It is indubitable that in this way political
centralisation gave an impulse to a greater centralisation of
worship also, and the tendency towards the latter continued to
operate after the separation of the two kingdoms,--in Israel not
quite in the same manner as in Judah. Royal priests, great
national temples, festal gatherings of the whole people, sacrifices
on an enormous scale, these were the traits by which the cultus,
previously (as it would seem) very simple, now showed the impress
of a new time. One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts
and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still
have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as
social circles widened and life became more public.
But this way of regarding the influence of the monarchy upon the
history of the worship is not that of the author of the Books of
Kings. He views the temple of Solomon as a work undertaken
exclusively in the interests of pure worship, and as differing
entirely in origin from the sacred buildings of the kings of
Israel, with which accordingly it is not compared, but contrasted
as the genuine is contrasted with the spurious.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67