Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/167

 THE IDEAS OF THE PHOENICIANS AS TO A FUTURE LIKE. 147 they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master." It will be seen how closely this description resembles that of the Assyrian under-world as given in the Descent of Istar. 1 Analogies of the same kind abound in other expressions applied toskeolm the Hebrew writings. It is painted as a place where men " make their beds in the darkness ; " the way thither is spoken of as a " way whence I shall not return." : Shcol had its barriers/ like the hell of Istar. When a great conqueror passed through them, the shades (re/aim] of the kings rose from their couches to see whether it was really he who had made the earth tremble, and when they had recognized him they amused them- selves by mocking at him. The data we have here brought together are sprinkled over the works of historians, poets, and other writers, who, in their mono- theistic ardour were, one and all, bitterly hostile to the beliefs on which the worship of the dead was founded, and looked upon its rites as mortal sins. It was, then, only on rare occasions that they referred to sheol and its inhabitants, while their tendency was always to transform into a mere poetical image that which the people took in its literal sense. And yet even these fugitive allusions, I may even say these reticences, allow us to catch a glimpse of those popular conceptions which had in the end to give way before monotheism. In fact, the true national beliefs of Israel were not those set forth by the Hebrew prophets. 6 The more strongly an idea or custom was reprobated by the Hebrew legislators, the more deeply, we may take it, had its roots sunk into the imagination of the Jewish race. The Jewish nation was distinguished from those by which it was surrounded in Syria by its gradual abandonment of polytheism for the worship of a single God. The lofty beliefs which it ended by embracing were its own peculiar glory, but it was not so with the notions they expelled. Homage rendered to the sun, to the moon and the rest of the celestial army, sacrifices offered in the sacred groves of the Baals and their corresponding goddesses, invocations of the dead and offerings of food on their tombs, all these are forbidden in the Bible, where they are spoken of as 1 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. pp. 345-347- 2 JOBjcvii. 13. 3 Ibid. xvi. 22. 4 Ibid. xvii. 5 ISAIAH xiv. 9-15. Cf. EZEKIEL xxxii. c J. HALEVY, he. cit. p. 50.