William Robertson Smith

“ TITHES. It has been explained in Sacrifice (vol. xxi. p) that among ancient peoples sacrificial gifts frequently assume the character of a tribute in kind, paid to the deity in acknowledgment of the fruits of the land, or the increase of flocks attributed to his blessing. At first this tribute is not measured or enforced by law: the gift is a voluntary one, the magnitude of which may be fixed by a vow, or influenced by public opinion as to what is reasonable, but is not prescribed by any stated authority having power to exact what is prescribed. ”

“ Indeed the conception of a holy place, separated from profane use, is older than the beginnings of architecture; and natural objects of worship, such as trees and stones, which need no artificial protection or official keeper, are older than images enshrined under roofs and protected by walls and doors. ”

“ Thus aided, Tobias not only recovers his father's money, but by killing a fish which attacks him as he washes his feet in the Tigris, becomes possessed of two invaluable drugs, its liver with the heart and its gall. By fumigation with the former he drives away the demon Asmodeus, who had slain the seven bridegrooms of a virtuous Jewish maiden, Sara of Ecbatana, his own kinswoman, and so wins a good wife, and with the gall he heals his father's eyes. ”

“ In general great tithes are predial, small are mixed and personal. It is not everything that is tithable; ex emptions are claimable either from the nature of the property or the privilege of the owner. Stone, lime, and such other substances as are not of annual increase are exempt. So are creatures ferse naturae. Exempt by privilege are the crown by its prerogative, and spiritual corporations in accordance with the maxim recognized equally by canon and common law, ecclesia decimas non solvit ecclesiae. Thus a rector pays no tithes to his vicar, or a vicar to his rector. ”

“ And on the other side we have the much more cogent arguments that the number of ten words, which no one doubts to be primitive, cannot be naturally made out if the law against images is dropped, and that the existence of this law is necessary to explain the fact that the unquestionably Mosaic sanctuary of the ark, which is just the sanctuary of the revelation of the ten words, embodies the principle of the worship of Jehovah without images in a distinct and practical form. ”

“ Apart from tradition no one, in the present state of exegesis, would dream of allegorizing poetry which in its natural sense is so full of purpose and meaning, so apt in sentiment, and so perfect in imagery as the lyrics of Canticles. We are not at liberty to seek for allegory except where the natural sense is incomplete. This is not the case in the Song of Solomon. On the contrary, every form of the allegorical interpretation which has been devised carries its own con demnation in the fact that it takes away from the artistic unity of the poem and breaks natural sequences of thought. ”

“ The disposition to look away from the personality of the angels and concentrate attention on their ministry, runs more or less through the whole Old Testament angel- ology. It is indeed certain, to pass to the second side of the doctrine, that the angelic figures of the Bible narra tive are not mere allegories of divine providence, but were regarded as possessing a certain superhuman reality. ”

“ Moreover, the highest part of the hill, where the Dome of the Rock now stands, must have been outside and north of the temple enclosure. But this affords no good reason to doubt the accuracy of Josephus's measurements in a matter in which his memory could hardly fail him, and where his tendency would be rather to exaggerate than to diminish. There is no evidence that the eastern wall of the Haram is as old as Herod, much less as old as Solomon for the supposed Phoenician letters found on stones belonging to it are not letters at all, and may be of any date. ”

“ No part of the Bible has called forth a greater diversity of opinions than the Song of Solomon, and that for two reasons. In the first place, the book holds so unique a position in the Old Testament, that the general analogy of Hebrew literature is a very inadequate key to the verbal difficulties, the artistic structure, and the general conception and purpose of the poem. ”

“ And it is a special merit of the current theory that it at once places the authorship and purpose of the book in a strong his torical light. A poem in the northern dialect, with a northern heroine and scenery, contrasting the pure sim plicity of Galilee with the corrupt splendour of the court of Solomon, is clearly the embodiment of one phase of the feeling which separated the ten tribes from the house of David. The kingdom of Solomon was an innovation on old traditions partly for good and partly for evil. ”

“ They do not, however, issue out of the land like rents, but are collateral to it. Accordingly tithes are always freehold, even though they are charged on copyhold lands. Tithes are presumed to go to the parson of the parish. This presumption may be rebutted by proof that some or all the tithes go to the vicar, where the rector is in holy orders, or to a lay impropriator. It is said that about a third part of the tithes in England is in the hands of laymen. At one time arbitrary consecration of tithes was allowed, that is, payment to any priest at the will of the tithe payer. ”

“ More poetical is the tradition that the ark was raised to heaven, there to remain till the coming of the Messiah, which embodies the spiritual idea that a heavenly pledge of God's covenant faithfulness had superseded the earthly symbol. ”

“ All antique religion is essentially altar-worship (see Sacrifice) , and for ritual purposes the altar always continued to be the true centre of the sanctuary. But the altar is only a modification of the sacred stone (comp. Priest, vol. xix. p. 726) , and it has already been observed that, even in later times, the chief altar of a sanctuary stood outside the temple. In the oldest and most primitive forms of religion the sacred stone is at once the place where gifts are offered and the material sign of the presence of the deity ”

“ She is not only beautiful but terrible, her eyes trouble him, and he cannot endure their gaze. She is unique among women, the choice and only one of her mother. In this change of language Ewald and others recognize only a greater intensity of sensuous admiration, and accordingly assume that the king continues, in vii. 1-9, to describe the charms of the maiden, and to express his sensual desires in the shameless language of a voluptuary. ”

“ The question between the Lutheran (Augustinian) and Reformed (Philonic) division of the ten commandments was mixed up with controversy as to the legitimacy of sacred images not designed to be worshipped. The Reformed theologians took the stricter view. The identity of the decalogue with the eternal law of nature was maintained in both churches, but it was an open question whether the decalogue, as such (that is, as a law given by Moses to the Israelites) , is of perpetual obligation. The Socinians, on the other hand, regarded the decalogue as abrogated by the more perfect law of Christ ”

“ The angelophany is a theophany as direct as is possible to man. The idea of a full represen tation of God to man, in all his revealed character, by means of an angel, comes out most clearly for the angel that leads Israel in the very old passage, Exod. ”

“ She is not at home in the palace, for she explains (i. 6) that she has spent her life as a peasant girl in the care of vineyards. Her beloved, whom she knows not where to find (i. 7) , but who lies constantly on her heart and is cherished in her bosom like a spray of the sweet henna flowers which Oriental ladies delight to wear (i. 13, 14) , is like herself a peasant a shepherd lad (i. 7) with whom she was wont to sit in the fresh greenwood under the mighty boughs of the cedars (i. 16, 17) . ”

“ The subordinate action which supports the portraiture of the maiden of Galilee is by no means easy to understand. It may be regarded as certain that, in iv. 1-7, the king is again introduced, and describes the personal charms of the heroine. His language is still that of cold admiration, suitable enough to the character of Solomon, and strongly contrasted with the beautiful and passionate outburst which follows (iv. 8- v, 1) , and which suits no lips but those of the true lover. The latter passage offers great difficulties on any theory which finds a strict drama in Canticles. ”

“ The reader who, with this analogy to guide him, runs through the parts of Canticles which must be assigned to a female speaker, cannot fail to see that the role indicated at the beginning and close of the book is carried out with perfect consistency.
The constant direction of the maiden s mind to her true love is partly expressed in dialogue with the ladies of the court (the daughters of Jerusalem) , who have no dramatic individuality, and whose only function in the economy of the piece is to give the heroine opportunity for a more varied expression of her feelings. ”

“ But the old tradition, that the ark is essentially the sanctuary of the armed host of Israel, with the Levites for its body guard, was not yet extinct, and it was brought into the field and captured by the Philistines in the fatal battle of Ebenezer, which broke the supremacy of Ephraim (1 Sam. iv.) ”

“ The great difficulty which has been felt by investigators in determining the character and attributes of the god Baal mainly arises from the originally appellative sense of the word, and many obscure points become clear if we remem ber that when the title became a proper name it might be appropriated by different nations to quite distinct deities, while traces of the wider use of the word as a title for any god, might very well survive even after one god had come to be known as Baal par excellence. ”

“ A piece of land may be reserved for the deity without a dwelling-house being erected to him upon it, and a sacred tree, stone, or altar, with the holy precinct surrounding it, may be recognized as a place where the worshipper can meet his god and present his offerings, although no temple is attached. ”

“ I am the Lord thy God," is either no precept at all, or only enjoins by implication what is expressly commanded in the words " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Thus to take the preface as a distinct word is not reasonable unless there are cogent grounds for uniting the commandments against polytheism and idolatry. But that is far from being the case. The first precept of the Philonic scheme enjoins monolatry, the second expresses God s spiritual and transcendental nature. ”

“ If the songs of Canticles were allowed to speak for themselves, they would need no theory to explain their meaning, no apology to justify their morality, no fiction of a typical or didactic purpose to commend them as pure, lovely, and worthy of a place in a holy book. Is not true love itself holy 1 for love is. the fountain of all man s bliss, and all love, like goodness and truth, is at root one. Herder justifies these views in a sort of aesthetical commentary, which triumphantly vindicates the naive innocence and genuine delicacy of the love which the book displays. ”

“ The solution lies entirely in the character and constancy of the heroine, v/hich prevail, in the simplest possible way, first over the ladies of the court and then over the king. There is nothing extravagant in the progress of the action ; for though the king has never before conceived the idea that any woman could refuse a place in his harem, his admiration does not reach the pitch of passion, and his sen- suousness nowhere degenerates into grossness, except in the imagination of commentators, who have been apt to detect a double entendre in every passage they did not understand. ”

“ As Ashtoreth is constantly associated with the Phoenician Baal, it was long customary to identify Ashera with her, a theory op posed to the fact that Ashtoreth is represented as a chaste goddess. The key to the difficulty is probably to be sought in the Assyrian mythology, where we find that the planet Venus was worshipped as the chaste goddess Istar, when she appeared as a morning star, and as the impure Bilit or Beltis, the Mylitta of Herod. ”

“ Scotland.—The terms " tithes " and " teinds " are both in use, but the latter is the more common. Teinds are either drawn in kind, valued, or redeemed. Originally they were all drawn in kind, as in England, but their commutation or redemption was the subject of many Acts of the Scottish parliament, especially those passed in 1633, the practical effect of which has been to make a fixed burden on the land take the place of a fluctuating payment, and to sub stitute a payment of one-fifth of the rent for one-tenth of the pro duce. In the first instance all teinds went to the church ”

“ The Old Testament belief in angels has two sides, being, on the one hand, a particular development of the belief in special manifestations of God to man; and on the other hand, a belief in the existence of superhuman beings stand ing in a peculiar relation of nearness to God. ”

“ A vestige of the arbitrary consecration perhaps exists in the rarely occurring right of the parson of one parish to a portion of the tithes of another. Tithes are payable by all persons alike, whether members of the Church of England or not. Special enactments deal with their recover} from Roman Catholics and Quakers. Up to 1836 tithes were paid in kind, unless where any other method of payment applied in a particular case, such as a modus in the nature of a pecuniary compensation, or a pecuniary payment under the terms of a public or private Act, as in the city of London by 37 Hen. ”

“ With regard to land subject at the passing of the Act to extraordinary tithe, the Act enables the land commissioners to certify the capital Talue of the extraordinary tithe on each farm or parcel of land, the land to be charged in lieu of the tithe with the payment of an animal rent-charge equal to 4 per cent, on the capital value. The owner or any other person interested in the land may redeem the charge at its capital value. ”

“ The general plan, indeed, of the house or “palace” (hekal) of Jehovah, with an adytum (deblr, E.V. “oracle”) , an outer chamber, and an altar before the door, is, as we have seen, common to many countries, especially in temples which had an oracle, as was the case with Solomon's temple, built to contain the ark. But all the distinctive features are Phoenician, or at least characteristic of the northern Semites, of whose art the Phoenicians were then the lead ing exponents. For the general arrangements the temple of Hierapolis (Mabbog) , described by Lucian, offers a complete parallel. ”

“ The schoolmen treat of angels under the doctrine of creation, dividing rational creatures into angels, who are pure spirits, and men (Sent. Lib. ii., dist. i., sqq.) , and the nature and powers of angels form the most notori ous problems of the misdirected subtlety of the schools (cf. e.g., Duns on the Second Book of Sentences) . Protestant theologians have always felt less interest in the subject, and generally reduce the doctrine of angels to a mere appendix to the doctrine of creation or of God s works. Recent writers often go much farther. ”