STACK 4NNF.X 5 07 ) THE ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND THE MASSOTH- FESTIVAL JULIAN MORGENSTERN Reprinted for private circulation from THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY, Vol. XXI, No. 2, April 1917 THE ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND THE MASSOTH- FESTIVAL JULIAN MORGENSTERN Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati It is a generally accepted fact that the biblical festival of Pesah, or Passover, is the result of the amalgamation of two ancient festi- vals, the original Pesah and the Hag Hammassoth. 1 Pesah was in origin essentially a shepherd festival, observed by the Israelite tribes in common with practically all Semitic peoples in the nomad stage of civilization. Upon it, apparently, the first- lings were offered as a taboo-sacrifice to the deity, conceived of primarily as the creator and bestower of life. However, after these nomad tribes had taken up permanent residence in Canaan, and had passed over into the agricultural stage of civilization, with the necessary modification of original shepherd customs and religious rites, this sacrifice of firstlings upon this annual festival developed into the sacrifice of a yearling lamb or kid for each household, now the regular social unit. This was known as the Paschal lamb or Paschal sacrifice, and became the characteristic feature of the celebration of the original nomad festival in the new agricultural environment. From its beginning Pesah seems to have been celebrated at night, and to have been of only one night's duration. The Masses-festival, on the other hand, was an agricultural festival pure and simple, celebrated originally by the Canaanites and borrowed from them by Israel. It was celebrated just before the beginning of the harvest season, which in Palestine comes shortly after the vernal equinox, 3 and, along with most of the 1 Cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena 6 , pp. 82-88. 3 According to Dionysius of Alexandria (Eusebius, Church History, VII, 20), it was not proper to celebrate the Passover until after the vernal equinox. Muljaddas! (Description of Syria, Including Palestine, translated by Le Strange [Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society], p. 76) too relates that Easter was celebrated by both the Christians and the Moslems of Syria at the vernal equinox. 275 2092581 276 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY agricultural festivals of the western Semites, was of seven days' duration. The characteristic feature of its celebration, at least in the undoubtedly modified biblical form, was the eating of Massoth, or unleavened bread. The question of the origin of this peculiar and interesting rite is one which has always been recognized as important, but which has generally been dismissed with a superficial explanation, that, how- ever, lay so ready at hand as to mislead even the most capable and careful scholars. 1 Because of the evident connection of the Massoth-festiva.1 with the beginning of the harvest, and the bring- ing of the ^Omer, or first sheaf, of barley as a taboo-sacrifice, and the permission following thereupon to eat of the new crop, it has been generally assumed that these Massoth were made of the new crop, were "the natural offering, from the newly-gathered barley, to the gods that had allowed the crops to ripen, and after that were the staple article of food of the harvesters," 2 and were partaken of during the festival as a kind of sacrament. It is, to say the least, surprising that this theory should have found such general acceptance. For, since the C 0mer was brought, at the very earliest, only on the second day of the festival, and the new crop was absolutely forbidden until this sacrifice had been brought, and yet the eating of Massoth was enjoined from the very first day of the festival, it follows that either the Massoth of the first day must have been made of the old crop, and have differed in this respect from those eaten after the C 0mer had been brought, a distinction of which no biblical record is found, 3 or else the 1 As for example, Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 83 f. * Hirsch, in Jewish Encyclopedia, IX, 554. 3 This is touched upon in the older Midrashim, yet too briefly and confusedly for the evidence to be at all conclusive. To harmonize Deut. 16:8, "Six days shall thou eat unleavened bread," with Exod. 13:6, "Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread," Rabbi Simon (Sifre to Deut., par. 134; ed. Friedmann, 1016) says, "For six days one should eat (Massoth made) of the new grain, and for one day (Ma$sotk made) of the old grain." (However the Sulzbach edition, 6ga, col. 2, reads, "For six days one should eat of the new grain, but on the seventh day of the old." This last procedure, though strange indeed and probably incorrect, agrees in part with MehiUa, Bo, VIII [ed. Weiss, 116]). Cf., also Jer . Pesahim, V, 33*1. These references I owe to the kind- ness of my colleague, Professor J. Z. Lauterbach. ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 277 Massoth of the entire festival must have been made, wholly or in part, of the old crop. Furthermore, if the Massoth were made of the new crop at the very beginning of the harvest, they could have been made of barley alone. And if so, then this fact would certainly have been properly recorded. Not only does no such provision occur, but the Bible seems by its very silence and the general nature of its references to imply that Massoth might be made from almost any kind of gram. And the Mishnah 1 distinctly provides that Massoth may be made of wheat, barley, spelt, oats, or rye, while according to the Gemara 2 rice and a species of millet are alone prohibited. Clearly the Massoth could not have been made of the new crop, but must have been made of the old crop, at least in part. Conse- quently, the customary explanation of their origin, cited above, is altogether groundless. 3 Before we offer a solution of this problem we must first deter- mine the exact time, in relation to the harvest, when this festival was originally celebrated. Whereas P (Exod. 12:3, 6, 15-20; Lev. 23:5-8; Num. 28:16-25) dates the festival from the i5th through the 2ist of the first month, the older codes (Exod. 23:15; 34:18; Deut. 16:1-8) merely fix the festival for the month 4 of Abib, the month of ripening grain. After the close of its Passover legislation, Deuteronomy proceeds to legislate for the next harvest festival, of first-fruits or weeks (Deut. 16:9-12). It provides that this festival, of only a single day's duration, shall come exactly seven weeks after the day when the sickle is first put to the stand- ing grain. There is no direct statement that the Masses-festival was connected with this last act. Yet from the context as much might be inferred. However, the provision in H (Lev. 23 : 9-1 6) that the C 0mer shall be offered upon the day after the Sabbath of the Massoth-testival, 1 Pesahim, II, 5. 1 B. Pesahim, 350. Cf. Eisenstein in Jewish Encyclopedia, VIII, 393. 3 Cf. also, Marti, Geschichte der israelitischen Religion 5 , pp. 124 f. 4 Or, possibly, the new-moon day (a communication from Dr. K. Kohler). I believe that this suggestion has also been made by Meinhold. 278 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY and that from this day t hey shall count fifty days until the Feast of Weeks makes it clear that this same connection between the two festivals is implied in Deut. chap. 16, and that the Massoth- festival, according to D as well as H, was celebrated at the very beginning of the harvest season. But we must still determine the exact meaning of the much- discussed expression used by H, tQIDH rHJtQia . Rabbinic tradition has interpreted this as the second day of the Massoth- or Passover- festival, the first day being regarded as the Sabbath because of the importance of the Paschal rites observed thereon, or, more correctly, upon the evening before. 1 However, while this did become the accepted rabbinical inter- pretation of this expression, it is significant that it was by no 'It is, however, significant that Num. 33:3 states explicitly that by miTDH nOBH not the i6th but the i$th of the month was meant. The same is undoubt- edly the implication of Josh. 5:11 f. (Granting that the words HDSn HIITE'D and miTffiQ , missing in LXX, are a late insertion [cf. Holzinger, Joshua, pp. 12 f.], then this is the implication of the glossator). Not unlikely the words flCSH miTOU in Num. 33 : 3 are a gloss, and the original text merely cited the fact that the Exodus took place on the isth of the first month. At any rate careful consideration shows that FlOSn mrraiQ of Num. 33:3 cannot be identical with I"QT8n nintt'Q of Lev. 23: ii ; for this would imply that the i4th of the first month, the day preceding the eve upon which the festival really began, consequently the day upon which all preparations for the festal celebration were to be made, was the Sabbath, on the face an utter impossibility. At the same time, it seems that the late author or glossator of Josh. 5:11 f. did mistakenly regard nOSPJ mTTQlS of Num. 33:3 as identical with PQtDn mmstt of Lev. 23: 11, and therefore told that on the day after the Pass- over (i.e., the day after the Sabbath), in other words, on the day of bringing the cOmer, the sacrifice of which removed the taboo upon the new crop, the people actually began to eat of the new crop (LXX,V*^a, for the biblical ''ibp . Cf. also, Samaritan Chronicle, XVII [ed. Crane, 50]), and therefore the manna ceased upon this self same day. Furthermore, the traditional application of the term t"QTJ5 to the first day of the Jfa0 ?LSO . It is clear, therefore, that the rabbinic interpretation of rGTCiTJ STHrtQS as the second day of the festival, with the accompanying result that the Massoth would be eaten during the continuation of the festival through the first six days of the harvest season, was by no means universal or necessarily correct. Careful consideration of the biblical evidence confirms the con- clusion that rQTSn rnrnaE can mean only the day after the close of the Passover festival. In the first place it must be noted that vss. 4-8, in which the provisions for the celebration of the Massoth- festival occur, are from P and not from H. The prescriptions of H for the celebration of the Massoth-festival, and the relation thereto of the ceremony of bringing the C 0mer, can no longer be definitely determined. Yet so far as can be gathered from the Bible, there is not the slightest reason for believing that raiCH cannot designate the concluding day of the festival quite as well as the first day. In fact, since the festival lasted for seven days, it would most likely be thought to have but one Sabbath, and that the last day of the seven, since the feeling must have been strong that the Sabbath came but once, and as the last day of, every seven days. This hypothesis is strengthened by the unquestionable fact particular Sabbath are confused, and probably prove no more than that from the very oldest times the day was regarded as peculiarly holy. And long after the origin of its peculiar sanctity was forgotten, these various traditions sprang up to account therefor. Not impossibly the peculiar sanctity of this day is a reminiscence of the earliest form of the celebration, when the festival actually began on Sunday, and the preceding day was, in a certain sense, likewise important and sacred as the day of preparation for the festival. A reminiscence of this seems to lie in the tradition (cf. Tosefot to B. Shabbas, 876), that at the time of Exodus the toth day of the ist month fell upon Saturday; nevertheless, obeying God's command (Exod. 12:3), the Israelites selected the lambs for the first Paschal sacrifice on that Sabbath day. 1 Cf. A. Epstein, "Essay on the Falashas," in his Eldad Haddani, pp. 153 ff. 2 The Falashas, of course, employ the regular Jewish calendar. ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 281 that H uses the term FQ1D frequently in the sense of a group of seven, whether days or years. 1 Exod. 13:6, which gives the J prescriptions for the celebration of the Massoth-iestival, 2 without any direct reference to the Pass- over with its sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, expressly states that Mossoth shall be eaten during the seven days of the festival, and only upon the last day does the hag, the sacred dance, the culmi- nating religious rite of the festival, occur. A more direct and explicit statement, that hi the original M assot A-festival the seventh rather than the first day was the most important day, could not be desired. In view of this unmistakable evidence it is certain that both D and H, as their contexts imply, regarded, with J, the seventh and last day of the festival as the one of chief importance, the one upon which the ceremonial climax was reached. This therefore must be the day designated by H as the Sabbath, upon the day after which the C 0mer was to be sacrificed and the actual harvest and the enjoyment of the new crop were to begin. It is certain that the ritual importance of the last day of the week, emphasized particularly in P, was the result of the combi- nation of the two festivals, Pesah and Massoth. The peculiar nature of the Paschal sacrifice with its many attendant details, all culminating in certain very definite and picturesque ceremonies, performed in a single night, would tend to magnify the importance 'Lev. 23:16; 25:8; cf. also, Isa. 66:23 and Duhm on this passage. Note also the common Palestinian-Aramaic and Syriac designation for the week, fOtD , and also the New Testament ffdpfiarov (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 7; Luke 18:12; I Cor. 16:2). This in itself would make it probable that the term fQlDn as used by H means the last day of the festival rather than the first day. In this connection attention may be called to the interesting fact that whereas, so far as can be determined, in all other sources rQTD is invariably masculine, in H it is regularly feminine. (Exod. 31:13-16; Lev. 23:3, 15, 16; 25:6,8. In Lev. 16:31, ^ n n should probably be emended to Sin ; cf. Exod. 35:2; Lev. 23:32; 25:4. Like- wise in Jer. 17: 24, the Massorites changed the Ketib rQ to "Q. Probably they were correct in this, since otherwise in Jer. rQ1B seems to be invariably masculine.) Not impossibly this feminization of ffllD may be due to the influence of the Babylonian sabattu (feminine), with which the H writers, probably living in Babylon, were, not improbably, acquainted. * Though recast somewhat by later Deuteronomic writers. 282 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY of this rite over the rather long-drawn-out rites of the Massoth- festival, particularly colorless when divested of their original, non- Yahwistic elements. Accordingly the natural tendency would be to accentuate the importance of the ceremonial on the first night of the combined festival, and to minimize, unconsciously perhaps, the importance of the last day. This tendency would be heightened as the Passover came to be increasingly regarded as commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, fixed by tradition upon the first day of the festival. Nevertheless Lev. 23:7-8 still represents both first and last days as days of solemn assembly and abstention from work; both are equally holy. 1 From all this evidence we may posit with certainty that previ- ous to its amalgamation with the Passover, and the consequent transference of the ritual culmination of the celebration from the seventh to the first day, the Masses-festival was celebrated for seven days, and reached its ritual climax upon the last day. On this day the hag, or ritual dance, was celebrated, and on the next day the people went out to their fields, solemnly cut the first sheaf of barley and brought it with proper ceremonial to their local shrines as the taboo-sacrifice for the new crop. Thereafter they were free 1 It is impossible to determine just when this amalgamation of these two originally independent festivals took place. In all likelihood it evolved gradually, owing chiefly to the fact that the two festivals were celebrated at about the same time of the year, and that the Passover, originally a shepherd festival, naturally lost its primary sig- nificance when celebrated by an agricultural people. This amalgamation would naturally be furthered by the attempt to attach a historical significance to the com- bined festival by associatibg it with the Exodus. Undoubtedly this historicization of this combined festival began some time before D, for already the JE account of the festival associates it with the Exodus (Exod. 13:3-16. But notice that this account shows decided evidence of Deuteronomistic reworking; cf. Holzinger and Baentsch to the passage.) But it may be safely inferred that the amalgamation was still by no means complete at the time of the composition of D, for the Passover legislation in Deut. 16: 1-8 is by no means a unit, and exhibits unmistakable evidence of later rework- ing (cf. Steuernagel and Bertholet on the passage). Likewise H (or P, Lev. 23:5 f.) distinguishes carefully between the two festivals. This distinction is still maintained in the Samaritan Passover ritual (Petermann, Reisen im Orient, I, 288). It is quite certain that the final amalgamation of the two festivals, and the complete association of this new resultant festival with the Exodus, with its emphasis laid upon the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb and the attendant rites upon the first night of the festival, is the work of the post-Deuteronomic period, and finds its first complete and harmonious expression in P. ORIGIN OF MA$SOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 283 to partake at will of the new barley, without fear of violating the property rights of the deity and incurring his consequent displeas- ure and wrath. This sacred dance upon the last day of the A/Vm0^-festival may well remind us of the festival dance described in Exod. 32:51!., of the dances of the maidens of Shiloh in the vineyards as a part of the celebration of their annual hag (Judg. 21:19 if.) and of the dances of the maidens of Jerusalem in the vineyards on the 1 5th of Ab and the loth of Tishri. 1 It is quite significant that, according to Josephus, 2 these dances were celebrated thrice annually. The implication is that they constituted integral parts of the celebra- tion of the three great, annual harvest festivals, consequently designated by the term hag. This entire matter I have treated in greater detail elsewhere. 3 There I have shown that these dances were celebrated in the earliest Canaanite ritual in honor of the great Canaanite triad or trinity, the father-god Ba c al, the mother- goddess Ashera, or Astarte, and the divine child, Tarnmuz, or Adonis. The more important festivals were celebrated for seven days. They began with a period of fasting, mourning, and bodily affliction, as if for someone dead, naturally the dead god of vege- tation, Tammuz. But day by day they became more and more joyous in the thought that the dead deity had been, or soon would be, restored to life in the crop of the new year. And this increas- ing joyousness culminated in the sacred dances upon the seventh day, participated in chiefly by the maidens, and attended by scenes of mad merry-making and wild, unbridled license, and sacred prostitution. Into a detailed consideration of these ceremonies we cannot enter here. 4 1 Mishnah, Ta^mth, IV, 8. ' Ant. V. ii. 12. *JAOS, XXXVI (1916), 321-33, and an article soon to appear in JQR (New Series). It is interesting to note that Maundrell (ed. Wright, in Bonn's Antiquarian Library [1848], pp. 462-74), in describing the celebration of Easter at Jerusalem, as witnessed by him April 3-10, 1697, says that the entire celebration lasted seven days. It began with Easter Sunday, or rather with the ceremony of the descent of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Sepulcher on the late afternoon of the preceding day, and continued until the following Saturday. Of this last day Maundrell writes: "We 284 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Now, if the Massoth-iestiva.1 was originally an Astarte-Tammuz festival, as has been stated, and of this the proof is ample, it would be surprising did it too not begin, as did all other such festivals, with a period of fasting and mourning for the dead and soon-to-be- revived god. Of actual mourning rites only meager traces remain. But there is abundant evidence of the ceremony of fasting as pre- paratory, or introductory, to the celebration of the Massoth-iesiival. It is still customary among orthodox Jews for first-born sons, and some say even first-born daughters, to fast in preparation for the festival; 1 and in more ancient times it seems to have been the regular practice that all people fast on the day before the begin- ning of the festival, hi order that they might better enjoy the went to take our leaves of the holy sepulcher, this being the last time it was to be opened this festival. "Upon this finishing day, and the night following, the Turks allow free admittance for all people, without demanding any fee for entrance as at other times, calling it a day of charity. By this promiscuous licence they let in, not only the poor, but, as I was told, the lewd and vicious also, who come thither to get convenient opportunity for prostitution, profaning the holy places in such manner (as it is said) that they were not worse denied even when the heathens here celebrated their aphrodisia." We can- not help correlating the promiscuous license upon this concluding day with the merry- making and license of the last day of the ancient Canaanite agricultural festivals, and particularly the Massotk-testival, out of which, as is generally admitted, Easter developed. In this connection too it should be noted that rabbinical tradition has dated the crossing of the Red Sea upon the 7th and last day of the Passover, and in this way accounted for the, to the rabbis, otherwise seemingly inexplicable sanctity of this day. This tradition implies that the song and dances of Miriam and her maidens (Exod. chap. 15) were celebrated on this concluding day of the festival. It is probably a reminiscence of the old Canaanite and early Israelite practice of the dances and songs of the maidens upon the concluding day of the great harvest festivals. Possibly too, the language of the Midrash may even be interpreted as somewhat reminiscent of the fact that this last day of the festival was the Sabbath (Shemot Robba, Par. XIX, near end). Commenting upon Exod. 13:7, the Midrash says, "No leaven shall be seen with thee for seven days; corresponding to the original seven days intervening between the redemption and the dividing of the Red Sea are the seven days of creation; and just as the Sabbath is fixed once in every seven days, so are these seven days (of the Passover) fixed for each year." 1 ShtUhan c Aruh, ?Orah Hayyim, 470. The importance of this practice of the first-born fasting may be inferred from the custom cited by Moses Isserles (ibid., notes), that while the first-born child is still a minor, and therefore not obligated to fast, the father shall fast for him; but if the father himself be a first-born, and therefore bound to fast for himself, the mother shall fast for the child. ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 285 opening feast and thereby perform the duty of eating the Massoth with greater gusto and zeal. 1 The Falashas too observe a general fast on the part of all the people from the evening of the i3th to the evening of the i4th of Nisan. 2 The traditional reason for this fasting is that it commemorates the deliverance of the Israelite first-born from the fate that over- took the Egyptian first-born. But the Falasha practice and also the former practice of pious Jews, that not only first-born, but all people, fast on the day preceding the Passover, implies that at one time this practice of a general fast may well have been the rule and not the exception. Just this is what we would expect as part of the celebration of an ancient Astarte-Tammuz festival. Furthermore, the custom, still observed by orthodox Jews, of carefully searching out and destroying all leaven, or so providing for its disposal that there might be no possibility of its enjoyment during the festival, is of prime importance. 3 According to R. Jehudah this leaven could be destroyed only by burning. 4 Its destruction was imperative. The Bible insists that there shall be absolutely no leaven, neither hames nor S'or within the entire country during the seven days of the festival (Exod. 12:15; 13:7; Deut. 16:4). We can interpret this custom, and that of fasting as prepara- tory to the main celebration of the festival, only in the light of similar customs, observed under practically parallel conditions, by primitive agricultural peoples. The entire Massoth-festiva]., we have shown, originally preceded the commencement of the harvest. The new crop could not be eaten until after its regular taboo- sacrifice of the C 0mer, or first sheaf, had been properly offered on the day after the close of the Massoth-iestival. The eating of the new crop is among many primitive agricultural peoples a ceremony of deep religious significance, for which careful preparation must 1 Cf. the discussion of the reason for R. Shesheth fasting on this day (B. Pesahim, io8a; also, Jer . Pesahim, X, 376, and the statement of Masseket Soferim, XXI, 3, "The pious fast for the sake of the Massoth"). These references also, I owe to the kindness of Professor Lauterbach. 3 Epstein, op. cit., pp. 153. 3 Shulhan f Aruh, >Orah Hayyim, 431-39. * Mishnah, Pesahim, II, i. 286 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY be made, since the entire life of the people is bound up with the new crop. Before the first mouthful of the new crop may be taken, the old crop must be entirely destroyed, put out of the way completely. Under no condition may it be mixed with the new crop, even in the bodies of the eaters. They must fast for a definite period, and very often use strong purgatives and emetics in order that absolutely not one grain of the old crop may remain in their bodies at the time when the new crop is first eaten. Other- wise the two crops would be commingled, and the new crop, the food supply for the coming year, would be contaminated and rendered unfit for use. The annual green-corn festival, observed by the Creek Indians, and in almost identical form by the neighboring and kindred Yuchi, Seminole, and Natchez Indians, is typical. Frazer describes this festival as follows: 1 Amongst the Creek Indians of North America, the busk, or festival of first-fruits, was the chief ceremony of the year. It was held in July or August, when the corn was ripe, and marked the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one. Before it took place, none of the Indians would eat or even handle any part of the new harvest. Some tunes each town had its own busk; sometimes several towns united to hold one hi common. Before celebrating the busk, the people provided themselves with new clothes and new household utensils and furniture; they collected their old clothes and rubbish, together with all the remaining grain and other old provisions, cast them together in one common heap, and consumed them with fire. As a preparation for the ceremony, all the fires in the village were extinguished, and the ashes swept clean away. In particular, the hearth or altar of the temple was dug up and the ashes carried out. Then the chief priest put some roots of the button- snake plant, with some green tobacco leaves and a little of the new fruits, at the bottom of the fireplace, which he afterwards commanded to be covered up with white clay, and wetted over with clean water. A thick arbour of green branches of young trees was then made over the altar. Meanwhile the women at home were cleaning out their houses, renewing the old hearths, and scouring all the cooking vessels that they might be ready to receive the new fire and the new fruits. The public or sacred square was carefully swept of even the smallest crumbs of previous feasts, "for fear of polluting the first-fruit offerings." Also every vessel that had contained, or had been used about, any food during the expiring year was removed from the temple before sunset. Then all the men who were not known to have violated the law of the first-fruit offering and that 1 Frazer, The Golden Bough*, "Spirits of the Corn and the Wild," II, 72-75. ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 287 of marriage during the year were summoned by a crier to enter the holy square and observe a solemn fast. But the women (except six old ones), the children, and all who had not attained the rank of warriors were forbidden to enter the square. Sentinels were also posted at the corners of the square to keep out all persons deemed impure, and all animals. A strict fast was then observed for two nights and a day, the devotees drinking a bitter decoction of button- snake root "in order to vomit and purge their sinful bodies." That the people outside the square might also be purified, one of the old men laid down a quantity of green tobacco at a corner of the square; this was carried off by an old woman and distributed to the people without, who chewed and swallowed it "in order to afflict their souls." During this general fast, the women, the children, and men of weak constitution were allowed to eat after midday, but not before that time. On the morning when the fast ended, the women brought a quantity of the old year's food to the outside of the sacred square. These provisions were then fetched in and set before the famished multitude, but all traces of them had to be removed before noon. When the sun was declining from the meridian, all the people were commanded by the voice of a crier to stay within doors, to do no bad act, and to be sure to extinguish and throw away every spark of the old fire. Universal silence now reigned. Then the high priest made the new fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and placed it on the altar under the green arbour. This new fire was believed to atone for all past crimes except murder. Next a basket of new fruits was brought; the high priest took out a little of each sort of fruit, rubbed it with bear's oil, and offered it, together with some flesh, "to the bountiful holy spirit of fire, as a first-fruit offering, and an annual oblation for sin." He also consecrated the sacred emetics (the button-snake root and the cassina, or black-drink) by pouring a little of them into the fire. The persons who had remained outside now approached, without entering, the sacred square; and the chief priest thereupon made a speech, exhorting the people to observe their old rites and customs, announcing that the new divine fire had purged away the sins of the past year, and earnestly warning the women that, if any of them had not extinguished the old fire, or had contracted any impurity, they must forthwith depart, "lest the divine fire should spoil both them and the people." Some of the new fire was then set down outside the holy square; the women carried it home joyfully, and laid it on their unpolluted hearths. When several towns had united to celebrate the festival, the new fire might thus be carried for several miles. The new fruits were then dressed on the new fires and eaten with bear's oil, which was deemed indispensable. At one point of the festival the men rubbed the new corn between their hands, then on their faces and breasts. During the festival which followed, the warriors, dressed in their wild martial array, their heads covered with white down, and carrying white feathers in their hands, danced around the sacred arbour, under which burned the new fire. The ceremonies lasted eight days, during which the strictest continence was practiced. Towards the conclusion of the festival 288 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY the warriors fought a mock battle; then the men and women, together, in three circles, danced round the sacred fire. Lastly, all the people smeared them- selves with white clay and bathed in running water. They came out of the water believing that no evil could now befall them for what they had done amiss in the past. So they departed in joy and peace. Similar festivals, with parallel ceremonies, all practiced for the same purpose of preventing the mixing of various kinds of food, are celebrated among the most widely scattered peoples. 1 Among practically all primitive agricultural peoples just enough grain is cultivated for food for one year. Occasionally a small amount of the old crop may remain when the new crop is ready to be harvested, but this is the exception and not the rule among peoples that live altogether upon the agricultural plane of civilization and do not carry on commerce with the produce of their fields. Famine, due to a crop for one reason or another insufficient for the needs of the year, is not uncommon among such strictly agricultural peoples. These must have been the normal condi- tions in ancient Israel and among the still earlier Canaanites. Certainly Lev. 25:20-22* and 26:10 imply that it was an unusual thing for the annual crop to prove sufficient for more than one year. It is therefore very probable that among the ancient Canaanites and the early agricultural Israelites, the custom existed of destroy- ing the usually meager remains of the old crop before the new crop could be used or even harvested. And if this hypothesis be correct, we must see in the ceremonies of the destruction of all leaven, of the fasting before the Masses-festival, and of the eating of the Massoth themselves, the religious, sacramental rites by which the last re- mains of the old crop were destroyed as the necessary preparation for the cutting and eating of the new crop. All of the old crop was thus burned except just enough to prepare the Massoth for the festival. These were actually the very last of the old crop, and with their final consumption the old crop would be entirely destroyed and the new crop could be harvested and eaten with impunity, after the offering of its regular taboo-sacrifice, the first 1 Frazer, op. cit., 83 ff. 2 This is clearly a late insertion into the text and refers rather to the Sabbatical than to the Jubilee year; cf. Bertholet and Baentsch on the passage. ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 289 sheaf. These facts, that the entire .Masses-festival, as we have shown, must have preceded the beginning of the harvest, and that the Massoth must have been made entirely of the old crop, admit no other logical and consistent explanation. 1 That this is no forced nor improbable hypothesis is proved by the fact that two rites of strikingly similar nature are still observed in connection with, or as preparatory to, the celebration of Easter in the present-day Christian church of Palestine. Bliss tells that "on this same Thursday (Maundy Thursday) the Maronite patriarch at his seat, with two or three bishops, consecrates the oil of baptism, oil for extreme unction, and the holy chrism (the meirun), all three kinds of oil to be distributed by the bishops among the Maronite churches for use during the coming year. Oil remaining from the year before is burned." 2 And it is a well-known and oft-described practice that preparatory to the descent of the sacred fire in the Church of the Sepulcher at Jerusalem on the Saturday afternoon preceding Easter Sunday, all fires are extin- guished in the Christian homes, monasteries, and churches of Palestine. Runners bearing the sacred brands or tapers kindled from the new holy fire hasten from the Church of the Sepulcher, carrying the precious burden to all parts of the country, and with these the new fires are once more kindled. 3 This rite too reminds us strongly of the ritual of the Creek green-corn festival. But this is by no means all. For agricultural festivals, even among the most primitive peoples, are seldom, if ever, celebrated 1 Further proof of this may perhaps be seen in the practice recorded in the Shulhan ^Aruh (^rakHayyim, 435), based upon a decision of Rab (B. Pesahim, 6b), that if a man neglected to search for and burn the leaven in his house either before or during the Passover, he must still do so after the festival had passed, for the enjoyment of such food was absolutely forbidden. The celebration of the Passover had made all such food strictly taboo. This too may be a survival of the oldest practice that all grain remaining from the old crop had to be burned, and therefore became com- pletely invalidated, at the beginning of the M assoth-iestival and preparatory to eating the new crop. 3 The Religions of Modern Syria and Palestine, p. 162. 3 Cf . Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, pp. 45 f . ; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 460-64; Maundrell (ed. Wright), A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, pp. 462-64; Ridgaway, The Lord's Land, p. 262; Field, Among the Holy Hills, p. 50; and other writers. 290 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY merely as important and memorable occasions in the life of the people. They have always a religious significance, are always celebrated in some relation to the supernatural powers that preside over the blessings of agriculture. As stated above, these primitive Canaanite agricultural festivals were celebrated in honor of the great triad or trinity, the father-, mother-, and son-gods, Ba c al, Astarte, and Tammuz. These gods were the result of the deifica- tion of the great agricultural forces and phenomena, the heaven or the sun, with its fructifying rain or sunlight, the earth, conceived as the great mother, and the annual crop, the offspring of the union and fertilization of mother-earth by father-heaven. And in the annual cycle of sowing, sprouting, growth, ripening, and harvest- ing of the grain we have the key to the right understanding of the nature of Tammuz, his myths, and religious rites. His festivals were naturally celebrated at different times of the year, either at the time of his death and burial in the earth, or at the time of his resurrection or rebirth, and were always associated with rites com- memorative of the role played by the parent deities in the great, annual, divine mystery. In fact, there seem to have been no Tammuz festivals pure and simple. They were rather all festivals in honor of the inseparable trinity of gods, and their rites were not only designed to commemorate the various activities of each of the three gods, but were also of a homeopathic magical nature, intended to compel the great deities to function in the proper manner, and so bring forth the annual and indispensable crop. But if Tammuz was the annual crop, and this is absolutely certain, then each successive annual crop meant the rebirth of Tammuz, or in another aspect certainly clearly perceived by the people, a new, and each year an ever-new, Tammuz, as the succes- sor of the old Tammuz, the first-born and only-begotten son of mother-earth herself, therefore, the eternally virgin goddess, whose virginity is renewed annually after the birth of her son. And since Tammuz was the crop, and therefore identical with the grain and everything made therefrom, the burning of the remains of the old crop and the eating of the Massoth, as a religious rite, as a sacrament, clearly were nothing but the expression and prac- ORIGIN OF MASSOTH AND MASSOTH-FESTIVAL 291 tical realization of the principle that the old Tammuz must be completely put out of the way before the new Tammuz, the new crop, can be actually born or reborn. And the eating of the Massoth as a sacrament would be nothing more than the eating of the old Tammuz. That this conception of the eating of the god is neither strange nor forced may be inferred from the story of the celebration of the Passover in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 26:26 f. ; Mark 14:22 f.; Luke 22:19 f.), where Jesus gives to his disciples the Massoth with the words, "This is my body," and in the resultant ceremony of the eucharist in the Catholic church. 1 Similar practices of the sacramental eating of the god, parallel to this of the eating of Tammuz in the form of the Massoth, are found among the most widely scattered, primitive, agricultural peoples. 2 It is noteworthy in this connection that among the heathen Harranians at the annual festival of the weeping women, celebrated in the month of Tammuz, when the women bewailed the death of Ta-uz, because, as they believed, Ta-uz had been cruelly killed by his master, his bones ground in a mill and then scattered to the four winds, they would eat nothing that had been ground in a mill. 3 Likewise among the people of Asia Minor, during the annual festival of mourning for the dead Attis, a deity parallel in 1 It is significant that the eucharist is partaken of only after fasting. In this connection I may state that Dr. Paul Carus, of Chicago, has suggested to me that the term "mass" for the important rite of the Catholic church that primarily commemor- ates and is modeled after the Last Supper, may, in view of the significant rdle of the massoth in the traditional accounts of the Last Supper, be derived from the Hebrew massah. According to Fortescue (Catholic Encyclopedia, IX, 791) this ceremony was originally designated as evxa-piffTla-. The term "mass" (missa) is not authen- ticated until St. Ambrose (d. 397). He, however, uses it in such manner as to indicate that it was then an established and commonly accepted term. A doubtful reference occurs in a letter of Pope Pius I (ca. i$2-ca. 157). The late mediaeval form missio designates the mass as the ceremony of dismissal of the people. But this explanation of the origin of the term is generally regarded as doubtful and unsatisfactory. In view of all this the suggestion of Dr. Carus seems to me quite probable. 3 Frazer, The Golden Bough*, "Spirits of the Corn and the Wild," II, 48-108. 3 Chwohlsohn, Die Ssabier, quoting Fihrist, IX, No. 5, p. 4. Ta-uz is of course merely a dialectic variation of Tammuz, and approximates very closely the original Babylonian or Sumerian Du-u-zi. 292 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY every way to Tammuz, the worshipers abstained from bread. 1 Similarly too, as Jaussen records, among the fellahin of Moab still today, before the beginning of the harvest every owner of a field makes a repast for Halil, clearly a Tammuz-survival, at which all the reapers are present. Then he says, "The sickle is opened." 2 Thereafter the harvest begins. This is undoubtedly a survival of the old custom of sacramental meals preparatory to the com- mencement of the harvest. The fasting preparatory, or introductory, to the Massoth-i estival would accordingly not only be a ceremony of mourning for the dead Tammuz, but also be designed to prevent the commingling of profane and holy food in the body of the eater, and the conse- quent contact of the new with the old Tammuz. Robertson- Smith shows conclusively 3 that fasting is very often the ritual preparation for a sacramental meal, and evidences his claim by a mass of proof. Just this, as we have seen, was the purpose of the fasting incidental to, and preparatory for, the Creek green-corn festival. And the Massoth themselves would be the survival of the simplest, most primitive, and speediest form of preparing grain for food, the form in which the nomad, particularly when on a journey, still eats his bread. 4 This primitive mode of preparing the remains of the old crop for sacramental eating during the seven days of the festival would be peculiarly suited to the nature and exigencies of the occasion. It was merely another instance of the continuation of ancient and outgrown practices in religious cere- 'Frazer, The Golden Bough 3 , "Adonis, Attis and Osiris 2 ", 226, quoting Arnobius Adversus nationes v. 16; Sallustius Philosophus De diis et mundo iv; Fragmenla Philosophorum Graecorum, ed. F. G. A. Muhlbach, III, 33. 2 Les coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab, p. 252. Cf. Deut. 16:9, SS^fi- tDTSin 5nrYQ, and the corresponding designation of the isth of Ab, -frfrfflt l_ 57\ *MT\ DY 1 , (B. Ta