Note 319.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF (continued 2)

These are barbarous auguries. But all auguries and oracles are barbarous. We do not know how Melchizedek was appointed King of Salem. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to him as “without father, without mother, without genealogy,” as if there were something peculiar in the omission of his pedigree, though in this respect he did not differ from the other kings mentioned in the narrative. However, the discovery at Tel-el-Amarna of letters from Ebed-tob, King of Salem in the fifteenth century B.C., to his suzerain the King of Egypt, has rendered it possible to suppose that Melchizedek did not come to the throne by inheritance, and consequently that his parentage was unimportant. Ebed-tob, protesting his loyalty as an ally and a tributary of the King of Egypt, says: “Neither my father, nor my mother, (but) the oracle of the mighty king, established (me) in the house of (my) father.” In other words, he states, as Professor Sayce interprets the expression, “that his authority was not based on the right of inheritance; he had been called to exercise it by a divine voice.”319.1 We must beware of drawing too large an inference from a single phrase. Assuming that “the mighty king” is the god ’Shalim, and not the suzerain whom he is addressing, there remains the question what is meant by “the house of his father.” Evidently it is the royal office; but is it not the royal office previously filled by his ancestors? The correct view, I would suggest, is that the kingship was, like that of Karagwe, descendible to any scion of the royal house, subject to the decision of the oracle. The pedigree then would be important, but not all-important. The god would decide among the candidates. Some such arrangement would seem to have been recognized in the heroic age of Greece, if we may trust the somewhat obscure expressions of the Odyssey. There are examples in the Homeric poems of kings who have succeeded to the inheritance of their sires. Agamemnon is one. On the other hand, the position of Ulysses is enigmatical. It is enigmatical in regard to Laertes, his father, who was still alive; while, if Ulysses were dead, it would seem that Telemachus, his son, would only have the first, but by no means an indefeasible, claim. As Mr Crooke has pointed out, it results from the interview between Telemachus and the wooers in the first book of the Odyssey, that some kind of divine nomination should appoint the king, and that the choice might fall, not on Telemachus, but on another of the Achæans in sea-girt Ithaca.320.1 It is dangerous to read into the poem what is not expressed. The poet is describing an age already mythical, though no doubt he has embodied considerable fragments of actual custom in the representation. He does not detail the process of appointment of king. Consequently, all we can safely say (and that on the assumption that here we have one of the fragments of actual custom) is that the manners and whole atmosphere of the poem correspond with a stage of culture in which the will of the gods would be ascertained by augury. In this connection it may not be irrelevant to refer to the early traditions of Rome. The quarrel between Romulus and Remus concerned not merely the site of the city, but also the founder after whose name it should be called—in other words, the royal dignity. It was settled by an augury taken from the flight of vultures. Numa, the successor of Romulus, though elected, took care to assure himself by auguries that the gods approved of the choice. It must be remembered that the legends, as we have them, took shape under the republic when the ordinary human process of election had been long established. The habit thus formed probably affected them; and I think we are warranted in suspecting that if we could recover them at a prior stage, we should find the appointment of king resting on the will of the gods and ascertained by divination.