VIII THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 337 



are devoted to him; in accordance with that 

 claim, the first-born males of the beasts are duly 

 sacrificed ; and it is only by special permission 

 that the claim to the first-born of men is waived, 

 and it is enacted that they may be redeemed 

 (Exod. xiii. 12-15). Is it possible to avoid the 

 conclusion that immolation of their first-born sons 

 would have been incumbent on the worshippers of 

 Jahveh, had they not been thus specially excused ? 

 Can any other conclusion be drawn from the 

 history of Abraham and Isaac ? Does Abraham 

 exhibit any indication of surprise when he receives 

 the astounding order to sacrifice his son ? Is there 

 the slightest evidence that there was anything in 

 his intimate and personal acquaintance with the 

 character of the Deity, who had eaten the meat 

 and drunk the milk which Abraham set before him 

 under the oaks of Mamre, to lead him to hesitate 

 even to wait twelve or fourteen hours for a 

 repetition of the command ? Not a whit. We 

 are told that "Abraham rose early in the morn- 

 ing" and led his only child to the slaughter, as if 

 it were the most ordinary business imaginable. 

 Whether the story has any historical foundation or 

 not, it is valuable as showing that the writer of it 

 conceived Jahveh as a deity whose requirement of 

 such a sacrifice need excite neither astonishment 

 nor suspicion of mistake on the part of his devotee. 

 Hence, when the incessant human sacrifices in 

 Israel, during the age of the kings, are put down 

 ill 



