Part 4 (2/2)

[Footnote 3: An instance of human sacrifice has just taken place in a remote part of Russia.]

Prayer is the ordinary concomitant of sacrifice; the wors.h.i.+pper explains the reason of the gift, and urges the deity to accept it, and to grant the help that is needed. The prayers of the earliest stage are offered on emergencies, and often appear to be intended to attract the attention of the G.o.d who may be engaged in another direction. The requests they contain are of the most primary sort.

Food is asked for, success in hunting or fis.h.i.+ng, strength of arm, rain, a good harvest, children, etc. The prayers have a ring of urgency; they state the claims the wors.h.i.+pper has on the G.o.d, and mention his former offerings as well as the present one; they praise the power and the past acts of the deity, and adjure him by his whole relations.h.i.+p to his people (and also to their enemies) to grant their requests. As life grows more secure, the note of immediate urgency fades out of prayer; being a feature not of an occasional wors.h.i.+p arising from some pressing need, but of a wors.h.i.+p statedly offered at set times, it tends to run into forms, and to become fixed and to have the nature of a liturgy. Then it comes about that the words themselves are regarded as sacred, and that the efficacy of the sacrifice is supposed to be partly dependent on them. They are incantations which the deity cannot resist,--charms which in themselves have virtue to secure the desired result.

Sacred Places, Objects, Persons.--The early world had no temples, nor idols, nor priests. The wors.h.i.+p of nature does not suggest the enclosing of a s.p.a.ce for religious acts. The natural object itself being the sacred thing, wors.h.i.+p is brought to it where it stands; the gift is carried to the tree or to the well, and if the deities are conceived as being above the earth, then the tops of hills are the spots where man can be nearest to them. High places are sacred in all lands. Groves and remote spots are also sacred. When man was carrying on his struggle with the wild beasts he would regard with terror the places where they had their lairs and strongholds; it was in this form that the feeling of mystery with which moderns regard places where they are cut off from all human intercourse, first appealed to man. After this earliest stage had pa.s.sed, and the grove had come to be regarded as the dwelling of a deity, it became a place man did not dare to approach except with the necessary precautions. We may here explain a notion which plays a great part in early religion, but is not specially connected with any one inst.i.tution of it, the notion, namely, of taboo. Taboo is a Polynesian term, and indicates that which man must not use or touch, because it belongs to a deity. The G.o.d's land must not be trodden, the animal dedicated to the G.o.d must not be eaten, the chief who represents the G.o.d must not be lightly treated or spoken of. These are examples of taboo where the inviolable object or person belongs to a good G.o.d, and where the taboo corresponds exactly with the rule of holiness.[4] But instances are still more numerous among savages of taboo attaching to an object because it is connected with a malignant power. The savage is surrounded on every side by such prohibitions; there is danger at every step that he may touch on what is forbidden to him, and draw down on himself unforeseen penalties. The nature of the early deities also excludes idolatry in connection with them; there is no need for a representation of a being who is visibly present, and can be extolled and wors.h.i.+pped in his own person. It was at a later stage, when the G.o.d came to be personified and separated in thought from his natural basis, that the need arose to make representations of him to aid the imagination. The stones of early religion are not idols. They are natural, not artificial stones; they are not images of the G.o.d, but the G.o.d himself, or at least that in which the divine spirit dwells,[5] or with which it a.s.sociates itself for the purpose of wors.h.i.+p. And, further, the earliest time knows no priests; there is no special cla.s.s to whom alone the celebration of sacrifice is entrusted. It would be quite inconsistent with the whole view of sacrifice which then prevailed, to suppose that it could be done by proxy. It was a man's own act, by which he identified himself with his G.o.d and with his tribe, and that could only be done by a personal service. We often find kings and chiefs sacrificing. Agamemnon does so, Abraham and Saul do so, though the sacrifice of the latter is disapproved of by the priestly writer. David does so without being rebuked for it. The king or chief does this as the natural head of his clan; some one must take the leading part in the transaction. As religion is the princ.i.p.al part of politics, and the first business of the state is to keep itself right with the G.o.ds, the head of the state is its most natural representative on such an occasion. The head of a household also sacrifices for his house, not only to the spirits of the house, but in cases like that of Job, where there is no question of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p. Early custom did not fix in any uniform manner by whose hands a sacrifice was to be made.

[Footnote 4: _Religion of the Semites_, by W. R. Smith, p. 142, _sqq._]

[Footnote 5: _Religion of the Semites_, by W. R. Smith, p. 192.]

Magic.--In another direction, however, we see in the earliest times the growth of a cla.s.s of persons with religious functions and attributes. While the ordinary wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds does not require the services of any special cla.s.s, there is everywhere found the man of special knowledge and gifts, to whom men resort for needs lying outside the scope of that wors.h.i.+p. Every savage religion contains a certain amount of magic, of practices, that is to say, by which it is thought possible to influence or to foretell outward events. Early man is not limited in his views of what may happen by any accurate knowledge of natural laws, or of the sequence of cause and effect, and he imagines it possible to influence nature in various ways. He imitates what he supposes to be the causes of things, judging that the effect will also follow; or he uses such powers as he may have over spirits, to induce or compel them to accomplish his wishes; or he manipulates objects he believes to have a hidden virtue, in a way he believes calculated to bring about the desired result. Magic is thus related both to the cult of spirits and to that of casual objects, both to animism and to fetis.h.i.+sm. There is generally a special person in a tribe who knows these things, and is able to work them. It may be the chief or king,--there are many instances in which the chief is believed to have power to bring rain,--or it may be a separate functionary, medicine-man, sorcerer, diviner, seer, or whatever name be given him. He has more power over spirits than other men have, and is able to make them do what he likes. He can heal sickness, he can foretell the future, he can change a thing into something else, or a man into a lower animal or a tree, or anything; he can also a.s.sume such transformations himself at will. He uses means to bring about such results; he knows about herbs, he has stones or other objects endowed with special virtues, he also has recourse to rubbing, to making images of affected parts of the body, and to various other arts. Very frequently he is regarded as inspired. It is the spirit dwelling in him which brings about the wonderful results; without the spirit he could not do anything. While the details of course vary infinitely in different tribes, the figure of the worker of magic is an essential feature of any general sketch of early religion. He is often a person of great political importance; being supposed to be in closer alliance than any one else with spiritual beings, he has a power which is much dreaded, and which even the chief cannot disregard.

Of Sacred Seasons there can be but few in the earliest human life, when there is no fixed measure of time, nor any notion of regularity, but all depends on the occurrence of need and of danger. As soon as agriculture was engaged in, however, attention must have been fixed on the recurrence of the seasons, and the measures of time afforded by the moon must, at least, have been observed. The summer and the winter solstice, the equinoxes, the new moons, these were to the early cultivator epochs to be observed; and certain annual feasts are found to have come into use in very early times, epochs of man's simplest and earliest calendar, and occasions for tribal gatherings and for such fixed religious observances as we have described. A private religious emergency arising in the interval between two feasts is dealt with by means of a vow; the help of the deity, that is to say, is claimed at once, but the payment of the due consideration for it on man's part is deferred till the time of sacrifice comes round.[6]

[Footnote 6: Genesis xxviii. 20; Judges xi. 30; 2 Sam. xv. 8.]

Character of Early Religion.--We have now pa.s.sed in review the princ.i.p.al observances and usages of primitive religion; but before concluding this chapter some remarks have to be made as to the position religion held in the life of ancient times, and as to the spirit and temper which it exhibited. In the first place, as we remarked above, religion was in these times the most important branch of the public service. Every uncommon occurrence had to be laid before the G.o.d, and no important step could be taken without consulting him; and it was a princ.i.p.al duty of the head of the state to keep the G.o.d on good terms with the tribe, and to apply to him for all the aid and protection the tribe required from him. In attending to this, however, the chief was acting for his tribesmen; where there was no chief these matters were not neglected, but were looked after by common spontaneous action by the members of the tribe. The G.o.d was their lord, their father, and they must always take him along with them. This identification of the G.o.d with the interests of his subjects is so close that the latter are troubled with no doubts as to whether or not their G.o.d is with them. If they observe the customary rules for cultivating his friends.h.i.+p, he must be with them; they never imagine that he can be estranged from them. It is the habitual att.i.tude of early religion to take it for granted that the G.o.d goes with his people (he generally has no other people to go with) and helps them against their adversaries. To doubt this and to resort to sacrifices of atonement to bring him back from his estrangement is a later stage of religion. But if religion is in this way a public matter, a matter of the tribe and its concerns, what place is there in it for the individual? Individual cares and needs may form the subject of prayers and vows, but religion on the whole has to do with the tribe, not with the individual, or with the individual only as a member of the tribe. It is the duty of every one to take his part in the public approaches to the G.o.d; he must either do so or be cut off from his tribe. For his own griefs there is little comfort in the tribal wors.h.i.+p; indeed, personal sorrows and perplexities meet with but little consideration in early religion. As the tribe is in no doubt of the goodwill of its G.o.d, and regards him as a firm ally not easily turned away, old religion has a confident and joyous air, strongly contrasting with the doubts and the contrition of modern faith. The acts of wors.h.i.+p are feasts at which the members of the tribe rejoice and make merry before their G.o.d. To the delights of feasting those of dance and song are added (”The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play”), and frequently the merrymaking goes to the pitch of frenzy; the wors.h.i.+ppers dance themselves into an ecstasy; they feel the G.o.d taking possession of them, and are hurried along by the sacred inspiration to behaviour they would not dream of at any other time.

Early Religion and Morality.--How did this early religion bear upon morality? In how far was it a power for righteousness? There are two sides to this question. In the first place, the religion of the infant world was a strong influence for the restraint of individual excess. The G.o.d being the parent of the tribe, its customs had his sanction, he had no higher interest than its welfare, he was identified with all its enterprises, its battles were his battles also. The wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.d therefore made strongly for loyalty to the tribe, and for the observance of its customs; it caused a man to forget his own interest where that of the tribe was concerned, and unhesitatingly to sacrifice himself for the public cause. But, on the other hand, primitive religion was an intensely conservative force; it subjected the whole life to the customs of the tribe, and discouraged spontaneity and independence in moral action. The duties it prescribed were of a conventional order; a man had no duties to those beyond his tribe, and to his fellow-tribesmen religion bade him rather walk by rule than consult his own feelings. Of the morality which consists in discipline and subordination to the community, early religion was an efficient school; to the higher morality, the law of which is found written in the heart, and which aims at rendering higher services than those of custom, it did not attain.

The wors.h.i.+p of the higher nature-powers, the heavenly powers of light and kindness, tending as it did to transcend the limits of place and of nationality, was destined powerfully to foster a more generous morality than that of the tribal wors.h.i.+p, and this tendency was no doubt dimly felt by early man long before it was possible for him to follow it.

CHAPTER VI NATIONAL RELIGION

We now leave behind us the beliefs and practices of savage and barbarous tribes, and turn to those of mighty empires. The gulf which lies between these two parts of our subject is obviously a wide one; and in many instances there is no bridge by which the student can pa.s.s from one to the other. Often it is a matter of inference rather than of direct proof that the great systems are built out of the materials acc.u.mulated, as we have seen, in the prehistoric period.

But the inference is sufficiently strong to rest upon; in some cases we are able to see quite clearly how the religion of the empire arose by an uninterrupted growth out of that of the tribe; and in the cases where this cannot be so fully made out, we yet judge that the result came about in a similar way. We pause therefore at this point to ask what is the nature of the transition at which we have arrived, or, in other words, what const.i.tutes the difference between the primitive and the later religions? The difference is probably not one of magnitude only; it consists not merely in the fact that the religion of the empire is that of a much larger number of people than that of the tribe; there is a difference in character as well as in dimensions. With a view to the examination of this point it will be found convenient to consider some of the proposed cla.s.sifications of religions, as most of these, though for different reasons, place the religions of the early world in a different category from those known to us historically.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned Cla.s.sification of Religions was that of the true and the false. This our principle forbids us to accept, since we regard the various faiths of the world as stages in the development of religion, and therefore all relatively true.

Another division which has done good service is that into natural and revealed religion. By natural religion has generally been understood such religion as human reason could attain to without supernatural aid. But this description does not apply to any religious system that ever prevailed largely in any country; the actual religions have all been the work of custom and age-long tradition, not of the deliberate operation of reason. Natural religion therefore is a term which is of no use to us in cla.s.sification; since none of the actual religions which we have to study answers to that t.i.tle. Nor is revealed religion a term we can conveniently use in such a work as this. Many religions claim to be the result of revelation, but few make it at the outset of their career. The t.i.tle tells us nothing about the original character of a religion, but only that at some period in its career the claim was made for it that its origin was supernatural. If we grouped the revealed religions together we might find that the members of the group had no similarity to each other beyond the accidental circ.u.mstance that the claim of revelation had been made for them. Besides, science cannot possibly take the revealed character of any religion for granted, but must examine each such faith to see if its growth cannot be accounted for without that a.s.sumption.

The term ”natural” religion has, however, other meanings than that just mentioned, and some of these we may find to be of more service.

It is proposed to divide religions into ”natural” and ”positive,” or into those which have grown up and those which have been founded. The earlier religions were not due to the personal action of outstanding individuals (at least if they were, as surely they must have been in part, the individuals and their struggles are unrecorded), but were the work of unconscious growth, and were produced by forces, which, as they were at work in every part of the early world, may be called natural. These religions do not appeal to the authority of any founder, but are borne forward by custom and tradition. Some of the later systems, on the contrary, bear the names of their founders, and are said to have been introduced into the world at a certain time and place. Their beginning is fixed, and they have a body of beliefs and practices which belong to their original const.i.tution, and possess authority for all subsequent generations of believers.

This cla.s.sification promises well at first, but it is difficult to apply it; some religions pa.s.s imperceptibly from the stage of custom to that of statute, and in many religions both elements are so largely present that it is difficult to strike the balance between them. We are led to the conclusion that the real difference between the earlier and the later religions is a more vital one than any of these cla.s.sifications would indicate. The authority and the positive character of the later systems is a symptom of the change which has produced them, but the change itself lies deeper. The higher form of religion is due to a great step which has been taken in civilisation; it is one of the features of the advance of society to a new stage.

Rise of National Religion.--It is an immense step in human progress when a set of barbarous tribes unite to form a nation. Under the strong hand of some chief or under the pressure of some great necessity, they give up the isolation which is both the weakness and the strength of the tribal state of society, they choose some strong place for their centre, they submit to a common government, and while still remembering their separate tribal traditions and usages, they learn to act as members of a greater community than the tribe. This is the beginning of civilisation proper. Law takes the place of custom; the state undertakes to punish crime, and private vengeance is discouraged; the state also undertakes the protection of the weak, so that humane sentiment appears, and a security is engendered in which the arts and sciences can spring up and flourish.

When this takes place a new type of religion also makes its appearance. While each of the tribes may long retain its own G.o.ds, and its peculiar rites, some one G.o.d, perhaps the G.o.d of the strongest tribe, a.s.sumes a higher position than the rest; his wors.h.i.+p becomes the central religion of the community, round which the other wors.h.i.+ps arrange themselves by degrees, until there comes to be a system embracing them all, but itself possessing a new character. In this way a national religion comes into existence. The details of this process are in every case beyond our observation. It is not perhaps for centuries after the national religion has come into operation, that reflection is turned towards it; not till the art of writing has come to some perfection is it described and formulated and made statutory; and by that time all accurate memory of its beginnings has faded away, and its origin is explained instead by a set of legends. But though its beginnings, like all beginnings, are obscure, the national religion is there. It has its history; the great man who brought the tribes together, or who first devised for them a higher form of wors.h.i.+p, is remembered as its founder; the foundation is ascribed to the inspiration of the chief G.o.d himself; its sacred forms are written down and obtain the force of divine laws, the will of the deity is a thing clearly known and expressed in positive terms.

It is not a.s.serted that this description will apply to the origin of all the national religions; the character and the circ.u.mstances of one nation differ from those of another, and it need not be supposed that they all reached their state wors.h.i.+ps in the same way. Some religions have become national by conquest rather than growth; while some which may truly be called national never attained to any national organisation. The process we have described, however, may be regarded as the typical one for the rise of a national out of tribal religions, and indicates to us what we may regard as the real and substantial difference between the stage with which we have been occupied and that to which we are now to turn. All other differences between the prehistoric and the historical religions may be traced to this one. Before the religion of a nation has systematised its doctrine and its ritual so as to merit the name of positive, before it has provided itself with a detailed ritual or a fixed creed, or a regular priesthood, or a set of sacred books, the momentous step has already been taken, the new form of religious consciousness has appeared. Men have begun to believe not only in the tribal but in the national G.o.d or G.o.ds, and a national religion has come into existence.

The advance from tribal to national wors.h.i.+p is one of the most momentous in the whole history of religion. The nature of the change involved in it may be summed up as follows.

1. Men obtain a Greater G.o.d than they had before. Formerly a man believed in the G.o.d of his tribe, one deity among many, as his tribe was one among many, each having its own G.o.d; but now he comes to know a G.o.d who is higher than the other tribal G.o.ds, as the king whom the tribes have united to obey is greater than the tribal chiefs. The G.o.d stands at a greater distance than before from the wors.h.i.+pper; familiarity is lessened, and religion becomes capable of a deeper reverence and adoration. Although the wors.h.i.+p of the tribal G.o.d is still kept up, yet if the new-born national consciousness is strong, the national form of religion rather than the tribal will determine the religious sentiment of the individual.

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