their land as debt slaves while others worked in large-scale agricultural enter-
prises (Weber 1952:27, 30–31, 65, 68, 111; Kautsky 1925:218).
The Divided Monarchy
The centralization of power in Jerusalem under the Monarchy, the Patricians,
and Priests class, led to a revolt of the Northern tribes. After the death of
Solomon, the Monarchy was divided into two kingdoms, each ruled by one
of Solomon’s sons. Jeroboam ruled the Northern Kingdom of Israel; its cap-
ital was Schechem and later Samaria. Rehoboam ruled the Southern king-
dom of Judah; its capital was Jerusalem (1 Kings 11, 12:1, 16; Antiq 8.8.4;
Bendix 1977:213, 233). The South retained its conception of God without image
while the North established the Baal cult as a protest against the monopoly
of the Jerusalem priesthood (Weber 1951:161; Bendix 1977:233). Ezekiel (23)
equated the two kingdoms with two harlots whose lovers abuse and kill them
and the idol worship practice by the Baal cult, with adultery. The sinful behav-
ior of these two harlots led to their own wretched punishment.
In contrast with the more rationalistic conception of God in the South, the
Baal cult was an ecstatic, orgiastic, and thus less purposively rationalized
form of religion. They sacrificed humans and animals to God, burned incense
on the altar, had male cult prostitutes in the temple, and worshipped idols,
the sun, moon, constellations, etc. (2 Kings 23).
During the crises of the divided monarchy, a new type of prophet emerged:
the prophet of doom (Weber 1921:238; Bendix 1977:237). Elijah, the first prophet
of this type, killed his competitors: the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:40; Antiq
8.13.6). Weber (1952:97, 109, 178) saw this new type of prophecy as a response
to the division of the Monarchy, which caused the weakness of the two king-
doms. During the divided Monarchy, the prophets oriented their criticisms
primarily toward certain kings, particularly those in the Northern Monarchy
of Israel, who, as a result of participating in the Baal cult, were seen as doing
“what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 21:2).
Whereas the ecstatic Baal cult came from the North, the rational influence
of the Levite priests and ethical prophets came from the South.
This division (Zwiespalt) thus ran covertly throughout Israelite history since
the beginning of the invasion. It became acute with the increasingly ratio-
nal character of the mentalities of the two powers opposed to the orgy: the
Levites and the prophets of disaster. (Weber 1921:207; 1952:193)Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity • 209