention the important developments of the same view which are to be found in Mr. Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” and in the writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer, especially his recently-published “Ecclesiastical Institutions.”<16>

It is a matter of fact that, whether we direct our attention to the older conditions of civilised societies, in Japan, in China, in Hindostan, in Greece, or in Rome,<17> we find, underlying all other theological notions, the belief in ghosts, with its inevitable concomitant sorcery; and a primitive cult, in the shape of a worship of ancestors, which is essentially an attempt to please, or appease their ghosts. The