This version is from Bohn's edition (p. 224), and some of the epithets as translated are not exactly felicitous. And in them we have illustration of the immense difficulty of translating precise thought from one language into another, though here we get a clear idea of the sense as a whole. What stands out is how rooted was the belief in those times of actual physical possession by the God worshipped. This conviction is the one all-real fact in those religions of an ancient world. So, far from the worship being of mere stocks and stones, it was the very opposite: it was the worship of the very deity in his absolute. presence at the very time and in the very place itself. And it had many ramifications and many developments. Many a tribe believed that actual conception was alone due to possession by the God, and hence the terrible stigma of barrenness. It indicated unworthiness and the displeasure of the deity that such visit was denied. Then also was the fervent belief that with the deity duly served identity could be secured, and that in such identity the votary might find eternal life. And this

belief found confirmation in the many forms of ecstatic rapture which we now associate with hypnotism, but which in those times were attributed to the influence of some god. The imagination, violently worked upon by the emotions reinforced by fasting and abstraction, or by drugs and music and dancing in a thousand forms, was responsible for many a strange belief in those days as well as in these, though the final consummation as seen in the ravings of the sibyl was not given to all to share in. And it was in this sense that the ancient world understood deification. In this connection they never used the word God in the sense that we do. But we have long misunderstood these ancient beliefs and to this day it is the practice to regard the cults of the most degraded and ignorant as typical of all; and then how proudly we demolish them. But even to the polemic such perversion is wholly unnecessary. Between the religions. of the Jews and those of their neighbours was a

cleavage and root difference which is in need of no factitious assistance to widen or accentuate it. There were two great schools of religious thought both magnificently championed, and if truth be told both utterly beyond the appreciation of the contemptible intelligences that clouded the world through a thousand of its darkest years. On the one hand were the glorious writings of the great Jew prophets with no small following amongst those of other creeds, and on the other some of the acutest metaphysical minds the world has ever known. The one thunders forth that God is a God of Righteousness and is worshipped and alone worshipped by a righteous life, whilst the other worships God as manifested in man, in nature and in His works. True, they had statues and paintings and figures and representations of their deity, but they no more worshipped them than does the intelligent Catholic the crucifix before which he bows. They are aids to reflection only. In contemplation of them is engendered an intensified conception of the deity with which they are associated. And as the devout thus dwells upon them-not with the careless look of the visitor but with the deep devotion of the worshipper-the deity himself becomes very present in spirit and according to the depth of the rapture is communion established between the two. We do really want to understand these things to appreciate what the Jewish religion really stood for. By the intelligent-and we are alone concerned with the intelligent the so-termed worship of idols was very real worship of the actual potencies behind them. Nor did the Jew nor the apostles more doubt the reality of such powers than the worshippers themselves. Thus we have Paul himself in 1 Corinthians x. 20, writing, "But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." Again no passage could more conclusively illustrate how difficult it is to transfer precise ideas from one tongue to another. The word

devil as here used is a most unsatisfactory equivalent for the word Sapov of the Greek. In Liddell and Scott the meanings given. are

IV.

I. A god or goddess. II. The Deity, divine essence, Lat numen; fate, destiny, fortune good or bad. III. A name given to the souls of men of the golden age who formed the connecting link between gods and men, hence later, departed souls, Lat Manes, Lemures. An evil spirit, devil. Probably if one meaning exactly expresses what St. Paul did not intend to convey it is the last. He himself was too profound a metaphysician not to know exactly what he was talking about. He knew precisely what the pagan world believed. He knew that they were no worshippers of devils but that behind. their pantheon of visualised deities they also worshipped the same First Cause as he himself worshipped, but yet for all that he will have none of their faith. He will not accept their conception of the Deity, and still less will he worship at their shrine. For himself he will only know God as seen in His revelation to the Jews, and in his further revelation in Jesus Christ. And it was because the Jew differed in these essentials-co-extensive with human nature itself-that we find him at variance with his fellow man. It was not his monotheistic outlook that that made him objectionable monotheism, almost pantheism itself, was the basic conception of every great religion of antiquity: the great tower of Belus at Babylon had its two temples, the lower one to Bel equivalent of Jupiter and with appropriate statue and the higher one to Bel, equivalent of the Great Unknown" with no statue whatever-but it was that the ancient world in so many of its religions was intensely sensuous and emotional and in such emotionalism the true Jew faith would have no part or lot whatever.

19. And as we have remarked the faith of the Jew has always been a hard one for frail humanity, himself included. Hence his many lapses. We are all children of the imagination and the hypnotic sways

us, above all in times of mental or physical stress. And then we also seek strange gods, nor have the Jews been the only people to fall into idolatry. The worship of their neighbours appealed to their human longings and desires. Their God is a magnificent revelation, but they would joy in deities less exigent. Jezebel was a daughter of Zidon and the Zidonians were to give their Aphrodite to the Greeks. The Philistine delighted in like senuous worship, and the Syrian Adonis had ineffable attractions. To them alone was denied the rapture of ecstasy and exaltation. Maybe the high central note oneness with the deity-the spiritual conception for the truly spiritual had no full meaning for them, but all the surroundings, the embroideries of the worship, were alluring and their very being tingled with passion and anticipation. On the surface all is seductive past words. To every mind is its own especial appeal. Nature is the prompting of these religions in their many forms. And thus we have their visions, their oracles, their soothsayings, their spirit writings, their voices of the unseen, their spirit communication so dear to every man both then and now. And on every occasion the god is to be consulted, whather in the life of the state or the life of the family. For centuries Rome never embarked on the most trivial of affairs without its ministers first consulting its protecting deities. Nor was any office more honoured than this of augur. It was the pride of the proudest in the land. Nor were the humble less well provided for. Lucky and unlucky days could be infallibly distinguished, whilst signs and omens taught times and seasons and the will of the gods. And the Jew!" There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord."* Hard, hard and cold, *Deut. xviii. 10.

for was not the Jew human as other men? But his God will have none of these things.

"There shall not be found any among you that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire." This is not a reference to the sacrifice of children to Moloch, but to the service of purification the "naphthah," their cleansing which played so large a part in all those ancient cults. Every would-be votary was besmirched with mortal taint, and before he could even approach the deity this service of purification was esesntial. This might be by sprinkling with the blood of the sacrifice or with holy water, or by fire itself. All efficacious, but thrice happy the child cleansed in its baptism of fire and thus presented to its god. And to the God of the Jew it was an abomination. And those processions; those gorgeous ceremonies; those temple celebrations; those festivals, all so magnificent and all equally an abomination. "Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn thou yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was to the north; and behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz." * What volume of meaning in these few words-weeping for Tammuz; Tammuz, the Dumuzzi of the Chaldeans, the youth, the beloved and lost of Ishtar, the Venus to be in days to come. The cult with but change of name was to take deep root in Syria, from whence it was to pass into Greece and Rome. By Byblos there is the little river Adonis. In the autumn it runs red with the soil it brings down in its course, and round this a pretty story is woven. The youth Adonis has been hunting and has been killed by a boar, and it is his blood that reddens the stream. And search is made for his corpse. And found-wild are the lamentaEzekiel viii. 12-15.