CHAPTER XXI

PERSIA

The Aryans who entered India to become its dominant race came from

Central Asia, and left behind them there other tribes of Aryan

culture. These tribes remained in what is called Iran, in the lands,

that is to say, between the Indus, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea,

and the Persian Gulf. It is from this region, a part of which bore in

ancient times the name of Ariana, that the word "Aryan" is derived.

The languages of this territory are akin to Sanscrit; and there is

ample evidence that before the Indian invasion the progenitors of the

Indians and those of the Iranians dwelt together there, and enjoyed a

common civilisation. If the civilisation was the same the religion

also was the same. How the Indo-Iranian religion was developed in

India, we have seen. At first a worship of active and militant

deities, it became by degrees a religion of a passive type, in which

a suffering, acquiescent, and brooding humanity presented to heaven

its needs and problems, and received a corresponding answer. The

Aryans who remained in Iran retained their active and practical

disposition. While by no means wanting in sensitiveness and

flexibility of mind, they were less given to speculation and more to

a robust morality than their Indian kinsmen. It has to be noted that

while the religion of India has not influenced Europe in any manifest

degree until the present century, that of Persia has contributed in a

marked way to form the world of thought in which we dwell.

Sources.--The views generally current about the ancient religion of

Persia are derived from late Greek writers, whose accounts will be

noticed at the end of this chapter. A truer knowledge is now

possible, since the sacred books of the religion are now open to the

world. They were only obtained from the Parsis, who keep up their

ancient religion on the soil of India, during last century, and the

study of them has been very laborious and difficult, and has given

rise to great controversies which are not yet settled. These ancient

books are furnished with Eastern translations and commentaries. Is

the Western scholar to place himself under the guidance of these,

which no doubt are part of the historical tradition of the religion,

or may he claim that he is himself in as good a position as the

Oriental commentator for understanding the original meaning of the

texts; and will he best interpret them by comparing them with the

Vedas? What is their age; in which of the lands of Iran were they

written; was any part of them written by Zoroaster, or is Zoroaster

to be regarded as an historical personage at all? On all these

questions and on many others, scholars are not yet agreed; and while

so much is uncertain about the books, there must also be great

uncertainty about the history and the very nature of the religion. In

what follows we are guided mainly by the scholars who have taken

charge of the volumes connected with Persia in the _Sacred Books of

the East_.[1] In the last of these volumes (xxxi.) a new clue is

given to the subject, of which we shall gladly avail ourselves.

[Footnote 1: Zend-Avesta, _S. B. E._, vols. iv., xxiii., xxxi.]

The sacred books of Persia are known by the name of "Zend-Avesta,"

which is an incorrect expression; we ought to say Avesta and Zend.

"Avesta," like the kindred word "Veda," signifies knowledge, and the

word "Zend" denotes here not the language of that name, but the

"commentary" afterwards added to the original knowledge or text. The

commentary is not written in the Zend language, but in Pahlavi or

Persian. The Avesta, which is written in the older Zend, the sacred

language of Persia, is, like other Bibles, a collection of books

written in different ages, and even, it may be, in different lands.

The books were brought together into one only at some period after

the Christian era. The later legends as to the supernatural

communication to Zoroaster of the earlier books need not detain us;

we must notice, however, that the preserved books of Persian religion

are held to be no more than the scanty ruins of an extensive

literature. The Avesta consisted originally of 21 Nosks or books, and

most of these were destroyed by Alexander when he invaded the East;

only one Nosk was preserved entire. As we have it, the Avesta is a

liturgical work, it contains some legends and some ancient hymns, as

well as a good deal of law, but its prevailing character is that of a

service-book, and it is to this that its partial preservation both at

the invasion of Alexander, and at that of the Mohammedans in a later

century, is probably due. It consists of three parts. The oldest is

the Yasna, a collection of liturgies, which admit and indeed invite

comparison with those of early Christianity: along with these are

found the Gathas or hymns, the only part of the Avesta composed in

verse, and written in an older dialect. The Visperad is a collection

of litanies for the sacrifice; and the Vendidad is a code of early

law, but contains also various religious legends. Besides these

works, which constitute the Avesta proper, there is the Khorda (or

small) Avesta containing devotions for various times of the day, for

the days of the month, and for the religious year; these are for the

use not of the priests alone but of all the faithful, and many of

them are still so used.

The Contents of the Zend-Avesta are Composite.--In these works the

student soon observes that he has before him not one religious system

only but several. In one place we find a worship of one god, as if

there were no others to be considered; some of the litanies on the

other hand contain lengthy and elaborate lists of objects of worship.

In some parts the religion is personal and immediate; in others it is

priestly. Parsism is often called fire-worship, and the elements of

earth and water also obtain extreme sanctity in it, but of this also

there is in the oldest books little trace. The variety in the

literature no doubt reflects a variety in the religion of Iran. Iran

in fact had not one religion but several, and thus the problem is to

trace how these successively entered into contact with Mazdeism or

Zoroastrianism, which is the religion most native to Iran, and were

embodied in it. The different religions belonged to a certain extent

to different provinces. We know that Persia, the conqueror of Media,

was conquered in turn by the Median religion; we also know that the

religion of the Persian kings as read in their inscriptions[2] does

not correspond to any of the religious positions held in the Avesta.

The Magi, from whom also the religion as a whole derives one of its

names, belonged to Media and passed from there to greater power in

Iran as a whole. From the Scythians on the north and from Babylonia

on the south, ideas and practices were imported; and in these and

other ways, forms of religion arose as different from the faith of

Zoroaster as later forms of Christianity from the simplicity of

Christ, yet looking to him as their founder and the giver of their

law.

[Footnote 2: _Records of the Past_, i. 107.]

Zoroaster.--We begin with the teaching of Zoroaster. Dr. E. Meyer in

his _Geschichte des Alterthums_, vol. i., and Mr. Darmesteter in his

admirable introduction to the Avesta (_S. B. E._ vol. iv.) both treat

Zoroaster as a mythical personage, a figure-head of the official

class of the religion, who give currency to their edicts under his

name. Weighty authorities may, however, be quoted for the historical

reality of Zoroaster, and what appears to us most important of all,

the editor of the Gathas, in the _S. B. E._ vol. xxxi., departing

from his collaborateur, Mr. Darmesteter, has treated these hymns,

which give an account of the founder's acts and experiences when

first proclaiming the true doctrine, in such a way as to produce on

the mind of the reader the strongest impression of the historical

reality of the prophet and of his mission. They introduce us to a

religious movement actually in progress in the poet's time, a

movement in which a pure and lofty faith is struggling to establish

itself against prevailing superstitions. The doctrine placed in the

mouth of the reformer is that which is most central in Persian

religion; and only by such deep earnestness and devotion as is here

ascribed to him, could it have attained that position. We start,

then, with Zoroaster and his work; and first of all we ask what was

his date, where did he live, and what kind of religion did he find

existing in his country?

The date of Zoroaster or Zarathustra--the former is the Greek, the

latter the old Iranian form of the name, contracted in Persian to

Zardusht--can only be fixed very approximately. He stands at the very

beginning of the Avesta literature, and the developments in religion

to which that literature testifies must have occupied a long period.

On the other hand no one proposes to place Zarathustra before the

departure of the Indian Aryans from the Indo-Iranian stock. From such

vague data he may be assigned perhaps to somewhere about 1400 B.C. As

to his province, there is considerable agreement among scholars that

his doctrine spread from the east of Iran westwards; and though

tradition gives him a birthplace in Media, his mission lay nearer to

India, in Bactria.

Primitive Religion of Iran.--He did not preach to men unacquainted

with religion. Many of the religious ideas and figures of the Vedas

occur also in Persia, and by the study of these it is possible to

form certain inferences as to the mental history of Persia before

Zarathustra. Mithra the sun-god belongs to Persia as well as India.

The heaven-god known in India as Varuna grew into the principal deity

of Persia. A fire-god, wind- and rain-gods, and the serpent hostile

to man, on whom these made war, are common to both countries. The

institution of sacrifice, in which the deities are served with

offerings and with hymns, is markedly alike in both countries. In

both alike sacrifice is at first the affair not of a priesthood but

of laymen, especially of princes, and is not confined to temples but

is performed in the open air, on a spot judged to be suitable. The

most imposing sacrifice is that of the horse, and an offering of

constant occurrence is that of the intoxicating liquor, in India

Soma, in Persia by a recognised transliteration Homa, which is itself

viewed as a cosmic principle of life, and addressed as a deity. And

in both countries alike the view of sacrifice prevails in early

times, that the gods come to it to take their part in a banquet which

their worshippers share with them, and that they are strengthened and

encouraged by it.

These similarities, and others which might be mentioned, show that

the religion of India and that of Persia started from a common stock

of ideas and usages. A further circumstance of great importance shows

not only the original identity of the two systems, but also perhaps

how they came to diverge from each other. Two generic titles for

deities occur in India. The first of these--_deva_, is said to

signify the bright or shining one, the second--_asura_, the living

one. Now these titles are also found in Persia; but the use of the

terms is different in the two countries. In India both are at first

titles for deity, but by degrees, while "deva" continues to denote

the gods who are worshipped, "asura" assumes a less favourable

meaning, until at length it comes to stand for a second order of

beings, inferior to the devas, and including such powers as are

malignant and hostile. In Persia the fortunes of the two words are

reversed. _Ahura_ becomes the god _par excellence_, the supreme god;

while "deva," the title which in India remained in honour, is in the

Avesta that of evil gods who are not to be worshipped. In this some

scholars consider that we may hear the watchwords of the conflict

which led to the separation of the two religions; there was a schism

between the followers of the Ahuras and those of the Devas, which led

to the entire separation of the two parties. This is the latest form

of the old view which makes Zoroastrianism the outcome of a religious

conflict, of a reaction against the gods afterwards worshipped in

India. There is no direct evidence of such a conflict, and the

difference we have described may be due to the natural development of

the Indo-Iranian religion in different sets of circumstances and

among different peoples. Zarathustra in the Gathas finds the

antithesis fully formed between the good and the evil deities; he

appeals to his countrymen on that matter as one which he does not

need to teach them, but with which they have long been familiar. In

speaking of his date this has to be remembered.

We proceed now to describe from the Gathas the work and teaching of

Zarathustra. The Gathas are poems written in metres which occur also

in the Vedas, and intended, like the Indian hymns, to be used in

worship. The account which they furnish of the mission and the

teaching of the sage are thus clothed in a poetical dress, and do not

narrate bare facts as they occurred, but the facts as interpreted and

treated for religious use. They are in the mouth of Zarathustra

himself; he writes them for use at sacrifice, and remembering how

they are to be rendered, he sometimes puts in the mouth of the

celebrants the words, "Zarathustra and we." These words do not prove

that the hymns are not by him. As explained by Dr. Mills, the hymns

are seen to be very fully charged with meaning and with sentiment.

Uncouth and inartistic in expression, and demanding an immense amount

of patience and ingenuity to trace their connection of thought, they

surprise the reader when once he seizes their meaning, by the depth

and spirituality of their contents, and force him to acknowledge that

they are a worthy document of the birth of a great religion.

The Call of Zarathustra.--The hymns give a vivid picture of that

early world in which the prophet lived. It was a world distracted

with conflict. On one side there is an agricultural community bent on

industry, and, like the Hindus, even at this day, valuing as most

sacred the cattle which form their chief substance. On the other

hand, there are men who dwell on the outskirts between the tilled

land and the wilderness, who are constantly making raids on the

farms, driving off and killing the cattle for sacrifice and for food,

and ruining the fields by destroying the irrigating works on which

their fertility depends. And there is a religious difference as well

as a difference in culture between these two sets of people. The

agriculturists are worshippers of Ahura; the contemners of the cattle

worship beings called in the Gathas "daevas." This schism was not of

Zarathustra's making, he found it going on, and being a priest was

entitled to come forward and seek to guide others with regard to it.

Such is the situation which the hymns present to us. We will try to

state the substance of some of those hymns. The naked words of them,

even when we are sure of the correctness of the translation, are

barely intelligible without lengthy commentary; and on the other

hand, no short statement in modern terms can convey the force and

solemnity of these struggling utterances. As we are dealing with the

original revelation of Zarathustra, the source of the Persian

religion, we shall give the story with some degree of detail.

The first hymn in the arrangement presented to us in _S. B. E._ deals

with what we may term the call of Zarathustra. It sums up in a poetic

and dramatic form the religious result of the movement which led him

to come forward.

The "Soul of the Kine" first speaks; it is the impersonation of the

agricultural community, to whom their cattle are most sacred. She

raises a complaint to Ahura and Asha (the righteousness which is an

attribute of Ahura, and like his other attributes often appears as an

independent person) of the insolence and highhanded devastation and

robbery she has to suffer. "For whom did ye fashion me," she says;

"wherefore was I made?" She appeals to the Immortals for instruction

in tillage with a view to security and welfare.

Ahura then speaks and asks Asha what guardian has been appointed for

the kine to lead and to defend her; and Asha answers that no one,

himself free from passion and violence, could be found who was

capable of being an adequate guardian. The causes of these evils lie

at the roots of the constitution of things, and therefore those

seeking success in any enterprise must approach Ahura himself and not

any subordinate being.

Zarathustra speaks, and confirms the utterances of Asha; it is in

Ahura himself that he and the kine place their confidence; to his

will they submit themselves; the doubts and questions arising from

their outward insecurity, they refer to him.

Ahura speaks and answers his own question. It is true that no lord of

the kine is to be found, who in himself is quite equal to that

position, but he appoints Zarathustra as head to the agricultural

community.

A chorus speaks, consisting of a company of the faithful supposed to

be present, or of the Ameshospends, the personified attributes of

Ahura, and praise the Lord for his bounty and for the wisdom he makes

known; but asks whom he has endowed with the Good Mind, or, as we

might say, the Holy Spirit, to make known to mortals his doctrine.

The call of Zarathustra, intimated in the foregoing verse, is

overlooked, as if it were impossible that such a one as he could

undertake the office. Ahura replies, repeating his commission to

Zarathustra, here called also by his family name of Spitama, and

promising to establish him and make him successful in his work.

The Soul of the Kine speaks, lamenting still that no adequate lord

has been assigned her. Zarathustra is a feeble and pusillanimous man,

not one of royal state who is able to bring his purpose to effect.

The Ameshospends join in the cry for the true lord to appear.

Zarathustra then speaks, accepting the mission in an address to

Ahura, whom he entreats to send his blessings of peace and happiness,

since none but he can give them, and to set up in the minds of the

disciples of the cause that joy and that kingdom which, though it

first comes inwardly, yet brings with it also all outward blessings.

For himself also he prays that the Good Mind and the Sovereign Power

(another of the attributes) of the Lord may hasten to come to him and

strengthen him for his mission.

This poetical rendering of the call of Zarathustra is free both from

miraculous embellishment and from undue exaltation of the person of

the prophet, and forms a great contrast to later statements in the

Avesta, where the prophet is placed in secret conclave with Ahura,

asking him questions and receiving detailed replies which at once

rank as revelation. In the Gathas, allowing for the theological and

poetic form, everything is human and natural. We are strongly

reminded of the accounts of the calls of prophets in the Old

Testament--there is the same choice by the deity of an apparently

weak instrument to accomplish a work urgently called for by the

times, the same sense of insufficiency on the part of the prophet,

but the same absolute confidence on his part in the power of the

deity, and hence the same absolute assurance, once the mission is

accepted, that the cause which he has been called to carry forward

must succeed. In many of the following Gathas the same parallel is

strongly impressed on the mind of the reader. The sense of weakness

is expressed again and again--the prophet has no victorious career,

but is exposed to much gainsaying, which he feels acutely. Yet he

never doubts that his god is with him, and is working for him. To him

he commits his doubts and fears, of his goodness he is joyfully

assured, and his aid he expects with confidence. He is entirely

devoted to Ahura and his cause, and offers himself up with his whole

powers to work out the divine will. He will teach, he says, as long

as he is able, till he has brought all the living to believe. He is

conscious of a divine power working in him. Nothing in himself, he is

strong by the divine grace which Ahura sends him: his words have

efficacy to keep the fiends at a distance, and to advance in men's

minds the divine kingdom; like St. Paul he feels his message to be to

some a savour of life unto life, to others a savour of death unto

death.

The Doctrine.--And what is the message he proclaims? It is a

philosophy of the origin of the world, but a philosophy the

acceptance of which involves immediate and strenuous action. The

distracted condition of the world before him requires to be

explained, so that a remedy for it may be found; and Zarathustra

prays, when he is about to bring forward his doctrine, that Ahura

would help him to explain how the material world arose. The

explanation when it appears is not quite new, it has been shaping

itself already in the mind of his people, but he sets it forth as a

dogma, and draws from it at once all its practical consequences. In

the third hymn of the first Gatha he solemnly brings forward his

doctrine before the people, and appeals to them, not as a people, but

as individuals, each for himself, with a full sense of his

responsibility, to consider it, and adopt it, and act upon it. It is

the doctrine of dualism, not in the fully developed later form in

which two personal potentates divide the universe between them from

the first, but as yet in a form more speculative and vague. There are

two primeval principles, spirits, things, as is well known--the

expression is indefinite--the counterparts of each other, independent

in their action, a better and a worse, and Zarathustra calls on his

audience to choose between them, and not to choose as do the

evildoers. The world, as it is, was made by the joint action of the

two principles, and they also fixed the alternative fates of men, for

the wicked, Hell--the worst life; and for the holy, Heaven--the best

mental state. After the creation was accomplished, the two principles

drew off from each other, the evil one making choice of evil and of

evil works, and the bounteous spirit choosing righteousness, making

his strong seat in heaven, and taking for his own those who do good

and who believe in him. The Daevas and their followers are incapable

of making a just choice between the good and the evil; they have

surrendered themselves from the outset to the "Worst Mind," the demon

of fury, and to all evil works. (There are vague suggestions here of

a temptation and a fall, but only of the evil spirits and their

followers.) From this point onwards the world is filled with a great

struggle. On the one side is Ahura, the only god worshipped by name

in the Gathas. Ahura is a heaven-god, he is, in fact, the bright

heaven, and then the good and beneficent being who dwells in

brightness. In the hymns he is losing his definite character and

becoming an abstraction, a god of dogmatics rather than of history.

He is the good principle personified, and as becomes a god of such

transcendent character, he does not act directly, but through his

satellites. His attributes personified, do his bidding, aid the

saints in spiritual ways, and prepare for the better order of things.

On the other hand are the Daevas with the demon of wrath, who

propagate everywhere lies and mischief, and heap up vengeance for

themselves against the final judgment. For the good there is nothing

better than to aid,--for they can aid, in bringing on the renovation,

dwelling with Ahura even now, and by his attributes which work in

them as well as in him, reinforcing the righteous order, and

preparing themselves to dwell where wisdom has her home. In the end

the Demon of the Lie will be rendered harmless and delivered up to

Righteousness as a captive.

Inconsistencies.--As it happens in every such reform, the new

teaching is not quite consistent with itself; old views are taken up

into the new teaching, although they do not harmonise with it; the

spiritual way of looking at things alternates with a more worldly

way. The following are some examples of this:--The great doctrine of

Heaven and Hell as inner states, as being simply the best and the

worst state of mind, is clearly announced; but the traditional view

of future abodes of happiness and misery also appears. The

Kinvat-bridge is mentioned several times in the Gathas, over which

Iran conceived that the individual had to pass after death. If he was

righteous the bridge bore him safely over to the sacred mountain,

where the good lived again; if he was wicked, he fell off the bridge

and found himself in the place of torment. It is another

inconsistency that Zarathustra expects, on the one hand, to convert

the world by his preaching, while on the other hand his sense of the

antagonism between the good and the evil spirits and their followers

often hurries him into violent methods. One hymn concludes with a

summons to his adherents to fall on the unbelievers with the halberd,

and he is constantly predicting their sudden overthrow. Along with

this, we may mention that he sought to ally himself with powerful

families for the sake of the support they would bring the cause. The

name of Vishtaspa, king we know not of what realm, is always

associated with the prophet as that of his royal patron; other

influential friends are also mentioned. Another point, in which we

notice accommodation to existing usage, is that of sacrifice. The

Gathas have several noble passages describing the true sacrifice man

has to offer to God for his goodness, as consisting simply in the

offering of self, in the devotion to the deity of all a man is, and

all he can do. At the same time Zarathustra has not a word to say in

disparagement of the sacrifice of victims. He prays for guidance in

this part of religious duty; he desires to have everything connected

with sacrifice done in the best way and with the most effective

hymns. Thus the spiritual life is not left to stand alone. There is a

personal walk with God, our piety is said to be God's daughter in us,

his righteousness is working in us and moulding us for his purposes;

both will and deed of the good man are attributed to him, and the

processes are described with true insight by which the soul is

sanctified and wedded to her task and her true destiny; but at the

same time there is an intent looking to that sacred Fire which is an

outward representative of deity; there is the offering of victims,

even of horses, when the prophet's mind is bent on war (the

Homa-offering does not occur, and we may suppose the prophet rejected

this service of the deity by intoxication); there is the smiting of

the demons with prayer, and imprecations, similar to those in the

Psalms, against adversaries of the cause.

It is no proof of unspirituality that the welfare of the Kine, with

whose wail the call of the prophet began, is steadily kept in view

during his mission. The agriculturists are on the side of the

righteous being, good and ever-better tillage is a means of pleasing

him; it is his will that the kine should be freed from alarms and

should prosper; and he may be appealed to to give lessons with a view

to that end. The doctrine passes far beyond its first occasion; yet

the occasion which called for it is never lost sight of.

The Gathas, taken alone, tell us hardly anything of the religion in

which Zarathustra's fellow-countrymen believed. They believed

undoubtedly in many gods; in those parts of the Avesta which come

next to the hymns in time, polytheism is in full force. That

Zarathustra only speaks of one god, Ahura (though he also speaks of

"the Immortals" generally), may be due to the limited extent and

special purpose of the hymns, but it may also be taken as an

indication that the prophet did not needlessly interfere with the

beliefs of his people: content to preach the doctrine with which he

was charged, and which was to him the sum and substance of all

religion, he, like several other religious founders, stirred up no

strife he could avoid. The doctrine he preached was not unprepared

for in the mind of his country, and continued to be the leading

feature of Persian religion in subsequent periods.

It is a momentous step in religious progress, which the prophet of

Iran calls on his countrymen to take. We notice the main features of

the advance.

1. Man is Called to Judge between the Gods.--Zarathustra, like

Elijah, puts before his people the choice between two worships.

Various distinctions between the two cases might be drawn. In the

Scripture case Baal is not a bad god, but simply the wrong god for

Israel to worship. In the case of our reformer the difference between

the two worships is a deeper one. The individual is to choose his

god, he is to declare of his own motion that one god is better than

others, and that no worship whatever is to be paid to these others.

This was a new departure in antiquity; the early world loved to think

of many gods, all alike divine and worshipful, each race or clan

having its god whom it naturally served, or each part of the earth

being portioned out to a divine lord of its own. Neither Greece nor

Rome ever thought of making the individual man the arbiter among the

unseen beings whom he knew, and requiring him to decide which of them

he should consider divine, and which he should disown. In the case

before us, moreover, the choice is to be made on moral grounds. Men

are called to judge of the character of the beings who are called

gods, they are told that there is no necessity to acknowledge those

of whom they disapprove, they are emancipated from the fear of

hurtful and evil beings. There is war in heaven, and men are

encouraged to take part in that war, and to cast off allegiance to

such powers as do not make for righteousness. How there came to be

such strife among the gods, and how it became necessary that men

should judge of it, we have no clear information; we only know that

the momentous step was called for and was taken.

The belief, however, remains even after the decision that there are

unseen evil beings, who had influence in forming the constitution of

things, and who have influence still over the government of the

world. The position taken up is not monotheism. The good god is not

sole creator or sole governor of the world, he is a limited being;

from the outset he has only in part got his own way, and he has

adversaries in the very constitution of things, whom he cannot get

rid of. Persian thought is dualistic; the conception of an Evil

Creator and Governor co-ordinate with the good one differentiates it

from the thought of India, which always tends to a principle of

unity.

2. In the second place, this religion is essentially intolerant and

persecuting. Having chosen his side in the great war which divides

the universe, man can only prosecute that war with all his force; he

must regard the Daevas and their followers as his enemies, and try to

weaken and extinguish them. The general feeling of the ancient world

about differences in religion was that all religions were equally

legitimate, each on its own soil. The Jews, we know, shocked the

Greeks and Romans greatly by denying this, and maintaining that there

was only one true religion, namely, their own, and that all the

others were worships of gods false and vain. But the Persians came

before the Jews in this; the Gathas preach persecution, and the

insults offered by Persian kings in later times to the religions of

Egypt and Greece were no doubt justified by their convictions. In

Persia, as in Israel, religion had come to entertain the notion of

false gods. And a religion which entertains that notion must be

exclusive. Those who have refused to worship beings hitherto deemed

gods, on the ground that they ought not to be worshipped and are not

truly gods, cannot but desire to bring the worship of such beings

entirely to an end, and to make the worship of the true God prevail

instead, by rude or by gentle means, as the stage of civilisation may

in each case suggest.

Growth of Mazdeism.--After the Gathas proper we have other hymns

written in the Gathic dialect, from which the history of the religion

after its foundation may be to some extent inferred.[3] These show

that the Zarathustrian religion was regarded, after the departure of

the founder, as a great divine institution, and was worked out on the

lines he had laid down. The forms of it became of course more fixed.

The god it serves is now called "Ahura Mazda," the "All-Knowing Lord"

(the name is afterwards contracted into the Greek Oromazdes, the

Persian Hormazd; and the religion is called from it Mazdeism); he is

still implored for spiritual blessings both for this and for the

future life, and for furtherance in agriculture. There is, however, a

tendency to address prayer not only to Ahura himself but to beings

connected with him. As if the mind wearied of dwelling on the one

supreme, the Bountiful Immortals are associated with him, the parts

of his holy creation are invoked, the fire which is most closely

identified with him, the stars which are his body, the waters, the

earth, all good animals and plants. The kine's soul receives

sacrifice, and not only the kine's soul which we have met before, but

the souls of "just men and holy women," the Fravashis or spirits not

only of the departed but of the living also, the service of which

continues and increases henceforward in Persian religion. These are

invented deities and have a shadowy character; but gods of more

substance, and more historical reality also came into view at this

point. Zarathustra becomes a god, the hymns themselves are adored;

the Homa-offering reappears, Mithra is often coupled with Ahura,

other old gods creep back and are mentioned along with the moral

abstractions, which also increase in number; in one passage there are

said to be thirty-three objects of worship, a number which also

occurs in India.

[Footnote 3: Yasna Haptanghaiti, _S. B. E._ xxxi. p. 218, _sqq._, and

others following.]

Organisation of the Heavenly Beings.--With all this multiplication

there is, as we shall see, no compromise of the supreme claims of

Ahura. In some of the hymns, all beings, all attributes, all places,

and all times of a sacred nature are heaped indiscriminately

together, in interminable catalogues. But this apparent confusion is

corrected by a remarkable tendency to organisation. The Persian

religion ultimately came to have a very simple and very striking

theology; and that theology was made up by transforming the

abstractions in which the founder dealt, into persons, and arranging

them after the pattern of Oriental society. In the later Yasnas

(liturgies) a figure rises into view which the Gathas do not mention;

that of Angra Mainyu, later Ahriman, the Bad Spirit. In this

counterpart of Spenta Mainyu, the Good Spirit (who is not at first

identified with Ahura, but proceeds from him), the demons obtain a

personal head, and the dualism which appears in all nature and all

human society is thus brought to a personal expression. Ahura and

Ahriman confront each other as the good power and the evil. Both

alike had part in making the world what it is. In every part of the

world, and in all that is felt and done they are at strife. Ahura, to

quote Mr. Darmesteter, is all light, truth, goodness, and knowledge;

Angra Mainyu is all darkness, falsehood, wickedness, and ignorance.

Whatever the good spirit makes, the evil spirit mars; he opposes

every creation of Ahura's with a plague of his own, it is he who

mixed poison with plants, smoke with fire, sin with man, and death

with life.

The Attributes of Ahura.--Each of these beings has his retinue. That

of Ahura was formed first; it consists of his attributes. Even in the

hymns the attributes are regarded as persons, inseparable companions

of Ahura; appeals are made to one or another of them, according as

the worshipper seeks help from one side or the other of the divine

being. By a process which frequently occurs in religious thought,

they afterwards come to be more formally arranged and defined; there

are six of them, and each is charged with a province of the divine

economy. They are as follows:

Vohu Mano (Bahman) Good Mind; he is the head and the guardian of

the living creation of Ahura.

Asha Vahista (Ardibehesht), Excellent Holiness; he is the genius of

fire.

Kshathra Vairya (Shahrevar), Perfect Sovereignty; he is the lord of

metals.

Spenta Armaiti (Spendarmat) divine piety, conceived as female, the

goddess of the earth.

Haurvatat (Khordat) health.

Ameretat (Amerdat) immortality.

The last two are a pair, and have charge conjointly of waters and of

trees.

Ahura is himself one of these spirits; thus there are seven supreme

spirits.

Retinue of Ahriman.--Angra Mainyu on his part comes to have a

corresponding retinue of six daevas, each being the evil counterpart

of one of the good spirits. Evil Mind, Sickness, and Decay are the

names of some of them. The whole spiritual world is ranged on the

side of the good or of the evil deity. The Izatas (Izeds) or angels

consist of gods of immemorial worship in Iran, some of whom are the

same as gods worshipped in India; but the title also applies to gods,

heavenly and earthly, of later creation, so that the class is a very

wide and elastic one. It comprises some beings who have been reduced

by the operation of the new ideas from the first to the second rank

of deities, such as Verethragna, who corresponds to the Vedic Indra,

and Mithra, the sun-god. These now appear in the same rank as gods of

the newer style, such as Sraosha, Obedience, and survivals of early

superstition, such as the "Curse of the wise," a very powerful Ized.

Zarathustra himself belongs to this class of deities, a miscellaneous

one indeed. Another class of sacred beings of world-wide extent is

that of the Fravashis spoken of above. If the good spirits are many

and various, so are the evil. Of these are the great demon-serpent

Azhi who plays a great part in Persian mythology, as Vrittra does in

Indian. Aeshma, later Asmodeus, may be named; he is one of the

Drvants, or storm-fiends. Gahi, an unfaithful goddess, has fallen to

a demon of unchastity; the Pairikas (Peris) are female tempters; the

Yatu are demons connected with sorcery.

The firm organisation of these hosts of spiritual beings, and the

sense of a great conflict in which they are all engaged from the

greatest to the least of them, preserve Mazdeism from the weakness

and absurdity which are apt to creep over religion when the

population of the upper and the nether regions is unduly multiplied.

The faithful never forget Ahura in favour of the minor deities, nor

do they forget that morals and industry are the chief ends of

religion, and that in cultivating these they hasten the coming of the

kingdom. The following is the formula, the "Praise of Holiness," with

which every act of worship begins in the Yasts[4] (liturgies of the

Izeds):

May Ahura Mazda be rejoiced!

Holiness is the best of all good!

I confess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower of Zarathustra,

one who hates the daevas and obeys the laws of Ahura.

[Footnote 4: _S. B. E._ vol. xxiii.]

Ancient Testimonies to the Persian Religion.--It is at this stage,

while it is still in a state of vigour, that we hear of the Persian

religion from various quarters in ancient records. The chapters in

the latter half of Isaiah, which so vigorously denounce idolatry,

hail the approach of Cyrus towards Babylon, and claim unity of

religion between him and the Jews (Isaiah xliv. 28 _sq._). He is the

shepherd who is to lead Jehovah's people back to their own land, and

to cause their temple to be rebuilt. And this claim that the Jewish

and the Persian religions were the same, that the Jews and the

Persians were alike worshippers of the one true God, while all the

surrounding nations were polytheists and idolaters, was admitted on

the side of Persia. After his conquest of Babylon, Cyrus at once

permitted the exiles to return to their own land. The Persian

monarchs of the following century, Darius and Artaxerxes, continued

to take a friendly interest in the worship of Jehovah, whom they

apparently regarded as a form of their own god, "the God of heaven,"

Hormazd (Ezra vii. 21). They accordingly took measures for the

rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, and for the introduction there

of the new religious constitution which had been prepared at Babylon.

This could not have happened if the religion of the Persian kings had

not been a pure service of one god,[5] and the other information we

have on the subject shows that the Mazdeism of Persia at this period

was a very elevated form of the religion. The inscriptions of Darius

do not mention the spread of the worships of Mitra and Anahita,

which, however, make their appearance in the later inscriptions of

Artaxerxes; in none of them is Ahriman spoken of. This, of course,

does not prove that he was not believed in; when the Jewish prophet

proclaims that Jehovah makes both light and darkness, that he both

wounds and heals, there may be a reference to Persian dualism. Yet

Mazdeism was capable of appearing, and did appear to the foreigner,

as a lofty worship of a god of light and goodness. The same

impression is produced by the descriptions of the Greek writers.

Herodotus (i. 131, 132) writes as follows; he is a contemporary of

Ezra: "The following statements as to the customs of the Persians is

to be relied on. They do not fashion images of the gods, nor build

temples, nor altars--they consider it wrong to do so, and count it a

proof of folly; their reason for this being, as I think, that they do

not believe the gods to be beings of the same nature with men as the

Greeks do. They are accustomed to offer sacrifices to Zeus on the

summits of mountains; they call the whole circle of heaven Zeus. They

sacrifice also to the sun, and the moon, and the earth, and to fire,

and to water, and to the winds. These are the ancient parts of their

ritual, but they have added the worship of the Queen of heaven,

Aphrodite; it was from the Assyrians and the Arabs that they acquired

this. The Assyrian name for Aphrodite is Mylitta, the Arabs call her

Alilat, the Persians, Anahita.[6] Such being their gods the Persians

sacrifice to them on this wise. They have no altar, and do not use

fire in sacrifice, nor do they have libations nor flutes, nor wreaths

nor barley. He who wishes to sacrifice takes his victim to a clean

spot and there calls on the deity, his turban wreathed, as a rule,

with myrtle. He does not think of praying for benefits for himself

individually in connection with his sacrifice; he prays for the

welfare of the Persian people and king; he himself is one of the

Persian people. He then cuts up the victim, boils the pieces and

spreads them out on the softest grass he can find--if possible, on

clover. This done, one of the Magians who has come to assist, sings a

theogony,[7] as they call the accompanying hymn; no sacrifice is

allowed to be offered without one of the Magi being present. After a

short pause the sacrificer takes up the pieces of flesh and does with

them whatever he likes."

[Footnote 5: These two religions, Kuenen says, were more like each

other than any other two religions of antiquity.--_Religion of

Israel_, iii. 33.]

[Footnote 6: Herodotus says Mitra; but this is a mistake, whether of

the father of history or of a transcriber.]

[Footnote 7: One of the Yashts in praise of the particular deity.]

In other passages Herodotus tells us of the extreme sanctity

attributed by the Persians to waters, to fire, and to the sun. He

also tells us that they regarded lying as the worst possible offence,

and next to it falling into debt, since the debtor is tempted to tell

lies.

Plutarch writes as follows, quoting from an earlier Greek writer of

the third century B.C.: "Zoroaster the Magician,[8] who was 5000

years before the war of Troy, named the good god Oromazes and the

other Arimonius ... Oromazes is engendered of the clearest and purest

light, Arimonius of deep darkness; and they war one upon another. The

former of these created six other gods (here follow the Amshaspands),

but the latter produceth as many other in number, of adverse

operation to the former.... There will come a time when this

Arimonius, who brings into the world plague and famine, shall of

necessity be rooted out and utterly destroyed for ever ... then shall

men be all in happy estate, they shall need no more food, nor cast

any shadow from them; and that god who hath effected all this shall

repose himself for a time, and rest in quiet."

[Footnote 8: Holland's translation.]

The Vendidad: Laws of Parity.--These extracts show the growth of

certain ideas which we have not noticed before. The dualism is being

worked out more in detail, other gods are coming in, and the doctrine

of the sanctity of the elements has made its appearance. That

doctrine is the basis of a new set of ideas and practices which we

have now to consider, those namely which are contained in the

Vendidad, one of the later works of the Persian canon. To pass from

the Gathas to the Vendidad is like passing from Isaiah to Leviticus,

and the laws of purity of Persian religion bear a strong analogy to

those of Judaism. The Vendidad[9] is composed principally of laws and

rules designed to direct the faithful in the great task of

maintaining their ritual purity. The whole of life is dominated in

this work by the ideas of purity and defilement; the great business

of life is to avoid impurity, and when it is contracted to remove it

in the correct manner as quickly as possible. Purity here is not

primarily sanitary or even moral; though such considerations were no

doubt indirectly present. Impure is what belongs to the bad spirit,

whether because he created it, as he did certain noxious animals, or

because he has established a hold on it as he does on men at death. A

man is impure, not because he has exposed himself to the infection of

disease, not because he has contracted a stain on his conscience, but

because he has touched something of which a Daeva has possession, and

so has come under the influence of that Daeva. Purification,

therefore, and the act of healing consist of exorcisms of various

kinds. This notion of purity plays a great part in other old

religions also; it is here that we see its original meaning most

clearly. Another great feature of the doctrine of purity in the

Vendidad is that the elements, fire, earth, and water, are holy, and

to defile them in any way is the most grievous of sins. As everything

which leaves the body is unclean, a man must not blow up a fire with

his breath, and bathing with a view to cleanliness is not to be

thought of. The disposal of the dead was a matter of immense

difficulty, since corpses, being unclean, could be committed neither

to Fire nor to the Earth. They are ordered to be exposed naked on a

building constructed for that purpose on high ground, so that birds

of prey may devour them; and a great part of the Vendidad is taken up

with directions for purification, after a death has taken place, of

the persons who were in the house, of the house itself, of those who

carried the corpse, and of the road they travelled, etc.

[Footnote 9: _S. B. E._ vol. iv.]

How this Doctrine Entered Mazdeism.--This system was not in force in

the time of Darius and Artaxerxes (when the dead were buried or, as

in the case of Croesus, burned) though the ideas were appearing at

that period on which it is founded; and it is plain that it has no

necessary or vital connection with the religion of Zarathustra. But

in later Mazdeism there are many such importations. This religion, in

its course from east to west, came in contact with beliefs and usages

with which, though foreign to its own nature, it yet came to terms.

Mazdeism is not originally a markedly priestly religion; it is

thought that it became so when planted in Media. No doubt there were

germs in the early Iranian religion of a priestly system. Zarathustra

himself was a priest and was favourable to due religious observances.

But it is quite contrary to his spirit that life should be governed

entirely by ritual law. It was in Media that this came to be the

case. The name of Magi, originally perhaps that of a tribe, became in

Media the name of the priesthood, and so furnished an additional

title for Mazdeism. It is to this stage of the religion that the

priestly legislation of the Vendidad, with all its puritanical

regulation of life, is to be ascribed. (The practice of exposing the

bodies of the dead to be devoured by birds of prey is probably of

Scythian origin.) In this period also, remote from the origin of the

religion, we find a new view of Zarathustra himself and of his

revelation. In the earlier sources Zarathustra composes his hymns in

a natural manner; he is not an absolute lawgiver, but depends on

princes for the carrying out of his views. In the later works the

revelation takes place in a series of private interviews between

Ahura and Zarathustra; the prophet puts questions to the god, and the

god dictates in reply sentences which are at once promulgated as

sacred laws. Mazdeism, like other religions, has its wooden age, its

verbal inspiration, and its priestly code.

To trace the lines by which the influence of the religion of Persia

asserted itself in the wider world would be a large enterprise: only

a few indications can be given here. One great service which that

religion did to the world was undoubtedly that it had sympathy with

the Jews, and enabled Jewish monotheism to take a fresh start on its

way to become a religion for mankind. Mazdeism itself had a tinge of

universalism; Zarathustra expected his religion to spread beyond his

own land, and it did spread over all the provinces of Iran. It never

became a world-religion, but it might have done so had it not become

swathed and choked in Magism or had any new movement arisen in it to

assert the supremacy of its purely human over its artificial

elements. But Ahura himself, perhaps, was too abstract and

philosophic a god to inspire missionary ardour; it needed a being

more firmly rooted in history, a god who had done more to prove the

energy and intensity of his nature, and, further, a god more

undoubtedly omnipotent than Ahura, to establish a universal rule.

The interesting inquiry remains, how far the Jewish religion was

modified by its contact with the Persian. The laws of purity in the

Jewish priestly code find a close parallel in the Vendidad; but with

the Israelites the notion of religious purity existed, and was worked

out in considerable detail, as we see from Deuteronomy, before the

exile, and therefore long before the period of the Vendidad. The

belief in the resurrection, found among the Jews after the exile, and

not before it, has been maintained by many to be a loan from Persia,

where the belief in future reward and punishment was a settled thing

from the time of Zarathustra. But the Jews do not appear to have

grasped this belief all at once or fully formed. They arrived at it

gradually, many Old Testament scholars affirm, and by spiritual

inferences timidly put forth at first, from their own religious

consciousness. A belief which the Jewish religion was capable of

producing of itself need not, without clearer evidence than we

possess, be regarded as borrowed. We are not on much surer ground

when we come to ask whether the angels and demons of Judaism are

connected with those of Persia. This belief also arises naturally in

Judaism, where God came to be thought of as very high and very

inaccessible, and intermediate beings were therefore needed. Some of

the figures of the Jewish spirit-world are, no doubt, due to Persia;

the Ashmodeus of the book of Tobit is a Persian figure. Later Judaism

is like Parsism in arranging the heavenly beings in a hierarchy, and

assigning to the chief angels special functions in the administration

of God's kingdom, and still more so when the upper hierarchy is

confronted by a lower one with a great adversary and father of lies

at its head. But this takes place long after the Persian contact.

The Persian deities had, as a rule, too little legend to enable them

to be received in other countries. Ahura does not travel. Anaitis is

thought to have passed into Greece, changing her name to Aphrodite,

but also to the severer Artemis; but she is perhaps not original in

Persia. The Persian god best known in other lands was Mithra, the

sun-god and god of wisdom. He was a favourite with the Roman armies

in the early empire, and representations of him as a hero in the act

of slaying a bull in a cave have been found in many lands. There were

also mysteries connected with him, in which the candidates had to

pass through a great series of trials and hardships. Persia

influenced Europe and the west of Asia at the same period in another

way. Manicheism, a system which was one of the three great universal

religions of that time, and had a worship and a priesthood and a

sacred literature of its own, was founded by a native of Persia. He

laboured at a distance from his own country, and the doctrines he

propounded came more from Chaldea than from Persia, and consisted of

great histories, like those of the Gnostics, of the doings and

sufferings of cosmic and other persons; a great struggle between the

powers of light and those of darkness was one of its principal

features. The worship of this church was spiritual; its morals were

in theory of the purest and most ascetic kind, being founded on a

principle of dualism in the material world, and requiring much

self-denial and long fasts. The higher virtue of the system was not,

however, required of the ordinary member. Later Parsism, both in Iran

and in India, has shown a disposition to cast off dualism, and to

become, both philosophically and practically, a monistic system.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

_S. B. E._ vols. iv., xxiii. (Darmesteter); xxxi. (Mills). _The

Zendavesta_, vols. v., xviii., xxiv., xxxvii., xlvii. Pahlavi Texts

(E. W. West).

_The Histories of Antiquity_ of Duncker, Maspero, and Ed. Meyer.

Haug's _Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the

Parsis_. Second Edition, 1878,

F. Windischmann, _Zoroastr. Studien_, 1863.

Geldner, "Zoroaster," in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; "Zoroastrianism,"

in _Encyclopaedia Bibl._

Mills, _A Study of the Five Zarathustrian Gathas_, 1892-94.

Lehmann, in De la Saussaye.

Dadhabai Naoroji, _The Parsee Religion_.

On Mithraism, _Dieterich Eine Mithras-liturgie._

Cumont, _The Mysteries of Mithra_, 1903.

PART V

UNIVERSAL RELIGION

CHAPTER XXII

CHRISTIANITY

The writer is aware that in offering a chapter on Christianity at the

conclusion of this work, he attempts a difficult task. If treated at

all, Christianity must be dealt with in the same way as the other

religions, and no assumptions must be made for it which were not made

for them. And a view of our own religion written, not from the

standpoint of the faith and love we feel towards it but of scientific

accuracy, must appear to many pious Christians to be cold and meagre.

But, on the other hand, Christianity is the key of the arch we have

been building, the consummating member of the development we have

sought to trace, and to withhold any estimate of its character would

be to leave our work most imperfect. It seems better, therefore, that

some hints at least should be offered on this part of the subject.

Christianity cannot indeed be dealt with in the same proportion as

the other religions; that would far exceed our space. But some views

are offered regarding its essential nature, which the writer believes

to be so firmly founded in fact that even those who are not

Christians cannot deny them, and thus to afford a valid criterion for

the comparison of Christianity with other faiths.

In the chapter on the religion of Israel we saw how the prophets

before and during the exile began to cherish the idea of a new

relation between God and man, which would not depend on sacrifice nor

be confined to Israel. God, they declared, was preparing a new age,

in which he would receive man to more intimate communion than before;

and man would be guided in the right path, not by covenants and laws,

but by the constant inspiration of a present deity. The new religion

would be one which all nations could share. Jerusalem, the seat of

the true faith, would attract all eyes; all would turn to her because

of the Lord her God.

But, alas, instead of growing broader to realise its universal

destiny, the religion of Israel grew narrower after the exile, and

seemed to forget the prospects thus opened up to it. Judaism, though

immeasurably enriched in its inner consciousness by the teaching of

the prophets, maintained its earlier semi-heathenish forms of

worship, only surrounding them with new stateliness and new

significance; and clothed itself in a hard shell of public ritual and

personal observance. The Jews separated themselves rigorously from

the world, and cultivated an exclusive pride; as if their religion

had been given them for themselves alone, and not for mankind. Under

the Maccabees they displayed the most heroic courage and tenacity,

maintaining their own beliefs and rites amid the flood of Hellenism

which at one time almost swept them away. That they carried their

nationality unimpaired through this period is one of the most

wonderful achievements of the Jewish race. In the succeeding period,

however, many signs appeared showing that their religion was losing

energy. The rule of the priests and scribes extended more and more

over the whole of life, tradition and observance grew more and more

extensive, but the moral judgment lost its elasticity. The sense of

the divine presence grew faint, and multitudes of spirits filled the

air instead, oppressing human life with a sense of vague anxiety. As

political independence was lost, the people became less happy and

more easily excited. But while formalism held increasing sway over

their actions, imagination was free, and surrounded both the past

history of Israel and its future triumphs with manifold

embellishments.

In such a condition was the religion of the Jews when Jesus appeared

in Palestine and created a new order of things. Christianity was at

first a movement within Judaism. Like all the religions which trace

their history to personal founders, it grew from very small

beginnings; but its doctrine was of such a nature, that if

circumstances favoured, it could not fail to spread beyond Judaism,

to men of other lands and other tongues.

The doctrine consisted primarily in a declaration that that great

religious consummation, the kingdom of God, which the prophets had

foretold, which was regarded by the fellow-countrymen of Jesus as a

far-off hope, and which had just been heralded by John the Baptist as

being immediately at hand, had actually taken place. The perfect

state was announced to have arrived, and to be a thing not of the

future but of the present. The long-expected intercourse of God and

man on new terms of perfect agreement and sympathy, had come into

operation; any one who chose could assure himself of the fact. The

title by which Jesus described the intimate relationship of man and

God which he announced, sufficiently shows its character. God is the

Father in heaven; men are his children, and all that men have to do

is to realise that this is so, to enter the circle and begin to live

with God on such terms. The great God seeks to have every one living

with him as his child; and religion is no more, no less, than this

communion. Father and child dwell together in perfect love and

confidence; no outward regulations are needed for their intercourse,

no bargains, no traditions, no ritual, no pilgrimage, no sacrifice.

The intercourse can be carried on by any one, anywhere. It is not a

matter of apparatus, but a purely moral affair, an affair of love.

The Father knows all about the child, is able to give him all he

needs, even before he asks it; is willing to forgive his sins when he

repents of them; is anxious above all to reinforce his efforts after

goodness. The child knows that the Father is always near him, carries

every need and wish to him in prayer, even though knowing that he is

aware of them beforehand; regards all that happens, either good or

ill, as sent by him for the best ends, and seeks in every case to

know his will and to submit to it sweetly, and execute it faithfully.

Nothing could be simpler, or deeper, or broader. Religion is here

presented free from all local or accidental or obscuring elements;

religion itself is here revealed. Accepted in this form, it does for

man all that it can. The relation between God and man is made purely

moral; the link is not that of race, nor does it consist in anything

external. The individual--every individual who will pause to hear--is

assured that there exists between God and him a natural sympathy, and

is urged to allow that sympathy to have its way. It is easy to see

what effect such a belief must have. The individual, bidden to seek

the principle of union with God not in any external circumstance or

arrangement, but in his own heart, becomes conscious of an inner

freedom from all artificial restraints. He finds in his own heart the

secret of happiness, and is raised above all fears and irritations;

and hence the forces of his nature are encouraged to unfold

themselves freely. He sees clearly what as a human person he is

called to be and to do, and feels a new energy to realise his ideals.

As God has come down to him, he is lifted up to God; a divine power

has entered his life, which is able to do all things in him and for

him.

It may be said that what we have described are the effects of

religious inspiration generally, and may take place in connection

with any faith. But the divine impulse communicated to mankind in

Christianity differs from that of any other religion in two important

respects. In the first place, the God who here enters into union with

man possesses full reality and a character of the utmost energy. It

is Jehovah with whom we have to do here, changed, indeed, but still

the same; a God of real and irresistible power, on whom speculation

has not laid its weakening hand. The union of man with God is not

secured by making God abstract and vague, nor is his infinite

kindness and forgivingness purchased at the expense of his intensity

and awfulness. With Jesus, God is still the power who has actual

control over everything that goes on, and who is able to do even what

appears to be most impossible. He is a God of strict justice and

holiness; though he is so kind, his judgments have not ceased, but

are still impending over guilty men and a guilty people. It is he who

can cast both soul and body into hell. It is a God of such energy,

such zeal, who yet offers himself as the willing benefactor and

defender, and the loving guide and helper of the humblest of his

human creatures. In the second place, the terms of the union here

formed between God and man are such as can be found nowhere else. The

deity inspires man not to any particular kind of acts, not to

sacrifices, nor to withdrawal from the world, but inspires him simply

to realise himself. Man is assured of the sympathy of this great God,

and is then left in freedom as to the mode in which he should serve

him. No rules are prescribed; human life is not pressed into an

artificial mould, as is the case in so many great religions; no

preference is accorded to any one pursuit over others. This religion

is not a yoke to coerce men and to make them less, but an inspiration

capable of entering into every kind of life, and of making men

greater and better in whatever occupation. Even religious duties are

left to form themselves naturally; all that is insisted on is that

the child shall have living and real intercourse with the Father.

Prayer is necessary, and so is the practice of good works; the child

must keep in sympathy with the Father by doing as he does. Further

than this, the forms of the religious life are not prescribed. With

regard to morals, it is the same. The moral life is to build itself

up freely from within; goodness is not to be a matter of rule, but

the spontaneous and happy development of a principle which lives and

speaks deep in the centre of the heart. Jesus is not a lawgiver, save

in a metaphorical sense: the law which he sets up is nothing more

than that which every man, when he turns away from all that is

artificial, can find in his own breast.

It is one feature of the spontaneity and spirituality of the religion

of Jesus, that it has no constitution. Jesus regarded himself as the

founder not of a new religion, but only of an inner circle of more

devoted believers inside the old religion of his country; he did not

therefore feel called to draw up rules for a new faith, and the

result of this is that the mechanism of the religion is of later

growth. The authority of the founder can be appealed to for a direct

and constant intercourse with God as of a child with his father, and

for the conduct of men towards each other, which such intercourse

with God necessarily implies, but for hardly anything more. Here, as

in no other historical religion, man is free.

The religion of Jesus, therefore, is one of love alone. The divine

nature consists in love, and the impulse which religion communicates,

is simply that which proceeds from being loved and loving. And a

religion of love finds the way, as no other can, to make man free, to

unseal his energies, and to lead him upwards to the best life. The

appearance of such a religion forms the most momentous epoch of human

history. He who brought it forward must occupy a unique position in

the estimation of mankind. It can never be superseded.

It is no doubt the case that the doctrine of Jesus was not in all

respects new. The ideas of the prophets live again in him; his

followers have always found many of the Jewish Psalms to be perfectly

suited to their experience. Jesus lived in the faith of Israel, and

considered that he had come only to make that faith better

understood, and to free it from improper accretions. What was new was

his own person. His great work was that he embodied his teaching in a

life which expressed it perfectly. It is far short of the truth to

say that there was no inconsistency between what he taught and his

own conduct. His life is a demonstration, in every detail, of the

effects of his religion; all flows with the utmost simplicity, and

even as a matter of necessity, out of the truth he taught. What he

preached was, in fact, himself; he was himself living in the kingdom

of God, to which he called others to come; he knew in his own

experience what it was to live as a child with the Father in heaven,

and to view all persons, all things, all duties, in the light of that

intercourse. All his acts and words flowed from the same spring in

his own inner experience. In no other way could his life shape itself

than as it did, and he saw with perfect clearness what men must be,

and on what terms they must live together when God and they were as

Father and children to each other. What he thus knew he lived, as if

no laws but those of the kingdom of heaven had any authority for him,

and so he presented to the world that living embodiment of the true

religion, which has been the main strength of Christianity. Jesus

announces a new union of God with man, a union in which he himself is

the first to rejoice, but which all may share along with him; and

hence his person counts for more in his religion than that of any

other religious founder in his, and necessarily becomes an object of

faith to all who enter the communion. The doctrine does not produce

its specific effect apart from the person of Jesus. Because in him

alone they know the truth which brings them peace, his followers

regard him, in a way which has no parallel in any other religion, as

their Saviour.

But this name is given to him by his followers, as it is claimed by

himself, for another reason also. Jesus was more than a teacher. He

felt a power to be present in him which was able to supply all needs

and to comfort all sorrows; he did not shrink from summoning all who

were weary and heavy laden to come to him, nor from undertaking to

give them rest. Keenly alive to the sufferings of others, and able to

perceive even those sufferings of which they were not themselves

conscious, he felt it to be his mission to deal with the sadder side

of human life; he was a physician sent to the sick, a shepherd

seeking the lost sheep. It was among the poor and the sick, and even

among the outcasts of society, in whom the sense of need was

strongest, that he felt himself most at home and most able to fulfil

his calling. Thus the motive of compassion enters strongly into all

he said and did: but the compassion is not hopeless in this case as

in the similar case of Gautama (see chapter xx.), nor is the cure

recommended for the ills of humanity that of withdrawal from mankind

or of forgetfulness. Here there is a belief in God. The compassion

from which the religion flows is not as in the case of Gautama, that

of a preacher who has ceased to trust in any heavenly power; it is

announced as existing first of all in the heart of God Himself. God

can do all things, and in his yearning pity for his children has sent

his representative to assure them of his sympathy and to comfort them

in their sorrows. With Jesus therefore no evil is so great as not to

admit of a positive cure; he feels the remedy of all human ills to be

present in his own heart, and so he appears as the Messiah, not such

a Messiah as his countrymen looked for, but as the true Messiah, in

whom all human wants are met, and all human hopes fulfilled. The cure

which he announces for all ills consists in devotion to the will of

the Father in heaven. To give oneself unreservedly to the labour of

realising the purposes of the heavenly Father in one's own heart and

in the world, is to rise above all cares and sorrows; enthusiasm in

the Father's service is the sovereign remedy. To one who believes in

the Father, and seeks to live as his child, no despair is possible.

To be engaged in his business is at all times the highest happiness,

and his kingdom is assuredly coming, though man has still the

privilege of working for it,--the kingdom in which all darkness and

evil will be put away.

We have indicated the chief points which in a scientific comparison

of Christianity with other religions appear to constitute its

distinctive character; and we have sought to make our statement such

as the reasonable adherent of other religions will feel to be

warranted. The points are these. Christianity is a religion of

freedom, it is a system of inner inspiration more than of external

law or system, it is embodied in the living person of its founder, in

which alone it can be truly seen; and the founder is one who is

living himself in the relation to God to which he calls men to come,

and feels himself called and sent to be the Saviour of men.

It is impossible in this work to treat Christianity on the same scale

as the other religions; but the question of its universalism must

necessarily receive attention. Jesus himself did not expressly say

that his religion was for all men. It was his immediate aim to bring

about the renewal of the faith of his countrymen, and to give it a

more spiritual character; and some of his followers considered that

he had aimed at nothing more than this. But he formed a circle of

disciples and adherents, which afterwards came to be the Christian

Church, and he attached no ritual condition whatever to membership in

that community. Nay, more; by his repudiation of the Jewish system of

tradition he showed that the Jewish laws of ritual purity were not

binding upon his disciples, and the further inference could readily

be drawn, that one could enter the Kingdom without being a Jew at

all. The strong missionary impulse of the infant religion brought it

very early in contact with Gentile life, and the question soon arose,

whether those who refused to become Jews could yet claim a share in

the Messiah. It was the task of the Apostle Paul to work out the

theory of the universalism of Christianity, and after some conflict

the principle was recognised that in the Church all racial

differences disappear; "in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek."

This controversy once settled--and a few years sufficed to settle

it--the new religion was free to spread in all directions. It spread

rapidly; the gospel was very simple and imposed no burdensome

conditions, and it soon proved itself to be capable of striking root

in any country. The Apostle Paul was the first great theologian of

the Church; but his doctrine, as will happen in such a case, does not

in all points spring out of the nature of the religion itself. The

Pauline theology is an attempt to reconcile the facts of Christianity

and especially that great stumbling-block to the Jews, the death of

the Messiah, with the requirements of Jewish thought. Instead of

seeing in the death of Christ, as the older apostles at first did, a

perplexing enigma, St. Paul saw in it the principal manifestation of

the compassion of the Saviour, and the great purpose for which he had

come into the world. He concentrated attention on Christ's death and

made the cross rather than the doctrine of the Messiah the burden of

his teaching. To understand Paul we must distinguish between his

religion and his theology. His religious position is essentially the

same as that of Jesus himself; with him, too, the new religion is

that of father and child, and of the consequences which inevitably

flow from such a union. But the movement of thought which began at

the moment of the crucifixion, the concentration of Christian faith

and love on the person of the Saviour, was now complete. The figure

of the Crucified with its powerful tragic attraction, and with its

deep lessons of conquest by self-surrender, of life by dying,

remained from St. Paul onwards, in the centre of the faith.

The world of the early centuries was in great need of a religion, and

Christianity supplied the place which was vacant. Brought in contact,

in the great ocean of the Roman Empire where all currents met, with

religions and philosophies of every kind, it proved best suited to

the task of supplying an inspiration for life, uniting together

different classes of men and schools of thought. But in the wide

arena of the Empire it received as well as gave, and in its

encounters with strange rites and doctrines it also put on many a

strange aspect. It became the heir of the thoughts and aspirations of

a hundred empires; all the pious sentiments that flowed together from

every quarter of the world helped to enrich its doctrine, and to make

it the great reservoir it is of all the tendencies and views, even

those most contrary to each other, which are connected with religion.

Its institutions are of diverse origin. From the Jews it received its

earliest Bible, for the Christians had at first no sacred books but

those of the old covenant, and its weekly festival, though the day

was changed. Its God was the God of the Old Testament, and its

Saviour was the Messiah of Jewish prophecy, so that it was a

continuation of the Jewish religion, and the attempts which were made

by early Gnostics to dissolve this tie were soon forgotten.

From Greece it received much. The world it had to conquer was Greek,

and the conquest could only take place by an accommodation to Greek

thought and to Greek ways. In the end of chapter xvi. we spoke of the

second Greek religion which arose under the influence of philosophy,

and found its way wherever Greek culture spread. In this great

movement, Christianity found a preparation for its coming in the

Greek world, without which its spread must have been much more

doubtful. In the Graeco-Roman religion the advances which appear in

Christianity are already prefigured. Thought has been busy in

building up a great doctrine of God, such a God as human reason can

arrive at, a Being infinitely wise and good, who is the first cause

and the hidden ground of all things, the sum of all wisdom, beauty,

and goodness, and in whom all men alike may trust. Greek thought also

found much occupation in the attempt to reach a true account of man's

moral nature and destiny. Both in theory and in practice many an

attempt was made to build up the ideal life of man, and thus many

minds were prepared for a religion which places the riches of the

inner life above all others. The Greek philosopher's school was a

semi-religious union, the central point of which was, as is the case

with Christianity also, not outward sacrifice but mental activity. It

is not wonderful therefore if Christian institutions were assimilated

to some extent to the Greek schools. It has recently been shown that

the celebration of the Eucharist came very early to bear a close

resemblance to that of a Greek mystery, and that there is an unbroken

line of connection between the discourse of the Greek philosopher and

the Christian sermon. In some of the Greek schools pastoral

visitation was practised, and the preacher kept up an oversight of

the moral conduct of his adherents. While Christianity certainly had

vigour enough to shape its own institutions, and may even be seen to

be doing so in some of the books of the New Testament, the agreement

between Greek and Christian practices amounts to something more than

coincidence.

It was towards the end of the second century that the alliance

between Christianity and the Greek world was finally ratified. Till

then belief and practice were determined mainly by custom and

tradition; but now these were to give way to definite laws and

settled institutions. There came to full development, about the

period we have mentioned, a highly-organised system of church

government, a canon of sacred books of Christian origin, and a creed

in which the beliefs of Christians were drawn together in one

statement. It cannot be denied that the elaborate external forms with

which the religion of Jesus was thus invested went far to change its

spirit also. But this happens to every religion which reaches the

stage of organising itself in order to continue in the world and to

rule permanently in human thought and in human society. No external

forms can adequately express living religious ideas; and yet there

must be external forms in order that religious ideas may be

perpetuated. The ministers of the new truth inevitably rise in

dignity till they grow into a hierarchy. That truth inevitably seeks

to establish itself as scientifically true, and with the aid of the

ruling philosophical tendency of the day clothes itself in a view of

the universe and in a creed. Thus the essence of Christianity came to

consist not in loving the Master and following him in faith and love,

but in upholding the authority of the Church, receiving her

sacraments, and believing various metaphysical and transcendental

statements. Here also a hard shell is formed round the spiritual

kernel of the religion which, if it is fitted to preserve the latter

in rude and stormy times, is also fitted to confuse and also apt to

conceal it.

In each of the countries to which it came, Christianity adopted what

it could of the religion formerly existing there. The old religions

of these lands were not all alike, and hence it came to pass that as

the language of Rome was transformed in various ways, and passed into

the different yet cognate tongues of the Romance nations, so the

religion of the Empire, combining with various forms of heathenism,

passed into several national religions, the differences of which are

at least as conspicuous as their similarity. In Italy Christianity

appears to be a system of local deities, each village worshipping its

own Madonna or saint. In Holland worship consists almost entirely of

preaching. In other countries the ritual and the intellectual

elements of religion are blended in varying proportions; and the

former heathenism of each land is also to be traced in many a popular

observance and belief. So great is the variety of the religions of

Europe, not to mention that of the negroes or the Shakers of America,

that many have doubted whether they ought all to be considered as

branches of one faith, or whether they would not more fitly be

regarded as so many national religions which have all alike connected

themselves with Christianity. Against this there is to be urged in

the first place that as a matter of history they are all undoubtedly

offshoots of the religion of Jesus. It may also be urged that

wherever the name of Jesus is named, his ideas must to some extent be

present, however much they are obscured and prevented from operating

by lower modes of view. The Christianity of no country ought to be

judged by the attitude of its most ignorant or even of its average

adherents; and in every land where Christianity prevails, an

influence connected with religion is at work, which makes for the

emancipation and elevation of the human person, and for the awakening

of the manifold energies of human nature. This, as we saw, is the

immediate and native tendency of the religion of Jesus; it opens the

prison doors to them that are bound; it communicates by its inner

encouragement an energy which makes the infirm forget their

weaknesses, it fills the heart with hope and opens up new views of

what man can do and can become. It is this that makes it the one

truly universal religion. Islam, it is true, has also proved its

power to live in many lands, and Buddhism has spread over half of

Asia. But Buddhism is not a full religion, it does not tend to action

but to passivity, and affords no help to progress. Islam, on the

other hand, is a yoke rather than an inspiration; it is inwardly

hostile to freedom, and is incapable of aiding in higher moral

development. Christianity has a message to which men become always

more willing to respond as they rise in the scale of civilisation; it

has proved its power to enter into the lives of various nations, and

to adapt itself to their circumstances and guide their aspirations

without humiliating them. A religion which identifies itself, as

Christianity does, with the cause of freedom in every land, and tends

to unite all men in one great brotherhood under the loving God who is

the Father of all alike, is surely the desire of all nations, and is

destined to be the faith of all mankind.

A bibliography of the recent study of Christianity would be far too

extensive for this book. An excellent statement on the subject will

be found at the hands of Professor Sanday in the _Oxford

Proceedings_, vol. ii. p. 263, _sqq._

CHAPTER XXIII

CONCLUSION

It will not be expected that the result of the great movement traced

in the chapters of this work can be summed up in a few words. We set

out with a definition of our subject which we said could only be

fully verified after religion had accomplished its growth and had

fully unfolded its nature. We also set out with the assumption that

all the religion of the world is one, and that it exhibits a

development which is in the main continuous, from the most elementary

to the highest stages. We shall not now attempt to justify by

argument that definition or that assumption. The history which we

have sought to place before the reader must itself be the proof of

them. All that can be done in bringing this work to a close is to

point out one great line of development, which may be recognised more

or less distinctly in the growth of each religion, and may therefore

be held to be characteristic of religion as a whole. No doubt the

growth of religion, as of other human activities, has many sides and

aspects, but perhaps it may be possible to specify the central line

of growth in which the explanation of all the subsidiary and parallel

forward movements is to be found.

It was stated in our first chapter that religion is the expression of

human needs with reference to higher beings who are supposed to be

capable of fulfilling men's desires, and it was also stated as an

inference from this, that the growth of human needs is the cause of

religious change and progress. If this is true, then the key to the

progress of religion is to be found in the successive emergence in

human experience of higher and still higher needs. If we can discover

the order in which higher aspirations successively emerge in the

growth of humanity, then we shall possess the chief clue to the

course of religious advance. Now while there is infinite variety in

the needs and desires of men, every land and each nation having

ideals all its own, we can yet discern, on a broad view of human

progress, an advance from lower to higher needs which is common to

the human race, and manifests itself in the history of each nation.

Three successive conditions of human life stand out before us as

markedly distinct, and as occurring wherever civilisation continues

to advance. The first is that in which material needs are

all-absorbing; the second that in which freedom from material needs

has been to some extent attained, and the highest aspirations are

directed to the safety and advancement of the nation in which men

find themselves united and secure; and the third is that in which the

individual realises his own value apart from the state, and develops

a personal ideal which is thenceforward his chief end. To these three

stages of human existence three types of religion correspond, and the

growth of religion consists in the main in its passage from the lower

to the higher of these stages.

The religion of the tribe belongs to that stage of man's existence in

which his energies are entirely occupied in the struggle against

nature and against other tribes. The conditions of his life do not

allow his higher faculties to grow, and while he is not without many

glimpses and anticipations of higher things, his religion, as a

whole, is a mass of childish fancies, and of fixed traditions which

he cannot explain, but does not venture to criticise or change. His

gods are petty and capricious beings, and his modes of influencing

them, though used with zeal and fervour, have little to do with

reason or with taste or with morality. It is in this kind of religion

that magic of all sorts is at home.

The advance from the religion of the tribe to that of the nation was

briefly described above (chapter vi.). The leading classes of the

state at least having gained some measure of security and leisure,

ideas of a nobler order spring up in their minds. The service of the

great gods of the state is organised with befitting dignity and

splendour; the best minds contribute to it all they can in the way of

art, of poetry, of purified legend, of stately ceremonial. Patriotism

and religion are one, the offices of worship are upheld by the whole

power of the state, and the gods speak with new authority to the

spirit of the worshipper. Now it is that great religious systems

arise, so powerful, so highly organised, so splendidly adorned, and

surrounded with such venerable traditions, that they seem to be

destined for eternity. The priesthood becomes a very powerful class,

and acquires a personal holiness which marks out its members as

different from other men; the sacrifices acquire the character of

divine mysteries, every detail of which, even the most trivial, has a

sacred meaning; religious books are compiled or written, which by and

by are regarded as inspired, and as possessing absolute authority. It

is to be observed that the older style of religion is not at once

driven out by the growth of the new, but continues to flourish beside

it and under its shadow. The tribes of whom the nation is composed

still cherish and adore their own special deities. That older worship

is often thought to bring blessings which the new worship of the

state does not command, and many a piece of ancient magic, many a

practice which has no connection with the state religion, still goes

on, especially among those who are not cultivated enough to

appreciate the nobler faith which has arisen.

This, however, does not keep the national faith from growing in

riches and consistency; and religion appears, as this growth

proceeds, to have attained the highest degree of power and authority

at which it can possibly arrive. Commanding as it does all the

resources of the nation, enriched by all that can be brought to it of

material or intellectual riches, placed in a position of absolute

exaltation and inviolableness, to what further conquests can it still

look forward? Yet when a national religion appears to be most firmly

established, the forces are most certainly at work which must ere

long lead to a far-reaching change. While the national worship has

been growing up to its highest splendours, the lives of the citizens

have also been growing richer and deeper, and the individual soul has

become aware of wants and longings which cannot be satisfied in the

national temple. The further progress of religion is apt to appear as

a revolt against the system which has grown so strong. The individual

sets out to seek a consistent intellectual view, and so figures as a

sceptic. He aims at a higher moral law than that of the priestly

system, and is accused of undermining public morality. He feels a new

call to personal goodness, a new need for personal atonement with the

ideal holiness which he has learned to apprehend; and as the public

ritual does not meet these needs, he seeks for new religious

associations and perhaps appears to preach a doctrine contrary to

patriotism, as it is subversive of the established religion of his

country, and to be wilfully destroying what his countrymen revere,

and wilfully breaking through old ties and obligations. Thus the

individualist stage of religion succeeds the national. But the

individualist stage is also, in part at least, the universal stage.

What the thinking mind and the pious heart seeks and cannot find in

the national worship, is a religion free as the seeker himself has

become free, from all that is unreasonable and artificial, a religion

therefore in which every thinking mind and every pious heart can have

a share. What is gained by individuals in this direction is capable,

therefore, if circumstances favour, of proving an acquisition not

only for the individual reformer or his nation, but for all men. But

as the rise of national religion does not bring to an end the ruder

worships of the tribes, which still go on beside it, so neither does

the rise of individualism, even in its purest form, bring to an end

the national worship. In the long run this may follow, but it does

not take place at once. All three forms of religion go on together;

the religion of magic, that of stately public sacrifices and

ceremonials, and that of intellectual effort and pious meditation and

prayer. Each no doubt influences to some extent the others, and is

influenced by them in turn.

The movement thus indicated from tribal to national, and from

national to individual and to universal religion, is the central

development of religion, and all the minor developments which might

be traced, as that of sacrifice from rude to spiritual forms, of the

functions of the sacred class, of the morality dictated by religion

at its various stages, or of the literature connected with piety, may

be explained by reference to this one. This movement has taken place

in every nation; we have seen something of it in each of our

chapters. In some nations it has been early arrested, so that no

important contribution has there been brought to the general religion

of mankind, in others it has run its full course, and like a great

river has arrived at the ocean at last, to mingle its waters with

those of other mighty streams.

The story of the growth of the world's religion has therefore to be

told in a number of parallel narratives, each dealing with the

experience of a separate nation. There can scarcely be any general

history of the religion of the world, in addition to those special

histories. Some epochs, it is true, stand out as having witnessed

simultaneous religious movements in many lands, as if the mind of the

whole human race had then been passing through the same crisis of

thought. The sixth century B.C. is the age of Confucius and of

Laotsze in China, of Gautama in India, of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the

Unknown Prophet of the Exile, of Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and

Xenophanes, and also of the rise into prominence of the Greek

mysteries. Widely different as the movements are which thus took

place contemporaneously in these lands, we may discern in all of them

alike the tendency to plant religion in the mind and heart, and to

create a deeper union than the old external one, a union based on

common intellectual effort and spiritual sympathy. The period

immediately before and after the Christian era might also appear to

be one in which the mind of the world as a whole made a great step

forward. The union of many nations under the sway of Rome, and the

universal diffusion of the Greek language as a means of general

communication, made men conscious at this time as they had never been

before, of the unity of mankind in spite of all differences of race

and speech. A philosophy also was popular at this time which was

cosmopolitan in its character, and occupied itself with the great

problems, which are the same for all, of man's relation to the gods

and of his moral duty. If we add to this the combination which took

place at Rome and wherever different races met, of various rites and

creeds, we see that the age was one singularly disposed to the

breaking down of artificial barriers between men, and singularly

fitted to promote the growth of a belief in which men of all nations

might unite and feel themselves to be brethren.

In these two periods we may recognise important steps in that great

Education of the Human Race which the Apostle Paul refers to in a

bold philosophy of history (Galat. iv.), and which later thinkers

have striven to set forth in detail. After the long servitude of

mankind to irrational practices and to gods who were no gods, there

comes first the period when men recognise that the true God is to be

found not merely outside them but within their hearts and minds, and

then the period when they find that the true God is the same to all

men, that they are all children of the same Father. But while these

general movements of the human mind may be acknowledged, the

education of the human race proceeds for the most part in nations. As

each nation has to elaborate its own art, its own literature, its own

system of law, so each nation has to perfect its own religion. Even

after a universal faith has appeared, religion does not cease to be a

national thing. Each people moulds the universal religion which it

has adopted into a special form, continues by means of it the rites

and traditions of the past, and expresses through it its own national

character and aspirations. Each nation as well as each individual

must necessarily have a faith specially its own, arising out of its

own character and experience and in great part incommunicable to

others. No two nations could possibly exchange religions.

But on the other hand every nation contains within itself forms of

religion which differ from each other as widely as those of two

separate nations. It has been said that no religious belief or usage

which has once lived can ever be destroyed; and the proof of this may

be witnessed in every nation. Even after that religion has come which

has its main seat in the heart and soul, the ruder forms of piety

live on, and even at times aggressively assert themselves. If there

are classes for whom the struggle against material hardships still

continues, no lofty religion can be attained by them any more than by

savage tribes. As the conditions of their life forbid the growth of

their higher faculties, their religion cannot be one of thought or of

refinement, but must be one which promises palpable benefits or an

escape from immediate dangers. At a somewhat higher stage is the

class of those who, while partly escaped from the struggle against

want, have not yet fully realised themselves as thinking and

spiritual beings, and to whom the benefits of religion still lie

outside, rather than in the inner life. When the benefits of religion

are thus conceived, its processes must be of a mechanical nature.

Hence the various systems of apparatus for connecting the worshipper

with a source of good distant from him in time or space, and for

fetching as it were from another region, with certainty and accuracy,

needed supplies of grace.

The further development of religion in a community so mixed must

depend on the progressive education and elevation of the people. As

more and more of them are freed first from distracting wants and

cares, and then from sordid and materialistic views, their spiritual

nature will expand. The need for God himself rather than for his

gifts, will arise and increase in their hearts, and they will grow

capable of that highest religion which is the life of the soul with

God; they will feel its beauty and will drink of the deep springs

which it contains, of strength and peace.

To attain this true religion the human race has had to travel far and

to make many experiments. Many temples were built and fell to ruin

before the true temple of the soul was reached in which, as each

finds what he as an individual requires, there is also room for all

mankind. Even after this highest religion has been made known to men,

it has often been obscured and lost, and many a struggle has been

needed to vindicate its claims and help it to retain its rightful

place. But with growing experience the world becomes more assured

that the simplest and broadest religion ever preached upon this earth

is also the best and the truest, and that in maintaining Christianity

as at first preached, and applying it in every needed direction, lies

the hope of the future of mankind. To those who agree in this

conclusion the history of the religion of the world, full of errors

and of grievous failures as it has been seen to be, cannot appear to

have been a vain and purposeless excursion in a land of shadows. Not

without a divine call, and not without divine guidance did man set

out so early, and persevere so constantly in spite of all his

disappointments, in the search for God.

INDEX

Aesir, 267

Ahura Mazda, 387, 391, 397, 398, 405

Allah, 222

Allat, "The Lady," 165, 173, 219

Amartas, 44

Anaitis, 407

Ancestor-worship,

primitive, 33, 40

China, 115

Aryan, 250

India, 338

Angels and demons, Persia, 400, 407

Animals, worship of, 29, 57

in Peru, 86

in Babylonia, 96

in Egypt, 130

how accounted for, 133

in Arabia, 219

in Greece, 277

Animation of Nature in savage thought, 24

Animism,

meaning of, 40, 96, 308

in Roman religion, 308

Anthropomorphism, 53

Babylonia, 96

Egypt, 132

Greece, 281

Apocalypse, 213

Arabia,

before Mahomet, 218

gods of, 219

Judaism and Christianity in, 223

Art,

Phenician, 174

Egyptian, 132

Greece, 280, 292

Aryans, the, 245

description of, 248

in Europe, 256

religion, 250

etymology of names of gods, 250

Ascetics, Brahmanic, 350

Ashera, Canaanite goddess, 172

Ashtoreth, 176

Association, forms of religious,

Totem-Clan, 70

nation, 84

Greek mysteries, 298

Greek schools, 303

new form in Israel, 212

new form in Islam, 233

Asuras, 44

Baal, Canaanite god, 171, 189

Babylon and Assyria,

religion of, 93

connection with Egypt, 94, 96, 97

connection with China, 93, 98

mythology of, 100

Belief,

an essential part of religion, 9, 13

less important than rite in primitive religion, 66

Brahman, etymology of, 339

Brahmanism, 338

Buddhism, 353, _sqq._

in China, 123

_Burnt Njal_, 264

Burton, Captain, _Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca_, 236

Caaba, 220, 236

Cabiri, 177

Canaanites, 170

religion of, 171, 191

Caste, 338

Celts, 257

China, 106

connection with Babylonia, 107

state religion of, 111

Christianity, 411, _sqq._

Civilisation and religion advance together, 15

origin of, 19

Classification of religions, 80

Confucius, 107, 117, _sqq._

Continuity of growth in religion, 6

Curiosity, an element of religion, 12

Daniel, 213

Decalogues, 202

Definition of religion,

preliminary, 8

fuller, 13

Degeneration in civilisation, 19

in religion, 38

Deuteronomy, 201

Devas, 44, 396

Development of religion, 8, 51, _sqq._, 430, _sqq._

Domestic worship,

origin of, 33

China, 115

Aryans, 251

Iceland, 264

Greece, 275

Rome, 311

Brahmanic, 342

Dualism, 56

Eddas, 266

Egypt, religion of, 126, _sqq._

Elijah and Elisha, 190

Elves, 265

Ephod, 188

Etruria, religion of, 318

Exile of Israel, 202

Ezra, 204

Fairy Tales (German), 262

Fate, 289

Festivals, Greek, 294

Fetish-worship, 35

Fetishism, 38

Fire, 31

Frazer, Mr., 58, 59; _Golden Bough_, 28, 279

Frisia, religion in, 263

Functional deities,

Greece, 275

Rome, 308

Funeral practices, 62

Egypt, 149

Icelandic, 264

Greece, 282, 290

India, 332

Persian, 405

Games, Greek, 294

Gautama Buddha, 356

his death, 361

Germans, the ancient, 258

their gods, 259

their gods identified with Roman, 260

working religion of, 260

later religion, 263

Ghosts, 34

Gods, the great,

in Babylonia, 98

in Egypt, 137

of the Aryans, 252

German, 259

Icelandic, 266

of Homer, 285

Roman, 311

Indian, 326

Gomme, _Ethnology in Folklore_, 60, 249, 254

Greece, 274

Grimm, German Mythology, 260

Hades, 291

Hammurabi, 93, 95, 202

Hanyfs, 224

Hartmann, Edward von, 46

Heaven, 52

an object of primitive worship, 31, 53

Babylonia, 93

China, 112

Arabia, 219

India, 318, 326, 333

Hegira, 231

Hell, 229, 265, 392

Henotheism, 56

Heroic legends,

Babylonian, 100

German, 262

Hesiod, 291

Homer, 283

worship in, 287

Homeric gods, 285

Hymns,

Babylonian, 101

Egyptian, 144

Vedic, 328

Persian, 383. See Psalms

Iceland, 264

decay of old religion of, 272

Idols,

none in primitive religion, 73

Arabia, 219, 220

German? 264

Immortality,

China, 115

Egypt, 152

Incas, the religion of, 85-88

India, 324

Individual, the, not considered in primitive religion, 76

Individual religion,

Babylonia, 104

Israel, 205

Greece, 300

India, 346

a high stage of religion, 429

the porch to universalism, 430

See Buddhism

Indo-Europeans. See Aryans

Isaiah xli.-lxvi., 203

Islam, 217. See Mahomet

meaning of, 226

spread of, 237

a universal religion, 240

weakness of, 241

Israel, 179

Israel and Canaanites, 184

Prophets, 189

reforms of religion, 200

exile, 202

the return, 204

Istar, 101

Jainism, 362

Japan, 115

Jehovah, 182

Jesus Christ, 413, _sqq._

Jewish religion, 205

spiritual elements of, 209

heathenish elements of, 210

Persian influence on? 215

Jinns, 220

Job, 215

Judaism, 205 _sqq._

Hellenistic period of, 412

at time of Christ, 413

Kathenotheism, 55, 336

Koran, 225, 227, 239

Lang, Andrew, 25, 59; _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, 22

Legge, Dr., 110, 113

Literatures, sacred, 179

Babylonia, 93, 100

Buddhist, 353

China, 108

Eddas, 266

Egypt, 127, 154

Koran, 225, 227, 239

Israel, 179, 207

Sibylline books, 319

Vendidad, 406

Zend-Avesta, 382

Local nature of early religion, 60

Local observances,

Aryan, 253

old German, 262

Icelandic, 264

Lockyer, _Dawn of Astronomy_, 94

Magi, 405

Magic, 74

Babylonia, 95

Egypt, 155

Mahomet, 225, _sqq._

preaching, 228

leaves Mecca, 231

at Medina, 232

breach with Judaism and Christianity, 234

domestic, 235

Manicheism, 408

Mannhardt, _Feld- und Waldkulte_, 59, 262

Manu, law of, 344

Massebah, 172

Maya, 349

McLennan, 59

Mecca, 220

becomes capital of Islam, 235

Meyer, E., 247

Mithra, 407

Moloch, 174

Monarchical Pantheon of the Aryans, 253

Monotheism,

not primitive, 37, 56

in Egypt? 144

emergence of, in Israel, 196

in India, 348

Morality,

in primitive religion, 77

Egyptian religion, 155

Greece, 279

Vedic religion, 335

Brahmanism, 345

of Buddhism, 372

Moslem,

meaning of, 226

duties of the, 238

Mueller, Mr. Max, 10, 42, 246, 250, 332

his theory of the origin of religion, 43

Mycenae, 282

Mysteries, the Greek, 298

Mythology,

origin of, 51

Babylonia, 100

Egypt, 138

Greece, 280

Icelandic, 267

Indian, 333

National religion,

how different from earlier form, 81, 428

Israel, 191

Natural religion, 80

Nature gods, growth of, 51

Nature-worship,

the greater, 30, 43

the minor, 32, 42, 57

Nirvana, 361, 373

Omens, 290

Roman, 312

Orientation, of temples, 100

Origin of religion,

(1) Primitive revelation, 26

(2) Innate idea, 26

(3) Psychological necessity, 27

Orphism, 302

Other World, the

in Egypt, 151

with the Semites, 167

Jewish beliefs about, 214

Arabia, 220

Iceland, 265, 266

Homer, 283

Pantheism,

in Egypt, 148

India, 336, 348

Patriarchal society and religion of Aryans, 248

Perkunas, 36

Persia, 381

primitive religion, 385

contact of Jews with, 401, 406

Pfleiderer, Otto, 47

Phenicians, 170

religion of, 176

influence on Greece, 282

Philistines, 170

Philosophy,

Greek, 301

Indian, 347

Polytheism,

origin of, 53

Indian, 335

Prayer,

primitive, 71

Israel, 198, 212

Indian, 339

Persian, 382, 394

Priestly code, 202, 403

Priests,

none in the earliest religion, 72

not necessary in early Israel, 187

Roman, 313

Brahmans, 338

Primitive religion, the, 21

difference between it and later forms, 79

Prophets, in Israel, 189

their criticism of the old religion of Israel, 192

Psalms, 210. See Hymns

Purity, laws of,

Israel, 209

Persia, 404

Rationalism,

Greece, 297

India, 350

Reforms,

of Israelite religion, 200

of Augustus, 322

Renouf, Le Page, 145

Revealed religion, 80

Reville, M., 25, 31, 42

Resurrection, 214

Retribution, after death,

in Egypt, 155

Mahomet, 229

Israel, 214

Rig-veda, the, 325

Ritualism,

Brahmanic, 343

Roman, 314

Persian, 403

Jewish, 204, 208

Rome, 305, _sqq._

Rouge, M. de la, 145

Sacred places, 59

Semitic, 165

Canaanite, 184, 200

Arabia, 219

Germany, 261

Sacred seasons, 75

Sacrifice,

primitive, generally a meal, 67

in China, 114

Semitic, 164

human (Phenician), 175

human (Israel), 187

human (Icelandic), 265

early Israelite, 183

denounced by O. T. prophets, 193

Jewish, 207

Icelandic, 264

Homeric, 287

Persia, 394

Saussaye, P. D. Chantepie de la, 17

Savage elements in all the great religions, 21

Savages,

their religion falls short of the definition, 8

represent the original state of mankind, 19

mental habits of, 23

all have religion, 25

the religion of, described, 29, _sqq._

their beliefs furnish the elements of the great religions, 63

Schrader (Aryans), 247, 252

Semites, 161

religion of, 162

gods of, 164, 173

goddess of, 99, 165, 219

Seraph, 220

Shin-to, 115

Sin,

Babylon, 103

Israel, 205

Slavs, 256

Smith, Robertson, 61; _Religion of the Semites_, 58, 70, 162

Spencer, Mr. H., 11, 39

Spirit, the great, 36

Spirits,

of dead persons, 33

worship of, the origin of all religion? 38

in Babylonia, 95

in China, 114

in Arabia, 220

in Greece, 275

in Persia, 398

Standing stones, 60

Sun, 30

Sun-gods,

Babylonia, 99

Egypt, 140, 148

Phenician, 176

Arabian, 219

Supreme Being, an object of primitive worship? 36

Survival of savage state in the great religions, 21

Synagogue, 212

Syncretism, of gods in Egypt, 148

Taboo, 72

Taoism, 121

Taylor, Dr. I., 247, 248

Temples,

not primitive, 72

Babylonia, 99

Egyptian, 128, 130, 136

Phenician and Jewish, 178

Greek, 292

Roman, 318, 323

Teraphim, 188

Teutons, 256. See Germans

Thunder, 30, 265, 270

Tiele, Dr. C. P., 15

Totemism, 58, 135, 277

Transmigration, 302, 351, 368

Tree-worship,

primitive, 32, 59, 278

Babylonia, 101

Canaanites, 172

Arabia, 219

Greece, 278

Tribal religion, 57, 77, 427

Tylor, Mr., _Primitive Culture_, 10, 20, 25, 29, 39, 62, 63, 68

Under-world, the,

Babylonia, 100, 102

Egypt, 140, 142, 152

Unity of all religion, 4

Universal deities of the Aryans, 252

Universalism,

in O. T. prophets, 195

in Islam, 240

in Christianity, 419

Urim and Thummim, 188

Vedic hymns, 328

Vedic religion, 324, _sqq._

its gods, 326

is it early or late? 331

Vow, original meaning of, 75

Waitz and Gerland's _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, 29

Wellhausen, J., 163, 218

Wells, sacred, 32, 57, 59

Worship,

an essential element of religion, 9

primitive, 66

Chinese, 112

Egyptian, 147

Canaanite, 173

Israelite, 187

Jewish, 207

Roman, 309

See Sacrifice

Zeus, etymology of, 250, 286, 296

Zoomorphism, 53

Zoroaster, 384

his call, 388

his doctrine, 391

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