Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development

It is evident from this important passage that the nomadic Hebrews worshipped their god or gods by huts, and that one among the objects of their worship was a Star, let alone what star Kiyyûn may be, whether identical with the Arabic keyvân, or some other. Thus, so far as we can infer from the Prophet’s word, their divine worship was paid to the night-sky. The nomad looks on the night-sky as a pasture where the herdsman (for the mythical figures of the night-sky are mostly regarded by him as herdsmen) lets his cattle feed; and it is easy to conceive that at the theological stage he venerates in huts the mythical figure now converted into a god, ascribing to him the same dwelling which he occupies on high in the sky. The most important feast of the nomadic Hebrews was the Feast of Sukkôth, or Tabernacles, which probably stands in close connexion with these Sukkôth of a god, and at the agricultural stage became a Harvest-feast. But even at that stage the connexion of the feast with nomadic life and the past nomadism of the nation itself, lived long in its memory (see Lev. XXIII. 43). That which they worshipped in the huts was not the Sun,[580] the bright sky of day, but kôkhâbh, a Star, doubtless no particular star, but only the starry heaven in general. For the rain, the most beneficent element to the nomad, was identified with the stars, i.e. with the sky at night. In the view of the ancient Arabs there were also Hyades in the starry heaven; we meet in poetry with the expression marâbîʿ al-nujûm ‘spring rain of the stars’ (Muʿallaḳâ of Lebîd, v. 4).

A familiar phrase in the speech of the nomadic Arabs is ‘the stars have brought rain.’[581] Moḥammed forbids the Moslims to express their common idea of the origin of the rain by their usual phrase muṭirnâ binauʾ kaḏâ ‘we have received rain from such and such a star,’ though he allows the connexion of the rain with the stars, and only insists on the recognition of Allâh as first cause, while the nauʾ is the immediate origin.[582] Similarly the Mohammedan Arabs were forbidden to call the rainbow the bow of the Thunder-god Ḳozaḥ.[583] The dew, also, has a connexion with the anwâʾ ‘stars’ (plural of nauʾ). It is not without interest to find this view in a Jewish-Arabic writer of the middle ages.[584] The worship of the kôkhâbh ‘star’ by the Hebrew nomads must therefore have a special connexion with the rain. Ancient mankind did not distinguish between the cloudless sky which grows dark at night, and the sky gloomy with clouds and rain by day (see supra, p. 42). He notices the darkness only, not the various times of day or night at which it occurs. Hence a sunless sky in general is treated as bringing rain. To show what connexion he imagined to subsist between the huts (sukkôth) and the rainy sky, I will quote a verse of a hymn to Jahveh, attributed to David, and said to have been sung on his deliverance from the power of Saul:

The various reading for the expression chashrath mayim ‘collections of water,’ which is preserved in Ps. XVIII. 12, where this hymn is given in a somewhat corrupt and less original form, deserves attention nevertheless. The words are cheshekhath mayim ‘darkness of water’ or ‘rain-bringing darkness.’

The more we study the information preserved to us on the religion of the nomadic Hebrews, the stronger is our conviction that it consisted in a veneration of the sky of clouds and rain, and was developed immediately from the elements of the nomadic myth. We read that in the desert God went before the Hebrews as a pillar of cloud by day and as a pillar of fire by night, and showed them the way (Ex. XIII. 21);[585] that he as a pillar of cloud came between the pursued Hebrews and the pursuing Egyptians (Ex. XIV. 19, 20) by night (for the day breaks soon after, Ex. XIV. 24); that he appeared to Aaron and Miriam in the pillar of cloud (Num. XII. 5); that, as the later psalmists, preserving the theological phraseology of ancient times, say (Ps. XCIX. 7), he speaks with his Prophet as a pillar of cloud. But what need is there to enumerate all the passages which speak of the God of the wandering Hebrews in connexion with the pillar of cloud, and describe his turning away as the retreat of the cloud, or to show that the cloud was retained in the popular tradition of a later monotheistical age as kebhôd Yahwe ‘the glory of Jahveh?’[586] It at least appears from them that the nomadic Hebrews attached their religious veneration to the Cloud; of which one of the latest relics is preserved in the name ʿAnanyâ (Ananias), i.e. ‘Cloud-God,’ and another in the phrase that God ‘rides upon a cloud.’

Another feature of the nomadic religion is expressed in al-Damîrî’s words that ‘the ancient Arabs paid divine honours to a white lamb, and when the wolf came and devoured the lamb, they chose another lamb to receive the same honours.’[587] From what was said above (p. 165) with reference to Rachel, it is not difficult to perceive that this white lamb is only a bright cloud like a lamb. This deification of clouds is also found elsewhere. The people of Bonny on the west coast of Africa comprise their idea of the Deity in the name Shûr or the cloudy sky;[588] and if the learned Italian Assyriologist Felix Finzi[589] is right, we find among the chief gods of the Assyrians the Cloud, which looks like a relic of the ancient time, when instead of the solar powers the Assyrians deemed those of the dark sky worthy of their worship. This scholar wishes to explain the Assyrian divine name Anu as etymologically identical with the Hebrew ʿÂnân ‘cloud’ which certainly well suits the two epithets of the deity, ‘Lord of Darkness’ and ‘Gatherer of Shades.’[590] In this case, however, the identity of Anu with the Oannes of Berosus could not be maintained, as the solar character of Oannes is undoubted; but this identification rests on a very slender base, and leads to no better understanding either of Anu or of Oannes.

With the worship of the Clouds is naturally united that of the Rain, which we find deified by many primitive nations. We find this, for instance, in the Akra people of the Gold Coast of West Africa. They express the question ‘Will it rain?’ by the words ‘Will God come?’[591] Among the heathen of the tribe of Baghirmi in Central Africa, with whom Dr. Nachtigall, lately returned from that region, has made us acquainted, the name Deity is identical with the designation of Storm.[592] In the language of the Wamasai in Eastern Africa the feminine noun Aï (with the article Engaï) has the two significations God and Rain.[593] This deification of rain and storm is moreover identical with Serpent-worship, wherever the latter occurs. For the adoration of the Serpent and Dragon is derived from the mythical conception which regarded rain as a ‘fluid serpent’ (see supra, p. 186); and wherever it is met with at a more advanced stage of civilisation it is a residuum from that stage at which men knew no more beneficent power than the dark overcast sky, the rain, the dragon that opposes the sun Bêl. The Egyptian and Indian theological ideas of the serpent are examples of such residua of the ancient nomadic views. Where a solar worship has grown up, either the old conception of the beneficent serpent continues to exist alongside of the new views, without being understood or harmonised with these, or else the defeat of the Serpent by the victory of the Sun becomes a feature of the new religion, and the Serpent appears as a hostile figure. So, for instance, in Persia and elsewhere.

Max Müller actually opposes the very method of Comparative Mythology which he himself introduced and maintained so brilliantly, when he declares ‘There is an Aryan, there is a Semitic, there is a Turanian, there is an African serpent, and who but an evolutionist would dare to say that all these conceptions came from one and the same original source, that they are all held together by one traditional chain?’[594] No doubt this single chain of tradition is a perfectly unscientific assumption, but none the less does the same original source serve as origin of serpent-worship everywhere, namely, the old mythical conception; and the varieties of view that we meet are to be classified not according to ethnological races, but by historical stages of civilisation. Certainly we shall at length have to cease seeking a motive for the worship of the Serpent where the symbolical school have persistently sought it even to the most recent times—in the ‘Conception of the deep wisdom of the serpent and of the mystic powers which are said to belong to its nature.’

The Serpent-worship as a form of religion is a further development of the mythical expressions which describe the rain as a serpent, made when these expressions had become unintelligible; in the same way as the worship of crocodiles, cats, etc., are traced back to a solar myth, the meaning of which had been forgotten.[595] The apparently mutually contradictory significations which are attached to the serpent in the myth and the worship must be traced back, not to opposite views held by different races, but to varying modes of understanding the myth, which might all emanate from the idea of the serpent. How often in the mythology of one and the same people we find the same object employed for the apperception of most different, or even opposite, things!

The adoration of the Serpent is also demonstrable of the Hebrews when nomadising in the desert; for only in this sense can the Brazen Serpent be understood, the adoration of which was commenced by the Hebrews of the desert and continued to the latest times (Num. XXI. 9, 2 Kings XVIII. 4). It also deserves notice that that Hebrew tribe which had from the earliest times the care of religious affairs and provided the worship called itself ‘Sons of the Serpent,’ Benê Lêvî[596] (see supra, p. 183), and that it was these who fell upon their compatriots when on the exodus from Egypt they were about to introduce a solar element into their religion by the adoration of the Golden Calf.[597] It was the Sons of Levi, the priests of the ancient religion of the nomads, who defended conservatism, and would not allow the solar bull-worship to raise its head.[598]

Accordingly, the tribal designation ‘Sons of the Serpent’ belongs to the long list of such names which are derived from animals.[599] Lubbock and Tylor, especially, have put this species of tribal nomenclature into connexion with the so-called Totemism; but in any case it is natural to assume that the original relation of the animal to the origin of the tribe or nation which claims it as its ancestor is purely mythological.

§ 6. Thus, then, the most ancient religion of the Hebrews in the desert was derived immediately from the myths of the nomads. To complete the above exposition, it is now only needful to refer to the traces of Lunar worship, which were treated in a previous chapter (pp. 158–160).

Not till after the entrance into Palestine, i.e. after the transition from nomadic wanderings in the desert to a settled agricultural life, does Solar worship appear among the Hebrews, chiefly in the northern part of the land; but even there it is only introduced in imitation of the rites of the neighbouring Canaanitish tribes, which, having been long settled in Palestine as agriculturists, had formed a complete solar ritual. The Hebrews brought no such system into the conquered land; on the contrary, their religion was, as we have seen, of a purely nomadic character, having its centre in the adoration of the dark sky of night. That it was so is evident also from the fact that the solar worship employed by the Egyptians had no attraction for the people of Israel during their residence in that country. Accordingly in this point the Hebrews were radically different from other tribes that had immigrated into Egypt, which are generally comprised under the common name Hyksôs. For in some of these tribes a fully developed solar form of religion, including even the wildest excesses of the service of Moloch, is found to have been adopted even as early as their residence in Egypt.[600]

The objects of the adoration of the nomadic Hebrews were the cloudy sky and the rainy sky.[601] But not only was direct worship addressed to the Cloud and the Rain; their will was also regarded as a revelation of destiny, and consulted. At first any nomad would look to the Cloud and the Serpent, to learn what the gods wished; but at a later time such knowledge generally becomes the property of certain persons—perhaps originally a sort of Rain-makers, like the Mganga in Eastern Africa. The persons among the Hebrews who understood this revelation and could exert influence by magic on the higher powers were the meʿônenîm and menacḥashîm, the ‘Observers of Clouds and Serpents,’ as mentioned regularly together (Deut. XVIII. 10). In the same book of law in which the adoration of the seʿîrîm is strictly prohibited, it is also forbidden to observe clouds and serpents (Lev. XIX. 26). I am well aware that the connexion of these two verbs with the words for cloud and serpent is denied by some authorities of note;[602] but the objections raised in reference to the first at least lead to the establishment of nothing more tenable.

Still there is another question which ought to come under our notice here, the answer to which shall form the conclusion of this chapter. When the nomad Hebrew’s Myth of the victory of the night-sky over the day-sky, or of the unjust violence to which the dark sky falls a victim, was converted into a nomadic Religion, in which the mythical figures were individualised and adored as great powers; was not adoration then addressed to the names which had been assigned to the night-sky in the myth of the nomads? In other words, were not the deities themselves called Abram, Jacob, etc., just as among the Aryans the mythical figures when converted into gods were called by the same names as they had in the myth? For it was mainly the appellations becoming unintelligible that occasioned the process of transformation, and so it would be expected that in the resulting religion these names would occupy the centre. It is, indeed, the consequence which we should necessarily infer a priori from all that has been said. We should infer that those names of the sky of night and rain, of which the myth of the nomad was chiefly composed, at the theological stage became names of theological meaning. Yet this does not appear at all clearly in the Old Testament books. The reason is, that most of the historical books belonging to the Bible are coloured by a theocratic conception, and as literary works are advanced even beyond that stage of the national mind at which the mythical figures were converted into Ancestors.

For not only religion, but history also, is formed out of myths at a certain stage of their development. But the mythical names really belonged first to theological nomenclature before they became historical, as names of Ancestors. This is proved by the fact, which has been mentioned already for another purpose, on which Dozy, in his book on Jewish-Arabic Religious History, has with excellent tact laid emphasis,[603] that none of these mythical names occurs as a human name in the whole course of ancient history, and even in modern history not till late,[604] any more than an Indian would be named Sûrya, Ushas or Dahanâ, or a Roman Jupiter or Saturn, or a Greek Herakles or Aphrodite. This proves that the mythical names of the Hebrew nomads possessed a super-human significance before they became historical names.

Yet there is still a fact belonging to the latest age which shows that the memory of a former connexion of theological ideas with the names Abram and Jacob had not even then altogether vanished. The great Prophet of the Hebrew people in the Babylonian Captivity, whose name is unknown to us only that we may admire the more his noble soaring spirit, cries in a prayer to Jahveh:

It is obvious that here the names of Abraham and Jacob are opposed to that of Jahveh. Therefore it is Jahveh, not Abraham; Jahveh, not Jacob! Jahveh is the omniscient redeemer and protector of the people Israel; the others take no care of it. Can we read in this opposition of names anything else but that the writer wishes to contrast the idea of a God recognised as the only true with the memory of something different, which ages ago passed for divine, but is unworthy of adoration now, when the Prophet brings forward the omniscience of Jahveh as an irrefragable argument for the exclusiveness of his divinity? I think not. And it is not stated without a purpose that Jahveh is the redeemer of the Hebrew nation ‘from eternity’ (mêʿôlâm), i.e. even from that age in which to the popular mind Abraham and Jacob towered over the range of humanity into the sphere of the gods. We ought further to notice the change of the names Abhrâm and Yaʿaḳôbh into Abhrâhâm and Yisrâʾêl (Gen. XVII. 5; XXXII. 29 [28]). The motive alleged for the change of Abhrâm ‘High Father’ is, that the historical character of the patriarch as Ancestor may be brought into the foreground: ‘for I have made thee father of multitudes of nations.’ To Jacob the later ethnographical name of the people is given.

Thus the memory of that to which the ancient Hebrews had paid divine honours was to be suppressed as a thought of something divine but hostile to Jahveh; and its place was to be occupied by the memory of the Ancestors of the nation, in which character the Patriarchs are warmly commended to the people by this very prophet (LI. 1, 2). We must next explain what was the impulse that drove the Hebrews to form out of the nomenclature of their ancient myth the names of their ancestors, or in other words to translate a considerable portion of their mythological phraseology into ethnological.