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A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF RELIGIONS. 

Translated from the Dutch of

J. H. SCHOLTEN, Professor at Leyden, by Francis T. Washburn. 

Reprinted by permission from "The Religious Magazine and MonthlyReview. "Boston: Crosby & Damrell, 100 Washington St. 1870. 

A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF RELIGIONS. 

INTRODUCTION. [1]

The conception of religion presupposes, _a_, God as object; _b_, man assubject; _c_, the mutual relation existing between them. According tothe various stages of development which men have reached, religiousbelief manifests itself either in the form of a passive feeling ofdependence, where the subject, not yet conscious of his independence, feels himself wholly overmastered by the deity, or the object ofworship, as by a power outside of and opposed to himself; or, when thefeeling of independence has awakened, in a one-sided elevation of thehuman, whereby man in worshiping a deity deifies himself. In the higheststage of religious development, the most entire feeling of dependence isunited in religion with the strongest consciousness of personalindependence. The first of these forms is exhibited in the fetich andnature-worship of the ancient nations; the second in Buddhism, and inthe deification of the human, which reaches its full height among theGreeks. The true religion, prepared in Israel, is the Christian, inwhich man, grown conscious of his oneness with God, is ruled by thedivine as an inner power of life, and acts spontaneously and freelywhile in the fullest dependence upon God. Since Christ, no more perfectreligion has appeared. What is true and good in Islamism was borrowedfrom Israel and Christianity. 

Although it is probable that every nation passed through different formsof religious belief before its religion reached its highest development, yet the earlier periods lie in great part beyond the reach of historicalinvestigation. The history of religion, therefore, has for its task thereview of the various forms of religion with which we are historicallyacquainted, 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 foundamong the savage tribes of the polar regions, and in Africa, America, and Australia. In this stage, man's needs are as yet very limited andexclusively confined to the material world. Still too little developedintellectually to worship the divine in nature and her powers, he thinkshe sees the divinity which he seeks in every unknown object whichstrikes his senses, or which his imagination calls up. In this stage, religion has no higher character than that of caprice and of love ofthe mysterious and marvelous, mixed with fear and a slavish adoration ofthe divine. The worship 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-worship found among the Aztecs inMexico, and the worship of the sun in Peru, are distinguished by thegreater definiteness and order of their religious conceptions andusages. In them the gods have names, and an ordained priesthood caresfor the religious interests of the people. The highest form to whichfetichism has attained is the worship 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 fromreligion. Having outgrown fetichism, man begins, as is the case amongthe Chinese, to distinguish in the world around him an active and apassive principle, force and matter (Yang and Yn), heaven and earth(Kien and Kouen). We have here nature-worship in its beginnings. In thisstage, even less than in fetichism, is there a definite idea of God, much less a conception of him as personal and spiritual lord. TheChinese, from the practical, empirical point of view peculiar to him, recognizes the spiritual only in man and chiefly in the state. Hisreligion, therefore, is confined exclusively to the faithful keeping ofthe laws of the state (the Celestial Kingdom), in which he sees thereflection of heaven, to the recognition of the Emperor as the son andrepresentative of heaven, and to the worship of the forefathers, especially of the great men and departed emperors, to whose memory theChinese temples, or pagodas, are dedicated. The origin of this religiondates, according to the tradition, from Fo-hi (2950 B. C. ), the founderof the Chinese state. In the fifth century before Christ, Kong-tse, orKong-fu-tse (Confucius), appeared as a reformer of the religion of hiscountrymen, and gathered the ancient records and traditions of hispeople into a sacred literature, which is known by the name of the"King" (the books), "Yo-King" (the book of nature), "Chu-King" (the bookof 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 ofLao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as thebasis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supremeprinciple, _Tao_, or _Being_, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine ofthe Indians, among whom he lived for a long time; but this doctrinenever became popular in China. 

3. THE EGYPTIANS. 

The worship of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among theChinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form astheogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of twofundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers ofnature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasyof the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (nonehas as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character. Fruitfulness and drought, the results of the Nile's overflowing andreceding, are imaged in the myth of _Osiris_, _Isis_, and _Typhon_. Thevisible form under which the divine was worshiped in Egypt was thesacred animal, the bull _Apis_, dedicated to _Osiris_, the cow, dedicated to _Isis_, as symbols of agriculture; the bird _Ibis_, thecrocodile, the dog _Anubis_, and other animals, whose physicalcharacteristics impressed the as yet childish man, who saw in them thesymbol, either of the beneficent power of nature which moved him tothankfulness, or of a destructive power which he dreaded and whose angerhe sought to avert. The religion of Egypt was not of a purely spiritualcharacter. To the man whose eye is not yet open to the manifestation ofthe spiritual around him and in him, the divine is not spirit, but asyet only nature. The animal, although in the form of the sphinxapproaching the human, holds in Egyptian art a place above the human assymbol of the divine. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE ARIAN NATIONS. 

1. THE EAST ARIANS. THE INDIANS. 

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

 _a. _ The original Veda-religion. 

 _b. _ The priestly religion of the Brahmins. 

 _c. _ The philosophical speculation. 

 _d. _ Buddhism. 

 _e. _ The modified Brahminism after Buddha, in connection with the worship of Vishnu and Siva. 

_a. The original Veda-religion. _

The original religion of Arya originated in Bactria. From thence, beforethe time of Zoroaster, it was brought over, with the great migration ofthe people, to the land of the seven rivers, which they conquered, andwhich stretched from the Indus to the Hesidrus. It consisted, accordingto the oldest literature of the Veda, in a polytheistical worship of thedivine, either as the beneficent or the baneful power of nature. Theclear, blue sky, the light of the sun, the rosy dawn, the storm thatspends itself in fruitful rain, the winds and gales which drive away theclouds, the rivers whose fruitful slime overspreads the fields, --thesemoved the inhabitants of India to the worship of the divine as thebeneficent power of nature which blesses man. On the other hand, hechanged under the impression of the harmful phenomena of nature, thedark and close-packed clouds which hold back the rain and intercept thesunshine, the parching heat of summer, which dries up the rivers andhinders growth and fruitfulness, and these also he erected into objectsof awe and religious adoration. From this view of nature sprang theIndian mythology. The oldest divinity (Deva) of the Indians is Varuna, the all-embracing heaven, who marks out their courses for the heavenlyluminaries, who rules the day and the night, who is lord of life anddeath, whose protection is invoked, whose anger deprecated. After him, the great ruler of nature, there appear, in the Veda hymns, Indra, theblue sky, god of light and thunder, the warrior who in battle standsbeside the combatants; Vayu, the god of the wind, the chief of theMaruts, or the winds; Rudra, the god of the hurricane; Vritra, thehostile god of the clouds; Ahi, the parching heat of summer. In themythology of the people, Indra, god of light, aided by Vayu and Rudra, wages war with Vritra, --who, as god of the clouds, holds back the rainand the light, --and appears as opponent of the destructive Ahi. Theother divinities also which appear in the Vedas are personified powersof nature, --the twin brothers Aswins (equites), or the first rays of thesun, Ushas the maiden, or the rosy dawn, Surya, Savitri, the god of thesun. Great significance is given in the Indian mythology to Agni, thegod of fire, who burns the sacrifice in honor of the gods, who conveysthe offerings and prayers of men to gods and their gifts to men, whogladdens the domestic hearth, lights up the darkness of night, drivesaway the evil spirits, the Ashuras and Rakshas, and purges of evil thesouls of men. Religion, still wholly patriarchal in form, and free fromhierarchical constraint and from the later dogmatic narrowness, bore inthis earlier stage of its development the character of the still freeand warlike life of a nomadic people living in the midst of a sublimenature, where everything, the clear sky, sunshine, and boisterous storm, mountains and rivers, disposed to worship. As yet the Indian knew noclose priestly caste. Worship consisted in prayers and offerings, especially in the Soma-offering, which was offered as food to the gods. No fear of future torment after death as yet embittered the enjoyment oflife and made dying fearful. Yama was the friendly guide of the souls ofheroes to the heaven of Indra or Varuna, and not yet the inexorableprince of hell who tormented the souls of the ungodly in the kingdom ofthe dead. Of later barbarous usages also, such as the widow'ssacrificing herself on the funeral pile of her departed husband, therewas as yet no trace; and in the heroic poetry, as yet not disfigured bylater Brahminical alterations and additions, the heroes Krishna and Ramaappear as types of courage and self-sacrifice, and not, as later, asavatars, or human incarnations, of the deity. 

_b. Brahminism. _

When the nomadic and warlike life of the nations of India in the land ofthe seven rivers, in connection with their removal to the conquered landof the Ganges (1300 B. C. ), gave place to a more ordered socialconstitution, a priestly class formed itself, which began to representthe people before the deity, and from its chief function, _Brahma_, orprayer, took the name of _Brahmins_, i. E. , the praying. This Brahma, before whose power even the gods must yield, was gradually exalted bythe Brahmins to the highest deity, to whom, under the name of Brahma, the old Veda divinities were subordinated. Brahma is no god of thepeople, but a god of the priests; not the lord of nature, but theabstract and impersonal _Being_, out of whom nature and her phenomenaemanate. From Brahma the priest derives his authority; and the system ofcaste, by which the priesthood is raised to the first rank, its origin. The worship of Brahma consists in doing penance and in abstinence. Yama, once a celestial divinity, now becomes the god of the lower world, wherehe who disobeys Brahma is tormented after death. Immortality consists inreturning to Brahma; but is the portion only of the perfectly godlyBrahmin, while the rest of mankind can rise to this perfect state onlyafter many painful new births. The Brahmin, in the exclusive possessionof religious knowledge, reads and expounds the Vedas (knowledge), exalted to infallible scripture, and on them constructs his doctrine. 

Thus the once vigorous, natural life of the Indians gave place to aconception of the world which repressed the soul, and annihilated man'spersonality. The many-sidedness of the earlier theology resolved itselfinto the abstract unity of an impersonal All, and thus the glory ofnature passed by unmarked, as nought or non-existent, and lost itscharm. At the same time, the old heroic sagas were displaced by legendsof saints, and the heroic spirit of the olden epic by an asceticismwhich repressed the human, and before whose power even the gods stood inawe. With Brahminism the religion lost its original and naturalcharacter, and became characterized by a slavish submission to apriesthood, which abrogated the truly human. 

_c. The Speculative Systems. _

The doctrine of the Brahmins occasioned the rise of various theologicaland philosophical systems. To these belong, first, the "Vedanta, " (endof the Veda) or the dogmatic-apologetic exposition of the Veda. Thiscontains (1) the establishment of the authority of the Veda as holyscripture revealed by Brahma, and also of the relation in which itstands to tradition; (2) the proof that everything in the Veda hasreference to Brahma; (3) the ascetic system, or the discipline. Toexplain contradictory statements in the older and later parts of theVeda, Brahminical learning makes use of the subtleties of anharmonistical method of interpretation. Second, the "Mimansa" (inquiry), devoted to the solution of the problem, How can the material worldspring from Brahma, or the immaterial? According to this system, thereis only one Supreme Being, Paramatma, a name by which Brahma himself hadbeen already distinguished in Manu's book of law. Outside of thishighest _Being_, there is nothing real. The world of sense, or nature, (Maya, the female side of Brahma), is mere seeming and illusion of thesenses. The human spirit is a part of Brahma, but perverted, misled bythis same illusion to the conceit that he is individual. This illusionis done away with by a deeper insight, by means of which the dualismvanishes from the wise man's view, and the conceit gives place to thetrue knowledge that Brahma alone really exists, that nature, on thecontrary, is nought, and the human spirit nothing else than Brahmahimself. Third, the "Sankya" (criticism) originating with Kapila, inwhich, in opposition to the "Mimansa, " the individual being and the realexistence of nature, in opposition to spirit, is laid down as thestarting-point, and the result reached is the doctrine of two originalforces, spirit and nature, from whose reciprocal action and reactionupon each other the union of soul and body is to be explained. Is thisunion unnatural, then the effort of the wise man should be to freehimself, through the perception that the soul is not bound to the body, from the dominion of matter. In this system, there is no room for aninfinite being, for, if a material world exist, then must God be limitedby its existence, and therefore cease to be infinite, that is God. TheSankya philosophy here came in conflict with the orthodox doctrine ofthe Brahmins, and prepared the way for Buddhism. 

_d. Buddhism. _

Against Brahminism Buddhism arose as a reaction. Siddharta, son ofSuddhodana, the King of Kapilavastu, of the family of the Sakya, (about450 B. C. ) moved by the misery of his fellow-countrymen, determined toexamine into the causes of it, and, if possible, to find means ofremedying it. Initiated into the wisdom of the Brahmins, but notsatisfied with that, after years of solitary retirement and quietmeditation, penetrated with the principles of the Sankya, he traversedthe land as pilgrim (Sakya-muni, Sramana, Gautama) and opened to thepeople of India a new religious epoch. The tendency of the new doctrinewas to break up the system of caste, and free the people from thegalling yoke of the Brahminical hierarchy and dogmas. While inBrahminism man was deprived of his individuality, and regarded only asan effluence from Brahma, and tormented by the fear of hell, and by thethought of a ceaseless process of countless new births awaiting himafter death, whence the necessity of the most painful penances andchastisements, Sakya-muni began with man as an individual, and in moralsput purity, abstinence, patience, brotherly love, and repentance forsins committed above sacrifice and bodily mortification, and opened tohis followers the prospect, after this weary life, no more to be exposedto the ever-recurring pains of new birth, but released from allsuffering to return to Nirvana, or nothingness. While Brahminism drew adistinction between man and man, and with hierarchical pride took nothought of the Sudra or lower class of the people, and limited wisdom tothe priestly caste, Sakya-muni preached the equality of all men, cameforward as a preacher to the people, used the people's language, andchose his followers out of all classes, even from among women. Both ofthese opposed systems are one-sided. In Brahminism, God is all, and man, as personal being, nothing; in Buddhism, man is recognized as anindividual, but apart from God, while in both systems, the highestendeavor is to be delivered from, according to Brahminism a seeming, according to Sakya-muni a really existing individuality, the source ofall human woe, and to lose one's self either in Brahma or in theNirvana. 

Less on account of his doctrine, in which there is found neither a Godnor a personal immortality, than on account of the universal characterof his words and of his life, Sakya-muni continued in honor after hisdeath, as the benefactor of the people and as the Buddha, the wise, pre-eminently; and afterwards was deified, and took his place in theranks of the recognized gods as their superior. Thus there arose inBuddhism, by a departure from the doctrine of the master, a newpolytheism. This was afterwards, through the influence of theBrahminical priestly caste, suppressed in India, but spread over otherparts of Asia, to the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and also toChina. 

_e. Later modification of Brahminism in connection with the worship ofSiva and Vishnu. _

While Brahminism saw itself menaced by the steadily increasing influenceof Buddhism, the former nature-religion, dispossessed by the Brahmins, asserted its rights in the worship of Siva in the valleys of theHimalaya Mountains, and in that of Vishnu on the banks of the Ganges. Siva is the Rudra of the Veda, the boisterous god of storms, the giverof rain and growth. Vishnu is the same divinity among other races, conceived under the influence of a softer climate in a modified form asthe blue sky. Both divinities, originally belonging to different partsof India, were afterwards taken, first Vishnu, and then also Siva, intothe theological system of the Brahmins, and formed with Brahma, but notuntil the fourth century after Christ, the trimurti, according to whichthe one supreme being Parabrama is worshiped in the threefold form ofBrahma the creating, Vishnu the sustaining, and Siva the destroyingpower of nature. To this later period of Brahminism belongs also thealteration of the old epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, by which theheroes Rama and Krishna are represented as avatars, that is incarnationsor human impersonations, of Vishnu. In this also there is evidently aneffort to bring the deity, conceived as the abstract One, into closerunion with man, an effort which is likewise visible in the later Yogasystem of the Brahmins, in which, by the admission of Buddhisticelements, the visible world is recognized as real, the old rigidasceticism mitigated, Vishnu represented as the soul of the world, andimmortality taught as a return of the individual soul to Brahma. 

2. THE WEST ARIANS, IRANIANS. 

[THE BACTRIANS, MEDES, PERSIANS. ]

The ancient religion of the Bactrians in the period before Zoroaster waspatriarchal, and consisted in the worship of fire, as the beneficentpower of nature, and of Mithras, the god of the sun, combined with thatof the good spirits (Ahuras), among which were Geus-Urva (the spirit ofthe earth), Cpento-mainyus (the white spirit), Armaiti (the earth, oralso the spirit of piety), and of the hero-spirits Sraosha, Traetona, which as light and darkness are distinguished from Angro (the blackspirit). 

Later, as it seems, the theology and worship of the neighboring nomadicArya penetrated to these nations, and caused a religious conflict whichended with the migration of Arya to the south. At this periodZarathustra[2] (Zoroaster) came forward under the Bactrian priest andKing Kava Vistaspa, as defender and reformer of the religion of thefathers against the encroachments of a strange doctrine. The Devas(Zend, Dews) or the gods of the Indian Veda appear with Zarathustra asevil spirits. Not Indra, but the hero Traetona, wages war with Ahi(Zend, Azhi), while the kavis, or priests, are attacked by him asdeceivers and liars. From the belief in good spirits (Ahuras, i. E. , the living, and Mazdas, i. E. , the wise), the ancient genii of thecountry, Zarathustra developed the belief of one highest God, Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd, Greek, [Greek: Osompzês]), a doctrine which hereceived by divine inspiration through the mediation of the spiritSrasha. Ahura-Mazda, surrounded by the Amesha-Spenta (Amshaspands), orthe holy immortals, not until later reduced to seven, is the creator oflight and life. The hurtful and evil, on the contrary, is non-existence(akem), and in the oldest parts of the Avesta, the Gathas, which go backto Zarathustra and his first followers, is not yet conceived as apersonal being. First in the Vendidad, written after Zarathustra, doesAngro-mainyus (Ahriman), or the evil one, with his Dews, althoughsubordinated to Ahura-Mazda, gain a place in the Iranian conception ofthe universe, as the adversary of Ahura-Mazda, and as the cause of evilin the natural and spiritual world. From these conceptions there wasdeveloped in the later Parsism the system of the four periods of theworld, each of three thousand years, in the book "Bundehesh. " In thefirst period, Ahura-Mazda appears as creator of the world and as thesource of good. The creation, completed by Ahura-Mazda in six days bymeans of the word (Honover), is in the second period destroyed byAngro-mainyus, who, appearing upon the earth in the form of a serpent, seduces the first human pair, created by Ahura-Mazda. In the thirdperiod, which begins with the revelation given to Zarathustra, Ahura-mazda and Angro-mainyus strive together for man. After thisfollows, in the fourth period, the victory gained by Ahura-Mazda. Sosiosh (Saoshyas), the deliverer already foretold in the Vendidad, appears. The resurrection of the dead, not taught by Zarathustra or inthe Vendidad, takes place. The judgment of the world begins; the goodare received into paradise and the sinners banished to hell. At last, all is purified, and Angro-mainyus himself and his Dews submitthemselves to Ahura-Mazda, whose victory is celebrated in heaven withsongs of praise. 

Thus among the Iranian races, out of the old patriarchal worship of fireand light, on the occasion of the religious struggle with the IndianArya, and under the influence of Zarathustra, there was developed thedoctrine of one supreme God, [3] who, surrounded by the good spirits ofheaven, wages war against evil, whence arose later the moral oppositionbetween Ahura-Mazda and Angro-mainyus resulting in the victory of thegood principle over the bad. The old dualism of force and matter, beneficent and destructive powers of nature, light and darkness, becomesin Parsism moral. The deity, no longer identified with nature, becomes apersonal, spiritual being, the creator of mankind; and the end of theworld's development is conceived as the triumph of the good. Hence thehigh rank which the doctrine of Zarathustra and its further developmentholds in the history of religion. 

3. THE GREEKS. 

As man rises in spiritual development, nature becomes to him arevelation ever more and more manifold of the divine. To the Greek(Pelasgi, Hellenes) the whole of nature was living, and his imaginationpeopled her everywhere with divine beings, who in wood and field, inrivers and on mountains (Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, Sileni, &c. ), hoveredfriendly round him. The Greek was indeed distinguished from othernations by this richer and more elevated view of nature; but he excelledthem most of all in this, that the divine object which he worshiped wasconceived both in form and character after the human. Zeus, PhoebusApollo, Pallas Athene, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hestia, Hermes, Artemis, were originally powers of nature personified, as some epithetsin Homer[4] still indicate; but they became, sometimes under the samenames, types of power and lordship, science and art, courage andsensuous beauty. While Dionysus, Demeter, Hades, and Persephone remainedearthly, and Helios, Eos, Iris, and Hecate, heavenly divinities, andOceanus, Poseidon, Amphitrite, Proteus, and Nereus ruled the waters, Zeus was conceived as the god of the sky and of thunder, who hurled thebolts, the great king and lawgiver, the father of men, and Hera, originally the air, became the protecting goddess of married life;Apollo, the god of light, who shot forth his arrows, not at firstidentified with Helios, became the god of divination and poetry, who ledthe choir of the muses; the goddess of light, Athene, became thecontentious goddess of wisdom; Aphrodite, born of the foam of the sea, once the symbol of the fruitful power of nature, later, encircled by theGraces, became the type of womanly beauty and charm, to which thestrength of man, personified in Ares, corresponds. In like manner in thelater mythology, Hephaestus, the god of fire, appeared as the god of theforge, Hestia, the goddess of fire, as the protector of the householdhearth, and Hermes, the god of the storm and of rain, as the messengerof the gods, the type of cunning and craftiness, while Artemis, thegoddess of the moon, the fruitful mother of nature, took the characterof the chaste maiden, the goddess of hunting, who with her nymphs andhounds nightly roamed the fields and woods. The monsters, the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, symbols of a yet unhuman orhalf human power of nature, were overcome by the Greek heroes, Perseus, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, OEdipus, the types of human strength andvalor. The religious festivals were enlivened by trials of men'sstrength and skill in games, and the historian and poet offered to thegods the products of human genius. In the religion of the Greeks, however, the moral element, although not passed over and in the Greekepic and tragedy not seldom expressed in grand characters, stoodnevertheless too little in the foreground, so that the worship of thedivine, as in the older nature-worship, especially in the feasts inhonor of Dionysus and Aphrodite, was marked by immoral practices. Theconception of a future life, which taken in connection with a futureretribution has a moral tendency, had but little attraction for theGreek, who rejoiced in the glory of the earth, and saw in nature and inman the kingdom of the divine. The passage from the earlier poeticalnature-worship to the worship of the divine in human form seems to beindicated in the war which Olympian Zeus waged with Cronos and theTitans. The origin and development of the various elements and powers ofnature, Chaos, Eros, Uranus, Gæa, the Giants, Styx, Erebus, Hemera, Æther, &c, became, with the poets and philosophers after Homer, mattersof speculation, of which the theogonies of Hesiod, Orpheus, Pherecydes, and others furnish proof. 

4. THE ROMANS. 

In the religion of the Greeks, the æsthetic and moral character of theGrecian people was deified, and in the Romans also we see how that whichmen value most exerts an influence upon their worship of the divine. Theprimitive religion of the Romans, borrowed from the Sabines andEtruscans, bears everywhere, in distinction to that of the Greeks, themarks of the practical and political character of the Roman people. Theoldest national divinities are, first, Jupiter or Jovis, the god of theheavens, Mars or Mavors, the god of the field and of war, Quirinus(Janus?) the protector of the Quirites, afterwards, together with Juno(Dione) and Minerva, worshiped in the Capitol, (Dii Capitolini);second, Vesta, and the gods of the house and family, the Lares andPenates; third, the rural divinities, Saturnus, Ops, Liber, Faunus, Silvanus, Terminus, Flora, Vertumnus, and Pomona; fourth and last, personifications, in part of the powers of nature, Sol, Luna, Tellus, Neptunus, Orcus, Proserpina, in part of moral and social qualities andstates, such as Febris, Salus, Mens, Spes, Pudicitia, Pietas, Fides, Concordia, Virtus, Bellona, Victoria, Pax, Libertas, and others. Peculiarly Roman also is the conception of the _manes_, or shades of thedeparted, who hover as protecting genii about the living. Afterwards, along with the culture of the Greeks, their gods also were taken, although rather outwardly than inwardly, into the spirit of the people, and the original character of the gods of Latium was modified after thenew mythology. Notwithstanding this, however, the worship of the Romansretained its political and practical character. The priests (sacerdotes)Flamines, Salii, Feciales, the Pontifices with the Pontifex Maximus attheir head, the Augurs, were likewise officers of the state, and did notform a hierarchy apart from the state and alongside of it. 

5. THE CELTS. 

Among the Celtic tribes in Brittany, Ireland, and Gaul, and on bothbanks of the Rhine, out of an aboriginal life of nature characterized bywildness and license, religion developed itself in the form of theworship of two chief divinities, a male divinity, Hu, the begetting, anda female, Ceridwen, the bearing, power of nature. The priesthood busieditself with speculations about the divine, the origin of the world, andthe continued existence of man after death, conceived in the form of thetransmigration of souls. Nor did the people's faith lack the conceptionof good and evil spirits, fairies, dwarfs, elves, which to the stillchildish fancy are objects of fear or superstitious veneration. To theservice of these divinities the priesthood, the Druids, wereconsecrated, and beside them the bards, or poets, held a moreindependent place. 

6. THE GERMANS AND SCANDINAVIANS. 

More developed intellectually is the nature-religion of the ancientGermans (Teutons) and Scandinavians, which betrays thereby the characterof the Aryan race to which these nations, like the Celts, originallybelonged. The highest god of the Germans is Wodan, called Odhin amongthe Norsemen, the god of the heavens, and of the sun, who protects theearth, and is the source of light and fruitfulness, the spirit of theworld, and the All-father (Alfadhir). From the union of heaven andearth, there springs the god Thunar or Donar among the Germans, Thoramong the Norsemen, the bold god of thunder who wages war against theenemies of gods and men. Besides these there are the sons of Wodan, Fro(German), Freyx (Norse), the god of peace, Zio (German), Tyx (Norse), the god of war, Aki (German), Oegir (Norse), god of the sea, Vol(German), Ullr (Norse), god of hunting, and others, to whom are joinedfemale divinities, such as Nerthus (German), Jördh (Norse), the fruitfulgoddess of the earth, Holda (German), Freiya (Norse), the goddess oflove, Nehalennia, goddess of plenty, Frikka (German), Frigg (Norse), thewife of Wodan, mother of all the living, Hellia (German), Hel (Norse), the inexorable goddess of the lower world. Opposed to these divinities(Asen and Asinnen) stands Loko (German), Loki (Norse), enemy of thedivine. In addition to these there appear in the Norse and German Sagas, besides the heroes, a multitude of spirits, good and hostile, giants, elves, Elfen (German), Alfen (Norse), white spirits of light, and blackdwarfs, house, forest, and water spirits. The worship was most simple, and, as was the case with the ancient Semites, the Indians of the Veda, and the Greeks, as yet independent of temple service and priestlyconstraint. The holy places of the Germans were woods, and hills, andfountains, and in the mysterious rustling of the leaves and in themurmuring of the waters the pious spirit caught the breathing of thedeity. [5] The father of the house is priest, and the recognition bythese races more than elsewhere of worth in woman is apparent also intheir religion. In the description of the kingdom of the dead in theGerman-Norse mythology, Walhalla is the abode of the heroes, hell thegathering place of the other dead. Notwithstanding these still childishconceptions, there was revealed in the moral character and heroic spiritof the German forefathers the germ of a higher development, which makesthe nations of Germany and Northern Europe capable beyond others of aconstantly higher conception and estimation of the Christianreligion. [6]

CHAPTER III. 

THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES. 

I. THE PHOENICIANS, SYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, CARTHAGINIANS, AND ARABIANS. 

In the Semitic races the religious spirit rose above nature-worship inthe effort to separate God from nature, and to elevate him above natureas Lord, Baal (plural Baalim, either from the different places where hewas worshiped, or the various names under which he was worshiped), Bel, El, Adon (Adonis). Thus Bel among the Babylonians, Baal among theAmmonites and Moabites, was the god of light, the lord of heaven, thecreator of mankind, who had his throne above the clouds and was invokedon mountains. [7] Also the title Molech and Baal Molech to designate theSupreme Being among the ancient Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and thenations nearest related to Israel, the Moabites and Ammonites, as wellas the derived names Milcom (Kamos) [Chemosh, Eng. Ver. ], among theAmmonites, and Melkartht at Tyre and Carthage, indicate, like Baal, anoriginal effort to conceive God as the ruler of nature. Agreeing withthis conception of the Deity, there is manifest, as well in the worshipof Baal as of Molech and the female Astarte (Melecheth)[8] [Ashtaroth, Eng. Ver. ], worshiped with him, partly in the abstinence from marriage, partly in the human sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of thefirst-born, the aim, through abnegation of the life of sense, andthrough the sacrifice, even though unnatural, of what is dearest to man, to appease a divinity who as lord and governor rules and subjects tohimself the power of nature and every propensity of sense. [9]

In spite of the effort to elevate the Deity as Lord and King abovenature, most of the Semitic nations gradually sank back into the oldnature-worship, and, uniting with the worship of the highest God, Baaland Bel, that of a female divinity under the names of Baaltis, Beltis, Aschera, Mylitta, they made religion to consist in the sacrifice ofchastity to the will of the Deity, as the fruitful, productive power ofnature, and thus fell into gross immorality. [10]

Religion appears in another form among the Semites in the worship of thestars among the Babylonians and ancient Arabians. This astrolatry, originally a kind of fetichism, became nature-worship, and graduallyrose to the worship of the intelligence manifested to our contemplationin the movement of the heavenly luminaries. Astrology arose, andreligion no longer expressed itself in passive acquiescence, but wasunited with the effort to guide the life by the knowledge to be drawn, as men imagined, from the motion of the stars. 

ISRAELITISH RELIGION. 

_a. Its origin. The patriarchal religion. Mosaism. Prophetism. _

While most of the Semitic nations, in opposition to the effort toelevate God above nature as lord and governor, returned to the oldnature-religion with its grossly sensual worship of the divine, andothers got no farther than to the conception of a deity, who, like aconsuming fire, stood opposed to nature, and was to be appeased andpropitiated by human sacrifices, there was developed among theIsraelitish people, gradually and in constantly higher measure, inconnection with a higher moral and religious disposition, the worship ofGod as a being who, though distinct from nature, is yet not opposed toit, and thus no longer demands human sacrifices, but obedience and moralconsecration. 

The common origin of the religion of the Israelites and that of theirSemitic relations, though hardly evident even in the oldest monuments ofthe Hebrew literature, appears from the following facts and particulars:firstly, the composition of Israelitish names not only with El, but alsowith Baal, such as Jerubbaal (adversary of Baal), (Gideon), [11]Esbaal, [12] Meribbaal, [13] names which afterwards, on account of theaversion which the ever-increasing distance in religion between theIsraelitish nation and the nations related to it must, from the natureof the case, have inspired against the name of Baal, are changed intoJerubboseth, [14] Isboseth, [15] and Mephiboseth[16], as also theinterchanging of El and Baal, [17] of Baal-jada[18] and Eljada, [19] seemto point to an ancient period when the name Baal (Lord) was used, likeEl, Elohim, El Eljon, El Schaddai, Adonai, even among the Israelites, to designate the Supreme Being. Secondly, the God of Abraham (Elohim), although he desires no human sacrifices, nevertheless praises thewillingness of the father to offer up his first-born, and sees in thatthe highest proof of devotedness and obedience. [20] Thirdly, circumcision, already before Moses[21] the bloody symbol of consecrationto God, [22] and also the right of Jahveh to the first-born, and thenecessity of ransoming them from him, [23] imply an earlier conception ofthe deity as a being, who, although on a higher development of thereligion he is not indeed any longer thought to desire human sacrifice, nevertheless has a right to such a sacrifice, and thus demands indemnityfor remitting it. Fourthly, the later conception, of Jahveh as adestroying fire, and the way in which the God of Israel is conceived inconnection with fire, and as manifesting himself in fire, [24] betray, even in the midst of a more advanced religious development, an originalrelationship with the like conceptions of the other Semites. Fifthly, even in the orthodox Jahveh-worship, some symbols, as the twelve oxen inthe porch of the temple, [25] the horns of the altar forburnt-offerings, [26] perhaps also the in part oxlike form of thecherubim, [27] point to an earlier worship of the deity under the form ofan ox, the symbol of the highest might, especially among the Semiticraces. [28]

In confirmation of the supposition thus suggested of a community oforigin in the religion of the Israelites and in that of the nationsrelated to them, there is also to be remarked, firstly, the sympathyalways felt among the people of Israel for the worship of Baal andMolech, in face of the strongest opposition on the part of theprophets;[29] secondly, the statement of Amos, [30] that even in thewilderness the Israelites worshiped Molech; thirdly, the fact that inthe time of the Judges, Jephthah offered his daughter to Jahveh, [31] andstill later the feeling, not driven out even by Mosaism, that the wrathof Jahveh must be appeased by human blood, [32] a necessity which Davidrecognizes;[33] fourthly, the ancient custom in Israel, as in thenations related to them, of worshiping the deity on mountains andheights, [34] against which the priestly legislation strove in theinterest of the pure worship of Jahveh;[35] fifthly, the heterodoxworship of Jahveh in the kingdom of the ten tribes under the form of acalf. [36]

From all this it seems fair to conclude that the religion of the oldestforefathers of Israel had its root originally in one and the same soilwith the religion of the other Semites. Out of an earliernature-religion there developed among the Semites the conception ofBaal, the lord of nature, and of Molech with his inhuman worship. While, however, the other Semites remained in this lower stage, or rather sankback more and more into the immorality of the nature-religion, --anhypothesis suggested by a comparison of the religious state of thenations of Canaan in Abraham's time with their state at the time of theconquest of the land by Joshua and afterwards, --in the family ofAbraham, religious consciousness rose to the recognition of a deity, who, although he had a right to human sacrifices, yet did not claim suchsacrifices, but was satisfied with men's willingness to bring them tohim. With this higher development of religion, the names of the SupremeBeing, Baal and Molech, originally common to the whole race, came moreand more into contempt, and were regarded as the expression ofabominable idolatry, [37] while even the worship of Jahveh under the formof a calf, originally permitted, was later branded by the prophets asheresy. 

Though it was in the family of Abraham that even in Mesopotamia[38] thebeginning of this higher development of the Semitic religion showeditself, which, after his migration to Canaan became the heritage of hisfamily, yet the patriarch of Israel did not stand alone in this respectamong the Semites. The old Canaanitish chieftains also of thepatriarchal period, Melchizedek and Abimelech, worship the same God ashe, [39] while on the other hand in his own family not all traces ofpolytheistic superstition have disappeared, [40] and these traces arealso visible still later in Israel. [41]

The patriarchal religion, which afterwards with the great majority fellinto oblivion, was recalled afresh to men's minds by Moses, and the Godof the fathers was preached by him under the name before unknown ofJahveh, [42] to whom, with the exclusion of all other gods, religiousworship is due. [43] The Jahveh of Moses, like the El Eljon of thepatriarchs, is the one only object of worship (Deus Unus), yet withoutexcluding the possibility of other gods existing. [44] Not until laterdid the more developed conception of Jahveh arise as the one only God(Deus unicus), [45] who is throned in heaven, and like the Elohim of thepatriarchs, encircled by celestial beings (Bene Elohim, Malakim, Angels), who execute his commands, yet are not objects of religiousadoration. 

The religious standpoint of Moses is the legal. Jehovah stands relatedto his people as the Holy, as lawgiver and judge; and the true moralconsecration to God is symbolically expressed in the ritual, especiallyin the sacrifice, while the relation of the people to God is based uponthe mediation of the priests. Along with this, and out of Mosaism, afterthe time of Samuel, prophetism was developed, in which independentreligious conviction, outside the limits of the priesthood, and withoutdistinction of rank or birth, [46] awoke among the people. Prophetism, inthe domain of religion, is the development of the religious spirit toindividual independence and freedom. The prophet, rising above the legalstandpoint and outward ceremonial, puts the essence of true worship inmorality, [47] but recognizes also along with the deepest feeling ofdependence upon God, in the independence[48] and spontaneity of thereligious and moral life, the irresistible power of the divine spirit, by which the Most High, though apart from the world and throned inheaven, puts himself into the closest and most intimate communion withthe true worshiper. Thus the gulf which divided Jahveh, as a God afaroff, from the world and his worshipers, closed up more and more. Withthe conviction of the pureness and truth[49] of her religion, Israelfelt the calling to raise it to the religion of the world, and in therealization of this she saw the ideal of the future. [50]

_b. The Israelitish religion after the Captivity. _

The free character which distinguished prophetism in the religion ofIsrael changed, after the return of the people from captivity, especially with the party of the Pharisees, to literalness andformalism. The prophets gave place to the synagogue, the livingproclamation of the truth to scriptural erudition, the spirit offreedom to slavish subjection to Scripture and tradition. As the ancientproductions of the Indian literature, originally the expression of thepopular thought of India, were elevated by the Brahmins into Veda, holy, inspired scripture, so also the religious literature of Israel took onthe character of a closed Canon, so that what was once the expression ofreligious life became now rule of faith. The standpoint of the law whichprophetism had already overcome was again strongly maintained, the lawenriched with a number of new ordinances, and the essence of religionmade to consist partly in dogmatic speculation, partly in a merelyoutward service, devoid of inner life. The Messianic prediction, or theexpectation that the kingdom, divided in Rehoboam's reign, once moreunited under a prince of the house of David, should be exalted to newbloom and lustre, --which in the older prophets was the natural andhistorically explicable form in which the ideal of Israel's futurepresented itself to the seer, but which, under the influence of thechanged political conditions, had already been replaced in the laterprophecy by the more general conception of a future triumph of the truereligion of which Israel was the bringer, --[51]returned, yet not as theideal of the prophetic spirit, but as a dogma, the product of scripturalinterpretation. The pure monotheism, by which formerly a place in theProvidence of God had been allotted to everything, even to moralevil, [52] became corrupted, under the influence of Parsism, by theconception of two kingdoms, of God and of the Devil. The angels, originally the messengers of Providence, became under mythologicalnames, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c. , so many middle beings who filledthe space between the Deity, existing apart from the world, and theworld. The lower world (sheol, [Greek: aidês]), formerly the generalabode of the dead, of bad and good without distinction, was split intotwo parts, paradise and gehenna, and became a place of recompense, and, along with this, religion, once an end, became the means of warding offa dreaded punishment, or of gaining a future of bliss. The doctrine ofimmortality, as the continuation of man's moral development, which wasformerly unknown in Israel, appeared, as in the later Parsism, in theform of a bodily resurrection of the dead, at first of the righteousonly, but afterwards in the form of a general resurrection, by mediationof the Messiah, at whose appearing, which was expected just before theend of the present state of things, the great judgment of the world, ofliving and dead, was to be held, heaven and earth renewed, and thekingdom of God founded. Beside the learned party of the Pharisees stoodthe Sadducees, who subordinated religion to politics, rejected theMessianic idea and the authority of tradition, and, in denyingimmortality in the form of a bodily resurrection, failed to perceive thetruth of immortality, for whose recognition the premises and germsexisted in the religion of Israel, though not as yet developed. Thethird party, that of the Essenes, was marked by quiet piety, and in manyrespects also by excessive asceticism. In the midst of the Pharisaicformalism, the unbelief of the Sadducees, and the pietism of theEssenes, there was yet in Israel a seed of true worshipers, who, thoughnot above the dogmatic prejudices of their time, had heart and mind openfor the true religion, and who set the true blessing to be looked forfrom the Messiah in the satisfying of their religious and moral needs. 

3. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

The Israelitish religion, which reached its highest stage of developmentin prophetism, but which among the later Jews after Ezra degenerated, with the Pharisees into formalism and worship of the letter, with theEssenes into mysticism and asceticism, and which with the Sadducees, along with the sacrifice of the prophetic ideal of the future, wassubordinated to politics, developed in Christianity, but freed from oncecherished national expectations and outward forms, into a purelyspiritual knowledge and worship of God. Jesus fathomed the deep meaningof the religion of his people, and its original fitness to become, through higher development, the religion of the world. Jesus devotedhimself to the end of forming the human race into one great society (thekingdom of heaven), of which religion should be the soul and life, and, convinced of his calling, proclaimed himself as the Son of man, who, assuch, belonged not to Israel alone, but to mankind. Jesus combated boththe formalism and exclusiveness of the Pharisees, and the unbelief ofthe Sadducees, and with word and deed preached a religion which, independent of all outward form, took hold of the human heart, andwhich, developing into an independent principle in man, was to find itscommission, not in the authority of Scripture or tradition, not even inthat of his name, but in its own power and truth. In him religionappeared as the power of self-sacrificing love, which fears not evendeath, and to which dying is not the losing of life, but the developmentof life. In distinction from other religions, in which either God andman are strangers to each other, and opposed to each other, or man'spersonality is, as it were, sunk in God, Christianity is the religion bywhich man, in the full enjoyment of individual development, and with thesense of his own strength, lives in the consciousness of the most entiredependence upon God. Religion in its highest form, conceived as theoneness of man with God, is realized in Christianity. [53]

4. ISLAMISM. 

The religion of the ancient nomadic tribes of the Arabian peninsulaoriginally exhibited a polytheistical character, in the form of theworship, in part of sacred stones, in part of the powers of nature, especially of the stars, whose position and motion were thought to exertan influence, beneficent or baneful, upon the destinies of men. Withthese conceptions was combined a certain leaning toward monotheism, which manifested itself especially in the common worship of Allah taala(equivalent to El Eljon), which was afterwards quickened andstrengthened by association with the Jewish tribes, with whom they heldthemselves to be related by descent from Abraham. The Parsee doctrine ofdemons, also, was not unknown in Arabia, after the conquest of thePersians in the fifth century. After the third, fourth, and fifthcenturies, Christianity also, though in a corrupt form, or, definitely, in the form of Monophysitism and Nestorianism, which had been condemnedby the church, became established in Arabia. 

Amid such diverse elements, there was need of unity in the domain ofreligion, a need for which Mohammed, after the example of others of hisfamily, sought to provide. 

He was born at Mecca (571) of an honorable family, belonging to theKoreish tribe. Finding no satisfaction for his restless spirit in thetrade to which after his parents' death he had at first devoted himself, he gave himself up, in solitary retirement, to quiet meditation, andbecame more and more convinced of his calling to put an end, by means ofa better religion, to the confusion existing among his countrymen withregard to religion. The religious idea which overmastered him presenteditself to his powerful Oriental imagination in the form of a vision as arevelation of Allah taala, made to him in the fortieth year of his lifeby mediation of the angel Gabriel. His conviction, thus acquired, wasconfirmed by revelations afterwards received; and, shared at first witha small circle of trusted friends, gradually spread wider, until at lastMohammed came forward in the ancient sanctuary, the Kaaba, at Mecca, asprophet of Allah. For this he was pursued by his countrymen, and fledfrom thence to Medina, in the year 622, the beginning of the Moslem era. The number of his followers increasing, he had recourse to arms. Heconquered Mecca in 630, and made the Kaaba, after destroying the idolsin it, the sanctuary of the new religion. 

The doctrine of Mohammed (Islam, submission to God, whence his followerstake the name of Moslems), is contained in the Koran. The variousSuras, or divisions, originally the revelations received by the prophetat different periods of his life reduced to writing, were, soon afterhis death, united by Abu Bekr into one holy book, under the name of theKoran (al Kitab, the book), which, like the Bible among the later Jewsand Christians, was clothed with divine authority. The central doctrineof Mohammed is the belief in one God, Allah, who, as the Creator andLord of all things, in strictest isolation from the world, is throned inheaven. All that takes place upon the earth befalls according to theeternal decree of God, a conception in which, at least among theOrthodox Moslems, the Sunnites, who are distinguished in this respect, as in others, from the dissenting Shiites, there is no place left forhuman freedom. This God has from the earliest times revealed himself tosome privileged men, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus (Isa). To thelast is due the honor of having been the reformer of degenerate Judaism. He is not, as the Christians of Mohammed's time taught, the Son of Godin a metaphysical sense, much less God himself, --Allah is one, heneither begets nor is begotten, --but a prophet of human descent. Thegreatest and last prophet is Mohammed himself, in whom prophetismreached its fulfillment. Along with the doctrine regarding God and hisrelation to the world, prayer, hospitality, and benevolence occupy aprominent place in the teaching of Mohammed, looked at from itspractical side, and also the belief in a future life, in theJewish-Parsee form of the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of theworld, future reward and punishment, paradise and hell. The truth ofthis divine revelation rests upon the very fact of its having beenrevealed, and, according to Mohammed, it no more needs scientific proofthan confirmation by miracles, to which Islamism did not appeal untillater. 

The opinion which formerly prevailed among Christians that Mohammed wasan impostor, a false prophet, was bound up with the conception that God, to the exclusion of other nations, had revealed himself immediately andsupernaturally first to Israel, and afterwards through Christ to allmankind. Hence it followed that Christianity was not prized as thehighest religion, existing along with less developed forms of religion, but was opposed as the only true religion to all others, which wereregarded as the fruit of imposture and error, an opinion to which thereligious and political struggles in which Islam and Christendom havebeen involved also richly contributed. Mohammed was seer and prophet, filled with fiery zeal for religion, and, while he stands indeed in thisrespect, both personally and with regard to the contents of hispreaching and the means by which he sought to gain admission for hisdoctrine, below the seers of Israel, and far below the founder ofChristianity, yet, on the other hand, his monotheism, abstract as it is, must be regarded as a wholesome reaction against the ever-increasingpolytheistical superstition to which in his time the Christian church ofthe East especially had sunk. Islamism stands, however, below originalChristianity, the religion of Jesus and the Apostles, in that, byseparating God, as the abstract one Supreme Being, from the world, itleaves no place for the doctrine of God's immanence, or the indwellingof the Spirit of God in man. Hence in Islamism the divine revelationremains purely mechanical, with no natural point of connection in man, and therefore there is no possibility of an enduring prophetism, whichis the fundamental principle of Christianity. From this separation ofGod and man, the Mohammedan doctrine of predestination, in distinctionfrom the Christian, acquires its abstract and fatalistic character, whereby man, instead of being regarded as a being in whose free activityGod's power and life are glorified, is conceived as a passive instrumentof a higher power. To true moral independence, therefore, the Moslemdoes not attain. His religion is legal and external, and thereforeintolerant and exclusive; and when Islamism, led by excited passion anda heated imagination, disregarded the sanctity of marriage, and held upas a reward before the faithful Moslem a paradise characterized bysensual enjoyment, it missed at once the deep moral and spiritualcharacter of Christianity. To these defects must be ascribed the factthat Islamism, adapted to the need of the East, and therefore spreadover a large part of Asia and Africa, has not, with the exception of theempire of Turkey, and for a time also of Spain, penetrated Europe; and, overshadowed by a higher development of humanity, has reached itshighest bloom, while Christianity, brought back to its original purity, remains the religion of the civilized world. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Translated from the Dutch of Prof. J. H. Scholten, by F. T. Washburn. This constitutes the first part of Prof. Scholten's History ofReligion and Philosophy. (_Geschiedenis der Godsdienst enWijsbegeerte. _) Third edition. Leyden, 1863. Of this work there is atranslation in French by M. Albert Réville (Paris, 1861); but thistranslation, which was made from an earlier edition, is very defectivein the first part, Prof. Scholten having added a great deal in his lastedition. There is also a translation of it in German, by D. E. R. Redepenning (Elberfeld, 1868). This German translation has been revisedand enlarged by Prof. Scholten, and is therefore superior in somerespects to the original Dutch. The present translation has been revisedupon it. ]

[Footnote 2: According to Buusen 3000 or 2500 B. C. , Haug 2000 B. C. , MaxMüller 1200 B. C. , Max Duncker 1300 or 1250 B. C. , and according toRoeth. I. P. 348, who still puts Vistaspa before Darius Hystaspes, between 589 and 512 B. C. ]

[Footnote 3: The doctrine of the _Zervana akarana_ (infinite time) asthe original One, from which the opposition between Ormuzd and Ahrimanwas held to spring, dates from a later period. ]

[Footnote 4: [Greek: Zeus kelainephês, ahidheri nahiôn, nephelêgerhetaZeus, Herê bohôpis, glaukhôpis Hathhênê]. ]

[Footnote 5: Of the Germans Tacitus writes, _Germ. _, c. 9, "Eos neccohibere parietibus Deos neque in ullam humanioris speciem assimilare, ex magnitudine coelestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac nemora consecrantdeorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentiavident. "]

[Footnote 6: Among the Roman writers who furnish us with informationupon the religion of the Germans, Tacitus deserves mention, in his"Germania, " as well as in his "Annales" _passim_. The chief source withregard to the Norse religion is the older Edda, under the title "EddaSæmundar hin Froda. "]

[Footnote 7: Numb. Xxii. 41; xxiii. 28; 2 Kings, xxiii. 5. ]

[Footnote 8: Judges, ii. 13; 1 Sam. Vii. 4; xii. 10; 1 Kings, xi. 5, 7, 33; 2 Kings, xxiii. 13; Jer. Vii. 18; xliv. 17, 19. ]

[Footnote 9: Levit. Xviii. 21; xx. 2; 2 Kings, iii. 26, 27; xvi. 3;xxiii. 10; Ps. Cvi. 38; Jer. Vii. 31; xix. 5; xxxii. 35; Micah, vi. 7;Ezek. Xv. 4, 6; [?] xvi. 20, Comp. I Kings, xviii: 28. ]

[Footnote 10: Numb. Xxv. I, _et seq_; Josh. Xxii. 17; Baruch, vi. 41, 43. ]

[Footnote 11: Judges, vi. 32. And elsewhere. ]

[Footnote 12: 1 Chron. Viii. 33; ix. 39. ]

[Footnote 13: 1 Chron. Viii. 34; ix. 40. ]

[Footnote 14: 2 Sam. Xi. 21. ]

[Footnote 15: 2 Sam. Ii. 8, and elsewhere. ]

[Footnote 16: 2 Sam. Iv. 4, and elsewhere. ]

[Footnote 17: Judges, viii. 33; ix. 4. Comp. With ix. 46. ]

[Footnote 18: 1 Chron. Xiv. 7. ]

[Footnote 19: 1 Chron. Iii. 8; 2 Sam. V. 16. ]

[Footnote 20: Gen. Xxii. ]

[Footnote 21: Gen. Xvii. 23-27. ]

[Footnote 22: Ex. Iv. 24-26. ]

[Footnote 23: Ex. Xiii. 2, 12-16; xxii. 28, 29; xxx. 11-16; xxxiv. 19, 20. ]

[Footnote 24: Gen. Xv. 17; Ex. Iii. 2; xix. 16-18; xxiv. 17; xl. 38;Levit. X. 2; Numb. Xvi. 35; Deut. Iv. 15, 24; v. 24, 25. ]

[Footnote 25: 1 Kings, vii. 25, 29. ]

[Footnote 26: Ex. Xxvii. 2. ]

[Footnote 27: Comp. Ezek. I. 10; x. 14. ]

[Footnote 28: 1 Kings, xviii. 23. ]

[Footnote 29: 1 Kings, xi. 5; 2 Kings, xvi. 3; xxi. 3; xxiii. 4, _etseq_; 2 Chron. Xxxiii. 3; Ezek. Xvi. 20, 21; Jer. Xix. 5. ]

[Footnote 30: Amos. V. 25, 26. ]

[Footnote 31: Judges, xi. 30-40. ]

[Footnote 32: Ex. Xxxii. 27-29; Numb. Xxv. 4. ]

[Footnote 33: 2 Sam. Xxi. 1-14. ]

[Footnote 34: 1 Kings, iii. 2; xi. 7; 2 Kings, xii. 3; xiv. 4; xvii. 11;xviii. 4; xxiii. 5, 19; 2 Chron. Xxi. 11. ]

[Footnote 35: 2 Chron. Xxxiv. 3; Ezek. Vi. 3; xx. 28. ]

[Footnote 36: 1 Kings, xii. 28, 33. Comp. Ex. Xxxii. 4, 19. ]

[Footnote 37: Levit. Xviii. 21; xx. 2; Deut. Xii. 31. ]

[Footnote 38: Gen. Xxiv, xxviii. ]

[Footnote 39: Gen. Xiv. 18-20; xx. 3, 4. ]

[Footnote 40: Gen. Xxxi. 19, 30, _et seq_; xxxv. 2-4; Joshua, xxiv. 2, 14. ]

[Footnote 41: Judges, xviii. 14, _et seq_; 1 Sam. Xix. 13; 2 Kings, xviii. 4; Ezek. Xx. 7. ]

[Footnote 42: Ex. Iii. 13, _et seq_; vi. 2. ]

[Footnote 43: Ex. Xx. 2, 3. ]

[Footnote 44: Ex. Viii. 10; xv. 11; xviii. 11; xx. 3. ]

[Footnote 45: Deut vi. 4; iv. 28, 35; xxxii. 39; Isaiah, xliv. 6, 8;xlv. 5, 6. ]

[Footnote 46: Amos, vii. 14. ]

[Footnote 47: Isa. I. 11-18; Jer. Vii. 21-23. ]

[Footnote 48: Dutch, _zelfstandigheid_, literally, self-existence;without an equivalent, as far as I know, in vernacular English. --Tr. ]

[Footnote 49: _Zelfstandigheid_, again, expressing objective existence, reality, independent of subjective thought or feeling. --Tr. ]

[Footnote 50: Jer. Xxxi. 31, _et seq_; Isa. Ii. 2-4; Amos, ix. 12; Isa. Xxv. 6; lii. 15; lvi. 6, 7; lxvi. 23; Zech. Viii. 23; xiv. 9, 16. ]

[Footnote 51: Isa. Liii. ]

[Footnote 52: Job i, ii. --Tr. ]

[Footnote 53: The most original sources of the Christian religion arethe Synoptic Gospels, in which, however, criticism must distinguishbetween the older and later portions. The fourth Gospel is marked by amore profound speculation upon the person and the work of Christ, bywhich the Christian mind freed itself entirely from the Jewish forms inwhich Jesus, as a popular teacher in Israel, had set forth hisdoctrine. ]