heights,[34] against which the priestly legislation strove in the interest of the pure worship of Jahveh;[35] fifthly, the heterodox worship of Jahveh in the kingdom of the ten tribes under the form of a calf.[36]

From all this it seems fair to conclude that the religion of the oldest forefathers of Israel had its root originally in one and the same soil with the religion of the other Semites. Out of an earlier nature-religion there developed among the Semites the conception of Baal, the lord of nature, and of Molech with his inhuman worship. While, however, the other Semites remained in this lower stage, or rather sank back more and more into the immorality of the nature-religion,—an hypothesis suggested by a comparison of the religious state of the nations of Canaan in Abraham's time with their state at the time of the conquest of the land by Joshua and afterwards,—in the family of Abraham, religious consciousness rose to the recognition of a deity, who, although he had a right to human sacrifices, yet did not claim such sacrifices, but was satisfied with men's willingness to bring them to him. With this higher development of religion, the names of the Supreme Being, Baal and Molech, originally common to the whole race, came more and more into contempt, and were regarded as the expression of abominable idolatry,[37] while even the worship of Jahveh under the form of a calf, originally permitted, was later branded by the prophets as heresy.

Though it was in the family of Abraham that even in Mesopotamia[38] the beginning of this higher development of the Semitic religion showed itself, which, after his migration to Canaan became the heritage of his family, yet the patriarch of Israel did not stand alone in this respect among the Semites. The old Canaanitish chieftains also of the patriarchal period, Melchizedek and Abimelech, worship the same God as he,[39] while on the other hand in his own family not all traces of polytheistic superstition have disappeared,[40] and these traces are also visible still later in Israel.[41]

The patriarchal religion, which afterwards with the great majority fell into oblivion, was recalled afresh to men's minds by Moses, and the God of the fathers was preached by him under the name before unknown of Jahveh,[42] to whom, with the exclusion of all other gods, religious worship is due.[43] The Jahveh of Moses, like the El Eljon of the patriarchs, is the one only object of worship (Deus Unus), yet without excluding the possibility of other gods existing.[44] Not until later did the more developed conception of Jahveh arise as the one only God (Deus unicus),[45] who is throned in heaven, and like the Elohim of the patriarchs, encircled by celestial beings (Bene Elohim, Malakim, Angels), who execute his commands, yet are not objects of religious adoration.

The religious standpoint of Moses is the legal. Jehovah stands related to his people as the Holy, as lawgiver and judge; and the true moral consecration to God is symbolically expressed in the ritual, especially in the sacrifice, while the relation of the people to God is based upon the mediation of the priests. Along with this, and out of Mosaism, after the time of Samuel, prophetism was developed, in which independent religious conviction, outside the limits of the priesthood, and without distinction of rank or birth,[46] awoke among the people. Prophetism, in the domain of religion, is the development of the religious spirit to individual independence and freedom. The prophet, rising above the legal standpoint and outward ceremonial, puts the essence of true worship in morality,[47] but recognizes also along with the deepest feeling of dependence upon God, in the independence[48] and spontaneity of the religious and moral life, the irresistible power of the divine spirit, by which the Most High, though apart from the world and throned in heaven, puts himself into the closest and most intimate communion with the true worshiper. Thus the gulf which divided Jahveh, as a God afar off, from the world and his worshipers, closed up more and more. With the conviction of the pureness and truth[49] of her religion, Israel felt the calling to raise it to the religion of the world, and in the realization of this she saw the ideal of the future.[50]

b. The Israelitish religion after the Captivity.

The free character which distinguished prophetism in the religion of Israel changed, after the return of the people from captivity, especially with the party of the Pharisees, to literalness and formalism. The prophets gave place to the synagogue, the living proclamation of the truth to scriptural erudition, the spirit of freedom to slavish subjection to Scripture and tradition. As the ancient productions of the Indian literature, originally the expression of the popular thought of India, were elevated by the Brahmins into Veda, holy, inspired scripture, so also