THE CULT, ITS SYMBOLS AND RITES.
As the side which a religious system presents to the intellect is shown
in the Myth, so the side that it presents to sense is exhibited in the
Cult. This includes the representation and forms of worship of the
unknown power which presides over the fruition of the Prayer or
religious wish. The representation is effected by the Symbol, the
worship by the Rite. The development of these two, and their relation to
religious thought, will be the subject of the present chapter.
The word Symbolism has a technical sense in theological writings, to
wit, the discussion of creeds, quite different from that in which it is
used in mythological science. Here it means the discussion of the
natural objects which have been used to represent to sense supposed
supernatural beings. As some conception of such beings must first be
formed, the symbol is necessarily founded upon the myth, and must be
explained by it.
A symbol is closely allied to an emblem, the distinction being that the
latter is intended to represent some abstract conception or concrete
fact, not supposed to be supernatural. Thus the serpent is the emblem of
Esculapius, or, abstractly, of the art of healing; but in its use as a
symbol in Christian art it stands for the Evil One, a supernatural
being. The heraldric insignia of the Middle Ages were emblematic
devices; but the architecture of the cathedrals was largely symbolic.
Both agree in aiming to aid the imagination and the memory, and both may
appeal to any special sense, although the majority are addressed to
sight alone.
Symbolism has not received the scientific treatment which has been so
liberally bestowed on mythology. The first writer who approached it in
the proper spirit was Professor Creuzer.[200-1] Previous to his labors
the distinction between pictographic and symbolic art was not well
defined. He drew the line sharply, and illustrated it abundantly; but he
did not preserve so clearly the relations of the symbol and the myth.
Indeed, he regarded the latter as a symbol, a “phonetic” one, to be
treated by the same processes of analysis. Herein later students have
not consented to follow him. The contrast between these two expressions
of the religious sentiment becomes apparent when we examine their
psychological origin. This Professor Creuzer did not include in his
researches, nor is it dwelt upon at any length in the more recent works
on the subject.[201-1] The neglect to do this has given rise to an
arbitrariness in the interpretation of many symbols, which has often
obscured their position in religious history.
What these principles are I shall endeavor to indicate; and first of the
laws of the origin of symbols, the rules which guided the early
intellect in choosing from the vast number of objects appealing to sense
those fit to shadow forth the supernatural.
It may safely be assumed that this was not done capriciously, as the
modern parvenue makes for himself a heraldric device. The simple and
devout intellect of the primitive man imagined a real connection between
the god and the symbol. Were this questioned, yet the wonderful
unanimity with which the same natural objects, the serpent, the bird,
the tree, for example, were everywhere chosen, proves that their
selection was not the work of chance. The constant preference of these
objects points conclusively to some strong and frequent connection of
their images with mythical concepts.
The question of the origin of symbols therefore resolves itself into one
of the association of ideas, and we start from sure ground in applying
to their interpretation the established canons of association. These, as
I have elsewhere said, are those of contiguity and similarity, the
former producing association by the closeness of succession of
impressions or thoughts, the latter through impressions or thoughts
recalling like ones in previous experience. When the same occurrence
affects different senses simultaneously, or nearly so, the association
is one of _contiguity_, as thunder and lightning, for a sound cannot be
_like_ a sight; when the same sense is affected in such a manner as to
recall a previous impression, the association is one of _similarity_, as
when the red autumn leaves recall the hue of sunset. Nearness in time or
nearness in kind is the condition of association.
The intensity or permanence of the association depends somewhat on
temperament, but chiefly on repetition or continuance. Not having an ear
for music, I may find it difficult to recall a song from hearing its
tune; but by dint of frequent repetition I learn to associate them.
Light and heat, smoke and fire, poverty and hunger so frequently occur
together, that the one is apt to recall the other. So do a large number
of antithetical associations, as light and darkness, heat and cold, by
_inverse similarity_, opposite impressions reviving each other, in
accordance with the positive and privative elements of a notion.
This brief reference to the laws of applied thought,--too brief, did I
not take for granted that they are generally familiar--furnishes the
clue to guide us through the labyrinth of symbolism, to wit, the
repeated association of the event or power recorded in the myth with
some sensuous image. Where there is a connection in kind between the
symbol and that for which it stands, there is _related_ symbolism; where
the connection is one of juxtaposition in time, there is _coincident_
symbolism. Mother Earth, fertile and fecund, was a popular deity in many
nations, and especially among the Egyptians, who worshipped her under
the symbol of a cow; this is related symbolism; the historical event of
the execution of Christ occurred by crucifixion, one of several methods
common in that age, and since then the cross has been the symbol of
Christianity; this is coincident symbolism. It is easy for the two to
merge, as when the cross was identified with a somewhat similar and much
older symbol, one of the class I have called “related,” signifying the
reproductive principle, and became the “tree of life.” As a coincident
symbol is to a certain extent accidental in origin, related symbols
have always been most agreeable to the religious sentiment.
This remark embodies the explanation of the growth of religious
symbolism, and also its gradual decay into decorative art and mnemonic
design. The tendency of related symbolism is toward the identification
of the symbol with that for which it stands, toward personification or
prosopopeia; while what I may call the _secularization_ of symbols is
brought about by regarding them more and more as accidental connections,
by giving them conventional forms, and treating them as elements of
architectural or pictorial design, or as aids to memory.
This tendency of related symbolism depends on a law of applied thought
which has lately been formulated by a distinguished logician in the
following words: “What is true of a thing, is true of its like.”[204-1]
The similarity of the symbol to its prototype assumed, the qualities of
the symbol, even those which had no share in deciding its selection, no
likeness to the original, were lumped, and transferred to the divinity.
As those like by similarity, so those unlike, were identified by
contiguity, as traits of the unknown power. This is the active element
in the degeneracy of religious idealism. The cow or the bull, chosen
first as a symbol of creation or fecundity, led to a worship of the
animal itself, and a transfer of its traits, even to its horns, to the
god. In a less repulsive form, the same tendency shows itself in the
pietistic ingenuity of such poets as Adam de Sancto Victore and George
Herbert, who delight in taking some biblical symbol, and developing from
it a score of applications which the original user never dreamt of. In
such hands a chance simile grows to an elaborate myth.
Correct thought would prevent the extension of the value of the symbol
beyond the original element of similarity. More than this, it would
recognize the fact that similarity does not suppose identity, but the
reverse, to wit, defect of likeness; and this dissimilitude must be the
greater, as the original and symbol are naturally discrepant. The
supernatual,[TN-11] however, whether by this term we mean the unknown or
the universal--still more if we mean the incomprehensible--is utterly
discrepant with the known, except by an indefinitely faint analogy. In
the higher thought, therefore, the symbol loses all trace of identity
and becomes merely emblematic.
The ancients defended symbolic teaching on this very ground, that the
symbol left so much unexplained, that it stimulated the intellect and
trained it to profounder thinking;[205-1] practically it had the
reverse effect, the symbol being accepted as the thing itself.
Passing from these general rules of the selection of symbols, to the
history of the symbol when chosen, this presents itself to us in a
reciprocal form, first as the myth led to the adoption and changes in
the symbol, and as the latter in turn altered and reformed the myth.
The tropes and figures of rhetoric by which the conceptions of the
supernatural were first expressed, give the clue to primitive symbolism.
A very few examples will be sufficient. No one can doubt that the figure
of the serpent was sometimes used in pictorial art to represent the
lightning, when he reads that the Algonkins _straightly_ called the
latter a snake; when he sees the same adjective, spiral or winding,
(ἑλικοιεδης) applied by the Greeks to the lightning and a snake; when
the Quiché call the electric flash a strong serpent; and many other such
examples. The Pueblo Indians represent lightning in their pictographs by
a zigzag line. A zigzag fence is called in the Middle States a worm or
“snake” fence. Besides this, adjectives which describe the line traced
by the serpent in motion are applied to many twisting or winding
objects, as a river, a curl or lock of hair, the tendrils of a vine, the
intestines, a trailing plant, the mazes of a dance, a bracelet, a broken
ray of light, a sickle, a crooked limb, an anfractuous path, the
phallus, etc. Hence the figure of a serpent may, and in fact has been,
used with direct reference to every one of these, as could easily be
shown. How short-sighted then the expounder of symbolism who would
explain the frequent recurrence of the symbol or the myth of the serpent
wherever he finds it by any one of these!
This narrowness of exposition becomes doubly evident when we give
consideration to two other elements in primitive symbolism--the
multivocal nature of early designs, and the misapprehensions due to
contiguous association.
To illustrate the first, let us suppose, with Schwarz[207-1] and others,
that the serpent was at first the symbol of the lightning. Its most
natural representation would be in motion; it might then stand for the
other serpentine objects I have mentioned; but once accepted as an
acknowledged symbol, the other qualities and properties of the serpent
would present themselves to the mind, and the effort would be made to
discover or to imagine likenesses to these in the electric flash. The
serpent is venomous; it casts its skin and thus seems to renew its life;
it is said to fascinate its prey; it lives in the ground; it hisses or
rattles when disturbed: none of these properties is present to the mind
of the savage who scratches on the rock a zigzag line to represent the
lightning god. But after-thought brings them up, and the association of
contiguity can apply them all to the lightning, and actually has done so
over and over again; and not only to it, but also to other objects
originally represented by a broken line, for example, the river gods and
the rays of light.
This complexity is increased by the ambiguous representation of symbolic
designs. The serpent, no longer chosen for its motion alone, will be
expressed in art in that form best suited to the meaning of the symbol
present in the mind of the artist. Realism is never the aim of religious
art. The zigzag line, the coil, the spiral, the circle and the straight
line, are all geometrical radicals of various serpentine forms. Any one
of these may be displayed with fanciful embellishments and artistic
aids. Or the artist, proceeding by synecdoche, takes a part for the
whole, and instead of portraying the entire animal, contents himself
with one prominent feature or one aspect of it. A striking instance of
this has been developed by Dr. Harrison Allen, in the prevalence of what
he calls the “crotalean curve,” in aboriginal American art, a line which
is the radical of the profile view of the head of the rattlesnake
(_crotalus_).[208-1] This he has detected in the architectural monuments
of Mexico and Yucatan, in the Maya phonetic scrip, and even in the rude
efforts of the savage tribes. Each of these elective methods of
representing the serpent, would itself, by independent association,
call up ideas out of all connection whatever with that which the figure
first symbolized. These, in the mind entertaining them, will supersede
and efface the primitive meaning. Thus the circle is used in
conventional symbolic art to designate the serpent; but also the eye,
the ear, the open mouth, the mamma, the sun, the moon, a wheel, the
womb, the vagina, the return of the seasons, time, continued life, hence
health, and many other things. Whichever of these ideas is easiest
recalled will first appear on looking at a circle. The error of those
who have discussed mythological symbolism has been to trace a connection
of such adventitious ideas beyond the symbol to its original meaning;
whereas the symbol itself is the starting-point. To one living in a
region where venomous serpents abound, the figure of one will recall the
sense of danger, the dread of the bite, and the natural hostility we
feel to those who hurt us; whereas no such ideas would occur to the
native of a country where there are no snakes, or where they are
harmless, unless taught this association.
Few symbols have received more extended study than that of the cross,
owing to its prominence in Christian art. This, as I have said, was
coincident or incidental only. It corresponded, however, to a current
“phonetic symbol,” in the expression common to the Greeks and Romans of
that day, “to take up one’s cross,” meaning to prepare for the worst, a
metaphor used by Christ himself.
Now there is no agreement as to what was the precise form of the cross
on which he suffered. Three materially unlike crosses are each equally
probable. In symbolic art these have been so multiplied that now _two
hundred and twenty-two_ variants of the figure are described![210-1] Of
course there is nothing easier than to find among these similarities,
with many other conventional symbols, the Egyptian Tau, the Hammer of
Thor, the “Tree of Fertility,” on which the Aztecs nailed their victims,
the crossed lines which are described on Etruscan tombs, or the logs
crossed at rectangles, on which the Muskogee Indians built the sacred
fire. The four cardinal points are so generally objects of worship, that
more than any other mythical conception they have been represented by
cruciform figures. But to connect these in any way with the symbol as it
appears in Christian art, is to violate every scientific principle.
Each variant of a symbol may give rise to myths quite independent of its
original meaning. A symbol once adopted is preserved by its sacred
character, exists long as a symbol, but with ever fluctuating
significations. It always takes that which is uppermost in the mind of
the votary and the congregation. Hence, psychology, and especially the
psychology of races, is the only true guide in symbolic exegesis.
Nor is the wide adoption and preservation of symbols alone due to an
easily noticed similarity between certain objects and the earliest
conceptions of the supernatural, or to the preservative power of
religious veneration.
I have previously referred to the associations of ideas arising from
ancestral reversions of memory, and from the principles of minimum
muscular action and harmonic excitation. Such laws make themselves felt
unconsciously from the commencement of life, with greater or less power,
dependent on the susceptibility of the nervous system. They go far
toward explaining the recurrence and permanence of symbols, whether of
sight or sound. Thus I attribute the prevalence of the serpentine curve
in early religious art largely to its approach to the “line of beauty,”
which is none other than that line which the eye, owing to the
arrangement of its muscles, can follow with the minimum expenditure of
nervous energy. The satisfaction of the mind in viewing symmetrical
figures or harmonious coloring, as also that of the ear, in hearing
accordant sounds, is, as I have remarked, based on the principle of
maximum action with minimum waste. The mind gets the most at the least
cost.
The equilateral triangle, which is the simplest geometrical figure which
can enclose a space, thus satisfying the mind the easiest of any, is
nigh universal in symbolism. It is seen in the Egyptian pyramids, whose
sides are equilateral triangles with a common apex, in the mediæval
cathedrals, whose designs are combinations of such triangles, in the
sign for the trinity, the pentalpha, etc.
The classification of some symbols of less extensive prevalence must be
made from their phonetic values. One class was formed as were the
“canting arms” in heraldry, that is, by a rebus. This is in its simpler
form, direct, as when Quetzalcoatl, the mystical hero-god of Atzlan, is
represented by a bird on a serpent, _quetzal_ signifying a bird, _coatl_
a serpent; or composite, two or more of such rebus symbols being blended
by synecdoche, like the “marshalling” of arms in heraldry, as when the
same god is portrayed by a feathered serpent; or the rebus may occur
with paronymy, especially when the literal meaning of a name of the god
is lost, as when the Algonkins forgot the sense of the word _wabish_,
white or bright, as applied to their chief divinity, and confounding it
with _wabos_, a rabbit, wove various myths about their ancestor, the
Great Hare, and chose the hare or rabbit as a totemic badge.[212-1]
It is almost needless to add further that the ideas most frequently
associated with the unknown object of religion are those, which,
struggling after material expression, were most fecund in symbols. We
have but to turn to the Orphic hymns, or those of the Vedas or the
Hebrew Psalms, to see how inexhaustible was the poetic fancy, stirred by
religious awe, in the discovery of similitudes, any of which, under
favoring circumstances, might become a symbol.
Before leaving this branch of my subject, I may illustrate some of the
preceding comments by applying them to one or two well known subjects of
religious art.
A pleasing symbol, which has played a conspicuous part in many
religions, is the Egyptian lotus, or “lily of the Nile.” It is an
aquatic plant, with white, roseate or blue flowers, which float upon the
water, and send up from their centre long stamens. In Egypt it grows
with the rising of the Nile, and as its appearance was coincident with
that important event, it came to take prominence in the worship of Isis
and Osiris as the symbol of fertility. Their mystical marriage took
place in its blossom. In the technical language of the priests, however,
it bore a profounder meaning, that of the supremacy of reason above
matter, the contrast being between the beautiful flower and the muddy
water which bears it.[214-1] In India the lotus bears other and
manifold meanings. It is a symbol of the sacred river Ganges, and of the
morally pure. No prayer in the world has ever been more frequently
repeated than this: “Om! the jewel in the lotus. Amen” (_om mani padme
hum_). Many millions of times, every hour, for centuries, has this been
iterated by the Buddhists of Thibet and the countries north of it. What
it means, they can only explain by fantastic and mystical guesses.
Probably it refers to the legendary birth of their chief saint,
Avalokitesvara, who is said to have been born of a lotus flower. But
some say it is a piece of symbolism not strange to its meaning in
Egypt,[214-2] and borrowed by Buddhism from the Siva worship. In the
symbolic language of this sect the lotus is the symbol of the vagina,
while the phallus is called “the jewel.” With this interpretation the
Buddhist prayer would refer to the reproductive act; but it is
illustrative of the necessity of attributing wholly diverse meanings to
the same symbol, that the Buddhists neither now nor at any past time
attached any such signification to the expression, and it would be most
discrepant with their doctrines to do so.[214-3]
Another symbol has frequently been open to this duplicate
interpretation, that is, the upright pillar. The Egyptian obelisk, the
pillars of “Irmin” or of “Roland,” set up now of wood, now of stone by
the ancient Germans, the “red-painted great warpole” of the American
Indians, the May-pole of Old England, the spire of sacred edifices, the
staff planted on the grave, the terminus of the Roman landholders, all
these objects have been interpreted to be symbols of life, or the
life-force. As they were often of wood, the trunk of a tree for
instance, they have often been called by titles equivalent to the “tree
of life,” and are thus connected with the nigh innumerable myths which
relate to some mystic tree as the source of life. The ash Ygdrasyl of
the Edda, the oak of Dordona and of the Druid, the modern Christmas
tree, the sacred banyan, the holy groves, illustrate but faintly the
prevalence of tree worship. Even so late as the time of Canute, it had
to be forbidden in England by royal edict.
Now, the general meaning of this symbol I take to be the same as that
which led to the choice of hills and “high places,” as sites for altars
and temples, and to the assigning of mountain tops as the abodes of the
chief gods. It is seen in adjectives applied, I believe, in all
languages, certainly all developed ones, to such deities themselves.
These adjectives are related to adverbs of place, signifying _above_,
_up_ or _over_. We speak of the supernatural, or supernal powers, the
Supreme Being, the Most High, He in Heaven, and such like. So do all
Aryan and Semitic tongues. Beyond them, the Chinese name for the Supreme
Deity, Tien, means _up_. I have elsewhere illustrated the same fact in
native American tongues. The association of light and the sky above, the
sun and the heaven, is why we raise our hands and eyes in confident
prayer to divinity. That at times, however, a religion of sex-love did
identify these erect symbols with the phallus as the life-giver, is very
true, but this was a temporary and adventitious meaning assigned a
symbol far more ancient than this form of religion.
In this review of the principles of religious symbolism, I have
attempted mainly to exhibit the part it has sustained in the development
of the religious sentiment. It has been generally unfavorable to the
growth of higher thought. The symbol, in what it is above the emblem,
assumes more than a similarity, a closer relation than analogy; to some
degree it pretends to a hypostatic union or identity of the material
with the divine, the known to sense with the unknown. Fully seen, this
becomes object worship; partially so, personification.
There is no exception to this. The refined symbolisms which pass current
to day as religious philosophies exemplify it. The one, esthetic
symbolism, has its field in musical and architectural art, in the study
and portraiture of the beautiful; the other, scientific symbolism,
claims to discover in the morphology of organisms, in the harmonic laws
of physics, and in the processes of the dialectic, the proof that
symbolism, if not a revelation, is at least an unconscious inspiration
of universal truth. This is the “Doctrine of Correspondences,” much in
favor with Swedenborgians, but by no means introduced by the founder of
that sect. The recognition of the identity in form of the fundamental
laws of motion and thought, and the clearer understanding of the
character of harmony which the experiments of Helmholtz and others give
us, disperse most of the mystery about these similarities. The religion
of art, as such, will come up for consideration in the next chapter.
The second form of the Cult is the Rite. This includes the acts or
ceremonies of worship. Considered in the gross, they can be classed as
of two kinds, the first and earliest propitiatory, the second and later
memorial or institutionary.
We have but to bear in mind the one aspiration of commencing religious
thought, to wit, the attainment of a wish, to see that whatever action
arose therefrom must be directed to that purpose. Hence, when we analyze
the rude ceremonies of savage cults, the motive is extremely apparent.
They, like their prayers, all point to the securing of some material
advantage. They are designed
“to cozen
The gods that constrain us and curse.”
The motives which underlie these simplest as well as the most elaborate
rituals, and impress upon them their distinctively religious character
can be reduced to two, the idea of _sacrifice_ and the idea of _specific
performance_.
The simplest notion involved in a sacrifice is that of _giving_. The
value of the gift is not, however, the intrinsic worth of the thing
given, nor even the pleasure or advantage the recipient derives
therefrom, but, singularly enough, the amount of pain the giver
experiences in depriving himself of it! This is also often seen in
ordinary transactions. A rich man who subscribes a hundred dollars to a
charity, is thought to merit less commendation than the widow who gives
her mite. Measured by motive, this reasoning is correct. There is a
justice which can be vindicated in holding self-denial to be a standard
of motive. All developed religions have demanded the renunciation of
what is dearest. The Ynglyngasaga tells us that in a time of famine, the
first sacrifice offered to the gods was of beasts only; if this failed,
men were slain to appease them; and if this did not mitigate their
anger, the king himself was obliged to die that they might send plenty.
The Latin writers have handed it down that among the Germans and Gauls a
human sacrifice was deemed the more efficacious the more distinguished
the victim, and the nearer his relationship to him who offered the
rite.[219-1] The slaughter of children and wives to please the gods was
common in many religions, and the self-emasculation of the priests of
Cybele, with other such painful rites, indicates that the measure of the
sacrifice was very usually not what the god needed, but the willingness
of the worshipper to give.
The second idea, that of _specific performance_, has been well expressed
and humorously commented upon by Hume in his _Natural History of
Religions_. He says: “Here I cannot forbear observing a fact which may
be worth the attention of those who make human nature the object of
their inquiry. It is certain that in every religion, many of the
votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will seek the divine favor, not
by virtue and good morals, but either by frivolous observances, by
intemperate zeal, by rapturous ecstasies, or by the belief of mysterious
and absurd opinions.
* * * In all this [_i. e._, in virtue and good morals], a superstitious
man finds nothing, which he has properly performed for the sake of his
deity, or which can peculiarly recommend him to divine favor and
protection. * * * * But if he fast or give himself a sound whipping,
this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No
other motive could engage him to such austerities.”
The philosopher here sets forth in his inimitable style a marked
characteristic of religious acts. But he touches upon it with his usual
superficiality. It is true that no religion has ever been content with
promoting the happiness of man, and that the vast majority of votaries
are always seeking to do something specifically religious, and are not
satisfied with the moral only. The simple explanation of it is that the
religious sentiment has a purpose entirely distinct from ethics, a
purpose constantly felt as something peculiar to itself, though
obscurely seen and often wholly misconceived. It is only when an action
is utterly dissevered from other ends, and is purely and solely
religious, that it can satisfy this sentiment. “_La religion_,” most
truly observes Madame Necker de Saussure, “_ne doit point avoir d’autre
bût qu’elle même_.”
The uniform prevalence of these ideas in rites may be illustrated from
the simplest or the most elaborate. Father Brebeuf, missionary to the
Hurons in 1636, has a chapter on their superstitions. He there tells us
that this nation had two sorts of ceremonies, the one to induce the
gods to grant good fortune, the other to appease them when some ill-luck
had occurred. Before running a dangerous rapid in their frail canoes
they would lay tobacco on a certain rock where the deity of the rapid
was supposed to reside, and ask for safety in their voyage. They took
tobacco and cast it in the fire, saying: “O Heaven (_Aronhiaté_), see, I
give you something; aid me; cure this sickness of mine.” When one was
drowned or died of cold, a feast was called, and the soft parts of the
corpse were cut from the bones and burned to conciliate the personal
god, while the women danced and chanted a melancholy strain. Here one
sacrifice was to curry favor with the gods, another to soothe their
anger, and the third was a rite, not a sacrifice, but done for a
religious end, whose merit was specific performance.
As the gift was valued at what it cost the giver, and was supposed to be
efficacious in this same ratio, self-denial soon passed into
self-torture, prolonged fasts, scourging and lacerations, thus becoming
legitimate exhibitions of religious fervor. As mental pain is as keen as
bodily pain, the suffering of Jephthah was quite as severe as that of
the Flagellants, and was expected to find favor in the eyes of the gods.
A significant corrollary[TN-12] from such a theory follows: that which is
the efficacious part of the sacrifice is the suffering; given a certain
degree of this, the desired effect will follow. As to what or who
suffers, or in what manner he or it suffers, these are secondary
considerations, even unimportant ones, so far as the end to be obtained
is concerned. This is the germ of _vicarious_ sacrifice, a plan
frequently observed in even immature religions. What seems the
diabolical cruelty of some superstitious rites, those of the
Carthaginians and Celts, for example, is thoroughly consistent with the
abstract theory of sacrifice, and did not spring from capricious malice.
The Death of Christ, regarded as a general vicarious atonement, has had
its efficiency explained directly by the theory that the pain he
suffered partook of the infinity of his divine nature; as thus it was
excruciating beyond measure, so it was infinitely effectual toward
appeasing divinity.
It is well known that this doctrine was no innovation on the religious
sentiment of the age when it was preached by the Greek fathers. For
centuries the Egyptian priests had taught the incarnation and sufferings
of Osiris, and his death for the salvation of his people. Similar myths
were common throughout the Orient, all drawn from the reasoning I have
mentioned.[222-1]
They have been variously criticized. Apart from the equivocal traits
this theory of atonement attributes to the supernatural powers--a
feature counterbalanced, in modern religion, by subduing its harshest
features--it is rooted essentially in the material view of religion. The
religious value of an act is to be appraised by the extent to which it
follows recognition of duty. To acknowledge an error is unpleasant; to
renounce it still more so, for it breaks a habit; to see our own errors
in their magnitude, sullying our whole nature and reaching far ahead to
generations yet unborn, is consummately bitter, and in proportion as it
is bitter, will keep us from erring.[223-1] This is the “sacrifice of a
contrite heart,” which alone is not despicable; and this no one can do
for us. We may be sure that neither the physical pain of victims burning
in a slow fire, nor the mental pain of yielding up whatever we hold
dearest upon earth, will make our views of duty a particle clearer or
our notion of divinity a jot nobler; and whatever does neither of these
is not of true religion.
The theory of sacrifice is intimately related with the idea of sin. In
the quotation I have made from Father Brebeuf we see that the Hurons
recognized a distinct form of rite as appropriate to appease a god when
angered. It is a matter of national temperament which of these forms
takes the lead. Joutel tells of a tribe in Texas who paid attention only
to the gods who worked them harm, saying that the good gods were good
anyhow. By parity of reasoning, one sect of Mohammedans worship the
devil only. It is well to make friends with your enemy, and then he will
not hurt you; and if a man is shielded from his enemies, he is safe
enough.
But where, as in most Semitic, Celtic and various other religions, the
chief gods frowned or smiled as they were propitiated or neglected, and
when a certain amount of pain was the propitiation they demanded, the
necessity of rendering this threw a dark shadow on life. What is the
condition of man, that only through sorrow he can reach joy? He must be
under a curse.
Physical and mental processes aided by analogy this gloomy deduction. It
is only through pain that we are stimulated to the pursuit of pleasure,
and the latter is a phantom we never catch. The laws of correct
reasoning are those which alone should guide us; but the natural laws of
the association of ideas do not at all correspond with the one
association which reason accepts. Truth is what we are born for, error
is what is given us.
Instead of viewing this state of things as one inseparable to the
relative as another than the universal, and, instead of seeing the means
of correcting it in the mental element of attention, continuance or
volition, guided by experience and the growing clearness of the purposes
of the laws of thought, the problem was given up as hopeless, and man
was placed under a ban from which a god alone could set him free; he was
sunk in original sin, chained to death.
To reach this result it is evident that a considerable effort at
reasoning, a peculiar view of the nature of the gods, and a temperament
not the most common, must be combined. Hence it was adopted as a
religious dogma by but a few nations. The Chinese know nothing of the
“sense of sin,” nor did the Greeks and Romans. The Parsees do not
acknowledge it, nor do the American tribes. “To sin,” in their
languages, does not mean to offend the deity, but to make a mistake, to
miss the mark, to loose one’s way as in a wood, and the missionaries
have exceeding difficulty in making them understand the theological
signification of the word.
The second class of rites are memorial in character. As the former were
addressed to the gods, so these are chiefly for the benefit of the
people. They are didactic, to preserve the myth, or institutionary, to
keep alive the discipline and forms of the church.
Of this class of rites it may broadly be said they are the myth
dramatized. Indeed, the drama owes its origin to the mimicry by
worshippers of the supposed doings of the gods. The most ancient
festivals have reference to the recurrence of the seasons, and the
ceremonies which mark them represent the mythical transactions which are
supposed to govern the yearly changes. The god himself was often
represented by the
high priest, and masked figures took the parts of attendant deities.
Institutionary rites are those avowedly designed to commemorate a myth
or event, and to strengthen thereby the religious organization.
Christian baptism is by some denominations looked upon as a
commemorative or institutionary rite only; and the same is the case with
the Lord’s Supper. These seem to have been the only rites recommended,
though the former was not practiced by Christ. In any ordinary meaning
of his words, he regarded them both as institutionary.
The tendency of memorial to become propitiatory rites is visible in all
materialistic religions. The procedure, from a simple commemorative act,
acquires a mystic efficacy, a supernatural or spiritual power, often
supposed to extend to the deity as well as the votary. Thus the Indian
“rain-maker” will rattle his gourd, beat his drum, and blow through his
pipe, to represent the thunder, lightning, and wind of the storm; and
he believes that by this mimicry of the rain-god’s proceedings he can
force him to send the wished-for showers. The charms, spells and
incantations of sorcery have the same foundation. Equally visible is it
in the reception of the Christian rites above mentioned, baptism and the
Eucharist, as “sacraments,” as observances of divine efficacy in
themselves. All such views arise from the material character of the
religious wants.
The conclusion is that, while emblems and memorial rites have nothing in
them which can mar, they also have nothing which can aid the growth and
purity of the religious sentiment, beyond advancing its social
relations; while symbols, in the proper sense of the term, and
propitiatory rites, as necessarily false and without foundation, always
degrade and obscure religious thought. Their prominence in a cult
declines, as it rises in quality; and in a perfected scheme of worship
they would have no place whatever.
FOOTNOTES:
[200-1] In his chapter _Ideen zu einer Physik des Symbols und des
Mythus_, of his _Symbolik und Mythologie_.
[201-1] Dr. H. C. Barlow’s _Essays on Symbolism_ (London, 1866),
deserves mention as one of the best of these.
[204-1] W. S. Jevons, _The Substitution of Similars_, p. 15 (London,
1869.)
[205-1] Creuzer, _Symbolik_, Bd. I, s. 59.
[207-1] _Ursprung der Mythologie_ (Berlin, 1862).
[208-1] Harrison Allen, M. D., _The Life Form in Art_, Phila. 1874.
[210-1] Cussans, _Grammar of Heraldry_, p. 16.
[212-1] Numerous examples from classical antiquity are given by Creuzer,
_Symbolik_, Bd. i. s. 114. sqq.
[214-1] W. von Humboldt, _Gesammelte Werke_, Bd. iv., s. 332.
[214-2] Creuzer, _Symbolik und Mythologie_, Bd. i., s. 282.
[214-3] Carl Frederick Koppen, _Die Lamaische Hierarchie and[TN-13]
Kirche_, ss. 59, 60, 61.
[219-1] Adolph Holtzmann, _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 232 (Leipzig, 1874).
[222-1] “Es ist so gewissermassen in allen ernsten orientalischen Lehren
das Christenthum in seinem Keime vorgebildet.” Creuzer, _Symbolik und
Mythologie der Alten Völker_, Bd. i., s. 297.
[223-1] In a conversation reported by Mr. John Morley, John Stuart Mill
expressed his belief that “the coming modification of religion” will be
controlled largely through men becoming “more and more impressed with
the awful fact that a piece of conduct to-day may prove a curse to men
and women scores and even hundreds of years after the author of it is
dead.”
THE MOMENTA OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
SUMMARY.
National impulses and aims as historic ideas. Their recurrence and
its explanation. Their permanence in relation to their truth and
consciousness. The historic ideas in religious progress are chiefly
three.
I. The Idea of the Perfected Individual.
First placed in physical strength. This gave way in Southern Europe
to the idea of physical symmetry, a religion of beauty and art.
Later days have produced the idea of mental symmetry, the religion
of culture. All have failed, and why? The momenta of true religion
in each.
II. The Idea of the Perfected Commonwealth.
Certain national temperaments predispose to individualism, others
to communism. The social relations governed at first by divine law.
Later, morality represents this law. The religion of conduct. The
religion of sentiment and of humanity. Advantages and disadvantages
in this idea.
Comparisons of these two ideas as completed respectively by Wilhelm
von Humboldt and Auguste Comte.
III. The Idea of Personal Survival.
The doctrine of immortality the main moment in Christianity, Islam
and Buddhism. Unfamiliar to old and simple faiths. Its energy and
speculative relations. It is decreasing as a religious moment owing
to, (1) a better understanding of ethics, (2) more accurate
cosmical conceptions, (3) the clearer defining of life, (4) the
increasing immateriality of religions.
The future and final moments of religious thought.