Part 1 (1/2)

A Comparative View of Religions.

by Johannes Henricus Scholten.

INTRODUCTION.

The conception of religion presupposes, _a_, G.o.d as object; _b_, man as subject; _c_, the mutual relation existing between them. According to the various stages of development which men have reached, religious belief manifests itself either in the form of a pa.s.sive feeling of dependence, where the subject, not yet conscious of his independence, feels himself wholly overmastered by the deity, or the object of wors.h.i.+p, as by a power outside of and opposed to himself; or, when the feeling of independence has awakened, in a one-sided elevation of the human, whereby man in wors.h.i.+ping a deity deifies himself. In the highest stage of religious development, the most entire feeling of dependence is united in religion with the strongest consciousness of personal independence. The first of these forms is exhibited in the fetich and nature-wors.h.i.+p of the ancient nations; the second in Buddhism, and in the deification of the human, which reaches its full height among the Greeks. The true religion, prepared in Israel, is the Christian, in which man, grown conscious of his oneness with G.o.d, is ruled by the divine as an inner power of life, and acts spontaneously and freely while in the fullest dependence upon G.o.d. Since Christ, no more perfect religion has appeared. What is true and good in Islamism was borrowed from Israel and Christianity.

Although it is probable that every nation pa.s.sed through different forms of religious belief before its religion reached its highest development, yet the earlier periods lie in great part beyond the reach of historical investigation. The history of religion, therefore, has for its task the review of the various forms of religion with which we are historically acquainted, in the order of psychological development.

CHAPTER I.

FETICHISM. THE CHINESE. THE EGYPTIANS.

1. FETICHISM.

The lowest stage of religious development is fetichism, as it is found among the savage tribes of the polar regions, and in Africa, America, and Australia. In this stage, man's needs are as yet very limited and exclusively confined to the material world. Still too little developed intellectually to wors.h.i.+p the divine in nature and her powers, he thinks he sees the divinity which he seeks in every unknown object which strikes his senses, or which his imagination calls up. In this stage, religion has no higher character than that of caprice and of love of the mysterious and marvelous, mixed with fear and a slavish adoration of the divine. The wors.h.i.+p and the priest's office (Shaman, Shamanism) consist here chiefly in the use of charms, to exorcise a dreaded power.

From this savage fetichism the nature-wors.h.i.+p found among the Aztecs in Mexico, and the wors.h.i.+p of the sun in Peru, are distinguished by the greater definiteness and order of their religious conceptions and usages. In them the G.o.ds have names, and an ordained priesthood cares for the religious interests of the people. The highest form to which fetichism has attained is the wors.h.i.+p of Manitou, the great spirit, which is found among the ancient tribes of North America.

2. THE CHINESE.

When man reaches a higher development, caprice and chance disappear from religion. Having outgrown fetichism, man begins, as is the case among the Chinese, to distinguish in the world around him an active and a pa.s.sive principle, force and matter (Yang and Yn), heaven and earth (Kien and Kouen). We have here nature-wors.h.i.+p in its beginnings. In this stage, even less than in fetichism, is there a definite idea of G.o.d, much less a conception of him as personal and spiritual lord. The Chinese, from the practical, empirical point of view peculiar to him, recognizes the spiritual only in man and chiefly in the state. His religion, therefore, is confined exclusively to the faithful keeping of the laws of the state (the Celestial Kingdom), in which he sees the reflection of heaven, to the recognition of the Emperor as the son and representative of heaven, and to the wors.h.i.+p of the forefathers, especially of the great men and departed emperors, to whose memory the Chinese temples, or paG.o.das, are dedicated. The origin of this religion dates, according to the tradition, from Fo-hi (2950 B.C.), the founder of the Chinese state. In the fifth century before Christ, Kong-tse, or Kong-fu-tse (Confucius), appeared as a reformer of the religion of his countrymen, and gathered the ancient records and traditions of his people into a sacred literature, which is known by the name of the ”King” (the books), ”Yo-King” (the book of nature), ”Chu-King” (the book of history), ”Chi-King” (the book of songs). The contents of the ”King”

became later with the Chinese sages Meng-tse (360 B.C.) and Tschu-tsche (1200 A.D.) an object of philosophical speculation. The doctrine of Lao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as the basis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supreme principle, _Tao_, or _Being_, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine of the Indians, among whom he lived for a long time; but this doctrine never became popular in China.

3. THE EGYPTIANS.

The wors.h.i.+p of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among the Chinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form as theogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two fundamental principles, the producing and the pa.s.sive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy of the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (none has as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character.

Fruitfulness and drought, the results of the Nile's overflowing and receding, are imaged in the myth of _Osiris_, _Isis_, and _Typhon_. The visible form under which the divine was wors.h.i.+ped in Egypt was the sacred animal, the bull _Apis_, dedicated to _Osiris_, the cow, dedicated to _Isis_, as symbols of agriculture; the bird _Ibis_, the crocodile, the dog _Anubis_, and other animals, whose physical characteristics impressed the as yet childish man, who saw in them the symbol, either of the beneficent power of nature which moved him to thankfulness, or of a destructive power which he dreaded and whose anger he sought to avert. The religion of Egypt was not of a purely spiritual character. To the man whose eye is not yet open to the manifestation of the spiritual around him and in him, the divine is not spirit, but as yet only nature. The animal, although in the form of the sphinx approaching the human, holds in Egyptian art a place above the human as symbol of the divine.

CHAPTER II.

THE ARIAN NATIONS.

1. THE EAST ARIANS. THE INDIANS.

In the development of religion among the Indians, the following periods may be distinguished:--

_a._ The original Veda-religion.

_b._ The priestly religion of the Brahmins.

_c._ The philosophical speculation.