Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/622

570 :

Ancestor Worship Ancient of Days

TIIK .IKWISH

VI. Oracles and Incantations

In various



pius-

Old Testament (Dent, xviii. 11, I Sam. xxviii. 11. Isii. viii. l!t| mention is made of im|Uii'y of the dead as to liii' fiitiiie, thus treating lliem as onielos and divine personas^es. On twooeeasions llie dead are termed "(loliim " (I Sam. .xviii. 18. l.sji. viii. IS). //(/'.); tile latter pussa.iie, "Should not a people seek unto their eloliiin. for the jiviiii; to the tleadV" Siigcs of

till'

is espc'cially siiinilieant.

In the iiiemitatioM seen<'

with the witcliof En-dor. as soon as "Saul perceived thai it was Samuel [I Sam. xxviii. 14). he .stoo])ed with liis face to the jrround, and bowed himself," a reL'ular lUrm of divine lioniau'e (see Alxill.M'iox). VII. Honor to Parents It is contended that in ancient Isnul mournini; was only for parents; and .Men II Sam. xii. !•") tl "n/. is ipioteil in illustration. thus became remembered by the honor paid Ihem by their descendants; hence Absalom dejilored that lie bad no son to call upon his name (II Sam. xviii. IS). There are signs VIII. Household Worship tluil in early days iIk rr uas a special worship of liouselioid gods which could not have been devoted to YinVII. the God of the nation, according to modern theories. They are supposed to be referred



to as "elohim" in the jiassage (Ex. xxi. 4-) when the .servant who desired to remain in the household of his master forever must appear before the elohim (translated "judges" in A. V.), and liave his ear

contended that the Feast of Purim is a relic of household worship. The household gods thus worshiped are known as teraiihim, which were Laban's elohim ((Jen. xxxi. IJO), and were heathen gods E/.ek. xxi. '211, Oeii. xx.w. 2). IX. Family Worship Fusiel de Coulanges has shown, in "La C'ile Aiilii[Ue," that the social institutions of the Greeks and Romans were founded upon Ancestor Worship, the essence of which was to keep alive the holy tire on the household liearth on w'hieli bored through.

It is

I



to otTer food for the de|)arled spirits of ancestors. Membership of a family im|)lied the right and duly (.)iily males could olfer; of making such olfering. and, therefore, inlieritance was solely through the ag-

Num. xxvii. shows that this was the custom with regard to inheritance in ancient Israel. The importance of lieirs consisted in the jiosthumous nntirishment to be ollered by them alone, and this importance is shown to have existed in Israel by the custom of the Iji':vin.Tii. The piitn'ii pot est na of the father of the family was due to the fact that he was the household priest as well as the father. The Israelites, like the Greeks anil Komans, had their nates.

family graves.

X." Ancestor Worship and the Tribes: Graves of the ancestors of the tribes, like that of Abraham at Hebron. an<l that of Joseph at Shechem, are found associated with worshi]) which probalily was originally Ancestor Worshij). Simieof the tribes seem named after Semitic gods; thus "Aslier," the masculine form of "Asliera." Dan and Gad (the " latter of which occurs in local names as " IJaal Gad and " Migdal Gad " ). There are some indications that the l^atriarchs were the subject of local worship; for instance, .lacob at Beth-el, Israel at Peniel, and Isaac at Heer sheba. Hence the importance attached in the Old Testament to the jilaces wherc the Patriarchs and heroes were Iniiied known graves

being those of Abrahain, Sarah. Uacliel, .loseph, Aaron. jMiriam, .loshua, Ibzan, Elou, Abdon, Tola, Jair, tiephthah, and Samson. In this connection it is a signilieant fact that the grave of Moses, the founder of Jahvism, was not known: this indicates that the Jahvistic legislation was against Ancestor Worship. Many of the patriarchal names were originally combinations with "El"; thus .lacob and

ENCYCLOPEDIA

570

Josepli are foinid in Egyptian lists under tin- form " .Jacobel." " Joseplicl " (compare Islimai-1, .lerahmeel, anil .leplitahel). All these points seem to imply that clans and tribes were originally unilied by a worship of ancestors, which worship was broken down by the national worship of VHWII. To these arguments of Slade and his school the following replies have been recently given by Carl Gri'llieiseii

1.

Nature of the Soul

as being

The



nefessh is

regarded

the blood (Lev. xvii. 11. 14; Gen. ix. 4), and disappears entirely with it and while the man lives, the nefesh is wiili liim(Il Sam. i. i); Job. xxvii. S). It isonly the ruali which can i<-main after death. The passages which s]ieak 2. Life After Death fif the ill le^li being saved from Slieol really mean that the pcrsou's life is .safe, and, therefore, that litis still alive; while the cxinession "nefesh met" ill





(Num.

vi.

fi.

Lev.

xxi.

11)

corpse" (compare Num. xix.

merely means "any with xix. i:i). The

U

shadows that inhabit Sheol are altogether dilTerent from the nefesh in the living body. Such shadowless beiims are inconsistent with the idea of any stlpeinatural power. The expression " to be gathered lo one's fathers" is never used of burial, and could not be ])rimitive. sinci' it is iniip]ilicable to a nomad tribe.

Some of these customs 3. Mourning Customs are not oul)- used in mourning or divine worship, but in slavery, captivity in war, leprosy, etc. The customs are not so much holy as tabu. Both contact with divine things and tninsgression of the talm make a person "unclean." The real explanation of mourning customs is that man thereby changes his ordinary appearance so as not to be reeogni/ed by the ghost of the departed (Frazer, "On Certain Burial Customs," in '•Journal Anthropol. Inst." xv. yy et sef/.). This is connected with the custom of burning a lam)) after a death to keep the ghost away, a custom which ]uobably goes back to the tents of nomads, in which the duly ol keeping alamp eontinuallv burning passed over from father to son (Jer. XXV." 10; Prov. xiii. 9, xx. 20, xxiv. 20; Job,

xviii.

(i.

xxi. 17).

4. Burial Customs The instanses of cremation in the liilile are exceptional; and the burials in hou.ses mainly refer to royal palaces, seemingly to special mausoleums. The notion conceived of the shadowy dead is not likely to have led to divine worship of such liriiiL's. 5. Offerings to the Dead: The offerings referred to in Jer. xvi. 7 are for the sake of the mourners and not of the mourned. The "cup of Consolation " obviously consoles the mourners, and was lirought into the house of mourning because everything there was "unclean " and could not be u.sed by the mourners. The "bread of monrners" mentioned in Hosea, ix. 4. and Deul. xxvi. 14 is not used in any saeriliriiil niriil In Hie dead. These do not 6. Oracles and Incantations imply the worshi]) of the dead, but merely the l)clief in the existence of their .shadows beyond the grave, and that they were consulted as oracles. The fact that .Samuel's ghost was regarded by the witch of En-dor as elohim merely implies that she looked upon Samuel as something divine; the act of ad.iration is merely one of respect and honor not necessarily of worship in the technical sense and is given, not to the ghost as such, but to the personality of Samuel as soon as .Saul recognizes who is speaking. Against the .saying of Isa. viii. I'J, it may be remarked that the ancestral ghost can not be the elohim of the people, but only of a family; liesidi'S "elohim " here should be translated "Goil" and the



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