Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/156

138 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ka. debtee! for his crown. 1 But, as a rule, they worked together and strengthened the hands of each other. To the priests was due the notion that sacrifices acceptable to Jehovah were to be offered at Jerusalem and in the temple, an idea that more than anything else banded the people together, and kept them loyal to the house of David. It was an innovation ; for in olden times Jehovah had been sought under every spreading tree, on every peak, or crag, or high place. 2 Solomon had gone to Gibeon to sacrifice a thousand oxen, "for that was the great high place." 3 These sanctuaries, known to the people from time immemorial, could not be suddenly deprived of their sacred character, because it had pleased Solomon to build himself a temple. He knew better than to think that the powerful northern tribes of Gad, Manasseh, and Ephraim would consent to give up their time-honoured shrines in order to sacrifice at Jerusalem, which would entail a long, tedious journey. The new temple, therefore, brought no change in the outward religious observances of the nation until the schism, as may be inferred by frequent passages in Kings, deeply imbued, though they be, with what has been called Deuteronomism. No one reading the speech and mystical prayer placed in the mouth of Solomon at the dedica- tion of the temple, can fail to observe that, albeit much stress is laid upon the blessings that will accrue to the Israelites when they pray to Jehovah, their faces turned towards the temple, no allusion is made as to the obligation of sacrificing uniquely at Jerusalem. 4 After the schism, when the righteous wrath of Elijah and Elisha is kindled against the Canaanite practices of Ahab and other idola- trous princes, they are not reproved for not "going up to Jerusalem to worship," but for having forsaken the God of Jacob. Does not the example of Elijah on Mount Carmel repudiate the idea of any such restriction, when he triumphantly shows to the assembled Israel that his sacrifice has been accepted by Jehovah, since He has sent His fire to consume the victim ? 5 In this and analogous passages no reference is made to Jerusalem or the temple ; the writer, carried away by his admiration for the man of God, whose miracles he recounts, is unconscious of the real nature of Ephraimite traditions, and that they do not always harmonize with the other details of his picture. With Judah matters took a very different course ; the very 1 2 Chrort. xxiv. 21, 22. 2 1 Kings xiv. 23. s Ibid., iii. 4. 4 Ibid., viii. '"' Ibid., xviii.