of his fellow townsmen, were companies of devotees, who by music and other exercises wrought themselves up to a pitch of religious excitement in which they acted like men beside themselves and attributed their doings and sayings to possession by the spirit of Jehovah. They were zealots for Jehovah, and doubtless did much to fire patriotism in the Philistine crisis, as they did in the long Syrian wars. In the ninth century there were organised societies of such devotees, living together under a superior, besides many who do not appear to have been inmates of these establishments. Ahab, on the eve of his fatal campaign against Ramoth in Gilead, is said to have got together four hundred of them, who with one voice predicted the success of the expedition; only one, Micaiah ben Imlah, truly foresaw the event, and declared that the others were inspired by a lying spirit sent from Jehovah to lure the king to his doom. In the stories of Elisha we find him in close association with the organised prophetic societies, while Elijah stands apart from them in solitary grandeur, and Micaiah dares to contradict the unanimous herd-precursors in this of the prophets of the opposition in following centuries whom we call from the event the true prophets.

The wars of liberation waged with the Philistines, the establishment of the kingdom, the subjugation of the Canaanite cities, the conquest of neighbouring peoples, with the exaltation of the national consciousness which accompanied these struggles and successes, were revivals of the religion of Israel. In peace men might own their dependence on the gods of the soil, but in war Jehovah alone was their reliance, nor did they trust him in vain. With the union of the tribes in the nation his worship became the national religion. Solomon built a temple in his capital, and installed in it the ancient chest ("ark") of Jehovah, which, according to tradition, had accompanied the tribes in their migrations from the Mount of God, and after its recovery from the Philistines had fallen into the hands of Judah. Jerusalem had no historical association with the worship of Jehovah,

but the king's temple became as such a national sanctuary. When the short-lived union of Israel and Judah under the same king came to an end, the kings of Israel built national temples at Bethel and at Dan, and later in their capitals. At the royal temples, where public sacrifices were offered daily and the festivals were celebrated with much pomp, a more elaborate liturgy was developed; priests of various ranks and offices were multiplied, rich vestments were worn, bands of musicians and singers adorned the service by their art-all after the fashion of their neighbours. On great occasions the kings themselves offered sacrifice in these temples; the priests who ministered in them were appointed by the kings and removed by them at will. Temples did not, however, supplant the old high places in every city and village, nor eclipse the fame of such ancient pilgrim shrines as Beersheba and Gilgal.

Jeroboam is said to have set up in his new temples at Bethel and Dan gilded images of Jehovah in the form of a bull, and thus introduced idolatry into the public cultus. Hosea speaks of the "calf" (i. e., the bull idol) of Samaria, and it is not unlikely that other sanctuaries had similar images. Hezekiah removed from the temple in Jerusalem a copper serpent, believed to have been made by Moses, to which down to his time incense was burned. Idols were, however, not a regular, or perhaps a frequent, part of the furniture of a sanctuary. As among the Phoenicians, the old sacred stones and other aniconic seats of the deity-in Jerusalem the ark-satisfied the need of the visible presence of the god. The multitude of idols of which Hosea and Isaiah speak were household images, probably of protecting demons, or of functional divinities such as the goddess of maternity represented in many clay figurines from Palestinian excavations, rather than of the national god. Domestic idols are mentioned repeatedly in legend and history, as well as by the prophets, under the name "teraphim,” but little is known of them beyond the fact that they were not, like the "graven images and molten images," picked up in

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Canaan, but were in use among Israelites before the invasion, as well as among their Aramaan kinsmen. The earliest denunciations of idolatry are directed against the graven images and molten images" of the Canaanites, but the bull images of Jehovah in the northern kingdom were doubtless from the first condemned by conservatives as a heathenish innovation. The story of the "golden calf" at Horeb, conceived from the point of view of the eighthcentury prophets, expresses the abhorrence in which Jehovah held this cult.

CHAPTER II

JUDAISM

THE AGE OF THE PROPHETS

Elijah-Jehovah or Baal-The Eighth Century-The New Prophecy: Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Hosea-The End of the Kingdom of IsraelForeign Religions in Judah-The Reforms of Josiah-Deuteronomy-Fall of Judah-False Prophets and True-Predictions of Restoration Jeremiah and Ezekiel-Individualism in ReligionEzekiel's Idea of Holiness-Monotheism-National and Universal Religion-The Persian Conquests—The History of Jewish Institutions-Myths: the Deluge, the Lost Paradise, Cosmogony-Cultus: Temple, Priests, Sacrifices-Purifications and Expiations-The Day of Atonement-Conflicts over Intermarriage-The Samaritans and their Temple-Theodicy in the Book of Job-Gnomic Poetry.

THE northern kingdom was not only the stronger and richer, but was in closer contact with civilised neighbours, the Phoenicians and the Syrians; great lines of trade and travel passed through its territory, while Judah lay to one side. It is not strange, therefore, that Israel was in all things the more progressive of the two states. Its population contained a much larger alien element-Canaanite and Aramæan-which was more easily absorbed than assimilated, and it was in disposition as well as in situation more open to foreign influences in culture and religion. It was inevitable that these tendencies should be opposed by social and religious conservatism.

A crisis came in the reign of Ahab. The king was married to a Phoenician princess, and built in his residence, Samaria, a temple for her god, the Baal of Tyre, as Solomon is said to have built a temple of the Phoenician Astarte for one of his foreign wives. Some of the prophets of Jehovah protested-probably not in words alone and were punished for their presumption; altars of Jehovah, which had perhaps been the scene of popular demonstrations, were thrown

down by the order of the incensed queen. A three years' drought and famine was interpreted as a manifestation of Jehovah's jealousy. Elijah appears as the head of the zealots, declaring that Jehovah tolerates no rival, no compromise; he will be sole Lord in his own land. The prophet challenges the priests of Baal to an ordeal on Mount Carmel, in which they lose and are massacred by the people; but the instigator of the deed is constrained to flee from the vengeful wrath of Jezebel to Horeb, the ancient Mount of God in the far-off south. It was not the first assertion of the jealousy of Jehovah, but the issue had never before been so dramatically joined: "If Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him!"

For the sins of Ahab and Jezebel Elijah pronounced the doom of the dynasty; his successor, Elisha, saw that the prediction was fulfilled by inciting a conspiracy among the officers of the army. Jehu extirpated the house of Omri and purged the land of the foreign religion by slaughtering the priests of Baal with the worshipping congregation, and turning the temple into a public latrine.

The first half of the eighth century was a time of great prosperity in both kingdoms. Under Jeroboam II in Israel and Uzziah in Judah successful wars and commercial enterprises enriched the upper classes; they built great houses and enlarged their landed estates, and lived in luxury. The poor, under the same conditions, grew poorer. Bad years threw the small peasant proprietors into debt, and, ruined by usurious interest, they had to cede their ancestral acres to the great landlords, sinking into dependence and often into slavery. The rich and powerful are charged not only with using their right ruthlessly, but with oppression and the perversion of justice. Meanwhile religion was in a flourishing state. The prosperity of the country was proof that the national God was well-pleased with his people, and those whom he had so signally favoured did not grudge him a share of their gains; the sacrifices were more lavish, the ritual more splendid than ever.