Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/454

 412 The Principles of Fasting.

and that the reason for this belief was the mystic con- nection which in the opinion of the ancient Hebrews, as of so many other peoples, existed between human activity and the changes in the moon.^ It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the Sabbath originally depended upon the new moon, and this carries with it the assumption that the Hebrews must at one time have observed a Sabbath at intervals of seven days corresponding with the moon's phases.^ In the Old Testament the new moon and Sabbath are repeatedly mentioned side by side ; ^ thus the oppressors of the poor are represented as saying, " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ; and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?"* Now there is a curious rule which forbids fasting on a new moon and on the seventh day,^ and this certainly seems to indicate what looks like a protest against

^ See Jastrow, ' Original Character of the Hebrew Sabbath,' in American fournal of Theology, ii. 321 sqq. That the superstitious fear of doing work on the seventh day developed into a religious prohibition, is only an instance of the common tendency of magic forces to be transformed into divine volitions. Prof. Jastrow seems to have failed to see this when he says {lac. cit. p. 323) that, "if the Sabbath was originally an 'unfavourable' day on which one must avoid showing one's self before Yahwe, it would naturally be regarded as dangerous to provoke his anger by endeavouring to secure on that day personal benefits through the usual forms of activity." Wellhausen, again, suggests {Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 114) that the rest on the Sabbath was originally the consequence of that day being the festal and sacrificial day of the week, and only gradually became its essential attribute on account of the regularity with which it every eighth day interrupted the round of everyday work. He argues that the Sabbath as a day of rest cannot be very primitive, because such a day "presupposes agriculture and a tolerably hard-pressed working day-life." But this argu- ment appears very futile when we consider how commonly changes in the moon are believed to exercise an unfavourable influence upon work of any kind. Evidence for this will be adduced in the forthcoming second volume of my Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas.

^Wellhausen, op. cit. p. 112 sqq. Jastrow, loc. cit. pp. 314, 327.

^2 Kings, iv. 23. Isaiah, i. 13. Hosea, ii. 11. ^ Amos, viii. 5.

^Judith, viii. 6. Schukhan Aruch (transl. by Lowe, 1896), i. 91, 1 17.