SUPPLEMENT.COMMENTS OF SPECIALISTS.
Before their publishing, the proof-sheets of this volume were submitted to a number of prominent scholars in Europe and America, for their examination and comment, in order to ascertain if the main thought of the work seemed justified by the facts known to them in their several special fields of knowledge and study. Some of the opinions and suggestions of these scholars as given herewith will have deservedly, in the eyes of many readers, a weight and value beyond anything that could be said by the author of this work.
As a Jewish clergyman, and as a conservative Bible scholar, the Rev. Dr. Jastrow is honored on both sides of the Atlantic for his special attainments in Talmudic and Rabbinical lore. His great work, “A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature,” is a monument of his learning and ability in these fields. He writes:
“I have read your interesting work, ‘The Threshold Covenant,’with great attention, and derived from it more information than I can possibly thank you for.
“As I am unable to form an independent opinion on the bearing of your evidences on the thesis of your work, I can refer only to those parts of it which treat of Jewish customs and ideas, and, here, I feel it a privilege to be permitted to say that I admire your ingenious conception of the passover covenant in Egypt. Especially interesting, and undoubtedly correct, is your interpretation of Exodus 12 : 23, according to which the Lord passes over the threshold in order to visit the Israelitish house, and will not allow the destroyer to enter.
“It may not be out of place here to direct your attention to a passage in Talmud Yerushalmi, Aboda Zara III, 42 d, where it is said about the Philistines: ‘They revered the threshold (miftan) more than the Dagon,’ to which is added, ‘All other nations made (worshiped) only onemiftan, but the Israelites made manymiftanoth,’ which explains the verse, ‘And I will visit punishment on him who leaps, and on themiftan’ (Zeph. 1 : 9). You will observe that the Talmud quotes the verse different from the Massoretic text, which reads, ‘on every one who leaps over themiftan.’ I am unable to decide whether the deviation from the Massoretic text is owing to a different text before the Talmudic authority under consideration, or merely to a slip of memory, such as often occurs with those who quote from memory.
“In Talmud Babli, referring to the Philistines in relation to the Dagon, it is said: ‘They let alone the Dagon and worshiped themiftan, for they said, His prince (genius) has abandoned the Dagon and has come to sit on themiftan.’ All of which proves that there lingered yet in the memory of the Talmudists the traditional recollection ofmiftanworship.”
FROM PROFESSOR DR. HERMAN V. HILPRECHT.
Oldest among civilizations of which we have any sure record is that of Babylonia. Among the foremost scholars in that realm is Dr. Hilprecht, formerly of the University of Erlangen, and now Professor of Assyriology in the University of Pennsylvania. His prominence is recognized in Europe as fully as in America. His labors, in the field and in the study, in connection with the successful Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, and his monumental work, still in course of publication, on the Cuneiform Texts brought to light by that expedition, have added to his reputation on both sides of the ocean, and confirmed his high standing among the best scholars of the world in his special department of knowledge.
It was while on his way to Constantinople, to examine the latest “finds” in Babylonia brought to the Imperial Museum there, with which museum Professor Hilprecht has an official connection, that he examined the proof-sheets of “The Threshold Covenant.” Of the work in its entirety he writes in generous appreciation as follows:
“Your latest book, ‘The Threshold Covenant,’ accompanied me on my trip to Constantinople. Before we had crossed the Atlantic I had studied it three times from beginning to end. I take the first opportunity, at Southampton, to send you these lines, in order to express to you my full appreciation of what you have offered to the scientific world in your magnificent work.
“If in your former book, ‘The Blood Covenant,’ you made [as was suggested by an eminent German theologian] the first successful attempt to write a theology of the blood, youhave given us in your most recent work a thorough investigation on the significance and history of the primitive altar upon which blood was shed by men entering into a covenant with God or their fellow-men. Surely your two books ‘The Blood Covenant,’ and ‘The Threshold Covenant’ belong together, and should therefore be studied together. One supplements the other, and the former furnishes the key to a full understanding of the facts presented in the latter; and so again on the other side.
“It must have cost you decenniums to gather all the material which you lay before the reader in such a systematic form. All the nations of the world, civilized and uncivilized, ancient and modern, seem to have contributed their share to your stately structure, which has my full admiration. Viewed in this light alone, your book will always prove a regular storehouse of knowledge for students of primitive rites and religions, and of various other kindred subjects.
“It is, of course, impossible for any specialist in one certain line to fully estimate the hundreds of new features presented in your recent work. It would be bold on my part, at least, to express an opinion on questions with which I am not entirely familiar. As, however, you treat facts which bear closely upon my special line of investigation,–the oldest history, languages, and civilization of the Euphrates valley, and of their rites in general,–I can heartily assure you that, according to my examination, you have proved your main points beyond question.
“It is first of all sure that you are the first who fully recognized, and in fact rediscovered, the world-wide importance and fundamental significance of the threshold in all ancient religions. You have re-established an ancient rite which waspractically entirely forgotten by modern scholars. By restoring the threshold to its proper place in primitive religions, you have rendered a great service to comparative religion, archeology, and even philology. Many a statement by ancient writers was obscure to us, many a word puzzling as to its original etymology and significance, and not a few facts brought to light by recent excavations remained incoherent and mysterious, because we had lost sight of the significance of the threshold, which, very appropriately, you style the first altar of the human race.
“In reading your book I could not help wondering that all these combinations which appear quite clear and plausible now were not made a long while ago by other investigators. The earliest inscribed monuments of ancient Babylonia, dating from the fifth millennium before Christ, are door-sockets which bear ample witness to the correctness of your theory. Professor Hommel’s recent ingenious analysis of the Assyrian word for “to pray,” which was a result of his study of your ‘Threshold Covenant,’ is one of the strongest evidences in favor of your arguments. Our own recent excavations of the lowest strata of the temple of Bêl in Nippur, which takes us back to 7000 B.C., testify in the same direction.
“Of the greatest importance for the study of the Old Testament religion is your doubtless correct explanation of the Passover. It is entirely in harmony with ancient customs, with philology, and with common sense. According to the old interpretation this rite hangs, so to speak, in the air, without any connection, and yet we know from many other instances that Old Testament rites of the Hebrews stand in the closest possible connection with those practiced by surrounding nations. In the light of your investigations I regard it as an established fact, and as one of the chief results of your labors, that Jehovahin entering into covenant with his ‘bride Israel’ did not invent a new rite, but took one with which his chosen people were already familiar, and gave to it a new and deeper significance in its new use and relations.
“Your final chapter, ‘Outgrowths and Perversions of this Rite,’ is likewise full of thought and new suggestions. One cannot help wishing you might have gone beyond the scope of your book and expressed yourself more in detail as to the precise connection in which tree and phallus worship stand to the threshold in each of the principal ancient religions, and whatrôlethe snake played in the further development or determination of the primitive rite so excellently discussed by you. There is no doubt in my mind that all these different rites, however independent of each other they may appear in later times, are but different outgrowths of the same original root and later perversions of original uplifting thought,–search for unity between men and God. But as you yourself have given only brief indications of this, I wisely abstain from entering into details.
“Permit me to congratulate you upon the completion of a work which, in the nature of things, must attract the general attention of scholars. Whatever may be the interpretation of certain details contained in your book, the one fact remains sure: it will always be your great merit to have penetrated into the long-forgotten secrets of one of the most ancient rites of humanity, and, by pointing out its great importance for and its connection with other rites, to have constructed a solid basis for further investigations, and to have put loose facts together, and given them a well-defined place in a regular system.”
It is undoubtedly true that the fresh material from the excavations at Nippur will furnish additional illustrations of the main thesis of this work. Dr. Hilprecht will be sure to note these.
FROM PROFESSOR DR. FRITZ HOMMEL.
As an Arabist as well as an Assyriologist, and as a bright thinker and learned scholar, in various departments of knowledge, Dr. Fritz Hommel, Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Munich, has a deservedly high standing. His great illustrated “History of Babylonia and Assyria” is a marvelous treasure-house of information concerning the history of the earlier civilizations of the East; and his later studies in connection with the researches of Dr. Edward Glaser in South Arabia have poured a flood of light on the influence of ancient Arabia in the Oriental world. In the realm of Semitic philology Dr. Hommel is acute minded, and peculiarly alert and suggestive.
Having read the earlier pages of “The Threshold Covenant,” Professor Hommel wrote briefly of his interest in the main thought of the work, and promised further comments when he has completed its examination. The necessity of putting these pages to press forbids the waiting for his valued conclusions. His first comments are:
“I am now reading with great interest the proof-sheets of your new book, which you were kind enough to send me. Although at this moment overburdened with other work, I have already got as far as page 70, and hope in the course of a fortnight to be able to send you my judgment.
“To page 60 I wish now to note that already in the time of Hammurabi disputes were settled at thegate, and, indeed, of the gate of the temple. See Strassmaier’s Warka Tablets, 30 (B. 57) in Meissner’sBeiträze zum Altbabylonischen Privatrecht, p. 42 f.
“An interesting discovery, of which perhaps you still maymake use, I made yesterday. It is that the Babyloniansuppû(‘to pray,’ ‘to entreat’) is originally merely the verb formed from the nounsippu, ‘a threshold.’ The first sense, indeed, ofsuppûis ‘to sacrifice,’ because that was done at the threshold. To find a parallel for this transference from the meaning ‘to offer’ to the meaning ‘to pray,’ compare the Arabic‘ătără, to sacrifice,’ with the Hebrew‘ātăr, to pray.’[713]To this discovery I, of course, came through your deductions with regard to the importance of the threshold.”
No Oriental scholar and archeologist is more widely known in Europe and America, and beyond, or is surer of a hearing on any subject of which he writes, from both those who agree and those who differ with him, than Professor Sayce of Oxford University. The numerous published works of Professor Sayce have made him extensively known among scholars, and popularly. Prominent among these are the Hibbert Lectures on “The Religion of the Ancient Babylonians,” “The Ancient Empires of the East,” “Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments,” “The Life and Times of Isaiah,” “The Hittites,” “Patriarchal Palestine,” and “The Egypt of the Hebrews.” He now writes from Luxor, in Egypt, while passing the winter, as usual, on the Nile, in his dahabiyeh Istar:
“A thousand thanks for the advance sheets of ‘The Threshold Covenant.’ Like all your work, it is brimful of accurate knowledge and new points of view, and is written so charminglythat a child could understand and follow you. I need not say I have been devouring the pages and admiring their wealth of references. While I read, you carried me along with you, and, if you had asked my opinion as I went on, I should have said that you had made out your case step by step. But now that I come to look back upon the work as a whole, the skeptical side of my nature comes uppermost, and I have an uneasy feeling that the proof is too complete. That you have made out your case to a large extent is clear, but whether allowance ought not to be made for other elements is not so clear to me. Human nature is complex, and we still know so little about the early history of civilized man! And between civilized and uncivilized man the gulf seems to have always been as great as it is today.”
As an Egyptologist, Professor Müller is recognized for his scholarship and learning on both sides of the Atlantic. A favorite pupil of Georg Ebers, he continued his studies at the University of Berlin under Adolf Erman, and soon made a mark for himself. HisAsien und Europa nach Altägypt Denkmaller,–“Asia and Europe from the Egyptian Monuments,”–at once gave him high standing in that field. Expressing his regret that he was not able to give more time to the examination of “The Threshold Covenant” in its proof-sheets, he says:
“You did not hear from me earlier because my too close occupation prevented my studying your book as thoroughly as I wished, and contributing, as I hoped to, something on the threshold question. Even now I have to write hastily.
“I have found your book most interesting and suggestive, so that I heartily recommend its publication. I hope to be able to read it more carefully, and to give a more detailed criticism, after a while.
“A few remarks:
“Page 103.–Per-ao[Pharaoh]–gate, door. Not to be proved. Strangely, the rootpiremeans ‘to go out.’ Originallyprmay have been ‘door,’ but not in historic times.
“Page 161.–[Calling the region of Sinai, the ‘land of God’.] A mistake! The ‘land of God’ is only the land on the Red Sea. No such records known of Mt. Sinai.
“Page 180, line 5.–[A memorial stone spoken of as marking the boundary line.] How do you know it was a boundary stone?
“There is rich material of better and earlier passages on boundary stones than that given on page 180.
“El gisrmeans ‘bridge.’ The dictionaries do not give ‘threshold.’
“Page 184.–Sinai, an ‘Egyptian boundary line’? Still less did the ‘holy mountain’ (p. 185) ever mark the southern frontier. The threshold sacrifices are evidently a mistake. But I do not have at hand Brugsch’s book–a very fanciful and unreliable book.
“I hope that as soon as a very pressing work has been finished, I shall be able to revise all your passages bearing on Egypt. But even if I should find some more of these minor faults, they would not change the good general impression of the book.”
It will be seen that none of the points questioned by Professor Müller are vital to the main thesis of the book, or essential to its illustration of the prevalence of the thresholdcovenant customs in Egypt. Moreover, it will be observed, by a reference to my authorities at the pages mentioned, that the facts and opinions I have presented at these points are on the authority of Brugsch Bey and other scholars. The scholarship of Professor Müller, of course, gives him the right to question the testimony of any other Egyptologist.
As to the boundary line of Egypt in the Sinaitic peninsula, that simply refers to the famous tablet and inscription, in Wady Maghara, of Snefru, the great king of the fourth dynasty, when he had first extended his dominions thus far.[714]What was then Egypt’s boundary line of conquest in that direction may, indeed, not have continued to be so. The same may be said of the southern boundary of Egypt on the Nubian frontier.[715]
My reasons for giving “the threshold” as a meaning ofel gisrare to be found in full in my “Kadesh-barnea,” at pages 50, 339, 341 f.
It is to be noted that Professor Müller had already pointed out to me the existence of a temple at Thebes bearing the name of the “Silver Threshold,”[716]after the days of the eighteenth dynasty. He promises other notes in this direction when he has time for further research.
As an Orientalist, and as a student of religions, Professor Tiele, Professor of the History of Religions in the University of Leyden, has a position of eminence before the world. Hispublications of importance are numerous, prominent among which stand “The Religion of Zarathustra [Zoroaster];” “Comparative History of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Religions;” “The Place of the Religions of Savages in the History of Religion;” “History of Religions of Antiquity to the Time of Alexander the Great;” and “Babylonian-Assyrian History.” A word from Professor Tiele, on the theme of this book, has exceptional weight. He says:
“I thank you very much for your kindness in sending me your most interesting book, ‘The Threshold Covenant.’... As far as I can judge, you have not only given a clear exposition of the facts pertaining to this widespread custom, but you have also shown the right way to catch the meaning underlying those strange usances.
“Of late I have been mostly occupied by the study of the religions of civilized people; nevertheless, I ever take a lively interest in the study of primitive man and the origin of religious rites. I have to say something on these questions in the Gifford Lectures, which I have been invited to deliver before the University of Edinburgh next term. So your book came just in time to know your meaning on the subject, and to revise my opinion by comparing it with yours.”
The successor, at Yale University, of Professor William D. Whitney, in the chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, is Professor E. Washburn Hopkins, who before held the same chair in Bryn Mawr College. This fact in itself is an indication of his position as a scholar; and his latest work, “The Religions of India,” in the series of “Handbooks on the Historyof Religions,” bears testimony to his learning and ability in that realm. Of the matters treated in this volume he says:
“I have read your ‘Threshold Covenant’ with great interest and pleasure. The statements made in respect of Hindu rites all appear to me to be correct, and some of them might be made stronger, notably in the case of the functions of the altar.
“I cannot say that I agree with you in all respects in your inductions from the ceremonial of the Door, but I have at least been furnished with much food for reflection and hints for observation in future investigation on these lines. Your work is a storehouse of useful data, and illustrates many strange customs of India by parallels from other countries, though I should hesitate to refer so much to one primitive principle.
“But, at all events, the facts of the religious phase which you emphasize have been set forth clearly, correctly, and fully, as regards India, to whatever conclusion they may point. I have had great pleasure in following your argument through to the end.”
It may be mentioned that the added facts as to the Door, given in the Appendix, were not in the proof-sheets submitted to Professor Hopkins.
No American scholar is better fitted than the Rev. Dr. William Elliot Griffis to speak of Japanese manners and customs, and of the religions and modes of thought of the people of Japan. After an extended residence in that country in connection with the Imperial University of Tokio, he has studied and written of it and of its inhabitants. “The Mikado’s Empire,” “The Religions of Japan,” “Japan in History, Folk Lore,and Art,” are among the best known and most valuable of his works in that field. Of “The Threshold Covenant” he says heartily, after an examination of its pages:
“Your general theory is abundantly confirmed in the early life and customs of Chinese Asia, and especially in the history of early Japan. I should, of course, be glad to call together a council of native Japanese friends, and some of my returned countrymen, and talk over your book, but this is impossible at present, and press of many duties prevents me from doing justice to the work, as I should like to do. Such observations as I may throw out, though imperfect, will, I trust, be suggestive. I have read the book twice, and consider it a work of the first order of value.
“In mediæval and modern Japan, it must be remembered, many of the ancient customs and primitive native ideas have been not only changed, but obliterated, by Buddhism, which, by its excessive reverence for life, put an end to those customs which had in them the shedding of blood, or the taking of life. In ancient days it was the pretty nearly universal custom to build human beings alive in the walls of castles or strongholds, and the piers or foundations of bridges. Many are the places rich in traditions of thehito-gashira, or human pillars, who were lowered into the sea to be drowned (to appease the dragon, etc.), or made, as it were, cement for the foundation-stone,–to which I have alluded in my ‘Religions of Japan.’
“What may be called the ‘gate etiquette’ in Japan is elaborate and detailed. More than once have the foreign teachers, denizens, and tourists, had quarrels with the Japanese school, municipal, and national authorities, because they unwittingly often violated ancient Japanese traditions and customs. I myself remember how themom-ban, or gate-keeper, used to refuseadmittance to myjin-riki-shabecause I had sitting with me a Japanese student or lad, who could not, in native ideas of propriety, share with me (a guest) the honor of riding inside the chief gate of mansion or college. Concerning troubles with native servants and others, who were inclined to shelter themselves under the foreigners’ prestige and privilege, I need not speak in detail. The term ‘Mikado,’ as you may know, is literally Sublime Porte, Awful Gate, or Portal of Majesty. I believe there is profound significance in the idea of having the gateway to a Buddhist temple a structure which is in many cases almost as imposing as the sacred edifice itself. Each Shintō shrine has before it, at some distance, atori-i; and every little wayside shrine, in size from a doll-house to a one-room cottage, has almost invariably a littletori-i, or gateway, before it.
“The most elaborate ceremonies and gradations of honor are connected with the threshold of the Imperial Palace, and for a thousand years or more were rigorously observed in Kioto, and doubtless to great extent are yet in the new palace in Tokio.
“In a Japanese marriage, when conducted on the old order of ceremonies, the origin of which goes back into primeval twilight, the bride goes from her own home always to be married in her husband’s home and to become a part of it. As she approaches her new home, fires are lighted on either side of the threshold or door of entrance of the bridegroom’s house. The name of these fires is ‘garden torches.’ As she proceeds up the corridor, inside the house, two pairs of men and women, one on each side, have mortars in which they pound rice. As the palanquin passes, the two mortars are moved together, and the meal from the two is mixed so as to become one mess. During the same time two candles have beenlighted on either side of the passage way, and after the passing of the palanquin, the two flames are first joined in one and then blown out. Of course, these ceremonies arenowused only among the higher classes.
“In all the Buddhist temples beside the great gateway and the ordinary temple entrance there is a distinctly marked sill, behind which is the altar, and over which the worshiper must not come.
“I am very much inclined to believe that there is a significance which allies itself to ‘The Threshold Covenant’ in theye-bumior ‘trampling on the cross,’ observed during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries in Japan in order to eradicate all traces of Christianity. The pagan authorities made a copper engraving of the crucifix, and putting it on the ground, between a structure that was evidently meant for the doorway with a threshold under it, they compelled every one–man, woman, and child–to step upon the figure of Christ and the cross in token of their rejection of everything belonging to Christianity.
“In ancient Japan, and all through her history, great care was taken with boundaries and boundary marks, the latter being sometimes masses of charcoal buried in the earth, or inscribed pillars, the bases of which were charred. Mr. Ernest Satow, the first authority on things Japanese, believes that these boundary pillars, which, in some cases (as in Corea today), were carved to represent certain gods, afterwards became phallic emblems. Before most of the Buddhist temples of importance are to be found the two guardian deities Ni-ō (two kings), and before many thousands of shrines of both Shintō and Buddhism is theama-inu(heavenly dogs), which are the guardians of the entrance to the temple.
“Time would fail me to tell of the various fetiches placed over and beside the doorways and gates. Beside the very elaborate New Year’s symbolism signifying prosperity, longevity, congratulations, etc., there is always, on the last night of the year, a sort of ‘purging out of the old leaven,’ cleaning up of the house, and exorcism, by means of beans as projectiles, of all evil and evil spirits. Then bunches of thorny leaves, like holly, are affixed outside on the door lintel. Over the doorway of almost every house of country folk and many of the townspeople, one can see the wooden charms nailed up. These are bought in the temples of the priests as well as the packages of sacred paper with Sanskrit letters or monograms for the better class of houses.
“Besides the red cord with which almost every present in Japan is tied, the stamp of the red hand on or at the side of the door, either on the wood itself or on a sheet of paper, nailed up beside the door, is very common at particular times.
“The Mecca of Japanese Shintō is at Isé, where the temples have had from time immemorial ‘only one foundation.’ The buildings are renewed every twenty years on the same spot. For many centuries it has been the custom to rebuild Buddhist temples on the same foundation when destroyed by fire, or when ‘captured’ from Shintoist to Buddhist ownership....
“Let me call your attention to the idea underlying the political and religious covenant of the great Iroquois Confederacy–the most remarkable political structure of North American Indian life. The five tribes (later a sixth was added) called their dwelling-place in New York, between Niagara and the Hudson ‘the Long House’ after the typical Iroquois dwelling in which lived many families. Few Iroquois lived east of Schenectady, though they went to fish in the Hudson River, which theythen named (a) ‘Schenectady.’ Schenectady (which in the Indian conception was the region in their extreme east) means, when analyzed, ‘just outside the threshold,’ or ‘without the door.’ While Onondaga was the central fore-place of the Confederacy, the site of Schenectady had special sacredness in the minds of the Iroquois, and the Mohawks, who occupied this portion of the country, were called ‘the guardians of the threshold.’
“Van Curler (Arendt Van Curler), one of the real ‘makers of America,’ who knew the Indians so well, and who made that great covenant with them which kept the Iroquois, despite all French intrigue, bribery, and opposition, faithful (for two centuries, till the Revolution divided even the white men), first to the Dutch, then to the English, knew this Indian reverence for the threshold, and took a just advantage of it. The fact that ‘The Covenant of Corlear’ was made on the threshold of their Long House gave it such sacredness in the eyes of the Indians that it wasnever broken. In all their later oratory, for two centuries they referred to this covenant. Besides calling the governors of New York ‘Corlear’ (the only instance, as Francis Parkman once wrote me, in which the Indians applied apersonalname instead of making use of a material object, figuratively, to a governor,–‘fish,’ ‘pen,’ ‘big mountain,’ etc.), the Mohawks of Canada to this day, as I heard them speak it after personal inquiry, call Queen Victoria ‘Kora Kowa,’ that is, ‘the great Corlear’ (Van Curler).”
As an authority in the field of Greek antiquities, as well as a scholar of wide learning in various other fields, Professor Mahaffy, of Dublin University, stands in high repute. Amonghis many published works, in proof of this, are his “Twelve Lectures on Primitive Civilization,” “Prolegomena to Ancient History,” “Social Life in Greece from Homer to Menander,” “Greek Antiquities,” “Rambles and Studies in Greece,” “Greek Life and Thought from Alexander to the Roman Conquest,” “The Greek World under Roman Sway,” and “The Empire of the Ptolemies.” Returning the proof-sheets of “The Threshold Covenant” to the author, he says generously: “Your learning is to me quite astonishing, and I could not venture to criticise you except in a passing way, as I read your proofs hastily. But you will find [on them] rough notes in pencil, only to show what I thought at the moment.”
In comment on the custom, in many lands, of carrying out the dead from a house or a city through a special door or gate, instead of over the threshold at the principal entrance,[717]he says: “At present, in the farmhouses about Hoorn, in Holland, there is a state door opened only for marriages and funerals. The family use a side or back door only.”[718]Again, “the ἱερὰ πύλη (hiera pule, ‘sacred gate’) at Athens seems to have been an accursed gate, through which criminals only were led out.”
In confirmation of the claim that human life, or blood, was deemed essential in the foundation, or the threshold laying of a city,[719]Professor Mahaffy says: “Great Hellenistic cities, as, for instance, Antioch, had a girl sacrificed at their foundation.It was she, apparently, that afterwards appeared as the personification of the city, ἡ τύχη [hē tuchē, ‘the fortune,’] as it was called.”
“The ‘red hand of the O’Neills’ is a famous coat-of-arms well known in Ireland. Lord O’Neill now bears it.”
As to my assumption that the first hearthstone must have been, in the nature of things, at the threshold of the cave or tent or hut, as it still is among primitive peoples, and that the first stone laid at the corner, or at the doorway, of a house or building, was, by the very fact of its first laying, the threshold of that structure, Professor Mahaffy says: “I don’t believe in the identification of (1) foundation stone, (2) threshold, (3) house corner, (4) hearthstone, without clear proof.”
In Dr. Lamberton, Professor of Greek, and Dean of the Department of Philosophy, the University of Pennsylvania has a scholar as acute and discerning in his observations as he is full and accurate in knowledge in his special field of classic Greek. He has been familiar with the results of my researches during my progress of recent years, and he has this to say, after examining the proof-sheets of the completed work:
“Your induction seems to me to be very wide, and to include in its sweep all phases of civilization, which is practically as much as to say all periods of human existence, from the most primitive on.
“The significance of the threshold as altar, place of covenanting and worship, in house, temple, and domain, I think is completely made out.
“Very striking is the smiting of the blood, as sign of the covenant relation, upon the posts of the doorway; and in particular the mark of the red hand. The connection you endeavor to show between all this and the marriage rite is, to say the least of it, suggestive. The mystery of the gift and transmission of life, it has always seemed to me, early struck man; and that it did not have its issue only in perverted forms, is clear from the fragmentary glimpses we get into the Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated in honor of divinities of productivity. Purification from sin and blessedness in the next world appear to have been among the hopes of the initiated.
“May I call your attention to one or two points? The Greek word for altar, βωμός (bomos), altar, from root βα (ba), seen in βαίνειν (bainein), ‘to step.’
“May not the whipping of the boys mentioned on page 175 be a misinterpreted substitute for sacrifices at the boundary posts, perhaps even at one time human sacrifices? Such later modifications of sacrifice into symbolic whippings are not unheard of elsewhere.”
Professor Lamberton’s suggestion that the Greek word for altar has its origin in a “step” has confirmation in the fact, already noted, that the earliest temples were a shrine at the summit of a series of steps, as in a step-pyramid, in Babylonia, Egypt, Canaan, Mexico, Peru, and the South Sea Islands.[720]Is there not a reference to this ordinary mode of building an altar among the outside nations, in the divine command to Israel in the wilderness as to the building of an altar to Jehovah? “Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.”[721]
FROM PROFESSOR DR. DANIEL G. BRINTON.
In the realm of American antiquities, and of anthropology generally, Dr. Brinton, Professor of American Archæology and Linguistics in the University of Pennsylvania, stands foremost. He has been President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and his knowledge and his work have had marked recognition in the International Oriental Congresses, in the American Philosophical Society, in the Academy of Natural Sciences, and in other learned bodies. He writes:
“I have gone over, with constantly increasing interest, your pages on ‘The Threshold Covenant,’ an interest associated with admiration of the wide reading you have brought to bear on the theme, and the temperate and enlightened spirit in which you have presented the facts.
“You have, without question, established the practical universality of the rites and ceremonies you describe, and the ideas from which they took their origin. Your volume is another and powerful witness to the parallelisms of culture, and to the unity in the forms of expression of the human mind.
“These analogies and identities are, as you well know, open to several interpretations or explanations. The main one offered by you seems to me, as a fact, quite probable; certainly it was constantly associated with such rites.
“I am not able altogether to agree with the point of view expressed in your Preface, and on pages 193–195, in reference to the general origin and trend of religious ideas; but possibly I should find myself closer to your position were I to see it more amply defined. I cannot think the earliest religionswere, as a rule, more ‘uplifting’ than the later ones; I think there was a general progress upwards.
Dean Bartlett, of the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, is prominent as a devout and careful Bible scholar, who has the confidence of the Christian community to a rare degree. He was the first president of the American Institute of Sacred Literature, and he is the vice-president of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. His work, on the “Scriptures Hebrew and Christian,” as an introduction to the study of the Bible, won for him commendation from eminent scholars. Having read the proof-sheets of this book, Dean Bartlett writes:
“I thank you for the opportunity to read your book ‘The Threshold Covenant.’ And I also want to thank you for allowing me to know something of the growth of your thought on the subject, in the frequent conversations we have had about it during the years past. Ever since I came into the privilege of calling you friend I have been a witness of the truth of your statement in the Preface, that your theory is wholly a result of induction, that it came to you out of the gathered facts, instead of the facts being gathered in support of the theory. What I know as to your method would lead me to expect a result that must stand, and there are few writers who would be for me as authoritative as you in matters which I could not verify for myself. But here you furnish the means of verification.
“As the subject has come up between us from time to time and part by part, I have been led to think over what you told me, and it has seemed to me that nothing could exceed thecare with which you advanced in your induction. And now that I review the work as a whole, I am convinced that you have demonstrated your theory. In doing so, you have thrown a whole flood of new bright light on primitive culture, on some of the sacredest phases of human life in all ages, on many places of Scripture from the first chapter to the last, and on the central sacraments of the Old and New Covenants.
“If this light came to me now for the first time in all its fulness, I am not sure whether I should be startled and almost blinded by it, or whether I should, at first at least, altogether fail to appreciate it. But you have been giving it to me gradually as it came to you, and so I have been in a position to become adjusted to it, and also to test its illumining quality. I find that it is not transitory, but permanent, not a flash but a steady light, in which the great objects of our Christian faith stand clearly revealed.
“I sincerely congratulate you upon the completion of such an important and illuminating work.”
Just as the final pages of this volume are going to press, a valued communication concerning them is received from Professor Cheyne, of Oxford University. Professor Cheyne is Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, and Canon of Rochester. He is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as a prominent English representative of the school of modern “higher criticism,” or “historical criticism.” He was a member of the Old Testament Revision Company, and he contributed many important articles on biblical subjects to the ninth edition of the “EncyclopædiaBritannica.” In 1889 he delivered the Bampton Lectures on “The Historical Origin and Religious Ideas of the Psalter,” and his various works on Old Testament literature, including Job, the Psalms, Solomon, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, have made him familiar to English readers the world over. The kindly, frank, and courteous comments of Professor Cheyne on “The Threshold Covenant” are the more highly valued in view of the fact that he has had occasion to suppose that the author’s standpoint of biblical criticism was not quite the same as his own. He says:
“I am delighted to have been able to make early acquaintance with a book so full of facts which really illuminate the dark places of primitive times. That the explanation of the Hebrew Scriptures profits much by it, is clear. Thank you for having devoted so much patient and thoughtful care to the accumulation and interpretation of the facts. I have never doubted your singular capacity for archeological work, and have only regretted that there has not been greater fellow-feeling with the critics (in the popular sense,–for you, too, are critical, though not quite in the right sense and to the extent required, if I may personally say this).
“I notice on page 46 f. a reference to the foundation of Jericho by Hiel. It appears to me that the idea suggested by archeology is only defensible on the principles generally associated with ‘historical criticism.’ If this idea is in any way historically connected with the act of Hiel related in 1 Kings 16 : 34 (wanting in LXX), and pointed to, whether in reality or in the honest, though faulty, imagination of the writer, in Joshua 6 : 26, we must suppose that the act of Hiel was misunderstood by the critics of these two passages. For the deaths of Abiram and Segub are referred to as divinejudgmentsupon Hiel for hisviolation of theḥerem, or ban, laid upon the site of Jericho, whereas, according to the archeological theory, Hiel offered his children as foundation sacrifices, believing that he could thus bring a blessing on the city of Jericho. No plain reader will understand the connection of the archeological idea and the two passages of Old Testament–as it appears to me.
“The connection has been surmised by others before you,–probably you can tell me who first struck out the idea. Is it in Tylor, or where? I cannot remember. Winckler (Geschichte Israel, Part I, 1895) expresses his adhesion to it. Kuenen (Onderzoek, I [1886], p. 233) holds that there was a misunderstanding of the traditional facts on the part of the author of the prediction in Joshua 6 : 26 in its present form, and of the author of the notice in 1 Kings 16 : 34; he thinks that Hiel sacrificed his two sons, but does not appear to recall the archeological facts. I think he ought to have recalled them. But he is right in the main, as it seems to me.
I have no prejudice against archeological illustrations of customs or of phraseology. On the contrary, I delight in them. I have for many years been on the archeological side, as well as on the critical....
“Robertson Smith took the right course, at once critical and archeological. Only he could not do everything, and he purposed to limit himself, to a great extent, to those branches of archeology which he knew at first hand, or in which he could trust the experts. He would not trust the English (biblical) archeologists, because they were not critical.
“Are you right about (God’s) ‘strong hand,’ etc., page 83? And what connection hasteraphimwiththreshold(p. 109)? Bonomi is no critic. You are very convincing about the passover blood.
“I will write again if any special notes suggest themselves. A number of references in the Old Testament and the New Testament must be open to divers interpretations;but I habitually act upon your own principles. Phrases which seem to us simple, are often full of references which archeology alone can explain.Macte esto.”
Before this Supplement is finally printed, there comes a second communication from Professor Hommel of Munich, as already promised by him.[722]In this new communication are suggestions and words of appreciation that will be welcomed by many readers, as coming from such a source. Professor Hommel says:
“Only a few days ago I finished reading your highly interesting little book, ‘The Threshold Covenant,’ and I hasten to write to you, that I have read it with ever-increasing interest, and have learned infinitely much from it. Our views regarding the high antiquity and the unity of human culture receive entirely new light through this work; in addition, a large number of old oriental and biblical ways and customs now become intelligible and clear.
“Manifestly correct, and indeed most happy, is your derivation of the threshold cult, and of sacrifice in general, from the first human blood shed on crossing the threshold of woman; also the important explanation of the signs for life, which I have compared: Egyptian,; Babylonian,. (Comparevulva.) Moreover, your explanation of the passover is much more satisfactory than takingpesakhin the sense of ‘to pass by.’
“Permit me now to offer a few remarks, of which you may still be able to avail yourself.
“With the symbol of the red hand may also be compared the hands upon the Sabaean bronze tablets (Z.D.M.G., Vol. 19, plate XI., and especially plate VII.), where fourteen hands of seven gods are pictured above the inscription. Furthermore, see Pinches’ Inscribed Babylonian Tablets, belonging to the collection of Sir Henry Peek, Part III., p. 66; a seal cylinder, on which appears a raised hand between the god and the priest.
“On page 100 [of your book].–More accurately, I ishouseas well as temple; I-GAL is palace (í-gal íkallu); but Hebrew and Arabichekalis ‘temple,’ ‘Holy of Holies’ (Hebrew, also ‘palace’).
“On page 105.–That the design in question, on the old Babylonian seal cylinder, represents the sun gates, is a discovery made by your own countryman, Dr. W. Hayes Ward (American Journal of Archeology, III., nos. 1–2, p. 52).
“On page 108.–The Arabicmihrâbis a loan word from the South Arabic and Ethiopic,mikrâb, temple; literally, ‘praying-place.’
“On page 171.–In South Arabic inscriptionswathansignifies ‘boundary-pillar,’ and at the same time ‘statue of god,’ ‘idol.’
“On page 180.–El gisris literally ‘bridge.’ The bridge was also looked upon as a gate, as leading from one shore to the other.
“On page 229.–Sacred prostitution. Compare Babyloniakadishtu(literally, holy person), Hebrewkādusha, ‘harlot.’
“On page 233 (note).–The Babylonianpatânu, ‘to hold the sacrificial meal,’ ‘to eat,’naptanu, ‘meal,’ is connected withHebrewmiphtan. I am inclined to believe also that the Babylonianʿgish-da=pitnu, really means ‘threshold;’ also thatgish-sa,ush-sa, a bridal gift, is originally ‘threshold.’
“On page 234.–The ‘serpent’ of the boundary stone was originally the Milky Way. The other symbols are animals of the Zodiac.
“On page 235 (note 3).–Compare, also, Hommel,Babylonische Ursprung der Ægypt. Kultur(fight of Merodach with the serpent=fight of Rê ‘with ʿApep’).
“On page 238.–Nekhushtân, the name the serpent of Moses, is derived fromנחשת, ‘vulva,’ or, at all events, is related to this word.”