The Blood Covenant E-Book

H. C. Trumbull

• Herausgeber: H. C. Trumbull
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Apart from, and yet linked with, the explicit proofs of the rite of blood-covenanting throughout the primitive world, there are many indications of the root-idea of this form of covenanting; in the popular estimate of blood, and of all the marvelous possibilities through blood-transference. These indications, also, are of old, and from everywhere.To go back again to the earlier written history of the world; it is evident that the ancient Egyptians recognized blood as in a peculiar sense life itself; and that they counted the heart,—as the blood-source and the blood-centre,—the symbol and the substance of life. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased speaks of his heart,—or his blood-fountain,—as his life; and as giving him the right to appear in the presence of the gods: “My heart was my mother; my heart was my mother; my heart was my being on earth; placed within me; returned to me by the chief gods, placing me before the gods”

Leseprobe

H. C. Trumbull

The Blood Covenant

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Table of contents

PREFACE.

I.THE PRIMITIVE RITE ITSELF.

II.SUGGESTIONS AND PERVERSIONS OF THE RITE.

III.INDICATIONS OF THE RITE IN THE BIBLE.

APPENDIX.

FOOTNOTES:

PREFACE.

It was while engaged in the preparation of a book—still unfinished—on the Sway of Friendship in the World’s Forces, that I came upon facts concerning the primitive rite of covenanting by the inter-transfusion of blood, which induced me to turn aside from my other studies, in order to pursue investigations in this direction.Having an engagement to deliver a series of lectures before the Summer School of Hebrew, under Professor W. R. Harper, of Chicago, at the buildings of the Episcopal Divinity School, in Philadelphia, I decided to make this rite and its linkings the theme of that series; and I delivered three lectures, accordingly, June 16-18, 1885.The interest manifested in the subject by those who heard the Lectures, as well as the importance of the theme itself, has seemed sufficient to warrant its presentation to a larger public. In this publishing, the form of the original Lectures has, for convenience sake, been adhered to; although some considerable additions to the text, in the way of illustrative facts, have been made, since the delivery of the Lectures; while other similar material is given in an Appendix.From the very freshness of the subject itself, there was added difficulty in gathering the material for its illustration and exposition. So far as I could learn, no one had gone over the ground before me, in this particular line of research; hence the various items essential to a fair statement of the case must be searched for through many diverse volumes of travel and of history and of archæological compilation, with only here and there an incidental disclosure in return. Yet, each new discovery opened the way for other discoveries beyond; and even after the Lectures, in their present form, were already in type, I gained many fresh facts, which I wish had been earlier available to me. Indeed, I may say that no portion of the volume is of more importance than the Appendix; where are added facts and reasonings bearing directly on well-nigh every main point of the original Lectures.There is cause for just surprise that the chief facts of this entire subject have been so generally overlooked, in all the theological discussions, and in all the physio-sociological researches, of the earlier and the later times. Yet this only furnishes another illustration of the inevitably cramping influence of a pre-conceived fixed theory,—to which all the ascertained facts must be conformed,—in any attempt at thorough and impartial scientific investigation. It would seem to be because of such cramping, that no one of the modern students of myth and folk-lore, of primitive ideas and customs, and of man’s origin and history, has brought into their true prominence, if indeed he has even noticed them in passing, the universally dominating primitive convictions: that the blood is the life; that the heart, as the blood-fountain, is the very soul of every personality; that blood-transfer is soul-transfer; that blood-sharing, human, or divine-human, secures an inter-union of natures; and that a union of the human nature with the divine is the highest ultimate attainment reached out after by the most primitive, as well as by the most enlightened, mind of humanity.Certainly, the collation of facts comprised in this volume grew out of no pre-conceived theory on the part of its author. Whatever theory shows itself in their present arrangement, is simply that which the facts themselves have seemed to enforce and establish, in their consecutive disclosure.I should have been glad to take much more time for the study of this theme, and for the re-arranging of its material, before its presentation to the public; but, with the pressure of other work upon me, the choice was between hurrying it out in its present shape, and postponing it indefinitely. All things considered, I chose the former alternative.In the prosecution of my investigations, I acknowledge kindly aid from Professor Dr. Georg Ebers, Principal Sir William Muir, Dr. Yung Wing, Dean E. T. Bartlett, Professors Doctors John P. Peters and J. G. Lansing, the Rev. Dr. M. H. Bixby, Drs. D. G. Brinton and Charles W. Dulles, the Rev. Messrs. R. M. Luther and Chester Holcombe, and Mr. E. A. Barber; in addition to constant and valuable assistance from Mr. John T. Napier, to whom I am particularly indebted for the philological comparisons in the Oriental field, including the Egyptian, the Arabic, and the Hebrew.At the best, my work in this volume is only tentative and suggestive. Its chief value is likely to be in its stimulating of others to fuller and more satisfactory research in the field here brought to notice. Sufficient, however, is certainly shown, to indicate that the realm of true Biblical theology is as yet by no means thoroughly explored.

I.THE PRIMITIVE RITE ITSELF.

1. SOURCES OF BIBLE STUDY.Those who are most familiar with the Bible, and who have already given most time to its study, have largest desire and largest expectation of more knowledge through its farther study. And, more and more, Bible study has come to include very much that is outside of the Bible.For a long time, the outside study of the Bible was directed chiefly to the languages in which the Bible was written, and to the archæology and the manners and customs of what are commonly known as the Lands of the Bible. Nor are these well-worked fields, by any means, yet exhausted. More still remains to be gleaned from them, each and all, than has been gathered thence by all searchers in their varied lore. But, latterly, it has been realized, that, while the Bible is an Oriental book, written primarily for Orientals, and therefore to be understood only through an understanding of Oriental modes of thought and speech, it is also a record of God’s revelation to the whole human race; hence, its inspired pages are to receive illumination from all disclosures of the primitive characteristics and customs of that race, everywhere. Not alone those who insist on the belief that there was a gradual development of the race from a barbarous beginning, but those also who believe that man started on a higher plane, and in his degradation retained perverted vestiges of God’s original revelation to him, are finding profit in the study of primitive myths, and of aboriginal religious rites and ceremonies, all the world over. Here, also, what has been already gained, is but an earnest of what will yet be compassed in the realm of truest biblical research.2. AN ANCIENT SEMITIC RITE.One of these primitive rites, which is deserving of more attention than it has yet received, as throwing light on many important phases of Bible teaching, is the rite of blood-covenanting: a form of mutual covenanting, by which two persons enter into the closest, the most enduring, and the most sacred of compacts, as friends and brothers, or as more than brothers, through the inter-commingling of their blood, by means of its mutual tasting, or of its inter-transfusion. This rite is still observed in the unchanging East; and there are historic traces of it, from time immemorial, in every quarter of the globe; yet it has been strangely overlooked by biblical critics and biblical commentators generally, in these later centuries.In bringing this rite of the covenant of blood into new prominence, it may be well for me to tell of it as it was described to me by an intelligent native Syrian, who saw it consummated in a village at the base of the mountains of Lebanon; and then to add evidences of its wide-spread existence in the East and elsewhere, in earlier and in later times.It was two young men, who were to enter into this covenant. They had known each other, and had been intimate, for years; but now they were to become brother-friends, in the covenant of blood. Their relatives and neighbors were called together, in the open place before the village fountain, to witness the sealing compact. The young men publicly announced their purpose, and their reasons for it. Their declarations were written down, in duplicate,—one paper for each friend,—and signed by themselves and by several witnesses. One of the friends took a sharp lancet, and opened a vein in the other’s arm. Into the opening thus made, he inserted a quill, through which he sucked the living blood. The lancet-blade was carefully wiped on one of the duplicate covenant-papers, and then it was taken by the other friend, who made a like incision in its first user’s arm, and drank his blood through the quill, wiping the blade on the duplicate covenant-record. The two friends declared together: “We are brothers in a covenant made before God: who deceiveth the other, him will God deceive.” Each blood-marked covenant-record, was then folded carefully, to be sewed up in a small leathern case, or amulet, about an inch square; to be worn thenceforward by one of the covenant-brothers, suspended about the neck, or bound upon the arm, in token of the indissoluble relation. “ “ “ “ “‘ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ ‘ “ “ “ ’ “ “ “ “‘ “ “‘ “ “ “ “ “ “