THE RENEWAL AND THE SOURCE OF HOLINESS

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THE SACRIFICE AND ITS EFFECTS

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HAT is holy has its value in itself by virtue of its sovereign power. But it is not immutable; holiness can be acquired and lost, just as it can deteriorate and be renewed. If all holiness vanished, life would perish because the blessing draws its nourish- ment from holiness. But it is in man’s power to contribute to the renewal of holiness ; by so doing he will secure the maintenance of his world and his own life. This life-sustaining activity is exercised through the cult in the holy places.

The multifarious places of worship, from the simple stone to

the magnificent temples, were bound to become the background of a heterogeneous cultus. At the large temples there developed an ever-increasing ritual activity which must needs give rise to new shades in the whole character of the cult. We may to a certain extent follow this development at the only temple which held its own far down in time, viz. the main temple at Jerusalem. Some few indications show that other temples, too, had a rich ritual apparatus, but the history of these temples has been lost. The old narratives and laws, however, allow us to observe certain general features, and we see that the cult at the sanctuaries of Israel, also, is made up of common elements. The chief of these is the sacrifice.

The Israelite sacrifice does not differ much from that in common use among other Canaanite peoples, but to a certain extent it has acquired a special Israelitish character. The significance of the sacrifice has many aspects, and in the course of time a few of these gained the ascendancy and spread, while others receded into the background.

In order to understand this it is natural to start from Israel’s treatment of the new life produced by the increase among the cattle and in the fields, because it shows plainly the connection

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between the sacrifice and the Israelite people’s view of nature.

We know that fruit-trees - and among these were included the olive and the vine - were to live their own life, untrimmed for three years after they were planted. 1 But man cannot immediately after this begin to appropriate their fruits. “And in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be a holiness of festive rejoicing before Yahweh, and in the fifth year you may partake of its fruit that you may increase its produce for yourself. I am Yahweh, your God!” (Lev. 19,24-25).

Behind this ordinance lies an idea which we know from the treatment of the spoil. When something alien is to be absorbed, it must be sanctified, Yahweh being given his share; in this way it is prepared for appropriation by the special Israelite psyche.

An assimilation takes place, and at the same time the fruit is filled with a holy strength; the blessing accruing therefrom maintains the growth and fruitfulness of the tree. This is what is stated in the law. *

A special law applies to the trees with their perennial life, but the same fundamental rule holds good for all the produce of the fields which the Israelites wish to appropriate. The appropriation can only take place by a sanctification which at the same time approaches the alien life to the soul of Israel and supplies a renewed strength for its maintenance. The provisions relating to the firsf-frrtits are concerned with this. All the law codes contain ordinances about it; they do not form a continuous chain, even though a comparison of them clearly shows the trend of the development. 3

The ordinance is found in its most general and comprehensive form in the book of the Covenant and the law of the Two Tables, in which it reads: The first of the first-fruits (ri?shith bikktirim) of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of Yahweh thy God!

(Ex. 23,19 ; 34,26). The first (bikkdrim) of the first-fruits is that part of the crops which ripens first and is reaped first. First-fruit, rZi’shith, denotes partly the first, the beginning, partly the best, the main part. The term first-fruits does not render the concept in its full extension; for it is used not only about growth and crops, but also, for instance, about the beginning of a period of

OFFERING OF FIRST-FRUITS 301

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time. It is no mere accident that the two meanings: the first and the best, the most important, are combined in the word, it is closely connected with the whole Israelitish way of thinking and handling of ideas. The first ancestor of the Israelites, for instance, the first Israelite, is the archetype, in whom the whole Israelitish nature is inherent; the same applies to the progenitor of an animal species, the archetypal animal, and the first day of a period embodies in itself the whole character of the period, so that the following days unfold from it. Every totality is concentrated in its first origin.

This is what gives the first-fruits their importance. They are not the best in the sense that the best developed part of the fruits has been selected; but as the first of the produce they represent the whole; the entire power and blessedness of the harvest are concentrated in them. Hence the first-fruits have a special possibility of being holy and acting by their holiness on the growth of the rest of the produce. “The first of the first-fruits”, then, means the representative part of the harvest that first grows ripe.

It is to be brought to Yahweh’s house so as to be sanctified by being given to the holy place. “First-fruits” and “holy” become synonymous ideas (Jer. 2,3 ; Ez. 4814).

The book of the Covenant has another ordinance of a similar kind: Thou shalt not withhold thy increase (m~lE’~thrRti) and thy first drops (dim’oRhd) (Ex. 22,28). The increase must denote the same thing as the first-fruits (cf. Num. 18,27), that in which the power and value of the crops is concentrated, and “the drops”

must be “the first” of the expressed grape juice and oil. Thus the book of the Covenant contains an ordinance relating to the sanctification both of the crop just harvested and of the produce of the fruit harvest in its next stage, as the expressed juice.

The Israelites having three harvest seasons, the season of the barley harvest, the wheat harvest, and the fruit harvest, they had the produce of three periods to sanctify. This sanctification was done jointly and formed the basis of the three great agricultural feasts. That the first-fruits are concerned is only stated expressly about the second feast in the book of the Covenant. Here mention is made of “the first-fruits of thy labours, that which thou hast

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_ 302 THE SACRIFICE AND ITS EFFECTS

sown in thy field” (Ex. 23,16) or, as it is also put, “the first- fruits of the wheat harvest” (Ex. 34,22). It does not say in what form the harvest is sanctified, nor how the sanctification is to be carried out.

In the law of holiness more definite rules are given for the sanctification of the crops at the two grain-harvest feasts. Yahweh makes Moses say to the Israelites: When ye come into the land which I give unto you, and reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh to your advantage;

the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it (Lev. 23,10-11).

Some ordinary offerings are to be added to this, and now the text goes on to say: And bread, roasted ears, or fresh dough of corn you shall not eat before this selfsame day, before you have brought the offering (~orbdn) for your God, as an eternal decree for your generations in all your dwellings (23,14).

On the fiftieth day after the above-mentioned sabbath the first- fruit offering of the wheat harvest is brought: Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves; they shall be made of two tenths of fine flour (i. e. of wheat), and baked with leaven, as first-fruits unto Yahweh (Lev. 23,17). To this must be added several other offerings. It is this day which the Priestly Code calls

“the day of the first-fruits” in the festival under consideration (Num. 28,26). As regards the fruit harvest the law of holiness speaks of fruits and the boughs of trees (Lev. 23,40), but a sanctification of the fruit by offering the first-fruits in not expressly mentioned.

The sanctification of the barley sheaf is of most interest in this connection, because we have here a typical first-fruit offering.

Doubtless it is an ancient custom here fixed in the form of a law.

The first sheaf, i. e. the raw first produce, is brought to the priest.

He waves it before Yahweh, by which act it is sanctified and absorbed in the sphere of Yahweh. Not until this sanctification has taken place can men venture to appropriate the crops to their own uses, whether to consume them as ordinary bread or as cakes of fresh corn or to eat the fresh ears roasted. We may take it for granted that such a sheaf was originally brought to the sanctuary

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from each farm, and perhaps this is implied, too, in the words of the text.

The sanctification of the sheaf is assigned to a certain day of the week, “the day after the sabbath”. The first Sunday of the harvest might be meant, but more probably a definite day is meant, and then it can only have been the Sunday of the Passover week. 1 This dating is hardly old, the most natural assumption is that each farmer sanctified his sheaf as soon as it was reaped.

On the other hand, it would be absurd to suppose that the law of holiness should not have known the feast of unleavened bread.

None of the law collections available to us are complete. But the custom is an interesting testimony to the fact that the desire for sanctification of the crops was not satisfied by the ritual of Passover week and the part played there by the unleavened bread, even though it was probably also originally used to sanctify the new crops. The sanctification of the sheaf brought a living element into the treatment of the barley harvest. By becoming part of the Passover ritual, however, this act, too, gradually became merely a formal one, performed by the priest on behalf of the congregation with a single sheaf.

The first-fruit offering of the wheat harvest differs from that of the barley harvest in that it is not the fresh sheaf but two fully baked wheat loaves which are offered to Yahweh as the first-fruits, and sanctified by waving like the sheaf. They signify the termina- tion of the grain-harvest. It is a question whether the reference made in the book of the Covenant to the first-fruits of what has been sown in the fields does not allude to the sanctification of the raw corn (Ex. 23,16, cf. 34,22). This would be nothing strange.

We have seen that the book of the Covenant reckons with the sanctification of fruit in its different stages. The circles which the law of holiness has in view may also have sanctified a wheat sheaf, even though the law only mentions the finished loaf.

A sanctification of the corn in its different stages of pre- paration is evidenced in scattered precepts in the various laws.

Reference is made to an offering of first-fruits to be brought in the shape of a cake baked of a fresh dough of crushed grain; it is to be mixed with oil and incense and its ‘azkiirii is to be burnt

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on the altar (Lev. 2,14-l 6). The first of the cakes baked of coarse flour are also consecrated: And it shall be that when ye eat of the bread of the land, ye shall select an oblation for Yahweh. The first of your coarse flour ye shall take out in cakes as a portion;

as the oblation from the threshing floor, so shall ye take it out.

Of the first of your coarse flour ye shall give unto Yahweh an oblation in all your generations (Num. 15,19-2 1). Here it is clearly stated that both the raw grain from the threshing floor and the newly baked bread is to be consecrated through its first batch, and this is confirmed by other evidence (Ez. 44,30; Neh.

10,38). At each stage man must sanctify the crops to be able to appropriate them. And the demand for the sanctification of the first-fruits was extended to other substances associated with the consumption of bread, such as honey and leaven; but that this demand was something secondary appears from the fact that this first produce was not allowed on the altar (Lev. 2,2, cf. 2 Chron.

31,5).

The book of the Covenant only states in quite general terms that the first-fruits are brought to the sanctuary. In the law of holiness we hear about a “waving” of the first-fruits by the priest in the temple, and in other laws we hear of a partial burning on the altar of what has been sanctified. In Deuteronomy we meet with the command that the Israelites are to put the first of all the fruits of the earth in a basket and give it to the priest who is to place it in front of the altar. The worshipper shall then say before Yahweh: My father was a miserable Aramaean, who went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and there became a nation, great, mighty and numerous. And the Egyptians harassed and humiliated us and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried unto Yahweh, the God of our fathers, and Yahweh heard our voice and saw our misery, our toil, and our trouble. And Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an out- stretched arm and with great terror and with signs and with wonders. An he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I bring the first-fruits of the land which thou, Yahweh, hast given me. - And the text goes on to say: And thou shalt set it before

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Yahweh thy God, and thou shalt prostrate thyself before Yahweh thy God. And thou shalt rejoice over every good thing which Yahweh thy God hath given unto thee and thine house, thou and the Levite and the g& that is in thy midst (Deut. 26,1-11).

The import of the worshipper’s prayer is that he gives Yahweh the first-fruits of the harvest of Canaan, because Israel has received Canaan as a sheer gift from her God. There is in this a change in the old idea of the first-fruits, which was that man sanctifies the gift of Nature for the purpose of strengthening it and so as to be able to appropriate it. The old relation of man to Nature has receded into the background, giving place to Israel’s relation to her God through history. Apart from the prayer, we hear of a procedure consisting in the first-fruits being brought in a basket and sanctified by being set before the altar. We are told that the priest puts the basket there, but towards the close of the story only the worshipper himself would seem to be active.

Probably, then, the narrative has been altered, and in that way perhaps both the cooperation of the priest and the text of the prayer have been introduced. This as well as other Deuteronomic laws probably gives expression to customs prevalent in Judaean cities, and employed by the author as a basis for cult requirements in Jerusalem. On the other hand, the command as to “the waving”

mentioned in the law of holiness agrees with a sacrificial practice fixed in the Priestly Code and thus in common use at the temple of Jerusalem after the Exile.

Deuteronomy concludes with a command to

the worshipper to

rejoice in every good thing given him by Yahweh, and this

means

that he acquires the full right to use the crops when he has given Yahweh his share. It is the same idea as is expressed by

Ezekiel;

when the first-fruits have been sanctified there is a blessing in the crops (Ez. 44,30), but there is an accentuation of the note to which the prayer gives expression.

As indicated above, the offering of the first-fruits originally formed the nucleus of the agricultural feasts, but the idea itself was so deeply rooted in the relation of the Israelites to Nature that it continued to give rise to new forms. Gradually as the festivals were restricted to the large temples, especially to that

Johs. Pedersen: Israel III-IV. 20

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of Jerusalem, the feast-offerings became public functions having no direct connection with the farming of the individual peasant.

But then the first-fruit offerings of the individual came into use again, the land-owners bringing their first-fruits to the temple without these becoming part of the feast-offerings. We have seen evidence of this in the ritual described in Deuteronomy.

The peasant was driven to do this by his own desire to have his crops sanctified, but there was a class of men who were interested in keeping alive this desire, viz. the priests. What became of the holy crop when the first-fruits had been sanctified, either by being waved or by being set before the altar? Only in a single unimportant case in the late laws do we hear of it being burnt on the altar (Lev. 2,14-16) ; as a rule what is holy falls to the priests. The law of holiness says about the sheaf which is waved and its accompaniments that these are consecrated to Yahweh on behalf of the priest (Lev. 23,20).

This is a very natural procedure. The priest possessed the same holiness as the sanctuary and could therefore take what was holy without causing any breach in its holiness or bringing any ill-fortune upon himself. In the narratives about Elisha we hear that a man brought the man of God “bread of the first- fruits, twenty loaves of barley and coarse flour, in his bag (3)“.

The holy man had it distributed among the people and there was plenty for a hundred persons (2 Kings 4,42-44). We see the vitality of the idea inherent in the sanctification of the first-fruits.

Where there was holiness the first-fruits could be used without following the fixed rules of a law. Possibly the loaves mentioned here had not been in the sanctuary, but acquired their sanctity by being given to the holy man.

The regular procedure, however, was to deliver the first-fruits in the sanctuary, where they fell to the priest, and this came to be exacted by the law. Deuteronomy has: The first-fruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep shalt thou give him (i. e. the priest) (Deut. l&4) Here the wool growing on the animals is co-ordinated with the produce of the soil. Ezekiel says: The first of all the first-fruits of all things, and every oblation of each sort of your oblations

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shall fall to the priests; and ye shall give unto the priest the first of your coarse flour that the blessing may dwell in thine house (Ez. 44,30), and Ezekiel emphasises that it is in the temple of Jerusalem that it is to be given (20,40). And finally it says in the post-exilic sacrificial laws: All the fat of the oil, and all the fat of the wine and corn, their first-fruits which they offer unto Yahweh, I give to thee. The first crops of all that is in their land which they bring unto Yahweh shall belong to thee. Every one that is clean in thine house may eat of it (Num. 18,12-l 3).

The person addressed is the priest. He receives the first-fruits, but he may also let his family partake of them. It is true that they are holy, but not in any high degree. The designation of the first-fruits as the “fat” shows that the old view of this part of the produce as the essential part filled with power still survived, and from Ezekiel’s words we learn that, as previously, the sancti- fication of the first-fruits had the object of creating blessedness in the houses of the Israelites. But a new factor has been added, the delivery of the first-fruits to the priests in the sanctuary being represented in the laws as a right belonging to the priests, an income to which they can lay claim.

The development of the first-fruit offering reveals certain lines determined by the fact that the official cuitus became divorced from the life of the individual peasant or even entirely divorced from Nature, while the relation to Nature from which the offering sprang still survived among the peasants themselves. To this must be added the claims of the increasing priesthood, which were hardly at bottom related to the conception of the peasant, though the priests understood how to profit by it.

Considering the tendency of the first-fruits to become a tax, it is peculiar that the laws give no rules as to its amount. In that respect it has retained its spontaneous character; if any quantity is mentioned at all, it is a basket-full or a sheaf. But in addition to the law of the first-fruits we have a law relating to a similar sanctification of produce in which the quantity is brought into the foreground, viz. the law of tit&.

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