The Old Testament is a veritable deathtrap. On every page, and behind every sentence, almost, there is a trap. It takes a very clever dodger to escape falling into one of them. Even Moses was caught and smashed in a trap. Out of all the people who left Egypt for the promised land, all but two perished in the wilderness because of some infringement of the ceremonial law. What a failure! Even as Eden, offered for a paradise to man, became the tomb of the human race, the promised land became the cemetery of the people who sacrificed their homes for it. Such is the humor of the gods!

But let us speak of another totem. The Catholics eat fish on Friday. Not one out of a million Catholics knows why fish is preferred to meat on a certain day in the week. The fish, too, was at one time a totem in Syria. The early Christians, being largely from that part of the country where the fish was sacred, made a place for it in their new faith. In the writings of the Christian Fathers, Jesus is often called the Big Fish, and his disciples the little fish. Upon many of the ancient Christian tombstones there was engraved a fish. Tertullian, a shining light in the early church, speaks of his converts as the fishes born in the waters of baptism." In the early communion service, the fish represented the divine elements. To this day the fish, an ancient Syrian totem, holds its sway not only upon Christians, but also upon the Jews. An orthodox Jew, no matter how poor, must have his fish every Friday evening.*

But how did people come to eat their totem? It

* Orpheus, Solomon Reinach, page 29.

was explained above that swine's flesh is taboo, because of the sacredness of the boar to an ancient Semitic tribe; if the fish was also sacred, and protected by a

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thou shalt not," or a taboo, how did it come to be an article of diet? Under exceptional circumstances all primitive tribes ate their totems, or their gods. In the time of famine or war they fed on the sacred beast for self-preservation - before which all other laws break down. Moreover, it was their belief that by eating their totem they acquired its virtues and strength. To partake of the qualities of the totem, and to become more closely identified with it - - made one with it - it was deemed necessary on solemn occasions to eat it. Eating the totem came to be, in time, a religious rite. Of course, it was with many regrets and apologies that the savage slew his totem for food. He mourned over it and blamed himself for the death of his god. On the other hand, as intimated above, he argued that the only way he could get into a closer communion with his totem, and become a partaker of his virtues, he must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. The Christian communion service is the modern version of an ancient rite. On Sundays, and with much mourning, the Christian crucifies again his totem, to eat of his body, broken for him on the cross, and to drink of his blood, shed for the remission of his sins. Is it not wonderful how one superstition is like another?

The Holy Ghost, one of the members of the trinity, is represented in the form of a dove, because, like the fish and the boar, the dove was another ancient totem. Whenever an animal, or a tree, or any other object, is made to represent the deity, as the dove represents the Holy Ghost, or the fish the Son of God, or the bull, or

the eagle Zeus, we may be quite sure that at one time these animals were gods. Gradually, from being regarded as gods, they came only to represent them. When the Holy Ghost, now and then, takes on the form of a dove, it goes to prove that the Holy Ghost started as a dove the dove was the Holy Ghost. And just as races of men sometimes fall back to the level of their ancestors, the gods go back to the dove, and the fish, and the boar, whence they came. The gods, too, like their religions, die of the same disease— that of being found out.

The point which it has been the object of the discussion on taboos and totems to establish is that the laws and commandments in the bible, as well as the doings attributed to the deity represent, not Reason, but humor. Whim plays the chief rôle in the divine drama. Noah is ordered to take with him into the ark, "of every clean beast" seven pairs; "and of beasts that are not clean, two pairs, the male and the female." But no instruction is given him as to what makes a beast clean or unclean, or how Noah is to tell the one from the other. Nor is it explained why a certain number of unclean beasts are to be saved, while all the unclean of the human race are to be drowned. The only answer we would get from the "Lord God," if we asked him for an explanation, would be, "It is my humor."

And why should any animals be preserved at all? If the deity could by a word of his mouth cause all forms of life, vegetable and animal, to spring forth out of the ground; if by a mere "Let there be light," he could create light-why should he trouble himself about packing the ark with specimen animals to pre

serve the species? And why was it necessary to rain for forty days, to drown a world which it took him. about six days to create out of nothing? But we are reasoning, and in religion, reason is taboo.

How different is science! The bible is a book of puzzles; science is common sense. The bible treats of forms and ceremonies of holy water, holy oils, holy wafers and of forbidden trees and animals. Science, on the other hand, explains the inexorable laws of nature, a knowledge of which, and obedience to which, makes for life and happiness. Let us rejoice that science has broken for us the spell of superstition.

STILL

III.

The Bible and Magic

TILL another word, the explanation of which would greatly help us to understand the bible, is the word magic. A magician, according to Voltaire, is a man who pretends to possess the secret of doing what nature can not do. Another Frenchman defines magic as the "strategy of the savage." There is not very much difference between these two definitions. Magic is the weapon, or the art, or the science, of the savage against the powers of nature. The magician claims to be able to "go one better than nature, or to bring nature to terms. If there is a drought, the magician offers to compel rain from the stubborn skies; if the plague is upon the land, the magician bids it steal away; if wild beasts attack his hut, the magician throws a spell over them and makes them harmless. Fire will not burn,

water will not drown, the grave can not hold its prey, and even the gods become helpless at a word from the magician. Magic, in a sense, is the coup d'etat of the savage.

When one country is at war with another, the best generalship consists in finding out the tactics of the enemy with a view of beating him at his own game. Likewise, the aim of the magician is to steal the secret of the gods and then play the part of a god not only better than the gods themselves, but against them as well. Is not man wonderful!

In one sense, magic is science in the making. But while science seeks to control nature through knowledge, magic resorts to spells, charms, incantations and concoctions. In other words, magic is dishonest science.

Now, much as I regret to say it, the bible is more than tainted with this kind of science. Not a word is there in the bible about studying the laws of nature, for study is not necessary where there is magic. The real thing, science, is made superfluous by the imitation article magic. Thus the bible, by its preference for a false science, postponed, if it did not succeed in defeating altogether, the intellectual evolution of man.

Scarcely anything happens in the bible in a natural way. Miracles are so many, and so frequent, that there is practically no nature in the bible. The dead arise, the rivers flow backward, the sea turns into dry land, sticks change into serpents, the axe head floats on the water, walls and fortifications fall at the sound of a trumpet, animals talk, virgins become mothers, sun and moon are arrested and then set free, and a universe is produced out of nothing, with as little ado as a magician requires to pull a rabbit out of his sleeve.