{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57581/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57581","id":"gutenberg_57581","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57581","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","God","Religion"],"text":"Produced by David Widger from page images generously\nprovided by the Internet Archive\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD\n\nAN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGINS OF RELIGIONS\n\nBY GRANT ALLEN\n\nAUTHOR OF \u201cPHYSIOLOGICAL \u00c6STHETICS\u201d \u201cTHE COLOURS OF FLOWERS\u201d\n\u201cFORCE AND ENERGY\u201d ETC\n\nLONDON: GRANT RICHARDS 1897\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n|TWO main schools of religious thinking exist in our midst at the\npresent day: the school of humanists and the school of animists. This\nwork is to some extent an attempt to reconcile them. It contains, I\nbelieve, the first extended effort that has yet been made to trace the\ngenesis of the belief in a God from its earliest origin in the mind of\nprimitive man up to its fullest development in advanced and etherealised\nChristian theology. My method is therefore constructive, not\ndestructive. Instead of setting out to argue away or demolish a\ndeep-seated and ancestral element in our complex nature, this book\nmerely posits for itself the psychological question, \u201cBy what\nsuccessive steps did men come to frame for themselves the conception of\na deity?\u201d--or, if the reader so prefers it, \u201cHow did we arrive at\nour knowledge of God?\u201d It seeks provisionally to answer these profound\nand important questions by reference to the earliest beliefs of savages,\npast or present, and to the testimony of historical documents and\nancient monuments. It does not concern itself at all with the validity\nor invalidity of the ideas in themselves; it does but endeavour to show\nhow inevitable they were, and how man\u2019s relation with the external\nuniverse was certain _a priori_ to beget them as of necessity.\n\nIn so vast a synthesis, it would be absurd to pretend at the present day\nthat one approached one\u2019s subject entirely _de novo_. Every enquirer\nmust needs depend much upon the various researches of his predecessors\nin various parts of his field of enquiry. The problem before us divides\nitself into three main portions: _first_, how did men come to believe\nin many gods--the origin of polytheism; _second_, how, by elimination\nof most of these gods, did certain races of men come to believe in one\nsingle supreme and omnipotent God--the origin of monotheism; _third_\nhow, having arrived at that concept, did the most advanced races and\ncivilisations come to conceive of that God as Triune, and to identify\none of his Persons with a particular divine and human incarnation--the\norigin of Christianity. In considering each of these three main problems\nI have been greatly guided and assisted by three previous enquirers or\nsets of enquirers.\n\nAs to the _origin of polytheism_, I have adopted in the main Mr. Herbert\nSpencer\u2019s remarkable ghost theory, though with certain important\nmodifications and additions. In this part of my work I have also been\nlargely aided by materials derived from Mr. Duff Macdonald, the able\nauthor of _Africana_, from Mr. Turner, the well-known Samoan missionary,\nand from several other writers, supplemented as they are by my own\nresearches among the works of explorers and ethnologists in general. On\nthe whole, I have here accepted the theory which traces the origin\nof the belief in gods to primeval ancestor-worship, or rather\ncorpse-worship, as against the rival theory which traces its origin to a\nsupposed primitive animism.\n\nAs to the _rise of monotheism_, I have been influenced in no small\ndegree by Kuenen and the Teutonic school of Old Testament criticism,\nwhose ideas have been supplemented by later concepts derived from\nProfessor Robertson Smith\u2019s admirable work, _The Religion of the\nSemites_. But here, on the whole, the central explanation I have to\noffer is, I venture to think, new and original: the theory, good or bad,\nof the circumstances which led to the elevation of the ethnical Hebrew\nGod, Jahweh, above all his rivals, and his final recognition as the only\ntrue and living god, is my own and no one else\u2019s.\n\nAs to the _origin of Christianity_, and its relations to the preceding\ncults of corn and wine gods, I have been guided to a great extent by\nMr. J. G. Frazer and Mannhardt, though I do not suppose that either the\nliving or the dead anthropologist would wholly acquiesce in the use I\nhave made of their splendid materials. Mr. Frazer, the author of that\nlearned work, _The Golden Bough_, has profoundly influenced the opinions\nof all serious workers at anthropology and the science of religion, and\nI cannot too often acknowledge the deep obligations under which I lie to\nhis profound and able treatises. At the same time, I have so transformed\nthe material derived from him and from Dr. Robertson Smith as to have\nmade it in many ways practically my own; and I have supplemented it\nby several new examples and ideas, suggested in the course of my own\ntolerably wide reading.\n\nThroughout the book as a whole, I also owe a considerable debt to Dr. E.\nB. Tylor, from whom I have borrowed much valuable matter; to Mr. Sidney\nHartland\u2019s _Legend of Perseus_; to Mr. Lawrence Gomme, who has come\nnearer at times than anyone else to the special views and theories\nhere promulgated; and to Mr. William Simpson of the _Illustrated London\nNews_, an unobtrusive scholar whose excellent monographs on _The Worship\nof Death_ and kindred subjects have never yet received the attention\nThey deserve, at the hands of unprejudiced students of religion. My\nother obligations, to Dr. Mommsen, to my friends Mr. Edward Clodd,\nProfessor John Rhys, and Professor York Powell, as well as to numerous\ntravellers, missionaries, historians, and classicists, are too frequent\nto specify.\n\nLooking at the subject broadly, I would presume to say once more that\nmy general conclusions may be regarded as representing to some extent\na reconciliation between the conflicting schools of humanists and\nanimists, headed respectively by Mr. Spencer and Mr. Frazer, though with\na leaning rather to the former than the latter.\n\nAt the same time it would be a great mistake to look upon my book as\nin any sense a mere eirenicon or compromise. On the contrary, it is in\nevery part a new and personal work, containing, whatever its value, a\nfresh and original synthesis of the subject. I would venture to\npoint out as especially novel the two following points: the complete\ndemarcation of religion from mythology, as practice from mere\nexplanatory gloss or guesswork; and the important share assigned in the\ngenesis of most existing religious systems to the deliberate manufacture\nof gods by killing. This doctrine of the manufactured god, to which\nnearly half my book is devoted, seems to me to be a notion of cardinal\nvalue. Among other new ideas of secondary rank, I would be bold enough\nto enumerate the following: the establishment of three successive stages\nin the conception of the Life of the Dead, which might be summed up as\nCorpse-worship, Ghost-worship, and Shade-worship, and which answer\nto the three stages of preservation or mummification, burial, and\ncremation; the recognition of the high place to be assigned to the\nsafe-keeping of the oracular head in the growth of idol-worship; the\nimportance attached to the sacred stone, the sacred stake, and the\nsacred tree, and the provisional proof of their close connection with\nthe graves of the dead; the entirely new conception of the development\nof monotheism among the Jews from the exclusive cult of the jealous god;\nthe hypothesis of the origin of cultivation from tumulus-offerings,\nand its connection with the growth of gods of cultivation; the wide\nexpansion given to the ancient notion of the divine-human victim; the\nrecognition of the world-wide prevalence of the five-day festival of\nthe corn or wine god, and of the close similarity which marks its\nrites throughout all the continents, including America; the suggested\nevolution of the god-eating sacraments of lower religions from the\ncannibal practice of honorifically eating one\u2019s dead relations; * and\nthe evidence of the wide survival of primitive corpse-worship down to\nour own times in civilised Europe. I could largely increase this rapid\nlist of what I believe to be the new contributions here made to the\nphilosophy of religious evolution; but I purposely refrain. I think\nit will be allowed that if even a few of these ideas turn out on\nexamination to be both new and true, my book will have succeeded in\njustifying its existence.\n\n     * While this work was passing through the press a similar\n     theory has been propounded by Mr. Flinders Petrie in an\n     article on \u201cEaten with Honour,\u201d in which he reviews briefly\n     the evidence for the custom in Egypt and elsewhere.\n\nI put forth this work with the utmost diffidence. The harvest is vast\nand the labourers are few. I have been engaged upon collecting and\ncomparing materials for more than twenty years. I have been engaged in\nwriting my book for more than ten. As I explain in the last chapter, the\npresent first sketch of the conclusions at which I have at last arrived\nis little more than provisional. I desire in my present essay merely to\nlay down the lines of the general theory which after so many years of\nstudy I incline to accept. If my attempt succeeds in attracting public\nattention, I hope to follow it up by several other volumes in which\nthe main opinions or suggestions here set forth may be reinforced and\nexpanded by copious collections of evidence and illustrations. If it\nfails to arouse public attention, however, I must perforce be satisfied\nwith this very inadequate preliminary statement. I should also like to\nadd here, what I point out at greater length in the body of the work,\nthat I do not hold dogmatically to all or to a single one of the ideas\nI have now expressed. They are merely conceptions forced upon my mind by\nthe present state of the evidence; and I recognise the fact that in so\nvast and varied a province, where almost encyclopaedic knowledge would\nbe necessary in order to enable one to reach a decided conclusion, every\nsingle one or all together of these conceptions are liable to be upset\nby further research. I merely say, \u201cThis is how the matter figures\nitself to me at present, on the strength of the facts now and here known\nto us.\u201d\n\nA few chapters of the book were separately published in various reviews\nat the time they were first written. They were composed, however, from\nthe outset, as parts of this book, which does not therefore consist\nof disconnected essays thrown into line in an artificial unity. Each\noccupies the precise place in the argument for which it was first\nintended. The chapters in question are those on \u201cReligion and\nMythology,\u201d and \u201cThe Life of the Dead,\u201d contributed under\nthe titles of \u201cPractical Religion\u201d and \u201cImmortality and\nResurrection\u201d to the _Fortnightly Re-view_; that on \u201cSacred\nStones,\u201d contributed under the same name to the same periodical;\nand that on \u201cThe Gods of Egypt,\u201d which originally appeared in the\n_Universal Review_. I have to thank the proprietors and editors of those\nmagazines for permission to print them in their proper place here. They\nhave all been altered and brought up as far as I could bring them to\nthe existing state of our knowledge with regard to the subjects of which\nthey treat.\n\nIn dealing with so large a variety of materials, drawn from all times\nand places, races and languages, it would be well-nigh impossible\nto avoid errors. Such as my own care could discover I have of course\ncorrected: for the rest, I must ask on this ground the indulgence of\nthose who may happen to note them.\n\nI have endeavoured to write without favour or prejudice, animated by a\nsingle desire to discover the truth. Whether I have succeeded in that\nattempt or not, I trust my book may be received in the same spirit in\nwhich it has been written,--a spirit of earnest anxiety to learn all\nthat can be learnt by enquiry and investigation of man\u2019s connection\nwith his God, in the past and the present. In this hope I commit it to\nthe kindly consideration of that small section of the reading public\nwhich takes a living interest in religious questions.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.--CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS STANDARD.\n\n|I propose in this work to trace out in rough outline the evolution of\nthe idea of God from its earliest and crudest beginnings in the savage\nmind of primitive man to that highly evolved and abstract form which it\nfinally assumes in contemporary philosophical and theological thinking.\n\nIn the eyes of the modern evolutionary enquirer the interest of the\norigin and history of this widespread idea is mainly psychological. We\nhave before us a vast and pervasive group of human opinions, true or\nfalse, which have exercised and still exercise an immense influence upon\nthe development of mankind and of civilisation: the question arises, Why\ndid human beings ever come to hold these opinions at all, and how did\nthey arrive at them? What was there in the conditions of early man which\nled him to frame to himself such abstract notions of one or more great\nsupernatural agents, of whose objective existence he had certainly\nin nature no clear or obvious evidence? Regarding the problem in this\nlight, as essentially a problem of the processes of the human mind, I\nset aside from the outset, as foreign to my purpose, any kind of enquiry\ninto the objective validity of any one among the religious beliefs thus\nset {002}before us as subject-matter. The question whether there may\nbe a God or gods, and, if so, what may be his or their substance and\nattributes, do not here concern us. All we have to do in our present\ncapacity is to ask ourselves strictly, What first suggested to the mind\nof man the notion of deity in the abstract at all? And how, from the\nearly multiplicity of deities which we find to have prevailed in all\nprimitive times among all human races, did the conception of a single\ngreat and unlimited deity first take its rise? In other words, why did\nmen ever believe there were gods at all, and why from many gods did\nthey arrive at one? Why from polytheism have the most advanced nations\nproceeded to monotheism?\n\nTo put the question in this form is to leave entirely out of\nconsideration the objective reality or otherwise of the idea itself.\nTo analyse the origin of a concept is not to attack the validity of the\nbelief it encloses. The idea of gravitation, for example, arose by slow\ndegrees in human minds, and reached at last its final expression in\nNewton\u2019s law. But to trace the steps by which that idea was gradually\nreached is not in any way to disprove or to discredit it. The Christian\nbeliever may similarly hold that men arrived by natural stages at the\nknowledge of the one true God; he is not bound to reject the final\nconception as false merely because of the steps by which it was slowly\nevolved. A creative God, it is true, might prefer to make a sudden\nrevelation of himself to some chosen body of men; but an evolutionary\nGod, we may well believe, might prefer in his inscrutable wisdom to\nreveal his own existence and qualities to his creatures by means of\nthe same slow and tentative intellectual gropings as those by which\nhe revealed to them the physical truths of nature. I wish my enquiry,\ntherefore, to be regarded, not as destructive, but as reconstructive.\nIt only attempts to recover and follow out the various planes in the\nevolution of the idea of God, rather than to cast doubt upon the truth\nof the evolved concept.\n\nIn{003} investigating any abstruse and difficult subject, it is often\nbest to proceed from the known to the unknown, even although the unknown\nitself may happen to come first in the order of nature and of logical\ndevelopment. For this reason, it may be advisable to begin here with\na brief preliminary examination of Christianity, which is not only the\nmost familiar of all religions to us Christian nations, but also the\nbest known in its origins: and then to show how far we may safely use\nit as a Standard of Reference in explaining the less obvious and certain\nfeatures of earlier or collateral cults.\n\nChristianity, then, viewed as a religious standard, has this clear and\nundeniable advantage over almost every other known form of faith--that\nit quite frankly and confessedly sets out in its development with the\nworship of a particular Deified Man.\n\nThis point in its history cannot, I think, be overrated in importance,\nbecause in that single indubitable central fact it gives us the key to\nmuch that is cardinal in all other religions; every one of which, as I\nhope hereafter to show, equally springs, directly or indirectly, from\nthe worship of a single Deified Man, or of many Deified Men, more or\nless etherealised.\n\nWhatever else may be said about the origin of Christianity, it is at\nleast fairly agreed on either side, both by friends and foes, that\nthis great religion took its rise around the personality of a certain\nparticular Galilean teacher, by name Jesus, concerning whom, if we know\nanything at all with any approach to certainty, we know at least that\nhe was a man of the people, hung on a cross in Jerusalem under the\nprocuratorship of Caius Pontius Pilatus. That kernel of fact--a man, and\nhis death--Jesus Christ and him crucified--is the one almost undoubted\nhistorical nucleus round which all the rest of a vast European and\nAsiatic system of thought and belief has slowly crystallised.\n\nLet us figure clearly to ourselves the full import of these truths.\n{004}A Deified Man is the central figure in the faith of Christendom.\n\nFrom the very beginning, however, a legend, true or false (but whose\ntruth or falsity has no relation whatever to our present subject),\ngathered about the personality of this particular Galilean peasant\nreformer. Reverenced at first by a small body of disciples of his\nown race and caste, he grew gradually in their minds into a divine\npersonage, of whom strange stories were told, and a strange history\nbelieved by a group of ever-increasing adherents in all parts of the\nGr\u00e6co-Roman Mediterranean civilisation. The earliest of these stories,\nin all probability--certainly the one to which most importance was\nattached by the pioneers of the faith--clustered about his death and its\nimmediate sequence. Jesus, we are told, was crucified, dead, and buried.\nBut at the end of three days, if we may credit the early documents of\nour Christian faith, his body was no longer to be found in the sepulchre\nwhere it had been laid by friendly hands: and the report spread abroad\nthat he had risen again from the dead, and lived once more a somewhat\nphantasmal life among the living in his province. Supernatural\nmessengers announced his resurrection to the women who had loved him: he\nwas seen in the flesh from time to time for very short periods by one\nor other among the faithful who still revered his memory. At last,\nafter many such appearances, more or less fully described in the crude\nexisting narratives, he was suddenly carried up to the sky before the\neyes of his followers, where, as one of the versions authoritatively\nremarks, he was \u201creceived into heaven, and sat on the right hand of\nGod\u201d--that is to say, of Jahweh, the ethnical deity of the Hebrew\npeople.\n\nSuch in its kernel was the original Christian doctrine as handed down to\nus amid a mist of miracle, in four or five documents of doubtful age and\nuncertain authenticity. Even this central idea does not fully appear\nin the Pauline epistles, believed to be the oldest in date of all our\nChristian {005}writings: it first takes full shape in the somewhat\nlater Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. In the simplest and perhaps the\nearliest of these definite accounts we are merely told the story of the\ndeath and resurrection, the latter fact being vouched for on the\ndubious testimony of \u201ca young man clothed in a long white\ngarment,\u201d supplemented (apparently at a later period) by subsequent\n\u201cappearances\u201d to various believers. With the controversies\nwhich have raged about these different stories, however, the broad\nanthropological enquiry into the evolution of God has no concern. It is\nenough for us here to admit, what the evidence probably warrants us in\nconcluding, that a real historical man of the name of Jesus did once\nexist in Lower Syria, and that his disciples at a period very shortly\nafter his execution believed him to have actually risen from the dead,\nand in due time to have ascended into heaven.\n\nAt a very early date, too, it was further asserted that Jesus was in\nsome unnatural or supernatural sense \u201cthe son of God\u201d--that is to\nsay, once more, the son of Jahweh, the local and national deity of\nthe Jewish people. In other words, his worship was affiliated upon the\nearlier historical worship of the people in whose midst he lived, and\nfrom whom his first disciples were exclusively gathered. It was not, as\nwe shall more fully see hereafter, a revolutionary or purely destructive\nsystem. It based itself upon the common conceptions of the Semitic\ncommunity. The handful of Jews and Galileans who accepted Jesus as a\ndivine figure did not think it necessary, in adopting him as a god,\nto get rid of their own preconceived religious opinions. They believed\nrather in his prior existence, as a part of Jahweh, and in his\nincarnation in a human body for the purpose of redemption. And when his\ncult spread around into neighboring countries (chiefly, it would seem,\nthrough the instrumentality of one Paul of Tarsus, who had never seen\nhim, or had beheld him only in what is vaguely called \u201ca vision\u201d)\nthe cult {006}of Jahweh went hand in hand with it, so that a sort of\nmodified mystic monotheism, based on Judaism, became the early creed of\nthe new cosmopolitan Christian church.\n\nOther legends, of a sort familiar in the lives of the founders of creeds\nand churches elsewhere, grew up about the life of the Christian leader;\nor at any rate, incidents of a typical kind were narrated by his\ndisciples as part of his history. That a god or a godlike person should\nbe born of a woman by the ordinary physiological processes of humanity\nseems derogatory to his dignity--perhaps fatal to his godhead: *\ntherefore it was asserted--we know not whether truly or otherwise--that\nthe founder of Christianity, by some mysterious afflatus, was born of a\nvirgin. Though described at times as the son of one Joseph, a carpenter,\nof Nazareth, and of Mary, his betrothed wife, he was also regarded in an\nalternative way as the son of the Hebrew god Jahweh, just as Alexander,\nthough known to be the son of Philip, was also considered to be the\noffspring of Amon-Ra or Zeus Ammon. We are told, in order to lessen\nthis discrepancy (on the slender authority of a dream of Joseph\u2019s),\nhow Jesus was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit of Jahweh in\nMary\u2019s womb. He was further provided with a royal pedigree from the\nhouse of David, a real or mythical early Hebrew king; and prophecies\nfrom the Hebrew sacred books were found to be fulfilled in his most\nchildish adventures. In one of the existing biographies, commonly\nascribed to Luke, the companion of Paul, but supposed to bear traces of\nmuch later authorship, many such marvellous stories are recounted of\nhis infantile adventures: and in all our documents, miracles attest his\nsupernatural powers, while appeal is constantly made to the fulfilment\nof supposed predictions (all of old Hebrew origin) as a test and\ncredential of the reality of his divine mission.\n\n     * On this subject, see Mr. Sidney Hartland\u2019s Legend of\n     Perseus, vol. i.\n\nWe {007}shall see hereafter that these two points--the gradual growth\nof a myth or legend, and affiliation upon earlier local religious\nideas--are common features in the evolution of gods in general, and of\nthe God of monotheism in particular. In almost every case where we can\ndefinitely track him to his rise, the deity thus begins with a Deified\nMan, elevated by his worshippers to divine rank, and provided with a\nhistory of miraculous incident, often connected with the personality of\npreexistent deities.\n\nIn the earlier stages, it seems pretty clear that the relations of\nnascent Christianity to Judaism were vague and undefined: the Christians\nregarded themselves as a mere sect of the Jews, who paid special\nreverence to a particular dead teacher, now raised to heaven by a\nspecial apotheosis of a kind with which everyone was then familiar. But\nas the Christian church spread to other lands, by the great seaports, it\nbecame on the one hand more distinct and exclusive, while on the other\nhand it became more definitely dogmatic and theological. It was in\nEgypt, it would seem, that the Christian Pantheon (if I may be allowed\nthe expression in the case of a religion nominally monotheistic) first\ntook its definite Trinitarian shape. Under the influence of the old\nEgyptian love for Triads or Trinities of gods, a sort of mystical triune\ndeity was at last erected out of the Hebrew Jahweh and the man Jesus,\nwith the aid of the Holy Spirit or Wisdom of Jahweh, which had come\nto be regarded by early Christian minds (under the influence of direct\ndivine inspiration or otherwise) as a separate and coordinate person of\nthis composite godhead. How far the familiar Egyptian Trinity of Osiris,\nIsis, and Horus may have influenced the conception of the Christian\nTrinity, thus finally made up of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we shall\ndiscuss at a later stage of our enquiry; for the present, it may suffice\nto point out that the Gr\u00e6co-Egyptian Athanasius was the great upholder\nof the definite dogma of the Trinity against opposing (heretical)\nChristian thinkers; and {008}that the hymn or so-called creed known by\nhis name (though not in all probability of his own composition) bears\nthe impress of the mystical Egyptian spirit, tempered by the Alexandrian\nGreek delight in definiteness and minuteness of philosophical\ndistinction.\n\nIn this respect, too, we shall observe in the sequel that the history of\nChristianity, the most known among the religions, was exactly parallel\nto that of earlier and obscurer creeds. At first, the relations of the\ngods to one another are vague and undetermined; their pedigree is often\nconfused and even contradictory; and the pantheon lacks anything like\ndue hierarchical system or subordination of persons. But as time goes\non, and questions of theology or mythology are debated among the priests\nand other interested parties, details of this sort get settled in the\nform of rigid dogmas, while subtle distinctions of a philosophical or\nmetaphysical sort tend to be imported by more civilised men into the\ncrude primitive faith. The belief that began with frank acceptance of\nJudaism, plus a personal worship of the Deified Man, Jesus, crystallised\nat last into the Catholic Faith in one God, of three persons, the\nFather, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.\n\nQuibbles are even made, and discussions raised at last as to the\nquestion whether Father and Son are \u201cof one substance\u201d or only \u201cof\nlike substance\u201d; whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and\nthe Son, or from the Father only; and so on _ad infinitum_.\n\nIt was largely in other countries than Jud\u00e6a, and especially in Gaul,\nRome, and Egypt, too, as I believe, that symbolism came to the aid of\nmysticism: that the cross, the tau, the labarum, the fish, the Alpha\nand Omega, and all the other early Christian emblems were evolved and\nperfected; and that the beginnings of Christian art took their first\ndefinite forms. Such forms were especially to a great extent evolved\nin the Roman catacombs. Christianity, being a universal, not a local or\nnational, religion, has {009}adopted in its course many diverse elements\nfrom most varied sources.\n\nOriginally, it would seem, the Christian pantheon was almost exclusively\nfilled by the triune God, in his three developments or \u201cpersons,\u201d\nas thus rigorously conceived by the Alexandrian intelligence. But from\na very early time, if not from the first dawn of the Christian cult, it\nwas customary to reverence the remains of those who had suffered for the\nfaith, and perhaps even to invoke their aid with Christ and the Father.\nThe Roman branch of the church, especially, accustomed to the Roman\nancestor-worship and the Roman reverence for the Du Manes, had its\nchief places of prayer in the catacombs, where its dead were laid.\nThus arose the practice of the invocation of saints, at whose graves\nor relics prayers were offered, both to the supreme deity and to the\nfaithful dead themselves as intercessors with Christ and the Father. The\nearly Christians, accustomed in their heathen stage to pay respect\nand even worship to the spirits of their deceased friends, could not\nimmediately give up this pious custom after their conversion to the\nnew creed, and so grafted it on to their adopted religion. Thus the\nsubsidiary founders of Christianity, Paul, Peter, the Apostles, the\nEvangelists, the martyrs, the confessors, came to form, as it were, a\nsubsidiary pantheon, and to rank to some extent almost as an inferior\norder of deities.\n\nAmong the persons who thus shared in the honours of the new faith,\nthe mother of Jesus early assumed a peculiar prominence. Goddesses\nhad filled a very large part in the devotional spirit of the older\nreligions: it was but natural that the devotees of Isis and Pasht, of\nArtemis and Aphrodite, should look for some corresponding object of\nfeminine worship in the younger faith. The Theotokos, the mother of\nGod, the blessed Madonna, soon came to possess a practical importance\nin Christian worship scarcely inferior to that enjoyed by the persons of\nthe Trinity themselves--in certain southern countries, indeed, actually\nsuperior {010}to it. The Virgin and Child, in pictorial representation,\ngrew to be the favourite subject of Christian art. How far this\nparticular development of the Christian spirit had its origin in Egypt,\nand was related to the well-known Egyptian figures of the goddess\nIsis with the child Horus in her lap, is a question which may demand\nconsideration in some future treatise. For the present, it will be\nenough to call attention in passing to the fact that in this secondary\nrank of deities or semi-divine persons, the saints and martyrs, all\nalike, from the Blessed Virgin Mary down to the newest canonised among\nRoman Catholic prelates, were at one time or another Living Men and\nWomen. In other words, besides the one Deified Man, Jesus, round whom\nthe entire system of Christianity centres, the Church now worships also\nin the second degree a whole host of minor Dead Men and Women, bishops,\npriests, virgins, and confessors.\n\nFrom the earliest to the latest ages of the Church, the complexity thus\nlong ago introduced into her practice has gone on increasing with every\ngeneration. Nominally from the very outset a monotheistic religion,\nChristianity gave up its strict monotheism almost at the first start by\nadmitting the existence of three persons in the godhead, whom it vainly\nendeavoured to unify by its mystic but confessedly incomprehensible\nAthanasian dogma. The Madonna (with the Child) rose in time practically\nto the rank of an independent goddess (in all but esoteric Catholic\ntheory): while St. Sebastian, St. George, St. John Baptist, St.\nCatherine, and even St. Thomas of Canterbury himself, became as\nimportant objects of worship in certain places as the deity in person.\nAt Milan, for example, San Carlo Borromeo, at Compostella, Santiago, at\nVenice, St. Mark, usurped to a great extent the place of the original\nGod. As more and more saints died in each generation, while the cult of\nthe older saints still lingered on everywhere more or less locally,\nthe secondary pantheon grew ever fuller and fuller. Obscure personages,\n{011}like St. Crispin and St. Cosmas, St. Chad and St. Cuthbert rose\nto the rank of departmental or local patrons, like the departmental and\nlocal gods of earlier religions. Every trade, every guild, every nation,\nevery province, had its peculiar saint. And at the same time, the\ntheory of the Church underwent a constant evolution. Creed was added\nto creed--Apostles\u2019, Nicene, Athanasian, and so forth, each embodying\nsome new and often subtle increment to the whole mass of accepted dogma.\nCouncil after council made fresh additions of articles of faith--the\nUnity of Substance, the Doctrine of the Atonement, the Immaculate\nConception, the Authority of the Church, the Infallibility of the Pope\nin his spiritual capacity. And all these also are well-known incidents\nof every evolving cult: constant increase in the number of divine\nbeings; constant refinements in the articles of religion, under the\ninfluence of priestly or scholastic metaphysics.\n\nTwo or three other points must still be noted in this hasty review of\nthe evolution of Christianity, regarded as a standard of religion; and\nthese I will now proceed to consider with all possible brevity.\n\nIn the matter of ceremonial and certain other important accessories of\nreligion it must frankly be admitted that Christianity rather borrowed\nfrom the older cults than underwent a natural and original development\non its own account. A priesthood, as such, does not seem to have formed\nany integral or necessary part of the earliest Christendom: and when\nthe orders of bishops, priests, and deacons were introduced into the\nnew creed, the idea seems to have been derived rather from the existing\npriesthoods of anterior religions than from any organic connexion\nwith the central facts of the new worship. From the very nature of the\ncircumstances this would inevitably result. For the primitive temple\n(as we shall see hereafter) was the Dead Man\u2019s tomb; the altar was\nhis gravestone; and the priest was the relative or representative who\ncontinued for him the customary gifts to the ghost {012}at the grave.\nBut the case of Jesus differs from almost every other case on record of\na Deified Man in this--that his body seems to have disappeared at an\nearly date; and that, inasmuch as his resurrection and ascension into\nheaven were made the corner-stone of the new faith, it was impossible\nfor worship of his remains to take the same form as had been taken in\nthe instances of almost all previously deified Dead Persons. Thus, the\nmaterials out of which the Temple, the Altar, Sacrifices, Priesthood,\nare usually evolved (as we shall hereafter see) were here to a very\nlarge extent necessarily wanting.\n\nNevertheless, so essential to religion in the minds of its followers\nare all these imposing and wonted accessories that our cult did actually\nmanage to borrow them readymade from the great religions that went\nbefore it, and to bring them into some sort of artificial relation with\nits own system. You cannot revolutionize the human mind at one blow.\nThe pagans had been accustomed to all these ideas as integral parts\nof religion as they understood it: and they proceeded as Christians\nto accommodate them by side-issues to the new faith, in which these\nelements had no such natural place as in the older creeds. Not only did\nsacred places arise at the graves or places of martyrdom of the saints;\nnot only was worship performed beside the bones of the holy dead, in the\ncatacombs and elsewhere; but even a mode of sacrifice and of sacrificial\ncommunion was invented in the mass,--a somewhat artificial development\nfrom the possibly unsacerdotal Agape-feasts of the primitive Christians.\nGradually, churches gathered around the relics of the martyr saints: and\nin time it became a principle of usage that every church must contain\nan altar--made of stones on the analogy of the old sacred stones;\ncontaining the bones or other relics of a saint, like all earlier\nshrines; consecrated by the pouring on of oil after the antique fashion;\nand devoted to the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass,\nwhich became by degrees more and more expiatory and sacerdotal in\n{013}character. As the saints increased in importance, new holy places\nsprang up around their bodies; and some of these holy places, containing\ntheir tombs, became centres of pilgrimage for the most distant parts of\nChristendom; as did also in particular the empty tomb of Christ himself,\nthe Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.\n\nThe growth of the priesthood kept pace with the growth of ceremonial in\ngeneral, till at last it culminated in the mediaeval papacy, with its\nhierarchy of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and other\nendless functionaries. Vestments, incense, and like accompaniments of\nsacerdotalism also rapidly gained ground. All this, too, is a common\ntrait of higher religious evolution everywhere. So likewise are fasting,\nvigils, and the ecstatic condition. But asceticism, monasticism,\ncelibacy, and other forms of morbid abstinence are peculiarly rife in\nthe east, and found their highest expression in the life of the Syrian\nand Egyptian hermits.\n\nLastly, a few words must be devoted in passing to the rise and\ndevelopment of the Sacred Books, now excessively venerated in\nNorth-western Christendom. These consisted in the first instance\nof genuine or spurious letters of the apostles to the various local\nchurches (the so-called Epistles), some of which would no doubt be\npreserved with considerable reverence; and later of lives or legends of\nJesus and his immediate successors (the so-called Gospels and the Acts\nof the Apostles). Furthermore, as Christianity adopted from Judaism\nthe cult of its one supreme divine figure, now no longer envisaged\nas Jahweh, the national deity of the Hebrews, but as a universal\ncosmopolitan God and Father, it followed naturally that the sacred books\nof the Jewish people, the literature of Jahweh-worship, should also\nreceive considerable attention at the hands of the new priesthood. By a\ngradual process of selection and elimination, the canon of scripture\nwas evolved from these heterogeneous materials: the historical or\nquasi-historical and prophetic Hebrew {014}tracts were adopted by the\nChurch, with a few additions of later date, such as the Book of Daniel,\nunder the style and title of the Old Testament. The more generally\naccepted lives of Christ, again, known as Evangels or Gospels; the Acts\nof the Apostles; the epistles to the churches; and that curious mystical\nallegory of the Neronian persecution known as the Apocalypse, were\nchosen out of the mass of early Christian literature to form the\nauthoritative collection of inspired writing which we call the New\nTestament. The importance of this heterogeneous anthology of works\nbelonging to all ages and systems, but confounded together in popular\nfancy under the name of the Books, or more recently still as a singular\nnoun, the Bible, grew apace with the growth of the Church: though the\nextreme and superstitions adoration of their mere verbal contents has\nonly been reached in the debased and reactionary forms of Christianity\nfollowed at the present day by our half-educated English and American\nProtestant dissenters.\n\nFrom this very brief review of the most essential factors in the\ndevelopment of the Christian religion as a system, strung loosely\ntogether with a single eye to the requirements of our present\ninvestigation, it will be obvious at once to every intelligent reader\nthat Christianity cannot possibly throw for us any direct or immediate\nlight on the problem of the evolution of the idea of God. Not only\ndid the concept of a god and gods exist full-fledged long before\nChristianity took its rise at all, but also the purely monotheistic\nconception of a single supreme God, the creator and upholder of all\nthings, had been reached in all its sublime simplicity by the Jewish\nteachers centuries before the birth of the man Jesus. Christianity\nborrowed from Judaism this magnificent concept, and, humanly speaking,\nproceeded to spoil it by its addition of the Son and the Holy Ghost, who\nmar the complete unity of the grand Hebrew ideal. Even outside Judaism,\nthe selfsame notion had already been arrived at in a certain mystical\n{015}form as the \u201cesoteric doctrine\u201d of the Egyptian priesthood;\nfrom whom, with their peculiar views as to emanations and Triads, the\nChristian dogmas of the Trinity, the Logos, the Incarnation, and the\nHoly Ghost were in large part borrowed. The Jews of Alexandria, that\neastern London, formed the connecting link between Egyptian\nheathenism, Hellenic philosophy, and early Christianity; and their\nhalf-philosophical, half-religious ideas may be found permeating the\nfirst writings and the first systematic thought of the nascent church.\nIn none of these ways, therefore, can we regard Christianity as\naffording us any direct or immediate guidance in our search for the\norigin and evolution of the concepts of many gods, and of one God the\ncreator.\n\nStill, in a certain secondary and illustrative sense, I think we are\nfully justified in saying that the history of Christianity, the religion\nwhose beginnings are most surely known to us, forms a standard of\nreference for all the other religions of the world, and helps us\nindirectly to understand and explain the origin and evolution of these\ndeepest among our fundamental spiritual conceptions.\n\nIts value in this respect may best be understood if I point out briefly\nin two contrasted statements the points in which it may and the points\nin which it may not be fairly accepted as a typical religion.\n\nLet us begin first with the points in which it may.\n\nIn the first place, Christianity is thoroughly typical in the fact that\nbeyond all doubt its most central divine figure was at first, by common\nconsent of orthodox and heterodox alike, nothing other than a particular\nDeified Man. All else that has been asserted about this particular\nMan--that he was the Son of God, that he was the incarnation of the\nLogos, that he existed previously from all eternity, that he sits now on\nthe right hand of the Father--all the rest of these theological stories\ndo nothing in any way to obscure the plain and universally admitted\nhistorical fact that this Divine Person, the Very God of Very God, being\nof one {016}substance with the Father, begotten of the Father before all\nworlds, was yet, at the moment when we first catch a glimpse of him\nin the writings of his followers, a Man recently deceased, respected,\nreverenced, and perhaps worshipped by a little group of fellow-peasants\nwho had once known him as Jesus, the son of the carpenter. On that\nunassailable Rock of solid historical fact we may well be content to\nfound our argument in this volume. Here at least nobody can accuse us\nof \u201ccrude and gross Euhemerism.\u201d Or rather the crude and gross\nEuhemerism is here known to represent the solid truth. Jesus and his\nsaints--Dominic, Francis, Catherine of Siena--are no mere verbal myths,\nno allegorical concepts, no personifications of the Sun, the Dawn, the\nStorm-cloud. Leaving aside for the present from our purview of the Faith\nthat one element of the older supreme God--the Hebrew Jahweh,--whom\nChristianity borrowed from the earlier Jewish religion, we can say at\nleast with perfect certainty that every single member of the Christian\npantheon--Jesus, the Madonna, St. John Baptist, St. Peter, the Apostles,\nthe Evangelists--were, just as much as San Carlo Borromeo or St. Thomas\nof Canterbury or St. Theresa, Dead Men or Women, worshipped after their\ndeath with divine or quasi-divine honours. In this the best-known of\nall human religions, the one that has grown up under the full eye of\nhistory, the one whose gods and saints are most distinctly traceable,\nevery object of worship, save only the single early and as yet\nunresolved deity of the Hebrew cult, whose origin is lost for us in the\nmist of ages, turns out on enquiry to be indeed a purely Euhemeristic\ngod or saint,--in ultimate analysis, a Real Man or Woman.\n\nThat point alone I hold to be of cardinal importance, and of immense or\nalmost inestimable illustrative value, in seeking for the origin of the\nidea of a god in earlier epochs.\n\nIn the second place, Christianity is thoroughly typical in all that\nconcerns its subsequent course of evolution; the gradual {017}elevation\nof its central Venerated Man into a God of the highest might and\npower; the multiplication of secondary deities or saints by worship or\nadoration of other Dead Men and Women; the growth of a graduated and\nduly subordinated hierarchy of divine personages; the rise of a legend,\nwith its miracles and other supernatural adjuncts; the formation of a\ndefinite theology, philosophy, and systematic dogmatism; the development\nof special artistic forms, and the growth or adoption of appropriate\nsymbolism; the production of sacred books, rituals, and formularies;\nthe rise of ceremonies, mysteries, initiations, and sacraments; the\nreverence paid to relics, sacred sites, tombs, and dead bodies; and the\nclose connexion of the religion as a whole with the ideas of death,\nthe soul, the ghost, the spirit, the resurrection of the body, the last\njudgment, hell, heaven, the life everlasting, and all the other vast\ngroup of concepts which surround the simple fact of death in the\nprimitive human mind generally.\n\nNow, in the second place, let us look wherein Christianity to a certain\nsmall extent fails to be typical, or at least to solve our fundamental\nproblems.\n\nIt fails to be typical because it borrows largely a whole ready-made\ntheology, and above all a single supreme God, from a pre-existent\nreligion. In so far as it takes certain minor features from other cults,\nwe can hardly say with truth that it does not represent the average run\nof religious systems; for almost every particular new creed so bases\nitself upon elements of still earlier faiths; and it is perhaps\nimpossible for us at the present day to get back to anything like a\nreally primitive or original form of cult. But Christianity is very far\nremoved indeed from all primitive cults in that it accepts ready-made\nthe monotheistic conception, the high-water-mark, so to speak, of\nreligious philosophising. While in the frankness with which it exhibits\nto us what is practically one half of its supreme deity as a Galilean\npeasant of undoubted humanity, subsequently deified and etherealised,\nit allows us to get down at a single {018}step to the very origin of\ngodhead; yet in the strength with which it asserts for the other half\nof its supreme deity (the Father, with his shadowy satellite the Holy\nGhost) an immemorial antiquity and a complete severance from human life,\nit is the least anthropomorphic and the most abstract of creeds. In\norder to track the idea of God to its very source, then, we must apply\nin the last resort to this unresolved element of Christianity--the\nHebrew Jahweh--the same sort of treatment which we apply to the\nconception of Jesus or Buddha;--we must show it to be also the\nimmensely transfigured and magnified ghost of a Human Being; in the\nsimple and forcible language of Swinburne, \u201cThe shade cast by the soul\nof man.\u201d\n\nFurthermore, Christianity fails to be typical in that it borrows also\nfrom pre-existing religions to a great extent the ideas of priesthood,\nsacrifice, the temple, the altar, which, owing to the curious\ndisappearance or at least un-recognisability of the body of its founder\n(or, rather, its central object of worship), have a less natural place\nin our Christian system than in any other known form of religious\npractice. It is quite true that magnificent churches, a highly-evolved\nsacerdotalism, the sacrifice of the mass, the altar, and the\nrelics, have all been imported in their fullest shape into developed\nChristianity, especially in its central or Roman form. But every one\nof these things is partly borrowed, almost as a survival or even as\nan alien feature, from earlier religions, and partly grew up about the\nsecondary worship of saints and martyrs, their bones, their tombs, their\ncatacombs, and their reliquaries. Christianity itself, particularly when\nviewed as the worship of Christ (to which it has been largely reduced in\nTeutonic Europe), does not so naturally lend itself to these secondary\nceremonies; and in those debased schismatic forms of the Church which\nconfine themselves most strictly to the worship of Jesus and of the\nsupreme God, sacerdotalism and sacramentalism have been brought down to\na minimum, {019}so that the temple and the altar have lost the greater\npart of their sacrificial importance.\n\nI propose, then, in subsequent chapters, to trace the growth of the\nidea of a God from the most primitive origins to the most highly evolved\nforms; beginning with the ghost, and the early undeveloped deity:\ncontinuing through polytheism to the rise of monotheism; and then\nreturning at last once more to the full Christian conception, which we\nshall understand far better in detail after we have explained the nature\nof the yet unresolved or but provisionally resolved Jehovistic element.\nI shall try to show, in short, the evolution of God, by starting with\nthe evolution of gods in general, and coming down by gradual stages\nthrough various races to the evolution of the Hebrew, Christian, and\nMoslem God in particular. ‘And the goal towards which I shall move will\nbe the one already foreshadowed in this introductory chapter,--the proof\nthat in its origin the concept of a god is nothing more than that of\na Dead Man, regarded as a still surviving ghost or spirit, and endowed\nwith increased or supernatural powers, and qualities.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.--RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY.\n\n|At {020}the very outset of the profound enquiry on which we are now\nabout to embark, we are met by a difficulty of considerable magnitude.\nIn the opinion of most modern mythologists mythology is the result of\n\u201ca disease of language.\u201d We are assured by many eminent men that the\norigin of religion is to be sought, not in savage ideas about ghosts\nand spirits, the Dead Man and his body or his surviving double, but in\nprimitive misconceptions of the meaning of words which had reference\nto the appearance of the Sun and the Clouds, the Wind and the Rain, the\nDawn and the Dusk, the various phenomena of meteorology in general. If\nthis be so, then our attempt to derive the evolution of gods from the\ncrude ideas of early men about their dead is clearly incorrect; the\nanalogy of Christianity which we have already alleged is a mere will\no\u2019 the wisp; and the historical Jesus himself may prove in the\nlast resort to be an alias of the sun-god or an embodiment of the\nvine-spirit.\n\nI do not believe these suggestions are correct. It seems to me that\nthe worship of the sun, moon, and stars, instead of being an element in\nprimitive religion, is really a late and derivative type of adoration;\nand that mythology is mistaken in the claims it makes for its own\nimportance in the genesis of the idea of a God or gods. In order,\nhowever, to clear the ground for a fair start in this direction, we\nought, I think, to begin by enquiring into the relative positions of\nmythology and religion. I shall therefore {021}devote a preliminary\nchapter to the consideration of this important subject.\n\nReligion, says another group of modern thinkers, of whom Mr. Edward\nClodd is perhaps the most able English exponent, \u201cgrew out of fear.\u201d\nIt is born of man\u2019s terror of the great and mysterious natural agencies\nby which he is surrounded. Now I am not concerned to deny that many\nmythological beings of various terrible forms do really so originate. I\nwould readily accept some such vague genesis for many of the dragons and\nmonsters which abound in all savage or barbaric imaginings--for\nGorgons and Hydras and Chim\u00e6ras dire, and other manifold shapes of the\nsuperstitiously appalling. I would give up to Mr. Clodd the Etruscan\ndevils and the Hebrew Satan, the Grendels and the Fire-drakes, the\nwhole brood of Cerberus, Briareus, the Cyclops, the Centaurs. None of\nthese, however, is a god or anything like one. They have no more to do\nwith religion, properly so called, than the unicorn of the royal arms\nhas to do with British Christianity. A god, as I understand the\nword, and as the vast mass of mankind has always understood it, is\na supernatural being to be revered and worshipped. He stands to his\nvotaries, on the whole, as Dr. Robertson Smith has well pointed out, in\na kindly and protecting relation. He may be angry with them at times, to\nbe sure; but his anger is temporary and paternal alone: his permanent\nattitude towards his people is one of friendly concern; he is worshipped\nas a beneficent and generous Father. It is the origin of gods in this\nstrictest sense that concerns us here, not the origin of those vague\nand formless creatures which are dreaded, not worshipped, by primitive\nhumanity.\n\nBearing this distinction carefully in mind, let us proceed to consider\nthe essentials of religion. If you were to ask almost any intelligent\nand unsophisticated child, \u201cWhat is religion?\u201d he would answer\noffhand, with the clear vision of youth, \u201cOh, it\u2019s saying your\nprayers, and heading your Bible, and singing hymns, and going to church\n{022}or to chapel on Sundays.\u201d If you were to ask any intelligent\nand unsophisticated Hindu peasant the same question, he would answer in\nalmost the self-same spirit, \u201cOh, it is doing poojah regularly,\nand paying your dues every day to Mahadeo.\u201d If you were to ask any\nsimple-minded African savage, he would similarly reply, \u201cIt is giving\nthe gods flour, and oil, and native beer, and goat-mutton,\u201d And\nfinally if you were to ask a devout Italian contadino, he would\ninstantly say, \u201cIt is offering up candles and prayers to the Madonna,\nattending mass, and remembering the saints on every festa.\u201d\n\nAnd they would all be quite right. This, in its essence, is precisely\nwhat we call religion. Apart from the special refinements of the\nhigher minds in particular creeds, which strive to import into it all,\naccording to their special tastes or fancies, a larger or smaller dose\nof philosophy, or of metaphysics, or of ethics, or of mysticism, this\nis just what religion means and has always meant to the vast majority\nof the human species. What is common to it throughout is Custom\nor Practice: a certain set of more or less similar Observances:\npropitiation, prayer, praise, offerings: the request for divine favours,\nthe deprecation of divine anger or other misfortunes: and as the outward\nand visible adjuncts of all these, the altar, the sacrifice, the temple,\nthe church; priesthood, services, vestments, ceremonial.\n\nWhat is not at all essential to religion in its wider aspect--taking\nthe world round, both past and present, Pagan, Buddhist, Mohammadan,\nChristian, savage, and civilised--is the ethical element, properly so\ncalled. And what is very little essential indeed is the philosophical\nelement, theology or mythology, the abstract theory of spiritual\nexistences. This theory, to be sure, is in each country or race closely\nrelated with religion under certain aspects; and the stories told about\nthe gods or God are much mixed up with the cult itself in the minds\nof worshippers; but they are no proper part of religion, strictly\nso called. In a single word, I contend that religion, as such,\nis essentially {023}practical: theology or mythology, as such, is\nessentially theoretical.\n\nMoreover, I also believe, and shall attempt to show, that the two have\nto a large extent distinct origins and roots: that the union between\nthem is in great part adventitious: and that, therefore, to account\nfor or explain the one is by no means equivalent to accounting for and\nexplaining the other.\n\nFrank recognition of this difference of origin between religion and\nmythology would, I imagine, largely reconcile the two conflicting\nschools of thought which at present divide opinion between them on this\ninteresting problem in the evolution of human ideas. On the one side,\nwe have the mythological school of interpreters, whether narrowly\nlinguistic, like Professor Max M\u00fcller, or broadly anthropological, like\nMr. Andrew Lang, attacking the problem from the point of view of myth or\ntheory alone. On the other side, we have the truly religious school of\ninterpreters, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, and to some extent Mr. Tylor,\nattacking the problem from the point of view of practice or real\nreligion. The former school, it seems to me, has failed to perceive\nthat what it is accounting for is not the origin of religion at all--of\nworship, which is the central-root idea of all religious observance, or\nof the temple, the altar, the priest, and the offering, which are its\nouter expression--but merely the origin of myth or fable, the mass\nof story and legend about various beings, real or imaginary, human\nor divine, which naturally grows up in every primitive community. The\nlatter school, on the other hand, while correctly interpreting the\norigin of all that is essential and central in religion, have perhaps\nunderestimated the value of their opponents’ work through regarding it\nas really opposed to their own, instead of accepting what part of it\nmay be true in the light of a contribution to an independent but allied\nbranch of the same enquiry.\n\nIn short, if the view here suggested be correct, Spencer and {024}Tylor\nhave paved the way to a true theory of the Origin of Religion; Max\nM\u00fcller, Lang, and the other mythologists have thrown out hints of\nvarying value towards a true theory of the Origin of Mythology, or of\nits more modern equivalent and successor, Theology.\n\nA brief outline of facts will serve to bring into clearer relief\nthis view of religion as essentially practical--a set of observances,\nrendered inevitable by the primitive data of human psychology. It will\nthen be seen that what is fundamental and essential in religion is the\nbody of practices, remaining throughout all stages of human development\nthe same, or nearly the same, in spite of changes of mythological or\ntheological theory; and that what is accidental and variable is the\nparticular verbal explanation or philosophical reason assigned for the\ndiverse rites and ceremonies.\n\nIn its simplest surviving savage type, religion consists wholly and\nsolely in certain acts of deference paid by the living to the persons of\nthe dead. I shall try to show in the sequel that down to its most highly\nevolved modern type in the most cultivated societies, precisely similar\nacts of deference, either directly to corpses or ghosts as such, or\nindirectly to gods who were once ghosts, or were developed from ghosts,\nform its essence still. But to begin with I will try to bring a few\nsimple instances of the precise nature of religion in its lowest\nexisting savage mode.\n\nI might if I chose take my little collection of illustrative facts from\nsome theoretical writer, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has collected\nenough instances in all conscience to prove this point; but I prefer\nto go straight to an original observer of savage life and habit, a\nPresbyterian missionary in Central Africa--the Rev. Duff Macdonald,\nauthor of _Africana_--who had abundant opportunities at the Blantyre\nMission for learning the ideas and practice of the Soudanese natives,\nand who certainly had no theoretic predisposition towards resolving all\nreligious notions into {025}the primitive respect and reverence for the\ndead or the worship of ancestors.\n\nHere, in outline, but in Mr. Macdonald\u2019s own words, are the ideas and\nobservances which this careful and accurate investigator found current\namong the tribes of the heart of Africa. \u201cI do not think,\u201d he says,\n\u201cI have admitted any point of importance without having heard at least\nfour natives on the subject. The statements are translations, as far as\npossible, from the _ipsissima verba_ of the negroes.\u201d\n\nThe tribes he lived among \u201care unanimous in saying that there is\nsomething beyond the body which they call spirit. Every human body at\ndeath is forsaken by this spirit.\u201d That is the almost universal though\nnot quite primitive belief, whose necessary genesis has been well traced\nout by Mr. Herbert Spencer, and more recently in America with great\nvigour and clearness by Mr. Lester Ward.\n\n\u201cDo these spirits ever die?\u201d Mr. Macdonald asks. \u201cSome,\u201d he\nanswers, \u201cI have heard affirm that it is possible for a troublesome\nspirit to be killed. Others give this a direct denial. Many, like\nKumpama, or Cherasulo, say, \u2018You ask me whether a man\u2019s spirit ever\ndies. I cannot tell. I have never been in the spirit-world, but this I\nam certain of, that spirits live for a very long time.\u2019\u201d\n\nOn the question, \u201cWho the gods are?\u201d Mr. Macdonald says: \u201cIn\nall our translations of Scripture where we found the word God we used\n_Mulungu_; but this word is chiefly used by the natives as a general\nname for spirit. The spirit of a deceased man is called his Mulungu,\nand all the prayers and offerings of the living are presented to such\nspirits of the dead. It is here that we find the great centre of the\nnative religion. The spirits of the dead are the gods of the living.\n\n\u201cWhere are these gods found? At the grave? No. The villagers shrink\nfrom yonder gloomy place that lies far beyond their fields on the bleak\nmountain side. It is only {026}when they have to lay another sleeper\nbeside his forefathers that they will go there. Their god is not the\nbody in the grave, but the spirit, and they seek this spirit at the\nplace where their departed kinsman last lived among them. It is the\ngreat tree at the verandah of the dead man\u2019s house that is their\ntemple; and if no tree grow here they erect a little shade, and\nthere perform their simple rites. If this spot become too public,\nthe offerings may be defiled, and the sanctuary will be removed to a\ncarefully-selected spot under some beautiful tree. Very frequently a\nman presents an offering at the top of his own bed beside his head. He\nwishes his god to come to him and whisper in his ear as he sleeps.\u201d\n\nAnd here, again, we get the origin of nature-worship:\n\n\u201cThe spirit of an old chief may have a whole mountain for his\nresidence, but he dwells chiefly on the cloudy summit. There he sits\nto receive the worship of his votaries, and to send down the refreshing\nshowers in answer to their prayers.\u201d\n\nAlmost as essential to religion as these prime factors in its\nevolution--the god, worship, offerings, presents, holy places,\ntemples--is the existence of a priesthood. Here is how the Central\nAfricans arrive at that special function:\n\n\u201cA certain amount of etiquette is observed in approaching the gods.\nIn no case can a little boy or girl approach these deities, neither can\nanyone that has not been at the mysteries. The common qualification\nis that a person has attained a certain age, about twelve or fourteen\nyears, and has a house of his own. Slaves seldom pray, except when they\nhave had a dream. Children that have had a dream tell their mother,\nwho approaches the deity on their behalf. (A present for the god is\nnecessary, and the slave or child may not have it.)\n\n\u201cApart from the case of dreams and a few such private matters, it\nis not usual for anyone to approach the gods except the chief, of the\nvillage. He is the recognised high priest {027}who presents prayers and\nofferings on behalf of all that live in his village. If the chief\nis from home his wife will act, and if both are absent, his younger\nbrother. The natives worship not so much individually as in villages or\ncommunities. Their religion is more a public than a private matter.\u201d\n\nBut there are also further reasons why priests are necessary.\nRelationship forms always a good ground for intercession. A mediator is\nneeded.\n\n\u201cThe chief of a village,\u201d says Mr. Macdonald, \u201chas another title\nto the priesthood. It is his relatives that are the village gods.\nEveryone that lives in the village recognises these gods; but if anyone\nremove to another village he changes his gods. He recognises now the\ngods of his new chief. One wishing to pray to the god (or gods) of any\nvillage naturally desires to have his prayers presented through the\nvillage chief, because the latter is nearly related to the village god,\nand may be expected to be better listened to than a stranger.\u201d\n\nA little further on Mr. Macdonald says: \u201cOn the subject of the village\ngods opinions differ. Some say that every one in the village, whether a\nrelative of the chief or not, must worship the forefathers of the chief.\nOthers say that a person not related to the chief must worship his own\nforefathers, otherwise their spirits will bring trouble upon him. To\nreconcile these authorities we may mention that nearly everyone in the\nvillage is related to its chief, or if not related is, in courtesy,\nconsidered so. Any person not related to the village chief would be\npolite enough on all public occasions to recognise the village god:\non occasions of private prayer (which are not so numerous as in\nChristendom) he would approach the spirits of his own forefathers.\nBesides, there might be a god of the land. The chief Kapeni prays to his\nown relatives, and also to the old gods of the place. His own relatives\nhe approaches himself; the other deities he may also approach himself,\nbut he often {028}finds people more closely related and consequently\nmore acceptable to the old gods of the land.\u201d\n\nThe African pantheon is thus widely peopled. Elimination and natural\nselection next give one the transition from the ghost to the god,\nproperly so called.\n\n\u201cThe gods of the natives then are nearly as numerous as their dead. It\nis impossible to worship all; a selection must be made, and, as we have\nindicated, each worshipper turns most naturally to the spirits of his\nown departed relatives; but his gods are too many still, and in farther\nselecting he turns to those that have lived nearest his own time.\nThus the chief of a village will not trouble himself about his\ngreat-great-grandfather: he will present his offering to his own\nimmediate predecessor, and say, \u2018O father, I do not know all your\nrelatives, you know them all, invite them to feast with you.’ The\noffering is not simply for himself, but for himself and all his\nrelatives.\u201d\n\nOrdinary ghosts are soon forgotten with the generation that knew them.\nNot so a few select spirits, the C\u00e6sars and Napoleons, the Charlemagnes\nand Timurs of savage empires.\n\n\u201cA great chief that has been successful in his wars does not pass out\nof memory so soon. He may become the god of a mountain or a lake, and\nmay receive homage as a local deity long after his own descendants have\nbeen driven from the spot. When there is a supplication for rain the\ninhabitants of the country pray not so much to their own forefathers as\nto the god of yonder mountain on whose shoulders the great rain-clouds\nrepose. (Smaller hills are seldom honoured with a deity.)\u201d\n\nWell, in all this we get, it seems to me, the very essentials and\nuniversals of religion generally,--the things without which no religion\ncould exist--the vital part, without the ever-varying and changeable\nadditions of mere gossiping mythology. In the presents brought to the\ndead man\u2019s grave to appease the ghost, we have the central element of\nall worship, the practical key of all cults, past or present.\n\nOn {029}the other hand, mythologists tell us nothing about the origin of\nprayer and sacrifice: they put us off with stories of particular gods,\nwithout explaining to us how those gods ever came to be worshipped. Now,\nmythology is a very interesting study in its own way: but to treat as\nreligion a mass of stories and legends about gods or saints, with hardly\na single living element of practice or sacrifice, seems to me simply to\nconfuse two totally distinct branches of human enquiry. The Origin of\nTales has nothing at all to do with the Origin of Worship.\n\nWhen we come to read Mr. Macdonald\u2019s account of a native funeral,\non the other hand, we are at once on a totally different tack; we can\nunderstand, as by an electric flash, the genesis of the primitive acts\nof sacrifice and religion.\n\n\u201cAlong with the deceased is buried a considerable part of his\nproperty. We have already seen that his bed is buried with him; so also\nare all his clothes. If he possesses several tusks of ivory, one tusk or\nmore is ground to a powder between two stones and put beside him. Beads\nare also ground down in the same way. These precautions are taken to\nprevent the witch (who is supposed to be answerable for his death) from\nmaking any use of the ivory or beads.\n\n\u201cIf the deceased owned several slaves, an enormous hole is dug for a\ngrave. The slaves are now brought forward. They may be either cast into\nthe pit alive, or the undertakers may cut all their throats. The body of\ntheir master or their mistress is then laid down to rest above theirs,\nand the grave is covered in.\n\n\u201cAfter this the women come forward with the offerings of food, and\nplace them at the head of the grave. The dishes in which the food was\nbrought are left behind. The pot that held the drinking-water of the\ndeceased and his drinking-cup are also left with him. These, too, might\nbe coveted by the witch, but a hole is pierced in the pot, and the\ndrinking calabash is broken.\n\n\u201cThe {030}man has now gone from the society of the living, and he is\nexpected to share the meal thus left at his grave with those that have\ngone before him. The funeral party breaks up; they do not want to visit\nthe grave of their friend again without a very good reason. Anyone found\namong the graves may be taken for a cannibal. Their friend has become\na citizen of a different village. He is with all his relatives of the\npast. He is entitled to offerings or presents which may come to him\nindividually or through his chief. These offerings in most cases he will\nshare with others, just as he used to do when alive,\u201d Sometimes the\nman may be buried in his own hut.\n\n\u201cIn this case the house is not taken down, but is generally covered\nwith cloth, and the verandah becomes the place for presenting offerings.\nHis old house thus becomes a kind of temple.... The deceased is now in\nthe spirit-world, and receives offerings and adoration. He is addressed\nas ‘Our great spirit that has gone before.\u2019 If anyone dream of him. it\nis at once concluded that the spirit is ‘up to something.\u2019 Very likely\nhe wants to have some of the survivors for his companions. The dreamer\nhastens to appease the spirit by an offering.\u201d\n\nSo real is this society of the dead that Mr. Macdonald says: \u201cThe\npractice of sending messengers to the world beyond the grave is found on\nthe West Coast. A chief summons a slave, delivers to him a message, and\nthen cuts off his head. If the chief forget anything that he wanted to\nsay, he sends another slave as a postscript.\u201d\n\nI have quoted at such length from this recent and extremely able work\nbecause I want to bring into strong relief the fact that we have here\ngoing on under our very eyes, from day to day, _de novo_, the entire\ngenesis of new gods and goddesses, and of all that is most central\nand essential to religion--worship, prayer, the temple, the altar,\npriesthood, sacrifice. Nothing that the mythologists can tell us about\nthe Sun or the Moon, the Dawn or the Stormcloud, {031}Little Red Riding\nHood or Cinderella and the Glass Slipper, comes anywhere near the Origin\nof Religion in these its central and universal elements. Those stories\nor guesses may be of immense interest and importance as contributions\nto the history of ideas in our race; but nothing we can learn about the\nsavage survival in the myth of Cupid or Psyche, or about the primitive\ncosmology in the myth of the children of Kronos, helps us to get one\ninch nearer the origin of God or of prayer, of worship, of religious\nceremonial, of the temple, the church, the sacrifice, the mass, or any\nother component part of what we really know as Religion in the concrete.\nThese myths may be sometimes philosophic guesses, sometimes primitive\nfolk-tales, but they certainly are not the truths of Religion. On the\nother hand, the living facts, here so simply detailed by a careful,\naccurate, and unassuming observer, strengthened by the hundreds of\nsimilar facts collected by Tylor, Spencer, and others, do help us at\nonce to understand the origin of the central core and kernel of religion\nas universally practised all the world over.\n\nFor, omitting for the present the mythological and cosmological\nfactor, which so often comes in to obscure the plain religious facts\nin missionary narrative or highly-coloured European accounts of\nnative beliefs, what do we really find as the underlying truths of all\nreligion? That all the world over practices essentially similar to those\nof these savage Central Africans prevail among mankind; practices whose\naffiliation upon the same primitive ideas has been abundantly proved\nby Mr. Herbert Spencer; practices which have for their essence the\npropitiation or adulation of a spiritual being or beings, derived from\nghosts, and conceived of as similar, in all except the greatness of\nthe connoted attributes, to the souls of men. \u201cWhenever the [Indian]\nvillagers are questioned about their creed,\u201d says Sir William Hunter,\n\u201cthe same answer is invariably given: \u2018The common people have no\nidea of religion, {032}but to do right [ceremonially] and to worship the\nvillage god.\u201d\n\nIn short, I maintain that religion is not mainly, as the mistaken\nanalogy of Christian usage makes us erroneously call it, Faith or Creed,\nbut simply and solely Ceremony, Custom, or Practice. And I am glad to\nsay that, for early Semitic times at least, Professor Robertson Smith is\nof the same opinion.\n\nIf one looks at the vast mass of the world, ancient and modern, it\nis quite clear that religion consists, and has always consisted, of\nobservances essentially similar to those just described among the\nCentral African tribes. Its core is worship. Its centre is the God--that\nis to say, the Dead Ancestor or Relative. The religion of China is\nto this day almost entirely one of pure ancestor-cult. The making of\nofferings and burning of joss-paper before the Family Dead form its\nprincipal ceremonies. In India, while the three great gods of the\nmystical Brahmanist philosophy are hardly worshipped in actual practice\nat all, every community and every house has its own particular gods and\nits own special cult of its little domestic altar.\n\n\u201cThe first Englishman,\u201d says Sir William Hunter, \u201cwho tried\nto study the natives as they actually are, and not as the Brahmans\ndescribed them, was struck by the universal prevalence of a worship\nquite distinct from that of the Hindu deities. A Bengal village has\nusually its local god, which it adores either in the form of a rude\nunhewn stone, or a stump, or a tree marked with red-lead. Sometimes\na lump of clay placed under a tree does duty for a deity, and the\nattendant priest, when there is one, generally belongs to one of the\nhalf-Hinduised low-castes. The rude stone represents the non-Aryan\nfetish; and the tree seems to owe its sanctity to the non-Aryan belief\nthat it forms the abode of the ghosts, or gods, of the village.\u201d\n\nOmitting the mere guesswork about the fetish and the gratuitous\nsupposition, made out of deference to the dying creed of Max-M\u00fcllerism,\nthat ancestor-worship must necessarily {033}be a \u201cnon-Aryan\u201d feature\n(though it exists or existed in all so-called Aryan races), this simple\ndescription shows us the prevalence over the whole of India of customs\nessentially similar to those which obtain in Central Africa and in the\nChinese provinces.\n\nThe Roman religion, in somewhat the same way, separates itself at once\ninto a civic or national and a private or family cult. There were the\ngreat gods, native or adopted, whom the State worshipped publicly, as\nthe Central African tribes worship the chiefs ancestors; and there were\nthe Lares and Penates, whom the family worshipped at its own hearth, and\nwhose very name shows them to have been in origin and essence ancestral\nspirits. And as the real or practical Hindu religion consists mainly\nof offering up rice, millet, and ghee to the little local and family\ndeities or to the chosen patron god in the Brahmanist pantheon, so,\ntoo, the real or practical Roman religion consisted mainly of sacrifice\ndone at the domestic altar to the special Penates, _farre pio et\nsaliente mica_.\n\nI will not go on to point out in detail at the present stage of our\nargument how Professor Sayce similarly finds ancestor-worship and\nShamanism (a low form of ghost-propitiation) at the root of the religion\nof the ancient Ac-cadians; how other observers have performed the same\ntask for the Egyptians and Japanese; and how like customs have been\ntraced among Greeks and Amazulu, among Hebrews and Nicaraguans, among\nearly English and Digger Indians, among our Aryan ancestors themselves\nand Andaman Islanders. Every recent narrative of travel abounds with\nexamples. Of Netherland Island I read, \u201cThe skulls of their ancestors\nwere treasured for gods of the New Hebrides, \u201cThe people worshipped\nthe spirits of their ancestors. They prayed to them, over the kava-bowl,\nfor health and prosperity.\u201d In New Caledonia, \u201cTheir gods were their\nancestors, whose relics they kept up and idolised.\u201d At Tana, \u201cThe\ngeneral name for gods seemed to be _aremha_; that means a _dead man_,\nand hints,\u201d {034}says the Rev. George Turner, with pleasing frankness,\n\u201calike at the origin and nature of their religious worship.\u201d When\nthe chief prayed, he offered up yam and fruits, saying, \u201cCompassionate\nfather, here is some food for you; eat it. Be kind to us on account of\nit.\u201d Those who wish to see the whole of the evidence on this matter\nmarshalled in battle array have only to turn to the first volume of\nMr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s _Principles of Sociology_, where they will find\nabundant examples from all times and places gathered together in a vast\nand overwhelming phalanx.\n\nWhat concerns us in this chapter a little more is to call attention\nby anticipation to the fact that even in Christianity itself the\nsame primitive element survives as the centre of all that is most\ndistinctively religious, as opposed to theological, in the Christian\nreligion. And I make these remarks provisionally here in order that the\nreader may the better understand to what ultimate goal our investigation\nwill lead him.\n\nIt is the universal Catholic custom to place the relics of saints or\nmartyrs under the altars in churches. Thus the body of St. Mark the\nEvangelist lies under the high altar of St. Mark\u2019s, at Venice; and\nin every other Italian cathedral, or chapel, a reliquary is deposited\nwithin the altar itself. So well understood is this principle in the\nLatin Church, that it has hardened into the saying, \u201cNo relic, no\naltar.\u201d The sacrifice of the mass takes place at such an altar, and\nis performed by a priest in sacrificial robes. The entire Roman Catholic\nritual is a ritual derived from the earlier sacerdotal ideas of ministry\nat an altar, and its connection with the primitive form is still kept up\nby the necessary presence of human remains in its holy places.\n\nFurthermore, the very idea of a church itself is descended from the\nearly Christian meeting-places in the catacombs or at the tombs of\nthe martyrs, which are universally allowed to have been the primitive\nChristian altars. {035}We know now that the cruciform dome-covered plan\nof Christian churches is derived from these early meeting-places at the\njunction of lanes or alleys in the catacombs; that the nave, chancel,\nand transepts indicate the crossing of the alleys, while the dome\nrepresents the hollowed-out portion or rudely circular vault where the\ntwo lines of archway intersect. The earliest dome-covered churches\nwere attempts, as it were, to construct a catacomb above ground for the\nreception of the altar-tomb of a saint or martyr. Similarly with\nthe chapels that open out at the side from the aisles or transepts.\nEtymologically, the word chapel is the modernised form of _capella_,\nthe arched sepulchre excavated in the walls of the catacombs, before the\ntomb at which it was usual to offer up prayer and praise. The chapels\nbuilt out from the aisles in Roman churches, each with its own altar and\nits own saintly relics, are attempts to reproduce above ground in the\nsame way the original sacred places in the early Christian excavated\ncemeteries. We will recur to this subject at much greater length in\nsubsequent chapters.\n\nThus Christianity itself is linked on to the very antique custom of\nworship at tombs, and the habit of ancestor-worship by altars, relics,\nand invocation of saints, even revolutionary Protestantism still\nretaining some last faint marks of its origin in the dedication of\nchurches to particular evangelists or martyrs, and in the more or less\ndisguised survival of altar, priesthood, sacrifice, and vestments.\n\nNow, I do not say ancestor-worship gives us the whole origin of\neverything that is included in Christian English minds in the idea\nof religion. I do not say it accounts for all the cosmologies and\ncosmogonies of savage, barbaric, or civilised tribes. Those, for the\nmost part, are pure mythological products, explicable mainly, I believe,\nby means of the key with which mythology supplies us; and one of them,\nadopted into Genesis from an alien source, has come to be accepted by\nmodern Christendom as part of {036}that organised body of belief which\nforms the Christian creed, though not in any true sense the Christian\nreligion. Nor do I say that ancestor-worship gives us the origin of\nthose ontological, metaphysical, or mystical conceptions which form\npart of the philosophy or theology of many priesthoods. Religions, as\nwe generally get them envisaged for us nowadays, are held to include the\nmythology, the cosmogony, the ontology, and even the ethics of the race\nthat practises them. These extraneous developments, however, I hold to\nspring from different roots and to have nothing necessarily in common\nwith religion proper. The god is the true crux. If we have once\naccounted for the origin of ghosts, gods, tombs, altars, temples,\nchurches, worship, sacrifice, priesthoods, and ceremonies, then we have\naccounted for all that is essential and central in religion, and may\nhand over the rest--the tales, stories, and pious legends--to the\naccount of comparative mythology or of the yet unfounded science of\ncomparative idealogy.\n\nOnce more, I do not wish to insist, either, that every particular and\nindividual god, national or naturalistic, must necessarily represent\na particular ghost--the dead spirit of a single definite once-living\nperson. It is enough to show, as Mr. Spencer has shown, that the idea\nof the god, and the worship paid to a god, are directly derived from\nthe idea of the ghost, and the offerings made to the ghost, without\nnecessarily holding, as Mr. Spencer seems to hold, that every god is and\nmust be in ultimate analysis the ghost of a particular human being. Once\nthe conception of gods had been evolved by humanity, and had become\na common part of every man\u2019s imagined universe--of the world as it\npresented itself to the mind of the percipient--then it was natural\nenough that new gods should be made from time to time out of\nabstractions or special aspects and powers of nature, and that the same\nworship should be paid to such new-made and purely imaginary gods as\nhad previously been paid to the whole host of gods {037}evolved from\npersonal and tribal ancestors. It is the first step that costs: once you\nhave got the idea of a god fairly evolved, any number of extra gods may\nbe invented or introduced from all quarters. A great pantheon readily\nadmits new members to its ranks from, many strange sources. Familiar\ninstances in one of the best-known pantheons are those of Concordia,\nPecunia, Aius Locutius, Rediculus Tutanus. The Romans, indeed, deified\nevery conceivable operation of nature or of human life; they had gods or\ngoddesses for the minutest details of agriculture, of social relations,\nof the first years of childhood, of marriage and domestic arrangements\ngenerally. Many of their deities, as we shall see hereafter, were\nobviously manufactured to meet a special demand on special occasions.\nBut at the same time, none of these gods, so far as we can judge, could\never have come to exist at all if the ghost-theory and ancestor-worship\nhad not already made familiar to the human mind the principles and\npractice of religion generally. The very idea of a god could not\notherwise have been evolved; though, when once evolved, any number of\nnew beings could readily be affiliated upon it by the human imagination.\n\nStill, to admit that other elements have afterwards come in to confuse\nreligion is quite a different thing from admitting that religion itself\nhas more than one origin. Whatever gives us the key to the practice of\nworship gives us the key to all real religion. Now, one may read through\nalmost any books of the mythological school without ever coming upon\na single word that throws one ray of light upon the origin of religion\nitself thus properly called. To trace the development of this, that,\nor the other story or episode in a religious myth is in itself a very\nvaluable study in human evolution: but no amount of tracing such stories\never gives us the faintest clue to the question why men worshipped\nOsiris, Zeus, Siva, or Venus; why they offered up prayer and praise to\nIsis, or to Artemis; why they made sacrifices of oxen to Capitolian\nJove {038}at Rome, or slew turtle-doves on the altar of Jahweh, god\nof Israel, at Jerusalem. The ghost-theory and the practice of\nancestor-worship show us a natural basis and genesis for all these\ncustoms, and explain them in a way to which no mythological enquiry can\nadd a single item of fundamental interest.\n\nIt may be well at this point to attempt beforehand some slight\nprovisional disentanglement of the various extraneous elements which\ninterweave themselves at last with the simple primitive fabric of\npractical religion.\n\nIn the first place, there is the mythological element. The mythopoeic\nfaculty is a reality in mankind. Stories arise, grow, gather episodes\nwith movement, transform and transmute themselves, wander far in\nspace, get corrupted by time, in ten thousand ways suffer change and\nmodification. Now, such stories sometimes connect themselves with living\nmen and women. Everybody knows how many myths exist even in our own\nday about every prominent or peculiar person. They also gather more\nparticularly round the memory of the dead, and especially of any very\ndistinguished dead man or woman. Sometimes they take their rise in\ngenuine tradition, sometimes they are pure fetches of fancy or of the\nromancing faculty. The ghosts or the gods are no less exempt from\nthese mythop\u0153ic freaks than other people; and as gods go on living\nindefinitely, they have plenty of time for myths to gather about them.\nMost often, a myth is invented to account for some particular religious\nceremony. Again, myths demonstrably older than a particular human\nbeing--say C\u00e6sar, Virgil, Arthur, Charlemagne--may get fitted by later\nages to those special personalities. The same thing often happens also\nwith gods. Myth comes at last, in short, to be the history of the gods;\nand a personage about whom many myths exist, whether real or imaginary,\na personification of nature or an abstract quality, may grow in time to\nbe practically a divine being, and even perhaps to receive worship, the\nfinal test of divinity.\n\nAgain, {039}myths about the gods come in the long run, in many cases,\nto be written down, especially by the priests, and themselves acquire a\nconsiderable degree of adventitious holiness. Thus we get Sacred Books;\nand in most advanced races, the sacred books tend to become an important\nintegral part of religion, and a test of the purity of tenets or\nceremonial. But sacred books almost always contain rude cosmological\nguesses and a supernatural cosmogony, as well as tales about the doings,\nrelationships, and prerogatives of the gods. Such early philosophical\nconjectures come then to be intimately bound up with the idea of\nreligion, and in many cases even to supersede in certain minds its\ntrue, practical, central kernel. The extreme of this tendency is seen in\nEnglish Protestant Dissenting Bibliolatry.\n\nRationalistic and reconciliatory glosses tend to arise with advancing\nculture. Attempts are made to trace the pedigree and mutual relations\nof the gods, and to get rid of discrepancies in earlier legends. The\nTheogony of Hesiod is a definite effort undertaken in this direction for\nthe Greek pantheon. Often the attempt is made by the most learned\nand philosophically-minded among the priests, and results in a\nquasi-philosophical mythology like that of the Brahmans. In the\nmonotheistic or half-monotheistic religions, this becomes theology. In\nproportion as it grows more and more laboured and definite the attention\nof the learned and the priestly class is more and more directed to\ndogma, creed, faith, abstract formulae of philosophical or intellectual\nbelief, while insisting also upon ritual or practice. But the popular\nreligion remains usually, as in India, a religion of practical custom\nand observances alone, having very little relation to the highly\nabstract theological ideas of the learned or the priestly.\n\nLastly, in the highest religions, a large element of ethics, of\nsentiment, of broad humanitarianism of adventitious emotion, is allowed\nto come in, often to the extent of obscuring the original factors of\npractice and observance.\n\nWe are {040}constantly taught that \u201creal religion\u201d means many things\nwhich have nothing on earth to do with religion proper, in any sense,\nbut are merely high morality, tinctured by emotional devotion towards a\nspiritual being or set of beings.\n\nOwing to all these causes, modern investigators, in searching for the\norigin of religion, are apt to mix up with it, even when dealing with\nsavage tribes, many extraneous questions of cosmology, cosmogony,\nphilosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and mythology. They do not sufficiently\nsee that the true question narrows itself down at last to two prime\nfactors--worship and sacrifice. In all early religions, the practice is\nat a maximum, and the creed at a minimum. We, nowadays, look back upon\nthese early cults, which were cults and little else, with minds warped\nby modern theological prejudices--by constant wrangling over dogmas,\nclauses, definitions, and formularies. We talk glibly of the Hindu\nfaith or the Chinese belief, when we ought rather to talk of the Hindu\npractice or the Chinese observances. By thus wrongly conceiving the\nnature of religion, we go astray as to its origin. We shall only get\nright again when we learn to separate mythology entirely from religion,\nand when we recognise that the growth and development of the myth have\nnothing at all to do with the beginnings of worship. The science of\ncomparative mythology and folk-lore is a valuable and light-bearing\nstudy in its own way: but it has no more to do with the origin of\nreligion than the science of ethics or the science of geology. There are\nethical rules in most advanced cults: there are geological surmises\nin most sacred books: but neither one nor the other is on that account\nreligion, any more than the history of Jehoshaphat or the legend of\nSamson.\n\nWhat I want to suggest in the present chapter sums itself up in a few\nsentences thus: Religion is practice, mythology is story-telling. Every\nreligion has myths that accompany it: but the myths do not give rise\nto the religion: {041}on the contrary, the religion gives rise to the\nmyths. And I shall attempt in this book to account for the origin of\nreligion alone, omitting altogether both mythology as a whole, and\nall mythical persons or beings other than gods in the sense here\nillustrated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.--THE LIFE OF THE DEAD.\n\n|The {042}object of this book, we saw at the beginning, is to trace the\nevolution of the idea of God. But the solution of that problem implies\ntwo separate questions--first, how did men begin to frame the idea of\na god at all; and second, how did they progress from the conception of\nmany distinct gods to the conception of a single supreme God, like the\ncentral deity of Christianity and of Islam. In other words, we have\nfirst to enquire into the origin of polytheism, and next into its\ngradual supersession by monotheism. Those are the main lines of enquiry\nI propose to follow out in the present volume.\n\nReligion, however, has one element within it still older, more\nfundamental, and more persistent than any mere belief in a god or\ngods--nay, even than the custom or practice of supplicating and\nappeasing ghosts or gods by gifts and observances. That element is the\nconception of the Life of the Dead. On the primitive belief in such\nlife, all religion ultimately bases itself. The belief is in fact the\nearliest thing to appear in religion, for there are savage tribes who\nhave nothing worth calling gods, but have still a religion or cult\nof their dead relatives. It is also the latest thing to survive in\nreligion; for many modern spiritualists, who have ceased to be theists,\nor to accept any other form of the supernatural, nevertheless go on\nbelieving in the continued existence of the dead, and in the possibility\nof intercommunication between them and the living. This, therefore,\nwhich is the earliest manifestation of religious thought, {043}and\nwhich persists throughout as one of its most salient and irrepressible\nfeatures, must engage our attention for a little time before we pass on\nto the genesis of polytheism.\n\nBut the belief in continued life itself, like all other human ideas,\nhas naturally undergone various stages of evolution. The stages glide\nimperceptibly into one another, of course; but I think we can on the\nwhole distinguish with tolerable accuracy between three main layers or\nstrata of opinion with regard to the continued existence of the dead.\nIn the first or lowest stratum, the difference between life and death\nthemselves is but ill or inadequately perceived; the dead are thought\nof as yet bodily living. In the second stratum, death is recognised as\na physical fact, but is regarded as only temporary; at this stage, men\nlook forward to the Resurrection of the Body, and expect the Life of the\nWorld to Come. In the third stratum, the soul is regarded as a distinct\nentity from the body; it survives it in a separate and somewhat shadowy\nform: so that the opinion as to the future proper to this stage is not a\nbelief in the Resurrection of the Body, but a belief in the Immortality\nof the Soul. These two concepts have often been confounded together by\nloose and semi-philosophical Christian thinkers; but in their essence\nthey are wholly distinct and irreconcilable.\n\nI shall examine each of these three strata separately.\n\nAnd first as to that early savage level of thought where the ideas of\nlife and death are very ill demarcated. To us at the present day it\nseems a curious notion that people should not possess the conception of\ndeath as a necessary event in every individual human history. But that\nis because we cannot easily unread all our previous thinking, cannot\nthrow ourselves frankly back into the state of the savage. We are\naccustomed to living in large and populous communities, where deaths\nare frequent, and where natural death in particular is an every-day\noccurrence. We have behind us a vast and long history of previous ages;\nand {044}we know that historical time was occupied by the lives of many\nsuccessive generations, all of which are now dead, and none of which\non the average exceeded a certain fixed limit of seventy or eighty odd\nyears. To us, the conception of human life as a relatively short period,\nbounded by a known duration, and naturally terminating at a relatively\nfixed end, is a common and familiar one.\n\nWe forget, however, that to the savage all this is quite otherwise. He\nlives in a small and scattered community, where deaths are rare, and\nwhere natural death in particular is comparatively infrequent. Most of\nhis people are killed in war, or devoured by wild beasts, or destroyed\nby accidents in the chase, or by thirst or starvation. Some are drowned\nin rapid rivers; some crushed by falling trees or stones; some poisoned\nby deadly fruits, or bitten by venomous snakes; some massacred by\nchiefs, or murdered in quarrels with their own tribesmen. In a large\nmajority of instances, there is some open and obvious cause of death;\nand this cause is generally due either to the hand of man or to some\nother animal; or failing that, to some apparently active effort of\nexternal nature, such as flood, or lightning, or forest fires, or\nlandslip and earthquake. Death by disease is comparatively rare; death\nby natural decay almost unknown or unrecognised.\n\nNor has the savage a great historic past behind him. He knows few but\nhis tribesmen, and little of their ancestors save those whom his parents\ncan remember before them. His perspective of the past is extremely\nlimited. Nothing enables him to form that wide idea of the necessity and\ninvariability of death which to us is so familiar. That \u201call men are\nmortal\u201d is to civilised man a truism; to very early savages it would\nnecessarily have seemed a startling paradox. No man ever dies within his\nown experience; ever since he can remember, he has continued to exist\nas a permanent part of all his adventures. Most of the savage\u2019s family\nhave gone on continuously living with him. A death has been a rare and\nstartling occurrence. {045}Thus the notion of death as an inevitable end\nnever arises at all; the notion of death as due to natural causes seems\nquite untenable. When a savage dies, the first question that arises is\n\u201cWho has killed him?\u201d If he is slain in war, or devoured by a\ntiger, or ripped up by an elephant, or drowned by a stream in spate, or\nmurdered by a tribesman, the cause is obvious. If none of these, then\nthe death is usually set down to witchcraft.\n\nFurthermore, the mere fact of death is much less certain among primitive\nor savage men than in civilised communities. We know as a rule with\nalmost absolute certainty whether at a given moment a sick or wounded\nman is dead or living. Nevertheless, even among ourselves, cases of\ndoubt not infrequently occur. At times we hesitate whether a man\nor woman is dead or has fainted. If the heart continues to beat, we\nconsider them still living; if not the slightest flutter of the pulse\ncan be perceived, we consider them dead. Even our advanced medical\nscience, however, is often perplexed in very obscure cases of catalepsy;\nand mistakes have occurred from time to time, resulting in occasional\npremature burials. The discrimination of true from apparent death is not\nalways easy. Vesalius, the eminent anatomist, opened a supposed corpse\nin which the heart was seen to be still beating; and the Abb\u00e9 Pr\u00e9vost,\nwho had been struck by apoplexy, was regarded as dead, but recovered\nconsciousness once more under the surgeon\u2019s scalpel. Naturally, among\nsavages, such cases of doubt are far more likely to occur than among\ncivilised people; or rather, to put it as the savage would think of it,\nthere is often no knowing when a person who is lying stiff and lifeless\nmay happen to get up again and resume his usual activity. The savage\nis accustomed to seeing his fellows stunned or rendered unconscious by\nblows, wounds, and other accidents, inflicted either by the enemy, by\nwild beasts, by natural agencies, or by the wrath of his tribesmen; and\nhe never knows how soon the effect of such accidents may pass away, and\nthe man may recover his {046}ordinary vitality. As a rule, he keeps and\ntends the bodies of his friends as long as any chance remains of their\nultimate recovery, and often (as we shall see in the sequel) much\nlonger.\n\nAgain, in order to understand this attitude of early man towards his\nwounded, his stricken, and his dead, we must glance aside for a moment\nat the primitive psychology. Very early indeed in the history of the\nhuman mind, I believe, some vague adumbration of the notion of a soul\nbegan to pervade humanity. We now know that consciousness is a function\nof the brain; that it is intermitted during sleep, when the brain rests,\nand also during times of grave derangement of the nervous or circulatory\nsystems, as when we faint or assume the comatose condition, or are\nstunned by a blow, or fall into catalepsy or epilepsy. We also know\nthat consciousness ceases altogether at death, when the brain no longer\nfunctions; and that the possibility of its further continuance is\nabsolutely cut off by the fact of decomposition. But these truths, still\nimperfectly understood or rashly rejected by many among ourselves, were\nwholly unknown to early men. They had to frame for themselves as best\nthey could some vague working hypothesis of the human mind, from data\nwhich suggested themselves in the ordinary course of life; and the\nhypothesis which they framed was more or less roughly that of the soul\nor spirit, still implicitly accepted by a large majority of the human\nspecies.\n\nAccording to this hypothesis every man consists of two halves or parts,\none material or bodily, the other immaterial or spiritual. The first\nhalf, called the body, is visible and tangible; the second half, called\nthe soul, dwells within it, and is more or less invisible or shadowy. It\nis to a large extent identified with the breath; and like the breath\nit is often believed to quit the body at death, and even to go off in a\nfree form and live its own life elsewhere. As this supposed independence\nof the soul from the body lies at the very basis of all ghosts and gods,\nand therefore of {047}religion itself, I may be excused for going at\nsome length into the question of its origin.\n\nActually, so far as we know by direct and trustworthy evidence, the\nexistence of a mind, consciousness, or \u201csoul,\u201d apart from a body,\nhas never yet been satisfactorily demonstrated. But the savage derived\nthe belief, apparently, from a large number of concurrent hints and\nsuggestions, of which such a hypothesis seemed to him the inevitable\nresult. During the daytime he was awake; at night he slept; yet even in\nhis sleep, while his body lay curled on the ground beside the camp-fire,\nhe seemed to hunt or to fight, to make love or to feast, in some\nother region. What was this part of him that wandered from the body in\ndreams?--what, if not the soul or breath which he naturally regarded as\nsomething distinct and separate? And when a man died, did not the soul\nor breath go from him? When he was badly wounded, did it not disappear\nfor a time, and then return again? In fainting fits, in catalepsy,\nand in other abnormal states, did it not leave the body, or even play\nstrange tricks with it? I need not pursue this line of thought, already\nfully worked out by Mr. Herbert Spencer and Dr. Tylor. It is enough to\nsay that from a very early date, primitive man began to regard the soul\nor life as something bound up with the breath, something which could go\naway from the body at will and return to it again, something separable\nand distinct, yet essential to the person, very vaguely conceived as\nimmaterial or shadowy, but more so at a later than at an earlier\nperiod. *\n\n     * The question of the Separate Soul has recently received\n     very full treatment from Mr. Frazer in The Golden Bough, and\n     Mr. Sidney Hartland in The Legend of Perseus.\n\nMoreover, these souls or spirits (which quitted the body in sleep or\ntrance) outlived death, and appeared again to survivors. In dreams,\nwe often see the shapes of living men; but we also see with peculiar\nvividness the images of the departed. Everybody is familiar with the\nfrequent reappearance {048}in sleep of intimate friends or relations\nlately deceased. These appearances, I fancy, are especially frequent\nduring the first few months of bereavement, and gradually weaken in\nfrequency and vividness as time goes on. The reason for both sets of\nphenomena I take to be this: the nervous structures, accustomed to be\nstimulated in particular combinations by intercourse with the dead\nfriend, miss automatically their wonted stimulation; and being therefore\nin a highly nourished and unstable state, are peculiarly ready to\nundergo ideal stimulation in sleep, as we know to be the case with other\nwell-nurtured and underworked nerve-centres. Or, to put it less\nmaterially, the brain falls readily into a familiar rhythm. But in\ncourse of time the channels atrophy by disuse; the habit is lost; and\nthe dream-appearances of the dead friend grow more and more infrequent.\nThe savage, however, accepts the dream-world as almost equally real with\nthe world of sense-presentation. As he envisages the matter to himself,\nhis soul has been away on its travels without its body, and there has\nmet and conversed with the souls of dead friends or relations.\n\nWe must remember also that in savage life occasions for trance, for\nfainting, and for other abnormal or comatose nervous conditions occur\nfar more frequently than in civilised life. The savage is often wounded\nand fails from loss of blood; he cuts his foot against a stone, or is\nhalf killed by a wild beast; he fasts long and often, perforce, or is\nreduced to the very verge of starvation; and he is therefore familiar,\nboth in his own case and in the case of others, with every variety of\nunconsciousness and of delirium or delusion. All these facts figure\nthemselves to his mind as absences of the soul from the body, which is\nthus to him a familiar and almost every-day experience.\n\nMoreover, it will hence result that the savage can hardly gain any clear\nconception of Death, and especially of death from natural causes. When\na tribesman is brought home severely wounded and unconscious, the\nspectator\u2019s immediate {049}idea must necessarily be that the soul has\ngone away and deserted the body. For how long it has gone, he cannot\ntell; but his first attempts are directed towards inducing or compelling\nit to return again. For this purpose, he often addresses it with\nprayers and adjurations, or begs it to come back with loud cries and\npersuasions. And he cannot possibly discriminate between its temporary\nabsence and its final departure. As Mr. Herbert Spencer well says,\nthe consequences of blows or wounds merge into death by imperceptible\nstages. \u201cNow the injured man shortly \u2018returned to himself,’ and\ndid not go away again; and now, returning to himself only after a long\nabsence, he presently deserted his body for an indefinite time. Lastly,\ninstead of these temporary returns, followed by final absence, there\nsometimes occurred cases in which a violent blow caused continuous\nabsence from the very first; the other self never came back at all.\u201d\n\nIn point of fact, during these earlier stages, the idea of Death as we\nknow it did not and does not occur in any form. There are still\nsavages who do not seem to recognise the universality and necessity of\ndeath--who regard it on the contrary as something strange and unatural,\nsomething due to the machination of enemies or of witchcraft. With the\nearliest men, it is a foregone conclusion, psychologically speaking,\nthat they should so regard it; they could not form any other concept\nwithout far more extended knowledge than they have the means of\npossessing. To them, a Dead Man must always have seemed a man whose soul\nor breath or other self had left him, but might possibly return again to\nthe body at any time.\n\nEach of the three stages of thought above discriminated has its\nappropriate mode of disposing of its dead. The appropriate mode for this\nearliest stage is Preservation of the Corpse, which eventuates at last\nin Mummification.\n\nThe simplest form of this mode of disposal of the corpse consists in\nkeeping it in the hut or cave where the family dwell, together with the\nliving. A New Guinea woman thus {050}kept her husband\u2019s body in her\nhut till it dried up of itself, and she kissed it and offered it food\nevery day, as though it were living. Many similar cases are reported\nfrom elsewhere. Hut preservation is common in the very lowest races.\nMore frequently, however, owing to the obvious discomfort of living in\ntoo close proximity to a dead body, the corpse at this stage of thought\nis exposed openly in a tree or on a platform or under some other\ncircumstances where no harm can come to it. Among the Australians and\nAndaman Islanders, who, like the Negritoes of New Guinea, preserve for\nus a very early type of human customs, the corpse is often exposed on\na rough raised scaffold. Some of the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples\nfollow the same practice. The Dyaks and Kyans expose their dead in\ntrees. \u201cBut it is in America,\u201d says Mr. Herbert Spencer, \u201cthat\nexposure on raised stages is commonest. The Dakotahs adopt this method;\nat one time it was the practice of the Iroquois; Catlin, describing the\nMandans as having scaffolds on which \u2018their _dead live_ as they term\nit,\u2019 remarks that they are thus kept out of the way of wolves and\ndogs; and Schoolcraft says the same of the Chippewas.\u201d Generally\nspeaking, at the lowest grades of culture, savages preserve the actual\nbodies of their dead above ground, either in the home itself, or\nin close proximity to it. We shall recur later on to this singular\npractice.\n\nA slight variant on this method, peculiar to a very maritime race, is\nthat described by Mr. H. O. Forbes among the natives of Timurlaut:\n\n\u201cThe dead body is placed in a portion of a _prau_ fitted to the length\nof the individual, or within strips of _gaba-gaba_, or stems of the\nsago-palm pinned together. If it is a person of some consequence, such\nas an _Orang Kaya_, an ornate and decorated _prau_-shaped coffin is\nspecially made. This is then enveloped in calico, and placed either on\nthe top of a rock by the margin of the sea at a short distance from\nthe village, or on a high pile-platform erected on the shore {051}about\nlow-tide mark. On the top of the coffin-lid are erected tall flags,\nand the figures of men playing gongs, shooting guns, and gesticulating\nwildly to frighten away evil influences from the sleeper. Sometimes the\nplatform is erected on the shore above high-water mark, and near it is\nstuck in the ground a tall bamboo full of palm-wine; and suspended over\na bamboo rail are bunches of sweet potatoes for the use of the dead\nman\u2019s _Nitu_. When the body is quite decomposed, his son or one of the\nfamily disinters the skull and deposits it on a little platform in his\nhouse, in the gable opposite the fireplace, while to ward off evil from\nhimself he carries about with him the atlas and axis bones of its neck\nin his _luon_, or _siri_-holder.\u201d\n\nThis interesting account is full of implications whose fuller meaning we\nwill perceive hereafter. The use of the skull and of the talisman bone\nshould especially be noted for their later importance. For skulls are\nfundamental in the history of religion.\n\nCases like these readily pass into the practice of Mummifying, more\nespecially in dry or desert climates. Even in so damp a tropical country\nas New Guinea, however, D\u2019Albertis found in a shed on the banks of the\nFly River two mummies, artificially prepared, as he thought, by removal\nof the flesh, the bones alone being preserved with the skin to cover\nthem. Here we have evidently a clear conception of death as a serious\nchange, of a different character from a mere temporary absence. So, too,\nMr. Chalmers says of the Koiari people in the same island, \u201cThey treat\ntheir dead after this fashion. A fire is kept burning day and night at\nthe head and feet for months. The entire skin is removed by means of\nthe thumb and forefinger, and the juices plastered all over the face\nand body of the operator (parent, husband, or wife of the deceased).\nThe fire gradually desiccates the flesh, so that little more than the\nskeleton is left.\u201d But mummification for the most part is confined to\ndrier climates, where it is artificially performed {052}down to a very\nevolved stage of civilisation, as we know well in Peru and Egypt.\n\nOne word must be said in passing as to the frequent habit of specially\npreserving, and even carrying about the person, the head or hand of\na deceased relative. This has been already mentioned in the case of\nTimurlaut; and it occurs frequently elsewhere. Thus Mr. Chalmers says\nof a New Guinea baby: \u201cIt will be covered with two inches of soil, the\nfriends watching beside the grave; but eventually the skull and smaller\nbones will be preserved and worn by the mother.\u201d Similarly, in the\nAndaman Islands, where we touch perhaps the lowest existing stratum of\nsavage feeling, \u201cwidows may be seen with the skulls of their deceased\npartners suspended round their necks.\u201d The special preservation of the\nhead, even when the rest of the body is eaten or buried, will engage our\nattention at a later period: heads so preserved are usually resorted to\nas oracles, and are often treated as the home of the spirit. Mr. Herbert\nSpencer has collected many similar instances, such as that of the\nTasmanians who wore a bone from the skull or arm of a dead relation.\nHe rightly notes, too, that throughout the New World \u201cthe primitive\nconception of death as a long-suspended animation seems to have been\nespecially vivid;\u201d and we find accordingly that customs of this\ncharacter are particularly frequent among American savages. Thus, to\ndraw once more from his great storehouse, the Cr\u00e9\u00e9s carried bones\nand hair of dead relations about for three years; while the Caribs and\nseveral Guiana tribes distributed the clean bones among the kinsmen of\nthe deceased. In the Sandwich Islands, also, bones of kings and chiefs\nwere carried about by their descendants, under the impression that the\ndead exercised guardianship over them.\n\nAt this stage of thought, it seems to me, it is the actual corpse that\nis still thought to be alive; the actual corpse that appears in dreams;\nand the actual corpse that is fed and worshipped and propitiated with\npresents.\n\nCeremonial {053}cannibalism, which will be more fully considered\nhereafter, appears in this stratum, and survives from it into higher\nlevels. The body is eaten entire, and the bones preserved; or the\nflesh and fat are removed, and the skin left; or a portion only is\nsacramentally and reverently eaten by the surviving relations. These\nprocesses also will be more minutely described in the sequel.\n\nThe first stage merges by gradual degrees into the second, which is that\nof Burial or its equivalent. Cave-burial of mummies or of corpses forms\nthe transitional link. Indeed, inasmuch as many races of primitive men\nlived habitually in caves, the placing or leaving the corpse in a cave\nseems much the same thing as the placing or leaving it in a shed, hut,\nor shelter. The cave-dwelling Veddahs simply left the dead man in the\ncave where he died, and themselves migrated to some other cavern. Still,\ncave-burial lingered on late with many tribes or nations which had\nfor ages outlived the habit of cave-dwelling. Among the South\nAmerican Indians, cave-burial was common; and in Peru it assumed high\ndevelopments of mummification. The making of an artificial cave or vault\nfor the dead is but a slight variant on this custom; it was frequent in\nEgypt, the other dry country where the making of mummies was carried\nto a high pitch of perfection. The Tombs of the Kings at Thebes are\nsplendid instances of such artificial caves, elaborated into stately\npalaces with painted walls, where the dead monarchs might pass\ntheir underground life in state and dignity. Cave-tombs, natural or\nartificial, are also common in Asia Minor, Italy, and elsewhere.\n\nDuring the first stage, it may be noted, the attitude of man towards his\ndead is chiefly one of affectionate regard. The corpse is kept at home,\nand fed or tended; the skull is carried about as a beloved object. But\nin the second stage, which induces the practice of burial, a certain\nFear of the Dead becomes more obviously apparent. Men dread the return\nof the corpse or the ghost, and strive to keep {054}it within prescribed\nlimits. In this stage, the belief in the Resurrection of the Body is the\nappropriate creed; and though at first the actual corpse is regarded\nas likely to return to plague survivors, that idea gives place a little\nlater, I believe, to the conception of a less material double or spirit.\n\nAnd here let us begin by discriminating carefully between the\nResurrection of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul.\n\nThe idea of Resurrection arose from and is closely bound up with the\npractice of burial, the second and simpler mode of disposing of the\nremains of the dead. The idea of Immortality arose from and is closely\nbound up with the practice of burning, a later and better innovation,\ninvented at the third stage of human culture. During the early\nhistorical period all the most advanced and cultivated nations burnt\ntheir dead, and, in consequence, accepted the more ideal and refined\nnotion of Immortality. But modern European nations bury their dead,\nand, in consequence, accept, nominally at least, the cruder and grosser\nnotion of Resurrection. Nominally, I say, because, in spite of creeds\nand formularies, the influence of Plato and other ancient thinkers, as\nwell as of surviving ancestral ideas, has made most educated Europeans\nreally believe in Immortality, even when they imagine themselves to be\nbelieving in Resurrection. Nevertheless, the belief in Resurrection is\nthe avowed and authoritative belief of the Christian world, which thus\nproclaims itself as on a lower level in this respect than the civilised\npeoples of antiquity.\n\nThe earliest of these two ways of disposing of the bodies of the dead is\ncertainly by burial. As this fact has recently been called in question,\nI will venture to enlarge a little upon the evidence in its favour. In\npoint of time, burial goes back with certainty to the neolithic age, and\nwith some probability to the palaeolithic. Several true interments in\ncaves have been attributed by competent geologists to the earlier of\nthese two periods, the first for which we {055}have any sure warranty\nof man\u2019s existence on earth. But, as I do not desire to introduce\ncontroversial matter of any sort into this exposition, I will waive the\nevidence for burial in the palaeolithic age as doubtful, and will merely\nmention that in the Mentone caves, according to Mr. Arthur Evans, a\nmost competent authority, we have a case of true burial accompanied by\nneolithic remains of a grade of culture earlier and simpler than any\nknown to us elsewhere. In other words, from the very earliest beginning\nof the neolithic age men buried their dead; and they continued to bury\nthem, in caves or tumuli, down to the end of neolithic culture. They\nburied them in the Long Barrows in England; they buried them in the Ohio\nmounds; they buried them in the shadowy forests of New Zealand; they\nburied them in the heart of darkest Africa. I know of no case of burning\nor any means of disposal of the dead, otherwise than by burial or its\nearlier equivalent, mummification, among people in the stone age\nof culture in Europe. It is only when bronze and other metals are\nintroduced that races advance to the third stage, the stage of\ncremation. In America, however, the Mexicans we*re cremationists.\n\nThe wide diffusal of burial over the globe is also a strong argument for\nits relatively primitive origin. In all parts of the world men now bury\ntheir dead, or did once bury them. From the Tombs of the Kings at Pekin\nto the Pyramids of Memphis; from the Peruvian caves to the Samoyed\ngraveyards, we find most early peoples, most savage peoples, most\nprimitive peoples, once or still engaged in one or other form of\nburying. Burial is the common and universal mode; burning, exposure,\nthrowing into a sacred river, and so forth, are sporadic and\nexceptional, and in many cases, as among the Hindus, are demonstrably of\nlate origin, and connected with certain relatively modern refinements of\nreligion.\n\nOnce more, in many or most cases, we have positive evidence that where a\nrace now burns its dead, it used once {056}to bury them. Burial preceded\nburning in preheroic Greece, as it also did in Etruria and in early\nLatium. The people of the Long Barrows, in Western Europe generally,\nburied their dead; the people of the Round Barrows who succeeded them,\nand who possessed a far higher grade of culture, almost always cremated.\nIt has been assumed that burning is primordial in India; but Mr. William\nSimpson, the well-known artist of the _Illustrated London News_, calls\nmy attention to the fact that the Vedas speak with great clearness of\nburial as the usual mode of disposing of the corpse, and even allude to\nthe tumulus, the circle of stones around it, and the sacred _temenos_\nwhich they enclose. According to Rajendralala Mitra, whose high\nauthority on the subject is universally acknowledged, burial was the\nrule in India till about the thirteenth or fourteenth century before\nthe Christian era; then came in cremation, with burial of the ashes, and\nthis continued till about the time of Christ, when burial was dispensed\nwith, and the ashes were thrown into some sacred river. I think,\ntherefore, until some more positive evidence is adduced on the other\nside, we may rest content with our general conclusion that burial is the\noldest, most universal, and most savage mode of disposing of the remains\nof the dead among humanity after the general recognition of death as a\npositive condition. It probably took its rise in an early period, while\nmankind was still one homogeneous species; and it has been dispersed,\naccordingly, over the whole world, even to the most remote oceanic\nislands.\n\nWhat is the origin of this barbaric and disgusting custom, so repugnant\nto all the more delicate sentiments of human nature? I think Mr. Frazer\nis right in attributing it to the terror felt by the living for the\nghosts (or, rather, at first the corpses) of the dead, and the fear that\nthey may return to plague or alarm their surviving fellow tribesmen.\n\nIn his admirable paper on \u201cCertain Burial Customs as Illustrative of\nthe Primitive Theory of the Soul,\u201d Mr. Frazer points out that certain\ntribes of early men paid great {057}attention to the dead, not so much\nfrom affection as from selfish terror. Ghosts or bodies of the dead\nhaunt the earth everywhere, unless artificially confined to bounds, and\nmake themselves exceedingly disagreeable to their surviving relatives.\nTo prevent this, simple primitive philosophy in its second stage has hit\nupon many devices. The most universal is to bury the dead--that is to\nsay, to put them in a deep-dug hole, and to cover them with a mighty\nmound of earth, which has now sadly degenerated in civilised countries\ninto a mere formal heap, but which had originally the size and dignity\nof a tumulus. The object of piling up this great heap of earth was to\nconfine the ghost (or corpse), who could not easily move so large a\nsuperincumbent mass of matter. In point of fact, men buried their dead\nin order to get well rid of them, and to effectually prevent their\nreturn to light to disturb the survivors.\n\nFor the same reason heavy stones were often piled on the top of the\ndead. In one form, these became at last the cairn; and, as the ghosts\nof murderers and their victims tend to be especially restless, everybody\nwho passes their graves in Arabia, Germany, and Spain is bound to add\na stone to the growing pile in order to confine them. In another form,\nthat of the single big stone rolled just on top of the body to keep\nit down by its mass, the makeweight has developed into the modern\ntombstone. In our own times, indeed, the tombstone has grown into a mere\nposthumous politeness, and is generally made to do duty as a record of\nthe name and incomparable virtues of the deceased (concerning whom,\n_nil nisi bonum_); but in origin it was nothing more than the big, heavy\nboulder, meant to confine the ghost, and was anything but honorific in\nintention and function.\n\nAgain, certain nations go further still in their endeavours to keep the\nghost (or corpse) from roaming. The corpse of a Damara, says Galton,\nhaving been sewn up in an old ox-hide is buried in a hole, and the\nspectators jump backwards {058}and forwards over the grave to keep the\ndeceased from rising out of it. In America, the Tupis tied fast all the\nlimbs of the corpse, \u201cthat the dead man might not be able to get up,\nand infest his friends with his visits.\u201d You may even divert a river\nfrom its course, as Mr. Frazer notes, bury your dead man securely in\nits bed, and then allow the stream to return to its channel. It was thus\nthat Alaric was kept in his grave from further plaguing humanity; and\nthus Captain Cameron found a tribe of Central Africans compelled their\ndeceased chiefs to \u201ccease from troubling.\u201d Sometimes, again, the\ngrave is enclosed by a fence too high for the dead man to clear even\nwith a running jump; and sometimes the survivors take the prudent\nprecaution of nailing the body securely to the coffin, or of breaking\ntheir friend\u2019s spine, or even--but this is an extreme case--of hacking\nhim to pieces. In Christian England the poor wretch whom misery had\ndriven to suicide was prevented from roaming about to the discomfort of\nthe lieges by being buried with a stake driven barbarously through him.\nThe Australians, in like manner, used to cut off the thumb of a slain\nenemy that he might be unable to draw the bow; and the Greeks were wont\nto hack off the extremities of their victims in order to incapacitate\nthem for further fighting. These cases will be seen to be very\nluminiferous when we come to examine the origin and meaning of\ncremation.\n\nBurial, then, I take it, is simply by origin a means adopted by the\nliving to protect themselves against the vagrant tendencies of the\nactual dead. For some occult reason, the vast majority of men in all\nages have been foolishly afraid of meeting with the spirits of the\ndeparted. Their great desire has been, not to see, but to avoid seeing\nthese singular visitants; and for that purpose they invented, first of\nall, burial, and afterwards cremation.\n\nThe common modern conception of the ghost is certainly that of an\nimmaterial or shadowy form, which can be seen but not touched, and which\npreserves an outer semblance {059}of the human figure. But that idea\nitself, which has been imported into all our descriptions and reasonings\nabout the ghost-beliefs of primitive man, is, I incline to think,\nvery far from primitive, and has been largely influenced by quite late\nconceptions derived from the cremational rather than the burial level\nof religious philosophy. In other words, though, in accordance with\nuniversal usage and Mr. Frazer\u2019s precedent, I have used the word\n\u201cghost\u201d above in referring to these superstitious terrors of early\nman, I believe it is far less the spirit than the actual corpse itself\nthat early men even in this second stage were really afraid of. It is\nthe corpse that may come back and do harm to survivors. It is the corpse\nthat must be kept down by physical means, that must be covered with\nearth, pressed flat beneath a big and ponderous stone, deprived of its\nthumbs, its hands, its eyes, its members. True, I believe the savage\nalso thinks of the ghost or double as returning to earth; but his\npsychology, I fancy, is not so definite as to distinguish very\naccurately between corpse and spirit. The accurate differentiation of\nthe two belongs rather, it seems to me, to the post-cremational and more\nspiritual philosophy than to the primary or preservative, and the\nsecondary or inhumational.\n\nAnybody who looks at the evidence collected by Mr. Frazer will see for\nhimself that precautions are taken rather against the return of the\nactual physical body than against the return of the ghost or spirit. Or\nperhaps, to be more precise, the two are hardly thought of at this early\nstage in separation or antithesis.\n\nIf we look at the means taken to preserve the body after death among the\nmajority of primitive peoples, above the Tasmanian level, this truth\nof the corpse being itself immortal becomes clearer and clearer. We are\nstill, in fact, at a level where ghost and dead man are insufficiently\ndifferentiated. In all these cases it is believed that the dead body\ncontinues to live in the grave the same sort of life that it led\nabove ground; and for this purpose it is provided {060}with weapons,\nimplements, utensils, food, vessels, and all the necessaries of life for\nits new mansion. Continued sentient existence of the body after death\nis the keynote of the earliest level of psychical philosophy. First, the\ncorpse lives in the hut with its family: later, it lives in the grave\nwith its forefathers.\n\nBut side by side with this na\u00efve belief in the continued existence\nof the body after death, which survives into the inhumational stage of\nevolution, goes another and apparently irreconcilable belief in a future\nresurrection. Strictly speaking, of course, if the body is still alive,\nthere is no need for any such special revivification. But religious\nthought, as we all know, does not always pride itself upon the temporal\nvirtues of logic or consistency; and the savage in particular is not\nin the least staggered at being asked to conceive of one and the same\nsubject in two opposite and contradictory manners. He does not bring\nthe two incongruities into thought together; he thinks them alternately,\nsometimes one, sometimes the other. Even Christian systematists\nare quite accustomed to combine the incongruous beliefs in a future\nresurrection and in the continued existence of the soul after death,\nby supposing that the soul remains meanwhile in some nondescript limbo,\napart from its body--some uncertain Sheol, some dim hades or purgatory\nor \u201cplace of departed spirits.\u201d The savage is scarcely likely to be\nmore exacting in this matter than our doctors of divinity.\n\nIt is the common belief of the second or inhumational stage, then, that\nthere will be at some time or other a \u201cGeneral Resurrection.\u201d No\ndoubt this General Resurrection has been slowly developed out of\nthe belief in and expectation of many partial resurrections. It is\nunderstood that each individual corpse will, or may, resurge at some\ntime: therefore it is believed that all corpses together will resurge\nat a single particular moment. So long as burial persists, the belief\nin the Resurrection persists beside it, {061}and forms a main feature in\nthe current conception of the future life among the people who practise\nit.\n\nHow, then, do we progress from this second or inhumational stage to the\nthird stage with its practice of burning, and its correlated dogma of\nthe Immortality of the Soul?\n\nIn this way, as it seems to me. Besides keeping down the ghost (or\ncorpse) with clods and stones, it was usual in many cases to adopt\nother still stronger persuasives and dissuasives in the same direction.\nSometimes the persuasives were of the gentlest type; for example, the\ndead man was often politely requested and adjured to remain quiet in the\ngrave and to give no trouble. But sometimes they were less bland; the\ncorpse was often pelted with sticks, stones, and hot coals, in order to\nshow him that his visits at home would not in future be appreciated. The\nordinary stake and mutilation treatment goes, it is clear, upon the same\nprinciple; if the man has no feet or legs of his own, he cannot very\nwell walk back again. But further developments of the like crude idea\nare to cut off the head, to tear out the heart, to hack the body in\npieces, to pour boiling water and vinegar over the dangerous place where\nthe corpse lies buried. Now burning, I take it, belonged originally\nto the same category of strong measures against refractory ghosts or\ncorpses; and this is the more probable owing to the fact that it is\nmentioned by Mr. Frazer among the remedies recommended for use in the\nextreme case of vampires. Its original object was, no doubt, to prevent\nthe corpse from returning in any way to the homes of the living.\n\nOnce any people adopted burning as a regular custom, however, the\nchances are that, _c\u0153teris paribus_, it would continue and spread. For\nthe practice of cremation is so much more wholesome and sanitary than\nthe practice of burial that it would give a double advantage in the\nstruggle for existence to any race that adopted it, in peace and in\nwar. Hence it is quite natural that when at a certain grade of culture\ncertain races happened to light upon it {062}in this superstitious way,\nthose races would be likely to thrive and to take the lead in culture as\nlong as no adverse circumstances counteracted the advantage.\n\nBut the superstitions and the false psychology which gave rise at first\nto the notion of a continued life after death would not, of course,\ndisappear with the introduction of burning. The primitive cremationists\nmay have hoped, by reducing to ashes the bodies of their dead, to\nprevent the recurrence of the corpse to the presence of the living; but\nthey could not prevent the recurrence of the ghost in the dreams of the\nsurvivors; they could not prevent the wind that sighed about the dead\nman\u2019s grave, the bats that flitted, the vague noises that terrified,\nthe abiding sense of the corpse\u2019s presence. All the factors that go\nto make up the ghost or the revenant (to use a safe word less liable to\nmisinterpretation) still remained as active as ever. Hence, I believe,\nwith the introduction of cremation the conception of the ghost merely\nsuffered an airy change. He grew more shadowy, more immaterial, more\nlight, more spiritual. In one word, he became, strictly speaking, a\nghost as we now understand the word, not a returning dead man. This\nconception of the ghost as essentially a shade or shadow belongs\npeculiarly, it seems to me, to the cremating peoples. I can answer for\nit that among negroes, for example, the \u201cduppy\u201d is conceived as\nquite a material object. It is classical literature, the literature of\nthe cremating Greeks and Romans, that has familiarised us most with the\nidea of the ghost as shadowy and intangible. Burying races have\nmore solid doubles. When Peter escaped from prison in Jerusalem, the\nassembled brethren were of opinion that it must be \u201chis angel.\u201d The\nwhite woman who lived for years in a native Australian tribe was always\nspoken of by her hosts as a ghost. In one word, at a low stage of\nculture the _revenant_ is conceived of as material and earthly; at a\nhigher stage, he is conceived of as immaterial and shadowy.\n\nNow {063}when people take to burning their dead, it is clear they will\nno longer be able to believe in the Resurrection of the Body. Indeed, if\nI am right in the theory here set forth, it is just in order to prevent\nthe Resurrection of the Body at inconvenient moments that they take to\nburning. To be sure, civilised nations, with their developed power of\nbelieving in miracles, are capable of supposing, not only that the\nsea will yield up its dead, but also that burnt, mangled, or dispersed\nbodies will be collected from all parts to be put together again at\nthe Resurrection. This, however, is not the na\u00efve belief of simple\nand natural men. To them, when you have burnt a body you have utterly\ndestroyed it, here and hereafter; and we know that mutilation and\nburning were employed for this very purpose in the case of vampires and\nother corpses whose total suppression was desirable. Sepoys were\nblown from the guns in the Indian mutiny for the express reason\nthat, according to the Hindu belief, that method of disposing of them\ndestroyed not only the body but the soul as well--got rid of them\nentirely. The ordinary human idea is that when you burn a body you\nsimply annihilate it; and on that very account early Christians\npreferred burial to cremation, because they thought they stood thereby\na better chance at the Resurrection. It is true they allowed that the\ndivine omnipotence could make new bodies for the martyrs who were burnt;\nbut for themselves, they seem to have preferred on the average to go on\nafresh with their old familiar ones.\n\nNaturally, therefore, among cremating peoples, the doctrine of the\nResurrection of the Body tended to go out, and what replaced it was the\ndoctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. You may burn the body, but the\nspirit still survives; and the survival gives origin to a new philosophy\nof ghosts and _revenants_, a new idea of the inner nature of ghosthood.\nGradually the spirit gets to be conceived as diviner essence, entangled\nand imprisoned, as it were, in the meshes of the flesh, and only to be\nset free by means {064}of fire, which thus becomes envisaged at last as\nfriendly rather than destructive in its action on the dead body. What\nwas at first a precaution against the return of the corpse becomes\nin the end a pious duty; just as burial itself, originally a selfish\nprecaution against the pranks and tricks of returning corpses, becomes\nin the end so sacred and imperative that unburied ghosts are conceived\nas wandering about, Archytas-wise, begging for the favour of a handful\nof sand to prevent them from homeless vagabondage for ever. Nations\nwho burn come to regard the act of burning as the appointed means for\nfreeing the ghost from the confining meshes of the body, and regard it\nrather as a solemn duty to the dead than as a personal precaution.\n\nNot only so, but there arises among them a vague and fanciful conception\nof the world of shades very different indeed from the definite and\nmaterial conception of the two earlier stages. The mummy was looked\nupon as inhabiting the tomb, which was furnished and decorated for its\nreception like a house; and it was provided with every needful article\nfor use and comfort. Even the buried body was supplied with tools\nand implements for the ghost. The necessities of the shade are\nquite different and more shadowy. He has no need of earthly tools or\nimplements. The objects found in the Long Barrows of the burying\nfolk and the Round Barrows of the cremationists well illustrate this\nprimordial and far-reaching difference. The Long Barrows of the Stone\nAge people are piled above an interment; they contain a chambered tomb,\nwhich is really the subterranean home or palace of the body buried in\nit. The wives and slaves of the deceased were killed and interred with\nhim to keep him company in his new life in the grave; and implements,\nweapons, drinking-cups, games, trinkets, and ornaments were buried with\ntheir owners. The life in the grave was all as material and real as\nthis one; the same objects that served the warrior in this world\nwould equally serve him in the same form in the next. {065}It is quite\ndifferent with the Round Barrows of the Bronze Age cremationists. These\nbarrows are piled round an urn., which determines the shape of the\ntumulus, as the chambered tomb and the corpse determine the shape of\nthe earlier Stone Age interments. They contain ashes alone; and the\nimplements and weapons placed in them are all broken or charred with\nfire. Why? Because the ghost, immaterial as he has now become, can no\nlonger make use of solid earthly weapons or utensils. It is only their\nghosts or shadows that can be of any use to the ghostly possessor in the\nland of shades. Hence everything he needs is burnt or broken, in order\nthat its ghost may be released and liberated; and all material objects\nare now conceived as possessing such ghosts, which can be utilised\naccordingly in the world of spirits.\n\nNote also that with this advance from the surviving or revivable\nCorpse to the immortal Soul or Spirit, there goes almost naturally and\nnecessarily a correlative advance from continued but solitary life in\nthe tomb to a freer and wider life in an underground world of shades and\nspirits. The ghost gets greatly liberated and emancipated. He has more\nfreedom of movement, and becomes a citizen of an organised community,\noften envisaged as ruled over by a King of the Dead, and as divided into\nplaces of reward and punishment. But while we modern Europeans pretend\nto be resurrectionists, it is a fact that our current ghostly and\neschatological conceptions (I speak of the world at large, not of mere\nscholastic theologians) have been largely influenced by ideas derived\nfrom this opposite doctrine--a doctrine once held by many or most of\nour own ancestors, and familiarised to us from childhood in classical\nliterature. In fact, while most Englishmen of the present day believe\nthey believe in the Resurrection of the Body, what they really believe\nin is the Immortality of the Soul..\n\nIt might seem at first sight as though a grave discrepancy existed\nbetween the two incongruous ideas, first of burying {066}or burning your\ndead so that they may not be able to return or to molest you, and second\nof worshipping at their graves or making offerings to their disembodied\nspirits. But to the savage mind these two conceptions are by no means\nirreconcilable. While he jumps upon the corpse of his friend or his\nfather to keep it in the narrow pit he has digged for it, he yet brings\nit presents of food and drink, or slays animals at the tomb, that the\nghost may be refreshed by the blood that trickles down to it. Indeed,\nseveral intermediate customs occur, which help us to bridge over the\napparent gulf between reverential preservation of the mummified body,\nand the coarse precautions of burial or burning. Thus, in many cases,\nsome of which we shall examine in the next chapter, after the body has\nbeen for some time buried, the head is disinterred, and treasured with\ncare in the family oratory, where it is worshipped and tended, and where\nit often gives oracles to the members of the household. A ceremonial\nwashing is almost always a feature in this reception of the head; it\nrecurs again and again in various cases, down to the enshrinement of the\nhead of Hoseyn at Cairo, and that of St. Denis at the abbey of the same\nname, to both of which we shall allude once more at a far later stage of\nour enquiry. For the present, it must suffice to say that the ceremonial\nand oracular preservation of the head--the part which sees, and speaks,\nand eats, and drinks, and listens--is a common feature in all religious\nusages; that it gives rise apparently to the collections of family\nskulls which adorn so many savage huts and oratories; that it may be\nanswerable ultimately for the Roman busts and many other imitative\nimages of the dead, in which the head alone is represented; and that\nwhen transferred to the sacred human or animal victim (himself, as we\nshall hereafter see, a slain god), it seems to account for the human\nheads hung up by the Dyaks and other savages about their houses, as also\nfor the skulls of oxen and other sacred animals habitually displayed on\nthe front of places of {067}worship, whose last relic is the sculptured\noxen\u2019s heads which fill the metopes in some Greek and most Roman\ntemples. Much of this, I admit, will be little comprehensible to the\nreader at the present stage of our argument: but I beg him to bear in\nmind provisionally this oracular and representative value of the head or\nskull from this point forth; he will find, as he proceeds, its meaning\nwill become clearer and ever clearer at each successive stage of our\nexposition.\n\nI ought also to add that between complete preservation of the corpse\nand the practice of burial there seems to have gone another intermediate\nstage, now comparatively rare, but once very general, if we may judge\nfrom the traces it has left behind it--a stage when all the body or part\nof it was sacramentally eaten by the survivors as an act of devotion.\nWe will consider this curious and revolting practice more fully when we\nreach the abstruse problem of sacrifice and sacrament; for the present\nit will suffice to say that in many instances, in Australia, South\nAmerica, and elsewhere, the body is eaten, while only the bones are\nburned or buried. Among these savages, again, it usually happens\nthat the head is cleaned of its flesh by cooking, while the skull is\nceremonially washed, and preserved as an object of household veneration\nand an oracular deity. Instances will be quoted in succeeding chapters.\n\nThus, between the care taken to prevent returns of the corpse, and the\nworship paid to the ghost or shade, primitive races feel no such sense\nof discrepancy or incongruity as would instantly occur to civilised\npeople.\n\nThe three stages in human ideas with which this chapter deals may be\nshortly summed up as corpse-worship, ghost-worship, and shade-worship.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.--THE ORIGIN OF GODS.\n\n|MR. {068}Herbert Spencer has traced so admirably in his _Principles of\nSociology_ the progress of development from the Ghost to the God that\nI do not propose in this chapter to attempt much more than a brief\nrecapitulation of his main propositions, which, however, I shall\nsupplement with fresh examples, and adapt at the same time to the\nconception of three successive stages in human ideas about the Life of\nthe Dead, as set forth in the preceding argument. But the hasty _resume_\nwhich I shall give at present will be fleshed out incidentally at a\nlater point by consideration of several national religions.\n\nIn the earliest stage of all--the stage where the actual bodies of the\ndead are preserved,--Gods as such are for the most part unknown: it is\nthe corpses of friends and ancestors that are worshipped and reverenced.\nFor example, Ellis says of the corpse of a Tahitian chief that it was\nplaced in a sitting posture under a protecting shed; \u201ca small altar\nwas erected before it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were\ndaily presented by the relatives, or the priest appointed to attend the\nbody.\u201d (This point about the priest is of essential importance.) The\nCentral Americans, again, as Mr. Spencer notes, performed similar\nrites before bodies dried by artificial heat. The New Guinea people,\nas D\u2019Albertis found, worship the dried mummies of their fathers\nand husbands. A little higher in the scale, we get the developed\nmummy-worship of Egypt and Peru, which survives even after the evolution\n{069}of greater gods, from powerful kings or chieftains. Other evidence\nin abundance has been adduced from Polynesia and from Africa. Wherever\nthe actual bodies of the dead are preserved, there also worship and\nofferings are paid to them.\n\nOften, however, as already noted, it is not the whole body but the head\nalone that is specially kept and worshipped. Thus Mr. H. O. Forbes says\nof the people of Buru: \u201cThe dead are buried in the forest in some\nsecluded spot, marked often by a _merang_ or grave-pole; over which at\ncertain intervals the relatives place tobacco, cigarettes, and various\nofferings. When the body is decomposed, the son or nearest relative\ndisinters the head, wraps a new cloth about it, and places it in the\nMatakau at the back of his house, or in a little hut erected for it near\nthe grave. It is the representative of his forefathers, whose behests he\nholds in the greatest respect.\u201d\n\nTwo points are worthy of notice in this interesting account, as giving\nus an anticipatory hint of two further accessories whose evolution\nwe must trace hereafter; first the grave-stake, which is probably the\norigin of the wooden idol; and second, the little hut erected over the\nhead by the side of the grave, which is undoubtedly one of the origins\nof the temple or praying-house. Observe also the ceremonial wrapping of\nthe skull in cloth, and its oracular functions.\n\nSimilarly, Mr. Wyatt Gill, the well-known missionary, writes of a dead\nbaby at Boera, in New Guinea: \u201cIt will be covered with two inches of\nsoil, the friends watching beside the grave; but eventually the skull\nand smaller bones will be preserved and worn by the mother.\u201d And of\nthe Suau people he says: \u201cEnquiring the use of several small houses,\nI learned that it is to cover grave-pits. All the members of a family\nat death occupy the same grave, the earth that thinly covered the last\noccupant being scooped out to admit the newcomer. These graves are\nshallow; the dead are buried in a sitting posture, hands folded.\n{070}The earth is thrown in up to the mouth only. An earthen pot covers\nthe head. After a time the pot is taken off, the perfect skull removed\nand cleansed--eventually to be hung up in a basket or net inside the\ndwelling of the deceased over the fire, to blacken in the smoke.\u201d\nIn Africa, again, the skull is frequently preserved in such a pot and\nprayed to. In America, earthenware pots have been found moulded round\nhuman skulls in mounds at New Madrid and elsewhere; the skull cannot\nbe removed without breaking the vessel. Indeed, this curious method of\npreservation in pots seems to be very widespread; we get perhaps a vague\nhint or reminiscence of its former prevalence in Europe in the story of\nIsabella and the pot of basil.\n\nThe special selection and preservation of the head as an object of\nworship thus noted in New Guinea and the Malay Archipelago is also still\nfound among many other primitive peoples. For instance, the Andamanese\nwidows keep the skulls of their husbands as a precious possession:\nand the New Caledonians, in case of sickness or calamities, \u201cpresent\nofferings of food to the skulls of the departed.\u201d Mr. Spencer quotes\nseveral similar examples, a few of which alone I extract from his pages.\n\n\u201c\u2018In the private fetish-hut of King Adolee, at Badagry, the skull\nof that monarch\u2019s father is preserved in a clay vessel placed in the\nearth.\u2019 He \u2018gently rebukes it if his success does not happen to\nanswer his expectations.\u2019 Similarly among the Mandans, who place\nthe skulls of their dead in a circle, each wife knows the skull of her\nformer husband or child, \u2018and there seldom passes a day that she does\nnot visit it, with a dish of the best cooked food.... There is scarcely\nan hour in a pleasant day, but more or less of these women may be seen\nsitting or lying by the skull of their child or husband--talking to it\nin the most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as\nthey were wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer\nback.\u2019\u201d\n\nThis {071}affectionate type of converse with the dead, almost free from\nfear, is especially characteristic of the first or corpse-preserving\nstage of human death-conceptions. It seldom survives where burial has\nmade the feeling toward the corpse a painful or loathsome one, and it is\nthen confined to the head alone, while the grave itself with the body it\nencloses is rather shunned and dreaded.\n\nA little above this level, Mr. Du Chaillu notes that some of his West\nAfrican followers, when going on an expedition, brought out the skulls\nof their ancestors (which they religiously preserved) and scraped off\nsmall portions of the bone, which they mixed with water and drank;\ngiving as a reason for this conduct that their ancestors were brave, and\nthat by drinking a portion of them they too became brave and fearless\nlike their ancestors. Here we have a simple and early case of that habit\nof \u201ceating the god\u201d to whose universality and importance Mr. Frazer\nhas so forcibly called attention, and which we must examine at full in a\nsubsequent chapter.\n\nThroughout the earlier and ruder phases of human evolution, this\nprimitive conception of ancestors or dead relatives as the chief known\nobjects of worship survives undiluted: and ancestor-worship remains to\nthis day the principal religion of the Chinese, and of several\nother peoples. Gods, as such, are practically unknown in China.\nAncestor-worship also survives in many other races as one of the\nmain cults, even after other elements of later religion have been\nsuperimposed upon it. In Greece and Rome, it remained to the last\nan important part of domestic ritual. But in most cases, a gradual\ndifferentiation is set up in time between various classes of ghosts or\ndead persons, some ghosts being considered of more importance and power\nthan others; and out of these last it is that gods as a rule are finally\ndeveloped. A god, in fact, is in the beginning at least an exceptionally\npowerful and friendly ghost--a ghost able to help, and from whose help\ngreat things may reasonably be expected.\n\nAgain, {072}the rise of chieftainship and kingship has much to do with\nthe growth of a higher conception of godhead; a dead king of any\ngreat power or authority is sure to be thought of in time as a god\nof considerable importance. We shall trace out this idea more fully\nhereafter in the religion of Egypt; for the present it must suffice to\nsay that the supposed power of the gods in each pantheon has regularly\nincreased in proportion to the increased power of kings or emperors.\n\nWhen we pass from the first plane of corpse-preservation and\nmummification to the second plane where burial is habitual, it might\nseem at a hasty glance as though continued worship of the dead, and\ntheir elevation into gods, would no longer be possible. For we saw\nthat burial is prompted by a deadly fear lest the corpse or ghost should\nreturn to plague the living. Nevertheless, natural affection for parents\nor friends, and the desire to ensure their good will and aid, make these\nseemingly contrary ideas reconcilable. As a matter of fact, we find that\neven when men bury or burn their dead, they continue to worship them:\nwhile, as we shall show in the sequel, even the great stones which they\nroll on top of the grave to prevent the dead from rising again become in\ntime altars on which sacrifices are offered to the spirit.\n\nIn these two later stages of thought with regard to the dead which\naccompany burial and cremation, the gods, indeed, grow more and more\ndistinct from minor ghosts with an accelerated rapidity of evolution.\nThey grow greater in proportion to the rise of temples and hierarchies.\nFurthermore, the very indefiniteness of the bodiless ghost tells in\nfavour of an enlarged godship. The gods are thought of as more and more\naerial and immaterial, less definitely human in form and nature; they\nare clothed with mighty attributes; they assume colossal size; they are\neven identified with the sun, the moon, the great powers of nature. But\nthey are never quite omnipotent during the polytheistic stage, because\nin a pantheon they are {073}necessarily mutually limiting. Even in\nthe Greek and Roman civilisation, it is clear that the gods were not\ncommonly envisaged by ordinary minds as much more than human; for\nPisistratus dressed up a courtesan at Athens to represent Pallas Athene,\nand imposed by this cheap theatrical trick upon the vulgar Athenians;\nwhile Paul and Barnabas were taken at Lystra for Zeus and Hermes. Many\nsimilar instances will occur at once to the classical scholar. It is\nonly quite late, under the influence of monotheism, that the exalted\nconceptions of deity now prevalent began to form themselves in Judaism\nand Christianity.\n\nMere domestic ancestor-worship, once more, could scarcely give us the\norigin of anything more than domestic religion--the cult of the manes,\nthe household gods, as distinct from that of the tribal and national\ndeities. But kingship supplies us with the missing link. We have seen in\nMr. Duff Macdonald’s account of the Central African god-making how the\nworship of the chief\u2019s ancestors gives rise to tribal or village gods;\nand it is clear how, as chieftainship and kingship widen, national gods\nof far higher types may gradually evolve from these early monarchs.\nEspecially must we take the time-element into account, remembering that\nthe earlier ancestors get at last to be individually forgotten as men,\nand remain in memory only as supernatural beings. Thus kingship rapidly\nreacts upon godship. If the living king himself is great, how much\ngreater must be the ancestor whom even the king himself fears and\nworships; and how infinitely greater still that yet earlier god,\nthe ancestor\u2019s ancestor, whom the ancestor himself revered and\npropitiated! In some such way there grows up gradually a hierarchy of\ngods, among whom the oldest, and therefore the least known, are usually\nin the end the greatest of any.\n\nThe consolidation of kingdoms and empires, and the advance of the arts,\ntell strongly with concurrent force in these directions; while the\ninvention of written language sets {074}a final seal on the godhead and\nmight of great early ancestors. Among very primitive tribes, indeed,\nwe find as a rule only very domestic and recent objects of worship.\nThe chief prays for the most part to his own father and his immediate\npredecessors. The more ancient ancestors, as Mr. Duff Macdonald has so\nwell pointed out, grow rapidly into oblivion. But with more advanced\nraces, various agencies arise which help to keep in mind the early dead;\nand in very evolved communities these agencies, reaching a high pitch\nof evolution, make the recent gods or kings or ghosts seem comparatively\nunimportant by the side of the very ancient and very long-worshipped\nones. More than of any other thing, it may be said of a god, _vires\nacquirit eundo_. Thus, in advanced types of society, saints or gods\nof recent origin assume but secondary or minor importance; while the\nhighest and greatest gods of all are those of the remotest antiquity,\nwhose human history is lost from our view in the dim mist of ages.\n\nThree such agencies of prime importance in the transition from the mere\nghost to the fully developed god must here be mentioned. They are the\nrise of temples, of idols, and, above all, of priesthoods. Each of these\nwe must now consider briefly but separately.\n\nThe origin of the Temple is various; but all temples may nevertheless\nbe reduced in the last resort either into graves of the dead, or into\nplaces where worship is specially offered up to them. This truth,\nwhich Mr. Herbert Spencer arrived at by examination of the reports\nof travellers or historians, and worked up in connection with his\n_Principles of Sociology_, was independently arrived at through quite a\ndifferent line of observation and reasoning by Mr. William Simpson,\nthe well-known artist of the _Illustrated London News_. Mr. Simpson has\nprobably visited a larger number of places of worship all over the world\nthan any other traveller of any generation: and he was early impressed\nby the fact which forced itself upon his eyes, that almost every one of\nthem, where its origin could be {075}traced, turned out to be a tomb in\none form or another. He has set forth the results of his researches in\nthis direction in several admirable papers, all of which, but especially\nthe one entitled _The Worship of Death_, I can confidently recommend to\nthe serious attention of students of religion. They contain the largest\ncollection of instances in this matter ever yet made; and they show\nbeyond a doubt the affiliation of the very idea of a temple on the tomb\nor grave of some distinguished dead person, famous for his power, his\ncourage, or his saintliness.\n\nThe cave is probably the first form of the Temple. Sometimes the dead\nman is left in the cave which he inhabited when living; an instance\nof which we have already noticed among the Veddahs of Ceylon. In other\ncases, where races have outgrown the custom of cave-dwelling, the habit\nof cave-burial, or rather of laying the dead in caves or in artificial\ngrottoes, still continues through the usual conservatism of religious\nfeeling. Offerings are made to the dead in all these various caves: and\nhere we get the beginnings of cave-temples. Such temples are at first\nof course either natural or extremely rude; but they soon begin to be\ndecorated with rough frescoes, as is done, for example, by the South\nAfrican Bushmen. These frescoes again give rise in time by slow degrees\nto such gorgeous works as those of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes;\neach of which has attached to it a magnificent temple as its\nmortuary chapel. Sculpture is similarly employed on the decoration of\ncave-temples; and we get the final result of such artistic ornament\nin splendid cave-temples like those of Ellora. Both arts were employed\ntogether in the beautiful and interesting Etruscan tomb-temples.\n\nIn another class of cases, the hut where the dead man lived is abandoned\nat his death by his living relations, and thus becomes a rudimentary\nTemple where offerings are made to him. This is the case with the\nHottentots, to take an instance at a very low grade of culture. Of a New\nGuinea {076}hut-burial, Mr. Chalmers says: \u201cThe chief is buried in\nthe centre; a mat was spread over the grave, on which I was asked to\nsit until they had a weeping.\u201d This weeping is generally performed by\nwomen--a touch which leads us on to Adonis and Osiris rites, and to\nthe Christian Piet\u00e0. Mr. Spencer has collected several other excellent\nexamples. Thus, the Arawaks place the corpse in a small boat and bury\nit in the hut; among the Creeks, the habitation of the dead becomes his\nplace of interment; the Fantees likewise bury the dead person in his own\nhouse; and the Yucatanese \u201cas a rule abandoned the house, and left it\nuninhabited after the burial.\u201d I will not multiply quotations; it\nwill be better to refer the reader to Mr. Spencer\u2019s own pages, where a\nsufficient number of confirmatory examples are collected to satisfy\nany but the most prejudiced critic. \u201cAs repeated supplies of food are\ntaken to the abandoned house,\u201d says Mr. Spencer, \u201cand as along with\nmaking offerings there go other propitiatory acts, the deserted dwelling\nhouse, turned into a mortuary house, acquires the attributes of a\ntemple.\u201d\n\nA third origin for Temples is found in the shed, hut, or shelter,\nerected over the grave, either for the protection of the dead or for the\nconvenience of the living who bring their offerings. Thus, in parts of\nNew Guinea, according to Mr. Chalmers, \u201cThe natives bury their dead in\nthe front of their dwellings, and cover the grave with a small house, in\nwhich the near relatives sleep for several months.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere house-burial is not practised,\u201d says Mr. Spencer, once more,\n\u201cthe sheltering structure raised above the grave, or above the stage\nbearing the corpse, becomes the germ of the sacred building. By some\nof the New Guinea people there is a \u2018roof of atap erected over\u2019 the\nburial-place. In Cook\u2019s time the Tahitians placed the body of a dead\nperson upon a kind of bier supported by sticks and under a roof. So,\ntoo, in Sumatra, where \u2018a shed is built over\u2019 the grave; and so,\ntoo, in Tonga. Of course {077}this shed admits of enlargement and\nfinish. The Dyaks in some places build mausoleums like houses, 18 feet\nhigh, ornamentally carved, containing the goods of the departed--sword,\nshield, paddle, etc. When we read that the Fijians deposit the bodies of\ntheir chiefs in small _enbures_ or temples, we may fairly conclude that\nthese so-called temples are simply more-developed sheltering structures.\nStill more clearly did the customs of the Peruvians show that the\nstructure erected over the dead body develops into a temple. Acosta\ntells us that ‘every one of these kings Yncas left all his treasure and\nrevenues to entertaine the place of worshippe where his body was layed,\nand there were many ministers with all their familie dedicated to his\nservice.\u2019\u201d\n\nNote in the last touch, by anticipation, one origin of priesthood. On\nthe other hand, we saw in Mr. Duff Macdonald\u2019s account of the Central\nAfrican natives that those savages do not worship at the actual grave\nitself. In this case, terror of the _revenant_ seems to prevent the\nusual forms of homage at the tomb of the deceased. Moreover, the ghost\nbeing now conceived as more or less freely separable from the corpse,\nit will be possible to worship it in some place remote from the dreaded\ncemetery. Hence these Africans “seek the spirit at the place where their\ndeparted kinsman last lived among them. It is the great tree at the\nverandah of the dead man\u2019s house that is their temple: and if no tree\ngrow here, they erect a little shade, and there perform their simple\nrites.\u201d We have in this case yet another possible origin for certain\ntemples, and also, I will add by anticipation of a future chapter, for\nthe sacred tree, which is so common an object of pious adoration in many\ncountries.\n\nBeginning with such natural caves or such humble huts, the Temple\nassumes larger proportions and more beautiful decorations with the\nincrease of art and the growth of kingdoms. Especially, as we see in the\ntomb-temples and pyramids {078}of Egypt and Peru, does it assume great\nsize and acquire costly ornaments when it is built by a powerful king\nfor himself during his own lifetime. Temple-tombs of this description\nreach a high point of artistic development in such a building as the\nso-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycen\u00e6, which is really the sepulchre\nof some nameless prehistoric monarch. It is admirably reconstructed in\nPerrot and Chipiez.\n\nObviously, the importance and magnificence of the temple will react upon\nthe popular conception of the importance and magnificence of the god who\ninhabits it. And conversely, as the gods grow greater and greater,\nmore art and more constructive skill will constantly be devoted to the\nbuilding and decoration of their permanent homes. Thus in Egypt the tomb\nwas often more carefully built and splendidly decorated than the house;\nbecause the house was inhabited for a short time only, but the tomb for\neternity. Moreover, as kings grew more powerful, they often adorned\nthe temples of their ancestors with emulous pride, to show their own\ngreatness. In Egypt, once more, the original part of all the more\nimportant temples is but a small dark cell, of early origin, to which\none successive king after another in later dynasties added statelier\nand ever statelier antechambers or porches, so that at last the building\nassumed the gigantic size and noble proportions of Karnak and Luxor.\nThis access of importance to the temple cannot have failed to add\ncorrespondingly to the dignity of the god; so that, as time went on,\ninstead of the early kings being forgotten and no longer worshipped,\nthey assumed ever greater and greater importance from the magnificence\nof the works in which their memory was enshrined. To the very end, the\ngod depends largely on his house for impressiveness. How much did not\nHellenic religion itself owe to the Parthenon and the temple of Olympian\nZeus! How much does not Christianity itself owe to Lincoln and Durham,\nto Amiens and Chartres, to Milan and Pisa, to St. Mark\u2019s and {070}St.\nPeter\u2019s! Men cannot believe that the deities worshipped in such noble\nand dimly religious shrines were once human like themselves, compact of\nthe same bodies, parts, and passions. Yet in the last instance at least\nwe know the great works to be raised in honour of a single Lower Syrian\npeasant.\n\nWith this brief and imperfect notice of the origin of temples, which\nwill indirectly be expanded in later portions of my work, I pass on from\nthe consideration of the sacred building itself to that of the Idol who\nusually dwells within it.\n\nWhere burial prevails, and where arts are at a low stage of development,\nthe memory of the dead is not likely to survive beyond two or three\ngenerations. But where mummification is the rule, there is no reason\nwhy deceased persons should not be preserved and worshipped for an\nindefinite period; and we know that in Egypt at least the cult of kings\nwho died in the most remote times of the Early Empire was carried on\nregularly down to the days of the Ptolemies. In such a case as this,\nthere is absolutely no need for idols to arise; the corpse itself is the\nchief object of worship. We do find accordingly that both in Egypt\nand in Peru the worship of the mummy played a large part in the local\nreligions; though sometimes it alternated with the worship of other\nholy objects, such as the image or the sacred stone, which we shall see\nhereafter to have had a like origin. But in many other countries, where\nbodies were less visibly and obviously preserved, the worship due to\nthe ghost or god was often paid to a simulacrum or idol; so much so that\n\u201cidolatry\u201d has become in Christian parlance the common term for most\nforms of worship other than monotheistic.\n\nNow what is the origin and meaning of Idols, and how can they be\naffiliated upon primitive corpse or ghost worship?\n\nLike the temple, the Idol, I believe, has many separate origins, several\nof which have been noted by Mr. Herbert Spencer, {080}while others, it\nseems to me, have escaped the notice even of that profound and acute\nobserver.\n\nThe earliest Idols, if I may be allowed the contradictory expression,\nare not idols at all--not images or representations of the dead person,\nbut actual bodies, preserved and mummified. These pass readily, however,\ninto various types of representative figures. For in the first place the\nmummy itself is usually wrapped round in swathing-cloths which obscure\nits features; and in the second place it is frequently enclosed in a\nwooden mummy-case, which is itself most often rudely human in form, and\nwhich has undoubtedly given rise to certain forms of idols. Thus,\nthe images of Amun, Khem, Osiris, and Ptah among Egyptian gods\nare frequently or habitually those of a mummy in a mummy-case. But\nfurthermore, the mummy itself is seldom or never the entire man; the\nintestines at least have been removed, or even, as in New Guinea, the\nentire mass of flesh, leaving only the skin and the skeleton. The eyes,\nagain, are often replaced, as in Peru, by some other imitative object,\nso as to keep up the lifelike appearance. Cases like these lead on to\nothers, where the image or idol gradually supersedes altogether the\ncorpse or mummy.\n\nMr. H. O. Forbes gives an interesting instance of such a transitional\nstage in Timorlaut. \u201cThe bodies of those who die in war or by a\nviolent death are buried,” he says; \u201cand if the head has been captured\n[by the enemy], a cocoanut is placed in the grave to represent the\nmissing member, and to deceive and satisfy his spirit.\u201d There is\nabundant evidence that such makeshift limbs or bodies amply suffice\nfor the use of the soul, when the actual corpse has been destroyed or\nmutilated. Sometimes, indeed, the substitution of parts is deliberate\nand intentional. Landa says of the Yucatanese that they cut oft the\nheads of the ancient lords of Cocom when they died, and cleared them\nfrom flesh by cooking them (very probably to eat at a sacrificial feast,\nof which more hereafter); then they sawed {081}off the top of the skull,\nfilled in the rest of the head with cement, and, making the face as like\nas possible to the original possessor, kept these images along with the\nstatues and the ashes. Note here the usual preservation of the head as\nexceptionally sacred. In other cases, they made for their fathers wooden\nstatues, put in the ashes of the burnt body, and attached the skin of\nthe occiput taken off the corpse. These images, half mummy, half idol,\nwere kept in the oratories of their houses, and were greatly reverenced\nand assiduously cared for. On all the festivals, food and drink were\noffered to them.\n\nMr. Spencer has collected other interesting instances of this\ntransitional stage between the corpse or mummy and the mere idol. The\nMexicans, who were cremationists, used to burn a dead lord, and collect\nthe ashes; \u201cand after kneading them with human blood, they made of\nthem an image of the deceased, which was kept in memory of him.\u201d\nSometimes, as in Yucatan, the ashes were placed in a man-shaped\nreceptacle of clay, and temples or oratories were erected over them.\n\u201cIn yet other cases,\u201d says Mr. Spencer, \u201cthere is worship of the\nrelics, joined with the representative figure, not by inclusion, but\nonly by proximity.\u201d Thus Gomara tells us that the Mexicans having\nburnt the body of their deceased king, gathered up the ashes, bones,\njewels, and gold in cloths, and made a figure dressed as a man, before\nwhich, as well as before the relics, offerings were placed. It is clear\nthat cremation specially lends itself to such substitution of an image\nfor the actual dead body. Among burying races it is the severed skull,\non the contrary, that is oftenest preserved and worshipped.\n\nThe transition from such images to small stone sarcophagi, like those\nof the Etruscan tombs, is by no means a great one. These sarcophagi\ncontained the burnt ashes of the dead, but were covered by a lid which\nusually represented the deceased, reclining, as if at a banquet, with a\nbeaker in his hands. The tombs in which the sarcophagi were placed were\nof two types; one, the stone pyramid or {082}cone, which, says Dr. Isaac\nTaylor, \u201cis manifestly a survival of the tumulus\u201d; the other, the\nrock-cut chamber, \u201cwhich is a survival of the cave.\u201d These lordly\ngraves are no mere cheerless sepulchres; they are abodes for the dead,\nconstructed on the model of the homes of the living. They contain\nfurniture and pottery; and their walls are decorated with costly mural\npaintings. They are also usually provided with an antechamber, where the\nfamily could assemble at the annual feast to do homage to the spirits\nof departed ancestors, who shared in the meal from their sculptured\nsarcophagus lids.\n\nAt a further stage of distance from the primitive mummy-idol we come\nupon the image pure and simple. The Mexicans, for example, as we have\nseen, were cremationists; and when men killed in battle were missing,\nthey made wooden figures of them, which they honoured, and then burnt\nthem in place of the bodies. In somewhat the same spirit the Egyptians\nused to place beside the mummy itself an image of the dead, to act as\na refuge or receptacle for the soul, \u201cin case of the accidental\ndestruction of the actual body.\u201d So the Mexicans once more, if one of\ntheir merchants died on a journey, were accustomed to make a statue of\nwood in the shape of the deceased, to which they paid all the honours\nthey would have done to his actual corpse before burning it. In Africa,\nwhile a king of Congo is being embalmed, a figure is set up in the\npalace to represent him, and is daily furnished with food and drink. Mr.\nSpencer has collected several similar instances of idols substituted for\nthe bodies of the dead. The Roman _imagines_ wore masks of wax, which\npreserved in like manner the features of ancestors. Perhaps the most\ncurious modern survival of this custom of double representations is\nto be found in the effigies of our kings and queens still preserved in\nWestminster Abbey.\n\nThere are two other sources of idol-worship, however, which, as it seems\nto me, have hardly received sufficient attention at Mr. Spencer\u2019s\nhands. Those two are the stake which {083}marks the grave, and the\nstanding stone or tombstone. By far the larger number of idols, I\nventure to believe, are descended from one or other of these two\noriginals, both of which I shall examine hereafter in far greater\ndetail. There is indeed no greater lacuna, I fancy, in Mr. Spencer\u2019s\nmonumental work than that produced by the insufficient consideration\nof these two fruitful sources of worshipful objects. I shall therefore\ndevote a considerable space to their consideration in subsequent\nchapters; for the present it will suffice to remark that the wooden\nstake seems often to form the origin or point of departure for the\ncarved wooden image, as well as for such ruder objects of reverence\nas the cones and wooden pillars so widely reverenced among the Semitic\ntribes; while the rough boulder, standing stone, or tombstone seems to\nform the origin or point of departure for the stone or marble statue,\nthe commonest type of idol the whole world over in all advanced and\ncultivated communities. Such stones were at first mere rude blocks or\nunhewn masses, the descendants of those which were rolled over the grave\nin primitive times in order to keep down the corpse of the dead man, and\nprevent him from returning to disturb the living. But in time they grew\nto be roughly dressed into slabs or squares, and finally to be decorated\nwith a rude representation of a human head and shoulders. From this\nstage they readily progressed to that of the Greek Herm\u00e6. We now know\nthat this was the early shape of most Hellenic gods and goddesses;\nand we can trace their evolution onward from this point to the wholly\nanthropomorphic Aphrodite or Here. The well-known figure of the Ephesian\nArtemis is an intermediate case which will occur at once to every\nclassical reader. Starting from such shapeless beginnings, we progress\nat last to the artistic and splendid bronze and marble statues of\nHellas, Etruria, and Rome, to the many-handed deities of modern India,\nand to the sculptured Madonnas and Piet\u00e0s of Renaissance Italy.\n\nNaturally, {084}as the gods grow more beautiful and more artistically\nfinished in workmanship, the popular idea of their power and dignity\nmust increase _pari passu_. In Egypt, this increase took chiefly the\nform of colossal size and fine manipulation of hard granitic materials.\nThe so-called Memnon and the Sphinx are familiar instances of the first;\nthe Pashts of Syenite, the black basalt gods, so well known at the\nLouvre and the British Museum, are examples of the second. In Greece,\neffect was sought rather by ideal beauty, as in the Aphrodites and\nApollos, or by costliness of material, as in the chryselephantine Zeus\nand the Athene of the Parthenon. But we must always remember that in\nHellas itself these glorious gods were developed in a comparatively\nshort space of time from the shapeless blocks or standing stones of the\nruder religion; indeed, we have still many curious intermediate forms\nbetween the extremely grotesque and hardly human Mycen\u00e6an types, and\nthe exquisite imaginings of Myron or Phidias. The earliest Hellenic\nidols engraved by Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez in their great work on\n_Art in Primitive Greece_ do not rise in any respect superior to\nthe Polynesian level; while the so-called Apollos of later archaic\nworkmanship, rigidly erect with their arms at their sides, recall in\nmany respects the straight up-and-down outline of the standing stone\nfrom which they are developed.\n\nI should add that in an immense number of instances the rude stone image\nor idol, and at a still lower grade the unwrought sacred stone, stands\nas the central object under a shed or shelter, which develops by degrees\ninto the stately temple. The advance in both is generally more or less\nparallel; though sometimes, as in historical Greece, a temple of the\nnoblest architecture encloses as its central and principal object of\nveneration the rough unhewn stone of early barbaric worship. So even\nin Christendom, great churches and cathedrals often hold as their most\nprecious possession some rude and antique image like {085}the sacred\nBambino of Santa Maria in Ara C\u0153li at Rome, or the \u201cBlack Madonnas\u201d\nwhich are revered by the people at so many famous Italian places of\npilgrimage.\n\nNor do I mean to say that every Idol is necessarily itself a funereal\nrelic. When once the idea of godship has been thoroughly developed,\nand when men have grown accustomed to regard an image or idol as the\nrepresentative or dwelling-place of their god, it is easy to multiply\nsuch images indefinitely. Hundreds of representations may exist of the\nself-same Apollo or Aphrodite or Madonna or St. Sebastian. At the same\ntime, it is quite clear that for most worshippers, the divine being is\nmore or less actually confused with the image; a particular Artemis or\na particular Notre Dame is thought of as more powerful or more friendly\nthan another. I have known women in Southern Europe go to pray at the\nshrine of a distant Madonna, \u201cbecause she is greater than our own\nMadonna.\u201d Moreover, it is probable that in many cases images or sacred\nstones once funereal in origin, and representing particular gods or\nghosts, have been swallowed up at last by other and more powerful\ndeities, so as to lose in the end their primitive distinctness. Thus,\nthere were many Baals and many Ashteroths; probably there were many\nApollos, many Artemises, many Aphrodites. It is almost certain that\nthere were many distinct Herm\u00e6. The progress of research tends to\nmake us realise that numberless deities, once considered unique and\nindividual, may be resolved into a whole host of local gods, afterwards\nidentified with some powerful deity on the merest external resemblances\nof image, name, or attribute. In Egypt at least this process of\nidentification and centralisation was common. Furthermore, we know\nthat each new religion tends to swallow up and assimilate to itself\nall possible elements of older cults; just as Hebrew Jahwehism tried to\nadopt the sacred stones of early Semitic heathenism by associating them\nwith episodes in the history of the patriarchs; and just as Christianity\nhas sanctified {086}such stones in its own area by using them sometimes\nas the base of a cross, or by consecrating them at others with the name\nof some saint or martyr.\n\nBut even more than the evolution of the Temple and the Idol, the\nevolution of the Priesthood has given dignity, importance, and power\nto the gods. For the priests are a class whose direct interest it is to\nmake the most of the greatness and majesty of the deities they tend or\nworship.\n\nPriesthood, again, has probably at least two distinct origins. The one\nis quasi-royal; the other is quasiservile.\n\nI begin with the first. We saw that the chief of an African village, as\nthe son and representative of the chief ghosts, who are the tribal\ngods, has alone the right to approach them directly with offerings. The\ninferior villager, who desires to ask anything of the gods, asks through\nthe chief, who is a kinsman and friend of the divine spirits, and who\ntherefore naturally understands their ideas and habits. Such chiefs are\nthus also naturally priests. They are sacred by family; they and their\nchildren stand in a special relation to the gods of the tribe, quite\ndifferent from the relation in which the common people stand; they are\nof the blood of the deities. This type of relation is common in many\ncountries; the chiefs in such instances are \u201ckings and priests, after\nthe order of Melchizedek.\u201d\n\nTo put it briefly, in the earliest or domestic form of religion, the\ngods of each little group or family are its own dead ancestors, and\nespecially (while the historic memory is still but weak) its immediate\npredecessors. In this stage, the head of the household naturally\ndischarges the functions of priest; it is he who approaches the family\nghosts or gods on behalf of his wives, his sons, his dependants. To the\nlast, indeed, the father of each family retains this priestly function\nas regards the more restricted family rites; he is priest of the worship\nof the _lares_ and _penates_; he offers the family sacrifice to the\nfamily gods; he reads family prayers in the Christian household. But as\n{087}the tribe or nation arises, and chieftainship grows greater, it is\nthe ghosts or ancestors of the chiefly or kingly family who develop\nmost into gods; and the living chief and his kin are their natural\nrepresentatives. Thus, in most cases, the priestly office comes to be\nassociated with that of king or chief. Indeed, we shall see hereafter in\na subsequent chapter that many kings, being the descendants of gods, are\ngods themselves; and that this union of the kingly and divine characters\nhas much to do with the growth of the dignity of godhead. Here, however,\nI waive this point for the present; it will suffice for us to note at\nthe present stage of our argument that in a large number of instances\nthe priesthood and the kingship were inherent and hereditary in the\nself-same families.\n\n\u201cThe union of a royal title with priestly duties,\u201d says Mr. Frazer\nin _The Golden Bough_, \u201cwas common in ancient Italy and Greece.\nAt Rome and in other Italian cities there was a priest called the\nSacrificial King or King of the sacred rites (_Rex Sacrificulus or Rex\nSacrorum_), and his wife bore the title of Queen of the Sacred Rites.\nIn republican Athens, the second magistrate of the state was called the\nKing, and his wife the Queen; the functions of both were religious. Many\nother Greek democracies had titular kings, whose duties, so far as they\nare known, seem to have been priestly. At Rome the tradition was that\nthe Sacrificial King had been appointed after the expulsion of the kings\nin order to offer the sacrifices which had been previously offered by\nthe kings. In Greece a similar view appears to have prevailed as to the\norigin of the priestly kings. In itself the view is not improbable, and\nit is borne out by the example of Sparta, the only purely Greek state\nwhich retained the kingly form of government in historical times. For in\nSparta all state sacrifices were offered by the kings as descendants of\nthe god. This combination of priestly functions with royal authority is\nfamiliar to every one. Asia Minor, for example, was the seat of\nvarious great religious capitals, peopled by thousands of \u2018Sacred\n{087}slaves,’ and ruled by pontiffs who wielded at once temporal\nand spiritual authority, like the popes of mediaeval Rome. Such\npriest-ridden cities were Zela and Pes-sinus. Teutonic Kings, again, in\nthe old heathen days seem to have stood in the position and exercised\nthe powers of high priests. The Emperors of China offer public\nsacrifices, the details of which are regulated by the ritual books. It\nis needless, however, to multiply examples of what is the rule rather\nthan the exception in the early history of the kingship.\u201d\n\nWe will return hereafter in another connexion to this ancient relation\nof kingship with priesthood, which arises naturally from the still more\nancient relation of the king to the god.\n\nWhere priesthood originates in this particular way, little\ndifferentiation is likely to occur between the temporal and the\necclesiastical power. But there is a second and far more potent origin\nof priesthood, less distinguished in its beginnings, yet more really\npregnant of great results in the end. For where the king is a priest,\nand the descendant of the gods, as in Peru and Egypt, his immediate and\nhuman power seems to overshadow and as it were to belittle the power of\nhis divine ancestors. No statue of Osiris, for example, is half so big\nin size as the colossal figure of Rameses II. which lies broken in huge\npieces outside the mortuary temple of the king it commemorates, among\nthe ruins of Thebes. But where a separate and distinct priesthood gets\nthe management of sacred rites entirely into its own hands, we find the\nauthority of the gods often rising superior to that of the kings, who\nare only their vicegerents: till at last we get Popes dictating to\nemperors, and powerful monarchs doing humble penance before the costly\nshrines of murdered archbishops.\n\nThe origin of independent or quasi-servile priesthood is to be found in\nthe institution of \u201ctemple slaves,\u201d--the attendants told off as we\nhave already seen to do duty at the grave of the chief or dead warrior.\nEgypt, again affords {089}us, on the domestic side, an admirable example\nof the origin of such priesthoods. Over the lintel of each of the\ncave-like tombs at Beni Hassan and Sakkarah is usually placed an\ninscription setting forth the name and titles of its expected occupant\n(for each was built during the life-time of its owner), with an\ninvocation praying for him propitious funeral rites, and a good\nburial-place after a long and happy life. Then follows a pious hope that\nthe spirit may enjoy for all eternity the proper payment of funereal\nofferings, a list of which is ordinarily appended, together with a\nstatement of the various anniversaries on which they were due. But the\npoint which specially concerns us here is this: Priests or servants were\nappointed to see that these offerings were duly made; and the tomb was\nendowed with property for the purpose both of keeping up the offerings\nin question, and of providing a stipend or living-wage for the priest.\nAs we shall see hereafter, such priesthoods were generally made\nhereditary, so as to ensure their continuance throughout all time:\nand so successful were they that in many cases worship continued to be\nperformed for several hundred years at the tomb; so that a person\nwho died under the Early Empire was still being made the recipient of\nfuneral dues under kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties.\n\nI give this interesting historical instance at some length because it\nis one of the best known, and also one of the most persistent. But\neverywhere, all the world over, similar evolutions have occurred on\na shorter scale. The temple attendants, endowed for the purpose of\nperforming sacred rites for the ghost or god, have grown into priests,\nwho knew the habits of the unseen denizen of the shrine. Bit by bit,\nprescriptions have arisen; customs and rituals have developed; and the\npriests have become the depositaries of the divine traditions. They\nalone know how to approach the god; they alone can read the hidden signs\nof his pleasure or displeasure. As intermediaries between worshipper and\ndeity, they are themselves half sacred. {090}Without them, no votary\ncan rightly approach the shrine of his patron. Thus at last they rise\ninto-importance far above their origin; priestcraft comes into being;\nand by magnifying their god, the members of the hierarchy magnify at the\nsame time their own office and function.\n\nYet another contributing cause must be briefly noted. Picture-writing\nand hieroglyphics take their rise more especially in connexion with\ntombs and temples. The priests in particular hold as a rule the key to\nthis knowledge. In ancient Egypt, to take a well-known instance, they\nwere the learned class; they became the learned class again under\nother circumstances in mediaeval Europe. Everywhere we come upon sacred\nmysteries that the priests alone know; and where hieroglyphics exist,\nthese mysteries, committed to writing, become the peculiar property\nof the priests in a more special sense. Where writing is further\ndifferentiated into hieratic and demotic, the gulf between laity and\npriesthood grows still wider; the priests possess a special key to\nknowledge, denied to the commonalty. The recognition of Sacred Books has\noften the same result; of these, the priests are naturally the guardians\nand exponents. I need hardly add that side by side with the increase\nof architectural grandeur in the temple, and the increase of artistic\nbeauty and costliness in the idols or statues and pictures of the gods,\ngoes increase in the stateliness of the priestly robes, the priestly\nsurroundings, the priestly ritual. Finally, we get ceremonies of the\nmost dignified character, adorned with all the accessories of painting\nand sculpture, of candles and flowers, of incense and music, of rich\nmitres and jewelled palls,--ceremonies performed in the dim shade of\nlofty temples, or mosques, or churches, in honour of god or gods of\ninfinite might, power, and majesty, who must yet in the last resort be\ntraced back to some historic or prehistoric Dead Man, or at least to\nsome sacred stone or stake or image, his relic and representative.\n\nThus, {091}by convergence of all these streams, the primitive mummy or\nghost or spirit passes gradually into a deity of unbounded glory and\ngreatness and sanctity. The bodiless soul, released from necessary\nlimits of space and time, envisaged as a god, is pictured as ever\nmore and more superhuman, till all memory of its origin is entirely\nforgotten. But to the last, observe this curious point: all new gods\nor saints or divine persons are, each as they crop up first, of\ndemonstrably human origin. Whenever we find a new god added from known\nsources to a familiar pantheon, we find without exception that he\nturns out to be--a human being. Whenever we go back to very primitive\nreligions, we find all men\u2019s gods are the corpses or ghosts of their\nancestors. It is only when we take relatively advanced races with\nunknown early histories that we find them worshipping a certain number\nof gods who cannot be easily and immediately resolved into dead men\nor spirits. Unfortunately, students of religion have oftenest paid the\nclosest attention to those historical religions which lie furthest away\nfrom the primitive type, and in which at their first appearance before\nus we come upon the complex idea of godhead already fully developed.\nHence they are too much inclined, like Professor Robertson Smith, and\neven sometimes Mr. Frazer (whose name, however, I cannot mention in\npassing without the pro-foundest respect), to regard the idea of a\ngodship as primordial, not derivative; and to neglect the obvious\nderivation of godhead as a whole from the cult and reverence of the\ndeified ancestor. Yet the moment we get away from these advanced and\ntoo overlaid historical religions to the early conceptions of simple\nsavages, we see at once that no gods exist for them save the ancestral\ncorpses or ghosts; that religion means the performance of certain rites\nand offerings to these corpses or ghosts; and that higher elemental or\ndepartmental deities are wholly wanting. Even in the great historical\nreligions themselves, the further back we go, and the lower down we\n{092}probe, the closer do we come to the foundation-stratum of ghosts or\nancestor-gods. And where, as in Egypt, the evidence is oldest and most\ncomplete throughout, the more do we observe how the mystic nature-gods\nof the later priestly conceptions yield, as we go back age by age\nin time, to the simpler and more purely human ancestral gods of the\nearliest documents.\n\nIt will be our task in the succeeding chapters of this work to do even\nmore than this--to show that the apparently unresolvable element\nin later religions, including the Hebrew god Jahweh himself, can\nbe similarly affiliated by no uncertain evidence upon the primitive\nconception of a ghost or ancestor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.--SACRED STONES.\n\n|I {093}mentioned in the last chapter two origins of Idols to which, as\nI believed, an insufficient amount of attention had been directed by Mr.\nHerbert Spencer. These were the Sacred Stone and the Wooden Stake which\nmark the grave. To these two I will now add a third common object of\nworship, which does not indeed enter into the genesis of idols, but\nwhich is of very high importance in early religion--the sacred tree,\nwith its collective form, the sacred grove. All the objects thus\nenumerated demand further attention at our hands, both from their\ngeneral significance in the history of religion, and also from their\nspecial interest in connexion with the evolution of the God of Israel,\nwho became in due time the God of Christianity and of Islam, as well as\nthe God of modern idealised and sublimated theism.\n\nI will begin with the consideration of the Sacred Stone, not only\nbecause it is by far the most important of the three, but also because,\nas we shall shortly see, it stands in the direct line of parentage of\nthe God of Israel.\n\nAll the world over, and at all periods of history, we find among the\nmost common objects of human worship certain blocks of stone, either\nrudely shaped and dressed by the hand, or else more often standing alone\non the soil in all their native and natural roughness. The downs of\nEngland are everywhere studded with cromlechs, dolmens, and other\nantique megalithic structures (of which the gigantic trilithons of\nStonehenge and Avebury are the best-known examples), {094}long described\nby antiquaries as \u201cdruidical remains,\u201d and certainly regarded by\nthe ancient inhabitants of Britain with an immense amount of respect\nand reverence. In France we have the endless avenues of Carnac and\nLocmariaker; in Sardinia, the curious conical shafts known to the local\npeasants as _sepolture dei giganti_--the tombs of the giants. In Syria,\nMajor Conder has described similar monuments in Heth and Moab, at Gilboa\nand at Heshbon. In India, five stones are set up at the corner of a\nfield, painted red, and worshipped by the natives as the Five Pandavas.\nTheophrastus tells us as one of the characteristics of the superstitious\nman that he anoints with oil the sacred stones at the street corners;\nand from an ancient tradition embedded in the Hebrew scriptures we learn\nhow the patriarch Jacob set up a stone at Bethel \u201cfor a pillar,\u201d and\n\u201cpoured oil upon the top of it,\u201d as a like act of worship. Even in\nour own day there is a certain English hundred where the old open-air\ncourt of the manor is inaugurated by the ceremony of breaking a bottle\nof wine over a standing stone which tops a tumulus; and the sovereigns\nof the United Kingdom are still crowned in a chair which encloses under\nits seat the ancestral sacred stone of their heathen Scottish and Irish\npredecessors.\n\nNow, what is the share of such sacred stones in the rise and growth of\nthe religious habit?\n\nIt is hardly necessary, I suppose, to give formal proof of the familiar\nfact that an upright slab is one of the commonest modes of marking the\nplace where a person is buried. From the ancient pillar that prehistoric\nsavages set up over the tumulus of their dead chief, to the headstone\nthat marks the dwarfed and stunted barrow in our own English cemeteries,\nthe practice of mankind has been one and continuous. Sometimes the stone\nis a rough boulder from the fields; a representative of the big block\nwhich savages place on the grave to keep the corpse from rising:\nsometimes it is an oblong slab of slate or marble; sometimes, and\nespecially among the more advanced races, it is {095}a shapely cross or\nsculptured monument. But whenever on earth interment is practised, there\nstones of some sort, solitary or in heaps, almost invariably mark the\nplace of burial.\n\nAgain, as presents and sacrifices are offered at graves to the spirits\nof the dead, it is at the stone which records the last resting-place of\nthe deceased that they will oftenest be presented. As a matter of fact\nwe know that, all the world over, offerings of wine, oil, rice,\nghee, corn, and meat are continually made at the graves of chiefs or\nrelations. Victims, both human and otherwise, are sacrificed at the\ntomb, and their blood is constantly smeared on the headstone or boulder\nthat marks the spot. Indeed, after a time, the grave and the stone get\nto be confounded together, and the place itself comes to have a certain\nsacredness, derived from the ghost which haunts and inhabits it.\n\nFour well-marked varieties of early tombstone are recognised in the\neastern continent at least, and their distribution and nature is thus\ndescribed by Major Conder: \u201cRude stone monuments, bearing a strong\nfamily resemblance in their mode of construction and dimensions, have\nbeen found distributed over all parts of Europe and Western Asia, and\noccur also in India. In some cases they are attributable to early\nAryan tribes; in others they seem to be of Semitic origin. They include\n_menhirs_, or standing stones, which were erected as memorials, and\nworshipped as deities, with libations of blood, milk, honey, or water\npoured upon the stones: _dolmens_, or stone tables, free standing--that\nis, not covered by any mound or superstructure, which may be considered\nwithout doubt to have been used as altars on which victims (often human)\nwere immolated: _cairns_, also memorial, and sometimes surrounding\nmenhirs; these were made by the contributions of numerous visitors\nor pilgrims, each adding a stone as witness of his presence: finally\n_cromlechs_, or stone circles, used as sacred enclosures or early\nhyp\u00e6thral temples, often {096}with a central menhir or dolmen as statue\nor altar.\u201d\n\nThere can be very little doubt that every one of these monuments is\nessentially sepulchral in character. The menhir or standing stone is\nthe ordinary gravestone still in use among us: the dolmen is a chambered\ntomb, once covered by a tumulus, but now bare and open: the cairn is a\nheap of stones piled above the dead body: the stone circle is apparently\na later temple built around a tomb, whose position is marked by the\nmenhir or altar-stone in its centre. And each has been the parent of\na numerous offspring. The menhir gives rise to the obelisk, the stone\ncross, and the statue or idol; the dolmen, to the sarcophagus, the\naltar-tomb, and the high altar; the cairn, to the tope and also to the\npyramid; the cromlech, or stone circle, to the temple or church in one\nat least of its many developments.\n\nEach of these classes of monuments, Major Conder observes, has its\ndistinctive name in the Semitic languages, and is frequently mentioned\nin the early Hebrew literature. The _menhir_ is the \u201cpillar\u201d of\nour Authorised Version of the Old Testament; the _dolmen_ is the\n\u201caltar\u201d; the _cairn_ is the \u201cheap\u201d; and the stone circle appears\nunder the names Gilgal and Hazor. The significance of these facts will\nappear a little later on when I reach a more advanced stage in the\nevolution of stone-worship.\n\nIn the simplest and most primitive stage of religion, such as that pure\nancestor-cult still surviving unmixed among the people of New Guinea or\nthe African tribes whose practice Mr. Duff Macdonald has so admirably\ndescribed for us, it is the corpse or ghost itself, not the stone to\nmark its dwelling, which comes in for all the veneration and all\nthe gifts of the reverent survivors. But we must remember that every\nexisting religion, however primitive in type, is now very ancient; and\nit is quite natural that in many cases the stone should thus come itself\nto be regarded as the ghost or god, the object to which veneration is\n{097}paid by the tribesmen. In fact, just in proportion as the ghost\nevolves into the god, so does the tombstone begin to evolve into the\nfetish or idol.\n\nAt first, however, it is merely as the rude unshapen stone that the idol\nin this shape receives the worship of its votaries. This is the stage\nthat has been christened by that very misleading name fetishism, and\nerroneously supposed to lie at the very basis of all religion. Here are\na few interesting samples of this stage of stone-worship, taken from the\nvery careful Samoan collection of Mr. Turner, of the London Missionary\nSociety:\n\n\u201cFonge and Toafa were the names of the two oblong smooth stones\nwhich stood on a raised platform of loose stones inland of one of the\nvillages. They were supposed to be the parents of Saato, a god who\ncontrolled the rain. When the chiefs and people were ready to go off for\nweeks to certain places in the bush for the sport of pigeon-catching,\nofferings of cooked taro and fish were laid on the stones, accompanied\nby prayers for fine weather and no rain. Any one who refused an offering\nto the stones was frowned upon; and in the event of rain was blamed\nand punished for bringing down the wrath of the fine-weather god, and\nspoiling the sports of the season.\u201d\n\nHere, even if one doubts that Saato was a deceased Weather-doctor, and\nthat Fonge and Toafa were his father and mother (which I do not care to\ninsist upon), it is at least clear that we have to deal essentially with\ntwo standing stones of precisely the same sort as those which habitually\nmark sepulture.\n\nOf the gods of Hudson\u2019s Island, Mr. Turner gives this very interesting\nand suggestive account:\n\n\u201cFoelangi and Maumau were the principal gods. They had each a temple;\nand under the altars, on which were laid out in rows the skulls of\ndeparted chiefs and people, were suspended offerings of pearl-shell and\nother valuables. Foelangi had an unchiselled block of stone to represent\nhim--something like a six feet high gravestone.... {098}Offerings of\nfood were taken to the temples, that the gods might first partake before\nanyone else ate anything.... Husked cocoanuts were laid down, one before\neach skull.\u201d\n\nAnd of St. Augustine Island he writes: \u201cAt the Temple of Maumau there\nstood a nine feet high coral sandstone slab from the beach.... Meat\nofferings were laid on the altars, accompanied by songs and dances in\nhonour of the god.\u201d\n\nSimilarly, about one of the Gilbert Group, Mr. Turner says:\n\n\u201cThey had other gods and goddesses, and, as was common in this group,\nhad sandstone slabs or pillars set up here and there among the houses.\nBefore these shrines offerings of food were laid during the day, which\nthe priests took away stealthily by night and made the credulous believe\nthat gods and not mortals had done it. If the stone slab represented a\n_goddess_ it was not placed erect, but laid down on the ground. Being a\n_lady_ they thought it would be cruel to make her stand so long.\u201d\n\nIn these cases, and in many others, it seems to me clear that the\noriginal gravestone or menhir itself is the object of worship, viewed as\nthe residence of the ghost or god in whose honour it was erected. For in\nSamoa we know that the grave \u201cwas marked by a little heap of stones, a\nfoot or two high,\u201d and at De Peyster\u2019s Island \u201ca stone was raised\nat the head of the grave, and a human head carved on it\u201d--a first\nstep, as we have already seen, towards the evolution of one form of\nidol.\n\nSimilar instances abound everywhere. Among the Khonds of India, every\nvillage has its local god, represented by an upright stone under the\nbig tree on the green, to use frankly an English equivalent. (The full\nimportance of this common combination of sacred stone and sacred tree\nwill only come out at a later stage of our enquiry.) In Peru, worship\nwas paid to standing stones which, says Dr. Tylor, \u201crepresented the\npenates of households {099}and the patron-deities of villages\u201d--in\nother words, the ghosts of ancestors and of tribal chiefs. \u201cNear\nAcora,\u201d says the Marquis de Nadaillac, \u201cthe bodies were placed under\nmegalithic stones, reminding us of the dolmens and cromlechs of Europe.\nOne vast plain is covered with erect stones, some forming circles, some\nsquares, and often covered in with large slabs which entirely closed\nround the sepulchral chamber.\u201d In Fiji the gods and goddesses \u201chad\ntheir abodes or shrines in black stones like smooth round milestones,\nand there received their offerings of food.\u201d An immense number\nof similar instances have been collected by Dr. Tylor and other\nanthropologists.\n\nBut when once the idea of the sacredness of stones had thus got firmly\nfixed in the savage mind, it was natural enough that other stones,\nresembling those which were already recognised as gods, should come to\nbe regarded as themselves divine, or as containing an indwelling ghost\nor deity. Of this stage, Mr. Turner\u2019s Samoa again affords us some\ncurious instances.\n\n\u201cSmooth stones apparently picked up out of the bed of the river were\nregarded as representatives of certain gods, and wherever the stone was,\nthere the god was supposed to be. One resembling a fish would be prayed\nto as the fisherman\u2019s god. Another, resembling a yam, would be the yam\ngod. A third, round like a breadfruit, the breadfruit god--and so on.\u201d\n\nNow, the word \u201capparently\u201d used by this very cautious observer in\nthis passage shows clearly that he had never of his own knowledge seen a\nstone thus selected at random worshipped or deified, and it is therefore\npossible that in all such cases the stone may really have been one of\nsepulchral origin. Still, I agree with Mr. Spencer that when once the\nidea of a ghost or god is well developed, the notion of such a spirit as\nanimating any remarkable or odd-looking object is a natural transition. *\n\n     * The whole subject is admirably worked out in The\n     Principles of Sociology, \u00a7 159.\n\nHence I incline {100}to believe Mr. Turner is right, and that these\nstones may really have been picked out and worshipped, merely for their\noddity, but always, as he correctly infers, from the belief in their\nconnexion with some god or spirit.\n\nHere is another case, also from Polynesia, where no immediate connexion\nwith any particular grave seems definitely implied:\n\n\u201cTwo unchiselled \u2018smooth stones of the stream\u2019 were kept in a\ntemple at one of the villages, and guarded with great care. No stranger\nor over-curious person was allowed to go near the place, under penalty\nof a beating from the custodians of these gods. They represented good\nand not malicious death-causing gods. The one made the yams, breadfruit,\nand cocoanuts, and the other sent fish to the nets.\n\n\u201cAnother stone was carefully housed in another village as the\nrepresentative of a rain-making god. When there was overmuch rain, the\nstone was laid by the fire and kept heated till fine weather set in.\u201d\n\nFurther instances (if fairly reported) occur elsewhere. \u201cAmong the\nlower races of America,\u201d says Dr. Tylor, summarising Schoolcraft,\n\u201cthe Dakotahs would pick up a round boulder, paint it, and then,\naddressing it as grandfather, make offerings to it, and pray it to\ndeliver them from danger.\u201d But here the very fact that the stone\nis worshipped and treated as an ancestor shows how derivative is the\ndeification--how dependent upon the prior association of such stones\nwith the tomb of a forefather and its indwelling spirit. Just in the\nsame way we know there are countries where a grave is more generally\nmarked, not by a stone, but by a wooden stake; and in these countries,\nas for instance among the Samoyedes of Siberia, sticks, not stones, are\nthe most common objects of reverence. (Thus, again, stick-worship\nis found \u201camong the Damaras of South Africa, whose ancestors are\nrepresented at the sacrificial feasts by stakes cut from trees or bushes\nconsecrated to them, to which stakes the meat is first {101}offered.\u201d)\nBut here, too, we see the clear affiliation upon ancestor-worship; and\nindeed, wherever we find the common worship of \u201cstocks and stones,\u201d\nall the analogies lead us to believe the stocks and stones either\nactually mark the graves of ancestors or else are accepted as their\nrepresentatives and embodiments.\n\nThe vast majority, however, of sacred stones with whose history we are\nwell acquainted are indubitably connected with interments, ancient\nor modern. All the European sacred stones are cromlechs, dolmens,\ntrilithons, or menhirs, of which Mr. Angus Smith, a most cautious\nauthority, observes categorically, \u201cWe know for a certainty that\nmemorials of burials are the chief object of the first one, and of\nnearly all, the only object apparently.\u201d So many other examples will\ncome out incidentally in the course of the sequel that I will not labour\nthe point any further at present. Among the most remarkable instances,\nhowever, I cannot refrain from mentioning the great Sardinian sacred\nstones, which so often occur in the neighbourhood of the _nuraghi_, or\nancient forts. These consist of tall conical monoliths, rough and unhewn\nin the oldest examples, rudely hewn in the later ones, and occasionally\npresenting some distant resemblance to a human face--the first rough\ndraft of the future idol. \u201cBehind the monolith lies the burial-place,\nten to fourteen yards long by one or two in width.\u201d These\nburial-places have been examined by the Abbate Spano.\n\n\u201cHe was satisfied that several bodies had been buried together in the\nsame tomb, and that these were therefore family burial-places. When\nthe death of one of the members of the tribe occurred, one of the great\ntransverse stones which covered the long alley built behind the monolith\nwas removed, and then replaced until the time came for another body\nto claim its place in the tomb. The monolith, called by the Sardinian\npeasants _pietra dell’ altare_, or altar-stone, because they believe\nit to have been used for human sacrifice, always faces the south or\neast.\u201d\n\nSuch {102}a surviving tradition as to the human sacrifices, in an island\nso little sophisticated as Sardinia, has almost certainly come down to\nus unbroken from a very early age.\n\nI have already stated that the idol is probably in many cases derived\nfrom the gravestone or other sacred stone. I believe that in an immense\nnumber of cases it is simply the original pillar, more or less rudely\ncarved into the semblance of a human figure.\n\nHow this comes about we can readily understand if we recollect that by a\ngradual transference of sentiment the stone itself is at last identified\nwith the associated spirit. Here, once more, is a transitional instance\nfrom our Polynesian storehouse.\n\nThe great god of Bowditch Island \u201cwas supposed to be embodied in a\nstone, which was carefully wrapped up with fine mats, and never seen\nby any one but the king\u201d (note this characteristic touch of kingly\npriesthood), \u201cand that only once a year, when the decayed mats were\nstripped off and thrown away. In sickness, offerings of fine mats were\ntaken and rolled round the sacred stone, and thus it got busked up to\na prodigious size; but as the idol was exposed to the weather out of\ndoors, night and day, the mats soon rotted. No one dared to appropriate\nwhat had been offered to the god, and hence the old mats, as they were\ntaken off, were heaped in a place by themselves and allowed to rot.\u201d\n\nNow the reasonableness of all this is immediately apparent if\nwe remember that the stones which stand on graves are habitually\nworshipped, and anointed with oil, milk, and blood. It is but a slight\nfurther step to regard the stone, not only as eating and drinking, but\nalso as needing warmth and clothing. As an admirable example of the same\ntrain of thought, working out the same result elsewhere, compare this\ncurious account of a stone idol at Inniskea (a rocky islet off the Mayo\ncoast), given by the Earl of Roden, as late as 1851, in his _Progress of\nthe Reformation in Ireland_: \u201cIn {103}the south island, in the house\nof a man named Monigan, a stone idol, called in the Irish \u2018Neevougi,’\nhas been from time immemorial religiously preserved and worshipped. This\ngod resembles in appearance a thick roll of home-spun flannel, which\narises from the custom of dedicating a dress of that material to\nit whenever its aid is sought; this is sewn on by an old woman, its\npriestess, whose peculiar care it is. Of the early history of this idol\nno authentic information can be procured, but its power is believed to\nbe immense; they pray to it in time of sickness; it is invoked when a\nstorm is desired to dash some hapless ship upon their coast; and, again,\nthe exercise of its power is solicited in calming the angry waves, to\nadmit of fishing or visiting the mainland.\u201d\n\nNor is this a solitary instance in modern Europe. \u201cIn certain mountain\ndistricts of Norway,\u201d says Dr. Tylor, \u201cup to the end of the last\ncentury, the peasants used to preserve round stones, washed them every\nThursday evening,.... smeared them with butter before the fire, laid\nthem in the seat of honour on fresh straw, and at certain times of the\nyear steeped them in ale, that they might bring luck and comfort to the\nhouse.\u201d\n\nThe first transitional step towards the idol proper is given in some\nrude attempt to make the standing stone at the grave roughly resemble\na human figure. In the later Sardinian examples, two conical lumps,\nrepresenting the breasts, seem to mark that the figure is intended to\nbe female--either because a woman is buried there, or to place the spot\nunder the protection of a goddess. From this rude beginning we get every\ntransitional form, like the Herm\u00e6 and the archaic Apollos, till we\narrive at the perfect freedom and beauty of Hellenic sculpture. Says\nGrote, in speaking of Greek worship, \u201ctheir primitive memorial erected\nto a god did not even pretend to be an image, but was often nothing\nmore than a pillar, a board, a shapeless stone, or a post [notice the\nresemblance to ordinary grave-marks] receiving care and decoration from\nthe {104}neighbourhood as well as worship.\u201d Dr. Tylor, to whose great\ncollection of instances I owe many acknowledgments, says in comment on\nthis passage, \u201cSuch were the log that stood for Artemis in Euboea;\nthe stake that represented Pallas Athene \u2018sine effigie rudis palus,\net informe lignum;\u2019 the unwrought stone at Hyethos, which \u2018after the\nancient manner\u2019 represented Heracles; the thirty such stones which the\nPhar\u00e6ans in like fashion worshipped for the gods; and that one which\nreceived such honour in Boeotian festivals as representing the Thespian\nEros.\u201d Such also was the conical pillar of Asiatic type which stood\ninstead of an image of the Paphian Aphrodite, and the conical stone\nworshipped in Attica under the name of Apollo. A sacred boulder lay in\nfront of the temple of the Tr\u0153zenians, while another in Argos bore\nthe significant name of Zeus Kappotas. \u201cAmong all the Greeks,\u201d\nsays Pausanias, \u201crude stones were worshipped before the images of the\ngods.\u201d Among the Semites, in like manner, Melcarth was reverenced at\nTyre under the form of two stone pillars.\n\nIntermediate forms, in which the stone takes successively a face, a\nhead, arms, legs, a shapely and well-moulded body, are familiar to all\nof us in existing remains. The well-known figures of Priapus form a\ngood transitional example. \u201cAt T\u00e2bala, in Arabia,\u201d says Professor\nRobertson Smith, \u201ca sort of crown was sculptured on the stone\nof al-Lat to mark her head.\u201d Indeed, to the last, the pillar or\nmonolithic type is constantly suggested in the erect attitude and\nthe proportions of the statue among all except the highest Hellenic\nexamples. I may add, that even in Islam itself, which so sternly forbids\nimages of any sort, some traces of such anthropomorphic gravestones may\nstill be found. I noticed in the mosque of Mehemet Ali at Cairo that\nthe headstones of the Vice-regal family were each adorned with a fez and\ntassel.\n\nIt is worth noting that the obelisk, also, doubtless owes its origin to\nthe monolith or standing stone. Whatever fresh {105}sacredness it may\nlater have obtained from the associations of sun-worship, as a solar\nray, cannot mask for any wide anthropological enquirer the fact that it\nis by descent a mere shapeless head-stone, with a new symbolic meaning\ngiven to it (as so often happens) in a new religion. The two obelisks’\nwhich stand so often before Egyptian temples are clearly the analogues\nof the two pillars of Melcarth at Tyre, and the sacred pair at Paphos,\nHera-polis, and Solomon’s temple. In the same way, the Indian tope and\nthe pyramid are descendants of the cairn, as the great stone-built tombs\nof the Numidian kings in Algeria seem to be more advanced equivalents of\nthe tumulus or round barrow. And let me clear the ground here for\nwhat is to follow by adding most emphatically that the genesis of\nstone-worship here sketched out precludes the possibility of phallic\nworship being in any sense a primitive form of it. The standing stone\nmay have been, and doubtless often was, in later stages; identified with\na phallus; but if the theory here advocated is true, the lingam, instead\nof lying at the root of the monolith, must necessarily be a later and\nderivative form of it. At the same time, the stone being regarded as\nthe ancestor of the family, it is not unnatural that early men should\nsometimes carve it into a phallic shape. Having said this, I will say\nno more on the subject, which has really extremely little to do with the\nessentials of stone worship, save that on many gravestones of early\ndate a phallus marked the male sex of the occupant, while breasts, or a\nsymbolical triangle, or a mandorla, marked the grave of a woman.\n\nSometimes, both forms of god, the most primitive and the most finished,\nthe rude stone and the perfect statue, exist side by side in the same\ncommunity.\n\n\u201cIn the legendary origin of Jagannath,\u201d says Sir William Hunter,\n\u201cwe find the aboriginal people worshipping a blue stone in the depths\nof the forest. But the deity at length wearies of primitive jungle\nofferings, and longs for the cooked food of the more civilised Aryans,\nupon {106}whose arrival on the scene the rude blue stone gives place\nto a carved image. At the present hour, in every hamlet of Orissa, this\ntwofold worship coexists. The common people have their shapeless stone\nor block, which they adore with simple rites in the open air; while\nside by side with it stands a temple to one of the Aryan gods, with its\ncarved idol and elaborate rites.\u201d\n\nWhere many sacred stones exist all round, marking the graves of the\ndead, or inhabited by their spirits, it is not surprising, once more,\nthat a general feeling of reverence towards all stones should begin to\narise--that the stone per se, especially if large, odd, or conspicuous,\nshould be credited to some extent with indwelling divinity. Nor is it\nastonishing that the idea of men being descended from stones should\nbe rife among people who must often, when young, have been shown\nheadstones, monoliths, boulders, or cromlechs, and been told that the\nofferings made upon them were gifts to their ancestors. They would\naccept the idea as readily as our own children accept the Hebrew myth\nof the creation of Adam, our prime ancestor, from \u201cthe dust of the\nground\u201d--a far less promising material than a block of marble or\nsandstone. In this way, it seems to me, we can most readily understand\nthe numerous stories of men becoming stones, and stones becoming men,\nwhich are rife among the myths of savage or barbarous peoples.\n\nFernandez de Piedrahita says that the Laches \u201cworshipped every stone\nas a god, as they said they had all been men.\u201d Arriaga tells us the\nPeruvians paid honour to \u201cvery large stones, saying that they were\nonce men.\u201d In the American _Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for\n1880_, several stories are told of metamorphosis of men into stones\nfrom the Iroquois legends. According to Dorman, the Oneidas and\nDakotahs claim descent from stones, to which they ascribe animation. An\ninteresting intermediate form, which shows the growth of this idea, is\ngiven in Arriaga\u2019s statement that the Marcayoc, or idol worshipped\nin {107}Peru as the patron of the village, \u201cis sometimes a stone and\nsometimes a mummy\u201d: in other words, it depended upon circumstances\nwhether they reverenced the body itself or the gravestone that covered\nit. Among the Coast Negroes, when a person dies, a stone is taken to a\ncertain house--the village valhalla--to represent his ghost; and among\nthe Bulloms, women \u201cmake occasional sacrifices and offerings of rice\nto the stones which are preserved in memory of the dead.\u201d At Tanna,\nin the New Hebrides, Mr. Gray, a missionary, found \u201ca piece of sacred\nground, on which were deposited the stones in which they supposed\nthe spirits of their departed relatives to reside\u201d; and Commander\nHenderson, commenting upon a similar case from Vati Island, says these\n\u201cwere the only form of gods the natives possessed, and into them they\nsupposed the souls of their departed friends and relatives to enter.\u201d\nSome of them \u201chad a small piece chipped out on one side, by means of\nwhich the indwelling ghost or spirit was supposed to have ingress or\negress.\u201d Of a third sort, rudely fashioned by hand, Captain Henderson\nsays acutely, \u201cthese, it seemed to me, were the beginnings of a graven\nimage--a common stone, sacred as the dwelling-place of an ancestral\nghost.\u201d *\n\n     * I owe this and several other references to Mr. Spencer\u2019s\n     Appendix, as I do some of my previously cited cases to Mr.\n     Lang or Dr. Tylor.\n\nClassical and Hebrew literature are full of examples of such stones,\nbelieved to have been once human. Niobe and Lot\u2019s wife are instances\nthat will at once occur to every reader. In Boeotia, Pausanias tells\nus, people believed Alkmene, the mother of Herakles, was changed into a\nstone. Perseus and the Gorgon\u2019s head is another example, paralleled by\nthe Breton idea that their great stone circles were people, who, in the\nmodern Christianised version of the story, were turned into stone for\ndancing on a Sunday. (About this Christianisation I shall have a word\nto say further on; meanwhile, observe the similar name of the Giant\u2019s\nDance given to the great Stonehenge {108}of Ireland.) In the same way\nthere is a Standing Rock on the upper Missouri which parallels the story\nof Niobe--it was once a woman, who became petrified with grief when\nher husband took a second wife. Some Samoan gods (or ancestral ghosts)\n\u201cwere changed into stones,\u201d says Mr. Turner, \u201cand now stand up in\na rocky part of the lagoon on the north side of Upolu.\u201d\n\nOn the other hand, if men become stones, stones also become men, or at\nleast give birth to men. We get a good instance of this in the legend of\nDeucalion. Again, by the roadside, near the city of the Panopoeans, lay\nthe stones out of which Prometheus made men. Manke, the first man\nin Mitchell Island, came out of a stone. The inhabitants of the New\nHebrides say that \u201cthe human race sprang from stones and the earth.\u201d\nOn Francis Island, says Mr. Turner, \u201cclose by the temple there was\na seven-feet-long beach sandstone slab erected, before which offerings\nwere laid as the people united for prayer\u201d; and the natives here\ntold him that one of their gods had made stones become men. \u201cIn\nMelanesia,\u201d says Mr. Lang, \u201cmatters are so mixed that it is not easy\nto decide whether a worshipful stone is the dwelling of a dead man\u2019s\nsoul, or is of spiritual merit in itself, or whether the stone is the\nspirit\u2019s outward part or organ.\u201d And, indeed, a sort of general\nconfusion between the stone, the ghost, the ancestor, and the god,\nat last pervades the mind of the stone-worshipper everywhere. \u201cThe\ncurious anthropomorphic idea of stones being husbands and wives, and\neven having children,\u201d as Dr. Tylor calls it--an idea familiar to the\nFijians as to the Peruvians and Lapps--is surely explicable at once by\nthe existence of headstones either to men or women, and the confusion\nbetween the mark and the ghost it commemorates.\n\nAn interesting side-point in this gradual mixing up of the ghost and the\nstone, the god and the image, is shown in a gradual change of detail\nas to the mode of making offerings at the tomb or shrine. On the great\ntrilithon in Tonga, {109}Miss Gordon-Cumming tells us, a bowl of kava\nwas placed on a horizontal stone. Here it must have been supposed that\nthe ghost itself issued forth (perhaps by night) to drink it, as the\nserpent which represented the spirit of Anchises glided from the tomb\nto lick up the offerings presented by \u00c6neas. Gradually, however, as the\nstone and the ghost get more closely connected in idea the offering\nis made to the monument itself; though in the earlier stages the\nconvenience of using the flat altar-stone (wherever such exists) as a\nplace of sacrifice for victims probably masks the transition even to the\nworshippers themselves. Dr. Wise saw in the Himalayas a group of stones\n\u201cerected to the memory of the petty Rajahs of Kolam,\u201d where \u201csome\nfifty or sixty unfortunate women sacrificed themselves.\u201d The blood,\nin particular, is offered up to the ghost; and \u201cthe cup-hollows which\nhave been found in menhirs and dolmens,\u201d says Captain Conder, \u201care\nthe indications of the libations, often of human blood, once poured on\nthese stones by heathen worshippers.\u201d \u201cCups are often found,\u201d says\na good Scotch observer, \u201con stones connected with the monuments of the\ndead, such as on the covering stones of kistvaens, particularly those of\nthe short or rarest form; on the flat stones of cromlechs; and on stones\nof chambered graves.\u201d On the top of the cairn at Glen Urquhart, on\nLoch Ness, is an oblong mass of slate-stone, obviously sepulchral, and\nmarked with very numerous cups. When the stones are upright the notion\nof offering the blood to the upper part, which represents the face or\nmouth, becomes very natural, and forms a distinct step in the process of\nanthropomorphisation of the headstone into the idol.\n\nWe get two stages of this evolution side by side in the two deities of\nthe Samoyed travelling ark-sledge, \u201cone with a stone head, the other a\nmere black stone, both dressed in green robes with red lappets, and\nboth smeared with sacrificial blood.\u201d In the Indian groups of standing\nstones, representing the Five Pandavas, \u201cit is a usual practice,\u201d\n{110}says Dr. Tylor, \u201cto daub each stone with red paint, forming, as\nit were, a great blood-spot where the face would be if it were a shaped\nidol.\u201d Mr. Spencer, I think, hits the key-note of this practice in an\ninstructive passage. \u201cA Dakotah,\u201d he says, \u201cbefore praying to a\nstone for succour paints it with some red pigment, such as red ochre.\nNow, when we read that along with offerings of milk, honey, fruit,\nflour, etc., the Bodo and Dhimals offer \u2018red lead or cochineal,’ we\nmay suspect that these three colouring matters, having red as their\ncommon character, are substitutes for blood. The supposed resident ghost\nwas at first propitiated by anointing the stone with human blood; and\nthen, in default of this, red pigment was used, ghosts and gods being\nsupposed by primitive men to be easily deceived by shams.\u201d It\nis possible, too, that with the process of idealisation and\nspiritualisation it might be supposed a substitute would please the gods\nequally well, or that redness generally was the equivalent of blood, in\nthe same way as the Chinese burn paper money and utensils to set free\ntheir ghosts for the use of ancestral spirits.\n\nIn any case, it is interesting to note that the faces of many Hindu gods\nare habitually painted red. And that this is the survival of the same\nancient custom we see in the case of Shashti, protectress of children,\nwhose proper representative is \u201ca rough stone as big as a man\u2019s\nhead, smeared with red paint, and set at the foot of the sacred\nvata-tree.\u201d Like customs survived in Greece down to the classical\nperiod. \u201cThe faces of the ancient gilded Dionysi at Corinth,\u201d says\nMr. Lang, quoting Pausanias, \u201cwere smudged all over with cinnabar,\nlike fetish-stones in India or Africa.\u201d In early South Italy, too,\nthe Priapus-Hermes, who protected the fields, had his face similarly\n\u201cdaubed with minium.\u201d Is it possible to dissever these facts from\nthe cannibal banquets of the Aztec gods, where the images had lumps of\npalpitating human flesh thrust into their lips, {111}and where their\nfaces were smeared with the warm blood of the helpless victims?\n\nOnly in one instance, however, have I been able to trace the custom of\npainting with red directly back to cannibalism, and that is among the\nman-eaters of the New Hebrides, where, when a man died, and his body was\nlaid out in a piece of thick native cloth, \u201cthe face was kept exposed\nand painted red.\u201d I believe with this practice must ultimately be\ncorrelated the red-painted faces of the Corinthian Dionysi.\n\nAnother point of considerable interest and importance in the evolution\nof stone worship is connected with the migration of sacred stones. When\nthe Israelites left Egypt, according to the narrative in Exodus, they\ncarried the bones of Joseph with them. When Rachel left her father\u2019s\ntent she stole the family teraphim to accompany her on her wanderings.\nWhen \u00c6neas flew from burning Troy, he bore away to his ships his\ncountry\u2019s gods, his Lares and Penates. All of these tales, no doubt,\nare equally unhistorical, but they represent what, to the people who\nframed the legends, seemed perfectly natural and probable conduct. Just\nin the same way, when stone-worshippers migrate from one country to\nanother, they are likely to carry with them their sacred stones, or at\nleast the most portable or holiest of the number.\n\nHere is a very good illustrative case, once more from that most valuable\nstorehouse, Turner\u2019s _Samoa_. The Fijian gods and goddesses we saw,\naccording to Tylor, \u201chad their abodes or shrines in black stones like\nsmooth round millstones, and there received their offerings of food.\u201d\nBut on a certain Samoan island, says Mr. Turner, \u201cIn a district said\nto have been early populated by settlers from Fiji, a number of fancy\nFijian stones were kept in a temple, and worshipped in time of war. The\npriest, in consulting them, built them up in the form of a wall, and\nthen watched to see how they fell. If they fell to the westward, it was\na sign that the enemy there was to be {112}driven; but if they fell to\neastward, that was a warning of defeat, and delay in making an attack\nwas ordered accordingly.\u201d\n\nI cannot find room here for many detailed instances of similar\nmigrations; but there are two examples in Britain so exceedingly\ninteresting that even in so hasty a notice I cannot pass them by without\na brief mention. The inner or smaller stones at Stonehenge are known to\nbe of remote origin, belonging to rocks not found nearer Salisbury\nPlain than Cumberland in one direction or Belgium in the other. They are\nsurrounded by a group of much larger stones, arranged as trilithons, but\ncarved out of the common sarsen blocks distributed over the neighbouring\ncountry. I have tried to show elsewhere that these smaller igneous\nrocks, untouched by the tool, * were the ancient sacred stones of an\nimmigrant tribe that came into Britain from the Continent, probably\nover a broad land-belt which then existed where the Straits of Dover now\nflow; and that the strangers on their arrival in Britain erected these\ntheir ancestral gods on the Plain of Amesbury, and further contributed\nto their importance and appearance by surrounding them with a circle of\nthe biggest and most imposing grey-wethers that the new country in which\nthey had settled could easily afford.\n\n     * So Moses in the legend commanded the children of Israel to\n     build \u201can altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift\n     up any iron\u201d; and so of the boulders composing the altar on\n     Mount Ebal it was said, \u201cThou shah not lift up any iron tool\n     upon them.\u201d The conservatism of religion kept up the archaic\n     fashion for sacred purposes.\n\nThe other case is that of the Scone stone. This sacred block, according\nto the accredited legend, was originally the ancestral god of the Irish\nScots, on whose royal tumulus at Tara it once stood. It was carried by\nthem to Argyllshire on their first invasion, and placed in a cranny of\nthe wall (say modern versions) at Dunstaffnage Castle. When the Scotch\nkings removed to Scone, Kenneth II. took the stone to his new lowland\nresidence. Thence Edward I. {113}carried it off to England, where it has\never since remained in Westminster Abbey, as part of the chair in\nwhich the sovereigns of Britain sit at their coronation. The immense\nsignificance of these facts or tales will be seen more clearly when we\ncome to consider the analogies of the Hebrew ark. Meanwhile, it may help\nto explain the coronation usage, and the legend that wherever the Stone\nof Destiny is found \u201cthe Scots in place must reign,\u201d if I add a\ncouple of analogous cases from the history of the same mixed Celtic\nrace. According to Dr. O’Donovan, the inauguration stone of the\nO\u2019Donnells stood on a tumulus in the midst of a large plain; and on\nthis sacred stone, called the Flagstone of the Kings, the elected chief\nstood to receive the white wand or sceptre of kingship. A cylindrical\nobelisk, used for the same purpose, stands to this day, according to Dr.\nPetrie, in the Rath-na-Riogh. So, too, M\u2019Donald was crowned King of\nthe Isles, standing on a sacred stone, with an impression on top to\nreceive his feet. He based himself, as it were, upon the gods his\nancestors. The Tara stone even cried aloud, Professor Rhys tells us,\nwhen the true king placed his feet above it. The coronation stone exists\nin other countries; for example, in Hebrew history, or half-history, we\nlearn that when Abimelech was mads king it was \u201cby the plain of\nthe pillar that was in Shechem\u201d; and when Jehoash was anointed by\nJehoiada, \u201cthe king stood by a pillar, as the manner was.\u201d In front\nof the church of Sant\u2019 Ambrogio at Milan stands the stone pillar at\nwhich the Lombard kings and German emperors took the coronation oath,\nunder the ancient lime-trees which overshadow the piazza.\n\nNow, it is quite true that Mr. Skene, the best authority on Celtic\nScotland, rejects this story of the Stone of Destiny in most parts as\nlegendary: he believes the Scone stone to have been merely the sacred\ncoronation-block of the Pictish Kings at Scone, and never to have\ncome from Ireland at all. Professor Ramsay thinks it is a piece of red\n{114}sandstone broken off the rock of that district of Scotland. Even\nProfessor Rhys (who gives a most interesting account of the Tara Stone)\nseems to have doubts as to the migration. But, true or not, the story\nwill amply serve my purpose here; for I use it only to illustrate the\nequally dubious wanderings of a Hebrew sacred stone, at which we will\narrive in due time; and one legend is surely always the best possible\nparallel of another.\n\nIn the course of ages, as religions develop, and especially as a few\ngreat gods grow to overshadow the minor ancestral Lares and spirits,\nit often comes about that sacred stones of the older faith have a new\nreligious significance given them in the later system. Thus we have seen\nthe Argives worshipped their old sacred stone under the name of Zeus\nKappotas; the Thespians identified theirs with the later Hellenic Eros;\nand the Megarians considered a third as the representative of Phoebus.\nThe original local sacred stone of Delos has been found on the spot\nwhere it originally stood, beneath the feet of the statue of the Delian\nApollo. And this, I am glad to see, is Mr. Andrew Lang\u2019s view also;\nfor he remarks of the Greek unwrought stones, \u201cThey were blocks which\nbore the names of gods, Hera, or Apollo, names perhaps given, as De\nBrosses says, to the old fetishistic objects of worship, _after_\nthe anthropomorphic gods entered [I should say, were developed in]\nHellas.\u201d So, too, in India, the local sacred stones have been\nidentified with the deities of the Hindu pantheon; Mr. Hislop remarks\nthat in every part of the Deccan (where Hinduism is of comparatively\nlate introduction) four or five stones may often be seen in the ryot\u2019s\nfield, placed in a row and daubed with red paint, which the peasants\ncall the Five Pandavas; but, says Dr. Tylor, \u201che reasonably takes\nthese Hindu names to have superseded more ancient appellations.\u201d\nIslam, in like manner, has adopted the Kaaba, the great black stone\nof the Holy Place at Mecca; and the Egyptian religion gave {115}a\nnew meaning to the pillar or monolith, by shaping it as an obelisk to\nrepresent a ray of the rising sun-god.\n\nSometimes the sanctity of the antique stones was secured in the later\nfaith by connecting them with some legend or episode of the orthodox\nreligion. Thus the ancient sacred stone kept at Delphi--no doubt the\noriginal oracle of that great shrine, as the rude Delian block was the\nprecursor of the Delian Apollo--was explained with reference to the\nlater Hellenic belief by the myth that it was the stone which Kronos\nswallowed in mistake for Zeus: an explanation doubtless due to the fact\nthat this boulder was kept, like Monigan\u2019s Irish idol and the Samoan\ngod, wrapped up in flannel; and in the myth, Rhea deceived Kronos by\noffering him, instead of Zeus, a stone wrapped in swaddling-bands.\nThere is here indeed food for much reflection. The sacred stone of the\nTr\u0153zenians, in like manner, lay in front of the temple; but it was\nHellenised, so to speak, by the story that on it the Tr\u0153zenian elders\nsat when they purified Orestes from the murder of his mother.\n\nIn modern Europe, as everybody knows, a similar Christianisation of holy\nwells, holy stones, and holy places has been managed by connecting them\nwith legends of saints, or by the still simpler device of marking a\ncross upon them. The cross has a threefold value: in the first place,\nit drives away from their accustomed haunts the ancient gods or spirits,\nalways envisaged in early Christian and medi\u00e6val thought as devils or\ndemons; in the second place, it asserts the supremacy of the new faith;\nand in the third place, by conferring a fresh sanctity upon the old holy\nplace or object, it induces the people to worship the cross by the\nmere habit of resorting to the shrine at which their ancestors so long\nworshipped. Gregory\u2019s well-known advice to St. Augustine on this\nmatter is but a single example of what went on over all Christendom.\nIn many cases, crosses in Britain are still found firmly fixed in old\nsacred stones, usually recognisable by their unwrought condition. The\nfinest {116}example in Europe is probably the gigantic monolith of\nPlumen in Brittany, topped by an insignificant little cross, and still\nresorted to by the peasants (especially the childless) as a great place\nof worship. The prehistoric monuments of Narvia in the Isle of Man have\nbeen Christianised by having crosses deeply incised upon them. Other\ncases, like the Black Stones of Iona, which gave sanctity to that Holy\nIsle long before the time of Columba, will doubtless occur at once to\nevery reader. With many of the Scotch sculptured stones, it is difficult\nto decide whether they were originally erected as crosses, or are\nprehistoric monuments externally Christianised.\n\nI have thus endeavoured briefly to suggest the ultimate derivation of\nall sacred stones from sepulchral monuments, and to point out the very\nlarge part which they bear in the essential of religion--that is to say,\nworship--everywhere. There is, however, one particular application to\nwhich I wish to call special attention, because of its peculiar\ninterest as regards the origin of the monotheistic god of Judaism and\nChristianity. Hitherto in this chapter, I have intentionally made but\nvery few allusions to the faith and the sacred stones of the Hebrews,\nbecause I wished first to give a general view of the whole ramifications\nand modifications of stone-worship before coming down to the particular\ninstance in which we modern Europeans are most deeply interested. I will\nnow, however, give a brief summary of what seems to me most suggestive\nand important in the early Semitic stone-cult. These results are no\ndoubt already familiar in outline to most cultivated readers, but it\nis possible they may appear in a somewhat new light when regarded in\nconnexion with the general history of stone-worship as here elucidated.\n\nThat the Semites, as well as other early nations, were stone-worshippers\nwe know from a great number of positive instances. The stone pillars of\nBaal and the wooden Ashera cones were the chief objects of adoration in\nthe Phoenician religion. The Stone of Bethel was apparently a menhir:\n{117}the cairn of Mizpeh was doubtless a sepulchral monument. The\nIsraelites under Joshua, we are told, built a Gilgal of twelve standing\nstones; and other instances in the early traditions of the Hebrews will\nbe noticed in their proper place later on. Similarly, among the Arabs of\nthe time of Mohammed, two of the chief deities were Manah and L\u00e2t,\nthe one a rock, the other a sacred stone or stone idol: and the Kaaba\nitself, the great black stone of local worship, even the Prophet was\ncompelled to recognise and Islamise by adopting it bodily into his\nmonotheistic religion.\n\nThe stone worship of the Semites at large, though comparatively\nneglected by Professor Robertson Smith, must have played a large part\nin the religion of that race, from which the Hebrews were a special\noffshoot. \u201cIn Arabia,\u201d says Professor Smith, \u201cwhere sacrifice by\nfire was almost unknown, we find no proper altar, but in its place a\nrude pillar or heap of stones, beside which the victim is slain, the\nblood being poured out over the stone or at its base.\u201d To the great\norientalist, it is true, the sacred stone or altar, like the sacred\ntree and the sacred fountain, are nothing more than \u201ccommon symbols\nat sanctuaries\u201d; he thinks of them not as gods but merely as\nrepresentatives of the god, arbitrarily chosen. After the evidence\nI have already adduced, however, I think it will be seen that this\nposition is altogether untenable; indeed, Dr. Smith himself uses many\nphrases in this connexion which enables us to see the true state of the\ncase far more clearly than he himself did. \u201cThe sacred stones [of the\nArabs], which are already mentioned by Herodotus, are called _ansab_,\ni.e., stones set up, pillars. We also find the name _ghariy_,\n\u2018blood-bedaubed,’ with reference to the ritual just described [of\nsacrifice at the _nosb_ or sacred pillar]. The meaning of this ritual\nwill occupy us later: meantime the thing to be noted is that the altar\nis only a modification of the _nosb_, and that the rude Arabian usage\nis the primitive type out of which all the elaborate altar ceremonies\nof the {118}more cultivated Semites grew. Whatever else was done in\nconnexion with a sacrifice, the primitive rite of sprinkling or dashing\nthe blood against the altar, or allowing it to flow down on the ground\nat its base, was hardly ever omitted; and this practice was not peculiar\nto the Semites, but was equally the rule with the Greeks and Romans, and\nindeed with the ancient nations generally.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is certain,\u201d says Professor Smith again, \u201cthat the original\naltar among the Northern Semites, as well as among the Arabs, was a\ngreat stone or cairn, at which the blood of the victim was shed.\u201d\nThere is no difference, he declares, between the Hebrew altar and the\nArabian standing stone. \u201cMonolithic pillars or cairns of stone are\nfrequently mentioned in the more ancient parts of the Old Testament as\nstanding at Sanctuaries, generally in connexion with a sacred legend\nabout the occasion on which they were set up by some famous patriarch\nor hero. In the biblical story, they usually appear as mere memorial\nstructures without any definite ritual significance; but the\npentateuchal law looks on the use of sacred pillars as idolatrous. This\nis the best evidence that such pillars held an important place among the\nappurtenances of Canaanite temples; and as Hosea speaks of the pillar\nas an indispensable feature in the sanctuaries of Northern Israel in\nhis time, we may be sure that by the mass of the Hebrews the pillars of\nShechem, Bethel, Gilgal, and other shrines were looked upon, not as mere\nmemorials of historical events, but as necessary parts of the ritual\napparatus of a place of worship.... From these evidences, and especially\nfrom the fact that libations of the same kind are applied to both, it\nseems clear that the altar is a differentiated form of the primitive\nrude stone pillar. But the sacred stone is more than an altar, for in\nHebrew and Canaanite sanctuaries the altar, in its developed form as a\ntable or hearth, does not supersede the pillar; the two are found side\nby side at the same sanctuary, the altar as a piece of sacrificial\napparatus, and the pillar as a visible symbol or embodiment of the\n{119}presence of the deity, which in process of time comes to be\nfashioned and carved in various ways, till ultimately it becomes a\nstatue or anthropomorphic idol of stone, just as the sacred tree or post\nwas ultimately developed into an image of wood.\u201d\n\nIn spite of much obvious groping in the dark in this and other passages\nof the _Religion of the Semites_, it is clear that the learned professor\nrecognised at least one central fact--\u201cthe sacred stone at Semitic\nsanctuaries was from the first an object of worship, a sort of rude idol\nin which the divinity was somehow supposed to be present.\u201d Again, he\nnotes that \u201cJacob\u2019s pillar is more than a mere landmark, for it is\nanointed, just as idols were in antiquity, and the pillar itself, not\nthe spot on which it stood, is called \u2018the house of God,\u2019 as if the\ndeity were conceived actually to dwell in the stone, or manifest himself\ntherein to his worshippers. And this is the conception which appears to\nhave been associated with sacred stones everywhere. When the Arab daubed\nblood on the _nosh_, his object was to bring the offering into direct\ncontact with the deity; and in like manner the practice of stroking the\nsacred stone with the hand is identical with the practice of touching or\nstroking the garments or beard of a man in acts of supplication before\nhim.\u201d Elsewhere he says: \u201cSo far as evidence from tradition and\nritual goes, we can only think of the sacred stone as consecrated by the\nactual presence of the godhead, so that whatever touched it was brought\ninto immediate contact with the deity.\u201d And he quotes a line from an\nArab poet in which the Arabian gods are expressly described as \u201cgods\nof stone.\u201d\n\nIt is thus clear that sacred stones were common objects of worship with\nthe Semites in general, and also with the Hebrew people in particular.\nBut after the exclusive worship of Jahweh, the local Jewish god,\nhad grown obligatory among the Jews, it became the policy of the\n\u201cJehovist\u201d priests to Jehovise and to consecrate the sacred stones\nof Palestine by bringing them into connexion {120}with the Jehovistic\nlegend and the tales of the Patriarchs. Thus Professor Cheyne comments\nas follows upon the passage in Isaiah where the prophet mocks the\npartizan of the old polytheistic creed as a stone-worshipper--\u201cAmong\nthe smooth stones of the valley is thy portion: They, they are thy lot:\nEven to them hast thou poured a drink offering: Thou hast offered a meat\noffering: \u201cThe large smooth stones referred to above were the fetishes\nof the primitive Semitic races, and anointed with oil, according to a\nwidely spread custom. It was such a stone which Jacob took for a pillow,\nand afterwards consecrated by pouring oil upon it. The early Semites and\nreactionary idolatrous Israelites called such stones Bethels.... i.e.,\nhouses of _El_ (the early Semitic word for God) *.... In spite of the\nefforts of the \u2018Jehovist\u2019 who desired to convert these ancient\nfetishes into memorials of patriarchal history, the old heathenish use\nof them seems to have continued especially in secluded places.\u201d\n\n     * Say rather, “for a god.\u201d\n\nBesides the case of the stone at Bethel, there is the later one (in our\nnarrative) when Jacob and Laban made a covenant, \u201cand Jacob took a\nstone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren,\nGather stones; and they took stones and made an heap: and they did eat\nthere upon the heap.\u201d So, once more, at Shalem, he erects an altar\ncalled El-Elohe-Israel; he sets a pillar upon the grave of Rachel, and\nanother at the place at Luz where God appeared to him. Of like import is\nthe story of the twelve stones which the twelve men take out of Jordan\nto commemorate the passage of the tribes. All are clearly attempts to\nJehovise these early sacred stones or local gods by connecting them with\nincidents in the Jehovistic version of the ancient Hebrew legends.\n\nThat such stones, however, were worshipped as deities in early times,\nbefore the cult of Jahweh had become an exclusive one among his\ndevotees, is evident from the Jehovistic {121}narrative itself, which\nhas not wholly succeeded in blotting out all traces of earlier religion.\nSamuel judged Israel every year at Bethel, the place of Jacob\u2019s sacred\npillar: at Gilgal, the place where Joshua\u2019s twelve stones were set\nup; and at Mizpeh, where stood the cairn surmounted by the pillar of\nLaban\u2019s covenant. In other words, these were the sanctuaries of the\nchief ancient gods of Israel. Samuel himself \u201ctook a stone and set it\nbetween Mizpeh and Shem and its very name, Eben-ezer, \u201cthe stone of\nhelp,\u201d shows that it was originally worshipped before proceeding on\nwarlike expeditions, though the Jehovistic gloss, \u201csaying, Hitherto\nthe Lord hath helped us,\u201d does its best, of course, to obscure the\nreal meaning. So at Peran, in New Guinea, Mr. Chalmers saw \u201ca large\npeculiarly-shaped stone,\u201d by name Ravai, considered very sacred.\nSacrifices are made to it, and it is more particularly addressed in\ntimes of fighting. \u201cBefore setting forth, offerings are presented,\nwith food,\u201d and the stone is entreated to precede the warriors into\nbattle. Wherever a stone has a name, it is almost certainly of mortuary\norigin. It was to the stone-circle of Gilgal, once more, that Samuel\ndirected Saul to go, saying, \u201cI will come down unto thee, to offer\nburnt-offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace-offerings.\u201d\nIt was at the cairn of Mizpeh that Saul was chosen king; and after the\nvictory over the Ammonites, Saul went once more to the great Stonehenge\nat Gilgal to \u201crenew the kingdom,\u201d and \u201cthere they made Saul\nking before Jahweh in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of\npeace-offerings before Jahweh.\u201d This passage is a very instructive and\nimportant one, because here we see that in the opinion of the writer at\nleast Jahweh was then domiciled at Gilgal, amid the other sacred stones\nof that holy circle.\n\nObserve, “however, that when Saul was directed to go to find his\nfather\u2019s asses, he was sent first to Rachel\u2019s pillar at Telzah, and\nthen to the plain of Tabor, where he was to meet \u201cthree men going up\nto God [not to Jahweh] at Bethel,\u201d {122}evidently to sacrifice, \u201cone\ncarrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of bread,\nand another carrying a bottle of wine.\u201d These and many other like\nmemorials of stone-worship lie thickly scattered through the early books\nof the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes openly avowed, and sometimes cloaked\nunder a thin veil of Jehovism.\n\nOn the other hand, at the present day, the Palestine exploration has\nshown that no rude stone monuments exist in Palestine proper, though\neast of the Jordan they are common in all parts of the country. How,\nthen, are we to explain their disappearance? Major Conder thinks that\nwhen pure Jehovism finally triumphed under Hezekiah and Josiah, the\nJehovists destroyed all these \u201cidolatrous\u201d stones throughout the\nJewish dominions, in accordance with the injunctions in the Book of\nDeuteronomy to demolish the religious emblems of the Canaanites. Jahweh,\nthe god of the Hebrews, was a jealous God, and he would tolerate no\nalien sacred stones within his own jurisdiction.\n\nAnd who or what was this Jahweh himself, this local and ethnic god of\nthe Israelites, who would suffer no other god or sacred monolith to live\nnear him?\n\nI will not lay stress upon the point that when Joshua was dying,\naccording to the legend, he \u201ctook a great stone\u201d and set it up by\nan oak that was by the sanctuary of Jahweh, saying that it had heard all\nthe words of Jahweh. That document is too doubtful in terms to afford\nus much authority. But I will merely point out that at the time when we\nfirst seem to catch clear historic glimpses of true Jahweh worship, we\nfind Jahweh, whoever or whatever that mystic object might have been,\nlocated with his ark at the Twelve Stones at Gilgal. It is quite clear\nthat in \u201cthe camp at Gilgal,\u201d as the later compilers believed,\nJahweh, god of Israel, who had brought his people up out of Egypt,\nremained till the conquest of the land was completed. But after the end\nof the conquest, the {123}tent in which he dwelt was removed to Shiloh;\nand that Jahweh went with it is clear from the fact that Joshua cast\nlots for the land there \u201cbefore Jahweh, our God.\u201d He was there still\nwhen Hannah and her husband went up to Shiloh to sacrifice unto Jahweh;\nand when Samuel ministered unto Jahweh before Eli the priest. That\nJahweh made a long stay at Shiloh is, therefore, it would seem, a\ntrue old tradition--a tradition of the age just before the historical\nbeginnings of the Hebrew annals.\n\nBut Jahweh was an object of portable size, for, omitting for the present\nthe descriptions in the Pentateuch, which seem likely to be of late\ndate, and not too trustworthy, through their strenuous Jehovistic\nediting, he was carried from Shiloh in his ark to the front during the\ngreat battle with the Philistines at Ebenezer; and the Philistines were\nafraid, for they said, \u201cA god is come into the camp.\u201d But when the\nPhilistines captured the ark, the rival god, Dagon, fell down and broke\nin pieces--so Hebrew legend declared--before the face of Jahweh. After\nthe Philistines restored the sacred object, it rested for a time\nat Kirjath-jearim, till David, on the capture of Jerusalem from the\nJebusites, went down to that place to bring up from thence the ark of\nthe god; and as it went, on a new cart, they \u201cplayed before Jahweh\non all manner of instruments,\u201d and David himself \u201cdanced before\nJahweh.\u201d Jahweh was then placed in the tent or tabernacle that David\nhad prepared for him, till Solomon built the first temple, \u201cthe house\nof Jahweh,\u201d and Jahweh\u2019s ark was set up in it, \u201cin the oracle of\nthe house, the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim.\u201d\nJust so Mr. Chalmers tells us that when he was at Peran, in New Guinea,\nthe peculiarly-shaped holy stone, Ravai, and the two wooden idols, Epe\nand Kivava, \u201cmade long ago and considered very sacred,\u201d were for the\nmoment \u201clocated in an old house, until all the arrangements necessary\nfor their removal to the splendid new dubu prepared for them are\ncompleted.\u201d And so, too, at the opposite end of the scale of\ncivilisation, as Mr. {124}Lang puts it, \u201cthe fetish-stones of Greece\nwere those which occupied the holy of holies of the most ancient\ntemples, the mysterious fanes within dark cedar or cypress groves, to\nwhich men were hardly admitted.\u201d\n\nThat Jahweh himself, in the most ancient traditions of the race, was\nsimilarly concealed within his chest or ark in the holy of holies,\nis evident, I think, to any attentive reader. It is true, the later\nJehovistic glosses of Exodus and Deuteronomy, composed after the\nJehovistic worship had become purified and spiritualised, do their best\nto darken the comprehension of this matter by making the presence of\nJahweh seem always incorporeal; and even in the earlier traditions, the\nphrase \u201cthe ark of the covenant of Jahweh\u201d is often substituted for\nthe simpler and older one, \u201cthe ark of Jahweh.\u201d But through all the\ndisfigurements with which the priestly scribes of the age of Josiah and\nthe sacerdotalists of the return from the captivity have overlaid the\nprimitive story, we can still see clearly in many places that Jahweh\nhimself was at first personally present in the ark that covered him.\nAnd though the scribes (evidently ashamed of the early worship they\nhad outlived) protest somewhat vehemently more than once, \u201cThere was\nnothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there\nat Horeb, when Jahweh made a covenant with the children of Israel, when\nthey came out of the land of Egypt,\u201d yet this much at least even they\nadmit--that the object or objects concealed in the ark consisted of a\nsculptured stone or stones; and that to dance or sing before this stone\nor these stones was equivalent to dancing or singing before the face of\nJahweh.\n\nThe question whether the mysterious body concealed in the ark was or was\nnot a lingam or other phallic object I purposely omit to discuss here,\nas not cognate to our present enquiry. It is sufficient to insist that\nfrom the evidence before us, first, it _was_ Jahweh himself, and second,\nit was an object made of stone. Further than that \u2019twere {125}curious\nto enquire, and I for one do not desire to pry into the mysteries.\n\nNot to push the argument too far, then, we may say this much is fairly\ncertain. The children of Israel in early times carried about with them\na tribal god, Jahweh, whose presence in their midst was intimately\nconnected with a certain ark or chest, containing a stone object or\nobjects. This chest was readily portable, and could be carried to the\nfront in case of warfare. They did not know the origin of the object in\nthe ark with certainty, but they regarded it emphatically as \u201cJahweh\ntheir god, which led them out of the land of Egypt.\u201d Even after its\ntrue nature had been spiritualised away into a great national deity, the\nmost unlimited and incorporeal the world has ever known (as we get him\nin the best and purest work of the prophets), the imagery of later times\nconstantly returns to the old idea of a stone pillar or menhir. In the\nembellished account of the exodus from Egypt, Jahweh goes before the\nIsraelites as a pillar or monolith of cloud by day and of fire by night.\nAccording to Levitical law his altar must be built of unhewn stone,\n\u201cfor if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it.\u201d It is\nas a Rock that the prophets often figuratively describe Jahweh, using\nthe half-forgotten language of an earlier day to clothe their own\nsublimer and more purified conceptions. It is to the Rock of Israel--the\nsacred stone of the tribe--that they look for succour. Nay, even when\nJosiah accepted the forged roll of the law and promised to abide by\nit, \u201cthe king stood by a pillar (a menhir) and made a covenant before\nJahweh.\u201d Even to the last we see in vague glimpses the real original\nnature of the worship of that jealous god who caused Dagon to break\nin pieces before him, and would allow no other sacred stones to remain\nundemolished within his tribal boundaries.\n\nI do not see, therefore, how we can easily avoid the obvious inference\nthat Jahweh, the god of the Hebrews, who later became sublimated and\netherealised into the God {126}of Christianity, was in his origin\nnothing more nor less than the ancestral sacred stone of the people of\nIsrael, however sculptured, and perhaps, in the very last resort of all,\nthe unhewn monumental pillar of some early Semitic sheikh or chieftain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.--SACRED STAKES.\n\n|MILTON {127}speaks in a famous sonnet of the time \u201cwhen all our\nfathers worshipped stocks and stones.” That familiar and briefly\ncontemptuous phrase of the Puritan poet does really cover the vast\nmajority of objects of worship for the human race at all times and in\nall places. We have examined the stones; the stocks must now come in for\ntheir fair share of attention. They need not, however, delay us quite\nso long as their sister deities, both because they are on the whole less\nimportant in themselves, and because their development from grave-marks\ninto gods and idols is almost absolutely parallel to that which we have\nalready followed out in detail in the case of the standing stone or\nmegalithic monument.\n\nStakes or wooden posts are often used all the world over as marks of\nan interment. Like other grave-marks, they also share naturally in the\nhonours paid to the ghost or nascent god. But they are less important as\nelements in the growth of religion than standing stones for two distinct\nreasons. In the first place, a stake or post most often marks the\ninterment of a person of little social consideration; chiefs and great\nmen have usually stone monuments erected in their honour; the commonalty\nhave to be satisfied with wooden marks, as one may observe to this day\nat P\u00e8re Lachaise, or any other great Christian cemetery. In the second\nplace, the stone monument is far more lasting and permanent than\nthe wooden one. Each of these points counts for something. For it is\n{128}chiefs and great men whose ghosts most often grow into gods; and\nit is the oldest ghosts, the oldest gods, the oldest monuments that are\nalways the most sacred. For both these reasons, then, the stake is less\ncritical than the stone in the history of religion.\n\nNevertheless, it has its own special importance. As the sacred stone\nderives ultimately from the great boulder piled above the grave to keep\ndown the corpse, so the stake, I believe, derives from the sharp-pointed\nstick driven through the body to pin it down as we saw in the third\nchapter, and still so employed in Christian England to prevent suicides\nfrom walking. Such a stake or pole is usually permitted to protrude from\nthe ground, so as to warn living men of the neighbourhood of a spirit.\n\nAt a very early date, however, the stake, I fancy, became a mere\ngrave-mark; and though, owing to its comparative inconspicuousness, it\nobtains relatively little notice, it is now and always has been by far\nthe most common mode of preserving the memory of the spot where a person\nlies buried. A good example, which will throw light upon many subsequent\nmodifications, is given by Mr. Wyatt Gill from Port Moresby in New\nGuinea. \u201cThe body,\u201d he says, \u201cwas buried. At the side was set up\na stake, to which were tied the spear, club, bow and arrow of the\ndeceased, but broken, to prevent theft. A little beyond was the grave\nof a woman: her cooking utensils, grass petticoats, etc., hung up on the\nstake.\u201d Similar customs, he adds, are almost universal in Polynesia.\n\nThough worship of stakes or wooden posts is common all over the world, I\ncan give but few quite unequivocal instances of such worship being paid\nto a post actually known to surmount an undoubted grave. Almost the\nbest direct evidence I can obtain is the case of the grave-pole in Buru,\nalready quoted from Mr. H. O. Forbes. But the following account of\na Samoyed place of sacrifice, extracted from Baron Nordenskiold\u2019s\n_Voyage of the Vega_, is certainly suggestive. On a hillock on Vaygats\nIsland {129}the Swedish explorer found a number of reindeer skulls, so\narranged that they formed a close thicket of antlers. Around lay other\nbones, both of bears and reindeer; and in the midst of all \u201cthe\nmighty beings to whom all this splendour was offered. They consisted’ of\nhundreds of small wooden sticks, the upper portions of which were carved\nvery clumsily in the form of the human countenance, most of them\nfrom fifteen to twenty, but some of them three hundred and seventy\ncentimetres in length. They were all stuck in the ground on the\nsoutheast part of the eminence. Near the place of sacrifice there were\nto be seen pieces of driftwood and remains of the fireplace at which the\nsacrificial meal was prepared. Our guide told us that at these meals the\nmouths of the idols were besmeared with blood and wetted with brandy;\nand the former statement was confirmed by the large spots of blood\nwhich were found on most of the large idols below the holes intended to\nrepresent the mouth.\u201d At a far earlier date, Stephen Burrough in 1556\nwrites as follows to much the same effect in his interesting narrative\nprinted in Hakluyt: \u201cThere I met againe with Loshak, and went on shore\nwith him, and he brought me to a heap of Samoeds idols, which were in\nnumber about 300, the worst and the most unartificiall worke that ever I\nsaw: the eyes and mouthes of sundrie of them were bloodie, they had the\nshape of men, women, and children, very grossly wrought, and that which\nthey had made for other parts was also sprinkled with blood. Some of\ntheir idols were an olde sticke with two or three notches, made with a\nknife in it. There was one of their sleds broken and lay by the heape of\nidols, and there I saw a deers skinne which the foules had spoyled:\nand before certaine of their idols blocks were made as high as their\nmouthes; being all bloody, I thought that to be the table wheron they\noffered their sacrifice.\u201d\n\nIn neither of these accounts, it is true, is it distinctly mentioned\nthat the place of sacrifice was a Samoyed cemetery: {130}but I\nbelieve this to be the case, partly from analogy, and partly because\nNordenski\u00f4ld mentions elsewhere that an upturned sled is a frequent\nsign of a Samoyed grave. Compare also the following account of a\ngraveyard among nominally Christian Ostyak Siberians, also from\nNordenski\u00f4ld: \u201cThe corpses were placed in large coffins above ground,\nat which almost always a cross was erected.\u201d [The accompanying\nwoodcut shews that these crosses were rude wooden stakes with one or two\ncrossbars.] \u201cIn one of the crosses a sacred picture was inserted\nwhich must be considered a further proof that a Christian rested in the\ncoffin. Notwithstanding this, we found some clothes, which had belonged\nto the departed, hanging on a bush beside the grave, together with a\nbundle containing food, principally dried fish. At the graves of the\nricher natives the survivors are even said to place along with food some\nrouble notes, in order that the departed may not be altogether without\nready money on his entrance into the other world.\u201d\n\nTo complete the parallel, I ought to add that money was also deposited\non the sacrificial place on Vaygats Island. Of another such sacrificial\nplace on Yalmal, Nordenski\u00f4ld says, after describing a pile of bones,\nreindeer skulls, and walrus jaws: \u201cIn the middle of the heap of bones\nstood four erect pieces of wood. Two consisted of sticks a metre in\nlength, with notches cut in them.... The two others, which clearly were\nthe proper idols of this place of sacrifice, consisted of driftwood\nroots, on which some carvings had been made to distinguish the eyes,\nmouth, and nose. The parts of the pieces of wood, intended to represent\nthe eyes and mouth, had recently been besmeared with blood, and\nthere still lay at the heap of bones the entrails of a newly killed\nreindeer.\u201d\n\nIndeed, I learn from another source that \u201cthe Samoyedes feed the\nwooden images of the dead\u201d; while an instance from Erman helps further\nto confirm the same conclusion. According to that acute writer, among\nthe Ostyaks {131}of Eastern Siberia there is found a most interesting\ncustom, in which, says Dr. Tylor, \u201cwe see the transition from the\nimage of the dead man to the actual idol.\u201d When a man dies, they set\nup a rude wooden image of him in the yurt, which receives offerings\nat every meal and has honours paid to it, while the widow continually\nembraces and caresses it. As a general rule, these images are buried\nat the end of three years or so: but sometimes \u201cthe image of a shaman\n(native sorcerer),\u201d says Tylor, \u201cis set up permanently, and remains\nas a saint for ever.\u201d For \u201csaint\u201d I should say \u201cgod\u201d; and we\nsee the transformation at once completed. Indeed, Erman adds acutely\nabout the greater gods of the Ostyaks: \u201cThat these latter also have a\nhistorical origin, that they were originally monuments of distinguished\nmen, to which prescription and the interest of the Shamans gave by\ndegrees an arbitrary meaning and importance, seems to me not liable to\ndoubt.\u201d\n\nWith regard to the blood smeared upon such Siberian wooden idols, it\nmust be remembered that bowls of blood are common offerings to the dead;\nand Dr. Robertson Smith himself, no friendly witness in this matter,\nhas compared the blood-offerings to ghosts with those to deities. In the\neleventh book of the Odyssey, for example, the ghosts drink greedily of\nthe sacrificial blood; and libations of gore form a special feature in\nGreek offerings to heroes. That blood was offered to the sacred stones\nwe have already seen; and we noticed that there as here it was specially\nsmeared upon the parts representing the mouth. Offerings of blood to\ngods, or pouring of blood on altars, are too common to demand particular\nnotice; and we shall also recur to that part of the subject when we come\nto consider the important questions of sacrifice and sacrament. I will\nonly add here that according to Maimonides the Sabians looked on blood\nas the nourishment of the gods; while the Hebrew Jahweh asks indignantly\nin the fiftieth {132}Psalm, \u201cWill I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink\nthe blood of goats?\u201d\n\nTo pass on to more unequivocal cases of stake-worship, where we can\nhardly doubt that the stake represents a dead man, Captain Cook noticed\nthat in the Society Islands \u201cthe carved wooden images at burial-places\nwere not considered mere memorials, but abodes into which the souls of\nthe departed retired.\u201d So Ellis observes of Polynesians generally that\nthe sacred objects might be either mere stocks and stones, or carved\nwooden images, from six to eight feet long down to as many inches. Some\nof these were to represent \u201ctu,\u201d divine manes or spirits of the\ndead; while others were to represent \u201ctu,\u201d or deities of higher\nrank and power. To my mind, this is almost a distinction without a\ndifference; the first being ghosts of recently deceased ancestors, the\nsecond ghosts of remoter progenitors. The ancient Araucanians again\nfixed over a tomb an upright log, \u201crudely carved to represent the\nhuman frame.\u201d After the death of New Zealand chiefs, wooden images,\n20 to 40 feet high, were erected as monuments. I might easily multiply\ninstances; but I refrain lest the list grow tedious.\n\nDr. Codrington notes that the large mouths and lolling tongues of many\nNew Zealand and Polynesian gods are due to the habit of smearing the\nmouth with blood and other offerings.\n\nWhere men preserve the corpses of their dead, images are not so likely\nto grow up; but where fear of the dead has brought about the practice of\nburial or burning, it is reasonable that the feelings of affection\nwhich prompted gifts and endearments to the mummy in the first stage\nof thought should seek some similar material outlet under the altered\ncircumstances. Among ourselves, a photograph, a portrait, the toys of\na dead child, are preserved and cherished. Among savages, ruder\nrepresentations become necessary. They bury the actual corpse safely\nout of sight, but make some rough wooden imitation to represent {133}it.\nThus it does not surprise us to find that while the Marianne Islanders\nkeep the dried bodies of their dead ancestors in their huts as household\ngods, and expect them to give oracles out of their skulls, the New\nZealanders, on the other hand, \u201cset up memorial idols of deceased\npersons near the burial-place, talking affectionately to them as if\nstill alive, and casting garments to them when they pass by,\u201d while\nthey also \u201cpreserve in their houses small carved wooden images, each\ndedicated to the spirit of an ancestor.\u201d The Coast Negroes \u201cplace\nseveral earthen images on the graves.\u201d Some Papuans, \u201cafter a grave\nis filled up, collect round an idol, and offer provisions to it.\u201d The\nJavans dress up an image in the clothes of the deceased. So, too, of the\nCaribs of the West Indies, we learn that they \u201ccarved little images in\nthe shape in which they believed spirits to have appeared to them; and\nsome human figures bore the names of ancestors in memory of them.\u201d\nFrom such little images, obviously substituted for the dead body which\nused once to be preserved and affectionately tended, are derived, I\nbelieve, most of the household gods of the world--the Lares and Penates\nof the Romans, the huacas of the Peruvians, the teraphim of the Semites.\n\nHow absolutely image and ancestor are identified we can see among the\nTenimber Islanders, with whom \u201cthe _matmate_ are the spirits of their\nancestors which are worshipped as guardian spirits or household gods.\nThey are supposed to enter the house through an opening in the roof, and\nto take up their abode temporarily in the skulls, or in images of wood\nor ivory, in order to partake of the offerings.\u201d\n\nA few more facts in the same direction may help to bring out in still\nstronger relief this close equivalence of the corpse and the image. A\nNew Guinea mother keeps the mummied body of her child, and carries it\nabout with her; whereas a West African mother, living in a tribe where\nterror of the dead has induced the practice of burial, makes {134}a\nlittle image of her lost darling out of a gourd or calabash, wraps it in\nskins, and feeds it or puts it to sleep like a living baby. Bastian saw\nIndian women in Peru, who had lost an infant, carrying about on their\nbacks a wooden doll to represent it. At a somewhat higher level, \u201cthe\nspiritual beings of the Algonquins,\u201d says Dr. Tylor, to whom I owe\nnot a few of these instances, \u201cwere represented by, and in language\ncompletely identified with, the carved wooden heads\u201d (note this\npoint) \u201cor more complete images, to which worship and sacrifice were\noffered.\u201d In all these instances we see clearly, I think, the course\nof the genesis of household deities. In Siam, the ashes of the dead are\nsimilarly moulded into Buddhist images, which are afterwards worshipped\nas household gods.\n\nMr. Herbert Spencer has collected several interesting examples some of\nwhich I will borrow, as showing incidentally how much the growth of the\nidol or image depends upon such abstraction of the real body for burial\nor its equivalent. While a deceased king of Congo is being embalmed, a\nfigure is set up in the palace to represent him, and is daily furnished\nwith meat and drink. When Charles VI. of France was buried, \u201cover the\ncoffin was an image of the late king, bearing a rich crown of gold and\ndiamonds, and holding two shields.... This image was dressed with cloth\nof gold.... In this state was he solemnly carried to the church of Notre\nDame.\u201d Madame de Motteville says of the father of the great Cond\u00e9,\n\u201cThe effigy of this prince was waited upon for three days, as was\ncustomary\u201d--forty days having been the original time during which food\nwas supplied to such effigies at the usual hours. Monstrelet describes\na like figure used at the burial of Henry V. of England: and the\nWestminster Abbey images already noticed belong to the same category.\n\nAs in the case of sacred stones, once more, I am quite ready to admit\nthat when once the sanctity of certain stakes or wooden poles came to be\ngenerally recognised, it {135}would be a simple transference of feeling\nto suppose that any stake, arbitrarily set up, might become the shrine\nor home of an indwelling spirit. Thus we are told that the Brazilian\ntribes \u201cset up stakes in the ground, and make offerings before them\nto appease their deities or demons.\u201d So also we are assured that among\nthe Dinkas of the White Nile, \u201cthe missionaries saw an old woman\nin her hut offering the first of her food before a short thick staff\nplanted in the ground.\u201d But in neither of these cases is there\nnecessarily anything to show that the spot where the staff was set up\nwas not a place of burial; while in the second instance this is even\nprobable, as hut interments are extremely common in Africa. I will quote\none other instance only, for its illustrative value in a subsequent\nconnexion. In the Society Islands, rude logs are clothed in native cloth\n(like Monigan\u2019s idol) and anointed with oil, receiving adoration and\nsacrifice as the dwelling-place of a deity. This custom is parallel to\nthat of the Caribs, who took a bone of a dead friend from the grave,\nwrapped it up in cotton, and enquired of it for oracles.\n\nMr. Savage Landor, in his interesting work _The Hairy Ainu_, figures and\ndescribes some curious grave-stakes of those Japanese aborigines. The\nstakes on the men\u2019s graves are provided with a phallic protuberance;\nthose on the women\u2019s with an equally phallic perforation. This\nfact helps to illustrate the phallicism of sacred stones in Syria and\nelsewhere.\n\nAmong the Semitic peoples, always specially interesting to us from their\ngenetic connexion with Judaism and Christianity, the worship of stakes\nusually took the form of adoration paid to the curious log of wood\ndescribed as an _ashera_. What kind of object an _ashera_ was we learn\nfrom the injunction in Deuteronomy, \u201cThou shalt not plant an _ashera_\nof any kind of wood beside the altar of Jahweh.\u201d This prohibition is\nclearly parallel to that against any hewn stone or \u201cgraven image.\u201d\nBut the Semites in general worshipped as a rule at a rude stone altar,\n{136}beside which stood an _ashera_, under a green tree,--all three\nof the great sacred objects of humanity being thus present together.\nA similar combination is not uncommon in India, where sacred stone and\nwooden image stand often under the shade of the same holy peepul tree.\n\u201cThe _ashera_,\u201d says Professor Robertson Smith, \u201cis a sacred\nsymbol, the seat of the deity, and perhaps the name itself, as G.\nHoffmann has suggested, means nothing more than the \u2018mark\u2019 of the\ndivine presence.\u201d Those who have followed me so far in the present\nwork, however, will be more likely to conclude that it meant originally\nthe mark of a place where an ancestor lay buried. \u201cEvery altar,\u201d\nsays Professor Smith, again, \u201chad its _ashera_, even such altars as in\nthe popular preprophetic forms of the Hebrew religion were dedicated to\nJehovah.\u201d\n\nThe Semitic sacred pole was treated in most respects like the other\ngrave-stakes and idols we have hitherto considered; for an Assyrian\nmonument from Khorsabad, figured by Rawlinson, represents an ornamental\npole, planted beside an altar; priests stand before it engaged in an act\nof worship, and touch the pole with their hands, \u201cor perhaps,\u201d says\nProfessor Smith, \u201canoint it with some liquid substance.\u201d That the\n_ashera_ was also draped, like the logs of the Society Islanders, or\nMonigan\u2019s Irish idol, we learn from the famous passage in Second Kings\n(xxiii. 7) where it is said that the women \u201cwove _hangings_ for\nthe _ashera_.\u201d Dr. Robertson Smith illustrates this passage by the\nparallel of the sacred _erica_ at Byblus, which was \u201ca mere dead\nstump, for it was cut down by Isis and presented to the Byblians wrapped\nin a linen cloth and anointed with myrrh like a corpse. It therefore\nrepresented the dead god\u201d (Osiris, or rather in its origin Adonis).\n\u201cBut as a mere stump, it also resembles the Hebrew _ashera_.\u201d So\nnear may a man come to the perception of a truth, and yet so utterly may\nhe miss its actual import.\n\nI will dwell no longer upon these more or less remote derivatives of the\ngrave-stake. I will only say briefly that in {137}my opinion all wooden\nidols or images are directly or indirectly descended from the wooden\nheadpost or still more primitive sepulchral pole. Not of course that\nI suppose every wooden image to have been necessarily once itself a\nfunereal monument. Donatello\u2019s Magdalen in San Giovanni at Florence,\nthe blue-robed and star-spangled Madonna of the wayside shrine, have\ncertainly no such immediate origin. But I do believe that the habit of\nmaking and worshipping wooden images arose in the way I have pointed\nout; and to those who would accuse me of \u201cgross Euhemerism,\u201d I would\nonce more remark that even in these highest Christian instances the\nobjects of veneration are themselves in the last resort admitted to have\nbeen at one time Galilean women. Nay, is not even the wayside shrine\nitself in most Catholic countries more often than not the mortuary\nchapel erected where some wayfarer has died a violent death, by murder,\nlightning, accident, or avalanche?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIL--SACRED TREES.\n\n|The {138}sacred tree stands less obviously in the direct line of\nancestry of gods and of God than the sacred stone and the sacred\nstake which we have just considered. I would willingly pass it over,\ntherefore, in this long preliminary inquisition, could I safely do so,\nin order to progress at once to the specific consideration of the God\nof Israel and the rise of Monotheism. But the tree is nevertheless so\nclosely linked with the two other main objects of human worship that I\nhardly see how I can avoid considering it here in the same connexion:\nespecially as in the end it has important implications with regard\nto the tree of the cross, as well as to the True Vine, and many other\nelements of Christian faith and Christian symbolism. I shall therefore\ngive it a short chapter as I pass, premising that I have already entered\ninto the subject at greater length in my excursus On the Origin of\nTree-Worship, appended to my verse translation of the _Attis_ of\nCatullus.\n\nThe worship of sacred trees is almost as widely diffused over the whole\nworld as the worship of dead bodies, mummies, relics, graves, sacred\nstones, sacred stakes, and stone or wooden idols. The great authorities\non the subject of Tree-Worship are Mannhardt\u2019s _Baumkultus_ and Mr.\nJ. G. Frazer\u2019s _The Golden Bough_. Neither of those learned and acute\nwriters, however, has fully seen the true origin of worship from funeral\npractices: and therefore it becomes necessary to go over the same\nground again briefly here from the point of view afforded us by the\ncorpse-theory and {139}ghost-theory of the basis of religion. I shall\nhope to add something to their valuable results, and also incidentally\nto show that all the main objects of worship together leads us back\nunanimously to the Cult of the Dead as their common starting-point.\n\nLet us begin in this instance (contrary to our previous practice) by\nexamining and endeavouring to understand a few cases of the behaviour of\ntree-spirits in various mythologies. Virgil tells us in the Third \u00c6neid\nhow, on a certain occasion, \u00c6neas was offering a sacrifice on a tumulus\ncrowned with dogwood and myrtle bushes. He endeavoured to pluck up some\nof these by the roots, in order to cover the altar, as was customary,\nwith leaf-clad branches. As he did so, the first bush which he tore up\nastonished him by exuding drops of liquid blood, which trickled and fell\nupon the soil beneath. He tried again, and again the tree bled human\ngore. On the third trial, a groan was heard proceeding from the tumulus,\nand a voice assured \u00c6neas that the barrow on which he stood covered the\nmurdered remains of his friend Polydorus.\n\nNow, in this typical and highly illustrative myth--no doubt an ancient\nand well-known story incorporated by Virgil in his great poem--we\nsee that the tree which grows upon a barrow is itself regarded as the\nrepresentative and embodiment of the dead man’s soul, just as elsewhere\nthe snake which glides from the tomb of Anchises is regarded as the\nembodied spirit of the hero, and just as the owls and bats which haunt\nsepulchral caves are often identified in all parts of the world with the\nsouls of the departed.\n\nSimilar stories of bleeding or speaking trees or bushes occur abundantly\nelsewhere. \u201cWhen the oak is being felled,” says Aubrey, in his\n_Remains of Gentilisme_, \u201cit gives a kind of shriekes and groanes that\nmay be heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oak lamenting.\nE. Wyld, Esq., hath heared it severall times.” Certain Indians, says\nBastian, dare not cut a particular plant, because there comes out of\nit a red juice which they take for its blood. {140}I myself remember\nhearing as a boy in Canada that wherever _Sanguinaria Canadensis_, the\ncommon American bloodroot, grew in the woods, an Indian had once been\nburied, and that the red drops of juice which exuded from the stem when\none picked the flowers were the dead man\u2019s blood. In Samoa, says Mr.\nTurner, the special abode of Tuifiti, King of Fiji, was a grove of large\nand durable afzelia trees. \u201cNo one dared cut that timber. A story is\ntold of a party from Upolu who once attempted it, and the consequence\nwas that blood flowed from the tree, and that the sacrilegious strangers\nall took ill and died.\u201d Till 1855, says Mannhardt, there was a sacred\nlarch-tree at Nauders in the Tyrol, which was thought to bleed whenever\nit was cut. In some of these cases, it is true, we do not actually know\nthat the trees grew on tumuli, but this point is specially noticed about\nPolydorus’s dogwood, and is probably implied in the Samoan case, as I\ngather from the title given to the spirit as king of Fiji.\n\nIn other instances, however, such a doubt does not exist. We are\nexpressly told that it is the souls of the dead which are believed to\nanimate the speaking or bleeding trees. \u201cThe Dieyerie tribe of South\nAustralia,\u201d says Mr. Frazer, \u201cregard as very sacred certain trees\nwhich are supposed to be their fathers transformed; hence they will not\ncut the trees down, and protest against settlers doing so.\u201d Some of\nthe Philippine Islanders believe that the souls of their forefathers\ninhabit certain trees, which they therefore spare. If obliged to fell\none of these sacred trunks, they excuse themselves by saying that it was\nthe priests who made them fell it.\n\nNow, how did this connexion between the tree and the ghost or ancestor\ngrow up? In much the same way, I imagine, as the connexion between the\nsacred stone or the sacred stake and the dead chief who lies buried\nbeneath it. Whatever grows or stands upon the grave is sure to share the\nhonours paid to the spirit that dwells within it. Thus a snake or other\nanimal seen to glide out of a tomb is {141}instantly taken by savages\nand even by half-civilised men as the genius or representative of the\ndead inhabitant. But do trees grow out of graves? Undoubtedly, yes.\nIn the first place, they may grow by mere accident, as they might grow\nanywhere else; the more so as the soil in such a case has been turned\nand laboured. But beyond this, in the second place, it is common all\nover the world to plant trees or shrubs over the graves of relatives or\ntribesmen. Though direct evidence on this point is difficult to obtain,\na little is forthcoming. In Algeria, I observed, the Arab women went\non Fridays to plant flowers and shrubs on the graves of their immediate\ndead. I learned from Mr. R. L. Stevenson that similar plantings take\nplace in Samoa and Fiji. The Tahitians put young casuarinas on graves.\nIn Roman Catholic countries the planting of shrubs in cemeteries takes\nplace usually on the _jour des morts_, a custom which would argue for it\nan immense antiquity; for though it is a point of honour among Catholics\nto explain this _fete_ as of comparatively recent origin, definitely\nintroduced by a particular saint at a particular period, its analogy to\nsimilar celebrations elsewhere shows us that it is really a surviving\nrelic of a very ancient form of Manesworship.\n\nIn Gr\u00e6co-Roman antiquity it is certain that trees were frequently\nplanted around the barrows of the dead; and that leafy branches formed\npart of the established ceremonial of funerals. I cannot do better than\nquote in this respect once more the case of Polydorus:=\n\n```Ergo instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens\n\n```Aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant Manibus ar\u00e6,\n\n```C\u00e6ruleis m\u0153st\u00e6 vittis atraque cupresso.=\n\nSuetonius again tells us how the tumulus of the divine Augustus was\ncarefully planted; and the manner in which he notes the fact seems to me\nto argue that some special importance was attached to the ceremony. The\nacacia is one of the most sacred trees of Egypt; and Egyptian monuments,\nwith their usual frankness, show us a sarcophagus {142}from which an\nacacia emerges, with the na\u00efve motto, \u201cOsiris springs forth.\u201d,\n\nAn incident which occurred during the recent Sino-Japanese war shows how\neasily points of this sort may be overlooked by hasty writers in formal\ndescriptions. One of the London illustrated papers printed an account of\nthe burial of the Japanese dead at Port Arthur, and after mentioning the\nsimple headstone erected at each grave volunteered the further statement\nthat nothing else marked the place of interment. But the engraving which\naccompanied it, taken from a photograph, showed on the contrary that a\nlittle tree had also been planted on each tiny tumulus.\n\nI learn from Mr. William Simpson that the Tombs of the Kings near Pekin\nare conspicuous from afar by their lofty groves of pine trees.\n\nEvergreens, I believe, are specially planted upon graves or tumuli\nbecause they retain their greenness throughout the entire winter, and\nthus as it were give continuous evidence of the vitality and activity of\nthe indwelling spirit. Mr. Frazer has shown in _The Golden Bough_\nthat mistletoe similarly owes its special sanctity to the fact that it\nvisibly holds the soul of the tree uninjured in itself, while all the\nsurrounding branches stand bare and lifeless. Accordingly, tumuli are\nvery frequently crowned by evergreens. Almost all the round barrows in\nsouthern England, for example, are topped by very ancient Scotch firs;\nand as the Scotch fir is not an indigenous tree south of the Tweed,\nit is practically certain that these old pines are the descendants of\nancestors put in by human hands when the barrows were first raised over\nthe cremated and buried bodies of prehistoric chieftains. In short,\nthe Scotch fir is in England the sacred tree of the barrows. As a rule,\nhowever, in Northern Europe, the yew is the species specially planted\nin graveyards, and several such yews in various parts of England and\nGermany are held to possess a peculiar sanctity. The great clump of very\nancient yews in {143}Norbury Park near Dorking, known as the Druids\u2019\nGrove, has long been considered a holy wood of remote antiquity. In\nsouthern Europe, the cypress replaces the yew as the evergreen most\nclosely connected with tombs and cemeteries. In Provence and Italy,\nhowever, the evergreen holme-oak is almost equally a conventional\ndenizen of places of interment. M. Lajard in his able essay _Sur le\nCulte du Cypres_ has brought together much evidence of this worship of\nevergreens, among the Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs,\nPersians, Hindus, Chinese, and American nations.\n\nSacred trees, especially when standing alone, are treated in many\nrespects with the same ceremonial as is employed towards dead bodies,\nmummies, graves, sacred stones, sacred stakes, and carved idols or\nstatues. In other words, the offerings to the ghost or god may be made\nto the tree that grows on the grave just as well as to any other of the\nrecognised embodiments of the indwelling spirit. Darwin in the _Voyage\nof the Beagle_ describes how the Indians of South America would greet\nwith loud shouts some sacred tree, standing solitary on some high part\nof the Pampas; libations of brandy and mat\u00e9 were poured into a hole at\nits base to gratify the soul of the deity who dwelt there. One of these\ntree-gods had a name, Walleechu. The Congo people, again, put calabashes\nof palm-wine at the foot of \u201ctrees treated as idols.\u201d In other\ncases, blood is smeared on the tree; or oil is offered to it. Mr.\nDuff Macdonald\u2019s Central Africans kill chickens at the foot of the\n\u201cprayer tree,\u201d and let its blood trickle down to the roots. Oldfield\nsaw at Addacoodah fowls and many other articles of food suspended as\nofferings to a gigantic tree. Sir William Hunter mentions that once a\nyear at Beerbhoom the Santals \u201cmake simple offerings to a ghost who\ndwells in a Bela tree.\u201d In Tonga, the natives lay presents of food\nat the foot of particular trees which they believe to be inhabited by\nspirits. I need not multiply {144}instances; they may be found by the\nhundred in Dr. Tylor and other great anthropological collections.\n\nFurthermore, the sacred tree is found in the closest possible connection\nwith the other indubitably ancestral monuments, the sacred stone and the\nidol. \u201cA Bengal village,\u201d says Sir William Hunter, \u201chas usually\nits local god, which it adores either in the form of a rude unhewn\nstone, or a stump, or a tree marked with red lead\u201d; the last being\nprobably a substitute for the blood of human or animal victims with\nwhich it was once watered. \u201cSometimes a lump of clay placed under a\ntree does duty for a deity; and the attendant priest, when there is\none, generally belongs to one of the half-Hinduised low castes. The rude\nstone represents the non-Aryan fetish; and the tree seems to owe its\nsanctity to the non-Aryan belief that it forms the abode of the ghosts\nor gods of the village.\u201d That is to say, we have here ancestor-worship\nin its undisguised early native development.\n\nI may mention here in brief that, as we shall hereafter see, this\ntriple combination of stone, log, and tree forms almost the normal or\ninvariable composition of the primitive shrine the whole world over.\n\nThe association of the sacred tree with actual idols or images of\ndeceased ancestors is well seen in the following passage which I quote\nfrom Dr. Tylor: \u201cA clump of larches on a Siberian steppe, a grove\nin the recesses of a forest, is the sanctuary of a Turanian tribe.\nGaily-decked idols in their warm fur coats, each set up beneath its\ngreat tree swathed with cloth or tinplate, endless reindeer-hides and\npeltry hanging to the trees around, kettles and spoons and snuff-horns\nand household valuables strewn as offerings before the gods--such is the\ndescription of a Siberian holy grove, at the stage when the contact of\nforeign civilisation has begun by ornamenting the rude old ceremonial\nit must end by abolishing. A race ethnologically allied to these\ntribes, though risen to higher culture, kept up remarkable relics of\ntree-worship in Northern Europe. In {145}Esthonian districts, within the\npresent century, the traveller might often see the sacred tree,\ngenerally an ancient lime, oak, or ash, standing inviolate in a\nsheltered spot near the dwelling-house; and the old memories are handed\ndown of the time when the first blood of a slaughtered beast was\nsprinkled on its roots, that the cattle might prosper, or when an\noffering was laid beneath the holy linden, on the stone where the\nworshipper knelt on his bare knees, moving from east to west and back,\nwhich stone he kissed when he had said, \u2018Receive the food as an\noffering.‘\u201d After the evidence already given, I do not think there can\nbe a reasonable doubt, in such a combination of tree and stone, that we\nhave here a sacrifice to an ancestral spirit.\n\nSimilarly, in the courtyard of a Bodo house is planted the sacred\neuphorbia of Batho, the national god, to which a priest offers prayer\nand kills a pig. In the island of Tjumba, in the East Indies, a\nfestival is held after harvest, and vessels are filled with rice as a\nthank-offering to the gods. Then the sacred stone at the foot of a palm\ntree is sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed animal, and rice is\nlaid on the stone for the gods. When the Khonds settle a new village, a\nsacred cotton tree must be planted with solemn rites, and beneath it is\nplaced the sacrificial stone which embodies or represents the village\ndeity. Among the Semites, says Professor Robertson Smith, \u201cno\nCanaanite high place was complete without its sacred tree standing\nbeside the altar.\u201d We shall only fully understand the importance of\nthese facts, however, when we come later to consider the subject of the\nmanufacture of gods by deliberate process, and the nature of the bloody\nceremonial which always accompanies it.\n\nIn some of the above instances it is incidentally mentioned that the\ntrunks of sacred trees are occasionally draped, as we saw to be also\nthe case with sacred stones, sacred stakes, idols, and relics. Another\nexample of this practice is given in the account of the holy oak of\nRomowe, venerated {146}by the ancient Prussians, which was hung with\ndrapery like the _ashera_, and decked with little hanging images of the\ngods. The holy trees of Ireland are still covered with rag offerings.\nOther cases will be noticed in other connexions hereafter.\n\nOnce more, just as stones come to be regarded as ancestors, so by a like\nprocess do sacred trees. Thus Galton says in South Africa, \u201cWe passed\na magnificent tree. It was the parent of all the Damaras.... The savages\ndanced round it in great delight.\u201d Several Indian tribes believe\nthemselves to be the sons of trees. Many other cases are noted by Mr.\nHerbert Spencer and Dr. Tylor. I do not think it is necessary for our\nargument to repeat them here. Sometimes, however, especially in later\nrationalising times, the sacred tree is merely said to have been planted\nby the god or hero whom it commemorates. Thus the cypresses of Herakles\nat Daphne were believed to have been set on the spot by that deity,\nwhile the tamarisk at Beersheba was supposed to have been placed there\nby Abraham.\n\nI hope it is clear from this rapid _resume_ that all the facts about the\nworship of sacred trees stand exactly parallel to those with regard to\nthe worship of graves, mummies, idols, sacred stones, sacred stakes,\nand other signs of departed spirits. Indeed, we have sometimes direct\nevidence of such affiliation. Thus Mr. Turner says of a sacred tree on a\ncertain spot in the island of Savaii, which enjoyed rights of sanctuary\nlike the cities of refuge or a medi\u00e6val cathedral: \u201cIt is said that\nthe king of a division of Upolu, called Atua, once lived at that spot.\nAfter he died, the house fell into decay; but the tree was fixed on as\nrepresenting the departed king, and out of respect for his memory it was\nmade the substitute of a living and royal protector.\u201d By the light\nof this remark we may surely interpret in a similar sense such other\nstatements of Mr. Turner\u2019s as that a sweet-scented tree in another\nplace \u201cwas held to be the habitat of a household god, and anything\naromatic {147}which the family happened to get was presented to it as\nan offering;\u201d or again, \u201ca family god was supposed to live\u201d in\nanother tree; \u201cand hence no one dared to pluck a leaf or break a\nbranch.\u201d For family gods, as we saw in a previous chapter, are really\nfamily ghosts, promoted to be deities.\n\nIn modern accounts of sacred trees much stress is usually laid upon the\nfact that they are large and well-grown, often very conspicuous,\nand occupying a height, where they serve as landmarks. Hence it has\nfrequently been taken for granted that they have been selected for\nworship on account of their size and commanding position. This, however,\nI think, is a case of putting the cart before the horse, as though one\nwere to say that St. Peter’s and Westminster Abbey, the Temple of Karnak\nor the Mosque of Omar, owed their sanctity to their imposing dimensions.\nThere is every reason why a sacred tree should grow to be exceptionally\nlarge and conspicuous. Barrows are usually built on more or less\ncommanding heights, where they may attract general attention. The ground\nis laboured, piled high, freed from weeds, and enriched by blood and\nother offerings. The tree, being sacred, is tended and cared for. It is\nnever cut down, and so naturally on the average of instances grows to be\na big and well-developed specimen. Hence I hold the tree is usually big\nbecause it is sacred, not sacred because it is big. On the other hand,\nwhere a tree already full-grown is chosen for a place of burial, it\nwould no doubt be natural to choose a large and conspicuous one. Thus I\nread of the tree under which Dr. Livingstone\u2019s heart was buried by his\nnative servant, \u201cIt is the largest in the neighbourhood.\u201d\n\nLooking at the question broadly, the case stands thus. We know that in\nmany instances savages inter their dead under the shade of big trees.\nWe know that such trees are thereafter considered sacred, and worshipped\nwith blood, clothes, drapery, offerings. We know that young shrubs\n{148}or trees are frequently planted on graves in all countries. We know\nthat whatever comes up on or out of a grave is counted as representative\nof the ghost within it. The presumption is therefore in favour of any\nparticular sacred tree being of funereal origin; and the onus of proving\nthe opposite lies with the person who asserts some more occult and less\nobvious explanation.\n\nAt the same time I am quite ready to allow here, as in previous\ninstances, when once the idea of certain trees being sacred has grown\ncommon among men, many trees may come to possess by pure association\na sanctity of their own. This is doubtless the case in India with the\npeepul, and in various other countries with various other trees. Exactly\nthe same thing has happened to stones. And so, again, though I believe\nthe temple to have been developed out of the tomb or its covering, I\ndo not deny that churches are now built apart from tombs, though always\ndedicated to the worship of a God who is demonstrably a particular\ndeified personage.\n\nAnother point on which I must touch briefly is that of the sacred grove\nor cluster of trees. These often represent, I take it, the trees planted\nin the _temenos_ or sacred tabooed space which surrounds the primitive\ntomb or temple. The _koubbas_ or little dome-shaped tombs of Mahommedan\nsaints so common in North Africa are all surrounded by such a walled\nenclosure, within which ornamental or other trees are habitually\nplanted. In many cases these are palms--the familiar sacred tree of\nMesopotamia, about which more must be said hereafter in a later chapter.\nThe well-known _bois sacr\u00e9_ at Blidah is a considerable grove, with\na _koubba_ in its midst. A similar _temenos_ frequently surrounded the\nEgyptian and the Greek temple. I do not assert that these were always of\nnecessity actual tombs; but they were at any rate cenotaphs. When once\npeople had got accustomed to the idea that certain trees were sacred to\nthe memory of their ancestors or their gods, it would be but a slight\nstep to plant such trees {149}round an empty temple. When Xenophon, for\nexample, built a shrine to Artemis, and planted around it a grove of\nmany kinds of fruit trees, and placed in it an altar and an image of the\ngoddess, nobody would for a moment suppose he erected it over the body\nof an actual dead Artemis. But men would never have begun building\ntemples and consecrating groves at all if they had not first built\nhouses for the dead god-chief, and planted shrubs and trees upon his\nvenerated tumulus. Nay, even the na\u00efve inscription upon Xenophon\u2019s\nshrine--\u201cHe who lives here and enjoys the fruits of the ground must\nevery year offer the tenth part of the produce to the goddess, and out\nof the residue keep the temple in repair\u201d--does it not carry us back\nimplicitly to the origin of priesthood, and of the desire for perpetuity\nin the due maintenance of the religious offices?\n\nI shall say nothing here about the evolution of the great civilised\ntree-gods like Attis and Adonis, so common in the region of the eastern\nMediterranean, partly because I have already treated them at some length\nin the essay on Tree-Worship to which I have alluded above, and partly\nbecause they would lead us too far afield from our present subject. But\na few words must be devoted in passing to the prevalence of tree-worship\namong the Semitic peoples, intimately connected as it is with the rise\nof certain important elements in the Christian cult.\n\n\u201cIn all parts of the Semitic area,\u201d says Professor Robertson Smith,\n\u201ctrees were adored as divine.\u201d Among the species thus honoured he\nenumerates especially the pines and cedars of Lebanon, the evergreen\noaks of the Palestinian hills, the tamarisks of the Syrian jungles, and\nthe acacias of the Arabian wadies. Most of these, it will be noted, are\nevergreens. In Arabia, the most striking case on record is that of the\nsacred date-palm at Nejran. This was adored at an annual feast, when it\nwas \u201call hung with fine clothes and women\u2019s ornaments.\u201d A similar\ntree existed at Mecca, to which the people resorted annually, {150}and\nhung upon it weapons, garments, ostrich eggs, and other offerings. In a\nsacred acacia at Nakla a goddess was supposed to live. The modern\nArabs still hang pieces of flesh on such sacred trees, honour them with\nsacrifices, and present them with rags of calico and coloured beads.\n\nAs regards the Phoenicians and Canaanites, Philo Byblius says that\nplants were in ancient times revered as gods, and honoured with\nlibations and sacrifices. Dr. Robertson Smith gives several instances.\nChristianity has not extinguished the veneration for sacred trees in\nSyria, where they are still prayed to in sickness and hung with rags.\nThe Moslems of Palestine also venerate the sacred trees of immemorial\nantiquity.\n\nIn the Hebrew scriptures tree-worship constantly appears, and is frankly\ndwelt with by Professor Robertson Smith, who does not refuse to connect\nwith this set of beliefs the legend of Jahweh in the burning bush. The\nlocal altars of early Hebrew cult were habitually set up \u201cunder green\ntrees.\u201d On this subject I would refer the reader to Dr. Smith\u2019s own\ninteresting disquisition on p. 193 of The Religion of the Semites.\n\nWith regard to the general sacredness of vegetation, and especially of\nfood-plants, such as corn, the vine, and the date-palm, I postpone that\nimportant subject for the present, till we come to consider the gods\nof cultivation, and the curious set of ideas which gradually led up to\nsacramental god-eating. In a theme so vast and so involved as that of\nhuman religion, it becomes necessary to take one point at a time, and to\ndeal with the various parts in analytic isolation.\n\nWe have now examined briefly almost all the principal sacred objects of\nthe world, according to classes--the corpse, the mummy, the idol, the\nsacred stone, the sacred stake, the sacred tree or grove; there remains\nbut one other group of holy things, very generally recognised, which I\ndo not propose to examine separately, but to which {151}a few words may\nyet be devoted at the end of a chapter. I mean, the sacred wells. It\nmight seem at first sight as if these could have no possible connection\nwith death or burial; but that expectation is, strange to say, delusive.\nThere appears to be some reason for bringing wells, too, into the\nwidening category of funereal objects. The oxen\u2019s well at Acre, for\nexample, was visited by Christian, Jewish, and Moslem pilgrims; it was\ntherefore an object of great ancient sanctity; but observe this point:\nthere is a _mashhed_ or sacred tomb beside it, \u201cperhaps the modern\nrepresentative of the ancient Memnonium.\u201d Every Egyptian temple had\nin like manner its sacred lake. In modern Syria, \u201ccisterns are always\nfound beside the grave of saints, and are believed to be inhabited by a\nsort of fairy. A pining child is thought to be a fairy changeling, and\nmust be lowered into the cistern.\u201d The similarity of the belief about\nholy wells in England and Ireland, and their frequent association with\nthe name of a saint, would seem to suggest for them a like origin.\nSacred rivers usually rise from sacred springs, near which stands a\ntemple. The river Adonis took its origin at the shrine of Aphaca: and\nthe grave of Adonis, about whom much more must be said hereafter, stood\nnear the mouth of the holy stream that was reddened by his blood. The\nsacred river Belus had also its peculiar Memnonium or Adonis tomb. But I\nmust add that sacred rivers had likewise their annual god-victims, about\nwhom we shall have a great deal to say at a later stage of our enquiry,\nand from whom in part they probably derived their sanctity. Still, that\ntheir holiness was also due in part, and originally, to tombs at their\nsources, I think admits of no reasonable doubt.\n\nThe equivalence of the holy well and the holy stone is shown by the fact\nthat while a woman whose chastity was suspected had to drink water of a\nsacred spring to prove her innocence, at Mecca she had to swear seventy\noaths by the Kaaba.\n\nAgain, {152}sacred wells and fountains were and are worshipped with just\nthe same acts of sacrifice as ghosts and images. At Aphaca, the pilgrims\ncast into the holy pool, jewels of gold and silver, with webs of linen\nand other precious stuffs. A holy grove was an adjunct of the holy\nspring: in Greece, according to Botticher, they were seldom separated.\nAt the annual fair of the Sacred Terebinth, or tree and well of Abraham\nat Mamre, the heathen visitors offered sacrifices beside the tree, and\ncast into the well libations of wine, with cakes, coins, myrrh, and\nincense: all of which we may compare with the Ostyak offerings to\nancestral grave-stakes. At the holy waters of Karwa, bread, fruit, and\nother foods were laid beside the fountain. At Mecca, and at the Stygian\nWaters in the Syrian desert, similar gifts were cast into the holy\nsource. In one of these instances at least we know that the holy well\nwas associated with an actual burial; for at Aphaca, the holiest shrine\nof Syria, the tomb of the local Baal or god was shown beside the sacred\nfountain. \u201cA buried god,\u201d says Dr. Robertson Smith quaintly, in\ncommenting on this fact, \u201cis a god that dwells under ground.\u201d It\nwould be far truer and more philosophical to say that a god who dwells\nunderground is a buried man.\n\nI need not recall the offerings to Cornish and Irish well-spirits, which\nhave now degenerated for the most part into pins and needles.\n\nOn the whole, though it is impossible to understand the entire genesis\nof sacred founts and rivers without previous consideration of deliberate\ngod-making, a subject which I reserve for a later portion of our\nexposition, I do not think we shall go far wrong in supposing that\nthe sacred well most often occurs in company with the sacred tree,\nthe sacred stone or altar, and the sacred tomb; and that it owes its\nsanctity in the last resort, originally at least, to a burial by its\nside; though I do not doubt that this sanctity was in many cases kept up\nby the annual immolation of a fresh victim-god, of a type whose genesis\nwill hereafter {153}detain us. Indeed, Dr. Robertson Smith says of the\nSemitic worship in general, \u201cThe usual natural symbols are a fountain\nor a tree, while the ordinary artificial symbol is a pillar or pile of\nstones: but very often all three are found together, and this was the\nrule in the more developed sanctuaries.\u201d I cannot agree with him on\nthe point of \u201csymbolism\u201d: but the collocation of objects is at least\nsignificant.\n\nThus, in ultimate analysis, we see that all the sacred objects of the\nworld are either dead men themselves, as corpse, mummy, ghost, or god;\nor else the tomb where such men are buried; or else the temple, shrine,\nor hut which covers the tomb; or else the tombstone, altar, image, or\nstatue, standing over it and representing the ghost; or else the stake,\nidol, or household god which is fashioned as their deputy; or else the\ntree which grows above the barrow; or else the well, or tank, or spring,\nnatural or artificial, by whose side the dead man has been laid to rest.\nIn one form or another, from beginning to end, we find only, in Mr.\nWilliam Simpson\u2019s graphic phrase, \u201cthe Worship of Death,\u201d as the\nbasis and root of all human religion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.--THE GODS OF EGYPT.\n\n|WE {154}have now completed our preliminary survey of the nature and\norigin of Gods in general. We have seen how men first came to believe in\nthe objective existence of these powerful and invisible beings, how they\nlearnt to invest them with majestic attributes, and how they grew to\nworship them under the various forms of mummies or boulders, stone or\nwooden idols, trees or stumps, wells, rivers, and fountains. In short,\nwe have briefly arrived at the origin of Polytheism. We have now to\ngo on to our second question--How from the belief in many gods did men\nprogress to the belief in one single God, the creator and upholder of\nall things? Our task is now to reconstruct the origin of Monotheism.\n\nBut Monotheism bases itself entirely upon the great God of the Hebrews.\nTo him, therefore, we must next address ourselves. Is he too resoluble,\nas I hinted before, into a Sacred Stone, the monument and representative\nof some prehistoric chieftain? Can we trace the origin of the Deity of\nChristendom till we find him at last in a forgotten Semitic ghost of the\nearliest period?\n\nThe chief Hebrew god Jahweh, when we first catch a passing glimpse of\nhis primitive worship by his own people, was but one among a number of\ncompeting deities, mostly, it would appear, embodied by their votaries\nin the visible form of stone or wooden pillars, and adored by a small\ngroup of loosely-connected tribes among the mountain region in the\nsouthwest of Syria. The confederacy among {155}whom he dwelt knew\nthemselves as the Sons of Israel; they regarded Jahweh as their\nprincipal god, much as the Greeks did Zeus, or the early Teutons their\nnational hero Woden. But a universal tradition among them bore witness\nto the fact that they had once lived in a subject condition in Egypt,\nthe house of bondage, and that their god Jahweh had been instrumental in\nleading them thence into the rugged land they inhabited throughout\nthe whole historical period, between the valley of Jordan and the\nMediterranean coast. So consistent and so definite was this traditional\nbelief that we can hardly regard it otherwise than as enclosing a kernel\nof truth; and not only do Kuenen and other Semitic scholars of the\npresent day admit it as genuine, but the Egyptologists also seem\ngenerally to allow its substantial accuracy and full accord with\nhieroglyphic literature. This sojourn in Egypt cannot have failed to\ninfluence to some extent the Semitic strangers: therefore I shall begin\nmy quest of the Hebrew god among the Egyptian monuments. Admitting that\nhe was essentially in all respects a deity of the true Semitic pattern,\nI think it will do us good to learn a little beforehand about the people\namong whom his votaries dwelt so long, especially as the history of the\nEgyptian cults affords us perhaps the best historical example of the\ngrowth and development of a great national religion.\n\nA peculiar interest, indeed, attaches in the history of the human mind\nto the evolution of the gods of Egypt. Nowhere else in the world can\nwe trace so well such a continuous development from the very simplest\nbeginnings of religious ideas to the very highest planes of mysticism\nand philosophic theology. There are savage cults, it is true, which show\nus more clearly the earliest stages in the process whereby the simple\nancestral ghost passes imperceptibly into the more powerful form of a\nsupernatural deity: there are elevated civilised creeds which show\nus more grandly in its evolved shape the final conception of a single\nsupreme Ruler of the Cosmos. But there is no other {156}religious system\nknown to us in which we can follow so readily, without a single break,\nthe whole evolutionary movement whereby the earlier ideas get gradually\nexpanded and etherealised into the later. The origin of the other great\nhistorical religions is lost from our eyes among dim mists of fable: in\nEgypt alone, of all civilised countries, does our record go back to\nthe remote period when the religious conception was still at the common\nsavage level, and follow it forward continuously to the advanced point\nwhere it had all but achieved, in its syncretic movement, the ultimate\ngoal of pure monotheism.\n\nI would wish, however, to begin my review of this singular history\nby saying, once for all, that while I make no pretensions to special\nEgyptological knowledge, I must nevertheless dissent on general\nanthropological grounds from the attitude taken up by Mr. Le Page\nRenouf in his _Lectures on the Religion of Ancient Egypt_. That learned\nwriter\u2019s work, indeed, is, scientifically speaking, half a century\nbehind its time. It is written as though the doctrine of evolution had\nnever been promulgated; and every page contains glaring contradictions\nof the most elementary principles of human development. Mr. Renouf\nstill adheres to the discredited ideas that polytheism grew out of\nan antecedent monotheism; that animal-worship and other low forms of\nadoration are \u201csymbolical\u201d in origin; and that \u201cthe sublimer\nportions of the Egyptian religion are not the comparatively late result\nof a process of development or elimination from the grosser.\u201d Such\ntheories would of themselves be extremely improbable, even on the\nfullest and best evidence; but the evidence which Mr. Renouf brings\nforward to support them is of the flimsiest description. A plain survey\nof the Egyptian monuments in the Nile valley, and of the known facts\nabout Egyptian religion, will lead any unbiassed mind, free from\nthe warping influence of preconception, and accustomed to wide\nanthropological enquiry, to precisely opposite and more probable\nconclusions. For it must be carefully borne in mind {157}that on\nthese subjects the specialist is the last man whose opinions should be\nimplicitly and unhesitatingly accepted. The religion of Egypt, like the\nreligion of Jud\u00e6a or the religion of Hawaii, must be judged, not\nin isolation, but by the analogies of other religions elsewhere; the\nattempt to explain it as an unrelated phenomenon, which has already been\nfound so disastrous in the case of the Semitic and the Aryan cults, must\nbe abandoned once for all by the comparative psychologist as a hopeless\nerror. The key to the origin of the Egyptian faith is to be found,\nnot in the late philosophising glosses quoted by M. de Roug\u00e9 and his\nEnglish disciple, but in the simple, unvarying, ancestral creeds of\nexisting African savages.\n\nLooked at from this point of view, then--the evolutionary point of\nview--nothing can be clearer than the fact that the early\nEgyptian religion bases itself entirely upon two main foundations,\nancestor-worship and totemism.\n\nI will begin with the first of these, which all analogy teaches us to\nconsider by far the earliest, and infinitely the most important. And I\nmay add that it is also, to judge by the Egyptian evidence alone, both\nthe element which underlies the whole religious conceptions of the Nile\nvalley, and likewise the element which directly accounts, as we shall\nsee hereafter, for all the most important gods of the national pantheon,\nincluding Osiris, Ptah, Khem, and Amen, as well perhaps as many of\ntheir correlative goddesses. There is not, in fact, any great ethnical\nreligion on earth, except possibly the Chinese, in which the basal\nimportance of the Dead Man is so immediately apparent as in the ancient\ncult of Pharaohnic Egypt.\n\nThe Egyptian religion bases itself upon the tomb. It is impossible for\na moment to doubt that fact as one stands under the scanty shade of the\ndesert date-palms among the huge sun-smitten dust-heaps that represent\nthe streets of Thebes and Memphis. The commonest object of worship\non all the monuments of Nile is beyond doubt the Mummy: sometimes the\nprivate mummy of an ancestor {158}or kinsman, sometimes the greater\ndeified mummies of immemorial antiquity, blended in the later\nsyncretic mysticism with the sun-god and other allegorical deities,\nbut represented to the very last in all ages of art--on the shattered\nRameseum at Thebes or the Ptolemaic pillars of still unshaken\nDenderah--as always unmistakable and obvious mummies. If ever there was\na country where the Worship of the Dead was pushed to an extreme, that\ncountry was distinctly and decisively Egypt.\n\n\u201cThe oldest sculptures show us no acts of adoration or of\nsacrifice,\u201d says Mr. Loftie, \u201cexcept those of worship at the shrine\nof a deceased ancestor or relative.\u201d This is fully in keeping with\nwhat we know of the dawn of religion elsewhere, and with the immense\nimportance always attached to the preservation of the mummy intact\nthroughout the whole long course of Egyptian history. The Egyptian,\nin spite of his high civilisation, remained always at the first\nor corpse-preserving stage of custom as regards the dead. To him,\ntherefore, the life after death was far more serious than the life on\nearth: he realised it so fully that he made endless preparations for it\nduring his days above, and built himself a tomb as an eternal mansion.\nThe grave was a place of abode, where the mummy was to pass the greater\npart of his existence; and even in the case of private persons (like\nthat famous Tih whose painted sepulchre at Sakkarah every tourist to\nCairo makes a point of visiting) it was sumptuously decorated with\npainting and sculpture. In the mortuary chambers or chapels attached to\nthe tombs, the relations of the deceased and the priests of the cemetery\ncelebrated on certain fixed dates various ceremonies in honour of the\ndead, and offered appropriate gifts to the mummy within. “The tables of\nofferings, which no doubt formed part of the furniture of the chambers,\nare depicted on the walls, covered with the gifts of meat, fruits,\nbread, and wine which had to be presented in kind.\u201d These _parentalia_\nundoubtedly formed the main feature of the practical religion {159}of\nearly Egypt, as exhibited to us on all the monuments except the late\ntomb-caves of royal personages, devoted to the worship of the equally\nmummified great gods.\n\nThe Egyptian tomb was usually a survival of the cave artificially\nimitated. The outer chamber, in which the ceremonies of the offertory\ntook place, was the only part accessible, after the interment had been\ncompleted, to the feet of survivors. The mummy itself, concealed in its\nsarcophagus, lay at the bottom of a deep pit beyond, by the end of a\ncorridor often containing statues or idols of the deceased. These idols,\nsays M. Maspero, were indefinitely multiplied, in case the mummy itself\nshould be accidentally destroyed, in order that the _Ka_ (the ghost or\ndouble) might find a safe dwelling-place. Compare the numerous little\nimages placed upon the grave by the Coast Negroes. It was the outer\nchamber, however, that sheltered the _stele_ or pillar which bore the\nepitaph, as well as the altar or table for offerings, the smoke from\nwhich was conveyed to the statues in the corridor through a small\naperture in the wall of partition. Down the well beyond, the mummy in\nperson reposed, in its eternal dwelling-place, free from all chance of\nviolation or outrage. \u201cThe greatest importance,\u201d says Mr. Renouf,\n\u201cwas attached to the permanence of the tomb, to the continuance of\nthe religious ceremonies, and to the prayers of passers-by.\u201d Again,\n\u201cthere is a very common formula stating that the person who raised\nthe tablet \u2018made it as a memorial to his fathers who are in the nether\nworld, built up what he found was imperfect, and renewed what was found\nout of repair.\u2019\u201d In the inscription on one of the great tombs at\nBeni-H\u00e2ssan the founder says: \u201cI made to flourish the name of my\nfather, and I built chapels for his _ka_ [or ghost]. I caused statues\nto be conveyed to the holy dwelling, and distributed to them their\nofferings in pure gifts. I instituted the officiating priest, to whom I\ngave donations in land and presents. I ordered funeral offerings for\nall the feasts of the nether world [which are then enumerated {160}at\nconsiderable length]. If it happen that the priest or any other cease to\ndo this, may he not exist, and may his son not sit in his seat.\u201d\nAll this is highly instructive from the point of view of the origin of\npriesthood.\n\nHow long these early religious endowments continued to be respected is\nshown by Mr. Renouf himself in one instructive passage. The kings who\nbuilt the Pyramids in the Early Empire endowed a priestly office for the\npurpose of celebrating the periodical rites of offering to their ghosts\nor mummies. Now, a tablet in the Louvre shows that a certain person who\nlived under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty was priest of Khufu, the builder of\nthe Great Pyramid, who had endowed the office two thousand years before\nhis time. We have actually the tombs of some of his predecessors who\nfilled the same office immediately after Khufu\u2019s death. So that in\nthis instance at least, the worship of the deceased monarch continued\nfor a couple of thousand years without interruption. \u201cIf in the case\nof private interments,\u201d says M. Maspero, \u201cwe find no proof of\nso persistent a veneration, that is because in ordinary tombs the\nceremonies were performed not by special priests, but by the children\nor descendants of the deceased person. Often, at the end of a few\ngenerations, either through negligence, removals, ruin, or extinction of\nthe family, the cult was suspended, and the memory of the dead died out\naltogether.\u201d\n\nFor this reason, as everywhere else among ancestor-worshippers, immense\nimportance was attached by the Egyptians to the begetting of a son who\nshould perform the due family rites, or see that they were performed\nby others after him. The duty of undertaking these rites is thoroughly\ninsisted upon in all the maxims or moral texts; while on the other hand,\nthe wish that a man may not have a son to perform them for him is the\nmost terrible of all ancient Egyptian imprecations. \u201cMany centuries\nafter the construction of a tomb, Egyptian travellers have left a\nrecord upon its walls of the splendour of the sacred abode, {161}of the\nabundance of the materials which they found provided for the fulfilment\nof the rites for the departed, and of their own repetition of the\nfuneral formula.\u201d In fact, the whole practical religion of the\nordinary Egyptians, as a plain observer sees it to-day in the vast mass\nof the existing monuments, consists almost exclusively in the worship of\nthe _ka_--the _genii, manes, or lares_ of the departed.\n\nIf even the common herd were thus carefully embalmed--if even the\nlesser functionaries of the court or temple lay in expensive tombs,\ndaintily painted and exquisitely sculptured--it might readily be\nbelieved that the great kings of the mighty conquering dynasties\nthemselves would raise for their mummies eternal habitations of special\nsplendour and becoming magnificence. And so they did. In Lower Egypt,\ntheir tombs are barrows or pyramids: in Upper Egypt they are artificial\ncaves. The dreary desert district west of the Nile and south of Cairo\nconsists for many miles, all but uninterruptedly, of the cemetery of\nMemphis--a vast and mouldering city of the dead--whose chief memorials\nare the wonderful series of Pyramids, the desecrated tombs piled up for\nthe kings of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Dynasties. There,\nunder stone tumuli of enormous size,--barrows or cairns more carefully\nconstructed,--the Pharaohs of the Old Empire reposed, in peace in\nsepulchres unmarked by any emblems of the mystic gods or sacred beasts\nof later imagination. But still more significant and infinitely more\nbeautiful are the rock-hewn Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, belonging\nto the great monarchs of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth\nDynasties, when the religion had assumed its full mystical development.\nThose magnificent subterranean halls form in the truest and most literal\nsense a real necropolis, a town of mummies, where each king was to\ninhabit an eternal palace of regal splendour, decorated with a profusion\nof polychromatic art, and filled with many mansions for the officers\n{162}of state, still destined to attend upon their sovereign in the\nnether world. Some of the mural paintings would even seem to suggest\nthat slaves or captives were sacrificed at the tomb, to serve their lord\nin his eternal home, as his courtiers had served him in the temporal\npalaces of Medinet-H\u00e2bu or the corridors of Luxor.\n\nM. Mariette has further shown that the huge Theban temples which skirt\nin long line the edge of the desert near the Valley of Tombs were really\ncenotaphs where the memory of the kings buried hard by was preserved and\nworshipped. Thus the Rameseum was the _mastabah_ or mortuary chapel for\nthe tomb and ghost of Rameses II.; the temple of Medinet-H\u00e2bu fulfilled\nthe same purpose for Rameses III.; the temple of Kurneh for Rameses I.;\nand so forth throughout the whole long series of those gigantic ruins,\nwith their correlated group of subterranean excavations.\n\nAt any rate, it is quite impossible for any impartial person to examine\nthe existing monuments which line the grey desert hills of the Nile\nwithout seeing for himself that the mummy is everywhere the central\nobject of worship--that the entire practical religion of the people was\nbased upon this all-pervading sense of the continuity of life beyond\nthe grave, and upon the necessity for paying due reverence and funereal\nofferings to the _manes_ of ancestors. Everything in Egypt points to\nthis one conclusion. Even the great sacred ritual is the Book of the\nDead: and the very word by which the departed are oftenest described\nmeans itself \u201cthe living,\u201d from the firm belief of the people that\nthey were really enjoying everlasting life. _Mors janua vitae_ is the\nshort summing-up of Egyptian religious notions. Death was the great\nbeginning for which they all prepared, and the dead were the real\nobjects of their most assiduous oublie and private worship.\n\nMoreover, in the tombs themselves we can trace a gradual development of\nthe religious sentiment from Corpse-Worship {163}to God-Worship. Thus,\nin the tombs of Sakkarah, belonging to the Old Empire (Fifth Dynasty),\nall those symbolical representations of the life beyond the tomb\nwhich came in with the later mysticism are almost wholly wanting. The\nquotations from (or anticipations of) the Book of the Dead are few and\nshort. The great gods are rarely alluded to. Again, in the grottos of\nBeni-Hassan (of the Twelfth Dynasty) the paintings mostly represent\nscenes from the life of the deceased, and the mystic signs and deities\nare still absent. The doctrine of rewards and punishments remains as\nyet comparatively in abeyance. It is only at the Tombs of the Kings at\nThebes (of the Eighteenth Dynasty) that entire chapters of the Book of\nthe Dead are transcribed at length, and the walls are covered with \u201ca\nwhole army of grotesque and fantastic divinities.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the Egyptians,\u201d it will be objected, \u201chad also great gods,\ndistinct from their ancestors--national, or local, or common gods--whose\nnames and figures have come down to us inscribed upon all the\nmonuments.\u201d Quite true: that is to say, there are gods who are not\nimmediately or certainly resolvable into deified ancestors--gods\nwhose power and might were at last widely extended, and who became\ntransfigured by degrees beyond all recognition in the latest ages. But\nit is by no means certain, even so, that we cannot trace these greater\ngods themselves back in the last resort to deified ancestors of various\nruling families or dominant cities; and in one or two of the most\nimportant cases the suggestions of such an origin are far from scanty.\n\nI will take, to begin with, one typical example. There is no single god\nin the Egyptian pantheon more important or more universally diffused\nthan Osiris. In later forms of the national religion, he is elevated\ninto the judge of the departed and king of the nether world: to be\n\u201cjustified by Osiris,\u201d or, as later interpreters say, \u201ca justified\nOsiris,\u201d is the prayer of every corpse as set forth in his funeral\n{164}inscription; and identification with Osiris is looked upon as the\nreward of all the happy and faithful dead. Now Osiris, in every one of\nhis representations and modes, is simply--a Mummy. His myth, to be sure,\nassumed at last immense proportions; and his relations with Isis and\nHorus form the centre of an endless series of irreconcilable tales,\nrepeated over and over again in art and literature. If we took mythology\nas our guide, instead of the monuments, we should be tempted to give him\nfar other origins. He is identified often with other gods, especially\nwith Amen; and the disentanglement of his personality in the monuments\nof the newer empire, when Ra, the sun-god, got mixed up inextricably\nwith so many other deities, is particularly difficult. But if we neglect\nthese later complications of a very ancient cult, and go back to the\nsimplest origin of Egyptian history and religion, we shall, I think,\nsee that this mystic god, so often explained away by elemental symbolism\ninto the sun or the home of the dead, was in his first beginnings\nnothing more or less than what all his pictures and statues show him to\nbe--a revered and worshipped Mummy, a very ancient chief or king of the\ntown or little district of This by Abydos.\n\nI do not deny that in later ages Osiris became much more than this. Nor\ndo I deny that his name was accepted as a symbol for all the happy and\npious dead. Furthermore, we shall find at a later stage that he was\nidentified in the end with an annual slain Corn-God. I will even allow\nthat there may have been more than one original Osiris--that the word\nmay even at first have been generic, not specific. But I still maintain\nthat the evidence shows us the great and principal Osiris of all as a\nDead Chief of Abydos.\n\nWe must remember that in Egypt alone history goes back to an immense\nantiquity and yet shows us already at its very beginning an advanced\ncivilisation and a developed picture-writing. Therefore the very oldest\nknown state of Egypt {165}necessarily presupposes a vast anterior era\nof slow growth in concentration and culture. Before ever Upper or Lower\nEgypt became united under a single crown, there must have been endless\nmud-built villages and petty palm-shadowed principalities along the\nbank of the Nile, each possessing its own local chief or king, and\neach worshipping its own local deceased potentates. The sheikh of\nthe village, as we should call him nowadays, was then their nameless\nPharaoh, and the mummies of his ancestors were their gods and goddesses.\nEach tribe had also its special totem, about which I shall have a little\nmore to say hereafter; and these totems were locally worshipped almost\nas gods, and gave rise in all probability to the later Egyptian Zoolatry\nand the animal-headed deities. To the very last, Egyptian religion bore\nmarked traces of this original tribal form; the great multiplicity of\nEgyptian gods seems to be due to the adoption of so many of them, after\nthe unification of the country, into the national pantheon. The local\ngods and local totems, however, continued to be specially worshipped\nin their original sites. Thus the ithyphallic Amen-Khem was specially\nworshipped at Thebes, where his figure occurs with unpleasant frequency\nupon every temple; Apis was peculiarly sacred at Memphis; Pasht at\nBubastis; Anubis at Sekhem; Neith at Sais; Ra at Heliopolis; and Osiris\nhimself at Abydos, his ancient dwelling-place.\n\nEven Egyptian tradition seems to preserve some dim memory of such a\nstate of things, for it asserts that before the time of Menes, the first\nking of the First Dynasty, reputed the earliest monarch of a united\nEgypt, dynasties of the gods ruled in the country. In other words, it\nwas recognised that the gods were originally kings of local lines\nwhich reigned in the various provinces of the Nile valley before the\nunification.\n\nIn the case of Osiris, the indications which lead us in this direction\nare almost irresistible. It is all but certain that Osiris was\noriginally a local god of This or Thinis, a {166}village near Abydos,\nwhere a huge mound of rubbish still marks the site of the great deity\u2019s\nresting-place. The latter town is described in the Harris papyrus as\nAbud, the hand of Osiris; and in the monuments which still remain at\nthat site, Osiris is everywhere the chief deity represented, to whom\nkings and priests present appropriate offerings. But it is a significant\nfact that Menes, the founder of the united monarchy, was born at the\nsame place; and this suggests the probability that Osiris may have\nbeen the most sacred and most venerated of Menes\u2019s ancestors.\nThe suggestion derives further weight from the fact that Osiris\nis invariably represented as a mummy, and that he wears a peculiar\nhead-dress or cap of office, the same as that which was used in\nhistorical times as the crown of Upper Egypt. He also holds in his hands\nthe crook and scourge which are the marks of kingly office--the crook\nto lead his own people like a shepherd, the scourge to punish evil-doers\nand to ward off enemies. His image is therefore nothing more nor less\nthan the image of a Mummied King. Sometimes, too, he wears in addition\nthe regal ostrich plumes. Surely, naught save the blind infatuation of\nmythologists could make them overlook the plain inference that Osiris\nwas a mummified chief of Abydos in the days before the unification of\nEgypt under a single rule, and that he was worshipped by his successors\nin the petty principality exactly as we know other kingly mummies were\nworshipped by their family elsewhere--exactly, for example, as on the\nfamous Tablet of Ancestors found at Abydos itself, Sethi I. and Rameses\nII. are seen offering homage to seventy-six historical kings, their\npredecessors on the throne of United Egypt.\n\nNot only, however, is Osiris represented as a king and a mummy, but we\nare expressly told by Plutarch (or at least by the author of the tract\n_De Osiride_ which bears his name) that the tomb of Osiris existed at\nAbydos, and that the richest and most powerful of the Egyptians were\ndesirous of being buried in the adjacent cemetery, in order that\n{167}they might lie, as it were, in the same grave with the great god\nof their country. All this is perfectly comprehensible and natural if we\nsuppose that a Thinite dynasty first conquered the whole of Egypt; that\nit extended the worship of its own local ancestor-god over the entire\ncountry; and that in time, when this worship had assumed national\nimportance, the local god became the chief figure in the common\npantheon.\n\nI had arrived at this opinion independently before I was aware that Mr.\nLoftie had anticipated me in it. But in his rare and interesting _Essay\non Scarabs_ I find he has reached the same conclusions.\n\n\u201cThe divinity of Pharaoh,\u201d says Mr. Loftie, \u201cwas the first article\nin the creed of the pyramid period, the earliest of which we know\nanything. As time went on, though the king was still called divine, we\nsee him engaged in the worship of other gods. At last he appears as\na priest himself; and when Herodotus and the later Greek historians\nvisited Egypt, there was so little of this part of the old religion left\nthat it is not even mentioned by them as a matter of importance.\u201d This\nis quite natural, I may remark parenthetically, for as the antiquity\nand grandeur of the great gods increased, the gulf between them and mere\nmen, even though those men were kings, their offspring, must always have\ngrown ever wider and wider. \u201cI have myself no doubt whatever,\u201d Mr.\nLoftie goes on, \u201cthat the names of Osiris and of Horus are those of\nancient rulers. I think that, long before authentic history begins, Asar\nand Aset his wife reigned in Egypt, probably in that wide valley of the\nUpper Nile which is now the site of Girgeh and Berb\u00e9\u201d (exactly where\nI place the principality of Osiris). \u201cTheir son was Hor, or Horus,\nthe first king of Upper and Lower Egypt; and the \u2018Hor seshoo.’ the\nsuccessors of Horus, are not obscurely mentioned by later chroniclers.\nI know that this view is not shared by all students of the subject,\nand much learning and ingenuity have been spent to prove that Asar,\nand Aset, and Hor, and {168}Ptah, and Anep, are representations of the\npowers of nature; that they do not point to ancient princes, but to\nancient principles; and that Horus and his successors are gods and were\nnever men. But in the oldest inscriptions we find none of that mysticism\nwhich is shown in the sculptures from the time of the eighteenth dynasty\ndown to the Ptolemies and the Roman Emperors.\u201d In short, Mr.\nLoftie goes on to set forth a theory of the origin of the great gods\nessentially similar to the one I am here defending.\n\nThough a little out of place, I cannot help noting here the curious\nconfirmatory fact that a number of ibis mummies have been found at\nAbvdos in close proximity to the mound where M. Mariette confidently\nexpected to discover in the rock the actual tomb of Osiris himself.\nHence we may conclude that the ibis was in all probability the totem of\nAbydos or This, as the bull was of Memphis, the crocodile of the Fayoum,\nthe cat of Bubastis, and the baboon of Thebes. Now, the ibis-god of\nAbydos is Thoth; and it is noteworthy that Thoth, as recorder, always\naccompanies Osiris, in later legend, as judge of the dead: the local\nmummy-god, in other words, has as his assessor the local totem-god; and\nboth are commonly to be seen on the monuments of Abydos, in company with\nHorus, Anubis, Isis, and other (probably) local divinities.\n\nIt is quite easy to see how, with this origin, Osiris would almost\ninevitably grow with time to be the King of the Dead, and supreme judge\nof the nether regions. For, as the most sacred of the ancestors of the\nregal line, he would naturally be the one whom the kings, in their\nturn, would most seek to propitiate, and whom they would look forward\nto joining in their eternal home. As the myth extended, and as mystical\ninterpretations began to creep in, identifications being made of the\ngods with the sun or other natural energies, the original meaning of\nOsiris-worship would grow gradually obscured. But to the last, Osiris\nhimself, in spite of all corruptions, is represented {169}as a mummy:\nand even when identified with Amen, the later intrusive god, he still\nwears his mummy-bandages, and still bears the crook and scourge and\nsceptre of his primitive kingship.\n\nIt may be objected, however, that there were many forms of Orisis, and\nmany local gods who bore the same name. He was buried at Abydos, but was\nalso equally buried at Memphis, and at Phil\u00e6 as well. The pretty little\n\u201cTemple on the Roof\u201d at Denderah is an exquisitely elaborate chapel\nto the local Osiris of that town, with chambers dedicated to the various\nother Osiris-gods of the forty-two nomes of ancient Egypt. Well, that\nfact runs exactly parallel with the local Madonnas and the local Apollos\nof other religions: and nobody has suggested doubts as to the human\nreality of the Blessed Virgin Mary because so many different Maries\nexist in different sacred sites or in different cathedrals. Our Lady\nof Loretto is the same as Our Lady of Lourdes. Jesus of Nazareth was\nnevertheless born at Bethlehem: he was the son of Joseph, but he was\nalso the son of David, and the son of God. Perhaps Osiris was a common\nnoun: perhaps a slightly different Osiris was worshipped in various\ntowns of later Egypt; perhaps a local mummy-god, the ancestor of some\nextinct native line, often wrongly usurped the name and prerogatives of\nthe great mummy-god of Abydos, especially under the influence of late\npriestly mysticism. Moreover, when we come to consider the subject\nof the manufacture of gods, we shall see that the body of an annual\nincarnation of Osiris may have been divided and distributed among all\nthe nomes of Egypt. It is enough for my present purpose if I point out\nin brief that ancestor-worship amply explains the rise and prevalence\nof the cult of Osiris, the kingly mummy, with the associated cults of\nHorus, Isis, Thoth, and the other deities of the Osirian cycle.\n\nI may add that a gradual growth of Osiris-worship is clearly marked on\nthe monuments themselves. The simpler {170}stel\u00e6 and memorials of the\nearliest age seldom contain the names of any god, but display votaries\nmaking offerings at the shrine of ancestors. Similarly, the scenes\nrepresented on the walls of tombs of early date bear no reference to the\ngreat gods of later ages, but are merely domestic and agricultural in\ncharacter, as may be observed at Sakkarah and even to some extent also\nat Beni-Hassan. Under the Sixth Dynasty, the monuments begin to make\nmore and more frequent mention of Osiris, who now comes to be regarded\nas Judge of the Dead and Lord of the Lower World; and on a tablet of\nthis age in the Boulak Museum occurs for the first time the expression\nafterwards so common, \u201cjustified by Osiris.\u201d Under the Twelfth\nDynasty, legend becomes more prominent; a solar and lunar character\nseems to be given by reflex to Osiris and Isis: and the name of Ra,\nthe sun, is added to that of many previously distinct and independent\ndeities. Khem, the ithyphallic god of the Thebaid, now also assumes\ngreater importance, as is quite natural under a line of Theban\nprinces: and Khem, a local mummy-god, is always represented in his\nswathing-clothes, and afterwards confounded, certainly with Amen, and\nprobably also with the mummy-god of Abydos. But Osiris from this time\nforward rises distinctly into the front rank as a deity. \u201cTo him,\nrather than to the dead, the friends and family offer their sacrifices.\nA court is formed for him. Thoth, the recorder [totem-god of Abydos],\nAnubis the watcher, Ra the impersonation of truth, and others, assist\nin judgment on the soul.\u201d The name of the deceased is henceforth\nconstantly accompanied by the formula \u201cjustified by Osiris.\u201d About\nthe same time the Book of the Dead in its full form came into existence,\nwith its developed conception of the lower world, and its complicated\narrangement of planes of purgatorial progress.\n\nUnder the Eighteenth Dynasty, the legend thickens; the identifications\nof the gods become more and more intricate; Amen and Ra are sought and\nfound under innumerable {171}forms of other deities; and a foundation\nis laid for the esoteric Monotheism or pantheistic nature-worship of\nthe later philosophising priesthood. It was under the Nineteenth Dynasty\nthat the cult of local Triads or Trinities took fullest shape, and that\nthe mystical interpretation of the religion of Egypt came well into the\nforeground. The great Osirian myth was then more and more minutely and\nmystically elaborated; and even the bull Apis, the totem-god of Memphis,\nwas recognised as a special incarnation of Osiris, who thus becomes,\nwith Amen, the mysterious summing-up of almost all the national\npantheon. At last we find the myth going off into pure mysticism, Osiris\nbeing at once the father, brother, husband, and son of Isis, and also\nthe son of his own child Horus. * Sentences with an almost Athanasian\nmixture of vagueness and definiteness inform us how \u201cthe son proceeds\nfrom the father, and the father proceeds from his son\u201d; how \u201cRa is\nthe soul of Osiris, and Osiris the soul of Ra and how Horus his child,\nawakened by magical rites from his dead body, is victorious over Set,\nthe prince of darkness, and sits as Osiris upon the throne of the father\nwhom he has revived and avenged. Here as elsewhere the myth, instead of\nbeing the explanation of the god, does nothing more than darken counsel.\u201d\n\n     * \u201cStories like the Osiris myth,\u201d says Mr. Lang, \u201cspring\n     from no pure religious source, but embody the delusions and\n     fantastic dreams of the lowest and least developed human\n     fancy and human speculation.\u201d This sentence enforces\n     precisely the same idea that I have previously expressed in\n     chapter ii. as to the real relations of religion and\n     mythology. The myth nowhere explains the cult; it casts no\n     light upon its origin or history; on the contrary, it only\n     obscures and overshadows the underlying kernel of genuine\n     fact.\n\nIn like manner, I believe, Ptah was originally a local mummy-god of\nMemphis, and Khem of Ap, afterwards known as Chemmis.\n\nThis gradual growth of a dead and mummified village chief, however,\ninto a pantheistic god, strange as it may seem, is not in any way more\nremarkable than the gradual growth {172}of a Galilean peasant into the\nsecond person of an eternal and omnipotent Godhead. Nor does the myth\nof the death and resurrection of Osiris (to be considered hereafter in\na later chapter) militate against the reality of his human existence\nany more than the history of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ\nmilitates against the human existence of Jesus of Nazareth. \u201cGross and\ncrude euphemerism\u201d may be bad; but airy and fantastic Max-mullerism\nappears to me just as unphilosophical.\n\nThe difficulty of the evolution, indeed, is not at all great, if we\nconsider the further fact that even after the concept of godship had\nbeen fully developed, the king still remained of like nature with the\ngods, their son and descendant, a divine personage himself, differing\nfrom them only in not having yet received eternal life, the symbol of\nwhich they are often shown in sculpture as presenting with gracious\nexpressions to their favoured scion. \u201cThe ruling sovereign of\nEgypt,\u201d says Mr. Le Page Renouf, \u201cwas the living image of and\nvicegerent of the sun-god. He was invested with the attributes of\ndivinity, and that in the earliest times of which we possess monumental\nevidence.\u201d And quite naturally, for in antique times gods had ruled\nin Egypt, whose successor the king was: and the kings before Menes were\nsignificantly known as \u201cthe successors of Horus.\u201d As late as the\ntimes of the Ptolemies, we saw, there were priests of Menes and other\nPharaohs of the most ancient dynasties. The pyramid kings took the title\nof the Golden Horus, afterwards copied by their descendants; and from\nChafra onward the reigning monarch was known as the Son of Ra and the\nGreat God. Amenophis IL, during his own lifetime, is \u201ca god good like\nRa, the sacred seed of Amen, the son whom he begot.\u201d And on all the\nmonuments the king is represented of the same superhuman stature as the\ngods themselves: he converses with them on equal terms; they lead him by\nthe hand into their inmost sanctuaries, or present him with the symbols\nof royal rule and of eternal life, like friends of the family.\n\nThe {173}former guerdon bestows upon him the same rank they themselves\nhad held on earth; the latter advances him to share with them the\nglories of the other existence. In the temple of Kurneh, Rameses I.\n(then dead) receives the offerings and liturgies of his royal grandson.\nHard by, Rameses II. offers to Amen-ra, Khonso, and Rameses I., without\ndistinction of divinity. On the side wall, Sethi I. receives similar\ndivine honours from the royal hands: while in the centre chamber Sethi\nhimself officiates before the statue of his father placed in a shrine.\nThe King is thus but the Living God: the God is thus but the Dead King.\n\nI conclude, therefore, that a large part of the greater Egyptian\ngods--the national or local gods, as opposed to those worshipped by each\nfamily in its own necropolis--were early kings, whose myths were later\nexpanded into legends, rationalised into nature-worship, and adorned by\npriestly care with endless symbolical or esoteric fancies. But down to\nthe very latest age of independence, inscriptions of the god Euergetes,\nand the goddess Berenice, or representations like that at Phil\u00e6, of\nthe god Philadelphus suckled by Isis, show that to the Egyptian mind\nthe gulf between humanity and divinity was very narrow, and that the\noriginal manhood of all the deities was an idea quite familiar to\npriests and people.\n\nThere was, however, another class of gods about which we can be somewhat\nless certain; these are the animal-gods and animal-headed gods which\ndeveloped out of the totems of the various villages. Such bestial types,\nProfessor Sayce remarks, \u201ctake us back to a remote prehistoric age,\nwhen the religious creed of Egypt,\u201d say rather, the custom of Egypt,\n\u201cwas still totemism.\u201d But in what precise relation totemism stood to\nthe main line of the evolution of gods I do not feel quite so sure in my\nown mind as does Mr. Herbert Spencer. It seems to me possible that the\ntotem may in its origin have been merely the lucky-beast or badge of a\nparticular tribe (like the regimental {174}goat or deer); and that from\nbeing at first petted, domesticated, and to some extent respected on\nthis account, it may have grown at last, through a confusion of ideas,\nto share the same sort of divine honours which were paid to the\nghosts of ancestors and the gods evolved from them. But Mr. Frazer has\nsuggested a better origin of totemism from the doctrine of the Separable\nSoul, which is, up to date, the best explanation yet offered of this\nobscure subject. Be that as it may, if the totems were only gradually\nelevated into divinities, we can easily understand Mr. Renouf\u2019s remark\nthat the long series of tombs of the Apis bulls at Sakkarah shows \u201chow\nimmeasurably greater the devotion to the sacred animals was in the later\ntimes than in the former.\u201d\n\nMay I add that the _worship_ of totems, as distinct from the mere _care_\nimplied by Mr. Frazer\u2019s suggestion, very probably arose from the\ncustom of carving the totem-animal of the deceased on the grave-stake or\ngrave-board? This custom is still universal among the Indian tribes of\nNorthwestern America.\n\nNevertheless, whatever be the true origin of the totem-gods, I do not\nthink totemism militates in any way against the general principle of\nthe evolution of the idea of a god from the ghost, the Dead Man, or the\ndeified ancestor. For only after the concept of a god had been formed\nfrom ancestor-cult, and only after worship had been evolved from the\ncustomary offerings to the mummy or spirit at the tomb, could any other\nobject by any possibility be elevated to the godhead. Nor, on the other\nhand, as I have before remarked, do I feel inclined wholly to agree with\nMr. Spencer that every individual god was necessarily once a particular\nDead Man. It seems to me indubitable that after the idea of godhead had\nbecome fully fixed in the human mind, some gods at least began to be\nrecognised who were directly framed either from abstract conceptions,\nfrom natural objects, or from pure outbursts of the mythopoeic faculty.\nI do not think, therefore, that the existence {175}of a certain\n(relatively unimportant) class of totem-gods in Egypt or elsewhere is\nnecessarily inconsistent in any way with our main theory of the origin\nof godhead.\n\nBe this as it may, it is at any rate clear that totemism itself was\na very ancient and widespread institution in early Egypt. Totems are\ndefined by Mr. Frazer as \u201ca class of material objects which a savage\nregards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between\nhim and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special\nrelation.” \u201cObservation of existing totem tribes in Africa, Australia,\nand elsewhere,” says Sir Martin Conway, \u201cshows us that one or more\nrepresentatives of the totem are often fed or even kept alive in\ncaptivity by the tribe.” Mr. Frazer tells us that \u201camongst the\nNar-rinyeri in South Australia, men of the snake clan sometimes catch\nsnakes, pull out their teeth, or sew up their mouths, and keep them as\npets. In a pigeon clan of Samoa a pigeon was carefully kept and fed.\nAmongst the Kalong in Java, whose totem is a red dog, each family as a\nrule keeps one of these animals, which they will on no account allow to\nbe struck or ill-used by any one.” In the same way, no doubt, certain\nEgyptian clans kept sacred bulls, cats, crocodiles, hawks, jackals,\ncobras, lizards, ibises, asps, and beetles. Mummies of most of\nthese sacred animals, and little images of others, are common in the\nneighbourhood of certain places where they were specially worshipped.\n\nWhether the animal-headed gods represent a later stage of the same\ntotem-worship, or whether they stand merely for real ancestor-gods\nbelonging to a particular totem-clan, and therefore represented by its\ntotem, is not a question easily settled. But at any rate it is clear\nthat many gods are the equivalents of such totem-animals, as is the case\nwith the hawk-headed Horus, the jackal-headed Anubis, the cow-headed\nAthor, the ram-headed Knum, the cat-headed Pasht, the lion-headed\nSekhet, the ibis-headed {176}Thoth, and the kestrel-headed Khons. These\ngods appear on the earlier monuments as beasts alone, not as human\nforms with bestial heads. Till the Twelfth Dynasty, when a totem-god\nis mentioned (which is not often), \u201che is represented,\u201d says Mr.\nFlinders Petrie, \u201cby his animal.\u201d Anubis, for example, at this\nstage, is merely a jackal; and as M. Maspero puts it, \u201cWhatever may\nhave been the object of worship in Thoth-Ibis, it was a bird, not a\nhieroglyph, that the earliest ibis-worshippers adored.\u201d There were\nother totems, however, which were less fruitful in deities, but which\nentered largely in artistic forms into the later religious symbolism.\nSuch were especially the asp and the sacred scarab\u00e6us, which almost\nrival the sun-disk in the large part they play in the developed\nreligious art-language of the great temple-building dynasties. I may\nadd that among the other symbols of this curious emblematical\npicture-writing are the Tau or _crux ansata_, by origin apparently a\ncombined _linga_ and _yoni_; the lotus, the sceptre, the leek, and the\ncrescent.\n\nThere is, however, yet a third class of divine or quasidivine beings\nin the newer Egyptian Pantheon to which Mr. Andrew Lang, in his able\nintroduction to the _Euterpe_ of Herodotus, still allows that great\nimportance may be attached. These are the elemental or seemingly\nelemental deities, the Nature-Gods who play so large a part in all\nrationalistic or mystical mythologies. Such are no doubt Nut and Seb,\nthe personal heaven and earth, named as early as the inscription on the\ncoffin of Menkaoura of the Fourth Dynasty in the British Museum: such\nperhaps (though far less certainly) are Khons, identified with the\nrising sun, and Tum, regarded as the impersonation of his nightly\nsetting. But none of the quite obviously elemental gods, except Ra, play\nany large part in the actual and practical worship of the people:\nto adopt the broad distinction I have ventured to draw in our second\nchapter, they are gods to talk about, not gods to adore--mythological\nconceptions rather than religious beings. Their names occur {177}much in\nthe sacred texts, but their images are rare and their temples unknown.\nIt is not Nut or Seb whose figures we see carved abundantly in relief on\nthe grey sandstone pillars of Karnak and Luxor, painted in endless file\non the gesso-covered walls of the Tombs of the Kings, or represented by\ndozens in the great collection of little bronze idols that fill so many\ncabinets at the Boulak Museum. The actual objects of the highest worship\nare far other than these abstract elemental conceptions: they are\nOsiris, Isis, Horus, Anubis, Khem, Pasht, and Athor. The quaint or\ngrotesque incised figures of Nut, represented as a female form with arms\nand legs extended like a living canopy over the earth, as at Denderah,\nbelong, I believe, almost if not quite exclusively to the Ptolemaic\nperiod, when zodiacal and astrological conceptions had been freely\nborrowed by the Egyptians from Greece and Asia. Nut and Seb, as gods,\nnot myths, are in short quite recent ideas in Egypt. Even sun-disk Ra,\nhimself, important as he becomes in the later developed creed, is hardly\nso much in his origin a separate god as an adjunct or symbol of divinity\nunited syncretically with the various other deities. To call a king\nthe sun is a common piece of courtier flattery. It is as Amen-Ra or as\nOsiris that the sun receives most actual worship. His name is joined\nto the names of gods as to the names of kings: he is almost as much a\nsymbol as the Tau or the Asp; he obtains little if any adoration in his\nsimple form, but plenty when conjoined in a compound conception with\nsome more practical deity of strictly human origin. Even at the great\n\u201cTemple of the Sun\u201d at Heliopolis, it was as the bull Men or Mnevis\nthat the luminary was adored: and that cult, according to Manetho, went\nback as far as the totemistic times of the Second Dynasty.\n\nTo put it briefly, then, I hold that the element of nature-worship is\na late gloss or superadded factor in the Egyptian religion; that it is\nalways rather mythological or explanatory than religious in the strict\nsense; and that it does {178}not in the least interfere with our general\ninference that the real Egyptian gods as a whole were either ancestral\nor totemistic in origin.\n\nFrom the evidence before us, broadly considered, we may fairly\nconclude, then, that the earliest cult of Egypt consisted of pure\nancestor-worship, complicated by a doubtfully religious element of\ntotemism, which afterwards by one means or another interwove itself\nclosely with the whole ghostly worship of the country. The later gods\nwere probably deified ancestors of the early tribal kings, sometimes\ndirectly worshipped as mummies, and sometimes perhaps represented by\ntheir totem-animals or later still by human figures with animal heads.\nAlmost every one of these great gods is localised to a particular\nplace--\u201cLord of Abydos,\u201d \u201cMistress of Senem,\u201d \u201cPresident of\nThebes,\u201d \u201cDweller at Hermopolis,\u201d as would naturally be the case\nif they were locally-deified princes, admitted at last into a national\npantheon. In the earliest period of which any monuments remain to us,\nthe ancestor-worship was purer, simpler, and freer from symbolism or\nfrom the cult of the great gods than at any later time. With the gradual\nevolution of the creed and the pantheon, however, legends and myths\nincreased, the syncretic tendency manifested itself everywhere,\nidentifications multiplied, mysticism grew rife, and an esoteric faith,\nwith leanings towards a vague pantheistic monotheism, endeavoured to\nrationalise and to explain away the more gross and foolish portions of\nthe original belief. It is the refinements and glosses of this final\nphilosophical stage that pass current for the most part in systematic\nworks as the true doctrines of Egyptian religion, and that so many\nmodern enquirers have erroneously treated as equivalent to the earliest\nproduct of native thought. The ideas as to the unity of God, and the\nsun-myths of Horus, Isis, and Osiris, are clearly late developments or\nexcrescences on the original creed, and betray throughout the esoteric\nspirit of priestly interpretation. To the very last, the Worship of\nthe Dead, and the {179} crude polytheism based upon it, were the true\nreligion of the ancient Egyptians, as we see it expressed in all the\nmonuments.\n\nSuch was the religious world into which, if we may believe the oldest\nSemitic traditions, the Sons of Israel brought their God Jahweh and\ntheir other deities from beyond the Euphrates at a very remote period of\ntheir national history. And such, in its fuller and more mystical form,\nwas the religion practised and taught in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, at\nthe moment when the Christian faith was just beginning to evolve itself\nround the historical nucleus of the man Christ Jesus, and him crucified.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.--THE GODS OF ISRAEL.\n\n|THE {180}only people who ever invented or evolved a pure monotheism at\nfirst hand were the Jews. Individual thinkers elsewhere approached\nor aimed at that ideal goal, like the Egyptian priests and the Greek\nphilosophers: entire races elsewhere borrowed monotheism from the\nHebrews, like the Arabs under Mohammad, or, to a less extent, the Romans\nand the modern European nations, when they adopted Christianity in\nits trinitarian form: but no other race ever succeeded as a whole in\nattaining by their own exertions the pure monotheistic platform, however\nnear certain persons among them might have arrived to such attainment in\nesoteric or mystical philosophising. It is the peculiar glory of Israel\nto have _evolved God_. And the evolution of God from the diffuse gods\nof the earlier Semitic religion is Israel\u2019s great contribution to the\nworld\u2019s thought.\n\nThe sacred books of the Jews, as we possess them in garbled forms\nto-day, assign this peculiar belief to the very earliest ages of their\nrace: they assume that Abraham, the mythical common father of all the\nSemitic tribes, was already a monotheist; and they even treat monotheism\nas at a still remoter date the universal religion of the entire world,\nfrom which all polytheistic cults were but a corruption and a falling\naway. Such a belief is nowadays, of course, wholly untenable. So also is\nthe crude notion that monotheism was smitten out at a single blow by the\ngenius of one individual man, Moses, at the moment {181}of the Hebrew\nexodus from Egypt. The bare idea that one particular thinker, just\nescaped from the midst of ardent polytheists, whose religion embraced an\nendless pantheon and a low form of animal-worship, could possibly have\ninvented a pure monotheistic cult, is totally opposed to every known\npsychological law of human nature. The real stages by which monotheism\nwas evolved out of a preceding polytheism in a single small group of\nSemitic tribes have already been well investigated by Dutch and\nGerman scholars: all that I propose to do in the present volume is to\nreconsider the subject from our broader anthropological standpoint, and\nshow how in the great Jewish god himself we may still discern, as in\na glass, darkly, the vague but constant lineaments of an ancestral\nghost-deity.\n\nDown to a comparatively late period of Jewish history, as we now\nknow, Jahweh was but one and the highest among a considerable group of\nIsraelitish divinities; the first among his peers, like Zeus among the\ngods of Hellas, Osiris or Amen among the gods of Egypt, and Woden or\nThunor among the gods of the old Teutonic pantheon. As late as the\ncentury of Hezekiah, the religion of the great mass of the Israelites\nand Jews was still a broad though vague polytheism. The gods seem to\nhave been as numerous and as localised as in Egypt: \u201cAccording to the\nnumber of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah,\u201d says the prophet Jeremiah\nin the sixth century. It was only by a slow process of syncretism, by\nthe absorption into Jahweh-worship of all other conflicting creeds, that\nIsrael at last attained its full ideal of pure monotheism. That ideal\nwas never finally reached by the people at large till the return from\nthe captivity: it had only even been aimed at by a few ardent and\nexclusive Jahweh-worshippers in the last dangerous and doubtful years of\nnational independence which immediately preceded the Babylonish exile.\n\nIn order to understand the inner nature of this curious gradual\nrevolution we must look briefly, first, at the general character {182}of\nthe old Hebrew polytheism; and secondly, at the original cult of the\ngreat ethnical god Jahweh himself.\n\nIn spite of their long sojourn in Egypt, the national religion of the\nHebrews, when we first begin dimly to descry its features through the\nveil of later glosses, is regarded by almost all modern investigators as\ntruly Semitic and local in origin. It is usually described as embracing\nthree principal forms of cult: the worship of the _teraphim_ or family\ngods; the worship of sacred stones; and the worship of certain great\ngods, partly native, partly perhaps borrowed; some of them adored in\nthe form of animals, and some apparently elemental or solar in their\nacquired attributes. Although for us these three are one, I shall\nexamine them here in that wonted order.\n\nThe cult of the _teraphim_, I think, we cannot consider, on a broad\nanthropological view, otherwise than as the equivalent of all the\nother family cults known to us; that is to say, in other words, as\npure unadulterated domestic ancestor-worship. \u201cBy that name,\u201d\nsays Kuenen, \u201cwere indicated larger or smaller images, which were\nworshipped as household gods, and upon which the happiness of the family\nwas supposed to depend.\u201d In the legend of Jacob\u2019s flight from Laban,\nwe are told how Rachel stole her father\u2019s teraphim: and when the angry\nchieftain overtakes the fugitives, he enquires of them why they have\nrobbed him of his domestic gods. Of Micah, we learn that he made images\nof his teraphim, and consecrated one of his own sons to be his family\npriest: such a domestic and private priesthood being exactly what we are\naccustomed to find in the worship of ancestral _manes_ everywhere. Even\nthrough the mist of the later Jehovistic recension we catch, in passing,\nfrequent glimpses of the early worship of these family gods, one of\nwhich is described as belonging to Michal, the daughter of Saul and wife\nof David; while Hosea alludes to them as stocks of wood, and Zechariah\nas idols that speak lies to the people. It is clear {183}that the\nteraphim were preserved in each household with reverential care, that\nthey were sacrificed to by the family at stated intervals, and that they\nwere consulted on all occasions of doubt or difficulty by a domestic\npriest clad in an ephod. I think, then, if we put these indications side\nby side with those of family cults elsewhere, we may conclude that the\nJewish religion, like all others, was based upon an ultimate foundation\nof general ancestor-worship.\n\nIt has been denied, indeed, that ancestor-worship pure and simple ever\nexisted among the Semitic races. A clear contradiction of this denial\nis furnished by M. Lenormant, who comments thus on sepulchral monuments\nfrom Yemen: \u201cHere, then, we have twice repeated a whole series of\nhuman persons, decidedly deceased ancestors or relations of the authors\nof the dedications. Their names are accompanied with the titles they\nbore during life. They are invoked by their descendants in the same way\nas the gods. They are incontestably deified persons, objects of a family\nworship, and gods or genii in the belief of the people of their race.\u201d\nAfter this, we need not doubt that the teraphim were the images of such\nfamily gods or ancestral spirits.\n\nIt is not surprising, however, that these domestic gods play but a small\npart in the history of the people as it has come down to us in the late\nJehovistic version of the Hebrew traditions. Nowhere in literature, even\nunder the most favourable circumstances, do we hear much of the _manes_\nand _lares_, compared with the great gods of national worship. Nor\nwere such minor divinities likely to provoke the wrath even of that\n\u201cjealous god\u201d who later usurped all the adoration of Israel: so that\ndenunciations of their votaries are comparatively rare in the rhapsodies\nof the prophets. \u201cTheir use,\u201d says Kuenen, speaking of the teraphim,\n\u201cwas very general, and was by no means considered incompatible with\nthe worship of Jahweh.\u201d They were regarded merely as family affairs,\npoor foemen for {184}the great and awesome tribal god who bore no rival\nnear his throne, and would not suffer the pretensions of Molech or\nof the Baalim. To use a modern analogy, their cult was as little\ninconsistent with Jahweh-worship as a belief in fairies, banshees, or\nfamily ghosts was formerly inconsistent with a belief in Christianity.\n\nThis conclusion will doubtless strike the reader at once as directly\nopposed to the oft-repeated assertion that the early Hebrews had little\nor no conception of the life beyond the grave and of the doctrine of\nfuture rewards and punishments. I am afraid it cannot be denied that\nsuch is the case. Hard as it is to run counter to so much specialist\nopinion, I can scarcely see how any broad anthropological enquirer may\ndeny to the Semites of the tenth and twelfth centuries before Christ\nparticipation in an almost (or quite) universal human belief, common to\nthe lowest savages and the highest civilisations, and particularly\nwell developed in that Egyptian society with which the ancestors of the\nHebrews had so long rubbed shoulders. The subject, however, is far too\nlarge a one for full debate here. I must content myself with pointing\nout that, apart from the _a priori_ improbability of such a conclusion,\nthe Hebrew documents themselves contain numerous allusions, even in\ntheir earliest traditional fragments, to the belief in ghosts and in the\nworld of shades, as well as to the probability of future resurrection.\nThe habit of cave-burial and of excavated grotto-burial; the importance\nattached to the story of the purchase of Machpelah; the common phrase\nthat such-and-such a patriarch \u201cwas gathered to his people,\u201d or\n\u201cslept with his fathers\u201d; the embalming of Joseph, and the carrying\nup of his bones from Egypt to Palestine; the episode of Saul and the\nghost of Samuel; and indeed the entire conception of Sheol, the place of\nthe departed--all alike show that the Hebrew belief in this respect did\nnot largely differ in essentials from the general belief of surrounding\npeoples. The very frequency of allusions to witchcraft and necromancy\n{185}point in the same direction; while the common habit of assuming a\npriestly or sacrificial garment, the _ephod_, and then consulting the\nfamily teraphim as a domestic oracle, is strictly in accordance with all\nthat we know of the minor ancestor-worship as it occurs elsewhere.\n\nClosely connected with the teraphim is the specific worship at tombs\nor graves. \u201cThe whole north Semitic area,\u201d says Professor Robertson\nSmith, \u201cwas dotted over with sacred tombs, Memnonia, Semiramis\nmounds, and the like; and at every such spot a god or demigod had his\nsubterranean abode.\u201d This, of course, is pure ancestor-worship. Traces\nof still older cave-burial are also common in the Hebrew Scriptures.\n\u201cAt the present day,\u201d says Professor Smith, \u201calmost every sacred\nsite in Palestine has its grotto, and that this is no new thing is plain\nfrom the numerous symbols of Astarte-worship found on the walls of\ncaves in Phoenicia. There can be little doubt that the oldest Phoenician\ntemples were natural or artificial grottoes.\u201d\n\nWe are fairly entitled to conclude, then, I believe, that a domestic\ncult of the _manes_ or _lares_, the family dead, formed the general\nsubstratum of early Hebrew religion, though as in all other cases, owing\nto its purely personal nature, this universal cult makes but a small\nfigure in the literature of the race, compared with the worship of the\ngreater national gods and goddesses.\n\nSecond in the list of worshipful objects in early Israel come the sacred\nstones, about which I have already said a good deal in the chapter\ndevoted to that interesting subject, but concerning whose special nature\nin the Semitic field a few more words may here be fitly added.\n\nIt is now very generally admitted that stone-worship played an\nexceedingly large and important part in the primitive Semitic religion.\nHow important a part we may readily gather from many evidences, but from\nnone more than from the fact that even Mohammad himself was unable to\nexclude from Islam, the most monotheistic of all {186}known religious\nsystems, the holy black stone of the Kaaba at Mecca. In Arabia, says\nProfessor Robertson Smith, the altar or hewn stone is unknown, and\nin its place we find the rude pillar or the cairn, beside which the\nsacrificial victim is slain, the blood being poured out over the stone\nor at its base. But in Israel, the shaped stone seems the more usual\nmark of the ghost or god. Such a sacred stone, we have already seen, was\nknown to the early Hebrews as a Beth-el, that is to say an \u201cabode of\ndeity,\u201d from the common belief that it was inhabited by a god, ghost,\nor spirit. The great prevalence of the cult of stones among the Semites,\nhowever, is further indicated by the curious circumstance that this word\nwas borrowed by the Greeks and Romans (in a slightly altered form) to\ndenote the stones so supposed to be inhabited by deities. References to\nsuch gods abound throughout the Hebrew books, though they are sometimes\ndenounced as idolatrous images, and sometimes covered with a thin veneer\nof Jehovism by being connected with the national heroes and with the\nlater Jahweh-worship.\n\nIn the legend of Jacob\u2019s dream we get a case where the sacred stone\nis anointed and a promise is made to it of a tenth of the speaker\u2019s\nsubstance as an offering. And again, on a later occasion, we learn\nthat Jacob \u201cset up a pillar of stone, and he poured a drink-offering\nthereon, and he poured oil thereon;\u201d just as, in the great phallic\nworship of the linga in India (commonly called the _linga puja_), a\ncylindrical pillar, rounded at the top, and universally considered as\na phallus in its nature, is worshipped by pouring upon it one of five\nsacred anointing liquids, water, milk, ghee, oil, and wine. Similar\nrites are offered in many other places to other sacred stones; and in\nmany cases the phallic value assigned to them is clearly shown by the\nfact that it is usual for sterile women to pray to them for the blessing\nof children, as Hindu wives pray to Mahadeo, and as so many Hebrew women\n(to be noted hereafter) {187}are mentioned in our texts as praying to\nJahweh.\n\nA brief catalogue of the chief stone-deities alluded to in Hebrew\nliterature may help to enforce the importance of the subject: and it\nmay be noted in passing that the stones are often mentioned in connexion\nwith sacred trees--an association with which we are already familiar.\nIn the neighbourhood of Sichem was an oak--the \u201coak of the prophets\u201d\nor \u201coak of the soothsayers\u201d--by which lay a stone, whose holiness is\nvariously accounted for by describing it as, in one place, an altar\nof Abraham, in another an altar of Jacob, and in a third a memorial of\nJoshua. But the fact shows that it was resorted to for sacrifice, and\nthat oracles or responses were sought from it by its votaries. That is\nto say, it was a sepulchral monument. Near Hebron stood \u201cthe oak of\nMamre,\u201d and under it a sacred stone, accounted for as an altar of\nAbraham, to which in David\u2019s time sacrifices were offered. Near\nBeersheba we find yet a third tree, the tamarisk, said to have been\nplanted by Abraham, and an altar or stone pillar ascribed to Isaac. In\nthe camp at Gilgal were \u201cthe twelve stones,\u201d sometimes, apparently,\nspoken of as \u201cthe graven images,\u201d but sometimes explained away\nas memorials of Jahweh\u2019s help at the passing of the Jordan. Other\nexamples are Ebenezer, \u201cthe helpful stone,\u201d and Tobeleth, the\n\u201cserpent-stone,\u201d as well as the \u201cgreat stone\u201d to which sacrifices were\noffered at Bethshemesh, and the other great stone at Gibeon, which was\nalso, no doubt, an early Hebrew deity.\n\nSo often is the name of Abraham connected with these stones, indeed,\nthat, as some German scholars have suggested, Abraham himself may\nperhaps be regarded as a sacred boulder, the rock from which Israel\noriginally; sprang.\n\nIn any case, I need hardly say, we must look upon such sacred stones as\nthemselves a further evidence of ancestor-worship in Palestine, on the\nanalogy of all similar stones elsewhere. {188}We may conclude that,\nas in previously noted instances, they were erected on the graves of\ndeceased chieftains.\n\nAnd now we come to the third and most difficult division of early Hebrew\nreligion, the cult of the great gods whom the jealous Jahweh himself\nfinally superseded. The personality of these gods is very obscure,\npartly because of the nature of our materials, which, being derived\nentirely from Jehovistic sources, have done their best to overshadow the\n\u201cfalse gods\u201d; but partly also, I believe, because, in the process of\nevolving monotheism, a syncretic movement merged almost all their\nunited attributes into Jahweh himself, who thus becomes at last the\nall-absorbing synthesis of an entire pantheon. Nevertheless, we can\npoint out one or two shadowy references to such greater gods, either by\nname alone, or by the form under which they were usually worshipped.\n\nThe scholarship of the elder generation would no doubt have enumerated\nfirst among these gods the familiar names of Baal and Molech. At\npresent, such an enumeration is scarcely possible. We can no longer see\nin the Baal of the existing Hebrew scriptures a single great god. We\nmust regard the word rather as a common substantive,--\u201cthe lord\u201d or\n\u201cthe master,\u201d--descriptive of the relation of each distinct god to\nthe place he inhabited. The Baalim, in other words, seem to have been\nthe local deities or deified chiefs of the Semitic region; doubtless\nthe dead kings or founders of families, as opposed to the lesser gods\nof each particular household. It is not improbable, therefore, that\nthey were really identified with the sacred stones we have just been\nconsidering, and with the wooden _ashera_. The Baal is usually spoken\nof indefinitely, without a proper name, much as at Delos men spoke of\n\u201cthe God,\u201d at Athens of \u201cthe Goddess,\u201d and now at Padua of \u201cil\nSanto,\u201d--meaning respectively Apollo, Athene, St. Antony. Melcarth is\nthus the Baal of Tyre, Astarte the Baalath of Byblos; there was a Baal\nof Lebanon, of Mount {189}Hermon, of Mount Peor, and so forth. A few\nspecific Baalim have their names preserved for us in the nomenclature\nof towns; such are Baal-tamar, the lord of the palm-tree; with Baal-gad,\nBaal-Berith, Baal-meon, and Baal-zephon. But in the Hebrew scriptures,\nas a rule, every effort has been made to blot out the very memory\nof these \u201cfalse gods,\u201d and to represent Jahweh alone as from the\nearliest period the one true prince and ruler in Israel.\n\nAs for Molech, that title merely means \u201cthe king\u201d; and it may have\nbeen applied to more than one distinct deity. Dr. Robertson Smith does\nnot hesitate to hold that the particular Molech to whom human sacrifices\nof children were offered by the Jews before the captivity was Jahweh\nhimself; it was to the national god, he believes, that these fiery\nrites were performed at the Tophet or pyre in the ravine just below the\ntemple.\n\nWe are thus reduced to the most nebulous details about these great\ngods of the Hebrews, other than Jahweh, in the period preceding\nthe Babylonian captivity. All that is certain appears to be that a\nconsiderable number of local gods were worshipped here and there at\nspecial sanctuaries, each of which seems to have consisted of an altar\nor stone image, standing under a sacred tree or sacred grove, and\ncombined with an _ashera_. While the names of Chemosh, the god of Moab,\nand of Dagon, the god of the Philistines, have come down to us with\nperfect frankness and clearness, no local Hebrew god save Jahweh has\nleft a name that can now be discerned with any approach to certainty.\nIt should be added that the worship of many of the gods of surrounding\nSemitic tribes undoubtedly extended from the earliest times into Israel\nalso.\n\nI must likewise premise that the worship of the Baalim, within and\nwithout Israel, was specially directed to upright conical stones, the\nmost sacred objects at all the sanctuaries; and that these stones\nare generally admitted to have {190}possessed for their worshippers a\nphallic significance.\n\nCertain writers have further endeavoured to show that a few animal-gods\nentered into the early worship of the Hebrews. I do not feel sure that\ntheir arguments are convincing; but for the sake of completeness I\ninclude the two most probable cases in this brief review of the vague\nand elusive deities of early Israel.\n\nOne of these is the god in the form of a young bull, specially\nworshipped at Dan and Bethel, as the bull Apis was worshipped at\nMemphis, and the bull Mnevis at On or Heliopolis. This cult of the bull\nis pushed back in the later traditions to the period of the exodus, when\nthe Israelites made themselves a \u201cgolden calf\u201d in the wilderness.\nKuenen, indeed, lays stress upon the point that this Semitic\nbull-worship differed essentially from the cult of Apis in the fact that\nit was directed to an image or idol, not to a living animal. This is\ntrue, and I certainly do not wish to press any particular connexion\nbetween Egypt and the golden bulls of Jeroboam in the cities of Ephraim:\nthough I think too much may perhaps be made of superficial differences\nand too little of deep-seated resemblances in these matters, seeing that\nbull-worship is a common accompaniment of a phallic cult in the whole\nwide district between Egypt and India. It is the tendency of the\nscholastic mind, indeed, to over-elaborate trifles, and to multiply to\nexcess minute distinctions. But in any case, we are on comparatively\nsafe ground in saying that a bull-god was an object of worship in Israel\ndown to a very late period; that his cult descended from an early age of\nthe national existence; and that the chief seats of his images were at\nDan and Bethel in Ephraim, and at Beersheba in Judah.\n\nWas this bull-shaped deity Jahweh’ himself, or one of the polymorphic\nforms of Jahweh? Such is the opinion of Kuenen, who says explicitly,\n\u201cJahweh was worshipped in the shape of a young bull. It cannot be\ndoubted that the {191}cult of the bull-calf was really the cult of\nJahweh in person.\u201d And certainly in the prophetic writings of the\neighth century, we can clearly descry that the worshippers of the bull\nregarded themselves as worshipping the god Jahweh, who brought up his\npeople from the land of Egypt. Nevertheless, dangerous as it may seem\nfor an outsider to differ on such a subject from great Semitic scholars,\nI venture to think we may see reason hereafter to conclude that this was\nnot originally the case: that the god worshipped under the form of the\nbull-calf was some other deity, like the Molech whom we know to\nhave been represented with a bull’s head; and that only by the later\nsyncretic process did this bull-god come to be identified in the end\nwith Jahweh, a deity (as seems likely) of quite different origin, much\nas Mnevis came to be regarded at Heliopolis as an incarnation of Ra, and\nas Apis came to be regarded at Memphis as an avatar of Ptah and still\nlater of Osiris. On the other hand, we must remember that, as Mr. Frazer\nhas shown, a sacred animal is often held to be the representative and\nembodiment of the very god to whom it is habitually sacrificed. Here\nagain we trench on ground which can only satisfactorily be occupied at a\nlater stage of our polymorphic argument.\n\nA second animal-god, apparently, also adored in the form of a metal\nimage, was the asp or snake, known in our version as \u201cthe brazen\nserpent,\u201d and connected by the Jehovistic editors of the earlier\ntraditions with Moses in the wilderness. The name of this deity is given\nus in the Book of Kings as Nehushtan, \u201cthe brass god\u201d; but\nwhether this was really its proper designation or a mere contemptuous\ndescriptive title we can hardly be certain. The worship of the serpent\nis said to have gone on uninterruptedly till the days of Hezekiah, when,\nunder the influence of the exclusive devotion to Jahweh which was\nthen becoming popular, the image was broken in pieces as an idolatrous\nobject. It is scarcely necessary to point out in passing that the asp\nwas one of the most sacred animals {192}in Egypt: but, as in the case of\nthe bull, the snake was also a widespread object of worship throughout\nall the surrounding countries; and it is therefore probable that the\nHebrew snake-worship may have been parallel to, rather than derived\nfrom, Egyptian ophiolatry.\n\nSuch, then, seen through the dim veil of Jehovism, are the misty\nfeatures of that uncertain pantheon in which, about the eighth century\nat least, Jahweh found himself the most important deity. The most\nimportant, I say, because it is clear from our records that for many\nages the worship of Jahweh and the worship of the Baalim went on side by\nside without conscious rivalry.\n\nAnd what sort of god was this holy Jahweh himself, whom the Hebrews\nrecognised from a very early time as emphatically and above all others\n\u201cthe God of Israel\u201d?\n\nIf ever he was envisaged as a golden bull, if ever he was regarded as\nthe god of light, fire, or the sun, those concepts, I believe, must have\nbeen the result of a late transference of attributes and confusion of\npersons, such as we may see so rife in the more recent mystical religion\nof Egypt. What in his own nature Jahweh must have been in the earliest\ndays of his nascent godhead I believe we can best judge by putting\ntogether some of the passages in old traditionary legend which bear most\nplainly upon his character and functions.\n\nIn the legendary account of the earliest dealings of Jahweh with the\nHebrew race, we are told that the ethnical god appeared to Abraham\nin Haran, and promised to make of him \u201ca great nation.\u201d Later on,\nAbraham complains of the want of an heir, saying to Jahweh, \u201cThou hast\ngiven me no seed.\u201d Then Jahweh \u201cbrought him forth abroad, and said,\nLook now toward heaven and tell the stars: so shall thy seed be.\u201d Over\nand over again we get similar promises of fruitfulness made to Abraham:\n\u201cI will multiply thee exceedingly\u201d; \u201cthou shalt be a father of\nmany nations\u201d; \u201cI will make thee exceeding fruitful\u201d; \u201ckings\nshall come out of thee\u201d; \u201cfor a father of many nations {193}have I\nmade thee.\u201d So, too, of Sarah: \u201cshe shall be a mother of nations;\nkings of people shall be of her.\u201d And of Ishmael: \u201cI have blessed\nhim and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly:\ntwelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.\u201d\nTime after time these blessings recur for Abraham, Isaac, and all his\nfamily: \u201cI will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as\nthe sand which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate\nof his enemies.\u201d\n\nIn every one of these passages, and in many more which need not\nbe quoted, but which will readily occur to every reader, Jahweh\nis represented especially as a god of increase, of generation, of\npopulousness, of fertility. As such, too, we find him frequently and\nmarkedly worshipped on special occasions. He was the god to whom sterile\nwomen prayed, and from whom they expected the special blessing of a son,\nto keep up the cult of the family ancestors. This trait survived even\ninto the poetry of the latest period. \u201cHe maketh the barren woman\nto keep house,\u201d says a psalmist about Jahweh, \u201cand to be a joyful\nmother of children.\u201d And from the beginning to the end of Hebrew\nlegend we find a similar characteristic of the ethnical god amply\nvindicated. When Sarah is old and well stricken in years, Jahweh visits\nher and she conceives Isaac. Then Isaac in turn \u201cintreated Jahweh for\nhis wife, because she was barren; and Jahweh was intreated of him, and\nRebekah his wife conceived.\u201d Again, \u201cwhen Jahweh saw that Leah was\nhated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.\u201d Once more, of the\nbirth of Samson we are told that Manoah\u2019s wife \u201cwas barren and bare\nnot\u201d: but \u201cthe angel of Jahweh appeared unto the woman and said\nunto her, Behold, now thou art barren and bearest not; but thou shalt\nconceive and bear a son.\u201d And of Hannah we are told, even more\nsignificantly, that Jahweh had \u201cshut up her womb.\u201d At the shrine\nof Jahweh at Shiloh, therefore, she prayed to Jahweh that this disgrace\nmight be removed from her and that a child might {194}be born to her. If\nshe bore \u201ca man child,\u201d she would offer him up all his life long as\nan anchorite to Jahweh, to be a Nazarite of the Lord, an ascetic and\na fanatic. \u201cJahweh remembered her,\u201d and she bore Samuel. And after\nthat again, \u201cJahweh visited Hannah, so that she conceived and bare\nthree sons and two daughters.\u201d In many other passages we get the\nself-same trait: Jahweh is regarded above everything as a god of\nincrease and a giver of offspring. \u201cChildren are a heritage from\nJahweh,\u201d says the much later author of a familiar ode: \u201cthe fruit of\nthe womb are a reward from him.\u201d\n\nIt is clear, too, that this desire for children, for a powerful clan,\nfor the increase of the people, was a dominant one everywhere in Ephraim\nand in Judah. \u201cThy wife shall be as a fruitful vine,\u201d says Jahweh to\nhis votary by the mouth of the poet; \u201cthy children like olive plants\nround about thy table.\u201d \u201cHappy is the man that hath his quiver full\nof them,\u201d says another psalmist; \u201cthey shall speak with the enemies\nin the gate.\u201d Again and again the promise is repeated that the seed\nof Abraham or of Joseph or of Ishmael shall be numerous as the stars\nof heaven or the sands of the sea: Jahweh\u2019s chief prerogative is\nevidently the gift of increase, extended often to cattle and asses, but\nalways including at least sons and daughters. If Israel obeys Jahweh,\nsays the Deuteronomist, \u201cJahweh will make thee plenteous for good in the\nfruit of thy belly, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of\nthy ground\u201d: but if otherwise, then \u201ccursed shall be the fruit of thy\nbody, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the\nflocks of thy sheep.\u201d\n\nNow, elsewhere throughout the world we find in like manner a certain\nclass of phallic gods who are specially conceived as givers of\nfertility, and to whom prayers and offerings are made by barren women\nwho desire children. And the point to observe is that these gods are\nusually (perhaps one might even say always) embodied in stone pillars\n{195}or upright monoliths. The practical great god of India--the god\nwhom the people really worship--is Mahadeo; and Mahadeo is, as we know,\na cylinder of stone, to whom the _linga puja_ is performed, and to whom\nbarren women pray for offspring. There are sacred stones in western\nEurope, now crowned by a cross, at which barren women still pray to God\nand the Madonna, or to some local saint, for the blessing of children.\nIt is allowed that while the obelisk is from one point of view (in later\ntheory) a ray of the sun, it is from another point of view (in earlier\norigin) a \u201csymbol of the generative power of nature,\"--which is only\nanother way of saying that it is an ancestral stone of phallic virtue.\nIn short, without laying too much stress upon the connexion, we may\nconclude generally that the upright pillar came early to be regarded,\nnot merely as a memento of the dead and an abode of the ghost or\nindwelling god, but also in some mysterious and esoteric way as a\nrepresentative of the male and generative principle.\n\nIf we recollect that the stone pillar was often identified with the\nancestor or father, the reason for this idea will not perhaps be quite\nso hard to understand. \u201cFrom these stones we are all descended,\u201d\nthinks the primitive worshipper: \u201cthese are our fathers; therefore,\nthey are the givers of children, the producers and begetters of all our\ngenerations, the principle of fertility, the proper gods to whom to pray\nfor offspring.\u201d Add that many of them, being represented as human, or\nhuman in their upper part at least, grow in time to be ithyphallic, like\nPriapus, party by mere grotesque barbarism, but partly also as a sign\nof the sex of the deceased: and we can see the naturalness of this easy\ntransition. From the Herm\u00e6 of the Greeks to the rude phallic deities of\nso many existing savage races, we get everywhere signs of this constant\nconnexion between the sacred stone and the idea of paternity. Where the\nstone represents the grave of a woman, the deity of course is conceived\nas a goddess, but with {196}the same implications. Herodotus saw in\nSyria stel\u00e6 engraved with the female pudenda. The upright stone god\nis thus everywhere and always liable to be regarded as a god of\nfruitfulness.\n\nBut did this idea of the stone pillar extend to Palestine and to\nthe Semitic nations? There is evidence that it did, besides that\nof Herodotus. Major Conder, whose opinion on all questions of pure\narchaeology (as opposed to philology) deserves the highest respect, says\nof Canaanitish times, \u201cThe menhir, or conical stone, was the emblem\nthroughout Syria of the gods presiding over fertility, and the\ncup hollows which have been formed in menhirs and dolmens are the\nindications of libations, often of human blood, once poured on these\nstones by early worshippers.\u201d He connects these monuments with the\nlinga cult of India, and adds that Dr. Chaplin has found such a cult\nstill surviving near the Sea of Galilee. Lucian speaks of the two great\npillars at the temple of Hierapolis as _phalli_. Of the Phoenicians\nMajor Conder writes: \u201cThe chief emblem worshipped in the temples was\na pillar or cone, derived no doubt from the rude menhirs which were\nworshipped by early savage tribes, such as Dravidians, Arabs, Celts, and\nHottentots.\u201d That they were originally sepulchral in character we\ncan gather from the fact that \u201cthey often stood beneath trilithons or\ndolmens, or were placed before an altar made by a stone laid flat on an\nupright base.\u201d \u201cThe representations on early Babylonian cylinders\nof tables whereon a small fire might be kindled, or an offering of\nsome small object laid, seem to indicate a derivation from similar\nstructures. The original temple in which the cone and its shrine, or its\naltar, were placed, was but a cromlech or enclosure, square or round,\nmade by setting up stones.\u201d Remains of such enclosures, with dolmens\non one side, are found at various spots in Moab and Phoenicia. Nothing\ncould be more obviously sepulchral in character than these rude shrines\nor Gilgals, with the pillar or gravestone, from which, as Major Conder\nsuggests, {197}the hyp\u00e6thral temples of Byblos and Baalbek are finally\ndeveloped.\n\nThat Jahweh himself in his earliest form was such a stone god, the\nevidence, I think, though not perhaps exactly conclusive, is to say the\nleast extremely suggestive. I have already called attention to it in a\nprevious chapter, and need not here recapitulate it in full; but a\nfew stray additions may not be without value. Besides the general\nprobability, among a race whose gods were so almost universally\nrepresented by sacred stones, that any particular god, unless the\ncontrary be proved, was so represented, there is the evidence of all\nthe later language, and of the poems written after the actual stone god\nhimself had perished, that Jahweh was still popularly regarded as, at\nleast in a metaphorical sense, a stone or rock. \u201cHe is the Rock,\u201d\nsays the Deuteronomist, in the song put into the mouth of Moses; \u201cI\nwill publish the name of Jahweh; ascribe greatness unto our god.\u201d\n\u201cJahweh liveth, and blessed be my rock,\u201d says the hymn which a later\nwriter composes for David in the Second Book of Samuel: \u201cexalted be\nthe god of the rock of my salvation.\u201d And in the psalms the image\nrecurs again and again: \u201cJahweh is my rock and my fortress\u201d; \u201cWho\nis a god save Jahweh, and who is a rock save our god?\u201d; \u201cHe set my\nfeet upon a rock, and established my goings\u201d; \u201cLead me to the rock\nthat is greater than I\u201d; \u201cJahweh is my defence, and my god is the\nrock of my refuge\u201d; \u201cO come, let us sing to Jahweh; let us make a\njoyful noise to the rock of our salvation.\u201d And that the shape of this\nstone was probably that of a rounded pillar, bevelled at the top, we see\nin the fact that later ages pictured to themselves their transfigured\nJahweh as leading the Sons of Israel in the wilderness as a pillar of\nfire by night and a pillar of cloud by daytime.\n\nThe earlier Israelites, however, had no such poetical illusions.\nTo them, their god Jahweh was simply the object--stone pillar or\notherwise--preserved in the ark or chest {198}which long rested at\nShiloh, and which was afterwards enshrined, \u201cbetween the thighs of the\nbuilding\u201d (as a later gloss has it), in the Temple at Jerusalem. The\nwhole of the early traditions embedded in the books of Judges, Samuel,\nand Kings show us quite clearly that Jahweh himself was then regarded as\ninhabiting the ark, and as carried about with it from place to place\nin all its wanderings. The story of the battle with the Philistines at\nEben-ezer, the fall of Dagon before the rival god, the fortunes of the\nark after its return to the Israelitish people, the removal to Jerusalem\nby David, the final enthronement by Solomon, all distinctly show that\nJahweh in person dwelt within the ark, between the guardian cherubim.\n\u201cWho is able to stand before the face of Jahweh, this very sacred\ngod?\u201d ask the men of Bethshemesh, when they ventured to look inside\nthat hallowed abode, and were smitten down by the \u201cjealous god\u201d who\nloved to live in the darkness of the inmost sanctuary. *\n\n     * Mr. William Simpson has some excellent remarks on the\n     analogies of the Egyptian and Hebrew arks and sanctuaries in\n     his pamphlet on The Worship of Death.\n\nIt may be well to note in this connexion two significant facts: Just\nsuch an ark was used in Egypt to contain the sacred objects or images\nof the gods. And further, at the period when the Sons of Israel were\ntributaries in Egypt, a Theban dynasty ruled the country, and the\nworship of the great Theban phallic deity, Khem, was widely spread\nthroughout every part of the Egyptian dominions.\n\nIs there, however, any evidence of a linga or other stone pillar being\never thus enshrined and entempled as the great god of a sanctuary?\nClearly, Major Conder has already supplied some, and more is forthcoming\nfrom various other sources. The cone which represented Aphrodite in\nCyprus was similarly enshrined as the chief object of a temple, as were\nthe stel\u00e6 of all Egyptian mummies. \u201cThe trilithon,\u201d says Major\nConder, \u201cbecomes later a shrine, in which the cone or a statue\nstands.\u201d The significance {199}of this correlation will at once be\nseen if the reader remembers how, in the chapter on Sacred Stones,\nI showed the origin of the idol from the primitive menhir or upright\npillar. \u201cThe Khonds and other non-Aryan tribes in India,\u201d says\nConder once more, \u201cbuild such temples of rude stones, daubed with\nred,--a survival of the old practice of anointing the menhirs and the\nsacred cone or pillar with blood of victims, sometimes apparently human.\nAmong the Indians, the pillar is a lingam, and such apparently was its\nmeaning among the Phoenicians.\u201d And in the Greek cities we know from\nPausanias that an unhewn stone was similarly enshrined in the most\nmagnificent adytum of the noblest Hellenic temples. In fact, it was\nrather the rule than otherwise that a stone was the chief object of\nworship in the noblest fanes.\n\nOne more curious trait must be noted in the worship of Jahweh. Not only\ndid he rejoice in human sacrifices, but he also demanded especially an\noffering of the firstborn, and he required a singular and significant\nransom from every man-child whom he permitted to live among his peculiar\nvotaries. On the fact of human sacrifices I need hardly insist: they\nwere an integral part of all Semitic worship, and their occurrence in\nthe cult of Jahweh has been universally allowed by all unprejudiced\nscholars. The cases of Agag, whom Samuel hewed to pieces before the face\nof Jahweh, and of Jephthah\u2019s daughter, whom her father offered up as a\nthank-offering for his victory, though not of course strictly historical\nfrom a critical point of view, are quite sufficient evidence to show the\ntemper and the habit of the Jahweh-worshippers who described them. So\nwith the legend of the offering of Isaac, who is merely rescued at the\nlast moment in order that the god of generation may make him the father\nof many thousands. Again, David seeks to pacify the anger of Jahweh by\na sacrifice of seven of the sons of Saul. And the prophet Micah asks,\n\u201cShall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body\nfor the sin of my soul?\u201d--a passage {200}which undoubtedly implies\nthat in Micah\u2019s time such a sacrifice of the eldest child was a common\nincident of current Jahweh-worship.\n\nFrom human sacrifice to circumcision the transition is less violent\nthan would at first sight appear. An intermediate type is found in the\ndedication of the first-born, where Jahweh seems to claim for himself,\nnot as a victim, but as a slave and devotee, the first fruits of that\nincrease which it is his peculiar function to ensure. In various laws,\nJahweh lays claim to the first-born of man and beast,--sometimes to\nall, sometimes only to the male first-born. The animals were sacrificed;\nthe sons, in later ages at least, were either made over as Nazarites or\nredeemed with an offering or a money-ransom. But we cannot doubt that in\nthe earliest times the first-born child was slain before Jahweh. In\nthe curious legend of Moses and Zipporah we get a strange folk-tale\nconnecting this custom indirectly with the practice of circumcision.\nJahweh seeks to kill Moses, apparently because he has not offered up his\nchild: but Zipporah his wife takes a stone knife, circumcises her son,\nand flings the bloody offering at Jahweh\u2019s feet, who thereupon lets\nher husband go. This, rather than the later account of its institution\nby Abraham, seems the true old explanatory legend of the origin of\ncircumcision--a legend analogous to those which we find in Roman and\nother early history as embodying or explaining certain ancient customs\nor legal formulae. Circumcision, in fact, appears to be a bloody\nsacrifice to Jahweh, as the god of generation: a sacrifice essentially\nof the nature of a ransom, and therefore comparable to all those other\nbodily mutilations whose origin Mr. Herbert Spencer has so well shown in\nthe _Ceremonial Institutions_.\n\nAt the same time, the nature of the offering helps to cast light\nupon the character of Jahweh as a god of increase; exactly as the\n\u201cemerods\u201d with which the Philistines were afflicted for the capture\nof Jahweh and his ark show {201}the nature of the vengeance which might\nnaturally be expected from a deity of generation.\n\nLast of all, how is it that later Hebrew writers believed the object\nconcealed in the ark to have been, not a phallic stone, but a copy of\nthe \u201cTen Words\u201d which Jahweh was fabled to have delivered to Moses?\nThat would be difficult to decide: but here at least is an aper\u00e7u\nupon the subject which I throw out for what it may be worth. The later\nHebrews, when their views of Jahweh had grown expanded and etherealised,\nwere obviously ashamed of their old stone-worship, if indeed they were\narchaeologists enough after the captivity to know that it had ever\nreally existed. What more natural, then, than for them to suppose that\nthe stone which they heard of as having been enclosed in the ark was a\ncopy of the \u201cTen Words,\u201d--the covenant of Jahweh? Hence, perhaps,\nthe later substitution of the term, \u201cArk of the Covenant,\u201d for the\nolder and correcter phrase, \u201cArk of Jahweh.\u201d One more suggestion,\nstill more purely hypothetical. Cones with pyramidal heads, bearing\ninscriptions to the deceased, were used by the Phoenicians for\ninterments. It is just possible that the original Jahweh may have been\nsuch an ancient pillar, covered with writings of some earlier character,\nwhich were interpreted later as the equivalents or symbols of the \u201cTen\nWords.\u201d\n\nPutting all the evidence together, then, as far as we can now recover\nit, and interpreting it on broad anthropological lines by analogy from\nelsewhere, I should say the following propositions seem fairly probable:\n\nThe original religion of Israel was a mixed polytheism, containing many\nvarious types of gods, and based like all other religions upon domestic\nand tribal ancestor-worship. Some of the gods were of animal shapes:\nothers were more or less vaguely anthropomorphic. But the majority were\nworshipped under the form of sacred stones, trees, or wooden cones. The\ngreater part of these gods were Semitic in type, and common to the Sons\nof Israel with their neighbours {202}and kinsmen. The character of the\nHebrew worship, however, apparently underwent some slight modification\nin Egypt; or at any rate, Egyptian influences led to the preference\nof certain gods over others at the period of the Exodus. One god, in\nparticular, Jahweh by name, seems to have been almost peculiar to the\nSons of Israel,--their ethnical deity, and therefore in all probability\nan early tribal ancestor or the stone representative of such an\nancestor. The legends are probably right in their implication that this\ngod was already worshipped (not of course exclusively) by the Sons of\nIsrael before their stay in Egypt; they are almost certainly correct in\nascribing the great growth and extension of his cult to the period of\nthe Exodus. The Sons of Israel, at least from the date of the Exodus\nonward, carried this god or his rude image with them in an ark or box\nthrough all their wanderings. The object so carried was probably\na conical stone pillar, which we may conjecture to have been the\ngrave-stone of some deified ancestor: and of this ancestor \u201cJahweh\u201d\nwas perhaps either the proper name or a descriptive epithet. Even if, as\nColenso suggests, the name itself was Canaanitish, and belonged already\nto a local god, its application to the sacred stone of the ark would be\nmerely another instance of the common tendency to identify the gods of\none race or country with those of another. The stone itself was always\nenshrouded in Egyptian mystery, and no private person was permitted to\nbehold it. Sacrifices, both human and otherwise, were offered up to it,\nas to the other gods, its fellow’s and afterwards its hated rivals.\nThe stone, like other sacred stones of pillar shape, was regarded as\nemblematic of the generative power. Circumcision was a mark of devotion\nto Jahweh, at first, no doubt, either voluntary, or performed by way\nof a ransom, but becoming with the growth and exclusiveness of\nJahweh-worship a distinctive rite of Jahweh\u2019s chosen people. (But\nother Semites also circumcised {203}themselves as a blood-offering to\ntheir own more or less phallic deities.)\n\nMore briefly still, among many Hebrew gods, Jahweh was originally but\na single one, a tribal ancestor-god, worshipped in the form of a\ncylindrical stone, perhaps at first a grave-stone, and regarded as\nessentially a god of increase, a special object of veneration by\nchildless women.\n\nFrom this rude ethnical divinity, the mere sacred pillar of a barbarous\ntribe, was gradually developed the Lord God of later Judaism and of\nChristianity--a power, eternal, omniscient, almighty, holy; the most\nethereal, the most sublime, the most superhuman deity that the brain of\nman has ever conceived. By what slow evolutionary process of syncretism\nand elimination, of spiritual mysticism and national enthusiasm, of\nethical effort and imaginative impulse that mighty God was at last\nprojected out of so unpromising an original it will be the task of our\nsucceeding chapters to investigate and to describe.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.--THE RISE OF MONOTHEISM.\n\n|WE {204}have seen that the Hebrews were originally polytheists, and\nthat their ethnical god Jahweh seems to have been worshipped by them in\nearly times under the material form of a cylindrical stone pillar. Or\nrather, to speak more naturally, the object they so worshipped they\nregarded as a god, and called Jahweh. The question next confronts us,\nhow from this humble beginning did Israel attain to the pure monotheism\nof its later age? What was there in the position or conditions of the\nHebrew race which made the later Jews reject all their other gods, and\nfabricate out of their early national Sacred Stone the most sublime,\naustere, and omnipotent deity that humanity has known?\n\nThe answer, I believe, to this pregnant question is partly to be\nfound in a certain general tendency of the Semitic mind; partly in the\npeculiar political and social state of the Israelitish tribes during the\nninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, and fifth centuries before the Christian\nera. Or, to put the proposed solution of the problem, beforehand, in a\nstill simpler form, Hebrew monotheism was to some extent the result of\na syncretic treatment of all the gods, in the course of which the\nattributes and characters of each became merged in the other, only the\nnames (if anything) remaining distinct; and to some extent the result of\nthe intense national patriotism, of which the ethnical god Jahweh was at\nonce the outcome, the expression, and the fondest hope. The belief that\nJahweh fought for Israel, {205}and that by trust in Jahweh alone could\nIsrael hold her own against Egypt and Assyria, wildly fanatical as it\nappears to us to-day, and utterly disproved by all the facts of the case\nas it ultimately was, nevertheless formed a central idea of the Hebrew\npatriots, and resulted by slow degrees in the firm establishment first\nof an exclusive, and afterwards of a truly monotheistic Jahweh-cult.\n\nIt is one of Ernest Renan\u2019s brilliant paradoxes that the Semitic mind\nis naturally monotheistic. As a matter of fact, the Semitic mind has\nshown this native tendency in its first stages by everywhere evolving\npretty much the same polytheistic pantheon as that evolved by every\nother group of human beings everywhere. Nevertheless, there is perhaps\nthis kernel of truth in Renan\u2019s paradoxical contention; the Semites,\nmore readily than most other people, merge the features of their deities\none in the other. That is not, indeed, by any means an exclusive Semitic\ntrait. We saw already, in dealing with the Egyptian religion, how all\nthe forms and functions of the gods faded at last into an inextricable\nmixture, an olla podrida of divinity, from which it was practically\nimpossible to disentangle with certainty the original personalities of\nRa and Turn, of Amen and Osiris, of Neith and Isis, of Ptah and Apis.\nEven in the relatively fixed and individualised pantheon of Hellas,\nit occurs often enough that confusions both of person and prerogative\nobscure the distinctness of the various gods. Aphrodite and Herakles are\npolymorphic in their embodiments. But in the Semitic religions, at least\nin that later stage where we first come across them, the lineaments of\nthe different deities are so blurred and indefinite that hardly anything\nmore than mere names can with certainty be recognised. No other gods are\nso shadowy and so vague. The type of this pantheon is that dim figure\nof El-Shaddai, the early and terrible object of Hebrew worship, of whose\nattributes and nature we know positively nothing, but who stands in\nthe background of all Hebrew thought as the embodiment of the nameless\n{206}and trembling dread begotten on man\u2019s soul by the irresistible\nand ruthless forces of nature.\n\nThis vagueness and shadowiness of the Semitic religious conceptions\nseems to depend to some extent upon the inartistic nature of the Semitic\nculture. The Semite seldom carved the image of his god. Roman observers\nnoted with surprise that the shrine of Carmel contained no idol. But\nit depended also upon deep-seated characteristics of the Semitic race.\nMelancholy, contemplative, proud, reserved, but strangely fanciful, the\nArab of to-day perhaps gives us the clue to the indefinite nature of\nearly Semitic religious thinking. There never was anether world more\nghostly than Sheol; there never were gods more dimly awful than the\nElohim who float through the early stories of the Hebrew mystical cycle.\nTheir very names are hardly known to us: they come to us through the\nveil of later Jehovistic editing with such merely descriptive titles as\nthe God of Abraham, the Terror of Isaac, the Mighty Power, the Most High\nDeity. Indeed, the true Hebrew, like many other barbarians, seems to\nhave shrunk either from looking upon the actual form of his god itself,\nor from pronouncing aloud his proper name. His deity was shrouded in the\ndarkness of an ark or the deep gloom of an inner tent or sanctuary; the\nsyllables that designated the object of his worship were never uttered\nin full, save on the most solemn occasions, but were shirked or slurred\nover by some descriptive epithet. Even the unpronounceable title of\nJahweh itself appears from our documents to have been a later name\nbestowed during the Exodus on an antique god: while the rival titles\nof the Baal and the Molech mean nothing more than the Lord and the King\nrespectively. An excessive reverence forbade the Semite to know anything\nof his god\u2019s personal appearance or true name, and so left the\nfeatures of almost all the gods equally uncertain and equally formless.\n\nBut besides the difficulty of accurately distinguishing between the\nforms and functions of the different Semitic deities {207}which even\ntheir votaries must have felt from the beginning, there was a superadded\ndifficulty in the developed creed, due to the superposition of elemental\nmysticism and nature-worship upon the primitive cult of ancestral ghosts\nas gods and goddesses. Just as Ra, the sun, was identified in the latest\nages with almost every Egyptian god, so solar ideas and solar myths\naffected at last the distinct personality of almost every Semitic deity.\nThe consequence is that all the gods become in the end practically\nindistinguishable: one is so like the other that different interpreters\nmake the most diverse identifications, and are apparently justified\nin so doing (from the mythological standpoint) by the strong solar or\nelemental family likeness which runs through the whole pantheon in its\nlater stages. It has even been doubted by scholars of the older school\nwhether Jahweh is not himself a form of his great rival Baal: whether\nboth were not at bottom identical--mere divergent shapes of one\npolyonymous sun-god. To us, who recognise in every Baal the separate\nghost-god of a distinct tomb, such identification is clearly impossible.\n\nTo the worshippers of the Baalim or of Jahweh themselves, however,\nthese abstruser mythological problems never presented themselves. The\ndifference of name and of holy place was quite enough for them, in\nspite of essential identity of attribute or nature. They would kill\none another for the sake of a descriptive epithet, or risk death itself\nrather than offer up sacrifices at a hostile altar.\n\nNevertheless, various influences conspired, here as elsewhere, to\nbring about a gradual movement of syncretism--that is to say, of the\nabsorption of many distinct gods into one; the final identification of\nseveral deities originally separate. What those influences were we must\nnow briefly consider.\n\nIn the first place, we must recollect that while in Egypt, with its dry\nand peculiarly preservative climate, mummies, idols, tombs, and temples\nmight be kept unchanged and undestroyed {208}for ages, in almost all\nother countries rain, wind, and time are mighty levellers of human\nhandicraft. Thus, while in Egypt the cult of the Dead Ancestor survives\nas such quite confessedly and openly for many centuries, in most other\ncountries the tendency is for the actual personal objects of worship to\nbe more and more forgotten; vague gods and spirits usurp by degrees the\nplace of the historic man; rites at last cling rather to sites than to\nparticular persons. The tomb may disappear; and yet the sacred stone may\nbe reverenced still with the accustomed veneration. The sacred stone\nmay go; and yet the sacred tree may be watered yearly with the blood of\nvictims. The tree itself may die; and yet the stump may continue to be\ndraped on its anniversary with festal apparel. The very stump may decay;\nand yet gifts of food or offerings of rags may be cast as of old into\nthe sacred spring that once welled beside it. The locality thus grows\nto be holy in itself, and gives us one clear and obvious source of later\nnature-worship.\n\nThe gods or spirits who haunt such shrines come naturally to be thought\nof with the lapse of ages as much like one another. Godship is all that\ncan long remain of their individual attributes. Their very names are\noften unknown; they are remembered merely as the lord of Lebanon,\nthe Baal of Mount Peor. No wonder that after a time they get to be\npractically identified with one another, while similar myths are often\nfastened by posterity to many of them together. Indeed, we know that new\nnames, and even foreign intrusive names, frequently take the place\nof the original titles, while the god himself still continues to be\nworshipped as the same shapeless stone, with the same prescribed rites,\nin the same squalid or splendid temples. Thus, Melcarth, the Baal of\nTyre, was adored in later days under the Greek name of Herakles; and\nthus at Bablos two local deities, after being identified first with the\nSyrian divinities, Adonis and Astarte, were identified later with the\nEgyptian divinities, Osiris and Isis. {209}Yet the myths of the place\nshow us that through all that time the true worship was paid to the dead\nstump of a sacred tree, which was said to have grown from the grave of a\ngod--in other words, from the tumulus of an ancient chieftain. No matter\nhow greatly mythologies change, these local cults remain ever constant;\nthe sacred stones are here described as haunted by djinns, and there\nas memorials of Christian martyrs; the holy wells are dedicated here\nto nymph or hero, and receive offerings there to saint or fairy. So the\nholy oaks of immemorial worship in England become \u201cThor\u2019s\noaks\u201d under Saxon heathendom, and \u201cGospel oaks\u201d under mediaeval\nChristianity.\n\nFinally, in the latest stages of worship, an attempt is always made to\nwork in the heavenly bodies and the great energies of nature into\nthe mythological groundwork or theory of religion. Every king is the\ndescendant of the sun, and every great god is therefore necessarily\nthe sun in person. Endless myths arise from these phrases, which are\nmistaken by mythologists for the central facts and sources of religion.\nBut they are nothing of the kind. Mysticism and symbolism can never be\nprimitive; they are well-meant attempts by cultivated religious thinkers\nof later days to read deep-seated meaning into the crude ideas and still\ncruder practices of traditional religion. I may add that Dr. Robertson\nSmith\u2019s learned and able works are constantly spoiled in this way by\nhis dogged determination to see nature-worship as primitive, where it\nis really derivative, as the earliest starting-point, where it is really\nthe highest and latest development.\n\nClearly, when all gods have come to be more or less solar in their\nexternal and acquired features, the process of identification and\ninternationalisation is proportionately easy.\n\nThe syncretism thus brought about in the Hebrew religion by the\nsuperposition of nature-worship on the primitive cult must have paved\nthe way for the later recognition of {210}monotheism, exactly as we know\nit did in the esoteric creed of Egypt, by making all the gods so much\nalike that worshippers had only to change the name of their deity, not\nthe attributes of the essential conception. Let us look first how far\nthis syncretism affected the later idea of Jahweh, the phallic stone-god\npreserved in the ark; and then let us enquire afterward how the\npatriotic reaction against Assyrian aggression put the final\ncoping-stone on the rising fabric of monotheistic Jahweh-worship.\n\nIt is often asserted that Jahweh was worshipped in many places in Israel\nunder the form of a golden calf. That is to say, Hebrews who set\nup images of a metal bull believed themselves nevertheless to be\nworshipping Jahweh. Even the prophets of the eighth century regard the\ncult of the bull as a form of Jahweh-worship, though not a form to which\nthey can personally give their approbation. But the bull is probably in\nits origin a distinct god from the stone in the ark; and if its worship\nwas identified with that of the Rock of Israel, it could be only by a\nlate piece of syncretic mysticism. Perhaps the link here, as in the\ncase of Apis, was a priestly recognition of the bull as symbolising\nthe generative power of nature; an idea which would be peculiarly\nappropriate to the god whose great function it was to encourage\nfruitfulness. But in any case, we cannot but see in this later\ncalf-worship a superadded element wholly distinct from the older cult\nof the sacred stone, just as the worship of Ra was wholly distinct in\norigin from the totem-cult of Mnevis, or as the worship of Amen was\nwholly distinct from that of Khem and Osiris. The stone-god and the\nbull-god merge at last into one, much as at a far later date the man\nJesus merges into the Hebrew god, and receives more reverence in modern\nfaiths than the older deity whom he practically replaces.\n\nEven in the Temple at Jerusalem itself, symbols of bull-worship were\napparently admitted. The altar upon which the daily sacrifice was burnt\nhad four horns; and the laver {211}in the court, the \u201cbrazen sea,\u201d\nwas supported upon the figures of twelve oxen. When we remember that\nthe Molech had the head of a bull, we can hardly fail to see in these\nsymbols a token of that gradual syncretism which invariably affects all\ndeveloped pantheons in all civilised countries.\n\nMuch more important are the supposed signs of the later identification\nof Jahweh with the sun, and his emergence as a modified and transfigured\nsun-god. It may seem odd at first that such a character could ever be\nacquired by a sacred stone, did we not recollect the exactly similar\nhistory of the Egyptian obelisk, which in like manner represents,\nfirst and foremost, the upright pillar or monolith--that is to say, the\nprimitive gravestone--but secondarily and derivatively, at once the\ngenerative principle and a ray of the sun. With this luminous analogy to\nguide us in our search, we shall have little difficulty in recognising\nhow a solar character may have been given to the later attributes and\ndescriptions of Jahweh.\n\nI do not myself attach undue importance to these solar characteristics\nof the fully evolved Jahweh; but so much has been made of them by a\ncertain school of modern thinkers that I must not pass them over in\ncomplete silence.\n\nTo his early worshippers, then, as we saw, Jahweh was merely the stone\nin the ark. He dwelt there visibly, and where the ark went, there Jahweh\nwent with it. But the later Hebrews--say in the eighth century--had\nacquired a very different idea of Jahweh\u2019s dwelling-place.\nAstrological and solar ideas (doubtless Akkadian in origin) had\nprofoundly modified their rude primitive conceptions. To Amos and to\nthe true Isaiah, Jahweh dwells in the open sky above and is \u201cJahweh of\nhosts,\u201d the leader among the shining army of heaven, the king of the\nstar-world. \u201cOver those celestial bodies and celestial inhabitants\nJahweh rules\u201d; they surround him and execute his commands: {212}the\nhost of heaven are his messengers--in the more familiar language of our\nmodern religion, \u201cthe angels of the Lord,\u201d the servants of Jahweh.\nTo Micah, heaven is \u201cthe temple of Jahweh\u2019s holiness\u201d: \u201cGod on\nhigh,\u201d is the descriptive phrase by which the prophet alludes to him.\nIn all this we have reached a very different conception indeed from that\nof the early and simple-minded Israelites who carried their god with\nthem on an ox-cart from station to station.\n\nFurthermore, light and fire are constantly regarded by these later\nthinkers as manifestations of Jahweh; and even in editing the earlier\nlegends they introduce such newer ideas, making \u201cthe glory of\nJahweh\u201d light up the ark, or appear in the burning bush, or combining\nboth views, the elder and the younger, in the pillar of fire that\npreceded the nomad horde of Israel in the wilderness. Jahweh is said to\n\u201csend\u201d or to \u201ccast fire\u201d from heaven, in which expressions we\nsee once more the advanced concept of an elemental god, whose voice\nis the thunder, and whose weapon the lightning. All these are familiar\ndevelopments of the chief god in a pantheon. Says Zechariah in his\npoem, \u201cAsk ye of Jahweh rain in the time of the latter showers: Jahweh\nwill make the lightnings.\u201d Says Isaiah, \u201cThe light of Israel shall\nbe for a fire, And his holy one for a flame\u201d; \u201cBehold, the name\nof Jahweh cometh from afar, His anger burneth, and violently the smoke\nriseth on high: His lips are full of indignation, And his tongue is as\na devouring fire.\u201d In these and a hundred other passages that might be\nquoted, we seem to see Jahweh envisaged to a great extent as a sun-god,\nand clothed in almost all the attributes of a fiery Molech.\n\nSometimes these Molech-traits come very close indeed to those of the\nmore generally acknowledged fire-gods. \u201cThus we read,\u201d says Kuenen,\n\u201cthat ‘the glory of Jahweh was like devouring fire on the top of Mount\nSinai’; and that \u2018his angel appeared in a flame of fire out of the\nmidst of a bush: the bush burned with fire but was not consumed.\u2019\u201d\n{213}So Jahweh himself is called \u201ca consuming fire, a jealous god\u201d:\nand a poet thus describes his appearance, \u201cSmoke goeth up out of his\nnostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoureth; coals of fire are kindled\nby him.\u201d These are obviously very derivative and borrowed prerogatives\nwith which to deck out the primitive stone pillar that led the people of\nIsrael up out of Egypt. Yet we know that precisely analogous evolutions\nhave been undergone by other stone-gods elsewhere.\n\nOnce more, though this is to anticipate a little, the later\nJahweh-worship seems to have absorbed into itself certain astrological\nelements which were originally quite alien to it, belonging to the cult\nof other gods. Such for example is the institution of the Sabbath,\nthe unlucky day of the malign god Kew\u00e2n or Saturn, on which it was\nundesirable to do any kind of work, and on which accordingly the\nsuperstitious Semite rested altogether from his weekly labours. The\ndivision of the lunar month (the sacred period of Astarte, the queen\nof heaven) into four weeks of seven days each, dedicated in turn to the\ngods of the seven planets, belongs obviously to the same late cult of\nthe elemental and astrological gods, or, rather, of the gods with whom\nthese heavenly bodies were at last identified under Akkadian influence.\nThe earlier prophets of the exclusive Jahweh-worship denounce as\nidolatrous such observation of the Sabbath and the astrological\nfeasts--\u201cYour Sabbaths and your new moons are an abomination to me\u201d;\nand according to Amos, Kew\u00e2n himself had been the chief idolatrous\nobject of worship by his countrymen in the wilderness. Later on,\nhowever, the Jehovistic party found itself powerless to break the\ncurrent of superstition on the Sabbath question, and a new _modus\nvivendi_ was therefore necessary. They arranged a prudent compromise.\nThe Sabbath was adopted bodily into the monotheistic Jahweh-worship, and\na mythical reason was given for its institution and its sacred character\nwhich nominally linked it on to the cult of the ethnical god. On that\nday, said {214}the priestly cosmogonists, Jahweh rested from his labour\nof creation. In the same way, many other fragments of external cults\nwere loosely attached to the worship of Jahweh by a verbal connection\nwith some part of the revised Jehovistic legend, or else were accredited\nto national Jehovistic or Jehovised heroes.\n\nHaving thus briefly sketched out the gradual changes which the\nconception of Jahweh himself underwent during the ages when his\nsupremacy was being slowly established in the confederacy of Israel,\nlet us now hark back once more and attack the final problem, Why did the\nparticular cult of Jahweh become at last exclusive and monotheistic?\n\nTo begin with, we must remember that from the very outset of the\nnational existence, Jahweh was clearly regarded on all hands as the\n_ethnical_ god, the special god of Israel. The relation of such ethnical\ngods to their people has been admirably worked out by Dr. Robertson\nSmith in _The Religion of the Semites_. Even though we cannot, however,\naccept as historical the view given us of the exodus in the Pentateuch,\nnor admit that Jahweh played anything like so large a part in the great\nnational migration as is there indicated, it is yet obvious that\nfrom the moment when Israel felt itself a nation at all, Jahweh was\nrecognised as its chief deity. He was the \u201cgod of Israel,\u201d just\nas Milcom was the god of the Ammonites, Chemosh the god of Moab, and\nAshtaroth the goddess of Sidon. As distinctly as every Athenian, while\nworshipping Zeus and Hera and Apollo, held Athene to be the special\npatron of Athens, so did every Israelite, while worshipping the Baalim\nand the Molech and the local deities generally, hold Jahweh to be the\nspecial patron of Israel.\n\nMoreover, from the very beginning, there is reason to suppose that the\nIsraelites regarded Jahweh as their supreme god. Most pantheons finally\nsettle down into a recognised hierarchy, in which one deity or another\ngradually assumes the first place. So, in Hellas, the supremacy of\nZeus was undoubted; so, in Rome, was the supremacy {215}of Jupiter.\nSometimes, to be sure, as among our Teutonic ancestors, we see room for\ndoubt between two rival gods: it would be difficult to assign the exact\npriority to either of the two leading deities: among the English, Woden\nrather bore it over Thunor; among the Scandinavians, Thor rather bore it\nover Odin. In Israel, in like manner, there was apparently a time when\nthe Presidency of the Immortals hovered between Jahweh and one or other\nof the local Baalim. But in the end, and perhaps even from the very\nbeginning, the suffrages of the people were mainly with the sacred stone\nof the ark. He was the God of Israel, and they were the chosen people of\nJahweh.\n\nThe custom of circumcision must have proved at once the symbol and in\npart the cause, in part the effect, of this general devotion of the\npeople to a single supreme god. At first, no doubt, only the first-born\nor other persons specially dedicated to Jahweh, would undergo the\nrite which marked them out so clearly as the devotees of the god of\nfertility. But as time went on, long before the triumph of the exclusive\nJahweh-worship, it would seem that the practice of offering up every\nmale child to the national god had become universal. As early as the\nshadowy reign of David, the Philistines are reproachfully alluded to in\nour legends as \u201cthe uncircumcised\u201d; whence we may perhaps conclude\n(though the authority is doubtful) that even then circumcision had\nbecome coextensive with Israelitish citizenship. Such universal\ndedication of the whole males of the race to the national god must have\ndone much to ensure his ultimate triumph.\n\nIf we look at the circumstances of the Israelites in Palestine, we shall\neasily see how both religious unity and intense national patriotism were\nfostered by the very nature of their tenure of the soil; and also why\na deity mainly envisaged as a god of generation should have become the\nmost important member of their national pantheon. Their position\nduring the first few centuries of their {216}life in Lower Syria may be\ncompared to that of the Dorians in Peloponnesus: they were but a little\ngarrison in a hostile land fighting incessantly with half-conq\u00f9ered\ntributaries and encircling foes; now hard-pressed by rebellions of\ntheir internal enemies; and now again rendered subject themselves to\nthe hostile Philistines on their maritime border. The handful of rude\nwarriors who burst upon the land under such bloodthirsty leaders as\nthe mystical Joshua could only hope for success by rapid and constant\nincrease of their numbers, and by avoiding as far as possible those\ninternal quarrels which were always the prelude to national disgrace.\nTo be \u201ca mother in Israel” is the highest hope of every Hebrew woman.\nHence it was natural that a god of generation should become the chief\namong the local deities, and that the promise held out by his priests of\nindefinite multiplication should make him the most popular and powerful\nmember of the Israelitish pantheon. And though all the stone gods were\nprobably phallic, yet Jahweh, as the ethnical patron, seems most of all\nto have been regarded as the giver of increase to Israel.\n\nIt seems clear, too, that the common worship of Jahweh was at first the\nonly solid bond of union between the scattered and discordant tribes who\nwere afterwards to grow into the Israelitish people. This solidarity of\ngod and tribe has well been insisted on by Professor Robertson Smith as\na common feature of all Semitic worship. The ark of Jahweh in its house\nat Shiloh appears to have formed the general meeting-place for Hebrew\npatriotism, as the sanctuary of Olympia formed a focus later for the\ndawning sense of Hellenic unity. The ark was taken out to carry before\nthe Hebrew army, that the god of Israel might fight for his worshippers.\nEvidently, therefore, from a very early date, Jahweh was regarded in a\nliteral sense as the god of battles, the power upon whom Israel might\nspecially rely to guard it against its enemies. When, as the legends\ntell us, the national unity was realised under {217}David; when the\nsubject peoples were finally merged into a homogeneous whole; when the\nlast relics of Canaanitish nationality were stamped out by the final\nconquest of the Jebusites; and when Jerusalem was made the capital of\na united Israel, this feeling must have increased both in extent\nand intensity. The bringing of Jahweh to Jerusalem by David, and the\nbuilding of his temple by Solomon (if these facts be historical),\nmust have helped to stamp him as the great god of the race: and though\nSolomon also erected temples to other Hebrew gods, which remained in\nexistence for some centuries, we may be sure that from the date of the\nopening of the great central shrine, Jahweh remained the principal deity\nof the southern kingdom at least, after the separation.\n\nThere was one characteristic of Jahweh-worship, however, which\nespecially helped to make it at last an _exclusive_ cult, and thus paved\nthe way for its final development into a pure monotheism. Jahweh was\nspecially known to be a \u201cjealous god\u201d: this is a trait in his\ntemperament early and often insisted on. We do not know when or where\nthe famous \u201cTen Words\u201d were first promulgated; but we have every\nreason to believe that in essence at least they date from a very antique\nperiod. Now, at the head of these immemorial precepts of Jahweh stands\nthe prohibition of placing any other gods before his face. Originally,\nno doubt, the prohibition meant exactly what it states; that Jahweh\nwould endure no companion gods to share his temple; that wherever he\ndwelt, he would dwell alone without what the Greeks would have called\nfellow shrine-sharers. Thus we know that no ashera was to be driven into\nthe ground near Jahweh\u2019s ark; and that when Dagon found himself face\nto face with the Rock of Israel, he broke in pieces, and could not stand\nbefore the awful presence of the great Hebrew Pillar. No more than this,\nthen, was at first demanded by \u201cthe jealous god\u201d: he asked of his\nworshippers that they should keep him apart from the society of all\ninferior gods, {218}should allow no minor or rival deity to enter his\nprecincts.\n\nGradually, however, as Jahweh-worship grew deeper, and the conception\nof godhead became wider and more sublime, the Jahweh-worshipper began\nto put a stricter interpretation upon the antique command of the jealous\ngod. It was supposed that every circumcised person, every man visibly\ndevoted to Jahweh, owed to Jahweh alone his whole religious service.\nNobody doubted as yet, indeed, that other gods existed: but the extreme\nJehovists in the later days of national independence held as an article\nof faith that no true Israelite ought in any way to honour them. An\ninternal religious conflict thus arose between the worshippers of Jahweh\nand the worshippers of the Baalim, in which, as might be expected, the\ndevotees of the national god had very much the best of it. Exclusive\nJahweh-worship became thenceforth the ideal of the extreme Jehovists:\nthey began to regard all other gods as \u201cidols,\u201d to be identified\nwith their images; they began to look upon Jahweh alone as a living god,\nat least within the bounds of the Israelitish nation.\n\nTo this result, another ancient prohibition of the priests of Jahweh no\ndoubt largely contributed. The priesthood held it unlawful to make or\nmultiply images of Jahweh. The one sacred stone enclosed in the ark\nwas alone to be worshipped: and by thus concentrating on Shiloh, or\nafterwards on Jerusalem, the whole religious spirit of the ethnical\ncult, they must largely have succeeded in cementing the national unity.\nStrict Jehovists looked with dislike upon the adoration paid to the\nbull-images in the northern kingdom, though those, too, were regarded\n(at least in later days) as representatives of Jahweh. They held that\nthe true god of Abraham was to be found only in the ark at Jerusalem,\nand that to give to the Rock of Israel human form or bestial figure was\nin itself a high crime against the majesty of their deity. Hence\narose the peculiar Hebrew dislike to \u201cidolatry\u201d; a dislike never\n{219}equally shared by any but Semitic peoples, and having deep roots,\napparently, at once in the inartistic genius of the people and in the\nprofound metaphysical and dreamy character of Semitic thinking.\nThe comparative emptiness of Semitic shrines, indeed, was always a\nstumbling-block to the Greek, with his numerous and exquisite images of\nanthropomorphic deities.\n\nAll that was now wanted to drive the increasingly exclusive and\nimmaterial Jahweh-worship into pure monotheism for the whole people\nwas the spur of a great national enthusiasm, in answer to some dangerous\nexternal attack upon the existence of Israel and of Israel\u2019s god.\nThis final touch was given by the aggression of Assyria, and later of\nBabylon. For years the two tiny Israelitish kingdoms had maintained\na precarious independence between the mighty empires of Egypt and\nMesopotamia. In the eighth century, it became certain that they could\nno longer play their accustomed game of clever diplomacy and polite\nsubjection. The very existence of Israel was at stake; and the fanatical\nworshippers of Jahweh, now pushed to an extreme of frenzy by the\ndesperate straits to which they were reduced, broke out in that\nmemorable ecstasy of enthusiasm which we may fairly call the Age of\nthe Prophets, and which produced the earliest masterpieces of Hebrew\nliterature in the wild effort to oppose to the arms of the invaders the\npassive resistance of a supreme Jahweh. In times of old, the prophets\nsay, when Jahweh led the forces of Israel, the horses and the chariots\nof their enemies counted for naught: if in this crisis Israel would\ncease to think of aid from Egypt or alliance with Assyria--if Israel\nwould get rid of all her other gods and trust only to Jahweh,--then\nJahweh would break asunder the strength of Assyria and would reduce\nBabylon to nothing before his chosen people.\n\nSuch is the language that Isaiah ventured to use in the very crisis of a\ngrave national danger.\n\nNow, strange as it seems to us that any people should have {220}thrown\nthemselves into such a general state of fanatical folly, it is\nnevertheless true that these extraordinary counsels prevailed in both\nthe Israelitish kingdoms, and that the very moment when the national\nexistence was most seriously imperilled was the moment chosen by the\nJehovistic party for vigorously attempting a religious reformation. The\ndownfall of Ephraim only quickened the bigoted belief of the fanatics\nin Judah that pure Jahweh-worship was the one possible panacea for the\ndifficulties of Israel. Taking advantage of a minority and of a plastic\nyoung king, they succeeded in imposing exclusive Jehovism upon\nthe half-unwilling people. The timely forgery of the Book of\nDeuteromony--the first germ of the Pentateuch--by the priests of the\ntemple at Jerusalem was quickly followed by the momentary triumph of\npure Jahweh-worship. In this memorable document, the exclusive cult of\nJahweh was falsely said to have descended from the earliest periods\nof the national existence. Josiah, we are told, alarmed at the\ndenunciations in the forged roll of the law, set himself to work at once\nto root out by violent means every form of \u201cidolatry.\u201d He brought\nforth from the house of Jahweh \u201cthe vessels that were made for the\nBaal, and for the Ashera, and for all the Host of Heaven, and he burned\nthem without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron.\u201d He abolished all the\nshrines and priesthoods of other gods in the cities of Judah, and put\ndown \u201cthem that burned incense to the Baal, to the sun, and to the\nmoon, and to the planets, and all the Host of Heaven.\u201d He also brought\nout the Ashera from the temple of Jahweh, and burnt it to ashes; and\n\u201ctook away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun,\nand burned the chariots of the sun with fire.\u201d And by destroying the\ntemples said to have been built by Solomon for Chemosh, Milcom, and\nAshtoreth, he left exclusive and triumphant Jahweh-worship the sole\naccredited religion of Israel.\n\nAll, however, was of no avail. Religious fanaticism could {221}not\nsave the little principality from the aggressive arms of its powerful\nneighbours. Within twenty or thirty years of Josiah\u2019s reformation,\nthe Babylonians ceased to toy with their petty tributaries, and thrice\ncaptured and sacked Jerusalem. The temple of Jahweh was burnt, the\nchief ornaments were removed, and the desolate site itself lay empty and\ndeserted. The principal inhabitants were transported to Babylonia, and\nthe kingdom of Judah ceased for a time to have any independent existence\nof any sort.\n\nBut what, in this disaster, became of Jahweh himself? How fared or\nfell the Sacred Stone in the ark, the Rock of Israel, in this general\ndestruction of all his holiest belongings? Strange to say, the Hebrew\nannalist never stops to tell us. In the plaintive catalogue of the\nwrongs wrought by the Babylonians at Jerusalem, every pot and shovel and\nvessel is enumerated, but \u201cthe ark of God\u201d is not so much as\nonce mentioned. Perhaps the historian shrank from relating that\nfinal disgrace of his country\u2019s deity; perhaps a sense of reverence\nprevented him from chronicling it; perhaps he knew nothing of what had\nfinally been done with the cherished and time-honoured stone pillar\nof his ancestors. It is possible, too, that with his later and more\netherealised conceptions of the cult of his god, he had ceased to regard\nthe ark itself as the abode of Jahweh, and was unaware that his tribal\ndeity had been represented in the innermost shrine of the temple by a\nrough-hewn pillar. Be that as it may, the actual fate of Jahweh himself\nis involved for us now in impenetrable obscurity. Probably the invaders\nwho took away \u201cthe treasures of the house of Jahweh, and cut in pieces\nall the vessels of gold which Solomon, King of Israel, had made,\u201d\nwould care but little for the rude sacred stone of a conquered people.\nWe may conjecture that they broke Jahweh into a thousand fragments and\nground him to powder, as Josiah had done with the Baalim and the Ashera,\nso that his very relics could no longer be recognised or worshipped by\n{222}his followers. At any rate, we hear no more, from that time forth,\nof Jahweh himself, as a material existence, or of the ark he dwelt\nin. His spirit alone survived unseen, to guard and protect his chosen\npeople.\n\nYet, strange to say, this final disappearance of Jahweh himself, as a\nvisible and tangible god, from the page of history, instead of proving\nthe signal for the utter downfall of his cult and his sanctity, was\nthe very making of Jahweh-worship as a spiritual, a monotheistic, and a\ncosmopolitan religion. At the exact moment when Jahweh ceased to\nexist, the religion of Jahweh began to reach its highest and fullest\ndevelopment. Even before the captivity, as we have seen, the prophets\nand their party had begun to form a most exalted and spiritualised\nconception of Jahweh\u2019s greatness, Jahweh\u2019s holiness, Jahweh\u2019s\nunapproachable nature, Jahweh\u2019s superhuman sublimity and omnipotence.\nBut now that the material Jahweh itself, which clogged and cramped their\nideas, had disappeared for ever, this spiritual conception of a great\nUnseen God widened and deepened amazingly. Forbidden by their creed\nand by Jahweh\u2019s own express command to make any image of their chosen\ndeity, the Hebrews in Babylonia gradually evolved for themselves the\nnotion of a Supreme Ruler wholly freed from material bonds, to be\nworshipped without image, representative, or symbol; a dweller in the\nheavens, invisible to men, too high and pure for human eyes to look\nupon. The conical stone in the ark gave place almost at once to an\nincorporeal, inscrutable, and almighty Being.\n\nIt was during the captivity, too, that pure monotheism became for the\nfirst time the faith of Israel. Convinced that desertion of Jahweh was\nthe cause of all their previous misfortunes, the Jews during their exile\ngrew more deeply attached than ever to the deity who represented their\nnational unity and their national existence. They made their way back\nin time to Jud\u00e6a, after two generations had passed away, with a firm\nconviction that all their happiness {223}depended on restoring in ideal\npurity a cult that had never been the cult of their fathers. A new form\nof Jahweh-worship had become a passion among those who sat disconsolate\nby the waters of Babylon. Few if any of the zealots who returned at last\nto Jerusalem had ever themselves known the stone god who lay shrouded in\nthe ark: it was the etherealised Jahweh who ruled in heaven above among\nthe starry hosts to whom they offered up aspirations in a strange land\nfor the restoration of Israel. In the temple that they built on the\nsacred site to the new figment of their imaginations, Jahweh was no\nlonger personally present: it was not so much his \u201chouse,\u201d like\nthe old one demolished by the Babylonian invaders, as the place where\nsacrifice was offered and worship paid to the great god in heaven. The\nnew religion was purely spiritual; Jahweh had triumphed, but only by\nlosing his distinctive personal characteristics, and coming out of the\ncrisis, as it were, the blank form or generic conception of pure deity\nin general.\n\nIt is this that gives monotheism its peculiar power, and enables it so\nreadily to make its way everywhere. For monotheism is religion reduced\nto its single central element; it contains nothing save what every\nvotary of all gods already implicitly believes, with every unnecessary\ncomplexity or individuality smoothed away and simplified. Its simplicity\nrecommends it to all intelligent minds; its uniformity renders it the\neasiest and most economical form of pantheon that man can frame for\nhimself.\n\nUnder the influence of these new ideas, before long, the whole annals of\nIsrael were edited and written down in Jehovistic form; the Pentateuch\nand the older historical books assumed the dress in which we now\nknow them. From the moment of the return from the captivity, too, the\nmonotheistic conception kept ever widening. At first, no doubt, even\nwith the Jews of the Sixth Century, Jahweh was commonly looked upon\nmerely as the ethnical god of Israel. But, in time, the sublimer and\nbroader conception {224}of some few among the earlier poetical prophets\nbegan to gain general acceptance, and Jahweh was regarded as in very\ndeed the one true God of all the world--somewhat such a God as Islam\nand Christendom to-day acknowledge. Still, even so, he was as yet\nmost closely connected with the Jewish people, through whom alone the\ngentiles were expected in the fulness of time to learn his greatness.\nIt was reserved for a Gr\u00e6co-Jewish Cilician, five centuries later, to\nfulfil the final ideal of pure cosmopolitan monotheism, and to proclaim\nabroad the unity of god to all nations, with the Catholic Church as its\nearthly witness before the eyes of universal humanity. To Paul of Tarsus\nwe owe above all men that great and on the whole cosmopolitanising\nconception.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.--HUMAN GODS.\n\n|WE {225}have now in a certain sense accomplished our intention of\ntracing the evolution of gods and of God. We have shown how polytheism\ncame to be, and how from it a certain particular group of men, the\nearly Israelites, rose by slow degrees, through natural stages, to the\nmonotheistic conception. It might seem, therefore, as though the task\nwe set before ourselves was now quite completed. Nevertheless, many\nabstruse and difficult questions still lie before us. Our problem as\nyet is hardly half solved. We have still to ask, I think, How did this\npurely local and national Hebrew deity advance to the conquest of the\ncivilised world? How from an obscure corner of Lower Syria did the god\nof a small tribe of despised and barbaric tributaries slowly live down\nthe great conquering deities of Babylon and Susa, of Hellas and Italy?\nAnd again, we have further to enquire, Why do most of the modern nations\nwhich have nominally adopted monotheism yet conceive of their god as\ncompounded in some mystically incomprehensible fashion of Three Persons,\nthe Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? In short, I am not satisfied\nwith tracing the idea of a god from the primitive mummy or the secondary\nghost to the one supreme God of the ancient Hebrews; I desire also to\nfollow on that developed concept till it merges at last in the triune\nGod of modern Christendom. For, naturally, it is the god in whom men\nbelieve here and now that most of all concerns and interests us.\n\nI {226}may also add that, incidentally to this supplementary enquiry,\nwe shall come upon several additional traits in the idea of deity and\nseveral important sources of earlier godhead, the consideration of which\nwe had to postpone before till a more convenient season. We shall find\nthat the process of tracking down Christianity to its hidden springs\nsuggests to us many aspects of primitive religion which we were\ncompelled to neglect in our first hasty synthesis.\n\nThe reader must remember that in dealing with so complex a subject as\nthat of human beliefs and human cults, it is impossible ever to condense\nthe whole of the facts at once into a single conspectus. We cannot grasp\nat a time the entire mass of evidence. While we are following out one\nclue, we must neglect another. It is only by examining each main set of\ncomponents in analytical distinctness that we can proceed by degrees to\na full and complete synthetic reconstruction of the whole vast fabric.\nWe must therefore correct and supplement in the sequel much that may\nhave seemed vague, inaccurate, or insufficient in our preliminary\nsurvey.\n\nThe Christian religion with which we have next to deal bases itself\nfundamentally upon the personality of a man, by name Jesus, commonly\ndescribed as the Christ, that is to say \u201cthe anointed.\u201d Of this most\nsacred and deified person it is affirmed by modern Christianity, and has\nbeen affirmed by orthodox Christians from a very early period, that he\nwas not originally a mere man, afterwards taken into the godhead, but\nthat he was born from the first the son of God, that is to say, of the\nHebrew Jahweh; that he existed previously from all time; that he was\nmiraculously conceived of a virgin mother; that he was crucified and\nburied; that on the third day he arose from the dead; and that he is now\na living and distinct person in a divine and mystically-united\nTrinity. I propose to show in the subsequent chapters how far all\nthese conceptions were already familiar throughout the world in which\nChristianity {227}was promulgated, and to how large an extent the new\nreligion owed its rapid success to the fact that it was but a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_\nor idealised embodiment of all the chief conceptions already common to\nthe main cults of Mediterranean civilisation. At the moment when\nthe empire was cosmopolitanising the world, Christianity began to\ncosmopolitanise religion, by taking into itself whatever was central,\ncommon, and universal in the worship of the peoples among whom it\noriginated.\n\nWe will begin with the question of the incarnation, which lies at the\nvery root of the Christian concept.\n\nI have said already that in ancient Egypt and elsewhere, \u201cThe God was\nthe Dead King, the King was the Living God.\u201d This is true, literally\nand absolutely. Since the early kings are gods, the present kings, their\ndescendants, are naturally also gods by descent; their blood is divine;\nthey differ in nature as well as in position from mere common mortals.\nWhile they live, they are gods on earth; when they die, they pass over\nto the community of the gods their ancestors, and share with them a\nhappy and regal immortality. We have seen how this essential divinity\nof the Pharaoh is a prime article in the religious faith of the Egyptian\nPyramid-builders. And though in later days, when a Greek dynasty, not\nof the old divine native blood, bore sway in Egypt, this belief in the\ndivinity of the king grew fainter, yet to the very last the Ptolemies\nand the Cleopatras bear the title of god or goddess, and carry in\ntheir hands the sacred _tau_ or _crux ansata_, the symbol and mark of\nessential divinity.\n\nThe inference made in Egypt that the children of gods must be themselves\ndivine was also made in most other countries, especially in those where\nsimilar great despotisms established themselves at an early grade of\nculture. Thus in Peru, the Incas were gods. They were the children of\nthe Sun; and when they died, it was said that their father, the Sun,\nhad sent to fetch them. The Mexican kings were likewise gods, with full\ncontrol of the course of nature; {228}they swore at their accession to\nmake the sun shine, the rain fall, the rivers flow, and the earth bring\nforth her fruit in due season. How they could promise all this seems\nat first a little difficult for us to conceive; but it will become more\ncomprehensible at a later stage of our investigation, when we come to\nconsider the gods of cultivation: even at present, if we remember that\nkings are children of the Sun, and that sacred trees, sacred groves, and\nsacred wells are closely connected with the tombs of their ancestors, we\ncan guess at the beginning of such a mental connexion. Thus the Chinese\nemperor is the Son of Heaven; he is held responsible to his people for\nthe occurrence of drought or other serious derangements of nature.\nThe Parthian kings of the Arsacid house, says Mr. Frazer, to whom I am\ngreatly indebted for most of the succeeding facts, styled themselves\nbrothers of the sun and moon, and were worshipped as deities. Numberless\nother cases are cited by Mr. Frazer, who was the first to point out the\nfull importance of this widespread belief in man-gods. I shall follow\nhim largely in the subsequent discussion of this cardinal subject,\nthough I shall often give to the facts an interpretation slightly\ndifferent from that which he would allow to be the correct one. For to\nme, godhead springs always from the primitive Dead Man, while to Mr.\nFrazer it is spiritual or animistic in origin.\n\nBesides these human gods who are gods by descent from deified ancestors,\nthere is another class of gods who are gods by inspiration or\nindwelling of the divine spirit, that is to say of some ghost or god\nwho temporarily or permanently inhabits the body of a living man. The\ngerm-idea of such divine possession we may see in the facts of epilepsy,\ncatalepsy, dream, and madness. In all such cases of abnormal nervous\ncondition it seems to primitive man, as it still seemed to the Jews of\nthe age of the Gospels, that the sufferer is entered or seized upon by\nsome spirit, who bodily inhabits him. The spirit may throw {229}the man\ndown, or may speak through his mouth in strange unknown tongues; it may\nexalt him so that he can perform strange feats of marvellous strength,\nor may debase him to a position of grovelling abjectness. By fasting\nand religious asceticism men and women can even artificially attain this\nstate, when the god speaks through them, as he spoke through the mouth\nof the Pythia at Delphi. And fasting is always one of the religious\nexercises of god-possessed men, priests, monks, anchorites, and ascetics\nin general. Where races have learnt how to manufacture intoxicating\ndrinks, or to express narcotic juices from plants, they also universally\nattribute the effects of such plants to the personal action of an\ninspiring spirit--an idea so persistent even into civilised ages that\nwe habitually speak of alcoholic liquors as spirits. Both these ways of\nattaining the presence of an indwelling god are commonly practised among\nsavages and half-civilised people.\n\nWhen we recollect how we saw already that ancestral spirits may descend\nfrom time to time into the skulls that once were theirs, or into the\nclay or wooden images that represent them, and there give oracles, we\nshall not be surprised to find that they can thus enter at times into a\nhuman body, and speak through its lips, for good or for evil. Indeed,\nI have dwelt but little in this book on this migratory power and this\nubiquitousness of the spirits, because I have desired to fix attention\nchiefly on that primary aspect of religion which is immediately and\ndirectly concerned with Worship; but readers familiar with such works as\nDr. Tylor\u2019s and Mr. Frazer\u2019s will be well aware of the common power\nwhich spirits possess of projecting themselves readily into every\npart of nature. The faculty of possession or of divination is but one\nparticular example of this well-known attribute. The mysteries and\noracles of all creeds are full of such phenomena.\n\nCertain persons, again, are born from the womb as incarnations of a\ngod or an ancestral spirit. \u201cIncarnate gods,\u201d {230}says Mr. Frazer,\n\u201care common in rude society. The incarnation may be temporary or\npermanent.... When the divine spirit has taken up its abode in a human\nbody, the god-man is usually expected to vindicate his character by\nworking miracles.\u201d Mr. Frazer gives several excellent examples of both\nthese classes. I extract a few almost verbatim.\n\nCertain persons are possessed from time to time by a spirit or deity;\nwhile possession lasts, their own personality lies in abeyance, and the\npresence of the spirit is revealed by convulsive shakings and quiverings\nof the body. In this abnormal state, the man\u2019s utterances are accepted\nas the voice of the god or spirit dwelling in him and speaking through\nhim. In Mangaia, for instance, the priests in whom the gods took up\ntheir abode were called god-boxes or gods. Before giving oracles, they\ndrank an intoxicating liquor, and the words they spoke in their frenzy\nwere then regarded as divine. In other cases, the inspired person\nproduces the desired condition of intoxication by drinking the fresh\nblood of a victim, human or animal, which, as we shall see hereafter, is\nprobably itself an avatar of the inspiring god. In the temple of Apollo\nDiradiotes at Argos, a lamb was sacrificed by night once a month; a\nwoman, who had to observe the rule of chastity, tasted its blood, and\nthen gave oracles. At \u00c6gira in Ach\u00e6a the priestess of the Earth\ndrank the fresh blood of a bull before she descended into her cave to\nprophesy. (Note in passing that caves, the places of antique burial, are\nalso the usual places for prophetic inspiration.) In southern India,\nthe so-called devil-dancer drinks the blood of a goat, and then becomes\nseized with the divine afflatus. He is worshipped as a deity, and\nbystanders ask him questions requiring superhuman knowledge to answer.\nMr. Frazer extends this list of oracular practices by many other\nstriking instances, for which I would refer the reader to the original\nvolume.\n\nOf permanent living human gods, inspired by the constant {231}indwelling\nof a deity, Mr. Frazer also gives several apt examples. In the Marquesas\nIslands there was a class of men who were deified in their lifetime.\nThey were supposed to wield supernatural control over the elements. They\ncould give or withhold rain and good harvests. Human sacrifices were\noffered them to appease their wrath. \u201cA missionary has described one\nof these human gods from personal observation. The god was a very old\nman who lived in a large house within an enclosure.\u201d (A temple in its\n_temenos_.) \u201cIn the house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the\nhouse and on the trees around it were hung human skeletons, head down.\nNo one entered the enclosure, except the persons dedicated to the\nservice of the god; only on days when human victims were sacrificed\nmight ordinary people penetrate into the precinct. This human god\nreceived more sacrifices than all the other gods; often he would sit on\na sort of scaffold in front of his house and call for two or three human\nvictims at a time. They were always brought, for the terror he inspired\nwas extreme. He was invoked all over the island, and offerings were sent\nto him from every side.\u201d Indeed, throughout the South Sea Islands,\neach island had usually a man who embodied its deity. Such men were\ncalled gods, and were regarded as of divine substance. The man-god was\nsometimes a king; oftener he was a priest or a subordinate chief. The\ngods of Samoa were sometimes permanently incarnate in men, who gave\noracles, received offerings (occasionally of human flesh), healed the\nsick, answered prayer, and generally performed all divine functions.\nOf the Fijians it is said: \u201cThere appears to be no certain line of\ndemarcation between departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and\nliving men, for many of the priests and old chiefs are considered as\nsacred persons, and not a few of them will also claim to themselves\nthe right of divinity. \u2018I am a god,’ Tuikilakila would say; and he\nbelieved it too.\u201d There is said to be a sect in Orissa who worship the\nQueen of England as their chief divinity; {232}and another sect in the\nPunjab worshipped during his lifetime the great General Nicholson.\n\nSometimes, I believe, kings are divine by birth, as descendants of gods;\nbut sometimes divinity is conferred upon them with the kingship, as\nindeed was the case even in the typical instance of Egypt. Tanatoa, king\nof Raiatea, was deified by a certain ceremony performed at the chief\ntemple. He was made a god before the gods his ancestors, as Celtic\nchiefs received the chieftainship standing on the sacred stone of their\nfathers. As one of the deities of his subjects, therefore, the king was\nworshipped, consulted as an oracle, and honoured with sacrifices. The\nking of Tahiti at his inauguration received a sacred girdle of red\nand yellow feathers, which not only raised him to the highest earthly\nstation, but also identified him with the heavenly gods. Compare the\nway in which the gods of Egypt make the king one of themselves, as\nrepresented in the bas-reliefs, by the presentation of the divine _tau_.\nIn the Pelew Islands, a god may incarnate himself in a common person;\nthis lucky man is thereupon raised to sovereign rank, and rules as god\nand king over the community. Not unsimilar is the mode of selection of\na Grand Lama. In later stages, the king ceases to be quite a god, but\nretains the anointment, the consecration on a holy stone, and the claim\nto \u201cdivine right\u201d; he also shows some last traces of deity in\nhis divine power to heal diseases, which fades away at last into the\npractice of \u201ctouching for king\u2019s evil.\u201d On all these questions,\nagain, Mr. Frazer\u2019s great work is a perfect thesaurus of apposite\ninstances. I abstain from quoting his whole two volumes.\n\nBut did ideas of this character still survive in the Mediterranean world\nof the first and second centuries, where Christianity was evolved? Most\nundoubtedly they did. In Egypt, the divine line of the Ptolemies had\nonly just become extinct. In Rome itself, the divine C\u00e6sar had recently\nundergone official apotheosis; the divine Augustus had ruled over the\nempire as the adopted son of the new-made {233}god; and altars rose\nin provincial cities to the divine spirit of the reigning Trajan or\nHadrian. Indeed, both forms of divinity were claimed indirectly for the\ngod Julius; he was divine by apotheosis, but he was also descended\nfrom the goddess Venus. So the double claim was made for the central\npersonage of the Christian faith: he was the son of God--that is to\nsay of Jahweh; but he was also of kingly Jewish origin, a descendant of\nDavid, and in the genealogies fabricated for him in the Gospels extreme\nimportance is attached to this pretended royal ancestry. Furthermore,\nhow readily men of the Mediterranean civilisation could then identify\nliving persons with gods we see in the familiar episode of Paul and\nBarnabas at Lystra. Incarnation, in short, was a perfectly ordinary\nfeature of religion and daily life as then understood. And to oriental\nideas in particular, the conception was certainly no novelty. \u201cEven\nan infant king,\u201d say the laws of Manu, which go to the root of so much\neastern thinking, \u201cmust not be despised from an idea that he is a mere\nmortal: for he is a great deity in human form.\u201d\n\nTo most modern thinkers, however, it would seem at first sight like a\ngrave difficulty in the way of accepting the deity of an ordinary\nman that he should have suffered a violent death at the hands of his\nenemies. Yet this fact, instead of standing in the way of acceptance of\nChrist\u2019s divinity, is really almost a guarantee and proof of it. For,\nstrange as it sounds to us, the human gods were frequently or almost\nhabitually put to death by their votaries. The secret of this curious\nritual and persistent custom has been ingeniously deciphered for us\nby Mr. Frazer, whose book is almost entirely devoted to these two main\nquestions, \u201c_Why do men kill their gods?_\u201d and \u201c_Why do they eat\nand drink their flesh and blood under the form of bread and wine?_\u201d\nWe must go over some of the same ground here in rapid summary, with\nadditional corollaries; and we must also bring Mr. Frazer\u2019s curious\nfacts into line with our general principles of the origin of godhead.\n\nMeanwhile, {234}it may be well to add here two similar instances of\nalmost contemporary apotheoses. The dictator Julius was killed by a band\nof reactionary conspirators, and yet was immediately raised to divine\nhonours. A little later, Antinous, the favourite of the emperor Hadrian,\ndevoted himself to death in order to avert misfortune from his master;\nhe was at once honoured with temples and worship. The belief that it\nis expedient that \u201cone man should die for the people,\u201d and that the\nperson who so dies is a god in human shape, formed, as we shall see,\na common component of many faiths, and especially of the faiths of the\neastern Mediterranean. Indeed, a little later, each Christian martyrdom\nis followed as a matter of course by canonisation--that is to say, by\nminor apotheosis. Mr. Frazer has traced the genesis of this group of\nallied beliefs in the slaughter of the man-god in the most masterly\nmanner. They spring from a large number of converging ideas, some of\nwhich can only come out in full as we proceed in later chapters to other\nbranches of our subject.\n\nIn all parts of the world, one of the commonest prerogatives and\nfunctions of the human god is the care of the weather. As representative\nof heaven, it is his business to see that rain falls in proper\nquantities, and that the earth brings forth her increase in due season.\nBut, god though he is, he must needs be coerced if he does not attend to\nthis business properly. Thus, in West Africa, when prayers and offerings\npresented to the king have failed to procure rain, his subjects bind him\nwith ropes, and take him to the grave of his deified forefathers, that\nhe may obtain from them the needful change in the weather. Here we see\nin the fullest form the nature of the relation between dead gods and\nliving ones. The Son is the natural mediator between men and the Father.\nAmong the Antaymours of Madagascar, the king is responsible for bad\ncrops and all other misfortunes. The ancient Scythians, when food\nwas scarce, put their kings in bonds. {235}The Banjars in West Africa\nascribe to their king the power of causing rain or fine weather. As long\nas the climate is satisfactory, they load him with presents of grain and\ncattle. But if long drought or rain does serious harm, they insult and\nbeat him till the weather changes. The Burgundians deposed their king if\nhe failed to make their crops grow to their satisfaction.\n\nFurther than that, certain tribes have even killed their kings in times\nof scarcity. In the days of the Swedish king Domalde, a mighty famine\nbroke out, which lasted several years, and could not be stayed by human\nor animal sacrifices. So, in a great popular assembly held at Upsala,\nthe chiefs decided that King Domalde himself was the cause of the\nscarcity, and must be sacrificed for good seasons. Then they slew\nhim, and smeared with his blood the altars of the gods. Here we must\nrecollect that the divine king is himself a god, the descendant of gods,\nand he is sacrificed to the offended spirits of his own forefathers.\nWe shall see hereafter how often similar episodes occur--how the god is\nsacrificed, himself to himself; how the Son is sacrificed to the Father,\nboth being gods; and how the Father sacrifices his Son, to make a god\nof him. To take another Scandinavian example from Mr. Frazer\u2019s\ncollection: in the reign of King Olaf, there came a great dearth, and\nthe people thought that the fault was the king\u2019s, because he was\nsparing in sacrifices. So they mustered an army and marched against\nhim; then they surrounded his palace and burnt it, with him within it,\n\u201cgiving him to Odin as a sacrifice for good crops.\u201d Many points must\nhere be noted. Olaf himself was of divine stock, a descendant of Odin.\nHe is burnt as an offering to his father, much as the Carthaginians\nburnt their sons, or the king of Moab his first-born, as sacrifices to\nMelcarth and to Chemosh. The royal and divine person is here offered up\nto his own fathers, just as on the cross of the founder of Christendom\nthe inscription ran, \u201cJesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews,\u201d and just\nas in Christian {236}theology God offers his Son as a sacrifice to his\nown offended justice.\n\nOther instances elsewhere point to the same analogies. In 1814, a\npestilence broke out among the reindeer of the Chukches (a Siberian\ntribe); and the shamans declared that the beloved chief Koch must be\nsacrificed to the angry gods (probably his ancestors); so the chief\u2019s\nown son stabbed him with a dagger. On the coral island of Niue in the\nSouth Pacific there once reigned a line of kings; but they were also\n\u201chigh-priests\u201d (that is to say, divine representatives of divine\nancestors); and they were supposed to make the crops grow, for a reason\nwhich will come out more fully in the sequel. In times of scarcity, the\npeople \u201cgrew angry with them and killed them,\u201d or more probably,\nas I would interpret the facts, sacrificed them for crops to their own\ndeified ancestors. So in time there were no kings left, and the monarchy\nceased altogether on the island.\n\nThe divine kings being thus responsible for rain and wind, and for\nthe growth of crops, whose close dependence upon them we shall further\nunderstand hereafter, it is clear that they are persons of the greatest\nimportance and value to the community. Moreover, in the ideas of early\nmen, their spirit is almost one with that of external nature, over which\nthey exert such extraordinary powers. A subtle sympathy seems to exist\nbetween the king and the world outside. The sacred trees which embody\nhis ancestors; the crops, which, as we shall see hereafter, equally\nembody them; the rain-clouds in which they dwell; the heaven they\ninhabit;--all these, as it were, are parts of the divine body, and\ntherefore by implication part of the god-king\u2019s, who is but the avatar\nof his deified fathers. Hence, whatever affects the king, affects the\nsky, the crops, the rain, the people. There is even reason to believe\nthat the man-god, representative of the ancestral spirit and tribal god,\nis therefore the representative and embodiment of the tribe itself--the\nsoul of the nation.\n\n_L\u2019\u00e9tat, c\u2019est moi_ {237}is no mere personal boast of Louis\nQuatorze; it is the belated survival of an old and once very powerful\nbelief, shared in old times by kings and peoples. Whatever hurts the\nking, hurts the people, and hurts by implication external nature.\nWhatever preserves the king from danger, preserves and saves the world\nand the nation.\n\nMr. Frazer has shown many strange results of these early beliefs--which\nhe traces, however, to the supposed primitive animism, and not (as\nI have done) to the influence of the ghost-theory. Whichever\ninterpretation we accept, however, his facts at least are equally\nvaluable. He calls attention to the number of kingly taboos which are\nall intended to prevent the human god from endangering or imperilling\nhis divine life, or from doing anything which might react hurtfully\nupon nature and the welfare of his people. The man-god is guarded by the\nstrictest rules, and surrounded by precautions of the utmost complexity.\nHe may not set his sacred foot on the ground, because he is a son of\nheaven; he may not eat or drink with his sacred mouth certain dangerous,\nimpure, or unholy foods; he may not have his sacred hair cut, or his\nsacred nails pared; he must preserve intact his divine body, and every\npart of it--the incarnation of the community,--lest evil come of his\nimprudence or his folly.\n\nThe Mikado, for example, was and still is regarded as an incarnation of\nthe sun, the deity who rules the entire universe, gods and men included.\nThe greatest care must therefore be taken both _by_ him and _of_ him.\nHis whole life, down to its minutest details, must be so regulated that\nno act of his may upset the established order of nature. Lest he should\ntouch the earth, he used to be carried wherever he went on men\u2019s\nshoulders. He could not expose his sacred person to the open air, nor\neat out of any but a perfectly new vessel. In every way his sanctity\nand his health were jealously guarded, and he was treated like a person\n{238}whose security was important to the whole course of nature.\n\nMr. Frazer quotes several similar examples, of which the most striking\nis that of the high pontiff of the Zapotecs, an ancient people of\nSouthern Mexico. This spiritual lord, a true Pope or Lama, governed\nYopaa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom, with absolute dominion.\nHe was looked upon as a god \u201cwhom earth was not worthy to hold or the\nsun to shine upon.\u201d He profaned his sanctity if he touched the common\nground with his holy foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their\nshoulders were chosen from the members of the highest families; he\nhardly deigned to look on anything around him; those who met him\nprostrated themselves humbly on the ground, lest death should overtake\nthem if they even saw his divine shadow. (Compare the apparition of\nJahweh to Moses.) A rule of continence was ordinarily imposed upon him;\nbut on certain days in the year which were high festivals, it was usual\nfor him to get ceremonially and sacramentally drunk. On such days,\nwe may be sure, the high gods peculiarly entered into him with the\nintoxicating pulque, and the ancestral spirits reinforced his godhead.\nWhile in this exalted state (\u201cfull of the god,\u201d as a Greek or Roman\nwould have said) the divine pontiff received a visit from one of the\nmost beautiful of the virgins consecrated to the service of the gods. If\nthe child she bore him was a son, it succeeded in due time to the\nthrone of the Zapotecs. We have here again an instructive mixture of\nthe various ideas out of which such divine kingship and godship is\nconstructed.\n\nIt might seem at first sight a paradoxical corollary that people who\nthus safeguard and protect their divine king, the embodiment of nature,\nshould also habitually and ceremonially kill him. Yet the apparent\nparadox is, from the point of view of the early worshipper, both natural\nand reasonable. We read of the Congo negroes that they have a supreme\npontiff whom they regard as a god upon earth, and {239}all-powerful\nin heaven. But, \u201cif he were to die a natural death, they thought the\nworld would perish, and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power\nand merit, would immediately be annihilated.\u201d This idea of a god as\nthe creator and supporter of all things, without whom nothing would be,\nis of course a familiar component element of the most advanced theology.\nBut many nations which worship human gods carry out the notion to its\nlogical conclusion in the most rigorous manner. Since the god is a man,\nit would obviously be quite wrong to let him grow old and weak; since\nthereby the whole course of nature might be permanently enfeebled; rain\nwould but dribble; crops would grow thin; rivers would trickle away; and\nthe race he ruled would dwindle to nothing. Hence senility must never\novercome the sacred man-god; he must be killed in the fulness of\nhis strength and health (say, about his thirtieth year), so that the\nindwelling spirit, yet young and fresh, may migrate unimpaired into the\nbody of some newer and abler representative. Mr. Frazer was the first, I\nbelieve, to point out this curious result of primitive human reasoning,\nand to illustrate it by numerous and conclusive instances.\n\nI cannot transcribe here in full Mr. Frazer\u2019s admirable argument, with\nthe examples which enforce it; but I must at least give so much of it\nin brief as will suffice for comprehension of our succeeding exposition.\n\u201cNo amount of care and precaution,\u201d he says, \u201cwill prevent the\nman-god from growing old and feeble, and at last dying. His worshippers\nhave to lay their account with this sad necessity and to meet it as best\nthey can. The danger is a formidable one; for if the course of nature is\ndependent on the man-god\u2019s life, what catastrophes may not be expected\nfrom the gradual enfeeblement of his powers and their final extinction\nin death? There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god\nmust be killed as soon as he shows symptoms that his powers are\nbeginning to fail, and his soul must be transferred to a {240}vigorous\nsuccessor before it has been seriously impaired by the threatened decay.\nThe advantages of thus putting the man-god to death instead of allowing\nhim to die of old age and disease are, to the savage, obvious enough.\nFor if the man-god dies what we call a natural death, it means,\naccording to the savage, that his soul has either voluntarily departed\nfrom his body and refuses to return, or more commonly that it has been\nextracted or at least detained in its wanderings by a demon or\nsorcerer. In any of these cases the soul of the man-god is lost to\nhis worshippers; and with it their prosperity is gone and their very\nexistence endangered. Even if they could arrange to catch the soul of\nthe dying god as it left his lips or his nostrils and so transfer it\nto a successor, this would not effect their purpose; for, thus dying of\ndisease, his soul would necessarily leave his body in the last stage\nof weakness and exhaustion, and as such it would continue to drag out a\nfeeble existence in the body to which it might be transferred. Whereas\nby killing him his worshippers could, in the first place, make sure\nof catching his soul as it escaped and transferring it to a suitable\nsuccessor; and, in the second place, by killing him before his natural\nforce was abated, they would secure that the world should not fall\ninto decay with the decay of the man-god. Every purpose, therefore,\nwas answered, and all dangers averted by thus killing the man-god\nand transferring his soul, while yet at its prime, to a vigorous\nsuccessor.\u201d\n\nFor this reason, when the pontiff of Congo grew old, and seemed likely\nto die, the man who was destined to succeed him in the pontificate\nentered his house with a rope or club, and strangled or felled him. The\nEthiopian kings of Meroe were worshipped as gods; but when the priests\nthought fit, they sent a messenger to the king, ordering him to die,\nand alleging an oracle of the gods (or earlier kings) as the reason of\ntheir command. This command the kings always obeyed down to the reign\nof Ergamenes, a contemporary of Ptolemy II. of Egypt. So, when {241}the\nking of Unyoro in Central Africa falls ill, or begins to show signs of\napproaching age, one of his own wives is compelled by custom to kill\nhim. The kings of Sofala were regarded by their people as gods who could\ngive rain or sunshine; but the slightest bodily blemish, such as the\nloss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient reason for putting one of\nthese powerful man-gods to death; he must be whole and sound, lest all\nnature pay for it. Many kings, human gods, divine priests, or sultans\nare enumerated by Mr. Frazer, each of whom must be similarly perfect in\nevery limb and member. The same perfect manhood is still exacted of the\nChristian Pope, who, however, is not put to death in case of extreme age\nor feebleness. But there is reason to believe that the Grand Lama, the\ndivine Pope of the Tibetan Buddhists, is killed from time to time, so as\nto keep him \u201cever fresh and ever young,\u201d and to allow the inherent\ndeity within him to escape full-blooded into another embodiment.\n\nIn all these cases the divine king or priest is suffered by his people\nto retain office, or rather to house the godhead, till by some outward\ndefect, or some visible warning of age or illness, he shows them that\nhe is no longer equal to the proper performance of his divine functions.\nUntil such symptoms appear, he is not put to death. Some peoples,\nhowever, as Mr. Frazer shows, have not thought it safe to wait for even\nthe slightest symptom of decay before killing the human god or king;\nthey have destroyed him in the plenitude of his life and vigour. In such\ncases, the people fix a term beyond which the king may not reign, and at\nthe close of which he must die, the term being short enough to prevent\nthe probability of degeneration meanwhile. In some parts of Southern\nIndia, for example, the term was fixed at twelve years; at the\nexpiration of that time, the king had to cut himself to pieces visibly,\nbefore the great local idol, of which he was in all probability the\nhuman equivalent. \u201cWhoever desires to reign other twelve years,\u201d\nsays an early observer, \u201cand to undertake {242}this martyrdom for the\nsake of the idol, has to be present looking on at this; and from that\nplace they raise him up as king.\u201d\n\nThe king of Calicut, on the Malabar coast, had also to cut his throat\nin public after a twelve years’ reign. But towards the end of the\nseventeenth century, the rule was so far relaxed that the king was\nallowed to retain the throne, and probably the godship, if he could\nprotect himself against all comers. As long as he was strong enough to\nguard his position, it was held that he was strong enough to retain\nthe divine power unharmed. The King of the Wood at Aricia held his\npriesthood and ghostly kingship on the same condition; as long as he\ncould hold his own against all comers, he might continue to be priest;\nbut any runaway slave had the right of attacking the king; and if he\ncould kill him, he became the King of the Wood till some other in turn\nslew him. This curious instance has been amply and learnedly discussed\nby Mr. Frazer, and forms the central subject of his admirable treatise.\n\nMore often still, however, the divine priesthood, kingship, or godhead\nwas held for one year alone, for a reason which we shall more fully\ncomprehend after we have considered the annual gods of cultivation. The\nmost interesting example, and the most cognate to our present enquiry,\nis that of the Babylonian custom cited by Berosus. During the five days\nof the festival called the Sac\u00e6a, a prisoner condemned to death was\ndressed in the king\u2019s robes, seated on the king\u2019s throne, allowed\nto eat, drink, and order whatever he chose, and even permitted to\nsleep with the king\u2019s concubines. But at the end of five days, he was\nstripped of his royal insignia, scourged, and crucified. I need hardly\npoint out the crucial importance of this singular instance, occurring in\na country within the Semitic circle. Mr. Frazer rightly concludes that\nthe condemned man was meant to die in the king\u2019s stead; was himself,\nin point of fact, a king substitute; and was therefore invested for the\ntime being with the fullest {243}prerogatives of royalty. Doubtless\nwe have here to deal with a modification of an older and sterner rule,\nwhich compelled the king himself to be slain annually. \u201cWhen the time\ndrew near for the king to be put to death,\u201d says Mr. Frazer, \u201che\nabdicated for a few days, during which a temporary king reigned and\nsuffered in his stead. At first the temporary king may have been an\ninnocent person, possibly a member of the king\u2019s own family; but with\nthe growth of civilisation, the sacrifice of an innocent person would be\nrevolting to the public sentiment, and accordingly a condemned criminal\nwould be invested with the brief and fatal sovereignty.... We shall find\nother examples of a criminal representing a dying god. For we must not\nforget that the king is slain in his character of a god, his death\nand resurrection, as the only means of perpetuating the divine life\nunimpaired, being deemed necessary for the salvation of his people\nand the world.\u201d I need not point out the importance of such ideas\nas assisting in the formation of a groundwork for the doctrines of\nChristianity.\n\nOther evidence on this point, of a more indirect nature, has been\ncollected by Mr. Frazer; and still more will come out in subsequent\nchapters. For the present I will only add that the annual character\nof some such sacrifices seems to be derived from the analogy of the\nannually-slain gods of cultivation, whose origin and meaning we have yet\nto examine. These gods, being intimately connected with each year\u2019s\ncrop, especially with crops of cereals, pulses, and other annual grains,\nwere naturally put to death at the beginning of each agricultural year,\nand as a rule about the period of the spring equinox,--say, at Easter.\nStarting from that analogy, as I believe, many races thought it fit that\nthe other divine person, the man-god king, should also be put to death\nannually, often about the same period. And I will even venture to\nsuggest the possibility that the institution of annual consuls,\narchons, etc., may have something to do with such annual sacrifices.\n{244}Certainly the legend of Codrus at Athens and of the Regifugium at\nRome seem to point to an ancient king-slaying custom.\n\nAt any rate, it is now certain that the putting to death of a public\nman-god was a common incident of many religions. And it is also clear\nthat in many cases travellers and other observers have made serious\nmistakes by not understanding the inner nature of such god-slaying\npractices. For instance it is now pretty certain that Captain Cook was\nkilled by the people of Tahiti just _because_ he was a god, perhaps\nin order to keep his spirit among them. It is likewise clear that many\nrites, commonly interpreted as human sacrifices to a god, are really\ngod-slayings; often the god in one of his human avatars seems to be\noffered to himself, in his more permanent embodiment as an idol or stone\nimage. This idea of sacrificing a god, himself to himself, is one which\nwill frequently meet us hereafter; and I need hardly point out that, as\n\u201c_the sacrifice of the mass_,\u201d it has even enshrined itself in the\ncentral sanctuary of the Christian religion.\n\nChristianity apparently took its rise among a group of irregular\nnorthern Israelites, the Galil\u00e6ans, separated from the mass of their\ncoreligionists, the Jews, by the intervention of a heretical and\ndoubtfully Israelitish wedge, the Samaritans. The earliest believers\nin Jesus were thus intermediate between Jews and Syrians. According to\ntheir own tradition, they were first described by the name of Christians\nat Antioch; and they appear on many grounds to have attracted attention\nfirst in Syria in general, and particularly at Damascus. We may be sure,\ntherefore, that their tenets from the first would contain many elements\nmore or less distinctly Syrian, and especially such elements as formed\nideas held in common by almost all the surrounding peoples. As a matter\nof fact. Christianity, as we shall see hereafter, may be regarded\nhistorically as a magma of the most fundamental religious ideas of the\nMediterranean basin, and especially of the eastern {245}Mediterranean,\ngrafted on to the Jewish cult and the Jewish scriptures, and clustering\nround the personality of the man-god, Jesus. It is interesting therefore\nto note that in Syria and the north Semitic area the principal cult\nwas the cult of just such a slain man-god, Adonis,--originally, as Mr.\nFrazer shows, an annually slain man-god, afterwards put to death and\nbewailed in effigy, after a fashion of which we shall see not a\nfew examples in the sequel, and of which the Mass itself is but an\netherealised survival. Similarly in Phrygia, where Christianity early\nmade a considerable impression, the most devoutly worshipped among the\ngods was Attis, who, as Professor Ramsay suggests, was almost certainly\nembodied in early times as an annually slain man-god, and whose cult was\nalways carried on by means of a divine king-priest, bearing himself the\nname of Attis. Though in later days the priest did not actually immolate\nhimself every year, yet on the yearly feast of the god, at the spring\nequinox (corresponding to the Christian Easter) he drew blood from\nhis own arms, as a substitute no doubt for the earlier practice of\nself-slaughter. And I may add in this connexion (to anticipate once\nmore) that in all such godslaughtering rites, immense importance was\nalways attached to the blood of the man-god; just as in Christianity\n\u201c_the blood of Christ_\u201d remains to the end of most saving efficacy.\nBoth Adonis and Attis were conceived as young men in the prime of life,\nlike the victims chosen for other god-slaying rites.\n\nI have dealt in this chapter only in very brief summary with this vast\nand interesting question of human deities. Mr. Frazer has devoted to it\ntwo large and fascinating volumes. His work is filled with endless facts\nas to such man-gods themselves, the mode of their vicarious or expiatory\nslaughter on behalf of the community, the gentler substitution of\ncondemned criminals for the divine kings in more civilised countries,\nthe occasional mitigation whereby the divine king merely draws his own\nblood instead {246}of killing himself, or where an effigy is made to\ntake the place of the actual victim, and so forth _ad infinitum_. All\nthese valuable suggestions and ideas I could not reproduce here without\ntranscribing in full many pages of _The Golden Bough_, where Mr.\nFrazer has marshalled the entire evidence on the point with surprising\neffectiveness. I will content myself therefore by merely referring\nreaders to that most learned yet interesting and amusing book. I will\nonly say in conclusion that what most concerns us here is Mr. Frazer\u2019s\nample and convincing proof of the large part played by such slain (and\nrerisen) man-gods in the religion of those self-same east-Mediterranean\ncountries where Christianity was first evolved as a natural product\nof the popular imagination. The death and resurrection of the\nhumanly-embodied god form indeed the keynote of the greatest and most\nsacred religions of western Asia and northeastern Africa.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.--THE MANUFACTURE OF GODS.\n\n|Normally {247}and originally, I believe, all gods grow spontaneously.\nThey evolve by degrees out of dead and deified ancestors or chieftains.\nThe household gods are the dead of the family; the greater gods are the\ndead chiefs of the state or town or village. But upon this earlier and\nspontaneous crop of gods there supervenes later an artificial crop,\ndeliberately manufactured. The importance of this later artificial class\nis so great, especially in connexion with the gods of agriculture, and\nwith the habit of eating the god\u2019s body as corn and drinking his blood\nas wine, that it becomes necessary for us here to examine their nature\nin due order. We shall find that some knowledge of them is needed\npreliminary to the comprehension of the Christian system.\n\nWe saw that in West Africa the belief in another world is so\nmatter-of-fact and material that a chief who wishes to communicate with\nhis dead father kills a slave as a messenger, after first impressing\nupon him the nature of the message he will have to deliver. If he\nforgets anything, says Mr. Duff Macdonald, he kills a second and sends\nhim after \u201cas a postscript.\u201d A Khond desired to be avenged upon an\nenemy; so he cut off the head of his mother, who cheerfully suggested\nthis domestic arrangement, in order that her ghost might haunt and\nterrify the offender. Similar plenitude of belief in the actuality and\nnearness of the Other World makes attendants, wives, and even friends of\na dead man, in many countries, volunteer to kill themselves {248}at his\nfuneral, in order that they may accompany their lord and master to the\nnether realms. All these examples combine to show us two things: first,\nthat the other life is very real and close to the people who behave so;\nand second, that no great unwillingness habitually exists to migration\nfrom this life to the next, if occasion demands it.\n\nStarting with such ideas, it is not surprising that many races should\nhave deliberately made for themselves gods by killing a man, and\nespecially a man of divine or kingly blood, the embodiment of a god, in\norder that his spirit might perform some specific divine function. Nor\nis it even remarkable that the victim selected for such a purpose should\nvoluntarily submit to death, often preceded by violent torture, so as\nto attain in the end to a position of trust and importance as a tutelary\ndeity. We have only to remember the ease with which Mahommedan fanatics\nwill face death, expecting to enjoy the pleasures of Paradise, or the\nfervour with which Christian believers used to embrace the crown of\nmartyrdom, in order to convince ourselves of the reality and profundity\nof such a sentiment. The further back we go in time or culture,\nthe stronger does the sentiment in question become; _it is only the\ncivilised and sceptical thinker who hesitates to exchange the solid\ncomforts of this world for the shadowy and uncertain delights of the\nnext_.\n\nThe existence of such artificially-manufactured gods has been more or\nless recognised for some time past, and attention has been called to one\nor other class of them by Mr. Baring Gould and Mr. J. G. Frazer; but\nI believe the present work will be the first in which their profound\nimportance and their place in the genesis of the higher religions has\nbeen fully pointed out in systematic detail.\n\nThe best known instances of such deliberate godmaking are those which\nrefer to the foundation of cities, city walls, and houses. In such\ncases, a human victim is often sacrificed in order that his blood may be\nused as cement, {249}and his soul be built in to the very stones of the\nfabric. Thereafter he becomes the tutelary deity or \u201cfortune\u201d of the\nhouse or city. In many cases, the victim offers himself voluntarily for\nthe purpose; frequently he is of kingly or divine ancestry. As a sheep\nbefore her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In Polynesia,\nwhere we usually stand nearest to the very core of religion, Ellis heard\nthat the central pillar of the temple at M\u00e6va was planted upon the body\nof a human victim. Among the Dyaks of Borneo, a slave girl was crushed\nto death under the first post of a house. In October 1881, the king of\nAshanti put fifty girls to death that their blood might be mixed with\nthe \u201cswish\u201d or mud used in the repair of the royal buildings. Even\nin Japan, a couple of centuries since, when a great wall was to be\nbuilt, \u201csome wretched slave would offer himself as a foundation.\u201d\nObserve in this instance the important fact that the immolation was\npurely voluntary. Mr. Tylor, it is true, treats most of these cases as\nthough the victim were intended to appease the earth-demons, which is\nthe natural interpretation for the elder school of thinkers to put upon\nsuch ceremonies; but those who have read Mr. Frazer and Mr. Baring Gould\nwill know that the offering is really a piece of deliberate god-making.\nMany of the original witnesses, indeed, correctly report this intention\non the part of the perpetrators; thus Mason was told by an eyewitness\nthat at the building of the new city of Tavoy in Tennasserim \u201ca\ncriminal was put in each post-hole to become a protecting demon\u201d or\nrather deity. So in Siam, when a new city gate was being erected, says\nMr. Speth, officers seized the first four or eight people who passed,\nand buried them under it \u201cas guardian angels.\u201d And in Roumania a\n_stahic_ is defined as \u201cthe ghost of a person who has been immured\nin the walls of a building in order to make it more solid.\u201d The Irish\nBanshee is doubtless of similar origin.\n\nOther curious examples are reported from Africa. In Galam, {250}a boy\nand girl used to be buried alive before the great gate of a city,\nto make it impregnable; and I gather here that the sacrifice was\nperiodically renewed, as we shall see it to have been in many other\ncases. In Great Bassam and Yarriba, similar sacrifices were usual at the\nfoundation of a house or village. Clearly the idea in these cases was to\nsupply the site with a tutelary deity, a god whose existence was bound\nup with the place thus consecrated to him. He and the town henceforth\nwere one; he was its soul, and it was his body. Human victims are\nsaid to have been buried \u201cfor spirit-watchers\u201d under the gates of\nMandelay. So too, according to legend, here a tolerably safe guide, a\nqueen was drowned in a Burmese reservoir, to make the dyke safe; while\nthe choice for such a purpose of a royal victim shows clearly the\ndesirability of divine blood being present in the body of the future\ndeity. When Rajah Sala Byne was building the fort of Sialkot in\nthe Punjaub, the foundation gave way so often that he consulted a\nsoothsayer. The soothsayer advised that the blood of an only son should\nbe shed on the spot; and the only son of a widow was accordingly killed\nthere. I may add that the blood of \u201c_an only-begotten son_\u201d has\nalways been held to possess peculiar efficacy.\n\nIn Europe itself, not a few traces survive of such foundation-gods, or\nspirits of towns, town-walls, and houses. The Piets are said to have\nbathed their foundation-stones in human blood, especially in building\ntheir forts and castles. St. Columba himself, though nominally a\nChristian, did not scruple thus to secure the safety of his monastery.\nColumbkille said to his people, \u201c\u2018It would be well for us that our\nroots should pass into the earth here.\u2019 And he said to them, \u2018It is\npermitted to you that some one of you go under the earth to consecrate\nit.\u2019\u201d St. Oran volunteered to accept the task, and was ever after\nhonoured as the patron saint of the monastery. Here again it may be\nnoted that the offering was voluntary. As late as 1463, when the broken\ndam of the Nogat had to be repaired, {251}the peasants, being advised\nto throw in a living man, are said to have made a beggar drunk (in which\nstate he would of course be \u201cfull of the god\u201d) and utilised him for\nthe purpose. In 1885, on the restoration of Hols-worthy church in Devon,\na skeleton with a mass of mortar plastered over the mouth was found\nembedded in an angle of the building. To make the castle of Liebenstein\nfast and impregnable, a child was bought for hard money of its mother,\nand walled into the building. Again, when the church at Blex in\nOldenburg was being built, the authorities of the village crossed the\nWeser, \u201cbought a child from a poor mother at Bremerleke, and built\nit alive into the foundations.\u201d We shall see hereafter that \u201cto\nbe brought with a price\u201d is a variant, as it were, on the voluntary\noffering; great stress is often laid when a victim is offered on this\nparticular fact, which is held to absolve the perpetrators from\nthe crime of god-murder. So, we shall see in the sequel, the divine\nanimal-victim, which is the god offered to himself, his animal\nembodiment to his image or altar, must always consent to its own\nsacrifice; if it refuse or show the slightest disinclination, it is no\ngood victim. Legend says that the child in the case of the Liebenstein\noffering was beguiled with a cake, probably so as to make it a\nconsenting party, and was slowly walled up before the eyes of the\nmother. All these details are full of incidental instructiveness and\nimportance. As late as 1865, according to Mr. Speth, some Christian\nlabourers, working at a-block-house at Duga, near Scutari, found two\nyoung Christian children in the hands of Mahommedan Arnauts, who were\ntrying to bury them alive under the block-house.\n\nIt is about city walls, however, that we oftenest read such legendary\nstories. Thus the wall of Copenhagen sank as fast as it was built; so\nthey took an innocent little girl, and set her at a table with toys and\neatables. Then, while she played and eat, twelve master masons closed\na vault over her. With clanging music, to drown the child\u2019s cries,\n{252}the wall was raised, and stood fast ever after. In Italy, once\nmore, the bridge of Arta fell in, time after time, till they walled in\nthe master builder\u2019s wife; the last point being a significant detail,\nwhose meaning will come out still more clearly in the sequel. At Scutari\nin Servia, once more, the fortress could only be satisfactorily built\nafter a human victim was walled into it; so the three brothers who\nwrought at it decided to offer up the first of their wives who came to\nthe place to bring them food. (Compare the case of Jephtha\u2019s daughter,\nwhere the first living thing met by chance is to be sacrificed to\nJahweh.) So, too, in Welsh legend, Vortigern could not finish his tower\ntill the foundation-stone was wetted with \u201c_the blood of a child born\nof a mother without a father\u201d--this episode of the virgin-born infant\nbeing a common element in the generation of man-gods_, as Mr. Sidney\nHartland has abundantly proved for us.\n\nIn one case cited above, we saw a mitigation of the primitive custom,\nin that a criminal was substituted for a person of royal blood or divine\norigin--a form of substitution of which Mr. Frazer has supplied abundant\nexamples in other connexions. Still further mitigations are those\nof building-in a person who has committed sacrilege or broken some\nreligious vow of chastity. In the museum at Algiers is a plaster cast\nof the mould left by the body of one Geronimo, a Moorish Christian (and\ntherefore a recusant of Islam), who was built into a block of concrete\nin the angle of the fort in the sixteenth century. Faithless nuns were\nso immured in Europe during the middle ages; and Mr. Rider Haggard\u2019s\nstatement that he saw in the museum at Mexico bodies similarly immured\nby the Inquisition has roused so much Catholic wrath and denial that one\ncan hardly have any hesitation in accepting its substantial accuracy.\nBut in other cases, the substitution has gone further still; instead of\ncriminals, recusants, or heretics, we get an animal victim in place of\nthe human one. Mr. St. John saw a chicken sacrificed for a slave girl\n{253}at a building among the Dyaks of Borneo. A lamb was walled-in\nunder the altar of a church in Denmark, to make it stand fast; or the\nchurchyard was hanselled by burying first a live horse, an obvious\nparallel to the case of St Oran. When the parish church of Chumleigh in\nDevonshire was taken down a few years ago, in a wall of the fifteenth\ncentury was found a carved figure of Christ, crucified to a vine--a form\nof substitution to which we shall find several equivalents later. In\nmodern Greece, says Dr. Tylor, to whom I owe many of these instances, a\nrelic of the idea survives in the belief that the first passer-by after\na foundation-stone is laid will die within the year; so the masons\ncompromise the matter by killing a cock or a black lamb on the\nfoundation-stone. This animal then becomes the spirit of the building.\n\nWe shall see reason to suspect, as we proceed, that every slaughtered\nvictim in every rite was at first a divine-human being; and that animal\nvictims are always substitutes, though supposed to be equally divine\nwith the man-god they personate. I will ask the reader to look out for\nsuch cases as we proceed, and also to notice, even when I do not\ncall attention to them, the destination of the oracular head, and the\nfrequent accompaniment of \u201cclanging music.\u201d\n\nElsewhere we find other customs which help to explain these curious\nsurvivals. The shadow is often identified with the soul; and in\nRoumania, when a new building is to be erected, the masons endeavour\nto catch the shadow of a passing stranger, and then lay the\nfoundation-stone upon it. Or the stranger is enticed by stealth to the\nstone, when the mason secretly measures his body or his shadow, and\nburies the measure thus taken under the foundation. Here we have a\nsurvival of the idea that the victim must at least be not unwilling. It\nis believed that the person thus measured will languish and die within\nforty days; and we may be sure that originally the belief ran that\nhis soul became the god or guardian spirit of the edifice. {254}If the\nBulgarians cannot get a human shadow to wall in, they content themselves\nwith the shadow of the first animal that passes by. Here again we get\nthat form of divine chance in the pointing out of a victim which is seen\nin the case of Jephtha\u2019s daughter. Still milder substitutions occur in\nthe empty coffin walled into a church in Germany, or the rude images of\nbabies in swaddling-clothes similarly immured in Holland. The last trace\nof the custom is found in England in the modern practice of putting\ncoins and newspapers under the foundation-stone. Here it would seem\nas if the victim were regarded as a sacrifice to the Earth (a late and\nderivative idea), and the coins were a money payment in lieu of the\nhuman or animal offering. I owe many of the cases here instanced to\nthe careful research of my friend Mr. Clodd. But since this chapter was\nwritten, all other treatises on the subject have been superseded by Mr.\nSpeth\u2019s exhaustive and scholarly pamphlet on \u201cBuilder\u2019s Rites\nand Ceremonies,\u201d a few examples from which I have intercalated in my\nargument.\n\nOther implications must be briefly treated. The best ghost or god for\nthis purpose seems to be a divine or kingly person; and in stages when\nthe meaning of the practice is still quite clear to the builders, the\ndearly-be-loved son or wife of the king is often selected for the honour\nof tutelary godship. Later this notion passes into the sacrifice of the\nchild or wife of the master mason; many legends or traditions contain\nthis more recent element. In Vortigern\u2019s case, however, the child is\nclearly a divine being, as we shall see to be true a little later on in\ncertain Semitic instances. To the last, the connexion of children with\nsuch sacrifices is most marked; thus when in 1813 the ice on the Elbe\nbroke down one of the dams, an old peasant sneered at the efforts of the\nGovernment engineer, saying to him, \u201cYou will never get the dyke to\nhold unless you first sink an innocent child under the foundations.\u201d\nHere the very epithet \u201cinnocent\u201d in itself reveals some last\n{255}echo of godship. So too, in 1843, when a new bridge was to be built\nat Halle in Germany, the people told the architects that the pier would\nnot stand unless a living child was immured under the foundations.\nSchrader says that when the great railway bridge over the Ganges was\nbegun, every mother in Bengal trembled for her infant. The Slavonic\nchiefs who founded Detinez sent out men to catch the first boy\nthey met and bury him in the foundation. Here once more we have the\nsacred-chance victim. Briefly I would say there seems to be a preference\nin all such cases for children, and especially for girls; of kingly\nstock, if possible, but at least a near relation of the master builder.\n\nMr. Speth points out that horses\u2019 heads were frequently fastened on\nchurches or other buildings, and suggests that they belong to animal\nfoundation-victims. This use of the skull is in strict accordance with\nits usual oracular destination.\n\nSome notable historical or mythical tales of town and village gods,\ndeliberately manufactured, may now be considered. We read in First Kings\nthat when Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho, \u201che laid the foundation\nthereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his\nyoungest Segub.\u201d Here we see evidently a princely master builder,\nsacrificing his own two sons as guardian gods of his new city. Abundant\ntraces exist of such deliberate production of a Fortune for a town. And\nit is also probable that the original sacrifice was repeated annually,\nas if to keep up the constant stream of divine life, somewhat after the\nfashion of the human gods we had to consider in the last chapter. Dido\nappears to have been the Fortune or foundation-goddess of Carthage; she\nis represented in the legend as the foundress-queen, and is said to have\nlept into her divine pyre from the walls of her palace. But the annual\nhuman sacrifice appears to have been performed at the same place; for\n\u201cIt can hardly be doubted,\u201d says Professor Robertson Smith, \u201cthat\n{256}the spot at which legend placed the self-sacrifice of Dido to\nher husband Sicharbas was that at which the later Carthaginian human\nsacrifices were performed.\u201d At Laodicea, again, an annual sacrifice\ntook place of a deer, in lieu of a maiden; and this sacrifice, we are\nexpressly told, was offered to the goddess of the city. Legend said\nthat the goddess was a maiden, who had been similarly sacrificed to\nconsecrate the foundation of the town, and was thenceforth worshipped as\nits Fortune, like Dido at Carthage; \u201cit was therefore the death of the\ngoddess herself,\u201d says Professor Robertson Smith, \u201cthat was annually\nrenewed in the piacular rite.\u201d (I do not admit the justice of the\nepithet \u201cpiacular.\u201d) Again, Malalas tells us that the 22d of May\nwas kept at Antioch as the anniversary of a maiden sacrificed at the\nfoundation of the city, and worshipped thereafter as the Tyche, or luck,\nof the town. At Durna in Arabia an annual victim was similarly buried\nunder the stone which formed the altar.\n\nIn most of the legends, as they come down to us from civilised and\nlettered antiquity, the true nature of this sanguinary foundation-rite\nis overlaid and disguised by later rationalising guesses and I may\nmention that Dr. Robertson Smith in particular habitually treats the\nrationalising guesses as primitive, and the real old tradition of the\nslaughtered virgin as a myth of explanation of \u201cthe later\nEuhemeristic Syrians.\u201d But after the examples we have already seen of\nfoundation-gods, I think I can hardly be doubted that this is to reverse\nthe true order; that a girl was really sacrificed for a tutelary deity\nwhen a town was founded, and that the substitution of an animal victim\nat the annual renewal was a later refinement. Mr. Speth quotes a case in\npoint of a popular tradition that a young girl had been built into the\ncastle of Nieder-Manderschied; and when the wall was opened in 1844, the\nEuhemeristic workmen found a cavity enclosing a human skeleton. I would\nsuggest, again, that in the original legend of the foundation of Rome,\nRomulus was represented as having built-in {257}his brother Remus as a\nFortune, or god, of the city, and that to this identification of Remus\nwith the city we ought to trace such phrases as _turba Remi_ for the\nRoman people. The word _forum_ in its primitive signification means the\nempty space left before a tomb--the _llan_ or _temenos_. Hence I would\nsuggest that the Roman Forum and other Latin _fora_ were really the\ntomb-enclosures of the original foundation-victims. * So, too, the\nEnglish village green and \u201cplay-field\u201d are probably the space\ndedicated to the tribal or village god--a slain man-god; and they are\nusually connected with the sacred stone and sacred tree. I trust this\npoint will become clearer as we proceed, and develop the whole theory of\nthe foundation god or goddess, the allied sacred stone and the tree or\ntrunk memorial.\n\n     * In the case of Rome, the Forum would represent the grave\n     of the later foundation-god of the compound Latin and Sabine\n     city.\n\nFor, if I am right, the entire primitive ritual of the foundation of a\nvillage consisted in killing or burying alive or building into the wall\na human victim, as town or village god, and raising a stone and planting\na tree close by to commemorate him. At these two monuments the village\nrites were thereafter performed. The stone and tree are thus found\nin their usual conjunction; both coexist in the Indian village to the\npresent day, as in the Siberian woodland or the Slavonic forest. Thus,\nat Rome, we have not only the legend of the death of Remus, a prince of\nthe blood-royal of Alba Longa, intimately connected with the building\nof the wall of Roma Quadrata, but we have also the sacred fig-tree of\nRomulus in the Forum, which was regarded as the embodiment of the city\nlife of the combined Rome, so that when it showed signs of withering,\nconsternation spread through the city; and hard by we have the sacred\nstone or Palladium, guarded by the sacred Vestal Virgins who kept the\ncity hearth-fire, and still more closely bound up with the fortune of\nthat secondary Rome which had its home in the Forum. Are not these three\nthe {258}triple form of the foundation-god of that united Capitoline\nand Palatine Rome? And may not the sacred cornel on the Palatine, again,\nhave been similarly the holy foundation-tree of that older Roma Ouadrata\nwhich is more particularly associated with the name of Romulus? Of\nthis tree Plutarch tells us that when it appeared to a passer-by to be\ndrooping, he set up a hue and cry, which was soon responded to by people\non all sides rushing up with buckets of water to pour upon it, as if\nthey were hastening to put out a fire. Clearly, here again we have to\ndeal with an embodied Fortune.\n\nWe do not often get all three of these Fortunes combined--the human\nvictim, the stone, and the tree, with the annual offering which renews\nits sanctity. But we find traces so often of one or other of the trio\nthat we are justified, I think, in connecting them together as parts of\na whole, whereof here one element survives, and there another. \u201cAmong\nall primitive communities,\u201d says Mr. Gomme, \u201cwhen a village was\nfirst established, a stone was set up. To this stone, the headman of\nthe village made an offering once a year.\u201d To the present day, London\npreserves her foundation-god in the shape of London Stone, now enclosed\nin a railing or iron grill just opposite Cannon Street Station.\nNow, London Stone was for ages considered as the representative and\nembodiment of the entire community. Proclamations and other important\nstate businesses were announced from its top; and the defendant in\ntrials in the Lord Mayor\u2019s court was summoned to attend from London\nStone, as though the stone itself spoke to the wrong-doer with the\nunited voice of the assembled citizens. The first Lord Mayor, indeed,\nwas Henry de Lundonstone, no doubt, as Mr. Loftie suggests, the\nhereditary keeper of this urban fetish,--in short, the representative\nof the village headman. I have written at greater length on the\nimplications of this interesting relic in an article on London Stone\nin _Longman’s Magazine_, to which I would refer the reader for further\ninformation. {259}I will only add here the curious episode of Jack Cade,\nwho, when he forced his way, under his assumed name of Mortimer, into\nthe city in 1450, first of all proceeded to this sacred relic, the\nembodiment of palladium of ancient London, and having struck it with his\nsword exclaimed, \u201cNow is Mortimer lord of this city.\u201d\n\nA similar sacred stone exists to this day at Bovey Tracey in Devon, of\nwhich Ormerod tells us that the mayor of Bovey used to ride round it\non the first day of his tenure of office, and strike it with a\nstick,--which further explains Jack Cade\u2019s proceeding. According\nto the Totnes Times of May 13, 1882, the young men of the town were\ncompelled on the same day to kiss the magic stone and pledge allegiance\nin upholding the ancient rights and privileges of Bovey. (I owe these\ndetails to Mr. Lawrence Gomme\u2019s Village Community.) I do not think we\ncan dissociate from these two cases the other sacred stones of Britain,\nsuch as the King\u2019s Stone at Kingston in Surrey, where several of\nthe West Saxon kings were crowned; nor the Scone Stone in the\ncoronation-chair at Westminster Abbey; nor the Stone of Clackmannan, and\nthe sacred stones already mentioned in a previous chapter on which the\nheads of clans or of Irish septs succeeded to the chieftainship of\ntheir respective families. These may in part have been ancestral and\nsepulchral monuments: but it is probable that they also partook in part\nof this artificial and factitious sanctity. Certainly in some cases that\nsanctity was renewed by an animal sacrifice.\n\nWith these fairly obvious instances I would also connect certain other\nstatements which seem to me to have been hitherto misinterpreted. Thus\nMesha, king of Moab, when he is close beleaguered, burns his son as a\nholocaust on the wall of the city. Is not this an offering to protect\nthe wall by the deliberate manufacture of an additional deity? For\nstraightway the besiegers seem to feel they are overpowered, and the\nsiege is raised. Observe {260}here once more that it is the king\u2019s own\ndearly-be-loved son who is chosen as victim. Again, at Amathus, human\nsacrifices were offered to Jupiter Hospes \u201cbefore the gates\u201d; and\nthis Jupiter Hospes, as Ovid calls him, is the Amathusian Herakles or\nMalika, whose name, preserved for us by Hesychius, identifies him at\nonce as a local deity similar to the Tyrian Melcarth. Was not this\nagain, therefore, the Fortune of the city? At Tyre itself, the sepulchre\nof Herakles Melcarth was shown, where he was said to have been cremated.\nFor among cremating peoples it was natural to burn, not slaughter, the\nyearly god-victim. At Tarsus, once more, there was an annual feast, at\nwhich a very fair pyre was erected, and the local Herakles or Baal\nwas burned on it in effigy. We cannot doubt, I think, that this was a\nmitigation of an earlier human holocaust. Indeed, Dr. Robertson Smith\nsays of this instance: \u201cThis annual commemoration of the death of the\ngod in fire must have its origin in an older rite, in which the victim\nwas not a mere effigy, but a theanthropic sacrifice, i.e., an actual man\nor sacred animal, whose life, according to the antique conception now\nfamiliar to us, was an embodiment of the divine-human life.\u201d This is\nvery near my own view on the subject.\n\nFrom these instances we may proceed, I think, to a more curious set,\nwhose implications seem to me to have been even more grievously mistaken\nby later interpreters. I mean the case of children of kings or of ruling\nfamilies, sacrificed in time of war or peril as additional or auxiliary\ndeities. Thus Philo of Byblos says: \u201cIt was an ancient custom in a\ncrisis of great danger that the ruler of a city or nation should give\nhis beloved son to die for the whole people, as a ransom offered to the\navenging demons; and the children thus offered were slain with mystic\nrites. So Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, being king of\nthe land, and having an only-begotten son called Jeoud (for in the\nPhoenicians tongue Jeoud signifies only-begotten), dressed him in royal\nrobes and sacrificed him upon an altar {261}in a time of war, when the\ncountry was in great danger from the enemy.\u201d I do not think Philo is\nright in his gloss or guess about \u201cthe avenging demons,\u201d but otherwise\nhis story is interesting evidence. It helps us more or less directly\nto connect the common Phoenician and Hebrew child-sacrifices with this\ndeliberate manufacture of artificial gods. I do not doubt, indeed, that\nthe children were partly sacrificed to pre-existent and well-defined\ngreat gods; but I believe also that the practice first arose as one of\ndeliberate manufacture of gods, and retained to the end many traces of\nits origin.\n\nWe know that in times of national calamity the Phoenicians used thus\nto sacrifice their dearest to Baal. Phoenician history, we know from\nPorphyry, is full of such sacrifices. When the Carthaginians were\ndefeated and besieged by Agathocles, they ascribed their disasters to\nthe anger of the god; for whereas in former times they used to sacrifice\nto him their own children, they had latterly fallen (as we shall see\nhereafter the Khonds did) into the habit of buying children and rearing\nthem as victims. So two hundred young people of the noblest families\nwere picked out for sacrifice; and these were accompanied by no less\nthan three hundred more, who volunteered to die for the fatherland. They\nwere sacrificed by being placed, one by one, on the sloping hands of\nthe brazen image, from which they rolled into a pit of fire. So too at\nJerusalem, in moments of great danger, children were sacrificed to some\nMolech, whether Jahweh or another, by being placed in the fiery arms\nof the image at the Tophet. I will admit that in these last cases we\napproach very near to the mere piacular human sacrifice; but we shall\nsee, when we come to deal with gods of cultivation, and the doctrine\nof the atonement, that it is difficult to draw a line between the\ntwo; while the fact that a dearly-beloved or only-begotten son is the\nvictim--especially the son of a king of divine blood--links such cases\non directly to the more obvious instances of deliberate god-making.\nSome such voluntary sacrifice {262}seems to me to be commemorated in\nthe beautiful imagery of the 53d of Isaiah. But there the language is\ndistinctly piacular.\n\nThat annual human sacrifices originated in deliberate god-making of this\nsort is an inference which has already been almost arrived at by more\northodox thinkers. \u201cAmong the Semites,\u201d says Dr. Robertson Smith,\n\u201cthe most current view of annual piacula seems to have been that they\ncommemorate a divine tragedy--the death of some god or goddess. The\norigin of such myths is easily explained from the nature of the ritual.\nOriginally, the death of the god was nothing else than the death of\nthe theanthropic victim; but when this ceased to be understood, it was\nthought that the piacular sacrifice represented an historical tragedy in\nwhich the god was killed.\u201d But we shall see hereafter that the idea of\nexpiation in sacrifice is quite a late and derivative one; it seems more\nprobable that the victim was at first a human god, for whom later an\nanimal victim was substituted. In the Athenian Thar-gelia, the victims\nwere human to the very end, though undoubtedly they were thought of as\nbearing vicariously the sins of the people. We shall come across similar\nintrusions of the idea of expiation in later chapters; that idea belongs\nto a stage of thought when men considered it necessary to explain away\nby some ethical reference the sanguinary element of primitive ritual.\nThus in two Greek towns, as we learn from Pausanias--at Potni\u00e6 and\nPatr\u00e6,--an annual sacrifice existed which had once been the sacrifice\nof a human victim; but this was later explained as an expiation of an\nancient crime for which satisfaction had to be made from generation to\ngeneration. Indeed, as a rule, later ages looked upon the murder of a\ngod as obviously criminal, and therefore regarded the slaughter of\nthe victim, who replaced the god, as being an atonement for his death,\ninstead of regarding it as a deliberate release of his divine spirit.\n\nI have dwelt here mainly on that particular form of artificial\n{263}god-making which is concerned with the foundation of houses,\nvillages, cities, walls, and fortresses, because this is the commonest\nand most striking case, outside agriculture, and because it is specially\nconnected with the world-wide institution of the village or city god.\nBut other types occur in abundance; and to them a few lines must now be\ndevoted.\n\nWhen a ship was launched, it was a common practice to provide her with\na guardian spirit or god by making her roll over the body of a human\nvictim. The Norwegian vikings used to \u201credden their rollers\u201d with\nhuman blood. That is to say, when a warship was launched, human victims\nwere lashed to the round logs over which the galley was run down to the\nsea, so that the stem was sprinkled with their spurting blood. Thus the\nvictim was incorporated, as it were, in the very planks of the vessel.\nCaptain Cook found the South Sea Islanders similarly christening\ntheir war-canoes with blood. In 1784, says Mr. William Simpson, at the\nlaunching of one of the Bey of Tripoli\u2019s cruisers, \u201ca black slave\nwas led forward and fastened at the prow of the vessel to influence\na happy reception in the ocean.\u201d And Mr. Speth quotes a newspaper\naccount of the sacrifice of a sheep when the first caique for\n\u201cConstantinople at Olympia\u201d was launched in the Bosphorus. In many\nother cases, it is noted that a victim, human or animal, is slaughtered\nat the launching of a ship. Our own ceremony of breaking a bottle of\nwine over the bows is the last relic of this barbarous practice. Here\nas elsewhere red wine does duty for blood, in virtue of its colour. I do\nnot doubt that the images of gods in the bow of a ship were originally\nidols in which the spirits thus liberated might dwell, and that it was\nto them the sailors prayed for assistance in storm or peril. The god was\nbound up in the very fabric of the vessel. The modern figure-head still\nrepresents these gods; figure-heads essentially similar to the domestic\nidols occur on New Zealand and Polynesian war-canoes.\n\nThe {264}canoes of the Solomon Islanders, for example, \u201coften have\nas figure-head a carved representation of the upper half of a man,\nwho holds in his hands a human head.\u201d This head, known as the\n\u201ccanoe-god\u201d or \u201ccharm,\u201d \u201crepresents the life taken when the\ncanoe was first used.\u201d A canoe of importance \u201crequired a life for\nits inauguration,\u201d says Dr. Codrington.\n\nAnother curious instance is to be found in the customs and beliefs\nregarding river gods. Rivers, I have suggested, are often divine because\nthey spring near or are connected with the grave of a hero. But often\ntheir divinity has been deliberately given them, and is annually renewed\nby a god-making sacrifice: just as at the Jewish Passover an annual\nanimal-victim was slain, and his blood smeared on the lintels, as a\nrenewal of the foundation sacrifice. The best instance I have found of\nthis curious custom is one cited by Mr. Gomme from Major Ellis. Along\nthe banks of the Prah in West Africa there are many deities, all bearing\nthe common name of Prah, and all regarded as spirits of the river. At\neach town or considerable village along the stream, a sacrifice is held\non a day about the middle of October. The usual sacrifice was two human\nadults, one male and one female. The inhabitants of each village believe\nin a separate spirit of the Prah, who resides in some part of the river\nclose to their own hamlet. Everywhere along the river the priests of\nthese gods officiate in groups of three, two male and one female, an\narrangement which is peculiar to the river gods. Here, unless I mistake,\nwe have an obvious case of deliberate god-making.\n\nThis savage instance, and others like it, which space precludes me from\ndetailing, suggest the conclusion that many river gods are of artificial\norigin. The Wohhanda in Esthonia received offerings of little children,\nwhom we may fairly compare with the children immured in buildings or\noffered to the Molech. Many other rivers spontaneously {265}take their\nvictim annually; thus the Devonshire rhyme goes,=\n\n````River of Dart, river of Dart,\n\n````Every year thou claimest a heart.=\n\nThe Spey also takes one life each year, and so do several British rivers\nelsewhere. Originally, no doubt, the victim was deliberately chosen and\nslain annually; but later on, as a mitigation of the custom, the river\nitself seems to have selected its own spirit by divine chance, such as\nwe have already seen in action more than once in the earlier cases. In\nother words, if a passer-by happened to be accidentally drowned, he was\naccepted in place of a deliberate victim. * Hence the danger of rescuing\na man from drowning; you interfere with the course of divine selection,\nand you will pay for it yourself by being the next victim. \u201cWhen, in\nthe Solomon Islands, a man accidentally falls into a river, and a shark\nattacks him, he is not allowed to escape. If he succeeds in eluding the\nshark, his fellow-tribesmen throw him back to his doom, believing him\nto be marked out for sacrifice to the god of the river.\u201d Similarly, in\nBritain itself, the Lancashire Ribble has a water-spirit called Peg o\u2019\nNell, represented by a stone image, now headless, which stands at the\nspring where the river rises in the grounds of Waddon. (Compare the\nAdonis tomb and grove by the spring at Aphaca.) This Peg o\u2019 Nell was\noriginally, according to tradition, a girl of the neighbourhood; but\nshe was done to death by incantations, and now demands every seven\nyears that a life should be quenched in the waters of the Ribble. When\n\u201cPeg\u2019s night\u201d came round at the close of the septennate, unless a\nbird, a cat, or a dog was drowned in the river, it was sure to claim\nits human victim. This name of Peg is evidently a corruption of some old\nlocal Celtic or pre-Celtic word {266}for a nymph or water-spirit; for\nthere is another Peg in the Tees, known as Peg Powler; and children used\nthere to be warned against playing on the banks of the stream, for fear\nPeg should drag them into the water. Such traces of a child-sacrifice\nare extremely significant.\n\n     * Here is an analogue in foundation sacrifices. A house was\n     being built at Hind Head while this book was in progress. A\n     workman fell from a beam and was killed. The other workmen\n     declared this was luck for the house and would ensure its\n     stability.\n\nI cannot do more than suggest here in passing that we have in these\nstories and practices the most probable origin of the common myth which\naccounts for the existence of river gods or river nymphs by some episode\nof a youth or maiden drowned there. Arethusa is the example that occurs\nto everyone. Grossly Euhemeristic as it may sound to say so, I yet\nbelieve that such myths of metamorphosis have their origin in the\ndeliberate manufacture of a water-deity by immolation in the stream;\nand that the annual renewal of such a sacrifice was due in part to the\ndesire to keep alive the memory of the gods--to be sure they were there,\nto make them \u201cfresh and fresh,\u201d if one may venture to say so--and\nin part to the analogy of those very important artificial gods of\nagriculture whose origin and meaning we have still to consider. I would\nadd that the commonness of sea-horses and river-horses in the mythology\nof the world doubtless owes its origin partly to the natural idea of\n\u201cwhite horses\u201d on the waves, but partly also to the deliberate\nsacrifice of horses to the sea or rivers, which this notion suggested,\nand which tended to intensify it. It is as though the worshipper wished\nto keep up a continuous supply of such divine and ghostly steeds. At\nRhodes, for example, four horses were annually cast into the sea; and\nI need hardly refer to the conventional horses of Poseidon and Neptune.\nThe Ugly Burn in Ross-shire is the abode of a water-horse; in the\nremains of the Roman temple at Lydney, the god Nodens, who represents\nthe Severn, is shown in the mosaic pavement as drawn in a chariot\nby four horses; and the Yore, near Middleham, is still infested by a\nwater-horse who annually claims at least one human victim. Elsewhere\nother animals take the place of the horse. The Ostyaks {267}sacrifice to\nthe river Ob by casting in a live reindeer when fish are scanty.\n\nI do not deny that in many of these cases two distinct ideas--the\nearlier idea of the victim as future god, and the later idea of the\nvictim as prey or sacrifice--have got inextricably mixed up; but I\ndo think enough’ has been said to suggest the probability that many\nriver-gods are artificially produced, and that this is in large part the\norigin of nymphs and kelpies. Legend, indeed, almost always represents\nthem so; it is only our mythologists, with their blind hatred of\nEuhemerism, who fail to perceive the obvious implication. And that even\nthe accidental victim was often envisaged as a river-god, after his\ndeath, we see clearly from the Bohemian custom of going to pray on the\nriver bank where a man has been drowned, and casting into the river a\nloaf of new bread and a pair of wax candles, obvious offerings to his\nspirit.\n\nMany other classes of manufactured gods seem to me to exist, whose\nexistence I must here pass over almost in silence. Such are the gods\nproduced at the beginning of a war, by human or other sacrifice; gods\nintended to aid the warriors in their coming enterprise by being set\nfree from fleshly bonds for that very purpose. Thus, according to\nPhylarchus, a human sacrifice was at one time customary in Greece at\nthe beginning of hostilities; and we know that as late as the age of\nThemistocles three captives were thus offered up before the battle of\nSalamis. The sacrifice of Iphigenia is a good legendary case in point,\nbecause it is one of a virgin, a princess, the daughter of the leader,\nand therefore a typical release of a divine or royal spirit. Here,\nas usual, later philosophising represents the act as an expiation for\nmortal guilt; but we may be sure the original story contained no such\nethical or piacular element. Among the early Hebrews, the summons to\na war seems similarly to have been made by sending round pieces of\nthe human victim; in later Hebrew usage, this rite declines into the\nsacrifice of a burnt {268}offering; though we get an intermediate stage\nwhen Saul sends round portions of a slaughtered ox, as the Levite in\nJudges had sent round the severed limbs of his concubine to rouse the\nIsraelites. In Africa, a war is still opened with a solemn sacrifice,\nhuman or otherwise; and Mr. H. O. Forbes gives a graphic account of the\nsimilar ceremony which precedes an expedition in the island of Timor.\n\nIn conclusion, I will only say that a great many other obscure rites or\ndoubtful legends seem to me explicable by similar deliberate exercises\nof god-making. How common such sacrifice was in agricultural relations\nwe shall see in the sequel; but I believe that even in other fields\nof life future research will so explain many other customs. The\nself-immolation of Codrus, of Sardanapa-lus, of P. Decius Mus, as of so\nmany other kings or heroes or gods or goddesses; the divine beings who\nfling themselves from cliffs into the sea; M. Curtius devoting himself\nin the gulf in the Forum; the tombs of the lovers whom Semiramis buried\nalive; all these, I take it, have more or less similar implications.\nEven such tales as that of T. Manlius Torquatus and his son must be\nassimilated, I think, to the story of the king of Moab killing his son\non the wall, or to that of the Carthaginians offering up their children\nto the offended deity; only, in later times, the tale was misinterpreted\nand used to point the supposed moral of the stern and inflexible old\nRoman discipline.\n\nFrequent reiteration of sacrifices seems necessary, also, in order to\nkeep up the sanctity of images and sacred rites--to put, as it were,\na new soul into them. Thus, rivers needed a fresh river-god every year;\nand recently in Ashantee it was discovered that a fetish would no longer\n\u201cwork\u201d unless human victims were abundantly immolated for it.\n\nThis is also perhaps the proper place to observe that just as the great\ngod Baal has been resolved by modern scholarship {269}into many local\nBaalim, and just as the great god Adonis has been reduced by recent\nresearch in each case to some particular Adon or lord out of many, so\neach such separate deity, artificially manufactured, though called by\nthe common name of the Prah or the Tiber,’ yet retains to the last some\ndistinct identity. In fact, the great gods appear to be rather classes\nthan individuals. That there were many Nymphs and many Fauni, many\nSilvani and many Martes, has long been known; it is beginning to be\nclear that there were also many Saturns, many Jupiters, many Junones,\nmany Vest\u00e6. Even in Greece it is more than probable that the\ngeneralised names of the great gods were given in later ages to various\nold sacred stones and holy sites of diverse origin: the real object of\nworship was in each case the spontaneous or artificial god; the name was\nbut a general title applied in common, perhaps adjectivally, to several\nsuch separate deities. In the Roman pantheon, this principle is now,\nquite well established; in the Semitic it is probable; in most others,\nthe progress of modern research is gradually leading up to it. Even the\nelemental gods themselves do not seem in their first origin to be really\nsingular; they grow, apparently, from generalised phrases, like our\n\u201cHeaven\u201d and \u201cProvidence,\u201d applied at first to the particular\ndeity of whom at the moment the speaker is thinking. The Zeus or Jupiter\nvaries with the locality. Thus, when the Latin pr\u00e6tor, at the outbreak\nof the Latin war, defied the Roman Jupiter, we may be sure it was the\nactual god there visible before him at whom he hurled his sacrilegious\nchallenge, not the ideal deity in the sky above his head. Indeed, we now\nknow that each village and each farm had a Jovis of its own, regarded as\nessentially a god of wine, and specially worshipped at the wine-feast in\nApril, when the first cask was broached. This individuality of the gods\nis an important point to bear in mind; for the tendency of language\nis always to treat many similar deities as practically identical,\nespecially in late {270}and etherealised forms of religion. And\nmythologists have made the most of this syncretic tendency.\n\nA single concrete instance will help to make this general principle yet\nclearer. Boundaries, I believe, were originally put under the charge\nof local and artificial deities, by slaughtering a human victim at each\nturning-point in the limits, and erecting a sacred stone on the spot\nwhere he died to preserve his memory. Often, too, in accordance with the\ncommon rule, a sacred tree seems to have been planted beside the sacred\nstone monument. Each such victim became forthwith a boundary god, a\nprotecting and watching spirit, and was known thenceforth as a Hermes or\na Terminus. But there were many Herm\u00e6 and many Termini, not in Greece\nand Italy alone, but throughout the world. Only much later did a\ngeneralised god, Hermes or Terminus, arise from the union into a single\nabstract concept of all these separate and individual deities. Once\nmore, the boundary god was renewed each year by a fresh victim. Our own\npractice of \u201cbeating the bounds\u201d appears to be the last expiring\nrelic of such annual sacrifices. The bounds are beaten, apparently, in\norder to expel all foreign gods or hostile spirits; the boys who play a\nlarge part in the ceremony are the representatives of the human victims.\nThey are whipped at each terminus stone, partly in order to make them\nshed tears as a rain-charm (after the fashion with which Mr. Frazer has\nmade us familiar), but partly also because all artificially-made gods\nare scourged or tortured before being put to death, for some reason\nwhich I do not think we yet fully understand. The rationalising\ngloss that the boys are whipped \u201cin order to make them remember the\nboundaries\u201d is one of the usual shallow explanations so glibly offered\nby the eighteenth century. The fact that the ceremony takes place at\nsacred stones or \u201cGospel oaks\u201d sufficiently proclaims its original\nmeaning.\n\nThe idea underlying Christian martyrdom, where the martyr\n{271}voluntarily devotes himself or herself to death in order to\ngain the crown and palm in heaven, is essentially similar to the\nself-immolation of the artificial gods, and helps to explain the\nnature of such self-sacrifice. For Christianity is only nominally a\nmonotheistic religion, and the saints and martyrs form in it practically\na secondary or minor rank of deities.\n\nOn the other hand, the point of view of the god-slayers cannot be more\ngraphically put than in the story which Mr. William Simpson relates of\nSir Richard Burton. Burton, it seems, was exploring a remote Mahommedan\nregion on the Indian frontier, and in order to do so with greater\nfreedom and ease had disguised himself as a fakir of Islam. So great\nwas his knowledge of Muslim devotions that the people soon began\nto entertain a great respect for him as a most holy person. He was\ncongratulating himself upon the success of his disguise, and looking\nforward to a considerable stay in the valley, when one night one of\nthe elders of the village came to him stealthily, and begged him, if he\nvalued his own safety, to go away. Burton asked whether the people did\nnot like him. The elder answered, yes; that was the root of the trouble.\nThey had conceived, in fact, the highest possible opinion of his\nexceptional sanctity, and they thought it would be an excellent thing\nfor the village to possess the tomb of so holy a man. So they were\ncasting about now how they could best kill him. Whether this particular\nstory is true or not, it at least exhibits in very vivid colours the\nstate of mind of the ordinary god-slayer.\n\nDr. Tylor, Mr. Speth, and other writers on foundation sacrifices treat\nthem as springing from primitive animism. To me, they seem rather\nto imply the exact opposite. For if everything has already a soul by\nnature, why kill a man or criminal to supply it with one?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.--GODS OF CULTIVATION.\n\n|BY {272}far the most interesting in the curious group of\nartifically-made gods are those which are sacrificed in connexion with\nagriculture. These deities appeal to us from several points of view.\nIn the first place, they form, among agricultural races as a whole, the\nmost important and venerated objects of worship. In the second place,\nit is largely through their influence or on their analogy, as I believe,\nthat so many other artificial gods came to be renewed or sacrificed\nannually. In the third place, it is the gods of agriculture who are most\nof all slain sacramentally, whose bodies are eaten by their votaries\nin the shape of cakes of bread or other foodstuffs, and whose blood is\ndrunk in the form of wine. _The immediate connexion of these sacramental\nceremonies with the sacrifice of the mass, and the identification of\nthe Christ with bread and wine, give to this branch of our enquiry\na peculiar importance from the point of view of the evolution of\nChristianity_. We must therefore enter at some little length into the\ngenesis of these peculiar and departmental gods, who stand so directly\nin the main line of evolution of the central divine figure in the\nChristian religion.\n\nAll over the world, wherever cultivation exists, a special class of\ncorn-gods or grain-gods is found, deities of the chief foodstuff,--be\nit maize, or dates, or plantain, or rice--and it is a common feature\nof all these gods that they are represented by human or quasi-human\nvictims, who are annually slain at the time of sowing. These human gods\n{273}are believed to reappear once more in the form of the crop that\nrises from their sacred bodies; their death and resurrection are\ncelebrated in festivals; and they are eaten and drunk sacramentally by\ntheir votaries, in the shape of first-fruits, or of cakes and wine,\nor of some other embodiment of the divine being. We have therefore to\nenquire into the origin of this curious superstition, which involves, as\nit seems to me, the very origin of cultivation itself as a human custom.\nAnd I must accordingly bespeak my readers\u2019 indulgence if I diverge for\na while into what may seem at first a purely botanical digression.\n\nMost people must have been struck by the paradox of cultivation. A\nparticular plant in a state of nature, let us say, grows and thrives\nonly in water, or in some exceedingly moist and damp situation. You\ntake up this waterside plant with a trowel one day, and transfer\nit incontinently to a dry bed in a sun-baked garden; when lo! the\nmoisture-loving creature, instead of withering and dying, as one might\nnaturally expect of it, begins to grow apace, and to thrive to all\nappearance even better and more lustily than in its native habitat. Or\nyou remove some parched desert weed from its arid rock to a moist and\nrainy climate; and instead of dwindling, as one imagines it ought to do\nunder the altered conditions, it spreads abroad in the deep rich mould\nof a shrubbery bed, and attains a stature impossible to its kind in its\noriginal surroundings. Our gardens, in fact, show us side by side\nplants which, in the wild state, demand the most varied and dissimilar\nhabitats. Siberian squills blossom amicably in the same bed with Italian\ntulips; the alpine saxifrage spreads its purple rosettes in friendly\nrivalry with the bog-loving marsh-marigold or the dry Spanish iris. The\nquestion, therefore, sooner or later occurs to the enquiring mind: How\ncan they all live together so well here in man\u2019s domain, when in\nthe outside world each demands and exacts so extremely different and\nspecialised a situation?\n\nOf {274}course it is only an inexperienced biologist who could long be\npuzzled by this apparent paradox. He must soon see the true solution of\nthe riddle, if he has read and digested the teachings of Darwin. For the\nreal fact is, in a garden or out of it, most of these plants could get\non very well in a great variety of climates or situations--if only they\nwere protected against outside competition. There we have the actual\ncrux of the problem. It is not that the moisture-loving plants cannot\nlive in dry situations, but that the dry-loving plants, specialised\nand adapted for the post, can compete with them there at an immense\nadvantage, and so, in a very short time, live them down altogether.\nEvery species in a state of nature is continually exposed to the\nceaseless competition of every other; and each on its own ground can\nbeat its competitors. But in a garden, the very thing we aim at is just\nto restrict and prevent competition; to give each species a fair chance\nfor life, even in conditions where other and better-adapted species can\nusually outlive it. This, in fact, is really at bottom all that we ever\nmean by a garden--a space of ground cleared, and kept clear, of its\nnatural vegetation (commonly called in this connexion weeds), and\ndeliberately stocked with other plants, most or all of which the weeds\nwould live down if not artificially prevented.\n\nWe see the truth of this point of view the moment the garden is, as\nwe say, abandoned--that is to say, left once more to the operation of\nunaided nature. The plants with which we have stocked it loiter on for\na while in a feeble and uncertain fashion, but are ultimately choked\nout by the stronger and better-adapted weeds which compose the natural\nvegetation of the locality. The dock and nettle live down in time the\nlarkspur and the peony. The essential thing in the garden is, in short,\nthe clearing of the ground from the weeds--that is, in other words, from\nthe native vegetation. A few minor things may or may not be added, such\nas manuring, turning the soil, protecting with {275}shelter, and so\nforth; but the clearing is itself the one thing needful.\n\nSlight as this point seems at first sight, I believe it includes the\nwhole secret of the origin of tillage, and therefore, by implication,\nof the gods of agriculture. For, looked at in essence, cultivation is\nweeding, and weeding is cultivation. When we say that a certain race\ncultivates a certain plant-staple, we mean no more in the last resort\nthan that it sows or sets it in soil artificially cleared of competing\nspecies. Sowing without clearing is absolutely useless. So the question\nof the origin of cultivation resolves itself at last simply into\nthis--how did certain men come first to know that by clearing ground\nof weeds and keeping it clear of them they could promote the growth of\ncertain desirable human foodstuffs?\n\nTo begin with, it may be as well to premise that the problem of the\norigin of cultivation is a far more complex one than appears at first\nsight. For we have not only to ask, as might seem to the enquirer\nunaccustomed to such investigations, \u201cHow did the early savage first\nfind out that seeds would grow better when planted in open soil, already\nfreed from weeds or natural competitors?\u201d but also the other and far\nmore difficult question, \u201cHow did the early savage ever find out that\nplants would grow from seeds at all?\u201d That, I take it, is the real\nriddle of the situation, and it is one which, so far as I know, has\nhitherto escaped all enquirers into the history and origin of human\nprogress.\n\nFully to grasp the profound nature of this difficulty we must throw\nourselves back mentally into the condition and position of primitive\nman. We ourselves have known so long and so familiarly the fact that\nplants grow from seeds--that the seed is the essential reproductive part\nof the vegetable organism--that we find it hard to unthink that piece\nof commonplace knowledge, and to realise that what to us is an almost\nself-evident truth is to the primitive savage a long and difficult\ninference. Our own common and {276}certain acquaintance with the fact,\nindeed, is entirely-derived from the practice of agriculture. We have\nseen seeds sown from our earliest childhood. But before agriculture grew\nup, the connexion between seed and seedling could not possibly be known\nor even suspected by primitive man, who was by no means prone to make\nabstract investigations into the botanical nature or physiological\nobject of the various organs in the herbs about him. That the seed is\nthe reproductive part of the plant was a fact as little likely in itself\nto strike him as that the stamens were the male organs, or that the\nleaves were the assimilative and digestive surfaces. He could only have\nfound out that plants grew from seeds by the experimental process of\nsowing and growing them. Such an experiment he was far from likely ever\nto try for its own sake. He must have been led to it by some other and\naccidental coincidence.\n\nNow what was primitive man likely to know and observe about the plants\naround him? Primarily one thing only: that some of them were edible, and\nsome were not. There you have a distinction of immediate interest to all\nhumanity. And what parts of plants were most likely to be useful to him\nin this respect as foodstuffs? Those parts which the plant had\nspecially filled up with rich material for its own use or the use of its\noffspring. The first are the roots, stocks, bulbs, corms, or tubers in\nwhich it lays by foodstuffs for its future growth; the second are the\nseeds which it produces and enriches in order to continue its kind to\nsucceeding generations.\n\nPrimitive man, then, knows the fruits, seeds, and tubers, just as\nthe squirrel, the monkey, and the parrot know them, as so much good\nfoodstuff, suitable to his purpose. But why should he ever dream of\nsaving or preserving some of these fruits or seeds, when he has found\nthem, and of burying them in the soil, on the bare off-chance that by\npure magic, as it were, they might give rise to others? No idea could\nbe more foreign to the nature and {277}habits of early man. In the first\nplace, he is far from provident; his way is to eat up at once what he\nhas killed or picked; and in the second place, how could he ever come\nto conceive that seeds buried in the ground could possibly produce\nmore seeds in future? Nay, even if he did know it--which is well-nigh\nimpossible--would he be likely, feckless creature that he is, to save or\nspare a handful of seeds to-day in order that other seeds might spring\nfrom their burial-place in another twelvemonth? The difficulty is so\nenormous when one fairly faces it that it positively staggers one;\nwe begin to wonder whether really, after all, the first steps in\ncultivation’ could ever have been taken.\n\nThe savage, when he has killed a deer or a game-bird, does not bury a\npart of it or an egg of it in the ground, in the expectation that it\nwill grow into more deer or more bird hereafter. Why, then, should he,\nwhen he has picked a peck of fruits or wild cereals, bury some of\nthem in the ground, and expect a harvest? The savage is a simple and\nsuperstitious person; but I do not think he is quite such a fool as\nthis proceeding would make him out to be. He is not likely ever to have\nnoticed that plants in the wild state grow from seeds--at least prior to\nthe rise of agriculture, from which, as I believe, he first and slowly\ngained that useful knowledge. And he certainly is not likely ever to\nhave tried deliberate experiments upon the properties of plants, as\nif he were a Fellow of the Royal Society. These two roads being thus\neffectually blocked to us, we have to enquire, \u201cWas there ever any way\nin which primitive man could have blundered blindfold upon a knowledge\nof the truth, and could have discovered incidentally to some other\nfunction of his life the two essential facts that plants grow from\nseeds, and that the growth and supply of useful food-plants can be\nartificially increased by burying or sowing such seeds in ground cleared\nof weeds, that is to say of the natural competing vegetation?\u201d\n\nI {278}believe there is one way, and one way only, in which primitive\nman was at all likely to become familiar with these facts. I shall try\nto show that all the operations of primitive agriculture very forcibly\npoint to this strange and almost magical origin of cultivation; that all\nsavage agriculture retains to the last many traces of its origin; and\nthat the sowing of the seed itself is hardly considered so important and\nessential a part of the complex process as certain purely superstitious\nand bloodthirsty practices that long accompany it. In one word, not\nto keep the reader in doubt any longer, I am inclined to believe that\ncultivation and the sowing of seeds for crops had their beginning as an\nadjunct of the primitive burial system.\n\nUp to the present time, so far as I know, only one origin for\ncultivation has ever been even conjecturally suggested; and that is a\nhard one. It has been said that the first hint of cultivation may\nhave come from the observation that seeds accidentally cast out on the\nkitchen-middens, or on the cleared space about huts, caves, or other\nhuman dwelling-places, germinated and produced more seeds in succeeding\nseasons. Very probably many savages have observed the fact that\nfood-plants frequently grow on such heaps of refuse. But that\nobservation alone does not bring us much nearer to the origin of\ncultivation. For why should early man connect such a fact with the seeds\nmore than with the bones, the shells, or the mere accident of proximity?\nWe must rid our minds of all the preconceptions of inductive and\nexperimental science, and throw ourselves mentally back into the\nposition of the savage to whom nature is one vast field of unrelated\nevents, without fixed sequence or physical causation. Moreover, a\nkitchen-midden is not a cleared space: on the contrary, it is a weed-bed\nof extraordinary luxuriance. It brings us no nearer the origin of\nclearing.\n\nThere is, however, one set of functions in which primitive men do\nactually perform all the essential acts of agriculture, without in the\nleast intending it; and that is the almost {279}universal act of the\nburial of the dead. Burial is, so far as I can see, the only object for\nwhich early races, or, what comes to the same thing, very low savages,\never turn or dig the ground. We have seen already that the original idea\nof burial was to confine the ghost or corpse of the dead man by putting\na weight of earth on top of him; and lest this should be insufficient\nto keep him from troublesome reappearances, a big stone was frequently\nrolled above his mound or tumulus, which is the origin of all our\nmonuments, now diverted to the honour and commemoration of the deceased.\nBut the point to which I wish just now to direct attention is this--that\nin the act of burial, and in that act alone, we get a first beginning of\nturning the soil, exposing fresh earth, and so incidentally eradicating\nthe weeds. We have here, in short, the first necessary prelude to the\nevolution of agriculture.\n\nThe next step, of course, must be the sowing of the seed. And here, I\nventure to think, funeral customs supply us with the only conceivable\nway in which such sowing could ever have begun. For early men would\ncertainly not waste the precious seeds which it took them so much time\nand trouble to collect from the wild plants around them, in mere otiose\nscientific experiments on vegetable development. But we have seen that\nit is the custom of all savages to offer at the tombs of their ancestors\nfood and drink of the same kind as they themselves are in the habit of\nusing. Now, with people in the hunting stage, such offerings would no\ndoubt most frequently consist of meat, the flesh of the hunted beasts or\ngame-birds; but they would also include fish, fruits, seeds, tubers,\nand berries, and in particular such rich grains as those of the native\npulses and cereals. Evidence of such things being offered at the graves\nof the dead has been collected in such abundance by Dr. Tylor, Mr.\nFrazer, and Mr. Herbert Spencer, that I need not here adduce any further\nexamples of so familiar a practice.\n\nWhat must be the obvious result? Here, and here alone, {280}the savage\nquite unconsciously sows seeds upon newly-turned ground, deprived of\nits weeds, and further manured by the blood and meat of the frequent\nsacrificial offerings. These seeds must often spring up and grow\napace, with a rapidity and luxuriance which cannot fail to strike the\nimagination of the primitive hunter. Especially will this be the case\nwith that class of plants which ultimately develop into the food-crops\nof civilised society. For the peculiarity of these plants is that they\nare one and all--maize, corn, or rice, pease, beans, or millet--annuals\nof rapid growth and portentous stature; plants which have thriven in the\nstruggle for existence by laying up large stores of utilisable material\nin their seeds for the use of the seedling; and this peculiarity enables\nthem to start in life in each generation exceptionally well endowed, and\nso to compete at an advantage with all their fellows. Seeds of such a\nsort would thrive exceedingly in the newly-turned and well-manured soil\nof a grave or barrow; and producing there a quantity of rich and edible\ngrain, would certainly attract the attention of that practical and\nobservant man, the savage. For though he is so incurious about what are\nnon-essentials, your savage is a peculiarly longheaded person about all\nthat concerns his own immediate advantage.\n\nWhat conclusion would at once be forced upon him? That seeds planted in\nfreshly-turned and richly-manured soil produce threefold and fourfold?\nNothing of the sort. He knows naught of seeds and manures and soils; he\nwould at once conclude, after his kind, that the dreaded and powerful\nghost in the barrow, pleased with the gifts of meat and seeds offered\nto him, had repaid those gifts in kind by returning grain for grain a\nhundredfold out of his own body. This original connexion of ideas seems\nto me fully to explain that curious identification of the ghost\nor spirit with the corn or other foodstuff which Mr. Frazer has so\nwonderfully and conclusively elaborated in _The Golden Bough_.\n\nSome {281}little evidence is even forthcoming that vegetation actually\n_does_ show exceptional luxuriance on graves and barrows. The Rev.\nAlexander Stewart of Ballachulish mentions that the milkmaids in\nLochaber and elsewhere in the Scotch highlands used to pour a little\nmilk daily from the pail on the \u201cfairy knowes,\u201d or prehistoric\nbarrows; and the consequence was that \u201cthese fairy knolls were clothed\nwith a more beautiful verdure than any other spot in the country.\u201d\nIn Fiji, Mr. Fison remarks that yam-plants spring luxuriantly from\nthe heaps of yam presented to ancestral spirits in the sacred stone\nenclosure or _temenos_; and two or three recent correspondents (since\nthis chapter was first printed in a monthly review) have obligingly\ncommunicated to me analogous facts from Madagascar, Central Africa, and\nthe Malay Archipelago. It is clear from their accounts that graves do\noften give rise to crops of foodstuffs, accidentally springing from the\nfood laid upon them.\n\nJust at first, under such circumstances, the savage would no doubt be\ncontent merely to pick and eat the seeds that thus grew casually, as it\nwere, on the graves or barrows of his kings and kinsfolk. But in\nprocess of time it would almost certainly come about that the area\nof cultivation would be widened somewhat. The first step toward such\nwidening, I take it, would arise from the observation that cereals and\nother seeds only throve exceptionally upon newly-made graves, not on\ngraves in general. For as soon as the natural vegetation reasserted\nitself, the quickening power of the ghost would seem to be used up.\nThus it might be found well to keep fresh ghosts always going for\nagricultural purposes. Hence might gradually arise a habit of making a\nnew grave annually, at the most favourable sowing-time, which last would\ncome to be recognised by half-unconscious experiment and observation.\nAnd this new grave, as I shall show reason for believing a little later,\nwould be the grave, not of a person who happened to die then and there\naccidentally, but {282}of a deliberate victim, slain in order to provide\na spirit of vegetation,--an artificial god,--and to make the corn grow\nwith vigour and luxuriance. Step by step, I believe, it would at length\nbe discovered that if only you dug wide enough, the corn would grow well\n_around_ as well as _upon_ the actual grave of the divine victim. Thus\nslowly there would develop the cultivated field, the wider clearing,\ndug up or laboured by hand, and finally the ploughed field, which yet\nremains a grave in theory and in all essentials.\n\nI have ventured to give this long and apparently unessential preamble,\nbecause I wish to make it clear that the manufactured or artificial god\nof the corn-field or other cultivated plot really dates back to the very\norigin of cultivation. Without a god, there would be no corn-field at\nall; and the corn-field, I believe, is long conceived merely as the\nembodiment of his vegetative spirit. Nay, the tilled field is often at\nour own day, and even in our own country, a grave in theory.\n\nIt is a mere commonplace at the present time to say that among early men\nand savages every act of life has a sacred significance; and agriculture\nespecially is everywhere and always invested with a special sanctity. To\nus, it would seem natural that the act of sowing seed should be regarded\nas purely practical and physiological; that the seed should be looked\nupon merely as the part of the plant intended for reproduction, and\nthat its germination should be accepted as a natural and normal process.\nSavages and early men, however, have no such conceptions. To them the\nwhole thing is a piece of natural magic; you sow seeds, or, to be more\naccurate, you bury certain grains of foodstuff in the freshly-turned\nsoil, with certain magical rites and ceremonies; and then, after the\nlapse of a certain time, plants begin to grow upon this soil, from which\nyou finally obtain a crop of maize or wheat or barley. The burial of\nthe seeds or grains is only one part of the {283}magical cycle, no more\nnecessarily important for the realisation of the desired end than many\nothers.\n\nAnd what are the other magical acts necessary in order that\ngrain-bearing plants may grow upon the soil prepared for their\nreception? Mr. Frazer has collected abundant evidence for answering\nthat question, a small part of which I shall recapitulate here for\nthe benefit of those who have not read his remarkable work, referring\nstudents to The Golden Bough itself for fuller details and collateral\ndevelopments. At the same time I should like to make it clearly\nunderstood that Mr. Frazer is personally in no way responsible for the\nuse I here make of his admirable materials.\n\nAll the world over, savages and semi-civilised people are in the habit\nof sacrificing human victims, whose bodies are buried in the field with\nthe seed of corn or other bread-stuffs. Often enough the victim\u2019s\nblood is mixed with the grain in order to fertilise it. The most famous\ninstance is that of the Khonds of Orissa, who chose special victims,\nknown as Meriahs, and offered them up to ensure good harvests. The\nMeriah was often kept for years before being sacrificed. He was regarded\nas a consecrated being, and treated with extreme affection, mingled with\ndeference. A Meriah youth, on reaching manhood, was given a wife who was\nherself a Meriah; their offspring were all brought up as victims. \u201cThe\nperiodical sacrifices,\u201d says Mr. Frazer, \u201cwere generally so arranged\nby tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was\nenabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his\nfields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down.\u201d\nOn the day of the sacrifice, which was horrible beyond description in\nits details, the body was cut to pieces, and the flesh hacked from it\nwas instantly taken home by the persons whom each village had deputed to\nbring it. On arriving at its destination, it was divided by the priest\ninto two portions, one of which he buried in a hole in the ground, with\nhis back turned and without looking {284}at it. Then each man in the\nvillage added a little earth to cover it, and the priest poured water\nover the mimic tumulus. The other portion of the flesh the priest\ndivided into as many shares as there were heads of houses present. Each\nhead of a house buried his shred in his own field, placing it in the\nearth behind his back without looking. The other remains of the human\nvictim--the head, the bones, and the intestines--were burned on a\nfuneral-pile, and the ashes were scattered over the fields, or mixed\nwith the new corn to preserve it from injury. Every one of these details\nshould be carefully noted.\n\nNow, in this case, it is quite clear to me that every field is regarded\nas essentially a grave; portions of the divine victim are buried in it;\nhis ashes are mixed with the seed; and from the ground thus treated he\nsprings again in the form of corn, or rice, or turmeric. These customs,\nas Mr. Frazer rightly notes, \u201cimply that to the body of the Meriah\nthere was ascribed a direct or intrinsic power of making the crops to\ngrow. In other words, the flesh and ashes of the victim were believed to\nbe endowed with a magical or physical power of fertilising the land.\u201d\nMore than that, it seems to me that the seed itself is not regarded as\nsufficient to produce a crop: it is the seed buried in the sacred\ngrave with the divine flesh which germinates at last into next year\u2019s\nfoodstuffs.\n\nA few other points must be noticed about this essential case, which is\none of the most typical instances of manufactured godhead. The Meriah\nwas only satisfactory if he had been purchased--\u201cbought with a\nprice,\u201d like the children who were built as foundation-gods into\nwalls; or else was the child of a previous Meriah--in other words, was\nof divine stock by descent and inheritance. Khonds in distress often\nsold their children as Meriahs, \u201cconsidering the beatification\u201d\n(apotheosis, I would rather say) \u201cof their souls certain, and _their\ndeath, for the benefit of mankind, the most honourable possible_.\u201d\nThis sense of the sacrifice as a case of \u201cone man dying for the\npeople\u201d is most {285}marked in our accounts, and is especially\ninteresting from its analogy to Christian reasoning. A man of the Panua\ntribe was once known to upbraid a Khond because he had sold for a Meriah\nhis daughter whom the Panu\u00e2 wished to marry; the Khonds around at once\ncomforted the insulted father, exclaiming, \u201cYour child died that all\nthe world may live.\u201d Here and elsewhere we have the additional idea\nof a piacular value attached to the sacrifice, about which more must be\nsaid in a subsequent chapter. The death of the Meriah was supposed to\nensure not only good crops, but also \u201cimmunity from all disease and\naccident.\u201d The Khonds shouted in his dying ear, \u201cWe bought you with\na price; no sin rests with us.\u201d It is also worthy of notice that the\nvictim was anointed with oil, a point which recalls the very name of\nChristus. Once more, the victim might not be bound or make any show of\nresistance; but the bones of his arms and his legs were often broken to\nrender struggling impossible. Sometimes, however, he was stupefied with\nopium, one of the ordinary features in the manufacture of gods, as\nwe have already seen, being such preliminary stupefaction. Among the\nvarious ways in which the Meriah was slain I would particularly specify\nthe mode of execution by squeezing him to death in the cleft of a tree.\nI mention these points here, though they somewhat interrupt the general\ncourse of our argument, because of their great importance as antecedents\nof the Christian theory. In fact, _I believe the Christian legend to\nhave been mainly constructed out of the details of such early god-making\nsacrifices; I hold that Christ is essentially one such artificial god;\nand I trust the reader will carefully observe for himself as we proceed\nhow many small details (such as the breaking of the bones) recall in\nmany ways the incidents of the passion and the crucifixion_.\n\nThe Khonds, however, have somewhat etherealised the conception of\nartificial god-making by allowing one victim to do for many fields\ntogether. Other savages are more prodigal {286}of divine crop-raisers.\nTo draw once more from Mr. Frazer\u2019s storehouse--the Indians of\nGuayaquil, in South America, used to sacrifice human blood and the\nhearts of men when they sowed their fields. The ancient Mexicans,\nconceiving the maize as a personal being who went through the whole\ncourse of life between seed-time and harvest, sacrificed new-born babes\nwhen the maize was sown, older children when it had sprouted, and so\non till it was fully ripe, when they sacrificed old men. May we not\nparallel with this instance the singular fact that the Romans had as\ntheir chief agricultural deity Saturnus, the god of sowing, but had also\nseveral other subsidiary crop-deities, such as Seia, who has to do\nwith the corn when it sprouts, Segetia, with the corn when shot up, and\nTutilina with the corn stored in the granary? (An obvious objection\nbased on the numerous gods of childhood and practical arts at Rome will\nbe answered in a later chapter.) The Pawnees, again, annually sacrificed\na human victim in spring, when they sowed their fields. They thought\nthat an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total\nfailure of the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins. In the account of\none such sacrifice of a girl in 1837 or 1838, we are told: \u201cWhile her\nflesh was still warm, it was cut in small pieces from the bones, put in\nlittle baskets, and taken to a neighbouring corn-field. Here the head\nchief took a piece of the flesh from a basket, and squeezed a drop of\nblood upon the newly-deposited grains of corn. His example was followed\nby the rest, till all the seed had been sprinkled with the blood; it\nwas then covered up with earth.\u201d Many other cases might be quoted from\nAmerica.\n\nIn West Africa, once more, a tribal queen used to sacrifice a man and\nwoman in the month of March. They were killed with spades and hoes, and\ntheir bodies buried in the middle of a field which had just been tilled.\nAt Lagos, in Guinea, it was the custom annually to impale a young girl\nalive soon after the spring equinox in order to {287}secure good crops.\nA similar sacrifice is still annually offered at Benin. The Marimos, a\nBechuana tribe, sacrifice a human being for the crops. The victim chosen\nis generally a short stout man. He is seized by violence or intoxicated\n(note that detail) and taken to the fields, where he is killed amongst\nthe wheat \u201cto serve as seed.\u201d After his blood has coagulated in the\nsun, it is burned, along with that peculiarly sacred part, the frontal\nbone, the flesh attached to it, and the brain; the ashes are then\nscattered over the ground to fertilise it. Such scattering of the ashes\noccurs in many instances, and will meet us again in the case of Osiris.\n\nIn India, once more, the Gonds, like the Khonds, kidnapped Brahman\nboys, and kept them as victims to be sacrificed on various occasions.\nAt sowing and reaping, after a triumphal procession, one of the lads\nwas killed by being punctured with a poisoned arrow. His blood was then\nsprinkled over the ploughed field or the ripe crop, and his flesh was\nsacramentally devoured. The last point again will call at a later stage\nfor further examination.\n\nI will detail no more such instances (out of the thousands that exist)\nfor fear of seeming tedious. But the interpretation I put upon the facts\nis this. Originally, men noticed that food-plants grew abundantly from\nthe laboured and well-manured soil of graves. They observed that this\nrichness sprang from a coincidence of three factors--digging, a sacred\ndead body, and seeds of foodstuffs. In time, they noted that if you dug\nwide enough and scattered seed far enough, a single corpse was capable\nof fertilising a considerable area. The grave grew into the field or\ngarden. But they still thought it necessary to bury some one in the\nfield; and most of the evidence shows that they regarded this victim as\na divine personage; that they considered him the main source of growth\nor fertility; and that they endeavoured to deserve his favour by\ntreating him well during the greater part of his lifetime. For in many\nof the accounts it is expressly stated {288}that the intended victim was\ntreated as a god or as a divine king, and was supplied with every sort\nof luxury up to the moment of his immolation. In process of time, the\nconception of the field as differing from the grave grew more defined,\nand the large part borne by seed in the procedure was more fully\nrecognised. Even so, however, nobody dreamed of sowing the seed alone\nwithout the body of a victim. Both grain and flesh or blood came to be\nregarded alike as \u201cseed\u201d: that is to say, the concurrence of the two\nwas considered necessary to produce the desired effect of germination\nand fertility. Till a very late period, either the actual sacrifice or\nsome vague remnant of it remained as an essential part of cultivation.\nMr. Frazer\u2019s pages teem with such survivals in modern folk-custom.\nFrom his work and from other sources, I will give a few instances of\nthese last dying relics of the primitive superstition.\n\nMr. Gomme, in his _Ethnology in Folklore_, supplies an account of a\nsingular village festival in Southern India. In this feast, a priest,\nknown as the Potraj, and specially armed with a divine whip, like the\nscourge of Osiris, sacrifices a sacred buffalo, which is turned loose\nwhen a calf, and allowed to feed and roam about the village. In that\ncase, we have the common substitution of an animal for a human victim,\nwhich almost always accompanies advancing civilisation. At the high\nfestival, the head of the buffalo was struck off at a single blow, and\nplaced in front of the shrine of the village goddess. Around were placed\nvessels containing the different cereals, and hard by a heap of mixed\ngrains with a drill-plough in the centre. The carcase was then cut up\ninto small pieces, and each cultivator received a portion to bury in his\nfield. The heap of grain was finally divided among all the cultivators,\nto be buried by each one in his field with the bit of flesh. At last,\nthe head, that very sacred part, was buried before a little temple,\nsacred to the goddess of boundaries. The goddess is represented by a\nshapeless stone--no doubt a Terminus, {289}or rather the tombstone of an\nartificial goddess, a girl buried under an ancient boundary-mark. Here\nwe have evidently a last stage of the same ritual which in the case of\nthe Khonds was performed with a human victim. It is worth while noting\nthat, as part of this ceremony, a struggle took place for portions of\nthe victim.\n\nA still more attenuated form of the same ceremony is mentioned by\nCaptain Harkness and others, as occurring among the Badagas of the\nNilgiri Hills. I condense their accounts, taking out of each such\nelements as are most cognate to our purpose. Among these barbarians,\nthe first furrow is ploughed by a low-caste Kurrumbar, who gives his\nbenediction to the field, without which there would be no harvest. Here,\nthe member of the aboriginal race is clearly looked upon as a priest or\nkinsman of the local gods, whose cooperation must be obtained by later\nintrusive races. But the Kurrumbar does not merely bless the field; he\nalso sets up a stone in its midst; and then, prostrating himself before\nthe stone, he sacrifices a goat, the head of which he keeps as his\nperquisite. This peculiar value of the oracular head retained by the\npriest is also significant. When harvest-time comes, the same Kurrumbar\nis summoned once more, in order that he may reap the first handful of\ncorn, an episode the full importance of which will only be apparent to\nthose who have read Mr. Frazer\u2019s analysis of harvest customs. But\nin this case also, the appearance of the sacred stone is pregnant with\nmeaning. We can hardly resist the inference that we have here to do with\nthe animal substitute for a human sacrifice of the god-making order, in\nwhich the victim was slaughtered, a stone set up to mark the site of\nthe sacrifice, and the head preserved as a god to give oracles, in the\nfashion with which we are already familiar. Comparing this instance with\nthe previous one of the sacred buffalo and the still earlier cases of\nancestral heads preserved as gods for oracular purposes, I think the\naffiliation is too clear to be disregarded.\n\nEvidence {290}of similar customs elsewhere exists in such abundance that\nI can only give a very small part of it at present, lest I should assign\ntoo much space to a subordinate question; I hope to detail the whole of\nit hereafter in a subsequent volume. Here is a striking example from Mr.\nGomme\u2019s _Ethnology in Folklore_, the analogy of which with preceding\ninstances will at once be apparent.\n\n\u201cAt the village of Holne, situated on one of the spurs of Dartmoor, is\na field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called the\nPloy Field. In the centre of this field stands a granite pillar (Menhir)\nsix or seven feet high. On May-morning, before daybreak, the young men\nof the village used to assemble there, and then proceed to the moor,\nwhere they selected a ram lamb, and, after running it down, brought it\nin triumph to the Ploy Field, fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat,\nand then roasted it whole, skin, wool, etc. At midday a struggle took\nplace, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to\nconfer luck for the ensuing year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of\ngallantry the young men sometimes fought their way through the crowd\nto get a slice for the chosen amongst the young women, all of whom, in\ntheir best dresses, attended the Ram Feast, as it was called. Dancing,\nwrestling, and other games, assisted by copious libations of cider\nduring the afternoon, prolonged the festivity till midnight.\u201d\n\nHere again we get several interesting features of the primitive ritual\npreserved for us. The connexion with the stone which enshrines\nthe original village deity is perfectly clear. This stone no doubt\nrepresents the place where the local foundation-god was slain in very\nremote ages; and it is therefore the proper place for the annual renewal\nsacrifices to be offered. The selection of Maymorning for the rite;\nthe slaughter at the stone pillar; the roasting of the beast whole; the\nstruggle for the pieces; and the idea that they would confer luck,\nall show survival of primitive feeling. So does the cider, sacramental\n{291}intoxication being an integral part of all these proceedings.\nEvery detail, indeed, has its meaning for those who look close; for the\nstruggle at midday is itself significant, as is also the prolongation\nof the feast till midnight. But we miss the burial of the pieces in the\nfields; in so far, the primitive object of the rite seems to have been\nforgotten or overlooked in Devonshire.\n\nA still more attenuated survival is quoted by Mr. Gomme from another\nEnglish village. \u201cA Whitsuntide custom in the parish of King\u2019s\nTeignton, Devonshire, is thus described: A lamb is drawn about the\nparish on Whitsun Monday in a cart covered with garlands of lilac,\nlaburnum, and other flowers, when persons are requested to give\nsomething towards the animal and attendant expenses; on Tuesday it is\nkilled and roasted whole in the middle of the village. The lamb is then\nsold in slices to the poor at a cheap rate. The origin of the custom is\nforgotten, but a tradition, supposed to trace back to heathen days, is\nto this effect: The village suffered from a dearth of water, when the\ninhabitants were advised by their priests to pray to the gods for water;\nwhereupon the water sprang up spontaneously in a meadow about a third of\na mile above the river, in an estate now called Rydon, amply sufficient\nto supply the wants of the place, and at present adequate, even in a\ndry summer, to work three mills. A lamb, it is said, has ever since that\ntime been sacrificed as a votive thank-offering at Whitsuntide in the\nmanner before mentioned. The said water appears like a large pond, from\nwhich in rainy weather may be seen jets springing up some inches\nabove the surface in many parts. It has ever had the name of \u2018Fair\nWater.\u2019\u201d\n\nI mention this curious instance here, because it well illustrates the\nelusive way in which such divine customs of various origins merge into\none another; and also the manner in which different ideas are attached\nin different places to very similar ceremonies. For Mr. Frazer has shown\nthat the notion of a rain-charm is also closely bound up with {292}the\ngods of agriculture; the Khond Meriah must weep, or there will be\nno rain that year; his red blood must flow, or the turmeric will not\nproduce its proper red colour. (Compare the red blood that flowed from\nPoly-dorus\u2019s cornel, and the Indian\u2019s blood that drops from the\nCanadian bloodroot.) In this last instance of the King\u2019s Teignton\nceremony, it is the rain-charm that has most clearly survived to our\ndays: and there are obvious references to a human sacrifice offered up\nto make a river-god in times long gone, and now replaced by an animal\nvictim. The garlands of lilac, laburnum, and other flowers are, however,\ncommon adornments of the artificial god of cultivation; they occurred in\nthe Dionvsiac rites and the Attis festival, and are still preserved in\nmany European customs.\n\nVery closely bound up with the artificial gods of cultivation are the\nterminal gods with whom I dealt in the last chapter; so closely that\nit is sometimes impossible to separate them. We have already seen some\ninstances of this connexion; the procession of the sacred victim usually\nends with a perlustration of the boundaries. This perlustration is\noften preceded by the head of the thean-thropic victim. Such a ceremony\nextends all over India; in France and other European countries it\nsurvives in the shape of the rite known as Blessing the Fields, where\nthe priest plays the same part as is played among the Nilgiri hillsmen\nby the low-caste Kurrumbar. In this rite, the Host is carried round the\nbounds of the parish, as the head of the sacred buffalo is carried round\nat the Indian festival. In some cases every field is separately visited.\nI was told as a boy in Normandy that a portion of the Host (stolen or\nconcealed, I imagine) was sometimes buried in each field, but of this\ncurious detail I can now obtain no confirmatory evidence, and I do not\ninsist upon it. _We must remember, however, that the Host is the body of\nChrist, and that its presence in such cases is the exact analogue of the\ncarrying round the pieces of the Meriah_.\n\nIn {293}England, the ceremony merges into that of Beating the Bounds,\nalready described; though I believe the significance of the boy-victims,\nand the necessity for whipping them as a rain-charm, will now be more\napparent than when we last met with it.\n\nIn many cases, all the world over, various animals come to replace the\nhuman victim-god. Thus we learn from Festus that the Romans sacrificed\nred-haired puppies in spring, in the belief that the crops would thus\ngrow ripe and ruddy; and there can be little doubt that these puppies,\nlike the lamb sacrifice at Holne and King\u2019s Teignton, were a\nsubstitute for an original human victim. Even so, the Egyptians, as we\nshall see, sacrificed red-haired men as the representatives of Osiris,\nenvisaged as a corn-god. In some cases, indeed, we have historical\nevidence of the human god being replaced at recent dates by a divine\nanimal-victim; for example, in Chinna Kimedy, after the British had\nsuppressed human sacrifices, a goat took the place of the sacred Meriah.\n\nMannhardt has collected much evidence of the curious customs still (or\nlately) existing in modern Europe, which look like survivals in a very\nmitigated form of the same superstition. These are generally known by\nthe name of \u201cCarrying out Death,\u201d or \u201cBurying the Carnival.\u201d\nThey are practised in almost every country of Europe, and relics of them\nsurvive even in England. The essence of these ceremonies consists in an\neffigy being substituted for the human victim. This effigy is treated\nmuch as the victim used to be. Sometimes it is burned, sometimes thrown\ninto a river, and sometimes buried piecemeal. In Austrian Silesia,\nfor example, the effigy is burned, and while it is burning a general\nstruggle takes place for the pieces, which are pulled out of the flames\nwith bare hands. (Compare the struggle among the Khonds, and also at\nthe Potraj festival and the Holne sacrifice.) Each person who secures\na fragment of the figure ties it to a branch of the largest tree in his\ngarden, or buries it in his field, in the {294}belief that this causes\nthe crops to grow better. Sometimes a sheaf of corn does duty for the\nvictim, and portions of it are buried in each field as fertilisers. In\nthe Hartz Mountains, at similar ceremonies, a living man is laid on a\nbaking-trough and carried with dirges to a grave; but a glass of brandy\nis substituted for him at the last moment. Here the spirit is the\nequivalent of a god. In other cases the man is actually covered with\nstraw, and so lightly buried. In Italy and Spain, a similar custom bore\nthe name of \u201cSawing the Old Woman.\u201d In Palermo, a real old woman was\ndrawn through the streets on a cart, and made to mount a scaffold, where\ntwo mock executioners proceeded to saw through a bladder of blood which\nhad been fitted to her neck. The blood gushed out, and the old woman\npretended to swoon and die. This is obviously a mitigation of a human\nsacrifice. At Florence, an effigy stuffed with walnuts and dried figs\nrepresented the Old Woman. At mid-Lent, this figure was sawn through the\nmiddle in the Mercato Nuovo, and when the dried fruits tumbled out they\nwere scrambled for by the crowd, as savages scrambled for fragments of\nthe human victim or his animal representative. Upon all this subject a\nmass of material has been collected by Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer. Perhaps\nthe most interesting case of all is the Russian ceremony of the Funeral\nof Yarilo. In this instance, the people chose an old man and gave him\na small coffin containing a figure representing Yarilo. This he carried\nout of the town, followed by women chanting dirges, as the Syrian women\nmourned for Adonis, and the Egyptians for Osiris. In the open fields\na grave was dug, and into it the figure was lowered amid weeping and\nwailing.\n\nMyth and folk-lore also retain many traces of the primitive connexion.\nThus, in the genuine American legend of Hiawatha, the hero wrestles with\nand vanquishes Mon-damin, and where he buries him springs up for the\nfirst time the maize, or Indian-corn plant. Similar episodes occur\n{295}in the Finnish Kalevala and other barbaric epics. According to Mr.\nChalmers, the Motu tribe in New Guinea say that yams sprang first from\nthe bones of a murdered man, which were buried in a grave. After some\ntime, the grave was opened, and the bones were found to be no longer\nbones, but large and small yams of different colours.\n\nIn order to complete our preliminary survey of these artificial gods\nof cultivation, before we proceed to the consideration of the great\ncorn-gods and wine-gods, it may be well to premise that in theory at\nleast the original victim seems to have been a king or chief, himself\ndivine, or else at least a king\u2019s son or daughter, one of the divine\nstock, in whose veins flowed the blood of the earlier deities. Later on,\nit would seem, the temporary king was often allowed to do duty for the\nreal king; and for this purpose he seems frequently to have been clad in\nroyal robes, and treated with divine and royal honours. Examples of this\ncomplication will crop up in the sequel. For the present I will only\nrefer to the interesting set of survivals, collected by Mr. Gomme, where\ntemporary kings or mayors in England are annually elected, apparently\nfor the sake of being sacrificed only. In many of these cases we get\nmere fragmentary portions of the original rite; but by piecing them all\ntogether, we obtain on the whole a tolerably complete picture of the\noriginal ceremonial observance. At St. Germans in Cornwall, the mock\nmayor was chosen under the large walnut-tree at the May-fair; he was\nmade drunk overnight, in order to fit him for office, and was in that\nstate drawn round the nut-tree, much as we saw the mayor of Bovey rode\nround the Bovey stone on his accession to the mayoralty. The mayor of\nSt. Germans also displayed his royal character by being mounted on the\nwain or cart of old Teutonic and Celtic sovereignty. At Lostwithiel, the\nmock mayor was dressed with a crown on his head, and a sceptre in\nhis hand, and had a sword borne before him. At Penrhyn, the mayor was\npreceded by torch-bearers and town sergeants, and though he was not\n{296}actually burnt, either in play or in effigy, bonfires were\nlighted, and fireworks discharged, which connect the ceremony with such\npyre-sacrifices of cremationists as the festival of the Tyrian Melcarth\nand the Baal of Tarsus. On Halgaver Moor, near Bodmin, a stranger was\narrested, solemnly tried in sport, and then trained in the mire or\notherwise ill-treated. At Polperro, the mayor was gen-rally \u201csome\nhalf-witted or drunken fellow,” in either case, according to early\nideas, divine; he was treated with ale, and, \u201chaving completed the\nperambulation of the town,\u201d was wheeled by his attendants into the\nsea. There, he was allowed to scramble out again, as the mock victim\ndoes in many European ceremonies; but originally, I do not doubt, he was\ndrowned as a rain-charm.\n\nThese ceremonies, at the time when our authorities learnt of them, had\nall degenerated to the level of mere childish pastimes; but they contain\nin them, none the less, persistent elements of most tragic significance,\nand they point back to hideous and sanguinary god-making festivals.\nIn most of them we see still preserved the choice of the willing or\nunconscious victim; the preference for a stranger, a fool, or an idiot;\nthe habit of intoxicating the chosen person; the treatment of the victim\nas king, mayor, or governor; his scourging or mocking; his final death;\nand his burning on a pyre, or his drowning as a rain-charm. All these\npoints are still more clearly noticeable in the other form of survival\nwhere the king or divine victim is represented, not by a mock or\ntemporary king, but by an image or effigy. Such is the common case of\nKing Carnival, who is at last burnt in all his regalia, or thrown into\na river. Our own Guy Fawkes, though fastened upon the personality of a\nparticular unpopular historical character, seems to be the last feeble\nEnglish representative of such a human victim. I will not elaborate this\npoint any further (considerations of space forbid), but will refer\nthe reader for additional examples to Mr. Gomme\u2019s {297}_Village\nCommunity_, and Mr. Frazer\u2019s wonderful collection of examples in _The\nGolden Bough_.\n\nThe general conclusion I would incline to draw from all these instances\nis briefly this. Cultivation probably began with the accidental sowing\nof grains upon the tumuli of the dead. Gradually it was found that by\nextending the dug or tilled area and sowing it all over, a crop would\ngrow upon it, provided always a corpse was buried in the centre. In\nprocess of time divine corpses were annually provided for the purpose,\nand buried with great ceremony in each field. By-and-bye it was found\nsufficient to offer up a single victim for a whole tribe or village, and\nto divide his body piecemeal among the fields of the community. But the\ncrops that grew in such fields were still regarded as the direct gifts\nof the dead and deified victims, whose soul was supposed to animate and\nfertilize them. As cultivation spread, men became familiarised at\nlast with the conception of the seed and the ploughing as the really\nessential elements in the process; but they still continued to attach\nto the victim a religious importance, and to believe in the necessity of\nhis presence for good luck in the harvest. With the gradual mitigation\nof savagery an animal sacrifice was often substituted for a human one;\nbut the fragments of the animal were still distributed through the\nfields with a mimic or symbolical burial, just as the fragments of the\nman-god had formerly been distributed. Finally, under the influence of\nChristianity and other civilised religions, an effigy was substituted\nfor a human victim, though an animal sacrifice was often retained\nside by side with it, and a real human being was playfully killed in\npantomime.\n\nIn early stages, however, I note that the field or garden sometimes\nretains the form of a tumulus. Thus Mr. Turner, the Samoan missionary,\nwrites of the people of Tana, in the New Hebrides:\n\n\u201cThey bestow a great deal of labour on their yam plantations, and keep\nthem in fine order. You look over a reed {298}fence, and there you see\nten or twenty mounds of earth, some of them seven feet high and sixty\nin circumference. These are heaps of loose earth without a single stone,\nall thrown up by the hand. In the centre they plant one of the largest\nyams whole, and round the sides some smaller ones.\u201d\n\nThis looks very much like a tumulus in its _temenos_. I should greatly\nlike to know whether a victim is buried in it.\n\nI may add that the idea of the crop being a gift from the deified\nancestor or the divine-human victim is kept up in the common habit of\noffering the first-fruits to the dead, or to the gods, or to the living\nchief, their representative and descendant. Of the equivalence of these\nthree ceremonies, I have given some evidence in my essay on Tree-Worship\nappended to my translation of the _Attis_ of Catullus. For example, Mr.\nTurner says of these same Tanese in the New Hebrides:\n\n\u201cThe spirits of their departed ancestors were among their gods. Chiefs\nwho reached an advanced age were, after death, deified, addressed by\nname, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed especially\nto preside over the growth of the yams and the different fruit-trees.\nThe first-fruits were presented to them, and in doing this they laid\na little of the fruit on some stone or shelving branch of the tree, or\nsome more temporary altar.., in the form of a table.... All being quiet,\nthe chief acted as high priest and prayed aloud thus: \u2018Compassionate\nfather, here is some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of\nit.’ And instead of an Amen, all united in a loud shout.\u201d\n\nSimilar evidence is abundant elsewhere. I summarise a little of it.\nEvery year the Kochs of Assam, when they gather their first-fruits,\noffer some to their ancestors, calling them even by name, and clapping\ntheir hands to summon them. The people of Kobi and Sariputi, two\nvillages in Ceram, \u201coffer the first-fruits of the paddy in the form\nof cooked rice to their ancestors as a token of gratitude.\u201d {299}The\nceremony is called \u201cFeeding the Dead.\u201d In the Tenimber and Timorlaut\nIslands, the first-fruits of the paddy are offered to the spirits of the\nancestors, who are worshipped as guardian gods or household lares. The\npeople of Luzon worship chiefly the souls of their ancestors, and offer\nto them the first-fruits of the harvest. In Fiji the earliest of\nthe yams are presented to the ancestral ghosts in the sacred stone\nenclosure; and no man may taste of the new crop till after this\npresentation.\n\nIn other cases it is gods rather than ghosts to whom the offering is\nmade, though among savages the distinction is for the most part an\nelusive one. But in not a few instances the first-fruits are offered,\nnot to spirits or gods at all, but to the divine king himself, who\nis the living representative and earthly counterpart of his deified\nancestors. Thus in Ashantee a harvest festival is held in September,\nwhen the yams are ripe. During the festival the king eats the new yams,\nbut none of the people may eat them till the close of the festival,\nwhich lasts a fortnight. The Hovas, of Madagascar, present the first\nsheaves of the new grain to the sovereign. The sheaves are carried in\nprocession to the palace from time to time as the grain ripens. So, in\nBurmah, when the pangati fruits ripen, some of them used to be taken to\nthe king\u2019s palace that he might eat of them; no one might partake\nof them before the king. In short, what is offered in one place to the\nliving chief is offered in another place to his dead predecessor, and is\noffered in a third place to the great deity who has grown slowly out of\nthem. The god is the dead king; the king, as in ancient Egypt, is the\nliving god, and the descendant of gods, his deified ancestors. Indeed,\nthe first-fruits seem sometimes to be offered to the human victim\nhimself, in his deified capacity, and sometimes to the Adonis, or\nOsiris, who is his crystallised embodiment. Our own harvest festival\nseems to preserve the offering in a Christianised form.\n\nFinally, I will add that in many cases it looks as though the\n{300}divine agriculture-victim were regarded as the king in person, the\nembodiment of the village or tribal god, and were offered up, himself\nto himself, at the stone which forms the monument and altar of the\nprimitive deity. Of this idea we shall see examples when we go on to\nexamine the great corn-gods and wine-gods of the Mediterranean region.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.--CORN- AND WINE-GODS.\n\n|IN {301}advanced communities, the agricultural gods with whom we dealt\nin the last chapter come to acquire specific class-names, such as\nAttis and Adonis; are specialised as corn-gods, wine-gods, gods of the\ndate-palm, or gods of the harvest; and rise to great distinction in the\nvarious religions.\n\nI propose to examine at some length the more important of these in the\nMediterranean civilisations, where Christianity was first evolved. And I\nbegin with Dionysus.\n\nOne of the notable features of the Potraj festival of southern India,\nwhich Sir Walter Elliot has minutely described for us, and of which\nI gave a brief abstract in the previous chapter, is its orgiastic\ncharacter. As type of the orgiastic god-making ceremonies, with their\nfive-day festival, it well deserves some fuller description. The feast\ntakes place near the temple of the village goddess, who is worshipped\nin the form of an unshapely stone, stained red with vermillion, the\nprobable representative of the first human foundation-victim. An altar\nwas erected behind this temple to the god who bears the name of Potraj.\nHe is a deity of cultivation. The festival itself was under the charge\nof the Pariahs, or aboriginal outcasts; it was attended by all the\nlowest classes, including the dancing girls of the temple and the\nshepherds or other \u201cnon-Aryan\u201d castes. During the festival, these\npeople took temporarily the first place in the village; they appeared\nto {302}form the court of the temporary king, and to represent the early\nlocal worship, whose gods the conquering races are afraid of offending.\nFor since the dead of the conquered race are in possession of the soil,\nimmigrant conquerors everywhere have a superstitious dread of incurring\ntheir displeasure. On the first day of the orgy, the low-caste people\nchose one of themselves as priest or Potraj.\n\nOn the second day of the feast, the sacred buffalo, already described\nas having the character of a theanthropic victim, was thrown down before\nthe goddess; its head was struck off at a single blow, and was placed in\nfront of the shrine, with one leg in its mouth. The carcase, as we saw\nalready, was then cut up, and delivered to the cultivators to bury in\ntheir fields. The blood and offal were afterwards collected into a large\nbasket; and the officiating priest, a low-caste man, who bore (like the\ngod) the name of Potraj, taking a live kid, hewed it in pieces over\nthe mess. The basket was then placed on the head of a naked man, of the\nleather-dresser class, who ran with it round the circuit of the village\nboundaries, scattering the fragments right and left as he went. The\nPotraj was armed with a sacred whip, like Osiris; and this whip was\nitself the object of profound veneration.\n\nOn the third and fourth days, many buffaloes and sheep were slaughtered;\nand on the fourth day, women walked naked to the temple, clad in boughs\nof trees alone; a common religious exercise of which I have only space\nhere to suggest that St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the Godiva procession\nat Coventry are surviving relics. (These relations have well been\nelucidated by Mr. Sidney Hartland.)\n\nOn the fifth and last day, the whole community marched with music to the\nvillage temple, and offered a concluding sacrifice at the Potraj altar.\nA lamb was concealed close by. The Potraj, having found it after a\npretended search, rendered it insensible by a blow of his whip, or by\nmesmeric passes--a survival of the idea of the voluntary victim. Then\nthe assistants tied the Potraj\u2019s hands behind his {303}back, and the\nwhole party began to dance round him with orgiastic joy. Potraj joined\nin the excitement, and soon came under the present influence of the\ndeity. He was led up, bound, to the place where the lamb lay motionless.\nCarried away with divine frenzy, he rushed at it, seized it with his\nteeth, tore through the skin, and eat into its throat. When it was quite\ndead, he was lifted up; a dishful of the meat-offering was presented to\nhim; he thrust his blood-stained face into it, and it was then buried\nwith the remains of the lamb beside the altar. After that, his arms were\nuntied, and he fled the place. I may add that as a rule the slaughterer\nof the god everywhere has to fly from the vengeance of his worshippers,\nwho, after participating in the attack, pretend indignation as soon as\nthe sacrifice is completed.\n\nThe rest of the party now adjourned to the front of the temple, where\na heap of grain deposited on the first day was divided among all the\ncultivators, to be sown by each one in the field with his piece of\nflesh. After this, a distribution was made of the piled-up heads of the\nbuffaloes and sheep slaughtered on the third and fourth days. These\nwere evidently considered as sacred as divine heads generally in all\ncountries and ages. About forty of the sheeps\u2019 heads were divided\namong certain privileged persons; for the remainder, a general scramble\ntook place, men of all castes soon rolling together on the ground in\na mess of putrid gore. For the buffaloes\u2019 heads, only the Pariahs\ncontended. Whoever was fortunate enough to secure one of either kind\ncarried it off and buried it in his field. Of the special importance of\nthe head in all such sacrifices, Mr. Gomme has collected many apposite\nexamples.\n\nThe proceedings were terminated by a procession round the boundaries;\nthe burial of the head of the sacred buffalo close to the shrine of\nthe village goddess; and the outbreak of a perfect orgy, a \u201crule of\nmisrule,\u201d during which the chief musician indulged in unbridled abuse\nof all the authorities, native or British.\n\nI {304}have given at such length an account of this singular festival,\npartly because it sheds light upon much that has gone before, but partly\nalso because it helps to explain many elements in the worship of the\ngreat corn- and wine-gods. One point of cardinal importance to be\nnoticed here is that the officiating priest, who was at one time also\nboth god and victim, is called Potraj like the deity whom he represents.\nSo, too, in Phrygia the combined Attis-victim and Attis-priest bore the\nname of Attis; and so in Egypt the annual Osiris-offering bore the name\nof Osiris, whom he represented.\n\nIf I am right, therefore, in the analogy of the two feasts Dionysus\nwas in his origin a corn-god, and later a vine-god, annually slain\nand buried in order that his blood might fertilise the field or\nthe vineyard. In the Homeric period, he was still a general god of\ncultivation: only later did he become distinctively the grape-god\nand wine-deity. There was originally, I believe, a Dionysus in every\nvillage; and this divine victim was annually offered, himself to\nhimself, with orgiastic rites like those of Potraj. Mr. Laurence Gomme\nhas already in part pointed out this equation of the Hellenic and\nthe Indian custom. The earliest form of Dionysus-worship, on this\nhypothesis, would be the one which survived in Chios and Tenedos, where\na living human being was orgiastically torn to pieces at the feast of\nDionysus. At Orchomenus, the human victim was by custom a woman of the\nfamily of the Olei\u00e6 (so that there were women Dionysi): at the annual\nfestival, the priest of Dionysus pursued these women with a drawn\nsword, and if he caught one, he had the right to slay her. (This is the\nsacred-chance victim.) In other places, the ceremony had been altered in\nhistorical times; thus at Potnice, in Boeotia, it was once the custom\nto slay a child as Dionysus; but later on, a goat, which was identified\nwith the god, was substituted for the original human victim. The\nequivalence of the animal victim with the human god is shown by the fact\nthat at Tenedos the newborn {305}calf sacrificed to Dionysus--or _as_\nDionysus--was shod in buskins, while the mother cow was tended like a\nwoman in childbed.\n\nElsewhere we find other orgiastic rites still more closely resembling\nthe Indian pattern. Among the Cretans, a Dionysus was sacrificed\nbiennially under the form of a bull; and the worshippers tore the living\nanimal to pieces wildly with their teeth. Indeed, says Mr. Frazer, the\nrending and devouring of live bulls and calves seems to have been a\nregular feature of the Dionysiac rites. In some cities, again, the\nanimal that took the place of the human victim was a kid. When the\nfollowers of Dionysus tore in pieces a live goat and drank its blood,\nthey believed they were devouring the actual body and blood of the god.\n_This eating and drinking the god is an important point_, which will\ndetain us again at a later stage of our enquiry.\n\nI do not desire to dwell too long upon any one deity, or rather class of\ndeities; therefore I will say briefly here that when Dionysus became\nthe annual or biennial vine-god victim, it was inevitable that his\nworshippers should have seen his resurrection and embodiment in the\nvine, and should have regarded the wine it yielded as the blood of the\ngod. In this case, the identification was particularly natural, for\ncould not every worshipper feel the god in the wine? and did not the\ndivine spirit within it inspire and intoxicate him? To be \u201cfull of the\ngod\u201d was the natural expression for the resulting exhilaration; the\ncult of the wine-spirit is thus one of those which stands on the surest\nand most intimate personal basis.\n\nThe death and resurrection of Dionysus are accordingly a physical\nreality. The god is annually killed in the flesh, as man, bull, or goat;\nand he rises again in the vine, to give his blood once more for the good\nof his votaries. Moreover, he may be used as a fertiliser for many\nother trees; and so we find Dionysus has many functions. He is variously\nadored as Dionysus of the tree, and more particularly {306}of the\nfruit-bearing fig and apple. His image, like those of other tree-gods\nalready encountered, was often an upright post, without arms, but draped\n(like the _ashera_) in a mantle, and with a bearded mask to represent\nthe head, while green boughs projecting from it marked his vegetable\ncharacter. He was the patron of cultivated trees; prayers were offered\nto him to make trees grow; he was honoured by fruit-growers, who set up\nan image of him, in the shape of a natural tree-stump, in the midst of\ntheir orchards. (Compare that last degraded and utilitarian relic, the\nmodern scarecrow.) For other equally interesting facts, I would refer\nthe reader once more to Mr. Frazer, whose rich store I must not further\nrifle. It seems to me obvious from his collection of facts that there\nwas originally everywhere a separate local Dionysus, an annual man-god\nor woman-god victim (for which a beast was later substituted), and that\nonly slowly did the worship of the individual Dionysi pass into the\ngeneral worship of one great idealised god Dionysus. The great gods are\nat first classes, not individuals.\n\nMr. Gomme has further pointed out three interesting points of\nresemblance between the Dionysiac rites and the Indian Potraj festival.\nIn the first place, Dionysus is sometimes represented to his worshippers\nby his head only--no doubt a preserved oracular head; and in any case\na parallel to the importance of the head in the Indian ceremony. In the\nsecond place, the sacrificer of the calf at Tenedos was driven out and\nstoned after the fulfilment of the rite--a counterpart of the Potraj\nfleeing from the place after the slaughter of the lamb. And in the\nthird place, the women worshippers of Dionysus attended the rites nude,\ncrowned with garlands, and daubed over with dirt--a counterpart of the\nnaked female votaries surrounded with branches of trees in the Indian\nfestival. All three of these points recur abundantly in similar\nceremonies elsewhere.\n\nAs a rule, I severely disregard mere myths, as darkeners of\n{307}counsel, confining my attention to the purely religious and\npractical elements of custom and worship. But it is worth while noting\nhere for its illustrative value the Cretan Dionysus-myth, preserved\nfor us in a Romanised form by Firmicus Maternus. Dionysus is there\nrepresented as the son of Zeus, a Cretan king; and this legend,\ndismissed cavalierly by Mr. Frazer as \u201cEuhemeristic,\u201d at least\nencloses the old idea that the Dionysus-victim was at first himself a\ndivine god-king, connected by blood with the supreme god or founder of\nthe community. Hera, the wife of Zeus, was jealous of the child, and\nlured him into an ambush, where he was set upon by her satellites the\nTitans, who cut him limb from limb, boiled his body with various herbs,\nand ate it. Other forms of the myth tell us how his mother Demeter\npieced together his mangled remains, and made him young again. More\noften, however, Dionysus is the son of Semele, and various other\nversions are given of the mode of his resurrection. It is enough for our\npurpose that in all of them _the wine-god, after having been slain and\ntorn limb from limb, rises again from the dead, and often ascends to\nhis father Zeus in heaven_. The resurrection, visibly enacted, formed\nin many places a part of the rite; though I cannot agree with Mr.\nFrazer\u2019s apparent and (for him) unusual suggestion that the rite grew\nout of the myth; I hold the exact opposite to have been the order of\nevolution.\n\nOn the whole, then, though I do not deny that the later Greeks envisaged\nDionysus as a single supreme god of vegetation, nor that many abstract\nideas were finally fathered upon the worship--especially those which\nidentified the death and resurrection of the god with the annual winter\nsleep and spring revival--I maintain that in his origin the Dionysus was\nnothing more than the annual corn-victim, afterwards extended into the\ntree and vine victim, from whose grave sprang the pomegranate, that\nblood-red fruit, and whose life-juice was expressed as the god-giving\nwine. At first a yearly human victim, he was afterwards personated\n{308}by a goat or a bull; and was therefore represented in art as a\nbull, or a bull-horned man. Gradually identified with vegetation in\ngeneral, he was regarded at last as the Flowery Dionysus, the Fig\nDionysus, or even, like Attis, the god of the pine-tree. But all these,\nI believe, were later syncretic additions; and I consider that in such\nprimitive forms as the orgiastic crop-god of the Indian corn-festival we\nget the prime original of the Hellenic vine-deity.\n\nI pass on to Osiris, in his secondary or acquired character as corn-god.\n\nI have already expressed the belief, in which I am backed up by Mr.\nLoftie, that the original Osiris was a real historical early king of\nThis by Abydos. But in the later Egyptian religion, after mystic ideas\nhad begun to be evolved, he came to be regarded as the god of the dead,\nand every mummy or every justified soul was looked upon as an Osiris.\nMoreover, it seems probable that in Egypt the name of Osiris was also\nfitted to the annual slain corn-victim or corn-god. Thus all over Egypt\nthere were many duplicates of Osiris; notably at Busiris, where the\nname was attached to an early tomb like the one at Abydos. This\nidentification of the new-made god with the historic ancestor, the\ndead king, or the tribal deity is quite habitual; it is parallel to the\nidentification of the officiating Potraj with the Potraj god, of the\nAttis-priest with Attis, of the Dionysus-victim with the son of Zeus:\nand it will meet us hereafter in savage parallels. Let us look at the\nevidence.\n\nAs in India, the Osiris festival lasted for five days. (The period is\nworth noting.) The ceremonies began with ploughing the earth. We do\nnot know for certain that a human victim was immolated; but many\nside-analogies would lead us to that conclusion, and suggest that as\nelsewhere the sacred victim was torn to pieces in the eagerness of the\ncultivators and worshippers to obtain a fragment of his fertilising\nbody. For in the myth, Typhon cuts up the corpse of the god into\nfourteen pieces, which he {309}scatters abroad (as the naked\nleather-dresser scatters the sacred buffalo): and we know that in the\nEgyptian ceremonies one chief element was the search for the mangled\nportions of Osiris, the rejoicings at their discovery, and their solemn\nburial. On one of the days of the feast, a procession of priests went\nthe round of the temples--or beat the bounds: and the festival closed\nwith the erection of a pillar or stone monument to the Osiris, which, in\na bas-relief, the king himself is represented as assisting in raising.\nI think it is impossible to overlook the general resemblance of these\nrites to the rites of Potraj.\n\nI ought to add, though I cannot go into that matter fully here, that the\nmany allusions to the flinging of the coffer containing the Osiris into\nthe Nile are clear indications of the rain-charm obtained by throwing\nthe human victim into a spring or river. In this case, however, it must\nof course be regarded locally as a charm to make the Nile rise in due\nseason.\n\nThe character of the later Osiris, or the god-victim identified with\nhim, as a corn and vegetable god, is amply borne out by several other\npieces of evidence. Osiris, it is said, was the first to teach men the\nuse of corn. He also introduced the cultivation of the vine. Mr. Frazer\nnotes that in one of the chambers dedicated to Osiris in the great\ntemple of Isis at Phil\u00e6, the dead body of Osiris is represented with\nstalks of corn springing from it, and a priest is watering the stalks\nfrom a pitcher which he holds in his hand. That human corn-victims\nwere at least not unknown in Egypt we have on the direct authority of\nManetho, who tells us that red-haired men used to be burned, and their\nashes scattered with winnowing fans. (Similar cases elsewhere have been\npreviously mentioned.) So, too, the legend tells us that Isis placed\nthe severed limbs of Osiris on a corn-sieve. Red-haired oxen were also\nsacrificed in Egypt, apparently in order to produce red wheat. This is\nthe analogue of the bull sacrificed as Dionysus.\n\nAgain, {310}in the legend of Busiris, and the glosses or comments upon\nit, we get important evidence, the value of which has not fully been\nnoted, I believe, by Mr. Frazer. The story comes to us in a Greek form;\nbut we can see through it that it represents the myth which accounted\nfor the Osiris sacrifice. The name Busiris means the city of Osiris,\nwhich was so called because the grave of an ancient Osiris (either a\nmummy, or a local chief identified with the great god of Abydos) was\nsituated there. Human sacrifices were said to have been offered at\nhis tomb; just as the Potraj sacrifice is offered at the shrine of the\nvillage goddess, and just as the annual victim elsewhere was sacrificed\nat the Terminus stone or the sacred stone of the foundation-god or\ngoddess. The victims were redhaired men, and strangers. Their ashes\nwere scattered abroad with winnowing fans. They were slain on the\nharvest-field, and mourned by the reapers (like Adonis and Attis) in the\nsong which through a Greek mistake is known to us as the Maneros. The\nreapers prayed at the same time that Osiris might revive and return with\nrenewed vigour in the following year. The most interesting point in this\naccount, pieced together from Apollodorus, Diodorus, and Plutarch, is\nthe fact that it shows us how the annual Osiris was identified with the\nold divine king who lay in his grave hard by; and so brings the\ncase into line with others we have already considered and must still\nconsider. As for the hunting after the pieces of Osiris\u2019s body,\nthat is just like the hunting after the mangled pieces of Dionysus by\nDemeter. I interpret both the resurrection of Osiris, and the story of\nthe fragments being pieced together and growing young again, told of\nDionysus, as meaning that the scattered pieces, buried like those of\nthe Khond Meriah, grow up again next year into the living corn for the\nharvest.\n\nFurthermore, there exists to this day in Egypt an apparent survival of\nthe ancient Osiris rite, in an attenuated form (like the mock mayors in\nEngland), which distinctly suggests {311}the identification I am here\nattempting. In Upper Egypt, Klunzinger tells us, on the first day of\nthe (Egyptian) solar year, when the Nile has usually reached its highest\npoint, the regular government is suspended for three days in each\ndistrict, and every town chooses its own temporary ruler. This temporary\nking (a local Osiris, as I believe) wears a conical cap, and a\nlong flaxen beard, and is enveloped in a strange mantle. I say\nunhesitatingly, the dress of an Osiris, wearing the old royal cap of\nUpper Egypt. With a wand of office in his hands--like the crook which\nOsiris carries on the monuments--and attended by men disguised as\nscribes, executioners, and so forth, he proceeds to the governor\u2019s\nhouse. The governor allows himself to be deposed; the mock king,\nmounting the throne, holds a tribunal, to whose decisions even the\ngovernor himself must bow. In short, like other temporary kings, he\nreally enjoys royal authority for the moment. After three days, however,\nthe mock king is condemned to death; the envelope or shell in which he\nis encased is committed to the flames; and from its ashes creeps forth\nthe Fellah who impersonated him. I do not doubt that the case here\nrepresents the antique coffer or mummy-case of Osiris.\n\nIn this graphic ceremonial, then, I see a survival, with the customary\nmitigations, of the annual Osiris sacrifice, once actually performed on\na human victim. I do not doubt that in Egypt as elsewhere a mock\nking was formerly chosen in place of the real king to personate the\ndescendant of Osiris, an Osiris himself; and that this substitute was\nput to death, and torn to pieces or burnt, while his ashes were winnowed\nand scattered over the land. It may also be worth while to enquire\nwhether the scourge which Osiris holds in the bas-reliefs is not the\nequivalent of the divine whip of the Potraj, and the other whips which\nMr. Gomme has so ingeniously correlated with that very venerable and\nmystic attribute.\n\nI would suggest, then, that Osiris in his later embodiment {312}was\nannually renewed as a corn and vine victim. Originally a king of Upper\nEgypt, or part of it, he was envisaged in later myth as a general\nculture-god. Isis, his sister and wife, discovered wheat and barley\ngrowing wild; and Osiris introduced these grains among his people, who\nthereupon abandoned cannibalism, and took to grain-growing. An annual\nvictim, most often a stranger, identified with the racial god, was torn\nto pieces in his place; and Osiris himself was finally merged with the\nabstract spirit of vegetation, and supposed to be the parent of all\ntrees. Just as the Corinthians, when ordered by an oracle to worship a\ncertain pine tree \u201cequally with the god,\u201d cut it down and made two\nimages of Dionysus out of it, with gilt bodies and red-stained faces; so\nthe Egyptians cut down a pine-tree, took out the heart, made an image of\nOsiris, and then buried it in the hollow of the tree from which it had\nbeen taken. Similar rites obtained in Attis-worship and all alike bear\nwitness to that late and abstract stage of thought where the primitive\ncultivation-victim has been sublimated and elevated into a generalised\ngod of vegetation in the abstract. But this, which for Mr. Frazer is the\nstarting-point, is for me the goal of the evolution of Osiris.\n\nLet us next look very briefly at the case of Adonis.\n\nThe Adon or Lord commonly known as Thammuz was one of the chief elements\nin Syrian religion. He was closely connected with the namesake river\nAdonis, which rose by his grave at the sacred spring of Aphaca. We do\nnot actually know, I believe, of a human Adonis-victim; but his death\nwas annually lamented with a bitter wailing, chiefly by women. Images\nof him were dressed like corpses, and carried out as if for burial,\nand then thrown into the sea or into springs. This was evidently a rain\ncharm, such as is particularly natural in a dry country like Syria. And\nI will add incidentally that I attribute to similar circumstances also\nsome portion at least of the sanctity of rivers. In certain places, the\nresurrection of the Adonis was {313}celebrated on the succeeding day.\nAt Byblos, he also ascended into heaven before the eyes of his\nworshippers--a point worth notice from its Christian analogies.\nThe blood-red hue of the river Adonis in spring--really due to\nthe discoloration of the tributary torrents by red earth from the\nmountains--was set down to the blood of the god Adonis; the scarlet\nanemone sprang from his wounds. But the scholiast on Theocritus\nexpressly explains the Adonis as \u201cthe sown corn;\u201d and that he was\n\u201cseed,\u201d like the common corn-victims in India and elsewhere, we can\nhardly doubt from the repeated stories of his death and resurrection.\nThe so-called \u201cgardens of Adonis,\u201d which were mimic representations\nof a tumulus planted with corn, formed a most noticeable part of the\ngod\u2019s ritual. They consisted of baskets or pots, filled with earth,\nin which wheat, barley, flowers, and so forth were sown and tended\nby women; and at the end of eight days they were carried out with the\nimages of the dead Adonis, and flung into the sea or into springs. This\nwas no doubt another case of a rain-charm. Mr. Frazer has collected\nseveral interesting examples of similar rites the whole world over.\n\nA few other embodiments of the corn-god may be more hastily treated.\n\nWhat Adonis was to Syria, Attis was to Phrygia. Originally he seems,\naccording to Professor Ramsay, to have been represented by an annual\npriest-victim, who slew himself for the people to ensure fertility. This\npriest-victim himself bore the name of Attis, and was identified with\nthe god whose worship he performed. In later days, instead of killing\nhimself, he merely drew his own blood; and there is reason to think that\na pig was also substituted as duplicate victim, and that this pig was\nitself regarded as an Attis. Analogies exist with the Paschal lamb;\nwhile the self-mutilation of Attis-worship has also features in\ncommon with Jewish circumcision. Moreover, the ceremonies were closely\nconnected, at Pessinus at least, with the ancient sacred stone which\nbore the name of Cybele, and which was {314}described as the Mother of\nthe Gods; this connexion exactly recalls that of the Potraj-god in India\nwith the cult of the local village goddess. As I believe the village\ngoddess to be the permanent form of the foundation human sacrifice, I\nalso believe Cybele (gross Euhemerism as it may seem) to be the sacred\nstone of the original virgin who was sacrificed at the first foundation\nof Pessinus.\n\nWhen the sacred stone of Cybele and the cult of Attis were removed to\nRome (under circumstances to which I shall refer in a later chapter) the\nfestival consisted of a five days\u2019 rite, like that of the Potraj. It\ntook place at the spring equinox, as does our own equivalent festival of\nEaster. On the first day, a pine-tree was cut down in the woods, and the\neffigy of a young man was tied to it. This effigy no doubt represented\nthe primitive human sacrifice, and its crucifixion answers exactly to\nthe slaughter of the sacred buffalo in India. The second day yields\nnothing of importance; on the third day, the Attis-priest drew blood\nfrom his own arms and presented it as an offering; I would conjecture\nthat this was a substitute for self-immolation, and that the\nself-immolation was originally performed by mutilation of the genitals.\nIt was perhaps on this night that a mourning took place over the body of\nAttis, represented by an effigy, which was afterwards solemnly buried.\nOn the fourth day came the Festival of Joy, on which, as Mr. Frazer\nbelieves, the resurrection of the god was celebrated. The fifth day\nclosed with a procession to the brook Almo, in which the sacred stone\nof the goddess and her bullock-cart were bathed as a rain-charm. On the\nreturn, the cart was strewn with flowers. I think the close parallelism\nto the Indian usage is here fairly evident. Indeed, out of consideration\nfor brevity, I have suppressed several other most curious resemblances.\n\nAttis was thus essentially a corn-god. His death and resurrection were\nannually celebrated at Rome and at Pessinus. An Attis of some sort died\nyearly. The Attis of Pessinus was both priest and king; it was perhaps\nat one time {315}his duty to die at the end of his yearly reign as a\ncorn-god for his people. One epithet of Attis was \u201cvery fruitful\u201d;\nhe was addressed as \u201cthe reaped yellow ear of corn\u201d; and when an\neffigy took the place of the annual slain priest-king, this effigy\nitself was kept for a year, and then burnt as the priest-king himself\nwould have been at an earlier period. It seems to me impossible to\nresist the cumulative weight of this singular evidence.\n\nFor the very curious customs and myths regarding Demeter, Persephone,\nand other female corn-victims, I must refer the reader once more to Mr.\nFrazer. It is true, the enquirer will there find the subject treated\nfrom the opposite standpoint; he will see the goddesses regarded as\nfirst corn-spirits, then animal, finally human: but after the examples\nI have here given of my own mode of envisaging the facts, I think the\nreader will see for himself what corrections to make for Mr. Frazer\u2019s\nanimism and personal equation. I will only say here that in many\ncountries, from Peru to Africa, a girl or woman seems to have been\noffered up as a corn-goddess; that this corn-goddess seems to have been\nsown with the seed, and believed to come to life again with the corn;\nand that several European harvest customs appear to be mitigations\nof the old ceremonial, with the usual substitution of an animal or an\neffigy for the human victim. Regarded in this light, Mr. Frazer\u2019s\ncollection of facts about the Corn Baby affords an excellent groundwork\nfor research; but though I could say much on the subject, I will refrain\nfrom it here, as I desire only at present to give such an outline as\nwill enable the reader to understand my general principles. The half is\noften more than the whole; and I fear if I flesh out the framework too\nmuch, it may be difficult to follow the main line of my argument.\n\nI cannot, however, refrain from mentioning that the ceremonies of\n\u201cCarrying out Death\u201d and \u201cBurying the Carnival,\u201d which prevail\nall over Europe, retain many interesting features of the Potraj,\nDionysus, and Attis-Adonis {316}festivals. The figure of Death--that is\nto say, as I understand it, the image of the dead human god--is often\ntorn to pieces, and the fragments are then buried in the fields to make\nthe crops grow well. But the Death is also drowned or burned; in the\nfirst case, like Adonis, in the second, like the Osiris in the modern\nEgyptian custom. And the analogies of the festivals to those of India\nand Western Asia must strike every attentive reader of Mr. Frazer\u2019s\nmasterwork.\n\nTwo or three typical instances must suffice as examples. In Bohemia,\nthe children carry a straw man out of the village, calling it Death, and\nthen burn it, singing,=\n\n```Now carry we Death out of the village,\n\n```The new summer into the village;\n\n```Welcome, dear summer,\n\n```Green little corn.=\n\nHere the relation of the ceremony to the primitive corn-sacrifice\nis immediately evident. And the making of the effigy out of straw is\nsignificant. At Tabor in Bohemia the image of Death is flung from a high\nrock into the water, evidently as a rain-charm, with a similar song,\npraying for \u201cgood wheat and rye.\u201d (Compare the ceremony of the\nTarpeian rock, where the victim was at last a condemned criminal: as\nalso the myths of immolation by jumping into the sea.) In Lower Bavaria\nthe pantomime was more realistic; the _Pfingstl_, as the victim was\ncalled, was clad in leaves and flowers, and drenched with water. He\nwaded into a brook up to his middle, while a boy pretended to cut off\nhis head. In Saxony and Th\u00fcringen, the Wild Man, who represents the\ngod, is killed in dumb show at Whitsuntide. His captors pretend to\nshoot him, and he falls as if dead, but is afterwards revived, as in the\nresurrection of Adonis and Dionysus. Such resurrections form a common\nepisode in the popular corn-drama. I have found a case in Sussex. At\nSemic in Bohemia we have the further graphic point that the victim is\nactually described as the King, wears a crown of bark, and carries a\nwand as a {317}sceptre, like the mock Osiris. Other kings are frequent\nelsewhere. In the Koniggratz district, the King is tried, and, if\ncondemned, is beheaded in pantomime. Near Schomberg, the mock victim\nused to be known as the Fool, another significant name, and was finally\nburied under straw and dung, a conjunction of obvious agricultural\nimport. In Rottweil, the Fool is made drunk, and interred in straw amid\nAdonis-like lamentations. Elsewhere, the Fool, either in person or by a\nstraw effigy, is flung into water. At Schluckenau, realism goes a stage\nfurther: the Wild Man wears a bladder filled with blood round his neck;\nthis the executioner stabs, and the blood gushes forth on the ground.\nNext day, a straw man, made to look as like him as possible, is laid on\na bier, and taken to a pool into which it is flung. In all these antique\nceremonies it is impossible not to see a now playful survival of the\nprimitive corn-sacrifice. Our own April Fool shows the last stage of\ndegradation in such world-wide customs. Originally sent on a fool\u2019s\nerrand to the place of sacrifice, so that he might go voluntarily, he is\nnow merely sent in meaningless derision.\n\nI will only add here that while corn-gods and wine-gods are the most\nnotable members of this strange group of artificial deities, the sacred\ndate-palm has its importance as well in the religions of Mesopotamia;\nand elsewhere the gods of the maize, the plantain, and the cocoanut rise\ninto special or local prominence.’ So do the Rice-Spirit, the Oats-Wife,\nthe Mother of the Rye, and the Mother of the Barley (or Demeter). All\nseem to be modifications of the primitive victim, sacrificed to make\na spirit for the crop, or to act as \u201cseed\u201d for the date or the\nplantain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.--SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT.\n\n|WE {318}have now arrived at a point where we can more fully understand\n_those curious ideas of sacrifice and sacrament which lie at the root of\nso much that is essential in the Jewish, the Christian, and most other\nreligions_.\n\nMr. Galton tells us that to the Damaras, when he travelled among them,\nall meat was common property. No one killed an ox except as a sacrifice\nand on a festal occasion; and when the ox was killed, the whole\ncommunity feasted upon it indiscriminately. This is but a single\ninstance of a feeling almost universal among primitive pastoral people.\nCattle and other domestic animals, being regarded as sacred, are rarely\nkilled; and when they are killed, they are eaten at a feast as a social\nand practically religious rite--in short, sacramentally. I need not\ngive instances of so well-known a principle; I will content myself with\nquoting what Dr. Robertson Smith says of a particular race: \u201cAmong\nthe early Semites generally, no slaughter was legitimate except for\nsacrifice.\u201d\n\nBarbaric herdsmen, indeed, can hardly conceive of men to whom flesh meat\nis a daily article of diet. Mr. Galton found the idea very strange to\nhis Damaras. Primitive pastoral races keep their domestic animals mainly\nfor the sake of the milk, or as beasts of burden, or for the wool and\nhair; they seldom kill one except for a feast, at which the gods are\nfellow-partakers. Indeed, it is probable, as the sequel will suggest,\nthat domestic animals were originally kept as totems or ancestor-gods,\nand that the habit of eating {319}the meat of sheep, goats, and oxen has\narisen mainly out of the substitution of such a divine animal-victim\nfor the divine human-victim of earlier usage. Our butchers\u2019 shops have\ntheir origin in mitigated sacrificial cannibalism.\n\nSacrifice, regarded merely as offering to the gods, has thus, I believe,\ntwo distinct origins. Its earliest, simplest, and most natural form is\nthat whose development we have already traced,--the placing of small\narticles of food and drink at the graves of ancestors or kings or\nrevered fellow-tribesmen. That from a very early period men have\nbelieved the dead to eat and drink, whether as corpse, as mummy, as\nghost of buried friend, or as ethereal spirit of cremated chieftain, we\nhave already seen with sufficient frequency. About the origin of these\nsimplest and most primitive sacrifices, I think, there can be little\ndoubt. Savages offer at the graves of their dead precisely those\nordinary articles of food which they consumed while living, without any\ndistinction of kind; and they continue to offer them in the same na\u00efve\nway when the ghost has progressed to the status of one of the great gods\nof the community.\n\nBut there is another mode of sacrifice, superposed upon this, and\ngradually tending to be more or less identified with it, which yet, if\nI am right, had a quite different origin in the artificial production of\ngods about which I have written at considerable length in the last three\nchapters. The human or animal victim, thus slaughtered in order to\nmake a new god or protecting spirit, came in time to be assimilated in\nthought to the older type of mere honorific offerings to the dead gods;\nand so _gave rise to those mystic ideas of the god who is sacrificed,\nhimself to himself, of which the sacrament of the Mass is the final and\nmost mysterious outcome_. Thus, the foundation-gods, originally killed\nin order to make a protecting spirit for a house or a tribal god for a\ncity or village, came at last to be regarded as victims sacrificed to\nthe Earth Goddess or to the Earth Demons; and thus, too, the Meriahs and\nother agricultural {320}victims, originally killed in order to make a\ncorn-god or a corn-spirit, came at last to be regarded as sacrifices to\nthe Earth, or to some abstract Dionysus or Attis or Adonis. And since in\nthe last case at least the god and the victim were still called by the\nsame name and recognised as one, there grew up at last in many lands,\nand in both hemispheres, but especially in the Eastern Mediterranean\nbasin, the mystic theory of the sacrifice of a god, himself to himself,\nin atonement or expiation, which forms the basis of the Christian Plan\nof Salvation. It is this secondary and derivative form of sacrifice,\nI believe, which is mainly considered in Professor Robertson Smith\u2019s\nelaborate and extremely valuable analysis.\n\nI have said that the secondary form of sacrifice, which for brevity\u2019s\nsake I shall henceforth designate as the mystic, is found in most parts\nof the world and in both hemispheres. This naturally raises the question\nwhether it has a single common origin, and antedates the dispersal of\nmankind through the hemispheres; or whether it has been independently\nevolved several times over in many lands by many races. For myself, I\nhave no cut-and-dried answer to this abstruse question, nor do I regard\nit, indeed, as a really important one. On the one hand, there are many\nreasons for supposing that certain relatively high traits of thought or\nart were common property among mankind before the dispersion from the\nprimitive centre, if a primitive centre ever existed. On the other hand,\npsychologists know well that the human mind acts with extraordinary\nsimilarity in given circumstances all the world over, and that identical\nstages of evolution seem to have been passed through independently by\nmany races, in Egypt and Mexico, in China and Peru; so that we can\nfind nothing inherently improbable in the idea that even these complex\nconceptions of mystic sacrifice have distinct origins in remote\ncountries. What is certain is the fact that among the Aztecs, as among\nthe Phrygians, the priest who sacrificed, the victim he slew, and the\nimage or great god to {321}whom he slew him, were all identified; the\nkiller, the killed, and the being in whose honor the killing took place\nwere all one single indivisible deity. Even such details as that the\npriest clothed himself in the skin of the victim are common to many\nlands; they may very well be either a heritage from remote ancestral\nhumanity, or the separate product of the human mind, working along like\ngrooves under identical conditions. In one word they may perhaps be\nnecessary and inevitable corollaries from antecedent conceptions.\n\nI must further premise that no religion as we now know it is by any\nmeans primitive. The most savage creeds we find among us have still\nhundreds of thousands of years behind them. The oldest religions whose\nrecords have descended to us, like those of Egypt and of Assyria, are\nstill remote by hundreds of thousands of years from the prime original.\nCultivation itself is a very ancient and immemorial art. Few savages,\neven among those who are commonly described as in the hunting stage, are\nwholly ignorant of some simple form of seed-sowing and tillage. The few\nwho are now ignorant of those arts show some apparent signs of being\nrather degenerate than primitive peoples. My own belief or suspicion\nis that ideas derived from the set of practices in connexion with\nagriculture detailed in the last two chapters have deeply coloured the\nlife and thought of almost the whole human race, including even those\nrudest tribes which now know little or nothing of agriculture. But I do\nnot lay stress upon this half-formed conviction, to justify which would\nlead me too far afield. I shall be content with endeavouring to suggest\nhow far they have coloured the ideas of the greater number of existing\nnations.\n\nEarly pastoral races seldom kill a beast except on great occasions. When\nthey kill it, they devour it in common, all the tribe being invited to\nthe festival. But they also eat it in fellowship with their gods; every\ngreat feast is essentially a Theoxenion, a Lectisternium, a banquet in\nwhich the {322}deities participate with mortals. It is this sense of\na common feast of gods and men which gave, no doubt, the first step\ntowards the complex idea of the sacramental meal--an idea still further\ndeveloped at a later stage by the addition of the concept that the\nworshipper eats and drinks the actual divinity.\n\nMy own belief is that all sacrificial feasts of this godeating character\nmost probably originated in actual cannibalism; and that later an animal\nvictim was substituted for the human meat; but I do not insist on this\npoint, nor attempt, strictly speaking, to prove it. It is hardly\nmore than a deeply grounded suspicion. Nevertheless, I will begin for\nconvenience\u2019 sake with the cannibal class of sacrifice, and will come\nround in time to the familiar slaughter of sheep and oxen, which in many\ncases is known to have supplanted a human offering.\n\nAcosta\u2019s account of the Mexican custom is perhaps the best instance\nwe now possess of the ritual of cannibal mystic sacrifice in its fullest\nbarbarity. \u201cThey took a captive,\u201d says that racy old author, \u201cat\nrandom; and before sacrificing him to their idols, they gave him the\nname of the idol to whom he should be sacrificed, and dressed him in the\nsame ornaments, identifying him with the god. During the time that the\nidentification lasted, which was for a year in some feasts, six months\nor less in others, they reverenced and worshipped him in the same manner\nas the idol itself. Meanwhile, he was allowed to eat, drink, and make\nmerry. When he went through the streets, the people came forth to\nworship him; and every one brought alms, with children and sick\npeople that he might cure them and bless them. He did as he pleased in\neverything except that he had ten or twelve men about him, to prevent\nhim from escaping. In order that he might be reverenced as he passed, he\nsometimes sounded upon a small flute, to tell the people to worship him.\nWhen the feast arrived, and he had grown fat, they killed him, opened\nhim, and making a solemn sacrifice, eat him.\u201d There, in the words\n{323}of a competent authority, we have the simple cannibal feast in its\nfullest nakedness.\n\nI need hardly point out how much this account recalls the Khond custom\nof the Meriah. The victim, though not really of royal blood, is made\nartificially into a divine king; he is treated with all the honours\nof royalty and godhead, is dressed like the deity with whom he is\nidentified, and is finally killed and eaten. The last point alone\ndiffers in any large degree from the case of the Meriah. We have still\nto enquire, \u201cWhy did they eat him?\u201d\n\nThe answer to this enquiry takes us into the very heart and core of the\nsacramental concept.\n\n_It is a common early belief that to eat of any particular animal gives\nyou the qualities of that animal_. The Miris of Northern India prize\ntiger\u2019s flesh for men; it gives them strength and courage; but women\nmust not eat it; \u2019twould make them \u201ctoo strong-minded.\u201d The\nNamaquas abstain from eating hare; they would become faint-hearted if\nthey swallowed it; but they eat the meat of the lion or drink the blood\nof the leopard, in order to gain their strength and courage. Among the\nDyaks, young men and warriors must not eat deer; it would render them\ncowardly; but women and very old men are allowed to eat it. Men of the\nBuro and Aru Islands feed on the flesh of dogs in order to be bold and\nnimble. Mr. Frazer has collected an immense number of similar instances,\nwhich show both how widespread and how deep-seated are such beliefs.\nEven scrapings of the bones are sufficient to produce the desired\nresult; in Corea, the bones of tigers fetch a higher price than those\nof leopards as inspirers of courage. The heart of a lion is also\nparticularly good for this purpose; and the tongues of birds are\nrecommended for eloquence.\n\nAgain, on the same analogy, the flesh and blood of brave men are eaten\nin order to inspire bravery. The Australian Kamilaroi eat the heart\nand liver of a valiant warrior in order to acquire his courage. The\nPhilippine Islanders drink the blood of their bravest enemies. In the\nShire Highlands {324}of Africa, those who kill a distinguished fighter\neat his heart to get his courage. Du Chaillu\u2019s negro, attendants, we\nsaw, scraped their ancestors\u2019 skulls, and drank the powder in water.\n\u201cOur ancestors were brave,\u201d said they; \u201cand by drinking their\nskulls, we shall be brave as they were.\u201d Here again I can only\nrefer the reader for numerous examples to Mr. Frazer\u2019s inexhaustible\nstorehouse.\n\nThe case of Du Chaillu\u2019s warriors, however, takes us with one bound\ninto the heart of the subject. Many savages for similar reasons actually\neat their own dead fathers. * We learn from Strabo that the ancient\nIrish \u201cdeemed it honourable to devour the bodies of their parents.\u201d\nSo, Herodotus tells us, did the Issedones of Central Asia. The\nMassaget\u00e6 used \u201cfrom compassion\u201d to club and eat their aged people.\nThe custom was quite recently common among the Battas of Sumatra, who\nused \u201creligiously and ceremonially to eat their old relations.\u201d In\nAustralia, it was usual to eat relatives who died by mischance. Of\nthe Cucumas we read that \u201cas soon as a relation died, these people\nassembled and eat him roasted or boiled, according as he was thin\nor fat.\u201d The Tarianas and Tucanas, who drink the ashes of their\nrelatives, \u201cbelieve that thus the virtues of the deceased will be\ntransmitted to the drinkers.\u201d The Arawaks think it the highest mark of\nhonour they could pay to the dead to drink their powdered bones mixed\nin water. Generally speaking, in a large number of cases, the parents\nor relatives were eaten in order \u201cnot to let the life go out of the\nfamily\u201d or to preserve the bodies and souls in a kindred body; or to gain\nthe courage and other qualities of the dead relation. _In short,\nthe dead were eaten sacramentally or, as one writer even phrases it,\n\u201ceucharistically.\u201d_ Mr. Hartland has collected many striking\ninstances.\n\n     * Since this chapter was written, the subject of honorific\n     cannibalism has been far more fully treated by Mr. Sidney\n     Hartland in the chapter on Funeral Rites, in the second\n     volume of The Legend of Perseus.\n\nHow this strange custom originates we may guess from Mr. {325}Wyatt\nGill\u2019s description of a New Guinea funeral. \u201cThe women lacerated\ntheir faces and beat their breasts most affectingly,\u201d he says; \u201cand\nthen, in the madness of their grief, pressed the matter out of the\nwounded thigh, and smeared it over their faces and persons, and even\nlicked it up.\u201d Of the Koiari corpses he says: \u201cA fire is kept\nburning day and night at the head and feet for months. The entire\nskin is removed by means of the thumb and forefinger, and the juices\nplastered all over the face and body of the operator,--parent, husband,\nor wife of the deceased. The fire gradually desiccates the flesh, so\nthat little more than the skeleton is left.\u201d This naturally leads on\nto eating the dead, which indeed is practised elsewhere in New Guinea.\n\nBut if men eat the bodies of their fathers, who are their family\nand household gods, they will also naturally eat the bodies of the\nartificial gods of cultivation, or of the temporary kings who die for\nthe people. _By eating the body of a god, you absorb his divinity; he\nand you become one; he is in you and inspires you. This is the root-idea\nof sacramental practice; you eat your god by way of complete union; you\nsubsume him in yourself; you and he are one being_.\n\nStill, how can you eat your god if you also bury him as a corn-spirit\nto use him as seed? The Gonds supply us with the answer to that obvious\ndifficulty. For, as we saw, they sprinkle the blood of the victim over\nthe ploughed field or ripe crop, and then they sacramentally devour\nhis body. Such a double use of the artificial god is frequently to be\ndetected, indeed, through the vague words of our authorities. We see\nit in the Potraj ceremony, where the blood of the lamb is drunk by the\nofficiating priest, while the remainder of the animal is buried beside\nthe altar; we see it in the numerous cases where a portion of the victim\nis eaten sacramentally, and the rest burned and scattered over the\nfields, which it is supposed to fertilise. You eat your god in part,\nso as to imbibe his divinity; but you bury {326}him in part, so as to\nsecure at the same time his fertilising qualities for your corn or your\nvineyard.\n\nI admit that all this is distinctly mystic; but mystery-mongering and\nstrange reduplication of persons, with marvellous identifications and\nminute distinctions, have always formed much of the stock-in-trade of\nreligion. If cults were all plain sailing throughout, what room for\nfaith?--there would be less to engage the imagination of the votary.\n\nAnd now let us return awhile to our Mexican instances.\n\nAt the annual feast of the great god Tezcatlipoca, which, like most\nsimilar festivals, fell about the same time as the Christian Easter,\na young man was chosen to be the representative of the god for a\ntwelvemonth. As in the case of almost all chosen victims, he had to be a\nperson of unblemished body, and he was trained to behave like a god-king\nwith becoming dignity. During his year of godship, he was lapped in\nluxury; and the actual reigning emperor took care that he should be\nsplendidly attired, regarding him already as a present deity. He was\nattended by eight pages clad in the royal livery--which shows him to\nhave been a king as well as a god; and wherever he went the people\nbowed down to him. Twenty days before the festival at which he was to\nbe sacrificed, four noble maidens, bearing the names of four goddesses,\nwere given him to be his brides. The final feast itself, like those of\nDionysus, of Attis, and of Potraj, occupied five days--a coincidence\nbetween the two hemispheres which almost points to original identity of\ncustom before the dispersion of the races. During these five days the\nreal king remained in his palace--and this circumstance plainly\nshows that the victim belonged to the common class of substituted and\ntemporary divine king-gods. The whole court, on the other hand, attended\nthe victim. On the last day of the feast, the victim was ferried across\nthe lake in a covered barge to a small temple in the form of a pyramid.\nOn reaching the summit, he was seized and held down on a block of\nstone,--no doubt {327}an altar of funereal origin,--while the priest cut\nopen his breast with a stone knife, and plucked his heart out. This he\noffered to the god of the sun. The head was hung up among the skulls\nof previous victims, no doubt for oracular purposes, and as a permanent\ngod; but the legs and arms were cooked and prepared for the table of\nthe lords, who thus partook of the god sacramentally. His place was\nimmediately filled by another young man, who for a year was treated with\nthe same respect, and at the end of that time was similarly slaughtered.\n\nI do not think I need point out the close resemblance of this ritual\nto that of the Khond Meriah, of the Potraj, and of the festivals of\nDionysus, Osiris, Attis, and Adonis. But I would also call particular\nattention to the final destination of the skull, and its exact\nequivalence to the skull of the animal-god in India and elsewhere.\n\n\u201cThe idea that the god thus slain in the person of his representative\ncomes to life again immediately,\u201d says Mr. Frazer, \u201cwas graphically\nrepresented in the Mexican ritual by skinning the slain man-god,\nand clothing in his skin a living man, who thus became the new\nrepresentative of the godhead.\u201d For example, at an annual festival in\nMexico, a woman was sacrificed who represented Toci, the Mother of the\nGods--a sort of yearly Mexican Cybele. She was dressed in the ornaments\nand bore the name of the goddess of whom she was believed to be an\nincarnation. After being feasted for several days, she was taken at\nmidnight to the summit of a temple, and there beheaded. Her body was\nflayed, and one of the priests, clothing himself in the skin, became\nthe representative of the goddess Toci. The skin of the woman\u2019s thigh,\nhowever, was separately removed, and a young man who represented the god\nCinteotl, the son of Toci, wrapt it round him like a mask. Ceremonies\nthen followed, in which the two men, clad in the woman\u2019s skin, enacted\nthe parts of the god and goddess. In all this, there is much that seems\nto me reminiscent {328}of Isis and Horus, of Cybele and Attis, of Semele\nand Dionysus, and of several other eastern rituals.\n\nStill more significant is the yearly festival of the god Totec, who\nwas represented in like manner by a priest, clad in the skin of a human\nvictim, and who received offerings of first-fruits and first-flowers,\ntogether with bunches of maize which had been kept for seed. Here\nwe have the closest possible analogy to the case of the Meriah. The\noffering of first-fruits, made sometimes to the king, sometimes to the\nancestral spirits, is here made to the human god of cultivation, who\nrepresents both in his own person.\n\nMany other cannibal sacrifices are recorded in Mexico: in more than one\nof them it was customary for the priest to tear out the warm throbbing\nheart of the victim, and present it to the idol. Whether these\nsacrifices in each particular case were of the ordinary or of the mystic\ntype it is not always quite easy to decide; probably the worshippers\nthemselves did not accurately discriminate in every instance. But\nhowever that may be, we know at least this much: when human sacrifices\nhad been rare, the priests reminded the kings that the gods \u201cwere\nstarving with hunger\u201d; war was then made on purpose to take prisoners,\n\u201cbecause the gods had asked for something to eat,\u201d and thousands of\nvictims were thus slaughtered annually. The blood of the victims was\nseparately offered; and I may add in this connexion that as a rule both\nghosts and gods are rather thirsty than hungry. I take the explanation\nof this peculiar taste to be that blood and other liquids poured upon\nthe ground of graves or at altar-stones soon sink in, and so seem to\nhave been drunk or sucked up by the ghost or god; whereas meat and\nsolid offerings are seen to be untouched by the deity to whom they are\npresented. A minor trait in this blood-loving habit of the gods is seen\nin the fact that the Mexicans also gave the god to drink fresh blood\ndrawn from their own ears, and that the priests likewise drew blood\nfrom their legs, and daubed it on the temples. Similar mitigations of\nself-immolation {329}are seen elsewhere in the Attis-priest drawing\nblood from his arms for Attis, in the Hebrew Baal-priests \u201ccutting\nthemselves for Baal,\u201d and in the familiar Hebrew rite of circumcision.\nBlood is constantly drawn by survivors or worshippers as an act of\nhomage to the dead or to deities.\n\nI might multiply instances of human sacrifices of the mystic order\nelsewhere, but I prefer to pass on to the various mitigations which they\ntend to undergo in various communities. In its fullest form, I take\nit, the mystic sacrifice ought to be the self-immolation of a divine\npriest-king, a god and descendant of gods, himself to himself, on the\naltar of his own divine foundation-ancestor. But in most cases which we\ncan trace, the sacrifice has already assumed the form of an immolation\nof a willing victim, a temporary king, of the divine stock only by\nadoption, though sometimes a son or brother of the actual monarch.\nFurther modifications are that the victim becomes a captive taken in\nwar (which indeed is implied in the very etymology of the Latin word\nvictima), or a condemned criminal, or an imbecile, who can be more\nreadily induced to undertake the fatal office. Of all of these we have\nseen hints at least in previous cases. Still more mitigated are the\nforms in which the victim is allowed to escape actual death by a\nsubterfuge, and those in which an image or effigy is allowed to do duty\nfor the living person. Of these intermediates we get a good instance in\nthe case of the Bhagats, mentioned by Col. Dalton, who \u201cannually make\nan image of a man in wood, put clothes and ornaments on it, and present\nit before the altar of a Mahadeo\u201d (or rude stone phallic idol). \u201cThe\nperson who officiates as priest on the occasion says, \u2018O, Mahadeo, we\nsacrifice this man to you according to ancient customs. Give us rain\nin due season, and a plentiful harvest.\u2019 Then, with one stroke of the\naxe, the head of the image is struck off, and the body is removed\nand buried.\u201d This strange rite shows us a surviving {330}but much\nmitigated form of the Khond Meriah practice.\n\nAs a rule, however, such bloodless representations do not please the\ngods; nor do they succeed in really liberating a ghost or corn-god. They\nare after all but feeble phantom sacrifices. Blood the gods want, and\nblood is given them. The most common substitute for the human victim-god\nis therefore the animal victim-god, of which we have already seen\ncopious examples in the ox and kid of Dionysus, the pig of Attis, and\nmany others. It seems probable that a large number of sacrifices, if not\nthe majority of those in which domestic animals are slain, belong in\nthe last resort to the same category. Thus, indeed, we can most easily\nexplain the theory of the so-called \u201cthean-thropic\u201d victim,--the\nanimal which stands for a man and a god,--as well as the point of view\nof sacrifice so ably elaborated by Dr. Robertson Smith.\n\nAccording to this theory, the domestic animals were early regarded as of\nthe same kin or blood as the tribe; and the slaughter of an ox, a goat,\nor a sheep could only be permitted if it were done, like the slaughter\nof a king\u2019s son, sacrificially and sacramentally. In my own opinion,\nthis scarcely means more than that the sacred domestic animals were\nearly accepted as substitutes for the human victim, and that they were\neaten sacrificially and sacramentally as the human victim was also\neaten. But I will waive this somewhat controversial point, and content\nmyself with suggesting that the animal victim was habitually treated as\nin itself divine, and that its blood was treated in the same way as the\nblood of the original cannibal offering. At the same time, the sacrifice\nwas usually offered at the altar of some older and, so to speak, more\nconstant deity, while the blood of the victim was allowed to flow over\nthe sacred stone. Certainly, both among the Arabs and the Hebrews,\nall slaughter of domestic animals appears to have been at one time\nsacrificial; and even when the slaughter ceased necessarily to involve a\nformal sacrifice, it was still thought {331}necessary to slay the victim\nin the name of a god, and to pour out the blood in his honour on the\nground. Even in the Gr\u00e6co-Roman world, the mass of butcher\u2019s meat was\n\u201cmeat offered to idols.\u201d We shall see hereafter that among existing\nsavages the slaughter of domestic animals is still regarded as a sacred\nrite.\n\nI believe also that as a rule the blood-offering is the earliest and\ncommonest form of slaughter to the gods; and that the victim in the\nearlier stages was generally consumed by the communicants, as we know\nthe cannibal victim to have been consumed among the Mexicans, and as\nwe saw the theanthropic goat or kid was orgiastically devoured by\nthe worshippers of Dionysus. It is a detail whether the sacred victim\nhappened to be eaten raw or cooked; the one usage prevailed in the\nearlier and more orgiastic rites, the other in the milder and more\ncivilised ceremonies. But in either case, the animal-god, like the human\ngod, was eaten sacramentally by all his worshippers, who thus took into\nthemselves his divine qualities. The practice of burning the victim, on\nthe other hand, prevailed mainly, I think, among cremationists, like\nthe Tyrians and Hellenes, though it undoubtedly extended also to many\nburying peoples, like the Hebrews and Egyptians. In most cases even of\ncremated victims, it would appear, a portion at least of the animal was\nsaved from the fire and sacramentally eaten by the worshippers.\n\nOnce more, the victim itself was usually a particular kind of sacred\nanimal. This sacredness of the chosen beast has some more important\nbearings than we have yet considered. For among various pastoral races,\nvarious domesticated animals possess in themselves positive sanctity. We\nknow, for example, that cows are very holy in the greater part of India,\nand buffaloes in the Deccan. Among the African peoples of the pastoral\ntribes, the common food is milk and game; cattle are seldom slaughtered\nmerely to eat, and always on exceptional or sacred occasions--the\nvery occasions which elsewhere demand a human {332}victim--such as the\nproclamation of a war, a religious festival, a wedding, or the\nfuneral of a great chieftain. In such cases, the feast is public, all\nblood-relations having a natural right to attend. The cattle-kraal\nitself is extremely sacred. The herd and its members are treated by\ntheir masters with affectionate and almost brotherly regard.\n\nA few further points must also be added. Among early races, to kill and\neat wild animals, or to kill and eat enemies, who are not members of the\ntribe, is not accounted in any way wrong. But to kill a tribesman--to\nshed kindred blood--is deeply sinful; and so it is sinful to kill and\neat the domestic herds. In old age, indeed, or when sick and feeble, you\nmay kill and eat your blood-relation blamelessly; and so you may also\nkill and eat old or sickly cattle. But as a rule, you only eat them\nsacramentally and sacrificially, under the same circumstances where\nyou would be justified in killing and eating a human victim. Thus, as\na rule, each tribe has its own sacred beast, which is employed as a\nregular substitute for a man-god. Among the Arabs, this beast was a\ncamel; among the Indian peoples, the bull or the buffalo; among shepherd\nraces, it is the sheep or goat; among the Teutons, the horse; among\nmany settled urban peoples, the pig; and with the Samoyeds and Os-tiaks,\ntheir one chattel, the reindeer.\n\nAlso, as a rule, the cow or other female animal was not usually\nsacrificed; she was kept for milk-yielding. It was the bull, the ram,\nthe ox, the he-goat that was oftenest offered and eaten sacramentally.\nMere utilitarian considerations would soon lead to this use, just as our\nown butchers kill ram lambs by choice, and spare the ewes for breeding.\nThe custom, once introduced, would tend to become sacred; for whatever\nour divine ancestors did is itself divine, and should not be lightly or\ncarelessly altered. Hence we can understand that supreme sanctity of\nthe cow, which has made so many races refuse to sacrifice it, while they\nsacrifice and eat the bull or ox without let or scruple. {333}Thus the\nTodas have never eaten the flesh of the female buffalo; but the male\nthey eat once a year, sacramentally, all the adult men in the village\njoining in the ceremony of killing and roasting it.\n\nA remarkable instance of the theanthropic sacrifice of such a sacred\nanimal is given us in Nilus\u2019s account of the ceremony performed by the\nArabs of his time. A holy camel, chosen as a victim, was bound upon a\nrude cairn of piled-up stones. In this primitive altar we can hardly\nfail to recognise the grave of an early tribal chieftain. The leader\nof the band then led the worshippers thrice round the cairn in a solemn\nprocession, chanting a solemn hymn as they went. As the last words of\nthe hymn were sung, he fell upon the camel (like Potraj on the lamb),\nwounded it, and hastily drank of the blood that gushed out from it.\nForthwith the whole company fell on the victim with their swords, hacked\noff pieces of the quivering flesh, and devoured them raw with such wild\nhaste that between the rise of the day-star and that of the sun, the\nentire camel, body and bones, skin, blood, and entrails, was absolutely\neaten. I need not point out the close resemblance of this savage rite to\nthose of Potraj and of Dionysus. It is a point, however, to observe that\nhere also the blood falls on the cairn or grave or altar. I may note\nthat the annual sacrifice of the paschal lamb among the shepherd Hebrews\nis obviously a mere mitigation of this barbarous rite. In that case, as\nmight be expected in a more civilised race, the victim is roasted whole:\nbut it is similarly necessary that every part of it should be hastily\neaten. Legend further informs us, in the instance of the Passover, that\nthe lamb was a substitute for a human victim, and that the first-born\nwere sanctified to Jahweh, instead of being sacrificed. Note also that\nthe feast of the paschal lamb occupied the now familiar space of five\ndays: the sacred animal was chosen on the tenth day of the month, and\nsacrificed on the fourteenth. The whole ceremonial is most illustrative\nand full of survivals.\n\nThough {334}it breaks for a moment the thread of my argument, I find it\nimpossible not to mention here the curious parallel case of the judicial\nsacrifice among the Battas of Sumatra, which is the human analogue\nof the Arabian camel-sacrament. Only in this instance, as in so many\nothers, sacrifice and punishment merge into one another. \u201cWith them\nthe adulterer, the night-thief, and those who had treacherously attacked\na town, a village, or a particular person, were condemned to be eaten\nby the people. They were tied to three posts; their legs and their arms\nwere stretched out in the shape of a St. Andrew\u2019s cross;and then, when\na signal was given, the populace rushed upon the body and cut it into\nfragments with hatchets or with knives, or perhaps more simply with\ntheir nails and their teeth. The strips so torn off were devoured\ninstantly, all raw and bloody; they were merely dipped into a cocoanut\nbowl containing a sauce prepared beforehand of lemon-juice and salt.\nIn the case of adultery, the outraged husband had the right of choosing\nfirst what piece he liked best. The guests invited to the feast\nperformed this work with so much ardour that they often tore and hurt\neach other.\u201d I do not think we can read this account without being\nstruck by its close analogy to many of our previous sacrifices, both of\nhuman corn-gods and of sacred animals. The criminal is here nothing more\nthan the substitute for a holy human victim.\n\nAnd now we must also remember that in most countries the gods were\nhousemates of their worshippers, present at all times in every home, and\npartakers of every meal, side by side with the living. They lived in the\nhouse, as still in New Guinea. Libations to them were poured from every\ncup; food was offered to their ghosts or skulls or wooden images at\nevery family gathering. The ordinary feasts were thus mere enlarged\nfestal gatherings, at which a victim was sacrificially slain and\nsacramentally eaten; and _the visitors believed they were eating the\nbody and blood of the god to their own salvation_. Greater sacrifices,\nlike the {335}hecatombs, or the heroic Indian horse-sacrifice, must have\nbeen relatively rare; but in all of them we see clear proof that the\nvictim was regarded as a sacred animal, that is to say a god, in one of\nhis embodiments.\n\nClear evidence of this equivalence is seen in the fact that the\nworshippers often clad themselves in the skin of the victim, as the\nMexicans did in the skin of the annual god. Sometimes the hide is\neven used to deck the idol. In the Cyprian sacrifice of a sheep to the\nsheep-goddess Aphrodite, the celebrants wore the skin of the sheep;\nwhile the Assyrian Dagon-worshipper offered the fish-sacrifice to the\nfish-god, clad in a fish-skin. Of similar import is doubtless the \u00e6gis\nor goat-skin of Athena, envisaged as a goat-goddess, and the skins used\nin the Dionysiac mysteries. I do not hesitate to affiliate all these on\na primitive usage like that of the Mexican cannibal sacrifice.\n\nHaving reached this point, we can see further that the case where a\nsacred animal, the representative of a human victim, is slaughtered\nbefore the altar of an older god is exactly equivalent to the\nother known case where a human victim is slaughtered before the\nfoundation-stone of a town or village. In either case, there is a\ndistinct renewal of the divine life; fresh blood, as it were, is\ninstilled by the act into the ancient deity. All the other concomitants\nare precisely the same. Thus at the Theban sacrifice of a ram to the\nram-god Amen, the worshippers bewailed the victim, as the women bewailed\nAdonis and Attis; and the image of Amen was finally draped in the skin\nof the victim, while its body was buried in a sacred coffin. At the\nBuphonia or sacramental ox-slaying in Athens, there was a regular trial\nafter the victim was slain, everybody throwing the blame on one another,\ntill at last the knife that inflicted the wound was found guilty\nof murder and cast into the sea. (This casting into the sea of a\nguilt-bearer for the community will meet us again when we come to\nconsider the doctrine of the atonement.) So we saw that the Potraj fled\nafter the performance of his sanguinary sacrifice; and {336}so too\nthe slayer of the Dionysus-calf at Tenedos fled for his life when the\nceremony was completed. Indeed, we get many intermediate cases, like\nthat of the goat dressed up as a girl which was offered theanthropically\nto Artemis Munychia, or that of the Dionysus-calf clad in buskins,\nwhose mother-cow was treated as a woman in child-birth. To me, all these\ninstances are obvious attempts to palm off, as it were, on the gods a\nsacred animal in place of a genuine human victim. They are little\nmore than divine legal fictions, eked out, no doubt, by the fiction of\nkinship between the herd and its masters.\n\nAs a whole, then, we may venture to say not perhaps that all, but that a\ngreat number of sacrifices, and certainly the best-known among historic\nnations, are slaughters of animal substitutes for human victims; and\nthat the flesh is sacramentally consumed by the worshippers.\n\nThere is one special form of this animal sacrifice, however, which I\ncannot here pass over in complete silence. It is the one of which the\nharvest-feast is the final relic. Mr. Frazer has fully worked out this\ntheme in his fascinating essay: to detail it here at length would occupy\ntoo much space; I can only give the barest outline of his instances.\nOriginally, it would seem, the corn-god or corn-spirit was conceived\nduring the reaping as taking refuge in the last sheaf left standing.\nWhoever cut that wisp of corn slew the corn-spirit, and was therefore,\non the analogy of the slayer of the divine king, himself the\ncorn-spirit. Mr. Frazer does not absolutely assert that this human\nrepresentative was originally killed and eaten, though all analogy\nwould seem to suggest it; but that he was at least killed is abundantly\ncertain; and killed he still is, in dumb show at any rate, on many\nmodern European corn-fields. More often, however, the corn-spirit is\nsupposed to be embodied in any animal which happens to be found in the\nlast sheaf, where even now small creatures like mice and hedgehogs often\ntake refuge. In earlier times, however, wolves, wild boars, and other\nlarge animals {337}seem to have been frequently met with under similar\ncircumstances. However that may be, a great many beasts--generally\nsacred beasts--are or have been sacramentally eaten as representatives\nof the corn-god; while, conversely, the last sheaf is often made up\ninto the image of a man or still more often of a woman, and preserved\nreligiously for a year, like the annual king, till the next harvest.\nSometimes a cock is beheaded and eaten at the harvest feast, special\nimportance being here attached to its head, as to the head of the human\nvictim in so many other cases. Sometimes, as with the ancient Prussians,\nit was the corn-goat whose body was sacramentally eaten. Sometimes, as\nat Chamb\u00e9ry, an ox is slaughtered, and eaten with special rites by the\nreapers at supper. Sometimes, it is the old sacred Teutonic animal, the\nhorse, that is believed to inhabit the last wisp of corn. I will add\nparenthetically here (what I trust in some future work to show) that\nwe have probably in this and kindred ideas the origin of the sacred\nand oracular heads of horses and oxen attached to temples or built into\nchurches. Sometimes, again, it is a pig that represents the god, and is\nceremonially eaten at the harvest festival.\n\nI need hardly mention that all these sacred animals, substitutes for the\noriginal human god, find their parallels in the festivals of Dionysus,\nAttis, Osiris, Demeter, Adonis, Lityerses, and the other great corn and\nwine gods of the historic civilisations.\n\nBut there is yet another and more sublimated form of sacramental feast.\nSince the corn-god and the wine-god, when slain, undergo resurrection\nin the corn and the vine, may we not also eat their bodies as bread, and\ndrink their blood as wine or soma?\n\nTo people already familiar, first with the honorific cannibal form\nof god-eating, and then with its gentler animal-victim modification,\nnothing could be more natural than this slight transference of feeling.\nNay, more: _whoever eat bread and drank wine from the beginning must\nhave known {338}it was the body and blood of a god he was eating and\ndrinking_. Still, there is a certain difference between mere ordinary\nevery-day food and the sacramental feast, to which sacred cannibalism\nand animal-sacrifice had now familiarised men\u2019s minds. Accordingly, we\nfind in many cases that there exists a special _sacramental_ eating and\ndrinking of bread and wine, which is more especially regarded as _eating\nthe body and drinking the blood of the deity_.\n\nSome curious illustrative facts may here be cited. Since straw and corn\ngrow from the slaughtered corn-god, they may be regarded as one of his\nnatural embodiments. Hence, when human sacrifices are prohibited, people\nsometimes make a straw god do duty for a human one. The Gonds, we saw,\nused once to kidnap sacred Brahman boys--gods by race, as it were, yet\nstrangers and children--scatter their blood over the fields, and\neat their bodies sacramentally. But when the unsympathetic British\ngovernment interfered with the god-making habits of the Gond people,\nthey took, says Col. Dalton, to making an image of straw instead,\nwhich they now similarly sacrifice. So it may be noted in many of the\nceremonies of \u201cBurying the Carnival\u201d and the like, which I have\nalready cited, that a straw man is substituted symbolically for the\nhuman victim. Indeed, in that singular set of survivals we have every\npossible substitute--the mock king, the imbecile, the pretended killing,\nthe ceremonial shedding of blood, the animal victim, and the straw man\nor effigy. I may add that even the making of our modern Guy Fawkes as\n\u201ca man of straw\u201d is thus no mere accident. But we get a very similar\nuse of corn in the curious practice of fashioning the corn-wife and the\ncorn-baby, so fully detailed by Mr. Frazer. In this attenuated survival\nof human sacrifice, a sheaf of corn does duty for a human victim, and\nrepresents the life of the corn-god or corn-spirit from one year to\nanother. All the existing evidence goes to suggest the idea that at\nharvest a corn-maiden or corn-wife, after a year {339}of deification,\nwas slain in former times, and that the human victim is now represented\nby her vegetable analogue or equivalent, the corn in the ear, a sheaf\nof which does duty in her place, and reigns as corn-queen till the next\nyear\u2019s harvest. The corn-baby is thus a temporary queen, made of corn,\nnot of human flesh and blood. We may compare with this case the account\nof the Sioux girl who was sacrificed by the Pawnees, by being burned\nover a slow fire, and then shot (like St. Sebastian) with arrows. The\nchief sacrificer tore out her heart and devoured it, thus eating the\ngoddess in true cannibal fashion. While her flesh was still warm, it\nwas cut up into small pieces and taken to the corn-field. Drops of blood\nwere squeezed from it upon the grains of seed-corn; after which it was\nall covered up in the ground to form a crop-raiser. Of such a ghastly\ngoddess-making ceremony, our seemingly innocent harvest comedy of the\ncorn-baby is probably the last surviving relic. Mr. Frazer rightly\nconnects it with the cult of the Athenian Kor\u00ea, Persephone. I think,\nindeed, the double form of the name, \u201cthe Old Woman\u201d and \u201cthe\nCorn-baby,\u201d makes it probable that the pair are the vegetable\nequivalents of both Demeter and her ravished daughter.\n\nIn other cases, however, it is the actual bread and wine themselves,\nnot the straw or the corn in the ear, that represent the god and are\nsacramentally eaten. We owe to Mr. Frazer most of our existing knowledge\nof the wide prevalence and religious importance of this singular ritual.\n\nWe have seen already that in many countries the first-fruits of the\ncrops are presented either to ancestral ghosts, or to the great gods,\nor else to the king, who is the living god and present representative\nof the divine ancestors. Till this is done, it would be unsafe to eat\nof the new harvest. The god within it would kill you. But in addition to\nthe ceremonial offering of first-fruits to the spirits, many races also\n\u201ceat the god\u201d in the new corn or rice sacramentally. In Wermland,\nin Sweden, the farmer\u2019s wife uses {340}the grain of the last sheaf (in\nwhich, as we saw, the corn-god or corn-spirit is supposed specially to\nreside), in order to bake a loaf in the shape of a little girl. Here\nwe have the maiden, who was previously sacrificed as a corn-goddess or\nPersephone, reappearing once more in a bread image. This loaf is divided\namong all the household and eaten by them. So at La Palisse in France, a\nman made of dough is hung upon the fir-tree which is carried home to the\ngranary on the last harvest-waggon. The dough man and the tree are taken\nto the mayor\u2019s house till the vintage is over; then a feast takes\nplace, at which the mayor breaks the dough man in pieces, and gives the\nfragments to the people to eat. Here, the mayor clearly represents\nthe king or chief, while the feast of first-fruits and the sacramental\neating are combined, as was perhaps originally the case, in one and the\nsame sacrificial ceremony. No particular mention is made of wine; but\nas the feast is deferred so as to take place after the vintage, it\nis probable that the blood of the wine-god as well as the body of the\ncorn-god entered once at least into the primitive ritual.\n\nMany similar feasts survive in Europe; but for the rite of eating the\ncorn-god in its fullest form we must go once more to Mexico, which also\nsupplied us with the best and most thoroughly characteristic examples of\nthe cannibal god-eating. Twice a year, in May and December, an image of\nthe great Mexican god Huitzilopochtli was made of dough, then broken in\npieces, and solemnly eaten by his assembled worshippers. Two days before\nthe May feast, says Acosta, the virgins of the temple kneaded beet-seeds\nwith roasted maize, and moulded them with honey into a paste idol, as\nbig as the permanent wooden idol which represented the god, putting in\nglass beads for eyes, and grains of Indian corn in the place of teeth.\nThe nobles then brought the vegetable god an exquisite and rich garment,\nlike that worn by the wooden idol, and dressed the image up in it. This\ndone, the carried the effigy on a litter {341}on their shoulders, no\ndoubt to mark its royal authority. On the morning of the feast, the\nvirgins of the god dressed themselves in garlands of maize and other\nfestal attire. Young men, similarly caparisoned, carried the image in\nits ark or litter to the foot of the great pyramid temple. It was\n_drawn up the steps with clanging music of flutes and trumpets--a common\naccompaniment of god-slaying ceremonies_. Flowers were strewed on it, as\nwas usual with all the gods of vegetation, and it was lodged in a little\nchapel of roses. Certain ceremonies of singing and dancing then took\nplace, by means of which the paste was consecrated into the actual body\nand bones of the god. Finally, the image was broken up and distributed\nto the people, first the nobles, and then the commonalty, who received\nit, men, women, and children, \u201cwith such tears, fear, and reverence\nas if it were sacred, saying they did eat the flesh and bones of\nGod, wherewith they were grieved.\u201d I need not point out the close\nresemblance here to the mourning over the bodies of Attis and Adonis,\nnor to the rites of Dionysus.\n\nStill more closely does the December feast (which took place, like\nChristmas, at the winter solstice) recall the cannibal practice; for\nhere an image of the god was made of seeds, kneaded into dough with\nthe blood of children. Such a Massacre of the Innocents occurs often\nelsewhere in similar connexions: we shall meet with it again on a\nsubsequent occasion. The image was placed on the chief altar of the\ntemple, and on the day of its Epiphany, the king of Mexico offered\nincense to it. Bambino gods like this are well known in other countries.\nNext day it was taken down, and a priest flung at it a flint-tipped\narrow. This was called \u201ckilling the god so that his body might be\neaten.\u201d One of the priests then cut out the heart of the image and\ngave it to the actual king to eat, just as in other sacrifices the\npriest cut out the throbbing heart of the human victim and placed it in\nthe mouth of the cannibal god. The rest of the image was divided into\nsmall pieces, {342}which were distributed to all the males of the\ncommunity, adults or children. The ceremony was called \u201c_God is\nEaten_.\u201d\n\nI will not multiply examples of the main principle of eating the\ncorn-god in the shape of little cakes or human images, which have been\ncollected in abundance all the world over. Mr. Frazer\u2019s work is a\nperfect thesaurus of analogous customs. I will rather call attention to\none or two special parallels with similar god-eating rites, cannibal\nor animal, which occur elsewhere. At the close of the rice harvest in\nBoeroe, in the East Indies, each clan meets at a common sacrificial\nmeal, to which every member of the clan is bound to contribute a little\nof his new rice from the current season. This is called \u201ceating the\nsoul of the rice.\u201d But some of the rice is also set apart and offered\nto the spirits--that is, I take it, to the ghosts of ancestors. This\ncombination is like the common case of the human victim being offered\non the altar-stone of earlier ancestral deities. Amongst the Alfoers\nof Celebes, again, it is the priest who sows the first rice-seeds, and\nplucks the first ripe rice in each field. This he roasts and grinds into\nmeal, giving some of it to each member of the family. Here the priest no\ndoubt represents the old tribal priest-king. Several similar practices\nare reported from India, only one of which need at present detain us.\nAmong the Hindoos of the Deccan there is a magical and sacramental\neating of the new rice; but the special point of interest to be noted\nhere is the fact that some of it is offered to the god Ganesa, after\nwhich the whole family partake of the produce. Among the Kafirs of\nNatal and Zululand, however, it is at the king\u2019s kraal that the people\nassemble for their sacramental feast of new fruits, where they dance and\nperform certain sacred ceremonies. In this case, the king, the living\ngod, seems to take the place of the god, the dead king, in the Indian\nfestival. Various grains are mixed with the flesh of a sacrificed\nanimal, in whom we shall now have perhaps little difficulty in\nrecognising the representative {343}of a human corn-god victim; and\n_a portion of this mess is placed in the mouth of each man by the king\nhimself, here officiating in his capacity of ancestral priest_. By\nthe light of such analogies, I think we need have no hesitation\nin reconstructing the primitive sacramental feast, where a man was\nsacrificed as an annual manufactured corn-god; seeds were mixed with his\nblood; his flesh was eaten sacramentally by the people, fed by the king;\na part of his body was also eaten by the king himself, and a part was\noffered to the great gods, or to the tribal god, or the foundation god\nor goddess of the village or city. After putting together the various\nsurvivals already cited, I do not think this is too large an exercise of\nthe constructive faculty.\n\nAn interesting mixed case of god-eating, in which the cake was baked,\nnot in the form of a man, but of a divine animal, I have seen myself in\nthe house of Irish emigrants in Canada. The new corn was there made into\nloaves or buns in the shape of little pigs, with currants for eyes; and\none of these was given to each of the children. Though merely regarded\nas a playful custom, this instance, I venture to think, has still its\nown illustrative value.\n\nThe practice of kneading sacramental cakes from the blood of infants,\nwhich we saw to prevail in the case of a Mexican god, is parallelled\nin the practice of mixing them with shreds of the flesh from an animal\nvictim in the Zulu ceremony. The cannibal form of the rite must,\nhowever, have been very widespread; as we gather from the fact that a\nChristian sect, the Paulicians, were accused of it as late as the eighth\ncentury. John of Osun, Patriarch of Armenia, wrote a diatribe against\nthese sectaries, in which he mentions the fact that they moulded an\nimage of wheaten flower with the blood of children, and eat therewith\ntheir unholy communion. Of course, there could have been no direct\nintercourse in the ninth century between Armenia and Mexico; but\nthe accusation shows at least that similar ceremonies were known or\nremembered in {344}Asia as actual practices. Indeed, the Harranians\nin the middle ages annually sacrificed an infant, and boiling down\nits flesh, baked it into cakes, of which every freeman was allowed to\npartake. In both these cases, we have the two extremes of eating the\ngod combined in one practice--the cannibal rite and the sacramental\ncorn-cake.\n\nMr. Frazer calls attention to another interesting transitional instance.\nLoaves made in the shape of men were called at Rome Mani\u00e6; and it\nappears that such loaves were specially made at Aricia. Now Aricia\nwas also the one place in Italy where a divine priest-king, the Rex\nNemoralis, lived on well recognised into the full blaze of the historic\nperiod, on the old savage tenure of killing his predecessor. Again,\nMania was the name of the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts. Woollen\nimages, dedicated to this Latin Cybele, were hung out in Rome at the\nfeast of the Compitalia, and were said to be substitutes for human\nvictims. Mr. Frazer suggests that the loaves in human form which were\nbaked at Aricia were sacramental bread; and that in old days, when the\nRex Nemoralis was annually slain, loaves were also made in his image\nas in Mexico, and were eaten sacramentally by his worshippers. I do not\nhesitate myself to suggest still further that the _gingerbread cakes,\nshaped like a man_, and still richly gilt, which are sold at so many\nfairs in France and Italy, and also sometimes in England, are last dying\nrelics of similar early sacramental images. For fairs are for the most\npart diminished survivals of religious festivals.\n\nAs the theanthropic animal victim represents a man and a god, it is\nreasonable that a cake shaped as an animal and baked of flour should\nsometimes do as well as the animal victim. For the corn is after all the\nembodiment of the corn-god. Hence bakers in the antique world used\nto keep in stock representations in dough of the various sacrificial\nanimals, for people who were too poor to afford the originals. Oxen and\nsheep were regularly so represented. When Mithridates besieged\nCyzicus, and the people {345}could not get a black cow to sacrifice to\nPersephone, they made a dough cow and placed it at the altar. At\nthe Athenian festival of the Diasia, cakes shaped like animals were\nsimilarly sacrificed; and at the Osiris festival in Egypt, when the\nrich offered a real pig, the poor used to present a dough pig as a\nsubstitute, like the dough pig of the Irish Canadians.\n\nBut in many other rites, the sacramental and sacrificial cake has\nentirely lost all semblance of a man or animal. The god is then eaten\neither in the shapeless form of a boiled mess of rice or porridge, or in\na round cake or loaf, without image of any sort, or in a wafer stamped\nwith the solar or Christian cross. Instances of this type are familiar\nto everyone.\n\nMore closely related still to primitive cannibalism is the curious\nritual of the Sin-Eater, so well elaborated by Mr. Sidney Hartland. In\nUpper Bavaria, what is called a corpse-cake is kneaded from flour, and\nplaced on the breast of a dead person, in order to absorb the virtues\nof the departed. This cake is then eaten by the nearest relation. In the\nBalkan peninsula, a small image of the dead person was made in bread\nand eaten by the survivors of the family. These are intermediate stages\nbetween cannibalism and the well-known practice of sin-eating.\n\nI hope I have now made clear the general affiliation which I am seeking\nto suggest, if not to establish. My idea is that in the beginning\ncertain races devoured their own parents, or parts of them, so as to\nabsorb the divine souls of their forebears into their own bodies.\nLater, when artificial god-making became a frequent usage, especially\nin connexion with agriculture, men eat the god, or part of him, for a\nsimilar reason. But they likewise eat him as the corn or yam or rice,\nsacramentally. When thean-thropic victims were substituted for the\nman-god, they eat the theanthropic victim in like manner. Also they made\nimages in paste of both man and beast, and, treating these as compounded\nof the god, similarly sacrificed and eat them. {346}And they drank his\nblood, in the south as wine, in the north as beer, in India as soma. If\nthis line of reconstruction be approximately correct, then sacraments\nas a whole are in the last resort based upon survival from the cannibal\ngod-feast.\n\n_It is a significant fact that in many cases, as at the Potraj festival,\nthe officiating priest drinks the blood of the divine victim, while the\nlaity are only permitted to eat of its body_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.--THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.\n\n|ONE {347}more element of some importance yet remains in the complex\nconception of the human or animal victim, or slain god, which we must\nbriefly examine before we can proceed with advantage to the evolution\nof Christianity; I mean the doctrine of piacular sacrifice--or, in other\nwords, of the atonement.\n\n\u201c_Without shedding of blood,\u201d says the author of one of the earliest\nChristian tractates, \u201cthere is no remission of sin_.\u201d This is a\ncommon theory in all advanced religions; the sacrifice is regarded, not\nmerely as the self-immolation of a willing divine victim or incarnate\ngod, but also as an expiation for crimes committed. \u201c_Behold the Lamb\nof God,\u201d says the Baptist in the legend, \u201cwhich taketh away the sins\nof the world_.\u201d\n\nThis idea, I take it, is not primitive. Sin must be regarded as a late\nethical intruder into the domain of religion. Early man for the most\npart takes his gods joyously. He is on the best of terms with them. He\neats and drinks and carouses in their presence. They join in his phallic\nand bacchanalian orgies. They are not great moral censors, like the\nnoble creation of the Hebrew prophets, \u201cof purer eyes than to behold\niniquity.\u201d They are creatures of like passions and failings with\nhimself,--dear ancestors and friends, ever ready to overlook small human\nfrailties like murder or rapine, but exercising a fatherly care for the\nmost part over the lives and fortunes of their descendants or tribesmen.\nAngry they may be at times, {348}no doubt; but their anger as a rule\ncan be easily assuaged by a human victim, or by the blood of slaughtered\ngoats and bulls. Under normal circumstances, they are familiar\nhousemates. Their skulls or images adorn the hearth. They assist at the\nfamily and domestic feasts; and they lick up the offerings of blood or\nwine made to them with a smiling countenance. In short, they are average\nmembers of the tribe, gone before to the spirit-world; and they\ncontinue to share without pride or asceticism in the joys and feasts and\nmerry-makings of their relatives.\n\nThus the idea of expiation, save as a passing appeasement for a\ntemporary tiff, did not probably occur in the very earliest and most\nprimitive religions. It is only later, as ethical ideas begin to obtrude\nthemselves into the sacred cycle, that the notion of sin, which is\nprimarily that of an offence against the established etiquette of the\ngods, makes itself slowly visible. In many cases, later glosses seem to\nput a piacular sense upon what was in its origin by obvious analogy\na mere practical god-making and godslaying ceremony. But in more\nconsciously philosophic stages of religion this idea of atonement gains\nground so fast that it almost swallows up the earlier conception of\ncommunion or feasting together. Sacrifice is then chiefly conceived of\nas a piacular offering to a justly offended or estranged deity; this\nis the form of belief which we find almost everywhere meeting us in the\nhecatombs of the Homeric poems, as in many works of Hellenic and Semitic\nliterature.\n\nIn particular, the piacular sacrifice seems to have crystallised and\nsolidified round the sacred person of the artificial deity. \u201cThe\naccumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole people,\u201d says Mr.\nFrazer, \u201care sometimes laid upon the dying god, who is supposed to\nbear them away for ever, leaving the people innocent and happy.\u201d\n\u201cSurely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,\u201d says one\nof the Hebrew poets, whose verses are conjecturally attributed {349}to\nIsaiah, about one such divine scapegoat; \u201cyet we did esteem him\nstricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our\ntransgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of\nour peace was upon him, and with his stripes are we healed. Jahweh hath\nlaid upon him the iniquity of us all.\u201d\n\nThe ideas here expressed in such noble language were common to all the\nlater man-gods of the more advanced and ethical religions.\n\nMr. Frazer is probably right in connecting the notion of the scapegoat,\nhuman or animal, with _the popular barbaric idea of the transference of\nevils_. Thus, in popular magic of all nations, diseases of every sort,\nfrom serious fevers and plagues, down to headache, toothache, warts, and\nsores, are transferred by some simple ceremony of witchcraft to animals,\nrags, or other people. I will quote examples but briefly. Epilepsy is\nmade over to leaves and thrown away in the Malay Archipelago. Toothache\nis put into a stone in Australia. A Bechuana king gave his illness to\nan ox, which was drowned in his stead, to secure his recovery. Mr. Gomme\nquotes a terrible story of a Scotch nobleman who transferred his mortal\ndisease to his brother by a magical ceremony. \u201cCharms\u201d for fever or\nfor warts generally contain some such amiable element of transferring\nthe trouble to a string, a rag, or a piece of paper, which is flung away\nto carry the evil with it to the person who next touches it. Numerous\ncases of like implication may be found in the works of Mr. Gomme and Mr.\nHartland, to which I would refer enquirers after further evidence.\n\nClosely connected with these notions of transference are also the\noccasional or periodical ceremonies undertaken for the expulsion of\nevils from a village or a community. Devils, demons, hostile spirits,\ndiseases, and other misfortunes of every sort are frequently thus\nexpelled with gongs, drums, and other magical instruments. Often the\nboundaries of the tribe or parish are gone over, a {350}perlustration\nis performed, and the evil influences are washed out of the territory or\nforcibly ejected. Our own rite of Beating the Bounds represents on one\nof its many sides this primitive ceremony. Washings and dippings are\nfrequent accompaniments of the expulsive ritual; in Peru, it was also\nbound up with that common feature of the corn-god sacrament--a cake\nkneaded with the blood of living children. The periodical exorcism\ngenerally takes place once a year, but is sometimes biennial: it has\nobvious relations with the sacrifice of the human or animal victim.\nIn Europe, it still survives in many places as the yearly expulsion of\nwitches. The whole subject has been so admirably treated by Mr. Frazer\nthat I have nothing to add to his excellent exposition.\n\nPutting these two cardinal ideas together, we arrive at the compound\nconception of the _scapegoat_. A scapegoat is a human or animal victim,\nchosen to carry off, at first the misfortunes or diseases, later the\nsin and guilt of the community. The name by which we designate it\nin English, being taken from the derivative Hebrew usage, has animal\nimplications; but, as in all analogous cases, I do not doubt that the\nhuman evil-bearer precedes the animal one.\n\nA good example of this incipient stage in the evolution of the scapegoat\noccurs at Onitsha, on the Quorra River. Two human beings are there\nannually sacrificed, \u201cto take away the sins of the land\u201d--though\nI suspect it would be more true to native ideas to say, \u201cthe\nmisfortunes.\u201d The number two, as applied to the victims, crops\nup frequently in this special connexion. The victims here again are\n\u201cbought with a price\u201d--purchased by public subscription. All persons\nwho during the previous year have committed gross offences against\nnative ethics are expected to contribute to the cost of the victims. Two\nsickly people are bought with the money, \u201cone for the land and one for\nthe river.\u201d The victims are dragged along the ground to the place\nof execution, face downward. The crowd who accompany {351}them cry,\n\u201cWickedness! wickedness!\u201d So in Siam it was customary to choose\na broken-down woman of evil life, carry her on a litter through the\nstreets (which is usually a symbol of kingship or godhead) and throw her\non a dunghill or hedge of thorns outside the wall, forbidding her ever\nagain to enter the city. In this eastern case, there is mere expulsion,\nnot actual killing.\n\nIn other instances, however, the divine character attributed to the\nhuman scapegoat is quite unmistakable. Among the Gonds of India, at the\nfestival of the god of the crops, the deity descends on the head of\none of the worshippers, who is seized with a fit, and rushes off to the\njungle. There, it is believed he would die of himself, if he were not\nbrought back and tenderly treated: but the Gonds, more merciful here\nthan in many other cases, take him back and restore him. The idea is\nthat he is thus singled out to bear the sins of the rest of the village.\nAt Halberstadt in Thuringia an exactly similar custom survived till\nlate in the middle ages. A man was chosen, stained with deadly sin,\nas the public scapegoat. On the first day of Lent he was dressed in\nmourning, and expelled from church. For forty days, he wandered about,\nfed only by the priests, and no one would speak to him. He slept in the\nstreet. On the day before Good Friday, however, he was absolved of\nhis sins, and being called Adam, was believed to be now in a state\nof innocence. This is a mitigated and Christianised form of the human\nsin-offering.\n\nAgain, the Albanians of the Eastern Caucasus kept a number of sacred\nslaves in the temple of the moon, many of whom were inspired and\nprophesied. When one of these men exhibited unusual symptoms of\ninspiration, the high priest had him bound with a sacred chain, and\nmaintained for a year in luxury, like the Mexican corn-god. This fact\nimmediately brings the human scapegoat into line with the annual human\ngods we have already considered. At the end of a year, he was anointed\nwith unguents (or, so to speak, christed), and led forth to be\nsacrificed. {352}The sacrifice was accomplished as a purificatory\nceremony.\n\nMr. Frazer, to whom I owe all these examples, connects with such rites\nthe curious ceremony of the expulsion of the Old Mars, the Mamurius\nVeturius, at Rome. Every year on the 14th of March (near the spring\nequinox), a man, called by the name of a god, was clad in skins--the\nsignificance of which rite we now know--and after being beaten with\nlong white rods, was expelled the city. From one point of view, this\npersonage no doubt represented the god of vegetation of the previous\nyear (for the Mars was originally an annual corn-god). But from another\npoint of view, being now of no further use to the community, he was\nutilised with true old Roman parsimony as a scapegoat, and sent to carry\naway the offences of the people. Indeed, there seems to be some reason\nfor believing that he was driven into the territory of the hostile\nOscans. In this case we perceive that an annual god is made the\nsin-offering for the crimes of a nation.\n\nIn Greece, we get similar traces of the human scapegoat. At Ch\u00e6ronea in\nBoeotia, the chief magistrate at the town-hall, and every householder in\nhis own house, as we learn from Plutarch (who was himself a magistrate\nthere) had on a certain day to beat a slave with rods of _agnus castus_,\nand turn him out of doors, with the formula, \u201cOut, hunger! in, health\nand wealth!\u201d Elsewhere the custom retained more unpleasant features.\nAt Marseilles, when the colony was ravaged by plague, a man of the\npoorer classes used voluntarily to offer himself as a sin-offering or\nscapegoat. Here we have once more the common episode of the willing\nvictim. For a whole year, like other annual gods, he was fed at the\npublic expense, and treated as a gentleman--that is to say, a kingly\nman-god. At the end of that time, he was dressed in sacred garments\n--another mark of godship--decked with holy branches, the common\ninsignia of gods of vegetation, and led through the city, while prayers\nwere offered up that the sins of {353}the people might fall on his\nhead. He was then cast out of the colony. The Athenians kept a number of\noutcasts as public victims at the expense of the town; and when plague,\ndrought, or famine befell, sacrificed two of them (note the number) as\nhuman scapegoats. One was said to be a substitute for the men, and one\nfor the women. They were led about the city (like Beating the Bounds\nagain) and then apparently stoned to death without it. Moreover,\nperiodically every year, at the festival of the Thargelia, two victims\nwere stoned to death as scapegoats at Athens, one for the men, and one\nfor the women. I would conjecturally venture to connect this sacred\nnumber, not merely with the African practice already noted, but also\nwith the dual kings at Sparta, the two consuls at Rome, and the two\nsuffetes at Carthage and in other Semitic cities. The duality of kings,\nindeed, is a frequent phenomenon.\n\nI can only add here that the many other ceremonies connected with these\nhuman scapegoats have been well expounded and explained by Mannhardt,\nwho shows that they were all of a purificatory character, and that the\nscourging of the god before putting him to death was a necessary point\nof divine procedure. Hence the significance of the _agnus castus_.\n\nBriefly, then, the evidence collected by Mannhardt and Frazer suffices\nto suggest that the human scapegoat was the last term of a god,\ncondemned to death, upon whose head the transgression or misfortunes of\nthe community were laid as substitute. He was the vicarious offering who\ndied for the people.\n\nIt is only here and there, however, that the scapegoat retains to\nhistorical times his first early form as a human victim. Much more\noften, in civilised lands at least, we get the usual successive\nmitigations of the custom. Sometimes, as we have seen already in these\ncases, the victim is not actually killed, but merely expelled, or\neven only playfully and ceremonially driven out of the city. In other\ninstances, {354}we get the familiar substitution of the condemned\ncriminal, or the imbecile, as in the Attic Thargelia.’ The Greeks of\nAsia Minor used actually to burn their atonement-victim, and cast his\nashes into the sea; but the Leucadians merely threw down a condemned\nprisoner from a cliff, and lightened his fall by fastening live birds\nto him, while they kept boats below to save him from drowning, and carry\nhim well beyond the frontier. In the vast majority of cases, however, we\nhave the still more common substitution of a sacred animal for a human\nvictim; and this appears to be in large part the origin of that common\nreligious feature, the piacular sacrifice.\n\nOccasionally we get historical or half-historical evidence of the\ntransition from a human victim to a divine or quasidivine animal. Thus,\nthe people of Nias offer either a red horse or a buffalo to purify the\nland; but formerly, a man was bound to the same stake with the buffalo,\nand when the buffalo was killed, the man was driven away, no native\ndaring to receive him or feed him. The sacrificial camel of the ancient\nArabs, presumably piacular, is expressly stated to be a substitute for\na human victim. The favourite victims of the Saracens were young and\nbeautiful captives: but if such were not to be procured, they contented\nthemselves with a white and faultless camel. The step hence to the\nhabitual immolation or driving forth of a divine animal in place of a\ndivine or quasi-divine man is a very small one. In Malabar, the cow is\na sacred beast, and to kill or eat a cow is a crime like murder.\nNevertheless, the Brahmans transfer the sins of the people to a cow\nor cows, which are then driven out wherever the Brahmans appoint. The\nancient Egyptians used to sacrifice a bull, and lay upon its head all\nthe evils which might otherwise happen to themselves and their country;\nthen they sold the bull\u2019s head to the Greeks, or flung it into the\nriver. (Contrast this effort to get rid of the accursed head with the\ncareful preservation and worship of the sacred one.) The best-known case\nof all, of course, is the Hebrew scapegoat, which was {355}the sacred\nanimal of a shepherd people, turned out to die of hunger or thirst in\nthe desert, and bearing on its head the sins of the people. (Contrast\nthe scapegoat with the paschal lamb, and compare with the goats and\nsheep of the last judgment.) When cholera rages among the aboriginal\ntribes of India, they take a goat or a buffalo--in either case a female,\nthe most sacred sex in Indian sacrifice, and black all over, like Apis\nand Mnevis; they turn it out of the village, with magical ceremonies,\nand do not allow it to return within their precincts. In many other\nsimilar poojahs, the victim is a goat. Mr. Frazer has collected, here as\nelsewhere, a vast number of valuable and illustrative instances.\n\nAs a rule, the man-god or divine animal selected as a scapegoat is not\nactually slaughtered, in the fullest form of the rite; he is driven\naway, or flung into the sea, or left to die of hunger and thirst.\nSometimes, however, he is burned as a holocaust: sometimes he is stoned,\nand sometimes slaughtered. And in later and less perfect forms of\npiacular animal sacrifice, slaughter was the rule, save where burning\nhad ousted it. Indeed, in many cases, it is difficult to disentangle the\nvarious elements of the complex problem. People had got accustomed to\ncertain forms of sacrifice, and mixed them up indiscriminately, so that\none and the same rite seems sometimes to be sacramental, sacrificial,\nand piacular, all at once. Thus Dr. Robertson Smith writes of ancient\nEgypt: \u201cBulls were offered on the altar, and part of the flesh eaten\nin a sacrificial feast; but the sacrifice was only permitted as a\npiaculum, was preceded by a solemn fast, and was accompanied by public\nlamentation, as at the death of a kinsman.\u201d Compare the annual\nmourning for Adonis; and also the similar union of sacrifice, sacrament,\nand atonement in the Mass, which, at the great resurrection-festival of\nthe Christian year, Easter, is equally preceded by a fast, and by the\nsolemn mourning of Good Friday.\n\nNow, I do not pretend to discriminate accurately in these {356}very\nmixed cases between one element and another in the compound rite. Often\nenough, all the various traits of god-slaying, of sacrament, and of\npublic expiation are evidently present. Usually, too, the victim is\nslain before the altar or sacred stone of some earlier and greater god,\nand its blood poured forth for him. Thus, in the Hebrew ritual both of\nthe holocaust and the sin-offering, the victim is slain at the altar,\n\u201cbefore Jahweh,\u201d and the effusion of blood on the sacred slab has\na special significance. In the Semitic held, as Dr. Robertson Smith\nobserves (and I would add, in most others), \u201c_the fundamental idea\nof sacrifice is not that of a sacred tribute, but of joint communion\nbetween the god and his worshippers, by joint participation in the\nliving flesh and blood of a sacred victim_.\u201d But the identity of\ngod and victim is often quite clear; thus, as we saw before, the\nsheep-Aphrodite was worshipped in Cyprus with an annual mystic and\npiacular sacrifice of a sheep; and the worshippers themselves were clad\nin sheepskins, a rite whose significance is now abundantly evident to\nus.\n\nOn the whole, then, at the stage we have at last reached, I will not\nattempt to distinguish in every case between the various superposed\nideas in the sacrificial ceremony. Most sacrifices seem in the last\nresort to be substitutes for human-divine victims. Most seem to be\nsacramental, and most to be more or less distinctly piacular. I do not\neven know whether, in reconstructing afresh for others a series of\nrites the ideas of which have grown slowly clear to my own mind by\nconsideration of numerous mixed examples, I have always placed\neach particular fact in its best and most effective position for\nillustration. The elements of the problem are so involved and so closely\ninterosculating. For instance, I do not doubt that the great Phoenician\nand Carthaginian holocausts of human victims, which I was compelled at\nfirst to treat most inadequately, were mainly piacular in intention; nor\ndo I doubt that the Greek hecatomb (or holocaust of a hundred oxen) was\na mitigation or attenuation {357}of such gigantic human holocausts as\nthese, or as those attributed to the British Druids. Asclepiades states\nexpressly that every victim was originally regarded as a substitute for\nhuman sacrifice; and so, in the Elohistic account of the origin of burnt\nsacrifice, a ram is accepted as a substitute for the life of Isaac, the\ndearly-beloved son whom the chief or king, Abraham, intends to offer as\na royal victim to his tribal god. Abraham says that the god himself\nwill provide a victim; and the ram then, as it were, voluntarily offers\nitself. So at the great temple of Astarte at Eryx, where the victims\nwere drawn from the sacred or divine herds kept at the sanctuary, the\nchosen beast was believed of its own accord to present itself at the\naltar. At the Dupolia in like manner a number of bulls were driven\ntogether round the holy table; and the bull was selected which\nvoluntarily approached and eat of the sacred cakes; thereby not only\nshowing himself to be a willing victim, but also doubly divine, first\nbecause he took the food intended for the god, and second because he\nswallowed the sacred corn, itself the duplicate body of the deity.\n(Compare, of course, the Hebrew shewbread.) I need not pursue this line\nof thought any further. _It must be obvious that many sacrifices at\nleast are sacra-mentally-piacular god-slaying ceremonies, and that in\nmost of them the god is slain, himself to himself, in human or animal\nform, as an expiation of crimes against his own majesty. Nor need I\npoint out how this complex concept lies at the very root of Pauline\ntheology_.\n\nI would like to add, however, that the ideas here formulated must give\na new meaning to many points we could not at first understand in\nceremonies mentioned in our earlier chapters. I will take only\none example--that of the place of Samoyed sacrifice which Baron\nNordenski\u00f4ld saw on Vaygats Island. We can now divine the meaning of\nthe heap of reindeer skulls piled around the rude open-air shrine; for\nreindeer are the sacred and the-anthropic animals of the northern races;\nwhile the preservation {358}of their heads at the hyp\u0153thral altar of\nthe elder gods or ghosts has its usual holy and oracular meaning. We\ncan also guess why remains of a fireplace could be seen by the side, at\nwhich the sacrificial and sacramental meal was habitually prepared; and\nwhy the mouths of the idols were smeared with blood, in order to make\nthe older gods or ghosts participators in the festival. Indeed, any\nreader who has followed me thus far, and who now turns back to the\nearlier chapters of this book, will find that many details appear to him\nin quite a different light, and will see why I have insisted beforehand\non some minor points which must have seemed to him at the time wholly\nirrelevant.\n\nMany other curious ceremonies that seem equally meaningless at first in\nnarratives of travel will also come to have a significant meaning when\nthus regarded. For instance. Mr. Chalmers tells us that among the New\nGuinea natives of particular districts, \u201cpigs are never killed but\nin the one place, and then they are offered to the spirit. The blood is\npoured out there, and the carcase is then carried back to the village,\nto be divided, cooked, and eaten. Pigs\u2019 skulls are kept and hung up\nin the house. Food for a feast, such as at house-building\u201d--a most\npregnant hint--\u201cis placed near the post where the skulls hang, and\na prayer is said. When the centre-post is set up, the spirits have\nwallaby, fish, and bananas presented to them, and they are besought to\nkeep that house always full of food, and that it may not fall when the\nwind is strong.\u201d If we recall other cases elsewhere, we can hardly\ndoubt that the pigs in these instances are killed as sacred victims at\nthe grave of the chief family ancestor; especially when Mr. Chalmers\nalso tells us that \u201ceach family has a sacred place where they\ncarry offerings to the spirits of deceased ancestors, whom they greatly\nfear.\u201d When sickness, famine, or scarcity of fish occur, it is these\nspirits that have to be appeased. And if we recollect once more that in\nso many cases the central post of the hut is based on a human or animal\nvictim, both {359}in New Guinea and elsewhere, we can hardly doubt that\nto this household god or foundation-ghost the offerings at the central\npost are presented. Finally, the skulls of the pigs which are kept in\nthe house and hung on the post remind us on the one hand of the skulls\nof ancestor-gods similarly preserved, and on the other hand of the\nskulls of theanthropic victims kept by the people of India at their\nfestivals, or fastened by early Greeks and Romans on their temples.\n\u201cThey cook the heads of their slain enemies,\u201d says Mr. Chalmers\nagain, \u201cto secure clean skulls to put on sacred places.\u201d Adequately\nto develop the hints thus suggested, however, would require another book\nas long as the present one.\n\nYet here is just one more such hint, from the same author, too pregnant\nto be omitted.\n\n\u201cWhen the natives begin planting, they first take a bunch of bananas\nand sugar-cane, and go to the centre of the plantation, and call over\nthe names of the dead belonging to their family, adding: \u2018There is\nyour food, your bananas and sugar-cane; let our food grow well, and let\nit be plentiful. If it does not grow well and plentiful, you all will be\nfull of shame, and so shall we.’\n\n\u201cWhen they go on trading expeditions, they present their food to\nthe spirits at the centre-post of the house, and ask the spirits to\ngo before them and prepare the people, so that the trading may be\nprosperous.\n\n\u201cWhen sickness is in the family, a pig is brought to the sacred place\nof the great spirit\u201d (probably the chief ancestral ghost), \u201cand\nkilled. The carcase is then taken to the sacred place of the family, and\nthe spirits are asked to accept it. Sins are confessed, such as bananas\nthat are taken, or cocoanuts, and none have been presented, and leave\nnot given to eat them. \u2018There is a pig; accept, and remove the\nsickness.\u2019 Death follows, and the day of burial arrives. The friends\nall stand round the open grave, and the chief\u2019s sister or cousin\u201d\n(the primitive priestess) \u201ccalls out in a loud voice, \u2018You have been\nangry with us for {360}the bananas we have taken (or cocoanuts, as the\ncase may be), and you have, in your anger, taken this child. Now let it\nsuffice, and bury your anger.\u2019 The body is then placed in the grave,\nand covered over with earth.\u201d\n\nHere we have in brief a perfect epitome of savage theology, savage\nceremonial, and savage atonement. I could enlarge not a little on its\nnumerous implications.\n\nA single quotation from Mr. Savage Landor\u2019s work on The Hairy Ainu\nof Japan will also serve as an excellent summary of such encyclopaedic\nbarbaric theology. \u201cIf they have any belief at all,\u201d he says, \u201cit\nis an imperfect kind of Totemism, and the central point of that belief\nis their own descent from the bear. This does not include the smallest\nreverence for their ancestor. They capture their Totem and keep it in\ncaptivity; they speak to it and feed it; but no prayers are offered to\nit. When the bear is fat, it is taken out of the cage to be ill-treated\nand baited by all the men present.\u201d Like the Khond Meriah and the\ntortures of martyrs. \u201cIt is tied to a stake\u201d or _stauros_ or\naccursed tree, \u201cand a pole is thrust into its mouth; and when the poor\nbeast has been sufficiently tortured, pricked with pointed sticks,\nshot at with blunted arrows,\u201d like St. Sebastian, \u201cbruised with\nstones,\u201d like St. Stephen, \u201cmaddened with rage and ill-usage, it is\nkilled outright, and, ancestor as it may be, it makes the chief dish\nand _raison d’etre_ of a festival, where all the members of the tribe\npartake of its flesh. The owner of the hut in which the feast takes\nplace then sticks the skull on to a forked pole, and sets it outside\nwith the others at the east end of his hut. The skin is made into\ngarments, or is spread on the ground to sleep on.\u201d Here, I need hardly\nsay, we have sacrifice, sacrament, orientation, the sacred head, the use\nof the skin as a covering of the worshipper, and all the other traits of\ntheanthropic substitution.\n\nIt is more to our purpose now, however, to remember these two cardinal\npoints: _first, that a dying god, human or animal, is usually selected\nas a convenient vehicle for the {361}sins of the people; and second,\nthat \u201cwithout shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.\u201d_\nThese two doctrines were commonly current all over the world, but\nespecially in that Eastern Mediterranean world where Christianity was\nfirst evolved. Indeed, they were there so generally recognised that the\nwriters of the earliest Christian tractates, the Apostolic Epistles,\ntake them for granted as self-evident--as principles of which every\nintelligent man would at once admit the truth and cogency.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.--THE WORLD BEFORE CHRIST.\n\n|Christianity {362}grew. It was a natural product. It did not spring,\nfull-fledged, from any one man’s brain, as Athene sprang from the head\nof Zeus. It was not even invented by any little group or school of men,\nPetrine or Pauline, the apostles or the disciples, the early church\nof Jerusalem, Antioch, or Alexandria. Christianity grew--slowly. It\ndeveloped, bit by bit, for three long centuries, taking shape by gradual\nstages in all the teeming centres of the Roman world; and even after it\nhad assumed a consistent form as the Holy Catholic Church, it still\nwent on growing in the minds of men, with a growth which never ends,\nbut which reveals itself even now in a thousand modes, from a Vatican\nCouncil to the last new departure of the last new group of American\nsectaries.\n\nChristianity grew--in the crowded cosmopolitanised seaports and cities\nof the Roman empire--in Antioch, Alexandria, Thessalonica, Cyrene,\nByzantium, Rome. Its highway was the sea. Though partly Jewish in\norigin, it yet appears from its earliest days essentially as a universal\nand international religion. Therefore we may gain some approximate\nknowledge of its origin and antecedents by considering the religious\ncondition of these various great towns at the time when Christianity\nbegan to spring spontaneous in their midst. We can arrive at some idea\nof the product itself by observing the environment in which it was\nevolved.\n\nOnce more, Christianity grew--for the most part among {363}the lower\norders of the cosmopolitan seaports. It fashioned itself among the\nslaves, the freedmen, the Jewish, Syrian, and African immigrants,\nthe Druidical Gauls and Britons of Rome, the petty shopkeepers, the\npauperised clients, the babes and sucklings of the populous centres.\nHence, while based upon Judaism, it gathered hospitably into itself all\nthose elements of religious thought and religious practice that were\ncommon to the whole world, and especially to the Eastern Mediterranean\nbasin. Furthermore, it gathered hospitably into itself in particular\nthose elements which belonged to the older and deeper-seated part of the\npopular religions, rather than those which belonged to the civilised,\nHellenised, and recognised modifications of the state religions. It\nwas a democratic rather than an official product. We have to look,\ntherefore, at the elder far more than the younger stratum of religious\nthought in the great cities, for the influences which went to mould\nChristianity. I do not deny, indeed, that the new faith was touched\nand tinged in all its higher parts by beautiful influences from\nNeo-Platonism, Alexandrian Judaism, and other half-mystical philosophic\nsystems; but for its essential groundwork we have still to go to the\nroot-stratum of religious practice and belief in Antioch and Alexandria,\nin Phrygia and Galatia, in Jerusalem and Rome. _It based itself above\nall on sacrament, sacrifice, atonement, and resurrection_. Yet again,\nChristianity originated first of all among the Jewish, Syrian, or\nSemitic population of these great towns of the empire, at the very\nmoment of its full cosmopolitanisation; it spread rapidly from them, no\ndoubt at first with serious modifications, to the mixed mass of sailors,\nslaves, freedwomen, and townspeople who formed apparently its earliest\nadherents. Hence, we must look in it for an intimate blend of Judaism\nwith the central ideas of the popular religions, Aryan or Hamitic, of\nthe Mediterranean basin. We must expect in it much that was common\nin Syria, Asia Minor, Hellas, and Egypt,--something even from Gaul,\nHispania, Carthage. Its first o w great {364}apostle, if we may believe\nour authorities, was one Saul or Paul, a half-Hellenised Jew of Semitic\nand commercial Tarsus in Cilicia, and a Roman citizen. Its first great\nchurches sprang up in the busy ports and marts of the Levant. _Its very\nname of Christian was given to it first in the crowded and cosmopolitan\ncity of Antioch_.\n\nIt is here, then, in these huge slave-peopled hives of Hellenised\nand Romanised commerce, that we must look for the mother-ideas of\nChristianity.\n\nAntioch was quite undoubtedly in the earliest times the principal cradle\nof the new religion. _I do not mean that Jerusalem was not very probably\nthe place where men first began to form a small sect of esoteric\nChrist-worshippers, or that Galilee was not the region where the Christ\nhimself most largely lived and taught, if indeed such a person ever\nreally existed_. In those matters the traditions handed down to us in\nthe relatively late Gospels may be perfectly correct: and again, they\nmay not. But Christianity as we know it, the Christianity of the Pauline\nepistles and the later writings, such as the Gospels and the works\nof the Fathers, must have been essentially a cult of wider Syrian and\nGentile growth. It embraces in itself elements which doubtless lingered\non in secluded corners more or less among the mass of the people even in\nJud\u00e6a itself, though discountenanced by the adherents of the priestly\nand official Jahweh-worship; but which were integral parts of the\npopular and even the recognised religion throughout the whole of\nnorthern Syria.\n\nAntioch, where Christianity thus took its first feeble steps, was a\nhandsome and bustling commercial city, the capital of the Greek Seleucid\nkings, and the acknowledged metropolis of the Syrian area. _At the time\nof Paul (if there was a Paul)_, it probably contained half a million\npeople; it was certainly the largest town in Asia, and worthy to be\ncompared with Rome itself in the splendour of its buildings. Many things\nabout its position are deserving of notice. It stood upon the banks\nof the Orontes, a {365}sacred stream, ensconced in a rich agricultural\nplain, fourteen miles from the river\u2019s mouth. Its Ostia was at\nSelucia, the harbour whence flowed the entire export trade of Syria and\nthe east towards Hellas and Italy. The Mediterranean in front connected\nit with Rome, Alexandria, Asia Minor, Greece; the caravan routes across\nthe Syrian desert in the rear put it in communication with the bazars of\nMesopotamia and the remoter east. It was thus the main entrep\u00f4t of the\nthrough trade between two important worlds. The Venice of its time,\nit lay at the focal point where the highroads of Europe and of Asia\nconverged.\n\nScholars of repute have pointed out the fact that even earlier than the\ndays of Paul, Buddhist ideas from India seem to have dribbled through\nand affected the Syrian world, as Zoroastrian ideas a little later\ndribbled through and affected the thought of Alexandria: and some\nimportance has been attached to this infiltration of motives from the\nmystical east. Now, I do not care to deny that budding Christianity may\nhave been much influenced on its ritual and still more on its ethical\nside by floating elements of Buddhist opinion: that the infancy of the\nChrist may have been nursed by the Magi. But on the whole I think the\nfacts we have just been considering as to the manufacture of artificial\nhuman gods and the nature and meaning of piacular sacrifices will\nsuffice to show that Christianity was chiefly a plant of home growth.\nThe native soil contained already every essential element that was\nneeded to feed it--the doctrine of the Incarnation, the death of the\nMan-God, the atoning power of his Blood, the Resurrection and Ascension.\nSo that, while allowing due weight to this peculiar international\nposition of Antioch, as the double-faced Janus-gate of Europe and Asia,\nI am not inclined to think that points peculiar to Buddhism need\nhave exercised any predominant influence in the evolution of the new\nreligion. For we must remember that Buddhism itself did but subsume\ninto its own fabric ideas {366}which were common to Peru and Mexico, to\nGreece and India, to Syria and Egypt, and which came out in fresh forms,\nsurging up from below, in the creed of Christendom. _If anything is\nclear from our previous researches it is this--that the world has never\nreally had more than one religion--\u201cof many names, a single central\nshape,\u201d_ as the poet phrases it.\n\nThe Syrian people, Semites by race and cult, had fallen, like all the\nrest of the eastern world, under the Hellenic dominion of the successors\nof Alexander. A quick and subtle folk, very pliable and plastic, they\nunderwent rapid and facile Hellenisation. It was an easy task for them\nto accept Greek culture and Greek religion. The worshipper of Adonis had\nlittle difficulty in renaming his chief god as Dionysus and continuing\nto practise his old rites and ceremonies to the newly-named deity after\nthe ancestral pattern. The Astarte whom the east had given to\nHellas under the alias of Aphrodite, came back again as Aphrodite to\nAstarte\u2019s old sanctuaries. Identifications of gods and cults were but\nsimple matters, where so many gods were after all essentially similar in\norigin and function. Thus the easy-going Syrian had few scruples about\npractising his primitive ceremonies under foreign titles, or admitting\nto the hospitality of his Semitic temples the Hellenic deities of the\nreigning Antiochi.\n\nThe Seleucids, however, did not fare so well in their attempt to\nimpose the alien gods on the fierce Jehovistic zealots of the southern\nmountains. Antiochus IV. endeavoured in vain to force the cults of\nintrusive Hellenism on his new kingdom of Palestine. He reckoned\nwithout his hosts. The populace of Jerusalem would not away with his\n\u201cidolatrous\u201d rites--would not permit the worship of Zeus and Pallas,\nof Artemis and Aphrodite, to usurp a place in the holy city of\nJahweh. The rebellion of the Maccabees secured at least the religious\nindependence of Jud\u00e6a from the early Seleucid period down to the days\nof Vespasian and Titus. Lower Syria remained true in her arid hills\n{367}to the exclusive and monotheistic cult of the God of Israel. And at\nthe same time the Jew spread everywhere over the surrounding countries,\ncarrying with him not only his straw and his basket, but also his\ningrained and ineradicable prejudices.\n\nIn Antioch, then, after the Roman absorption of Syria, a most\ncosmopolitan religion appears to have existed, containing mingled\nSemitic and Hellenic elements, half assimilated to one another, in a\nway that was highly characteristic of the early empire. And among the\npopular cults of the great city we must certainly place high those of\nAdonis and Dionysus, of Aphrodite-Astarte, and of the local gods or\ngoddesses, the Baalim and Ashtareth, such as the maiden who, as we\nlearnt from Malalas, was sacrificed at the original foundation of the\ncity, and ever after worshipped as its Tyche or Fortune. _In other\nwords, the conception of the human god, of the corn and wine god, of the\ndeath of the god, and of his glorious resurrection, must have all\nbeen perfectly familiar ideas to the people of Antioch and of Syria in\ngeneral_.\n\nLet us note here, too, that the particular group of Jah-weh-worshippers\namong whom the Christ is said to have found his personal followers, were\nnot people of the priestly type of Jerusalem, but Galil\u00e6an peasants of\nthe northern mountains, separated from the most orthodox set of Jews by\nthe intrusive wedge of heretical Samaritans, and closely bordering on\nthe heathen Phoenician seaboard--\u201cthe coasts of Tyre and Sidon.\u201d\nHere Judaism and heathenism marched together; here Jahweh had his\nworshippers among the fishers of the lake, while Hellenism had fixed\nitself in the statelier villas of Tiberias and Ptole-mais.\n\nAlexandria was another of the great cosmopolitan seaport towns where\nChristianity made its earliest converts, and assumed not a few of its\ndistinctive tenets. Now, in Alexandria, Hellenism and the immemorially\nancient Egyptian religion found themselves face to face at very close\n{368}quarters. It is true, the town in its historical aspect was mainly\nGreek, founded by the great Macedonian himself, and priding itself on\nits pure Hellenic culture. But the mass of the lower orders who thronged\nits alleys must surely have consisted of more or less mongrel Egyptians,\nstill clinging with all the old Egyptian conservatism to the ideas and\npractices and rites of their fathers. Besides these, we get hints of a\nlarge cosmopolitan seafaring population, among whom strange faiths and\nexotic gods found ready acceptance. Beside the stately forms of the\nGreek pantheon, and the mummified or animal-headed Egyptian deities,\nthe imported Syrian worship of Adonis had acquired a firm footing;\n_the annual festival of the slaughtered god was one of the principal\nholidays_; and other Syrian or remoter faiths had managed to secure\ntheir special following. The hybrid Serapis occupied the stateliest fane\nof the hybrid city. In that huge and busy hive, indeed, every form of\ncult found a recognised place, and every creed was tolerated which did\nnot inculcate interference with the equal religious freedom of others.\n\nThe Ptolemaic family represents in itself this curious adaptability of\nthe Gr\u00e6co-Egyptian Alexandrian mind. At Alexandria and in the Delta,\nthe kings appear before us as good Hellenes, worshipping their ancestral\ndeities in splendid temples; but in the Thebaid, the god Ptolemy or\nthe goddess Cleopatra erected buildings in honor of Ptah or Khem in\nprecisely the old Egyptian style, and appeared on their propyla in the\nguise of Pharaohs engaged in worshipping Amen-Ra or Osiris. The great\nAlexander himself had inaugurated this system when he gave himself out\nas the son of \u201cZeus Ammon\u201d; and his indirect representatives carried\nit on throughout with a curious dualism which excused itself under the\nveil of arbitrary identifications. Thus Serapis himself was the dead\nApis bull, invested with the attributes of an Osiris and of the Hellenic\nHades; while Amen-Ra was Zeus in an Egyptian avatar.\n\nThe large Jewish colony at Alexandria also prepared the way {369}for the\nultimate admixture of Neo-Platonism in the Christian faith; while _the\nEgyptian belief in Triads of gods formed the groundwork for the future\ndoctrine of the Trinity_, so doggedly battled for by the Alexandrian\nAthanasius. It is true that Amp\u00e8re and Preller have strenuously denied\nany Egyptian admixture in the philosophy of Alexandria; and their\nreasoning may be conclusive enough as to the upper stratum of thought:\nbut it must at least be admitted that popular belief in the city of the\nPtolemies must have been deeply coloured by the ideas and creeds of\nits Egyptian substratum. Now, in the growth of Christianity, it was\nthe people who counted, not the official classes, the learned, or the\nphilosophic. We must not attribute to the population of the East End of\nLondon the theology of Pusey or the evolutionism of Herbert Spencer.\n\nChristianity would seem also to have taken part at least of its form in\nRome. And as Roman influence extended likewise over every portion of\nthe vast empire, I must say a very few words here about the origin and\ngrowth of the Roman religion.\n\nThat religion, as it comes upon us in the few glimpses we get of its\nearly Italic and pre-Hellenised form, was one of the rudest and most\nprimitive type, almost savage in its extreme simplicity. It knew hardly\nany great gods by name: the few deities it possessed, it expressed only\nfor the most part by adjectival names. Few, I say, as to type, for as to\nnumber of individuals, their name indeed was legion; they pervaded\nthe whole, world in that reckless multiplicity which distinguishes the\nsimple ghosts or spirits of early hunting or pastoral peoples. With\nthe Romans, this multiplicity, ubiquity, and vagueness survived into a\nrelatively settled and civilised agricultural condition. A vast number\nof small departmental gods, with few or no great ones--that is the first\nstate of the Roman pantheon.\n\nThe central point of old Roman religion was clearly the household;\nthe family ghosts or _lares_ were the most honoured {370}gods. We may\ninstructively compare Mr. Chalmers\u2019s account of the theology of New\nGuinea. Beside these ancestral shades, or almost identical with them,\ncame the _p\u00e9nates_ or practical deities of the store-room, perhaps the\nrepresentatives of the victims slain as foundation-ghosts at the first\nerection of the building. Of these two, the Lares were undoubtedly the\ndeparted ancestors of the family; they lived near the spot where they\nwere first buried (for the old Romans were buriers), and they still\npresided over the household as in life, like its fathers and senators.\nThey were worshipped daily with prayers and simple offerings of food\nand drink; their masks or busts which hung on the wall were perhaps the\nrepresentatives, or in ancient days the coverings, of the old oracular\nheads or skulls; for the skulls themselves may have been preserved in\nwax, as so often elsewhere at an earlier period. * The Penates, which\nwere worshipped with the Lares, seem to have stood for the family spirit\nin a more generalised way; they represent the continuity and persistence\nof its Fortune; and therefore, if we may trust the analogy of the\nFortune of a town, they are probably the ghosts of the foundation or\nrenewal victims. In judging of all this, we cannot attach too great\nimportance to the analogy of Negritto and Polynesian customs.\n\n     * To this use of the oracular head I would venture also to\n     refer the common employment of small masks as amulets: an\n     employment which, as Bottiger rightly remarks, explains \u201cthe\n     vast number of such subjects met with in antique gems.\u201d\n\nOther deities are more public. But most of them seem to belong to the\nsimplest and most immediately ghost-like stratum. They had to do with\nsowing, reaping, and vintage--in other words, were corn or wine gods. Or\nelse they had to do with the navigable river, the Tiber, and the port\nof Ostia, which lay at its mouth--in other words, were spring and river\ngods. Or else they had to do with war and expeditions--in other words\nwere slaughtered campaign gods of the Iphigenia pattern, Bellonas and\nbattle-victims.\n\nAmong {371}this dim crowd of elder manufactured deities, Saturnus, the\nsowing god, was most likely an annual corn-victim; his adjectival name\nby itself suggests that conclusion. Terminus, the boundary god, is\nalready familiar to us. About these two at least we can hardly be\nmistaken. A red-haired man (as in Egypt) no doubt preceded as yearly\ncorn-victim the red-haired puppies still slaughtered for the crops\nwithin the ken of Festus. Seia, Segetia, Tutilina, the successive\ncorn-deities, we have already considered. They seem to equate with the\nsuccessive maidens slain for the corn in other communities, and still\ncommemorated in our midst by the corn-baby and the corn-wife. At each\nstage of age in the corn, a corresponding stage in the age of the human\nvictim was considered desirable. But how reconcile this idea with the\nexistence of numerous petty functional deities--gods of the door and\nthe hinge?--with the Cunina who guards the child in the cradle, and the\nStatina who takes care of him when he begins to stand? I answer, all\nthese are but adjectival gods, mere ghosts or spirits, unknown in\nthemselves, but conceived as exercising this particular function. \u201cThe\ngod that does so-and-so\u201d is just a convenient expression, no more;\nit serves its purpose, and that was enough for the practical Roman. How\nreadily they could put up with these rough-and-ready identifications we\nknow in the case of Aius Locutius and of the Deus Rediculus.\n\nEach Terminus and each Silvanus is thus the god or protecting ghost\nof each boundary stone or each sacred grove--not a proper name, but a\nclass--not a particular god, but a _kind_ of spirit. The generalised and\nabstract gods are later unifications of all the individuals included\nin each genus. The Janus, I take it, was at first the victim once\nsacrificed annually before each gate of the city, as he is sacrificed\nstill on the west coast of Africa: as the god of opening, he was\nslaughtered at the opening of every new year; and the year conversely\nopened its course with the month sacred to the god of opening. Perhaps\nhe was also slain {372}as fortune at the beginning of each war. The\nVesta is the hearth-goddess; and every house had its Vesta; perhaps\noriginally a slaughtered hearth-victim. Every man had in like manner his\nGenius, an ancestral protecting spirit; the corresponding guardian of\nthe woman was her Juno; they descend to Christianity, especially in\nits most distinctive Roman form, as the guardian angels. Mars was a\ncorn-spirit; only later was he identified with the expeditionary god.\nHis annual expulsion as the human scapegoat has already been considered.\nThe Jupiter or Jovis was a multiple wine-god, doubtless in every case\nthe annual victim slain, Dionysus-wise, for the benefit of the vineyard.\nEach village and each farm had once its Jovis, specially worshipped,\nand, I doubt not, originally slaughtered, at the broaching of the\nyear\u2019s first wine-cask in April. But his name shows that, as usual, he\nwas also identified with that very ancient Sky-god who is common to all\nthe Aryan race; the particular Jovis being probably sacrificed,\nhimself to himself, before the old Sky-god\u2019s altar, as elsewhere the\nDionysus-victim at the shrine of Dionysus.\n\nThese identifications, I know, may sound fanciful to mere classical\nscholars, unacquainted with the recent advances in anthropology, and\nI would not have ventured to propound them at an earlier stage of our\ninvolved argument; but now that we have seen and learned to recognise\nthe extraordinary similarity of all pantheons the whole world over, I\nthink the exact way these deities fall into line with the wall-gods,\ngate-gods, corn-gods, wine-gods, boundary-gods, forest-gods,\nfountain-gods, and river-gods everywhere else must surely be allowed\nsome little weight in analogically placing them.\n\nThe later Roman religion only widens, if at all, from within its own\nrange, by the inclusion of larger and larger tribal elements. Thus the\nDeus Fidius, who presided over each separate alliance, I take to be the\nghost of the victim slain to form a covenant; just as in Africa to\nthis day, _when {373}two tribes have concluded a treaty of peace,\nthey crucify a slave \u201cto ratify the bargain.\u201d_ The nature of such\ncovenant victims has been well illustrated by Professor Robertson Smith,\nbut the growth of the covenant-gods, who finally assumed very wide\nimportance, is a subject which considerations of space prevent me from\nincluding in our present purview. The victim, at first no doubt human,\nbecame later a theanthropic animal; as did also the Jo vis-victim and\nthe representatives of the other adjectival or departmental deities.\nThe Roman Mars and the Sabine Ouirinus may readily have been amalgamated\ninto a Mars Ouirinus, if we remember that Mars is probably a general\nname, and that any number of Martes may at any time have been\nsacrificed. The Jovis of the city of Rome thus comes at last to be the\ngreatest and most powerful Jupiter of them all, and the representative\nof the Roman union. Under Hellenising influences, however, all these\nminor gods get elevated at last into generalised deities; and the animal\nvictims offered to them become mere honorific or piacular sacrifices,\nhardly identified at all with the great images who receive them.\n\nThe Hellenising process went so far, indeed, at Rome that the old Roman\nreligion grew completely obscured, and almost disappeared, save in its\ndomestic character. In the home, the Lares still held the first rank.\nElsewhere, Bacchus took the place of Liber, while the traits of Hermes\nwere fastened on the adjectival Roman bargain-spirit Mercurius. Yet even\nso, the Roman retained his primitive belief in corn and wine gods, under\nthe newer guises; his Ceres he saw as one with the Attic Demeter; his\nrural ceremonies still continued unchanged by the change of attributes\nthat infected and transfigured the city temples. Moreover, the Romans,\nand later the cosmopolitan population of Rome, borrowed gods and\ngoddesses freely from without in ever increasing numbers. In very early\ndays, they borrowed from Etruria; later, they borrowed Apollo from\nGreece, and (by an etymological blunder) {374}fixed upon their own\nHercules the traits of Heracles. On the occasion of a plague, they\npublicly summoned Asclepios, the Greek leech-god, from Epidaurus; and\nat the very crisis of the life-and-death conflict with Hannibal, they\nfetched the sacred field-stone known as Cybele, the Mother of the Gods,\nfrom Pessinus in Phrygia. The people of Pessinus with strange compliance\nlet their goddess go; and the whole orgiastic cult of Attis was thus\ntransported entire to Italian soil. The rites of the great festival were\ncarried on at Rome almost as they had been carried on before in Phrygia;\nso that an Asiatic worship of the most riotous type found a firm\nofficial footing in the centre of the empire. The priest, indeed, was\nstill an Asiatic, or at least not a Roman; but the expulsion of Hannibal\nfrom Italy which followed on this adoption of a foreign god, must have\ngreatly increased the prestige and reputation of the alien and orgiastic\ndeity.\n\nThe luxurious Aphrodite of Eryx in Sicily arrived in Rome about the\nsame time with Cybele. Originally a Semitic goddess, she combined the\nHellenic and oriental ideas, and was identified in Italy with the old\nLatin Venus.\n\nLater still, yet other gods were imported from without. New deities\nflowed in from Asia and Africa. The population of the city under the\nearly empire had almost ceased to be Roman, save in the upper strata;\na vast number of slaves from all parts of the world formed the lowest\nlayer in the crowded vaults: the middle rank was filled by Syrians,\nAfricans, Greeks, Sicilians, Moors, and freedmen--men of all places and\nraces from Spain or Britain to the Euphrates and the Nile, the steppes\nand the desert. The Orontes, said Juvenal, had flooded the Tiber. Among\nthis mixed mass of all creeds and colours, subfusk or golden-haired, a\ncurious mixture of religions grew up. Some of these were mere ready-made\nforeign importations--Isis-worship from Egypt; Jahweh-worship from\nJud\u00e6a; strange eastern or northern or African cults from the remotest\nparts of Pontus or Mauritania. Others were intermixtures {375}or\nrationalisations of older religions, such as Christianity, which mingled\ntogether Judaism and Adonis or Osiris elements; such as Gnosticism,\nwhich, starting from Zoroastrian infiltrations, kneaded all the gods of\nthe world at last into its own supreme mystic and magic-god Abraxas.\n\nLooking a little deeper through the empire in general, we see that from\nthe time of Augustus onward, the need for a new cosmopolitan religion,\nto fit the new cosmopolitan state, was beginning to be dimly felt and\nacknowledged. Soldiers, enlisted in one country, took the cult and\nimages of their gods to another. The bull-slaying Mithra (in whom we can\nhardly fail to see a solar form of the bull-god, who sacrifices a bull,\nhimself to himself, before his own altar) was worshipped here and\nthere, as numerous bas-reliefs show, from Persia to Britain. The Gaul\nendeavoured to identify his own local war-gods with the Roman Mars, who\nhad been Hellenised in turn into the duplicate presentment of the Greek\nAres. The Briton saw his river-gods remodelled in mosaic into images\nlike those of Roman Tiber, or provided with the four horses who drag the\nRoman Neptune, as Neptune had borrowed the representation at least from\nthe Greek Poseidon. And this was all the easier because everywhere alike\nhorses were sacrificed to sea or river, in lieu of human victims; just\nas everywhere corn-gods were dressed in green, and everywhere wine-gods\nwore coronals of vine-leaves on their holy foreheads. Men felt the truth\nI have tried to impress, that _everywhere and always there is but one\nreligion_. Attributes and origin were so much alike that worship\nwas rapidly undergoing a cosmopolitanisation of name, as it already\npossessed a similarity of rites and underlying features. Language itself\nassisted this unifying process. In the west, as Latin spread, Latin\nnames of gods superseded local ones; in the east, as Greek spread,\nHellenic deities gave their titles and their beautiful forms to\nnative images. An artificial unity was introduced {376}and fixed by a\nconventional list of Greek and Roman equivalents; and in the west, as\nGreek art gained ground and spread, noble Greek representations of the\nhigher gods in ideal human form became everywhere common.\n\nBut that was not enough. As the government was one, under a strong\ncentralised despotism, it was but natural that the religion should be\none also, under the rule of a. similar omnipotent deity. _Man makes his\nheaven in the image of earth_; his pantheon answers to his political\nconstitution. The mediaeval hall of heaven had an imperial God, like the\nOthos or the Fredericks, on his regal throne, surrounded by a court of\ngreat barons and abbots in the angels and archangels, the saints and\nmartyrs: the new religions, like spiritualism and Theosophy, which\nspring up in the modern democratic world, are religions of free and\nindependent spirits, hardly even theistic. The Roman empire thus\ndemanded a single religion under a single strong god. It tended to\nfind it, if not in the Genius of Trajan or Antonine, then in some\nbull-slaying Mithra or some universal Abraxas. Materialists were\nsatisfied with the worship of the Emperor or of the city of Rome:\nidealists turned rather to Isis or to Christ.\n\nOne religion there was which might have answered the turn of the empire:\nthe pure and ideal monotheism of Jud\u00e6a. But the cult of Jahweh was too\nlocal and too national; it never extended beyond the real or adopted\nsons of Israel. Even so, it gained proselytes of high rank at Rome,\nespecially among women; as regards men, the painful and degrading\ninitiatory ceremony of Judaism must always have stood seriously in the\nway of converts. Yet in spite of this drawback, there were proselytes in\nall the cosmopolitan cities where the Jews were settled; men who loved\ntheir nation and had built them a synagogue. If Judaism could but get\nrid of its national exclusiveness, and could incorporate into its god\nsome more of those genial and universal traits which he had too early\nshuffled off--if {377}it could make itself less austere, less abstract,\nand at the same time less local--there was a chance that it might rise\nto be the religion of humanity. The dream of the prophets might still\ncome true and all the world might draw nigh to Zion.\n\nAt this critical juncture, an obscure little sect began to appear among\nthe Jews and Galil\u00e6ans, in Jerusalem and Antioch, which happened\nto combine in a remarkable degree all the main requirements of a new\nworld-religion. And whatever the cult of Jesus lacked in this respect\nin its first beginnings, it made up for as it went by absorption and\npermeation.\n\nIt was a Catholic Church: it stood for the world, not for a tribe or\na nation. It was a Holy Church: it laid great stress upon the ethical\nelement. It was a Roman Church: it grew and prospered throughout the\nRoman empire. It made a city what was once a world. Whence it came and\nhow it grew must be our next and final questions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.--THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY.\n\n|WHILE {378}the world was thus seething and fermenting with new faiths\nthe creed of the Christ made its first appearance on the seaboard of\nAsia. In spite of certain remarks in my first chapter, _I am not such\na \u201cgross and crass Euhemerist\u201d as to insist dogmatically on the\nhistorical existence of a personal Jesus. Of the Christ himself, if a\nChrist there were, we know little or nothing. The account of his life\nwhich has come down to us in the Gospels is so devoid of authority, and\nso entirely built up of miraculous fragments, derived from elsewhere,\nthat we may well be excused for gravely doubting whether he is not\nrather to be numbered with St. George and St. Catherine, with Perseus\nand Arthur, among the wholly mythical and imaginary figures of legend\nand religion._\n\nOn the other hand, it is quite possible, or even probable, that there\nreally did live in Galilee, at some time about the beginning of our\naccepted era, a teacher and reformer bearing the Semitic name which is\nfinally Hellenised and Latinised for us as Jesus. If so, it seems not\nunlikely that this unknown person was crucified (or rather hung on\na post) by the Romans at Jerusalem under the Procurator C. Pontius\nPilatus; and that after his death he was worshipped more or less as a\ngod by his immediate followers. Such kernel of truth may very well exist\nin the late and derivative Gospel story; a kernel of truth, but imbedded\nin a mass of unhistorical myth, which implicitly identifies him with all\nthe familiar corn-gods and wine-gods of the Eastern Mediterranean.\n\nFurthermore, {379}it is even possible that the Christ may have been\ndeliberately put to death, at the instigation of the Jewish rabble, as\none of those temporary divine kings whose nature and meaning we have\nalready discussed. If this suggestion seem improbable from the lack of\nany similar recorded case in the scanty Jewish annals, I would answer\nthat formal histories seldom give us any hint of the similar customs\nstill surviving in civilised European countries; that many popular rites\nexist unheard of everywhere; and that the Jews were commonly believed\nthrough the Middle Ages to crucify Christian boys, like St. Hugh of\nLincoln, in certain irregular and unrecognised ethnical ceremonies.\nFurthermore, lest I should be thought to adduce this instance through an\nanti-Semite tendency (which I do not in the slightest degree possess), I\nmay add that even among Christians similar customs are believed to exist\nin rural parts of Italy at the present day,--there are villages where a\nman dies yearly as the representative of Christ; and that in my\nopinion the Oberammergau and other Passion Plays are survivals of like\nrepresentations in which a condemned criminal, the usual substitute, did\nonce actually enact the part of Christ. In short, I do not hesitate to\nsay that _god-slaying ceremonies, more or less attenuated, have lingered\non everywhere in obscure forms among the folk-rites and folk-customs of\nthe most civilised peoples_.\n\nWithout doing more than briefly indicate this possibility, however, I\npass on to say that _if ever there was really a personal Christ, and\nif his followers began by vaguely believing in his resurrection, the\nlegend, as we get it, is obviously made up of collected fragments from\nall the godslaying customs and beliefs we have been considering in\ndetail through the last six or seven chapters_. In the Gospel of his\nlater believers, after the sect had spread widely among the Gentiles of\nthe towns, _Jesus is conceived of as a corn and wine god, a temporary\nking, slain on a cross as a piacular atonement, and raised again from\nthe dead after {380}three days, in the manner common to all corn and\nwine gods._ It is possible, of course, that the first believers may have\nfastened all these ideas on to an accidental condemnation and execution,\nso to speak; but it is possible too that the _Christ may actually\nhave been put to death at the great spring feast of the Passover, in\naccordance with some obscure and unrecognised folk-rite of the rabble of\nJerusalem_. I do not even pretend to have an opinion on this subject;\nI do not assert or deny any historical nucleus of fact: I am satisfied\nwith saying that _the story on the whole exhibits the Christ to us\nentirely in the character of a temporary king, slain with piacular\nrites as a corn and wine god_. In this case at least, I am no dogmatic\nEuhemerist.\n\nI think it was Professor Freeman who once quaintly described Buddhism\nas \u201ca blasphemous anticipatory parody of Christianity.\u201d _The learned\nhistorian\u2019s idea apparently was that the author of all evil, being\naware beforehand of the divine intentions, had invented Buddhism before\nthe advent of Christ, so as to discount the Christian Plan of Salvation\nby anticipation_. If so, we must regard all other religions as similar\nblasphemous attempts at forestalling God: for we shall see as we\nproceed that every one of them contains innumerable anticipations of\nChristianity--or, to put it conversely, that Christianity subsumes them\nall into itself, in a highly concentrated and etherealised solution.\n\nIn the earliest Christian documents, the Pauline and other Apostolic\nEpistles, we get little information about the history of the real or\nmythical Christ. Shadowy allusions alone to the crucifixion and the\nresurrection repay our scrutiny. But through the mist of words we see\ntwo or three things clearly. The Christ is described as the son of\nGod--that is to say of the Jewish deity; and he is spoken of continually\nas slain on a post or tree, the sacred symbol of so many old religions.\nHe dies to save mankind; and salvation is offered in his name to all\nmen. A careful reading {381}of the epistles from this point of view will\ngive in brief an epitome of the earliest and least dogmatic yet\nvery _doctrinal Christian theology. Its cardinal points are four\n--incarnation, death, resurrection, atonement_.\n\nThe later accounts which we get in the Gospels are far more explicit.\nThe legend by that time had taken form: it had grown clear and\nconsistent. _All the elements of the slain and risen corn and wine god\nare there in perfection._ For brevity\u2019s sake, I will run all these\naccounts together, adding to them certain traits of still later origin.\n\n_The aspect of Christ as a survival of the corn-god is already clear in\nPaul\u2019s argument in First Corinthians on the resurrection of the\nbody. This argument would strike home at once to every Greek and every\nAsiatic. \u201cThat which you sow is not quickened unless it die. And when\nyou sow, you sow not the body that is to be, but bare grain; it may be\nwheat or any other grain. But God gives it a shape as pleases him; to\nevery seed its own body.\u201d_ _The whole of this fifteenth chapter, the\nearliest statement of the Christian belief, should be read through in\nthis connexion by any one who wishes to understand the close relation\nof the idea of sowing to the resurrection. It might have been written by\nany worshipper of Adonis or Osiris who wished to recommend his special\ndoctrine of a bodily resurrection to a doubtful cremationist, familiar\nwith the cult of Dionysus and of Attis._\n\nThe earliest known rite of the Christian church was the sacramental\neating and drinking of bread and wine together; which rite was said to\ncommemorate the death of the Lord, and his last supper, when he eat\nand drank bread and wine with his disciples. _The language put into\nhis mouth on this occasion in the Gospels, especially the Fourth, is\ndistinctly that of the corn and wine god. \u201cI am the true vine; ye are\nthe branches.\u201d \u201cI am the bread of life.\u201d \u201cTake, eat, this is my\nbody.\u201d \u201cThis is my blood of the new testament.\u201d_ Numberless other\ntouches of like kind are scattered through the speeches. In the parable\n{382}of the vineyard, God the Father is described as the owner of a\nvineyard, who sends his only begotten son to receive the fruit of it:\nand the workers slay him. The first miracle at Cana of Galilee is one\nwhere water is turned into wine by the hand of Jesus: and so on through\na long series of curious instances, which readers can discover for\nthemselves by inspection.\n\nIn early Christian art, as exhibited in the catacombs at Rome, the true\nvine is most frequently figured; as are also baskets of loaves, with the\ncorresponding miracle of the loaves and fishes. _Multiplication of bread\nand wine are the natural credentials of the corn and wine god_. The\nearliest description we possess of Christ, that of John of Damascus,\nstates that his complexion was \u201cof the colour of wheat\u201d; while in\nthe apocryphal letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate we read in the\nsame spirit that his hair was \u201cwine-coloured.\u201d The Greek description\nby Epiphanius Monachus says that Christ was six feet high; his hair\nlong and golden-coloured; and in countenance he was ruddy like his\nfather David. All these descriptions are obviously influenced by the\nidentification of the bread and wine of the eucharist with the personal\nJesus.\n\n_In the usage of the church from very early days, it has been customary\nto eat the body of Christ in the form of bread, and to drink his blood\nas wine in the sacrament. In the Catholic church, this continuous\nceremony takes place at an altar, containing sacred bones, and is\nrepresented as being the offering of God, himself to himself, in the\nform of a mystic and piacular sacrifice. The priest drinks the wine or\nblood; the laity eat only the bread or body_.\n\nA curious custom which occurs in many churches of Sicily at Easter still\nfurther enforces this unity of Christ with the cult of earlier corn and\nwine gods, like Adonis and Osiris. The women sow wheat, lentils, and\ncanary-seed in plates, which are kept in the dark and watered every\nsecond day. The plants soon shoot up; they are then tied together\n{383}with red ribbons, and the plates containing them are placed on the\nsepulchres which, with effigies of the dead Christ, are made up in Roman\nCatholic and Greek churches on Good Friday, \u201cjust as the gardens of\nAdonis,\u201d says Mr. Frazer, \u201cwere placed on the grave of the dead\nAdonis.\u201d In this curious ceremony we get a survival from the very\nlowest stratum of corn-god worship; the stratum where an actual human\nvictim is killed, and corn and other crops are sown above his body. Even\nwhere the sowing itself no longer survives, the sepulchre remains as a\nrelic of the same antique ritual. Such sepulchres are everywhere common\nat Easter, as are the cradles of the child-god at the feast of the\nwinter solstice. The Piet\u00e0 is the final form of this mourning of the\ncorn-god by the holy women.\n\nPassing on to the other aspects of Christ as corn-god and divine-human\nvictim, we see that he is doubly recognised as god and man, like all the\nsimilar gods of early races. In the speeches put into his mouth by\nhis biographers, he constantly claims the Jewish god as his father.\nMoreover, he is a king; and his kingly descent from his ancestor David\nis insisted upon in the genealogies with some little persistence. He\nis God incarnate; but also he is the King of the Jews, and the King of\nGlory. Wise men come from the east to worship him, and bring gifts of\ngold and myrrh and frankincense to the infant God in his manger cradle.\nBut he is further the Christ, the anointed of God; and, as we saw,\nanointment is a common element with numerous other divine-human victims.\n\nOnce more, he is the King\u2019s son; and he is the only begotten son, _the\ndearly beloved son, who is slain as an expiation for the sins of the\npeople_. The heavens open, and a voice from them declares, \u201cThis is\nmy beloved son in whom I am well pleased.\u201d He is affiliated, like all\nother such victims, on the older and earlier ethnical god, Jah-weh; and\nthough he is himself God, and one with the Father, _he is offered\nup, himself to himself, in expiation of {384}the sin committed by men\nagainst divine justice. All this would be familiar theology indeed to\nthe worshipper of Osiris, Adonis, and Attis._\n\n_The common Hebrew offering was the paschal lamb; therefore Christ is\nenvisaged as the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. In\nthe paintings of the catacombs, it is as a lamb that the Saviour of\nthe world is oftenest represented._ As a lamb he raises another lamb,\nLazarus; as a lamb he turns the water into wine; as a lamb he strikes\nthe living springs from the rock on the spandrils of the sarcophagus of\nJunius Bassus. But his birth in a manger is also significant: and his\nvine and his dove are almost as frequent as his lamb in the catacombs.\n\nThe Gospel history represents the passion of Christ essentially as the\nsacrifice of a temporary king, invested with all the familiar elements\nof that early ritual. Christ enters Jerusalem in royal state, among\npopular plaudits, like those which always accompany the temporary king,\nand the Attis or Adonis. He is mounted on an ass, the royal beast of the\nSemites. The people fling down branches of trees in his path, as they\nalways fling down parts of green trees before the gods of vegetation.\nOn Palm Sunday his churches are still decked with palm-branches or with\nsprays of willow-catkin. Such rites with green things form an integral\npart of all the old rituals of the tree-god or the corn-god, and of all\nthe modern European survivals in folk-lore--they are equally found in\nthe Dionysiac festival, and in the Jack-in-the-Green revels on English\nfair-days. The connexion with trees is also well marked throughout the\nGospels; and the miracle of the barren fig-tree is specially mentioned\nin close connexion with the entry into Jerusalem. The people as he\nentered cried \u201cHosanna\u201d to the son of David and the prophetic words\nwere supposed to be fulfilled, \u201cBehold, thy king cometh unto thee,\nmeek, sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.\u201d\n\nThe Christ goes as a willing victim to the cross; he does not\n{385}seriously ask that the cup should pass from him. He foretells his\nown death, and voluntarily submits to it But he is also bought with a\nprice--the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas. Of all this, we had\nforecasts in the Khond, the Mexican, and various other rituals.\n\nFurthermore, there is a trial--a double trial, before the high priest,\nand before Pilate. Such trials, we have seen, are common elements of the\nmock-king\u2019s degradation. Like all other similar victims, the Christ,\nafter being treated like a monarch, is reviled and spat upon, buffeted\nand insulted. He is bound with cords, and carried before Pilate. The\nprocurator asks him, \u201cArt thou the King of the Jews?\u201d and the Christ\nby implication admits the justice of the title. All the subsequent\nepisodes of the painful drama are already familiar to us. The sacred\nvictim is cruelly scourged that his tears may flow. As in other cases he\nis crowned with flowers or with bark, in order to mark his position as\nking of vegetation, so here he is crowned with a chaplet of thorns that\nadds to his ignominy. The sacred blood must flow from the sacred\nhead. But still, he is clothed with purple and saluted with the words,\n\u201cHail, King of the Jews!\u201d in solemn irony. He is struck on the head\nwith a reed by the soldiers: yet even as they strike, they bow their\nknees and worship him. They give him to drink wine, mingled with myrrh;\n\u201cbut he received it not.\u201d Then he is crucified at Golgotha, the\nplace of a skull, * on a cross, the old sacred emblem of so many\nreligions; it bears the inscription, \u201cThe King of the Jews,\u201d by\norder of the Procurator. After the death of the Christ he is mourned\nover, like Adonis and Osiris, by the holy women, including his mother.\n_I do not think I need point out in detail the many close resemblances\nwhich exist between the Mother of the Gods and the Mother of God--the\nTheotokos_.\n\n     * According to mediaeval legend, the skull was Adam\u2019s, and\n     the sacred blood which fell upon it revived it. In\n     crucifixions, a skull is generally represented at the foot\n     of the cross.\n\nThe {386}thieves crucified with the Saviour have their legs broken, like\nmany other sacred victims; but the Christ himself has not a bone broken,\nlike the paschal lamb which was the Jewish substitute for the primitive\nhuman victim. Thus both ideas on this subject, the earlier and the\nlater, seem to find an appropriate place in the history. Instead of\nhaving his legs broken, however, the Christ has his side pierced; and\nfrom it flows the mystic blood of the atonement, in which all Christians\nare theoretically washed; this baptism of blood (a literal reality\nin older cults) being already a familiar image at the date of the\nApocalypse, where the robes of the elect are washed white in the blood\nof the lamb that was slain.\n\nAfter the crucifixion, the Christ is taken down and buried. But, like\nall other corn and wine gods, he _rises again from the dead on the third\nday--this very period of three days being already a conventional one in\nsimilar cases_. Every one of the surroundings recalls Osiris and Attis.\nIt is the women once more who see him first; and afterwards the men.\nFinally, he ascends into heaven, to his Father, before the wondering\neyes of his disciples and his mother. In each item of this, there is\nnothing with which we are not already familiar elsewhere.\n\nI will not pursue the analogy further. To do so would be endless.\nIndeed, I do not think there is an element in the Gospel story which\ndoes not bear out the parallel here suggested. The slight incident of\nthe visit to Herod, for example, is exactly analogous to the visit of\nthe false Osiris in modern Egypt to the governor\u2019s house, and the\nvisit of the temporary or mock king in so many other cases to the real\nking\u2019s palace. The episode where Herod and his men of war array\nthe Christ in a gorgeous robe is the equivalent of the episode of\nthe Mexican king arraying the god-victim in royal dress, and is also\nparalleled in numerous other like dramas elsewhere. The women who\nprepare spices and ointments for the body recall the Adonis rites;\nPilate washing his hands of the guilt of condemnation {387}recalls the\nfrequent episode of the slaughterers of the god laying the blame upon\nothers, or casting it on the knife, or crying out, \u201cWe bought you with\na price; we are guiltless.\u201d Whoever will read carefully through the >\nGospel accounts, side by side with Mr. Frazer\u2019s well-chosen collection\nof mock-king narratives, will see for himself that endless other minor\ntraits crop up in the story which may be equated with numerous similar\nincidents in the death and resurrection of the man-god elsewhere.\n\nThe very subjects of the parables are in themselves significant: the\nlord of the vineyard who sends his son, whom the hirers slay; the\nlabourers who come at the eleventh hour: the sower and the good and bad\nground: the grain of mustard-seed: the leaven of the Pharisees: the seed\ngrowing secretly: the sons in the vineyard. It will be found that almost\nall of them turn on the key-note subjects of bread and wine, or at least\nof seed-sowing.\n\nBy what precise stages the story of the Galil\u00e6an man-god arose and\nfixed itself around the person of the real or mythical Jesus it would be\nhard to say. Already in the epistles we may catch stray glimpses, in the\ngerm, of most of it. Already we notice strange hints and foreshadowings.\nProbably the first Jewish disciples had arrived at the outline of the\nexisting story even before the Gentiles began to add their quotum. And\nwhen we look at documents so overloaded with miracle and legend as the\nGospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we find it hard indeed to separate\nany element of historical truth from the enormous accretion of myth and\nlegend. Still, I see no grave reason to doubt the general truth of the\nidea that the Christian belief and practice arose first among Galil\u00e6an\nJews, and that from them it spread with comparative rapidity to the\npeople of Syria and Asia Minor. It even seems probable that one Saul or\nPaul was really the person who first conceived the idea of preaching the\nnew religion throughout the empire, and especially in the great cities,\nas a faith which might be embraced by both Jew and Gentile.\n\nCertainly, {388}while the young cult contained most of the best features\nof Judaism, viewed as a possible universal religion,--its monotheism,\nits purity, its comparative freedom from vile and absurd legends of the\ngods and their amours--it surpassed the elder faith in acceptability to\nthe world at large, and especially to the people of Syria and western\nAsia. Every one of them could have said with perfect truth, \u201cNothing\nis changed; there is but one god more to worship.\u201d\n\nAs the church spread, the legend grew apace. To the early account of the\ndeath and resurrection of the King of the Jews, later narrators added\nthe story of his miraculous birth from a virgin mother, who conceived\ndirectly from the spirit of God wafted down upon her. The wide extent\nand the origin of this belief about the conception of gods and heroes\nhas been fully examined by Mr. Sidney Hartland in his admirable study of\nthe Legend of Perseus. The new believers further provided their divine\nleader with a royal genealogy from David downward, and made him by a\ntolerably circuitous argument be born at Bethlehem, according to the\nsupposed prophecy--though if there ever was really a Jesus at all, it\nwould seem that the one fact of which we could feel tolerably sure about\nhim, was the fact of his being a man of Nazareth. Later writers put into\nhis mouth a high moral teaching for its time, somewhat anticipated by\nHillel and other rabbis, and perhaps in part of Buddhist origin; they\nalso made him announce for himself that divine _r\u00f4le_ of mediator and\natoner which they themselves claimed for the Saviour of Mankind. He\ncalls himself the vine, the bread of life, the good shepherd; he is\ncalled \u201c_the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world_,\u201d\nby John the Baptist, an enthusiast whose fame has attracted him at last\ninto the Christian legend. Very early, the old rite of water-lustration\nor baptism, adopted by John, was employed as one of the chief Christian\nceremonies, the ceremony of initiation, which replaced with advantage\nthe bloody and dangerous Jewish circumcision.\n\nThis {389}allowed for far freer proselytism than Judaism could ever\nexpect; and though no doubt at first the Christians regarded themselves\nas a sect of the Jews, and though they always adopted entire the Jewish\nsacred books and the Jewish God, with all the Jewish history,\ncosmogony, and mythology, yet the new religion was from the beginning a\ncosmopolitan one, and preached the word unto all nations. Such a faith,\ncoming at such a moment, and telling men precisely what they were ready\nto believe, was certain beforehand of pretty general acceptance. When\nConstantine made Christianity the official creed of the empire, it is\nclear that he did but put an official stamp of approval on a revolution\nthat had long been growing more and more inevitable.\n\nIn one word, Christianity triumphed, because it united in itself all the\nmost vital elements of all the religions then current in the world, with\nlittle that was local, national, or distasteful; and it added to them\nall a high ethical note and a social doctrine of human brotherhood\nespecially suited to an age of unification and systematic government.\n\nOccasionally, even in the Gospels themselves, we get strange passing\nechoes of a mysterious identification of the Christ with the ancient\nHebrew ethnical god, not as the Lord of the Universe alone, but vaguely\nremembered as the sacred stone of the ark, the Rock of Israel. \u201cThe\nstone which the builders rejected, that one has become the head of the\ncorner.\u201d \u201cWhosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but\non whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.\u201d And in a\nspeech put into the mouth of Christ, he says to Peter, \u201cRock thou art,\nand on this Rock will I build my assembly.\u201d *\n\n     * I can honestly assure the polemical Protestant divine\n     that I am well aware of the difference in gender in this\n     passage--and of its utter unimportance. The name Peter could\n     not well be made feminine to suit a particular play upon\n     words or to anticipate the objections of a particular set of\n     trivial word-twisters.\n\nSometimes, too, in the epistles the two ideas of the corn-god and\nthe foundation stone-god are worked upon alternately. {390}\u201cI have\nplanted; Apollos watered.\u201d \u201cYe are God\u2019s husbandry; ye are God\u2019s\nbuilding.\u201d \u201cI have laid the foundation, and another builds thereon.\nLet every man take care how he builds upon it. For other foundation can\nno man lay than that which is laid, which is the Christ, Jesus.\u201d\nOr again, \u201cYou are built upon the foundation of the apostles and\nprophets, Jesus, the Christ, being himself the chief corner stone.\u201d\nWhoever rereads the epistles by the light of the analogies suggested in\nthis book will find that they positively teem with similar references\nto the familiar theology of the various slain man-gods, which must have\nbeen known to every one along the shores of the Mediterranean.\n\nThe church which was built upon this rock--and that Rock was Christ--has\nshown its continuity with earlier religions in a thousand ways and by\na thousand analogies. Solar and astrological elements have been freely\nadmitted, side by side with those which recall the corn and wine gods.\nThe chief festivals still cling to the solar feasts of the equinoxes\nand the solstices. Thus every year the church celebrates in mimicry\nthe death and resurrection of the Christ, as the Mediterranean peoples\ncelebrated the death and resurrection of the Attis, the Adonis, the\nDionysus, the Osiris. It celebrates the feast at the usual time for most\nsuch festivals, the spring equinox. More than that, it chooses for the\nactual day of the resurrection, commonly called in English Easter,\nand in the Latin dialects the Paschal feast (or P\u00e2ques), a trebly\nastrological date. The festival must be as near as possible to the\nspring equinox; but it must be after a full moon, and it must be on the\nday sacred to the sun. Before the feast, a long fast takes place, at\nthe close of which the Christ is slain in effigy, and solemnly laid in\na mimic sepulchre. Good Friday is the anniversary of his piacular death,\nand the special day of the annual mourning, as for Adonis and Attis. _On\nEaster Sunday, he rises again from the dead, and every good Catholic is\nbound to communicate--to eat the body of his slaughtered {391}god on the\nannual spring festival of reviving vegetation._ Comparison of the\nHoly Week ceremonies at Rome with the other annual festivals, from the\nMexican corn-feast and the Potraj rite of India to Attis and Adonis,\nwill be found extremely enlightening--I mean, of course, the ceremonies\nas they were when the Pope, the Priest-King, the representative of the\nannual Attis at Pessinus, officiated publicly in the Sistine Chapel,\nwith paschal music known as Lamentations, and elevation of the Host amid\nthe blare of trumpets. On this subject, I limit myself to the barest\nhint. Whoever chooses to follow out so pregnant a clue will find it lead\nhim into curious analogies and almost incredible survivals.\n\nSimilarly, the birth of Christ is celebrated at the winter solstice,\nthe well-known date for so many earlier ceremonies of the gods of\nvegetation. Then the infant god lies unconscious in his cradle. Whoever\nhas read Mr. Frazer\u2019s great work will understand the connexion of the\nholly and the mistletoe, and the Christmas tree, with this second great\nfestival of Christendom, very important in the Teutonic north, though\nfar inferior in the south to the spring-tide feast, when the god\nis slain and eaten of necessity. I limit myself to saying that the\nChristmas rites are all of them rites of the birth of the corn-god.\n\nEven the Christian cross, it is now known, was not employed as a symbol\nof the faith before the days of Constantine, and was borrowed from the\nsolar wheel of the Gaulish sun-god-worshippers who formed the mass of\nthe successful emperor\u2019s legionaries.\n\nWe are now, therefore, in a very different position for understanding\nthe causes which led to the rise and development of the Christian\nreligion from that which we occupied at the outset of our enquiry. We\nhad then to accept crudely the bare fact that about the first century of\nour era a certain cult of a Divine Man, Jesus, arose among a fraction of\nthe maritime people of Lower Syria. That fact as we at first received it\nstood isolated and unrelated {392}in its naked singularity. We can now\nsee that it was but one more example of a universal god-making tendency\nin human nature, high or low; and in our last chapter we shall find that\nthis universal tendency to worship the dead has ever since persisted\nas fully as ever, and is in fact the central element in the entire\nreligious instinct of humanity.\n\nThe main emotional chord upon which Christianity played in its early\ndays--and indeed the main chord upon which it still plays--is just,\nI believe, the universal feeling in favour of the deification or\nbeatification of the dead, with the desire for immortality on the part\nof the individual believer himself in person. Like all other\nreligions, but even more than any other religion at that time in vogue,\nChristianity appealed to these two allied and deep-seated longings of\nhuman nature. It appealed on the one hand to the unselfish emotions and\naffections of mankind by promising a close, bodily, personal, and\nspeedy reassociation of the living believer with his dead relatives and\nfriends. It appealed on the other hand to the selfish wishes and desires\nof each, by holding forth to every man the sure and certain hope of\na glorious resurrection. Like all other creeds, but beyond all other\ncreeds, it was the religion of immortality, of the dead revived, of the\nnew world: in an age of doubt, of scepticism, of the decay of faith, it\ngave fresh life and a totally new basis to the old beliefs--perhaps the\nold delusions--of the religious nature.\n\nA necessary consequence of the universal ferment and intermixture of\npantheons everywhere during the early days of the Roman empire was a\ncertain amount of floating scepticism about the gods as a whole, which\nreaches its highest point in the mocking humour of Lucian, or still\nearlier in the Epicurean atheism of Lucretius and of Roman philosophy\nin general. But while this nascent scepticism was very real and very\nwidespread, it affected rather current beliefs as to the personality\nand history of the various gods than the {393}underlying conception\nof godhead in the abstract. Even those who laughed and those who\ndisbelieved, retained at bottom many superstitions and supernatural\nideas. Their scepticism was due, not like that of our own time to\nfundamental criticism of the very notion of the supernatural, but to\nthe obvious inadequacy of existing gods to satisfy the requirements of\neducated cosmopolitans. The deities of the time were too coarse, too\nchildish, too gross for their worshippers. The common philosophic\nattitude of cultivated Rome and cultivated Alexandria might be compared\nto some extent to that of our own Unitarians, who are not indeed hostile\nto the conception of theology in its own nature, but who demur to the\nmost miraculous and supernatural part of the popular doctrine.\n\nWith the mass, however, the religious unrest showed itself mainly, as\nit always shows itself at such critical moments, in a general habit of\nrunning after new and strange religions, from some one or other of which\nthe anxious enquirer hopes to obtain some divine answer to his doubts\nand difficulties. When old faiths decay, there is room for new ones. As\nmight have been expected, this tendency was most clearly shown in the\ngreat cosmopolitan trading towns, where men of many nations rubbed\nshoulders together, and where outlandish cults of various sorts had\ntheir temples and their adherents. Especially was this the case at Rome,\nAlexandria, and Antioch, the capitals respectively of the Roman, the\nHellenic, and the Semitic worlds. In the Gr\u00e6co-Egyptian metropolis, the\nworship of Serapis, a composite deity of hybrid origin, grew gradually\ninto the principal cult of the teeming city. At Antioch, Hellenic\ndeities were ousting the Baalim. At Rome, the worship of Isis, of\nJahweh, of Syrian and other remoter Eastern gods was carried on by an\never-increasing body of the foreign, native, and servile population.\nThese were the places where Christianity spread. The men of the villages\nwere long, as the world still quaintly phrases it, \u201cpagans.\u201d\n\nThe {394}strange cults which united in thus gradually crushing out the\nold local and national pantheons throughout the Roman world, had for\nthe most part two marked attributes in common: they were more or less\nmystical; and they tended more or less in the direction of monotheism.\nSolar myth, syncretism, the esoteric priestly interpretations, and\nthe general diffusion of Greek philosophic notions, mixed with subtler\noriental and Zoroastrian ideas, had all promoted the rise and growth of\nthe mystic element: while a vague monotheistic movement had long been\napparent in the higher thought of Egypt, Greece, Italy, and the East. In\nthe resulting conflict and intermixture of ideas, Judaism, as one of\nthe most mystical and monotheistic of religions, would have stood a good\nchance of becoming the faith of the world, had it not been for the fatal\nweight of its strict and obstinate national character. Even as it was,\nJewish communities were scattered through all the commercial towns of\nthe Gr\u00e6co-Roman world; a Jewish colony strongly influenced Alexandria;\nand Jewish teachers made proselytes in Rome in the very bosom of the\nimperial household.\n\nThe ferment which thus existed by the Orontes, the Nile, and the\nTiber must also have extended in a somewhat less degree to all the\ncosmopolitan seaports and trading towns of the great and heterogeneous\nmilitary empire. What was true of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,\nwas true in part, we have every reason to believe, of Damascus, of\nByzantium, of Sinope, of Ephesus: of Rhodes, of Cyrene, of Athens, of\nCarthage; perhaps even of Massilia, of Gades, of Burdigala, of Lugdunum.\nAll around the eastern Mediterranean at least, new faiths were\nseething, new ideas were brewing, new mysticisms were being evolved,\nnew superstitions were arising, Phoenix-like, out of the dying embers\nof decaying creeds. Setting aside mere exotic or hybrid cults, like the\nworship of Serapis at Alexandria and of Isis at Rome, or mere abortive\nattempts like the short-lived worship of Antinous in Egypt, {395}we may\nsay that three of these new religions appealed strongly to the wants\nand desires of the time: and those three were Mithraism, Gnosticism, and\nChristianity.\n\nAll were alike somewhat eclectic in character; and all could lay claim\nto a certain cosmopolitan and catholic spirit unknown to the cults of\nthe old national pantheons. All came to the Greek and Roman world from\nthe mystic east, the land of the rising sun, whose magic is felt even at\nthe present day by the votaries of Theosophy and of Esoteric Buddhism.\nWhich of the three was to conquer in the end might have seemed at one\ntime extremely doubtful: nor indeed do I believe that the ultimate\ntriumph of Christianity, the least imposing of the three, inevitable as\nit at last became, was by any means at first a foregone conclusion.\nThe religion of Jesus probably owed quite as much to what we call\nchance--that is to say, to the play of purely personal and casual\ncircumstances--as to its own essential internal characteristics. If\nConstantine or any other shrewd military chief had happened to adopt the\nsymbols of Mithra or Abraxas instead of the name of Christ, it is quite\nconceivable that all the civilised world might now be adoring the mystic\ndivinity of the three hundred and sixty-five emanations, as sedulously\nas it actually adores the final theological outcome of the old Hebrew\nJahweh. But there were certain real advantages as well, which told,\nI believe, in the very nature of things, in favour of the Christ\nas against the coinage of Basilides or the far-eastern sun-god.\nConstantine, in other words, chose his religion wisely. It was the cult\nexactly adapted to the times: above all others, during the two centuries\nor so that had passed since its first beginning (for we must place the\nreal evolution of the Christian system considerably later than the life\nor death of Jesus himself) it had shown itself capable of thoroughly\nengaging on its own side the profoundest interests and emotions of the\nreligious nature.\n\nWe must remember, too, that in all religious crises, while {396}faith in\nthe actual gods and creeds declines rapidly, no corresponding weakening\noccurs in the underlying sentiments on which all religions ultimately\nbase themselves. Hence the apparent paradox that periods of doubt are\nalso almost always periods of intense credulity as well. The human mind,\ncast free from the moorings which have long sufficed for it, drifts\nabout restlessly in search of some new haven in which it may take refuge\nfrom the terrors of uncertainty and infidelity. And its new faith is\nalways but a fresh form of the old one. A god or gods, prayer, praise,\nand sacraments, are essential elements. More especially is it the case\nthat when trust in the great gods begins to fail, a blind groping after\nnecromancy, spiritualism, and ghost-lore in general takes its place for\nthe moment. We have seen this tendency fully exemplified in our own time\nby the spiritualists and others: nor was it less marked in the tempest\nof conflicting ideas which broke over the Roman world from the age of\nthe Antonines to the fall of the empire. The fact is, the average man\ncares but little, after all, for his gods and his goddesses, viewed as\nindividuals. They are but an outlet for his own emotions. He appeals\nto them for help, as long as he continues to believe in their effective\nhelpfulness: he is ready to cajole them with offerings of blood or to\nflatter them with homage of praise and prayer, as long as he expects to\ngain some present or future benefit, bodily or spiritual, in return for\nhis assiduous adulation. But as soon as his faith in their existence and\npower begins to break down, he puts up with the loss of their\ngodhead, so far as they themselves are concerned, without one qualm of\ndisappointment or inconvenience. It is something far other than that\nthat touches him in religion: it is his hopes for his own eternal\nwelfare, and the welfare after death of those that love him.\n\nHence, a decline of faith in the great gods is immediately followed by a\nrecrudescence of the most barbaric and original element in religion--the\ncult of the ghost or spirit, {397}necromancy, the direct worship of the\ndead or intercourse with the dead: a habit of enquiry into the positive\nchances of human immortality. This necromantic spirit is well marked\nin Gnostic remains, and in the fragmentary magical literature of the\ndecadent Gr\u00e6co-Roman world. It is precisely the same tendency which\nproduces spiritualism in our own time: and it is due to the desire to\nfind some new and experimental basis for the common human belief in the\nimmortality of the soul or the resurrection of the body.\n\nAnd here we get the clue to the serious change which Christianity\nwrought in the religious feeling of the western world: a change whose\nimportance and whose retrograde nature has never yet, I believe, been\nfully recognised. For Christianity, while from one point of view, as a\nmonotheistic or quasi-monotheistic religion, an immense advance upon the\naesthetic paganism of Greece and Italy, was from another point of view,\nas a religion of resurrection rather than a religion of immortality, a\nstep backward for all Western Europe.\n\nEven among the Jews themselves, however, the new cult must have come\nwith all the force of an \u201caid to faith\u201d in a sceptical generation.\nAbroad, among the Jewish Hellenists, Greek philosophy must have\nundermined much of the fanatical and patriotic enthusiasm for Jahweh\nwhich had grown stronger and ever stronger in Jud\u00e6a itself through\nthe days of the Maccabees and the Asmon\u00e6an princes. Scraps of vague\nPlatonic theorising on the nature of the Divine were taking among these\nexiles the place of the firm old dogmatic belief in the Rock of Israel.\nAt home, the Hellenising tendencies of the house of Herod, and the\nimportance in Jerusalem of the Sadducees \u201cwho say there is no\nresurrection,\u201d were striking at the very roots of the hope and faith\nthat pious Jews most tenderly cherished. Instead of Israel converting\nthe world, the world seemed likely to convert Israel. Swamped in the\ngreat absorbing and assimilating empire, Judah {398}might follow in the\nway of Ephraim. And Israel\u2019s work in the world might thus be undone,\nor rather stultified for ever.\n\nJust at this very moment, when all faiths were tottering visibly to\ntheir fall, a tiny band of obscure Galil\u00e6an peasants, who perhaps had\nfollowed a wild local enthusiast from their native hills up to turbulent\nJerusalem, may have been seized with a delusion neither unnatural nor\nunaccustomed under their peculiar circumstances; but which nevertheless\nhas sufficed to turn or at least to modify profoundly the entire\nsubsequent course of the world\u2019s history. Their leader, if we may\ntrust the universal tradition of the sect, as laid down long after in\ntheir legendary Gospels, was crucified at Jerusalem under C. Pontius\nPilatus. If any fact upon earth about Jesus is true, besides the fact\nof his residence at Nazareth, it is this fact of the crucifixion, which\nderives verisimilitude from being always closely connected with the\nname of that particular Roman official. But three days after, says the\nlegend, the body of Jesus could not be found in the sepulchre where his\nfriends had laid him: and a rumour gradually’ gained ground that he had\nrisen from the dead, and had been seen abroad by the women who mourned\nhim and by various of his disciples. In short, what was universally\nbelieved about all other and elder human gods, was specifically asserted\nafresh in a newer case about the man Christ Jesus. The idea fitted in\nwith the needs of the time, and the doctrine of the Resurrection of\nJesus the Christ became the corner-stone of the new-born Christian\nreligion.\n\nNothing can be clearer than the fact admitted on all hands, that this\nevent formed the central point of the Apostles\u2019 preaching. It was the\nResurrection of Jesus, regarded as an earnest of general resurrection\nfor all his followers, that they most insisted upon in their words and\nwritings. It was the resurrection that converted the world of western\nEurope. \u201cYour faith is flagging,\u201d said the early Christians in\neffect to their pagan fellows: \u201cyour gods are {399}half-dead; your\nideas about your own future, and the present state of your departed\nfriends, are most vague and shadowy. In opposition to all this, we\noffer you a sure and certain hope; we tell you a tale of real life, and\nrecent; we preach a god of the familiar pattern, yet very close to you;\nwe present you with a specimen of actual resurrection. We bring you\ngood tidings of Jesus as the Messiah, and him crucified: to the Jews, a\nstumbling-block; to the Greeks, foolishness; but to such as are saved,\na plain evidence of the power of the God of Israel. Accept our word: let\nyour dead sleep in Christ in our catacombs, as once they slept in Osiris\nat Abydos, or rested upon him that rests at Phil\u00e6.\u201d \u201cIf Christ be\nnot risen,\u201d says one of the earliest Christian writers in a passionate\nperoration, \u201cthen is our preaching vain, and your faith is vain also:\nbut as it is, Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first\nfruits of them that slept.\u201d \u201cElse what shall they do,\u201d he goes on,\ntouching to the quick that ingrained human desire for communion with the\ndeparted, \u201cwhat shall they do which are baptised for the dead, if the\ndead rise not at all? Why are they then baptised for the dead?\u201d These,\nin short, apart from the elements common to all creeds, are the three\ngreat motors of primitive Christianity: one dogmatic, the resurrection\nof Jesus: one selfish, the salvation of the individual soul: one\naltruistic, the desire for reunion with the dead among one\u2019s beloved.\n\nSyria and Egypt could easily accept the new doctrine. It involved for\nthem no serious change of front, no wide departure from the ideas and\nceremonies which always formed their rounded concept of human existence.\nThere is a representation of the resurrection of Osiris in the little\ntemple on the roof at Denderah which might almost pass for a Christian\nillustration of the resurrection of Jesus. To Syrian and Egyptian, the\nresurrection indeed was but a special modern instance of a well-known\nfact; a fresh basis of evidence upon which to plant firmly the tottering\nedifice {400}of their old convictions.’ In its beginnings, in short,\nChristianity was essentially an oriental religion; it spread fastest\nin the eastern Mediterranean basin, where Judaism was already well\nestablished: at Rome, it seems to have attracted chiefly the oriental\npopulation. And it is a significant fact that its official adoption as\nthe public religion of the Roman state was the act of the same prince\nwho deliberately shifted the seat of his government from the Tiber to\nthe Bosphorus, and largely transformed the character of the empire from\na Latin to a Gr\u00e6co-Asiatic type. All the new religions which struggled\ntogether for the mastery of the world were oriental in origin: the\ntriumph of Christianity was but a single episode in the general triumph\nof aggressive orientalism over the occidental element in the Roman\nsystem.\n\nEgypt in particular, I believe, had far more to do with the dogmatic\nshaping of early Christianity, and the settlement of Christian symbolism\nand Christian mysticism, than is generally admitted by the official\nhistorians of the primitive church. There, where the idea of\nresurrection was already so universal, and where every man desired to be\n\u201cjustified by Osiris,\u201d Christianity soon made an easy conquest of a\npeople on whose faith it exerted so little change. And Egypt easily made\nits influence felt on the plastic young creed. It is allowed that the\ndoctrine of the Trinity took shape among the Triad-worshippers on the\nbanks of the Nile, and that the scarcely less important doctrine of the\nLogos was borrowed from the philosophy of Alexandrian Jews. Nobody can\nlook at the figures of Isis and the infant Horus in any Egyptian museum\nwithout being at once struck by the obvious foreshadowing of the Coptic\nand Byzantine Madonna and Child. The mystery that sprang up about the\nnew doctrines; the strange syncretic union of Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost into a single Trinity; the miraculous conception by the Theotokos\nor mother of God--a clear variant in one aspect on the older idea of\nHathor; and the antenatal existence of Christ {401}in heaven before\nhis incarnation; all are thoroughly Egyptian in character, with a faint\nsuperadded dash of Alexandrian Jewish Hellenism. The love of symbols\nwhich the young church so early exhibits in the catacombs and elsewhere\nsmacks equally of Ptolemaic reminiscences of Thebes and Memphis. The\nmummy-form of Lazarus; the fish that makes such a clever alphabetic\nideogram for the name and titles of Jesus; the dove that symbolises the\nHoly Ghost; the animal types of the four evangelists--all these are in\nlarge part Egyptian echoes, resonant of the same spirit which produced\nthe hieroglyphics and the symbolism of the great Nilotic temples. At the\nsame time it must be remembered that sacred fish were common in Syria,\nand that similar identifications of gods with animals have met us at\nevery turn, in our earlier investigation.\n\nNay, more, the very details themselves of Christian symbolism often go\nback to early Egyptian models. The central Christian emblem of all, the\ncross, is holy all the world over: it is the sacred tree: and each race\nhas adapted it to its own preconceived ideas and symbols. But in Coptic\nChristianity it has obvious affinities with the _crux ansata_. In the\nCoptic room of the New Museum at Ghizeh is an early Christian monument\nwith a Greek uncial inscription, on which is represented a cross of four\nequal limbs with expanded flanges, having a crux ansata inserted in all\nits four interstices. At the Coptic church of Abu Sirgeh at Old Cairo\noccurs a similar cross, also with suggestions of Tau-like origin, but\nwith other equal-limbed crosses substituted for the _cruces ansatae_ in\nthe corners. * How far the Egyptian Christians thus merely transferred\ntheir old ideas to the new faith may be gathered from a single curious\nexample. In Mr. Loftie\u2019s collection of sacred beetles is a scarab\u00e6us\n{402}containing a representation of the crucifixion, with two palm\nbranches: and other scarabs have Christian crosses, \u201csome of them,\u201d\nsays Mr. Loftie, \u201cvery unmistakable.\u201d If we remember how extremely\nsacred the scarab was held in the Egyptian religion, and also that it\nwas regarded as the symbol of the resurrection, we cannot possibly miss\nthe importance of this implication. Indeed, the Alexandrian Father,\nEpiphanius, speaks of Christ as \u201cthe scarab\u00e6us of God,\u201d a phrase\nwhich may be still better understood if I add that in the treatise on\nhieroglyphs known under the name of Horapollo a scarab\u00e6us is said to\ndenote \u201can only-begotten.\u201d Thus \u201cthe lamb of God\u201d in the\ntongue of Israel becomes \u201cthe scarab\u00e6us of God\u201d in the mouth of an\nEgyptian speaker. To put it shortly, I believe we may say with truth,\nin a sense far other than that intended by either prophet or evangelist,\n\u201cOut of Egypt have I called my son.\u201d\n\n     * Count Goblet d\u2019Alviella\u2019s interesting work on The\n     Migration of Symbols well illustrates this common syncretism\n     and interchangeability of symbolic signs, which runs\n     parallel with the syncretism of gods and religions.\n\nIn the west, however, the results of the spread of Christianity were far\nmore revolutionary. Indeed, I do not think the cult of Jesus could ever\nhave spread at all in Rome had it not been for the large extent to which\nthe city was peopled in later times by Syrians and Africans. And if\nChristianity had not spread in Rome, it could never have gained a\nfoothold at all in the Aryan world: for it is not at bottom an Aryan\nreligion in tone and feeling: it has only become possible among Aryan\npeoples by undergoing at last a considerable change of spirit, though\nnot largely of form, in its westward progress. This change is indicated\nby the first great schism, which severed the Latin from the Greek\ncommunion.\n\nForemost among the changes which Christianity involved in Italy and\nthe rest of western Europe was the retrograde change from the belief\nin immortality and the immateriality of the soul, with cremation as its\npractical outcome, to the belief in the resurrection of the body, with\na return to the disused and discredited practice of burial as its\nnormal correlative. The catacombs were the necessary {403}result of this\nbackward movement; and with the catacombs came in the possibility of\nrelic-worship, martyr-worship, and the adoration of saints and their\ncorpses. I shall trace out in my next chapter the remoter effects of\nthis curious revival of the prime element in religion--the cult of the\ndead--in greater detail: it must suffice here to point out briefly that\nit resulted as a logical effect from the belief in the resurrection\nof Christ, and the consequent restoration of the practice of burial.\nMoreover, to polytheists, this habit gave a practical opening for the\ncult of many deities in the midst of nominal monotheism, which the\nItalians and sundry other essentially polytheistic peoples were not slow\nto seize upon. Here again the difference between the more monotheistic\nand syncretic east, which puts a ban upon graven images, and the more\npolytheistic and separating west, which freely admits the employment of\nsculpture, is not a little significant. It is true that theoretically\nthe adoration paid to saints and martyrs is never regarded as real\nworship: but I need hardly say that technical distinctions like\nthese are always a mere part of the artificial theology of\nscholastic priesthoods, and may be as safely disregarded by the broad\nanthropological enquirer as may all the other fanciful lumber of\nmetaphysical Brahmans and theologians everywhere. The genuine facts of\nreligion are the facts and rites of the popular cult, which remain in\neach race for long periods together essentially uniform.\n\nThus we early get two main forms of Christianity, both official and\npopular: one eastern--Greek, Coptic, Syrian; more mystical in type, more\nsymbolic, more philosophic, more monotheistic: the other western--Latin,\nCeltic, Spanish; more Aryan in type, more practical, more material, more\npolytheistic. _And these at a later time are reinforced by a third or\nnorthern form,--the Teutonic and Protestant; in which ethical ideas\npreponderate over religious, and the worship of the Book in its most\nliteral and often foolish interpretation supersedes the earlier worship\nof Madonna, saints, pictures, statues, and emblems._\n\nAt {404}the period when Christianity first begins to emerge from\nthe primitive obscurity of its formative nisus, however, we find it\npractically compounded of the following elements--which represent _the\ncommon union of a younger god offered up to an older one with whom he is\nidentified_.\n\nFirst of all, as the implied basis, taken for granted in all the early\nHebrew scriptures, there is current Judaism, in the form that Judaism\nhad gradually assumed in the fourth, third, and second centuries before\nthe Christian era. This includes as its main principle the cult of the\none god Jahweh, now no longer largely thought of under that personal\nname, or as a strictly ethnic deity, but rather envisaged as the Lord\nGod who dwells in heaven, very much as Christians of to-day still\nenvisage him. It includes also an undercurrent of belief in a heavenly\nhierarchy of angels and archangels, the court of the Lord (modifications\nof an earlier astrological conception, the Host of Heaven), and in a\nprinciple of evil, Satan or the devil, dwelling in hell, and similarly\nsurrounded by a crowd of minor or assistant demons. Further, it accepts\nimplicitly from earlier Judaism the resurrection of the dead, the\njudgment of the good and the wicked, the doctrine of future rewards and\npunishments (perhaps in its fullest shape a Hellenistic importation from\nEgypt, though also commonly found in most spontaneous religions), and\nmany other tenets of the current Jewish belief. In short, the very\nearliest Christians, being probably for the most part Jews, Galil\u00e6ans,\nand proselytes, or else Syrians and Africans of Judaising tendencies,\ndid not attempt to get rid of all their preconceived religious opinions\nwhen they became Christians, but merely superadded to these as a new\nitem the special cult of the deified Jesus.\n\nOn the other hand, as the Gospel spread to the Gentiles, it was not\nthought necessary to burden the fresh converts with the whole minute\nceremonial of Judaism, and especially with the difficult and unpleasant\ninitiatory rite of circumcision. {405}A mere symbolical lustration,\nknown as baptism, was all that was demanded of new adherents to the\nfaith, with abstinence from any participation in “heathen\u201d sacrifices\nor functions. To this extent the old exclusiveness of Jahweh-worship,\nthe cult of the jealous God, was still allowed to assert itself. And the\ngeneral authority of the Hebrew scriptures, especially as a historical\naccount of the development of Judaism, from which Christianity sprang,\nwas more or less fully admitted, at first by implication or quotation\nalone, but afterwards by the deliberate and avowed voice of the whole\nChristian assembly. The translation of this mixed mass of historical\ndocuments, early cosmogonies, ill-reported and Jeho-vised Jewish\ntraditions, misinterpreted poems, and conscious forgeries, in the Latin\nversion known as the Vulgate, had the effect of endowing Europe for many\ncenturies with a false body of ancient history, which must have largely\nretarded the development of the race up to our own time, and whose\nevil effects have hardly yet passed away among the more ignorant and\nconservative Bibliolatrous classes of modern society.\n\nSuperimposed upon this substratum of current Judaism with its worship\nof Jahweh came the distinctive Jesus-cult, the worship of the particular\ndead Galil\u00e6an peasant. This element was superadded to the cult of the\nFather, the great god who had slowly and imperceptibly developed out of\nthe sacred stone that the sons of Israel were believed to have brought\nup with them from the land of Egypt. But how, in a religion pretending\nto be monotheistic, were these two distinct cults of two such diverse\ngods to be reconciled or to be explained away? By the familiar doctrine\nof the incarnation, and the belief in the human god who is sacrificed,\nhimself to himself, as a piacular offering. Jewish tradition and subtler\nEgyptian mysticism sufficed to smooth over the apparent anomaly. The\nJews looked forward to a mysterious deliverer, a new Moses, the Messiah,\nwho was to fulfil the destiny of Israel by uniting all nations under the\nsceptre of David, and by {406}bringing the Gentiles to the feet of the\nGod of Israel. Jesus, said the Christians, had proclaimed himself that\nvery Messiah, the Christ of God; he had often alluded to the great\nHebrew deity as his father; he had laid claim to the worship of the Lord\nof heaven. Further than this, perhaps, the unaided Jewish intelligence\nwould hardly have gone: it would have been satisfied with assigning to\nthe slain man-god Jesus a secondary place, as the only begotten Son\nof God, who gave himself up as a willing victim--a position perhaps\nscarcely more important than that which Mohammad holds in the system\nof Islam. Such, it seems to me, is on the whole the conception which\npermeates the synoptic Gospels, representing the ideas of Syrian\nChristendom. But here the acute Gr\u00e6co-Egyptian mind came in with its\nnice distinctions and its mystical identifications. There was but one\ngod, indeed; yet that god was at least twofold (to go no further for\nthe present). He had two persons, the Father and the Son: and the Second\nPerson, identified with the Alexandrian conception of the Logos, though\ninferior to the Father as touching his manhood, was equal to the Father\nas touching his godhead--after the precise fashion we saw so common in\ndescribing the relations of Osiris and Horus, and the identification\nof the Attis or Adonis victim with the earlier and older god he\nrepresented. \u201cI and my Father are one,\u201d says the Christ of the\nFourth Gospel, the embodiment and incarnation of the Alexandrian Logos.\nAnd in the very forefront of that manifesto of Neo-Platonic Christianity\ncomes the dogmatic assertion, \u201cIn the beginning was the Logos: and the\nLogos dwelt with God: and the Logos _was_ God.\u201d\n\nEven so the basis of the new creed is still incomplete. The Father and\nSon give the whole of the compound deity as the popular mind, everywhere\nand always, has commonly apprehended it. But the scholastic and\ntheological intelligence needed a Third Person to complete the Trinity\nwhich to all mankind, as especially to orientals, is the {407}only\nperfect and thoroughly rounded figure. In later days, no doubt, the\nMadonna would have been chosen to fill up the blank, and, on the analogy\nof Isis, would have filled it most efficiently. As a matter of fact, in\nthe creed of Christendom as the Catholic people know it, the Madonna\nis really one of the most important personages. But in those early\nformative times, the cult of the Theotokos had hardly yet assumed its\nfull importance: perhaps, indeed, the Jewish believers would have been\nshocked at the bare notion of the worship of a woman, the readmission of\nan Astarte, a Queen of Heaven, into the faith of Israel. Another object\nof adoration had therefore to be found. It was discovered in that vague\nessence, the _Holy Ghost, or Divine Wisdom, whose gradual development\nand dissociation from God himself is one of the most curious chapters\nin all the history of artificial god-making_. The \u201cspirit of Jahweh\u201d\nhad frequently been mentioned in Hebrew writings; and with so invisible\nand unapproachable a deity as the Jewish God, was often made to do duty\nas a messenger or intermediary where the personal presence of Jahweh\nhimself would have been felt to contravene the first necessities of\nincorporeal divinity. It was the \u201cspirit of Jahweh\u201d that came\nupon the prophets: it was the \u201cwisdom of Jahweh\u201d that the poets\ndescribed, and that grew at last to be detached from the personality of\nGod, and alluded to almost as a living individual. In the early church,\nthis \u201cspirit of God,\u201d this \u201choly spirit,\u201d was supposed to\nbe poured forth upon the heads of believers: it descended upon Jesus\nhimself in the visible form of a dove from heaven, and upon the\ndisciples at Pentecost as tongues of fire. _Gradually, the conception\nof a personal Holy Ghost took form and definiteness: an Alexandrian monk\ninsisted on the necessity for a Triad of gods who were yet one God: and\nby the time the first creeds of the nascent church were committed to\nwriting, the Spirit had come to rank with the Father and the Son as the\nThird Person in the ever-blessed Trinity._\n\nBy {408}this time, too, it is pretty clear that the original manhood of\nJesus had got merged in the idea of his eternal godhead; he was regarded\nas the Logos, come down from heaven, where he had existed before all\nworlds, and incarnate by the Holy Ghost in the Virgin Mary. The other\narticles of the Christian faith clustered gradually round these\nprime elements: the myth gathered force; the mysticism increased;\nthe secondary divine beings or saints grew vastly in numbers; and the\nelement of Judaism disappeared piecemeal, while a new polytheism and a\nnew sacerdotalism took root apace in the Aryan world. I shall strive to\nshow, however, in my concluding chapters, how even to the very end the\nworship of the dead is still the central force in modern Christianity:\nhow religion, whatever its form, can never wander far from that\nfundamental reality: and how, whenever by force of circumstances\nthe gods become too remote from human life, so that the doctrine of\nresurrection or personal immortality is endangered for a time, and\nreunion with relations in the other world becomes doubtful or insecure,\na reaction is sure to set in which takes things back once more to these\nfundamental concepts, the most persistent and perpetually recurrent\nelement in all religious thinking.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.--SURVIVALS IN CHRISTENDOM.\n\n|WE {409}have now travelled far, apparently, from that primitive stage\nof god-making where the only known gods are the corpses, mummies,\nskulls, ghosts, or spirits of dead chieftains or dead friends and\nrelations. The God of Christianity, in his fully-evolved form,\nespecially as known to thinkers and theologians, is a being so vast, so\nabstract, so ubiquitous, so eternal, that he seems to have hardly and\npoints of contact at all with the simple ancestral spirit or sacred\nstone from which in the last resort he appears to be descended. Yet even\nhere, we must beware of being misled by too personal an outlook. While\nthe higher minds in Christendom undoubtedly conceive of the Christian\nGod in terms of Mansel and Martineau, the lower minds even among\nourselves conceive of him in far simpler and more material fashions. A\ngood deal of enquiry among ordinary English people of various classes,\nnot always the poorest, convinces me that to large numbers of them God\nis envisaged as possessing a material human form, more or less gaseous\nin composition; that, in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles, he has body,\nparts, and passions; that he is usually pictured to the mind\u2019s eye as\nabout ten or twelve feet high, with head, hands, eyes and mouth, used to\nsee with and speak with in human fashion; and that he sits on a throne,\nlike a king that he is, surrounded by a visible court of angels and\narchangels. Italian art so invariably represents him, with a frankness\nunknown to Protestant Christendom. Instead of {410}being in all places\nat once, pervading and underlying nature, the Deity is conceived of\nby most of his worshippers as having merely the power of annihilating\nspace, and finding himself wherever he likes at a given moment. His\nomniscience and omnipotence are readily granted; but his abstractness\nand immateriality are not really grasped by one out of a thousand of his\nbelievers in Britain.\n\nThe fact is, so abstract a conception as the highest theological\nconception of God cannot be realised except symbolically, and then for\na few moments only, in complete isolation. The moment God is definitely\nthought of in connexion with any cosmic activity, still more in\nconnexion with any human need, he is inevitably thought of on human\nanalogies, and more or less completely anthropomorphised in the brain\nof the believer. Being by origin an offshoot of the mind of man, a great\ndeified human being, he retains necessarily still, for all save a few\nvery mystical or ontological souls, the obvious marks of his ultimate\ndescent from a ghost or spirit. Indeed, on the mental as opposed to\nthe bodily side, he does so for us all; since even theologians freely\nascribe to him such human feelings as love, affection, a sense of\njustice, a spirit of mercy, of truth, of wisdom: knowledge, will, the\npowers of intellect, all the essential and fundamental human faculties\nand emotions.\n\nThus, far as we seem to have travelled from our base in the most exalted\nconcepts of God, we are nearer to it still than most of us imagine.\nMoreover, in spite of this height to which the highest minds have raised\ntheir idea of the Deity, as the creator, sustainer, and mover of the\nuniverse, every religion, however monotheistic, still continues to make\nnew minor gods for itself out of the dead as they die, and to worship\nthese gods with even more assiduous worship than it bestows upon the\ngreat God of Christendom or the great gods of the central pantheon.\nAnd the Christian religion makes such minor deities no less than all\n{411}others. _The fact is, the religious emotion takes its origin from\nthe affection and regard felt for the dead by survivors, mingled with\nthe hope and belief that they may be of some use or advantage, temporal\nor spiritual, to those who call upon them_; and these primitive faiths\nand feelings remain so ingrained in the very core of humanity that even\nthe most abstract of all religions, like the Protestant schism, cannot\nwholly choke them, while recrudescences of the original creed and custom\nspring up from time to time in the form of spiritualism, theosophy, and\nother vague types of simple ghost-worship.\n\nMost advanced religions, however, and especially Christianity in its\ncentral, true, and main form of Catholicism, have found it _necessary\nto keep renewing from time to time the stock of minor gods--here\narbitrarily known as saints_--much as the older religions found it\nalways necessary from year to year to renew the foundation-gods, the\ncorn and wine gods, and the other special deities of the manufactured\norder, by a constant supply of theanthropic victims. What I wish more\nparticularly to point out here, however, is that _the vast majority of\nplaces of worship all the world over are still erected, as at the\nvery beginning, above the body of a dead man or woman_; that the chief\nobjects of worship in every shrine are still, as always, such cherished\nbodies of dead men and women; and that the primitive connexion of\nReligion with Death has never for a moment been practically severed\nin the greater part of the world,--not even in Protestant England and\nAmerica.\n\nMr. William Simpson was one of the first persons to point out this\ncurious underlying connexion between churches, temples, mosques, or\ntopes, and a tomb or monument. He has proved his point in a very full\nmanner, and I would refer the reader who wishes to pursue this branch\nof the subject at length to his interesting monographs. In this work,\nI will confine my attention mainly to _the continued presence of this\ndeath-element in Christianity_; but by way of illustration, I will\npreface my remarks {412}by a few stray instances picked up at random\nfrom the neighbouring and interesting field of Islam.\n\nThere is no religion in all the world which professes to be more purely\nmonotheistic in character than Mohammedanism. The unity of God, in the\nvery strictest sense, is the one dogma round which the entire creed\nof Islam centres. More than any other cult, it represents itself as a\ndistinct reaction against the polytheism and superstition of surrounding\nfaiths. The isolation of Allah is its one great dogma. If, therefore,\nwe find even in this most monotheistic of existing religious systems a\nlarge element of practically polytheistic survival--if we find that even\nhere the Worship of the Dead remains, as a chief component in religious\npractice, if not in religious theory, we shall be fairly entitled to\nconclude, I think, that such constituents are indeed of the very essence\nof religious thinking, and we shall be greatly strengthened in\nthe conclusions at which we previously arrived as to a _belief in\nimmortality or continued life of the dead being in fact the core and\nbasis of worship and of deity._\n\nSome eight or ten years since, when I first came practically into\nconnexion with Islam in Algeria and Egypt, I was immediately struck by\nthe wide prevalence among the Mahommedan population of forms of worship\nfor which I was little prepared by anything I had previously read or\nheard as to the nature and practice of that exclusive and ostentatiously\nmonotheistic faith. Two points, indeed, forcibly strike any visitor\nwho for the first time has the opportunity of observing a Mahommedan\ncommunity in its native surroundings. The first is the universal habit\non the part of the women of visiting the cemeteries and mourning or\npraying over the graves of their relations on Friday, the sacred day\nof Islam. The second is the frequency of Koubbas, or little whitewashed\nmosque-tombs erected over the remains of Marabouts, fakeers, or local\nsaints, which form the real centres for the religion and worship of\nevery village. Islam, in practice, is a religion {413}of pilgrimages to\nthe tombs of the dead. In Algeria, every hillside is dotted over with\nthese picturesque little whitewashed domes, each overshadowed by its\nsacred date-palm, each surrounded by its small walled enclosure or\n_temenos_ of prickly pear or agave, and each attended by its local\nministrant, who takes charge of the tomb and of the alms of the\nfaithful. Holy body, sacred stone, tree, well, and priest--not\nan element of the original cult of the dead is lacking. Numerous\npilgrimages are made to these koubbas by the devout: and on Friday\nevenings the little courtyards are almost invariably thronged by a crowd\nof eager and devoted worshippers. Within, the bones of the holy man\nlie preserved in a frame hung about with rosaries, pictures, and other\noblations of his ardent disciples, exactly as in the case of Roman\nCatholic chapels. The saint, in fact, is quite as much an institution of\nmonotheistic Islam as of any other religion with which I am practically\nacquainted.\n\nThese two peculiarities of the cult of Islam strike a stranger\nimmediately on the most casual visit. When he comes to look at the\nmatter more closely, however, he finds also that most of the larger\nmosques in the principal towns are themselves similarly built to contain\nand enshrine the bones of saintly personages, more or less revered in\ntheir immediate neighbourhood. Some of these are indeed so holy that\ntheir bones have been duplicated exactly like the wood of the true\ncross, and two tombs have been built in separate places where the whole\nor a portion of the supposed remains are said to be buried. I will only\nspecify as instances of such holy tombs the sacred city of Kerouan in\nTunisia, which ranks second to Mecca and Medina alone in the opinion of\nall devout western Mohammedans. Here, the most revered building is\nthe shrine of \u201cThe Companion of the Prophet,\u201d who lies within a\ncatafalque covered with palls of black velvet and silver--as funereal a\nmonument as is known to me anywhere. Close by stands the catafalque of\nan Indian saint while {414}other holy tomb-mosques abound in the city.\nIn Algiers town, the holiest place is similarly the mosque-tomb of Sidi\nAbd-er-Rahman, which contains the shrine and body of that saint, who\ndied in 1471. Around him, so as to share his sacred burial-place (like\nthe Egyptians who wished to be interred with Osiris), lie the bodies\nof several Deys and Pashas. Lights are kept constantly burning at the\nsaint\u2019s tomb, which is hung with variously-coloured drapery, after the\nold Semitic fashion, while banners and ostrich-eggs, the gifts of the\nfaithful, dangle ostentatiously round it from the decorated ceiling.\nStill more sacred in its way is the venerable shrine of Sidi Okba near\nBiskra, one of the most ancient places of worship in the Mahommedan\nworld. The tomb of the great saint stands in a chantry, screened off\nfrom the noble mosque which forms the ante-chamber, and is hung round\nwith silk and other dainty offerings. On the front an inscription in\nvery early Cufic characters informs us that \u201cThis is the tomb of Okba,\nson of Nafa: May Allah have mercy upon him.\u201d The mosque is a famous\nplace of pilgrimage, and a belief obtains that when the Sidi is rightly\ninvoked, a certain minaret in its front will nod in acceptance of the\nchosen worshipper. I could multiply instances indefinitely, but refrain\non purpose. All the chief mosques at Tlem\u00e7en, Constantine, and the\nother leading North African towns similarly gather over the bodies of\nsaints or _marabouts_, who are invoked in prayer, and to whom every act\nof worship is offered.\n\nAll over Islam we get such holy grave-mosques. The tomb of the Prophet\nat Medina heads the list: with the equally holy tomb of his daughter\nFatima. Among the Shiahs, Ali\u2019s grave at Nejef and Hoseyn\u2019s grave at\nKerbela are as sacred as that of the Prophet at Medina. The shrines of\nthe Imams are much adored in Persia. The graves of the peers in India,\nthe Ziarets of the fakeers in Afghanistan, show the same tendency. In\nPalestine, says Major {415}Conder, worship at the tombs of local saints\n\u201crepresents the real religion of the peasant.\u201d\n\nI had originally intended, indeed, to include in this work a special\nchapter on these survivals in Islam, a vast number of which I have\ncollected in various places; but my book has already swelled to so much\nlarger dimensions than I had originally contemplated that I am compelled\nreluctantly to forego this disquisition.\n\nOne word, however, must be given to Egypt, where the cult of the dead\nwas always so marked a feature in the developed religion, and where\nneither Christianity nor Islam has been able to obscure this primitive\ntendency. Nothing is more noticeable in the Nile Valley than the\nextraordinary way in which the habits and ideas as to burial and the\npreservation of the dead have survived in spite of the double and rapid\nalteration in religious theory. At Sak-karah and Thebes, one is familiar\nwith the streets and houses of tombs, regularly laid out so as to form\nin the strictest sense a true Necropolis, or city of the dead. Just\noutside Cairo, on the edge of the desert, a precisely similar modern\nNecropolis exists to this day, regularly planned in streets and\nquarters, with the tomb of each family standing in its own courtyard or\nenclosure, and often very closely resembling the common round-roofed or\ndomed Egyptian houses. In this town of dead bodies, every distinction of\nrank and wealth may now be observed. The rich are buried under splendid\nmausolea of great architectural pretensions; the poor occupy humble\ntombs just raised above the surface of the desert, and marked at head\nand foot with rough and simple Egyptian tombstones. Still, the entire\naspect of such a cemetery is the aspect of a town. In northern climates,\nthe dead sleep their last sleep under grassy little tumuli, wholly\nunlike the streets of a city: in Egypt, to this day, the dead occupy, as\nin life, whole lanes and alleys of eternal houses. Even the spirit\nwhich produced the Pyramids and the Tombs of the Kings is conspicuous in\nmodern or mediaeval Cairo in {416}the taste which begot those vast\ndomed mosques known as the Tombs of the Khalifs and the Tombs of the\nMamelooks. Whatever is biggest in the neighbourhood of ancient Memphis\nturns out on examination to be the last resting-place of a Dead Man, and\na place of worship.\n\nAlmost every one of the great mosques of Cairo is either a tomb built\nfor himself by a ruler--and this is the more frequent case--or else\nthe holy shrine of some saint of Islam. It is characteristic of Egypt,\nhowever, where king and god have always been so closely combined, that\nwhile elsewhere the mosque is usually the prayer-tomb of a holy man,\nin Cairo it is usually the memorial-temple of a Sultan, an Emeer, a\nviceroy, or a Khedive. It is interesting to find, too, after all we have\nseen as to the special sanctity of the oracular head, that perhaps the\nholiest of all these mosques contains the head of Hoseyn, the grandson\nof the Prophet. A ceremonial washing is particularly mentioned in the\nstory of its translation. The mosque of Sultan Hassan, with its splendid\nmausolem, is a peculiarly fine example of the temple-tombs of Cairo.\n\nI will not linger any longer, however, in the precincts of Islam,\nfurther than to mention the significant fact that the great central\nobject of worship for the Mahommedan world is the Kaaba at Mecca, which\nitself, as Mr. William Simpson long ago pointed out, bears obvious\ntraces of being at once a tomb and a sacred altar-stone. Sir Richard\nBurton\u2019s original sketch of this mystic object shows it as a square\nand undecorated temple-tomb, covered throughout with a tasselled black\npall--a most funereal object--the so-called \u201csacred carpet.\u201d It is,\nin point of fact, a simple catafalque. As the Kaaba was adopted direct\nby Mohammad from the early Semitic heathenism of Arabia, and as it must\nalways have been treated with the same respect, I do not think we\ncan avoid the obvious conclusion that this very ancient tomb has\nbeen funereally draped in the self-same manner, like those of Biskra,\nAlgiers, and Kerouan, from the time of its first erection. {417}This\ncase thus throws light on the draping of the _ashera_, as do also the\nmany-coloured draperies and hangings of saints\u2019 catafalques in Algeria\nand Tunis.\n\nNor can I resist a passing mention of the Moharram festival, which is\nsaid to be the commemoration of the death of Hoseyn, the son of Ali\n(whose holy head is preserved at Cairo). This is a rude piece of acting,\nin which the events supposed to be connected with the death of Hoseyn\nare graphically represented; and it ends with a sacred Adonis-like or\nOsiris-like procession, in which the body of the saint is carried\nand mourned over. The funeral is the grand part of the performance;\ncatafalques are constructed for the holy corpse, covered with green and\ngold tinsel--the green being obviously a last reminiscence of the god of\nvegetation. In Bombay, after the dead body and shrine have been carried\nthrough the streets amid weeping and wailing, they are finally thrown\ninto the sea, like King Carnival. I think we need hardly doubt that here\nwe have an evanescent relic of the rites of the corn-god, ending in a\nrain-charm, and very closely resembling those of Adonis and Osiris.\n\nBut if in Islam the great objects of worship are the Kaaba tomb at Mecca\nand the Tomb of the Prophet at Medina, so the most holy spot in the\nworld for Christendom is--the Holy Sepulchre. It was for possession\nof that most sacred place of pilgrimage that Christians fought Moslems\nthrough the middle ages; and it is there that while faith in the human\nChrist was strong and vigorous the vast majority of the most meritorious\npilgrimages continued to be directed. To worship at the tomb of the\nrisen Redeemer was the highest hope of the devout medi\u00e6val Christian.\nImitations of the Holy Sepulchre occur in abundance all over Europe: one\nexists at S. Stefano in Bologna; another, due to the genius of Alberti,\nis well known in the Ruccellai chapel at Florence. I need hardly recall\nthe Sacro Monte at Varallo.\n\nFor the most part, however, in Christendom, and especially {418}in those\nparts of Christendom remote from Palestine, men contented themselves\nwith nearer and more domestic saints. From a very early date we see in\nthe catacombs the growth of this practice of offering up prayer by (or\nto) the bodies of the Dead who slept in Christ. A chapel or _capella_,\nas Dean Burgon has pointed out, meant originally an arched sepulchre in\nthe walls of the catacombs, at which prayer was afterwards habitually\nmade: and above-ground chapels were modelled, later on, upon the pattern\nof these ancient underground shrines. I have alluded briefly in my\nsecond chapter to the probable origin of the cruciform church from two\ngalleries of the catacombs crossing one another at right angles; the\nHigh Altar stands there over the body or relics of a Dead Saint; and the\nchapels represent other minor tombs grouped like niches in the catacombs\naround it. A chapel is thus, as Mr. Herbert Spencer phrases it, \u201ca\ntomb within a tomb\u201d; and a great cathedral is a serried set of such\ncumulative tombs, one built beside the other. Sometimes the chapels\nare actual graves, sometimes they are cenotaphs; but the connexion with\ndeath is always equally evident. On this subject, I would refer the\nreader again to Mr. Spencer\u2019s pages.\n\nSo long as Christianity was proscribed at Rome and throughout the\nempire, the worship of the dead must have gone on only silently, and\nmust have centred in the catacombs or by the graves of saints and\nmartyrs--the last-named being practically mere Christian successors of\nthe willing victims of earlier religions. \u201cTo be counted worthy to\nsuffer\u201d was the heart\u2019s desire of every earnest Christian--as it\nstill is among fresh and living sects like the Salvation Army; and\nthe creed of self-sacrifice, whose very name betrays its human-victim\norigin, was all but universal. When Christianity had triumphed, however,\nand gained not only official recognition but official honour, the cult\nof the martyrs and the other faithful dead became with Christian Rome a\nperfect passion. The Holy Innocents, {419}St. Stephen Protomartyr, the\nnameless martyrs of the Ten Persecutions, together with Poly carp, Vivia\nPerp\u00e9tua, F\u00e9licitas, Ignatius and all the rest, came to receive from\nthe church a form of veneration which only the nice distinctions of the\ntheological mind could enable us to discriminate from actual worship.\nThe great procession of the slain for Christ in the mosaics of Sant\u2019\nApollinare Nuovo at Ravenna gives a good comprehensive list of the more\nimportant of these earliest saints (at least for Aryan worshippers)\nheaded by St. Martin, St. Clement, St. Justin, St. Lawrence, and St.\nHippolytus. Later on came the more mythical and poetic figures, derived\napparently from heathen gods--St. Catharine, St. Barbara, St. George,\nSt. Christopher. These form as they go a perfect new pantheon, circling\nround the figures of Christ himself, and his mother the Madonna, who\ngrows quickly in turn, by absorption of Isis, Astarte, and Artemis, into\nthe Queen of Heaven.\n\nThe love-feasts or _agap\u0153_ of the early Christians were usually\nheld, in the catacombs or elsewhere, above the bodies of the martyrs.\nSubsequently, the remains of the sainted dead were transferred to lordly\nchurches without, like Sant\u2019 Agnese and San Paolo, where they were\ndeposited under the altar or sacred stone thus consecrated, from whose\ntop the body and blood of Christ was distributed in the Eucharist. As\nearly as the fourth century, we know that no church was complete without\nsome such relic; and the passion for martyrs spread so greatly from that\nperiod onward that at one time no less than 2300 corpses of holy men\ntogether were buried at S. Prassede. It is only in Rome itself that\nthe full importance of this martyr-worship can now be sufficiently\nunderstood, or the large part which it played in the development of\nChristianity adequately recognised. Perhaps the easiest way for the\nProtestant reader to put himself in touch with this side of the subject\nis to peruse the very interesting and graphic {420}account given in the\nsecond volume of Mrs. Jameson\u2019s _Sacred and Legendary Art_.\n\nI have room for a few illustrative examples only.\n\nWhen St. Ambrose founded his new church at Milan, he wished to\nconsecrate it with some holy relics. In a vision, he beheld two young\nmen in shining clothes, and it was revealed to him that these were holy\nmartyrs whose bodies lay near the spot where he lived in the city. He\ndug for them, accordingly, and found two bodies, which proved to be\nthose of two saints, Gervasius and Protasius, who had suffered for the\nfaith in the reign of Nero. They were installed in the new basilica\nAmbrose had built at Milan. Churches in their honour now exist all over\nChristendom, the best known being those at Venice and Paris.\n\nThe body of St. Agnes, saint and martyr, who is always represented\nwith that familiar emblem, the lamb which she duplicates, lies in a\nsarcophagus under the High Altar of Sant\u2019 Agnese beyond the Porta Pia,\nwhere a basilica was erected over the remains by Constantine the Great,\nonly a few years after the martyrdom of the saint. The body of St.\nCecilia lies similarly in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In\nthis last-named case, the original house where Cecilia was put to death\nis said to have been consecrated as a place of worship, after the very\nearly savage fashion, the room where she suffered possessing especial\nsanctity. Pope Symmachus held a council there in the year 500. This\nearliest church having fallen into ruins during the troubles of the\nbarbarians, Pope Paschal I., the great patron of relic-hunting, built\na new one in honour of the saint in the ninth century. While engaged in\nthe work, he had a dream (of a common pattern), when Cecilia appeared to\nhim and showed him the place in which she lay buried. Search was made,\nand the body was found in the catacombs of St. Calixtus, wrapped in a\nshroud of gold tissue, while at her feet lay a linen cloth dipped in the\nsacred blood of her martyrdom. Near her were deposited the remains of\nValerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, {421}all of whom are more or less\nmixed up in her legend. The body was removed to the existing church,\nthe little room where the saint died being preserved as a chapel. In the\nsixteenth century, the sacred building was again repaired and restored\nin the atrocious taste of the time; and the sarcophagus was opened\nbefore the eyes of several prelates, including Cardinal Baronius. The\nbody was found entire, and was then replaced in the silver shrine in\nwhich it still reposes. Almost every church in Rome has thus its entire\nbody of a patron saint, oftenest a martyr of the early persecutions.\n\nIn many similar cases, immense importance is attached to the fact that\nthe body remains, as the phrase goes, \u201cuncorrupted\u201d; and I may\nmention in this connexion that in the frequent representations of the\nRaising of Lazarus, which occur as \u201cemblems of the resurrection\u201d\nin the catacombs, the body of Lazarus is represented as a mummy,\noften enclosed in what seems to be a mummy-case. Indeed, it is most\nreminiscent of the Egyptian Osiris images.\n\nI pass on to other and more interesting instances of survival in\ncorpse-worship.\n\nThe great central temple of the Catholic Church is St. Peter\u2019s at\nRome. The very body of the crucified saint lies enshrined under the high\naltar, in a sarcophagus brought from the catacomb near S. Sebastiano.\nUpon this Rock, St. Peter\u2019s and the Catholic Church are founded.\nAna-cletus, the successor of Clement, built a monument over the bones of\nthe blessed Peter; and if Peter be a historical person at all, I see no\nreason to doubt that his veritable body actually lies there. St. Paul\nshares with him in the same shrine; but only half the two corpses\nnow repose within the stately Confessio in the Sacristy of the papal\nbasilica: the other portion of St. Peter consecrates the Lateran; the\nother portion of St. Paul gives sanctity to San Paolo fuori le Mura.\n\nOther much venerated bodies at Rome are those of the Quattro Coronati,\nin the church of that name; S. Praxedis {422}and St. Pudentiana in\ntheir respective churches; St. Cosmo and St. Damian; and many more too\nnumerous to mention. Several of the Roman churches, like San Clemente,\nstand upon the site of the house of the saint to whom they are\ndedicated, or whose body they preserve, thus recalling the early New\nGuinea practice. Others occupy the site of his alleged martyrdom, or\nenclose the pillar to which he was fastened. The legends of all these\nRoman saints are full of significant echoes of paganism. The visitor\nto Rome who goes the round of the churches and catacombs with an\nunprejudiced mind must be astonished to find how sites, myths, and\nceremonies recall at every step familiar heathen holy places or stories.\nIn the single church of San Zaccaria at Venice, again, I found the\nbodies of St. Zacharias (father of John the Baptist), St. Sabina, St.\nTarasius, Sts. Nereus and Achilles, and many other saints too numerous\nto mention.\n\nHow great importance was attached to the possession of the actual corpse\nor mummy of a saint we see exceptionally well indeed in this case of\nVenice. The bringing of the corpse or mummy of St. Mark from Alexandria\nto the lagoons was long considered the most important event in the\nhistory of the Republic; the church in which it was housed is the\nnoblest in Christendom, and contains an endless series of records of the\nconnexion of St. Mark with the city and people that so royally received\nhim. The soul, as one may see in Tintoret\u2019s famous picture, flitted\nover sea with the body to Venice, warned the sailors of danger by\nthe way, and ever after protected the hospitable Republic in all its\nenterprises. One must have lived long in the city of the Lagoons and\ndrunk in its very spirit in order to know how absolutely it identified\nitself with the Evangelist its patron. \u201cPax tibi, Marce, evangelista\nmetis,\u201d is the motto on its buildings. The lion of St. Mark stood\nhigh in the Piazzetta to be seen of all; he recurs in every detail of\nsculpture or painting in the Doges\u2019 Palace and the public edifices\nof the city. The body that lay {423}under the pall of gold in the great\nchurch of the Piazza was a veritable Palladium, a very present help in\ntime of trouble. It was no mere sentiment or fancy to the Venetians;\nthey knew that they possessed in their own soil, and under their own\nchurch domes, the body and soul of the second of the evangelists.\n\nNor was that the only important helper that Venice could boast. She\ncontained also the body of St. George at San Giorgio Maggiore, and the\nbody of St. Nicholas at San Niccolo di Lido. The beautiful legend of\nthe Doge and the Fisherman (immortalised for us by the pencil of Paris\nBordone in one of the noblest pictures the world has ever seen) tells\nus how the three great guardian saints, St. Mark, St. George, and St.\nNicholas, took a gondola one day from their respective churches, and\nrowed out to sea amid a raging storm to circumvent the demons who were\ncoming in a tempest to overwhelm Venice. A fourth saint, of far later\ndate, whom the Venetians also carried off by guile, was St. Roch of\nMontpelier. This holy man was a very great sanitary precaution against\nthe plague, to which the city was much exposed through its eastern\ncommerce. So the men of Venice simply stole the body by fraud from\nMontpelier, and built in its honour the exquisite church and Scuola di\nSan Rocco, the great museum of the art of Tintoret. The fact that mere\npossession of the holy body counts in itself for much could not be\nbetter shown than by these forcible abductions.\n\nThe corpse of St. Nicholas, who was a highly revered bishop of Myra in\nLycia, lies, as I said, under the high altar of San Niccolo di Lido at\nVenice. But another and more authentic body of the same great saint, the\npatron of sailors and likewise of schoolboys, lies also under the high\naltar of the magnificent basilica of San Nicola at Bari, from which\ncircumstance the holy bishop is generally known as St. Nicolas of Bari.\nA miraculous fluid, the Manna di Bari, highly prized by the pious,\nexudes from the remains. A gorgeous cathedral rises over the sepulchre.\n{424}Such emulous duplication of bodies and relics is extremely common,\nboth in Christendom and in Islam.\n\nI have made a point of visiting the shrines of a vast number of leading\nsaints in various parts of Italy; and could devote a volume to their\npoints of interest. The corpse of St. Augustine, for example, lies\nat Pavia in a glorious ark, one of the most sumptuous monuments ever\nerected by the skill of man, as well as one of the loveliest. Padua\nsimilarly boasts the body of St. Antony of Padua, locally known as \u201cil\nSanto,\u201d and far more important in his own town than all the rest of\nthe Christian pantheon put together. The many-domed church erected over\nhis remains is considerably larger than St. Mark\u2019s at Venice; and\nthe actual body of the saint itself is enclosed in an exquisite marble\nchapel, designed by Sansovino, and enriched with all the noblest art of\nthe Renaissance. Dominican monks and nuns make pilgrimages to Bologna,\nin order to venerate the body of St. Dominic, who died in that city,\nand whose corpse is enclosed in a magnificent sarcophagus in the church\ndedicated to him, and adorned with exquisite sculpture by various hands\nfrom the time of Niccolo Pisano to that of Michael Angelo. Siena has for\nits special glory St. Catherine the second--the first was the mythical\nprincess of Alexandria; and the house of that ecstatic nun is still\npreserved intact as an oratory for the prayers of the pious. Her head,\nlaid by in a silver shrine or casket, decorates the altar of her chapel\nin San Domenico, where the famous frescoes of Sodoma too often usurp the\nentire attention of northern visitors. Compare the holy head of Hoseyn\nat Cairo. The great Franciscan church at Assisi, once more, enshrines\nthe remains of the founder of the Franciscans, which formerly reposed\nunder the high altar; the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli below it\nencloses the little hut which was the first narrow home of the nascent\norder. I could go on multiplying such instances without number; I hope\nthese few will suffice to make the Protestant reader feel how real is\nthe reverence {425}still paid to the very corpses and houses of the\nsaints in Italy. If ever he was present at Milan on the festa of San\nCarlo Borromeo, and saw the peasants from neighbouring villages flock\nin hundreds to kiss the relics of the holy man, as I have seen them, he\nwould not hesitate to connect much current Christianity with the most\nprimitive forms of corpse-worship and mummy-worship.\n\nNorth of the Alps, again, I cannot refrain from mentioning a few salient\ninstances, which help to enforce principles already enunciated. At\nParis, the two great local saints are St. Denis and Ste. Genevi\u00e8ve. St.\nDenis was the first bishop of Lutetia and of the Parish: he is said\nto have been beheaded with his two companions at Montmartre,--Mons\nMartyrum. He afterwards walked with his head in his hands from that\npoint (now covered by the little church of St. Pierre, next door to the\nnew basilica of the Sacre C\u0153ur), to the spot where he piously desired\nto be buried. A holy woman named Catulla (note that last echo) performed\nthe final rites for him at the place where the stately abbey-church of\nSt. Denis now preserves his memory. The first cathedral on the spot was\nerected before the Frankish invasion; the second, built by Dagobert, was\nconsecrated (as a vision showed) by Christ himself, who descended for\nthe purpose from heaven, surrounded by apostles, angels, and St. Denis.\nThe actual head or skull of the saint was long preserved in the basilica\nin a splendid reliquary of solid silver, the gift of Margu\u00e9rite de\nFrance, just as Hoseyn\u2019s head is still preserved at Cairo, and as\nso many other miraculous or oracular heads are kept by savages or\nbarbarians elsewhere. Indeed, the anthropological enquirer may be\ninclined to suppose that the severance of th\u00e9 head from the body and\nits preservation above ground, after the common fashion, gave rise later\nto the peculiar but by no means unique legend. Compare the bear\u2019s\nhead in the Aino superstition, as well as the oracular German and\nScandinavian Nithstangs.\n\nAs for {426}Ste. Genevi\u00e8ve, she rested first in the church dedicated\nto her on the site now occupied by the Pantheon, which still in part,\nthough secularised, preserves her memory. Her body (or what remains of\nit) lies at present in the neighbouring church of St. Etienne du Mont,\nwhere every lover of Paris surely pays his devotion to the shrine in the\nmost picturesque and original building which the city holds, whenever he\npasses through the domain of Ste. Genevi\u00e8ve. How real the devotion of\nthe people still is may be seen on any morning of the working week, and\nstill more during the octave of the saint\u2019s fete-day.\n\nAs in many other cases, however, the remains of the virgin patroness\nof Paris have been more than once removed from place to place for safe\ncustody. The body was originally buried in the crypt of the old abbey\nchurch of the Holy Apostles on the Ile de la Cit\u00e9. When the Normans\noverran the country, the monks carried it away with them in a wooden\nbox to a place of safety. As soon as peace was once more restored, the\ncorpse was enshrined in a splendid _ch\u00e2sse_; while the empty tomb was\nstill treated with the utmost reverence. At the Revolution, the actual\nbones, it is said, were destroyed; but the sarcophagus or cenotaph\nsurvived the storm, and was transferred to St. Etienne. Throughout\nthe Neuvaine, thousands of the faithful still flock to worship it. The\nsarcophagus is believed even now to contain some holy portions of the\nsaint\u2019s body, saved from the wreck by pious adherents.\n\nOther familiar examples will occur to every one, such as the bones of\nthe Magi or Three Kings, preserved in a reliquary in the Cathedral\nat Cologne; those of St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins; those of St.\nStephen and St. Lawrence at Rome; those of St. Hubert, disinterred and\nfound uncorrupted, at the town of the same name in the Ardennes; and\nthose of St. Longinus in his chapel at Mantua. All these relics and\nbodies perform astounding miracles, and {427}all have been the centres\nof important cults for a considerable period.\n\nIn Britain, from the first stages of Christianity, the reverence paid to\nthe bodies of saints was most marked, and the story of their wanderings\nforms an important part of our early annals. Indeed, I dwell so long\nupon this point because few northerners of the present day can fully\nappreciate the large part which the Dead Body plays and has played for\nmany centuries in Christian worship. Only those who, like me, have lived\nlong in thoroughly Catholic countries, have made pilgrimages to numerous\nfamous shrines, and have waded through reams of Anglo-Saxon and other\nearly mediaeval documents, can really understand this phase of Christian\nhagiology. To such people it is abundantly clear that the actual Dead\nBody of some sainted man or woman has been in many places the\nchief object of reverence for millions of Christians in successive\ngenerations. A good British instance is found in the case of St.\nCuthbert\u2019s corpse. The tale of its wanderings is too long to be\ngiven here in full; it should be read in any good history of Durham. I\nepitomize briefly. The body of the devoted missionary of the north was\nfirst kept for some time at Lindisfarne. When, at the end of eleven\nyears, the saint\u2019s tomb was opened, his outer form was found still\nincorrupt; and so for more than 800 years it was believed to remain.\nIt rested at Lindisfarne till 875, when the piratical Danes invaded\nNorthumbria. The monks, regarding St. Cuthbert as their greatest\ntreasure, fled inland, carrying the holy body with them on their own\nshoulders. Such translations of sacred corpses are common in Christian\nand heathen history. After many wanderings, during which it was treated\nwith the utmost care and devotion, the hallowed body found an asylum\nfor a while at Chester-le-Street in 883. In 995, it was transferred to\nRipon, where it sanctified the minster by even so short a sojourn; but\nin the same year it went forth again, on its way north to Lindisfarne.\nOn the way, however, it miraculously {428}signified (by stubborn refusal\nto move) its desire to rest for ever at Durham--a town whose strong\nnatural position and capacity for defence does honour to the saint\u2019s\nmilitary judgment. Here, enclosed in a costly shrine, it remained\nworking daily miracles till the Reformation. The later grave was opened\nin 1826, when the coffin was found to enclose another, made in 1104:\nand this again contained a third, which answered the description of the\nsarcophagus made in 698, when the saint was raised from his first\ngrave. The innermost case contained, not indeed the uncorrupted body\nof Cuthbert, but a skeleton, still entire, and wrapped in fine robes\nof embroidered silk. No story known to me casts more light on\ncorpse-worship than does this one when read with all the graphic details\nof the original authorities.\n\nBut everywhere in Britain we get similar local saints, whose bodies or\nbones performed marvellous miracles and were zealously guarded against\nsacrilegious intruders. Bede himself is already full of such holy\ncorpses: and in later days they increased by the hundred. St. Alban at\nSt. Alban\u2019s, the protomartyr of Britain; the \u201cwhite hand\u201d of\nSt. Oswald, that when all else perished remained white and uncorrupted\nbecause blessed by Aidan; St. Etheldreda at Ely, another remarkable\nand illustrative instance; Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey;\nthese are but a few out of hundreds of examples which will at once occur\nto students of our history. And I will add that sometimes the legends\nof these saints link us on unexpectedly to far earlier types of heathen\nworship; as when we read concerning St. Edmund of East Anglia, the\npatron of Bury St. Edmund\u2019s, that Ingvar the viking took him by force,\nbound him to a tree, scourged him cruelly, made him a target for the\narrows of the pagan Danes, and finally beheaded him. Either, I say,\na god-making sacrifice of the northern heathens; or, failing that, a\nreminiscence, like St. Sebastian, of such god-making rites as preserved\n{429}in the legends of ancient martyrs. Compare here, once more, the\nAino bear-sacrifice.\n\nBut during the later middle ages, the sacred Body of Britain, above all\nothers, was undoubtedly that of Thomas A\u2019Becket at Canterbury. Hither,\nas we know, all England went on pilgrimage; and nothing could more fully\nshow the rapidity of canonisation in such cases than the fact that even\nthe mighty Henry II. had to prostrate himself before his old enemy\u2019s\nbody and submit to a public scourging at the shrine of the new-made\nmartyr. For several hundred years after his death there can be no doubt\nat all that the cult of St. Thomas of Canterbury was much the most real\nand living worship throughout the whole of England; its only serious\nrivals in popular favour being the cult of St. Cuthbert to the north of\nHumber, and that of St. Etheldreda in the Eastern Counties.\n\nHoly heads in particular were common in Britain before the Reformation.\nA familiar Scottish case is that of the head of St. Fergus, the apostle\nof Banff and the Pictish Highlands, transferred to and preserved at\nthe royal seat of Scone. \u201cBy Sanct Fergus heid at Scone\u201d was the\nfavourite oath of the Scotch monarchs, as \u201cPar Sainct Denys\u201d was\nthat of their French contemporaries.\n\nIn almost all these cases, again, and down to the present day, popular\nappreciation goes long before official Roman canonisation. Miracles are\nfirst performed at the tomb, and prayers are answered; an irregular cult\nprecedes the formal one. Even in our own day, only a few weeks after\nCardinal Manning\u2019s death, advertisements appeared in Catholic papers\nin London, giving thanks for spiritual and temporal blessings received\nthrough the intervention of Our Lady, the saints, \u201cand our beloved\nCardinal.\u201d\n\nThis popular canonisation has often far outrun the regular official\nacceptance, as in the case of Joan of Arc in France at the present day,\nor of \u201cMaister John Schorn, that blessed man born,\u201d in the Kent\nof the middle ages. Thus countries like Wales and Cornwall are full of\nlocal and {430}patriotic saints, often of doubtful Catholicity, like St.\nCadoc, St. Padern, St. Petrock, St. Piran, St. Ruan, and St. Illtyd, not\nto mention more accepted cases, like St. Asaph and St. David. The fact\nis, men have everywhere felt the natural desire for a near, a familiar,\na recent, and a present god or saint; they have worshipped rather the\ndead whom they loved and revered themselves than the elder gods and\nthe remoter martyrs who have no body among them, no personal shrine, no\nlocal associations, no living memories. \u201cI have seen in Brittany,\u201d\nsays a French correspondent of Mr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s, \u201cthe tomb of a\npious and charitable priest covered with garlands: people flocked to\nit by hundreds to pray of him that he would procure them restoration\nto health, and guard over their children.\u201d There, with the Christian\naddition of the supreme God, we get once more the root-idea of religion.\n\nI should like to add that beyond such actual veneration of the bodies\nof saints and martyrs, there has always existed a definite theory in the\nRoman church that no altar can exist without a relic. The altar, being\nitself a monumental stone, needs a body or part of a body to justify\nand consecrate it. Dr. Rock, a high authority, says in his _Hierurgia_,\n\u201cBy the regulations of the Church it is ordained that the Holy\nSacrifice of the Mass be offered upon an altar which contains a stone\nconsecrated by a Bishop, enclosing the relics of some saint or martyr;\nand be covered with three linen cloths that have been blessed for that\npurpose with an appropriate form of benediction.\u201d The consecration of\nthe altar, indeed, is considered even more serious than the consecration\nof the church itself; for without the stone and its relic, the ceremony\nof the Mass cannot be performed at all. Even when Mass has to be said\nin a private house, the priest brings a consecrated stone and its relic\nalong with him; and other such stones were carried in the _retables_ or\nportable altars so common in military expeditions of the middle ages.\nThe church is thus {431}a tomb, with chapel tombs around it; it contains\na stone monument covering a dead body or part of a body; and in it is\nmade and exhibited the Body of Christ, in the form of the consecrated\nand transmuted wafer.\n\nNot only, however, is the altar in this manner a reduced or symbolical\ntomb, and not only is it often placed above the body of a saint, as at\nSt. Mark\u2019s and St. Peter\u2019s, but it also sometimes consists itself of\na stone sarcophagus. One such sarcophagus exists in the Cathedral at\nSt. Malo; I have seen other coffin-shaped altars in the monastery of La\nTrappe near Algiers and elsewhere. When, however, the altar stands, like\nthat at St. Peter\u2019s, above the actual body of a saint, it does not\nrequire to contain a relic; otherwise it does. That is to say, it must\nbe either a real or else an attenuated and symbolical sarcophagus.\n\nIn the eastern church, a sort of relic-bag, called an Antimins, is\nnecessary for the proper performance of the Holy Eucharist. It consists\nof a square cloth, laid on the altar or wrapped up in its coverings, and\nfigured with a picture representing the burial of Christ by Joseph of\nArimathea and the Holy Women. This brings it very near to the Adonis and\nHoseyn ceremonies. But it must necessarily contain some saintly relic.\n\nApart from corpse-worship and relic-worship in the case of saints,\nCatholic Christendom has long possessed an annual Commemoration of the\nDead, the _Jour des Morts_, which links itself on directly to earlier\nancestor-worship. It is true, this commemoration is stated officially,\nand no doubt correctly, to owe its origin (in its recognised form) to a\nparticular historical person, Adam de Saint Victor: but when we consider\nhow universal such commemorations and annual dead-feasts have been in\nall times and places, we can hardly doubt that the church did but adopt\nand sanctify a practice which, though perhaps accounted heathenish, had\nnever died out at all among the mass of believers. The very desire to\nbe buried in a church or churchyard, and all that it implies, link on\nChristian usage here {432}once more to primitive corpse-worship. Compare\nwith the dead who sleep with Osiris. In the middle ages, many people\nwere buried in chapels containing the body (or a relic) of their patron\nsaint.\n\n_In short, from first to last, religion never gets far away from\nthese its earliest and profoundest associations. \u201cGod and\nimmortality,\u201d--those two are its key-notes. And those two are one;\nfor the god in the last resort is nothing more than the immortal ghost,\netherealised and extended._\n\nOn the other hand, whenever religion travels too far afield from its\nemotional and primal base in the cult of the nearer dead, it must either\nbe constantly renewed by fresh and familiar objects of worship, or it\ntends to dissipate itself into mere vague pantheism. A new god, a new\nsaint, a \u201crevival of religion,\u201d is continually necessary. _The\nSacrifice of the Mass is wisely repeated at frequent intervals; but\nthat alone does not suffice; men want the assurance of a nearer, a\nmore familiar deity._ In our own time, and especially in Protestant and\nsceptical England and America, this need has made itself felt in the\nrise of spiritualism and kindred beliefs, which are but the doctrine\nof the ghost or shade in its purified form, apart, as a rule, from the\nhigher conception of a supreme ruler. ~And what is Positivism itself\nsave the veneration of the mighty dead, just tinged with vague ethical\nyearnings after the abstract service of living humanity? I have known\nmany men of intellect, suffering under a severe bereavement--the loss\nof a wife or a dearly-loved child--take refuge for a time either in\nspiritualism or Catholicism. The former seems to give them the practical\nassurance of actual bodily intercourse with the dead, through mediums\nor table-turning; the latter supplies them with a theory of death\nwhich makes reunion a probable future for them. This desire for direct\nconverse with the dead we saw exemplified in a very early or primitive\nstage in the case of the Mandan wives who talk lovingly to their\nhusbands’ skulls; it probably forms the basis for the common habit of\nkeeping the head {433}while burying the body, whose widespread results\nwe have so frequently noticed. I have known two instances of modern\nspiritualists who similarly had their wives\u2019 bodies embalmed, in order\nthat the spirit might return and inhabit them.\n\n_Thus the Cult of the Dead, which is the earliest origin of all\nreligion, in the sense of worship, is also the last relic of the\nreligious spirit which survives the gradual decay of faith due to\nmodern scepticism. To this cause I refer on the whole the spiritualistic\nutterances of so many among our leaders of modern science. They have\nrejected religion, but they cannot reject the inherited and ingrained\nreligious emotions._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.--CONCLUSION.\n\n|AND {434}now we have reached at last the end of our long and toilsome\ndisquisition. I need hardly say, to those who have persisted with me so\nfar, that I do not regard a single part of it all as by any means final.\nThere is not a chapter in this book, indeed, which I could not have\nexpanded to double or treble its present length, had I chosen to include\nin it a tithe of the evidence I have gathered on the subject with which\nit deals. But for many adequate reasons, compression was imperative.\nSome of the greatest treatises ever written on this profoundly important\nand interesting question have met with far less than the attention they\ndeserved because they were so bulky and so overloaded with evidence that\nthe reader could hardly see the wood for the trees; he lost the thread\nof the argument in the mazes of example. In my own case, I had or\nbelieved I had a central idea; and I desired to set that idea forth with\nsuch simple brevity as would enable the reader to grasp it and to follow\nit. I go, as it were, before a Grand Jury only. I do not pretend in any\none instance to have proved my points; I am satisfied if I have made out\na _prima facie_ case for further enquiry.\n\nMy object in the present reconstructive treatise has therefore been\nmerely to set forth in as short a form as was consistent with clearness\nmy conception of the steps by which mankind arrived at its idea of its\nGod. I have not tried to produce evidence on each step in full; I\nhave only tried to lay before the general public a rough sketch of\na psychological {435}rebuilding, and to suggest at the same time to\nscholars and anthropologists some inkling of the lines along which\nevidence in favour of my proposed reconstruction is likeliest to be\nfound. This book is thus no more than a summary of probabilities. Should\nit succeed in attracting attention and arousing interest in so vast and\nfundamental a subject, I shall hope to follow it up by others in future,\nin which the various component elements of my theory will be treated\nin detail, and original authorities will be copiously quoted with the\nfullest references. As, however, in this preliminary outline of my views\nI have dealt with few save well-known facts, and relied for the most\npart upon familiar collocations of evidence, I have not thought it\nnecessary to encumber my pages with frequent and pedantic footnotes,\nreferring to the passages or persons quoted. The scholar will know well\nenough where to look for the proofs he needs, while the general reader\ncan only judge my rough foreshadowing of a hypothesis according as he is\nimpressed by its verisimilitude or the contrary.\n\nIf, on the other hand, this _avant-courier_ of a reasoned system fails\nto interest the public, I must perforce be content to refrain from going\nany deeper in print into this fascinating theme, on which I have still\nan immense number of ideas and facts which I desire the opportunity of\npublicly ventilating.\n\nI wish also to remark before I close that I do not hold dogmatically\nto the whole or any part of the elaborate doctrine here tentatively\nsuggested. I have changed my own mind far too often, with regard to\nthese matters, in the course of my personal evolution, ever to think I\nhave reached complete finality. Fifteen or twenty years ago, indeed,\nI was rash enough to think I had come to anchor, when I first read Mr.\nHerbert Spencer\u2019s sketch of the origin of religion in the opening\nvolume of the _Principles of Sociology_. Ten or twelve years since,\ndoubts and difficulties again obtruded themselves. Six years ago, once\nmore, {436}when _The Golden Bough_ appeared, after this book had been\nplanned and in part executed, I was forced to go back entirely upon many\ncherished former opinions, and to reconsider many questions which I\nhad fondly imagined were long since closed for me. Since that time, new\nlights have been constantly shed upon me from without, or have occurred\nto me from within: and I humbly put this sketch forward now for what it\nmay be worth, not with the idea that I have by any means fathomed the\nwhole vast truth, but in the faint hope that I may perhaps have looked\ndown here and there a little deeper into the profound abysses beneath us\nthan has been the lot of most previous investigators. At the same time,\nI need hardly reiterate my sense of the immense obligations under which\nI lie to not a few among them, and preeminently to Mr. Spencer, Mr.\nFrazer, Mr. Hartland, and Dr. Tylor. My only claim is that I may perhaps\nhave set forth a scheme of reconstruction which further evidence will\npossibly show to be true in parts, and mistaken in others..\n\nOn the other hand, by strictly confining my attention to religious\nfeatures, properly so called, to the exclusion of mythology, ethics, and\nall other external accretions or accidents, I trust I have been able\nto demonstrate more clearly than has hitherto been done the intimate\nconnexion which always exists between cults in general and the worship\nof the Dead God, natural or artificial. Even if I have not quite\nsucceeded in inducing the believer in primitive animism to reconsider\nhis prime dogma of the origin of gods from all-pervading spirits (of\nwhich affiliation I can see no proof in the evidence before us),\nI venture to think I shall at any rate have made him feel that\nAncestor-Worship and the Cult of the Dead God have played a far larger\nand deeper part than he has hitherto been willing to admit in the\ngenesis of the religious emotions. Though I may not have raised the\nworship of the Dead Man to a supreme and unique place in the god-making\nprocess, I have at least, I trust, raised it to a position of higher\nimportance than {437}it has hitherto held, even since the publication of\nMr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s epoch-making researches. I believe I have\nmade it tolerably clear that the vast mass of existing gods or divine\npersons, when we come to analyse them, do actually turn out to be\ndead and deified human beings. In short, it is my hope that I have\nrehabilitated Euhemerism.\n\nThis is not the place, at the very end of so long a disquisition, to\nexamine the theory of primitive animism. I would therefore only say\nbriefly here that I do not deny the actual existence of that profoundly\nanimistic frame of mind which Mr. Im Thurn has so well depicted among\nthe Indians of Guiana; nor that which exists among the Sa-moyeds of\nSiberia; nor that which meets us at every turn in historical accounts\nof the old Roman religion. I am quite ready to admit that, to people at\nthat stage of religious evolution, the world seems simply thronged with\nspirits on every side, each of whom has often his own special functions\nand peculiar prerogatives. But I fail to see that any one of these ideas\nis demonstrably primitive. Most often, we can trace ghosts, spirits, and\ngods to particular human origins: where spirits exist in abundance\nand pervade all nature, I still fail to understand why they may not be\nreferred to the one known source and spring of all ghostly beings. It\nis abundantly clear that no distinction of name or rite habitually\ndemarcates these ubiquitous and uncertain spirits at large from those\ndomestic gods whose origin is perfectly well remembered in the family\ncircle. I make bold to believe, therefore, that in every such case we\nhave to deal with unknown and generalised ghosts,--with ghosts of\nmost varying degrees of antiquity. If any one can show me a race of\nspirit-believers who do not worship their own ancestral spirits, or can\nadduce any effective prime differentia between the spirit that was once\na living man, and the spirit that never was human at all, I will gladly\nhear him. Up to date, however, no such race has been pointed out, and no\nsuch differentia ever posited.\n\nThe {438}truth is, we have now no primitive men at all. Existing men are\nthe descendants of people who have had religions, in all probability,\nfor over a million years. The best we can do, therefore, is to trace\nwhat gods we can to their original source, and believe that the rest are\nof similar development. And whither do we track them?\n\n\u201cSo far as I have been able to trace back the origin of the best-known\nminor provincial deities,\u201d says Sir Alfred Lyall, speaking of India\nin general, \u201cthey are usually men of past generations who have earned\nspecial promotion and brevet rank among disembodied ghosts.... Of the\nnumerous local gods known to have been living men, by far the greater\nproportion derive from the ordinary canonisation of holy personages....\nThe number of shrines thus raised in Berar alone to these anchorites and\npersons deceased in the odour of sanctity is large, and it is constantly\nincreasing. Some of them have already attained the rank of temples.\u201d\nWe have seen that an acute observer, Erman, came to a similar conclusion\nabout the gods of those very Ostyaks who are often quoted as typical\nexamples of primitive animists. Of late years, all the world over,\nnumerous unprejudiced investigators, like Mr. Duff Macdonald and Captain\nHenderson, have similarly come to the conclusion that the gods of the\nnatives among whom they worked were all of human origin; while we\nknow that some whole great national creeds, like the Shinto of Japan,\nrecognise no deities at all save living kings and dead ancestral\nspirits. Under these circumstances, judging the unknown by the known,\nI hesitate to take the very bold step of positing any new and fanciful\nsource for the small residuum of unresolved gods whose human origin is\nless certainly known to us.\n\nIn one word, _I believe that corpse-worship is the protoplasm of\nreligion, while admitting that folk-lore is the protoplasm of mythology,\nand of its more modern and philosophical offshoot, theology_.","title":"The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Religions","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":150539}