Chapter I: The Foundation of Monotheism

At the time of the birth of Christianity, only in one portion of the Roman world could a new and pure religion have arisen. The fusion of the empire had, by destroying their national basis, fatally weakened the Pagan religions; so far as real feeling was concerned, they had passed into the hands of the ignorant classes exclusively, and had lost the vitality in which alone the higher religious forces can germinate. Philosophies, resting on a common basis of contempt of the popular polytheism, were the refuge of the more enlightened. Between philosophers and those who still believed in the power of the ancient gods there existed a vast mass of people who had religious instincts with no sure means of satisfying them, ripe subjects for the new religion which they looked for but could not originate. At this time, throughout the Pagan world, a high and systematic morality could only be reared on an intellectual basis which destroyed sympathy with common men; in no part of it could have been developed the pure enthusiasm needed for the founding of a great religion.

One region of the empire alone was free from the symptoms of religious decay. In the small district of Palestine, with many offshoots scattered over the world, lived a people who professed a religion of the purest type. And this religion was not a lightly held philosophical theory; its adherents clung to it with a passionate tenacity, and were ever ready to face martyrdom in its defence. It was a pure monotheism, and morality was inculcated by it, indeed, maintained by it, in the strongest and most effective fashion. With justice Josephus could assert that Greek philosophers only followed the example of his countrymen, and taught doctrines which the Jewish sacred law had made practical realities.[1] For Judaism was not an esoteric creed which only the more cultured Jews fully understood; the lowest of the people grasped its principles, abhorred the idea of polytheism, detested even the smallest advance towards idolatry, and regarded every sin as a violation of divine decrees. Such a religion, pure and strongly held, was fit to be the parent of a noble religious system. In it originated the earliest doctrines of the religion which now sprang from it and conquered the Roman world. And as Judaism was in a special sense a national religion, its development must be examined in the history of the Jewish people.

We cannot, with any approach to historical certainty, assert more respecting the social and political condition of the first known ancestors of the Jews, than that they belonged to a race of nomad tribes wandering in the district which, roughly speaking, lies between Egypt and Palestine. In endeavouring to ascertain the religious ideas of this race, we may safely assume that the character of their religion was determined by the circumstances of their position. Living in a region which is either desert or barren and unprofitable land, the softer influences of nature could not affect them. The terror of nature would fascinate them; lightning and tempest would speak to them of their gods, and from the harshness of their surroundings they would derive the gloomiest impressions of the powers of the supernatural world. Their religion would be essentially a religion of fear.[2] Having little to deify on the earth around them, their mythology would be based on the phenomena of the sky. Sun and moon and stars would be their divinities, and to these they would ascribe jealous and implacable tempers. This sternness of their religion would carry with it many advantages. Their deities would be more majestic, more removed from themselves, than the gods of happier peoples, and the humility they would feel in worship would have within it the seeds of a higher religious development. A still more important feature of their mythology would be its narrowness. The poverty of their environment would cause their gods to be few and limited in number. No fresh divinities would discredit the older ones and reveal the weakness of their theology. And this would be likely to produce a serious effect on the outward form of their religion.

Whenever a common polytheism is professed by peoples politically separate, there is a tendency to localise deities. Now a large mythology throws great difficulties in the way of this tendency. If there are many gods, each one individually is too unimportant to be the divinity of a people, and the political divisions of course being few, after every tribe or state has appropriated a deity, a surplus is left with no particular duty to discharge. When this occurs, it usually results that the national deities are formed into a higher order of gods; and probably divine oligarchies, like that of the Hellenic mythology, are always created in this manner. But it is obvious that if the number of gods is small at the time of the formation of political divisions, the process of localization is greatly facilitated. The fewer they are, the more honour attaches to the gods individually; each one is sufficiently dignified to become the god of a separate people. After a system of this kind has been fully developed, the gods form a federal council, in which each state or tribe has a representative. The quarrels and rivalries of the earthly bodies are of course transferred to their heavenly representatives; all local patriotism expresses itself in the general religion.

From the evidence of the early records of the Jewish people we may conclude that the race from which they sprang went through a process of this character. In these, Israel, whether as a tribe or as a people, is often described as associating with other tribes or peoples, and comparing its own god with theirs, a common basis of religious belief being assumed.[3] The god of Israel seems to be regarded as superior to the other gods; but this does not imply that distinctions of rank were recognized in the common mythology. An intelligent Englishman would hardly assert that his country is now the chief European power; but if any other state were named as a possible enemy, he would probably say that his own was more than a match for it. In the same way, patriotism expressing itself in religion, the Israelites considered their own god, or heavenly representative, more than a match for any other, and this naturally involved a belief in his superiority. From these conditions a spurious monotheism would necessarily result. In proportion as their patriotism was strong, the Israelites would worship exclusively the tribal god, though thoroughly believing in the existence of others. This, of course, is only polytheism, but it contains within it the possibility of monotheistic development.

Such probably was the state of the religious ideas of the Israelites at the time they came into connection with Egypt. Previously they had been one among many cognate tribes having a common polytheistic mythology. In this mythology they had a tribal god, whom they worshipped without denying the existence of the rest. While mixing and constantly coming into collision with other tribes, each owning, of course, a similar deity, tribal patriotism must have made them, for the most part, devote themselves to this god exclusively. When they arrived in Egypt, they found there a system of religion utterly unlike their own, and this would confirm them in adherence to it. Being then a small tribe, they could more easily pay strict allegiance to the tribal god. As they increased in numbers, both through ordinary growth and through receiving accessions from cognate peoples outside, this allegiance would begin to be endangered. While they were a small tribe often meeting with other tribes which had different gods, patriotism would make them cling to their own. But when they became a large tribe, and ceased to come in contact with other branches of their race, not only would tendencies towards polytheism in actual worship be strengthened, but the check upon them in the shape of tribal patriotism would be weakened. They would thus be likely to drift back into the racial polytheism, their tribal god being lost in the rest. The opposition to the Egyptian religion[4] would rather help this tendency, as it would throw them more on their feelings of race. So, on the whole, it is probable that the Israelites, during their connection with Egypt, became more or less ordinary polytheists.

In one respect, however, their relations with Egypt must have tended to maintain their adherence to the tribal god. The period of struggle against Egyptian power which preceded their departure from Egypt must, by stimulating their patriotism, have prevented the remembrance of his old rank from being wholly lost. Patriotism could not have been completely disassociated from the divinity who had formerly been the centre round which it rallied. The outburst of patriotic fervour necessarily accompanying the actual conflict with Egypt, as well as its ultimate success, must have enormously increased the influence of the tribal god. For a time, we may be sure, he regained his original distinction, and became to the Israelites the representative of heaven. During the first serious fighting in Palestine, he would for the same reason retain his power. But then, as the national warfare degenerated into a series of detached tribal contests, the old tendency towards polytheistic worship would revive. To ascertain what forces counteracted this tendency, we must consider a new question.

Judaism may as well be said to have been founded by Moses as Christianity by Christ. Even if we knew nothing of its founder, there are features of Christianity which we could only explain by referring them to the influence of a personal character. There are peculiarities of Judaism, too, which have to be traced back to the personality of its founder. Moses and Christ, indeed, are inseparably connected in history. One completed what the other began. Without Moses, Christ could hardly have existed; without Christ, the work of Moses would have been of little value to the world. This presumption from internal probability corroborates the traditional evidence, and justifies us in accepting its general outline.

If the Israelites migrated from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and thus began their national life, it was very natural that he should be to some extent their legislator as well. Their leader, under such circumstances, must have had great ability, and also enormous power. His ability, together with his power, would lead him to consolidate the energies of his people, in order to fit them for the difficult task lying before them; and this could only be done by a system of legislation. Accordingly, we may assume that the foundation of the Jewish law was laid by Moses, though it is very hard to ascertain what that foundation actually was. The ten commandments, in their simplest form, are generally admitted to be relics of the Mosaic age. To account for the first and most important of these we have, in particular, to call in the authority of Moses. “I am Jahveh thy god; thou shalt have none other gods beside me,” is the foundation stone of the development of monotheism. It implies the existence of polytheism, but it decrees that polytheism shall be abolished. If the people, or any class of the people, continuously obeyed it, they had in time to become pure monotheists. If they ceased to think of other gods, these gods would ultimately pass out of remembrance, and Jahveh alone would occupy heaven. Jewish monotheism, with all its wonderful consequences, must be ascribed to the framer of the first commandment.

We have to assign its authorship to Moses, because of the difficulty of otherwise accounting for it. That it was a spontaneous decree of the people, produced by their confidence in the national god after their victory over the Egyptians, is very improbable. Many reasons, however, can be given for its having been decreed by Moses. The explanation just mentioned is more probable when applied to him. He may, as Professor Kuenen conjectures,[5] have regarded the national success as a proof of the greatness of the national god, and so have vowed the people to his exclusive service. The connection between this hypothesis and the idea of a covenant between Jahveh and Israel, to be referred to presently, is in its favour. But a stronger reason for believing the commandment to be due to Moses might be found in his desire to secure the national unity. The Israelites had grown so numerous as to be divided into separate tribes. If the people had more gods than one, the old process would be repeated, each tribe choosing a different god for its tribal deity; and thus their religion would help the tendency towards disunion. We know how the unity of Greece was anything like a reality only when it was based on the worship of Apollo at Delphi, Apollo becoming practically the national god of the Hellenes.[6] If no rivals of Apollo had existed, how much more effective his worship would have been! In general it may be said that, in an early stage of political development, national unity can be secured against tribal separation only by basing it on religion. A close union was specially necessary to the Israelites at this time, when they had to struggle against so many peoples in order to obtain a home. Recognizing the impossibility of otherwise securing this union, Moses may well have framed the first commandment in order to give the tribes at least one bond of union in the exclusive worship of Jahveh, their national god.

We may conclude, then, that from the Mosaic age it was part of the Israelitic religion that the tribal, or national, god should be worshipped exclusively. The people, whatever might be their practice, had accepted the principle. The second and third commandments, which prohibit idolatry and the misuse of Jahveh’s name, are evidently meant to be supports of the first, by demanding reverence for Jahveh and by abolishing the records of his rivals. The next two are merely local. But the last five, the second table of the law, are the basis of a feature of the Jewish religion even more important than its monotheism.

That the morality of the time, so far as it existed, should have been based on religion is natural enough; and, accordingly, at first sight, there seems to be nothing remarkable about the five moral commandments. When examined closely they are found more curious. The first four, though simple rules which tribal experience might have shown to be necessary, are still exceptional as the laws of a half-civilized people. The last takes us into a region of morality with which it is impossible that the Israelites could then have been acquainted. Only a highly civilized mind could have conceived the precept, “Thou shalt not covet.” Here again we are driven for explanation to the personality of Moses.

These commandments are inexplicable as the product of a low civilization, but they are very natural if a high civilization be assumed as their basis. Egypt was at this time highly civilized, and, as we know from the “Book of the Dead,” had developed a pure morality, with which the last commandment would be thoroughly in harmony. If we could assume that Moses once belonged to the inner circle of Egyptian civilization, the peculiarities of Judaism would be fully explained. The early traditions represent him as brought up in the king’s household, and, accordingly, in a position to be acquainted with the best philosophy of the age. A later tradition says he was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”[7] And probabilities are distinctly in favour of this. The power and authority he exercised over the Israelites could be readily accounted for if he was a member of their tribe who had received the highest education of the time. Such a training must have developed his faculties, and marked him out as the leader of his countrymen, ensuring their reverence for him, and trust in his ability to rule them.

In a region of historical inquiry like that in which we are now moving, we must be content to be guided by conjecture. When a conjecture asserts what is intrinsically probable, and at the same time explains a complex series of phenomena, we may fairly consider it to be accurate. The conjecture that Moses drew his inspiration from the higher culture of Egypt is of this kind.[8] There was nothing strange in his stamping the principles of that culture, if he was acquainted with it, on his Israelitic legislation. He had an unequalled opportunity of realizing the ideals of conduct. Political circumstances had placed the destinies of his people in his hands. Commands coming from him had an authority only possible at the beginning of national life. It is thoroughly in accordance with probability that he should have seized the occasion offered him, and imposed laws on the nation he ruled which, unless they passed utterly out of remembrance, would ensure it a noble development.

From the evidence of the ten commandments it is thus almost certain that the Israelitic religion was, even at its beginning, peculiarly moral. The people were commanded to worship Jahveh exclusively, and also to practise a severe morality. From this connection between Jahvism and morality important consequences were bound to follow.

All ancient religions were more or less marked in practice by a sacrificial system. The idea at the bottom of the custom of offering sacrifices is very simple. Men, as a proof of their devotion, give to their gods some of their possessions. The immediate object may be either to win the divine favour or to avert the divine wrath. When a religion is harsh and severe, the latter is likely to be the more frequent sacrificial motive. Accordingly, when the Israelites sacrificed to Jahveh, it was probably for the most part to remove Jahveh’s anger, to obtain forgiveness for their sins against him. Now exactly in proportion to the closeness of the connection between Jahvism and morality would be the tendency of these sins to be real sins. When sins are included among offences against a religious code, they are pretty sure to be the offences most frequently committed. Hence it follows that the early sacrificial system of the orthodox Israelites must have been largely directed to the atonement of sin.

If, then, we could accept the accounts in the Pentateuch as an accurate description of the sacrificial customs of the Mosaic age,[9] with external evidence corroborating internal probability, we might regard our conclusion as proved. But, as Professor Kuenen has shown, the whole system of the Jewish ceremonial law described in the Pentateuch was, in at least its final and consolidated form, the result of the labours of the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. It thus becomes a question of great difficulty to determine what portion of the law, if any, existed in early times. A few statements of the prophets seem to imply that in the Mosaic age no sacrifices at all were offered to Jahveh.[10] But the prophets cannot be considered trustworthy authorities for the early history of Israel. They wrote under the pressure of immediate circumstances, and with a very definite purpose. This purpose, as will afterwards be shown, required them to cast discredit on sacrifices. In doing so, their repeated references are evidence that a full sacrificial system in connection with the worship of Jahveh was established in their time.[11] Here their testimony is irrefragable, and it proves that such a system must have begun before their age. No period was so likely to have originated it as the earliest, when the foundations of the national life were laid.

But the strongest argument in favour of the conclusion that sacrificing to Jahveh for the atonement of sin began in the Mosaic age is, that thus only can subsequent phenomena be explained. The great point in the history of Jewish religion is the magnificent period of the prophets. Their writings are the noblest expression ever given to religious and moral ideas. We explain their pure monotheism by deducing it from the institution of the first commandment, which necessitated in a class obeying it continuously the ultimate development of the belief that Jahveh was the one God “that made the earth and created man upon it, that stretched out the heavens and commanded all their host.”[12] How can we explain their wonderful morality except in the same way? We know from the commandments that moral excellence was required by the religion of Jahveh from the very first. If thus from the beginning morality was impressed on Jahveh’s worshippers by a sacrificial system which declared every sin to be an offence against him that must be expiated at a personal cost, we can understand how any class continuously adhering to him should in time have developed a morality in which sin was hated for its own sake, and goodness made the essence of religion. Such vivid and constant evidence of Jahveh’s hatred of sin would naturally, after many generations, produce the pure morality of the prophets. But otherwise it is inexplicable. A mere theoretical connection between Jahvism and morality might ultimately have made the Jahvists better than the worshippers of other gods, but it could not have created that marvellous passion for righteousness which made the Jewish religion at its best the greatest the world has ever seen. This conclusion does not involve the belief that in the Mosaic age the system of sacrificing for sin was fully developed. If the foundation of it was laid then, the conditions of the problem are satisfied. The system would ensure its own subsequent development. Once Jahveh’s hatred of sin was marked by any practical effect, as time went on, through the moral growth of the people who grasped the doctrine, that hatred would seem to deepen, to become more comprehensive and complete. A conclusion which explains so much, and has probability so greatly in its favour, may fairly be accepted.

If from the age of Moses the religion of Jahveh was thus inseparably connected with morality, all the best of the people would rally round it. Unless Israel at any time was wholly without a remnant that loved righteousness and hated iniquity, Jahvism must always have had its earnest supporters. The same cause, of course, would tend to make it unpopular with the mass of the people. But for this, it would be difficult to understand why the Israelites, down to the captivity, were so persistent in their devotion to strange gods. Jahveh was their national divinity, and a mere love of polytheism could hardly account for this incessant desertion of him. The close connection between Jahvism and morality fully explains the phenomenon. The Israelites in general found Jahveh too severe for them, and turned to gods more tolerant of evil-doing, just as Catholic sovereigns used to choose indulgent confessors. This fact would only confirm the few more strongly in their allegiance. The worshipper of Jahveh would justly extol Jahveh in comparison with Baal, as he compared himself with the worshipper of Baal. And thus through the purity of Jahveh’s adherents their religion would be saved from the contamination of baser elements, and would necessarily develop in simplicity and truth. Sin, at first hated chiefly because Jahveh forbade it, would at last be hated because of its own foulness; Jahveh, at first reverenced merely as the national saviour, would at last be reverenced as the lord of heaven and earth. Down the channel of Jahvism flowed all the higher forces of the national life, till at length they broke forth in the wave of moral and religious energy which finally overcame resistance in the grand struggle of the prophets.

Though the majority of the people usually worshipped other gods, and thus broke their own sacred laws, we are not to suppose that they denied Jahveh’s existence, or even his right to worship. They must have been pure polytheists, believing that many gods reigned in the heavens. Among these they held it to be their right to choose, just as a lower-class Catholic will choose his favourite saint. But they fully admitted that Jahveh was the national god; and in periods of danger, when patriotism was strongly excited, it is likely that for the moment they returned to the exclusive worship of him. Thus the power of Jahvism over the people at large would rise and fall with the national fortunes. When Israel was prosperous, Jahvism prospered too; when Israel declined, Jahvism declined as well. For we may well believe that the Israelites flourished just in proportion as they were united. The book of Judges is probably in the main historically correct. The tribes would drift apart, or even quarrel with each other, and their enemies would overcome them and take their cities. Then a wave of patriotism would sweep over them; they would reunite and become victorious in their turn. From this it is easy to see what credit Jahveh would in time acquire, even among the entire people. Union brought with it national happiness and success, but the adoption of Jahvism was the condition of union. So it would appear to them that by returning to Jahveh and observing the precepts of their sacred law they could always secure prosperity. When serving Jahveh faithfully, they would have good fortune; after falling away from him, they would quickly be plunged in calamity. How soon this would create a conviction of Jahveh’s irresistible power! In their misfortunes they would see Jahveh punishing them for their apostacy; in their successes they would see Jahveh accepting their repentance and restoring his protection.

Thus in time all the people would in one sense become Jahvists. They would believe that Jahveh was their true god, and that they ought to worship him alone. When they turned to other gods, they would do so with a distinct consciousness of evil-doing and a certain expectation of punishment. Jahveh’s severity of moral requirement would render it impossible for them to serve him willingly; they could never become true Jahvists. But in their hearts would always be a sullen fear of Jahveh, a belief that he punished terribly. This was the chord of popular feeling which the prophets touched, and to the existence of which they owed their success.

These conditions would naturally in time produce the belief that a covenant had been concluded at the beginning between Israel and Jahveh. The true Jahvists would of course eagerly proclaim that Israel’s happiness depended on obedience to Jahveh, that calamity was the result of his just anger, and prosperity the consequence of his favour. But that Jahveh should have given notice of this, and shown the ways of good and evil from the first, would soon seem to be necessary. Hence in later times it would be thought that Jahveh had formally concluded a covenant with the Israelites, in which he engaged to protect them and make them prosperous, on condition that they served him and kept his law.[13] All the failures and misfortunes of the nation would be ascribed by the Jahvists to the breaking of this covenant by the people, and the consequent drawing down of the penalties of its violation on their heads.

From the development in Jahvism of this idea that suffering was a divine punishment followed the most important results. If national suffering was considered to be due to national breaking of the law, equally private suffering would be ascribed to private breaking of the law. Sin would be looked on as the cause of suffering. Abstinence from sin was commanded by Jahveh, and so every sin would be a violation of his commands that invited punishment by him. Private suffering would then be regarded as the proof of sin, as Job’s friends regarded it, and as the divine chastisement of it. But of course it would seem right that the chastisement should be proportioned to the sin, and limited for each offence. Thus, in time, suffering would be considered the atonement of sin, Jahveh’s punishment of it, after which his favour would be restored. But sacrifices, as we saw before, were the legal means of atoning for sin. If a man sinned, then, in order to escape the suffering which otherwise would be the penalty of his sin, he would offer a sacrifice. Now Israelitic sacrifices, as they were a pastoral people, were mainly offerings of living beasts. Under these circumstances there would certainly be a tendency to imagine that the penalty of sin was laid on the sacrificial victim, that its suffering and death were accepted as the atonement in place of the suffering of the offender.

Professor Kuenen, basing his opinion on the fact that no direct mention of it occurs in the law, believes that this idea of atonement by vicarious suffering did not enter into the Jewish sacrificial system.[14] The legal permission in certain cases of a sin offering of meal or flour[15] supports his conclusion. On the other hand, vicarious punishment was clearly recognized in one great ceremony of the law. The scapegoat is described as bearing away the sins of the people into the wilderness in which it was left to die.[16] With a tendency of the sacrificial system towards the belief in vicarious punishment, and clear evidence in one instance of its recognition, we may safely assume that it entered to some extent into the feelings of the people when they sacrificed. Probably it was never consciously developed in the law, and so it was not directly mentioned, and, in exceptional cases, inanimate offerings were allowed. But after the sacrificial system had been long in existence, the constant repetition of animal sacrifices would naturally produce the belief. We find the principle of vicarious punishment asserted in the prophets, and fully developed in the sending away of the scapegoat. We may safely conclude, then, that, from the beginning, it was latent in Jahvism, and gradually grew as Jahvism passed into Judaism, until at length it reached maturity in the first great dogma of Christianity.

Such a principle, growing in Jahvism, would tend still more to develop a hatred of sin. Morality exists because, from the simple observation of social phenomena, sin is connected with suffering, and calamity of some kind regarded as its inevitable consequence. But this connection of sin with suffering would be placed far more vividly before the worshipper of Jahveh, as his religion gradually forced on him the belief that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”[17] In the blood of the victim sprinkled on Jahveh’s altar, the Israelite would see stern evidence of the inexorable severity of Jahveh against sin—a severity so great that he could not forgive it without exacting the penalty, though his mercy might allow the transgressor to find a substitute. Harsh and cruel Jahvism thus would be, even rooted in injustice; but in effect it would be grandly moral, stamped with a condemnation of sin that, at such a stage of civilization, was of priceless value.

From the Mosaic age, then, on to the period of the prophets, we can imagine the development of Jahvism in Israel. There was always the nucleus of true Jahvists, who observed the law so far as it existed, and steadily grew in spirituality and moral insight. They were the national party; for them tribal divisions could have had but little importance. From among them, in times when the national fortunes were near ruin, always uprose the deliverers, as the pure flame of their patriotism drew to them the nobler elements of the people. They, in fact, were Israel, a continuous power representing the national life. Through a long struggle, marked by many a martyrdom, they contended against the downward tendencies of the rest of the people, until at length, after the final destruction of Israel’s material greatness, they won the victory and impressed their principles on the entire nation. It was no mere sense of the superiority of Jahvism that sustained them for the longest part of this contest. That could only be felt strongly towards the end, when the chief fruit of the struggle had been gained. Their fierce patriotism was their real strength. To them Jahveh seemed to be King of Israel, and his law the constitution of their state. In idea their government was a theocracy; even an earthly viceroy impaired Jahveh’s prerogatives.[18] This was possible because Jahveh was the national god, universally recognized as such. As the national god, the worship of him was patriotism; he was the ideal object of Israel’s self-love. All their religious feelings flowed in a patriotic channel. Church and state were blended in one; love of their country inspired their passionate devotion to their religion. This close union of religious and national feeling afterwards continued with the relations inverted, patriotic feeling flowing in a religious channel.

In connection with its intense patriotism, Jahvism from the beginning must have been distinguished by a rigid exclusiveness. The greatest danger it had to face was the corruption of the Israelites by the religions of the peoples around them. To guard against this danger, it would naturally insist on the sternest separation of Israel from the Gentile nations. Circumcision, as well as other local customs, it used as means of fulfilling its purpose. Jahvism was probably at first fiercely cruel. The injunctions to extirpate the Canaanites contained in the books of the law, which Professor Kuenen considers to be the expression of the Jewish hatred of foreigners after the captivity, and only “murder on paper,” in all likelihood faithfully represent the feelings of the Jahvists in early times. They must have seen their fellow Israelites constantly deserting Jahveh for the gods of other peoples, and it is natural that they should have wished to remove such temptations in the most effective manner. Probably they did not succeed in gratifying their desires, except in a few instances when national feeling was strongly roused. The Israelites in general, we may be sure, were easily corrupted, and were in too much sympathy with foreign gods to destroy their worshippers. But the Jahvists must have been fierce haters of foreigners, and eager in every way to build an insurmountable wall around Israel. This strict exclusiveness, inevitable and, indeed, praiseworthy in early times, afterwards came into collision with the higher tendencies of Jahvism when it attained its maturity. The subsequent Messianic ideal, as it existed in the noblest minds, involved a struggle against these influences, which, in its youth, had been a hard shell enclosing and protecting the Jewish religion.

For the most part the battles of Jahvism must have been with the local religions of the lands the Israelites conquered.[19] Intermixing with the conquered peoples, in race kindred to themselves, they would readily adopt the divinities they found in possession of the soil. Thus, in different districts, Jahvism was opposed to different religions[20]—a fact which was afterwards the subject of the bitter irony of Jeremiah.[21] But its longest and most important conflict was with the religion of Baal, some particular deity worshipped under this generic title. The history of Elijah illustrates the severity and uncertainty of the struggle. To the Jahvists probably its fierceness was wholly due. They would tolerate the existence of no other religion, and so, in self-defence, other religions were bound to persecute them. This long contest with Baal must have been of great service to Jahvism.[22] It strengthened the fanaticism of the Jahvists, and showed vividly to the people the zeal their religion inspired. When actually put face to face with other gods, the superiority of Jahveh must have been so manifest as to gain for him many adherents.

During the early history of Israel, up to the time of the kings, in spite of occasional interruptions, the national fortunes were prosperous, and the territory of the Israelites increased in extent. Jahvism, as the national religion, would naturally share in the prosperity of the state. In the golden age of Israel, the age of David and Solomon, it must have had great nominal power. The large Israelitish empire which then existed must have appeared convincing proof that the national deity had kept his part of the covenant, and so the people would be more disposed to abide by theirs. But Jahvism could not have really sunk into the hearts of the Israelites; their devotion to it was strong in the sunshine, but failed in the storm. When the kingdom was split in two, and the fortunes of the Israelites steadily declined, and great empires, in comparison with which, even united, they were as nothing, overshadowed them, then Jahvism seemed threatened with utter ruin. Only the devotion of its true adherents, whom the days of its success had enabled to develop in appreciation of its value, saved it from destruction.

Still, even during the closing struggle, Jahvism must have included in its ranks a large proportion of the people. The language of the prophets is clear evidence of this. The strong phrase, “I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts,”[23] which Isaiah puts in the mouth of Jahveh, is a proof that many sacrifices were then being offered to him. Signs of only a formal adherence they probably were; and it was not merely to extend the nominal limits of their religion, but to change this formal adherence into a real grasp of its principles, that the prophets fought their battle and won Israel for Jahveh.