the porch of Solomon's temple stood two great pillars of bronze,
which were called Jachin and Boaz; they were simply the symbols which
stood at the entrance to every Phenician temple of the sun-god
worshipped there. The priests of Israel were dressed like those of
Tyre and Sidon; they offered the same animals as sacrifices, they
received the same dues for their maintenance. When so much apparatus
was borrowed, it is no wonder that the gods of Phenicia were at times
worshipped at Jerusalem. We see from this whole chapter that the
religion of Israel was not so much apart from that of the other
Syrian peoples as we have been wont to imagine. Even in his religion
Israel owed something to his neighbours; his religion came to be
better than theirs, but it was the result of a movement in which they
also had taken part.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

The Histories of Antiquity. E. Meyer, Duncker (see p. 101).

Tiele's _Egyptische en Mesopotamische Godsdiensten_. Book II.:
Phenicia and Israel.

The Histories of Israel, especially Kuenen, _The Religion of Israel_.

F. Jeremias, in De la Saussaye, vol. i. pp. 348-383.

E. Meyer, "Phenicia," in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_.

CHAPTER XII
ISRAEL

It is a circumstance of the greatest value for the science of
religion that the Old Testament is so well known. That book is the
most valuable literary storehouse we possess of the facts and ideas
connected with the early religion of mankind; it is the best
text-book of the earlier portion of our subject. In our chapters on
primitive worship, as well as in that on the Semites, we have drawn
largely from this source, and for the earlier stages of the religion
of Israel we may refer to these chapters. We have now, however, to
deal specially with the religion of the Old Testament, and to
endeavour to show, as has been done in other cases, what was its
specific character, and how its character determined its history. The
story to be told in this chapter is, even apart from our special
interest in it, as fascinating as any in this volume; it was through
a mental movement of unparalleled grandeur, as well as through an
outward history of tragic and entrancing interest, that the Jews came
to possess the religion which was the desire of all nations, and the
chief preparation for Christianity.

We have to begin, however, with repeating in this case what has been
and will be the burden of our opening paragraphs in many chapters of
this book, na