Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/367

 Sculpture. 337 ephod was looked upon as one of the most valuable badges of priesthood, as an indispensable instrument between Iah and his people. When Hosea depicts in sombre colours the abasement and ruin that will overtake the Israelites in punishment for their backslidings, he exclaims : " The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim " (iii. 4). The points of touch established by the prophet between the ephod and the teraphim, lead to the inference that they both partook, more or less, of the nature of those images so vigorously proscribed by the successors of Hosea only a short century later. Whatever their shape, they were certainly not better than the rude idols met with in the /Egean Sea, be it at Mycenae or Tiryns ; but whilst from such small beginnings Greek sculpture attained its highest expression, that of the Canaanites and the Hebrews remained at a standstill. The former had no individual civilization ; as to the latter, when their genius expanded, and could have soared into the domain of plastic arts, it was forced back by the peculiar bias of their religious tenets. Until the exile, and long afterwards, wooden, clay, and metal teraphim continued to be made, albeit denounced and destroyed by kings like Hezekiah and Josiah ; when those who made a living by them only worked by stealth like malefactors. The contrast between almost divine honours rendered to artists in Hellas, and the animadversions levelled against them by the spiritual leaders of Jerusalem, is sufficient reason why all the arts should have flourished in the former instance, and have languished, or rather should have been stamped out in the latter. 1 § 5. — Seals. A nation, whose sculpture never progressed beyond the first stage, cannot be expected to have been more advanced in the domain of glyptic art, which is wholly dependent on the former for its types and composition. The seal, owing no doubt to its convenient size and practical use, was adopted by all the well- 1 Jer. li. 17, 18 : " Every man is brutish by his knowledge; every founder is con- founded by the graven image : for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity ..." vol. I. z