The primacy of Ra is illustrated by the fact that Amon was identified

with him. Amon, originally the local god of Thebes,[1253] became great

in the South as Ra became great in the North, rising with the growth of

the Theban kingdom. His hold on the people, and particularly (as was

natural) on the priests, is shown in a noteworthy way by the episode of

Amenhotep IV's attempt to supplant him by establishing a substantially

monotheistic cult of the sun-god Aton; the attempt was successful only

during the king's life--after his death Amon, under the vigorous

leadership of the Theban priests, resumed his old position and

maintained it until the first break-up of the national Egyptian

government. But it was Amon-Ra that became supreme from the fourteenth

century onward. The combination of the names was made possible by the

social and political union of the two divisions of the land, and it was

Ra who gave special glory to Amon.[1254]

+728+. A different line of growth appears in the history of Osiris--he

owed his eminence mainly to his connection with the dead. Where his cult

arose is not known; he was a very old god, possibly prominent in the

predynastic period;[1255] at a later time the importance of Abydos, the

chief seat of his worship, may have added to his reputation. But the

ceremonies of his cult and the myths that grew up about his name

indicate that he was originally a deity of vegetation, the patron of the

underground productive forces of the earth, and so, naturally, he became

the lord of the Underworld,[1256] and eventually (as ethical conceptions

of life became more definite in Egypt) the embodiment of future justice,

the determiner of the moral character and the everlasting fate of men.

Why he and not some other underground god became Underworld judge the

data do not make clear. His association with the death and

revivification of plants gave a peculiarly human character to his

mythical biography and a dramatic and picturesque tone to his

cult.[1257] Of all ancient lords of the Otherworld it is Osiris that

shows the most continuous progress and reaches the highest ethical

plane--a fact that must be referred to the intense interest of the

Egyptians in the future.[1258]

+729+. The three most prominent female deities of the Egyptian pantheon,

Hathor of Dendera, Neith (Nit, Neit) of Sais, and Isis of Buto, exhibit

one and the same type of character, and each is occasionally identified

with one of the others. Hathor was widely worshiped, but was not

otherwise especially noteworthy. The famous inscription said to have

stood in the temple of Neith at Sais ("What is and what shall be and

what has been am I--my veil no one has lifted"[1259]) seems not to be

immediately connected with any important religious movement, though it

is in keeping with the liberal and mystical tendency of the later time.

The third goddess, Isis, had a more remarkable history. Her beginnings

are obscure, and she appears in the inscriptions later than the other

two. She may have been a local deity,[1260] brought into association

with Osiris (as his sister or his wife) through the collocation of their

cults, and thus sharing his popularity; or she may have been a late

theological creation.[1261] Whatever her origin, as early as the

sixteenth century B.C. she appears as a great magician (poisoning and

healing Ra by magic arts),[1262] then (along with Osiris) as civilizer,

and finally as model wife and mother, and as serene and beneficent

mistress of the land. It was, apparently, in this last character that

she became the gathering-point for the higher religious and ethical

ideas of the time, and the central figure in a religious scheme that was

widely adopted in and out of Egypt and seemed to be a formidable rival

of Christianity.[1263]

+730+. _India._ It is in India that we find the most varied and most

sweeping development in the functions and positions of deities--a result

due in part to the long-continued movement of philosophic thought,

partly to changes in the popular religious point of view occasioned by

modifications of the social life.[1264]

The etymology of the name Varuna is doubtful, but the representation of

him in the Rig-Veda points to the sky as his original form--he is a

clear example of a sky-god who becomes universal. Of his earliest

history we have no information--in the most ancient records he is

already fully formed. In the Rig-Veda he embraces the whole of life--he

is absolute ruler and moral governor, he punishes sin and forgives the

penitent. In conjunction with Mitra he is the lord of order.[1265]

Mitra, originally the physical sun, is naturally associated with Varuna,

but in the Rig-Veda occupies a generally subordinate position, though he

appears sometimes to have the attributes of his associate; the two

together embody a lofty ethical conception. In accordance with the Hindu

fondness for metaphysical abstractions and generalizations the nature

god Varuna in the course of time yielded the primacy to Prajapati, 'lord

of beings,'[1266] who in his turn gave way to the impersonal Brahma. In

the popular cults as well as in philosophical systems Varuna sank (or

perhaps returned) to the position of patron of phenomena of

nature--there was no longer need of him.

+731+. A god of somewhat uncertain moral character is Indra, who as a

nature god is closely connected with the violent phenomena of the air

(rain, thunder, and lightning). In this relation he is often terrible,

often beneficent, but with low tastes that it is difficult to explain.

His fondness for soma, without which he attempts nothing, is perhaps a

priestly touch, a glorification of the drink that played so important a

part in the ritual; or he may herein be an expression of popular tastes.

The sensuous character of the heaven of which he (as air-god) is lord

arose doubtless in response to early conceptions of happiness;[1267] it

is not unlike the paradise of Mohammed, which is to be regarded not as

immoral, but only as the embodiment of the existing conception of happy

family life. Yet Indra also became a universal god, the controller of

all things, and it was perhaps due to his multiform human character as

warrior and rain-giver[1268] (in his victorious conflict with the

cloud-dragon), and as representative of bodily enjoyment, that he became

the favorite god of the people. It is not hard to understand why Agni,

fire, should be associated with him and share his popularity to some

extent; but the importance of fire in the sacrifice gave Agni a peculiar

prominence in the ritual.

+732+. The most curious case of transformation and exaltation is found

in the history of Soma, at first a plant whose juice was intoxicating,

then a means of ecstatic excitement, a gift to the gods, the drink of

the gods, and finally itself a god invested with the greatest

attributes. This divinization of a drink was no doubt mainly

priestly--it is a striking illustration of the power of the association

of ideas, and belongs in the same general category with the deification

of abstractions spoken of above.[1269]

+733+. An example of a god leaping from an inferior position to the

highest place in the pantheon is afforded by Vishnu, a nature god of

some sort, described in the early documents as traversing the universe

in three strides. Relatively insignificant in the earlier period and in

the Upanishads, he appears in the epic, and afterwards, as the greatest

of the gods, and, in the form of his avatar Krishna, becomes the head of

a religion which has often been compared with Christianity in the purity

of its moral conceptions. By his side in this later time stands his

rival Çiva, the chief figure in a sect or system which shared with

Vishnuism the devotion of the later Hindus. The rise of these two gods

is to be referred probably to the dissatisfaction in the later times

with the phenomenal character which still clung, in popular feeling, to

the older deities. Varuna, once supreme, sank after a while to the

position of a god of rain, and Indra, Agni, and Soma were frankly

naturalistic, while the impersonal Brahma was too vague to meet popular

demands. What the later generation wanted was a god personal and

divorced from physical phenomena, supreme, ethically high, but invested

with warm humanity. These conditions were fulfilled by Vishnu and Çiva,

and particularly by Krishna; that is, the later thought constructed

these new deities in accordance with the demand of the higher and the

lower religious feeling of the time: the two sides of the human demand,

the genial and the terrible, are embodied, the first in Vishnu, the

second in Çiva.

+734+. The primeval pair, Heaven and Earth, though represented as the

parents of many gods and worshiped with sacrifices, play no great part

in the Hindu religious system. Dyaus, the Sky, never attained the

proportions of the formally identical Zeus and Jupiter. His attributes

are distinctly those of the physical sky. The higher rôle is assigned to

Varuna, who is the sky conceived of as a divine Power divorced from

merely physical characteristics;[1270] the mass of phenomena connected

with the sky (thunder, lightning, and such like) are isolated and

referred to various deities. Prithivi, the Earth, in like manner,

retains her physical attributes, and does not become the nourishing

mother of all things.[1271]

With a partial exception in the case of Ushas[1272] (Dawn) the early

Hindu pantheon contains no great female figure; there are female

counterparts of male deities, but no such transcendent personages as

Isis, Athene, and Demeter. Whether this fact is to be explained from

early Hindu views of the social position of women, or from some other

idea, is uncertain. In certain modern religious cults, however, the

worship of the female principle (Çakti) is popular and influential. It

is probable that in early times every tribe or district had its female

divine representative of fertility, an embryonic mother-goddess. If the

Aryan Hindus had such a figure, she failed to grow into a great

divinity. But the worship of such deities came into Aryan India at a

relatively recent date, apparently from non-Aryan sources, and has been

incorporated in Hindu systems. Various forms of Çakti have been brought

into relation with various gods, the most important being those that

have become attached to the worship of Çiva.[1273] To him is assigned as

wife the frightful figure called Durga or Kali (and known by other

names), a blood-loving monster with an unspeakably licentious cult.

Other Çakti deities are more humane, and there is reason to suppose that

the ground of the devotion shown to Kali, especially by women, is in

many cases simply reverence for the female principle in life, or more

particularly for motherhood.[1274]

+735+. The original character of the Hindu lord of the Otherworld, Yama,

is obscured by the variety of the descriptions of him in the documents.

In the Rig-Veda he appears both as god and (as it seems) as man. He is

the son of the solar deity Vivashant (Vivashat); he is named in

enumerations of gods, and Agni is his friend and his priest; he receives

worship, and is besought to come to the sacrifice.[1275] On the other

hand, he is never called "god," but only "king";[1276] he is spoken of

as the "only mortal," and is said to have chosen death; he is associated

in heaven with the "fathers."[1277] The modern interpretations of his

origin have followed these two sets of data. By some writers he has been

identified with the sun (particularly the setting sun), and with the

moon.[1278] But these identifications are set aside for the Veda by the

fact that in lists of gods he is distinguished from sun and moon.[1279]

By others he is regarded as the mythical first man, the first ancestor,

with residence in the sky, deified as original ancestors sometimes were,

and, as the first to die and enter the world beyond, made the king of

that world.

Though Yama is not the sun in the Veda, it is possible that he was so

regarded in the period preceding the Vedic theological construction, and

in support of this view it may be said that the sun setting, descending

into the depths, is a natural symbol of the close of man's life,[1280]

and rising, represents the man's life in the beyond--thus the sun would

be identified with man, and not unnaturally with the first man, the

first to die. In support of the other view may be cited the great rôle

ascribed by many peoples to the first man: in savage lore he is often

the creator or arranger of the world,[1281] and he is sometimes, like

Yama, the son of the sun.[1282] Such an one, entering the other world,

might become its lord, and in process of time be divinized and made the

son of the creator sun.[1283] The Hindu figure is often compared to the

Avestan first man, Yima; but Yima, so far as appears, was never

divinized, and is not religiously of great importance. Nor do the late

Jewish legends and theosophical speculations bear on the point under

consideration: in Paradise, it is said, Adam was waited on by angels,

the angels were commanded by God to pay him homage (so also in the

Koran), and he is described as being the light of the world; and Philo

and others conceived of a first or heavenly man (Adam Kadmon), free from

ordinary human weakness, and identical with the Logos or the

Messiah--therefore a judge in the largest sense of the word.[1284] But,

while these conceptions testify to the strong appeal made to the

imagination by the figure of the mythical first man, they throw little

light on the original form of Yama--the early constructions do not

include the judge of the other world, and the later ones are too late to

explain so early a figure as the Vedic king of that world.

+736+. In the Rig-Veda Yama is specifically the overlord of the blessed

dead--the pious who were thought worthy to dwell in heaven with the gods

and to share to some extent their divinity; with the wicked he seems to

have nothing to do. The general history of the conception of the future

life suggests that in the earliest Indo-Iranian period there was a hades

to which all the dead went.[1285] If there was a divine head of this

hades (originally an underground deity, like Osiris, Allatu, and

Ploutos) he would accompany the pious fathers when, in the later Hindu

theologic construction, they were transported to heaven; and if the

first ancestor occupied a distinguished place among the dead,[1286] he

might be fused with the divine head into a sort of unity, and the

result might be such a complex figure as Yama appears to be. However

this may be, the Vedic Yama underwent a development in accordance with

the changes in the religious ideas of the people, becoming at last an

ethical judge of the dead.[1287]

+737+. _Persia._ The Mazdean theistic system presents special

difficulties.[1288] The nature of its divine world is remarkable, almost

unique, and the literature that has come down to us was edited at a

comparatively late period, probably not before the middle of the third

century of our era, so that it is not always easy to distinguish the

earlier and the later elements of thought. It is generally regarded as

certain that the two branches of the Aryan race, the Indian and the

Persian, once dwelt together and formed one community, having the same

general religious system: the material of spirits is substantially the

same in the two and they have certain important names in common--to the

Indian Asura, Soma, Mitra, the Persian Ahura, Haoma, Mithra correspond

in form exactly. But in the way in which this material was modified and

organized the two communities differ widely.

+738+. The peculiarity of the Persian system is that it practically

disregards all the old gods except Mithra and Anahita, substituting for

them beings designated by names of qualities, and organizes all

extrahuman Powers in two classes--one under the Good Spirit (Spenta

Mainyu), the other under the Bad Spirit (Angro Mainyu). The former is

attended by six great beings, Immortal Spirits (Amesha-spentas): Good

Mind, Best Order or Law, Holy Harmony or Wisdom, Piety, Well-being,

Immortality.[1289] In the Gathas, which are commonly held to be the most

ancient Zoroastrian documents, these attendants of the supreme god are

often nothing but qualities, but on the other hand are often personified

and worshiped. The rival of the Good Spirit is surrounded similarly by

lying spirits (_drujas_), among whom one, Aeshma, holds a prominent

place. The two divine chiefs stand side by side in the earliest

literature almost as coequal powers; but it is explained that the

wicked one is to be destroyed with all his followers.

+739+. In some of the early hymns (Yaçnas) Mithra is closely attached to

Ahura Mazda--the two are called "the lofty and imperishable ones." The

goddess Anahita, first mentioned in an inscription of Artaxerxes II, and

described only in the late Fifth Yasht, appears to have been originally

a deity of water. It was, doubtless, her popularity that led to her

official recognition by Artaxerxes; possibly her formal recognition by

the Mazdean leaders was a slow process, since she does not appear in the

older Avesta. In the Yasht she receives worship (being in the form of a

beautiful young woman) as the dispenser of all blessings that come from

pure water; she is said to have been created by Ahura Mazda, and is

wholly subordinated to him. Besides these two a great number of lesser

gods are mentioned; the latter, apparently the old local gods and

spirits here subordinated to the supreme god, are unimportant in the

official cult. The souls of the departed also become objects of worship.

+740+. It thus appears that Zoroastrianism was a reform of the old

polytheism. The movement closely resembles the struggle of the Hebrew

prophets against the worship of the Canaanite Baals and other foreign

gods. In both cases there is evidence going to show that popular cults

continued after the leaders of the reform had thrown off the offensive

elements of the old system: the Hebrew people continued to worship

foreign gods long after the great prophets had pronounced against them;

and the official recognition of Ahura Mazda in the Achæmenian

inscriptions[1290] by no means proves that lower forms of worship were

not practiced in Persia by the people.[1291]

+741+. If we ask for the grounds of this recoil from the old gods, we

must doubtless hold that ethical feeling was a powerful motive in the

reform, though economic and other considerations were, doubtless, not

without influence.

Since Ahura Mazda is ethically good and his worship ethically pure,

there is clearly in its origin hostility to low modes of worship and to

materialistic ideas. Possibly also we have here a struggle of a clan for

the recognition of its own god, as among the Israelites the Yahweh party

represented exclusive devotion to the old national god. If there was

such a clan or party in Persia, it is obvious that it produced men of

high intelligence and great moral and organizing power, and all that we

know of the religious history leads us to suppose that the establishment

of the supremacy of Ahura Mazda was the result of a long development.

+742+. As to the provenance of the Mazdean supreme lord, not a few

scholars of the present day hold that he was identical with the Indian

Varuna. It is in favor of this identification that the qualities of the

two deities are the same, and there is also the noteworthy fact that

Ahura Mazda is coupled with Mithra as Varuna is coupled with Mitra;

according to this view the Mazdean deity was originally the god of the

sky, by whose side naturally stands the sun. In a case like this,

involving a general agreement between two systems of thought, there are

two possible explanations of the relation between them: it may be

supposed that one borrowed from the other (in the present case the

borrowing would be on the part of the Persians); or the explanation may

be that the two communities developed original material along the same

general lines, though with local differences. In the absence of

historical data it is perhaps impossible to say which of these

explanations is to be preferred. There is, however, no little difficulty

in the supposition that one community has actually borrowed its

religious system from a neighbor; the general probability is that each

followed its own line.

+743+. Nor is it probable that the rejection of the old divine names by

the Persians was the result of hostility toward their Indian neighbors.

It is doubtless a curious fact that the Indian name for 'evil spirit,'

_asura_, is in Persian the name of a good spirit, Ahura, while the

Indian _diva_, the general term for a god, is in Persian the designation

of a wicked spirit, _daeva_. The Persian employment of _daeva_ for 'evil

spirit' may be explained as a protest not against Indian gods, but

against the deities of their own land; so the Hebrew prophets or their

editors apply opprobrious names, "no-god" and other terms, to deities

regarded by them as inadequate. The abstractions of the Mazdean system

have been referred to above. They seem to have been resorted to from a

feeling of profound disgust at the worship of some class of people.

Unfortunately we have not the historical data that might make the

situation clear. In the Gathas the people of Ahura Mazda are suffering

from the incursions of predatory tribes, and the greater part of the

appeals to the deity are for protection for the herds against their

enemies. We thus have a suggestion of a struggle, political and

religious, between the more civilized Aryans and the savage Tataric

tribes around them.

+744+. In the later period of Mazdeanism the old titles of supreme deity

were succeeded (though not displaced) by the terms "Boundless Time" and

"Boundless Space," the latter doubtless suggested by the vault of

heaven. These generalizations, however, had little influence on the

development of the theological side of the religion, which has continued

to regard Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyu as the two heads of the world and

the determiners of human life. The rituals of the Mazdean and Hindu

faiths were influenced by the ethical developments of the two, becoming

simpler and more humane with the advance toward elevated conceptions of

God and man.

+745+. In view of such facts as are known it may be surmised that the

Mazdean system originated with an Aryan agricultural tribe or body of

tribes dwelling near the Caspian Sea, in contact with hostile nomads.

These Aryans, we may assume, had the ordinary early apparatus of spirits

and nature deities (gods of the sun, water, etc.), but, at the same

time, a disposition to concentrate worship on a single god (probably a

sky-god), who became the chief tribal deity and was naturally regarded

as the source of all things good, the Good Spirit; the phenomena of life

led them (as it led some other early peoples) to conceive of a rival

spirit, the author of things hostile to life. With economic conditions

and intellectual characteristics very different from those of their

Hindu brethren, they developed no capacity for organizing an elaborate

pantheon--they were practically monolatrous, were content with an

all-sufficient Good Spirit (the Bad Spirit being tolerated as an

intellectual necessity), gradually subordinated to him such gods as the

popular feeling retained, and relegated to the sphere of evil the host

of inferior hurtful spirits or gods (_daevas_) whose existence they

could not deny.[1292] The religious leaders, representing and enforcing

the tribal tendency of thought, in the course of time gave more and more

definite shape to the cult; perhaps Zoroaster was a preëminent agent in

this movement. Ethical purification, as a matter of course, went hand in

hand with cultic organization. The old gods or spirits, associates of

the supreme god, became embodiments of moral conceptions, and a ritual

of physical and moral purity was worked out. Such may have been the

general history of the official system; data for a detailed

chronological history are lacking.[1293]

+746+. _China._ Chinese religion is characterized by a remarkable

restraint in ecclesiastical development: simple religious customs, no

native priestly order, few gods, almost no myths. The basis of the

popular religion is the usual material, comprising ancestors, spirits

(including tutelary spirits), a few departmental gods (of war, of the

kitchen, etc.), some of which are said to be deified men. The system is

thus nearly the same as that of the central Asiatic Mongolians.[1294]

+747+. The reflective movement (which must have begun long before the

sixth century B.C., the period of Confucius and Lao-tsze) is marked by

the attempt to perfect the social organization, regard being paid mainly

to visible, practical relations. Stress is laid on the principle of

order in family and state, which is held to reflect the order of the

universe;[1295] speculation is avoided, there is a minimum of religion.

In the more developed religious system the two prominent features are,

first, the dominant conception of the unity of the family and of the

state led to the emphasizing of the worship of ancestors--a cult which,

going back to a very early time, has been interwoven in China with the

individual and communal life in a thoroughgoing way, with a constant

infusion of moral ideas; and in the next place, the order of society and

of the external world is represented by Heaven.[1296]

+748+. Originally, doubtless, Heaven was the physical sky (as among the

Hindus and Persians and many other peoples), but at an early period came

to be practically the supreme god. A sort of monotheistic cult has thus

been established as the official religion. The emperor is the Son of

Heaven and the High Priest of the nation, and in the great annual

sacrifices performed by him the host of minor powers is practically

ignored and worship is addressed to the controlling powers of the world.

This official worship does not set aside the cult of the various

spirits, whose existence is recognized by the minor officials as well as

by the people. The cult of local spirits has grown to extraordinary

dimensions. They fill the land, controlling the conditions of life and

demanding constant regard; and the experts, who are supposed to know the

laws governing the action of the spirits (for example, as to proper

burial-places), wield enormous power, and make enormous charges of

money. These spirits are treated as of subordinate importance in the

official religion. The process by which China has reached this religious

attitude must have extended over millenniums, and, as is stated above,

the intellectual movement in the direction of simplicity and clearness

has been attended by an advance in ethical purity.

+749+. The tendency of Chinese thought is illustrated by the two systems

of philosophy which in the sixth century B.C. formulated the conception

of a universal dominant order:[1297] Confucius represents the extreme

logical development of natural order in human life as a product of

cosmic order--he is content absolutely to deal with the practical

affairs of life and discourages attempts to inquire into the nature of

gods or into the condition of men after death. Lao-tsze, on the other

hand, similarly taking the Way (_tao_), or Universal Order, as the

informing and controlling power of the world, appears to have laid the

stress on the relation between it and the human soul--a conception that

has affinities with the Stoic Logos. But it is Confucianism that has

remained the creed of educated China. Taoism, beginning, apparently, as

a spiritual system, did not appeal to the Chinese feeling, and speedily

degenerated into a system of magical jugglery. Thus the Chinese, with

the feeblest religious sense to be found in any great nation, have

nevertheless reached the grandiose conception of the all-embracing and

all-controlling supreme Heaven. In their case the governing

consideration has been the moral organization of social life, and Nature

has swallowed up all great partial deities.

+750+. _Japan._ Japan has produced no great god;[1298] out of the mass

of nature gods reported in the Kojiki not one becomes preëminent. There

is recognition of Heaven and Earth as the beginning of things, and of

the sun as a deity, but neither the sky-god nor the sun-goddess becomes

a truly high god. Japanese theistic development appears to have been

crippled at an early period by the intrusion of Chinese influences; the

very name of the national religion, Shinto, 'the Way of the Gods,' is

Chinese. The emperor was deified, and ancestor-worship became the

principal popular cult;[1299] but Confucianism and Buddhism overlaid the

native worship at an early period. The later forms of Shinto have moved

rather toward the rejection of the old deities than toward the creation

of a great national god.

+751+. _Semitic peoples._ Among the various Semitic peoples there is so

marked a unity of thought that, as Robertson Smith has pointed

out,[1300] we may speak of the Semitic religion, though there are

noteworthy local differences. Generally we find among these

communities, as elsewhere, a large number of local deities, scarcely

distinguishable in their functions one from another.[1301] A noteworthy

illustration of the long continuance of these local cults is given in

the attempt of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, to centralize the

worship by bringing the statues of the local deities to Babylon; the

result was a general popular protest. Similarly an attempt was made by

King Josiah in the seventh century B.C. to centralize all Israelite

worship in Jerusalem, but the history of the succeeding generations

shows that the attempt was not successful. The local gods represent the

clannic and tribal organization, to which the Semites appear to have

clung with peculiar fondness.

+752+. Semitic religion shows an orderly advance through the medium of

tribal and national feeling in conjunction with the regular moral and

intellectual growth of the community. First one god and then another

comes to the front as this or that city attains leadership, but these

chief gods are substantially identical with one another in functions.

The genealogical relations introduced by the priestly theologians throw

no light on the original characters of the deities and are often ignored

in the inscriptions. A natural division into gods of the sky and gods of

the earth may be recognized, but in the high gods this distinction

practically disappears.

+753+. Turning first to the Tigris-Euphrates region, we find certain

nature gods that attained more or less definite universal

character.[1302] The physical sky becomes the god Anu, who, though

certainly a great god, was never so prominent as certain other deities,

and in Assyria yielded gradually to Ashur. Why the Semites, in marked

contrast with the Indo-Europeans and the Chinese, have shown a

relatively feeble recognition of the physical heaven we are not able to

say; possibly the tribal feeling referred to above may have led to a

centering of devotion on those deities that lay nearer to everyday life,

or in the case of Babylonia it may be that the city with which Anu was

particularly connected lost its early importance, and its deity in

consequence yielded to others.[1303] The sun is a more definite and more

practically important object than the expanse of the sky, and the

Semitic sun-god, Shamash, plays a great rôle from the earliest to the

latest times. The great king Hammurabi (commonly placed near the year

2000 B.C.), in his noteworthy civil code, takes Shamash as his patron,

as the inspirer of wisdom and the controller of human right; and from

this time onward this deity is invoked by the kings in their

inscriptions. The worship of the sun was established in Canaan at an

early time (as the name of the town Bethshemesh, 'house of Shemesh,'

shows), and under Assyrian influence was adopted by a large number of

Israelites in the seventh century B.C.; the prophet Ezekiel represents

prominent Israelites as standing in the court of the temple, turning

their backs on the sacred house and worshiping the sun;[1304] but as to

the nature of the sun-god and his worship in these cases we have no

information. Other nature deities that rose to eminence are the

moon-god, Sin, and the storm-god, Ramman.

+754+. The other deities of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheons seem

not to be connected by their names with natural phenomena. They are

attached to particular cities or districts, and each district or city,

as it becomes a great religious center, raises its favorite god to a

position of preëminence. Generally the choice of a special deity by a

particular city lies back of historical documents, and the reason for

such choice therefore cannot be definitely fixed. The attributes and

functions of the resulting great gods, as has already been remarked, are

substantially everywhere the same, and where one function becomes

prominent, it is often possible to explain its prominence from the

political or other conditions.

+755+. Moreover, as in all theological constructions that follow great

political unifications, it was natural to extend the domain of a

principal god to whatever department of life or of nature appealed

especially to the theologian. When we find certain gods invested with

solar functions it does not follow that they were originally

sun-gods--such functions may be a necessary result of their preëminence.

Out of the great mass of Babylonian and Assyrian deities we may select a

few whose cults illustrate the method of development of the religious

conceptions. As non-Semitic (Sumerian) religious and other ideas and

words appear to have been adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, it is not

always easy to distinguish between Semitic and non-Semitic conceptions

in the cults as known to us.

+756+. _Babylonia._ The god Ea appears to have been originally the local

deity of Eridu, a city which in early times stood on the Persian Gulf.

This proximity to the sea may account for the fact that Ea was generally

associated with water (in Babylonia, as elsewhere, there were many

deities of waters). It is not certain that this was his original rôle,

but it was, in any case, assigned him in the course of the theistic

construction. It is not improbable that in the original form of the

Babylonian epic it was Ea who sent the flood and saved one man--a

natural representation for the god of Eridu; in later recensions of the

poem it is first Bel and then Marduk who assumes the principal rôle. As

Eridu was probably a prominent political center, Ea, as its chief god,

naturally became the creator, the bestower of wisdom, the author of the

arts of life, in general a universal god. As the political center

shifted, the popular interest changed and Ea yielded more or less to

other gods, continuing, however, throughout the whole Babylonian and

Assyrian period to receive high consideration.

+757+. Enlil, the god of Nippur, had a similar career; originally local,

he became supreme. A peculiar feature of his history is the fact that

the title Bel, 'lord' (which is the Semitic equivalent of the

non-Semitic Enlil), clung to him in a peculiar way and practically

ousted the original name. This title was assigned to various gods (so in

Canaan the title Baal), and its special appropriation by the god of

Nippur must be referred to the preponderant importance of that city in

the period before the rise of Babylon. In the Babylonian system he is

lord of the lower world, that is, apparently, the divine king of the

earth; his original domain, the district of Nippur, was extended to

embrace the whole world--a sort of extension that was common in all

ancient religions. His importance is evident from the fact that he was a

member of the early triad, Anu, Bel, Ea, names that have been supposed

to represent three divisions of the world into heaven, earth, and ocean.

It seems probable, however, that this triadic grouping was the work of

relatively late constructionists; it is more likely that the original

prominence of these three deities was due to the fact that they

represented the more important political communities.[1305]

+758+. A particularly good illustration of the dependence of a god's

position on the political position of his region is furnished by the god

Marduk, a name the meaning of which is uncertain. He is first clearly

mentioned in the inscriptions of Hammurabi (ca. 2000 B.C.), but

mentioned in such a way that his cult must go back to a much earlier

time. From the devotion paid him by Hammurabi, and much later by

Nebuchadrezzar II (sixth century B.C.), it is generally assumed that he

was the local god of Babylon. He rose with the fortunes of this city,

finally becoming supreme: he was regarded as creator, and invested with

all the highest functions; in the later astronomical constructions he is

represented as the arranger of the zodiacal system and all that was

connected with it, but, as is pointed out above, this is no ground for

regarding him as having been originally a sun-god. A glimpse into the

method of theological reconstruction is afforded by the representation

in the cosmogonic epic where he is invested with supreme power by the

older gods--this investiture is with probability regarded by

Assyriologists as representing the leadership attained by the city of

Babylon (ca. 2000 B.C.), whose religious hegemony lasted throughout the

existence of the Babylonian state.

+759+. _Assyria._ The Assyrian pantheon is in general identical with

that of Babylon, but has certain features which are due to the peculiar

character of the Assyrian civilization. The god Ashur, originally the

local god of the city or district of Ashur, and then the chief god of

Assyria, was naturally a war-god--Assyria was essentially a military

nation, differing in this regard from Babylonia. He is, however, more

than a mere god of war--he has all high attributes, and came to

represent in Assyria that approach to monotheism which in Babylon was

embodied in the later cult of Marduk.

+760+. Babylonian and Assyrian _female deities_ are of two classes:

those who are merely consorts of the male deities, and those who

represent fertility. The first class we may pass over--the goddesses of

this class are vague in character and functions and play no important

part in the religious system; they appear to be artificial creations of

the systematizers. The deities of the second class, however, are

important. From a very early time the fertility of nature has been

referred appropriately to female Powers, and in the Semitic pantheon a

large number of such divinities occur. A deity of this sort naturally

becomes a mother-goddess, with all the attributes that pertain to this

character; in some cases a mother-goddess becomes supreme.

+761+. A very early female divinity is Bau, worshiped particularly at

the city Lagash and by King Gudea. Her function as patron of

productiveness is probably indicated in the spring festival held in her

honor on New Year's Day, in which she is worshiped as the giver of the

fruits of the earth. There are several local female deities that seem to

be substantially identical in character with Bau. Innanna (or Ninni) in

Uruk (Erech) was the mistress of the world and of war, and Nana is

hardly to be distinguished from her.[1306] In Agade Anunit has a similar

rôle; in Lagash Nina was the determiner of fate, and the mother of the

goddesses.

+762+. These names appear to be titles signifying 'mistress,' 'lady,'

and this is probably the meaning of the name of the great goddess who

finally ousted or absorbed her sisters, Ishtar.[1307] In the earliest

form in which Ishtar appears, in the old poetry, she is the deity of

fertility; when she goes down to the Underworld all productiveness of

plants and men ceases; and her primitive character at this time appears

in the account of her marriages with animals, in which there is to be

recognized the trace of the old zoölatrous period; but as patron of

fertility she becomes in time a great goddess and takes on universal

attributes--she is the mother of gods and men, universal protector and

guide. Where war was the chief pursuit she became a goddess of war; in

this character she appears in Babylonia as early as the time of

Hammurabi, and later in Assyria. In the genealogical constructions she

was brought into connection, as daughter, wife, or other relation, with

any god that the particular conditions suggested. As the Assyrians grew

morally she was endowed with all the highest virtues (so in the

Penitential Psalms), and occupied so preëminent a position that under

favorable circumstances she might perhaps have become the only god of

the land.

+763+. If her name signified originally 'lord' or 'lady,' the occurrence

of several Ishtars in Assyria (particularly Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar

of Arbela) is easily understood; so in Canaan, as we learn from the Old

Testament, there was a great number of local Ashtarts.[1308] We can thus

also explain the male deities Ashtar in Moab and Athtar in South

Arabia.[1309] None of these, however, attained the eminence of the

Babylonian and Assyrian Ishtar; her supremacy in Mesopotamia was due

doubtless in part to the political importance of the cities that adopted

her. She had her rivals, as we have seen, in Marduk and Ashur and

others; and that she was able to maintain herself is to be ascribed in

some measure to the importance attached by her worshipers to the

fertilizing power of nature.

+764+. The other Semitic peoples, with the exception of the Hebrews,

offer little material for tracing the development of the great gods. For

the Aramean region the records are sparse; Aramean deities appear to be

of the same character as the Canaanite.[1310] In Canaan (including

Phoenicia) out of the vast number of local divinities, the Baals and

Ashtarts, few attained to eminence, and it is doubtful whether any one

of them deserves the title "great."[1311] The divine patrons of cities

were locally powerful; such were the Baal of Tyre, called Melkart ('the

king of the city'), the Ashtart of Sidon, and Tanit of Carthage;[1311]

these owed their reputation to their official positions, and there is no

other record of their development. The same thing is true of the Moabite

Kemosh, the Ammonite Malkom (Milkom), and the Philistine Dagan (Dagon)

and Baalzebub. None of these became ethically great or approached

universality. The Phoenician Eshmun was known to the Greeks, and was

identified by them with their Asklepios (Æsculapius), probably because

among the various functions attaching to him as local deity healing was

prominent; but of his theologic history little is known.[1312] Several

North Arabian deities, especially Dusares (Dhu ash-Shara) and the

goddesses Al-Lât and Al-Uzza, were widely worshiped, their cults

extending over the whole Nabatean region; but the communities to which

they belonged never produced a great civilization or attained great

political significance, and these deities always retained traces of

their local nature.[1313] The same remark is to be made of the South

Arabian gods known to us; they were locally important, but we have

little information concerning their characters.[1314]

+765+. The clearest example of the orderly advance of a deity to

preëminence is afforded by the Hebrew Yahweh (Jehovah). Originally, it

would seem, a local deity, the god of certain tribes on the northern

boundary of Arabia,[1315] he was adopted by the Hebrews under conditions

which are not quite clear, and was developed by them in accordance with

their peculiar genius. At first morally and intellectually crude, he

became as early as the eighth century B.C. ethically high and

practically omnipotent.[1316] For many centuries he was regarded merely

as the most powerful of the gods, superior to the deities of other

nations, and it was only after the beginning of our era that the Hebrew

thought discarded all other gods and made "Yahweh" synonymous with

"God." In each period of their history the conception that the Hebrews

had of him was in accord with the economic and intellectual features of

the time.[1317]

+766+. A word may be added respecting the Semitic titles Ilu, or El, and

Elohim, which have been supposed by some recent writers to prove the

existence of an early monotheism, particularly in Southern Arabia. The

terms mean simply 'god,' and were applied by early Semitic communities

to any deity, particularly to the local god. In the Arabia of Mohammed's

time a tribe would call its deity simply "the god," a sufficient

designation of him for the place;[1318] this designation, in Arabic

_al-ilahu_, came to be pronounced "Allah," and this familar term, as is

remarked above, was adopted by Mohammed and expanded (probably under the

influence of some advanced Arabian circle of thinkers of his time) into

the conception of the one only god, which he and others had derived from

Christians and Jews. In certain parts of the Old Testament also "Elohim"

stands for the national god, conceived of as all-sufficient. But these

are late conceptions. There is no proof that in South Arabia or in

Babylonia the term Ilu meant anything else than the local deity, though

such a deity would naturally receive all the attributes that his

worshipers demanded in their religious constructions. Most of the

appellations of Semitic deities are epithets, and while this mode of

conceiving of the gods militated against the development of them into

distinct personalities and the construction of a pantheon, it was

favorable, on the other hand, to isolation and to the tendency to

elevate any favorite deity to a position of preëminence.

+767+. _Greece._ The Greeks, with their rich imagination and artistic

feeling, filled the world with divine figures, well-defined types of

Greek character, ideals of Greek thought. Greece alone has constructed a

true pantheon, a community of gods all individualized, but all compacted

into a family or a body of government. The question of their historical

development involves great difficulties, partly because the wide

diffusion of their cults in Hellas occasioned many local expansions of

the original conceptions in the various regions, partly because most of

the deities appear fully or almost fully formed in the earliest literary

monuments, so that we are dependent on cultic procedures and passing

allusions for a knowledge of their preliterary character. Without, then,

attempting an investigation of the obscure prehistoric theogonic period,

the general lines of growth of some of the principal divine personages

may be followed (as far as the data permit) as examples of the way in

which the great gods were gradually created.[1319]

+768+. Zeus, originally doubtless a sky-god (not the sun), represents

an old Indo-European divine conception, found substantially also among

all the great peoples of antiquity, as well as in many half-civilized

tribes. But nowhere has he attained so eminent a position as in Greece.

The Hindu Dyaus (the 'shining one')[1320] is not prominent in the Vedic

mythology or in later times, and the Mazdean Ahura Mazda, if he was

originally the sky, had dropped his physical characteristics and become

only a spirit; the Latin Jupiter approaches Zeus most nearly in name and

character. A sky-god is naturally conceived of as universal ruler,[1321]

but in any particular region he assumes the characteristics of the

ruling human personages of the place and time. Zeus appears first as a

barbarian chieftain with the ordinary qualities of such persons. Stories

that have come down about him reflect a period of what now seems

immorality, though it was the recognized morality of the time; he is

deceitful and changeable and completely unregardful of any definite

marriage laws. His cult in some places (for example, in Arcadia) had

savage features. Whether he had originally in the Hellenic world a

special home, and if so what it was, cannot now be determined.[1322]

+769+. In the historical period he appears as a chief god in many places

in Greece, gradually absorbs the functions of other gods, and receives

numerous titles derived from places and functions. He is the father of

gods and men, but not the sole creator of the world. His gradual rise in

moral character may be traced in the literature. In Homer he is a

universalized Agamemnon, with very much the intellectual and moral

qualities of Agamemnon; a process of growth in the conception of him in

the Homeric poems is indicated by the incongruities in his

portraiture--at one time he is a creature of impulse and passion, at

another time a dignified and thoughtful ruler. In Pindar and the

tragedians of the fifth century he has become the representative of

justice and order in the world, and in later writers he comes to be more

specifically the embodiment of everything that is good in the universe.

He represents the Greek conception of civic authority, and thus the

nearest approach to monotheism discoverable in the Greek mythological

system; and as embodying the finer side of religious feeling he both

punishes and forgives sin.

+770+. Next in importance to Zeus as representative of Greek religious

thought stands Apollo. The meaning of the name and the original seat of

the god are obscure; he appears to have been a Pan-Hellenic deity; he

was definitely shaped by the whole mass of Hellenic thought. Originally,

perhaps, the local deity of some hunting and pastoral region, and

possessing the quasi-universal attributes of such deities, the wide

diffusion of his cult (through conditions not known to us) brought him

into relation with many sides of life. While he shares this

many-sidedness with several other gods, the Greek genius of theographic

organization assigned him special headship in certain distinctively

Hellenic conceptions. Zeus embodied the theocratic idea, and Apollo the

ideas of Pan-Hellenic civic unity, artistic feeling, and the more

intimate ethical and religious experience. He became the patron of the

Amphictyonic assembly and of literature and art, and, especially in

connection with the Delphic oracle, the fosterer of ethical conceptions

of ritual and of sin. How it came to pass that these particular

departments were assigned him it is not possible to say. Such

specialization was natural to the Greeks, but the determining conditions

in particular cases have not been recorded, and can only be surmised.

His growth kept pace with that of the Hellenic people--in the Iliad he

is a partisan, and his words and deeds do not always command our

respect, but in the later theological constructions he throws off his

crudeness. His connection with the sun was a natural consequence of his

rise to eminence; he is not a sun-god in the earliest literary remains.

+771+. Poseidon, second only to Zeus in power, is also of obscure

origin.[1323] His specific marine character is certain, though as a

great god he had many relations and functions.[1324] Possibly he was

originally the local deity of some marine region, and by reason of the

importance of his native place, or simply through the intimate

relationship between the Greek communities, and in accordance with the

Greek spirit of organization, came to be generally recognized as the god

of the ocean.[1325] Though he was widely revered he remained largely a

nature god--he never attained the majesty and moral supremacy of Zeus,

never, indeed, represented specifically any refined moral or religious

conception. Whether this ethical and religious meagerness was a

consequence of the vagueness of the relation between the sea and human

life, or of some other fact, is a point that can hardly be determined.

+772+. Hermes, to judge from his history, was the creation of some

pastoral community, an ideal of rustic excellence: fleet of foot, a

leader in popular amusements, skilled in simple music, eminent in an art

much valued in early times--the art of stealing cattle. When he was

taken into the circle of Greek theological thought his swiftness

recommended him to the position of messenger of the gods,[1326] and his

function as psychopompos, the guide of souls to the other world, would

then follow naturally; from this function it cannot, however, be

inferred that he was originally a chthonic deity--a character that does

not accord with the early portraitures of him. Like other gods he grew

morally, but he never reached ethical distinction. Skill in theft was in

early times often regarded as a virtue,[1327] and in general he who got

the better of his fellows was esteemed a master of good luck and

prosperity; and a bestower of outward prosperity Hermes came to

be.[1328] His main quality was cleverness, in contrast with the

intellectual power of Apollo.

+773+. On the other hand, another rustic figure, the Arcadian herd-god

Pan,[1329] never developed into a great Hellenic god. His worship was

widely diffused; he appears often in artistic representations, and

Pindar thought him worthy of a hymn (of which, unfortunately, only

fragments survive), but in general he remained uncouth and half savage,

a goatlike figure, the companion of satyrs, or (as the Homeric hymn

depicts him) a merrymaker. He seems to have been an embodiment of the

lower rustic pleasures, a local god, probably not a divinized

goat.[1330]

+774+. His name, however, taken to mean 'all,' gave occasion to fanciful

interpretations. He was so called, it was said, because he gave delight

to all the Immortals;[1331] or his person and his musical and other

instruments were supposed to represent universal nature--his horns the

rays of the sun and the horns of the moon, his spotted fawnskin the

stars, his pipe of seven reeds the harmony of the heavens, his crook the

year, which returns on itself, and so on.[1332] The Stoics and the

Orphic writers made him Universal God, the creator of the world.[1333]

In the popular cult, however, he remained the merry patron of herds. The

most satisfactory explanation of his name is that which derives it from

the stem _pa_, 'feed'--he is then "the goatherd."[1334] The story told

by Plutarch, of a voice heard crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan

is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation

of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil,

disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan

respectfully and sympathetically, but such constructions are

nonpopular.[1336]

+775+. Ares seems to be the creation of a war-loving tribe; in the Iliad

he is a fierce warrior, armed cap-a-pie, delighting in battle and

slaughter. Through the machinations of Hera and Athene he is overcome by

human heroes, the poet's feeling being, possibly, contempt for the mere

savage fighter; in fact, Ares in the Iliad is, from our point of view,

hardly a respectable character--he violates his promise, and when

wounded cries out like a hurt child. But as war-god he was widely

revered in Greece; in Thebes especially he was honored as one of the

great gods. Hesiod makes him the son of Zeus and Hera,[1337] but he

never attains moral or other dignity; in the popular cult he remained,

probably, merely the patron of war. In the later artistic

representations he is the ideal of warlike vigor and grace. In the

Homeric hymn (which may be of Orphic origin) he is transformed into a

lover of peace and a source of all pure and lofty aspirations--a violent

procedure, induced by the poet's unwillingness that an Olympian should

represent anything but what was morally good.

+776+. The process of development of a god's character is illustrated

with special clearness by the history of Dionysus. It is generally

agreed that he was of foreign origin, an importation from Thrace. The

features of his earliest cult known to us are marked by bald savagery.

His worshipers indulged in wild orgies, probably excited by intoxicating

drinks, tore to pieces a goat (as in Thrace) or a bull (as in Crete) and

ate the flesh raw;[1338] and the evidence goes to show that they

practiced human sacrifice. All these procedures have parallels in known

savage cults. Omophagic orgies are described by Nilus (among the

Saracens), and such customs are reported as existing or having existed

in the Fiji Islands and elsewhere.[1339] Among many tribes intoxication

is a common preparation for the work of the shaman; and human sacrifice

has been practiced in all parts of the world. There is nothing peculiar

in the office of soothsayer that accompanied the Dionysiac cult; mantic

persons and procedures have formed a prominent part of the constitution

of the lower peoples everywhere.

+777+. Dionysus, in a word, was originally the local god of a savage

community; the data are not sufficient to fix precisely his original

place and the original conception of him. His mantic function does not

necessarily show that he was a ghost. It is true that the dead were

often consulted (and necromancy long survived among civilized peoples),

but any spirit or god might take possession of a worshiper and make him

the vehicle of revelation. Nor is the phallus-cult peculiar to Dionysus;

this cult is widely diffused, and its origin is to be referred not

specifically to the recognition of the general generative power of

nature, but to the mystery of human life.[1340] In his original home

Dionysus seems to have represented everything that touched the life of

his people. When, at a certain time, he passed into Hellas (carried,

doubtless, by immigrants), he took on the character necessitated by his

new surroundings--a process of transformation began. Exact chronological

data are lacking, but as in the Iliad[1341] he is the son of Zeus, he

must have been adopted by the Greeks very early. In his new home he

became the patron of the vine.[1342] In a vine-growing region any

prominent deity may become a wine-god;[1343] but the special connection

of Dionysus with wine in Greece suggests that in his earlier home he was

somehow identified with intoxicating drinks. With vegetation in general

also he may have been connected in Thrace--such a relation would be

natural for a clan god--and in that case his Hellenic rôle as god of

vegetation would follow as a matter of course; or, if he advanced from

the vine to the whole of vegetable nature, the development is

intelligible.

+778+. When and on what grounds he was accepted as one of the Olympians

is not clear;[1344] perhaps it was on account of the importance of vine

culture, perhaps from the mysterious character of his cult, the

enthusiasm of divine inspiration reflected in the frenzy of the

worshipers, or from these causes combined; his later name, Bacchus,

which seems to refer to cultic orgiastic shouting, would appear to

indicate this element of the cult as a main source of his popularity.

Once established as a great god he was credited with various functions.

The Greek drama arose in connection with his worship, and at Eleusis the

old element of seizure by the god was transformed by the higher thought

of the time into the conception of ethical union with the deity. Thus

the old savage god came to stand for man's highest aspirations.

+779+. As among other peoples, so among the Greeks the government of the

Underworld was gradually organized, and a head thereof appointed.[1345]

Already in the Iliad and in Hesiod[1346] the universe is divided into

three parts under the rule of the Kronids Zeus, Poseidon, and Aïdes

respectively; the earth, however, and Olympos, says Poseidon, are the

common property of them all--there was no complete governmental

separation between the Underworld and the Upperworld. The Greeks, with

their joy in the present, gave comparatively little prominence to the

future (being herein sharply contrasted with the Egyptians).

+780+. The title generally given to the underground chief, Hades

(apparently 'the invisible one'), indicates the vagueness that attached

to this deity.[1347] In the Iliad he is a dark and dread divinity. The

precise significance of his title Plouton[1348] is uncertain; but under

this name he is connected in the myths with processes of vegetation--it

is Plouton who carries off Persephone, leaving the world in the deadness

of winter. The figure of the underground deity appears to have taken

shape from the combination of two mythological conceptions--the

underground fructifying forces of nature, and the assemblage of the dead

in a nether world or kingdom.[1349] His only moral significance lay in

his relation to oaths, wherein, perhaps, is an approach to the idea of a

divine judge below the earth.[1350]

+781+. The _female deities_ of the Greeks are no less elaborately worked

out than the male gods, and, like these, are types of human character

and representatives of human pursuits.[1351]

+782+. The great goddess Hera is in Homer attached especially to Argos,

Sparta, and Mycenæ, but at a very early time was Pan-Hellenic. The

meaning of her name and her origin are uncertain. There is no good

ground for regarding her as having been originally a moon-goddess

(Selene was the real moon-goddess). What is certain is that she had a

special relation to women and particularly to childbirth; but such a

function is so generally attributed to some goddess that we can only

suppose that she rose to eminence through local conditions unknown to

us. The most interesting point about her is that she came to be the

representative of the respectable Greek matron, jealous of her wifely

rights, holding herself aloof from love affairs, a home person, entitled

to respect for the decency of her life, but without great womanly charm.

+783+. By a natural mythological law she was regarded as the consort of

Zeus, and gradually acquired dignity without, however, ever coming to be

a distinct embodiment of any form of intellectual or moral life. As Zeus

embodied the conception of civil and political headship, so Hera appears

to have embodied the idea of the wife as controller of the purely

domestic affairs of the family, her business being the bringing up of

children and the oversight of servants--duties that may have seemed at

an early period not to require great moral and intellectual power.

+784+. A distincter form is that of Demeter, who, whatever the meaning

of her name,[1352] certainly represents the fertile earth--a figure

similar to hundreds of others in the world, and doubtless existing at

various points in Greece under local names; she probably represents a

unification of the different conceptions of the fertile earth, a process

that went on in the natural way in Greek thought, and was formulated by

the poets. Her historical connection with the great Asian earth-goddess,

the Mother-Goddess, is uncertain. Demeter, however, never became the

great earth-mother; she remained attached to the soil, except that in

the Eleusinian mysteries she (probably as patron of fertility) was

allegorized into a representation of those moral conceptions of the

future that gradually arose in Greece.

+785+. The group of deities that may be called maiden goddesses is of

peculiar interest. A maiden goddess is originally an independent deity

who, for whatever reason, has not been brought by the myth-makers into

marriage relations with a male deity. Generally such independence is a

result of the fact that the goddess is the representative of fertility.

She may, in accordance with early customs of human society, choose

temporary consorts at will (as is the case with Ishtar); she may be in

her sole person (like the Dea Mater) the productive power of the world;

or she may remain a virgin, occupied only with the care of some

department of life (so Athene and Artemis). Which of these characters

she takes depends on early social conditions and on the nature of the

local theistic organization. In Greece these goddesses assume various

shapes.

+786+. There is first the primitive divine Power of vegetation, called

simply the Kore, the Maiden, a figure ultimately identical with Demeter

and in the later constructions represented as her daughter. She is not

necessarily to be regarded as a development out of an original

corn-spirit. Her title "maiden" may be compared with the Semitic title

"mistress," mentioned above, and with the names expressing family

relations, "sister," "mother"--only this particular designation defines

her simply as an unmarried female divinity. The "corn-maiden" of modern

European folk-lore may be the cultic degradation of an old deity.[1353]

The title Kore became almost a proper name, though the designation was

not so definite as in the cases of Bel and Ishtar.[1354]

+787+. As the Kore is the representative of vegetable life, so Hestia

stands in general for the indoor life, the family. She long retained

this local character, but gradually assumed the position of the great

goddess of the home center, the hearth,[1355] and was connected with the

household fires and festivals. She represents the more intimate social

life of the family in contrast with Hera, who stands for the government

of the household.

+788+. The development of the functions of Artemis is comparatively

clear. The origin of the name is doubtful, but in the earliest records

she is connected with the fertile earth, with vegetable and also with

animal life.[1356] This character indicates that she was at one time a

local, all-sufficient deity, though it is hardly possible to determine

her original seat. As a local goddess in the hunting area she was

naturally connected with the chase, and as a female divinity she was the

patroness of marriage and the protector of human birth. Her original

nature as the maiden appears in the representation of her as a virgin

which occurs in Homer.[1357] There is no contradiction between this

character and her function of presiding over marriage and birth if we

consider her as a local goddess who from one point of view was regarded

as a simple maiden, from another point of view as the protector of

women.[1358] Thus invested with the control of these important features

of life she naturally became a general patroness, a guardian. Later she

was connected with Apollo as his sister, exactly by what steps we do not

know; and in the mythical constructions she was represented as the

daughter of Zeus and Leto.[1359]

+789+. The Hellenic goddess Artemis is to be distinguished from the

Ephesian deity to whom the Greeks gave the same name, though when the

Greeks came into close contact with Asia Minor the two were identified.

And in fact, though in historical origin the two deities are to be kept

apart, they doubtless go back to the same conception. The Ephesian

goddess was the Great Mother--she stood specifically for the idea of

maternity which lies at the basis of the world; the Greek divinity,

beginning as a local protectress, took on larger functions which gave

her general resemblance to the universal mother.

+790+. The relation between Artemis and Hekate is an illustration of the

process of coördination and harmonization that went on continually among

the Greeks. Hekate does not appear in Homer, but in Hesiod she has the

full form of a great deity--she exercises control over heaven, earth,

and sea;[1360] and at a later period she becomes similarly connected

with the Underworld. This variety of functions can be explained only by

the supposition that she also was a local deity, who, like all local

deities, was regarded as universal.[1361] As the meaning of her name is

uncertain and her original region unknown, it can be only surmised that

her cult spread gradually in Greece through the growing unification of

the Hellenic states. Like Artemis she presided over human birth. The

functions of the two goddesses being so nearly the same (they appear to

represent similar conceptions arising at different centers), it was

natural that in the later times they should be identified or closely

associated.

+791+. Athene is said in a late myth (not in the Iliad) to have been

born from the head of Zeus, a representation that has led many recent

scholars to regard her as the goddess of the thunderstorm, the lightning

that cleaves the clouds, the divine warrior that slays the dragon. But

ingenious and attractive as this interpretation is, to determine the

origin of the goddess it is safer to go to the earlier forms of her

cult. At a very early period she is connected with ordinary social

occupations.[1362] She is the patroness of the cultivation of the land;

in Athens, where the olive was important, it was she who bestowed this

tree on the city; here she is the maiden, the genius, the divine patron

of vegetation. She presided over the domestic employments of women,

spinning and weaving--that is, she is the goddess of household

work.[1363] As is the case with so many divine patrons of men's early

simple employments, she grew with the community and became gradually a

great goddess, and necessarily a patroness of cities. In her character

of general patroness she became a goddess of war--a necessity for all

ancient states. On the other hand, in a community (like Athens, for

example) where intellectual insight was highly esteemed she would

naturally become the representative of cleverness and wisdom.

+792+. The peculiar nature of the wisdom that is prized by men depends

on time and place. In the earliest periods what Athene bestows is a high

degree of common sense and skill in devising ways and means, such as

Odysseus shows. In later times of larger cultivation she bestows wisdom

in the higher sense, intellectual breadth. Exactly how it came to pass

that the two figures Artemis and Athene developed on such different

lines we are unable to say--the beginning of the divergence goes back to

times of which we have no records; but, as gods represent the elements

of human life, it was natural that a gradual differentiation should take

place; the same general conception would be particularized in different

ways in different places, just as divergent forms of the same original

word acquire different significations in speech.[1364] As for the later

combination of these deities with heavenly bodies and many other things,

these are to be regarded as the product of later poetical imagination

and the tendency to universalize all great deities.

+793+. Aphrodite exhibits more clearly than any other deity the process

or the direction of the Hellenization of a foreign god. Her titles

Cypris, Paphia, Cytherea, as well as her connection with Adonis, point,

as is generally held, to a Semitic origin[1365]; she seems to have been

identical with the great Babylonian, Assyrian, and Syrian goddess Ishtar

(Astarte)[1366]. Received into the Greek pantheon at a very early time

(already in the Iliad she is one of the Olympians), she yet shows the

main characteristics of the Semitic deity[1367]--she is especially the

representative of fertility and sexual passion, and also has relation to

war. The lines of development, however, were different in different

communities. In Babylonia and Assyria Ishtar became a great universal

national deity, charged particularly with the care of all the interests

of the state, while in Syria and Canaan the corresponding figures

(Attar, Ashtart) remained to a great extent local, and were especially

prominent in festivals.

+794+. In Greece the conception of Aphrodite was worked out in a

non-Semitic way in two directions. By poets and philosophers she was

made the beneficent producer of all things, shedding her charm over

animate and inanimate nature;[1368] and the sentiment of love, for which

she stood, was exalted into a pure affection, the basis of married life.

The baser side of her cult, with its sexual license (Asiatic of origin),

remained along with the higher conception of her,[1369] but the latter

was the special contribution that the Greeks made to her development.

+795+. The theistic scheme of the old Greek polytheistic period is the

broadest and finest that the ancient polytheism produced. It recognized

a divine element in all sides of human life, from the lowest to the

highest; it marked out the various directions of human feeling and

effort, and in its final outcome it reached the conception of a unity in

the divine government of the world, and gave expression to man's best

aspirations for the present and for the future. True, it gave way at

last to philosophy; but it had recognized those elements of thought on

which philosophy was based. The Persian and Hebrew systems expressed

more definitely the idea of a divine monocracy, and lent themselves

easily to the formation of a religious society, a church, but they did

not escape the limitations of mere national feeling. The Greeks founded

no church--they formulated universal ethical and religious conceptions,

and left the development to the individual. All the great ancient

religions reached a high ethical plane and a practical monotheism, but

the Greek was the richest of all in the recognition of the needs of

humanity.

+796+. _Rome._ The Roman pantheon (if the Italian divine community can

properly be called a pantheon) had not the fullness and fineness of the

Greek--in accordance with the Roman genius it included only deities

having special relations with the family and its work and with the

state.[1370] The rich Roman development of specific gods of the home is

referred to above.[1371] The old nature gods long retained their place,

doubtless, in popular worship, but were gradually subordinated to and

absorbed in the larger divine figures. And the great gods themselves

began at an early time to be assimilated to Greek deities and to assume

their functions and even their names.[1372]

+797+. The most important of the nature gods are Sol, Luna, and Tellus

(primitive figures that soon gave way to deities divorced from the

physical sun, moon, and earth), and the patrons of agricultural work,

Consus and Ops, Liber and Libera, Silvanus and Faunus. The natural

features represented by these deities did not disappear entirely from

the greater deities, but were purified and elevated. Anna Perenna, for

example, as representative of the round of years, remained by the side

of Janus, but he embodied this conception in a larger civic way.

+798+. The greatest of the Roman gods, Juppiter[1373] or Jupiter, is

identical in name with Zeus, but differs from him in mythological

development and in the final form of his character. As sky-god he was

connected with atmospheric phenomena (rain and lightning) and so

naturally with wine and other crops. But as chief god of the state he

speedily rose above these connections, and as Optimus Maximus became the

representative of all Roman virtues. Along with this native development

he was in later times more or less identified with Zeus. By his side

stood the national deity Quirinus, who remained a local patron and never

rose to large proportions. Related to him are Sancus and Dius Fidius,

who represented some primitive conceptions similar to those belonging to

his early form, but they did not develop into great gods. These three

were practically absorbed by him, but the history of this process is

obscure.

+799+. Janus, the guardian of the entrance to the house (_janua_)--a

function of prime importance in early times, had a prominent place in

the cult. He was invoked at the beginning of the day, the month, and the

year; in the Salian hymn he is called "god of gods" and "good creator";

he was served by the rex sacrorum, who was the first in priestly

dignity. He may thus have been a chief god in the oldest Latin

scheme.[1374] Yet he seems never to have come to stand for anything

intellectually or morally high except in late philosophical thought.

Though the guardian of public as well as private houses, he was not the

patron of the city. He remained in the cult a sort of family and clan

god, and represented only the ideas of a primitive mode of life, the

great rôle being assigned to the sky-god.[1375]

+800+. To judge from the old rituals Mars was in the earliest time of

which there is any record a god of vegetation. The Arval Brothers, who

were charged with the care of crops, addressed their petitions to him,

and it was to him that the Roman husbandman prayed for a blessing on his

labors.[1376] What may have been his still earlier character we have no

means of determining with certainty. The view that he was originally a

god of the fructifying sunlight[1377] seems to rest mainly on a

precarious etymology, the derivation of his name from a stem _mar_

meaning 'to shine'; but it does not appear that ancient peoples

attributed the growth of crops to the sun.[1378] Analogy would rather

lead us to regard him as an old local deity, naturally connected with

vegetation. However this may be, the importance of agriculture for the

life of the community raised him to a position of eminence, his priestly

college, the Salian (traditionally referred to Numa), was one of the

greatest, he was connected with various departments of life, and for the

warlike Romans he naturally became the patron of war. The cult of the

old war-goddess Bellona maintained itself, but she never attained the

highest rank; she is not the equal of Mars, with whom in the later

constructions she was brought into connection. In the Hellenizing period

he was identified with Ares.[1379]

+801+. The name Saturn is generally connected with the stem _sa_

(_sero_, _satum_, _sata_), to sow, and he is accordingly regarded as an

agricultural deity, the special patron of agricultural work. Whether or

how he differed originally from Mars is not clear--perhaps in original

differentiation of functions, he being attached to the work of sowing,

Mars to vegetation in general; or perhaps they were two similar deities

belonging originally to different regions, and differentiated when

brought together in the same system. Information on this point is

lacking. That Saturn was an ancient Latin god is probable from the fact

that he was traditionally said to be an old king of Latium. Of his

earliest cult in Rome little is known. The feast that bears his name,

the Saturnalia (held on December 17 and some following days), was a time

of popular festivity, when social distinctions were laid aside (slaves

were on an equality with masters). Similar festivals are found

elsewhere.[1380] Midwinter, when the work of gathering in the harvest

was over, was a natural time for festivities.[1381] Saturn, or the

figure from which he arose, may have presided over this season

originally, or he may have been gradually connected with an old

ceremony. The process of Hellenizing him began early. He was identified

with Kronos, made the father of Jupiter and the head of a pre-Jovian

divine dynasty, and, in accordance with the tendency to regard the

former days as better than the present, the _Saturnia regna_ became the

golden age of the past.[1382] Apart from this he seems to have had no

ethical significance.

+802+. In the case of certain deities, as Volcanus, Neptunus, Mercurius,

Sancus, a pronounced Roman development cannot be traced, partly because

of the lack of full data, partly, in the case of Volcan, Neptune, and

Mercury, because of an early and complete identification with the Greek

gods Hephaistos, Poseidon, and Hermes.

+803+. The Roman _female deities_[1383] are far less developed than the

Greek--their functions are simple, their mythological interest small.

The members of the group representing the productive power of the

earth--Bona Dea, Dea Dia, Libera, Fauna, Ceres, Proserpina,[1384] and

others--were not worked up by the Romans into great personalities.

+804+. Juno, an independent deity, originally not the wife of Jupiter,

is, in the developed cult, the special patron of the maternal side of

the life of women, and, as such, is a great domestic power, the

embodiment of a large part of family life. It was probably as great

sky-goddess that she attained this position--the chief female deity is

naturally the protector of women. The name came to designate the woman's

personality as childbearer, and more generally her inner essence or

self, as "genius" came to designate the male essence.[1385] Whether this

usage was simply an extension of the idea of 'protectress' to that of

'self,' an identification of woman with her specific function in the

family, or rested on some older conception, is not clear. However this

may be, she became a great goddess, in the later construction the wife

of Jupiter, and was identified with Hera, to whom in fact she is nearly

related in function and character. Though her name appears to contain

the same stem (_iu_) as 'Jupiter,' and her epithet 'Lucina' the stem

_luc_, 'to shine,' there is no proof that she was, in early times,

regarded as a light-deity, or particularly as moon-goddess. She was

sky-goddess, but not, for that reason, necessarily light-goddess.

+805+. The importance attached by the Romans to the family life is

expressed in the cult of Vesta, the guardian of the hearth as the center

of that life.[1386] The Penates, however, the divine protectors of the

household, were no less important in the family cult than she. The state

also had its Vesta and its Penates. To this character of sacredness

stamped on the life of the private family and the larger family, the

state, ethical significance and influence must doubtless be ascribed.

+806+. Diana appears to have originated in the time when life was spent

largely in forests, and trees were a special object of worship; she was

in historical times connected with groves.[1387] Her cult was widely

diffused in Italy, and she became (perhaps because she embodied the

common feature of the old life) the representative of Italian unity. As

great female deity she was the helper of women in childbirth. Her name

is based on the stem _di_, 'to shine,'[1388] which appears in 'Jupiter'

and 'Juno'; but she is not a sky-goddess--the "shining" in her case is

that of trees and plants, the green color that gleams in the light, so

that the grove is called _lucus_, the 'shining mass.'[1389] Diana was

soon identified with Artemis, and was endowed with her attributes.

+807+. Another Italian goddess, Minerva, stood, probably, in the earlier

time for the simpler arts of a simple community--she was the patroness

of manual work and of the healing art. The expression _omnis Minervae

homo_, descriptive of a man capable in his line of work, almost reduces

her to an abstract idea. The name (as the older form, Menerva, more

clearly indicates) is based on the stem _man_ (found in Latin _mens_),

and appears to mean 'endowed with mind' (or, 'spirit'), though exactly

what was the range of this conception in the earliest times is not

clear.[1390] Later her function was extended to embrace intellectual

capacity, but it was not until her identification with Athene (not later

than the third century B.C.) that she attained her full cultic

significance.[1391]

+808+. Venus, though an old Italian deity (as her name and her ancient

temples show), was so early Hellenized that her proper native

development was cut short. The fact that she was in early times the

patroness of gardens[1392] suggests that she was originally a deity of

the productive field; probably she belonged in the group of goddesses

(Libera, Bona Dea, and others)[1393] who presided over fertility. It

would seem that every region in Italy had such a _numen loci_ (naturally

mainly agricultural). It is not clear to what particular spot Venus was

originally attached,[1394] or how she came to be revered over a wide

region. Under ordinary Italian conditions she might have become a deity

like Ceres. But in Sicily, at Mount Eryx, according to tradition, her

cult came into contact with that of Aphrodite, whose qualities she soon

assumed.[1395]

+809+. In the third century B.C. the cult of the Sicilian Venus (Venus

Erycina) was brought to Rome by direction of the Sibylline Books, and

from this time onward her advance to prominence was continuous. As a

great goddess she became (like Ishtar and Aphrodite) in a warlike

community the patron of war (Venus Victrix). When the Æneas myth was

adopted in Rome she took the place of Aphrodite as mother of that hero

(who became the founder of the Roman state), and was honored by Julius

Cæsar and others as Venus Genetrix. The old Roman moral feeling appears

in the dedication of a temple (114 B.C.) to Venus Verticordia as

atonement for the unchastity of three Vestals.[1396] In general the

later functions and cult of Venus were reproductions or imitations of

those of Aphrodite. Such a divine figure, it seems, the Romans would

never have developed out of their own resources.

+810+. The general characteristics of the great ancient national

religions are indicated in the preceding descriptions. In the

sacrificial cult and the general apparatus of worship there is no

important difference between them, but they differ notably among

themselves in the construction of the divine world. The simplest

theistic system is the Chinese, which regards the world as order

controlled by Heaven. The western cults fall into two divisions, the

Egypto-Semitic and the Indo-European. The Egyptian and the Semitic,

though they differ in collateral points (divinization of kings, idea of

the future life), agree in lacking a true pantheon. On the other hand,

notwithstanding resemblances between the Hebrew and the Persian, the

difference between the Semitic group and the Indo-European is

well-defined. This difference may be indicated by pointing out certain

peculiarities of the Semitic theistic system.

+811+. _Features of Semitic theism._ 1. Paucity of departmental gods and

absence of highly specialized gods. Of this latter class, so prominent

in Greece and Rome, there is no clear trace in Semitic cults.[1397]

Departmental deities are not found in Arabia, Canaan (including Israel

and Phoenicia), and Syria. The Hebrew Yahweh obviously controls all

departments of nature and life. The Phoenician Eshmun (a name of

uncertain meaning) was identified by the Greeks with their Asklepios as

god of healing, but no special function of this sort is attributed to

him in Semitic records. As he was somehow connected with the Kabiri, the

"great gods," it is probable that he was a local divinity credited with

general powers.[1398] There is more ground for recognizing real

departmental gods in Babylonia and Assyria, though even there the

evidence is not quite satisfactory. The great gods, Ea, Bel, Sin,

Shamash, Marduk, Ishtar, Ashur, preside over all human interests. Nabu

stands for agriculture as well as for wisdom, and Ea for wisdom as well

as for the great deep. Nergal is not the only god of war. Perhaps the

distinctest case of specialization is Ramman (Ninib, Adad), the

storm-god[1399]: the "thunderbolts of Im [Ramman]" are mentioned in "The

War of the Seven Evil Spirits"; yet Shamash stands with him against the

storm-spirits. In general it appears that the recognition of special

departments for gods is inchoate and feeble in Babylonia and Assyria.

There is a separate deity for the Underworld, sometimes a goddess,

sometimes a god, but they are vague figures.[1400] The connection of

certain gods with certain stars was a late construction, and seems to

have had no significance for worship except a general

deanthropomorphizing tendency.

+812+. 2. There is no trace of a cult of heroes in the Semitic area.

The Babylonian Etana, Gilgamesh, and Nimrod (an enigmatical figure), and

the Old Testament Nephilim do not receive worship.[1401] The dead were

consulted, but there was no cult of the great ancestors.[1402] The

divinization of Babylonian kings, referred to above,[1403] seems not to

have carried worship with it.

+813+. 3. The Semitic material of malefic spirits, while in general the

same as that found elsewhere in the world, has a couple of special

features. In Babylonia there was a sort of pandemonium, a certain

organization of demons,[1404] with proper names for some classes; demons

usually have not proper names, but may receive such names when they come

into specially definite relations with men. The demon Lilit mentioned in

the Old Testament,[1405] is probably Babylonian. The two great Hebrew

hostile beings, Satan and Azaz[)e]l, are rather gods than demons.[1406]

They were both most highly developed under Persian influence, and in the

Book of Enoch take on the character and rôle of Angro Mainyu. Their

history exhibits, however, the disposition of the later Jews to organize

the realm of supernatural evil; about the first century B.C. the

serpent-god of Genesis iii was identified with Satan.[1407]

The Greek malefic beings, Ker, Harpy, Fury, Gorgon, Sphinx, and the

like, appear to have been developed out of ghosts[1408]--whether or not

this is true of the Babylonian demons the known material does not enable

us to say. Organization of such beings was carried out fully by the

Persians, but not by any other Indo-European people and not by the

Chinese.

+814+. 4. On abstract gods and phallic cults see the discussions of

these points above.[1409]

+815+. 5. Semitic theistic myths differ from Indo-European in that they

are almost wholly without the element of personal adventures of

gods.[1410] Since all known genuine Semitic myths seem to have their

original home in Babylonia, and Babylonian mythical material bears marks

of Sumerian influence, the question has been raised whether we have any

genuinely Semitic mythical biographies of gods. However this question

may be answered, it remains true that the Semites show little

disposition to work out this line of thought.

+816+. Of the origin of these peculiarities of the Semitic theistic

system, as of all such origins, it is impossible to give any

satisfactory explanation. Geographical and climatic conditions have been

appealed to: the Semitic area was small and isolated--the Semites were

shut off by oceans, mountains, and rivers from the rest of the world,

were disposed to migrate only within the limits of their area,[1411] and

long lived under the monotonous influence of the desert; thus, it is

said, their conception of the world became objective and limited--they

were clannish, practical, unanalytic, and unimaginative. But the origin

of races is obscure, and the genius of every ancient people was formed

and developed in remote ages under conditions not known to us. We can do

little more than note the characteristics visible in historical times.

+817+. Paucity of myths and the other features mentioned above accord

with the later rôle of Semitic, especially Hebrew, theism--the tendency

to conceive of the deity as on the one hand aloof and transcendent, and

on the other hand standing in close social relations with man as his

lord and protector. This proved to be socially the most effective idea

of God, and has been adopted by all the great nations of the western

world.

+818+. The contributions of the Indo-European religions to the religious

thought of the world are indicated in the preceding sketches. What is

to be learned from the Chinese the future must show. The general history

of civilization leads us to expect a gradual combination and fusion of

all lines of religious development, in which every system will

contribute its best, and the lower elements will be discarded.[1412]