Part 24 (2/2)

It was towards the end of the second century that the alliance between Christianity and the Greek world was finally ratified. Till then belief and practice were determined mainly by custom and tradition; but now these were to give way to definite laws and settled inst.i.tutions. There came to full development, about the period we have mentioned, a highly-organised system of church government, a canon of sacred books of Christian origin, and a creed in which the beliefs of Christians were drawn together in one statement. It cannot be denied that the elaborate external forms with which the religion of Jesus was thus invested went far to change its spirit also. But this happens to every religion which reaches the stage of organising itself in order to continue in the world and to rule permanently in human thought and in human society. No external forms can adequately express living religious ideas; and yet there must be external forms in order that religious ideas may be perpetuated. The ministers of the new truth inevitably rise in dignity till they grow into a hierarchy. That truth inevitably seeks to establish itself as scientifically true, and with the aid of the ruling philosophical tendency of the day clothes itself in a view of the universe and in a creed. Thus the essence of Christianity came to consist not in loving the Master and following him in faith and love, but in upholding the authority of the Church, receiving her sacraments, and believing various metaphysical and transcendental statements. Here also a hard sh.e.l.l is formed round the spiritual kernel of the religion which, if it is fitted to preserve the latter in rude and stormy times, is also fitted to confuse and also apt to conceal it.

In each of the countries to which it came, Christianity adopted what it could of the religion formerly existing there. The old religions of these lands were not all alike, and hence it came to pa.s.s that as the language of Rome was transformed in various ways, and pa.s.sed into the different yet cognate tongues of the Romance nations, so the religion of the Empire, combining with various forms of heathenism, pa.s.sed into several national religions, the differences of which are at least as conspicuous as their similarity. In Italy Christianity appears to be a system of local deities, each village wors.h.i.+pping its own Madonna or saint. In Holland wors.h.i.+p consists almost entirely of preaching. In other countries the ritual and the intellectual elements of religion are blended in varying proportions; and the former heathenism of each land is also to be traced in many a popular observance and belief. So great is the variety of the religions of Europe, not to mention that of the negroes or the Shakers of America, that many have doubted whether they ought all to be considered as branches of one faith, or whether they would not more fitly be regarded as so many national religions which have all alike connected themselves with Christianity. Against this there is to be urged in the first place that as a matter of history they are all undoubtedly offshoots of the religion of Jesus. It may also be urged that wherever the name of Jesus is named, his ideas must to some extent be present, however much they are obscured and prevented from operating by lower modes of view. The Christianity of no country ought to be judged by the att.i.tude of its most ignorant or even of its average adherents; and in every land where Christianity prevails, an influence connected with religion is at work, which makes for the emanc.i.p.ation and elevation of the human person, and for the awakening of the manifold energies of human nature. This, as we saw, is the immediate and native tendency of the religion of Jesus; it opens the prison doors to them that are bound; it communicates by its inner encouragement an energy which makes the infirm forget their weaknesses, it fills the heart with hope and opens up new views of what man can do and can become. It is this that makes it the one truly universal religion. Islam, it is true, has also proved its power to live in many lands, and Buddhism has spread over half of Asia. But Buddhism is not a full religion, it does not tend to action but to pa.s.sivity, and affords no help to progress. Islam, on the other hand, is a yoke rather than an inspiration; it is inwardly hostile to freedom, and is incapable of aiding in higher moral development. Christianity has a message to which men become always more willing to respond as they rise in the scale of civilisation; it has proved its power to enter into the lives of various nations, and to adapt itself to their circ.u.mstances and guide their aspirations without humiliating them. A religion which identifies itself, as Christianity does, with the cause of freedom in every land, and tends to unite all men in one great brotherhood under the loving G.o.d who is the Father of all alike, is surely the desire of all nations, and is destined to be the faith of all mankind.

A bibliography of the recent study of Christianity would be far too extensive for this book. An excellent statement on the subject will be found at the hands of Professor Sanday in the _Oxford Proceedings_, vol. ii. p. 263, _sqq._

CHAPTER XXIII CONCLUSION

It will not be expected that the result of the great movement traced in the chapters of this work can be summed up in a few words. We set out with a definition of our subject which we said could only be fully verified after religion had accomplished its growth and had fully unfolded its nature. We also set out with the a.s.sumption that all the religion of the world is one, and that it exhibits a development which is in the main continuous, from the most elementary to the highest stages. We shall not now attempt to justify by argument that definition or that a.s.sumption. The history which we have sought to place before the reader must itself be the proof of them. All that can be done in bringing this work to a close is to point out one great line of development, which may be recognised more or less distinctly in the growth of each religion, and may therefore be held to be characteristic of religion as a whole. No doubt the growth of religion, as of other human activities, has many sides and aspects, but perhaps it may be possible to specify the central line of growth in which the explanation of all the subsidiary and parallel forward movements is to be found.

It was stated in our first chapter that religion is the expression of human needs with reference to higher beings who are supposed to be capable of fulfilling men's desires, and it was also stated as an inference from this, that the growth of human needs is the cause of religious change and progress. If this is true, then the key to the progress of religion is to be found in the successive emergence in human experience of higher and still higher needs. If we can discover the order in which higher aspirations successively emerge in the growth of humanity, then we shall possess the chief clue to the course of religious advance. Now while there is infinite variety in the needs and desires of men, every land and each nation having ideals all its own, we can yet discern, on a broad view of human progress, an advance from lower to higher needs which is common to the human race, and manifests itself in the history of each nation.

Three successive conditions of human life stand out before us as markedly distinct, and as occurring wherever civilisation continues to advance. The first is that in which material needs are all-absorbing; the second that in which freedom from material needs has been to some extent attained, and the highest aspirations are directed to the safety and advancement of the nation in which men find themselves united and secure; and the third is that in which the individual realises his own value apart from the state, and develops a personal ideal which is thenceforward his chief end. To these three stages of human existence three types of religion correspond, and the growth of religion consists in the main in its pa.s.sage from the lower to the higher of these stages.

The religion of the tribe belongs to that stage of man's existence in which his energies are entirely occupied in the struggle against nature and against other tribes. The conditions of his life do not allow his higher faculties to grow, and while he is not without many glimpses and antic.i.p.ations of higher things, his religion, as a whole, is a ma.s.s of childish fancies, and of fixed traditions which he cannot explain, but does not venture to criticise or change. His G.o.ds are petty and capricious beings, and his modes of influencing them, though used with zeal and fervour, have little to do with reason or with taste or with morality. It is in this kind of religion that magic of all sorts is at home.

The advance from the religion of the tribe to that of the nation was briefly described above (chapter vi.). The leading cla.s.ses of the state at least having gained some measure of security and leisure, ideas of a n.o.bler order spring up in their minds. The service of the great G.o.ds of the state is organised with befitting dignity and splendour; the best minds contribute to it all they can in the way of art, of poetry, of purified legend, of stately ceremonial. Patriotism and religion are one, the offices of wors.h.i.+p are upheld by the whole power of the state, and the G.o.ds speak with new authority to the spirit of the wors.h.i.+pper. Now it is that great religious systems arise, so powerful, so highly organised, so splendidly adorned, and surrounded with such venerable traditions, that they seem to be destined for eternity. The priesthood becomes a very powerful cla.s.s, and acquires a personal holiness which marks out its members as different from other men; the sacrifices acquire the character of divine mysteries, every detail of which, even the most trivial, has a sacred meaning; religious books are compiled or written, which by and by are regarded as inspired, and as possessing absolute authority. It is to be observed that the older style of religion is not at once driven out by the growth of the new, but continues to flourish beside it and under its shadow. The tribes of whom the nation is composed still cherish and adore their own special deities. That older wors.h.i.+p is often thought to bring blessings which the new wors.h.i.+p of the state does not command, and many a piece of ancient magic, many a practice which has no connection with the state religion, still goes on, especially among those who are not cultivated enough to appreciate the n.o.bler faith which has arisen.

This, however, does not keep the national faith from growing in riches and consistency; and religion appears, as this growth proceeds, to have attained the highest degree of power and authority at which it can possibly arrive. Commanding as it does all the resources of the nation, enriched by all that can be brought to it of material or intellectual riches, placed in a position of absolute exaltation and inviolableness, to what further conquests can it still look forward? Yet when a national religion appears to be most firmly established, the forces are most certainly at work which must ere long lead to a far-reaching change. While the national wors.h.i.+p has been growing up to its highest splendours, the lives of the citizens have also been growing richer and deeper, and the individual soul has become aware of wants and longings which cannot be satisfied in the national temple. The further progress of religion is apt to appear as a revolt against the system which has grown so strong. The individual sets out to seek a consistent intellectual view, and so figures as a sceptic. He aims at a higher moral law than that of the priestly system, and is accused of undermining public morality. He feels a new call to personal goodness, a new need for personal atonement with the ideal holiness which he has learned to apprehend; and as the public ritual does not meet these needs, he seeks for new religious a.s.sociations and perhaps appears to preach a doctrine contrary to patriotism, as it is subversive of the established religion of his country, and to be wilfully destroying what his countrymen revere, and wilfully breaking through old ties and obligations. Thus the individualist stage of religion succeeds the national. But the individualist stage is also, in part at least, the universal stage.

What the thinking mind and the pious heart seeks and cannot find in the national wors.h.i.+p, is a religion free as the seeker himself has become free, from all that is unreasonable and artificial, a religion therefore in which every thinking mind and every pious heart can have a share. What is gained by individuals in this direction is capable, therefore, if circ.u.mstances favour, of proving an acquisition not only for the individual reformer or his nation, but for all men. But as the rise of national religion does not bring to an end the ruder wors.h.i.+ps of the tribes, which still go on beside it, so neither does the rise of individualism, even in its purest form, bring to an end the national wors.h.i.+p. In the long run this may follow, but it does not take place at once. All three forms of religion go on together; the religion of magic, that of stately public sacrifices and ceremonials, and that of intellectual effort and pious meditation and prayer. Each no doubt influences to some extent the others, and is influenced by them in turn.

The movement thus indicated from tribal to national, and from national to individual and to universal religion, is the central development of religion, and all the minor developments which might be traced, as that of sacrifice from rude to spiritual forms, of the functions of the sacred cla.s.s, of the morality dictated by religion at its various stages, or of the literature connected with piety, may be explained by reference to this one. This movement has taken place in every nation; we have seen something of it in each of our chapters. In some nations it has been early arrested, so that no important contribution has there been brought to the general religion of mankind, in others it has run its full course, and like a great river has arrived at the ocean at last, to mingle its waters with those of other mighty streams.

The story of the growth of the world's religion has therefore to be told in a number of parallel narratives, each dealing with the experience of a separate nation. There can scarcely be any general history of the religion of the world, in addition to those special histories. Some epochs, it is true, stand out as having witnessed simultaneous religious movements in many lands, as if the mind of the whole human race had then been pa.s.sing through the same crisis of thought. The sixth century B.C. is the age of Confucius and of Laotsze in China, of Gautama in India, of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Unknown Prophet of the Exile, of Pythagoras, Herac.l.i.tus, and Xenophanes, and also of the rise into prominence of the Greek mysteries. Widely different as the movements are which thus took place contemporaneously in these lands, we may discern in all of them alike the tendency to plant religion in the mind and heart, and to create a deeper union than the old external one, a union based on common intellectual effort and spiritual sympathy. The period immediately before and after the Christian era might also appear to be one in which the mind of the world as a whole made a great step forward. The union of many nations under the sway of Rome, and the universal diffusion of the Greek language as a means of general communication, made men conscious at this time as they had never been before, of the unity of mankind in spite of all differences of race and speech. A philosophy also was popular at this time which was cosmopolitan in its character, and occupied itself with the great problems, which are the same for all, of man's relation to the G.o.ds and of his moral duty. If we add to this the combination which took place at Rome and wherever different races met, of various rites and creeds, we see that the age was one singularly disposed to the breaking down of artificial barriers between men, and singularly fitted to promote the growth of a belief in which men of all nations might unite and feel themselves to be brethren.

In these two periods we may recognise important steps in that great Education of the Human Race which the Apostle Paul refers to in a bold philosophy of history (Galat. iv.), and which later thinkers have striven to set forth in detail. After the long servitude of mankind to irrational practices and to G.o.ds who were no G.o.ds, there comes first the period when men recognise that the true G.o.d is to be found not merely outside them but within their hearts and minds, and then the period when they find that the true G.o.d is the same to all men, that they are all children of the same Father. But while these general movements of the human mind may be acknowledged, the education of the human race proceeds for the most part in nations. As each nation has to elaborate its own art, its own literature, its own system of law, so each nation has to perfect its own religion. Even after a universal faith has appeared, religion does not cease to be a national thing. Each people moulds the universal religion which it has adopted into a special form, continues by means of it the rites and traditions of the past, and expresses through it its own national character and aspirations. Each nation as well as each individual must necessarily have a faith specially its own, arising out of its own character and experience and in great part incommunicable to others. No two nations could possibly exchange religions.

But on the other hand every nation contains within itself forms of religion which differ from each other as widely as those of two separate nations. It has been said that no religious belief or usage which has once lived can ever be destroyed; and the proof of this may be witnessed in every nation. Even after that religion has come which has its main seat in the heart and soul, the ruder forms of piety live on, and even at times aggressively a.s.sert themselves. If there are cla.s.ses for whom the struggle against material hards.h.i.+ps still continues, no lofty religion can be attained by them any more than by savage tribes. As the conditions of their life forbid the growth of their higher faculties, their religion cannot be one of thought or of refinement, but must be one which promises palpable benefits or an escape from immediate dangers. At a somewhat higher stage is the cla.s.s of those who, while partly escaped from the struggle against want, have not yet fully realised themselves as thinking and spiritual beings, and to whom the benefits of religion still lie outside, rather than in the inner life. When the benefits of religion are thus conceived, its processes must be of a mechanical nature.

Hence the various systems of apparatus for connecting the wors.h.i.+pper with a source of good distant from him in time or s.p.a.ce, and for fetching as it were from another region, with certainty and accuracy, needed supplies of grace.

The further development of religion in a community so mixed must depend on the progressive education and elevation of the people. As more and more of them are freed first from distracting wants and cares, and then from sordid and materialistic views, their spiritual nature will expand. The need for G.o.d himself rather than for his gifts, will arise and increase in their hearts, and they will grow capable of that highest religion which is the life of the soul with G.o.d; they will feel its beauty and will drink of the deep springs which it contains, of strength and peace.

To attain this true religion the human race has had to travel far and to make many experiments. Many temples were built and fell to ruin before the true temple of the soul was reached in which, as each finds what he as an individual requires, there is also room for all mankind. Even after this highest religion has been made known to men, it has often been obscured and lost, and many a struggle has been needed to vindicate its claims and help it to retain its rightful place. But with growing experience the world becomes more a.s.sured that the simplest and broadest religion ever preached upon this earth is also the best and the truest, and that in maintaining Christianity as at first preached, and applying it in every needed direction, lies the hope of the future of mankind. To those who agree in this conclusion the history of the religion of the world, full of errors and of grievous failures as it has been seen to be, cannot appear to have been a vain and purposeless excursion in a land of shadows. Not without a divine call, and not without divine guidance did man set out so early, and persevere so constantly in spite of all his disappointments, in the search for G.o.d.

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