Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/425

 ISRAEL grew into a capital, the municipal offices of which were held by royal officials. The provinces had governors who, however, in time of war withdrew to the capital (1 Kings xx.) ; the presumption is that their sole charge was collec tion of the revenue. The state was not charged with affairs of internal ad ministration ; all parties were left free to maintain their own interests. Only in cases in which conflicts had emerged in consequence could the king be approached. Ruling and judging were regarded as one and the same ; there was bat one word for both (2 Kings xv. 5). Law and Still, the king was not altogether the only judge; there justice. were i n f ac t a number of independent jurisdictions. Wherever within a particular circle the power lay, there the right of judging was also found, whether exercised by he ids of families and communities or by warriors and powerful lords. It was only because the king was the most powerful that he was regarded as the judge of last resort ; but it was equally permitted to apply to him from the first. Of method and rule in these things there was but little ; a man was gl-id to find any court to receive his complaint. Of course without complaint one got no justice. The administration of justice was at best but a scanty Sup plement to the practice of self-help. The heir of the murdered man would not forego the right of blood revenge ; but his family or the commune gave him aid, and in case of need took his place, for bloodshed had at all hazards to be atoned for. The firm establishment of civil order was rendered all the more difficult by the continual wars and violent changes of dynasty which ever and anon made its very existence problematical. Power, which is more important than righteousness to a judicatory, was what the government was wanting in. In the simpler social conditions of the earlier time a state which was adapted merely for purposes of war might easily be found to work satisfactorily enough, but a more complex order of things had now arisen. Social problems hid begun to crop up ; for the poor and the proletariat the protection of a thoughtful government had come to be required, but was not forthcoming. Intellec- But these defects did not check all progress. The tual and weakness of the government, the want of political consoli dation, were insufficient to arrest intellectual advance or to corrupt the prevailing moral tone and feeling for justice ; in fact it was precisely in this period (the period in which the main part of the Jehovistic history must have been written) that the intellectual and moral culture of the people stood at its highest. Even when the machinery of the monarchy had got out of order, the organization of the families and communes continued to subsist ; the smaller circles of social life remained comparatively untouched by the catastrophes that shook the greater. Above all, the national religion supplied the spiritual life with an immov able basis. Religion. The favourite illustrations of the power of religion in the Israel of that period are drawn from the instances of great prophets who raised kings out of the dust and smote them to it again. But the influence and importance of these is generally exaggerated in the accounts we have. That among them there occasionally occurred manifestations of such power as to give a new turn to history is indeed true ; a figure like that of Elijah is no mere invention. But such a man as he was a prophecy of the future rather than an actual agent in shaping the present. On the whole, religion was a peaceful influence, conserving rather than assailing the existing order of things. The majority of the prophets were no revolutionists ; rather in fact were they always too much inclined to prophesy in accordance with the wishes of the party in power. Besides, in ordi nary circumstances their influence was inferior to that of moral culture. the priests, who were servants of royalty at the chief sanctu aries, but everywhere attached to the established order. The Torah of Jehovah still continued to be their special Priestly charge. It was not even now a code or law in our sense Torah. of the word ; Jehovah had not yet made His Testament ; He still was living and active in Israel. But the Torah appears during this period to have withdrawn itself some what from the business of merely pronouncing legal deci sions, and to have begun to move in a freer field. It now consisted in teaching the knowledge of God, in showing the right, God-given way where men were not sure of themselves. Many of the counsels of the priests had become a common stock of moral convictions, which indeed were all of them referred to Jehovah as their author, yet had ceased to be matters of direct revelation. Neverthe less the Torah had still occupation enough, the progres sive life of the nation ever affording matter for new questions. Although in truth the Torah and the moral influence Cultus. of Jehovah upon the national life were things much weightier and much more genuinely Israelitic than the cultus, yet this latter held on the whole a higher place in public opinion. To the ordinary man it was not moral bit liturgical acts that seemed to be truly religious. Altars of Jehovah occurred everywhere, with sacred stones and trees the latter either artificial (Asheras) or natural beside them ; it was considered desirable also to have water in the neighbourhood (brazen sea). In cases where a temple stood before the altar it contained an ephod and teraphim, a kind of images before which the lot was cast by the priest. Of the old simplicity the cultus retained nothing; at the great sanctuaries especially (Bethel, Gilgal, Beersheba) it had become very elaborate. Its chief seasons were the agricultural festivals the passover, the feast of weeks, and most especially the feast of the ingathering at the close of the year. These were the only occasions of public worship properly so called, at which every one was expected to attend ; in other cases each worshipper sought the presence of God only in special circumstances, as for example at the beginning and at the end of particular undertakings. The cultus, as to place, time, matter, and form, belonged almost entirely to the inheritance which Israel had received from Canaan ; to distinguish what belonged to the worship of Jehovah from that which belonged to Baal was no easy matter. 1 It was the channel through which also paganism could and did ever anew gain admittance into the worship of Jehovah. Yet that publicity of the cultus which arose out of the very nature of Jehovah, and in consequence of which the teraphim even were removed from the houses to the temples, cannot but have acted as a corrective against the most fatal excesses. As for the substance of the national faith, it was summed Creed, up principally in the proposition that Jehovah is the God of Israel. But &quot;God&quot; was equivalent to &quot;helper&quot; ; that was the meaning of the word. &quot; Help,&quot; assistance in all occasions of life, that was what Israel looked for from Jehovah, not &quot; salvation * in the theological sense. The forgiveness of sins was a matter of subordinate importance ; it was involved in the &quot;help,&quot; and was a matter not of faith but of experience. The relation between the people and God was a natural one as that of son to father ; it did not rest upon observance of the conditions of a pact. But it was not on that account always equally lively and hearty ; Jehovah was regarded as having varieties of mood. To secure and retain His favour, sacrifices were useful ; by them prayer and thanksgiving were seconded. 1 The description of the cultus by the prophet Hosea shows this very clearly. It is obvious enough, however, that the object was to serve Jehovah, and not any foreign deity, by this worship. XIII. 5 2