reason he is honoured there by sacrifices and festivals. Parallel with the case of the local divinity cited above is the declaration of an inhabitant of Maan: "If one swears by Abdallah [a Wely buried at Maan] and the oath is false he is sure to die." Among the saints who are thus honoured the prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament still have a place. The tomb of Abraham at Hebron is one of the most sacred spots of the Mohammedans, and the Bedawin across the Jordan are sure that El-Halil (the Friend of God), as Abraham is called, visits and helps them in answer to their prayers.2

To appreciate the tenacity of religious belief and custom we need only remind ourselves that these examples are taken from a region where Islam has endeavoured to enforce a strict monotheism for thirteen hundred years. It is important to notice that the spirit of the ancestor or alleged ancestor of a clan is the one most sure to receive religious veneration. He is thought to accompany his descendants on their wanderings and to protect them in danger. He is therefore invoked by them in time of trouble. Unsettled as the life of the nomads is, all of the tribes have their regular places of resort for religious purposes, and these are generally graves of an ancestor. The place is marked by a heap of stones: "An Arab never passes by such a monument without making a brief prayer; if he is not in haste he stops and prostrates himself in token of veneration; and on occasion he makes a visit of more ceremony, when he offers a sacrifice in consequence of a promise or vow." In addition to these private sacrifices there are also public occasions when the greater part of the tribe makes a pilgrimage to the tomb and holds a feast of some days' duration. At the return of a successful expedition also an animal is sacrificed at the tomb of the ancestor in recognition of his help.

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Other testimony might be adduced. The reverence paid to the tomb of Mohammed is rightly regarded as polytheistic by the Wahhabees. Yet it is said that a pious Moslem

1 Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes, p. 311.

Ibid., p. 317; cf. p. 355.

8

Ibid., p. 308.

living in the third century of the Hejra boasted of having offered twelve thousand animals in honour of the prophet. The obstinacy of popular beliefs was perhaps never more strikingly manifested, for Mohammed himself forbade such rites as savouring of heathenism. Among the Arabs it is still the custom to sacrifice a sheep at the death of a member of the tribe, and another seven days later. This latter is called the sacrifice of consolation, and the phrase reminds us of the cup of consolation spoken of by the Hebrew prophet (Jer. 16: 7). In one case the sacrificial feast, in the other the libation is supposed to benefit the soul of the departed. The blood of sacrifices offered at the tomb of a saint is still poured over the heap of stones or other monument, as it was poured or smeared on the stone altar or pillar in the old days. Oil is also poured on the monument. Another rite of worship is the rubbing of earth, taken from the tomb, on the face of the worshipper. The sacredness of such earth makes it effective for healing the sick, on whom it is rubbed in the same way.1 Another custom is that of offering the hair of the mourner at the tomb: "The women cut their hair at the death of a husband, father, or near relative. The long tresses are laid upon the tomb or rolled about the stone placed at the head of the grave. I have observed a more curious custom; two stakes were driven, one at the head, the other at the foot of the grave, and a cord was stretched from one to the other. On this cord were tied the long locks of hair."2 In the time of Mohammed we are told that when Chalid ibn al-Walid died all the women of his clan shaved their heads and laid the hair on his tomb.3

The fact to which allusion has already been made, namely, that Mohammed attempted to suppress such customs, is of importance, for it shows that he, who knew the thoughts of his countrymen so well, believed their mourning rites to be polytheistic. The prohibition of swearing by one's ancestors and the command to swear by Allah alone1 must

1 Jaussen, Coutumes, p. 310.

'Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, I, p. 248.

be motived in the same way. Other testimony from Arab antiquity might be adduced. For example, the ground around a tomb was, at least in some cases, a sanctuary and an asylum. The prohibition of marking off such ground except for God and the prophet, put into Mohammed's mouth by tradition, is doubtless apocryphal, but it shows the attitude of the theologians to be the same with that of the prophet himself. The stones erected at the grave are doubtless, both in Arabic and in Hebrew antiquity, sacred stones like those at the sanctuary of a divinity.

It is only by this review of Semitic custom outside Israel that we are able to understand survivals which are attested in the Hebrew Bible. First of all, the custom of marking the grave by a stone, which is recorded in at least one Old Testament passage: This is the grave of Rachel (Gen. 35:20; I Sam. 10:2). Rachel was ancestress of the two tribes Joseph and Benjamin, and her grave seems to have been located on the boundary of these tribes. Here her spirit lingers, for Jeremiah hears her lament over the approaching captivity of her children (Jer. 31:15). The pillar over the grave is called by the same name which is used elsewhere (maççeba) for the sacred stone set up at a sanctuary. The custom is further illustrated by the act of Absalom. The prince had no son, and for this reason he took and reared a pillar (maççeba) in the King's Vale (II Sam. 18:18). He justified himself by saying: "I have no son to keep my name in remembrance." The word translated "keep in remembrance" means to pay religious reverence to a divinity. The thought of the passage is that Absalom, despairing of a son (who alone could pay the regular religious rites) erected this pillar in order that charitable people might be reminded of him and to a certain extent give his soul the honour which the departed crave.1

We now see why so many tombs of heroes are mentioned

1 The text of the passage is not in order, and it is possible that in the earliest account it was David who erected the pillar; but this would not make any difference for our present inquiry.

in the Hebrew narrative. The cave where Abraham and Sarah are buried is important to the writer because it was in some sense a sanctuary. That its sanctity has persisted until the present day we have already noted. Jacob took pains to secure that he be buried in the tomb of his fathers (Gen. 47:30). The bones of Joseph were brought from Egypt in order that they might rest among his descendants (Joshua 24:32). The burial-place of Joshua, of Eleazar and of each of the Judges is carefully noted. Absalom's pillar was not the only monument consecrated to this prince, for the heap of stones raised over his body where he fell served the same purpose with the pillar (II Sam. 18:17). Similar heaps of stones were raised over the slain Canaanites, the kings of Ai, and the five kings slain at Makkedah (Joshua 8:29; 10:27). And the criminal Achan received the same honour (Joshua 7:26).

Here modern ideas are in conflict with those of antiquity and we are shocked by the thought that the souls of bad men, like Absalom and Achan, should receive the kind of reverence paid the gods. But early religion gives a large place to fear, and, the spirit of a bad man being as truly supernatural as that of a good man, it must be placated even more carefully. This is illustrated by the Greek hero-worship, where all the dead are regarded as "blameless,” whatever their previous record has been. Some of the shrines at which the Greeks paid reverence are distinctly affirmed to be those of men of violent lives. The spirit is especially dangerous if the body which it once inhabited is left unburied, and the Hebrew pains in caring for burial is explicable on this ground. David cares for the body of Abner and for the bones of Saul's descendants, as well as for those of the king himself (II Sam. 3:32 and 21:14). These last are laid in the ancestral tomb, a boon which was especially desired, since thus one was sure to receive attention from the living members of the family. The curious custom of burial in one's own house is occasionally recorded (I Sam. 25: 1; I Kings 2:34). This is accounted for by

the desire of the family to have the spirit of the ancestor as protector of the home.1 The kings of Israel, we are expressly told, were buried in the palace or in an adjoining garden. The objection made by the prophet Ezekiel to this custom, owing to the proximity of the palace to the temple, sufficiently shows that there was a religious motive; and from this point of view we may interpret the burning made for these kings as a religious rite, either sacrificial or designed to destroy property which was taboo because it belonged to a superhuman being.

Supernatural power is attributed to the dead or dying. The Pentateuchal narratives give the dying Isaac, Jacob, and Moses power to predict the future and to determine the course of coming events (Gen. 27 and 49; Deut. 33). The yearly festival in memory of Jephthah's daughter was probably a religious rite in which the spirit of the dead maiden received comfort from the sympathy of the young women who gathered at the shrine, and possibly was gratified by the banquet of which they partook.

Just as the demon resided in the pillar erected to him, so the spirit of the dead man took up its abode in the pillar or heap of stones erected over his body. This conception we know to have been prevalent among the neighbours of Israel, for we have instances in which the gravestone is directly identified with the soul (nephesh) of the deceased.2 This explains some texts which have puzzled the expositors. These texts speak of the soul as that which defiles the person who touches a corpse (Num. 5:2; 6:6; 19:13). If the soul has left the body we do not see how it can defile. But in Hebrew thought the soul still has its abode in the body, at least until the latter has been deposited in the tomb. Then it dwells in the tomb, for the touch of a grave makes one taboo just as surely as the touch of a corpse. Why the contact should produce defilement we shall inquire

1 Ethnological parallels are numerous.

2 Lods, La Croyance à la vie future et le culte des Morts dans l'Antiquité Israélite, p. 62.