



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover]




  THE
  RELIGION OF ANCIENT
  PALESTINE

  IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

  _In the Light of Archaeology and the Inscriptions_


  By

  STANLEY A. COOK, M.A.


  EX-FELLOW, AND LECTURER IN HEBREW AND SYRIAC, GONVILLE AND CAIUS
  COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AUTHOR OF 'A GLOSSARY OF THE ARAMAIC
  INSCRIPTIONS,' 'THE LAWS OF MOSES AND THE CODE OF
  HAMMURABI,' 'CRITICAL NOTES ON OLD
  TESTAMENT HISTORY,' ETC.




  LONDON
  ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
  1908




{v}

PREFACE

The following pages deal with the religion of Ancient Palestine, more
particularly in the latter half of the Second Millennium, B.C.  They
touch upon the problem of the rise and development of Israelite
religion; a problem, however, which does not lie within the scope of
the present sketch (pp. 4, 114 _sq._).  The Amarna tablets, Egyptian
records, and the results of recent excavation form the foundation, and
the available material has been interpreted in the light of comparative
religion.  The aim has been to furnish a fairly self-contained
description of the general religious conditions from external or
non-biblical sources, and this method has been adopted partly on
account of the conflicting opinions which prevail among those who have
investigated the theology of the Old Testament in its relation to
modern research.  Every effort has been made to present the evidence
accurately and fairly; although lack of space has prevented discussion
of the more interesting features of the old Palestinian religion and of
the various secondary problems which arose from time to time.  {vi}
Some difficulty has been caused by the absence of any more or less
comprehensive treatment of the subject; although, from the list of
authorities at the end it will be seen that the most important sources
have only quite recently become generally accessible.  These, and the
few additional bibliographical references given in the footnotes are
far from indicating the great indebtedness of the present writer to the
works of Oriental scholars and of those who have dealt with comparative
religion.  Special acknowledgements are due to Mr. F. Ll. Griffith,
M.A., Reader in Egyptology, University of Oxford; to the Rev. C. H. W.
Johns, M.A., Lecturer in Assyriology, Queen's College, Cambridge, and
King's College, London; and to Mr. R. A. S. Macalister, M.A., F.S.A.,
Director of the Palestine Exploration Fund's excavations at Gezer.
These gentlemen enhanced their kindness by reading an early proof, and
by contributing valuable suggestions and criticisms.  But the
responsibility for all errors of statement and opinion rests with the
present writer.

STANLEY A. COOK.

_July_ 1908.




{vii}

CONTENTS


CHAP.

I. INTRODUCTORY:

The Subject--Method--Survey of Period and Sources--The Land and People,
... 1-12


II. SACRED SITES:

The Sanctuary of Gezer--Other Sacred Places--Their Persistence--The
Modern Places of Cult,... 13-23


III. SACRED OBJECTS:

Trees--Stones--Images and Symbols,... 24-32


IV. SACRED RITES AND PRACTICES:

General Inferences--Disposal of the Dead--Jar-burial--Human
Sacrifice--Foundation Sacrifice--Importance of Sacrifice--Broken
Offerings--'Holy' and 'Unclean'--Sacred Animals,... 33-49


V. THE WORLD OF SPIRITS:

Awe--Charms--Oracles--Representatives of Supernatural Powers--The
Dead--Animism--The Divinity of Kings--Recognised Gods,... 50-65


{viii}

VI. THE GODS:

Their Vicissitudes--Their Representative Character--In Political
Treaties and Covenants--The Influence of Egypt--Treatment of Alien
Gods,... 66-82


VII. THE PANTHEON:

Asiatic Deities in Egypt--Sutekh--Baal--Resheph--
Kadesh--Anath--Astarte--Ashirta Sun-deity--(Shamash)--Moon-god (Sin)
--Addu (Hadad)--Dagon--Nebo--Ninib
--Shalem--Gad--'Righteousness'--Nergal --Melek--Yahweh (Jehovah),...
83-97


VIII. CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT:

Miscellaneous Ideas--The Underlying Identity of Thought--Influence of
Babylonia--Conclusion,... 98-115


PRINCIPAL SOURCES AND WORKS OF REFERENCE,... 116

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE,... 118

INDEX,... 119




{1}

THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT PALESTINE




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

+The Subject.+--By the Religion of Ancient Palestine is meant that of
the Semitic land upon which was planted the ethical monotheism of
Judaism.  The subject is neither the growth of Old Testament theology,
nor the religious environment of the Israelite teachers: it anticipates
by several centuries the first of the great prophets whose writings
have survived, and it takes its stand in the second millennium B.C.,
and more especially in its latter half.  It deals with the internal and
external religious features which were capable of being shaped into the
forms with which every one is familiar, and our Palestine is that of
the Patriarchs, of Moses, Joshua, and the Judges, an old land which
modern research has placed in a new light.

Successive discoveries of contemporary {2} historical and archaeological
material have made it impossible to ignore either the geographical
position of Palestine, which exposes it to the influence of the
surrounding seats of culture, or its political history, which has
constantly been controlled by external circumstances.  Although
Palestine reappears as only a small fraction of the area dominated by
the ancient empires of Egypt and Western Asia, the uniqueness of its
experiences can be more vividly realised.  If it is found to share many
forms of religious belief and custom with its neighbours, one is better
able to sever the features which were by no means the exclusive
possession of Israel from those which were due to specific influences
shaping them to definite ends, and the importance of the little land in
the history of humanity can thereby be more truly and permanently
estimated.


+Method.+--Although Palestine was the land of Judaism and of
Christianity, and has subsequently been controlled by Mohammedanism, it
has preserved common related elements of belief, which have formed, as
it were, part of the unconscious inheritance of successive generations.
They have not been ousted by those positive religions which traced
their origin to deliberate and epoch-making {3} innovators, and they
survive to-day as precious relics for the study of the past.  Indeed,
the _comparative method_, which investigates points of resemblance and
difference among widely-severed peoples, can avail itself in our case
of Oriental conservatism, and may range over a single but remarkably
extensive field.  From the archaeology and inscriptions of Ancient
Babylonia to Punic Carthage, from the Old Testament to the writings of
Rabbinical Judaism, from classical, Syrian, and Arabian authors to the
observations of medieval and modern travellers, one may accumulate a
store of evidence which is mutually illustrative or supplementary.  But
it would be incorrect to assume that every modern belief or rite in
Palestine, for example, necessarily represents the old religion: there
have been reversion and retrogression; some old practices have
disappeared, others have been modified or have received a new
interpretation.  This warning is necessary, because one must be able to
trace the paths traversed by the several rites and beliefs which have
been arrested, before the religion of any age can be placed in its
proper historical perspective.  Unfortunately the sources do not permit
us to do this for our period.  The Old Testament, it is true, covers
this period, and its writers frequently {4} condemn the worship which
they regard as contrary to that of their national God.  But the Old
Testament brings with it many serious problems, and, for several
reasons, it is preferable to approach the subject from external and
contemporary evidence.  Although its incompleteness has naturally
restricted our treatment, the aim has been to describe, in as
self-contained a form as possible, the general religious conditions to
which this evidence points, and to indicate rather more incidentally
its bearing upon the numerous questions which are outside the scope of
the following pages.


+Survey of Period and Sources.+--Many different elements must have
coalesced in the history of Palestinian culture from the days of the
early palaeolithic and neolithic inhabitants.  It is with no
rudimentary people that we are concerned, but with one acquainted with
bronze and exposed to the surrounding civilisations.  The First
Babylonian Dynasty, not to ascend further, brings with it evidence for
relations between Babylonia and the Mediterranean coast-lands, and
intercourse between Egypt and Palestine dates from before the invasion
of the Hyksos.[1]  With the expulsion of {5} these invaders (about 1580
B.C.), the monarchs of Egypt enter upon their great campaigns in
Western Asia, and Palestine comes before us in the clear light of
history.  The Egyptian records of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties
furnish valuable information on the history of our period.  Babylonia
and Assyria lie in the background, and the rival parties are the
kingdom of the Nile and the non-Semitic peoples of North Syria and Asia
Minor ('Hittites') whose influence can probably be traced as far south
as Jerusalem.  Under Thutmose III. (fifteenth century) Egypt became the
queen of the known world and the meeting-place of its trade and
culture.  But the northern peoples only awaited their opportunity, and
fresh campaigns were necessary before Amenhotep III. (about 1400 B.C.)
again secured the supremacy of Egypt.  His successor, the idealist
Amenhotep IV. (or Ikhnaton), is renowned for his temporary religious
reform, and, at a time when Egypt's king was almost universally
recognised, he established in Egypt what was practically a universal
god.  Meanwhile, amid internal confusion in Egypt, Hittites pressed
downwards from Asia Minor, seriously weakening the earlier Hittite
kingdom of Mitanni (North Syria and Mesopotamia).  The cuneiform
tablets discovered in 1887 {6} at El-Amarna in Middle Egypt contain a
portion of the diplomatic correspondence between Western Asia (from
Babylonia to Cyprus) and the two Amenhoteps, and a few tablets in the
same script and of about the same age have since been unearthed at
Lachish and Taanach.  It is at this age that we meet with the restless
Khabiri, a name which suggests a connection with that of the 'Hebrews.'
The progress of this later Hittite invasion cannot be clearly traced;
at all events, Sety I. (Sethos, about 1320 B.C.) was obliged to
recommence the work of his predecessors, but recovered little more than
Palestine.  Ramses II., after much fighting, was able to conclude a
treaty with the Hittites (about 1290), the Egyptian version of which is
now being supplemented by the Hittite records of the proceedings.
Nevertheless, his successor, Merneptah, claims conquests extending from
Gezer to the Hittites, and among those who'salaamed' (_lit._ said
'peace') he includes the people (or tribe) Israel.


[1] For approximate dates, see the Chronological Table.


The active intercourse with the Aegean Isles during this age can be
traced from Asia Minor to Egypt (notably at El-Amarna), and movements
in the Levant had accompanied the pressure southwards from Asia Minor
in the time of the Amenhoteps.  A similar combination was defeated by
{7} Ramses III. (about 1200); among its constituents the Philistines
may doubtless be recognised.  But Egypt, now in the Twentieth Dynasty,
was fast losing its old strength, and the internal history of Palestine
is far from clear.  Apart from the sudden extension of the Assyrian
empire to the Mediterranean under Tiglath-pileser I. (about 1100 B.C.),
no one great power, so far as is known, could claim supremacy over the
west; and our period comes to an end at a time when Palestine,
according to the Israelite historians, was laying the foundation of its
independent monarchy.

Palestine has always been open to the roaming tribes from Arabia and
the Syrian desert, tribes characteristically opposed to the inveterate
practices of settled agricultural life.  Arabia, however, possessed
seats of culture, though their bearing upon our period cannot yet be
safely estimated.  But a temple with an old-established and
contemporary cult, half Egyptian and half Semitic, has been recovered
by Professor Petrie at Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and
the archaeological evidence frequently illustrates the results of the
excavations in Palestine.  Excavations have been undertaken at Tell
el-Hesy (Lachish), at various sites in the lowlands of Judah (including
Tell es-S[=a]fy, perhaps Gath), at {8} Gezer, Taanach, and Tell
el-Mutesellim (Megiddo), and, within the last few months, at Jericho.
Much of the evidence can be roughly dated, and fortunately the age
already illuminated by the Amarna tablets can be recognised.  Its
culture associates it with North Syria and Asia Minor, and reveals
signs of intercourse with the Aegean Isles; but, as a whole, it is the
result of a gradual development, which extends without abrupt gaps to
the time of the Hebrew monarchy and beyond.  Chronological
dividing-lines cannot yet be drawn, and consequently the archaeological
evidence which illustrates the 'Amarna' age is not characteristic of
that age alone.


+The Land and People.+--For practical purposes a distinction between
Palestine and Syria is unnecessary, apart from the political results of
their contiguity to Egypt and Asia Minor respectively.  Egypt at the
height of its power was a vast empire of unprecedented wealth and
splendour, and the imported works of art or the descriptions of the
spoils of war speak eloquently of the stage which material culture had
reached throughout Western Asia.  Even the small townships of Palestine
and Syria--the average city was a small fortified site surrounded by
dwellings, {9} sometimes with an outer wall--could furnish rich booty
of suits of armour, elegant furniture, and articles of gold and silver.
The pottery shows some little taste, music was enjoyed, and a great
tunnel hewn out of the rock at Gezer is proof of enterprise and skill.
The agricultural wealth of the land was famous.  Thutmose III. found
grain'more plentiful than the sand of the shore'; and an earlier and
more peaceful visitor to N. Syria, Sinuhe (about 2000 B.C.), speaks of
the wine more plentiful than water, copious honey, abundance of oil,
all kinds of fruits, cereals, and numberless cattle.  Sinuhe was
welcomed by a sheikh who gave him his eldest daughter and allowed him
to choose a landed possession.  Life was simpler and less civilised
than in Egypt, but not without excitement.  He led the tribesmen to
war, raiding pastures and wells, capturing the cattle, ravaging the
hostile districts.  Indeed, 'lions and Asiatics' were the familiar
terror of Egyptian travellers, and the turbulence of the petty
chieftains, whose intrigues and rivalries swell the Amarna letters,
made any combined action among themselves exceptional and transitory.
We gather from these letters that foreign envoys were provided with
passports or credentials addressed to the 'Kings of Canaan,' to ensure
their speedy and safe passage {10} as they traversed the areas of the
different local authorities.  Such royal commissioners are already met
with in the time of Sinuhe.

Egyptian monuments depict the people with a strongly marked Semitic
physiognomy, and that physical resemblance to the modern native which
the discovery of skeletons has since endorsed.  We can mark their dark
olive complexion; the men with pointed beards and with thick bushy
hair, which is sometimes anointed, and the women with tresses waving
loosely over their shoulders.  The slender maidens were admired and
sought after by the Egyptians, and later (in the Nineteenth Dynasty) we
find the men in request as gardeners and artisans, and some even hold
high positions in the administration of Egypt.  The script and language
of Babylonia were still in use in the fifteenth century, although the
supremacy of that land belonged to the past; they were used in
correspondence between Western Asia and Egypt, also among the Hittites,
and even between the chieftains of Palestine.  Apart from the tablets
found at Lachish and Taanach, several were unearthed at Jericho,
uninscribed and ready for use.  But the native language in Palestine
and Syria was one which stands in the closest relation to the classical
Hebrew of the {11} Old Testament, and it differed only dialectically
from the Moabite inscription of Mesha (about 850 B.C.), the somewhat
later Hamathite record of Ben-hadad's defeat, and the Phoenician
inscriptions.

The general stock of ideas, too, was wholly in accord with Semitic, or
rather, Oriental thought, and the people naturally shared the
paradoxical characteristics of the old Oriental world:--a simplicity
and narrowness of thought, intensity, fanaticism, and even ferocity.[2]
To these must be added a keen imagination, necessarily quickened by the
wonderful variety of Palestinian scenery, which ranges from rugged and
forbidding deserts to enchanting valleys and forests.  The life of the
people depended upon the soil and the agricultural wealth, and these
depended upon a climate of marked contrasts, which is found in some
parts (_e.g._ the lower Jordan valley) to be productive of physical and
moral enervation.  In a word, the land is one whose religion cannot be
understood without an attentive regard to those factors which were
unalterable, and to those specific external influences which were
focussed upon it in the entire course of the Second {12} Millennium
B.C.  We touch the land at a particular period in the course of its
very lengthy history; it is not the beginnings of its religion, but the
stage it had reached, which concerns us.



[2] See Th. Noeldeke, _Sketches from Eastern History_ (London, 1892),
chap. i., 'Some Characteristics of the Semitic Race.'




{13}

CHAPTER II

SACRED SITES

+The Sanctuary of Gezer.+--Of the excavations in Palestine none have
been so prolific or so fully described as those undertaken by Mr.
Macalister on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund at Gezer.  This
ancient site lies about eighteen miles W.N.W. of Jerusalem, and,
between its two knolls, on a commanding position, one of the most
striking which Palestine can offer, were found the remains of a
sanctuary whose history must have extended over several centuries.
Gezer itself has thrown the strongest light upon the religion of the
land, and a brief description of its now famous 'high-place' will form
a convenient introduction to the cult and ritual of the period.

Looking eastwards we face eight rough monoliths, which stretch in a
slightly concave line, about 75 feet in length, from north to south.
They are erected upon a platform of stones about {14} 8 feet wide; they
vary from 5-1/2 ft. to 10 ft. in height, and have uniformly a fairer
surface on the western (front) than on the eastern side.  Number 1, on
the extreme right, is the largest (10 ft. 2 in. high, and 4 ft. 7 in.
by 2 ft. 6 in.).  Next (No. 2), stands the smallest (5 ft. 5 in. high,
1 ft. 2 in. by 1 ft. 9 in.), whose pointed top with polished spots on
the surface speaks of the reverent anointing, stroking and kissing
which holy stones still enjoy at the present day.  No. 7, the last but
one on our extreme left, is of a limestone found around Jerusalem and
in other districts, but not in the neighbourhood of Gezer.  Under what
circumstances this stone was brought hither can only be conjectured
(see p. 80).  The pillar (7 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 10 in. by 1 ft. 3
in.) bears upon its front surface a peculiar curved groove; No. 1, too,
has a groove across the top, and four in all have hollows or cup-marks
upon their surfaces.  Nos. 4 and 8 are more carefully shaped than the
rest, and the latter stands in a circular socket, and is flanked on
either side by the stumps of two broken pillars.  Yet another stone lay
fallen to the south of No. 1, and there is some reason to suppose that
this and the unique No. 2 belonged to the earliest stage in the history
of the sanctuary.  In front of Nos. 5 {15} and 6 is a square stone
block (6 ft. 1 in. by 5 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in.), with a cavity (2 ft. 10
in. by 1 ft. 11 in. by 1 ft. 4 in.); a curved groove runs along the
front (the western side) of the rim.  It is disputed whether this stone
held some idol, stele, or pillar; or whether it was a trough for ritual
ablutions similar to those which Professor Petrie recognised at Serabit
el-Khadem, or whether, again, it was a sacrificial block upon which the
victim was slain.

In the area behind (east of) these monoliths are entrances leading to
two large underground caverns which appear to have been used originally
for habitation; their maximum diameters are about 40 ft. and 28 ft.,
and they extend nearly the whole length of the alignment.  The caverns
were connected by a passage, so short that any sound in one could be
distinctly heard in the other, so small and crooked, that it is easy to
imagine to what use these mysterious chambers could be put.  In the
larger cave a jar containing the skeleton of an infant rested upon a
stone, and close by were the remains of an adult.  Further behind the
pillars was found a bell-shaped pit containing numerous animal and
human bones.  In a circular structure in front of pillars Nos. 7 and 8,
the bronze model of a cobra lay amid {16} potsherds and other debris.
A little distance to the south in a bank of earth were embedded several
broken human skulls, cow-teeth, etc.; the heads had evidently been
severed before burial, and there was no trace of the bodies.  Below the
whole area, before and more particularly behind the pillars, several
infants were found buried head-downwards in large jars; they were
mostly new-born, and two, as also two older children, bore marks of
fire.  Finally, throughout the debris that had accumulated upon the
floor of the sanctuary were innumerable objects typical of
nature-worship, representations in low relief of the nude
mother-goddess of Western Asia, and male emblems roughly made of
limestone, pottery, bone, and other material.


+Other Sacred Places.+--Scarcely fifty yards to the south of these
pillars was a rock-surface about ninety feet by eighty, covered with
over eighty of the singular cup-marks or hollows which we have already
observed.  One little group surrounded by small standing-stones was
connected by a drain which led to a subterranean cave.  Here, too, was
another almost concealed chamber, and the discovery of a number of
bones of the swine (an animal seldom found elsewhere in Gezer) gave
{17} weight to the suggestion that mysterious rites were practised.

Although the monoliths of Gezer do not appear to have lost their sacred
character until perhaps the sixth century B.C., they were not the only
place of cult in the city.  Above, on the eastern hill, were the
remains of an elaborate building measuring about 100 ft. by 80 ft..
Its purpose was shown by the numerous religious emblems found within
its precincts.  In two circular structures were the broken fragments of
the bones of sheep and goats--devoid of any signs of cooking or
burning.  Jars containing infants had been placed at the corners of
some of the chambers; and below an angle of a courtyard close by, a pit
underneath the corner-stone disclosed bones and potsherds, the latter
bearing upon them the skull of a young girl.

At the north-east edge of the plateau of Tell es-S[=a]fy the
excavations brought to light a building with monoliths; in the debris
at their feet were the bones of camels, sheep and cows.  At the east
end of the hill of Megiddo, Dr. Schumacher found pillars with cup-marks
enclosed in a small building about 30 ft. by 15 ft.; a block of stone
apparently served as the sacrificial altar.  Besides several amulets
and small idols, at one of the {18} corners were jars containing the
skeletons of new-born infants.  The structure belonged to a great
series of buildings about 230 ft. long and 147 ft. broad.  At the same
site also was discovered a bare rock with hollows; it was approached by
a step, and an entrance led to a subterranean abode containing human
and other bones.  At Taanach, Dr. Sellin found a similar place of
sacrifice with cavities and channel; the rock-altar had a step on the
eastern side, and close by were a number of flint-knives, jars with
infants (ranging up to two years of age), and the remains of an adult.

Continued excavation will no doubt throw fuller light upon the old
sacred places, their varying types, and their development; even the
recent discovery of a small pottery model of the facade of a shrine is
suggestive.  It represents an open fore-court and a door-way on either
side of which is a figure seated with its hands upon its knees.  The
figure wears what seems to be a high-peaked cap; it is presumably
human, but the nose is curiously rounded, and one recalls the quaint
guardians of the temple-front found in other parts of Western Asia.


+Their Persistence.+--Whether the choice of a {19} sacred place was
influenced by chance, by some peculiar natural characteristic, or by
the impressiveness of the locality, nothing is more striking than its
persistence.  Religious practice is always conservative, and once a
place has acquired a reputation for sanctity, it will retain its fame
throughout political and even religious vicissitudes.  The history of
Gezer, for example, goes back to the neolithic age, but the religious
development, to judge from the archaeological evidence, is unbroken, and
although there came a time when the city passed out of history,
Palestine still has its sacred stones and rock-altars, buildings and
tombs, caves and grottoes, whose religious history must extend over
untold ages.  At both Gezer and Tell es-S[=a]fy a sacred tomb actually
stands upon the surface of the ground quite close to the site of the
old holy places.

At Serabit the caves with their porticoes had evolved by the addition
of chambers, etc., into a complicated series sacred to the
representative goddess of the district and to the god of the Egyptian
miners.  It is estimated that the cult continued for at least a
thousand years.  In the neighbourhood of Petra several apparent
'high-places' have been found.  They are perched conspicuously to catch
the rays of the morning {20} sun or in view of a holy shrine; and the
finest of them is approached by two great pillars, 21 to 22 feet high.
Although as a whole they may be ascribed to 300 B.C.-100 A.D., their
altars, basins, courts, etc., probably permit us to understand the more
imperfect remains of sanctuaries elsewhere.[1]  But independently of
these, from Sinai to North Syria an imposing amount of evidence
survives in varying forms for the history of the sacred sites of
antiquity.  In the rock-altars of the modern land with cup-marks and
occasionally with steps, with the shrine of some holy saint and an
equally holy tree, sometimes also with a mysterious cave, we may see
living examples of the more undeveloped sanctuaries.  For a result of
continued evolution, on the other hand, perhaps nothing could be more
impressive than the Sakhra of the Holy Temple at Jerusalem, where, amid
the associations of three thousand years of history, the bare rock,
with hollows, cavities, channels, and subterranean cave, preserves the
primitive features without any essential change.[2]



[1] G. Dalman, _Petra und seine Felsheiligtuemer_ (Leipzig, 1908).

[2] R. Kittel, Studien zur Hebraeischen Archaeologie und
Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1908), chap. i.  Chap. ii. illustrates
primitive rock-altars of Palestine and their development.


+The Modern Places of Cult.+--Notwithstanding {21} the religious and
political vicissitudes of Palestine, the old centres of cult have never
lost the veneration of the people, and their position in modern popular
belief and ritual affords many a suggestive hint for their history in
the past.  Although Mohammedanism allows few sacred localities, the
actual current practice, in Palestine as in Asia Minor, attaches
conceptions of great sanctity to a vast number of places.  The shrines
and sacred buildings dotted here and there upon elevated sites form a
characteristic feature of the modern land, and there is abundant
testimony that they are the recipients of respect and awe far more real
than that enjoyed by the more official or orthodox religion.  Although
they are often placed under the protection of Islam by being known as
the tombs of saints, prophets, and holy sheikhs, this is merely a
disguise; and although it is insisted that the holy occupants are only
mediators, they are the centre of antique rites and ideas which
orthodox Mohammedanism rejects.  Their power is often rated above that
of Allah himself.  Oaths by Allah are freely taken and as freely
broken, those at the local shrines rarely (if ever) fail; the coarse
and painful freedom of language, even in connection with Allah, becomes
restrained when the natives visit their holy place.

{22}

The religious life of the peasants is bound up with the shrines and
saints.  There they appeal for offspring, healing, and good harvests;
there they dedicate the first-fruits, firstlings, and their children,
and in their neighbourhood they prefer to be buried.  No stranger may
intrude heedlessly within the sacred precincts, and one may see the
worshipper enter barefooted praying for permission as he carefully
steps over the threshold.  The saint by supernatural means is able to
protect everything deposited in the vicinity of the tomb, which can
thus serve as a store or treasure-house.  He is supreme over a local
area; he is ready even to fight for his followers against the foe; for
all practical purposes he is virtually the god of the district.  Some
of the shrines are sacred to a woman who passes for the sister or the
daughter of a saint at the same or a neighbouring locality.  Even the
dog has been known to have a shrine in his honour, and the animal
enters into Palestinian folk-lore in a manner which this unclean beast
of Mohammedanism hardly seems to deserve.  As a rule the people will
avoid calling the occupant of the shrine by name, and some
circumlocutionary epithet is preferred: the famous sheikh, father of
the lion, rain-giver, dwarf, full-moon, or (in case of {23} females)
the lady of child-birth, the fortunate, and the like.

The shrines are the centres of story and legend which relate their
origin, legitimise their persistence, or illustrate their power.  In
the course of ages the name of the saint who once chose to reveal
himself there has varied, and the legends of earlier figures have been
transferred and adjusted to names more acceptable to orthodoxy.  Some
of the figures have grown in importance