Produced by Charles Keller
THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS
OR SEX IN RELIGION
By Eliza Burt Gamble
Author of "The Evolution of Woman"
PREFACE.
Much of the material for this volume was collected during the time that
I was preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman, or while searching
for data bearing on the subject of sex-specialization. While preparing
that book for publication, it was my intention to include within it this
branch of my investigation, but wishing to obtain certain facts relative
to the foundations of religious belief and worship which were not
accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and
patience would be required in securing these facts, I decided to publish
the first part of the work, withholding for the time being that portion
of it pertaining especially to the development of the God-idea.
As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas of
the unknowable reflect the inner consciousness of human beings, a
trustworthy history of the growth of religions must correspond to the
processes involved in the mental, moral, and social development of the
individual and the nation.
By means of data brought forward in these later times relative to the
growth of the God-idea, it is observed that an independent chain of
evidence has been produced in support of the facts recently set forth
bearing upon the development of the two diverging lines of sexual
demarcation. In other words, it has been found that sex is the
fundamental fact not only in the operations of Nature but in the
construction of a god.
In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar
inheritance of the two sexes, female and male, is the result of the bias
given to these separate lines of development during the earliest periods
of sex-differentiation; and, as this division of labor was a necessary
step in the evolutionary processes, the rate of progress depended
largely on the subsequent adjustment of these two primary elements or
forces. A comprehensive study of prehistoric records shows that in
an earlier age of existence upon the earth, at a time when woman's
influence was in the ascendancy over that of man, human energy was
directed by the altruistic characters which originated in and have been
transmitted through the female; but after the decline of woman's power,
all human institutions, customs, forms, and habits of thought are seen
to reflect the egoistic qualities acquired by the male.
Nowhere is the influence of sex more plainly manifested than in the
formulation of religious conceptions and creeds. With the rise of male
power and dominion, and the corresponding repression of the natural
female instincts, the principles which originally constituted the
God-idea gradually gave place to a Deity better suited to the peculiar
bias which had been given to the male organism. An anthropomorphic god
like that of the Jews--a god whose chief attributes are power and virile
might--could have had its origin only under a system of masculine rule.
Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and weaknesses
of human nature; and, as the forms and habits of thought connected with
worship take a firmer hold on the mental constitution than do those
belonging to any other department of human experience, religious
conceptions should be subjected to frequent and careful examination in
order to perceive, if possible, the extent to which we are holding on to
ideas which are unsuited to existing conditions.
In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to reasonable
criticism, it would seem that the origin and growth of religion should
be investigated from beneath the surface, and that all the facts bearing
upon it should be brought forward as a contribution to our fund of
general information. As well might we hope to gain a complete knowledge
of human history by studying only the present aspect of society, as
to expect to reach reasonable conclusions respecting the prevailing
God-idea by investigating the various creeds and dogmas of existing
faiths.
The object of this volume is not only to furnish a brief outline of
religious growth, but to show the effect which each of the two forces,
female and male, has had on the development of our present God-idea,
which investigation serves to accentuate the conclusions arrived at in
the Evolution of Woman relative to the inheritance of each of the two
lines of sexual demarcation.
E.B.G.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
I.--SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA
II.--TREE, PLANT, AND FRUIT WORSHIP
III.--SUN WORSHIP--FEMALE AND MALE ENERGIES IN THE SUN
IV.--THE DUAL GOD OF THE ANCIENTS A TRINITY ALSO
V.--SEPARATION OF THE FEMALE AND MAKE ELEMENTS IN THE DEITY
VI.--CIVILIZATION OF AN ANCIENT RACE
VII.--CONCEALMENT OF THE EARLY DOCTRINES
VIII.--THE ORIGINAL GOD-IDEA OF THE ISRAELITES
IX.--THE PHOENICIAN AND HEBREW GOD SET OR SETH
X.--ANCIENT SPECULATIONS CONCERNING CREATION
XI.--FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP
XII.--AN ATTEMPT TO PURIFY THE SENSUALIZED FAITHS
XIII.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM
XIV.--CHRISTIANITY A CONTINUATION OF PAGANISM--(Continued)
XV.--CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND
XVI.--STONES OR COLUMNS AS THE DEITY
XVII.--SACRIFICES
XVIII.--THE CROSS AND A DYING SAVIOR
THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Through a study of the primitive god-idea as manifested in monumental
records in various parts of the world; through scientific investigation
into the early religious conceptions of mankind as expressed by symbols
which appear in the architecture and decorations of sacred edifices and
shrines; by means of a careful examination of ancient holy objects and
places still extant in every quarter of the globe, and through the study
of antique art, it is not unlikely that a line of investigation has
been marked out whereby a tolerably correct knowledge of the processes
involved in our present religious systems may be obtained. The
numberless figures and sacred emblems which appear carved in
imperishable stone in the earliest cave temples; the huge towers,
monoliths, and rocking stones found in nearly every country of the
globe, and which are known to be closely connected with primitive belief
and worship, and the records found on tablets which are being unearthed
in various parts of the world, are, with the unravelling of extinct
tongues, proving an almost inexhaustible source for obtaining
information bearing upon the early history of the human race, and,
together, furnish indisputable evidence of the origin, development, and
unity of religious faiths.
By comparing the languages used by the earlier races to express their
religious conceptions; by observing the similarity in the mythoses
and sacred appellations among all tribes and nations, and through the
discovery of the fact that the legends extant in the various countries
of the globe are identical, or have the same foundation, it is probable
that a clue has already been obtained whereby an outline of the
religious history of the human family from a period even as remote as
the "first dispersion," or from a time when one race comprehended the
entire population of the globe, maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches
observes: "In every part of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras
as well as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the Aegean Sea, fragments of
primitive languages are preserved in religious rites."
Regarding the identity of the fundamental ideas contained in the various
systems of religion, both past and present, Hargrave Jennings, in
referring to a parallel drawn by Sir William Jones, between the deities
of Meru and Olympus, observes:
"All our speculations tend to the same conclusions. One day it is a
discovery of cinerary vases, the next, it is etymological research; yet
again it is ethnological investigation, and the day after, it is the
publication of unsuspected tales from the Norse; but all go to heap
up proof of our consanguinity with the peoples of history--and of an
original general belief, we might add."
That the religious systems of India and Egypt were originally the same,
there can be at the present time no reasonable doubt. The fact noted
by various writers, of the British Sepoys, who, on their overland route
from India, upon beholding the ruins of Dendera, prostrated themselves
before the remains of the ancient temples and offered adoration to
them, proves the identity of Indian and Egyptian deities. These foreign
devotees, being asked to explain the reason of their strange conduct
declared that they "saw sculptured before them the gods of their
country."
Upon the subject of the identity of Eastern religions, Wilford remarks
that one and the same code both of theology and of fabulous history, has
been received through a range or belt about forty degrees broad across
the old continent, in a southeast and northwest direction from the
eastern shores of the Malaga peninsula to the western extremity of
the British Isles, that, through this immense range the same religious
notions reappear in various places under various modifications, as might
be expected; and that there is not a greater difference between the
tenets and worship of the Hindoos and the Greeks than exists between the
churches of Home and Geneva.
Concerning the universality of certain religious beliefs and opinions,
Faber, commenting upon the above statement of Wilford, observes that,
immense as is this territorial range, it is by far too limited to
include the entire phenomenon, that the observation
"applies with equal propriety to the entire habitable globe; for the
arbitrary rites and opinions of every pagan nation bear so close a
resemblance to each other, that such a coincidence can only have been
produced by their having had a common origin. Barbarism itself has not
been able to efface the strong primeval impression. Vestiges of the
ancient general system may be traced in the recently discovered islands
in the Pacific Ocean; and, when the American world was first opened to
the hardy adventurers of Europe, its inhabitants from north to south
venerated, with kindred ceremonies and kindred notions, the gods of
Egypt and Hindostan, of Greece and Italy, of Phoenicia and Britain."(1)
1) Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. i.
"Though each religion has its own peculiar growth, the seed from which
they spring is everywhere the same."(2)
2) Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 48.
The question as to whether the identity of conception and the similarity
in detail observed in religious rites, ceremonies, and symbols in the
various countries of the globe are due to the universal law of unity
which governs human development, or whether, through the dispersion
of one original people, the early conceptions of a Deity were spread
broadcast over the entire earth, is perhaps not settled; yet, from
the facts which have been brought forward during the last century, the
latter theory seems altogether probable, such divergence in religious
ideas as is observed among the various peoples of the earth being
attributable to variations in temperament caused by changed conditions
of life. In other words, the divergence in the course of religious
development has doubtless been due to environment.
In an attempt to understand the history of the growth of the god-idea,
the fact should be borne in mind that, from the earliest conception of
a creative force in the animal and vegetable world to the latest
development in theological speculation, there has never been what might
consistently be termed a new religion. On the contrary, religion like
everything else is subject to the law of growth; therefore the faiths of
to-day are the legitimate result, or outcome, of the primary idea of
a Deity developed in accordance with the laws governing the peculiar
instincts which have been in the ascendancy during the life of mankind
on the earth.
The erroneous impression which under a belief in the unknown has come
to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of religion; or,
in other words, that the human conscience is in some manner dependent
on supernaturalism for its origin and maintenance, is, with a better
and clearer understanding of the past history of the development of the
human race, being gradually dispelled. On one point we may reasonably
rest assured that the knowledge of right and wrong and our sense of
justice and right-living have been developed quite independently of all
religious beliefs. The moral law embodied in the golden rule is not an
outgrowth of mysticism, or of man's notions of the unknowable; but,
on the contrary, is the result of experience, and was formulated in
response to a recognized law of human necessity,--a law which involves
the fundamental principle of progress. The history of human development
shows conclusively that mankind GREW into the recognition of the moral
law, that through sympathy, or a desire for the welfare of others,--a
character which had its root in maternal affection,--conscience and the
moral sense were evolved.
While the moral law and the conscience may not be accounted as in any
sense the result of man's ideas concerning the unknowable, neither can
the errors and weaknesses developed in human nature be regarded as the
result of religion. Although the sexual excesses which during three or
four thousand years were practiced as sacred rites, and treated as
part and parcel of religion in various parts of the world, have had the
effect to stimulate and strengthen the animal nature in man, yet these
rites may not be accounted as the primary cause of the supremacy of the
lower nature over the higher faculties. On the contrary, the impulse
which has been termed religion, with all the vagaries which its history
presents, is to be regarded more as an effect than as a cause. The stage
of a nation's development regulates its religion. Man creates his own
gods; they are powerless to change him.
As written history records only those events in human experience which
belong to a comparatively recent period of man's existence, and as the
primitive conceptions of a Deity lie buried beneath ages of corruption,
glimpses of the earlier faiths of mankind, as has already been stated,
must be looked for in the traditions, monuments, and languages of
extinct races.
In reviewing this matter we shall doubtless observe the fact that if the
stage of a nation's growth is indicated by its religious conceptions,
and if remnants of religious beliefs are everywhere present in the
languages, traditions, and monuments of the past through a careful
study of these subjects we may expect to gain a tolerably correct
understanding not alone of the growth of the god-idea but of the
stage of development reached by the nations which existed prior to the
beginning of the historic age. We shall be enabled also to perceive
whether or not the course of human development during the intervening
ages has been continuous, or whether, for some cause hitherto
unexplained, true progress throughout a portion of this time has been
arrested, thus producing a backward movement, or degeneracy.
If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious faiths,
we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain any existing
system or systems of belief and worship. Such a course is likely to end
not only in confusion and in a subsequent denial of the existence of the
religious nature in mankind, but is liable, also, to create an aversion
for and a distrust of the entire subject of religious experience. In
view of this fact it would appear to be not only useless but exceedingly
unwise to spend one's time in attempting to gain a knowledge of this
subject simply by studying the later developments in its history.
If we are really desirous of obtaining information regarding present
religious phenomena, it is plain that we should adopt the scientific
method and turn our attention to the remote past, where, by careful
and systematic investigation, we are enabled to perceive the earliest
conception of a creative force and the fundamental basis of all
religious systems, from which may be traced the gradual development of
the god-idea.
CHAPTER I. SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA.
In the study of primitive religion, the analogy existing between the
growth of the god-idea and the development of the human race, and
especially of the two sex-principles, is everywhere clearly apparent.
"Religion is to be found alone with its justification and explanation in
the relations of the sexes. There and therein only."(3)
3) Hargrave Jennings, Phallicism.
As the conception of a deity originated in sex, or in the creative
agencies female and male which animate Nature, we may reasonably expect
to find, in the history of the development of the two sex-principles
and in the notions entertained concerning them throughout past ages,
a tolerably correct account of the growth of the god-idea. We shall
perceive that during an earlier age of human existence, not only were
the reproductive powers throughout Nature, and especially in human
beings and in animals, venerated as the Creator, but we shall find also
that the prevailing ideas relative to the importance of either sex in
the office of reproduction decided the sex of this universal creative
force. We shall observe also that the ideas of a god have always
corresponded with the current opinions regarding the importance of
either sex in human society. In other words, so long as female power
and influence were in the ascendency, the creative force was regarded
as embodying the principles of the female nature; later, however, when
woman's power waned, and the supremacy of man was gained, the god-idea
began gradually to assume the male characters and attributes.
Through scientific research the fact has been observed that, for ages
after life appeared on the earth, the male had no separate existence;
that the two sex-principles, the sperm and the germ, were contained
within one and the same individual. Through the processes of
differentiation, however, these elements became detached, and with the
separation of the male from the female, the reproductive functions were
henceforth confided to two separate individuals.
As originally, throughout Nature, the female was the visible organic
unit within whom was contained the exclusive creative power, and as
throughout the earlier ages of life on the earth she comprehended the
male, it is not perhaps singular that, even after the appearance of
mankind on the earth, the greater importance of the mother element in
human society should have been recognized; nor, as the power to bring
forth coupled with perceptive wisdom originally constituted the Creator,
that the god-idea should have been female instead of male.
From the facts to be observed in relation to this subject, it is
altogether probable that for ages the generating principle throughout
Nature was venerated as female; but with that increase of knowledge
which was the result of observation and experience, juster or more
correct ideas came to prevail, and subsequently the great fructifying
energy throughout the universe came to be regarded as a dual indivisible
force--female and male. This force, or agency, constituted one God,
which, as woman's functions in those ages were accounted of more
importance than those of man, was oftener worshipped under the form of a
female figure.
Neith, Minerva, Athene, and Cybele, the most important deities of their
respective countries, were adored as Perceptive Wisdom, or Light,
while Ceres and others represented Fertility. With the incoming of male
dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the desire to annul the
importance of the female and to enthrone one all-powerful male god whose
chief attributes were power and might.
Notwithstanding the efforts which during the historic period have been
put forward to magnify the importance of the male both in human affairs
and in the god-idea, still, no one, I think, can study the mythologies
and traditions of the nations of antiquity without being impressed with
the prominence given to the female element, and the deeper the study the
stronger will this impression grow.
During a certain stage of human development, religion was but a
recognition of and a reliance upon the vivifying or fructifying forces
throughout Nature, and in the earlier ages of man's career, worship
consisted for the most part in the celebration of festivals at
stated seasons of the year, notably during seed-time and harvest, to
commemorate the benefits derived from the grain field and vineyard.
Doubtless the first deified object was Gaia, the Earth. As within the
bosom of the earth was supposed to reside the fructifying, life-giving
power, and as from it were received all the bounties of life, it was
female. It was the Universal Mother, and to her as to no other divinity
worshipped by mankind, was offered a spontaneity of devotion and a
willing acknowledgment of dependence. Thus far in the history of mankind
no temples dedicated to an undefined and undefinable God had been
raised. The children of Mother Earth met in the open air, without the
precincts of any man-made shrine, and under the aerial canopy of heaven,
acknowledged the bounties of the great Deity and their dependence upon
her gifts. She was a beneficent and all-wise God, a tender and loving
parent--a mother, who demanded no bleeding sacrifice to reconcile her to
her children. The ceremonies observed at these festive seasons consisted
for the most part in merry-making and in general thanksgiving, in which
the gratitude of the worshippers found expression in song and dance, and
in invocations to their Deity for a return or continuance of her gifts.
Subsequently, through the awe and reverence inspired by the mysteries
involved in birth and life, the adoration of the creative principles in
vegetable existence became supplemented by the worship of the creative
functions in human beings and in animals. The earth, including the power
inherent in it by which the continuity of existence is maintained, and
by which new forms are continuously called into life, embodied the idea
of God; and, as this inner force was regarded as inherent in matter, or
as a manifestation of it, in process of time earth and the heavens, body
and spirit, came to be worshipped under the form of a mother and her
child, this figure being the highest expression of a Creator which the
human mind was able to conceive. Not only did this emblem represent
fertility, or the fecundating energies of Nature, but with the power
to create were combined or correlated all the mental qualities and
attributes of the two sexes. In fact the whole universe was contained in
the Mother idea--the child, which was sometimes female, sometimes male,
being a scion or offshoot from the eternal or universal unit.
Underlying all ancient mythologies may be observed the idea that the
earth, from which all things proceed, is female. Even in the mythology
of the Finns, Lapps, and Esths, Mother Earth is the divinity adored.
Tylor calls attention to the same idea in the mythology of England,
"from the days when the Anglo-Saxon called upon the Earth, 'Hal wes thu
folde fira modor' (Hail, thou Earth, men's mother), to the time when
mediaeval Englishmen made a riddle of her asking 'Who is Adam's mother?'
and poetry continued what mythology was letting fall, when Milton's
Archangel promised Adam a life to last
'... till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy Mother's lap.' "(4)
4) Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 295.
In the old religion the sky was the husband of the earth and the earth
was mother of all the gods.(5) In the traditions of past ages the fact
is clearly perceived that there was a time when the mother was not only
the one recognized parent on earth, but that the female principle was
worshipped as the more important creative force throughout Nature.
5) Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 279.
Doubtless the worship of the female energy prevailed under the
matriarchal system, and was practised at a time when women were the
recognized heads of families and when they were regarded as the more
important factors in human society. The fact has been shown in a
previous work that after women began to leave their homes at marriage,
and after property, especially land, had fallen under the supervision
and control of men, the latter, as they manipulated all the necessaries
of life and the means of supplying them, began to regard themselves as
superior beings, and later, to claim that as a factor in reproduction,
or creation, the male was the more important. With this change the ideas
of a Deity also began to undergo a modification. The dual principle
necessary to creation, and which had hitherto been worshipped as an
indivisible unity, began gradually to separate into its individual
elements, the male representing spirit, the moving or forming force
in the generative processes, the female being matter--the instrument
through which spirit works. Spirit which is eternal had produced matter
which is destructible. The fact will be observed that this doctrine
prevails to a greater or less extent in the theologies of the present
time.
A little observation and reflection will show us that during this change
in the ideas relative to a creative principle, or God, descent and the
rights of succession which had hitherto been reckoned through the mother
were changed from the female to the male line, the father having in
the meantime become the only recognized parent. In the Eumenides of
Aeschylus, the plea of Orestes in extenuation of his crime is that he is
not of kin to his mother. Euripides, also, puts into the mouth of Apollo
the same physiological notion, that she who bears the child is only
its nurse. The Hindoo Code of Menu, which, however, since its earliest
conception, has undergone numberless mutilations to suit the purposes
of the priests, declares that "the mother is but the field which brings
forth the plant according to whatsoever seed is sown."
Although, through the accumulation of property in masses and the capture
of women for wives, men had succeeded in gaining the ascendancy, and
although the doctrine had been propounded that the father is the only
parent, thereby reversing the established manner of reckoning descent,
still, as we shall hereafter observe, thousands of years were required
to eliminate the female element from the god-idea.
We must not lose sight of the fact that human society was first
organized and held together by means of the gens, at the head of which
was a woman. The several members of this organization were but parts of
one body cemented together by the pure principle of maternity, the chief
duty of these members being to defend and protect each other if needs be
with their life blood. The fact has been observed, in an earlier work,
that only through the gens was the organization of society possible.
Without it mankind could have accomplished nothing toward its own
advancement.
Thus, throughout the earlier ages of human existence, at a time when
mankind lived nearer to Nature and before individual wealth and the
stimulation of evil passions had engendered superstition, selfishness,
and distrust, the maternal element constituted not only the binding and
preserving principle in human society, but, together with the power to
bring forth, constituted also the god-idea, which idea, as has already
been observed, at a certain stage in the history of the race was
portrayed by a female figure with a child in her arms.
From all sources of information at hand are to be derived evidences of
the fact that the earliest religion of which we have any account was
pure Nature-worship, that whatever at any given time might have been the
object adored, whether it were the earth, a tree, water, or the sun, it
was simply as an emblem of the great energizing agency in Nature. The
moving or forming force in the universe constituted the god-idea. The
figure of a mother with her child signified not only the power to bring
forth, but Perceptive Wisdom, or Light, as well.
As through a study of Comparative Ethnology, or through an investigation
into the customs, traditions, and mythoses of extant races in the
various stages of development, have been discovered the beginnings of
the religious idea and the mental qualities which among primitive races
prompted worship, so, also, through extinct tongues and the symbolism
used in religious rites and ceremonies, many of the processes have been
unearthed whereby the original and beautiful conceptions of the Deity,
and the worship inspired by the operations of Nature, and especially
the creative functions in human beings gradually became obscured by the
grossest ideas and the vilest practices. The symbols which appear in
connection with early religious rites and ceremonies, and under which
are veiled the conceptions of a still earlier and purer age, when
compared with subsequently developed notions relative to the same
objects, indicate plainly the change which has been wrought in the
original ideas relative to the creative functions, and furnish an index
to the direction which human development, or growth, has taken.
As the human race constructs its own gods, and as by the conceptions
involved in the deities worshipped at any given time in the history
of mankind we are able to form a correct estimate of the character,
temperament, and aspirations of the worshippers, so the history of
the gods of the race, as revealed to us through the means of symbols,
monumental records, and the investigation of extinct tongues, proves
that from a stage of Nature worship and a pure and rational conception
of the creative forces in the universe, mankind, in course of time,
degenerated into mere devotees of sensual pleasure. With the corruption
of human nature and the decline of mental power which followed the
supremacy of the animal instincts, the earlier abstract idea of God was
gradually lost sight of, and man himself in the form of a potentate
or ruler, together with the various emblems of virility, came to
be worshipped as the Creator. From adorers of an abstract creative
principle, mankind had lapsed into worshippers of the symbols under
which this principle had been veiled.
Although at certain stages in the history of the human race the evils,
which as a result of the supremacy of the ruder elements developed in
mankind had befallen the race were lamented and bewailed, they could not
be suppressed. Man had become a lost and ruined creature. The golden age
had passed away.