A brief catalogue of the chief stone-deities alluded to in Hebrew literature may help to enforce the importance of the subject: and it may be noted in passing that the stones are often mentioned in connexion with sacred trees--an association with which we are already familiar. In the neighbourhood of Sichem was an oak--the “oak of the prophets” or “oak of the soothsayers”--by which lay a stone, whose holiness is variously accounted for by describing it as, in one place, an altar of Abraham, in another an altar of Jacob, and in a third a memorial of Joshua. But the fact shows that it was resorted to for sacrifice, and that oracles or responses were sought from it by its votaries. That is to say, it was a sepulchral monument. Near Hebron stood “the oak of Mamre,” and under it a sacred stone, accounted for as an altar of Abraham, to which in David’s time sacrifices were offered. Near Beersheba we find yet a third tree, the tamarisk, said to have been planted by Abraham, and an altar or stone pillar ascribed to Isaac. In the camp at Gilgal were “the twelve stones,” sometimes, apparently, spoken of as “the graven images,” but sometimes explained away as memorials of Jahweh’s help at the passing of the Jordan. Other examples are Ebenezer, “the helpful stone,” and Tobeleth, the “serpent-stone,” as well as the “great stone” to which sacrifices were offered at Bethshemesh, and the other great stone at Gibeon, which was also, no doubt, an early Hebrew deity. So often is the name of Abraham connected with these stones, indeed, that, as some German scholars have suggested, Abraham himself may perhaps be regarded as a sacred boulder, the rock from which Israel originally; sprang. In any case, I need hardly say, we must look upon such sacred stones as themselves a further evidence of ancestor-worship in Palestine, on the analogy of all similar stones elsewhere. {188}We may conclude that, as in previously noted instances, they were erected on the graves of deceased chieftains. And now we come to the third and most difficult division of early Hebrew religion, the cult of the great gods whom the jealous Jahweh himself finally superseded. The personality of these gods is very obscure, partly because of the nature of our materials, which, being derived entirely from Jehovistic sources, have done their best to overshadow the “false gods”; but partly also, I believe, because, in the process of evolving monotheism, a syncretic movement merged almost all their united attributes into Jahweh himself, who thus becomes at last the all-absorbing synthesis of an entire pantheon. Nevertheless, we can point out one or two shadowy references to such greater gods, either by name alone, or by the form under which they were usually worshipped.