power of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to a
spiritual Deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state,--motives which
have a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character and
the development of higher types of social organization. But whatever
laws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the repression of
violence, of crimes against person and the State and the general
material welfare of society, are found in Pagan as well as in Christian
States; and the natural affections,--of paternal and filial love,
friendship, patriotism, generosity, etc.,--while strengthened by
Christianity, are also an inalienable part of the God-given heritage of
all mankind. We see many heroic traits, many manly virtues, many
domestic amenities, and many exalted sentiments in pagan Greece, even if
these were not taught by priests or sages. Every man instinctively
clings to life, to property, to home, to parents, to wife and children;
and hence these are guarded in every community, and the violation of
these rights is ever punished with greater or less severity for the sake
of general security and public welfare, even if there be no belief in
God. Religion, loftily considered, has but little to do with the
temporal interests of men. Governments and laws take these under their
protection, and it is men who make governments and laws. They are made
from the instinct of self-preservation, from patriotic aspirations, from
the necessities of civilization. Religion, from the Christian
standpoint, is unworldly, having reference to the life which is to come,
to the enlightenment of the conscience, to restraint from sins not
punishable by the laws, and to the inspiration of virtues which have no
worldly reward.
This kind of religion was not taught by Grecian priests or poets or
artists, and did not exist in Greece, with all its refinements and
glories, until partially communicated by those philosophers who
meditated on the secrets of Nature, the mighty mysteries of life, and
the duties which reason and reflection reveal. And it may be noticed
that the philosophers themselves, who began with speculations on the
origin of the universe, the nature of the gods, the operations of the
mind, and the laws of matter, ended at last with ethical inquiries and
injunctions. We see this illustrated in Socrates and Zeno. They seemed
to despair of finding out God, of explaining the wonders of his
universe, and came down to practical life in its sad realities,--like
Solomon himself when he said, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for
this is the whole duty of man." In ethical teachings and inquiries some
of these philosophers reached a height almost equal to that which
Christian sages aspired to climb; and had the world practised the
virtues which they taught, there would scarcely have been need of a new
revelation, so far as the observance of rules to promote happiness on
earth is concerned. But these Pagan sages did not hold out hopes beyond
the grave. They even doubted whether the soul was mortal or immortal.
They did teach many ennobling and lofty truths for the enlightenment of
thinkers; but they held out no divine help, nor any hope of completing
in a future life the failures of this one; and hence they failed in
saving society from a persistent degradation, and in elevating ordinary
men to those glorious heights reached by the Christian converts.
That was the point to which Augustine directed his vast genius and his
unrivalled logic. He admitted that arts might civilize, and that the
elaborate mythology which he ridiculed was interesting to the people,
and was, as a creation of the poets, ingenious and beautiful; but he
showed that it did not reveal a future state, that it did not promise
eternal happiness, that it did not restrain men from those sins which
human laws could not punish, and that it did not exalt the soul to lofty
communion with the Deity, or kindle a truly spiritual life, and
therefore was worthless as a religion, imbecile to save, and only to be
classed with those myths which delight an ignorant or sensuous people,
and with those rites which are shrouded in mystery and gloom. Nor did
he, in his matchless argument against the gods of Greece and Rome, take
for his attack those deities whose rites were most degrading and
senseless, and which the thinking world despised, but the most lofty
forms of pagan religion, such as were accepted by moralists and
philosophers like Seneca and Plato. And thus he reached the intelligence
of the age, and gave a final blow to all the gods of antiquity.
It would be instructive to show that the religion of Greece, as embraced
by the people, did not prevent or even condemn those social evils that
are the greatest blot on enlightened civilization. It did not
discourage slavery, the direst evil which ever afflicted humanity; it
did not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; it
ridiculed those passive virtues that are declared and commended in the
Sermon on the Mount; it did not pronounce against the wickedness of war,
or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtues
of the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or show
that the love of money is a root of all evil. It made sensual pleasure
and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid
with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of a
worldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiable
way to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was a
religion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerable
deities was without God in the world,--which was no religion at all, but
a fable, a delusion, and a superstition, as Paul argued before the
assembled intellect of the most fastidious and cultivated city of
the world.
And yet we see among those who worshipped the gods of Greece a sense of
dependence on supernatural power; and this dependence stands out, both
in the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the boldest heroes. They seem to be
reverential to the powers above them, however indefinite their views. In
the best ages of Greece the worship of the various deities was sincere
and universal, and was attended with sacrifices to propitiate favor or
avert their displeasure.
It does not appear that these sacrifices were always offered by priests.
Warriors, kings, and heroes themselves sacrificed oxen, sheep, and
goats, and poured out libations to the gods. Homer's heroes were very
strenuous in the exercise of these duties; and they generally traced
their calamities and misfortunes to the neglect of sacrifices, which was
a great offence to the deities, from Zeus down to inferior gods. We
read, too, that the gods were supplicated in fervent prayer. There was
universally felt, in earlier times, a need of divine protection. If the
gods did not confer eternal life, they conferred, it was supposed,
temporal and worldly good. People prayed for the same blessings that the
ancient Jews sought from Jehovah. In this sense the early Greeks were
religious. Irreverence toward the gods was extremely rare. The people,
however, did not pray for divine guidance in the discharge of duty, but
for the blessings which would give them health and prosperity. We seldom
see a proud self-reliance even among the heroes of the Iliad, but great
solicitude to secure aid from the deities they worshipped.
* * * * *
The religion of the Romans differed in some respects from that of the
Greeks, inasmuch as it was emphatically a state religion. It was more of
a ritual and a ceremony. It included most of the deities of the Greek
Pantheon, but was more comprehensive. It accepted the gods of all the
nations that composed the empire, and placed them in the Pantheon,--even
Mithra, the Persian sun-god, and the Isis and Osiris of the Egyptians,
to whom sacrifices were made by those who worshipped them at home. It
was also a purer mythology, and rejected many of the blasphemous myths
concerning the loves and quarrels of the Grecian deities. It was more
practical and less poetical. Every Roman god had something to do, some
useful office to perform. Several divinities presided over the birth and
nursing of an infant, and they were worshipped for some fancied good,
for the benefits which they were supposed to bestow. There was an
elaborate "division of labor" among them. A divinity presided over
bakers, another over ovens,--every vocation and every household
transaction had its presiding deities.
There were more superstitious rites practised by the Romans than by the
Greeks,--such as examining the entrails of beasts and birds for good or
bad omens. Great attention was given to dreams and rites of divination.
The Roman household gods were of great account, since there was a more
defined and general worship of ancestors than among the Greeks. These
were the _Penates_, or familiar household gods, the guardians of the
home, whose fire on the sacred hearth was perpetually burning, and to
whom every meal was esteemed a sacrifice. These included a _Lar_, or
ancestral family divinity, in each house. There were Vestal virgins to
guard the most sacred places. There was a college of pontiffs to
regulate worship and perform the higher ceremonies, which were
complicated and minute. The pontiffs were presided over by one called
Pontifex Maximus,--a title shrewdly assumed by Caesar to gain control of
the popular worship, and still surviving in the title of the Pope of
Rome with his college of cardinals. There were augurs and haruspices to
discover the will of the gods, according to entrails and the flight
of birds.
The festivals were more numerous in Rome than in Greece, and perhaps
were more piously observed. About one day in four was set apart for the
worship of particular gods, celebrated by feasts and games and
sacrifices. The principal feast days were in honor of Janus, the great
god of the Sabines, the god of beginnings, celebrated on the first of
January, to which month he gave his name; also the feasts in honor of
the Penates, of Mars, of Vesta, of Minerva, of Venus, of Ceres, of Juno,
of Jupiter, and of Saturn. The Saturnalia, December 19, in honor of
Saturn, the annual Thanksgiving, lasted seven days, when the rich kept
open house and slaves had their liberty,--the most joyous of the
festivals. The feast of Minerva lasted five days, when offerings were
made by all mechanics, artists, and scholars. The feast of Cybele,
analogous to that of Ceres in Greece and Isis in Egypt, lasted six days.
These various feasts imposed great contributions on the people, and were
managed by the pontiffs with the most minute observances and legalities.
The principal Roman divinities were the Olympic gods under Latin names,
like Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, Neptune, Vesta, Apollo, Venus, Ceres,
and Diana; but the secondary deities were almost innumerable. Some of
the deities were of Etruscan, some of Sabine, and some of Latin origin;
but most of them were imported from Greece or corresponded with those of
the Greek mythology. Many were manufactured by the pontiffs for
utilitarian purposes, and were mere abstractions, like Hope, Fear,
Concord, Justice, Clemency, etc., to which temples were erected. The
powers of Nature were also worshipped, like the sun, the moon, and
stars. The best side of Roman life was represented in the worship of
Vesta, who presided over the household fire and home, and was associated
with the Lares and Penates. Of these household gods the head of the
family was the officiating minister who offered prayers and sacrifices.
The Vestal virgins received especial honor, and were appointed by the
Pontifex Maximus.
Thus the Romans accounted themselves very religious, and doubtless are
to be so accounted, certainly in the same sense as were the Athenians by
the Apostle Paul, since altars, statues, and temples in honor of gods
were everywhere present to the eye, and rites and ceremonies were most
systematically and mechanically observed according to strict rules laid
down by the pontiffs. They were grave and decorous in their devotions,
and seemed anxious to learn from their augurs and haruspices the will of
the gods; and their funeral ceremonies were held with great pomp and
ceremony. As faith in the gods declined, ceremonies and pomps were
multiplied, and the ice of ritualism accumulated on the banks of piety.
Superstition and unbelief went hand in hand. Worship in the temples was
most imposing when the amours and follies of the gods were most
ridiculed in the theatres; and as the State was rigorous in its
religious observances, hypocrisy became the vice of the most prominent
and influential citizens. What sincerity was there in Julius Caesar when
he discharged the duties of high-priest of the Republic? It was
impossible for an educated Roman who read Plato and Zeno to believe in
Janus and Juno. It was all very well for the people so to believe, he
said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher
classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of
Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had
been the curse of the human race.
If the Romans were more devoted to mere external and ritualistic
services than the Greeks,--more outwardly religious,--they were also
more hypocritical. If they were not professed freethinkers,--for the
State did not tolerate opposition or ridicule of those things which it
instituted or patronized,--religion had but little practical effect on
their lives. The Romans were more immoral yet more observant of
religious ceremonies than the Greeks, who acted and thought as they
pleased. Intellectual independence was not one of the characteristics of
the Roman citizen. He professed to think as the State prescribed, for
the masters of the world were the slaves of the State in religion as in
war. The Romans were more gross in their vices as they were more
pharisaical in their profession than the Greeks, whom they conquered and
imitated. Neither the sincere worship of ancestors, nor the ceremonies
and rites which they observed in honor of their innumerable divinities,
softened the severity of their character, or weakened their passion for
war and bloody sports. Their hard and rigid wills were rarely moved by
the cries of agony or the shrieks of despair. Their slavery was more
cruel than among any nation of antiquity. Butchery and legalized murder
were the delight of Romans in their conquering days, as were inhuman
sports in the days of their political decline. Where was the spirit of
religion, as it was even in India and Egypt, when women were debased;
when every man and woman held a human being in cruel bondage; when home
was abandoned for the circus and the amphitheatre; when the cry of the
mourner was unheard in shouts of victory; when women sold themselves as
wives to those who would pay the highest price, and men abstained from
marriage unless they could fatten on rich dowries; when utility was the
spring of every action, and demoralizing pleasure was the universal
pursuit; when feastings and banquets were riotous and expensive, and
violence and rapine were restrained only by the strong arm of law
dictated by instincts of self-preservation? Where was the ennobling
influence of the gods, when nobody of any position finally believed in
them? How powerless the gods, when the general depravity was so glaring
as to call out the terrible invective of Paul, the cosmopolitan
traveller, the shrewd observer, the pure-hearted Christian missionary,
indicting not a few, but a whole people: "Who exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, ... being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affections,
unmerciful." An awful picture, but sustained by the evidence of the
Roman writers of that day as certainly no worse than the
hideous reality.
If this was the outcome of the most exquisitely poetical and
art-inspiring mythology the world has ever known, what wonder that the
pure spirituality of Jesus the Christ, shining into that blackness of
darkness, should have been hailed by perishing millions as the "light of
the world"!
* * * * *
AUTHORITIES.
Rawlinson's Religions of the Ancient World; Grote's History of Greece;
Thirlwall's History of Greece; Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Max Müller's
Chips from a German Workshop; Curtius's History of Greece; Mr.
Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Age; Rawlinson's Herodotus;
Döllinger's Jew and Gentile; Fenton's Lectures on Ancient and Modern
Greece; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology; Clarke's Ten
Great Religions; Dwight's Mythology; Saint Augustine's City of God.
CONFUCIUS.
SAGE AND MORALIST.
550-478 B.C.
About one hundred years after the great religious movement in India
under Buddha, a man was born in China who inaugurated a somewhat similar
movement there, and who impressed his character and principles on three
hundred millions of people. It cannot be said that he was the founder of
a new religion, since he aimed only to revive what was ancient. To quote
his own words, he was "a transmitter, and not a maker." But he was,
nevertheless, a very extraordinary character; and if greatness is to be
measured by results, I know of no heathen teacher whose work has been so
permanent. In genius, in creative power, he was inferior to many; but in
influence he has had no equal among the sages of the world.
"Confucius" is a Latin name given him by Jesuit missionaries in China;
his real name was K'ung-foo-tseu. He was born about 550 B.C., in the
province of Loo, and was the contemporary of Belshazzar, of Cyrus, of
Croesus, and of Pisistratus. It is claimed that Confucius was a
descendant of one of the early emperors of China, of the Chow dynasty,
1121 B.C.; but he was simply of an upper-class family of the State of
Loo, one of the provinces of the empire,--his father and grandfather
having been prime ministers to the reigning princes or dukes of Loo,
which State resembled a feudal province of France in the Middle Ages,
acknowledging only a nominal fealty to the Emperor.
We know but little of the early condition of China. The earliest record
of events which can be called history takes us back to about 2350 B.C.,
when Yaou was emperor,--an intelligent and benignant prince, uniting
under his sway the different States of China, which had even then
reached a considerable civilization, for the legendary or mythical
history of the country dates back about five thousand years. Yaou's son
Shun was an equally remarkable man, wise and accomplished, who lived
only to advance the happiness of his subjects. At that period the
religion of China was probably monotheistic. The supreme being was
called Shang-te, to whom sacrifices were made, a deity who exercised a
superintending care of the universe; but corruptions rapidly crept in,
and a worship of the powers of Nature and of the spirits of departed
ancestors, who were supposed to guard the welfare of their descendants,
became the prevailing religion. During the reigns of these good emperors
the standard of morality was high throughout the empire.
But morals declined,--the old story in all the States of the ancient
world. In addition to the decline in morals, there were political
discords and endless wars between the petty princes of the empire.
To remedy the political and moral evils of his time was the great desire
and endeavor of Confucius. The most marked feature in the religion of
the Chinese, before his time, was the worship of ancestors, and this
worship he did not seek to change. "Confucius taught three thousand
disciples, of whom the more eminent became influential authors. Like
Plato and Xenophon, they recorded the sayings of their master, and his
maxims and arguments preserved in their works were afterward added to
the national collection of the sacred books called the 'Nim Classes.'"
Confucius was a mere boy when his father died, and we know next to
nothing of his early years. At fifteen years of age, however, we are
told that he devoted himself to learning, pursuing his studies under
considerable difficulties, his family being poor. He married when he was
nineteen years of age; and in the following year was born his son Le,
his only child, of whose descendants eleven thousand males were living
one hundred and fifty years ago, constituting the only hereditary
nobility of China,--a class who for seventy generations were the
recipients of the highest honors and privileges. On the birth of Le, the
duke Ch'aou of Loo sent Confucius a present of a carp, which seems to
indicate that he was already distinguished for his attainments.
At twenty years of age Confucius entered upon political duties, being
the superintendent of cattle, from which, for his fidelity and ability,
he was promoted to the higher office of distributer of grain, having
attracted the attention of his sovereign. At twenty-two he began his
labors as a public teacher, and his house became the resort of
enthusiastic youth who wished to learn the doctrines of antiquity. These
were all that the sage undertook to teach,--not new and original
doctrines of morality or political economy, but only such as were
established from a remote antiquity, going back two thousand years
before he was born. There is no improbability in this alleged antiquity
of the Chinese Empire, for Egypt at this time was a flourishing State.
At twenty-nine years of age Confucius gave his attention to music, which
he studied under a famous master; and to this art he devoted no small
part of his life, writing books and treatises upon it. Six years
afterward, at thirty-five, he had a great desire to travel; and the
reigning duke, in whose service he was as a high officer of state, put
at his disposal a carriage and two horses, to visit the court of the
Emperor, whose sovereignty, however, was only nominal. It does not
appear that Confucius was received with much distinction, nor did he
have much intercourse with the court or the ministers. He was a mere
seeker of knowledge, an inquirer about the ceremonies and maxims of the
founder of the dynasty of Chow, an observer of customs, like Herodotus.
He wandered for eight years among the various provinces of China,
teaching as he went, but without making a great impression. Moreover, he
was regarded with jealousy by the different ministers of princes; one of
them, however, struck with his wisdom and knowledge, wished to retain
him in his service.
On the return of Confucius to Loo, he remained fifteen years without
official employment, his native province being in a state of anarchy.
But he was better employed than in serving princes, prosecuting his
researches into poetry, history, ceremonies, and music,--a born scholar,
with insatiable desire of knowledge. His great gifts and learning,
however, did not allow him to remain without public employment. He was
made governor of an important city. As chief magistrate of this city, he
made a marvellous change in the manners of the people. The duke,
surprised at what he saw, asked if his rules could be employed to
govern a whole State; and Confucius told him that they could be applied
to the government of the Empire. On this the duke appointed him
assistant superintendent of Public Works,--a great office, held only by
members of the ducal family. So many improvements did Confucius make in
agriculture that he was made minister of Justice; and so wonderful was
his management, that soon there was no necessity to put the penal laws
in execution, since no offenders could be found. Confucius held his high
office as minister of Justice for two years longer, and some suppose he
was made prime minister. His authority certainly continued to increase.
He exalted the sovereign, depressed the ministers, and weakened private
families,--just as Richelieu did in France, strengthening the throne at
the expense of the nobility. It would thus seem that his political
reforms were in the direction of absolute monarchy, a needed force in
times of anarchy and demoralization. So great was his fame as a
statesman that strangers came from other States to see him.
These reforms in the state of Loo gave annoyance to the neighboring
princes; and to undermine the influence of Confucius with the duke,
these princes sent the duke a present of eighty beautiful girls,
possessing musical and dancing accomplishments, and also one hundred and
twenty splendid horses. As the duke soon came to think more of his
girls and horses than of his reforms, Confucius became disgusted,
resigned his office, and retired to private life. Then followed thirteen
years of homeless wandering. He was now fifty-six years of age,
depressed and melancholy in view of his failure with princes. He was
accompanied in his travels by some of his favorite disciples, to whom he
communicated his wisdom.