GODS
+635+. The climax of the organization of external religion appears in
the conception of gods proper; this conception is always associated with
more or less well-developed institutions. Early religious life expresses
itself in ceremonies; the god is the embodiment of man's ideal of the
extrahuman power that rules the world. It is not always easy to
distinguish the true gods from the other supernatural beings with which
early man's world is peopled.[1052] As far as concerns power, the ghosts
and the spirits appear to do all that the gods are credited with doing;
the sphere of ghostly action is practically unlimited, and the spirit
that dwells in a spring, in a river, or in a mountain, is as mighty in
his sphere as Indra or Apollo in his sphere; the difference between them
and gods is a difference of intellectual and moral culture and of the
degree of naturalization in a human society--a god might be defined as a
superhuman Being fashioned by the thought of a civilized people (the
term 'civilized' admitting, however, of many gradations). Still, gods
proper may be distinguished from other Powers by certain characteristics
of person and function. Ghosts are shadowy doubles of human beings,
sometimes nameless, wandering about without definite purpose except to
procure food for themselves, uncertain of temper, friendly or unfriendly
according to caprice or other circumstances, able to help or to harm,
and requiring men to be constantly on the alert so as not in an
unguarded moment to offend them. Souls of recently deceased ancestors,
more highly organized ghosts, conceived of also as attenuated bodies,
have powers not essentially different from those of the simpler ghosts,
but are differentiated from these in function by their intimate
relations with the family or clan to which they belong, and by their
more definite human nature; they are as a rule permanently friendly, are
capable of definite sympathetic social intercourse with living men, and
are sometimes controllers and patrons, hardly to be distinguished from
local or departmental gods. Spirits are ethereal beings residing in, or
closely connected with, certain objects (trees, rivers, springs, stones,
mountains, etc.), sometimes permanently attached to these objects,
sometimes detached; roaming about, sometimes kindly, more generally
inimical, authors of disease and death, to be feared and to be guarded
against, but sometimes in function (though not in origin) identical with
ancestral ghosts. Totems, in their developed form, are revered, but
rarely if ever worshiped. The term 'animal-gods' may mean either living
animals regarded as divine, or animals believed to be the forms assumed
by gods; in the latter case they may be taken to be real gods of an
inferior type.
In distinction from the four classes of Powers just mentioned, a true
god is a supernatural being with distinct anthropomorphic personality,
with a proper name or a distinctive title, exercising authority over a
certain land or people or over a department of nature or a class of
phenomena, dwelling generally in a sanctuary on the earth, or in the
sky, or in the other world, and in general sympathetic with men. Gods
have rational human qualities, human modes of procedure, and are human
beings in all things except power.[1053]
+636+. The god appears to have been at the outset a well-formed
anthropomorphic being. His genesis is different from that of the ghost,
spirit, ancestor, or totem. These, except the spirit, are all given by
experience: totems are familiar objects plainly visible to the eye;
ghosts and ancestors are known through dreams and appearances by day,
and by tradition; and the conception of the spirit is closely allied to
that of the ghost, though it is in part a scientific inference rather
than a fact of experience. In distinction from these a god is a larger
product of imagination, springing from the necessity of accounting for
the existence of things in a relatively refined way. The creator is a
beast only in low tribes, and in process of time, if the tribe continues
to grow in culture, is absorbed in the cult of a true god. It is rarely,
if ever, that a beast, whether a totem or only a sacred thing, becomes a
god proper.
The best apparent examples of such a growth are the Egyptian bull Apis,
who had his temple and ministers, the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, and the
divine snake of the Nagas of India.[1054] But, though in these cases the
beast forms receive divine worship, it is not clear whether it is the
beast that is worshiped or a god incarnate in the beast; the question is
difficult, the data being meager. The myths in which gods appear in
beast forms do not prove a development of the former out of the latter.
It is not necessary to suppose that Zeus was once a bull, Artemis a bear
or a sow, Adonis a boar, and Aphrodite a sow or a dove. The myths may be
naturally explained as arising from the coalescence of cults, the local
sacred beast becoming attached to a local deity who had a different
birth.
The god is a figure of slow growth. Beginning as a sort of headman,
identified sometimes with an ancestor, sometimes with a beast, his
character is shaped by all the influences that go to form the tribal
life, and he thus embodies from generation to generation the tribe's
ideals of virtue.
+637+. The list of classes of supernatural Powers given above must be
regarded, as is there intimated, as a general one. One class appears
sometimes to shade into another; in the theistic schemes of low tribes
it is often difficult to define the conceptions of supernatural beings
with precision.
_Early mythical founders of culture._ Before proceeding to a
consideration of true gods, a class of beings must be mentioned that
appears to stand on the borderland between divine animals, spirits, and
gods. There are various sorts of beings that appear sometimes in animal
form, sometimes in human form, their function being the arranging of the
affairs of the world, the origination of institutions, and sometimes a
definite creation of various things. The title "founders" or
"transformers" or "culture-heroes" has been given them. They arise,
just as the true gods do, from the necessity of accounting for the
beginnings of things,[1055] and, from a comparison of the ideas of
various tribes, a certain growth in the conception may be recognized.
+638+. In some cases the figure is that of a mere trickster, a
mischievous being, the hero of countless stories, who acts from caprice
or malice, though his actions may result in advantage to men. Such are
many of the animal forms of the North American Indians: the coyote of
the Thompson River Indians,[1056] the raven of North British
Columbia,[1057] the mink and the blue jay of the North Pacific
Coast.[1058] In other cases, as also to some extent in the Thompson
River region, he appears in a more dignified form as a benevolent
organizer.
This growth of the trickster into the real culture-hero may be referred
to a progress in thought and refinement.[1059] Among the Northern Maidu
of California there is a sharp distinction between the two characters:
the coyote is tricky and mischievous in the bad sense, with no desire to
do anything profitable to men; the benevolent and useful work of the
world is ascribed to a personage called "the creator," who is always
dignified and regardful of the interests of man.[1060] This sort of
distinction, intended to account for the presence of both good and evil
elements of life, is found in inchoate form among other low peoples (as,
for example, the Masai and the Australians[1061]), but reaches its full
proportions only in the great civilized religions.
+639+. In this class of vaguely conceived creators or transformers we
may place the Central Australian Arunta ancestors, who embodied the idea
of the identity of beasts and human beings, and are the originators of
all the arts and institutions of the tribes; they established the
totemic groups and the ceremonies, and, in the developed myth,
perpetuate their existence by entering the bodies of women and being
born as human beings.[1062] The relative antiquity of this conception of
the origin of things is uncertain; in one point of view it is crude, but
in another it is an elaborate and well-considered attempt to explain the
world. These Arunta ancestors, notwithstanding their half-bestial forms,
are represented as acting in all regards like human beings, and as
having planned a complete system of tribal organization, but no
religious worship is offered them--they figure only in sociogonic myths
and in the determination of the totemic status of newborn children.
Among the Navahos we find a combination of beast and man in the work of
creation.[1063] In their elaborate cosmogonic myth the first actors are
Coyote, First Man, and First Woman, and there is discord between Coyote
and his human coworkers. Here again the object seems to be to account
for the diverse elements of the tribal life.
+640+. Many such personages, originators or introducers of the arts of
life and the distribution of territory, are described in the folk-tales
and myths of the North American tribes. The conception, it may be
concluded, existed all over the world, though for many communities the
details have not yet been brought to light.[1064] A noteworthy personage
of this class is the Melanesian Qat (especially prominent in the Banks
Islands), a being credited with almost plenary power, the creator or
arranger of seasons, the introducer of night, therefore an important
cultural power, yet mischievous, the hero of numerous folk-stories; he
does not appear in animal form but lives an ordinary family life. He is
not worshiped--he is regarded rather as the explanation of phenomena, a
genuine product of early cosmogonic science. He appears to be the
nearest approach in Melanesia to a real creator (with the exception
perhaps of a somewhat uncertain female being called Koevasi); but
alongside of him stand a number of spirits and ancestral ghosts who play
an important part in the organization of society.[1065] For the Koryaks
of Northeastern Siberia the "Big Grandfather" is an arranger of all
things out of preëxisting material;[1066] the Chukchee, on the other
hand, regard as creator a benevolent being residing in the zenith. Vague
stories of simitar arrangers are found among the East African Nandi, and
the South African Zulus.[1067]
+641+. Traces of this function of organizing society appear in the
mythical figures of some higher religions. Among such figures may be
reckoned the Babylonian Gilgamesh, the Old Testament Cainides, the Greek
Heracles, Theseus, Orpheus, and others.[1068] But these personages
generally take on human form and are treated as factors in the regular
social development.
+642+. The "culture-hero" thus seems to be a natural product of
incipient civilization. He represents the vague feeling that the
institutions of society arose out of human needs and that the
origination of these institutions demanded more than human wisdom and
power.[1069] He partakes of the nature of both men and gods--he is
all-powerful, yet a creature of caprice and a slave of accident. To him
society is supposed to owe an incalculable debt; but his mixed nature
affords a wide field for bizarre myths and folk-stories, and he of
necessity gives way to more symmetrical divine figures.
+643+. The god, in the true sense of the word, is the highest
generalization of the constructive religious imagination. In his
simplest and earliest form he appears as a venerable supernatural man,
wise according to the wisdom of his place and time--such is the natural
conception of the lower tribes. His position is described by the titles
"the old one," "the father," "the grandfather";[1070] he is a superhuman
headman or chief, caring for his people, giving them what they need,
sharing their ethical ideas and enforcing their ethical rules. He is an
all-sufficient local ruler or overseer, his functions touching the whole
life of his people and of no other people. In the progress of
myth-making (that is, in the construction of early scientific theology)
such gods are not infrequently represented as men who have gone up to
the sky; this is a natural way of accounting for their superterrestrial
abode. Savage conceptions of the origin and history of such figures are
usually vague, and their theologies fluctuating and self-contradictory;
but there are two points as to which opinion is firm: the god is like
men in everything except power, and his functions are universal. He
represents not a monotheistic creed (which takes the whole world as the
domain of God), but a narrow tribal acceptance of the sufficiency of the
local divine patron.[1071]
CLAN GODS
+644+. The character just described is that of the earliest known gods;
it is embodied in certain figures found in various parts of the world.
Such divine figures belong to the simplest form of social organization,
the clan; it is in the clan that they are shaped, and they reflect the
conceptions, political and ethical, of the clan. In Southeast Australia
the personages called Daramulun, Baiame, Bunjil, correspond to this
description: they are supernatural old men who have always existed; they
are taken for granted without inquiry into their origin; they direct the
affairs of the tribe in a general way in accordance with the moral
ideas of the place and time.[1072] The Australians have other beings
with vaguely expressed characters and functions, but our information
regarding these is so meager that it is not possible to form a distinct
judgment of their character. Similar figures are the Klamath Indian "Old
Man"[1073] and the Zulu Unkulunkulu, an old man, the father of the
people, only dimly understood by the natives who have been questioned on
this point; they are uncertain whether he is dead or alive, but in any
case he is revered as a great personage.[1074]
+645+. Other such deities are reported in South Africa, as the Qamata of
the Xosa, Morimo of the Bakuana, and farther north Molungu.[1075] On the
West Coast also, in Ashanti, Dahomi, and Yoruba, a number of deities
exist which were in all probability originally local.[1076] Such appears
to be the character of certain gods of the non-Aryan tribes of India, as
the Kolarian Sunthals and Koles.[1077] Perhaps also the god Vetala was
originally such a local deity with the savage characteristics proper to
the time and place, though later he was half Brahmanized and became a
fiend.[1078] Among the Todas every clan has its god, who was the creator
and instructor of the people. The large number of gods now recognized by
the various Toda communities are essentially the same in character and
function, and the existing system has doubtless been formed by the
coalition of the clans.[1079] In North America the Navahos have a number
of local deities, the _yei_ (Zuñi, _yeyi_), some of which are called by
terms that mean 'venerable.'[1080] The Koryak guardians of occupations
and houses may be of the nature of such objects of worship in the
clans,[1081] and so also the Patagonian family-gods. Cf. the Greek
[Greek: kourotrophos]. In Japan the early system of supernatural beings
has been obscured by the great religions of the later time--Shinto in
its developed form, and Buddhism--but the indications are that the
general term _kami_, a designation of all supernatural things, included
local deities.[1082]
+646+. It is not clear how early the practice began of giving these
beings proper names. In the lowest known tribes we meet descriptive
titles such as "old one," "grandfather," "grandmother"; and so among
some civilized peoples, as the Semites, whose local deities are often
known simply as _baals_ ('possessors,' 'lords'), sometimes as lords of
particular places, as, for example, the Arabic Dhu ash-Shara (Dusares),
'lord of the Shara.' A god identified with a particular object may be
called by its name; so 'Heaven' is said to have become the proper name
of a Huron deity (cf. Zeus, Tien, Shangti).[1083] Names of Pawnee gods
are Bright Star (Evening Star), Great Star (Morning Star), Motionless
One (North Star), and many other such; the Navahos have The Woman Who
Changes (apparently the changing year), White Shell Woman, Child of
Water;[1084] the Kolarian Sunthals, Great Mountain;[1085] the Brazilian
Arawaks, River-born.[1086] A proper name becomes necessary as soon as
definite social relations with a god are established. Divine names in
civilized religions, of remote origin, are often inexplicable.
+647+. Among the simple clan gods divinized men should be included. In
many parts of the world, as is remarked above, chiefs and other great
personages are regarded as divine; this attribution of divinity is a
part of that general early conception according to which there was an
element of power in all things, naturally embodied in a special way in
important men. This sort of divinization is particularly prominent in
Melanesia and parts of Polynesia; it exists also in Japan and in West
Africa. As a rule it is only the recently dead that are thus regarded as
divine objects of worship, and the cult would thus be substantially a
part of the worship of ancestors; but such divinized men frequently
bore a peculiarly intimate relation to the clan or community and became
specific protectors.[1087] So far as their origin is concerned, this
class of divine patrons differs essentially from the old clan god, whose
genesis probably belongs to a remote antiquity and is based on the
general consciousness of some powerful influence in nature.[1088]
+648+. Clan gods are found abundantly among the ancient civilized
peoples, Egyptian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Arabian, Greek, Roman, and
probably existed among other peoples as to whom we have no exact
information. In Old Egypt every hamlet had its protecting deity; these
continued to be the objects of popular worship down to a very late time,
the form of the deity being usually that of a living animal.[1089]
+649+. A similar religious constitution obtained among the old Semitic
peoples. This is obvious in the case of the Canaanites (including the
Phoenicians), where every clan or community had its divine lord (the
Baal), who was a universal deity sufficient for all the needs of the
living, though particularly connected with the dominant interests of his
people.[1090] Such, probably, was the original form of the Hebrew Yahweh
(Jehovah); in his Sinaitic home he was naturally connected with the
phenomena of desert and mountain, and in Canaan, whither the Israelites
brought his cult, he was after a while recognized as the giver of crops
also, and gradually became a universal god in the larger sense of the
term.[1091] The Phoenician Baals--such as the Tyrian Melkart, 'the
king of the city'--are obviously local deities.[1092] The same thing is
true of the various gods that appear in pre-Mohammedan Arabia; the
deity of any particular clan or tribe was known to the people as "the
god" (Arabic _Allah_, that is, _al-Ilahu_), and the title "Allah,"
adopted by Mohammed as the name of the supreme and only god, thus in so
far fitted in with the usage of the people.[1093]
+650+. In Babylonia also a very large part of the divine names found in
the inscriptions must be understood to refer ultimately to local
deities, each supreme in his own territory; the later theologians
(probably priests) endeavored to organize these into a sort of pantheon,
but never succeeded in differentiating the various deities distinctly.
In general it may be said that all these old Semitic gods had one and
the same character; each in his place was supreme, and it is difficult
to find any difference in real character and function among the great
gods, as Ea, Bel, Marduk, Sin, Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu, Ashur, Eshmun, and
others.[1094]
+651+. The same remark will probably hold good of the popular worship of
the old Greeks. When Pausanias traveled through Greece he found
everywhere local cults which bore evidence of primitiveness, and
obviously pertained to the clan gods of the various regions. In many
cases these had been identified with old animal-gods or had been
interwoven into the general later scheme and had been merged with the
great gods of the developed pantheon.[1095] The functions ascribed to
various deities in the Veda suggest a similar origin for them. When we
find that many of them are credited with the same larger or smaller acts
of creation, protection, or blessing, we may suspect that they were
originally clan gods that have been incorporated in the great theologic
system, and that "henotheism" is mainly a survival from this earlier
scheme or an extension of it.[1096] Similar local gods appear in
Peru[1097] and Mexico.[1098]
+652+. One class of _Greek "heroes"_ may be considered as belonging in
the category of clan gods.[1099] When the hero appears to be originally
a god his worship is identical in character with that offered to local
deities; so in the case of Achilles and many others.[1100] Such an one
is often a divine patron of a definite (usually small) territory, has
his sacred shrine with its ministers, and his specific sacrificial cult.
A trace of this type may perhaps be recognized in Hesiod's
"halfgods,"[1101] the heroes of the Trojan war and others, whom he
places just after the age of bronze and just before his modern age of
iron; their origin is thus made relatively late, as was natural if they
descended culturally from old gods.
+653+. A similar view appears in the fact that a hero is sometimes of
mixed parentage--his father or his mother is divine: a local god,
standing in close cultic connection with a greater deity, is easily made
into a son of the latter. In general, in the popular worship there seems
to be no distinction between old heroes and gods. Where such a hero
stood in close relations with a community--if, for example, as was
sometimes the case, he was the patron or tutelary divinity of a family,
or a mythical ancestor--there was doubtless a peculiar tenderness in the
feeling for him. But his general function probably was simply that of
local patron.[1102]
+654+. Clan gods are specially important in the history of worship--they
form the real basis of the great theistic development. Ghosts and
spirits continue to be recognized and revered or dreaded, but they are
not powerful social bonds--it is the local deity about whose person
organized public worship grows up, and it is he whose functions are
gradually enlarged till he becomes a universal god. The initial forms of
religion are everywhere limited locally and intellectually; it is only
by loyalty to the home as a center and standing-place that man's
religious affections and ideals have expanded so as to embrace the
world, and reach a high standard of ethical purity and logical
consistency.
DEPARTMENTAL GODS
+655+. It must be regarded as an advance in religious conceptions and
religious life when natural phenomena are divided into classes and
assigned each to its special deity; such a scheme brings men into more
intimate and sympathetic relations with the gods. It presupposes a
relatively advanced observation of nature and some power of coördination
and generalization, and seems to be found only in communities that have
some well-organized communal life. In general it belongs to the
agricultural stage and to the higher civilizations that have grown out
of this stage. Care for food appears to be the starting-point; later,
all sorts of social interests demand consideration.
+656+. This specialization of functions is possibly in part an elevation
of the old scheme of spirits according to which every object in the
world was conceived of as inhabited or controlled by some spiritlike
being. It is not probable that the departmental gods are always
developed directly out of spirits--they appear sometimes to belong
rather in the clan system, are anthropomorphic, human, lending
themselves more readily than spirits do to human intercourse.[1103] It
is true that the lower cults of animals and spirits persist alongside of
the higher religious forms, and the various groups often appear to blend
with one another, as is generally the case in transitions from one
system of thought to another.
+657+. Deities with this sort of specialized functions appear in all
parts of the world and at various periods of culture. The particular
sort of specialization differs according to climatic conditions and
social organization--that is, it depends in any community on the nature
of the phenomena that touch the life of the community closely. But the
general principle remains the same--it is the effort to penetrate more
deeply into the nature of the supernatural Powers, and to enter into
more intimate and helpful relations with them; it is the beginning of a
more practical study of theology proper.
+658+. A somewhat low and vague form of specialization of function is
found in Melanesia, where certain beings appear as patrons of
work.[1104] These are said by Codrington to be ghosts, yet to be prayed
to just as if they were gods; and in fact, being men with indefinitely
great powers, they can hardly be distinguished from such deities as
Daramulun and Unkulunkulu, except in the fact that their function is
specific. In Australia the published reports do not describe
departmental gods proper, with the possible exception of an undefined
being in the North. A more developed scheme exists in Polynesia. In New
Zealand there were deities of food-planting and of forests.[1105] The
highest point of Polynesian civilization seems to have been reached in
the Hawaiian Islands, where, besides several great gods, there were
deities of the sky, the sea, winds, and lightning, of agriculture, and
of various occupations and professions, such as fishing, and even
robbing.[1106]
+659+. The Sea Dyaks have a god of rice-farming and one of war.[1107] In
the Malay Peninsula there is a confused mingling of supernatural beings
of various sorts, with a great development of magic; the determination
of the functions of the better-developed gods is rendered difficult by
the fact that the Malays have been much affected by Hindu
influence.[1108] Such influence is possibly to be recognized also in the
systems of the Dravidian and Kolarian tribes, though in them there seems
to be a native non-Aryan element. The Khonds have gods of rain, fruit,
hunting, and boundaries. Among all these tribes the chief deity is the
sun-god, by whose side stands the earth-god; these may well be
primitive, though their present form may be due to Hindu
influence.[1109]
+660+. The Masai of Eastern Africa have two chief gods--one black, said
to be good; the other red, said to be bad.[1110] The only trace of a
recognition of cosmic powers appears in their myth that the sky and the
earth were once united in one embrace;[1111] but it is not clear that
they recognize a god of the sky and one of the earth. Among the Bantu,
who are largely, though not wholly, pastoral, there appears to be no
trace of an apportionment of natural phenomena among supernatural
beings.[1112] On the West Coast of Africa there is a somewhat elaborate
scheme of departmental deities. The sky is the chief god, but in Dahomi
and Ashanti there are gods of lightning, fire, the ocean, the rainbow,
war, markets, silk, cotton, and poison trees, smallpox, sensual desire,
discord, and wisdom; in Dahomi there is a tutelary god of the royal
family. The Yorubans have a similar system, embracing gods of the Niger,
nightmare, wealth, gardens, and divination.[1113] This more elaborate
system corresponds to their more highly developed scheme of social
organization.
+661+. The tribes of Northeastern Asia are less developed religiously.
The Koryaks are said to have benevolent and malevolent deities, but
appear not to have made much progress in the recognition of the distinct
departments of nature.[1114] The Ainu have a large number of specific
deities: the goddess of fire, whose title is "Grandmother"; gods of the
kitchen, of doors, of springs, and of gardens.[1115] As the Ainu culture
resembles that of Northeastern Asia in several respects, it is possible
that in the latter region there exists a more highly specialized scheme
than has yet been reported. In Central Asia also it seems that no great
progress has been made in this direction by native thought. The
statement of Herodotus[1116] that the Thracians in time of thunderstorms
used to shoot arrows at the sky and threaten the god, may point to a
recognition of a god of the sky or of storm. In the greater part of
Central Asia the conception of local spirits has prevailed and still
prevails (Shamanism), a phase of religion that stands below that of the
division of nature into departments. In certain districts of Mongolia,
in which the theistic system is complicated, departmental deities are
now found, but the obvious dependence of this region on Buddhism
(Lamaism) and other outside cults makes it doubtful whether or how far
this scheme of gods is of native origin.[1117]
+662+. In North America the Algonkin and Maskoki nations and the Skidi
Pawnee have deities of the sky, the heavenly bodies, the winds, and
fire.[1118] In the western part of the continent the theistic systems
are less developed, but the details of the cults have not yet been fully
collected; so far as appears, a departmental organization has not been
made. In Brazil there is a trace of such a conception among the Tupis;
but the South American tribes remain at a low level of theistic
development.[1119]
+663+. The three greater religions of America, the Maya, the Mexican,
and the Peruvian, offer much more interesting material, in regard to
which the information which has been handed down to us is often
unfortunately meager. Particularly, little definite is known of the Maya
system; the indications are that the Mayas were superior in civilization
to the Aztecs, and their religious customs and conceptions
correspondingly higher than those of the latter.[1120]
+664+. The Aztec religion is that which the Spaniards on their arrival
found to be the dominant one in Mexico. It was the religion of a
conquering race, formed in part by a coalition of tribes and a
combination of cults. From the records (none of which are
contemporaneous) it appears that there was a very considerable
specialization of function in the Aztec deities. These were probably
local gods with universal functions gradually differentiated.
Huitzilopochtli, apparently a patron of vegetation (with three annual
festivals corresponding to agricultural seasons), became especially the
god of war, in accordance with the character of the Aztecs. Another side
of social life was embodied in the conception of Tezcatlipoca, who
represented law and justice, but naturally became also a god of war. In
sharp contrast with these stands Quetzalcoatl, a milder god, apparently
a representative of general culture and good life. But he is commonly
held to be of foreign origin. If a foreigner, he was nevertheless
adopted by the Aztecs and embodied one side of their life, particularly,
perhaps, the protests against the human sacrifices, which were so
prominent a feature in the cults of the other two deities. There were
further a god of rain, a goddess of harvest, and a goddess of sensual
pleasure, besides a great number of minor specialized deities. With this
specialization of function, however, there was no corresponding
development of character in the gods, no pantheon proper. The myths
which have been preserved relate to the origin of social customs and to
the birth of gods. They appear to have been developed only a step beyond
the myths of the Redmen.[1121]
+665+. The Peruvian cult differs from the Mexican in that it recognizes,
in its developed form, one preëminent deity, the sun-god, from whom
issues all authority. Along with him stand two prominent figures,
Viracocha and Pachacamac, who also are credited with great powers.
Apparently they were local universal deities who were incorporated into
the Peruvian system and subordinated to the sun-god. All three are only
vague, general figures, having no histories except a few stories of
origins, and the Peruvian myths do not differ in essential character
from those of the Aztecs.[1122]
+666+. In this category we may include a large number of minutely
specialized deities of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. As
among some lower tribes already referred to, so here many common objects
and pursuits are regarded as being under the fostering care of specific
deities. In Egypt the ripe ear of the grain, the birth of a child and
its naming, and other things had their special divinities.[1123]
+667+. The Greeks had such divine patrons of the corncrib, beans,
plowshare, cattle, city walls, banquets, potters, physicians, athletic
contests, and even one hero known as the "frightener of horses" and a
deity called the "flycatcher."[1124]
+668+. The Romans carried out this specialization in even greater
detail. Almost every object and every event of the communal life had its
patron deity: the house, the hearth, the field, the boundary stone,
sowing and reaping, the wall, breath, marriage, education, death; the
Lares were the special protectors of the house or of the field, and all
patrons of the home were summed up under the general designations _dii
penates_ and _dii familiares_. Most of these beings have proper names,
but even where there are no such names, as in the case of the _dii
penates_, there can be little doubt that they were looked on as personal
individualized beings.[1125] The tendency was, as time went on, to add
to the number of these specialized patrons, as appears from the Roman
_indigitamenta_[1126] lists of such divine beings redacted by the
priests, who were disposed, naturally, to make the objects of worship as
numerous as possible; but herein they doubtless responded to a popular
impulse.
+669+. This disposition to define practical functions minutely appears
also in the cultic history of the greater gods of the old Roman
religion: the rôle of Jupiter as god of sky and rain was definitely
fixed, and Tellus was not the divine mother of the human race but the
beneficent bestower of crops. As the functions of such greater gods
became more numerous and more definitely fixed, epithets were employed;
Jupiter had a dozen or more of such adjectival additions, and it appears
that at a later time such epithets were personalized into deities; but
this academic or priestly procedure does not set aside the fact that the
early Roman religion recognized a vast number of divine beings as the
specific patrons of certain things and acts.
+670+. It was quite natural for the practical Roman mind to place
everything of importance under the care of a divine being--a procedure
which is simply carrying out in greater detail modes of thought which we
have seen to be common in many of the lower tribes. Augustine thinks
this specialization amusing, ridiculous, and difficult to understand. He
brings up the whole question of origin when he asks why it was necessary
to have two goddesses for the waves of the sea--one, Venilia,
representing the wave as advancing to the shore; the other, Salacia,
representing the wave as receding.[1127] This seems, to be sure, an
unnecessary specialization; but, considered in connection with the whole
Roman system, it is not less intelligible than the multiplication of
deities attending upon the birth and education of a child, on the
processes of farming, and on the fortunes of war. Since human life is
guided by the gods, thought the Romans, there is no act that may not
have its god; this system is the objectivation of the conception of
divine special providence.[1128]
+671+. To certain Semitic deities highly specialized functions have been
supposed to belong; but the known facts hardly warrant this supposition.
In the names Baal-Marqod, Baal-Marpe, Baal-Gad, the second element may
be the name of a place; that is, the Baal may be a local deity (as the
Baals elsewhere are). The title Baal-berit[1129] has been interpreted as
meaning "lord of a covenant"--that is, a deity presiding over treaties;
but the expression is not clear. Baalzebub is in the Old Testament the
god of the Philistine city Ekron, where he had a famous oracle;[1130] it
is highly improbable that the name means "lord of flies" (which would
rather be Baal-zebubim), but the sense is obscure. The New Testament
Baal [Beel]-zebul[1131] (the only correct form) has been variously
explained. The second element, _zebul_, occurs in the Old Testament as a
name of the heavenly abode of the deity,[1132] and the title has been
regarded as the Semitic rendering of a Greek or Roman title of a god of
heaven (Zeus Ouranios; cf. Caelestis, epithet of Jupiter); as foreign
deities were called "demons" by the later Jews, the chief of these
deities, it is held, might well be taken to be the "prince of demons."
However this may be, Beelzebul cannot be ranked among the deities with
highly specialized functions.[1133]
+672+. The scheme of gods just described is closely allied to that of
tutelary deities for individual human beings. A transitional step may be
recognized in the assignment of special divine protectors to every house
or village or grove, as among the Ainu (with whom the tutelary power is
the head of a bear), in Borneo (where every house has a human skull as
protector), among the Khonds, in the Vedic Vastoshpati, the "lord of the
house," in the Hindu "house goddess," and in the Chinese tutelary god
for every year.[1134] From such a scheme to the assignment of a
protecting spirit to every human being there is but a step, and this is
made natural or necessary by the increasing sense of the value of the
individual. Such tutelary spirits or deities are found in Polynesia and
Africa.[1135] The North American manitu and the Central American
nagual,[1136] referred to above, are not only special objects of worship
but also constantly present guardians of individual men. The Iroquois
have special tutelary spirits.[1137] In Ashanti such a function is
performed by the indwelling spirit, which is scarcely distinguishable
from the man himself.[1138] The Roman _genius_ represents the man's
individual life, but becomes also his guardian;[1139] and the _daimon_
of Socrates was possibly originally a being of the same sort,[1140]
though he may have identified it with conscience.
+673+. In the great religions of antiquity every city and every state
had its special divine protector. The Persian fravashis are the
guardians of individual human beings. The later Jews held that there was
a guardian angel for every nation and for every person.[1141] All such
conceptions embody the human sense of dependence on divine aid and the
demand for specific divine protectors standing near to man and
sustaining special relations with individuals. In some forms of
Christianity the function of protection is assigned to patron saints.
+674+. Certain classes of departmental or specific gods may be mentioned
here for the purpose of indicating their development.
+675+. _Creators._ The work of the creation of the world is assigned
among various peoples to a great variety of beings. In the earliest
strata of religious belief animals play a great rôle as creators. The
known examples of their creative function are so numerous that we may
well be disposed to regard it as universal. In general it is the
best-known animal, or the one credited with the greatest sagacity, that
is regarded as creator.[1142]
+676+. But the natural progress of thought involved the advance to the
conception of anthropomorphic creators. A transitional stage is
presented by the Australian Arunta, in whose mythical system the authors
of tribal institutions and the makers of heavenly bodies are the
half-animal, half-human ancestors; this seems to be an attempt at a
transformation of the old scheme of creation by animals--unwilling to
abandon the earlier conception, these tribes have satisfied themselves
by the theory that the ancestors and creators, though animals in nature,
must at the same time have been human.[1143] We may compare with these
the Melanesian and Samoan supernatural beings who are incarnate in
animal forms and are at the same time originators of civilization.[1144]
These zoömorphic beings are not necessarily totems, as in Australia;
outside of the Arunta it does not appear that totems as such are ever
regarded as creators[1145]--they are ancestors, but at that point their
function appears to cease.
+677+. There are however ghosts, which, while of course representing
ancestors, are regarded not specially in their ancestorial capacity, but
rather as powerful beings who have been more or less active in framing
the constitution of society. This form of ghost occurs in Melanesia,
where also spirits, vague beings who never were human, play a great
rôle. The best authorities find it somewhat difficult to distinguish
between such ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods on the other
hand.[1146] The Qat of the Banks Islands is in one sense a creator,
since he determines the regular courses of the seasons and is the
introducer of night; yet, since he does not actually create the world,
but only rearranges the existing material, he belongs rather in the
category of transformers or initiators. Real anthropomorphic gods appear
as creators in very early tribes. Such, for example, are Baiame,
Daramulun, Bunjil of Australia,[1147] perhaps Supu of the Melanesian
island of Vate.
+678+. In Polynesia there is a better-defined cosmogonic
anthropomorphism. The Hawaiian creators Kane and Tangaloa appear to be
fully formed deities.[1148] The Maoris have the divine figures Heaven
and Earth, whose children are the producers of all things in the world.
But Maui, who seems to be a general Polynesian figure, is rather a
culture-hero than a god, though his achievements were of a very serious
sort. The Tapa of the Borneo Land Dyaks,[1149] and the Boora Pennu of
the Khonds[1150] may be regarded as real gods. On the West Coast of
Africa the Yorubans, the most advanced of the coast tribes, with a
well-developed pantheon, have deities who may be called creators; such
are Obatala, who, according to one account, made the first human pair
out of clay, and Ifa, the restorer of the world after the flood.[1151]
In North America the New England Kiehtan and the Virginian Oki have
creative functions.[1152] The Navahos ascribe the creation of certain
animals to a god Bekotsidi, whose character and rôle, however, are
vague.[1153] The Brazilian Tupan and Jurupari appear to be divine
creators.[1154] For a good many tribes in all parts of the world the
published reports give no precise information regarding the beginning of
things, but it seems probable that fuller acquaintance with them would
reveal conceptions similar to those described above.
+679+. The great civilized nations, with their well-formed
anthropomorphic deities, have constructed elaborate cosmogonies, which
commonly begin with the conception of an unshaped mass of material out
of which the gods arise and create the world. There is no great
difference in these various schemes: Babylonians and Greeks have fallen
upon substantially the same general view of creation; the variations
among the various peoples are due to circumstances of place and culture.
It is noteworthy that the Maoris have a cosmogony which is not unlike
that of the great civilized nations of antiquity, but the origin of
their scheme of the world is not clear.[1155]
+680+. _Gods of the other world._ The class of departmental gods
includes those who have charge of the other world. As soon as the abode
of men after death is definitely fixed, it is natural that a deity
presiding over this other world should arise. Among the lower tribes
this sort of god is not frequent.[1156] One of the clearest cases of
such organization occurs in Fiji.[1157] Here, in addition to other
deities who deal with the dead on their entrance into this farther
world, the great deity Ndengei has his abode, and one of his functions
is to pass on the merits of those who present themselves from the world
of living men. He is, however, in part an otiose deity and can hardly be
said to rule over this otherworldly realm. Similar undeveloped deities
are found among the Maoris and the Finns.[1158]
+681+. But fully formed and effective divine rulers of the other world
occur only in the more advanced religions, such as the Babylonian, the
Egyptian, the Hindu, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman.[1159] From the
nature of their abode such deities have very little to do with the life
on earth except when, as in the Egyptian system and to some extent in
the Fijian, there is a judge of conduct, with authority to assign the
dead their places, good or bad. In such cases they become important
moral factors in life.
+682+. An ethical god of the other world appears not to have been
created by the Semites. The Babylonian Underworld goddess or god has
nothing to do with moral character, and among the Hebrews, so far as the
statements in the Old Testament go, no special deity was assigned to the
other world; whether such an Underworld deity once existed and was lost
by the Hebrews, or has been expurged by the later editors of the Old
Testament books, must remain uncertain;[1160] in the late pre-Christian
period the national god, Yahweh, was regarded as controlling the
Underworld as well as Heaven and Earth.[1161] The Greek Aïdes or
Plout[=o]n and the Roman Pluto also are not ethical gods in the higher
sense, as indeed no early deity of any people has such a moral
character. At a later period ethical distinctions were introduced into
the administration of the other world.
By reason of paucity of data it is difficult to determine the precise
characters of various Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic deities whose names
appear in the records. They are gods of clans and of departments of
nature; none of them can properly be reckoned among the great
gods.[1162]
+683+. _Division into good and bad Powers._ Among many savage and
half-civilized peoples we find that a distinction is recognized between
good and bad ghosts and spirits--a distinction at first vague, based on
passing experiences in which all the fortunes of men, favorable and
unfavorable, are referred to these beings. Their morals are those of the
human communities with which they are connected: they may be amiable or
malignant, beneficent or revengeful, but the ethical element in their
characters and deeds is not distinctly recognized and is not made the
basis of the distinction between the two classes. The world is seen to
be full of Powers that make for weal or for woe--a conception that
contains the germ of all the later development but is at first nebulous.
+684+. In a somewhat higher form of culture these two classes of Powers
may be unified respectively into, or replaced by, two gods, one helpful,
the other harmful. Such appears to be the scheme of the Masai, who have
their black god and red god.[1163] A Californian cosmogonic myth
describes a nonmoral conflict of work between the good "Creator" and the
malicious Coyote.[1164] A real unification appears, however, to be
rare; it supposes in fact a degree of reflection and organization that
we should not expect to find among lower peoples. The story, for
example, that has been told of a well-developed dualistic system of the
Iroquois is based on a misconception.[1165] Dualism proper is not
recognizable among the savages of America, Polynesia, Asia, or
Africa.[1166] In the Old Testament prior to the sixth century B.C. the
spirits, good and bad, which are not essentially different from those we
find among the lower tribes, are massed under the control of Yahweh, and
do his bidding without moral reflection; when he sends a lying spirit
into the mouth of Ahab's prophets[1167] this spirit goes without malice
merely to perform the will of the supreme god. This massing of all
spirit Powers under the control of one god is a step toward unity and
clearness in the conception of the government of the world.
+685+. At a later stage of social growth there appears the conception of
a cosmic struggle, the conflict between the natural forces that tend to
disorder and those that tend to order. Philosophical reflection led to
the supposition of an original chaos, a medley of natural forces not
combined or organized in such a way as to minister to the needs of human
life; and a similar conception of conflict may have arisen from
observation of the warring elements at certain seasons of the year.
+686+. The adjustment of the rival forces and the establishment of a
system of physical order is referred to the great gods. Such a picture
of the original state of things is contained in the elaborate Babylonian
cosmologies that have come down to us; in these the dragon of disorder
(Tiamat) is completely conquered by the god Bel-Marduk, who represents
the Babylonian civilization of the time in which the cosmology arose. Of
the same nature is the Egyptian myth of the contest between Horus (the
light) and Set (the dark), in which, however, the victory of Horus is
not described as being absolute[1168]--a representation suggested,
possibly, by the recognition of the persistence of the good and bad
elements of the world; compare the cosmologies of the Maidu and the
Khonds mentioned above (§684). In the Greek and Teutonic myths in which
the Giants are the enemies of the great gods a more humane and settled
government of the world is introduced by Zeus and Wodan. Traces of this
construction of the universe are to be found also among the Maoris, the
Hawaiians, and other peoples of a like grade.[1169]
+687+. In the original form of these myths there is no moral element
beyond the fact that the settlement of the cosmic powers was necessary
in order to the establishment of good social life. Individual wicked
deities do not appear at this stage, but the way is prepared for them by
the picture of cosmic struggle in which powers friendly and unfriendly
to men are opposed to one another. A similar conception is found in the
figures of the Fates, who are the embodiment of the course of events in
the world--the immovable, remorseless, absolute fortune of men, good and
bad--a picture of life as it has presented itself, doubtless, to men in
all periods of history. Out of this came the abstract conception of
Fate, the impersonal power that controls all things.
+688+. The deeper conception of a conflict between the moral good and
the moral evil in life belongs to the latest period in religious
history. Here the determining fact is the control of the world by the
high gods, who have their adversaries, but in general prove victors. At
the foundation of this scheme of the world lies the conception of order,
which is particularly defined in the Vedic _arta_ and the Avestan
_asha_[1170]--the regulation of the world in accordance with human
interests, in which the ethical element becomes more and more prominent
as human society is more and more formed on an ethical basis.
+689+. Ethical dualism is most fully embodied in the Persian conception
of two gods, good and bad, with the understanding that the good god,
Ahura Mazda, exercises a certain restraint on the bad god, Angro Mainyu,
who is finally to be crushed.[1171] This optimistic point of view, which
has no doubt existed in germinal shape among all peoples, appears also
in the modified dualism of the Old Testament and the late Jewish and
Christian schemes. The Old Testament Satan is originally a divine being,
one of the "sons of the Elohim" (that is, he belongs to the Elohim, or
divine, class); his function is that of inspector of human conduct,
prosecutor-general, with a natural tendency to disparage men and demand
their punishment. As a member of Yahweh's court and council he makes
regular reports to his divine lord and pleads cases before the divine
court.[1172] In this character he is suspicious and mischievous but not
immoral; but a little later a trace of malice appears in him,[1173] and
in the uncanonical Jewish book of the Wisdom of Solomon and in the New
Testament he advances to the position of the head of the kingdom of
moral evil, so that he is called also "the god of the present
age"[1174]--that is, he is the controller of the existing unregenerate
element in human society, and is to be displaced when the ideal age
shall be established.
+690+. _Man's attitude toward demons._ Demons[1175] (the term being
taken to include all early malefic superhuman beings, whether ghosts or
spirits) are feared and guarded against, but rarely receive worship. As
they are the authors of all physical ills that cannot be explained on
natural grounds, measures, usually magical, are taken to thwart their
purposes--to prevent their intervention or to overcome and banish the
evil begun by them. As they are not credited with moral principle,
hostility to them rests not on ethical feeling but merely on fear of
suffering.[1176] If they are placated, it is in cases in which they
approach the character of gods and in so far cease to be demons in our
sense of the word. They serve a useful purpose in that, taking on their
shoulders all the ills of life, they leave the clan gods free from the
suspicion of unfriendliness to men.[1177] On the other hand, the belief
in them has created a pseudo-science of relief from suffering and a
great host of pseudo-doctors who for a long time exercised a large
control over society and bound men in fetters of ignorance.
+691+. In early societies demons have not individual names. In savage
societies there are malefic deities, with individual names, connected
with sicknesses and other ills; but such deities are not demons. Demons
do not enter into friendly social relations with men,[1178] and
observation of experiences is not carried so far as to assign every ill
to a separate author. In more advanced societies, as, for instance, the
Babylonian,[1179] demons are divided into classes according to their
various lines of activity, and to these classes names are given. If some
individual demon, representing a particular ill, becomes specially
important, it may receive an individual name. In general, the demonic
name-giving follows the theistic, but lags behind it. Clan gods have at
first some such appellation as Old One, Grandfather, or a descriptive
epithet (as among some American Indian tribes), and later, Lord, Lady,
Mighty One, Exalted One; in process of time they receive proper names,
which must have arisen at a relatively early period, since the meaning
of the names of most of the old deities was to the ancients, as it is to
us, unknown. In the case of the demonic world this development has not
been carried so far, for the reason stated above, namely, that these
beings, unlike gods, have not become real citizens of the communities
with which they are connected.
+692+. In like manner the organization of demons has not kept pace with
that of gods. In most regions they have remained a mob, every individual
pursuing his way independently. It is only in advanced cults that they
form a community with a head. In China and Persia the sharp division of
supernatural forces into two classes was the outcome of great religious
reformations that followed the usual savage chaos of the hordes of
demons. The Jewish demonology (probably influenced by the Persian) chose
for the head of its kingdom of evil an old god (the Satan) or the
similar figure Azazel.[1180]
+693+. It does not appear that religious worship has ever been offered
to a being regarded as morally bad and in honor of moral badness. The
"devils" reported by early (and some recent) travelers as the recipients
of religious homage turn out on inquiry to be clan gods whose anger is
feared.[1181] The cult of many savage and many civilized deities has
been, and is, characterized by gross cruelty and licentiousness; but it
is certain that human sacrifice and sexual indulgence were, and are, in
these cases not regarded as morally wrong. Durga (Kali), wife of Çiva,
most terrible and repulsive of female deities, while she is feared, is
also revered as the giver of all good gifts; and the Thugs, when they
offered her their strangled victims, ascribed no more moral blame to her
than to themselves--their work they regarded not as murder but as pious
sacrifice.[1182] The Gnostic sects, Ophites and Cainites, looked on the
serpent and Cain as friends of the supreme Deity and of man; they were
enemies only of the Demiourgos, the Jewish god Yahweh, who, they held,
wished to keep man in ignorance.[1183] The Mesopotamian Yezidis also
(the so-called devil-worshipers) revere only beings that they regard as
morally good or as destined to become good. Their peculiar attitude
toward Satan (a mingling of fear and respect) is based not on his
connection with evil but on their expectation that, though he is now
fallen from his high angelic estate, he is ultimately to be restored to
his original dignity.[1184]
+694+. Thus, it cannot be said that a demon has ever developed into a
god. The malefic Powers of savages have generally been absorbed by
higher beings or have otherwise disappeared. Some gods, such as the
Hebrew Satan and certain Greek deities, have been degraded to the
demonic class. In some cases, particularly in the Zoroastrian system, a
being who is the consolidation of all malign supernatural activities has
been credited with all-but divine power and authority.[1185] But the two
classes remain distinct--the true "god" is a friendly member of a human
society, and when he is angry may be placated; the true "demon" is
essentially hostile to men and must be thwarted and expelled.[1186]
+695+. _Gods of abstractions._ Gods of abstractions, found in certain
theistic systems, are to be distinguished on the one hand from deities
that are simply personalizations of physical objects (such as Vesta and
Agni) and on the other hand from poetical personifications, such as that
of Wisdom in the Jewish books of Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, and the
Wisdom of Solomon, and from concrete figures like the Logos of Philo and
the Fourth Gospel. Though these abstract forms appear to be relatively
late (posterior to the formation of the greater gods), the meagerness of
our data makes it difficult to describe their genesis and the
conceptions of their character by the peoples among whom they arise.
Some facts known to us, however, may help us to understand in part the
process by which they came into existence.
+696+. We have already considered the tendency in human communities to
particularize the divine objects of worship and to personalize external
objects; everywhere, it would appear, there is a disposition to assign a
particular divine control to every fact that is specially connected with
human interests. We have to note, further, the tendency to concretize,
as, for example, in many cases in which evil, physical or moral, is
regarded as a concrete thing that may be removed bodily from the
community.[1187] This sort of conception we may suppose to be connected
with early psychological theory, according to which anything that
affects man is credited with manlike form and power. The facility with
which the abstract and the concrete may be identified is illustrated by
such modern terms as deity, majesty, highness, state, government,
direction, counsel; in these expressions the abstract quality or act is
incarnated in certain persons, and so we may imagine that at a certain
stage of society any quality or act might be isolated and regarded as a
personal thing. A series of victories, for example, might suggest the
conception of 'victory' as a thing present in these events, and the
tendency to personalize would then create the divine figure Victory.
Historically a personalization may have arisen, in some cases, through
the isolation of an epithet of a deity (so, for example, Fides may have
come from Dius Fidius),[1188] but in such cases the psychological basis
of the personalization is the same as that just stated. From these, as
is remarked above, must be distinguished poetical and philosophical
abstractions.
+697+. Whatever be the explanation of the process, we find in fact a
large number of cases in which such abstractions appear as deities and
receive worship.
+698+. _Semitic._ The material for the Semitic religions on this point
is scanty.[1189] The Arabic divine names supposed by Nöldeke to
represent abstractions are Man[=a]t (fate), Sa'd (fortune), Ru[d.][=a]
(favor), Wadd (love), Man[=a]f (height), 'Au[d.] (time). Whether these
are all abstract terms is doubtful. _Wadd_ means also 'lover,' divine
friend or patron. _Sa'd_ occurs as adjective 'fortunate,' is the
appellation of certain stars, and the god Sa'd is identified by an Arab
poet with a certain rock[1190]--the rock is doubtless an old local
divinity. _Ru[d.][=a]_ is found apparently only as a divine name (in
Palmyrene and Safa inscriptions and as a god of an Arabian tribe)--the
form may be concrete, in the sense of 'favoring,' divine patron. As
"time" (_dahr_, _zaman_) often occurs in Arabic poetry in the sense of
'fate,' the god 'Au[d.] may be an embodiment of this conception.[1191]
_Man[=a]f_, if understood, as is possible, in the sense 'high place,' is
not abstract but concrete, though in that case the original reference of
the term is not clear.
+699+. Man[=a]t is one of the three great goddesses of Mecca, the others
being Al-Lât ('the goddess') and Al-Uzza ('the mighty one'); as these
two names are concrete, there is a certain presumption that _Man[=a]t_
likewise is concrete. The original meaning of the word is obscure. It
does not occur as a common noun, but from the same stem come terms
meaning 'doom, death,'[1192] and, if it be allied to these, it would be
an expression for 'fate' (like _'Au[d.]_). However, the stem is used in
the sense 'number, determine, assign,' and Man[=a]t may be the divine
determiner of human destinies. From this same stem comes the Biblical
_Meni_, and apparently the Assyrian _Manu_.[1193] The ordinary North
Semitic conception of the source of human destinies is that they are
determined by the gods and written on tablets or in a book,[1194] and
the same conception may have existed in the South Semitic area.[1195]
The other deity mentioned in Isaiah lxv, 11, is Gad; the word means in
Arabic and Hebrew 'fortune, good fortune,' and occurs as the name of a
deity in Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions, but the data are not
sufficient to fix its original sense. It is the name of a Hebrew tribe,
which is perhaps so called from the tribal god, and the name of a
tribal god is probably concrete.[1196]
+700+. It seems, then, that for most if not all of the names of the
Semitic deities just mentioned abstract senses, though possible, are not
certain. Nöldeke remarks that most of these terms are poetical--they may
be ornate epithets given to old concrete divine figures, in which case
the real cults were attached to these latter and not to abstractions. It
must be regarded as doubtful whether Semitic religion created any
abstract deity.
+701+. _Egyptian._ The most prominent Egyptian abstract deity is Maat,
'truth.' She fulfilled an important function in the judgment-hall of
Osiris in the Underworld, and was widely revered, but had no mythical
history, and seems to have been rather a quasi-philosophical creation
than a vital element of the Egyptian religious life. A god Destiny is
mentioned, who generally bestowed a happy fate.[1197]
+702+. _Roman and Greek._ The most fully developed form of this
conception is found in the Roman cult.[1198] The civic genius of the
Romans led them to give prominence to the maintenance of public and
private rights; thus among their deities appear public safety or
salvation (Salus Publica), public faith or fidelity to engagements
(Fides), civic harmony (Concordia), connubial purity (Pudicitia), filial
devotion (Pietas), the boundary of property (Terminus), victory
(Victoria), liberty (Libertas). There are further the gods Youth
(Juventus and Juventas) and Desire[1199] (Cupido), perhaps as things
fundamental in human life.[1200] Fortune (Fortuna) is the mass of
evidence determining life by the will of the gods, with which the
utterances of the gods (Fata) are identical, and the embodiment of the
determining agencies is the Parcæ. Several of these deities have their
correspondents in the Greek theistic system:[1201] Eros (desire); Tuche
(that which is allotted one by the gods or by the course of events);
Moira (Aisa), the unification of all the powers that determine man's
destiny. The god Kronos was by some improperly identified with "time"
([Greek: chronos]).[1202]
+703+. _Aryan._ Among the Aryans of India the god Kama (desire) appears
to be identical with Cupido. Some other abstractions, such as Piety and
Infinity, are akin to Mazdean conceptions.[1203] Brahma, originally
'magical formula,' then 'prayer,' and later 'pious thought,' becomes
finally Brahma, the all-embracing god. [R.]ta (arta), 'order,' at first,
perhaps, the proper order of the sacrificial ritual, becomes finally
'moral order or righteousness' and 'cosmic order.' This conception is
still more prominent in the Avesta,[1204] in which Asha (Order) is one
of the Amesha-spentas, only inferior to the supreme god; the other
companions of Ahura Mazda have similar titles and may equally be
regarded as the personalization of abstract ideas.[1205] In the same
category may be included the Mazdean conceptions Endless Time (Zrvan
Akarana) and Endless Space (Thwasha), which appear to be treated in the
Avesta as personal deities.[1206] The organizers of the Mazdean faith,
having discarded almost all the old gods, invested the supreme god with
certain moral qualities, and these, by a natural process of thought,
were concretized (Ahura Mazda is sometimes included in the list of
Amesha-spentas). Thus arose a sort of pantheon, an echo of the old
polytheism; but the history of the process of formulation is
obscure.[1207]
+704+. Most, if not all, of the abstract conceptions mentioned above are
also placed, in the various theistic systems, under the control of great
gods. Thus, for example, Jupiter is the guardian of boundaries and has
the epithet "Terminus," and Zeus is the patron of freedom
(Eleutherios).[1208] It is, however, not necessary to suppose that the
abstractions in question are taken from the functions of the great gods.
Rather these epithets of the gods are to be explained from the same
tendency that produced gods of abstractions. It was the sense of the
importance of the boundary in early life that led both to the creation
of the god Terminus and to the assignment of the epithet "Terminus" to
Jupiter. The desire or love that was so important an element in human
life both fashioned itself into a personality and was put under the
guardianship of a special deity. Public safety was a cherished idea of
the Romans and was doubtless held to be maintained by every local or
national god, yet could none the less become an independent deity. The
data are not sufficient to enable us to determine in all cases the
question of chronological precedence between the deification of the
abstraction and the assignment of the epithet to a god. We know that in
the later Roman period abstractions were personalized, but this
procedure was often poetical or rhetorical.[1209]
+705+. A general relation may be recognized between the intellectual
character of a people and the extent to which it creates abstract gods.
The Semitic peoples, among whom the development of such gods is the
feeblest, are characterized by objectiveness of thought, indisposition
to philosophical or psychological analysis, and a maintenance of local
political and religious organization; it is natural that they should
construct concrete deities exclusively or almost exclusively. Egypt also
was objective, and carried its demand for visible objects of worship to
the point of incarnating its gods in living animals; such living gods
tend to banish pale abstractions, and such conceptions played an
insignificant part in Egyptian religion. In India, with its genius for
philosophical refinement, we might expect to find this latter class of
gods; but Indian thought speedily passed into the large pantheistic and
other generalizations that absorbed the lesser abstractions. Greece
appears to have had the combination of philosophy and practicalness that
favors the production of a certain sort of abstract gods, and a
considerable number of these it did produce;[1210] but here also
philosophy, in the form of large theories of the constitution and life
of man, got the upper hand and repressed the other development. The
Romans had no pretensions to philosophic or æsthetic thought, but they
had a keen sense of the value of family and civic life, and great skill
in using religion for social purposes. It is they among whom specialized
deities, including abstractions, had the greatest significance for the
life of the people--family and State.
+706+. With the growth of general culture all specialized divinities
tend to disappear, absorbed by the great gods and displaced by better
knowledge of the laws governing the bodily and mental growth of
men.[1211] The divinities of abstractions, so far as they were really
alive, had the effect of making great civic and religious ideas familiar
to the people. Later (as in modern life) such ideas were cherished as
the outcome of reflection on domestic and national relations--in the
earlier period they were invested with sacredness and with personal
power to inspire and guide. Exactly what their ethical influence on the
masses was it is hardly possible to determine; but it may be regarded
as probable that they helped to keep alive certain fundamental
conceptions at a time when reflection on life was still immature.
NATURE GODS
+707+. The term "nature gods" may be taken as designating those deities
that are distinguished on the one hand from natural objects regarded as
divine and worshiped, and on the other hand from the great gods, who,
whatever their origin, have been quite dissociated from natural objects;
in distinction from these classes nature gods are independent deities
who yet show traces of their origin in the cult of natural
objects.[1212]
+708+. These three classes often shade into one another, and it is not
always easy to draw the lines between them. It is worth while, however,
to keep them separate, because they represent different stadia of
religious and general culture; the nature gods are found in societies
which have risen above the old crude naturalism, but have not yet
reached the higher grade of intellectual and ethical distinctness. But
as they are in a real sense dissociated from natural objects, they tend
to expand as society grows, and it is unnecessary to attempt to deduce
all their functions from the characteristics of the objects with which
they were originally connected. In some cases, doubtless, they coalesce
with the local clan gods whose functions are universal; and in general,
when a god becomes the recognized deity of his community, the tendency
is to ascribe to him a great number of functions suggested by the
existing social conditions. In some cases the particular function of the
god may be derived from the function of the natural object whence he is
supposed to spring; but the number and variety of functions that we
often find assigned to one deity, and the number of deities that are
connected with a single function, indicate the complexity of the
processes of early religious thought and make it difficult to trace its
history in detail.
+709+. Among natural objects the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars,
and particularly the sun and moon, have very generally attracted men's
attention and become objects of worship. The deification of the sun may
be traced through all stadia of development, from the crudest
objectivism to a highly developed monolatry or a virtual
monotheism.[1213] Veneration of the physical sun, or a conception of it
as a supernatural man, is found in many parts of the world.[1214] It has
not been observed, apparently, in Australia, Melanesia, Indonesia, and
on the North American Pacific Coast;[1215] these regions are all
backward in the creation of gods--devoting themselves to the elaboration
of social organization they have contented themselves largely with an
apparatus of spirits and divine animals. In Central and Northern Asia
and among the Ainu of Jesso, while there appears to be a recognition of
the sun as divine, it is difficult to distinguish real solar
divinities.[1216] In Japan mention is made of a sun-goddess but she
plays an insignificant part in the religious system.[1217]
+710+. The cult is more developed in Eastern and Central North America,
particularly in the former region. The Navahos (in the center of the
continent) have a vague deity of the sun, but the cult is most prominent
among the Algonkin (Lenâpé) and Natchez tribes; the last-named
especially have an elaborate cult in which the sun as deity seems to be
distinct from the physical form.[1218]
+711+. The highest development of this cult in America was reached in
Mexico and Peru. In both these countries, which had worked out a
noteworthy civilization, the solar cult became supreme, and in Peru it
attained an ethical and universalistic form which entitles it to rank
among the best religious systems of the lower civilized nations.[1219]
+712+. The Egyptians, with their more advanced civilization, finally
carried sun-worship to a very high point of perfection. The hymns to Ra,
the sun-god, reached the verge of monotheism and are ethically high, yet
traces of the physical side of the sun appear throughout.[1220] The same
thing is true of the old Semitic sun-cult. The Babylonian and Assyrian
Shamash is in certain respects an independent deity with universal
attributes, but retains also some of the physical characteristics of the
sun.[1221] In Africa, outside of Egypt, the only trace of an independent
sun-god appears to be in Dahomi, where, however, he is not prominent;
why such a god should not be found in the neighboring countries of
Ashanti and Yoruba is not clear; climatic conditions would affect all
these countries alike.[1222]
+713+. In the Veda the sun-god Savitar has a very distinguished position
as ethical deity, but earlier than he the similar figure Surya
represents more nearly the physical sun, and this is true perhaps also
of Mitra.[1223] With the latter it is natural to compare the Avestan
Mithra; he is held by some to have been originally a god of light, but
he seems also to have characteristics of the sun in the Avesta,[1224]
and in late Persian the word _mihr_ ('sun') indicates that he was at any
rate finally identified with the sun. It is noteworthy that a distinct
sun-worship is reported among certain non-Aryan tribes of India,
particularly the Khonds;[1225] this cult may be compared with that of
the Natchez mentioned above,[1226] though the Khonds are less socially
advanced than these American tribes.
+714+. The cultic history of the moon is similar to that of the sun, but
in general far less important. In addition to its charm as illuminer of
the night, it has been prominent as a measurer of time--lunar calendars
appear among many tribes and nations, uncivilized (Maoris, Hawaiians,
Dahomi, Ashanti and Yorubans, Nandi, Congo tribes, Bantu, Todas, and
others) and civilized (the early Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews,
Greeks, Romans, perhaps the early Egyptians, and now all Mohammedan
peoples). Naturally it has been associated with the sun in myths,
standing to it in the relation of brother or sister, husband or wife.
Among existing noncivilized peoples it sometimes receives worship as a
god[1227] or as connected with a god.[1228] In these cases it retains to
a great extent its character as an object of nature. So the Greek
Selen[=e] and the Roman Luna, standing alongside of the lunar gods
proper, probably indicate an early imperfect deification of the moon.
+715+. Though the stars were generally regarded, both among savages and
in ancient civilized communities, as animated (possessed of souls), and
in a sort divine,[1229] instances of the deification proper of
particular stellar bodies are rare. In Egypt they were reverenced, but
apparently not worshiped.[1230] The Babylonian astronomers and
astrologers began early to connect the planets with the great gods
(Jupiter with Marduk, Venus with Ishtar, etc.), and stars, like other
heavenly bodies, were held by them to be divine, but a specific
divinization of a star or planet does not appear in the known
literature.[1231] The same thing is true of China, where, it may be
supposed, reverence for the stars was included in the general high
position assigned to Heaven.[1232] In the Aryan Hindu cults stars were
revered, and by the non-Aryan Gonds were worshiped, but there is no
star-god proper.[1233]
+716+. In the Old Testament and the Apocrypha there are passages in
which stars and planets are referred to in a way that indicates some
sort of a conception of them as divine: they are said to have fought
against Israel's enemies, and in the later literature they are (perhaps
by a poetical figure of speech) identified with foreign deities or with
angels.[1234] But there is no sign of Israelite worship offered them
till the seventh century B.C., when, on the irruption of Assyrian cults,
incense is said to have been burned in the Jerusalem temple to the
mazzalot (probably the signs of the zodiac) and to all the host of
heaven (the stars);[1235] and there is still no creation of a
star-god.[1236] The early Hebrews may have practiced some sort of
star-worship; there are traces of such a cult among their neighbors the
Arabs.
+717+. The Arab personal name Abd ath-thuraiya, 'servant (worshiper) of
the Pleiades,' testifies to a real cult,[1237] though how far it
involves a conception of the constellation as a true individual deity it
may be difficult to say. It has been supposed that the pre-Islamic Arabs
worshiped the planet Venus under the name Al-Uzza,[1238] but this is not
certain. It is true that they worshiped the morning star, and that
ancient non-Arab writers identified the planet with Al-Uzza because it
was with this goddess that the Roman goddess Venus was generally
identified by foreigners. But Al-Uzza was an old Arabian local deity who
gradually assumed great power and influence, and it is certain that she
could not have been originally a star. It must, therefore, be considered
doubtful whether the Arabs had a true star-god.
+718+. A well-defined instance of such a god is the Avestan
Tistrya.[1239] His origin as an object of nature appears plainly in his
functions--he is especially a rain-god, and, as such, a source of all
blessings. Alongside of him stand three less well defined stellar
Powers. The Greeks and Romans adopted from Chaldean astronomy the
nominal identification of the planets with certain gods (their own
divine names being substituted for the Babylonian); this did not
necessarily carry with it stellar worship,[1240] but at a late period
there was a cult of the constellations.[1241]
To some savage and half-civilized peoples the rainbow has appeared to be
a living thing, capable of acting on man's life, sometimes friendly,
sometimes unfriendly.[1242] It figures largely in myths, but is not
treated as a god.
THE GREAT GODS
+719+. Along with the deities described above there is a class of higher
gods with well-defined personalities, standing quite outside physical
nature and man, with definite characters, and humanized in the higher
sense. In contrast with the bizarre or barbarous anthropomorphic forms
of the earlier deities these have the shape of refined humanity, capable
of taking part in the life of the best men; they are the embodiment of a
reflective conception of the relations between men and the great world.
Inchoate divine forms of this sort may be recognized among certain
half-civilized communities, but in their full form they are found only
among civilized peoples, being indeed the product of civilization; and
among such peoples they exist in varying degrees of approach to
completeness.
+720+. The process of growth from the clan deities and the nature gods
up to these higher forms may be traced with some definiteness in the
great civilized nations of antiquity. We can see that there has been a
scientific movement of separation of gods from phenomena. There is the
distinct recognition not only of the difference between man and physical
nature, but also of the difference between phenomena and the powers that
control them.[1243] At the same time there is an increasing belief in
the predominance of reason in the government of the world, and along
with this a larger conception of the greatness of the world and finally
of its unity. Artistic feeling coöperates in the change of the character
of divine beings--the necessity of giving symmetry and clearness to
their persons, whereby they more and more assume the form of the highest
human ideals. Necessarily the ethical element advances hand in hand with
the intellectual and artistic; it becomes more and more difficult to
conceive of gods as controlled by motives lower than those recognized by
the best men.
+721+. This general progress of thought is in some cases embodied in the
conception of a succession of dynasties--one set of gods is overthrown
or succeeded by another set; the most extreme form of the overthrow
appears in the conception of the death of a whole community of gods, but
this occurs not in the form of natural development, but only when one
stadium or phase of religion is overmastered and expelled by another.
+722+. In Babylonia the earliest pair of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu,
vague forms, were succeeded by a second pair, Anshar and Kishar,
somewhat less vague, and these in their turn yielded to the more
definite group represented by Ea, Bel, and Marduk--deities who became
the embodiments of the highest Babylonian culture; in Assyria Ashur and
Ishtar occupied a similar position. In the long religious history of the
Hindus many of the gods prominent in the Veda disappear or sink into
subordinate positions, and deities at first unimportant become supreme.
The Greek succession of dynasties resembles the Babylonian. The ancient
Heaven and Earth are followed by Kronos,[1244] and he is dethroned by
Zeus, who represents governmental order and a higher ethical scheme of
society. The Romans appear to have borrowed their chronology of the gods
from the Greeks: the combination of Saturnus with Ops (who belongs
rather with Consus), the identification of these two respectively with
Kronos and Rhea, and the dynastic succession Cælus,[1245] Saturnus,
Jupiter, seem not to be earlier than the Hellenizing period in Rome.
+723+. These changes, when original, may have been due partly to the
shifting of political power--the gods of a particular dominant region
may have come into prominence and reigned for a time, giving place then
to deities of some other region which had secured the hegemony; the
history of the earliest gods lies far back in a dim region without
historical records and therefore is not to be reconstructed definitely
now. But such light as we get from literary records of later times
rather suggests that the dynastic changes are the product of changes in
the conception of the world, and these are as a rule in the direction of
sounder and more humane thought.
+724+. There is a general similarity between the great deities that have
been created by the various civilized peoples, since civilization has
been practically the same everywhere. But the gods differ among
themselves according to the special characters, needs, and endowments of
the various peoples, so that no deity can be profitably studied without
a knowledge of the physical and mental conditions of the community in
which he arose. But everywhere we find that any one god may become
practically supreme. Here again the political element sometimes comes
in--a dominant city or state will impose its special god on a large
district. There is also the natural tendency among men to concentrate on
an individual figure. As legendary material has always gathered around
particular men, so the great attributes of divinity gather about the
person of a particular god who, for whatever reason, is the most
prominent divine figure in a given community. Such a god becomes for the
moment supreme, to the exclusion of other deities who under different
circumstances might have had similar claims to precedence; and under
favorable conditions a deity thus raised to the highest position may
maintain himself and end by becoming the sole deity of his people and of
the world. In any case such a divine figure becomes an ideal, and thus
influences more or less the life of his worshipers.
+725+. In Oriental polytheistic systems the desire to secure
completeness in the representation of divine activity shows itself in
the combination of two or more forms into a unity of action. On the
lower level we have the composite figures of Egypt and Babylonia,
congeries of bodies, heads, and limbs, human and nonhuman--the result
partly of the survival of ancient (sometimes outgrown) forms or the
fusion of local deities, partly of the imaginative collocation of
attributes. Many compound names may be explained in this way; in some
cases they seem to arise from accidental local relations of cults.
As illustrations of lines of growth in divine figures we may take brief
biographies of some of the greater gods. It is in comparatively few
cases that the development of a god's character can be satisfactorily
traced. There are no records of beginnings--we can only make what may be
judged to be probable inferences from names, cults, and functions. The
difficulty of the subject is increased by the fact that mythologians and
theologians have obscured early conceptions by new combinations and
interpretations, often employing familiar divine figures simply as
vehicles of late philosophical ideas or some other sort of local dogmas.
+726+. _Egypt._[1246] The cult of the sun in Egypt issued in the
creation of a group of solar divinities, the most important of whom are
Horus (Har or Hor) and Ra (or Rê).
Horus appears to have been the great god of united Egypt in the earliest
times about which we have information. The kings of the predynastic and
early dynastic periods are called "worshipers of Horus," a title that
was adopted by succeeding monarchs, who had each his "Horus name."[1247]
He was also the special patron of some small communities--a fact that
has been variously interpreted as indicating that the god's movement was
from local to general patron,[1248] or that it was in the opposite
direction[1249]; the former of these hypotheses is favored by what
appears elsewhere in such changes in the positions of deities. As Horus
is always connected with light he may have been originally a local
sun-god; it is possible, however, that he was a clan god with general
functions, who was brought into association with the sun by the natural
progress of thought. In any case he became a great sun-god, but yielded
his position of eminence to Ra. The myth of his conflict with Set, the
representative of darkness, is probably a priestly dualistic
construction, resting, perhaps, on a political situation (the struggle
between the North and the South of the Egyptian territory).[1250]
+727+. The general development of Ra is plain, though details are
lacking. It may be inferred from his name (which means 'sun') that he
was originally the physical sun. Traces of his early crudeness appear in
the stories of his destruction of mankind, and of the way in which Isis,
by a trick, got from him his true name and, with it, his power.[1251]
With the growth of his native land (Lower Egypt) he became the great
lord of the sun, and finally universal lord;[1252] his supremacy was
doubtless due in part to the political importance of On (Heliopolis),
the seat of his chief shrine. What other circumstances contributed to
his victory over Horus are not recorded; in general it may be supposed
that political changes occasioned the recedence of the latter.