Zoroastrianism and Judaism/Chapter 2

A DETAILED treatment of Judaism would itself furnish an instructive theme for a book. To give within a few pages a right estimate of Judaism is not an easy task, and to do so in order to indicate its relation to a foreign influence is still more dificult. Many facts concerning persons and events must be assumed as known and accepted in order that the leading features that pertain to the life and religion of the Jews before, during, and after the exile, may be brought prominently before the mind.

Judaism was a unique politico-religious organism. Its fundamental principles came to be an acknowledgment of the one God, Yahveh, and of the Torah in which Yahveh revealed Himself. It began with the reform of Josiah. That reform indeed practically had failed in Judah, but during the exile the teachings proclaimed by the pre-exilic prophets prevailed. Before Josiah’s time society was rotten to the core.^[1] The prophets of the eighth century, Amos,^[2] Hosea,^[3] Isaiah,^[4] Micah,^[5] had rebuked the people for their sins and called for righteousness to ​the Holy One of Israel. As a result there was a re- formation under Hezekiah, but under Manasseh and Amon the masses returned to their old idols.^[6] Nevertheless the spirit of reform was in the air when in 639 B. C. the little Josiah came to the throne. By rebuke and appeal Zephaniah^[7] and Jeremiah^[8] and Nahum^[9] moved the people to the first steps of reform again. The finding of the book of the law within the temple^[10] gave character to the reformation.^[11] Jeremiah, whose heart and soul were in the work of reform, welcomed the covenant,^[12] and the people publicly assembled by the king, pledged themselves to keep it.^[13] With the reformation of Josiah begins the rule of written law. This was decidedly a great advance. The written requirements were superior to the earlier ceremonial forms, and also gave a stability to the worship of Yahveh it had not possessed before. This written law a part of our present Book of Deuteronomy (v-xxvi, xxviii) is saturated throughout with a broad, prophetic spirit. It is the book of Love in the Old Testament.^[14] The detailed laws are the means whereby this love is to find expression. It set apart the followers of ​Jehovah as a holy people^[15] High places were swept away and the temple at Jerusalem was exalted and made the only place of sacrifice.^[16] It started literary activity which left its impress on all later Hebrew literature.^[17] Under the kings succeeding Josiah there was reaction and apostasy.^[18] During the closing years of Judah’s existence, Jeremiah stood almost alone,^[19] her last and greatest prophet. He declares the overthrow of the short rule of Egypt (609-605) by Nebuchadnezzar,^[20] which was the beginning of the end for Judah. Earnest and pleading appeals for reform were of no avail.^[21] The people were unrighteous and rebellious, and their doom foretold came upon them. “Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.”^[22]

The few Jews who remained in Judah were in pitiable circumstances.^[23] Not so were those in exile. For the most part their bondage was not an oppressive one.^[24] Many lived in their own homes and some obtained wealth. But the true Israelites could never ​be reconciled to Babylon.^[25] In exile they maintained their religion separately. This is undoubtedly the chief reason they did not dissolve and perish in captivity. The harm Babylonia had done in the years before the exile in exciting to idolatry, it undid in the years of banishment.

With the accession of Cyrus and the rule of Persia, came the permission to return to their cherished land.^[26] The undertaking was difficult. Years passed before those who returned succeeded in rebuilding the temple. It was not dedicated till 516 B. C.,^[27] more than a hundred years after the reform of Josiah, and it was not till 445 B. C. that the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt.^[28] Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Nehemiah were prominent figures in shaping the life of the community, especially Ezra and Nehemiah. Following the rededication of the walls there was social and religious reform,^[29] and of greatest importance the adoption, by a great assembly of the people, of the Covenant, the priestly code.^[30] The reformation under Josiah had been by a royal decree and its influence still continued in Judah. The priestly reformation was democratic. By a popular vote, the people accepted the new law ​and bound themselves by an oath to walk in God's law.^[31] The new code centred the life of the true Israel about the sanctuary, and hereafter more and more Jerusalem was to be the holiest place upon earth. The code united all faithful Jews whether in Palestine or in other lands, encircling them with a high wall of separation. For they all now had one law, one worship, and one temple. Judaism no longer meant a nationality but a religious conviction.

Another element in the growth of Judaism, which from this time exerted a strong influence, was the Samaritan schism. Josiah’s reform had left a lasting impression upon the Samaritan people,^[32] but many heathen ideas survived.^[33] The challenge^[34] they gave the returning Judeans to prove themselves the people of Yahveh was finally met by the declaration that Sanballat and his followers should “have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem.”^[35] When the Jewish community solemnly bound itself by the priestly code the Samaritans were forever excluded from the Jerusalem temple. The two communities continued to live in bitter rivalry and jealousy, both laying claim to the name and privilege of the ancient Israelitish nation. The Judeans were fired by the Samaritans to a passionate devotion to their law and temple, and much of the intolerance ​which disfigured later Judaism was the result of the conflicts with the worshippers on Gerizim.

Thus Judaism came to be a fixed system. The inner forces and external influences that shaped the system may be more or less distinctly traced, and need be indicated only briefly. A strong inner force was the literature of the period, helping to give character to its life and thought.^[36] There was the priestly aristocracy whose functions and power from the time of the adoption of the priestly code were ever widening. Of greater influence still were the new religious teachers, the scribes. Their power increased as that of the prophets waned. They became the dominant intellectual leaders of Judaism. They edited and expanded the Law. They made its practical applications. Their place of instruction was the synagogue, which was a recognized institution shortly after the time of Ezra. It became as democratic as the temple was exclusive. There resulted a devotion to the Law, to know and to keep which was a glad privilege.^[37] Emphasis was placed upon the individual instead of the family or tribe. This was first brought out by Jeremiah^[38] and Ezekiel.^[39] There developed in Judaism a self-centered, intellectual, strong moral-religious life illustrated by lofty ​examples of probity and piety.

Among the external influences several may be named. Before the exile the Hebrews were tempted by foreign courts into idolatry, and into political and social extravagances. Yet by contact with foreign powers, they gained a conception of a broader world than they had known before. This, too, gave them a sense of the power of organization. The Babylonian exile represented a fundamental transformation in the political, social and religious life of the people. It proved that the Jewish people could maintain their racial separateness without king or political organization. The energies of the leaders were turned from politics to ritual and religion. Idolatry was forever stamped out, and the religion became pure monotheism.

The religion and rule of Persia was one of the external influences. It will be treated later. On the return from the exile, the influences of their heathen neighbors led to the erection of that high wall of separation which not only excluded the Gentiles, but kept the Jews faithful to their race and religion. They could not have political ambitions as in earlier days, for they were a subject people, but they were free to devote all their time and energies to religion.

In the Greek period, Greek worldiness, philosophy, radicalism, were resisted by Jewish legalism, simplicity, and conservatism. The contact of such contrary forces proved rich in results for the world. But it brought into bolder relief the antagonistic ​features of Judaism. The Jews could refuse to be Grecized. The furnace of affliction in which Judaism was long cast only intensified the loyalty and devotion of its followers. They evidenced for centuries a fearless passion for their religion.

The conditions among the Jews operating against the giving or receiving of foreign influences may for the most part be reduced to their exclusiveness. The exile was a period of rapid change. Previously, they often had been following the ways of other nations, and at the same time boasting of their own inviolability. After the exile, they were glad to accept the message of prophet, priest, or scribe in their eagerness to obtain reconciliation with Jehovah. Their ruling desire was to regain their lost national and individual purity. The great prophet of the exile declared that because of their peculiar relation to Jehovah they had a high mission to fulfill among the nations.^[40] But his ideal was too exalted for those of his time to appreciate. The presence of their enemies, the Babylonians, Persians, and the heathen in Judah, united the Jews by an indissoluble bond. Persecutions only intensified their loyalty to their adopted creed. The horror of being absorbed into the great heathen world led them to become exclusive of everything foreign. When they thought of their neighbors it was to pray for their destruction. There was an opportunity for the ​admission of proselytes, but there was little or no proselyting.^[41] In the Greek period the broad tolerance of the hook of Jonah found little illustration. There was the same race-pride, rigid ceremonialism, and religious passion. Yet there were striking inconsistencies which indicate that Judaism absorbed, perhaps unconsciously, foreign ideas and beliefs.

In the sixth century B. C., the Aryans came to the front in influence and power, and the Hebrews came into contact with them as subjects. It was during this period, and the years immediately following, that the Hebrews became known as Jews, that they were changed from being a nation into a politico-religious theocracy, that their leaders instead of being statesmen became priests and scribes, that the people placing themselves in bondage to a rigid law became religious in their ambitions, instead of secular or political. There was an over-emphasis of ceremonial righteousness, there was constantly a spirit of exclusiveness. Yet in the writings of the time there was also emphasis given to moral righteousness,^[42] to the expectation of a useful future for Israel as Yahveh’s servant,^[43] to a world-wide conception of Yahveh’s love and care.^[44] There was a higher conception of worship than at any earlier time. The synagogue with its Torah and prayer did much to ​create a more spiritual idea of worship. There was a truer recognition of the sovereignty of holiness by which alone they could hope for national perfection. However hollow their religion may have been, this recognition was an omen of good.

The Jews came into direct touch with Persia in the Babylonian exile and for more than two hundred years afterward. Cyrus, the Persian king, “the righteous one, the Shepherd of the Lord, the anointed of God,”^[45] gave orders that the temple at Jerusalem be rebuilt and that the Jews be returned from captivity to their own city.^[46] Darius, the worshipper of Ormazd, favored the rebuilding of the temple and commanded that the decree of Cyrus be carried into effect.^[47] Judea became a Persian province and remained so till the time of Alexander. There are probably references to the ancient faith of Persia in Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah.^[48] The Wise men who came from the East to worship Christ, were Magi, followers of the ancient creed of Persia, and it is actually stated in the Apocryphal New Testament that they came in accordance with a prophecy of Zarathustra.^[49]

The chief characteristics of the Zoroastrian religion in brief are: the philosophic tenet which ​recognizes the constant warfare that rages between the good principle Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, (Ὀρομἀσδπς) and the evil spirit, Angro Mainyu, Ahrmian, (Ἀρεἴμἀνὶος), and their respective kingdoms. The duration of this conflict is limited, at the end of the world good will triumph, and evil be annihilated; a general resurrection of the dead will take place and the new life begin. There is also in the religion an elaborate system of angels and demons, a distinct cosmology and cosmogony, a pronounced doctrine of eschatology, and a high code of ethics. There are also elements of nature worship, a deification of sun, moon and stars, a religious veneration for fire, earth, and water, and a scrupulous awe in exercising care to preserve these elements from defilement. These nature features seem to point back to earlier times. In addition there is a rigid dogmatism that inculcates the necessity of preserving the purity of the body, the care of useful animals, the practice of agriculture, and the observance of a strictly defined ritual.

To bring Judaism and Zoroastrianism more clearly into view, the beliefs wherein they agree may be summarized briefly. Each was proclaimed by a prophet. Each worshipped one God. Each believed in an evil power. Each forbade images. Each laid emphasis on a moral act. Each was intolerant toward other systems. Each developed priestly cults, and emphasized ceremonial cleanness. Each had something like a synagogue worship. Belief in ​angels and demons and in the future life were ideas common to both.

Surely with so many points of agreement here at once were influences that would tend to unify them. During all these years in which Judaism was gradually assuming form the most intelligent and active members of the Jewish race were brought into continued contact with the dominant peoples of the age.^[50] Since in other respects their habits were changed by the new environment, it would have been strange indeed if their religion had been unaffected. The Babylonians were too gross in their idolatry to develop Jewish religious conceptions. But the Jews were attracted by the faith that had so many articles in accord with their own teachings.

The policy of the Persians towards the Jews also would render the Jews favorably disposed toward their rulers.^[51] There is evidence, too, that during the Persian period the Jewish community received many foreigners into its midst.^[52] The influences which tended to keep the two religions apart were, that the Hebrews were so little known, so little in contact with other peoples, and their priesthood so exclusive, that it is not likely they would ​exert any strong influence upon Persian ideas. The Persians being rulers would have made this influence less likely. On the other hand, the Jewish horror of heathen nations together with their devotion to the covenant, erected that high wall of separation which isolated Judaism during more than four centuries. Further, during a large part of the Persian period, the attitude of the satraps toward the Palestinian Jews would not dispose the latter consciously to imitate. Those in the Dispersion would not consciously have adopted Persian ideas when their hearts said, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.”^[53] No important belief of Judaism was adopted outright from the Iranian faith, but without foreign influence some of the leading beliefs would not have been grasped and so fully developed, as they appear to have been from this time. To trace the resemblances between the two religions, and to indicate something of the probable influence of the one upon the other will occupy the remainder of this volume.