onal than he is to-day. A crime was, at one and
the same time, a crime and a sin or act of impiety; and so close was
thought to be the responsible connection of the individual and the
group that the tribe was held to be in danger because of the deeds of
its members. {171} The gods were living agents quick to anger and
ready to punish in the direst ways. Warned by this knowledge of the
jealousy of the gods, the fellow tribesmen hastened to punish the
offender in order to ward off the divine anger. Thus the sanctions
enforcing the customs were both social and religious.

This situation had its bad side as well as its good. While it helped
to enforce the tribal laws by means of the awe of the divine witness
who could not be escaped, it tended to merge valuable with trivial
things. Society was quite irrational as yet, and was as likely to
punish the violation of accidental taboos as really serious attacks
upon society. It is a commonplace of history that religions have
stressed ritual observances more than vital phases of conduct. The
greater Hebrew prophets stand out just because of their emphasis upon
human morality, upon justice and righteousness and love. Amos and
Hosea are social reformers who conceive their national god as a god of
righteousness who will turn his face away from the doers of evil. They
threaten their compatriots with his wrath if they continue in their
evil ways. "Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the
Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say. Hate the evil
and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate." Thus the
setting of religion was used as the leverage for an attempted ethical
reformation, the exalted reformer conceiving himself as the mouthpiece
of his god. But the prophets were exceptions. The priestly class, the
class that has always held closely to traditional ways of thinking,
brought the usual multitude of non-moral acts under this impressive
sanction.

The struggle between priest and prophet, {172} traditionalist and
ethical reformer, took place within the religious view of the world,
but the conflict was, after all, a purely human process. The prophets
loved righteousness because they knew that it was good, because they
fell repelled by unmerited poverty and by careless wealth, because they
admired the decencies of life. They could not have given the
justification of their sentiments as well as a theorist of to-day, but
they had these s