irregular (even the monarchy), seems forced in itself, besides failing to present the striking idea of the immediate context. Robertson Smith, who takes sacrifice and maççeba, ephod and teraphim, to have been " recognised as the necessary forms and instruments of the worship of Jehovah," yet in a note makes the double reference: "So Jehovah will deal with Israel when, by destroying the state and the ordinances of worship, He breaks off all intercourse, not only between Israel and the Baalim, but between Israel and Himself." There is no reason to say that the monarchy in itself was distasteful to Hosea, or that sacrifice in itself was condemned by him. But if we take the things in pairs, we get the legitimate monarchy and the bastard lordship, legitimate sacrifices and those with which the idolatrous pillars were associated, the legitimate priestly ephod and the superstitious consulting of teraphim.

1O.T. in Jewish Church, Lect. viii. pp. 226, 423.

CHAPTER X.

PRE-PROPHETIC RELIGION CONTINUED: MOLOCH-WORSHIPHUMAN SACRIFICES-FIRE-WORSHIP.

Statements of Kuenen, Daumer, and Ghillany that Jahaveh was originally a fire or sun god, worshipped with human sacrifices, or identified with Moloch Semitic mode of naming deities contrasted with AryanArguments for identification drawn from (1) modes of expression, fire, &c., metaphor; (2) Bamoth; (3) circumcision and offering of first-born ; (4) certain records of events—e.g., offering of Isaac, Jephthah's daughter, king of Moab; (5) declarations of the prophets, Amos v. 26, Micah vi. 7,8-" Cumulative” argument from these indications-Warning against proving too much.

KUENEN, after concluding that the bull was "an indigenous and original symbol of Jahveh," proceeds to say: 1 "Now we know from other sources that this emblem had its place in the worship of the sun. The bull properly symbolises untamed power, especially the violence of the sun, its scorching and consuming heat. Thus Molech is represented with the head of a bull, while horns are the invariable tokens of Astarte. Therefore we certainly do not go too far in inferring from the bull - worship an original relationship between Jahveh and Molech."

1 Relig. of Israel, vol. i. p. 236.

It may seem to the ordinary reader of the Bible that only by extravagant freaks of criticism can such positions be maintained as the following: "Fire and Moloch worship was the ancestral, legal, and orthodox worship of the nation" of Israel.1 "Moses never forbade human sacrifices. On the contrary, these constituted a legal and essential part of the state - worship from the earliest times down to the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah."2 And it is no doubt the case that the writers from whom we quote went a greater length than more modern critical writers are disposed to do. Kuenen, e.g., in reply to the question whether the Jahaveh of the prophets is a counterpart to Moloch, has no hesitation in returning a negative answer. Still he fearlessly asserts that "the conception of Jahveh originally bordered upon that of Molech, or at least had many points of contact with it;" "3 and that "originally Jahveh was a god of light or of the sun, and the heat of the sun and the consuming fire were considered to proceed from him, and to be ruled by him. In accordance with this, Jahveh was conceived by those who worshipped Him to be a ́severe being inaccessible to mankind, whom it was necessary to propitiate with sacrifices and offerings, and even with human sacrifices." 4

In order to the clearer understanding of the bearings of this question, it is proper to remark at the outset that a broad distinction is to be observed between the mode of naming of their gods by most Semitic peoples and that

1 Title-page of Daumer's Feuer und Molochdienst der alten Hebräer,

1842.

2 Heading to p. 78 ff. of Ghillany's Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer, 1842.

3 Relig. of Israel, vol. i. p. 241.

4 Ibid., p. 249.

of Aryan nations. The names given to their gods by the kindred nations in the neighbourhood of Israel had nearly all a similar signification, and were of a more comprehensive import than the usual names of the heathen divinities. We have already seen that Baal, which is the same. name as the Babylonian Bel, means lord; so does Adon, which passed into Adonis. El and Elohim had a similar general meaning of power or might, as also Shaddai; and Elyon means Most High. Moloch-or, more correctly, Molech-is closely akin to the word standing for king in Hebrew, and signified ruler (perhaps originally in an abstract sense). In the same way, Chemosh seems to be derived from the idea of subduing or repressing. Such a mode of nomenclature is different from that of the Aryans, who named their deities from single natural phenomena, as fire, light, and so forth; and even although the Semitic deities were associated with natural phenomena of that kind, the names preserved their general significance, and allowed the mind of the worshipper a wider scope. So that the often- repeated dictum, Nomina numina, however applicable to Aryan mythology, is not found prevailing among Semitic peoples.1 It is this peculiar feature of Semitic religion that led M. Renan to his well-known position that these nations had an instinctive leaning to monotheism; for it is plain that when a people calls its god the ruler, the king, the most high, there is not felt the same necessity for gods many, as if every object in nature was the abode or symbol of a special deity. A people keeping to such general designations of the deity, is, if not monotheistic, on the way to monotheism, and in a different position, e.g., from the Assyrian Semites, who multiplied gods with the use 1 Baudissin, Jahve et Moloch, p. 9.

of every appellative name. The discoveries of Assyriology have shown that a Semitic people could run to the same excess in multiplying deities as Aryan nations; and that even where the name assigned to the deity was of a general kind, he might be associated with fire, light, or heaven, as in heathen mythology. M. Renan has, therefore, now so far modified his position as to claim a monotheistic instinct for only the nomad Semitic peoples. At the same time, the feature of the nomenclature just described has to be kept in view, for it furnishes some explanation of the possibility some have found of identifying the God of the Hebrews with the gods of the surrounding nations.

The precise question for us, now, is not what might have been done, but what was actually done in times of which we have historical knowledge. We have some information as to the character ascribed to Moloch by his worshippers, and the manner in which he was worshipped. What we have to inquire is, whether the same or similar qualities were ascribed by the Israelites to their national God, and whether they paid Him similar honours, whether even the two deities were so far identified in conception as that when a Hebrew said, Our God is Melech, he meant to imply that Jahaveh was the same as the deity whom the heathen worshipped as Molech. The identification or close assimilation of the two deities is supposed to be made out by a consideration of certain modes of speech, as well as of certain ceremonies or practices testified to in the Hebrew writings; by the record of certain events, obscured no doubt by popular tradition or prophetic teaching, but still intelligible; and even by unequivocal statements of the prophets themselves. We have therefore to consider the various proofs, and see whether they