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festival was made a most important means of moral instruction and
367
discipline. This borrowing and moralizing by Israel of this festival
has an almost exact parallel in the later borrowing and moralizing by
the Christian Church of the pagan festival of the winter solstice,
which has given Christendom one of its most beautiful anniversaries,
one which takes precedence of all others in its power to evoke the
tenderest altruistic sentiments.
As with the Sabbath, so was it with all the festivals which the
Israelites, after their settlement in Palestine and during the period
when they were passing from the nomadic to the agricultural life,
adopted from the Canaanite peoples among whom they were
dwelling. All of these in the course of time were turned from their
original purpose, were cleansed of immoral and sensuous elements,
and were thus made the means of awakening moral feelings and
developing moral character.
This transforming power of the ethical genius of Israel finds a true
historical parallel in the esthetic genius of ancient Hellas, which,
receiving from every side elements of art and general culture,
368
inspired them all with the beauty and energy of her own spirit.
“Israel,” as Cornill finely says, “resembles in spiritual things the
fabulous King Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold.”
The ritual ethics In that part of the code which has to do with the
of the code
ethics of ritualism the dominant motive of the editors
or compilers springs from a dread and abhorrence of idolatry, like the
dread and abhorrence of heresy in medieval Christendom. Yahweh
will divide his worship with no other god. Israel had gone after other
gods and Yahweh had given her into the hands of the Assyrians. A
like fate awaited Judah if she served any other than him: “Ye shall
not go after other gods, or the gods of the people which are round
about you, lest the anger of the Lord be kindled against thee, and
369
destroy thee from off the face of the earth,” is the first
commandment with threatening.
Fear that Yahweh would do unto Judah as he had done unto
Israel awakened the conscience of the nation. Idolatry was
suppressed; the high places on which incense was burned unto the
Baals were defiled, and the altars and the images of the strange
gods were broken down and ground into dust.
This reform movement practically ended the long struggle which
had gone on now for six hundred years and more between
polytheism and the rising monotheism of the people of Israel. But
unfortunately while the monotheistic element of the religion of
Yahweh was brought out by the reform in sharper outline, the ethical
element was obscured. The religion that was now made the
exclusive worship was really little more than a pagan cult. It
consisted in the careful keeping of feast days and the observance of
the rites and sacrifices of the Temple—an inheritance largely from
the heathen nations around about Israel. Nothing could have been
more opposed to true prophetism. It was the triumph of reactionary
ritualism.
This victory of ritualism has exerted an almost incalculable
influence upon the development of morality from the time of King
Josiah down to the present day. The immediate effect upon
prophetism in Judah was most lamentable. “Deuteronomy simply
confirmed the belief that religion was concerned with ritual rather
370
than with morality.” And so the outcome of the promulgation of a
written revealed law was, in the words of Wellhausen, “the death of
371
prophecy.”
But this fatal effect was not felt at once. In the dark days of the
Exile, now just at hand, there was a revival of true prophetism; but
after the return from the Captivity, as we shall see, the prophetic
spirit was almost stifled by the rigid legalism of the Temple cult. And
it was this same Deuteronomic law which, in the hands of medieval
inquisitors, stifled awakening prophetism in Europe and delayed for
generations true moral reform after the stirring of the European mind
372
by the Renaissance.
The intolerant spirit of this narrow, rigid religion of ritualism found
specially sinister expression in Israel’s war ethics. Instead of
promoting international amity and good will, it deepened intertribal
prejudices and hatreds and intensified the barbarities of war. “Thou
373
shalt save alive nothing that breatheth;” “thou shalt smite them
and utterly destroy them, thou shalt make no covenant with them,
374
nor show mercy unto them,” were the commands to Israel
regarding the nations round about her who were the worshipers of
other gods than Yahweh.
Thus religion was made an active principle of international
savagery. It made it, in the words of Cheyne, “difficult, if not
impossible, ... to love God fervently without hating a large section of
375
God’s creatures.” Under the influence of the fierce ordinances of
the Deuteronomic code the war practices of the Israelites became
more ferocious and savage than those of any other nation of
antiquity, unless it be those of the Assyrian kings. Their enemies,
who were also the enemies of Yahweh, they smote with the utmost
fury, putting to the edge of the sword men, women, and the little
ones, and taking as booty the cattle and the spoils.
The social But, as we have said, there were two spirits striving
ethics of the
code
together in this strange Deuteronomic code. In
opposition to this spirit of stern fanatical intolerance
there was a spirit of tender sympathy for the unfortunate, the poor,
376
and the oppressed. Along with this priestly morality, based on a
certain conception of Yahweh and of his relations to Israel, there was
another wholly different morality—a social morality whose chief
sanctions were the natural impulses and sentiments of the human
heart and conscience.
This code of social ethics bears witness to a progressive
development of the moral consciousness in Israel. The ethical
advance is unmistakably registered in various ameliorations effected
in the crude customary law of earlier times. One of the most
noteworthy of these mitigations concerned the primitive blood
revenge. In common with other peoples in the kinship stage of
culture, the early Hebrews in their pursuit of blood vengeance made
no distinction between intentional and unintentional homicide. The
regulations of the Deuteronomic code regarding the so-called cities
377
of refuge bear witness to a growing power of moral discrimination;
for these cities are made inviolable sanctuaries whither might flee
the manslayer who had slain his neighbor unawares and hated him
378
not in time past.
Especially is the humanitarian advance shown in the provisions of
the code which relate to the poor, the debtor, and the bondsman. We
meet here some of the most humane regulations to be found in any
of the codes of antiquity. Social morality is almost made to consist in
consideration for the poor: “If there be among you a poor man ...
thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him”—so the law enjoins—“and
379
shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need.” Things that were
necessities to the poor man were not to be taken as security for a
loan: “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to
380
pledge.” If a garment be taken as security, this must be returned
381
before night, in order that the man may sleep in his own raiment.
382
The widow’s raiment must not be taken in pledge at all. The
wages of the poor and needy must be promptly paid: “At his day thou
shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he
383
is poor, and setteth his heart upon it.”
The law goes even further in its humane endeavor to prevent the
oppression of the needy. The loaning of money in ancient times was
in general a very different thing from similar money transactions in
this commercial and industrial age of ours. Those seeking loans
were the very poor, who were forced to borrow to meet domestic
necessities. Under such conditions the taking of interest would
naturally be denounced, and those who did so would come to be
regarded as extortioners, and robbers of the poor. Hence the
prohibition, “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; ... unto a
384
stranger thou mayest lend upon usury.”
This legislation, well adapted to the times and the conditions of
the society for which it was enacted, became centuries later, through
its adoption and attempted enforcement by the medieval Church, a
source of grave mischief. It constituted a heavy drag for centuries
upon the industrial development of European civilization.
The same spirit of tenderness toward the portionless and needy is
shown in the provision concerning the ingathering of the harvest:
“When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a
sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it; it shall be for the
385
stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.” This tender
consideration for the poor speaks from one of the most beautiful of
Bible pictures—that of the Moabitess Ruth gleaning in the fields after
386
the reapers, who “let fall some of the handfuls of purpose for her.”
The social conscience awakening in Israel, to which the above
regulations and commandments bear witness, finds further
expression in the provisions of the code effecting ameliorations in
the lot of the unfortunate bondsman. The master is enjoined to see
that the Sabbath is observed by his slave as well as by himself and
his family, and the reason assigned is the humanitarian one—“that
387
thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.”
And a limitation was set to the time that a person could be held in
bondage: “And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman,
be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year
388
thou shalt let him go free from thee.” Furthermore, the law is
solicitous respecting the welfare of the bondsman even after
emancipation: “And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou
shalt not let him go away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out
of thy flock, and out of thy threshing floor, and out of thy winepress:
of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give
389
unto him.”
To these ameliorative measures effect is sought to be given
through a revival of memories of the past. The masters are enjoined
to be compassionate to their bondsmen because they themselves
had been worn and bruised in bondage: “Remember,” says the
390
lawgiver, “that ye were bondsmen in the land of Egypt.”
The city state The Greek city state was the creator of the Greek
the mold of conscience; that is to say, the relationships and
Greek morality
and the chief activities of the Greek as a citizen, and not his
sphere of Greek relationships and activities as a husband or father or
moral activity
business man, determined his chief duties. Conscience was very
little involved in that part of his life which lay outside the civic sphere.
It was solely as a member of a city community, which was to the
Greek what the Church was to the man of medieval times, that he
could live the truly moral life and attain the highest virtue.
The Greek view The common Greek view of man’s nature was like
of man’s nature
as good
that of the Chinese moralists; that is, it conceived
428
human nature as being essentially good. And this
conception included the whole of man’s nature, his body as well as
his spirit. As we shall learn, this doctrine influenced profoundly the
Greek conception of what is permissible and right in conduct. It
made it seem right to give full, though regulated and reasonable,
indulgence to the bodily impulses and instincts. It made the
fundamental maxim of Greek morality to be, Live according to
nature. It left no place in Greek thought for the Oriental notion of an
antagonism between the flesh and the spirit. Hence asceticism with
its repressions of the bodily instincts and appetites, which is so
common an expression of the moral sentiment among the Oriental
races, found no place in Greek morality till after Greek culture had
come in contact with the religious and ethical systems of Asia.