THE HIGHER THEISTIC DEVELOPMENT
+943+. The preceding survey of early religious customs and institutions
discloses a recognizable unity in diversity. Everywhere we find the same
classes of sacred objects and the same methods of approaching them.
Whether the supernatural Powers are conceived of as animals or as plants
or as what we call inanimate things, or, in more advanced thought, as
ghosts or spirits or gods, they are held to be factors in human life,
are regarded with awe, are dreaded and avoided, or are welcomed as
helpers, and in any case are propitiated by gifts and other marks of
respect. The potency inherent in things is the object of observation,
its laws are studied, and it is used for purposes of life. The
diversities in the form of ceremonies, in the conception of the
characters of the Powers, and in the general tone and coloring of
worship arise from economic and cultural differences, and are as
numerous as the tribes of men; the unity of cults is a result of the
psychological unity of the human race--the religious needs of men in all
stages of culture are the same; there is nothing in the highest
religious systems that is not found in germ in the lowest.
+944+. The earliest expression of religious feeling, as is pointed out
above,[1729] is in the form of ceremonies. But ceremonies tend to group
themselves round the persons of divine beings. Gods, as the controllers
of human fortunes here and hereafter, naturally become the centers of
religious thought. Their characters and functions reflect the ideals of
their worshipers, and all ritualistic and other usages and all doctrines
concerning the relations between gods and men and, in general, all ideas
concerning the physical and moral constitution of the world attach
themselves perforce to the divine embodiments of these ideals. Thus, in
one sense, the history of the gods is the history of religion. From the
earliest times up to the present the efforts of men have been directed
toward defining the divine Powers that have been supposed to stand
behind all phenomena. The problem of harmonizing diverse divine
activities has always been a serious one, and its solution has been
sought in various ways. Gods have been locally limited, every one to his
own human tribe, district, or nation; or, when they dwell together and
their spheres of influence are larger, they have been given free scope
of action, and the resulting contradictions in human affairs have been
accepted as a part of the mysterious nature of things; or order has been
sought in simplification--headship has been ascribed to some one deity,
and the relation between him and the subordinate divinities has been
somehow explained or has been left unexplained. The process of
simplification has gone steadily on with the result that the great
religious systems of the world fall into groups distinguished from one
another by their conceptions of the divine government of the world,
whether as pluralistic or as unitary. The development of these different
conceptions may be traced here in outline, though the absence of exact
data and the variety and complexity of the formative influences
(economic, philosophical, political, and other) necessarily make it
difficult or impossible to account satisfactorily for all details. The
groups to be considered are polytheism, dualism, and monotheism, to
which may be added brief mention of systems that do not recognize a
personal divine ruler of the world.
POLYTHEISM
+945+. The first stage in the final theistic history of the world up to
the present day, polytheism, appears in all the great civilized nations.
The great polytheistic systems have much in common: for example,
protection of civil order and morality by a god; prominence of the god
of a ruling tribe or family or of a great city; disposition to embody
certain general facts, as war, love, learning, in divine figures;
tendency to make some god universal. On the other hand, they differ
among themselves in certain regards: in the degree of specialization and
differentiation of divine functions, and in the stress that they lay on
the various departments of human life. Their agreements and
disagreements seem to be in some cases independent of racial relations
and climatic conditions; their roots lie so far back in history that we
have no means of tracing their genesis and development.
+946+. The Egyptian and the Semitic peoples were parts of the same
original stock,[1730] and their systems of social and political
organization were substantially identical--the government in its
developed form was monarchical, but tribal and other locally isolated
forms of organization maintained themselves to a certain extent--and
their literary and artistic outputs do not differ materially. We might,
then, expect their religions to be in the main identical. In fact they
agree in having a relative meagerness of theistic differentiation, but
in some important points they are far apart. The Semites were
indifferent to the future life, the Egyptians constructed it elaborately
(in this point taking precedence among the ancients); the Semites were
averse to divinizing human beings, for the Egyptians kings were divine.
In this last point Egypt resembles China, but in other respects is at a
world-wide remove from it. Other peoples thought of their gods as having
relations with beasts; the Egyptians alone, among civilized nations,
worshiped the living animal.[1731] Some Greek writers regarded Egypt as
the religious mother of Greece, but Hellenic cults show little
resemblance to Egyptian.
+947+. The Hebrews had the general Semitic theistic and cultic scheme,
but in their capacity (in their higher development) to content
themselves with one deity, and in their elaboration of ritualistic forms
and institutions, were more closely akin to the Aryan Persians than to
any Semitic community, and borrowed freely from them. The resemblance
between the two cults, however, was confined to these two points; in
other respects they were very different.
+948+. The linguistic identity of the Indo-European peoples does not
carry with it theologic identity. The theistic scheme of India is more
nearly allied, in the disposition to grant equality of significance to
all gods, to the Egyptian and Semitic than to the Persian and the Greek,
yet the tone and color of the Hindu deities do not resemble the tone and
color of the Egyptian and Babylonian divinities.
Even between Greece and Rome the religious differences are great. Greece
stands alone in its artistic creation of divine forms. Rome rather
resembles the Hebrews in its sobriety of theistic creations, and
particularly is like the Chinese in the purpose to make religion
subservient to the interests of the family and the State; Roman
religion, like Chinese, might be described as a body of public and
private ceremonies to which gods were attached.[1732] The Roman gods,
however, are much more definite figures than the Chinese; the latter are
either unimportant folk-gods or powers of nature.
+949+. The contrast between Mexico, with its considerable number of
departmental gods, some of them savage, and Peru, whose
quasi-monotheistic system is relatively mild, is striking. But the
origin of these two peoples (who perhaps are made up of different sets
of tribes) is involved in obscurity, and it is uncertain whether or not
we should expect a greater resemblance between their cults.
+950+. The differentiation in the theistic scheme of the Teutons,
especially the Scandinavians, is noteworthy. Several of their deities,
particularly Wodan (Odin), Thor, and Loki, are well-developed persons,
and these and some others do not differ materially in character from the
earlier corresponding Hindu and Greek gods. A comparison between the
Teutonic figures and the Celtic and Slavic would be pertinent if we knew
more of the character of these last; but the information about them is
slight.[1733]
+951+. The extent of the anthropomorphization of gods in any system may
be measured by the richness and refinement of its mythology. When the
gods live apart from men, being conceived of mainly as transcendent
Powers, or when they are not fully developed men, there is little room
for the play of social emotions and for the creation of biographies of
individual deities. It is the humanized god that has emotional life, and
it is in this mythical life that the religious feeling of the worshiper
is expressed with greatest fullness of detail.
+952+. The development of mythology through all its gradations of
fullness and fineness can be traced in the religious systems of the
world.[1734] Where there is no recognizable worship there is, of course,
no mythology. This is the case in Australia, in Pygmy lands, in Tierra
del Fuego, in parts of New Guinea, and perhaps elsewhere.[1735] Scarcely
above these are parts of Central and Southern Africa, the countries of
the Bantu, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen.[1736] A feeble mythological
invention appears among the Zulus, whose conception of gods is
indistinct;[1737] and the Masai and the Nandi, who are somewhat farther
advanced in the construction of deities, show mythopoeic imagination
in a single case only (the famous myth of the embrace of the earth and
the sky), and this is perhaps borrowed.[1738] Along with these we may
place the Todas whose theogonic conceptions appear to have been cramped
by their buffalo cult, and their mythical material is small and
vague.[1739]
+953+. A somewhat higher stage of mythopoeic development is represented
by peoples of Oceania and North America. The myths are still
prevailingly cosmologic and sociologic, but the beginning of
biographical sketches of supernatural Powers is visible. The Melanesian
Qat and the Polynesian Maui are on the border line between
culture-heroes and gods, but they are real persons, and their
adventures, while they describe origins, are also descriptions of
character. Hawaii and Borneo have departmental gods and a body of
stories about them.[1740] Certain tribes of Redmen have not only divine
genealogical systems but also narratives resembling the Melanesian in
character, the line between myth proper and folk-lore being often hard
to trace.[1741] The stories fall into more or less well-defined groups,
and of the Coyote and, less definitely, of certain other personages
biographies might be written.
+954+. The half-civilized peoples of Madagascar, West Africa (Dahomi,
Ashanti, Yoruba), the Malay Peninsula, and Southern India (Khonds) have
more coherent figures and stories of divine personages.[1742] Here
something like living human beings appear, though there is crudeness in
the portraiture, and the interest is chiefly in the history of origins.
The Malayan and Khond figures are especially noteworthy, but are not
free from the suspicion of influence from higher religions.
+955+. True literary mythology is found only in civilized peoples, and
among these a gradation is recognizable. We have first the stage of
culture represented by the Japanese, the Finns, the Mexicans, and the
Peruvians, with fairly well-developed gods, who have emotions and
histories. In this group Japan takes the lowest place;[1743] it is
chiefly in the figures regarded as deified men that definiteness of
character and human warmth are found. Japanese theogony was depressed by
the interest of the people in family and State organization; the gods,
though civilized, are vague personalities. The Finnish literary mythical
material, given in the Kalevala, has a highly humanized coloring and is
worked up into a coherent story; the social system revealed in the myths
is superior in many regards to that of the Redmen, but the theistic
scheme is crude.[1744] The few Mexican myths that have come down to us
(probably only the remains out of a large mass) show reflection and
portray human experiences.[1745] Both in Mexico and in Peru the Spanish
conquest appears to have destroyed no little material that, if
preserved, would have illustrated the mythical constructions of these
lands. In Peru, further, it may be that the monotheistic tinge of the
State religion had the effect of banishing subordinate deities and the
stories connected with them. For whatever reason little is known of its
mythical material, but the little that is known shows a certain degree
of refinement. South America, excluding Peru, has no mythical
constructions of interest.[1746]
+956+. Of the great religions the Chinese may be passed by in the
present sketch; its form leaves no place for mythology; its virtual
monotheism excludes lesser supernatural figures as actors in the drama
of human life.[1747]
+957+. The Persian cosmogonic myths are merely statements of great facts
without biographical features. In the hands of late writers they shaded
into legendary accounts of the origin of the kingdom, and the whole was
colored by the developed Mazdaism. We thus have theological
constructions rather than true myths.[1748] The few mythical stories
that have survived play an insignificant part in the religious system--a
sort of result that is to be expected whenever a substantially definite
monotheistic conception has been reached.
+958+. Egypt produced a couple of myths of great interest.[1749] The
story of Ra's anger with men, and his act of wholesale destruction,
belongs in the group of myths (in which flood stories and others are
included) the motif of which is antagonism between gods and men. The
conception of such antagonism seems to go back to the early opinion
that all misfortunes were caused by supernatural beings; in civilized
times some great calamity would be singled out as a special result of
divine anger, and imagination would construct a history of the event,
why the god was angry, and how he was appeased. What particular
occurrence this Egyptian story refers to is unknown.
The Osiris myth has better literary form and more cultic
significance.[1750] The slaying of Osiris by Set, Isis's search for the
body of her husband, and the rôle of the young Horus as avenger of his
father make a coherent history. Osiris had the singular fortune of being
the most widely popular god in Egypt, the hero of a romantic episode,
and the ethical judge of men in the Underworld. The motif of the myth is
the cosmic struggle between life and death; the actors are made real
persons, and the story is instinct with human interest. No great cultic
association like the Eleusinian mysteries was created in connection with
it, but the echo of the conception appears in the great rôle later
assigned to Isis.
+959+. All Semitic myths of which we have records are cosmogonic or
sociologic or, in some late forms, theological constructions. It is
Babylonia that has furnished the greater part of the material, perhaps
all of it.[1751] The stories preserved give little or no portraiture of
divine persons--it is always cosmic phenomena that are described, and
gods and heroes are introduced simply as actors. The purpose in the two
cosmogonic poems--to explain the reduction of the world to order and the
existing constitution of earth and sky--is one that is found everywhere
in ancient systems of thought. The Gilgamesh epic, a collection of
popular usages and tales without definite unity, is contaminated with
legend; Gilgamesh is now a god, now a national hero; at the end,
however, there is a bit of speculation concerning the future state of
men. Ishtar's descent to the Underworld is a pure nature myth; Ishtar
and the goddess of the Underworld are real persons, yet merely
attachments to the fact. The seizure of the tablets of fate from Bel by
the storm-god Zu represents some natural phenomenon (perhaps the reign
of winter), possibly, also, a transference of headship from one deity to
another. The story of Adapa is in part an explanation of how men came to
lose immortality. There is, thus, in these myths a fairly full history
of the origin of the large facts of human life, with little interest in
the personalities of the divine actors.
Hebrew mythical material is in general identical with Babylonian; its
Old Testament form has been more or less revised by late monotheistic
editors. The two cosmogonies in Genesis, the flood story, and the dragon
of chaos (a late figure in the Old Testament[1752]) are merely
descriptions of cosmic or local facts. The dispersion at Babel (not now
found in Babylonian records, but paralleled elsewhere) deals with a
sociological fact of great interest for the Hebrews, marking them off,
as it did, from all other peoples.[1753] The heroes of the early
time[1754] belong to folk-lore, probably a mixture of myth and legend.
The explanation of various human experiences in the Eden story[1755]
appears to be of Hebrew origination; it is, however, rather a late
theological theory than a myth. The Syrian and Palestinian Tammuz
(Adonis) myth is identical in general form with the Babylonian myth of
Tammuz and Ishtar.[1756]
+960+. The Indo-European mythical material shows an advance over the
Egyptian and Semitic in distinctness and fullness of life corresponding
to the distincter individuality of the Indo-European divine personages.
These are not mere powers in the world, more or less identified with
natural forces and phenomena, nor a collection of deities substantially
identical in character and functions; they have grown into persons,
differing, indeed, in the degree of individualization, but all
pronounced personalities.
+961+. Hindu myths, though less numerous and less highly elaborated
than the Greek, still reflect fairly well the characters of certain
divinities, especially Indra, Agni, the Açvins, the Maruts, and some
others.[1757] Indra, particularly, is portrayed in detail, so that he is
as distinct a person as Ares or Mars. Krishna and other figures in the
epics live human lives with all human virtues and vices.
+962+. The full literary form of the myth is found only in Greece. As
Zeus, Apollo, Athene, Aphrodite, and others are well-defined
personalities, each with certain intellectual and moral characteristics
and with a unity of development, so the stories about them recount
adventures and acts that form biographical unities; and, as these
stories are of diverse nature, some reflecting barbarous periods, others
marked by refinement, they exhibit, when brought together and arranged
in order of moral or intellectual excellence or according to their
geographical or ethnical origin, not only the history of the gods, but
also the development of Greek religious feeling. Being the embodiment of
human experiences, they lend themselves readily to processes of
allegorizing and spiritualizing.[1758]
+963+. Roman gods, homely figures, occupied with agriculture and affairs
of State, have no adventures and no biographies. The practical Roman
mind was concerned with the domestic functions of divine beings, and the
Roman genius was not of a sort to conceive gods as individuals leading
lives filled with human passions. Myths do not figure in the Roman
religious scheme except as they are borrowed from Greece or from some
other land.
+964+. Teutonic mythology is largely cosmogonic or cosmologic, not
without shrewd portraitures and attractive episodes, but never reaching
the point of artistic roundness and grace.[1759] The adventures of Odin,
Thor, Loki, and other divine persons reflect for the most part the
daring and savagery of the viking age, though there are kindly features
and an occasional touch of humor.[1760] Loki in some stories is a
genuine villain, and the death of Balder is a real tragedy. The great
cosmogonic and eschatological myths are conceived in grandiose style.
The struggle between gods and giants is in its basis the widespread
nature myth of the conflict of seasons. The overthrow of the old divine
government (the Twilight of the Gods) and the rise of a new order appear
to have a Christian coloring, but the belief that the world is to be
destroyed may be old Teutonic.[1761]
The history of theistic movements in civilized peoples shows that the
effectiveness of a polytheistic system as a framework of religious life
is in proportion to the extent of its anthropomorphization of deities,
that is, it is in proportion to their humanization that gods enter into
intimate association with human experiences. On the other hand, it is
true that the tendency toward a unitary conception of the divine
government of the world is in inverse proportion to such humanization;
the more definitely aloof from men the gods have stood (as among the
Hebrews and the Persians), the easier it has been for the people to
attach themselves to a single deity as all-sufficient. The Romans form
no exception to this general rule, for though, while they did not create
great anthropomorphic deities, there was yet no native Roman movement
toward monolatry, the place of such deities in worship was taken by a
multitude of minor divine patrons who presided over all the details of
private and public life and satisfied the demand for divine guidance.
While polytheism has assumed various forms, differing from one another
in elaboration of deities and in general cultural character, it has had,
as a system, a distinctly marked place in human experience.
+965+. _General rôle of polytheism._ Polytheism has played a great rôle
in the religious history of the world. Representing in general a
thoughtful protest against the earlier shapeless mass of spirits, it
expressed more definitely the belief in the intellectual and moral
divine control of all things. It flourished at a time when there was no
general demand in human thought for coöperation in supernatural Powers.
The sense of variety in the world was predominant, corresponding to the
absence of coöperation among the tribes and nations of the world; the
apparently isolated character of natural phenomena and the independence
of the nations, each of the others, seemed to men to demand a number of
separate divine agencies. These were all made to accord with the
external and internal condition of their worshipers and met the demands
of life in that they represented redemption, salvation, and, in general,
all blessings. They were not offensive ethically to the people for the
reason that they embodied the ethical conceptions and usages of their
time. Thus they furnished the framework for religious feeling--they
secured the union of divine and human in life, brought the divine,
indeed, into most intimate contact with the human, and so supplied the
material for the expression of pious feeling. When the gods were
represented by idols, these tended to become merely the symbols and
reminders of their divine originals. The elastic character of this
theistic system permitted the widest variety of cults, with the
possibility of bringing any new social tendency or idea into immediate
connection with a divine patron, so that human life became religious
with a degree of intelligence and intensity that has perhaps not existed
under any other system.
+966+. The great civilizations of the ancient world arose and were
developed under polytheism--many noble human characters and customs and
institutions were created under the dominance of this system in
Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere--that is to say, human
instincts and aspirations developed freely under a theistic organization
that satisfied in general the intellectual and moral needs of the time.
The different polytheistic cults of the world differed considerably in
intellectual and moral value. These differences pertain to the diversity
of characteristics among the nations of the world and are to be studied
in connection with the histories of the various peoples. Here it is
sufficient to note the general position which polytheism has occupied in
the whole religious development of the world.[1762]
+967+. At a relatively early time, however, dissatisfaction arose with
the discordances of the polytheistic conception. It raised many problems
and failed to account for many phenomena, and efforts were made to
systematize and simplify the conceptions of the divine government of the
world. These efforts took the shape of dualism, monotheism, pantheism,
Buddhism, Confucianism, and later tended to regard the supernatural in
the world as Ultimate Force or as Moral Ideal. These tendencies may be
examined in the order just given.
DUALISM
+968+. In all the religious systems so far considered the existence of
human suffering is assumed. The sole object of religious practices, in
all cults except the highest, has been to secure extrahuman or
superhuman aid and comfort in the ills of life. There has been the
conviction, for the most part implicit, that man is not in harmony with
his surroundings. We have now to consider those systems of religious
thought in which the existence of this disharmony is more or less
distinctly announced and the effort is made to discover its source.
The conception of two sets of Powers in the world, one helpful and the
other harmful, is suggested by human experience and by the larger
observation of natural phenomena, and it is found all over the world,
among low communities as well as high, perhaps in all tribes of
men.[1763] Possibly there are some low groups, such as the Fuegians and
the African Pygmies in which the conception does not exist; but as the
religious ideas of these low groups are yet imperfectly understood, we
cannot say what their position on this point is. In general, for the
lower tribes the world is peopled by spirits, which are the ghosts of
the departed or the embodiment of natural forces, and the feeling has
been that these are sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly.[1764] In
some cases the hurtful spirits stand in contrast with a god who may be a
strict ruler and somewhat indifferent to men, but not hostile; in other
cases there is a simple division of spirits into two classes, the
friendly and the unfriendly,[1765] and in the higher forms of savage
life there may be two such classes of deities.[1766] The double feeling
of man respecting the attitude of ghosts toward living human beings is
referred to above.[1767]
+969+. In certain higher forms of savage and half-civilized life we find
the conception of a definite contrast between the two sets of Powers.
The Hottentots are said to believe in two opposed supernatural beings,
the struggle between them ending to the advantage of the one who is
beneficent toward men.[1768] The Masai have two powerful beings, one
accounted good, the other bad; the difference between them is not
ethical, but represents only the relation of their acts to man's
well-being.[1769] The Malays have a very elaborate system of good and
evil spirits, but the system is colored by foreign influences.[1770] For
the Ainu snakes are an embodiment of merely physical evil, and other
Powers are the dispensers of physical well-being.[1771] The Arab jinn
represent the unwholesome and antagonistic conditions of nature, stand
opposed to the gods, and are without ethical motives.[1772] Even the
Andamanese, one of the lowest of human communities, have a division of
Powers into one who is friendly and two who are unfriendly.[1773] In all
these cases we have to recognize simply the expression of the perception
of two sets of physical agencies in the world. It is easy to exaggerate
the nature of these contrasts and to represent certain low tribes as
possessing general divine embodiments of good and evil.
+970+. Such a conception has been attributed to the American
Redmen,[1774] but on insufficient grounds. The most careful recent
investigations of the religious ideas of the Creeks, the Lenâpé, the
Pawnees, and the Californian Shasta (four typical communities) fail to
discover anything that can be called a real dualistic conception.[1775]
Dorsey mentions a Pawnee myth of the introduction of death into the
world by a member of the heavenly council of gods who felt himself
slighted; but this isolated story does not prove the existence of a
general dualistic scheme--the act in question has parallels in savage
systems that recognize various unfriendly Powers.[1776] The reports we
have of two definite morally antagonistic deities in Redmen tribes
resolve themselves on examination into misconceptions or exaggerations
on the part of the reporters; or, so far as the antagonism really
exists, it is due to Christian influence. The Iroquois dualistic system
as described by Chief Cusic (in 1825)--two brothers, Good Mind and Bad
Mind, the former the creator of all things good, the latter the creator
of all things bad--appears in the version of Brébeuf (in 1636) as a
simple nature myth, the two deities in question being somewhat more
definite forms of the friendly and unfriendly spirits met with in all
lower communities.[1777] In like manner Winslow's two opposed Powers of
the New England Algonkins turn out not to be morally antagonistic to
each other, in fact, according to Brinton, not antagonistic at
all.[1778] These facts warn us to treat with caution the vague
statements of early travelers respecting dualistic views supposed to be
held by tribes in North America and South America.[1779]
+971+. In West Africa the Ashanti embody the sources of physical
misfortune in several deities, who are malignant but do not stand in
opposition to the friendly gods. A preliminary step to the conception of
a god of misfortunes is the assignment of a sort of headship to one of a
mass of unfriendly or hurtful spirits--such a crude organization is
natural in a community in which there is a fairly developed form of
social organization, and the head spirit easily grows into a god. A
simple headship over hurtful spirits appears to be found in the Ainu
system, though this latter is in general not well developed.[1780]
+972+. A definite antagonism of good and bad Powers is found in the
religion of the non-Aryan Khonds of Orissa: the earth-goddess Tari, the
creature but the opponent of the sun-god Bella Pennu, introduced sin and
death into the world and contested (and, according to one native
account, still contests) with her creator the control of life. This
explanation of the origin of death is a higher form of stories that
occur abundantly in savage lore, with the important difference that in
these death comes by accident, but here by malicious purpose. It is not
clear whether or not the characters of Tari and Bella Pennu are
conceived of ethically. The weapons (comets, winds, mountains) employed
by the two deities indicate that the basis of the representation is a
nature myth. Advanced eschatological thought appears in the opinion,
held by some natives, that the good god was victorious in the
contest.[1781]
+973+. In the great ancient religions, with the exception of
Zoroastrianism, no dualistic scheme appears. An Egyptian god may be
angry, as, for example, Ra, who in a fit of resentment causes men to be
slain but soon repents; and Set, the enemy of Osiris, a nature god,
seemed at one time to be on the way to become an embodiment of evil, but
the Egyptian cult rejected this idea and Set gradually
disappeared.[1782] The Babylonian cosmogonic myth, in which Tiamat is
the enemy of the gods of order, has no cultic significance; the great
mass of demonic beings was not organized into a kingdom of evil, and the
Underworld deities, nature gods, while subject to ordinary human
passions, are not hostile to the gods of heaven and earth. The Hebrews
adopted the Babylonian cosmogonic myth,[1783] but it became a mere
literary attachment to the conception of the supreme god Yahweh, and was
otherwise ineffective.
+974+. The same thing is true of certain cosmogonic myths of the Greeks,
such as the war of the Titans against Zeus and similar episodes. Ate and
the Erinyes are embodiments of man's own evil nature or represent the
punishment that overtakes guilt, but they do not represent a formal
opposition to goodness nor are they organized into a definite
body.[1784] The Roman Furies are practically identical in function with
the Erinyes. In the old Teutonic religion the only figure who approaches
essential badness is Loki; but he, though at times malignant and
treacherous (as a human chieftain might be), remains a recognized member
of the assembly of gods. As a nature god he may represent the elements
of darkness and unhappiness in life, just as the various evil spirits in
the world do, but he never approaches the position of an independent
creator of evil.[1785] The Celtic deities Llew and Dylan are said to
stand over against each other and to represent good and bad tendencies
and elements of life; but they are not very distinct and are probably
nothing more than somewhat developed local deities.[1786] In the Chinese
and Japanese cults there is no indication of a conflict; evil spirits
there are in abundance, but no cosmic antagonism.
+975+. In India the cosmogonic myths are to be interpreted in the same
way as those mentioned above. Soma and Indra, as slayers of the demon
Vritya, represent order as against disorder, but Vritya never had cultic
significance; he appears only as a bodily demonstration of the power of
the great gods. The asuras are not essentially different from the
harmful spirits of savages, though it is true that they come into
conflict with the friendly gods. Rahu, who causes eclipses by swallowing
the sun, is only a nature deity of great might. In the Mahabharata there
are powerful demons, and the Çivaite cult includes the worship of dread
beings, but such worship only reflects the fear of the unfriendly
elements of physical nature.[1787] Nor do we find in the persons of
Durga, Kali, and the Yakshas, unpleasantly savage as these are, a
conception of evil as an organized force directed against the good gods;
they are rather the embodiment of evil human dispositions. The
underground demons are punishers of sin, but not themselves morally
evil. There is, it is true, in the Hindu religious scheme the general
antithesis of light and darkness, which are connected with right and
wrong--an antithesis that appears abundantly in other religious
systems;[1788] but the powers of darkness are not organized against the
powers of light, and there is no complete dualism, though we have here,
perhaps, the starting-point for such a conception.
+976+. While thus a vague sense of duality has existed all over the
world, and in certain cases, as it seems, there were vague attempts at
organization, it is only in Zoroastrianism that the decisive step has
been taken. We have to recognize in this system a distinct movement
towards a unitary conception of the world; but the sense of difference
in human experiences was so great in the mind of the creators of the
system that they were led to a unification in two divisions.[1789] The
origin of the movement lies far back at a time when there were no
records of thought and social movements, and it is impossible now to say
definitely what were the original elements of the cult. We may surmise
that there was an Indo-Iranian conception of a general contrast between
light and darkness, and that this was the starting-point or the basis of
the developed Iranian theological system. The old Indic and the old
Iranian religions seem to have been independent developments from a
common original mass of material; but we do not know what determined the
differences in the two developments. The constructions were the work,
doubtless, of successions of reformers, but the details of these
long-continued efforts have not come down to us.[1790] The essential
point is that the evil mass in the world was conceived of as a unity by
the Iranians and assigned a head, Angro Mainyu. This name does not occur
in the Achæmenian inscriptions, but it is mentioned in the Gathas and by
Aristotle,[1791] so that it appears to belong to an early stratum of the
Iranian religion. The present state of the world is regarded as the
result of a constant series of antagonisms between the two creators,
Spenta Mainyu (Ahura Mazda) and Angro Mainyu, these being attended each
by a circle of helpers. A polytheistic interpretation of the helpers is
avoided by making them abstractions (though with a tendency toward
personification), the representatives of various features or elements in
the government of the world or in the experiences of men.[1792]
+977+. A strictly dualistic system recognizes only two Powers in the
world. The Avestan religion, however, admits other deities besides Ahura
Mazda and Angro Mainyu; Mitra, Anahita, and others are objects of
worship. The ancient national faiths, that is, were not content with a
simple division of things between two divine beings. An approach to such
a view was made by Judaism, which, partly under Persian influence,
produced the figure of the Satan, a quasi-independent being hostile to
the Supreme Deity.[1793] Christianity, adopting this conception from
Judaism, elaborated it into the person of the Devil, the veritable head
of a kingdom of evil, called in the New Testament "the god of this
age."[1794] Though doomed to final defeat, as Ahriman in the Avesta is
doomed, the Devil in the orthodox Christian system is practically
omnipresent and is powerful enough to defeat the plans of God in many
cases. In modern enlightened Christian feeling, however, he has become
little more than a name. Though he is credited in theory with suggesting
evil and alluring men to sin, this dogma has small force in the better
minds against the strong conviction of individual freedom and
responsibility. Current Christianity, in its highest forms, is
theoretically, but not really, dualistic. The Satan is taken more
seriously by Islam, which has adopted the conception from Christianity
and Judaism.[1795] For the ordinary Moslem he belongs in the category of
evil spirits and is as real as one of the jinn; he may be cursed and
stoned and driven away,[1796] but he does not affect the Moslem belief
in the oneness of God.
+978+. From the conquest of Persia by Alexander to the fall of the
Parthian dynasty (a period of over five hundred years) little is known
of the history of Mazdaism beyond the fact that it seems to have been
adopted by the Parthians in a debased form; but about the time of the
Persian revival under the Sassanians (226 A.D.) it passed the bounds of
its native land and made its way into the Roman Empire in the shape of
Manichæism, a mixture of dualistic and Christian Gnostic conceptions.
That Manichæism had a certain force is shown by the fact that it
attracted such a man as Augustine, and its survival for several
centuries in spite of persecutions attests its vitality. It may be
doubted whether its attractiveness lay so much in its dualism as in its
gnosticism, though the former element maintained itself in some minor
Christian sects. However this may be, it gradually faded away, leaving
no lasting impression; it was a form of faith not suited to the peoples
who professed Christianity.[1797]
+979+. The modern philosophic proposals to recognize two deities instead
of one are as yet too vague to call for discussion. Dualism, though it
accounts in some fashion for the twofold character of human experiences,
raises as many problems as it solves; in particular it finds itself
confronted apparently by a physical and psychological unity in the world
which it is hard to explain on the hypothesis of conflicting
supernatural Powers.[1798] On the moral side the record of dualistic
schemes is in general good. The ethical standard of Mazdaism is high,
and the ethical practice of Mazdean communities hardly differs from that
of other prominent modern religious bodies. Though the Manichæans were
accused of immoral practices, it does not appear that Mani himself or
any prominent disciple of his announced or favored or permitted such
practices.
MONOTHEISM
+980+. The preceding survey has shown that the theory of dualism has not
proved in general acceptable to men. It was adopted by one people only,
and even by them not in complete form, and its character as a national
cult was destroyed by the Moslem conquest of Persia in the seventh
century. The Zoroastrian system was indeed carried by a body of
emigrants to India and has since been professed by the Parsis there; but
it has been converted by them into a practical monotheistic cult, so
that a consistent dualism now exists nowhere in the world. The thought
of the great civilized nations has turned rather to a unitary view of
the divine government of the world.
+981+. The history of the movement which has elevated monotheism to the
highest place among the civilized cults extends over the whole period of
man's life on the earth. It is pointed out above[1799] that very
generally in low tribes a local supernatural personage is invested with
great power: he is creator, ruler, and guardian of morals; where a
tolerably definite civil and political organization exists he has
virtually the position and performs the functions of the tribal chief,
only with vastly greater powers and privileges; where there is no such
organization he is simply a vaguely conceived, mysterious man who has
control of the elements and of human fortunes, and punishes violations
of tribal custom. Such a personage is, however, at best only the highest
among many supernatural Powers. It is immaterial whether we regard such
a figure as developed from a spirit or as the direct product of
religious imagination. He is always crudely anthropomorphic and,
notwithstanding his primacy, is limited in power by his own nature, by
other supernatural Powers, and by men. Frequently, also, he tends to
become otiose and virtually loses his supremacy;[1800] that is to say,
in the increased complexity of social life a god who was once sufficient
for the needs of a simpler organization has to give way to a number of
Powers which are regarded as the controllers of special departments of
life. Such an otiose form may sometimes indicate a succession of divine
quasi-dynasties, somewhat as in the Greek sequence of Ouranos, Kronos,
Zeus. Handed down from a former generation, he becomes dim and is
neglected. That he is not worshiped is a result of the fact that other
divine beings, standing nearer to existing human interests, have come to
the front.
+982+. The theory has been held in the past, and is still held, that
monotheism was the primitive form of religion and that the worship of
many spirits or many gods is a corruption of primitive thought due to
man's intellectual feebleness or to his moral depravity. It is urged
that such a monotheistic system was the natural one for unsophisticated
man. The view has been widely held also that it was the result of a
primitive divine revelation to men. It is obvious that neither of these
opinions is susceptible of proof on a priori grounds; the question can
be settled only by a survey of the phenomena known to us. When the facts
are clearly stated, it is then allowable to deduce from them such
conclusions as may seem legitimate.
+983+. As a matter of fact, it does not appear that real monotheistic
belief exists or has existed among savage and half-civilized communities
of whose history we have any knowledge. Where a certain supernatural
being is described by observers as "the god" or "the supreme god" of a
tribe, it turns out on inquiry that he is at most, as is remarked above,
a very prominent divine figure, perhaps the most prominent, but never
standing alone and never invested with those physical, intellectual, and
moral capacities that are necessary for a complete monotheistic faith.
+984+. While, however, this conclusion is generally admitted for the
majority of cases,[1801] it has been held, and is still held, that there
are found in savage cults certain "self-existent, eternal, moral" beings
who satisfy all the conditions of a monotheistic faith. Among the
examples cited are the American gods described by Strachey and Winslow
as supreme in power and ethically good.[1802] But, even in the curt and
vague accounts of these early observers (who were not in position to get
accurate notions of Indian beliefs), it appears that there were many
gods, the supposed supreme deity being simply the most prominent in the
regions known to the first settlers. The "Great Spirit" of the Jesuit
missionaries is found, in like manner, to be one of many supernatural
patrons, locally important but not absolute in power.[1803] The Zulu
Unkulunkulu is revered by the natives as a very great being, morally
good according to the standards of the people, but he is of uncertain
origin and is valueless in the existing cult.[1804] The much-discussed
Australian figures, Baiame, Bunjil, and Daramulun, appear not to differ
essentially from those just mentioned. The reports of the natives who
have been questioned on the subject are often vague and sometimes
mutually contradictory, and exact biographical details of these divine
personages are lacking; but careful recent observers are of opinion that
they are nothing more than supernatural headmen, having such power as
tribal chiefs or headmen possess, and credited in different regions with
different moral qualities.[1805]
+985+. In the systems of many other low tribes there are quasi-divine
beings who are credited with great power and are revered without being
thought of as eternal or as standing alone in the government of the
world. A specially interesting example is the Andaman Puluga, a sort of
creator who receives no worship; his abode is a mountain or the sky, and
he seems to have been originally a local supernatural figure who is
traditionally respected but is no longer thought of as an efficient
patron.[1806] The mysterious Ndengei of Fiji is judge of the dead, but
one of many gods and not all-powerful.[1807] In many tribes there is no
one great divine figure; the control of things is divided among hosts of
spirits and gods. This is the case with the Ainu, the Maoris, the
Greenlanders, the Kwakiutl of Northwest America,[1808] and is probably
the rule in most of the lower communities.
The terms 'self-existent' and 'eternal' are not found in savage
vocabularies and seem to have no representatives in savage thought.
Savage cosmology carries the history of the world back to a certain
point and stops when there is no familiar hypothesis of genesis.[1809]
As a rule spirits (as distinguished from ghosts) are not thought of as
having a creator; they are a part of the system of things and are not
supposed to need explanation, and so it seems to be with simple clan
gods. Nor is there any reason, in savage theory, why gods or spirits
should die; death is an accident for human beings, not an essential
feature of their constitution; but such an accident is not usually
supposed to occur in the case of gods. What takes the place of the
conception of 'eternal' in savage thought is an existence that is
supposed to continue for the reason that its cessation does not come
into consideration. As to creation, there is no need, in a low
community, to suppose more than one originator of the world, and
cosmogonic theory may stop at that point, though this is not an
invariable rule. The title "father" for persons of distinction, human or
divine, is found among many undeveloped peoples, and a headman or patron
may be called, by a natural extension of thought, "all-father," a title
that is not essentially different in signification from the simple
"father," and does not carry with it the refined sense of later times.
The question of savage monotheism need present no difficulty if the
conditions are clearly defined.[1810] It is true that there is in some
cases a monarchical conception of the divine control of a clan or a
tribe, and that this simple system is followed by a more or less
elaborate theology. In both civil and religious systems the increasing
complexity of social life has called forth correspondingly complex
organizations, but this movement away from simplicity does not denote
falling off in civil and religious purity and wisdom. A true monotheism
has never arisen except as a criticism of polytheism.
+986+. It is obvious that the popular cults of the great nations of
antiquity were far removed from monotheism. The Egyptians, the
Babylonians and the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, the
Arabs, the Hindus, the Greeks and the Romans, down to a late period,
worshiped a multitude of gods and were not disturbed by any feeling of
lack of unity in the divine government of the world. The proof that such
was the case among the ancient Hebrews down to the sixth century B.C. is
found in the Old Testament writings: the historical books from the
entrance of the Hebrew tribes into Canaan down to the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the prophetical writings of the eighth,
seventh, and sixth centuries represent the people generally as addicted
to the worship of a great number of gods. In Persia also, since the
Mazdean system recognized a considerable number of deities, it cannot be
doubted that the people were polytheistic, not to speak of the
probability that there were survivals of a lower form of religion which
preceded Mazdaism. In the modern nations of the east of Asia, China and
Japan, the popular worship is anything but monotheistic: in China the
local spirits play a very great part in the life of the people, and in
Japan the old gods are still objects of worship. It may be added that
among the masses in some nominally Christian countries, particularly
among the peasants of Southern Europe, the old polytheism continues in
the form of the worship of saints and the Madonna.
+987+. While the popular cults in the civilized world have held somewhat
pertinaciously to pluralistic views, there has been a general tendency
in advanced circles everywhere toward a unitary conception of the
government of the world. As this tendency has been general it must be
referred to the general progress of thought, the demand of the human
mind for unity or simplicity. The particular lines of the movement have
varied among different peoples according to the peculiarities of their
culture, and the unitary feeling has varied in its degree of
definiteness. In some cases the political predominance of a city or
region has secured preëminence for its deity, or national attachment to
the national god has elevated him above all other gods; where a people
has cultivated poetry or philosophy, the idealizing thought of the one
or the scientific analysis of the other has led in the same direction.
+988+. First, then, we may note the disposition to give substantial
absoluteness to some one god, the choice of the deity being determined
by the political condition as is suggested above, or by local
attachments, or possibly by other conditions which do not appear in the
meager records of early times. Examples of this form of thought are
found in several of the great nations of antiquity. The hymns to the
Egyptian gods Ra, Amon, Amon-Ra, Osiris, and the Nile describe these
deities as universal in attributes and in power. At the moment the poet
conceives of the god whom he celebrates as practically the only one--if
Ra does everything, there is no need of any other deity. At another
moment, however, the same poet may celebrate Osiris with equal
enthusiasm--these high gods are interchangeable. The suggestion from
such fluid conceptions of the divine persons is that the real thought in
the mind of the poet was the supremacy of some divine power which is
incorporated now in one familiar divine name, now in another. It does
not, however, quite reach the point of well-defined monotheism, for
these gods remain distinct, sometimes with separate functions and
duties.
+989+. But this mode of conceiving of the supernatural Power would
naturally pave the way for monotheism, and it is not surprising that
very early in Egypt a definite monotheistic view was developed. King
Amenophis IV, or to give him the name that he adopted in conformity with
his later cult, Khuen-Aten, made a deliberate attempt to elevate the
sun-god Aten to the position of sole ruler and object of worship. Though
the nature of his belief in this deity is not stated in the documents
with the fullness and precision that we should desire, it seems clear,
from the fact that he ordered the destruction of the shrines of the
other deities in the land, that he regarded the worship of this one god
as sufficient. The movement was not a successful one in so far as the
national religion was concerned--it lasted only during his lifetime and
that of his son, and then a counter-revolution swept Aten away and
reinstated the Theban Amon in all his former dignity and powers--but its
very existence is a testimony to the direction of thought of educated
minds in Egypt about the year 1400 B.C. The Aten revolution appears to
have been distinctively Egyptian--there is no trace of foreign influence
in its construction. It has been suggested that Amenophis got his idea
from Semites of Western Asia or particularly from the Hebrews. But
neither the Hebrews nor any other Semitic people of that period were
monotheistic, nor do we find in Egyptian history at the time such social
intercourse as might produce a violent upturning of the religious usage.
We can only suppose that Amenophis was a religious genius who put into
definite shape a conception that was in the air, and by the force of his
enthusiasm made it for the moment effective. Such geniuses have arisen
from time to time in the world, and though the revolution of this
Egyptian king may seem to us to have sprung up with abnormal abruptness,
it is more reasonable to suppose that the way had been prepared for it
in Egyptian thought. He was a man born out of due time; but it cannot be
said that his attempt was without influence on succeeding generations.
+990+. Passing now to the oldest Semitic civilizations, we find in
Babylonia and Assyria many local deities, one or another of whom comes
to the front under the hegemony of some city or state. Here we are met
by the fact already referred to that the gods are interchangeable--it is
practically a matter of indifference whether one deity or another is
elevated to headship. In the great empires the gods of the capital
cities naturally became preëminent; so Marduk in Babylonia and Ashur in
Assyria. The royal inscriptions speak of these gods as if they were
all-powerful and all-controlling. In both countries the goddess Ishtar
appears as the supreme director of affairs, and other deities are
similarly honored. What might have been the issue if the later
Babylonian kingdom had continued for a long time it is impossible to
say, but the impression made by the words of the devout king
Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.) is that he would have been content with
Marduk as the one object of worship. Babylonia produced no such radical
reformer as the Egyptian Amenophis--there is no formulation of
monotheism; but the general tone of the Babylonian religion of the sixth
century is not very different from that of the Hebrew religion of the
same time.
+991+. The religious point of view of the Vedas belongs in the same
category with the early Egyptian. Varuna, Agni, and Indra appear in the
hymns, each in his turn, as supreme. The rôle of Varuna seems to be
practically identical with that of the Iranian Ahura, but unlike the
latter he does not succeed in expelling his brother divinities. This
difference of development between the Hindu and the Iranian people we
cannot hope to explain. India moved not toward monotheism, but toward
pantheism. But the Vedic hymns prove the existence of a certain sense
of oneness in the world, held by the poets, though not by the mass of
the people, and destined to issue in a very remarkable religious system.
+992+. It has been by a very different line that China has reached its
unitary conception of the world. The details of the movement are
obscure, but its general course is clear.[1811] As with many other
peoples it is the objects of nature to which Chinese worship is mainly
paid, but the Chinese mind, impressed by the power of these objects, is
content to rest in them in their visible form; no proper names are
attached to them, and they have a more or less vague personality which
varies in definiteness at different times and with different persons.
The theistic system is a reflection of the social system. The eminently
practical Chinese mind lays the chief stress on the earthly life: in the
common everyday life the family is the unit; but the general course of
affairs is controlled by the great natural Powers of earth and sky,
whence arise the two great divisions of Chinese worship. The State is a
larger family in which the duke or emperor or other chief political
officer occupies the same position that is occupied by the father in the
smaller social circle; the government is patriarchal, with gradations
which correspond to those of the family. Life, it is held, is controlled
by the heavenly bodies, by the mountains and rivers of the earth, and by
deceased members of families. To these the people sacrifice, the
principal part being taken by the civil heads of the larger and smaller
constituent parts of the empire; there is thus no place for priests. As
the emperor (or other head of the State) is supreme on earth, so Heaven
and Earth, Sun and Moon occupy the highest positions in the divine
hierarchy, and ancestors are influential and entitled to worship
according to the rank of the families they represent.[1812] From an
early time, long before Confucius, the headship of the divine Powers, it
would seem, was assigned to Heaven--not the physical sky, but, at least
in the thinking circles of the nation, the Power therein residing. Thus
arose the conception of an imperial divine government in which Heaven,
though it does not stand alone, is recognized as supreme. The larger
theistic conception is embodied in the annual sacrifices conducted by
the emperor,[1813] especially at the winter and summer solstices when
sacrifices are offered to Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, the Four
Quarters and the mountains and rivers of the empire and to his
ancestors, whose worship includes the interests of the whole State. Thus
with a vast number of objects of worship (spirits of all departments of
life, and a few gods proper) the Chinese religion has attained and
maintained a general unitary conception of the divine government of the
world.[1814]
+993+. Some resemblance to the Chinese system appears in the religion of
Peru, so far as this can be understood from the accounts that have come
down to us.[1815] The supreme position given to the Sun in Peru and to
the Inca as child of the Sun is parallel to the supremacy of Heaven in
China and the headship of the emperor as the son of Heaven. The Peruvian
cult appears not to have reached the distinctness of the Chinese. There
were, in fact, in Peru a considerable number of tolerably well-formed
divinities along with a vast crowd of spirits. Yet it appears that the
sun was regarded, at least by the Inca and his circle, as supreme ruler
of the world. The Sun, as god, has no proper name in Peru, as in China
Heaven, as god, has no proper name. In both countries, it would seem,
the imagination of the people was overpowered by the spectacle of the
majesty of a great natural object. The two religions differ in their
ritual development: while the Inca, like the Chinese emperor, was the
religious head of the nation, the Peruvians created an elaborate system
of worship, with temples and ministrants, which is wanting in
China.[1816] The remarkable character of the Peruvian system makes it
all the more regrettable that the data available do not enable us to
trace its growth from the simplest beginnings.
+994+. Still another line of theistic development is furnished by the
Hebrew system. The Hebrews are remarkable among ancient peoples as
having had, so far as our information goes, only one national god. This
god they brought with them into Canaan from the wilderness over which
they appear to have roamed with their flocks for a period and under
conditions not definitely known to us. Arrived in Canaan, the masses
were attracted by the local Canaanite deities (whose worship represented
a higher civilization than that of the nomadic Hebrews), and later, in
the seventh century B.C., a great part of the people of the little
kingdom of Judah adopted the Assyrian astral cult; but a group of
Israelites had always remained faithful to the national deity Yahweh
(Jehovah) and vigorously opposed all foreign worship. It was naturally
the more thoughtful and ethically better-developed part of the community
that took this uncompromising position, and their spokesmen, the writing
prophets whose discourses are preserved in the Old Testament, became
preachers of morality as well as champions of the sole worship of
Yahweh. It does not appear that they denied the existence of other gods,
but they regarded their own god as superior to all others in power,
standing in a peculiarly close relation to his people and bound to them
by peculiarly intimate ties.
+995+. This attachment to one deity proved to be the dominant sentiment
of the nation. As time went on and the people were sifted by the
Assyrian and Babylonian deportations, the higher moral feeling of the
best men attached itself more and more definitely to the national god.
Thus was established a monolatry which was practically monotheism,
though a theory of absolute monotheism was never formulated by the
pre-Christian Jews. It must be added, as is remarked above, that, from
the third or second century B.C. on, the somewhat undefined range of
activity attributed to Satan produced a sort of dualism, yet without
impairing the practically unitary conception of the divine government of
the world.[1817] The course of their national fortunes and the
remarkable power of self-contained persistence of the Jews brought
about a segregation of the people and, finally, their organization into
a community governed by a law held to be divinely revealed. This
capacity of social religious organization was the distinctive
characteristic of the Jewish people and, supported by their unitary
theistic system and a high moral code, gave the example of popular
monotheism which, through the medium of Christianity, finally imposed
itself upon the Roman world.
+996+. In the ancient world the most thorough investigation of the
theistic problem was made by the Greeks, whose leading thinkers, like
the Hebrews, moved steadily toward a unitary conception of the divine
power, but, unlike the Hebrews, did not succeed in impressing their
views on the people at large. What the theistic conception in the
pre-Homeric times was we are unable to say definitely, but presumably in
every separate community there was a local deity who had practically the
direction of affairs. In process of time, through conditions not known
to us, Zeus came to be recognized throughout the Hellenic world as the
principal deity. In the Homeric poems and in Hesiod we find a political
or governmental organization of the gods which followed the lines of the
social organization of the times. As Agamemnon is the head chief over a
group of local chiefs, so Zeus, though not absolutely supreme, is a
divine king, the head over a considerable number of deities who have
their own preferences and plans, and in ordinary matters go their own
way and are not interfered with so long as they mind their own business;
but at critical points Zeus, like Agamemnon, intervenes, and then no god
disputes his decisions.
+997+. This conception of the divine government appears, therefore, to
rest on the Greek demand for political organization; the world was
thought of as divided into various departments which had to be brought
into a unity by the ascription of a quasi-supreme authority to some one
personage. Necessarily, however, larger intellectual and ethical ideas
were incorporated in this political view. Though the popular
anthropomorphic conceptions of the deities appear throughout the Homeric
poems (the gods being sometimes morally low as well as limited in
knowledge and power), yet on the other hand they are said to know
everything. To Zeus in particular lofty qualities are ascribed; he is
the father of men and their savior and the patron of justice. How it
came about that these two sorts of conceptions of a supreme deity are
mingled in the poems is a question that need not be discussed here; a
similar mingling of contradictory ideas is found in the Old Testament,
in which the unmoral god of the people stands alongside of the highly
developed ethical Yahweh of the great prophets.
+998+. In Homer and Hesiod, however, the conception of headship is
complicated by the introduction of the idea of fate. In the Iliad Zeus
is sometimes ignorant of the future and has to employ the scales of
destiny, and in Hesiod appear the three Fates who control the lives of
men independently of the gods. The conception of a controlling fate may
be regarded as an effort to reach an absolutely unitary view of the
world. Above all the divine powers that regulate affairs, after the
manner of the government by a king with his attendant chieftains and
officers, there is a sense of a dim and undefined power of unknown
origin, mysterious, absolute, universal. The question whether this
conception was a reflection of a sense of the controlling power resident
in the universe itself, or merely an endeavor to rise above the
variations of anthropomorphic deities, is important from the point of
view of the genesis of ideas, but its decision will not affect the fact
just stated.[1818] Obviously in the Homeric world there appears this
general conviction that men and gods are bound together in unity and
that some force or power controls all things.[1819]
+999+. This sense of the governmental unity is further developed by the
later great poets who infused into it higher and more definite moral
elements. The polytheistic view continues; to the thinkers of the time
there was no more difficulty in conceiving of a single headship along
with many deities of particular functions than was felt by Hebrew
prophets who recognized the existence of foreign deities, with Yahweh
as a superior god, or by the modern Christian world with its apparatus
of angels, saints, and demons alongside of the supreme God. For Pindar
Zeus is lord of all things and is far removed from the moral impurities
of the popular conception. Æschylus represents him as supreme and in
general as just, though not wholly free from human weaknesses. A real
unity of the world is set forth by Sophocles: there is a divinely
ordered control by immutable law, and the will of Zeus is unquestioned.
The unitary conception is found also in Euripides notwithstanding his
skeptical attitude toward the current mythology. The sense of symmetry
potent in the poets forced them to this unitary conception of
government, and the natural progress of ethical feeling led them to
ascribe the highest ethical qualities to the deities.
+1000+. Similar motives appear in the speculations of the Greek
philosophers: Greek philosophy in seeking to discover the essential
nature of the world moved definitely toward the conception of its
unity--so, for example, as early as the sixth century, in Xenophanes and
Parmenides. The conception of a supreme spiritual ruler of the world
appears in Heraclitus and Anaxagoras (fifth century). To these and other
Greek thinkers the unity of the world and the dominance of mind or
spirit appeared to be necessary assumptions. The most definite
expression of these conceptions is found in Plato and Aristotle.
According to Plato (in the Timæus) God, the eternal Father, created the
world (for nothing can be created without a cause), brought order out of
disorder and made the universe to be most fair and good, so that it
became a rational living soul, the one only-begotten universe, created
the gods and the sons of the gods, and framed the soul to be the ruler
of the body. Aristotle, in simpler phrase, represents the ground of the
world as self-sufficient Mind, an eternal Power ([Greek: dunamis]), from
which all action or actuality ([Greek: energeia]) proceeds.[1820]
+1001+. There are certain apparent limitations, it is true, to this
conception of unity. Both Plato and Aristotle recognize the existence of
a host of subordinate deities (created but immortal) to whom is
assigned a share, by direction of the supreme God, in the creation of
things; yet essentially these deities are nothing more than agents or
intermediaries of the divine activity, and may be compared to the
natural laws and agents of modern theism and, more exactly, to the
Hebrew angels through whom, according to the Old Testament, God governed
the world. Plato has also a somewhat vague notion of a something in the
nature of the material of the world that limits or constrains the divine
creative power--a "necessity" that forces the deity to do not the
absolutely best but the best possible. Perhaps this is a philosophical
formulation of the old "fate," perhaps Plato is merely trying to account
for certain supposed inconcinnities and inadequacies in the world. He is
not quite consistent with himself, since he represents the creation of
the universe as resulting from the fact that necessity yielded to the
persuasion of mind, which thus became supreme.[1821] In spite of this
vagueness his view is unitary, and the unitary conception is continued
by the Stoics, its best Stoic expression being found in the famous hymn
of Cleanthes to Zeus: "Nothing occurs on earth apart from thee" and "We
are thy offspring."[1822]
+1002+. In the last centuries before the beginning of our era the Jews,
partly under Persian and Greek influence, clarified their theistic view,
attaining a practically pure monotheism, only retaining their apparatus
of angels and demons. This theistic scheme passed over in complete form
to early Christianity, in which, however, greater prominence was given
to the chief demon, the Satan; his larger rôle arose from the fact that
he was brought into sharp antagonism with the Christ, the head of the
kingdom of God. When Christianity was adopted by the Græco-Roman world,
the doctrine of the Trinity was worked out and formulated in accordance
with Greek and Roman philosophic thought, but was held not to impair the
monotheistic view since the three Persons were regarded as being in
substance one. Islam adopted the Jewish form of monotheism, with its
Satan and angels, retaining also the old Arabian apparatus of demonic
beings (the jinn).
+1003+. A certain tendency to a practically unitary view is discernible
in the cults of Isis and Mithra, which were widely diffused in the Roman
Empire.[1823] In both these cults the main interest of the worshipers
was centered in a single deity, though other deities were recognized.
The unifying impulse was devotional, not philosophic.
So far as a unitary conception of the divine government of the world
existed it must be referred to the spirit of the age which had outgrown
the old crude polytheism. Such modern monotheistic movements as the
Brahma-Samaj and the Parsi in India, the Babist in Persia, and the
reformed Shinto in Japan owe much to European influence, though
doubtless some part of them is the outcome of natural progress in
intellectual and moral conceptions.
PANTHEISTIC AND NONTHEISTIC SYSTEMS
+1004+. The systems of theistic thought considered above all make a
sharp separation between God and the world. Plato and Aristotle regarded
mind or spirit as a force that dominated matter. The Persian, Hebrew,
and Christian theologies conceive of the deity as transcendent, standing
outside of and above the world and entering into communication with it
either by direct revelation or through intermediaries. To certain
thinkers of ancient times this dualistic conception presented
difficulties--an absolute unity was held to be incompatible with such
separation between the world and God. The precise nature of the
reflections by which the earliest philosophers reached this conclusion
is not clearly set forth, but it may be surmised that in general there
were two lines of thought that led to this inference: first, a
metaphysical conception of unity as something that was demanded by the
sense of perfectness in the world; and, secondly, observation of facts
that appeared to characterize the world as a unit. Among several
different peoples, and apparently in each independently, the idea arose
that the divine manifests itself in the world of phenomena and is
recognizable only therein. Such a view appears in India in the Vedanta
philosophy, and in Greece a little later it is more or less involved in
Orphic theories and in the systems of several philosophers. The tendency
to deify nature appears even in writers who do not wholly exclude gods
from their schemes of the world--in the sayings of Heraclitus, for
example: "All things are one," "From all comes one, and from one comes
all." A similar view is attributed to Xenophanes by Aristotle,[1824] and
traces of such a conception appear in Euripides.[1825] For the modern
forms of pantheism, in Spinoza and other philosophers, reference must be
made to the histories of philosophy.
+1005+. Pantheism has never commended itself to the masses of men. It is
definitely theistic, but the view that the divine power is visible only
in phenomena and is to be identified practically with the world is one
that men in general find difficult to comprehend. The demand is for a
deity with whom one may enter into personal relations--the simple
conception of a god who dwells apart satisfies the religious instincts
of the majority of men. The ethical questions arising from pantheism
seem to them perplexing: how can man be morally responsible when it is
the deity who thinks and acts in him? and how can he have any sense of
loyalty to a deity whom he cannot distinguish from himself? Nor do men
generally demand so absolute a unity as is represented by pantheism.
Such questions as those relating to the eternity of matter, the
possibility of the existence of an immaterial being, and the mode in
which such a being, if it exists, could act on matter, have not seemed
practical to the majority of men. Man demands a method of worship, and
pantheism does not permit organized worship. For these reasons it has
remained a sentiment of philosophers, though it has not been without
effect in modifying popular conceptions of the deity: the conception of
the immanence of God in the world (held in many Christian orthodox
circles), when carried to its legitimate consequences, it is often hard
to distinguish from pantheism.
+1006+. _Nontheistic systems._ A further attempt to secure a complete
unity of the world appears in those systems of thought which regard the
world as self-sufficient and, therefore, dispense with extramundane
agency. These start either from the point of view of man and human life
or from contemplation of the world. In China the sense of the sole
importance of the moral life and the impossibility of knowing anything
beyond mundane life led Confucius practically to ignore divine agency.
He did not deny the existence of Powers outside of men, but he declined
to speak of them, regarding them as of no practical importance. This
sort of agnosticism appears in Greece as early as the fifth century
B.C., when Protagoras's view that "man is the measure of all things"
makes extrahuman Powers superfluous. Epicurus reached a similar
practical atheism apparently from a scientific view of the construction
of the world. According to him there are gods, but they are
otiose--living a life of happy ease, they are to be thought of as a
pleasant phenomenon in the world, but ineffective as regards human
fortunes, and men may go their ways certain that if they obey the laws
of the world the gods will not interfere with them.
+1007+. The Sankhya philosophy of India dispenses completely with gods,
holding that the primordial stuff is eternal, but it also holds that
souls have a separate existence and are eternal. Thus a species of
dualism emerges. Buddhism goes a step further, ignoring the soul as well
as gods. It is agnostic in that, admitting the world to have a cause, it
holds that it is impossible to know this cause. Its practical aim--to
get rid of suffering by getting rid of desire, and thus to pass into a
blissful state of existence in which apparently there is to be no effort
as there is to be no pain--has enabled it to establish a vigorous
organization, a sort of church, in which the undefined universe takes
the place of a personal god, and character takes the place of soul, this
character (Karma) passing from one being to another without the
assumption of identity in the beings thus united in destiny.[1826]
+1008+. In Greece pure materialism (similar in essence to the Sankhya)
took the shape of the assumption of an original and eternal mass of
atoms whence have come all forms of being (so Democritus in the fifth
century B.C.), and this conception was adopted by Epicurus and expounded
at length by Lucretius.[1827] The necessary qualities and movements
being attributed to the atoms, the conclusion was that nothing else was
required in order to explain the world. With this may be compared the
view of Empedocles (fifth century) that love and hate (in modern phrase,
attraction and repulsion) are the creative forces of the world. The
simplicity of this scheme has commended it to many minds in modern as in
ancient times. Man, it is said, can know nothing outside of phenomena,
and, so far as regards the origin of things, it is as easy to conceive
of an eternal self-existent mass of matter as of an eternal
self-existent deity. The nobler part of man, it is held, is not thereby
surrendered--reason and all high ethical and spiritual ideals have grown
naturally out of the primordial mass. In such systems there is often the
hypothesis of an original force or life resident in matter, and this
force or life, being credited with all that has issued from it, may be
regarded as having the elements of personality, and in that case becomes
practically a deity. Such a deistic materialism approaches pantheism
nearly.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE THEISTIC DEVELOPMENT
+1009+. The theistic conceptions of men have followed the general line
of social development. All systems and shades of thought are faithfully
reflected in the various ideas that men have formed for themselves of
the gods. Human nature is the highest thing known to men, and their
conception of supernatural forces has been based on ideals derived from
experience. The sphere of divine activity has been determined for men by
their systems of physical science; the moral character of the gods is a
reflection of human ethical conceptions; the internal activity of the
deity in man's mind is defined by man's spiritual experience.
+1010+. From the earliest times the extent to which the gods were
supposed to intervene in human affairs has been fixed by scientific
observation, by the knowledge of natural law--the gods have been called
on to intervene only when it was necessary because ordinary powers
failed. When finally the conception is reached that all nature is
governed by natural law, the theistic view assumes that the deity works
through ordinary natural means, and the supposition of particular
interventions is rejected by the mass of scientific thinkers. It was
natural in early times to suppose that reward and punishment were
administered by the deity in this world in accordance with the
principles of right, that the good prospered and the bad failed; but
this view has vanished before observation, and, by those who demand an
exact accordance between conduct and fortunes, the final compensations
of life have been relegated to the other world.
+1011+. The belief in miracles, however, has never completely vanished
from the world. A miracle is an intervention by the deity whereby a
natural law is set aside. No a priori reasoning can ever prove or
disprove the possibility of miracles--such proof or disproof would
involve complete knowledge of the universe or of the divine power in the
universe, and this is impossible for man. The indisposition to accept a
miracle has arisen from the conviction that the demand for interventions
that set aside the natural order is a reflection on the wisdom of the
Creator's arrangement of the world, and further from long-continued
observation of the dominance of natural law, and, when appeal is made to
alleged miraculous occurrences, from the arbitrary way in which,
according to the reports, these have been introduced. In the records of
peoples we find that miracles increase in number and magnitude in
proportion as we go back to dim times without exact historical
documents. They appear, it is held, in connection usually with
insignificant affairs while the really great affairs in later times are
left without miraculous elements.[1828] The history of the world, so
historical science holds, receives a satisfactory explanation from the
character of the general laws of human nature, and the principle of
parsimony demands that no unnecessary elements of action be introduced
into affairs. The exclusion of miracles from the world does not exclude
divine agency and government; it only defines the latter as being in
accordance with man's observation of natural law.
+1012+. Philosophy constructs the constitution of the deity and the
relation of divine elements to the world. Whether the deity stands
outside of the world or within it, whether the divine power is unitary
or dual or plural, or whether there is any need to assume a power
outside of physical nature--these are the questions that are discussed
by philosophy, whose conclusions sometimes favor a religious view of the
world, sometimes oppose it. Few persons are able to follow elaborate
philosophic lines of thought--the majority of men accept the simple
doctrine of a personal god who is generally supposed to stand outside of
the world. The controlling consideration here is that everything must
have a cause--a line of reasoning in accordance with common sense, but
not always, in its crude form, regarded by philosophers as decisive.
+1013+. The moral character of a deity is always in accordance with the
moral ideas of his worshipers. Religions have sometimes been divided
into the ethical and the nonethical; but so far as the character of the
deity is concerned no such division holds, for there never has been a
supernatural Power that has not reflected the moral ideas of its time
and place. A cannibal god is not only natural in a cannibal society, but
he represents moral ideals, namely, the attempt to acquire strength by
absorbing the physical substance of men. The deity who deceives or is
vindictive arises in a society in which deceit and vindictiveness are
regarded as virtues. The pictures of what we regard as immoralities in
the deity as given in the Iliad and in the Old Testament were not
regarded as immoral by the writers. The progress in the characterization
of the deity has been not by the introduction of an ethical element, but
by the purification and elevation of the already existing ethical
element.[1829]