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IMMORTALITY AND THE
UNSEEN WORLD

W. O. LOESTERLEY.D.D,

•'^^

BM 625 .03

Oesterley, W.

1866-

1950.

Immortality and

the

unseen

world

IMMORTALITY AND THE
UNSEEN WORLD

A STUDY IN OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION

W. O. E. OESTERLEY, D.D.

VrCAR OF ST. ALBAN'S, ACTON GREEN, W.
EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LONDON

LONDON

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I

Some PRELiMmARY Considerations

I. The Subject to be treated on the Lines of
Comparative Religion ....

II. Inconsistent Ideas in the Old Testament

III.

Two Beliefs regarding Immortality in the Old
Testament ......

IV. Plan and Method of dealing with the Subject

CHAPTER II

The Old Testament Teaching on the Constituent
Parts op Man

I. 5asff,r, Flesh ....

II. Nefhesh, Soul ....

[II. Neshamah, Breath

IV. Ruach, Spirit ....

V. Dam, Blood ....

VI. 'Azamoth, Bones ....

. 20

BELIEF IN SUPERNATURAL BEINGS
CHAPTER III

The Demonology of the Semites
I. Semitic Demonology in General ... 24
II. Some Details of Semitic Demonology . . 27

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV

The Demonology op the Old Testament

PAGE

I. Theriomorphic Demons :

{a) The Seraphim 35

(6) The Se'irim 37

and Tannim ..... 39
II. Demons of Human Form :

(a) Lilith 42

(6) Keteb 44

{d) Satan 46

CHAPTER V

The Angelology of the Old Testament
I. Semitic Angelology in General ... 47
II, The Angelology of the Old Testament :

{a) The first stage : the sons of the gods . 53
(6) The second stage : Jahwe and the theo-

phanic angel ..... 54
(c) The third stage : God's messengers . 58
(a) The nature and characteristics of the

angels ...... 59

(e) Special classes of angels : the Cherubim

and Seraphim .... 60

THE SPIRITS OF THE DEAD AND THEIR ABODE
CHAPTER VI

The Rephaim
I. The Rephaim a Name given to the Departed . 63

CONTENTS vii

PAQB

II. The Rephaim, the Name of an Ancient Race

of Giants ..... 72

III. The Valley of Rephaim .... 74

CHAPTER VII

Sheol, the Place of the Departed
I. Babylonian Conceptions concerning the Under-
world 80

II. The Old Testament Conceptions of Sheol . 86
III. Sheol and the Rephaim .... 92

THE LIVING AND THE DEPARTED

CHAPTER VIII

Ancestor-worship and the Cult of the Dead (I)

I, The Origin of Ancestor- worship ... 95
II. Ancestor- worship among the Babylonians . 98

III. Ancestor-worship in the Old Testament . . 101

IV. Ancestor- worship in Syria at the Present Day 103
V. A Further Remnant of Ancestor-worship in

the Old Testament. . . .106
VI. TheTeraphim 108

CHAPTER IX

Ancestor-worship and the Cult of the Dead (II)
I. The Cult of the Dead . . . .' . 110

II. The Cult of the Dead in the Old Testament ;

Jer. xvi. 5-8 . . . . .112

viii CONTENTS

III. The Cult of the Dead in the Old Testament ;

Isa. Ixv. 3 . . . . .118

IV. Cuttings in the Body and Hair- offerings. . 119

CHAPTER X

Necromancy
I. Necromancy among the Babylonians
II. Necromancy in the Old Testament.

III. Some Technical Terms in the Old Testament

IV. The 'Oh and the Teraphim .

V. The Modus Operandi of the Necromancer .

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS
CHAPTER XI
Mourning and Burial Customs
I. Introductory .....
II. The Rending of Garments

III. Laceration of Body and Cutting off the Hair

IV. Putting on Sackcloth . . , ,
V. Sprinkling Ashes or Earth on the Head .

VI. Fasting

VII. Lamentation and Wailing
VIII. Some Miscellaneous Customs :

Taking off the sandals .
Covering the head .
Covering the lips .
Laying the hand on the head .

125
127
132
135
136

141
143
149
151
154
159
162

167
168

168
168

CONTENTS

IX. Closing the Eyes of the Dead
X. Kissing the Dead

XI. Treatment of the Corpse :
Washing
Anointing
Embalming
Clothing
Cremation
XII. Disposal of the Dead
XIII. Provision for the Departed

PAGE

169
170

173
173
174
174
175
176
183

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY
CHAPTER XII

Immortality the Normal Lot or Man

I. The Origin of the Belief in Continued Existence

after Death 190

II. The Old Testament Story of the Garden of Eden 1 93

III. Why Man was believed to have been originally

Immortal . . . . .197

IV. A Religious-ethical Development . . .199

CHAPTER XIII

The Development of Belief

I. A Summary 202

II. The Results of the Exile : Religious Indivi-

dualism

204

III. The Results of the Exile : A Developed Con-
ception of God . . . .206

CONTENTS

IV. The Results of the Exile : Spiritual Worship .
V. The Effect of the Exile upon the Belief in

Immortality
VI. The First Step .
VII, The Second Step .
VIII. The Third Step .
IX. The Fourth Step .
X. The Final Stage of Development
Index

207

208
210
211
213
215
217
223

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER I

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

I. The Subject to be treated on the Lines
OF Comparative Religion

No department of Israelite religion can be adequately dealt
with unless it be studied in the light of the religious beliefs
of kindred peoples. It may in these days be regarded as
axiomatic that, whether it be Israelite religion as a whole,
or whether it be some particular part of that religion, the
subject cannot be properly understood nor adequately
appreciated unless it be studied on the comparative method.
No scholar has done more to show the need of this than
Robertson Smith. " No positive religion," he says, " that
has moved men has been able to start with a tabula rasa,
and express itself as if religion were beginning for the first
time ; in form, if not in substance, the new system must be
in contact all along the line with the older ideas and prac-
tices which it finds in possession. A new scheme of faith
can find a hearing only by appealing to religious instincts
and susceptibilities that already exist in its audience, and
it cannot reach these without taking' account of the tradi-
tional forms in which all religious feeling is embodied, and
without speaking a language which men accustomed to these
old forms can understand. Thus, to comprehend a system
of positive religion thoroughly, to understand it in its
1

2 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

historical origin and form as well as in its abstract principles,
we must know the traditional religion that preceded it." ^
The profound truth of these words is only enhanced when
applied to the Israelite belief in Immortality. We find in
the Old Testament a mass of antique conceptions regarding
the life beyond the grave which the Israelites shared with
other peoples, and which had been handed down from time
immemorial ; but these antique conceptions, though, as a
rule, fully discernible, are nevertheless often blurred ;
many appear as remnants of earlier belief ; to understand
them the Old Testament is not sufficient ; we must seek
the parallel ideas, beliefs, and customs as these appear among
other Semitic peoples in order to realize their significance.
Not only so ; for since in some instances these conceptions
have oome down from a time when man was in a lower stage of
culture than the Semites were at any time of which we have
cognisance, it follows that the origin and history of an idea
must sometimes be studied in its form among savage men.
The scope of the present study does not permit of our ex-
tending our inquiries beyond the Semitic domain, but here
and there references will be made to the ideas and customs
of non- Semitic peoples.

We are not blind to the dangers involved in treating our
subject on the comparative method. The student of Com-
parative Religion is, as all the world knows, not infrequently
tempted to see parallels which are such only in appearance,
not in essence ; there are many pitfalls. While we have
taken pains to keep this danger in view, we are far from
feeling assured that in dealing with subjects which are at
times very intricate we have always succeeded in avoiding
these pitfalls. But however insidious the danger, it would
never do on that account to forget that many undoubted
parallels between the Israelite beUefs and conceptions
about Immortality and those of other peoples do really
exist ; and these parallels concern not only beliefs and

1 The Religion of the Semites, p. 2.

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 3

conceptions, but also customs and usages to which they
have given birth. There are still many people who claim
for the religion of Israel absolute uniqueness and originality
from its beginnings onwards, and who therefore refuse to
recognize parallels of any kind among the beliefs, and
possibly also the customs, of other peoples ; to such be it
said that if religious development took place in a more
pronounced degree within the limits of one nation — or,
what comes to the same thing, if the response to divine
inspiration wa^ more intensive, and therefore fuller, on
the part of Israel's religious thinkers — that does not
imply that the divine solicitude was unmindful of, or left
itself without witness among, the peoples of other races.
The religious faculty has been accorded to all men ; the
capacity for apprehension has varied immensely among
them, whatever the reasons for this may have been ; but
all have in greater or less degree responded to what has, in
effect, been a divine revelation to them. It may be that
some would describe it as folly to contend that the crass
ideas of early man are to be looked upon as a response to
divine revelation ; or, indeed, that a divine revelation was
possible to man in such a low stage of culture ; but however
crass those ideas may be to the modern thinker, they were
not so to early man ; and if they represented the utmost that
the savage mind could rise to, is it not in accordance with
all our belief in God that the divine interest in man should
be such as would have consideration even for the most
childlike efforts towards truth ? We smile commiseratingly,
and with justice, at the naive conceptions of the men who
lived, say, 50,000 b.C ; but what right have we to suppose
that our conceptions will be less 7iaive to the men of, say,
50,000 A.D. ? To an omniscient God the advance in thought
from the time of the dawn of man's understanding to the
present day may not be so great as it appears to us. When

1 I.e. so far as we can gather from present-day savage beliefs what
these are likely to have been.

4 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

St. Paul in Athens told how he had seen an altar to an
unknown god, he frankly recognized that the worshippers at
this altar had been seeking after God, though in ignorance. ^

It is, therefore, both on scientific and religious grounds
that the Israelite ideas and customs which we are to consider
should be illustrated by the parallels among other peoples.

II. Inconsistent Ideas in the Old Testament
We come now to another preliminary consideration.
The study of the Old Testament belief in Immortality often
appears very puzzling because such inconsistent ideas are
met with in close proximity. We find there at times crass
and childish ideas, and we find there distinctly advanced
conceptions ; and sometimes these occur mixed up to-
gether. How are we to account for this ? The answer is,
we believe, two-fold :

In dealing with things religious, and especially when it
is a question of teaching, men are influenced, generally
speaking, by two tendencies, either consciously or un-
consciously ; these tendencies may be described, roughly,
as retrospective and prospective ; there is, mostly, an
inclination to view things in accordance with a set mode,
and to teach accordingly ; what has been handed down,
what has been received, is regarded as authoritative, and
must therefore be treated with respect. That is altogether fit
and proper. But traditional ideas and traditional teaching
are again and again seen to be at variance with the new
points of view, and therefore with the new ideas, which press
themselves into the minds of the thinking. Hence arises
this two-fold tendency of looking back upon the old and
looking forward to the new. These tendencies are strikingly
illustrated in the Old Testament. With some, at all events,
of the writers of the Old Testament respect for tradition
induced a disinclination to discard any part of the venerable

1 Acts xvii. 23.

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 5

records of the past, and therefore the ideas and teach-
ings embodied in them. On the other hand, these writers
were faced with the fact that thought advances, widens,
develops ; owing to one cause and another new points of
view arose ; some of the old ideas were seen to be untenable,
for it was recognized that they were based upon miscon-
ceptions ; they had, therefore, to be modified, or in some
cases altered altogether. Consequently we find that in
the Old Testament the spirit of compromise has been at
work ; and the form that this has again and again taken has
been that the old wording has been kept as far as possible,
only that which was thought to be absolutely necessary
having been altered. At the same time certain things
demanded by the development of thought and conception
were added. We may sometimes wonder why this process
was not carried farther ; we may also wonder how the
redactors of the books could be content to leave what, upon
occasion, amounts to a glaring inconsistency without a
more heroic attempt to soften it down ; the attempt is at
times made, but the inconsistency remains. One must,
however, remember that the oriental is not very logical
in his ideas ; an inconsistency which is a veritable worry
to the Western does not trouble the Eastern. Thus, the
Old Testament has within it the marks of compromise.
This applies emphatically to the subject with which we are
to deal, the belief in Immortality. Things are said in
regard to this belief which are inconsistent with each other ;
and, therefore, the attempt has been made to compromise.
But as the compromise is by no means always satisfying,
the subject appears at times very puzzling.

III. Two Beliefs regarding Immortality in the

Old Testament
But there is a second and more deep-seated reason for
these inconsistencies. Indeed, in dealing with the belief

6 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

in Immortality in the Old Testament it is found that not
only do inconsistencies exist, but conceptions are met with
which are of an entirely contradictory character ; we may
go so far as to say that they are mutually exclusive. The
presence of these can, we believe, only be satisfactorily
explained upon one hypothesis, and that is that the Old
Testament has preserved two sets of ideas and beliefs re-
garding the future life. The details of these will be found
in the following pages, and therefore we shall not deal with
them here. But the hypothesis may be briefly stated thus :
Speculation regarding the departed, the place of their
abode, their powers, their desires, their requirements, their
activities, their relationship to the living — all these things
have exercised the minds of men of all races from the earliest
times. Various beliefs concerning the departed, some of
them fundamentally identical in character, took shape
independently among the most diverse races. We are not,
for the moment, concerned with the subject of how and why
these beliefs arose, but only with the fact that they did arise.
The Semitic race shared these beliefs with other races ;
and though the Semites moulded them in accordance with
their special genius, most of them, so far as their funda-
mental essence was concerned, were the same as the beliefs
of other races. Now the Israelites shared these beliefs
with the rest of the Semites ; and among them the belief,
which developed in course of time, in what was called by the
Israelites " Sheol," a lugubrious place to which men went
when they had finished their ordinary life. Among the
Israelites this belief underwent a fundamental change
because it was found to be incompatible with the belief
in Jahwe ; the essence of this change consisted in the teach-
ing that they who went to Sheol could never leave it ; they
were tied to it for ever. This had not been held hitherto.
But the official exponents of the religion of Jahwe found it
not only difficult, but quite impossible, to root out the ancient
traditional belief which was held by the people. For cen-

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 7

turies, therefore, two beliefs existed in Israel regarding
Sheol — the ancient popular belief, and what came to be the
official belief and doctrine. These two forms of belief arc
to be found over and over again in the Old Testament. Other
beliefs which centred around that of Sheol, and which were
expressed by various practices, were also found to be in-
compatible with the religion of Jahwe ; but in spite of
penal enactments against the perpetrators of these practices,
they continued until long after the Exile.

The existence of two diametrically opposed Sheol-beliefs, a
popular and an official, illustrated in a variety of ways in
the Old Testament, is amply sufficient to account for in-
consistent and contradictory elements regarding belief in
the future life.

Details of what has been said are dealt with in the
following pages.

IV. Plan and Method of dealing with the Subject

A few words are called for in order to set forth the plan
and method which have been adopted in dealing with the
subject of belief in Immortality in the Old Testament.

We begin with a brief consideration of the Hebrew ideas
regarding the various parts of which man is made up. This
is required ; for, to the question, " What part of man con-
tinued to live after death ? " the answer given by the ancient
Hebrew is uncertain. It was obvious that he distinguished
between the soul and the body ; and at first we should be
tempted to say without hesitation that the belief was that
the soul continued to live after death, while the body went
to corruption. But there are some considerations which
suggest that this does not represent what was really believed.
Why was there such a horror among the Hebrews at the
idea of a dead body being burned ? Why was it regarded
as such a grievous punishment for a body to be buried in
foreign soil ? Why, above all, was it considered such a

8 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

dreadful thing for a body not to be buried ? To this last
question there are two obvious answers : one is that since
a dead body was unclean it was necessary to bury it lest
contact with it should cause contamination ; the other is
that the natural feeling of respect for the dead would demand
decent burial. Probably, however, these two answers do
not exhaust the subject. At any rate, the two other ques-
tions suggest that the body was not done with at death
We referred just now to the " popular " Sheol-belief, accord-
ing to which that part of man which after death went to
Sheol was able to leave it, on occasion, temporarily ; the
reason it wished to do so was its intimate relationshiiD with
the body, even after death. The great care expended on
graves may be supposed to have had something to do with
this. Embalming was not, it is true, in vogue among the
Israelites, and it is very uncertain to what extent they were
influenced by Egyptian belief concerning the life hereafter ;
but there are some grounds for believing that the Israelites
put spices within the grave-clothes with the primary object
of preserving the body. Then there is another considera-
tion. We draw attention later on, but it requires mention
here, to the inscription of Eshmunazar, in which it is said :
"... I lie in this coffin and in this grave, in the place which
I built. ... I adjure every prince and every man that they
open not this resting-place ... I adjure every prince and
every man that they open me not, nor uncover me, nor carry
me from this resting-place, nor take away the coffin of my
resting-place, lest these holy gods deliver them up, and cut off
that prince and those men, and their seed, for ever ! " Other
similar sepulchral inscriptions are not wanting ; and though
they are not Israelite, they are Semitic, and there is every
reason to believe— as will be seen in the following pages— that
the Israelites shared the beliefs about the hereafter common
to the rest of the Semites. As to this inscription, and others
like it, it is evident that the solicitude evinced has reference
to the body. And once more, what is the purpose of placing

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 9

food, utensils, arms, ornaments, lamps, etc., in tombs by
the side of, or in close proximity to, the body ? When this
kind of fact is taken into consideration it is quite evident
that one cannot say off-hand that the Israelite belief regard-
ing the component parts of man's body was simply that the
soul lived on and that the body went to corruption. Above
all, we have the definitely expressed belief that life resided
in the bones, and that they would flourish and sprout again.
It will, therefore, be seen that some discussion upon the
component parts of man is a necessary preliminary in dealing
with the subject of the Old Testament belief in Immortality.
Then we come to consider the Israelite belief in super-
natural beings. It needs no insisting on the fact that belief
in supernatural immortal beings must of itself have some
influence upon the belief in the immortality of man ; and
in what a variety of respects this is so we hope to show. We
divide this part of our study under three heads : first a
brief general survey of Semitic Demonology ; the fact that
among the various classes of demons some were believed
to be the spirits of the dead is sufficient to show the appro-
priateness of dealing with the subject of Demonology here.
Then we come to the more restricted Demonology of the
Old Testament. So far as the evidence goes, Israelite
Demonology was not systematized in the way that Baby-
lonian and Arabian Demonology were ; but that the Israelite
belief in demons was of a more extensive character than the
comparatively meagre indications in the Old Testament
would lead one to suj^pose is probable. Knowing what we
do about Semitic Demonology in general, any references
to the subject in the Old Testament suggest a more extended
belief in demons than appears upon the surface ; for in other
respects there are so many points of similarity between
Israelite belief and that of the rest of the Semites that it
is difficult to believe that in this particular similarity was
altogether wanting. The difference that undoubtedly did
exist, was, we venture to think, in its want of systematiza-

10 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

tion among the Israelites. This, however, came later, and
was very elaborate— a fact which in itself supposes a pre-
existing mass of unsystematized beliefs. The third division
IS devoted to Angelology. The appropriateness of dealing
with this in the present connexion is, we confess, not great ;
but when once the question of supernatural beings is raised
one cannot well omit some reference to angels. It must also
be remembered that in view of later developments of belief
some consideration of Angelology is useful.

Then we enter more directly into our main subject. Here
we consider in some detail what is said in the Old Testament
about the Rephaim, usually rendered " Shades," in reference
to the departed ; and it is seen that the word occurs, appar-
ently, in two connexions there ; but the attempt is made to
show that the name Bephaim—applied originally to " the
sons of the gods " who, according to an ancient myth, were,
on account of their wickedness, destroj^ed by the gods and
cast down into the under-world— came to be used of
all the inhabitants of the under-world, i.e. of the de-
parted. Further, it is surmised that this word Be2)haim,
which is usually explained as the "weak ones," this
being supposed to be descriptive of the shades of the
departed, is rather to be derived from the root meaning
" to heal " ; it is then explained why this term should have
been originally applied to the inhabitants of the under-
world. And lastly, the significance of this name being given
to a valley near Jerusalem is shown.

The abode of the departed, Sheol, is then considered ;
and from this inquiry it icomes out that while the official
teaching about this place in the Old Testament is clear and
consistent, it cannot be reconciled with much that is said
about the Repliaim, the inhabitants of this place.

We shallrepeatedly point out that the various sub-divisions
of our subject cannot be treated in isolation ; the different
matters dealt with depend so much on one another, and
each has to be considered in the light of factors which occur

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 11

in some other sub-division. Therefore we must insist
strongly on the fact that agreement or disagreement with
any particular contention put forward here should be with-
held until all the facts have been weighed. This applies
particularly to the subject of the Re/pliaim ; the whole of
that division of our inquiry entitled " The Spirits of the
Dead and their Abode " must be read and judged in the light
of the division that follows, " The Living and the Departed,"
in which we deal with Ancestor- worship and the cult of the
dead, and ultimately with the subject of Necromancy.
The chapter that follows then, " Mourning and Burial
Customs," lengthy though it is, touches upon such a variety
of topics connected with our general subject that we have
been compelled to leave unsaid much that ought to be
dealt with ; indeed, it became evident as we proceeded
that the subject of this chapter, if adequately treated,
would require a separate volume.

The last two chapters deal respectively, in the light of
what has gone before, with the Old Testament doctrine of
Immortality, and the Development of Belief which appears
in some of the later books, and especially in some of the
later Psalms.

A certain amount of repetition in quoting passages from
the Old Testament cannot well be avoided, since it often
happens that passages contain references to more than one
subject.

CHAPTER II

THE OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING ON THE
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN

I. "Basar," Flesh

Obviously, in dealing with the subject of Immortality in
the Old Testament it is indispensable that we should get
some clear and definite ideas as to what the Old Testament
teaches regarding the constituent parts of man and their
different functions.

We are met at the outset with the real difficulty that so
many people have in envisaging things from the standpoint
of the Old Testament writers. The development of thought
and conception during the ages, as well as the manner of
expressing them, make it a matter of no slight difficulty
for us to get into the mental environment of the ancient
Hebrew and to look out upon things from his circumscribed
point of view. Nevertheless, it is quite necessary that this
difficulty should be overcome ; and it can be overcome to
a large extent in this way : in the first place it must be
realized that the differentiation between what is material
and what is immaterial or spiritual, a thing that comes so
natural to us, was entirely unfamiliar to the people of
antiquity. In the second place, it is necessary for us to
remember that when, as was the case with the Israelites of
old, ideas have not been logically thought out nor formulated
with precision, the words used to express these ideas will,
as a consequence, often be used loosely and ambiguously.
And it is the fact that there is confusion of thought and want

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 13

of consistency in some things which the Old Testament
teachers said regarding the component parts of man. This
fact must be allowed for.

According to Old Testament teaching man is made up,
firstly, of flesh (basar). Here there is no difference between
man and the animals ; the word is used indiscriminately
of man and beast ; in Gen, vi. 17, for example, it is said :
" I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy
all flesh, wherein is the breath of life " ; and in Gen. vii. 15 :
" And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two
of all flesh wherein is the breath of life " ; and so in many
other passages. Equally numerous are the places in which
the word is used in reference to man ; in one case, in order
to make the reference to man more definite, we get the
phrase, " the spirit of the fiesh of man " (Job xii. 10 ; the
R.V. renders " the breath [marg, ' spirit '] of all mankind "),
As far as this word is concerned, then, there is no ambiguity.

II. " Nephesh," Soul

Next we come to the part of man called nephesh, which
is translated " soul " ; and so long as we do not understand
" soul " here in the modern sense, this translation will stand.
The word is mostly used to denote the individual life as
distinct from the body or flesh ; that is, the nephesh is the
inner, while basar is the outer, part of man. Like basar,
however, nephesh is used in reference to animals too, though
not so generally as is the case with basar, see Gen, i. 20, etc. ;
this may be ultimately due to the fact (which cannot, how-
ever, be said to have been proved) that nephesh in its original
signification meant " breath," by means of which every
living being, animal as well as human, lives. Although it
is undeniable that this meaning of nephesh had almost
entirely disappeared at a comparatively early time, we find
the verb from the same root used in the sense of refreshing

14 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

oneself, i.e. taking in breath (the niphal form, see Hebrew
of Exod. xxiii. 12, xxxi. 17, 2 Sam. xvi. 14) ; the cognate
roots in Assyrian and Arabic also have this meaning.
Once in the Old Testament nefJiesh is used of " breath," viz.
Job xli. 13 (E.V. xli. 21) : " His breath kindleth coals, and
a flame goeth forth from his mouth." These remnants in
the Old Testament of the original signification of nephesh are
interesting, for it is probable that in its original conception
nephesh, regarded as a material part of man dwelling within
the body, announced its presence there by means of the
breath ; when a man died and his breath ceased, this was
because the nephesh had left the body. Since, therefore, the
life of man ceased with the exit of the soul, this latter was
regarded as his breath ; and one can understand why the
word is frequently used in the sense of " life," e.g. in Exod.
xxi. 23, " life for life," cp. Lev. xxiv. 18, Judges xii. 3,
1 Sam. xix. 5, 2 Sam. xiv. 7, etc. ; as such it is conceived
of as residing in the blood : " But flesh with the life {tiephesh)
thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat " (Gen.
ix. 4) ; indeed, it is sometimes looked upon as identical with
the blood : " For the life {nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood,
and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atone-
ment for your souls ^ : for it is the blood that maketh atone-
ment by reason of the life {nephesh) " (Lev. xvii. 11, see
also Deut. xii. 23, 24). When the blood of a man is poured
out he dies, but that is because the nephesh has left the body
with the blood. When the blood was seen to " smoke "
the ancient Israelite believed this to be the breath.

So far we have briefly indicated the more or less official
and orthodox teaching regarding the nephesh. But there
were, in addition, some popular conceptions about it which
must be spoken of. How far these conceptions were shared
by the more responsible religious teachers depended upon
the particular age ; originally, and in the earlier ages of

1 Here we have an example of a further use of nephesh, viz. " oneself " ;
the words above are equivalent to "to make atonement for yourselves."

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 15

Israel's history, there can be little doubt but that the popular
conceptions were held by all ; later, especially in post-exilic
times and onwards, the official teaching on the subject
departed from that of the people, and everything was done
to eradicate the popular ideas.

Like many other peoples of antiquity, the ancient Israelites
believed that the soul could slip in and out of the body at
will. How this belief in the " external soul " arose originally
cannot be said with absolute certainty ; but it probably
owed its origin to dreams. When man in a primitive stage
of culture dreams, he believes that he lives through an actual
experience, but that it is his other self, or nephesh, that does
so ; the soul-part of him slips out of the body-part of him and
experiences literally the occurrences in the dream. ^ As the
nephesh, though material, is a very fine and subtle substance,
it has no difficulty in thus slipping out of the body and
slipping back again. This belief with regard to the nephesh
appears several times in the Old Testament ; in Gen, xxxv.
18, for example, it is said, in reference to Rachel : " And
it came to pass, as her soul was in departing (for she died),
that she called his name Ben-oni. . . ." Another interesting
case is that in 1 Kings xvii. 21, where Elijah prays for the
widow's dead child, saying : " 0 Lord, my God, I pray Thee,
let this child's soul come into him again. And the Lord
hearkened unto the voice of Elijah ; and the soul of the
child came into him again, and he revived," This belief
in the material character of the soul, or nephesh, may be
further illustrated by the curious idea of its tangibility
referred to in 1 Sam. xxv. 29, where Abigail says to David,
" And though man be risen up to pursue thee, and to seek
thy soul, yet the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle
[more correctly " bag "] of life with the Lord thy God ; and
the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as from
the hollow of a sling." As Driver has pointed out, the word
" with " has the force of "in the care and custody of," as
1 See further on this, Chapter XII, p. 191.

16 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

in Lev. v. 23, Deut. xv. 3, Isa. xlix. 47. ^ This idea that God
has a bag in which He keeps souls is very quaint ; it belongs
to the circle of ideas connected with the belief that the soul
can be detached from the body for short or long periods.
It has been amply proved that this belief has been, and is,
held by men in a primitive stage of culture in many parts
of the world.' Quite possibly Frazer may be right in his
conjecture that " the houses of the soul " mentioned in
Isa. iii. 20 (the R.V. renders " perfume boxes," evidently
following the Vulgate) were " amulets in which the soul of
the wearer was supposed to lodge" ; in the text these words
are followed by " and the amulets." Certain it is that the
Egjrptians, according to Flinders Petrie, put miniature houses
on their tombs in which the souls of the departed were
supposed to take up their abode.' However this may be,
it is quite clear from a passage in Ezekiel that as late as his
time the Israelites believed in the possibility of losing their
souls much in the same way as they might lose anything
they carried about with them ; the passage in question is
the following : " And thou, son of man, set thy face against
the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their
own heart : and prophesy thou against them and say. Thus
saith the Lord God ; Woe to the women that sew pillows *
upon all elbows [or" joints of the hands"], and make kerchiefs
for the head of persons of every stature to hunt souls !
Will ye hunt the souls of My people, and save souls alive
for yourselves ? And ye have profaned Me among my
people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay
the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that
should not live, by your lying to My people that hearken
unto lies. Wherefore thus saith the Lord God : Behold I

1 The Books of Samuel, p. 156 (first edition).

2 See Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. pp. 506 ff. (1918).

3 Gizeh and Rifeh, pp. 14 ff. (1907).

^ From a root kasa, of which tlie cognate Assyrian root means " to take
captive." Ephraim Syrus translates the word by " charm " (Oxford
Hebrew Lexicon).

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 17

am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls
to make them fly, and. I will tear them from your arms, and
I will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make
them fly. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver My
people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your
hand to be hunted ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Because with lies ye have grieved the heart of the righteous,
whom I have not made sad ; and strengthened the hands of
the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked
way, and be saved alive ; therefore ye shall no more see
vanity, nor divine divinations : and I will deliver My people
out of your hand ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord "
(Ezek. xiii. 17-23). ^

III. "Neshamah," Breath

However varied the conceptions of the soul were," both the
popular and the official behefs agreed in this, that the
nephesh continued to exist after the death of a man ; and
that is the point of prime importance. We shall refer again
to the ne2:)hesh in speaking of other component parts of man,
as these were conceived of according to ancient Hebrew belief.'

We have already seen the close connexion there was
between the jiephesh and the " breath " of man ; there are
a few things about the breath (n^shamah), according to
Old Testament teaching, which need notice. In Gen. ii. 7
it is said that God breathed into man's nostrils " the breath
of life, and man became a living soul " ; with this we may
compare the expression " the breath of the spirit of life "

1 We have quoted the R.V. as it stands, but the text, which is obviously
corrupt in some places, needs emendation (see Cornill, Das Buck dea
Propheten Ezechiel, pp. 251 f. [1886]). The corruptions do not. however,
alter the general sense of the passage.

2 There are some other ways in which 7iephesh is used, e.g. as the seat
of the appetites, emotions, will (this last usually when coupled with
" heart ") ; and a few tunes it is used of one who was alive and is now
dead, e.g. Num. v. 2, vi. 6, ix. G, 7 ; Lev. xix. 28, xxii. 4 ; Hag. ii. 13.

18 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

(Gen. vii. 22). The breath is thus the principle of life which
is the common possession of all living and is the same in
every living creature ; the soul (nephesh) is individual in
character and is a different thing in each person. The
breath is given by God, and man lives thereby (cp. Job
xxxiii. 4) ; when it is withdrawn man dies (cp. Job xxxiv.
14, 15), but this does not affect his nephesh. The breath,
or neshamah, is thus something which God gives from His
own Being to man (and the same is true of the beasts) by
means of which the nephesh is (temporarily) joined to the
body, made of dust. The pre-existence of the nephesh
would seem to be implied ; but this is nowhere definitely
stated in the Old Testament. ^

IV. "RuACH," Spirit

We come next to the " spirit " (ruach).^ Here again we
must guard ourselves against applying to this word its
modern connotation ; in its root signification it means
" wind," ' and it is so used in describing wind in the ordinary
sense of the word, as well as when it refers to the " wind "
in man, i.e. his breath, and when it means a component part
of man, his second ego. It was regarded as a material
substance, though intangible, and invisible itself, but the
result of its action could be seen, and it could be heard.
That is to say, all that was true of the wind proper was
applied to the spirit of man. There is probably no word in
the Old Testament which has gone through such develop-
ment in the Old Testament itself as this word ruach ; but
we are here concerned with it only in so far as it refers to
one of the component parts in man according to the ancient

1 It was definitely taught in later times, see Wisdom, viii. 19 f., xv. 8,
2 (4) Esdras, iv. 35 f. ; Syr. Apoc. of Baruch, xxx. 2, 3 ; Slav. Enoch,
xxiii. 5. It is also taught in Rabbinical literature.

* We are here only concerned with the word as applied to men, not to God.

3 See, e.g., Exod. x. 13, 19, Hos. iv, 19, Am. iv. 13, Mic. ii. 11, etc. etc.

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 19

Israelite conception. Man's spirit was conceived of as
composed of the same light aerial substance as the wind ;
like the nephesh it could enter and leave the body at will ;
it is given by God, and returns to God when a man dies
(see e.g. Ps. civ. 29). It is not easy to see how nephesh was
differentiated from ruach in the minds of ancient Israelites ;
probably they themselves were not clear upon the subject ;
certain it is that the two are synonymous in quite a number
of passages (e.g. Isa. xxvi. 6) ; and both are used of any
living creature, though it is most likely that there was an.
instinctive idea that in animals it was not quite the same
kind of thing as in human beings. Speaking generally,
we may perhaps say that, upon the whole, so far as there
was any adumbration of a differentiation between matter
and spirit, nepliesh was thought of rather in the former
direction, ruach in the latter ; what lends colour to this
supposition is the fact that nowhere is ruach thought of as
being specially connected with any part of the body as
nephesh was with the blood, with which it was, indeed,
identified, as we have seen.

V. "DAm," Blood

This leads us to say a further word about blood as one
of the component parts of man. The Israelite belief in
its identity with the life or nephesh was the same as that of
the Arabs. Among these '' najs (= the Hebrew nephesh)
is used of the life-blood. When a man dies a natural death
his life departs through the nostrils {mdta half a anflii), but
when he is slain in battle ' his life flows on the spear-point '
{Hamasa, p. 52). . , . To the use of nufs in the sense of
blood, the Arabian philologists refer such expressions as
m/as, childbirth. . . ." ' The identity between blood and the

1 Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 40, cp. also Well-
hausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 178.

20 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

life explains why it was necessary to cover over blood with
earth (Lev. xvii. 10-12, 13, 14,^ Gen. ix. 45, Jer. ii. 34), and
why it was forbidden to be eaten (Lev. iii, 17, vii. 26 f., xvii.
10 ff., Deut. xii. 16, 23, 24, etc.). The word is frequently
used in the plural in the Old Testament in order to express
its abundance. Among many peoples blood was offered
to the dead for the purpose of giving them more of " life." '
We are only thinking here, however, of blood as a component
part of man, and cannot, therefore, touch upon the big
subject of its use in sacrifice.'

VI. '• 'Azam6th," Bones

The human bones as constituent parts of man oc-
cupied a peculiarly important place, difficult for the
modern mind to understand. The expression " bone and
flesh," often used to express kinship, where we should say
" flesh and blood," shows that the bones were conceived
of in a special way; in Gen. xxix. 14, e.g., Laban says
to Jacob : " Surely thou art my bone and my flesh,"
cp. Judges ix. 2, 2 Sam. v. 1, xix. 12, 13, 1 Chron. xi. 1. In
Gen. ii, 21-23, the account of Eve's creation, thei woman
is made of one of Adam's bones, a rib, whereupon the man
says : " This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh
..." Here it is something more than kinship ; indeed,
we have passages in which it seems as though the bones were
regarded as synonymous with man (cp. Job xx. 11), and that
not merely in a physical sense, but as identified with his
personality ; in Ps. xxxv. 10, e.g., the psalmist says : " All
my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto Thee ? " and in
Job iv. 14 it is said : " Eearcame upon me, and trembling,

^ This subject is connected with that of the need of burial, on which see

below, pp. 177 f.

* See, for example, Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, pp. 51 £E,
3 See Robertson Smith, op. cit., Lectures viii.-xi. ; Curtiss, Primitive

Semitic ReUgion To-day, chaps, xiv.-xviii.

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 21

which made all my bones to shake," cp. Jer. xxiii. 9. Fur-
ther, we find m a number of passages that importance is
attached to the burying of bones ; in Gen. 1. 25 it is said
that " Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying,
God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry my bones from
hence," see the sequel in Exod. xiii. 19 and in Josh. xxiv. 32 ;
cp. 1 Sam. xxxi. 13, 2 Sam. xxi. 13, 14, 1 Kings xiii. 31 ; that
in all these passages " bones " is not used in a loose way for
" body " is evident when one sees from certain other passages
the importance which bones, as such, had in the eyes of
men. Thus, the direst punishment that can be inflicted on
a man is not only to leave his body unburied, but also his
bones, long after the flesh has decayed ; an example of this
is seen in 2 Kings xxiii. 16 : " And as Josiah turned himself,
he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount ; and
he sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and turned
them upon the altar, and defiled it. . . ," But of the
bones of the man of God he says : " Let no man move his
bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the
prophet that came out of Samaria" (see 1 Kings xiii. 31).
And again in Jer. viii. 1, 2 : " . . . they shall bring out the
bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes,
and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets,
and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their
graves : and they shall spread them before the sun, and the
moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved,
and whom they have served, and after whom they have
walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have
\vorshipped : they shall not be gathered, nor be buried. . ."
It was not only the burning of bodies, but also of the
bones, as distinct from the flesh, which was looked upon as
a dreadful thing ; hence the prophet says : " For three
transgressions of Moab, yea, for four, I will not turn away
the punishment thereof ; because he burned the bones of
the king of Edom into lime," Amos ii. 1. The reason why
this importance was attached to the bones, as distinct from

22 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

the flesh, is nowhere directly stated in the Old Testament ;
but it is hinted at in such a passage as Ezek. xxxvii. (the
vision of the dry bones), and in Isa. Ixvi. 14, where, in
speaking of the comfort and happiness of the Messianic
Kingdom, the prophet says : " And ye shall see it, and your
heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the
tender grass. . . ." (cp. Iviii. 11, but the text is doubtful).
Thus, there was the belief that life resided in the bones long
after death, indeed permanently ; and it is a striking thing
that this belief is directly expressed by such a one as Ben-
Sira, who says : " And also the twelve prophets, may their
bones sprout beneath them ' ' ( Wisdom of Ben-Sira [Eccle-
siasticus], xlix. 10; so, too, in xlvi. 11, 12: "Also the
judges . . . may their bones flourish again out of their
place, and may their name sprout afresh for their children."
In the Testament of Job ^ there is a curious reference to
the bones of Job's children ; in chap. ix. Job's wife begs the
king to allow the bones of her dead children to be dug out
from among the ruins of the house, and to be placed in a
tomb ; but Job says it is useless. It then continues : " And
the king answered and said, ' Who will gainsay that he is
out of his mind, and raves ? For while we desire to bring
the bones of his children back he forbids us to do so, saying,
they have been taken and placed in the keeping of their
Maker." The context of this passage shows that an
advanced doctrine of the resurrection was held, but the
reference to the bones clearly echoes an ancient conception. "
Two other words describing constituent parts of man are
leb and Ze6a6 ("heart"), and me'im (" inward parts," lit.

1 Edited by K. Kohler in Semitic Studies in Memory of Alexander Kohvt ;
it is a Jewish- Essene psevidepigraph of uncertain date, but vmdoubtedly
embodying material which is pre-Christian.

2 For details regarding the belief that the life of the deceased lies dor-
mant in his bones, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. pp. 150 ff. ; Jevons,
Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 56 ; Spencer and Gillen, Northern
Tribes of Central Avstralin, pp. 530 ff. ; Frazer, The Golden Bough, " Spirits
of the Corn and of the Wild," ii. pp. 259 ff.

THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF MAN 23

" intestines ") ; both are used in figurative as well as literal
meanings. The former is often used as being the seat of
the understanding, the latter as the seat of the emotions.
Neither of these has any direct bearing upon our present
subject, so that we need not enter into any details here
concerning them.

BELIEF IN SUPERNATURAL BEINGS

CHAPTER HI
THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES
I. Semitic Demohology in General
Some consideration of this subject, so far as it concerns the
Israelites and kindred nations of the Semitic race, is de-
manded here, for it camiot be separated from the subject
of Ancestor-worship and the cult of the Departed, which we
shall consider later. Moreover, anything that has to do
with superhuman, and therefore immortal, beings requires

fn fh nt'^ T° <^<'°'''<1<'"«™ i" o"-^ ^tudy of Immortality
n the Old Testament. And then there is a further important
fact which IS of itself sufficient to demand some attention
to what may not at first appear directly concerned with the
subject in hand-the fact, namely, that with the develop-
ment of the belief concerning Immortality there arises the
question of the fate of men hereafter as conditioned by
their ife on earth ; and with this arises the belief in the
Kingdom of Satan, the head of the demons. This has its
ultimate roots in primitive Israelite Demonology However
much It may owe to extraneous influences, there was an
mdigenous Demonology in Israel, very distinct indications
of which are to be found in the Old Testament. The belief
m harmful spirits (not that they are all or always harmful)

rel gious beliefs o , as far as is known, every race of men.
It IS so ineradicable an element in popular superstition that

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES 25

even among the most civilized nations of the present day
there are numerous practices which are remnants of the
universal belief in the activity of demons which existed
even within quite recent times. If this is so in modern
times, how much more is it likely that that belief flourished
three or four millennia go among less-civilized nations !
So that although the references to Demonology in the Old
Testament are, comparatively speaking, not numerous
(nevertheless, in reality, they are more numerous than many
people realize) , this must be due not to the fact that it did
not exist, but to some other cause.

Again, among those nations which are, racially, closely
connected with the Israelites we find a very extended belief
in demons. The Canaanites at the time of the Israelite
invasion were in the stage of Polydaemonism ; they also
practised Ancestor-worship, venerating the ancient tribal
heroes at their traditional tombs, as well as under holy
trees and beside holy wells. ^ Like other Semites they
recognized the activity of a spirit, sometimes kindly dis-
posed, at other times harmful, in the storm, in the desert, in
the tree, well, and stone, in the heat of summer and cold of
winter, in the clouds and stars, as well as in animals. They
did not make the distinction between gods and demons,
whether in nature or animal, that was made in later times."
In the same way, the Phoenicians, although owing to special
causes they had attained a higher culture than the other
Canaanite nations, practised a religion which had a like
origin, a religion which, like that of the Canaanites, was
developed from conceptions of a primitive character, and
whose content was most probably very similar to that
which the early Arabs practised.' The belief of the Arabs

1 Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, pp. 168-172 (1894).

* See further, Stade, Biblische Theologie des alten Testamentes, i. pp. 48 ff.
(1905) ; A. von Gall, Altisraelitische Kultstdtten, passim (1898).

3 Pietschmann, Oeschichie der Phonizier, pp. 155 £f. (1889) ; W. von
Landau, Die Phonizier, pp. 5 ff., in " Der alte Orient," ii. 4 (1901).

26 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

concerning spirits and demons is particularly significant,
for the great Arabian peninsula was the primeval home of
the Semitic race,^ and Arab belief and practice, even as
found at the present day, go back to very ancient times ;
Muhammadanism scarcely affected the popular superstitions
concerning the Jinn at all. Lastly, the demonology of
the Babylonians and Assyrians was of a very elaborate
character, and, owing to the far-reaching influence which
Babylonian thought and practice had upon the ancient
Israelites as well as upon the Jews of the exilic and post-
exilic periods, Babylonian demonology is of great im-
portance in connexion with our present investigation.
So that the fact that an elaborate demonology existed among
the Canaanites, the Arabs, and the Babylonians, all closely
connected with the Israelites racially, and living either in
their midst or in the lands around them, and having constant
intercourse with them, raises the natural presumption that
these latter had their beliefs regarding spirits and demons,
and that we should therefore expect to find traces of them
in the Old Testament.

Then again, in the Judaism of post-biblical times we find
a system of demonology which is simply colossal. One
would reasonably suppose that this had its roots in the
beliefs of earlier times within the nation itself ; but it is
objected that the demonology of later Judaism is really
the product of neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Greek in-
fluence. Nobody would for a moment doubt that these
influences have been very strong, and that Jewish Demon-
ology owes much to them ; but the question is whether all
— Babylonian, Greek, and Persian — do not trace their
beliefs on this subject back to a common very early source,
of which the ancestors of all these nations possessed a
common stock, varying of course greatly in details, but
identical in fundamentals ? It seems difficult to doubt
this in view of what we know of the beliefs and practices

' O. Weber, Arabien vor dem Islam, pp. 2 ff. in " Der alte Orient," iii. 1.

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES 27

of ancient Phoenicia and of the Canaanites generally, and
especially in view of what we know of Arab Demonology.
While there is great similarity both in belief and practice
in many respects among these peoples, there is yet sufficient
difference in the systems of the Babylonians, Arabs, and
Jews to admit of a certain amount of matter proper to each,
sufficient individuality in each of the systems to warrant
the belief that each has an independence of its own. And if
this is so, if the demonology of later Judaism can in any way
lay claim to a character of its own, then there is, at any rate,
some justification for believing that it is based in part upon
earlier belief.

II. Some Details of Semitic Demonology

We shall now indicate some beliefs and practices in refer-
ence to demons which are common to Arab, Babylonian, and
Jewish Demonology ; other points in these systems will
come before us later on in this chapter. All three systems
teach that immense numbers of demons and other spirits
exist in the world. The Arabic term Jinn is a collective word
implying, therefore, multiplicity. ^ Among the Babylonians
the large number of proper names for demons is enough to
show how numerous they were ; but in one text it is said that
the demons cover the whole world ; in another that " they
cover the earth like grass." - The Rabbis taught that the
demons gather themselves together in companies {Berahhoth
51a), and according to Tanchuma, Mish'patim 19, the whole
world is full of " harmful spirits " [Mazzihin) ; the number
is given by one Rabbi as seven and a half millions, and

1 The shai/attn (lit. " satans ") probably owe their existence in the Arab
system to Jewish influence.

2 Morris Jastrow, jun., Die Religion Bdbyloniena und Aaayriena, i. 356 ft.
(1902).

28 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

elsewhere it is stated that every man has ten thousand of
them at his right hand, and a thousand at his left, ^

According to Arab teaching the Jinn ( = the " dark " or
"concealed" ones) were the ghostly shadows of nations
that have perished ; certain ruined sites, such as Higr and
Nigibin, were pointed out as being inhabited by the spirits
of those who in days gone by had lived there. All burial-
places, excepting of course the tombs of saints, were believed
to be full of demons.' The connexion between demons and
the spirits of the departed is likewise a strongly marked
characteristic in Babylonian belief ; here it was taught,
for example, that the demons were the messengers of Eresh-
kigal, queen of the realm of the dead. Namtaru, one of
the worst demons, issued, it was said, from the nether-
world, the abode of the departed. Utukku, " who harms
those who abide in the wilderness," is also a spirit of the
dead ; and closely connected with him is Ekimmu, " the
departed soul," as he is called, who for some reason or other
can find no rest, and wanders over the earth injuring men
whensoever opportunity offers ; his anger is especially
directed against those with whom he has had any relations
while on earth, and it is supposed to be partly their fault
(see below) that he is unable to re-enter the realm of the
dead and find rest.' If for any reason the spirits of the
departed are unable to enter the realm of the dead, they
have to wander about the earth until the hindrance is
taken away ; while thus banished from their rightful abode
they make it their business to harm all those with whom
they had had any intercourse while on earth, especially
relatives ; for, according to Babylonian belief, it was owing
to the neglect of those who were left behind that the departed

1 F. Weber, Judieche Theologie auf Orund dea Talmud tind verwandter
Schriften, pp. 245 ff. (1897).

* See further Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums, p. 150 (1897) ;
Noldeke, in Hastings' Diet, of Rel. and Ethics, i. 669 f. ; Baudissin, Studien
zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. 279 £f. (1876).

3 O. Weber, DieLiteratur der Babylonier und Assyrier, pp. 148, 167 (1907).

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES 29

spirits are unable to get to rest, Ekimmu would thus
appear to be a kind of general representative or embodiment
of a class. Among the causes which hindered departed
spirits from entering into rest were neglect of the prescribed
burial rites, more especially when a body remained unburied,
or lay in foreign soil ; neglect to bring the proper offerings
for the dead would also, doubtless, have been considered
another cause of the restlessness of departed spirits.

That Jewish belief regarding the connexion between the
departed and demons ran on the same lines may be presumed
from the fact that cemeteries were looked upon as one of
the favourite spots in which demons congregated ; in the
Sibylline Oracles, Proem. 20-22, it is stated that the people
will be punished because they have ceased to worship the
one true God,- and because " they offer sacrifice to demons
in the underworld," who are the spirits of the departed.

Again, all sickness was regarded as being due to demons ;
thus the Arabs believed that fainting fits, epilepsy, gout, fever,
and epidemics of every sort were the result of the harmful
activity of demons ; madness is described as being the
effect of a demon taking up his abode in a man and ' ' possess-
ing " him. ^ The same is found in the Babylonian and Jewish
systems ; thus, among the Babylonians there was a demon
who was the cause of headache ; Labartu and Namtaru
were pest-demons, and there were many storm-demons by
whom men were harmed. Ashakku was the demon of
burning fever, and Dimetum was " the evil curse." ^ Among
the Jews Shabiri was the demon who brought blindness,
while there was another demon of leprosy, another of heart
disease, another of fever ; and there was also a storm-
demon. '

All three systems agree that at night the power of demons

1 Wellhausen, op. ciu, p. 165 ; Noldeke, in Hastings, op. cit., i. 670.
* Jastrow, op, cit., p. 350 ; O. Weber, op. cit., pp. 148, 1G5.
s See further, J. Weisa's art. " Damonen," in Herzog's Bealencyclopddie,
iv 408 £f.

30 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

is greatest ; for this reason the Arabs were in the habit
of covering up the children's faces when they went to bed ;
every vessel was covered over, lights were lit, and the doors
were locked. It was only at the rising of the morning star
that the demons dispersed. Among the Babylonians it
was the demon Alu who wandered about at nights ; he is to
be found especially in ruins, where he hides, waiting to fall
upon any luckless passer-by ; he also creeps into bedrooms
and robs the weary of their sleep ; he is described as running
about at nights " like a dog." In the same way the demon
Gallu sweeps through the streets after dark, making every
place insecure.' So, too, in the Jewish system it is taught
that demons are most harmful from dusk until cock-crow-
ing ; at nights they surround houses and injure everyone
who falls into their hands ; they kill children if found out
after dark. As soon as the cock crows their power is at an
end (Midr. Bereshith Babba, c, 36). ^

Again, according to all three systems, it was believed
that demons had a special predilection for certain places.
As we have already seen, the Arabs held that desert places,
burial grounds, thickets where beasts gather, and ruined
sites where men used to live were the special kinds of places
where demons loved to congregate ; they believed that the
weird moaning of the wind in the wilderness and bleak, bare
spots was the voice of demons, which " caused the locality
to speak " ' (cp. " the howling wilderness," Deut. xxxii. 10).
With this Babylonian teaching agrees ; Namtaru, it is said,
" rushes over the wilderness like a storm- wind " ; Utukku
and Ekimmu with their followers hover about in desert
places and in mountainous regions, they are also to be found
near tombs and in cemeteries.* This is entirely in accord-

^ O. Weber, op. cit., p. 148.

* See further, F. Weber, op. clL, p. 255; and Kohler's art. on " De-
monology," in the Jewish Encycl., iv. 514 ff.

3 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 150.

* O. Weber, op. cit., p. 148.

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES 31

ance with Jewish beUef on the subject ; they gather in
shaded spots on moonlight nights, in waterless spots, near
ruins, and in cemeteries, and harm people who come within
their reach ; they are especially to be found in the wilder-
ness and other desert places ; they are particularly hurtful
at nights ; it is supposed to be unsafe to salute a person in
the dark, for it might be a demon. ^

Further, the Arabs taught that demons have the power of
'becoming visible or invisible at will ; they have also the
power of assuming various forms, especially those of snakes,
lizards, scorpions, and other creeping things (see further
below). = Among the Babylonians it is said that " Ashakku
places himself by the side of a man, and nobody sees him " » ;
all demons could render themselves invisible ; when they
appeared in visible form it was usually in the shape of some
animal * (see below). This power of becoming invisible and
of assuming various shapes, whether animal or human, is
likewise true of Jewish Demonology. Satan, the head of
the demons, is said to appear in the form of a beautiful
woman, or of a beggar ^ ; Sheija appears in the shape of
a bull." One is never safe from demons, on account of their
sudden appearing ; apparently the presence of a demon is
entirely unsuspected while all the time some animal close
by is a demon in disguise.^ This relationship believed to
exist between the demons and animals is a feature common
to all three systems. According to Arab belief some animals
scent out the approach of demons when as yet men are
unaware of their presence ; thus, when a donkey brays or
a cock crows it is a warning of the approach of a demon
(presumably the cock-crowing in the early morning, on the

^ F. Weber, op. cit., p. 254 ; Kohler, op. cit., iv. 516.

* Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 149 f. ; Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 120 ;
Noldeke, op. cit., i. 669.

3 O. Weber, in Der alte Orient, VII. iv. 16. * Jastrow, op. cit., p. 281.

B T. B. Kiddushin, 81 a. « T. B. Baba Kamma, 21 a.

' See for other details, F. Weber, op. cit., pp. 252 ff. ; Bousset, Die
Religion des Judenthums, p. 333 (1903).

32 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

other hand, was a note of warnmg to the demon !). Demons
appear in the form of wild beasts in the wilderness ^ ; even
domestic animals are sometimes in league with them.
Between some birds and demons there exists quite a friend-
ship; e.g. such birds as crows, wood-peckers, owls, and others.
Owls, moreover, were regarded as incarnations of departed
spirits ; ostriches ^ were believed to be used by demons for
riding upon ; this is also true of foxes. But the closest
connexion of all is that between demons and serpents.
Jann and Ohul are synonyms for " serpent " ; this applies
also to Shaitan {= Satan).* It is no exaggeration when
Wellhausen says that " the zoology of Islam is at once a
demonology." Then, as regards Babylonian belief on this
point, it was held that Utukku, Ekimmu, and Alu appeared
in the form of bulls ; the same applies to Shedu, one of the
foremost demons. Indeed, all demons were conceived of
as normally dwelling in a^ximals ; it was the way in which
the Babylonians explained the problem as to where the
permanent abode of the demons was, seeing that, according
to them, the demons were excluded from the realms of the
dead. Among such animals those were chosen which were
the most likely to inspire sudden fear, more especially
serpents (cp. Ps. xci. 13), which appeared suddenly, one
knew not whence, and disappeared as suddenly, one knew
not whither ; or again, scorpions, which were very injurious
and hid in spots where they could not be noticed until too
late. Many demons were also supposed to appear in the
form of birds, or they were conceived of as hybrid monsters,
birds with the heads of lions or donkeys, and the like.* In

1 Cp. the belief of the Phoenicians that the Uon was the incarnation of
a demon (Pietschmann, op. cit., p. 193).

* Robertson Smith, o-p. cit., p. 129 note.

3 Wellhausen, op. cit,, pp. 152 ff. ; Robertson Smith, op. cit., pp. 120 f.,
133 J see also Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions semitiques, pp. 317 ff.
(1903).

* Jastrow, op. cit., p. 281, and compare the representation of these
hybrid monsters in Babylonian religious art.

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE SEMITES 33

the Jewish system it was taught that bulls, ^ mosquitoes,
donkeys, and above all, serpents, were in league with the
demons. Satan is, of course, identical with the serpent in
the Garden of Eden ^ ; indeed, it is said that the demons
{Shedim) were originally serpents, and became what they
are by a process of evolution. '

Lastly, a very significant trait common to all these systems
was the belief in different species or classes of demons. The
Arabs regarded them as being divided into clans and tribes
much in the same way as they themselves were.* " Though
the Jinn have no individuality, they fall into various classes,
and certain of these are sometimes mentioned as particularly
harmful. The most dangerous kind of all is the Ghid (a
feminine noun), of which the plural is Ghlldn or Aghivdl ; this
word comes from the root signifying ' to destroy,' perhaps
originally ' to assault.' The Ghiil is supposed to lie in
wait at some place where men are destined to perish ; she
also entices them thither, especially by night. ' The Ghul
has carried him off ' is sometimes merely a poetical expression
meaning ' he has perished.' . . . The poets also mention
a kind of female demon called Si'ldk, of which the plural is
Sa'ali ; this term scarcely ever occurs except as a simile
for the purpose of describing swift horses or camels, formid-
able warriors, or frightful women." ^ Examples of the
same kind of thing among the Babylonians are the followers
of Utukku, who form a different category from the followers
of Ekimmu. So, too, in the Jewish system various species
of demons are recognized, viz. the Shedim^ (from a root mean-
ing " to be violent"), the Lilin (from LUitli, " the night-
hag," whose followers they were ; see further on this below,

1 It is said in T. B. Pesachim, 112 & : "Do not stand still when a bull
comes from the field, for Satan dances between his horns."

^ Midr. Sifre, 138 6 ; Midr. Bereshith Rabba, c. 22 ; T. B. Shabbath, 55 b.

3 F. Weber, op. cit., pp. 252 ff.

* Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 149 ; Robertson Smith, op. cit., pp. 120 ff.

5 Noldeke, op. cit., i. 670.

6 See further, F. Weber, op. cit., pp. 254 ff.

34 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

pp. 42 ff.) ; and the Euchin (from the root riiach, "wind") ;
all, however, come under the general term MazziMn, which
includes all the "harmful" spirits. ^

These details form a very brief resume of elements common
to Arab, Babylonian, and Jewish Demonology ; other
points will be mentioned when we deal with the demons and
spirits referred to in the Old Testament. They offer, it
is believed, some grounds in support of the contention that
in spite of superficial appearances there must have been
a widespread belief in these spirits among the Israelites, to
which the Old Testament bears witness. Such a belief, and
all that it involves, is an element in the Old Testament
teaching on Immortality, hence the need of devoting some
attention to a subject which would otherwise come more
appropriately under the head of Folk-lore.

1 See Deut. xxx. 17, Ps cvi. 37, Baruch iv. 7.

CHAPTER IV

THE DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

From what has been said in the previous chapter it is evident
that an extended beUef in demons was common to all the
Semites. To this the Israelites formed no exception. It is
true that in their case there was not the elaborate classifica-
tion such as we find among the Babylonians and Assyrians,
and, to a rather less degree, among the ancient Arabians ;
but that does not necessarily imply that belief in the activity
of demons was any the less real among the Israelites. The
fact is that the Old Testament is not the kind of literature
in which we should expect to find much information on the
subject of Demonology ; the Israelites had nothing parallel
to the great body of literature represented by the Babylonian
magical texts. For one thing the far more ancient and more
advanced civilization of the Babylonians would naturally
presuppose a much larger body of scribes who could commit
these things to " writing." Nevertheless, the signs in
the Old Testament of an Israelite Demonology, elaborate
if not yet reduced to a system, are, we believe, more
numerous than is generally supposed. This we must now
proceed to show.

I. Theriomorphic Demons

Although this class of demons only remotely concerns
us, a brief reference to them is required on account of their
connexion with the general subject of demons.

(a) The Seraphim. — Our ideas about the Seraphim are

36 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

so coloured by the description and function of them given
in Isa. vi. 1 ff., and their mention in the " Te Deum," in
conjunction with the Cherubim (who belong, however,
to the angelic order), that it is likely to come as a shock to
some to find them reckoned among theriomorphic demons.
But in early Semitic belief, as will be seen, it is evident that
the Seraphim were originally regarded as a species of harm-
ful beings of demonic nature. The name comes from a root
saraph, meaning " to burn " ; and the name " burning ones "
(Seraphim) was in all probability given on account of their
burning bite ^ ; this is suggested by such passages as the
following : Num. xxi. 6, " And the Lord sent fiery serpents
(lit. seraphim serpents) among the people, and they bit the
people ; and much people of Israel died." In verse 8 it is
said : " And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a seraph,
and put it on a pole ; and it shall come to pass, that every-
one that is bitten, when he seeth it, shall live." Deut. viii.
15, "... who led thee through the great and terrible
wilderness wherein were seraph serpents and scorpions.
. . ." Cp. also Isa, xiv, 29 : " . . . for out of the serpent's
root shall come forth a viper, and his fruit shall be a fiery
flying serpent (lit. a flying seraph) " ; similarly in Isa. xxx. 6.
We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, the close
connexion between serpents and demons, according to
general Semitic belief ; and it is impossible to separate early
Israelite belief on the subject from that of kindred nations.
A striking parallel to the Hebrew flying seraph serpent is
mentioned by Wellhausen ^ ; among the ancient Arabs
there was the belief that demons {Jinn) flew out of the
burning grove of al Quraija in the form of white serpents.
Herodotus (ii. 75) says : " There is a place in Arabia, situated
very near the city of Buto, to which I went, on hearing of
some winged serpents ; and when I arrived there, I saw bones

1 Baudissin, Studien zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichie, i. 282 (1876).
' Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 153. For other parallels gee Kittel,
Studien ziir Hebrdischen Archdologie, -pp. 171 ff. (1908).

DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 37

and spines of serpents in such quantities as it would be
impossible to describe. ... It is reported that, at the
beginning of spring, winged serpents fly from Arabia towards
Egypt, but that ibises, a sort of bird, meet them at the
pass, and do not allow the serpents to go by, but kill them ;
for this service the Arabians say that the ibis is highly
reverenced by the Egyptians ; and the Egyptians acknow-
ledge that they reverence these birds for this reason."
Herodotus does not say whether these flying serpents were
regarded as demons, but, knowing what we do about Arab
belief in the connexion between demons and serpents, it
can scarcely be doubted that they were so regarded. Paral-
lels of this kind, which could be multiplied, strengthen the
impression, already suggested by various passages in the
Old Testament, that originally the name Seraphim was
applied to serpents who were looked upon as demons.

(6) The Se'irim. — In writing about the beliefs of the
heathen Arabs concerning the Jinn, or demons, Robertson
Smith says that these demons " are not pure spirits, but
corporeal beings, more like beasts than men, for they are
ordinarily represented as hairy, or have some other animal
shape, as that of an ostrich or a snake. . . . Like the wild
beasts, they have, for the most part, no friendly or stated
relations with men, but are outside the pale of man's society,
and frequent savage and deserted places far from the wonted
tread of men. It appears from several poetical passages
of the Old Testament that the northern Semites believed
in demons of a precisely similar kind." ^ Among these he
mentions the " hairy beings," called Se'irim, who haunted
waste and desolate places. That the mention of these in
the Old Testament is found in comparatively late passages
does not affect us, since they only echo beliefs of much earlier
times. In Isa. xiii. 21, 22, for example, where the desolation
of Babylon is described, it is said that " wild beasts of the
desert shall be there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful
1 Op. cit., pp. 119 f. ; cp. Wellhaueen, op. cit., pp. 149 f.

38 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

creatures ; and ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs (lit.
se'irim) shall dance there. ..." The translation of this
word as " satyrs " is misleading if by it we are intended to
think of the Greek satyrs who were spirits of the woodland
in the train of Dionysus, and who were represented as being
in semi-human form and as having bristling hair and goat-
like ears, and with short tails ; this is not the Semitic
idea of the sdHr, which was a hairy creature in the form of
a calf, and was worshipped among the Assyrians and Phoeni-
cians ^ as well as by the ancient Israelites * ; in Exod. xxxii.
4 S. we have the well-known worship of the golden calf, see
also Lev. xvii. 7, Deut. ix. 21, and 2 Chron. xi. 14-16, and
recent excavations have illustrated this form of worship
in a very interesting way, for on the site of ancient Gezer
many remains of cow- or calf- statuettes were discovered
which point indubitably to the worship of a god or goddess
of flocks and herds. In later days, when the worship of
Jahwe had asserted itself, these gods and goddesses were
degraded to demons, and as such were fully believed in.
Under this heading we naturally think of what in the
Authorized Version is called the " scapegoat " (Lev. xvi.
8-10), i.e. Azazel. It will be remembered that after the two
he-goats had been taken from the congregation of Israel for
a sin-offering, Aaron " set them before the Lord at the door
of the tent of meeting " ; then it goes on to say that " Aaron
shall cast lots upon the two goats ; one lot for the Lord,
and the other lot for Azazel." From these words it is quite
obvious that Azazel was regarded quite as much as a personal
being as the Lord ; so that to make Azazel equivalent to
the scapegoat is an offence against the plain reading of the
text. It is said further that the goat upon which the lot
for Azazel fell was to be sent away for Azazel into the wilder-
ness ; from this it is clear that Azazel dwelt in the wilderness

* Cp. Baudissin, op, cit., i. 137.

" See also Lev. xvii. 7, 2 Kings xxiii. 8 (reading " high places of the
St'irim ").

DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 39

like the Se'irim. It is thus highly probable that the Azazel
ritual was a development of what was originally an offering
to the denizens of the waste. Azazel was originally (the
name itself is late, see below) a Semitic god of the flocks,
like Ashtoreth-Karnaim (see Gen. xiv. 5 and compare Deut.
vii. 13, "He will bless the Ashteroth of thy flock "). With
the growth of Jahwe- worship a compromise was effected,
since the religious leaders found it impossible to eradicate
the ancient ritual ; and ultimately this god of the flocks was
degraded to a demon of the wilderness just as many other
demons who were believed to inhabit waste places. In the
Book of Enoch Azazel appears as a leader of evil angels
(vi. 7, cp. ix. 6, " Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who
hath taught all unrighteousness on earth . . .," see also
X. 4-6). As to the meaning of the name, regarding which
there are all kinds of theories, it must be said that Cheyne's
view is at once the simplest and the most probable ; it is
a corruption, purposely made by the Jewish religious leaders
of the name "pnttj;, " God strengthens " ; the name as it
now appears in the Hebrew text is "pTNTy, which is supposed
to be derived from the root h^V, and would thus mean " com-
plete removal," i.e. of sins ; but an abstract term of this kind
does not commend itself. Cheyne's view, which was also
that held long ago by Diestel, has also this in its favour,
that the epithet " strong " applied to a god conforms to
the general usage in regard to Semitic deities, whose chief
characteristic is almost invariably that of strength, imply-
ing power to help. ^

(c) In a passage quoted above (Isa. xiii. 21, 22) mention
is made of various other strange creatures, in addition to
Se'irim, which, we believe, may justly be included in the
category of theriomorphic demons. It will be remembered
that this passage is preceded by a prophecy of the permanent
desolation of Babylon : "It shall never be inhabited,
neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation ;

1 Cp. Baudissin, op. cit., i. 1-10.

40 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shepherds
make their flocks to lie down there." It is important to
recall here the points referred to in an earlier chapter,
namely, that demons were believed to exist in great num-
bers, that they had a special predilection for desert places,
and above all for ruined sites where men used to dwell ; and
that many wild beasts, especially those that inhabited
the waste and wilderness, were identified with demons. The
site just described in the passage from Isaiah is just such a
one as popular imagination would regard as the haunt of
demons. Therefore a brief examination of the creatures
spoken of will not be inappropriate. First, there are the
" wild beasts " or Ziyyim ; the word comes from a root
meaning " to be dry," and the noun therefore presumably
would mean something connected with a dry place, an
inhabiter of the desert. Reference to the various passages in
which the word occurs shows that these " wild beasts" cannot
be identified with any known animals, that they are always
spoken of as dwelling in desert places and ruined sites, and,
with one exception, ^ that they are always mentioned in
connexion with other strange beasts, to be referred to below.
Next occurs the expression " doleful creatures," Ocliim.
This word, which is parallel to Ziyyim and is likewise used
only in the plural, comes from the root meaning " to howl." ^
According to Delitzsch ' ahu is the Assyrian for " jackal,"
but this is disputed by other scholars ; no help is gained
from the Versions ; its indefiniteness and uncertainty are
perhaps significant. The next creature, translated " os-
trich " in the Revised Version, means literally " daughters
of greed" {henoth ya'anah), and is, with two exceptions,

1 I.e. Ps. Ixxiv. 14, where the text is obviously corrupt ; but some ancient
myth seems to be referred to concerning the Ziyyim feeding on Leviathan.

2 Cp. " the howling wilderness," Deut. xxxii. 10, for the thought, but
the root is a different one. Among the Arabs the wilderness is said " to
speak," by which is meant the mysterious humming, buzzing noise charac-
teristic of the desert, which they ascribe to demons.

^ Assyrischea Woricrhuch, s.v.

DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTA^IENT 41

used only in the plural. It is reckoned among the unclean
animals in Lev. xi. 16, Deut. xiv, 15 ; no doubt it came to
be used of the ostrich, but it is striking that in the passage
before us the Septuagint renders it o-etpj>e? ^ and makes
it parallel to Saifiovia. According to Arab belief demons
have the hunger of a lion, an idea which may conceivably
be connected with these " daughters of greed " ! Whether
the word in Hebrew originally meant something other than
ostrich it is impossible to say ; but in any case, ostriches
were looked upon as being connected with demons. The
Arabs said that demons used them for riding on (see above,
p. 32) ; they believed also that demons appeared in the
form of ostriches.

The "satjTs" {Se'irim), which occurs next, we have
ah-eady dealt with. There remain the " wolves " {lyyim)
and " jackals " {Tannim). It is very difficult to say
what the first of these means ; the root from which
the word comes means "to howl" or "screech" (a
word for " hawk " comes from the same root) ; in view of the
fact that many birds were regarded as the incarnations of
demons it may be that a bird of prey of some kind is in-
tended. The Septuagint renders ovoKevravpoi, which shows
to what straits the translators were driven, though the word
is interesting as illustrating the belief that hybrid monsters
were among the forms in which demons appeared. The
parallel word in our passages, " jackals," would mdeed
favour the rendering " wolves " ; but it cannot be said that
we have any certainty regarding the meanmg of Tannim,
"jackals" ; the Septuagint gives six different renderings
of the word in the fourteen instances in which it occurs in the
Hebrew Bible, and in one case omits it altogether. In
studying this passage "- the conviction is forced upon one

1 Cp. Septuagint of Mic. i. 8, Jer. 1. 39 (xxvii. 39).

2 See also Zeph. ii. 14, a somewhat similar passage, in which the words
for animals are conjecturally translated ; these animals are likewise looked
upon as being the incarnations of demons.

42 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that it refers from beginning to end to what were believed
to be demons, or, more strictly speaking, animals which
were looked upon as the incarnations of demons ; the demon
part was supernatural and not subject to death like human
beings. In the case of the Se'irim the demonic character
admits of no doubt ; so that where we have these other
creatures enumerated together with the Se'irim., it is obvious
that they too were reckoned among the demons.

II. Demons of Human Form

We have next to consider some demons of human, or
quasi-human, form. The references to these in the Old
Testament are not many ; but when considered in the light
of certain Babylonian parallels it will be seen that the men-
tion of them is not without significance.

[a) Lilith. — In Isa. xxxiv. 11-15, a passage of somewhat
similar import to Isa. xiii. 21-22, but in reference to Edom,
there occur these words in verse 14 : " And the wild beasts
of the desert (Ziyyim) shall encounter the wolves {lyyim),
and the sa'ir (singular of Se'irim) shall meet with his fellow ;
there, in truth, shall Lilith repose, and shall find a resting-
place for herself." The Revised Version translates Lilith
by " night-monster," but it is a proper name. The fact
that Lilith, represented at one time as a female demon, at
another a male one, was well known among the Assyrians
supports the belief that Lilith played a part in Hebrew
Demonology in pre- exilic times ; the Assyrian beliefs re-
garding this demon were greatly developed by the Baby-
lonians, as we shall see in a moment. According to later
Jewish teaching, which may well, however, have been handed
down for many centuries previously, Lilith was a night-
hag, and got her name from Layelah ("night"); the
etymology was false, but Lilith was, nevertheless, the night-
demon 'par excellence. The connexion was suggested by the

DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 43

similarity of the two words, as well as by the fact that
Lilith was believed to be active at nights. There is an
evident reference to this demon, though her name is not
mentioned, in Ps. xci. 5 : " Thou shalt not be afraid because
of the night-terror, nor because of the arrow that fiieth by
day." In the Midrash to the Psalms (Mi Irash Tehillim)
on this verse occurs the comment : " Rabbi Berechya said,
' There is a harmful spirit that flies like a bird and shoots
like an arrow ' " ^ ; while it is a mistake to suppose that only
one demon is referred to in this verse, the Rabbi is doubtless
right in picturing Lilith as one who flies, for the Jewish
conception regarding this demon is likely to have corre-
sponded with the Babylonian which also pictured Lilith as
flying at nights. In Babylonian Demonology a demon-triad
was formed by Lilu, Lilitu, and Ardat Lili ; the male, the
female, and the hand-maid ; the Old Testament Lilith
would correspond to the second of these, Lilitu. The
three are spoken of particularly as storm- demons ^ who rush
about at night seeking what harm they can do to men.
They are spoken of as flying, and were therefore, though
not necessarily, conceived of as having wings. Ardat Lili
is once spoken of as " flitting in through a window " after
a man.^ In later Jewish belief, which is, however, largely
traditional, Lilith appears as the head of one of the three
great classes into which the demons are divided, viz. the
Lilhh, who take their name from her. They are described
as of human form, and have wings ; they are all females ;
children are their chief victims. LiUth was conceived of as
a beautiful woman, with long, flowing hair ; it is at nights

1 According to Jewish tradition the meteor-stone was called " the arrow
of Lilith."

* Hence the belief of some scholars that the name is derived from the
Sumerian III, " storm " ; this, however, hardly agrees with the idea con-
veyed in Isa. xxxiv. 14.

3 See further, Jastrow, Die Religion Assyriens und Babyloniens, i. 278 ff.,
319. An illustration of an Assyrian demon which may have been a repre-
sentation of Lilitu is given in Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte det
alien Orients, p. 342.

44 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that she seeks her prey ; she is dangerous to men, but does
not appear to molest women.

(6) Keteh. — It is in Ps, xci. 6 that this proper name of
a demon occurs, and to understand its significance it must
be read in the light of its context. In verse 5, as we have
just seen, it is highly probable that the demon Lilith is
referred to, although not named ; the text of verse 6 is partly
corrupt and must be emended on the basis of the Septuagint ;
it must then be translated thus :

" Nor because of the pestilence that goeth about during

the dark.
Nor because of Keteb or the midday demon {SaifMoviov

fM€<Tr]fJi^piVOv).^'

The Hebrew for " pestilence " is Deber, and if this is not a
proper name, the word implies at any rate the existence of
a pest- demon. We are reminded of the well-known Baby-
lonian pest-demon Namtar ; he is often spoken of as " violent
Namtar," and he comes among men as the pest- bringing
envoy from the realms of the dead, like a " raging wind " ;
his action is described in a Babylonian text thus : " Wicked
Namtar, who scorches the land like fire, who approaches
a man like Ashakku,i who rages through the wilderness
like a storm-wind, who pounces upon a man like a robber,
who plagues a man like the pestilence, who has no hands,
no feet, who goes about at night. ..." * The words remind
one forcibly of " the pestilence that goeth about in the dark."
That pestilence, and sickness of every kind, were believed
to be due to the action of demons is too well known to need
illustration. It is in this context that the name Keteb
occurs. The word is usually translated " destruction " ;
it is only mentioned three times elsewhere, viz. in Deut.
xxxii. 24, Isa. xxviii. 2, Hos. xiii. 4, and in the first two of

1 Another harmful Babylonian demon, see p. 31.

^ O. Weber, Ddmonenheschworung bei den Babyloniern und Assyrern, in
" Der alte Orient," vii. 16.

DEMONOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 45

these the underlying thought of demons is fairly obvious.
In Rabbinical literature Keteh is used as the proper name of
a demon ; whether he was the " midday demon " himself,
or whether two demons are referred to in the text, one cannot
say for certain. That a special midday demon, whatever
his name, was believed in is highly probable ; the burning
rays had to be accounted for somehow. In later Judaism
it was believed that midday was one of the times during
which demons were specially busy,i and in some Babylonian
texts there are some suggestive passages."^ The Midrash
to the Psalms (Midrash TehilUm) on this verse has the follow-
ing in reference to Keteb : " Our Rabbis said, ' It is a demon
(Shed).' . . . Rabbi Huna, speaking in the name of Rabbi
Jose, said, ' The poisonous Keteb was covered with scales
and with hair, and sees only out of one eye, the other one
is in the middle of his heart ; and he is powerful, not in the
darkness nor in the sun, but between darkness and sun( shine).
He rolls himself up like a ball and stalks about from the
fourth to the ninth hour, from the 17th of Tammuz (July)
to the ninth of Ab (August) ; and everyone who sees him
falls down on his face.' "

" The horseleach (mg. vampire) hath two daughters,
crying (mg. called) Give, give."

The Hebrew for " horseleach " is a proper name, 'Alukah ;
very little is known of this creature excepting that she was
a female demon of the Lilith type. From the context in
Proverbs it is clear that she was insatiable in her desires.
Among the ancient Arabs there was a corresponding female
demon called 'Aulak.^ The Septuagint and Vulgate render-
ings imply that she was a blood-sucker.

^ Cp. F. Weber, Judische Theologie auf Orund dea Talmud and verwandter
Schriften, p. 254.

* M. Jastrow, op. cit., pp. 332, 342-3-45.
3 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 135.

46 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

(d) Satan. — This name is derived from a root meaning
" to oppose." In such an early passage as Num. xxii. 22 ff,
the noun is used without any idea of a proper name ; we
read there : " . . . and the angel of the Lord placed himself
in the way for an adversary (lit. " a satan ") against him" ;
the same word is used as " a foe " in the ordinary sense in
1 Sam. xxix. 4, 2 Sam. xix. 22 (23), 1 Kings, v. 4, xi. 14, 23,
25, Ps. cix. 6,1 though in this last passage the sense is rather
that of " accuser," on account of the words which follow,
" when he is judged let him come forth guilty." In Zech.
iii. 1, 2, we find that a development has taken place, for here
the word is used with the definite article and means the
Adversary, par excelle?ice, who accuses men before God ;
this passage is especially instructive because in it the word
is used in a two- fold sense : " The Adversary (the satan)
standing at his right hand as his adversary (satan)." It is
in a similar sense' that the word is used in the book of Job
(i, 6 £E., ii. 1 ff.) ; a still further development is probably
to be seen in 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ( = 2 Sam, xxiv. 1), where the
word is used without the article, and the context shows that
it is not an ordinary foe that is meant ; so that here Satan is
used as a proper name ; he is, moreover, not only an accuser,
but one who tempts to evil.

With the further development of Satan as the arch-fiend
and head of the powers of darkness we are not concerned
here, as this is outside the scope of the Old Testament.

1 The Prayer Book Version, " Let Satan stand at his right hand," is
quite misleading.

CHAPTER V

THE ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

I. Semitic Angelology in General

It is a striking fact that among the early Semites generally,
so far as the available evidence shows, the belief in angels
is quite overshadowed by the belief in demons. This,
however, is not a matter for surprise. For one thing, among
the mass of mankind the ills and worries of life outweigh
in number the things which are regarded as blessings — and
this is especially true of the ancient world ; moreover, it
lies in human nature to take the good and pleasant things
of life as a matter of course, and to exaggerate its ills ; so
that, in that undeveloped state of culture in which most
untoward occurrences are ascribed to the agency of some
malevolent spirit, it was natural that the activity of demons
should have been regarded as much greater than that of
more kindly disposed spirits. There were plenty of means
at hand whereby to counteract the activity of demons —
magic and witchcraft — which accounts for the small number
of references to the calling upon benevolent spirits for
protection. Over and above this there is the fundamental
and well-known fact to be reckoned with that in the earliest
stages of Semitic religion there is no distinction between
angels and demons ; this was a later development ; there
are, it is true, kindly spirits and maleficent spirits, but they
all come under one general category. "It is habitually
found," says Tylor, " that the theory of Animism divides

48 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

into two great dogmas, forming parts of one consistent
doctrine ; first, concerning souls of individual creatures,
capable of continued existence after the death or destruction
of the body ; second, concerning other spirits, upward
to the rank of powerful deities." ^ It is within this latter
category that all those spirits are included which in course
of time developed into the classes of angels and demons ;
though we also find that among the former (spirits of the
departed) there are some who are evil disposed, whether,
as was believed, for the want of proper burial, or on account
of the omission of burial rites, or what not. We also find, so
far as the Arabs are concerned, if (as is probable) we may be
guided by present-day custom and belief,^ that the well, or
saint, who is always the real or imagined spirit of a man who
once lived on earth, takes the part which very much corre-
sponds to that of angelic protection. This, however, in any
case, belongs to a time, comparatively ancient no doubt,
in which a development had taken place. The earliest stage
of which we have cognisance is one in which there is no
distinction between what we now call angels and demons.
But it is the more developed stage with which we are here
concerned, because the beliefs and practices of this stage
are those which throw light upon the Old Testament records,
the stage, namely, in which it is seen that a distinction is
being made between evil and good spirits.

Now, as far as the Arabs are concerned we have but little
direct evidence ; but we have a large amount of indirect
evidence ; and this indirect evidence comes from three
sources : ancient Arabic writings wherein are preserved
far more ancient traditions ; the Koran ; present-day
custom and belief. In all three sources there is an immense
mixture of later and developed doctrine and belief, and it is
by no means easy always to sift the later from the earlier ;
but there is no sort of doubt that, embodied in these sources,

1 Primitive Culture, i. 426 (3rd ed.).

* Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, passim.

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 49

a great deal is to be found which illustrates the Old Testa-
ment teaching and practice on the subject.

" Besides the gods to whom they devoted a regular cult,
the ancient Arabs recognized a series of inferior spirits,
whom they conciliated or conjured by magical practices.
In this matter, as in others, Muhammad preserved the ancient
beliefs by adapting them to the new religion, in such a way
that it is impossible to distinguish which elements in his
teaching are sprung from his inward conviction and which
are simply a concession to the doctrine of his compatriots." ^
This is perhaps going a little too far, for in some respects
it is quite possible to distinguish these elements. Among
the Muhammadans there are three classes of supernatural
beings : angels, demons, and the Jinn, these last form a lower
class of demons. Of these the angels are the most important
body, a clear mark of development ; but what reflects
a really ancient trait is the fact that all three classes of
supernatural beings partake of the same nature in so far
_.as they are formed from one single substance. This points
back to the time when there was no distinction between
angels and demons. The function of the angels is two-fold :
glorifying God in heaven, and guarding men on earth from
the demons and the Jinn. The Arabs of the present day
offer sacrifices to angels, just as, millennia ago, they
sacrificed to demons ; this, therefore, is also the development
of an ancient and long-preserved custom. According to
Doughty, quoted by Curtiss,^ the Arabs, in sacrificing to
angels, cooked part of the flesh of the sacrifices, which
was distributed among their friends, while the other part
of the flesh " they hung upon the branches of sacred trees,
which are the places where angels are thought to reveal
themselves." * The Arabs, like the rest of the Semites,
passed through various stages of belief regarding demons,

1 Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iv. G15 o.
» Op.cit.,Tp. 179.

3 Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 240 f., 449.
4

50 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

angels, and gods ; first, the stage of Animism, with its hosts
of benevolent and, more numerous, maleficent spirits,
yet all of one category. Then came a stage wherein some of
these spirits developed into gods ; side by side with these
gods there were the innumerable maleficent spirits who came
to be definitely regarded as demons ; at the same time the
kindly disposed spirits were also believed in, but they occu-
pied only a very subordinate position ; it is probable that
some of them gradually became looked upon as servants of
gods (see below, under " the angel of Jahwe "). Lastly,
there was the stage during which, owing to the growth of
monotheistic belief (we are thinking especially of the Israelites
and later Muhammadanism), the gods were degraded to
demons and were reckoned among the ordinary demons
( Azazel among the Israelites is a case in point) ; the benevo-
lent spirits issued into the definite category of angels. It is
during this last stage that the whole body of spirits finally
develops from benevolent and malevolent into good and evil
spirits, i.e. angels and demons in the present ordinary sense of
the words. It is not to be supposed that these different
stages were clearly marked; older beliefs continued, of course,
during periods of development, other elements also came in,
such as Ancestor- worship on the one hand, and evil-disposed
spirits of the departed on the other. But, roughly speak-
ing, some such stages as those just outlined seem to indicate
the course of development which belief in demons and angels
took in ancient times among the Arabs.

The post-biblical Angelology of Judaism, which offers
much of great interest, must not detain us ; incidental
reference will be made to this when we come to the Old
Testament doctrine of angels ; but it is important and
necessary to take a brief glance at Assyrian and Babylonian
angelology, since this was contemporary with Israelite belief.
As in the case of the Israelites and Arabs, there was amongst
the ancient Babylonians originally no belief in angels ;
indeed, it is true to say that even among the Neo-Babjion-

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 51

ians of the post- Assyrian period angels, in the sense of the
word as understood among the Jews of the post-exilic period
and onwards, played no great part. Nevertheless, we find that
the ancient Babylonians had a belief in certain benevolent
genii, spiritual superhuman beings who were of a lower degree
than the gods, and who seem to have occupied a position
somewhat analogous to the later conception of the guardian-
angels. The Shedu ^ were in the main evil spirits, demons,
but among them there were also benevolent guardian- spirits.
That these latter were not gods is certain because when their
names occur on the ancient texts they have not the deter-
minative which is always found in connexion with the name
of a god. Besides the Shedu there were the Lamassu, or
" Colossal forms " ; these were represented by huge sculp-
tures— bulls, serpents, lions, and hybrid forms, which
were set up at the entrance gates of temples and palaces to
drive off " the foes," by which were meant evil spirits and
demons. But they were also the guardian- spirits of indi-
viduals, as is abundantly shown on various texts of different
ages. Both names are generic, but they are also used as
proper names. The word Lamassu connotes the idea of
" protection " ^ ; originally the name was used as that of
a god ; but in the later texts Lamassu appears invariably
as a kindly disposed guardian- spirit. As a rule Latimssu
and Shedu are found together on the texts. On a magic
text recording a formula, which was uttered to ward off
demons, occur the words : " May the good Shedu walk
at my right hand, may the good Lamassu walk at my left
hand." ' The help of these two was sought in various
emergencies ; thus, in another text, the exorcist who is
about to enter the house of one who is ill conjures Shedu
and Lamassu to be at his side when he approaches the

1 = the Hebrew Shedim.

* M. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, i. 281.

3 M. Jastrow, op. cit., i. 355. Elsewhere it is said that Shedu walks in
front, Lamassu behind a man as his protectors. Shedu is also spoken of
as " the guardian spirit of life."

62 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

patient and lays his hand upon his (the patient's) head.
Interesting, too, is the idea contained in another similar
text where the petition is offered for the patient : " May
the good Shedu and the good Lamassu establish themselves
within his body." In another case in which it is believed
that the demon Utukku has possessed a man, the goddess
of the underworld is besought " to turn her face away " in
order that this evil demon may depart from the body of the
possessed, and that " the good Shedu and the good Lamassu
may take his place there." The same is said in another
case in which the demon " Rabisu, who lurks," has taken
up his abode in the body of a man. In one text Lamassu
is called upon for protection from evils brought about
through an eclipse of the moon ; and in a prayer for the king
supplication is made to Shedu and Lamassu to protect, for
the king's benefit, " all fields, pastures, and rivers." Finally,
there is the curious case in which in a supplication made to
the god Ea, " the king of the deep," it is said : " 0 be thou
my guardian Shedu, 0 be thou my guardian Lamassu.''^
It will thus be seen that these guardian- spirits occupied an
important position in the spirit world, and that their help
was believed to be obtainable in a variety of circumstances.
The texts ^ to which reference has been made belong to
different ages, from, roughly speaking, 2500 B.C. to 500 B.C.
In some of the latest Assyrian and in Neo-Babylonian texts
there are references to benevolent spirits who are to all
intents and purposes angels in the ordinary sense of the
word. Thus, mention is made of " the messenger of mercy,"
who is sent by the deity to accompany the king when going
into battle ; there is also the " guardian of life " who stands
by the king's side.^ Regarding Cherubim, and Seraphim
in the form of angels, see below, pp. 60 ff. ; neither of these

^ They are taken mainly from M. Jastrow in his great work already
cited ; but see also King's Babylonian Magic and Sorcery ; O. Weber,
Literatur der Bahylonier und Assyrier.

* Jeremiaa, Daa alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, pp. 232 f.

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 53

names has hitherto been found on the inscriptions, but
there are many carved figures which correspond to the
descriptions of them given in the Old Testament.

II. The Axgelology of the Old Testament

(a) The First Stage : the " sons of the gods.'' — Among
the early Israelites there was not the popular belief in
multitudes of angels such as existed in regard to demons.
The origin of the idea of angels, so far as the Old Testament
is concerned, is probably to be sought in the " Beni ha-
Elohim," lit. " the sons of the gods," referred to in Gen.
vi, 2-4 > ; this conception of angels means, according to
linguistic analogy, " beings of the Elohim kind." ' The
passage is a remnant-piece of Semitic mythology incorpor-
ated in the Hebrew Scriptures to account for the existence
of supernatural beings who were believed to be of similar
nature and power to Jahwe, but subordinate to Him. The
mythological element regarding their relations with the
daughters of men was, later on, dropped or ignored, and
these " sons of the gods " became, with the development of
Jahwe- worship, Jahwe' s attendants in the heavenly court,
with whom He took counsel ' ; their duties were also to
praise Him and His might and glory, and to act as His
messengers (hence later the regular name for " angel,"
maldk,* lit. " messenger "), and to carry out His will among
men. These points can be illustrated from the following
passages : Job i. 6, " Now there was a day when the sons of
God (lit. ' the sons of the gods ') came to present themselves
before Jahwe. . . ." The context tells of how God dis-
cusses with Satan the case of Job in the hearing of the

1 Cp. Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7.

* Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 445.

3 Cp. the important passage in this connexion I Kings xxii. 19-22, " I
saw Jahwe sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by
Him on His right hand and on His left. . . ." (See the whole passage.)

* The word is also used of an ordinary human messenger.

54 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

assembled heavenly courtiers ; the word for " present
themselves " implies that they came to report and to receive
further commands (cp. Zech. vi. 5) ; " Satan," in the con-
text, is wrong ; it is not a proper name, but simply " the
adversary " (see above, p. 46). In Job ii. 1 ff. the same
picture is presented. In Job xxxviii. 1 ff., where there is
a reference to the creation of the world, it is said in verse
7, " . . . When the morning stars sang together, and the
sons of the gods shouted for joy " (cp. Ps. xix. 1 [2 in Hebr.],
xxix. 1, 2). These attendants of Jahwe are thus, in spite
of the creation accounts in Genesis, thought of as having
been present during the forming of the world. Instructive
is the passage Ps. Ixxxix. 5-7 (6-8 in Hebr.), where the
" holy ones " are the angels and parallel to the " sons of
gods " : " And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, 0
Jahwe ; thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy
ones. For who in the skies can be compared unto Jahwe ?
Who among the sons of gods is like unto Jahwe ? A God
very terrible in the council of the holy ones, and to be feared
above all them that are round about Him ? " In this con-
nexion the passage 1 Kings xxii. 19-22, referred to in the note
above, should be read ; it is rather too long to quote in full.
(6) The Second Stage: Jahive and the "theophanic
angel.'" — The next step in the Old Testament teaching on
angels is concerned with what is known as " the angel of
the Lord," ^ lit. " the messenger of Jahwe," called also " the
messenger of God," ^ i.e. the theophanic angel ; here it is

^ This phrase has an entirely different meaning from the same phrase
belonging to post-exilic literature, when it means an intermediate being
between God and man.

2 Although the form of the Hebrew for " God " in these cases is plural,
so that one might translate lit. " the messenger of the gods," just as we
translated " the sons of the gods," yet this would not be justified here,
because the passages in which " the messenger of J." and " the messenger
of God" occur reflect monotheistic teaching; and what were "gods"
has now become " God," though the ancient plm-al form is retained.
Moreover, in all these passages " God," though plural in form, is equivalent
to Jahwe.

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 55

essential to distinguish clearly between the two documents
which have been amalgamated in the present form of the
Hebrew text of the earlier Biblical books, viz. J, the older
one, so called because the compiler always speaks of God as
" Jahwe," and E, so called because the compiler always
speaks of God as " Elohim." The following are a few of
the most important passages from the J document, from
which it will be seen what is meant by " the angel of Jahwe,"
Gen. xvi. 7, " And the angel of Jahwe found her (i.e. Hagar)
by a fountain of water in the wilderness " ; " the angel of
Jahwe " is spoken of in verses 9, 10, 11 ; but when we come
to verse 13 we read : " And she called the name of Jahwe
that spake with her El roi. ..." Here it is quite obvious
that Jahwe and " the angel of Jahwe " are one and the same.
Again, in Exod. iii. 2 it is said : " And the angel of Jahwe
appeared unto him (i.e. Moses) in a flame of fire out of the
midst of the bush. . . . And Moses said, I will turn aside
now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt " ;
then it immediately goes on to say : " And when Jahwe
saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out
of the midst of the bush, and said. ..." Here again it
is clear that " the angel of Jahwe " and Jahwe are regarded
as one and the same. On the other hand, we get in Exod.
xxxii. 33, 34 (belonging to the same document) a clear
distinction between Jahwe and His angel. In the long pass-
age Num. xxii. 20-38, belonging in the main to the same
document, there appears to be for the most part a clear
distinction made between Jahwe and " the angel of Jahwe " ;
but in verse 35 it is said : " And the angel of Jahwe said
unto Balaam, Go with the men ; but only the word that
I shall speak unto thee, that shalt thou speak " ; but that
Jahwe Himself is meant is clear from verse 38, where Balaam
says : " The word that God putteth in my mouth, that
shall I speak." It is true that the name for the Deity in
this verse is Elohim and not Jahwe, but that does not alter
the fact that here again Jahwe and " the angel of Jahwe "

56 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

are one and the same. This is the case, too, in Judges ii.
1-5, where " the angel of Jahwe " says : "I made you to
go up out of Egypt . . ." ; and in Judges vi. 11-24, where
verses 22, 23 are especially clear : " And Gideon saw that
he was the angel of Jahwe ; and Gideon said, Alas, 0 Jahwe-
Elohim ! forasmuch as I have seen the angel of Jahwe face
to face. And Jahwe said unto him. Peace be unto thee ;
fear not ; thou shalt not die." The same identification is
found in the passage Judges xiii. , which is too long to quote.
On the basis of all these passages the presumption is justified
that when in other passages of the J document " the angel
of Jahwe " is mentioned, it is Jahwe Himself who is meant,
viz. Gen. xviii. 1-33, and also in such cases as Gen. xxxii.
24-32, xlviii. 16, though " the angel of Jahwe " is not spoken
of by name.

We turn now to the E document. Here we have the
name " the angel of God (Elohim) " in place of " the angel
of Jahwe." In the version of the Hagar story contained
in this document we read (Gen. xxi. 8-21) : "... And
God heard the voice of the lad ; and the angel of God called
to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aUeth
thee, Hagar ? Fear not ; for God hath heard the voice
of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him
in thine hand ; for I will make him a great nation. And
God opened her eyes ..." (verses 17-19), In this passage
it is evident that God and " the angel of God " are thought
of as one and the same.^ Again, in Gen. xxxi. 11-13 we
read : " And the angel of God said unto me in a dream,
Jacob ; and I said. Here am I. And he said. Lift up now
thine eyes. ... I am the God of Bethel. ..." Here
again " the angel of God " is identified with God. In
another passage (Exod. xiv. 19) the identity is not so distinct,
though it is certainly implied : " And the angel of God,

1 Cp. Ps. viii. 5 (6 in Hebrew), where we should probably read : " Thou
madest him but little lower than gods," i.e. angels ; see eilso Ps. Ixxxix.
1, 6, xcvii. 7, cxxxviii. 1.

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 57

which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went
behind them "; it is so frequently said elsewhere that it was
God who led the children of Israel out of Egypt that in this
passage it is evidently God Himself who is thought of when
" the angel of God " is mentioned. In Judges vi. 20 (see
above) " the angel of God " is identified with Jahwe, the
God of Israel. And lastly, there is complete identification
between " the angel of God " and God in the passage (too
long to quote) Judges xiii. 2-9, but compare together
especially verses 6 and 9.

The passages cited or referred to include all in which
" the angel of Jahwe " and " the angel of God " are men-
tioned. There are a few others where one or other of these
titles is implied, but not expressed, viz. " the angel "
(Gen. xlviii. 16) ; "an angel" (Exod. xxiii. 20, xxxiii. 2,
Num. XX. 16, cp. Hos. xii. 5) ; "my angel " (Exod. xxiii. 23,
xxxii. 34) ; " his angel," Gen. xxiv. 7, 40, and cp. Acts xii.
15, " it is his angel," in reference to St. Peter. In all these
passages the context shows whether " the angel of Jahwe "
or " the angel of God " is intended.

The study, then, of all these passages leads to the conclu-
sion that in pre- exilic times there was no clear distinction
between Jahwe, the God of Israel, and His angel. And this
seems to be the faint and dying echo of the much earlier
stage of belief in which it was held that supernatural beings
existed, indeed, but were all of one category, without head
or leader, still less without a deity of a different and higher
order ; this only arose with the development of Jahwe-
worship.

Before we leave the subject of " the angel of Jahwe " it
is worth pointing out that in later times the idea arose
that there was a distinction between Jahwe and His
angel, i.e. a special angel ; for, although the expression
" angel of Jahwe " does not occur again (nor yet " angel
of God" in its original connotation), we get "the angel
of his presence" (Isa. Ixiii. 9), where the context shows

58 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that it is a reference to ancient times, and also " the
angel of the covenant " (Mai. iii. 1) ; " the covenant," again,
refers back to ancient times.

(c) The Third Stage : " GocPs Messengers:'— The next
stage in the development of Old Testament angelology is
that in which the angels are quite clearly and distinctly
God's messengers, who only exist for the purpose of praising
God and carrying out His will among men. A few passages
illustrative of their functions and nature may be given.
Primarily their duty is to wait upon God (e.g. Gen. xxviii. 12)
and to praise Him ; ever greater stress is laid upon this as
time goes on, and as one would expect, it is in the Psalms
that this receives fullest expression, e.g. Ps. ciii. 20, 21 :
" Bless the Lord, ye angels of His, ye mighty in strength
that fulfil His word, hearkening unto the voice of His word.
Bless the Lord, all ye His hosts ; ye ministers of His that
do His pleasure," cp. Ps. cxlviii. 2, etc. Only second in
importance is their function of succouring men, and this is
always associated with the carrying out of the will of God.
The two angels who come to warn Lot and his family of
the impending destruction of the cities of the plain, and to
save them, are the emissaries of God, as the context shows,
and are therefore carrying out His will (Gen. xix. 1, 15, 16).'i
Again in 1 Kings xix. 5 ff. Elijah is succoured by an angel
sent by God ; the angel of Jahwe mentioned in verse 7
must not be understood as "the angel of Jahwe" (the
theophanic angel) spoken of above ; this also applies to
Ps. xxxiv. 7 (8 in Hebr.) and other passages : " The angel
of Jahwe encampeth round about them that fear- Him, and
delivereth them." In Ps. xci. 11, 12 we have another

1 Gen. xix. offers some difficulties, and has evidently been subjected to
some revision, inadequate it is true ; for " the two angels " in verse 1
presumably refer back to xviii. 22, where " the men " are spoken of •
and these men are those mentioned in xviii. 16, who in turn are the same
as the " three men " in xviii. 2, one of whom is Jahwe (see xviii. 13 14 17
20). See also xix. 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, which show a mixing up of the plural
(referring to the " two men ") and the singular (referring to Jahwe).

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 59

example of angels as the protectors of men : " For He shall
give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy
foot against a stone."

There are quite a number of cases in which superhuman
beings are spoken of who are not called angels, but are such
nevertheless ; for example, in Isa. x. 3, 4 : " The voice of
one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of
Jahwe. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.' '
Here the voice is that, of an angelic being, who calls to his
fellows to make a highway straight through the desert
(instead of the ordinary journey first to the north-west and
then to the south) in order that God may lead His exiled people
back to their home from Babylonia. In other cases angels
are referred to under different names ; we have akeady
seen that they are several times spoken of as " gods " ; in
Ps. Ixxviii. 5 they are called Ahirim, " mighty ones" ; in
Ps. Ixxxix. 5 (6 in Hebr.) KedSshim, " holy ones," cp. Job
V. 1 ; in Job xxxiii. 22 Memithim, " the destroyers," lit.
" killers." But however described, their function is to serve
God and help man. As the servants of God they are some-
times called to execute judgement on the wicked ; thus in
Ps. XXXV. 5, 6 it is said : " Let them be as the chaff before
the wind, and the angel of Jahwe driving them on ; let
their way be dark and slippery, and the angel of Jahwe
pursuing them." They even punish the Israelites in extreme
cases, see 2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17 ( = 1 Chron. xxi. 12 ff.).

{d) The nature and characteristics of the angels.— As is to be
expected, the conceptions regarding angels differed in the
various stages of beUef concerning them, although certain
characteristics were common to all stages. Thus, the might
and strength imputed to angels, owing to the belief in their
origin from the gods (the root- meaning of ^Hs " strength "),
are always characteristic of them. This is akeady reflected
in the mythological fragment Gen. vi. 4 : " . . . when the
sons of the gods came in unto the daughters of men, and

60 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

they bare children to them ; the same were the mighty men
which were of old, the men of renown." The idea of their
strength occurs in other passages ; and the same is found
in the Psalms, e.g. ciii. 20 : " Bless Jahwe, ye angels of His,
ye mighty in strength that fulfil His word," etc.

It is probable, from the analogy of Babylonian ideas on
the subject, and apart from the mythological passage quoted
above, that the angels were at one time conceived of as
neither good nor bad ; the idea of their goodness or other-
wise did not arise ; they were non-moral ; it was rather
a question of whether they were kindly disposed or
maleficent. ^ But at a comparatively early time they were
regarded as good (1 Sam. xxix. 9) and as wise (2 Sam. xiv.
17, 20, xix. 27 (28 in Hebr.). In appearance they were
clearly believed to resemble men (Gen. vi. 4), since they are
spoken of as such (Gen. xviii. 2 ff.) ; and Ps. xci. 12 shows
that this was the case, too, in later times, "... they shall
bear thee up in their hands."

(e) Special classes of angels. — The origin of the Cherubim
is obscure ; "so far as can be seen at present, the early
Hebrew cherub came nearer to the griffin, which was not
divine, but the servant of the deity, and the origin of which
is now assigned to the Hittites of Syria. ' The idea of this
mythic form is the combination of parts of the two strongest
animals of air and land — the eagle and the lion — and a
reminiscence of this may perhaps be traced in the reference
to these animals in Ezek. i. 10. It was adopted by various
nations, but to understand its true significance we must go,
not to Egypt nor to Greece, but to the Hittites, whose
originality in the use of animal-forms is well known. The
Hittite griffin appears almost always, in contrast to Baby-
lonian representations, not as a fierce beast of prey, but

1 Much stress, owing to the special circumstances portrayed, cannot be
laid on Job iv. 18 : " Behold, He putteth no trust in His servants ; and Hia
angels He chargeth with folly," see also xv. 15.

' Furtwangler in Roscher's Lexikon, art. " Grypa."

ANGELOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 61

seated in calm dignity like an irresistible guardian of holy
things." 1 This reminds one of the account of the cherubim
on the mercy-seat (Exod. xxv. 18-22) ; these have wings,
and presumably this was thought to be the case with the
cherubim who guarded the Tree of Life in the Garden of
Eden (Gen. iii. 24).' The Assyrian and Babylonian repre-
sentations of genii who guard palaces and temples always
have wings, and though the corresponding word for cherubim
has not yet been found on the inscriptions, it is evident that
these sculptures do represent the Assyrian conception of the
cherubim ; this is brought home to anyone who compares these
sculptures with the description of the cherubim in Ezek. i.
As to the meaning of the cherubim we have no certainty,
but there is some support for the theory that they represent
storm-clouds rushing on "the wings of the wind"; in
Ps. xviii. 10 (11 in Hebr.) we have : " And he rode upon the
cherub, and did fly ; yea, he flew swiftly upon the wings of
the wind" ; and again in Ps. civ. 3 (cp. Deut. xxxiii. 26, Isa.
xix. 1, Hab. iii. 8) : " Who maketh the clouds His chariot,
who walketh upon the wings of the wind " ; in Ezek. i.,
where the " four living creatures " ( = cherubim, see x. 2,
16-22) practically form the divine chariot, which is at the
same time the throne of God. This is, however, a developed
idea of the cherubim, though probably based on an ancient
conception of the cherubim being the storm-clouds personi-
fied. Whether or not the horsemen of the air, the angelic
riders, are to be in any way connected with the cherubim
is uncertain ; these occupy a prominent position in the book
of Zechariah (see i. 8 ff., vi. 1-8, cp. 2 Kings vi. 17), where
they appear as God's messengers, bringing in their reports
to Him. These angelic riders remind one irresistibly of the
Walkilre in Teutonic Mythology.
(/) The Seraphim. — As these have already been enumer-

i Encyclopcedia Biblica, i. 745.

* Cp. Ezek. xxviii. 13-16, a difficult passage, the text of which ia
evidently not in order.

62 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

ated under theriomorphic demons, it will appear strange
that they should be mentioned here. As angels they occur
once only in the Old Testament, in the well-known passage
Isa, vi. 1-7, where they appear as attendants upon Jahwe,
and praise Him, and carry out His behests. They are
described as having six wings ; they are very mighty, so
much so that the door-posts of the temple shook at the sound
of their voice. Presumably they had the appearance of
men, since they had feet and hands (verses 2, 6).

That the early conception of the Seraphim as demons
should have developed into the belief of their being angels
is not so strange as may appear at first sight. There is
something parallel to this in the fact that the demon sarapli-
serpent of Num. xxi. 6 became a god who was worshipped,
see 2 Kings xviii. 4. That in later times the Seraphim,
reckoned among the angels, were still conceived of as being
in the form of serpents is clear from one or two passages in
the book of Enoch ; in xx. 7 it is said of Gabriel, one of the
holy angels, that he is " over Paradise and the serpents and
the cherubim " ; that by " the serpents " the Seraphim are
meant is clear from Ixi. 10, where it says : " And He will
summon all the host of the heavens, and all the holy ones
above and the host of God, the Cherubim, Seraphim, and
Ophannim [another order of angels in the developed Angelo-
logy of Judaism], and all the angels of power. ..." (See
also Ixxi. 7.)

We are not here concerned with the later Jewish Angelo-
logy, but only with the references on the subject in the Old
Testament. Enough has been said to show the reality and
strength of the belief in these superhuman, spiritual beings.
As has already been pointed out, all belief in the existence
of beings in the unseen world strengthens the conviction
that man, too, will have a role to play in that world. And
it needs no words to show that this will have been one of the
elements that fostered the hope of Immortality among the
Israelites of old.

THE SPIRITS OF THE DEAD AND
THEIR ABODE

CHAPTER VI
THE REPHAIM

The Rephaim is the name given in the Old Testament to
what would nowadays be called the spirits of the departed.
In order to get some clear ideas about the meaning of this
word we must briefly examine the passages of the Old
Testament in which it occurs ; these are not very many in
number, so we can refer to them all.

I. The Rephaim a Name given to the Departed

We will take first those passages in which the word is
applied to the departed : —

Job xxvi. 5 : " The Rephaim (R.V. they that are de-
ceased, marg. the shades) tremble beneath the waters and
the inhabitants thereof" ; see also verse 4.

Ps. Ixxxviii. 10 (11 in Hebr.) : " Wilt thou show wonders
to the dead ? Shall (the) Rephaim (R.V. as above) arise
and praise thee ? " Cp. Ps. cxv. 17. Note that " the dead "
and the Rephaim are parallel terms.

Isa. xiv. 9, 10 : " Sheol from beneath is moved for thee
to meet thee at thy coming ; it stirreth up (the) Rephaim
(R.V. the dead, marg. as above). ... All thej" shall answer

64 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we ?
Art thou become like unto us ? "

Isa. xxvi. 14 : " They that are dead, they shall not live ;
(the) Rephaim (R.V. they that are deceased, marg. as above)
shall not rise." ^

Prov. ii. 18, 19 : " For her house (i.e. the house of the
strange woman) inclineth unto death, and her paths unto
(the) Rephaim (R.V. the dead, marg. as above). None
that go unto her return again, . . ." Cp. vii. 27.

Prov. ix. 18 : " But he knoweth not that (the) Rephaim
(R.V. the dead, marg. as above) are there (i.e. in the house
of folly), that her guests are in the depths of Sheol."

Prov. xxi. 16: "The man that wandereth out of the
way of understanding shall rest in the congregation of (the)
Rephaim (R.V. the dead, marg. as above)."

To these may be added two quotations from Phoenician
inscriptions in which the word Rephaim occurs in reference
to the departed.* The Tabnith inscription (Sidon, circa
300 B.C.) contains the following : " And if thou do at all
open me (i.e. my coffin), and at all disquiet me, mayest
thou have no seed among the living under the sun, nor
resting-place among the Rephaim." In the inscription of
Eshmunazar, King of Sidon, belonging to about the same
date as the preceding, it says : " For every prince and
every man who shall open this resting-place, or who
shall take away the coffin of my resting-place, or who
shall carry me from this resting-place, may they have no
resting-place with the Rephaim. ..."

All these Biblical passages are post-exilic ; they are the
only ones in the Old Testament in which the Rephaim are
referred to by name when the word is intended to apply
to the departed. From them we gather the following
points as to the beliefs regarding the Rephaim : they have

^ For the greatly developed doctrine in the late passage Isa. xxvi. 19
nee below, pp. 220 f.

» Taken from G. A. Cooke, North Semitic Inscriptions, pp. 26, 30.

THE REPHAIM 65

emotions, since they tremble because of God ; it is assumed
that they are unable to arise and praise God ; they recog-
nize those who come into their abode and speak to them ;
they speak of themselves as being " weak " ; there is no
return from the place to which they go ; the foolish man
has his lot among them. The two inscriptions show that
it was regarded as a punishment not to have a resting-
place among them, and therefore that to be among them
after death was a thing to be desired. It is clear that we
have here some ideas which are incompatible with each
other. Let us turn to some other passages in which the
Rephaim are referred to, though not mentioned by name ;
we will take first some that are generally recognized either
as exilic or post-exilic :

Isa. xxxviii. 18 : " For Sheol * cannot praise Thee, death '
cannot celebrate thee ; they that go down into the pit
cannot hope for Thy truth."

Job iii. 11-19 : " Why died I not from the womb ? . . .
For now should I have lien down and been quiet ; I should
have slept ; then had I been at rest with kings and counsel-
lors of the earth. . . . There the wicked cease from troubling,
and the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at
ease together ; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there ; and the servant is free
from his master." ^

Job xxxviii. 17 : " Have the gates of death been revealed
unto thee ? Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of
death ? " Cp. Job xxvi. 6.

Ps. vi. 5 (6 in Hebr.) : " For in death there is no remem-
brance of thee ; in Sheol who shall give thee thanks ? "

Ps. XXX. 9 (10 in Hebr.) : "What profit is there in my
blood, when I go down to the pit ? Shall the dust praise
thee ? Shall it declare thy truth ? "

^ Used figuratively of those who are in Sheol and those who are dead
^ Cp. the Babylonian belief that in the realm of the dead no ranks
are recognized, see below, p. 81.

66 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

Ps. xlix. 17-19 (18-20 in Hebr.) : "For when he dieth
he shall carry nothmg away ; his glory shall not descend
after him. ... He shall go to the generation of his fathers ;
they shall never see the light."

Ps. Ixxxviii. 5 (6 in Hebr.) : "Cast off among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest
no more, and they are cut off from thy hand."

Ps. cxv. 17 : " The dead praise not Jah, nor they that
go down to silence."

Ezek. xxxii. 17-32 : this passage, a prophetic denuncia-
tion and of coming woe upon Egypt, is too long to quote
in full, but a few verses may be given : " The strong (lit.
gods) of the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of
Sheol with them that help him ; they are gone down, they
lie still, even the uncircumcised, slain by the sword"
(verse 21). Again: "And they shall not lie with the
mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcized [we should read
with the Septuagint: "And they shall not lie with the
mighty, the giants (i.e. Nephilim, see Gen. vi. 4) of old"],i
who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war ; and
they laid their swords under their heads, and their
iniquities [this is a text-corruption, we should read, " their
shields "] ^ are upon their bones " (verse 27). And once
more : " Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted
over all his multitude " (verse 31). There are other verses
in this chapter which are instructive, but those cited must

suffice.

It is clear that here again we have ideas about the dead

1 The present Hebrew text reads :

as emended on the base of the Septuagint we should read :

the emendation so far as the consonants are concerned is therefore sUght.
Cp. also Ezek. xxvi, 20, " Then will I bring thee down with them that
descend into the pit, to the people of old time."
^ Reading Dni3V instead of nn^:\U_.

THE REPHAIM 67

which are quite incompatible. In the passages from the
Psalms, as well as in that from Isaiah, the dead are thought
of as pitiable, and leading a silent aimless existence ; God
does not remember them, nor they Him ; and they are
therefore without hope for His truth and all that this
implies ; they cannot praise Him nor give thanks to Him ;
they are altogether profitless, for God has nothing to do
with them or with the place where they are. With this
contrast what is said about them in the Job and Ezekiel
passages ; the place where the dead are is a place of rest,
where the ordinary man is in the company of kings, who
retain their rank there ; there is no annoyance there ; those
who are prisoners are at ease ; though master and servant
are there, " the small and the great," there is no oppres-
sion. The dead are to be envied. From Job xxxviii. 17
it is evident that God knows all about the place where they
are, and therefore presumably about them too (see the
whole context of this passage). The Ezekiel passages are
very striking ; they represent the dead as recognizing new-
comers into their abode and as speaking to them ; so that
according to this view the dead are neither in darkness
nor yet silent. From verse 27 we gather that the prophet
recognizes a kind of aristocracy in the abode of the dead ;
and he describes how that in Sheol the mighty heroes of
old still have their swords and shields.

Now let us briefly examine two pre-exilic passages (others
will come before us later). In Isa. viii. 19 ^ the prophet,
though inveighing against the practice, testifies to the
existence of a prevalent custom which shows that the
dead were regarded as anything but powerless shades :
" On behalf of the living (should men seek) unto the dead ? "
This custom, and the belief which it implies, must have been
ancient, for centuries before these words were spoken we
have the episode recounted in 1 Sam. xxviii. In the
time of Saul, and owing to the activity of the prophet
1 On this see further below, p. 138.

68 BDIORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD
Samuel, the worship of Jahwe had grown so powerfully
that aU ahen cults had been vigorously fought, and to a
larc^e extent rooted out ; among these cults was that ot
the dead,^ who were consulted through the medium of those
who were beHeved to be speciaUy mitiated ^ : " And feaul
had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the
wizards, out of the land" (verse 3). But it shows how
ingrained the practice of consulting the dead must have
be^en when Saul himself, in an hour of dire necessity has
recourse to it. He is in great stress on account of his
people-s hereditary foes, the Philistines ; he therefore seeks
guidance and help from Jahwe, but in vain : - And when
Saul enquired of Jahwe, Jahwe answered him not, neither
by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets" (verse 6) ;
thereupon he tries the old method once more, and deter-
mines to consult a woman who had a familiar spirit and
who dwelt at Endor. " And Saul disguised himself, and
put on other raiment, and went, he and two men with
him and thev came to the woman by night ; and he said
Divine unto me. I pray thee, by the familiar spirit, and
brmcT me up whomsoever I shaU name unto thee ' (verse 8).
After some hesitation on the part of the woman, she says :
" Whom shaU I bring up unto thee ? And he said, Brmg
me up Samuel." The ritual of •■ bringmg up " is not
described, but the narrative goes on : " And when the
woman saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice; and the
woman spake to Saul, saying. Why hast thou deceived me ?
For thou art Saul" (verse 12) ; there is some difhculty
about this verse as it stands now in the Hebrew text, for
whv should the woman cry with a loud voice when she
beholds Samuel, seeing that she expected his appearance ?
H when Saul bade her bring up Samuel (verse 11) she had
suspected who the visitor was, there would have been
nothing surprising. We should probably read, "'And

1 See further below, pp. 112 £f.
« See further below, pp. 1-7 ff.

THE REPHAIM 69

when the woman saw (i.e. looked at) Smd " (in Hebrew the
names Samuel and Saul look very similar, and could quite
easily be interchanged by mistake), which is the rendering
of four Septuagint manuscripts; i.e. when Saul asked her
to bring up Samuel, the request induced her to look scrutin-
izingly at the stranger, for it was a bold thing to ask for
the man who had been the moving sj^irit in championing
the cause of Jahwe and abolishing the very practice with
which she was now occupied ; then on looking carefully at
this visitor she recognized Saul, and cried aloud in fear
lest she should be punished for being caught red-handed in
the forbidden practice. Saul, however, reassures her.
Then the narrative continues ; Saul says : " What seest
thou ? And the woman said unto Saul, I see a god (elohim)
coming up out of the earth. And he said unto her. What
form is he of ? And she said. An old man cometh up ;
and he is covered with a robe. And Saul perceived that
it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground,
and did obeisance. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast
thou disquieted me, to bring me up ? And Saul answered,
I am sore distressed . . . and God is departed from me, and
answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams ;
therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known
unto me what I shall do. And Samuel said. Wherefore
dost thou ask of me, seeing Jahwe is departed from thee
and is on the side of thy neighbour ? " (so the Septuagint,
the Hebrew text is corrupt ; by " thy neighbour " is meant
David). Samuel then announces Saul's impending ruin.

These two pre-exilic passages, then, present us with a
very vivid belief in the understanding and activity of the
dead on the part of the people of Israel ; and this will be
further illustrated when we deal with the subject of Necro-
mancy. ^ What these passages say about the departed
agrees with what is said on the same subject in some of the
passages given above, while disagreeing iii toto with others.

1 See pp. 124 ff.

70 II^IMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

We have, therefore, to recognize two diametrically opposed
sets of ideas regarding the dead : there were the primitive
popular ideas which had existed from time immemorial,
according to which the dead were of superior understanding
and power to mortals ; hence the custom of consulting
them whenever occasion arose. That they are spoken of as
" elohim," '"gods," raises further questions which are dealt
with below (see pp. 95 £E.). On the other hand, there
was the official belief regarding the dead ; this is repre-
sented in the other set of passages given above. According
to this the dead were to all intents and purposes non-
existent, at any rate in so far as dealings with them on the
part of the living were concerned ; they were thought of
as havmg no life in them in the ordmary sense of the word,
no parts nor passions, mere shadows of what they once
were, incapable of action of any kind. Now it is very neces-
sary to note that wherever this official view of the dead is
represented it is always in post-exilic passages, while in a
few cases pre-exilic passages have been emended or altered
in order to harmonize a little more with the later ideas.
The rise of this official point of view was due to the growth
of the worship of Jahwe. It must soon have become
apparent to the religious leaders in Israel that the popular
beliefs and practices in regard to the dead were incompatible
with the belief in, and worship of, Jahwe ; and the imperative
need not only of rooting out the former, but of putting
something else in their place presented itself forcibly. But
the success with which these efforts were attended was for
long very moderate ; this will be further illustrated when
we come to consider the subject of Necromancy ; and this
is why in the pre-exilic literature what may be termed the
reformed doctrine of the dead never occurs, excepting in
passages where it is evident that a redactor has been at
work. For in exilic and post-exilic times, when the people
were taken from their land, all intercourse (or supposed
intercourse) with the departed necessarily ceased, because

THE REPHAIM 71

for them to leave their own land would have been a thing
unheard-of. Then it was that the reformed doctrine really
came to its own, and hence the stress laid upon it in the
post-exilic literature. But how deep-seated were the
popular beliefs can be realized when we find them reflected
in such a passage as Ezekiel xxxii., and those from Job
quoted above.

The reformed doctrine concerning the Rephaim can be
illustrated in an interesting way by turning to Isa. xiv, 9, 10;
here the Rephaim are spoken of, and are represented as
saying to the king of Babylon on his entry into their abode :
" Art thou also become weak as we ? " ^ The root for " to
be weak " here is not the same as that from which the
Rephaim is usually supposed to come, which, however,
also means " to be slack," or " feeble," or " weak " ; hence
the meaning " the weak ones " usually given to the Rephaim;
and this accords with the reformed teaching regarding
the Rephaim. Therefore this Isaiah passage is often
quoted to support the contention that the word Rephaim
comes from the root nan (raphah), " to be weak." ^ But,
as we have seen from passages which reflect the ancient
and popular view about the Rephaim, there is nothing
"weak" about them; and, as we shall see in dealing with
Necromancy, the dead were regarded as possessing know-
ledge superior to that of mortals. If the word Rephaim
occurred only in post-exilic literature, and if it were never
used excepting in reference to the dead, its derivation as
given above could scarcely be challenged ; but we have
now to consider the word Rephaim in another connexion.

1 It shovild be noted that even in this post-exihc passage the " re-
formed " teaching as to the silence of the dead (Ps. cxv. 17) is contradicted.

2 Though even so, knowing as we do the predilection of the Hebrew
writers for word-plays, it is strange that in Isa. xiv. 10 the writer does
not use the word raphah for " to be weak " if he intended to imply that
Rephaim came from tliis root.

72 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

II. The Rephaim, the Name op an Ancient
Race of Giants

A very ancient race of giants, believed to have existed
in Palestine " of old," were known by the name of Rephaim.
They are referred to quite a number of times in the Old
Testament ; some of the passages are worth examining.
These giants are mentioned for the first time in Gen. xiv. 5,
where it is said that among those who were overcome by
Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him were
" the Rephaim in Ashtaroth-Karnaim " (cp. Gen. xv. 18-20);
in Josh. xii. 4 it is also said that they dwelt in Ashtaroth ;
they lived in the forest land, according to Josh. xvii. 15.
In the very early history of Israel they were looked upon
as a " remnant " ; Josh. xiii. 12 ff., though a late passage,
echoes an old tradition that in the time of Moses these
people were driven out of the land : " All the kingdom of
Og the king of Bashan, which reigned in Ashtaroth and
in Edrei (the same was left of the remnant of the Rephaim) ;
for these did Moses smite, and drave them out " (cp. Deut.
ii. 20) ; in Deut. iii. 11 also it is said : " For only Og the
king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim "
(cp. Deut. iii. 13). Another ancient notice is preserved in
Deut. ii. 10, 11 : " The Emim dwelt therein aforetime, a
people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim ; these
also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim ; but the
Moabites call them Emim." Once more, it is said in
Deut. ii. 20, 21 regarding the land of Amnion, " that also
is accounted a land of Rephaim ; Rephaim dwelt there
aforetime ; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim ; a
people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim."

It is worth noting, first of all, that of the twenty times
that the name Rephaim occurs it is written fourteen times
without the article, and six times with the article ; probably
men originally spoke only of " Rephaim," the addition of
the article having only arisen later when it was thought

THE REPHAIM 73

that once a race existed who were called " the Rephaim."
If this was so, then "Rephaim" was not a gentilic name.
Further, it will be seen that in comparing the various
passages in which the Anakim (or " sons of Anak"), Emim,
and Zamzummim ( = Zuzim) occur, these were all other
names for, or branches of, Rephaim ; the same is true of
Nephilim (see Gen. vi. 4, Num. xiii. 33, and cp. Ezek. xxxii. 27
quoted above) ; none of these are gentilic names. The
Nephilim were " mighty men of old " ; of the Emim nothing
is known, but there is some justification for Schwally's
contention that they were believed to be serpent spirits ^ ;
of the Zamzummim (Zuzim being probably a shortened
form) the same authority points out that it is an onomato-
poetic word connected with a Semitic root " to hiss," used
of " the hissing, whistling sound made by the Jinn of the
desert in the night. " ^ All these names, then, are enshrouded
in mystery, the only certain point about them being that
they are all to be included under " Rephaim." Now as
this word is exactly the same as that used for the departed,
it is not unnatural to ask if there is possibly any connexion
between them. One is led to this especially when one
remembers the diametrically opposed conceptions regard-
ing the departed (Rephaim) in the Old Testament, the older
passages representing them as being anything but " weak "
or as " shades." More than a century ago the theory was
put forward' that "Rephaim" referred to the giants (equiva-
lent to " the sons of the gods " and the Nephilim in Gen.
vi. 1-7) who were destroyed by God from the earth and cast
down into the underworld ^ ; then, in course of time, when

1 Zeitschrift fiir die alt. test. Wissenschaft, 1918, p. 135.

2 Ibid., p. 138.

3 Herder, Vom Geist der hebrdischen Poesie, i. 368.

* See further on this Enoch viii.-xvi. ; Jubilees v. ; Pirke de Rabbi
Eliezer xxii., cp. Wisdom xiv. 6 ; from these one gets a good idea of what
was believed in the ancient times of these giants being cast down into
the netherworld. In this connexion it is worth remembering that accord-
ing to the Babylonian conceptions regarding the imderworld it is ruled
by a lower order of gods ; see further on this below, p. 80.

74 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

this ancient myth had been gradually toned down, the name
of Rephaim was used as a general designation of all the de-
parted in the underworld. But the question still remains as
to why they received this name, the ordinary derivation of it
from the root meaning "to be weak " (rapkah) does not fit
in with the facts. It is conceivable that it comes from a
very similar root {raplui') which means " to heal." But
why should the departed (supposing there is any justifica-
tion for this derivation) be spoken of as " healers " ? The
subject will come before us again in dealing with that of
Necromancy ; here it must suffice to quote the words of
a high authority : "If one bears in mind the close ties
which united divination and therapeuty among the ancients,
and that men sought from the gods above all things the
revelation of the remedies required, one will not be dis-
inclined to regard the Rephaim as ' the healers ' par excel-
lence, an extension of the ^/^co? tarpon of Athens." ^ To
realize the significance of this theory one must take into
consideration the question of Ancestor- worship ; this subject
is dealt with in Chapters VIII., IX.

III. The Valley op Rephaim

Among the twenty references to Rephaim mentioned in
the preceding section, there are a certain number which
speak of " the valley of Rephaim" ; there are also some
others in which mention is made of parts of the country
supposed to have been inhabited by Rephaim. It is prob-
able that in some cases the information given is unreliable
on account of the belief of later times that Rephaim was a
gentilic name ; but it will be seen that in other cases there

1 Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions Semitiques, p. 273 j the thought
had struck the present writer before he came across tliis passage. One
is also reminded of the heahng waters which, according to Babylonian
belief, existed in the realms of the dead ; see below, p. 85.

THE REPHAIM 75

is considerable significance regarding the localities supposed
to have been inhabited by Rephaim. One set of passages
points to Bashan, together with the countries of Ammon
and Moab ; the two latter lie to the south of Bashan, all
three are on the east of the Jordan. Ammon and Moab
are mentioned only incidentally in connexion with Rephaim,
and are not of importance ; the fact that to the east of each
of them lies the desert may possibly be of significance.
But as to Bashan (or rather, parts of it) something must
be said, especially that portion of it which touches Ammon
and to the south-east of which lies the desert ; this is the
part of the country wherein, in all probability, Ashtaroth
and Edrei lay. In Deut. iii. 4 mention is made of " three-
score cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in
Bashan" (cp. 1 Kings iv. 13). Now, as to all this region
Driver says : " There are the remains of many ancient
towns and villages in these parts, especially in the Leya,
and on the sloping sides of the Jebel Hawan ; according
to Wetzstein, for example {Hawan, 42), there' are three
hundred such ancient sites on the E. and S. slopes of the
Jebel Hawan alone. The dwellings of these deserted
localities are of a remarkable character. Some are the
habitations of Troglodytes, being caverns hollowed out on
the mountain- side, and so arranged as to form separate
chambers ; these are found chiefly on the E. of the Jebel
Hawan. Others are subterranean abodes entered by
shafts invisible from above ; these are frequent on the
W. of the Zumleh range, and at Edrei the dwellings thus
constructed form quite an underground city." ^ It is not
difficult to picture the effect that these cave-dwellings
and underground abodes and their inhabitants must have
had upon the Israelite nomads when first seen ; and one
can understand that extraordinary stories would have
sprung up among an imaginative people who had from
time immemorial believed in the possibility of the dead

1 Encycl. Bihl. i. 496 f.

76 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

appearing from their abode " under the earth." What more
natural than that, these stories having become traditional,
later ages should have believed that these districts had in
times past been one among the spots in which the " giants
of old," the Rephaim, were wont to appear ? This would,
at all events, account for those Old Testament notices
which point to these parts as having been inhabited by
Rephaim in days gone by. ^

But there is another set of passages which speak of " the
valley of Rephaim " ; this can be accurately located from
the indications given. It lay immediately to the south-
west of Jerusalem, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem,
but much closer to the former. ^ Why was it called the
valley of Rephaim ? It may be taken for granted that all
places originally got their names for some reason ; and
though no reason has been preserved as to why this valley
was called the valley of Rephaim, common sense suggests
that it must have been on account of something connected
with Rephaim. In any case this word was applied either
to the giants of old or else to the departed ; whichever
may have come into consideration when the valley was
given this name, it is evident that men believed there was
something " uncanny" about it. Therefore it is significant
that the two outstanding things which we know of regarding
this valley are just the kind of things which would be

^ It is worth pointing out that Og, in whose kingdom these Rephaim
were beUeved to have existed, is connected with some strange old myths.
In the docim^ient known as the Oclasian Decree (fifth or sixth century a.d.)
" concerning books to be received and not to be received, one of the
latter which are mentioned is called " the Book of Og, the Giant who is
said by the heretics to have fought with a dragon after the Flood " (see
M. R. James, The Lost Apocryiiha of the Old Testament, in " Translations
of Early Documents," pp. xiii. 40, 41). Dr. James says : " It is a con-
stant Rabbinic story that he (i.e. Og) was one of the antediluvian giants,
and that he escaped the Flood by riding on the roof of Noah's ark, being
fed by Noah " . . . ; see further Eisenmenger's Entdecktcs Judenthiim, and
Baring Gould's Legends of Old Testament Characters.

2 Cp. Josephus, Antiq. VII iv. 1, xii. 4. See also 2 Sam. xxiii. 13, 14
(= 1 Chron. xi. 15, 16).

THE REPHAIM 77

described as " uncanny." First we have the narrative in
2 Sam. V. 17-25 ( = 1 Chron. xiv. 8-17), but more especially
verses 22-25 : " And the Philistines came up yet again,
and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And
when David enquired of Jahwe, he said, Thou shalt not
go up : make a circuit behind them, and come upon them
over against the mulberry trees [marg. balsam trees ; cp.
Ps. Ixxxiv. 6 (7 in Hebr.)]. And it shall be, when thou
hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry
trees : for then is Jahwe gone out before thee to smite the
host of the Philistines. ..." Here is a strange piece of
folklore. Jahwe is supposed to come into the trees, or
upon the tree- tops, so that David may receive a sign for
beginning his attack. Was this really believed of Jahwe ?
It is possible ; but we doubt it. It seems more likely that
the action was imputed to Jahwe in later times, incongruous
as it was, in order to tone down the heathen practice
which was originally referred to. The numberless in-
stances on record even at the present day of the belief
that spirits of the departed come into trees, and are there
ready to help (over and over again for the purpose of
healing) those by whom they are revered, suggests the
high probability that something of the same kind was
believed to have taken place on this occasion ; it would
have tallied with the valley's repute.

Next we have the passage Josh. xv. 8 : "... and the
border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the
side (or " shoulder") of the Jebusite southward (the same
is Jerusalem) : and the border went up to the top of the
mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward,
which is at the uttermost part of the valley of Rephaim "
(a similar notice occurs in xviii. 16). The description of
the position of the valley of Rephaim, therefore, agrees with
what is said in the other passages. The special point to
notice here is that the valley of the son of Hinnom is part
of the valley of Rephaim. Although there is diversity of

78 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

opinion among experts as to the exact position of the
valley of the son of Hinnom, this does not affect the present
inquiry, for all seem agreed that it formed part of, or the
extension of, the valley of Rephaim ; " whatever view is
taken of the position of the valley of Hinnom, all writers
concur in its extending to the junction of the three valleys
of Jerusalem below Siloam — i.e. there must be one spot
below Siloam which all agree in making a portion of the
valley of Hinnom" (Warren). ^ The evil repute of this
valley is referred to in Jer. vii. 31, 32 : " And they have
built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of
the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters
in the fire ! . . . Therefore, behold, the days come, saith
Jahwe, that it shall no more be called Topheth, ^ nor the
valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter ;
for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to
bury," cp. xix. 6 ; also xix. 12, 13 : "... and the houses
of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which
are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the
houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all
the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings
unto other gods." Different cults are referred to here ;
but among them, one may surmise, was the cult of the dead
(Rephaim) ; it is certain, from, e.g., Isa. Ivii. 6, that drink-
offerings were poured out to the dead (see further,
pp. 100-1 12). But the really significant point about the valley
of Hinnom from our present point of view is that it became
a symbol of the place of the wicked departed ; or perhaps
it would be more strictly true to say that the idea of
the valley of Hinnom was transferred to the next world.
The name of this place is more familiar in its abbreviated
Hebrew form, " Gehenna " {Ge, means " valley "). The
" ever- ascending smoke" from it was pointed to as its

1 Encyd. Bihl. ii. 2071.

2 An Aramaic word for " fire-place," see Robertson Smith's ilkmiinat-
ing and convincing note in The Religion of the Semites, p. 377 (2nd ed.).

THE REPHAIM 79

being the entrance to the place of torment beneath the
earth. '■

From the various data, then, that have been given we
beheve there is some justification for the contention that
at one time there was in the minds of the Israelites a direct
connexion between the Rephaim conceived of as " the
giants of old " and the Rephaim as used of the " shades "
of the departed ; and that the valley of Rephaim originally
received its name from the belief (the reasons for which
it is now no more possible to trace) that the souls of the
departed were in some way directly connected with it.

1 This is recorded, in the Babylonian Talmud (Eruhin 19o), as the
teaching of the disciples of Jochanan ben Zakkai {circa a.d. 75). See
further, Enoch Uv. 1-6, xc. 24-27.

CHAPTER VII

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED

In dealing with this subject, which is so closely connected
with the Rephaim, it is inevitable that there should be
some little repetition in the matter of references to passages
from the Old Testament ; but we think it is better to give
references and quotations, even at the risk of some repe-
tition, than to be constantly referring the reader back to
the preceding chapter. Before, however, coming to the
Old Testament belief in Sheol we shall briefly touch upon
the Babylonian conceptions concerning the underworld ;
these will, we believe, be found to be both interesting and
instructive.

I. Babylonian Conceptions concerning the
Underworld

The varied information that has been preserved in the
cuneiform inscriptions about what the Babylonians believed
regarding the place of the departed must belong to different
ages. This conviction is forced ui)on one on account of the
conflicting ideas and contradictory things that are told
us in these ancient documents about the underworld. '

The Babylonians believed in special gods of the under-
world; they were subordinate to the great gods of the
Babylonian Pantheon, but they were nevertheless gods.
The netherworld gods had their palace in the abode of the
dead. Foremost among the rulers of the underworld was

1 But see further, p. 85.
80

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 81

the goddess Erishkigal, " the mistress of the great place " ;
she is also known as Allatu, " the mighty one " ; together
with her is her husband, Dergal, called " Lord of the great
land " ; their wedding is referred to on the Tel-el- Amarna
tablets.^ The Sumerians, who lived in the country of the
Babylonians before these latter drove them out, also had
their ideas about the place of the departed ; and the Baby-
lonians evidently got from them some of these ideas. The
Sumerians called the place of the departed Kurnugea,
which means " the land without return," and this name
figures in Babylonian poetry.* Thus, in the account of
Ishtar's descent into the realm of the departed this place
is spoken of as " the abode which whosoever enters never
leaves again ; the path from which there is no return."
While this place is sometimes conceived of as a great hollow
mountain,' it is more usually thought of as an immense
city which could not be measured for size ; the way to it
was across the ocean westward, towards the sinking sun, for
it was situated beyond the waters that are beneath the
earth. This great city of the dead is described as being
enclosed by seven walls, and there are seven gates with
ponderous bolts ; and when a new-comer has entered one
of these gates the guardian who keeps watch by it closes
it again and makes it secure with bolts and bars. It was,
according to the Babylonians, " a house of darkness," and
they who lived there were shut out from the light. No
ranks were recognized in that underworld ; there all men
were equal. And in that place of darkness dust covers all
things ; dust is upon bolt and bar, and dust covers the
shades of men as they silently glide along the dust-laden
streets of the city. The food of these weird inhabitants is
dust, and black, murky water is their drink. In that place

^ Jeremias, Holle und Paradiea beiden Babyloniern, in " Der alte Orient,"
i. pp. 16, 17. See also, by the same author, Das alte Testament im Lichte
des alten Orients, pp. 10, 46.

^ Jeremias, Holle . . ., p. 14.

^ Jastrow, Die Religion . . , i. 157.

82 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

there is neither love nor hate ; only sorrow and wailing ;
monotonous moaning echoes along those streets of dust ;
that is the only sound in the surrounding silence, the only
occupation of the dusty shades of men.^ The following
from " The Descent of Ishtar " gives a graphic picture :

" Ishtar, the moon- god's daughter,
Bethought her of the Land without return, the land [. . .],
The daughter of the moon-god bethought her
Of the house of darkness, the abode of Irkalla (i.e. Nergal),
Of the house which whosoever enters never leaves again.
Of the path from which there is no return.
Of the house which whosoever enters is taken from the hght,
Of the place where dust is their food and earth their nutriment,
Wliere they behold no light, but dwell in darkness.
Where they are clad like birds in garments of wings,
Wliere dust is spread on door and bolt." *

But there is another side to the Babylonian conception
of the abode of the dead which is quite incompatible with
those just spoken of ; these also demand a little notice.
In spite of the repeated emphasis laid on the fact that
the dead enter a land from which there is no return, there
are clear indications of a belief in the possibility of leaving
it. Whether such indications are the expression of later
and developed thought or not does not greatly matter,
since in any case they date from a time prior to the seventh
century B.C. The belief in the possibility of being able to
" bring up " the spirits of the dead from the underworld,
as the witch of Endor brought up Samuel, is a clear indica-
tion of the belief that the shades of the departed were not
necessarily nor inexorably always confined to their abode.'
Further, this possibility is also indicated in the Epic of
Gilgamesh, where we read of Ishtar entering the realm of
the dead to seek the water which shall heal her lover. Else-
where in the same poem Ishtar threatens to destroy the

* Cp. Delitzsch, Das Land ohne Heimkehr, pp. 14 8.

* Jeremias, HoUe . . ., p. 15. Jastrow, op. cit., ii. 958.
3 See further the chapter on Necromancy, pp. 124 ff.

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 83

entire city of the dead, and to bring up all the dead on to
the earth again to associate with the living once more.
Such conceptions, however quaint, and even if they were
metaphorically employed (which may be doubted) or
poetically, contain the idea that the realm of the dead
was not necessarily a land without return, although absence
might only be temporary. But there was more than this
in the Babylonian belief about the Hereafter. " Diogenes
Laertes appears to have reported rightly when he credits
the Chaldsean schools of philosophy (better, schools of the
priests) with a belief not only in immortality, but also with
a certain kind of belief in resurrection. The Babylonian
Noah, after having described the inevitability of death,
speaks of the ' god of Fate,' to whom alone it has been
granted to shield men from death " ^ ; for it is said in the
" Descent of Ishtar," already referred to, that there is,
under the " eternal palace" (the holy of holies of the under-
world) a spring containing the water of life ; this is guarded
by the demons of the underworld, called the Anunaki. This
water can be obtained only by means of pronouncing a
magic word known only to the god Ea. Here we have,
though in a naive and quaint form, the idea expressed of
the possibility of rising from the underworld. Further,
we have in the annual Tammuz Festival also both the idea
of liberation from the realm of the dead as well as that
of resurrection. " If scholars are right in deriving the
name of Tammuz from a Sumerian phrase meaning ' true
son,' or, more fully, ' true son of the deep water,'- we must
conclude that the Semites of Babylon took over the worship
from their predecessors the Sumerians. ... Be that as it may,
we first meet with Tammuz in the religious literature of
Babylon. He there appears as the youthful spouse or lover
of Ishtar, the great mother goddess, the embodiment of

^ Jeremias, Holle . . ., p. 22.

* Jensen, Asayrisch-hahylonische My then und Epen, p. 560 ; Zimmern
in Schrader's Die Keilinschriften und daa alte Testament (3rd ed.), p. 397.

84 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

the reproductive energies of nature. The references to
their connexion with each other in myth and ritual are
both fragmentary and obscure, but we gather from them
that every year Tammuz was believed to die, passing away
from the cheerful earth to the gloomy subterranean world,
and that every year his divine mistress journeyed in quest
of him ' to the land from which there is no returning, to the
house of darkness, where dust lies on door and bolt.' During
her absence the passion of love ceased to operate : men and
beasts alike forgot to reproduce their kinds ; all life was
threatened with extinction. So intimately bound up with
the goddess were the sexual functions of the whole animal
kingdom that without her presence they could not be dis-
charged. A messenger of the great god Ea was accordingly
dispatched to rescue the goddess on whom so much depended.
The stern queen of the infernal regions, AUatu or Eresh-
kigal by name, reluctantly allowed Ishtar to be sprinkled
with the Water of Life and to depart, in company probably
with her lover Tammuz, that the two might return together
to the upper world, and that with their return all nature
might revive. Laments for the departed Tammuz are
contained in several Babylonian hymns, which liken him
to plants that quickly fade. His death appears to have
been annually mourned, ^ to the shrill music of flutes, by
men and women about midsummer in the month named
after him, the month of Tammuz. The dirges were seem-
ingly chanted over an effigy of the dead god, which was
washed with pure water, anointed with oil, and clad in a
red robe, while the fumes of incense rose into the air, as if
to stir his dormant senses by their pungent fragrance and
wake him from the sleep of death." ^

Although this myth, which, however, to the Babylonians
meant a living reality, concerned the gods, one sees from

^ See Ezek. viii. 14, and cp. Isa. xvii. 10, 11, Ixv. 3.
2 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, pp. 6, 7 ; see also The Scapegoat,
p. 398 ; both volumes belong to The Golden Bough.

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 85

it that there existed the belief in the possibility of release
from the realm of the dead, provided the right remedy, the
Water of Life, could be procured ; the myth also contains
the germs, at least, of a belief in resurrection.

One other point in Babylonian belief must be referred to.
The term " awakeners from the dead" is one applied to
quite a number of Babylonian deities. Originally this
" awakening " had reference to the " resurrection " of
nature, but the conception is also at times distinctly applied
to man. Of the sun-god Shamash it is said : " It is in thy
power to make the dead alive, and to release those who
are bound" ; the god Nebo is praised as being one " who
can lengthen the days of life, and who can awaken the
dead." Of Marduk it is said that he is " the merciful one,
who loves to awaken the dead " ; he is also called " the
awakener of the dead." Similar power is ascribed to his
spouse, Gula ; she is called " the Mistress, the awakener
of the dead." '■

Babylonian conceptions regarding the realm of the dead
were thus varied and contradictory ; probably this is to be
accounted for because of the illogical train of thought which
on this subject is to be found among so many ancient
peoples ; in part it is also due, no doubt, to the amalgama-
tion of conceptions belonging to different ages ; even when
a development of thought has taken place the old ideas
are often impossible to eradicate. Upon the whole, Baby-
lonian belief regarding the realm of the dead is gloomy
and hopeless ; but a brighter conception sometimes emerges,
and the hope of better things is contemplated.

A word may here be added regarding the beliefs of the
ancient Arabs about the departed and their condition.
Very little, it is true, is known of these beliefs, because
Mohammedanism has almost entirely obliterated them ; but
some remnants are left which show that at one time the
Arabs did not differ from the rest of the Semites in holding

^ Jeremias, Holle . . ., pp. 22 f.

86 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

very definite conceptions about the departed. The cry
which is uttered at graves, " Be not far off," though officially
declared to be useless, must be the echo of some real expres-
sion of belief which at one time obtained, especially as it
is known that the Arabs have all manner of ways of keeping
up, as they believe, relationships with the departed. They
furnish the dead with everything which he may require
for his journey into the unknown land, they greet him
when they visit his tomb, and even swear by his life. They
believe that the departed, therefore, are alive, and that
they have needs of various kinds ; water is believed to be
one of their special needs, hence the custom of pouring water
on graves. 1 It is believed that the spirits of the departed
appear in the form of birds, especially owls, and that in
this form they come to their graves and pour forth lamen-
tations. They are also believed to inhabit cemeteries and
desolate districts in the capacity of Jinn. The belief is
vague and undefined, but the conviction is there that the
departed are living in some form or another.

II. The Old Testament Conceptions of Sheol

As the Babylonians had their underworld, the Greeks
their Hades, the Romans their Orcus, so too the Hebrews
had their Sheol. The meaning of this word is still a matter
of dispute among scholars. Some hold that it comes
from the root meaning " to ask " ("^i^t:'), and that the word
means " the place of inquiry, or scrutiny" ; in support of
this the story of the witch of Endor can be pointed to,
for Saul comes to ask of Samuel, the inhabitant of Sheol,
the information he desires. Assyrian scholars point out
also that this is the meaning of the Assyrian equivalent
to the Hebrew Sheol, viz. " the place where oracles are

1 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 185.

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 87

obtained" (Jastrow).^ Then the numerous references in
the Old Testament to the practice of having recourse to the
dead for help and guidance seem to support this theory.
Moreover, in the later Egyptian belief it is taught that
the soul of the dead man, after having gone through various
vicissitudes, at last reaches the judgement-hall of Osiris,
where he undergoes an examination concerning his life
while on earth, and where finally his heart is weighed in the
balance of the goddess of justice. But this theory of the
meaning of Sheol is too complex to have been primitive ;
it is quite possible that as representing a development of
ideas it has a good deal to commend it. The ancient
Israelite belief was, however, we imagine, of a much simpler
character ; there was, moreover, no differentiation until
a much later — post-biblical — time between the good and
the evil in the Hereafter, such as is contemplated in Egyptian
belief. A more widely accepted theory is that the word
Sheol comes from the root meaning "to be hollow," Sheol
being conceived of as a great hollow place deep down under
the earth ; one recalls the Babylonian idea of the under-
world as being a huge hollow mountain. This idea is a
simple one, and it is that which commends it, for one
expects simple ideas among a comparatively uncultured
people such as the ancient Hebrews were.

As we have seen, Sheol was pictured a« being situated
under the earth. The earth itself being the abode of living
men, the skies being the abode of the gods, as the stars
showed (according to primitive ideas), there was no alter-
native other than that of conceiving the realm of the de-
parted to be under the earth ; or, more strictly, under the
waters that are under the earth ; hence also the idea of the
Babylonians that the journey to the underworld led by the
way of the ocean ; and this is implied when in Job xxvi. 6

^ In The American Journal of Semitic Languages, xiv. 170; but other
Assyrian scholars deny that such an Assyrian equivalent exists so far as
is known.

88 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

it is said : " The Rephaim tremble beneath the waters
and the inhabitants thereof." Then, again, it is taught
that Sheol is a place from which there is no return : "As
the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth
down to Sheol shall come up no more ; he shall return
no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any
more " (Job vii. 9, 10, cp. x. 21). ^ We have seen that the
Babylonians called the realm of the departed the " land
without return." Further, the Babylonian conception of
it as a great city with gates and bars is graphically illus-
trated in the Old Testament, where a similar conception
is found ; thus, in the Psalm of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii, 10)
the king says : "In the noontide of my days I shall go
into the gates of Sheol," and in Ps. ix. 13 (14 in Hebr.),
where Death is used as a synonym for Sheol, it is said :
" Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death," cp.
Ps. cvii. 18, Job xxxviii. 17. Its "bars" are spoken of
in Job xvii. 16, where Job says of his hope : "It shall go
down to the bars of Sheol." This idea of Sheol being a
city would have arisen very naturally, since it was in the
cities that people were gathered together ; and that Sheol
was conceived of as a place in which crowds assembled
comes out clearly in Job xxx. 23 : " For I know that thou
wilt bring me to death, to the house of assembly of all
living," cp. Job xvii. 13. We recall in this connexion the
expressions " gathered into his fathers," " sleeping with
his fathers," " gathered into his people." The idea of the
realm of the dead being a city points to Babylon as its
place of origin ; for this idea was certainly held in Baby-
lonia while the Israelites were still nomads. On the other
hand, we get the idea of crowds in Sheol presented by a
picture which would suit an agricultural people in Ps. xlix. 14
(15 in Hebr.), conceivably an echo from ancient times :
" As a flock they are put in Sheol ; Death shall be their

1 Cp. 2 Sam. xii. 23. "... Can I bring him back again? I shall go
to him, but he shall not return to me."

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 89

shepherd, they shall go down to the grave with the upright." ^
A different idea is expressed by the words " the snares of
death " or " the snares of Sheol " ; the Revised Version
renders more literally and more correctly, " the cords,"
the idea being that Sheol has the power of dragging men
down (Ps. xviii. 4, 5 [5, 6 in Hebr.]). Again, the Babylonian
description of everything being covered with dust in the
realms of the dead seems to have its counterpart m the
Hebrew conception, for in Ps. xxii. 15 (16 in Hebr.) it says :
" Thou hast brought me into the dust of death," and
Ps. XXX. 9 (10 in Hebr.): "What profit is there in my
blood, when I go down to the pit ? Shall the dust praise
Thee ? shall it declare Thy truth ? " We are reminded of
the words : " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return " (Gen. iii. 19). Further, Sheol is a place of dark-
ness ; in, e.g., Job x. 22 it is called " the land of darkness,"
and in Ps. cxliii. 3 the psalmist's enemy is spoken of as
one who " hath made me dwell in dark places, as those
that have been long dead," and in Ps. xlix. 19 (20 in Hebr.)
it is said : " He shall go to the generation of his fathers,
they shall never see the light " ; cp. the expression " the
valley of the shadow of death" (Ps. xxiii. 4). Sheol is
also a place of silence : " the dead praise not thee, Jahwe ;
neither they that go down into silence" (Ps. cxv. 17);
" Unless Jahwe had been my help, my soul had soon dwelt
in silence" (Ps. xciv. 17, cp. Isa. xlvii. 5), and Ps. xxxi. 17
(18 in Hebr.) : " Let the wicked be ashamed, let them be
silent in Sheol." It is also the land of forgetting : " Shall
Thy wonders be known in the dark ? And thy righteous-

^ The Hebrew text of the last sentence is corrupt, it reads : -m.*!
1p37 Dnt^."' D3. " And the upright shall have dominion over them in
the morning " ; these words give no sense imless a strained and unnatural
interpretation is put upon them ; it is better to amend the text thus : -ITI^
n5[57 Dny'^M, "they shall go down to the grave with the upright";
this involves no change in the consonants and agrees better with the
context. All, good and bad, go down to Sheol, but the righteous shall
be redeemed from it (see the next verse).

90 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

ness in the land of forgetfulness ? " (Ps. Ixxxviii. 12 [13 in
Hebr.]).i

Sometimes we find Sheol personified, thus in Isa. v. 14
it is depicted as an all- devouring monster : " Therefore
Sheol hath enlarged her desire, and opened her mouth
without measure ; and their glory, and their multitude,
and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend
into it " ^ ; and in Ps. cxli, 7 it says, " Our bones are scattered
at the mouth of Sheol." Again, in Isa. xxviii. 18 Sheol is
personified in the words : " And your covenant with
Death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with Sheol
shall not stand."

Sheol is the ordinary word used in the Old Testament
for the abode of the departed ; but there are three other
words, found only in late passages, which are sometimes
used for this ; as they express some of the latest ideas about
the underworld before the development of belief began,'
a word or two on them will be useful. In Isa. xiv. 15 occur
the words : " Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol,
to the uttermost parts of the Pit (Bor) " ; in Ps. Ixxxviii. 4
(5 in Hebr.), " I am counted with them that go down into
the Pit" ; so, too, in Ps. xxviii. 1, xxx. 3 (4 in Hebr.),
cxliii. 7, etc., where it is also used synonymously with Sheol.
In Isa. xiv. 19 the curious expression occurs of going down
to " the stones of the Pit " ; the thought is evidently that
of the walls surrounding the city of the dead (cp. the Baby-
lonian idea of the seven walls encircling the realm of
the dead). Although this word is generally used as parallel
with Sheol, it is possible that in the minds of the writers
there existed the idea of its being a special spot in Sheol

1 Cp. " The river of oblivion," Lethe, the river of Hades, out of which
the souls of the departed drink and forget all about their life on earth,
according to ancient Greek belief.

2 Cp. Prov. XX. 27, "Sheol and Abadddn are never satisfied"; see
also Prov. i. II and Hab. ii. 5. In Prov. xxx. 15, 16 it is said : " There
are three beings that are never satisfied, yea, four that say not, Enough :
Sheol ..."

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 91

reserved for the worst enemies of Jahwe ; this is the im-
pression gained especially from such passages as Ezek.
xxxii. 23, 25, 28-30. If this is so, then we are perhaps
justified in seeing the beginnings of the idea of some differ-
entiation between the dwellers in Sheol ; the conception
of a difference of condition there in accordance with what
men's life on earth had been. It is at the most only a very
slight adumbration of what was to come ; but seeing that
the word occurs only in comparatively late passages, there
may be something in this idea.

Then there is the word Shachath, which means " corrup-
tion " or " destruction " ; it is used of the underworld in
Isa. xxxviii. 17 : " For thou hast kept my soul back from
the corruption of non-existence" ' ; again in Isa. li. 14 we
read, "... and he shall not die (going down) to corruption,"
cp. li. 14. A very instructive passage is Job xvii. 13-16,
which is worth quoting in full as it so well illustrates the
use and connotation of the word : " If I look for Sheol
as mine house ; if I have spread my couch in the darkness ;
if I have said to corruption (Shachath),^ thou art my father ;
to the worm, thou art my mother, and my sister ; where
then is my hope ? And as for my hope, who shall see
it ? It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, where once
there is rest in dust." In this passage the full significance
of the term is clearly brought out ; it has reference to the
decay of the body in the grave, but is used as a parallel
to Sheol ; nothing could more graphically describe the
hopeless condition in Sheol. The word occurs also in the
passage, already quoted, Ps. xxx. 9 (10 in Hebr.) : "What
profit is there in my blood when I go down to corruption ?
Shall the dust praise Thee ? shall it declare Thy truth ? "

^ This is a difficult sentence to translate ; the rendering above is
literal ; and it is based upon an emendation of the Hebrew text, reading
ri?*L:'n " thou hast kept back," for Flpyn " thou hast loved." The Revised
Version translates Shachath by " pit " ; but this is apt to cause con-
fusion to readers of the English text only.

* Here the Revised Version renders the word properly, the only time !

92 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

Were it not for its parallelism with " the dust," which is
often synonymous with Sheol, one might say that Shachath
referred to the grave only. In Ezek. xxviii. 8 it is said of
Tyre : " They shall bring thee down to corruption ; and
thou shalt die the death of them that are slain, in the heart
of the seas" ; and lastly, in Jon. ii. 6 (7 in Hebr.) we
have a case where the word is obviously meant for Sheol
and nothing else : "I went down to the bottoms of the
mountains ; the earth with her bars closed upon me for
ever; yet Thou hast brought up my life from corruption
{Shachath), Jahwe my God." These include all the passages
in which Shachath is used of the underworld. It is clear
that its use emphasizes the belief that Sheol is the end
of all things for man.

Finally, we have the word Abaddon, from the root meaning
" to perish," which further illustrates what was said about
Shachath. It occurs only four times in the Old Testament ;
in Job xxvi. 6 it is used as a parallel to Sheol : " Sheol is
naked before him, and Abaddon hath no covering " ; so,
too, in Prov. xv. 11. It is personified in Job xxviii. 22 :
" Abaddon and Death say . . ." ^ ; it occurs as a parallel
to the grave in Ps. Ixxxviii. 11 (12 in Hebr.) : "Shall Thy
lovingkindness be declared in the grave ? Or Thy faith-
fulness in Abaddon ? " These three words, then, which
occur only in comparatively late passages, point to the
high- water mark of the " oflSicial " conception regarding
the abode of the departed reached before the development
of doctrine began.

III. Sheol and the Rephaim

It will thus be seen that the teaching on Sheol in the
Old Testament is clear and consistent. If it could be

1 The Revised Version renders the word inconsistently ; in Job xxvi. 6,
Prov. XV. 11, by " Abaddon," but in Job xxviii. 22, Ps. Ixxxviii. 11, as
" Destruction," and vice versa in the margin.

SHEOL, THE PLACE OF THE DEPARTED 93

separated from much that is said about those who dwell
in Sheol the whole subject would be fairly simple ; but it
is impossible to do this. We have seen that much that is
said about the Rephaim cannot be reconciled with the
doctrine of Sheol ; and we shall see that this irreconcila-
bility is emphasized by the conviction that the departed
could be resorted to for help and counsel (see the chapter
on Necromancy) ; we shall also see that there were some
mourning customs which run entirely counter to the normal
Sheol belief (see the chapter on Mourning Customs). We
are thus led again to the conclusion, already formed with
regard to the Rephaim, that the ancient Sheol-belief under-
went much modification in the interests of Jah we- worship.
It was necessary to try to convince the people that there
was nothing to hope for from the phantoms of men who
went down to Sheol, for it was a land from which there
was no return ; having once entered it there was no possi-
bility of emerging from it ; they who were there were
incapable of further action ; there was an entire end to
them so far as the living were concerned. The thorough-
going way in which this point of view was inculcated
has been illustrated.

When we compare the Babylonian beliefs of the under-
world and its inhabitants with those of the Old Testament
one or two interesting facts present themselves. The
extraordinary similarity in many particulars suggests the
likelihood of one system borrowing from the other ; and
as the highly cultured Babylonians were scarcely likely to
have borrowed from an insignificant and despised little
nation such as the Hebrews must have appeared to them,
we must suppose that the borrowing was the other way
round ; and this is the more likely to have been the case
in that we know the Israelites to have been much influenced
by the Babylonians in other respects.

Further, there is another interesting fact to consider.
We have- just seen (and the point is to be further illus-

94 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

trated) that the Old Testament doctrine of Sheol does not
fit in with much that we read there about the departed.
That is precisely the case (see § I of this chapter) with the
Babylonian teaching about the realm of the dead when
compared with much that we read of the dead themselves
(this, too, will be further iUustrated later on). We know
the reason of this so far as the Israehtes were concerned ;
may there not have been a cause in some sense analogous
to this among the Babylonians ? We are unable to say so
definitely ; but it is possible.

Then one last fact which is also one of interest. Taking
the Babylonian doctrine of the departed and the abode of
the dead as a whole, there seem to be, from the data we have
gathered, three stages : there is the ancient belief repre-
sented by the story of " The Descent of Ishtar," according
to which the distinct possibUity is recognized of those
who enter the realm of the dead being able to emerge from
it ; this will be more fully iUustrated when we deal with
necromancy among the Babylonians. This would corre-
spond with the popular belief of the Israelites which had
existed from time immemorial. Then there is the stage in
which the realm of the dead is described as " the land with-
out return," dark, silent, and dusty ; and this corresponds
with the normal Sheol doctrine of the Israelites. Among
both peoples there is an overlapping of these stages, result-
ing in the incompatibilities referred to above. Finally,
there is a third stage in which there are distinct adumbra-
tions of a resurrection doctrine, represented by the idea
of " awakeners from the dead " ; this is clearly a develop-
ment. The Old Testament presents us with a similar
development of doctrine, as we shall see in Chapter XIII.

THE LIVING AND THE DEPARTED

CHAPTER VIII

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP AND THE CULT OF
THE DEAD (T) i

It is impossible, when dealing with the subject of Immor-
tality m the Old Testament, to avoid some consideration
of the strange old-world custom of worshipping the departed.

I. The Origin op Ancestor-worship
How Ancestor- worship and the cult of the dead originally
arose is a difficult question, and authorities differ in their
views on the subject. The materials for its study are
abundant ; but the interpretation of the data is a different
matter. Of one thing there can be no doubt. Ancestor-
worship was a development ; what it developed from is
agam a question upon which opinions differ ; but Jevons
makes out a convincing case for his contention that the
natural demonstrations of grief at the death of a relative
were the original basis upon which, in the course of ages
the superstructure of Ancestor- worship and the cult of
the dead was raised. The simplicity of this theory, remem-
bering that we have to do with primitive man, strongly
commends it. Having described the outbursts of sorrow
amongst savages on the occasion of a death, Jevons says
that while such " spontaneous demonstrations of affection,

shoJdIbe'trr ''^ ^««^°«^^"«y ^"d Mourning and Burial Customs
snoiUd be read in connexion with tliis subject.

96 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

grief and desire for reunion with the departed do not
amount to worship," ^ it is possible to trace from them
the process by which they developed into Ancestor-worship.
" The first condition of any such development," he mam-
tains, " is that the demonstrations, at first spontaneous,
should become conventional and harden into custom. . . .
When then, it has become the tribal custom for relatives
to perform certain acts, on the occasion of a death, which
were originally spontaneous and now are the conventional
expressions of grief, it becomes possible for fear to operate,
in support of this as of other tribal customs, though it was

not in fear that either it or they originated When this

demonstration of grief and of affection has become conven-
tional, the neglect of it inevitably comes to be regarded
as a want of respect to the deceased, and the performance
of it is regarded no longer as a crude attempt to give fresh
life to the deceased, but as something done to please him.
Proceeding then to discuss the significance of offerings of
food hair, and blood,^ he points out that these " are elements
both of the rites for the dead and of the worship of the gods.
But they do not together constitute Ancestor- worship :
they are its elements-as yet, however, held in suspension
and waiting for something to precipitate them. In other
words, worship in any proper sense of the word imphes
worshippers, united either by the natural bond of blood
or by the artificial bond of initiation. In the case ot
Ancestor-worship, the body of worshippers is supplied by
the family and united by the natural bond of blood. . .
When Ancestor-worship is established as a private cult,
it like other private cults, is steadily assimilated in form,
in its rites and ceremonies, to the public worship of the
gods The animals which provided the food that the
deceased originally was supposed to consume are now
sacrificed according to the ritual observed in sacrificmg

1 Introduction to the History of Religion (3rd ed.), p. 189.

2 On these see below, pp. 149 ff.

ANCESTOR- WORSHIP 97

animals to the gods. . . . When the assimilation of the rites
tor the dead to the ritual of the gods has proceeded thus far
It naturally happens that in many cases some superhuman
powers are ascribed to the spirits of the dead. But it never
happens that the spirits of the dead are conceived to be

gods To speak of the gods as ' deified ancestors,' is to

use an expression which covers some ambiguity of thought
n what IS implied is that in a community possessing the
conception of divine personality, certain ancestors are
by some unexplained process, raised to the rank of gods'
the statement may be true, but it does not prove thai the
gods, to whose rank the spirit is promoted, were them-
selves originally ghosts-which is the very thing that it
IS intended to prove. What then are these gods ? Either
they are believed to be the ancestors of some of their wor-
shippers, or they are not. If they are believed to be the
ancestors of their worshippers, then they are not believed
to have been human ' : the worshipper's pride is that his
ancestor was a god and no mere mortal. If on the

other hand, a god is not believed to be the ancestor of
any of his worshippers, then to assert that he was reaUy
a deified ancestor' is to make a statement for which
there is no evidence. ... The fact is that ancestors known to
have been human were not worshipped as gods, and that
ancestors worshipped as gods were believed not to have
been human. This last remark leads us to a generalization
which, though obvious, is important : it is that wherever
Ancestor-worship exists, it exists side by side with the public
worship of the gods of the community. The two systems
develop on lines which are parallel, indeed, and therefore
never meet ; whereas, if they had moved on the same line
of development, one would have absorbed the other " ^

The whole of Jevons' argument, of which we have ex-
tracted the salient features, is illuminating, and explains
many things in regard to our subject which would other-

^ But see Tylor's words on p. 99, below. 2 Op. cit., pp. 190-198.

98 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

wise be puzzling. Among the Israelites, judging from the
rmbeoMireot'andindirectreferenoesintheOldTestament

Ancestor-worship and the Cult of the Dead must at one
«me h:ve been widely prevalent. Considering the polennc
against them in the interests of Jahwe-worship, cons.dermg
Xo the fact that the books of the Old Testament were
finaUy redacted by men who would have beer> mterested
in removing aU traces of cults other than that of Jahwe-
worship from its pages, it is surprismg that we find
as much reference to the sub ect there as is actually the
case It is true that most of these references are
contained in prohibitions, which doubtless accounts for
their having been permitted to remam there ; but it
is just these very prohibitions which testify to the
prevalence of the beliefs and rites connected with Ancestor-
worship and the Cult of the Dead. Nothing, however, coidd
Ulustrate more pointedly the belief in Immortality than
this conviction that men were able ^/"'""^Thr there
communicate with their departed re atives^ ^"'^^ *„!?
was endless superstition and crass folly, and a'so doubt-
less some chicanery about it all, must -* ^Imd us to
the reality of the belief, however mistaken. And when aU
is said and done, it is only right to remember that it con-
tained one element, at all events, which later ages recognized
as true, namely that the departed were living m a r a^
sense and were not the lifeless shades of Sheo which
for centuries the religious teachers t^"glf .f^^.,*^/^'".
But before coming to the Old Testament it wdl be well
to say a brief word again about Babylonian belief and
custom on the subject, since, as is well k-wn Israelite
belief can in many ways be illustrated by the old culture
of the lands that lay to the east.

II. Ancestoe-woeship among the Babylonians
In speaking of Ancestor-worship Tylor says that it is
" one of the great branches of the religion of mankind.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 99

Its principles," he continues, "are not difficult to under-
stand, for they plainly keep up the social relations of the
.vmg world. The dead ancestor, now passed into a deity
.mply goes on protecting his own family and receiving
su and service from them as of old; the dead chief
Bt,ll watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority

tuZ' rl' ''°' 'r '"8 "'"^'""'^' ^«" rewards the
right and sharply punishes the wrong." ■ The earliest
records m existence, so far as is known' in which d^fin e
reference is made to Ancestor-worship among the anc.ent
Babylomans, witness to a stage of culture in advance 0
that presupposed by Tylor in this quotation; but hey
nevertheless, bear out what he says. E..amples 0 tw
Babylonian rulers being deified and worshipped are Zfe
of Sargon I and Gudea. They lived about 's'oo B.e and
m later days were regarded as great heroes of the past to
whom divine honours were paid ; the same is true of Dungi I
who lived still earlier. On tablets in which their nZes
occur the determinative that is placed before the name
of gods IS put m front of their names. Festivals were ode
brated in their honour, and sacrifices were offered to hem
statues of them were placed in temples, where they Ce
worshipped. In paying honour to deified kings aniolh

but nr'T*"',*'' """' ^""^ "''^^^ descendLts would
but naturally and m accordance with an established rule
take the lead, and the people generally would share in the
celebrations; so that we have here instances, first of
Ancestor-worship m the strict sense of the word, and secondlv
in Its wider, if looser, signification as homag; paid to fhe
departed kings and fathers of the people." > !n ea Ue ais
we may be certain from the analogy of many other pe'pfe;'.

Primitive Culture, ii, 113 ^ r ,

u. sintot f S- lif"^''" ""' '"""■ '■ "« ^ ^-'-. op. a,., i.

Hastings. B,.,,l. ofJaJZL^'^lZ " "" "''"' "•'"«•

100 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that the same thing was done in the case of tribal chiefs before
dynasties became established. Further, " an ancient Baby-
lonian bronze tablet, which represents a funeral scene . . .
exhibits the dead person lying on a bier, attended by priests
in fish-like garments, with a stand for burning incense not
far from the head of the bier. In much later times we
have the case of King Asshurbanipal [he reigned 668-626 B.C. ]
appearing at the tombs of his ancestors with rent garments,
pouring out a libation in memory of the dead, and address-
ing a prayer to them. ..." The offering of libations appears,
among the Babylonians and Assyrians, to have been one
of the most important rites in connexion with the cult of
the dead ; this was primarily the duty of the son of the
departed, who offered them regularly on the anniversary
of the death of his father. This day was known as " the
day of the festival of the dead," " the day of humiliation,"
" the day of wailing," " the day of mourning " ; all these
occur. There was a special priest, known as " the pourer-
out of water," who performed this rite. On the inscription
of Asshurbanipal, just referred to, it is said : " During
the mourning ceremony of offering libations for the spirits
of my royal ancestors, I put on mourning garments, and
accomplished an act of benevolence to God and men, to
the dead and to the living." Then there follows a prayer
offered to his ancestors by the side of their tombs. The
same king tells of how he offered a sacrifice of vengeance
on the spot where Sennacherib, his grandfather, was mur-
dered ; he tells how he here sacrificed a number of prisoners
of war in honour of his ancestor.^

These are only a few examples, but the evidence, so far
as it goes, shows clearly that even in historical times the
Cult of the Dead and the element of Ancestor-worship
formed, more or less distinctly, part of the Babylonian and
Assyrian religious observances. " As regards deification of
deceased ancestors, sacrifices in the proper sense of the

1 Jeremias, HOlle und Paradiea . . ., p. 11.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 101

word, and festivals held in honour of the dead, the clear
evidence, as was to be expected, relates to the ruling
families only. It may, by analogy with the religious develop-
ment of other races, be assumed that Ancestor- worship and
the Cult of the Dead were more prevalent in prehistoric
times than later on," ^

III. Ancestor-worship in the Old Testament

Ancestor- worship, as distinct from the Cult of the Dead
is not prominent in the Old Testament ; this is what we
should expect. Traces of its having once existed in ancient
Israel are, however, not wanting. But even if there were
not the slightest trace of it there, two considerations
would justify us in believing that it was at one time prac-
tised by the Israelites. First, its practically universal
existence among all peoples in a certain stage of culture ;
there is no reason to suppose that the ancient Israelites
were an exception to the rule. And secondly, its wide
prevalence at the present day in Syria.

The most pronounced trace (it would be no exaggera-
tion to call it proof) in the Old Testament of the existence
of Ancestor-worship among the ancient Israelites is the
fact that many of the ancestral graves were holy sites,
i.e. sanctuaries.^ Thus, the grave of Sarah, the cave of
Macpelah "which was before Mamre " in Hebron (Gen,
xxiii.), was a sanctuary, as is shown in Gen. xiii, 18 : " And
Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks *
[' oak ' in the Septuagint] of Mamre, which are in Hebron,
and built there an altar unto Jahwe " ; this is shown further
in Gen. xviii. 1, where it is said that Jahwe appeared here.
Theophanies took place only on holy sites. The two latter

1 Hastings' Encycl. , . ,, i. 440.

* This was also the case among the Arabs, see Wellhausen, Eeste . . .
p. 184.

^ I.e. the evergreen terebinth.

102 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

passages which belong to the earlier document called J
speak of the oaks (originally " oak " as still preserved in the
Septuagint) of Mamre, while the first, which is from the
document P, and much later, belonging to a time when
Jahwe- worship was fully established, leaves out all mention
of the oaks, or oak ; the reason is that by his time holy
trees were regarded as heathenish and incompatible with
Jahwe-worship. A holy tree was in ancient Israel one of
the necessary adjuncts to an altar. So, too, in the case
of Deborah, Rebekah's nurse ; she was buried " under the
oak ; and the name of it was called AUon-bacuth," i.e.
" the oak of weeping " (Gen. xxxv. 8) ; also Joseph's grave
in Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 32), for, according to Gen. xii. 6,
xxxv. 4, this sanctuary was also marked by a holy tree.
In the case of Miriam's grave, Hadesh (Num. xx. 1), the
name itself, which means " holy," shows that it was a
sanctuary ; moreover from Judges iv. 11 it is clear that
a holy oak stood here too. Another thing which proves
that a grave was a place of worship is when a ipillsiT (Mazzebah)
is set up on the site, for this, too, in ancient Israel was
one of the adjuncts to an altar. In Gen. xxxv. 20 we
read^of Rachel's grave that " Jacob set up a pillar upon
her grave ; the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave unto
this day"; it was evidently a well-known spot, from
1 Sam. X. 2. There can be no doubt that in all these cases
the graves were places of worship at which an ancestor
was at one time worshipped, but which in later days were
adapted to the worship of Jahwe. The same is, in all
probability, true of a number of other graves of ancestral
heroes, though the Hebrew text does not imply this as in
the cases cited above. Such are Timnath-serah (Josh,
xix. 50, xxiv. 30, Timnath-heres in Judges ii. 9), the burial-
place of Joshua ; Shamir, where Tola was buried (Judges
x. 2) ; Hamon, where Jair was buried (Judges x. 5) ;
Bethlehem, the burial-place of Ibzan (Judges xii. 10) ;
Aijalon, the burial-place of Elon (Judges xii. 12) ; Pirathon,

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 103

the burial-place of Abdon (Judges xii. 15) ; the spot between
Zorah and Eshtaol where they buried Samson (Judges
xvi. 31). In all these cases, as Moore rightly points out,
" we are probably to infer that the tomb of the eponymous
ancestor of the clan was in later times shown " ^ ; judging
from the analogy of the other cases referred to above, we
are justified in believing that these were sanctuaries ; and,
if so, then the ancestors of the different clans were wor-
shipped there.

IV. Ancestor-worship in Syria at the Present Day

What has been said receives interesting and instructive
confirmation from the belief and practice of the peoples
of Palestine and Syria generally, as well as Arabia, at the
present day. It is a well-established fact, proved by
numberless examples, that customs and beliefs in the East,
existing at the present day, go back to the dim ages of
the past. Men who have spent years in the East studying the
religious and social customs of the native dwellers of Syria
and Arabia have shown in their writings, where detailed
proofs are given, that when one once gets off the beaten
track of travellers, and penetrates into the central parts
of Arabia, into the wilder parts of Syria, and into Mesopo-
tamia, the conditions of life, the tribal and social customs,
and above all, the religious beliefs and practices, are to-day
very much the same as they were millennia before the
Christian era. One of the most recent and learned of these
travellers writes in a work the importance of which is
widely recognized : " The simplicity of the Semitic mind
accounts for the survival of ancient customs which have
been handed down from the remotest antiquity, notwith-
standing the teachings of Islam and Christianity. To the
Arab or Syrian, custom is mightier than right ; indeed,

J Judges, in the Intern. Crit. Com., p. 273.

104 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

custom is the only right he knows. Both morality and
religion depend upon it. The heavens might sooner fall
than custom be set aside. If we can get to the usage
of the Semite we shall know what his religion is.''^ Some
reference to what this observer and writer says about
Ancestor-worship at the present day will throw much
light on the Old Testament passages on the subject just
referred to. " Among most sects of Moslems and Chris-
tians, including Bedouins as well as Syrians," says Curtiss,
" the worship of saints exists. In the popular imagina-
tion they exercise a power far above that of God." " These
saints are really departed spirits, connected with some
particular shrine, chosen because they revealed themselves
there in times past, and where they are wont to reveal
themselves now to those who seek their favour." There
is a close connexion between the ordinary spirit of the
departed and that of the saint " who is supposed to possess
superior sanctity and power." " Every shrine, of whatever
sort, theoretically presupposes a weli or saint. He may
have lived within the memory of the generation that does
him honour, and many tales may have been preserved
in regard to him. Or he may be a mythical character
about whom a profusion of folk-lore has sprung up." They
are firmly believed to appear to many of their worshippers.
The extraordinarily vivid imagination of the Eastern,
coupled with the colossal ignorance regarding many a simple
natural phenomenon, are responsible for the conviction
among numbers of these mentally primitive people that
a saint has appeared to them in bodily form. Theoretically
these saints " are worshipped in connexion with the God
of all the world ; practically many people know no other
god." * These saints are the spirits of men who used
to be living on earth. The local shrines where these spirits
of ancestors are supposed to take up their abode at certain

1 Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. G5.

" Op. cit., pp. 75 ff. ; see the whole of chaps, vii, viii.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 105

times are, thus, of special interest in view of what we read
about shrines connected with the name of an ancestor or
a clan hero in the Old Testament. Of not less interest,
as touching directly upon our subject, is the character
of these shrines. And here again Curtiss gives us full
information. There are, of course, many shrines which
have been specially built in honour of some tribal chief
or the like ; but by far the greater number are not buildings.
First among these are sacred stones ; here is an example :
" At Haryatan, the last outpost for travellers making the
journey to Palmyra ... in the vineyard, at the rear of the
house of the governour of the town ... is a prostrate pillar,
by the side of which is a structure of mud about the size
and shape of a straw bee- hive ; on the side of this is a
small hole, where the vessel is placed in which the oil that
has been vowed is burned, when a vow is paid. The shrine
consisting in this pillar is called by the Moslems Abu Risha,
and by the Christians Mar Risha. It is in honour of a
saint of the sect of the Jacobites. The pillar is thought
by the Syrian priest to mark the site of an ancient church.
It is surrounded by a low wall, leaving an enclosure of
about twenty feet square. The practices in making a vow
and in payment of it are the same among the Moslems
and the Christians. They come to the shrine and make
their request ; they also tie red and blue silk around the
weeds in the enclosure as a sign to the saint that they
want help. Payment is made in oil, which is burned at
the altar." ' This is only one of many examples given by
Curtiss, to whom the reader must be referred. As in the
case of sacred stones and rocks, so, too, the spirits of
departed ancestors are believed to dwell close to certain
springs and wells ; these, also, for that reason partake
of the nature of a shrine and are looked upon as sacred.
But as important as any of these shrines of ancestors
are those marked by sacred trees, which vividly recalls
> Oj}. cit., pp. 85 f.

106 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

some of the Old Testament instances given above. " Some
of these are at shrmes, and are sacred merely as the property
of the saint. They are as inviolable as anything else that
belongs to him, or that has been put under his protection.
. . . There are also many trees apart from shrines, which are
believed to be possessed by spirits, to whom vows and sacri-
fices are made. . . . There is no doubt that in the minds of
the people sacred trees are places where spirits reveal
themselves." ^ Other trees are looked upon as holy because
some great man during his lifetime rested under them ;
and it is believed that he is still present in the spirit there
at certain times. In some cases, indeed, he is supposed
to take up his abode there permanently. In all these
cases these spots are sanctuaries where worship in one form
or another is offered to a departed great one, be he ancestor,
hero, religious leader, or what not. For further details
on the subjects dealt with see, among other works : Doughty,
Travels in Arabia Deserta, i. 365 ff. ; Baudissin, Studien
zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte, ii. 145 ff. ; Goldziher,
Muhammedanische Studien, ii, 345 £f. ; Stade, Geschichte
des Volkes Israel, i. 454 ff. ; von Gall, AltisraeUtische Kult-
stdtten, passim ; Stade, Biblische Theologie des alien Testa-
meiUes, i. 110 ff. ; Schumacher, in the Zeitschrift des
Deutschen Paldstina-V ereins , ix. 206 fi. ; Wellhausen,
Reste Arahischen Heideniums, 104 fip., Robertson Smith,
The Religion of the Semites, 166-196, 203 ff. ; Frazer, " The
Golden Bough," The Magic and the Evolution of Kings,
ch. viii. ; Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion,
ch. xvi.

V. A Further Remnant of Ancestor-worship in the
Old Testament

Another remnant of Ancestor-worship found in the Old
Testament, but in this case restricted to the royal family
1 Op. cit., pp. 89 ff.

ANCESTOR- WORSHIP 1 07

(cp. what was said above regarding Babylonian usage), is
preserved in Jer. xxxiv, 5, where the prophet says in refer-
ence to Zedekiah, king of Jiidah : " Thou shalt not die by
the sword ; thou shalt die in peace ; and with the burnings
of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee,
so shall they make a burning for thee." The incense-offer-
ing to a departed monarch was thus customary in Israel up
to the end of the monarchy. In 2 Chron. xvi. 14, again,
it is said of Asa : " And they buried him in his own sepul-
chres, which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David,
and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours
and divers kind of spices prepared by the apothecaries'
art ; and they made a very great burning for him." And,
once more, in 2 Chron. xxi. 19 it is said of Jehoram : " And
it came to pass in process of time, at the end of two years,
that his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he
died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning
for him, like the burning of his fathers." It is quite prob-
able that by the time Chronicles was written the original
meaning of this was not realized, and that it would have
been described as merely an act of respect for the departed
king. But it is well known how customs are continued long
after their real signification has been forgotten, and this
is especially true of mourning customs. These " burnings
for the dead " were remnants of a time when incense-
offerings were offered in the firm belief in the continued
life of the departed, who was thus propitiated ; he was
believed to be really present, though invisible to those who
stood before his body. We are reminded of the words
which occur in the Descent of Ishtar : " May the dead rise
up [from the underworld] and smell the incense." ^

1 In the Mishnah {Ahoda Zara, i. 3) this is looked upon as an act of
idolatry : " Every death at which a burning takes place there is idolatry
(practised) . . ." This is usually taken to refer to cremation, but it is
not necessarily so ; the word for " a burning " (riDX*') is the same as in
2 Chron. xvi. 14, xxi. 19.

108 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

VI. The Teeaphim

In about a dozen passages in the Old Testament mention
is made of the " Teraphim." The word from which this
word comes (Tiri) means " to nourish " or "to maintain."
Its use in the plural form is somewhat analogous to Elohim,
which can either mean " God " (e.g. Gen. i. 1), or " gods "
(e.g. Deut. iv. 28), though as a rule the meaning is singular
though the form is plural. ^ But unlike Elohim, Teraphim
occurs only in the plural. From this fact we must assume
that, properly speaking, the Teraphim were several in
number. In 1 Sam. xix. 13, 16, in which a singular sense
is implied, Michal had a special reason for putting only
one image in the bed ; indeed, the fact that in this case
the plural and not the singular form is used, shows that the
word was only known and used in its plural form.

It is probable that the Teraphim were of non-Israelite
origin, for in Gen. xxxi. 20, 24, 47, Laban, the owner of
Teraphim, is spoken of as " Laban the Aramaean " (Syrian).

If, as is probable, the word in its root signification means
" nourishers " or " maintainers," we may ask whom they
were supposed to nourish or maintain. From the fact
that they are spoken of as being kept in houses (Gen. xxxi. 19,
Judges xvii. 5, 1 Sam. xix. 13, 16), it may be assumed
that the family was under their care. It would appear,
moreover, that the father (i.e. the head) of the family looked
upon them as belonging especially to him, see Gen. xxxi. 19,
" Rachel stole the Teraphim that were her father's " ; and
in verse 30, " Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ? "
That they are called " gods " is significant. In Judges xvii.
it is Micah, the head of the family, who is the owner of the
Teraphim, and the same may reasonably be assumed of
David in 1 Sam. xix. 11-17. From these facts we are justi-

^ The singular form of " Elohim " occurs, it is true, but only fifty-
seven times in the whole of the Old Testament.

ANCESTOR- WORSHIP 109

fied in seeing in the Teraphim household gods, and that
their worship was, in fact, a remnant of Ancestor-worship.
It is interesting to note that Josephus says that in Mesopo-
tamia it was the custom of the land for people to possess
household gods, and to bear them o£E when journeying. '

Though in later times Teraphim were regarded with
abhorrence (2 Kings xxiii. 24, Zech. x. 2), yet in earlier
days they were evidently a regular element in worship,
and no objection was taken to them (Judges xvii. 5,
Hosea iii. 4, and the other passages already cited). In shape
and appearance they looked like a man ; this seems clear
from 1 Sam. xix. 13, 16.

The special function of the Teraphim, besides that of
protecting the family, seems to have been their use in
divining the future, for they are mentioned several times
in conjunction with the Ephod ; but on this see below,
pp. 135 f.

So far we have dealt only with Ancestor- worship ; closely
connected with this is the Cult of the Dead generally ;
to this we must devote a separate chapter.

1 Antiq., XVIII, ix. 5. Cp. the action of Rachel when leaving her
father's hoiise on a journey.

CHAPTER IX

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP AND THE CULT OF THE
DEAD (11)^

I. The Cult of the Dead

Ancestor-worship and the Cult of the Dead may be
regarded as coming under one and the same category, but
they are two distmct things. The Cult of the Dead was
practised for ages before such a thing as Ancestor-worship
existed. The former developed into the latter ; yet both
continued side by side. The attitude of the living towards
the dead was largely conditioned by what their relation-
ship towards each other had been on earth. On the death
of an ordinary member of a family most of the funeral
rites had as their object the providing of the deceased with
things he had been accustomed to have when alive, and which
it was believed he would still require after death ; in such
" offerings " there was not necessarily any idea of worship.
If the father of a family died the attitude towards him was
somewhat different ; during his life he had occupied a
position of honour as being the head of the family. It was
natural, therefore, that after death the homage that had
been rendered to him during his lifetime would be con-
tinued. This did not necessarily constitute worship, but
it was certainly a step towards it. If the head of a clan
died there was a nearer approach to worship ; he had
occupied an unique position when alive, and had been the

1 The chapters on Necromancy and Mourning and Burial Customs
should be read in connexion with this subject.
110

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 111

object of special honour ; when this continued after death
it is not difficult to see that something akin to worship
might very easily arise. As a matter of fact, it is this latter
which developed into Ancestor-worship proper, while at
the same time care for the ordinary dead continued as
hitherto.

But there was another element which entered into the
whole subject, and that was the extent to which the spirits of
the departed were looked upon as supernatural. The evidence
is conflicting and difficult ; authorities differ ; dogmatism
in such case were folly ; one can only reach tentative con-
clusions. Some idea of the supernatural was, we believe,
always felt in regard to the spu-its of the departed ; it
may have been, it doubtless was, vague ; all kinds of
thoughts, acts, and wants, analogous to those of the
living, might have been, and were, imputed to them ; but
the very fact of their invisibility was sufficient to suggest
instinctively the idea of the supernatural. To urge that
the incompatibility of a- supernatural spirit having temporal
wants upsets the argument would show unfamiliarity with
the way of thinking among uncultured peoples. To early
man the spirits of the departed partook of the supernatural ;
and while it was believed that they had natural wants
which had to be supplied by the living, and which therefore
made them in some respects dependent upon the living,
there was another side to it all, in that they possessed powers
which mortals did not possess ; they had superior know-
ledge ; they could help men and harm them ; therefore
it was necessary that they should be attended to and
propitiated.

Such ideas, with their consequential acts, did not, of
course, arise all at once ; but in course of time they came
into the minds of men as they thought about their departed.
Acts of affection, piety, reverence, homage, worship, run
into one another almost unconsciously ; and it is likely
enough that an act which was originally simply one of

112 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

filial piety might, through having become part of a fixed
ritual, develop into an act of worship. In some funeral
rites it is not always easy to decide whether it is an act
of affection or worship which is offered.

However this may be, there is no question that in the
Old Testament we have various references which un-
doubtedly point to the fact that the Cult of the Dead
was practised among the Israelites ; this bears distinct
witness to the belief in the continued life of the departed.
To these, references we will now turn.

II. The Cult of the Dead in the Old Testament ;
Jer. xvi. 5-8

In Jer. xvi. 5-8 we read : " For thus saith Jahwe, enter
not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament,
neither bemoan them. . . . Both great and small shall die
in this land : they shall not be buried, neither shall men
lament for them. . . . neither shall men break bread for
them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead : neither
shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for
their father or for their mother. And thou shalt not go
into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and
drink." The references here to offerings and drink-offerings
to the dead, and to funeral feasts, however much toned down,
are sufficiently clear. They are also referred to in other pas-
sages ; in Deut. xxvi. 14 the funeral feast, ^ with offerings to
the dead, is regarded as prevalent since it is evidently thought
a righteous act to abstain from partaking of it ; it is there
said that the righteous man who has given the tithe to the
Levite, to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow,
has not eaten thereof in his mourning ; the text con-
tinues : " neither have I put away thereof, being unclean,

1 There is probably also a reference to this in Lev. xxi. 6, where it is
said that the offerings of bread are for Jahwe, i.e. not for the dead, see
context.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 113

nor given thereof for the dead," cp. Lev. xxi, 6. Refer-
ence to the funeral feast is also contained in Ezek. xxiv. 17 :
"... make no mourning for the dead, bind thy headtire
upon thee, and put thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover
not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men " ; and in
Hosea ix. 3, 4 : " They shall not dwell in Jahwe's land ;
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat
unclean food in Assyria. They shall not pour out wine
offerings to Jahwe, neither shall they be pleasing unto Him :
their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners ;
all that eat thereof shall be polluted : for their bread
shall be for their appetite ; it shall not come into the
house of Jahwe" (cp. Ep.of Jer. S2, Book of Jubilees xxii. 17).
In spite of the vigorous polemic against the Cult of the
Dead in the interests of Jahwe- worship it is not difficult to
see that this universal custom in antiquity continued
among the Israelites ; but the full significance of such
passages as those quoted will become apparent if they are
illustrated by Babylonian and Arab practice, and more
especially by the revelations of recent Palestine excavation,
as well as by present-day custom in Syria.

In referring to the practice among the ancient Baby-
lonians Langdon writes : " Each family seems to have
made monthly offerings to the shades of its ancestors,
which consisted in a communion meal at which images of
the departed were present. In official accounts of the
early period we find frequent reference to ofiferings made
to the statues of deceased persons. . . . Entries in official
documents occur, stating the items of the monthly sacrifice
for the souls of deceased persons whose service to the State
had been great. This is especially true of kings and priests.
More frequently the documents mention the mortuary sacri-
fices for all the souls who have died, a Feast of All Souls,
occurring monthly and performed by the priests in various
temples. The word ordinarily employed in the ancient
inscriptions is kianag ' place where one gives to drink " ;
8

114 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

but the notion of place is often lost, and the idea of drink-
ing is made to cover sacrifices of animals, bread, cakes, etc.,
as well as of liquors. . . . Another word — also Sumerian, and
employed for the parentalia less frequently in the early
period, but ordinarily by the Semites — is kisig, ' breaking
of bread,' where the emphasis is laid upon the eating of
bread at a common meal." ^ An inscription which is then
quoted gives " direct evidence for a communion meal,
' breaking of bread,' for the souls of the dead, permanently
adopted by the Semites at any early period." The expres-
sion " breaking of bread" is interesting as being identical
with what Jeremiah says.

There is evidence of like usage among the ancient Arabs.
Wellhausen says that " it cannot be denied that remains
of a regular cult of the dead, of Ancestor- and Hero-worship,
are not wanting " * ; he refers especially to the drink-
oSerings at the graves of the departed, where the mourners
drank to the departed and then poured out what was left
in their drinking- vessels on to the grave ; we are reminded
of Asshurbanipal pouring out a drink-offering at the tombs
of his ancestors, see p. 100.' The "cup of consolation"
spoken of by Jeremiah was thus probably drunk at the
grave, the actual funeral feast taking place later on.
Doughty says that regular sacrifices for the dead are offered
by modern Arabs down to the third generation,* and this

^ Hastings' Encycl. . . ., iv. 445 & ; for a similar thing among the Greeks
see Farnell, Greece and Babylon, p. 209.

8 Reste . . ., P- 183.

3 A fragment of a drinking-cup, belonging to circa 500 B.C., was dis-
covered at Tell-el-Hesy (Lachish) by Prof. Flinders Petrie bearing the
inscription "^Dn? (" for pom-ing out a drink oblation "). This may or
may not have been used in the way that Asshm-banipal did ; but the
expression occurs in Jer. xliv. 19, 25, where mention is made of pouring
out drink-offerings to the queen of heaven. Curtiss mentions a drmk-
offering of coffee poiued out in honoiir of a dead sheikh (op. cit., p. 183).
See further Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 235. In this
connexion many will recall what is said in the Iliad, xxiti. 218 fE.

« Op. cit., i. 240 f., 450 f.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 115

is also borne out by Curtiss ; ^ but that there are also sacri-
fices to the dead he also shows : " The sacrifices offered to
the saints are, of course, really made to those who were
once mortals. It is true of the Nusairiych that they
sacrifice not to God, but to the well (saint) ; they pray
to the iveli who did good deeds, and when he died was
saved without any punishment." He also shows how the
sacrifice for a dead man is offered to a departed saint :
" The animal [that is sacrificed] is a spirit, and the sick
person [who eventually dies] is a spirit. The saint accepts
one in place of another ; that is, the soul of the animal
in the place of the soul of the man." ^

The funeral feasts which, as we have seen, were in vogue
among the Israelites and Babylonians, and were held in
honour of the departed, may in all probability be illus-
trated by an interesting discovery made on the site of
ancient Gezer. In a burial cave were found the remains
of fifteen persons, and with them a number of bronze
weapons ; " the bodies were not cast in, or fallen in by
accident, but were deposited in position by people who
descended with them into the cave. This was shown by
three indications : (1) no bodies lay immediately under the
entrance, as would have been the case had they fallen in ;
(2) stones were laid under, round, and sometimes above
them; (3) a large quantity of charcoal found among the
bones showed that a funeral-feast sacrifice or similar
rite had taken place within the chamber." After further
describing the position of the skeletons together with various
bronze spear-heads, etc., the writer continues: "Besides
the bronze there was also found a cow's horn and a three-
legged stone fire-dish for cooking. The latter was broken,
and inverted over some sheep bones, no doubt the remains
of a food deposit. It is not quite safe to assume that the
fracturing of the fire-dish is in accordance with the well-
known custom of fracturing objects deposited in graves,

1 Op. cit., pp. 169 ff. * Op. cit., p. 208.

116 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that their spirits may be released and minister to the needs
of the spirits of the departed. ^ . . . But the chief problem
presented by the cave lies in the extraordinary circum-
stances attending the single female interment. The body
had been cut in two just below the ribs, and the upper half
alone was deposited in the cave. Obviously the explana-
tion of the condition of this skeleton turns primarily on
the question whether the mutilation was ante or post 7nortem.
If post mortem, we have evidently to deal with a burial
custom in some degree analogous to that illustrated by
Dr. Petrie's discoveries at Naqada. ... If the mutilation
was ante mortem, two possible explanations are forth-
coming : we have to deal with the victim of a murder, or
of a sacrifice. The last seems to me the most satisfactory.
Had the case been simply one of murder, of a peculiarly
savage and clumsy character, most probably both halves
of the body would have been got rid of by depositing them
together. But in the case of sacrifice it is quite conceivable
that the missing half might have been disposed of in some
other manner. It might, for instance, have been burned,
or even — so persistent are the survivals of savagery in
natural religion, even when a comparatively civilized con-
dition has been attained — ceremonially eaten." -

The stratum in which these skeletons were found belonged
to pre-Israelite times ; but this does not, of course, preclude
the possibility of the episode having taken place in Israelite
times ; we have abundant evidence in the Old Testament
that practically up to the end of the monarchy the old
Canaanite rites and customs tended to crop up every now
and again among the Israelites ; indeed, the presumption
is that they never wholly ceased until well after the

1 See further below, pp. 184 f.

2 R. A. Stewart Macalister in the " Report of the Excavation of Gezer "
in the Quarterly Report of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1903, pp. 14-19.
See also Mr. S. A. Cook's remarks on the finds in the necropolis of
St. Louis on the site of the ancient Carthage of the Phcenicians, Quarterly
Statement, 1906, p. 159.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 117

exile. Whatever actually happened during the rather
gruesome episode referred to, it may be regarded as
certain that it had something to do with the Cult of
the Dead ; sacrificial meals and sacrifices in honour of a
deity were celebrated in " high places " and other sanctu-
aries, not in underground burial caves ; on the face
of it, any ritual act which took place in such places had
reference to the dead. The idea of the occurrence in
question being a murder is fantastic ; it was evidently a
sacrifice to the dead, having regard to the place of offering,
but of some very special kind. Human sacrifices to heathen
deities by the Israelites are spoken of in the Old Testament ;
it is quite conceivable that it was in some sense an analogous
rite that this fourteen- year- old girl was sacrificed — alto-
gether abnormal as it would have been — to propitiate the
dead for some special reason. But be that as it may, no
doubt can exist that a sacrificial funeral feast of some sort
took place on this occasion ; the occurrence of such con-
tinued, according to the Old Testament, until comparatively
late times, for in Isa. Ixv. 3, 4, we read of " a people that
provoketh Me to My face continually, sacrificing in gardens,
and burning incense upon bricks ; which abide among the
graves and lodge in the vaults ; which eat swine's flesh,
and broth of abominable things is in their vessels." ^

As to the object of these funeral feasts in general, this
is well put forth by Hartland, who says that it is " not
simply hospitality to the invited guests ; they indeed very
often contribute their full share in kind. Nor is the object
merely the enjoyment of those who partake, or a natural
reaction from sorrow, or ostentation on the part of those
who provide them. Doubtless some or all of these impulses
do enter into the motives for the frequently repeated and

1 In the Wisdom of Solomon xvi. 15 we have the following distinct refer-
ence to the Cult of the Dead : "... For a father afflicted with untimely-
grief, having made an image of a child quickly taken away, now honoured
him as a god that once was a dead hiunan being, and delivered to those
that were under him mysteries and solemn rites."

118 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

usually extravagant displays, and the gluttony and carous-
ing inseparable from them. But there are deeper reasons
for the observance. The above reasons would be insufficient
of themselves to account for the practice, shared by civilized
Europeans with savage Ainu, of holding the first formal
meal in the presence of the corpse, or on the grave, if they
would not indeed positively repel it. Moreover, the cere-
monial of such a meal is not always that of abandonment
to the pleasures of the table and of social intercourse ;
and, finally, the deceased is himself, even after cremation
or burial, regarded as one of the convives. The belief
that the dead man is present and joins in the feast is very
widespread, and is evidenced in more ways than one. . . ." ^

III. The Cult of the Dead in the Old Testament ;
IsA. Ixv. 3.

The quotation from Isaiah (Ixv. 3) given above leads
us to another piece of ritual in the Cult of the Dead. Refer-
ence is there made to " burning incense upon bricks," and
the context shows that it was to the dead that this was
offered ; this is also spoken of in Jer. xli. 5. We referred in
the previous chapter to the " burnings" for the dead kings
and to Babylonian practice in this respect (see pp. 100-107).
Langdon quotes an inscription in which reference is made
to the monthly sacrifices performed for the souls of the
departed ; it is said there : "... As incense-offering, the
choice incense as a regular offering I fixed for them and
placed before them." ^ Wellhausen refers to the burning
of sweet-smelling wood in honour of the dead among the
Arabs.'

Here we may also touch upon another custom greatly
in vogue in ancient Israel, though not referred to in the
Old Testament, viz. that of placing little lamps in graves.

1 In Hastings' Encycl. . . ., iv. 335 b.

2 In Hastings, op. cit., iv. 445 a.
» Reste . . ., p. 177.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 119

These have been found in great quantities in the recent ex-
cavations in Palestine, and belong to pre-Israelite as well as
Israelite times ; they are frequently found together with
little food-bowls (see further, Mourning and Burial Customs,
Chap. XI.) in tombs and under house- walls. Mr. Macalister
suggests that these lamps may be reminiscent of the funeral
sacrifice involving fire, which in the symbolized rite is typified
by the lamp ; in this case they would represent a sacrifice to
the dead. But it is possible that these lamps were intended
to give light to the departed on their journey to the under-
world ; in this case the subject would come under Mourn-
ing and Burial Customs. However this may be, the fact
that they are found under house-walls as well as in tombs
leads us to the further subject of bodies being buried in
houses. 1 Whether this should come under the head of the
Cult of the Dead is uncertain (we shall return to the custom
when dealing with Mourning and Burial Customs), for the
evidence is insufficient for reaching a definite conclusion.
But we have seen, in speaking about the Teraphim, that
the early Israelites had household gods ; it is, therefore,
conceivable that the burying of the dead in the walls of
houses had something to do with this. Samuel, as we know,
was spoken of as a " god," and we read of his having been
buried in his house in Ramah (1 Sam. xxv. 1) ; the custom
was evidently not uncommon, see 1 Kings ii. 34.

IV. Cuttings in the Body and Hair- offerings
Finally, we must refer to a practice which, although it
is to be reckoned among mourning customs, was, as we shall
see, intended to be an act of propitiation for the dead,
and must therefore be considered here.

In Lev. xxi. 1-5 (cp. verses 10, 11) occurs the following
prohibition addressed to priests : " There shall none defile
himself for the dead among his people ; except for his kin,

1 On this see fiuther, pp. 180 ff.

120 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

that is near unto him, for his mother, and for his father,
and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother ;
and for his sister a virgin, that is near unto him, which
have had no husband, for her may he defile himself. He
shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people,
to profane himself " ; then follow the mourning customs
which defile : " They shall not make baldness upon their
head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard,
nor make any cuttings in their flesh." The same prohi-
bition, applied generally, is found in Lev. xix. 27, 28 : " Ye
shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt
thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any
cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon
you ; I am Jahwe." That these prohibitions are found
in the Levitical Code,i ^hich at the earliest belongs to the
exilic period, shows how tenaciously the people had clung
to the customs referred to. Ezekiel refers to the same
practices (vii. 18). Jeremiah mentions them several times ; in
foretelling the downfall of Judah he says there will be no
mourners : " Both great and small shall die in this land :
they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for
them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for
them " (xvi. 6) ; in xli. 5 mourners are spoken of who shaved
their beards, rent their clothes, and cut themselves for the
dead, cp, xlvii. 5 ; and in speaking of the fall of Moab the
prophet says : "... Every head is bald, and every beard
clipped: upon all hands are cuttings, . . ." (xlviii. 37,
cp. XXV. 23). In the same manner in much earlier times
Micah takes up his lament, saying: "Make thee bald,
and poll thee for the children of thy delight : enlarge
thy baldness as the vulture ; for they are gone into
captivity from thee" (i. 16). So, too, Isaiah, in the
" Oracle of Moab," says : "... On all their heads is
baldness, every beard is cut off . . ." (cp. xxii. 12). Still
earlier Amos says : " And I will turn your feasts into

^ " The Law of Holiness," known by the symbol H.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 121

mourning, and all your songs into lamentation : and I
will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon
every head ; and I will make it as the mourning for an
only son " (viii. 10). In all these passages, with the excep-
tion of Lev. xix, 27, 28 (in Lev. xxi. 1-5 the prohibition
is qualified) there is no word of condemnation for these
customs, and they are clearly looked upon as the regular
thing. In only one other passage is there an unqualified
prohibition, viz. Deut. xiv. 1 : " Ye are the children of
Jahwe your God : ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make
any baldness between your eyes for the dead " ; here, too,
the prohibition is general, and not confined to priests.

It is thus only in two late codes that this prohibition is
found ; the prophets who mention the customs have
nothing to say against them. The reason for this is con-
ceivably owing to the fact that such " cuttings in the
flesh " were common among the worshippers of Jahwe
for other purposes, and were therefore not regarded as
necessarily evil. It would take us too far afield to deal
with this other category of markings and cuttings ; we
must content ourselves with the bare statement that the
worshippers of Jahwe had marks upon their body as signs
that they belonged to Him ; for the proof of the statement
the reader is referred to the following passages : Exod.
iv. 24-26, xiii. 9, 16, 1 Kings xx. 35 fif., cp. Ezek. ix. 4,
Isa. xliv. 5, Zech. xiii. 6 ; from the exile onwards circum-
cision was regarded as the sign par excellence of a worshipper
of Jahwe ; on the whole subject see Stade in the Zeitschrift
fiir die alt-testamentliche Wissenschajt, xiv. pp. 308-318.

The customs, then, with which we are here concerned are
(i) making bald the head and shaving the beard, besides
tattooing, " for the dead," and (ii) making cuttings in the
flesh " for the dead " ; the two belong together and illus-
trate how difficult it is sometimes, in mourning customs, to
say where a sign of affection merges into an act of worship.
In the cases before us the fact that both offerings of hair

122 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

and cuttings in the flesh constituted acts in the worship
of a god shows that the cult-idea cannot have been alto-
gether absent when these were offered to the departed.
We have, first of all, the well-known case in 1 Kings xviii. 26
of the worshippers of Baal cutting themselves in order to
propitiate their god ; the same custom is referred to in
Hosea vii. 14 (see R.V. marg., where the correct reading is
given). " Among the Hebrews and Arabs," says Robert-
son Smith, 1 " and indeed among many other peoples both
ancient and modern, the laceration of the flesh in mourning
is associated with the practice of shaving the head or
cutting off part of the hair and depositing it in the tomb
or on the funeral pyre. Here also a comparison of the
usage of more primitive races shows that the rite was
originally two-sided, and had exactly the same sense as
the offering of the mourner's blood. . . . Now among the
Semites and other ancient peoples the hair-offering is
common, not only in mourning but in the worship of the
gods, and the details of the ritual in the two cases are so
exactly similar that we cannot doubt that a single principle
is involved in both." Examples to any extent could be
given ; we must content ourselves with the following refer-
ences in addition to Robertson Smith : Hartland, The Legend
of Perseus, ii. passim ; Wilken, Ueher das Haaropfer und
einige andre Trauergehrduche bei den Vollcern Indonesiens,
in the " Revue coloniale internationale," iii. 225 ff.,
iv. 345 ff. ; Wellhausen, of. cit., 167 ff., 181 f. ; Goldziher,
op. cit., i. 248 f. ; Jevons, op. cit., pp. 193 ff., 220 ; Frazer,
" The Golden Bough," The Dying God, pp. 92 ff., Adonis,
Attis, Osiris, p. 268, Tahoo and the Perils of the Soul,
pp. 283 ff. ; Folklore in the Old Testament, iii. pp. 270 ff.

After his exhaustive examination of the evidence Frazer,

in the last work mentioned, p. 303, says : "So far as it

goes, however, the preceding inquiry tends to confirm the

view that the widespread practices of cutting the bodies

1 Op. cit., pp. 323 ff.

THE CULT OF THE DEAD 123

and shearing the hair of the living after a death were
originally designed to gratify or benefit in some way the
spirit of the departed ; and accordingly, wherever such
customs have prevailed, they may be taken as evidence
that the people who observed them believed in the survival
of the human soul after death and desired to maintain
friendly relations with it. In other words, the observance
of these usages implies a propitiation or worship of the dead.
Since the Hebrews appear to have long cut both their
bodies and their hair in honour of their departed relations,
we may safely include them among the many tribes and
nations who have at one time or another been addicted to
that worship of ancestors which, of all forms of primitive
religion, has probably enjoyed the widest popularity and
exerted the deepest influence on mankind. The intimate
connexion of these mourning customs with the worship of
the dead was probably well remembered in Israel down to
the close of the monarchy, and may have furnished the
religious reformers of that age with their principal motive
for prohibiting extravagant displays of sorrow which they
justly regarded as heathenish."

For other forms of offerings to the dead among the
Bedouins of to-day, see Burckhardt, Bedouinen und Wahaby,
pp. 84 f. ; Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, i. pp. 240,
293, 354, 442, 450 ff.

CHAPTER X

NECROMANCY

Necro:maxcy is a department of the larger subject of
Divination which has been practised among men from very
early ages, and which arose from the iimate desire on their
part to know the future. But those who are able, or who
are supposed to be able, to give information regarding the
future must clearly possess powers denied to men of ordinary
nature ; they must, that is to say, be supernatural beings.
If the information which is required be sought from the
signs given by animals, then those animals are believed to
be supernatural themselves, or else they are thought to
be indwelt, for the time being, by some supernatural spirit ;
" the universal Semitic belief in omens and guidance given
by animals belongs to the same range of ideas : omens are
not blind tokens, the animals know what they tell to
men." > It is the same with those of other forms of Divina-
tion which are unconnected with animals ; whatever form
the indication takes, there is no idea of chance or '" luck "
about it ; it is believed to be the result of the invisible
action of some supernatural spirit who knows. Of the various
kinds of Divination, whether Belomancy (divination by
arrows, Ezek. xxi. 19 ff. [23 £f. in Hebr.]), Hepatoscopy
(divination by looking into the liver of an animal), Lots
(1 Sam, xiv. 41, 42), Oneiromancy (divination by dreams.
Gen. xxxi. 10-13 and often in the Old Testament), Rab-
domancy (divination by rods, Hosea iv. 12), etc.. Necro-
mancy, there can be little doubt, was the most awe-inspiring

1 Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 443.
124

NECROMANCY 125

and most important, and was probably thought to be the
most rehable, since the spirits of departed men might be
expected to take a deeper interest in, and have a wider
knowledge of the affairs of, those among whom they had
once dwelt.

I. Necroimancy among the Babylonians

Before dealing with Necromancy in the Old Testament
we will take a brief glance at Babylonian and Assyrian
belief and practice. " Necromancy," says Margoliouth,^
" which is an essential part of the cult of the dead, and
which must also have been connected with the presenta-
tion of offerings to the shades consulted, undoubtedly held
a prominent place among the magic arts of the Baby-
lonians." There is in Babylonian literature, so far as is
at present known, only one instance of calling up the dead
from the underworld ; it is that of the spirit of Eabani
being consulted by Gilgamesh ; the former tells his friend
about " the law of the underworld," after having ascended
thence "like a wind." But although there is only this
one record in literature of actually calling up the dead, it
is certain that Necromancy in general had the widest
vogue among the Babylonians ; this is proved, firstly, by
the various categories of priests extant ; for among these
different classes are " conjurers of the dead," priests who
" bring up the spirit of the dead," and the " questioner
of the dead." ' The ritual of calling up the spirits of the
departed seems to be referred to in the closing lines of the
Descent of Islitar ; it says there : " In the days of Tammuz,
play to me upon the crystal flute, play to me upon the . . . ^
instrument, his dirge, ye mourning men and mourning
women, in order that the dead may ascend and smell the

^ In Hastings' Encycl. of Eel. and Ethics, i. 439,

* Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, p. 288.

3 The text is mutilated here.

126 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

incense." ' It seems evident from this that the spirits of
the departed were believed to be induced to rise up from
their abode by the sound of the flute and the smell of the
incense.^ Possibly this throws some light on the origin
of the mourning custom of flute-playing ; the departed
spirit may have been supposed to be appeased by what
was done in his honour.

Another thing that points to the practice of Necromancy
among the Babylonians is the fact of the spirits of the
dead wandering about on the earth and not being willing
to go back again to the underworld after having been,
presumably, called up. The worst plague-demons, it is
said, are those that come from the shades in the under-
world. In one text a sick man complains that he has
been delivered into the power of a wandering spirit from
the realm of the dead. Another case is that of one danger-
ously ill who declares that his illness is due to an evil-
disposed spirit having come up from the realm of the
dead. One tablet contains the prayer of a man who is
convinced that he is " possessed " by a departed spirit.'
There were various magical ways of counteracting these
evils, but it was always by special priests and priestesses
that the spirits of the dead could be forced back again to
their abode.

We have not much detail regarding this subject ; nor is
this altogether surprising. In the immense majority of
cases it would have been the private individual who went
to consult the dead, and obviously no record would have
been kept of these. This is not the kind of subject regard-
ing which one could expect to find many records ; its
existence is taken for granted, and nothing could be more

^ Jeremias, Holle iind Paradies bei den Babyloniern, p. 20.

* This would, of course, only have been part of the ritual, for there
would have been a " medium " of some sort (one of the order of special
priests referred to) who may be supposed to have taken some special
part in addition to that of the professional mourning men and women.

3 Jeremias, op. cit., p. 21.

NECROMANCY 127

eloquent in this respect than the classes of priests and
priestesses recorded, among which figure prominently such
as include those who dealt in Necromancy. There is also
the fact that where it was a case of banning some unwelcome
spirit from below who had overstayed his time on earth,
one fixed formula came to be used ^ so that a single
record of this kind from a single temple might well imply
thousands of cases dealt with. Furthermore, as many
of the worst among the demons were believed to be the
spirits of the departed, it is probable that many extant
texts in which no direct reference to a departed spirit is
made, were in reality protective formulas against such.

II. Necromancy in the Old Testament

The classical case of Necromancy in the Old Testament
is, of course, that of the witch of Endor, referred to already
more than once. From that passage (1 Sam. xxviii. 3-25)
we learn that those who had " familiar spirits," and
" wizards " * had hitherto been tolerated in the land, since
it is said that Saul had " put them away out of the land."
That this latter statement is not to be taken au pied de la
lettre is evident for several reasons : a practice which is
known to have been universal among the early Semites,
and which touched men in what may be regarded as one
of the most sensitive parts of their nature, could not have
been abolished at one stroke, earnestly though Samuel, the
champion of Jahwe, must have striven. Again, Saul him-
self, who is supposed to have put these people out of the
land, is the first to realize that this had not been done ;
his words show that their continued presence in the land
is to him a matter of course : " Seek me a woman that
hath a familiar spirit," he says, " that I may go to her, and
enquire of her " (verse 7). And his servants have no need
to seek ; they answer him at once : " Behold, there is a

* Cp. Jastrow, op. cit., i. 2G9. * On these bob next section.

128 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor." If this was
the case with Saul, how much more likely will it have
been so among the bulk of the people, to whom " seeking
unto the dead " was a sacred reality and a traditional
custom handed down for untold generations ! Further-
more, from what we read in later books of the Old Testa-
ment it is abundantly evident that tliroughout the period
of the monarchy Necromancy was practised among the
Israelites. Thus, in Isa. viii. 19 it is said : " And when
they shall say unto you. Seek unto them that have familiar
spirits and unto the wizards : that chirp and that mutter :
should not a people seek unto their God ? on behalf of the
living should they seek unto the dead ? " It will be noticed
how the prophet here takes for granted that the necro-
mancers are flourishing in the land. It is the same thing
in Isa. xxix. 4, where the prophet compares humbled
" Ariel " ^ with one that has a familiar spirit : " And thou
shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground,
and thy speech shall be low out of the dust ; and thy voice
shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground,
and thy speech shall whisper (marg. " chirp ") out of the
dust." Here, again, the prophet takes the existence of
necromancers for granted. In Isa. xix. 3, although there
is a note of contempt for such things, the prophet again
recognizes that they are in vogue ; he says in his prophecy
against Egypt : " And the spirit of Egypt shall be made
void in the midst of it ; and I will swallow up the counsel
thereof ; and they shall seek unto the idols and to the
charmers (marg. "whisperers"), and to them that have
familiar spirits, and to the wizards." These passages show
that the prophet, while implicitly, though not directly,
condemning necromancers and their practices, knows quite
well that such things appealed to the people and were
resorted to by them. So that when we read of king
Manasseh that he " practised augury, and used enchant-
1 I.e. Mount Zion, see verse 8 (end).

NECROMANCY 129

ments and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and
with wizards" (2 Kings xxi. 6=2 Chron. xxxiii. 6), we
must see in his action not so much the resuscitation of
practices which had fallen into desuetude, but rather the
official recognition of what had all along been done by the
people. But the most instructive light is perhaps thrown
on this subject by seeing the way in which it is dealt with
in the different codes of laws preserved in the Old Testa-
ment. The oldest of these is the " Book of the Covenant "
(Exod. XX. 22— xxiii. 33) ; this, " with which Exod.
xxxiv. 14 — 26 constitutes the earliest stratum of legislation,
presupposes a people settled in Canaan and practising
agriculture." ^ In this code there is no prohibition against
Necromancy ; in xxii. 18 (17 in Hebr.) it is said : " Thou
shalt not suffer a sorceress to live," but sorcerers and
sorceresses had nothing to do with Necromancy ; they were
concerned with magical practices. To suppose that because
Necromancy is not prohibited in Israel's earliest Code of
Laws therefore it did not exist at that time is out of the
question. Necromancy was universal among ancient
peoples, and we have no reason to believe — quite the con-
trary— that the Israelites formed an exception to the rule.
But, apart from that, we have seen from 2 Sam. xxviii. that
it was fully in vogue at the beginning of the monarchy;
could anyone suppose that a thing so ingrained in man as
Necromancy (until eradicated by something higher) came
into existence among the Israelites within the period of the
settlement in Canaan and some time before the beginning
of the monarchy ? One has only to mention such a thing
to see its absolute absurdity. No, Necromancy was prac-
tised by the early Israelites in common with all the Semites,
and the reason why it was not prohibited, or even men-
tioned, in Israel's earliest Code of Laws was because the
thing was regarded as a natural and legitimate practice ;
it touched men in a low stage of culture too closely, and

^ Peake's Commentary on the Bible, p. 44.

130 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

the religious leaders saw as yet no reason for prohibiting
it. In the meantime the practice went on ; the prophets,
apparently, regarded it rather as a piece of folly than
anything else. But, evidently, in course of time it was
seen to constitute a menace to the worship of Jahwe ; so
that in the Deuteronomic legislation it is prohibited :
" There shall not be found with thee . . . one that useth
divination, one that practiseth augury, or an enchanter,
or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar
spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whosoever doeth
these things is an abomination unto Jahwe" (Deut.
xviii. 10-12). In conformity with this, King Josiah, in
order that " he might perform the words of the law which
were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in
the house of Jahwe," put away " them that had familiar
spirits, and the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols,
and all the abominations that were spied in the land of
Judah and in Jerusalem" (2 Kings xxiii. 24). It was all
to no purpose ; so much so that in the next Code of Laws
(" the Law of Holiness," Lev. xvii.-xxvi.) put forth Necro-
mancy is not merely prohibited, but condemned as one
of the worst sins, and declared to be punishable with death :
" Turn ye not unto them that have familiar spirits, nor
unto the wizards ; seek them not out, to be defiled by
them ; I am Jahwe your God " (Lev. xix. 31) ; " And
the soul that turneth unto them that have familiar sph^its,
and unto the wizards, to go a whormg after them, I will
even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off
from among his people '.' (Lev. xx. 6) ; "A man also or
a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard,
shall surely be put to death : they shall stone them with
stones : their blood shall be upon them " (Lev. xx. 27).
Quite in accordance with this later view of things, the
Chronicler accounts for the death of Saul by saymg that
it was because of " his trespass which he committed against
Jahwe, because of the word of Jahwe, which he kept not ;

NECROMANCY 131

and also for that he asked counsel of one that had a familiar
spirit, to enquire thereby, and enquired not of Jahwe :
therefore he slew him. ..." But in spite of penal laws
against Necromancy, we find that even long after the Exile
it was practised in Judsea ; for a late writer complains
of a " rebellious people," which walketh in a way that is
not good, after their own thoughts ; a people that provoketh
Me to My face continually . , . which sit among the graves,
and spend the night in vaults " ' (Isa. Ixv. 2-4). It needs
no words to show that the reference in this passage is to
Necromancy.

These passages, then, are sufficient, it may be hoped, to
establish the fact that practically all through the history
of Israel, as recorded in the Old Testament, Necromancy
was practised in the land, in spite of vigorous efforts to
root it out. We may be sure that during and after the
Exile the practice became ever more discredited ; it is also,
we believe, probable that from the prophetical j)eriod
onwards it tended to be in the main confined to the lower
grades of society ^ ; we have, indeed, nothing in the Old
Testament to show that this was so, but all the world
knows that superstition is, generally speaking, more power-
ful where there is ignorance. At any rate, the outstanding
fact is that down to post-exilic times laws were put forth
to try to eradicate Necromancy, and that such laws witness
to the existence of that which they sought to rectify.

Our one object in referring to this subject is in order
to point to it in support of the belief in the continued life
of men after death. This form of the witness to that
belief certainly illustrates also the superstition, credulity,
and folly of men ; but that is not our present concern.
Necromancy presupposes the continued life of men after

^ The words are put into the mouth of God.

^ We are not forgetting the retrograde action of Manassoh ; but this,
Hko Saul and the witch of Endor, is an exception to the rule as far as
those in liigh place are concerned.

132 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

they die, and as such it is a subsidiary element in our
inquiry.

III. Some Technical Terms in the Old Testament

We have seen that among the Babylonians there were
special categories of priests, and, as the texts inform us,
priestesses, whose function it was to " bring up " the
dead, and to "question" them. In the Old Testament
we find the mention of people of both sexes (they are not
called priests and priestesses) who exercised similar func-
tions. Four words occur in this connexion, always without
explanation, since it is taken for granted that everyone
knows all about them ; probably they refer to the same
type of person.

First we have what is called the 'Ob, translated by
" familiar spirit." The use of this word in the Old Testa-
ment is a little ambiguous ; in 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 it is said :
" Seek me a woman that doth possess (or "is mistress of ")
an 'Oh " ^ ; here it is clear that the woman and the 'Oh
are distinct ; this is seen to be the case also in the next
verse : " Divine unto me, I pray thee, by means of the
'(56." Still more distinct, if possible, is Deut. xviii. 1 1, where
reference is made to " one that asketh an '06." In these
three passages the distinction between the 'Oh and the
person who uses it for divining is as clear as can be ; so
much so that an 'Oh could quite conceivably be regarded as
some external object ; and this is emphasized by the ex-
pression used in regard to it in 2 Kings xxi. 6 ( = 2 Chron.
xxxiii. 6), where it is said of Manasseh : " And he made
his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury, and
used enchantments, and made an 'Oh. ..." It is true the
use of the root nbl? is wide; it can mean "to do," "to
observe," " to acquire," etc., as well as " to make " ; but

1 The R.V. rendering, " a woman that hath a familiar spirit," is am-
biguous.

NECROMANCY 133

the R.V. rendering " dealt with " is impossible, for the
word is never used in this sense unless followed by a pre-
position ; in 2 Kings xxi. 6 (but not in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6)
the R.V. gives a marginal alternative, '' appoi7ited, Heb.
made'' ; the former is a possible rendering, though the
usage is very rare (see 1 Kings xii. 31, xiii. 33) ; but in
view of the other passages quoted above, there would be some
justification in using the verb in question in its ordinary
sense and regarding the '06 as something that was " made."
Gaster ' believes that the 'Oh was a mummified body, which
could of course, in one sense, be spoken of as " made " ;
and when one remembers the belief about the soul hovering
about the body,^ Gaster' s idea is not so fantastic as might
at first appear to some. We believe the data are insufficient
to accept Gaster's idea unreservedly, but it merits con-
sideration.

However this may be, in the passages so far examined it
is clear that there is a distinction between the 'Oh and
the person who uses it for divination. In Lev. xx. 27 it
is said : " And a man or a woman in whom there is an
Vh . . . shall surely die ..." ; here, too, there is the same
distinction, only the 'Ob is not external to the man or
woman using it, let alone anything material ; it is the
spirit of some departed person who speaks out of the diviner.
In all the other passages in which 'Ob occurs (Lev. xix. 31,
XX. 6 ; 1 Sam. xxviii. 3, 9 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 24 ; Isa. viii. 19,
xix. 3, xxix. 4) it is always used purely and simply of the
person who divines. We have, thus, three stages of belief
regarding the 'Ob : first, it was a " something " believed to
be the departed spirit of a man or woman who could be called
up from the abode of the dead ; then, something repre-
senting the 'Ob was constructed, and the 'Ob was believed
to enter it, compelled to do so by one who understood the
ritual ; then a stage was reached in which it was believed
that the 'Ob entered into the " diviner " and spoke through

1 Hastings' Encycl. of Rel. and Ethics, iv. 811 ^ See pp. 176 ff.

134 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

him or her, so that the word 'Oh came to be applied to the
diviner. Or, to put it in another way : first it was believed
that a ghost, or 'Oh, actually appeared to the diviner ; then
an image of an 'Oh was made, and the diviner who under-
stood his business compelled the ghost to enter the image ;
and finally the diviner believed himseK or herself to be
"possessed" by the ghost, and thus came to be called by
the same name.^

The derivation of the word 'Oh is differently explained,
but that given by Delitzsch and Baudissin seems to be
the right one ; according to them it comes from the root
meaning " to swell up," i.e. something convex, round from
the outside, but hollow inside ; and thus it came to be
applied to a spirit or a ghost which was believed to appear
in bodily form but was hollow inside. The same word,
'Oh, is used of a " wine-skin " in Job xxxii. 19, which
points to the probable correctness of this view.

The word 'Oh often stands by itself ; but another word,
Yidde'oni, is also found ; this latter, however, never stands
by itself, but is always used in conjunction with 'Oh ; the
R.V. translates it by "wizard" ; it comes from the root
meaning " to know," and is probably descriptive of the
'Ob (in the earliest stage of its use), who " knows," and is
therefore consulted. Other expressions, which do not often
occur, are " he who inquires of the dead," Doresh el
ha-methim, and " he who asks an 'Oh,'' Sho'el 'Ob. The
former of these describes the function of the 'Oh, in the
later stage of its use ; the latter refers to the person who
comes to consult the 'Ob, also in the later stage of its use.
Finally, there are the 'Iltim, meaning " whisperers " ; this
refers to the method of procedure of the 'Oh (in the later
stage of its use) when going through his ritual (see section V).
All these expressions, then, though translated in the Revised
Version as though they were different categories of diviners

1 That these stages are not clearly marked in the Old Testament will
not cause surprise.

NECROMANCY 135

— " one that hath a familiar spirit," " wizard," " necro-
mancer," " whisperer " — refer, we beheve, to the same
class of people, and merely describe characteristic, func-
tion, and action. The probability of this lies in the
fact that in Necromancy there is and can be only one
type of " diviner," viz. the type that consults the dead
(or thinks he does). One can understand that there should
be various categories of " diviners," one class dealing with
Lots, another with Belomancy, another with Hepatoscopy,
and so on ; but there is no scope for variety of categories
in any one of these ; and so, too, of Necromancy. Hence
all four words mentioned probably refer to one and the
same class.

IV. The " 'Ob " and the Teraphim

In Ch. VIII, § VI we spoke of the Teraphim, the house-
hold gods whose worship was a remnant of Ancestor-
worship. In several passages in the Old Testament their
mention in close connexion with the 'Oh demands a brief
reference to the subject again. In 1 Sam. xv. 23 the
prophet condemns Teraphim as iniquitous and makes the
use of it parallel to divination ; that they were used for pur-
poses of divination is evident from 2 Kings xxiii. 24, for they
are there mentioned in the same category as the 'Oh ; and
in both Judges xvii. 5 and Hosea iii. 4 it is clearly implied
that the Teraphim stood in the sanctuary, » which would
have been an obvious place to come to if an oracle were
sought. But the clearest evidence is seen in Zech. x. 2 :
" For the Teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners
have seen a lie." That the practice was a Babylonian one
is seen from Ezek. xxi. 21 (26 in Hebr.) : " And the king
of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head
of the two ways, to use divination : he shook the arrows

1 This would not prevent their also being set up in houses.

136 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the
liver." These passages lead to the belief that the Tera-
phim were images of some ancestor in which the spirit
of the ancestor was supposed to come when conjured up
by the Vh, and before which the latter stood and received
the answer to the question which an inquirer sought.
Schwally's suggestion ^ that the Teraphim are to be identi-
fied with the Rephaim is very attractive ; the two words
may well come from the same root.

The Ephod is sometimes mentioned together with the
Teraphim ; but this subject does not concern us here ;
sufficient to say that this kind of Ephod was a different
thing from the priest's garment of the same name (cp.
1 Sam. ii. 18, xxii. 18, 2 Sam. vi. 14 together) ; it, too, was
an image, see Judges viii. 22-27, xvii. 1-5, 1 Sam. xxi. 10,
and was presumably used for divination ; but we have no
evidence to show that it had anything to do with Necro-
mancy.

V. The Modus Operandi op THE Necromancer

Necromancy assumes the belief in the " external soul." »
If there was a certain freedom accorded to the soul while
still more or less bound to the body, how much more
would this be the case when the soul was permanently
released from the body. For just as it was believed that
during a man's lifetime his soul could make distant excur-
sions and return, so it was also believed that after death
the soul, though detained in Sheol, could come out of
there and roam about provided that the requisite means
were employed to bring it up. How certain men originally
brought themselves to believe that they had the power
to bring up the dead and to consult them, it would be
difficult to say ; but it would be a great mistake to suppose

^ Das Leben nach dem Tode, pp. 35 ff. ^ See pp. 15 ff.

NECROMANCY 137

that the whole thing was chicanery. No doubt in course
of time cases of conscious deception would have occurred ;
but knowing what we do about the mentality of man in
a not very advanced stage of culture, we may confidently
believe that in the vast majority of cases there was a firm
conviction on the part of the diviner that he was really
able to accomplish what he professed he could. It is worth
noting that throughout the Old Testament, although divina-
tion of all kinds is often (though not always) strongly con-
demned, there is rarely a hint that it was not a real thing.
Indeed, the reason of its condemnation, viz. that it formed
a rival to Jahwe-worship, suggests belief in its reality,
otherwise it might have been treated with contempt, and
have been left to languish and die out of its own inanity.

Now it will be interesting to gather, if we can, from the
Old Testament, any hints as to what lay at the back of the
mind of these necromancers and their clients regarding
this matter, and to see if any points are forthcoming which
will give indications as to the modus opera^idi of the
necromancer. We must confess at the outset that there is
not much material of the kind desired ; but some little there is.

In the narrative of the witch of Endor (1 Sam. xxviii)
the witch must be thought of as looking downwards and
peering into space — for she says she sees a god coming up
out of the earth. Saul sees nothing, since he asks the
witch what she sees. The narrator evidently believes
that Samuel actually speaks, for he makes a clear dis-
tinction between what the woman says and what Samuel
says. It would seem, therefore, that when Saul carries
on a conversation with Samuel, we are intended to under-
stand that this was done directly, and not through the
medium of the witch. From other passages, however, we
are enabled to see that it was the " medium " who actually
spoke on such occasions, whatever the credulous believed.
For in Lev. xx. 27 we learn that it was believed that the
spirit of the dead came into the diviner ; the spirit there-

138 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

fore used the voice of the diviner as his instrument. It
is not necessary, however, to think that the witch, as
"medium," was conscious of deceiving Saul; even in these
days it is well known that people of this kind are capable
of working themselves up into a state in which they really
believe that an inner voice is speaking to them, and this
they repeat. There are also cases on record in which a
" medium " falls into a state of trance during which he or
she utters what is purported to be a message from the
other world. The possibility must be allowed of something
of this kind having taken place in the case of the witch
of Endor. The narrative all through, and especially what
is said in verses 21-25, has a ring of bona fides about
it. Self-deception is very easy when a person really
believes that he or she has the power to communicate with
spirits ; and in those days everybody believed that this
power was possessed by some. From Isa. viii. 19 we learn
the way in which a diviner spoke ; two expressions are
there used ; the first, which is translated by " chirp," comes
from the onomatopoetic root zaphaph (used only in the
pilpel form, mezaphzaph (the z should be pronounced as
ts) ; this is used primarily of the twittering of birds
(e.g. Isa. xxxviii. 14). The other, translated by " mutter,"
comes from the root hagak, used of the " cooing " of a dove
(also occurring in Isa. xxxviii. 14). The former word is
used also in Isa. xxix. 4, where further information is given
by the words, " thou shalt be brought down and shalt
speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of
the dust ; and thy voice shall be like that of the 'Ob, out of
the ground, and thy speech shall chirp out of the dust."
One other word occurs (once only, in Isa. xix. 3) which is
translated " charmers," but in the margin " whisperers " ;
it is used of Egyptian diviners, and occurs together with
the 'Ob and the Yiddeoni. It comes from a root aitat, which,
on Arabic analogy, probably means much the same as
hagah, mentioned just now, i.e. to speak in a low muttering

NECROMANCY 139

voice. It would thus appear that the diviner lay on the
ground, from which the spirit would be supposed to
arise, and spoke inl a peculiar tone of voice ; or else it
was by means of ventriloquism (the Septuagint usually
translates " them that have familiar spirits," i.e. the Vb, by
ijyaa-TpifxuOoi). Ventriloquism is an easy explanation, and
may have been adopted in some cases ; but there was no need
for it, and the words used, " chirp," " mutter," " whisper,"
do not necessarily suggest it. There may have been a
special reason for imitating the sounds made by birds ; for
there was a very widespread belief that after death the
soul assumed the form of a bird ; this is nowhere definitely
stated in the Old Testament to have been the belief of the
Israelites, but the thought may well have been implicit
in such a passage as Ps. Iv. 6 (7 in Hebr.) ; Jahwe, and
supernatural beings generally, are conceived of as having
wings (Ps. xvii. 8, xviii. 10, xxxvi. 7, Ivii. 1, Ixiii. 7, Exod.
XXV. 20, xxxvii. 9, etc.). But even though we have
no direct evidence of the Israelites believing that the soul
took the form of a bird, the widespread character of this
belief makes it pretty certain that they did believe this.
It was believed by the ancient Babylonians that the departed
soul became a bird in form ^ ; the Arabs believed the
same, they held that the soul took the form of an owl ^ ;
the Egyptians had conflicting views on the subject, but one
view was that the departed soul took the form of a half-
human bird {bai) which lived in or near the grave'; in
Greek art the human soul is generally represented with
wings,* sometimes as a butterfly. " Often the soul is
conceived as a bird ready to take flight. This conception
has probably left traces in most languages,^ and it lingers

1 Jastrow, op. cit., ii. 957.

2 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 185.

3 Miiller in the Encycl. Bihl., ii. 1218 ; Erman, Die cegyptische Religion,
pp. 88 f£.

* Cp. the Greek representation of Death as one with black wings.
^ Cp. the Greek Trordo/uat, dvaTrrepdu), etc.

140 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

as a metaphor in poetry. But what is metaphor to a modern
European poet was sober earnest to his savage an-
cestor, and is still so to many people." ^ Frazer gives a
number of examples. If, then, as may well have been the
case, the Israelites had a similar belief regarding the soul,
the object of the necromancer in articulating in a bird- like
fashion may quite well have been that by this means
he would presumably be more likely to attract the atten-
tion of the bird-shaped soul. In this event there would
have been no question of duping an inquirer, it would
rather come under the head of imitative magic.

Regarding the passage Isa. Ixv. 4, already referred to, it
would appear that here we have a case of what is called
"incubation"; by resorting to a grave and spending the
night there, it was thought that the departed spirit would
appear to the sleeper in a dream and that the desired infor-
mation or guidance would be imparted in this way. That
God spoke in this way was firmly believed (see Gen. xx. 3,
xxxi. 11; Num. xii. 6; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 15, etc.). For
other examples of the belief that departed spirits appear
to men in dreams, see Frazer's volume just quoted, pp. 368 ff.,
and Adonis, Attis, Osiris, ii. pp. 162, 190.

Necromancy, then, however naive and crass, witnesses
to the belief among the Israelites in Immortality.

1 Frazer, The Oolden Bough, " Taboo and the Perils of the Soul," p. 33.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS

CHAPTER XI

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS

I. Introductory

A CONSIDERATION of the mouming and burial customs, as
well as the funeral rites, among the Israelites offers perhaps
the most instructive illustration of their belief in Immor-
tality. How entirely incompatible with the " official "
Sheol- belief these customs were is one of the strongest
arguments in favour of the contention that throughout the
Old Testament history of Israel from the foundation of the
monarchy there was a " popular " as well as an " official "
doctruie of Immortality.

For the most part these customs go back in their origin
to a remote past ; and they were kept up when the original
meaning was forgotten ; then new meanings were oflfered ;
one must, therefore, allow for a variety of reasons in some
cases for the rites and customs, and it is likely enough that
modifications in regard to them arose owing to these reasons
being given. They involved what at times proved to be
contrary conceptions regarding the dead, but such contra-
dictions do not trouble men in a comparatively early stage
of culture.

There can be no doubt that Hartland is right when he
says that " throughout the rites and observances attendant
on death, two motives — two principles — are found strug-
gling for the mastery. On the one hand, there is the fear
of death and of the dead, which produces the horror of

141

142 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

the corpse, the fear of defilement, and the overwhelming
desire to ban the ghost. On the other hand, there is the
affection, real or simulated, for the deceased, which bewails
his departure and is unwilling to let him go." ^ This
applies, in greater or less degree, to all peoples of all ages,
in so far as these are known to us ; other elements came
in, in course of time, especially among the more
cultured nations ; with these we are only incidentally con-
cerned.

In the following investigation our attention will be centred
primarily on the Hebrews ; the mourning customs of
other Semitic peoples will be mentioned for purposes of
illustration, and in some cases the customs of peoples other
than Semitic will be incidentally referred to. We have not
dealt in any detail with Egyptian or Greek customs, as so
much has been written on these that they are probably
well known."

In seeking for the original meanings and objects of
mourning customs and funeral rites, much diversity of
opinion among scholars is to be expected, for the material
is very large, and the same rite or custom is often susceptible
of several explanations ; conclusions must be largely based
upon analogous things, not only among the Semites in
general, but also among other races, as well as among
savage tribes. But it is supremely necessary to guard
oneself against attempting to explain any of these customs
from the point of view of modern ideas ; this has not infre-
quently been done ; but it is pretty nearly certain to obscure
the original meaning.

When one contemplates the nature of some of the early
conceptions among the Israelites regarding the dead referred
to in the previous chapters, it must be granted that in seeking
the original meaning and object of a mourning custom

^ In Hastings' Encyd. of Religion and Ethics, iv. 426 o.
2 There are admirable and concise accounts bj' H. R. Hall (Egyptian),
G. Sergi (Greek) and in Hastings, op. cit., iv. pp. 458-464 and 472-475.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 143

analogies may iu some cases be drawn from men's actions
when they beheve themselves to be in the presence of a
deity. It is in all probability not a mere coincidence that
the regular period for mourning lasted seven days (see
Gen. 1. 10, 1 Sam. xxxi, 13, Judith xvi. 24, Wisdom of Ben
Sira xxii, 12, etc.), and that this was also the length of
feasts in honour of the deity. There can be no sort of doubt
that the souls of the departed were believed, like the deity,
only of course in a less degree, to be able to benefit and to
harm men on earth. A striking example of the interest
which the dead were believed to take in the affairs of the
living is to be found in Jer. xxxi. 15, where Rachel is con-
ceived of as weeping for her children. In the following
discussion on mourning customs this subject will be touched
upon more than once.

The classification of these customs and rites is difficult,
mainly because of the different meanings and objects that
a particular custom may have ; some are done in relation
to the dead, others in relation to the survivors ; yet others
may have a twofold object. The classification in the
following pages may not be scientific, but it will be found
convenient : we shall first deal with rites and customs
carried out by the mourners for or to themselves ; then
those done by the mourners for or to the dead. This will
not mean that the rite or custom in question is necessarily
done exclusively for the benefit of either the living or the
departed, but it will divide those things which the living
do to or for themselves, primarily, from those which they
do to or for the dead, primarily.

II. The Rending of Garments

Gen. XXX. vii. 33, 34 : " ... It is my son's coat ; an evil
beast hath devoured him ; Joseph is without doubt torn
in pieces. And Jacob rent his garments . , ." (2 Sam. i. 11) :
" Then David took hold of his clothes, and rent them :

144 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

and likewise all the men that were with him ..." (see also
2 Sam. iii. 31, etc. etc.).

A similar custom was in vogue among the Babylonians
and Assyrians ; when Asshurbanipal poured out his libation
to his dead predecessors he appeared in rent garments.^
The ideogram for " the rending of garments " is explained
in Assyrian by " overwhelming grief " and " uncontrollable
wrath." * In like manner, the Arabs rent their garments
as a sign of mourning, and the women went half naked *
(cp. Isa. xxxii. 11). Among the ancient Greeks the women
followed the dead to burial practically naked,* though it does
not necessarily follow from this that they rent their garments.
This was, however, the custom among other peoples.^

Various theories have been put forward in explanation
of this rite. In the Old Testament, Joel ii. 12, 13, the
idea of its being a symbolic action seems to underlie the
prophet's words : " Turn ye unto Me with all your heart,
and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning ;
and rend your heart and not your garments " ; but this
would, in any case, be a developed idea, in no sense answer-
ing to its original meaning. If we are to be guided by the
Assyrian explanation, and there is certainly much to
commend it, we must look upon it as an oriental way of
expressing unbounded grief combined, it may be, with an
undefined feeling of fear. We all know the tendency of the
oriental to give way to what to the Western appears exag-
gerated emotional expression ; since the death of a near
relative must often be regarded as a crisis in the lives of the

1 Maspero, Histoire ancienne dea peuples de VOrient classique, i. 689 ;
cp. Jensen, Die Keilinschriftcn und das alte Testament (3rd ed.), p. 603.

* Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte dea alien Orients, p. 360 ; Holle
und Parodies, p. 9.

3 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 177, 181 ; Goldziher, op. cit., pp. 244 ff.

* Philologus, iii. 212 (Diimmler).

5 Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, ii. 911 ff.
Frazer, " On Certain Burial Customs as Illustrative of the Primitive Theory
of the Sotd," in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. 64 ff. ;
Adonis, Attia, Osiris, ii. 264.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 145

survivors, one can understand the naturalness of unre-
strained grief finding vent in what to modern ideas may
appear unexpected forms,

A third explanation connects it with the putting on of
sackcloth. It is true that we often find the two rites men-
tioned together ; for example, in the passages just cited and
in Isa. xxxii. 1 1 stripping oneself of clothes seems to be for
the purpose of girding on sackcloth ^ (the reference is to
women). It has, therefore, been explained that the rending
of the garments took place as the quickest mode of getting
them off in order to put the sackcloth on ; this would again
be a case of oriental exaggerative action and impulsiveness.
Lagrange, who also sees a direct connexion between the
two rites, believes, however, that the rending of the gar-
ments was not so much with the idea of putting on the
sackcloth quickly, as to make an immediate profession of
the desire not to wear anything but the coarsest material *
(see further on this the next section III). He believes that
the rent garment was meant to be a visible proof of the
renunciation of pleasant intercourse among one's fellows.

While it is realized that there is something to be said for
each of these four explanations, they do not seem to go
sufficiently to the root of the matter to be wholly satisfac-
tory. The symbolism theory is confessedly a development,
which is altogether edifying, but which does not profess to
explain the origin of the rite. This, too, is the objection
to the Assyrian explanation ; doubtless to Asshurbanipal
and his contemporaries the rite expressed grief ; but there
must originally have been some reason for this form of the
expression of grief. And in regard to the other two explana-
tions, these take for granted that there was always a con-
nexion between the rending of the garments and the putting

^ Cp. 2 Kings xix. 1 ; on the other hand, in 2 Kings vi. 30 the sack-
cloth is seen to be under the ordinary clothes !

*" On les dechirait moins pour revetir le sac plus promptement que
pour professer qu'on ne voulait pas d'autre pariu-e que ce vetement
grossier," op. cit., p. 27G.

146 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

on of sackcloth ; but what proof have we of this ? Indeed,
we know that this was by no means always the case,^ as, for
example, among the Arabs and Greeks, who went half
naked, if not wholly so. It is acknowledged on all hands
that the rite of rending the garments as a sign of mourning
goes back to a remote antiquity ; but even during the
nomadic stage it may well be doubted whether this change
of garments ever took place ; after all, the " sackcloth,"
roughly woven of the hair of goats or camels, was only the
normal dress of early nomads. The explanations given
above may well all have had their place at different periods ;
but none of them fits in satisfactorily with the ideas of man
in an early stage of culture during which, there is every
reason to believe, this rite originally arose.

Other explanations have been given which take into
fuller consideration the ideas of man in a low stage of culture.
That at one time the spirits of the departed were regarded
with fear is too well known to need illustration ; the powers,
superior to those of men, which they were believed to possess,
would be quite sufficient to account for this fear ; nor would
the fact that in some respects they were thought to be
dependent on the living necessarily detract from this fear ;
nor would affection for the departed be inconsistent with
a feeling of fear. The fact of their invisibility combined
with the firm belief in their presence would also have inspired
dread. In short, whatever the causes, fear of the dead
existed. It is held, then, by many authorities ^ that the
original object of rending the garments was a quick
way whereby to disguise oneself from the dead and thus
escape detection in the case of any harm which the departed
spirit might intend. Another theory, based upon the well-

^ The two rites are certainly not always mentioned together in the
OldTestament, see,e.g.,Gen. xxxvii. 29,Lev. xxi. 10,2 Sam. i. 11, Jer. xh. 5,

* See, e.g., Frazer, in the art. in the Journal of the Anthrop. Inst, already
alluded to ; Griineisen, Der Ahnenkultus und die Urreligion Israels, pp.
95 ff. ; Beer, Der Biblische Hades, pp. IG f. ; Marti, Das Dodekapropheton,
p. 49 ; and many others.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 147

known belief among men in a low stage of civilization that
demons gather in the vicmity of a corpse, is that the gar-
ment is rent in order to prevent some evil-disposed demon,
or the spirit of the departed himself,^ from hiding in the
mourner's clothes, a rent in the garment being considered
a sure means of driving him away again. Robertson Smith
is inclined to see in the rite the relic of what was originally
intended to be an offering to the dead ; he says : " Closely
allied to the practice of leaving part of oneself— whether
blood or hair — in contact with the god at the sanctuary,
are offerings of part of one's clothes or other things that
one has worn, such as ornaments and weapons. In the
Iliad, Glaucus and Diomede exchange armour in token of
their ancestral friendship ; and when Jonathan makes a
covenant of love and brotherhood with David, he invests
him with his garments, even to his sword, his bow, and his
girdle (1 Sam. xviii. 3 ff.). Among the Arabs, he who
seeks protection lays hold of the garments of the man to
whom he appeals, or more formally ties a knot in the head-
shawl of his protector. In the old literature, ' pluck away
my garments from thine ' means ' put an end to our attach-
ment.' The clothes are so far a part of a man that they
can serve as a vehicle of personal connexion. Hence the
religious significance of suspending on an idol or Dhdt
Anivdt, not only weapons, ornaments, and complete gar-
ments, but mere shreds from one's raiment. The rag-
offerings are still to be seen hanging on the sacred trees ^ of
Syria and on the tombs of Mohammedan saints ; they art
not gifts in the ordinary sense, but pledges of attachment.
It is possible that the rending of garments in mourning
was originally designed to procure such an offering to the
dead. . . ." ^ This is very suggestive ; the rite, according to

^ Marti, op. cit., p. 51, is disposed to regard this as the more probable.

2 Curtiss gives a photographic illustration of one of these on p. 91 of
his book referred to above.

3 The Religion of the Semites (2nd ed.), pp. 335 f.

148 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

this theory, would denote a mark of affection on the part
of the survivor for the departed. There is, however, an
alternative : the old Semitic idea of the garment being
part and parcel of a man would be some justification for
regarding this rite as a palliative of lacerations of the body-
on behalf of the dead. This, too, would be a relic of an
offering to the dead ; but it would be in the nature of a
propitiatory offering rather than a mark of affection. The
fact that laceration of the body as well as rending the
garment are both referred to in the Old Testament ^ would,
of course, not militate against this view ; we have other
cases of ancient practices together with modifications of
them existing side by side. Still less would this view be
invalidated by the further fact that the rending of the
garment was not exclusively a mourning custom, but was
also practised at the time of calamity ^ ; for there were
a variety of these mourning customs of which the same
can be said ; in each case it was an adoption of the much
earlier mourning custom.

The tenacity of suchlike customs is well illustrated by
the fact that even at the present day orthodox Jews make
a rent in their outer garment as a sign of mournii:kg, it must
be not less than four inches, i.e. a handbreadth, in length.
It is the custom among the Persians to-day to make a rent
in the outer garment from the neck to the girdle.' The
Jews are now permitted to sew up the rent again after

^ For references to the former rite, see above, pp. 119 ff.

* E.g. Josh. vii. 6, Joel ii. 12, etc. etc.

3 Chardin, Reisen, vi. 250, referred to by Nowack, Hebrdische Archd-
ologie, i. 193. Strange to say, the custom was in vogue among some
Christians up to comparatively late times. Gregory of Nyssa deplores
its existence (Jewish Quarterly Review, v. 238), and in the Narrations
of St. Nilus (Migne, Patr. Oraec, Ixxix. 660) we are told of a Christian
woman who wovild not exhibit the usual signs of mourning because of
the cruel way in which her son had been put to death : oi> Kar^ffxi-o-a
XiTwva Kal yvfiva x^P'^'-^ irv^pa ar^pva, oiiK iffTrdpa^a Kdfias ifias Kal 6fv^ii'
■fjfpdvicra rb irpbawprov ; quoted by Krauss, Talmudische Archdologie, ii.
480.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 149

thirty days, but this was not allowed for centuries after
the beginning of the Christian era.^

III. Laceration of the Body and Cutting off the Hair

These practices have already been referred to ^ ; but as
mourning customs a few remarks upon them are called for
hero. The Old Testament references have been given
above. The more important views in explanation of the
rite are as follows :

The opinion that these practices were originally offerings
to the dead and that they witness to the existence of the
cult of the dead at some early period is denied by some
scholars. We believe that, in face of all the facts, the
view of these scholars cannot be sustained. But these
practices may very likely have had other purposes in
addition to their original one ; for, as already remarked,
some mourning customs did undoubtedly serve more than
one purpose ; the same rite sometimes expresses more
than one intention. There are good reasons for believing
that in its original form laceration of the body was prac-
tised over the dead so that the blood dropped upon the
corpse ; this may have signified either that a blood covenant
with the dead was effected, or, bearing in mind the ancient
belief of life residing in the blood, it may have had the
purpose of assisting the departed in his new life.

The view that the laceration was intended as a disguise
in order that the mourners might be unrecognizable to the
departed spirit in case he should return and harm them '
has much in its favour and can be supported by the existence
of practices which had a similar object.

The idea that laceration, by letting blood flow, i.e. by

^ Krauss, op. cit, ii. 71. 2 pp jjg q^

3 Journal of the Anthrop. Institute, xw 1 ff., 64 ff.

150 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

letting out life, had the effect of bringing the survivor to
the same state as the dead, seems fantastic to moderns ;
but that this was one of the beliefs is proved by an ancient
Arabic poem in which it is said :

" Of a truth, the mourner who scars his face [as a sign of mourning]
Is no more living than he that is biiried,
For whom a memorial stone is erected." ^

This is certainly a modification of earlier belief. Further,
it is probable that we have a modification of the rite itself
in the custom of beating the breast or thigh, referred to in
Isa. xxxii. 12 : " They shall smite upon the breasts for the
pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine " ; Jer. xxxi. 19 :
" Surely after that I was turned, I repented ; and after
that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh . . .," cp.
Ezek. xxi. 12. Such modifications, taking some palliative
form of the original rite, can be paralleled by other Semitic
religious customs, e.g. the redemption of the first-born.

The mourning custom of cutting off the hair also comes
under the category of those which may be regarded as
expressing more than one intention. The chief Old Testa-
ment passages which deal with the subject have already
been given,^ but they may be supplemented here by one
or two others. In Isa. xv. 2 it is said in reference to mourn-
ing : "... on all heads is baldness, every beard is cut off."
Jeremiah bids Jerusalem cut off her crown (hair is probably
implied) " and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on
the bare heights " (vii. 29) ; this is not in reference to
mourning for the dead, but it has already been pointed out
that some of the customs for general mourning for calamity
have been adopted from those of mourning for the dead,
cp. Jer. xli. 5 ^ ; in Ezek. xxvii. 31, in the lamentations on

1 Quoted by Torge, Seelenglauhe und Unsterblichkeitshoffnung im alien
Testament, p. 194.

» See above, pp. 119 ff.

3 Lev. X. 6 is probably also a reference to this custom, " Let not the
hair of your head go loose " (or according to another reading, " Uncover
not your heads "), being preparatory to cutting it off ; cp. xxi. 10.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 151

Tyre, the prophet says : " And they _ shall make themselves
bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they
shall weep for thee in bitterness of soul with bitter mourn-
ing," cp. V. 1-4. This custom was in vogue among the
Assyrians, 1 the Arabs,'' the Greeks,' and many other peoples.*

The purpose of the practice, apart from what has been
said on pp. 119 ff. as to its being an offering to the dead, is
well expressed by Hartland : " One object, at all events,
of the dedication of the hair is, like that of the blood, to
form a bond of union with the dead. The converse rite
of taking a lock of hair of the dead may be said to be world-
wide. Nor is it confined to a lock of hair ; it extends in
some cases to the nails and pieces of the garments. ... It
must be borne in mind that, according to the theory of
sympathetic magic, any portion of a human being, such as
hair, nails, skin, bones, and so forth, which has become
detached, is still, in spite of separation, in effective sympa-
thetic union with the body of which it once formed part ;
for the personality inheres in every part of the body. . . .
Not only, therefore, if I take a lock of a dead man's
hair do I establish effective union with him so as to prevent
him from inflicting any harm upon me ; but, conversely,
if I give him a lock of mine or a drop of my blood we are
bound together by a similar bond." ^ This is also evidently
the view of Robertson Smith. '

It is conceivable that the custom of covering the head
was a modification of this rite, but other and more cogent
reasons for it have been put forward, see p. 168.

IV. Putting on Sackcloth

2 Sam. iii. 31 : " And David said to Joab, and to all the
people that were with him. Rend your clothes, and gird

1 Jeremias, op. cit., p. 360. * Wellhausen, op. ciL, pp. 181 f.

3 See, e.g., Iliad, xxiii. 135-141.

* See the references given above on p. 122.

'^ Hastings, op. cit., iv. 431 f. * Op. cit., p. 326.

152 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner." Amos
viii. 10 : "... and I will bring sackcloth upon all loins . . .
and I wiU make it as the mourning for an only son. ..."
etc. etc.^

That this custom was in vogue among the Babylonians,*
Assyrians * (who called sackcloth saMw), and other peoples,*
is what we should expect ; it does not, however, appear to
have been in use among the ancient Arabs ; the women
went half-naked, and the men shortened their garments,
but the putting on of sackcloth is not mentioned, apparently.'

The Hebrew expression is "to gird on " sackcloth, which
suggests that it was originally only worn round the loins ;
it has, therefore, been conjectured that the custom arose
in the first instance by rending a piece from one's garment
and girding it round the loins ; this implied that one was
reducing oneself to a primitive state of dress, which meant
putting on a sacred dress,* the ancient way was always
regarded as holy by early man (cp. 1 Kings xx. 31).^ It
is, therefore, quite conceivable that among the Israelites
of historical times to put on sackcloth meant that a holy
garment was worn in honour of the dead ; whether this
originally implied an act of worship or not cannot be stated
with certainty ; but presumably this would have been the
case, provided this explanation of the custom be the correct
one.

Others hold that the custom arose from the same cause
as that for which (as they maintain) the garment was rent,
namely to disguise oneself from the dead, lest, being

1 Among other passages see 2 Sam. xxi, 10, Isa. xv. 3, Jer. vi. 26, xlviii. 37,
Ezek. xxvii. 31.

2 Jensen, KeilinschriftUche BihUotheh, vi. 400.

3 Jeremias, op. cit, p. 360 ; Delitzsch, Das Land ohne Heimkehr, p. 39.

4 Hastings' Encycl. of Rel. and Eth., iv. 439 6.

5 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 181.

« Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode . . ., pp. 35 ff.

' The fact that it was retained by the prophets would have caused it
to be regarded with veneration, cp. Isa. xx. 2 ff. We are also reminded
of the use of leaven among the Israelites.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 153

annoyed at his forcible separation from his accustomed
mode of life, he should be inclined to vent his displeasure
on the survivors.

Hartland thinks it was intended to mark those who were
under the tabu ; in speaking of the mourning garb gener-
ally, which is everywhere an essential part of mourning
observances, he says : " Primarily it seems intended to
distinguish those who are under the tabu. For this reason
it is usually the reverse of the garb of ordinary life . . . those
who wear clothing go naked, or wear scanty, coarse, or
old worn-out clothes. . . ." He then goes on to show what
is a very important point, namely that a mourning custom
may have more than one use, and may therefore some-
times have more than one meaning ; the mourning garb,
he says, " is more than merely distinctive : it is, like other
mourning rites, intended to express sympathy for the
deceased and grief at his loss ; it is intended to call forth
pity, to avert the suspicion of foul play on the part of the
mourner, and to deprecate the anger or ill- humour of the
deceased at his separation." Then, in opposition to the
view that it is put on for the sake of disguise, he says :
" It has sometimes been suggested that there is a further
motive, namely the desire to escape by means of disguise
the persecution of the deceased. A careful examination
fails, however, to disclose sufficient evidence in favour of
this interpretation. Protection is often held to be needed ;
but it usually takes a different form. ... In short, open war
rather than guile is the favourite defence. But so protean
are human motives that it is impossible to aver that in
no case is disguise the intention." '

Arising out of a very different train of thought is the
explanation given of the rite by those who see in it a sym-
bolic act of renunciation, i.e. reducing oneself to a simulated
state of poverty (sackcloth was the dress of the very poor),
and thus bringing oneself to the same condition as the

* Hastings, op. cit., iv. 439 6.

154 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

departed who now possessed nothing. This view of the
rite being a symbolic act of sympathy with the deceased is
well expressed by Torge ^ : " One ought to become like the
departed, to renounce everything and to possess no advan-
tage over him, i.e. one ought also to die. But as this was
not feasible, all the necessaries of life were reduced to a
minimum. The usual mode of life was set aside, its direct
antithesis was adopted instead ; everything was neglected
which at other times constituted the joy and delight of
life. This would be the less distasteful to the mourners
inasmuch as they believed that the spirit of the departed
witnessed what was being done, and experienced satis-
faction at the affection thus evinced."

All these views, again, have much to commend them ;
and against each there are some fairly obvious objections
which could be raised. It is very difficult to form a definite
conclusion as to what the rite originally meant to those
who practised it. Schwally's view (see above, the first
view mentioned) seems, on the whole, to be the most
satisfactory, especially as it implies (so it seems to the
present writer) that the putting on of sackcloth was not
one of the earliest among the mourning rites.

The modern usage among Jews is the same as that of the
rest of the world, black clothes having taken the place of
sackcloth. I

V. Sprinkling Ashes or Earth on the Head

It is important to notice how rarely this custom is men-
tioned in the Old Testament i7i rejerence to mourning for
the dead. It does occur in this connexion, but only in
quite a few passages. In the great majority of cases in
which the custom is spoken of it is in reference to calamity,
humiliation, contrition, or grief owing to causes other than

1 Op. cit., p. 192. Cp. Lagrange, op. cit., p. 276.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 155

that of the loss of friends. Three words are used : 'Epher
(IDS), "ashes" in the ordinary sense of the word, e.g.
the ashes of a red heifer, Num. xix. 9, 10, where the refer-
ence is to purification by putting the burnt remains of
the sacrifice "without the camp," and using them "for
a water of separation (or " impurity "), it is a sin offering " ;
this " water of separation " is sprinkled on a man, and
he is cleansed thereby (see verse 13). It is used in refer-
ence to mourning in Jer. vi. 26 : " O daughter of my people,
gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes : make
thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation."
In Ezek. xxvii. 27 ff., it is said of Tyre : " Thy riches and
thy wares . . . with all thy company which is in the midst
of thee, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of
thy ruin. . . . And all that handle the oar, the mariners . . .
shall cause their voice to be heard over thee, and shall cry
bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall
wallow themselves in ashes ... in bitterness of soul with
bitter mourning." But even in this passage, although there
is a reference to death, the mourning is evidently more on
account of the ruin of Tyre than because of those who have
died by falling " into the heart of the seas." Otherwise
the sprinkling of ashes on the head and sitting in ashes
is a sign of grief brought about through other causes, such
as contrition (Job xlii. 6, Isa. Iviii. 5, Jon. iii. 6, Dan. ix. 3),
or sickness (Job. ii. 8), or shame (2 Sam. xiii. 19), or national
calamity (Esther iv. 1,3). It is also used in a figurative
sense to denote something that is insignificant (Gen.
xviii. 27), or worthless (Job xiii. 12, Isa. xliv. 20), cp. Ps.
cxlvii. 16, " He scattereth the hoar frost like ashes."

The next word is 'dphdr (isV)' " dust," i.e. dry earth ;
and here again the word is rarely used in connexion with
mourning for the dead ; in Josh. vii. 6 we read that " Joshua
rent his clothes and fell to the earth before the ark of Jahwe
until the evening, he and the elders of Israel ; and they
put dust upon their heads " ; but although the context

156 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

speaks of the death of thirty-six men, the mourning is prob-
ably due rather to the calamity of defeat. The same remark
applies to Ezek. xvii. 27 &., already quoted, where this
word also occurs ; otherwise it is used, though less fre-
quently, like 'epher (e.g. Gen. iii. 14, Lam. ii. 10, Job ii. 12,
Isa. xlvii. 1). In its sense of " soil " used for ordinary
purposes it is, of course, common. But there is one specific
way in which it is used which requires emphasis, viz. as
earth from a grave ; thus in Job vii. 21 it is said : " For
now shall I lie down in the dust {'dphdr) ; and thou shalt
seek me diligently, but I shall not be " ; Job xx. 11 : " His
bones are full of his youth, but it shall lie down with him
in the dust {'dphdr) '' ; Job xxi. 26: "They lie down
alike in the dust Cdphdr), and the worm covereth them " ;
Ps. xxii. 29 (30 in Hebr.) : "All they that go down to the
dust i'dphdr) shall bow before him, even he that cannot
keep his soul alive," cp. Isa. xxvi. 19. Then we have the
common words for " earth," viz. 'addmdh (n»"ix), e.g.
2 Sam. i. 2 : "... behold, a man came out of the camp
from Saul, with his clothes rent, and earth Caddmdh) upon
his head " ; though this is not used where it is a question
of mourning for the dead, but only in cases of humiliation
or calamity.

There are thus comparatively few references in the Old
Testament to this custom in connexion with mourning ;
the passages quoted or referred to above are fairly exhaus-
tive. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that as a mourn-
ing custom it was very common in Israel ; this is clear
from the way in which it is spoken of, e.g. in Jer. vi. 26,
namely as a well-known thing which needs no explanation.
Moreover, its very wide prevalence among Semitic and
other peoples of itself suggests that the Israelites would
have been like the rest of men in this. Thus, the Arabs
sprinkled dust on their heads and on their naked backs ' ;
the Greeks " showed their sorrow at bereavement by strew-

^ Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 177.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 157

ing themselves with ashes (Homer, Iliad, xviii. 22 ; Odyssey,
xxiv. 315 ; Plutarch, de Siiperstit. iii. . . .) ; ^^^ the practice
of sprinkling ashes over the head as a sign of affliction is
widespread." *

Connected with this rite was the sitting in ashes, or on
the ground, see, e.g., Isa. iii. 26, xlvii. 1, Lam. ii. 10, Job
i. 20, ii. 13, Jon. iii. 6, which was also common among the
Babylonians. *

In seeking the origin and meaning of this custom it is
important to consider where the dust and ashes were
sought. Lagrange, in commenting on passages like Job
ii. 8, 12, xlii. 6, says : "II s'agit de ces tertres places a
I'entree des villages et qui se composent de debris. Le
fond du tumulus c'est le cendre qu'on enleve des fours a
cuire le pain ; puis avec le temps, c'est une masse de fine
poussiere. Lorsqu' une ville est prise, detruite, brulee, c'est
le refuge naturel des habitants. La on pent s'asseoir sur
la poussiere, ou sur la cendre, se rouler dans la cendre, se
mettre de la poussiere sur Ta tete ou faire les deux a la
fois. Avec le temps, 1' usage de se placer de la cendre sur
la tete devint le symbole d'une violente douleur. Lorsqu' on
venait annoncer une mauvaise nouvelle, le rite etait de
rigueur ; mais il est du moins assez a noter que dans ce
cas c'est de la terre que le messager ramasse sur son chemin,
et cela parut ensuite suffisant comme exj)ression de la
douleur. Dans aucun de ces textes il n'est question de la
mort et du deuil qu'elle cree dans une famille par le depart
d'un de ses membres. Sans doute la mort est la cause
principale de toutes les actions qui marquent de la douleur :
mais ne peut-on pas supposer aussi que les calamites
nationales ont opere dans les ames une emotion speciale,
occasionne des rites speciaux ? Des lors, ce n'est pas dans
ces rites qu'il faut chercher a entrevoir 1' opinion qu'on

1 Hastings, op. cit., ii. 113a (Canney) ; Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testa-
ment, iii. pp. 76, 298.

* Jastrow, op. cit., iii. 826 ; Jeremias, Holle . . ., p. 10.

158 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

avait de la survivance, puisque le temoignage de la douleur
etait rendu plus directement aux vivants qu'aux morts." ^
We have quoted this passage in full in order to give the
writer's argument in his own words ; the theory is interest-
ing and ingenious, and if the statement contained in the
last sentence always held good, the argument would be
very strong ; but when one has such a passage as Jer. vi. 26,
" gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes :
make thee mourning, as for an only son,"" it seems pretty
clear that the rite was originally transferred from one
which had the purpose of evincing grief for the sake of, and
probably (as was believed) in the sight of, the dead, rather
than with any thought of consideration for the living.
According to Lagrange's view this custom must be a very
late one if it originated, as he seems to imply, as a result of
national calamities, i.e. after settled city life had taken
the place of the nomadic life ; but there is every reason to
suppose that it goes back to a time long before settled life
in cities had arisen ; the fact of its existence, or something
equivalent to it, among savage communities (see the refer-
ences given above) points to this. We believe that the
rite in its origin was a mourning custom pure and simple,
and that in course of time it was adopted as a sign of mourn-
ing on the occasion of any calamity, national as well as
individual. The rare reference to the custom in the Old
Testament in connexion with mourning for the dead,
together with the clear indication here and there that it
ivas practised on such occasions — this, taken together with
the further fact that it is often spoken of in connexion with
other forms of calamity, simply means that in the Old
Testament we see the process going on of the old custom
being kept up in a new connexion and its original meaning
and significance dying out, or, more probably, entirely
forgotten. As to that original meaning and significance,
it is probable that a hint of this is to be discerned in those
1 Op. cit., pp. 280 f.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 159

passages in which the word 'dphdr ("dust") is used of
earth from a grave ; they are cited above ; if that was the
place whence the " dust " was gathered originally, then the
significance will be seen to be very striking. The ancient
Arabs had a magic way of assuaging their grief for the loss
of some dear one ; they took some dust from his grave,
mixed it with water, and drank it ! ^ If this meant
anything at all (and all these things did mean something
very real to the people of old), it meant that contact with
what was connected with the dead, such as the soil on
the grave (whether from the dug grave or from a rock-hewn
tomb), had an effect upon the living which was to them as
real as anything could be. If this interpretation of the
origin of the rite should be correct, it would give an explana-
tion which would be more satisfactory than those usually
given, for it touches upon something which was of real
importance to the mourner of old ; to him it was an act
of profound significance ; it gave him what was and is,
after all, the prime desideratum of the mourner — comfort
in his sorrow.

When we read of ashes (i.e. cinders) as well as dust (i.e.
powdered earth) being sprinkled on the head, this may well
be an echo of an original custom of taking the ashes
remaining from sacred offerings to the dead (cp. 2 Chron.
xvi. 14, xxi. 19).^

The modern custom among the Jews of mourners sitting
on the ground is doubtless a remnant of this ancient rite.

VI. Fastestg

1 Sam. xxxi. 13 : " And they took their bones [i.e. those
of Saul and his sons], and buried them under the tamarisk

^ Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 163.

2 The interpretation of this mourning custom suggested above was
reached by the writer independently of Robertson Smith, op. cit.,
pp. 413 S., and Schwally, op. cit., p. 15.

160 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days," cp. the parallel
passage 1 Chron. x. 12, where it is the " oak " or " terebinth "
in Jabesh. 2 Sam. i. 12 : " And they mourned, and wept
and fasted until even, for Saul, and for Jonathan his son,
and for the people of Jahwe, and for the house of Israel ;
because they were fallen by the sword" (see also 2 Sam.
iii. 15, xii. 16, 17, Gen. i. 10, etc.).

This custom was also in vogue among the ancient Arabs,
and was practised more especially by the women. ^ It does
not seem to have played an important part among the
Babylonians, for there are not many references to it ; but
it is impossible to believe that it was not generally practised.
It is also known to have existed among the Greeks,* and
also among savage peoples.^

It is difficult to discover the origin and to find a really
satisfactory explanation of this rite. To say that it is
merely the adaptation to mourning of a custom practised
generally for other purposes * is simply to ignore the diffi-
culty. It has been explained as " propitiatory of the
ghost, as a practice contrary to ordinary actions and so
resembling the actions of the land of ghosts which differ
from those of this earth " ' ; or, according to Frazer, it was
supposed to have the effect of preventing the spirit of the
deceased from entermg into the body of the living and
harming him ; the hungry ghost might be tempted to do
this if he perceived food in the body ; hence the efficacy of
fastmg. This idea may strike us as absurd, but it is entirely
in accordance with the ways of thought of uncultured man.
The explanation seems inadequate, but for the reason that
it postulates enmity on the part of the ghost ; it is certain,
however, that it was not always believed that the ghost
was inimically inclined to the living. Further, the idea

1 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 182. ^ Lucian, De Luctu, xxiv.

3 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, i. 272 ; Journal of the Anthrop. Inst.,
XV. 92 ; Westermarck, Folklore, xviii. 403.

* Lagrange, op. cit., p. 279. ^ Hastings, op. cit., v. 760 &.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 161

that food was abstained from lest it should be polluted by
the presence of the dead, and thus affect the living, seems
unsatisfactory in view of the very fact of that presence ;
the danger of pollution from the dead directly was at least
as dangerous as that of its acting indirectly by means of
food. Another exj)lanation is that " actual grief, making
mourners indifferent to the pangs of hunger, may have given
rise to fasting as a conventional sign of mourning " ^ ; this
assumes a very widespread effect due to grief, the existence
of which is not borne out by the facts of experience ; men
usually get hungry, grief or no grief, it is the exception
when the poignancy of grief is such as to drive hunger away
excepting for quite short periods.

Taking into consideration the mode of envisaging things
among uncultured men, there is much to be said in favour
of Schwally's interpretation ; he regards the rite as analo-
gous to that of fasting in order to propitiate a god and
avert his wrath. ^ There is here, however, the objection
to be raised again that this theory assumes fear of the
deceased on the part of the living, and this cannot always
be postulated. It is, once more, Robertson Smith who
seems to us to have hinted at the true explanation ; the
fast was a sacred preparation for the funeral feast : " The
usage of religious fasting is commonly taken as a sign of
sorrow, the worshippers being so distressed at the alienation
of their god that they cannot eat ; but there are very
strong reasons for believing that, in the strict Oriental form
in which total abstinence from meat and drink is pre-
scribed, fasting is primarily nothing more than a prepara-
tion for the sacramental eating of holy flesh." ' It was this
idea which lay at the back of fasting as a mourning custom ;
the funeral feast which followed was also a partaking of
holy food. That there are cases on record in which the
fasting follows the funeral feast does not vitiate this theory,

» Hastings, op. cit. 2 Qp^ cit., pp. 21 ff.

3 Op. cit., p. 4 2-i:
11

162 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

since we are dealing with what was the original object of
the custom ; when that had been forgotten all kinds of
varieties could arise. Among modern Jews this custom
has been greatly modified ; only meat and wine are pro-
hibited, and the mourner must eat in solitude ; but if the
Sabbath, or a holy day, supervenes, these rules are sus-
pended. During the period of death and the carrying-out
of the corpse for burial all eating in the house of the dead
is forbidden.

VII. Lamentation and Wailing

Gen. xxxvii. 34 : " And Jacob rent his garments, and
girded sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son
many days."

2 Sam. iii. 31-34 : " And David said to Joab, and to
all the people that were with him. Rend your clothes, and
gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner. And
king David followed the bier. And they buried Abner in
Hebron : and the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the
grave of Abner ; and all the people wept. And the king
lamented for Abner, and said . . ." (cp. 2 Sam. ii. 12, Ezek.
xxvii. 32, etc.). The wailing expressed itself also by cries
of "Ho, ho" (1 Kings xiii. 30, Jer. xxii. 18, xxxiv. 5).
It was accompanied or introduced by the sound of pipes
or flutes (Jer. xlviii. 36, cp. Matt. ix. 23, xi. 17 ^ ; there
were professional mourners, "such as are skilful of lamen-
tation " (Amos V. 16) ; especially women : " call for the
mourning women that they may come ; and send for the
cunning women, that they may come : and let them make

1 Cp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. III. ix. 5 : " . . . the lamentation did not
cease in the city before the thirtieth day, and a great many hired mourners,
with their pipes, who should begin their melancholy ditties for them " j
cp. 2 Mace. iii. 19 ff., 3 Mace. i. 18, Wisd. of Sol. xix. 3. See also Budde,
Die hebrdische Leichenklage in the " Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-
vereins," vi. 187 H.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 163

haste, and take up a wailing for us. . . ." (Jer. ix. 17, 18).
The lamentation also developed into poetry with a special
rhythm called the Kmah-stvo-phe, used on special occa-
sions ^ (cp. 2 Chron. xxxv. 25).

At first sight we should imagine that lamentation for the
dead is such an obvious and natural thing that no explana-
tion could be needed ; indeed, some might feel inclined to
say that it is quite inappropriate to reckon it among mourn-
ing " customs." As Lagrange puts it, this must be regarded
as an outburst of affectionate feeling (effusion de tendressp)
which is sufficiently explained by its nature." And, un-
doubtedly, this is true so far as it goes. But there are
reasons for believing that, in addition, something else
originally played a part in wailing for the dead. If this
was, and always had been, only the natural outburst of
affection, why did one need professional mourners and
professional flute-players ? Further, let the passage Zech.
xii. 10-14 be studied, and it will be seen that the formal
way in which the mourning (" as for an only son ") is spoken
of shows that something else besides personal grief for the
departed is in question ; it points to a fixed, traditional
ceremonial in mourning. As one writer on the subject
says, this passage " makes for the view that the lament
for the dead was a religious ceremony conducted under
rules handed down by tradition." *

It will be instructive to glance at the usage among some
other peoples. Although, according to Langdon, the
sources offer but meagre material on the subject of wailing
for the dead, there is, nevertheless, sufficient to show that
it was customary among the Babylonians and Assyrians,
The official waller is referred to on an ancient Sumerian

^ Not all the lamentations, however, in the Old Testament are com-
posed in this measttre ; e.g. the laments in 2 Sam. i, 19-27, iii. 33, 34
are in a different measure.

* Op. cit., p. 275, he adds : " II ne faut point ici cherchor mystere."

'* Benzinger in the Encycl. Bihl. iii. 3221 o.

164 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

inscription, together with his pay. In the Gilgamesh
Epic it is said that the hero mourned for his friend six
days and six nights. In the reign of Asshurbanipal one of his
officials who died was mourned for ; his burial, and the
accompanying ceremonies, are thus described : " The tomb
we made ; he and the women of his palace rest in peace ;
the psalms are ended ; they have wept at the grave ; a
burnt- offering has been burned ; the anointings are all
performed . . . ceremonies of incantation, penitential psalms
they have finished." Elsewhere it is said that three
days' mourning and wailing took place on the death of
the mother of King Nabonidus, and the official mourning
went on for a month. ^ Pinches gives the translation of a
long inscription on which wailing for the dead is mentioned
several times.* We are told, further, of how at the burial
of an Assyrian king the leader of the music with his mourn-
ing women began their music when the mourners had all
assembled. On another inscription it is said : " The
wives wailed, and their friends responded." ' On another
text mention is made of " the stool of mourning," or else,
as Jastrow says in his note on the passage, " the place of '
wailing." * Again, concerning the ancient Arabs we are
told that the period of wailing lasted seven days ; it was
the duty of the female relatives to do the wailing ^ ; they
were called redddddt, i.e. the responders."

Among the Greeks wailing and lamentation took place
during the different stages of a funeral not only by the
relatives and friends of the deceased, but also by professional

1 Hastings, op. cit., iv. 446 a. Herodotus, i. 198, says of the Babylonians
that " their fvineral lamentations are like those of the Egj-ptians."

* The O.T. in the Light of the Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia,
pp. 477 f.

3 Jeremias, Das alte Testament . . ., p. 361 ; Holle . . ., pp. 9, 10 ;
Delitzsch, Das Land ohne Heimkehr, pp. 35, 36.

4 Op. cit., ii. 826.

s Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 177, 181, 182 ; Goldziher, op. cit., p. 244,
260.

« Torge, op. cit. p. 180.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 165

mourners {dprjvcoSoi) ; these were of both sexes ; the women,
especially, sang dirges over the dead ; flute-playing was
also a customary element in the wailing. ^

For similar rites, on a more exaggerated scale, among
savage peoples, see Frazer, The Belief in Immortality, i,
pp. 271 ff., 280 ff., where it is clearly shown that wailing as
an expression of grief is only a subordinate element in
mourning for the departed; see also Hastings, op. cit.,
iv. 415 f.

There is a striking uniformity of custom among different
peoples in this matter ; and there is no getting away from
the fact that we must look for some additional reason,
beyond the expression of sorrow at the loss of a friend or a
relative, to account for the form of this mourning custom.

A number of explanations have been offered to account
for the origin of this custom ; one thing seems quite certain,
and that is that although some one dominant reason (apart
from natural sorrow) may underlie the rite, it is not that
one alone which sufficiently explains it. As in a number of
other mourning customs, there were probably several reasons
why the thing was done. Ancient and modern men are
alike in this, if in nothing else, that they are always willing
to hit two birds (at least) with one stone. It appears to
us that this is illustrated, so far as early man is concerned,
by this mourning custom. Rolide ^ shows good grounds
for the view that the exaggerated forms of lamentation both
among the ancient Greeks and among savage peoples were,
in the main, due not to natural affection (he would not, of
course, deny that this was one element), but to the belief
that the spirit of the deceased was present and witnessed
with delight the tokens of affection for him.^* If, on the

^ For details regarding funeral rites, etc., among the Greeks the most
helpful work is Rohde, Psyche : Seelencitlt und U nsterblichkeitsglauhe der
Griechen (1890) ; see also Lucian, De Luctu, passim.

* Op. cit., pp. i. 222 f.

3 Cp. with what was said above (p. 126) about flute-playing and its
effect upon the departed spirit.

166 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

other hand, these indications of regard should have been
omitted, it was believed that the chagrin of the departed
spirit might vent itself upon the survivors, and make
things very disagreeable for them.

Other authorities hold that the wailing, and especially the
shrill screaming and other hideous noises, had the effect of
driving away the demons who were supposed to gather in
the vicinity of a dead body. This is undoubtedly the reason
in some cases. ^

It is possible that there was yet another element in this
custom of wailing : it may have had the purpose of recalling
the dead, either in the hope that he might come back, or
to make quite sure that the soul had permanently departed
this time (we have referred to the belief in the external soul
above, pp. 15 ff.), and was not merely in a deep sleep ; we
recall the cry of the ancient Arabs which they uttered on
the grave of the departed, " Be not far."

In Talmudic times among the Jews the funeral procession
was accompanied by professional mourning women ; the
minimum allowed was two flute- players ^ and one mourning
woman. They struck up their lamentation as soon as the
procession started ; sometimes they leapt on to the bier
and continued their cries there. At times the lamentation
took an antiphonal form, at others it was a general chorus.
This custom continued as long as the Jews lived in Pales-
tine and Babylonia, or in the midst of a Jewish colony in
the Dispersion. It has now long ceased among the Jews
of the West.'

1 For example, see Hastings, op. cit., iv. 503 a.

* From the Mishnah we get the following reference to the subject in
Shabbath xxiii. 4 : " If a Goi (i.e. a Gentile) brings [mourning] flutes on
the Sabbath, an Israelite shall not mourn with them unless they are
brought from a place near by " (i.e. within what is called the Techum or
" Sabbath limit," an area two thousand cubits in any direction).

» See fvu-ther, Krauss, op. cit., ii. 64 H.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 167

VIII. Some Miscellaneous Customs

There are a few minor customs which may conveniently
be grouped together. The taking off of the sandals in
presence of the dead is referred to as a sign of mourning in
Ezek. xxiv, 15-18 ; cp. 2 Sam. xv. 30, Isa. xx. 2-4. In these
last two passages there is no reference to the dead ; it is
another example of a custom originally practised in mourn-
ing for the dead being adopted by mourners in face of a
public calamity. Lagrange regards this merely as comple-
mentary to the taking off of one's clothes in order to put
on sackcloth (" c'est un complement necessaire de toilette ").^
The original meaning is probably deeper than this ; to get
at the significance of mourning customs which touched the
most deeply-seated of human emotions, one must try to
envisage things from the point of view of uncultured man,
not from that of the modern. We have already more than
once seen reason to believe that just as modes of expressing
sorrow and distress were derived from the customs in vogue
in primitive times of mourning for the dead, so also some
of the conceptions regarding the relationship between men
and the deity, and the means of keeping this up, were also
held when it was a question of the relationship between
the living and the dead. Both sprang from similar emotional
instincts ; the elements of fear and reverence, the sense of
mystery due to the belief in the reality of the presence of
one who was invisible, were common to both. We are
justified, therefore, in explaining some mourning customs
at any rate, on the analogy of religious rites, performed in
the presence of the deity. In the story of the burning bush
the command comes to Moses : " Put off thy shoes (sandals)
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground " (Exod. iii. 5, cp. Josh. v. 15) ; the holy
presence demands definite signs of reverence ; cp. Eccles. v. 1

1 Op. ciL, p. 277.

168 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

(iv. 17 in Hebr.) ; we are reminded of the practice at the
present day of the Muhammadans, who always remove their
sandals when they enter a mosque. The removal of the
sandals in the presence of the dead, then, was in its origin
due to reverential awe. It was thus not strictly speaking
a mourning custom, though practised by mourners.

It is possible that the covering of the head had a similar
origin. 1 In a passage just referred to, 2 Sam. xv. 30, it is
said of David and of those who went with him that " he
had his head covered . . . and all the people that were with
him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping
as they went up " (cp. Jer. xiv. 3, 4). The idea that this
was done in order to hide one's grief betrays ignorance
of the oriental character ; all we know of the ancient as
well as of the modern oriental shows that he prefers to share
his grief. It is far more likely that, on the principle of
what has been said above, it was due to the feeling of awe
in the presence of the supernatural, just as Elijah covered
his head with his mantle when Jahwe was passing by ( 1 Kings
xix. 19).

Covering the lips (Mic. iii, 7, Ezek. xxiv. 17, 22), and
Laying the hand on the head (2 Sam. xiii. 19) may have
been due to the same cause. Some would see in the cover-
ing of the head a means of averting the evil eye ; among
the Arabs a fine-looking man will often cover his face
when in a crowd lest the evil eye should be cast upon him.^

The Mourning Customs so far dealt with have all been
acts done by mourners to or for themselves, primarily ; in
some cases the act is certainly intended to affect the de-
parted as well ; but in all of them it is first and foremost
something that the mourners do to or for themselves. Now
we come to consider some customs and rites which are

1 Nowack, Hebrdische Archdologie, i. 195.

2 Bertholet, Die israelitischen Voratellungen vom Zuatand nach dcm Tode,
p. 4.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 169

accomplished by the mourners first and foremost to or for
the dead, whether for the corpse or the released soul. And
here again there are some cases in which, in all probability,
the mourners have an eye to themselves ; but it is to or for
the dead that the initial act is undertaken.

IX. Closing the Eyes of the Dead

In Gen. xlvi. 4 the following words to Jacob are put
into the mouth of God : "I will go down with thee into
Egypt ; and I will also surely bring thee up again : and
Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes."

Looked at from the modern point of view this act suggests
nothing more than the outward expression of dutiful affec-
tion ; and in the passage quoted (the only one in the Old
Testament in which the custom is alluded to) we are
evidently intended to understand nothing more by it than
this ; it was a comfort to Jacob to know that this final
act of filial affection would be accorded him. But when
we come to observe the similar custom among other peoples
the conviction is forced upon one that although the sign
of affection may always have been an element, there was
originally some other purpose in it as well.

That it was done among the Arabs and Babylonians may
be taken for granted, since so many mourning customs
were identical among the Semites. So, too, among the
Greeks ^ and various other peoples in all parts of the world. *
The object of the rite has been variously explained ; Nowack
thinks that the purpose was simply to make the departed
appear as sleeping ' ; but there is reason to believe that
the custom originally meant more than this. In the Mishnah
it is said that " one may not close the eyes of the dead on
the Sabbath, and not on week-days at the going-forth of the
soul (C'd: ns^v^). He who closes the eyes at the going-

1 E.g. Iliad, xi. 453, cp. Rohde, op. cit., i. 23 note.
* Hastings, op. cit., iv. 411 ff.
' Hebrdische Archdologie, i. 187 f.

170 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

forth of the soul, behold, he sheddeth blood " {Shabbath,
xxiii. 5), The curious expression " the going- forth of the
soul " may simply mean the moment of death, and
to close the eyes before this takes place is, as it were, to
curtail life for a few moments and thus a " shedding of
blood." But in view of the fact of the widely spread
belief that the soul resides in the pupil of the eye, it may
mean that to close the eyes prematurely is to prevent the
free flight of the soul, which is compared with " shedding of
blood." Another, directly contradictory, explanation is
that by closing the eyes, wherein the soul resides, one is able
to retain it a little longer among the living. The latter
explanation is not very convincing, because in any case it
was believed that the soul continued near the body for
some time after death. Yet another explanation, based
upon the widespread belief in the gathering together of
demons where a corpse is, is that both the closing of the
eyes and every other opening of the body ^ was effected in
order to prevent demons from entering it. Finally, there
is the explanation that this was done in order to avert the
evil eye ; this assumes an entirely different belief as to
the feelings of the departed towards the survivors (unless
it be held that a demon utilizes a dead man's eye) ; but it
is evident that among some peoples this was the cause of
the rite, for it was done from behind the corpse, never
from the front, lest a look from the not yet closed eye
should be cast upon the person performing the rite, to his
very great detriment.^

X. Kissing the Dead

Gen. 1. 1 : " And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and
wept upon him, and kissed him." This occurs after the

* This was done by the Jews in the Talmudic period : Krauss, op. cit.,
ii. 55.

* See the immense number of details on this subject in Elworthy, The
Evil Eye : An Account of this Ancient and Widespread Superstition.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 171

account of Jacob's death in the previous verse. Here it
is clear that nothing more than an outward expression of
affection is in question. But there are cases on record in
which this widespread custom among various races had a
different object and meaning, and in which it was evidently
parallel with a ceremonial touching of the corpse.' Further,
if there is any justification at all in the contention that
in seeking the original meaning and object of a custom
analogies may in some cases be drawn from men's actions
when they believed themselves to be in the presence of the
deity — and the majority of authorities seem to hold this
view — then it may be that one element, at all events, in
this custom in its origin was analogous to that of kissing
or stroking an object in which a deity was supposed for
the time being to be present. ^ In Hosea xiii. 2 it is said :
" And now they sin more and more . . . they say of them,
Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves"; cp. 1 Kings
xix. 18, " Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel, all
the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every
mouth which hath not kissed him " ; a similar rite is referred
to in Job xxxi. 26, 27. Of the same nature was the custom
among the Arabs, still practised by Muhammadans, who
kissed the black stone (Ka'aba) at Mecca, or else touched
it with the hand ; the object was to effect close contact
with the divinity supposed to reside in the stone.' Others
believe that so far as the kiss is concerned, the idea was
that " in some way the breath was the life of man, and
that giving a part of the breath to the object adored was
in the nature of a sacrifice." * Among the ancient Greeks
the nearest relative received the last breath of the dying
man in a kiss ; this was the act of the departing person
to the living ; presumably the object here was that of trans-
ferring the life of him who was departing to his posterity.

^ See Hastings, op. ciL, iv. 426 a. * Cp. Schwally, op. cit., p. 8.

' See further, Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 109.
* Jacobs in the Jewish EncycL, vii. 516 a.

172 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

There are thus several ways of explaining the origin of
the custom ; we are inclined to believe that the first explana-
tion comes nearest to the original meaning of the rite ;
reverential awe and affection would easily run into one
another on such occasion. To the ancient Israelite there
was the belief of being in presence of the supernatural
when he stood by the dead body of his father, yet affection
for the departed must have been one of the predominant
elements.

That superstitions of some sort were connected, in much
later times, with the kissing of the dead seems to be the
natural inference from the fact that it was forbidden by a
Church council, namely that of Auxerre, in 578.i

Whether the custom of circumambulation around the
corpse ^ — either an act of reverence for the departed, or a
magical rite to prevent the return of the soul — was ever in
vogue among the ancient Hebrews cannot be said ; but it is a
widespread custom ; among the Sephardic Jews it has
been practised apparently from time immemorial, and at
the present day it is always done ; seven circuits are made
round the bier, during which prayers for the departed
are chanted to a plaintive melody.^ In substance some of
these are believed to date back to the time of Hillel, cirm
30b. c— 10 A.D.

XI. Treatment of the Corpse

That we have but scanty references in the Old Testament
to the treatment of the corpse immediately after death does
not, of course, mean to say that there was any neglect in
this respect ; it simply means that only rarely did occasion
arise for mentioning any details. We have ample informa-

1 Thurston in the Catholic EncycL, vii. 065.

* Cp. the circumambulation of the Arabs round the Ka'aha, Wellhausen,
op. cit., pp. 10 ff.

3 Gaster, Daily and Occasional Prayers, I.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 173

tion on the subject so far as the Jews of later periods are
concerned ; and, knowing the rigid conservatism in all
that has to do with mourning customs, we are justified in
believing that the customs of later times hold good for
earlier periods as well. True, there are exceptions here ;
whatever the reasons may have been, ancient customs were
sometimes modified, and in some cases fell out of use alto-
gether ; and later customs have come into vogue which
were unknown in earlier ages. But unless there are good
grounds for believing the contrary, one may say that,
in general, customs practised among the Jews, say, at the be-
ginning of the Christian era had been in use centuries before.

So far as the washing of the corpse is concerned the Old
Testament is silent, but in Acts ix. 37 this is mentioned as
the ordinary thing. In the Mishnah it is said that it must
be done, even on the Sabbath {Shabbath, xxiii. 5). Among
the Arabs the corpse was washed by the nearest relations
and friends of the deceased ; sometimes the water was
mixed with salt, or with camphor ; but those who fell in
battle, and martyrs, were not washed, but were buried in
their blood. ^ Concerning the Babylonians and Assyrians
we have no information on the subject, but it may be taken
for granted that it was done ; that it was certainly
practised among the Greeks we know from various sources,
e.g. Iliad, xviii. 345 ff.

The anointing of the corpse is not mentioned in the Old
Testament, but it was probably done, at any rate among
the wealthier classes, cp. in the New Testament Mark xvi. 1,
Luke xxiv. 1, John xii. 7, xix. 40. In Talmudic times it
was customary to place metal vessels on the body, and to
lay it on sand or salt ; this was done to postpone corrup-
tion, which supervenes so soon in Eastern climates.^ Among
the Babylonians the corpse was rubbed with milk, honey,
oil, and salt; spices were also laid upon it,' The Arabs,

1 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 178. ^ Krauss, op. cit., i. 55.

3 Jeremias, Holle, ...,?• 9»

174 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

too, frequently used spices for this purpose, ^ The Greeks
poured oil over the body. The purpose of these two
customs was, no doubt, the temporary prevention of corrup-
tion ; they were probably not very ancient among the
Hebrews, as they imply, especially the second, some degree
of settled life.

As to the embalming of the corpse, although this is men-
tioned in Gen. 1. 2, 3, of Jacob, and in verse 26 of Joseph,
we have no reason to believe that it was customary among
the Hebrews ; these passages reflect Egyptian usage. The
Babylonians embalmed the corpse in honey, according to
Herodotus, i. 198 ; the Jews and Arabs placed spices within
the grave-clothes. For a full account of the method of
embalming among the Egyptians, see Herodotus, ii. 85-90.
The Greeks did not embalm the bodies of the dead.

Regarding the clothing of the corpse, in the Old Testa-
ment it is implied that a man was buried in his ordinary
clothes ; in 1 Sam. xxviii. 14 the witch of Endor describes
the appearance of Samuel, on his coming up from the
abode of the dead, as being " covered with a robe," a
description sufficient to enable Saul to declare that it is
Samuel. The same is implied in Isa. xiv. 9 and Ezek.
xxxii. 27.^ But in the New Testament special grave-
clothes of linen seem to be the custom, see Matt, xxvii. 59,
Mark xv. 46, Luke xxiii., John xi. 44, xx. 6, 7 ; this was
also done in Talmudic times, it being considered a shameful
thing to be buried naked ; this, however, often occurred,
especially among the wealthy, who could afford to be buried
in stone sarcophagi and in built vaults ; but among the
poor it was always the custom to be buried in grave-clothes.*
The Babylonians, too, were usually buried in the same
way,* as well as the Greeks ; but the Arabs were accustomed
to be buried in the clothes they usually wore in lifetime.'

^ Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 178.

* On the text of this passage see above, p. 66.

3 Krauss, op. cit., p. 56. * Jeremias, HoUe . . ., p. 9.

* Wellhausen, op. cit., p. '78.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 175

Cremation among the Hebrews was abhorred ; we may
well believe that the reason of this was the conviction
that the soul was in some undefined way connected with
the body after death ( see next section) , Among the Hebrews
the burning of a dead body was reserved only for some
of the worst criminals (Lev. xx. 14, xxi. 9/ Josh. vii. 25) ;
but that the very idea of it was hateful is clear from Amos
ii. 1 : " For three transgressions of Moab, yea, for four,

1 will not turn away the punishment thereof ; because he
burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," op.

2 Kings iii. 27.' Among the Arabs, too, burning of dead
bodies was unknown. The Babylonians did not burn their
dead ' ; it is true, two vast finds of burnt bodies in regular
"cities of the dead" in Babylonia have been unearthed
by Koldewey (in 1887), but, as Jeremias says, these are not
Babylonian. * The early Greeks burned their dead, but with
the rise of higher culture burying also became customary.

Recent excavations in Palestine have shown that the
pre-Canaanite dwellers in the land were in the habit of
burning their dead ; for full details, see the Quarterly State-
ment of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1902, pp. 347 ff.,
1904, pp. 324 ff., 1905, p. 318 ; Sellin's sumptuous work on
the excavations at Tell Ta'annek : Bericht . . ., pp. 88 fif.,
98; Vincent, Canaan d'apresT exploration recente,'pip. 207 fE.,

1 These two passages may, however, refer to death by burning.

* In 1 Sam. xxxi. 12 it is said that the dead bodies of Saul and his sons
were burned ; but the words are omitted in the parallel account in 1 Chron.
X. 12 ; and see also 2 Sam. xxi. 12-14, where it is said that the bones were
buried in the sepulchre of Ivish. It is highly probable that the text is
corrupt, and a very sUght emendation would bring the passage into
line with Old Testament teaching, viz. by reading llCb'^l (= nSD'!) " and
they mourned" (cp. Gen. xxiii. 2, 1 Kings xiv. 3) instead of ISIC^'^I " and
they burned." The same text-corruption seems to be present in Amos
vi. 10, only here it is the whole passage which is incomprehensible as it
stands.

3 Jeremias, HoUe . . ., pp. 10, 13 j Jastrow, op. cit., i. 372.

« On the other hand, Langdon says that " cremation and bodj'-burial
existed side by side from the earliest times," in Hastings, op. cit., iv. 444 h.

176 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

262 £f. ; and see also the very interesting remarks on the
general subject by Rohde, Psyche . . ., i. pp. 27 ff., 225 ff.

XII. Disposal of the Dead

It is necessary here to emphasize once more the parallel
views held regarding the belief in Immortality among the
Israelites, viz. the popular and the " official." A Sheol-
belief of some kind was undoubtedly ancient ; all the evidence
points to this ; but it became greatly modified with the
rise of the religion of Jahwe. The normal teaching in the
Old Testament represents Sheol as a closed city from which
there was no exit ; such a view was quite compatible with
Jahwe-worship because it excluded any idea of relationship
between the living and the dead. The ancient belief was
very different ; here Sheol was, indeed, the abode of the
dead, but it was not the closed city which it became in later
days ; the souls, not mere shades, of men who went there
could and did hover around and in the neighbourhood of
the body, with which it was in some undefined way attached
even after death. The care of the body, of its supposed
wants, and of the place where it lay were, therefore, matters
of paramount importance. In view of the later " official"
teaching these things ought to have been altogether unneces-
sary. Very likely this was the opinion of the official teachers,
but it is certain that they found it quite impossible to do
away with the immemorial usages of the people regarding
their dead ; the tenacity with which these were clung to
shows the deep-seated belief that the dead had conscious-
ness and power.

The matters to be considered in this section and in the
next, which will show the immense solicitude the Israelites
had for the corpse's place of rest and for its supposed
requirements, would be incomprehensible except on the
supposition that there was believed to exist a relationship
of some kind between the soul and the body after death.

A word must first be said about the horror among the

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 177

Israelites at the idea of an unburied corpse. The most
terrible judgement upon the kingdom for its wickedness
which the prophet can conceive of is uttered in this way :
" At that time, saith Jahwe, they shall bring out the bones
of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and
the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets,
and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their
graves ; and they shall spread them before the sun, and
the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have
loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they
have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they
have worshipped ; they shall not be gathered, nor be
buried ; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth "
(Jer, viii. 1, 2).^ Again, it is said of the wicked that this
shall be their punishment : " . . . they shall have none to
bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their
daughters ; for I will pour their wickedness upon them "
(Jer. xiv. 16, cp. vii. 33, ix. 22, xvi. 4 ; see also 1 Kings
xiii. 22, xiv. 11, xvi. 4, xxi. 24, 2 Kings ix. 10, Ezek. xxix. 5,
Ps. Ixxix. 2-4). If anyone came across a dead body any-
where it was his duty to bury it (cp. the passages just
referred to and Tohit i. 17, ii. 3-8). According to the
Deuteronomic Code, burial was to be accorded even to
criminals who had suffered the death penalty by hanging
(Deut. xxi. 22, 23). An interesting notice in Josh. vii. 24-26
shows that when a man suffered the death penalty of being
stoned his body was covered over with a heap of stones.*
The horror of a dead body lying unburied was due to the
same cause which impelled men to cover over blood which
had been shed, whether of man or beast (see Lev. xvii. 23,

1 In reference to the fact that only the " bones " are mentioned here
see above, pp. 20 ff.

2 Judging from what may sometimes be seen in the East to-day, ordinary
graves may on occasion have taken this form too ; thus travellers have
seen dead bodies in the desert covered over with a heap of stones ; each
passer-by adds to the pile by throwing a stone on to it ; cp. also
Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 180.

178 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

Gen. xxxvii. 26) ; such uncovered blood cries out for ven-
geance (see Ezek. xxiv. 7-8, cp. Gen. iv. 10, Isa. xxvi. 21,
etc.). The reason was that the life or soul resided in the
blood, according to the old belief (see Lev. xvii. 11, 14),
so that if it, or the body wherein it resided, was not covered
the soul would not be laid to rest, but would wander about
harming men. How ingrained was the belief in the possi-
bility of souls wandering about the earth may be gathered
from the tenacity with which it was held by the Jews in
later times ; in a Midrash belonging, in its present form,
to the fifth century a.d. this belief (though it is not a ques-
tion of iinhuried bodies) is thus expressed : " the souls of
the godless wander about over the whole world, and
shall find no place of rest for their feet. His soul [i.e. that
of the godless] does not enter into the place it is destined
for until twelve months have passed, that is until the body
has decayed. What does it do ? It goes and comes again,
always hovering around the grave ; and it is painful for it
to behold the body which is buried and which worms cover "
{Tanchuma, Wayyikra, viii.).^ This echoes ancient belief
regarding the soul after death and the relation between the
two. It was this wandering about of souls which was
believed to take place if the body was unburied ; if it was
buried the soul to which it belonged would be content, and
the living would be safe from molestation. It was, there-
fore, for the benefit of the living that the dead body should
have proper burial. But that is not all. The question
naturally suggests itself as to why the unburied body
should have the effect of making the spirit unquiet ; and
why should the spirit in this case wander about the earth
and molest men ? We have seen that the relationship
between the body and the soul (spirit) which there is in the
living man was believed to continue to exist in some manner
after death — and the reason for this belief is not difficult
to understand ; it might, therefore, be argued that the
1 Quoted by F. Weber, Jiiedische Theologie . . ., p. 338.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 179

want of respect shown to the departed by not burying his
body was a source of annoyance to the spirit, which for this
reason punished those who were responsible for this duty.
But this answer is not wholly satisfactory, for one can
conceive of the greatest care and reverence being shown
to the body without according it burial; what the spirit
wanted, according to ancient Hebrew belief, was the
consignment of its body to the earth ; and why ? Lagrange
has dealt with this in a very convincing way ; he
says : " The tabellae devotionis show that by means of
the tomb not only are the living able to have communi-
cation with the dead man, but they are also able to send their
messenger to the nether regions. There is thus a free
passage from the tomb to the realm of the dead. It is
frequently said that the idea of this realm is an amplifica-
tion of the family tomb. It is in any case a very ancient
idea and may throw light upon our subject. The world,
so far as our texts teach us, was divided into three realms :
that of the gods, that of the living, and that of the dead.
That of the dead was under the earth. The spirit of the
dead belonged to it naturally. Moreover, between the
corpse and the soul all relationship did not cease. If
the corpse remained exposed to the air, the soul was pre-
vented from descending to the lower regions, and found
itself condemned to wander about on the earth, a domain
to which it no more belonged. But if the corpse was buried,
the soul could, according to will, either keep it company or
rejoin the other souls. . . ." ^ It was, therefore, at least as
much for the benefit of the deceased as for that of the living
that every care was taken to have the body properly buried ;
indeed, one must say that this was primarily the object ;
the benefit to the living, which no doubt was believed
to be very real, was only secondary. From what has
been said, and especially from what is implied in the Old

1 Op. cit., pp. 285 f. ; on the subject generally see also Charles, Eschato-
logy ; Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian (1899), pp. 31 ff.

180 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

Testament passages mentioned, one sees how incompatible
the " official" Sheol belief was with the current beliefs.

The same fear of an unburied body is found among the
Babylonians and Assyrians. Jastrow says on the subject :
" An unburied corpse was not only regarded as a curse
upon the deceased, but also as a danger to the living.
The wandering shadow of the unburied sought to be revenged
on the living by causing all manner of mischief . . . certain
demons which were believed to lurk in the neighbourhood
of graves were doubtless really identical with wandering
spirits. In any case it was necessary to protect oneself
against the dead, who were able, under certain circumstances,
to return to the earth and to plague those who were sick. It
is on the basis of this conception that the many precautions
which were taken among the Babylonians and Assyrians,
as well as among all other peoples, to keep the dead
within their graves are to be explained." ^ The Assyrians
called the grave "the abode of eternity," - a name which
implies that the body required a permanent dwelling-place.

It is, therefore, precisely what we should expect when
we find in the Old Testament many references to the careful
burying of the dead ; and there is something peculiarly
significant in the phrase "to be gathered to the people "
(Gen. XXV. 8, 17, xxxv. 29, cp. xv. 15), or " to sleep with
one's fathers " (Gen. xlvii. 30), or " to be buried with one's
fathers " (Gen. xlix. 29), that is, to lie in the same sepulchre
with them (2 Sam. xvii. 23, xxi. 14 ; see also Num. xxvii. 13,
xxxi. 2, xxxii. 50, 1 Kings xiii. 22, xiv. 31, xv. 8, 24, etc.
etc.) ; for this meant a gathering together again which
was believed to take place in the sepulchre, a belief none
the less real for being vague and undefined. Interesting in
this connexion was the old custom of burying in houses ;
a reference to this has been made above (p. 119), but a
few more details are well worth giving here. This custom

1 Jastrow, op. cit., i. 371 f., see also pp. 359, 365 fi.
'^ Delitzsch, op. cit., pp. 35 f.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 181

is onl}^ rarely spoken of in the Old Testament ; in 1 Sam,
XXV. 1, e.g., it is said that they buried Samuel " in his
house at Ramah " (cp. 1 Kings ii. 10, 34, xi. 43, xiv. 31,
Ezek. xliii. 7-9, but these all refer to kings) ; but recent
excavations in Palestine have proved that in the earliest
period of the Israelite monarchy this was not a rare occur-
rence.^ In one of his reports on the excavation of ancient
Gezer IVIr. Macalister says : " That in early times the dead
were buried within the city walls is shown not only by the
burial cave of the most ancient inhabitants, but also by
the occurrence of skeletons among the house-walls of the
upper strata. These seem to show that in late pre-Israelite
(and early Jewish ?) times the dead were buried, not only
within the city, but even within the houses." ' There is a
good deal of evidence showing that the Babylonians buried
their kings in palaces,' as did the Israelites ; Langdon
saj'-s that the earliest graves are found in the temple courts.
Whether or not the Babylonians and Assyrians ever buried
their dead in houses does not seem to be known for certain ;
though in view of the widespread character of the custom
it is probable that they did. Koldewey writes on the subject
as follows : "In Babylon the dead were buried by the

^ Of an entirely different character are, of course, foiindation sacrifices
and the Hke ; for example, during the excavations at Taanach Prof. Sellin
came across the remains of about thirty children near the base of a tower ;
and Lmder the houses wore also discovered the remains of infants and
adults " who had been Ijuried when the houses were built." Macalister
also came across infants' bones under house-walls, and sometimes built
into the walls themselves in the Gezer excavations (cp. 1 Kings xvi. 34) ;
see Pal. Expl. Fund, Quarterly Statement, 1903, pp. 224, 273. These
examples are Semitic, and perhaps Israelite, but the most remarkable
is one found in the second stratum (pre-Semitic) of the Gezer excavations ;
this is the skeleton of an adult, a woman of advanced age, who had been
deposited in a hollow under the comer of a house (Quarterly Statement,
1904, pp. 10 f., where an excellent illustration shows how perfectly the
skeleton is preserved).

■ Pal. Expl. Fund, Quarterly Statement, 1902, pp. 347, 35C, 1904 pp. 119 f.,
cp. Vincent, op. cit., pp. 24 f. ; see also, for the same among other peoples,
Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, iii. pp. 13 H.

"i Delitzsch, op. cit., p. 35.

182 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

fortification walls, in the streets, and in such parts of the
inhabited town as were unappropriated for dwelling-houses
at the time of the burial. . . . The house ruins of an earlier
period were often encroached upon, and where the ancient
walls were recognizable the pit was dug parallel with them ;
where they were not recognizable the walls of the ancient
house were often cut through by the grave, while the
wall of a later building period once more turned off from
the burial site. If an ancient brick pavement was reached
this also was frequently cut through, and the sarcophagus
lay partly above and partly below it. From such clear
cases, against which situations that cannot be made out
can adduce no conclusive evidence, it can be distinctly seen
that in Babylon, at any rate, no interments took place
inside inhabited houses." ^ Evidently it is not easy to
say for certain whether there were house-burials or not ;
moreover this evidence only refers to the city of Babylon.
On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence for this
among the ancient Arabs ; those who lived a settled life
buried their dead either in the houses or near by ; an
interesting illustration of this occurs in an ancient Arabic
poem, part of which runs thus :

" The people have a burying-place arovmd the coiort-yard square ;
The graves increase in number, but the Hving get more rare ;
The dwelHng- place may ancient grow, in ruins it may fall.
Still grows the mimber of the dead beside the court-yard wall.
The living as their neighbours have the spirits of the dead.
Though intercourse with them is rare, since far away they've sped." »

Among the nomadic Bedouins it was, of course, different.
With the rise of Islam the custom was forbidden, though
Muhammad himself was buried in his house, and by his
side his first successors.'

1 The Excavations at Babylon, pp. 271 f.

2 Quoted in a German translation by Bertholet, Die israelitischen
Vorstdlungen voni Zustand nach dern Tode, p. 13, but he does not give
the name of the poet.

3 Wellhausen, op. cit, pp. 178 f.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 183

Among the Israelites the custom must soon have ceased
with the growth of the population following upon settled
life, though the evidence shows that kings continued to be
buried in their palaces. There are very many natural caves
in Palestine, and these were utilized as burial places (see,
eg.. Gen. xxiii. 1 ff., 2 Kings xxiii. 16, etc.) ; from the
importance attached to the possession of such it is easy
to see the need felt for a fitting abode for the dead. Arti-
ficially hewn-out sepulchres in the rock arc also referred to :
" What doest thou here ? And whom hast thou here, that
thou hast hewed thee out here a sepulchre ? hewing him
out a sepulchre on high, graving an habitation for himself
in the rock ! " (Isa. xxiii. 16, cp. 2 Chron. xvi. 14, Matt.
xxvii. 60). These are the only types of burial places men-
tioned in the Old Testament so far as family sepulchres and
tombs for individuals are concerned; but other types
existed, such as those sunk in the rock, like the ordinary
modern grave, or cut out of the face of the rock, or chambers
with vaulted roofs in which the body lay upon a small
raised platform ; these have all been found in abundance
by travellers and excavators in Palestine.^ Then there
were, of course, the ordinary public cemeteries ; these, too,
have been discovered by modern explorers, but they are only
incidentally mentioned once or twice in the Old Testament,
e g. Jer. xxvi. 23, " . . . and they fetched forth Uriah out
of Egypt . . . who slew him with the sword, and cast
his dead body into the graves of the common people,"
cp. Isa. liii. 9, 2 Mace. ix. 4.

XIII. Provision for the Departed
It is very doubtful whether the Old Testament really
contains more than one reference to the practically uni-
versal custom of antiquity of providing food and other
requirements for the departed ; in Deut. xxvi. 14 it is

1 See further, Nowack, op. cit., i. 190 ff

184 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

certainly implied that this was done by some ; but in Hosea
ix. 3, 4, Jer. xvi. 7, Lev. xxi. 6, Ezek. xxiv. 17, the refer-
ence is to the funeral feast and offerings to the dead. In
the Apocrypha there are also one or two references ; thus,
in Tohit iv. 17 it is said : " Pour out thy bread and thy
wine on the tomb of the just " ; in the Wisdom of Ben-Sira
vii. 33 the precept is given : " Acceptable is a gift to every
living man, and also from the dead withhold not kindness." '
One must distinguish between an offering to the dead, which
comes under the head of the cult of the dead, and gifts
of food, etc., which the dead were believed to require. The
distinction is a real one, though the two things may
seem at first to belong to the same category ; the
last two passages cited, however, show clearly that there
was no thought of worship in the act, but merely the giving
of a gift to the dead just in the same way as a gift was
given to a living man. The two things continued side by
side for many ages, but among the Jews the giving of
gifts evidently continued when there was no thought of
the worship of the dead.

There is no rite in connexion with the dead in ancient
times which has been more profusely illustrated through
the work of excavators than this one. It will be worth
while to give a few examples of this. We shall restrict
ourselves here to excavations in Palestine, as the material
is so immense if the subject is treated more widely that the
space at our disposal would not suffice.

The important excavations on the site of ancient Gezer,
carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (1902
onwards), have brought to light some " finds " which offer
interesting illustrations of the subject in hand. Among
the seven strata excavated the two lowest do not concern

1 In the Greek Version xxx. 18 reads : " Good things poured out
upon a mouth that is closed are as messes of meat laid upon a grave,"
but this, though bearing witness to the custom, is a misreading of the
Hebrew : "... are like an offering placed before an idol."

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 185

us as they are pre-Semitic ; but the third and fourth,
though in the main pre-IsraeUte, are " Amorite," i.e. Semitic,
and belong to about 2000 B.C., more or less. In the fourth
stratum a Burial Cave was discovered ; the extremely
interesting questions raised by what was found in this
cave (mention of it has been made above, pp. 115 S.) must
not detain us ^ as we are here only concerned with objects
deposited for the benefit of the departed. These consisted
of the remains of spears of bronze, only the metal remain-
ing (the wood handles having, of course, rotted away long
since), a knife, an axehead, and a needle ; besides these
there was a three-legged fire-dish for cooking ; this was
broken and inverted over some sheep bones, no doubt, as
Mr. Macalister says, the remains of a food deposit ; he
adds that "it is not quite safe to assume that the fracturing
of the fire-dish is in accordance with the well-known custom
of fracturing objects deposited in graves, that their spirits
may be released and minister to the needs of the spirits of
the departed." ^

The discovery of the ruins of a temple on the Gezer site,
belonging to the Israelite period,' revealed the gruesome
picture of a number of new-born infants in large jars ; the
bodies were mostly put in head first ; in each of the jars
there were two or three small vessels, usually a jug and a
bowl, i.e. food and drink for the departed spirits.^ There
can be no doubt that we have here infant sacrifices ; such
were offered, as is well known, by the Canaanites, Phoe-
nicians, and Arabs ; the practice is also referred to in the
Old Testament (see 2 Kings iii. 27, xvi. 3, xvii. 17, xxi. 6,
xxiii. 10, Mic. vi. 7, Jer. vii. 31, Ezek. xvi. 20 1, xx. 26,
xxiii. 37) ; but it is not with this subject that we are now

1 Quarterly Statement, 1903, pp. 12 ff,

2 Ihid., p. 16.

3 Q.S., 1903, pp. 32 ff.

* Similar things were found during the excavations at Tell-el-Hesy
(the ancient Lachish) and at Taanach ; an excellent picture of the jugs
is given on p. 121 (1903).

186 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

concerned. The jug and the bowl by the side of, or near,
the body of each infant illustrate the belief that the
spirit needed these things ; there can be no doubt that
when first deposited these vessels had food and drink in
them.

Other examples are those of some Canaanite tombs exca-
vated ; these had in some cases food deposits, in others
vessels for drink ; the latter were large jars, pointed at
the bottom, but they were all placed upright showing that
originally they contained drink ; in each jar there was also
a small jug, obviously a drinking- vessel. " The recogniz-
able remains of food consist of cooked fragments of mutton,
identified by the bones remaining. These are placed in
saucers or dishes. In the middle of one such deposit a
bronze spear-head was left, perhaps to enable the deceased
to cut the meat, and another bowl was inverted over the
whole, presumably to keep it warm." i In other tombs,
belonging approximately to the same period {circa 1200 B.C.)
there were also found vessels with food.^ Similar things
were found in the excavations at Tell-el-Mutesellim,'
Taanach, and Megiddo * ; Vincent gives an illustration of
an Elamite tomb where the hand of the body is in a dish
in the attitude of taking to food.^

Before we come to a brief and final word regarding the
conceptions which prompted the depositing of these food
vessels for the benefit of the departed, a slight reference
must be made to the lamp and bowl deposits which have
been found in such abundance in tombs in Palestine. This
subject was briefly mentioned above (pp. 118 ff.) ; here we
may give a few examples. They have been found in various
kinds of graves, arranged in dijfferent ways, but mostly the

1 Q.S., 1904, p. 326.

2 Q.S., 190/5, pp. 31 ff., see further 309 ff., 318 ff.

3 Q.S., 1905, p. 79.

* Vincent, op. cit., p. 232.

5 Op. cit., p. 230, see also pp. 269, 275, 276, 281.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 187

lamp is in the middle, with bowls above and below, or
around. They have also been found buried under house-
walls and immediately under door- jambs. A special pecu-
liarity about the bowls is that they have been made
watertight by a kind of lime having been smeared over
them, a fact which leads, as Mr. Macalister points out, to
the natural supposition that when first deposited they had
some liquid poured into them ; he says further that " this
liquid most probably was either blood or grape-juice, which
latter in toned-down sacrificial rites often takes the place
of blood ; for evidence is gradually accumulating that
these foundation deposits are primarily sacrificial, and
that a human victim was immolated in the original form of
the rite." We have already seen that infant- bones are
found buried under house-walls. The vessel with the blood
or grape-juice would thus represent the sacrifice, while the
lamp would symbolize the fire of the sacrifice. >

This is extremely ingenious ; but while it may quite con-
ceivably hold good for the lamp and bowl deposits under
foundations, it is not altogether easy to accept this explana-
tion of their presence in ordinary graves. It can, of course,
be argued that in these latter cases the deposits symbolize
what was aforetime a sacrifice to the dead ; and in principle
we do not see that any objection to this can be raised.
But it is possible that a much simpler explanation will
suffice ; and this leads us again to the general subject
of food and other deposits in graves. These consist not
only of food and drink, but there are arms (whether for
fighting or hunting), knives, ornaments, armlets, seals,
perfumes, etc. ; all things, that is to say, which were used
in the lifetime of the deceased ; the seals are especially
instructive, since they were constantly required in a man's
lifetime as standing for his signature.' But among the
things that were much required, and, as we know, much

1 See Q.S., 1903, pp. 306 fi.

* See further, Nowack, op. ciL, i. pp. 261 ff.

188 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

used, were lamps ; might it, then, not have been thought
that the deceased, who needed all the things to which they
had been accustomed when alive, would need these as
much as anything, being constantly in the dark in their
new abode ? While Mr. Macalister may be perfectly
right in his theory so far as the bowl and lamp deposits
in foundations are concerned, this need not militate
against their serving a different purpose in ordinary
graves.

As to the reason or reasons of these grave deposits : the
custom may be looked upon as a pious act of loving thought-
fulness ; it was the firm belief, world-wide in its character,
among men of undeveloped culture that after death life
was continued under very much the same conditions as
heretofore ; and since the departed might well experience
some difficulty in obtaining what they required, the living
felt it to be their bounden duty to supply this. But, once
more, we have more than once referred to the fact that
the return of the departed among the living (a possibility
which was fully recognized) was regarded as a thing to be
prevented if possible ' ; it is, therefore, quite conceivable
that by making the deceased comfortable and content by
supplying him with all that he might reasonably require
the danger would be avoided of his coming back to trouble
the living. Both reasons may well have been responsible
for the custom.

If it be asked how men in these bygone ages could have
regarded it as sufficient to deposit only one supply of food,
the reply must be that, probably, originally the thing was
done on the principle of sympathetic magic ^ ; the custom,
having then once come into vogue, would have continued,
as is -so often the case, without further question.

1 Excepting for special reasons and through the medium of properly
quaUfied persons ; see the chapter on Necromancy.

2 T.e. the principle of thought that " Uke produces like, or that an
effect resembles its cause," Frazer, The Golden Bough : " The Magic Art
and the Evolution of Kings," p. 52.

MOURNING AND BURIAL CUSTOMS 189

Much of what has been said in the whole of this, neces-
sarily long, chapter is open to criticism, for various opinions
are held on all the subjects dealt with ; but upon one point
there can be no two opinions, namely the intense belief in
immortality to which all these rites and customs bear
witness.

THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY

CHAPTER XII

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN

In all that has been said the fact which stands out most
prominently is the deep-seated belief in the continued life
of men after death. In whatever different ways that life may
have been conceived of, whether it was some counterpart
of the body, or whether it was the soul as distinct from the
body, or whether it was merely the shade, that continued
to exist, the central point of the persistence of consciousness
after death is of prime importance. This is taken for
granted in such a way, and is believed to be demonstrated
so obviously, that it stands on the same level with the
recognition of the fact that men live in the ordinary way.

I. The Origin op the Belief in Continued Existence
AFTER Death

We may pause for a moment to consider how it came about
that men should have believed that in some form or other
they continued to live after death ; for this belief is univer-
sal ; as far as the available evidence permits us to judge,
it has been held all the world over from all time since man
became a thinking being. In considering in the briefest
manner the reason for this universal belief our purj)ose is
to observe the common ground, and then to note how from
this common ground Semitic, and more especially Israelite,

190

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 191

belief diverged and struck out on a line which in some
important respects became individual.

What was it, then, which first gave rise to the belief
that men continued to live after they had finished their
ordinary life on earth ? Since this belief arose, in the first
instance, among men in a primitive stage of culture, we
must expect it to be based upon arguments of a naive char-
acter ; and the generally accepted theory of the leading
authorities on the subject is well illustrated by the answer
of a native of Australia to the question as to whether he
believed that his " soul " (yambo) could leave his body ;
he replied : "It must be so ; for, when I sleep, I go to
distant places, I see distant peoj)le, I even see and speak
with those that are dead." ^ That is to say, that, owing
to dreams early man came to believe that there was a part
of himself, different from and independent of his body —
since it could leave the body and go to " distant places " —
which could meet with and converse with people who
were alive, as well as with those who were dead. To
primitive man what we call a dream proved that the dead
were still alive. In writing on this subject Frazer says :
" The savage . . . finds a very strong argument for immor-
tality in the phenomena of dreams, which are strictly a
part of his inner life, though in his ignorance he commonly
fails to discriminate them from what we popularly call
waking realities. Hence when the images of persons
whom he knows to be dead appear to him in a dream, he
naturally infers that these persons still exist somewhere
and somehow apart from their bodies, of the decay and
destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstra-
tion. How could he see dead people, he asks, if they did
not exist ? To argue that they have perished like their
bodies is to contradict the plain evidence of his senses,
for to the savage still more than to the civilized man seeing

1 Ilowitt, " On Some Australian Belief.?," in the Journal of the Anthro-
pological Institute, xiii. 189.

192 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

is believing ; that he sees the dead only in dreams does
not shake his behef, since he thinks the appearances of
dreams just as real as the appearances of his waking
hours." ^ From the point of view of uncivilized man it
is, therefore, not difficult to understand why he believed
that those whom he knew to have died were, as a matter
of fact, still alive. But this belief must, at a relatively
early stage, have occasioned some very natural question-
ings on the part of uncivilized man. The sight of the
dead body of a friend, together with the occasional appear-
ance of the same friend in dreams, must sooner or later
have resulted in the speculation — vague, unformulated,
inarticulate, though it may have been — as to how these
two were related ; why should the body of the friend
have fallen to corruption and have become less and less
like his former self while every now and again he appeared
as his normal self ? The mystery must have been very
baffling ; but the explanation was found in the doctrine
of the " external soul." We have had occasion to speak
of this and to -point out the references to it in the Old
Testament,^ so that there is no reason to dwell upon it
here. It may or may not have preceded belief in the con-
tinuation of life after death, for our present purpose it
does not matter ; but as, according to this doctrine, the
soul could slip in and out of the body, it would have ex-
plained to the satisfaction of uncivilized man the relation-
ship between the dead body of a friend and his appearance
in his normal self in spite of death ; i.e. it simply meant
that the friend had quitted his body permanently. But
another question had to be answered : how came it that
the body-part of man succumbed to death ? It was evident
that something untoward must have happened which
ought to be accounted for. The ordinary life of man was

1 The Belief in Immortality . ., i. 27, cp. Tylor, Primitive Culture (4th
ed.), i. 397 fiE.
« Pp. 15 ff.

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 193

that which was natural and normal to him ; since that
had been disturbed, it meant that something unnatural and
abnormal must have happened. This reasoning may appear
absurd enough to modern ears, but that to uncivilized man
it was one of great seriousness is proved by the large
variety of reasons given why men die, and by the myths
which are in existence to account for death and to explain
how it came about. A mass of evidence on these points
has been gathered by Frazer, who shows that many savages
in dififerent parts of the world believe that men die because
of sorcery, otherwise they would go on living indefinitely ;
others believe that death is brought about by evil spirits ;
it is exceptional when they attribute death to natural
causes.' Very interesting, again, are the many myths
which are told concerning the origin of death ; here, too,
Frazer supplies us with details in profusion.*

Death, then, was looked upon as something abnormal,
which did not exist originally, and which ought not to
have been the lot of man. This, so far as the evidence
points, has been the general belief among practically all
races. Of the earliest beliefs of the Semitic race on this
subject we have no direct evidence ; but one may justifi-
ably infer that the early Semites did not differ in this
fundamental belief from the rest of mankind ; and this is
raised to a practical certainty by the fact that the Old
Testament contains indubitable remnants in regard to it.

II. The Old Testament Story op the Garden of Eden

The present forms of this story are comparatively late,
but they contain conceptions on the subject of Immor-
tality which go back to a hoary antiquity. The clear
presence of some advanced ideas to be found in these extant
forms of the story shows that later thinkers have been at
work on them, but clearly they were not concerned to

1 Op. cit., i. p. 31. * Op. cit., i. pp. 59 ff.

194 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

obliterate the marks of antique thought still preserved in
them.

It must strike every reader of the second and third
chapters of Genesis who reads these passages with any
attention that of the two special trees mentioned as growing
in the Garden of Eden, namely the Tree of Life and the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it is the latter
which occupies the prominent position in the narrative.
Nevertheless, there are two passages towards the end of the
narrative which show quite clearly that it is the Tree of
Life which is, in reality, the more important. These two
passages are iii. 19 and iii. 22-24. The former runs thus :
" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." The other
is as follows : " And the Lord God said. Behold, the man
is become as one of Us, to know good and evil ; and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of
Life, and live for ever ; therefore the Lord God sent
him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man ;
and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden the Cheru-
bim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way,
to keep the way of the Tree of Life." The two central
points here are that man is to return to dust, and that he
must be kept from the Tree of Life lest he should eat of
its fruit and live for ever, in which case he would 7iot return
to dust. So that, according to these two passages the
Tree of Life is really the more important of the two trees.
Indeed, the mention of a second tree overweights the
story ; and the surmise can scarcely be considered over-
bold that in its original form only one tree figured in the
garden. This one tree would have been the Tree of Life ;
the mention of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil presupposes an advance in religious-ethical ideas, and
therefore belongs to later times. But both forms of the

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 195

story, the original and the augmented, have an setiological
purpose ; each is intended to explain why it was that
death came and disturbed the normal lot of man. We shall
return to these two in a moment ; but it will be instructive
first to glance at one of the Babylonian forms of the story.
If we had nothing but the developed form of the Genesis
story before us we should still be impelled to discern
the greater importance of the Tree of Life. But in one
of the very much earlier Babylonian forms of the
story it is told of how in " the fields of the blessed," corre-
sponding to the Garden of .Eden, there was a wonderful
plant which bore fruit, and whosoever ate of this fruit
remained young for ever and ever. That clearly corre-
sponds to the fruit of the Tree of Life. There is only this
one tree spoken of in this earlier form of the story. It
then goes on to tell of how the man was about to eat of
this wonderful fruit, but was prevented from doing so by
the serpent, who seized it and ate it himself. That this
Babylonian story was originally told in order to account
for the existence of death is clear. A parallel story to
this, and originally dependent upon it, is, therefore, to be
seen in Genesis ; for there, too, the story is told in order
to account for the existence of death. In this latter the
dwelling of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was, on
the face of it, meant to have continued indefinitely. Death
is not thought of, and therefore not mentioned, until an
abnormal state of affairs has been brought about through
the instrumentality of the serpent; so that it is evident
that Immortality, not the existence of Death, was regarded
as man's normal state.'

^ Here it will naturally be objected that if it was necessary for man
to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life in order to gain immortality, it
cannot be said that immortality was the normal lot of man, since this
was only conditional upon his eating the fruit. But the answer is that
this was the Semitic way in which the matter was put ; part of the normal
let of man was that he should eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life ; the
normal thing would have been for nothing to have intervened between

196 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

According to the Babylonian form of the story just
referred to, the existence of death is accounted for by
the fact that the serpent appropriated to itself the fruit
of immortality, and thus prevented man from eating it.
According to the Genesis story, the serpent causes the fruit
of the wrong tree to be eaten ; we should have expected
that the story would have gone on to say that the serpent
ate the fruit of the right tree, i.e. of the Tree of Life, and
thus appropriated immortality to itself ; and it is quite
possible that an earlier Hebrew form of the story may
have done so ; but while this cannot be affirmed with cer-
tainty, we do know that the Babylonian form of the story,
from which the Hebrew form was ultimately derived, con-
tains this detail, and it is an important one ; for there is an
extraordinarily widespread belief among primitive peoples
in the immortality of the serpent because it periodically
sheds its skin.^ It was firmly believed that every time
the serpent shed its skin its life was renewed ; and by this
means it was able to throw off its decaying part, and was
thus assured of perpetual youth. If, as there is no reason
to doubt, the Semites and with them the ancient Israelites,
in common with so many other peoples, shared this belief,
the choice of the serpent as the instrument of robbing man
of immortality is seen to be significant.

We are thus tempted to hold that the beginnings of a
Hebrew doctrine of Immortality took a form somewhat
like this : man was originally intended to be immortal ;
but he became subject to death ; and the reason for this
was that the fruit of the Tree of Life, which was meant for
him, was by subtlety taken and eaten by the serpent, who
thus appropriated to itself the gift of immortality intended
for man.

the time that he was created and the time when he should have eaten
of the frmt. In the various other accoimts among other peoples it is
always something that intervenes and prevents the normal process.

1 Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, i. pp. 49 ff., where manj' examples
are given.

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 197

The consideration of the next step in the development of
this doctrine we must postpone for a little, because another
point which bears upon it suggests itself here.

We have seen that death was looked upon as something
abnormal, and that it had to be accounted for since man
was originally intended to be immortal. If we now inquire
why it was that man should have been thought to have
been destined for Immortality, it is because the answer
will be seen to have a direct bearing upon the subsequent
development of the doctrine of Immortality among the
Hebrews.

Ill, Why INIan was believed to have been

ORIGINALLY ImMORTAL

Uncivilized man was concerned with seeking to account for
the origin of death, since, to his ideas, unceasing life was meant
to have been the normal lot of men. But with the advance
of civilization speculation takes a farther step. While the
belief in man having originally been intended to be immortal
still holds good, the universality and inevitability of death
impresses men more and more, and the stress comes to be
laid rather on the question as to the reason why man was
originally immortal. The gradual steps which led up to
this speculation are obscure, but of one thing there can
be no doubt, and that is that the development of belief
in supernatural beings had a great deal to do with it.

We are mainly concerned with the Hebrews, and there-
fore to some extent with the Semites generally. In one
of the Babylonian creation accounts it is said that when man
was created, a " pair " was created, and this pair was created
with the blood of the Creator. ^ Now when one remembers
that, according to the very ancient Semitic conception, it
was in the blood that the life resided, ^ one can easily under-

1 Cp. the teaching of the Koran, xcvi. 2, whei-e it is said that God created
man from clotted blood.

2 See above, pp. 19 f., for references.

198 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

stand that the divine, and therefore immortal, life which
resided in the blood of the deity would be transferred to
any being in whom this divine blood was implanted. And
man thus created would be regarded as immortal. For, that
the gods were immortal was taken for granted ; that was
looked upon as their nature, regarding which no question
arose.

In one of the Genesis creation stories (ii. 7) it is said that
the Lord God " breathed into his [man's] nostrils the
breath of life." As the late Prof. Driver said : " Man's
pre-eminence ... is implied in the use of the special term
breathed (ns»i), which is not used of the other animals,
and which suggests that in his case the ' breath of life '
stands in a special relation to the Creator, and may be
the vehicle of higher faculties than those possessed by
animals generally." ^ But it means more than this ;
it means that the breath breathed in by a Creator who
was immortal conferred thereby on man the faculty of
becoming immortal.

And once more, in the other Genesis account of the
Creation (i. 26, 27) it is said : " And God created man in
His own image, in the image of God created He him."
This word "image" comes from the root (oh'i) of which
the cognate Arabic root means "to cut off " ; it is con-
ceivable that there was present the underlying, undefined
idea of part of the original having been in a certain sense
cut ofi ' ; and if so, the part would, of course, partake of
the nature of the whole, according to the antique concep-
tion of the Hebrews. At any rate, in all the three accounts
referred to the immortality of man would be accounted
for because of the mode of his creation ; a part of him
partook of the divine, and therefore immortal, nature.

In connexion with these old-world ideas regarding the
mode of man's creation — viz. by means of the divine blood,

^ Genesis, p. 38.

* Cp. the idea of the woman having been made out of part of the man.

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 199

according to the Babylonian account, by means of the
divine breath, according to the Hebrew one — it is worth
while recalling that the Old Testament has two significant
expressions for describing the process of dying which
evidently reflect very ancient conceptions ; they are firstly,
" to pour out the blood " (Deut. xii. 23, 24) ; and secondly,
" to breathe out the soul " (Jer. xv. 9 ; cp. Gen. xxxv. 18,
1 Kings xvii. 21, 22, Job xi. 20, xxxi. 39). Both expres-
sions contain the idea of letting the essence of life go free.
This being the divine part of man, it continued to exist
even though the body returned to dust. For, however
small the divine portion in man might originally have been,
it was divine life, and this was immortal. It is also con-
ceivable that we have in the Old Testament one or two
faint reflections of a belief that at one time even the body
itself continued to live indefinitely ; this is suggested by
the notice in Gen. v. 24 that Enoch never died — " he
walked with God ; and he was not, for God took him " ;
and by the legend attached to the name of Elijah, that he
never died, but went up to heaven in a fiery chariot and
horses.

IV. A Religious-Ethical Development

We surmised above that the beginnings of a Hebrew
doctrine of Immortality took the form that man was
originally intended to be immortal, but that he became
subject to death because of the subtlety of the serpent in
preventing him from eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life.
This whole idea is, upon the face of it, very primitive, and
reflects a very naive mental outlook. It will be objected
that this is not quite true as an account of the Genesis
story, and that we are not, therefore, justified in regarding
this as a Hebrew form, even in its beginnings, of a doctrine
of Immortality. We sj^^mpathize with the objection ;

200 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

though, in view of the evidence of the Babylonian account,
and the well-estabHshed influence of Babylonian thought
upon the Hebrews, we are unable to regard it as valid.
However that may be, let "us now take the story in the
present Old Testament form in which the Tree of Life is
put into the background, and the central importance is
assigned to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Even so, the story is none the less told in order to account
for the origin of death ; only now death is accounted for
by an act of disobedience on the part of man to his Creator ;
" and unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of
which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of
it : cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in toil shalt thou
eat of it all the days of thy life ... in the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ;
for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto
dust shalt thou return " (Gen. iii. 17-19). The point of
prime importance here is the reason on account of which
death was brought into the world, viz. disobedience to a
divine command ; this reflects a great advance in the
doctrine of God among the Israelites, which, as we shall
see more fully in the next chapter, conditions the develop-
ment of belief in Immortality. It also presupposes the exist-
ence of a sense of sin unknown to the Hebrews of earlier
ages. In this form of the story the serpent is, in reality,
quite superfluous ; and no fruit from the Tree of Life
would have availed under any circumstances ; the fact
that these find a place here shows clearly enough that an
old story has been utilized and adapted.

The development which this form of the story presents
did not proceed further ; disobedience to the Creator's
command, i.e. sin, was the reason on account of which
death came upon all flesh. This is the teaching of the
Targums, the Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha ; it is
also, though in a somewhat modified form, the teaching

IMMORTALITY THE NORMAL LOT OF MAN 201

of the Rabbis,^ It is also that which underlies what St.
Paul teaches in Rom. v, 12-21.

But this constitutes only one department, as it were,
of the doctrine of Immortality in the Old Testament ; and
before we come to consider the development in other
directions it will be well to summarize what has been said
in some earlier chapters.

1 For details, see Oesterley and Box, The Religioti and Worship of the
Synagogue {2nd ed.), pp. 255 ff.

CHAPTER XIII
THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF

I. A Summary

A SLIGHT summary of the ground so far covered regarding
the direct teaching on Immortality will be useful before
we consider the final development of belief in Immor-
tality in the Old Testament.

The belief, implicit if not formally expressed, that Im-
mortality was originally intended to have been the normal
lot of man existed in an early stage of Israelite religion ; it
was always the popular belief, and it is more than probable
that even the official exponents of religion in later days
believed this in a vague kind of way.

Then, in a still early stage of belief, when it had
become realized that Death, and not Immortality, was
the normal lot of man, it was believed that owing to
the fact that among the constituent elements of which
man was made up one part was of divine origin, this
part of man could not perish, whatever might happen
to the rest of him. According to the popular belief
this part of man continued, after death, to live under
conditions more or less similar to those under which he
had hitherto lived ; only, as is always the case among
men in a comparatively primitive stage of culture,
the belief as to where the departed lived and how exactly
they lived was vague and undefined. What, according to
the popular belief, was certain was that those who had de-
202

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 203

parted hence were possessed of knowledge and power greater
than those of men on this earth. Hence the existence of
Ancestor- worship, and of the Cult of the Dead in general.
With the introduction and gradual development of Jahwe-
worship a new stage was reached. The regard for and
veneration of the departed involved practices which were
incompatible with a true belief in Jahwe. It became,
therefore, the duty of the religious leaders to ban Ancestor-
worship and all communication, or supposed communica-
tion, with the dead. And one of the most efficacious
means to this end was what was regarded as a reformed
teaching regarding the abode of the dead, Sheol. The
departed, so it was taught, do not remain on earth, nor do
they hover in or around the graves where their bodies lie ;
but they go at once to the dark, silent underworld, and
from that city of the dead they are unable ever to emerge
again. They have neither parts nor passions, they are the
mere shades of what they once were ; and therefore they
can have no thought of men on earth. What folly, then,
to have recourse to these, " to seek unto the dead," in
times of need or stress ; the Lord God, Jahwe, alone can
help, and alone must be worshipped. Moreover, Jahwe
has nothing to do with the departed in Sheol ; His interest
is in living men, not in the dead who cannot worship
Him. It was taught that Ancestor- worship and the Cult
of the Dead was not only folly, but that it also involved
unfaithfulness to Jahwe ; it was just as bad as paying
homage to idols.

The evidence of the Old Testament, corroborated by
much that has been brought to light by recent excavations
in Palestine, as well as by present-day custom and belief in
Syria, all show that the official exponents of religion were
only partly successful in their efforts.

The fact is that, at bottom, the popular behef had in it
something that was true, however much the people went
astray, as they certainly did, in their practices. Two

204 IIVBIORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

centuries before the beginning of the Christian era, the
traditional belief, as it had become, regarding Sheol had
been discarded by many, though the traditionalists still
clung to it ; a new belief concerning the world to come and
the departed had taken its place. The immemorial popular
belief was vindicated in so far that the departed were no
more thought of as " Shades," but as living spirits in the
enjoyment of a fuller life than when on this earth. It is
this developed belief, and the reasons of its rise, that we
have now to consider.

II. The Results of the Exile : Religious Indi-
vidualism

It is quite clear that so long as it was believed that God
was not concerned with the spirits of the departed gathered
in Sheol, the hope of Immortality could not develop. True,
the popular belief regarding the departed was less dark than
the official teaching ; but whatever there was of truth
which underlay the popular conceptions, there is no getting
away from the fact that they were wholly divorced from re-
ligion. There was no thought of God at all in connexion with
their ideas about the world of the Hereafter ; their beliefs and
practices tended to become mere morbid superstition. The
chasm between the official teaching of God enlightening the
world of the living with His presence, while the world of the
Hereafter was dark and hopeless owing to His absence
there — the chasm between this and the popular belief that
adequate help could be obtained in this world from the dead,
and that in the world of the Hereafter men were as fully
alive as they ever were on this earth, could only be bridged,
and either side be put right, by a more developed doctrine
of God. This development of doctrine came with the belief
that God was concerned with the spirits of the departed.
And this belief arose, under God, as the result of religious

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 205

individualism. Here we must make a' slight digression in
order to make our meaning clear.

The religion of Israel had, from the time of the monarchy,
always been of a pronouncedly national character. Jahwe
was the God of Israel, that is, a national God, just as the sur-
rounding nations had their national gods; He was the God of
the land of Israel.^ So that the nation was, in its corporate
capacity, the religious unit. The individual was absorbed
in the nation ; the individual derived whatever importance
he may have had from the fact that he was one of the
items which went to make up the nation. In himself the
individual was almost negligible. The relationship, there-
fore, between the individual and God was almost entirely
subordinated to that between the nation and its national
God. That is true as a whole, but there are exceptions
to the rule. In the case of the patriarchs, of Moses and
Aaron, and further, in such cases as David, and Hezekiah,
and the prophets, it is clear that the individual relationship
to God could scarcely have been more intense. But it must
be remembered that in all these cases, whether patriarchs,
religious leaders, saintly kings, or inspired prophets, we
are dealing with very special personages, who, moreover,
in a real sense, represented the nation. Such exceptions
only set in more pronounced relief the normal position,
viz. that the relationship with God in early Israel was a
national, not an individual one.

As long as the nation existed this national relationship
continued. But with the Exile, and the consequent dis-
solution of Israel as a nation, a new relationship between
God and man came into being. Indeed, this was already
heralded when to the clear-sighted vision of the prophet
Jeremiah the approaching downfall of the nation became
evident. It is true that Jeremiah's individualism did not

1 Cp. Judges xi. 24, where it is said that Chemosh is the god of Moab,
and 1 Kings xi. 33 : "... Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidoniane, Chemosh
the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon."

206 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

lead him to a fuller belief in Immortality, but it was part
of the foundation upon which others built in later years.
It was, above all, the psalmists, as will be shown, who
sounded the true notes of a real hope of Immortality, for
in some of their writings is seen the fruition of Jeremiah's
teaching on religious individualism.

With the disappearance of the nation, as such, then, the
individual came to his own. We shall see presently how
this religious individualism gave a decisive impetus to the
development of belief in Immortality ; but we must first
touch briefly upon one or two other matters which resulted
from the Exile, and which contributed to bring about this
development.

III. The Results of the Exile : a developed
Conception of God

Owing to absence from the home-land through the
Captivity, worship in many a hallowed centre ceased ' ;
above all, the worship in the central sanctuary at Jerusalem.
The effect of this was significant. We have already pointed
out that Jahwe was thought of as the God of the land ;
according to the belief hitherto held, the worship of the
God of the land could not be offered excepting in his land.
When, however, the people were carried away from their
land and were forced to worship their God in a foreign land
— unless they were to give up their ancestral faith alto-
gether—the result was that their conception of God under-
went a great change ; they came to the realization that
Jahwe was not tied to any particular centre, and that He
could be worshipped anywhere. That meant a mighty step

^ The reform of Josiah (2 Kings xxii., xxiii.) in about 621 B.C. was
nominally supposed to have done away with all local sanctuaries and
all cults which were incompatible with the pure worship of Jahwe ; but
that this was not the case actually is clear enough from the subsequent
history, see e.g. Ezek. \'iii. 14 ; Isa. Ixv. 1-7.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 207

forward towards the belief that Jahwe was the God of all
the world, and therefore of all men, not merely the God
of Israel. Such a development m the conception of God,
enlarging the sphere of His influence and power, as it did,
to an almost unlimited extent, was certain before very
long to affect the belief regarding the relationship between
God and the departed.

IV. The Results of the Exile : Spiritual Worship

Another result of the Exile was the cessation of the
sacrificial system. There was no possibility of offering up
the daily sacrifices in the land of their captivity ; and there-
fore the worship of the people had to take a more spiritnal
form. It is difficult in these days to grasp what it must
have meant at first to the people to be deprived of their
ancient form of worship— so significant in their eyes, so
realistic, and so indispensable, as they conceived. How-
ever, what must have been to them a very bitter experience
had, nevertheless, to be gone through ; and they came out
of it all the better. They learned the truth so pointedly
expressed by one of their own teachers, who puts into the
mouth of God the words :

Should I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats ?

Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving,

And jKiy thy votes unto the Most High (Ps. 1. L3, 14).

Spiritual sacrifices, that is to say, were seen to be even
more acceptable to God than those material sacrifices
which had hitherto been regarded as an integral part of
the worship of Jahwe. That was an immense step forward
in spu-itual religion ; and, things being as they were, it
is difficult to see how this could have been brought about

208 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

otherwise than through the Exile. And here again one
can see the indirect effect that this must soon have had
upon the doctrine of the future life ; for it was the deeper
insight into the spiritual nature of God which facilitated
the belief in His solicitude for the spirits of men hereafter ;
and the more spiritual the worship the fuller the appre-
hension of the divine nature.

V. The Effect of the Exile upon the Belief
IN Immortality

Here, then, are three matters of very great importance,
and the effect brought about through them in the whole
conception of God can easily be realized : — A new relation-
ship to God, in which each individual was able to recognize
that he had a personal part ; a new belief concerning
God, as One, not of a nation, but of the whole world ;
a new conception regarding the worship of God, namely, a
spiritual form asserting its superiority over a materialistic
form.

It needs but few words to show that when a real, intimate,
and personal relationship between God and the individual
is established and experienced, the conviction must soon
become overpowering in man that this relationship cannot
be severed by the death of the body ; or, in other words,
that God's interest in His highest created beings cannot
be restricted to this world. Then, again, the immensely
widened conception of God, which recognized Him as the
God of the whole world, and not merely of one corner of
it, how this must have affected the ideas hitherto held
regarding His personality and nature ! A truer conception
of the divine nature must inevitably, even if indirectly,
have led to the conviction that this world was a sphere
all too small for the exercise of His power and righteousness
and benevolence. And finally, the giving place of material-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 209

istic to more spiritual forms of worship would of necessity
bring with it more spiritual ideas of the Object of that
worship ; and it stands to reason that the more spiritual
the conception of God the clearer the apprehension of the
truth that His relationship is with the sjyirits of men ;
and this as a matter of course reacts upon the belief regard-
ing the relationship of God with the spirits of men in the
world of the Hereafter.

These converging tendencies of belief, while working only
indirectly, would, from the nature of the case, work none
the less effectively in developing the hope of Immortality.
And they were the results of the Exile. So that it is not
difficult to understand why it was the Exile which was
the great turning-point in the Israelite belief in Immor-
tality. But the importance and signijScance of all these
things centre in the fact that they helped to bring about,
and witnessed to the existence of, a higher and fuller doctrine
of God. Here, after all, lies the kernel of the whole matter ;
given that foundation, the spiritual edifice that can be
built upon it is illimitable in its scope. But then, again,
the fuller the realization of the power and majesty and
righteousness of God, the more intense becomes man's
sense of his unworthiness in His sight ; to apprehend God
in any degree quickens the sense of sin in man. Both,
the fuller apprehension of the nature of God and the
deeper sense of sin in the individual, were developed in con-
sequence of the Exile ; and both, in course of time, deeply
affected the whole belief and doctrine of Immortality. It
came to be realized and acknowledged, above all through
the initial inspiration of Jeremiah, that the Exile was the
result of national sinfulness, and therefore a vindication of
the justice and righteousness of God.

Bearing in mind the thought- tendencies referred to, we
will now illustrate by quotations from the Old Testament
the steps in the development of the doctrine of Immortality.

210 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

VI. The First Step ^

The realization of the 'possibility of a fuller life hereafter
is a preliminary step which precedes belief and conviction ;
but even the realization of this possibility does not come
all at once ; it can only be led up to by degrees. There
will be trains of thought which arrest, but do not at first
lead onwards ; there will be adumbrations which suggest
development of belief, and stop short there ; there will be
flashes of light which illuminate the horizon, but which at
first appear so bright that they blind, and the seer closes
his eyes. We get the signs of all these things in the Old
Testament, and they are very instructive.

One of the trains of thought referred to, and which may
well have been one of the factors which in course of time
suggested the possibility of a fuller life hereafter, was that-
of the memory of a man living after him in his seed. This
was undoubtedly the chief reason for the desire of a " seed "
which is so often met with in the Old Testament. It was
regarded as a reward for the righteous to leave a plentiful
seed because their memory would live after them in their
posterity. As a reward for the God-fearing man it is said
in Ps. XXV. 13 : " His soul shall dwell at ease [in reference
to this life], and his seed shall inherit the land." So, too,
in Ps. cii. 28 (29 in Hebr.) : " The children of Thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established for ever."
Perhaps the most striking passage in this connexion is
Ps. cxii. 1-6 : " Blessed is the man that feareth Jahwe,
that delighteth greatly in His commandments. Mighty in
the land shall his seed be ; the generation of the righteous
shall be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness standeth for ever. Light ariseth in
the darkness to the upright. . . . For he shall never be moved ;
the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance " ;

1 Regarding the dates of qviotations given in these sections see the
Note at the end of this chapter.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 211

see also Ps. cxxxii. 1-12 and Isa. Ivi. 5. Among the
various passages in " The Wisdom of Ben-Sira " {Ecclesi-
asticus) in which this thought occurs, xli. 6-13 is worth
quoting in part : " From the son of the ungodly power
shall be taken away, and want shall continually abide with
his seed. An ungodly father do the children curse, for
because of him do they suffer reproach. . . . Nothingness is
the body of a man, but the name of the pious shall not be
cut off. Have a care for thy name, for that abideth longer
for thee than thousands of sparkling treasures. Life's
goods last for limited days ; but the reward of a name
for days beyond count." Passages of similar import
could be multiplied ; they witness to an underlying idea
of a man living on, as it were, in his seed after his death.
Though it was but the memory that was meant, still the
name of the righteous departed continued to be a living
thing, while at the same time the belief was present in the
continuance of the existence, in a nebulous form it might
be, of those whose memories were held in veneration. Such
thoughts, one cannot help feeling, were the forerunners of
something fuller.

VII. The Second Step
Next we will give instances of passages which contain
adumbrations — they are nothing more — of what was to
come. In Ps. ix. 13 (14 in Hebr.) it says : " Have mercy
upon me, 0 Jahwe ; behold my affliction which I suffer of
them that hate me ; thou that liftest me up from the gates
of death." The meaning here simply is that, owing to the
persecution of his enemies, the psalmist had been brought
into the direst peril of death ; he had been, as one may
say, on the threshold of the grave, or at " the gates of
death," as the psalmist puts it ; but through the mercy
of God he had been delivered. That is all that the verse
means ; but one can readily understand that with the
developing conception of God and His jjower, and with

212 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

the growth of spiritual religion — both of which received,
as we have seen, such an impetus during and after the
exilic period — the thought of God's power to save from
death would soon merge into the higher thought of God's
power to save in death. ^ If man could enter those gates,
why not God ? Or, again, take the well-known and sadly-
misinterpreted passage, Ps. xvi. 10 : " For thou wilt not
leave my soul to Sheol, thou wilt not suffer thine holy
one to see corruption (Shachath) " ; there the psalmist is
expressing his trust in God who will not abandon him to
Sheol, nor suffer one who is faithful to Him to go to corrup-
tion. But he is referring to some present stress ; he does
not mean that he will never have to go down to Sheol.
Nevertheless, the conviction of God's power to succour
men in this world must, with the growth of spiritual religion,
sooner or later have led men to wonder whether He could
not succour them in the next world too. Another passage
which is often thought to contain a fuller meaning than
is actually the case is Ps. xvii. 15 : " As for me, let me
behold Thy face in righteousness ; let me be satisfied,
when I awake, with Thy form." Here the psalmist, strong
in the belief of his own integrity, prays with sanctified
audacity that he may be privileged, as Moses was, to see
the form of God in theophanic vision ; the reference is to
Num. xii, 6-8, where these words are put into the mouth
of God : " Hear now My words, If there be a prophet
among you, I, Jahwe, will make Myself known unto him
in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream. _ My servant
Moses is not so ; he is faithful in all My house ; with him
will I speak mouth to mouth . . . and the form of Jahwe
shall he behold.'' The words of the psalmist witness'to an
intense reality of individual relationship with God ; but
there is no reference in them to anything beyond the grave.
He is a persecuted servant of God, and longs to be com-
forted and strengthened with the vision of God ; so he prays

> See also Ps. xxx. 3 (4 in Hebr.)

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 213

that when he awakes from his troubled sleep of anxiety he
may both in mental and realistic vision behold God. But
though there is no reference to the future life here, one
can easily see how the yearning for the vision of God on
awakening from troubled sleep would soon lead to the hope
of the vision of God on awakening from the sleep of death.
There are other passages similar in kind to the three quoted ;
but it is unnecessary to give further examples ; these are
sufficient to illustrate the truth that the realization of the
possibility of a fuller life hereafter can only be led up to by
degrees ; and that there will be trains of thought which
arrest, but do not at first lead onwards. Such trains of
thought are to be found in such passages as those quoted.

VIII. The Thied Step

Now we come to another step in the upward direction.
This shall be illustrated first by Ps. xxxix, 3-7 (4-8 in
Hebr.) : " My heart was hot within me [namely, because
of the incongruity of the fact that the righteous sufEer
and the wicked are in prosperity] ; while I was musing
the fire kindled [what he had been musing about was the
apparent futility of the very short span of man's life on
earth] ; then spake I with my tongue : Jahwe, make me to
know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is ;
let me know how frail I am. Behold, Thou hast made my
days as handbreadths ; and mine age is as nothing before
Thee ; surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely
every man walketh about in semblance [he means that
man's life here is such a trifle that there is hardly any
reality about it] ; surely they worry themselves for nothing
[lit. for a breath] ; he heapeth up (riches), and knoweth
not who shall gather them. And now. Lord, what is it
that I am waiting for ? — My hope is in thee ! " This is a
very striking passage ; the pith of it is this : life here on
earth must, in the sight of God, be such a trifling thing ;

214 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

it offers comparatively so little ; men worry themselves
about getting money and making themselves comfortable ;
but what is the point of it all ? Everything passes so
quickly and lasts such a short time. Then the psalmist
suddenly looks at it all from his personal point of view ;
what is it that I — I, the servant of God — am waiting for ?
Is there no expectation for me, who trust in God, after
this short span of life ? Then there is a pause, as though
he were trying to argue the matter out ; the old Sheol
belief is strong within him, it is what he had always been
taught ; he is puzzled ; " what is it that I am waiting
for ? I cannot say ; at any rate, this I know, that my
hope is in God." ^ And there he leaves it.

Now we turn to another passage, somewhat similar in
spirit, only it goes yet a little farther : Job xiv. 13-15 —
this must be quoted in full ; it is preceded by a long
passage in which the same thought of the shortness of life
and its apparent futility again occurs, and it ends with
the note of dark hopelessness : " So man lieth down, and
riseth not ; till the heavens be no more, they shall not
awake, nor be roused, out of their sleep." Then comes
the new thought, a speculation : " Supposing that Sheol
were not the end of all things ! What if after a long
sojourn there man should live again ! Ah, if that were
so, I should not mind how long I had to wait there, so
that at long last my God released me. I should look
upon it as God's hiding-place for me, where He would
keep me in secret until His wrath were past ; for in the
end God would surely call me forth. He would show His
love for the work of His hands." The passage runs thus :
" Oh that Thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, that Thou
wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past; that
Thou wouldest appoint me a set time— and then remember
me ! If a man die, can he live again ? All the days of
my hard service would I wait, till my release should come.

1 This ie probably also the purport of Ps. xlix. 15 (16 in Hebr.).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 216

Thou wouldest call, and I would answer Thee ; Thou
wouldest have a desire to the work of Thine hands." There
is no certitude here ; it is but the vague yearning of a
bruised heart : If only things were so ! These, then, are
two passages which illustrate what we have described as
adumbrations which suggest development, and stop short
there.

IX. The Fourth Step

And then we come to yet another step. For this only
one illustration must suffice ; perhaps it is the only one
available. It occurs in the book of Job (xix, 21-27). In the
middle of one of his speeches Job abruptly breaks off, and
implores his friends to cease worrying him ; their weari-
some arguments, having as their object to prove to Job that
all his sufferings are due to his own sins, have become
intolerable to this man, convinced as he is of his own
integrity. He implores them to be still ; and he expresses
the wish that there might remain for all generations some
indelible witness proclaiming the fact that he is innocent
and not the guilty sinner that his friends declare him to be ;
he longs that the words which he has spoken affirming his
innocence might be written down in a book, or better still,
might be inscribed in the rock, as a challenge to all the
world ; he cries out :

Have pity on me, have pity on me, oh ye my friends ;
For the hand of God hath touched me.
Why do ye persecute me as God,

And are 7iot satisfied with my flesh ? [i.e. with calum-
niating me].
Oh that my ivords were now written down !
Oh that they were inscribed in a book !
Oh that ivith an iron pen and lead
They ivere graven in the rock for ever ! (xix. 21-24).

216 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

Then it is that the tremendous thought flashes upon him
that there is a Witness whose word is stronger and more
abiding than ever the rock-hewn record ; and that He
will at the last vindicate His servant's innocence :

But I know that my Vindicator liveth [i.e. He who will
vindicate my innocence],

A7id that He shall stand up at the last upon the dust
[i.e. in Sheol, where Job will soon be lying] ;

And after my skin hath been thus destroyed [he points to
the ravages of the disease from which he is suffer-
ing 1],

Yet apart from my flesh shall I see God,

Whom I, in my own person, shall see.

And mine eyes shall behold, and not {as though He
were) a stranger [God will be his friend].

And then, as though overwhelmed by this vision of the
future, he whispers :

3Iy innermost soul faints with yearning ! [lit. ' ' My reins
are consumed within me" ; the "reins," or "kid-
neys," were regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of
the deepest human emotion].

Here, in truth, was a development of conception. What
God saw well to refuse on earth — i.e. the declaration of
the sufferer's innocence-^He will proclaim hereafter. The
dark underworld shall not always retain the soul ; without
the body it shall see God.

Here was one of those flashes which illuminate the
horizon, but which at first appear so bright that they

1 There is no mention of " worms " in the Hebrew. The disease de-
scribed was the worst form of leprosy, called elephantiasis ; the skin
becomes black and folded, resembling the hide of an elephant, and,
together with the flesh, gradually falls off.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 217

blind, and the seer closes his eyes ! Never again throughout
this wonderful book of Job is the subject touched upon.
But the thought had been expressed; and others, by-
divine guidance, would think of it, and the hope of Immor-
tality would grow.

X, The Final Stage of Development

Now we come to the last stage. This is represented
most graphically by two passages from the Psalms, And
here we shall find that the truth, already mentioned, is
illustrated that it is through a developed and more spiritual
doctrine of God that a fuller belief in Immortality is reached.^
In proportion to the deeper knowledge of God and the
fuller apprehension of His goodness and righteousness and
power, so is the living truth realized and appropriated that
the life beyond the grave is better and richer than life on
this earth. The full conviction that God's interest in man
is not restricted to this world, but that in the world to
come His solicitude and care are no whit less than here —
that was the truth grasped at last by one or two of Israel's
devoutest thinkers ; this made the hope of Immortality
something different from what it had ever been before.
One of them thus expressed this new understanding of the
personality of God, and therefore the new hope of Immor-
tality (Ps. cxxxix. 7-12) :

Whither can I go from Thy Spirit ?

And whither can I fee from Thy presence ?

If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there,

And if I make my bed in Sheol, behold Thou art there !

If I lift up my wings ^ towards the daivn,

1 This is more fully dealt with in the present writer's book, Life, Death,
and Immortal it ij : Studies in the Psalms, pp. 156 ff.

2 So the Septuagint and Syriac against the Hebrew ; this only involves
a change in the Hebrew points, not in the text.

218 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

// / dwell in the farthest sea,
Even there Thy hand will take hold of me/
And Thy right hand will grasp me . . .
Even the darkness hideth not from Thee,
And the night shineth as the day.

God's presence in the land of the Hereafter ; that was
what was wanted to make the hope of Immortality some-
thing quite different. No more could Sheol be thought of
as the enclosed city, dark and silent and dust-laden ; no
more could men in the land of the Hereafter be thought
of as lifeless Shades, without hope and memory, without
the knowledge of God, and without capacity for praising
and serving Him. The presence of God is there too ; it
is not dark, but light.

Belief in the omnipresence of God had forced this
psalmist to the certitude of God's presence in the land
of the Hereafter. Belief in the righteousness and justice
of God led another psalmist to a similar certitude.

In Ps. Ixxiii. the writer reiterates the difficulty that had
troubled many a pious thinker in Israel : how to reconcile
the righteousness and justice of God with the notorious facts
of life, wherein the God-fearing man suffers adversity and
persecution, whilst the ungodly sinners are in the enjoy-
ment of all that they desire ?

And, as for me, my feet ivere almost gone,
My steps had well-nigh slipped ;
For I was envious at the arrogant.
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no worries,^

1 This rendering (instead of " will lead me ") is based on a single letter
in the Hebrew text ; it suits the sense and the context better.

2 The Revised Version renders : " For there are no bonds (marg. "pangs")
in their death " ; this assumes the correctness of the Hebrew text as it
stands, which is quite obviously corrupt.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 219

But perfect and settled ^ is their strength ;
They are not in trouble as (other) men,
Neither are they plagued like (other) men. . . .
Behold, these are the wicked,

And being always at ease, they increase in riches
(verses 2-12).

Then there follows a kind of hypothetical statement ; for
the purpose of his argument the psalmist assumes the
position which most men would have taken up — but
wrongly :

Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart,
And tvashed mine hands in innocency !
For all day long have I been plagued.
And chastened every morning (verses 13, 14).

But then come the vigorous words which show that he
had only been speaking hypothetically :

// / had said, " / ivill speak thus,"
Behold, I should have dealt dishonestly [lit. treacher-
ously]
With the generation of Thy children (verse 15).

And he then goes on to describe the utter destruction of
the wicked at their latter end, i.e. beyond the grave ;
while, in contrast to this, he says in regard to himself :

Nevertheless, I am continually with Thee,
Thou holdest me by rny right hand ;
Thou guidest me by Thy counsel.
And afterward Thou wilt take me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven (but Thee) ?
And having Thee [lit. " being with Thee "], ^ desire
nought else on earth.

1 Lit. " fat."

220 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

It is the quiet definiteness, the calm firmness of conviction,
such as appears nowhere else in the Old Testament quite
in the same way, that is so striking here: "And after-
ward Thou wilt take me to glory." Moreover, the passage
is specially instructive because the thought- development
shows itself in two directions. First, regarding the doctruie
of God : the apprehension of God is fuller, for it is realized
that His power holds sway in the world to come ; that His
love for man is equally as great in the Hereafter as here on
earth ; and that His righteousness and justice are vindi-
cated, for the apparent inconsistencies of life are rectified
in the world to come. Then, regarding the future life
and hope of Immortality, the passage witnesses to the
conviction that it is glorious, and that in the land of the
Hereafter God is man's portion for ever.

Thus we have reached the zenith of the Old Testament
teaching on Immortality. We say this advisedly, and in
spite of the fact that there are two passages in the Old
Testament in which a doctrine of the resurrection is dis-
tinctly taught ; for although these two passages witness
to a further development of doctrine, their religious content
falls below that of Ps. Ixxiii. The first of these is Isa.
xxvi. 19 ; the whole of this chapter belongs, according to
most authorities, to about the year 300 B.C. or a little earlier.
This difficult verse, the Hebrew text of which has quite
evidently undergone some revision, should be read thus :
" Thy dead men [i.e. of Israel] shall arise : the inhabitants
of the dust shall awake, and shout for joy ; for a dew of
lights is thy dew, and the earth shall bring to life the
shades." ^ Distinct as the reference to a resurrection is
here, the context shows clearly that there are underlying
materialistic conceptions ; these make the passage, spirit-
ually, inferior to the psalmist's words, which are so expressive
of his deep devotion to God and which tell that his joy
and hope of Immortality are what they are only because

1 Cheyne, A Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text of Isaiah, in loc. (1899).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BELIEF 221

all is centred in God. Concerning the Isaiah passage,
Charles clearly shows its trend when he says that " the
writer, who speaks in the name of the people, looks forward
to the setting up of the kingdom, with a strong city, whose
walls and bulwarks are salvation, and whose gates will be
entered by ' the righteous nation ' ; and since the nation is
but few, the righteous dead shall rise and share the blessed-
ness of the regenerate nation." ^ True, there are some
spiritual conceptions here, too ; but the passage lacks the
note of the Godward relationship, without which the
chord sounding the hope of Immortality loses its real
beauty.

The other passage, Dan. xii. 2, belongs to a period some
century and a half later ; it is probably based on the one
just considered : " And many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting contempt." Here one sees a
great development, inasmuch as there is a differentiation
in their condition hereafter between the righteous and the
wicked. Striking, too, is the teaching of the resurrection
of the evil as well as the just. In the preceding verse there
is a distinct reference to the setting up of the Messianic
Kingdom which is to be heralded by the resurrection ; this
is sufficient to show, knowing what we do about the con-
ceptions of the Messianic Kingdom at this period, that we
are no longer on the same spiritual height of the Isaiah
passage, let alone Ps. Ixxiii. " Without any consciousness
of impropriety the writer of Daniel can speak of the resur-
rection of the wicked. Thus severed from the spiritual
root from which it grew, the resurrection is transformed into
a sort of eschatological property, a device by means of
which the members of the nation are presented before God
to receive their final award." -

We believe it is, therefore, true to say that although

1 Encycl. Bibh, ii. 1354. ' Charles, ibid.

222 IMMORTALITY AND THE UNSEEN WORLD

these last two passages do witness to a further develop-
ment of belief in one direction, inasmuch as they teach a doc-
trine of the resurrection, they are, nevertheless, not on the
religious level of the two passages cited from the Psalms.
It is in these that we must recognize the zenith of a belief
in Immortality in the Old Testament.

NOTE

The biblical quotations illustrative of the development of
belief which have been given in this chapter are of different
dates ; but strict chronological sequence in the case of
particular texts is almost impossible where there is so much
uncertainty. One must reckon by 'periods where it is a
question of following out the development of belief in
Immortality ; for this is necessarily gradual. We have dealt
here with the period dating, roughly, from the Exile to about
200 B.C. Within that period there were fluctuations, though
the general tendency was towards fuller development of
belief. The exact date of a text, even were it possible to give
it, is therefore not of great moment ; what is important is
that it should belong to the period in question. And this,
according to the best authorities, is the case with the
texts quoted. The quotations given do not profess to be
exhaustive.

INDEX

Abaddon, 92
Abdon, 103
Abirirn, 59

Abode of eternity, the, 180
Abu Risha, 105
Accuser, 46
Adversary, the, 46
Aghwul, 33
A^u, 40
Aijalon, 102
Ainu, 118

All Souls, Feast of, 113
AUatu, 81, 84
Allon-bacuth, 102
Alu, 30, 32
' Alukah, 46
Anakim, the, 72

Ancestor- worship, 24, 25, 50, 95 ff.,
123

— among the Babylonians, 98 fi.

— as a private cvilt, 96
— , elements of, 96

— in Syria, 103 ff.

— in the Old Testament, 101 a.
— , origin of, 95 ff.
Ancestors, deified, 97

— , prayers to, 100

Ancestral graves as holy sites, 101 f.

Angel of Jahwe, 54 ff.

— , the theophanic, 54 f .

Angelology, 10, 47 ff.

— , Jewish, 50 f.

— of the Old Testament, 53 ff.
Angels and demons, no distinction

between originally, 48
— , Arab beUef concerning, 49 f.
— , nature of, 59 f.
— , sacrifices to, 49
— , special classes of, 60 f.
Animals, believed to be Buper-

natural, 124
— , indwelt by spirits, 124
Animism, 47 f.

Ammaki, the, 83

'Aphar, 159

Apprehension, capacity of, 3

Ardat LiH, 43

Argob, 75

Ariel, 128

Asa, 107

Ashakku, 29, 31, 44

Ashes, sitting in, 157 flE.

— , sprinkling, 154 ff.

Ashtaroth, 75

Ashtoreth, 205

Ashtoreth-Karnaim, 39, 72

Asshurbanipal, 100, 144, 164

Athens, 74

— , St. Paul in, 3

Attat, 138

Augury, 128 f.

'Aulak, 45

Auxerre, council of, 172

Awakeners from the dead, 85

Azamoth, 20 ff.

Azazel, 38, 39, 50

— , meaning of, 39

Baal, worshippers of, 122
Babylon, 182
— , desolation of, 37 f.
Babylonian belief in demons, 28 ff.

— beliefs of the underworld com-
pared with Old Testament teach-
ing on the subject, 93 f.

— conceptions about the under-
world, 80 ff.

— conceptions of the underworld
contradictory, 85

— rxilers deified, 99
Babylonians, the, 94

— , wailing among the, 163 f.

Bag of life, the, 15

Bai, 139

Banning unwelcome spirits, 127

Basar, 12 f.

223

224

INDEX

Bashan, 75

Beating the breast, 150

Belief, official and popular, 204

Beliefs, two sets of, in the Old Tes-
tament regarding immortality, 6

Belomancy, 124, 135

Be not h ya'anah, 40

Berechya, Rabbi, 43

Bethlehem, 102

Bird, soTil assuming the shape of a,
139

Black clothes, 154

Blood, 14, 19 f.

— covenant, 149

— , covering over of, 177 f.

— , grape-juice a substitvite for, 187

— , natviral bond of, 96

— of the Creator, man created by
the, 197 f.

— , soul or life residing in, 178
— , to poior out the, 199
Bloodsucker, 45

Body and soul, relationship be-
tween, 8
Body, care of the, after death, 176 f.
Bone and flesh, 20
Bones, 20 ff., 177
— , burning of, 21
— , life residing in the, 9, 22
• — , sprouting of the, 9

— imburied, 21

Book of the Covenant, the, 129
Bar, 90

Breaking of bread, 114
Breast, beating the, 150
Breath, 13 f., 17 ff.

— of life, the, 198
Bundle of life, the, 15
Burial cave, 115, 185

— in foreign soil, 7

— in Palestine, 115 ff.

— of criminals, 177

— customs, 1 1
Bm-ials in houses, 119
Burning a dead body, 7, 175
Burnings for the dead, 107
Burying in houses, 180 ff.

— of the dead, in the Old Testa-
ment, 180 f.

Burying-places full of demons, 28
Buto, 36

Calf-statuettes, 38
Calf, the golden, 38

Canaanite Demonology, 25

— tombs, excavation of, 186

Canaanites, the, 25

Capacity for apprehension, 3

Cave, burial, 115, 185

Caves in Palestine, 183

Cemeteries, demons in, 29

— , public, 183

Ceremonial, traditional, 163

Chaldtean schools of philosophy, 83

Chariot, the divine, 61

Charmers, 128

Chedorlaomer, 72

Chemosh, 205

Cherubim, 36, 60 ff.

Cinders, 159

Circumambulation, 172

Circumcision, 121

Cities of the Dead, 175

Closing the eyes of the dead, 169 f.

Clothes, black, 154
— , offering of, 147

Cock-crow, 30, 31

Colossal forms, 51

Comfort for a mourner, 159

Communion meal for the dead, 114

Comparative method, dangers of
the, 2

— religion, 1

Compromise, spirit of, in the Old
Testament, 5

Conception of God, a developed,
206 f.

widened, 208

Conceptions, antique, in the Old
Testament, 2

Conjurers of the dead, 125

Constituent parts of man, 12 ff.

Corpse, anointing of the, 173 f.

— , clothing of the, 174

— , demons in vicinity of the, 170

— , demons entering the, 170

— , embalming of the, 174

— , soul in proximity to the, 176

— , touching of the, 171

— , treatment of the, 172 ff.

— , unburied, 177 ff.

— , washmg of the, 173

Covering the head, 151, 168

Cremation, 107, 175

Cult of the Dead, 24, 95 ff., 110 ff.

among the Babylonians,

113

in the Old Testament,

118 ff.

in W isdom of Solomon, n I

INDEX

225

Cup of consolation, 114
Custom adapted to new conditions,
158

— mightier than right, 103
Customs, tribal, 96
Cutting off the hair, 149 ff.
Cuttings for the dead, 119 ff.

— in the flesh, 121

Ddm, 19 f.

Daughters of greed, 41
David and Jonathan, 147
Dead, awakeners from the, 85

— body, burning of, 7, 175
— , burning for the, 107
— , cities of the, 175

— , closing the eyes of the, 1 69 f .

— , cult of the, 95 ff., 110 ff.

— , disposal of the, 176

— , friendly relations with the, 123

— , gifts to the, not an act of wor-
ship, 184

— , kissing the, 170 ff.

— , offerings to the, 123, 184

— , propitiation of the, 123

— , supernatural powers ascribed to
the spirits of the, 97

— , worship of the, 123

Death the normal lot of man, 202

— , regarded as abnormal, 193, 195

— , the origin of, 192 f.

Deber, 44

Deborah, 102

Deceased, offerings to statues of
the, 113

Deified ancestors, 97

— kings, 99

Deity, contact with the, 171
Demon, the midday, 45
Demonology, 9, 24 ff.
— , Arab, 25 f.
— , Assyrian, 26
— , Babylonian, 26, 50 ff.
— , Canaanite, 25
— , Israelite, 9

— of post-biblical Judaism, 26
— , Phcenician, 25

— , references to, in the Old Testa-
ment, 25
— , Semitic, 27 ff.
Demons, activity of, 25

— and angels, no distinction be-
tween originally, 48

— and birds, 32

Demons and departed spirits, con-
nexion between, 28
— , Ai-ab belief in, 29 ff.
— , Babylonian belief in, 28 ff.
— , classes of, 28, 33 f.

— dwelling in animals, 32

— entering a corpse, 170

— in bird form, 32

— in burying- places, 28, 30, 180

— in desert places, 30

— in form of hybrid monsters, 32

— in hmnan form, 42 ff.

— in league with animals, 33

— in moimtainous regions, 30

— in ruins, 30

— in serpent form, 32

— in thickets, 30

— in vicinity of a corpse, 147, 166,
170

— in waterless spots, 31

— in the wilderness, 31
— , Jewish belief in, 29 ff.

— , power of assuming forms of
animals, 31

— , power of, at night, 29 f.

— , power of becoming invisible, 31

— , sacrificed to, 29, 49

— , sudden appearing of, 31

— , the cause of sickness, 29

— , theriomorphic, 35 ff.

Departed, the, 6

— , cult of the, 24

— , inconsistency of teaching re-
garding the, 69

— , need of propitiating the. 111

— , offerings to the, 96

— , popiilar belief about the, 203

— , provision for the, 183 ff.

— spirits, invisibility of, 146

, reasons for unrest of, 29

, regarded as saints, 104

, regarded with fear, 146

Dergal, 81

Descent of Ishtar, 81 f., 125
Deuteronomic legislation, 130
Development, a religious-ethical,

199 f.
— , final stage of, 217 ff.

— of behef, 202 ff.
— , religious, 3

— , steps of, 210 ff.
Dhat Anwat, 147
Dimetum, 29
Diogenes Laertes, 83
Dionysus, 38
Divination, 124, 135

226

INDEX

Divine nature . apprehension of the,
208

— soUcitude, 3

— revelation, 3
Diviner, 133, 139
Doctrine of God, 209
Doleful creatures, 40
Doresh el ha-mtthim, 134
Dreams, 15, 140

— the origin of the belief in immor-
tality, 191

Drink-offerings at the grave of the
departed, 114

— poured out to the dead, 78
Dungi I, 99

Dust, 81, 159

Ea, 52, 83, 84

Eabani, 125

Earth from a gi'ave, 156

— , sprinkling, 154 ff.

Eden, Babylonian form of the story

of, 195
— , garden of, 33

— , story of the Garden of, 193 ff.
Edrei, 75
Egyptians, fvmeral lamentations

of the, 164
Ekimmu, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33
El, 59

Elamitetomb, 186
EUjah, 168, 199
Elon, 102

Embalming, 8, 174
Emim, the, 72
Enchanter, 130
Endor, the witch of, 67 ff., 82,

127 f., 137 f., 174
Enoch, 199
— , book of, 39
'Epher, 155
Ephod, 109, 136
Erishkigal, 81, 84
— , c^ueen of the realm of the dead,

28
Eshmunazar, 64
— , inscription of, 8
Eshtaol, 103

Eternity, the abode of, 180
Evil eye, the, 168, 170
Excavations in Palestine, 175, 181,

184 ff.
Exile, the, 7
— , results of the, 204 ff.

Exile, the result of national sinful-
ness, 209

— , the turning-point in a belief in
immortalitj% 209

External soul, 15, 136, 192

Eye, the evil, 168, 170

— , the soul residing in the pupil of
the, 170

Eyes of the dead, closing the, 169 f.

Faculty, the religious, 3
Famihar spirits, 128 ff.
Fasting a preparation for funeral
feast, 161

— as a sign of mourning, 159 ff.
Fate, the god of, 83

Feasts, funeral, 115 ff.

— in honoiir of the deity, 143
Festival of the dead, the day of the,

100
Fireplace, 78
Flute-players, professional, 163,

165, 166

playing, 126

Flutes for mourning, 162 f., 165,

166
Food deposit in burial cave, 185

— deposits, 115, 187 f.

, reasons for, 188

bowls in graves, 119

Foreign soil, burial in, 7
Foundation deposits sacrificial, 187

— sacrifices, 181

Fractiire of objects deposited in

graves, 185
Fvmeral feast, 112, 184

— feasts, 115 ff.
, object of, 117 f.

Gabriel, 62

Gallu, 30

Garden of Eden, 33

Garment, a holy, 152

Garments, rending of, 143 ff.

Gathered to the people, to be, 180

Ge, 78

Gehenna, 78

Oelasian decree, the, 76

Gezer, 115

— , excavation on the site of, 38,

181, 184 ff.
Ghilan, 33

INDEX

227

Ghost not always inimical, 160
Ohiil, 32, 33
Giants, ancient, 72 ff.
Gilgamesh, 125

— Epic, 164

Glaucus and Diomede, 147
Grape- juice a substitute for blood,

187
Grave, earth from a, 156
Grave-clothes, 174
Graves, care of, 8

— as places of worship, 102

— of ancestors, holy sites, 101 f.
— , types of, in Palestine, 183
Greeks, wailing among the, 164 f.
Gregory of Nyssa, 148

Grief, conventional expressions of,

96
Griffin, 60

Ground, sitting on the, 157, 159
God, doctrine of, 200, 209
— , omnipresence of, 218
Going forth of the soul, 169 f.
Golden calf, the, 38
Guardian of life, 52

— spirits, 51
Gudea, 99
Gula, 85

Hadesh, 102
Hagah, 138
Hair-offering, 122

offerings for the dead, 119 ff.

Hamon, 102

Hand on the head, laying of the,

168
Haryatan, 105
Head, covering the, 151
— , laying of the hand on the, 168
Healers, 74
Heap of stones, 177
Heart, 22

Hepatoscopy, 124, 136
Herodotus, quotation from, 36 f.
Higr, 28
Hillel, 172

Hinnom, the valley of, 77
Hittites, the, 60
Holiness, the Law of, 120, 130
Horseleach, 45
Horsemen of the air, 61
House-burial of Muhammad, 182
— among the Arabs, 182
Household gods, 109, 135 f.

Houses, buryuig in, 180 ff.

— • of the soul, 16

Howhng wilderness, the, 30

Human form, demons in, 42 ff.

— sacrifices, 117

Hunting souls, 16 f.

Hybrid monsters, il

Ibzan, 102

Ideas, inconsistent, in the Old
Testament, 4

'Iltim, 134

Image, 198

Immortality, beginnings of the
Hebrew doctrine of, 196 f.

— , doctrine of, in the Old Testa-
ment, 190 ff.

— , inconsistency of belief in the
Old Testament regarding, 4

— , not the normal lot of man, 202

— , origin of belief in, 190 f.

— , the normal lot of man, 190 ff.

— , two sets of beliefs in the Old
Testament regarding, 6

Incense, 126

— offering, 107

to the dead, 118

Inconsistent ideas in the Old Testa-
ment, 4

Incubation, 140
Individualism, religious, 204 ff.
— , teaching of, by Jeremiah, 205 f .
Infant sacrifices, 185 f.
Infants in jars, 185
Initiation, bond of, 96
Inscription of Eshmunazar, 8
Intestines, 22

Invisibility of departed spirits, 146
Inward parts, 22
Irkalla, 82

Ishtar's descent, 81, 125
Islam zoology a demonology, 32
Israelite belief in supernatural
beings, 9

— religion not isolated, 1
Iyyi7n, 41, 42

Jackal, 40

Jahwe, 6, 7

— , marks on worshippers of, 121

— , worship of, 70

Jair, 102

228

INDEX

Jann, 32

Jars containing new-born infants,

185
Jebel Hawan, 75
Jeremiah, 209

Jeremiah's individualism, 205
Jerusalem, 10
Jews, funeral procession among

the, 166
Jinn, 33, 36, 49, 73, 86
Job, the Testament of, 22
Jochanan ben Zakkai, 79
Jose, Rabbi, 45
Joseph's grave, 102
Josephus, 109
Joshua, 102
Judaism, post-biblical, 26

— demonology of, 26

Jug and bowl deposits in graves, 186

Ka'aba, 171, 172
Kedoshim, 59
Keteb, 44 f.
Kianag, 113
XinoA-strophe, 163
Kingdom of Satan, 24

— Messianic, the, 22
Kis'ig, 114

Kissing the black stone, 171

— the calves, 171

— the dead, 170 ff.
Kurnugea, 81

Laban, 108

Labartu, 29

Lacerations of the body, 148, 149 ff.

Lachish, 185

Lamassv, 51 f.

Lamentation, 162 ff.

— , antiphonal, 166

Lamp and bowl deposits, 186 ff.

Lamps in graves, 1 18 f.

Law of Holiness, the, 120, 130

Layelah, 42

Lib, 22

Lebab, 22

Levitical Code, 120

Libations to the dead, 100

Life and blood, 19

— , bundle or bag of. 15

— , the water of, 83, 84

Lil, 43

Lilin, 33, 43

LUith, 33, 42 ff.

— , the arrow of, 43

LUitu, 43

Lilu, 43

Lips, covering of the, 168

Lots, 124

Macpelah, cave of, 101

Magic, sympathetic, 47, 151, 188

Maintainers, 108

Mamre, 101

Man, constituent parts of, 12 ff.

Manasseh, 128

Marduk, 85

Mar Risha, 105

Material and spiritual, 12

Mazzebah, 102

Mazztkin, 34

Mecca, 171

Medium, 138

Megiddo, excavations at, 186

Me'ini, 22

Memithim, 59

Memory of living on in the seed, 210

Mental environment of ancient

Hebrews, 12
Messenger of mercy, 52
Messengers of God, 58 f.
Messianic Kingdom, the, 22, 221
Micah, 108
Michal, 108
Midday demon, the, 45
Milcom, 205

Miniature houses on tombs, 16
Miriam's grave, 102
Moon, eclipse of the, 52
Mortuary sacrifices, 113
Mourners, professional, 162
Mourning customs, 11, 119ff., 141 fi.
explained on the analogy of

religious rites, 167 f.

, prohibition concerning, 121

Mourning garb, 153

— men and women, 125
— , period of, 143

— , the stool of, 164

— women, 164, 166
Muhammad buried in his house,

182
Muhammadanism, 50, 85
Muhammadans, practice of the, 168
Mulberry trees, 77

INDEX

229

N
Nabonidus, 164
Nafs, 19
Namtar, 44
Namtaru, 28, 29, 30
Naqada, 116
National gods, 205
Nebo, 85
Necromancer, modus operandi of

the, 136 ff.
Necromancy, 11, 124 ff.

— among the Babylonians, 125 ff.

— in the Old Testament, 127 ff.
— , penal laws against, 131

— , permitted, 128 f.

— , practice of, after the exile, 131

Nephesh, 13 ff., 17 ff.

Nephilim, the, 73

Neahamah, 17 f.

NiQibin, 28

Nifas, 19

NUus, 148

Noah, the Babylonian, 83

Nourishers, 108

Nusairiyeh, 115

'6h, 132 ff., 135 f., 138

— , derivation of the word, 134

Ochim, 40

Offerings to the departed, 96

Og, 75, 76

— , the book of, 76

Omens, 124

Omnipresence of God, the, 218

Oneiromancy, 124

Ophannim, 62

Oriental mind illogical, the, 5

Osiris, judgement-hall of, 87

Ostrich, 40

Palestine, excavations in, 175, 181

Palliative of an original rite, 150

Palmyra, 105

Parenlalla, 114

Perfume boxes, 16

Pest-demons, 29

Philistines, the, 77

Philosophy, Chaldajan schools of, 83

Phoenician demonology, 25

Pipes for mourning, 162

Pirathon, 103

Pit, the, 90

Polydsemonism, 25

Popular belief about the departed,
203

— Sheol-belief, 8

— superstition, 24

Possession by a departed spirit, 126
Pourer-out of water, the, 100
Pre-existence of the soul, 18
Preliminary steps in the develop-
ment of the belief in Immor-
tality, 210
Priests, categories of, 132
Psalmists, the hope of immortality

of the, 206
Pupil of the eye, soul residing in
the, 170

Quraija, 36

Rabdomancy, 124
Rabisu, 52
Rachel, 108, 143
Rachel's grave, 102
Rag offerings, 147
Ramah, 119, 181
Rapha\ 74
Raphah, 71, 74
Redddddt, 164

Redemption of the first-born, 150
Red heifer, 155

Relationship between soul and body
after death, 176 ff.

— to God, 208

— to God, individual, 205
Religion, comparative, 1
— , Israelite, 1

— , of Jahwe, 7
— , positive, 1
— , traditional, 2
Religious development, 3

— faculty, 3

— individualism, 204 ff.
Rending of garments, 143 ff.
Rephaim, the, 10, 63 ff.

— , a general name of the departed,
74

— and Teraphim, 136

— , official view regarding the, 70
— , the name of an ancient race of

giants, 72 fi.
— , the valley of, 74 ff.
Responders, the, 164
Resurrection, 83, 85
— , doctrine of, 94, 220 f.

230

INDEX

Revelation, divine, 3
Rocks, sacred, 105
Ruach, 18 f., 34
Ruchin, 34

Sa'ali, 33

Sackcloth, putting on, 145, 151 ff.

Sacrifices, cessation of, 207

— for the dead, 114
— , foundation, 181
— , htunan, 117

— of infants, 185 f.

— to the dead, 115
St. Paul, 3, 201
Sa'ir, 38

SakJcu, 152

Samson, 103

Samuel, 67 ff., 137

Sandals, taking off of, 167 f.

Saraph, 36

Sargon I, 99

Satan, 24, 31, 32, 33, 46, 53

Satyrs, 38

Saul, 67 ff., 137

Scape-goat, 38

Seals in graves, 187

Seed, desire of a, 210

Se'irim, 37 ff.

Self-deception, 138

Semitic deities, characteristic of, 39

— demonology, 27 ff.
Sennacherib, 100
Sepulchral inscriptions, 8
Sep\alchres, rock-hewn, 183
Seraphim, 35 ff., 61 f.

Serpent in the Garden of Eden

story superfluous, 200
— , the, 195 f.
Serpents, demons in, 32
— , flying, 37

Seven days' period of mourning, 143
Shabiri, 29
Shachath, 91 f., 212
Shades, 10
Shaitan, 32
Shamash, 85
Shamir, 102
Shayatin, 27
Shed, 46
Shedim, 33
Shedv, 32, 51 f.
Sheija, 31
Sheol, 6, 10, 80 ff., 17G

— and the Rephaim, 92 ff.

Sheol, differentiation between

dwellers in, 91
— , meaning of the word, 86 f.
— , Old Testament conceptions of,

86 ff.
— , personification of, 90
— , reformed belief concerning, 203
— , traditional beliefs regarding, 6
Sheol-belief modified by Jahwe

worship, 93, 176

— ■ — , the popular, 8
Sidon, 64

Si'lak, 33

Sho'el 'Ob, 134

Sin, sense of, 209

Sleep with the fathers, to, 180

Soil, 156

Solicitude, divine, 3

Sons of the gods, the, 53

Sorcerer, 130

Soul, 13 ff., 17 ff.

— and body, relationship between,
after death, 176 ff.

— , external, 15, 192

— , going forth of the, 169 f.

— , houses of the, 16

— in proximity of the corpse, 176

— of man, Egyptian belief con-
cerning the, 87

— , pre-existence of, 18

— residing in the pupil of the eye,
170

— , the external, 136
i — , to breathe out the, 199
{ Souls, himting, 16 f.
j — , wandering of, 178

Spices placed within the grave-
i clothes, 174

Spirit, 18 f.

— of compromise in the Old Testa-
ment, 5

— of the dead, possession by, 126
Spirits of the dead wandering on

earth, 126

— of the departed connected with
demons, 28

, harmful, 28

, reasons for unrest of, 29

Spiritual and material, 12

— - w orship, 207
Springs, sacred, 105
Stones, heap of, 177
— , sacred, 105

Stool of mourning, the, 1 64
; Storm-demons, 29
I Sumerian inscription, 163

INDEX

231

Sumerians, the, 81
Supernatural, awe in presence of
the, 168

— beings, IsraeUte belief in, 9

— character of the departed, 111
perstition, popular, 24

Sympathetic magic, 151, 188

Taanach, excavations at, 186
Tabellae devotionis, 179
Tabnith inscription, 64
Tabu, 153
Tammuz, 125

— festival, 83 f.
— , meaning of, 83

— myth, 83 f.
Tannim, 41

Technical terms, 132 ff,
Techilm, 166

Te Deum, 36
Tell-el-Hesy, 185
Tell-el-Mutesellim, excavations at,

186
Temple, ruins of a, on the site of

Gezer, 185
Teraphim, 108 f., 119, 135 f.

— and Rephaim, 136
Testament of Job, the, 22
Teutonic mythology, 61
Theophanic angel, the, 54 f.
Theophanies, 101
Theriomorphic demons, 35 ff.
Thigh, beating the, 150
Thought, traditional, 4
Tinonath-heres, 102
Timnath-serah, 102

Tola, 102

Tomb, Elamite, 186

— , family, 179

Tombs, Canaanite, excavation of,

186
— , miniature houses on, 1 6
Topheth, 78
Traditional thought, 4
Tree of the l^owledge of Good and

Evil, 194

— of Life, 194
Trees, sacred, 105 f.
Tribal customs, 96
Troglodytes, 75
Tyre, 155

Underworld, Ai-ab conceptions re-
garding the, 85 f.

— , Babylonian conceptions about
the, 80 a.

— , Babylonian conceptions con-
tradictory regarding the, 85

Utukku, 28, 30, 32, 33, 52

Vampire, 45
Ventriloquism, 139

Wailing, 162 ft.

— among the Babylonians, 163 f.

— for the dead, origin of the
custom, 165 f.

— , the place of, 164

— , seven days of, among Arabs, 164

Walkiire, 61

Water of life, the, 83, 84

" Weak ones," 10

Well, 48, 104, 115

Wells, sacred, 105

Whisperers, 128, 134 f.

Wind, 18

Wine-skin, 134

Witch of Endor, the, 67 ff., 82,

137 f., 174
Witchcraft, 47
Wizard, 134
Wizards, 128 ff.
Women, mourning, 164, 166
Worship, spiritual, 207

Yambo, 191
Yidde'oni, 134, 138

Zamzummim, the, 72

Zaphaph, 138

Zedekiah, 107

Zenith of Old Testament teaching

on Immortality, 220
Ziyyini, 40
Zoology of Islam and demonology,

32
Zumleh range, 75
Zuzim, the, 73

Printed by Hazell, Watson <t Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury

Date Due

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Full text of "Immortality and the unseen world; a study in Old Testament religion"

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