THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL.*
THIS admirable handbook is one of the "Religions Science and Literature" series now being edited by Professor Sneath, of Yale. Should the succeeding volumes be on the same high level, the series will confer a benefit on English-speaking schools, primary and secondary, which it would be difficult to overrate. For it is probable that one of the main causes of the discredit Into which the modern Churches have fallen is the character of the religious instruction given in our schools. This remains substantially what it was two generations ago, though in these two generations the state both of knowledge and of educated opinion has been changed out of recognition. The result is an essential insincerity ; religion is taught on conventional, not on real, lines. That this is so is recognized, if tacitly, both by teachers and taught ; the climate is one in which neither belief nor interest can survive. The teaching staff is not solely responsible ; managers, governing bodies, clergy, parents—all share the blame. But till the existing system is abolished root and branch, till the suppressio yen i and suggestio falai which characterize it are replaced by frankness and honesty, religion will continue to decline. The official teaching of the Universities is little better than that of the schools. At Cambridge, a well.known theological lecturer tells us that the examination syllabus only requires a knowledge of the Creeds in relation to the growth of doctrine in the first five centuries; and that " the suggestion of revision with a view to modernise- tion has hitherto received no support from those with whom responsibility in the matter rests." Can we wonder that theo- logical studies should be discredited, and theological students be few ?
The religion of Israel is so closely associated with Christianity that, if it is seen out of perspective, Christianity is so also ; to those who regard the theological conceptions of the Old Testa- ment as fixed quantities, those of the New remain a sealed book, Professor Barton describes the unfolding of Hebrew religion from the birth of the nation till the time of Christ in a succession of vivid sketches which open with the prehistoric traditions of the race and end with the Dispersion. While written from the point of view of the best modern scholarship, the book is at once reverent and constructive : "Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself."
The Semitic background of the Hebrews is the key to the patriarchal period, to the Conquest of Canaan, and in general to the pre-Monarchical age. The sanctity attached to springs and trees, the pillars, (inheres, and Gilg,ala, the practice of human sacrifice, the its talionis, the Ban—these and the like are unmistakable marks of kindred. "It is one of the gains that scientific study brings us that we no longer think of this law [that exemplified in 2 Samuel xxi. 1-14] as really given by the one God, but as a barbarous inheritance from Israel's Semitic forebears." Only confusion of thought and depreciation of ethical values can result from the attempt to moralize these things ; the stage of religion to which they belong is unmoral. It is also pre-theological :—
" The early Hebrews shared with their Semitic kinsmen the view that religion consisted of a body of ceremonies to be gone through, rather than a body of beliefs to be accepted. The world was thought to be full of supernatural powers of which man stood in awe, if one did not behave towards these powers as the powers themselves thought proper, in anger they might blast one's life. Just as one must observe a polite etiquette • The Peligion of Israel. By Georlie A. Barton, Professor of Biblical Literature and &mina languages in km Maw College, haingiTania. New York. Macmillan Co. [Ws, ed.]
In approaching a powerful man, so the ceremonies of religion were the proper manners to be observed in one's relationship with the gods. So long, then, as the right practices were carried out, one might believe what one wished. Connected with different gods were various myths that had grown up to explain their actions or their nature. Those myths one could accept or reject, if only his outward conduct was irreproachable. At first, accordingly, religion consisted of a body of ceremonies."
It was through the ministry of the Prophets that Hebrew religion sloughed off this primitivism. Legalism, in spite of its immortal devotional product, the Psalter, was a fall from their higher level. This fall finds its parallels in Christian history : a creative is followed by an assimilative or imitative period ; It is on these lines, it seems, that the dialectic of religious thought moves. And devotion may flourish under the shadow of Legalism ; the Psalter of the legal age of Judaism is not a solitary phenomenon; it was the legal age of Christianity which gave us the "Following of Christ ":- "It It is often a relief to pious souls, especially to those of a certain type, to have the requirements of religion laid down in a set of definite rules that can be clearly known. One then knows, it is thought, when he is righteous and when he Is not. Them is a definite standard by which the achievements of life can be measured. It is easy to understand, therefore, why the law which had reached Its completion In this period, was venerated by some of the best spirits of the time."
The same may be said of Catholicism ; there is a quality in Catholic piety seldom found elsewhere. But the price is pro- hibitive: the shambles of the Temple stand behind the Psalter, the fires of the Inquisition are the background of the raptures of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. In each case religion escapes from these miasmatic swamps to clearer skies and loftier levels. And the process of ascent is unending ; as men increase in wisdom and stature they "put away childish things."
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