relative, and incapable of resisting the one God of Israel's allegiance, a naïve belief in the existence of other 'Elohim did not necessarily conflict with the idea of the divine unity. Prof. Schultz justly observes that 'Where it is a matter of religion, not of philosophy, the first and necessary thing always is the conviction of having God as one's own, and of being also God's not the consideration of how this God stands related to the possibility of there being other gods 1.' At the same time there is ample reason for supposing that there was a constant tendency in the spiritual leaders of Israel, or at least in the special organs of divine revelation, to combat the popular notion that Jehovah was merely one God among many. Certainly the whole drift of the chapters in which the events connected with the exodus are narrated, is the exaltation of Jehovah as the one being whose existence, influence, and righteous will it behoved the chosen people to acknowledge. It is probable on a priori grounds that, though the age of what may be called theoretic monotheism was introduced by the teaching of the eighth-century prophets, the idea of the divine unity was an inference, so to speak, from premisses which the exodus had suggested to reflective minds. Such an event could not fail to give birth to the thought, on the one hand, of Jehovah's irresistible might, on the other, of His moral transcendence. Here we seem to have the historic basis of the doctrine of the divine unity3. There are, then, good reasons for the supposition that a strictly monotheistic belief does not date from the earliest period of Israel's national existence. On the contrary, there are unmistakeable indications that a belief in the actual existence of other deities survived to a comparatively late age. The existence of heathen gods was not uniformly denied. They were either 10. T. Theology, i. 180. ? See Exod. viii. 10; ix. 14, 16; x. 2; xv. 2, 11, 18. regarded as 'Elilim, 'nothings'1; or they were supposed, if existent at all, to be subordinate instruments of the one God: Jehovah alone was God of gods and Lord of lords 2. The ascription however of unique majesty to the national Deity tended towards His elevation to the dignity of an only existent Lord of the universe 3. The facts of the case thus justify the idea of evolution in religious thought which historical analogy itself might antecedently suggest. We have no interest in maintaining that Israel's religion sprang to the birth, perfect and complete, in the age of Moses. The monotheistic idea had a long history even within the limits of the chosen race whose mission it was to teach mankind the knowledge of God. But the idea seems to have been closely connected with another which next claims our attention, namely, that of the divine holiness. The belief that Jehovah was the only God,' says Prof. Kuenen, sprang out of the ethical conception of His being. The question is at what period such a conception first appeared. What is contended is that the events of the exodus could not fail to introduce certain moral elements into the idea of God which Israel inherited from its Semitic ancestors. · The truth of the divine holiness, in its developed form, is one of those ideas which impart a unique character to Israel's religion. It was a truth which other religions were constantly striving to express, and which the universal human conscience instinctively anticipated in external institutions of worship. But Israel alone was enabled to lift the idea of holiness from the purely outward and ritual, into the inward and ethical Lev. xix. 4; 2 Kings xvii. 15; Jer. ii. 5; viii. 19. See also Deut. iv. 19; x. 17; Ps. xcv. 3; xcvi. 5. Cp. 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6. 2 Cp. Pfleiderer, Gifford Lectures, vol. ii. 48; Ritschl, Unterricht in der Christlichen Religion, § 11. The belief in the existence of other gods seems expressly indicated in such passages as Exod. xv. 11; Judges xi. 24 ; Ruth i. 16; 1 Sam. xxvi. 19; 2 Sam. xiv. 16. Cp. Darmesteter, op. cit. pp. 213, 214. ↑ Hibbert Lectures, p. 119; ap. Montefiore, op. cit. p. 135. sphere, and thereby gave to its religion a distinctness from all other faiths not only in degree but in kind1. What then is the historical genesis of this idea? If the date of the documentary evidence is disputed, we are left to a balance of probabilities; and there are at least some considerations in favour of the view that the process by which the notion of holiness was, so to speak, moralized began at the period of the exodus. Jehovah is first described as 'holy' in the Song of Moses, and the term apparently implies merely the negative notion of 'separation,' or possibly transcendence. The 'holy' God is He who is raised absolutely above the world, and is thereby separated from the creature. Of earthly things, every object or being is holy in so far as it is appropriated to religious service, or is withdrawn from common uses. Originally therefore holiness, even as applied to persons, was not in any sense a moral attribute; it implied only ritual separation, and we can almost trace the process by which, under the influence of prophetic teaching, the idea of holiness passed from an outward to an inward sphere, from the notion of external consecration or dedication to that of moral sanctity. But it is in relation to the divine Being Himself that the word 'holy' is specially remarkable-not only because the conception of holiness was constantly elucidated by every fresh stage in the self-revelation of God, but also because it was the basis of that peculiar consciousness of Israel's function in the world which is characteristic of the later prophets and of the priestly school who impressed upon Israel its permanent and ineffaceable stamp of separateness. Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. Israel, as belonging 1 Cp. A. L. Moore in Lux Mundi, p. 72 foll. ? Exod. xv. 11. Cp. Isa. xl. 25; Ps. xcix. 2 foll. "On 'holiness' see Robertson Smith, Prophets of Israel, pp. 224 foll.; Oehler, op. cit. §§ 44, 45; Riehm, A TI. Theologie, § 12. As is well known, the idea of 'holiness' (separation) was common to the heathen neighbours of Israel, and might incidentally, e. g. in the case of the 'holy' persons of Canaanitish nature-worship, imply consecration to immoral purposes. See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 90, 192. to Jehovah by redemptive right, must necessarily participate in His character, and look upon itself with something of the reverence due to what is divine. We are justified in believing that the idea of its holiness, its call to consecration, is the secret of that fine spirit of self-respect which has never abandoned Israel even in the most stormy and sorrowful vicissitudes of its subsequent history. Holiness, then, seems to be a conception which had its roots in the circumstances of the Mosaic age. It was a keynote of national polity and organization from the first. In In calling God 'holy' Mosaism guarded the truth of the divine transcendence; it protested, as it were, against the religious error of contemporary heathendom, Egyptian or Canaanitish, which confused nature with God, and as it were degraded God into the region of the creature. In calling things or persons 'holy,' Mosaism lifted them, so to speak, out of the region of what was profane or unclean into a divine sphere. But the whole tendency of Mosaism was to develope and extend the idea. True, holiness in the ethical sense was far from being Israel's present character; rather it was the nation's ideal goal and destiny1. While then the 'holiness' of the newly-formed nation was in the first instance a mark or character impressed from without on its physical and social life, and found embodiment in visible ordinances relating to external and ceremonial purity, 'holiness' was ultimately destined to be transformed into an inward quality or attribute, a real separateness not from mere bodily uncleanness but from spiritual and moral defilement; aloofness not from the idolatrous pollutions of Egypt, but from sin. Thus the character of Jehovah's chosen people was to be conformed to that of Him who had sealed them as His own. There was yet another idea which the exodus 1 As God's own people Israel is p, Exod. xix. 6; Lev. xx. 26, opposed to Lev. x. 10; 1 Sam. xxi. 5 foll.; Ezek. xxii. 26. suggested, and which subsequent periods of reflection served to impress permanently on the mind and imagination of Israel, viz. the idea of Jehovah's redemptive grace. In the deliverance of His people God had manifested Himself as one who is able and willing to redeem; able because He is almighty 1, free from anything like entanglement in the processes of nature, and having perfect liberty to intervene with direct personal energy in the history of men and nations. The Old Testament writers look back with awe and exultation to the days of the nation's birth, signalized as it was by a mighty display of supernatural force; but the occasion of Jehovah's intervention made it manifest that His power was guided by love and gracious willingness to redeem. The God who had espoused the cause of an enslaved and oppressed people must needs be a Being full of pity and rich in mercies, faithful to His promises and righteous in His judgments. The exodus was indeed a supreme display of character, and we are even justified in holding with Ewald that the very keynote of the Pentateuch is the conception of Jehovah as a merciful deliverer. That idea, as he points out, is embodied in the sanctions affixed to the first five commandments of the Decalogue. In each case the divine precept is based on some feature in the beneficent character of God. Thus in the first word Jehovah proclaims Himself as the Saviour who has ransomed Israel from the house of bondage; in the second as a jealous God, good to them that love, severe to them that hate Him, yet even in sternness remembering His mercy; in the third as a glorious God, who will by no means clear the guilty or give His glory to another; in the fourth as a God who has thoughts of peace and refreshment for His 'desert-wearied' people and leads them to blessedness and rest; in the fifth as a God who gives bounteously to the poor, and prepares for them a land to dwell 1 Exod. vi. I. 2 Exod. iii. 7, 8; vi. 5, 8. |