THEORIES OF JEWISH ORIGINS |
Moyses, wishing to secure for the future his authority over the nation, gave
them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that is practised by other men.
Things sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while they allow what
with us is forbidden. In their holy place they have consecrated an image of
the animal by whose guidance they found deliverance from their long and
thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram, seemingly in derision of Hammon, and
they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis. They
abstain from swine's flesh, in consideration of what they suffered when they
were infected by the leprosy to which this animal is liable. By their
frequent fasts they still bear witness to the long hunger of former days,
and the Jewish bread, made without leaven, is retained as a memorial of
their hurried seizure of corn. We are told that the rest of the seventh day
was adopted, because this day brought with it a termination of their toils;
after a while the charm of indolence beguiled them into giving up the
seventh year also to inaction. But others say that it is an observance in
honour of Saturn, either from the primitive elements of their faith having
been transmitted from the Idæi, who are said to have shared the flight
of that God, and to have founded the race, or from the circumstance that of
the seven stars which rule the destinies of men Saturn moves in the highest
orbit and with the mightiest power, and that many of the heavenly bodies
complete their revolutions and courses in multiples of seven.
