Ancestor Worship Ancient of Days
THE JEWISH EXCYCLUPEDIA
571 contriist miuk- with the di'ail: " suit its Giiil and not its dciiil."
A
pcoiilc slinuM ccm-
Tliiicari-inany inslancis 7. Honor to Parents of gdiii!,' into inoiiriiiiii; (nv dead persons olliiM' than parents (Jacob loi- Joseph when lie thought he had lost him, Oeu. xx.wii. 84; eonipaie I Kings, xiv. i:J); widows numining for their husbands (Gen. xxxviii. 14): tlw bride for her bridegroom (Joel, i. Absalom did not wish a sou to "call upon " his H).
l)ut to "keep it alive" in men's memory; and for that reason he raised a monument to himself. (Jbvionsly this monument eouM not "'eall upon his name.
trend of anthropological opinion on this subject is rather against than for Ancestor Worship as tlic primitive form of religion. BiBi.ioiUi.ipnv
For Stade's views see his Gesch.
i/cs V<illtc»
for Schwally's, his Dwi Lclnu uach ilcm see also L. Andre, Le Ciilte dtx Mitiis ihcz lot HihreHj; 1893 : J. Frey, Tiid, Scclen-Glauhe utiil Sa:li:)i-Kult im AUcu l}trat'l, Wi'}. The above uceount is biLsed upon C. Cirilneisen, Dir Alni()iliuUu.i xtml ilia I'rrcliiiiiiii Ixraeta, Halle, I'Jon, which eonuilns a full bibliosrraphy (pp. ix.-xv.).
IsfaiU
t.
4(Hi et xci/.',
Tiiile, IKStt.
name,
Household 'Worship The elohim mentioned Ex, xxi. eould easily liavc' lieeii images of in Judges, xvii, ""i'lIWH" became at an early 8.
YHWH
in
period t!ie Godof the Israelitish family, as is shown by [MMsonal names like Jonathan, Joshua, and AbiPurim is far from being an early feast, being jali. probably derived from Persia, and can not therefore be the .survival of a family Avorship of the dead. The teraphim are only mentioned as strange gods in Gen. xxxi. and Ezek. xxi., and are els.where not diviue or used in divine worship, but fur the purpose of divination. 9. Family 'Worship Tint Israelite family does not show so much au,ilii;:y with that of ancient Rome as to oblige us to transfer the arguments of Fustel de Coulanges to ancient Israel. So far from the jtittriii p/tix/iis bi'ing all-important, there are late traces of matriarcliate, as. for instance, where the mother gives the name to the children, as so fre(|uently occurs in Genesis. Laban regards Jacob, his 'sister's sou, as his "brother," and as being "of his own tlesliaud blood." Adoption was fri'ipieut among Greeks and Homans in order to keep up the family worship; but it is practically unknown among the Jews. The paterfamilias alone could worship in classical lands; whereas Gideon could bringan ottering to the angel (Judges, vi. bS it «iij.). though he was still in the house of his father. There are no signsof the reception of the wileintothe family cult in ancient Israel, though irdiiMitanee is only through nudes as in Rome. {Succession only through agnates does not always occur where Ancestor Worship exists, as, for examjile, in Egypt, where a daughter has the right to succeed. The need of descendants in Israel is not for the purposeof obtaining olTerings toonesi'If. but to have as large a family as pos.sibli'. jirobably for purposes of proleetion. 10. Ancestor 'Worship and the Tribes If (he tribe grew out of Ancestor Worship it nuist mf come tirsi as a family; whereas in nomad tribes, like the ancient Israelites, the clan comes lirst. In the family sacrilice of the Homans, there is no indiatioii that the eponyiiKnis heroes of the elan were worshiped; so that the analogies from the graves of heroes are not an (•xact parallel. If ancestors had been worshiped, many proper names would have been found expressing such Wf)rship; but hey do not occur. The local worship at Shechem, Hebron, etc., it it existed, must have been Canaam'tisli in nature, and could not have been <lerivid from the notmidic period of the Israelites. These objections of firUneisen differ greatly in force. While he has deprived some of Stade's argtiments. notably those relating to mourning and burial customs, of some of their weiirlil, hi' leaves much unexplained with regard to olTerings to the lead, oracles anil incaulalions, and family worship. The amount of eviden<-e otTered by the ()ld Testament itself is not sulllcicMit to alTorii a solution of the i|Uestion, thus leaving it lo be solved on gein'nil anthropological principles. At present the general
•
I
J.
ANCHIAS Associate and tioii in
Spain
(
wrongly Anchisas),
tirst
JUAN DE
private secretary of the
He was understood
(M.Si-llO).
liii|Uisi-
to be
especially familiar with the forms of wills and marriage contracts used by Jlarauos accused of Judaism. In 1.5U7 he wrote, in Belchitc, " Libro Verde de Aragon " (The Green Book of Aragon), a genealogy of the richest and most respected baptized Jews at the time of Vick.ntic Fbukku. In id'i'i Philip IV. of Spain commissioned the in(|idsitor-general. Andreas Paeheco. who, descended from -Maranos himself, hail collected and .secreted all available copies of the "Libro Verde," to destroy them. single copy, dating from the sixteenth century, is preserved in the IJiblioteca C'olombiua, Seville. The manuscript was copied by Demelrio dc los Uios for his brother, the historian Jose Amador de los Rios. who had discovered it; and in 188.1 it wa's published in the " Revista de Esjiana." vol. xviii., which issue was forthwith contiscated and has remained proscribed
A
until today. From this "Green Book " Francisco Meniloza y Bovadilla drew his material for the memorial that he presented to King Phili|) II., under the title "El Tizon de la Xobleza Espanola " (The Stain of the Spanish Xobility), and which has been often reprinted (Madrid, Barcelona, etc), I!iBLiO(iii.vPiiv: J.
rn Ksimmi, (I.
Judiii.
M
Amador de
111. »l ot wi;.; ed., vill. l.")0;
Ins RIos. Histnria <te Jng Jutlios and, based thereon, (irStz, O'csch. KcvUita dc Ksixxna, I.e.
31.
ANCIENT OF DAYS.— Biblical etical epithet for
God.
It is
Data
K.
A
po-
an incorrect rendering
of the Aramaic 'iittik yomhi (Dan. vii. !)) or 'uttik jiomuya {ih. vii. 13. 22), which should be translated "an aged one." "the aged one " (com|)are Dalman. " Die Worte Jesu," i. 194). "Ancient of Days" is used either to emphasize the contni.st between the true God and the idols, the new gods (Judges, v. 8; Dent, xxxii. 17). or merely to express tlie venerable character of the being whose name the author hesiFrom the above-cited pa.s.sjige in tates lo mention. Daniel is borrowed the expres.sion "re'esha mawa'el" (head of days) in the Book of Enoch xlvi. 1, and llie description of the Son of Man iii Rev. i. 14. C. L.
In Rabbinical Literature: This name of God, used only in Dan. ii.'.l. 13. 22, in which He is describetl as having "the hair of his head [while] like pure wool," denotes the (tne who is from of old; that is, old compared with all irealed thiiiirs, that areof yesterday. Asslaled by PseudoSaadia and other Jewish commentators, God is often depicted by the nibbis as the venerable sage (Ziihii) invested with judicial authority, whose sternness is lempeied by uuldness of judgment. To the devotei'sof mystic lore, w it hill wliosi' circle the Book of Daniel and the eiilire Bjiocalyptic literature originated, the name naturally snggesleil itsi'lf as an attribute of majesty combined with tendernes.s. since they regarded the title "Zaken" (the aged one) lo mean the one invested with the highest dignity. Accordingly " .iicienl of Davs" remained witii these a favorite name of GimI (f'es.
