THE JKWISII
605
Ociifrally spcakiiij;. tlicre were three dison which religious sentiment toward animals resulted in superstitious awe or actual ceremonial service. The first or lowest mode of Animal Worship is that form of deference or veneration which arises licuu the persuasion thul certain animals are inFirst Form vested with (lenioniacal powers. Such of Wora notion is universal among savage and ship Be- semicivili/.ed peoples, and still surlief in vives to a great extent among memDemons, hers of the most cultivate<l of modern communities. The whole ancient Semitic population of western Asia was infected with this superstition, which munircsted itself in many dilTerent ways. In Haljyloiiia it was especially rife. Hundreds of spirits are referred to in the religious cuneiform texts. Every condition and activity of human life was subject to their iulluence; and their forms and characteristics were as various as their occujiations. Among the ancient Arabs demons of all sorts and grades, generally representing the deniof the desert, wen' known as "jinn " (genii): and zens this well-known term may be here used to include the demoidzed animals with which the Hebrewsand their neigliliors were most familiar. ISolh the Habyliinianand the Arabian systems of belief are of prime importance in the elucidation of the Bible. The latter system, having been longer known and studied, is for the present the more available. The Character- "jimi" were related to ordinary aniisticsof the mals, somewhat as the gods were re" Jinn." lated to man. That is to .say, certain atteution.
tinct occasions
animals were invested with superhuman, orat least e.Mrahuman, attributes. Theirqualiiies were not, however, of a high or spiritual character, and for th<' most part they remained animals socially and morally. Their chief attribute was the ]iover to assume various shaiies. iiiclu<ling that of man and occasionally they aihjpteil the human form permanently. Yet as a class they stood aloof from
men
so that they coidd ncit be really worshiped, but were feared as foes or priz<'d as allies. They were usually malelicent. but occasionally beneficent. The generic Hebrew designation seems to have been g/ii'ilim, a word which was also used by the Babylonians for a very large class of animal demons. Their animal characler is indicated by several names applied to them, wljicji names mean primarily "hairy." In .Moslem legend lialkis, the queen of Slielia wedded to Solomon, had hair on her ankles, and was thus shown to be by descent a "jinnee."
Of this race may be the «c '('/•(';«, or liairv creatures, of the Hebrews! The LiliHi (.Vssyrian V<7(7| of Isa. xxxiv. 14 is a species of nightniare. Other demoniacal creatun'S are mentioned in Isji, xiii. 21. It is probable that most, if not all, of such allusions to classes or types of dinions are exilic or postexilie; and but .scanty information is available as to the aidmalcultsof earliertimcsin Israel. The statement of I>eut. xxxii. 17 (compare I's. cvi. I?T) is, however, a general indication. One of the most prominent of the demons, the serpent, was raised to exceptional distinction among the Itabylonians. the .rabs, and the The R61e Hebnws. .Many (pialities muted in of the the .sirpent to make it an object of Serpent, superstitious regard, as it still is. more or less, to pmctii ally the whole human nice. .Vmong these attributes were its faculty of sudden apiiearancc aiul disappeaninee, its llexibility, its rapid changes of posture and shape, its haunting of obscure and uiicamiy places, its subterranean abode, its ubii|uily on land or water, it.s ap-
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E>X'YC'L01'EDIA
Animal Worship
parent kinship with inany sort.s of elusive beings, and small, marine, terrestrial, and aerial. It seemed to have kinship even with the Hying cloud and the forked lightning, the celestial "taiuiin " (Isa. xxvii. i. .lob. vii. 12), Oie leviathan (.Job, iii. 8; Isii. xxvii. 1), the Babylonian tounnt. or the dragon. The highest function at tributed to the serpent is that of the primal t<rnpterof maiuGen. iii.) a conception which is both Hebrew and Babylonian. But it had many roles of a less exci'i)tional kind. Serpents wer(' often maleficent, but often aLso beneficent. From their watchfulness they were held to l)e the natural .iruardians of groves, rocky recesses, and other animal retreats; and when such abodes of lower life were converle<l to the uses of man, they still remained as sentinels, and were naturally iiromoted to be the protectors of gardens and estates, fountains great
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and streams, and became the familiar demons of homes and sanctuaries. Thus, boundary -stones in Babylonia were decorated with images of serpents and scorpions as terrors to the trespasser or the invader (compare the Bh.xzhn Sehpent of the Hebrews). Even in Israel .some form of demoniacal superstitions nnist have been more or less secretly ]ira<'tised for centuries, since we find that in the giooiny time just before the captivity of .Judah, images of noxious creatures were portrayed or carved on aniimer wall of the Temi)le (Ezek."viii. 10). F,vi<lently a desperate resort was hail to the baser animal spirits during the utter lapse of faith and hope among the leaders of tlu' nation. Strange to say, this nearest approach to direct .Vniinal Worship recorded in the Bible was made just at the closi' of the national existence. Robertson Sniilh has suggested that this was a revival of a totemic ritual. A second source of the religious veneration of animals is found in the primitive notion of the kinship and tdlimali' identity of all forms of life, vegetable and animal, human and celestial. This notion explains, in part at least, the existence of sjicred trees among so many ancient jieoples. To a large extent also this sense of kinship was the basis of religious devotion in many forms. It was. for example, both the cause and the elVect of ancestor worship. The kinship between national or tribal gods and their worshipers is a familiar belief. But it is also a significant fact that certain animals, usmilly jios-sessed of demoniacal or superhuman jiowers, were sjicred to many tribes and families of primitive men by virttU'of a laiuic'd kinshii) between them. Such a belief has been ascribed by recent authoritative writers to th<> earliest society of ancient Israel, as well as to the original Semites from whom they were descended. . d it has been plausibly maintained that the distinction between clean ami un<lean animals was due to the circumstance that the latter were sacred and, therefore, forbidden as food on ordinary occasions. The sjicredness depended upon a supposed kinship between the tribesmen and the animals in (pnslion, such as is the basis of totemism in many savage conunimilies. ancient and modern. It
happened, however, that at special iniclean animals were ac-
Clean and seasons such Tlnclean
Animals
linillyeali'n,nii(i that. loo. at sacrificial
The meaningof thisceremony appan^ntly twofold: Tin- tribi' or clan ratifiis its union or covenant with itsanimal kindred; and. by |iartaking of the th'sli, its membi'rs derive somecommimiim w ith the super-
Contrasted,
fea.sls.
is
natural life, which is an attribute of the sacred aniNow, it would 111' expicted that if llwre had mal. been any lime in the history of Ismel when such coremonies were observed, it would have been when degenerate members of the community were mixed
